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.

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.

Real American Top Ten: Matches that need to happen in 2012

10) Chris Jericho vs. Dolph Ziggler – These are two of the greatest performers on the roster, but I don’t know that they’ve ever had the opportunity to work against each other.  Ziggler has made leaps and bounds as a performer since Jericho took some time away from the ring for Dancing with the Stars and a new book.  But since Jericho made his return at the beginning of the year, Ziggler has been reduced to facing Brodus Clay on a regular basis instead of continuing to pursue the WWE Championship.  While both of these guys are currently heels, this potentially match-up is too good to let go unrealized.  Jericho could easily be embraced as a fan favorite, but I think Ziggler could benefit from spending some time as a face and as talented as he is, he could easily make it work.  Both of these guys are great heels, so I kind of hate to push for one of them to make an abrupt face turn, but the potential payoff of this great match-up should be worth it.

9) CM Punk vs. Wade Barrett – After Punk unceremoniously seized control of the Nexus and kicked Barrett to the curb, we never really got to see these two get after each other for a substantial period of time.  Barrett immediately left Raw for Smackdown and created the Corre and for a short while the Nexus and the Corre were ready to go at each other’s throats, but that – as well as both groups – failed to hold up long term.  And just because the dust has settled on the graves of both factions, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of the bad blood between these two superstars has been thoroughly worked out of their systems.  When Barrett gets back from his injury, Punk could be one of his first targets.

8) Rey Mysterio vs. Sin Cara – Two of the greatest lucha libre stars to make their way to the States could put on one heck of a show if given the opportunity to face off against each other, although it might be more likely that they could be paired together as a tag team at some point before Rey rides off into the sunset.  Both men are currently recovering from injuries and Mysterio has a suspension to deal with as well, but when both men come back, this is one encounter that we’re going to need to see happen before the end of Rey’s career.

7) CM Punk vs. Christian – These are two of the wrestlers who are among the most respected by long-time fans that are still on the roster.  They are also two of the biggest standouts in the realm of the ladder match and with TLC coming up in July, perhaps we could see these two meet in a Ladder Match for the WWE Championship if that place isn’t still held by Daniel Bryan.  Any kind of match between these two would certainly put on a great show.

6) Beth Phoenix vs. Kharma – The two most dominant divas on the WWE roster and easily the two most dominant women’s wrestlers in the last five years in WWE and TNA respectively.  While Kharma has had a lot of tragedy to deal with, she did manage to return for one night only for the Royal Rumble and it remains unclear what her status with the company is going to be for the rest of the year.  And with Beth sidelined by an ankle injury, real or kayfabe, it isn’t certain that the Glamazon would be around for Kharma to face off with even if she were to return in the near future.  It’s unclear how soon we will see either woman back in the squared circle, but this clash of female wrestling’s titans needs to not go unfulfilled.

5) Sheamus vs. Kane – The Celtic Warrior matching his might against the Big Red Machine could be in store for the very near future with Kane almost certain to wrap up his rivalry with Randy Orton after Over the Limit.  Regardless of whether Alberto Del Rio manages to wrestle the World Heavyweight Championship away from Sheamus, the Great White could be the next victim to come into Kane’s crosshairs as he’s transitioned from John Cena to Randy Orton already this year and a World Title push shouldn’t be counted out for the devil’s favorite demon this summer.

4) Daniel Bryan vs. Chris Jericho – Not all that likely a match to happen with both guys embracing their inner bad guy at the moment, but either one is always ripe for a face turn because they are so beloved by the fans regardless of what they do to the younger fans heroes and how underhanded it may be.  And while this match has occurred in the past, Bryan was never on any kind of equal footing with Jericho.  However, Bryan is now on top of his game, transitioning right from a lengthy World Heavyweight Title reign to being next in line to challenge CM Punk for the WWE Championship at Over the Limit.  If Bryan ends up on Raw full time as a result, it could be only a matter of time before these two square off again, no matter who’s wearing the white hats or the black hats.

3) Sheamus vs. Lord Tensai – This match may not be all that probable with Sheamus carrying Smackdown! as the World Heavyweight Champion and Tensai running roughshod over the Raw locker room.  However, the red and blue brands have bled together into purple since last summer and it seems that belonging to Raw and Smackdown is going to mean less and less for the foreseeable future.  This could be a great clash of East vs. West and yes, Tensai is not really Japanese, but he legitimately did become a big star over there and has embraced various aspects of their wrestling culture.  This powerhouse clash could have a lot of potential if it happens.

2) CM Punk vs. The Rock – The People’s Champion came back on the scene in a big way in 2011 despite only making a dozen or so appearances, several of which were via satellite and only wrestling the one match at Survivor Series before his epic Once in a Lifetime encounter with John Cena at Wrestlemania XXVIII.  But now Rock has promised to try to once again become the WWE Champion.  And while some might expect John Cena to be holding the gold when Rock comes asking for a title shot, it would be great to see two of the greatest talkers in the history of the company trade verbal barbs leading into a title match.  Rock still possesses some of the athleticism that helped make him stand-out in the 1990s and if anybody is going to get the most out of what Rock can still bring, Punk may just be the guy to go to.

1) Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar – A dream match that never quite happened back in 2002-2003 because of the brand extension with Triple H carrying the World Heavyweight Championship on Raw while Lesnar carried the WWE Championship over on the blue brand.  If WWE hadn’t been so overly successful that it was able to carry two separate brands and two separate World Championships for the past decade, we could have seen this match with both men back in their prime, but we missed out on that privilege.  However, you can never say never in this business and now that Lesnar is back and has taken out his rage on the veteran superstar and rookie figurehead, it seems this match is just a matter of time and chief speculation among any fans I’ve talked to is that we’ll be seeing this match at SummerSlam in a little over three months.  However, if Triple H chose not to return to the ring after his End of an Era Hell in a Cell Match with the Undertaker, nobody could blame him.  There simply isn’t much of a better way to go out that with a send-off like that.

How Far Can The Miz Fall?

It wasn’t all that long ago that The Miz was in the prime spots on Monday Night Raw every week proclaiming himself the most must see champion in the history of the WWE and turning the logo on his microphone upside down.  Now, I was never really a fan of The Miz’s work or thought he carried any credibility as a champion, but even people who lived under a rock knew that he had made leaps and bounds in 2010 and was on the rise.  Everything I read on the Miz proclaimed him to be such a dedicated worker and praised him for making appearances all over the place promoting the company.

But just as quickly as his star rose in 2010, it has fallen twice as quickly in 2012.

At Wrestlemania XXVII, he carried the WWE Championship into his match with John Cena and he still walked out the champion, grouping him with Randy Orton as the only two men to beat John Cena in a title match at Wrestlemania.  That’s something that none of the following men could accomplish – Big Show, JBL, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Edge or Batista.  But then Wrestlemania XXVIII rolls around and Miz nearly misses out on the show altogether and earns a spot on Team Johnny less than a week before the show.

Sure, Miz helped Team Johnny win their match at Wrestlemania XXVIII, but what else has he done this year?  He’s gotten blamed for the Survivor Series buy rates being low back in November.  He’s gotten himself in the doghouse after a botched spot where he dropped R-Truth on his head outside the ring shortly before the Elimination Chamber.  And he’s lost a LOT of matches.

And tonight, on the first Pay Per View after his victory at Wrestlemania, he isn’t even on the card.  He’s in the free preview match on YouTube where he is wrestling Santino Marella for the United States Championship.

If the first three Pay Per Views of the year hadn’t included pretty much everybody on the roster, I don’t know that Miz would have been included on those shows.  He’s gone from being allowed to call himself the most must see champion in the history of the WWE without being called out on it by his opponents expect in the rarest of circumstances to being somebody that nobody really feels bad about not even seeing on Raw every week any more. The Three Stooges have seen significantly more air time on Raw this month than The Miz has.

Despite the fact that he is responsible for John Laurinaitis being the General Manager of both Raw and Smackdown, he isn’t in Johnny’s good graces enough to even be written into the show every week.  And we see that he has fallen completely out of the WWE Championship title hunt and been dropped back into United States title challenger mediocrity.  And truth be told, that’s where I feel he probably belongs.  Back when Miz won Money in the Bank, I was lobbying for him to be the first superstar to cash in his briefcase and fail to win the title.  Miz would have been far more entertaining if he had been made to be the Chicago Cubs of the WWE and constantly have a chip on his shoulder.  But that chip was removed when he won the title and held it for several months.  Taking that chip off his shoulder has essentially neutered The Miz and maybe that’s one of the reasons that he has fallen so far in the past year.

And as far as he’s fallen, he needs to find some form of redemption soon or we could be wishing him the best of luck in his future endeavors before 2012 is through.

Chris Jericho: Does Lite Brite Cause Impotence?

Okay, so at the beginning of the year, Chris Jericho made his triumphant return to the WWE.  Everybody was super excited.  We got his usual cryptic vignettes announcing a big return and because he’s done it twice in the past, everybody knew with absolute certainty that it would be Jericho.  Which, that’s still great – everybody was super excited.

Then the trouble started.

Jericho spent weeks without saying anything, parading around the ring like a dufus in what CM Punk so rightly dubbed a “stupid lite brite jacket”, and just wasting air time in general.  Then, everybody gets what they think is a big payoff when on the final Monday Night Raw before the Royal Rumble, he breaks his silence with one simple sentence.

“This Sunday at the Royal Rumble will be the end of the world as you know it.”

Great, so Jericho is going to shock everybody at the Royal Rumble and do something outstanding, right?  Guess again.  Jericho puts up a valiant effort, but in the end is Brogue Kicked out of the Rumble by Sheamus.  And it was a great final two for the Royal Rumble, the best since Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker tore the house down at the 2007 Royal Rumble.  However, Y2J had still not won anything since his return and apart from the Rumble, he had only wrestled a couple of times in tag matches that he walked out on without executing so much as a wrist lock.  That’s the first month of his career since his latest big return with absolutely nothing accomplished.

Move forward on the road to Wrestlemania XXVIII and Jericho finally picks up a victory over Kofi Kingston on Monday Night Raw.  Could he possibly be getting back on track?  Could he possibly be starting to once again back up his claims that he is the best in the world at what he does?  Think again because we move forward to the Elimination Chamber and while Jericho doesn’t get beat, he gets knocked out of the chamber by a kick to the back of the head and can’t return to the match.  He is once again denied any real credibility since his return to the WWE in January.

From there, Jericho would go on to win a ten man Battle Royal and earn the right to challenge CM Punk for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania XXVIII.  Great for Jericho, now he’s on the right track, right?  He’s got the ball rolling in the right direction, right?  Wrong.  Aside from yet another stray victory over Kofi Kingston on the last Smackdown before Wrestlemania, Jericho still didn’t win anything on his own.  Jericho did add a lot of heat to his rivalry against Punk with his claims that Punk’s father was a drunk, his sister was a substance abuser and Punk himself was born out of wedlock and thus the legal definition of a bastard.  He certainly showed that he hadn’t lost his ability to get under his opponent’s skin and deliver heated and shocking moments on the microphone.  However, all of that did nothing to reestablish the credibility of his tremendous wrestling prowess.

Then we get to Wrestlemania XXVIII and the stipulation is added that Jericho can win the title if Punk succumbs to his rage and gets disqualified.  Jericho can’t lose, right?  If that’s what you’re thinking, you haven’t been paying very close attention to the theme thus far.  Jericho then goes out and puts on a technical wrestling classic against Punk.  It was full full of great counter wrestling, reversals of fortune and false finishes.  Despite connecting with a Codebreaker and locking in the Walls of Jericho on multiple occasions, CM Punk managed to survive and keep the WWE Championship after forcing Jericho to submit to the Anaconda Vice.

It was no doubt a five-star classic, but yet again  Jericho found himself on the losing end.  The night after Wrestlemania XXVIII on Monday Night Raw, Jericho finally gets the better of Punk, but only after CM Punk was thrashed during his countout loss to Mark Henry.  Jericho took advantage of a weakened Punk and poured alcohol all over him and broke a liquor bottle over his head.  But he still didn’t pin Punk’s shoulders to the mat or those of anybody else that’s currently a top-tier talent in the WWE locker room.  So, what are we left with to draw our conclusions?  Jericho definitely still has the stuff to put on a great show.  He still has the ability to compete on the highest level with anybody in the locker room.  He’s good enough to still be in the Main Event, but the conclusion we’re evidently supposed to draw from Jericho’s performance over the past three months is that he’s apparently just not good enough to win.