411’s WWE Superstars Report 10.25.12

Commentators: Scott Stanford & Josh Matthews

Championship’s roll call: WWE Champion: CM Punk… World Champion: Sheamus… Intercontinental Champion: Kofi Kingston… United States Champion: Antonio Cesaro… Tag Team Champions: Team Hell No… NXT Champion: Seth Rollins… Diva’s Champion: Eve Torres

The Usos vs. The Primetime Players:   Darren and Jimmy start off and lock up; they both fall through the ropes still in the lock up. Jimmy rushes back into the ring with Young in hot pursuit and he eats an uppercut. Jey tags and they beat up Darren in the corner; quick tags are made and the Usos hit the tandem back elbow and drop. Jimmy armdrags him and works the arm. They get a few more quick exchanges and including a couple of tandem arm wringer/sledge drops from the top. Jimmy chops and tries a shuffle side kick but Young scrambles away and tags in Titus. O’Neil misses a boot but quickly takes over with a reverse elbow. Now the Players hit some tandem moves; the double shoulderblock and some mudhole stomping in the corner. Jimmy fights back and forces the smaller Young back into his corner where he and his brother can exchange and hit an assisted splash in the corner. Jey hits a diving head-butt and applies a chinlock. My feed glitches, probably due to the hurricane outside, and we pick up with O’Neil tossing Jey to the floor; the ref blocks Titus from going out after him but that allows Young to hit a clothesline. Back in the ring, the Players work over Jey with the tandem Millions of Dollars Suplex, for two. Jey makes a burst of energy and tries to make a tag but Young yanks him by the hair back down. O’Neil returns and drops elbows. He hits a standing World’s Strongest Slam like move and locks in a chinlock. We return from break with Jey lunging for a tag and O’Neil cutting it off, twice. Titus with a backbreaker into a slam; he then tries a huge three-point stance charge in the corner and meets a pair of Uso boots. Jimmy gets a tag and runs through Darren with clotheslines and a shoulderblock. He knocks Titus off the apron and plants Darren with a Samoan drop; the Samoan Avalanche follows but Titus recovers and breaks up the pinfall. Jey runs in and they nail O’Neil with a double superkick and then Jimmy plants Darren with one as well. Tag is made and the Usos hit the Headshrinker Splash off the top and get the pinfall win. 6/10 The Usos have started to been winning matches of late and haven’t been treated as jobbers lately. Which is good since I like them; the Players losing here, I don’t think, hurts them since they are presented as a pretty tough team.

Here are your winners… The Usos @ about 11:15 (broadcast) via Headshrinker Splash pinfall.

Clips from Raw regarding the “AJ Scandal” are shown involving John Cena and Vickie Guerrero. Egypt tour clips follow.

Tyson Kidd vs. Jinder Mahal (w/Heath Slater & Drew McIntyre):   The Three Man Band has entrance music now. This gimmick SO does not fit Mahal and his character but it gets him on television and gives him wins. They lock up and Kidd works a hammerlock; the hold is reversed so Kidd uses that-step-through-the-ropes move to counter. Mahal takes over with a headlock takeover; Kidd frees himself but takes a shoulderblock twice and then Mahal does a silly 3MB celebration. He tries a third one but Mahal runs into a dropkick. A whip is reversed and Kidd gets that rope-assisted dropsault onto the apron move; Slater pops up on the apron and it allows Mahal to then capitalize when Kidd tries a springboard. Back from commercial, Jinder has Kidd in a chinlock; he goes to the rope-assisted knee drops. Mahal wrestles exactly the same just with some silly rock band dances; for example, the snap butterfly suplex into a cover, gets two. A hammer-toss in the corner keeps the advantage for Mahal; he chokes him in the corner with a knee to the throat. Jinder hits another suplex and lands a dancing knee drop. Kidd escapes a chinlock with elbows but Kidd flips out of a back suplex and kicks away. Tyson chucks him into the corner but Mahal tries to get the boot up but Kidd catches it, slings it onto the middle rope, and kicks it back. He hits a reverse spin kick sending Mahal to the floor; Kidd kills him with a running knee on the apron. Back in the ring Mahal backdrops Kidd onto the top rope; Jinder hits the leaping knee and finishes with the Camel Clutch. Post-match, the 3MB do some air guitaring. 5/10 Again, the gimmick is silly, but it is translating to wins (for now) we shall see how far the 3MB goes.

Here is your winner… Jinder Mahal @ about 9:55 (broadcast) via Camel Clutch submission.

The rest of the show is the ENTIRE main event match from Raw, here is my recap from www.marcelsive.net…

Sheamus vs. CM Punk (w/Paul Heyman) lumberjack match:   The WWE is promoting this as the biggest lumberjack match in Monday Night Raw history as the entire roster surrounds the ring. Champion versus Champion match here. Sheamus takes Punk down with a rear waistlock; Punk reverses. He backs Punk into the corner and gives the clean break. Punk wisely muscles Sheamus to the floor, right into the heel lumberjacks; they don’t attack and allow him to reenter the ring under his own volition. I just noticed William Regal, in his ring gear, is a lumberjack. Sheamus tosses Punk into the heels; he takes a bit too long so they DISRESPECT him by tossing him back inside. He drops a series of knees and takes him over and controls with a headlock. Big Show is a lumberjack and just like on SmackDown, he hangs in the background by the announce table. Punk tries to fire back but eats a reverse elbow to the face. He slams him and drops an elbow. He maintains his advantage with a chinlock. Punk makes a heel comeback but Sheamus clotheslines him to the floor. The babyface jacks toss him back in. Sheamus hits a backbreaker for two. Punk retreats to the apron where Sheamus gets a few clubbers in before Punk counters with a hotshot and springboard clothesline. Punk tosses Sheamus to the heels again and this time they aren’t as forgiving and stomp the crap out of him. Punk gets a nearfall as we head out to break. Sheamus is trapped in a headlock when we return but manages to force Punk into the corner. During the break Punk posted Sheamus’ shoulder as he tumbled to the floor; the hell lumberjacks took more stomping liberties. He fights back and pounds in the corner. Punk catches him with a kick when Sheamus telegraphs a backdrop. Michael Cole gets a little overzealous mentioning “forty-five seconds” and gets an earful from Show. Punk counters a Finlay Roll (or White Noise) and tosses Sheamus to the floor. The heels gang up on him again until R-Truth, Brodus Clay, and a bunch of other babyfaces come to his aid. Back in the ring, Punk hits a neckbreaker and a pair of Macho Man double axe handles. He tries a third one but went to the well once too often and Sheamus buries a punch to the gut; Punk quickly fires back with a knee off the ropes and kicks his back. He slams him and heads up AGAIN and does the Macho Man taunt but DOES NOT drop the elbow, eliciting some cheap heel heat. He hops down and lands a standard elbow. Punk points at Show who is laughing. Not sure if that was an inside joke there. Punk hits another neckbreaker and pugnaciously applies another chinlock. Fans are getting restless. The problems with these three-hour Raw is that if the main event does not deliver fast paced perpetual action, which it hard to do, the burned out fans are a lot less forgiving. Sheamus begins his comeback with some Irish Hammers and a corner clothesline. He hits the Finlay Roll and gets in all ten O’Clubbering shots. He suplexes Punk back into the ring, for two. Sheamus goes for the running shoulderblock in the corner which is followed by a kneelift; Punk counters the kneelift. He gets two. Punk counters White Noise with a sunset but Sheamus rolls through and grabs his legs, presumably for the Texas Cloverleaf. Punk kicks free and hits the corner high knee; a short clothesline follows. Punk heads up again, this must be the sixth or seventh time; Sheamus counters this time and fight atop the buckles. Sheamus hits a superplex… for two. He counters the Irish Curse and Sheamus reciprocates countering Go2Sleep. Punk drop-toeholds him into the bottom buckle and tries a rollup with trunks to no avail. Punk kicks his head off but Sheamus kicks out. He goes for the Macho Man Elbow this time off the top but Sheamus moves. The Irish Curse follows for another nearfall. He tries the Texas Cloverleaf again but Punk counters and charges… just to get pitched to the floor. The lumberjacks attack again but Sheamus is ready and fends a bunch of them off, charges right back into the ring, and catches Punk in White Noise. He readies for the Brogue Kick but Antonio Cesaro runs in to distract and winds up taking the Brogue. Jinder Mahal runs in as well and meets the same fate. The referee is drawn over to Mahal as Sheamus zeros in on Punk with another Brogue Kick but he ducks; Show makes his way onto the apron and nails Sheamus with an abrupt chokeslam. Punk gets the pin on the World champion, the bell rings but the wrong music plays, it sounds like this: FEED ME MORE. Post-match, Ryback stomps his way to the ring; Punk looks scared shitless and tries to run away. Problem is the lumberjacks are still about ringside, so they toss him back into Big Hungry (are they still calling him that?) who nails a backbreaker into a Bulldog Powerslam. Punk tries to run away again but keeps rolling out to the babyface lumberjacks so Clay, Truth, Sin Cara, Rey Mysterio and someone, who I believe to be Mason Ryan, toss him back in. Ryback hits Punk with a double choke lift into a powerbomb as the babyfaces overreact like NBA stars watching the slam dunk competition during All Star Weekend especially Kofi Kingston. The faces toss him back in yet again so Ryback press-slams him out onto all of the heels wiping out Alberto Del Rio, Ricardo Rodriguez, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz and Team Rhodes Scholars in the process. Heyman finally gathers his champion and looks on freaked out. Ryback celebrates with a “feed me more” chant. 6/10 I’ve read people gave this match a scathing review: way too long, much too boring, Sheamus sucks… I agree it was long, it wasn’t that boring and I like Sheamus. This was a good lead-in match to Punk/Ryback and it will be interesting to see what the WWE concocts to keep the belt on Punk… or if they actually pull the trigger on this Ryback thing.

Here is your winner… CM Punk @ about 17:50 (broadcast) via chokeslam (from Big Show) pinfall.

OVERALL 5.5/10 Two decent matches and the main event from Raw; decent show this week. I’m off to complete Hurricane Sandy preps.

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