WWE Raw 16/1/12 Review - John Laurinaitis Humiliated By CM Punk

The Big News: A night of flared tempers on Raw as John Laurinaitis was verbally humiliated by Punk and took out his frustrations in physical form against Mick Foley and an enraged John Cena pleased his rival Kane by delivering a hate fuelled beatdown to the new United States champion Jack Swagger. In a nutshell: An energetic response to the ratings dip. Mick Foley came out to start the show. He talked about how most of his dreams as a WWE competitor had been fulfilled but that he still had one more dream and that was for his two youngest kids to see him wrestle and with that in mind he announced his intentions to enter this year's Royal Rumble. Vickie Guerrero and Dolph Ziggler then interrupted him before he could elaborate any further. Ziggler mocked Foley for trying to take the spot of guys like him who work hard all year round and did some great comedy putting himself in the shoes of Foley's kids cheering for their dad's Rumble appearance only to see their old man eliminated moments later. Foley agreed that this could happen and that entering the Rumble could be the biggest mistake of his life but he argued that he could also draw a good number and find the same magic that was in the air on the nights when he won his World Championships. Ziggler responded by saying that it would be something of a let-down if after defeating Punk at the Royal Rumble he was then forced to defend his title at WrestleMania against an out of shape, walking punch line and screeched at Foley to just go away. Cue CM Punk who came out to do some fashion comedy with Ziggler before getting serious by telling his upcoming opponent that himself and Foley were alike because they had both earned what they had achieved unlike guys like Laurinaitis and Ziggler and that he would keep hold of his title at the Rumble because he is the best wrestler in the world. Moments later John Laurinaitis appeared and insisted that he would be a fair referee in the Punk/Ziggler match before informing Foley that he would not be entering him in the Royal Rumble. Following this Vickie howled manically in Foley's deflated face which came off as quite the visual treat. This was a good start to the show with Ziggler getting some good heat from insulting a WWE legend and Punk capturing the crowd with his convictions. It would have been nice for Punk to perhaps acknowledge Ziggler's latest show stealing antics however because so far the only question being posed is whether or not Laurinaitis will be impartial or favour the challenger whereas it would also be in their interest to hype up what a spectacle the match is likely to be from an in ring perspective. They aired highlights of Epico and Primo winning the tag titles at a house show the previous night in Auckland. The rematch was scheduled next for Raw. 1) Tag Team Championship: Primo and Epico defeated Air Boom via pinfall to retain the gold Bourne got worked over to start but then made a comeback with an outsanding spot where he averted a top rope supplex attempt and jumped down at Epico to send him flying in the air with a hurrancana that sent his opponent flying into his partner Primo. Kingston then got the hot tag, executing a springboard clothesline, boom drop and trouble in paradise on Epico before tagging in Bourne who got up on the top rope for the shooting star press. On the outside however he was distracted by Kingston being beaten up by Primo and so just stood there for what felt like an eternity until he was knocked off the top rope in a spot where he clearly jumped before any real contact had been made and was then laid out with a backstabber by Epico for the win. Really smooth action until the horribly timed conclusion. ** No idea why they won the straps on a house show but it's heartwarming to see Primo wearing gold in a team that is really starting to click with Mendes in their corner. Backstage Otunga handed Laurinaitis an envelope and informed Chris Jericho that he would be competing in a 6 man tag team main event with himself, Punk and Bryan taking on Henry, Ziggler and Otunga. Jericho just flashed his smile before turning off the lights and letting his jacket glow in the dark. Maybe he's come back with a Harpo Marx gimmick...... Backstage a heavily bandaged Zack Ryder said that he hadn't been medically cleared to compete and defend his title against Jack Swagger. Eve said that he should be home resting but Ryder was adamant that he was not going to forfeit the title. In that case, Eve said she would go to the ring with him. I'm going to go with 1/12 odds on a title change here... 2) Jack Swagger defeated Zack Ryder via pinfall to become the new United States Champion Swagger worked over Ryder's back for the majority of the match before slamming his opponent with three gutwrench powerbombs in a row. Ryder valiantly kicked out of the first two but was unable to respond after the third. 1/2 * So after one of the most eagerly anticipated title wins of 2011, Ryder pathetically loses the gold just a month later against an opponent who has little to no momentum. I'm not sure how this benefits anyone and it certainly doesn't do any favours for the United States championship. Backstage John Laurinaitis apologised to Ryder telling him that he had only just opened the envelope which dictacted that he was medically unable to compete. Eve got on his case and Laurinaitis suddenly became aggressive and told her to shut up and respect authority. This was a great moment of surprise aggression from the GM. Perez Hilton came out to announce the competitors for the Divas Tag Team Match and then watched the bout from ringside. 3) Divas Tag Match: Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox defeated The Bella Twins Kelly got beat down by the twins before making a mini comeback with the worse bulldog in wrestling. Bellas then attempted twin magic but Hilton dragged Nikki from the ring leaving Brie to be rolled up by Kelly. I find it amusing how a Diva who usually wins her matches has an underdog move as her finisher. DUD Post-match The Bellas shoved Hilton to the mat but then backed off when Kelly and Fox squared off to them. Kelly Kelly and Fox then celebrated with Hilton inside the middle of the ring. R-Truth and Wade Barrett engaged in an awkward comedy segment in which they argued about who was going to win the Rumble. Truth talked about how he had been to Disneyland and showed Barrett photoshopped pictures of himself hanging out with the Mouse and the Duck and then showed a visual of Pinnochio's nose expanding when Pinocchio had said Barrett would win the Rumble. Truth bambled on before being attacked by Miz and then Barrett before Sheamus came out to even the numbers. Long then emerged and amazingly didn't put the four men in a tag team match (playah!) but rather announced that they would compete in an over the top rope challenge. This was an awfully contrived way to set up a match building hype for the Rumble. 4) R-Truth defeated Miz, Sheamus and Barrett to win the over the top rope battle royal In a nice heel touch Miz helped Sheamus and Truth eliminate a disgruntled Barrett early on in the game. Miz and Sheamus then fought with Sheamus walloping Miz with his rope assisted fists of fury but both men then neglected their other opponent whilst tangling on the ropes leaving Truth to simply walk across and chuck them both over. * 1/2 An aggravated John Cena tore into Laurinaitis backstage accusing him of deliberately screwing Ryder out of the title. Laurinaitis said that he made a mistake and then announced that Cena would be wrestling Kane at the Royal Rumble and also against Jack Swagger next. The bell never rung for Cena and Swagger though because Cena just kicked the crap out of the new United States champion, stomping him to the ground, throwing him into the post and laying him up on the announce table where he smothered Swagger's face in an effective mirroring of Kane's own heelish behaviour towards him. Cena was then about to make Swagger the filling in a steel step sandwich but Kane came up on the monitor to make Cena aware that he was starting to unleash the hatred rooted deep inside of him and that by the Rumble he will have embraced it fully. Cena showed tremendous anger in his unusually gritty beatdown and this would have been a knockout segment had it not involved a victim who not even an hour earlier had just won a title. After a rather torrid mid section of Raw, Brodus Clay put some funk back into the programme by grooving his way down to the ring whilst JTG looked on from ringside with an unimpressed expression. He was most likely wondering why he hadn't been handed such a fun gimmick. 5) Brodus Clay defeated JTG via pinfall Pretty much the same formula as last week. JTG went for the go behind but Clay jiggled his body to disturb his opponent into letting go of the hold. Clay then shouted "supplex" out loud before pummeling JTG with the move and then executing a flying crossbody for the win. * 1/2 Post-match Clay and his sidekicks danced in celebration. This was tremendous and the crowd seem to be already warming strongly to his character. Another great segment next as Daniel Bryan addressed The Big Show accidentally knocking AJ to the mat during their title match on Smackdown. Bryan made sure to reference AJ as his girlfriend on three occasions during a promo in which he said that Big Show was pathetic and intentionally rammed into his loved one just to get to him and that he didn't even have it in him to apologise but instead just cried fake tears. He then said that he would beat up Show if he ever dared to show his face on Smackdown again before dedicating his upcoming world title defence against Mark Henry to AJ. A heel trying to take the moral ground to cover up his own inadequacies is so much more satisfying and psychologically intriguing than the usual manner of just turning a guy face or heel because they've run out of other options. Bryan is doing a superb job in this transitional role at the moment and I'm starting to see why his heel work was so acclaimed during his tenure with Ring of Honour. 6) €6 Man Tag Main Event: Mark Henry, Dolph Ziggler and David Otunga defeated CM Punk, Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan via dq in a reversed decision €€Jericho went wild slapping hands with the fans to start. The fans then went wild waiting for his hot tag throughout the match as Punk kicked things off with Ziggler and outmanoeuvred his opponent with some technical holds. Punk then tagged in Bryan who continued the assault until Ziggler telegraphed his opponents leapfrog and began working the leg along with Otunga. Ziggler then missed a splash which enabled Bryan to tag Punk back in and caused Ziggler to quickly tag Otunga back in too. Punk was double teamed by Ziggler and Punk for a while but Punk pushed Otunga off the turnbuckle following a supplex attempt and followed it up with the macho man elbow drop. Punk then crawled to Jericho who came in, conducted different parts of the crowd to cheer for him and then tagged in Bryan and left in an absolute genius tease. The 3 on 2 advantage then resorted to the usual handicap stipulation after Henry and Bryan ended up tussling on the outside with the worlds strongest man throwing Bryan halfway up the ramp like a rag doll. Foley then emerged to make up the numbers explaining to the referee that he had been given permission by Laurinaitis to participate in the bout. Back inside the ring however Dolph took Punk to the mat with a fame asser and a couple of neckbreakers for a near fall before Punk kicked him in the head causing double tags to be made towards Foley and Otunga. Foley hammered Otunga into the corner and did his running knee to the face before executing his double arm DDT and making Otunga tap to the maniable claw. Well that was a nice bit of nostalgia and a surprise ending to a completely chaotic but very entertaining match. *** Post-match Laurinaitis reversed the decision explaining that he had never given Foley permission to join in the match. Punk then elicited my empathy for Laurinaitis with an absolute blistering promo in which he angrily explained that his boss didn't have a problem with Punk because of the type of person who he is, but rather because he saw in CM Punk the type of person who he was not. Punk told Laurainitis that he had been a terrible wrestler and had no charisma and had gone from merely sucking to sucking up when he exchanged wrestling tights for a corporate suit and tie. Punk then threatened to beat the crap out of Laurinaitis if he screwed him out of the Rumble and made him cowardly flinch when he teased a fist. Punk then called him pathetic and left. Foley followed this up by labelling Laurinaitis as a kiss ass and asking him if he was going to screw Punk at the Rumble. Laurinaitis cracked, admitted that he was going to screw Punk and said that he was sick of everyone disrepecting his authority. He said that he didn't feel appreciated, Foley asked him what he was going to do about it, and Laurinaitis responded by hitting Foley with the blunt end of his microphone. Verdict: This was a very strong show in terms of character progression and general tempo. Instead of giving us a mini movie like the appalling Cena/Kane/Ryder segments from last week we instead got just a little glimpse of Cena's violent streak during his beatdown of Swagger which was enough to show some evidence that there is clearly some hatred boiling under the surface of his emotions. This week there were no jokes nor obnoxious shouting into the camera from Cena, it was just a pissed off man letting out his anger and almost taking it too far in the process. Meanwhile John Laurinaitis who has been so restrained for months on end finally unleashed some anger of his own after being pushed over the edge by CM punk's humilating tirade. Foley was the perfect fall guy for his sudden outburst though I think it would have been more powerful had Laurinaitis just whacked Foley with the mic without the long winded explanation that came with it. Meanwhile the Daniel Bryan turn continues to remain creative and gripping whilst Jericho is still jerking off the fans by lapping up their praise but not giving them anything in return. After his awful quarter hour rating last week I was worried that Jericho would be suddenly rushed into explaining his actions but they found a neat way for him to keep up his schtick whilst also havinh him technically compete in the main event tag match. On the downside, this show had two championship matches which were probably not even half as long as the opening promo and the United States title was first treated like dirt during Swagger's win and then buried into the ground when Cena delivered seven shades of whoop ass on the new champ later on in the show. Because Vince now seems obsessed with the execution of unpredictable world champions the concept of getting a midcarder over to main event level through the gradual support of US or IC Title gold has unfortunately gone out of the window. Not an inspiring show from an in ring perspective but it certainly kept one guessing about the progression of certain characters and storylines.