Monday Night Raw
Date: February 3, 2003
Location: MCI Center, Washington D.C.
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re three weeks away from No Way Out and most of the card is pretty clear on the Raw side. The main event will be determined tonight as we have Jericho vs. Steiner for a shot at HHH’s title. Yeah I don’t know who’s going to win either. Other than that we have the official start of something pretty famous tonight which we’ll get to soon enough. Let’s get to it.

Also on a personal note, this was my 15^th birthday.

We open with Bischoff on the phone with Chief Morely and talking about signing Austin back to Raw. This is in Spanish due to WWE screwing things up. Morely can’t hear him at the arena. Bischoff is in San Antonio, Texas to find Austin.

Theme song.

We’re in English so King and JR can intro the show.

Here are Stacy Keibler and Test to open things up with Stacy returning after being hit in the face by a Jericho chair shot two weeks ago. Stacy says she’s trying to put the incident behind her because she needed to be more careful. However, she does want Jericho to apologize so Test calls Chris out to do so. Jericho comes out and says he has more important things to worry about, like going to Wrestlemania as the world champion.

He’s gotten over hitting Stacy in the face and suggests that Test be a big boy and get over it. Test says Jericho has five seconds to apologize and gets ready to go after him, but Christian jumps Test from behind, knocking Stacy down in the process. Test gets up and beats Christian down….and is booed for hugging Stacy. Yeah he’s a jerk but he did the exactly right thing here. Why boo him?

Kane goes into Chief Morely’s office and finds….RVD? Apparently Morely asked both of them to be here and Van Dam plans on asking for a rematch with Batista/HHH. First though, he wants to know why Kane bailed last week. It was because the mask was taken off but that’s not good enough for Rob. “What are you, Spider-Man?” They’re about to brawl when Morely arrives and makes a one on one match between the two of them later tonight.

Test sends Stacy back to the hotel and promises that this isn’t over yet.

Dudley Boyz vs. 3 Minute Warning

Chief Morely (in charge tonight if that wasn’t clear) assigns Rico as guest referee tonight. It’s a big brawl to start with the Samoans taking over but the 400lb Rosey misses a split legged moonsault. Jamal gets caught in a Doomsday Device but Rico counts very slowly. The Dudleys load up a 3D on Rosey but Jamal rolls up Bubba for a fast counted pin.

Spike Dudley comes out and sets up a table, allowing Bubba to powerbomb Rico through the wood.

Bischoff is lost in San Antonio. That’s better than being Lost in Cleveland.

Tommy Dreamer vs. ???

No opponent as HHH, Batista, Orton and Flair hit the ring instead of presumably Hennigan or Cappotelli. HHH has a bad leg due to the Steiner attack last week so Orton and Batista take Dreamer down with ease. After a horrible beating to Dreamer, HHH says this is the greatest evolution of talent you’ll ever see. Flair is the greatest of all time, HHH is the greatest today, and Orton and Batista will be the greatest one day. HHH says that he’s everything Ric Flair is (more like Harley Race) and every woman wants to be with him. On top of that you take his mind and you have the best in the world.

HHH says he’s the only diamond in this business but you have to look to the future. That brings him to Batista who is a monster of unbridled destruction. Then you have Randy Orton who has the business in his blood. HHH says Orton will be a diamond one day which is a nice metaphor. He also drops the name Evolution about five times as the official new name of the team, starting a path of destruction for the next year and a half.

Scott Steiner looks at some footage of the then unnamed Evolution attacking Steiner and then being beaten down again last week. As for tonight, he’s taking care of business with his biceps.

Evolution is in a sky box.

Bischoff goes to Austin’s house but is told Austin is at a bar by a man named Buford.

Clip from last week of Jazz returning and destroying Trish.

Victoria vs. Molly Holly

Non-title. There’s a large clock in the corner counting down to Bischoff’s time to fix Raw being up. Molly takes it to the mat for a quick one count before cranking on the arm a bit. Molly spins out of a snapmare before armdragging Victoria down a few times. A spinning side slam gets two on Molly before Victoria spins her down to the mat by the hair. Victoria gets two off a suplex before avoiding the handspring elbow in the corner. Widow’s Peak is enough to pin Molly in a quick match.

Post match Jazz comes out and hits the Jazz Stinger on Molly. Jazz shoves Victoria down as well before laying out Molly with a DDT.

Booker is fired up for his tag title shot but Goldust wants a deal first. If they win, great but if not then they split up.

Evolution has champagne.

Raw Tag Titles: William Regal/Lance Storm vs. Booker T/Goldust

Storm and Goldie start things off with Goldust cranking on the arm. A quick uppercut drops Storm and it’s off to the very popular Booker T for some chops to the chest. Lance comes back with a leg trip before it’s off to Regal who is taken down by Booker. Back to Goldust as the match is still slow paced. Regal comes back in and charges into an armdrag from Goldust.

Regal does some cheating via a knee to the back (he is a villain after all) and the champions take over. Willy comes in for a chinlock before it’s back to Storm for a cravate. Back up and a Boss Man Slam puts Storm down but Regal pulls Booker off the apron to block the hot tag. Everything breaks down and a powerslam gets two on Storm. The challengers are sent into each other and a quick dropkick from Storm is good for the pin on Goldie.

Rating: C-. This was tag team 101 but not a very good example of it. Booker and Goldust were a solid act for a long time and I don’t get the point of splitting them up when the division is such a wasteland at this point. Storm and Regal were solid in the ring but they weren’t the most charismatic team in the world.

Booker says they have nothing to be ashamed of and it’s not Goldust’s fault. He’s enjoyed their time together and they hug it out.

Bischoff goes to the saloon and tries to order a martini. This goes about as well as you would expect and Austin is in another bar elsewhere.

Kane vs. Rob Van Dam

Kane punches him during the finger point which is an idea more people should have used over the years. Van Dam comes back with some kicks and we have a standoff. Rob tries a monkey flip but gets caught in a powerslam for two. Kane can’t gorilla press him and Van Dam goes after the leg like almost everyone else does. Kane is kicked to the floor and taken down by a dive from Rob to fire up the crowd.

Van Dam is sent into the post and a side slam gets two back inside. A kick to the chest sets up Rolling Thunder for two but a big boot puts Rob down. The top rope clothesline connects and Van Dam is down with a hurt neck. He’s channeling his inner Bret Hart by goldbricking though….but here’s Jeff Hardy for the DQ. Huh?

Rating: D+. The match was ok but the amusing part was hearing King and JR talk about Kane being such a bad partner. You could swap the name RVD for Daniel Bryan and this commentary could be used ten years later. This wasn’t much to see but with just over four minutes to work with and a run-in ending what else could they do?

Jeff takes a chokeslam and the Five Star for good measure.

Booker is trying to find Goldust but he’s gone to his hotel.

Post break and Jeff is still down in the ring. Cue Shawn Michaels who was going to talk to Chris Jericho but this will have to do. Jeff is mad at the world right now and Shawn has been there before. Shawn sees wasted potential for Jeff and now it’s time for a decision. Shawn talks about throwing Marty through the glass 15 years ago (more like eleven or so at this point), and even though no one liked the decision at the time, it made him who he is today. Jeff gets annoyed so Shawn superkicks him. There’s something great about just kicking a guy in the face when he gets on your nerves. Shawn shines his shoe afterwards.

Sean O’Haire talks about democracy. This devil’s advocate character still makes me salivate, but we got Rikishi vs. Roddy Piper out of it so it’s all good right?

Maven vs. D’Lo Brown

They trade hiptoss attempts until Maven armdrags him down. We hit the mat with Maven holding a headlock as the fans are bored already. Brown comes back with a kneelift and sends Maven into the buckle as the booing continues. Maven hits what looked to be a spin kick and a backslide for two and a middle rope bulldog gets the same. Maven misses a missile dropkick and the Sky High powerbomb is good for the pin.

Rating: D-. This match exists. Next.

D’Lo’s manager Theodore Long teaches us about black power post match.

Bischoff arrives at the other bar (thankfully there were already cameras waiting for him) and after the break still doesn’t find Austin. Some guy makes fun of Bischoff and has beer poured on his head.

Evolution comes up to Goldust in the back and throws him into an electrical grid which shoots sparks everywhere. Great, it’s this angle.

Goldust is taken away by EMTs during the break.

Scott Steiner vs. Chris Jericho

The winner gets the world title shot at No Way Out. Steiner shoves him down to start but Jericho rolls him up and poses. Scott takes over and pounds away in the corner before hitting a gorilla press drop. There’s the elbow drop into the push-ups but Jericho grabs the referee to block a belly to belly suplex. A knee to the back sends Steiner to the floor so Jericho can send him into the steps. Steiner: “OW!” They head back inside for a surfboard submission from the Canadian.

Back in and Steiner hits something resembling a belly to belly suplex followed by a backdrop to take over. There’s the belly to belly but Jericho counters a powerbomb into a failed Walls attempt. Now the powerbomb hits for two but Steiner charges into a boot in the corner for two by Chris. Jericho hooks the Walls but Steiner quickly makes the rope for the break. Chris snaps Scott’s neck across the top rope but gets crotched on the top rope, setting up an Angle Slam off the top to send Steiner to the PPV.

Rating: D. Jericho was trying but Steiner was just horrible out there. Thankfully they kept this at about seven minutes instead of having it run 20:00 like the Rumble disaster became. Also did anyone believe Jericho had a chance here? Anyone? I didn’t think so, but then again we have to try to have disbelief right?

Vince comes in to see Morely and laughs about Bischoff running out of time. If Vince isn’t impressed next week, he’s fired.

Overall Rating: D-. Evolution got its name, Bischoff couldn’t find Austin, and we got the match that we knew we were going to get two weeks ago. Someone tell me what the fourth thing of note on this show was. This was two hours of nothing and a good sign of the problems this show would have for the rest of the year. The wrestling was bad, the promos were bad, the fans were baited and switched again on the Austin deal. Another horrible show this week.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @Kbreviews and pick up my book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Monday Night Raw
Date: July 1, 2013
Location: Gateway Arena, Sioux City, Iowa
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, John Bradshaw Layfield

We’re getting closer to Money in the Bank and we have the participants in the ladder matches already set. Other than that the world title scenes are ready with Ziggler challenging Del Rio and Cena defending against Henry. The card is looking good for the PPV and the TV leading up to it has been solid. Hopefully that keeps up tonight so let’s get to it.

Vickie opens us up, saying that we’ve got Cena vs. Del Rio later tonight. She sucks up to the McMahons a bit just to be safe.

Theme song.

Here’s Daniel Bryan to open things up but the crowd seems pretty stoic for him. There’s a ladder and the red briefcase over the ring. Bryan says last week the answer was clear: NO he is not the weak link. The new question is can Daniel Bryan ride the wave of momentum and win the MITB match at the PPV? The answer is of course YES. He wants to follow in the footsteps of Sammartino, Hogan, Austin and The Rock. Bryan says he won MITB two years ago and he’ll do it again this year.

This brings out Sheamus to remind Bryan that he lost the world title at Wrestlemania in just 18 seconds. Sheamus says it’s been too long since he’s had a title around his waist so he’ll win one after getting the briefcase. Bryan wants to know if Sheamus will kick himself in the face if Bryan calls 1-800-Fella. This brings out Orton (no music) to say he’s starving for a title so he’ll be taking the WWE Title.

This brings out Kane who says he’ll do anything to be WWE Champion, including going after one of his friends. Bryan makes fun of Kane for not being able to beat Orton but Kane seems to blame Daniel for the loss. Bryan and Kane get in their usual argument but Christian comes out to break it up. He says he’s had more experience than anyone in ladder matches and he wants one more match. Christian isn’t the biggest, strongest, scariest or hairiest guy in this match, but he’s the best.

Cue CM Punk to almost no reaction whatsoever. He said he wasn’t going to do what everyone else was doing but then he heard the word best. Punk respects Christian but says he’s going to win his third MITB ladder match in two weeks. He doesn’t care if no one likes him because everyone in this match is a jerk. RVD must be watching somewhere and Punk can beat him too. Bryan yells at Punk but Orton gets in Bryan’s face, only to be cut off by Kane. Daniel gets on Kane for fighting his battles, allowing Orton to RKO Kane.

Tonight we’re going to look back at some great champions in wrestling history, starting with Buddy Rogers, the original WWWF Champion. We also look at Lou Thesz as the former World Heavyweight Champion. For those of you unfamiliar, the current World Heavyweight Title has nothing to do with the titles Thesz held as its history starts in 2002.

The Wyatt Family is still coming.

Shield vs. Christian/Usos

This is a rematch from Friday where Shield lost their second ever six man tag. Rollins starts with Jimmy before it’s off to Jey for two off a back elbow. Rollins comes back with some forearms to the back and brings in Ambrose. Jey takes him into the corner for a tag off to Christian who sends Dean to the floor. The Usos dive on the tag champions and Christian takes out the US Champion as we take a break.

Back with Jey in trouble in the corner as we get a clip from the WWE App. Rollins steps on Jey before it’s back to Dean for a quick suplex. Reigns powers Jey down for two before it’s back to Ambrose for some mocking of Captain Charisma. Jey comes back with a superkick to knock Dean down but Rollins breaks up the hot tag. A clothesline puts Seth down and now it’s off to Christian who cleans house.

A middle rope dropkick gets two on Rollins but an Ambrose distraction lets Seth hit a quick enziguri. Dean comes in but walks into the reverse DDT for two. Everything breaks down until it’s only Christian vs. Ambrose. The Killswitch is broken up but Rollins breaks up the sunset flip out of the corner, giving Dean a rollup pin at 9:36.

Rating: C. This was the only logical way to end the match as you need to give Shield their momentum back before the PPV title defenses. They’re pretty much past the six man tag phase of their run now so the loss didn’t hurt them all that much. This was fine stuff here but it was nothing special.

Kane is mad at Bryan but Daniel makes up for it by getting Kane a rematch with Orton. Bryan will be guest referee.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Jinder Mahal

Ziggler easily takes him down to start but misses a dropkick, allowing Mahal to get a running knee to the head for two. Ziggler avoids a charge in the corner as the fans chant for JBL. A dropkick gets two for Dolph as the fans chant for Jerry. The Zig Zag is good for the pin at 2:23.

Post match the Band goes after Ziggler but he takes them down with ease.

More great champion clips: Bruno Sammartino and Harley Race.

Vickie is complaining about things in the back when HHH comes in. HHH praises her for doing what the fans want but she’s stressed because the other McMahons are telling her what to do. The solution? Listen to them and then ignore it.

We get a career retrospective on Mark Henry.

Randy Orton vs. Kane

Bryan is guest referee. This is also a rematch from Smackdownw here Bryan threw Kane into the RKO to give Orton the win. Orton pounds away in the corner to start but walks into an uppercut to put him down. Kane fires off some knees in the corner and the low dropkick gets two. Off to a nerve hold by the masked man but Orton fights up and takes Kane down with the Thesz Press. A knee drop gets two for Randy but Kane comes back with a quick suplex. After a quick break on the floor, Kane misses a charge into the corner and Orton pounds away again. Bryan pulls Orton off but Randy shoves him away for the DQ at 4:47.

Actually scratch that as Kane demands and receives a restart. Orton hits a dropkick to knock him to the floor as we take a break. Back with Kane holding Orton in a neck crank before hitting some clotheslines in the corners. A side slam sets up the top rope clothesline but Orton dropkicks Kane out of the air. The snap powerslam puts Kane down but he breaks up the Elevated DDT. The chokeslam is countered into the backbreaker from Orton and THAT sets up the DDT. Orton loads up the RKO but Bryan breaks it up, allowing Kane to hit a big boot for the pin via a fast count at 12:20 total.

Rating: D+. This didn’t do much for me at all and it was a far cry from their match on Friday. The Bryan stuff is story development but when the blowoff match is going to be in a seven man match it’s kind of hard to care about it here. Kane getting a win here is fine as it doesn’t make Orton look bad and gives him some momentum heading into the PPV.

Kane grabs Bryan by the throat but lets him go and leaves. Bryan eats an RKO.

Punk says he’s beating the Primetime Players alone tonight. He trusts Heyman but not Axel. Heyman says Punk trusts him so trust his judgment.

Bob Backlund and Dusty Rhodes were great champions.

Fandango vs. Sheamus

Fandango dances aaround a lot to start so Sheamus does a little jig of his own. A quick clothesline puts Fandango down and Sheamus takes it to the floor with ease. Fandango is whipped into the steps but comes back with an enziguri in the ring for two. Off to a chinlock on Sheamus before he sends Fandango into the corner for some shoulder blocks. The ten forearms send Fandango to the aisle and he walks out for the countout at 6:16.

Rating: D. Well this sucked. The crowd is sucking the life out of this show and it’s very difficult to get into things at all. Fandango needed a win here to make himself look good after being gone for about a month but instead he loses while looking like any other given heel. Nothing to see here, as has been the case with a lot of stuff tonight.

Ryback vs. The Miz

Jericho is on commentary. Ryback pounds Miz down to start as Jericho talks about how Ryback is a whining complainer. The fans think this is boring as Ryback drops knees on Miz’s back. Some left hands have no effect on Ryback but even more have a bit of impact. Miz goes after Ryback’s bad leg and hits a big boot to take Ryback down. The corner clothesline hits and there’s a jawbreaker to the bad leg. Miz looks for the Figure Four but Ryback gets the ropes, so instead Miz pounds on the knee in the corner…..and Ryback says stop the match at 5:14.

Rating: D. Are the writers REALLY this stupid? I mean, do they want us to be interested in Ryback or do they just tear characters down like this for their own amusement? A year ago Ryback was a rising star and now he’s just this. This is the same Ryback who had a war with Cena a few weeks ago and now he can’t even survive five minutes against THE MIZ?

Post match Jericho hits a Codebreaker on Ryback.

Hogan and Flair were great champions as well.

Here’s Mark Henry with something to say. He didn’t get the name the World’s Strongest Man out of a Crackerjack box but rather he earned it. Henry was in the Olympics in 1992 and 1996 before entering the WWE 17 years ago. Since then he’s found out that there’s jealous, politics and accidental injuries in the WWE. In all those years, he’s never been given a legitimate shot at the WWE Championship. After all those years of pretending he liked the boys and doing the right things for the business he’s no further than where he started.

He deserves to be WWE Champion after all the time he’s given to this organization and all the fans. Henry has earned the right to be WWE Champion because the people hang on every word he says like a bunch of puppets. No one is going to keep him down at Money in the Bank and he’s going to do the right thing for himself. After he beats Cena, everyone is going to say he earned the title because he’s going to beat Cena up.

Vince comes in to see Vickie and Brad because he’s not happy with Daniel Bryan being out there. He does however like the main event of champion vs. champion. The other family members like it but Vince doesn’t like the money being thrown away. A match like that should be on PPV. It’s not good business, and the two of them need to remember there’s a long list of people who were fired for not listening to Vince.

Curtis Axel/CM Punk vs. Prime Time Players

Axel starts with Young as Heyman is already bragging. An armdrag puts Young down but Curtis won’t tag Punk. Off to Titus but Axel still won’t tag. The first decent chant of the night is for CM Punk but Axel silences them cold with a dropkick to take Titus down. The fans still want Punk but Curtis just looks at him and gets clotheslined down by O’Neil.

Titus suplexes Young onto Axel for two before putting Axel in an abdominal stretch. Axel finally gets up a boot in the corner and the double tag brings in Punk to face Young. The springboard cross body puts Darren down and the running knee in the corner sets up the Macho Elbow. There’s the GTS to Young but Axel tags himself in and steals the pin at 6:13.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t bad but it was storytelling instead of a match. We’re slowly building to Punk turning his back on Heyman once and for all to set up the showdown with Lesnar at Summerslam and putting Axel over at the same time is a fine way of going about accomplishing that goal. Not terrible here but it was all about the story instead of the wrestling.

Punk walks out on Axel and Heyman post match.

Austin and Sting are great champions.

Alicia Fox vs. Kaitlyn

Both girls get quick rollups for two before Fox pounds on Kaitlyn for a bit. Kaitlyn fights up and spears Alicia down for the pin at 1:52. Nothing to see here.

Post match AJ comes out and has some pictures exposing what kind of trash Kaitlyn used to be. The shot is of a 400lb woman with Kaitlyn’s face superimposed on her body.

Stephanie yells at Vickie but Vickie snaps a bit and says she’s being overloaded. Stephanie sympathizes until Vickie says HHH and Vince are a bit crazy. Next week Vickie gets a job evaluation in the ring.

Cody Rhodes vs. Antonio Cesaro

Before the match Colter talks about how sad it is that the government and Surprise Court is giving the country away. He brings Swagger back and says that we need to pick a side in the company revolution. Cesaro takes over with a quick gutwrench suplex but Cody comes back with a string of rollups. Rhodes is sent to the floor and JBL gets in a good line with “Cesaro knows five languages and now that he’s with Colter he’s learning Dutch.” Cody tries a backslide but gets countered into the Neutralizer for the pin at 2:20.

HHH and Booker T were great champions.

Eva Marie and JoJo, the new Divas for the reality show, are mocked by the Bellas. The Funkadactyls and Natalya come up to protest as this commercial continues.

The Wyatt Family arrives next week.

Alberto Del Rio vs. John Cena

Ricardo is missing due to an injury suffered going through a table on Smackdown. They trade headlocks to start until Del Rio shoots Cena off for a standoff. Del Rio escapes an AA attempt and takes a breather on the floor, only to walk into a snap suplex for two. Cena bulldogs Del Rio down but misses a charge into the post. Del Rio misses a charge at Cena and falls to the floor as we take a break.

Back with Alberto holding a chinlock before going up top, only to dive into a dropkick from Cena. The shoulder block misses though and Cena falls out to the floor again. Back in again and Cena initiates his finishing sequence, only to have the AA countered into a German suplex for two. Del Rio’s low superkick is countered into a belly to belly for two but he comes back with the enziguri to knock Cena off the top. Del Rio puts him in the Tree of Woe but misses a charge of his own, going shoulder first into the post.

Cena gets two off a top rope cross body as the fans are FINALLY into this show, over three hours after it started. The AA is countered into the armbreaker which is countered into the STF but here’s Henry to distract Cena. He circles the ring, allowing Del Rio to roll up Cena for two. The low superkick gets two for Alberto but here’s Ziggler on the top rope, allowing Cena to hit the AA for the pin at 15:56.

Rating: C+. This was good but you knew the double distractions were coming from the moment we went to a break. At the end of the day, these matches just don’t mean a thing no matter how clever the writers think they are. Also, Del Rio isn’t going to be a good opponent for Cena due to one simple reason: Cena isn’t going to tap out, so the armbreaker is worthless.

Post match Henry picks up the WWE Title and gets in the ring before throwing the belt down. Cena goes to pick it up but has to back away from Henry. Mark walks away to end the show.

One more Wyatt Faimly promo for the road.

Overall Rating: D+. This show was the opposite of the awesome that was the last two weeks of Raw. This was a bunch of far too long and far too repetitive segments with the McMahons and Vickie, setting up a segment that most people don’t care about in the slightest. On top of that we had the worst crowd I can remember in years dragging things down even further. Finally we had the focus on the title tonight which is fine, but these champion vs. champion matches don’t mean a thing given how often we see them anymore.

Results

Shield b. Usos/Christian – Rollup to Christian

Dolph Ziggler b. Jinder Mahal – Zig Zag

Kane b. Randy Orton – Big Boot

Sheamus b. Fandango via countout

The Miz b. Ryback via surrender

CM Punk/Curtis Axel b. Prime Time Players – GTS to Young

Kaitlyn b. Alicia Fox – Spear

Antonio Cesaro b. Cody Rhodes – Neutralizer

John Cena b. Alberto Del Rio – Attitude Adjustment

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

I got to thinking about the amount of title reigns in various companies today and did some checking.Ring of Honor has been around for over 11 years now and Jay Briscoe is the 18th world champion.  There has been one two time champion (Austin Aries) in the history of the title.  Here’s the interesting part: the WWF Title had its first two time champion after ten years, it’s second two time champion after 26 years, and it’s first three time champion after 28 years.

Think about that for a minute when you hear Cole talking about Orton and Cena and HHH having like 40 world title reigns between them.  They’ve done that in less than 15 years combined.  The 40th WWF Title reign took 35 years to reach in 1998.  See why old fans get annoyed at how fast the title changes hands in modern times?

Smackdown
Date: June 28, 2013
Location: Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, South Carolina
Commentators: John Bradshaw Layfield, Michael Cole

After Monday we have a lot more of the card set for Money in the Bank. Tonight we’ll find out who the Smackdown MITB guys are as well as having a Fiesta Del Rio to celebrate Alberto winning the World Heavyweight Championship again. WWE has picked things up lately so hopefully the positive trend continues. Let’s get to it.

We open with the theme song for the first time in months.

There’s a pinata above the ring for the fiesta later.

Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow

This is a Dublin street fight which hopefully ends this stupid feud once and for all. Sandow says that South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union and now he wants out of here too. Ya’ll isn’t a word. It’s pronounced you all, as in you all are a bunch of ignoramuses. Sandow pounds away to start and hits Sheamus with a green kendo stick before we head to the floor. Sheamus whips him into the barricade and puts him over the bar at ringside (Irish people like to drink you see) for the ten forearms to the chest.

Sandow blocks a suplex on the floor and sends Sheamus into the post to take over. Sheamus comes back by throwing Sandow into another bar and pelting a keg at him. Now Sandow has a bag of Irish potatoes dropped onto him as we’re in the “comedy” portion of the match. Damien sends him into the steps to put Sheamus down again as we take a break.

Back with Sandow running Sheamus over for two back in the ring. Sandow throws in some chairs with one being wedged between the ropes. Sheamus comes back with a green bar stool to the face and the Irish Curse for two. A running knee life puts Sandow on the floor and there’s the rolling senton for good measure. Sheamus gets two off the top rope shoulder block but Damien comes back with straight right hands.

The Terminus gets two and Sandow pounds away with the kendo stick. Sheamus easily kicks out and throws a chair at Sandow’s face to take over again. Now it’s Sandow being beaten with the stick for two but he still fights out of White Noise. Sheamus hits another kendo stick shot to send Sandow into the open chair, followed by the Brogue Kick for the pin at 9:28 shown of 12:58.

Rating: C. To recap this feud: everyone said Sheamus would dominate Sandow, Sheamus did dominate Sandow, and the final match (hopefully) was a match in which Sheamus should have destroyed Sandow and he did just that. How this does anything to elevate Sandow or help Sheamus is beyond me but thank goodness it’s over.

Sheamus takes the kendo stick with him and throws the potatoes to the fans.

We look back at the main event from Raw with Bryan making Orton tap out.

Bryan is whistling in the back but Kane gets in his face and tells him not to brag. Kane congratulates Bryan on his win but calls it an upset which sets Bryan off. The big man shuts Bryan up before he can get anywhere with it but Daniel just chalks it up to nerves and hugs him. It’s Kane vs. Orton with Bryan on commentary later.

We recap Heyman and Punk’s segment from Raw.

Time for MizTV with special guest Paul Heyman. Miz asks about Punk and Lesnar being a tag team but Heyman doesn’t want to talk about his personal life. Miz wants to know about Heyman bullying Renee young last week but Heyman says he’s just an advocate. Heyman turns the tables saying Miz is a former WWE and Intercontinental Champion by bringing out Curtis Axel. Miz says that Heyman fooled him just like Heyman fooled Punk on Raw. Heyman says he invited Axel and this interview is over unless Miz isn’t intimidated by Curtis.

Miz says that Heyman is the walking version of Star Wars: he talks like Yoda, smells like Chewbacca and looks like Jabba the Hut. This makes Axel the WWE version of Luke Skywalker: Luke, you are not your father. Miz says he’s going to win the title and Axel says he takes that threat seriously. A fight is about to break out but Heyman says if Miz wants to fight there needs to be a contract and Axel needs to be paid. Heyman makes fun of Miz’s catchphrase but Miz cuts him off, only to have Axel lay Miz out with a neckbreaker into a cutter.

AJ Lee vs. Natalya

Before the match Kaitlyn comes out dressed like AJ to make fun of AJ’s issues with men. Apparently AJ even dated the timekeeper, the ringside doctor and Lillian Garcia. Unfortunately we get no more elaboration on that as the bell rings. Natalya takes AJ down but AJ escapes a slam and slams Natalya’s head into the mat. Kaitlyn skips down to the ring to distract AJ, allowing Natalya to get a rollup pin at 1:05. Kaitlyn in the AJ outfit works VERY well.

Kaitlyn spears AJ down post match.

Bray Wyatt vignette.

Teddy is in the back when Vince comes in. Since Raw is having an All-Star MITB match (Vince’s official term for it), Teddy is going to look to the future. His picks are Wade Barrett, Jack Swagger, Antonio Cesaro, Fandango, Dean Ambrose, Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow. Vince is impressed and they practice saying Fandango.

Randy Orton vs. Kane

Bryan is on commentary. Kane grabs a headlock to start but Orton fights free with right hands. He charges into Kane’s boot in the corner to put him down as the match slows up a bit. The low dropkick gets two for Kane but Orton whips him into the corner. The announcers ask Bryan if he would cost Kane the briefcase at MITB but get no answer. Kane goes up for the top rope clothesline but gets punched out of the air to give Orton control again.

Orton stomps away and drops a knee for two but ducks his head to get caught in the running DDT. We take a break and come back with Kane putting on a nerve hold. Orton fights up as Bryan gets on the announce table to play cheerleader. Orton hits the backbreaker to escape and Bryan’s chant becomes NO. A Thesz Press puts Kane down but he kicks Orton’s head off for two. Back up again and Orton hits a dropkick for two of his own, only to get caught in a side slam. This back and forth stuff is working very well.

The top rope clothesline is broken up again, but Kane fights out of the superplex and hits the clothesline on the third try. A back elbow blocks the chokeslam attempt and Orton’s powerslam gets two. The Elevated DDT is countered but neither finisher can hit. Instead it’s the Elevated DDT to send Kane to the floor where Bryan encourages his partner. Bryan helps Kane get back in but he walks into the RKO for the pin at 9:13 shown of 12:13.

Rating: B. I’ve always been a fan of the chemistry between these guys and this is another good example of them working well together. The back and forth stuff with both guys hitting bigger and bigger stuff was a good story capped off by Orton finally hitting his home run move for the win. Bryan accidentally costing Kane the match fits their story very well and advances them towards Money in the Bank. Good stuff.

Ryback vs. Justin Gabriel

Gabriel fires off some kicks to start but Ryback comes back with a hard kick to Gabriel’s chest to take over. Ryback misses another big boot and catches himself on the top rope, allowing Justin to fire kicks into the leg. Gabriel charges into the corner but dives into the Shell Shock for the pin at 1:51. Much like Monday, this was basically a face match by Ryback as he fought through trouble to win.

Immediately after the match here’s Jericho to talk about how Ryback may be a killer, he’s also a whiner, a complainer, a butcher, a baker and a giant excuse maker. Ryback shouts that he’s injured so Jericho starts a Cryback chant. Jericho says he’s going to give something to make Ryback cry about and goes after the big man, only to have Ryback bail from the Walls. Ryback whines that he should be WWE Champion and leaves.

I’ll never get WWE’s theory of turning guys like Ryback. “Well this guy is over as a face, so let’s change everything that got him over and wonder why he isn’t over as a heel.” It works for people when they’ve had great success, but Ryback never actually won anything, so you’re taking the only things he has going for him away and making him less of an intimidating monster and more just pathetic.

Bray Wyatt vignette.

Shield vs. Usos/Christian

Shield beat down Christian again on Main Event but the Usos made the save. Jey and his cousin Roman quickly fall to the floor and we take an early break. Back with Ambrose stomping on Jey before it’s back to Reigns. The big guy hooks a front facelock but lets go to Superman punch Jimmy off the apron. The double tag brings in Ambrose and Christian cleans house with the jumping back elbow.

Rollins breaks up the spear but Christian backdrops him on the floor. Back in and Dean rolls through a cross body for two, only to get caught in a tornado DDT for the same. Reigns comes back in and sends Christian to the floor but gets taken out by Jey. Rollins dives on both Usos and Dean looks to do the same but he walks into a spear from Christian for the pin at 5:18 shown of 8:48.

Rating: C+. This was a good fast paced tag match but did Shield really need to lose another match in such a short span of time? The good thing though is the titles are now the main focus for the team once the big loss was already out of the way. The match was entertaining enough and it sets up the PPV as well so there isn’t much to complain about here.

It’s time for Fiesta Del Rio so here are the mariachis to play the champion to the ring. Ricardo does the full entrance and insults the crowd for some good cheap heat. There are red white and green balloons and a big bowl of chips and salsa. The pinata has Ziggler’s face on it which makes more sense than most pinatas (sidebar: I’ve never understood the mentality behind pinatas. “Hey kids, here’s one of your favorite cartoon characters. Now let’s beat it with a stick until it busts open and you can eat whatever comes out!”).

Del Rio says it’s time to celebrate him being a four time champion and we’re going to do it his way. He says he’s going to speak Spanish tonight, drawing a USA chant. Del Rio speaks Spanish and says this is a party for him and not for any of the people. When he won the title, he didn’t need to use a Money in the Bank contract like Ziggler did. The fans chant USA so Del Rio calls them ignorant and switches back to English.

We’ll start the games with the pinata. Del Rio busts it open with two swings and says he broke it open like he bashed Ziggler’s head in. He’ll do the same thing again at MITB to retain the title. Del Rio poses and wants to know where Ziggler is. This brings out Dolph for the brawl but Del Rio throws him into the salsa. Ziggler throws Ricardo through the food table and hits the Zig Zag on the champion. Dolph swings a guitar at Del Rio but Alberto runs away, leaving Ricardo to take El Cabong. Ziggler plays guitar with the mariachis as balloons fall to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. I really liked the show tonight as we had some good matches and some solid angle advancement throughout the night. Ziggler looked like the hero they want him to be tonight and there’s a reason to hate Del Rio with the head injuries. WWE has flipped a switch in the last few weeks and their shows have been on fire ever since with this being their latest good effort.

Results

Sheamus b. Damien Sandow – Brogue Kick

Natalya b. AJ Lee – Rollup

Randy Orton b. Kane – RKO

Ryback b. Justin Gabriel – Shell Shock

Christian/Usos b. Shield – Spear to Ambrose

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 27, 2003
Location: Allstate Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re back to this death year for the company after a five month layoff. We’re past the Rumble which means HHH is world champion (I’m shocked too) and heading towards No Way Out where we get a rematch from the horrible Steiner vs. HHH world title match in Boston. Let’s get to it.

Booker T vs. Jeff Hardy

Jeff challenged Booker to this match as he’s growing more and more frustrated at his inability to win a big match. They jockey for position to start until Booker misses a side kick and it’s a standoff. Booker chops him into the corner and pounds Jeff down, only to have Hardy come back with a flying forearm for two. Off to a chinlock with a knee in Booker’s back but T fights up with ease.

Jeff gets some feet up to stop a charge in the corner and gets two off a middle rope dropkick. Booker crotches himself on a side kick but Jeff misses the Whisper in the Wind. Booker misses the ax kick and the second Whisper connects, but Booker hooks the spinning sunset flip out of the corner for the pin.

Rating: D. This wasn’t working at all but Jeff’s heel turn looks to be going well. Booker was starting to improve at this point but he wasn’t up to the level he would eventually reach. The match didn’t have time to go anywhere, but the chemistry clearly wasn’t there anyway so the lack of time is a good thing.

Post match Jeff tries to jump Booker but gets sent into the barricade instead.

Here’s Scott Steiner to complain about HHH being behind his attack last week. Steiner calls out HHH who debuts his let down hair look here which would be his style for the next two years or so. HHH says that from now on, when you call him out you get all four members of the yet to be named team. They storm the ring but Steiner pulls a led pipe out of his pants and runs them all off. Somehow this took nearly five minutes.

Teddy Long wants to know why there are no black superheroes. Teddy was usually nuts with this character but he’s got a completely valid point this time. D’Lo Brown is YOUR new black superhero. Good to know.

Hurricane vs. D’Lo Brown

Brown slaps him in the face to start and hits that jumping leg lariat of his. D’Lo pounds him on the mat as JR and King do the whitest Shaft routine you’ll ever hear. Off to an abdominal stretch by D’Lo but Hurricane flips out, only to be suplexed down for two. Brown stays on Hurricane’s neck but the powers of….uh….what were Hurricane’s powers anyway? He comes back with an Edge-O-Matic for two before sending Brown to the floor for a big plancha, hurting his own back in the process. Back inside and Hurricane’s back gives out on a suplex attempt, allowing Brown to hit the Sky High for the pin.

Rating: D+. For a four minute TV match, I’ve seen worse. Both guys had a lot more potential than he was given credit for but neither ever had a chance to shine. Of all people, Rock would be the guy who gave Hurricane his big rub, only to have HHH treat Hurricane like a jobber a few weeks later. Such is life in 2003.

Bischoff is worried that Vince likes Smackdown better.

We recap Jericho hitting Stacy with a chair last week.

Here’s Jericho with something to say. He’s sorry for what he did last week but before he can get much further, here’s Christian with something to say. Christian thinks that it’s Stacy’s fault for being out there and Test’s fault for not taking the chair shot last week. Jericho talks some trash about Test until Shawn comes out to further their Wrestlemania feud. Shawn makes fun of Jericho and eventually clears the ring of the Canadians. Not much to see here.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Victoria

Victoria is defending and this is a street fight. Victoria jumps the champion during her entrance and chokes her to the ring with a kendo stick. Trish is whipped into the steps and then into the crowd but she comes back with high kicks to take over. A cross body off the barricade gets two on the floor (making this a hardcore match instead of a street fight) before they head back inside. Victoria hits a slingshot legdrop for two but Trish heads to the floor to find weapons.

A HARD trashcan lid shot to the head puts Victoria down before Trish smacks two lids around Victoria’s head. The champion comes back with a lid shot of her own and slingshots Trish face first into the can itself. Victoria goes up but gets hit with the lid again, followed by the Stratusphere for two. They head outside again with Trish hitting a Thesz Press off the apron to take over again.

Back in and Trish pounds away but has to duck a fire extinguisher blast from Victoria’s guy Steven Richards. The Chick Kick gets two for Stratus and she pounds both of them down with kendo stick shots. Victoria comes back with a superkick for two followed by Richards breaking up Stratusfaction. Victoria shoves Trish off the apron and into the barricade for the pin to retain.

Rating: C+. This was better than you would expect but Richards was very annoying. It’s good stuff when the chicks get out of their comfort zone and beat the tar out of each other like this which made for a more entertaining match. Victoria was awesome in the psycho role as well. Good stuff here.

Post match Jazz returns from injury and destroys Trish with every signature and finishing move she has.

Raw Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. William Regal/Lance Storm

This is a tables rematch from the last week with the foreigners defending the titles. The Dudleys pound on the foreigners with flags to start until Bubba spears Storm to the floor. D-Von officially starts with Regal as we’re supposed to believe tags will be a part of this match. D-Von clotheslines Regal in the corner and Bubba follows with a splash and the reverse double neckbreaker to put Regal down. Storm tries to come in and walks into 3D followed by a What’s Up to Regal. It’s table time and the big ECW city of Chicago goes NUTS.

D-Von can’t find any tables as the match kind of comes to a screeching halt since both champions are down but there’s no way to end the match. This brings out Chief Morely (Val Venis) with a table, but as the Dudleys go after him, 3 Minute Warning of all people pop up to beat the Dudleys down, leaving none of the people in the match standing. This brings out Spike Dudley to beat up Rico (Warning’s manager) and Jamal, only to be crotched by Rosey. Rico kicks Spike in the head and Rosey powerbombs D-Von through the table to retain the titles.

Rating: D. Well that happened. This was a six and a half minute match with four people in it to start and five people interfering. The tag title scene was such a mess at this time that’s it’s all the more confusing why there was a second set of titles created a few months earlier. This wasn’t really even a match.

HHH and company go into Eric’s office and laugh a bit. Next.

RVD and Kane make up after their issues at the Rumble because they face Batista and HHH tonight.

Matt Cappotelli vs. John Hennigan

This is billed as an exhibition and both guys come out together with Al Snow. Hennigan is more famous as John Morrison and looks odd with short hair here. They fight over a headlock to start as it’s clear both guys are very green. Hennigan spins out of a hiptoss and armdrags Matt down for two. Not that it matters as here’s Christopher Nowitski, a fellow Tough Enough finalist, to complain about both guys rubbing his in his loss. For those of you who didn’t get to see Cappotelli wrestle, he had more potential than Hennigan.

Tommy Dreamer runs off Nowitski and canes both guys down to make them pay dues.

Here’s Bischoff to say that Austin is NOT here tonight and to plug Austin’s interview in Raw Magazine. We get a clip from Confidential (a show with a bunch of videos which started out AWESOME with stuff like Shawn admitting he knew about Montreal beforehand for the first time and a piece on how wrestlers react when they’re told wrestling is fake. Yeah on a WWE show. It eventually evolved into a nothing show like most other WWE ideas) explaining that Austin took his ball and went home. We also get the Austin Desire (an ad campaign at the time) video and that’s about it.

Scott Steiner vs. Chris Jericho for the #1 contender’s spot is announced for next week.

Kane/Rob Van Dam vs. HHH/Batista

The big men get us going with Kane pounding him into the corner but getting caught by a clothesline. Kane comes back with a powerslam and it’s off to Van Dam with a splash for two. Rob hits some shoulders in the corner but as he backflips away from Batista, Big Dave spears him down. Off to HHH who pounds away in the corner but gets caught by some spin kicks to the face. The jumping knee to the face gets two for the world champion and it’s back to Batista.

Some HARD clotheslines put Van Dam down and then some hard clotheslines put Van Dam down. Batista wasn’t exactly the star he would become yet if you couldn’t tell. Back to HHH who gets caught with a kick to the chest, allowing for the double tag to the big men. Everything breaks down and Kane hits the top rope clothesline on Batista but the Five Star misses. Orton and Flair run down and send Kane into the post before Batista rips the mask off. Kane runs off as Van Dam is hit with a spinebuster and the Batista Bomb for the pin.

Rating: D. Not much to see here as Batista wasn’t ready for anything like this yet. He would get much better by the end of the year but his matches were pretty hard to sit through at this point. HHH’s new style didn’t work for anyone but him, meaning it’s all we’re going to see for a long time.

Post match Van Dam gets beaten down until Steiner comes out for the save with the pipe. The numbers catch up with him too and the beatdown is on. It’s a long one too with the last two and a half minutes of the show being spent on the attack. The group leaves and Jericho comes out to put Steiner in the Walls to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a hard one to grade as a lot of the stuff wasn’t bad at all but it’s leading up to such worthless material later on that it’s hard to care at all. The stories just aren’t interesting and there’s almost no reason to care about any of them. HHH is showing signs of being the life sucking force that he would be all year with nothing interesting happening for him. The show certainly wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t interesting.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Vengeance 2007
Date: June 24, 2007
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 15,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Joey Styles, Tazz, John Layfield

So this is the final actual Vengeance show and its official title is Vengeance: Night of Champions. This show is infamous for one reason: it’s the Benoit Show. The next day we would find out what he did and he’s not here tonight for “personal reasons.” For those of you that are new to this, Chris Benoit went insane and murdered his wife and son before killing himself at his home. He was supposed to win the ECW Title here but that obviously never happened. Other than that, all titles are on the line. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how everyone wants to be a champion, which is very true I guess. We get clips of all of the big matches tonight which is good for helping to bring us all up to date considering this is a 3 year old show.

Oh and we’re done with the brand exclusive shows at this point which is a MAJOR plus for me.

We’re going to have legends introduced all night which is a cool thing. The first are the US Express: Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, who continues to change his last name from Rotundo to Rotunda every time he appears.

Raw Tag Titles: The Hardys vs. Lance Cade/Trevor Murdoch

This was a reunion that went on for a few months because they had nothing else to do for them. Jeff’s rise to awesomeness would come soon enough. Matt would stay uninteresting. The country boys are the champions here. They took them from the Hardys about three weeks before this. It’s weird to think that only Matt is still with the company now. Dang the fans are way into Matt here. And Jeff is even more over.

They dominate early on which leads me to think the champions will retain. The champions try to run away and we have a red carpet here. Dang I didn’t know Murdoch could run that fast. We hit the formula here which is likely the right thing to do. I’ve always wondered why partners start to come in at 2. It’s not like they’re The Flash or something. Murdoch has a bad eye apparently. Is he like Rocky now? Murdoch’s country music gimmick a few years after this really was comically bad.

Sorry for being so random but this just isn’t an interesting match at all so I’m trying to kill the time. Murdoch hooks a LONG half crab to kill even more time. Well to be fair Matt has a bad knee apparently. Jeff gets the hot tag and the crowd is VERY hot here. Jeff beats the tar out of everyone and hits his sitout Gordbuster. Matt Hardy accidentally distracts the referee and Jeff gets double teamed into Cade’s sitout spinebuster for the pin to retain.

Rating: D+. Boring match but considering there are so many matches tonight they likely have to hurry. This is a match that shows the issues with both the division and the show though as there is no need for this to be on PPV as it should have been on Raw instead of here. This was the Hardys’ last official tag match together for awhile so there you are.

Booker lists off his accomplishments. He would be in TNA in like four months.

Ad for Summerslam which was going to be the Jackass show. Thankfully that never happened, so instead TNA did it and it completely bombed.

We have a little profile on Eddie, because this is a WWE show and we need to get every bit of sympathy out of Eddie’s corpse that we can right? They completely leave out Goldberg interfering in that Lesnar match for obvious reasons.

Cruiserweight Title: Chavo Guerrero vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

We get a bit on Dean Malenko as he was a great Cruiserweight Champion back in the day. Jimmy comes out to NO reaction. I mean NOTHING. This is about a month before Chavo lost the belt to Horny. Oh dear. Apparently the WCW Light Heavyweight Title is now the official forerunner to the Cruiserweight Title. Ok then. The division was really pretty worthless at this point so I guess killing the title was the right idea.

Then again that could be Yang since no one buys him as a threat to the title here at all. He does however hit a SWEET dive off the top to the floor. That looked awesome. JBL really was solid at announcing. He wasn’t great or anything but he had recent credibility which is the most important thing so there we are. Chavo takes over as this just isn’t that interesting at all for some reason. I just do not care at all. We’re reminded again that the name Guerrero means warrior. We get it.

It’s a bad sign when the best thing you can say about a guy is he has a never say die attitude. Jimmy gets some offense in and manages to get the crowd to make noise. And there are the Three Amigos to get rid of that. The top rope moonsault from Yang misses and you can feel it getting close to the end. You can see people getting up and leaving or getting back from the concession stands as Chavo wins with a Frog Splash.

Rating: D+. The wrestling wasn’t bad here, but DANG this just wasn’t any good. Again this should have been a TV match and not a PPV match. You can really see how little development there were for a lot of these titles back in the day and it really wasn’t a great idea to have these matches on PPV. It’s not bad, but there’s just no point to it.

We recap the Vince Limo Explosion which is really put into context by what would be revealed the next night. I remember watching this on TV and saying that the lim was going to blow up. No idea why I thought that but I just knew it. Another way you could tell it was fake was a puddle appears just prior to the explosion.

It was a great editing job though as I had to read that on WZ to notice it. There’s a poll question on WWE.com as to who you think the culprit is. Only Vince would use his own murder as publicity.

Lashley is mad at Vince but didn’t do it.

We see clips of Taz being a tough guy. He’s credited with being the first guy to make people tap out to indicate submission. I’ve heard that from non-WWE sources too so maybe there’s some truth to that.

ECW Title: CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro

Again this was supposed to be Benoit instead of Nitro which had me drooling over the thought of it. Punk cleanshaven is odd looking. Nitro would become Morrison in about a month or so. We hear the term “personal reasons” which no one knew the meaning of at the time. It would be discovered tomorrow afternoon which is chilling when you think about it. What was he doing during this show?

I made a thread once about these two being the real rivalry in WWE over the last 3 years and I still think that. The fans want tables. Good luck with that. Nitro hits that springboard rotating kick which looks great. Johnny Nitro sounds like a guy Sandman should massacre in a TV squash. I think that might have been the idea actually. This is the standard decent match between the two of them but it’s really nothing all that special.

Nitro was little more than a glorified jobber that had a decent feud with Jeff Hardy a few months earlier but other than that he had a hot girlfriend and that’s about it. Oh and nice abs. Nitro uses the ropes to get extra leverage and like any other heel, it gets heat for him. Again, less is more. Simple cheating will get the crowd to boo you. Nitro hits that corkscrew neckbreaker while Punk’s feet are on the ropes like Orton’s elevated DDT to get the win and the title. Wow that match flew by and I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing in this case.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but not great at all. Nitro wasn’t very good yet and it was clear here. He would become John Morrison and gain confidence in a few weeks which was huge to his career and still works to an extent today. Anyway, this wasn’t bad, but they would have FAR better matches later.

We recap Shawn vs. Bret in the Iron Man match to show Shawn’s first title win. This is a cool theme for a show if nothing else.

Foley is getting ready for the main event tonight. And here’s Randy Orton to be a jerk. I can’t wait to get to that match.

Ricky Steamboat is here.

Intercontinental Title: Santino Marella vs. Umaga

Just make it quick please. Santino is the plucky young rookie here that is still a face and currently stabbing the title through the heart every second he has the belt but whatever. Apparently Umaga half killed Foley on Raw. Santino is wrestling legit here and it’s amazing to think of how I guess you could say far he’s come today? Umaga kicks his head off to take care of that.

There’s the nerve hold or whatever you want to call it. Is that just a Samoan thing? Umaga gets him in the corner and pounds him down, which is apparently enough for the CHEAP DQ. Umaga destroys him for good measure. He would get the title back in eight days or so. He crushes Santino with a splash and gets a face chant for it.

ARE YOU LISTENING VINCE? Umaga finishes it off with the spike. The post match beatdown was longer than the match itself I think. He gets a LOUD face chant which of course isn’t acknowledged at all. Ok seriously, the match has been over for like 5 minutes now. End it.

Rating: N/A. First person that finds a point to this anywhere, please let us know. Good lucky on finding one also.

Ad for the Great American Bash.

We go to a press conference thing from Friday, held by the lead investigator in Vince’s case. Also there’s apparently another well-known personality’s DNA in the limo. Ok then. Tomorrow we have a 3 hour Raw as a memorial for Vince. This is actually hard to watch when you know what’s coming.

MAGNUM TA IS HERE! That mustache is awesome. Man he could have been something special.

US Title: MVP vs. Ric Flair

MVP is the ridiculously cocky heel here and actually interesting to an extent. You would NEVER hear that today. He gets in Magnum’s face and says it’s all about MVP now. If all of MVP’s matches wind up combining to be half as good as the I Quit Cage match I’ll be stunned. Flair just looks stupid in pink. He’s no Bret Hart in that regard. Flair shows MVP up with bare bones basic moves and it’s hilarious. Flair is busted open! I CAN FEEL MY INNOCENCE BEING RIPPED FROM MY BODY! SPARE ME PLEASE!!!!

In a funny moment, Flair chops the heck out of MVP and after MVP takes over, he opens up his vest and checks his chest for welts. JBL says Flair’s chops are better than anyone else’s. And I believe him since he was a wrestler not long before this. Lawler needs to remind us he used to be a wrestler. Even Striker reminds us of that. This is another one of that matches that likely belongs on TV but we need a US Title match so here is one for you.

MVP’s knee hits the buckle and Flair goes for the wrong one, thereby proving that some things never change. There it is and we’re in Flair Formula time. It’s still passable too so I can’t complain that much. In a nice ending, Flair goes after MVP but the referee blocks him, allowing MVP to poke him in the eye and hit the Playmaker for the retaining. Why is that nice? Because that is Flair 101: distract the referee and cheat. I love that.

Rating: C. The ending helped that a lot. It’s your standard Flair match, but look at him put ANOTHER guy over. I’m defending Flair. What in the world is wrong with me? This is when Flair was still bearable but he was on the verge of being gone, which I think is for the best. Match was average.

Cena says nothing as Edge interrupts. Edge accuses Cena of being behind of the Vince thing. Cena says Edge is too much of a softie to have been behind it. Edge says he’s vicious and can do evil things, and of course the detective is behind him. Oh good. My eyes rolled so far around that I’m looking at the screen again.

Tony Garea and Rick Martel are here. Was Tito Santana busy or something?

Smackdown Tag Titles: Deuce N Dominovs. ???/???

It’s an open challenge here so the challengers are unknown. Deuce says this place is full of old people. Domino doesn’t like them either. This team was either great or completely idiotic. In short, they’re Fonzie from Happy Days. Cherry, their manager, in short is hot. Deuce is more commonly known as Sim Snuka or the guy that kept Taker from breaking his neck at Mania 25. The challengers are Sgt. Slaughter and Jimmy Snuka. Allow me to quote the 25th letter of the alphabet: WHY???????????/

Smackdown Tag Titles: Deuce N Domino vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Jimmy Snuka

Remember that Snuka is Deuce’s father. JBL says if the champions lose then he’s calling Ron Simmons up and reforming the APA. JBL suggests their name could be the Coffin Dodgers. Oh that’s funny. Sarge looks good here and we get a jab at the Ultimate Warrior. They beat the tar out of Domino here as you would expect them to. Again though, this is on PPV in 2007. There’s the Cobra Clutch which is his signature finisher, which always amused me.

The one time he used a different finisher, he won the WWF Title. So naturally he used the old one and never did anything again. This has been dominance so far. Deuce finally comes in and this is dragging badly. Snuka beating up his son is just kind of surreal. I don’t know if I’d want to be in that position or not. Snuka hits a top rope cross body but Deuce rolls through for the pin.

How annoying do you think he’s going to be with that at Thanksgiving? He pinned his HOF dad on PPV. How cool would it be to be able to say that? Post match there’s a beatdown and Martel and Garea jump the railing for the save.

Rating: D-. The match was horrible obviously, but the point here was to have the legends get a chance out there again. That doesn’t make up for it though. This is just not something I want to see on a PPV show. On TV is one thing I guess, but no way this should be on PPV.

Ad for the Vince Memorial Service. Still gets me thinking what would be airing instead.

We recap Edge vs. Batista which is a Last Chance match. Edge cashed in Kennedy’s MITB contract to beat the injured Taker for the belt. This is the music video package for the night.

Harley Race is here. Oh yes.

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Batista

Dang that trenchcoat is awesome. He and Harley have a moment which is kind of odd. Big Dave gets a nice pop. Batista hugs Race too as his entrance is taking way too long. Batista starts how and beats the heck out of Edge, focusing on the arm which is weird looking for a power guy but whatever. You can tell this is going to be a long one. Smackdown always was the show that was more about wrestling than the entertainment aspect so this is expected.

Edge hits a baseball slide and is in control. Now Edge works on Batista’s arm. Well at least they’re being consistent here. His shoulder goes into the post as we hear that you don’t think of Edge and speed in the same sentence. How weird is it to think that he used to be a high flier back in the day? Edge uses a bit boot and hooks an armbar. We now get to the problem of guys working on the arm: it’s very boring. Well at least he’s switching it up.

Edge counters a Samoan Drop into an arm hold. Nicely done. He’s on his third different hold in less than two minutes. That’s how you work an arm. You can switching things up like that and stick with one plan, which at least keeps things from being so boring. A Boss Man Slam from nowhere hits Edge for two. Edge seems to be more popular here with the smark crowd. He goes for the belt but the referee stops him.

Batista hits a spear to block the spear. There’s a Zen riddle in there somewhere. Batista ANIMALS UP but Edge low blows him to keep the title. That’s a legit surprise to me as the face usually wins in those last chance matches. Edge would get legit hurt soon and have to drop the title which Khali won in a battle royal. Batista would get it in the fall. Hey here’s Teddy Long. He’s restarting the match because Edge cheated. Ok then.

If Edge intentionally gets disqualified here then Batista is champion. Spear gets two and the crowd is on fire. We go to the floor and Batista goes into the steps. Edge takes the Bomb on the floor but Batista gets counted out after rolling him back in which should have broken the count I believe. I have no idea why Long was needed here if that’s the ending they were going with but whatever.

Rating: B-. This was your traditional decent Smackdown world title match. They went through a period around this time where they just kind of went with the motions but had good matches anyway. The match worked as well as possible given who was in it though o I can live with that. Far from great, but Batista kind of sucked at this point.

Ad for Summerslam. They’re going way in advance here.

We talk about Fabulous Moolah, meaning it’s Women’s Title time. There was no Divas Title yet. We even get clips of the Original Screwjob. Basically Wendi Richter wouldn’t agree to have Moolah beat her for it so they put a mask on Moolah and had her shoot on Richter for the title. Very old school backstabbing there.

Women’s Title: Melina vs. Candace Michelle

Melina is champion here. So basically Melina is awesome and Candace is popular because she was in Playboy. Crowd is DEAD for this. Oh and Candace is awesome because she can do a dance too. This match is making my head hurt. It’s a great example of how bad the division was around this time.

And then Candace hits a spinwheel kick to win the title. She wound up taking one of the SICKEST bumps I’ve ever seen to get hurt and would never get the title back. She can’t even hold the belt right. I never really cared for her and this is no exception. They try to make this some big emotional moment and it just falls flat.

Rating: D. And that’s all for Melina. She carried Candace like a bag of potatoes here and it was painfully obvious. Melina is good but she’s not a miracle worker. It’s stuff like this that makes the division look like a joke and that’s never a good thing. Then again I’m not sure how many people actually were in the arena for this match so there we go.

ANOTHER ad for the Bash. Dang they’re going insane here with those things.

We recognize JBL before the main event. Naturally he has something to say which he hands to the announcer. We get JBL’s career bio which is funny for some reason. He is also YOUR wrestling god.

We recap Raw’s world title match which is just about being a champion or something like that. All five people talk about what it means to be a champion. Yes it’s clichéd but it works fairly well I think. It goes on WAY too long though but that’s WWE for you.

Raw World Title: Mick Foley vs. John Cena vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Randy Orton vs. King Booker

Cena is defending and it’s one fall to a finish. Foley is only in this because he’s a former champion. How weird is it that Foley would win a world title after this but Booker and Lashley wouldn’t? Lashley won a good deal of titles in his time in the company which was really short. Foley gets a nice pop. Booker would be gone in October. Orton gets a face pop and would be getting really into the title picture in the fall, winning the title twice in one night.

Cena feels like a superstar here and with good reason I think. This is in the middle of his year long reign as champion which got him a lot of heat but I still ask you: who else was going to have the title put on them? Booker jumps to the floor immediately which is smart if nothing else. Very quickly we have Cena vs. Lashley which Vince much dream of at times. Lashley hits a SICK dive over the top to take out all four guys. That looked great.

Lashley hits Booker with what we would call Shock Treatment which is a cool move actually. This is ALL Lashley at this point as he’s dominating everyone. I still feel sorry for the ECW announcers as they have one match to call and then just sit there for the rest of the night. Lawler says the only good thing about being bitten by Foley is that he doesn’t have all of his teeth. For some reason that made me laugh. FU to Lashley through the table out of nowhere and a nice one at that.

We go to the standard multi-man match formula which is fine here as five people makes that kind of required. Cena goes for You Can’t See Me on Booker but walks into the RKO for two as Foley makes the save. He dominates for awhile as you would expect. It’s Socko time!

How amazing is it that he got so far with his signature thing being a sock? That would be like a guy saying nothing but nonsensical things about the Muppets’ sex lives on a wrestling forum and being called funny. Everything goes insane but Foley takes the FU for Cena to retain.

Rating: D+. They did the very smart thing here by keeping this short as it barely cracked ten minutes. With this many people though that was the smart thing. I’m not sure why they went with the five person match here instead of one on one but it was nice to have Foley come in there as it fit with the whole champions and legends deals all night. This was as good as you could have expected though given what was coming, which wasn’t horrible but was just kind of thrown on.

Overall Rating: D+. I’m not sure why but this worked for me somehow. They did a great job here of building up the whole championships all night long thing which is how it was supposed to go. It felt like a major show that was very important and while the wrestling was pretty bad, the atmosphere made up for it and everything seemed to work. I’d actually recommend this, but the wrestling is nothing at all to be excited about.

It’s about that special feeling you get when you hear “this contest is for the world championship!” It makes things more interesting and the feeling doesn’t weaken as the night goes on. This worked, even though it was pretty bad. Check it out.

So that’s Vengeance. At the end of the day it’s really just a minor PPV with nothing of note really coming from it other than the first show back in 2001. There were some good ones here and there with 05 being a GREAT show, but other than that there just wasn’t much at all to really talk about on these shows. They were ok but there just wasn’t really anything of note overall. I’ll be doing NOC 08 just to finish off the series and then moving on to Taboo Tuesday and Cyber Sunday which I’ll do back to back.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Smackdown
Date: June 21, 2013
Location: Nutter Center, Dayton, Ohio
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield

We’re past Payback now and the main story is the double turn by Ziggler and new world champion Alberto Del Rio. That’s the best outcome as Del Rio was only working to an extent as a face while Ziggler was getting over more and more as a good guy. Other than that we have Bryan vs. Orton tonight in a continuation/rematch from their stopped match on Raw. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the results from Payback. That’s one thing I liked about WCW: other than the main events, they made sure to not tell you who won a lot of the matches until the replays were off PPV. Now you have clips of the endings to most of the matches, leaving no reason to buy the replay.

Here’s Daniel Bryan to open the show. Until Monday, he had never had a match stopped due to injury in his entire career. The doctor asked if he could continue and he said YES, but the company line was that they were worried for his health. Realistically though, they stopped the match because they think he’s the weak link and not tough enough.

The worst person in all of this was Randy Orton and we get a clip of Orton helping Bryan up after the match. Bryan says that if Orton thought he was the strong link, he would have begged for the match to keep going. The match should have kept going, but Bryan’s YES chant is cut off by Randy Orton.

Orton comes to the ring shaking his head and mouthing the words “you’re wrong.” Randy says the match was stopped for Bryan’s well being, not because anyone thought he was weak. Bryan kept coming during the match and that made Orton respect him even more. When Orton helped him up, it was out of respect, not pity. Bryan yells that Orton is patronizing him after giving Bryan respect for beating Shield last week. Orton says fine, if Bryan wants a rematch he can have one tonight. This time though, Bryan will be carried out.

Sheamus vs. Cody Rhodes

Cody drew the long straw to get this match tonight. Sheamus gets two off a quick suplex but Cody elbows out of the fireman’s carry roll. Cody goes to the middle rope but gets snapmared down before rolling to the floor. Rhodes sends Sheamus into the barricade before stomping away back inside. A running knee to the head gets two for Cody and it’s off to an armbar.

Sheamus fights up but misses a charge into the corner, giving Rhodes two off a rollup. The slingshot shoulder is countered into a Fujiwara Armbar but Cody just lets it go. Sheamus shrugs all of the offense off and hits a sledge to the Cody’s face. The fireman’s carry slam looks to set up White Noise but Cody rolls out, only to be pulled into the Cloverleaf for the tap out at 5:37.

Rating: D. This was bad even by this pair’s standards. The total lack of selling of the arm by Sheamus was surprising as Cody worked on it for a few minutes before Sheamus just fought back like it was nothing. The main problem here though is the same we’ve seen with every one on one match between the Scholars and Sheamus: the winner is never in doubt.

Sandow jumps Sheamus post match.

Wyatt Family promo.

Intercontinental Title: Curtis Axel vs. Wade Barrett

The title looks good on Axel. Miz is on commentary for this rare heel vs. heel match. Axel grabs a headlock to start but Wade forearms him down for two. Curtis comes back with a good looking dropkick to take over and drops some elbows to the chest for two. Wade grabs a quick suplex for two of his own as the announcers debate if Barrett should have gotten his rematch on Monday. Barrett hits his big boot to send Axel out to the floor and another big boot hits for two back inside. Axel avoids a middle rope elbow and hits a Hennig necksnap followed by the McGillicutter to retain at 4:40.

Rating: D+. This was an 80s punch/kick for the first few minutes until Barrett turned things up a bit at the end. Axel pinning Wade clean is an important step for him as now he’s pinned the former champion without any help at all. It would appear that Miz is next but hopefully there’s more to the title after that match.

Post match Miz gets in the ring to stare down Axel but Heyman gets the champion out of the way.

Video on Mark Henry’s fake retirement and attack on Cena from Raw.

AJ Lee vs. Natalya

Non-title. Natalya immediately takes AJ down but can’t hook the Sharpshooter. Instead she puts on a strange looking leglock where Natalya’s knees are between AJ’s knees and stretching them apart with both girls on their backs. AJ makes the rope and puts on a quick sleeper…..as we take a break? In this match? Back with Natalya getting two off a snap suplex and a clothesline. Natalya shouts that AJ has no respect but AJ counters a slam into the Black Widow for the pin at 2:20 shown of 4:50.

Layla and Kaitlyn are watching in the back when Aksana comes up and calls Katilyn trash. Kaitlyn snaps and beats Aksana up before pouring trash on her.

Chris Jericho vs. Alberto Del Rio

Non-title again. Jericho takes him into the corner to start and chokes Del Rio on the middle rope before getting two off a knee to the back. Del Rio gets a boot up in the corner to drop Jericho but misses a running kick and falls out to the floor. Jericho hits the springboard dropkick to drop Alberto again. A Ricardo distraction lets the champion get in a cheap shot to take over as we take a break.

Back with Del Rio sending Chris back to the floor and whipping him into the barricade. They head back inside and Alberto misses a charge into the post to shift momentum again. The top rope ax handle looks to set up the Walls but Alberto spins out and kicks Jericho in the head for two. The corner enziguri misses though and Jericho hits the running bulldog and Lionsault. Jericho loads up the Walls but Del Rio counters into the cross armbreaker which is countered into the Walls but Chris has to go after Ricardo. Jericho puts Rodriguez in the Liontamer but Ziggler runs in for the DQ at 5:34 shown of 8:04.

Rating: C+. The sequence right before the ending was good but I’m not wild on the ending. It wouldn’t hurt Jericho to lose here and make Del Rio look good, even if it was by cheating. The Ziggler vs. Del Rio feud is getting good in a hurry and the match should be a solid blowoff. This was fine for a TV match though and could have been better with more time.

Del Rio runs off and Jericho gives Ziggler a Codebreaker post match. Jericho leaves and the champion comes back to pick the bones with a hard kick to Ziggler’s head. The audience sounded like they were looking at a heel turn by Jericho but I don’t think it was meant to be one.

Drew McIntyre vs. Christian

Christian sends him to the floor and hits a baseball slide to take Drew down. Back in and Christian tags him with an uppercut but dives into a spinning sitout Rock Bottom from McIntyre for two. Not that it matters much as Christian takes out the other Band members and hits the Killswitch for the pin at 1:50.

Post match Christian says it feels great to be back here for one more match. Cue Shield to lay Christian out with the TripleBomb.

Video on Brock Lesnar.

We recap the events of Raw with Punk splitting with Heyman and fighting Del Rio in the main event. Alberto walked out on the match and was jumped by Ziggler, only to have Lesnar come out and attack Punk.

Heyman doesn’t want to talk about the Punk issues so he turns the interview around on Renee Young, asking her a lot of personal questions about topics like her father and her ex-fiance. Heyman suggests that next time, she should talk about Curtis Axel.

Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan

Bryan charges right at Orton and they slug it out in the corner. Orton throws him to the mat and stomps away but Bryan gets up and fires right hands. It’s rare for Bryan to throw punches and they’re better than I expected. Randy knocks him right back down but misses a knee drop to the face. Bryan kicks away and hooks a leg lock, only to have Orton counter into a headlock. Orton blocks the NO Lock and hits a backbreaker to finally give them a breather. The first few minutes of the match were continuous punching and holds.

Orton drapes Bryan ribs first onto the top rope and suplexes him over the top and out to the floor as we take a break. Back with Bryan fighting out of a superplex and dropping Orton with a missile dropkick. Daniel fires off the kicks in the corner and hits a running dropkick for two. Bryan moonsaults over Orton out of the corner but walks into the snap powerslam for two. Orton gets caught in a backslide for two and Bryan fires off the kicks to the chest and head for a two count.

Bryan goes up again but gets crotched and superplexed down for a very close two. The Elevated DDT connects but Bryan rolls to the floor to avoid the RKO. Orton drops Bryan back first onto the barricade but Bryan shoves him into the barricade. The flying knee off the apron sets up the FLYING GOAT and Bryan beats the count back in at 10:36 shown of 13:06.

Rating: B-. This was a nice back and forth match and they did a good job of making Bryan look strong after last week’s big win over the Shield.  The idea of Bryan being able to get back in at the alst second kept both guys look strong which is a good idea for Orton going forward.

Bryan wants the match restarted but Orton just stares at him as the show ends.

Overall Rating: B-. This was another good show as we had some solid action and nothing bad on the entire show save for a dull Sheamus vs. Rhodes match. Bryan continues to be so over it’s unreal and the Ziggler face push is coming quickly. The WWE is starting to get on a roll which is a good sign after a very dull spring.

Results

Sheamus b. Cody Rhodes – Cloverleaf

Curtis Axel b. Wade Barrett – McGillicutter

AJ Lee b. Natalya – Black Widow

Alberto Del Rio b. Chris Jericho via DQ when Dolph Ziggler interefered

Christian b. Drew McIntyre – Killswitch

Daniel Bryan b. Randy Orton via countout

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 17, 2013
Location: Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids Arena
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, John Bradshaw Layfield

We’re past Payback now and moving towards July’s Money in the Bank. Cena has retained his title but we had a very interesting development: the ultra rare double turn for Del Rio and Ziggler as Alberto won the World Heavyweight Championship by doing some very bad things to Ziggler’s injured head. It should be interesting to see where things go over the summer. Let’s get to it.

We open with the usual package of still photos from Payback last night, complete with the voiceover dude.

Here’s Del Rio to open things up. He asks us how his weekend was before telling us that his was excellent. Del Rio isn’t pleased that the fans were cheering for Ziggler after he won the title back last night in controversial fashion. The fans chant for Ziggler again and Del Rio yells at them for chanting USA the night before.

He says this is what America is all about: pigs and cowards. Del Rio says he’s spent the last five months fighting for us and he’s gotten nothing (other than the world title) but last night he fought for himself and won the world title. He’s willing to give the people a second chance though so we have another chance to show him the respect that he deserves.

Cue Punk to an ERUPTION. He says it’s been awhile since he beat Del Rio for the world title at Survivor Series 2011. Punk doesn’t like hearing Del Rio call himself the best so Alberto holds up the belt. Punk challenges him to a title match but Heyman says that Punk doesn’t fight for free. That’s not cool with Punk though because he wants to fight no matter what.

Yeah Punk is banged up but when Del Rio was stealing the title, Punk was stealing the show. Punk still wants a match tonight but Del Rio says Punk doesn’t want any of him. With that not being an option, Punk offers to fight Ricardo but here are Vickie and Maddox for an interruption. She says it’s Del Rio vs. Punk tonight but makes no mention of the title being on the line.

Punk says that he respects Paul Heyman but he isn’t a client. From now on, Punk doesn’t want Heyman out there for his matches. Punk respects him but he doesn’t want him there.

Intercontinental Title: Curtis Axel vs. Wade Barrett

Before Axel’s entrance, Vickie interferes and makes it Barrett vs…….CHRISTIAN!

Wade Barrett vs. Christian

Christian takes it to the floor to start and hits a BIG dive to take out Barrett. Back in and Barrett hooks a chinlock, only to have Christian fight up and hit a tornado DDT for two. Wade kicks him in the ribs for two but Christian avoids a charge in the corner. The Killswitch ends Barrett in 3:10.

Rating: C-. That’s a nice return for Christian but the guy isn’t going to be a huge star like people think he’s going to be. Barrett’s slide continues and I’m thinking his time of mattering in WWE whatsoever is almost done. There’s just nothing here for him as he hasn’t done anything of note in forever.

You can pick No DQ, 2/3 falls or no countout for Bryan vs. Orton later on.

The Wyatt Family is coming.

Sheamus vs. Rhodes Scholars

For those of you not happy with Sheamus beating one of them at once, now he gets to beat both of them AT THE SAME TIME! The Scholars don’t have to tag so they manage to stomp Sheamus down and hit a double snap suplex for two. A kick to the face sets up the Wind-Up Elbow for two on Sheamus. Cody slaps Sheamus in the face and the one on two beatdown begins. Rhodes is sent to the floor and Sheamus hits the Regal Roll on Sandow. The ten forearms crush Cody and White Noise crushes the crushed remains of Cody Rhodes even further. Sheamus loads up the Brogue Kick but gets rolled up by Sandow for the pin at 3:38.

Rating: D-. I love Sheamus but DEAR GOD LET THIS FREAKING FEUD END ALREADY. Scratch that. This isn’t a feud. This is Sheamus swatting away flies for an extended period of time. It’s not fun, it’s not interesting, and the matches aren’t any good. Is there NOTHING else that Sheamus could be doing at all? NOTHING?

Mark Henry might retire later tonight.

RVD is back at MITB.

HHH is in the back with Vickie and Brad. Vickie sucks up to him but HHH wants to know what the main event was going to be if Punk didn’t question him. He also wants to know why Christian has been medically cleared for a month and a half and not been back until tonight. Also, why didn’t he hear about either Brad or Vickie when he was negotiating for RVD’s return? As for Shield, if they get involved then play tough with them. HHH thinks it’s a stroke of genius to put 3MB on the show tonight as well. HHH’s questions were HILARIOUS.

Yeah I just said that. Why do you ask?

Bryan doesn’t want to hear it from Kane that he told Bryan so. Kane thinks HELL NO should reunite but Bryan only wants to think about Team DB, Team Daniel Bryan. Kane: “Well that’s good because you’re acting like a D.B.” They both say they want to win the WWE Championship and they don’t know if the team is done or not. Kane wishes him good luck tonight, which Bryan interprets as Kane saying he’s the weak link.

Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan

Before the match we hear Orton saying that Bryan is the weak link in the team and is the reason they lost the title match last night. The match is going to be No DQ with 54% of the vote. Bryan goes after the arm to start but Orton reverses into a hammerlock of his own. Daniel fights up and kicks away at the legs before hitting the double knee stomp out of the surfboard. Orton comes back to stomp Bryan down into the corner and puts Daniel down off the slingshot suplex.

Bryan counters the Thesz Press into a half crab but Orton grabs the ropes. More kicks in the corner put Orton down again but he comes back with a clothesline and a chinlock. Back up and Orton pounds away in the corner but Bryan comes back with the moonsault out of the corner and a running clothesline. A pair of running dropkicks in the corner get two for Daniel but Orton avoids the FLYING GOAT. Orton pulls out a kendo stick to pound on Bryan for two back in the ring and we take a break.

Back with Bryan blocking a superplex and hitting the missile dropkick for no cover. Orton comes back with the powerslam and Bryan goes to the apron for the Elevated DDT, only to have Bryan fight out and go for the NO Lock. Orton counters into a slingshot to send Bryan to the apron and a kick to the ribs puts him on the floor. It appeared to be a low blow so here’s a trainer to check on Bryan. Back in and Bryan pounds away before they head to the floor again. Orton belly to back suplexes Daniel onto the barricade so the referee checks again…..and the match at 15:00.

Rating: C+. Uh…..WHAT? That’s either the start of an angle or a legit injury when Bryan went into the barricade earlier. Bryan seemed fine but if a doctor saw something in him that we didn’t then the match should have been stopped. Either way, it was getting good until the sudden ending but never hit a high level.

Post match Orton helps Bryan up and nothing else happens, making me think it was a legit stoppage.

Here’s AJ to brag about winning the Divas Title by crushing Kaitlyn’s spirit. AJ says that she’s the hero of the story because she’s a woman that knows how to get what she wants. There isn’t a woman in the audience or locker room who is as strong, brilliant or courageous as she is. AJ issues an open challenge to the locker room and gets…….STEPHANIE MCMAHON???

Stephanie compliments AJ on her victory but thinks what AJ was saying was degrading to women. It’s time for AJ to start acting like a champion, about 23 hours since she won the title. AJ: “Instead of acting like a superstar, maybe I should marry one.” Stephanie says no one does crazy like the McMahons but AJ says she’s the younger version of Stephanie, just without a fancy pantsuit. Cue an army of Divas but Stephanie cuts off Kaitlyn, threatening her with punishment for ever interrupting her again. The fans tell Kaitlyn that she tapped off while Kaitlyn yells at AJ. The beatdown is on but Langston saves a screaming AJ.

US Title: Kane vs. Dean Ambrose

This is a rematch from last night with Dean defending. Kane hits some quick uppercuts and a powerslam for two. Apparently Bryan might have some nerve damage but is still being checked. Kane fires off some clotheslines in the corner and gets two off the side slam. Not that it matters as here’s Reigns for the DQ at 1:35.

Shield beats Kane down post match with the TripleBomb.

Mark Henry is here.

Vickie yells at Shield in the back but Vince comes in and compliments their ruthless aggression, meaning Vince vs. HHH MUST CONTINUE!!!

We’re now getting regular commercials for the WWE App. My girlfriend downloaded it the other day for fun and it’s nothing. It’s a string of videos and access to a social media thing where you can hashtag your city. There’s also a breaking news section with nothing in it that we could see.

Here’s Zeb Colter to say that he’s bringing Antonio Cesaro to his team. In other words, he’s now a jobber to the stars with a manager. Cole immediately buries the idea on commentary.

Antonio Cesaro vs. William Regal

Cesaro pounds him down and hits the gutwrench suplex as the announcers ignore the match to bicker. A delayed backdrop gets two on Regal and Cesaro hooks a swinging chinlock of all things. The Neutralizer ends Regal at 2:43.

Cesaro drapes a Don’t Treat On Me flag over Regal as Cole is literally laughing at this.

Here’s Cena for a chat. He loves being booed by the fans because they can cheer anyone they want. Some people love Punk and boo him all night and that’s perfectly fine with him. He goes to war every time he defends the title and after putting Ryback in an ambulance last night, he gets to say the champ is here. For everyone who never left his side, thank you. He can take any challenge that anyone puts in front of him and can’t wait for Money in the Bank.

Cena doesn’t care who challenges him that night because he’ll be ready. He knows he won’t have the title forever but the next person to hold it will earn it because the champ is here. The fans seemed receptive to Cena tonight….and here’s Mark Henry. He leaves a pair of boots on the stage and tells Cena he can put his guard down. Henry has watched Cena rise through the WWE and thinks Cena is doing a great job. The fans chant Sexual Chocolate as Henry says if you don’t remember the moment, at least you’ll remember his salmon colored coat.

Henry is proud of all of his success in the business as a former ECW Champion and World Heavyweight Champion. However, due to all of his injuries, he’s going to have to retire. The fans chant one more match and Cena hands Henry the title. Henry holds up the belt but hands it back to Cena because he never earned it. Henry talks about his family and says they’re going to get sick of them because he’s coming home. Cena shakes his hand….AND GETS A WORLD’S STRONGEST SLAM? Henry shouts that he has a lot left in the tank and says that the title will be his.

Post break Henry says all the people are puppets and everyone bought it.

Heath Slater vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho pounds him down with ease but Jinder Mahal breaks up the Lionsault to give Slater two. If my memory is right, Slater beat Jericho back in the first season of NXT. Not that it matters as the Codebreaker ends Slater at 2:20. Nothing to see here.

Post match Jericho beats up the rest of the Band because he can.

Paul Heyman doesn’t want to answer any questions about CM Punk. He says that he knows when to give his friends space and thinks we should be talking about the Intercontinental Champion. New catchphrase for Axel: he was born to be better than perfect. I think I like that one.

Sin Cara vs. Curtis Axel

Miz is on commentary. This is Axel’s third match against Sin Cara in less than six months. A quick backbreaker puts Cara down and a shoulder block puts him down again. There’s a quick belly to back suplex for two but Cara comes back with a DDT. Cara’s Swanton hits knees and a spinning DDT ends Cara at 2:40. Total squash.

Vince approves Henry vs. Cena for MITB when Stephanie and HHH come in. Trips gets on Vickie for not listening to him and glares at Vince.

Heyman sucks up to Punk and says he’ll be cheering for Punk tonight.

Alberto Del Rio vs. CM Punk

Non-title and Del Rio runs to the floor twice in the first minute. Punk finally goes to the floor but gets stomped down on the way back in. Del Rio kicks him in the head and pounds him to the floor, only to have Punk whip him into the barricade to take over again. Punk takes too long to shout at Ricardo on the way back in though, allowing Del Rio to snap Punk’s arm over the top rope as we take a break.

Back with Del Rio kicking Punk in the head as we hear that Bryan will be ready to go on Friday. Alberto goes up for an ax handle but gets punched in the ribs on the way down. Del Rio gets in another kick to the arm to send Punk into the ropes for the Backstabber for two. The low superkick is countered into a rollup for two and now the low superkick connects for two for the champion. The cross armbreaker is countered into the GTS but Del Rio rolls to the outside. Alberto walks out for the countout at 11:30.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t much but it worked well enough all things considered. This was really just a backdrop for the post match stuff which we’ll go to now because it’s more interesting than this match.

Post match Ziggler runs out and DESTROYS Del Rio to a mammoth face reaction.

Punk is still standing in the ring and LESNAR! He picks up a mic but says nothing. Instead he picks up Punk and lays him out with a massive F5 to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. I was digging tonight’s show as it had a certain edge to it. Stuff was set up for Money in the Bank, we got some decent action, we had a return, and we had some humorous lines from HHH to Vickie. The main story continues to be Vince vs. HHH which is still a stupid power control angle that has been done so many times and I have no idea why they think this is the best way to go. I was digging the show tonight for the first time in a long time though which is a great sign coming off a solid PPV.

Results

Christian b. Wade Barrett – Killswitch

Rhodes Scholars b. Sheamus – Rollup

Randy Orton b. Daniel Bryan via referee stoppage

Kane b. Dean Ambrose via DQ when Shield interfered

Antonio Cesaro b. William Regal – Neutralizer

Chris Jericho b. 3MB – Codebreaker

Curtis Axel b. Sin Cara – Spinning DDT

CM Punk b. Alberto Del Rio via countout

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

This is an interesting show in that the card looks good on paper but when you think about how things have been built up it’s hard to care at all about it.  The shows leading up to it have been dominated by HHH vs. Vince vs. Axel with Axel being a pawn in the entire thing.  A challenge to you: explain in two coherent sentences what the Vince vs. HHH feud is about.  If it takes you more than ten seconds, it’s too complicated a story.  As for the rest of the show, it really pales in comparison other than the Shield stuff.  Let’s get to it.Sheamus will beat Damien Sandow because that’s what he does.  Nothing else to say.

Starting with the main event, I’ll go with Cena over Ryback.  This match is designed to have Cena go over a monster and look strong in the process.  The fact taht Ryback will have lost for the tenth straight month of PPVs in a row is an afterthought but Ryback means nothing anyway.  Cena wins the first fall, Ryback wins the second, Cena wins the third.  There’s nothing much to the match but it should be a fun garbage brawl.

Punk returns for the win to a big reaction from the hometown fans.  The interesting questions here are whether Punk shows up as well as what reaction Jericho will get.  Punk will clearly be the top star there, but can you imagine a bunch of smarks booing Chris Jericho?  The match should be awesome and Punk coming back is a big deal so this should be good.

I’ll take Shield to keep all of their titles with Orton taking the fall for the challengers.  Bryan is on fire but a tag title would be back to what he’s been doing for the better part of a year.  Kane will be a good first victim for Ambrose in his title reign.  The matches should be good and they’ve been well built up over the last few months.

Axel to win the title, which will be yet another death knell in his WWE run.  Miz continues to be nothing special in his face role, although I am glad to see the Skull Crushing Finale making a comeback.

AJ wins the title she should have won six months ago.

Ziggler retains the title as well to finally finish Del Rio.

Overall Payback should be entertaining but the numbers are going to SUCK.  No one is interested in the show because the world title has been a complete afterthought, making Punk vs. Jericho the default main event.  I don’t think anyone gives Ryback a chance but he has been doing better with his promos lately.

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 10, 2013
Location: Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, Virginia
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, John Bradshaw Layfield

It’s the go home show for Payback and the main story tonight is HHH vs. Axel II, assuming the match actually happens. Last week Vince and Stephanie talked him out of it, which made for a less interesting show than it could have been otherwise. I’d look for the match to be pushed back again until Payback, where HHH likely puts Axel over….in theory. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of HHH and the McMahon’s issues from last week. As in we recap the WHOLE THING.

Curtis Axel vs. HHH

Axel is a bit hesitant to get in the ring. The bell sounds odd for some reason tonight. HHH pounds away in the corner to start and hits a quick suplex for two. Here’s Vince of all people to say that the match is over with Axel winning via DQ at about 90 seconds. This can’t end well.

Actually scratch that as HHH says restart it. The match continues for a few seconds and here’s Vince again to say HHH loses via forfeit. HHH starts it again and this time it’s a 60 minute iron man match. This time Vince takes the bell away and the match just ends. This was less than five minutes from opening to closing bell.

Ryback and Cena will be face to face tonight.

Post break Stephanie begs HHH to think of Vince because he’s old and doesn’t have much time left. HHH says he’ll talk to Vince if Stephanie goes to calm him down first.

Kane vs. Dean Ambrose

Dean pounds on him in the corner but gets caught by a big boot to the face for two. Kane takes his turn at pounding away in the corner and hits a backbreaker for no cover. It looks like Kane has a huge bald spot on the right hand side of his head. Ambrose is whipped into the ropes and hit with another backbreaker as the referee brings out the bell. Dean misses a charge and is sent to the floor where he jumps into an uppercut as we take a break.

Back with Dean kicking Kane in the ribs as we see Orton watching in the back on the WWE App. Kane comes back with a boot to the face before tossing Ambrose into the corner. Dean is slammed face first into the mat before being taken into the corner. Kane loads up the chokeslam but Ambrose bails to the floor as Reigns comes in for the DQ at 11:23.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here as it was mainly just killing time until the DQ ending. That’s getting really annoying in the singles matches with the Shield involved but it’s the best they can do because they don’t want to job the Shield. Why they didn’t just job Kane is beyond me, especially in a non-title match.

Sheamus vs. Sandow is on the pre-show Sunday.

You can pick Rollins or Reigns to face Bryan tonight.

Rollins wins 66-33. Orton will face Reigns.

We get a clip of Bryan accidentally dropkicking Orton on Smackdown.

Orton and Bryan are arguing in the back when Kane comes in and says to chill. Apparently they have matches against Reigns and Rollins tonight. I know this because Kane helpfully explained the graphics we say a full 40 seconds ago. Vickie comes in and makes Orton/Bryan vs. Reigns/Rollins and Kane vs. Ambrose for the titles on Sunday. Kane is so happy that he hugs Vickie with a goofy grin on his face.

Cody Rhodes vs. The Miz

Barrett is on commentary as we’re told that Fandango won’t be allowed to compete in the triple threat match, meaning Barrett defends against Miz alone. Miz pounds on Rhodes to start and hits the corner clothesline for no cover. The top rope ax handle misses though and Cody goes after Miz’s knee. A front suplex gets two for Rhodes and it’s off to a modified Indian deathlock on Miz. Not that it matters much as Miz counters into the Figure Four for the tap out at 2:36.

Heyman comes out before Miz and Fandango leave and announces that Axel is replacing Fandango in the triple threat. Axel says that him winning the IC Title on Sunday would be the perfect ending to the match on Sunday.

Mark Henry is coming back.

We recap the opening of the show.

Vince and Stephanie are in the back but Vince won’t look at her. She knows he’s upset and is just trying to protect Hunter, but HHH is a proud man and Vince stepped all over him out there. Vince doesn’t like this idea of him not having much time left and is mad at HHH for making Stephanie cry. He cares about business first and Stephanie agrees, but business has to come first. If Vince tries to talk to him, Stephanie will be even more upset.

Here’s Jericho for the hard sell before his match with Punk on Sunday. He talks about how the two of them came into the business with a huge chip on their shoulders and they both think they’re the best in the world. They’ll continue their awesome trilogy that was started last year and Punk will never (EVER!) forget him.

This brings out Ziggler who says that he’s making his triumphant return here to steal the show from Jericho. Dolph talks about stealing the show every night and that on Sunday he’ll prove that he’s better than Del Rio in every way. Jericho cuts him off and asks Ziggler if he wants a tuneup match tonight. Ziggler says sure…..but with Jericho facing Langston. The match is after the break.

Chris Jericho vs. Big E. Langston

This is joined in progress with both guys on the floor before Jericho heads inside for a quick baseball slide to take Langston down. Big E. whips Jericho into the steps to take over and heads in for some shoulders tot he ribs. Alberto Del Rio is ranting about something on the WWE App as Langston charges shoulder first into the post, giving Jericho a two count. Langston runs him over for the same result and pounds away for good measure.

Jericho fires back with an enzguri for two but his cross body is caught in a trio of backbreakers for two. Chris comes right back with a top rope cross body for two of his own but a Ziggler distraction lets Langston run him over with ease. A Del Rio distraction breaks up the Big Ending though and it’s a Codebreaker for the pin at 6:30.

Rating: C. Jericho is fine for a spot like this, but the Del Rio vs. Ziggler feud has lost so much steam over the last few weeks due to Ziggler’s injury. There’s no shame for Langston to lose to someone like Jericho, but it’s a bad spot for him to be in when he could be such a huge deal with the lightest tweaking. Good enough match here but it was nothing great.

Jericho celebrates as Ziggler tells Del Rio no way.

Sin Cara vs. Antonio Cesaro

Zeb Colter is at ringside, claiming that Cara snuck across our borders in the middle of the night but Cesaro is ok because he came into the country legally. So why was Colter not ok with Barrett months back? Sin Cara hooks a quick wristlock before getting slammed out of the corner for no cover. The gutwrench suplex sets up a powerslam for two before Cesaro pounds away on Cara’s face.

A double stomp gets two and it’s off to a chinlock. Back up and Cara hooks his spinning headscissors and a sunset bomb for two. Cole rants about Colter making money in the foreign country of Puerto Rico as Cesaro catches a cross body in a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. A spinning chinlock (you read that right) sets up the Neutralizer for the pin on Sin Cara at 3:52.

Rating: C. I could live with Cesaro as Colter’s new guy, although it doesn’t fit with past continuity. If nothing else it would give Cesaro ANYTHING else to do instead of the vacuum he’s stuck in now. Sin Cara is long past being a bust and it’s kind of sad to see him lose time after time like this anymore.

Bray Wyatt and the Family are still coming.

Vickie and Brad Maddox plug the new Hardee’s burger until Vince comes in to glare at them. Vince is ticked off about Ryback and Cena going face to face tonight because it could put the PPV main event in jeopardy. Vickie’s answer is to cancel the match tonight (they have a match?) but Brad suggests to have the lumberjacks out there as security. Vince is pleased and tells Vickie to share her burger with Brad.

Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns

Before the match here’s Daniel Bryan to be in Orton’s corner. Orton pounds away on Reigns to start and gets two off a dropkick. We get an abbreviated Orton Stomp and a knee drop to the chest for two but Randy goes after Rollins on the floor. Seth’s distraction does nothing for Roman as Orton drops him back first onto the barricade for two back inside. Orton misses another kneedrop and Roman takes over to stomp away in the corner.

Orton comes right back with the Thesz Press and some right hands in the corner to take over. Randy goes to the middle rope on the inside but a Superman punch knocks him to the floor and us to a break. Back with Roman holding a chinlock as Bryan plays cheerleader on the floor. Randy fights up but gets taken down by a running clothesline for two more. Kane is watching in the back on the WWE App! LIVE! Off to another chinlock by Reigns but Orton suplexes out of it to put both guys down.

Randy is starting to feel it and hits a bunch of clotheslines followed by the backbreaker to counter a Samoan Drop. Reigns rolls to the apron like an idiot, earning himself that Elevated DDT. The RKO is loaded up but Orton has to put Rollins in position for the Elevated DDT. Reigns makes the save but Bryan hits the suicide dive on both Shield members for the DQ at 12:30. Make that a no contest because WWE is afraid to call a DQ for some reason.

Rating: C+. Again, as we not allowed to have Shield get a finish in a one on one match? I understand the idea of not wanting to have either guy lose going into the PPV on Sunday, but maybe they shouldn’t be having the match six days before the PPV. The match was pretty good for the most part, other than one too many rest holds by Reigns.

The next match begins immediately.

Daniel Bryan vs. Seth Rollins

Bryan avoids a charge in the corner and fires off the kicks followed by a knee to the ribs. Daniel alternates between knees, elbows and kicks with the YES chants getting louder and louder every time. Rapid fire elbows to the chest get two and hooks the double knee stop out of the surfboard. Rollins runs to the floor, only to be taken out by a slingshot dropkick through the ropes. Bryan hits the running knee off the apron for two back inside as Rollins is in big trouble early on.

Seth avoids a right hand and hooks the Downward Spiral into the middle turnbuckle for two. In a nice move, Rollins uses Bryan’s own surfboard against him but Daniel quickly escapes and fires off kicks to Seth’s leg. There’s a surfboard on Rollins but Bryan pulls his head down into a Dragon Sleeper for extra pressure. Seth elbows out and we take a break to come back with Seth holding a chinlock. A forearm to the face gets two for Seth as Cole lists off a bunch of channels the show is airing on that no one but WWE cares about.

Back to the chinlock by Rollins as JBL talks about how awesome this show is. Bryan fights up and ducks an enziguri into a half crab but Seth is quickly into the ropes. Bryan fires off some kicks in the corner followed by a pair of running dropkicks for two. Back up again and Rollins hits the enziguri for two before firing off Bryan’s own kicks against him. Daniel’s hurricanrana is countered into a buckle bomb for two as the fans are all behind Bryan.

Seth kicks away in the corner but is backdropped out to the floor. The FLYING GOAT is blocked by a forearm but Bryan hooks Douglas Williams’ Rolling Chaos Theory suplex for two. Bryan gets crotched on the top rope but escapes a superplex into a belly to back superplex which is countered into a midair cross body for no cover. Orton takes out Reigns before he can interfere, allowing Bryan to roll up Rollins for the pin at 15:30.

Rating: B+. That’s more like it! I get that you can’t have great matches all the time, but at the same time you need to have some high quality matches like this every now and then. Bryan is just MAD over right now and if they tweak his character in anything more than a minor way they’re insane. He’s ready for a main event push RIGHT NOW but I’m afraid they’ll be worried about the sagging ratings and ignore how over he is because he’s not “a draw”.

Post match Orton hits an RKO on Rollins and the fans go INSANE with YES chants and the Bryan pointing.

In case you missed it the first two times, here’s another recap of the HHH/Stephanie/Vince stuff. Oh and Curtis Axel is in there too.

WWE does stuff with the Special Olympics.

It’s time for Kaitlyn’s secret admirer to be revealed and it’s…..Big E. Langston. He hands Kaitlyn some flowers and says that this is odd because he’s such a big guy who constantly beats people up. However since he first saw Kaitlyn, she’s all he can think about. Kaitlyn looks very nervous as Langston leans in to kiss her, only to drop her on the mat instead.

Cue AJ because it was a SWERVE! She yells at Kaitlyn about feeling worthless because Kaitlyn was never there when AJ was having her heart broken. Instead of being there, Kaitlyn was off chasing the Divas Title. AJ can beat her mentally because Kaitlyn is trash and no one cares about her. The only thing Kaitlyn has of value is the title and that’s gone on Sunday. AJ says that Kaitlyn can go back to her trailer park after the match on Sunday but the brawl is on now with Kaitlyn being left glaring at the crazy chick.

Bray Wyatt quotes the Bible (what happens to a man who gains the world but loses his soul?) and says they’re coming.

Damien Sandow vs. R-Truth

This match has two purposes: hyping up Sandow as having a chance on Sunday and letting Jerry Lawler drool over a burger and shake from Sonic. Sandow quickly takes it to the floor and rams Truth back first into the apron before pounding away on the ribs. Back in and Damien stomps Truth down before hooking a chinlock. The Wind-Up Elbow gets two and the Silencer is good for the pin at 3:21.

Rating: D. Sandow has no chance on Sunday. There’s nothing else to talk about here at all.

Post match here’s Sheamus to congratulate Sandow on his win and say that he’ll kick Sandow’s head off at the Payback kickoff.

Stephanie is in the back and sends a messenger to find Vince for a meeting in their office. She sends another to find HHH for a meeting in their office.

Video on Ryback’s path of destruction towards Cena for the Three Stages of Hell match on Sunday.

Vickie and Maddox bring out the lumberjacks (the entire roster) to protect Cena and Ryback from fighting. We take a break at 10:55 with this and the McMahons to go.

Back from break with Vince and HHH arguing in the back with Stephanie in between them. She SCREECHES at them to stop and work it out because she’s tired of it. Vince won’t apologize because he wants HHH to be more than a legend or a big deal or a champion. He wants HHH to be THE MAN. HHH wants a match with Curtis Axel and Vince likes the idea but they get in an argument over who wants to see the match. Then Stephanie comes back in and asks for a group hug. Vince says he’ll hug Stephanie and HHH can hug them both. The guys slap each others’ backs hard and that’s it. Seriously, we spent all night setting up THAT.

It’s 11:03 and here’s the world champion for the first time tonight. Ryback stands in the aisle but Cena is ticked off that this isn’t really face to face. They argue about the same things they’ve fought about for weeks: Ryback should have been champion but it’s Cena’s fault, Cena says that Ryback should take account of his own failures because THE CHAMP IS HERE. Ryback says he can see Cena and the legend ends when Ryback wins the title on Sunday in three stages. Cena wants to fight now but the lumberjacks hold him back. They get in the ring and the brawl is on, but both guys are held back to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. Here’s the problem with Raw in a nutshell: it’s a solid two hour show but the extra sixty minutes of filler drags it down. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s been the problem for nearly a year since the show went to three hours. There are some solid stories and interesting action on here, but the constant recaps of stuff we saw 45 minutes ago and the incessant commercials for WWE App make this a chore to sit through at three hours. I’m sure the solution is more Vince, Stephanie and HHH though, because there’s no way they’re taking it back to two hours.

Results

HHH vs. Curtis Axel went to a no contest

Kane b. Dean Ambrose via DQ when Shield interfered

Miz b. Cody Rhodes – Figure Four

Chris Jericho b. Big E. Langston – Codebreaker

Antonio Cesaro b. Sin Cara – Neutralizer

Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns went to a no contest when Seth Rollins and Daniel Bryan interfered

Daniel Bryan b. Seth Rollins – Small Package

Damien Sandow b. R-Truth – Silencer

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at: