WWE RAW RANT

by Cameron Burge

June 13, 2011

Welcome back to the Best Damn Why the Fuck is This Show So Long Rant, Period! I have one question for you, readers. Why the fuck is this show so long? Apparently a shitty game that nobody is going to buy or play, except for Ultimate Warrior who wants to relieve the version of his glory days that only exists in his mind, is worth three hours of programming. Guess what? It isn’t.

Raw 06.13.11

Show opens with theme and pyro and we are live with Stone Cold as the special GM for the evening. There’s no real reason for this other than the regular GM of Raw seems to have multiple personality disorder. This is probably due to being written by multiple people. Cole and King welcoe us to tell us what I already just said. Tonight we are apparently going to keep seeing clips from All Star, including it being used for the matchup cards as we see John Cena vs. The Hulk painted up to look like CM Punk. The Miz is out next to start us off with clips of Stone Cole helping Miz to a loss that was reversed last week.

Miz says tonight is All Star night in case you haven’t noticed since they’ve said it a million times. He declares himself the all time all star of the WWE and says only an ungrateful moron wouldn’t realize that, which as it happens is a good descriptor to segue into Alex Riley. He makes a reference to the most hilariously named politician ever in Anthony Wiener and then says he’s going to show off what it takes to be a WWE superstar and asks the audience if they are really going to start What? Chants already since it was only cool in 2001. Seriously, most of the people chanting that don’t even remember why the fuck it got started. It’s annoying. Miz says he is tired of the jealous members of the attitude era trying to steal his spotlight all the time and says the show will not be started until Austin apologizes to him, so he comes out.

I like how this was a good enough excuse to make a new Stone Cold t-shirt for him to wear and sell in the front lobby for an over inflated price that is probably equivalent to twice what Angelina Jolie pays for the kids she bu- I mean adopts. Austin lists off some stupid things about Miz and tells a story about Miz being good on the microphone. He’s mad though that Miz ran away from fight like a little girl. I’m not actually sure what he’s talking about since he says this happened at Wrestlemania, so whatever. He mostly just lists things for What chants. He mentions Piper will be here with the Piper’s Pit and tells Miz to leave if he knows what is good for him.

Miz walks off and Del Rio comes out instead to basically say nothing. Stone Cold someone has been wanting to get at Del Rio for weeks but hasn’t had a chance so he will get it in the next match as Kane appears.

Random Commercial Thought: Call of Duty Elite is bullshit.

Back to the show where the match is in progress.

Alberto Del Rio w/ Ricardo Rodriguez vs. Kane

Kane is being worked over by Alberto pretty early on here. Alberto gets some quick counts and tries to work the arm in some simple holds to soften him up for the arm bar. Kane finally manages to escape by forcing Del Rio over the ropes to the floor. Rio charges back in straight into an uppercut and a big boot to the face. Kane crushes him in the corner and puts Del Rio down with a side slam for a two count. Kane climbs up top, but bombs the flying clothesline. Del Rio underhooks Kane and rolls over into the cross arm breaker. Kane manages to writhe his way to the ropes and grabs the rope, but Del Rio refuses to break the hold until Del Rio gets the DQ.

Winner: Kane

Rio refuses to break the hold, trying to break the arm instead when Big Show’s music hits and I’ve never seen Show run that fast. He’s wearing one yellow glove for some reason. He tackles Del Rio, but Rodriguez manages to drag him to safety so Show destroys Rodriguez instead until Kane pulls him off with a headlock after being thrown off several times. Kane says he can kill Del Rio later while Stone Cold comes out to make a match between Rio and Show for the PPV. This is how we solve auto accidents in the wrestling world. With a fight.

Random Commercial Thought: Where’s the Wrestling indeed.

Back to the show for a six man tag match.

Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase & Wade Barrett vs. Ezekial Jackson & Daniel Bryan & Sin Cara

This match is bathed in that stupid Sin Cara light who is only the match for a few seconds. Bryan tags in and is taking on Cody, but he gets run down by Ted from the outside. Ted tags in after Cody wears Bryan down, but decides to do abso-fucking-nothing before tagging to Wade. Wade levels Bryan for a two count and works a chin lock. Bryan escapes and tags in Jackson. Jackson runs Wade over several time and crushes him into the corner before following up with a slam. Where the hell is Sin Cara even at? I don’t see him. He slams Wade several times and puts him up in the torture rack, but Dibaise and Rhodes run in to break it up. They get dumped to the floor and Bryan comes in to get bench press thrown onto them on the outside. Ezekial runs Wade over again and makes the tag to Cara who springs in with a cross body for three.

Winners: Cara, Jackson, Bryan

Random Commercial Thought: Comic Book Movies should from now on just be called Money Movies.

Michael Cole doesn’t realize he is back on the air because he’s retarded. Hornswoggle was shooting shirts into the crowd when R-Truth appears. He decides to give a speech about how he’s a good R-Truth and will tote that barge and lift that bale. Hornswoggle proceeds to shoot him with the gun and try to run away. Truth stops him, but just calms him down until Horny (this is also the name of the min villain of Drive Thru, in case you care…you don’t, I know) is trusting of him. Truth boots him right in his oversized beard. Stone Cole appears on the screen and asks Truth to pick on someone his own size, before panning over to Morrison who will take him on tonight. I guess Morrison healed up quicker than predicted? One of Truth’s dreads is glued to his forehead with his stank sweat. Truth gives Horny a stomp for good measure before leaving. More power to him. We should all beat up a midget to take out some of our frustrations once in a while. The crowd is chanting Jerry, but because the camera man was out of position, I didn’t see it was because he ran to protect Horny from future assaults.

Random Commercial Thought: When a show takes place around lots of tall building, you need to do promo shots up at the main character’s crotches like it was shot by a smurf.

We return to a match about to start.

Santino Marella vs. Sheamus

Santino approaches with goofy sidekick as Sheamus casually steps back and then runs him right the fuck over. Sheamus hammers him over the chest through the ropes. Sheamus continues to stomp Santino down and picks up a two count. Sheamus works a headlock on Santino…while the crowd chants…we want Vladimir? Is that what they are saying? That’s hilarious. Santino hulks up and trips Sheamus into the ropes after firing up some punches, but Sheamus blocks his hip toss out of the split with a clothesline and goes for the high cross. Santino slips free and gets the hip toss and fires up the cobra to a big pop. He fucks the pump kick and hit’s the cobra, but Sheamus kick out with a knee to the head and hit’s the boot. Sheamus then finishes things with the Texas Cloverleaf. Huh.

Winner: Sheamus

Cole says it was almost a cloverleaf, which is silly because it WAS a fucking cloverleaf, you retard. We get a preview for a new USA that was less than a minute and then cut back to see Randy “I don’t give a shit who I burry” Orton on his way through the back before going to commercial for real. Why didn’t we save that preview to just go straight to commercial?

Random Commercial Thought: I’m not a bad teacher.

Back to the show where we come back to a little emotional replay of Christian attacking Orton the last couple of weeks. Orton then appears, cheered on by underaged girls in short shorts. Orton’s microphone or something is broken as he tries to talk and reintroduces himself. He says it feels good to be back on Raw. I can only assume he grew the hobo beard because he felt like being on Smackdown is like being homeless. Orton wants Christian and promises not to hurt him, he just wants to talk. That’s funny, because Orton hasn’t been able to talk his entire career without sounding like a guy with down syndrome. He admits to his promise being a lie when Christian doesn’t show up and he appears in the back. Christian says it must not be fun getting embarrassed every week. He wonders why Orton is angry, considering he’s had his career handed to him on a silver platter. This is actually true. I like how Christian basically tells the truth here in this promo, but hey, he’s the heel here…right? I kind of equate this to R-Truth where we are supposed to hate somebody who is completely right. Christian asks the audience if they want him to face Orton right now and then reminds them he doesn’t care what the people want.

Orton invokes the name of Edge, saying he was carrying him for seventeen years and this earns Orton a big boo. I mean a huge boo. Christian decides to accept the challenge then. Christian’s entrance music still sucks. It’s like some kind of crappy Impact theme. I want the opera back, he’s heel again; thrown me a bone! Christian pauses on the entrance ramp and decides to instead back up as security suddenly appear as if summoned by a wizard to form a barrier between them. Orton proceeds to treat the security like everything else, but completely no selling them and walking right through until the Raw GM (not Austin) interrupts. The GM says he has to step in here even though Stone Cold is officially in charge. He says Orton has a concussion from the belt, but he can’t compete tonight to protect him for the PPV. Orton decides to no sell that too and tries to get to Christian instead. The GM interrupts again to say if he refuses to listen he will be stripped of the title. Clearly the Raw GM has this kind of power over SMACKDOWN’S title, but whatever.

We cut to Austin in the back saying Christian may have escaped an ass whooping from Orton, so he has a match up next against Rey Mysterio. That should be good.

Random Commercial Thought: I don’t trust blue crosses and shields. One of them looks like a torture device for Smurf Jesus and the other looks like a device designed only for Smurf War.

We return to Booker T joining at the commentary desk, because since the rest of Smackdown is apparently taking place on Raw, he might as well be here too.

Rey Mysterio vs. Christian

Mysterio starts off with sharp kicks to Christian’s knees, but Christian overpowers him and pummels Rey into the corner for some chops. Rey leap frogs over Christian and delivers a head scissor that was supposed to set up for the 619, but they did the spot too far from the ropes and Christian misses, so he flops himself onto the rope. They also replay the botched spot to show us how Christian hit his head on the rope, but don’t remember to stop it before he corrected the spot. He counters the 619, by leaping up into a clothesline and proceeds to chuck Mysterio to the floor after working a rest hold as we go to commercial.

Random Commercial Thought: It’s easy to shave when you already have no facial hair.

Christian is choking Rey out in the corner as we return to the match and just keeps choking Rey out. Christian won’t break, but he lets Rey out right…AFTER five. The ref calls for the bell anyway though Rey has been released. The crowd shits on this as hard as you might expect.

Winner: Rey

Christian proceeds to attack Mysterio and puts him into positions for some kind of move from the top rope, but Mysterio blocks and counters it into a back body drop. Christian sets himself up for the top rope splash, but CM Punk arrives. Mysterio leaps off into a cross body and then slides back in for Christian. Christian tries the killswitch, but Mysterio escapes and sets him up for a 619. Christian dodges this when Nexus arrive for a distraction, but gets dropkicked into the 619 position AGAIN. Mysterio tries for it, but Mason Ryan blocks and drags Rey out for a series of back breaker. Back in the ring, Christian delivers a killswitch after looking like a weak little bitch. Also Rey can apparently take on two people simultaneously and it took a third to stop him.

Elsewhere, Dolph and Vickie ask Stone Cold for a US title match. Stone Cold agrees to give the match on the condition that he drops Vickie as his manager. He’s left in quite a position. God, I’m tired of hearing him talk about being the Ringmaster. He says at least he had Ted Dibiase as a manager. Dolph finally agrees to drop her. She pouts about it. Stone Cold hen reveals he was just joking and had already made the match. Dolph is left to make amends. I just learned something from WWE All Star. R-Truth can backflip off a person’s chest twenty feet into the air and land on a turnbuckle. I demand this spot happen in the match later.

Random Commercial Thought: I have sex after watching Human Centipede all the time. Masturbation counts as sex, right?

Back to the show where Truth arrives to his non-music, sadly not to his marching theme from last week. They play the entrance music for Morrison, but he doesn’t arrive. Truth eventually gets his microphone and wants to know what’s up? He says he was acting like Billy Bad, and next thing he’s going to start saying he’s Stagolee. He says if Morrison is scared, he can just stay back there and they should fight if that’s what he came for. Truth finally says he’s going to come get Morrison himself then and heads to the back. Of course, since Morrison is actually still injured, we find Morrison wrecked to all hell in the back already as Truth pretends to sob over him saying the Jimmies came for a match. He rams something into him after the match and promises the match will never happen as we go to commercial. This show is actually only an hour long, with two hours of commercials.

Random Commercial Thought: With as many breaks, we’ve been having, I’m running out of stuff to say. I will say that Battle Los Angeles looks like a worse movie than Independence Day.

Back to the show for a video package of Dolph Ziggler like the one we had of Kofi Kingston. I thought they were doing that US title match, but maybe that was for the PPV and I just tuned out what Dolph was saying like I usually do.

Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger vs. Kofi Kingston & Evan Bourne

Dolph starts off with Kofi and knees him in the gut over and over until he’s beat him down. Kofi springs up and leaps over Dolph several times before hitting a spinning reverse elbow. Swagger clubs Kofi in the back of the head from the apron and makes the tag. Swagger hammers the shit out of Kofi and it’s easy to forget sometimes just how big Swagger is until you see him next to some of these guys. Swagger puts Kofi down with sambo suplex and rushes Kofi to the corner. Bourne manages to get the tag when Kofi breaks away and goes to cross bodies on Swagger and kicks. He kicks Dolph off the apron and tries to roll through on Swagger to a pin, but it’s countered into an ankle lock. Bourne escapes and kicks Dolph again I think, but I was busy watching Kofi on the apron doing Trouble in Paradise…while ON the apron to Swagger. This sets him up for Air Bourne. Winners: Kofi & Bourne

Vickie gives Dolph a stern talking to. The Rock won a pointless award voted on by pointless people in a pointless ceremony. We have a Piper’s Pit coming up. We can only hope he shows up sober. Miracles happen.

Random Commercial Thought: Diamond Dallas Page is perhaps the only guy I would trust for this DVD.

We return to Roddy Piper who says he dropped Mr. T like a bad habit. But Mr. T has his own comic book and trading card, so I think he’s still winning. Insert an already dated Sheen joke here. Miz arrives and asks if we’re going to do this. Miz’s favorite memory of this building is four years from now when they tear it down and replace it with nothing. HA! Pipe invites riley out and Piper has to get between them after a big chant for Riley from the crowd. Miz interrupts Piper when he tries to ask a question and Piper says something insane about King Kong Bundy and Andre the Giant in a well. He says this as an excuse to do the bit about changing the questions. I’m pretty sure he’s off the meds again. Riley says Piper could beat Miz right now who says he probably couldn’t. Miz asks the audience if they think that too. I’m pretty sure he can if King could do it too. Piper says he’ll bet 5,000 dollars on this. Stone Cold makes the match and makes Alex Riley the special referee.

Random Commercial Thought: I made a burger now. Comfort food eases the pain, you know.

Roddy Piper vs. The Miz (w/ Alex riley as Guest Referee)

Roddy Piper gets the shit kicked out of him from the very beginning, beaten into the corner. Riley breaks things up and Roddy jumps onto Miz’s back with a sleeper hold. Miz breaks out and slams Roddy to the corner for more punches until Riley tosses him off. Miz attacks Riley and gets his ass kicked and then immediately rolled up by Piper for the three.

Winner: Piper

Why did I have to see that? Miz gets dumped by Riley to the floor after the match. I know I shouldn’t have expected anything out of this match…which begs the question of why we had this match in the first place.

Random Commercial Thought: Nothing is worse than a dead battery. Except for maybe a dead hooker, but that depends on what you are into.

The Price is Right is going to have divas on it. I will watch that…never. They are going to have a seven on seven divas match. BULLSHIT. Did the heels have to all wear black to maximize my inability to see which one is which.

Every Heel Diva vs. Every Face Diva

I’ll be honest, I’m not recapping this. It’s as bad as you might imagine it to be. It’s another Kelly Kelly showcase in which she manages to suck at everything and scream a lot. Actually, it turns into an all out brawl in five second and ends with Rosa Mendez getting some kind of leg drop finisher from Kelly.

Winners: Faces

Eve grabs a microphone to do a WWE Diva tribute to Broadway. It’s a can can dance. We see Andy being declared the winner of Tough Enough last week before Stone Cold now shares a beer with him in the back. Punk shows up and gets introduced to him. Stone Cold calls Andy off and asks if Punk wants a beer. Punk keeps asking What? Which is pretty funny for once actually. Punk asks if he’s sober and can say the alphabet backwards. Stone Cold assure he can kick his ass backwards. Punk thanks him for making a match with Cena tonight and says his greatest moments are behind him. Punk tries to steal his bottom line speech and Stone Cold makes it clear that Nexus is banned from the match. Punk says he can handle that, because it’s worked out against the likes of Randy Orton…oh wait. Austin says he has an announcement to make and leaves him there.

Random Commercial Thought: My bank is my new dad.

Back to the show. Stone Cold hits the ring and gets interrupted by the GM. Cole gets embarrassed to say he needs to read the e-mail. Cole eventually gets around to reading the e-mail with the GM saying Stone Cold did a fair job this week, but all good things must come to an end, so to make sure everyone is aware, the anonymous GM will be back next week. Stone Cold makes an announcement for next week then that it will be another three hour show. I HATE YOU. It’s all about the power of the people….and will be Cyber Sunday. The GM tries to respond several times and Stone Cold says he’ll beat Michael Cole’s ass if he doesn’t make it stop. When it doesn’t, he chases Cole through the audience and takes the computers to the aisle to poor beer on it and drive his ATV over it multiple times.

PG kids, drink and drive! King does another dream of Obama. Fuck this sketch.

Random Commercial thought: If your eight year old daughters who appear to come from different mothers are trying to hook you up with women, I highly recommend you don’t listen to them.

Back to the show where Punk arrives, screaming something I couldn’t make out over the announcer. Sometimes I wish I had Tivo. Cena gets HUGE boos here whenever he tries to taunt and when he first arrives.

CM Punk vs. WWE Champion John Cena (Non-Title Match)

Punk is here to be sacrificed against the Cena haters. Big CM Punk chants begin the match and Punk tries to work a waist lock on Cena. Cena looks at this wrestling move as a man who has never seen a hold in his life. He powers out of it as dueling chants begin. They trade a few quick moves with Punk suddenly scooping Cena up for a GTS, but he slips out into an FU, but Punk slips out of this and they reset. The dueling chants are loud, overpowering the commentators for the most part. The Punk chants are quite louder than anything else. Punk takes Cena down and starts stomping the crap out of him and kicks Cena to the floor.

Random Commercial Thought: I want to be Italian when I’m hungry too.

Back to the show. Cena is teeing off on Punk with punches, but Punk actually counters into an abdominal stretch that I haven’t seen in years, I think. Cena eventually just overpowers him and hip tosses Punk off. Punk sends Cena to the floor and crushes him with a cross body. Punk leaps off the top turnbuckle onto Cena again, this time with a double axe handle, and gets a two count back in the ring. Punk decides to work a body scissor off of this, because Cena has such a long history of submitting. Punk stays pretty much completely in control here and continues to work Cena over, getting another two count. This is going to be completely unbelievable when Cena revives and destroys him. Punk chokes Cena out on the ropes and gets another two count.

Cena gets out of position for the flying knee, causing Punk to deliver it a lot slower than usual. Punk goes for the bulldog, but Cena just throws him away. Makes sense. Cena tries to go for his regular offence, but Punk ducks and Cena goes flying to the floor into the ring barricade where Punk demands a ten count as if even in character, he knows the only thing that can defeat Cena is his own power. Cena barely makes it back in and immediately gets the holy shit stomped out of him until the ref breaks it up. Punk jumps off the top and bombs the elbow drop, allowing Cena to fire up into his combo. It’s inescapable.

Cena gets interrupted in his Five Knuckle Shuffle by R-Truth in the audience talking about all thee little Jimmys. He steals a kid’s hat and is going to put the water in the kid’s face apparently when the distracted Cena eats the GTS for the three.

Winner: Punk

The crowd pops huge for this. Truth comes into the ring to chants from the crowd and hits Cena with the water bottle and the downward spiral. The crowd cheers for Truth as he retrieves the belt. He taunts Cena with it before we get a replay of what Truth just did. Truth poses with the belt like a man who will never hold the belt.

Highlight of the Night: Punk/Cena was decent. It was pretty much the only thing worth watching.

Lowlight of the Night:Diva match was…I don’t even know, but it wasn’t good.

WWE “Creative” Award: :It makes perfect sense to have a surprise announcement about next week, but an ad for it is already ready.

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Cameron Burge is TWF's resident "Mr. Monday Night", penning the "Best Damn Raw Rant, Period" appearing every..umm, Monday night. That's right. Also known as "The REAL Inferno" (not to be confused with all those impostors out there) Cameron was hand picked by Michael Melchor himself to assume any and all RAW responsibilities. A selfless man, Cameron has also dedicated most of his organs to science. (which makes his current day to day life quite uncomfortable.) Read his Raw Reports or die.