The SmarK RAW Supershow Rant–04.02.12

 

The SmarK RAW Supershow Rant – 04.02.2012

Johnny Ace gives a peptalk to the roster to start, but CM Punk is already standing up and lipping him off. So Johnny retaliates the best way he knows how: Making matches! Santino v. Jack Swagger v. Dolph Ziggler! CM Punk v. Mark Henry! It’s a new era…again.

Live from Miami, FL

Your hosts are Michael Cole & Jerry Lawler

The Rock opens the show to a pop that blows the roof off the arena. And finally, the Rock has come back home. He notes that the match with Cena gave him a “JHC moment”, as in “Jesus H Christ get this guy off me!” Yet another funny bit as he reminisces about getting cut from the Canadian Football League and noting how much you have to suck for that to happen. Ouch. But true. The crowd pleads with him to stay, but Rock had a vision while dancing the night away in Miami. And that vision is be WWE champion again someday. I wouldn’t bet against him.

US title: Santino Marella v. Jack Swagger v. Dolph Ziggler

Santino tries running away and gets double-teamed, and the heels take turns humiliating him. Santino manages to backdrop Ziggler out, and we take a break. I should note we just took a break BEFORE the match started. Hopefully they’re loading up the ads early to save time for something awesome. Back with Santino coming back with the cobra, but Ziggler DDTs him. The heels hit a double-team fameasser, but disagree on who should pin him. Swagger turns on Ziggler and eats the cobra as a result at 5:18. Team Vickie go for the beatdown, but Brodus Clay makes the save to finally get a storyline. Santino and Brodus could totally work as a unit. Match was nothing and mostly occurred during the commercial. *

LORD TENSAI v. Alex Riley

They actually acknowledge Matt Bloom’s past and the crowd chants “Welcome back” and then “A-Train”. As expected, this is a total demolition, as Tensai headbutts him into mush in the corner and hits a butterfly powerbomb and senton. Elbows in the corner knock Riley silly and the BALDO BOMB finishes at 2:50, with the ref stopping the match. Afterwards we get an IRON CLAW, which actually works well with him. Crowd wasn’t really buying into it, but we’ll see where they go with him. *1/2

WWE title: CM Punk v. Mark Henry

This is actually an interesting matchup that we haven’t seen before, which makes me wonder why they’d waste it on free TV. Henry easily overpowers Punk and stomps him on the ropes, as the crowd starts a “Yes!” chant (stemming from the Rock’s opening promo) to fire up Punk. That’s gonna get annoying. Henry pounds him in the corner (“I didn’t TELL you to move!”) , but Punk kicks at the knees and gets a DDT for two. Punk with kicks (“Yes! Yes! Yes!”) and a Shining Wizard for two. He goes up and gets caught, but fires back until Henry kicks him in the head to put him down again, thus RUINING the crowd’s climactic “Yes” chant. Vaderbomb misses, but Punk springboards right into a clothesline and we take a break. Back with Henry continuing the abuse with a nerve hold, but a blind charge misses and Punk fires back again and leads up to the high kick as this crowd is just insanely into the “Yes” thing. Punk with the flying elbow and the running knees into the corner, but Henry tosses him out of the ring on the bulldog attempt. And Punk is counted out at 14:10. That’s fine, keeps Henry strong and Punk retains the title. ***1/4 Henry destroys him with a World’s Strongest Slam on the floor afterwards, Johnny comes out and basically promises to make Punk defend the title every week to make his life miserable, and then Jericho comes out of the crowd to dump booze on him and smash a bottle over his head. So not Punk’s best week. And that is how you build sympathy for a babyface.

Sheamus joins us for his victory promo, but Alberto Del Rio immediately interrupts. The crowd, in rare form tonight, chants “Si!” for him. And then they talk over ADR with “Daniel Bryan” chants. And then they boo the shit out of Sheamus when he’s talking. Uh oh, they might have shot themselves in the foot with the 18 second thing. ADR basically announces himself as the next challenger, and the crowd boos it and chants for Daniel Bryan. I hope someone was paying attention there. Sheamus lays out ADR with the Brogue Kick, and then we cut back to Bryan in the back watching, which triggers a gigantic babyface pop from the crowd. BACKFIRED.

Cody Rhodes v. Kofi Kingston

Cody puts Kofi down with a clothesline to start, but gets hit with a bodypress for two. Disaster kick looks to finish, but Big Show interrupts with a Cody Rhodes Wrestlemania moment. And he walks into the kick and gets pinned at 1:40. Yeah, that really makes Kofi look tough. He was beaten in 40 seconds by Cody and then got a fluke win.

Meanwhile, Abraham Washington returns, attempting to solicit the services of Mark Henry. I don’t even really remember who he was.

Eve comes out and brags about screwing over Zack Ryder. And uh, yeah, that’s about it.

The Miz v. Zack Ryder

Zack is actually fired up for once, beating on Miz outside and bringing him in for two. Miz boots him out of the corner and goes to a chinlock, but Zack blocks a charge and makes the comeback. Broski Boot gets two. Miz sends him into the post and finishes with the stroke at 2:54. Another day, another job for Ryder. You’d think, hey, both guys are fired up after Wrestlemania and have an issue, maybe do a brawl between them and set something up for a PPV, but no, Miz just puts him away and that’s it. **

John Cena gets the main event interview, once again suffering the wrath of the insanely pumped Miami crowd. He’s not making excuses, and he meant everything he said. The crowd lets him know that he’s a loser. Why don’t they have every show in Miami? He assures us that he will not turn on the fans, and he’ll work even HARDER to be Super-Cena now. So he’s not here to “call out” the Rock, and now the crowd wants Lesnar. Cena does not, he wants the Rock, and he wants to tell him that he’s the greatest superstar in the industry. The crowd still wants Lesnar, so Cena leads them in a “Yes” chant and puts over Daniel Bryan, and he’s still going on about the Rock and how he was the better man. And in other news, the sky is still blue. And instead of the Rock, we get THE BROCK. And Cena eats an F5 to end the show. So there’s that. Lemme say, I basically stopped watching RAW originally because I basically followed Brock Lesnar to UFC, and now he’s back here, so if you think I’m obnoxious with my Rock fanboyism, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Pulse:

Who cares if the show was good or bad, it was an all-time classic thanks to the smarky crowd to end all smarky crowds, and I loved it. Here’s hoping Brock Lesnar continues the exciting new trend of John Cena getting his ass handed to him at the end of major PPVs, because I would buy them all if so.

Let’s close with an e-mail that I got while typing up the rant:

“Hi Scott,
Blog fodder:  The Miami crowd was extremely vocal this evening, surpassing places like Toronto and Philly as smark central, bizarro world, etc.  They were chanting for Daniel Bryan throughout, including during Sheamus' promo time, and obviously they sidetracked Cena with the chants for Lesnar.
In the past, the crowds in Toronto and Philly have been cute (Philly more so, maybe because of the legacy...I seem to recall more people than not wanting Toronto crowds just to STFU), but tonight for some reason, it was going overboard, like they crowd was determined that they WOULD be heard, dammit, whether anyone liked it or not.  Granted, the audience is always (or often) right in terms of what they want, but I'd have to say that Brock's return was somewhat lessened b/c of the chants for him, and Sheamus's big emergence as World champ was diluted by the crowd's focus on Bryan. And not that anyone would give a shit about del Rio really, but he had NO chance out there.
So I'm curious as to your and other people's thoughts regarding when the crowd is so overpowering, since tonight I think WWE almost lost control of the show with the crowd crossing from being a part of it to trying to dictate its pace.”

That’s what happens when you neuter your talent by forcing them to read lines off of scripts instead of training them to lead the crowd and improvise. If Vince can’t handle the crowd like the master showman he always hypes himself up to be, then too fucking bad for him. I hope the crowd shits all over his booking decisions every week until he takes the hint, because it’ll make for really entertaining television and hopefully wake him up. His mouthpieces are always “blah blah blah best fans in the world freedom of speech blah blah blah”, so now they can put up or shut up. Hopefully the latter since the former is unlikely.