wrestling / TV Reports
Tremendous Tirades 11.11.13: Monday Night Raw
Introduction
Hi kids, it’s Uncle Steve filling in for the Bossman one more time. Feels like I’m here more often than he is these days, don’t it? Y’all know the drill, the Tirade is not a traditional recap, but more of a free-flowing analysis of the show. Kind of like the Raw Thoughts I used to do in News From Cook’s Corner or stuff I’d post on Twitter but with ratings & whatnot. Completely uncensored, so put the women & children to bed before reading this one. This is a review, and Larry has entrusted me with reviewing the show all fair & balanced-like. Obviously I’m a fan or why in the blue hell would I have wasted the last nine years of my life writing about pro wrestling? I like the stuff, but when stuff ain’t right I’m gonna complain about it. It is what it is. I encourage discussion & even disagreement, in fact the more I get the more likely it is that Larry will continue posting my columns & podcasts.
WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW – 100% BIG DADDY APPROVED
Everybody Talks Too Much : Ha, a paragraph after I mention the British always bringing a ton of energy they blankly stare at Randy Orton. Gotta love it! Randy Orton announces that he’s in charge of tonight’s Raw, which brings out Brad Maddox. Apparently he’s still the General Manager. Who knew? Maddox almost makes a match before CITIZEN KANE walks out. The Director of Operations declares that he’s in charge tonight. Kane’s “No. No. No.” leads to a Yes Yes Yes chant. Maddox wants Orton to fight Cody, Kane wants Orton to fight Goldust, so Vickie Guerrero comes out and books Orton against both. HANDICAP MATCH~! No wonder Csonka’s not doing this show. On the bright side, it seems like we won’t be hearing from The Authority tonight because they’re on vacation. Yay! I’m not particularly high on Vickie these days but the British fans still seem to have fun chanting at her.
Rating (1-10): 6.0
All-Champions Handicap Match: WWE Champion Randy Orton vs. WWE Tag Team Champions Cody Rhodes & Goldust : The crowd tells us that Randy’s boring. Well, it’s not nice but it’s also hard to argue since he can be boring at times. The Rhodes boys get the advantage early, but eventually Randy gets the advantage on Cody and then gets the advantage on Goldust. Hot tag to Cody, who’s got some good fire. Eventually Randy gets tired of this and gets himself counted out.
OK, somebody tell me the purpose of booking your face tag team champions against a heel champion. Honestly, giving the faces the advantage in a handicap match never makes sense unless it’s a couple of jobbers against a monster heel. At least this kind of had the right result, though it’s funny that they won’t even have Orton take the fall against one of these guys. The wrestling was decent but the booking was stupid.
Rating (1-10): 5.0
Santino Marella & Los Matadores (w/El Torito) vs. The Union Jacks : 3MB has had no success against the Matadores, so they’ve repackaged themselves. Drew’s from Scotland, which I wish somebody on commentary would have pointed out, so it makes sense for them to pander to the Brits. Santino is wearing horns on his head, so there’s all sorts of weird stuff going on here. The Cobra sock puppet has horns too, and that’s what gets the win. Oh my goodness.
Rating (1-10): 3.5
Damien Sandow vs. Kofi Kingston: I feel bad for Damien. He used to have a cool robe & an interesting purple/pink trunks/knee pads combo. Now he wears a t-shirt to the ring and black trunks/knee pads. They’ve taken everything that made him different away from him. At least he gets to beat Kofi. Not a terrible match, but fairly paint-by-numbers and Kofi didn’t get to do anything too crazy. If beating Kofi meant anything in 2013 Sandow would be having a good time.
Rating (1-10): 5.5
WWE Intercontinental Title Match: Curtis Axel © vs. Dolph Ziggler : Remember when Curtis Axel was a thing? Fans are loving themselves some Ziggler tonight, they remember when he was a thing. Axel puts the crowd to sleep for a few minutes, they wake up when Dolph does a move. Michael Cole drops Billy Gunn’s name when Ziggler does a Famouser, which reminds me of how upset people got when I said that Ziggler was basically the new Billy Gunn. Billy Gunn wasn’t that bad! For God’s sake, I’d rather see him in this match than Curtis Axel. Axel does a funky neck breaker deal on Ziggler and gets the win. I guess they’re going to try and put more steam on Axel before he loses the title to Big E? Maybe? Ziggler tried his hardest to not suck so I’ll give him some credit here.
Rating (1-10): 6.5
Tamina Snuka (w/AJ Lee) vs. Nikki Bella (w/Brie Bella) : I know Brie’s been working on her game with Daniel Bryan, hopefully Nikki starts busting out some John Cena moves. Tamina’s been studying up on her late 90s wrestling, as she busts out a pump-handle slam! You don’t see much of those anymore. CANADIAN BACKBREAKER! AJ attacks Nikki, Tamina gets the win after the Superfly Splash. Yeah…she really needs to leave that one to her dad. Brie goes into Brie Mode since AJ involved herself in the match. Considering I’d consider Nikki the lesser of the Bellas in-ring and Tamina the lesser of her pairing with AJ in-ring, this was all right.
Rating (1-10): 6.0
Fandango (w/Summer Rae) vs. Tyson Kidd (w/Natalya) : Oh my goodness, there is some Total Divas drama going on with Nattie training with Fandango because Tyson trained with Eva Marie. I literally can not wait to see that play out. Tyson said in an interview that he wasn’t going to change his style due to his injury, and sure enough he’s taking huge bumps right away. Kidd does some cool stuff, but Fandango is an intelligent man and outsmarts Kidd to get the win. Fandango is still incredibly popular in the UK, and I can dig it. It is very nice to have Kidd back and I hope they keep him on Raw for an extended period of time.
Rating (1-10): 6.5
World Champion John Cena vs. The Real Americans (w/Zeb Colter) : Zeb drops a Mr. Bean reference during his promo, which is awesome. Not only do the fans say WE THE PEOPLE along with Zeb, but they chant it during the match. Of course, it helps they’re wrestling John Cena, who is typically persona non grata on UK shows. And now he’s persona non grata on my list because he wouldn’t participate in a Cesaro Swing. What nerve! Alberto Del Rio is at the booth for this match and adds pretty much nothing of note, good or bad. Swagger taps to the STF after several minutes of ok action. Cesaro’s attack is thwarted, but ADR’s attack is not, as he Pillmanizes Cena’s bad arm and applies the cross arm-breaker for good measure…until Big E Langston makes the save? OK then.
The knee-jerk response is to go “DAMN THAT JOHN CENA! HOW DARE HE BEAT TWO MEN AT ONCE, ESPECIALLY ANTONIO CESARO!” I understand that thought, but I’m long past the point of getting mad over this sort of thing. It’s like getting mad at rush-hour traffic. It’s something that’s gonna happen, so why get all upset about it? It’s annoying, sure, but you gotta expect it at this point.
Rating (1-10): 5.0
Ryback vs. R-Truth : R-Truth switches up his lyrics to mock Ryback. When’s the last time he did that? JBL needs to stop singing along with R-Truth, unless his goal is to kill R-Truth’s gimmick. Ryback dominates most of the match, but misses a clothesline & R-Truth capitalizes for the win. I mean…why is Ryback still on television? I read the rumors about Ryback facing Goldberg at WrestleMania and that idea just gets more laughable by the week. Why would Goldberg waste his time? Ridiculous.
Rating (1-10): 3.0
Big E Langston vs. Alberto Del Rio : So this is the part of the Big E Langston push where he starts wrestling established guys and losing. It’s part of paying your dues. We’re supposed to buy into the concept where he looks good in defeat, since that worked so well for Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler and pretty much everybody else they’ve tried to push for the last five years or so. It hasn’t worked for anybody else they did it with, but some people still insist it works. Big E looks, well, kinda good, but has to tap out to the cross arm-breaker. The loss to Orton last week was better because it actually got some time. On the bright side, if Big E keeps losing to bigger stars he’ll make a great Intercontinental Champion.
Rating (1-10): 4.0
CM Punk & Daniel Bryan vs. The Shield : Dang, this is like some kind of super-indy dream match or something. The Shield has been around for a year now, and it’s been a year full of fun six-man tag team matches. Tonight we’ve got five, but CM Punk & Daniel Bryan combined equal at least three good wrestlers. Fun back & forth match as you’d expect from the people involved. Punk gets Ambrose in the Anaconda Vice & Ambrose is about to tap…but the lights go out & the Wyatt Family appears! Interestingly Ambrose & Rollins get up in the face of Rowan & Harper…they attack each other! Wyatt & Reigns go at it on the outside! The fans are excited, but Bray convinces the Shield that they have a common enemy! Cooler heads prevail and they decide to take Punk & Bryan on six versus two. Well, until the Usos, Cody Rhodes & Goldust show up! The faces clear the ring! Play Daniel Bryan’s music!
You guys know I don’t like non-finishes, but that was a pretty damn good non-finish. The tension between the Wyatts & the Shield was fantastic, then Punk & Bryan actually had friends backstage that came out to help them. Usually it seems like the heels are all on the same page while the faces can’t get along with each other for one reason or another, it was nice to see the opposite scenario here.
Plus, a Wyatts vs. Shield match down the road could be a pretty good piece of business.
Rating (1-10): 8.5
This was pretty much a nothing-happening show until the main event, which helped remind me why I sit through over three hours of wrestling every Monday night. The Shield, Punk & Bryan got an opportunity to shine and took it. You also got the Wyatts, Usos & Rhodes boys a chance to shine at the end and it was good for everybody involved. If I was just judging the show on that segment it’d be one of the better Raws of this year. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the show stunk. Way too many handicap matches, guys getting buried & boring guys sent out there to bore the crowd. I did like the Diva match & Kidd vs. Fandango all right, but man I couldn’t care less about the power struggle with the three stooges, Cena winning a handicap match or the Orton/Big Show drama. Unfortunately these things are what WWE is mainly built around these days and there are people that like that. Apparently. Too many dumb things happened to rate this show very high, even though there were parts that I loved that bumped the overall rating up. Show Rating: 5.5 As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale… 0 – 0.9: Torture The final rating is not simply an average of the rated segments above. The rating takes them into account as well as the segments that are small but not scored, the flow of the show, the overall booking, build to PPV, crowd reactions, and so on and so forth. |
Steve Cook is a Gemini and enjoys drinking the occasional alcoholic beverage or nine, long walks on the beach, objectifying women and winning fantasy football championships. He graduated from the University of Louisville in 2006 & has a B.S. in Political Science with a concentration in Law & Public Policy. He has been a wrestling fan since 1990 and has been writing for 411 since August 14th, 2004; contributing nothing but headaches & utter frickin‘ chaos to the site. He is a living legend & the last of a dying breed.
Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it…TO CSONKA’S TWITTER!
Follow Cook as well.
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma
More Trending Stories
- Tony Khan Weighs In On Warning From Oklahoma Athletic Commission Over Nyla Rose Match
- Backstage Update on WWE’s Plans for WrestleMania 41, Possible Move to March or May
- Jim Ross Recalls Dustin Rhodes Being Fired From WCW For Not Following No-Blood Policy
- Oklahoma Athletic Commission Gives AEW ‘Warning’ Over Nyla Rose Match, Rose Responds
