Monday, April 20, 2015

WWE Raw 4-20-15

We're getting thunder and are under a tornado watch here in northern Virginia, so I may wind up only covering a small amount of Raw today. I'll get to the rest of the show ASAP if I have to abandon it live. Before the show, they hyped up Cena's open challenge, HHH's Tough Enough thing, and that's about it. Recap of Orton beating the tag champs on his own and then the Seth-Kane deal. After FOUR MINUTES, this thing ended. Christ. A steel cage is lowered, so no doubt the show will start with the Authority being prevented from attacking Orton inside of it. Or, you know, Kane will just tear the door off or they can raise it. Payback to be main evented by a Scout's Honor - We Won't Raise the Cage match.



Orton rambles on about whatever the fuck for a while. Seth comes down and talks about Orton's anger problem - he says he has that, but doesn't have that and instead has a Seth Rollins promo. Seth pokes some fun at show-opening promo tropes, because that makes up for promos full of cliches that go on forever. Seth says he'll prove he's the best WWE World Heavyweight Champion ever, he can outmaneuver anyone and outthink them. Holy God, this has only been going on for maybe seven minutes since that opening video took ages. Orton says the RKO's banned on Sunday, so tonight HE'LL RKO EVERY SON OF A BITCH he sees. "ORTON IS IN AN RKO-KINDA MOOD!" I'm now in a drinkin' kinda mood. Cole hypes up HHH's return and the Tough Enough announcement about TE being a GROUNDBREAKING SHOW, REALITY SHOW! Ambrose is out to face Harper and a fan has a Where's Waldo sign.



Recap of Harper's numerous attacks to Ambrose.Dean and Harper start with crazy flying things. Luke gets him down and unloads with punches. Suicide dive takes Harper out. They fight in the crowd and man is this ever great. These two have perfect chemistry and just went at it full-boar to make themselves stars. Dean avoids a powerbomb off the stage, but gets tossed off. This was like the best, most fun five minute match ever. PTPs scare Noble. Did we miss a segment? Why are the heels suddenly afraid of everything that moves? HHH meets them and tells them he hopes they're not afraid. HHH is of course, the coolest guy in the room who fears nothing while the champion is a chickenshit. Seth wants more security, and HHH says it's only one guy. Well, thank God they made sure Seth didn't look too strong here. Lucha Dragons face New Day to determine who faces the champs at ER.


JBL buries Big E for being off-key with his clapping and then buries Xavier for leading the New Day Sucks chants with his apron-slapping. Sin Cara does an armdrag... Cole - KALISTO WITH A NICE FLYING ARMDRAG! Fun stuff so far. Nice baseball slide from Kofi sends Cara into the table. Big E lariat sends Cara down while an OSW sign makes air. Kofi dropkicks Cara and gets some mounted punches. Big E clapped three times - okay - so New Day leads New Day Sucks to motivate themselves. Kalisto comes in and flies around. JBL said 'THIS IS WHAT YOU DO TO LUCHAS!" and "I'VE WRESTLED A LOT OF LUCHAS!" Xavier holds Cara's legs and New Day gets the shot.  BOO DAY! Excellent - within a week Orton gets to beat the tag champions and the number 1 contenders! Well, Kofi and Woods - Big E left. Cena-Rusev recap from last week. I hope we get Cena-Goldust during one of these challenges. WOOHOO, A BIG SHOW-ROMAN RECAP IS NEXT!


An awesome quick Orton-Seth video airs. Long recap of Show-Roman leads to of course, Axel vs. Fandango. Loved Axel's dancing. Poor guy lost to Fandango via the legdrop and...WE GOT THE NEW AND IMPROVED THEME!? They went to the original quickly, so someone fucked up. They talk about The Miz Brand match between Miz and Mizdow. HHH is walking backstage. TOUGH ENOUGH IS GROUNDBREAKING once again. Marine 4 ad. Introducing Summer Rae is the funniest thing since Introducing Verne Gagne for The Wrestler.


HHH gets a babyface pop and Cole hypes up his big win at WM in a match with Sting that saw the Monday Night War come to life. HHH hypes up Seth as being the possible face of WWE for 10 years. Tough Enough returns on June 23 and they'll FIND THE NEXT SETH ROLLINS. Yes, YOU TOO COULD BE KNOCKED OUT IN A BATTLE ROYAL BY BIG SHOW. THAT IS THE DREAM! Being a WWE superstar is better than any dream you could ever have. So if you've dreamed of being RKOd time and time again, YOU COULD LIVE YOUR DREAM! HHH cuts a total babyface promo on the fans here asking them to prove that they're Tough Enough. Kane came down. Man is his hair something else. Kane gives HHH his two weeks notice. HHH says "Let's do what we've always done" - have HHH beat Kane? Kane cuts an awesome promo on Seth. "IF WE WANTED TO, WE COULD'VE MADE EL TORITO CHAMPION! HHH makes Kane GUARDIAN OF THE GATE. Damn, I was hoping he'd also make Big Dave the Guardian of the Galaxy. THIS FUCKING RULED!


We'll hear from Roman later about the Show thing. Paige-Naomi recap - Paige is out due to Naomi, so Naomi gets the shot. Naomi faces Brie, so...I think it's heel vs. heel. Kane and Seth argue backstage. HHH told Kane that he's not the Demon, and Kane disagreed. HHH told Seth to prove he's the best. So basically, HHH is the disappointed father who loves his son, but wishes he'd live up to his potential. Well, HHH will live up to his one day too. Naomi's out not dancing. Bellas are faces again for reasons. Nikki is now super-thankful to be on a magazine. Nikki is really not a good babyface.

 

Booker says that Naomi could be THE GREATEST DIVA OF ALL TIME. Nikki says no one knew who Naomi was before last week...what!? Could they please cut Nikki's headset? She's burying the challenger and generally being awful. Naomi bulldogs her into the buckle, which is new. Naomi misses a crossbody and that gets 2. CALLS IT THE REAR VIEW for the win! Naomi dressing like Lum from Urusei Yatsura is bizarre. Heath condemns Rowan for not using dressing and gets RKOd through a table, leading to Orton grabbing a blue tortilla chip.



Awesome hype vid for Cena-Rusev. Roman doesn't feel like talking. He Feels. LIKE. FIGHTING! Bo Dallas cut an amazing promo quoting Yoda from the greatest Star Wars movie ever, Episode 1, but Roman brazenly attacked Bo for having a different opinion. He Superman punched him, speared him, AND stole his catchphrase.






Sheamus is out. Booker says Dolph will reclaim his World title-level glory by making Sheamus kiss his ass. Yup. Sheamus gets the Brogue immediately, but is too busy talking shit to cover. Love Sheamus just beating the daylights out of him while talking shit. Sheamus is great. Could Zack please not kill himself with this stuff though? Now if they're just doing this to have Dolph give Ryder a distraction win, they can fuck off. Sheamus goes for a perfectly legal Brogue kick, but Dolph comes in and attacks Sheamus with a Zig Zag FROM BEHIND.




So now the Jericho show is the biggest show in Network history... and Steph will be on it after an SD. Love Cena trolling the crowd to get more boos. Cena yammers on for a while about Rusev. Cena wants to sodomize Rusev with the Russian chain?! Yikes. Speaking of yikes, KANE ACCEPTS THE CHALLENGE. Cole says that this is the greatest challenge yet in the US Open Challenge. Kane is in fact more of a threat than Stardust. Kane hit VINTAGE OFFENSE. Suplex...stomps...oh wow. World's slowest protobomb hits, but Kane gets a chokeslam for 2. Kane goes for the tombstone, but Cena counters and gets the AA for the win. This was not good. They hyped up HULK HOGAN'S ROCK 'N WRESTLING on the Network tonight. I didn't like this show as a kid - so I'm not watching that now.


Kane walks by HHH, who is unhappy. Miz talks to Renee about BEING A FIGHTING MACHINE! Cena talks to Byron, THEN GETS BEATEN UP BY RUSEV. RUSEV BONK, then Cena makes wacky faces during a chain-assisted Accolade.

 
 
 


Miz vs. Mizdow's up. Summer's looking hot. LOL @ the reference to BOOKER LOSING THE LETTER T! Summer attacked Mizdow and Miz won. So that whole deal accomplished a lot. Orton RKOd Miz. Bryan-Barrett gets a possible card slot - so they must be somewhat optimistic. Harper-Ambrose is a Chicago street fight and the tag title match is on the Kickoff.



Commentators bragged about WWE winning an Over the Top award and beating TURNER SPORTS AND EL REY - SO TAKE THAT COMPETITION! Bray talked about how you can lift weights, but he will strangle you. Ryback came out... Okay, so I'm reasonably certain that Bray is now feuding with Ryback. Boy that should be amazing. Ryback's facing Adam Rose. Ryback destroyed him in a bad match. The hot dog and banana attack Ryback, but eat a double Shellshock. Well, that was fun. Renee interrupted her non-guest at this time Kane and delivered all of his important plot points before they make Depend's jokes. So Kane's gimmick is now that he's an old man. Seth says he's sorry for everything, and that he dedicates tonight's match to him. Orton sees that the goons have left...


Ryback-Rusev is made for SD for some reason. Dolph's out first followed by the champion. Slingshot into the buckle sends us to a break. Dolph's big DDT gets 2. Superkick gets a 2.9. Sheamus causes a distraction and Seth gets a snap falling DDT - basically an inverted version of Christian's reverse DDT, for the win since the curb stomp is banned. HHH comes down and says that Seth will beat Orton on Sunday. Seth interrupts him... Can't wait for HHH to beat Seth at Summerslam for the title since it's his WWE, and not Seth's. Seth gets the cage lowered so Kane can't attack, BUT ORTON SNEAKS IN! RKO off the cage! That was fun.

Screens -
http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/gvxr87aepxq3b5idcku23nn4c5ko6hcn

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