The Raw Rant: October 8th 2012

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Added by October 9, 2012

The Raw Rant: 8th Oct '12
Vince McMahon is here to address the state of his company, CM Punk sorts out the live crowd and John Cena “returns”, someone please secure my knickers as they’ve just been blown off in amazement.

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Hello and thanks for showing up to reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw.

And your host for this event, hailing from a dark corner in the North East of England, currently training for the next series of The Crystal Maze, a man more blunt than a sledgehammer to the bollocks, it’s Danny Damage.

 

The Raw Rant, October 8th 2012

Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield and Jim Ross are  all present at the announcer’s table, it’s a good start.

John Cena struts down the aisle and into the ring. He gives the production crew a break by giving us a run down on what’s been happening as of late. Basically, he brown-noses the crowd and re-challenges CM Punk at Hell in a Cell. He says goodbye for the night and I momentarily woke up when Ryback’s music hits. Sadly, it appears to be a case of bad timing and Ryback’s facing someone else next.

Ryback flattens Primo & Epico with the two man Shell-Shocked. Ryback is taken down early on due to the double-team work but overpowers the tag-team a few minutes into the match.

Brodus Clay vs. R-Truth doesn’t start. R-Truth asks Brodus and the girls if they’d mind dancing instead of fighting, a request from Little Jimmy. They dance and Vinny Mac pops his head on the Titantron and asks them to dance their way up the ramp as he’s on his way to give his big address.

Vince McMahon is here and he lists all the wild and wacky things that go on in the WWE and says there’s plenty of room for that as well as room for action, action and more action. CM Punk and Paul E. Heyman step out and join him in the ring. Punk asks if Vince respects him, seeing as nobody else around here does. Vince respects Punk’s title reign but not his position as a Paul Heyman guy. Vince says Punk isn’t “the man” around here, that not one man is the entire show. He also names a few guys that he thinks are better than CM Punk. Punk puts Austin’s success down to beating up a clueless millionaire that has now become a senior citizen. Punk mentions all the slaps in the face he’s received from Vince over the years and proceeds to literally slap Vince in the face. Punk walks away laughing but Vince tells him he’s going to fire him…..unless he faces him in the ring in the main event.

–Tag-team #1 Contender Semi Final
Sin Cara & Rey Mysterio advance over The Prime Time Players with Rey finishing Young with the Splash off the top.

CM Punk and Paul Heyman discuss Vince’s challenge. Heyman expresses his concerns with the ramifications of beating the shit out of Vince McMahon.

Sheamus gets a DQ win over Wade Barrett when Tensai interferes. They team up on him for a bit but Sheamus fights them off. The Big Show runs in and blocks the Brogue Kick and dumps Sheamus to the outside and leaves. Hard hitting match from these two, good effort.

CM Punk talks with AJ Lee in her office. Punk points out that he won’t be the one blamed when Vince ends up crippled, AJ will be.

Video of John Cena saving the world from Breast Cancer, one talk show at a time.

Antonio Cesaro KO’s Tyson Kidd with the launched uppercut, he pins him after hitting him with the Neutraliser as a formality.

Dragon Fire defeat Dolph Ziggler & Alberto del Rio. In their usual fashion, Kane and Daniel Bryan tag themselves in whenever they feel like it until Bryan is in and ends up letting ADR and Ziggler get the better of him, Kane gets the hot tag and hits Ziggler with the Choke-slam. Obviously, they bicker at the end, both claiming that “I am the tag-team champions!”.

JR warns Vince McMahon about facing CM Punk later. Vince is more concerned about hearing JR calling his match and gets JR to give him an example.

Larry King interviews The Miz. King reads EVERYTHING from his cue cards before deeming The Miz boring and bringing out Kofi Kingston to question instead. Miz kicks off about being ignored by them all on his birthday and goads King’s wife to throw her drink over him. Kofi and Miz get into a scuffle as King and his wife shuffle away.

–Tag-team #1 Contender Semi Final
Rhodes Scholars score victory over Team Cobro. Santino is distracted by Sandow while preparing the Cobra, Cody hits the Disaster Kick for the win. Post-match, Santino is jumped by Heath Slater, Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre.

Paul E. Heyman approaches Vince McMahon backstage. Heyman tries to talk Vince out of the match and fails. He puts it simply to Vince, he says he doesn’t want Punk to do to him, what BROCK LESNAR did to Triple H.

–Diva’s Title
Eve Torres makes Kaitlyn tap out, working her injured ankle throughout. Layla The Cockney Sleeeg made it a four-way at the announcer’s table and I’m putting this demand out again; STOP PUTTING A MICROPHONE ON LAYLA, SHE’S FUCKING AWFUL! She was late to make the save after the match too, JR even pointed that out, tactfully.

Josh Matthews tells ADR about the comment Randy Orton made about being at Smackdown and looking for revenge. This is the first that ADR has heard of this and leaves in a huff.

Daniel Bryan asks Larry King what he did when David Letterman said he looked like an owl. King tells him to accept being called Goat-face. Kane shows up and him and Bryan argue again. This scares the Kings off and Bryan informs Kane that that wasn’t Skeletor.

Paul Heyman and CM Punk discuss the situation with Vinny Mac. They agree that Vince needs to be left incapable of making any future decisions if they are to enjoy their futures in the WWE.

CM Punk vs. Vince McMahon ends with no decision, Punk is about to hit the GTS but is scared out of the ring when Ryback storms in. Cena tosses Punk into the hands of Ryback, but he escapes the Shell-Shocked and cheeses it into the crowd. Vince grabs the microphone and tells Punk that at Hell in a Cell, he must face either Cena or Ryback. If Punk doesn’t make the decision by next week, Vince will make it for him.

 

Afterthoughts.

Like I pointed out last week with the role reversal between CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, watching Punk as heel mouthing off at Vince McMahon playing the face was rather interesting. Punk giving shit to the fans that cheer for him is always a nice touch and over-selling everything Vince hits him with made for good viewing when he legged it into the crowd, before hitting one of them. No complaints from me here on that front, he gave fair warning and it wasn’t one or two accidental hits or pushes, should have tapped the other guy’s jaw too.

It’s nice to see John Cena’s not the only one allowed to show support for breast cancer awareness anymore. Several people with pink armbands on, probably John Cena ones, that they had to pay for, but never mind.

JBL being back at the table is nothing short of awesome. He’s all over Cole’s case and picks him up on every mistake he makes. Because of this, Michael Cole actually makes the effort to engage in some witty banter, not just childish name calling. Half the time, Cole’s digs at JBL are feeble and don’t even ruffle JBL’s feathers, but it’s making the man try harder and it’s causing him to actually be entertaining from time to time. Good show.

Very little AJ Lee this week. Someone’s getting the hint it seems. I do think they should take a page out of TNA’s book and get a female referee in there for the women’s matches. JR called it last week, AJ’s positions were picture-perfect and she didn’t look half bad.

Having Ryback be the one to shit CM Punk up instead of Cena is certainly the way forward. My eyes were preparing to roll at the prospect of Cena being the one to cause Punk to lose the match and I was pleasantly surprised when Ryback was the one to get involved. Looking forward to this one if it happens, there’s a rare surge of optimism looming around me.

Digest and discuss! You can follow me on Twitter for additional nuggets of wisdom or find my Midcard Manifesto over on http://www.prowrestlingpowerhouse.com – Thanks for reading, take care and I’ll see you next week.

Danny Damage
@BluntDamage (twitter)

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