WWE Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 9/25/12

Tonight’s Raw opens with as cold an opening as it could have, with Paul Heyman and CM Punk doing a classic style sit in, about the end of last weeks Raw. Heyman goes over the ridiculous call the Ref made, clearly ignoring Punk’s foot on the ropes last week, thusly giving the win to Cena. He goes on into detail about it for a while longer, and has the Ref in question appear before him, to admit his mistake, and give his resignation. After some stalling, the Ref comes into the ring, clearly nervous. He gives his explanation, saying he was nervous, and made a bad call. He apologizes, but refuses to resign. Punk and Heyman berate him, and insult AJ at the same time. AJ hears her name, and appears, skipping her way down. She says she’s not there to reverse any decisions, or fire the Ref, but is instead there to get them to leave, saying they’re holding “her” show hostage.

Punk starts to accuse AJ of having a grudge against him, citing her proposal to him months ago. She looks shaken, and he continues, citing a litany of incriminating evidence towards her bias against him, including but not limited to dressing like him, sending him hundreds of illicit texts (allegedly), and even implies that they had some sort of sexual relations, “behind closed doors”, and that his entire “best in the world” gimmick, comes from her praise of his sexual prowess. (allegedly).

He really lays into her. You could say. 

  AJ is noticeably bothered by all of this, and Paul Heyman takes the mic from Punk, and then gets down on one knee, asking her for her hand in marriage, saying they’ll be a new power couple to lead a new wave in the WWE. If that wasn’t insulting and creepy enough, he even says that he likes ’em young, which was funny, because Heyman really does seem like that kind of guy. AJ slaps him, of course, and leaves the ring.

A proposal by Paul Heyman is a fate worse than death. Apparently. 

Backstage The Ref is seen regretting his bad call, and thanks AJ for standing up for him. She threatens to fire him if a bad call like that is ever made again. She continues to lay into him, all the while staring off into the distance, doing her whole crazy girl affectation thing again, which brings her to tears, strangely enough. I’m guessing the job is getting to her, and she’s finally starting to crack.

Holy crap, gayest screen cap ever. Good job Youtube.

Vickie Guerrerro then EXCUSE ME’s her way on stage, introducing Dolph Ziggler. Michael Cole briefly mentions that Kofi Kingston and Dolph had beef on Twitter, and this is why they’re wrestling tonight, rather than the hundreds of other times they’ve wrestled each other without provocation. These guys have wrestled so many times, that seeing them wrestle turns my brain off. Not even R-Truth/Little Jimmy throwing a cup of soda on Vickie could really grab my attention. I’ll tell you what did grab my attention though, was Kofi Kingston botching a drop kick in the worst way possible, missing Ziggler by a good solid foot. Kofi is one of those workers who just pulls down everything and everyone he works with. The dude is a black hole that just sucks up talent, and everyone in his vicinity becomes less talented when around him. After a bunch of back and forth moves between the two, Ziggler finally lands the Zig Zag, and wins. It was a good enough match, and in retrospect, was one of the better ones of the night, but I just can’t stand Kingston. He’d have to set himself on fire and do the SOS on a bucket full of rattlesnakes to get me interested in anything he does. The match seemed designed to push Kingston as a singles competitor again, but I’m sorry, the man isn’t worth it, and it just made Ziggler look weak.

I’ve been vocal with my love of Ziggler on this column, but man, the dude needs to hurry up. He’s spent FAR too long dicking around with his MITB contract, and wrestling schmoes who are beneath him. What happened to the Ziggler who was all I’M BETTER THAN THIS a few months go? That was a good Ziggler I want to see more of, not this ho-hum, bide-my-time loser. If I’m sound extra critical of him this week, it’s because I hate to see what I love, not live up to its potential, and in this case, it doesn’t seem to be the fault of WWE creative, but Ziggler himself. In Kayfabe terms, anyway. I’m sure in real life, he has to wait until the writers are satisfied with letting Sheamus lose the belt, but that won’t happen anytime soon because they just LOOOOVE big white racist strong guys.

After a recap of the whole Daniel Bryan/Kane Tag Team Championship reign/argument, they present the first in a series of segments, featuring Kane and Daniel Bryan still receiving help from Dr. Shelby.

Dr. Shelby and Daniel Bryan are in a restaurant, and Dr. Shelby is explaining they need to work on interacting in non-ewe environments. Bryan asks how, and Kane appears, dressed in a chef’s apron, ready to take their orders. He gets upset, but Dr. Shelby calms him, and asks Bryan to order. Bryan uses the order to insult Kane, but Dr. Shelby insists that Kane role-play the role of “Gerald”, the water. Kane/Gerald then describes an imaginary cook, who Kane found annoying, who took credit for Kane/Gerald’s work, and describes how he took the cook’s face, dunked it in the deep fryer, ripped out his beard, and put it inside of everyone’s food. The local diners look disgusted, and Dr. Shelby asks Kane/Gerald if he’s kidding, to which Kane/Gerald replies ambiguously

It was a funny segment, but I found myself distracted, because there’s a rumor going around that Being Human‘s Sam Huntington, is playing Dr. Shelby. Despite looking vaguely similar, and our own fellow WWE fan here at GB, Godzark, insists it’s him. I don’t believe it. Not only because Sam Huntington has said he isn’t him, multiple times on his own Twitter, but because even if it was him, I just don’t believe the WWE has that talented a make up team to make Dr. Shelby look so convincingly bald, not to mention his other differing facial features, and overall head size and shape. Judge for yourself:

Here’s Sam Huntington:

And here’s Dr. Shelby:

Nope. Not the same guy.

Coming back from the break, we see The Primetime Players awaiting their match against Santino and Zack Ryder. Why Santino and Zack Ryder? I’m not sure. Zack Ryder getting airtime is good, because I like him, and I wish he’d improve his skill set. I can’t think of why he’s teamed up with Santino other than both are silly? Proud of their ignorance? I’m not sure. As for the actual match, I did enjoy Titus O’Neill just grabbing Santino’s dumb Cobra arm, slamming him in the ground to death, and beating him right then and there. The Cobra is stupid guys. Santino is stupid. I have no idea why people like him anymore. I don’t have much more to say about this one, because it was so short.

Hopefully this means The Primetime Players are getting pushed again, but if there’s anything watching TNA wrestling has taught me, is that WWE has forgotten how to make tag matches exciting. They’re doing an admirable job or rebuilding the division, and giving the belts to someone meaningful like Kane & Daniel Bryan is a step in the right direction, they just need to follow through and actually have these mid card tag matches be exciting, rather than route, and by the numbers. I hate having to say how much better Impact Wrestling’s Wrestling is each week than WWE”s, because I love the WWE, and want the best for it. Impact/TNA is entertaining as all get out, but my emotional connection, the company/brand I love, is with WWE. Call me a shill, or a loyalist, but it’s the truth. You can do better WWE, I know you can! Keep at it!

After a quick announcement that there will be a special guest arriving tonight, they cut to a commercial. After the break, we’re treated to the return of the one and only, Hardcore Legend himself, Mick Foley.

Foley comes out and shares some of his memories of CM Punk. He starts to criticize Punk and Heyman, speaking of the CM Punk that he knew, until he’s very quickly interrupted by Punk himself. Foley recants a story that actually sounds like a shoot memory, detailing how when Punk originally won his title, Foley sent him a text congratulating him, and how Punk thanked him in return, saying it meant a lot coming from Foley.  Foley continues saying how since he was one who Punk respected enough to respond to, that Punk’s behavior, and alignment with Paul Heyman, disturbed him. He accuses Heyman of only positioning himself to benefit him, rather than the people he claims to represent, and that Foley himself was a Paul Heyman guy, until he learned to make his own decisions. Foley even makes a pretty solid point, asking why Punk needs Heyman, given his massive prowess on the mic, and his lack of need for Paul Heyman to speak on his behalf. It’s something I’d actually been thinking of as well. Why does Punk need Heyman to speak for him, when he’s such a great talker himself? My guess is it’s all part of building up more heat for him, because Heyman is a heat magnet from nearly any damn audience he confronts. The difference is, with Brock Lesnar, who can’t cut a promo for shit, it made sense for Heyman to do all the talking. For Punk, we just lose a great Punk promo, but I digress.

Punk really rolls around in the new Heel heat he’s getting, and insults the audience directly, and says Foley is wrong and doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Foley then reveals his intention, both Kayfabe and shoot, for being here tonight. Kayfabe, he’s here to encourage Punk to shake off the influence of Heyman, and make a name for himself at Hell In A Cell, citing his own famous HIAC experiences as career defining moments. In shoot terms, he’s there just to promote HIAC indirectly, and to really pull last grubby remnants of Face Punk down, and secure him as the #1 Heel in the company. Insulting Mick Foley is pretty much like committing Face suicide, and a surefire ticket to being hated by general audiences.

Punk then further insults the audience, and Foley’s hardcore legacy, implying that pandering to the audience, or doing any of the death-defying stunts Foley has done, are beneath him. The whole thing seems to really piss everyone off, leaving only me and a bunch of IWC smark ass Punk fans still loving him.Foley continues to goad Punk into going into the HIAC match with Cena, leaving on a pretty compelling promo, asking Punk if he’d rather be a legend, or a statistic. It was a pretty good promo, and still managed to highlight that Punk’s actions all have an internally consistent logic to them, while still showing Foley as the one goddamned person who can actually make a solid, consistent point about Punk, and not have it degenerate into  “You’re a jerk, I don’t like you anymore!. Well not too much, anyway.

A few weeks ago The Miz said he’d go the distance with The Ryback, who is still undefeated. As far as overcoming his Goldbergian stigma, he’s not doing a good job. The Miz does a good job at trying to hang in there, but for every counter, or distraction Miz utilizes, The Ryback simply out muscles him at every turn. It’s good to see The Ryback managing to still looks strong, because Miz isn’t made to look weak by this match, just absolutely dominated, which is what they should have done with The Ryback from the beginning. Seeing The Ryback Ryback jobbers for months on end just made him look like he wasn’t getting any sort of challenge, but guys like Miz, who are stable, confident mid card talent, are exactly the kind of guy The Ryback should be destroying. They’re finally starting to get The Ryback right. Hopefully, he’ll learn a few more moves, because his repertoire is getting extremely repetitive.

We see Daniel Bryan and Kane reminiscing about Smackdown last week. They recall their mutual joy of destroying 4 entire tag teams at once, each with a steel chair in hand. They continue describing, until they start yelling out loud in nearly orgasmic pleasure at the memory of causing pain to others. Eventually, the camera pans over and we see Mae Young, taking an order, and even though it’s clichéd and predictable, I still chuckled when she said “I’ll have what they’re having”. Because the thought of an old woman wanting to share in their orgasmic, sadistic ecstasy, is hilarious. Not that stupid joke from that Billy Crystal movie. Who knew Mae Young had such an angry, dark side to her, just waiting to be unleashed?

 GAH. She does look evil! 

Backstage, we see AJ talking to a bunch of Referees. She says some bullshit about the WWE not having instant replay, even though they totally do, and says it’s okay, because everyone makes mistakes. She’s approached by Alberto Del Rio, Otunga and Ricardo Rodriguez, who ask her why she’s asked them there. She tells them she wants them in a 6 man tag team match against Sheamus, Rey Mysterio, and Sin Cara. Which isn’t fair, because that’s more like a 5 man tag team match, but Ricardo is ever the positive one, proclaims them the Tres Amigos, and runs away joyfully.

Good lord. Tyson Kidd. Between Tyson Kidd being on Raw lately, and the Grizzly Bomb Drunk Review I did last week, I’ve been drinking a lot. For those confused, I take a shot every time I see Tyson Kidd on my television, and for the longest time, that shot just sat there, gathering dust and grime. Lately, I’ve had to take it one every other week, which is about 400% more than it was just a year ago.

As much as I like seeing Tyson Kidd jump around and do stuff, (Kofi, take note, this is what you want to be, and aren’t, in every way.), seeing Wade Barrett destroy people is fun too. I’m really digging his gimmick, and I get a real kick out of saying OY MOY NAYMS WAYEDD BEARETT IND MY BEAR-AGE ‘AS JUSS BEGONE, every time I see him. I just think that his finisher move, which I could have sworn was just a punch last week, was an elbow tonight. I suppose they’re trying to sell that he can hit hard from any angle, with his fists or elbows, which makes sense, but I’d prefer an affectation to sell it. Have him come out with gloves on, and remove one to ready the punch. Sort of like how The Rock took off his elbow pad for The People’s Elbow, but you know, less meaningless and superfluous.

Back from the break, Michael Cole is in the ring, describing the condition of Jerry Lawler, and some of the good news from Lawler’s Doctor. He then introduces Lawler, who gives this message, thanking his fans for all their support:

I thought it was great to see Jerry looking so good, and I love that he has a badass throne room with cardboard Elvis cutouts and knickknacks everywhere. His place totally looks like somewhere i’d totally dig hanging out. I’m very genuinely glad to see he’s doing well, and as much as I like him, I think it’s time he step down from wrestling and commentating alike, to ensure his future well being for his, and all of our sakes. Get well Jerry. Long live The King.

This match is an exercise in a bunch of wrestlers who just seem less than the sum of their parts. I’ve had my problems with Sin Cara and Mysterio in the past, and Otunga is a great backstage character, but a mediocre wrestler at best. Ricardo is obviously trained in the lucha style, but isn’t allowed to wrestle for real. Alberto Del Rio I think is great, but I’m really sick of seeing him lose to Sheamus. Aaaaand I’ve said plenty about Sheamus in this column, and I don’t think i’ll ever be able to top what I wrote about him last week, in regards to why I don’t like him, and why he’s bad for the company as a whole. It was particularly infuriating to hear JR refer to Sheamus as one of the best World Heavyweight Champions in history too. I enjoyed the minutes in this match where Alberto Del Rio got work pretty well with Rey Mysterio, as their style complement each other, but overall the match was forgettable. All the hoopla about Sheamus’ Brogue Kick is a bunch of bullshit too, because a bicycle kick to the head isn’t nearly as big a deal as they are trying to make it out to be. Add to that Sheamus viciously beating on Ricardo, and you’ve got a solid 10 minute segment that consists of me rolling my  eyes out of my head.

Oh yeah, Sheamus sucks.

This has no connection with anything, I just really wanted to share it with all of you.

After that shitgasm, we come back to a refreshing palette cleanser, where we see Dr. Shelby with Kane and Daniel Bryan, urging them to try a step in each other’s shoes. He orders them both two meals, for Kane, a salad, and for Bryan, a plate of meatballs.

It was interesting, because #1, I didn’t know Kane loved meatballs, or that it was somehow representative of him, in a culinary sense. I understand the salad for Daniel Bryan, since that falls right into his whole vegan thing, but meatballs? Kane? Are meatballs from Hell? Is this some weird commentary on meatballs, and how they’re inherently bad for you? I’m not sure.  After that, they both try the food in front of them. Kane burps uproariously, because apparently ingesting leafy greens puts his digestive system into overdrive. Bryan just says the meatballs weren’t as bad as he thought they were going to be, and promptly vomits into Dr. Shelby’s lap. I’m guessing his digestive system is just like Kane’s, but on the inverse spectrum. Watching Kane struggle with eating a tiny piece of lettuce was pretty awesome though.

As the age-old saying goes: You don’t win friends with salad.

Back to the ring, we see the Raw Active for tonight:

So yeah, I didn’t vote, because I didn’t like any of those. On twitter, I was in support of #Dragonfire, since that alludes to Bryan’s history as The American Dragon, and fire is Kane’s whole thing. Plus Dragonfire is way cooler than any of those three. After their introduction, the winner is chosen to be Team Hell No, which is ehhh.. It’s okay I guess. They’re then swiftly attacked by Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes. Sandow appears to be wearing a new shirt, meaning he finally has some merch available, which I want. Unfortunately I can’t find any pictures of it, but it appeared to be a diagram of the evolution of man, from primate to man, to Sandow himself, which is just awesome.

I’m totally gonna buy that shirt one day.

After the attack, Sandow and Rhodes reveal they’re a team themselves now, and proclaim themselves RHODES SCHOLARS, which shocked the hell out of me, because any avid Withleather.com reader, will know that their head writer, Brandon Stroud, came up with that name and promoted it heavily on twitter. Hell, I thought it was brilliant and retweeted it myself a few times. Seeing them actually take that name, was pretty awesome, and that moment felt more like the connection the WWE wants us all to have with Raw Active, more than all other Raw Active’s put together.

Ugh. Another tag team match. Man I know these used to be good, but holy hell is WWE doing a good job at making me hate them all forever. Soon I’ll forget they ever used to be good. I’d hate modern, younger WWE fans to grow up thinking any and all tag team matches are inherently boring. Man that’s a saddening thought… I need something to cheer me up.

Jesus christ girl, DRESS LIKE THIS AGAIN. Take that business suit shit off!

Ahem. Well, this was a pretty typical Divas match. It had them trading moves sloppily, until Eve lands a simple neck breaker, and the win. In fact, in the time it took me to write this entire paragraph, the match ended.

The only interesting thing was when Kaitlyn came out, after having been “attacked” at Night Of Champions, which we all assumed was Eve. Kaitlyn says she reviewed the footage, and couldn’t identify her attacker, but could see her hair was blond. Eve looks totes shocked for realsies, and her and Beth Phoenix start arguing. Eventually, Eve just attacks her without any real provocation, which must mean she really has turned face again, because that’s WWE logic for ya! Now we’re just left with this pseudo-murder/leg-attack mystery thing, where some blond person is responsible for Kaitlyn’s injury. Was it Kaitlyn? Somehow? Maybe it’s just the way they’ll explain Beth Phoenix leaving WWE, which I hear she is doing soon. Whatever. That’s the Divas division in a nutshell isn’t it?

WWE DIVAS: “Whatever.”

Holy shit. I didn’t think it could get worse than Tensai vs Randy Orton last week. What can I say? Two big fat guys running into each other, whose moves are the inverse of each other, does not for a good match make. I want to like Funkasaurus as much as I did when he debuted, but the dude doesn’t do anything other than dance for 20 minutes, squash people with his fatness, and then dance for another 15 minutes. Tensai is Tensai, and isn’t worth writing about anymore. Period. Do you even care who won? Really?

The only saving grace of this match was Big Show appearing, and knocking out Tensai’s stupid hissing ugly face, and following it with a knockout punch to Funkasaurus as well. He looked a bit reluctant to knock out Funkasaurus, and his status as a face or heel is as of yet indeterminate, but regardless, seeing him come out and kill both of them was a merciful sparing of a match I, and nobody else either, should care about. Let’s go Show, continue using that IRONCLAD CONTRACT to make the show better by just punching stupid people in the face to death. Next stop: Kofi Kingston. Then, Sheamus. Go for the WHC gold. Why not? Eff Sheamus.

Not even this would make him interesting.

Listen. I hate John Cena, the wrestler. Hate him. He’s boring, his promos suck, his wrestling ability is limited to say the least, and his character is grating beyond belief. In every way he’s only popular for political reasons within the WWE, because for some reason, kids like him. I don’t understand it, but I guess I can’t, because I’m not a kid anymore. All I know is that segments like this, where John starts off by reminding me by what a good person in real life he is, fills me with mixed emotions. I have enormous respect for John Cena The Man, because his charity work, and dedication towards causes supporting breast cancer research, are objectively a good thing for him to be doing, and that fills me with some actual, genuine happiness, because screw cancer. Eff cancer up it’s stupid ass.

But then he goes on his usual, I’M GONNA WIN AND NEVER GIVE UP, I’LL MAKE IT, IT’S ALL FOR YOU, THE FANS, WITHOUT YOU WE WOULDN’T blah blah blah shit he always does. The dude has made a career out of cutting the same promo endlessly. It was awful. It feels like every other month something happens, and he comes out and says how he may be going away for a while, and with his recent shoot elbow surgery, we’re once again meant to believe he will. But we all know he’ll just be back again next goddamned week. It’s what he does. Nobody has ever gotten fired, quit, taken leave, and then just showed up again next week as many times as he has. I don’t think there’s any other job in the world you could do that at. If I got fired from the bar I work at, I couldn’t just show up next weekend and expect to work there, but this isn’t the real world, it’s the WWE Universe, where up is down, good is bad, and heels are faces and faces are heels.

Punk takes some time to insult John Cena in his own special way, while Paul Heyman molests his WWE Championship belt. At one point a CM PUNK chant starts up, but Punk pretends it’s them booing him, and insults them directly. He’s really trying to get himself over as a heel hardcore. He then threatens Cena, and dares him to run away, by saying that he’ll turn his back on Cena, and if he turns around and sees Cena still there, he’ll beat him to death. So to speak.

So Punk foolishly turns his back on Cena, who then pulls out a lead pipe from his back pocket, and hits Punk in the gut with it. Because you know, yeah, that’s what a role model does. Punk then crawls away, while Cena makes terrible “pipe bomb” puns, and says something about real men wearing Pink,(even though Punk wore pink first), officially co-opting pink as the go to heel color, and making it mean less in that particular context.

Backstage, Punk walks by a group of people, one of whom is Mick Foley. He returns to speak to Foley, and attacks him, then walks away in pain, but turns to see something, and looks terrified at what’s before him. Which is….

A heavy breathing The Ryback. Why The Ryback was there? Who knows. Why he was breathing so heavy? Maybe he’s got asthma? I’m not sure. Why Punk acted like he saw goddamned Cthulhu when it was just The Ryback? Who knows! All I know, is that this must be the beginning of The Ryback as a giant, moving force to be reckoned with in the WWE, or the beginning of a main card push for him, with a potential feud involving CM Punk. It’s all up in the air at this point.

So this episode of Raw is exactly what I’d use to describe a mediocre, middle of the road Raw. Nothing too bad, nothing that great either. The highlights were the Daniel Bryan/Kane segments, as usual, but really, it was full of boring tag team matches, because the ghost of Teddy Long is obviously possessing AJ, and really only seemed to be there to convince people that yes, Punk is a heel. He’s really a heel now guys. For realsies. Stop cheering him? Please?

WHOA. 

Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 8/3/12

After the typical last week recap, tonight’s Raw opens up with CM Punk and Jerry Lawler fighting backstage, in plain clothes. I should say, it opens up with Jerry Lawler attacking Punk, and Punk then knocking him to the ground and being carried away by referees, and faded away into the credits on a sprawled, unconscious Lawler.

Immediately after this, Sheamus enters the arena, ostensibly to get cheap Face heat by mentioning how great Chicago is, to a Chicago audience, and to talk about how baaaaaddd he’s gonna beat up Alberto Del Rio at the next PPV. Then of course, CM Punk interrupts him, to a pretty damn loud cheer from the crowd, who are clearly psyched to see CM Punk, and a very clear, very LOUD CM Punk chant starts. It was refreshing to actually see Punk get some damn respect for once. What proceeds is CM Punk utterly destroying Sheamus on the mic, with every single one of Sheamus’ very obviously rehearsed pop-inducing face comments, being utterly ignored or booed by the Punk loving audience. In a situation where the script obviously called for Sheamus to be the guy the crowd rallied behind, the whole thing failed miserably for him, simply because the writers forgot to factor in the fact that Chicago frigging LOVES Punk, and were hanging on his every word. A highlight was seeing Punk toss back the word “Fella” at Sheamus derisively. Another was Sheamus desperately trying to remind an audience that clearly hates him, that he’s the World Heavyweight Champion. It was glorious watching him go all,  “Hey Punk fella, I’m the WHC, that sure does matter doesn’t it? Right guys? Hey… is this thing on? Oh god…”

Love me? Please? 

Punk makes a solid, long promo, defying anyone to say he’s turned their back on the WWE Universe, to uproarious applause from the audience, and continues his “disrespect” rhetoric, until AJ comes out to make a match between the two, saying it’s a Champion VS Champion match, and just leaves.

After the break, we get a quickly set up match between Randy Orton and Dolph Ziggler. The thing as a whole was more or less pretty good, despite the fact that I just can’t stand Randy Orton. I love Ziggler but the fact that I found this match forgettable, is a testament to just how boring I find Randy Orton. The man is the King Midas of boring matches. In fact, I’m having a really hard time remembering ANY Randy Orton match I’ve ever found interesting, or at the very least, not forgettable. This is the case of a stellar performer like Ziggler, being dragged down by a mediocre worker, who for reasons I’ll never understand is popular. I can’t help but think if the match was Ziggler and anyone else, this would have been a highlight for me, but it’s just not the case. Regardless of what I think, the match had a few interesting bits, because seeing a superplex will always be cool, and the fact that Ziggler managed to pin and beat Orton clean, was a goddamned saving grace. If Orton had won, it would have been possibly the most forgettable match of the night, and another amongst the plethora of reasons to hate Orton.

At the end of the match, The Miz walks out, and joins Michael Cole at the commentary table, to replace Jerry Lawler, who they previously announced is all hurt and injured, for realsies. FOR REALSIES GUYS. I presume Lawler wanted his Labor Day off, probably to go hit on 16-year-old girls, so having him replaced was pretty great. Unfortunately, The Miz wasn’t nearly as awesome on the commentators mic as I hoped he’d be, which was really disappointing. I had high hopes for him, and he really kinda let me down the whole night.

Next, we cut to Daniel Bryan and Kane in Anger Management Therapy again, and this time, they’re presenting their anger collages. Bryan presents his, which is a paper with the words YES and NO scrawled over and over, and he expresses the fact that he feels everyone is mocking him by continuing to say YES at him, which is at least consistent with his character, since months ago he DID say he felt the people were mocking him. It was a cheap way to deflect how over he was with everyone after hie Wrestlemania debacle, but they ultimately made the right choice by deciding to keep him Heel rather than use that heat to quickly turn him Face again. In the long run, it’s only benefitted him more anyway. So next we see Kane’s anger collage, which is a blank piece of paper. The counselor asks him if that blank piece of paper represents what Kane feels inside, and Kane stands up, throws the paper into the trash can, and then summons a burst of flame from the can, presumably incinerating the paper. He sits back down, and Daniel Bryan calls him a teacher’s pet.

I love the idea of Kane using his pyrokinetic abilities in real life situations. He’d be great guy to call to help set up bonfires, or if you needed to get your BBQ lit, because those coals were being extra stubborn. I think they even did that once, at the Great American Bash. So in fact, there is someone out there like me, writing ridiculous, retarded ways for Kane to be relevant outside of the wrestling ring. I’m glad there is, because I see the only way to make his character new and exciting again, is to just go full meta like they seem to be doing, and just have him become the Deadpool of the WWE. Having him apologize to Josh Matthews while choke slamming him because HE CAN’T HELP IT AUUURGHHH, is great. Having him reference his insane litany of history that’s canon in WWE is another way, and following it up by having him continue to be willfully absurd is a pretty great thing. It works, in an insane way, and is the kind of comedy wrestler I actually can enjoy.

Ugh. Man. Tensai.  I honestly had half a mind to just write “TENSAI IS STUPID.”  a couple dozen times instead of this paragraph, but I’ve probably said that enough times in this column. The match itself wasn’t actually half bad, and seeing Cody Rhodes against Rey Mysterio, made both of their move sets work better, since they’re lighter performers, and their whole dynamic worked well, since it made all of their moves make more sense. I can buy the fact that the 619 is a damaging move for a guy like Rhodes, because it makes sense.

When you do what amounts to a running spin-around drop kick through the ropes, I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy that you running and kicking someone like, oh let’s say Big Show, Cena, Kane, or even Randy Orton, is at all damaging. It doesn’t look good no matter how well they try to sell it. When someone like Rhodes does his Crossroads finisher, which is just a spinning face plant neck breaker thing, when it’s one someone bigger than him, it looks lousy. When it’s on someone his size or smaller, he effin’ slams their whole body into the mat by rapidly twisting their neck, and it looks painful as hell. I guess what I’m saying is, they need to create some kind of cruiserweight division again, where guys their size can fight other guys whose moves will complement each other, and we can get more faster paced, athletic matches from them, while still keeping the heavy hitting, methodical, grapple-fests from the bigger guys. You don’t even have to call it a cruiserweight division, just have those guys wrestle each other.

What? Right. The match. Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara win. Shocker, I know.

Back to Anger Management, we see the group Daniel Bryan and Kane are in, demonstrating trust falls. Daniel Bryan is hesitant, but lets Kane catch him, executing a successful trust fall. Kane catches him, and everyone applauds. The Counselor asks Bryan and Kane to work together, to catch their peer Harold. They extend their arms out ready to catch him, and both let Harold fall to the ground. Bryan asks Kane if he knew that he was not going to catch him, and Kane asks him back the same. Bryan says he feels like they are finally beginning to understand each other. Then we find out Harold may need medical attention, as he apparently took a pretty nasty fall.

Sheamus enters the arena again, ready to begin his match with CM Punk. Initially, this pissed me off, a lot. The fact that this CHAMPION VS CHAMPION match was what, the first of the second hour? It just seemed SO insanely disrespectful to BOTH of them (eff Sheamus), and the titles they hold. I got so upset I even TOUTED it to WWE, and in my mind’s eye, Michael Cole saw that Tout later that night, and thought, “This is true. Something must be done about this. Thank you Adam Popovich, your insight is invaluable. By the way, AJ says she totally wants to go out with you. Here’s her number.”

So when Punk comes out, he’s still dressed in plain clothes, and has a mic. He makes the perfectly reasonable point that a CHAMPION VS CHAMPION match is a Wrestlemania worthy main event, and uses the goodwill of the crowd to take the day off of work. He then leaves the arena, to mixed cheers and some boos from the crowd. On one hand, good on him. It’s Labor Day. If Lawler gets the day off, why shouldn’t he? On the other hand, I’m positive Chicago really did wanna see their Second City Saint wrestle that night. Sheamus tries to make some half-baked point about him “turning his back” on the fans, as well do Michael Cole and The Miz. Really though, the dude’s just taking a day off. I guess in the WWE Universe taking a day off might as well be up there with kicking puppies or loving Hitler, because they continually try to sell it as cowardly, or treacherous to his fan base.

Every single moment Punk was on stage/screen, that crowd loved him, and the only reason they booed him was because they wanted to see more of him. To try to spin that as anything else, makes you no better than Lawler. Besides, this whole angle is counterintuitive, because the goddamned WWE belt is SUPPOSED to mean you’re the best, and for them to try to say he somehow isn’t, doesn’t undermine Punk, it undermines the value of the BELT. Punk may not be the TRUE Best In The World, but goddamnit, right now, by definition, HE IS. Respect him for that. Let him, I dunno, compete in the MAIN EVENT of your PPV’s. Let’s see someone beat Punk clean, and then you can start trashing him about how he’s not the best, he never was, etc, etc.

On his way out, AJ tries to stop Punk from leaving. Punk reminds her of his contract (Is it Ironclad!?), that guarantees personal days. Not Josh Matthews comes to ask AJ what she’s gonna do for the match, and AJ says she’ll find Sheamus an opponent.

Back from a commercial break, Alberto Del Rio enters, and holy god, I was about to shit bricks with how uncreative a choice that was, but instead he takes seat ringside and starts giving commentary. Then Jack Swagger walks in, the sacrificial lamb in Punk’s place, because c’mon, there’s no way Sheamus is gonna lose to Swagger, and thus, no stakes in this match, or meaning. This is when you pull someone out like Tensai, or Big Show, and have it seem like some semblance of a challenge to Sheamus, who is riding so high on his Invincible White Guy gimmick right now they literally call him The Great White. A couple of times during the match, the crowd even begins to chant “BORING”, right up until Sheamus puts Swagger in a texas cloverleaf, which causes Michael Cole to freak out with excitement at seeing Sheamus use a submission for the first time ever. To give Sheamus credit, a man of his size, twisting your legs that way and place pressure on your back does seem pretty painful, so I can’t fault Swagger for tapping out, thus not making the whole ordeal look like a TOTAL cheap win.

Of course, then Del Rio jumps in to attack Sheamus, because screw it, it’s what Sheamus would do anyway right? Isn’t ADR supposed to be the Heel anyway? So it’s consistent with his character?  Right. Anyhow, Sheamus gets the upper hand, because reasons, and Ricardo Rodriguez, who is an announcer, and Alberto Del Rio’s friend, jumps in to break up the fight, or at least hold back Sheamus from continuing his beating on ADR, gets brutally Brogue kicked. I mean, sure, you could argue that Sheamus was “aiming” for Del Rio, but Ricardo very clearly jumps in to push him out-of-the-way, and Sheamus had plenty of time to stop his kick, but does it anyway. He then continues to taunt in front of Ricardo’s broken body, while Alberto Del Rio screams in worry and shock for his friends health, who now appears to be in a minor coma. I’m having a hard time trying to rationalize more and more how Sheamus is the good guy in this feud at all, and at this point, his entire reason for disliking ADR is that ADR is kind of a cocky jerk who flaunts his wealth, and is mexican. Everything ADR has done has been in retaliation for the scores of terrible things Sheamus has done to him. So despite the fact that these two guys have literally been fighting each other for the last 5 PPV’s in a row, I’m really rooting for ADR to just break his damn arm, and slap him with a restraining order, because it’s ridiculous how terrible Sheamus’ character is at being a good guy.

So after all of that noise, we get a divas match. Layla enters, and sits at ringside, giving commentary. Why they’re using this exact same trope again, beats me, and I’m guessing they’re hoping we won’t notice. Layla starts up some petty argument with The Miz about Eve’s character, who lately has attempted to try to turn Face again by acting, guess what? Honorable, Kind, and showing Good Sportsmanship! She insists that Eve is “phony”, and doing all of it as a ruse, and while she may end up being right, and I’d have to end up eating my words, the way things are in the WWE at this point I literally do expect the Heels to act far more honorable, kind and sportsmanly than any of the Faces.

As for the match itself, despite Kaitlyn’s weird man arms, they actually wrestled pretty well together. Eve even manages to win cleanly, and pins Kaitlyn, but still somehow, Layla manages to try to spin it as deceitful. Eve then checks on Kaitlyn to make sure she’s ok, congratulates her, and then exits the ring to shake Layla’s hand, in a show of good sportsmanship all around. I don’t understand how she’s supposed to be a bad guy anymore, but screw it. I mean, AM I IN GODDAMNED BIZARRO WORLD? Is there some universe where the WWE has its moral properties straight, and guys like Sheamus are vilified for being the goddamn hooligan assholes they are, and perfectly reasonable guys who are just kind of douchey aren’t seen as inherently bad?

The downside of that alternate universe would be that in real life, stealing, insulting, and beating people would be considered virtues, and sure Sheamus-2 would be a Heel, but Adam-2 would be complaining about why he isn’t a Face, when he’s clearly a good guy, based on all the lying, cheating, stealing and unprovoked attacks he does. Basically, no matter what universe I’m in, Sheamus pisses me off.

After that, we see Jack Swagger leaving the arena, with AJ following him. She asks him what he’s doing, and he says he’s leaving because he’s better than this. She acts like this is a big surprise, which is confusing for a multitude of reasons. Isn’t his match over? Why shouldn’t he leave? But really, he states that’s he’s LEAVING leaving, for a few months, probably because he’s goddamn sick of being buried so hard. AJ begs him not to leave, because Brock Lesnar, Jericho, and Punk have left, and now he is too. He tells her to get bent, and leaves back to his home planet. A planet called TNA Wrestling. Maybe. Hopefully.

And Jesus. AJ. You’re killing me. YOU were the one who made Jericho leave. You can’t have a “Loser Leaves WWE” match, and act like the guy abandoned you when he loses that match. I know, in real life Jericho left to focus on his band, but c’mon girl, kayfabe. Sometimes, I’d just rather attribute character inconsistencies or illogical choices due to breaking kayfabe, rather than just shitty memory/writing. Sometimes, I give the WWE too much credit. Ugh. Ok, sexy AJ pic time.

That’s better.

Back to Anger Management, we see Daniel Bryan expressing how his anger problem is cured, and is happy to give Kane a rematch for their match at Summerslam. Kane accepts it, while politely threatening him. They start to get in each other’s faces, with Bryan saying he’d make Kane tap out, and Kane threatening to destroy him in this very room. Harold pipes up, apparently recovering from his cranial trauma, and is quickly and angrily silenced by Daniel Bryan and Kane, who both yell at him to shut up. They continue taunting each other, and The Counselor tries to break up their fight, until he totally snaps, screams at them both, and storms off in a huff.

“Don’t let him hurt me Kane!”

Back to Michael Cole, who announces the WWE Interactive feature of the night, where he gives the WWE Universe the choice to choose what kind of match they’ll see. Tonight’s choices were:

You’re not misreading that. In a brilliant creative decision, someone decided to finally let the Raw Active thing do something useful, by putting up a hilarious “joke” choice as one of the selections, and you better believe I tweeted that #WWEhug like a mofo. In fact, ALL of twitter was lighting up with #WWEhug, singlehandedly justifying the use of Twitter, and Raw Active in one fell swoop. Some people complained about the overwhelming choice of @WWEhug, but goddamnit, why would you not want to see that? Why?

Backstage, Not Josh Matthews is asking a tearful Alberto Del Rio about Ricardo Rodriguez’s condition, and David Otunga shows up, saying that his “client”, will not be answering any questions at this time. I love Lawyer/Wrestler David Otunga, and think this kind of role is the perfect choice for him. I’m looking forward to the fake lawsuit ADR and Otunga will file against Sheamus.

So this was a match that happened. The Ryback Ryback’s Jinder Mahal. Is this supposed to be a feud? Are we supposed to suspend our disbelief to think that Jinder Mahal has a chance against The Ryback? The most interesting thing was The Miz saying he would go the distance in a match against The Ryback, which I’d actually like to see. This match was exactly like every The Ryback match ever, right down to the obligatory GOLDBERG chants. The Ryback wins. Also, the sky is blue.

Backstage again, we see Not Josh Matthews asking AJ what her plans are for tonight, since things are somehow falling apart, in his words. She tells him to tell Alberto Del Rio and John Cena, that their match will be a Falls Count Anywhere match.

Daniel Bryan makes his entrance into the ring, trying to calmly no… no… no… his way into the ring, followed by Kane. They stand in the ring, awaiting the results of the WWE Universe’s Raw Active choice. It’s announced that the winning match type is #WWEhug, meaning they have to “Hug it out”. What transpires, is probably one of the funniest damn things I’ve seen in WWE history. The two of them, both awkwardly trying to accept hugging each other, Daniel Bryan complaining that Kane didn’t hug him back, and the both of them finally, tenderly embracing, was priceless.

And EVERYONE cheered.

They then start to do the uncomfortable Bro-slap on each other, which escalates into them fighting each other, but holy hell, #WWEhug was a goddamn success. The whole thing as a de facto “match” being refereed, and The Miz spouting the “rules” of the match, was amazing. Of course, once they started fighting, Kane gets the upper hand and tries to put Daniel Bryan’s head inside a chair, and jump on it from the top rope, but he’s distracted by a group of Ref’s, and Daniel Bryan hits him with the chair and gets away.

I take it back. The official most forgettable match of tonight was between these two. Listen, I love Claudio Castignole. I do. But give him someone real to wrestle against. He’s goddamn great. Let him give the title some meaning. On the most part, this whole match consisted of Cesaro destroying Santino, and retaining his title pretty definitively. The best part of the match was Cesaro stomping on the stupid Cobra sock angrily. I honestly think the entire match was about two minutes long at best, so really, have Cesaro show his skills against someone real already.

This was probably the most underrated match of the night. The fact is, Zack Ryder, gimmicks and stuff aside, is a competent worker, who should be utilized more. So is Heath Slater. They’re both pretty much on the same caliber right now. Heath Slater may be playing resident jobber right now, but dammit if he’s not innately watchable. Zack Ryder’s enthusiasm is also very infectious, so really, the both of them ought keep doing what they’re doing, and we can get totally decent mid card matches like this. The only thing that would make them better is if they were longer. Zack Ryder gets the pin on Slater, and celebrates his official second win on Raw. I think. He’s never won more than twice? Damn. I didn’t notice. Anyhow, as harsh as that is, hopefully it’s changing.

Right after the match ends, Vickie Guererro walks into the arena, demanding a chair, to have a sit in, saying she needs to be heard. We cut to a commercial, and all I can imagine is that for 4 whole minutes, that poor Chicago crowd had to deal with Vickie just sitting there, boringly, while the live show they’re taping waits for the break to end, so they can continue the show. Perhaps something in timing was screwed up, because I’m feeling like the match should have gone on longer, and her coming out, and asking for a chair should have happened during the break, and we just come back to her in the ring with the chair.

And the whole thing is a setup for Vickie to reiterate her point last week, that AJ is abusing her power and “making things personal”, (GOSH A GM HAS NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE), but also, she demands a personal apology from AJ. She then starts to make the most retarded, already dated, shitty parody of the stupid Clint Eastwood/Chair thing that happened this last weekend. Thankfully it’s cut short, and never discussed again, as AJ comes out, and admits that the WWE Board of Directors have said she cannot place her hands on any of the WWE Talent, Staff, or Referees.

Vickie then embarrasses and humiliates AJ by demanding she apologize again after she already had. Then uses the whole “Board of Directors Mandate” thing, to insult AJ to her face, condescend to her, and then ends up actually slapping her in the face TWICE, knowing AJ can’t do anything about it in retaliation. It actually was pretty goddamned horrible, and made me feel for AJ again. I kept expecting AJ to announce her sudden resigning, and to kick the crap out of her, but instead she just takes it, accepting defeat.The crowd went insane the entire time, chanting SLAP HER, and USE THE CHAIR, right up until Vickie does her insane witch laugh out of the arena. AJ then grabs the chair, and smashes it against the ring floor in frustration. Really, I can’t blame her, and this segment went a long way towards endearing her to me again, whilst simultaneously making her appear somehow even more unhinged.

The main problem though, is that AJ has GM powers. Can’t she just fire Vickie? Or reprimand her for some reason? Or write her up for you know, assaulting the GM? C’mon girl, that Board of Directors thing goes both ways right? Right?

It’ll be okay girl. You smash that chair.

Despite Cena, this whole match was actually fairly long, and pretty damn decent. They opened up in ring like usual, and things proceed to spill to the outside of the ring, where surprisingly, Alberto Del Rio started to really dominate Cena, which was actually pretty surprising. At one point a LETS GO CENA/CENA SUCKS chant started up, and the interesting thing to note, is literally every single time that chant starts up, the LETS GO part is very high-pitched, and the CENA SUCKS part is significantly lower pitched. This is because only stupid kids are John Cena fans. Everyone else hates him.  Eventually, Cena tries to slam Del Rio through the announcer’s table, and tries dragging the steel steps over the table for a platform to suplex off of, but Del Rio counters it, and suplexes him through it instead. After a while, they end up heading backstage, and right as it looks like Cena is about to win, CM Punk shows up. Punk kicks Cena in the head, and rolls ADR on top of him, and surprise, surprise, Alberto Del Rio wins!

Punk then lifts up Cena, and slams his face into the hood of his a car. Punk kneels next to Cena, says the word “Respect”, hoists his belt in to the air, and Raw ends as we see that Paul Heyman is driving the car.

Which was supposed to be surprising, but it shouldn’t be SHOCKING to anyone who actually knows anything about wrestling, or pays attention to continuity, or you know, remembers anything that happened longer than a week ago. Last year, when Punk made his infamous “pipe bomb” shoot speech, he flat-out said he was Paul Heyman guy. In fact, that’s probably what got Paul Heyman back into the WWE scene. That and Brock Lesnar’s inability to talk on the mic, at all. Anyone who is surprised to see Mr. Paul E. Dangerously, and CM Punk, a wwECW alum, working together, is clearly just not paying attention, or is ignorant. I’m totally psyched for the whole damn thing, and even if WWE will keep straddling the line of Punk being a kinda sorta heel/tweener, if you have smark crowds like Chicago, you’re gonna have to change your storyline to reflect that. Period.

One funny side note, is that a fan had a sign saying “We Want Ambrose”, which made me laugh pretty hard. Keep waiting buddy.

Monday Night Raw Recap & Review: 8/27/12

Tonight’s Raw opens with a brief recap from last week, showing CM Punk issuing a challenge to John Cena, on the condition that Cena admit Punk is the best in the world. Cena refuses, because he thinks he’s the best, and made some lame ass pseudo inspirational rant about “always believing in yourself” and all that hokum he always spouts. After Cena abruptly left, Punk turned his attention towards Jerry Lawler, and demanded he apologize for his remark at Raw 1000, where he claimed that Punk had “turned his back” on the WWE universe, for attacking The Rock. Lawler apologized, but then “couldn’t say” that Punk was the best in the world, when asked to, despite having said and agreed with that notion dozens of times pre-Raw 1000. It’s ridiculously transparent how Lawler is insanely pro-face, in spite of any and all reason. Michael Cole may be his heel opposite, but he’ll occasionally provide logical reasoning behind why he likes the heels of the company. Anyhow, after refusing to admit CM Punk was the best in the world, he rudely bumped into Punk while exiting the ring, and Punk, in a fit of anger for the sign of enormous disrespect, kicked Lawler in the head. Let it be understood, that Jerry Lawler, (kayfabe) deserves this. He’s a terrible commentator. He says idiotic things all the time, makes no insightful remarks, and constantly promotes the faces, regardless of what their terrible, terrible actions may or may not be. Punk feuding with Lawler is supposed to make us think he’s turned heel, but all it’s done is endear him to me more.

I plan to use a couple more of these throughout this article, because goddamn. It’s true.

Following that recap, Jerry Lawler enters the ring, leaving his commentary table, and begins to speak about the events of the last few weeks, tell his side of the story, and then asks for an apology from Punk. Punk shows up, (sporting a new buzz cut, indicating a change of character. Seriously, his hair is almost always indicative of his character. It’s weird), and refuses to apologize to Lawler, defending his justifiable beat down of The Rock, and points out he never “turned his back” on anyone, and that the only person who did, was Lawler, who turned his back on Punk. He continues to explain this to Lawler, and gives the most backhanded apology in the world, slamming Lawler’s entire wrestling career, mentioning his feud with Andy Kaufman, the fact that Lawler has never been champion, and his loss to Michael Cole at Wrestlemania. It was pretty damn entertaining to see Punk rail into Lawler, and watching him stand there, stone faced, trying not to cry and/or attack Punk was pretty awesome.

It was a great moment that also featured this fan’s weird/awesome giant head sign.

Punk continues destroying Lawler, and ends up in a roundabout way challenging him to a fight, after seeing Lawler’s sad/angry face. Lawler regurgitates what he said earlier, about looking for an apology, and not a fight. Punk continues to call him a pussy, in so many words. He then says Lawler will leave embarrassed tonight one way to the other, either embarrassed from the beating he’d receive in the match between him and Punk, or embarrassed that he wouldn’t compete at all. Punk leaves, and Lawler says that “He’ll think about it.”

After that, we return right to a wrestling match between Jack Swagger and The Ryback. Swagger has been jobbing pretty consistently for a while now, and Michael Cole even mentions this fact, in a kayfabe manner by referring to his “losing streak”. They’ve been working on making The Ryback a bit more touchable lately, by having whoever he fights gain momentum in the middle of the match, which Swagger achieves, almost getting the Ankle Lock on him for a moment. The Ryback then gets the upper hand quickly, and amidst the cheers of his fans, who alternatively chant “GOLDBERG”, and The Ryback’s catchphrase, “FEED ME MORE”, he lands his falling suplex finisher. Which I don’t think has an actual name yet. It’s just a move he does that Michael Cole or whoever is watching him just comment on how “impressive” it is. So perhaps his finisher is called “The Impressive Finisher”, which is what I shall refer to it from now on. Seriously, I watch Raw and Smackdown every week, and unless I missed something, I have no idea what it’s called. So, The Ryback pins Swagger, and leaves the ring pumping his arms. Swagger sits outside the ring, grimacing in pain, probably thinking about quitting and joining TNA where he’ll have a chance to actually get utilized properly, and Jerry Lawler continues to say how he’s thinking about having the match with Punk or not.

Back from another break we go right into a Divas match. Natalya and Layla are actually two of the more talented female wrestlers from their small collection, and seeing them wrestle is something I actually would like to see more. Vickie Guerrero interrupts, and says she has an announcement to make, and that the match better end quickly so she could say it. The match starts, and we’re treated to a really decent match between the two. It’s actually pretty refreshing to see Natalya wrestle for a change, instead of relegated to being The Farting Girl on backstage skits on Smackdown. She’s the damned daughter of Jim Neidhart, the founder of the Hart foundation, and niece to Bret GODDAMNED Hart, so along with Punk, she deserves some respect. Seeing her attempt the Sharpshooter was a great moment, and if Layla wasn’t as talented and as likable as she is, I would have been really bummed to see her counter out of it. Thankfully, Layla picks up the win without using a roll up or small package pin, because that’s what they ALWAYS use to end Divas matches. She hits Natalya with a roundhouse kick, and pins her, and Vickie enters the ring.

Vickie says that AJ Lee has been abusing her power, by citing the example of last week’s Raw, where Jericho and Ziggler had a match, with the stipulation being that if Jericho won, he’d get Ziggler’s MITB contract, and if Ziggler won, Jericho would lose his CAREER contract. Vickie argues this is an unfair stipulation to the match for her to make, which it totally is. Only Vickie says that the MITB contract part is the unfair bit. If you ask me, a career contract, and a championship contract are not equal at all, and regardless of the side you take, Vickie has a solid point, that it is an abuse of power. She then publicly begs the WWE Board of Directors to put her back in the GM seat, and sack AJ, which prompts AJ to arrive.

AJ skips out, doing her usual cutesy-crazy affectations, hops into the ring, then slaps, and beats Vickie down to the floor. Pretty much solidifying Vickie’s argument about AJ being out of control and power-hungry. Vickie then runs out of the arena crying while… god… AJ bites her finger all sexily and…

 Oh god. 

 Ahem. She then composes herself and walks out. Basically, as much as I want to love and support AJ, she’s been a very middle of the road, typical GM that has done nothing interesting or new, and I’d rather see her wrestle, because she’s pretty damn good, and that suit she wears doesn’t flatter her at all.

Then we get subjected to a DX/Triple H video package. I’ve got nothing against DX per se, I’m just sick of video packages, and Triple H. The thought of having to see him address the events of Summerslam are so boring to me, I couldn’t care less. For those who didn’t see Summerslam, in a nutshell, Brock Lesnar beat the shit out of Triple H, and made him tap out. The crowd then shouted “YOU TAPPED OUT”, and “NA NA NA NA HEY HEY HEY GOODBYE”‘d him out of the arena, rather than the whole appreciative last stand thing, that he was clearly going for, or expecting. People are sick of him, and his stupidity. At least, the Summerslam audience was. Then of course, Brock Lesnar quit the WWE AGAIN, because that’s what he does, he’s a goddamn quitter.

After that, we see that AJ has ordered Daniel Bryan to take Anger Management classes, and we see a brief skit where Daniel Bryan attends Anger Management. What transpires, is one of the strangest,  but funniest skit’s I’ve seen in a while. Daniel Bryan sits in the Anger Management circle, and states that he has no anger issues, and couldn’t be calmer. In walks a young boy, wearing a goat mask. Bryan walks up to the child, and begins NO NO NOing him, upon seeing the goat mask. He then asks who set the whole thing up, and demands the boy take off the goat mask, by screaming at him. The Anger Management counselor says that the boy is his son, and plays a goat in his school play. The boy takes off the mask, and we see he’s crying. Daniel Bryan then looks genuinely sad and confused, and takes a seat. At the very least, he’s working through his issues right?  I love the idea that Daniel Bryan now has this pavlovian reaction to all goats now, and that all you’d need to do to distract him is hold up a picture of a goat. I keep thinking about him trying to watch TV and accidentally turning on Animal Planet, and catching a show about goats, and then raging out and destroying his whole living room, and slapping the YES-Lock on his dog.

Back to the ring, we see Jerry Lawler step back in, and speak. He defends his wrestling past, by pointing out the legends of wrestling he’s fought, and while he agrees with the other assertions Punk made, that Lawler is immature, never been champion, and feuded with a comedian, he tries to use those things inexplicably, to defend himself. After that, he accepts CM Punk’s challenge, and says he’ll fight Punk tonight. The crowd cheers, ostensibly in support of Lawler, but I’d like to think they want to see Punk destroy him.

After another commercial break, John Cena appears. Which was kinda shocking, because John Cena showing up, without being called out, or having something to get off his chest, simply to wrestle in a non-main event match, is pretty uncommon now. The biggest bummer was simply that the match up between him and Miz is so disparate, it might as well not even happen. The Miz has only just started to become a great mid card, IC champion, but having him up against Robo-Cena seems like a foregone conclusion.  However, Miz does give Cena a serious run for his money. If anything, the whole match built up Miz to get him over, since he dominated the whole thing, only with Cena doing his usual infinite Robo-Cena kick out, to the same as usual, goddamned shift into the 5 Moves of Doom, and his usual last-minute wrap up win. This match, despite Miz’s efforts to make it interesting, is a perfect example of what is wrong with John Cena. Every single match of his is like this. He gets his ass kicked, never sells anything, miraculously kicks out over and over, does 5 moves at the end, and wins. He’s boring. I can’t stand seeing him on my tv any more. It’s sickening that he’s the face of this company. Sickening.

Back to Daniel Bryan, we see him sitting through the Anger Management session. He sits there listening to some guy gripe about his boss, and his asked his opinion. He then expresses his, pretty solid feelings on how he’s been unfairly treated by his boss, who is his former girlfriend/ex-fiancee, who left his at the alter on live tv, puts him in a match with her demonic, pyrokinetic, psychopath pseudo-boyfriend, which he still won, and she forced him into Anger Management regardless. If anything, I’d say he has a right to be mad. The Counselor says he just got a text from the last patient who had yet to show up at the session, and of course, in walks Kane, in full wrestling gear, fire mask and all. Considering that the rest of the people there were normal, everyday folks, in plain clothes, Daniel Bryan included, it was especially surreal to see Kane walk in, in his full garb. Then again, the idea of Kane showing up in civilian clothes would be even stranger. Does this mean that Kane has a cell phone? That he texts people? What’s his data plan? Can you think of him dealing with AT&T customer service? Like if he gets put on hold too many times he just makes fire shoot out of the speaker on their side of the phone? Or worse, does he drunkenly sext AJ? I bet they’d have really weird booty calls.

I’m liking Heath Slater more and more each week. I’m hating Santino more and more every time I see him. Their match was pretty incidental. The crowd even chanted BORING at one point. The only highlight, if you could call it that, was seeing The Cobra react to Aksana showing up, with random “sexy” saxophone music to accompany her. The Cobra then attacks Heath Slater, and Santino pins Slater for the win, with the Cobra keeping its “eyes” on Aksana.

The entire concept of the Cobra being “horny” for Aksana, is just TOO over the top weird for me, because it just makes me think that Santino is either A.) possessed ala Idle Hands by cobra demons, and his limbs really are independent of his own free will, or B.) he’s got the strangest form of Dr. Strangelove Hand Syndrome, or C.) He’s just an insane person, and really needs help. No matter what way you put it, the Cobra is stupid. It always is stupid. It always has been. It always will be. It’s the Bret Hart of stupid gimmicks. Take it away Punk!

After Funkasaurus and Sin Cara’s lengthy intros, Damien Sandow comes out, and announces that he has finally found a colleague of his that he can have an intelligent conversation with, and of course it’s Cody Rhodes. The two of them make their way down the ramp, making an excellent job of showcasing their chemistry together as a team, and their insults towards Funkasaurus and Sin Cara all worked really well, and for the first time in a long time, I was excited to see the dynamic between two former single competitors, as a tag team.

Unfortunately, the match wasn’t really long enough to see them do anything together, or give them a chance to show us if their obvious and immediate character chemistry, worked in ring, but they’re definitely a team I’d look forward to seeing work together again, which is more than I can say for most of the singles-to-tag team teams. Basically, Funkasaurus managed to stomp down Cody Rhodes, while Sin Cara isolated Damien Sandow from hitting Funkasaurus’ magical weak spot (aka the knee), and Funkasaurus picked up the win after a huge splash. Funkasaurus and Sin Cara are an interesting duo together, in that they’re the exact opposite end of the spectrum, from Sandow and Rhodes, in terms of my interest in them working together. While I love Sandow and always appreciate more and more Cody Rhodes, I find myself increasingly disliking Funkasaurus and Sin Cara each time I see them. They’re the bizarro world opposites of each other in that way for me.

Back again to the third and final Anger Management video package, we see Kane being asked to share his feelings with the group. He is asked to take off his mask, and complies. When asked to share, he goes on to give the most hilarious, and frigging epic recall of his entire characters history, which when compiled altogether that way, is so absurd, it’s comedy genius. He even at one point gets meta and references how his motives for inexplicably torturing Pete Rose are entirely unexplained. The whole thing had me dying with laughter, simply that everything he said actually happened, and seeing the WWE reference continuity in this way, was so brilliant and funny. If the WWE wants to become more continuity conscious, I have no problem with them doing it this way. Refer to it, admit it’s kinda silly, but hold onto it, rather than ignore it. Plus, seeing Kane talk about his past relationships will never not be a laugh riot.

Kofi Kingston and R-Truth come out, and Kofi heads over to take commentary for the duration of the match. Why? Because I guess R-Truth and him are super-duper best friends now, and can never have matches without the other being present. I know they’re trying hard to get them over as an actual tag team, but when they’re STILL both referred to by their full names, and you know they had relatively long singles careers, it’s hard to accept them, because man, they STILL don’t have any chemistry. What was great though, was seeing Daniel Bryan enter the ring, making his entrance, trying to control himself, and only silently saying “no, no, no”, to himself, rather than his angry, defiant NO’s to the crowd. Not only that, he fist bumped R-Truth to begin the match! After a few minutes in, he even attempted to fist bump Little Jimmy, signifying either his true descent into madness, or his ability to overcome hardship and control himself. Or both.

After a minute or so of wrestling, their match spills to the outside of the ring, where R-Truth picks up a mic, and starts speaking to Little Jimmy. He answers Little Jimmy’s questions by saying YES over and over, which awakens the (American) dragon inside Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan starts losing it, and scream NO at the audience until he is counted out. He then realizes to his horror, he’s lost the match, when he sees Kofi congratulate Truth on his win. Bryan then violently starts kicking the steps to the ring, and parades around screaming NO. Try as he might, he just can’t escape his catchphr- I mean anger. Hey, if this whole Anger Management angle gets us the calm, cool, collected Daniel Bryan back, or god willing, the amazing WWE version of Heel Bryan Danielson, like he was for a few months post MITB 2011 and Pre-YES YES YES, I’m all for it.

Like these guys!

Triple H finally comes out to talk about his Summerslam match and whether or not he’ll be quitting/retiring/whatever. I’m so sick of talking about Triple H, so I’ll keep this as brief as possible. Triple H comes, fake cast on and everything, to a pretty big cheer from the crowd (ugh), and says, in a nutshell, that he’ll be retiring. He says it in the most longwinded fashion possible.

Dude, you let your own hubris ruin yourself by challenging a stupid human wrecking ball with a flat top. You’re the one who demanded the referee ignore the rules, and you’re the one who goaded him into even having the match in the first place, when Brock and Paul Heyman both warned you repeatedly for your stupid actions, saying that you”d get destroyed, and you did. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Just retire forever. Work behind the scenes. Hire more sucky mediocre talent like Sin Cara. Whatever. Just get your stupid wrinkled brow and ponytail off my television, and stay off. Please. Accept this dumb crowds applause and goodbye pop, which you were hoping for, but didn’t get, at Summerslam. Goodbye forever Triple H.

After that horribly long pill to swallow, we’re treated to Dolph Ziggler tricking the audience by coming out to Jericho’s music. He then says Jericho is gone forever, and walks to the ring. ADR makes his usual entrance. Between these two guys, I always love to them see in the ring, and whichever of them become the new WHC champion, I’m fine with. ADR is the #1 Contender, but Ziggler still has his MITB contract, so this is potentially setting up a future feud between them. Of course, Randy Orton still exists, so blaeaaeeegghhh. Also, Sheamus.

This is another example of the singles competitors being forced into tag teams, that just doesn’t work again. Tag Team matches can BE amazing, when your teams actually have chemistry, a move set that complements each other, and maybe even a good gimmick or team name. But watching these guys, all struggle to make their spots work, comes off as rushed, forced, and worst of all, boring. Actually, the worst thing was Sheamus and Orton, who both supposed to be faces, cheating to win. Blatantly, openly, cheating. The way HEELS are supposed to. Why they’re considered faces boggles my mind, and I hate it. I hate them both.

Hey, any time I can see Zack Ryder on Raw, I’m happy. Same with David Otunga, and frankly, they’re two talents who could use more time in ring, period. Also, seeing Kane come out, simply to sit down at the announcer’s table, only to stay silent, despite Michael Cole badgering him with questions the entire time. After Zack Ryder lands his finisher, he wins the match. Kane then stands up, immediately goes to attack Ryder, and even clasps his hand around his neck, but relents, and instead chokeslams Otunga. Ryder leaves holding his throat, and Michael Cole starts saying that perhaps this is progress for Kane, since he’d normally attack both of them. I think he’s just trying to get at AJ again, and this is his way of showing commitment? Maybe that makes sense to crazy people. *shudder*

The match between Lawler and Punk is announced as a Steel Cage match, which made me happy, since that’s what I voted for on twitter. Shortly after, AJ comes out to announce that Punk will be defending his title at Night Of Champions against John Cena. Seriously? Goddammit AJ, Y U DO THIS TO ME?

So this whole match was one big exercise in making Jerry Lawler look like he’s still a viable wrestler. From the opening “first shot” that Punk let Lawler have, to Punk getting bloodied by Lawler mid match. After letting us all pretend that Lawler can still wrestle for a few minutes, Punk busts out the Anaconda Vice, and wins. After the match, he grabs a chain from under the ring, and chains himself in the cage with Lawler, puts him in a headlock, and demands he admit that Punk is the best in the world. Lawler refuses, and Punk starts beating on him relentlessly. That being his cue, Cena runs out to save Lawler. He’s unable to open the chained door, and demands they raise the cage. He stands outside, demanding Punk stop, utterly helpless to defend Lawler, all the while Punk batters Lawler with multiple knees to the head, while screaming he is the best wrestler over and over. The cage raises, and Cena jumps in the ring, and runs to Lawler’s aid. Punk walks out, championship belt on his shoulders, triumphant in his victory, while Cena and referee officials stand by Lawler’s side, who is now apparently mortally wounded. Or dead. I hope.

In all, this is a finish to the show that indicates two things. #1, this really IS the final heel turn for Punk, because all the signs are there. Haircut? Check. Constantly shouting he’s the best, regardless of whether he is or not. (Bryan Danielson is, but in WWE, Punk is, so sure.) Check. And of course, attacking a “defenseless” announcer is always a bad thing, unless you’re John Cena and the announcer is Michael Cole. So because of weird double standards, and the general idiocy of the WWE Universe, you’ve got a crowd of people jeering CM Punk for attacking a guy in a match he asked for, for disrespecting him repeatedly, unfairly, and with no provocation. I don’t see how Punk isn’t deserving of respect, or isn’t the WWE Best In The World, because if we’re to presume for a moment, that the WWE Championship is supposed to mean anything, it’s that you’re the BEST WRESTLER in the company. And if WWE is the LEADING Wrestling promotion IN THE WORLD, then logically, this has to mean that you are the BEST IN THE WORLD. You could debate if Punk really is, in shoot terms and ability, but kayfabe, of COURSE he is. He has to be, by definition. John Cena showing up and saying that Punk’s actions are way over the line, are at the best, stupid, and at worst, hypocritical AND stupid.

Screw this. I’m outta here, biotches.

But, also, this is probably the last time I can realistically, and logically say that Punk is no longer a tweener, when he’s so clearly being portrayed as the villain now. I’m not saying his actions are indefensible, far from it. He’s not on the level of, oh let’s say, Sheamus, because everything Punk does is consistent with what a tweener or heel would do, and that’s fine, because he’s supposed to be. Heel Punk is good Punk. Anything Sheamus is bad Sheamus, same thing with Cena. If there’s one big thing that WWE needs to fix, it’s having their heels and faces act consistently, with what heels and faces are supposed to do, instead of this weird reverse bullshit where faces act like heels and are cheered for it, and heels act realistically and are booed for it forever. It makes me want to rip my eyeballs out and dunk them in sulfuric acid.

Anyhow, hopefully Jerry Lawler is dead, because he’s a bad announcer. I’m sick of his dumb propagandistic mark ass bullshit.

Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 8/6/12

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.

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

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…