No Zack. A complete absence of Zack Ryder on TV. We’re lacking Woo Woo Woo. And so on. I’m sure you’re upset. But nevertheless, there shall be no rioting over here because I enjoyed this show.
Miz. Miz is talking. This guy is a good talker but man, I so dont care about what happens to him anymore. Steve Austin bitching out Miz was fun though. As is Steve Austin bitching out anyone, really. This guy is just on top form at the moment. Austin grabbing Miz by the scruff and just staring the F*CK out of him was awesome. Then staring Miz out of the ring, badass man. And now Alberto! This poor guy. You’ve got to love the detail work of Kane not being able to come back to Raw to get Alberto for killing Show until now because he’s on Smackdown! A whole three weeks he waited with the brand split.
Alberto vs Kane was, whatever. Just there. Doing a ‘break at five’ DQ was different, we havent seen one of those in a long time. WEEEEEEELL, ITS THE BIG SHOW! Ahahaha man this guy is SPRINTING. I love it when Show sprints, its amazing. Show looks like he’s going to kill someone. Ahaha, as I say this, Kane chokes Show off him saying “You’ll kill him! And then you’ll never get your hands on Alberto!” I love the idea of these guys having to hurt each other to stop them from killing others. Like during May 19th. Anyway, Show is back as a total beast and he’s going to KILL AND EAT ALBERTO. And Show becomes twice as interesting. Good stuff.
What a wacky team. Bryan Danielson. Mistico. And Big Zeke. Anyway, this looked fun and it was fun as a short cluster of a 6-man. Zeke’s bodyslam thing hasnt worked since the first time he did it, sadly. And King making ugly jokes about Cody was so wildly incongruous. But it was fun, and I liked them giving Sin Cara the win over Barrett in the Raw showcase.
Hornswoggle on TV, havent seen him in a while. R-TRUTH BITCHES! Truth picking on Hornswoggle was great. What a douche. His catchphrases are already over, awesome. Pretending to pick him up before booting him was great. And then MORRISON! Yay! I love shows like this, it feels like stuff is happening.
Santino vs Sheamus. Callback to a great feud. The Cobra nearfall was so awesome. You gotta love pro wrestling sometimes. The cloverleaf is a cool finish for Sheamus, not that he needed another one, but good stuff.
Orton talking. Christian talking. This was fine, I was cooking while this was on though. I like Christian polling the fans and then refusing them, playing off the angle, thats cool. I also liked the concussion angle, although why they had the F*CKING GM DING WHEN HE’S NOT THE GM TONIGHT I dont know.
Christian vs Rey?! OH MY GOD. The upside to Christian turning heel. This should be happening on Smackdown.
Wow, nevermind. I actually really, really liked the execution of this DQ – the way that Christian broke after five and kept going and didnt realise he’d been DQd, it made it look really…realistic. BUT, and its a big but, doing this an hour after the exact same ‘break on five’ DQ finish was ultra lame. Bad details work there. The schmozz was whatever but Christian ending it with the Unprettier was cool. Thats going to turn into a killer move as a heel move.
Austin and Vickie interacting is the stuff dreams are made of. Enjoyed Austin f*cking with them. And hell, I’ve seen every single Kofi vs Dolph match they’ve ever had, all 573 of them, but Bah Gawd, sign me up for Kofi vs Dolph 574. Should be great.
Enjoyed the Truth/Morrison angle. I like the angle where the guy doesnt come out to his music and you find him backstage. They need to do more stuff backstage. It didnt even occur to me until now that of course, Morrison is still injured, he cant work. Truth ramming the box into him was awesome. Great way to keep Morrison in our minds while he’s out, plus Truth gets to be a douche.
Cool Dolph video. I think I said a thousand times over that they should video package someone every week, and they seem to have started doing just that. You know, whatever this means about me or booking, but as soon as Dolph’s music hit I knew this would be a tag match with Swagger, Kofi and Bourne. And it was. And it was fun, just way too short though. Its amazing how the longer a Raw is, the shorter the matches go. But anyway, babyface win, fun stuff.
Yay Piper. Compared to the times when he’s look terrible (Rumble ’08, for example, when he was 1000 pounds) he still looks really good now. Him and Miz was fine. Riley got another POP. The intro to his music is just megastar level stuff. Its glass breaking. “ALEX RILEY” chants, awesome. This guy is so over without saying a word. Which is lucky because he has a heel voice and cant talk like a babyface yet. Going into the bet and the Piper match was a left turn, but whatever, this is fun. Piper hearing Austin’s voice and looking up “God?!” was AWESOME. I liked how Miz hit Riley and Riley immediately started beating the crap out of him again. Every time they fight Riley beats the crap out of him. Riley is just better than Miz when they fight. Simple. The latest example that they need to get past Even Steven Booking and tell logical stories. Of course this could all be for nought if Miz just beats him at the PPV, but so far, its been great.
It pains me that Beth, Nattie and Gail are all on the same team here. Well actually, if I think about it, I’m glad they are, otherwise they’d be wasting Beth working with Gail or Nattie in this 30 second cluster. One day, before they die, I’m getting Beth vs Gail. I swear to God. Anyway, whatever.
Giving Andy a follow up appearance was good. Dont need to see him again until he debuts though, which should be ways away. PUNK. AUSTIN AND PUNK. OK, I’m marking. “You wanna beer?” AWESOME. Just awesome. “I could whip your ass backwards” was awesome too. These guys are great. If Austin ever comes back for another match it NEEDS to be with Punk. I’m dreamin’, but whatever.
See, this is where they lose me. The GM DING’d in two separate segments today, here where he’s not the GM. If they had just left him off this show, it would have been a let off for everyone, a happy show, and next week he makes his big return and we boo. But no, you cant leave something so irritating off the show for one week. You cant give the fans a break? Its like Cole. If they had done the original Cole/Lawler angle, blew it off at Mania where it peaked, and then left Cole off for a while and let it cool down, people could recover from so much Cole before they bring him back, as a heel or not. But no, its just Cole, Cole, Cole, all the time, even when he supposedly gets humbled. Even after Cole was blown off at OTL, we had literally like 3 hours of reprieve from heel Cole (not even a break from Cole, he didnt miss a show, just from OTT heel Cole), one show he was humbled and sober, then he went straight back to heeling on SD and now he’s the exact same Cole as he was before, only this time there’s no feud and no prospect of him being beaten. And they dont seem to understand that its INFURIATING. Fans want to enjoy a show, they want to have a good time and believe in your stories, they dont want to spend 4 hours a week being irritated by a douchebag constantly talking sh*t and exposing kayfabe to make you feel stupid for watching. Its annoying, its not an enjoyable experience. And there’s no end game. They had one with Lawler, and missed it, and now there’s no end in sight for an unwatchable character.
ANYWHO, so after 3 hours and the big Austin celebration we still have…a match. At least its Cena and Punk. They’ve worked a million times on TV but they’ve never had a PPV match. Hopefully down the road (give it some time, they’ve just had a million matches this year) they can have a proper PPV feud. Anyway, this was good stuff with awesome heat. More Ryder chants too, a great sign. TRUTH! Truth back to harrassing Little Jimmies in the crowd, awesome. Cena is EXACTLY the guy who would be distracted by the fans being threatened too, great work. And BAM, Punk wins. Truth going over so strong here makes me think he’s losing clean, but hopefully they do something to prolong this because this guy is just off the charts awesome.
