Monday, September 2, 2013

Raw 9-2-13

Show started with HHH mid-ring and the Shield standing guard between the ring and the ramp - which should work fairly well as long as no one tries to attack from any other part of the building. Orton came out and said that he, as WWE Champion, could now allow the name of WWE to be tarnished - so no one destroy any hotel rooms or get any wellness strikes. Love the fan who appeared to step out of '98 with a Raw is War - Austin 3:16 sign. They showed SD's show-closing angle to make that show seem important again. Orton turned Bryan's yes/no Q and A bit against him. HHH said that the WWE Universe deserves the best because they're the most intense fans in the world. HHH's duty is also to make sure that people are healthy - and he's really concerned about Bryan. HHH says the Yes chants are hurting Bryan and confusing what's best for business with popularity. HHH compared Bryan to Doink - he was WILDLY POPULAR! BUT THERE'S A GOOD REASON DOINK THE CLOWN WASN'T WWE CHAMPION - it would've been bad for business. HHH then said he'd reactivate the Euro or cruiserweight titles so Bryan could have an attainable goal - what a kind man. Loved them hand-waving Orton not being in main events for a while by saying he gave up being WWE Champion until it was handed to him. Then he passionately said that he loved defying odds and that Orton was handed everything, so he can't appreciate his struggle. They showed a fan in Dusty's polka dots, which looked worse on him than they did on Dusty. Oh, and HHH made Show-Bryan for the main event. They showed a clip of Heyman's beating last week, but hurt it by having Cole talk over Heyman - Punk responds to the beating tonight! This wasn't an amazing 20 minutes, but did set up a decent match for later and had a few good lines in it.


Orton and HHH walked down one of the arena's many backstage corridors and bumped into Cody, who asked Orton why he doesn't want to face Bryan in the most wimpy way possible. HHH said that Cody has a wedding coming up, and neither HHH or Orton got invitations for it. So his early wedding gift for Cody is a match with Orton. And if Cody loses, he...might be fired. Everything about this seems rushed. Fandango came out and one kid did the dance while fans held up a FANDANGOO sign. He's facing Miz, who I'd much rather see in a match with Orton where if he loses, he got fired. I'm digging Fandango's revamped gear - looks wackier, but more expensive. The Twitter crawl is teasing an us vs. them feud with the Wyatts versus the Machine faction. Miz touched Summer, who made fantastic disgusted facial expressions. Fandango's nose was broken during the break by Miz's basement kick. Ouch. Summer's dress is 50 shades of amazing. King brought up twerking to show how hip and cool he is, and Miz won with the figure four. They showed Brie's ass and Nikki's leg break on Total Divas to hype up the show. I'm having flashbacks to Velvet's "my knee feels like it like, EXPLODED!" here with Nikki.

Did You Know that WWE LOVES MAKE-A-WISH, and they love telling you about how much they love it even more. Booker met with Bryan and told him he couldn't beat the Machine, so maybe he should give up the title match. Booker joining the corporation would be hilarious. Booker said he supported Bryan, but he needs to tread lightly - so I guess he's not turning heel. They replayed the Heyman-Axel vid from SD. Dolph came out and feels like so just a dude again. These stupid #mofy ads make me hate Modern Family.

Dolph's out to face someone, but no one knows who it is...so it's like 90% of matches on TV then. Amrose attacked him to set up Ryback as his opponent. I doubt Dolph will live through this. Ryback's got a generic white and black split singlet - the one on SD looked a lot better. Ryback ripped at Dolph's cheeks resulting in him yelling in a super-annoying manner. Meathook in the corner was countered with a dropkick, but Ryback won with the Shellshock. This was basically a squash, which felt weird since it wasn't like Ambrose's beating was destructive. Steph and Hunter met with Maddox said that Show didn't want to wrestle. Steph said she'd talk to Show, but not privately. Los Matadores are still coming, and hour 1 is nearly over. This show has been dragging terribly compared to SD.

Steph's tron is graph paper...why? Cole said that Show and Bryan are buds - something we should've seen. Steph came out and said that Show taught her a lot of life lessons. Steph said that Show was her buddy when she was 12...somehow..., and they're re-doing the JBL-HBK deal with him now being broke. THERE'S PUBLIC RECORDS ON THIS! And they're redoing the deal from a year ago with Vickie where Show has no other options. And also, Show will die sooner than most. Well, now things are just depressing since that goes for pretty much all wrestlers. Crowd chanted for Y2J after that. So yeah, this wasn't hit.

 An awesome video hyped up EDGE coming back next week! Big Show was sad and angry ON THE APP! Careful Show - they might charge you for the $50 worth of stuff you've destroyed.WHAT WE SAW WAS EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ON THE APP, WHICH YOU CAN ONLY DO IF YOU DOWNLOAD THE APP! Then they ran the App tutorial, in case you have NO IDEA HOW TO INSTALL ANY APP ON YOUR PHONE! Heath and Jinder came down to face the PTPs. They hyped up Titus doing stuff with celebs this week and showed a decent amount of folks doing their dance. Heath mocked the dog bark and JBL hyped up today's city being where John Wayne was born, using his SHOOT NAME! King referenced 50 Cent in 2013. His joke about avoiding e-mails for free tickets to see 3MB was good though. Crowd is dead for this match. Titus came in and got the crowd rocking. Well, they've made a star with the D-Young deal - Titus! Sky High won for Titus. Dusty Fan and the Piper cosplayer next to him that I didn't see before did the PTP dance, as did a kid with the new and spinner WWE titles around his neck. And Cody's apparently getting married later this week according to JBL, so either he's losing in a blatant setup, or he wins via schoolboy thanks to Bryan and gets injured so he can go on his honeymoon.

Kinda surprised to see a Don Jon ad on Raw since it talks about porno. Heyman was pissed at Maddox for letting the Universe choose to let Punk get his hands on him and furthered the idea that Heyman WILL ABSOLUTELY GET DESTROYED BY PUNK AT NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS, which won't be happening. HHH came in and said he made the match, resulting in a brief Heyman flipout before respectfully asking why on Earth he would make the match. Bray cut a tremendous promo about Icarus flying too close to the sun and asking where's Kane. King called Bray "The Minister of Sinister" I would so love Mitchell joining this group. Cody's out to face Orton and presumably leave injured so he can go on his honeymoon and come back as a theoretical big deal.

King specified that in order to win this match against Orton, Cody has to beat Orton. Well, it's good to know he can't win by pinning Flair. THERE'S A TOUT UP FROM HHH ABOUT THIS MATCH! JBL referenced Legacy and said that Ted just left the company, and Cody could be next. Cody has traded in his underwear-ish gear for underwear-ish gear in shiny gray. Dude badly needs new stuff. Cole said that Cody grew up IN A SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT FAMILY, and was an amateur wrestler, and JBL said that description fit Orton perfectly too. Cody and Orton traded corner mount punches and the match went to a break. It's perfectly fine, but nothing special. They said that Cody has no other options - so that's the second angle like that on this show. Then they showed the monitor full of mid-carders watching this intently. Maybe he and Fandango exchange fashion tips. They're going for a Shelton-HBK vibe from this match and sure aren't getting it.

A Cody Rhodes chant broke out after the disaster kick. Moonsault missed, and sadly wasn't done with an RKO as a direct counter. Cody's left thigh got bruised up, and Orton hit the draping DDT. RKO was countered into the Cross Rhodes for a 2.999 and a super-hot crowd reaction. A shitty back elbow and a schoolboy got 2. Disaster missed, and led to the RKO. Orton wins. Wow. They replayed some major stuff to make the win seem important for Orton. HHH said Cody fought like his life was on the line and with heart. And from the bottom of his, he has no idea how much respect he has for Cody. But it's a business, and he needs winners and can't let his feelings cloud his judgment. They gave Cody plenty of time to leave, and soak in a big CODY RHODES chant. When he comes back, it will be as a bigger star. I liked that they tied Ted Jr. into this too - might as well use a real life issue to put this over further.

Punk kicked off the third hour with a promo. Wow. Hour 2 went by much faster than the first. He basically said that the angle has peaked with last week's deal, so they'll be going into a holding pattern until then. He promised a BIBLICAL ASS-BEATING at NoC. They had Punk GUARANTEE he'd beat Axel and then get to Heyman, and then said that if you order the PPV, you'll see a side of him you've never seen. After the promo, they showed the beating Punk took last week. A bit odd to air that after the promo, but they showed this same video before, so...yeah it's still odd. Cole said that Punk's on the verge of BREAKING BAD. Odd to say that Punk's going to Break Bad given that he's straight edge.

Show talked to Bryan, who was a bit of a dick to him. They reiterated that Bryan and Show are buddies, which has never been part of the story before. Nattie pulled Brie's trunks down and then gave her a wedgie. Wow. AJ got involved to prevent a win and then just got beaten down. So...this really didn't do much beyond the ass spot. Somehow, the Los Matadores fake bull fighting looks even more fake than Tito's. Sandow's out to face RVD, so I guess he can get his win back thanks to Alberto. I love the artsy black and white photos they're using, but RVD looks 60 and soulless in his NoC image. Alberto came out to distract RVD for...the ad break.

VINTAGE POST AD-BREAK CHINLOCK from Sandow. JBL tried to make this match seem important by saying all the guys out there could be in the world title match in some form or fashion due to MITB. This match really makes the IC Title seem above the World title since Axel holds it and is an important match on the PPV. Twitter crawl hyped up Edge and Vickie am sleep due to the Wyatt family. RVD won with the splash...just like on SD, so I'm not sure what this did other than make Sandow seem like a jobber. Show-Bryan graphic, so I hope and pray that match is next, although it's only 35 after the hour, so there may need to be 10 more minutes of filler. ONLY 2 WEEKS UNTIL GTA V!

WWE HAS MORE FACEBOOK FRIENDS THAN EVERY MLB TEAM COMBINED! And the divas acted poorly with Steph on the app! AJ will face every chick in a fatal 4 way at the PPV. Thank God they saved the bad acting for the app...and then showed it on Raw. They replayed Cody's deal. Cody was escorted out by the most jacked security guards ever, then Josh asked him if he had any parting words for THE WWE UNIVERSE! Cody said that for 20 years, the company has hated the Rhodes. Dusty tore up Florida, and they put him in polka dots. They put his brother in gold paint, and he's never been the same since. And him...well, they didn't reference him being Dashing. Josh asked him if he'd told his fiancee. Josh was an idiotic dick here. The roster was on the stage again.

Bryan came out at 10:48, and King put him over as one of the biggest stars in company history. Given that Bryan spent over a year being buried by the company's lead announcer, and was buried by Vince on-air months ago when he was a face and wouldn't stand out in a grocery store, it's amazing to see him put over like that. According to JBL, Show made bad decisions in '08 and 2010...which should've been rectified when he signed that giant contract 2 years ago. Show pleaded with Bryan, so Bryan just bum-rushed him. Loved them doing the kick>sit up>kick spot. I dig seeing Bryan look dominant against Show, but the dynamic of this match feels wrong since Bryan comes off like a bully. Show fought back valiantly against this man who won't listen to reason and chopped the shit out of him in the corner. Loved seeing Show bring back the flip bump for a dropkick to the knee. He and Bryan do have tremendous chemistry together. Kick to the knee led to the kneeling DDT from Bryan. Flying crossbody from Bryan was countered with a spear. Some idiot yelled BELIEVE IN THE SHIELD! Show teased the punch, then stood over the top rope and HHH's theme IMMEDIATELY hit. Shield prevented him from leaving. Paul L told Paul W he doesn't wanna do this.

Triple powerbomb to Bryan right in front of him. Show is an awesome sympathetic figure despite being a giant human being. HHH ordered Show to punch out Bryan or face losing his job. Show refused, then begged them to leave him alone. Then Steph came out and a guy told him to not listen to her. It's impossible to hear Steph here. YAY! Show teased punching HHH, but Steph WAGGED HER FINGER AT HIM and said no.  Show punched him, then Steph said he did the right thing which HHH agreed with. Orton did his slow walk...God, they're determined to make this 3 hour show feel like a 4 hour one. They replayed the punch a couple of times. Orton slowly moved towards Bryan, clutched his arm, moved him over to his back, and talked to him for a bit before putting his foot on his chest and holding the belt high. They're really making it seem like Bryan will win the title at the PPV.

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