WWE Raw Wrapup - 3/12/2012

Monday Night Raw – March 12^th, 2012

 

WWE was consistently counting down to Wrestlemania for a couple weeks straight; like so many things, that’s gone to the wayside.  By my count, we’re 18 days out.  Rock and Cena are scheduled to turn up the heat on one another via musical promo.  The rest of the Wrestlemania cast will have their parts in the show, but the bookends will be the non-title main event participants.

The show cold opens with credits and Jerry Lawler in the ring to introduce John Cena, out to cut his rap promo on The Rock.  Cena comes out in a classic Cavs jersey, backwards hat and chain around the neck – the old Thuganomics look.  He has a very stern face on as well; no silly smiling from him tonight and this is entirely a good thing.  Short of transcribing the rap itself, I’ll leave it said that, even as someone who didn’t particularly enjoy Cena in his rapper days, this was far more entertaining than anything to come out of his mouth in a long time.  Link to the rap can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_dpK88vSAY

As Cena wraps up, Vickie Guerrero comes out to explain that Daylight Savings should be illegal, since it robs the world of one hour of Dolph Ziggler.  For once, I kind of agree with WWE’s resident cougar.

Match 1 – Dolph Ziggler vs Sheamus

Ziggler starts out with a bit of wrestling around Sheamus and playing to the crowd.  He sneaks behind and gives Sheamus a forearm to the back, and Sheamus answers by leveling Ziggler with a shoulder block.  Sheamus lands hard headlock takeovers, and leads to Ziggler strung up in the ropes for Sheamus’ signature forearms, but Ziggler scampers off the apron to escape and we head into a commercial.  As the feed comes back in, Sheamus lands a hard clothesline and ties on an armbar.  Ziggler fights out and attempts a hip toss, but Sheamus blocks and counters, hip tossing Ziggler over the top rope to the floor.  Ziggler slides under the ring and Vickie runs interference, allowing Ziggler to come out on another side and dropkick Sheamus in the back.  Back into the ring, Ziggler takes control and lands a neckbreaker for two.  Ziggler settles into a chinlock and we cut up to a skybox with Bryan and AJ, along with Josh Matthews.  Matthews probes the couple, asking AJ if Bryan was rude on Smackdown, telling her to “shut up”, which she sheepishly says wasn’t rude.  Bryan takes offense to the line of questioning and explains that “AJ loves me…and the feeling is mutual”.  This was line of the night.  Smarmy, egotistical heel taking a young girl’s love for granted.  Back in the ring (great communication from production to refs, I can only assume), Sheamus powers up to his feet and drops Ziggler on his back to escape the chin lock.  Sheamus goes into rage mode, hitting his axe handles and a clothesline, followed by a powerslam for two.  He sets up for the Celtic Cross, but Ziggler shimmies out, but eats a flapjack for a two count.  Ziggler sneaks to the apron, drops Sheamus’ throat across the top rope and attempts to jump off the top, but gets caught.  Ziggler counters into a crucifix pin, but Sheamus stands straight up, presumably for the White Noise, but the positioning was awkward, so he tosses Ziggler down to the mat.  Ziggler hits a Fameasser for two, and Sheamus lands a Brough Kick out of nowhere for the win.

Winner: Sheamus via Pinfall

Excellent match, great to get the energy in the crowd going for the rest of the night.  The finisher botch was handled incredibly well – instead of struggling awkwardly, Sheamus tossed Ziggler away, they reset and called an audible.  Kudos to both guys.   Sheamus continues to look strong heading into ‘Mania and Ziggler continues to contend with World Title contenders.

The long-expected multi-man tag match for control of both shows is made official: Team Teddy Long vs 

Team John Lauranaitis will be a 12 man tag match for General Manager-ship of both shows. 
Otunga and Santino will captain the teams.

Rewind to Smackdown with Long schoolboying Lauranaitis for the pin.

Mr. Excitement heads to the announce booth for the next match, a mixed tag.  Santino and Aksana enter, followed by David Otunga, with no partner in sight.  Johnny decides to change his mind – this will now be a handicap match, and Mark Henry is Otunga’s partner.

Match 2 – Santino Marella (United States Champion) vs David Otunga and Mark Henry

Long storms out as the match begins to get in Lauranaitis’ face.  Otunga is all over Santino to open.  Long shoves Ace over a chair and Santino begins to make a comeback.  Henry gets a blind tag, and Santino walks into a World’s Strongest Slam for the loss

Winners: Mark Henry and David Otunga via Pinfall

Otunga and Henry double team Santino after the bell, drawing Kofi Kingston out, only to walk into a World’s Strongest Slam.  R-Truth is next, ending up beaten up by both men, taking The Verdict from Otunga and a splash from Henry.  Lauranaitis announces Henry added to his 12 man squad.  Teddy has really picked himself some winners so far.

Miz guest stars on Psych this week, which WWE will remind us of multiple times tonight.

Part of Cena’s rap replays.  I understand this is a big part of the show, but it’s only been 30 minutes.

Zack Ryder happens upon Eve in the back.  Apparently Zack is playing himself and Eve wants to be friends with benefits.  Beth Phoenix is mad at Maria Menounos from Extra, because apparently she wasn’t on her show.  She propositions Eve concerning Zack, and Eve gets mad.  This is all ludicrous.

Miz busts into Johnny’s office and wants to be on Team Lauranaitis at ‘Mania.  James Roday from Psych comes in to back up Miz.  If Miz wins his match tonight, he’s on the team.  His opponent?  WWE Champion CM Punk.  Roday doesn’t seem to like Miz’s chances.  Always a vote of confidence when your buddy thinks you’re about to get your ass kicked.

Match 3 – Jinder Mahal vs Brodus Clay

Mahal attacks Clay from behind and gets a headbutt, a t-bone suplex and a big splash for the pin for his troubles.

Winner: Brodus Clay via Pinfall

The intro and outro for Brodus are each longer than the matches he has.  I’m okay with this gimmick, but “real” matches wouldn’t hurt the guy.  He’s a like a giant Taz – let him suplex the bejeezus out of people.  He’s been gone for two months and comes back with possibly his shortest match, with no change at all to his shtick.  Seems odd.

Shawn Michaels comes out and begins the verbiage of “the end of an era” which will be the central theme of HHH/Undertaker at ‘Mania.   Normally I love a talking segment with HBK, and when you throw in ‘Taker or HHH it’s typically better.  This was a LOT of words to boil down to “we all respect each other”.  Undertaker introduces the only new thought: The end of the match, win or lose, must be pure.  He doesn’t want HBK’s ego getting in the way of a pure ending.  Shawn reiterates that as special referee, he knows who is going to win.  As he leaves, HHH comes out onto the stage, looks at Undertaker and gives him a crotch chop.

Next Segment: Slam of the Week.  They replay Jericho countering Punk’s inside cradle to pin him from last week.  I remember when the Slam of the Week was just the biggest spot or baddest bump of the week.  A simpler time, I guess.  Wouldn’t really consider a small package a ‘slam’.

James Roday will announce the participants for the next match.  As he takes the microphone, a lone fan is very clearly heard yelling “We want Gus!”.

Match 4 – The Miz vs CM Punk (WWE Champion)

Jericho is watching this in the back, in wrestling gear and lite-brite jacket.  Miz starts with a quick schoolboy; good call, to show that he wants to get this win.  Punk lays in with kicks and Miz delivers a knee to the gut.  Back from a commercial, Miz has Punk in an abdominal stretch.  After escaping, Punk lands a high kick and follows with a springboard clothesline, a neckbreaker and the corner knee/bulldog combo.  Miz fights out of a GTS attempt, but eats a leg lariat from Punk off the ropes.  Miz answers with a kick to the knee and his signature DDT.  Punk dodges Miz’s top rope axe handle and attempts another GTS, but Miz fights out, landing behind Punk.  Miz goes for the Skull Crushing Finale, but Punk throws him over his shoulder, hanging on and wrapping him into the Anaconda Vice for a tap out.

Winner: CM Punk via Submission.

Jericho appears on the Titantron.  He accuses Punk of being a fraud.  He asks “why are you a straight edge?”  Turns out Punk’s dad is an alcoholic.  Jericho promises to drive Punk to drink.  Punk sells this diatribe like a shotgun and very slowly leaves the ring and makes his way up the ramp to the back.  I’ve mixed feelings on this.  On one hand, expanding the story is a good thing, even if it is getting close to Wrestlemania.  On the other, this was a match that was based on two wrestlers, claiming to be the best wrestler in the world, and settling it by wrestling.  This is one case where the personal attack may not add to it.  I’ll reserve judgment for a couple of weeks though, as I keep the faith in Y2J.

There’s a ‘commercial’ spot for David Otunga’s twitter and his legal services to be provided via twitter.  Entirely strange.

Match 5 – Randy Orton vs Jack Swagger

Swagger gets the ‘no entrance’ treatment.  Swagger starts by taking Orton down and they exchange fireman’s carries.  Orton lands a dropkick and tosses Swagger to the outside.  He whips Swagger into the stairs and rams his head into the announce table.  Back into the ring, and back out to commercial.  Back from break, Orton is fighting out of a hold, but Swagger chop blocks him to start working on the legs for the Ankle Lock.  Swagger scoop slams Orton, but whiffs a Swagger bomb.  After an ankle lock attempt, they find themselves both climbing the same turnbuckle.  Orton wins the fight and lands a superplex.  Cole tells us we don’t often see him do that, even though since his return it’s become a mid-match staple of his repertoire, likely as a tribute to his dad “Cowboy” Bob Orton.  Orton turns it up and lands signature clotheslines and a powerslam, followed by the rope-hung spike DDT.  He coils on the mat and hits the RKO for three.

Winner: Randy Orton via Pinfall

Kane’s pyro hits and the arena goes red.  But Kane doesn’t come out.  Orton was selling looking over his shoulder during the match.  Perhaps this teases someone actually getting into the head of Randy Orton.

Another part of Cena’s rap is replayed.

Rock makes his entrance to end the show.  It boils down to insulting Cena and reminding Cleveland that they rock via song.  Rock finishes up with a mom joke and then leads the crowd in a karaoke-custom edition of Queen.  Somehow Rock is incapable of following the lyrics on the Titantron, stuttering and ad-libbing throughout.  The crowd still eats it up, so job well done, I supposed.  Without a doubt, Cena’s rap came off far stronger than Rock’s happy guitar time.  See The Rock sing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_dpK88vSAY

An odd up and down Raw.  Cena was as strong as possible with his opening promo and then wasn’t heard from the rest of the night.  Ziggler and Sheamus put on an excellent match and showed that they can think on their feet.  We got two squash matches, one to semi-advance the General Manager storyline and one because the Funkasaurus is back.  Undertaker and HBK didn’t accomplish much with their talk; we know Undertaker wants things to go down “pure”, regardless of the outcome.  Punk and Miz had an ok short match, but Miz continues to look weak with a weeks-long losing streak, not even able to make the team for a 12-man tag match.  Orton picks up a clean win and, instead of Kane just attacking him, he messes with the Viper’s head.  Rock’s promo wasn’t bad by any means, but compared to Cena, it just seemed to fall a bit flat, shadowed by the song’s focus on begging Cleveland to cheer for themselves.

This falls into the “filler” show category as we head into Wrestlemania.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but there was a lot of talking on the show.  I like that Rock and Cena don’t seem to be heading toward a fight before the pay-per-view.  They need to stay hands off until that match.  Next week, HBK/HHH/Undertaker will all be present; here’s hoping they make more of a point than this week.  Who do you think came off better between Rock and Cena?  Let us know in the comments!