Hey everybody. I’m flying solo this week, as my partner in crime Trevor Hunnicutt had to go out of town. Worry not my friends – I think I still remember how to do this!
For the first time in quite a few weeks, RAW had a huge pyro display, following a repeat of the horribly booked ending of the Punk/Batista match from The Great American Bash, which Batista was watching from the production truck, as shown. It didn’t look better on repeat, if you’re wondering. As Punk is now in storylines nearly squashed like the grape Mr. Miyagi warns Daniel San not to become when he takes up karate, we’re off to another Monday hoping for better times with Mr. Punk.
We cut to Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross… It just kind of still rolls off the tip of the tongue. Cole and Lawler open the show hyping up the main event – a rematch of last week’s six-men tag team pinning Cena and Cryme Tyme against poopy JBL, Rhodes, and DiBiase. That Mr. Miyagi reference doesn’t seem as outdated after the last sentence. By the way, there is already a lot of joking around backstage because Vince McMahon has been unhappy with Michael Cole. You know, the problem with Vince is that he doesn’t like Jim Ross for stupid reasons, and at the same time wants something out of the play-by-play guy on RAW that only Ross seems to be able to do. Joey Styles and Michael Cole are more than capable and good enough to call RAW, but they bring two completely different styles (no pun intended) to the table that Vince doesn’t want. He also doesn’t want Ross moved back to RAW. I guess that set barely “grazing” him Cena/JBL’s Ford style (third usage) has drove him completely nuts.
Johnny Lawrence… er… Batista came out, and he looked really sad. I guess beating up on Daniel San… er… CM Punk for a few weeks, and laying him out at the PPV wasn’t good enough. I should mention here that in my opinion Batista is one of the worst speakers from the top level guys. However, what I love about him is that he refuses to change his style/character just to make himself better. I guess something’s gotta give. He said he planned on standing in the ring tonight the World Heavyweight Champion, but Sensei John Kreese… er… Kane changed that. He claimed to be in charge and said he’s making only one match — CM Punk defending against him tonight, and warned Kane not to get involved. Somehow, I feel this won’t scare him away. JBL then got on the tron and started being JBL, which is always great. Eventually Punk came out and claimed if this is jungle rules, him being champion makes him king. Good luck with that one. He accepted Batista’s challenge while JBL was muted on the big screen, and looked hilarious. We have our real main event for the evening set. Good segment to open up, as it portrayed all three guys the right way. It dragged a bit too long, but this seems to be the recent format of the show, where they open with a long quarter-hour-long segment.
Throughout the show they aired vignettes with Jenny McCarthy and others hyping up August 2nd’s Saturday Night’s Main Event where Jenny will be “stepping inside the ring and fighting autism.” It’s always nice to see WWE engage into charity activities for a good cause. It’s also nice that they picked autism after the Eugene character was written off.
Lance Cade w/o Trevor Murdoch vs. Paul London w/o Brian Kendrick. You know, not once during the entire match did the announcers bother to say that these guys were a part of tag teams up until the Draft. I guess because of Murdoch’s firing, I can let it go. I like having Paul London actually appear on RAW. Even if he’s a jobber, he still does the job so well because he knows how to work, bumping for bigger guys and making them look better. Cade challenged HBK to come out at any time, which never happened. Short match that Cade won with his power-bomb finisher. He then introduced Chris Jericho, and we cut to a commercial as Y2J came out sporting a suit and a new beard that I could swear looked gray in some spots!
After the break, Jericho proceeded to cut a good promo. He’s been off the charts lately. This wasn’t exactly the best promo ever, but was a great set up for the eventual return of Michaels. Jericho showed graphic footage from the PPV (this wasn’t Mark Henry’s match if you’re wondering), and explained that Michaels’ career is most likely over as he probably had a detached retina. I’m not a fan of this storyline, as nobody buys into these, but it was well executed by Jericho and sets up a good return for HBK down the line. Y2J noted he came back to “save us” but has realized we don’t deserve it. We’re sorry, Chris. Please save us!!!
Beth Phoenix then defeated Kelly Kelly in a short match. Kelly continues to impress inside the ring, which I honestly would have never seen coming. I mean, if she wasn’t coordinated enough to learn how to dance or at least shake her ass, who saw this coming? Give me a break here! By the way, I think Beth’s theme music is easily one of the most original and fitting character songs they’ve used in recent years.
Up next was yet another strong segment with Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the tag team champions. Duggan was in the ring coming out of the commercial, and he apologized for taking some time off the show. He said that Rhodes & DiBiase were most likely right last week, and that he was thinking about hanging up his boots. He recalled that he won the first Royal Rumble, and has wrestled for thirty years. With the “grace of God, I’ve survived kidney cancer,” he added. He did a great job here. Jerry Lawler interrupted here as he got into the ring. He told Hacksaw to forget about the young guns, and that there’s no age limit in WWE. “As long as you’re passionate about what you do, you can do it as long as you want to,” King told him. He added that Duggan is able to do something both McCain and Obama would kill for. Every time he walked into an arena, he got fans to chant “USA! USA! USA!” Loud “USA!” chants followed. Lawler was very strong here, as he usually is with this kind of promos. Duggan seemed to reconsider retiring, as the tag champs made their way out. DiBiase started, “Just because you like to date women younger than us doesn’t mean you relate to us in any way. You both need to hang it up in a big way.” Cody, who seems to be putting those acting classes to work lately, added that he was two years old when Duggan won the Royal Rumble, but more importantly, neither him nor DiBiase were even born when Lawler appeared on Letterman and slapped Andy Kauffman. The King said “It went something like this” and slapped the hell out of Rhodes. Cody wanted to retaliate but was held back by DiBiase who said they’ll finish this some other day. This was a very strong segment, and it made sense for the tag champions to have a “bad” night after their recent push. This should further their characters and get them more TV time.
JBL then limped out to the ring for the six-men tag. The match was built around the heels working on JTG as they isolated him and tagged numerous times. He was finally able to get Cena in (basically repeat of last week), and Cena cleaned house. Everybody got into it and JBL ran through the crowd before Cena could get his hands on him. For good measure, he got both Rhodes and DiBiase on his shoulders, threw Rhodes off for a weird-looking FU, and then gave DiBiase the full-throttle FU for the pin. I am not sure I like him dominating both the tag champs, but it wasn’t that bad. It was key to give the four younger guys some air time, and it was done smart for the most part. The match was pretty basic, and was okay.
Backstage Jericho and Cade bumped into Kane on their way out. They made way for Kane, who went his way without going crazy. A few years ago, he would have killed Jericho for spilling coffee on him, but not today’s “mature” Y2J with beard.
Katie Lea and Pirate Paul then defeated Mickie James in Kofi Kingston. Kofi seems to be more and more over each week, so it wasn’t good to see Burchill pin him here, though they played it out well. The story was they were brawling outside the ring trying to break up Mickie and Katie Lea, when Kofi shoved Paul into the ringpost. He then went for a spinning kick, but Burchill ducked and Kofi hurt his ankle badly, which ultimately led to his demise in the next spot. Good match, and those pairings are well-thought out. Mickie’s face heat rubs off on Kofi. Speaking of rubbing and Mickie James, there was no awkward boobs-to-face segment with Mickie and Katie this week. In fact, Katie was made to look more like a WWE diva with these purple tights, which I didn’t like. She was more unique with her previous look. Solid match for the most part.
Then we went to Jamie Noble trying to hit on a leaning Layla (to make them seem they’re the same height). Batista came through and asked if Jamie has seen Kane. He nodded over to Layla as if indicating to Big Dave he’s trying to work “his magic” here, and talked all tough. Batista put his hands around his neck and lifted him up against a wall/screen. He told him in case he sees Kane, to let him know the Animal is looking for him. That Batista is so mean! He really is Johnny Lawrence! Let it be known here that I love Jamie Noble and this character he has. This was another good segment.
Ali (Todd Grisham) interviewed Daniel San (CM Punk) backstage. He asked Daniel San how can he possibly fight in the final of the All-Valley Karate Tournament (tonight’s main event) against Johnny (Batista) after the injuries he suffered in the earlier round. (The Great American Bash) Daniel San said he will not give up, and he is not a paper champion, instead he’s a fighter. If he goes down, he’s going down swinging. This prompted JBL to walk up to him (Have you noticed Punk has not been able to finish a single promo/interview since winning the title? He always gets interrupted) and let him know that he will be the new World Heavyweight Champion come SummerSlam, no matter who wins tonight. Good God. Say it ain’t so. This can’t be good. Of course the ever-so-humble Daniel San didn’t come back with a strong response to make him look good, but instead said “We’ll see.” Maybe he will be an asterisk, maybe not, but all he knows is that JBL was his first successful title defense. I guess, in the words of Mr. Miyagi, “not everything as seem.”
They plugged that the main event on The Karate Kid III (ECW) will be Matt Hardy vs. Fit Finlay vs. Morrison vs. Miz for the #1 contender spot. I like that they took away the SmackDown! belts from the ECW guys and allowed them to focus more on ECW’s title. I also like that Morrison and Miz might be headed to more 1-on-1 competition. Wait, I just pictured Miz wrestling singles matches. I’m not sure I like that anymore.
Next was the most charismatic guy in the WWE, Santino Marella’s segment of the night. He said he has laid out a new challenge to anyone interested, and that he doesn’t fight people with “a fallopian tube. I fight people with a Adam apple.” I just can’t describe how amazing this guy is on the mic. I would tell you I was laughing, but Jim Cornette might be nearby. Anyway, the challenge was answered by a returning D’Lo Brown, who looked much better than I thought he would. He beat Santino in three minutes with the Low-Down, and was getting a surprisingly-good reaction. I’d like to see D’Lo thrown into the mix, it should be interesting to see what they do with him.
In the segment of the night, Beth Phoenix had come out during the match. After it was over, she got into the ring with Santino and the two started doing holding moves on each other, with one ending up groping the other from behind. They went on and on for a few times, after which they stopped and awkwardly looked at each other. Santino eventually went for the kiss and Beth kissed back. This is brilliant. I demand they be given a major push, and a feud against Jamie Noble and Layla. I can’t wait for this, and I’m being dead serious here! This was the highlight of the show for me.
Batista then came out for the main event, but Kane’s pyro went off instead. He went to the ring and attacked Batista, giving him a huge chokeslam. Daniel San made the save, and clotheslined Kane out of the ring, where referees came out to take him to the back. With Sensei Kane out of the picture, we were set for the Daniel San/Johnny clash. The problem was that Batista’s head was hurting so bad from the chokeslam, that we weren’t sure if he can continue. This was stupid but a great touch because it allowed them to start the match after the commercial break. I want to point out that throughout the show they did gimmicks that allowed them to NEVER have any action during the commercial break. This was a nice touch.
Daniel San was destroying Johnny to absolutely no heat from the crowd, which featured a lot of Cobra Kai dojo fighters, but some Daniel San fans as well. This happens when you don’t make the character seem important – the fans give up easier. Anyway, Punk hit a few nice moves, and even got a very close two-count after a kick/bulldog combo. Batista eventually came back with a spinebuster, and when it was about to go down, JBL came out and hit a Clothesline from Hell on both, causing a no contest finish. Ugh. Cena came out for the save, and was swinging at JBL who ducked, so Cena punched Batista. Johnny got mad and attacked Cena, who turned it into an FU attempt, but Batista got out. The refs broke it up and the show ended. I don’t like them teasing this feud so early.
Final Thoughts:
Overall a good show. They stayed away from Stephanie and Shane appearing to talk sense into the show, but did mention that the two are looking for a new GM for RAW, so I guess that’s the direction we’re going in now. Not sure why that changed. The Jericho promo was strong yet again, and so was the Lawler/Duggan segment. They need to improve Punk’s booking for anyone to take him seriously. Finally, the only reason Daniel San came out looking like a real champ at the end of The Karate Kid was because he was the chump that was portrayed to work hard towards his goal and accomplished it all by himself with some help along the way. The way they’re portraying Punk is that he’s the champion who has won nothing by himself and has gotten the victory/escaped out of every situation thrown his way thanks to a lot of help from another source. This simply isn’t going to work.
Eddie
What do you think? Head over to The X-Forums to let your opinion be heard!
– E-mail feedback to Levski11@aol.com
– Read more of The Prime Cut!
