RAW Results and Commentary

JBL pins CM Punk and will fight for the Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam.
Shawn Michaels might quit wrestling to be with his family.

Segment Five
After Layla inexplicably writhes around seductively for a few minutes William Regal rudely interrupts her. Before he can tell us how he’s King Jamie Noble rushes into the ring to attack him and win Layla’s love. Regal is about twice his size. What was the point of that?

Segment Six
The next match is the CM Punk - JBL - Y2J handicap match “(Mike) Adamle Original.” Shouldn’t the World Heavyweight champ be headlining Monday Night RAW? Adamle adds a nice twist to the match by limiting the match to ten minutes. If there’s no pin in ten then the three will fight a Triple Threat at SummerSlam. Anything to make JBL less boring and harder working is fine by me.

After JBL beats Punk up for two minutes Y2J tosses JBL into the stairs and has his own few minutes to thrash the champ. The match has currently gone four minutes without Punk landing one successful attacking move. Y2J hits a flying elbow. Match is half-way through. Punk still hasn’t done anything.

He finally hits two offensive moves but at that point JBL stops his short period of success. Punk has no capitalized on his opponents’ in-fighting. He’s now doing pretty well and is using the two against each other. He catches JBL with a Got To Sleep but can’t get the pin. One minute left and Y2J lands a Walls of Jericho in the middle of the ring.

JBL breaks the move up with 20 seconds left. We’re counting down 10-9-8-7-6-5-4 and JBL flops onto the prone Punk pins him 1-2-3 or is it 3-2-1. This was a great entertaining match but CM Punk has proven to be a pathetic excuse for a champ. He got beat up badly for nine of the ten minutes and was pin by someone who had no idea of where he was.

Segment Seven
It’s a Shawn Michaels interview. He says he’s got severe eye damage, broken ribs, and countless other horrifically lingering injuries. This time he’s going to listen to the doctors and quit if they say quit. We will all know his decision (or the docs’ decision) at SummerSlam. He says he loves his family and might stop wrestling to be with them. Didn’t Brett Favre say something like that a few months ago?

RAW Results and Commentary

Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix def. D-Lo Brown and Kelly Kelly
Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, Jr. def. Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole
Kofi Kingston def. Jamie Noble
CM Punk def. William Regal
Mickie James def. Jillian
Batista and John Cena def. JBL and Kane

Last night RAW crowned a new General Manager. Someone to stop the anarchy and the lawlessness. The expectation was a Gary Cooper, a Governator, a John Wayne, or even (gasp) a Gipper. But we all should have seen the writing of the wall. Chaos has been good for business. RAW’s ratings are up and fans are interested again. Too bad the show’s quickly taken a post-Draft second fiddle to SmackDown.

The night started with the unbelievable promise of a John Cena vs. Batista main event. The two Grade A Superstars wanted to get it on. The were ripe — Cena in a new red V-neck Cenation T-shirt and Batista in a fresh Wes Unseld Washington Bullets throwback — and ready for action. It’s the match everyone has been waiting for and desperate to see.

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Who would have thunk it? Last night’s William Regal get gone match was weaved into the storyline because the former RAW GM violated the WWE’s Substance Abuse and Drug Testing Policy for the second time thus incurring a 60-day suspension. Looks like we weren’t too far off last night with our own conclusion of Regal descending into an alcoholic misery, moving to Albany, and becoming the subject of William Kennedy’s next novel.

London’s salacious Sun newspaper reports that it is not known which drug it was that he either tested positive for or was caught with. But the tabloid does make its own conclusion:

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Image details: Screening Of "Carandiru" At Tribeca Film Festival served by picapp.com

Monday Night Raw Match Four:

William Regal vs. Mr. Kennedy

Who is that in the picture? It’s William Kennedy. Pulitzer Prize winning author of Albany, N.Y.-based novels. His colorful characters range from the wonderfully real (gangster Legs Diamond) to the fictional but evocatively and emotionally empathetic (Francis Phelan). All of whom are much more compelling than his namesakes William Regal and Mr. Kennedy.

Nevertheless we are sure some of Kennedy’s (the author) shady players know their way around brass knuckles which is what William Regal has now outfitted himself with. He tells the referee “This is now a no disqualification match” and moves his way towards Kennedy. But the annoying one dimensional loudmouth surprises the obnoxious anglo and pins him with an awfully quick three count.

Regal is now officially gone. “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase presumably is in. The camera lingers on our tragic fallen hero in the middle of the ring. We’re assuming that his failure is going to linger forever, he’s going to descend into an alcoholic misery, move to Albany, and become the subject of Wm. Kennedy’s next novel.

Match Rating: D

Image details: A Conversation with Mr. Warmth.Don Rickles served by picapp.com

Monday Night Raw: The Pit of the Piper

Before the match begins Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase interrupts Vince McMahon’s meeting with an exercising William Regal. Clearly DiBiase’s son’s recent entry into the WWE means that his dad wasn’t far behind. Now it all makes sense. Ted and Regal will be engaged in a RAW GM power play. Regal’s malevolent megalomania was getting tired anyway.

Next up is Roddy Piper’s return to Piper’s Pit. But no, it’s Santino Marella wonderfully dressed as Roddy with a big stomach and a bad hairpiece. His jokes are terrific but calling Adrian Adonis a “fat transvestite” is crossing the line.

We see the “Jimmy the Kimmel” highlights again of Santino, Roddy Piper, and Jimmy’s Cousin Sal exchanging slaps at at Hooters. Roddy appears, endowment jokes are made, cakes are thrown in faces and Cousin Sal gets a match with Santino. Which is an odd end to a funny segment. D-level celebrity vs. Pro wrestler matches never work out well. We want Roddy vs. Marella! Which we think we probably happen anyway.

Segment Grade: B before the match announcement; C+ after

The Main Event
Between bouts Beth Phoenix appears and complains about not having the Women’s Title. We pretend she’s not there and move on to the next interview: Randy Orton. Orton is snarling, Orton is boastful and he’s ready for John Cena. He pulls out his litany of self-promotion. “I’ve taken out the best” blah blah blah, “Age of Orton” blah blah blah “Triple H has a lucky night” blah blah blah. He ends the interview by stating tonight he’ll prove he’s the smartest wrestler in the WWE. We’re thinking a trivia contest, maybe a puzzle.

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The Build Up
72% of WWE fans believe Shawn Michaels‘ knee injury is real. We are not one of them. Neither was Y2J but he now admits that after their last Monday match he is convinced and wants to apologize. Shawn Michaels limps in, his knee looking at least 10x worse than last week and a good 50% worse than the week before. But (GASP) Michaels admits he’s not hurt. Is he faking again? Why won’t this segment end? We will no longer fake interest.Segment Grade: D

OH MY GOSH! The return of Jeff Hardy. He’s back! We’ve missed you so much we know it’s been difficult with your house fire and your suspension and oh my gosh we’ve just missed you so much it’s so so great to see you!

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The Setup
There’s some big bad out-of-control bullying going on. For the third(!) week in a row RAW General Manager William Regal is angry about being disrespected. This time, instead of turning out the lights, he’s kicking out a random pair in the audience. Miraculously, he picks out Mickie James‘ brother and sister to toss. Evidently they’ve made the trek to Detroit from Richmond, Va. Gas prices be damned.

Mickie James doth protest the ejection. After she balks at her own Regal-dictated dismissal he angrily tells her “What part of get out of the ring don’t you understand?” (Nominee #1 for best line of the night) Who will help poor Mickie? Will her recently-earned title be stripped?

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The Setup:
Monday Night Raw begins with none other than the chairman Vince McMahon. Here’s a shocker, he “100% supports and endorses” William Regal, calls him “visionary” and “innovative” and says he reminds him of himself. The audience boos heartily, still smarting from last Monday’s premature blackout.

Regal comes out and turns the lights off again to a chorus of “Regal sucks” chants. He promises to do the entire show in “internal” darkness, which might not be eternal but makes sense somehow. Mr. Kennedy shows up with a silly amount of facial stubble. Regal reminds everyone that “I will not be disrespected!” and orders Kennedy to fight entire ECW in the main event. We hope he bloodies Kennedy’s lip again. He doesn’t, instead choosing to tell us again that “I will not be disrespected.”

Triple H appears presumably to do some disrespecting. But no, he’s still angry for being disrespected. Very angry. He thinks Regal has “declared war on him” by pulling the plug last week. Regal, of course, informs Triple H that he’s joining Mr. Kennedy in the fight-the-whole ECW match. Sounds a little gimmicky and anticlimactic to us.

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Yesterday, Dave Metzler’s Wrestler Observer reported that the Legend Killer Randy Orton has requested a few weeks leave from house shows and an upcoming WWE tour to Mexico presumably to spend more time with his wife. Orton’s wife is expecting a child this summer.

Cowboy Bob’s son cited burnout as the reason for his request. Orton’s absence should not affect his cable TV and pay-per-view appearances. We’ll still be able to see him every week.

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