Monday Night RAW recap
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Announcers: Jerry “The King” Lawler, Michael Cole
Welcome to the recap of the 999th episode of RAW.
CM Punk in-ring segment
Hot crowd tonight. Great opening segment with CM Punk and the Big Show. Another example of CM Punk elevating the talent around him; Big Show actually made sense on the mic. The calmness in which he addressed the heckling Vegas crowd was brilliant.
“That is rude, I have a point I am trying to make.” -Big Show
Big Show alluded to the fact that he will knock out CM Punk in their match up and John Cena will cash in his recently won Money in the Bank contract. Effective verbal combat between the two, setting up the stakes for the RAW main event quite well. And it only took 11 minutes. Take note HHH.
Tag Team Championship match
Prime Time Players w/AW vs R-Truth and Kofi Kingston
Way to have Darren and Titus challenge for the titles the night after losing a non-title match up vs Epico and Primo. We are really supposed to believe they have any chance of beating the tag team champions? Of course not. I’m not saying the Prime Time Players should have won the tag titles last night. I’m saying it doesn’t make any sense for the WWE to have Kofi and R-Truth wrestle Hunico and Camacho during the Money in the Bank Youtube preshow and have your number 1 contenders, Darren and Titus, wrestle on the actual PPV and lose cleanly.
Kofi and R-Truth winning was logical, but where do Darren and Titus go from here? The WWE seems more adamant on pushing Epico and Primo. Which is fine, I’ll take Rosa Mendes over AW any day of the week. Backstage
Eve Torres interrupting AJ and DB backstage was great. Why? Because she actually addressed Daniel Bryan’s actions in their tag match last week on RAW. It’s the small things that make me happy. Story line continuation is one of them.
Zack Ryder vs Alberto Del Rio
Zack Ryder got in a few moves offensively but not many. Glorified squash. Ryder tapped very quickly once the cross arm breaker was applied. After the match Rey Mysterio returned from injury (suspension) to hit the 619 on Alberto Del Rio.
Whatever. At least this gives Del Rio something to do now that Dolph Ziggler is the Smackdown Money in the Bank suitcase holder. I would have preferred Mysterio return and set Sin Cara on fire, but there’s still time. It’ll be good to have little Rey Rey back.
One man baaaaaaand segment
Rikishi vs Heath Slater
Rikishi with the win. After the match he danced until the lights went out. When they came back on, Rikishi’s sons, the Usos, were in the ring. I was never a big fan of Rikishi. Aside from running over Stone Cold Steve Austin with his car, he never really accounted for much story line wise. However, it was a genuinely cool moment to see him share the same ring with his flesh and blood. I’m sure growing up they probably dreamed of winning the WWE title and celebrating in the ring with their family, but performing a memorized dance sequence was probably a close second. It was definitely something all of the them will remember for the rest of their lives. We’ve come a long way from having heavyset guys dance to get them over. On an unrelated note, stay tuned for Brodus Clay#RAWTonight
Mixed Tag match
Daniel Bryan/AJ Lee vs Miz/Eve
Possible Daniel Bryan face turn alert. Who is the most over person on the WWE roster right now? No, not CM Punk and definitely not John Cena. It’s AJ Lee. Pairing Bryan with AJ against two heel wrestlers was done with a purpose in mind. In other news, Eve is hot.
Team Bryan Lee got the victory after Bryan helped AJ reverse a small package roll up. Daniel Bryan better make sure that AJ’s ok with small packages because after the match he proposed and she accepted. Shame, I was looking forward to seeing a chloroformed AJ in the backseat of a car as Daniel Bryan went to a Vegas drive thru Wedding Chapel.
Has any WWE superstar actually ever watched an episode of RAW before? Public weddings are a BAD idea. If Test doesn’t do a run-in on the Daniel Bryan/AJ wedding, we riot.#raw
Obligatory Ryback Squash
Jack Swagger vs Ryback
I HATE, HATE, HATE unofficial matches that never start because the competitor was “attacked” before/when they enter the ring. In this case Swagger attacked Ryback right as he came through the ropes. Eventually Ryback recovered and gained the upper hand, but the bell still never rang. This seems like a recent trend in order to protect certain wrestlers’ career win/loss statistics…..which are meaningless.
I do not understand why the bell wouldn’t ring once both competitors were on their feet in the ring. Regardless, finally some progression with Ryback. At Money in the Bank he had a semi competitive match with Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins. On RAW we saw Jack Swagger get in some solid offense. This is the next step for Ryback. Also it looks like his “Feed me more” catchphrase is getting over with the crowd.
Dolph Ziggler w/ Queen Diva Vicky Guerrero in ring segment
Ziggler proved that he is capable of cutting a main event promo with his time. His stuff was average until Y2J interrupted and came down to the ring. This is where the segment improved dramatically. Ziggler seems to be most effective when he has a foil to work with in the ring. His stuff with Mick Foley, CM Punk and now Jericho has been gold Jerry, gold!Ziggler just verbally dismantled Jericho quite efficiently. Brilliant points. Ziggler lobbed pipe bombs directly at Chris Jericho.
“No one has been given more main-event opportunities than you. You’ve been coasting along for so long you’ve got everybody fooled. You’re all hype.” Ziggler to Jericho.
If you were high, you might think it was Mr. Perfect talking to Jon Bon Jovi. I’m pumped for this feud. #RAW
I don’t care that wrestling is “fake”. Some of those words had to sting a little.
Ziggler brings up an excellent point. When was the last time Jericho got a victory that mattered? Chris Jericho’s last PPV victory came at Wrestlemania 26 against Edge, seriously. Here’s a list of the last 13 PPV’s in which Chris Jericho was signed with the company.
Extreme Rules 2010: lost to Edge in a cage
Over the Limit 2010: him and Miz lost to Hart Dynasty
Fatal Fourway: lost to Bourne
Money in the Bank 2010: didn’t get the briefcase
Summerslam 2010: got eliminated in the 7 on 7 match, his team may have won but he lost
Night of Champions 2010: eliminated first in the 6 way match.
Royal Rumble 2012: didn’t win the Rumble
Elimination Chamber 2012: didn’t win in the chamber match
Wrestlemania 28: beat by Punk
Extreme Rules: beat by Punk again
Over the Limit 2012: pinned in the fourway.
Now Way Out 2012: suspended from Brazil incident
Money in the Bank 2012: didn’t win the ladder match
That is so unimpressive that in turn it is impressive. Chris Jericho does not have a PPV victory since 2010 and he STILL has enough credibility to win the WWE championship. It looks like creative is going to keep Ziggler a heel for the time being and turn Jericho face. If I were on creative, I’d move Jericho to Smackdown, keep him heel and have him feud with Sheamus for the title. But I’m not going to complain about a feud between two of my favorite wrestlers in Zigger and Y2J getting prominent air time.
Brodus Clay vs JTG
BEAT HIM, JTG. DO IT FOR ALL OF US.
Pretend you didn’t watch RAW and I told you Brodus Clay wrestled JTG. Do you think you would be able to predict the exact format of the match? I would hope so. No surprises here as the Funkasauras gained the victory which means we were treated to a grown man dancing with children. I’m sorry Vince, but enabling child predators makes you no better than Joe Pa. Take the statue down! I’m sorry, I lost track of what we were talking about.
Moving on……
Main Event
CM Punk vs The Big Show
Good match. CM Punk managed to look credible in a match with a 7 foot tall behemoth. By dodging and counter attacking, Punk was able to stay quicker than Show and took advantage of TBS’s miscalculations. Still, I am glad that they didn’t have CM Punk go over the Big Show cleanly. No one should be able to defeat the Giant without the assist of a foreign object. 
Punk should try the Five Knuckle Shuffle. Big Show can’t get up from that.
Big Show got himself intentionally disqualified and continued his beat down of CM Punk after the match.
John Cena must have been waving his hand in front of his face for the past two hours, because we didn’t see him at all on RAW up to this point.
John Cena ran down, but not to cash in his Money in the Bank contract, but to challenge Punk to a title match at RAW 1000.
RAW 1000 is going to be awesome. So far we have:
- DX returning
- A Brock Lesnar appearance
- An Undertaker appearance
- The Rock will be in attendance
- Possibly another Legend from RAW’s past will beat up Heath Slater
- Christian Intercontinental title defense
- Daniel Bryan and AJ wedding ceremony
- John Cena vs CM Punk for the WWE title
Don’t say it…don’t say it….how can the creative team possibly mess this up? Dammit!
RAW Report Card: B
Final Thoughts: RAW was much improved this week over the past 2 weeks. Not like that was a difficult accomplishment. Interesting stuff with the possible Daniel Bryan and Chris Jericho face turns.
Full disclaimer: If John Cena beats CM Punk for the title next week on RAW 1000 in order to set up a rematch with the Rock at Summerslam with the WWE title on the line…..I’m switching to Ring of Honor.
Top 5 Completely Arbitrary
5. Rikishi – Nice return match. The man looks the same and got to share a moment in the ring with family.
4. The Miz – Good to see the Miz back in action. I guarantee the Marine 3 is going to be
Awwwwwwesommmmmme. I’m joking. I’m sure it sucks.
3. Big Show – Didn’t totally suck on the microphone. He gets a +1 from me.
2. Dolph Ziggler/Chris Jericho feud – These two have the potential to put together some amazing matches.
1. Daniel Bryan – First person in history to lose 5 consecutive PPVs with the title on the line. Gets to marry
AJ Lee at RAW 1000. We’ll call it a draw.
Thanks for reading.
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