Stick with us here for all three hours of RAW tonight, starting at 8 PM EST. We’ll be filling this space with more updates and news than you can handle.
After a history-spanning intro video package, Vince McMahon thanks us for tuning in, and introduces D-Generation X, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, who emerge to their music and entrance graphics. HBK is mugging to the crowd and camera like an improv comic and they don’t shut up about their underwear.
“Didn’t there used to be more of us?” they asked, introducing former DX members Billy Gunn, X-Pac, and Road Dogg for a session of posing and hugging in the ring. This is like if all your dad’s friends got together, but with more ridiculous hair. Speaking of, Triple H makes fun of his teammates’ fortysomething year-old hairlines because he’s a a jerk.
Damien Sandow‘s “Hallelujah” chorus interrupts and “Oh thank God,” I said out loud, because that was getting to be some awful crap. “That’s very rude,” says Sandow, correctly pointing out that beating him up would only make him a martyr for good taste. And then they beat him up.
Jim Ross emerges after the break looking slimmed down, snazzy, and sporting a hell of a goatee. We have a six-man tag team match: Rey Mysterio, Sin Cara, and Sheamus vs. Chris Jericho, Alberto Del Rio, and Dolph Ziggler
During the intro a video package reminds us about Jericho hitting the Codebreaker on his teammate, Ziggler, last week. Everyone makes their entrances and we go to commercial. Political Animals does not look too great.
Ziggler, Jericho, and then Del Rio work on Sin Cara after the break. Michael Cole tells us Hornswoggle is doing things on Tout, FYI. Cole notes that this is Jericho’s 360th Raw match, second only to Triple H, which is the kind of neat stat they should pull out more often even if they are totally made up. Sheamus lands a pair of Irish Curses (lol) on Jericho and Mysterio helps empty the ring. Ziggler takes a cheap shot at Jericho, his own teammate, leading to a Brogue Kick and the pin for Sheamus, Sin Cara, and Mysterio. Good enough match. Ziggler continues his climb to the top and Jericho takes another loss.
Commercial break. I’m eating your pizza, Domino’s manager claiming “this pizza’s worth twice that much” and you’re totally full of it.
Jerry Lawler says this is the most active episode of anything on social media ever. Good job beating out Gunsmoke‘s Twitter followers. They fill time with some random dudes on Tout.
Cole and Lawler turn over to sitcom star and serial abuser of woman Charlie Sheen for thoughts on DX and Sheamus. Okay. Afterward a video recaps the engagement between AJ and Daniel Bryan.
Afterward Layla and AJ chat backstage about the upcoming nuptials, and AJ points out that next to the likes of “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, R-Truth, Roddy Piper, and Little Jimmy she’s not that nuts at all. Mae Young shows up with her “son” in a giant hand costume in a nod to continuity we were better off without. I always love Layla’s silly dance.
Commercial break. I think we also might be better off without a remake of Total Recall.
A Sonic waitress rolled up on skates to hand Lawler and Cole some slushies. No really, that happened. Jack Swagger is out to no music and, yup, he’s about to get squashed by Brodus Clay. Clay, Naomi, and Cameron are in patriotic red, white, and blue and holy crap this match finished before I could finish this sentence. Dude Love joins Clay and applies Mister Socko to Swagger after the lightning-quick match.
Triple H goes over awkward yoga positions with Trish Stratus, repeating a joke they did ten years ago. The rest of DX show up to mug some more. X-Pac tries hitting on Trish afterward. Not even close to your league, buddy.
A tuxedoed Daniel Bryan chats with a couple of burly male nurses in white scrubs prior to his wedding. Wonder if he’s going to send AJ to the same sanitarium they sent Linda McMahon to.
Commercial break.
The ring is decorated with white flowers and Slick is introduced to officiate the wedding ceremony. “It’s Slick!” yells Lawler. That’s right, it is Slick!
Bryan comes out to his entrance music and YES chants, but AJ emerges in a beautiful wedding gown to organ music. (“It’s on for another two hours,” says my frustrated roommate.) Slick does the “marriage” bit from The Princess Bride and tells the crowd to speak their objections or forever hold their peace, which they do, but no interruptions (surprise). Dueling “Yes”/”No” chants as Bryan makes his vows. Oddly, Bryan has a whole speech but AJ doesn’t say anything.
TWIST! “I was saying ‘Yes’ to someone else,” says AJ, “another man who made a proposal tonight.” Oh gross no it’s Vince McMahon? But wait: McMahon had another kind of proposal in mind for AJ. Raw has a new general manager–AJ. Her music plays and she YESes her way to the back while Bryan remains in the ring slack-jawed. Huh, how ’bout that?
Commercial break. Chael Sonnen is hawking exercise equipment.
CM Punk comes out after the break. “I don’t mean to rub it in your face,” he says to Daniel Bryan before promptly rubbing it completely and totally in his face. A scorned Bryan replies by proclaiming himself the greatest WWE star of all time, and repeated it enough times that you know someone was gonna come out to interrupt. It’s The Rock, who gets upset after Bryan tries to interrupt his intro schtick.
Rock turns his attention to Punk and announces that he will be facing the WWE Champion in a match at the Royal Rumble, and Punk replies by saying he’ll both John Cena tonight and the Rock at the Rumble.
“No! No! No!” says Bryan, who wants the Rock in a fight for himself. The Rock makes his second short joke of the evening complete with the Oompah Loompah song (*fart noise, hand wanking motion*), and Bryan gets a Rock Bottom.
Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman were talking backstage, they said so on Tout. Commercial Break. The Rock just completely crapped all over that segment. Not looking forward to having him back to plug the Royal Rumble.
Bret “The Hitman” Hart is introduced as the next match’s special guest ring announcer, says it’s an honor to be there, and introduces the Intercontintental Championship match. Christian is out first and shakes hands with Hart. “And his opponent, The Miz,” says Hart with a pretty funny sort of nonchalance in his voice. With a new haircut, this is as mean and non-goofy as Miz has looked in his career. Christian takes Miz out with a crossbody to the outside and they cut to break.
My favorite completely unnecessary signature wrestling move may be when Christian slides out of the ring to slap a dude tied up in the ropes. He lands some offense after the break and unfortunately we’re going to hear more from Charlie Sheen before the night’s done. Miz focuses on Christian’s leg throughout the match. Christian tweaks his leg countering Miz’s finisher, allowing Miz to recover and hit the Skullcrushing Finale forthe clean win and the championship. The Miz is your new Intercontinental Champion and, yes, he is awesome.
Charlie Sheen is back and actually has the audacity to lecture Daniel Bryan on how to treat women. A commercial for Burn Notice interrupts Michael Cole before he could finish his go-to-break spiel.
Regis Philbin details his history with WWE, and what’s scary is he looks about exactly the same in 2012 as the video of him at Wrestlemanias in the 80s.
Triple H makes his third appearance of the show, hooray, this time to his own music. We get a recap of Brock Lesnar breaking H’s arm with a kimura three months ago. “I’ve had my fun, now it’s time to pick up the intensity a bit,” he said, switching off happytime joke H and turning on angry slow-talking H, and calls out Lesnar once again.
Paul Heyman comes out to Lesnar’s music, which is great, because Heyman’s perfectly deflects the lame “horse’s ass” joke Triple H quickly cracks. Heyman, acting through power of attorney, turns down Triple H’s challenge once again. “You’re gonna resort to namecalling? What are you, a child?”says Heyman, which is something Triple H needs to be told often. Heyman made a crack about Hunter’s kids, and Stephanie McMahon.
Stephanie points out that unlike Lesnar, her father Vince had the guts to get in the ring with Triple H, which you would think would be something they try not to talk about in the family. She gives Heyman the Stephanie Slap, which is what her finisher was called in No Mercy on N64, and Heyman is provoked into agreeing to the Summerslam match. Everyone bickers a bit, Stephanie totally jumps Heyman from out of nowhere, and Lesnar’s music hits again to bring out the man himself. Lesnar and Triple H exchange blows before H clotheslines Lesnar out of the ring, because he is the coolest always.
I have no idea what Heyman said that got everyone so riled up. I feel kind of sorry for Triple H and Stephanie’s kids too. Talk about anger issues.
Commercial break.
We’re back. Kofi Kingston is on Tout and can’t believe what he just saw.
Yet another video package brings us back to the days of Steve Austin feuding with Vince McMahon. The Zamboni. The beer truck. Kinda funny listening to all the words they bleep out today. Thanks a lot, Linda McMahon for Senate campaign.
Aaaaaaand another commercial.
Santino Marella, Hornswoggle, and a couple armload of talking plush Raw buddies NOW ON SALE AT WWE DOT COM! Howard Finkel is introduced as special guest ring announcer, and Heath Slater, finally getting a well-deserved full entrance, comes out first. Aw man, this is gonna be fun.
Slater is wearing enough spray tan that his skin matches his hair. He makes an open challenge for a no-DQ match, and Lita answers the call. Sweet! The match is about to start when Lita takes the mic to point out that she had brought protection, and the APA, Bradshaw and Ron Simmons, came to the ring. As Slater tried to run, Road Warrior Animal and the rest of the Raw legends blocked passage and led him back to the ring. Lita nailed a Twist of Fate on Slater, JBL added a Clothesline from Hell, and Lita took the pinfall after one of her better moonsaults. Simmons said “Damn!”and the Raw legends posed in the ring.
Earlier tonight: AJ is Raw General Manager now. Yes. Yes. Yes. Daniel Bryan gets Rock Bottomed. Not his night.
Sean Mooney from the first ever Raw interviews Bryan, who’s having a rough night. “Who is he to judge anybody?” said Bryan about Charlie Sheen. Bryan promises to slap the YES! Lock onto Sheen faster than he can say “winning!” If that happened I would watch it on a loop forever.
After the commercial, Michael Cole joins Alex Guerrero, Jr., WWE’s hundred millionth social media follower. None other than Fozzy Bear introduces, sigh, another video package, this one on catchphrases. Whoo. Woo woo wool. What? Really? Excuse me. Yes.
Zack Ryder has a blockbuster discovery: “Mean” Gene Okerlund was behind GTV the whole time. Whatevs, cause here’s the Rock to chat it up with John Cena. Rock wishes Cena good luck on his match tonight.
After the break, Kane comes out and is followed by Jinder Mahal and a cadre of jobbers (Curt Hawkins, Tyler Reks, Drew McIntyre, Hunico, Camacho), who complain about not getting any tv time. Well, they’re not getting any tonight, as they’re quickly interrupted by The Undertaker and his ten-minute walk to the ring. Things do not look good for Jinder and pals. Kane and ‘Taker clear the ring as they are attacked, and the Brothers of Destruction deliver stereo Tombstone Piledrivers to Hawkins and Hunico. The two pose in the ring before the show cuts to a Be a Star Rally. These are still kinda ridiculous, but Eve, Sheamus, and Miz seem really good at speaking to the kids.
Commercial break. They’re starting the title match pretty late, so it’s probably not going to go on too long, which makes me resigned to some cheap non-finish.
But hey instead of that, let’s hear what Charlie Sheen has to say! He rags on “goat-face” Daniel Bryan and calls on Bryan to come find him in Los Angeles. No seriously, get Daniel Bryan beating the absolute piss out of Charlie Sheen on tv and I will watch that so hard.
John Cena finally comes out to begin the main event championship match at 10:53 PM. At 10:55 during Punk’s entrance holy freaking crap another commercial? At this pace we’re looking at a 10-15 minute match tops, which kinda sucks.
Raw returns and the championship match began at 10:59. Unbelievable. Things start out slowly and the two exchange strikes to feel each other out. The ref conscientiously reminds Punk not to claw at Cena’s face. Punk takes control of Cena’s legs and looks like he’ll attempt a surfboard stretch, but reconsiders and slaps on a chinlock instead to slow things down.
When they get up some YAY/BOO punches–YAY for Punk and BOO for Cena–before Cena hits a couple of his signature moves. Punk reverses Cena’s back drop, but badly, and actually lands on his face worse than if
Punk kicked Cena in the face beautifully while Cena leaned in to inform him that he (Cena) could not be seen, just like their match at Tables,Ladders, and Chairs last year. Quickly afterward the ref gets knocked out just before Cena hits an Attitude Adjustment for a visual 3, but no ref to count it. With no official around to stop it, Big Show lumbers down and hits his knockout punch on Cena.
Punk plays off feeling conflicted over whether to pin Cena for a long enough time that once he finally does, Cena manages a kickout at 2. Punk goes for a reluctant Go 2 Sleep, which Cena reverses into the STF. Big Show returns before Punk can tap out and breaks up the hold to cause a DQ.
Afterward Big Show kept the hurt on Cena, and Punk stood watching idly by before retreating the scene altogether. The Rock’s music brought out The Great One to drive away Big Show, but Punk returned with a surprise clothesline to The Rock. He followed up with a Go 2 Sleep on The Rock to boos. CM Punk is still WWE Champion, the Rock is shut up for the first time in years, and Punk is WWE’s top heel again. That’s how you write a good ending. But where was Steve Austin?
We’ll be back with more coverage tomorrow, for now let’s sit back and reflect on one of the better heel turns in recent memory. Good night!
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