RAW In Review 8-27-12

Zack Ryder Has a Match on RAW... And Wins!

This is more of a sidenote that I would like to point out. Zack Ryder recieved a match on RAW and won! Against David Otunga which for most superstars that doesn't seem like the feat but, for Ryder it means one of his first wins on national television in quite a while is huge for the Long Island native. Does the future look bright for the Woo Woo Woo kid? You know it, bro, well at least I hope, bro.

Dolph Ziggler Loses Once Again.

Money in the Bank briefcase holder Dolph Ziggler lost on Monday in tag team action with his partner Alberto Del Rio against Randy Orton and World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus. I know that Ziggler had a big victory against Chris Jericho but before that Dolph has not looked like the show off he claims to be. Dolph has teased cashing in his contract on Sheamus but theyve all been ended before they began. Ziggler better step up his game or else he is going to fall by the wayside into the mid-card abyss of the WWE. 

Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes Team up

Damien Sandow was interviewed backstage and said he finally found someone as intelligent as he is. That man is Cody Rhodes. The two teamed up against Brodus Clay and Sin Cara, who the men are feuding with individually, in a losing effort. The team of Sandow and Rhodes could be interesting and take the tag team division to a whole new level in the WWE that it needs to go to. Would I rather see the two be singles wrestler? Of course eventually but right now if it'll help the tag division I'm all for it.

Daniel Bryan in Anger Management

Daniel Bryan had to enter rehab per orders of RAW GM A.J. Lee. As did his rival, Kane, this led to some hysterical segments with the two and their doctor, Harlod. This later led to a Bryan in a match against R-Truth which ended in count out as Bryan was on the outside yelling "No" to the crowd as they chanted "Yes" the old catchphrase of Bryan. Will Daniel Bryan and Kane be healed of their anger issues? I don't think so but it'll be fun to watch if they do or not.

The Miz loses to John Cena in WM 27 rematch

The Intercontinental champion lost to the number one contender to the WWE championship, John Cena, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Although it was just last year that the Miz defeated Cena for the WWE championship. It is just odd how things change so quicky in the WWE. But both men looked strong in this match. The Miz looks to be on the right track now after his skid of terrible luck in the beginning of this year. Cena will always be John Cena and there is nothing anyone can do about that for the near future at least. 

CM Punk defeats Jerry Lawler in a Steel Cage.... Congrats?

Last week CM Punk assaulted RAW announcer Jerry "The King" Lawler. So this week Punk challenged Lawler to a match in which Jerry accepted. The WWE Universe picked a steel cage match. It was a challenge for the WWE champion to defeat the 60 plus Lawler. Afterward though, Punk went on a rampage and viciously elbowed and kneed him in the face. Punk put a padlock on the door so no one could stop his attack and kept beating up Lawler because Jerry would not admit that CM was the best in the world. As they finally lifted the cage up Cena came out to the ring but Punk ran off before John could get his hand on him. This, in my mind, finally turned CM Punk into a full fledged heel. At Night of Champions it'll be interesting to see if WWE decides to keep the championship on him.

Triple H Retires.... Kinda

Triple H came out to the ring in his fancy three piece suit to thank us all for letting him "Play the Game" for all these years. The Game gave a tearful speech on how he had to hang it up but, to never say never. This opens the door for HHH to come back if he sees fit. Will it be against Brock Lesner again? Probably not, I hope we don't get another rematch against the Undertaker. It would be nice for the Cerebral Assassin to face some of the younger talent in the WWE like Dolph Ziggler or Cody Rhodes. Wrestlemania would be a great stage to do that.... 

Well that was RAW in a nutshell... Another quick note is to watch Jack Swagger to see if they do anything with him after showing frustration after he lost quickly to Ryback. I'm interested to see where RAW goes from here, with three hours to fill they'll have to continue building compelling stories from top to bottom

Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

Jacob Reyes  

  

Is He Retiring or Not? The Special Triple H Episode of RAW

So.... That was an interesting episode of Raw... By interesting I mean annoying. First we had Brock Lesner and Paul Heyman come out and say that Lesner is now the King of Kings since he defeated the self proclaimed King of Kings, Triple H, at SummerSlam. In the process of defeating the H man Brock also broke his arm..... Again!!!! Oh no!!! Now we get Shawn Michaels, via satellite, in his sling no less(good to keep things consistent!) telling us how Trips is done with wrestling. Triple H is retiring!!!! The means we won't be able to see the Tripmister wrestle maybe two times a year. As we saw at SummerSlam when Triple H was thriving in pain in the middle of the ring after their match waiting for a round of applause and appreciation from the crowd that took about five minutes to get.

Anywho back to RAW.... Next we get a video package from last nights brutal fight between the two gladiators.. Oh and I guess there is a match with Cody Rhodes, Sin Cara, Prime Time players and R-truth and Kofi Kingston... But thats not important....Oh wait!! We just got a "Tout" from Brock and Heyman that entails Lesner retiring from the WWE because there is nothing left to accomplish. The King of Kings gone from the business.. Who are we suppose to bow down to?! Oh now we have Chris Jericho vs. Dolph Ziggler in which Jericho lost that made his contract invalid... Again not important PLEASE MORE TRIPLE H NEWS!!!! What nothing else on HHH?! Oh shucks! Well we had Del Rio vs. druggy Orton.. That wasn't bad at all.... Now we have Punk and Cena talking about the WWE Championship... Wait thats still around... hmmm could have fooled me...

Listen.... I agree with CM Punk the WWE championship has been overlooked and he has every right to be angry with Cena who has stolen the spotlight. Triple H is in the same boat. Even with John Cena in the match they didn't main event SummerSlam... I hope Triple H is done with wrestling to give the main event slot to someone else... Time will tell though...


Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

Jacob Reyes

Villains that could have been great

Hello there readers! I've been looking at the the list of WWE's top 50 villains and it had me thinking..... What other superstars would have made the list instead if they were given more time to develop? I'll give you my top 3 picks in this nonsense, but first here is the top 50 villains list:

(1) Roddy Piper

(2) Ric Flair & Four Horsemen

(3) Mr. McMahon

(4) "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase

(5) "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan

(6) Triple H

(7) "Superstar" Billy Graham

(8) Bobby Heenan

(9) Gorgeous George

(10) Jake "the Snake" Roberts

(11) Rick Rude

(12) JBL

(13) Fabulous Freebirds

(14) Original Sheik

(15) Chris Jericho

(16) Sherri Martel

(17) Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig

(18) Killer Kowalski

(19) Jim Cornette

(20) Edge

(21) Freddie Blassie

(22) The Undertaker

(23) Sgt. Slaughter

(24) Harley Race

(25) Vader

(26) Nick Bockwinkel

(27) Paul Orndorff

(28) Fabulous Moolah

(29) Raven

(30) Jerry Lawler

(31) Kevin Sullivan

(32) Randy Orton

(33) Terry Funk

(34) Abdullah the Butcher

(35) Paul Heyman

(36) Ivan Koloff

(37) Ernie Ladd

(38) C.M. Punk

(39) Dudley Boyz

(40) Don Muraco

(41) Kane

(42) Brock Lesner
(43) Eddie Guerrero
(44) Eric Bischoff
(45) Andre the Gian
(46) The Iron Shiek
(47) Mark Henry
(48) Vickie Guerrero
(49) Randy Savage
(50) Batista

Not a bad looking list but, here now are the 3 superstars who could have been on this list!

3. Elijah Burke

Elijah Burke, for those of you who don't know this man he was apart of the WWE version of ECW. Burke was a man who was a great talker and also and the moveset to back it up. Burke really catapulted to the national audience when Vince McMahon picked him as the new face of ECW in spite of the ECW originals. Elijah became the leader of a group called the "New Breed" which sole purpose was to take out the originals. Ultimately, the New Breed lost at Wrestlemania 23, to the originals, but that did not derail Burke who went on to have a great program with CM Punk that really cemented that Punk was going to be a shining good guy in the business and it looked like Burke should have been there with him as the villain. For some reason though, Burke just kind of fluttered on ECW after his feud with Punk. Burke became the mouthpiece for Shelton Benjamin and soon after he was done with that, he was gone from the WWE. In the present WWE he would be a great addition to the roster, yes he is the cocky bad guy that everybody else seems to be. With Burke though, there is something different about his character that made people want to boo and not the least bit cheer something that is very hard to accomplish in todays' pro wrestling world. It would be great to see him in a feud with Punk again or Cena that would be fresh and new. There is still hope for Burke to come back to the WWE but only time will tell.   

2. Muhammad Hassan 

Muhammad Hassan was a middle eastern-american who took the WWE by storm right away by interrupting Mick Foley on RAW and telling all Americans to not blame arab-americans for what happened on September 11th. He spoke in Arabic and praised Allah before and after every match. The WWE Universe hated him for the very beginning and got in the ring with main-eventer's such as Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan. At his one Royal Rumble appearance in 2005 he was eliminated by everyone in the ring bad guys and good guys alike. His heat continued when he was drafted to Smackdown! and went into a feud with The Undertaker. The two were scheduled to face each other at the Great American Bash PPV in July. On the July 4th taping of Smackdown! there was a controversial angle where Hassans' manager Davari was booked in a match with The Undertaker. As the match went on Hassan came out to the ramp and started praying, then five masked men in black came out with clubs and piano wire and started to beat down and also choke out Taker. The masked men then carried Davari to the back.The London bombings happened a day after it was taped and there wasn't enough time to edit out the segment. UPN, the network that broadcasted the show, did not like the storyline and did not want Hassan on their network. After Muhammad had his match with Undertaker he was released from the WWE. Muhammad Hassan would fit into the present WWE far better than what seems to be his replacement in Jinder Mahal. He was far better on the microphone and could face off against anyone. Ryback vs. Hassan sounds a lot more tolerable than Ryback vs Mahal. Perhaps one day Hassan will make a comeback to the WWE it definitely would be welcomed.

1. Carlito

Oh Carlito, the man with so much potential that threw it away. His career started off so promising by winning the U.S. title his first night in the WWE against the man who would become the face of the business, John Cena. The man who came in as Carlito, Caribbean Cool spitting apples in people who weren't "cool." Carlito would hold onto the title for 42 days until Cena regained it back from him when Carlito suffered a legitimate injury. After he came back he went in and out of feuds but always stayed relevant on Smackdown! His last feud on that run on Smackdown! was with Big Show in which he gave Show a poisoned apple and went on to defeat him at Judgement Day. He was then drafted to RAW where he won the Intercontinental Title on his first night there taking it away from Shelton Benjamin. He then went on to compete in the Elimination Chamber for the WWE championship in which he lost. He then went into a three way feud with Benjamin and Johnny Nitro that developed some great matches. All in a while with great matches he also produced great heat with the crowd. Carlito though, was starting to get disgruntled with the creative team that his character was becoming stale. He wanted to quit but Vince McMahon told him to reconsider which he did. Carlito then teamed up with his brother Primo and won the Tag Team Championship. He still was not happy where his career was going, Carlito complained and this time he was granted his release from the company. Carlito would be a great mouthpiece for Primo and his cousin Epico. The team are great in the ring but cannot generate heat like Carlito could. He would also be great in elevating up and coming superstars. Who knows if he would have lived up to his potential he could have been the WWE champion. We never will really know what could have happened in his career. In my opinion he has burned his bridges with the company.

Thanks for reading!

Till next time,
Jacob Reyes   

 

Brock Lesner vs. Triple H: Why its Destined to Fail

The blockbuster of the summer as some people are calling it, Brock Lesner vs Triple H at Summerslam with Paul Heyman in Lesners' corner and Shawn Michaels in Triple H's corner in the main event. This match has been destined to fail since Brock came back the RAW after Wrestlemania 28. Yes Lesner looked strong the first week back when he attacked John Cena to show he will come back as one of the top superstars but, after that it just kind of gotten ridiculous. First off, he lost against John Cena in his return match after beating the living hell out of Cena and it wasn't enough to put away "Superman". After that he became a diva who wanted the show named after him and his own private jet and other request that took away from his initial badassery. Then he came out to negotiate with John Laurinaitus to stay on RAW and to get more money. After a while Triple H the acting COO of WWE came out huffed and puffed to say no to the diva Lesner, Brock counteracted with breaking Triple H's arm. Sounds fair to me. 

 

After that Lesner and Triple H both disappeared from the WWE. But the big bad unstopable Triple H came back at Over the Limit to make the announcement that he wanted to face Brock Lesner... The next night Triple H came out to call out Lesner out came Paul Heyman, the mouthpiece for Lesner since he debuted in 2002, and told Triple H no. What did Triple H do in response? He punched Heyman, thats right the COO of a business who is an avid supporter of the anti bullying company BA star tried bullying his way to a match. The next week Heyman, not Brock Lesner, came out via satellite to say he was suing the WWE for Triple H punching him the week before. This went back and forth until Triple H's wife Stephanie Mchmahon called out Paul Heymans manhood and that pushed Heyman over the edge to say Lesner accepted the fight. Again lets recap, Heyman is the one that is mostly involved in this rivalry that is suppose to be Lesner vs HHH, and Brock has been nowhere to be seen for months. The build up has gotten a little bit better the last few weeks with HBK getting involved, just not sure if thats enough to push this feud to the next level. 

Once we finally get to Summerslam, the end result seems pretty clear to me and its not for the best of the WWE. At the PPV I see Triple H getting the win, is it going to be a good match? Sure it is but the outcome is not the one that is most favorable. Triple H has an ego we all already know that and in the past does not have a very good track record of putting over other superstars. His last match was against The Undertaker at Wrestlemania, this was a very rare event where he did put someone over, if he didn't though HHH would go down as the only person to beat Undertaker at Wrestlemania and that does not look very well for a guy who has control of a lot of the company. However, I could definitely see Trips wanting to win against Brock to not only show he is better than Brock, also he wouldn't want to look weaker than John Cena by not being able to win against Lesner when Cena did. Time will tell on how the match will end up going. Just my view on it, I'm not going to watch it just because I don't want to see Lesner get screwed once again since returning  to the WWE. I hope I'm wrong we shall see.

Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

Jacob Reyes

Daniel Bryan: From Bland To Yes! Yes! Yes!

Daniel Bryan: When wrestling fans hear this name they think of an obnoxious superstar that people love to root against and who lost to Sheamus in 18 seconds at Wrestlemania. However, there was a time when Bryan was a scrappy wrestler who couldn't even make the Wrestlemania main card, even though he was the United States Champion. Critics always said that Daniel Bryan was too small, had no personality and looked too generic as seen below.

Daniel Bryan circa 2009

When Bryan was first signed to the company he started his tenure like every other new employee, in training. The training he received at FCW gave him the tools to build upon his already impressive arsenal of moves. The next stop for the American Dragon was NXT, a new show that WWE put out to find the next breakout star with rookies being trained and mentored by WWE superstars, or "pros". Now coming into NXT I heard  all the hype of an independent wrestler who was trained by Shawn Michaels and wrestled all over the world and awed everyone who saw him wrestle, his name in the WWE, Daniel Bryan. As I saw the first episode and out came the rookies, out came a skinny, short and clean cut guy that didn't look anything like a professional wrestler. Bryans' pro The Miz, had the same thoughts as I did but, that is the only time the Miz and I agreed on this superstar. The first sign of greatness I saw from Bryan, when Chris Jericho challenged him to a match. I could just see the heart and determination from the rookie, granted he was working with one of the best workers in WWE history in Jericho. This is one of the best matches I had witnessed in quite some time.

  

From then on out I knew Daniel Bryan was going to be one of the greatest overall wrestlers of all time. Yet, because of his generic personality he was the one of the first ones eliminated from the competition and in part because he said something along the lines of not belonging in the competition. In retrospect I believe Bryan didn't belong in this competition, he deserved a spot on the main roster instead, but that'll come in time. The next big step in his career was the NXT winner Wade Barretts' group Nexus which consisted of the NXT season 1 rookies. The group looked to shake things up in the WWE, apparently when Nexus attacked Daniel Bryan took it too far. He took the tie of ring announcer and choked him with it, with WWE looking to tone down the violence in their wrestling shows they saw this as a firing offence and Bryan was gone the next day.

Choking out announcers not okay? Good to know!

There were a lot of people, including myself, who thought after the ninety day no compete clause we were going to see Bryan in TNA wrestling, the number two pro wrestling business in the United States. It turns out though, that he came back at Summerslam as the surprise member of Team WWE vs the Team Nexus, which WWE won. After that Bryan started a feud with the Miz, his NXT "Pro", which he won the U.S. Title from. After that Bryan just flew under the radar from feud to feud but nothing meaningful. That all changed though at Money in the Bank 2011 in which Daniel Bryan won the briefcase in the ladder match that gave him the opportunity to face any champion he wanted. The next episode of Smackdown Bryan stated he was going to save his opportunity for the main event at Wrestlemania 28. At the time Mark Henry was dominating the Smackdown brand and it seemed like no one could take the big man down. The only hope seemed to be the Big Show, who is 7 ft tall and over 450 lbs. As the two behemoths fought it seemed as though Bryan was always getting involved. At the TLC PPV it was Big Show vs. Mark Henry in a chairs match. Big Show won the match but, afterward Henry was angry and decided to attack Show with a chair. As Big show laid on the ground motionless Bryan came out and cashed in his money in the bank briefcase and won the World Heavyweight Championship.

Daniel Bryan winning the World Heavyweight Championship at TLC

After that win we started seeing a different side to Bryan. At the time of his win he was starting a partnership with WWE Diva A.J. Lee that really started developing into a dark relationship. Bryan would use A.J. to get an advantage by putting A.J. in danger at the cost to keep his World Heavyweight Championship against guys like Big Show, Mark Henry and Randy Orton. At one point Daniel Bryan pushed A.J. into the way of a charging Big Show, which severly injured the Diva, Show felt horrible for it for weeks and weeks and Bryan took advantage of it. Now as the tainted wins such as Disqualifications, count outs, and other various ways, Bryan kept getting more and more confident and started shouting Yes! Yes! Yes! over and over again. Then Wrestlemania came and he was set to face Sheamus for his championship in the opening match. The Match opened with Daniel giving A.J. a kiss and as he Turned around Sheamus hit his signature Brogue Kick and pinned him in a record 18 seconds.After that Daniel started blaming A.J. for losing that match and broke up with her which, in some peoples minds turned A.J. a little bit crazy. After his rematch with Sheamus at Extreme Rules ended not in his favor, he was involved in a beat the clock challenge to be the number one contender for the WWE championship in which he won.The WWE champion,CM Punk, and Bryan had a classic match the Over the Limit PPV that CM Punk ended up winning. The next couple of weeks were revolutionary for Bryan, Punk and the surprising A.J.. The three ended up in a love triangle that turned into what the fate of the WWE championship was going to be when it was announced that A.J. was going to be the special referee in their match up at Money in the Bank. A.J. started using Daniel Bryans' "catchphrase" Yes! against him and the crowd was using it against Bryan and also using it during the whole entire show which showed that Bryan was becoming very influential in the WWE. Bryan tried to swoon A.J. once again but was fooled and in the process got the entire WWE universe against him in a brilliant turn that almost didn't happen with the crowd trying to get behind him and Bryan denied them the whole way through. Bryan ended up losing fairly to Punk at Money in the Bank but he showed the whole world that he now has the personality to go along with his great in ring skills, to be a top superstar for years to come. And all I have to say to that is...... Yes! Yes! Yes!

                                             

Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

Jacob Reyes     

Chris Jericho and Dolph Ziggler feud: The ultimate passing of the torch.

Chris Jericho, The Ayatollah of Rock 'n Rolla, the twenty two year pro wrestling veteran latest run in WWE has had one mission, to make up and coming superstars look good. Since he has returned January 2nd Jericho has not won any of his Pay Per View matches. It started at the Royal Rumble where he was the last man eliminated by Sheamus. At the Elimination Chamber PPV, Jericho was taken out by Punk when Chris' head got slammed into the metal ring. At Wrestlemania and Extreme Rules he lost to CM Punk for the WWE Championship in two classic matches. After that he was involved in multi-men contest either involving the WWE Championship or for the chance to compete for said title. The last PPV, Money in the Bank, Jericho did not win the briefcase to earn a shot at the championship, but Dolph Ziggler did. Enter the feud with the show off, Dolph Ziggler. The seeds were planted in 2008 at the training facility for the WWE, FCW. Chris Jericho came for a visit and pointed out Dolph as one of the top up and coming superstars in FCW.

This seemed to show the respect both parties had for each other back then. The times have changed, Ziggler now thinks he is the most charismatic, talented and best looking superstar in the WWE. A claim that Jericho has had since in the WWE 1999 with self given nicknames like simply put, "Sexy Beast". Jericho has acknowledge that his time in pro wrestling is coming to end soon and knows that someone has to step up and fill the role as the best worker in the WWE. The man it seems that creative and Jericho have chosen is Dolph Ziggler as this may be the last feud Jericho is apart of during his latest run, which also may as well be his last. The program between these two started the night after Money in the Bank, when Ziggler came out to the ring, with Vickie Guerrero by his side, to gloat and sing his own praise for winning the World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank contract. The lights go out and when they come back on we see Jericho in his light up jacket marching down the ring to confront Ziggler. As Jericho climbs into the ring Ziggler starts berating Jericho for not winning anything important since returning to the WWE and that Chris is all hype and not worth the hype either.Jericho did not say anything instead, he gave Ziggler his codebreaker finisher. From then on it has been a back and forth battle to see who is the better "Show off" With both men wearing their rivals t-shirt.

Ziggler with Jericho "Wanna bee"

Jericho with Zigglers' "Show off" shirt

We will see where this goes from here, I'm excited to see if this leads to an encounter between these two workhorses at Summerslam. I'm going to leave you with the encounter on RAW that started off this epic feud that'll be looked back on as the start of Dolph Zigglers run as one of the main eventers in the WWE.

Thanks for reading!

Till next time,

Jacob Reyes