WWE Monday Night Raw 10/1/2012

WWE Monday Night Raw 10/1/2012

 I missed the first twenty minutes.

 Tonight is Jim Ross Appreciation Night in Oklahoma. Can JR avoid being embarrassed?

No. #1 Contender to the Tag Titles Tournament: Sin Cara and Rey Mysterio vs Primo and Epico
Sin Cara has a nice half Rey/half Cara mask. These are fairly common in Mexico so this was cool. Rey also had one along with a red shirt. Rey hit a double 619 on Primo and Epico and Rey and Sin Cara did dives one after the other off the same ringpost. This was quick but this was really good. Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara are a great team as are Primo/Epico. The Prime Time Players sat on the ramp for this in chairs and talked amongst themselves.

Antonio Cesaro vs Brodus Clay
Antonio's 5 language word for today is appreciation. Brodus was ducked over after a kick from Cesaro and turned it into a headbutt when Cesaro came off the ropes. That was cool. Antonio Cesaro hit a great springboard uppercut and then hit a MONSTER Gotch-Style on Brodus. The crowd popped for that one and Jim Ross really put it over well. Good little match.

AJ introduced a coach for her decision making skills to Kaitlyn. AJ told Kaitlyn that she will be wrestling next week. AJ said that she was sorry that she judged how Kaitlyn felt about her. Then she laughed while saying, "I'm not really sorry at all". AJ's coach just looked disgusted at Kaitlyn.

The Miz vs Zack Ryder
The announcers mostly focused on promoting WWE's Main Event show on Wednesday and Larry King's future appearance.  Ryder got alot of offense in before being buckle bombed (powerbomb onto the turnbuckle). Miz then hit him with a Skull Crushing Finale for the easy win. This didn't last 3 minutes.

World Championship Debate hosted by Booker T
Big Show came dressed up in a suit while Sheamus wore his tights with a shirt(and an odd black mark  in the middle of his eyes). Big Show said the debate was ridiculous. He cut a great 10 second promo highlighting the stupidity of the debate and his Hell in a Cell match with Sheamus. He said that he didn't think Sheamus could get his "little foot high enough for the Brogue Kick". Sheamus asked Show not to rip his leg off because he will need it to kick his teeth in. They went through some twitter questions with one of them asking what was the most challenging thing about their opponent. Sheamus said that Show smelled and he will try to make this longer than 45 seconds. Show said he was a fantastic smelling person and said that Sheamus needs to take him seriously.

Next question was which person's finisher was better. Booker T called the WMD a KO. Show said his WMD was more powerful and Sheamus brought up how Show lost to Daniel Bryan in 45 seconds. Big Show got upset again and Big Show knocked over the podium.  Big Show then said he needs a new podium to lean on. Sheamus then did a tout dressed up as Rey Mysterio asking Show about if he will lose in 45 seconds and if he's ready to get his head Brogue Kicked off to the Rio Grande. Sheamus brought up the 45 second loss to Daniel Bryan again which was getting annoying. The crowd booed this a little and was quiet. Sheamus and Big Show stared each other down and Big Show walked off.

Tensai vs Ryback
This is a rematch from Smackdown which Michael Cole smartly brought up. Here's a review of it in my Smackdown report: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/wwe-smackdown-9282012-review.html

Tensai got pushed around here. He tried to irish whip Ryback and Ryback just stood there. Ryback then hit a nice big powerslam and a strong lariat, which Jim Ross called a Stan Hansen lariat. Ryback tried to lift Tensai for samoan drop but couldn't do it the first time. He tried again and dropped Tensai after he got him up. Ryback then hit a lariat for the win. I'd like to know what happened in the last week, as Ryback had Tensai up without too big of a problem. This would have been a nice squash but instead Ryback looked weak, which is exactly what they didn't want. They also quoted Larry King calling Ryback "not human" which was really bad timing, as he obviously looked really human.

Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes talked about their great Rhodes Scholar's name. They then talked about the debate and how they will personify what champions look like. Sandow and Rhodes then agreed on the fact that Sheamus is a neanderthal.

Eve Torres vs Beth Phoenix
Eve did an inset talking about the Beth/Natalya match on SD(see my review of it here:http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/wwe-smackdown-9282012-review.html) and how great the divas division is. They replayed the segment with Eve trying to suspend Beth, getting overruled and then trying to blame it on Teddy Long. Beth and Eve shaked hands and Beth didn't let go, leading to her taking down Eve. Beth then did a shoulder into the ringpost and got beat up on the outside. Eve actually did a pretty good job on her. Eve hit a sledgehammer and Jim Ross brought up Ivan Putski. Eve then hit a swinging neckbreaker for the win. This was a quick and decent match. Not much else to it other than what I typed here.

AJ ran into Wade Barrett backstage and introduced him to her coach. Wade told her she was doing a terrible job said she needs to stop letting her personal relationships get in the way of her job. AJ then said to her freaked out looking coach, "I think you're intimidated".

They showed JBL climbing Mt. Kiliminjaro which Cole pronounced as "Kill-la-min-jerr-oh". Think like Jerry, not like Jar. Don't know where Cole got that one, as I've never heard anyone pronounce it like that.

Santino Marella vs Heath Slater
They did some weird shaking/posedown to start this. Slater wore pants that were the same color as his hair for the odd visual. Jim Ross brought up the weird grouping of McIntyre, Jinder Mahal and Heath Slater. He fails to see what they have in common, as do I, besides jobbing. Santino Marella went for a kip-up but slipped and hit his head off the canvas. Botchamania's going to be busy tonight. Santino then brought out the Cobra and got attacked by Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre as soon as he hit it. Mahal wore his head dress during the beatdown which was interesting. Drew then hit a FutureShock DDT while his partners went, "and a 1, a 1,2,3". The Band each said their nicknames on the mic to close the segment.

Sheamus vs Damien Sandow
Sandow almost got punched early and looked pretty scared running away from Sheamus. Sheamus grabbed Sandow by the beard and threatened to hit him before Damien Sandow ran outside. We then went to commercial.  They returned with Damien Sandow diving over the ringside barricade and hitting Sheamus with a clothesline. Damien Sandow worked over Sheamus for a little fom this point. He hit his knee with Sheamus dropped over the ropes then did a headscissors on Sheamus. Haven't seen that in a while. Sheamus got worked over with some restholds for a while and some other attacks from Damien Sandow. Sheamus was bleeding in between his eyes and pulled himself up to the top rope from the mat. Sheamus threw Cody in the ring and then hit a Double Brogue Kick for the win. This was a decent match where Damien Sandow looked pretty good. Jim Ross really put over Sandow hard here and called it a "career match". Hopefully they will start to put more faith in Sandow now.

Michael Cole introduced JR for Jim Ross Appreciation Night but CM Punk and Paul Heyman quickly crashed the show. Punk kicked out Michael Cole and the crowd booed it surprisingly. CM Punk said JR was the best announcer and said he and the crowd respected him, but that the crowd didn't know what respect is. Punk said that JR is going to help teach the people about respect by saying that CM Punk is the best in the world. JR said that Punk has done a good job making a jacka$$ of himself and embarassing himself on tv.

Punk ripped on Stone Cold and JR's announcing of him and then told JR that he will say that Punk is the best in the world. JR told Punk to go kick Cena's butt at Hell in a Cell and said he won't say he's the best until he does that. Punk then stomped JR's cowboy hat and brought up the Thunder losing to the Heat and said they won't get another shot at being the best in the world. Ryback eventually came down to save Jim Ross. He stared down Punk and Punk ended up leaving. Heyman yelled "You're still the best in the world" and "You get paid to fight" as they left. This segment went on forever, but I like that they are pushing Ryback here. I think they totally could have accomplished the same thing in 10 minutes or less.

Alberto Del Rio vs Kofi Kingston
They showed clips after Smackdown with ADR giving Randy Orton a beatdown. Ricardo was at the booth for this one. Kofi did a really nice springboard dive onto the outside here. Ricardo said that it was 3 on 1 here with Kofi, Truth and Little Jimmy. Nice line. Kofi was looking strong in this but then he got armbarred for the Alberto Del Rio win. Ricardo then did the ADR intro into at the booth before running to hold up ADR's arm.

AJ argued with her coach in the back as the coach told her to do a bunch of things. AJ then told him that he will be the special ref for the main event tonight, but then said, the coach has never been a player, so he needs to get out of the arena. She then said, "I don't need a coach, especially an executive one".

Special Ref - AJ Lee: Team Hell No - Daniel Bryan and Kane vs CM Punk and Dolph Zigger
DB yelled "NO" in a girl's face a bunch of times. AJ was surprisingly announced as the special ref. JR said that reffing is hard because "You have to call what you see, but you have to see what you call". JR called this, "Days of Our WWE Lives". Most of this was cut off by commercials. Kane mostly controlled the opening portion of the match over Ziggler. He tagged in DB and we got Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk for a little. AJ gazed into Punk's eyes after a nearfall. DB hit a big top rope butterfly suplex on Punk. Paul Heyman argued with AJ Lee as a foot was on the ropes and then he got ejected by AJ. AJ Lee then ejected Vickie Guerrero right after for the face pop. Dolph followed Vickie leaving Punk to get hit a big drop kick and a Kane chokeslam. Kane pinned Punk for the win. Decent match here, but nothing too special. After the match, Kane and DB yelled "I'm the tag team champion".

Overall thoughts: This was just an okay show. Nothing was bad though the JR segment was terribly long. The matches could have been longer but atleast there wasn't anything stupid. The one good thing on this show is that we got Team Hell No in the main plus Ryback getting some helpful facetime. They didn't really build anything for Hell in the Cell though. Skip it.