Raw started with new WWE champion CM Punk coming to the
ring, accompanied by the crowd chanting his name. He’s over at the moment. He
cut a promo about how he always wanted to be a “professional wrestler” and how
much winning the title in MSG meant to him. Again, Punk played to the internet
wrestling community with his references, talking about how he plans to end the
WWE’s game of “hot potato”, referring to the fact the title has changed hands
so often recently, and he talked about bringing back the ice cream bars. He
said he planned to make interim Raw GM John Laurinaitis the former Raw GM John
Laurinaitis. Johnny said he can be just as wild and creative as Punk, which
sounded strange coming from him. At one point, Punk claimed he genuinely couldn’t
hear a word of what Laurinaitis was saying. This is an issue I’ve been noticing
over the past few weeks, he has no idea how to use a microphone. Laurinaitis
sets up some of the night’s matches. Punk will face Dolph Ziggler, even though
the fans clearly want him to face Zack Ryder. Zack Ryder is busy tonight facing
Del Rio, whilst the Mexican aristocrat will have to wait til next week’s Raw
for his title rematch. WWE building up an episode of Raw in advance? Shocking.
Zack Ryder vs Alberto Del Rio
Roberto Rodriguez was cut off from announcing by Ryder.
First he’s outshone by Howard Finkle, then he’s cut off mid announcement.
Things aren’t going well for Ricardo. This was a good match, I never expected
Ryder to get the win, but he put up a good fight. I like the way Del Rio works
the arm throughout the match before locking in his finisher. Ryder tapped to
the arm bar, but both men came away from the match looking good.
Sheamus vs Jack Swagger
This was another decent match with both wrestlers giving a
good account of themselves. I was glad to see Swagger didn’t get squashed, he
even managed to get Sheamus in the ankle lock briefly. Sheamus got the win via
brogue kick after missing one earlier in the match. Kevin Nash is seen heading
to the ring…
Nash cuts another promo about Triple H. When he returned he
thought he had a friend but instead he had a boss. He made more references about
The Kliq that the majority of the audience wouldn’t understand. Nash claimed
the main event of Survivor Series should have been him and Triple H vs Rock and
Cena. Hmmm… I actually wouldn’t mind seeing that, even if it’s just to see
Triple H and Rock having one last feud. They should give Big Sexy some booking
power (just kidding). But seriously, they would have been a more legitimate
threat than Awesome Truth, but I suppose that’s not much of an achievement.
Cody Rhodes vs Santino
Rhodes is already in the ring, he doesn’t even get an
entrance. I’m still not a fan of his new music, it doesn’t make you think “here’s
Cody Rhodes, he craaaazy” like his old music did. He talks about why he’s taken
off his mask, only to be interrupted by Santino. Great, the match we all wanted
to see. Luckily, Rhodes gets the win via crossroads, but even the 2 or so
minutes this match is given is too long. Rhodes proceeds to confront Booker T
on commentary, saying “do you think I can’t hear you? I watch the show”. He
then throws a glass of water all over Booker. If this leads to a Booker T vs
Cody Rhodes feud, I’ll be very happy. Booker definitely has one last run in
him, and I’m just hoping it leads to a feud between Rhodes and Goldust, but I’ll
save that for my fantasy booking (seriously though, how good would it be to see
some interaction between Booker T and Goldust again).
One interesting thing that happened during the Rhodes
Santino match was, during one of WWE’s regular trending now updates, the little
twitter box turned to static, as if someone had hacked it, and the trends were
replaced by a youtube link: youtube/itbegins2012. I checked the link out before
and it’s a strange video being narrated by a young boy. He says: “"Come my
people and shut thy doors about thee. For power should come to punish the weak
for their inequity. For on the second day of 2012, a familiar force shall
arrive to claim what it is his. And it will be the end of the world as you know
it.” It reminds me of the whole 2/21/11 thing earlier this year, what could it
be about? Undertaker? Sting? Goldberg? Hopefully they will expand on this in
the next few weeks.
CM Punk Vs Dolph Ziggler
This was a great match, fast paced, back and forth. I’d love
to see Ziggler feud with Punk for the WWE title over the next few months. I was
thoroughly behind the one man in the crowd who tried in vain to get a “this is
wrestling” chant going. Punk got the win via GTS. I think the ending was
slightly botched, it looked as if Punk was meant to catch Ziggler mid-air
before hitting his finishing move, but he dropped him. However, both of them
were good enough to recover from this.
A promo aired next for Kane. It was not obvious who it was
for at first, the person in it had like a hood on, and my first thought was
that it looked like Scott Steiner in his chain mail thing he wears. But at the
end, the thing we’ve all been waiting for appeared – Kane’s mask! Please WWE,
bring back masked Kane, even if it’s for his final run or something. I’d take
masked Kane vs Undertaker at Wrestlemania.
The announcers acknowledged the promo, with Booker T describing it as “disturbing”,
but they never mentioned who it was about. But later in the show they showed
what was trending on twitter and one of them was “masked Kane”. To me, that’s
WWE breaking Kayfabe. If the announcers are going to act like the person in the
promo is a mystery, don’t go on to say everyone watching knows it’s Kane.
Big Show came out and cut a promo about Mark Henry. I don’t
see why he had to come out to do this, it could of happened backstage.
Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox are seen backstage playing WWE
12. Two things about this: firstly, Kelly Kelly is playing as herself. How
egotistical do you have to be to do that? Secondly, Alicia Fox has a controller
in her hand so she is player 2, yet she’s not doing anything with her character
allowing Kelly Kelly to batter her. What a suck up. Beth Phoenix and Natalya
appear, telling Kelly and Alicia that the game is different from real life
because the characters don’t cry. Thankfully, this is all we’ll see from the
divas tonight.
Wade Barrett vs Kofi Kingston
I’ll be honest, I skipped most of this match. I love Wade
Barrett, but Kofi Kingston just does nothing for me. It didn’t even get
interesting when Orton came out and sat ringside. Barrett got the win via
wasteland, staring at Orton as he got the 1, 2, 3. Barrett got the mic and
reminded Orton of his Surivor Series victory, Orton faked to get in the ring
and Barrett flinched and dropped the mic. Orton left triumphantly to his own
music. Sorry, but making someone flinch is not enough to warrant your own
victorious exit.
After a few timewasting promos, John Cena comes to the ring.
His entrance is accompanied by boos, it’s not even 50-50 these days, everyone
hates him. He talks about how good the Rock is, basically making out like he
didn’t take anything that happened to him at Survivor Series seriously. Still
haven’t learned have we John. He talked about Zack Ryder, I think he’s using
Ryder to try and get himself over rather than the other way round these days.
Miz and Truth come out and are actually quite entertaining, they speak the
truth about how no one wanted to see Cena at Survivor Series and they rip on
the Cenation. This upsets Cena, so he goes on to tell them what they think of
each other. Apparently John Cena telling each of them what the other thinks
about them is enough to make them split up. Cena leaves, basically brushing
aside everything that happened at Survivor Series. He can’t be blamed too much
for this though, because the storyline can’t exactly be advanced if the Rock is
never there. Truth then attacks Miz because John Cena said Miz thinks Truth is
crazy. Nice one. But Miz ends up getting the upper hand with a skull crushing
finale on the ramp. Looks like Awesome Truth is finished then.
That concludes Raw, but finally I’d just like to point out the
highlight of the show for me. Seeing our mate La Parka again!
@adamheath
@adamheath
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