Monday, July 1, 2013

Raw 7-1-13

TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT where Alberto faces Cena in a world vs. WWE Champion match because...why the fuck not? I almost can't believe they're dusting off the WORLD CHAMPION VS. WWE CHAMPION match with not only no build as far as advertising it ahead of time, but no reason for it to happen at all. Dolph has an issue with Alberto, Jericho does as well. Cena has no issue at all with the guy. Ricardo didn't even insult him on Youtube or anything. Also, the PTPs face Axel and Punk in the other hyped match...okay, I can see WHY they did Alberto-Cena now.

Show starts with Vickie announcing the match basically to suck upto the McMahons. Bryan's out with a new RESPECT THE BEARD shirt. It's grey and black and looks a bit bland. He said he'd be champion to follow in the tradition of greats like Rock, Austin, Bruno, and Hogan (who got boos) and then cited history about winning the MITB and cashing it in to win the title. And then Sheamus talked about how that story ended. Then he called him a troll and Orton came out to continue the chain of dudes just saying words. Bryan said he tapped out, and got a you tapped out chant, but Orton said "he'd let it slide", and that no one is safe in MITB. This led to Kane coming out to pyro, but no theme. Christian came out and talked about having more success in ladder matches than anyone else. Orton's beard now has grey in it. Christian called himself the best, which led to Punk coming out and pointing how predictable this was. I forgot he was even in the MITB match. Punk hyped up RVD as a daredevil. Orton RKOd Kane and then the crowd...still gave less than a shit about this. They showed WWE and WHC clips from their respective DVDs to pad the show out...err...hype up the match. Thesz's powerbomb ruled.

A super-long Wyatt Family vid aired. Nothing about their debut date was shown. Shield's out. They played clips from the SD tag, and Cole  said "As usual, THE SHIELD GOT INVOLVED!" In a match WITH THE SHIELD IN IT. Shocking. It's a rematch of the SD match, so I guess they aren't having Christian in another 6-man later. And of course, the Shield will probably get their win back here. And holy shit, the tag title match will be on the pre-game show. Cole picked this match to talk about the many networks Raw is on. More semi-matching gear from Christian and the Usos, although Christian's red is really faded. Dive chain led to an ad break for the faces. 

Show's only 30 minutes old and it's already dragging. They showed...a kick from one of the Shield guys during the break, although it was hard to make out and kinda looked like a baseball slide kick to the knee. Nice Mark of Perfection from Reigns. TREMENDOUS sell from Ambrose off an Uso superkick. He crumpled! Pop-up kick from Rollins led to Ambrose tagging in to stomp him a ton. Nice finishing sequence had Rollins do a neck snap to give Ambrose a schoolboy win. I loved everything about that but the schoolboy. Ambrose wiping his hands like it was easy ruled. Bryan met with Kane and told him he made a rematch so he could face Orton again. Oh YAY, MORE REMATCHES. At least this has Bryan as ref. Dolph's out for a match with someone next.

SD WAS THE MOST SOCIALLY ACTIVE SHOW LAST FRIDAY! Jinder is the random opponent, so Dolph's officially a face now. Jinder got a two and Cole was ASTONISHED it didn't score the win. Crowd chanted for King and was almost called Bizarre World for it. Zig Zag won. JBL talking about Jinder being some sort of Indian wrestling expert and get crickets as a response was amusing. Then they had Dolph do a wacky parkour escape deal with the 3MB that really needed yackety yack music. Bruno and Harley highlights were used, and were quite awesome. IMMEDIATELY after that, they hyped up A MARK HENRY CAREER RETROSPECTIVE - because Raw needs more filler.

Brickie talked about the show, and Vickie was about to bitch about the McMahons before HUN-TOR came in to thank her for listening to the Universe. I may be against the idea of the filler, BUT GODDAMN THIS MARK HENRY VIDEO RULED. Orton came out for his match and they showed a giant piece of equipment in front of a sign - surprisingly sloppy stuff there. Does Bryan as the ref mean we're getting a backstage skit where Vince says he's too small to be a referee too? Vince's Twitter-runner congratulated Tyson Kidd and Nattie. After the Thesz press, they had Cole hype him as the first world champion in modern history, so now modern history isn't just the last 25 years, and JBL credited him as the inventor of the powerbomb. They did stuff and Orton touched Bryan, so Kane won and got it restarted. They did moves. Best thing was JBL calling Cole out for the VINTAGE DDT, so he called it classic.

Kane won via a fast-count after a big boot. Kane threatened a chokeslam and got "DO IT" chants. Bryan got RKOd after all that. VINTAGE ORTON! Punk and Axel are backstage with Heyman. Oh yeah, they've got a tag match later. Punk trusts Heyman, but doesn't trust Axel, so Punk begged him to use Heyman's judgment now just like he did eight years ago. Cole talked about the holders of THESE AWESOME TITLES, and thankfully they didn't use a Miz highlight reel for that. The world's shortest Bob Backlund hype vid was for the WWE title, while the WHC got a Dusty one.

Fandango's out with new tiger-print with tassle gear. Sadly, no Lite Brite bit for him this week. And he's facing Sheamus. Sheamus danced wackily after Fandango did. Sheamus as a wacky face here was better than him just being a dick. They talked about King being AWA World Champ and him beating Kerry at Super Clash III. Super Clash II is now on Classics on Demand, BTW. Nice neckhold/crossface leading to knee strikes from Fandango. Clubbering spot led to Fandango throwing himself off the apron and fleeing. Big COUNT OUT win here for Sheamus. Miz faces Ryback for some reason next. I don't see that helping this show from dragging on for ages.

Jericho's out to do commentary, which will certainly be better than any match so far. Or not, as he called Ryback the destrusher. Miz gets an IC title match at MITB, which for some reason gets on the PPV instead of THE SHIELD. JBL talked about Ryback showing weakness against Gabriel, which is one of the many reasons he's beyond hope. Jericho talked about Ryback "slipping a disc in his mental mind", and then bring up that making no sense whatsoever. Jericho's doing play by play, I think. Miz working on the knee fits the injury on SD, but Jericho saying it's fake is odd. Then Ryback stopped his own match... SO MIZ KICKED HIS ASS TOO MUCH. Holy shit. Well, Miz came off great here. Jericho hit the Codebreaker, and they talked about Ryback faking everything to be fresh for his match. If that mattered, why doesn't he just threaten Brickie and/or Teddy to not wrestle? I like a different finish when it's good, but that was questionable at best and really made Ryback seem like a pussy. They showed Hogan and Flair vids and hyped up Cena-Del Rio, which made them seem like so much less than those two. Henry's out next!

He said his name was Mark Henry, that's he's KNOWN AS THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD, AND I DIDN'T GET THAT NAME OUT OF A CRACKER JACK BOX. I EARNED IT! And then the what chant hits and fucked shit up. He stammered a bit until he focused and tuned them out and talked about traveling thousands of miles to never be given a shot at the WWE Title. All the years he pretended to like the boys. ALL DA YEARS OF DOIN THE RIGHT THING FOR THA BUSINESS GOT HIM NOWHERE. DAMMIT, HE DESERVES TO BE WWE CHAMPION! He called the fans puppets for the what stuff. At MITB, HE'S GONNA BEAT YO ASS! Vince showed up in a grey blazer and lavender shirt and tie. Vince is bitching about Bryan. HE'S SMALL, has issues...and Brickie isn't listening to Vince by using him. Vince buried them for making the champ vs. champ match a free TV match with no hype. This was bizarre.

Punk's out. Axel wanted to start, but Punk did, and then Axel tagged himself in. Moves were done. I'm astonished JBL hasn't called them a dangerous alliance yet. Heyman is attempting to make this exciting by yelling SWITCH as loudly as possible. Punk got a hot tag and now both of his knees are taped up beneath his kneepads. Shining Wizard in the corner was mixed up with a shortarm clothesline instead of the bulldog. Savage elbow led to the GTS. Axel tagged in and got the win. Punk was angry about still winning this tag match with nothing on the line. This furthered the Punk doesn't trust Axel deal, which is smart for Heyman since nothing that Axel did could be pinned on him. OUTSTANDING Austin vid with some epic music for the HBK stunner aired, and then they did a great one for Sting too.

Main Event was hyped up with a Sheamus vid. Alicia's out and I think she's a face this week because she's being all nice and happy...and facing Kaitlyn, so maybe she's a heel. Alicia is hoping to TAKE ADVANTAGE OF KAITLYN'S MENTAL STATE with a dropkick. Lawler yawned because JBL talked about tennis. AJ needs a kiddie belt, and she's talking about Kaitlyn's RISQUE MODELING PICS BEFORE WWE, and it was sadly just a BBW photoshot and not a shot of Kaitlyn's ass. Vickie talked about Steph sending mixed signals, and then insulting HHH and Vince...and then Steph agrees and hates that. Steph looks really wide in this blue outfit. And Vickie has a job evaluation, and she COULD become GM, which is somehow different than being the managing supervisor of Raw - a job that VINCE HIMSELF DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT. So basically, Steph's bullying a widower. 

A new outstanding RVD hype vid showed him meditating and kicking a bunch of ass. Cody's out in his underwear to fight. Shockingly, he's facing Cesaro, who now has yellow gear. And Zeb's cutting a promo on the gay marriage deal from last week. Swagger's back with a Lincoln beard. The crowd came to life with a WE THE PEOPLE chant before and during the match. Loved JBL saying "Cesaro knows five languages, and now that he's with Zeb, he knows Dutch.". Neutralizer gets the win for Cesaro. And then JBL called Zeb's team a dangerous alliance.  HHH and Booker vids were fine.

Rock's app NOW HAS THUNDER COOKIES! I wonder if Jeff Hardy's gives you a discount with participating drug dealers? The Bellas talked in a giant tin toolshed with JoJo and EvaMarie, some chick with bright red hair. Sweet. Jee-sus. This ac-ting. Is. Ama-zing. And Nattie was called fat right after getting married. Wonderful. I didn't think JoJo could debut worse than ME...and then this happened. BRAY WYATT SENT OUT A CRYPTIC TWEET. They're coming next week on Raw. An amazing Wyatt vid talked about the sheep outnumbering the wolves while they're theme played. THIS RULED. Alberto came out and they recapped his 1,000th fiesta.

It hit me here that Cena hasn't been out at all, which is great because it's resulted in Henry carrying the PPV match on the mic. That makes it much easier to take seriously, even with the fans trying to fuck things up tonight, and last week's promo not being the best. Punk will be on SD to give you one reason to watch it. Cena said IT'S CHAMP VS. CHAMP AND THA CHAMP IS HERE. Well, that's quite true. Roberts is giving this the big match intro, which along with the title vids, helps make this seem more important than it is. Cole called this PERHAPS THE MOST FRUITFUL 11 YEARS IN HISTORY thanks to Cena. Cole once again talked about Thesz being the first world champion of the modern era. Fruity Pebbles chant broke out before the ad break.

They came back for a Champ vs. Champ chinlock, and Cena countered a flying whatthefuck off the top from Alberto with a dropkick. German suplex led to JBL talking about Thesz popularizing it. Apparently, being the WWE and World champs only means you're TWO OF THE BEST IN THE WORLD. JBL rightfully says the titles make them the two best in the world. There's nothing wrong with this match, but it just feels like a bunch of moves. A USA chant broke out. I thought it was a UFC one at first until it continued on. Cena sat up from a tree of woe to avoid a shoulderblock. Wacky flying crossbodyblock got 2. Armbar countered into the STF. Henry came out and tried to cost Cena, but Dolph came out to distract Alberto and give Cena the win. Great stuff with Henry using the belt as a prop to lure Cena into an assault. They closed the show with the announcers talking about the Wyatts and showing a hype vid - unusual, but a good break from the norm.


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