WWE Monday Night Raw Report – 25th June 2012
Monday Night Raw kicked off with recap of the whole AJ love mess going on in the WWE at the moment, before cutting to the crazy lady herself going through what she’s planning on saying to all three wrestlers perhaps tonight. One thing is for sure is that I’ve known girls like this in real life, and she’s freaking me out every opportunity she comes on screen. AJ is pulling this off on screen pretty well if you ask me, and Creative seem to be eeking it out just enough to leave everyone wanting a bit more.
We then move on to see that Raw will feature a match-up between Big Show and Brodus Clay, and the arrival of Vickie Guerrero from behind the TitanTron brings with it her intention to become the new permanent General Manager of Raw and SmackDown.
Her first match in charge this week sees a three-way elimination between Daniel Bryan, Kane and WWE Champion, CM Punk. Commentary does their usual Twitter shout, but with an added poll of who the WWE Universe thinks AJ should get together with. Hashtags at the ready folks!
A good start to the show though, with all the men in the ring working it well, switching the double-team between the three of them at one stage; Punk ready to hit the GTS on Bryan, but he got free, leaving the Big Red Monster free to chokeslam Punk, that was before AJ made her expected appearance.
Skipping around the ring, mesmerising the competitors, completely putting off Kane – Punk then capitalised on this and landed the GTS before pinning Kane for the three count. Lifting 323lb left Punk seemingly exhausted, and D. Bryan was on hand with a kick to the back of the head followed up by a pinfall of his own to take the victory. Cue “Yes!” chants.
Backstage, Alberto Del Rio is trying to rub up Vickie the right way (shuddering at the thought) to land himself a World Heavyweight Championship shot, but Dolph cuts in, no surprise with Vickie at the helm tonight. She then sets up a “Contract On A Pole” match for Raw, where the winner will face Sheamus on SmackDown later this week.
After the commercial break, the Funkasaurus heads out to face Show. The World’s Largest Athlete takes control and inflicts more damage onto the already strapped up left knee of Brodus Clay. Clay tries to turn it around – and quite honestly what a terrible way to lose your on-screen winning streak. The weight of Big Show being enough to send Clay crumbling to the mat and have the three-count made by literally being sat upon; it looked botched – it might have been a legit part of the match considering his knee, but it didn’t look good.
Before the break we see John Cena and the news he granted his 300th Make-A-Wish wish this week (always touching) and after we have another Raw Memorable Moment from Bob Barker, the US’ version of Bruce Forsyth, who guesthosted Raw in the style of The Price is Right, or in this case, The Price is Raw.
We see during the break Clay being carried out by WWE officials, only to have a WMD from Big Show smash into his jaw. Nothing like a proper send off, shame really as I’d hoped a Show/Clay storyline could have worked.
Another recap of Triple H’s intent to take on Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam, the ensuing confrontation between him and Paul Heyman the week before, but now we hear Lesnar will answer to the WWE Universe and to HHH as to what will take place. Seems pretty straight forward really – he’s contracted for so many appearances in the year so Brock is due a night’s or three’s work.
Backstage, Kane tells AJ they should just be friends as he’s not boyfriend material. Classic. But wait, he calls HER mentally unstable! This coming from the Devil’s Favourite Demon – it gets the laugh from the audience, and to be honest from myself at home. The freaky chick seems at first to be upset as he walks off, but just turns into a somewhat evil cackle. You gotta love crazy chicks?
Something on the line of what I predicted, as an “exclusive” WWE.com video shows Jack Swagger beg Vickie for a United States Championship shot tonight versus Santino Marella, gets his wish, but it looks like the former World Heavyweight Champ is back to jobbing again as Marella hits the deadly Cobra. I will never forget in primary school hitting someone in the face with a sock puppet – I had to sit in the naughty corner, almost 20 years later I see some guy on TV do it and crowds go wild. I ask you where the justice is in that?
Divas Summertime Through The Ropes Battle Royal aka Let’s Put A Group Of Hot Chicks In Bikinis In A Ring For Two Minutes And Call It Wrestling, that’s coming up soon. Fun. Or a waste of time perhaps? My heart sinks at this point.
Then we get John Cena coming out with his big announcement he promised to make a few hours earlier on Twitter.
Great little Star Wars promo he cuts about what has gone on in the WWE over recent weeks. “Yoda” McMahon had me in stitches, “No chance in hell, have you” followed by “Fired you are!” – the whole breaking the fourth wall thing Cena does sat perfectly on this.
Comes to his big announcement anyway when…
Jericho’s music hits.
Yes, it was billed for tonight, no mention of his suspension (yet) but instead the reason why he went off was for his Fozzy tour. Funny how a clip of Download Festival saw a Brazilian flag in the crowds – that thing is just going to follow him.
Cena explains that because Big Show is in the Raw Money In The Bank ladder match, and he’s the only man to stop him apparently, so he’s putting himself into the match for the first time ever.
How historic. How expected.
Next thing you know, he’s not even wiped his shoes on the doormat, and Jericho puts his name down – because he invented it, so now he has a right to waltz in and be in it.
Vickie comes out to restore order, never thought I’d say that. Jericho hits back at Vickie with a sly dig over the suspension issue, nice line for the dedicated.
She tells the pair in the ring that the WWE Board of Directors are allowing only former WWE Champions into the event at Money In The Bank. So that means Show, Cena, Jericho and Kane are in. I’m sure The Miz, Brock and The Rock will ask where their ticket in is, bearing in mind they are all former Champs too. Doubt it, but just a point to remember.
Anyway, as Vickie can’t do anything about the MITB Ladder matches, she sets Jericho against Cena for the main event, a match up that hasn’t happened for almost two years.
Heath Slater heads to the ring, looks like this is going to be a regular squash in the build up to the 1000th Episode of Raw in just four weeks. The WWE Legend to come out is Sycho Sid, away from the WWE ring for just on 15 years, and demolishes Slater in 90 seconds. I can’t wait for the same next week, not for Slater, but to see a former legend.
Charlie Sheen is then announced as “Celebrity Social Media Amabassador” ahead of the landmark Raw episode, looks like someone gave Charlie a job that he has to promote. Just got to hope he doesn’t bring any of that Tiger Blood with him!
Despite working the crowd really well, and they are two great guys for that in my opinion (injury free for Del Rio that is), it looks like that contract Dolph and Alberto were fighting for wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
Sheamus comes out after the contract finds its way off the pole, tugged between the two contenders and then onto the floor in front of the commentary table, just to say it will now be a triple-threat match on SmackDown for Sheamus’ crown on Friday night.
Moving on swiftly, CM Punk seems to have won the Twitter hashtag poll that they started at the beginning of the show. I will say this though, I never saw #AJPUNK trend at all and I was checking the site all night!
It is announced at this point that because of his win tonight, Daniel Bryan will take on CM Punk for the WWE Championship at Money In The Bank.
That would lead me to think that Jericho will take it and finally become the Best In The World At What He Does. He’ll cash it in on the night, and we’ll see a proper feud between Bryan and Punk over AJ, and Cena, Show and Jericho will start something for the WWE Championship going into the summer.
A little backstage work between CM Punk and AJ, who says if she wins she’ll dedicate it to him. Weird girl. He wants to talk to her, but she runs off. It isn’t followed up and it seemed pointless. The Creatives needs to think about things like that, if you start something like that off on a night, finish it, it’s not worth doing in the first place otherwise.
The Divas Battle Royal is just about to start, when Vickie Guerrero, who had done so well, comes out and strips down to a one piece swimsuit. My eyes are burnt. I’m currently having this report dictated as I’m not sure where the keys on my laptop are.
In my preview to this Raw, I mentioned I wouldn’t talk about the Divas division, however, I found this one worked for just a minute, but an important minute.
It starts, regardless, and Divas are thrown out rather quickly as you would expect, leaving AJ, Layla and Vickie in the ring. AJ takes out Layla, which might set something up alongside what she’s got going with the whole love thing (perhaps even end up seeing one of those Champion couples by the looks of it). AJ does her fruit loop performance on Guerrero, who pretty much leaves the ring by her own accord. The strange thing, but we should get used to it, is that she starts on the “Yes!” chants. Not really a way to go about dedicating it to Punk, still it allows the story to bubble away.
It moves on to the main event with Cena versus Jericho. It was an expected performance, there wasn’t much time to develop a real match here and it looked rather rushed to get in a signature move from both men in the ring, which led me to think something like Show coming out was on the cards.
His music hit just as Cena was on the high side, in turn The Walls Of Jericho was put on Cena, and as Show made his way into the ring he double-teamed momentarily to hit a leg drop on Cena to end the contest. Jericho left the ring allowing Big Show to deal out a choke slam and then a camel clutch (Colossal Clutch) submission to Cena that turned face blue right up to when the credits rolled.
Statement of intent I think so, looks like it will definitely be something between those three men in the very near future. After seeing that play out I really think my prediction may be on to something, but who knows, let’s see how the Creative Team can play this one out over the next couple of weeks.
Overall, it was a really enjoyable Raw, something I’ve not had the pleasure in saying for a while as it always seems to be quite stagnant, perhaps due to the sheer lack of talent available because of suspensions etc. – more of the same I say!
