Monday Night Raw
Date: May 30, 2011
Location: Qwest Center Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Josh Matthews, Michael Cole

Three weeks out from Capitol Punishment and we now have some new stories set up.  It’s looking like we’re setting up some form of Truth vs. Cena at the PPV which is probably the best option right here.  Other than that it’s kind of hard to say where we’re going with major matches as other than that, Show vs. Alberto is probably coming later with the knee injury angle.  Let’s get to it.

The opening video is a tribute to Memorial Day and soldiers that have died in combat.  Nothing wrong with that.

And now we have a black screen.  Oh wait here’s R-Truth at a merchandise stand destroying stuff.  And never mind as we’re gone again with a graphic saying there are technical difficulties.  Ok now he’s destroying the stand with no audio.  He messes with a concession stand and we cut to black again.  We have some background audio but whatever he’s saying into the microphone isn’t heard.

Cole and Lawler are talking but their words don’t match their movements.  Lawler says it’s something to do with the conspiracy.  Now Truth is coming down the steps in the audience and yelling at people in Cena gear.  There goes the audio again.  Truth comes down to a family in Cena gear and the audio is way out of sync.  He calls the kid little Jimmy and the kid’s father big Jimmy.  The father says What’s Up and Truth isn’t happy.  The sound sounds like it’s in a tunnel or something and is about 8 seconds ahead of the video.

He’s in the ring now and ranting about how the fans are the problem instead of him.  It’s about Little Jimmy apparently.  Here comes Cena as Vince must be losing his mind right now.  Cena says that Truth is losing it because he thinks everyone is named Jimmy and there is no conspiracy.  The audio is in sync now, about 10 minutes into the show.  Truth says it’s the fans and Cena that are crazy, not Truth.

The fans chant for Cena and the picture is still jumping a bit.  Cena says that these are the greatest fans in the world and they agree that Truth should be in a straightjacket.  Cena says he has no problem knocking some sense back into Truth.  Truth wants a match so all the little Jimmys can watch him beat Cena down.  Cue the GM for an E-Mail read by Cole and the main event is Truth vs. Cena with no little Jimmys allowed at ringside.  Truth thinks it’s a joke and says Cena will get got.

Kharma will speak tonight.

Dolph vs. Kofi next.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston

Cole says he’s thankful for being back at ringside to call this show.  Dolph is blonde again which is a big improvement for him.  Technical stuff to start as Lawler says Vickie looks good tonight.  I know they were having technical difficulties but dang man they’re messing with Lawler’s words now.  Slower paced match than was probably expected.  Ziggler takes him down with a shoulder block but Kofi speeds things up a bit.

The referee has an elbow pad on for some reason.  Cole keeps sucking up to Vickie as Kofi takes over a bit.  No one has really had an extended advantage yet.  Kofi tries his jump into the punches in the corner but Dolph moves, allowing Kofi to land on the top rope.  Dolph shoves him to the floor as we take a break.

Back with Dolph holding an armbar and pulling Kofi back down by the hair.  Elbow drop gets two and we go to a chinlock.  Stinger Splash in the corner misses for Dolph and Kofi speeds things up again.  He can’t get the SOS but the jumping clothesline does hit.  There’s the Boom Drop but Trouble in Paradise misses.  Sleeper almost goes on and Kofi hits a pendulum kick.  Top rope cross body misses and a Fameasser gets a close two.  Small package gets two for Kofi but he walks into the Zig Zag for the pin at 10:50.

Rating: C+. This got a lot better near the ending but the first part of it was kind of uninspiring stuff.  Not a great match or anything but it’s nice to see them get about ten minutes to go out and let a match build upon itself instead of being like three minutes long.  Not bad but nothing great, especially compared to what they did on Smackdown last year.

Here’s Alberto in an Audi.  We get a clip from last week where Big Show was hit by the car driven by Ricardo.  Part of the clip shows Alberto was driving and Ricardo switched places with him in the background.  Ricardo explains his side of the story in Spanish.  Alberto says bad things happen to bad people.  They owe him money for damaging his car and Ricardo will send them the bill.  Get well soon Big Show.  So it took almost 8 minutes to say “I’m not sorry”?

Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres vs. Bella Twins

Eve vs. Brie to start as Eve does her gymnastics.  She hooks some kind of a choke/arm lock on but Twin Magic prevails.  The Bellas beat down Eve for a good while as the crowd really doesn’t seem to care.  There’s the tag to Kelly who does what is supposed to be a Thesz Press I think.  Kelly’s belt goes flying off and she gives whichever Bella that is a Stinkface.  Everything breaks down and the K2 ends let’s say Nikki at 2:56.  Just your typical Divas match with the looks being the only thing of note.

There’s a cookout in Nebraska.  No real reason for it being shown but it’s the second time we’ve seen it tonight.

Cole is in the ring to talk to Riley about his attack last week.  The Raw GM has apparently signed Alex Riley again.  We see the beatdown on Miz from last week.  Here’s Riley with his own theme song and a decent reaction from the crowd.  Cole yells at Riley about how he betrayed Miz after Miz had done so much for him.  What about Miz apparently?  Miz looked at Riley like a brother and Cole wants to know how Riley can do what he did to Miz last week.

Riley says he’s never felt better and Cole suggests Riley beg Miz for forgiveness.  Cole rants on him a bit more and Riley cuts him off.  Riley says Cole has a big mouth and is starting to get annoying just like Miz.  Cole calls Riley a bastard an Riley grabs him.  He of course takes too long and here’s Miz for the beatdown.  He looks manly in pink.  Miz tries to get a kick in but Riley takes him down.  Miz tries to run but Riley takes him down in the aisle and continues the beating.  Riley throws him onto the table and Miz runs into the crowd and out the door as Riley stands tall in the ring.

CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio

Ryan is with Punk here.  Cole can’t wait to tell us that a guy on American Idol wore a Punk shirt.  You know, for all the WWE fans that watch American Idol.  Punk takes over to start but gets caught in a kick to the chest and a headscissors.  Into the corner but Punk gets out of the way and sends Rey to the floor.  Rey gets on the apron but Ryan sends him into the post as we take a break.

Back with Punk holding Rey in something like a Gory Stretch for a bit.  Rey escapes but a headscissors is countered into a backbreaker for two.  Punk hammers away but Rey manages to dropkick him into 619 position.  CM hits the floor but Rey hits a suicide dive to send Punk over the announce table.  Back in Rey hits the seated senton and the springboard cross body for two.  A sweet pinning combination gets two.

Big spin kick misses and Punk gets another backbreaker for two.  Punk loads up the GTS but Rey counters into a rana to set up the 619.  Ryan blocks it so Rey dropkicks him to the floor.  Rey tries to skin the cat back in but Punk catches him in the GTS position.  Rey counters again but a big kick to the head is enough for Punk to pin him at 9:05.

Rating: B-. Pretty good match here as they let both guys do their thing.  Punk and Nexus’ push continues and it’s definitely not a bad thing.  Also seeing Rey lose is always a plus as it gets a good deal annoying to see him beat every single person he’s in there with.  Either way, good stuff here and Punk’s push continues, which is a good thing.

We get a clip of Austin on Jimmy Fallon.

Here’s Kharma to explain what happened last week.  Her voice is a lot softer than you would expect.  Her dream was to be a WWE Superstar (not Diva) and here she is.  She tried out for season 2 of Tough Enough and JR apparently told her she was too fat to be a Diva.  She went to Japan where she cleaned floors for training.  She went to every wrestling promotion in the world (no mention of TNA) before WWE called.

Her other dream was to be a mother.  She’ll be a mother because she is currently with child.  This is a high risk business and she can’t risk anything happening to her because it’s a high risk sport.  She’ll be back though.  Here are the Bellas to make fun of her.  They say they’re impressed that she found a guy to hook up with.  It must bother her to not be able to beat them up right now.  They make fat jokes and the Bellas try to run.  Kharma will be back in a year and she hopes they’ll still be here because then she has a new dream.  Her music plays her out.

We get the really stupid press conference promo on Capitol Punishment.  At least mix it up a bit.  I think this one is different but still, the joke is over.

Evan Bourne vs. Jack Swagger

Swagger hammers away to start but an attempt at a belly to back suplex puth both guys on the floor.  Back in and it’s all Swagger so far with him hammering away on the back of Bourne.  Rather slow match here but Bourne tries to speed things up a bit, only to walk into a sidewalk slam.  Swagger keeps smacking him in the head and seemingly wasting time.  And yep there it is as Bourne grabs a victory roll for the pin at 3:14.

Rating: C-. Just a quick match there to have Swagger mess up and continue this feud with Bourne.  I hope this leads to a face turn for Swagger as his character can only go so far as a heel.  He has the talent but they haven’t really gone anywhere with it.  Pretty much a nothing match but with 3 minutes what can they do?

Truth talks to himself some more.

Cena talks to Ryder who looks like he has something resembling the IC Title.

R-Truth vs. John Cena

We do get part of the segment to open the show from earlier tonight with working audio.  Cena’s music hits at 10:58 so this is going to be a pretty short match.  Cena sends him to the floor almost immediately and Truth rants at some fans.  Truth gets something going but is sent to the floor again where he runs his mouth some more.  They’re intentionally not having a ton of contact here.

There are the dueling chants as Cena gets going.  At least he’s not gone get got.  Cena takes him to the floor again and Cena gets frustrated.  Truth escapes the Attitude Adjustment and hits the crowd this time.  Cena goes after him but gets caught with a shot to the head and it’s a count out win for Truth at 4:00.

Rating: D+. Not even a match really as there might have been a total of 30 seconds of contact the entire time.  Still though they’re setting up for later on, likely with a PPV title match coming up.  If that’s the case then this is fine as the point was to not have them actually do anything yet.  Not even a match though so the grade means nothing really.

Truth goes back into the crowd and throws soda in the face of the fans from earlier.  Cena gives them his wristbands to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. This was a rather good show overall with the pacing being far better than it’s been in recent weeks and a good deal of wrestling to go with it.  Truth being all insane is a nice touch to his character as he’s playing that character to perfection.  A lot of stuff was advanced tonight and we got a high amount of wrestling too.  What more can you ask for?  Very solid show here indeed.

Results

Dolph Ziggler b. Kofi Kingston – Zig Zag

Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres b. Bella Twins – K2 to Nikki Bella

CM Punk b. Rey Mysterio – Kick to the head

Evan Bourne b. Jack Swagger – Victory Roll

R-Truth b. John Cena via countout

Smackdown
Date: May 27, 2011
Location: Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, Spokane, Washington
Commentators: Michael Cole, Booker T, Josh Matthews

We’re past Over the Limit now and it should be interesting to see where this goes.  After the rather awesome Christian vs. Orton match it’s possible they could go for a third match there but at the same time Orton has won twice clean so maybe it’ll be time for someone else to step in.  Other than that though I’m really not sure what to expect as we gear up for Capitol Punishment.  Let’s get to it.

Do You Know Your Enemy?  TNA’s seems to be wrestling.

Here’s the champ to open the show.  He says he’s Randy Orton and he is still world heavyweight champion.  And that’s all he can get out because here’s Christian.  He doesn’t want to spoil Orton’s moment but Sunday was a great match so thanks and congratulations.  That’s what fruit baskets were invented for Christian.  The match could have gone either way but Christian knows he can beat him.  He wants to issue a challenge for one more match for the title.

Before we get an answer here’s Sheamus.  He wants to know how much Christian needs because he’s acting like an obsessive gambler.  Christian is going to have to wait another seventeen years because on Sunday he became a two time loser.  Sheamus however is a two time champion and he’s here to face guys like Orton for the title.  If anyone is becoming #1 contender, it’s him.

Cue Mark Henry because someone up there hates me.  Christian needs to join Edge on the retirement golf course and Sheamus needs to stop butting in.  As for Orton, Henry says he (Henry) has just butted his way to the front of the line for that championship.  Teddy comes out and asks the fans what they want to see.  They cheer the idea of Christian vs. Orton 3 but Teddy makes a triple threat for the #1 contender spot.

Sin Cara vs. Chavo Guerrero

The lights change again and it’s lost its luster I think.  Cole talks about Cara being ungrateful to Chavo and the other announcers blast him.  Chavo gets sent to the floor so Cara teases a dive.  Back in a double knee to the chest of Cara takes him down and a belly to back gets two.  Off to a key lock but an attempt at a Gory Special is blocked.  Cara sends him to the floor and hits a big old dive to take over again.

Springboard rana back in the ring by Cara and he adds a high angle reverse elbow off the middle rope as we speed things up.  Booker talked to Cara apparently and Cara is a big fan.  Top rope cross body gets two as Cole gets all sarcastic again.  The crowd thinks Chavo sucks as he avoids the Tajiri elbow.

Now we get to see what Cara was trying to get on Sunday as he comes around like a crucifix into a headscissors and then back around to Chavo’s shoulder.  Then he slams Chavo down almost into the position for a Crossface but it slams Chavo’s head into the mat for a pin at 4:46.  Not liking that one but it’s not bad I guess.

Rating: C. Far better than their match Sunday but they really need to do something with Cara already.  We can only watch him come in, do some high spots, get in trouble a bit and come back to win with whatever he finishes with that week so many times.  There’s no real story to any of his matches and no real point to what he does.  It’s not bad, but it’s gotten repetitive already, which isn’t good.  The dives are good enough to make something out of, but not in this format.

Cody Rhodes vs. Daniel Bryan

This is why I love the midcard stuff: there are so many combinations you can throw out there just like this one.  No Ted here.  Cody says if he didn’t know better he’d be convinced there’s no God because everywhere he goes he prays that he’ll see an attractive face but every time he’s disappointed.  He does the bagging thing and gets in a good line of “Shut up and bag yourselves!”  Bryan’s music cuts him off.

This is near Bryan’s hometown so he gets the big pop.  Bryan speeds things up to start us off and Cody actually tries some technical stuff with him.  Bryan is like dude just no and takes out the knees.  They trade hip toss attempts and Cody finally takes over, tossing Bryan to the floor as we take a break.  Back with Bryan making a comeback but getting caught with a kick between the legs to the stomach ala Hardcore Holly.

Cody throws on a Crossface Chickenwing (what is up with people using that move anymore) and calls a spot to Bryan.  He takes the hold to the mat in a full version and rams the mask into the back of Bryan’s head.  Bryan escapes and makes his comeback with strikes as Booker says this would be a breakout win for Bryan.  Even Cole corrects him so you can tell Booker screwed up there.

Bryan gets a missile dropkick for a long two.  Cody sends him into the middle buckle for two.  Bryan grabs a rollup for two.  This is moving as fast as it sounds.  In a SWEET spot, Bryan does his backflip out of the corner but Cody runs underneath him and hits his rope walking spin kick to take Bryan down.  Cross Rhodes is countered into the LeBell Lock (which Bryan put on a bit differently it seemed, twisting Cody’s forearm around too) for the tap out at 6:04 shown of 9:34.

Rating: B. I rather liked this.  It’s good to see Bryan get a win here as he could certainly be a solid midcard guy if not made to be a jobber.  Cody looked like he got caught rather than beaten which is a good way to end it for both guys, especially after a long and competitive match.  No complaints here at all as this was a quite good match.

Post match Cody beats up Bryan, hitting Cross Rhodes and giving him a paper bag.

Here’s the Obama press conference thing again.  It wasn’t funny the first time and it’s stupid by this point.

Heath Slater vs. Ezekiel Jackson

Booker goes WAY old school by mentioning the One Man Gang and Devastation Inc, saying Jackson is both.  He’s Inc?  As in I can buy stock in him?  Slater tries to use speed and that doesn’t work well in the slightest.  Jackson keeps throwing Slater around so Slater keeps charging at him.  Well he is from West Virginia.  Here come the slams and after only two of them there’s the Rack.  And there’s Corre for the DQ at 2:37.  I’d assume this will lead to a gimmick match of some kind…..gauntlet maybe?  Jackson fights them off this time.  Somehow they work bullying into this.  I’m so fed up with that I’m out of jokes for it.

Christian says he was the last one picked for kickball but at the end of the game he’d kick more home runs that anyone.  Apparently he was a Canadian Kickball Champion four times in a row.  He was the last one of his friends to hit puberty but when he hit prom he had the prettiest girlfriend in the school.  He was also the last person anyone thought would reach the top of WWE but he did it, and he’s going to do it again.  I’d have put that on someone like Shawn Stasiak but ok.

Great Khali vs. Kane

Before the match we get a recap of Jinder Mahal smacking Khali last week and making him all evil again.  Singh is here again this week.  This is billed as the Monsters’ Brawl.  Khali overpowers him to start, taking him into the corner.  He chokes away, kind of wrestling heel here.  Off to the nerve hold as I guess 1:40 of action was too much for Khali.  That’s getting into Dusty territory there.  Big chop misses and they both grab for chokeslams.  Khali sends him to the floor but Kane guillotines him on the top rope and the flying clothesline ends this at 2:33.  No rating but this was pretty bad, even for a battle of the giants.

Mahal comes out again, this time with music that is similar to Khali’s original song.  He yells at Khali more and smacks him before going after Singh.  Khali defends his brother but then puts the vice grip on Singh. Khali is a bully now.  For the love of all things good and holy, FIND SOMETHING NEW TO MAKE PEOPLE HEELS!

We get a clip from Raw of Show being injured.  Apparently he’s going to need several weeks of rehab.

Booker is in the ring, complete with some theme music.  He wants Cole to get into the ring which Cole begrudgingly does.  Booker wants to talk about the Kiss My Foot match and we get a clip of the toe being in his mouth.  Booker says he was just playing and puts his arm around an annoyed Cole.  He starts a Kiss My Feet chant and that’s it for this segment.  Uh yeah…because this warranted TV time.

Sheamus doesn’t want to answer Striker’s questions but says he’s tired of hearing about Christian winning the title and Henry has won a total of nothing since he’s been here.  Sheamus won his first world title in a few months, which is very true.

After a clip of Kharma’s breakdown on Raw, it’s time for a tag match.

Alicia Fox/Tamina vs. AJ/Kaitlyn

AJ!!!  Seriously, that girl is too cute for words.  Natalya is with the NXT chicks.  We get an inset clip of them talking as Kaitlyn doesn’t like Tamina/Alicia because there are too many A’s in their names.  AJ vs. Alicia to start us off and that doesn’t last long as it’s off to Kaitlyn.  She’s downright passable in the ring now which is a miracle by comparison.  Kaitlyn gets a side slam for two and everything breaks down.  Never mind though as Alicia gets the axe kick to Kaitlyn and we’re done at 1:37.  That was the only major move the heels hit the entire time.

Henry says he’ll win and he’s NOT boring or irrelevant.

Macho Man tribute video.  That’s the only one that has ever gotten to me.

Sheamus vs. Mark Henry vs. Christian

Winner gets Orton next week apparently and not at Capitol Punishment.  Booker picks Sheamus.  Everyone goes at it at once to start but the monsters take Christian down quickly.  Cole is being a jerk again here and picks Sheamus also.  The double teaming continues but Christian slides to the floor.  Sheamus goes after him but is sent into the steps.  I’ll give him this: Sheamus isn’t a cowardly heel.  That’s a big plus for him.

Henry takes over on Christian with his basic variety of move, standing on his chest.  The referee can be heard saying he can’t break it because there are no rules and therefore no counting.  Sheamus pops back in and rolls up Christian for two as Henry is knocked down to the floor.  Sheamus sets for the Brogue Kick but Christian hits the Killswitch out of nowhere, only for Henry to make the save.

Here comes Orton after about three and a half minutes and we take a break.  Back with Henry pounding on Christian.  Josh makes an interesting comment that this is Henry and Christian against Sheamus.  Bear hug to the Canadian but Sheamus comes back in.  The monsters go at it until Henry grabs a belly to belly and heaves Sheamus back out to the floor.  Cool looking move.

Christian is taken down by Henry just ramming into him which gets two.  Christian avoids a drop down and hits a pair of middle rope dropkicks to take the big fat tub of goo down.  Sheamus pops up to take Christian down off the top and then hammers on Sheamus.  He’s an equal opportunity heel I guess.  Christian and Sheamus hammer away at each other on the top and down goes the pale one, but Christian jumps into a World’s Strongest Slam for two.

Booker says we’re like 18 minutes into this.  By my math it’s more like 12 but when has wrestling ever had adequate watches?  Henry is sent to the floor and the High Cross (name changed again) is countered into a pendulum kick.  Tornado DDT gets two.  Henry takes out Orton for no apparent reason but gets sent into Sheamus by Christian.  Spear takes down Sheamus but Orton comes in for an RKO to Henry.  The distraction lets Sheamus kick out and Christian yells at the referee just long enough to let Sheamus kick his head off for the pin at 11:38 shown of 15:08.

Rating: B-. Not too bad here as they kept Sheamus kind of in the middle and gave us a nice surprise at the end.  This not being for the PPV title shot is a nice touch as it’ll probably set up Christian running in to set up Christian vs. Orton III at Capitol Punishment.  Either way, not bad at all here with a decent triple threat match, even though I’m beyond sick of them.

Overall Rating: B. I liked it here as Smackdown continues their no nonsense road (more often than not) which works rather well.  A key thing to Smackdown: their pacing is great.  You never go more than about five minutes between matches and even though they’re short, they all have a point and address something else.  They had six matches, same as Impact, two of which didn’t last two minutes, and yet they had more wrestling and nothing stupid.  It’s the difference in how you run a TV show and the differences are striking.  Pretty good show but not great here, as is usual for Smackdown.

Results

Sin Cara b. Chavo Guerrero – Headscissors into a mat slam

Daniel Bryan b. Cody Rhodes – LeBell Lock

Ezekiel Jackson b. Heath Slater via DQ when Corre interfered

Kane b. Great Khali – Top rope clothesline

Alicia Fox/Tamina b. AJ/Kaitlyn – Axe kick to Kaitlyn

Sheamus b. Christian and Mark Henry – Brogue Kick to Christian

NXT
Date: May 24, 2011
Location: Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, Spokane, Washington
Commentators: Todd Grisham, William Regal

It’s week like 12 or so but we’re FINALLY down to five people.  Hopefully tonight we’ll get the announcement that we’re going to go down to four in the near future.  If nothing else it’s almost a guarantee that we’re going to get the Savage video again which is going to be more entertaining than anything else we’ve seen this entire season.  Anyway there isn’t much else to say so let’s get to it.

Titus vs. Darren tonight, AGAIN.  This time it’s No DQ though so it’s all ok right?

Here’s Saxton to blame Yoshi for various faults he has and saying he doesn’t need him anymore.  Saxton declares independence from Yoshi and says he’s now to be known as Big League Byron Saxton.  Isn’t that chewing gum?  Anyway Maryse comes out in a dress shorter than her legs.  She hosts this show, not him.  Maryse introduces the show and says that tonight it’s Yoshi/Saxton vs. Kidd/Cannon.  The second elimination is next week.  YES!!!

Tyson Kidd/Lucky Cannon vs. Yoshi Tatsu/Byron Saxton

Yoshi is far more fired up this week than last and starts vs. Cannon here.  Kidd comes in and the beatdown is on.  Kidd gets sent down as we take a break.  Back with Cannon hammering on Tatsu as apparently during the break Kidd injured Yoshi’s arm.  Time for the arm work which makes sense here.  Nice to see it making sense rather than just being thrown on in a vain attempt to look smart.

Cannon hammers away on the arm as there’s a nice little story here of Saxton not coming in, which I’d assume is going to be the final point of the match.  Armbar goes on by Cannon as the fans cheer for Yoshi.  Superplex attempt is blocked and Yoshi gets a top rope spinwheel kick to take both him and Lucky down.  Yoshi STILL won’t tag and it’s off to Kidd.  Big kick gets two for Yoshi and Byron tags himself in, only to get grabbed into a Sharpshooter by Kidd for the tap as Yoshi won’t help.  Match ran 8:55.

Rating: C+. Not as bad as you would think here as there were a few stories going on in there and yet they managed to hold it together and get a not bad match out of it.  The whole idea of Saxton running his mouth and having it come back to bite him is a nice touch but I’m not entirely sure I get Yoshi’s reasoning behind not tagging in, other than maybe to teach Byron a lesson.

Byron yells at Yoshi post match and gets his head kicked off.

Raw ReBound is about Big Show having his leg injured by Ricardo and Alberto.  That’s an interesting story and I’m curious as to where it goes.

We recap Young and Titus and Horny’s situation over the last few weeks, namely Horny being adult with a beard that can speak at times but later lost the ability to for no apparent reason and lives under the ring in a town or something and is treated like a kid-napped.  We see Young and Chavo beating on him and yeah, there it is.  This is about bullying.

Chavo says he’ll be watching tonight and that’s about it.

JTG vs. Conor O’Brian

Regal is all ticked off that JTG is still here which is kind of funny.  We take a break to shill That’s What I Am some more before O’Brian’s entrance.  We get a clip of the dance off from last week which Regal says reminds him of a night with Arn Anderson.  I honestly do not want to know if I want to hear that story or not.  JTG sends him to the floor after a brief run by O’Brian started us off.

That more or less ends my level of interest in the match as O’Brian’s lack of anything resembling interest or uniqueness or anything noteworthy at all.  JTG takes over and Regal says he might have to eat some of his words.  And of course O’Brian rolls JTG up just a few seconds later and we’re done at 3:54.

Rating: F. This is biased beyond belief but more or less Conor O’Brian is officially a failure no matter what he does out there.  Naturally with this win he’s going to stick around again so that Saxton can be sent home for rebelling or something stupid like that while the BULLY is allowed to stay too because while we hate bullies, we have no problem with tolerating them and paying them right?

JTG beats him down post match and Vlad makes the save.

Titus can’t find Horny again but he’s hiding in a travel bag.  Darren and Chavo are bullies don’t you know.

Ad for WWE All-Stars.  Isn’t that game like three months old?

Titus O’Neil vs. Darren Young

No DQ here because even NXT gets that the same match four or five times in a season is stupid.  Titus yells about being a bully the entire time to REALLY hammer the point home I guess.  Modified abdominal stretch goes on as Titus hammers away.  Gee a larger man picking on someone else because they don’t like something about him.  That couldn’t POSSIBLY be considered bullying right?

Young gets a shot in as we’ve stayed in the ring the entire time so far.  Horny is watching in the back as Titus sends Darren to the floor.  Titus sends him into the post and table but that’s it for the No DQ stuff because that stuff NEVER happens in a regular match right?  Chavo interferes when the referee isn’t looking because he couldn’t do it when he was looking right?  That takes us to a break.

Back with Young ramming Titus’ back into the ring and then his face into it as well.  It’s a matched set now I guess.  Back in the ring now as this needs to end rather quickly.  Titus makes his comeback and runs Darren over a few times, adding a shoulderbreaker for two.  Chavo comes in, finally realizing it’s No DQ.  Horny is watching in the back and freaks out when Chavo gets a chain.  He puts a ninja bandana on as Chavo uses the chain.  Here’s Samurai Swoggle (I hate you Todd Grisham) who Titus uses as a battering ram.  Clash of Titus sets up the Tadpole Splash for the pin at 8:22.

Rating: C-. The match was surprisingly decent but the anti-bullying stuff just killed it.  I mean they were YELLING it at each other the whole match.  I’ll spare you a long rant about why I cannot stand the anti-bullying movement and summarize it by saying I think the whole thing is one of the stupidest things that has been forced down our throats in a very long time.  Anyway, that was the point of this match, so you better pay attention because your very soul depends on you NEVER being mean to anyone the slightest bit different than you in your entire life.

No Savage video.  Are you kidding me?

Overall Rating: D+. This is probably the most wrestling there’s been on NXT in months.  That being said, we’ve seen these guys fight so many times over the same things that it was bound to lose any remaining interest it had a long time ago, and that’s the point they’ve hit here.  There is no reason for these people to fight anymore.  Back in the older seasons this was remedied by guest stars but that has fallen off the table because that would imply people knowing this exists anymore.  Not the worst show ever, but just completely uninteresting.

Results

Tyson Kidd/Lucky Cannon b. Byron Saxton/Yoshi Tatsu – Sharpshooter to Saxton

Conor O’Brian b. JTG – Small Package

Titus O’Neil b. Darren Young – Pin after a Tadpole Splash

Monday Night Raw
Date: May 23, 2011
Location: Rose Garden, Portland, Oregon
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Josh Matthews

We’re past Over the Limit and after another Cena torture movie he’s still WWE Champion.  Also Jerry Lawler finally got his revenge on Cole in a humiliating defeat.  Tonight we’ll start building towards Capitol Punishment in four weeks.  It should be interesting to see where we go from here as it seems a lot of feuds wrapped up last night.  Let’s get to it.

An in memory of Randy Savage graphic opens us up.

Theme song hits.

Here’s Lawler who says that the long national nightmare is over because Michael Cole has been beaten.  He said he had an ace up his sleeve last night.  Actually he had a Hart up his sleeve, and here’s the Hitman!  Bret says he’s always respected Jerry over the years as a competitor despite not always seeing things the same way.  He had no respect for Michael Cole though so he as glad to help him taste the agony of “de-feet”.

R-Truth of all people comes out to talk to Bret.  He says Bret must be a 90 time WWE Champion and wants Bret to ask him how many championship matches he’s had.  That would be zero because he didn’t care about the little Jimmys like Bret did.  He asks if there’s something he can give to the fans and asks to take Bret’s shades to give to the fans.

Truth finds a Little Jimmy in the front row and gives him the glasses.  “I’m a good R-Truth now.”  Now he thinks he should be next in line for a WWE Championship match but he isn’t.  Truth takes the glasses back and goes to see Bret again.  It’s about wins and losses, not giving the fans what they want.  He put out John Morrison and he beat Rey last night but now he needs to beat on a Hall of Famer.

Bret says go ahead and try it but he got championship matches because he’s the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.  Truth doesn’t get championship matches because he’s a freaking lunatic.  Truth doesn’t like that but here’s Cena before we see what he says next.  Cena limps out and is clearly in pain.  It’s a mostly pro-Cena crowd tonight.

Cena chats with Bret for a bit and now it’s time to talk to the resident lunatic.  Cena says he and Truth used to be cool but now he lost his mind.  Truth: “Used to?  Used to is a rooster from Brewster.”  Well ok then.  This thing Truth has been on is all about Cena apparently.  The people make it all about him.  Cena says that Truth is wrong and that he makes it all about the people.

Truth says that it’s all about Cena and how he has to get the Cena shirt, the Cena wristbands, go see the new Cena movie, HE WANTS HIS SON BACK!  It’s all about him now and he isn’t going to feel right until he gets his WWE Title match.  Cena says he’s a bit broken up from last night but it’s about time someone knocked some sense into Truth.  An E-Mail stops that though because the GM isn’t sure about Truth.  The main event is Truth/Punk vs. Rey/Cena with Bret as referee.  Bret gives the kid the sunglasses in a nice touch.

Show and Kane are sitting on a nice car and Show says that they’re going to be in a pack tonight, I think talking about Nexus.  Ricardo comes up and yells in Spanish so Show shoves him down.  Alberto comes up and yells in Spanish too.  The big guys actually leave as Alberto rambles more in Spanish.

Tag Titles: Big Show/Kane vs. David Otunga/Michael McGillicutty

I don’t get why these two didn’t have the tag title shot last night since they won last week.  Punk has boots up to his thighs that are white/yellow and look a bit odd.  He sits in on commentary here.  Kane and Otunga start us off and David heads to the floor to avoids a seated dropkick.  A small chase starts but Otunga misses an elbow drop as Kane fakes him out.

Show comes in to a big pop and here’s Michael as well.  Show sends him to the floor with ease as we take a break.  Back with Nexus working over Kane as Punk says he doesn’t care which Nexus team wins the titles.  Orunga gets a neckbreaker on Kane for two.  Show comes in soon thereafter and the beatdown is on.  Punk talks about how everything is going to be ok and Ryan tries to come in.  Kane takes him down but Punk says he has faith and kicks Show in the head.  A double DDT to Show and we have new champions at 8:54 total.

Rating: C. Not a bad match here and it’s probably a good thing to see the giants lose the titles.  They can only go so far with the titles before things get really boring with them.  Nexus needed something to go with here and the tag titles tend to be the first thing you’re given to get something established.

Back with a video of Orton at a Wal-Mart signing That’s What I Am DVDs.  Not as bad a movie as I was expecting even though he was in it less than five minutes.

Big Show and Kane are asked about frustration and Show is all ticked off.  Alberto for some reason Slaps him in the face and runs off.  The camera goes down and when we find them Alberto’s car is on Show’s leg!  Kane shouts at everyone and Ricardo backs the car off.  Show screams a lot as medics arrive.  Show tries to get up but falls right back down.

Back and Big Show still tries to stand, this time getting over to something to lean on.  He won’t sit on a stretcher and looks like he’s going to try to walk it off.

Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne

Swagger misses a shot in the corner and Bourne snaps off a rana.  And there goes that momentum as he runs into a big boot as Swagger takes over.  Off to an armbar but the Vader Bomb misses.  Bourne gets some kicks in but can’t get anywhere with it.  One is caught into an ankle lock but Bourne gets out again.  Another rana attempts is reversed into a HUGE gutwrecnch powerbomb to end this at 2:10.  That impact was awesome.

Post match Bourne is up already and gets a kick to the head of Swagger to send him to the floor in a heap.

Cole is walking around in the back and walks past the Divas, offering Eve a handshake.  She sticks her foot in his face instead.  He’s up next.

Rock’s new movie has done incredibly well.

Here’s Cole and he asks for our attention but then says he doesn’t deserve it.  He wants to apologize to everyone from Jerry to Matthews to Justin Roberts to Mark Yeaton to the fans in Portland to the people all over the WWE Universe.  He just wants to come home and do commentary on Raw.  He wants to come back with no Cole Mine and no more matches but just one more chance.

Jerry says thanks for that and thanks for giving him a picture for this year’s Christmas card, which is Cole having Jerry’s foot in his mouth.  The fans keep chanting You Suck Toes.  Jerry also hands him a box of Altoids which Cole accepts.  They offer him a chair but here’s Miz as Cole sits down.

Miz says there is only one reason why he didn’t win the WWE Championship last night, and that reason is Alex Riley.  This isn’t the first time Riley has failed either as he wasn’t at the steel cage match, he cost Miz the title three weeks ago because they dropped the belt and then last night he had the cell phone fall on the ground.  Miz wants one more chance at Cena in a one on one match with Alex Riley barred from ringside.  He isn’t going to leave the ring until he gets an answer either.

There’s an E-Mail and the GM denies the request.  Miz is done with Cena because he lost against last night.  Riley points out that it wasn’t him that quit and Miz slaps him.  Miz goes off on Riley and fires him and the fight is on!  Riley is destroying Miz, ripping the clothes off of him and throwing him onto the announce table.  Riley beats Miz up and we actually get a big Riley chant!  Miz is almost out.  Riley leaves Miz laying in the middle of the ring in one of the better face turns I’ve seen in a good while.

Melina/Maryse/Bella Twins vs. Eve Torres/Kelly Kelly/Beth Phoenix/Gail Kim

Cole continues to try to be different tonight, saying Miz might have had that coming to him and praising the Divas, enjoying the chance to call the match.  A Bella (announcers aren’t sure either) vs. Kelly to start.  And here’s Kharma maybe 10 seconds into it to a nice pop.

Beth rallies the troops to stare down Kharma who walks to the ring anyway.  She climbs up to the apron and climbs in, not really focusing on anyone.  The Divas surround her and it’s a weird staredown moment.  Kharma sticks her arms out and her hands start shaking.  She gets on her knees and something is censored out.  Kharma starts crying with her lips quivering.  She’s rocking back and forth a bit and shaking her head.  She’s saying something but we can’t hear it.  We go to a break with her more or less having a breakdown in the middle of the ring.

Back and we see a clip of Kharma’s breakdown again.

We get a clip of Extreme Rules where Kofi won the US Title back.

Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston

Non-Title here.  Drew has a ton of pyro now.  Drew is moving out there tonight as they have a very fast paced start but Kofi can’t get over Drew on a leapfrog and Drew works on the knee.  Figure Four on the post as this has been all Drew other than some nice speed moves by Kofi.  Kofi kicks him off though and manages the Boom Drop on one good leg.

He can’t even attempt Trouble in Paradise though and collapses, allowing Drew to get a kick to the chest for two.  Drew tries a knee crusher which Kofi half counters into a rana position, only for Drew to powerbomb him down for a long two.  Into the corner but Kofi pulls SOS out of nowhere for the surprise pin at 4:28.  Vickie and Ziggler are shown watching.  Dolph is blonde again.

Rating: C+. I liked this match with Drew having control due to the bad knee and Kofi having to fight from behind here the entire time.  The knee stuff was good with Drew being all aggressive, but he lost again which doesn’t really help him all that much at the end of the day.  Good to see him on TV again though.

We get a dream sequence of all three commentators imagining what would happen if President Obama had a press conference about Capitol Punishment.  They’ve asked Congress, the Washington Nationals to the forest reserve to the PPV.

Nexus celebrates their win and Punk says watch what he’s about to do.  Main event is up next.

Alberto says he had nothing to do with Show’s injury and blames Ricardo for it.

It’s time for what a lot of people have been asking for all night: the Randy Savage tribute.  A voiceover talks about how awesome his career was and how when everyone was being flamboyant he was better at it than anyone.  Set to Pomp and Circumstance we talk about his matches with Hogan, the Mania 3 match, Slim Jim, the fans imitating him (but never being able to duplicate him).

A barrage of Savage promos set up a highlight reel set to a sad song about setting someone apart and being a shame to be apart.  There’s a focus on his relationship with Liz and the clips are mostly from his face runs.  They’re showing things in sets here, such as his robes and then a bunch of shots of his elbows and finally the in memory graphic as he gets a standing ovation and a loud Macho Man chant.  Very nicely done.

John Cena/Rey Mysterio vs. R-Truth/CM Punk

Bret is referee here.  Punk has pink tights with stars on them like Savage had at Mania 4 where he won his first WWF Title.  Cena and Truth to start with Cena sending him to the floor as we take a break.  Back with Punk in control, ramming in elbows in the corner.  Cena speeds things up a bit and Punk hides behind Bret in a funny spot.  Truth comes in and takes over on Cena with some basic stuff for two.

Back off to Punk and I can’t help but smile at the tights.  Punk hits Bret’s floatover Russian Legsweep and it’s the TWO MOVES OF DOOM!  Suplex gets two and it’s off to Truth again who gets in Bret’s face.  Punk adds a backbreaker but Cena reverses a Sharpshooter into an STF attempt.  Punk loads him up for the GTS but Cena counters into a DDT and both guys are down.

Rey comes in and everything breaks down quickly.  Cena falls down because of bad ribs and Truth shouts how do you like me now?  Rey dropkicks Truth in the back and sets for the 619.  Bret drills Punk and adds a Sharpshooter and Rey drops a dime on Punk’s head for the pin at 9:48.  Cena jumps in the air with a leap that would make Orton jealous.

Rating: C. Just a main event tag match here but at the same time it was kind of a mess.  Not bad to be sure but I’m really not sure what this accomplishes other than a feel good moment I guess.  It was like they weren’t sure what to do here so they did a modified comedy match.  Not bad, but really nothing special at all.

Overall Rating: B-. This was a hard one to grade here.  The show was certainly eventful but the lack of wrestling hurts it.  This was far more of a show about resetting a lot of things which is something they really had to do after last night and they did a good job of that, but the lack of wrestling got in the way here.  The Savage tribute was well done and needed and I’m very glad we got one.  The title change was also good and Kharma’s breakdown is something worth keeping an eye on, but overall I wasn’t buying into the whole show.  Good, but certainly not epic or great.  It got stuff done though, which was the idea.

Results

David Otunga/Michael McGillicutty b. Kane/Big Show – Double DDT to Big Show

Jack Swagger b. Evan Bourne – Gutwrench Powerbomb

Melina/Maryse/Bella Twins vs. Eve Torries/Kelly Kelly/Beth Phoenix/Gail Kim went to a no contest when Kharma interfered

Kofi Kingston b. Drew McIntyre – SOS

John Cena/Rey Mysterio b. CM Punk/R-Truth – Springboard legdrop to Punk

Over the Limit 2011
Date: May 22, 2011
Location: KeyArena, Seattle, Washington
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Booker T, Josh Matthews, Michael Cole

It’s Over the Limit again which was a totally worthless show last year which is about what I’m expecting this year.  The main event is Miz vs. Cena in an I Quit match while on the other side you have Christian vs. Orton in their rematch.  The first match was good so this should be as well with more time and some experience to work with.  All in all though it looks weak but I’ve been wrong before.  Let’s get to it.

There’s a graphic saying in memory of Randy Savage to open us up.  Certainly better than nothing.

The opening video is about what the human body is capable of when it’s pushed over the limit.  Not bad but a bit basic.  Then again there isn’t much you can do with a theme like Over the Limit.

Rey Mysterio vs. R-Truth

Truth just has the one line to start his lack of music now.  The Truth is that it’s all about parking lots.  He got here today and didn’t have a parking spot so he had to park with the rest of the fans in the rain.  It’s a conspiracy and while he’s danced and pranced for all of the Little Jimmys, it’s gotten him nowhere.  He doesn’t play games like Rey Mysterio who wears that toy mask.  He’s taking Rey’s spot and that’s the Truth.

There are cars on the stage like last year.  One is a Mustang and I can’t tell on the other one.  Lawler points out how stupid it is to be worried about a parking space when you have a match on PPV.  Leave it to the veterans to make sense.  Booker says Truth should have changed his attitude a long time ago.  Is Booker a subtle heel commentator and I’m just missing it?

Rey makes Truth madder and manages to send him to the floor where a hurricanrana from the apron takes him down.  Truth, in his purple shoes, takes over by hammering Rey in the corner.  That gets him nowhere as Rey outmoves him of course.  Cole quotes a Kid Rock song from 2002 by saying it ain’t bragging if you do it and you back it up as Rey is sent to the floor.

Truth keeps stopping Rey when he tries to get something going, including hitting a sitout gordbuster for two.  Lawler seems like he has a cold and Cole makes fun of him for it of course.  Rey makes a comeback and gets a middle rope bulldog for two.  As in Truth was on the middle rope which was a new twist on it.  Springboard cross body and a running kick both get two.

Top rope seated senton hits but Truth gets the spinning forearm which is more spin than forearm out of nowhere for a close two.  Axe kick misses so Rey tries a rollup which doesn’t connect.  The jumping reverse Stunner doesn’t hit so Rey kicks him to the floor.  Truth pulls him off the apron to crotch Rey on the ring skirt which is something that is hardly ever used.  A Downward Spiral ends this clean.  Nice to see Rey lose again.

Rating: C. Pretty dull match here but Truth winning is certainly the right move.  Raw needs more top heels and a crazy man like Truth is a good place to start.  Truth hopefully can now move past Rey and maybe on to a US Title run or a quick feud with Cena perhaps.  Still though, not much of a match but there were enough good spots to make it a good match.  Please though, get him a new finisher other than a Downward Spiral.

Miz says that people say he has no chance of winning tonight.  Those are the same people that said he was a joke or would be fired in three days or he’d cash in MITB and lose but he’s proven them all wrong, which he’ll do again tonight.  Very true actually.  Riley cuts off the catchphrase by saying he’s the new WWE Champion instead of Awesome.

Cole talks about rubbing raw fish on his feet.  “Lawler: You are really an idiot.”

We recap Jackson vs. Barrett.  Corre attacked Jackson because Jackson was starting to think about himself too much.  Jackson keeps trying to beat down Corre so Barrett challenged Jackson to a match for no apparent reason for Barrett’s IC Title.

Intercontinental Title: Ezekiel Jackson vs. Wade Barrett

Barrett comes out sans Corre which implies run in to me.  Jackson is freaky big.  Booker talks about Jackson winning his first title, even though this would be his second (ECW Title).  Idiots chant boring about 8 seconds after the bell rings.  Talk about being prejudiced.  Barrett hammers away to start.  It’s a good thing that people sell his punches a lot because he’s the bareknuckles champions or whatever right?

Jackson sends him to the floor and the chase is on.  Jackson catches a big boot attempt as they get back in and runs Barrett over.  Power vs. power here even thought Barrett isn’t much of a power guy.  Cole says the three others are some of the most boring broadcasters he’s ever heard.  Barrett claims a neck injury but is just pretending.  That’s a bad IC Champion!

He sends Big Zeke into the post shoulder first a few times and adds a big boot with Jackson’s head against the post.  Cole has a big surprise for the Lawler match later.  For the love of all things good and holy, let it end there.  Barrett gets a middle rope elbow for two which I hope isn’t your only Macho Man reference tonight.  Cole and Booker argue about sheep and wolves or whatever as Barrett locks on a chinlock.

Wasteland is blocked and Jackson can’t get anywhere as he walks into a kick to the ribs and a pumphandle slam.  Jackson snaps and starts his series of like four slams in a row which I think is kind of a cool idea.  It would hurt your back if you kept having it done to you.  The fans seem to like it too so why not?  Five slams sets up the Torture Rack and here’s Gabriel for the pretty obvious DQ.

Rating: C+. Call me crazy but I liked it.  Jackson with those slams was a surprisingly well received move.  The Torture Rack is a good finisher for him so at least they’re starting to book him right.  The ending is kind of cheap as it’s what we’ve seen for months now, but that’s about what you have to expect.  Somehow Barrett has the longest current title reign in the company.  That’s kind of surprising.

Corre beats down Jackson post match including a Boss Man Slam and a big boot, both from Wade.  No 450 though.

Mason Ryan finds Otunga and McGillicutty down in the back.  They say it was Show and Kane.  Punk says it means they can show how awesome they are.  He barely seems to care about the two guys down.  Punk says walk it off.

Sin Cara vs. Chavo Guerrero

The idea here is Chavo claims that he invented most of what Cara does, which isn’t true but it makes for a good storyline.  They’re in the weird lighting again here and Chavo has the shorts back.  Cara takes over with some speed stuff but Chavo stops him, in theory because he knows the moves better and knows how to counter them.

Out to the floor and Cara does his usually awesome stuff but back in the ring a limping Chavo hammers him down into the corner.  Cara hits a nice moonsault press for two.  The lighting thing is a bit annoying in a long match.  It looks like the light is sick or something.  It’s a standard ground game vs. high flying match which is similar to what Chavo owned the world at back in 2000 so this works fine.

We hit the floor again and Cara crushes him with a big dive.  Top rope rana sets up some kicks and a handspring elbow as he channels his inner Tajiri.  Top rope cross body gets two.  Cara keeps trying to speed it up and it’s only kind of working.  A springboard….head drag I guess sends Chavo down again.  I think it was supposed to be La Mistica (headscissors into an armbar) but it wound up looking awful and Cara pins him with it.  Horrible looking botch.

Rating: C. Pretty good match here as Chavo can keep up with Cara.  The ending brings it down a lot though and the lighting thing has to go because now it’s time for Cara to move up to the midcard.  He’s gotten some experience under his belt and it should be enough for him to have some matches with other midcard guys.  He’ll bring in the Mexican audience which is the point of signing him.  Decent enough match though.

More anti-bullying jazz.

Randy and Christian have a quick chat about getting to be champion which doesn’t go much of anywhere other than repeating talking points.

Alberto is here thankfully.  It’s a PPV with a car theme so how could he not be here?  He’s here to talk about immigration apparently as everyone is complaining about various things.  Ok never mind as he wants to talk about not being sad about being in a WWE Title match because his destiny can’t be stopped.  He’ll be champion some day.

Big Show’s music cuts him off and here come the tag champions.  Kane is disappointed that there wasn’t a rapture yesterday because he was looking forward to it.  Alberto bails before getting his head knocked off.

Tag Titles: CM Punk/Mason Ryan vs. Big Show/Kane

Kane vs. Ryan to start us off here and the fans chant Batista.  This crowd is getting on my nerves in a hurry.  Power vs. Power of course and here’s Show.  Ryan goes all Big Zeke on him, taking him down with a clothesline.  Off to Punk vs. Show.  The giants take turns beating down Punk, probably jealous of all the hair gel.  Ryan comes in to work on Kane as Punk has the word Macho on his tape.

Show stomps on the steps and it sounds like the building is falling down.  The bulldog out of the corner is blocked and Punk is almost shoved into the big punch.  Instead Punk dropkicks the knee and brings in Ryan who hits an old school Oklahoma Stampede.  Bearhug time and Ryan just throws Kane around which is ultra rare.  Kane grabs a suplex but Punk comes in to stop the tag.

Punk goes up top in a rare move for him.  Is that a theme for this match or something?  The elbow drop from the top misses and I can’t help but smile.  It’s enough to bring in Show who cleans house as he is known to do.  Double chokeslam to Ryan and we’re done.  Sometimes there’s no substitute for just picking someone up and drilling them like that.

Rating: C. For the elbow alone this isn’t a failure.  It’s very cool to see someone throw that out in a tribute to one of the best of all time and something told me it would be Punk.  Just seems like something he’d do.  Anyway, Show and Kane winning isn’t that surprising as it can play into the problems in Nexus a bit more.  This was fine for what it was.

Ad for Capitol Punishment featuring…..President Obama?  It’s one of those fake questions featuring real clips from a press conference.  At least it’s four weeks away.

Divas Title: Brie Bella vs. Kelly Kelly

Cole even says this will be boring.  This is about what you would expect: both girls do a few things, neither really are that good, both look good in tiny shorts, which is why they have their jobs I suppose.  LONG armbar by Brie wastes some time.  There’s Twin Magic, X-Factor, Nikki gets the pin.

Rating: F. Dang it why did this have to be long enough to grade?  The match was awful the whole way through as they have no business being on PPV.  Watching Nunzio as the referee and the girls looking good are the only high spots here.  Also, no sign of Kharma.  How in the world can you validate this being on PPV?  I give up.

Cole goes to get ready…..and the world title match is next?  Wow indeed.

We recap Christian vs. Orton.  Basic story here: Christian needs to prove his reign wasn’t a fluke and he needs to prove that he can beat Orton on full rest.  Somehow that takes long enough to heat up some grilled cheese to explain.

Smackdown World Title: Randy Orton vs. Christian

Big match intros fill in some time as we have almost an hour and a half left and three matches to go.  Booker talks about how awesome Orton is because of his lineage, even though his grandfather was a relative unknown and his dad was good but not great.  The crowd gets into it a bit and Booker goes into a LONG speech about Christian and hitting the button to make an engine go faster or something.

Anyway, Christian gets a middle rope dropkick for two as he’s controlled so far.  Orton does his apparently now signature toe touching thing on a leapfrog.  The crowd is FAR more into this than the rest of the show combined.  Off to a chinlock by Christian as Booker actually points something out: Christian doesn’t pick guys up that much.  Big old dropkick by Orton but he can’t get much of an advantage going.

Lawler is gone too if I didn’t mention that.  Orton hits a full on superplex for a close two.  Orton fires off those uppercuts with one of them being countered into a backslide for two.  Spinebuster gets two for the Canadian.  They slug it out and Christian goes up for a missile dropkick, only to get caught in a jackknife cover which he reverses into a sunset flip for two.  Christian takes him down again and a swan dive headbutt gets two.

The fans seem to be more behind Christian here, but then again most people don’t care about Orton until he hits the RKO.  Orton starts his stomp.  OH NO!  HE KICKED HIM IN THE FOOT!!!  IT’S UTTER DEVASTATION!!!!!  Kneedrop gets two but Christian gets a Killswitch attempt which is countered into an RKO attempt.  That gets countered into another Killswitch attempt but Orton pulls the legs out and gets a reverse Boston Crab (Billy Goat’s Curse for you Colt Cabana fans) which I’ve never seen in WWE.

Christian grabs the rope but it’s nice to see a new move being thrown out there like that.  He fakes Orton out in the corner and gets a VERY close two off a sunset flip out of the corner.  Important there because the fake out was the same move that Christian got caught in the RKO with in their first title match.  Nice bit of psychology there.

Into the corner again and Christian tries the pendulum kick but Randy grabs the feet and shifts to an elevated DDT for a close two.  Orton loads up the RKO but Christian shoves him off and stars shouting SPEAR.  Ok, enough with the Edge references.  Perhaps it was the SHOUTING THE NAME OF THE MOVE but Orton snaps him off with a powerslam for two.  With Christian down Orton sets for the Punt of all things but he can’t bring himself to do it.

He charges again but Christian pops up with a spear for a VERY close two.  Christian goes into one of his old school fits almost as this is a rather good match.  Christian sets for the Killswitch again but it gets countered as does the second attempt, the first into an RKO attempt and the second into an attempted belly to back suplex.  Christian flips out of it but as he goes for the Killswitch again, it’s RKO time and Orton survives this.

Rating: A-. Very good match here that topped their previous match with them adding the psychology and building on their previous match.  Orton showing respect to Christian like he did before on Smackdown is another nice touch as well as them adding in new stuff to make the match less predictable.  Well done match as Christian continues to impress.

They shake hands post match.

We recap Cole vs. Lawler so excuse me while I baste a turkey.

Ok I’m back now and what a shock it’s still going.  The idea is that Cole and Lawler hate each other and Cole has beaten him twice already.  Lawler has put up his Hall of Fame ring and if he loses he’ll induct Cole into the Hall of Fame.  Also the loser has to kiss the winner’s foot.  Cole also ticked off his muscle in Jack Swagger so he’s on his own here, at least in theory.

Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole

Remember that Cole has promised some kind of surprise all night.  Cole comes out in a suit and limping.  You can tell it’s officially an injury because he has a doctor’s note.  Or maybe he’s reading his lines.  Apparently it’s because of infected athlete’s foot.  If Cole’s foot goes into Lawler’s mouth Lawler might contract foot and mouth disease.  He gives the note to the referee and the referee rips it up.  RING THE BELL!

Lawler drills him into the corner and pounds away and there go Cole’s pants.  SOLID right hand and a dropkick send Cole to the floor.  Josh says vintage.  Cole manages to send him into the steps a few times and Cole takes the shoe off.  This ticks Jerry off and LAWLER THROWS HIM THROUGH THE COLE MINE!!!!!  Lawler celebrates the thing exploding which is a legit funny moment.  Middle rope punch brings the strap down and WE ARE DONE!  That made me smile.  No rating as it was total domination but still, awesome moment as Jerry destroyed him.

Jerry starts unzipping his boot but has an idea.  He waves someone out and here comes Eve.  She drills him with a moonsault as this is turning into exactly what it should have been.  Lawler still isn’t done as he waves out JR!  Appropriately enough JR has barbecue sauce.  He pours it into Cole’s mouth until it overflows and all over his face.  This is great.  Cole gets to the floor and tries to leave and says that he’s not a loser.  It’s Lawler and all the people that are losers.  He’s not going to kiss his……..BRET HART IS HERE!!!!!

THIS is what I mean when I say they need to give old school fans something special.  And before you ask, remember that it was Bret and Lawler in the first kiss my foot match.  Sharpshooter goes on the pencils that Cole calls legs and it’s time to kiss the feet, complete with barbecue sauce.  Cole is left totally destroyed and Bret’s music plays us out.  PERFECT ending to this segment as Cole is completely and utterly destroyed.

JR jumps in on commentary for the main event.

They show the replay a bunch of times and Cole’s face is priceless.

That’s What I Am video, which actually wasn’t all that bad.

We recap Miz vs. Cena.  More or less Cena got to pick the stips because it’s a match he flat out doesn’t lose.  This is their third PPV match so I kind of like the idea of having the odds stacked so high against Miz because he can say he didn’t deserve to lose but at the same time they’re almost too high.

Raw World Title: The Miz vs. John Cena

I Quit rules here and they have a LOT of time.  Miz has the coat again which is always a perk.  It’s only 20 past ten so they have a TON of time.  Miz grabs the mic and says that since there are no rules Riley is going to help him.  That helps a bit.  Riley more or less plays spoiler here as he breaks up an early STF attempt.  This is pretty smart actually.

The dueling chants begin as Cena puts Riley on the floor.  Cena initiates his ending sequence quickly but Miz countered into a Skull Crushing Finale attempt.  He walks into an FU but Riley pops in to massacre him with about 12 briefcase shots.  Double powerbomb out of the corner but Cena says no.  Booker more or less ends his employment by saying Cena has limited skills/abilities.  Well he has a job on the internet for life.

More beatings follow and Cena is sent into the barricade, drawing a no.  They set up the table and Miz hits a monitor shot to the head.  This is getting a bit brutal here.  Cena drills Riley and comes back on Miz but gets sent into the steps.  DDT on the steps and Cena doesn’t give up still.  That one was more meager though.  Miz cuts a short promo on Cena, saying that if he doesn’t give up Riley will slam the steps onto Cena’s ribs.  Cena say go away and there are the steps for him.

Riley gets in the ring and holds Cena’s arms back.  Miz says he has a weapon and will hit him with it if Cena doesn’t give up.  “You hit like a girl.”  That of course gets a no.  Miz GOES OFF on Cena who more or less tries in vain to cover up.  He still won’t quit though.  There are some sick marks all over Cena’s stomach from that stick.  This has been about 95% Miz/Riley.

The go up to the stage and Miz suplexes him on the stage.  Cena is screaming loudly but still won’t quit.  Matthews asks about Cena’s breaking point.  Haven’t we seen that show already?  Miz gets a running boot to the head to kick Cena off the stage.  Cena STILL won’t say he quits but he doesn’t say no for awhile this time.  They get a boom mic and a leather belt.  Miz talks to Cena on the mic again but Cena STILL won’t quit even at the threat of a whipping.  “You have a leather strap but you got no nuts.”

Cena more or less stops reacting other than sticking his leg up to try to block the belt shots.  He STILL says no, almost through tears.  They head back to the ring and Cena somehow keeps fighting but a chair to the ribs and back stops that run.  This is getting pretty awesome as it’s looking almost impossible for him to come back here and that Miz has the perfect plan.

Back in the ring and Cena AGAIN fights back.  And there goes the referee.  Cena can’t get the FU on Riley but Miz takes him down one more time.  He puts the chair between the ropes and it’s a Skull Crushing Finale THROUGH the chair which looks like it bent a bit.  Booker: “They seem like they’re trying to hurt him.”  Get this man off my commentary NOW.

Miz says maybe he needs to make this a bit more personal.  He goes to a fan and asks if Cena is his hero.  The kid says yes and he wants to know if he wants Cena to quit.  The kid says never.  Mic shot still gets a no from the fan.  Miz GOES OFF on the fan and the fan shrugs his shoulder.  Get actors next time Vince as the fan is hilarious here.  Miz threatens Cena with a ton of chair shots as he’s stuck in part of the barricade now.  Cena says the kids are smarter than he is which gets no reaction really.

BIG chair shot over the head for that one and now Riley wants him to say it.  THEY ACTUALLY DO THE RECORDED VOICE BIT!!!  Cena clearly didn’t move but a voiceover of him said it.  The referee wants the belt but he finds the tape recorder.  I think he’s calling shenanigans here.  It’s Riley’s phone so RESTART IT!  Riley sets for a belt shot but it takes Miz out instead.  FU to Riley through the table and Cena takes his own belt off.  A bunch of whippings and Miz quits like a girl to the STF (Cena said it earlier, not me).

Rating: B+. This is a very hit or miss match much like the I Quit match against Orton at Breaking Point in 2009.  You really have to check your brain at the door for this one but at the same time that makes it work.  They got brutal with this one and that made it work very well in the end of it all.  I got into it for a lot in there and the restart made sense too.  Good match, not for everyone though.

Overall Rating: B. Call this one a pleasant surprise.  I was thinking this would be nothing but we got two great matches and a great moment with Cole and Lawler.  The rest isn’t great but it’s certainly not all that bad.  I liked this show actually and it worked quite well all things considered.  When you have zero expectations and get a decent show with a very good final hour and a half or so, things are definitely looking up for it.  Good show overall.

Results

R-Truth b. Rey Mysterio – Downward Spiral

Ezekiel Jackson b. Wade Barrett via DQ when Justin Gabriel interfered

Sin Cara b. Chavo Guerrero – Headscissors

Big Show/Kane b. Mason Ryan/CM Punk – Double Chokeslam to Ryan

Brie Bella b. Kelly Kelly – Bella Buster

Randy Orton b. Christian – RKO

Jerry Lawler b. Michael Cole – Middle Rope Punch

John Cena b. The Miz – Miz said I Quit

Breaking Point
Date: September 13, 2009
Location: Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Attendance: 11,500
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Todd Grisham, Jim Ross, Josh Matthews

Submission. That’s whole point of this show. Ok not really but that was the idea of some of it. WWE was I suppose trying to reach out to the MMA fans here which makes sense I guess but at the same time is annoying. The three main matches are submission matches, including Taker vs. Punk on one for the Smackdown Title.

Other than that we have Orton vs. Cena…again, for the Raw Title. The third major match is DX vs. Legacy so there we are. This show is hit or miss for most people so there we are. Let’s get to it.

Also, in case you’re wondering what the point of this review is, I’m trying to get caught up with the recent shows so I can have a point to cut off at, as in having all of 2009 forward reviewed or something like that, so expect more recent ones to start popping up.

The video more or less says what I just said to you. It should be noted that it’s only the main event matches that have the submission stipulation.

Unified Tag Titles: Big Show/Chris Jericho vs. Mark Henry/MVP

This was the feud of the month and no one with intelligence thought team Red had a chance. Jericho tried to denounce being Canadian on Raw to keep the face pop down but if I remember right Quebec wants to secede anyway, so it made the reaction better. MVP is a fair bit sloppy. Crowd is hot by the way. Fans are totally behind Big Show.

More or less this is Henry shows off his strength without actually doing anything worthwhile. Henry is likely going to be in the match for the most part. Oh dear. Ok scratch that thank goodness. Oh how I hate the Ballin Elbow. Lawler says a spear literally cut MVP in half. No King, it didn’t.

Henry comes in to make the save after a LONG time of beating on MVP. Henry cleans house and counters the Codebreaker. And of course a single right hand knocks him out for about 25 seconds so Jericho can get the pin to retain.

Rating: D+. This was a long Raw match and just flat out not interesting. There was no way the belts would change here or anything like that and everyone knew it. That can work at times but the problem here is that the match itself has to actually be good. That simply isn’t the case here and it hurt the match really badly.

Legacy says that tonight it’s a fight and DX is over.

US Title: Kofi Kingston vs. Miz

Lillian isn’t human. That’s all there is to it. This was added to the card the day before this show which is rather cool when you think about it. No idea why it is but I thought I’d throw out something that sounds cool like that so I wouldn’t have to explain it. This is fairly recently after Miz did the AWESOME (pun intended) feud with Cena. That was too brilliant for words.

Kofi is getting beaten up here as the push of the Miz continues. Lawler and King argue about nothing in particular. This is a really slow paced match and I’m not sure how well it’s working. Miz does the intelligent thing and moves out of the way of the Boom Drop. They crank it up and do a nice pinfall reversal sequence. Miz goes for the Reality Check but Kofi counters the neckbreaker to kick the heck out of him for the pin.

Rating: B. This started slow but became a very solid match by the end. At the time it aired I wasn’t sure who was going to win which is something that hardly ever happens to me in matches. What I mean by that is this looked like a glorified squash on paper and that got switched up. I’ve always liked both of these guys and this was no exception. Very fun match with a solid ending.

Lynyrd Skynyrd did the theme song. Good to know.

We recap DX vs. Legacy. In essence, Legacy is tired of DX hogging the spotlight. In other words, Legacy is portraying Rated RKO.

DX vs. Legacy

This is submissions count anywhere. We get the obligatory Montreal reference from DX which makes sense as we’re in Montreal tonight. HHH says it was all Shawn’s fault in a rather funny bit. There are in essence no rules in this to speak of. Shawn is famous for the figure four? Since when? We’re already into the crowd so at least they’re not trying that hard to make this look like a normal match. That’s always a perk.

Shawn has DiBiase in a choke on a railing in the audience and HHH and Rhodes are back in the concourse I think. We were in the ring for all of 8 seconds in case you were wondering. They’re brawling all over the place but of course we’re heading back to the ring now. Rhodes is put onto a chair and HHH gets a Boston Crab at the same time that Shawn gets a camel clutch. Good to know. After that is broken up we get a crossface from HHH.

I’m not sure if this is a good match or not. Rhodes hooks a Gory Special of all things. The formula of this match more of less is one guy puts a hold on another and the partner makes the save. It’s ok but there’s not much to it really. HHH and DiBiase are in the ring and Rhodes and Shawn are fighting in the production area. They fight into the stands and Shawn falls from there down to a perfectly placed empty area.

Basically HHH has to fight both guys off to keep them away from Shawn. Hmm…HHH having to face very big odds and do something no other normal person could pull off? Where’s the challenge? They’re in the back and beating the tar out of HHH. The crowd reaction would suggest Shawn is up. Oh wait it’s Montreal so maybe he died or something. Never mind. He’s up. It’s back to 1-2 now though as HHH got smacked in the head and is down.

Rhodes busts out an ankle lock on Shawn. You know, the guy with a bad back that just hurt his back a few minutes ago. I can’t stand stupid wrestlers at times. So Shawn was down for maybe two minutes from FALLING OFF A BALCONY and HHH is down much longer from a garbage can shot? Good freaking night.

Shawn gets that reverse figure four that he used like twice but he’s a master off all of a sudden anyway. Rhodes just goes off on Shawn and hooks the figure four on the post. DiBiase adds in the Million Dollar Dream. And Shawn taps out with HHH crawling on the floor. Talk about an EPIC win. Match kind of sucked but kind of didn’t.

Rating: B-. I liked it, but there were a LOT of problems here. For one thing, it got to the point where it was just the same stuff happening but with different people. That’s rather boring indeed. However, VERY happy that Legacy won as they actually needed a win as opposed to DX all over again. It was good but far from great. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt though.

Oh and amazingly enough, people still complained about DX hogging the spotlight after this match. Go figure.

Josh Matthews comes up to Randy Orton who says he wants to talk. Orton has no reaction to Legacy winning. Orton says that’s enough questions so he talks about Cena. Orton has the voice for his character down to a T, I’ll give him that much. I love the WWE Title just sitting in the background there like that’s perfectly normal.

Ad for Hell in a Cell.

Singapore Cane Match: Kane vs. Great Khali

Uh, point to the stipulations? Singh’s sideburns are alive I think. There’s a basket of canes at each corner. There’s the required duel between the sticks. Can we just push Kane as a monster heel? Please? Is it that much to ask? Khali got a world title reign and Kane doesn’t. That makes such a lack of sense I can’t even fathom it.

The fans are already chanting boring and they’re right. Naturally they don’t get it and keep going. Khali gives Kane a head massage which is apparently a vice grip or something. Khali does his other move, the chop, and that’s all he’s got. Kane gets a shot off the top with the cane and that gets two of course. A good (bad on anyone other than Khali) ends it to a BIG pop, despite Kane being 100% heel here.

Rating: F. This was awful in every sense of the word. It was short if nothing else but for the love of coconuts, give Kane something serious to do rather than just having him beat up random big men. Yes I’m a big fan of Kane.

Punk says he’s ready for Undertaker. He makes great points of course but it’s Taker so he has to lose. Punk mentions the Hardy arrest which is just freaking awesome. Dang Punk is epic. The lights go out and it’s Jimmy Yang messing with Punk. Guess what happens to his cowboy sefl.

We recap Christian vs. Regal, which more or less was Regal got beat in 10 seconds at Summerslam and then his boys beat him up. Naturally a ten second loss warrants a rematch right?

ECW Championship: Christian vs. William Regal

This is 5 days after the ECW is Leaving announcement was made so there we are. Naturally Christian gets a huge pop being the Canadian. The monsters are sent to the back. This is more of a technical match which is what Regal is a master of. This is an intense match if nothing else. The fans are as into this as they’ve been into anything all night long. Regal avoids the Killswitch three times and then gets it on the fourth. Well that was abrupt. Somehow this was ten minutes long.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t much at all. It could have been a main event on any ECW TV show and it wouldn’t have been anything special at all. This was pretty weak.

Batista is coming back to Raw to leave for Smackdown.

Pat Patterson comes out for no apparent reason. He talks about nothing in general until Dolph Ziggler comes out. They talk, Ziggler pushes him, gay jokes abounded in the LD as Morrison came out for the save.

We recap Cena vs. Orton. They don’t like each other. The end. On the show you get a five minute version of that.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Randy Orton

Remember, this is submission only. Orton is champion here in case anyone is interested. Starting with the package, we have ten minutes go by before the opening bell. Cena starts out hot and gets in some nice throws on the reptilian one. The fans are kind of into it but I think they know they’re in for a long one here.

Orton of course gets the advantage as he is known to do. The weapons are in already and Cena is experiencing head trauma. Naturally we get a mixed reaction from the crowd because it’s Cena in Canada. The RKO onto a chair is countered because we’re 5 minutes into this. We’re on the floor and Orton is in control of course.

He puts Cena’s head on the step and stomps on it. That looked awesome to say the least. When that doesn’t work he busts out handcuffs and the key which goes around his neck. And Cena is attached to the top rope. Yep, he’s going to win anyway. So Orton unties him and puts him on the post with the cuffs over his arm. Orton proceeds to beat him in the chest and stomach with a kendo stick.

This has to be some Vince sex fantasy. There’s no other possible explanation. I don’t know if that’s makeup on his ribs or what but it looks awesome. Orton freaking KILLS Cena with a chair shot. This is freaking violent. After more chair shots and Cena being cuffed again he manages to get the key. And great, now they’re cuffed to each other. Is this a bad buddy comedy pilot or something? It still looks better than 12 Rounds.

The people are booing this, I guess because HE WAS FREKAING TORTURED AND NOW HE’S BEATING UP THE WORLD CHAMPION! Orton gets an RKO out of nowhere. And of course Cena hooks the STFU on Orton with the cuffs for the submission. Because you know, that’s perfectly reasonable right? A ton of replays and celebrating follows.

Rating: B-. I’m really not sure on this one as it became a messed up torture video halfway through. This is a match that some people are going to love and others are going to just flat out hate and I can see both perspectives. It’s not for everyone and the intensity is WAY over the top, but it played up Cena won’t quit as well as possible so there we go.

We recap Punk vs. Taker. More or less it was Taker is back and wants the title. Good to know.

Smackdown World Title: Undertaker vs. CM Punk

Taker has never surrendered so there we are. Naturally it takes forever to start because it’s an Undertaker match. And of course Punk is getting his face kicked in. Did you expect anything else? This goes on for awhile until some chair shots get us back to something resembling even.

They trade strikes and Punk actually puts him down with a solid as stone kick to the head. And there’s the Hell’s Gate for the tap out. Yeah, in the most predictable ending you could ask for, Taker gets the title back to end the show. Screw you WWE.

OR DOES HE???

Teddy Long comes out to say that the Hell’s Gate is still an illegal move and the match is still going, even though it’s a No DQ match so that rule means nothing but why should I pay attention to something stupid like that?

Anyway, Taker just beats the tar out of him and then we get the part of the match that I still shake my head at: Punk counters the Last Ride and hooks an Anaconda Vice and, say it with me, Taker doesn’t tap but the bell rings anyway. Punk stands next to the stoic Long to end the show. Care for an explanation? So would I. It never really came, so whatever right?

Rating: D+. This just wasn’t that good. The match was boring and while they did use the surprising ending, it’s still Montreal. I have far more tolerance here than in TNA though, as this isn’t an alternative to WWE or anything like that. Either way, the match sucked and not much was going to save it. Nice twist though.

Overall Rating: D. The idea is ok but in reality this just didn’t work at all. Three of the seven matches could be on any TV show and while them being title matches helped a lot, they’re still just not very good other than the US Title match which isn’t great or anything. There’s some ok stuff in here, but at the same time all of the matches being the same thing takes away from it.

I’ll go with the same example I would go with from Cole at No Way Out one year when there were two chambers: “This is such an intense match. How long has it been since you saw something like this?” About 25 minutes Michael. That’s the thing: these matches are supposed to be about being way intense and stuff like that, but when you have three inside of two hours it just doesn’t work.

There’s some ok stuff in here but by the end you just want it to be over which is never a good sign. Check it out if you’re a fan of the modern product, but overall this was a failed experiment, meaning it’ll be back this year.

Smackdown
Date: May 20, 2011
Location: American Bank Center Arena Corpus Christi, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Booker T, Josh Matthews

We have one more show before Over the Limit and this is it.  I wouldn’t expect much tonight other than a final push to the PPV as the card seems to be mostly set already.  Orton and Christian will likely have some more interaction tonight but other than that I don’t know of anything that’s likely to happen.  Anyway, let’s get to it.

Do You Know Your Enemy?  Mine at the moment is a bad cough that I’ve had all week.

Orton vs. Henry tonight.

Christian vs. Sheamus

We get an old school inset promo from Sheamus as he comes to the ring where he says it took Christian 15 years to win a world title and it took him two months.  Rather true actually.  Sheamus uses power to take over early and Christian is in trouble.  Christian manages to send the pale dude to the floor but gets caught by a shoulder through the ropes.

Christian speeds things up as we hit the floor.  And never mind as we go back into the ring and Sheamus shoves him off the top to the floor and we take a break.  Back with Sheamus getting a powerslam for two.  Off to a chinlock by Sheamus as they rest a bit.  Reverse DDT gets two for Christian as does a cross body.  Middle rope elbow looks to set up the Killswitch but Christian walks into the Irish Curse for two.

Tornado DDT by Christian as this is a rather nice TV match so far.  That only gets two though because regular moves can’t get pins remember?  Finishers only.  Sheamus is knocked to the apron and hits a slingshot shoulder block to get two as well.  And scratch what I said about finishers only as Christian grabs a small package for the pin at 8:43 shown on 12:13.

Rating: B-. The ending was a bit abrupt but this was a pretty solid opening match.  Sheamus tends to work rather well with guys a bit smaller than him and this was no exception.  Solid back and forth match here but the ending left a bit to be desired with it seeming to not follow the buildup it had for the most part.  Still good overall though.

Henry comes out for the double beatdown post match.  Orton comes out very slowly for the save but watches a bit first.  So Orton is a voyeur now?

Long video on Miz vs. Cena on Sunday.

We run down the rest of the card for Sunday to fill in more time.  Brie Bella is defending against Kelly Kelly apparently.

Speaking of the Bellas they’re in the back and Grisham asks them about the beatdown on Monday from Kharma.  Brie is asked why she let Nikki get beaten down and they get in an argument about why they let each other get beaten down.  They agree that they would have done the same thing in each other’s place so this is totally pointless.

Natalya vs. Brie Bella

Non-title here as I guess Natalya is now just there to fill in a space.  Booker rambles on about biscuits and butter and Kharma as even Josh laughs at how out there he sounds.  Natalya takes her down with relative ease and gets two.  What looks like a Boston Crab can’t go on so Brie takes over, working on the arm.  Discus lariat gets two for Natalya as this is a rather boring match with the fans totally dead.  Delayed vertical suplex gets no cover.  Brie sends her shoulder first into the corner and gets a horrible looking X-Factor for the pin at 3:01.

Rating: D-. Yeah shockingly enough a match with one of the Bellas was junk.  The only thing they’re good for is shaking their hips and their in ring work proves that.  This was another weak Divas match as Nattie is now losing clean to Brie Bella of all people.  It never ceases to amaze me how fast a long running champion can fall like that.

We talk about Big Zeke getting thrown out of Corre and he’ll be here next.

Here’s Jackson who says he came to SD to write a new chapter in the Book of Ezekiel.  He joined the Corre to make an impact and talks about how Corre took over.  Not really but we’ll go with that.  He wants to know if Corre needed him or if he needed Corre.  The last two weeks he’s taken a beating but they can’t break him.  He’s not going to sleep until they’ve all suffered.

Here comes Corre for the beatdown but Teddy interrupts them and makes a six man tag.

Corre vs. Ezekiel Jackson/Kane/Big Show

Slater is in tights now instead of trunks.  Show starts for the Bald Brotherhood to face Gabriel.  The title match on Sunday is against Ryan and Punk.  Why would it be against them when McGillicutty and Otunga beat the champions?  Why am I trying to make sense of this?  Kane comes in as this has been one sided so far.  Off to Slater whose luck is about the same.  Booker wants to step outside with Cole.  I guess he’s afraid to cross the street and needs Cole to hold his hand.

Barrett gets the tag and is rather skeptical to face Kane so he gets Jackson instead.  Barrett beats him down but can’t suplex him.  Jackson clotheslines him to the floor as we take a break.  Back with Jackson running over Gabriel and it’s off to Big Show.  Showstopper (standing leg drop if I remember the name correctly) puts Gabriel down as does something resembling a superkick.

Back to Jackson as the beating continues.  Totally one sided so far.  Barrett comes in and has the best luck so he tags out to Slater immediately.  Jackson runs over Slater now and Kane adds the top rope clothesline.  Sidewalk slam gets two but Barrett pulls the top rope down to send Kane to the floor.  Corre takes over as Slater throws on a chinlock which gets him nowhere.

Kane suplexes his way out of it but Barrett stops the tag.  Double big boot puts both guys

down and it’s back off to Slater again.  Big uppercut puts Heath down and a double tag brings in Gabriel and Jackson.  All Big Zeke here but everything breaks down quickly.  Jackson slams Gabriel about four times and a torture rack (love that move for Jackson) ends this at 8:10 shown of 11:40.

Rating: C. Just a six man here with the good guys dominating almost the entire time.  I’m skeptical about who wins both title matches on Sunday but it’s not like this told us anything about the tag champions really.  Either way, not a terrible match but just kind of there really.  Zeke having a new finisher is definitely a good thing for him though as he really needed one and a Torture Rack is perfect.

Christian suggests we look at some tape from earlier which is Orton taking his time getting down there for the save.  He’s going to be 100% on Sunday.

This isn’t from the show but as I’m reviewing this news broke that Randy Savage died in a car wreck.  That completely blew me away and I have no idea what to even think about it.  Sad indeed.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Daniel Bryan

Pre match Chavo says that he brought Sin Cara here and how he’s going to beat Bryan in five minutes as opposed to the fifteen it took Cara to do it last week.  Chavo vs. Cara is confirmed for the PPV.  There’s a countdown clock on screen for this.  First minute passes with nothing more than basic stuff.  Bryan gets a dropkick and drop toehold to take over.  Chavo gets his feet up in the corner to get two with 3:25 to go.

Booker and Cole get into it again as has become a tradition on Fridays anymore.  Chavo locks in a reverse chinlock which doesn’t last long.  They exchange rollups and things speed up a bit with about two minutes to go.  Here come the kicks and it’s LeBell Lock time.  He can’t quite get it on so he hits the floor with a minute left.  Big dive to the floor takes Chavo out and the missile dropkick misses with thirty five seconds left.  Chavo goes with Three Amigos with very little time left.  Frog Splash only gets two and the clock runs out at 5:00.

Rating: C+. Pretty clear that we were going with the time limit but that was the point in this case so it’s nothing to complain about.  Chavo as usual works rather well out there and with a guy like Bryan it’s not like they were asking much of him.  This was absolutely fine and it worked rather well indeed.  Good match and nice to see Bryan not get pinned again.

Chavo throws him to the floor post match and Sin Cara comes out for the save, hitting a rana to send Chavo to the floor.

Here’s Cody with Ted for the paper bag thing.  PLEASE tell me they’re not reforming Legacy and messing up Cody’s push for the sake of a weak tag team.  Cody gets a bag especially for Ted who doesn’t want to put it on but does anyway.  It turns out to be a joke for the sake of making fun of Corpus Christi as Ted speaks in a bad Mexican accent.  The fans boo and Cody yells at them to put the bags on.  Ted takes the bag off and says bring out his opponent.

Ted DiBiase vs. Trent Barreta

Ted hammers him back into the corner as I think we have a squash on our hands here.  Apparently Cody called Ted a shrub or something, meaning his career has fallen apart.  Trent takes Ted down with a standing Swanton for two.  Enziguri has Ted staggering but a tornado DDT is countered into a sitout powerbomb.  Dream Street ends this clean in 1:25 for no rating of course.  Trent gets paper bagged post match.

Great Khali vs. Jey Uso

What do you think is going to happen here?  No Singh with Khali here.  Jey tries to get some kicks in but Khali throws him around.  A dropkick sends Khali into the corner and here’s Jinder Mahal to yell at Khali some more.  Khali goes to the floor to stare him down and almost gets counted out because of it.  Back in the chop and Khali Bomb ends this at 2:05.  Total squash for all intents and purposes.  Someone, perhaps Jimmy Uso, comes in and gets chopped also as he checks on Jey.

Apparently Christian said he’ll be 100%.  Orton says that’s not going to be enough.

Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry

Henry takes him back into the corner to start and the power game takes over rather quickly.  The less orange than usual Orton is sent to the floor and the beating continues.  Back in and Orton gets a few shots in and a dropkick sends Henry to the floor.  Back with another dropkick doing the same.  It was one of those commercials where nothing changed so I’m not adding the time to the clock.

Back in and Henry gets a powerslam for no cover as Booker freaks out.  Oh there’s the cover but there was a delay in between.  Henry shouts that he owns Orton.  I wonder if he sees fried chicken when he looks at Orton.  Off to an armbar because when you think big, strong, mad, ticked off Texan, you think armbar.  Orton hits the rope and runs over Henry and adds some knee drops to take over.

The Garvin Stomp begins as it amazes me that he’s stealing stuff from Ronnie Freaking Garvin.  Dude, were there no Kansas Jayhawk moves available?  Henry hits the floor to avoids the RKO but gets caught in position for the elevated DDT.  And never mind as here’s Sheamus for the DQ at 5:45.

Rating: C-. Not much of a main event at all here but at the same time they were just doing this for the save at the end which is fine.  Henry is a guy that I do not get the point in but he’s gotten pushes for nearly 15 years now so there you are.  Anyway, weak match for the most part and nothing of note at all as it was more there to set up an angle rather than be a match but whatever.

Christian does the same thing that Orton did earlier and waits a bit on the stage before coming in for the save.  Randy is all ticked off about the delay but Christian is like dude I was having an awesome game of Parcheesi with Corre.  Anyway the monsters come in again and get beaten down.  RKO to Henry sets up a handshake to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. Not much here but we did get two additional matches for the PPV.  There was no real feeling here of needing to see anything but they played up some of the PPV matches with the emphasis being on the world title, which is exactly what they needed to do.  I can’t imagine that Christian will get the title back on Sunday but they’ve at least made it seem possible which is the right idea.  Not bad, but nothing special at all.

Results

Christian b. Sheamus – Small Package

Brie Bella b. Natalya – Faceplant

Ezekiel Jackson/Kane/Big Show b. Corre – Torture Rack to Gabriel

Daniel Bryan vs. Chavo Guerrero went to a time limit draw

Ted DiBiase b. Trent Barreta – Dream Street

Randy Orton b. Mark Henry via DQ when Sheamus interfered

NXT
Date: May 17, 2011
Location: American Bank Center Arena Corpus Christi, Texas
Commentators: Todd Grisham, William Regal

FINALLY, it’s the 11^th week of the show and it’s time for the first elimination in this series.  This isn’t an interesting show in the slightest and it’s not helping at all that the guys out there are rather boring indeed.  Hopefully O’Brian goes home tonight, which likely means it’ll be him vs. Novak in the final two because they’re the most bland out of all these guys.  If you don’t believe that that’s what it takes to win here, just ask Johnny Curtis.  Let’s get to it.

Naturally we open with a recap of the season and a voiceover saying it ends here for someone.  They’re still wild and young apparently.

Darren Young vs. Titus O’Neil

No Horny still so Titus shouts WHERE IS HE.  Young knows apparently but he’s being a meanie and won’t tell.  No Chavo either.  Did anyone check under the ring?  Young takes him down as he takes advantage of the big man’s emotions.  Titus takes over with power but takes a boot to the face after a two count.  Titus takes over again and we cut to the back with Chavo pounding on a box with chains on it, saying Horny is inside and needs help getting out.  He goes to get tools and Titus runs to the back to help and it’s a count out at 3:15.  Barely a match so no rating as about 30 seconds was footage from the back.

Titus gets Horny out, apparently knowing the back of the arena that well.  Chavo jumps him with a weapon of some kind and pulls Horny off by the beard.  Chavo shouts about remembering what Horny did to him and we go back to the arena where Young is still in the ring.  Young holds him down and Horny takes a Frog Splash.  Titus runs out for the save.

That’s What I Am ad.  You know, before the anti-bullying organization they started I kind of wanted to see it.  Now I want to hang a kid from a flag pole and berate him until he loses all conscious thought while taking his lunch money.

Horny has been taken to the hospital and Titus went with him.  That’s devotion to a leprechaun if I’ve ever seen it.

Package on Cena vs. Miz at the PPV.  This, as usual, takes far too much time.

Yoshi Tatsu vs. Byron Saxton

I love how Yoshi is just listed as being from Japan.  Not a city, not a part of it, just Japan.  They go to the corner to start as Regal won’t say who he thinks is going home but there’s an implication that it’s Novak.  They chop it out and Tatsu is all ticked off.  Arm drags commence and there’s the armbar by Yoshi.  Shining Wizard misses and here comes Saxton as the crowd goes silent.  Tatsu fights back with ease and fires off some kicks for two.  Yoshi goes up top and a spinwheel kick ends this clean at 3:30.  It’s as abrupt as it sounds.

Rating: D. About 10 months ago I saw Tatsu vs. Jericho in a match taped for Superstars.  It was an awesome ten minute plus match where Tatsu had me almost believing he could pull off the upset.  This was absolutely nothing like that.  Tatsu is more or less worthless here as are all Pros not named Chavo.  Terribly dull match that solved or helped nothing in the slightest.

Striker brings out Maryse who looks great in a blue dress.  She brings out Kozlov and O’Brian to talk about their bet with JTG and Novak.  Here are Novak and JTG appropriately enough.  Regal blasts both guys the entire time which is kind of amusing.  This is the finale of the bet which is which pro can make their rookie the most like their pro.  The audience is the judge as always.  Novak declares the crowd haters and bashes Regal a bit.  Novak raps a bit while JTG runs his mouth a lot.  For this bet it’s 6:30 because they’ve won hands down.  Regal’s reaction to this is priceless.

Vlad and O’Brian do some mostly synchronized dancing and some sambo/martial arts stuff.  Boards are broken.  Now what did those boards ever do to them?  Someone get the arbor foundation or whatever tree lovers are called!  Usually I would say this is as dumb as it sounds, but it’s actually dumber.  Naturally the dancing men that make Bruce Lee turn over and cover his eyes in his grave win.  JTG tries to jump Vlad and dang it we’re getting a match.

JTG vs. Vladimir Kozlov

This is joined in progress with JTG slapping Vlad, only to get suplexed as Vlad gets his Magnum TA on.  Well at least it’s not a tag match so we don’t have to watch the rookies fight.  JTG gets sent to the floor and yells at Regal, only to get taken back to the ring by Vlad.  Now Kozlov is sent to the floor as Regal talks about being in charge of the Ruthless (formerly Regal) Roundtable.  JTG takes over and sits on the arm as he hammers away.  That’s rather smart actually and not something you often see a guy do.

Modified X-Factor out of the corner by JTG which is called a Mug Shot.  Why is it that a majority of black wrestlers all have the character of thugs, jocks or savages?  Not saying they’ve done anything wrong mind you, but rather that they’re stereotyped so badly it’s unreal.  Vlad makes his comeback but gets caught in a neckbreaker to take him down.  A headbutt to the chest as JTG comes off the middle rope takes him down and a modified spinebuster ends JTG at 5:20.

Rating: D+. Just a match here which meant nothing for the most part.  Hopefully this is going to end the whole bet story and we can get rid of one of these guys.  Also, was there a point to this being on a show about the rookies?  It’s like parents fighting at a Little League game.  On the other hand it kept Novak and O’Brian out of the ring so how much can I complain?

Yoshi comes up to Maryse in the back and she talks about the stuff Cannon got her.  Yoshi breaks up with her and Maryse is like whatever.  Cannon pops up and promises her a shopping spree in this rather pointless segment.

Jacob Novak is gone first.  THANK GOODNESS!  Now get O’Brian out and this show is downright watchable.  He says the usual “I’ll be back” thing.  JTG rants to the fans as well.

Results

Darren Young b. Titus O’Neil via countout

Yoshi Tatsu b. Byron Saxton – Spinwheel kick from the top rope

Vladimir Kozlov b. JTG – Spinebuster

Jacob Novak was eliminated in 6th place

Monday Night Raw
Date: May 16, 2011
Location: AT&T Center, San Antonio, Texas
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Josh Matthews

It’s the final Raw before the Over the Limit PPV and we have our main event in the form of Cena vs. Miz for the title.  Other than that there isn’t a ton here so we’ll likely fill out the rest of the card tonight for the red show.  Over the Limit feels like a filler PPV which is rarely a good thing.  Hopefully Raw gives me a reason to not think that after tonight.  Let’s get to it.

Theme song opens us up.

Here’s Cena but before he can say anything Riley pops up on the stage.  Riley says he knows what Cena is going to say and introduces a video of Miz beating on Cena.  Here’s Miz -who looks weird without the title.  Riley talks about how everyone has underestimated Miz.  They’re in the ring now and Cena isn’t pleased.  We get some classic cheap heat on the San Antonio Spurs for choking.

Cena cracks some jokes and implies Miz is a kid/stupid and then turns serious.  He talks about how Miz has proven everyone wrong, but on Sunday he won’t be saying he’s awesome.  He’ll be saying he quits.  An E-Mail says that Miz can pick Cena’s opponent and the stipulation for tonight but it can’t involve Miz or Riley.  Miz isn’t sure yet on either option.

Kofi Kingston vs. CM Punk

I’m not sure if this is a step up for Kofi or a step down for Punk.  Punk takes over to start and tells Nexus to stay at the top of the ramp.  Kofi sends him to the floor and they come down, only to have Punk send them back again.  Punk fires off some elbows to the chest for two.  Knee drop gets the same.  He tries to go up top but Kofi gets a kick to the side of the head and the champ takes over.

That HUGE cross body gets two and New Nexus is looking worried.  Boom Drop hits despite Kofi running around for about 8 seconds beforehand.  He keeps looking at Nexus and misses Trouble in Paradise.  GTS can’t hit but Kofi misses his jump in the corner.  There’s the GTS and Punk gets the totally clean pin at 3:56.

Rating: C+. This was fine and I can live with Kofi losing here as he was distracted by Nexus and he lost to a guy with a far better resume than he had.  I’d love to see these guys get more time out there as the stuff they had worked quite well while it lasted.  This was fine for a TV match.

Punk says that was just the beginning and Nexus will become the most dominant force in WWE history.

Miz is talking to Ziggler and Vickie about possibly facing Cena I assume.

Brie Bella vs. Kelly Kelly

Non-title again.  We talk about the Divas on Twitter because that’s about all there is to talk about.  Kelly does her gymnast stuff as we keep talking about Twitter.  The Twins cheat a bit and Brie works on a chinlock.  Kelly spanks her a bit and a quick rollup/pinning combination ends this at 1:56.

Post match the Bellas beat down the blonde and it’s Kharma time.  HUGE pop for the music coming on too.  Kelly is out in the corner and Kharma goes after her, only to have a Bella hit Kharma in the back.  Implant Buster to the other one.  We do get the terrified Kelly eyes and Kharma picks her up by the jaw.  She flicks Kelly in the head, laughs, and leaves.

Miz talks to Big Show and gets cut off.

That’s What I Am ad.

Here’s Rey to address the situation with R-Truth from last week.  He says that he wants to prove to Truth that he had no business being in last week’s main event or any for that matter.  He’s still waiting as we go to a break.  Back and instead it’s Alberto coming out to see Rey.  He talks about how he’s a pure blooded Mexican unlike Rey.  Rey says he’s proud to be a Chicano and an American.  If Truth isn’t here, then he has no problem shutting Alberto’s mouth instead.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Rey Mysterio

They start off very fast with Rey getting a kick to the chest and moving out of the way of a charging Alberto.  Codebreaker to the arm out of the corner as we take another break.  Back with more arm work by Alberto and Rey can’t quite fight back.  Alberto puts on an armbar.  Make that a LONG armbar.

Rey starts his comeback and here’s R-Truth up in the rafters.  He wants the cops to be called as there’s a thief here as Rey stole his title shot.  Alberto doesn’t take the chance to jump Rey or anything so once Truth shuts up Rey keeps the advantage.  He speeds things up a bit more and it’s 619 time, but Ricardo grabs Rey for the CHEAP DQ at 9:34 total.

Rating: D+. Very boring match here as it was about 80% armbar and commercial.  The point was to set up the Truth stuff post match but can’t you have a good match at the same time that you’re setting up an angle?  Pretty weak stuff overall and not what you would expect from these two.

The heels beat Rey down a bit more post match, working on the arm.  Truth runs in after they leave and beats him down even more, saying that on Sunday Rey is going to get got.  The mask is almost off Rey at this point when Truth leaves.

Miz recruits Punk and Mason Ryan.

Time for the contract signing for Cole and Lawler.  Lawler agrees that if Cole wins Cole gets the HOF ring and if it ever happens, Lawler will induct Cole into the Hall of Fame.  Cole signs immediately as does Lawler.  Michael is all happy about it and it turns out that Sunday is a Kiss My Foot match.  We get a clip of Ross being forced to kiss Cole’s feet last month and also a clip from the Kiss My Foot match against Bret Hart where Lawler was made to kiss Bret’s feet and then his own also.

Cole puts his disgusting foot on the table and Lawler says shut up.  That was Bret Hart and Cole is no Bret Hart.  He’s not even a Jack Swagger.  Cole runs his mouth off, talking about how no one remembers Swagger being a former world champion and the only reason Swagger was on Wrestlemania was because of Cole.  Swagger isn’t happy with this and says he’s all yours King before leaving.  Cole tries to make nice with Jerry and gets slammed down by the tie again.  On Sunday, Jerry is going to put his foot in Cole’s mouth and close it.  Cole is crying as the segment ends.

Miz is talking to Kane when Big Show comes up.  Kane leaves while Miz is still talking and the tag champs face Nexus next.

Cole is all annoyed now.

Big Show/Kane vs. Michael McGillicutty/David Otunga

Kane vs. McGillicutty to start us off and that goes badly for Genesis dude (NXT 2 reference if you didn’t watch the show).  Does that make Kane Nintendo Boy?  Big Show comes in and the Nexus actually manages to take him down.  Cole keeps apologizing for the tiniest things that tick Jerry off now which is a nice touch.  The non-champs work on Show’s leg as Punk runs his mouth a lot.

Show actually uses some nice leg work to get out of the hold but Otunga stops the tag.  Show gets a belly to back suplex to put both guys down and there’s the tag to Kane.  Otunga’s boots look like the ones Swagger usually wears.  Kane beats up both guys but here’s Ryan in for the…..not DQ as he doesn’t get any contact in.  Show takes him down on the floor and it’s chokeslam time.  Punk gets a kick to the back of the head and the McGillicutter ends Kane at 4:50.

Rating: C. Not bad here and nice to see a little surprise as Nexus might actually be getting a push for a change.  Nexus is never going to be as strong as they were at first but this is nice to see as instead of just standing around they actually get a few wins.  Hopefully the tag titles change hands soon though as Kane and Show can only do their unstoppable giants deal so long before it gets incredibly dull.

Truth is Miz’s latest recruit.  As long as they don’t have another match I have zero issues there.

We run down the Over the Limit card to fill in some time.

Kane and Show say the loss means nothing.  There’s a title match on Sunday against Nexus apparently.

Cena is up next and he runs into Ryder again.

Miz comes out and picks a no holds barred match.  Cena comes out to fight and is jumped by Jack Swagger, who is the opponent.

John Cena vs. Jack Swagger

Swagger starts off in control as Cole says this is why Swagger abandoned him.  Cena tries to fight back but Swagger takes him down and adds a leg drop.  The dueling Cena chants begin and Swagger adds a suplex.  Vader Bomb hits as we take a break.  Back and we see that Cena tried to fight back during the break on the floor but was rammed into the post.  Also Swagger got a shot in with the computer.

Back in the ring and Swagger gets a chair shot to the back and Cena is in big trouble.  Vader Bomb onto the chair gets two only as the fans are getting back into this.  Jack wedges the chair between the top and middle rope but here comes Cena.  Never mind as he gets caught in something resembling a half belly to belly/half spinebuster for two.

Ankle lock goes on but Cena rolls through and avoids a charging Swagger, sending him head first into the chair.  Cena starts the finishing sequence and with a look at Miz, the Attitude Adjustment sets up the STF for the tap out at 11:30 total.  Better match than I was expecting.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent main event here as Cena and Swagger continue to have rather solid chemistry together.  Cena gets to win a match by submission to prove that he can even though we already knew he could.  Swagger looked good out there and got to be in control the majority of the time, which is what they should have done.  Good stuff.

Miz lists off various ways he could make Cena quit on Sunday, suck as dropping Cena off the stage, slamming a camera into Cena as he’s against the stage (which he actually does, getting a big crack as it hits the stage) or he could find something under the ring to use on Cena.  Alex finds a pipe which he hands to Miz who climbs the stairs.

Miz says he won’t use any of those things because there are a million ways to beat Cena which Cena hasn’t thought of yet.  He says he’s going to find a way to make Cena quit that Cena has never seen before.  Cena looks a tiny bit worried/scared here.  Miz won’t use the pipe Sunday, but he will tonight.  Riley provides the distraction and Miz gets a shot in but Cena fights back and takes down Miz, standing tall to end the show.  Cena says Miz is going to need the million he has and a million more, because at Over the Limit Miz is going to say I Quit.  Staredown ends the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Not a bad show here as they added some stuff to the PPV as well as built up a bit of drama for it.  It still feels like a filler PPV but it’s more interesting now or at least more fleshed out.  For a go home show this was certainly adequate but it only gets my interest up for the PPV a little bit.  Good enough though.

Results

CM Punk b. Kofi Kingston – GTS

Kelly Kelly b. Brie Bella – Cradle

Rey Mysterio b. Alberto Del Rio via disqualification when Ricardo Rodriguez interfered

David Otunga/Michael McGillicutty b. Kane/Big Show – McGillicutter to Kane

John Cena b. Jack Swagger – STF

Smackdown
Date: May 13, 2011
Location: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Michael Cole, Booker T, Josh Matthews

It should be interesting to see what happens on Smackdown now that we need to get ready for Over the Limit.  I’d assume we’ll have Randy vs. Christian announced but other than that it’s kind of hard to guess.  We’ll get the fallout from Big Zeke being thrown out of Corre so at least we have that to look forward to.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Christian winning the title and the loss last week.  Both matches were rather good and no one can ever take the time Christian had as champion away.  He got his title, but naturally his fanboys are crying foul over it.  Yes it was a short reign, but he got his title, so be happy for him.

Here’s Christian in the arena to open the show.  He doesn’t have a problem with what Teddy did last week because it was for the fans and he’s cool with that.  If Teddy didn’t do what he did last week then he’s not doing his job.  Christian wants to congratulate the new champion, whose name gets a nice reaction.  The rematch at Over the Limit is confirmed.  Last week he learned that he can beat Orton….and here’s Sheamus.

Sheamus wants to congratulate Teddy for causing Christian to lose what he worked so hard for so quickly.  It’s about what the fans want and according to the Irishman, the fans want to see a match between Sheamus and Christian RIGHT NOW.  And here’s Mark Henry because a match between two guys that could have a rather entertaining match is something we can’t have without a fat tub of goo like Henry right?

Henry says Sheamus isn’t who the people want to see face Christian.  He’s a red headed stepchild that talks funny.  The people are here to see Henry.  A match between the evildoers is teased until Sheamus suggests a handicap match.  Christian jumps Henry but gets beaten down until Orton makes the save.

After a break, Teddy makes the obvious tag team main event.  Christian thanks Randy for the save and Orton says it was to make sure Christian was at 100% for the title match.

Chavo does the ring announcing for the next match.

Sin Cara vs. Daniel Bryan

What a shock that Bryan had a nice run to start and is now in the middle of the midcard with nothing of note going on at all.  Who would have seen that coming?  The lights are all dark again and Chavo talks about how Cara stole his moves again.  Technical stuff to start and it’s a standoff.  Nice armdrag by Cara but Bryan gets him on the mat and works over the arm.

The fans seem into this but you never can tell on Smackdown.  More armdrags take Bryan down and a Tajiri elbow sends him to the floor.  HUGE Swanton Dive to the floor as we take a break.  Bryan gets a missile dropkick for two as we’re back.  Daniel channels his inner Rockette with some kicks as Cara is in more trouble than he’s ever been.  Surfboard by Bryan which never ceases to amaze me.  Chavo is taking credit for all of these moves being his.

Off to the arm by Bryan as he’s controlled the majority of this.  The good thing about WWE bringing in the more indy/internationally seasoned guys is that it gives them a long list of guys like Primo and Kidd and Bryan that can work a different style if they have to and it’s no problem for them.  Nice addition as WWE keeps going international.  Cara gets a victory roll for two and makes his comeback.  Big cross body off the top gets two for the masked dude.

Cara speeds things up again but an attempt at a second handspring elbow gets caught in a LeBell Lock attempt.  Cara avoids it and we hit the floor as Bryan hits another kick.  Back to the ring and Bryan goes up, only to have Chavo grab his leg.  The distraction lets Cara hit an enziguri to set up the C4 from the top which ends things at 7:37 shown of 11:07.  Not sure if Cara saw Chavo or not but I don’t think he did.

Rating: B. Rather entertaining TV match here with Bryan more than being able to keep up with Cara and using his regular stuff to take down the high flier.  The Chavo stuff is a nice touch and I’m kind of curious as to where it leads.  Maybe something with Cara not knowing what Chavo is saying in English and Chavo saying something different to him in Spanish?  Either way, very good match here and fun stuff indeed.

Post match Cara sees what Chavo did on the replay and isn’t pleased.  Cara shoves him down to a face pop.

We recap the Corre stuff from last week which saw Jackson beat Show with Corre’s help despite him not wanting it.  They beat him up later in the night.

Trace Adkins is here.  He sang at Tribute to the Troops so we’re supposed to care I guess.

Here’s Layla not in wrestling gear.  She hurt her knee in the match at Extreme Rules but it was worth it to get rid of McCool.  And Cole cuts her off.  No one wants to hear about any of the Divas apparently so let’s talk about Jerry Lawler.  Cole rants about the whole HOF thing and says that his mom will love the HOF ring he’s getting from Lawler.  Layla is still in the ring and tells him to shut up.

Cole keeps running his mouth about the Divas, saying they shouldn’t be in the WWE.  And here’s Kharma as this should be interesting.  Cole laughs at Layla while Booker says she’s coming for Cole.  Layla tries to run but gets tripped by Cole.  Implant Buster to Layla as Cole runs his mouth.  Kharma isn’t pleased and Cole backpedals, running into the Colemine.  Kharma laughs at him and leaves.  Cole’s face is great.

Wade Barrett vs. Kane

Non-title I think.  Show is in Mexico this week apparently.  I wonder if he’ll get to buy one of Tito Santana’s enchiladas in Tijuana.  Kane actually grabs a headlock to take Barrett to the mat.  Surprisingly technical stuff here as Kane hits his seated dropkick for two.  Cole makes fun of Booker for mentioning a manager’s license which is rather true actually.  Kane fires off on Barrett who runs.  Cole was a cheerleader in college apparently as we take a break.

Back with Barrett choking in the corner but Kane counters a suplex to take over.  And scratch that as Barrett grabs the arm to take over again.  Back and forth match here to say the least.  Boss Man Slam gets two and it’s back to the arm.  Kane has apparently shrunk down to 6’8 now.  The shrinking monster gets a Samoan Drop to break it up.  So the Spaniard hit a Samoan on the Englishman?

Clothesline in the corner sets up a sideslam for no cover as Slater jumps up for a distraction.  Wasteland doesn’t work as Kane takes Barrett down.  There goes the tag team also thanks to Kane.  Top rope clothesline gets a big reaction surprisingly enough.  Chokeslam is loaded up but Slater and Gabriel run in for the DQ at 6:03 shown of 9:33.

Rating: C+. Not bad here again as Barrett’s in ring work is still something that I like.  Kane is a guy you’re going to get a passable match out of and he works well with other big men so this was a good choice for a match here.  Good little TV match as the first half of this show has been rather entertaining indeed.

Corre beats Kane down post match, including Wasteland and the setup for the 450 but here’s Zeke to his old music for the save.  He destroys Corre for a bit until Barrett gets a big boot in.  And never mind as Jackson spears him into the corner and destroys him.  Jackson gets caught by the tag team again and the beatdown is on again.  450 to Jackson and he’s done.

Here are Singh and Khali, in cowboy hats.  It’s time for a country music edition of the Khali Kiss Cam.  He’s a fan of country music apparently.  This is less of a Kiss Cam and more of looking for a chick for Khali to kiss.  It stops on some chick in the front row (shocking) who bears a striking resemblance to Rhonda Sing.  Just a quick kiss here from the chick named Joy and here’s Jinder Mahal.  He’s taller than he looks, probably about 6’4.  Mahla slaps the hat off Khali and yells in Hindi.  There’s another slap to Khali and Mahal leaves all ticked off.

DON’T BULLY PEOPLE!  And pay no attention to all the bullies we employ!

Ted DiBiase vs. Cody Rhodes

Who would have thought a year ago that Cody would be so far and away ahead of DiBiase?  No entrance for Ted either.  The bag people come out with Cody.  Cody says this is the part where he’s supposed to entertain the people right?  Let’s entertain the fact that he’s not the freak, but rather the people are the freaks.  Cody hands Ted a bag and calls him a Priceless Friend.  Ted throws it down and there’s the bell.

We actually hear about Legacy as Ted takes over as the default face.  There’s that dropkick by Cody but he gets caught in a small package for two.  They exchange some nice rollups and pinning combinations but Ted charges and hits the post to stop the speed dead.  Cody fires off some headbutts with the mask but Ted is fine from them apparently.  Following clothesline by Ted but he can’t hit Dream Street.  Beautiful Disaster sets up Cross Rhodes to end this at 3:15.

Rating: C+. Far better than I was expecting here as Ted is a far better face than a heel.  Cody is one of the coolest heels in a long time because he is into his character.  I’d bet a lot that his papa taught him how to do that, which goes to show what old school can do.  Cody comes off as a guy that actually is tormented and insane rather than playing someone who is tormented and insane which makes a world of difference.

Striker is with Corre who says they want Jackson to come back later.  Barrett challenges Zeke for an IC Title match at Over the Limit.  Didn’t see that one coming.

Randy Orton/Christian vs. Mark Henry/Sheamus

I think Christian’s pop might have been slightly bigger than Orton.  And never mind as Orton’s more or less doubled when he came through the curtain.  Oddly enough the good guys come out first.  Christian vs. Sheamus to start us off.  Booker talks about how Sheamus and Henry have no chemistry yet somehow Christian and Orton would have more.  Why?  Well no one ever accused Booker of making sense.

After some basic stuff with the starters, Henry comes in and runs…..he runs…..ok he waddles over Christian and takes him down but it’s off to Orton who has better luck.  Booker bashes Teddy for making Christian defend last week which is bogus but who cares about that.  We almost get a beatdown on the floor on Orton but Christian makes the save as we take a break.

Back with Henry working over Orton again but Orton gets a shot in to break that up.  Off to Christian who takes Henry down with a dropkick but gets caught ala Flair off the top.  Off to the pale one who hooks on the crossface chickenwing.  Back to Henry who stands on Christian’s chest for a bit.  Christian starts his comeback against Sheamus, hitting the reverse DDT and it’s hot tag time.

Elevated DDT is countered into the Irish Curse for two though and our hero is in trouble.  Brogue Kick misses and there’s the DDT.  Christian gets a blind tag and hits the Killswitch on Sheamus as Orton gets an RKO to Henry.  Christian pins Sheamus at 7:40 shown of 11:10.  They shake hands to end the show.

Rating: C. This was your run of the mill main event tag match.  Not a bad match or anything but at the same time there wasn’t much they were going to be able to do.  I’m not really sure what this accomplished as Henry and Sheamus I guess just want title shots but that’s only implied at the moment.  Either way, not bad but nothing of note at all.

Overall Rating: A-. This was an awesome show and the whole thing worked.  When the worst match is a passable tag match, it’s hard to complain about anything.  You had a bunch of stuff get advanced, a pair of title matches added to the PPV, advancement of some storylines and a new development with Kong going after Cole.  This was a very good show that did a lot in a hurry, which is always a good thing.

Results

Sin Cara b. Daniel Bryan – Top Rope C4

Kane b. Wade Barrett via DQ when Corre interfered

Cody Rhodes b. Ted DiBiase – Cross Rhodes

Christian/Randy Orton b. Mark Henry/Sheamus – Killswitch to Sheamus