This Week In WWE TV – August 26-September 1, 2013

This week: The Goattitude Era as it’s almost certainly not known continues to build steam, as Daniel Bryan runs afoul of the new regime again. Expect spray painting and vehicle vandalising like the good old days, plus lots of Big Show sad face. Plus, Heyman canes Punk, Summer Rae blinds Emma and AJ slams Total Divas in other reprehensible acts of the week.

RAW

– HHH came out, with The Shield at ringside standing guard. He claimed Summerslam was business, but Bryan made it personal by insulting Stephanie. He offered to move on as if nothing happened, if Bryan chose so. HHH talked about business being up, all due to one man and called out Orton. He presented Orton with a new Cadillac Escalade as a gift. Bryan came out and sarcastically congratulated Orton. He thanked the fans for believing in him and Cena for giving him his opportunity. He said HHH was just as narrow minded and misguided as Vince now and called him a sellout. Bryan warned Orton he’d rearrange his face at Night Of Champions. HHH said that was a fantasy and sung When You Wish Upon A Star. Not terribly well either. HHH then booked Bryan in a gauntlet against The Shield later.

– Cody Rhodes d. Fandango in 1:08. Sandow did commentary. Miz quickly interrupted the match dressed as Fandango, dancing with Rosa. Also not terribly well either. That allowed Cody to roll Fandango up for the pin. Cody and Miz cleared the ring of Fandango and Sandow, so DJ Maestro Maddox as he called himself made a tag match.

– Cody Rhodes and The Miz d. Damien Sandow and Fandango (Miz pinned Sandow) in 3:04. Fandango ended up walking out on Sandow, leaving him to lose to the Skull Crushing Finale after a trip by Cody.

– Josh interviewed Christian. He asked him about HHH and Christian pointed out he was around during the McMahon Helmsley days. Before he could say much more Orton interrupted. Orton said he’d beat Christian tonight and Christian called him HHH’s new tool.

– Heyman was with Axel backstage, upset about the fan vote for the Axel Punk match. Axel told him not to worry.

– CM Punk d. Curtis Axel in 8:01. The stipulation that if Punk won, Heyman would have to get in the ring with him unsurprisingly won the vote with 81%, over Heyman being banned from ringside or being referee. Punk went for the GTS early but Axel escaped. Punk then went after Heyman but Axel stopped him. Axel gained control for a while, but Punk fought back. And Punk kicked out of the swinging neckbreaker, before catching Axel by surprise with the GTS.

– After the match Heyman tried to run but security dragged him back to the ring. Heyman immediately tried to claim it was Brock’s idea which was great. Axel gave Punk a low blow though and Heyman gave him handcuffs. They cuffed Punk and Heyman slapped him with Axel restraining him. Punk managed to give Axel a roundhouse kick and land some kicks on Heyman, before Axel hit him with a chair. Axel then fetched a kendo stick and let Heyman cane him repeatedly while screaming that he loved him. Heyman was, as usual, fantastic here.

– Brie Bella d. Natalya in 1:38. Jo-Jo from (the highly successful) Total Divas was the ring announcer. She did a far, far better job than the female ring announcers NXT’s been producing, so there’s that. The rest of the Total Divas girls were at ringside. Natalya got the sharpshooter but Nikki pulled Brie to safety. Brie then won with a facebuster. The real action came after the match though when AJ came out and buried Total Divas, called them all cheap, interchangable, expendable useless women and explained how said she’d saved the Divas division. This was pretty fantastic as well.

– Rob Van Dam d. Alberto Del Rio in 5:11. Alberto got distracted by Ricardo jumping on the announce table to cheer for RVD and Van Dam won with a surprise pin to earn a title shot against Del Rio at Night Of Champions.

– Josh tried to interview Ryback but Ryback just bullied him. Renee then questioned Heyman and Axel about what they did. Heyman looked like he’d been crying and called Punk his prodigal son. He said he was the last person Punk should ever go up against.

– Randy Orton d. Christian in 12:48. Christian took an ugly landing on the apron here being pushing over the ropes, which looked and sounded really bad. When Christian fought back the crowd eventually got into it, but it took a long time and this was far from their best match. Christian countered an RKO and hit a spear for a near fall. Orton then countered a Killswitch and poked Christian in the eye to set up an RKO. A lot of the crowd still seemed like they either didn’t know to or didn’t want to boo Orton though. After the match, Bryan appeared backstage and revealed he’d vandalised Orton’s new car by spray painting YES all over it. Cole called it a Cadillac Yescalade because everybody loves puns.

– HHH told Brad to send the roster out to watch what happened to Bryan during the gauntlet and if anybody got involved, they’d be fired.

– Titus O’Neil d. Jack Swagger in 3:18. Colter cut a promo on the PTP before the match. Young stopped Swagger from winning with his feet on the ropes, then Swagger ran into a Titus spinebuster for the pin.

– A cool Bray Wyatt promo aired, before Punk stormed into Brad’s office and demanded a match with Heyman. Brad gave him a handicap match at Night Of Champions against Axel and Heyman. Brad said if Heyman walked out we’d never see him again and Punk warned Brad if Heyman walked out, we might never see Brad again either.

– Daniel Bryan d. Seth Rollins in 8:56. The roster were watching from the stage. Renee tried to interview Miz, Big Show and Ziggler before the match and they all refused to comment. Rollins and Reigns surrounded Bryan early on to help Rollins take control. Bryan came back and hit a dive which completely launched Rollins back over the announce table. Rollins regained the advantage but Bryan gave Rollins a release german suplex off the top and the running knee (which the camera sadly missed) for the win.

– Daniel Bryan d. Dean Ambrose by DQ in 0:31. Ambrose immediately attacked after the first match. Bryan got him in the YES Lock but Reigns attacked for the DQ. He got the YES Lock on Reigns but Rollins and Ambrose saved him, so the final match never started. Reigns hit a big spear before HHH came out to watch from the stage. The Shield hit the triple powerbomb before Orton walked down. They kept teasing Big Show’s reaction in particular, next to HHH. Orton gave Bryan an RKO and then left with HHH.

MAIN EVENT

– Curtis Axel d. Cody Rhodes in 10:38. Riley was on commentary with Josh. After an even start Axel took over after sending Cody into the barrier. Cody hit a moonsault and made a comeback. Cody got a few near falls towards the end, but Axel kicked Cody’s knee out as the referee was seperating them and managed to get the win with his face first neckbreaker.

– The Primetime Players d. The Real Americans (Titus pinned Swagger) in 5:35. The Real Americans worked on Young. Titus made a comeback and hit Swagger with the sky high out of nowhere for the pin.

– Kofi Kingston d. Fandango by DQ in 7:16. Fandango posted Kofi’s shoulder and went after the arm. Kofi fought back but Summer Rae grabbed his foot to prevent the Trouble In Paradise, which was enough for a disqualification.

NXT

– The show started with The Ascension beating up Graves backstage as he was about to be interviewed by Renee. Conor dropped part of the set on him.

– Tyler Breeze d. CJ Parker in 3:19. This was set up last week. Crowd were clearly more into Breeze. Parker went after the phone but Breeze narrowly rescued it. Breeze avoided being hit in the face throughout. Finish saw Breeze hit Parker with the phone to get the win.

– Renee interviewed Emma. She said her title match with Paige would have to wait, until she dealt with Summer Rae.

– Emma d. Summer Rae by submission in 4:26. Emma went for the Emma Lock straight away but Summer escaped. Crowd were really into Emma. Summer went after Emma’s arm, but Emma recovered and won with the Emma Lock. After the match though, Summer shoved Emma out of the ring and, to the disgust of the crowd, threw Emma’s bubble blowing liquid in her eyes.

– Lefort tried to convince Enzo and Cassady to join up with him and Dawson. They turned him down and Dawson called them Jersey Shore rejects. Which was enough to set up a match apparently.

– Backstage Sasha Banks confronted Summer about what she did. Summer said she was a WWE diva and claimed Summerslam was even named after her, so if Sasha wanted to become relevant she needed to be following her instead of questioning her. She told Sasha she was going to lose to Paige in two weeks, because she didn’t have a backbone. Summer told her to find one.

– Scott Dawson d. Enzo Amore in 3:12. Enzo got a big babyface reaction coming out. Alexander Rusev ran out and attacked Cassady, distracting Enzo long enough for Dawson to win with a saito suplex.

– Renee interviewed Zayn in the ring. Zayn said as good as his match with Cesaro was, all he remembered was the result. The crowd chanted for one more match. Zayn said his focus was now on becoming NXT Champion, which brought out Bo, to a ton of boos. Bo wasn’t impressed, saying just because a couple of people on the internet liked his match didn’t make him championship calibre. He mentioned that Sami injured him at Summerslam Axxess and called him a “good kid”, but he was still “so green”. Sami pointed out that the crowd hated him but Sami was in denial and claimed people weren’t booing him, they were saying Bo. Sami claimed he was scared of him. Zeb interrupted and threatened to expose Zayn as a fraud and demanded documents to prove he was a legal citizen. Swagger came through the crowd and attacked Sami, hitting the gutwrench powerbomb while Bo left.

– They showed footage of NXT competitors at Summerslam Axxess.

– Adrian Neville d. Conor O’Brien in 3:34. Neville built momentum at the end and hit a 450 for the win. The Ascension attacked after the match and an injured Graves tried to make the save, but got beat down as well and hit with their version of Total Elimination.

SMACKDOWN

– Miz hosted MizTV with Big Show and Ziggler as guests. Miz said it was time everyone heard their opinions on WWE management, but Show and Ziggler were reluctant to do so. Before Miz could speak HHH then interrupted. Unlike on Raw, he actually got the right reaction here. Miz pointed out he was in his ring gear incase a fight broke out. HHH asked why they wanted to make things personal. Crowd chanted that he sold out. HHH put Miz in a match with Orton and Ziggler in a handicap match against The Shield. He moved onto Big Show and the crowd chanted for him to knock him out. HHH gave him the night off and told him to sit at ringside and watch everything that happened tonight and do nothing about it.

– Randy Orton d. The Miz in 10:01. Miz looked good until The Shield came down through the crowd. Orton gained control at that point. They kept cutting to reaction shots from Big Show through the match. Miz countered an RKO and got Orton in the figure four, but Orton made the ropes. Orton then dropped Miz’s throat across the rope and won with the RKO. After the match Orton had The Shield attack Miz, but Bryan ran out with a chair to clear the ring. Crowd were hot for the match and ridiculously hot for Bryan coming out.

– Vickie got mad at Bryan backstage. She called him a bully for what he did, which was the cue for Ryback to say he couldn’t stand bullies and that he’d see Bryan in the ring.

– Rob Van Dam d. Damien Sandow in 2:37. Van Dam pretty much dominated and won with a frog splash. Afterwards Del Rio showed up and claimed Ricardo had betrayed all Latinos and he’d prove who the real champion was at Night Of Champions.

– Three On One Handicap Match: The Shield d. Dolph Ziggler in 4:00. Lots of Big Show reaction shots here. Reigns pinned Ziggler with a spear after a buckle bomb by Rollins. They teased Big Show after the match and gave Ziggler a triple powerbomb with Show forced to watch.

– Heyman and Axel came out. Heyman said he wasn’t sorry for what he did on Raw and blamed the fans for voting him into a situation to take a beating from Punk. He said all of ‘his’ and Punk’s challengers as WWE Champion were beaten, but every time Punk messed with him he was left looking up at his father figure. Heyman admitted he was afraid of Punk getting his hands on him at Night Of Champions, but that was bad for Punk, because if he’d acted out of fatherly love so far imagine what he’d do to avoid a guaranteed beating. He promised he and Axel would own Punk at Night Of Champions.

– The Wyatt Family d. Tons Of Funk (Rowan pinned Tensai) in 1:12. Tons Of Funk started hot, but lost after a spinning clothesline from Harper and the splash from Rowan. Bray then gave Tensai the Sister Abigail.

– Daniel Bryan d. Ryback by DQ in 6:23. Ryback bullied Bryan early before Bryan fought back and hit a dive sending Ryback into the announce table. Orton came out and distracted Bryan though, giving Ryback the advantage again. Bryan fought back again with Big Show cheering him on and got the YES Lock, so Orton ran in for the DQ. Bryan got him in the YES Lock as well but The Shield made the save. As Big Show got in the ring to protect Bryan, HHH came out and ordered Big Show out of the ring. Show reluctantly did and Bryan was left to get beat down four on one. Orton had The Shield hold him while he punched Bryan, then had them hit the triple powerbomb. With Bryan down, Orton then spray painted NO on Bryan’s chest as payback for Raw. Lots of heat for all of this and some of the best stuff on Smackdown in a while.