The Raw Debrief 6/9/10

Welcome back, one and all, to the Raw Debrief. I’m your host The General, bringing you the action from Monday night from the capital city itself, Washington DC, on Labour Day (or something, I don’t understand what it’s supposed to be).

Nexus start us off in the ring, with a significant proportion of the crowd booing. Wade Barrett says that the capital is a fitting place for this episode of Raw, the one after they destroyed an institution of the WWE – The Undertaker. They show a little package of Barrett hitting the Wasteland, and Gabriel’s 450. Otunga gets on the mic to say they’re the new Phenoms of the WWE, despite removing Darren Young and losing Skip Sheffield to injury. Tarver says what they did to Undertaker was unprecedented, but anyone else who’d done that to Taker would have been happy to sit back and admire their work. Slater reminds us he pinned the WWE Champion, Sheamus... not a difficult feat given his inability to pick up a clean win. He almost goes the colour of his hair during his speech. Gabriel brags that he performed his finisher on both The Undertaker and John Cena in the same night. That would be the 3^rd time on Cena, and it gets more and more satisfying each time. No interruptions yet? I’m disappointed. Barrett tells us he devenomised the Viper, and he’s going to bring the WWE Championship home (home?) to the Nexus.

Finally! Orton interrupts. He took out 2 of Nexus in less than 30 seconds, and says he doesn’t need to roll the footage, he’ll just do it again. He marks Barrett for a special RKO at Night of Champions, and in return Barrett invites him down to the ring.

Bingle! Gabriel vs. Cena. Orton vs. Barrett. Both tonight, Nexus banned from ringside.

Raw Rewind – 5 on 5 match from last week, Edge getting himself disqualified.

Chris Jericho comes down to the ring. Bingle! #2 – If Jericho and Edge don’t win their matches tonight, they’ll be out of the 6-pack challenge at Night of Champions.

Match 1: John Morrison vs. Chris Jericho

I’ve got really high hopes for this match. Jericho gets straight on the attack, Morrison looking a bit slow in the early going though, and he’s quickly tossed to the outside. Jericho screams at Cole, asking who the GM is. Jericho stays well on top for most of the match, but Morrison rolls through a back suplex and mounts a flurry of offence, until Jericho drops him and goes for a Lionsault, misses and gets hit with a Flash Kick for 2. Jericho gets back on top and fails with a Codebreaker attempt, but does hit a step-up enziguiri for a near fall. Morrison dodges a shoulder charge to the turnbuckle and goes for Starship Pain but Jericho rolls out the way and Morrison lands on his feet, tweaking his knee. Jericho locks in the Walls for a long time but Morrison reaches the ropes. Jericho goes for a superplex but gets taken off the top, and Morrison hits a springboard Starship Pain.... very nice finish.

Jericho is out of the 6-Pack challenge then. He looks crestfallen, and sits on the ring steps, King says he almost feels sorry for Jericho... and I do as well to be honest. He did promise that he’d walk away if he didn’t win at Night of Champions. The Y2J chants even start up, as I think people realise this might be his last match in the WWE. I really hope not...

Match 2: Melina vs. Alicia Fox – Diva’s Championship

Alicia gets on the mic beforehand, and says that if anyone is going to become the undefined (undefined?) women’s champion. King wants to ‘define’ what she just said. Funny stuff. Melina hits a splits kick to a sitting Alicia. Melina dominates the match, and hits the Primal Scream leg drop for the win.

The Miz is backstage, getting ready to taunt Josh Matthews. Tonight is all about the Miz, everyone is going to know about the journey on the road to awesome. It seems like he’s got a picture to unveil later.

Apparently WWE has poker on their site. I guess they need some more income streams.

Edge is talking to Zack Ryder. He’s still got a job following that horrible jobbing incident a couple of weeks ago. Zack loves Edge’s mom. He offers to be Edge’s opponent tonight, and Edge is loving it. He accepts, and says if Zack Ryder’s music doesn’t play as his opponent tonight, he’ll smash the computer to a million pieces, which gets a huge pop from the crowd. Zack finally picks up on the fact that Edge called him a tool, and says it really hurt his feelings.

DiBiase gets caught hitting on someone over the phone by Maryse, and says it was his mom. Maryse gets confused when she realises Ted didn’t write her a note saying he wanted her. Ted says it was probably one of the new NXT divas writing a note for him. She rants at him in French when he gets a bit offended by the idea of having to leave her a note. Guess this is the beginning of the end for the couple that could act as the blueprint for human genetics.

Match 3: John Cena vs. Justin Gabriel

Cena and Gabriel have a bit of a mat wrestling competition. I’m actually quite impressed, briefly. The ‘let’s go Cena’ and ‘Cena sucks’ chants are evident in equal measures for quite a while at the start of the contest. As always happens, Cena gets dominated for a while. Gabriel hits a springboard senton, high crossbody into the corner followed by a springboard crossbody and an Octopus hold on the mat. Nice to see something innovative like that. Gabriel hits a sitout powerbomb, with a lot of obvious help from Cena, but it was a lot cleaner than Cena’s. He goes for, but misses, a springboard moonsault... very impressive. Shoulder, shoulder, sitout powerbomb, 5 knuckle shuffle *sigh*. Gabriel reverses the Attitude Adjustment into an STO and goes for the 450 but gets caught in an Attitude Adjustment from the top rope for a Cena win. Were you expecting anything else?

Great attempt from Gabriel, was very impressed. He’s not great on the mic but he’s more than just the one-trick pony that I thought he was before this match.

Legendary preview.

The Miz. Awesome. He says he has no right to be hear – or that’s what he was told when he first came to the WWE. He had to start as a competitor on Tough Enough... this is starting to sound a bit like that Jack Swagger promo where he got all his trophies out and Big Show came out to destroy everything. I haven’t seen Daniel Bryan yet tonight... Miz says, rightly, that everyone thought he’d fall into obscurity when he split from John Morrison. Eventually he does get to the picture where he’s on the front of WWE Magazine. He tells everyone to admit that they were wrong, and that he made it. Because he’s The Miz... and he’s earned the right to say... he’s awwwwwwwwwwesome. Finally, Daniel Bryan does come out, it’s not so much an interruption as an add-on. He says he’s not made it yet... he’s got generic rock music for an entrance, a $10 haircut, has to wear his wrestling costume in the bath to stop security throwing him out. He does say though, that if he was to face Miz for the US Championship he’d win it from him. Bryan actually cuts a really solid promo, which is kind of nice but not disrespectful. Miz says he could annihilate Bryan, who interrupts him to say ‘US Championship match at Night of Champions – yes or no’. Miz accepts, and goes for a cheap shot, but Bryan goes for the Crossface, nearly locking it in. Riley comes in to break it up, but ends up in the Crossface himself while Bryan looks in the eyes of Miz and smiles, before kicking down the picture. Nice segment.

Cole says he’s got something on his Blackberry, and it’s going to be Cena vs. the winner of the match tonight between Barrett and Orton.

Edge is set to face... The Great Khali. Edge goes over to the laptop and shakes his fist at it for a while, but eventually leaves it be.

Match 4: Edge vs. The Great Khali

Edge pretends to be The Great Khali on the outside for a while, before grabbing Ranjin Singh. Khali reaches down and grabs his hair. Edge draws Khali outside, kicks him in the knee and runs back into the ring for the countout victory.

Bingle! Match restarted, no disqualification over the top rope challenge now. Khali walks over the top rope to chase Edge, Cole calls it... and is right. The ref doesn’t call it though. Edge does manage to win it though and stays as part of the 5-pack challenge, now, I guess.

Josh Matthews talks to Jericho about his future plans now that he’s not part of the title match at Night of Champions, and Jericho just continues to stare into the distance. Morrison sits down next to him and asks him if he still thinks he’s the best in the world at what he does, and says things will get better. Jericho continues with his infamous ‘smell the fart’ pose, once made famous by an article writer on this site...

Match 5: Randy Orton vs. Wade Barrett

Sheamus, Edge and John Cena all come out to commentate on the match. Orton dominates Barrett, methodically working and stomping his way through him. Barrett eventually hits a big boot to get the momentum back. Sheamus complains about the odds at Night of Champions, which have actually improved as a result of tonight, it seems. Edge asks if his granny is as pale as him. Cole makes a good point again... strange. He asks why Sheamus hasn’t been involved in any matches tonight... I suppose no match is better than another squash against Ryder. Barrett goes for Wasteland, but Orton hits his signature backbreaker, and gets the intense look going, some clotheslines and the snap powerslam into the rope-hanging DDT, but Barrett dumps him outside. Darren Young suddenly comes down the ramp with some weird screechy music. Darren Young has news for him... he’s going to show why he wasn’t the weakest link. He’s the missing link. The distraction allows Orton to hit the RKO and pick up the win.

Darren Young comes in to gloat, and eats an RKO. Sheamus and Edge both try to hit finishers and eat RKOs... wow. Nice way to end as Cena and Orton stare down.

Show Rating: B-

Not a great deal happened to be honest. Orton’s still on top, without the championship, and Gabriel showed me he can indeed wrestle. All singles matches though, a real lack of variety. I’m certainly looking forward to Night of Champions to see how Jericho’s involved, and Bryan-Miz.

I’ve been The General, consider yourself debriefed.

The Raw Debrief 6/9/10

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