The SmarK RAW Rant – 07.30.12
No longer the Supershow, apparently.
Live from Cincinnati, OH
Your hosts are Michael Cole & Jerry Lawler
CM Punk starts us out, and he still hasn’t debuted the new belt yet. He’s been SILENT on Twitter all week, which is like the 2012 version of a heel turn, I guess. So Punk talks about how he didn’t appreciate Jerry Lawler accusing him of turning his back on the WWE Universe last week. Punk goes to sit on the announce table and talk to Lawler in a nice touch, complaining about how The Rock is not part of WWE, but merely an outsider from Hollywood who was “gifted” a title match and yet continues to treat Punk with disrespect. But now he’s quiet after getting his ass kicked by Punk. Big Show interrupts and Punk thinks Show is stealing his spotlight, too. Show thinks he just might be, because he cost John Cena the title last week and Punk would have tapped without his interference. ANGRY JOHN CENA charges out for some reason and chases Show out of the ring. This all brings out GMAJ to announce Big Show v. John Cena for the Summerslam title shot. All the buildup of Crazy AJ, and now she’s out there in a business suit like Stephanie Jr. and making #1 contender matches like every other GM ever did. She’s just Eve Torres now. At least when they were getting her over, it was a unique character who was doing something different. They really thought this was a good direction for her?
Santino Marella v. Alberto Del Rio
Really? We get to watch ADR squash the US champion in 90 seconds for the millionth time? Santino attacks and gets laid out for his troubles, but fights back until Del Rio hits him with a snap suplex and works on the arm in the corner. Blind charge misses and Santino puts him on the floor, and we TAKE A BREAK. Holy cow, Santino made it to the commercial break! Back with Del Rio hitting a double stomp and going back to the arm again until Santino escapes with a backdrop suplex. ADR cuts off the comeback, but misses another double stomp, allowing Santino to set up for the Cobra…until the armbreaker finishes at 6:40. Just a long squash for Del Rio. *1/2 Why don’t they just take the damn US title off Santino? He’s literally just a jobber at this point and all it’s doing is making the belt look more worthless every week.
Brodus Clay is out for his weekly dance, but Vickie Guerrero interrupts to show off her own Elaine Benes-like skills. Yeah, it’s a three hour show, why do you ask? Damien Sandow interrupts this for some reason, still upset about getting beat up by D-X last week, and lays out Brodus for the intellectually stimulating beatdown. Hey, finally a program for both guys!
Meanwhile, Daniel Bryan gets up the courage to burst into AJ’s office, and she punishes him with a match against Sheamus tonight, to be voted on by the fans! It can be a street fight (no holds barred), a street fight (falls count anywhere), or a street fight (street fight). Seriously?
For those keeping track, that first hour was 6 minutes of wrestling and about 20 minutes of recaps of previous shows or video packages.
Sheamus v. Daniel Bryan
The winning street fight is STREET FIGHT. Wow. I feel so involved now. Bryan beats on him in the corner, but Sheamus puts him down with an elbow and drops knees for two. They fight onto the floor and Sheamus backdrops him on the ramp, but Bryan fires back with kicks to put Sheamus down on the concrete, and follows with a flying knee off the ramp. And we take a break. Back with Bryan dropkicking Sheamus to the floor, but Sheamus suplexes him into the railing and then back to the floor again. Sheamus grabs some weapons and Bryan uses the kendo stick on him, then dropkicks him into a chair in the corner for two. Back to the floor and Sheamus gets sent into the post and then into the railing. Back in, Sheamus quickly comes back and finishes with the brogue kick at 12:45. Bryan Alvarez is right – Sheamus is turning into HHH more and more every week. ***
And we get MORE REPLAYS while Bryan lays around in the ring selling the beating. Truth and Kofi come out to tell Bryan to get lost, and Bryan punts Little Jimmy out of the ring. Bryan’s men in white coats come out to get Truth, but AJ has them escort Bryan out instead. I feel like I missed a week here – what exactly did Bryan do to AJ that was so horrible? Try to have her committed for being crazy? She IS crazy! CM Punk said so! And why did Bryan have them ready to come out and commit R-Truth? This was all really stupid.
Speaking of stupid, we get some particularly retarded Touts to add to the endless replays, Twitter polls, video packages, website plugs, freak Titantron fires, commercials, and talking.
Kofi Kingston v. Titus O’Neil
So yes, this Kofi/Truth thing stretches over two segments and a commercial break. Welcome to the three-hour era. Titus catches Kofi on a crossbody attempt and hits a backbreaker, and a slam gets two. Kofi fires back and hits the dropkick and leaping clothesline to come back, and the Boomdrop brings Darren Young into things. AW tosses his shoe at Kofi so that Kofi can get distracted like a moron, and Titus finishes with a powerbomb at 2:50. Wow, one of these goofs finally won a match after two months of being #1 contenders. Also, AW makes a rape joke and is probably going to get fired for it. Let this be a lesson about putting a live microphone on people without live TV experience.
Meanwhile, Punk has a man-to-man talk with Cena, and advises him to let go of the hate. And of course we have to replay this after the break, because we have to replay EVERYTHING tonight, no matter how trivial.
Heath Slater v. Randy Orton
Having exhausted his supply of legends to job to, Slater challenges any current star, which brings out Orton. Slater attacks and gets nowhere, as Orton quickly finishes him with his usual at 1:14. Good thing they devoted all that TV time to getting Slater over. ½*
Meanwhile, Bryan gets interviewed by a psychiatrist. And we are BARELY even at the two hour mark yet.
Christian & Chris Jericho v. The Miz & Dolph Ziggler
Christian flapjacks Ziggler for two right away, and then beats on the Miz to send him running. Jericho comes in and the heels work him over for a bit, but he evades Ziggler and goes up with a flying axehandle on Ziggler to dump him. Miz gets dumped as well and Christian hits them with a dive as we take a break. Back with Miz getting the chinlock on Jericho, but Christian comes in with a back elbow on Ziggler and a sunset flip out of the corner for two. Dolph hits him with a dropkick for two and Christian is the Canadian-in-peril. Miz boots him down for two and the heels do a beatdown in the corner before Ziggler goes to another chinlock to continue stretching things out. Ziggler whiffs on the fameasser, as Christian looked like he missed his cue, and they do a second try so that Christian can reverse into a powerbomb and make the hot tag. Lionsault gets two on Miz, but Ziggler breaks it up and it’s BONZO GONZO. Miz escapes the Walls, but walks into the codebreaker at 12:30. Perfectly Acceptable Wrestling to fill 15 minutes of airtime. ***1/4
Meanwhile, Daniel Bryan continues using up precious, precious TV time, taking an inkblot test and reinforcing his craziness.
Tyson Kidd v. Tensai
Yes! It’s the rallying cry of WWE apologists, the dream of the FIFTEEN MINUTE TYSON KIDD MATCHES to fill up 3 hours of RAW. So yeah, Tensai in fact squashes the fuck out of him, but Kidd gets his one rollup for the near-fall and a Buff Blockbuster for two. Tensai finishes with the Baldobomb at 2:11. He continues beating the everloving piss out of Kidd afterwards, so the ref reverses the decision. Yes, it’s the stupidest finish in wrestling, the one where a guy wins clean in dominating fashion, but the other guy wins on a reversed decision because he was getting his ass kicked too much. Anybody give a shit about Tensai yet? ½*
Meanwhile, the doctor wraps up his examination of Bryan, and Kane beats him up for the payoff. I guess. I should point out that even my wife, who doesn’t even watch wrestling and is just kind of half-watching while I do, asks “How LONG is this show, five hours?!” at this point.
And now, our THIRD in-depth recap of HHH-Lesnar from last week. End this show now, please.
Generic #1 Contender match: Big Show v. John Cena
Show slowly beats on Cena, but misses the FRYING PAN OF DOOM and Cena puts the sleeper on him. And they stretch that out for TWO MINUTES, until Show goes down and Cena gets two. And we take a break to get a respite from all this excitement. And now it’s the bearhug. Cena comes back with the world’s worst DDT and it’s time for the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM because they’ve managed to use up 15 minutes of precious, precious airtime, but Show chokeslams him for two. Cena bails to escape (and use up more precious, precious airtime) and Cena collides with Punk at the table, which prompts Punk to attack both guys when Cena tries the FU on Show for the no-contest at 16:00. Are you fucking kidding me? Nearly twenty minutes with intros for THAT finish? * Punk declares them both losers, but GMAJ comes out and makes the SHOCKING ANNOUNCEMENT that in fact it will be a triple threat match at Summerslam. Punk calls her a BAD GM! Holy shit! PIPEBOMB! It’s the Summer of Punk all over again!
The Pulse:
Wait, what happened with Brock and HHH again? I forgot already.
