Vince McMahon is here to address the state of his company, CM Punk sorts out the live crowd and John Cena “returns”, someone please secure my knickers as they’ve just been blown off in amazement.
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 8th 2012
Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield and Jim Ross are all present at the announcer’s table, it’s a good start.
John Cena struts down the aisle and into the ring. He gives the production crew a break by giving us a run down on what’s been happening as of late. Basically, he brown-noses the crowd and re-challenges CM Punk at Hell in a Cell. He says goodbye for the night and I momentarily woke up when Ryback’s music hits. Sadly, it appears to be a case of bad timing and Ryback’s facing someone else next.
Ryback flattens Primo & Epico with the two man Shell-Shocked. Ryback is taken down early on due to the double-team work but overpowers the tag-team a few minutes into the match.
Brodus Clay vs. R-Truth doesn’t start. R-Truth asks Brodus and the girls if they’d mind dancing instead of fighting, a request from Little Jimmy. They dance and Vinny Mac pops his head on the Titantron and asks them to dance their way up the ramp as he’s on his way to give his big address.
Vince McMahon is here and he lists all the wild and wacky things that go on in the WWE and says there’s plenty of room for that as well as room for action, action and more action. CM Punk and Paul E. Heyman step out and join him in the ring. Punk asks if Vince respects him, seeing as nobody else around here does. Vince respects Punk’s title reign but not his position as a Paul Heyman guy. Vince says Punk isn’t “the man” around here, that not one man is the entire show. He also names a few guys that he thinks are better than CM Punk. Punk puts Austin’s success down to beating up a clueless millionaire that has now become a senior citizen. Punk mentions all the slaps in the face he’s received from Vince over the years and proceeds to literally slap Vince in the face. Punk walks away laughing but Vince tells him he’s going to fire him…..unless he faces him in the ring in the main event.
–Tag-team #1 Contender Semi Final
Sin Cara & Rey Mysterio advance over The Prime Time Players with Rey finishing Young with the Splash off the top.
CM Punk and Paul Heyman discuss Vince’s challenge. Heyman expresses his concerns with the ramifications of beating the shit out of Vince McMahon.
Sheamus gets a DQ win over Wade Barrett when Tensai interferes. They team up on him for a bit but Sheamus fights them off. The Big Show runs in and blocks the Brogue Kick and dumps Sheamus to the outside and leaves. Hard hitting match from these two, good effort.
CM Punk talks with AJ Lee in her office. Punk points out that he won’t be the one blamed when Vince ends up crippled, AJ will be.
Video of John Cena saving the world from Breast Cancer, one talk show at a time.
Antonio Cesaro KO’s Tyson Kidd with the launched uppercut, he pins him after hitting him with the Neutraliser as a formality.
Dragon Fire defeat Dolph Ziggler & Alberto del Rio. In their usual fashion, Kane and Daniel Bryan tag themselves in whenever they feel like it until Bryan is in and ends up letting ADR and Ziggler get the better of him, Kane gets the hot tag and hits Ziggler with the Choke-slam. Obviously, they bicker at the end, both claiming that “I am the tag-team champions!”.
JR warns Vince McMahon about facing CM Punk later. Vince is more concerned about hearing JR calling his match and gets JR to give him an example.
Larry King interviews The Miz. King reads EVERYTHING from his cue cards before deeming The Miz boring and bringing out Kofi Kingston to question instead. Miz kicks off about being ignored by them all on his birthday and goads King’s wife to throw her drink over him. Kofi and Miz get into a scuffle as King and his wife shuffle away.
–Tag-team #1 Contender Semi Final
Rhodes Scholars score victory over Team Cobro. Santino is distracted by Sandow while preparing the Cobra, Cody hits the Disaster Kick for the win. Post-match, Santino is jumped by Heath Slater, Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre.
Paul E. Heyman approaches Vince McMahon backstage. Heyman tries to talk Vince out of the match and fails. He puts it simply to Vince, he says he doesn’t want Punk to do to him, what BROCK LESNAR did to Triple H.
–Diva’s Title
Eve Torres makes Kaitlyn tap out, working her injured ankle throughout. Layla The Cockney Sleeeg made it a four-way at the announcer’s table and I’m putting this demand out again; STOP PUTTING A MICROPHONE ON LAYLA, SHE’S FUCKING AWFUL! She was late to make the save after the match too, JR even pointed that out, tactfully.
Josh Matthews tells ADR about the comment Randy Orton made about being at Smackdown and looking for revenge. This is the first that ADR has heard of this and leaves in a huff.
Daniel Bryan asks Larry King what he did when David Letterman said he looked like an owl. King tells him to accept being called Goat-face. Kane shows up and him and Bryan argue again. This scares the Kings off and Bryan informs Kane that that wasn’t Skeletor.
Paul Heyman and CM Punk discuss the situation with Vinny Mac. They agree that Vince needs to be left incapable of making any future decisions if they are to enjoy their futures in the WWE.
CM Punk vs. Vince McMahon ends with no decision, Punk is about to hit the GTS but is scared out of the ring when Ryback storms in. Cena tosses Punk into the hands of Ryback, but he escapes the Shell-Shocked and cheeses it into the crowd. Vince grabs the microphone and tells Punk that at Hell in a Cell, he must face either Cena or Ryback. If Punk doesn’t make the decision by next week, Vince will make it for him.
Afterthoughts.
Like I pointed out last week with the role reversal between CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, watching Punk as heel mouthing off at Vince McMahon playing the face was rather interesting. Punk giving shit to the fans that cheer for him is always a nice touch and over-selling everything Vince hits him with made for good viewing when he legged it into the crowd, before hitting one of them. No complaints from me here on that front, he gave fair warning and it wasn’t one or two accidental hits or pushes, should have tapped the other guy’s jaw too.
It’s nice to see John Cena’s not the only one allowed to show support for breast cancer awareness anymore. Several people with pink armbands on, probably John Cena ones, that they had to pay for, but never mind.
JBL being back at the table is nothing short of awesome. He’s all over Cole’s case and picks him up on every mistake he makes. Because of this, Michael Cole actually makes the effort to engage in some witty banter, not just childish name calling. Half the time, Cole’s digs at JBL are feeble and don’t even ruffle JBL’s feathers, but it’s making the man try harder and it’s causing him to actually be entertaining from time to time. Good show.
Very little AJ Lee this week. Someone’s getting the hint it seems. I do think they should take a page out of TNA’s book and get a female referee in there for the women’s matches. JR called it last week, AJ’s positions were picture-perfect and she didn’t look half bad.
Having Ryback be the one to shit CM Punk up instead of Cena is certainly the way forward. My eyes were preparing to roll at the prospect of Cena being the one to cause Punk to lose the match and I was pleasantly surprised when Ryback was the one to get involved. Looking forward to this one if it happens, there’s a rare surge of optimism looming around me.
Digest and discuss! You can follow me on Twitter for additional nuggets of wisdom or find my Midcard Manifesto over on http://www.prowrestlingpowerhouse.com – Thanks for reading, take care and I’ll see you next week.
Danny Damage
@BluntDamage (twitter)
Uploading myself now, it’s The Raw from last night.
Enjoy.
Word is the ratings were low as ass last week, hence why McMahon threw himself into the mix this week to boost figures. I’d say for the most part it worked out, but yet he still has something as stupid as a “canceled” match because little Jimmy wants to have a dance with Brodus Clay…..Yeah I’m just going to flip over to the Jets game for a minute, or maybe a whole quarter, perhaps a half…. Was I watching something else before the game?
You can’t compete with the NFL unless it’s football vs football (gridirion vs soccer). WWE’s ratings plummeted because of this repetitive feud and lack of interest.
Oh I know you can’t directly compete with the NFL, that was never my point, and what you said is most probably what led to low ratings. I’m just using “Monday Night Football” as an example of where the viewers might piss off to in a boring segment, and it being the NFL, they might not change the channel back, even if it’s not their team.
The sad fact is that commentary has improved approx 100fold since the departure of Lawler.
Im a fan of the guy, but he had been doing the classic ‘calling it in’ for years now. I hope he comes back on fire, and we arent all going ‘Damn I miss JBL and JR’ when King returns.
Word about town is WWE is either gonna have Lawler return has the heel and keep Cole as the babyface, however there’s also a rumour saying that JR might come back full time as WWE are really impressed with the way he’s upped his game since he was a last RAW regular (with many at the top concerned his return would be a damp squib).
I just want JBL full time
Agreed, Lawler shouldn’t be allowed to keep his post if he doesn’t care anymore even though he’s been commentating forever. JBL is far more interesting and informative.
Does anyone else think that it is only the Southern commentators who are any good JBL, JR, 90’s Lawyer, and Dusty Rhodes but for different reasons? The only non-southerner I think is any good was Heenan. Southerners just seem natural when talking about wrestling.
Cole is from Texas. Your argument is invalid.
Good point. Cole does his best to have a nondescript accent though.
No he’s not. He’s from New York.
Vince was pretty damn good when he was at the table.
I really hated Vince on commentary. His fake uneasy laughter and his constant use of the word “maneuver” and other platitudes really annoyed me and my brother growing up. It was amusing seeing Randy Savage work with Vince though. Macho Man was so polarizing beside Vince saying outlandish nonsense while Vince did his best to be a straitlaced serious commentator. To each his own I guess.
Good work as always man. This ratings business everyone’s talking about confuses the fuck out of me, due to being a) British b) preferring rugby to American football and c) totally oblivious to how the US ratings system works / is relevant.
I liked the two man desk you had the other week, with Maffew snarking every couple of minutes…
I had the ratings explained to me once, not sure if i even understand it, but they offer like a very small percentage of people in the U.S. to put a monitor box that keeps track of what they watch. I have heard rumors that they tend not offer it to people who like too much scifi stuff(someone told me his family was tapped for one said after they filled form they were told not the kind of people they were looking for).
This week’s RAW was pretty damn good. Vince, of course, is always awesome and Punk’s really getting into his heel groove as it were. The only really shit thing was Layla, as a Brit can I just say her accent is really annoying. It’s like Cockney with faux-Mid-West American. It’s terrible
Wot’s nawt too liyke abouwt ‘er akscent? Iht’s loke shee procticly gruw ohp ther.
Nevermind that shit, there goes Mongo!
R.I.P Alex Karras.
You might already have seen it, but the guy at Kayfabe News wrote a short thing with Botchamania in it…
http://www.kayfabenews.com/tna-stars-seek-wider-exposure-through-botchamania/
Forget the idea of a Cena/Punk DVD, Kane/Bryan is where it’s at! That stuff’s been pretty incredible storyline-wise, as it’s actually GOING somewhere and not just the same shit over and over. And to think that at the beginning, Punk and AJ were the focal point of that angle.
There there was Punk punching a fan in the face
We also talk about wrestling here too. Anything else, Captain Obvious?
ha
I wanna see a 3 hr uncensored RAW where: Ryback destroys everyone. and AJ is naked the whole time. And Kelly Kelly comes back and is naked the whole time. Then it would be worth watching.
This is a weird time in wrestling. It would seem that the stars have aligned and the planetary moons have shed their light at such an angle that each of the major companies has their most interesting person as their champion (Punk, Aries, and Steen). I can’t think of the last time this has happened.
How is that good? Sheamus is world champion.
So Punk has to chose between an Injured man he’s beaten before or Ryback in what would probably be Rybacks most competitive match, I know what i’d rather see
Drew, Heath and Jinder are a team now? Jobbers Unite!