I didn't catch too much of Raw, because the New York Jets are just the absolute PUREST form of comedy! I'm not even kidding. They're absolutely sublime. So here's what I did catch!
-Ric Flair came back! He gave the Superstar of the Year Slammy to John Cena, who got mercilessly booed out of the building by the Philadelphia crowd! Cena decides to be a big man and give his away to Flair. Keep this in mind later. After Cena leaves, CM Punk comes out to argue this injustice and we get a GREAT back-and-forth with him and Flair. This takes them to the ring, where Punk cracks his crutch on Flair's back! Here's a CM STRUT~! Flair comes back to take out the one-legged Punk and polishes off Paul Heyman with the Figure-4! -Flair delivers a nice welcome back promo, but here are The Shield to deliver some JUSTICE~! The beatdown looks to be on, but Ryback and Hell No make the save! Meanwhile, John Cena, who wanted to be the big man and give Flair his Slammy...couldn't be bothered to come out. Yup. -Dolph and Vickie had their official breakup in a backstage segment. Vickie retaliated by booking herself and John Cena against Dolph and AJ, because this storyline is not allowed to end until morale is completely broken. That leads to... -The Big Show comes out to deliver a promo with his Super Mario Bros. 3 Giant Land chair (tm Justin Shapiro), essentially saying Sheamus goes to the back of the line now. Sheamus comes out and tries to shake Show's hand, but Show doesn't know when to leave well enough alone and mocks him, so Sheamus beats him down with his own chair. Oh, cruel, cruel irony! Show's knocked out, which leads to Dolph trying to cash in! But here's John Cena to stop Dolph from cashing in his briefcase. Remember, Cena couldn't be bothered to help Flair earlier, but he was more than eager to stop Dolph from LEGALLY CASHING IN HIS BRIEFCASE! Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! -That leads to the main event. The women essentially take themselves out of the match, leaving Cena and Dolph. Cena looks to finish with the shitty STF, but AJ brings out BIG E LANGSTON~! to beat down Cena! Langston hits the Big Ending! Show ends with AJ skipping circles around her new big black boyfriend!
Feel free to add anything else, but that's essentially the gist of it.
Also, I hope we can avoid the low-hanging fruit and not refer to Big E as "Ryblack," because Twitter has played this card TO DEATH!
Until next time! Take us...home.........you know what? Here's a Mark Sanchez gif. Enjoy!
Solid show, definitely looked like it was one they catered to the live crowd a little more for the sake of all the voting that appearantly went down. Tensai's a trooper, Santino isn't that funny outside the ring, they offered zero explaination for Alberto's turn, nor AJ's. Also, haven't in decades, but I might just have to buy an action figure if they made a Big Show with the SMB3GLC.
On AJ; my comic book logic is kicking in, and the Ryback screwjob, the Shield, and now Big E all happened as a result of AJ's forced resignation. Odds are nil, but it wraps it all up in a nice package.
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Frown and the world laughs at you." -Me.
Wait is Dolph a face now? Is AJ a heel now? Del Rio is a face now as of TLC. Is Flair back? Is Dreamer back? Hell if Cena was quite heelish tonight, is he going heel finally? Where does Show get these giant size items for gimmick matches? So many questions, things are getting interesting again.
If Big E Langston doesn't start getting Bobby Lashley chants during his matches I call racist shenanigans.
Everything John Cena did tonight was a heel move. He was obviously annoyed at the Philly crowd for trying to boo him out of the building, so he just gives his award to the random presenter. Then, when the random presenter is attacked, he doesn't care and is no where to be seen. Then not allowing Dolph, who the crowd was totally behind, to cash in his MITB was a pretty dickish heel move. That NXT guy that came out... never heard of him. I don't watch the show, but he wasn't very impressive to me. I don't know why he attacked Cena because AJ was never able to tell us what Cena did to her to make he turn on him. (Does that make sense?) Cena could have deserved that attack, for all I know. Maybe Cena was a dick to him on NXT or something.
"There's no teleprompter!" had me lmfao!
The main reason tonight was so awesome, of course, was because the WWE had the epic return of the one... the only... THE BOOGEYMAN! I marked out like a 10 year old on crack.
One legged CM Punk strut should be meme. Flair back on tv even if its to give the rub to Bryan, Shield and Ryback is one of their better ideas. I kinda miss the days when they explained turns instead of we get no explanation even if the explanation defied logic. I don't see how Miz and ADR are going to work as faces.
The Wee Baby Sheamus.Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.
I really enjoyed RAW and the Slammys, except for the ending, which was a dud, and Cena, who was an unfathomable complete fucking dick the entire night.
Otherwise, the four of five segments with Ric Flair in them made me happier than I've been watching RAW in a long, long time. Naitch almost got away with Superstar of the Year after being gone for three years, for fuck's sake. Who in the world ever thought that in 2012, we'd see Ric Flair square off with Dean Ambrose for a few seconds?
I live tweeted the Slammys (backofthehead.com). My tweets are, not surprisingly, unapologetically AJ-centric, but no more than WWE itself as a whole currently is.
(edited by John Orquiola on 18.12.12 0610) @CMPunk “@ZackRyder: @CMPunk She played me bro” I got your back.
I live tweeted the Slammys (backofthehead.com). My tweets are, not surprisingly, unapologetically AJ-centric, but no more than WWE itself as a whole currently is.
(edited by John Orquiola on 18.12.12 0610)
Do I need to download an APP to enjoy your tweets?
I missed the initial entrance of Santino and Tensai and caught him just getting up from stumbling and thought I missed them re-enacting the Shockmaster's entrance.
I also missed Flair's entrance. Sunofa.........
CM Strut rules.
I also marked hard for Dreamer. He looks in much better shape than the last time he was in the 'E.
I heartily approve if Maddox/Shield/RyBlack were all put in motion by AJ.
Mean Gene looked not nearly as old last night, too. My wife caught that from the other room and recognised his voice and asked "Is that the old announcer!?!?!?" She may not like wrasslin', but God bless her for recognising Gene's voice.
That is one big chair. That's like BrewGuy size. Holds a Grizzly!!!!!!
Yeah, just a weird, weird show and I'm glad I didn't buy tickets to go this time (though my friends were on camera on+off all night on the floor).
All the matches were super-short save...an epic 6-way tag with 3MB and Tommy Dreamer??
Of course all the faces won the Slammys when the fans vote on them. Also as my fiancee pointed out, they were making it sound wayyy more complicated than it should be to simply install an App.
The Punk-Flair exchange was gold, and of course the Naitch comes back to take a beating...as did Tommy. Also, everyone else heard the weird technical glitch where we heard Flair intro Superstar of the Year before the break, which I guess was pre-recorded, but why do that if he was going to be live at the podium?
Obviously Superstar of the Year should've been Punk. #respect
Santino broke the fourth wall, calling Tensai "Albert" twice.
Big E Langston....yawn? Do we need more people for AJ to be mixed up with? I guess she's a heel now too? Do we need more heels, even with ADR and Miz now faces...?
Originally posted by John OrquiolaOtherwise, the four of five segments with Ric Flair in them made me happier than I've been watching RAW in a long, long time. Naitch almost got away with Superstar of the Year after being gone for three years, for fuck's sake. Who in the world ever thought that in 2012, we'd see Ric Flair square off with Dean Ambrose for a few seconds?
Ambrose is this generations Roddy Piper. Working with Flair seems natural. I wouldn't want Flair back in ring for the long haul, but a 6-10 min match vs Ambrose on RAW would be acceptable. Just keep Flair off of PPV's.
Originally posted by Spiraling_ShapeDo we need more people for AJ to be mixed up with? I guess she's a heel now too? Do we need more heels, even with ADR and Miz now faces...?
Thing about AJ is she was never really a babyface. Even when she was GM, she was still insane and slapping Kaitlyn. AJ is almost a new kind of tweener who just does whatever and it's explained away by her being unbalanced. Thing is, the Divas division desperately needs a top babyface. Kaitlyn and Layla each have their deficiencies and Eve is comparatively an overwhelming heel presence. AJ is the most over Diva, and one of the most over acts in the company. Before the TLC ladder tipping of Cena, logic suggested AJ would eventually be programmed against Eve. And it could still end up that way; there's a burgeoning angle about Eve being sore she lost Diva of the Year to AJ on wwe.com and there are a lot of weeks to build for AJ vs. Eve at WrestleMania in AJ's home state.
By the way, did anyone else vote last night (exclusively on the WWE App, which if you have an iPhone, you go to the iTunes app store, and if you have a Samsung Galaxy SIII like Jerry Lawler and myself, you go to the Google Play store. Search WWE, download and install the app. Don't forget to update the app if you already have it!)?
Just curious if anyone else did and whether your picks matched up with the WWE Universe majority, as mine mostly did not.
My votes were:
"Tell Me I Did Not Just See That": Daniel Bryan loses in 18 seconds Comeback of the Year: Jerry Lawler (hard to vote against coming back from death) Kiss of the Year: AJ and Kane (I thought it was the most novel and grossest kiss of the lot) Superstar of the Year: CM Punk #respect LOL Moment of the Year: The Rock throws Cena's junk in Boston Harbor (agreed with WWE Universe, and I was live in the arena for that RAW) Hashtag of the Year: #PeoplePower Newcomer of the Year: Antonio Cesaro Match of the Year: Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena
(edited by John Orquiola on 18.12.12 0932) @CMPunk “@ZackRyder: @CMPunk She played me bro” I got your back.
How upsetting for Booker T that once he's settled into a comfortable life as the well-respected general manager of Smackdown, The Boogeyman — his greatest enemy — mysteriously returns.
I caught very little of the show because I was watching the Jets embarrass themselves on national TV once again. I have the same questions about ADR and Miz's face turn as loljk does. ADR's face turn came completely out of no where as he was languishing after the end of his long and I mean long feud with Orton. ADR is a guy that really couldn't draw heat as a heel if he was on fire and bores the ever living crap outta me. I wonder how much success he'll really have playing the same character as a face and turning out of nowhere. As far as the Miz man he went from a stale heel to a insufferable douche-bag face. I mean how can anyone get behind a character this unlikable? Remember when Tommy Dreamer was in a TNA ring in 2011 shredding Vince McMahon and saying he left because he couldn't take it that Vince fired all his friends? Well loookee here two years later and he's back in the WWE and probably backstage kissing Vince's tuchis. Gotta wonder how long after Raw ended was Flair passed out drunk either backstage or at a local bar? Flair when used right I will stay can still bring it when reigned in.
Originally posted by AlbySureHow upsetting for Booker T that once he's settled into a comfortable life as the well-respected general manager of Smackdown, The Boogeyman — his greatest enemy — mysteriously returns.
I'm sad Teddy Long wasn't there. TEDDY. WE HAVE NOT SOLVED THIS BOOGEY MAN PROBLEM.
I like to think that Big E. Langston is to Boogeyman as Joseph Park is to Abyss.
I thought this was the best Slammys ever (low bar) and the first really enjoyable show of the three-hour era, but having said that, it's not like they can bring back a legend, debut a new guy, and have a ton of cameos every week.
Originally posted by KJames199I thought this was the best Slammys ever (low bar) and the first really enjoyable show of the three-hour era, but having said that, it's not like they can bring back a legend, debut a new guy, and have a ton of cameos every week.
I think we get a lot of cameos from now until Royal Rumble, with the entrants decided by audience reaction. I think they want to stack that deck to give Rock monster numbers on his two consecutive main-event PPVs (Rumble and Mania, and three if he defends the title at Elimination Chamber).
(edited by Matt Tracker on 18.12.12 1243) "To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
Originally posted by KJames199 I thought this was the best Slammys ever (low bar)
Yeah, I think it's the best Slammys since the one in '87 when Vince danced and sang "Stand Back" and Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Harley Race had a 30 minute food fight backstage.
I'm going by the fact that I still remember that show decades later, vs. what little I remember of The Slammys since. (I remember Shawn and Bret dueling Slammy-winning promos in '96 and Angry Miz Girl in 2010. Also Maria winning Diva of the Year that one year because of how genuinely surprised she was.)
(edited by John Orquiola on 18.12.12 1410) "Cody, I mustache you a question." - The Miz
The Quick and Dirty for TNA Impact 2.19.09 from the Impact Zone, Orlando, FL. - This show opens with a recap of last week, and Cornette throwing a fit in JJ's office over "Insurance issues" regarding the Angle/Sting empty-arena match later on....