Hello everyone and welcome to another addition of the Raw Review with your good pal Reid Linwood. Tonight, Raw is coming from the west coast in Portland, Oregon. As lame as this is I'm going to give this crowd some serious recognition because they were rowdy and loud and involved the entire night to the point I noticed. It makes a wrestling show so much more fun.
The show starts with Jerry Lawler coming down and telling us that the national nightmare is now over and that Cole got beat. It will only be over if this is truly the last match you two have, Jerry. Jerry then introduces the man that gave him a bit of an assist last night, Bret Hart.
I guess Bret decided to stick around for another night. Good for him, always good to have the Hitman around. Bret starts to congratulate King when R Truth interrupts him. Truth sarcastically says its a real treat for a WWE Hall of Famer like Hart to be around. He asks him how he managed to get so many championship matches because poor R Truth has had zero. I guess we don't count Elimination Chamber anymore? Hmm.
Hart tells him that he got shots at the title because he was the best there was, is, and ever will be and tells Truth he's a lunatic. Truth is very angry about this. John Cena's music then hits and we're going to be joined by him as well out here.
Cena shakes Bret's hand and asks him how he's doing and Bret congratulates him on the win last night. Based on the match, I'm surprised we're not supposed to all wash Cena's feet. When 12 apostles start following him around I'm done with wrestling.
Cena makes a few wisecracks about R Truth and Truth continues to whine about a title shot. The Anonymous Raw General Manager tone hits and we have a message. I tried really hard to think of a witty way to make fun of how preposterous the Anonymous Raw General Manager thing is but I'm obviously running out of creative gas.
The message reads that while the General Manager is impressed with R Truth, he needs to have a good showing in the main event of tonight's RAW to earn a title shot. The main event is announced as R Truth & CM Punk vs. Super Cena & Rey Mysterio. Bret Hart will also be the special guest referee. I'm excited to see CM Punk interact with Bret. Should be interesting.
From commercial we see Kane and The Big Show talking about their win last night over The Nexus. Show is sitting on one of Alberto Del Rio's expensive cars. Ricardo Rodriguez sees this and as sure as his bowl cut is getting longer, he's extremely pissed at Big Show for leaning on the car and yells at him in Spanish. Big Show shoves him down and says he hates that guy. Not sure what poor Ricardo ever did to Show, jeez.
Alberto Del Rio comes by and starts furiously yelling in Spanish at Kane and The Big Show. They finally start to leave and Del Rio continues his Spanish tirade. My SAP wasn't on but my guess to what he was yelling was as follows:
"Big Show, you have a terrible tattoo and you look more and more like King Kong Bundy every day. And you Kane, didn't you have burns on 90% of your body? You just look pasty! Oh that's right, it was all in your head. Now disperse you peasants!"
Up next is Big Show and Kane vs. David Otunga and Curt Hennig's kid for the tag team titles. The Nexus comes down and CM Punk is joining the announce team for commentary. Someone obviously booked Raw for me this evening as I enjoy the hell out of Punk's color.
The match is pretty standard for the most part. Punk is great on color with many quips, but you already knew that. With Show grabbing both members of Nexus in his chokeslam grip, Punk sneaks up after the referee is knocked out and nails Show in the back of the head with a high kick. Otunga & Joey Hennig grab Show and DDT him for the 123. New Tag Team Champs!
Punk grabs the belts and Nexus makes its way down the aisle as Show is coming to and Kane is pissed. Obviously they seem serious about getting Nexus some actual air time. This can only mean good things for Punk I would assume.
After commercial we're backstage with Big Show and Kane. Show is furious and yells a lot at poor Scott Stanford. Now is the time to use the Broski in a Bottle and calm Show down, Scott. The camera gets all screwy and Show runs off and the camera fades in to him being hit by Albert Del Rio's car. WWE sure does love to have people get hit by cars. Ricardo was behind the wheel and speeds off after the damage is done. Show is screaming in pain as the medics arrive.
Next up we have Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne. Nice to see Evan get some Raw time even though this is bound to be a squash match, meh. What exactly is Jack Swagger's appeal again? I don't get it. Does nothing for me.
The match is short and unfortunately as I foretold it is a squash match. Jack does his victory lap thing and Borne slugs him in the face with a kick and gets the hell out of dodge. That was kind of funny. I fully expected this to be a classic squash so it was nice to see Bourne get the laugh last per say. Not sure where they're going with it, but oh well.
Next up is Michael Cole coming to the ring. He apologizes for his behavior and asks if he can do commentary again and apologizes to the fans, Lawler, Josh, and even the time keeper. King seems to accept his apology.
Miz's music hits next. He gets on the mic and immediately blames Alex Riley for his failure to win back the WWE Title. Riley grabs the mic and says he wasn't the one to say I quit. Miz starts slapping him until Riley goes ape shit and starts kicking the crap out of the Miz. He tears off his suit and throws him over the announce table. Very good and intense segment.
I think if they follow this up right, Alex Riley has a shot at being a decent sized babyface in the company. Last night was a really good crowd, but people were chanting Riley as he kicked the crap out of The Miz. If WWE is smart they won't squander that.
Next up is a Diva's 8 women tag match. The Bella Twins, Marse, and Melina vs. Kelly Kelly, Eve, Gail Kim, and Beth Phoenix. I haven't seen Beth Phoenix in ages. Nice of them to dig her up for this.
Before the match even starts Kharma's music hits. 8 divas vs. Kharma, this should be interesting. Kharma gets into the ring and the 8 divas start circling her like a pack of wolves. All of a sudden Kharma drops to her knees and starts sobbing and shaking. Weird. Supposedly this whole thing is Vince's baby and this little swerve is his idea. I have no idea where they could possibly be going with this and absolutely no explanation was given.
Next up is Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston. Okay match with McIntyre working on Kofi's knee for the entire match. Kofi couldn't pull out the Trouble in Paradise as his knee gave up so he hit the S.O.S drop instead. Okay little match, McIntyre is just, blah. Bret Hart recently stuck up for him and said he was being misused by WWE but I just don't see it. He's as bland as bland can be.
Speaking of bland, Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero are shown watching the match backstage. Poor Dolph, his hair is back to the same bleach blonde. I guess he's not new and improved anymore?
After the break they showed a video tribute to Randy Savage. It was done quite well, well enough that I'll even admit to getting a little choked up.
The show starts with Jerry Lawler coming down and telling us that the national nightmare is now over and that Cole got beat. It will only be over if this is truly the last match you two have, Jerry. Jerry then introduces the man that gave him a bit of an assist last night, Bret Hart.
I guess Bret decided to stick around for another night. Good for him, always good to have the Hitman around. Bret starts to congratulate King when R Truth interrupts him. Truth sarcastically says its a real treat for a WWE Hall of Famer like Hart to be around. He asks him how he managed to get so many championship matches because poor R Truth has had zero. I guess we don't count Elimination Chamber anymore? Hmm.
Hart tells him that he got shots at the title because he was the best there was, is, and ever will be and tells Truth he's a lunatic. Truth is very angry about this. John Cena's music then hits and we're going to be joined by him as well out here.
Cena shakes Bret's hand and asks him how he's doing and Bret congratulates him on the win last night. Based on the match, I'm surprised we're not supposed to all wash Cena's feet. When 12 apostles start following him around I'm done with wrestling.
Cena makes a few wisecracks about R Truth and Truth continues to whine about a title shot. The Anonymous Raw General Manager tone hits and we have a message. I tried really hard to think of a witty way to make fun of how preposterous the Anonymous Raw General Manager thing is but I'm obviously running out of creative gas.
The message reads that while the General Manager is impressed with R Truth, he needs to have a good showing in the main event of tonight's RAW to earn a title shot. The main event is announced as R Truth & CM Punk vs. Super Cena & Rey Mysterio. Bret Hart will also be the special guest referee. I'm excited to see CM Punk interact with Bret. Should be interesting.
From commercial we see Kane and The Big Show talking about their win last night over The Nexus. Show is sitting on one of Alberto Del Rio's expensive cars. Ricardo Rodriguez sees this and as sure as his bowl cut is getting longer, he's extremely pissed at Big Show for leaning on the car and yells at him in Spanish. Big Show shoves him down and says he hates that guy. Not sure what poor Ricardo ever did to Show, jeez.
Alberto Del Rio comes by and starts furiously yelling in Spanish at Kane and The Big Show. They finally start to leave and Del Rio continues his Spanish tirade. My SAP wasn't on but my guess to what he was yelling was as follows:
"Big Show, you have a terrible tattoo and you look more and more like King Kong Bundy every day. And you Kane, didn't you have burns on 90% of your body? You just look pasty! Oh that's right, it was all in your head. Now disperse you peasants!"
Up next is Big Show and Kane vs. David Otunga and Curt Hennig's kid for the tag team titles. The Nexus comes down and CM Punk is joining the announce team for commentary. Someone obviously booked Raw for me this evening as I enjoy the hell out of Punk's color.
The match is pretty standard for the most part. Punk is great on color with many quips, but you already knew that. With Show grabbing both members of Nexus in his chokeslam grip, Punk sneaks up after the referee is knocked out and nails Show in the back of the head with a high kick. Otunga & Joey Hennig grab Show and DDT him for the 123. New Tag Team Champs!
Punk grabs the belts and Nexus makes its way down the aisle as Show is coming to and Kane is pissed. Obviously they seem serious about getting Nexus some actual air time. This can only mean good things for Punk I would assume.
After commercial we're backstage with Big Show and Kane. Show is furious and yells a lot at poor Scott Stanford. Now is the time to use the Broski in a Bottle and calm Show down, Scott. The camera gets all screwy and Show runs off and the camera fades in to him being hit by Albert Del Rio's car. WWE sure does love to have people get hit by cars. Ricardo was behind the wheel and speeds off after the damage is done. Show is screaming in pain as the medics arrive.
Next up we have Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne. Nice to see Evan get some Raw time even though this is bound to be a squash match, meh. What exactly is Jack Swagger's appeal again? I don't get it. Does nothing for me.
The match is short and unfortunately as I foretold it is a squash match. Jack does his victory lap thing and Borne slugs him in the face with a kick and gets the hell out of dodge. That was kind of funny. I fully expected this to be a classic squash so it was nice to see Bourne get the laugh last per say. Not sure where they're going with it, but oh well.
Next up is Michael Cole coming to the ring. He apologizes for his behavior and asks if he can do commentary again and apologizes to the fans, Lawler, Josh, and even the time keeper. King seems to accept his apology.
Miz's music hits next. He gets on the mic and immediately blames Alex Riley for his failure to win back the WWE Title. Riley grabs the mic and says he wasn't the one to say I quit. Miz starts slapping him until Riley goes ape shit and starts kicking the crap out of the Miz. He tears off his suit and throws him over the announce table. Very good and intense segment.
I think if they follow this up right, Alex Riley has a shot at being a decent sized babyface in the company. Last night was a really good crowd, but people were chanting Riley as he kicked the crap out of The Miz. If WWE is smart they won't squander that.
Next up is a Diva's 8 women tag match. The Bella Twins, Marse, and Melina vs. Kelly Kelly, Eve, Gail Kim, and Beth Phoenix. I haven't seen Beth Phoenix in ages. Nice of them to dig her up for this.
Before the match even starts Kharma's music hits. 8 divas vs. Kharma, this should be interesting. Kharma gets into the ring and the 8 divas start circling her like a pack of wolves. All of a sudden Kharma drops to her knees and starts sobbing and shaking. Weird. Supposedly this whole thing is Vince's baby and this little swerve is his idea. I have no idea where they could possibly be going with this and absolutely no explanation was given.
Next up is Drew McIntyre vs. Kofi Kingston. Okay match with McIntyre working on Kofi's knee for the entire match. Kofi couldn't pull out the Trouble in Paradise as his knee gave up so he hit the S.O.S drop instead. Okay little match, McIntyre is just, blah. Bret Hart recently stuck up for him and said he was being misused by WWE but I just don't see it. He's as bland as bland can be.
Speaking of bland, Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero are shown watching the match backstage. Poor Dolph, his hair is back to the same bleach blonde. I guess he's not new and improved anymore?
After the break they showed a video tribute to Randy Savage. It was done quite well, well enough that I'll even admit to getting a little choked up.
Ahem, now that something isn't in my eye anymore, we're back and Alberto Del Rio is backstage and denies having anything to do with Big Show being ran over by his car, saying that it was all Ricardo's fault.
Next up is the main event. CM Punk came down in classic Macho Man pink tights and yellow boots, another classy tribute. Punk also didn't disappoint with his interaction with Hart, at one point asking him where he learned to count, Canada? He also did a perfect Bret Hart style side russian legsweep and even teased the sharpshooter at one point.
Eventually the match broke down and Hart slugged Punk and put him in the sharpshooter. Rey used this opportunity to hit a springboard leg drop on a defenseless punk for the face to get the win.
It was a fun main event for me due to Punk's antics. It didn't appear they really had a hook for next week out of this main event though. It wouldn't surprise me if they were actually trying to determine between Punk and R Truth for Cena's next opponent.
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