WWE Raw rant 17/12/2012

The Slammy Awards

This week a lot happened throughout the show so I'll break it down into sections: Matches, Slammy Awards and then the best bits of this weeks Raw.

Matches

• Rey (w/Sin Cara) defeated Damien Sandow (w/Cody Rhodes & mustache) after a 619/Splash from the top corner. Does this mean Rey/Sin Cara are back in contention?
• Kaitlyn defeated Diva's Champion Eve after a Gutbuster in about 2 minutes
• IC Champion Kofi Kingston defeated Tensai with Trouble in Paradise after a minute. Wade Barrett then attacked Kofi; pushing him into the ring post before hitting The Bullhammer. Feud continues...
• Great Khali (w/Natalya) defeated David Otunga with the chop in about a minute or so
• Brodus Clay defeated JTG with a splash in 2 minutes
• Cody Rhodes (w/Damien Sandow) defeated Sin Cara (w/Rey) with Cross Rhodes accompanied by yellow light throughout the match
• The Miz, Alberto Del Rio & Tommy Dreamer defeated 3MB (Slater, McIntyre & Mahal) when Dreamer hit the DDT
• Ryback defeated US Champion Antonio Cesaro via countout when Cesaro grabbed his belt and left. Therefore no actual loss for either - both strong
• Vickie & John Cena defeated AJ & Dolph Ziggler by DQ due to Big E Langston's interference

 Slammy Awards

• 'Tell Me I Did Not Just See That' Award presented by Smackdown GM Booker T. Boogeyman made an appearance which prompted Booker to coin his catchphrase / the award's name. Winner: Kofi Kingston for his Royal Rumble handstand.
• 'Comeback of the Year' Award presented by The New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg & BA Billy Gunn). Winner: Jerry Lawler (obviously?!). In this segment, JBL gave credit to Lawler, ranking him with the likes of Bobby Heenan and Jesse Ventura as the best Colour Commentators in history. Richly deserved.
• 'Kiss of the Year' Award presented by Vickie Guerrero. AJ is nominated each time but with a different guy - Kane, Punk, Bryan & Cena. Winner: AJ & John Cena. This was followed up by AJ not wanting to explain her actions from TLC. She then kissed Dolph, who got into it, too. Slut!
• 'Superstar of the Year' Award presented by Ric Flair. Winner: John Cena who then gave up the award to Ric Flair? Why? God, he's such an ass kisser - if you want to give respect to a legend, don't give up the award you've just been given. Flair hasn't been around in 2012 so giving him that award is irrelevant.
• 'LOL Moment of the Year' presented by Santino & Tensai. Santino with a nice piss-take of Tensai referring to him as Albert! Also, "Tensai is Japanese for 'Fat Albert'". Winner: The Rock (who isn't there to receive the award). Daniel Bryan comes out to say he should have won - comedy!
• '#Trending Now' Award presented by Layla & Zack Jobber. Winner: #FeedMeMore.
• 'Newcomer of the Year' Award presented by Sheamus. Winner: Ryback who then quoted Owen Hart - "Enough is enough & it's time for a change". Respect to the big man for that.
• 'Match of the Year' Award presented by 'Mean' Gene Okerlund, Ricky Steamboat & Jim Ross. Winner: Undertaker vs Triple H - End of an Era (Wrestlemania XXVIII). Triple H (& haircut) out to accept. Most notable part of the speech was when he said that we haven't seen the last of the Undertaker. Big Pop.

Best of the rest

After the apparent surprise that Ric Flair was out to present an award (even though I swear I heard a 'wooo!' and his voice leading to the reveal), Cena decided to honour Flair in his acceptance speech before giving him the award that he just won. We get it John, you're such a good guy... blah blah blah. Cena then left and out came CM Punk and Heyman to verbally smash Flair. Punk also said that Cena has had an awful year so how does he get 'Superstar of the Year'? Oh and also to add to Punk's case; he's now been Champion for 393 days. Wow - respect earned.

This then led to Punk saying he could kick Flair's ass with the one good leg that he has. Flair accepted and made his way to the ring. Punk was then true to his word and knocked Flair silly with a crutch before being knocked out the ring. This then leads to Heyman getting tangled in a Figure Four. Flair then had a bit of mic time - notably letting Jerry Lawler know that he loves him. Great respect between two absolute legends.

Next up, The Shield made their way through the crowd to confront Flair. Luckily, Kane and Daniel Bryan came down to make the save, but were overpowered by the numbers game. Shield are making a name for themselves by doing this. Just as it looked as though Flair was going through the announce table, Ryback storms to the ring to make the save. The Shield leaves as the numbers are now against them. Flair then thanks Ryback, Kane and DBryan which leads to a backstage segment of Kane shouting 'YES!', Bryan shouting 'NO!' and Flair shouting 'Wooooo!!' before Ron Simmons ends the comedy with a 'DAMN!'. Huge segment there. Where was Cena to save Flair after all that went down? Respect my arse!

More Big Show/Sheamus... please let this be over now; it's gone three months already. Let's have some variation now. Segment ended with Show laid out on the mat, which brought out Ziggler to cash in! There was a massive buzz from the crowd at this possibility before Cena came out to mess it up. Bastard! Cena should be pissed at AJ, not Dolph, for what went down at TLC.

The Shield continued their assault on anyone and everyone as it was shown them beating on Dreamer backstage. This then brought Ricardo to try to help out before he received a beatdown, too. I assume this will mean another 6-man match involving Miz teaming with Del Rio and another mystery partner?

The Dolph/AJ vs Cena/Vickie match started with AJ on top of a giant ladder about to explain herself. This didn't materialise though as the other competitors then came out. The match came down to Ziggler and Cena as AJ and Vickie left not long into it. AJ then came out with NXTer Big E Langston (Ryblack). He looked mad, and when he got to the ring he destroyed Cena to end the show. I love it when he gets levelled!

So we have another NXTer in the mix. I'd heard that Big E was making waves in NXT but that they didn't want to bring him through yet as he's very similar to Ryback. But I suppose it's good that AJ has some muscle in her corner against Cena - even though Cena didn't seem fussed that she'd turned on him, let alone lost the match at TLC. Shrug it off John, you'll have another shot soon enough.

My only worry is that they feed Big E to Cena quite soon. I hope they give him a dominant, Mark Henry-like, monster build so that he isn't just fodder straightaway. If he's going to feud with Cena and lose, make him strong like they have with Ryback.

As I said at the start, a lot of stuff happened here. It was good that they had something like The Slammys to take most of the time up this week. The three hours didn't drag so much. It was surprising how short most of the matches were though - some were completely pointless unless they've got plans going forward. JBL was commentary-gold again this week. He was a great ass kicker in his day and will be an even better commentator.