WWE Raw 12-1-14 - The 3 Hour Pre-Show for the Vince/Austin Podcast

Comcast guide has The Anonymous GM running the show all over it. Authority is all over the recap video to start the show. Gotta love those loser leaves stips where they're still on things all the time. THAT FUCKING DINGING starts things off. Goddamn, this GM sure loves needlessly wordy statements. Before Cole can finish, Cena interrupts the computer. Cena says that the computer GM and Brock are very similar - they both show up once a year. Yup. Brock sure is a sucker getting paid more than Cena for what 5% of the dates. Dings and lighting shit happened. Love the bright yellow highlights telling Cole what to read. Cena made sure to not close it completely - so he accomplished nothing. Seth's out with J and J Security. They yammer on for fucking ages before Seth gets to the point about beating Cena at the PPV. JUST. MAKE. THE. FUCKING. MATCH. Seth blamed Sting.
Sting-Seth could be fun - I should do that in the game. Cena pimped Dolph, who was hyped up before the PPV so well by losing twice the week before it. They said words. And more words. Lots more words. So. Many. Words. There may be more words in this promo than an Observer.

AT EIGHT FIFTEEN, the GM dinged again. Oh goodie - we get a tables match for...reasons! If Cena loses at TLC, he loses his shot at Brock. The goons try to attack, but he fights back and Ryback makes a save. Kane hit him with a chair to set up the DREADED CHAIRS MATCH! Rowan comes down to make a save. Then Show comes out...why are we getting the go-home show stuff now? Steps to Rowan. Dolph runs down at the end. Why the fuck did it take Dolph so long to help his outnumbered friends? Harper hits him with a ladder, so maybe they'll have a ladder match at the PPV to do the whole WE'RE GONNA HAVE ANOTHER CLASSIC IC TITLE LADDER MATCH deal. Show KOs Cena and Seth and J and J do the triple powerbomb to Cena through the table - so that won't be the PPV finish.

 NBC is now reduced to Peter Pan Live! with a woman playing Peter. Some guys walk Cena out and he's walking woozily. Ryback and Dolph are helped out too - because the faces are weak. Show faces Rowan later and Dolph, Cena, and Ryback will face the other Authority guys. Unannounced Tag Team Turmoil for...some reason. Winners get a tag title shot - okey dokey. Since it's Cyber Monday, can there be an app vote for getting Stardust to fuck off? New Day gets a hype video during the Dust Bros. intro. God, this gear, song, tron, and gimmick suck. Xavier loses rock, paper, scissors, so he's out. Stardust went for a hissing monkeyflip, but Kofi kicked out of it. Everything about Stardust sucks. Big E comes in and takes Goldust down with a clothesline for 2. Super snapshot wins. It's called the Midnight Hour. What a stupid name. The long-running team of Kidd and Cesaro are out to lose.

 Big E and Kidd went at it before Cesaro prevented a Big Ending. Sent them both to the apron. Thank God he didn't do a double spear there and instead did a double clothesline. Dust Bros hurt Xavier, SO KOFI LOSES VIA DISTRACTION SCHOOLBOY! God are they dead. Usos are out. They take out Cesaro and Cole puts over the Usos doc on the Network. This is apparently it for the lineup - so there are 4 tag teams in this division outside of the champs? Why no Slater Gator? Heels cheat to get 2 - ANOTHER AD BREAK. Cesaro powerbombs an Uso for 2. Kidd comes in and an Uso runs wild for 2. Tyson leaps into an HBK-Shelton superkick and eats an Uso dive for the loss. Usos get the next shot. Or not - JBL said he's wrong - IT'S THE  BUNNY AND ROSE! Before they could even get in the ring, Cole had a bunch of bad Bunny jokes. Naomi is shown watching since her husband Jimmy Uso is in the match. Rose and the Bunny argued, Rose ate a kick "bounced off the bunny" and ate a splash to lose. This largely sucked. We've got weeks to go until the TLC show and they've already completely run out of anything resembling an idea to fill that time. Miz talks to Naomi, and Miz voted for her to be AJ's partner tonight. So that's apparently a thing you could've done today that they never mentioned. Miz is impressed by her twerking and gives her the card of a producer before Mizdow takes it back. Okay then. Miz and Naomi was indeed a thing. Great red, white, and blue tie on Vince backstage, who also has a very red phone cover. 

They plugged Seth Green hosting Raw. STAR OF THE FAMILY GUY! AND AUSTIN POWERS! A generic brunette human being met with Erick Rowan w/ Rubik's cube who did some research. ERICK ROWAN HAS AN IQ OF 145, AND HE'S AN AWARD-WINNING WINE-MAKER! What the fuck and why the fuck did we not get skits of this?! Rowan hates Show because he's a bully and then Show yells YA DAMN RIGHT like it's just a conversation. Rowan came out. Crowd is somehow dead for all of this compelling storytelling. Guys punched and the commentators talks about Rubik's cubes. JBL is constantly talking about Big Red. He's said this at least a dozen times in three minutes. Crowd went from being dead to being enbalmed during this match. Big Show is CLUBBED AND CLOBBERED over the top rope. Show hit him with the stairs to maybe set up THE EVEN MORE DREADED STAIRS MATCH! Renee met with Vince, who is so happy he could whistle - if he ever learned how to whistle. He's excited about the Stone Cold Podcast. This is literally a 3 hour pre-show for a podcast. I called this a 3 hour pre-show for the Podcast on my blog and it has actually become that. Bella-AJ recap. AJ lee and Three Question Marks face the Bellas in a match where you can pick her partner. Miz said he voted for Naomi, so that's who you're supposed to vote for - or maybe not since he's a heel.

OH THANK GOD THE NEW AND IMPROVED FANDANGO IS HERE TO GET THE CROWD ALIVE! They've simplified Rosa's part to her just being on her knees and not moving. Well, might as well stick to her strengths. Swagger didn't come out. Zeb's suffered some kind of injury and Swagger has sub-porno level acting here. Swagger's wife's porno acting was better than his here. Lilian was going to name Fandango the winner, but Rosa said...words and then Rusev came out. Bald John Goodman is so terrifying in this ad for The Gambler.

Recap of Sgt. Slaughter being a dick last week. Lana cleavage was outraged by Rusev being put in a battle royal, but she's proud that 19 men failed against Rusev. Rusev admits to beating up Zeb. Swagger finally comes out and a USA chant breaks out. They brawl for a while on the floor and ramp. More of this. Yippy. They came back and pimped 2K15 with Sting-Taker. Mizes are out. Someone is facing Mizdow. He's facing Fernando because of some goofy pre-show bullshit. Cole and Miz are on commentary together and Cole brings up the PPV being in Cleveland. So I guess they're losing at the PPV since it's in Miz's hometown. According to the commentary, Miz is the giver and Sandow's the taker. Jimmy Uso slaps the shit out of Miz for talking to his wife. What a dick. Mizdow won with the figure four. Mizdow sold the face too. They pimp the Slammys.

They then pimped the pre-show Slammys, AND SOME WILL BE GIVEN AWAY ON THE SLAMMYS. They'll be in NC, so I'm looking forward to Bruce Mitchell's first-hand account of the show next week. Jimmy Uso faces Miz on Main Event...maybe, and Truth faces Wyatt next. This has to be their 90th TV match together. King said Dean-Bray would be cray-crazy and Cole got over the point FROM THE FIRST SEGMENT ON THE SHOW, that if Cena loses, a new number 1 contender will be named. Well, obviously. Nice of Cole to follow up from that segment 1 story point here at nearly 10 PM. Bray had every TV squash match ever and I got some vacuuming done while joking around on the F4W Board. JBL says Sister Abigail is a great name for a finisher, but doesn't elaborate. So Big Red we hear a ton, but nothing on that. Bray tosses chairs in the ring. Bray's ass bent over is a hell of an act break.

Bray told a story about a man named Jacob. I'm very sad Bray isn't telling us a story about a man named Jed, who was a mountaineer who kept his family fed. Jacob had a ladder to his maker and Bray sees tables, ladders, and chairs - leading to the fans saying OH MY! Dean came out and they brawled and killed Cole's audio quality too. Very tin can-ish for a while there. They did nothing of note. They already did the go-home segment for the TLC match setting up the TLC match at the last PPV. Dean made wacky faces leading against the inside of the ladder. Dean's preparing to motorboat the ladder.

They come back briefly so the Bellas can come to the ring for app voting on AJ's partner. Well, that was a productive use of TV time. Recap of last week's AJ-Brie stuff. Naomi wins the poll, eats the basement knee from Brie. Crowd chanted AJ Lee and King buried his own use of "cray-cray". AJ runs wild on the Bellas, hits a shining wizard, and taps Nikki with the Black Widow. Nikki's pissed at Brie for not helping. Saint Mick is with Noelle hyping up the WWE Shop sale - good for her on getting a Raw cameo, and even a line on the show. 

We're getting Rusev vs. Ambrose for some reason on SD. Heyman is live via satellite. Heyman says that Brock's around once a year because he's special, he's unique! Having Brock appear each week would be like calling every Raw WrestleMania. Heyman said that Brock-Taker could be for the title. Or you could do Brock-Sting and you don't even need to bill it as a retirement match - Brock would end him. HE WHO HAS THE GOLD HAS THE POWER, AND HE WHO HAS THE POWER, HAS THE GOLD AND HE IS THE ADVOCATE FOR THE POWER! THE REIGNING, DEFENDING, AND UNDISPUTED WWE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD - BROCK LESNAR! Heyman was so great here. Then Cena came out...to wrestle in the main event at 10:25? Well, I guess if everyone gets full intros, that makes sense. At 9:31, Dolph got his intro - so that will be the filler. That killed tons of time. They're trying so hard to get over "WWE's version of demolition derby!"

Everyone does a bit of stuff for a long-ass time before Ryback won a back and forth exchange with Harper. Ryback dominates after the break and tags out to Dolph. Kane comes in. Harper comes in after Kane does some corner stuff and gets the gator roll and a headlock. Kane's back in and he gets a chinlock. Crowd cheers wildly for Dolph relative to this crowd. Seth and Dolph do stuff. God, this is just "guys do moves, more guys come in and do moves, then more moves are done". JBL says ARE YOU A COCKROACHOLOGIST!? to Cole. J and J gets involved for a nearfall on Cena before a break. KANE GOT A CHINLOCK ON CENA! I was bored, but Kane's second chinlock of the match really brought me to life like Frankenstein's monster. Harper comes in and gets a throat thrust in the corner. Goddamn this is boring. Dolph gets 2 off a fameasser on Harper. After a century of stuff, Dolph wins with a sunset flip and then the match means nothing because a brawl breaks out to set up WWE'S DEMOLITION KNOWN AS TLC!Parade of finishers to Show, ending with Cena, who needed help to lift Kane, doing the AA on his own. A 4-on-1 beating allowed Rowan to beat up Show. So all the babyfaces stood tall here - why buy the PPV? Show ended with Austin in a WWE studio surrounded by WWE logos for the "podcast".

Screens -
http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/rq8gu7nmnujw072f8svwhk5hcy8lm5cd