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Please click through to enjoy the Best and Worst of WWE Raw for August 12, 2013.
Worst: Wade Barrett Winning, Cats And Dogs Living Together, Mass Hysteria
Before we talk about this, let’s jump back in time three years and watch Daniel Bryan vs. Wade Barrett on NXT. Here, Barrett is a can’t-miss prospect with a giant upside, a best-there-is-at-what-he-does heel Chris Jericho in his corner and a horrible finisher. Daniel Bryan is an “Internet darling” with no personality, the beginnings of a losing streak and the inability to stay on the ropes without falling and hurting himself.
That match feels like it happened in the 1800s, doesn’t it?
Now Daniel Bryan is the hottest act in WWE. 15,000 people excitedly huddle into arenas across the country so they can buy his novelty t-shirts and do that thing where they point in the air and yell YES. He’s not just an Internet darling now, he’s an EVERYBODY darling. In contract, Wade Barrett is the exact same dude he was in season 1 of NXT, only now he’s prefaced by roughly two years of hilarious, inept losing. Last week he tried to shave a guy’s beard and failed so badly he got HIS beard shaved. He LOST A HAIRCUT. Chris Jericho and The Miz have been slowly degrading since 2010. Funny where things go, isn’t it?
Last night’s Raw started with Daniel Bryan beating Wade Barrett handily en route to his WWE Championship match with … wait, Wade Barrett won?
Ha, don’t worry! I know that sounds weird, but it’ll all make sense later, when it’s revealed that Brad Maddox showed up as guest referee and fast counted to please Mr. McMahon, and then he gets pedigreed because Triple H wants to be the special guest referee at SummerSlam!
Best: Damien Sandow’s Impenetrable Chocolate Briefcase
Cody Rhodes made the joke on commentary, but seriously, Damien Sandow’s new wallet-chain briefcase looks like a gigantic piece of embossed chocolate:
So anyway, Randy Orton had a match against Damien Sandow featuring a guy Sandow’s feuding with on commentary, so … guess how this match ends!
The match itself was actually pretty fun. I like when people mess with Orton’s predictability, and can’t help but laugh any time he goes for his Samoa Joe powerslam and just spins into nothing. It’s the exact same motion he has when he’s setting up the RKO, too, where he’s upright and then just turns and spins into the ground. That should be his entire thing … turning and spinning into the dirt like he’s one of those transport modules drilling back down to the Technodrome.
Unfortunately, something’s bugging me now, and I have to get it off my chest.
Worst: Cody Rhodes Explains Himself (And Kinda Ruins It For Me)
Cody was great on commentary, but what he was saying in itself wasn’t great. JBL and Michael Cole brought up some really good points about how Sandow won Money in the Bank in an underhanded way, sure, but it was every man for himself, and he did what he had to do to win. They also brought up that Cody’s the one who won’t leave Sandow alone, stole his briefcase, tossed it in a river, then RETRIEVED it from the river himself just to taunt Sandow into another attack.
Now, the reason I’ve been enjoying this feud so much is because (1) I like Sandow and Rhodes a lot, and (2) they’re both bad guys. Cody’s been getting a lot of positive response from the crowd, but he hasn’t launched into any obnoxious I DO THIS FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU, BOYHOOD DREAM Y’ALL stuff to cement him as a “WWE Babyface” in the style of Cena or Sheamus or “Made In The USA” Alberto Del Rio or whoever. To me, it seemed like a popular scumbag and an unpopular scumbag having beef, and taking it to ridiculous extremes, i.e. the Gulf of Mexico.
On commentary, though, Cody played it straight. Lots of “I didn’t realize what a jerk Sandow was until he betrayed me directly” and “I’m not doing this because he beat me in the ladder match, I’m doing it because he says he’s the better man!” That’s … not a spectacular reason to be doing this. It makes Cody seem like a sore loser, especially when JBL says “this makes you sound like a sore loser” and Rhodes responds with “eeeeh, I’m not though.” Yeah, you kind of are. Sandow went through all this trouble to get extra security for his briefcase because you won’t stop trying to steal it and f**k up his Christmas, and here you are STILL at ringside STILL trying to steal it, distracting Sandow and causing him to lose matches. At what point do you try to be the better dude?
If you’re gonna go the “Sandow thinks he’s better than everybody” route, why didn’t we spend the time between MITB and SummerSlam playing with that? The “you can be the protector of the case” was BEAUTIFUL, but it’s gotta be maintained, you know? I’m aware that a guy being a jerk to you once after a year of friendship is grounds for eternal hatred in the WWE Universe, but I wish we’d gotten more of that so we could get behind Cody in terms of reason and emotion instead of just popularity.
Anyway, I think I’m good until Cody outs Sandow as Lebanese, then says something about how Lebanese sounds like lesbian.
Best: Dean Ambrose vs. Andre The Giant’s Ghost
The very (very very) best part of Raw for me wasn’t even uploaded to WWE Fan Nation, so I hope this video stays up … it’s the backstage promo where the guys from The Shield PREACH IT~ and remind me, after a few weeks of treading water, why I love them so much.
Everybody was on point here. Seth Rollins should still try to take the “nyeah!” out of his voice, but he’s right — there’s a lazy, old guard of WWE Superstars who need to back the hell up and make room for the new guys, because the new guys RULE. They were at the last batch of NXT tapings, they know what they’re talking about. Reigns follows that up nicely with a calmly-but-sternly-spoken thing about how they’ve wrestled all over the world and can’t find anybody who measures up to them, then lays out an open challenge for anybody who wants a shot at their belts.
And then, Dean By God Ambrose. Always let Ambrose talk last. He riffs on the night’s battle royal for a shot at his title for about 40 seconds and it is MAGIC. He name-drops Cena and Punk to associate himself with the top tier guys in the company, astutely points out that nobody wants to challenge him for the US title because they know they can’t win (which is the best-ever cover for “the US title is Holly from ‘Breaking Bad’ because the writers only give a shit about it when they need it as a plot device”) and then drops the greatest mic drop sentence I’ve heard in a while: “if Andre the Giant’s ghost isn’t in this battle royal tonight, then I ain’t losing at SummerSlam.”
Believe in the motherf**king Shield.
Best: Frank Discussion Brock Lesnar
Also not on Fan Nation — because they needed extra room for all of Natalya’s sharpshooter attempts — is Brock Lesnar’s video package about how he’s not just Paul Heyman’s muscle, he’s a piss-inducing hardcore badass who has a personal issue with CM Punk.
Raw really hit a high point this week with these pre-taped segments. This is EXACTLY what I needed from Brock Lesnar. So far, the build for Punk vs. Lesnar has been awesome, but it’s mostly been about Punk’s beef with Heyman, featuring Brock as an Esper called upon to cast F5. Here, Lesnar’s all, “naw son, I actually hate CM Punk a lot, too, he says he’s the best but he’s got like 5% of my accomplishments. He’s tough and all, but f**k that guy.” Beautiful. Now if the Punk/Lesnar match goes in a direction we aren’t expecting, we can validate Brock as a participant in its happenings, and not just as a guest star who sauntered in to take a DQ loss or whatever to tangentially get Curtis Axel over.
Not that that’s happening, but you know what I mean.
Worst: This Is Why They Don’t Ever Let Natalya Wrestle
Here’s an unpopular opinion: I think Natalya kinda sucks.
Basically everything Natalya’s done since arriving in WWE has been to endear her to fans. She’s the daughter of (if we’re being real) a guy who used to team with a wrestling legend, so that shouldn’t been enough, right? But WWE had been in DESTROY THE HART LEGACY WOOP WOOP mode for several years before that, and it came across kinda limp. They gave her a gimmick where she farts a lot to … I don’t know, make us think she’s “one of us” or something? Because WWE sees its audience as helpless farters with no confidence? They put her in a team with The Great Khali and Hornswoggle because either
1. WWE loves the Marilyn Munster “here are a bunch of weird guys and a blonde lady” joke, or
2. WWE thinks Natalya is just as big of a freak as the leprechaun dwarf who lives in a courthouse under the ring and the super tall Indian guy who can barely speak or stand up
She briefly got to be in “Pin-Up Strong” with Beth Phoenix, but while wrestling fans may tell you Pin-Up Strong was about strong, sexy women who are good at wrestling, it was actually a self-help group for ladies who cried all the time because they wanted to be pretty like Kelly Kelly. Not my writing, WWE’s. Now she’s on a reality show, and it’s all about how nobody likes or respects her, nobody will let her wrestle and even her boyfriend doesn’t want to have sex with her. That FINALLY earns her a match on Raw, and what happens? She lets go of the sharpshooter right before AJ starts tapping, wanders around the ring helplessly for several minutes, attempts to hold hands with the referee (?) then REPEATS THE SPOT, as if she has NEVER BEEN IN A WRESTLING RING BEFORE. Now she gets a pay-per-view match against a lady with the wrestling ability of a trout.
I know it seems right, but there is no reason to be a Natalya fan these days, guys. At some point, you’ve got to let those hard-to-reach chips go.
Worst: Langston and AJ Have A Match On Sunday? Cool, Let’s Have Them Lose Clean To The Oddities Basically Three Times In A Row
This made it even worse. AJ Lee is the Divas Champion. Big E Langston has been feuding with his former Light, Dolph Ziggler. They’ve got a match coming up against Ziggler and AJ’s rival Kaitlyn at SummerSlam. Dolph Ziggler and Kaitlyn aren’t on this show. So what do you do with AJ and Big E? Why, have them lose to a comedy act who never wins
and also the Great Khali.
Seriously, Khali’s not doing anything at SummerSlam and Natalya didn’t have a match arranged or announced until AFTER this. She’s sitting in for the SummerSlam pre-game show. That’s how important she is to ongoing WWE programming … she gets the spot usually reserved for legends or hurt guys. And here she is, making the Divas Champion tap out TWICE to set up what? A Divas Championship match? NOPE, a promotion for ‘Total Divas.’
The entire Natalya-related thing this week is about as bad as Raw can get. I don’t even know.
Worst: The McMahon Family Thing Is Now Officially Messing With Our Cool Main-Event
AND SPEAKING OF HOW BAD RAW CAN GET
The SummerSlam main event is now all about Triple H. What will Triple H do as special guest referee? What do Daniel Bryan and John Cena think about Triple H becoming the special guest referee? What will Stephanie McMahon and Vince McMahon have to say now that Triple H has TRIPLE H’D ALL OVER TRIPLE H. WILL HE SCREW JOHN CENA OR DANIEL BRYAN? WILL HE FORM AN ALLIANCE WITH EITHER OF THEM OR WILL HE FEUD WITH RANDY ORTON OVER THE WWE CHAMPIONSHIP, I HAVE TO KNOW, I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT TRIPLE H IS DOING
I am the last person who can effectively communicate the agony of a shoehorned-in Triple H thing now, because I’m one of the go-to examples of guys on the Internet who hate Triple H. Don’t get me wrong, though, I don’t dislike Triple H because I’m on the Internet … I dislike Triple H because I have eyeballs and earballs and can see and hear and pay basic attention when EVERY TRIPLE H THING EVER ENDS UP HORRIBLE. Remember the last time a WWE Superstar got crazy popular out of nowhere? It was CM Punk. How did that end? With Triple H pinning him, and Triple H’s friends showing up to powerbomb him. That’s not me being a “smark,” that is me seeing what happened on wrestling and remembering it. If you like Triple H, good-for-f**king-you.
The worst part is how unnecessary it is. Bryan vs. Cena was already hot. People were interested. In fact, on top of that, we’d already been given Randy Orton as a possible wrench in the plans AND established that Vince McMahon doesn’t like either guy and wants neither of them to be champion. They did not need Additional WWE Legend to be the guest referee, especially one who is defined by how badly he has to be a part of every popular thing, so that 20 years from now he can pretend he was the glue that held it all together. He “ruled the Attitude Era with an iron fist,” remember?
Best: Kane Figures Out How To Avoid An In-Ring Attack
I didn’t enjoy the 30 seconds of Kane squashing Titus O’Neil necessarily, nor do I enjoy the cop-out “ring of fire” match that allows for Inferno Matches without anybody catching fire and assumes Harper and Rowan can’t figure out how to bring out a few heavy blankets, lay them over the fire trough or whatever and just step over them, but I do ever-so-much enjoy Kane solving the age-old wrestling problem of “how to avoid being attacked when the lights go out.”
People are always getting attacked when the lights go out. In ECW, the lights would go out all the time. You’d be wrestling Justin Credible or whatever and things would be going fine, and then OH NO THE LIGHTS HAVE GONE OUT IN THE ECW ARENA, and then they’d come on and OH NO SABU IS THERE and he’d hit you in the face with a chair and your day’d be ruined. Recently, The Shield employed the “show up in the dark and kill you” trick, and guys just stood there in the dark hoping things would work out for them. Even now, SIERRA HOTEL INDIA ECHO LIMA DELTA plays and guys stand around in a circle preparing to fend off an attack while The Shield takes half a minute to walk down the steps and hop the guardrail.
Thankfully, Kane’s knowledge of how the Undertaker’s shadow attacks works comes in handy, and he just bails. That’s it. The lights go out, the Wyatt Family short film plays, a guy leads two monsters out via electric lantern and when the lights come on, they attack you. That gives you what, a solid minute to just leave the ring? The lights came on and Kane was up on the ramp. I LOVE IT. You’re a smart one, you murderous fire rapist.
Best: Alberto Del Rio’s Counter/Hulk-Up, Or
Worst: The Go-Home Formula Makes For A Boring Raw Sometimes
“Kofi Kingston … great leaping ability.” — Michael Cole
My favorite moment of wrestling on the show was the finish to the Kingston/Del Rio match, when Alberto Del Rio does his homework (“Kofi Kingston will jump a lot”), counters one of Kofi’s big jumps by just putting his knees up and falling backwards, then makes his amazing Del Rio HULK UP face …
… slaps on the arm-breaker and gets the win. Good stuff, and I appreciate Kofi adopting long tights upon his return, because nobody is ever going to be successful in those Billy Gunn boxer briefs. Seriously, think about it. How many WWE Champions have worn the biker shorts? Randy Orton used to wear them, but ditched them for trunks. Jericho went from long tights to trunks without a stop in-between. Triple H, Hogan, Austin, Rock, all of them wear trunks. Punk dropped basketball shorts and put on trunks when he decided to be a real wrestler. It’s just a thing you have to do. Tradition, “Vince loves thighs,” whatever the excuse is. The only guy I can think of to hold the world title in something other than trunks, long pants or a singlet is Ziggler, and he only did it because (1) his title run were worthless, and (2) he eventually removed the legs anyway.
Best: Welcome To Our New Weekly Segment, “Ask The WWE Universe Why Kofi Kingston Doesn’t Get Pushed”
I arrest my case!
Best: I Have No Idea Where These Little Usos Superstars Matches Are Going, But I Enjoy Them
If Swagger and Cesaro wrestled the Usos on NXT, it’d be killer. Instead, they’re having these little four minute back-and-forth things on Raw, and they’re … well, they’re still pretty good. The wrestling is good and these are guys (especially Cesaro) who deserve a spot on the program. I’m just not sure where they’re going.
I mean, I guess they don’t have to go ANYWHERE. I do miss the old days when guys who weren’t the champion could have issue with each other for no reason and just wrestle a bunch, so that’s good. It’s not like The Shield’s dropping the tag titles to these teams any time soon … WWE’s tag division exists as a way to give upper-echelon guys trophy belts to hold so they look cool, without any real chance of losing them until the next upper-echelon guys need something to hold. It’d be cool to see the Usos hold the tag belts and be an actual successful tag team, but monkeys flying out of my butt and all that.
Regardless, hey, a fun little tag team match on Raw. I’ll take it.
Best: Bryan Pulls Inoki Rank On Cena In The Best MizTV Segment Ever
This edition of MizTV is easily the best one ever — at least, the best one since Ryback responded to a line of questioning by lifting and throwing couches — for three reasons:
1. Cena telling Miz how horrible his segments are, and Miz just kinda nodding his head in approval.
2. Daniel Bryan telling the Miz that if he doesn’t shut up he’ll punch him in the face, and the Miz remaining silent for the remainder of the segment.
3. Passion.
Number three is the big one. The actual content of the argument was the same thing we’ve seen from Cena every time a serious situation arises over the last like, five years. Cena stops kidding around and “gets serious,” signified by the use of the word JACK, which Cena cannot use unless he is about to reach critical mass. His response to any criticism is to say that he doesn’t care if the fans boo or cheer him, listing off a bunch of people he’s beaten in the past and announcing in five-or-sixteen different ways that he is the WWE Champion, and that he will stay that way. It’s like a Mad Lib. You just insert the name of the guy who has a problem with him. Bryan’s content wasn’t that special, either. The argument that Cena “isn’t a wrestler” is the kind of shit that’d get me dismissed with a wank and called a smark in a heartbeat. Of COURSE Cena’s a wrestler. He’s the most successful existing wrestler. He can’t make a submission move look good, his peppy comebacks destroy any realism the previous 14 minutes of match had attempted and he’s corny as f**k, but wrestling is not real, and as depressing as it sounds, Eva Marie is just as legitimately “a wrestler” as Daniel Bryan. She’s not a GOOD wrestler by any stretch, but they both have the same job description.
What made it good is that, for once, Cena seemed like he meant what he was saying. When he’s pissed off and fired up, he’s one of the best promos in the business. Even when he’s using Make-A-Wish to deflect arguments that he can’t wrestle (because “being nice” means “I can win matches,” apparently) he’s got enough oomph behind it to make him seem like John Cena The Character is a real dude who exists and feels things. Bryan’s doing the same thing. He doesn’t seem like “I am not a goat face” Bryan, the guy doing wacky double takes in psychiatry skits, he seems like a guy who has busted his asshole for the last decade and a half to prove everyone in the world wrong and get respect, who is almost f**king there and just needs to take one more step. That’s what makes this feud so great. They aren’t heels and faces, they’re complex, real people with real motivations who happen to be the poster children for opposite sides of the sports entertainment spectrum. One guy’s a t-shirt factory. One guy pops crowds with a small package. That’s amazing, and perfect.
BUT THEN HOLD ON IT’S TIME TO PLAY THE GAME AGAIN
Worst: WWE Chickens Out Of Their Own Awesome Segment
You know those Saturday Night Live skits that are really hilarious, but they don’t know how to end them, so something stupid happens and the crowd just starts clapping and it fades out, and you’re left going “oh, uh, all right?” That was MizTV.
Because he is now the special guest referee, Triple H (WITH ENTRANCE MUSIC) stormed to the ring to get between Bryan and Cena. BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DID. The segment was getting too good and people weren’t chanting WHERE’S TRIPLE H, so HERE HE IS. An then like a 747 careening into the Earth, Randy Orton showed up to stand on the stage and hold up his briefcase, because I guess he got a massive head-wound at some point and only understands “briefcase.”
The passion of Cena and Bryan was as good as the shoehorning in of H and Orton was bad.
Best: Miz Has Something On His Mind
Ceiling Miz is watching you.
Worst: Not Being Able To Convincingly Speak Like A Human Being Is The Bomb Dot Com
Here’s a transcript of last night’s backstage ‘Total Divas’ segment, as I remember it:
Nikki Bella: “Please watch Total Divas, every Sunday on E!”
Brie Bella: “We are just like Kim Kardashian, probably.”
Natalya: “excuse me,” farts
Brie and Nikki: “You’re ugly!”
Natalya: “Let’s have a match. Also, Eva Marie should be there because she’s on the show, but she shouldn’t wrestle.”
Eva Marie: BEEP BOOP INTRUDER ALERT, INTRUDER ALERT
Natalya: “My black friends will be there!”
Cameron: “SHAZAM”
Naomi: “AW SHIT THAT IS WACK”
And then everybody slaps everybody else. Scene.
Worst: This Is Just Several Bad Raw Moments Happening At Once
There is no way I can put this bullshit into an entertaining paragraph. Here’s a quick rundown of everything horrible that happened during the course of this video:
– R-Truth
– matches where the heel takes a purposeful count-out loss (kinda)
– matches that aren’t really matches because the bell doesn’t ring, and just end
– dance contests
– the announcers turning into chucklemonsters to get something over as “funny.” Listen to Michael Cole just start going HYEH HEH HEH HEH as loudly as possible when R-Truth is dancing. R-Truth’s normal dancing isn’t supposed to be a joke, is it?
– a 41-year old man twerking
– Cole’s laughing being revealed as off-cue, because obviously he was supposed to start laughing when the twerking happened, but somebody in his mic just said “laugh when Truth does his dance,” didn’t specify, and Cole rolled with it
– Fandango slowly evolving into John Morrison, skin tone and all
– Fandango’s stupid, stupid catchphrase, which does not ever make sense
And all this to set up a throwaway moment in a battle royal. Ah well, at least no Divas showed up to call Summer Rae fat and slap her.
Best: This Would’ve Been The Perfect Battle Royal To Reunite The Nexus (Just Saying)
Two things I love more than anything else in wrestling:
1. battles royal
2. The Nexus
So OF COURSE I loved this battle royal, which was actually really entertaining (especially on the back end of it) and featured 5 of the 8 original Nexus members.
How perfect would this have been for a Nexus reunion? The winner of the match gets a shot at the United States Championship, which is the perfect opportunity for a young wrestler who wants to make a name for himself, but knows he’ll get trounced in an instant by Cena if he challenged for the WWE strap. So imagine Wade Barrett, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, Darren Young and Ryback suddenly decided to work together, eliminating everybody else? There weren’t enough major guys in the match for it to matter, but if they’d gone all YOU’RE EITHER WITH US OR AGAINST US to eliminate Mark Henry and Rob Van Dam, that would’ve been enough “fan favorite” loss to make it a big deal. Then, you’ve suddenly made a handful of guys who are floundering into THINGS again and positioned them to take on WWE’s most successful current group of new, plucky, ultra-violent assholes, The Shield.
What does The Shield want? To remove the old guard of WWE superstars and take their place as the new generation. That is EXACTLY WHAT THE NEXUS WANTED TO DO. Couldn’t Wade be like, “hey, we were here first, and we haven’t gotten OUR spots yet, wait your turn?” I’d watch the hell out of that. Especially if they spent the next month trying to re-recruit Daniel Bryan, brought David Otunga back from the Negaverse of WWE Films and looped back in Corre-cohort Ezekiel Jackson as the New Michael Tarver.
Best: Kofi Kingston Is The Bruno Sammartino Of Contrived Battle Royal Elimination Spots
I give Kofi a lot of shit in these columns, but there is nobody better at wacky, super phony battle royal elimination avoidance spots.
That is legitimately clever and cool. Although you should’ve saved it for the Rumble, guys. Now you’re gonna show up in January with no ideas, and Kofi’ll be hopping around on desk chairs like an idiot again.
Best: Rob Van Dam vs. Dean Ambrose Is 100% Happening So RVD Can Do His Headstand Sell Of Ambrose’s Headlock Driver
Henry winning and challenging Ambrose would’ve made more sense from a storytelling perspective (and from a kayfabe perspective, because Henry is basically Andre the Giant’s ghost already), but Van Dam winning is fine, because the crowd loves him, and because he does that thing where he stands on his head to sell DDTs and that’ll look great when Ambrose plants him with a Headlock Driver and pins him.
Best: THE BIG DAD
Mark Henry and Rob Van Dam did not learn from watching Kane, so when The Shield’s music hit, they just stood around in the ring back to back, waiting to get Damned Numbers Gamed. But LO, returning from out of nowhere several weeks after having his return announced is THE BIG SHOW, and WHAT’S THIS, HE’S WEARING A POLO SHIRT AND DAD JEANS
I am SO BEHIND The Big Dad as a character. He’s just like your dad … he loves leisure time, he thinks kids today are getting too crazy and he knows what’s best for you, only he is also 7 FEET TALL AND LIKE 450 POUNDS AND HE WILL GRAB YOU BY THE THROAT AND SLAM YOU OR POSSIBLY CLOSE HIS FIST DRAMATICALLY AND PUNCH YOUR SKULL IN. The Big Dad! It’s a big Dad show tonight, lawd!
Worst: Paul Heyman Says Something Stupid
The payoff to Paul Heyman challenging CM Punk to a one-on-one fight couldn’t have possibly been worse. If Heyman had just said “WHOOPS, I LIKED, HERE’S 10 GUYS TO BEAT YOU UP, GET ‘IM BOYS” it would’ve been predictable, but at least Heyman wouldn’t have looked like an idiot. Here, Heyman spends a portion of Raw openly thinking that he’s made a mistake, but then when the time comes for the fight, he confidently announces that it’s all been a trap. If it was a trap and you were gonna TELL us it was a trap before you sprung the trap, why act like you’re worried about it? Are you trying to fool someone into apprehension? Furthermore, if you’re going to play Ozymandias and reveal the great ruse, you’ve got to have a better “trap” than “the guy you expected to also be here with me is here.” Is that seriously the “trap?”
When Heyman got all wordy and pointless about setting a trap, and about CM Punk being a hero or whatever, I thought he was going to be ACTUAL Ozymandias and reveal that he and Brock had jumped Punk 20 minutes ago and sent him to the hospital. Something. Something other than “we’re gonna trap you by being super obvious sitting ducks, so hopefully you’ll walk straight down the ramp and nothing bad will happen to us. No, it’s fine, let’s stand here looking in the same direction. Don’t watch the Tron.”
It felt like they’d changed their plans at the last second (from whatever their plan WAS) and made Heyman improv a speech at the last minute. Not great.
Best: Punk Looks Great, And At Least We Got Through This Without Triple H Making Himself Special Guest Best Beast
What DID look great is Punk himself, who avoided the EASIEST TO AVOID TRAP EVER and took Lesnar and Axel to the woodshed. I’m happy to see Punk get the advantage for once, because one-sided feuds always make me nervous. Now that Punk and Lesnar have both gotten one over on each other, they go into the match on an even playing field, and it can go either way. It’s not just “OBVIOUSLY Punk will lose” with the secondary option of “Punk is obviously gonna lose, so now he’ll win.”
Punk getting to look like the Best in the World is something that hasn’t happened in a long time, if you think about it. When was the last time Punk got to look like a badass? I mean, a successful badass. When he stole the Undertaker’s urn and acted like an asshole about it? When Jericho was pouring liquor on him? This is the Punk we want to get behind … the guy who is pissed off all the time, means it, and will knee you in the face about it.
Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night
Juby14
The Big Show is going to come out tonight wearing a sheet that says Andre on it
LastTexansFan
“If Andre the Giant’s ghost isn’t in this battle royal then I’m not gonna lose at Summerslam!!”
“Anybody want a peanut?”
LBCS
Not even the ref could figure out Nattie winning
Redshirt
CM Punk is putting his hand on Daniel Bryan’s shoulder now and saying, “I’m know. Triple H ruined my summer too.”
SHough610
If Bray really wanted to infuriate Kane he’d light a copy of Atlas Shrugged on fire.
Johnny Slider
missed connection: you were in a wrestling ring and I was walking to toward you. I thought you were in the ring, but the lights came on and it turned out you passed me. I was wearing a shirt with a lamb on it and you were wearing a leotard with fake red barbed wire on it. Meet me at the Barclay’s center for a hot night.
TopRopeKid
That moment you realize that the host of summerslam is having an interview with his NXT Rookie, who has since become a beloved superstar by all, while the host talks about a crappy reality show.
jont
“hello, viewers unable to watch under the dome, here are grown men with t-shirts that have arrows pointing to themselves”
Art Salmons
Summerslam main event cancelled. Now it’s Triple H vs. Triple H in a Triple-H-Counts-Anywhere, Best of H series.
Fancy Catsup
Backstage, Triple H is planning his victory over Andre’s ghost in the next segment.
See you all next week.
