This week: It's The Miz's turn to sing the hometown blues, as it's another week, another firing(s) in WWE. Plus, the curious and confusing case of the Two Sin Caras, a cautionary tale on trying to bribe Irish people with potatoes, Hugh Jackman stakes his claim for Manager Of The Year contention and Percy Watson said Oh Yeah again so my week is complete.
RAW SUPERSHOW
– CM Punk came down, still limping from Night Of Champions. Punk brought up some history from the building they were in, exclusively bad. He said he was beaten up but his pride was hurt worse. He admitted he was wrong and that Truth and Miz were right about the conspiracy in WWE. Triple H interrupted. He said he was as beat up as Punk was and gave him credit, but he was still the COO. As COO, he booked Punk versus Cena versus Del Rio for the WWE Title, inside Hell In A Cell. He then moved on to the conspiracy, claiming he had nothing to do with anything that happened at Night Of Champions. HHH offered to go back to war with Punk right there and then. But Punk knew people would get involved. Punk said they didn't like each other. And somebody was playing both of them against each other. Punk suggested someone higher up the ladder was responsible
– Out came John Laurinaitis at this point. He said Punk wasn't fooling anyone and he was just upset that he lost. Punk called him a “stooge” and claimed Laurinaitis wanted to be COO, accusing him of being behind everything that happened. Laurinaitis took issue. He needs to put the microphone closer to his mouth when he's on TV. HHH reminded Laurinaitis he worked for him. Laurinaitis fired Punk. Which was immediately overturned by Triple H. To Punk's mock delight. HHH promised to get to the bottom of things and that somebody would be fired by the end of the night.
– Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne and Justin Gabriel d. Christian, Michael McGillicutty, David Otunga and Wade Barrett (Sheamus pinned Otunga) in 4:40. A Nexus reunion. Sort of. The heel team isolated Bourne and his new green gear. Sheamus came in and ran through Otunga. He took one swing at Christian, who bailed off the apron. As things broke down Kofi took Wade out, Sheamus blocked a Spear from Christian who bailed again and Otunga was taken out with a Brogue Kick and Celtic Cross. A showcase for Sheamus.
– Referee Chad Patton was with HHH and worried about his safety. HHH said not to worry and wanted Miz and Truth sent to him. In stormed Del Rio, unhappy with the Hell In A Cell match. HHH said he brought it on himself when he cashed Money In The Bank. He offered to let him face Cena tonight, but Del Rio wanted some rest. Del Rio said he prayed for Vince to come back. HHH said he'd need all the prayers he had for Hell In A Cell.
– Alberto Del Rio d. John Morrison in 0:48. Del Rio jumped Morrison immediately and made short work of him with the cross armbreaker.
– The night's Guest Star, Hugh Jackman, came out. Giving me some chilling memories of the Guest Host era. Memories that are best forgotten. Forever. Thankfully, in the celebrity guest crapshoot, Jackman turned out to be one of the good ones. Jackman seemed happy to be there and ran the ropes a little. He looks a lot like Brutus Magnus. And sounds like him. If you can't distinguish accents. He plugged his movie, until Vickie Guerrero interrupted, with Dolph Ziggler in tow.
– Vickie flirted with Hugh, which Dolph didn't seem to appreciate. Vickie wanted Hugh to agree she was the hottest WWE Diva. She introduced Ziggler, who blew off a handshake. Ziggler said he didn't interrupt Jackman on his movie sets, so he didn't appreciate him interrupting his time. Dolph wanted to celebrate still being the US Champion. He said he beat three people at Night Of Champions, not robots, “no offense Mason Ryan”. Dolph ragged on Cleveland, saying underdogs were losers. Jackman promised to find the biggest underdog in the locker room and help him to a victory over Ziggler, like in his movie (I guess? *shrug*). Crowd wanted Ryder. Jackman went and grabbed a “Ryder > Wolverine” sign, then went to the back. Which I guess gave away the game, but nevermind. This was fun and Ziggler was great.
– Miz and Truth arrived backstage together. They apologised to Laurinaitis and went to see Triple H.
– Sin Cara was scheduled to wrestle Cody Rhodes. This was the real Sin Cara. We think. Anyway, the not-quite-so-real Sin Cara came out before the match and did the entrance. Cody disappeared. The two Sin Caras faced off and the fans seemed to figure out which Sin Cara was which. They did some brief Lucha and like a game of three card monte they flipped around until suddenly nobody knew which was which. One of the Sin Caras was sent packing by Sin Cara. I hope they save that match for PPV so I don't have to try and recap it.
– In HHH's office, Miz and Truth showed up. They tried to apologise to HHH. Truth even apologised to the Little Jimmys. Triple H accepted the apology and fined them both $250,000. Yes, a quarter of a million dollars. HHH also booked them in a match against Punk and Cena tonight.
– We came back from commercial to see Teddy Long leaving. Not entering, leaving. Weird. JR was in the ring to interview Mark Henry and passed on a message from Teddy that Orton versus Henry would happen at Hell In A Cell. JR brought out Henry, the new World Champion. JR asked how it felt to prove the nay-sayers wrong after 15 years. Henry accused JR of being one of them. Henry said he gave Orton hell at Night Of Champions and he'd do it again in Hell In A Cell. He said nobody would take the belt from him and he'd never forgive everyone for not believing in him. Henry demanded JR apologise, on behalf of the people. He said JR wanted Vince to fire him in the past and that he was never high on him. JR apologised. Which didn't seem to make Henry happy, saying he hated ass kissers and grabbing JR by the tie. Lawler jumped into the ring to try and reason with Henry to let JR go. He did, but then grabbed Lawler instead. Lawler tried to fight Henry off, but was quickly laid out. Henry hit the World's Strongest Slam, then threw Lawler outside and gave him a second World's Strongest Slam through the announce table.
– Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres d. Beth Phoenix and Natalya (Eve pinned Natalya) in 1:48. Josh replaced JR and King. Beth was mad, since she lost in her hometown. She's wasn't the only one, from what I heard/read. Beth and Natalya were dominating, when Eve scored a rollup completely out of nowhere for a pin, then ran away.
– Hugh Jackman was backstage, with, yes, Zack Ryder. Jackman said he wasn't an underdog, he was delusional, which made him the perfect choice.
– Zack Ryder (w/Hugh Jackman) d. Dolph Ziggler in 3:07. Jackman was wearing a Broski headband. A lot of crowd support for Zack. They had a fun little match. Then, Vickie slapped Zack. The referee threw Vickie out and as he was distracted, Jackman snuck up on the apron and nailed Ziggler with a right hand, leading to the Ruff Ryder for the win. Jackman and Ryder celebrated afterwards.
– Backstage, Swagger and Vickie were watching a hype video for Swagger. Swagger was impressed with… well, himself. Vickie and Swagger shook hands on Swagger joining Vickie's “stable” and he walked off, giving a smile to Ziggler.
– Cena walked up to Punk and said they were more alike than he thought. Crowd did dueling chants over this backstage promo. Cena said they'd make history at Hell In A Cell with Del Rio. Cena suggested Punk might get fired. Punk suggested Cena might.
– John Cena and CM Punk d. The Miz and R-Truth (Punk pinned Miz) in 9:49. Miz shook the referee's hand before the match, which was a nice touch. Cena then tried to do the same and Miz jumped him, which was another nice touch. Cena and Punk worked as a team perfectly well. Crowd were into the match. Awesome Truth worked over Cena, but almost let him tag as Miz argued with the referee about a 2 count and Truth tried to calm him down. Match was fun, when I wasn't distracted with a row of fans who tried in vain to flip their seven “AWESOME” signs around one by one on TV. They managed it eventually, you'll be pleased to hear. Punk eventually got the hot tag and ran wild. Miz fought off the GTS. He then nearly collided with Truth, but Punk dropkicked Miz into Truth anyway and hit the GTS to win a good main event.
– HHH came out after the match. And he fired Truth and Miz. Incredibly nonchalantly. Miz and Truth ran backstage, where the roster were watching on monitors. They attacked HHH, so the roster jumped in. And Truth and Miz were thrown out of the building by the locker room. Did I mention it was in Miz's hometown? Outrageous treatment. Anyway, they're fired and HHH stormed off before failing to knock a cart over in his rage. Pretty good Raw overall though.
NXT
– NXT started with Percy Watson, in a suit, coming out. I still miss the old Percy, but the OH YEAH is back! Percy had a talk show setup and brought out Titus O'Neil. Percy and Titus put each other over. They said they would go after the World Tag Team Titles after Titus won NXT. JTG and Darren Young interrupted. They took issue with it, saying JTG was a tag team specialist. Titus brought up The Usos attacking them last week. JTG called them all haters. JTG and Young tried to jump Percy and Titus, but were sent packing, all setting up a tag match later.
– AJ d. Maxine in 5:13. After two straight losses, AJ struggled against Maxine again early. Maxine used a boston crab while standing on AJ's h
ead which looked painful. Maxine eventually posted herself, giving AJ a way back into the match. And AJ won with a shining wizard.
– Backstage Maxine walked into Hornswoggle. She insinuated that Titus “kept AJ company” while Hornswoggle was away. Hornswoggle ran off. Maxine walked up to Bateman and Kidd, chastising Bateman for not being around for her match. Maxine said they were close to splitting up AJ and Hornswoggle and told him to focus, before kissing him.
– Yoshi Tatsu d. Derrick Bateman by DQ in 6:40. Bateman crotched Yoshi into the ringpost outside to gain the advantage. Finish saw Yoshi hit the roundhouse out of nowhere, but Tyson broke up the pin to cause a disqualification. Tyson laid Yoshi out with a swinging fishermans neckbreaker after the match.
– AJ bumped into Trent Barreta backstage. Titus ran up and congratulated her on her win. He told her to go patch things up with Hornswoggle, but as they hugged Hornswoggle walked up and saw them, so he blew AJ off.
– Darren Young and JTG d. Titus O'Neil and Percy Watson (Young pinned Titus) in 11:12. The ex-NFL duo used their power to control the match early on. Young got thrown clean out of the ring on a whip to the corner. It took a cheapshot to finally cut Percy off. Titus made a big comeback which got the crowd into this match. Darren caught him with a chopblock to set up a gutbuster to get the win. The Usos ran in and attacked JTG and Darren after the match just like last week and hit them with stereo superfly splashes to end the show.
SUPERSTARS
– Alex Riley d. Primo in 4:30. A good little match, Riley looked good here. Aside from a massive bruise on his thigh. Riley blocked the Backstabber and finished off Primo with the A-Bomb TKO.
– Mason Ryan d. Drew McIntyre in 5:01. Mason is basically doing Chris Jericho's old entrance now, without the countdown obviously. Dude is huge. This was Wales versus Scotland. If Superstars isn't even going to be posted on WWE.com anymore, I guess they might as well stick the Europeans on every week. Bring back the European Title, on Superstars. Drew held his own, but lost, again, to a Pumphandle Slam.
– Brodus Clay d. Joey Gray in 1:22. Same Brodus squash. Except this week, the opponent was a familiar face. One Johnny Gargano, to be precise. Infact his tights still said Gargano. He suffered the same fate as everyone who went before him and got crossbodied into oblivion.
– Ted Dibiase d. Tyson Kidd in 12:22. The history between Bret Hart and Ted Dibiase was brought up on commentary. Ted is officially a babyface now. These two had a really good match. Tyson tried to walk out and take the countout early on but Ted cut him off. Only for Tyson to run him into the ring post. Tyson took over and controlled much of the match. Fans slowly seemed to get behind Ted. After some good back and forth action at the end, Dibiase caught Tyson in mid air with a huge dropkick for two. Kidd countered Dreamstreet and had a flurry, but couldn't put Ted away. And after avoiding a moonsault, Dibiase put Kidd away with Dreamstreet. Both guys impressed and Ted did pretty well as a face.
SMACKDOWN
– The Smackdown roster was lined around one side of the ring, with John Laurinaitis in the ring. He said HHH wasn't here yet. He said there was chaos on Raw, but he'd changed his mind and decided HHH had not lost control. Laurinaitis brought Mark Henry out and the roster parted to let him past. Henry said it took 15 years to earn the World Title and it'd take 15 more to get it from him. Henry called out guys at ringside for not believing in him.
– HHH interrupted. He asked for the microphone from Henry. But before he could actually say anything, Christian cut him off. Christian spoke for the entire roster and the entire world saying what a great job Triple H was doing. Christian claimed the guys at ringside looked up to him and said he was kind of a big deal. He asked if HHH could see Henry's face on a billboard and that he deserved to be the face of Smackdown instead. Which meant he needed to be World Champion. Christian wanted one more match again. And he asked for a match after Hell In A Cell after Orton won the title back, as discreetly as possible so Henry didn't get mad. HHH told everyone he was in control and offered Christian the opportunity to lead by example, in front of the roster. In a lumberjack match, against Mark Henry, for the World Title. Christian didn't seem happy about it and seemed even less happy when Henry got in his face.
– Sheamus d. Heath Slater in 4:32. Sheamus looked like he'd dominate. Slater was able to cut him off for a while though and got more of the match than I expected. But then he made the mistake of slapping Sheamus in the back of the head and Sheamus responded by killing him. Brogue Kick finished Slater off.
– Christian walked up to Great Khali backstage. He said Khali would get a World Title shot one day and would he want to face Mark Henry who'd already taken out two giants, or someone like him? Christian wasn't sure if Khali understood. Khali said he understood that Christian was small. Christian assumed they had a deal and left.
– Wade Barrett d. Justin Gabriel in 2:35. Wade dished out a beating early, but Gabriel used his speed and took Wade out with an impressive looking somersault dive. As Gabriel went for the 450, Wade gave him a huge big boot on the apron. He then put Gabriel away with Wasteland.
– Striker interviewed Orton. Or, tried to. Orton didn't have much to say. Orton said hell ain't no bad place to be if you go there to become World Champion. He said whether it was Henry or Christian, he'd be bringing the World Title back from hell.
– Still recruiting, Christian tried to convince Ezekial Jackson to help him out. Christian got confrontational, but backed down when Zeke got mad. He tried to sweet talk him instead, saying Zeke was a future World Champion and again walked off assuming he'd come to an agreement.
– Beth Phoenix and Natalya d. AJ and Kaitlyn (Beth pinned AJ) in 2:05. Beth and Natalya didn't have things all their own way. AJ gave Beth the shining wizard and Natalya had to break up the fall. But Beth recovered to hit the Glam Slam on AJ.
– Cody Rhodes d. Randy Orton by DQ in 3:17. A lot of bags on show this week. Which is always good. Orton was hot and took the fight right to Cody, until Cody clipped his knee. Cody went after the knee which Henry injured at Night Of Champions. Cody took the turnbuckle pad off as a distraction, allowing him to knock Orton out with the face mask. But Orton kicked out at 2. And at that point, Orton got mad. Orton ripped Cody's mask off and blasted him with it, leading to the disqualification. Orton continued the attack after the match, beating Cody with the mask repeatedly. Orton gave him the draping DDT. They cut out the rest of the beatdown, with all the blood.
– Christian tried to bribe Sheamus with a potato. Yes, you read that right. Christian said it was a peace offering. He promised to give Sheamus the first shot when he won the World Title again. Sheamus said Christian could count on him and thanked him for the potato. He was somehow able to tell the potato wasn't Irish. Wacky.
– The Great Khali d. Jinder Mahal in 2:06. Khali won quickly with the Tree Slam. So much for that feud.
– Sin Cara d. Daniel Bryan in 3:07. This was Mistico version Sin Cara, ie. the real one, so the match started with a handshake. They're playing up that the Money In The Bank has been a bad thing for Daniel Bryan and it's responsible for his losing streak. Which is always a great way to go. King Sheamus, anyone? Sin Cara had one of his off nights. Cara sent Bryan into the steps with a headscissors off the apron. As Bryan was checked on, the Sin Cara came out and shoved Sin Cara off the top to the floor. Sin Cara then hit a senton and got the pin, meaning Sin Cara won the match, in place of Sin Cara. Confused? The fake one won, basically.
– Christian knocked on Randy Orton's door, but Zack Ryder walked out instead. Christian tried to get him onside, but Zack said it'd be a conflict of interest since he was Assistant GM. Christian asked him to go back in and talk to Orton for him instead. Zack got a phone call from “Hugh” and walked off. So Christian decided to leave it and not risk dealing with Orton.
– Air Boom d. The Usos (Bourne pinned Jey) in 3:33. Usos worked over Bourne. Kofi came in off the tag. Cole and Josh decided to steal Booker's lines for some reason. I laughed, I admit it. Kofi hit Trouble In Paradise, setting up Air Bourne and Air Boom (am I the only one who doesn't hate that name?) were victorious.
– World Championship, Lumberjack Match: Mark Henry (c) d. Christian in 6:20. Chrisian tried his best but Henry overpowered him and threw him outside. Zeke seemed to stop the other lumberjacks from attacking Christian. Only to attack him himself and throw him back in. Most of Christian's offense came from sticking and moving. He finally knocked Henry down with a missile dropkick. Both guys ended up outside and the lumberjacks moved in, but Henry fought all of them off. And threw Trent Barreta into the pile to take them out. Christian saw this and decided to leave. But Sheamus ran out and threw Christian back in, into a World's Strongest Slam for the pin. Orton ran out after the match and tried to a hit an RKO. Henry blocked, but was sent outside with a dropkick. Henry decided not to get back in the ring and they stared down to close.