The John Report: The WWE Raw Deal for 12/06/10 (RKO to Cole)

 


 

Live from Louisville, Kentucky this is the Raw Deal…

We got a long opening segment to start the show. It was about the announcers mostly and how Michael Cole cost Jerry Lawler the WWE Title last week. Lawler was at the announce table with CM Punk while Cole marched down the ramp explaining himself. He said he’s been the biggest fan of The Miz since he started and he couldn’t help himself from doing what he did. He didn’t apologize and instead said Lawler should apologize to him because Jerry was unable to let Miz have his championship celebration. Lawler wasn’t happy, so he confronted him. Then the GM buzzed in and CM Punk happily read the email. The crowd popped huge for it because he made fun of the whole process. Punk is awesome. The GM says if Lawler hits Cole then he will get fired.

Randy Orton comes out. He has a message for The Miz that he wants Cole to give him. He said Miz is a lot like him, but unlike Miz he has actually proved himself in the ring. And he wants his rematch tonight. Miz comes out to say the GM told him (how? email?) he didn’t have to defend the belt again until the TLC PPV in a few weeks and he got to pick his stip too. Then Riley got on the microphone to challenge Orton, which Randy accepted. Randy ended it by saying if you think he’s too injured to compete he can still do one thing…RKO to Michael Cole! Yes! Huge pop! Actually I don’t hate Cole as much as I did last year. But I still popped for it and Randy’s the automatic star of the night for it. No question.

I thought it was a decent opening segment that took a while to get through at 14 minutes. It’s kind of sad when you think that Michael Cole has had more character development in 2010 than 75% of the male wrestlers on the roster. He’s not wrestling on PPVs to make money for you. So why not care about your wrestlers more? At least they were able to tie Orton & Miz into it, but it seemed to be about Cole & Lawler more.

When we got back Josh Mathews joined Lawler & Punk at the announce desk. Interesting to note that I listened to Meltzer & Alvarez on f4wonline.com (free today) and they said Josh Mathews basically had a tryout last night to be the lead announcer on Smackdown. They are close to taking Todd Grisham off there. He can go at any time. I think Josh is better, so I’d expect that to happen soon.

Backstage, Nikki Bella was looking for Daniel Bryan and when she found him he was walking out of his dressing room with Brie Bella. Brie will be his partner for his match. The Bellas get a storyline? Crazy.

Daniel Bryan & a Bella twin d. Ted Dibiase & Maryse (1/2*)
I guess Daniel can’t have the best match every week huh? Brie teamed with Daniel, but when the ref showed his incompetence Nikki got in there, rolled up Maryse and got the win for her team. I guess that’s Bella friction? Thrilling. Ted was mad at Maryse that they lost, but hasn’t Ted lost all year? He should be used to that. She gave him the “talk to the hand” sign that I have NEVER experienced. Maybe. Bryan needs a feud.

Next week are the Slammy Awards, which is another 3 hour Raw. In two weeks the Johnny Awards are here. I think I’ll be running polls every day next week on thejohnreport.net so you can vote in them too. Keep you posted!

We got a video featured fired boy John Cena. Please end that silly angle.

They interviewed David Otunga “via satellite” in his hotel room. It was supposed to be Barrett, but he left. I loved how he said he wouldn’t reveal the Nexus plan for Cena on camera even though they always reveal it on camera in backstage segments. That was unintentional comedy. He ordered room service, didn’t like it, another knock happened and it was Cena. He beat him up. Then Husky Harris saved him, so Otunga left and Cena beat up Husky. Not a great segment.

Tyson Kidd d. DH Smith (*)
Kidd has a bodyguard with him whose name is Jackson Andrews (trained by Booker T.), but they didn’t identify him. I guess that’s coming next week. He’s a tall dude that I’m sure Vince loves. He didn’t even factor into the finish as Kidd won with a rollup. Smith went after Kidd, but bodyguard protected him and laid out DH with a clothesline. The heels posed over him to end the segment. They had a match on Superstars that was about 10 minutes and was much better. They even busted out the Summerslam 92 Bret/Bulldog finish for it, which was great.

Backstage Nexus met up to talk about their plans. I thought 10 minutes ago they don’t talk about plans? And Otunga showed up too. I guess the hotel was nearby? Barrett said he’d be calling out Cena. Otunga said if you don’t take care of it there may be a mutiny within the group.

Santino & Kozlov won a 4 way elimination match to win the tag titles (*1/2)
You know how some matches are better when they get 12 minutes of TV time and some are worse? This was worse probably because the teams in this match aren’t very good. You had the makeshift team of Yoshi & Mark Henry, who I want to called SUSHI KOOL-AID~!, but that’s not a great name. There was also the Usos, the tag champs Slater & Gabriel and the comedy duo of Santino & Kozlov. After the Usos got pinned, Tamina hung around to hang with Santino. They are in love. I guess. Cena showed up in the end, distracted Gabriel and Santino pinned him after the Cobra. New tag champs. Cue the trombone celebration! There was also a kiss for Santino from Tamina.

Tribute to the Troops is Saturday December 18 on NBC. Lots of celebrities this year.

Hey NXT 4 starts tomorrow. Maybe it won’t suck as much as NXT 3. And maybe the winner won’t use the title shot on a secondary title and lose every match. Go Kaval!

Sheamus came out for his King of the Ring coronation. His outfit was very over the top and silly. He was talking when John Morrison interrupted. He tried some jokes. They fell flat. Sheamus wanted him to call him the king. They brawled and that was a lot better. Morrison got the advantage, knocking Sheamus out of the ring. I assume this leads to a singles match at TLC where Sheamus goes over and then he feuds with a returning HHH in the new year.

Laycool were at the announce table even though they are Smackdown performers. They were invited by Michael Cole, who wasn’t there. None of the other three liked them. Just like me. And yes it’s true, Layla is dating Cody Rhodes. Good for him.

Natalya d. Melina (*)
I was excited about this a little because Natalya’s my fave and Melina’s a solid worker too. It was an okay match that didn’t even get three minutes. That’s vintage WWE Diva booking, folks. Natalya got the win with the Sharpshooter. Post match, Laycool attacked her. They focused on Melina walking away with Lawler wondering why she’s not helping Natalya. A heel turn for Melina? It works for me because I always liked her better as a heel anyway.

Check me out on Twitter at Twitter.com/johnreport for random shit and links to all my columns. Some of my rants are fun. At least I think so.

Backstage, Miz gave a pep talk to Alex Riley. A few weeks ago he wrestled Cena. Now he gets Orton. Kaval, who won season 2 of NXT unlike Riley, never wins. Oh right, because he’s short. My bad. That’s the second time I bitched about Kaval’s misuse. He’s a good worker. Use him!

Randy Orton d. Alex Riley via DQ (*)
Why do they still carry the Money in the Bank briefcase? Weird. Orton hit him with the DDT and two minutes in wanted to go for RKO, but Miz interfered. He hit Orton with the Skull Crushing Finale for the DQ. Post match, he said he wanted to show what kind of match he wanted. He got a table. Neither guy got put through the table, but Orton got his hands on Riley and gave him a powerbomb through the table.

A table match at the PPV? Not a huge fan of that. I’ve never liked table matches too much, but I guess it’s a way to have Miz go over without having Orton take the pin. They did that a year ago with Sheamus winning the belt from Cena in a Tables match where it was booked like a fluke.

Main event…interview? Okay. It’s Barrett coming out and we got a long segment where he talked about Cena’s future saying he could re-hire him. Cena hopped the rail and got into the ring while others in the Nexus stood at the top of the ramp. Barrett told him his strategy isn’t going to work while Cena said being fired isn’t bad because now he’s part of the WWE Universe. What a suck up. Punch him! He said he’s content with being fired and making life hell for Nexus. He said if Barrett hires him back the attacks on Nexus will stop, but the attacks on Barrett will not. Oh you go girlfriend. He said he’d make his life a nightmare. Barrett called Nexus to the ring. Instead they left.

Then Cena beat the crap out of Barrett with Punk wondering why Cena’s allowed to do this? Hmm, I’d say because it’s a bad storyline that doesn’t make sense. And Punk yelled at Cena for knocking over his diet soda while clearing the announce table. Barrett got away before Cena could put him through the table. I will say the crowd was VERY into this, so I guess it’s working in that regard. It still hurts my head sometimes.

Backstage, Barrett was pissed that Nexus didn’t help him. Otunga tells him he either hires Cena back next week or he’s out of the group. He walks off and so do the others.

So the deal going into next week is if Barrett hires back then Nexus will be by his side because Cena will stop attacking them. If he doesn’t hire back Cena they may not support him anymore. What will Wade do? I’d assume they re-hire Cena, then have a Cena vs. Barrett match at the PPV that Cena wins. And they move onto other angles.

Three Stars of the Show
1. Randy Orton – You take out Cole you get first star. That’s the rule.
2. CM Punk
3. The Miz

5 out of 10
Last week: 5.5

Not a good week for matches, but storyline advancement was decent. I’m glad the firing angle is almost over. It’s too ridiculous even for WWE’s low standards.

Dear snow, I fucking hate you. Not the singer Snow. I love him. I mean the white stuff.

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