Hey, you! Be sure you’ve read The Best And Worst Of WWE Royal Rumble 2013 before watching Raw.
Tonight, on the WWE Raw Open Discussion Thread:
There will be no Day 435 for CM Punk’s WWE Championship reign. The Straight Edge Superstar’s near unprecedented run as WWE Champion ran into a brick wall at the 2013 Royal Rumble when Punk lost his precious prize to The Rock in a highly anticipated, hotly contested match that took both Superstars to the brink. Now that The People’s Champion has made good on his promise to claim the WWE Title once more, though, what awaits on Day 1 of The Rock’s new title reign? And with John Cena having won the Royal Rumble Match, earning a World Title challenge of his choice at WrestleMania, will that throw a wrench into Punk’s plans for a rematch? (via WWE.com)
Five-point preview:
1. I haven’t decided how I’m officially handling Rock’s 2013 WWE title reign. It’s somewhere between “reviewing old episodes of WCW Monday Nitro” and “unloading every Paramore GIF at my disposal.” I think I’ll just move forward assuming he won’t be on the shows, and when he pops in to say YO JINDER MAHAL CHING CHONG WING WONG or whatever I can pretend I’m watching something else.
2. Tonight, Paul Heyman gets a “performance evaluation,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense because I always thought he was CM Punk’s like, independently contracted business manager or whatever. But hey, Vickie Guerrero can tell the San Jose Police Department what to do, so who knows.
3. Know all that stuff you wanted to see last night at the Royal Rumble, but didn’t? It’s on Raw tonight, for free!
4. Hopefully the mystery entrants from the Royal Rumble will stick around and be a part of the roster, because they’re great. Except for the Godfather. Unless he wants another run as Papa Shango, which would be THE GREATEST.
5. Quiet defeat.
Remember, the 10 best comments from tonight’s WWE Raw open discussion thread will be featured in tomorrow’s Best and Worst of Raw report. To nominate a comment for top 10 status, reply to it with a +1, please and thank you.
Enjoy the show, everybody.
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Has JBL appeared on the first Raw following PPVs before? Not complaining he was there, just seemed weird.
5000.
Anyone still confused about the Brad Mad-Ox part of last night?
Maybe he’ll stick to trying to be a commentator now?
I wonder if the Shield buys a ticket to the show every time they decide to make an entrance.
Nah, Roman Reigns says he’s Mason Ryan, Dean Ambrose says he’s Evan Borne and Seth Rollins says he’s Alex Riley.
Fun fact: All those guys are still employed by the WWE despite never seeing them. Ever.
Oh, I’ve seen Alex Riley. They use him in dark matches/Superstars. The very first wrestling match I saw in person was Alex Riley vs someone even less famous than he is. It was pretty bad.
(Also, over 5k comments! It seems like bad episodes of wrasslin leads to lots of comments on WL.)
Why didn’t Ziggler cash in his MitB briefcase after Lesnar obliterated McMahon?
Because Mcmahon isn’t champion?
This is random I know, but I think it would be an awesome Raw chamber match to have each Shield member against Cena, Ryback, and Sheamus. Each side should pick their starter and just go from there. The Smackdown chamber will determine Del Rio’s #1 contender (which will probably be announced tonight).
That’d be cool, but, it’d be too formulaic in its execution. Just make it a tornado match and all will be well and violent.
So more or less War Games.
War Games would be cool.
I loved War Games… basically the Chamber is War Games with pods.
I must reiterated how awesome Paul E’s pleading of “Vince, please leave the ring,” was. Man, that guy can sell a situation like no other.
If we could just get a commentary booth of Heyman and JBL, we’d be on to something.
We could get a commentary booth of Golden Retrievers, it’d be an upgrade to the garbage that spews from Cole and Lawler.
Last night, we were all Brock Lesnar. Brock is a vessel of destruction for all things that upset me.
yes.
The streak continues, people! I was at RAW last night. For some reason, I’m like a good luck charm, if I’m in the building, RAW turns out to be pretty good and something awesome happens. I MEAN, DID YOU SEE GREAT KHALI SINGING “SEXY BOY”!? INCREDIBLE!
A performance for the ages. At first I was sad because I don’t think the Great Khali can’t read, but then I figured he probably just can’t read in english.
The Great Khali not knowing how to read would make for one hell of an angle and storyline.
The theme for the new Dangerous Alliance should be any song off of the 5 Hour Energy guy’s debut album.
Someone already mentioned this, but the shift in the thread’s mood from “Vince is in the ring, Heyman’s gonna get ‘fired,’ *dismissive wank*” to “GIVE US SLAUGHTER” was freaking amazing. Even more amazing to read it today, having had no idea what had happened on the show.
I couldn’t bring myself to partake in the chat last night, but reading through, I’m enjoying this point. I have been reading in reverse though, so it’s been more like MURDER, wank, beef mode rape, Paul Heyman is about to be fired.
This crowd never disappoints.
I love the video on WWE.com about McMahon and his broken pelvis.
FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME PEOPLE:
Ziggler can ONLY cash in his briefcase for the WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP. This means he cannot cash it in and take the WWE CHAMPIONSHIP from THE ROCK.
Thank you and have a wonderful day. :D
This year’s WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view is being sponsored by GI Joe 2, which stars The Rock, and WWE’s new Powerslammers toys.
OH REALLY?! why am i NOT surprised. >.>
Not to mention that last night Raw was sponsored by Snitch.
I hope Heyman gets all the bests. His time with VKM reminded me of Peter Pettigrew trying to snivel away from Lupin and Sirius by pleading with Harry. For that, I want to boo him which I think is the best compliment you can give a bad guy.
All I could think when I saw poor Brad Maddox begging for his survival and Heyman taking on the roll of Tony Soprano was “Damn, that’s f*cked up”
I was legit scared for the kid and wanted Heyman to get comeuppance.
So Brad Maddox is Matthew Bevilaqua?
they’re playing with my emotions and I like it!
How amazingly awesome was Punk’s promo last night??!! Everytime he opens his mouth, its like an overload of legitimate truths. If you didnt stand up for that, you’re doing it wrong. If you want to succeed in life, forget Tim Tebow, CM Punk should be speaking at your graduation.
+why couldn’t I have someone cool for my graduation speech?
so the Mania card is shaping up like
Cena v Rock 2
HHH v Brock Lesnar
That’s gonna be one hell of a long piss break
Yeah, that’s why the undercard matches are going to be what makes it or breaks it for me. Hopefully, there’s something more interesting being planned than what everyone is thinking. Kinda doubt it though.
By the way, really looking forward to another great B/W by Mr. Brandon Stroud. Also, can we just go ahead and best Paul Heyman’s……everything!!! Please and thank you.
Is there any way that Ziggy could cash in and kill the Rock…because, I need that…
Nope, he can only cash it in for the Heavyweight Championship.
If we’ve learned anything, the WWE has a way of just making up things as they go along…i.e. Vince’s royal rumble stipulation
Totally called that F-5 on VKM. Best and only good part of the show.
Indeed you did
I SERIOUSLY wanna know why the intercontenintal badge has GODDAMN KOFI KINGSTON on it ! JUST WHY ?!
Because Brandon is a professional troll.
THE SUPERSTAR BADGE WITH GODDAMN FREAKING KANE ON IT IS UNLOCKED TOO !!! HELL YEEEAH !!!
Easy boy.
HOW CAN I BE EASY ?! I’M JUST 3 BADGES AWAY FROM CLOSING IN ON ALL 10 !!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH BADGES !!!
AWESOME ! THE ~EVE~ DIVA BADGE IS UNLOCKED !!! HALF WAY THROUGH !!!
When are they going to announce the Brodus Clay – Fandangoo match for Wrestlemania? My momma wants to watch some Funkadactyls ballroom dancing.
Because I’m a newbie:
[img]http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/7426/onthesamescreenastheroc.png[/img]
[img]http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/3624/rszp1010154.jpg[/img]
I know most of you guys hate Rock…but yeah. I had an amazing time. Nothing beats a live wrestling experience for the first time!
If someone could make the pictures appear, help me? xD
Only certain people can embed images.
nobody said that you can’t like the rock !
brandon always says “if you enjoy calling people cookie puss, then do so ! the rock is just not meant for me …”
you can enjoy the rock !
it’s just that we don’t (and rightfully too … because from our prespective he’s really really awful sometimes (just not as much as cena yet this year (although he wasn’t here except for just 4 weeks until now)))
I don’t hate the Rock, I hate the lazy, mailed in approach. Like what you like, I’m glad you had a good time.
The Las Vegas crowd admirably sat on their hands…until Hornswoggle got on the top rope.
I’m watching on DVR, is Orton’s current character “sentient Affliction T-shirt”?
Finally, an explanation for why he never wears pants.
It all makes sense…
is it me or has he gotten CHUNKIER?
Question: Why is everyone assuming Punk and Taker is a for sure a thing?
Any ideas for an alternative? That’s the only one that makes WM sense at this point. Former Legendary Streak VS Legendary Streak
I do think that something like Punk v Bork has a lot of merit, but it really is a long shot when HHH is slated to fight Bork in popular opinion.
Am I clueless? Who is Bork?
Brock Lesnar, got it nm.
Now that he doesn’t have the title, what point is it to feed Punk to Taker? I’d rather Punk fight Bork, or weasel into the Rock/Jern title match some how.
Lesnar signed for 2 more years. Planned feuds with Punk / Orton.
Orton doesn’t fit into anyone’s plans, and it’s hard to imagine him slumming with Cesaro and the US Championship. I could see him against the Undertaker leaving Punk to wrestle the Shield or Brock.
I wish we could have Brock vs Rock for the title at Mania. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense because after the show it leaves the world title in a weird spot but having Brock come back and remind him that the last time they were in the ring together Brock beat him for that title and ended his full time career would make for some really compelling vulnerability.
The only way that Cena v Rock II will be worth a damn is if it finally leads to Cena’s character snapping and turning heel over the fear of losing to Rock again and even with that payoff (which would have to happen in the match itself) wouldn’t spare us the heinous build up to that match.
A triple threat with all of the aforementioned parties would just be booking for the sake of booking. It would be like a WWE Universe Mode Main Event.
As long as the kids love him and buy his merchandise, Cena is never turning heel. It’s gonna have to be a Hogan-like situation, where the heel turn is done out of desperation to save a dying career.
No doubt. I am not saying I think ANY of these things are going to happen. It would a be a pleasant surprise if they did but I think we all know how this story is going to end. It is the wrong type of predictability and it is one of the many vines that has wrapped itself around my fandom, starved it from the light, and slowly strangled the life from it despite its deep and long-set roots.
So Wrestlemania is pretty much booked right?
Cena/Rock
Bork/HHH
Punk/Taker
Bryan/Kane
Ziggler/Jericho
Sheamus/Big Show/ADR triple threat
Cesaro/Orton
I guess they could switch Punk/Taker and Bork/HHH but the whole thing with Brock beating up Vince makes me think Hunter is going to get revenge for his pop pop.
Is Miz actually hurt? Because otherwise I’d imagine he’s winning the US title at Mania.
There’s still 2 months to get through. I don’t think it’s a lock that all of the current rivalries are going to make it unitl then. For example, I could see Jericho/Ziggler and Bryan/Kane wrapping it up earlier. Who knows though.
I agree with DevilDinosaur, its possible that HHH avenges his Daddy’s beating, which is incredibly lame because didn’t we see that shit last year? So this year’s plan is LETS REPEAT WHAT WE DID LAST YEAR. YAY.
ENOUGH OF THE 0.5-POWERBOMB.
For a Raw Roulette, I’m really surprised that we got over 3k comments, let alone nearly 5k.
there was a lot to bitch about
It was borderline the worst Raw episode ever for a long period of time. Ergo, lots of bitching.
Plus, we’re predisposed to bitching.
There was a bitching hangover from the rumble….
yeah, but we all kept bitching. AND watching.
Bork was originally the explorer Brock Edward Lesnar from the farming planet Daakortaa, which existed in the universe before the Big Bang. When an impending cataclysm gradually kills all other life in his universe, he and other survivors leave Daakortaa via a space vessel, eventually becoming engulfed in the Big Crunch. However, Brock Edward Lesnar does not die, but is transformed through a bonding with the Sentience of the WWE Universe. He gestates for billions of years in the next universe that formed, emerging as BORK LAZER. A Watcher (“Paul E. Dangerously”) observes the birth of BORK LAZER, but chooses not to take the opportunity to kill him. Once fully aware, BORK LAZER experiences hunger so strongly that he consumes the nearby planet of Hardcoredivisionia. The planet ultimately becomes the first of many, as BORK LAZER must consume their life energies for sustenance. In memory of both his dead home-world of Daakortaa and for the first planet to fall prey to his hunger, BORK LAZER constructs his new “home-world”, The Brocktagon.
Later on, BORK LAZER becomes involved in a civil war amongst the “Proemial Gods”, who came into being during the WWE Universe’s infancy as caretakers of the Attitude Era. After a faction of the gods led by Rocky of Maivia attempts to remake the universe in their image, BORK LAZER slays Rocky and imprisons two other rebel gods, Matt Hardy v.1 and Jeff Hardy v4:20 in the Kyln.
And here are the Jump-Off-A-Cliff Notes to preface 2wice in a Lifetime™.
Cody vs. Cena – proof that the WWE hates us
I mean, my God. Why build Cody up, just to have him destroyed by SuperDouche??!!
WWE Universe @WWEUniverse
Let’s see: @HeymanHustle, @CMPunk, Brock Lesnar, @TheShieldWWE, @BradMaddoxIsWWE? … Is this the 2nd coming of the #DangerousAlliance? #RAW
Retweeted by Paul Heyman.
Just leaving that here.
Holy shit
The Shield have a twitter? That is so stupid it almost ruins them for me. Chaotic forces of destruction don’t give a shit about social media.
Times have changed Shabby. You NEED to have social media to be a chaotic force. Why do you think Obama waged cyber warfare on Iran?
Why do you think all their promos have terrible production values? They blew the majority of their budget on social media.
Sounds like I didn’t t miss much on the drive home.
I predict Jericho v MY BOY DANIEL BRYAN RIGHT THERE at ‘Mania.
Nah, Bryan vs Kane and Ziggler vs Jericho
“YO JINDER MAHAL CHING CHONG WING WONG”
I could seriously picture The Rock saying this. I liked the episode, can’t wait for the B&W tomorrow.
Heh, I think acknowledging that India rests in South Asia might be a little too enlightened for The Rock’s crowd. Although, I could see that being Rock’s only way of getting through to them. Well, according to the WWE’s great opinion of its own fans.
Its funny how The Rock has no other insult but you have no testicles, you have ugly titties or whatever and bitch. Or Biotch(which is the PG vesion of Bitch? WOW really I didn’t know that WWE)… he probably says that so that his ignorant audience has an idea of where India is, even if its totally the wrong location.
Because Swearing is COOL!
I probably should have chosen a moment for my first comment that’d permit me to be funny, as opposed to smarky philosophical, but I can’t help myself. The worst part of that final segment is the reveal that Heyman (and, if I remember correctly, Punk) PAID Maddox and the Shield to do their dirty work. In the past, heel stables had underlings that were committed to the group based on the charisma of the leader. Call it a cult of personality, to borrow a phrase. Hell, even Corporation-era McMahon often brought people over to his side based not on cold hard cash, but by convincing them of a greater plan. This did a couple of things. First, it legitimized the main heel (by making him seem powerful, insofar as he was able to exercise dominion over others through sheer will). Second, in the best cases, it made for compelling secondary storylines when the stable broke up (student challenges the teacher, that sort of thing). But in JERN-era WWE, the only defining characteristic of a bad guy is that they are spineless weasels, and so obviously they couldn’t obtain the unfair advantage they needed by their own guile, but rather need money to do so. Because evil people are weak and don’t have friends.
I know this is a small point relative to all the overt misogyny and irrelevant namecalling in how WWE writes its faces. But if we can’t expect the bad guy to even have the ability to carry out a master plan more complex or intractable than “hire thugs,” then their losses are even more preordained than it appears.
Respectfully, I like that Heyman (I’m going to hold out on including Punk at the moment) hired Maddox and The Shield. It’s clean… the WWE Championship gave Heyman credibility and he was going to make sure he was associated with a champion no matter what it cost. Maddox has the storyline that he’ll do anything to be a Superstar, to be in the spotlight, and the deal with Heyman was just a part of his overall whole story. The Shield has their own agenda and reasons behind their actions, and keeping the belt on Punk was something they were paid to do on the side of their agenda. This can be a very exciting story…it needs time and patience (it’s been barely over 2 months since Survivor Series when The Shield came out of nowhere, and 3 since Maddox pulled his stunt in the Cell).
I like the Shield doing it for money. It adds some hypocrisy to their rants about injustice, which is needed to make them truly villainous, since as of right now they’re faces in my book, and would be getting nothing but cheers if they weren’t only attacking the top faces.
Maddox doing it for the money makes slightly less sense. It would be better if Heyman had promised to get him a job as a wrestler instead, but that’s a relatively minor flaw in the storyline.
Brad did it for the money but he came back for more and more as Paul said (and I’m sure he didn’t mean the money). And as it was told earlier on this Raw then Brad sold/gave the tape to Vince presumably to get a permanent job. These are clear motivations for Brad and also a vengeance for the beatdown.
I enjoyed Raw tonight in my “Suspension of Disbelief” mode (no chat rooms, no smartphone, no spoilers).
Also, I called it: The Shield doesn’t have a “leader”, they are hired guns who are simply paid to do the job that is called for. No need for a super alliance, just keep it simple.
Side note: wouldn’t it be interesting if CM Punk had no idea about Heyman’s deals with The Shield? It would be an interesting transition back to being a face without him having to go all “clown shoes” on it.
It could lead to Punk/Bork at Wrestlemania, which would spare us HHH/Bork so I’m all for it.
I think they’re eventually going to do Punk vs Shield. (Or at least Punk vs Ambrose)
When your top heel is getting his name chanted by half the crowd even while he’s insulting both them and the most popular wrestler in the world, that is an inevitable face turn in the making.
Well that was fun everybody. Later
brock/punk vs HHH/taker at mania
this Raw was such a punk ass bitch….
“Swearing is caring”
Alright bye bye peepz!
Still can’t believe Brock killed Willy Wonka
I do admire Wonka. He’s a true capitalist. His factory has zero government regulations, slave labor and an indoor boat. Truly wonderful.
I thought that was the Joker sans the makeup
I’m still laughing at the immediate thread bloodlust swerve from when Bork came out.
After last night and the first 95% of tonight, the Stroudmouths were ready for someone to get a comeuppance.
Oh, I was right there with them. It was just funny to see the immediate change from “this kinda sucks, jokey fun time” to MURDERDEATHSPLOSION
That’s the beauty of Brock’s character. Guys like Rock and Cena make us wonder if Poochie is ever getting to the fireworks factory. Brock Lesnar IS the fireworks factory.
I love that assessment, @shabbydude. All Lesnar does is go boom.
Tonight’s Raw brought to you by the Genie Bra.
Do you ever wonder why Bork leers at his prey for a good 90 seconds before dispatching with them? It’s because Bork is an old school adventure game villain.
He will kill you dead in 3 turns unless you USE the JIMMY JOHN’S SANDWICH on BORK.
The trick to this is you need to OPEN WRAPPER beforehand, or he’ll kill you anyways. Then your corpse will be eaten by a grue.
Easter Egg: if you inspect Vince’s pocket, you’ll find the HAND SANITIZER, even though it was discarded earlier in the segment. Clearly a programming oversight.
Damnit. I already used my +1
+1! So good!
damn turn based battle system
you had me at grue
+1
All right, I’m going to bed. Night, crazy folk.
I’ll admit that I skipped this Raw because Royal Rumble left a bad taste in my mouth, but as a penance for leaving you guys, I watched The Hulk (the Eric Bana one) on AMC.
Love those Hulk dogs