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Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 8/13/12

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Tonight’s Raw opened up pretty uniquely, in that it was a wrestling match, immediately. Not 20 minutes of talking, or backstage skits, or video packages, and for that, I was thankful.

So while I was looking forward to seeing a straight up match between Show and Punk, it obviously was interrupted, At first, Daniel Bryan comes out, demanding a title match at Summerslam, allowing Punk to gain momentum against Show, until Bryan interferes and slaps Punk in the Yes (No?) Lock, resulting in a DQ. The moment Show stands up however, John Cena arrives, to ostensibly take down Show. Why there’s this weird power play between who is or isn’t better at knocking down Big Show between Cena and Punk, I don’t quite understand. It’s like they’re ignoring the fact that Show is a person too, and not just an obstacle in between them and the title, although I suppose that’s the point. To that end, as much as I like Punk, it really makes Big Show out to be the underdog in a way here, despite being the proverbial “mountain” that has to be climbed for either Punk or Cena to be champion. Maybe I’m thinking too much into it, but despite my lack of enthusiasm for Summer-Slam, I will be very pleasantly surprised if Big Show ends up victorious. But he won’t. Anyhow, after the match AJ comes skipping out, and announces that all 4 of them will be in a tag team match later in the show, with Big Show and Daniel Bryan being paired up, and Cena and Punk  on the opposing team. I can’t decide If I like AJ as a GM or not, but she is following the Teddy Long school of GM-ing, which is tag team match ad infinitum. Somehow though, she’s not as grating. It must be because she’s so beautiful. Perhaps if I was attracted to elderly, bespectacled, balding black men I’d be missing Teddy something fierce.

On second thought, no I wouldn’t.

Cutting backstage, JTG and uh… Krystal? I think her name is? I’m not sure because she’s one of the Divas who we never ever, EEEEEEVER see. Well they’re both there, complaining about not getting matches, because frankly they never do, until AJ shows up. She listens to their plight, cocks her head the way she does, and gives JTG a match. He walks away happy, ignorant of his dire fate to come later. AJ then asks Kailtlyn? God I don’t know her name. She asks Kristen if she thinks that she’s unstable, to which Kristina answers no. AJ seems pleased with this answer, despite Katalinn’s answer being a blatant lie. Seriously, I have no idea what her name is.

Google said her name is… Kaitlyn. So I got it right the second time. Too bad I’m literally already forgetting about her as I type this sent- wha? What was I talking about? Why I am I typing this? Who is this woman whose picture I’m writing under? Why am I wearing an evil lizard mask?

The Ryback is unleashed on JTG, and unsurprisingly, he Ryback’s him pretty hard. JTG becomes yet another in a long line of delicious man meat to be fed to The Ryback, who continually begs us to feed him more. I know I’ve given him crap before about his catchphrase, but it’s almost like they’re daring me to not make jokes about how subtly homo-erotic a giant super muscley man with a very phallic bald head, constantly demands to be fed more men to sate an unstated appetite that is insatiable, and can only be staved off by multiple men “taking him on”. If that doesn’t sound a like a cock-thirsty young upstart ready and willing to prove himself in The Biz, well I guess you just don’t think about gay stuff as much as I do. Ahem.

Backstage, we see Rowdy Roddy Piper and Shaun Michaels talk to each other for a moment about Brock Lesnar, to set up the chekov’s gun for when Brock, “gets” Shaun Michaels, as he alluded he would on last week’s Raw. Shaun then gets on the phone with Triple H, although that’s who I inferred it was, because they were trying to keep it ostensibly a secret. They did this a lot back in the Attitude Era, where the audience was guessing who it was that was “on the phone”, and it was always Vince McMahon or whoever “The Commissioner” was. Whatever happened to the Commissioner? Is that still a fake/real job? Or was it superseded by the General Manager? I don’t know, I should probably just do what all the WWE writers do and ignore it.

I’ve grown to love Heath Slater. There was a time when I saw him on my screen and tuned out, but his incredibly delivery of “ONE MAAAAAANNNN BAAAAANNNNDDD BABAAAAYYYY”, as well as his pretty great ability to sell, has warmed him up to me. Even though he lost to R-Truth, seeing the both of them trade spots was entertaining, and despite Truth’s gimmick getting a bit stale, and Slater’s only just coming into blossom, the match itself worked well. After the match ended, The Primetime Players showed up to ruin Truth’s celebratory victory dance with Lil’ Jimmy, and demolish him pretty swiftly.  I should note, they showed up without AW, because AW was fired. While I personally didn’t even notice the “offensive” joke he made in last week’s Raw, I’m not really missing him that much, because his God-Voice was irritating, and he didn’t bring much to the Primetime Players that they didn’t already have on their own. I’m worried this will mean their presence will be buried, since they’re good heels, but I’m optimistic that it won’t.

So long AW, your voice was impossibly loud.

I didn’t write this article as I watch the show live like I usually do, so when it came back to reviewing the show again, I had entirely and completely forgotten about this match, because it was so boring and pointless. I’ve repeated enough times why I don’t like Tensai, and his match here is another carbon copy of all his other matches, up until the end. While I want to like Sin Cara, I actually watch other wrestling promotions, as well as, you know, actual Luchador wrestling, like the CMLL, and Sin Cara would be fired in one night from any half-decent Luchador promotion because the dude is sloppy. There’s a meme online that calls him “Botch-Cara”, which while exaggerated, isn’t wrong. Mostly, he’s a mediocre at best wrestler of his style, and the fact that the WWE seems so poised to push him as such a “revolutionary and innovative” Luchador style wrestler really irks me, when there are actual, truly revolutionary, truly innovative Luchadors out there, that they could be recruiting RIGHT NOW. Luchador style wrestling is AWESOME, and very hard to screw up, but somehow, Sin Cara manages to make it boring every time I see him. Botched moves or not, that is his main problem. Period.

Oh yeah. Sin Cara wins, and Tensai beats his asian manservant while we pretend that’s not really racist. Boring. Next.

Backstage Shawn Michaels keeps asking people if they’ve seen Triple H, and we’re supposed to keep pretending to not know it’s Triple H.

So it’s the Piper’s Pit! And the WWE Universe voted who’d be in it! And thankfully, they picked a good choice of Jericho, who is now in full Y2J mode. While I like Y2J Jericho, I prefer his heel, “f*** all this” Jericho that he had been up until recently. The main problem with this promo, is that despite ostensibly being a comedic bit, that would build momentum and re-establish roles in the Ziggler/Jericho feud, it mostly made me sad at how much Roddy Piper has lost his knack for cutting a good promo. The guy seemed really confused, and openly admitted to not remembering things, and it didn’t seem kayfabe at all. At one point he just starts to ramble like your weird old drunk uncle, and even starts to say random things to Jericho, like “I know how you feel, I KNOW YOUR DAD.” Read that through a drunken sad Uncle filter and you’ll know where I’m coming from. Eventually Vickie Guerrero thankfully interrupts Roddy from flailing about like an old drunk fish out of water, and EXCUSE ME’s her way to the ring, with Dolph Ziggler in tow.

Ziggler comes out and berates Roddy Piper for being an old, out of touch weirdo, and rightfully points out how sad it is. Roddy tries to insult him about his pink shirt, but Jericho hilariously comes to Ziggler’s defense by saying “They’re summer colors”. All of them continue arguing about this and that, until The Miz enters. He points out how Ziggler and He both can actually win matches, and backs up Ziggler’s point that Jericho has lost his touch. He then attempts to take over Piper’s Pit, telling Roddy and Jericho to get out of “his” ring, and Roddy starts NO NO NO-ing, which I thought was gonna cue up Daniel Bryan, which confused the hell out of me. But they both attack Miz and Ziggler instead, and throw them both out of the ring, thus winning?… Piper’s Pit? Can that happen? What is Piper’s Pit for again? Save us Ziggler, save us from weird sad segments like this where we’re forced to watch legends slowly crumble away before our eyes.

AJ then makes a pretty smart decision, and schedules a match between Ziggler, Miz and Jericho, that was by far the highlight of the actual wrestling on tonight’s show. All three of them worked amazingly together, and i’d have loved to seen the actual match go on another 15-20 minutes. If this is part 1 of a potential PPV feud, where we get an awesome part 2, I’m all in. The highlight by far was this AMAZING Superplex-Powerbomb that involved all three of them. As much as I tried, I just couldn’t find a GIF of this move to show you either, but rest assured, it was goddamn awesome.

Well despite all three of them being excellent, and putting on an incredible match, there had to be one winner, and after a trio of finishers, near falls, and chain counters into other finishers, Ziggler got the Zig Zag on Jericho and pinned him successfully. I’m really hoping they’ll build this 3-way feud up more, because it’s one of the few 3 way feuds I’ve seen in a long time that totally works.

Backstage, CM Punk is stretching, and Eve comes over to talk to him, looking all sexy and shit. She thanks him for his “new” attitude, basically trying to confirm his Heel status. He rebuffs her, reiterates that he deserves respect, and that’s all he’s fighting for. She says he better go tell that to Cena. I say “F*** JOHN CENA’S OPINION PUNK, YOU GOTTA BEAT HIM, NOT MAKE HIM LOVE YOU!”. Then I go back to looking at Eve’s cleavage.

We then cut to Shaun Michaels dicking around backstage more, asking about Triple-H. Why he doesn’t, I don’t know, wait for Triple H in the green room, is beyond me, but whatever. Punk then approaches Cena and gives him the usual, ” We’re working together, and we don’t like each other” speech, and then makes some solid points explaining himself and his actions to Cena/The Audience, despite his actions being self-evident and justified. I’m guessing the writers feel it necessary to have Punk try to ride his whole “Tweener” thing right now right down the line, despite him being clearly in the right if you just put any thought into the status quo at all. But asking the WWE Universe to think is like asking for Wade Barret to not be british. Oh snap! Segue!

I know they showed this promo last week, and you may be wondering why I’d be talking about it again, but goddamnit if I’m not totally stoked for Guy Ritchie’s™ Wade Barrett to debut, and make his BEAR-AGE known to all who stand in his way. I’m hoping he shows up, speaking in that weird Pikey language from Snatch, asks John Cena if he likes dags, and then just one hit KO’s him. When Big Show comes out complaining about Barrett stealing his finisher, Barrett caves his face in while screaming OI GUVNA as loud as possible. Either that or have him come back and literally beat down Randy Orton with face punches until Orton is blind, deaf and dumb.

Hey! Another Divas match! And Krissy or whatever is even in it! Good for them! Despite the amount of botched pins, (I seriously don’t understand why these women cannot handle any kind of roll up pin whatsoever), the match was a pretty average Divas match. Layla hit her moves, stopped to dance for a little bit, everyone looked adorable, and Karoline actually even got a roll up pin on Beth Phoenix for the win! Good for her! Whoever she is!

So this match was functionally the main event of the show. 2 hours and some change in, and the match began, and while the match ended in 15 or so minutes, it was pretty standard tag team fare between the four of these guys, who we’ve all seen interact with each other one way or another for the last month at least. The highlight by far though, was when Punk, after seeing Cena wanting to be tagged in, copies Cena’s trademark 5 Moves of Doom sequence, and is interrupted right after pulling off the “YOU CAN’T SEE ME” taunt part right before the 5 Knuckle Shuffle. Cena interrupts it, by tagging himself in, and copies Punk’s corner turnbuckle flying knee/running bulldog combo. Punk then obstinately walks out of the ring, leaving Cena to finish the match alone. While some would say it’s a tit for tat sign of mutual disrespect, I’m on Punk’s side because… well because he’s just cooler dammit. F***. Sometimes that’s all the reason you need.

Look how cool he is! 

Anyhow, Cena wins because he’s Cena, and fails to notice Big Show about to brutally sneak attack him. Punk then runs up and conks Show in the head with his belt, thus saving Cena. Punk then becomes the bigger man, and offers his hand in respectful reconciliation, and Cena refuses to shake it, officially being the biggest weeaboo paranoid crybaby pussy ever. Punk rightfully walks away angry, and I and everyone else with a brain who isn’t under 10 years old, finds yet another reason to hate Cena.

After the match, Josh Matthews catches up with Punk to ask him “what happened” at the end of that match, and Punk sums it up perfectly. Cena is out here to make Cena look good. He doesn’t care about winning as a team, or anyone other than himself.  He then rightfully points out Cena’s incredibly rude sign of disrespect by not shaking Punk’s hand, and vows to “teach him, and everybody, respect.” You know, just watch the end of the video above, because he says it a lot better than I can paraphrase it here. My point is, that CM Punk is and has been unfairly treated, despite being the goddamned champion for nearly a year now, which in WWE is quite a feat, that legitimately and truly does deserve respect. Why would anybody boo him for this? Why?

Now, while the Daniel Bryan/Cena/Big Show/CM Punk match was supposed to the main event of the night, common knowledge dictates that the last match in a wrestling show is traditionally the main event. So with much glee, I can now say that DAMIEN SANDOW, THE INTELLECTUAL SAVIOR OF THE UNWASHED MASSES, IS NOW THE MAIN EVENT OF MONDAY NIGHT RAW!

Thank you Damien. Thank you for annihilating Funkasaurus. Thank you for crushing Christian in the ring. Thank you for ignoring Funkasaurus’ attempted interruption-causing-you-to-get-distracted-and-lose-to-a-roll-up thing. Thank you for doing a cartwheel to celebrate your victories. Most of all, thank you for wearing pink wrestling briefs, the most sophisticated color of wrestling briefs you could wear.

Thank you Damien. Thank you.

 

So the last half hour of tonight’s Raw was all dedicated to this impossibly stupid Triple H/Brock Lesnar feud, where we get the EXCITING PLEASURE of watching them SIGN A CONTRACT.  The tension had me on the edge of my seat! Either the tension, or the shit I needed to take, that I took while this segment dragged on and on. We get it. Brock bad. Triple H good. Things personal. Paul Heyman talky because Brock is a effing moron who can’t string 2 sentences together. Shaun Michaels stand there confused for reasons! Important reasons! And the beat goes on. Then a few minutes of some more Touts, (which I’ve started doing, because  I’m weak and IT’S STILL REAL TO ME DAMMIT) and then cut to a parking lot. Any knowledgeable longtime WWE fan knows that NOTHING good ever happens in a parking lot in the WWE.

So Shaun Michaels is trying to leave, and gets boxed in by Paul Heyman, who sits there screaming ‘I’LL MOVE IT I SWEAR REAL SOON MAN SORRY I’M SORRY”, until Brock Lesnar shows up, and kidnaps Shaun Michaels by dragging him out of the car. He also knocks down the camera guy, making the camera cut to black, while we hear loud thuds, and HBK screaming or something. In my mind’s eye, Brock Lesnar was just ripping his skin off in large chunks and eating it like huge strips of man-jerky, but that’s almost definitely not what was happening.

Coming back from a commercial break, we see Triple H overlooking the damage done to HBK’s car. Apparently Brock Lesnar smashed HBK through the window shield, and broke all his windows for good measure, as well as denting the sides of the doors. Basically, Brock Lesnar pulled an old-fashioned Street Fighter Car Smash Bonus Level on HBK’s car. Triple H runs in horror, desperate to find HBK, and we cut back to the main arena. Lesnar shows up with HBK on his shoulders, being carried like a freshly killed deer. I actually can picture Brock Lesnar doing this exact same thing to a deer, only he snatches it from the woods, suplexes it into a random car nearby 8 or 9 times, and then just punches it to death to end its suffering.

So Lesnar takes the now ragged HBK into the ring, and F5’s him, because an F5 in the ring is WAY more brutal than, I don’t know, smashing a dude into a car or something. Triple H then shows up to defend his gay frenemy, and Brock Lesnar puts HBK into a fake Kimura. Now, while this is an indirect nod to this UFC career, in which he NEVER put dudes in Kimura’s, the hold itself is actually dangerous, if only anybody like Triple H or HBK knew how what bone the damn hold actually broke. When Lesnar “broke” Triple H’s arm 3 months ago, he clutched his elbow like an asshole, because the move looks like it breaks your elbow, when in fact it snaps you upper arm/shoulder bone area.

Well Paul Heyman tries to warn Triple H to not save HBK, or else Lesnar will break his arm. Triple H stalls, because they need to pad out their airtime. 8 minutes of show left with 2 minutes of material does that. Lesnar then kayfabe snaps HBK’s arm, and Triple H chases Brock out of the ring, while Paul Heyman screams OH MY GOD YOU BROKE HIS ARM. YOU BROKE HIS ARMMM. YOUUU BRRROOOKE HIS AAAAAARRRRRMMMM!!!  I’m guessing Heyman was fearing the legal repercussions, or is super squeamish. Either way, the show ended with HBK writhing around in pain, actually selling the Kimura arm break better than Triple H, despite rolling multiple times onto his “broken” upper arm. Lesnar and Triple H point at each other, and Triple H takes his shirt off for some reason while pointing. End.

Then Lesnar continued his transformation into a living Cabbage Patch Doll.

In conclusion, tonight’s Raw had a good amount of wrestling in it. I can’t stand the Triple H/Lesnar feud and will be so happy when Brock Lesnar shoot quits to go… well I presume suplex and punch deer to death or whatever the hell he does in his free time. I’ll be glad to see it all come to an end at Summer-Slam. As far as Raw goes, the 3 hour time expansion so far seems to be beneficial, and not too much time is wasted. Or maybe it is, and the mind controlling waves are starting to sink in, and soon I’ll be a member of the Cenation. A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH.

Take it away, Rodney!

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Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 8/6/12

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

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

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

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

This is every match of his. Every single one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, that can’t feel good.

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

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

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

He is the best heel.

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

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

Oh… oh my.

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

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

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

Pictured: Brock Lesnar.

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

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

This was actually his real argument.

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

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

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

Woo Woo Woo. You know it.

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

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

SPORTS

Monday Night Raw Recap & Review 7/16/12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ll try.

SPORTS

WWE Monday Night Raw Recap & Review: 6/11/12

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Tonight’s Raw was 3 hours long, which usually means we get around 30 minutes of actual wrestling, and 2 1/2 hours of video packages and skits. So I was not surprised when Raw began with John Laurinaitis entering the ring, closely followed by Vince McMahon, who is here to give Mr.Laurinaitis his performance evaluation. On TV. Like all normal chairmen do. Watching the whole segment was a series of weirdly and poorly rehearsed dialogue that was botched continually by both men involved, and many of their lines were flubbed so often it made me start looking at the abundance of misspelled crowd signs, many saying “your fired” (sic).

So the two old executive types argue for a bit about Laurinaitis’ future, with Johnny L himself claiming to have been serving the people’s wishes, (which he has, people just don’t realize what a great heel character he is), until Sheamus shows up and throws insults at Laurinaitis, making Big L schedule a match for Sheamus, because all insults and transgressions in wrestling are settled by a match. Vince then tells Laurinaitis that if the match isn’t impressive, and if every match In the show tonight isn’t up to par, then he’ll be fired. As I Thought, it’s YOU’RE FIIIIIRRRRRED Vince who is partially returning tonight. Vince then crashes Laurinaitis’ super scooter off the stage, ruining one of Laurinaitis’ better character props.  I imagine that backstage he was using it to try to gain sympathy from other wrestlers, playing up the wounded lion card as hard as he could, not realizing everybody knows that it’s not even needed for kayfabe reasons, but he truly thinks he’s a mastermind duping everybody and looking totally awesome while doing it.

Sheamus’ opponent is revealed to be Lord Tensai, who I really can’t stand and is probably the only person I’d cheer for Sheamus to defeat. Between the two it’s a match where two boring invincible white guys fight each other until Sheamus manages to brogue kick Tensai and nab the win. After his defeat by Cena, Tensai is now broken, he’s lost his undefeatable power and possibly his mystical asian powers too, and is now just a normal Tensai and has lost his rights to Lordship. Or something. Either way, it was a boring match.

Backstage, Vince McMahon tells Laurinaitis that match is strike one towards Laurinaitis getting fired. To be fair it was a pretty horrible match, and Johnny starts to scramble for ideas and actually asks Teddy Long for match advice. This might as well be career suicide because Teddy has never made an interesting or creative match ever. His entire thought process is:

Wrestlers? Feud? “Lemme Hep you a minnut playa!”, Impromptu Tag team match? Feud settled? ??? Dancing!

This is all he knows.

Teddy suggests a 4 way elimination match with Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger, The Great Khali, and Christian, which aside from being a very loosely associated group (former world champions? Khali had the belt? What a dark and horrible thought). He stipulates the winner will face Sheamus for the title at No Way Out. This isn’t too bad, because it means either Ziggler or Christian will end up at No Way Out, unless they’ve gone full retard and really decide to push Great Khali as someone who can do anything other than painfully limp around and fake chop people. Of course, Vince loves the idea and Laurinaitis sends Teddy off to get coffee. This is a new/interestkng spin for Teddy’s character, and him becoming the downtrodden matchup genius who is stymied by his superiors, and gets the credit for his booking ideas stolen, is a neat one, and I’d be into it, if it was literally anyone with a booking history other than Teddy Long.  But WWE hates continuity, so we’ll have to keep pretending like Teddy is some kind of matchup genius who has been unjustly wronged. Surprisingly, we return to the ring, where Tensai is insulting and attacking his man-servant Sakamoto, because he’s a big angry baby who hates losing.

Then there’s a video package commemorating the upcoming 1000 episodes of Raw milestone, by showing a 2009 clip where Seth Green showed up and hosted/wrestled, because THAT was a defining Raw moment, somehow. Seth green, wrestling legend. You know. Because that makes sense. Anyhow, we cut to R-Truth talking up the match between Big Show and John Cena at No Way Out, until Big Show’s fist Monty Pythons its way into the screen, smashing R-Truth in the face, knocking him out cold. We barely even see Big Show, he walks away really soon and the camera just focuses on R-truth laying unconscious.

Assuming that Show plans to continue to do this to the entire roster, it makes me think that Big Show’s new contract also includes secret invisibility powers, because HOW do you miss that man coming at you fists clenched? Maybe he got detachable rocket fists with his new contract, or some kind of psychic ability to innately stay out of peripheral vision? Anything to explain R-truth and John Cena both not noticing GIANT FISTS coming at them somehow.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an inter-gender tag match, but the match itself was fairly entertaining, as Ricardo is a talented spot taker, and Santino is at the very least, good at comedy matches.  Plus the inclusion of them in the match made this pseudo-divas match last longer than the usual 2 minutes in its entirety. Beth wins the match by defeating Layla, and Ricardo starts celebrating as if he’d won himself. Santino then jumps up, and rips off Ricardo’s dress shirt, revealing a purple Justin Bieber shirt underneath. And that’s a sentence I just typed. Wow.

Apparently Ricardo isn’t a true Belieber.

Backstage David Otunga is talking with Vince McMahon, and is trying to snipe Laurinaitis’ job, IF he gets fired. Vince counters that he doesn’t like people who “pucker up”, backstab others, or lawyers. Which is weird, because of those three things, only Lawyer is something Vince hasn’t forced others to do or has been himself. Clearly he’s forgotten his whole reign during the Attitude era. Kofi Kingston enters demanding a match with Big show, in revenge for Show taking out R-Truth earlier, and Laurinaitis calls his incredibly stupid bluff, and puts him in a cage match with Show. So let’s look forward to Kofi Kingston hopefully getting WMD’d into oblivion, and never wrestling again, and we’ll finally be free of the suffix “Boom” being added to wrestling lexicon in any way shape or form.

Thankfully, we cut to Daniel Bryan who starts a promo about his triple threat match with himself, CM Punk and Kane at No Way Out, and proceeds to comment on the interaction between all of them and AJ. It’s a decent promo, and it furthers his character motivation for winning the match at No Way Out, and then CM Punk appears. Punk lays down a bevy of insults towards Daniel Bryan and continues his backhanded compliments towards AJ by stating again that he digs crazy chicks. They trade insults and hints towards their respective ROH past, and Punk basically explains out loud, that despite Daniel Bryan saying he’s sold out, he’s still the same guy he was last year when he made his 4th wall breaking promo. This is interesting, because a lot of fans have criticized Punk for basically acting like a heel, despite currently being face. In effect, this explains his actions, as he hasn’t actually changed his admittedly dickish, heelish behavior that much, he just has more fans now. It’s a good thing, because it makes sense, and goes a long way towards setting up his inevitable heel turn in the future, whenever that may be.

Punk continues insulting Daniel Bryan coming up with a new chant for anti-Bryan fans, by calling him goat face. The crowd chants “GOATFACE GOATFACE”, which is pretty funny any way you slice it. These two have great chemistry together, and I could watch them wrestle and/or argue all day. Then Kane has to come and ruin it all with his fire music, and walks in with a mic, and says dumb things about how eeeeeevil he is, and how he’s gonna win the championship. Then of course, AJ enters the ring, and actually starts to begin a possible LOVE TRIANGLE (wait, 4 people… Love Square? Whatever) storyline with Kane, claiming she saw that he has a heart, deep down, after looking into his eyes. Which really proves that she IS crazy, because he’s KANE. The guy who literally drags people to hell, sets them on fire, and is a goddamned rapist. So I guess that match at No Way Out isn’t just for the WWE title, but also for AJ’S LOVE. Which kinda makes me wish I was a wrestler and could be in that match, because screw the title amirite? But sadly, this is not the case. I’m imagining the worst case scenario being this whole thing turning into a situation where she seduces all three of them and they have the worlds worst 4-way, and we’re forced to see Kane, Punk and Bryan all Eiffel Tower AJ while Zack Ryder films it for his YouTube channel. Thank god we don’t live in the dark world my mind creates, because that would officially be The Worst Thing.

Regardless of that horrible image I put in your head, there was no video of this segment yet, so this picture will have to suffice.

“Once You Go Bryan, There’s No Point In Tryin’, AWWW YEAAAHHH”- Actual quote by Daniel Bryan during this segment I wish I had video of.

Laurinaitis then interrupts, and borrows a page from Teddy Long’s handbook, and schedules all 4 of them to have a tag team match. It’s an hour and change into Raw, and so far we’ve had two matches of actual wrestling. I’m hoping that this isn’t the precedent that will be set for the July 23rd change, when Raw permanently becomes 3 hours long. Who am I kidding, of course it will be.

Great Khali is not a wrestler. He cannot wrestle.  He is bad at his job, and is only there to appeal to Indian wrestling fans, which is a sizable demographic, so i understand why he’s necessary, but holy crap is it impossible to employ an actually talented wrestler of Indian ethnicity? Even Jinder Mahal is a lousy, boring, borderline racist jobber. Get someone talented, named him the The Bollywood Basher or something, and fire Khali. The man can barely walk, I’m sure he just wants to relax and rub some icy-hot into his probably aching joints.  I’m also sure he’s a great person in real life, but holy crap I do not want to see him chop people anymore. It’s awful.

So after Khali is eliminated, the match picks up greatly, and we get a great series of setups and spots between Dolph Ziggler and Christian, that leads to Ziggler finally getting a clean win and becoming the #1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. It’s about time Ziggler gets his due, because he deserves to be at the top, and even if he loses his match for the title, it’ll advance him further as the best #Heel in WWE.

For Realsies.

This scene with Vince and the Funkadactyls is notable for two reasons:

1.) It finally gives the Funkadactyls actual purpose and character, even if they’re kinda annoying.
2.) Vince McMahon summoning Brodus Clays music, disco ball, and mood lighting OUT OF NOWHERE is goddamned funny. Dude’s got swagger.

Follow it up with Zach Ryder standing there, reacting exactly the same way I did, made it even sweeter.

Ryback’s jobbers this week are named Willard Fillmore and Rutherford P.S Hayes. Anytime you get historical presidential references in WWE, it’s a guaranteed awesome moment, even if they’re doomed to be power bombed to death. If anything this needs to continue, where each week the Jobbers Ryback wrestles get more and more bizarre, until he’s literally pitted against three 4′ 8″ historically accurate wrestling versions of history’s major players. This week! Ryback vs The Founding Fathers, Benjamin “Shocker” Franklin, Thomas “Sugar” Jefferson, and John “The Cock” Hancock! Then Ryback ends the match by ripping up the Articles of Confederation and forcing them to write the Declaration of Independence.

Or maybe he’ll just keep Goldberging new local skinny guys to sate his man flesh addiction. Either way, I’m looking forward to it.

Back from the break, we see Vince McMahon getting back in touch with his illegitimate child, Hornswoggle (seriously, thats WWE canon), and then John Cena enters to convince McMahon to fire Laurinaitis, by belittling him. Vince then tells Cena to NOT interfere with Kofi Kingstons ma… his mat… Sorry, his MAHahaahahah sorry, Kofi Kingstons MATCH (pffft) against Big Show. The thought of Kofi up against New Monster Big Show in a cage match is actually laughable to me. Anyhow, then McMahon considers giving Cena some sort of involvement in tonight’s show. Otunga enters, and gets insulted by McMahon, we see William Regal looking sad, and we all die a little inside.

Surprise. Big Show wins. Kofi sadly doesn’t die in ring. Next.

Sin Cara is back on Raw again, and brings his mood lighting with him. I’m not sure why he has mood lighting for his matches, but I bet it can’t be beneficial to his vision with that mask on. Maybe its same sort of thing where he summons mood lighting via his presence alone, and it’s an ability he learned from Vince McMahon. Anyhow, Sin Cara does a bunch of flips and pins Hawkins. Sin Cara racks up another win, and maybe one day we’ll get to see him wrestle someone interesting.

Backstage, Vince approaches Daniel Bryan. This segment is for all the Smarks out there, who are aware of Vince’s propensity to not hire guys who he thinks are “Too small” to compete in the WWE. He likens Daniel Bryan to someone you would see on the street and never expect to be a wrestler, let alone a world champion. We’re then treated to a glorious moment where Bryan utterly shuts down Vince by bringing up his previous firing, his subsequent re-hiring and proving everyone who doubted him wrong, and most of all, proclaiming (correctly) that he and Vince are both self-made success stories. Vince then smugly reminds him of his 18 second Wrestlemania loss, and wanders away, because making a real point would take an effort. Daniel Bryan brushes it off, and readies himself for his upcoming match. Then we’re told that John Laurinaitis has invited a former superstar to compete in tonight’s show, in commemoration of the 1000 episodes of Raw thing again.

And the former “Main Eventer” is: VADER. Holy crap! I didn’t even know he was still alive!

Vader shows up, looking in surprisingly good shape for a dude his size and age. The crowds enthusiasm for Vader alone, begins to wear against Heath Slater’s stamina, and we all know a stiff breeze can take him out. So it’s pretty unsurprising when the fans begin chanting “Vader Bomb”, and Vader then ends it with a Vader Bomb. Cutting to AJ, we see Punk comforting her by assuring her that he’ll keep her safe in the match, and AJ responds with her continued Overly Attached Girlfriend act, and kisses him on the cheek.

This matches whole dynamic is pretty much a glorified handicap match. CM Punk literally even says so in an earlier segment. Punk accidentally bumps into AJ and the Ref for some reason considers it a tag. AJ then enters the ring and faces Kane. She stares at him for a few seconds, smiles, and then starts SKIPPING IN CIRCLES AROUND HIM, LEAPS INTO HIS ARMS, STRADDLES HIM, AND FULL ON KISSES HIM ON THE MOUTH. It was astounding. I never thought I’d EVER say this, but holy crap, Kane is getting to first base on Raw, consensually! Furthermore, I’m ODDLY JEALOUS OF HIM. Kane stands there, dumbfounded, and utterly confused, tags in Daniel Bryan, and probably tucks his boner back, when out of camera. Daniel Bryan steps in the ring with AJ, and she tags in Punk, who quickly elbow drops Bryan and wins the match. Kane walks away, still puzzled and probably horny, while AJ sits in the ring and smiles oddly at CM Punk, and generally just looks adorable. Everyone else in the world, is f*cking confused.

Returning from the break, Vince McMahon struts back out into the ring, surrounded by security guards to give John Laurinaitis his performance evaluation. Laurinaitis enters the ring to be evaluated, and Vince tells him the guards are here to escort Laurinaitis out of the ring, after he fires him. John then argues for his job using People Power as the backbone of his argument. Right before Vince can fire Laurinaitis, Big Show interrupts, and enters the ring. Big Show backs up Laurinaitis, mentions how his Ironclad Contract can let him do whatever he wants, and even if Vince fires him, he’d end up paying him millions of dollars,(MILLIONSOFDOLLASMILLIONSOFDOLLASMILLIONSOFDOLLARS!)for many years, to do nothing. Which sounds like a pretty great contract if you ask me.

Show then brings up every stupid costume, appearance, promo, backstage story and embarrassing moment in his career, blaming it on the behest of Vince McMahon. Tired of being his dancing monkey, Show declares himself a GIANT (WCW yay!), rallies against John Cena, and of course, is interrupted by Cena himself. Cena charges down, tries to blame Laurinaitis for all of his and Show’s problems, ignoring all of the completely valid reasons Show has given over the last two weeks for his actions. He then tries to say that Show is somehow selfish or greedy for being mad at having to do stupid bullshit for 14 years, and then suggests that if Show doesn’t beat him at No Way Out, somehow Show will have nobody to blame but himself for his actions, which makes as much sense as AJ falling for Kane, but I digress.

Cena then calls Show a sell out, and asks him what will happen if Show loses? Vince then says he’ll be at No Way Out, and makes a new stipulation to the match. That stipulation being if he loses, he’ll fire Laurinaitis on the spot. Show then attacks Cena, the body guards intervene, and Show starts throwing them around too. Laurinaitis and McMahon then try to stop Cena and Big Show from fighting. Big Show accidentally knocks out McMahon, and is then put on backstage time out by Laurinaitis. The show ends on a shot of Vince McMahon, unconscious.

Then they took his shoes and wallet.

So, this is probably what we’re gonna start getting come July 23rd. A 3 hour show, with around 40-50 minutes of wrestling at best. That’s not to say I wasn’t entertained by tonight’s Raw, I definitely was, but the pacing has been better than the first hour consisting of only 2 matches. I’m going to remain optimistic, and hope that the new format will force them to structure their shows better, and improve Raw overall.

It probably won’t though. Oh well.

SPORTS

WWE Monday Night Raw Recap & Review: 6/4/12

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We open with a really over the top dramatic recap of last weeks raw, complete with wailing middle eastern music, showing Big Show further emphasizing his new heel turn, as he beats on fan favorites Santino and Zack Ryder. Big Show is exactly the kind of heel I like, and its been a long time since he’s been the unstoppable big monster character. Most importantly, his motivations, while simple, make sense, are consistent, and it’s fun to watch him really be the big bad he should be. Mark Henry does this sometimes, until he suddenly decides not to, and fades away into the ether for a month or so. Michael Cole comes out, and summons John Cena to the ring, (I mean, not literally, but that’d be a great gimmick for both of them), blaming him for Show’s heel turn and Show’s subsequent actions. They argue back and forth awhile until John Laurinaitis shows up in his super scooter, ( love it) and gives Cena a match, as long as it’s not against himself, or Show in turn, as his contract now guarantees rest days. Cena parades around, and then challenges Michael Cole to a match, because reasons, while Cole protests, screaming to Lauriniaitis to reconsider.

After the break, Cole confronts Laurinaitis backstage, begging to be relieved of his match with Cena, which makes Laurinaitis smugly and directly dismiss Coles pleas. It’s possibly the first ever truly crowd pleasing decision he’s ever made, and he wheels out of there, leaving Cole standing, dumbfounded.  Vickie Guerrero enters the stage, and announces Dolph Zigglers entrance, stating that DZ is “Better than you, at everything he does”, which will probably piss off Jericho whenever he returns, since that’s literally a word away from his catchphrase, which was a huge point of contention just a few months ago when he feuded with CM Punk over who was “best in the world”.

I’m glad Ziggler is getting back into singles matches. I liked his team up with Jack Swagger, but the WWE never seemed keen putting them as legit tag title contenders, nor do they seem interested in an actual tag division lately, as their current champions, R-Truth and Kofi Kingston seemed to be teamed up for no reason other than “both are black?” I digress, since the match between Ziggler and Sheamus served as a pretty good example of yet another case where we see Ziggler show us how to make losing look really good. Nobody takes a brogue kick to the face like Ziggler.

This is actually from an older match, but JESUS GOD.

Sheamus celebrates on the ramp, pounding his chest like usual until he’s interrupted by Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez, who beat the tar out of him, and Del Rio puts him in an armlock, totally hurting Sheamus’ arm for realsies. Backstage, Laurinaitus is approached by the inimitable David Otunga, who mentions that next week, Vince McMahon will be returning to give Laurinaitus a job evaluation. No word on whether it’ll be NO CHANCE IN HELL Vince, Kiss my Ass Vince,  YOU’RE FIRRRREEDD Vince, or just business man Vince. Either way it’ll definitely be a thing that happens. Ahem.

Sin Cara’s new entrance is interesting, because pre-injury he used to enter the ring with a jumping flip off a trampoline that the cameras desperately didn’t want the viewers at home to know about. Camacho and Hunico, shock of shockers, are actually on Raw, and despite their gimmick being really lame and borderline offensive, Hunico manages to pull off a successful jobbing to Sin Cara, and Sin Cara’s push continues.

The undefeated Skip Sheffield Ryback, makes his official debut on Raw. It’d seem they’re trying to get more of the talent from Smackdown on Raw lately, as Smackdown has made a considerable improvement from B-Show to actually-kinda-interesting side-show in the past couple months. Ryback reminds me of those old generic wrestling figures you’d beg your mom to buy you in the dollar store, only come to life, right down to his “taunt” being the inability to move his arms laterally. The two local jobbers they have this time, have a terrible moment trying to read their awful lines simultaneously, and are quickly dispatched by Ryback, who belts out his catchphrase, “Feed me more!” because he apparently craves young skinny man flesh.

Punk and Kane are now having a weird triangle feud with Daniel Bryan, as Kane has been used as an instrument by both Bryan and Punk in their respective feud, and Kane isn’t really having any of it from either of them. Bryan comes out ringside, stands on the announcer’s table, and cuts a quick Q & A promo. I love these because it gives the audience a great chance to shout “Yes!”, or in the case of this particular audience, shout “No!”. Either way it’s great for Bryan , because he makes a great heel who gets exactly the right kind of heat he should get from an audience, regardless if they hate him or love him. Do I love him? Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

CM Punks match with Kane is pretty typical, he’s very accomplished at elevating his competitors moves, and making all their spots look really great for both. It’s a testament to his ability, that he makes Kane look good, because frankly, Kane has lost it, and his fruit roll up mask does him no favors in making him any better than he was in the Attitude era, or even a few years ago. His new/old gimmick doesn’t work, because all of his decisions are so stupid and random. ( hurr imma attack Randy Orton for no reason! He’s not invincible or anything!) Granted that was a few months ago, but his character hasn’t really done anything interesting since he suddenly returned after somehow growing two feet of hair in a month or so.  After some struggling and mild interference from Bryan, AJ comes out, ostensibly trying to point out Daniel Bryan’s interference, until Punk gets distracted attacking Bryan, and loses to Kane via choke slam. Of course, there’s then a woman in the ring with Kane, which means its time for him to threateningly stand there, until AJ strangely smiles at him, probably trying to use her mind powers to calm his “inner beast”. Or maybe he was just awestruck by her hotness, didn’t know what to do, and left like an awkward high school teen? Kane is dumb, is what i’m saying.

AJ is going further down the crazy/aggressive/effing super sexy route, and starts sexually intimidating Josh Matthews. Well as much as she can in this new PG era. I like seeing her assert herself, I like seeing her character interact with Punk and Bryan, and most of all, I like seeing her in short short cutoffs.

Big Show as a heel works. This was a good video package, and I’m stoked to see him feud with any and everybody who he deems is in his way. It’s a welcome return to his “unstoppable giant” character, that I loved from his old WCW days. I approve.

Both Kofi and Truth show up visibly bandaged from their attack by Big Show last week, and throw down against Hawkins and Reks, in a fairly anemic tag team match. It’s hard to get involved in a tag match, when both teams don’t really have any chemistry, and it makes the whole thing forgettable and boring. Also Kofi Kingstons theme song is the worst thing to ever get stuck in your head ever, and I hate it with an unholy passion.

The entire night, Michael Cole has been fearing and dreading his match with John Cena, and has been trying to find some sort of way out of the match, even going to such lengths as to beg all the WWE fans on social media, to convince Laurinaitis to rescind his decision, via people power!

Right before the match begins, Laurinaitis comes out, and announces our real main event, claiming Cena will have to defeat Lord Tensai, in order to get his match with Cole. Cole is ecstatic, and we get a match of Cena pretending to be challenged by a fat, fake Japanese wrestler.  Fake Japanese as in a wrestler from Japan, not that Tensai is literally supposed to be Japanese, or that he didn’t actually wrestle in Japan, because he did, but he’s still just as boring to me as Cena is, his gimmick is really really lame, and the whole thing is fake to me. Tensai and Cena both suffer from big invincible white guy syndrome, and watching them both fight you’d think would be an interesting match, but I find them so inherently uninteresting. The only enjoyable thing about it was watching Cole really get jazzed about Tensai defeating Cena, only to eventually smack Cena himself, leading to Jerry Lawler standing up and giving him an official Officials’ time out.

Cena eventually lands the 5 moves of Doom on Tensai, secures the win, and Cole attempts to run out of the arena, before being brought back into the ring. Cole first asks mercy from Cena, and attempts to settle things with a handshake, and is then goaded into taunting Cena, ends up poking his finger into his chest, until John Cena starts literally stripping him down to his underwear, and starts slapping him around, then forces him to apologize to Jerry Lawler and JR for all the feuds he’s had with them in the past. Then of all things, he starts forcing Cole to admit he loves JRs BBQ sauce, which of course, Lawler *always* keeps ringside. Cena drenches Cole in the sauce, and sprays him with a fire extinguisher, making it officially one of the more confusing and subtly homoerotic comedy matches of all time. Cena seems dominant right up until Lord Tensai jumps in and choke slams him, leaving us to think Cole will weasel another victory under his belt, but Robo-Cena kicks out, and adjusts Coles’ attitude, taking the win.

It’s not often you see the final match on Raw, ending with both participants covered in BBQ sauce, one spraying a fire extinguisher in celebration, the other stripped down to his underwear, wailing aloud. How do I feel about comedy matches being the main event of a PPV and now a Raw? I’m personally okay with it, as long as it is entertaining. I watch WWE to be entertained. I go in knowing I’m not going to see GREAT WRESTLING. If I want that I’ll pop in a Chikara or ROH dvd. Or look up regional matches on youtube. Like it or not, this is what WWE is now, and that will sometimes include slathering nearly naked men in BBQ sauce.