Raw opens cold, and Jerry Lawler is still injured. Tonight, 12-man tag team main event with Cena, Punk, Sheamus, Mason Ryan and AirBoom are up against Del Rio, Cody Rhodes, Christian, Otunga and Zig Swag. And we start off with Orton for some reason. And oh boy, Drew McIntyre gets the Jobber Entrance. Poor Drew, from being a promising talent, hand-picked by Vince McMahon…to curtain-jerking Raw to be fed to someone who doesn’t need to be built up.
Orton of course gets the early advantage and dropkicks Drew out of the ring, and Orton throws him into the barriers. DrewMac gets dragged into the ring and eats ten punches in the corner. DrewMac cleanly BOOTS Orton in the face. He actually gets some pretty good offense until an ill-advised top rope attempt earns him boots to the face. POWERSLAM and LOLVOICES. Second-rope DDT, and he calls for the RKO, hits it, and it’s done. PAR-EE’S OVAR. Geez, Orton’s more Orange than usual. Orton hits another RKO on DrewMac for no reason at all…but HERE COMES MARK HENRY. OOOOOOOH MAH GOODNESS. He just stares and taunts Orton and Orton attacks. The two brawl and Security tries separating the two. Here comes Johnny Ace, and that’s the cue for everything to break down. Both men break free of security and wail on each other. Orton tosses Henry over the guard rail. I still blame Johnny Laryngitis for this.
Henry remains in the ring, ANGRY, and I believe he’s ready for a match. Recap video of the Hall of Pain induction of the Big Show. And they announce Big Show’s return on Friday…and here comes poor JoMo. He’s really been Jobber to the Stars lately. And it’s JoMo’s birthday! Happy Birthday, JoMo. have a SQUASH. JoMo tries to get Henry off his feet, but he gets thrown around like a rag doll. JoMo lands on his feet once, and eats a CLOTHESLINE. WSS attempt countered and KICKS send Henry down! JoMo hits Starship Pain, but TWOOOOOOO! JoMo eats a BOOT and World’s Strongest Slam ends it. Henry hits another WSS. Booker questions that, but Cole mentions that Booker didn’t protest the second RKO to DrewMac…nice one, Cole. Henry grabs the stick and says he’s DONE with Orton. He says if Show wants him, he’s not hard to find. Henry threatens to put Big Show back on the shelf and put him back in the Hall of Pain. That’s nice and all, but we’re a half hour in and we haven’t had any actual Raw storyline…
UNTIL NOW. Johnny Ace asks the Otunga with the Vickie Coalition (Del Rio, Cody Rhodes, Christian and Zig Swag) if he had anything to do with the lawsuit Miz and Truth filed this morning. Otunga counters that people have legitimate grievances. Vickie quips that they’ll have to air those grievances in public…and they WALK TO THE RING.
IN THE RING, One half of the main event awaits the arrival of the WWE champion, ALBERTO DEL RRRRRIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOO. And lord help me, Vickie looks SLIM. Del Rio grabs the stick, and he couldn’t celebrate properly because AwesomeTruth attacked him. Only one man had the power to raise and lower the Cell (letting Cena and AwesomeTruth in) and that is Haitch. Christian says Raw is an unsafe place to work since Haitch took power. Cody says this isn’t a conspiracy, but a fact: everyone in the ring is a victim of his reckless actions. Dolph says Haitch’s actions have gone unsupervised, and they’re gonna take action. Swagger says his friends and family are concerned for him. EXCUSE VICKIE, she says as a woman, she feels especially vulnerable. Otunga says there are only two options: They keep working and risk harm, or band together and contemplate legal action…AND HERE COMES HAITCH. It’s burying time.
He questions what happened to WWE? It used to be that WWE was about MEN fighting in the ring. No whining, no lawsuits, just fighting like men. He doesn’t give a damn about lawsuits, he cares about the main event tonight. He tells the guys in the ring to not whine or sue, just do what the fans paid to watch them to do: Shut up and fight.
They recap AwesomeTruth’s actions from last night and show a tweet from the Miz, apologizing on behalf of Truth. Kelly and Eve walk to the ring for a tag team match. The Divas of Doom arrive with their Demolition shoulderpads and the Divas Championship. Beth starts out with Kelly, and Beth immediately throws Kelly out. But Kelly smashes Beth onto the announce table and it breaks down. Yep, it’s a DQ. Kelly smashes Beth on the side of the announce table and she’s being restrained by Eve. Geez. Angry Kelly is Angry.
BACKSTAGE, Haitch is on the phone but is interrupted by Johnny Ace. He demands an apology from Haitch for punching him. He tells Haitch to ask the locker room to ask for a vote of confidence. He grabs Ace by the scruff and wonders if ace is manipulating things. He tells Ace to gather the roster in the ring and Haitch will look them all in the eye and as them for a vote of confidence and tells Ace to be there, too.
IN THE RING, Jinder Mahal yells at everyone and HOLY SHIT HERE COMES SANTINO, back from injury! He grabs the mic and insults Mahal with YAHTZEE. JR says the closed captioning person just walked off the job. Mahal takes advantage early and tosses Santino to the corner. Santino gets out of the way and COBRAAAAA ends it. Goddamn, I missed that man.
We then get a Brodus Clay video package, and I love these little vignettes. They then show the AwesomeTruth chaos from last night in its entirety. They then show Truth and Miz on Youtube, and they say they just made a statement to get their jobs back. Miz and Truth have filed assault charges on Haitch for attacking them while they’re handcuffed and a wrongful termination suit. They apologize to the fans, but not to Haitch.
AND HERE COMES PUNK. With Ice Cream shirt. And it is clobbering time. Cena comes out next to the delight of the children and the chagrin of the smarks. A quick commercial break and we’re back and everyone’s in. Christian starts off with Christian, backdrops him and Otunga tags in and gets Clotheslined. Ziggler gets tagged in and Mason Ryan gets tagged in and gets slapped by Ziggler. Ryan presses Ziggler and tosses him into Swagger on the outside. Ziggler gets back in and eats a powerslam. Sheamus tags in and Ziggler gets out and tags Swagger and they just club each other to bits with Sheamus getting the upper hand. Sheamus eats an elbow and Swagger chopblocks Sheamus, but Sheamus gives Swagger an Irish Curse backbreaker. Punk tags in and Swagger escapes a Macho Elbow attempt to tag in Rhodes. Rhodes takes advantage of a battered Punk and keeps him in the corner. Punk manages to leg lariat Cody and hits the Knee/Bulldog combo. GTS attempt and THINGS ALMOST BREAK DOWN as everyone piles in the ring. Kofi is apparently tagged in during the break and eats Beautiful Disaster for two. Del Rio tags in and DROPKICKS THE BACK OF KOFI’S HEAD. Fuck Ow. Christian tags in and eats Kofi’s boots. Christian regains the advantage and hits the neckbreaker for two. Christian grounds Kofi, taunts Punk in and WHAT A HEEL, Swagger gets in without a tag behind the Ref’s back and punches Kofi. Ziggler tags in and dropkicks Kofi for two. Cody tags in and throws Kofi out. Swagger stomps him on the ground and Cody gets COUNTERED by Kofi into the guard rail. Cody tags in Christian and prevents Kofi from tagging. Swagger tags and double teams with Ziggler. Ziggler tags in Otunga and yeah, greener than goose shit. Tags Ziggler back in and DOUBLE CROSS BODY. Kofi FINALLY tags Bourne in and KICKS EVERYWHERE. NICE TIGER KNEE into the Shooting Star, Vickie gets ejected for getting caught putting Swagger’s leg on the rope. The faces wave Vickie goodbye as the heels regroup. After the break, Christian’s isolating Bourne. Del Rio tags in and hits a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for two. Bourne counters with a DDT after being thrown into the corner, Cena gets tagged in and shoulder blocks on Del Rio, Powerbomb, Five Knuckle Shuffle, AA attempt and ARM BREAKER. Cody tags in and the heels stomp on Cena. Cody tags in Christian, who uses the ropes to stomp on Cena’s throat. Del Rio begs for the tag and taunts Cena and puts him in a headlock. Swagger tags and hits the Vaderbomb for TWOOOOOOO. Swagger goes for another vaderbomb, but, Cena gets out of the way. Cena tags Sheamus and Swagger tags Ziggler, who eats BRUTALITY from Sheamus. Sheamus tries the top rope shoulderblock bot gets shoved off by Del Rio. Sheamus then eats the Zig Zag by Ziggler, the Spear by Christian, who eats KNEES by Bourne, who eats Cross Rhodes, Ryan gets taken out by Swagger and Cody, who get taken out by a Kofi splash, and Kofi eats a German by Del Rio, who eats a GTS from Punk, who gets a Neckbreaker by Otunga, who eats an AA by Cena, who eats a Zig Zag from Ziggler, who eats a Brogue Kick by Sheamus, that pinned the Ziggler, that got the three, that lay in the ring that Vince built. Oh god, my brain.
The Smackdown roster (HEY THERE’S BLACK CARA), the Divas, the Refs and the Raw roster have all arrived for the Vote of Confidence. Hey, here comes Lawler! Nnng, dat Kaitlyn. Here comes Haitch, and apparently it is time to play the game. Haitch says the job’s a lot more difficult than he thought it would be. Haitch says AwesomeTruth should apologize to the audience…which they did. Haitch says he’s old school, and that he loves the chaos that is WWE and everyone beating each other up, and he bets the audience likes that too, and reminds the roster that they work for the audience. Haitch says it’s his responsibility to make sure Raw is good, and he works his ass off for them. Wade Barrett was selected to speak for the…heels I guess (well, he is the best talker)? He says that WWE is now an unsafe environment. He says that the reason everyone came to WWE was because they’re all competitors, and like to adhere to rules and that doesn’t include getting attacked by outside individuals. He also says Haitch isn’t capable of controlling the talent. He is also incapable of keeping his own hands off the talent, and all this chaos is because of Hunter.
Hunter reminds everyone that Wade, last year, led the Nexus into tearing the ring up, beat half the roster and beat officials himself. He says Wade’s jealous because all the chaos isn’t because of him. Hunter then asks for more opinions, and Mike Chioda steps up and says he hasn’t seen this much abuse towards the refs in years. He mentions Chad Patton got clobbered by Ricardo Rodriguez, who wasn’t punished. In the 23 years he’s been a ref, he’s afraid to come to work. Beth Phoenix says all the bedlam, she’s afraid, and so are the divas. Lawler gets in the ring, and speaks for himself. He agrees with some of it, and says the show is spiraling out of control. He disagrees that it’s Haitch’s fault. He thinks it’s what Punk says: Someone’s sabotaging Haitch’s job, and the roster’s paying the price for it. Someone doesn’t want Haitch in charge, and it’s only going to get worse if he stays. Christian and the heels vote no confidence. Chioda and the Refs concur, and so does Beth and the Divas. Lawler says no confidence, too. And since actions speak louder than words, he’s walking out…and the crowd around the ring slowly thins as the SD roster, the Raw roster, the Divas and the Refs walk back. Michael Cole walks to the back as well as a few stragglers. Booker walks back. The Cameramen and crew also walk out. All that’s left is Jim Ross, who stands up and finally, walks out, leaving Triple H alone in the ring.
It’s a remarkable visual. The fans are still applauding as Triple H looks dumbfounded. Finally, Johnny Ace walks out, looks at Haitch in the ring, and turns his back and walks back through the curtains.
Final Thoughts: Wow, that last segment was pretty powerful. Triple H looked powerless as the entire roster walked out on him.
I didn’t like Smackdown dominating the first half hour of the show, and the main event 12-man tag was just a clusterfuck.
The less said about the Divas match, the better.
But hey, Zack Ryder was on Raw and so was Santino. It’s a win, right?
But the entire show was built on that last segment. And they pulled it off brilliantly. I can’t wait for Smackdown and next week’s Raw to see what happens.
I really dig what they’re doing with Miz and Truth being huge players in this storyline. Just gotta wonder what Johnny Ace’s real endgame is, if he is indeed the guy pulling strings.
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