This week: An eventful week. Triple H is in charge and getting in the post-lockout spirit, with some frantic free agent re-signing, the key signing of the bunch being the long awaited return of the rights to Cult Of Personality. Plus, a night of WWE Champions, Randy Orton 0 Announce Tables 3, R-Truth’s imaginary friends, Zack Ryder’s big promotion, and yes, an action figure leg on a pole match that actually wasn’t as dumb as it sounds.
RAW
– WWE Championship Tournament, Final: Rey Mysterio d. The Miz in 10:11 to win the title. The fact this opened was ‘interesting’. Not quite a red flag, but interesting. The vacant belt was on it’s own podium at ringside. The Raw and NXT roster were backstage watching. Crowd were hot. Miz caught Rey trying a hurricanrana and dropped him face first on the turnbuckle. Miz took control and even used a baseball slide dropkick, which I don’t think I’ve seen before out of him. Rey managed to send Miz into the steps with a headscissors, but Miz regrouped during the break. When Rey did launch a fightback, Miz cut him off and got a couple of near falls. Miz started to get frustrated. Mysterio grabbed the ropes to prevent a Skull Crushing Finale, but avoided a charge while in the tree of woe. Miz reinjured his knee and Rey took advantage with a 619 and the splash to win the WWE Title for the first time. Crowd were delighted with this and loud reacting to the finish in particular. This was a cool moment.
– Miz hit Mysterio from behind after the match. As he was ushered away by the referee, Alberto Del Rio’s music hit and Del Rio came down to cash in Money In The Bank. Or, attempt to. Rey took out Del Rio with a pescado before he could get the match started and Del Rio very quickly changed his mind and bailed.
– As Rey walked backstage, a bunch of the roster were there to meet him. Rey got champagne bathed by guys like Zack, Riley and Masters. Cena walked up and congratulated him. Josh interviewed Rey, who cut a babyface promo dedicating the win to his kids. They certainly made a big deal out of winning the WWE Title here between these two segments.
– Dolph Ziggler d. Evan Bourne in 3:28. Ziggler has a redone version of his theme. Which is probably a good thing, from a perception standpoint. ‘Real’ music does come off more major league in WWE land. This was a fun sprint, while it lasted. Bourne went for Air Bourne, but Ziggler moved out of the way and hit a Zig Zag, then put him out with the sleeper. He grabbed the microphone and shouted “Follow that” before he left.
– Earlier, The Bellas were arguing with Eve. Some guy showed up. Apparently he’s in US beer commercials. I plead ignorance on that. Anyway, Eve was mad about The Bellas switching in matches and Keith Stone dealt with it. Or, something. I don’t know.
– Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres d. Melina and Maryse (Kelly pinned Melina) in 2:48. Eve hit Maryse with a very ‘aesthetically pleasing’ standing moonsault. Maryse responded with a stinkface. Also pleasing. Kelly wound up spanking Maryse and doing Maryse’s hair flick taunt to mock her. Somewhere amongst this frivolity, Kelly pinned Melina after the rocker dropper. Cannot complain about this.
– Backstage, R-Truth was talking with Triple H in the hallway.
– HHH came out, for his State Of The WWE Address. They’re going with Chief Operating Officer as his official title. They made this sound far more complicated than it is. Basically, he runs things. HHH started by acknowledging Vince for why WWE where it is today. He moved on to talking about the future and put over Rey. He congratulated Rey. But, he then booked Rey in a WWE Title match, against John Cena, since Cena was “cheated out of his rematch”. They panned the crowd for reactions and luckily, they had a ridiculously hot crowd, so this worked. Until they chanted Cena Sucks, but oh well.
– HHH then said he’d re-signed someone back to Raw. They teased it for a few seconds, presumably to make people think it was Punk. But instead it was Jim Ross. Which was a neat little surprise. Cole wasn’t happy about this. JR offered a handshake, but Cole wasn’t having it. Cole took his headset off and climbed on the announce table with a microphone. He said HHH talked about the future, but JR was the walking dead. Cole said he’d done everything the company asked since Wrestlemania, but the one thing he wouldn’t do is sit and work with JR. He mocked JR for his restaurants going bust and asked if he was going to kiss HHH’s ass now Vince was gone. HHH said he’d have a feeling Cole would be mad, which is why he planned on just firing him, but said it’d cost more for Cole to be fired than to stay. Big severance package, apparently. HHH said if he leaves, he’ll be in breach of contract. He gave Cole the rest of the night off and make a decision by Smackdown. Cole said he wasn’t quitting and decided to sit back down and do his job. HHH told him not to, because he’d be late for his match. Cole protested, saying he’d retired, but HHH said he had some gear for him and told him to go get changed.
– As Cole left, R-Truth came out. Truth and his imaginary friends came down, talking about the conspiracy. Truth said he liked what he saw because it was a new regime. But, he wanted to know what HHH was going to do for him. Truth complained about Little Jimmy, spiders and heights. HHH was, unsurprisingly, weirded out by all this. He mocked Truth’s talking to imaginary people. Truth called him crazy. This was wacky. Truth left and HHH asked “all of you” to stop. HHH had another guy that he re-signed and brought out John Morrison, who attacked Truth in the aisle. Morrison chased down Truth and the fight spilled into the ring, with Morrison laying Truth out and delivering Starship Pain.
– Zack Ryder d. Michael Cole in 0:26. Cole came out to King Of Kings, in a pair of Triple H’s tights, doing HHH’s entrance. Zack threw him into the turnbuckle, then hit the Ruff Ryder and that was that. The Zack win streak continues!
– Alberto Del Rio d. Kofi Kingston in 4:02. It’s good to have Ricardo Rodriguez back. Del Rio started hot but Kofi sent him packing. Del Rio gained control during the break, targeting the arm. Del Rio posted himself and Kofi rallied. But Del Rio ducked Trouble In Paradise. Kofi almost got the win with a victory roll, but Del Rio grabbed the bottom rope. Del Rio then hung Kofi’s arm over the rope and put the cross armbreaker on for the submission.
– Josh tried to interview Miz in his locker room, but Miz cut him off. Miz was mad that Cena was getting a title shot, since everything that happened was Cena’s fault. Miz said things had gone from bad to worse now HHH was in charge. He complained about Cena not being fired, JR being back and the WWE Champion being a masked man. He said HHH’s WWE was a huge mistake.
– WWE Championship: John Cena d. Rey Mysterio in 14:57 to win the title. Cena got a big reaction coming out. They started out with a show of respect. Rey attacked with leg kicks early. It was basically Rey’s speed and Cena’s power and it was done really smartly and effectively. Crowd were soon split on Cena. Never gets old. Rey took Cena out with a dive, but Cena took Rey out moments later with a hard clothesline on the floor. Rey got to the ropes to avoid an STF and hit an arabian press for a two count. Cena then caught Rey in mid 619, turning it into a powerslam for two. Cena went for his shoulder blocks but Rey blocked the second one with a dropkick. They traded counters and Rey wound up putting Cena in his own STF. Cena powered to his feet and tried to turn it into the Attitude Adjustment, but his knee gave out, allowing Rey to hit the 619. Rey then went for the splash, but Cena got his knees up. Cena gave Rey a sloppy powerbomb out of the corner, which looked nasty. Cena hit the top rope legdrop for a close near fall. In the end, Cena was set up for another 619, but cut Rey off with the Attitude Adjustment to win the title. This was really good. You can credit whoever you want for that, I guess. In fact, it was so good that it didn’t even really matter that Cena won the title again and that Rey had a sub 2 hour title reign, except in retrospect I suppose.
– After the match, Cena put the title aside to help Rey up and check he was okay. They shook hands and Cena held Rey’s arm up. As Cena celebrated with the title, Cult Of Personality interrupted the celebrations. And after much confusion, CM Punk walked out, with his WWE Title. Punk got in the ring with Cena. Cena raised his belt and Punk responded by raising his higher.
This felt like a hot show. The crowd played a part in that, to be fair. The two title matches were both well done, the undercard stuff had a definite energy to it. More Raws like this please.
NXT
– Titus O’Neil d. Derrick Bateman in 7:47. Bateman came out wearing Apollo Creed trunks, since they were in Philadelphia. Titus dominated Bateman early on. Darren Young came out and tried to ‘encourage’ Bateman for some reason. Which seemed to help, as Bateman gained some control. In the end, Bateman fell into the referee and Young distracted Titus, long enough for Bateman to take advantage and hit the side headlock driver move for the win. These two don’t have much in the way of chemistry.
– Backstage, Hornswoggle found a trail on the floor and followed it, where there was a heart shaped note waiting for him, telling him to close his eyes and he’d get a surprise. He did and AJ kissed him. Maryse showed up and joked that he’d found someone his own size. She said they were both trolls, so AJ hit her over the head with a bunch of flowers. Maryse stormed off.
– Vladimir Kozlov was planking, on top of a vending machine. Never expected to type that sentence. JTG was there and their bet is still on, but everything after Kozlov planking is irrelevant.
– Necklace On A Pole Match: Yoshi Tatsu d. Tyson Kidd in 8:59. Speaking of sentences I never thought I’d type. To win, you had to grab the necklace, with Yoshi’s action figure leg attached, from the pole. To be fair, Regal pointed out that this sounded ridiculous but it was about respect and honour to Yoshi. Yoshi then came out with his action figure bandaged up and Regal lost some sympathy. They had your typical sort of pole match. Better than average, because of who was involved, obviously. And a nice change of pace from their regular matches. Of which there have been many. They battled on the turnbuckles and both men shoved each other to the arena floor at one point. Yoshi hit the roundhouse kick and went up for the necklace but Kidd crotched him. Tyson tried to climb past him and as they fought up top, Tyson gave him a brutal german suplex off the top, but Yoshi brought the necklace down in the process. Ignore the silliness of the figure leg. This was good. And, really, Regal did such a great job of selling the match and the underlying competition, without ignoring the silliness, that this worked anyway.
– After the match, Tyson attacked Yoshi and took out his leg (his real leg). Tyson put him in the figure four around the ring post. When you can make a feud that started with an action figure being broken work, make sense, make people care (the crowd were into the drama of Yoshi trying to retrieve the leg) and not be stupid, you’re doing something right.
SUPERSTARS
– Heath Slater d. Trent Baretta in 7:05. Heath came out cutting a promo, talking about beating up Ricky Steamboat as part of Nexus. He’s now the One Man Southern Rock Band. This gave Striker an excuse to reference a bunch of southern rock lyrics. Like he needs an excuse to reference stuff. Trent hit his flip dive early on. They went to a commercial right as a solitary voice in the crowd yelled “Heath Slater I hate you!” Which was a great moment. Heath won a solid match by avoiding a whisper in the wind and finishing Trent off with a reverse DDT.
– Santino Marella and Chris Masters d. Michael McGillicutty and David Otunga (McGillicutty pinned Masters) in 6:52. Stanford claimed Otunga told him they were wearing a special kind of oil from one of his Harvard buddies, to help them avoid the Masterlock. Having Stanford say this was far more acceptable than if Striker came up with it. As Santino + 1 versus New Nexus matches go, and there’ve been plenty, this was upper tier. Santino produced a special Cobra arm sleeve to enhance the move. McGillicutty hit Masters with the deadly swinging neckbreaker for the pin. I joke about it and I know it’s supposed to be a snap, AJ Styles style variation. But, nobody has made a swinging neckbreaker look more believable as a finisher than Chris Masters did here, legit.
– Alex Riley d. Jack Swagger in 8:39. Riley is still getting big pops for his entrance. Swagger out wrestled Riley, but Riley had the high impact offence to hang in with him. Swagger sent Riley into the barricade. Riley fought back and broke out his version of the Chuck Taylor grenade elbow drop, The A-Bomb. It’s not quite as ‘explosive’, wink wink. Riley finished Swagger off with the jumping DDT. It stalled a little briefly in the middle, but this was another solid enough match.
SMACKDOWN
– Triple H opened the show. Teasing doing the Vince walk, before going “nah”. HHH said he’d been in charge for about 10 days now and he’s realised the more you try to fix things, the more screwed up they get. He said he was going to start with the top, that being the World Title and WWE Title. He said there were two WWE Champions, Punk and Cena and he’d have a decision on what to do by Monday. As he tried to move onto the World Title, Christian interrupted. Christian congratulated HHH on his new job and ran down Teddy Long and insulted the fans. He offered a ‘close, working relationship’ with Hunter. Which HHH blew off. HHH said Vince used to encourage an environment where people interrupted him and stepped on people’s toes, but Vince had patience and HHH didn’t. He said he took being interrupted as a slap in the face. And if you slap him in the face, he’ll slap back harder. Does this mean no more of those segments where half the roster interrupt each other?
– HHH said he didn’t like negotiations, meeting or lawyers and told him directly it’d be Randy Orton versus Christian at Summerslam. And it would be no holds barred. Christian complained, but was interrupted (sigh, so much for that) by R-Truth of all people. Truth said he was back home on Smackdown to talk to “Mr. H”. They did a little comedy. Truth complained about the conspiracy and wanted the conspiracy straightened out by Monday. HHH said What. Much like the crowd. He then decided to book Truth in a match tonight with Orton. Christian told Truth he had plenty of tips for him to beat Orton, but HHH cut him off to inform him he had a match for him as well, against John Morrison.
– After a break HHH was walking backstage with Teddy Long, when Zack Ryder showed up. Zack said he had another idea to get on the show. HHH seemed tired of the ideas, so decided to make Zack Teddy Long’s assistant.
– Christian d. John Morrison in 6:17. Truth was watching backstage, with his imaginary friends. Morrison took Christian out with a corkscrew plancha. Christian focused on Morrison’s injured neck. They had a good back and forth match. Morrison hit a standing spanish fly for a close two count. Christian hit the spear out of nowhere for two. They fought up top and Morrison went for Starship Pain but Christian moved, hanging Morrison on the ropes and following up with the Killswitch.
– Jinder Mahal and The Great Khali were watching up in a sky box in the arena.
– Wade Barrett cut a promo about why he left England to come to America. It wasn’t to entertain people, it was to make money. He said the Money In The Bank contract should have been his and so should the Wrestlemania payday. He said greed was terribly underrated. Daniel Bryan came out with his briefcase. Bryan said Heath Slater had said the same thing last week and he made him tap out. Wade seemed insulted to be compared to Heath Slater and brought up Nexus. Michael Cole was awful, by his standards even, during this segment, making noises and burying Bryan. Wade gave Bryan a cheap shot and held the briefcase up, but Bryan caught him in the Labell Lock and made him tap out.
– Poor Teddy was stuck with Zack backstage. Mark Henry walked in wanting a match. Teddy told him after what he’d done to Big Show and Kane, nobody wanted to wrestle him. Zack jumped in and said he’d find Mark an opponent.
– They did a nice little video package on Justin Gabriel going back to South Africa on the recent tour.
– Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendes and Tamina d. Natalya, AJ and Kaitlyn (Alicia pinned AJ) in 2:12. Alicia’s team worked on Natalya. Natalya got the tag to AJ. AJ and Alicia looked pretty good against each other for the short time they were in. AJ used a shining wizard. After missing a crossbody, AJ was hit with the “Booker T scissors kick” by Alicia and pinned.
– Mark Henry d. Bobby Howard in 1:05. SQUASH. They found a fantastically squashable little guy. Booker called him “malnourished”. The enhancement guy made it halfway down the ramp and decided to turn back, but Zack came out and psyched him up. He even said he could be Broski Of The Week. Henry proceeded to destroy the kid and it was magnificent. Henry hit two World’s Strongest Slam and a World’s Strongest Backbreaker before pinning him.
– After the match Henry set the kid up for the ankle snapping. Teddy Long ran out to prevent Henry from doing it. He said they went way back, but he couldn’t let Henry compete anymore because nobody wanted to face him and he already had one lawsuit pending. But Sheamus came out, to a big pop. Sheamus said he’d fight Henry. He told an Irish folk story, the kicker being he called Henry a “bag of crap”. Crowd actually chanted for Sheamus. They went face to face and Sheamus slapped Henry. Henry charged and Sheamus pulled the top rope down, then fended Henry off with the chair. Henry started throwing steps around before leaving and this too was magnificent. Sheamus could end up being a great babyface and I actually want to see this match.
– WWE Tag Team Championships: David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty (c) d. The Usos (McGillicutty pinned Jimmy) in 2:30. For some reason, Otunga and McGillicutty are coming out to what was Justin Gabriel’s new theme song. It totally doesn’t fit McGillicutty and Otunga and did fit Gabriel perfectly. So I’m not sure what the deal is with that. Otunga slammed Jey off the apron. Otunga then shoved Jimmy off the ropes and Jimmy did perhaps the second best job ever of making McGillicutty’s swinging neckbreaker look like a good finish. One more and I may have to stop joking about it.
– Backstage, Zack made a handicap match between Zeke, Cody and Ted. Teddy told him he made the matches, but Zack said he’d already cleared it with everyone.
– Striker interviewed R-Truth. Truth said he felt good about facing Orton and said a good R-Truth was a bad R-Truth. He threatened to step on the snake and peel it’s skin off and said the Viper was gonna get got.
– Two On One Handicap Match: Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase d. Ezekial Jackson in 2:25. Booker’s reaction to getting the bag from the assistants is always a highlight of Cody segments. Zeke had the torture rack on Cody but Ted broke it up. Ted then provided a distraction, leading to Zeke posting himself and Cody finishing him off with Crossrhodes.
– Jinder cut a promo from the sky box. Khali tried to lead the crowd in a pro-Jinder chant. Crowd chanted USA instead, which is a little easier to understand to be fair.
– R-Truth d. Randy Orton via DQ in 7:55. Orton started the match running the ropes and ducking a succession of strikes from Truth, Masato Yoshino style. Yes, I just compared Randy Orton to Masato Yoshino. Crowd got on R-Truth’s case. Truth poked Orton in the eyes and snapped him across the rope to gain the advantage. Christian came out to watch at this point. Orton made his patented comeback and set up for the RKO, but Truth bailed outside. Orton followed him out and Christian jumped on the apron, distracting the referee as Truth hit Orton with a water bottle. Orton freaked out, took a swig of the water and then beat the hell out of Truth. A chair shot got Orton disqualified. This was a good little main event, nothing spectacular this week but good.
– Orton continued the beating after the match as Christian looked on concerned, because there’s no DQs at Summerslam of course. He took Truth outside and hit him with a monitor. Orton then went to his old nemesis, the announce table. Orton dragged Truth up, making sure to watch where he was stepping this week. And he gave him an RKO, onto the table. Onto, but not through. Orton looked up at Christian, before going back for more. He gave Truth another RKO on the table. Onto. Not through. Christian looked scared, clutching his belt. Orton’s having a good year, in everything except anything involving tables.
Cheap plug for my tumblr project, http://wwetumblrverse.tumblr.com. Get your wacky WWE picture fix there. Also, if you thought I was making that Kozlov planking stuff up, visual proof is provided.
TOP 5 (sponsored by Booker T): POSSIBLE SUMMERSLAM MATCHES TO LOOK FORWARD TO
5. Rey Mysterio versus Alberto Del Rio
4. R-Truth versus John Morrison
3. Randy Orton versus Christian
2. CM Punk versus John Cena
1. Mark Henry versus Sheamus