AJ opened up the show by talking to Daniel Bryan, Kane and CM Punk, or so we were led to believe. As she described her feelings towards each the camera panned around to reveal that she was talking into a mirror.
Guest GM Vickie Guerrero came out and bragged about her managerial abilities and how on the 1000th Raw she wouldn't be surprised if she was named permanent General Manager. She also announced an Elimination Three Way bout as the first match.
Daniel Bryan defeated CM Punk and Kane in the Elimination Three Way match up. It was a solid enough bout, although not as entertaining as their previous efforts together. Kane was first eliminated after AJ once again skipped around the ring, causing him to have a GTS applied by Punk for a three-count. Straight after Bryan then kicked Punk in the head for the one-two-three.
Big Show defeated Brodus Clay in a slow and largely average contest. Not much else to say, just a match that was pretty unmemorable really. As Clay was being assisted to the back afterwards Big Show gave him a knockout out punch for good measure.
Backstage Kane explained to AJ that he couldn't afford to have feelings for her as it's a weakness for him and amusingly claimed that even he finds her "mentally unstable." He also asked that they just stay out of each others way from now on.
Santino Marella (c) defeated Jack Swagger to retain the United States Championship in a mediocre title bout. It wasn't bad, just quite flat for a title match. Santino can be entertaining at times but I don't agree with him holding a singles title, he's not really doing anything for it like Christian is with the Intercontinental Championship.
John Cena came out and began comparing the downfall of John Laurinaitis to the Star Wars trilogy. It was his usual silly, childish stuff but it got the crowd going. As he was about to then make a big announcement Chris Jericho made his return and interrupted him. Y2J told Cena to hurry up with his announcement and get out of the ring. So Cena did, and announced that for the first time he would be participating in a Money in the Bank match for the WWE Championship contract.
Jericho mocked Cena's childish attitude and arrogance that he just expects to win the MITB match. He also then announced himself for the MITB match. Vickie Guerrero joined them both and informed that it will only be former WWE Champions that will participate in the MITB match (so no younger up and comers getting into the main event scene there? Great) including Jericho and Cena. She also booked Cena versus Jericho for the main event.
Heath Slater interrupted a mystery introduction by Lilian Garcia and claimed that he didn't care about being embarrassed by various wrestlers of the past in celebration of the 1000th Raw because (according to him) he's the greatest wrestler on the roster. His opponent was then revealed as Sycho Sid. Sid predictably beat Slater rather easily in a novelty match.
Dolph Ziggler versus Alberto Del Rio in a Contract on a Pole match (or whatever it was called) ended in a draw after neither man had a complete hold of the number one contendership contract. It started off quite well, with both men working nicely together as they went back and fourth. But the ending just felt a little silly and lost the crowds interest a bit as both men scrambled around for the contract. It was just a bit confusing. Up until that point the fans had been really into it, with much more backing for Ziggler than Del Rio. I reckon the bookers were trying to test out the potential of a face turn for Dolph here myself.
World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus then came out and informed both men that they will be involved in a Triple Threat for the World title instead on this Fridays SmackDown. Should be a good match.
AJ won the Divas Summertime Battle Royal. It was about as crappy as you're imaging right now, except getting to see Layla in that bikini. AJ was the logical choice as winner, considering her status and receptions at the moment. She last chased off Vickie Guerrero to win the match.
John Cena won via disqualification versus Chris Jericho in a passable, if unexceptional contest. The DQ came after Big Show attacked Cena during the match. Show then went on to latch on a Camel Clutch onto Cena for a while. It was a disappointing end to a match I was quite looking forward to.
It was also announced during the show that it will be Daniel Bryan versus CM Punk for the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank and that Brock Lesnar will return to Raw next week to answer Triple H's challenge of a match at SummerSlam. Both announcements which I'm very much looking forward to.
Cena is getting unwatchable lately, and that's coming from one of his greatest defenders.
ReplyDeleteI've never been happier to se Chris Jericho than I was during that Star Wars promo!
Yeah it was a big relief when Jericho came out and stopped that promo, his face when talking about it was brilliant too.
DeleteWith all these main events they've been putting Cena in and building him up it's almost like there's no match for him now, he needs to be grounded. He also needs to be a lot more serious. When he said that most of the fan base are young kids he just proved how ignorant he was of who the real fans are.
Awesome that you pointed out Jericho's face! I had to go back and watch it after you wrote that, and you're right! It was priceless!
DeleteAnd, I cringed when he said that about the nine year old kids too. Sure, many of HIS fans may be nine years old, but to say "that's who watches our show" ... that was rather ignorant.
And, his refusal to act serious is what I think The Rock hated most about him. It gets more annoying with each passing rivalry, and I'm afraid they passed on their chance to "ground" him after "Extreme Rules."
Ha ha I know, brilliant moment by Jericho.
DeleteI also noticed a statistic that someone put up actually pointing out that over 70% of WWE viewers are over the age of 21, shows how much Cena is aware of his audience.
Yeah I don't blame The Rock, a lot of Cena's promos with or about him were some of the best of his career, but there were quite a few times where he was just unprofessional and I don't blame The Rock's reaction to that. I also agree that their opportunity to bring him back down to everyone else's level has probably passed now, he even managed to beat the apparently unstoppable Big Show who'd been easily taking out other wrestlers. It's just daft. I'm really hoping he fails to win the Money in the Bank.