I wanted to take a moment to say “hi!’ to those of you who are seeing this at Hollywood the Game. Welcome, the more the merrier!
Night of Champions has come and gone. Bryan Danielson holds WWE gold. Randy Orton is the champion at last. Kane retained. Michelle McCool unified the Women’s belts. Dolph Ziggler kept his title and after an unannounced Tag Team Turmoil match Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes are now Unified Tag Team Champions. Oh, and Big Show buried CM Punk. Plus Chris Jericho may be out of WWE for the time being.
We have a new champion to begin RAW. Let’s see how many times he’s interrupted before he’s done talking. Spoke too soon. Before Randy even starts talking Sheamus interrupts. Sheamus is tired of getting robbed of the title in multi-man matches. Orton can’t beat Sheamus for the title. Orton speaks, reminding him he won the title in a Fatal Fourway and, when they did face, Sheamus got himself disqualified. Both threaten to kick the other in the head. This draws an email from our anonymous General Manager. The rematch is set for the Pay Per View in 13 days (surprise, surprise) inside Hell in a Cell. That’s what the PPV is called after all. Sheamus is happy with that but he wants the title belt until then. Orton goes on a nice spiel where he talks like a heel and the crowd loves him for it. Seriously, he says he’d RKO his grandmother to keep the title and the crowd eats it up. RKO ends the segment.
The Hart Dynasty joins commentary, and Tyson Kidd isn’t doing that well. As the new tag champs take on Vladamir Koslov and Santino Marella. It lasts longer than most of Santino’s matches, but Drew gets a clean pin over Koslov to help establish themselves as a team. Jericho isn’t gone yet and faces John Morrison tonight. Morrison can get over on his athleticism alone if WWE lets him. This guy makes his warm up interesting. Jericho is now denying he ever said he’d quit. Jericho and Morrison have a decent little match. Morrison escapes the Walls a couple of times and picks up the win with Starship Pain. Even in defeat there are a lot of “Y2J” chants for Jericho. Good match.
Zach Ryder and Edge continue their funny backstage bits when Bryan Danielson asks them to keep it down. Edge decides he wants Bryan tonight as Ryder holds up a backward L to insult him. The Miz writes off his loss due to being injured. He’s out to watch Edge face Daniel Bryan. The winner of this match will be very telling. Bryan comes out to new music, Flight of the Valkyries. The Miz has signed Alex Reilly, not at rigngside, to a personal services contract. The Miz has a Virgil. More good wrestling on this episode. Reilly runs in, just to distract the ref to allow Miz to hit Bryan and give Edge the win… But the GM reverses the decision. So they don’t have enough faith in Bryan to give him a clean win over Edge. Instead he takes a backseat to The Miz and Edge feuding with the GM. The segment finish is Miz and Reilly beating down Bryan.
LayCool is being called the Unified Divas Championship. They dropped Women’s for Diva’s? That’s sad. Layla is defending the title tonight, in Melina’s rematch. Melina tries to go after McCool, but has to return to the ring to avoid a countout. Layla is a far better prospect than McCool as Layla hits a great move of the top turnbuckle and wins the match.
Jericho shills his new DVD. Orton tries to shut him up by offering a match next week where if Jericho wins Orton will give him a title shot. Orton is pretty sure he can shut up Jericho for a long time. I think R-Truth’s new rap is worse. He and Eve face Dibiase and Maryse. Not much of a match, with Eve getting the win. Afterward, mystery stalker sends a message by TitanTron, but still doesn’t clarify who the target of the affections is.
Cena is supposed to face Wade Barrett, but Barrett make him go through the whole of Nexus in a Gauntlet Match. Cena actually does a very nice Dropkick in the match. John gets through all of them except Gabriel when the whole pack attack him to draw a DQ. They try to bring a chair into the ring, but Cena gets a hold of it and scatters them. Cena still wants the match. Barrett will face Cena at Hell in a Cell, but if Cena loses he joins Nexus. Cena counters that if he wins Nexus is done.
At this point I’m leaning towards Nexus breaking up, but with his film over a Cena heel turn could freshen up RAW and revitalize Nexus in one swoop. Or Cena becomes the reluctant member. Three options and I expect they’ll choose the worst.
NXT featured CM Punk taking Michael Cole’s spot, musical chairs and an immigration storyline. Michael Cole just comes back, which makes the whole thing pointless. The main event is six diva tag action. Naomi and Jamie join Kelly Kelly to face Katlyn and LayCool. The babyfaces actually pick up the win. It’s Katlyn who takes the pin of course.
RAW had some direction this week. With only thirteen days until the next PPV there was no time for a slow build. While I’d prefer a few less big shows a year this pace has some benefits. As for NXT, the diva season was a mistake and no matter how many sideplots and bells and whistles they try to add it can’t change that fact. We will have to see if Smackdown can be just as good.
