Raw Response – 06/11/12 – The End of People Power?

After nearly being fired by Triple H the night after the Royal Rumble and then having his job dangled over the abyss during the Main Event of Over the Limit, John Laurinaitis faced a job performance review from Vince McMahon himself and I for one have dared to get my hopes up that the bumbling buffoon I call GM Johnny is finally removed from any on-air duties.

To begin the show, Johnny came out to make his case, but was immediately interrupted by Vince McMahon.  The opening segment was full of Fire Johnny chants and Johnny bumbles along through his delivery as always and then Sheamus comes out to sarcastically make a case for Johnny to keep his job.  Johnny then goes to the back to pick out Sheamus’ opponent and Vince informs Johnny that he’d better pick a very good opponent for Sheamus and the entire show had better be impressive or at the end of the night, he would be fired.  Vince then added insult to injury as on top of the stress he put Johnny under, the Chairman drove Johnny’s “People Power” scooter over the edge of the entrance ramp.

After the commercial break, Johnny comes out and announces that Sheamus’ opponent would be Lord Tensai and Tensai stormed out to the ring and knocked his manager Sakamoto flat.  Tensai wasn’t wearing his komono or helmet and he didn’t waddle slowly out to the ring like usual, so that might be a good sign that he’s going to last somehow because the scuttlebutt I’ve been hearing has indicated that Tensai (formerly Prince Albert and A-Train) would once again be repackaged just 2 months after the debut of his Tensai character.  Regardless of what Tensai’s future might hold, this was a match I suggested was one that needed to happen at some point this year (which you can read about in my Real American Top 10 posts).  The two men put on a very physical match, leaving marks all over each other, which shouldn’t really be that hard considering both of them look like they have spent most of the year avoiding sunlight.  I very much enjoyed this first match of the night and Sheamus ultimately won via the Brogue Kick.  After the match, Tensai beat down his own manager, which got zero reaction from the crowd.

After news broke this weekend that Alberto Del Rio would not be able to challenge Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship this Sunday at No Way Out as was advertised and on the air they explained it as a concussion that Del Rio suffered at the hands of The Great Khali on last week’s Smackdown.  Backstage, Vince asked Johnny what he planned to do to determine a new challenger for Sheamus’ World Heavyweight Championship at No Way Out.  Johnny then asked Teddy for an idea and Teddy suggested Christian vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Great Khali in a Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match and Johnny crappily tried to pass off the idea as his own.  Johnny then tried to fist bump Vince, but Vince would have none of it, responding simply “You’ve got small hands,” which of course implies that Johnny has a small penis.

In other backstage action, one-half of the Tag Team Champions R-Truth commented about being okay after Big Show physically dominated the champions and Brodus Clay two weeks ago on Raw and Big Show interrupted by knocking R-Truth out with the WMD.

For the second match of the night, United States Champion Santino Marella teamed with Diva’s Champion Layla against Beth Phoenix and Ricardo Rodriguez and I assumed that Santino was obviously going to beat Ricardo with the Cobra and some other sort of hijinks, but Santino ended up juking Ricardo into running head first into the ring post and while the men were outside, Beth beat Layla with the Glam Slam. After the match, Santino tore Ricardo’s dress shirt off, revealing a Justin Bieber T-Shirt that looked like it was a women’s medium crammed over Ricardo’s men’s XL torso.

Kofi Kingston then stormed in on GM Johnny’s office where David Otunga is taking the opportunity to suck up to Mr. McMahon.  GM Johnny then returns from checking on R-Truth, who “isn’t doing well” after being knocked out by Big Show’s WMD.  Kofi then demands a match with Big Show, which Johnny agrees to, but then Johnny gives another horrible delivery of his line (but at least he got the words right) as he makes it a Steel Cage match.  Johnny cannot sell drama worth a damn.  He’s a terrible public speaker and his verbal delivery is as dull and flat as they come and he does not deserve to have an on-screen job.  He never did.  You could go to the Special Olympics and find that 90% of the kids there have better public speaking chops than GM Johnny.  His existence as an on-air talent just goes to show you that WWE fails to recognize the difference between legitimate heat on a character and people booing them simply because they are not good at their job.  GM Johnny wouldn’t be a good enough actor to be cast in the movie Thankskilling (go look it up on Netflix, it’s possibly the worst acted movie of all time).

Daniel Bryan comes out at the top of the second hour and he cuts a promo about his former girlfriend AJ and her flirting with his opponents in the Triple Threat Match for the WWE Championship at No Way Out.  CM Punk then interrupts as he makes his way to the ring for the match and cuts a promo on Daniel Bryan and tells him that AJ is out of his league, just like Daniel Bryan is nowhere close to being in Punk’s league in the ring.  Punk went on to insult “goat faced moron” Daniel Bryan for another few minutes, prompting chants of “Goat Face” directed at Bryan.  Kane then finally interrupts and gives his take on things and reminds everybody of some of his past antics including lighting Jim Ross on fire, electrocuting Shane McMahon’s testicles and Piledriving a priest and Kane says that his “pipe bombs” unlike Punk’s actually do damage.  AJ then comes out and this love rectangle continues as she claims she saw that Kane has a heart when she looked into his eyes last week.  The bottom line is, AJ says she knows the best man will win at No Way Out, but leaves it hanging as to who she thinks the best man is.  GM Johnny then appears on the Tron to announce that CM Punk will have to team with AJ to take on Kane and Daniel Bryan, but that match won’t be until later.

Next up was the Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match to determine the challenger for Sheamus’ World Heavyweight Championship at No Way Out this Sunday.  My pick going in was Dolph Ziggler with Jack Swagger as a dark horse pick depending on how they wanted to work around the current growing rift storyline involving Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger and their manager Vickie Guerrero.  Going into the match, I in no way saw The Great Khali potentially winning, mostly because his time in the World Title picture was never popular and Khali’s lack of athleticism is always criticized.  All four of these men were former World Heavyweight Champions, including Ziggler even though his World Championship reign lasted for less than an entire episode of Smackdown a year and a half ago.  Khali would be the first one eliminated after a Frog Splash from Christian and all three men pinning him at the same time.  Christian then overcame the numbers disadvantage and hit Swagger with the Killswitch and Ziggler covered Swagger and eliminated him, much to Vickie’s dismay.  Ziggler would go on to survive pretty much everything in Christian’s arsenal save for the Killswitch and then Ziggler hit the ZigZag, but Christian surprisingly kicked out.  Christian then countered a second ZigZag and hit a Reverse DDT, but Ziggler again survived.  Ziggler then avoiding some top rope offense from Christian and finally hit another ZigZag, this time for the win and Ziggler advanced to face Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship this Sunday.

The Goldberg chants came next as Ryback (formerly Skip Sheffield) faced two more jobbers in yet another 2-on-1 Handicap Match, who called themselves the “Commanders in Chief”, named Willard Fillmore and Rutherford “P.S.” Hayes.  Apparently, these dinks didn’t know that President Fillmore’s name was Millard and not Willard.  Either way, Ryback destroyed them as per usual.

John Cena made his first appearance of the night, making a case for GM Johnny to be fired.  Vince responded by bringing up Cena’s loss to The Rock at Wrestlemania.  Cena then brought up Vince’s Wrestlemania losses against Shane McMahon (Wrestlemania XVII), Hulk Hogan (Wrestlamania XIX), Shawn Michaels (Wrestlemania 22) and Bret Hart (Wrestlemania XXVI) and even joked “and didn’t you lose to Snooki too, or was that somebody else.”  In the end, Vince simply warned John Cena not to go out to save Kofi Kingston in his Steel Cage Match against Big Show.

Big Show vs. Kofi Kingston in a Steel Cage Match was next and of course Big Show was going to dominate this match due to his ginormous monster heel push and the fact that his Steel Cage Match with John Cena is obviously being promoted as the Main Event at No Way Out this Sunday.  Kingston was surprisingly able to land Trouble in Paradise, but Big Show put himself way over by launching Kofi clear across the ring to kick out of the pinfall seconds later.  Big Show then knocked Kofi out and spent a couple of minutes walking around the ring and taunting the crowd before finally leaving the cage and winning the match.

Sin Cara continued his return from injury tour with another victory over the job squad, which this time was represented by Curt Hawkins.  Guys like Sin Cara, Ryback and Brodus Clay are long overdue for some actual plot lines instead of the meaningless put over matches they’ve been having.  Admittedly it has only been two weeks since Sin Cara came back and he has had actual programs in the past before his injury.  Brodus and Ryback do not have that same track record and people are soon going to get bored with them (if they aren’t already) if they don’t start doing something meaningful soon.

Vader returned on special invitation from GM Johnny in honor of Raw’s upcoming 1000th Episode.  This could definitely be a trend that continues leading up to July 23.  Vader looked incredibly out of shape for this match and had to use all fours to climb the ring steps and get into the ring.  The crowd chanted “you’ve still got it,” which doesn’t say much for them because he obviously didn’t still have “it”.  However, he did beat Heath Slater.  Slater, much like GM Johnny should just keep his mouth closed.  When he picks up a mic, it makes me want to stab out my eardrums until I can find the remote control and mute his red-headed squeaky-scratchy-voice having ass.

CM Punk & AJ against Kane and Daniel Bryan would be the Main Event of the night in what basically amounts to a Handicap Match against Punk with a useless partner, who if the match holds true to form will get tagged into that match at some random juncture in which the action will stop and something screwy, silly, stupid or weird will happen leading to the finish.  And indeed, something silly happened when AJ got in the ring and skipped around Kane.  She then jumped onto Kane, wrapped her legs around him and commenced to make out with the Big Red Machine until Punk could regroup.  Kane then tagged out to Daniel Bryan and left and AJ tagged Punk back in and Punk beat Bryan with the Macho Man Elbow Drop while Kane looked on in confusion.

Then it was finally time for the real Main Event of the night – the potential firing of John Laurinaitis to end this three hour edition of Monday Night Raw.  Vince comes out and has security around the ring and when Johnny arrives, Vince informs him that the security is there to escort a certain somebody out of the ring, out of the building and out of the business.  Johnny then stumbles through some kind of dialogue where he asks to be left in charge of the Era of People Power.  Vince then prepares to fire Johnny, but is interrupted by the arrival of Big Show.  Big Show then hypes his “Ironclad contract” and shoots on Vince for all of the embarrassing stuff he had to do over the years like going down against Shaquille O’Neal, Floyd Mayweather and Ben Roethlisberger to get the WWE on SportsCenter.  Cena then came out to the ring to join in on the festivities.  Vince then promises to fire GM Johnny if Big Show loses at No Way Out and Big Show and Cena try to get at each other and security gets involved and Big Show throws them out of the ring.  Cena then jumps on Big Show and Vince tries to break it up and catches a WMD from Big Show by mistake.  Johnny then coaxes Big Show to the back and Cena stands in the ring shocked with Vince laid out to end the show.

Real American Top Ten: Wrestler Performances in Television and Movies Every Wrestling Fan Should See

First of all, I’m not recommending any of these TV appearances or Movies because they are cinematic masterpieces.  I am not attempting to say these are award worthy performances.  I’m just saying that as a wrestling fan, I really enjoyed these performances and I think if you’re a wrestling fan, you will as well.  And while it pains me to leave Ready to Rumble off the list, I don’t think any of the WCW guys had all that great of a performance, even though the movie itself is a must own for any fan of professional wrestling.  If Oliver Platt were an actual wrestler, his performance as Jimmy King would certainly be at the top of any list of must see performances for a wrestling fan.

#10 – Family Guy (The Rock) – Just a flat out hilarious bit part in the January 2010 episode “Big Man on Hippocampus.”  In the episode, during a steamy Peter and Lois sex scene, they claim the scene is too steamy for the FCC to allow them to show and instead cut to a simulation of the scene performed by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  Rock is seen holding a Peter Griffin action figure with a Lois action figure laying on the table and he deadpans perfectly as he slams the Peter doll up and down on top of Lois, looking very much like a little kid playing with his dolls and sliding her very quickly toward the edge of the table and she falls off, leaving Rock holding the Peter figure and looking confused.  Rock then rolls his eyes and looks embarrassed before we cut back to the conclusion of the sex scene.

#9 – Psych (Mickie James) –   From the September 2008 episode “Talk Derby to Me” in which Juliet goes undercover on a women’s roller derby team, of which the captain is Mickie’s character Rita “Lethal Weapon” Westwood.  The police suspect the team of being responsible for a series of burglaries and turns out they are right and when bodies start dropping, things take a turn and put Juliet’s life at risk, but when Shawn comes to the rescue, Juliet ends up saving him with a vicious Clothesline.  It was a very solid episode and it was nice to see Mickie play a bad girl for the first time since her Trish Stratus stalker gimmick.

#8 – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Roddy Piper) – Piper plays the Da’ Maniac in the 2009 episode “The Gang Wrestles for the Troops”, in which the guys at the bar recruit Piper to participate in a wrestling match to benefit troops returning home as a response to Dee chatting online with a soldier and then hanging out with him upon his return home.  Unfortunately, Piper’s character turns out to be a bit too crazy for them and gets himself arrested, so he doesn’t make an appearance for the match itself.  Piper is still great as always and the match the guys put on is incredibly stupid, but absolutely hilarious.  Even without Piper’s appearance, it would have been a great episode for wrestling fans and with him, it’s a definite must see.

#7 – Spider-Man (Randy Savage) –  Who can ever forget Bonesaw vs. The Amazing Spider-Man?  I sure can’t as Macho Man chases a freaked out Peter Parker around a steel cage in one of Spider-Man’s first ever fights as he looks to use his newfound powers to win a $3,000 prize for the wrestling match to help pay for a sports car.  The fight and Spider-Man’s victory plays a pivotal role in his origin story for the 2002-2007 Spider-Man film trilogy as Spider-Man is stiffed by the promoter and given only $100 despite defeating Bonesaw, leading Spidey to allow a thief to escape with the promoters money and the thief ends up shooting Peter’s father figure, his uncle Ben, leading Peter to take on a greater responsibility as Spider-Man.

#6 – Psych (Stacy Keibler) – From the episode “Thrill Seekers and Hell-Raisers” in February 2010.  Stacy joins Shawn and Gus on a river-rafting trip and it quickly becomes evident that her character is not shy about putting the moves on Shawn and is more than happy to initiate things.  Things quickly become complicated as one of the river-rafting party goes missing an Stacy becomes one of Shawn’s suspects as well as Gus’ new girlfriend Ruby (played by the very attractive Sarah Shahi).  Turns out neither of them is guilty, but here’s to hoping Stacy makes a return to the show at some point.  Also, be sure to check out her appearances on How I Met Your Mother and Chuck.

#5 – The Punisher (Kevin Nash) –  Epic fight scene as Nash shows up dressed in a ridiculous red and white striped t-shirt, looking like an overgrown beach boy with classical music blaring in the background as Nash punches a hole through the door to the Punisher’s apartment and commences delivering punishment of his own.  The Punisher throws everything he can at Nash and Nash classically no-sells pretty much all of it (kind of like in WCW) and levels Punisher with an entire toilet that he uprooted from the floor.  At one point, The Punisher even hurls a grenade at Nash, which Nash nonchalantly bats back at him, forcing Punisher to dive for cover and the explosion puts an end to the classical music, but only temporarily as Nash and Punisher continue to bash each other through walls and with anything they can pick up while the other characters comically fail to notice any of this is going on until Nash and Punisher finally come crashing through their front door.  The fight finally culminates with Nash taking a pot of boiling pasta sauce to the face and being tackled down a flight of stairs to his demise.  Definitely a must see.

#4 – Boy Meets World (Vader) – One of my favorite shows growing up and I still watch the reruns occasionally in the rare instance I can find them on.  Vader appeared in three episodes as pretty much himself as it is revealed Vader is the father of Cory and Shawn’s bully turned friend, Frankie Stechino (played by Ethan Suplee).  In multiple instances, Frankie, Cory and Shawn show up to Vader’s matches to help Vader out and give him advice such as to waste less time before delivering the Vader Bomb.  I don’t recommend this for Vader’s acting chops, but because its a great show with great characters that saw fit to include professional wrestling as a story arc on the show.

#3 – The Longest Yard (Kevin Nash) – Kevin Nash cracks the top five, not once, but twice.  This is an all around good remake of a classic that actually showcases the acting talents of several wrestlers including Stone Cold Steve Austin, Goldberg and The Great Khali, but Nash definitely steals the show with his estrogen-pill popping performance.  He had me damn near rolling in the aisles and busting my gut, I was laughing so hard, especially the scene on the sidelines where Stone Cold tells him to “Stop acting like a damn cheerleader” and Nash responds with “Sportsmanship triumphs” and then makes a sour face at Stone Cold.  He also experiences several other uncharacteristic non-manly moments as a result of the other team replacing his steroids with estrogen, all of which are hilarious.  Nash rarely got a chance to show off his comedic chops and have it be legitimately funny, so enjoy it where you can.

#2 – They Live (Roddy Piper) – One of the all time greatest lines in cinema – “I am here to kick ass and chew bubble gum… And I am all out of bubble gum.” comes from this movie.  Roddy Piper can be seen kicking ass from back in his heyday.  I know Piper hasn’t lost any of his charisma, but he doesn’t really look like much of an ass-kicker these days and watching They Live is a great way to remember him from his prime. For an 80s sci-fi flick starring a wrestler in the lead, you really can’t ask for more than what They Live delivers in my opinion.

#1 – Walking Tall (The Rock) – One of my all-time favorite action flicks and easily my favorite of Rock’s movies.  If you only watch one of Rock’s movies, I highly recommend this one.  For other solid movies before he became way less entertaining in my view, check out The Rundown and The Scorpion King.  Gridiron Gang is a good, touching movie, but it isn’t the type of movie that I think anyone could watch again and again.  Walking Tall, on the other hand, I have seen at least a dozen times and I even coupled it with the work of Marshall McLuhan (a communication theorist) to get an A on a Mass Communication project my freshman year of college.  It’s a great story about taking back a community from corruption and teaching the members of that community to “Walk Tall” once again.  Plus, you have The Rock beating the bejesus out of dozens of bad guys all by himself.  Throw in Johnny Knoxville to add to the comedy and it makes a pretty great flick.  Not the stuff that classics are made of, but it is very entertaining and you can see what The Rock was like before he starting churning out Disney flicks.