Monday Night Raw
Date: June 25, 2012
Location: Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

Tonight should be an eventful night. Jericho is back tonight and we should begin the build to the ladder matches. From what I understand we’re going to have specified title ladder matches instead of brand ones, meaning that the brands will mix even further. So far all we have is Big Show in the Raw Title match so we need to start filling in some of those spots. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the AJ saga and dang she is cute.

We go live and AJ is talking to all three of the guys she’s involved with, although we can’t see any of them. She tells “Daniel” that they need to drift apart. When she sees Kane she wants to get wild, but Kane is a monster instead of a man. She thinks of herself and Punk as soul mates but it’s best if they go their separate ways. The camera pans around to show she’s looking in a mirror.

Theme song.

Brodus vs. Show tonight.

Here’s Vickie because she’s in charge tonight. She thinks she’ll become GM on the 1000th episode of Raw. Here’s the first match.

Daniel Bryan vs. Kane vs. CM Punk

This is under elimination rules but I think it’s non-title. Kane takes them both down to start but Bryan goes for his leg. They double team the monster just like at the PPV and send him to the floor, only for Bryan to grab a rollup for two on Punk. Punk hooks a kind of curb stomp for two and knocks Kane back to the floor. The suicide dive meets an uppercut and AJ is watching in the back. Bryan dives into Kane and is rammed into the barricade as we take a break.

Back with Kane in control but the small guys double team him. That goes nowhere as Punk plays Animal to Kane’s Hawk, but the clothesline misses as Bryan rolls up Punk for two. They suplex Kane down and speed things up, doing their usual strike off. Kane charges over the top and Bryan gets launched on top of him. Punk dives onto both of them and heads back in. Punk dives into a YES Lock attempt but he rolls out of it. The high kick gets two on Bryan who gets his foot on the ropes.

He loads up the GTS but Kane kicks him down for two. Side slam gets the same. There’s the top rope clothesline and Kane loads up the chokeslam, but here’s AJ to skip around the ring. Chokeslam is countered and there’s the GTS to eliminated the big fried freak. Bryan comes in and kicks Punk in the head to win it at 10:10.

Rating: C+. I like this pairing and AJ made things even better as usual, so I’m fine with this as the opener. Kane is still the wildcard in this so it’s hard to say where things will wind up, but it looks like they’re going with Punk vs. Bryan III or IV or whatever they’re at. That’s cool with me as their previous matches have been awesome.

Alberto comes in to see Vickie and has Ricardo present her with roses. Del Rio says he’s #1 contender but Ziggler comes in and says he’s #1 contender. Vickie makes a match between them and it’s a contract on a pole for the title shot on Smackdown. Ziggler breaks the vase and flowers.

Brodus Clay vs. Big Show

Brodus jumps Show to start and hits the headbutt to the chest, but Show goes after the bad knee to take over. The knee gets wrapped around the post and there’s a Vader Bomb. Brodus fights back but Show falls on his slam attempt, giving Big Show the first win over Brodus at 2:35. I tell you, this Big Show kid is going places you hear?

Video on Cena’s 300^th wish being granted.

Another Raw moment is Bob Barker on Raw.

During the break Big Show knocked Brodus out. Brodus is going to be gone for awhile I’d bet.

We get the HHH challenge to Brock from the PPV as well as the reaction from Heyman from last week. Brock will answer HHH next week.

AJ hits on Kane some more. Kane says she makes him feel things. That’s not good either because he isn’t boyfriend material. He thinks she’s crazy and says they need to stay away from each other. AJ laughs and cries at the same time.

US Title: Jack Swagger vs. Santino Marella

This is the first defense on Raw for Santino since April 16. Swagger runs away from the Cobra and slams Santino down for two. A legdrop sets up an armbar but Santino gets fired up again. Santino comes back with the usual and loads up the Cobra. Swagger picks him up but gets caught in a DDT. The Cobra retains at 2:39.

Cena finds a Johnny Ace shirt in a donation bin but Ryder throws it in the trash.

Here’s Cena for his major announcement. For the past month the company has been turned upside down to the point where it’s been like a bad Star Wars movie. Cena talks about the last month in Star Wars terms, such as Darth Show, Han Soul-Bro, the R2-A-RI and Cena Skywalker. That wasn’t bad. Apparently winning the match was easier than bullseyeing womp rats back in Beggar’s Canyon.

He goes to make the announcement….and here’s Jericho. We see Fozzy performing in Europe which is the explanation for his absence. Jericho says get on with your announcement because tonight is Jericho’s night. Cena says Jericho is back and makes the announcement that he’ll be in the MITB ladder match for the Raw World Title. He’s doing it so that Show won’t win the title. Cena says he’ll win the whole fudging thing, resulting in an argument over the show being PG.

Jericho doesn’t like the idea of Cena thinking he can walk into MITB and win in the first try. Jericho invented the match and has been in three of them, with Cena pointing out that he’s never actually won one. If Cena is looking for fun, go in a Bouncy House. Jericho enters as well, and here’s Vickie. She says there are two MITB matches and no one can place themselves in them. I guess Big Show gets grandfathered in?

Jericho cuts her off and Vickie freaks out. Only former WWE Champions will be in the Raw World Title match: Jericho, Kane, Big Show and Cena. Thank goodness as four people in there is WAY better and easier to work with. She makes Jericho vs. Cena for the main event.

Heath Slater vs. Psycho Sid

Sid slaps him down to start and slaps him off the top rope. A BAD looking spinebuster puts Slater down so Heath works on the knee a bit. Sid shrugs that off and hits a legdrop followed by the powerbomb for the pin at 1:29. Sid is no Vader.

Someone will be tweeting about Raw during the 1000th episode and they’re a celebrity. WWE.com says it’s….Charlie Sheen?

Alberto Del Rio vs. Dolph Ziggler

Contract on a pole, winner gets Sheamus on Smackdown. Del Rio pulls him down off the pole to start and Ziggler does the same to him. Del Rio climbs the corner but Ziggler climbs Del Rio, only to get caught in a Samoan Drop from the middle rope. They both go up again and the contract winds up on the mat. You have to control the contract and it becomes a game of who can get possession of it first. Both guys and the contract is down and Ricardo goes for it, only to have Ziggler kick it to the floor.

They tumble to the other side of the ring and here’s Sheamus to say it’ll be a triple threat match for the title. So the match is just kind of thrown out I guess, meaning no rating as I have no idea when it ended, but Sheamus came out after maybe 3:30 or so.

Punk vs. Bryan for the title is official for MITB.

AJ comes up to see Punk (AJ: “Guess who?” Punk: “King Kong Bundy?”) and suggests they go out after the show. Punk wants to have a talk with her but AJ misinterprets his meaning.

Another Raw Moment: This Is Your Life Rock.

Divas Battle Royal

They’re all in bikinis and Vickie enters it as well. You can go through the ropes to be eliminated here. It says a lot that I have no idea who half of these girls are. Everyone goes after Vickie to start and it’s a big brawl. Someone goes out and the announcers don’t bother to say who it is. Aksana is out and it’s your usual mess. Alicia and Kaitlyn are out as is Rosa. Beth puts out Tamina and accidentally knocks out Natalya. Layla puts out Beth so we have AJ, Layla and Vickie. AJ knocks out Layla with some help from Beth and Vickie tries to throw out La Psycho. AJ goes off and eliminates her to win at 2:13. This was AWFUL.

AJ does Bryan’s YES chant post match.

Smackdown is live next Tuesday and it’s the Great American Bash.

Chris Jericho vs. John Cena

Jericho bails from an AA attempt as we take a break. Back with Cena fighting out of a chinlock but getting dropkicked down for two. Cena hits a suplex to put Jericho down but he lowers his head for a boot to the face. Off to a chinlock but Cena escapes and this the spinning mat slam. Walls and AA are countered into the ProtoBomb and the Shuffle….but here’s Big Show. AA is countered into the Walls but Show drops the leg on Cena for the DQ at 8:18.

Rating: D+. You know, if Jericho had actually beaten Cena more than once in ten years (it’ll be ten years since he beat him one on one a week from today), I might actually buy him as a threat here. That isn’t the case though, so I didn’t particularly care about this match at all. Big Show running in helped a bit but the match was just there to fill in five minutes of TV time.

Overall Rating: C. The more I watch WWE TV lately, the more it becomes clear that they have NO idea where they’re going with AJ’s story. It’s entertaining so far, but man they’re starting to go in circles with it. The show wasn’t boring tonight but there were some very bad parts, such as the pole match being thrown out because Sheamus was apparently told it was a tie. Vickie is good at what she does and is still beyond annoying, but I wouldn’t want her around every week as GM. Decent show but with some BIG holes this week.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 18, 2012
Location: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler
Guest Star: Cyndi Lauper

It’s the first show after No Way Out and Ace has been fired. Naturally he’s here tonight to say goodbye or whatever. Is anyone really surprised that someone is here the night after he got fired? Other than that we’re probably going to start the build towards MITB which is in four weeks. Punk is still champion so he needs a new challenger. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Foley to open the show. He got a call last night from the Board of Directors regarding the new permanent GM. Since he’s a former Commissioner, he was asked to host both Raw and Smackdown this week. Therefore tonight, it’s Kane/Daniel Bryan (HUGE Yes chant) vs. Punk/Sheamus. There’s something he has to do that isn’t so pleasing though, which is bring out Johnny Ace for his farewell address.

Ace is in a sling and a neckbrace while walking with a cane. Foley of course hugs him, making Ace cringe. The fans boo a lot and Ace keeps asking the fans to keep it down. Foley requests the same but also says Ace whispered that Long Island sucks. Ace says that before he was fired last night, he made the main event of Cena vs. Big Show, Otunga, and himself.

Sheamus/CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan/Kane

Sheamus and Bryan start and Danny Boy sends him to the apron. Sheamus comes back with the slingshot shoulder and a powerslam for two. Tag to Punk with a slingshot hilo for two. Off to Kane who kicks the champion in the face for two. That would be the shorter champion in case you’re confused for some reason. Punk hits forearms to both guys but Kane stops him cold again.

Punk ducks a clothesline and hits the suicide dive onto Bryan. This is a fast paced match so far. The springboard clothesline hits uppercut though and we take a break. Back with Punk fighting out of a chinlock with a failed GTS attempt. The chokeslam is countered by a high kick and both guys are down. Sheamus comes in with the top rope shoulder block. Bryan isn’t on the apron for some reason.

Powerslam gets two for Sheamus and there’s the Irish Curse. Bryan comes in sans tag but gets caught by six forearms to the chest due to Kane making the save. Regal Roll is countered and Kane shoves Sheamus to the floor. Bryan hits a running dropkick on the floor and takes over back inside. Some kicks to the chest get two and it’s back to Kane. Side slam gets two as does the top rope clothesline.

Back to Danny Boy who fires off more kicks but misses a running dropkick in the corner. Off to Punk who fires off with his usual stuff on Bryan. The neckbreaker is countered but Bryan’s kick misses. Powerslam sets up the running knee into the bulldog out of the corner. The Macho Elbow is countered and Bryan hits a superplex to put both guys down. And here’s AJ in Kane colors and a Kane match. The song being called Let’s Light It Up seems somewhat appropriate now. She skips around the ring and leaves with Kane following here. This allows a GTS into a Brogue Kick combination get the pin on Bryan at 14:29.

Rating: B-. Pretty decent main event style tag match here and AJ continues to be awesome. When a girl can look good in a mask, it says a lot. I would think this sets up Punk vs. Bryan again, but the ending wouldn’t really suggest that. Anyway, this was pretty solid and made for a good main event style tag match.

Ziggler and Swagger are arguing in the back when Vickie finally shoves them apart. She says that right now they’re going to have a match and the winner full attention.

Ace, Otunga and Show are in the back. Ace talks about how Show is going to know Cena out so Ace can pin him. He says it’s going to be funny when the fans get a great moment as their final Ace moment. Show says he doesn’t find anything funny.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Jack Swagger

BIG face pop for Ziggler here in Smark Land. They trade takedowns to start and show off afterwords. Ziggler gets thrown off and may have hurt his knee. Swagger goes after it with a leg lock and shouts that he’s better than Ziggler. There’s the ankle lock and Ziggler is pulled back to the middle of the ring. Swagger CRANKS on that thing but gets rolled off into the corner. Zig Zag gets the pin at 4:10. That was the only big move Ziggler hit all match.

Rating: C. This wasn’t bad but it was more or less a squash with a surprise ending. Ziggler is just dying for a face turn here as he has nothing left to do with Vickie but the same could be said about Swagger. Either way Vickie leaving one of them would be a good thing, but I think Ziggler would have the bigger impact.

Vickie kisses Ziggler post match.

We get HHH challenging Brock from last night.

Lawler’s favorite Raw moment is Vince in the hospital in 1998. Mr. Socko debuted and Austin hit him with a bedpan. The anal violation is missing.

Here’s Heyman to answer for Lesnar: No. As he leaves, here’s HHH. “You know, I don’t think we’re in a bingo hall here.” HHH says he wants to only talk to Brock Lesnar and Brock Lesnar will face him at Summerslam. Lesnar wants things to be about him, so Lesnar will be the star of Summerslam and we get a promotional poster with Lesnar on it. Heyman says Lesnar has no ego and even HHH laughs at that. HHH knows Lesnar will fight because there’s no way Brock will go down in history as the guy afraid of HHH.

Heyman tells HHH to stop pretending to be a fighter he used to be. Go back home to your wife and kids and be the King of Kings, because around here you’re not the king of anything. Paul tries to goad HHH into hitting him, even saying that HHH is becoming like Vince more and more every day.

Heyman says go ahead and hit me because them he and Lesnar will own this place, and there won’t be anything in it for HHH. There will however be something for Stephanie, and that snaps the Game. He doesn’t hit Heyman but he chokes him. Heyman says he’s HHH’s match because he’s smarter and knows everything HHH will do. And there’s a right hand for Paulie. HHH leaves as referees help Paul up.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Santino Marella

Non-title of course. Also since it’s the US Champion, this is a total squash with Santino tapping to the cross armbreaker in 1:25. Ricardo gets in a shot on the arm post match.

Video on Cyndi Lauper in the WWF in the 80s. Basically she was the catalyst for Hogan vs. Piper which spawned Wrestlemania.

Here’s Layla to introduce Lauper as part of the 1000th episode of Raw celebration. You know, a show Lauper has NEVER BEEN ON. Wendi Richter is here too. Lauper is BOMBED. Even Cole says we’re sorry for this after she says about two words. Richter says nothing of note. THANKFULLY Heath Slater comes out to brag about not needing a band. He’s going to debut his single here tonight and it’s him badly singing his theme song. Lauper makes fun of him and here’s Piper for the rescue.

He calls all four of them Miss and Slater says that Piper didn’t like Lauper back in the day. Piper takes off his jacket. He says he loves Lauper and gives her a gold record to replace the one he broke over Lou Albano’s head back in the day. Slater is still here for some reason. He says it’s time for him to sing and Lauper breaks the record over his head. Cole says this is one of the worst segments in Raw history. That would be correct.

Primo/Epico vs. Prime Time Players

AW introduces his new team, which is the Prime Time Players if you didn’t watch the PPV last night. Epico and Titus get things going and the power controls to start. Off to Young who Titus suplexes onto Epico for two. After a quick chinlock by Young it’s off to Primo as things speed up. Everything breaks down and Young’s gutbuster is countered. Backstabber to Young but Titus pulls him to the floor. The Colons hit steres dropkicks through the ropes but the Players leave before the double dives can hit. It’s a countout loss at 2:56. Ok then.

Jericho is back next week.

Here’s Ace to talk about how all of the fans are losers now because they don’t have People Power. Post break Teddy is here to rip up his name tag. Big Show says that there’s no need for him to be here because he knows he can beat Cena and that he doesn’t have to answer to Ace anymore. Otunga and Ace are on their own.

John Cena vs. John Laurinitis/David Otunga

Otunga starts and is slammed and bulldogged very fast. Ace walks away from a tag of course and after more of a beating, Cena FINALLY misses a charge and gets sent into the steps. Ace comes in and throws off the sling and brace and stomps away a lot. Now Otunga won’t tag in and walks out. Cena is back up, hits three AA’s and the STF for the tap at 6:21. I’m not even going to bother to rate this but it was nothing at all other than a way to write Ace off TV for at least a week.

Overall Rating: C-. This was more or less a throwaway show without anything really going down tonight. HHH punching Heyman is probably the biggest thing tonight and that’s really not saying much. The show wasn’t horrible but it was one that you could easily pass on without having to watch at all. Ace will be back I’m sure. Foley didn’t really do anything at all as the host either, but maybe that’s what Smackdown is for. Weak show this time.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 11, 2012
Location: XL Center, Hartford, Connecticut
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

It’s the final Raw before No Way Out and it’s a three hour special. The main draw tonight is that Vince is here to give Ace another performance evaluation. Also we may find out what’s going on with Del Rio, who may have a legit concussion and may be out of the title match on Sunday. We might even get some more contact between Cena and Big Show tonight if we’re unlucky. Let’s get to it.

Theme song opens us up.

Here’s Ace for the performance evaluation. Vince comes out and asks why he shouldn’t be fired. Ace says people power, and that we’re approaching the 100^th episode of Raw. Yes, 100^th. Vince asks the fans if they love people power, which of course gets booed loudly. He asks Ace about Lesnar and the big bonus to Big Show, the latter of which hasn’t performed well since 1999.

Ace reminds Vince about having his head shoved into Big Show against DX. Ace says that this is the new Big Show which will be proven on Sunday in the cage. Vince makes fun of Ace’s voice but gets cut off by Sheamus of all people. Vince introduces Sheamus to Ace which made me chuckle for some reason. Sheamus says he’s been listening to this and that he agrees with Ace. Ace really is the friend that he says he is.

He’s the kind of a guy that’ll fine you half a million dollars just because he can, or carry a grudge against you for bumping into him on the way to the ring. Vince stops to point out that Fire Johnny is the #1 trend worldwide. Sheamus calls Ace the worst GM ever and Vince should fire him. Ace says that he’s going to go find an opponent for Sheamus and Vince says it better be good or he’s fired. Vince rides away on Ace’s scooter because he’s Vince McMahon. Then he shoves it off the stage and does his walk to the back.

Back from a break and it’s officially confirmed that Del Rio is out of Sunday due to a concussion.

Sheamus vs. Tensai

They trade power moves to start and Sheamus pounds him into the corner. Tensai charges into a boot and Sheamus takes out the knee. Back up and Tensai hammers him down with an elbow, but Sheamus comes back with a clothesline to send both guys to the floor as we take a break. Back with Tensai working over Sheamus in the corner before hitting a running splash. Vader Bomb gets two.

Sheamus is trickling a little blood out of his mouth. Either that or his hair is melting. I guess it fires him up as he comes back with some ax handles. Tensai knocks him to the apron and we get the ten forearms from the outside instead of the inside. The top rope shoulder is caught in the Baldo Bomb but it only gets two. Back up and the Brogue Kick ends this out of nowhere at 9:19.

Rating: C. This was a hard hitting match, but it’s pretty clear that Tensai isn’t going to be a top main event guy. All I can say to that is phew, as his times in this spit haven’t impressed me in the slightest. At the end of the day he’s just Albert with a new name and nothing really that impressive to him at all. The match was a good striking battle though.

Vince says that’s strike one to Ace. Vickie comes in and suggests either Ziggler or Swagger to face Sheamus or both in a triple threat match. Ace says he has a great idea but asks Teddy for his thoughts first. Teddy says there are four former world champions here, with Khali and Christian being the other two. He suggests a fourway elimination match with the winner facing Sheamus. Vince likes it too, so Ace tells teddy to go get coffee. Ace offers him a fist bump and Vince says he has small hands.

Back with Tensai destroying Sakomoto, which is a good thing as the guy never really did anything.

We hear from Seth Green about his time as guest host of Raw.

Truth says he feels fine after getting attacked by Big Show. Little Jimmy however was traumatized. Truth tells Jimmy to straighten up. On Sunday, Big Show is going to lose to Cena. And Truth is now unconscious from a right hand.

Ad for the 1000th episode, which says that DX will be there.

Santino Marella/Layla vs. Beth Phoenix/Ricardo Rodriguez

Ricardo wrestles in his tuxedo of course. The girls start but Ricardo tags himself in. Santino has to come in now so Beth tags herself back in, telling Ricardo to stay out. Layla beats up both villains and Ricardo goes to the floor. Santino comes after him with the Cobra but Ricardo runs away….right into the post. Beth kicks Layla in the knee and hits the Glam Slam for the pin at 2:57. Total comedy match.

Post match Ricardo celebrates but Santino rips his shirt off, revealing a Justin Bieber t-shirt.

Otunga sucks up to Vince who isn’t impressed. Kofi storms in and demands a match with Show tonight, which is ok. Ace makes it a cage match as a preview for No Way Out.

Here’s Bryan to talk about the triple threat match. He says that one of the three wrestlers in the match is unlike the other, and it’s clearly him. He’s different because he doesn’t have AJ to deal with on Sunday. Punk has tried to steal her after Bryan proved he was a better wrestler and Kane is fascinated by any girl that looks at him and doesn’t vomit. Bryan says AJ is still obsessed with him, because once you go Bryan, you never go back. He says he’ll win the title on Sunday, but here’s Punk.

Punk says that for someone who is over AJ, Bryan talks about her a lot. AJ and Punk have one thing in common and that’s Bryan. Outside of the ring, AJ is out of Bryan’s league, and inside the ring, Punk is way out of Bryan’s league. Punk likes crazy chicks, but he likes the WWE Title even more. On Sunday, it’s about the title and Punk will either beat the deranged out of his mind freak, or he’ll beat Kane. Either way he’s leaving with the title.

Bryan: “No, No, No.” Bryan says Punk has changed. He used to be the voice of the voiceless but now he panders to everyone. The people have no voice because they have nothing to say. They chant that Big Show is a sellout, but the real sellout is Punk. Punk: “So says the ‘superstar’ in the YES YES YES t-shirt.” Punk talks about his shoot a year ago and how many people have complimented him on it since. It’s not Punk that has changed, but rather the people that have changed.

Just like him, Bryan has broken through the glass ceiling, but since then he’s become an insecure self-obsessed goat faced moron. The fans of course chant goat face. On Sunday, Bryan is getting a wake up call when he gets put to sleep. Cue Kane who talks about all of the things he’s done on Raw, including setting fire to JR, electrocuting Shane’s testicles and tombstoning a priest. His pipe bombs are actual bombs, so he’ll win the title on Sunday.

This brings out AJ who says he could see it in Kane’s eyes that he has a heart. Punk: “You’ve gotta love crazy chicks.” AJ says that you never get over your first love, and then she smiles at Punk. Punk is the coolest guy she’s ever known in her life. Bryan wants to know the point of this, which AJ says is that the best man will win. Ace pops up on screen and makes Bryan/Kane vs. Punk/AJ.

Christian vs. Great Khali vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Jack Swagger

Elimination rules and the winner gets Sheamus on Sunday. If Christian wins, Cody gets his title match at some later date. Khali chops everyone down to start and dominates, until the three blondes triple team him down. Christian hits a frog splash and they dog pile him for the pin and a break. Back with Christian getting double teamed for two. He backdrops Ziggler to the floor though and makes his comeback on Swagger.

Jack charges into an elbow in the corner and takes a jumping back version off the middle rope as well. Ziggler back in with a rollup on Christian for two, but Christian sends the team into each other. Killswitch is countered as is the corner sunset flip. The Vader Bomb hits feet and the corner sunset flip hits for two. Ankle lock goes on Christian but he makes the rope….which doesn’t count for some reason. Instead he sends Swagger into the post and hits the Killswitch but Ziggler steals the pin.

Vickie yells at him, allowing Christian to roll him up for two. Ziggler works over the knee and hooks a modified half crab. That gets escaped pretty quickly so Ziggler hooks the sleeper. That gets countered as well and Christian spears him down for two. Killswitch is countered into the Zig Zag which also gets two. Christian’s reverse DDT gets two and he goes up. Ziggler tries to run up the ropes but gets shoved down. Vickie’s distraction lets him get up though so Christian jumps down, reinjuring his ankle. Zig Zag gives Dolph the title shot at 12:20.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good with the final pairing being exceptionally solid stuff. Ziggler was definitely the best option, but gee, wouldn’t it be better if he hadn’t lost almost every match he’s had in the last few months? Still though, good stuff here with everyone doing their jobs well.

Vince is talking to Natalya who wants another Hart Family gathering on Raw. Vince says he’ll see them later but runs into Brodus’ chicks. The Funkadactyls beg Vince to let Brodus back on Raw but he says no. A dance party ensues. Ryder pops up with his jaw hanging open. Vince says WOO WOO WOO You Know It.

Ryback vs. Willard Fillmore/Rutherford Hayes

Ryback kills one of them and the other tries to run. Ryback kills him on the floor with a clothesline then throws him over the top rope and back in from the floor. Double Samoan Buster ends this in about 1:30.

Vince and Horny are watching Horny’s JR impression from Smackdown and Vince does a JR impression. Cena comes in (pop of the night) and they talk about their respective Wrestlemania failures. He wants Ace to be fired tonight and he won’t help Kofi. Cena leaves and Otunga comes in, talking about how Vince shouldn’t fire Ace. Vince: “No one likes someone that kisses another man’s behind. No offense.” The camera pans over to Regal who is sitting on the couch. Funny stuff.

Kofi Kingston vs. Big Show

Cage match. Show’s entrance is after a break and Brodus vs. Otunga is announced as the pre-show match on Sunday. Kofi charges at Show to start but he gets thrown down very quickly. The beating begins with Kofi being thrown into the cage time after time. After about five minutes of Show standing around, Kofi dives at the cage wall then jumps over Show to get some separation. Trouble In Paradise gets one and Kofi goes for the door. WMD kills Kofi and Show walks out at 7:24.

Rating: D+. I was tempted to not rate this as there was maybe a minute and a half of action in this. Show stood around A LOT in this and it got dull in a hurry. The problem here is that they made it clear what was going on in a hurry and there was no need to let it keep going. Nothing to see here but it did the job it was going for so points for that.

Sin Cara vs. Curt Hawkins

Hawkins’ tights are so bright green that even the lighting can’t cover them up. Cara sends him to the floor and hits a gorgeous corkscrew plancha. Hawkins trips him up and puts on a quick abdominal stretch which doesn’t last long. Cara comes back with the Tajiri elbow and then steps on Hawkins’ hands. He runs the ropes for the armdrag and the spinning mat slam gets the pin at 2:30.

There’s a clock counting down to Vince’s decision.

Bryan is getting ready in the back when Vince comes up. He says that there’s an expression of you can’t judge a book by its cover, and Bryan is the epitome of that. Bryan talks about how he was fired once before and had to prove his way back. Vince references the Mania loss in 18 seconds, which is faster than Vince has ever finished anything. What in the world was the point of this?

Ziggler’s favorite Raw moment was the first Raw.

Heath Slater vs. ???

The opponent is a former Raw main eventer that Ace has brought in. Slater wants to know why we’re talking about the past when he’s the current star. He says it’s Slater Time, so cue…..VADER TIME??? He looks WAY better than he did that time he was at Cyber Sunday. To be fair he looks like he ate half of the Rocky Mountains but it’s still an improvement. The fans go crazy for Vader and the pain begins. He destroys Slater but Heath gets in some shots. A slam attempt fails completely and the Vader Bomb ends this at 3:14. No point in rating it but it was fine all things considered.

AJ is panicking but Punk tells her it’s ok, just don’t do anything crazy. She kisses him on the cheek and his face says “why me?”.

Kane/Daniel Bryan vs. AJ/CM Punk

Punk tells AJ to stay on the apron while he does all the fighting. Kane starts and counters the bulldog with a big boot. Off to Bryan for some YES Kicks. After a quick chinlock Punk hits the powerslam to take him down. The Macho Elbow misses but Punk can’t tag out. Kane comes in and knocks Punk into the corner which constitutes a tag. AJ comes in….and skips around Kane. He turns to look at her so she jumps into his arms and kisses him. After that, Kane walks away and it’s off to Bryan. Punk kicks him down and the Macho Elbow gets the pin at 4:58.

Rating: C-. The match wasn’t the point here of course but rather the storyline development. I’m really curious as to what the conclusion of this is going to be which is the whole point of the story, which means it’s a success. I have no idea who is going to win on Sunday or what is going on, and I really like that feeling.

Post match AJ sits in the middle of the ring like Punk.

Here’s Vince with security guards for the decision on Ace. He sucks up to Connecticut before saying that since a life began here in Hartford (Stephanie) it’s appropriate that another ends here. Ace comes out and says he doesn’t appreciate what happened to his scooter. The security isn’t necessary because he would never attack Vince. Vince says the security is for Ace, because someone is going to be walked out of the business. Ace talks about the stuff he’s done for Raw and how the company needs him for the move to three hours.

He talks about People Power which Vince says are his signature two words. Vince has his own signature two words….and here’s Big Show. Show says that he can do anything he wants because he has an iron clad contract. Yeah he can be fired but then Vince would have to pay him millions of dollars for years, which Vince would never be able to do. Show says that’s not Ace’s fault, but rather Vince’s for everything he’s had to do for the past 14 years. Show has done everything Vince has asked for but now he can be what he really wants: a giant.

Instead of being worried about Ace, Vince needs to be worried about John Cena, because Show is going to destroy the golden goose. At No Way Out the feathers are going to get plucked and here’s Cena. Cena says he’s here on official business to get to the bottom of all this. What’s left to get to the bottom of? Show has blamed Cena, the fans and Vince. Who is blamed next? McDonalds for their chicken nuggets? The only person to blame is Ace who backed up the truck full of money to Big Show, causing nothing but whining from Big Show.

Ace has said that Show can now be a giant but Cena says Show has always been one. On Sunday, the match looks so one sided that there’s no challenge for Big Show. But what happens if he loses? If Show doesn’t win, there’s no excuse left. If Show loses, he’s no longer the World’s Largest Athlete, but rather the World’s Largest Disappointment. He’ll have to show up every week and hear the people call him a sellout.

Vince says he’ll be at ringside on Sunday, sitting next to Ace. If Show loses, Ace is fired. Show grabs Cena by the throat but security pulls them apart. Cena breaks free and pounds away but Show covers up. Show swings and misses Vince by about four inches but Vince goes down anyway. It did graze the top of Vince’s head so it doesn’t look completely awful, but it’s still bad. Show leaves to end things.

Overall Rating: B+. I had a really good time with this show tonight. First and foremost, the matches for Sunday were actually given development, especially the Raw Title match. Sheamus has a new opponent who fits perfectly for his match and will likely give him a much better match. Show vs. Cena was already set and Cena can turn it on at the drop of a hat so him just having a cameo was fine. The Vince/Ace stuff tied the whole show together and it worked very well. This is what you call EFFORT and it pays off.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 9, 2006
Location: Giant Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 5,500
Commentators: Joey Styles, Jonathan Coachman, Jerry Lawler

This show can be summed up in three words: Live Sex Celebration. Edge shocked the world last night by cashing in the first Money in the Bank Briefcase to win the world title from Cena after Cena retained in the Elimination Chamber. Tonight, Edge and Lita are going to celebrate by having live sex on Raw, which is more or less the biggest nightmare that Linda McMahon wants to keep in her political closet. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the show last night. I remember talking to a huge Cena fan who I went to school with and freaking her out the next day by telling her what happened. This recap goes on for like five minutes too.

Here’s Cena to open the show. He’s still mostly a rapper here so he talks about how life is full of choices. Last night Edge had a choice to make and he won the WWE Championship because of it. Tonight the fans are making choices, including those that have made the choice that he sucks. He’ll stand with all the people that love him and for the people that hate him, they can kiss it. Tonight, he’s cashing in his rematch clause and he wants Edge right now.

Cue Lita who was in her VERY hot period. She says Cena doesn’t get his rematch tonight because of “oral persuasion” she gave to Vince, so the rematch is at the Rumble. Apparently the only wrestling Edge will be doing tonight is with her, in the ring tonight. It’s going to be a threesome with the two of them plus the title. See, Edge actually knows what to do in bed. Cena says he’ll see Edge at the Rumble.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James

Trish is defending but Mickie psycho at this point, so she demands that the fans cheer louder for Trish. Wait Ashley is challenging. So why is Mickie there at all?

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Ashley Massaro

Trish is still defending. Ashley grabs a headlock to start and grabs a quick headscissors. It’s clear that she’s not ready to be in the ring for an extended period of time yet but she’s getting the basics down I guess. Ashley hits a kind of bulldog for two but it causes Mickie to snap and come in for the DQ. Psycho Mickie was awesome. Lillian screws up and announces Trish as the winner.

RVD will return in the Royal Rumble. He had been out for most of a year.

Cena is getting ready in the back when Vince comes in. Vince talks about great those first time things are, such as the first time Edge won the title last night and the first time for Edge vs. Cena at the Rumble. Then he talks about the Live Sex Celebration which isn’t his idea either. Cena seems to like the idea, but Vince says if Cena interferes he loses his rematch. Before he leaves, Cena says there’s some evidence of Lita’s “oral persuasion” on his pants. Cena wasn’t quite ready to talk to Vince at this point.

Carlito is getting taped up for his match later when Masters, his partner, comes in and grabs him by the shirt. Masters yells about the loss last night and blames Carlito for it, as Carlito screwed Masters over while he had Cena in the Masterlock. That really was pretty stupid of him when you think about it. They have a tag match later.

Rob Conway vs. Chavo Guerrero

Royal Rumble qualifying match. Conway runs him down to start and poses ala Chavo. Chavo comes back with right hands in the corner as I have to question who thought this match was a good idea. I get that Chavo was getting a push recently because Eddie died but do we need to see him qualify against Rob freaking Conway? Chavo tries to skin the cat but gets kneed to the floor.

Conway works on the back on the floor and Chavo is in some trouble. Back in and it’s off to a chinlock with a knee in the back. An Eddie chant brings Chavo back and he kicks Rob to the floor, followed by a pescado to take him out. Chavo pounds away and dropkicks him down for two. Conway rolls through a spinning cross body out of the corner for two as the announcers discuss the live sex celebration. Rob mocks Eddie’s chest slap to really make him hated but his suplex is countered into Three Amigos and the Frog Splash gets the pin.

Rating: D. This was in essence a squash match that took awhile. Did we really need to see Chavo Guerrero qualify for the Rumble? This was one of the downsides to Eddie’s death: Chavo getting pushed because of it. Chavo is a talented guy but at the end of the day, there’s nothing of note to him. The match was pretty weak here too. Oh and in case you were wondering, Chavo would last 59 seconds in the Rumble.

The Wrestlemania Big Time Moment is Edge winning MITB. Seems appropriate for tonight.

Shawn is in the back when Angle comes in. Kurt is mad at Shawn for superkicking him out of the Chamber last night. Shawn says he did it because Angle busted him open. They’re a team tonight so they need to forget about last night. Apparently a match against Carlito/Masters is bigger than a world title match in the main event of a PPV. Ok then Shawn. Shawn wants to know if he can trust Angle. Angle shows off his medals and asks if he can trust Shawn. Kurt mentions something about a zero tolerance policy.

Shelton and Mama Benjamin are here with Mama running into Val Venis. She recognizes him from some of his movies but can’t place him. He lists some titles and is told where he’s going when he dies. This was one of those questionable choices they made around this time, as Mama Benjamin is a comedian in a fat suit.

Chris Masters/Carlito vs. Shawn Michaels/Kurt Angle

Shawn and Angle argue over who starts the match so the other team jumps them. Angle sends Masters to the floor so it’s Shawn vs. Carlito to get us going. Carlito gets taken to the mat via a headlock and things settle down a bit. Shawn pulls the hair which is a bit more evil than it usually would be due to the massive afro that Carlito has. Off to Angle who gets a big response here in Pennsylvania. He hooks a headlock of his own as Daivari (Angle’s manager) yells a lot.

Carlito finally hits a suplex but Angle runs him over with a clothesline for two. Shawn comes in and gets a good reaction in his own right. It’s quickly back to Kurt who takes Masters down with a headlock. That’s a popular move tonight isn’t it? Masters fights up and hits a powerslam but the Masterlock is countered into a release German. Angle misses a charge into the post and Carlito knocks Shawn to the floor as well.

We take a break and come back with Carlito stomping on Angle in the corner. Angle finally snaps off an overhead suplex to get himself a breather and it’s a double tag to bring in Masters vs. Shawn. Shawn slams him down and hits the top rope elbow for no cover. He loads up Chin Music but Carlito makes the save. Carlito comes in legally now and hooks a chinlock. Shawn is bleeding a bit over the eye.

The Backstabber stops a Shawn comeback but Shawn hits a backdrop out of nowhere. Angle walks away from the tag though and Shawn is in trouble again. Shawn breaks the Masterlock before it goes on and DDTs Masters down. Angle walks away from another tag attempt to check on the shine on his medals. Shawn superkicks Kurt down which counts as a tag apparently. Masters throws on the Masterlock which gets the win via knockout. Daivari gets a superkick too.

Rating: C. This was the main event style tag match but it was more about furthering Shawn vs. Angle which is more than fine with me. This would continue an incredible series between the two which saw them stealing almost every show they were on. Carlito and Masters would self-destruct soon after this without many people caring. Carlito had a ton of potential but it never really went anywhere.

Vince comes up to Shawn in the back and says that was the real Shawn. He makes Shawn vs. Kurt for next week to end their feud once and for all.

We get some stills from last night where HHH used a sledgehammer to beat Big Show.

HHH says it’s funny that Cena lost the title to someone that meant nothing a week ago. That was a big change, but the one constant around here is him. He warned Big Show that he would get hurt if he came after HHH and that’s what happened. Now it’s time to go to the Rumble and then to Wrestlemania.

Vince’s Devils (Torrie, Candice and Victoria) are in a bed in the back. Ok then.

Last night after the win, Edge and Lita said they would have sex on TV tonight.

Clip of Stacy Keibler on Dancing with the Stars.

Shelton Benjamin vs. Val Venis

Another Rumble qualifying match. Val takes over to start but Shelton hides behind his Mama. Back in and Shelton works over the back to take over. Off to a chinlock which Val fights out of pretty quickly. Mama shouts that Shelton better win here. Val comes back with a half nelson slam and small package for two each. A spinebuster looks to set up the Money Shot but Shelton rolls away and grabs an Oklahoma Roll for two. Val gets a cradle out of the corner for two as Mama keeps shouting. She stabs Val in the tights with something, allowing Shelton to hit the Exploder for the pin.

Rating: D. This was a comedy match that forgot to be funny. It was a common thing both then and now to see the company trying to be funny and probably amusing themselves, but for the masses, this comes off as really stupid and unfunny. Hey look, a stereotypical fat black woman yells a lot and gets a win for her son. This totally makes me want to watch more of the show right?

Royal Rumble ad, with the theme of Ancient Rome with Vince as Caesar. This guy’s sexual fantasies would scare me to death.

Kane vs. Snitsky

Rumble qualifier, Snitsky assault, Kane no sells, chokeslam, pin, less than a minute.

Kane says that’s the first casualty on his way to Mania. There will be 29 others at the Rumble, which isn’t the error that I thought it was.

Edge arrives and is met by Lita.

Here are Edge and Lita for the Live Sex Celebration. Edge says that the champ is here and that no one saw it coming. He outsmarted everyone and cashed in when no one expected it. To be fair that’s true, as this wasn’t a total cliché like it’s become now. Edge says that in this industry, you don’t have to be the biggest or the toughest, but you do have to be the smartest. He was patient, just like he was with Lita. He took everything he wanted and last night he did that again.

We get a highlight reel of Edge’s past set to Right Here by Staind. It’s actually a decent recap of his career. That brings us to last night but they didn’t have sex. Edge wants to do it right here live on Raw. We get the special music and they take each others’ boots off. Lita’s top comes off as does Edge’s. The skirt and pants come off next so they’re in their underwear. Edge throws her down in front of him so she’s bent over and there goes her bra. They go under the covers and we get a full on shot of Lita’s breast. Edge takes her underwear off and Lita seems to go down a bit.

And here’s Ric Flair because who wants to see Lita right? He calls Edge a disgrace to the title and says he’s dead in the bed. Flair dances down the aisle as Edge puts his pants back on. Flair chops him to the floor but gets his head cracked with a chair. Say it with me: Flair is busted open. Edge loads up the announce table and puts the chair on it before going to get another one. There’s a Conchairto for Flair and Cena finally runs through the crowd to make the save. Edge runs off so Cena goes and looks under the covers at Lita. Smart man that Cena. Lita takes an FU to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. Ok the wrestling here pretty much sucked, but this was ALL about Edge vs. Cena. If I remember right, and I could be wrong, this show did one of the highest ratings in years, which is to say that Edge was a popular choice as champion. The Live Sex Celebration may be the second pinnacle of his time in WWE, which is saying a lot all things considered. This was a big moment, but unfortunately Cena got the title back just three weeks later, as they didn’t trust Edge at Mania yet. Still though, this is more about a memory than a great show, which is ok.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Vengeance 2002
Date: July 21, 2002
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detriot, Michigan
Attendance: 12,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz

So at this time, the Brand Split has just happened, although this is still a double branded show. The main feud is Rock vs. Angle vs. Taker. Just glancing at the card, this show more or less sucks. Other than that, there just isn’t much here. Cena’s PPV debut is here if that helps anything at all. Van Dam vs. Lesnar could be ok I guess. Uh yeah let’s just get to this as I’m not sure how it’s going to go.

Should be noted that in April of this year, Orton debuted. In May Batista debuted, and in June, about a month prior to this, Cena debuted. Not bad for a three months period is it?

The opening video is based on a passage from the Bible of all things. Oh I forgot. Bischoff made his WWF debut around this time. Oh sorry. It’s WWE now. Really short though.

Tazz and Cole threatened JR and King and therefore they get to call half of the show due to JR and King not wanting to deal with a pair of idiots like them.

BubbaRayDudley/SpikeDudleyvs. ChrisBenoit/EddieGuerrero

This is an elimination match. Since D-Von got sent to Smackdown and is now a preacher (with a deacon named Batista), Spike and Bubba are more or less the new Dudley Boys. Yeah it didn’t work and at I think Survivor Series they put D-Von and Bubba back together. Eddie’s mullet is insane here. Benoit gets a decent pop. I’ve always liked how Fink said Benoit. Absolutely no reason for these guys fighting has been given yet.

Tazz says the Dudleys have tables all over their yard and porch. That’s kind of an amusing visual. Also, it’s stuff like that that is dead in wrestling today. It’s ridiculous, but it gives their characters a sense of kayfabe realism. Today, they’re just two guys that like putting people through tables. Here, they still have a bit of the crazed hillbillies in them which is what made them awesome in the first place. Benoit was hurt at KOTR 2001 so he’s back full time now.

See, that’s the kind of stuff we need to be told in case we’re not up to date. You know, information like WHY THEY’RE FIGHTING! Later in the fall, Bubba would get to feud with HHH over the world title of all things. To say they were low on ideas at this point is an understatement. With no tables involved yet, Cole is surprised that Benoit and Eddie are controlling this.

In other words, Cole is surprised that Benoit and Eddie are out-wrestling the Dudley Boys. WOW. Taz starts a sentence with “Those of you out there that haven’t been put through a table.” That sums up why I don’t have to make fun of it, even though it was made in a joking manner. HHH decides on Raw or Smackdown tonight. Ok then. Also, four ECW guys in there. But yeah Vince, ECW didn’t have much influence on WWE today. None at all.

Spike runs in for a modified Poetry in Motion that was pretty nice. This has been ALL Radicalz. Yes I know that’s not their name anymore so save your annoying comments. Bubba spears Spike to save him from going through a table. We’re about ten minutes into this and no one is eliminated yet. Spike does a double stomp to the ribs of Benoit from the top rope.

There’s no way that doesn’t hurt no matter how well you get ready for it. Bubba misses his back splash through the table but it doesn’t count since it wasn’t via an offensive move. They’ve been consistent with that so I can buy it. Spike reverses a suplex into a Dudley Dog on Eddie to eliminate him.

They kind of mess up the landing though as Eddie goes ribs first into it and doesn’t hit the ground with his body. Ow I think. Benoit hits a gorilla press on Spike (think about that for a second) and it’s one on one. And Bubba wins it with a Bubba Bomb.

Rati…..BUBBA DUDLEY JUST BEAT CHRIS BENOIT ON PAY PER VIEW??? WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT NONSENSE? SPIKE DUDLEY JUST BEAT EDDIE GUERRERO ON PPV??? I MUST HAVE EATEN SOME TAINTED YAK GUTS OR SOMETHING BECAUSE THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!!!

Rating: D+. It was long and had some drama, but in what non-existent universe should the Dudleys beat Eddie and Benoit in ANY kind of match? Someone explain this to me. Also, NO EXPLANATION of why they’re fighting at all. This was just a bizarre fifteen minutes if there ever has been a bizarre fifteen minutes. I’m legit stunned.

Bischoff says he’s here to sign the most ruthless athlete he knows of: HHH. Oh let it begin. He’s going into the Smackdown GM’s office. The Smackdown GM at the moment: Stephanie. I’d love to see HHH trying to get them to compete for his services. Three round competition: karate, lingerie, mud wrestling. Hey, tell me Stephanie wouldn’t look hot in a gi.

CruiserweightTitle: JamieNoblevs. BillyKidman

At this point, the belt means jack. It’s the guy wins title after being on “an impressive roll as of late”, holds it for like three months while never defending it, another guy goes “on an impressive roll as of late” and normally he wins the title. This would be the first major, and I use that term more loosely than Lita after a bottle of Jack, title defense for Noble though, so there’s more or less no way he loses here.

That and I reviewed the match where he did lose it already so yeah this isn’t in any doubt at all. Wow absolutely no one cares here. We get the line about Noble not being your traditional cruiserweight as he uses a ground based attack and isn’t a high flier. Well duh, he’s a heel champion. Has there ever been a high flier that’s a heel? Only an idiot would book that? Kidman goes up top. I wonder if he’s about to GET READY TO FLY.

I really could not be less interested in this. Yet I’m writing a review of it. There’s something extremely wrong with me I think. How in the world did Noble win the ROH Title for a month? Was that like a massive rib or something? Noble messes up Kidman’s shoulder to try to make people care. To be fair, Kidman gets some pops in there.

Oh some guy named Rey Mysterio debuts Thursday. So four months you got Ortn, Cena, Batista and Mysterio. Not bad. Kidman doesn’t tap to an armbar. Kidman goes for an enziguri. It lands on Noble’s back. Wow this is making my head hurt. Shooting Star misses and Noble rolls him up for two. Noble hits a Tiger Bomb to end this.

Rating: D+. Not bad, but seriously, no one really cared. This just filled in about 8 minutes and wasn’t that good at all. More or less a nothing match that went nowhere at all. Not that it was terrible or anything, but no point at all.

Angle says he’ll win tonight but does so in a comedic manner. He makes economy jokes based on Detroit. Wow that’s odd. Heyman and Lesnar interrupt and a rivalry is set up. Lesnar has the title shot at Summerslam. Brock was still the silent killer at the moment. Angle’s character has slowly grown on me over the years. He’s so happy go lucky and joking but he can whip so much ass in the ring that it’s ok.

EuropeanTitle: WilliamRegalvs. JeffHardy

Hardy is champion here for no reason whatsoever. Maybe the reason is he pinned the European Champion in a title match. Ah apparently it was to Hardy on Raw a few weeks back. He cried after losing the title. Cole of course makes fun of him. Jeff gets a big old pop even at this point. The fans can’t stand Regal at all. He always was a good guy for getting heat. Hardy does that dropkick through the middle and bottom ropes that he does but leaves it short.

Hardy messing up a move. Who would have guessed that? Whisper in the Wind doesn’t have a name yet. Oh and Jess is wearing body paint now. Swanton lands on the knees. That must hurt badly. Hardy gets a weird looking rollup from nowhere to retain. Seriously he was getting his head kicked in and then was rolling him up. Nice ending….I think. Regal freaks again afterwards.

Rating: D+. I know I’ve used that a lot here but it’s what comes up. Just a weird match to put it mildly. It was just random with Regal dominating most of the match but losing out of nowhere. The fans popped big for Hardy though so I can’t complain there.

Flair congratulates Hardy. Hogan is here too. These three are in the same company 8 years later and two of them are legends here. See something wrong there? Hogan says he might use a Swanton later. Flair says what he thinks Ross would say. It’s….not that funny. Hogan says he’s worried about Vince appointing Eric and Stephanie as GMs of THEIR company. Flair was still onscreen owner here, so what the heck is Hogan talking about HIS company?

Flair says he’s worried for the young guys. Oh that’s PRICELESS. You hear all of the political stuff coming, and you have to wonder why they have no problem talking about their bosses like this with a camera looking right at them. That’s wrestling though so I can go with it.

JohnCenavs. ChrisJericho

So Cena had debuted like a month before this and had nearly beaten Kurt Angle in a challenge match. Jericho is heel here mind you. Not bad for a debut feud. Jericho couldn’t beat him three days ago so he beat the tar out of him with a chair. Yeah Jericho not being able to beat Cena. I’m stunned too. Cena has generic rock theme #849B here. Oh and he’s from Boston here. Also he’s wearing red shorts with a white stripe up the side. It was a very different time.

He wouldn’t be a rapper for a few months. This is a totally different guy than you’re used to. He’s not that good in the ring, he has NO heat, and I don’t think he has an actual signature or finishing move. Jericho kicks his head off with a spinning heel kick. I love that move. More or less Cena is just trying to survive here. Random note but TNA started about a month before this. Lionsault misses and Cena gets two on a rollup. Jericho getting ticked off is a thing of beauty.

Lionsault hits but he doesn’t cover like an idiot. Cena counters the Walls into a rollup for a quick pin. See what I mean by not having a finisher? And remember, Jericho was main eventing Mania three and a half months earlier.

Rating: C-. TV level match here but this is far more of a signature moment than anything else. Jericho put him over clean here and you can’t ask for much more. This wasn’t bad at all, and given Cena’s experience at this point, there was only so high they could take this. Also, Cena beats Jericho again.

Bischoff and Coach are waiting outside Stephanie’s office where HHH has been for awhile. Her lawyer goes in. I don’t care.

JR and King take over on commentary.

RVD is stretching. So is Lesnar. BUYRATE BABY!

We recap them, which more or less is Lesnar is awesome and beats up everybody he fights. He beat RVD to win KOTR. That’s about it.

IntercontinentalTitle: BrockLesnarvs. RobVanDam

Ok so make that Cena, Orton, Batista, Mysterio and Lesnar in four months. Think this was a good time for the company? Heyman was perfect in this role. Although I do wonder why knowing Heyman’s money history Lesnar would let him handle his contracts. Makes little sense. Van Dam is OVER. Oh yeah he’s the hometown boy here. Brock uses an FU about 4 seconds in and since he’s not John Cena, it does nothing. Yeah Lesnar’s strength is nothing compared to Cena’s.

Van Dam gets some solid shots in on Lesnar that makes things believable at least. Weird to think that both of these guys are world champions today, almost eight years later. Lesnar hits a powerslam on the floor. Freaking OW! Ross thinks Van Dam has the advantage in speed in quickness. My head hurts from announcers at times.

We hit the bear hug with Brock in control. Van Dam cues up his comeback with Heyman’s advice being DON’T LOSE! F5 is countered into a DDT. Five Star connects but Heyman pulls the referee out. Yep, it’s a weak DQ. The referee beats up Heyman for no apparent reason. F5 to RVD post match.

Rating: C+. The key thing here was they had to protect both guys and that’s what they did. Van Dam keeps the title and had Lesnar beat, but Lesnar didn’t get pinned. It’s a nice deal because as they said, Lesnar had nothing at all to lose here. This was fine for what it was.

Let’s waste more time outside Stephanie’s office because it worked so well last time. Stephanie walks out and she’s not happy looking. She says he signed. Ok then. HHH walks out and Bischoff yells at him. Apparently he signed divorce papers. He hasn’t decided on who to sign with yet.

BigShowvs. BookerT

This is no DQ for no apparent reason. Maybe we’ll GET AN EXPLANATION HERE! No count outs either which I would have though was self-explanatory. Ah here’s an explanation. Show beat up Booker on Raw to culminate their feud. SO WHY ARE THEY FIGHTING??? Booker is in blue here which is oddly working for him. Apparently Show wanted the stipulations here. Oh and Show is in his one piece swimsuit again.

He would be the first guy to beat Lesnar. Wow. He’s just big, slow and bad here. We hear WWF here which would be a big issue today. If nothing else Show looks funny, although I don’t think that was their intention. Booker gets a good monitor shot into the head of Show on the floor. We now get one of the most contrived spots I can remember in a long time.

After that monitor shot, Booker gets on the other end of the tables and Show just happens to stay in perfect position for the axe kick. So if he hadn’t stood like that, what would Booker have done instead? That’s what I mean by contrived. We go back in and an axe kick and the Houston Hangover (front flip into a leg drop from the top) gets a clean pin. This was borderline squash.

Rating: D+. Not very good and that awful spot killed it for me. This was just random and it came off badly. Booker went on the hottest streak of his life just after this, culminating in being fed to HHH at Mania 19. This was just a weird one though.

Torrie and Dawn Marie are at The World, the newly named WWF New York. This was pointless.

And here’s HHH. Yeah, after about a month off or so, it’s time to talk about what his career plans are. Oh freaking JOY. Apparently he’s the biggest name in wrestling. Ok then. And we’re into HHH is awesome time now. Ross says he coined the phrase Cerebral Assassin months ago. Yeah that’s why they were using it OVER A YEAR AGO at Mania 17. Before he can talk though, here’s Bischoff. Once his theme song ends, his video keeps playing. Ok then.

Bischoff’s main pitch is he’s all business rather than personal. He offers HHH movie roles etc. He almost calls HHH a WCW Superstar. That was almost funny. He’s getting a shoe deal too. And here’s Stephanie of course. The weak rap/hip hop song for her just fails though. Wow Stephanie trying to be tough always FAILS. Oh yeah, and she cannot talk at all. They were unstoppable apparently.

You know, until they got, you know, stopped. Eric and Stephanie go back and forth for a bit with Stephanie mentioning that Eric once said HHH had no talent or charisma. WOW this is making my head hurt. Now HHH talks for awhile. This is just painfully bad. He sticks his hand out to Eric. He doesn’t shake it. He says he’d rather go with the devil he knows rather than the one he doesn’t. And here’s HBK who just left the NWO. Yeah that was just stupid.

The NWO had more or less been threatening to force HHH to join them on Raw. OH THAT’S RIGHT! Booker and Show were fighting because they were in the NWO together and Shawn said Booker was the reason the team sucked so Big Show started fighting Booker. This era sucked.

The NWO is gone now as they realized the thing was just stupid at this point. Shawn talks him into coming back to Raw. HHH turned heel the next night and beat up Shawn. This is ten minutes I’ll never get back. Gah it’s not over yet. Stephanie and Eric have to talk a bit more.

Rikishi says he’s surprised about HHH. This was pointless.

Booker and Goldust get asked about HHH. Booker says bring him on. Goldust makes a bad sex joke.

We recap the 4th of July tag title change. Edge was a childhood Hulkamaniac so they just randomly won the tag titles. Christian and Lance Storm were the UnAmericans at the time, so the REAL CANADIAN Edge and Hogan defended the country. Yeah it was stupid.

TagTitles: LanceStorm/Christianvs. HulkHogan/Edge

This isn’t going to be fun is it? I think the tag titles went on both brands at the time but I’m not sure. Yeah they did. Ross then explains that Toronto is in Canada. Ok then. It’s also the Hendrix music for Hogan. Yes let’s pay a commercial artist for music when WE OWN THE MOST FAMOUS SONG IN WRESTLING HISTORY! He follows that up by TWICE, yes TWICE saying that Hogan fought Warrior at Mania 3. WOW.

I knew that when I was 4 years old. Hogan vs. Christian starts. That’s a weird thing to see: Hogan fighting a guy that’s young and talented that hasn’t been elevated up yet. Dang how out of place does Hogan look here? If you get another talented guy in there, you could have a pretty interesting tag match. Or like this: Edge vs. Lance Storm. That sounds perfectly entertaining. This however, just isn’t interesting. Also, within about two months, Hogan has won the tag and world titles.

He’s like what, 50 at this point? Is there a reason to give him such title runs here? I can almost guarantee you that Edge will get pinned here if they lose the belts. Naturally Edge is the one getting beaten down. Hogan comes in and Christian goes for that diving reverse DDT of his. Hogan botches the HECK out of it. You know, because it’s such a hard move to take isn’t it? Leg drop to Christian but Storm makes the save.

Hogan doesn’t take the superkick from Storm right either. Edge comes in to clean house while Hogan looks for a pudding pack or something. And there goes the referee. Test runs down to beat up Hogan and Edge. Storm covers Edge for only two. Wow that surprised me. Rikishi of all people comes down to beat up Test. Sure why not?

Christian distracts the referee and JERICHO comes out to nail Edge with a title belt for the ending. Wow it only took four guys to get the belt off of Hogan and he didn’t even get pinned. That might be a new record low for Hogan. Naturally, this title that Hogan was so proud of was never mentioned again and he never went after it again.

Rating: D. Just bad and Hogan looked awful out there. Four guys to get the title off of Hogan. He botches a ton of spots, and he doesn’t even let Storm or Christian get to say they pinned Hogan. Yeah, this is definitely about the young guys. Can’t you see that?

Bischoff tries to get Angle onto Raw. Smart if nothing else.

Stephanie threatens to rip the heart out of Raw. Not sure what she means but she did get the IC Title to Smackdown. Pay no attention to the fact that the belts were unified soon after and we had the idiotic year where there were only world champions. Yeah it was stupid.

We recap the triple threat main event. Rock had a title shot for no apparent reason and there’s the famous Taker taps out while pinning Angle thing. Replays in slow enough motion show Taker tapping before the three hit the mat but whatever. It was a draw but whatever. That actually happened at UFC 34 in a Matt Hughes fight.

He was in a triangle choke and tried to slam the guy into the mat. He did so and won by knockout, but he was out from the choke. Taker suggested doing it to set up this angle. But no Vince, UFC which today is light years ahead of what it was back then has no impact on wrestling at all.

UndisputedTitle: TheRockvs. KurtAnglevs. Undertaker

So Rock is officially an actor now but he’s here for no adequately explained reason. That would come at Summerslam though. It’s your standard triple threat so far with Angle and Rock doing the heavy lifting early on. Taker goes for the chokeslam on Rock but Rock does it to him. In other words he did a Rock Bottom but didn’t go down with him. They show a close up replay and I forgot it was a chokeslam. Rock puts the ankle lock on Angle and Angle hits him with a Rock Bottom.

Taker hits an Angle Slam on Angle as we have a nice little sequence there. That wasn’t bad at all. I love it when Taker grabs a guy by the throat and throws them into the corner to punch the heck out of them. We do the standard one guy goes down and the other two fight for awhile. It does help as you can get three one on ones rather than a threeway so that’s good. Angle is bleeding. Not a bad cut either. He gets beaten back and forth between both guys.

Not bad, but this needs to pick things up a little. Oh look the referee is down and his leg hurts. Oh ok he’s already up again. Angle takes both guys out and covers Taker which is stupid as he was put down first. Taker hits the Last Ride but Angle gets the ankle lock. We use the same finish from Smackdown but now Rock is in the ankle lock. We’re fully into the whole finisher marathon segment here and it’s boring.

Rock Bottom to Taker gets two as Angle is down. Angle Slam to Taker but the Rock Bottom to Angle ends it. Meh. I would have been more interested if I didn’t know the winner beforehand. And I didn’t know because of this being 8 years ago. I knew because of the Rock/Lesnar poster they accidentally released two weeks before Rock won the title.

Rating: B-. Not bad, but DANG the whole nothing but finishers for the last 5 minutes got annoying. Rock jobbing to Lesnar was good and this set that up so I can’t complain much there. Angle was a nice placeholder I guess but this just wasn’t anything special at all. Seeing Taker do an Angle Slam was cool though. Just nothing special at all.

Overall Rating: D+. Nothing special here at all. This was a totally uninteresting show from start to finish with no great matches and 15 minutes going to HHH saying Raw rather than a long match in between. Thankfully this was the end of Hogan’s time around titles but man this was boring. The whole show just came off as uninteresting and like a waste of time. Take a pass here, although the triple threat is watchable.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Smackdown
Date: June 15, 2012
Location: Verizon Wireless Arena, Manchester, New Hampshire
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews, Booker T

It’s the final show before No Way Out and most of the show is set I believe. Tonight we have a tag match between the guys in the world title matches which is a nice touch. Other than that I’m not sure what else there’s going to be, but I’d bet on there being some Johnny Ace talking time, which is some cross between hilarious and awful. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the ending of Raw and the punch not hitting Vince in the face.

Do You Know Your Enemy? Mine is the Cincinnati Reds. Those pesky people sweeping the Indians.

Here’s AJ to open the show. She says there’s a very simple reason why she kissed Kane on Raw. Before she can get it out though, here’s Vickie to interrupt her. She says that AJ isn’t the story tonight, because the story is Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler talks about yelling at Vickie and saying he’s better than this. He goes into one of his fast paced insult barrages at AJ, who responds by saying “I stopped listening about halfway through that but I guess I was supposed to be offended?” The huge smile on her face and the voice she says it with make that awesome.

AJ thinks the bleach in Ziggler’s hair has gotten into his brain if he thinks he’ll win the world title. She calls Vickie his grandma and gets slapped. AJ gets the psycho eyes going but here’s Punk to make her all smiley. He says that just because Vickie says excuse me doesn’t mean we have to. There is no excuse for Vickie because every week she comes out here and talks about Dolph Ziggler but he never comes through. If he’s the voice of the voiceless, Vickie is the voice of the pointless.

Ziggler is about to offer a rebuttal but here’s Bryan. AJ looks half scared and half angry. Bryan says Punk is a hero for having AJ make out with Kane on Monday and hiding behind him here tonight. He says AJ has Punk wrapped around her finger and she doesn’t realize it. AJ cost Bryan at Wrestlemania and if she’s in Punk’s corner on Sunday, it’ll mean Bryan wins the title.

Cue Sheamus because five people talking in this segment aren’t enough. Sheamus can’t believe Bryan still believes AJ cost him the title. He admits Ziggler had a great showing on Monday, but that means nothing on Sunday. Let’s do the tag match now. AJ charges at Vickie but Punk pulls her back. The match starts after a break.

Sheamus/CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler/Daniel Bryan

Bryan and Sheamus get us going and the speed attempt gets caught in a Regal Roll for two. Off to Punk who comes off the top with an elbow to the arm. Off to Ziggler and it’s time for more arm work. Sheamus works over the arm a bit and Punk hits a slingshot hilo on Dolph. A delayed vertical suplex gets two. Sheamus comes in and Ziggler literally runs to the corner for the tag.

Ziggler comes back in almost immediately and pounds Sheamus down. A knee drop gets two. Back to Bryan who walks into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Back to Punk for the springboard clothesline and he goes to the apron. Ziggler distracts him and Bryan knocks him off the apron. That seems to be the same sequence they’ve used to change momentum in Smackdown tag matches for weeks now.

Bryan hits the running knee of the apron and we take a break. Back with Bryan missing a swan dive and it’s a double tag to bring in Ziggler vs. Sheamus. Irish Curse gets two as Bryan makes the save. Everything breaks down but Punk and Bryan go to the floor. Zig Zag is countered and Sheamus hits White Noise. He loads up the Brogue Kick but the girls come in. Ziggler uses the distraction to get a rollup with a handful of tights for the pin at 8:43 shown of 12:13.

Rating: C. This was just a regular main event style tag match. The ending was certainly the right call as they had to give us a reason to think that Ziggler has a chance on Sunday. He doesn’t but it’s nice of them to try to give us a reason to think otherwise. Punk and Bryan were barely involved in this match, but they’re all set up already anyway.

Post match the girls get in a fight and Vickie rams her into the apron before running off. AJ’s back is hurt so Kane comes out to carry her away. Punk goes after him but gets a chokeslam for his efforts. Bryan gets the same. AJ is on her knees on the stage and looks all cuckoo eyed at Kane.

Here’s Brodus Clay for a match but before the match he talks about how he can’t go near Ace’s prized possession or he’s immediately fired. That’s ok though because John Cena is going to take care of the prized possession on Sunday. All he wants now is competition, which Ace has promised him.

Brodus Clay vs. Heath Slater

Dang it and I was getting my hopes up for a second there. What a shock: something with Ace involved is a letdown. Splash finishes in 22 seconds.

Post match Brodus is about to dance when Otunga, the guy Clay is facing on the pre-show on Sunday, takes out Brodus’ knee. The leg work goes on for awhile.

Alicia Fox vs. Beth Phoenix

Layla is on commentary. Alicia takes her down to start but misses her flipping leg drop. Glam Slam ends this in 50 seconds. Yeah and this REALLY makes me want to see the Divas Title match Sunday.

John Cena says don’t try this.

Hornswoggle’s favorite Raw moment is the Muppets episode. I love the Muppets, but this is literally longer the previous two matches combined. When matches are relegated to getting 30 seconds each, maybe it’s time to cut down on stuff like this.

Now to waste more time, here’s Ace to show us a recap of the ending to Raw. As in the SAME THING WE SAW AN HOUR AGO! After wasting three minutes on that, Ace talks about how he’s put his job on the line more than once before and has always come out on top. He brings out Big Show who talks about how he can say and do whatever he wants here because he’ll get paid no matter what.

Back in WCW, he was never able to be pushed over the faces of the company like Hogan, Flair and Sting. Once he left there he came to WWF and everyone gave him advice. Vince’s advice was to put on a show, so he named him the Big Show. So for fourteen years (how is February of 1999 to June 2012 14 years? That’s bad math even for WWE) he did it Vince’s way. For 10 of those years, he cracked jokes and laughed. That statement actually made me close my eyes and shake my head from how wrong it was.

Show talks about how he’s proud to not be like Cena anymore and how he can do whatever he wants and doesn’t have to care about what the fans think. What he does to Cena will be calculated and uncomfortable. He’s looking at this sunday as his first match, where he will be victorious. He guarantees it. The two of them go to leave but Cole stops them. He says that he’s heard Cena is on his way here tonight (big pop). Show says if Cena is looking for him, he won’t be hard to find.

Christian comes out for his match so of course we have to look at a recap of his feud with Cody, as in an Over The Limit recap. The rematch is at No Way Out.

Christian vs. Jack Swagger

Swagger pounds him into the corner but Christian gets a kick into the ribs to break up the momentum. They go to the floor and Swagger runs him over with a clothesline. Back in and Jack hits a legdrop for two. An attempt at a second misses and Christian takes over again. A spear misses but the ankle lock is countered. Jumping back elbow out of the corner puts Jack down and Christian goes up. Swagger tries to run the corner but gets shoved down and the Frog Splash gets the pin at 2:47.

Ryback vs. Ari Cohen/Mike Testa

The fresh meat tell a knock knock joke before the match. What are you expecting here? Double Samoan Drop ends this at 2:03. We get it already, now find him someone we’ve actually heard of.

Damien Sandow vs. Tyson Kidd

This is a result of the latest JR trolling by the troll last week. Sandow went after him but Kidd made the save. Damien jumps him to start, Kidd gets some offense in, the Sharpshooter is countered and the neckbreaker gets the pin at 1:02 in ANOTHER FREAKING WORTHLESS MATCH!

We run down the PPV card.

Now we see Big Show’s talk from forty minutes ago.

Cena arrives and goes into Ace’s office but it’s empty.

Don’t be a bully, but buy our PPV with a pair of bullies in the main event.

Cena FINALLY shows up to fire up the show a bit. He talks about getting a phone call saying that Big Show called him out, so here he is. Wait so why have they been hyping up the idea of Cena calling out Big Show all night if Show apparently called him out? Whatever as this show is almost over. Cena says he’s not hard to find and the Big Show shouldn’t be either, so here’s Ace to waste more of our time.

Ace says that Show has been sent home to make sure the match takes place on Sunday, as well as so we could hype up Show and Cena face to face all night and then not deliver it. Cena says that puts Ace in the #1 spot on the to be knocked out list. Ace lists his job titles and says that if Cena touches him, he’s fired. Cena points out that the match has to take place on Sunday so Ace can’t fire him. John makes fun of him even more and gets ready to beat him up but Ace tells him that if he beats Ace up, then Cena will be fired. Cena blasts him in the head and says someone gets fired on Sunday to end the show.

Overall Rating: F. This show was the definition of a failure. There was NOTHING on here that was any good and nothing at all was added to the PPV. Someone gets fired in the main event. So we might get the Ace firing that we’ve been promised for weeks now or another Cena firing which we’ve seen how many times now? This was a total waste of my time and one of the worst TV shows I’ve seen in a very long time.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

This seems like an appropriate topic with Wrestlemania being about two weeks away. This is something that is very important and can really make or break a company if not done right. Yet for some reason over the years, it’s very rarely been done right. On Rise and Fall of ECW, Heyman talked about Terry Funk wanting to get the next generation ready so that there was a business to pass on to them. That’s what we’re getting at today so let’s get to it.

Now first and foremost, there’s a BIG difference between giving someone a rub and passing the torch to someone else. Back in the 80s, Hogan tagged with a bunch of guys that were known names but didn’t become anything important until they were his best friend for a few months of house show tag matches. Then they’d be Hogan’s partner for awhile and they’d be bigger stars than ever before. That’s giving someone a rub.

Passing the torch means that you make someone the new big name in the company. We’ll get to examples of that later on, but the main idea is that someone is either leaving, is dropping down the card after being on top for a long while, or that the other person is going to be taking their place. To use the example from earlier, Hogan wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t moving down the card. He was still top dog but the others were up higher than they were before. That’s an important difference.

On second thought, this was going to just be about passing the torch but I might as well cover rubs in here too. We’ll get to passing the torch first.

Let’s go back to the past as I’m known to do. The better example is probably King Jackie Fargo passing the torch to King Jerry Lawler but we’ll go with something actually in the last thirty years with Harley Race and Ric Flair. Now let’s take a good look at what put this together and why it was a true passing of the torch. There were a lot of factors that came together to make it work.

First of all, Flair was already a big name. He was a two time NWA World Champion and was well established as a top guy. This is important to passing the torch because if you want someone like Race to go out, this is how you do it: to a guy that has proven he can do something already. Otherwise you might need to go to someone else which makes the moment weaker.

Second, this was built up. It had a long and personal angle to it which resulted in real emotion. Race had put a $25,000 bounty on Flair’s head and it was cashed in, resulting in Flair being put out of action for months. He took care of the attackers and then came after Race to take the championship and get his revenge. It was an angle that people wanted to see get paid off which makes the match that much more interesting.

Third, the match was great. It’s a classic old school cage match with Race working him over and Flair making the comeback for the pin and the big moment. It was also in the main event of the first Starrcade, which at the time was the biggest card ever put together. Look at Cena vs. Rock this year: they’re having this match in the main event of Wrestlemania after a year of these two arguing and bickering. In short: take your time and make the match feel important.

Most importantly though, RACE LEFT. After this happened, Race was gone from the NWA spotlight. There was a three day title change in New Zealand but other than that, Race went back to the smaller territories and eventually on to the WWF. Now, that’s not to say that Race couldn’t have come back in a smaller role. If Race had come back in say a year or even six months it would have been fine, as long as he didn’t challenge for the title or feud with Flair. That’s one of the main things: Race didn’t try to come back against Flair. He had been defeated and was done.

There really aren’t that many of these moments to talk about in history, and since most of them have been done well there isn’t really a point to going through them one by one because they would all mostly say the same thing. The other few of note are the Fargo/Lawler one that I mentioned earlier, Austin vs. Michaels in 1998, HHH vs. Batista in 2005, and really those are all of the major ones.

Now let’s get to the problems that can come up when these rules are broken. This can also be called The Hogan Section.

Hogan has had a few chances to pass the torch onto someone else and both times he’s broken one of the aforementioned rules and caused the next person to not be able to do as well on top. We’ll start in 1990 at Wrestlemania 6. You could argue the first time was at #4 with Savage but the end result of that was ALWAYS Hogan vs. Savage for the title the next year so I can’t fault Hogan for that as it was part of a major angle instead of Hogan not going away. Anyone on to #6.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the main event of that show was designed to be a moment where Warrior became the top guy. However in short, Hogan didn’t leave. He stuck around in 1990 and feuded with Earthquake, taking all of the spotlight (as well as the top and most obvious feud for Warrior) from the new champion. The right thing would have been for Hogan to take AT LEAST a few months off and made a movie or whatever.

Instead he stuck around and therefore made Warrior look like a second rate guy, which made the main event of Wrestlemania completely pointless. Warrior was a failure as the top guy but there was never a real chance for him to be the top guy. Everyone thought that Hogan was still top dog and him simply not having the title wasn’t going to prove that wrong. Considering Warrior barely beat him, it didn’t really prove that Warrior was the top guy. Instead of passing the torch, Hogan basically gave Warrior the title for about 7 months and then got it back later. Good for him, bad for Warrior.

Jumping to WCW, we have the moment that was a big bullet to WCW in the Monday Night Wars. Sting FINALLY stopped Hogan and won the (nearly) year and a half long title reign and it should have been the end of an era in WCW. This is probably the biggest botch of one of these things ever. First of all, the match sucked for reasons that you can read elsewhere. Second, Sting didn’t get to even hold the physical title for two months, so how much do you think the fans cared by that point? Third, Sting officially won the title in February and Hogan had it back by mid-April. Sting is defeated, Hogan is champion AGAIN, and the fans are screwed over.

The third example of Hogan doing this would be in 1998 with Goldberg. Now to be fair this was probably much more about WCW than Hogan, but depending on what you believe about Hogan having creative control in the back, that could be a matter of debate. Also to Hogan’s credit, he lost the match clean (mostly) and never got his win back against Goldberg, which is a big help. However that being said, he got the title back in just a few months. There was WAY more to it than that, but at the end of the day, the problem was that Hogan had the title back about half a year later, Goldberg was defeated, and the fans were screwed over AGAIN. Sound familiar?

There are probably other example that I’m overlooking, but I think by now you more than get the idea. The WWF in 1990/1991 was in real business trouble and was even on the verge of going under for awhile. The WCW instances are times where the company took big hits because either they wouldn’t let people have the title or they wouldn’t let anyone get thrown out of the main event. The moral: bad things happen when you don’t change things when you need to.

Now onto the other topic that I wasn’t going to talk about here but it fits as well: rubs. As we’ve established, a rub is where someone is going to be sticking around but is going to bring someone else up the card by giving them some of their star power and making them look like a bigger deal. We’ll begin in the 80s, as I am known to do.

The perfect example of this is usually Flair and Sting from March 27, 1988 and there’s a good reason for that. Sting wasn’t a big time name like he is today. He was a guy that had been brought over from a regional company and was looking for his first big break in the national scene. The company knew he had talent but they needed a way to let the masses know that.

Enter Ric Flair, who in the words of Jim Cornette, made a career out of making other people look way better than they ever could have done on their own. So at the first Clash of the Champions, Sting fought Flair for the NWA Title and had him in the Scorpion when the bell rang and the time was up. Flair made Sting look AWESOME that night and Sting became a huge star because of it. Flair kept the title and would for a good while, but Sting was a major player all of a sudden. I think you get the idea.

There are dozens of other examples from history that I could go into, such as the tag teams that Hogan had which I mentioned earlier and Bret vs. Austin in 96/97, but you more than get the point by now. On the other hand, there are examples of times where bigger names lose matches, but the win doesn’t do a thing for the smaller name guy. Let’s take a look at a quick example.

I hate to do this again, but the best example is Hulk Hogan. In the year 2000, Hogan lost to Billy Kidman. What’s forgotten about this is that Hogan DOMINATED Kidman and Kidman won after Bischoff hit Hogan with a chair. The win didn’t do anything for Kidman because it didn’t look like he had a chance to beat Hogan in a fair fight. The same thing is true of instances like jobbers pinning big names, such as Brooklyn Brawler pinning HHH in the year 2000. Rock had a bit of a hand in that loss, but HHH still gets made fun of for it on occasion. Again, I think you get the idea.

So anyway, in short there are good ways and bad ways of passing the torch, and hopefully Rock does it with Cena at Wrestlemania. Rock is a guy who a victory over would still mean a lot and I just hope they don’t screw it up somehow. Rubs and passing the torch are very important things in wrestling, and if you don’t do them right they can turn out very badly indeed.

Monday Night Raw
Date: July 23, 2012
Location: Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Missouri
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole

It’s the 1000th weekly episode of a show that airs year round which makes it the longest running show with as many catches as they can think of, as long as you don’t count shows like WCW Saturday Night or Memphis Wrestling’s Saturday morning show which ran for about 30 years airing new shows. There’s A LOT to get through tonight as we have a wedding, Lesnar, Rock, DX and other legends appearing live, and Cena vs. Punk for the world title. Let’s get to it.

We open with one of those always awesome WWE montages of past Raw moments. I’ll set the over/under of moments from 1994/1995 at about 2.

There’s a new logo for Raw tonight and for apparently one night only, there’s a different song, called Tonight is the Night.

We start the false advertising right away, with Vince opening things. The video wall is different too, with HUGE walls on the side of the Tron now. Vince thanks us for 1000 shows and brings out DX complete with a hybrid of the old and new entrances. Shawn and HHH come out to do the entrance but Shawn is having issues because he’s old and out of breath before the crotch chop.

They talk about having their DX merchandise on and asks each other if they’re wearing underwear. After assuring that they are, Shawn still thinks something is missing. HHH thinks there used to be more of them, drawing a BIG pop. Complete with military invasion vehicle, here are the Outlaws and X-Pac. They do their usual lines (complete with Road Dogg censoring himself on Billy’s nickname in a very nice bit) and HHH points out that he’s the only one left with a full head of hair.

Billy and Shawn aren’t sure who should say the final line. Billy: “He never really gave me that much but I was good at this.” Shawn says the same so HHH pulls Billy aside and says that Shawn might lose his smile and go pose for Playgirl again. Shawn: “I NEEDED THE MONEY!” They agree to do it at the same time….and here’s Damien Sandow. That’s the perfect choice too. He says this is what WWE has disintegrated to and how low society has gone: people like DX are now revered. Shawn says he’s going straight to church and asking for forgiveness….AGAIN!

Sandow understands that DX could destroy him but if they do so, he won’t be a victim. He’ll be a martyr. HHH calls for a DX huddle but Sandow tries to listen in. Sandow: “That’s very rude.” HHH: “We’re rude guys.” HHH goes to talk but it’s Sweet Chin Music and Pedigree for Sandow. Billy and Shawn get to do their line and that’s it. GREAT opening segment and absolutely hilarious.

Here’s JR with a goatee. Cole is fine with him now.

Rey Mysterio/Sin Cara/Sheamus vs. Chris Jericho/Dolph Ziggler/Alberto Del Rio

The difference in pops for Cara and Sheamus is staggering. We’re joined in progress with Cara in trouble from Ziggler before it’s off to Jericho for a chinlock. Cara gets a rollup for two but Jericho knocks him right back down. We get the posing cover for two and a BIG reaction before it’s off to Del Rio. The heel team works on Cara’s back with Del Rio hooking a chinlock with a knee in the back. Cara hits a tornado DDT and it’s hot tag to Sheamus. He cleans house on Jericho, hitting a running kneelift.

Irish Curse is kind of botched but the second attempt connects for two. Everything breaks down and Rey knocks Del Rio to the floor, hitting a seated senton off the apron. Sheamus and Jericho are the only two left in the ring and White Noise is countered into a failed Walls of Jericho. Codebreaker is countered but the Brogue Kick misses. Ziggler drills Jericho (intentionally) to break up the springboard dropkick and the Brogue Kick finishes Jericho at 4:26 shown.

Rating: C+. Other than the main event, expect a lot of these matches to be short and sweet tonight, which is the right move on a show like this. Cara getting to rub elbows with guys like Mysterio and Sheamus is a great thing for him and it should do him a lot of good. This was fast paced and fun, which is the right idea.

TOUT IT OUT!

Charlie Sheen is the social media ambassador and is on Skype with us here. Sheen thinks he’d fit in with DX. That’s a perfect fit actually. He doesn’t sound like he has any idea what’s going on but he doesn’t seem bored out of his mind and that’s all I can ask for.

We recap the wedding buildup from last week.

AJ is getting ready in the back with Layla and she asks if AJ is ready. AJ says yes she is and yes she’s mentally stable. Everyone is a bit off out here and she opens the door to prove it. Jim Duggan is talking to someone and R-Truth and Roddy Piper holding a jump rope for Little Jimmy. Then, in perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on Raw, MAE YOUNG AND A FULL GROWN HAND ARE HERE!

Someone delivers Sonic to Jerry Lawler. That’s kind of awesome.

Brodus Clay vs. Jack Swagger

Brodus brings out DUDE FREAKING LOVE. Brodus is in a USA themed singlet tonight. Swagger misses a charge, gets suplexed, and the splash ends this in 19 seconds.

It’s time to dance, complete with a tye dyed Socko to Swagger.

HHH is in the back with Trish Stratus who I don’t think people recognize. She demonstrates Yoga to him and shows HHH how to bend over when DX comes in. They don’t know what to think but Road Dogg says they’ll wait in the rear. Pac stays around and hits on Trish but it goes nowhere.

Daniel Bryan is talking to what appear to be orderlies.

We open the second hour with the wedding. Jerry is the master of ceremonies for some reason. The reverend is SLICK! Lawler was just introducing Slick apparently. Slick looks BAD. Here’s Bryan first, to his theme music of course and in a white tux. AJ comes out as normal, minus the skipping. Slick goes into Jive Soul Bro mode and says that marriage shouldn’t be entered into lightly but AJ tells him to get to it. We get the speak now moment and half the arena starts booing. Slick: “Wooooooow. I never heard that before.”

The fans chant no but Bryan has a speech ready for AJ. Once they’re married, he’ll have everything he’s ever wanted. The ring goes on AJ’s hand and he says he does. AJ says yes before she’s asked a question. Slick is about to say they’re married but AJ says wait. She wasn’t saying yes to Daniel, but rather to someone else. Someone else proposed to her earlier tonight: VINCE MCMAHON???

Oh wait he’s just interrupting things. Scratch that as apparently he did propose to her, but it’s a business proposal: AJ is the new GM. Now that’s something I didn’t see coming. AJ hands Bryan the flowers and skips off to her music. Vince only said GM of Raw so I don’t think she’s in charge of Smackdown too. Bryan freaks out and breaks a lot of stuff.

Post break and Bryan is still freaking out, shouting NO at everyone. Cue Punk for likely a hearty laugh. He laughs about Bryan getting left at the altar and says that AJ is going to be GM. Punk: “You can continue to throw a tantrum. I’m going to continue to be WWE Champion.” Bryan says Punk isn’t even the best in the ring tonight and says that Bryan is the best of all time.

Cue The Rock for a rebuttal. After a lengthy intro, Rock says Bryan doesn’t get to say who the best of all time is. The fans get to say that, and guess who they chant for. Rock does the FINALLY bit but Bryan cuts him off because he can say anything else. He doesn’t know who Rock thinks he is but Rock cuts him off as well. Rock says he won his first WWE Championship here, but he’s not here to talk to Frodo right now.

Instead he wants to talk to Punk, because at the Royal Rumble, he’s got the world title shot. That gets almost no reaction for some reason. Punk says that’ll be him because he’ll defeat Cena tonight. Tonight he’ll end Cena and he’ll beat Rock at the Rumble. Bryan says no because it’s supposed to be about him and it’s supposed to be the best night of his life.

Bryan, with his eyes bugging out, says that he’ll fight Rock at the Rumble. He says he’ll be the face of the WWE. Rock says we’re not looking at the face of the WWE. We’re looking at a homeless lumberjack mated with an Oompa Loompa. “Oompa Loompa dumpity ding, you look like a troll from Lord of the Rings.” Rock Bottom to Bryan and that’s that.

Here’s Bret Hart to be ring announcer for the next match. He says he won his first IC Title by beating Mr. Perfect and he’s introducing the Intercontinental Title match tonight.

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. The Miz

Bret’s boredom of introducing Miz is great. Christian immediately sends him to the floor and hits a dive to the outside but he may have hurt his knee. We take a break and come back with Miz holding a weak leg lock on Christian. During the break the champ (Christian) had his knees sent into the steps to further the injury. A top rope cross body gets two for Christian and he goes up again, hitting the jumping back elbow for no cover. Unprettier is broken up and the sunset flip out of the corner gets two.

Miz kicks him in the face for a near fall of his own and things slow down again. Christian comes back with a tornado DDT for two but his leg is still messed up. Spear is blocked and Miz gets a short DDT for a very close two. The corner clothesline misses for Miz but the Killswitch is countered again. Finale and Killswitch are countered again. Christian escapes a belly to back but hurts his leg again, allowing the Skull Crushing Finale to give Miz the title at 7:46.

Rating: C+. That’s a nice surprise for tonight as they needed to do something to give us a little history here. Also Miz gets to win something for the first time since losing the world title over a year ago. It’s even better than it was clean, which is rare to see. Good stuff here and a nice surprise.

Charlie Sheen says he’s a fan of Rock and is looking forward to the Rumble. As for Bryan, he has Anger Management issues.

Regis Philbin talks about all of the wrestling guests he’s had on his show. He looks good for 80.

Here’s HHH to talk to Lesnar. After a recap HHH calls Lesnar out but gets Heyman again. Lesnar is here tonight and Heyman has power of attorney for him. The match at Summerslam isn’t happening. HHH says he’s tired of this so he’ll go find Lesnar himself. Heyman says HHH is already facing multiple lawsuits and that might not be best for business. HHH says Lesnar is a coward so Heyman makes fun of HHH’s kids. HHH yells and Heyman backs off. Paul keeps talking about the kids and here’s Stephanie, looking great in a black dress but showing off that famous Stephanie acting ability.

She yells at Heyman for his failures and says the lawsuits are a way for him to make himself feel better. Heyman gets cut off and Steph says her dad has more guts than Lesnar. She calls Heyman a parasite and gives him an awful slap. Heyman bails but gets back in almost immediately. The match with Lesnar is on now. Heyman runs his mouth some more so Stephanie takes him down. Cue Lesnar who is actually here for once. Well he’s here but his arms seem to be missing. Lesnar takes HHH into the corner and fires in shoulders but HHH comes back. HHH clotheslines Brock to the floor and takes his hair down so you know he’s serious.

Tout it out!

After talking about WWE 13, we get a video on Vince vs. Austin, which needs to be on a show like this.

Here are Santino and Hornswoggle with WWE toys, which apparently are like old school WRESTLING BUDDIES. These talk though.

Howard Finkel is guest ring announcer for the next match. Now all is right with the world.

Heath Slater calls out any legend to a No DQ anything goes match.

Heath Slater vs. Lita

WOW. Lita still looks great too. Slater laughs this off but then accepts her challenge. The bell rings but Lita says she hired herself some protection. Cue the APA and Slater PANICS. Slater immediately runs but backs into every legend he’s fought in the last few weeks. They chase him back into the ring and the Twist of Fate sets up the Clothesline which sets up the Litasault (looked perfect) for the pin at 1:54.

Take a guess what Ron Simmons says post match.

SEAN FREAKING MOONEY is in the back with Daniel Bryan. Bryan didn’t like being called an Oompa Loompa by Sheen earlier and says he’d slap Sheen if he were here.

We talk to some guy that is the 100,000,000^th social media follower. Good for him.

Fozzie Bear hosts a video on great catchphrases on Raw over the years. There’s a great bit in here where they go with Austin and Vickie saying WHAT and EXCUSE ME over and over again.

Ryder is in the back with Cena and Mean Gene. Ryder thinks Gene was behind GTV and Gene says he wasn’t working here at the time. Cena is lost when Rock comes up. Ryder and Gene leave and it’s time for the staredown. Rock wishes Cena luck and Cena says see you at the Rumble. Rock says he’s looking forward to it.

Kane vs. Jinder Mahal

Mahal comes out with Hunico, Camacho, Reks, McIntyre and Hawkins. They say they’ve gotten no opportunity over the years and they’re tired of it. They surround Kane….and a gong strikes. There go the lights and here he is. His coat has spikes on the arm now. There’s no hat for some reason though. The six guys have bailed and it’s just the brothers in the ring now. Taker has a buzz cut mowhawk now. The six guys run into the ring because they’re pretty stupid. Hawkins and Hunico get stereo chokeslams and stereo tombstones.

BE A STAR! Just for clarification: We go to an anti-bullying rally preaching non-violence right after six guys were about to jump one and the solution to the one’s problem was that his big brother came out and helped him fight.

Charlie Sheen says he’ll shake Bryan so hard that the fake beard will fall off and you’ll see the word losing under the baby cheeks. Sheen challenges Bryan to a fight when he’s in LA. No mention of Summerslam is made because then it might happen. Scratch that as it’s mentioned once Sheen is gone.

We get a clip from the end of the show last week where Cena challenged Punk and says he’s cashing in tonight.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. CM Punk

Punk is defending in case you’re reading this years later. We take a break before the bell, and it’s already 10:56. We don’t get big match intros as the bell rings immediately when they come back. There’s a quick hand slap and we’re ready to go. Punk gets taken down quickly but comes back with an abdominal stretch. Cena hiptosses out of it and it’s a stalemate. Cena fires off some right hands and takes Punk down with a headlock. Lawler says Cena is like Superman.

Punk comes back and they slug it out with Punk taking over via a kick to the face and a clothesline. The running knee in the corner hits and Punk does You Can’t See Me. Bulldog is countered into the ProtoBomb and there’s the Shuffle. Punk pops up and hits the high kick but the GTS is escaped. There goes the referee as the AA hits but there’s no one to count.

Cue Big Show who spears Cena down and he loads up the right hand. Down goes Cena and Punk isn’t sure what to do. The champ rolls the referee back in and covers Cena but it only gets two. He loads up the GTS but Cena rolls through into the STF. Big Show runs in again and hits Cena for the DQ at 11:15, making Cena the first person to cash in and not win the title.

Rating: C+. The match was ok but it’s a far cry from their previous ones. That being said it wasn’t bad or anything as these two feel like a major match whenever they get in the ring. The interference was obvious but there’s nothing wrong with that. Given the amount of time they had to work with, this was fine.

Punk turns his back and lets Cena get beaten down until Rock comes down for the save. He beats up Show and loads up the Elbow….but Punk takes Rock’s head off with a clothesline. Hokey smoke I think we just had a heel turn. There’s a GTS to Rock and the champ stands tall to end the show.

Overall Rating: A. The ending bumps this up a good bit. This was certainly an entertaining and very fun show, but it wasn’t a masterpiece. The ending was great as Punk’s demons of being overshaddowed time after time finally got the better of him and he embraces his inner evil side. That’s great storytelling and gives them a ton of possibilities down the line. Also by having him attack Rock, there’s a much better chance of him being hated down the line. Great stuff here and a great show.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 4, 2012
Location: BI-LO Center, Greenville, South Carolina
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

Cena is back tonight. That right there almost automatically makes the show better than it was last week. We have tonight and another week before No Way Out so it should be interesting to see what kind of build we get for those matches. Orton is gone so Miz has nothing to do which likely won’t be mentioned. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Big Show’s dominance over the last week.

Here’s Cole to interview Cena. Cole says that Cena was knocked out twice in 24 hours and it’s his own fault, because he tried to be a comedian instead of supporting Big Show. Cena says that Ace was a bully and he had everything ready to get rid of him and the new GM would have rehired Show. Cole says that Cena caused all this and says that Show is unbeatable. Cena says Show wanted more money and turned his back on everyone.

Now Cole thinks Cena is jealous of Big Show because Show didn’t lose at Wrestlemania, nor did he get beaten up by Lesnar for 20 minutes. Cole thinks Cena is overrated now and that Show puts us out of our misery that we’ve developed after watching Cena’s matches for the last few years. Oh and Cena can’t hit him. Cue Ace now who says that Cena gets to pick his own opponent tonight. Cena tries to pick Ace about 5 times but Ace says that he’s retired and Big Show is NOT here tonight. Cena picks someone that is uninteresting, overrated, and that JR says is being shoved down our throats every week. You know it’s Cole.

Post break Cole begs Ace for mercy but apparently the people want to see Cole get beaten up. Oh and don’t call him Johnny.

We get a clip montage to summarize the Sheamus Must Apologize story.

Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler

Cole is back on commentary. Ziggler starts fast and tries to take Sheamus down by the knees. Sheamus tries three Regal Rolls but only the third one connects, getting two. Dolph low bridges him but Sheamus pulls him to the outside. Sheamus blocks a ram into the post but Ziggler jumps over the steps that he gets whipped into. After a Vickie distraction, Dolph dropkicks him back to the floor and we take a break.

Back with Ziggler kneeing Sheamus down and working on the shoulder that hit the post during the break. Ziggler works it over a bit more and takes Sheamus down for two. Ziggler goes up and after fighting off Sheamus, hits a top rope Fameasser for two. Sheamus shrugs off the sleeper, hits White Noise and ends Ziggler with the Brogue Kick at 9:09.

Rating: C. Well that uh….happened. It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t great, plus it didn’t really solve or prove anything. Ziggler looked fine, but he’s needing to get away from Vickie I think. There’s just nothing there for him anymore and he needs to move on and do something else. Sheamus having to come from behind like this is a good thing.

As Sheamus is on the stage Del Rio jumps him and with Ricardo’s help, puts him in the cross armbreaker.

Ace asks some schmuck for his coffee when Otunga comes up and says that Vince is returning next week to evaluate him. Ace seems surprised by this, despite saying earlier that everyone was going to be evaluated.

Sin Cara vs. Hunico

Cara speeds things up to start and spins Hunico around and out to the floor. Slingshow sunset flip is escaped and Hunico kicks him in the head for one. Butterfly backbreaker gets the same. Off to the chinlock for a second and Cara escapes the spinning rack slam into an armdrag. Cara kicks him out of the corner and hits a top rope rana to take over. Handspring elbow puts Hunico down and after taking out Camacho, the spinning mat slam gets the pin at 2:30.

Cena’s favorite Raw moment is being drafted to Raw 7 years ago tomorrow.

Stan Stansky/Arthur Rosenburg vs. Ryback

It’s the same thing you’ve seen time after time. This match features more throwing people around and a clothesline to both of them at once. The double MuscleBuster/Samoan Drop gets the pin at 1:55.

CM Punk vs. Kane

There must be a winner. Cole is on the phone begging to be let out of the match. Before Kane comes out, Bryan comes out and gets on the announce table for some questions and answers. Has AJ gone completely delusional since they broke up? Will Kane destroy Punk tonight? Will Bryan win the title in three weeks? Yes Yes Yes. Kane powers him around but Punk uses the kicks to knock Kane to the floor for the suicide dive.

Punk hits the top rope double ax to the floor and we head back inside. Kane comes back with a knee to the ribs for two to take over. He pounds on Punk with sledgehammer shots and a legdrop for two. Punk breaks out of a bodyscissors and fires away with strikes but Kane throws him into the corner and out to the floor as we take a break.

Back with Kane holding a chinlock and uppercutting Punk down. Side slam gets two. Kane goes for the top rope clothesline but Punk knees him down. Another knee sets up the bulldog for two. Springboard clothesline gets the same. GTS is broken up and Kane boots him down for two. Punk avoids the chokeslam and hits a neckbreaker to slow Kane down. Punk goes up but Kane uppercuts him.

The superplex is broken up and Kane is knocked back to the mat. Macho Elbow gets two and they go to the floor. Kane rams him into the table and with the referee distracted, Bryan fires off two kicks to the ribs. Chokeslam is countered by the High Kick and here comes AJ. She tells the referee what Bryan did so Bryan yells at her. Punk uses the distraction to dive onto Bryan, but he walks into the chokeslam for the pin at 13:49.

Rating: C+. I was digging this and I was really digging AJ in a cutoff Punk shirt and shorts. The ending works I guess but I’m curious as to where the whole AJ thing is going, which I guess is the idea. Kane being added into this would let Bryan get the title, but I’m not sure where they would go after that. Decent match though.

Post match Kane stares at AJ (as well as kicking Bryan down) and AJ smiles back at him before he leaves. Ok then.

AJ tells Josh she likes when men look at her. She pulls him by his tie and demands he look at her. AJ says he might be her type.

Cole begs Ace for mercy again.

Video on Big Show and all of the comedy stuff he’s done over the years and how he’s being serious now.

Kofi Kingston/R-Truth vs. Curt Hawkins/Tyler Reks

This is joined in progress with Hawkins vs. Kofi. The champs are all taped up because of last week. A jumping back elbow gets two for Kofi and it’s off to a hammerlock. Off to Truth who drops a leg on Hawkins’ arm before it’s off to Reks. Reks gets in a little offense but misses a shoulder. Off to Kofi for the Boom Drop on Hawkins but Trouble in Paradise only gets two because of Reks. Truth takes him out and the spin kick gets the pin on Hawkins at 4:02.

Rating: C-. It’s very clear that Kofi and Truth are pure filler and that’s about the best they’re going to get at this point. Then again having extra teams in there is a good thing, even if they are just Hawkins and Reks. The match wasn’t bad but with only a few minutes there’s only so muchthey can do out there.

HHH’s favorite Raw moment is him returning in 2002.

John Cena vs. Michael Cole

It’s 10:45 so this could mean a few things. Ace comes out and says that if Cena can beat this man, his match with Cole will be No DQ.

John Cena vs. Tensai

Yeah he’s not a Lord anymore. He’s also moving faster now which is good too. Cole of course cheers everything that Tensai does as the fans are mostly behind Cena. Cena comes back with a clothesline to send Tensai to the floor and Cole panics. Sakamoto gets in some kicks and Cena is down as we take a break. Back with Cena breaking out of a neck lock and hitting a middle rope bulldog for two.

Tensai takes him back down and it’s nerve hold time again. Cena gets knocked to the floor and Cole says he should just quit now. Cole slaps Cena and gets shoved down by Lawler as a result. Cena gets thrown into the steps and Cole rips into him for awhile. Back in and the butterfly suplex gets two. Backsplash misses and it’s shoulder block time. Protobomb sets up the Shiffle and Cole is very nervous. AA gets the clean pin at 9:04.

Rating: D+. Hopefully this sends Tensai back down to the midcard. The changes they’ve made to him have helped him a bit but at the end of the day he’s still Albert which means he can only be so good and so interesting. Cena beating him is the right call though because you can’t validate having him lose twice in a row to Tensai, especially not before a bit time PPV match.

John Cena vs. Michael Cole

It’s No DQ. Cole tries to run into the crowd twice but gets pulled back both times. Cena throws him into the ring and Cole says we don’t have to do it this way. He sucks up to Cena and then takes off his coat and tie, saying how he’s going to beat up Cena tonight. He pokes Cena in the chest and tells Cena to not forget his name. Cena rips the shirt open and chops him in the chest. There go Cole’s pants and Cena kicks him low.

He slaps Cole’s chest and back again before putting him in a chinlock. Cena demands an apology to Lawler about the Mania match which Cole gives immediately. Now Cole has to apologize to JR who Cole calls his idol. Cole has to admit his love for JR’s Barbecue Sauce. “It’s slobberknocker good!” Lawler just happens to have a few bottles of it with him and it gets poured over Cole.

Since it was hot, here’s a fire extinguisher to cool Cole off. There’s steam coming off Cole’s head. The AA gets loaded up but here’s Tensai with the Baldo Bomb. That gets two for Cole and he has a bit of a tantrum. Cole slaps Cena in the back of the head and yells a lot before charging with the fire extinguisher. AA counters that and gets the pin at roughly 11 minutes. I’m not rating this for obvious reasons but it did its job well enough.

Overall Rating: C-. It’s still not great but this was WAY better than last week’s show. Having less Big Show on this helped a lot and Cena being here at all certainly brought this one up a lot. The guy is just flat out entertaining and interesting which is more than most people on this roster can say. This helped me a lot with the build to No Way Out, and even with the iffy ending, I liked this about 200% more than last week’s show.

Results
Sheamus b. Dolph Ziggler – Brogue Kick
Sin Cara b. Hunico – Spinning Mat Slam
Ryback b. Arthur Rosenburg/Stan Stansky – Double MuscleBuster
Kane b. CM Punk – Chokeslam
Kofi Kingston/R-Truth b. Curt Hawkins/Tyler Reks – Trouble in Paradise to Hawkins
John Cena b. Tensai – Attitude Adjustment
John Cena b. Michael Cole – Attitude Adjustment

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Monday Night Raw
Date: November 16, 2009
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 20,538
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler
Guest Host: Roddy Piper

This was a request and I believe it’s because the show is in MSG which is the major focal point of the show. I remember watching this live and reading a comment that said the star of this show was the arena itself, which is something that went well. The main event is a triple threat tag with Jerishow, DX and Cena/Undertaker. I remember liking this show at the time so let’s get to it.

We open with Roddy Piper in the back. Apparently we’re doing the Pit back there tonight with actor….Luis Guzman. He was in Boogie Nights and Traffic. Ok then. Piper talks about his Guzman’s upcoming movie which has Mr. T. in it. Guzman says Mr. T. isn’t in the movie. Piper says of course he isn’t BECAUSE PIPER DESTROYED HIM. What is with Piper’s obsession with Mr. T.?

Piper says he has the Iron Chef here but it’s the Iron Sheik and the Bellas instead. Guzman mentions Hulk Hogan and Sheik erupts. And now Sheik has the old school WWF action figures. That’s it, but Piper and company say “Live from New York it’s Monday Night Raw!” Ok that was good.

This is the final Raw before Survivor Series apparently.

US Title: The Miz vs. MVP

Miz is champion. He asks why the fans hate him. They love the World Series Champions, the New York Yankees. Miz says they bought the Series and the fans boo him out of the building. Apparently Miz didn’t know who his opponent was coming into this. Sherri Shepherd is here and for some reason WWE still thinks most of its fans are impressed. They have the old school entrance with the curtain across from the cameras. I love that.

Miz has a quick advantage to start but MVP knocks him to the floor to take over. Back in….or never mind as MVP gets knocked off the apron and into the barricade. Back in for real this time and MVP hits a flapjack to start coming back again. Ballin Elbow looks to set up the Playmaker but Miz counters, only to get booted down for two. Miz hits a boot to the ribs in the corner and the Skull Crushing Finale finishes MVP.

Rating: D. This was barely long enough to rate and it wasn’t anything of note. Miz would be on the rise very soon and would be world champion in just over a year. MVP was a guy I never got into for the most part and his face run was probably the least interesting time of his WWE stretch.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Santino Marella

This feud went on for awhile. Good pop for Santino here. He comes out in a New York Rangers jersey which he removes to reveal a Giants jersey. Make that a Knicks jersey (booed as they were awful at this point), followed by a Jets jersey, a Mets jersey (mixed reaction), a Phillies jersey (Philadelphia team), and finally the World Champion New York Yankees. The first move comes 90 seconds in with Chavo hitting Three Amigos. Santino keeps rolling away from the Frog Splash and here’s Horny in DX gear (remember that) for a distraction. Santino gets the rollup pin. Funny stuff.

Here’s DX who sucks up to the MSG crowd. HHH is sad because they’re not allowed to schill their merchandise. Shawn: “That’s right. We can’t talk about our new book which is available at WWEshop.com.” Shawn throws a free copy to Sherri Shepard, because I guess she can’t afford it. Anyway we need to talk about the triple threat with Cena this Sunday for the title. Cena has been saying that DX is going to implode on Sunday but that isn’t going to happen.

It doesn’t matter which one wins the title because they’re a unit. Shawn says they’ll compete at Survivor Series, but they can’t be torn apart. That brings them to Hornswoggle for some reason. HHH calls him out because he doesn’t like that Horny is wearing DX gear. HHH says they might let him join so here he is. Horny runs around doing crotch chops but HHH says come over here. He asks if Horny (and New York) is ready. They set to do the catchphrase, but HHH Pedigrees Horny instead. This would eventually set up the Little People’s Court fiasco.

Horny goes out on a stretcher. I’m still not sure what the idea here was.

We get a REALLY cool video on the history of WWF in Madison Square Garden. We see every major moment other than one that I’m sure you know of. Find this as it’s really worth seeing.

Piper is in the back and sounds ridiculously drunk. Jericho comes up and they trade a few jabs. Jericho wants something special so Piper brings in Masters to do the Pec Dance. The Bellas come in and take him away.

A guy from 30 Rock who is World Champion of Everything is guest ring announcer for this.

Divas Title: Alicia Fox vs. Melina

Melina is champion and Alicia won some battle royal. Alicia says to announcer her as the next Divas Champion. He says no and it’s now a lumberjill match with the members of the Survivor Series teams as the girls on the floor. Melina does her Matrix move and gets sent to the floor where the heel chicks beat on her. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two for Fox. And never mind as a sunset bomb gets the pin for Melina.

Usual post match brawl ensues.

Here’s Piper in the ring to a fairly mild reaction. Oh MAN is he drunk. He rambles on and on about all of the legends he fought (Hogan and Andre get the biggest pops with Andre’s being bigger). Piper talks about wanting one more match with Vince and mentions being fired after doing an interview on Real Sports. Vince’s music hits and it’s EASILY the loudest pop of the night.

Vince makes fun of Roddy’s dyed hair and agrees that Piper has done some awful things here in the Garden. The worst of them all though was to show up here tonight though. Vince makes some old jokes about Piper and says that if he beat up Piper tonight, his father and grandfather would be embarrassed. Piper says nothing of note and this is going WAY too long.

Vince says he’s looked better than every superstar he’s ever gotten in the ring with but there’s no match tonight with Piper because Vince is retired from in ring action. Piper says he’s been in 7000 car crashes and 30 matches. “Switch those around.” He goes through all the stuff he’s survived and says he can beat Vince. Piper wants it tonight and this FINALLY ends. I have no idea what they were going for here.

Here’s Sheamus who has only been on Raw about a month at this point. We get a clip of him retiring Jamie Noble two weeks ago. He issues an open challenge for tonight and no one answers. Sheamus goes to the floor and kicks Jerry Lawler’s head off for no apparent reason. This never really went anywhere.

Things stop for awhile for Lawler to be taken out. Striker takes over on commentary and we run down the card for Sunday.

Evan Bourne vs. Jack Swagger

This is joined in progress after a break. Swagger hit a wheelbarrow suplex to take over during the break. Apparently this is a rematch from last week or the week before. Bourne counters a suplex into a sweet rollup for two. After Bourne gets in a tiny bit of offense, Swagger hits a powerslam out of the corner and the Gutwrench Powerbomb for the pin. Basically a squash.

Here’s Piper in the ring for the fight with Vince. Instead he gets Orton who is all evil. Orton says if it’s a fight Piper wants, he can have it. Randy kicks him in the big gut so Piper punches him in the face. That’s about it for Piper’s offense and the beating begins. Orton loads up the Punt but has to stop because Kofi is late getting to the ring. Allegedly that right there is why Kofi’s push more or less stopped ice cold after this show.

Kofi comes out and destroys Randy who tries to run away. They go into the crowd and the beating is on. Orton takes over and they head back to the ring. Remember that this is just a big brawl segment, even though there’s a referee out there. Kofi avoids the Punt and pounds Randy down again.

They head back into the crowd and referees try to break it up which doesn’t work at all. Kofi is like screw that and takes Orton up into the tech area. He puts Orton on a table after a HUGE shot with some metal thing. Kofi goes up onto a wall and hits a HUGE Boom Drop through Orton and the table. This was AWESOME but because of that mistimed Punt to Piper, Kofi is now the tag champion partner specialist.

Cena, the champ at this point, says that history is about to be made in MSG again. Undertaker would be a great partner, but he’s kind of hard to talk to. Cena starts talking about the handicap match on Sunday for the title before being handed a note saying that it’s a triple threat match instead. Of course he’s ready in case HHH or Shawn wants to ask. For some reason he says it’s true that the Ghostbusters once saved this city from a giant marshmallow man. After Sunday, they better still be friends because they’ll need a shoulder to cry on.

Big Show/Chris Jericho vs. John Cena/Undertaker vs. D-Generation X

Cena is Raw Champion, Undertaker is Smackdown Champion, Jericho/Show are tag champions, and DX is there because they’re DX. Also Taker faces Jericho and Show in a triple threat match on Sunday for his title too. You can only tag your partner here. Oh and it’s WCW rules, meaning three people in the ring at once. Cena, Jericho and Shawn get us going. Jericho tags out almost immediately, as does Shawn. Cena makes it 3-3 so it’s HHH, Taker and Big Show.

HHH and Taker double team Show with Taker clotheslining him to the floor and kicking HHH’s head off. HHH takes Taker down with a spinebuster and tags off to Shawn, but Taker sits up before Shawn is on his feet. This is their first time in the ring together since Mania. Speaking of that match, Shawn tries to skin the cat but Taker catches him in Tombstone position. Big Show of course breaks it up because that’s what you do in triple threats instead of letting someone be knocked out.

Off to Jericho who tries the Lionsault but Shawn counters. Jericho counters the counter into the Walls but Taker grabs Jericho by the throat. Cena tags himself in to a loud boo and HHH comes in as well. John stares HHH down and it’s time for a slugout. Show breaks that up with a double chokeslam but here’s Taker to punch him down. Jericho comes in to try to steal a pin on Cena but it only gets two. Little stat: other than in a handicap match, Jericho has a total of one victory over Cena: in their first ever match.

Shawn comes back in and drills Jericho before hitting the top rope elbow for no cover. It’s pretty clear that this is less of a match and more of a way of throwing everyone in there at once to give the crowd a good time, which is fine. Cena loads up Shawn in the AA but HHH tags himself in. Jumping knee to the face and the spinebuster put Cena down but Show breaks up ANOTHER finisher. Shawn kicks his head off for his efforts but walks into a Codebreaker. Chokeslam to Jericho sets up the AA to HHH for the quick pin.

Rating: C+. Like I said this was fine. It wasn’t meant to be anything of quality and it really wasn’t, but seeing these guys in the main event at Madison Square Garden is just cool. The reactions were great too, and it tied into the PPV also with all six guys in the two main events being here. What more can you ask for?

Undertaker tombstones Cena post match, which has yet to lead anywhere but it might be used to set up a Mania match in the future.

Overall Rating: B. This show definitely falls more into the category of fun rather than good. The wrestling is just ok, but for the most part this was all about the Garden rather than the show anyway, and that’s just fine. It’s holy ground for WWE and for them to pay tribute to it like this is nice to see. Not a great show or anything, but it was fun and it set up Survivor Series pretty well, which is the most important thing. Good stuff.

Here’s Survivor Series if you’re interested.

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