The John Report: The WWE Raw Deal for 12/12/11 (Slammy Awards)


The John Report: The WWE Raw Deal for 12/12/11 (Slammy Awards)
By John Canton
Follow me on Twitter at @johnreport

 


 

I’m writing this like I would write a live Raw Deal because I am watching it on tape delay on my DVR after watching my St. Louis Rams get crushed on Monday night. Live from Norfolk, Virginia this is the Raw Deal…

They had a quick video package about the Slammy Awards to start the show. I’m glad they had a brief Owen Hart clip in it because his speech at the 1997 Slammys is one of the best Slammy moments ever.

To the right of the stage they had a podium where they would hand out the Slammy Awards. The first Slammy is the “Tell Me I Did Not Just See That” award t o be handed out by Booker T. and Hornswoggle. The award nominees were Santino in the Rumble, JR dancing, R-Truth losing because of Little Jimmy and Miz dressed as Rock. Winner was Jim Ross, who just so happened to be there. Cole complained about it, so Booker told him JR would have a rap-off with Cole. They went down to the ring for it. Brutal idea. Who comes up with this stuff? Cole: “JR I’m better than you, I’m the voice of this show not a fat tub of goo.” Yes that was a line. There were other ones that were worse. Booker called it the worst rap he’s ever heard. JR said something, forgot his lines or simply didn’t have any and said at the end that Cole could kiss ass. He didn’t even rhyme during it, which made it even worse…or better? The audience cheered for JR, who keeps the Slammy. Then Booker says the people want to see a “JR-roonie.” What a waste of 15 minutes. Booker did a Spinaroonie that JR followed up with something where he rolled around on the mat. Cole: “This may be the worst segment in television history.” Most accurate thing he’s ever said. That was an awful start to the show.

Backstage, Mick Foley was walking backstage in a suit jacket to present a Slammy.

(Commercial)

Mick Foley and Ted Dibiase Sr. were out to present the “Holy **** Moment of the Year” Slammy award. The nominees were Sheamus giving Sin Cara a powerbomb through the ladder at MITB, Orton giving Christian a RKO on the steps at Summerslam, Big Show & Mark Henry making the ring collapse at Vengeance and Evan Bourne hitting the SSP off the ladder at MITB. The winner is Big Show and Mark Henry. Big Show accepted the award. He said it would look better with the World Title around his waist. Then he went to the ring for his match. Wade Barrett’s music played and he talked trash about Orton as well as Show. They went to break.

(Commercial)

Big Show vs. Wade Barrett
The match had already begun when they returned from break. Not a whole lot happened. You could tell they wanted to protect each guy, so there was no finish. Barrett went to put Show through a table, but Show recovered, broke the table with his forearms and when they went back in the ring Barrett grabbed a chair. Show punched the chair and the ref DQ’d Barrett. Show shoved him out of the ring to end the first “match” of the night.
Winner: Big Show (1/2*)

Analysis: Not much of a match. You could tell they didn’t want to book anybody to win it so they went to the fast finish that made Show look good although Barrett comes out of it looking okay too. No harm done, really.

(Commercial)

They plugged Tribute to the Troops, which was taped on Sunday and airs on USA Network on Tuesday. It’s always a fun show to watch.

A video package aired to promote the Triple H/Kevin Nash “Sledgehammer Ladder Match” at TLC on Sunday night.

The next presenter for a Slammy Award The Road Dogg Jesse James. There’s a very familiar “Attitude Era” name. He did his old intro, which drew a good pop and the crowd was knowledgeable enough to sing along with him at the right time. In case you don’t know, he recently got hired as a backstage agent/producer to help the young talent. His strengths were always his promos. He threw to the Slammy Award video package for the Pipe Bomb of the Year. They aired a hilarious video package showing some of the funniest promo moments of the year. Lots of R-Truth early and also all of Booker T’s catchphrases were featured. OH MY GOODNESS~! Then there were some clips of Rock, CM Punk and even when Howard Finkel had troubles announcing Punk at Survivor Series. It ended with CM Punk: “Where or where are my WWE Ice Cream Bars?” This was one of the best video packages of the year. I’ve posted it near the bottom of this column. The winner of the Slammy was CM Punk.

The comedy continued with CM Punk’s acceptance speech as he brought out a mannequin with blonde hair that had a Dynamic Dudes t-shirt on. Then he ripped on interim Raw GM John Laurinaitis, which led to a ridiculously cheesy video package about JL. They had clips of him in his NWA/WCW days as one of the Dynamic Dudes and some of his indy work as well. The song they played was called “The Touch.” Then it said he got the Lifetime Achievement Award. Punk ended it by accepting the award on Laurinaitis’ behalf and doing a JL impression saying “you like me, you really like me.” That was fun.

I’m okay with comedy when it’s done like that. Both of those video packages were funny and so was what Punk said. The painful comedy is what hurts. This was perfectly acceptable to me.

Some Twitter fun from earlier in the day. This from @WWERawGM (John Laurinaitis): “If I don’t win GM of the Year at the #SlammyAwards tonight on #Raw, I will say it was a thrill to be the only nominee.” So I say: “@WWERawGM You forgot the anonymous Raw GM dumbass.” Technically Teddy Long too, but work with me here. He replies: “@johnreport Did I?” Looked through his tweets. He doesn’t reply much to us fans. I guess his reply suggests that he was the anonymous Raw GM. I thought maybe they’d say that on Raw. Didn’t happen. Or maybe I’m the anonymous Raw GM. Don’t make me take off my jacket.

(Commercial)

Back from break, Lita was there to introduce the “Divalicious Moment of 2011” Slammy Award. She looks very nice. I guess this is replacing a “Diva of the Year” award. The nominees were Kelly winning the Divas Title, Kharma’s debut and Beth Phoenix’s top rope Glam Slam on Eve. The winner is Kelly Kelly. Oh crap Kelly’s about to talk. No. Cover your ears. Oh sweet, Beth and Natalya came out before we could hear Kelly talk. I love them. Beth stole the Slammy, so Kelly slapped her, grabbed the Slammy and Natalya held Beth back because they weren’t dressed to fight. Then Kelly held up her Slammy. At least they were smart enough to not let hear talk.

At the announce desk, Cole ripped on JR for forgetting his lines earlier. Then they went to the WWE ’12 video game showing the Mark Henry/John Cena match that is coming up later.

Santino was out to present a Slammy Award with the Bella Twins. It was for the “OMG Moment” of the year. The comedy was that he kept saying OMG as a word instead of saying the individual letters. The Bellas, who are so wooden in the way they deliver lines, tried to explain what OMG meant. He ended up calling them “money and fame grabbing, couple of floozies that follow Del Rio around like a couple of escorts.” Then they said “Oh My God” and we got to the nominees. Nominees are HHH hitting the Tombstone on Undertaker at Mania, Rock hitting Cena with a Rock Bottom at Mania, the roster walking out on Triple H and CM Punk leaving with the WWE Title…for a whole week. The winner was the Triple H tombstone on Undertaker. I was at WrestleMania 27 and that was one of the loudest pops I’ve ever heard in my life. When he hit that move a lot of us thought it was over even though we knew it really wasn’t. It was a great spot that we weren’t expecting.

Back to the show, Triple H walked out on his leather jacket with a sledgehammer in his hands. He’s back after being out for over a month selling the sledgehammer attack by Nash. Hunter talked about the Undertaker match saying that when the match was over the OMG Moment was when The Undertaker could not leave the ring under his own power. He said that happened “for the first time in his career.” Guess we can forget being buried alive, the casket match with HBK at the 1998 Royal Rumble and that awful casket match with Yokozuna among others. He said “nine months later the Undertaker is no more and the OMG moment was at WrestleMania when the streak came to an end.” It came to an end how? Undertaker won. Maybe it ended because he’s retired (not really), but that was the wrong way to word it. I wonder if that’s a sign that they are doing Triple H vs. Undertaker at WrestleMania 28 again. It wouldn’t shock me if they did.

Moving his focus to Kevin Nash, they showed the video of when Nash attacked him with the Sledgehammer in October. Hey there’s the “does he have a pulse?” line that is a nominee for a Johnny Award! You’ll see what I mean next week. Hunter cut a promo about how Nash lied a lot while Hunter’s been right. He said that this Sunday he’ll show the world that he is right and Kevin Nash is simply done. Then he walked back up the ramp, Santino wanted to hand him his Slammy and Hunter stared at him to scare him away like the little comedy jobber that he is.

That was a decent promo by Hunter. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was interesting that he would bury Undertaker like that and it would barely garner a reaction. Maybe this crowd was burned out from looking at the video wall all night. I’m not sure. That mention by Hunter makes me think that they will indeed do a Hunter vs. Undertaker rematch at WrestleMania 28. Who’s going to tell Triple H “no” if he wants the match?

They plugged Superstar of the year voting on WWE.com once again.

(Commercial)

Next up was the Slammy award for “Trending Star of the Year” presented by David Otunga and Tony Atlas. Otunga had his bowtie on as Atlas laughed at him because they love the Atlas laugh. He wouldn’t stop laughing. Otunga was so frustrated that he was laughing so he asked what’s so funny and Atlas told him he was laughing at him. Then they went to the video package. Crowd didn’t care for that comedy bit. I don’t blame them. The nominees for this made up award are Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler & Zack Ryder. What is this award for? No idea really. Cody doesn’t even have a Twitter account. I guess you could call it an award about impressive midcarders with bright futures, but it’s not like there was an official definition for it. They ended up saying that the winner of the award is the guy that is trending worldwide on Twitter. Lame award but the match sure looks interesting.

Cody Rhodes vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder vs. Daniel Bryan
This was a Fatal Fourway match, so first pinfall got the win. They went to commercial about one minute into the match.

(Commercial)

I liked the booking when they returned from break. Bryan & Ryder had a go at it with each guy hitting a couple of moves and then doing a crossbody collision to put them both down. The heels worked together on the faces, but it didn’t last too long. There was an awesome nearfall sequence between Bryan & Rhodes that resulted in about seven nearfalls in thirty seconds. Kudos to referee Scott Armstrong for being so quick with his counts there. The heels dumped out the faces and went after eachother with Rhodes hitting an Alabama Slam for a nearfall. Cody was left alone in the ring as they went to break again.

(Commercial)

Back from break, Ziggler was the one in control as Cole told us that Bryan was trending in the toilet. That was one of the worst putdowns I’ve ever heard. They did some more awesome nearfalls and then a triple clothesline spot by Ziggler, Bryan & Ryder that left all four guys down on the mat. Nice jump kick for the nearfall by Rhodes. DBry came back with his array of kicks on Rhodes along with a flying dropkick in the corner. Why is this guy not booked on the PPV? Waste of his amazing talents. Meanwhile, Ziggler hit a superplex on Ryder while Rhodes hit a superplex on Bryan. There was a faint “this is awesome” chant that should have been louder. Finishing sequence time with Ryder hitting the Rough Ryder on Ziggler, Rhodes hitting the Cross Rhodes on Ryder and D-Bry went for the LeBell Lock on Rhodes. He wasn’t able to put it on because Ziggler broke it up with a sleeper hold. Bryan fought out of it, Ziggler was able to avoid a clothesline and hit the Zig Zag on Bryan to get the pinfall and win the match at the 16 minute mark.
Winner: Dolph Ziggler (***1/4)

Analysis: That was a lot of fun. All four guys had a lot of energy, they had a number of incredible pinfall sequences and had amazing chemistry too. The finishing was built up perfectly. I love multi-man matches for that reason. They do a hell of a job building to those signature moves. This was no different. Nice win for Ziggler, who is the guy that is going to be pushed to the main event level in the very near future.

Post match, Lawler went into the ring to announce who the trending star of the year was. The winner of that Slammy was Zack Ryder. He got the trophy, but Ziggler dropped him with the Zig Zag and took the Slammy Award. I’d expect Ryder to win the US Title from Ziggler at TLC on Sunday, as he should.

They plugged Cena vs. Henry later.

(Commercial)

The Slammy for “Game Changer of the Year” was next…presented by Christian. Yes! Captain Charisma. He came out in crutches, a boot on his foot and a neck brace. His actual injury was a badly sprained ankle. I’d imagine he’ll be back in action later in the month or early January. He asked how he was not nominated for this award and how he was not nominated for Superstar of the Year. I agree! He had an incredible year. He’s definitely in my top three for Wrestler of the Year in the Johnny Awards. He said he deserved…wait for it…one more match for the World Title. Great promo as they went to the footage. The nominees were HHH relieving Vince of his duties, Edge retiring, Kevin Nash attacking CM Punk at the end of Summerslam and The Rock & John Cena setting up the WrestleMania 28 match. The winner is The Rock vs. John Cena at WrestleMania 28.

Cena cut a promo where he introduced The Rock. He wasn’t there. Then he said he’s there via satellite. No he was not. He said he hopes Rock was mad about Cena mocking him because he wants Rock to be at his best at WrestleMania. He called it the biggest WrestleMania of all time and it would change the game. No, that’s not a Triple H reference. This was a good promo from Cena. He’s the best hype man in the company when he’s not doing his poop jokes, so it was fine by me.

They plugged Punk/Orton vs. Del Rio/Miz up next.

Next Monday December 19th I’ll be posting the third annual 2011 WWE Johnny Awards. It will likely be on Monday afternoon. Throughout this month we’ve had polls up at thejohnreport.net where you can vote in various categories. If you missed the previous polls or want to see the previous two years of the Johnny Awards please check out the archives. It will be a fun column to write and hopefully you enjoy reading it too. That’s the point! The Johnny’s are coming next Monday.

(Commercial)

All four guys got their intros. There were big reactions for all of them with the faces getting huge pops while the heels drew good heat immediately upon the sound of their entrance music.

Alberto Del Rio & The Miz vs. CM Punk & Randy Orton
I had some people tweeting me about how Punk & Orton were feuding earlier in the year so why would they be okay teaming together? Because it’s wrestling. Punk’s a face now. At least the announcers acknowledged that they had a feud earlier in the year. It should be noted that Punk has a hand injury. He got it checked out last week. Since he’s working through it I guess that means it’s not serious enough that it will keep him out, which is a good thing obviously. The faces got control early, but the heels isolated Orton to build up the heat for it. During the match, Cole mentioned that JR tweeted the rap that he was supposed to say. I didn’t look. While all this was going on, Orton got the hot tag to Punk. Can the announcers put over the action instead of Vince McMahon’s fetish of mocking Jim Ross? Punk went for the GTS, Del Rio fought out of it, Miz cheated behind the ref’s back and the heels were in control again as they went to break.

(Commercial)

When they returned from break, Punk got a backslide on Miz, who came back with a clothesline for two. The heels did a great job of isolating Punk. Each guy took turns hitting moves while scoring a number of a great nearfalls too. Miz went for his backbreaker/neckbreaker combo, but Punk countered with a kick to the head. When Punk was about to get the tag, Del Rio distracted the ref and Wade Barrett appeared at ringside after running in from stands. He yanked Orton off the apron. Miz countered Punk’s GTS attempt and hit the Skull Crushing Finale to win the match at the 13 minute mark. Orton, meanwhile, slowly got to his feet and went through the crowd to go after Barrett.
Winners: Del Rio & Miz (***)

Post match, Del Rio & Miz attacked Punk with a ladder. They worked together to cause him a lot of pain. Del Rio did the Cross Armbreaker on Punk’s arm while using the ladder to hurt him even more. Miz trash talked Punk, telling him that one of them would win the title and that Punk’s pipe bomb will blow up in his face. “No more championship for you.” Then they did bad guy faces at Punk. Oooh…so mean.

Analysis: It was a very good tag team match that followed the basic tag team principles that have worked for as long as the wrestling business was around. I liked the match finish. Orton didn’t care too much about Punk because he was too focused on his own feud. The announcers didn’t play that up at all, though. The post match beating builds up the idea that the heels will work together to dominate Punk at the PPV although I doubt that either of them will leave with the title. Punk’s my pick there. The “beat down on TV, win on TV” theory applies here. I liked what they did. It’s good booking. Well done.

They plugged the vote for Superstar of the Year. Cole voted for The Miz. He showed us the vote.

Before going to break, there was another video for Kane.

(Commercial)

They aired the WWE Network video again just like last week. It’s coming on April 1st, 2012. That means we’ll have another three plus months of WWE Network plugs. Hopefully it’s on my cable system although I have no idea about that, nor does anybody know where it will be. Details to come soon, I guess.

The next Slammy Award was for the “A-Lister of the Year” presented by Vickie Guerrero & Goldust, who mocked her by saying she is the only one who actually wears more makeup than him. Goldust, aka Dustin Rhodes, works backstage for WWE in case you don’t know. The nominees are Hugh Jackman, The Muppets, Snooki & Cee-Lo Green. The winner is Snooki because she was probably the only one available to accept the award via satellite. The Muppets are busy, jerks! She did an acceptance speech, but I hit fast forward. Her voice is annoying. If the award was based on performance then Hugh Jackman deserves it the most. He was great in his role supporting Zack Ryder.

Backstage, Josh Mathews interviewed Mark Henry. I can’t see his eyes. He said Show should be worried and that Cena should also be worried about later in the show when he would be inducted into the Hall of Pain.

(Commercial)

Sheamus walked out. He had his “Great White” shirt and apparently was going to have a match. His opponent was Jinder Mahal, who cut a promo that wasn’t in English. He was booed for it. Finally he spoke English saying that Sheamus would play a supporting role in Jinder’s Slammy winning performance. When he walked into the ring, Sheamus hit him with the Brogue Kick and the ref called for the match to be over just like that. I guess Sheamus won by KO? Sure.

Another plug for Superstar of the Year vote on WWE.com.

(Commercial)

Returning from a break, Rey Mysterio was out next to present a Slammy Award. He’s out with major reconstructive knee surgery. He’ll be back most likely in May. They don’t believe he’ll be ready by WrestleMania time although you never know. He was there to present Superstar of the Year. They had video packages for the other awards, but not this one. The nominees are: Randy Orton, The Miz, CM Punk, Alberto Del Rio, Mark Henry and John Cena. The winner is CM Punk. Good call by the fans. I’m going to assume the voting was legit although in WWE you never know.

Instead of CM Punk, John Laurinaitis walked out. There was a “Mr. Excitement” sign in the crowd. He mentioned that Punk wasn’t in a condition to accept the award, so he humbly accepts the award for him.

They showed Mark Henry walking backstage getting ready for the main event.

As he walked out, though, the screen went to black & white as another “It Begins” promo started up. The boy was writing at the desk again and they focused on a girl also, saying that “she holds the mystery of my arrival and my rebirth.” He said he’d return to reclaim what is his and that things will never be the same again. “On the second day of 2012 it will be the end of the world as you know it.” The one word: Control. I still think it’s for Jericho although the appearance of a girl confuses me because I don’t know how that fits. Shane and Stephanie McMahon perhaps? I doubt it although I have had people float that theory at me a few times. I like how they did this and didn’t have the announcers address it. It keeps the mystery alive. Watch the video here.

(Commercial)

They plugged the Tribute to the Troops show that airs on USA Network on Tuesday at 9pmET. It’s a two hour show. On Saturday on NBC there’s a one hour version of it. They told a story of Vince McMahon meeting a mom in Afghanistan that had a son that was a huge WWE fan. They flew her husband and son to Raw to be at the show. Then the camera showed them. They were very excited. Cool story.

Prior to the main event, they showed what happened last week when John Cena helped Zack Ryder beat Mark Henry last week in their No DQ match.

Mark Henry vs. John Cena
They locked up, Henry shoved him down and they went to break like that. That would make the match incredibly short, which is probably a good move when you think about it.

(Commercial)

When they returned, Henry was dominating Cena with power moves. Then he went to the vice grip because what else is he going to do? Cena powered out of it, hitting his side suplex and a Five Knuckle Shuffle. Cena went for the Attitude Adjustment, but Cena fell on top of him. Henry slowed it down again with the bearhug. Cena fought of it. Henry ended up hitting the World’s Strongest Slam. He was too hurt to cover, however. They went to a ringside camera so they could get a shot of the entrance…because there was Kane!
No decision due to Kane (1/2*)

The fireworks shot up by the entrance, the lights went red in the building, his original music started up and Kane walked down the ring sporting a dark mask on his face. He also had long hair that went past his shoulders. He was also wearing a red & black outfit like he used to do back in his masked days. He stared at Henry, who was the guy that took him out in the summer. Henry bailed to the floor. Then Kane went up to Cena, choked him around the neck and gave him a monstrous chokeslam. I wish Jim Ross was announcing so he could go nuts yelling about how the Big Red Monster was back. He stood over Cena, took off his grey mask to reveal the more regular red mask on his face. To those wondering, yes it’s the same Kane. He’s back from an extended vacation. Good for him. The show ended on a closeup of his face.

Analysis: As a match, it was a very slow and plodding encounter. Not much action at all. Nobody will care though because all they will remember was Kane’s return.

I guess the biggest question is how the hell did he grow that hair? I’m guessing it’s a wig under the mask. Wait, that’s not the biggest question. The question is why did he attack Cena? I guess they could add Kane vs. Cena to Sunday’s TLC PPV since Cena isn’t on the card at this point. I’m in favor of “vintage Kane” being a heel going forward. He’s better in the role. The mystery with the old Kane was about what his face looked like. Now the mystery is why did he go back to the mask? I like the masked version of Kane. It will be interesting to see how they book him going forward.

Three Stars of the Show
1. Kane – Welcome back.
2. The video package team – They were on fire with the Pipe Bomb category as well as the cheesy Laurinaitis video. Let’s give them their due once in a while. They’re great.
3. Rhodes/Ziggler/Ryder/Bryan – I cheated it and gave it to all four. Can’t pick just one. All four guys had a tremendous showing in that match.

6 out of 10
Last week: 6.5
2011 High Score: 9.1 (March 28)
2011 Low Score: 3.5 (October 10)
2011 Average: 5.76
Last 5 Weeks: 6.5, 7.5, 7, 5, 6

How would you rate 12/12 Raw on the 1-10 scale?

A solid 6 for this show. I think Kane’s return bumped it up a bit because it gave the show a memorable finish. I thought the fatal fourway and the tag match were both very good while furthering their respective stories pretty well. The problem was the rest of the three hour show barely had any wrestling, which is crazy when you think they had three hours to kill. Still, the fact that they had two good matches like that is encouraging considering how bad the last two Slammy Award shows were.

I liked the way they presented the Slammys with actual trophies, the stage set up nicely and even a voiceover woman to bring the show back from breaks when necessary. There were some bad jokes although not as bad as they have been in the past. No Match of the Year Slammy award? Weak. Obviously they did categories that catered to their current storylines. The Money in the Bank match with Punk & Cena was MOTY for a lot of people, but they had both guys accept awards for other things, so there was no reason to bring them out again. I just think it’s silly that you would omit an award that should be prestigious like the match of the year. Like I said though, there are no specific categories for these. They didn’t even do a diva of the year like they’ve done in the past.

As far as PPV hype goes, the TLC PPV is on Sunday. The build to the WWE Title match was really good while the World Title match had a little attention paid to it. I’d imagine there will be more on Smackdown about that. No sign of Nash, but Hunter did his best to sell the slowest ladder match in wrestling history. A mild build to Orton/Barrett too. They didn’t really add anything to the PPV, but that’s okay. The lineup is solid as far as I’m concerned. It’s just weird that the end of Raw was about Kane’s return rather than a hard sell for the PPV. Still, Kane’s return is what most will be talking about, so it was the right way to end the show. I can see the pros and cons about it.

There was no Brodus Clay again. No reason given.

Thankfully, the first segment of the show was the worst one of the night. I’m glad it happened early because it allowed me to forget it fast. What a waste of Jim Ross’ talents, though. A damn shame.

Here’s the awesome video package for the Pipe Bomb of the Year award as well as CM Punk’s speech and that cheesy John Laurinaitis video. It was gold, Jerry. Gold! (Seinfeld reference for the win.)

To bring this column home it’s Twitter Ten time.


I asked you questions and you responded to me @johnreport.

@MaddMack In the end who will have the bigger career Randy Orton or CM Punk?
I’d say Orton. He’s only 31 and already has a lot more title reigns & main events than Punk. I think Punk’s better as a performer, but not by much.

@KimsanSong How will they turn mark henry face? Rumor has it they are thinking about it?

I’ve heard the rumor, don’t see it happening. He’s thriving in the heel role. Keep him there.

@biancorosso7 Is Jericho v Punk too big to put at WM28 with Rock v Cena?

I don’t think it’s too big. It’s a great match. It will make the card better and likely be the best match.

@kjbrophy After The Rock is done with John Cena who do you think he should face next?
Definitely Punk or Ziggler. Those would be fun feuds. I guess Ziggler more since he’s a heel, but either one works.

@WhimsicalWinter Do you think the WWE should bring back former Divas to bring some credibility back to the division or hire new workers?
Yes. I’d love to see Trish or Lita back for a storyline building to WrestleMania. I’ve heard/read rumors of both, so we’ll see.

@mysticmuzza Best ever heel turn?
I think Edge when he joined up with Lita was an awesome heel turn. Springboard to success. Also Bret Hart in 1997.

@NormanFried1 If you could take anything from TNA and put it to WWE what would it be or if nothing why?
Some wrestlers there like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode, James Storm and Kurt Angle to do a retirement tour.

@iamthatjack Do you think Dolph still needs Vickie now that he is being pushed towards the top?
Probably not, but if they do a split it has to be done so he stays as a heel obviously.

@JerseyDevilDH If, by some chance, the 2012 promos are about Jericho, where would he even fit into things in WWE as they are?
I’d start him out as a heel, feud with Punk and then turn him face to feud with Ziggler, Barrett, Rhodes, etc.

@Bouffant1224 Do you see WWE Films putting out a movie about Pro Wrestling? What figure/event would u choose to have covered?
Interesting question. I don’t think they will. They want to separate the films from wrestling from what I gather. That could change though.

Thanks for the questions as always.

I’m not sure when I’ll do the Stone Cold column. I’ll try to do it before the end of the year, but like a Brodus Clay return I have other things on my plate as well. I’ll return on the weekend with the WWE TLC Preview, then live coverage of the TLC PPV on Sunday night and on Monday I’ll reveal my picks for the coveted 2011 WWE Johnny Awards. It’s one of my favorite columns of the year to write. Lots of prep work for it. It will be a lot of fun as always.

Last week I had a reader ask me if I could post my weekly score of Raw. No problem. I have it saved on an Excel file, so I’ve pasted it below. On the left is the week number, in the middle is the date and on the right is the score for the show. It’s easy to follow.

1 03-Jan 9
2 10-Jan 4
3 17-Jan 6.5
4 24-Jan 5
5 31-Jan 6.5
6 07-Feb 4.5
7 14-Feb 9
8 21-Feb 5.5
9 28-Feb 4.5
10 07-Mar 6
11 14-Mar 7
12 21-Mar 5
13 28-Mar 9.1
14 04-Apr 5
15 11-Apr 6
16 18-Apr 5
17 25-Apr 5
18 02-May 7
19 09-May 4
20 16-May 5
21 23-May 5
22 30-May 6
23 06-Jun 4.5
24 13-Jun 5
25 20-Jun 5.5
26 27-Jun 7
27 04-Jul 5
28 11-Jul 6
29 18-Jul 6
30 25-Jul 7.5
31 01-Aug 5
32 08-Aug 6.5
33 15-Aug 4
34 22-Aug 7.5
35 29-Aug 5
36 05-Sep 4.5
37 12-Sep 4
38 19-Sep 5.5
39 26-Sep 6
40 03-Oct 6.5
41 10-Oct 3.5
42 17-Oct 6
43 24-Oct 4.5
44 31-Oct 5.5
45 07-Nov 6
46 14-Nov 5
47 21-Nov 7
48 28-Nov 7.5
49 05-Dec 6.5
50 12-Dec 6

Thanks for reading.

John Canton – [email protected]
thejohnreport.net
Twitter @johnreport
Facebook Facebook.com/thejohnreportnet

Visit my 10+ year column archive at the Wrestling Oratory right HERE.

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