A Detailed Look at Raw (October 24, 2011)

You may or may not remember my post from August where I admitted to occasionally watching pro wrestling yet I attend shows when they come to town because it's something to do and I'm not cool enough to spend money on drugs or other bad stuff. Well, WWE, which is much more well known than TNA, came to town last night so you know I was there.

This was a televised show, their flagship Monday night program called Raw. You might have heard of it, it's been around since 1993 and it used to compete against WCW Monday Nitro until WCW started being run by the same kind of people who think TCU and West Virginia are better potential members for the Big 12 Conference than Colorado, Nebraska, Texas A&M and Missouri and booked itself right out of business. Umm, where was I? Oh yeah, Raw. Well let's see what happened at this show shall we?

PS apologies for the pics, it's hard to take good pics in such crappy light, so ignore the fuzziness. I think they turn out pretty well to be honest.

As you can see here, ticket sales were pretty awful (something that is commonplace for WWE these days if I understand correctly) so the Frank Erwin Center/University of Texas borrowed the dreaded TARP OF SHAME from their bitch up north Baylor University in order to cover up all the unsold seats in the upper deck of the arena.

The show began with ring announcer Justin Roberts and some random chick welcoming us and going over the usual bullshit about how we're not supposed to videotape anything with cameras or cell phones (spoiler: everyone does so. I even videotaped some stuff. COME GET ME FEDS!). Roberts took a leave of absence and random chick introduces the first dark match...

Sin Cara def. Michael McGillicutty. Sin Cara is Mystico from Mexico, and he's a shitty wrestler because he doesn't speak English, and thus can't communicate his spots with other wrestlers, resulting in many, many botched moves. That's insider speak for "he messes up a lot and really sucks." But apparently he was really good in Mexico so whatever. McGillicutty is the son of Mr. Perfect, and he has a really, really shitty fake name. He calls his fans "McGillibuddies" and I was the only McGillibuddy in the arena tonight Sin Cara won in a really, really short match after a weird senton from the top rope. No botches, making this arguably Sin Cara's most successful match in his WWE career!

At this point, announcers Josh Matthews and some other guy come out because it's time for Superstars! Which last I heard was being canceled because the only person who watched it was My Boy An-Day. Anyway, Random Chick Announcer called them "Jack Corpello and Scott Stanford" which obviously isn't right because I know the guy on the left is Josh Matthews.

Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne def. JTG and Primo. This was weird because Kingston and Bourne are pretty good high fliers and they're also the tag team champions. I thought JTG and Primo (brother of ex-WWE star Carlito Caribbean Cool) were both fired ages ago but here they are. Fun, decent little match that saw the champs win with Bourne's awesome Shooting Star Press (pictured below).

Eve and Kelly Kelly def. The Bellas. WWE women's wrestling. So bad dude. Piss break.

At this point, announcers Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler come out and we're almost ready for the live portion of the show!

We start out the show with what else, a long interview with Triple H! Apparently there was a pay-per-view last night and apparently Kevin Nash returned and attacked Triple H in his match. So of course, Triple H is ticked off and wants to fight Nash. However corporate stooge slash Raw general manager John Laurinaitis comes out and they bitch and moan about... something. Of course Nash "isn't in the building" which is wrestling speak for "he'll be appearing live before the end of the night" and sure enough he assaults Triple H with a sledgehammer. Triple H does the worst sell job ever, foaming at the mouth and shaking, while Nash piefaces some EMTs on his way out and we go to commercial.

After commercial, we return and Triple H is being loaded into an ambulance, BUT WAIT! Nash is back to assault Triple H again! We then see trainers restrain Nash while the EMTs get like two gurneys and don't stabilize Triple H's neck as they reload him into the ambulance. We go to another commercial!

Back from commercial and we see the ambulance leaving. No this isn't a reused picture, we were literally treated to footage from both Nash assaults again, ONE OF THEM LITERALLY MINUTES AFTER IT OCCURRED. Do they really thing we have THAT short of attention spans? At this point it's 30 minutes into the show and we've had zero matches, and seen the same video twice.

Randy Orton and Sheamus def. Christian and Cody Rhodes. Hey, finally, a wrestling match on a wrestling show! Fancy that. You might have heard of everyone here before so I won't waste time explaining who everyone is. Decent little tag match here with these guys, as I believe they're all currently feuding in some way, shape, or form. Went pretty long too. Actually looking back, this was match of the night, even if it was nothing to write home about. Faces (good guys) win when Sheamus hits his finisher on Cody Rhodes.

Dolph Ziggler (w/ Jack Swagger and Vickie Guerrero) def. Santino. Vickie Guerrero is Eddie Guerrero's widow, Swagger is a former wrestler/football player from the University of Oklahoma, Santino is a jobber (meaning he loses to everyone), and Ziggler is a decent wrestler who looks like Billy Gunn and uses almost his entire moveset and is apparently the United States champion. Anyway, Ziggler wins in a short match and the heels (bad guys) do a beatdown and then the mega-roided Mason Ryan makes the save.

And next up, another yak fest with WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio (and his awesome personal ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez), who brags about winning vs. John Cena at the PPV last night. So out comes cult favorite CM Punk who wants a title match. But here comes Johnny Ace again to bore us and book a title match at Survivor Series, the next PPV. Punk makes references to Marty Funkhauser and such and ends up trying to attack Del Rio, but he flees so Punk hits his finisher on Rodriguez. Funny moment during commercial that I was too slow to get a picture of: Punk grabs Del Rio's towel and wears it as a scarf as he leaves the arena.

Alicia Fox def. Natalya. Yes, I was subjected to TWO awful women's matches. God, who even cares?

Wade Barrett def. John Morrison. Wade Barrett won a rookie breakout competition called NXT (which replaced ECW) and formed two stables called the Nexus and the Corre. Both flopped HARD. John Morrison won another rookie competition, Tough Enough, like ten years ago and is in the WWE Backstage Doghouse because he fucks former wrestler Melina, and for some reason people hate him for it. So he's continually buried (made to look bad) on TV. And it was no different here as Barrett wins in what was basically a ten minute squash match (match where one guy dominates the entire match). Crowd was very dead by this point due to the awful show we had been given up to this point. Also the finish was botched (someone messed up a move and they had to re-do it) as Barrett tried to catch JoMo into his finisher the Wasteland but he couldn't catch a flying Morrison and had to pick him up and re-do the move.

And hey, why not, let's see that Nash attack on Triple H ONE MORE TIME! I SWEAR I'm not reusing these pictures, these were taken as the show happened. Seriously. If you don't believe me, I'll email you the pictures so you can see the .EXF data (or whatever it's called) and the timestamps and everything else for yourself.

And while the crew changes something on the ring for no reason, we get Michael Cole making horrible jokes about WWE commentator Jim Ross! JR has again been "fired" so we get some WWE humor, horrible Photoshops! Then Michael Cole challenges JR to the "Michael Cole Challenge" next week which apparently is a "Loser Gets Fired" match. Lord help us all.

So we get to the main event, after first witnessing The Miz (former Real World contestant Mike Mizanin) and R-Truth beat up Internet favorite Zack Ryder then came out to cut a promo about how great they are, which apparently wasn't on TV. Then they leave, and come out again for some reason. They wrestled John Cena in a handicap match since Ryder, Cena's scheduled partner, was injured. The match saw Cena get beat up and then it ended when R-Truth threw water at Cena. I cannot make this shit up. So we get ANOTHER appearance by Johnny Ace who rebooks the tag match for the Survivor Series PPV, but this time Cena can pick his own tag team partner. So he announces the return of The Rock, and the show ends.

But wait! Now it's time for the dark match main event, originally scheduled to be Alberto Del Rio vs. John Cena vs. CM Punk for the WWE title but for whatever reason it was changed to Del Rio vs. Cena in a steel cage match. Nothing to write home about, Del Rio wins when Miz and R-Truth attack Cena and keep him from exiting the cage door while Del Rio climbs out. But Cena gets revenge and everyone is sent home happy.

Or so they wish. I'm never really disappointed by live wrestling shows because there's usually something really fun or enjoyable. This show had few matches and waaaaay too many videos hyping John Cena movies. And what was up with having to rewatch the same Kevin Nash attacks over and over and over again? And the matches pretty much sucked too, which meant the crowd sucked too. There was probably a reason why this show was nowhere near sold out, and now I know why. I might be saving my cash and watching at home the next time WWE comes to town.