The Raw Debrief 16/8/10

Welcome, one and all, to the Raw following a very interesting Summerslam that saw the returns of The Undertaker and Daniel Bryan! The latter can be thought of as one of the best kept secrets in WWE history. Will Nexus survive their defeat at the hands of Superman? How will they bounce back? How many times will the general manager/Cole annoy me tonight? What’s the plan for Daniel Bryan? After all, it was The Miz who got him eliminated... Finally, will Sheamus ever win an important match? Hopefully these questions will be answered... read on to find out.

Nexus start us off in the ring, they’re still together anyway. It all appears to be academic now anyway, Nexus fell at the first hurdle. Now it’s just a case of keeping the ones who’ve made an impact – in my mind that’s limited to Barrett and Sheffield (as long as he’s kept off the mic). Barrett says ‘That that doesn’t kill us, will only make us stronger’, and ‘rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated’. The second of these quotes, I’m sure you’re aware, is the title of a Rise Against song, a band I can recommend to any punk-rock fans out there.

Anyway... back to business. The consequences of Nexus’ defeat are to be severe for the Raw roster, according to Barrett, who’s been very good on the mic ever since NXT started, particularly for a bareknuckle fighter. Cena comes out and makes fun of everyone, and has a really abysmal attempt at a British accent. Otunga’s a below-average male escort, Tarver’s an MMA bank robber that moonlights as a late night stripper, Slater’s the chick from Wendy’s. This, oddly enough, leads to a Wendy’s chant. Darren Young’s his illegitimate half-brother (which I did point out during NXT, incidentally), Justin Gabriel’s gay (I think) and Skip’s got the mind of a cat, or something. He points out that Young tapped out at Summerslam in less than a minute, and his name should be the Weakest Link.

Bingle! All of the Nexusers will compete against Team Raw, no interference allowed from fellow Nexus members. Barrett says that anyone who isn’t victorious tonight will be exiled from the group. Otunga tells him that this rule applies to him as well.

Bingle! (2) Nexus can decide which Team WWE member they’ll take except Barrett, who will face Jericho up next.

Match 1: Chris Jericho vs. Wade Barrett

The Y2J chants start up early, have to imagine he’s enjoying being cheered for a change, even if he’s not changed his personality at all and nearly cost Team WWE at Summerslam. A slow-paced match, with a lot of action outside of the ring. Cole misses the sarcasm when King jokes that Sheffield might be the brains of the Nexus operation. I honestly think Cole’s getting worse and worse as a commentator since he started trying to be the heel. Striker, for all he gets bashed, at least seems to show a genuine appreciation for why he likes the heel, other than Vickie Guerrero. Any positive comments towards her are just wrong.

To finish with, Barrett gets to the ropes quickly in the Walls of Jericho and Jericho follows up with the step-up enzigiuri. He goes for the Codebreaker but Barrett catches him, throws him up and uses his nameless finisher – like a forward, more impactful Attitude Adjustment.

3 guys from a film come out and say some stuff. They’re the guest hosts, apparently. I recognise one of them, he’s been in a few films I’ve seen. They bring out the Hart Dynasty, and Bingle (3) tells them that the Unified titles are to be replaced with the World Tag Team Titles, brought out by Bret Hart. This would appear to be an attempt to boost the prestige of the titles, which haven’t been defended against any decent teams for about 20 years, by my count.

The Nexus turns up on the Titantron to tell Bret Hart that Justin Gabriel will be facing him later.

Match 2: Michael Tarver vs. Daniel Bryan

Cole continues his Miz love-in, doesn’t understand the Daniel Bryan chants, and continues to be a cretin. Even knocks his vegetarianism, which I’m extra annoyed about. Bryan gets well on top, hits a front dropkick from the top rope, Miz and Alex Riley come down and distract and Tarver picks up a roll-up victory.

Immediately after the match, Bryan dives through the ropes and takes down Miz, but the numbers get on top of him. Skull crushing finale on the MITB briefcase outside the ring. That’s actually very nearly the extent of Alex Riley’s Raw appearance, which he won on NXT. Miz explains to Josh Matthews that ever since Bryan turned up in NXT he’s been heckled and told that Bryan should be his rookie. Alex Riley cuts probably his worst promo so far, saying that boring old Daniel Bryan didn’t appreciate Miz and that he’ll be the next breakout star.

Darren Young wants John Cena, after he was brutally attacked a month ago. They all appear to respect him for stepping up.

Bingle #4 (grrrrrrrrr) Bret Hart will be replaced in the match, because the GM doesn’t like Bret Hart and doesn’t want to see him compete on Raw ever again. That seems reasonable to me.

Match 3: Justin Gabriel vs. Randy Orton

Gabriel’s face fell as soon as a smirking Orton’s music hit. Gratuitous shot of 6 women in tight white Twix t-shirts. Not complaining, that’s just what happened. Orton no-sells most of the early hits from Gabriel. Snap powerslam into the rope hanging DDT and he coils, just in time for Sheamus to turn up. Orton catches him on his way down to the ring, and despite them trading blows, Gabriel isn’t disqualified, and instead gets a count-out victory. Orton gets back in the ring and delivers the RKO to Gabriel, then annihilates Sheamus with a chair... and then an RKO on the outside, just to continue his push a bit further.

Match 4: David Otunga and Skip Sheffield vs. R-Truth and John Morrison

An easy way to keep Otunga around without making him wrestle too much. Eventually they’ll have to give him some matches though... you can’t keep him around just for his ability to talk. R-Truth gets very animated during his entrance, and JoMo’s beard is looking... interesting. Very Chuck Norris. Cole starts getting annoyed with R-Truth’s entrance and starts talking over it... *sigh*

Seriously, can we have the old Cole back? At least the bland, personality-less Cole was a good play-by-play guy. I don’t care about him having a personality, it’s an unnecessary addition to the show, in my view. Alright so he puts over the heels, but he does it in such an irritating way that it only really works for The Miz and Alex Riley, who are that kind of heel. He also points out that Skip Sheffield sniffs a lot. Summerslam did a good job of putting Sheffield over, having eliminated both R-Truth and Morrison with the Clothesline from Hell, both of which were relatively clean. R-Truth hits a Flatliner/Mic Check to get the hot tag to Morrison, but Sheffield picks up the blind tag and picks up the win over Morrison with the Clothesline, making it 5/5 safe so far. That leaves Slater to face Edge and Young to face Cena.

A replay of Melina getting taken down by Laycool after her title win at Summerslam to precede a 6-Diva Tag team match.

Match 5: Melina, Eve and Gail Kim vs. Alicia Fox, Jillian and Maryse

Jon Lovitz is at ringside, apparently smitten with Maryse (understandable) and shouting about the ‘chick fight’, I think he also called out the King. That’s the most interesting bit of the match, although Cole actually puts over Melina rather than Maryse while King prefers the blonde.

Jillian gets the pin by preventing Eve’s moonsault and hits a kind of 2^nd rope powerbomb. Maryse shows a bit of attitude to Alicia on the way out.

Slater asks Edge if he wants to forfeit the match, because he’s modelled his style on him, even down to the hair and rockstar good looks. Edge doesn’t want to forfeit a match to a ginger Wendy-looking Edge wannabe, so Slater gives him a cheap shot when he turns round to leave.

Match 6: Heath Slater vs. Edge

Edge was eliminated by Slater at Summerslam by roll-up, which is of course Slater’s finisher. He’s used the ZigZag before, but has won every other match of his WWE career by rollup or similar. Cole says a lot of people are very impressed by Slater... I’m really not one of them, despite him managing to break into the top 100 of the PWI rankings (at #100) ahead of every other season 1 rookie, apart from Daniel Bryan. However, as this is the same list that has Yoshi Tatsu one place ABOVE Kane, you’ve got to feel something’s out of place.

Interesting note for the match, at one point during the match, a voice can clearly be heard saying ‘I hate you Heath Slater, I hate you!’ The ref starts a very fast count on the outside, and Slater wins by count-out when Edge waits around to go for a spear on the outside but Slater rolls back in, just in time. Edge hits a spear.

Khali has a girlfriend, who apparently is very ugly. One of the actors from earlier tries to give him some long-distance relationship advice. The other two come in and laugh at the picture. Khali looks angry, but agrees that ‘she’s butt ugly’ and wanders off with the Bellas. Do not use Khali as a role model, you’ll get important parts of you removed with a rusty spoon.

Match 7: John Cena vs. Darren Young

John Cena is billed as the ‘heart and soul’ of Team WWE, just like Hardy is the ‘heart and soul’ of Smackdown and Tommy Dreamer was the ‘heart and soul’ of ECW.

Just as a quick point about TNA, I watched Hardcore Justice and felt it was mostly a waste of my time because it’s not the type of wrestling I really want to watch, with the unnecessary bleeding in every match, but I was VERY impressed by 2 Cold Scorpio. A 45-year-old who is able to hit a moonsault leg drop perfectly (along with several other big, impressive moves in his match with CW Anderson, who also put on a decent show) clearly still has it, and I wouldn’t be disappointed if he were to sign with one of the major shows, assuming he can match that kind of performance on a regular basis.

Nexus is out on the stage to beat up Young when the match is over, inevitably. Cena basically jobs to Young the whole match, as he always does these days. No matter the opposition, Cena gets beaten to a pulp and eventually rallies and picks up the win. This one is no different, Young hits a nice Northern Lights Suplex at one point and gets a 9-count on the outside. The inevitable happens, STF victory, and Nexus comes down, lets Cena exit the ring and they take out Young. A Sheffield clothesline, Barrett Adjustment and Gabriel 450 later, and Young has been exiled from Nexus.

Show rating: C+

Two countouts, a poor Cena match, a 6-diva match that Jillian won and 4 interruptions from the GM/Cole made everything just a bit difficult to enjoy. The tag match and Barrett-Jericho were both good but not enough to rescue a lacklustre effort from the rest. Miz looks set to feud with Bryan, who should have had a longer match really, on his return (which is awesome). I’m just hoping Sheamus can get a big win against a quality opponent next week... unfortunately I’ve already checked out the spoiler. I guess you can’t have everything.

I’ve been The General, consider yourself debriefed.

The Raw Debrief 16/8/10

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