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Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 8/6/12

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Tonight’s show opens up with a new credits sequence, and new logo. Why they waited until the 1002nd episode of Raw to debut a new credits sequence, or logo, beats the hell out of me. I guess the guy who edits all of the promos went insane after the ridiculous amount of video packages he had to make for last weeks show. Well the new Raw GM AJ skips out, and announces right off the top of the show, a series of matches featuring Big Show vs Randy Orton, and Daniel Bryan vs John Cena. Before she says what her third match up will be, CM Punk interrupts her, and walks out to a kinda-sorta mixed applause from the crowd. The fans seemed to mostly be on CM Punk’s side, despite a few fans giving thumbs down here and there.

Punk begins to make a promo explaining his actions last week, with him yelling in AJ’s face, demanding respect. He does get “What-ed” by the audience while making his apology, and booed as well. He then starts to make the typical coward-heelish action of trying to butter up the GM and asking for the Triple Threat match between Punk/Cena/Show to be cancelled. AJ says her decisions stands, and Punk accuses her of getting revenge for his refusal of AJ’s marriage proposal a few weeks ago. He also points out how lame it would be if she started acting like yet another one of those Evil-GM’s for no reason, which falls in line with his “No bullshit, tell the truth” character. He’s riding a pretty thin line between actual truth teller, and tweener heel. Then John Cena comes out and says words about respect. I don’t know what the rest of what he said was past the word “respect”, because I passed out from boredom. The gist of it, was CM Punk and John Cena measuring each other’s dicks. Their insults and taunts were pretty grade-school.

” I beat you last year!” ” No you didn’t!” “Yes I did!” “Nuh uh!”

Awful. Punk, you’re better than that. Anyhow, Big Show enters because he legally has to. He doesn’t do anything, but he shows up, because that’s the law. AJ then says that CM Punk will be opening the first match of the night, with the WWE Universe picking his opponent. The selections were picked on twitter, and were: #PunkMiz, #PunkKane, and #PunkMysterio. I voted for #PunkMiz, because Kane is Kane, and I hate Rey Mysterio. Also Miz could use the push. I kinda like the idea of being able to push the stars we like, but a part of me thinks that the whole damn thing is rigged to begin with, either that or I really underestimate how much people inexplicably like Rey Mysterio. http://youtu.be/gfGuEvdoHyI So even though I dislike Rey Mysterio, I have to admit he’s a pretty good worker. Add to that that I’ve never really seen Punk have a bad match, and we had the makings of a decent match unfolding. Jerry Lawler made some idiotic comments about Punk needing to “earn respect”, which means either in the canon of WWE that ROH doesn’t exist in its entirety, or he’s just retarded and forgot all the events of last year, because if ANYBODY has “earned” respect it’s Punk. I literally cannot understand how you could think he hasn’t. Arguably you could say John Cena has “earned” it, except his whole Robo-Cena act bores me to tears, because it’s so repetitive.

This is every match of his. Every single one.

I gotta say the match made both of them look pretty good. Mysterio’s acrobatics work well on a guy with the build of Punk, because he’s not a Goliath style monster for him to overcome, and thusly his moves are more believable in their effectiveness. Punk though, did manage to pick up the win by pulling up his knees when Mysterio attempted a dive off the top rope, and landed the GTS. He then (shoot?) sold a mouth injury from Mysterio’s 619 finisher, and let out his patented BEST IN THE WORLD top rope yell.

Coming back from the break, we see an actually pretty badass comeback promo for Wade Barrett. The guy’s sporting a beard now, and seems to have a new “bare knuckle boxer” gimmick, that’s reminiscent of the UK’s Charles Bronson. The guy looks leagues tougher than he used to be, and the promo was effective at communicating that he’s not to be messed with. Good Job Video Package Editor Guy!

Back to the actual show, and Alberto Del Rio shows up backstage to talk with AJ. He butters her up, and tries to push for his whole “I don’t need to wrestle these plebes” thing. She says she had nothing planned for him, and is happy to hear it. But, he makes the mistake of saying that he thought she was going to do something “Crazy”, and she takes offense. She then puts him in a match, immediately. AJ seems to be a very wrestling oriented GM, who is eager to actually make wrestlers wrestle, and not have stupid goddamned tag team matches all the time. I knew she wouldn’t let me down. Oh AJ, shine on you cra- I mean uh… sexy diamond. Yeah. Then they had, “Hey guess what, TRIPLE H/BROCK LESNAR VIDEO PACKAGE. THE SAME ONE THEY SHOWED 5 TIMES LAST WEEK. SUMMERSLAM! IT’S HAPPENING! TRIPLE H! BROCK LESNAR! CARE ABOUT IT! CAAAAAAARRRE” promo, yet again. If I ever see Brock Lesnar or Triple H in person, I’m going to be the most annoying, autograph demanding, horrible fan I can possibly be to them. Annoy them as much as these promos have annoyed me.

ADR enters the match with a boot still loose, presumably from having “just gotten ready.” I’m guessing that ADR’s whole “I don’t wanna wrestle until Summerslam” thing, was actually a meta attempt to get pushed more by whoever actually books the matches. As a heel he says he doesn’t want to do something, and falling into a cliched reverse psychology trap, the booker gives ADR match after match, where he pummels people relentlessly until he snaps their arms in half with his cross armbar. Christian this time, is the victim, and Christians around being Christian, until ADR pulls off his loose boot, and conks Christian in the head with it when the Ref isn’t looking. Because an empty boot to the head is somehow more damaging than one with a foot in it.

After ADR wins (duh), Sheamus shows up on the Titan-Tron, and steals Alberto Del Rio’s car that we previously saw him park backstage. Sheamus is the worst face in the world. I think from now on, whenever Sheamus does something really shitty or stupid or boring, I’m just gonna write “SCREW SHEAMUS”, and save myself another repetitive paragraph wherein I am trying to find a new creative way to say just that.

Hey, how cool is scheduled wrestling matches actually happening? Like, you know, an actual card being announced and followed through, and not full of tons of filler? Even though Randy Orton annoys me, I’ll support the idea of actual wrestling being the focal point of my wrestling show, any damn day of the week. So I don’t like Randy Orton. He’s dumb, his tattoos are dumb, and his “viper” gimmick is stupid and dumb. He’s a big dumb dummy who is so dumb he reverts me back to an age where I can only make infantile insults about what a doody-head he is. So I enjoyed seeing him get clobbered by Big Show, and was really fearing his typical mid-match momentum shift, where he body slams the guy from an irish whip, and then hulks out or whatever that weird ground pounding thing he does is, and RKO’s his opponent. Well, it was happening, and I was about to begin audibly groaning, when Show countered it into a choke slam. Then Orton kicked out of the choke slam, and the match continued. They then kept exchanging blows outside of the ring, resulting in a stalemate between the two of them, when the match came to a double count-out. Which I have to admit, was legitimately surprising, and somehow not a disappointing end to that match. They built up Orton without making Show look bad, and Show gets to still seem strong. Of course, after the match Show tries to hit the WMD on Orton, who finally lands the RKO on him, looking pretty ridiculous while doing so.

It seems like The Ryback shows up sometimes on Raw, and occasionally he’ll have a burst blood vessel in his left eye. Or a very bad case of pink eye. Or he’s having some kind of weird half-stoner stroke, and every time he smokes pot only half of his body gets high, thus resulting in his one bloodshot eye. I’m guessing they want us to think that he’s a hardcore fighter, and someone is always smashing him in the face hard enough to do that to him, but I’m inclined to think he’s really prone to quick fits of anger for no reason. What’s that? Big Bang Theory is eclipsing Community in the ratings again? THE RYBACK MUST RYBACK TV WITH HIS HEAD. THE RYBACK HUNGRY FOR GOOD THURSDAY NIGHT MUST SEE TV. FEED ME MORE DANNY GLOVER.

Yeah, that can’t feel good.

As for the match, The Ryback Ryback’s Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks again, in a match identical to his previous matches with them. While I like The Ryback, he’s starting to reach Funkasaurus levels of repetition. Blegh. Feed ME more, The Ryback. Feed me an original match.

Alright! This is how it should be! One wrestling match, immediately followed by another wrestling match! Awesome! Either this means they’re actually putting more wrestling into their 3 hour show, or the next hour after the other two previously announced matches will just be endless promos and skits that will make me eat my words about the WWE actually taking steps towards improving their product. I was about to start writing about how these guys were imprving in ring, because their match was building up in a nice fashion, until the Primetime Players, AGAIN do the whole “we had enough of this” thing, and backwards walk out of the ring. Then Kofi Kingston’s horrible music comes on, and the mere presence of the Tag Team Champions stuns the Primetime Players long enough for Primo and Epico to pull them forcefully back into the ring, where they pulled off a clean win. Yay. After a video package reminder of who Damien Sandow is for the unwashed masses, we see Josh Matthews interview him about his actions last week, where he attacked the Funkasaurus. Damien then goes on to say, more or less, that he hates dancing, and considers it foolishness that contributes to the delinquency of society. How goddamned hilarious is that? Damien Sandow hates dancing. Dancing! I can imagine him seeing the trailer for Step Up 5: Back 2 Tha Streets: Tha Reckoning 4 Tha Streets That Step Up AGAIN, and sneering derisively at it. I’d be right there with him, and then we’d play a game of chess together while sipping fine whiskey. Amazing.

Finally, FINALLY somebody comes out, and just beats the shit out of Funkasaurus during his long, ostentatious, unnecessary dance intro. He just comes out, tackles him, and just laus into his leg pretty horrifically. Then he just stands over his writhing body, and yells I TOLD YOU. YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF, over and over. Then, when off camera, presumably cartwheels his way out of there. This is why Damien Sandow is awesome.

He is the best heel.

Backstage, AJ is sitting with Daniel Bryan. She tells him she thinks he has anger issues, which may or may not be true. He does mention how it’s probably because she left him at the altar, but stipulates that if he beats John Cena tonight, she should turn the Cena/Show/Punk match, into a 4 way match. She then tells him no, and that he already has a match at Summerslam, against Kane. Bryan then stands up and starts NOing at AJ, while she YES’s back, until they do it simultaneously, which somehow makes AJ defeat him verbally. He stomps off in a huff, and I’m left feeling really bummed we won’t get another chance for Daniel Bryan to become WWE champion.

There hasn’t been a Diva’s match on Raw in a long time, and while I love women’s wrestling, what the WWE Divas do barely counts as wrestling. But they’re both so goddamn gorgeous it’s still entertaining to watch. The thing about Kelly Kelly, is she’s just a relatively athletic model, and not really a wrestler, so all of her moves are really shout-ey and simplistic. Eve, while not a great wrestler either, is a slight step up against Kelly Kelly in terms of wrestling talent. That being said, they managed to give a fairly long match, for Divas anyway. In fact, I found myself surprised that it was as long as it was, and managed to make them both look good, in more ways than one. Mostly because Eve was dressed like this: Holy crap. And Kelly Kelly was in her typical barely not lingerie garb as well.

Oh… oh my.

Ahem. So yeah. Diva matches. Of notable length relative to past Divas matches. In skimpy clothes. Let’s have them actually improve their wrestling ability, and hot damn. I’m ready. Don’t let me down WWE. Don’t let me down. Who am I kidding? They’re totally gonna let me down.

Look folks! HBK is back! He was back as recently as two weeks ago, but he’s BACK! Again! He can’t really do his entrance that well anymore, and his hips are clearly hurting him, and his voice sounds like he’s been gargling asphalt every morning for the last 10 years, but HE’S BACK! Cheer for his ineptitude!

I know, I know, HBK is awesome, but man, it’s like watching your beloved old uncle slowly wander into senility, and he doesn’t even know it’s happening, so he keeps walking around talking about how much the WWE Universe appreciates him while making comments about he can’t walk that well or do his entrance anymore. Ok, I might have gotten metaphors and commentary mixed up there, but my point stands. I think. Also I wish HBK was my uncle. So HBK continues his promo, talking about Triple H and then mentions Brock Lesnar, so of course, Brock Lesnar’s music starts up. Before they even finished thie promo, I understood the purpose of it, and how it’s been done before. For a few years in a row, they had HBK come out to basically taunt Triple H/Undertaker into fighting each other, because for some reason, HBK is Triple H’s big brother/rival/frenemy/cypher, who constantly must make all of Triple H’s affairs his. He’s like a needy friend who’s also really nosy and butts into business that isn’t his. I had a few friends like HBK Then I challenged them to a Hell In A Cell match, and tombstoned them horribly. I believe all social problems can be solved with a modified pile driver or a quick suplex. Awkward date? Elbow drop the waiter! Weird party where you don’t know anyone but have to attend? Choke slam the host through the punch bowl! Can’t get an erection during sexy time? Stone Cold Stunner your cock, and spin into a repeating ouroboros of infinite pain and humiliation! I’m really torn, because I shoot hate Brock Lesnar and shoot love Paul Heyman, so their pairing makes me all conflicted inside. I like the idea of Paul Heyman promoting his “client” as an actual wrestler hellbent on wrestling. I also really like him legitimately referring to Brock Lesnar as “The Baddest Dude” in WWE today.

Pictured: Brock Lesnar.

But this promo was more or less just more boring fluff for that Triple H match, where HBK pulls out the “YOU MENTIONED HIS KIDS! THAT’S AWWWWFULLLL” thing, because that somehow makes the match more important or something. Blah blah blah. More wrestling please. Or alternatively, have Brock Lesnar actually quit WWE just like he has every other damn thing in his life. That’s right Brock, COME AT ME BRO.*

Then of course, Triple H comes out, and it gets all tense and shit, and points really hard at both of them, while vaguely threatening HBK. Lamesauce. After that we get to watch Sheamus’s Tout (ugh) of him with Alberto Del Rio’s car. Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler argue over whether or not it’s grand theft auto (it is), and then we get another match.

This was actually his real argument.

Chris Jericho comes out to join Cole and Lawler ringside to give commentary on Dolph Ziggler’s match. He then explains why he’s been wearing Dolph Ziggler’s pink shirt, by saying he found it in the trash, which is somehow meant as an insult, but really it makes him sound like a dirty trash picker. As for the actual match, Dolph Ziggler was dominant against Alex Riley. Big surprise. The only thing that made the match was when Dolph Ziggler started showing off doing Jericho’s classic cocky pin, and Jericho stands up to Tout Dolph right then and there, and of course, this distracts Dolph long enough for A-Ry to get the roll up pin. Normally I hate the “distraction/roll up” ending to matches, but they haven’t done it in a while, and the us of Tout (ughh) made it novel. Another Tout from Sheamus is shown. Seriously? What we’re getting now is footage of footage being touted? I like the amount of wrestling i’m getting tonight, but little dumb moments like this add up to make the overall pie shittier in flavor. So to speak.

So I guess Kane and Miz were gonna have a match tonight no matter what, and if the people had voted like I did for #PunkMiz, we’d be seeing Rey Mysterio vs Kane right now, or some combination of the three choices we were given. Either way, the big surprise was seeing Miz hold his own against Kane. It’s fascinating how a big-boy haircut and a new attitude can improve a wrestler who people previously took only as a joke. I give Kane a shit pretty passively, but sometimes he’s able to tap into a talent reserve and make a match really work. Miz and him traded a lot of spots until Kane got the upper hand, and ended the match with a choke slam, but the effort put out by Miz was noticeable, and the match did a good job of making Kane still seem strong, while not making Miz look like he’s being squashed or jobbed into hell. Coming back from the break, we see Sheamus deliver ADR’s Ferrarri, absolutely trashed and covered in dirt, making him an impolite bastard, as well as a felon. Screw Sheamus.

I’m loving Daniel Bryan’s new “insane” character, who is obsessed with nobody but him saying “Yes”, and now is fixated on saying NO all the time at people. Plus he keeps walking around clutching his head like the brain-grubs are hatching, and they crave the YES YES YESing from the audience to grow and thrive. The match opens up with a rousing clamber of anti/pro Cena chants, that Daniel Bryan detests, and John Cena seems confused by. Throughout the whole match in fact, they seemed to bewilder him, as if he’d never heard them before. Daniel Bryan at one point does an awesome face to face with another fan, where he yells NO right in their face, while they YES him right back. I’d mark the eff out if that happened to me. Anyhow, Daniel Bryan get’s the upper hand during the commercial break, and the inevitable Robo-Cena countdown clock begins. Eventually he hits the 5 moves of doom, but just as Cena goes for the Attitude Adjustment, Daniel Bryan locks him into a guillotine headlock. After a minute in the headlock, Bryan gets the advantage again, and builds up his newfound insanity powers to land a flying headbutt on Cena, but Cena still manages to kick out. After that, Daniel Bryan starts his signature kicking thing, which Cena counters in the STF, which Bryan re-counters into the YES-Lock, and for brief shining moment, I thought we were about to see Daniel Bryan beat Robo-Cena, but of course, he countered it again into the AA somehow. After he pins him, CM Punk’s music starts, and Punk enters the ring. He then raises his belt, as he has done to Cena so many times before. Suddenly, Cena throws CM Punk out-of-the-way, and Big Show enters to fight Cena. Cena raises Show into the AA, but in a repeat from last week, he knocks Show off Cena’s shoulders. He then grabs a headset and berates Jerry Lawler again, pointing out that he’s been letting people disrespect him, and that he won’t any longer. That he won’t let people say he’s “turned his back” on the WWE Universe, and even makes a comment referencing how Raw ends the same way it did the last two times. He then goes int he ring to take out Big Show, who catches Punk’s kick, and WMD’s him hard. Show follows it up with a WMD to Cena as well, and ends the show by grabbing the WWE title triumphantly, standing tall over Punk and Cena.

Woo Woo Woo. You know it.

So wow, tonight’s Raw seemed almost like an apology for last weeks. What with the entire IWC reacting pretty goddamned negatively to the entire hour of stupid Lesnar/Triple H promos, they jam-packed this Raw with wrestling, with nearly 10 whole matches, almost all of good length, and none of the skits or promos were overly long, and the annoying ones were kept thankfully short. I’m hoping this is a portrait of things to come, because it’s a definite step in the right direction for the WWE. Except for Sheamus. Screw Sheamus.

*actually please don’t come at me, you’d friggin’ kill me.

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Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 7/30/12

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Tonight’s Raw opens up with a quick bit on how the set quickly caught fire, in some kind of pyrotechnics test before the show actually started, or the audience was let in. It had no actual effect on the televised show, other than delaying the crowd into the arena for half an hour. I’m uncertain why they even bothered to tell us, other than to address the possible potential issue of viewers at home wondering why a small part of the Titan-Tron was a little black and smokey. This was followed up with a quick video package re-capping last weeks show, playing up all the important parts and excluding any and all mention of Charlie Sheen. They would then go on to repeat this news about the fire, 5 more times over the course of the show. Seriously.

After the end of last weeks show, people have been wondering what CM Punk’s exact motivations were for his attack on The Rock, even if they’re obvious and awesome. A recently shorn CM punk walks into the ring, grabs a mic, and lays down the law. He says that he takes issue with how Jerry Lawler said “CM Punk has turned his back on the WWE Universe”, at the end of Raw last week, and exits the ring, approaching Lawler directly, who sits there silently shitting his pants. Punk slams his championship on the Announcer’s Table, and just really starts giving Lawler shit for what a terrible commentator he is, continues to make great points about The Rock’s arrogance and generally explains all of his actions last week perfectly. The Rock is a washed up blowhard who shows up, says he’s the greatest when he isn’t, disrespects everyone without backing up his words like he used to, and makes the WWE play second fiddle to his Hollywood career, until he decides to randomly take back the championship as if it’s a foregone conclusion. Not to mention all of the inane baby talk he spouts and everyone pretends like it’s even 1/4 of the quality of promos or insults he used to throw out 12 years ago. Frankly, he’s been phoning it in the last year, and If I didn’t hate Cena so much, I would have been rooting against him at Wrestlemania 28. So seeing Punk once again, FINALLY actually speak up and become the Voice of The Voiceless, was excellent, and a return to form from the wise cracking, Jim-Halpert shrugmeister he had become for the past few months. Of course, all the Bandwagoners quickly jump ship and start boo-ing Punk for making his opinions well-known, despite cheering him for claiming to always do this in previous months.

“YEAH CM PUNK BEST IN THE WORLD WOOO HE ALWAYS SPEAKS HIS MIND I RESPECT HIM SO MUCH FOR THAT until he doesn’t say things I agree with! What the hell Punk I trusted you.”- All Ship Jumping Former CM Punk fans.

Screw the honey badger, CM Punk don’t care!

After leaving Jerry Lawler sitting there, with shit in his pants slowly collecting, Big Show’s music starts up, and he enters the ring. At first I thought he was gonna come out, and reiterate his point he made a few weeks ago about how it’d take just one thing to make the WWE Universe turn against CM Punk, and how they didn’t really respect him, but he goes on his usual heel schtick where he promotes himself as the true focal point of the end of Raw 1000. He then takes credit for being the reason Punk is still champion, and vows that he’ll be the next WWE Champion. Then John Cena runs in because his name was mentioned, and chases Big Show out of the ring, while Punk stands aside annoyed as hell. At this point, AJ walks out, clad in a suit as the new Raw GM. She quickly announces tonight’s main event, between Big Show and Cena, with the stipulation that the winner will face Punk at Summerslam for the championship. Punk stands aside not giving a crap, while Cena looks on in his dumb starbucks shirt.

Back from the break and we see a quick scene of Daniel Bryan walking past the office of the new GM, looking distraught.

After that quick Daniel Bryan bit, we get this match between Santino and Alberto Del Rio. Why? If this is an example of AJ’s booking, then she’s picking poor match ups, because really, how else can this go? They try to make some sort of sense of tension between commercial breaks, by having ADR take a bump from Santino that throws him outside the ring, but when back from the break it’s the normal case of ADR destroying his opponent in the ring.  I’m guessing they’re trying to build up Santino as an actual contender or something, because for a bunch of brief shining moments he’d gain some momentum before ADR quickly shut him down again. Santino even tries to pull out the Cobra, which ADR just sidekicks before trapping his arm in the cross armbreaker, because holy crap is the Cobra stupid, and how great would it be if ADR kayfabe broke Santino’s arm? He’d basically be stripping Santino of all his power forever.

Then Del Rio makes a great promo, saying how he just destroyed Santino, that Santino is beneath him, Sheamus is beneath him, and so is everyone else, so he will not compete any further until Summerslam, to get his WHC shot, which is the only thing that he finds worth his time. I really can’t disagree with him either. Why should he be wrestling idiots like Santino? Why isn’t he being put up against anyone who is actually of his caliber of talent? His whole “Eff this noise” attitude is something that makes sense to me, even if I will be missing him destroying all of the even remotely ethnic wrestlers on WWE’s roster. Summerslam better be the fulfillment of his destiny to become a champion, because holy hell, the dude deserves it. Also, I’ll save my obligatory weekly insult of Sheamus for later on in this article, if he shows up.

Returning from a break, Funkasaurus is already in the middle of his dance intro, which is a good thing, because that damn intro is so long. It’s then interrupted by Vickie Guerrero’s banshee shriek of EXCUSE ME, and she mocks the Funkadactyls for their dance moves, and starts dancing herself. She then busts out the patented Elaine-From-Seinfeld-Little-Kicks dance, thumbs up and all, until she herself is interrupted by Damien Sandow.

Our Intellectual Savior then shows the clip from last week, of DX attacking him, proclaiming himself once again as a martyr, and starts beating down Funkasaurus, and leaves triumphantly, in the name of non-irritating wrestling gimmicks all around.

I really love Damien Sandow. 1.) He’s a good wrestler, and 2.) his gimmick is hilarious, and necessary.

It also helps that’s he’s fancy AND classy to boot.

We need a wrestler like him, a guy who can come out, point out how stupid everything is, beat the crap out of them/it, and cartwheel his way out of there, all the while in pink and purple briefs and knee pads. Not to mention his totally luscious ascot/bathrobe combo he enters the ring in, because if anything, I am a man of comfort who appreciates the finer things in life. I think Sandow and I would get along well. We’d both lounge in our armchairs together, drinking different blends of exotic herbal tea, while watching Criterion blu-rays. Plus he’d probably be a really awesome Dungeon Master.

My fantasies of being best friends with Damien Sandow aside, we cut to a recap of the Jericho/Ziggler storyline. It’s storyline that could have a great build up, as I said last week, where Ziggler should destroy Jericho, and be the man to finally BREAK THE WALLS DOOOOWWWWN and break Jericho. If Jericho is gonna be leaving WWE, have him go out with a warriors death. Make him go down fighting, and leave it all out in the ring, defeated once and for all. But tonight anyway, we’re getting a tag team match, because GM’s just LOVE tag team matches and oh no… AJ. Don’t do this to me baby. We had something special. Don’t be this way. Don’t be Teddy 2.0. I’m begging you. SAVE ME JOHN LAURINAITIS!

Aww but you look so good in that suit there baby… Alright, I’ll let it slide this time.

After spending the last 48 minutes mustering his courage outside her office door, Daniel Bryan finally confronts AJ about last week. She immediately asserts herself by telling him to shut up. She then brings up the quick plot point from last week, where we saw what looked like a bunch of mental asylum orderlies being spoken to by Daniel Bryan, that I assumed was a red herring. He says they were his groomsmen pretty defensively, and she says he’ll have to deal with a match later tonight, that’ll pit him against Sheamus (ugh). He asks her if it’s for the title, and she NO NO NO’s him out of the room.

A video package starts to play, showcasing the retarded Triple H/Brock Lesnar storyline from last week. Seriously? How many recaps from Raw 1000 are we going to have? Is the “extra” hour in all of these new episodes of Raw just going to be an entire hour recapping the previous Raw? I guess they have to, to keep Brock Lesnar in the story without him actually being there, because his stupid quitter-contract doesn’t require him to actually wrestle any more than a set amount of dates this year, and they’re being saved for PPV’s almost exclusively. They also must think we’re amnesic Alzheimer goldfish, because they played this promo at least 5 more times after this.

There was a time when I would have really liked to have seen this match. That was about 6 months ago at Wrestlemania, because the “Quick-Strong” wrestler against the “Methodical-Technical” wrestler pairing of Sheamus/Bryan was in theory, a great idea. We all know how horribly they screwed that up, but it led to Daniel Bryan really getting over, so in hindsight it was a necessary evil. Daniel Bryan comes out YES-ing as usual, but then flips out in ring, saying that the fans have “No right” to chant YES anymore, and that is his thing alone. The crowd then taunts him by chanting it, and he responds by losing his mind and shouting NO over and over, like a broken man after being left at the alter by his bride. Oh wait…

Well, Sheamus enters, with a clearly healing black eye, because presumably, people can’t not punch him in the face upon seeing him. They then announce that the match will be a “Street fight”, which in WWE terms just means “You guys can wrestle outside of the ring if you want.” Bryan and Sheamus open up the match by keeping things in the ring. After a few minutes of trading moves, they slowly battle up the ramp, with Sheamus throwing Daniel Bryan around, until they reach the top of the entrance ramp. Bryan gets the upper hand by kicking Sheamus off of the ramp, all 4 feet onto the concrete below. Sheamus then writhes around in pain like his knee is hurt, and Bryan lays a flying knee into Sheamus’ face, and the fight cuts to commercial. After returning from the break, they’re both back in the ring, and Daniel Bryan has Sheamus in an arm lock.

They go back to trading blows, and the momentum between the two of them continues to shift back and forth, now with Sheamus gaining the advantage. He brings out a chair and a kendo stick, which Daniel Bryan wisely removes from the ring before they can be used on him. Sheamus kicks Bryan out of the ring, while the crowd chants audibly for tables. Daniel Bryan then uses the kendo stick on Sheamus, wacking him multiple times, letting out all of rage on Sheamus with each swing. Eventually Sheamus gets kicked by Bryan into a steel chair he set up in a turnbuckle. Sheamus grabs a hold of the steel steps, and sets them up, trying to slam Bryan into it, until Bryan counters Sheamus’ grab and throws him into the ring post.

At this point, even though I hate Sheamus, i’m just glad to see a match last a considerable amount of time on Raw. My joy was quickly shattered however, when Sheamus brogue kicked Daniel Bryan into the steel steps that had been set up in the ring. However, I gotta say, the match itself was quite refreshing, mostly because it was good, and long by modern WWE standards. Let’s get this kind of thing happening more often, cut out all the recapping, and Raw can really become something truly great once again.

After a recap of the CM Punk promo from an hour ago, ostensibly in case you’ve got some kind of Leonard Shelby Memento disease, and can’t make new memories longer than an hour or so. They cut back to Daniel Bryan being helped up by referees, claiming he’s hurt his neck and needs a doctor. So while a popular, important, talented wrestler writhes around in pain in the middle of the ring, complaining of a neck injury and needing a doctor, Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler ignore him in place of showing ANOTHER recap of the events from an hour ago, showcasing the Punk/Cena/Big Show thing, and the impromptu main event made by AJ. After a while, Kofi Kingston and R-Truth come out, claiming that Daniel Bryan is faking, and tell him to leave, saying there’s no place for him here.

Truth then mentions how Little Jimmy is in the ring with them, and Daniel Bryan asks where Little Jimmy is, and begins speaking to him directly. In what was the highlight of tonight’s show by far, he then violently kicks Little Jimmy CLEAR OUT OF THE RING, and R-Truth rushes out to console him, while Daniel Bryan goes on about how dumb the entire concept of Little Jimmy has become. He then goes on a huge tirade about how Little Jimmy doesn’t exist, and points out how stupid Kofi Kingston and R-Truth are, and the orderlies that Daniel Bryan had last week come out to take R-Truth, until AJ interrupts. She starts to say that Daniel Bryan is “mentally unstable”, and has the orderlies escort him out. He then comes face to face with AJ, makes a mean face at her, and leaves. This entire segment was hilarious, and I’m liking the concept of the mentally unstable Daniel Bryan, who is the foil to AJ. Or AJ is his foil. Either way, his character is evolving beyond “Just say YES or NO” all the time, so I’m digging it.

http://youtu.be/aWyleCBAtsk

After some Tout nonsense, AW introduces The Primetime Players. They walk out and do their weird little Barking-Dog-Butt-Buddy, while AW’s voice continues to BOOM throughout the arena. I still don’t understand entirely why he, different from any other ringside manager, gets the loudest mic in the world to make ringside comments. Kofi gets dominated by Titus O’Neil for a while, until Kofi manages to get in his stupid BOOM jump thing, but AW provides a distraction by throwing his shoe into the ring at Kofi, which lets Titus land his powerbomb finisher, and win the match.

This whole match is a classic exercise in one half of a respective tag team, both being less than the half their whole as tag team competitors, and generally both being boring to watch the entire time. Kofi Kingston is boring period, and Titus O’Neil only really works with his partner as a lousy/funny heel team. I kept getting distracted during this match because I just didn’t care about it at all. In the immortal words of Jay-Z, on the next one.

We then cut to CM Punk and John Cena bro-ing it out together backstage, where Punk seems to express some terms of respect and agreement between the two of them to have each other’s backs, and the whole thing was just a weird step backward for Punk in my opinion, because John Cena sure as hell doesn’t give a shit about Punk, and his silence and condescending look as Punk walks away says about the same.

Back from the break, Heath Slater is once again in the ring, and we get another recap from last week, (oh god please make it stop, it hurts us, IT HURTS USSSS), where I assumed the whole “WWE Legends feud” thing came to an end, but here we are. Well it seems that now we’re gonna see Heath Slater used to bring back anybody who has been missing for a while, and Randy Orton shows up, having been thankfully missing for a few months now. I can’t stand Randy Orton. He’s boring. His gimmick is non-existent, and he has no imminent charisma to speak of. He’s like somebody took the default create-a-wrestler from a WWE video game, gave him tattoos that they thought were “totally sick bro”, and transported him into real life. The dude’s whole thing is being a “viper”, which I guess is supposed to reflect the “rattlesnake” thing Stone Cold Steve Austin had? I really don’t know actually, all I know is that he bores me to death, and his RKO is an insanely shittier version of the Diamond Cutter.

Oh yeah, he beats Heath Slater. Shocking, I know. Ugh.

Backstage, we see Daniel Bryan speaking to a doctor about his mental health. He goes through a series of questions, that are all yes or no answers. He of course continues to berate the doctor by LOSING HIS MIND at him, and screaming YES over and over. Crazy Daniel Bryan is already pretty goddamned awesome.

Now, tag team stupidness aside, this is a match that has real potential to work really well. Everybody involved is really talented, and Christian has always worked better in a tag team environment to start with.  After all four of these guys come out, taking a really long time to make their entrances, the match finally starts.

The thing about all 4 of these guys is, with the exception of Christian, they tend to work better individually. Their strengths are better accustomed to the one on one back and forth flow of a singles match. A good example was Jericho’s Wrestlemania match with CM Punk, where it was one big chain wrestling fest, or Dolph ‘s matches with Sheamus, where he actually managed to make Sheamus look really good, while still losing the match himself each time. Then you’ve got The Miz, who is in full Post-Crisis mode, and with his newly found Non-Stupid Haircut powers, has re-established himself as an actual contender to be reckoned with. The problem is now with Christian, who I’ve seen referred to constantly by the IWC as the “Little Brother” of wrestling, and i’d be hard pressed to disagree.

Let me explain. Everything Christian does, is basically just an homage or a borrowed move from other, better wrestlers he’s purposely or not comparing himself to. A main example is his spear, which is an obvious nod to Edge, the only problem being that Edge’s spear wasn’t even that good to begin with, and Christian’s spear is even lamer. He’s like the “Little Brother” of wrestling, who is constantly imitating his bigger brothers as inspiration, but never shakes off the trappings of being someone who is, well, imitating. Add to that, that his Killswitch finisher, when he does rarely manage to pull off, looks like crap, and you’ve got a guy who I WANT to like, but just can’t. He should have stopped way back when, because he’s basically stuck in sidekick hell, and should go quietly into that good night already.

All that being said, the match was pretty good, in spite of Christian, because Ziggler and Miz kept controlling him, keeping Jericho out of the match pretty effectively.That is until Christian gets the hot tag to Jericho, who quickly jumps in and makes a huge comeback, gaining momentum, until Christian jumps up and lands an unseen-by-the-Ref eye poke on The Miz, letting Jericho land the Codebreaker on Miz, winning the match. For Christian, who is supposed to be a face, that move wasn’t very… Christian. Eh? Eh? Get it? Right? What’s that? Oh This gun? Yeah I bought it.  Oh I’m just holding it here. Don’t worry about it. I’ll… use it later.  Oh dear sweet lord how I’ll use it later…

Anyhow, all suicidal threats aside, the match was fine. I just would rather see these guys compete in singles matches. Excuse me while I read about how to aim a gun directly into my brain stem for instant death.

Cutting back to Daniel Bryan again, he’s still answering questions from the doctor. Now he’s taking a series of rorschach tests. On the second test, the inkblot is obviously a goat face, and Bryan starts to freak out, and accuse the doctor of being put up to this by Charlie Sheen of all people. Then he starts speaking openly and aloud to Charlie Sheen, as if he is watching him at all times. I’m not looking forward to the inevitable Charlie Sheen/Daniel Bryan feud, but if we get totally insane Daniel Bryan being awesome because of it, I’m all for it forever.

It does really look like a goat’s face though, I mean c’mon!

Back from another commercial break (jesus), we get more Touts about something, I’m not sure because my eyes roll back in my head in boredom every time they do that.

Tyson Kidd is on Raw! Take a shot!

I remember hearing about how Tensai was going to leave the WWE soon, because he’s been extremely shoot unpopular WWE crowds, and frankly, i can’t wait. I’ve never liked him, even back when he was Albert, or A-Train, or whatever the hell you want to call him, he’s shitty no matter what gimmick he has. Plus his constant hissing is by far the most annoying affectation a wrestler could possibly have. His whole gimmick is offensive, (I don’t care if they stated he’s not asian, it’s still confusing and dumb), he’s awful to even look at, and his move set is boring. He doesn’t look good winning, nor does he make anyone else look good losing. Not to mention his constant abuse of his asian sidekick, the whole thing comes off as really offensive towards asians, and wrestling fans in general.

But yeah, he takes down Tyson Kidd and wins. Then after continually attacking him, the Ref reverses the decision, because reasons. Why? I don’t know. Let’s see Tyson Kidd wrestle someone who isn’t literally horrible to watch in the ring.

Back to Daniel Bryan and the doctor, the doc proclaims Daniel Bryan is officially sane. Then the lighting goes red, and Bryan is attacked by Kane, who claims he is Daniel Bryan’s anger managment counselor, in the most un-subtle reference to Charlie Sheen’s show, called  Anger Management.

After the 5th (?) Summerslam promo, which I’ve been neglecting to mention each time they show it in this article, as a kindness to you, because I’m not joking when I say an entire hour of this 3 hour show has been recaps and promos for Summerslam. Anyhow, after all of that yet again, we finally get to the main event.

CM Punk came out to join Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole  at the announcer’s table for the match, and hearing him give Jerry a constant stream of shit for being a really limp dick announcer with lame opinions that always fall into a predictably boring point of view that idolizes faces like Cena and Rock in spite of all logic and reason pointing to them be lackluster in many ways. It’s the same kind of person who promotes a needlessly Mark-ey kind of view regardless of character motivation, or continuity, or story development. Lawler is supposed to be what the worst WWE writers want all of us to be, a mindless, blind Cena lover who is entertained endlessly by Santino dicking around with a sock, or literally anything involving Hornswoggle, who thinks that parlor tricks and stupid skits are the focal point of a wrestling show.

Throughout the match Punk was making excellent commentary, and making solid, legitimate criticisms of Lawler the entire time. I’d really love to see Punk become a full-time announcer, who also wrestles, because he’s miles better than nearly every current commentator they have on any of WWE’s shows.

But anyway, the match itself was ‘old hat’. Lots of motifs we’ve seen from all of Cena and Big Show’s matches in the past. Big Show gets a sleeper put on him. Cena starts his 5 moves of doom, and is countered. Big Show taunts Punk at ringside, Cena gains the upper hand after kicking out miraculously like a robot. Big Show takes a big bump. Cena takes a big bump. The only thing that broke it up was the end, where Show threw Cena into Punk at the announcer’s table. After nearly being counted out, Cena managed to barely jump back into the ring, and pulls out the attitude adjustment, but it’s interrupted by Punk. Then Punk knocks out Big Show with a kick to the head, resulting in the match becoming a DQ, but for whom it’s unclear. Punk then grabs the mic, and says the winner is: Nobody. And that they’re both losers, to loud boo’s from the crowd.

Then AJ comes out says they’re actually both winners, and makes them both #1 Contenders, and makes the title match a triple threat at Summerslam. Punk comes back, and says AJ is a bad GM, calls her crazy, and demands she show him respect. The show ends on him screaming at her for respect, while AJ smiles away gleefully.

Knowing her, it’s probably turning her on.

So there’s the end of the 1001th Raw. Frankly, I’m glad Punk is going back to being a Tweener, because arrogant asshole CM Punk is far superior to any other version of his character. For every awesome Crazy-Daniel-Bryan promo we’ll get, we’re still gonna get terrible things like that Tyson Kidd/Tensai match that I can’t stand watching, or the entire hours of worth of repeated promos for a match between two guys who don’t wrestle full time, or god forbid more inane “Touts” from insipid, mouth breathing fans. This Raw wasn’t the worst in the world, but it wasn’t really that good either. I had a hard time trying to focus on it the entire time, and mostly found it boring, which is a bad sign for the future of Raw.  I can only hope that next week’s show will pick up in entertainment value. That’s really all I ask from WWE any more, and man, they should at least deliver that. I want to be entertained, not reminded about how IMPORTANT this match between TRIPLE H AND BROCK LESNAR is on SUMMERSLAM over and over and over again. If you’re gonna do stupid shit, have more guys kicking invisible children in the face, and less promo/recap filler of things we’ve already seen, especially if they’re from the same show we’re still currently watching.

Man. Here’s some pictures of AJ to cheer you up, because I’m just really bummed now.

There. Now I feel better.

SPORTS

Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 7/23/12 1000th Episode!

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In 1993, Raw was an hour-long, and in 1997, it switched to be 2 hours long. Now in 2012, after 1000 episodes, it’s going to be three hours long. Presuming this is a pattern, in 2016, if the world still exists and isn’t blown up or overrun by gas stealing mutants, Raw will be 4 hours long. By 2031, when Cyber-McMahon makes Raw 5 hours long, and we instantly stream it to our Mind-Cloud, it’ll still be 4 and a half hours of weird/ promos and skits, and still only half an hour of wrestling. The promos and skits will be about the Literal Robo-Cena Army invading as the GWE (Galactic Wrestling Entertainment) has Sub-Monday Night Wars with UCW (Universal Championship Wrestling, a new promotion run by Neo-Ted Turner.2), but they’ll still be awful, and The Undertaker will be preserved as a head in jar who guest stars at Uber-Wrestlemania every Post-Solar Cycle.

What I’m saying is, accept this. We’ll be getting new versions Raw for the rest of our lives. WWE is going to change, and you’re not going to like it as you get older. That’s kinda the nature of aging I suppose, but that’s not to say we still can’t enjoy things for what they are. I mean, c’mon, that Undertaker head jar thing sounds pretty cool right? What kind of gimmick match would he compete in? Hell In A Futuristic Polytransdermal Sub-Aquatic Life Preserving Nutrient Rich Bio-Sludge Filled Cell? Bah, enough pondering about my make-believe future WWE, let’s get to tonight’s Raw, which as we’ve been told countless times over the last couple months, is the 1000th, and a milestone that blows all other shows out of the water.

The show opens with Vince McMahon introducing, as promised for months now, the return of Degeneration X, arguably the most popular wrestling stable of all time (Although the NWO would be it’s main contender).

Shawn Michaels and Triple H walk out in their DX fatigues and shirts, glow sticks in tow, and parade around in the ring, and yuck it up for a few minutes about not wearing underwear, but get around to admitting that they alone aren’t just DX. They then invite the rest of the DX stable, and point towards the stage ramp. X-Pac, Road Dogg, and Billy Gunn then come out in an army jeep, and join Shawn and Triple H in the ring. They all start a few rounds of crotch chopping, and go through their series of old famous catch phrases, which Road Dogg was the master of back then. I’ve been watching old episodes of Raw from 13 years ago, and while I used to love Road Dogg’s longwinded speech-phrases, hearing them again, and realizing how repetitive and loooooong they are, I now find it excessive and grating. But here, he thankfully keeps it short and gives up the mic to Triple H, who winds up a very long and kinda rambley version of his “LET’S GET READY TO SUCK IT” thing. After a weird little comedy bit between Billy Gunn, Triple H and Shawn Michaels, they awkwardly fumble through trying to say some catchphrase together.

Suddenly, Damien Sandow’s music plays, and he walks in, denouncing DX as “common degenerates” who compose themselves crudely. He also recognizes that they could all kick his ass, and after pointing out this fact, he says their would be attack of them would make him a martyr. DX decide what to do together in a group huddle, which Sandow calls them rude for doing. They then of course, attack him, and prove Sandow right. I like(d) DX, back when they came off as a ragtag group of rebels who were fighting against authority figures, but this really just kinda makes them come off as a bunch of “cool guy” jocks who are bullying people to get cheers from the on looking crowd.

After that, we come back from a break to Jim Ross making his entrance, to join the announcer’s table for the night.

This was a pretty typical 6-Man Heel Vs Face tag team match. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that it was Jericho’s 360th match on Raw, which is a pretty damn high number any way you think about it. While seeing Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara on the same team makes sense to me, other than the fact that they’re all faces, I don’t understand their team up with Sheamus. Then again, Jericho, Alberto Del Rio and Dolph Ziggler have no reason to be on the same team either, so at least it’s fair while being totally arbitrary. The match went through the paces, building up to a hot tag to Sheamus, where Sheamus and Jericho went at it for a while, until Dolph Ziggler, who as it was established last week, has beef with Jericho, ended up laying a cheap shot on Jericho, letting Sheamus get the brogue kick in, and winning for his team.

While this match was a bit underwhelming, I’m enjoying the slow burn on the Jericho/Ziggler feud, because Heel/Heel feuds can be the great when done right, and when you have two guys who are both as talented on the mic and ring as ZIggler and Jericho, you’ve got as close to a sure thing on your hands as possible. Knowing WWE though, they’ll find some horrific way to screw it up, but I’d like to remain optimistic, simply because they’re both so entertaining to watch. The only wrench in that machine is the fact that Sheamus has the WHC title right now, and as long as Ziggler doesn’t have the title, then the stakes between Jericho and Ziggler won’t be as high as they could be. This whole angle could go one of two ways:

1.) They continue feuding, and they include Sheamus in it. They all argue with each other for a few weeks until a PPV comes up and then they fight in a Triple Threat match for the title, that Sheamus will win because blleeeeeeeaaagghhhhh.

2.) With the rumors of Jericho leaving WWE and retiring for good, and with Ziggler taunting Jericho last week about “having lost it”, and being on a losing streak in general, they turn it into a last dying hurrah sort of thing. Jericho goes full-bore into committing himself to destroy Ziggler, and launches himself into a suicidal match against Ziggler, where the loser leaves WWE forever. Ziggler then pulls a Bane on Jericho’s Batman, and breaks him once and for all (these are Knightfall spoilers, not DKR spoilers so shut up), and Jericho retires from being Batman Y2J forever. Ziggler comes out on top as the new force within Gotham WWE Universe, and makes a long speech about how he is the WWE’s reckoning. Then, as Jericho writhes in pain from the worlds most brutal Zig-Zag, Ziggler gives Jericho his permission to die. (okay, so maybe some of those references were DKR related, but c’mon that movie was awesome!)

But goddamnit we all know it’s gonna be #1. It’d be nice to see this again though.

I’ll never get tired of this .GIF

What is this? Why are you on my wrestling show?

After some Tout nonsense, which I refuse to write about, other than mentioning it here, Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler make a Skype call to effing Charlie Sheen, who very quickly manages to say something subtly racist about Sheamus, and at the same time be really boring. Why he was even there, I don’t understand, but Cole and Lawler make it a point that it won’t be the last time we see him on the show tonight.

Holy crap. The next segment of the show, is literally one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen on wrestling, EVER, and that’s including Mae Young giving birth to a hand. In fact, it’s in direct relation to that, because I couldn’t even write about this segment for a solid 10 minutes after. My mouth was agape the entire time, and I was so surprised I laughed for almost that entire 10 minutes, until my sides hurt and was gasping for air. But here goes: After the weird Charlie Sheen moment, we cut to AJ’s dressing room, where she stands with Layla, both preparing their makeup. Layla asks AJ if she’s sure she wants to go through with this, and implies that she’s still mentally unstable. AJ then makes the most brilliant point ever, and says that EVERYTHING in the WWE is unstable. Batshit crazy things happen here ALL THE TIME. Well, she didn’t say those words exactly, but she did open the door to see Hacksaw Jim Duggan, walking backwards and saying his catchphrase to an unseen friend, all the while holding his 2×4. Then we see Roddy Piper and R-Truth trying to help Little Jimmy jump rope, because apparently people can see him now, including Layla. I’m not sure If I already wrote a piece on how Little Jimmy started out as a brilliant defensive colloquialism to separate and insult those who R-Truth believed were antagonizing him from behind the scenes, while simultaneously illustrate how the WWE Fandom is a collective entity that casts judgement unfairly on deserving talent, by giving them an all a Good’ Ol’ Boy nick name. That may have been looking a bit too into it, but I prefer to see my wrestling gimmicks as high brow as I can, when I can. Now, Little Jimmy is just an invisible child? Maybe? I’m still not sure if he’s a kid or a midget actually. It’s very unclear. Either way, he then “runs away”, and Truth and Piper chase after him.

Hoo boy. Here it comes. Then AJ and Layla see something off camera, that silences them. The camera pans over, and we see a man in a giant hand suit, standing there next to Mae Young. He claims to be Mae Young’s son, now all grown up.

I shit you not. A man, in a giant hand suit, was there. That has got to be the most AMAZINGLY WEIRD and awesome call back of all time, because I was SURE the WWE wanted to forget Mae Young giving birth to that hand as badly as possible. After seeing this bit, as I previously said, I probably tore a muscle from laughing so hard. Say what you will about the WWE, they manage to STILL surprise you no matter what. Jesus god.

This match was so quick, that I’m positive that Funkasaurus’ entrance was once again longer than the actual match. Before the match actually starts, Funkasaurus invites up Dude Love to the ring. Dude Love stands there, and the match begins. Jack Swagger is on a now recognized “losing streak”, and barely even gets a single move in before he gets squashed by Funkasaurus. Then Funkasaurus dances with Dude Love, who puts on a tie-dye Mr. Socko to put the mandible claw on Swagger, because the WWE Universe couldn’t give a shit about Jack Swagger, and punishing him relentlessly for trying to wrestle is now “in”.

After that “match”, we see Trish Stratus backstage with Triple H, who is coaching him on how to do advanced Yoga poses like “bend over slightly”. Then the rest of DX walk in and quickly start making gay jokes because bending over is always gay and yoga is for gay dummies AMIRITE GUYS? Well, then the rest of DX walks away, leaving X-Pac in the room with Trish, who then proceeds to put on the creepiest of creep moves on her, and we cut away pondering what dark fate she’ll succumb to left alone with X-Pac. Hopefully she just slaps away his groping hands and leaves, because we all know X-Pac sucks. We see Daniel Bryan standing in a garage, talking with a bunch of dudes who look like asylum orderlies, you know, the men in the white shirts? It was at this moment that I then began to become worried. What if this whole time Daniel Bryan really DIDN’T love AJ? What if all this was a ruse to get her committed? If so, it’d be one of the most effective Heel moves in history, because even I would have to admit that Daniel Bryan’s character arc with AJ ending in this way would be a  pretty indefensible.

Now, the actual wedding itself. Jerry Lawler introduces the reverend for the wedding, which turns out to be Slick. Who… Ok, I’m just gonna have to man up and admit this guy is before my time, and apparently everybody else’s, because I have no idea who he is, and neither did the crowd. He came out, said some strange things about yardbirds, and Daniel Bryan quickly makes his way into the ring/chapel. Then AJ walks out in her bride’s dress, looking goddamned gorgeous.

I will see her in this dress again one day, and it will be at OUR wedding.

Daniel Bryan then goes on to make some very sweet vows, and when asked to take AJ’s hand in marriage, of course, says yes. When AJ is asked the same thing, she chants yes as well, but then adds an addendum, that she is NOT saying yes to him, but is accepting a proposal from ANOTHER MAN. At that point, Mr. McMahon enters, and says that he isn’t marrying AJ, but that she’s accepted a business proposal. He announces her as the new Raw General Manager, and leaves. AJ then throws her bouquet at Daniel Bryan, and leaves, YES-ing the entire way out of the building.

I have such mixed feelings about this bit, because on one hand, I really felt that Daniel Bryan’s character really had fallen back in love with AJ, and was trying to make things right between them both, as they both moved on together. On the other hand, I was proven right all along about AJ’s endgame. She really WAS playing everyone against each other, to manipulate herself into the coveted GM position of Raw. All along she knew exactly what she was doing, just as I’ve been saying. This could also be the beginnings of a face turn for Daniel Bryan, because you’d be heartless to not feel any sympathy for a dude who was left at the alter, has his heart-broken, and now has a former fiancée as his general manager to deal with. Then CM Punk walks out, and while he says he’s not there to rub this in Daniel Bryan’s face, c’mon, he totally is.This is actually now pretty fitting, considering the ending of tonight’s show, but more on that later. Daniel Bryan then argues with Punk about who is the best in the world, or more accurately, who is the greatest superstar of all time, until The Rock enters the ring, because he’s now considered the greatest of all time. While that’s a sentiment I don’t quite agree with, I don’t disagree with it either. He’s definitely ONE of the greatest of all time, but I have no idea or clue as to how to rank someone as THE greatest. Regardless, Rock comes out to re-iterate how he plans to win the championship come this years Royal Rumble, from whoever is the champion, be it Punk, Daniel Bryan, Big Show, or Cena. Punk says it’ll be him, Bryan says it’ll be him. The Rock leaves, and now we have a championship match to look forward to in… many months. Whoopee.

Bret Hart enters the ring, and says a few words regarding his Intercontinental Championship, sounding as Canadian as possible. I seriously don’t remember him sounding as Canadian as he did here, but I guess years out of the WWE would ruin your Americanized diction. Anyhow, he introduces Christian, the current IC champion, and The Miz. The Miz and Christian made a pretty good pairing against each other, since their move sets complemented each other well. This new Post-Crisis Miz is by far a more serious contender than he ever used to be, and while he hasn’t expressly changed his gimmick, his demeanor gives him the affectation of an actual wrestler who can be taken seriously now, rather than the former-reality-star-turned-wrestler-for-fun thing he had previously. With this new attitude, he weakens Christian’s knee during the match, attacks it systematically, and counters a bunch of Christian’s moves until he lands his Skull Crushing Finale on him, and picks up the win, and the Intercontinental Title.

I couldn’t have been more happy with this outcome, because I love The Miz, I love the Intercontinental Title being a championship that is coveted rather than ignored or looked down on. I like championship matches happening on Raw, and I like titles trading hands on Raw. Everything about this match was stellar, and even if it’s literally an hour and 40 minutes into the episode, and we’ve so far had about 15 actual minutes of wrestling at most, this kind of match is the thing that should be happening on future episodes. It’s awesome. Like The Miz.

Charlie Sheen returns on Skype, and comments on Daniel Bryan’s character, plugs his show, and then criticizes him for how he treats women, which is just so insane coming from him, but whatever. I can’t imagine why they picked Charlie Sheen of all people to be their special guest star, but they did, for reasons I’ll never know or even understand if I did.

After a video package from Regis Philbin about how much he loves the WWE (Weird, I know), we get Triple H returning to the ring, to continue the very boring and stupid Brock Lesnar storyline feud he has with him. Let me explain why I find this feud boring to you. First, they’re both pretty dumb, especially Triple H for reasons I’ve pointed out in this column previously, but also Brock Lesnar for mostly squandering all the myriad amazing chances he’s been handed on a silver platter his whole life. Without going into full detail, the guy has been given every opportunity to do a lot of great things in his life that other people would break their backs and kiss endless amounts of ass to even get a shot at doing, and Brock Lesnar has shamelessly and selfishly shunned the lot of them, because he found them boring. In short, he’s a quitter, so that’s one legitimate gripe Triple H has with Lesnar’s character.

So when Paul Heyman came out in place of Brock Lesnar, I feared the worst, that this would be another 3 WHOLE MONTHS of teasing to advance what should have been a 1 month storyline at best, that could have ended 3 PPV’s ago. The entire thing is a waste of everyone’s time, and even Paul Heyman continually pointing out how stupid Triple H is doesn’t make this segment not boring. Paul even makes a great jab at Triple H about how inept he’s been, and how counterintuitive it is towards his goal of doing things that are good for “This Business”. Paul then passively mentions Triple H’s kids, when making a very solid and salient point about Triple H’s character, which enrages Triple H, and apparently also makes Stephanie McMahon mad as well, because she enters the ring. She goes on with the same rhetoric of You-Don’t-Talk-About-My-Kids-OR ELSE crap that Triple H does, and ignores the whole legal trouble that they’re in with Heyman, and provokes another potential lawsuit by attacking him. It’s like the McMahon family doesn’t understand what due process, assault and battery, or lawsuits even mean. They’re all convinced that Triple H beating Brock Lesnar will somehow fix all of these things. Paul Heyman gets all riled up after he’s slapped by Stephanie, and accepts the challenge on behalf of Triple H. Heyman then mentions Stephanie’s kids again, and she of course, attacks him again, because god that family is dumb. Brock Lesnar’s music comes on, and Triple H and him trade a series of blows, until Triple H knocks Lesnar out of the ring, and Lesnar does the typical Slow Walk Backwards up the ramp thing, that all defeated heels do. This whole thing was a waste of time, because they could have done this months ago, and it may have been less lame, because it didn’t waste so much stupid time over such a stupid subject.

Coming back from a particularly long commercial break, Santino and Hornswoggle (ugh) both walk out, giving out little WWE dolls to the kids in the audience. They then leave or disappear or something, because Heath Slater then enters and steps into the ring, and makes an open challenge to any former WWE Raw legend to a No-DQ, no count out match. Lita’s music comes on, and she walks out, dressed in what looks like a bra and yoga pants to the ring.

She’s actually hotter now than I remember her being.

Slater then incredulously accepts her challenge, and has the bell rung. Lita then says she’s not here alone, and says she’s hired some protection, which of course, means the APA walk out. Slater then attempts to retreat, but is stopped by all of the previous WWE Raw legends, who have now amassed as a group, and force him back into the ring. The APA attacks Slater, and Lita pulls off her Twist of Fate/Moonsault combo on him, to win. The legends all stand around the fallen Slater, and Farooq grabs a mic, standing directly above him. He looks around, and lets out a loud “DAMN”, thus bringing the Heath Slater/Legends feud to an end.

After that, we cut to Daniel Bryan being interviewed backstage, who complains about being insulted by Charlie Sheen. He seems pretty rattled by Charlie Sheen’s words (really?), and says he’d put the YES-Lock on him if he ever saw him. Back to Michael Cole, we see him standing there interviewing the 100,000,000th social media follower, who gets to have a few words about loving the WWE, and afterward, Lawler makes a weird segue into a video package about catchphrases.

So yeah, that sure was a video package of catchphrases! Wokka Wokka! Oh god kill me.

After the video package, we cut to Zack Ryder and John Cena talking about G-TV with Gene Okerlund. The Rock then steps into frame, and he and Cena talk about their potential future match at the Royal Rumble. It certainly seems like that’s the match we’ll be getting come this Royal Rumble, especially in light of the show’s later events, but yet again, more on that later.

So I guess Jinder Mahal, who is now the king of the boring jobbers, walks out with his now jobber posse, and attempts to surround and beat down Kane, because…. Kane… is… a guy? I don’t know exactly. As they surround him, we hear the ominous BONG of the Undertaker’s bell theme song. He appears wearing his Super-Shredder suit, and sloooowly walks his way into the ring. At first it seemed like he was going to fight Kane, but they quickly team up to attack the gaggle of jobbers, who stupidly initiate the fight against them both. After a series of punches, tandem chokeslams, and tandem Tombstones, they pose together, as the Brothers Of Destruction once again. I’m not sure if this was anything other than a cameo for Taker, or a wrap up to the long love/hate relationship between Kane and Undertaker, or even a new beginning. Either way, it was pretty cool.

They just can’t quit each other.

Ugh, once more we’ve got Charlie Sheen returning to speak with Cole and Lawler, and he claims that he’ll actually end up fighting Daniel Bryan, if he ever ends up in LA, effectively challenging Daniel Bryan to a match. Cole then points out that the next time they’ll be in LA is at Summerslam, which means I suppose we’ll see Daniel Bryan get jobbed out to Charlie Sheen, which is the biggest downgrade possible. Hopefully this isn’t the case. Hopefully we’ll see Bryan get his due, or continue his feud with CM Punk, or literally anything else than a stupid celebrity match.

Ignoring how this match is a complete waste of the Money In The Bank contract, and how much that annoys me, I can say this match started off like a typical CM Punk/ John Cena match. Which isn’t bad per se, but it’s a bit formulaic. So Cena tries his 5 moves, Punk finds creative ways to counter them and gain the upper hand. Eventually, Cena counters a counter into the Attitude Adjustment, and accidentally knocks the Ref out of the ring.With the Ref incapacitated, Big Show enters, and WMD’s Cena, knocking him out cold. He leaves, and CM Punk has some internal conflict about whether or not to take advantage of Cena in his knocked out state. He rouses the Ref, and attempts the pin, but Robo-Cena kicks out. Punk attempts the GTS, and Cena counters into the STF, and what with The Rock wanting his match against Cena at this years Royal Rumble, there’s an actual chance Punk could lose. Just as Punk begins to look like he’s gonna tap, Big Show attacks again, ending the match in a DQ. He then continues attacking Cena, while Punk watches from a distance, looking on as if confused as to what to do. The Rock then comes to Cena’s rescue, and beats down Big Show, and attempts the People’s Elbow, but it’s INTERRUPTED by CM Punk, who clotheslines THE SHIT out of The Rock.

Then he taunts Rock by mocking his signature pre-Rock Bottom taunt, and puts The Rock to sleep.

It’s as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

That’s right, CM Punk has turned heel.

Punk looks towards the camera, grabs his title, and walks away solemnly to increasing amounts of boo’s from the audience. The end. Amazing.

So yeah, a strong finish to an overall entertaining Raw, despite the fact that there was very little actual wrestling in it, just as I predicted. However, the wrestling that was there, was pretty good. I’m mostly excited by Punk’s heel turn, because it’s something I’ve been calling for a while now, as he never truly acted like a real baby face to begin with. In addition to that, the match this Royal Rumble is so clearly going to be Cena VS Rock 2, so this is a way for Punk to lose the championship and the mainstream fans won’t go insane with Cena hatred. I’m also hoping this is the beginning of a face-turn for Daniel Bryan, but the whole Charlie Sheen thing seems to be suggesting that that’s not the case. In a perfect world, Daniel Bryan would have a face turn, and him and Punk would switch roles in their feud, with Punk being the bastard heel, and Daniel Bryan being the former bad guy learning from his mistakes, trying to make things right.

Anyhow, 1000 episodes. Man, where the hell was Stone Cold Steve Austin? Is he just dead? Or does he hate the WWE now? Oh well. See you in 2031, when we get to the 2000th episode, now 5 hours* long!

*still only 20 minutes of actual wrestling

SPORTS

Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 7/16/12

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Hot off the heels of Money In The Bank is tonight’s Raw, opening with a quick recap of the events from the PPV. Obviously, John Cena won the main event at MITB, and managed to grab the suitcase and guarantee himself a title match against CM Punk in the foreseeable future. Hopefully this doesn’t mean we’ll get a weird repeat of last years “Summer of Punk-WWE Style”, with the roles reversed and now somehow John Cena is the underdog again.  CM Punk enters at the top of the show and starts a promo declaring himself once again, as the Best In The World, and echoes his famous pipe bomb promo nearly a year ago. Not in the way where he was sick of the hypocrisy and the inability of the WWE to utilize its talent effectively, but in the general “I’m the best” sense, which is a bummer, because last year the people were really clamoring for the heart of Punk’s message. Some said that it was even the dawn of a new age of wrestling, called the “reality era”, but that’s pretty much gone down the drain in the last year. As much as I like Punk, he’s really over promised and under delivered when it comes to being an “Agent of Change”, as he claimed to be. Granted the focus has shifted for the better from the All-Cena-All-The-Time-Fest it used to be,but the fact remains that things haven’t changed dramatically as he claimed they would or should. I can’t blame him though, because he’s not the one in charge of the company, nor is he the biggest WWE monetary draw (Cena still is, unfortunately), who could have enough clout to order some legitimate creative changes. But I digress, after going on a bit about how he’s overcome all the odds he’s faced in his title reign,(echoes of Cena? A smart booker would play up this thematically if they were going to re-ignite the Punk/Cena feud.) Big Show enters the stage, and steps into the ring, mic in hand.

He’s pretty mad about losing MITB, and very politely, and eloquently says that if he had won, he’d cash in the contract, and take the belt immediately from Punk right then and there. Punk counters by pointing out that no matter how much destruction Show leaves in his wake, he loses, and lost again last night. They then argue about the fans, Punk claiming the fans respect him for winning, and Show mentions how fickle and forgetful the WWE fandom can be, and says that they don’t really respect Punk at all. While he does make an excellent point, Punk then tells Show off, and reminds us that Show, despite being very logical and consistent with his character motivation, is also ultimately a bitter man, who chokes when it comes to the literal main event. Show tells Punk that in their forthcoming match tonight, he will knock him out, and Punk could lose the title tonight to John Cena, who could cash in his contract.

I’m pretty sure I’ve made it known I’m not a fan of Kofi Kingston and R-Truth as champions, and I’m dying to see somebody with actual tag team presence and chemistry get the titles and give them actual meaning again. The Primetime Players have a simple gimmick, and their in ring ability is competent, and with time I’m sure they could build up to become a great team. My main problem with them, is that they totally don’t need AW. They made a point recently to tell us that he wears a mic at ringside, although I must have missed the reason why. I don’t know why we need to hear AW shout his Odin-Voice over the sound of everything else, because his comments are useless and inane. He’s loud, obnoxious, and not in an entertaining, good heel heat sort of way. Tag Team matches can be goddamned amazing, and while the presence of the titles being back and cared about is refreshing, they need to follow through and make us care about the division as a whole.

The match itself was a pretty by-the-numbers Kofi Kingston/R-Truth match, that was pretty boring to watch and mostly was there to only establish the Primetime Players as a force, and to develop AW’s douchey character further.

Backstage, we see AJ and Daniel Bryan talking about last nights MITB championship match. AJ says she called it down the middle, (which is more or less true), but then surprisingly, Daniel Bryan expressed seemingly genuine regret for how he’s treated AJ in the past, and admits he used AJ as a scapegoat, because he was so wrapped up in beating CM Punk. He comes close to confessing something to AJ, until Eve interrupts them, says that there will be a tag match between her, a partner of her choice, and Daniel Bryan & AJ. She then insults AJ, and leaves. AJ asks Bryan what he was going to confess, and he says it can wait until after their match.

A part of me wants him to admit he truly does love her, and wants her back, and then they’ll get married and live happily together forever, but then I remind myself this is goddamned wrestling, and hope he’ll just apologize, agree to be friends, and he encourages AJ to go take the Diva’s championship, re-christen it the WOMAN’S Championship, and retire the whole stupid “Diva” division forever. Let’s get some actually talented women in the ring, and have them wrestle for longer than 2 minutes at a time. Let’s keep the skimpy Diva outfits though, let’s not go crazy.

Alberto Del Rio lost his championship match last night, because Sheamus is riding hard on his current push, which still seems divisive between fans, and I’m sure I’ve hated on Sheamus enough in this column so I’ll just stop now and say BOO. Anyhow, ADR makes quick work of Zack Ryder, and submits him with the rolling cross armbreaker. He starts to go into his usual post match attack, until Rey Mysterio’s music comes on, and he runs into the ring. ADR starts stomping on him wildly, which made me giggle gleefully, because the thought of Mysterio returning to that big of a pop from the audience, only to get his ass kicked would have made my week. But my dreams often never come true, and Mysterio lands the 619 on ADR. ADR then quickly gets up from it, because the 619 is stupid, and he and Ricardo leave, walking together backwards up the ramp, shouting rebuttals to Mysterio. In a perfect world, ADR would be the World Heavyweight Champion, and we’d see him and Mysterio feud, with Sin Cara stuck somewhere in the middle. Luchador wrestling is awesome, and there needs to be more of it in the WWE.

Why they didn’t combine these into one, slightly longer youtube video, I’ll never understand.

Heath Slater’s favorite Raw moments are the last few weeks, which is appropriate, because those are pretty much his ONLY notable Raw moments. His fights with all the past WWE legends have been great moments of nostalgia, and have consistently been a bright spot.  When we return to the actual ring, Slater talks about how he knows someone is going to come out, and sure enough, Rikishi walks out. Which surprised the hell out of me, since, I genuinely thought he was dead. Seriously. I was shocked to see him walk out. Rikishi then superkicks Heath Slater, stink faces him, and then pins him with his ass. After a quick celebration, the lights go out, and when they come back up, the Uso’s, who are Rikishi’s kids, are standing in the ring with Rikishi. They then begin dancing, just like Too Cool and Rikishi did years ago. It was a fun moment, but I’m not sure you’d call Rikishi a WWE Legend just yet, nor was Too Cool such a long time ago that I would  wax nostalgia about it, but regardless it was entertaining.

Eve’s partner turns out to be the The Miz! I was surprised by this because I expected her to choose some typical “strong guy” like Kane or something. I’m so happy to have The Miz back it’s ridiculous you guys. Of course, as much as I love The Miz, he’s small fry compared to the True Best In The World Daniel Bryan. Miz gets the upper hand though, and tags in Eve. Eve puts AJ through a couple strong moves, wearing her down, until she turns things around on Eve, and goes for a pin, that Miz distracts the Ref from. After that, AJ kicks The Miz off the apron, and Eve attempts a roll up on AJ, but once again, the Ref is distracted by Miz, who tries to run into the ring illegally. While the Ref is distracted, Daniel Bryan rolls Eve and AJ over, reversing the roll up pin, and the Ref counts the pin before Miz can interrupt.

I actually really liked this match, despite it’s length, because seeing Daniel Bryan and AJ work together, in a smart, resourceful way, was awesome. After the match, Daniel Bryan grabs a mic, and begins to make his confession to AJ. He builds it up big, and confesses his love for her. AJ looks surprised, and troubled, but Daniel Bryan goes the full nine, and even presents her with a ring, and proposes again. AJ stands there, looking perplexed and worried, and Daniel Bryan slips the ring on her finger. AJ looks tearful, begins to nod, and accepts, saying yes, and they then kiss. The crowd seemed to hate this, which I don’t understand. I guess seeing a couple overcome their obstacles and problems to unite in the name of love is unappealing to them, but I found the whole thing really adorable. I’m kind of big softie when it comes to relationships and happy couples, so seeing both Bryan and AJ YES-ing together, joyfully, was refreshing and cute. Plus it was relatively short, unlike last week’s 20 minute plus Soap-Opera-Fest, so it was a good example of a romantic storyline getting wrapped up in a satisfying way. The part of me that wanted to see this, got exactly what it wanted.

Now, I’m hoping this isn’t the WWE’s way of putting the Bryan/Punk feud to bed, but if it is, let’s please see Bryan/AJ doing lots more together, but in the ring. They made a great intergender tag team, and them working together, to, I don’t know, let’s say: Win the Tag Titles and give women wrestlers something else to aspire to gain other than a purple and pink bedazzled belt with a butterfly on it, would be awesome. All in all, seeing AJ and Daniel Bryan overcome their past differences and working together, and potentially getting (kayfabe) married, was great. Let’s seem them satisfy that other part of me, that wants a legitimate Women’s division. I could make a gross joke about AJ satisfying any other parts of me, but she’s an engaged woman now, and I AM A MAN OF HONOR. I respect their fake love.

Ryback is now finally done working through nameless, faceless jobbers and is taking on more in-house jobbers. So of course why not have him take on the WWE’s resident in-house jobber, Jack Swagger? Swagger at first gets a good lead on Ryback, and nearly puts him in the ankle lock, but Ryback counters and then triple powerbombs him. The entire time however, the bell never rang, so the match never officially happened, so after Jack Swagger got Ryback’d, Ryback just started saying his catchphrase, demanding more succulent man flesh via the cry of “FEED ME MORE.”

In my mind, Ryback says everything this way. He’s like The Hulk:

“RYBACK WANT MORE MATCHES. RYBACK’S BICEPS NOT VASCULAR ENOUGH. RYBACK MUST PUMP FOR MORE TONE. RYBACK NEEDS PROTEIN SHAKE. RYBACK WATCH GLEE NOW.”

Yeah, In my mind, Ryback is a proud and out Gleek. He agrees that the first season was the best though, and it’s not nearly as good as it used to be. My mind-Ryback is weird. And a little gay.

Vickie Guerrero then announces Dolph Ziggler’s entrance, and he walks in, MITB suitcase in hand. He gets in the ring, and says that he’ll be the next World Heavyweight Champion, and starts saying how he’s better than Bret Hart, Stone Cold, and The Rock. The entire time, Vickie parrots key words from his promo, until he is interrupted by Jericho. Which makes sense, because Jericho HATES it when you start saying you’re better than anyone, because that’s HIS THING DAMMIT. Before Jericho can speak, Ziggler starts breaking down Jericho, saying he hasn’t won anything in a long time. He lays the insults on thick, and challenges Jericho’s assertion that he is the Best In The World At What He Does, saying all Jericho does is lose. All salient points by Ziggler, that really seem to get under Jericho’s skin. He continues taunting Jericho, until Jericho busts out a brutal Codebreaker on the Zig Zag Man. He then leaves without saying a word. He’s probably not returning to the silent, Troll-ey Jericho that he was when he first debuted, but it’s nice to see Jericho as a face again.

I forgot JTG was still employed by the WWE. Not to sound like a total smarky jerk, but how the hell is JTG getting Raw airtime, and Dean Ambrose is still in developmental territory? But whatever, this match is another in the line of Funkasaurus matches where we see a smaller wrestler hit Funkasaurus’ weak spot, which we all know is his knees. JTG spends a minute or two working on the knee, and Funkasaurus’ knee hurts him SO BAD until it suddenly doesn’t. Then he slams him, and lands a cross body splash, wins the match and starts dancing with a bunch of children they invited up into the ring, his knee having miraculously healed in mere seconds.

Earlier, Big Show said that after he defeats CM Punk in this match, John Cena could cash in his MITB contract and take the title from him, and then implied the fans would turn on Punk at this point. Now while I wouldn’t put it past Cena to cash in the contract this way, and try to play it off as him overcoming adversity and Never Giving Up™ somehow, I just think if that happened, people would be pretty pissed. I know I would be.

This was the only match of any significant length, and thusly the only one deserving of an actual description beyond “This guys wins”, because reading about it would take as long as watching it. So the match begins, and Punk approaches the match carefully, clearly picking his moves out thoughtfully, trying to find a way to gain the edge on Big Show. Show uses his size though, and tackles Punk repeatedly, stands on him, and generally makes Punk miserable. Punk fights back valiantly, and gets a breather after shoving Show into the ring post. He throws a series of hard kicks, but they’re ineffective against Show, who once again slams CM Punk to the ground, whips Punk around the ring, and slams him into the mat again and again. Punk, ever resilient, jumps on Show’s back, and slaps on a sleeper hold. Show counters it into a huge sidewalk slam, and attempts a huge splash, that Punk dodges. Punk starts to gain momentum by using the ropes, but Show counters again with another huge slam. He cocks up the WMD, but Punk ducks and throws 3 huge kicks at the back Show’s neck, and then follows it up with 3 more high knees to the head. A huge irish whip is countered by Punk, and Show goes down, Punk then climbs to the top rope, and lands his Macho Man elbow drop. Show kicks out, and then chokeslams him violently. Punk manages to get a foot on the ropes, and Show starts beating Punk in the corner. Show then assaults the Referee, resulting in a disqualification. Punk wins, but Show continues beating Punk. John Cena then runs in, with his MITB suitcase in tow. Show leaves the ring, and Cena grabs a mic.

Cena starts to mention that he’s got an announcement to make regarding his MITB contract. Show interrupts him, and taunts him. He starts talking about how the belt is Cena’s, encouraging him to cash it in now. Cena, being ever-predictable, says he’ll cash in the contract at the 1000th Raw. He goes on to say that his “huge announcement” was actually him hitting Big Show in the face with the suitcase. I mean, he doesn’t say that, he just does it. I don’t know how an announcement can be an impromptu attack, but whatever. It makes no sense, but seeing Cena and Punk hold up their respective trophies (belt and suitcase), was neat. The show ends on them agreeing to have their match next week, and fades into a promo for the 1000th episode of Raw.

So all achievements aside, this 1000th episode of Raw thing is going to be terrible. So far they’ve announced that it will have everything in it BUT wrestling.The only two confirmed matches are some vague IC title defense by Christian, and the WWE title match between Punk and Cena. Amongst that though, will be the return of DX, The Rock, Brock Lesnar’s stupid announcement, The Daniel Bryan/AJ wedding (that was fast), Charlie Sheen for some reason, and probably loads of other stupid, boring video packages and special guests. I predict 10 minutes of wrestling for that show. The rest will be 2 hours and 50 minutes of filler and uselessness. But hey, I could be wrong. At the very least, I’m looking forward to the Daniel Bryan/AJ wedding, because I’m a big baby. Other than that though… Well. I’ll try to remain positive.

I’ll try.

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Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 7/9/12

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Raw starts right off the bat with a recap of the Punk/AJ/Bryan storyline, because that is so clearly the best storyline they have going right now between the main 3 right now. Triple H vs Brock Lesnar is a big pile of who gives a shit, and Cena VS Big Show has been milquetoast at best. AJ enters the ring, skipping as usual, and starts to talk about her behavior, and how it will affect the match she’ll be refereeing at Money In The Bank. She introduces CM Punk, and they talk about the events that transpired on Smackdown. To briefly summarize it, she kissed both Daniel Bryan and CM Punk,  after Punk told her she needed professional help. She addresses his sentiments, by saying that she is in full control of her faculties, and doesn’t need any kind of professional help. I’m inclined to believe her, because I’ve been thinking that secretly, all along, she’s been playing all the men around her for her own end game, but like any long con, when fake feelings and real feelings get mixed, it can nix the whole operation, and jeopardize the con entirely. AJ knows what she’s doing, but it’s gone wrong, and now she’s trying to find an exit plan. Despite being a little too soap opera-ey, this promo was at least a good example of AJ actually being a pretty good actor. For a wrestler, I mean.

Eventually, after AJ continues her explanation of her feelings, how CM Punk made her feel cared about, and generally just breaks my heart with her plight and need to be loved, she full on admits CM Punk gets her hot. She then kneels down on one knee, and goddamn PROPOSES to CM Punk.  He shakes his head, just as flabbergasted as we all are, and Daniel Bryan comes in shouting NO emphatically. He begs her to not make the biggest mistake in her life. He goes on to try to convince her that he has never truly lost his feelings for her, and decries CM Punk as a liar and manipulator. CM Punk rebuffs Bryan, and Bryan counters by daring Punk to say “I do”. Punk hesitates, and Bryan continues his deft/cruel/funny manipulation of AJ’s feelings. Then HE gets on one knee, and proposes to her. Then CM Punk interrupts and calls him on his BS, and they start arguing about who will be whose fiancee and whatnot, until the text noise for the Anonymous General Manager of Raw sounds. Remember him/her/it? I guess they weren’t dead after all. Michael Cole then reveals the official laptop that the Anon-GM uses to communicate. I should have called this, but the days of the Anonymous Raw General Manager seem so long ago, that I’d all but forgotten about it. I guess all the past GM’s really do get to return to duty. Michael Cole communicates that the Anon-GM believes that CM Punk and AJ makes a great couple and then announces an inter-gender Tag Team Match, (god is it Teddy? Ugh.), between AJ and Punk, and Daniel Bryan and Eve. Which is a weird pairing, but whatever. It’d seem that the winner of this match will determine who AJ will end up with/married to, along with who she’ll favor in MITB this Sunday. She then says she’ll be walking out tonight with her “Future Husband”, and CM Punk drops his mic in shock.  For a very soap opera-ey promo, it wasn’t too bad, although I can see some people being absolutely bored by the first 20 minutes of their wrestling show being 3 people talking about their romantic feelings for each other, and then proposing marriage. I found it entertaining, simply because it was so absurd, if a bit stupidly melodramatic. Also, throughout this segment several fan’s signs were just KILLING ME. I had to take pictures of them to share, because they’re pure comedy gold.

CM Punk. You know, Second City Saint? Voice of the Voiceless? Best in the Wold? 

 

There are no words for this.

He’s not wrong. 

Seriously? This could be a good match, but with how much they’ve been obviously burying Jack Swagger, and how hard they’ve been pushing Sheamus on us, why even have this match? Sheamus gets his two finishers in, in 58 goddamn seconds. Big surprise. Alberto Del Rio then shows up on the Titan-Tron to taunt Sheamus, and drives away in his awesome car like a boss. Then Sheamus brogue kicks Jack Swagger again, who was just trying to stand up, and somehow we’re supposed to cheer him for doing this. I don’t get how Sheamus is a face, when all he does is act like a complete bastard heel all the time. What did Jack Swagger do to piss off Vince McMahon so badly? He’s clearly being punished because Diva’s matches are longer than this.

Then we cut to Zack Ryder and Santino backstage, discussing how Zack Ryder won the privilege to be the GM of Smackdown, and the identity of the Anon-GM. Santino then pulls out a Sherlock Holmes hat, and a magnifying glass, and starts literally searching for the Anon-GM in plastic buckets of cable wiring. Because he’s freaking retarded. Maybe that’s been his character gimmick all along? He’s literally retarded, and some WWE writer forgot to tell everyone else, and he’s just been laying it on extra thick to communicate that to us, because he contractually can’t break kayfabe and just tell us.

Returning from the break, Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler announce that The Rock will elaborate on his intention to reclaim the WWE Championship, at the 1000th show in 2 weeks. They’ve been doing this for a lot of goddamn things, and it seems like this 1000th show will be nothing but guest stars, announcements made by wrestlers about future matches and their feuds, and generally everything but actual wrestling.

Shot time! Tyson Kidd is on Raw! Take a shot!  I’m not exactly sure why these 4 guys are fighting in a tag team match, other than to build up to their MITB ladder match,  because there’s no organic character build up for them at all. I know not every match has to be based around a feud, but having these guys in a tag team together for no reason other than “It’s for the PPV”, seems really disingenuous to me in its intention to build hype for the PPV match. Just have them make promos insulting each other or something, rather than this uselessly short tag team match.  The match ends with Tensai pinning Christian and winning for himself and Dolph, then he throws his typical after match tantrum where he beats on somebody, this time it’s Tyson Kidd. We cut to Michael Cole and Jerry, and they start discussing who should be GM for Raw and Smackdown, and Jerry’s admittedly stupid opinion makes Cole throws a cup of water on Lawler, and immediately he apologizes in fear. Like Lawler could even do anything to him anyway, but whatever. Cole runs away to attend to the Anon-GM’s messages, and then refuses to announce the Anon-GM’s new messages. Lawler stands up, and reads that Cole and Lawler will have a match tonight. Cole is furious and demands that the Anon-GM change the match. The GM then lets the WWE Universe vote online to determine if the match will take place or not. I then barf.

45 minutes into Raw, and all we’re getting are squashes and Tag Team matches again? I swear to god, the Anonymous Raw GM MUST be Teddy Long, because this is exactly his MO.  Does anyone watch this and really think Drew McIntyre is going to beat The Funkasaurus? Really? REALLY? Aw hell, take it away Miz.

I miss you Miz. 

Guess what? Funkasaurus wins! I don’t even think Drew Mcintyre even got to do anything during this match. Then Funkasaurus starts dancing with a bunch of kids. Even I’m starting to get tired of The Funkasaurus’ shtick now. Please make him do something interesting. Have him fight big people who present a challenge. Stop handicapping him with a “hurt knee” so he can lose and still come off as a powerhouse later. Give him purpose. Please. I’m begging you WWE.  For me?

Backstage, Santino has gotten into the dressing room of Jericho, and accuses him of being the Anon-GM. Jericho then accuses him back, and Santino walks away after having some kind of idiot thought in his head. Then Big Show appears, and Jericho tries to reunite Jerishow, but Big Show tells him by no means is this a reunion, and that he wants him to stay out-of-the-way. Man, who hurt you Big Show? Jericho is ALL ABOUT kicking ass and taking names, he’d be the perfect complement to your budding war machine. I hope Show has some kind of endgame in mind, because even if he wants to be a self-sufficient Unstoppable GIANT, he could stand to network with his fellow heels. I dunno, make a stable of heels even? Man, remember stables? What happened to that? God I miss the NWO and DX.

Jericho, Big Show, and Alberto Del Rio would make the best heel stable they could have right now. I even got a name planned, the WMD’s, because they’d be the worlds most dangerous group of heels in the WWE today. Show would even be the leader with that name! They could go around and systematically destroy stupid inferior people like Santino, or just break Sheamus’ arms and legs and take the WHC back from his waste.  I know if you read this column with any consistency, you’ll realize I flip-flop a lot on my opinion of Sheamus, but goddamn does he need to figure out what his deal is. I can’t keep kinda liking, then mostly hating him forever.

Stephanie McMahon’s favorite Raw memory is Triple H calling her a lying bitch on live television for faking a pregnancy? The McMahon family is screwed up.

Then John Cena enters, grabs a mic, and starts to give a promo. It’s exactly the same promo he always gives. I’m not going to summarize it, because there are only so many ways to type “John Cena says he’ll never give up, and he’ll win”, and blah blah blah oh my god kill me. Or more accurately, kill Cena. Well don’t kill him, but lordy give him something to say that he already hasn’t! His whole thing this time is just one big commercial for MITB, himself, and his merchandise in effect. Every time he speaks, all I hear is “BUY WWE JOHN CENA SHIRTS. BUY JOHN CENA CUPS. BUY JOHN CENA TOYS.” and it’s so goddamn awful. It’s blatant, and belittles what little credibility the WWE actually has every time he does it.

An hour into Raw, and we get our first actual wrestling match of significant length and importance. These guys, for better or for worse, have actual reasons to dislike each other, and have actual history and meaning for why they’re wrestling each other, even if the main reason is Money In The Bank. The match started off slow, with Cena and Jericho trading blows until each tagged in their partners, and then Kane starts to actually give Show some competition. Show gets a some big stomps in, and Jerishow gets the upper hand early on. After a series of tags,  and a commercial break, Big Show faces Cena and locks him into a big bear hug. Cena counters and gets the hot tag to Kane,  and gains some momentum against Big Show. They actually start to get some good moves against each other, and make some good spots on each other. Jericho gets tagged in, and we cut to another commercial break.

That’s two commercial breaks during one match. What must happen in between the moments they don’t show on tv? I’d like to think they just stop wrestling and stand around,  making snack a little bit, and the live audience just loses their minds in frustration until the show goes back on air. Anyhow, after the break, during which Jericho has been beating on Kane, Kane regains his composure and lands a big sidewalk slam on Jericho. Cena then starts the process for the 5 Moves Of Doom, but his pin on Jericho is interrupted by Big Show, and causes a DQ. Which makes no sense, because I’m pretty sure tag teams matches are based around the partner interrupting pins, ALL THE TIME.  Show then pulls out two ladders, and uses them on Jericho and Kane. By “uses” I mean, he baby taps them very lightly on the chest with them, and slams them very gingerly on the chest with them on the ground. Then John Cena baby taps Show with a ladder, and his music starts playing, thus indicating the “end” of the match. Learn how to use a ladder guys. Jesus. That MITB match is gonna be terrible.

Backstage we see CM Punk warming up for his match, and Eve wishes him luck, and takes time to insult AJ and warn Punk of her unreliability. She also tries to get into his head by comparing him to prior champions and reminding him of the length of his title reign. Punk seems stressed, and we cut again to Santino. This time he thinks he’s found the cell phone of the Anon-GM, but it’s actually The Great Khali’s phone. Santino tries to question Khali if he is the Anon-GM, but the both of them are goddamned retarded and watching them communicate was horrifically boring and led to no new information.

I guess they’re still having qualifying matches for MITB, and while this match is a given, it was still fun to watch Sin Cara and Heath Slater actually do things in the ring. After Sin Cara gets his squash win on Slater, Slater then angrily demands any former champion to come out, claiming he’ll win no matter who. Then Bob Backlund shows up. You read that right, Bob Frikkin’ Backlund shows up, and apparently NOBODY in the crowd recognizes who he is, which was sad. He parades around in the ring, to the utter indifference of everyone in the arena. Heath Slater then kicks him around for a minute, and Bob Backlund puts him into a Cross Chicken Wing submission and wins. Weird.

We get the results of the WWE Universe’s decision to have Michael Cole wrestle Jerry Lawler, which of course was 75% in favor of them wrestling tonight.  Michael Cole starts to complain, and is interrupted mid sentence by a commercial break. When we return Booker T and Josh Matthews are doing commentary. Cole tries to coward his way out of the ring, but is thrown back in by Booker T. Lawler feigns a handshake between the two of them, and then hoists him into a fireman’s carry, and spins him around. Being dizzy is apparently enough for him to pin Cole, and the match ends. Then the Anon-GM sends a message, claiming that due to Booker T’s “interference” he’s reversing the decision, and Michael Cole’s undefeated reign continues.

Then Santino enters the ring, claiming he’s searched every inch of the WWE Stadium, looking for the Anon-GM. He deduces that the GM must be under the ring, and the GM sends messages saying there is nobody under the ring, in a ploy to dissuade Santino from searching under the ring. He does, of course, and begins to be pulled under, but is helped out by Lawler, and clinging to Santino’s legs is Hornswoggle. This whole time, the Anonymous Raw General Manager was Hornswoggle. Seriously. Hornswoggle. He then kicks Lawler, and bites Santino’s butt. I’m… I have no words for how stupid this segment was. Moments like this make me ashamed to be a WWE fan, and I’m going to have to take like 10 more Tyson Kidd shots to forget this crap.

I totally forgot about this match. The previous example of extreme stupidity wiped it from my mind, which is quite a feat. Stupidity induced amnesia is quite rare you know. Well the match begins,  and we get the good-as-usual-but-not-AMAZING Punk/Bryan interplay that they have on Raw. AJ gets tagged in, and her and Eve trade a decent set of blows against each other, and then start doing the usual Diva style roll around fighting. AJ gets the upperhand, and Eve attempts to tag in Daniel Bryan, who then refuses to be tagged. AJ quickly rolls up Eve for the win.

Bryan then claims this is him proving his true love for AJ, and says they should leave and get married right then and there. AJ ponders, and CM Punk makes the same argument he did earlier, pointing out that Bryan is using her, and doesn’t have any real feelings for her. He then truthfully admits he will not marry AJ, but admits he cares enough about her to be honest. AJ cries, and then smiles, and then slaps CM Punk. and then tearfully slaps Daniel Bryan. The show ends as she starts laughing, and “Yes-ing” her way up the ramp. Lending credence to my theory that she is the mastermind player, using these two men to her own end. She knows exactly what she’s doing.

Yeah, she knows what she’s doing.

Sometimes, WWE will try an episode out like this, which is comedy-promo heavy, and very light on wrestling. Sometimes, it works out, and you get hilarious and memorable promos and segments, like nearly the entire McMahon/Austin feud. Some nights, like tonight, it’s nearly unwatchable and cartoonishly bad. The whole Punk/AJ/Bryan thing only works when the stakes are directly tied and centered around a match, and as much as I like that storyline, 20+ minutes of wrestlers standing around and talking about their feelings, is tiring. I love me some ridiculous WWE action but take overwrought melodrama, and add it to pure retard fuel like Santino Ace Detective, and Hornswoggle the Secret Mastermind Anonymous General Manager, and you’ve got a recipe for bad television, and atrocious wrestling. I understand they call it sports entertainment, but holy hell guys, don’t forget the SPORT your show is based on. Meanwhile, i’ll be sitting over here, rocking in my chair, trying to remind myself I’m not really stupid for enjoying WWE.

It’s a funny thing that the signs in the crowd tonight were so on point. They pretty much sum up my feelings for tonight’s show.

I feel for you CM Punk. I do. You, AJ and Daniel Bryan all deserve better than this. Well, when an episode of Raw is this bad, I can really only think one thought at the end. And that’s really? Really? REALLY?

SPORTS

Monday Night Raw: Recap & Review 6/25/12

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Tonight’s Raw opens with a recap of the whole AJ/Daniel Bryan/CM Punk/Kane horrible imaginary 4-way storyline. It then cuts to a backstage scene, with AJ speaking out loud to herself, rehearsing conversations with the three of them, as if they were all there.

Oddly they tried to make it some kind of reveal that she was speaking to a mirror, even though it was obvious. She then states to us/herself that they must “go their own separate ways”. She’s also entirely unaware that her practice speech is being recorded and shown to the WWE Universe live, but I guess it’s too much to ask for her to break the fourth wall, or for the cameraman to act like he was secretly recording it. I mean, if your self pep-talk is broadcast live on a show, wouldn’t you assume the people it’s meant to be heard by, might be watching it? Especially if they’re on that same show? Somewhere, CM Punk is drinking a Pepsi shaking his head.

Then Vickie Guerrero comes out onstage, and announces herself as tonight’s Interim General Manager. She also reveals that the 1000th episode of Raw is when they’re going to pick the new GM positions for both Raw and Smackdown. So the next 4 weeks will be filled with differing Interim Managers, until the 1000th show, where they’ll all probably fight for the position via their respective supporters. Vickie will have Dolph, Mick Foley will have Santino, Shawn Michaels (calling him as a future ‘interim’) will have himself, and Teddy will pick, I don’t know, Zack Ryder. Then he’ll make it a tag team match, and everyone will weep openly for John Laurinaitis’ return. Vickie then announces the first match, a 3-Way Elimination match, which is actually a legitimate breath of fresh air.

This is the second week in a row we’ve had the main WWE talent (Cena aside) at the top of the show. It makes me wonder if it’s a  “Have your dessert first” sort of thing, or a “Let’s get these guys done with for the night” sort of thing going on. Either way, starting Raw off 10 minutes in with actual wrestling is something I’m not going to complain about. I just wish it would happen more often. As for the actual match, man have I been enjoying this whole 4-way AJ feud thing. Punk and Bryan do a great job of elevating Kane, who’s actually been at his best in these matches, certainly better than he has been in a long time. The added bonus of Punk and Bryan kicking Kane back and forth, with the audience alternating “Yes!”, or “No!” chants, is what wrestling is made of. A straight up feud between Bryan and Punk would have been awesome on its own, but getting to seem them play off of both Kane and AJ this whole time has been very entertaining, and while I know the story will ultimately veer back onto the Bryan-Punk solo feud, I’m glad it’s here, and we’re given a female wrestler with some actual complexity and depth, even if it is “Crazy chick”.

Of course, AJ shows up, which kinda/sorta distracts Kane (guess he’s a hit it and quit it guy), and Punk puts Kane to sleep, eliminating him. The whole process of lifting Kane onto his shoulders weakens him though, and Bryan swoops in with a kick to the head, and wins the match. This all builds towards another match for the championship for Bryan, who at this point seems destined to become the WWE Champ.

Mentioning destiny, we then cut to Alberto Del Rio in a dressing room with Vickie Guerrero. He starts to butter her up for the #1 contender spot for the World Heavyweight Championship. He is interrupted by Dolph Ziggler, who tells Del Rio to get in line for the title shot. Vickie then decides that to be impartial, she’ll make a Contract On A Pole match to see who gets the #1 Contender status, and will face Sheamus on Smackdown for the title. Which was a bummer to hear, because that basically lets us know that the title won’t switch hands, since it’s on Smackdown, and we’re gonna be stuck with Sheamus as the champ for a bit longer. Soon, Ziggler and Del Rio leave in a huff after that announcement, leaving Vickie and Ricardo Rodriguez in the room alone together, where I presume she begins to seduce him off camera. Or maybe they just have a nice conversation. Whatever.

Back from the break, and we’ve got a match between the Funkasaurus and Big Show. Good, because I want to see these guys actually wrestle people who will give them any sense of a challenge. Which isn’t to say that I don’t like a good squash match, but WWE has been running that into the ground lately, with Funkasaurus, Ryback and Tensai all doing the same sort of thing at the same time, as I’ve probably previously written before. The difference is now Tensai has returned to his home planet of Japan, and Ryback is slowly getting over, despite becoming very repetitive with his matches. We’re left with Funkasaurus, who has to be given his own comic book like secret weakness, which in his case is “hurt knee”, because until now he was an UNSTOPPABLE FORCE that happened to love funky dancing, and now falls to the ground and moans in agonizing pain if you lightly slap him on the knee. I thought they set up his knee weakness as a foil for David Otunga to exploit in their PPV match, to give it some actual suspense, and keep us all from assuming Funkasaurus would win, but it seems to continue and affect this match with him and Show. Either Funkasaurus has a long undiagnosed case of rickets, or David Otunga has bionic Knee-Destroying Shoulders. The match ends with Funkasaurus, (yes, I know his name is Brodus Clay but he’s Funkasaurus to me dammit!), trying to lift Big Show for a body slam, and presumably his knee gives out, or Big Show is just too heavy for him, and Show falls onto him, and pins him.

Hey guys! You know John Cena? He does charity work! Love him! Why don’t you love him? What do you mean he’s boring? HE HELPS SICK KIDS GUYS, LOVE HIM. LOVE HIM ALREADY.

Bob Barker Guest hosted Raw once. It’s true. He even beat up Chavo Guerrero, because that’s just how badly Chavo sucks. Bob Barker mentions he’ll face Chavo in a rematch on the 2000th episode, which you’re supposed to infer means he never will, since he probably will be long dead by then, but I’d like to think Bob Barker has unlocked the secret to immortality, and it involves accurately guessing retail prices of random items.

Holy crap, we then cut to AJ and Kane backstage having a conversation about their feelings!  Now that’s a weird sentence. Anyhow, Kane is there, and he pretty much just tells AJ that hey, he’s Kane. The fire rapist, horrible demon monster man. But even HE finds AJ a bit too wacky for him, and calls off the whole thing with her, and leaves. She starts crying/laughing, and what the hell does it say about me that I want to be there, and comfort her personally? I haven’t been this internally conflicted by a WWE segment in a while. I’m guessing out there, somewhere in tumblr-land, there are KayJay shippers out there, hoping things will eventually be set right between them, and they’ll live together in weird, fire summoning, mask wearing harmony.

In a just and fair world, Jack Swagger, the man whose gimmick is being the All American American, would still be the United States Champion, and would have never lost it to Santino. But here we are, with Santino somehow repeatedly defending it despite all logic and reason pointing to him having to lose it, now defending it once again, against the previous title holder. I don’t understand the pairing of these two as combatants, because aside from the international angle, there’s really no reason Jack Swagger shouldn’t just pick up Santino and Swagger Bomb him to death like 3 times in a row, and pin him with one foot on his chest, flexing the way Jericho used to do.

Best. Pin. Ever.

But of course, Santino gets The Cobra on Swagger, because being poked in the chest with a sock is a death sentence, and wins.

After another commercial break, John Cena returns. From what he returns, I’m not sure. He was here last week, so maybe he went and travelled to some other planet, fought its tyrannical ruler, took over as king of the oppressed worker force, married their warrior princess and united the opposing kingdoms of that planet under his rule, to become John Cena Of Mars. Or not.

Either way, he’s back. He then makes a terrible Star Wars/WWE analogy, which even I found nerdy and lame. He takes a really long amount of time, to very stupidly say “Yay, John Laurinaitis is gone!”, and make a terrible Yoda impression that sounds more like Kermit. Then, thank god, Jericho interrupts him. Jericho enters the stage, and Michael Cole goes on to say how Jericho was off touring with his band Fozzy, and makes no mention of his previous “suspension”, because what is continuity anyway amiright? Then Jericho walks into the ring, and does the most glorious thing, by telling Cena to shut the hell up, make his stupid announcement already, and stop wasting all of our time with his dumb jokes and impressions. Cena then gets to the point, and says his historic announcement is that to stop Big Show, for the first time ever, he’s putting himself in the Money in The Bank ladder match. Which sucks for 2 huge reasons:

1.) That match is for people who would otherwise have no way to get a title shot, and Cena is taking away some deserving superstars chance by doing this.

2.) According to The Law, this means Cena will win that match, leaving us with a boring obvious match for that PPV that could instead be utilized by under appreciated superstars to give themselves a push. Daniel Goddamn Bryan did this last year remember? But no, we’re gonna get more Cena, because in lieu of People Power, we’re now supposed to accept Cena Power.

Jericho then points out how annoying and overconfident Cena is, and enters himself in the Money In The Bank match as well. Vickie then enters, and reminds us that there are two Money In The Bank matches, one for the WWE title, and the other for the WHC title. She then says the “Board of Directors” have stipulated the WWE MITB match will consist of only former WWE champions, and will have Kane, Jericho, Cena, and Big Show as contenders. Which just makes no goddamn sense, and I guess even the Board of Directors don’t understand what Money In The Bank is for, but OH WELL.

As they begin to announce a returning former WWE Legend, Heath Slater interrupts and enters the ring. He starts saying words that I can’t hear because he’s Heath Slater, and is then interrupted by Sycho Sid, who now looks a lot like Michael Rooker in a jheri curl wig. Sycho Sid then power bombs Slater and pins him, because what else was gonna happen? I kinda like these matches. I like Heath Slater coming out, being obnoxious, and getting pounded by WWE legends. It’s working for Slater, in a weird sort of way. Even though he’s losing, he’s still getting over with me, and all the WWE legends are acting like reverse Jobbers, showing up once to win, and then leaving forever. Slater isn’t a talented spot taker like Dolph Ziggler, and his move repertoire isn’t exciting or that interesting, but dammit, it’s fun to watch him get annihilated. +1 Slater. You ARE the one man baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanddd.

So it doesn’t really matter who wins this match. We all know they’re not gonna have their title match on Smackdown count, so the whole thing is an exercise in futility for both wrestlers involved, as far as title shots go. However, Ziggler and Del Rio are both talented wrestlers, and know how to put on a good match. If there’s anything to be said about this match’s booking, and tonight’s booking in general, it’s that Vickie Guerrero is actually a really good GM, despite her shrill ear piercing voice. Ziggler and Del Rio spend a fair amount of time really struggling with trying to at first reach the incredibly-easy-to-reach Contract On A Pole, and Ziggler is the one to actually get his hands on it, and rip it off the pole. Which I was led to believe means you win the contract, but the bell doesn’t ring and Michael Cole goes on to say how you have to “control” the contract to win the match. I have no idea what the hell this means, and i’m guessing it might have been a quick ad-lib to cover up the possibility that Ziggler botched the grab and accidentally grabbed the contract too early. Either way, the match is interrupted, (how rude is the WWE Roster, nobody lets anybody finish anything), by Sheamus, who comes in and announces that the title shot on Smackdown will be a triple threat between Del Rio and Ziggler. So… What? The match ends? The contract means nothing? An already futile match ended even more pointlessly? Awful.

After the match, we cut to CM Punk in the locker room. AJ comes and apologizes for how things went in the match she interfered in earlier. Punk tries to prep her for a breakup talk, but she takes it to mean he wants to commit more to their relationship, and then skips off to compete in her battle royale match. Did I mention she was in a bathrobe in this segment? Because she was. I guess being straight edge really does give you an immense amount of self-control, because I’d be ripping that damn bathrobe off her, out of curiosity alone. If you haven’t noticed by now, I kinda have a huge crush on AJ. I guess I’m really into weird, awkward, damaged women. I wish Raw would come to where I live, because I’d buy front row seats and stand there with a sign that says I HEART WEIRD, AWKWARD DAMAGED WOMEN! for the whole 2-3 hours. I’d also bring a #Rudo sign in case Del Rio wrestled Ziggler again, because that sign would be high concept dammit.

I know this is a blatant attempt at WWE to get some good cheesecake fodder on tv, but goddamn what the Divas lack in wrestling ability do they make up in their looks. Back in the Attitude Era, the Women’s Division wasn’t called “Divas”, and they had muscular, strong women who could actually wrestle, but never really did. They always had blatant cheesecakey gimmick matches. Mud wrestling. Bikini Matches. Rip My Clothes Off Matches. Have Fake Lesbian Sex Matches. You get the idea, it was pretty gratuitous. The problem was, a lot of these women, weren’t that attractive. Especially Luna. Remember Luna?

GAH! FORGET LUNA! FORGET LUNNNAAAAA!!!

Now they have all these hot “Divas”, who would be PERFECT for gimmicky bikini/strip/sex matches, but continually wrestle ineptly, for no longer than 2 minutes at a time. A part of me wants to say the WWE’s women’s wrestling has gone down in quality, and in a manner of speaking it has, but really it’s always been a joke, and now it’s just a different one, that’s slightly more sexy. Vickie herself actually enters the match, looking surprisingly decent ( I SAID DECENT) in her one piece swimsuit, and the match begins. Of course, all of these women don’t actually wrestle, and have no idea how a Battle Royale is supposed to work, and keep “eliminating” themselves by going under the top ropes, because they don’t know how to take a bump or a dive that high. It was funny watching Michael Cole scramble to make sense of their idiocy, and again ad-lib a fake rule about going through the ropes for elimination. Eventually we were left with AJ, Vickie and Layla. AJ quickly eliminates Layla, and we’re left with Vickie and AJ, and after an elimination recovery by AJ, Vickie gets mad at AJ, and starts boob-bumping her into the ropes. AJ then tackles Vickie to the ground. Vickie eliminates herself, and AJ starts rejoicing, shouting YES! over and over. The crowd, and I along with them, go wild.

It’s about time the Most Electrifying Jacket In Sports Entertainment returns, and we get a match between John Cena and Jericho. Why? Because they talked earlier stupid! You know the rules. Any argument = Settled in a match. No exception. What can I say about John Cena that I already haven’t? The dude is annoying, hypocritical, has a repetitive library of moves, and constantly wins and is boring to watch. That being said, occasionally someone else can rise up and pull a good performance out of him. 2011’s Money In The Bank was a good example, with CM Punk and Cena having a pretty brilliant 40+ minute match, which is like 3 hours in WWE time. As for Jericho, the man is incredibly talented, and still continues to impress me with his in ring agility and prowess, along with his still exceptional mic skills. Nobody gets genuine heel heat like Jericho, he is a master at getting the average mark to hate him. His long time motto is that he is the ‘best at everything he does’, and I’m hard pressed to disagree.

The theme of tonight’s Raw, definitely seems to be: ‘Interruption’, because Big Show’s music starts, which distracts John Cena, and Jericho slaps on the Walls of Jericho on Cena. Instead of seeing Cena tap out and giving Jericho a clean win however, Big Show walks in, and does a leg drop on the back of Cena’s head, making the match end in a DQ. Jericho smartly leaves the ring, and Show choke slams Cena, and puts him into a camel clutch. The show ends with John Cena passing out, and Big Show staring at the referee. I’m guessing after the cameras cut away, he transforms into the bear from his shirt, and mauls the referee. Or he continues staring, and all attempts to get him to stop staring fail, and due to his IRONCLAD contract that lets him do anything he wants, everyone has to keep watching Big Show staring blankly for hours on end, until Big Show decides to stop and get something to eat.

One thing I really liked about this years Wrestlemania (28), was that every match, more or less, ended cleanly. Everybody won because they were just better, and out wrestled their competition. It was refreshing to see that, because the WWE hadn’t been doing that for a long time, and for a while, it seemed to be continuing that way. Tonight was a harsh reminder that was a fad, and the magical “I interrupt your match, making you suddenly susceptible to a roll-up or instant finisher KO” thing is back again with a vengeance. It’s a shame, and makes things really predictable the moment it happens, which I’m guessing is the opposite of its actual intention. Interruptions only work when they’re done sparingly, and to good effect because they ARE a surprise, and effect the match in a unique way. When literally every other goddamn match in your show is interrupted, this effect is drastically weakened. It bums me out, because there are always little seeds of WWE being REALLY GOOD, and then they go back to ruining it with the same old crap.

Man, here’s some .GIFs of AJ, because I’m sad now.

Oh AJ…