CM Punk sets a challenge to Mick Foley for Survivor Series, (WWE’s) AJ affair scandal develops and Michael Cole’s back on form…of being shit.

Hello and thanks for showing up to reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw.

And your host for this event, hailing from a dark corner in the North East of England, currently training for the next series of The Crystal Maze, a man more blunt than a sledgehammer to the bollocks, it’s Danny Damage.

The Raw Rant, October 29th 2012

Raw opens up with the ending of the Hell in a Cell match.  I told you all they’d sneak something in there to save Ryback’s face and Punk’s title.

Michael Cole and Jim Ross at the table.  The Spanish table is set up next to them also, I wonder if this is a permanent thing or if they’re just telling us we’re getting a table spot or two tonight.

CM Punk limps out to the ring and tells everyone in attendance that they were wrong last night.  He points out many other instances where he’s proven everyone wrong.  Punk swears he had nothing to do with the referee’s crotch-shot and shrugs his shoulders at Brad Maddox’s motives.  He states that there’ll be no rematch for Ryback and this prompts Mick Foley to join them in the ring.  Foley mentions tradition Punk mentions that Survivor Series is on its way so he suggest they have a traditional Survivor Series match, Team Foley vs. Team Punk.  Foley agrees and as Punk is about to mock any decision Foley makes regarding his team, Ryback appears to stand beside Foley.  Punk flees into the crowd to avoid a pissed off Ryback, he also managed to avoid striking any fans during his escape.

Ryback squashes JTG with his usual strikes, throws and Shell-Shocked.  He manages to get a couple of sentences worth of a promo cut after the match.  Saying he’s not hurt, he’s just hungry.  Short but sweet, good stuff.

Randy Orton pins Wade Barrett after Barrett went for the Souvenir, Orton ducks it and hit the RKO.  Looks like that’s it for Barrett’s big return push.

Vickie Guerrero and AJ Lee talk backstage, Vickie tells AJ that the board have given her the option of giving AJ a contract as a performer.  She tells AJ she’ll be back later and wants to hear one reason that she should give her a job.

Dragon Fire defeat The Prime Time Players.  Kane hits Young with the Choke-slam while Bryan sneaked a tag in and made Young tap with the No Lock.  Same old Schick from the champs.

Video of Brad Maddox not seeing CM Punk’s foot on the rope last month, followed by the low blow from him at Hell in a Cell.

Vickie Guerrero waddles down the ramp and barks on about AJ being a ho’ and such.  She calls out Cena to explain his actions.  She shows a couple of videos of AJ and Cena with a new clip of Cena luring AJ into an elevator somewhere.  Cena shits a brick, the crowd jeer “You are busted” and Cena says it wasn’t in a romantic context.  Vickie trips Cena up and Dolph  Ziggler runs in to have a dig.  Cena grabs hold of Ziggler and tells him to never say his and AJ’s name in the same sentence again.  He shoves Ziggler on his arse and leaves, Vickie looks smug as she’s got what she wanted from the encounter.

Antonio Cesaro gives the crowd shit for being fat, stupid, irresponsible Americans that are additionally fat, stupid and irresponsible for loving Halloween, good stuff.  The Miz joins Cole and JR at the table, bad stuff.

Antonio Cesaro is DQ’d against Kofi Kingston when The Miz jumps Kofi.  R-Truth saves Kofi from the double team beat down.

AJ tells Vickie that she won’t admit to having a thing for Cena in return for a job.  AJ leaves but Vickie calls her back and offers her a job anyway, first match being tonight against Beth Phoenix.  AJ grins, says thanks and skips away.

Behind the music with 3MB.  Mahal informs us that he’s the funny one of the group and Slater ends the interview when they’re asked to perform their music.

3MB (Slater & Mahal) steal one from Team Cobro, McIntyre distracts Santino, Slater spins him around and finishes him off.  3MB have their own outfits and music now, looking more like a unit and not the dynamic trio they were before.

Jerry Lawler returns in two weeks time.

AJ Lee upsets Beth Phoenix with an inside-cradle pin.  Vickie Guerrero distracts AJ after the match, causing Beth to jump her and Vickie restarts the match.  A Glam Slam is enough to put AJ down for the count.

Sheamus puts on a happy face and says he’s happy with how he stood against The Big Show.  He says he enjoyed the fight and that he’s looking forward to fighting the big fella again.  Big Show heads out with his new title and a grin of his own.  Show tells Sheamus to drop the smile and accept it’s over, he gave his all and came up short.  Sheamus hits The Big Show with White Noise and marches off.  The main thing that’ll be keeping me on the edge of my seat for this feud is the……….Ziggler.

Cena and AJ part ways with smiles backstage while Vickie Guerrero lurks in the background.  Beth Phoenix approaches her and thanks her for restarting her match earlier,  Vickie points out that she wouldn’t have needed to do that if Beth had done her job in the first place and fires her on the spot.

Rhodes Scholars are victorious over Sin Cara & Rey Mysterio.  Sin Cara missed the Senton but Rhodes pulled Sandow out of the way, The Terminus is enough to finish Sin Cara.

Mick Foley is backstage enjoying the new WWE ’13 game when he’s interrupted by Paul Heyman.  Foley says his team is all lined up and plenty of people jumped at the chance.  Heyman lets Foley know that Punk has now put a target on him and he’s going to victimise him and remind him that he’s the best in the world.

Vince McMahon introduces John Cena to talk about the Susan G Colman for the Cure campaign.  Cena unveils a cheque for a million dollars and points at breast cancer survivors in the crowd.  Organisers of the charity thank Cena and everyone and that appears to be that for the October campaign.  I didn’t catch if that’s a separate amount from merchandise sales or if it’s on top of that, but a great contribution either way.

Alberto del Rio taps out Justin Gabriel with the Cross Arm-breaker.  Gabriel gets a couple of flashy moves off, but ADR’s energy-sucker manages to drain any potential for the match to be entertaining at all.  Sadly, the maths didn’t add up at Hell in a Cell and the double-negatives of ADR and Orton didn’t make a positive.  A truly awful, sloppy match.

Paul Heyman introduces CM Punk to the ring.  Punk’s WWE ’13 cover drops down from the scaffold like it did a few months ago.  Heyman thanks Punk for the privilege to pick a team for Survivor Series.  Heyman brings out The Miz, Cody Rhodes, Damien Sandow and Alberto del Rio.  Punk says he looks forward to putting Foley in his place and teaching him about survival.

Mick Foley comes out and shows off his team; Kofi Kingston, Kane, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton and Ryback.  Everyone but Punk and Ryback start to brawl and Team Foley get the upper hand.  Punk backs up the ramp away from Ryback, who hits Cody with a Shell-shocked as a message to the champion.

Afterthoughts

Well, one night after the PPV and we’ve already got the main event for Survivor Series setup.  There’s plenty of wiggle room with it being so far away though, just in case something happens or they change their mind on a couple of the boring guys that are in there.  It amuses me how “coincidental” the team choices were, matching up to the current feuds we’ve got.  Borton and ADR can fuck off and I’d actually prefer to see Foley and Ricardo on the teams.  Christ, Ziggler and Cena would pain me less than Randy and Berty again.

Let it be known, Michael Cole  is back on my shit-list.  He’s sticking with the complacent face attempt in Lawler’s absence and in JR’s company, much to my disapproval.  The commentary on Smackdown at the minute is the best it’s been for a long time.  Cole not being there to spew statistics and not call the matches gives Josh Matthews the chance to read a fraction of those numbers while still calling the action and engaging JBL with a bit of “he’s bad/he’s good” back and forth with JBL coming out on top each time.  Cole’s better at his job when there’s someone on his case.  Jerry Lawler didn’t really give him a great deal of grief unless he was asking for it, Jim Ross is even more reserved with expressing his opinion on Cole, but JBL is the man when it comes to pushing that jowly little shit’s buttons.  Cole can be very quick witted at times and comes back with the odd cheeky remark that you can hear JBL sneering at.  JR sits back at PPVs and lets these two heckle each other until it’s his time to step in and bring them both back to point, it’s good stuff.  I understand that they can’t have the trio full time and that Lawler is on his way back, but I’m hoping they take note of the alternatives they have for making a better effort with the chemistry between and the roles of the guys at the table.  I’m still pushing to get William Regal on the main shows.

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We don’t need another affair storyline in wrestling at the moment, thanks.  I know they will inevitably rear their ugly heads at some point and linger like the smell of month old tripe, but with the disastrous effort that TNA made VERY FUCKING RECENTLY, I feel we don’t really need this.  I make somewhat of an attempt to defend wrestling to many a nay-sayer.  Having to try and claim that the “soap storylines aren’t that bad” and that “there’s plenty of action to enjoy around that shit” make me look a bit stupid when story arcs from Eastenders keep jumping up and down in the ring.

Good news for you parents at least, now that Vince is done flogging the Susan G Colman T-Shirts there’ll be a new John Cena T-Shirt on sale soon for you to buy all of your kids.

Digest and discuss! You can follow me on Twitter for additional nuggets of wisdom or find my Mid-card Manifesto over on PRO-WRESTLING POWERHOUSE – Thanks for reading, take care and I’ll see you next week.

Danny Damage
@BluntDamage (twitter)