Tuesday, August 28, 2012

8/27/12 RAW

Ratings:
Ryback vs. Jack Swagger: 1/4*

Layla vs. Natalya: DUD

John Cena vs. Miz: **

Santino Marella vs. Heath Slater: DUD

Sin Cara & Brodus Clay vs. Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow: *

R-Truth vs. Daniel Bryan: *

Sheamus & Randy Orton vs.Alberto Del Rio & Dolph Ziggler: *3/4

Zack Ryder vs.David Otunga: 1/2*

CM Punk vs. Jerry Lawler: *1/2
_________________

Reviews/Thoughts:
Opening segment starts with Lawler wanting Punk to apologize for the head kick at the end of the show last week. Punk now out with a buzzed haircut. He basically refuses and slams Lawler more. Sounds like a fight coming at the end of the show. Oh god.

Swagger jobs to Ryback. Ryback botches a back body drop (how?!) and Swagger basically landed on his head. Oops. And how many times has Swagger even won this year? I'm sure you can count it on one hand. Geez.

Layla comes out to almost zero reaction. Natalya didn't even get an on-camera entrance. I'm glad Kaitlyn isn't on commentary again. Vickie stands on the steps throughout the match, which itself was a snoozer. Not that I wanted to hear what Vickie had to say, but the crowd couldn't have cared any less.

Vickie calls AJ Lee's stipulations from Ziggler/Jericho last week an abuse of power and unfair? Not often you see someone complain after the person they manage WINS that particular match. Basically, Vickie wants to be GM and even calls AJ mentally unstable. AJ comes out and attacks Vickie. Sounds about right. I think that's been the best part of the show so far.

I don't care about the whole HHH situation. You'd be stupid to think that's his last match in WWE. There will be another match for him.

Daniel Bryan in anger management class! First segment: boy arrives in a goat mask. YES YES YES!

Social ambassador is Dominic Moaghan. Who? Don't care. Next!

No surprise, Lawler accepts Punk's challenge to fight. He leaves to go change, I guess. Josh Mathews eventually joins Cole.

Cena and Miz next. Decent here, at least they got some time. Looks like Miz now does a Matt Hardy-like Side Effect as a signature move. Usual Cena five moves of doom wins it.

Daniel Bryan anger management class part 2. Last patient arrives. KANE! ROFL! Complete with his black Darth Vader-like mask. And he has the chair next to DB. This just got real awesome.

Slater and Santino in a snoozer. Bad dancing involved as well. Fans chanted "BORING!" at one point in the match. Never a good sign. Aksana predictably shows up, but hey, cobra struck anyway so Santino wins. At least Santino has a storyline to work with.

Tag match next: Cara/Clay vs. Rhodes/Sandow. Pretty basic match, Clay pins Rhodes here. Fyunkadactyls go nuts. Even Sin Cara dances. Can we get Naomi to wrestle anytime soon? I mean, she wasn't too bad on NXT....

Final anger management skit. Kane tells his life story. EPIC WIN. I was legit LOLing all the way through. Kane wins. He just wins.

DB and Truth with a fist bump. Woohoo! Code of honor? Sorta? "GOAT FACE" chant. Tag division on fire? Um, nope. But at least it's better than last year. ROFL at Truth and the "Milwaukee" reference (remember he botched the whole deal with Milwaukee and Green Bay last year). Truth with a lot of "YES" and DB snaps. A "YES NO" war with a fan, and DB is counted out. Sounds about right.

Finally, we hear from HHH. Left arm in a cast again. Sick of all the "did he have his last match?" crap that littered the show. Even the announcers for whatever reason are told to stand. He's moving his casted arm a lot. He cuts the heartfelt, break-kayfabe promo and doesn't directly answer whether he's done or not. It's a great feel-good moment, but I'm certain he'll wrestle again at some point.

Jericho's music plays but it's Ziggler. Yeah, figured. It's time for Ziggler/ADR vs. Sheamus/Orton. Not bad here. Ziggler gets the briefcase but Orton thwarts that. Brogue Kick gets three on Dolph.

Kane on commentary. Josh Mathews runs for his life. Win.

Poor Zack Ryder has been in midcard purgatory again. Rough Ryder out of nowhere to get three in a boring match. Kane grabs Ryder by the throat, but instead chokeslams Otunga. I think the therapy is working.

Orton and Ziggler in the main event on this week's Smackdown. Woohoo.

AJ then picks Cena to face Punk at Night of Champions. Like that was ever in doubt.

Twitter used to determine gimmick match for Punk/Lawler. Tables, Cage, or No DQ. Cage match wins with 48% (No DQ got 32% and Tables got 20%). Can also win by escaping cage here. Punk carried this one, as Lawler got some basic and signature stuff in. Punk got legit busted open near the end of the match, yay blood! Punk with a Rock Bottom but Cole missed the cue. Anaconda Vice wins it. Just very basic stuff, really.

Punk post-match locks himself and Lawler in the cage. He wants to hear Lawler say Punk is the best in the world, but not smart to knock him out...then Jerry can't say it. Cena comes out. Why doesn't he just scale the cage and get in that way? Oh right, because then Punk couldn't do a chicken thing and escape...they'd have to fight somehow and that doesn't work in the WWE world. Good segment to give Punk more heel heat, even though he'll still be cheered. Facing Cena won't help that.

RAW wasn't that great, save for the DB/Kane anger management segments. Now those had me laughing big time.

1 comment:

"Game Show Man" Joe Van Ginkel said...

The black dude sitting next to Kane was former NWA Hollywood TV champ Scorpio Sky.