Welcome to ThunderStruck! I’m going to start out by saying that RAW was far better than usual for me because of being there live, and today I’m exhausted. I’m going to talk about most of the thing that happened while I was there, as best as I can remember it. So it’s a different style of ThunderStruck this week and somewhat abbreviated, but I hope you all like it!
First up we had the Superstars taping. JTG fought Michael McGillicutty in our opening match. This was quick and both guys worked the crowd well. McGillicutty picked up the win pretty fast. We then had Drew McIntyre take on Alex Riley. Riley got a good amount of cheers from the crowd and won a pretty decent match. Our final was the Usos taking on Epico and Primo. Epico and Primo worked together well and picked up the victory. In total, there was probably about 30 minutes of action from these guys. It was nice to get a chance to see them all compete live.
The Michael Cole Challenge was as Punk said, a gigantic waste of time. JR dancing was one of the highlights of the night. Cole needs to go. It’s not even a joke when Punk says it in a promo. People really don’t like him. Maybe JR doesn’t want to work full time, but we could use somebody new out there at least instead of Cole. King is also getting up there and lacking in entertainment value. Face Lawler gets somewhat boring after awhile. Anyway, the crowd popped mad for Punk and went nuts went he put Cole in the vice. JR took his seat at the announce table after this. I’m tired of JR being humiliated on national television. Nobody outside of Vince McMahon enjoys watching it. Surprise of the night: Ross only weighs 40 pounds more than Cole.
Sin Cara and Kofi Kingston took on Cody Rhodes and Hunico: First of all, Sin Cara’s moves look lame and repetitive when you watch them on tv. In person, they look pretty incredible. The match was loaded with high spots and was a lot of fun to see just what Kofi and Sin Cara can do. Rhodes hit his finisher on Kofi for the victory after a scuffle. They almost botched this whole setup as Rhodes was ready to do his finisher before Sin Cara even jumped out of the ring onto Hunico. The crowd was quiet for most of this match with the exception of the high spots.
Dolph Ziggler vs Mason Ryan had potential to be decent but ended up lasting only a few minutes. Vickie slapped Ryan in the face to cause the disqualification. It was announced before the match that Dolph would be on Team Barrett at Survivor Series due to Christian’s injury that he suffered last week in Europe. It’s also been confirmed as of now that Dolph will be pulling double duty at the Survivor Series by defending his US Title against Zack Ryder, along with competing in the 5 on 5 match. Should be two more solid ppv showings for Dolph.
Foley and Cena had a “this is your life” segment. Foley vowed to make peace between Cena and The Rock. The crowd was laughing their asses off during this segment. I’ve read a few reviews and a lot of people thought it was garbage. Cena’s Dad got tons of heat from the crowd with his comments. This was definitely a great anti-Cena audience(with the exception of the random young kids around us that were shouting “Let’s go Cena” throughout the whole show). The Rock came down and Rock Bottomed Foley so fast that you would have missed it if you turned your head for a second. John was laughing hard and the crowd loved it!
Sheamus and Swagger was quite the fun match to watch. These guys were the prime example of the night on why camera angles make things look somewhat real. The punches and kicks that didn’t connect that you could see from where we were sitting was just hilarious. It was good to see Sheamus be dominant once again and pick up a victory. It was interesting to me last night when I realized that Jack Swagger is actually the ONLY member of team Barrett that is a former World Champion. What’s up with that?
I’ll sum up the backstage segments right now: Outside of the Miz and Truth not saying a word when Striker questioned them, every backstage scene on the show was fairly lame. Punk getting beat up by Del Rio? Seen it. Laurinaitis and Del Rio going back and forth? It’s been done. Zack Ryder with the Bellas? Really, again? Really? Laurinaitis did push back Brodus Clay’s return yet another week. I’m wondering if he’ll jump into the mid card picture or go straight into a heavyweight title feud. Also, Kelly Kelly rolled up Natalya in a very very short match and got the victory by reversing a sharpshooter attempt.
Punk and Show took on Del Rio and Henry. Show really kept the crowd alive for this one. It was fun watching Del Rio and Henry get mad at each other for tagging one another. Henry ultimately hit the WSS on Punk and Del Rio was able to get the cover. Del Rio locked on the armbar after the match and Show was able to break it up.
The Santino Marella and Kevin Nash promo was fun. Nash is super old and sucks on the microphone. He was never really anything special on the mic to begin with, and now he’s even worse. He jack knifed Marella as we knew he would and helped add heat to his character. His match with Triple H at TLC is going to need a lot of weapons and blood to make up for his lack of ability. Enough said.
Orton and Barrett brought their respective teammates to the ring with them for this repeat match from Smackdown. You could see Rhodes waiting on the outside to interfere. This turned into a mad brawl quite quickly. If I was booking the show, I would’ve had a battle royal between these men just for the sake of entertaining the crowd. Team Orton stood tall in the ring after the brawl was finished.
The Rock cut an absolutely incredible promo when he came out again. Going back and forth in the childish arguments with Cena was funny stuff. The two together on the mic make magic happen. I don’t care how many Cena haters there are out there, it is never not entertaining to watch John and Cena and The Rock in a verbal battle. They beat down Miz and Truth pretty easily and it looked like they were going to take each other out before The Rock stole Miz off Cena’s shoulders and landed a Rock Bottom. Rock left the ring and did the you can’t see me wave to Cena to close the show.
Dark Main Event: Cena stayed in the ring and out came Mark Henry. Henry had Miz and Truth on his team and down came CM Punk to join Cena. Punk “slipped” on the top rope when he jumped into the ring and landed on his crotch. He sat there like that bouncing up and down while Orton made his way down to the ring laughing. The crowd chanted “we want Ryder” so much that Punk went backstage and brought him out. The ref agreed to make the match 4 on 3 and eventually chaos erupted. Ryder was able to hit the “rough-ryder” on Miz for the victory. Cena and crew left Ryder in the ring. Ryder told his story about how at the beginning of 2011 he couldn’t even get on WWE TV. He said he started his youtube show and said he would either get noticed, or he would get fired. He thanked everybody for helping him get noticed and for helping him be where he is today. He went up the ramp and hugged Cena and they raised each other’s arms before going backstage.
From the perspective of watching this on my dvr this afternoon, I only saw myself a few times in random scenes. As far as the show goes, it was nothing special in terms of a three hour show. The Rock clearly was the highlight of the night, but nothing really stood out and segments were choppy and didn’t help build for Survivor Series. From the perspective of being at the show live, I had a blast! The crowd was hot and the place was ridiculously loud! I loved it and it made the show a lot more exciting to be there for every last bit of it. Survivor Series predictions will be out at the end of the week along with a Smackdown Analysis and Part 2 of my Undertaker/SS column. Until next time, you’ve been ThunderStruck!
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