Just six days to Elimination Chamber then the long slow build to Wrestlemania. We still have the return of Undertaker and HHH supposedly happening before then and the four-hour show is always packed to the rafters with matches so there is plenty more to reveal. Tonight, Vince is coming back to reveal a guest host for the big show. Tonight we mix and match Elimination Chamber participants as Orton will face Sheamus, Morrison and R-Truth will mix it up and, jerking the curtain, CM Punk and John Cena mix it up again. There must be a winner and everyone you’d expect to interfere has been banned. There’s some meaningless prattle before we get started.
The good thing about CM Punk facing John Cena is both of them are utterly convincing in their clear desire to win the match. The match involves a lot of finisher attempts that get countered. But an unseen Nexus member slides both a chair and wrench out from under the ring. CM Punk slides the chair in to distract the ref then hits Cena with the wrench. That’s enough for the win.
Lawler is not here tonight. His mother passed away the night before. There are no jokes to be made there. I feel bad for anyone losing a mother, even at what must have been an advanced age.
It seems Alberto Del Rio is competing on RAW. Nope, just a promo. Yet they rang the bell before it. Edge interrupts, still holding his title belt, having remembered that Del Rio hit him with a guitar. Del Rio may have a destiny but it’s Edge’s destiny to attack him right now. Ricardo tries to save but, ultimately, Del Rio still eats a Spear, off the apron to boot. And now here’s Vickie Guererro. She’s going to strip the title here on RAW. Kind of makes me less eager to see Smackdown if all the stories are already on RAW. The coronation is Friday it turns out. Vickie is also claiming Edge was the one who took out Teddy Long and he’ll be fired for it.
Next week – Undertaker.
Natalya gets her title rematch in a Lumberjill match. Some decent athleticism early. Natalya gets thrown out and attacked by the heels and Eve confirms she’s still a face by Crossbodying the lot of them. Natalya goes for a pin but ends up with Eve laying across each other and gets pinned, presumably without noticing. So a very indecisive outcome.
Rev Theory in da house.
The Bellas stay heels by attacking Eve and Gail Kim comes to her rescue. Natalya gets involved and there may have even been others. The camera work wasn’t the best. Mark Henry is supposed to compete, but Sheamus takes him down first. Sheamus wants us to remember what he’s capable of and he’ll demonstrate tonight on Randy Orton. We also reveal that it was CM Punk who planted false rumors last week that Mark Henry had been running down Sheamus. It makes a lot more sense if it was all CM Punk’s idea. If you need a stooge to beat someone up Mark Henry is somewhat convincing.
The middle point of the show goes to a champion versus champion match (not that they are hyping it that way) between The Miz and Daniel Bryan. Alex Reilly is on commentary and Cole offers him Josh’s job. Reilly asks “Can I do both? Can I sports entertain and commentate?” Really? Really? Look WWE, like it or not sports entertainment is a sub-genre of professional wrestling. You want to call them superstars instead of wrestlers, that’s fine. But these people wrestle. They do not sports entertain in the ring. They wrestle. Do not try to erase that word. When you can get beyond the commentary running it down it’s actually a pretty good match and lasts more than one segment. A Skull Crushing Finale gives Miz a clean win. Because he needs to be built up so we can buy he’ll beat Jerry Lawler. Miz gets on the mic and gets to be sincere for a moment in offering his condolences to Lawler. But he won’t let Jerry use it as an excuse why he loses.
Otunga and Mr. Not So Perfect face John Morrison and R-Truth. It was supposed to be Morrison vs. R-Truth but the E-GM piped up during the commercial and made a change. Didn’t he, I’d say or she but this is WWE we are talking about they won’t have two female GMs, set the match in the first place? Short match, faces dominate, R-Truth even takes out Mason Ryan with a Plancha dive. They even scare Nexus off from trying a post-match beatdown.
Ariel Winter is in the ring. I like Modern Family, but I don’t plan to buy The Chaperone on DVD. She introduces the Khali Kiss-Cam. It’s even lamer than usual as it’s just the typical kiss cam they do at arenas. Santino and Tamina as well as Dolph and Vickie are also victims. Maryse faces Ted Dibiase then plants one on Yoshi Tatsu. William Regal playfully kisses Zack Ryder on the cheek. And Hornswoggle delivers a heart shaped box of chocolates to Ariel. If this were Popmudo she’d trade health for mood. Instead Hornswoggle gets a peck on the cheek of his own. If this weren’t Valentine’s Day my review of this segment would have been much shorter.
Sheamus versus Orton will be your final match of the night. The main event will be the reveal of the guest host. Normally I don’t like non-match main events but this is going to be worth it. In fact, the match is not memorable for precisely that reason. Orton does win with an RKO and then Nexus attack Orton but Truth, Morrison and Cena all invade to even the odds. Orton RKOs Otunga and Mr. Not So Perfect. He and Cena throw Ryan from the ring and Cena ends up hitting an Attitude Adjustment on Punk. I was expecting Orton to RKO Cena at the end but no such luck.
They tease a woman in heels exiting a limo. Could the guest host be a woman?
Lots of lighting and sound to play with before they actually reveal the host. If you don’t already know it’s impressive. Yep, The Rock will be hosting Wrestlemania XXVII. The crowd reaches enthusiasm levels sufficiently high enough to satisfy me when they realize just how lucky they are. The guy who wrote the “Bring back The Rock” sign gets a lot of camera time. I was in a debate today about if The Rock was the best guy on the mic of all time. Now I, personally, would put Bobby Heenan above The Rock. The one knock against The Rock is his reliance on catchphrases. And we get a lot, but we get some real talk too. E-GM tries to interrupt but Rocky doesn’t even let Michael Cole go to the computer. Given that I’m actually watching a 4 p.m. replay they bleep Rock saying ass. Didn’t Cena get “fined” for that? Rock does it at least five times. Rock apparently has an issue with John Cena and that is enough to turn him heel for the crowd. Oh man Rock runs Cena down but good. This show runs quite long. Repeat “the millions” “and millions” three times then draws out the “is cookin” for ages and yes the crowd is eating out of the palm of his hand. And the announcers have shut up for almost all of this, so all the better.
Getting Wrestlemania was never in dispute. Enjoying it was. The odds of that just dropped.
