Monday Night Raw Results - May 12, 2008

John Cena Confronts William Regal

The opening segment was absolutely fantastic. It shows how well William Regal's push has been going. Who else could get the fans to support John Cena again?

William Regal's ability to draw heel heat right now is going to make the babyfaces more loved than ever. Normally, when John Cena is in the arena, half the audience shower him with boos. On Raw this week, you could barely hear the boos.

Mickie James, one of the more popular divas in the company, was thrown into the mix as well. The feeling is that her inclusion was done to help John Cena with the audience.

Looks like WWE succeeded in creating an atmosphere where the fans would have no choice but to root for John Cena. Great work.

World Tag Team Championship Match
Santino Marella & Carlito vs Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly

The match was decent, but everything else that was going on made this segment a bit annoying. In fact, it ruined the match.

I understand Roddy Piper is a legend, so saying anything negative about him isn't going to be widely accepted. However, as an unbiased writer, I have to say that his entertainment value is very low right now. Plus, he appears to be trying to hard to get himself over instead of getting the four actual wrestlers over like he's supposed to.

Another thing that was annoying was the fact that Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross spent an insane amount of effort trying to convince the fans that Santino Marella was not being punished for his DUI incident. Both kept trying to discredit internet rumors by saying that Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly weren't necessarily going to lose the belts.

They were basically telling us throughout the match that Santino Marella & Carlito were going to be losing.

It was way too obvious what they were trying to accomplish, and it severely took away from the match.

Winners: Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly

Snitsky vs Mr Kennedy

WWE really needs to do a better job of letting the audience know that Mr Kennedy is a babyface now. Half of them were a bit confused as to how to react to him. However, his awesome ring entrance routine has them just itching to become huge fans of his.

Snitsky looks like he let himself go quite a bit. He's lost some muscles and gained some weight. The big man is still pretty decent in the ring, but it's not going to be enough to compensate for his looks. He needs to get back in shape.

Winner: Mr Kennedy

Maria Kanellis & Mickie James vs Melina & Beth Phoenix

Decent match. Nothing spectacular, but it did serve its purpose of setting the eventual split between Melina & Beth Phoenix. It might have been a better move to use Ashley Massaro here (instead of Maria Kanellis) so that her fans can know that she's not in trouble with the company.

Winners: Maria Kanellis & Mickie James

Shawn Michaels & Chris Jericho Chat

Pretty good segment, but it does feel that the writers have spent an unnecessary amount of time on this program. Some feuds need storylines. This one doesn't need one because the hype behind a Jericho/Michaels match is more than enough.

Jeff Hardy vs Umaga

Good to see Jeff Hardy back. Nice move by WWE to acknowledge the suspension and the mistake but to avoid actually going into too much details about the drugs.

Another clever move was having William Regal cut off Jeff Hardy on the mic. That accomplishes two things. First, it protects Jeff Hardy from having to speak too much. Plus, William Regal picks up even more heel heat.

Any question about whether or not WWE will punish Jeff Hardy on screen for his drug suspension was thrown out the window by giving him a clean win over Umaga.

Winner: Jeff Hardy

Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch vs Cryme Tyme

It's almost disgusting how WWE has totally wasted any momentum that Cryme Tyme had when they made their returns by not using them on a weekly basis in a relevant spot.

Nice move catching people off guard by giving Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch the win. It made people actually think that the breakup wasn't going to happen. Then, it did. Always nice to be surprised as a wrestling fan.

Winners: Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch

Randy Orton vs John Cena

Basically, this segment was to promote two feuds in one segment. Everyone should have known that we weren't going to be getting a clean finish here.

William Regal comes out and announces that JBL has been made the special guest referee. Obviously, his cheating allows Randy Orton to pick up the dirty win. The two heels attack John Cena, and Triple H predictably makes the save.

Since this was supposed to promote two of the biggest match at Judgment Day, the segment definitely could have been stronger.

Winner: Randy Orton

Very entertaining show.

Unfortunately, though, the two great segments (Jeff Hardy's return and the segment between William Regal and John Cena) on the show had nothing to do with the upcoming Judgment Day pay per view.

The rest of the segments were very good. Even the lowly rated tag team title segment wasn't really all that bad for fans who weren't able to figure out what the announcers were trying to accomplish.