Archive for May 2012
Raw Response – 05/28/12
Big Show knocked out John Cena once again last week and while Cena vs. Big Show is by no means anything new, it comes with Cena in one of the most trying times of his career after losing to The Rock at Wrestlemania, getting dominated by Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules and then losing to John Laurinaitis of all people at Over the Limit (albeit not legitimately). That is if you buy into the idea that Wrestlemania XXVIII and his match with The Rock really meant everything to him. I don’t really buy into that, but he said it so many times, so you can’t really buy into his assertions since that his loss to The Rock isn’t going to change his on-screen persona in some way. Something that big, to say that many times how much it supposedly means, the WWE can’t allow everything that Cena said prior to Wrestlemania to be all hype and still maintain any credibility as a story teller. Cena’s loss to The Rock has to change him in some way or every part of the story they told for the biggest match they’ve ever promoted becomes worthless. Just brushing it off won’t hurt the WWE in ratings, in Pay Per View buy rates or in merchandise sales, but for me if Cena remains unchanged after that, it takes WWE one more notch down as a story teller. And they’ve fallen many notches in the past couple of years and if such a trend continues, we’re never going to see another boom period like the Attitude Era. If wrestling is ever going to be cool again, the WWE has to be better at telling stories and quit staying safe with the status quo.
But I digress. Monday Night Raw comes on and Big Show heads to the ring in the opening segment and delivers a very good heel promo. However, we’ve seen Big Show’s “unstoppable giant” heel persona get stopped many many times in the past. I don’t see how anybody can buy into what he had to say tonight about nobody in the locker room being in his league. In the past year alone, we’ve seen Daniel Bryan beat him over and over. Mark Henry dominated him and put him on the shelf. He won the Intercontinental Championship, but quickly lost it in his only title match. And in the past we’ve seen Cena beat him over and over and over, including twice at Wrestlemania (Wrestlemania XX and Wrestlemania XXV). However, the monster heel is the only character Big Show should ever play. The problem isn’t that they’re pushing him that way. The problem is that they’ve let his character become a joke so many times in the past. At No Way Out, Cena is going to beat Big Show once again and he’s probably going to do it with the STF. However, I do think this is going to end up being my favorite of all the Big Show monster pushes.
The first match of the night would feature the #1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Championship Alberto Del Rio facing the United States Champion Santino Marella. This match has been set up with Santino poking fun at Ricardo Rodriguez over the past week. These two have fought several times in the past and I don’t think Santino has ever beaten Del Rio. He certainly didn’t tonight and Del Rio made short work of the US champion, beating him with the Cross Armbreaker. Del Rio then took the cobra and shoved it into Santino’s mouth.
In the back, Big Show interrupted Alex Riley as he was hitting on Eve and Eve informs Big Show that he gets to pick his opponent for tonight, which I was thinking is likely to be Brodus Clay after he showed the clip of Brodus dancing just minutes after he was fired and humiliated by GM Johnny two weeks ago on Raw. Brodus is unbeaten and he’s a big monster character himself, so Big Show knocking him out and beating him in the ring is a good way to put Big Show back over. Big Show used Riley to send a message to the locker room by throwing him into the wall and stepping over him.
Kofi Kingston and R-Truth squared off with Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger with the WWE Tag Team Championship on the line. Ziggler and Swagger failed to win the titles for about the 100th time in the past year, which leads to Ziggler finally showing his frustration. The end could be near for Vickie’s tag team, leading me to think that Ziggler and Vickie will probably drop Swagger, who would then turn face. I’d rather see Ziggler give being a face a try, but he definitely excels at being a heel and Swagger really doesn’t.
Backstage, Big Show is busy intimidating Santino Marella, but Brodus Clay comes to the rescue and gets into Big Show’s face and we end up with Big Show choosing to face Brodus Clay later on tonight.
GM Johnny then wastes air time as he takes longer than the Del Rio / Santino match to get to the ring along with David Otunga and Eve. He then opens his mouth and further wastes our time as he butchers the delivery of his lines and tells us that he’s making the Cena / Big Show match at No Way Out a Steel Cage Match. He then unveils a cover for the new WWE ’13 video game cover that gets released in October with his face on it. However, I severely doubt that GM Johnny ends up being the cover boy for the video game. I believe it should be and ultimately will be CM Punk on the cover. And sure enough, CM Punk comes out to put an end to GM Johnny wasting our time. Punk then one-ups Johnny as a much bigger photo of the real WWE ’13 cover featuring CM Punk rolls down from the rafters. Punk then tells GM Johnny to take the “hoeski and Carlton”, meaning Eve and Otung and get out of his ring and he gets ready to go one-on-one with Daniel Bryan.
By the way, Sin Cara returns on Smackdown this week, which we found out last Friday on Smackdown in case you missed it. Can he last more than a couple of months without getting suspended or injured again?
Punk and Bryan put on a good show as always and then AJ comes out to the ring wearing a CM Punk shirt, continuing this love triangle ordeal they have going with AJ supposedly developing some sort of feelings for Punk, possibly just because Punk is locked in a program with Daniel Bryan, her ex. Bryan ends up beating Punk as a result of an exposed ring post. Kane then comes out to attack Bryan, continuing their bi-weekly tradition of beating the hell out of each other with chairs. Kane then turns his attention to Punk, but AJ throws a chair in to Punk and Punk uses it to fight off Kane and the Big Red Machine retreats.
Intercontinental Champion Christian then faces off against Miz and Christian continues his winning streak since returning from injury and turning face. Miz of course continues to be jobbed out. How long is he going to stay in the dog house over the botched spot with R-Truth 3 months ago and supposedly being blamed for the low Survivor Series buy rate? Christian overcame the distraction of Cody Rhodes, who was at commentary for part of the match and beats Miz with the Killswitch and a Frog Splash. Miz then stays in the ring and complains about a lot of different things and then Randy Orton comes out and Miz starts threatening him, but Orton just goes straight to Miz and shuts him up with an RKO.
Earlier in the night, David Otunga asked for a match with Sheamus and he got it. Unfortunately for him, it ended with him getting his head kicked off via a Brogue Kick. Nothing unexpected there, although it was somewhat surprising that Del Rio didn’t make any kind of appearance and Johnny didn’t do anything to give Otunga any kind of help.
Brodus and Big Show then make their way to the ring for the Main Event and there is only about 5 minutes left until the show goes over time, so you know this match isn’t going to last more than a couple of minutes and they’d still have to leave time after for Cena to make some kind of appearance. Big Show uses some more time taunting Brodus before the match and then Brodus comes out to face him on the floor and Big Show barrels his way down the rampway and Spears Brodus. The two then fight outside the ring and of course Big Show gets the upper hand since he’s the one facing Cena in what projects as the Main Event of the next Pay Per View, No Way Out. Kofi Kingston and R-Truth then come out to help Brodus, but he knocks them both flat and breaks apart the announce table and smashes Brodus with a piece of it. He then continues to beat up Kingston and R-Truth and surprisingly Cena doesn’t make an appearance. I think they chickened out by not having the match start and put Big Show over cleanly. It was still an impressive showing to put over Big Show, beating up an undefeated monster and the Tag Team Champions and I think Brodus may have even suffered a legitimate back injury as a result of the second shot he took from the table. His back spasmed in an awkward way after that shot and they had to censor him cursing as a result. I still think Cena goes over Big Show at No Way Out, but of course WWE is going to put Big Show over everybody in a dominant fashion up until No Way Out so that Cena is once again the “underdog” and so he can “overcome the odds” on Pay Per View for the billionth time.
Over the Limit Preview – Expect the Unexpected?
We are just over four hours away from the WWE Pay Per View Over the Limit from Raleigh, North Carolina, tonight and as things currently stand, we are only aware of what a handful of the matches are going to be. That is just one of the reasons why we should prepare to be surprised by what transpires tonight.
In the Main Event, John Laurinaitis must fight John Cena one-on-one with No Countouts and No Disqualifications and if Laurinaitis does not beat John Cena, he will be “terminated”. And despite there being No Disqualifications, the WWE Board of Directors has ruled that any superstar interfering on GM Johnny’s behalf will be “terminated” as well. You would think this means certain victory for Cena, right? Don’t be so quick to write the General Manager off.
Let’s not forget that this is the same guy that used Kevin Nash last summer to push Triple H’s buttons and get the Board of Directors to put him in charge of the day-to-day operations of Raw in the first place. John Laurinaitis is most definitely a coward and a blowhard, but he is also a manipulative bastard. Expect for somebody not currently on the roster to help GM Johnny keep his job by beating Cena tonight. If somebody not on the roster helps Johnny beat Cena, they don’t have a job to lose and thus have nothing to fear from the Board of Directors. Of course, GM Johnny would then undoubtedly reward his savior with a fresh contract.
There are three possible names that come to mind that we might expect to come to Johnny’s aid.
The first name is Brock Lesnar. Lesnar “quit” the WWE a few weeks back, but nobody is buying it. We all know that’s kayfabe. The question is whether this is going to be the moment for us to find out for certain that Lesnar has not left the WWE. It would certainly make sense since Cena survived Lesnar’s beating at Extreme Rules and beat Lesnar in the only match he’s had in eight years. That’s not something I can see Lesnar letting stand. He’ll be in the ring with Cena again at some point before his time with the WWE is once again over.
The second name is the Big Show, and I know what you’re thinking – why would Big Show help Johnny after he was fired and humiliated on Raw this week? If it came down to it, wouldn’t you help somebody you hated beat John Cena if you had it in your power to do so and it meant the difference between whether or not you got your job back? Big Show just might.
The last name that comes to mind is Batista. Rumors have been swirling since Wrestlemania that Batista was ready to come back to WWE and I’m sure Batista still believes he has some unfinished business with John Cena after their brutal rivalry two years ago that ended with John Cena hitting Batista with an Attitude Adjustment off of a car at Over the Limit 2010.
Any of the three are possible and just maybe we’ll get lucky and everybody will leave GM Johnny to suffer the fate he’s made for himself by being “The Undisputed King of Douchebags”. And just maybe something unexpected will happen and completely blindside us, but if any of the three gentlemen in the above paragraphs turns out to be Laurinaitis’ savior, I won’t be the only one to have seen it coming. I’m predicting that Laurinaitis wins with outside help, but it goes against what I feel is best for the product, which is getting GM Johnny off the air and keeping him there.
In the two World title matches, really anything could happen, but I think at least one of the titles is going to be changing hands tonight and I think it’ll be in the Fatal 4-Way with Alberto Del Rio crowned as the new champion. And while I could easily see Daniel Bryan getting the biggest win of his career and becoming WWE Champion, I’m predicting that CM Punk’s six-month title reign will continue – at least for the time being.
In the World Tag Team title match, it’s tough to tell what’s coming. Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger have been in contention for the Tag Team Titles since last fall, but they were never able to wrestle the titles away from Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne. However, Air Boom is no more and perhaps Kingston and Truth will not prove to be as strong of a union for Vickie’s boys to overcome. I’m predicting that
And in the Diva’s title match, Layla defends against Beth Phoenix and Layla is definitely outsized and I believe Beth is certainly a better wrestler, but Layla of course has a fighting chance and she did just capture the title in her return last month at Extreme Rules. This seems like a coin toss to me, but I’m going to pick Layla to retain.
There is also the pre-show match-up between Zack Ryder and Kane that will be broadcast on YouTube and perhaps being on YouTube will give the self-proclaimed “Internet Champion” some kind of home field advantage for an upset victory, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’m going to give the nod to the Big Red Machine, who continues to be one of the best and most underrated performers on the roster.
Those are the six matches that we know of, but that certainly is not going to be the entire card. I expect some possible continuation of the war of words between Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes and United States Champion Santino Marella on Smackdown this week. Perhaps we’ll see some sort of Champion vs. Champion match with Rhodes seeking vengeance after Marella shocked Rhodes with a roll-up victory on Friday. We’re also likely to see one or two squash matches featuring the likes of Brodus Clay, Ryback, Lord Tensai or Antonio Cessaro. But this is the WWE and anything can happen. There is definitely some space on the show tonight for all of us to be surprised in one way or another.
Raw Response – 05/14/12
After two weeks of waiting to see what was really going to be next for Triple H and Brock Lesnar after Lesnar “broke Triple H’s arm” two weeks ago on Raw, Triple H his return at the top of the show with his arm in a sling to sell his arm injury.
Triple H essentially ran down Brock Lesnar for being a flake and not living up to his potential and said that Brock Lesnar and John Laurinaitis thought the WWE needs to be “legitimized” was an insult to all of the greats who made this business what it is today – such as himself, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, and Ric Flair. This provoked a response from Paul Heyman, who came out with law suit papers and served them to Triple H, claiming that Brock Lesnar would sue the WWE to get the money that was promised him in the deal he forced John Laurinaitis into three weeks ago. Heyman would go on to say that Triple H was just saying bad things about Brock Lesnar because that’s what every team or company does when they lose their franchise player. Triple H then angrily threw the papers at Heyman and left, claiming Brock Lesnar would get everything he deserves. The question is, how soon are we going to see Triple H and Brock Lesnar face off in the ring. Recent speculation on Wrestlezone.com has it that the match could take place sooner than expected. There are still three more Pay Per Views to go through before SummerSlam. Perhaps Triple H vs. Lesnar will be highlighting one of them.
First match of the night was tag team action featuring three of WWE’s singles champions with WWE Champion CM Punk teaming with United States Champion Santino Marella to take on Punk’s challenger at Over the Limit, Daniel Bryan, and the Intercontinental Champion, Cody Rhodes. The match would take up over a full segment with Santino humorously trying for a Suicide Dive, but bouncing off the ropes back into the ring instead leading into the commercial break. Santino woud go on to make a few more miscues on purpose throughout the match before Punk got a hot tag. Bryan then retreated to the back, and Punk beat Rhodes with the GTS. Punk then stared daggers at Bryan while Bryan backed away up the rampway with a smirk on his face. Unless Punk makes his way to Friday Night Smackdown this week, this will be their final encounter before meeting in the WWE Championship match at Over the Limit on Sunday. Punk would later be seen talking with Alex Riley, linking them together once again with Punk having used Riley a few weeks ago to dupe Chris Jericho into thinking Punk was drunk on the final Raw before their Chicago Street Fight at Extreme Rules. Something kind of partnership could be in the future for Punk and Riley. Daniel Bryan’s former girlfriend AJ then approached Punk, but he wanted nothing to do with her. I don’t really see Daniel Bryan leaving Over the Limit with the WWE Championship and Punk has been nearly unbeatable since capturing the title from Alberto Del Rio back at Survivor Series last year. He’s had a very long run as champion in this era of constant title changes, so he’s ripe for the picking, but I’m still going to predict that Punk retains the title over Daniel Bryan on Sunday.
Beth Phoenix would then face Alicia Fox one-on-one in a match with no doubt that Beth Phoenix would emerge victorious to go over in the final Raw before she faces Layla for the Diva’s Championship at Over the Limit on Sunday. The Diva’s Champion Layla came out on the rampway to watch as Phoenix overpowered Fox and beat her soundly in a matter of minutes with the Glam Slam. Phoenix then tried to take advantage of Fox with another Glam Slam, but Layla intervened and ran into the ring and took Phoenix down and Phoenix retreated to the back as Layla go in the last laugh, but while leaving Beth promised that Layla would never beat her. I disagree as I feel Layla will emerge from Over the Limit still the champion and continuing to ride the wave of momentum she’s been on since her return last month at Extreme Rules.
Big Show would be placed in a match with Kane by way of punishment for making fun of John Laurinaitis last week on Raw, which he was forced to apologize for, but then got caught again joking about it with the stars of the new USA show Common Law. Going into the match, Big Show had it looming over his head that he would have to apologize to John Laurinaitis or he would be fired. After a slow and methodical match typical of two big men facing each other, Laurinaitis would distract Big Show by demanding an apology in the middle of the match, causing Big Show to suffer a Chokeslam from Kane and be defeated. Laurinaitis then mocked Big Show and berated him and Big Show made a very passionate apology and talked about how he loved his job. But that wouldn’t be good enough for Laurinaitis, who demanded that Big Show get on his knees and beg to keep his job. Big Show would beg for his job, but refused to get down on his knees and pleaded with Laurinaitis not to make him do that. Laurinaitis then promised to reconsider and started to walk away, but when he reached the top of the ramp, he said he’d already reconsidered and started to fire Big Show, but Big Show stopped him and reluctantly gave Laurinaitis what he wanted on got down on his knees to apologize. However, Laurinaitis fired him anyway. It was a pretty heart-wrenching segment, but I doubt it will last. We have not seen the last of the Big Show in the WWE.
In the next match, the WWE Tag Team Champions Kofi Kingston and R-Truth teamed up with Brodus Clay to take on The Miz and their challengers for the tag titles at Over the Limit, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger. The face team rolled over the bad guys at the beginning of the match, forcing the heels to regroup out on the floor during a commercial break. Return from the break and as usual in such situations, the heels have taken the advantage and isolated one of the faces, in this instance R-Truth. Pretty much a cookie cutter tag match, complete with some of Kofi’s usual high spots when he finally got the hot tag from Truth. Kofi then hit Miz with the S.O.S., but Ziggler and Swagger broke it up, leading to Truth and Clay dispatching of Ziggler and Swagger, allowing Kingston to knock Miz out with Trouble in Paradise after Clay tagged himself in and Clay then finished Miz with a big splash for the win.
Sheamus joined the announce team for the next match between Randy Orton and Chris Jericho with Orton and Jericho preparing to challenge Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship at Over the Limit in a Fatal 4-Way Match along with Alberto Del Rio. Michael Cole gave Sheamus crap the entire match, but Sheamus gave it right back, repeatedly calling Cole worthless, which is an opinion I tend to agree with. I’ve not seen a play-by-play announcer for WWE be that consistently wrong with the facts he spews during matches since Bobby Heenan, but when Heenan did it, it was on purpose. It was part of his schtick. When Cole does it, it’s just because he’s an idiot and has a terrible memory for what has actually taken place in WWE history. Jericho would go over and provoke Sheamus and when he got back into the ring, Orton hit him with his signature DDT off the ropes. However, when Orton went for the RKO, Sheamus very predictably pulled Jericho out to the floor, leading to a disqualification. Orton took exception and challenged Sheamus to a match on the spot and they got in the ring and got ready to fight, but were overrun by officials, who kept them separate. Meanwhile, Del Rio was nowhere to be seen after suffering the Codebreaker, the RKO and the Brogue Kick in succession on Smackdown last week. Del Rio is seemingly the low man on the totem pole in the lead-up to Over the Limit, but I’m picking Del Rio to win the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time at Over the Limit, adding to the two WWE Championship wins already on his resume from last year.
In the final segment, we were promised a face to face confrontation between John Cena and John Laurinaitis. Being that this is the final segment on the final Raw before Over the Limit, it would appear that Cena vs. Lauinaitis is going to be the Main Event of Over the Limit, which feels like a small tragedy. Laurinaitis would come out first and apologize to all of John Cena’s fans for the fact that they’re losers. Cena then came out and shook his arm a couple of times before pronouncing that he was a little dinged up, but good to go after Laurinaitis along with Lord Tensai and Sakamoto attacked his injured arm two weeks ago on Raw. Cena then made fun of Laurinaitis’ voice and called him a scumbag for firing big show. Cena then proclaimed Laurinaitis the Undisputed King of Douche Bags. Cena then went over Johnny’s track record, calling him a loser after going 1-for-4 in his agenda since taking over as GM and then comically made funny noises any time Johnny tried to speak. His antics were very childish, but funny. Cena’s promo made me actually care about this match now, which I previously didn’t at all, so very good work for Cena tonight in my opinion. However, the segment quickly went downhill though as Cena dragged on a bit too long. Eve Torres then came out, carrying a slip of paper from the Board of Directors, which Cena stole from Johnny and read. The notice essentially stated that the match would be one-on-one and Laurinaitis would not be allowed to add a Guest Referee or change the stipulation in any other kind of way. The notice also stated that no superstars would be allowed at ringside and any superstars who interfered in the match would be terminated. There will also be no disqualifications and no countouts and if John Laurinaitis does not beat John Cena, he will be fired. I only have one thing to say about how all of this has turned out. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
I’m very hopeful that this is the end of John Laurinaitis reign of constant verbal assault on my eardrums and brain. However, I’m prepared to be disappointed and expect Johnny to find a loophole somewhere, potentially through a run in from Brock Lesnar, who wouldn’t fear being fired because he already “quit” and still has a score to settle with Cena after his loss at Extreme Rules. Anything can happen in the WWE, but I will be eternally thankful if this is the end of John Laurinaitis’ on-screen career with the WWE.
Alberto Del Rio: Future Fan Favorite?
The fact that chants of “Si” for Alberto Del Rio are as prevalent in many cities as are chants of “Yes” for Daniel Bryan is hard to ignore. These guys are both heels, but Daniel Bryan is possibly just as popular with the internet wrestling community as any other wrestler can ever claim to have been and Del Rio apparently has his fair share of followers as well. There should be a great old-school wrestling crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina, this coming Sunday at Over the Limit and it will be interesting to test how over they are when matched up against universally popular stars like CM Punk and Chris Jericho in the World Title matches.
Del Rio is a great heel character and has remained a heel since his debut almost 2 years ago, so it is somewhat hard to imagine him becoming a face and it certainly wouldn’t happen in the near future with Sheamus and Orton established as the clear top faces on Smackdown, barring injury. However, in the latest issue of WWE magazine, he is listed as the WWE’s version of Tony Stark and he seems to be growing in popularity.
And let’s face it, the best asset a heel can have in the wrestling business is solid skills on the microphone, which Alberto is decidedly lacking. You can usually trust CM Punk to have his finger on the pulse of what the internet wrestling community thinks of what superstars have to say and do in the ring and all throughout their WWE Championship feud last year, Punk was constantly burying Alberto’s mic work.
At times, it does feel like Alberto’s accent is getting in the way of his delivery and he does have a higher than average number of verbal miscues, but that seems par for the course at times when we’re constantly flooded with Vickie Guerrero and John Laurinaitis flub job promos. In this current era, the WWE seems more than able to forgive frequent verbal miscues if a heel is able to draw heat, which Del Rio can, but if the “Si” chants become a more frequent installment, someone might just take notice and decide to try Del Rio out as a face.
And make no mistake about it, Del Rio has all of the tools to make it as a top face in today’s WWE. As a face, there would be less pressure on Del Rio to carry the mic work for a storyline. All a face has to worry about most of the time is getting over with his ring work and Del Rio possesses a significant advantage in classical wrestling skills over most of the WWE locker room. I don’t think a lot of people give him the credit he deserves for his ring work, but it seems like a decent portion of the crowd is starting to come around.
Just a few years ago, it would have seemed absurd that CM Punk, Sheamus and Randy Orton would be the top three faces outside of John Cena as they were all among the top heels at the start of 2010. Perhaps in another year or two, Daniel Bryan and Alberto Del Rio could find themselves in those spots. Anything can and quite often does happen in World Wrestling Entertainment.