This Week In WWE TV – December 16-22, 2013

This week: The 12 days of WWE Christmas angles, give or take, begin as Santa shows up on Main Event (I thought he only worked the big dates) and Damien Sandow threatens to cancel Christmas, upsetting Mark Henry, The Miz and presumably Fox News. Plus, Orton versus Bryan, NXT 200, The American Pitbulls, Brodus ditches Sweet T and more tag team matches than you can shake a proverbial stick at.

RAW

– Raw started with Orton’s celebration. The roster were assembled on the stage, with HHH and Stephanie giving Orton’s introduction. Both Bryan and Cena were at the front as he came out and posed with both belts. Orton said the crowd didn’t have faith in him and at TLC he proved he didn’t look for handouts, he took his opportunities. Orton told the roster he was better than all of them and bragged about being champion until Cena interrupted him. He congratulated him, but told him as champion he had to put up or shut up. Orton refused a rematch, but Cena said he wasn’t talking about himself because he’d promised Bryan a fair match. Orton said he didn’t have to listen to anybody, but Stephanie disagreed. She and HHH decided Bryan didn’t deserve a title match, but he was voted the Superstar Of The Year and since the crowd wanted to see it, they made a non title match.

– Big Show and Rey Mysterio d. Cody Rhodes and Goldust (Rey pinned Goldust) in 9:16. which was also a non title match. Big Show missed a middle rope elbow and Goldust made a big comeback. Big Show hit a chokeslam but Cody broke the pin. Goldust then missed a crossbody and got knocked out, before Rey hit a splash off of Big Show’s shoulders for the win. Big Show and Rey checked on Goldust after the match. Bad News Barrett then delivered some more bad news, with the help of his podium and gavel, that nobody in the crowd would win the lottery.

– Orton complained to HHH, Stephanie and Kane about having to face Bryan. They told him Bryan was decimated by the Wyatts at TLC and as double champion he had double the work and had to show everybody why he was champion. They claimed they had his back, but Orton stormed off. Dolph Ziggler d. Fandango in 3:25 with a roll up out of nowhere and Big E Langston and Mark Henry d. The Real Americans (Big E pinned Cesaro) in 12:11. All Big E and Henry early. The Real Americans eventually got an advantage over Big E after Swagger interfered from the outside. When Henry got the tag he fought off both guys, until Cesaro caught him with a dropkick. Big E then made a blind tag and saved Henry from the giant swing, before pinning Cesaro with the Big Ending. JBL was outraged at not getting the big swing.

– Backstage, Sandow was dressed as Santa, with AJ and Tamina as his helpers. Dramatic music played, as Sandow told a little girl that all children were ungrateful wretches and Christmas was cancelled. They then announced a Bad Santa versus Good Santa match for next week between Bad Santa Sandow and Good Santa Mark Henry and apparently if Sandow wins, Christmas is cancelled. Rybaxel d. Tons Of Funk (Ryback pinned Tensai) in 2:24. Truth and Xavier did commentary. Tensai fought the entire match and when he went to tag, Brodus refused. Ryback won with Shell Shocked. Brodus splashed Tensai twice after the match before Truth and Xavier made the save. Truth and Xavier then invited The Funkadactyls to dance with them.

– Punk came out. He said his problem wasn’t with The Shield, it was with The Authority for sending them after him. Punk called out HHH but instead Shawn Michaels came out. The crowd chanted You Sold Out at Shawn and he made fun of them. Shawn told Punk his problem should be with him for superkicking him last week. Punk said he respected Shawn so he was getting a pass, but if Shawn ever did it again he’d kick him back. Shawn claimed kicking Punk pained him more than it pained Punk and so would what he was about to do, which was introducing The Shield. The Shield d. CM Punk and The Usos (Reigns pinned Punk) in 13:18. Usos won the Raw active poll with 57% over Los Matadores and the Primetime Players. Reigns had a black eye from TLC. The Shield cut off Jey briefly and then cut off Jimmy when he tagged. Punk finally made the comeback and things broke down.  As Punk went for the GTS, Rollins tried to interfere. Ambrose then made a blind tag and got hit with the GTS, but Reigns immediately speared Punk for the pin.

– Bray cut a promo backstage on Bryan. AJ, Tamina Snuka and Alicia Fox d. Natalya and The Bellas (AJ pinned Nikki) in 5:13. Nikki took a superkick from Tamina right to the face here. AJ followed up with a shining wizard for the pin. The Good Santa, Mark Henry, with The Bellas and Hornswoggle as his helpers, heard about Sandow’s challenge and said he was the World’s Strongest Santa. Renee then interviewed Orton, who ranted about having to face Bryan and said what’s best for business would be the entire WWE Universe bending over and kissing his ass.

– Daniel Bryan d. Randy Orton by DQ in 21:54. Bryan went after Orton’s leg early on. Orton escaped a leg lock by biting the knee and eventually took over with a big clothesline. Orton focused on Bryan’s arm when he was in control. Bryan retaliated with biting of his own and went for a dive but Orton moved. Bryan came back and they had a lengthy back and forth finish. Orton escaped a YES Lock and Bryan countered an RKO with a backslide. Bryan got a near falls with a buzzsaw kick and a diving headbutt, before getting the YES Lock but Orton made the ropes. Bryan then hit a dive, a dropkick against the barrier and a missile dropkick. As he started delivering kicks, Orton then ducked and got himself disqualified by hitting a low blow, which the commentators played up as him taking the cheap way out to avoid losing. Cena ran out to chase off Orton and check on Bryan, but Orton came back in to hit an RKO and posed with the belts over both men for the second time in the show. This was probably Orton and Bryan’s best match and the finish made sense as well.

MAIN EVENT

– The show started with ‘Foley Claus’ coming out. Ryback and Axel interrupted him and they made fun of him for being fat, which at least blatant enough that it was silly, including Ryback saying “because he’s fat” after one of Axel’s jokes. They threatened to steal the toys and Ryback complained about getting a thigh master instead of a weight lifting set as a child, until Miz stood up for Santa. Miz sung and insulted Ryback and Axel, before Santa booked Axel against Miz. So apparently we’ve all been naughty. I was amused by Ryback here.

– R-Truth and Xavier Woods d. Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre of 3MB (Truth pinned Drew) in 8:34. Still no Slater. Woods got worked over for most of the match, then Truth ran wild and pinned Drew with the Little Jimmy. AJ d. Kaitlyn by submission in 4:40 with the Black Widow, after a distraction from Tamina, in a solid match. And finally The Miz d. Curtis Axel in 8:34. Miz had Santa in his corner to combat Ryback. Before the match, Miz gave Axel a Ryback action figure from Santa and Axel stomped it. Which made Ryback sad. Axel dominated early and Miz made a comeback. As he went for the figure four, Ryback tried a distraction, so Santa got involved. Miz dropkicked Ryback from the ring and Santa put Ryback in a stocking assisted mandible claw, which Josh called the “Mandible Claus”. Great bad pun. Miz then won with the Skull Crushing Finale. To be fair this was better than I expected and people did actually chant for Miz at one point, so that’s something.

NXT EPISODE 200

– Triple H opened the show. He put over NXT and mentioned guys like Sandow, Cesaro, The Shield, The Wyatts and after some helpful prodding from the crowd Big E as guys who’d came through the system. He said things were only going to get better and thanked the fans for making NXT their show.

– Sami Zayn and Tyson Kidd d. Antonio Cesaro and Leo Kruger (Zayn pinned Kruger) in 8:28. Crowd were really into Cesaro in particular. He and Kruger focused on Kidd. Sami got the tag and ran through Kruger, then Kidd took out Cesaro with a tope con hilo, leaving Sami to get the pin with the big boot in the corner on Kruger. They showed Natalya watching backstage and Emma showed up dancing, which caused an arguement between them. Emma was annoyed Natalya got a title shot and Natalya was annoyed Emma earned a shot by dancing. They agreed to a match to decide who deserved to face Paige.

– Paige d. Sasha Banks in 3:38. Summer tripped Paige, but then got kicked accidentally by Sasha, leading to Paige hitting the Paige Turner. Backstage, Enzo Amore was back, in a motorised wheelchair, with Cassady. They heard Aiden English doing vocal warmups and ended up challenging him to a sing off between him and Cassady.

– In their open challenge, The Ascension d. The American Pitbulls (Konnor pinned Billington) in 4:16. The Pitbulls were of course The American Wolves, going under the names John Cahill and Derek Billington. The Pitbulls were competitive and even hit a double dive at one point. Billington/Davey also took a nasty landing on a mistimed back suplex which didn’t look fun, but he recovered okay. In the end The Ascension won with the Fall Of Man on Billington. After the match Hunico and Camacho came out to confront The Ascension, so they gave Cahill the Fall Of Man as well to send a message.

– Devin interviewed Kofi. Lana interrupted to tell Kofi that Alexander Rusev wanted to crush him next week. Kofi accepted the match. In the main event, NXT Championship, Lumberjack Match: Bo Dallas (c) d. Adrian Neville in 8:39 to retain the title. Howard Finkel did the ring announcement since it was a special show. The lumberjacks were nearly all undebuted guys, except for Tyler Breeze. Bo quickly had problems with the lumberjacks. Neville was then sent outside, but stopped Breeze from throwing him back in and slapped him. Bo eventually took control. Neville fought back and hit a flip dive onto Bo and all of the lumberjacks, except Breeze who was still sulking. He then got Bo in position for the corkscrew shooting star, but Breeze pulled Bo out of the way, leading to the pin.

SUPERSTARS

– Kaitlyn d. Summer Rae in 4:53. Summer actually used her NXT theme here, which is more than Xavier Woods has got. Lots of dance based offense from Summer. Crowd got behind Kaitlyn and she set up for the spear, but Summer moved to send Kaitlyn into the corner and rolled her up for the pin. Also, just like on Main Event, R-Truth and Xavier Woods d. Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre of 3MB (Xavier pinned Jinder) in 6:47. Truth and Woods both hit dives early. This time it was Truth who got worked on and Woods who came back to pin Jinder with Lost In The Woods.

SMACKDOWN

– Orton came out. He complained The Authority didn’t reward him for becoming WWE World Champion and instead put him in a match with Bryan. Orton bragged about laying out Cena and Bryan, which brought out Cena. Orton called him jealous. Cena said everybody was watching Orton now and asked how he wanted to be remembered, a champion or a coward. Orton said Bryan didn’t deserve another match, so Bryan came out. He claimed Orton was afraid of being beaten by him and Orton didn’t deserve to be called champion. Bryan said Cena would beat Orton in his rematch and then Cena would give him a fair shot. Eventually The Shield showed up and Punk ran out to even the odds, but Vickie came out before The Shield could attack and made Cena, Bryan and Punk versus The Shield later.

– Big E Langston d. Jack Swagger in 2:54. Henry was in Big E’s corner and Zeb did commentary. He had a sign claiming Santa was an illegal immigrant and should be deported. Cesaro tried a distraction and got laid out by Henry, leaving Big E free to win with the Big Ending. Brie Bella d. Tamina Snuka in 3:04. AJ was on commentary. Brie got her knees up to block the superfly splash and rolled Tamina up for the pin, then shoved AJ down after the match. Sin Cara d. Drew McIntyre in 2:04 with the swanton. And Tensai d. Brodus Clay in 1:44. Brodus was distracted by Xavier coming out with The Funkadactyls, allowing Tensai to roll him up. Afterwards Brodus attacked Tensai but Xavier made the save and danced with The Funkadactyls again.

– In a non title match The Wyatt Family d. Goldust and Cody Rhodes (Harper pinned Cody) in 11:00. Goldust was cut off for most of the match. He gave Harper the Cross Rhodes and tagged Cody who ran wild. Cody had the match won with the moonsault but Rowan saved. Goldust hit a somersault off the apron to Rowan but took a big boot from Harper. As that was going on Bray sent Cody into the post, which lead to Harper getting the win with the spinning clothesline. Afterwards, Bray went to give Cody the Sister Abigail but Bryan ran out with a chair to make the save. He fought off Rowan and Harper to get to Bray, who managed to escape.

– Sandow cut a promo saying none of the crowd deserved Christmas which is why he’d cancel it on Raw, before being interrupted by Miz, who I guess really loves Christmas. Short shelf life on that gimmick. Damien Sandow d. The Miz in 1:28 by holding the tights on a roll up as Cole and JBL debated the Good Santa, Bad Santa match. Fandango d. Kofi Kingston in 3:37 after tripping him on the apron and hitting the flying legdrop.

– Renee tried to interview Bryan backstage, but The Wyatt Family appeared and attacked him, before throwing him off of some sort of ledge. That meant Bryan couldn’t compete in the main event. Two On Three Handicap Match: John Cena and CM Punk d. The Shield by DQ in 9:46. The Shield kept Cena isolated for much of the match. Punk then made a comeback on Rollins until The Shield attacked him, causing the weak DQ. Cena tried to help fight them off but got speared by Reigns. They gave Cena the triple powerbomb and tried to do the same to Punk, but Big E ran out to make the save. Big E took out Ambrose and Rollins, then got into a face off with Reigns until Punk came in with a chair and Ambrose and Rollins got Reigns out of the ring.