The Best And Worst Of WWE Raw 6/24/13: Each And Every One Of Y’all

Pre-show notes:

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– Sorry for not having the report ready to go in the buttcrack of dawn, which has been my thing for the last month. Last night was my good friend Megan Simon’s 21st birthday, and occasionally you have to be sociable and stop making wrestling jokes long enough to share in your friends’ milestones. Don’t worry, the first thing I saw when I turned on the TV was Stephanie McMahon, so … I’ve been punished enough already.

Please click through to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for June 17, 2013. THAT’S WHAT YOU DO.

Worst: NO! NO! NO!

Daniel Bryan opened last night’s episode of Raw, and while that would normally be an automatic Best, I had three major problems with it:

1. The biggest and most important problem is that it was a re-do, which I’ll explain in detail a little later.

2. It was the latest in a series of limp WWE pull-apart brawls. They’ve been going to this well a LOT lately, where two superstars just CAN’T HANDLE~ their emotions and beat each other up too much (?) which causes a bunch of referees to appear from out of nowhere and stop them. A good pull-apart can be special — see Cena/Brock before Extreme Rules last year, or the Rikishi/Val Venis feud I’m apparently talking up in every column now — but when you do them so much you’re following them with recaps of OTHER pull-apart brawls (Bryan/Orton -> Kaitlyn/Aksana) it’s nothing. The storytelling equivalent of a deadlift German suplex. Oh, cool, you deadlifted a guy into a German? Guess what, every wrestling move is supposed to be a deadlift. They’re never SUPPOSED to be jumping with you. So yeah, these guys are so mad they won’t stop trying to hurt each other! You know, like in a wrestling match.

3. Instead of just opening the show with the Orton/Bryan street fight and saying “the match stoppage last week was controversial so we’re gonna let them go at it without restraint,” they made it into another one of those “Vickie Guerrero makes decisions but everyone hates her so now she has to make five concurrent decisions and look like an idiot” stories. When Vince, Stephanie and Triple H are all doing individual “f**k with Vickie” skits it starts to add up. Instead of a cool match with a decisive finish, we got a cool match with a decisive finish prefaced by 10 wasted minutes of show open, a half-dozen backstage procedural arguments, “missing Brad Maddox” drama and Triple H saying “I champion the little guys” out of one side of his mouth and making fun of Maddox’s clothes out of the other. So, thanks for that.

Seriously though, #3 is the worst. I don’t ever want to see Triple H pretend he’s the Internet again.

Best: Irish Catholic

Last week, Sheamus almost beat Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes by himself in five minutes. This week, he gets a tag team partner and it takes him twice as long to win. Suggestion: Sheamus becomes a tag team wrestler and wrestles the entire match. The “partner” is just there to run in and tackle whoever’s trying to break up Sheamus’s pin.

But yeah, I could get behind a Sheamus/Christian tag team. WWE either keeps guys together forever inconsequentially or breaks them up immediately, and I’m okay with either of those angles. If they stay together, we get two great singles wrestlers with major problems* having their weaknesses hidden. If they break up, they’d have great matches. It’s a win-win.

*Sheamus could let Christian speak for him so we don’t have to hear him make racist jokes or Brogue Kick cats out of trees for lulz, plus, Sheamus’s offense gets a MASSIVE response from the live crowd when it happens all at once, which a hot tag scenario would allow. Christian looks and sorta moves like a fragile old man right now, so having a partner who looks like a strong athlete would help him out a lot.

Worst: Do Not Break Up Rhodes Scholars, I Swear To God

I assume it was just shoot miscommunication and Sandow not getting out of the way fast enough, but I got worried when Cody Rhodes tagged himself in, stumbled through the ropes and just shoved Sandow on his ass. It was nothing, and they just jumped to Sandow on the outside looking upset about Sheamus to set up the Dublin Street Fight on Smackdown, but I am paranoid about my friendship role models being forced to hate each other. Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes should remain friends forever, no matter what happens to them. I am extremely over-protective of them, and not just because I want their tag team name to stick around.

Worst: Aksana

Aksana, you are the worst.

The had three things going for her: 1) porno sax 2) her weird interpersonal relationships with people on the show, like the times she got caught in a net and just stood there dancing under it, the times she used her Enchantress powers to manipulate Teddy Long’s boner and the time she almost got married to Goldust, and 3) the gear with the boob zipper. Now she doesn’t have ANY of those things. She’s Generic Backstage Heel Diva #3, and when you couple that with her total ineptitude in the ring, she is the worst.

If you need proof of how generic she is, watch that clip they showed from Smackdown. She’s just like “oh hi doggie, you lost a match, also you are trash.” I wanted Layla to respond with “you’re my favorite customer.” And then Kaitlyn tries to run her into a trash can, and f**king Aksana just sorta lies on the ground semi-crawling and nothing works. There is legitimately nothing Aksana does that couldn’t be accomplished better by Summer Rae, and I don’t even LIKE Summer Rae.

Best: Please Have My Babies, AJ Lee And Big E Langston

The Divas match was elevated to legendary status by the appearance of AJ Lee in a goddamn muscle suit, pretending to be Kaitlyn. When the initial distraction doesn’t work (good job watching tapes, Kaitlyn!), AJ sticks around to reenact last week’s Secret Admirer reveal in its entirety, complete with Big E Langston cameo/dip.

As good as this was, I think my favorite part was Big E getting to act dramatically, because one day the WWE Universe is gonna figure out how funny and likable he is and he’s gonna be the biggest deal ever. And before you ask me about the AJ “adam’s apple” burn, I will reiterate that I think heels should be able to say and do every nasty thing imaginable (including stuff that makes us uncomfortable, like racism, gay bashing, transphobic stuff like this) as long as we hate them for doing it, and they are never “right.” If a bad guy calls a good guy gay and gets booed for it, that’s fine. If a good guy calls a bad guy gay (John Cena, looking in your direction) and gets thunderous laughter and applause for it (WWE Universe, looking in each and every one of your directions), that’s bad. The “preachy” parts of my column exist because WWE rarely does the good version and always does the bad. Sometimes it’s hard to explain the gap between appreciating someone’s evilness and agreeing with them, but a lot of it has to do with educating yourself and trusting yourself to subconsciously differentiate.

Anyway, I really want this angle to end with Kaitlyn going nuts and the Chickbusters being best friends again, but as bad guys.

Best: Alberto Del Rio vs. Chris Jericho, The Match

Chris Jericho is totally Dolph Ziggler’s Slower, Less Cool Dad at this point, but this might’ve been my favorite match of his since his return. It was simple, effective storytelling (Jericho is out to prove that he’s the best and picking fights to make it happen, Del Rio thinks everyone who isn’t Ricardo has disrespected him so he’ll pretty much accept a fight with anyone) with a nice pace and some cool counters and transitions in the home stretch. I liked Jericho using the ropes as a ladder to propel himself up and out of the cross arm-breaker, even if he stayed in it forever and totally forget he’d been in an armbar for half a minute once he was out of it. I continue to love Alberto Del Rio’s stomps, which are numerous, and often jumping.

You guys aren’t going to agree with me, but Alberto Del Rio is secretly one of the very best wrestlers in WWE, and possibly the world. It’s not about him popping the crowd or whatever, it’s about how he makes everything he does in the ring count. Every facial expression adds to the story. Every move makes sense. He wins his matches by taking out your arm, so he’s either targeting your arm or stomping you into oblivion to get the arm open. His relationship with Ricardo remains consistent, even if he isn’t patting him on the ass every week. He is the guy WWE should point to every time they pull the “we’re TELLIN’ STORIES” talking point.

Worst: Alberto Del Rio vs. Chris Jericho, The Finish

Alberto Del Rio is the World Heavyweight Champion, so now he’s gotta start losing to everybody. That’s how it works, right?

Everything was going great until the finish, which featured Chris Jericho’s bum arm getting an immediate second wind and Del Rio finding himself in an inescapable Boston crab. A “full nelson” as Michael Cole might call it. Ricardo Rodriguez decides the best course of action is to run into the ring and start attacking Jericho with a bucket, drawing a disqualification. WWE can never decide if it wants its heels to be killers or cowards who can’t accomplish anything on their own, and the jump back and forth is what invalidates them both. This guy who has spent six months playing fair and taking people out with ruthless aggression can’t get out of a one-armed man’s shitty Boston crab, and he’s within farting distance of the ropes? Yeah, this totally needed bucket shots.

Worst: “Attack Everybody” Is Not Being An Anti-Hero

I’m also not liking the direction they’re taking Dolph Ziggler in, where they’re so conscious of the “he’s a heel who gets cheered” thing that they’re straddling the fence between “have him do heel stuff like always and let the reactions happen” and “WOOP WOOP CONDITION THE AUDIENCE.” So Ziggler jumps people from behind, saves the babyfaces, gets revenge for things that happened a week ago or more without a reason other than “this is what we do in WWE,” stands around for way too long to get crowd reactions, attacks the same babyface he just saved BECAUSE THE ROCK or whatever, is still with his heel girlfriend and enforcer pal but separated from them on the show … it’s so right in the goddamn middle that nothing can be accomplished, and the best case scenario is that he’ll get homogenized into a t-shirt factory and MAYBE we’ll enjoy the matches.

What I’m saying is that he’ll go from young, awesome Chris Jericho to old, Steak n’ Shake tattoo Chris Jericho.

Worst: At Least Vickie And Brad’s WWE 2K14 Covers Featured People Who Are Actually IN WWE

Oh, sorry.

I’d also like to Worst Jerry Lawler for calling it WWE 2K14 VIDEO GAME. Do not let 70-year old men talk about video games. When you come out with WWE 2K14 ABACUS or WWE 2K14 TYPEWRITER, then yeah, let Jerry Lawler talk it up.

For the record, I’m just gonna print out this cover and use it again.

Never forget.

Best/Worst: The Great Khali, Servin’ A Purpose

Last night was a night of re-dos. Re-does? Re-do’s? More than one re-do.

The big one was “correcting” the mistake caused by Accidental Concussion-Gate and re-doing the Daniel Bryan/Randy Orton match. Another was step one in the healing process of Ryback, who has to live out the rest of his career knowing “I got Attitude Adjusted through the roof of a prop ambulance” is what those kids in Cena shirts are gonna remember him for. That and the quips he won’t stop saying. Ryback got to wrestle The Great Khali, and if you assumed anything other than “jobber squash so Ryback could pick up a heavy guy and seem impressive after being emasculated,” you need to watch more wrestling.

The Shell Shocked on Khali was impressive, I guess. Not as impressive as him picking up Mark Henry at WrestleMania, but if he beats Khali I don’t have to spend the rest of the show with my back to the ring. And while I’m talking about it, I hate “Shell Shocked” as the move name. That’s its name, in past tense. Not “Shell Shock.” When I’m writing up results I have to type gangly shit like “Ryback got the win with Shell Shocked.” I guess I should be happy they didn’t call it the RYBACK BOMB.

Worst: Sure, John, THIS Is What Disrespected The WWE Championship

ALLOW ME TO REINTRODUCE MYSELF, MY NAME IS HOV, HAHA JUST KIDDING, THAT’S A JOKE FOR MY PALS DA TRADEMARC AND BUMPY KNUCKLES. THE CHAMP IS HERE.

LAST WEEK MARK HENRY MADE A MOCKERY OF FORMER WWE CHAMPIONS BY LYING TO ME, JOHN CENA, THE CHAMP, THE MORAL COMPASS OF WWE. HIS UNDERHANDED TACTICS DISRESPECTED FORMER CHAMPS LIKE THE NATURE BOY RIC FLAIR, A GUY WHO ONCE BROUGHT IN HIS OWN CHAMPIONSHIP BELT AND JUST CALLED HIMSELF THE CHAMP FOR NO REASON AND ONCE USED PHOTOSHOP TO TRICK A GUY INTO THINKING HIS WIFE WAS F**KING HIM. FORMER CHAMPS LIKE SHAWN MICHAELS, WHO IS MOST FAMOUS FOR DECIDING HE’D RATHER SIT AT HOME DOING NOTHING THAN BE WWE CHAMPION. CHAMPS LIKE EDGE, WHO CELEBRATED HIS CHAMPIONSHIP WIN BY HAVING SEX WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RING ON LIVE TELEVISION. THOSE CHAMPS WERE THERE

HE RUINED THEIR RETIREMENT SPEECHES AND NOW NOBODY’S GONNA RESPECT OR BELIEVE A PRO WRESTLER WHEN HE SAYS HE’S RETIRED. LIKE HOW RIC FLAIR HAD HIS LAST MATCH AT WRESTLEMANIA AND THEN WENT ON TOUR WITH HULK HOGAN AND SPENT A COUPLE OF YEARS BLEEDING LIKE A COMEDY STUNT PIG IN TNA. YEAH LAST WEEK WAS THE FIRST TIME A WRESTLER’S RETIREMENT WILL EVER NOT BE BELIEVED, THANKS A LOT MARK HENRY, YOU FAT FAT

HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN OUT HERE NOW, THE CHAMP IS HERE

AND NOW I’M SCREAMIN’! AND MY ACCENT HAS CHANGED, PARTNER! YOU’VE GOTTA HAVE A MATCH WITH ME BECAUSE BEING WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION AND ECW CHAMPION AND THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD IS MEANINGLESS UNLESS YOU’VE HELD THIS BELT THE ROCK DESIGNED, THE SAME ONE THAT USED TO SPIN BUT WE CHANGED IT. EVEN IF YOU WIN IT AND BEAT ME SEVERAL TIMES, YOUR LEGACY WILL STILL BE DETERMINED BY RANDOMLY RETURNING GUESTS LIKE RODDY PIPER OR MICK FOLEY WHO WILL TELL YOU YOU GOTTA BEAT JOHN CENA AGAIN AND AGAIN OR NOBODY WILL CARE

IT NEVER ENDS

THE CHAMP IS HERE, GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK

♫ ba badda daaaaaaaa

ba badda daaaaaaaa ♫

Best: This Match Was Useless, But I’m Down For Some Shield/Usos Matches

The tag team division is as sad as its been since the glory days of MCGILLOTUNGA, but The Shield is the WWE Tag Team Champions, and they are a guarantee for great matches. Some of the lower level tag guys are capable of hanging with them — the Usos and the Slater/McIntyre combination of 3MB especially — so it’d be nice to let The Shield settle into being non-SUPER-CONFRONTATION-ALL-DAY-EVERY-DAY WWE Superstars, have a bunch of fun tag matches and reestablish the pennies as an accolade people would want instead of a prop for therapy goofs.

The good news is that Brodus Clay and Tensai didn’t win anything, because they’re kinda like WWE’s Punxsutawney Phil. If they show up and win, it’s six weeks of bad wrestling. If they lose, they crawl back into their hole (Superstars, I guess?).

Best: CM Punk And Paul Heyman, Best Friends And Awful People

I’ve written a lot about how much I love the dynamic between CM Punk and Paul Heyman, but here’s the short version: as performers, they’re both dynamite, especially when they’re working with somebody else on their level. As characters, they are destined to be together. Paul Heyman is incapable of telling the truth to the point of absurdity, and will tell you whatever you want to hear to further his business endeavors. CM Punk has (and has always had) a warped perception of “right,” and all he wants is for somebody to justify him and tell him that what he’s saying is right. Back him up when he says he’s the Best In The World, because sure, he’s arrogant, but sometimes people are arrogant because they don’t have any real confidence. Punk is successful, so Heyman latches on. It’s a symbiotic relationship and I can’t get enough of it.

On top of that, I’m loving where this story is going, and I hope they drag it out through Money In The Bank and into SummerSlam. Punk believes Heyman here, because he HAS to. This is as “on the level” as Heyman gets. So they hug, but Punk isn’t stupid. He knows Heyman’s lying, and that Brock Lesnar’s about to come down on him like a ton of Triple-H-branded bricks … but if he can keep Heyman believing things are cool between them, maybe he’s got an edge. Otherwise, he’s dead. That’s great.

Also, let’s keep Brock off the show for another two months and let Punk have great matches with guys who need to HAVE great matches, such as:

Best: NXT Rookies And Pros Collide!, Or

Best: Check Out What Happens When You Let Your Young Guys Look Credible

Where the hell did THIS come from? Darren Young got to look like a good pro wrestler for … maybe the first time ever. CM Punk didn’t lose anything by giving the kid a bunch of offense, and he WON, so … man, I don’t have to explain this, do I? More wrestlers should be doing this. If you’re presenting WWE as a place without nameless jobbers and have three hours to kill, why not let the guys who aren’t gonna win look good in the process of losing? I believe the Primetime Players as a threat after this match 100 times more than I did watching them get non-title roll-up wins on Team Hell No or whatever. Good wrestlers vs. good wrestlers = wrestling fans enjoying your wrestling show. The easiest equation ever.

Also, I know I already used the “never forget” joke, but seriously, never forget.

#yellowropesforever

#missuserena

Worst: xCurtis Axelx

nope

Best: This Is Y’all, Right Here, Dancin’

Mark Henry delivered the same basic “let’s address what happened last week without touching each other” placeholder promo John Cena delivered, but I’m giving it a Best because Mark Henry is awesome and so much better at speaking than Cena. When Cena talks, it’s like he’s Big E Langston reading lines to the Kaitlyn version of AJ. When Mark talks he’s natural, even when he’s f**king around and lying about Tyler Perry reaching out to him for movie appearances. Also, holy shit, how much do I want to see Tyler Perry’s Hall Of Pain? Can I volunteer to write it? I NEED a scene where Mr. Brown gets a folding chair stuck on his ankle.

Of course, a massive Worst goes to the crowd for selling out their awesome interaction with Henry with WHAT chants. You are lazy, WWE crowd. There is no worse feeling than being at Raw and watching the people around you realize it’s time to do What chants. You’re ignoring Mark Henry’s valid points. YOU’RE IGNORING MARK HENRY’S WHITE GUY VOICE. Mark is totally right, and I wish he’d just listed off adjectives to describe which Mark Henry will show up at MITB just to make them say WHAT at the top of their lungs for ten minutes straight and pass out. Then he can perform for the 45 people who DON’T do What chants at wrestling shows, aka “the only people who deserve happiness or entertainment.”

Also a Best: “I know I look good, this ain’t no Men’s Warehouse.”

Best: The Topes Win A Game!

Daniel Bryan not only main-evented Raw in a singles match, he WON it CLEAN via submission with his finish against Randy Orton, a guy who never taps out and rarely loses. It was a great match. The kind of match that sticks with people. And here I am not enjoying it as much as I should. A lot of people tweeted at me, “hey, where’s your celebratory tweet about Daniel Bryan winning? What, did you get on an airplane right before the main?”

I DID love this to the point of insanity:

but here’s the thing

Worst: The Nature Of A Re-Do

The point of the Best and Worst of Raw column has never been to objectively dissect WWE or its performers or whatever, it’s just me telling you what I honestly thought about the show. I have to write about the show every week and moderate the comments and stuff, so I end up reading a lot of conjecture and rumors as well.

Last week, Daniel Bryan took a header into the barricade the match stopped. Randy Orton started hugging him and they dragged him to the back, and that night was full of “Bryan and Triple H got into it backstage!” talk and “Bryan was supposed to win to begin his WWE Championship push!” stuff and WWE.com videos of Triple H making executive decisions. Bryan was supposed to win, says everyone ever, and because of his fluke injury, he didn’t. Then Raw immediately announces a rematch between Orton and Bryan for THIS week. So obviously Bryan’s going to win this one, right? That’s not me being an asshole wrestling fan, is it? When wrestling fans and columns and WWE.com are all telling you Bryan’s gonna win and then Bryan wins, what’s the joy in watching Bryan win? It’s like we’re watching a taped show. A re-do of last week. If this had happened in the middle of THAT show, I probably would’ve lost my mind. They even re-did the WWE App poll to give it the same stipulation. Here, it’s just … what they were supposed to do. Repeating the spot.

I’m sorry if that’s too pessimistic. I do love D-Bry and I’m happy to see him get a big win over an important guy en route to bigger and brighter things. I love him for being able to get a good match of Orton, but that’s not surprising, because he can get a good match out of anybody. I saw him get a good match out of Sonjay Dutt once.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night

LastTexansFan

“GUYS STOP FIGHTING! WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS? SOME SORT OF WEEKLY FIGHTING SHOW?!”

Raven

Damn, I wish Dolph had dressed as Big E.

Tobogganing Bear

FOR F**K’S SAKE JERICHO I JUST HAD THESE WALLS BUILT

ScooterMcGooch

Fandango WWE 2K14: You have to let the A button breathe.

Thrillhouse

HHH is the kind of guy that thought Revenge of the Nerds was a drama.

Cena’s Serious Voice

That’s the only way they can get The Rock to appear on Raw every week.

Get Down With LPP

They should have put The Rock in a rest hold for the cover.

Lester

And now a clip from Total Divas, coming soon, only on E!:

“Are any of us on Raw tonight?”

“Um, no.”

GenuineFiber

So according to his shirt, R-Truth’s time is now?

TRLjr

I feel like I’m in storyline mode.

See you next week, everybody.

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