History Made Tonight on RAW

Tonight history was made on the special 3 hour Monday Night RAW, and it was made early!  It was announced that Brie Bella would defend the WWE Women's Championship against one of three possible opponents, and we the fans would be voting to determine which one it would be!  The choices were Eve, Kelly Kelly, and Beth Phoenix.  The vote came down, if I remember correctly, 51 percent for Kelly Kelly, 37 percent for Beth Phoenix, and about 12 percent for Eve.  A surprisingly close vote, but nonetheless your winner is Kelly Kelly!  And she made the most of her opportunity, in a great match she managed to coutner Brie's impressive counter of Kelly's Victory Roll attempt, esssentially ending up the way she intended all along from the Victory Roll itself, and scoring the 3 count, winning the Women's Championship for the very first time!  After the match an emotional Kelly Kelly thanked the fans in an in-ring interview segment with Jerry the King Lawler, it was indeed a very special moment for Kelly Kelly and her fans around the world!

Of course there was plenty of other action in this bigtime 3 hour RAW, perhaps the 'best of the rest' was that incredible in-ring segment that began with R Truth, he was hilarious as usual, then Christian came out and was funny too, and after that the Miz came out also!  They were all complaining about their losses last night (R Truth saying he 'got got by Little Jimmy' was especially hilarious), culminating in 'Riley!  Randy!  Riley!  Randy!  Little Jimmy!' it was off the charts hilarious, and ultimately led to a 6 man Tag Team match between the three of them and Riley, Orton, and Cena, for the Main Event!

Speaking of Main Events, it was determined that CM Punk would be the one to face John Cena at the next PPV, which is in CM Punk's home town, and on a sad note, CM Punk announced after he won the #1 Contendership that this Main Event match with Cena would be his last match in the WWE, he said his contract was up after July 17th, which is the date of the PPV, and that he was leaving, and he plans on leavnig as the World Champion.  Of course he won't be leaving as Champion, but he will definitely be leaving on a very high note, he's still one of the very best in the world as well as one of the most popular, and if he isn't going to come back to the WWE I certainly hope he comes back to TNA, where he did very well years ago before coming to the WWE.

Another entertaining segment was the 'dance off' featuring Vicki Guerrero!  Vicki danced first, then the fans got to decide which of the three RAW announcers would challenge her.  Incredibly, the fans actually voted for Michael Cole, narrowly over Jerry Lawler, with Booker T a distant third (something like 47 to 39 to 14), and Cole, after telling the crowd to 'sit back and watch perfection' proceeded to do a VERY hilarious dance routine, and then win the contest 'by getting the loudest boos', which earned him a slap from Vicki!  She yelled 'You cheated!  I'm the winner!' and walked off, the whole thing was just super hilarious.

Finally the Main Event, and the fans voted for the 'Elimination Match' stipulation.  As a result, Alex Riley was eliminated after a Skull Crushing Finale, Miz was eliminated by the FU, R Truth was eliminated by the RKO, Orton was eliminated by a Spear from Christian, then Cena eliminated Christian after Orton (who had already been eliminated) hit an RKO and Cena locked in the STFU and made Christian tap out.  The winner of the match, John Cena, and his team! 

So an incredible night of action, Kelly Kelly wins her first ever Women's Championship, R Truth was incredibly hilarious as usual, Christian actually scored a pinfall over Orton, and once again Cena emerges victorious in the Main Event!  A huge and super duper night of RAW action, can Impact Wrestling possibly hope to match or top this night of awesomeness?  We'll have to wait and see Thursday!  For now, two thumbs up for an awesome Monday Night RAW!

3 Hour RAW

This week's RAW was a speciall 'All Star' RAW, and it was 3 hours long!  Hosted by Stone Cold Steve Austin, the show was 'Awesome' right from the beginning, as the first man out of the curtain was The Miz!  A nice long opening speech preceeded the first appearance of Stone Cold himself, as the Miz called him out!  Austin came out and talked for a while, Miz left and then Alberto Del Rio came out, leading into the first match of the night, Del Rio vs Kane!  A good battle ensued, with Kane ultimately emerging victorious.  After the match Del Rio attacked Kane, but Big Show ran out faster than he perhaps had ever run in his life, you'd have to see it to believe it!  He chased Del Rio off and laid into his ring announcer, the guy who ran over his leg with the car, and totally laid him out!  Austin then announced that it was going to be Big Show vs Del Rio at the PPV Sunday!

Of course there were a lot of appearances from Stone Cold Steve Austin, he was the host of the show as well as the biggest star on it, but there were also a lot of appearances by R Truth as well.  He appeared so many times, and was so hilarious, that by the end of the night the fans were actually cheering him and chanting 'Little Jimmy!', that in and of itself was one of the most hilarious parts of the evening. 

Another heartwarming part of the show was the return of Piper's Pit!  It's always great to see WWE Hall of Famer and cancer survivor Rowdy Roddy Piper on Monday Night RAW.  And this Piper's Pit featured The Miz and Alex Riley!  After some high quality back and forth, Riley challenged the Miz to face Piper one on one, and before he could answer, Stone Cold announced on the Titan Tron that he was making the match, and appointing Riley as the special guest referee!  After a commercial break, Riley had the referee shirt on, and we actually did have a brief little match between the two, it was pretty good!  Ultimately Miz and Riley got to fighting, and Roddy rolled up the Miz from behind for the win!  An incredible night for Hot Rod, and definitely a feel good moment for everybody. 

Speaking of a feel good moment, there was a segment featuring the Bella Twins and Kelly Kelly on The Price Is Right, with Libertarian Superstar and Ron Paul supporter Drew Carey!  Following that fun segment, we had a 7 on 7 Divas match, featuring none other than AJ and Kaitlyn!  For those who didn't see, or don't remember, WWE NXT Season 3, AJ and Kaitlyn were two of the longest lasting Superstars on that show, and their chemestry was simply off the charts, I literally have never seen any two people with as much chemestry as those two, and that was on display again this week, albeit in a relatively small way since neither of them actually made it into the match.  The only ones who actually wrestled were Kelly Kelly and Rosa Mendez, Kelly ultimately getting the win for her team.  After the match the winning Diva team, along with former Divas Champion Eve Torres, performed a 'tribute to Broadway' dance routine!

The main event featured CM Punk vs John Cena.  Sadly we're still close to losing CM Punk, he still hasn't signed a new contract and his current one doesn't have much time left.  They're going all out to re-sign him though, including featuring him in this Main Event match against the Champ, John Cena, a match he WON!  After the match R Truth took the Championship belt and held it up, saying that he was going to become the WWE Champion at the PPV.  While that certainly doesn't seem likely, it would no doubt be highly entertaining, as R Truth has been simply incredible lately, SO much better than his days in TNA, and his days in the WWE before his heel turn. 

So Monday night's 3 Hour All Star RAW was pretty awesome, super fun, highly entertaining, and filled with all sorts of coolness!  It definitely gets two thumbs up from the Gladiator Blog! 

Tonight's WWE PPV

Tonight's WWE PPV, Over The Limit, features several bigtime Championship matches, I'd like to preview them at this time.  First, the Divas Championship Match, featuring the Champion, Brie Bella, against her powerful challenger Kelly Kelly.  Kelly has been awesome lately, she even defeated Brie's sister Nikki on RAW this past week, she's totally earned this Title shot.  Of course Brie Bella is an awesome Champion, so this match will have the potential to be the Match of the Night!  I imagine that we will see Awesome Kong at some point during or after the match also.  Should be a super fun segment, and a real chance of the Title changing hands!

Another major Championship match tongiht will be Randy Orton defending his newly won Championship against the man he defeated for the Title, the Instant Classic, Christian!  This is Christian's Rematch, and he will be going all out to try to regain his Championship that he lost after holding it only a few days.  However the Viper, Randy Orton, is super tough and it's hard to imagine him losing the Title here.  We'll have to wait and see, but I'm going to predict Orton wins in the end.

Finally, the Main Event of the evening, the epic and historic 'I Quit' match between John Cena and The Miz!  This feud has been going on so long, The Miz came out on top at Wrestlemania, but then Cena beat him at the next PPV, so this is their Rubber Match, and what a match it is!  Will John Cena say 'I Quit' for the first time ever?  Or will The Miz be forced to quit, and remain no longer the World Champion?  Certainly Cena has the STFU submission finisher, The Miz doesn't have a submission finisher, but even if he did it's highly unlikely that Cena would ever tap out to it.  Cena is just so unbelievably tough, there's almost no way to make him say I Quit.  Certainly noone has ever found a way to make him do it, so the question is, can the Miz somehow find a way?  If he does, he instantly becomes an ELITE Superstar, with a unique and highly prestigious accomplishment on his resume, in addition to the fact that he would become a Two Time World Champion!  So a lot to gain for the Miz tonight, but very much an uphill battle.  Should be an awesome Main Event, I can't wait to find out what happens tonight!

Awesome RAW last night!

Last night's Monday Night RAW was awesome!  We got off to a fast start, because the Champ was indeed in San Antonio!  But before he could say hardly anything, he was interrupted by Ari!  Alex Riley talked briefly, then first introduced a highlight video, of Miz owning Cena (a lot of pre-Wrestlemania footage there, it seemed), and then introduced the Awesome one himself!  Ari and Miz made their way to the ring, where Riley continued talking, at one point taking a hilarious shot at the San Antonio Spurs.  Eventually it was Cena's turn, and he totally owned Riley, before turning his attention to the Miz, noting that he saw fear on the Miz's face, and that on Sunday he would be saying I Quit.  We then got a message from the Anonymous RAW General Manager, which Michael Cole read from his IPad.  The GM decided that since he gave Cena the right to name the I Quit stipulation for Sunday's PPV Main Event, it was only fair that Miz get to name Cena's opponent and stipulation for RAW's Main Event.  Miz spoke for the first time in the segment, to note that while he hasn't decided Cena's opponent or the stipulation yet, he assured Cena that it would in fact be Awesome!  Sadly that wouldn't turn out to be true, but more on that later.

CM Punk vs Kofi Kingston figured to be a rather boring match with Kingston ultimately prevailing, but in fact the match was decent and CM Punk actually, very surprisingly, came out on top!  Does this mean he's signed a new contract?  You'd think so, but I haven't heard anything about that yet.  In any event, after the match CM stated that he was going to do this 'his way' from now on, and that he was going to make every member of Nexus a star both individually and collectively.  Good stuff!

Of course the highlight of the night once again was the awesome Kelly Kelly.  Her opponent last night was Nikki Bella, the Bella Twin who isn't actually the Champion.  A great back and forth match, with Kelly using some kind of unique move, similar to a rollup but cooler, to score the pinfall victory!  After the match the Bellas, angry at Nikki's defeat, double teamed poor Kelly and laid her out, but of course anything a Divas match is over, you know what's going to happen!  That's right, it's Awesome Kong time!  Kharma's music hit, and she made her way to the ring at her usual speed.  However this time, not only do the Bellas not run, but even though Kong completely ignored them, enterting the ring and slowly walking over to Kelly, one of them actually attacked Kong from behind!  This of course was unfathomably dumb, as Kong dealt with her easily.  She (Brie) got away before Kong could give her the Implant Buster, however her sister Nikki wasn't so lucky, she was last night's victim of Kharma's impressive finisher.  After laying Nikki out, she went back over to Kelly, who was STILL hiding in the corner, unwilling or unable to flee.  She looked scared, but even more than that I have to say she looked unbelievably beautiful.  A fact that may not have been lost on Kong, who couldn't bring herself to attack Kelly.  She towered over her, it was clear that she could do anything she wanted, but she simply played with Kelly's hair, then sort of flicked her finger at Kelly's forehead, it was really funny.  Clearly she didn't want to hurt the awesome Kelly!  She then left the ring, having vanquished the Bellas, and left Kelly unharmed.  Is it possible that the WWE, who we know likes to borrow from TNA storyline ideas, could be borrowing from the Winter and Angelina storyline?  Only time will tell!

It seems that Michael Cole has stuck his foot in his mouth, figuratively speaking, as his comments during his 'Contract Signing' segment with Jerry the King Lawler may have cost himself his side-kick!  He insulted Jack Swagger, causing him to walk out on him shortly after Cole announced that his match with Lawler at the PPV would in fact be a 'Kiss My Foot' match.  So the loser will be the one who kisses the winner's foot, and if indeed Cole is Swagger-less for the match, it would seem that Jerry will be the one to have his royal foot kissed, and he will get to keep his Hall of Fame Ring!  Definitely a huge match this Sunday.

In other action, the two lesser Nexus members actually defeated Big Show and Kane in a non-Title match, thanks to interference from Mason Riley.  Another victory for Punk and the Nexus!  Punk and Riley will face Kane and Big Show for the Tag Team Gold this Sunday, at the PPV.  We also learned last night that Randy Orton will be defending his Smackdown Title against Christian in a return match at the PPV also.

Finally we got to the Main Event, and the Miz revealed that the match that Cena would be having would be a No Holds Barred match, and before he could announce the opponent, Jack Swagger came out and attacked Cena from behind!  Miz then announced that Swagger was Cena's opponent.  Swagger dominated a large part of the match, he used a steel chair on Cena a couple times, but despite the major beating that John Cena took, he dug down deep, made the big comeback, and eventually hit the FU then made Swagger tap with the STFU.  Another huge win for the Champ, John Cena!  After the match the Miz 'guaranteed' that he would be announced as the World Champion after his match with Cena on Sunday, stating that he had found a way to make Cena quit that Cena had never seen before.  He then attacked Cena with a pipe, but when he went to hit him a second time Cena was able to knock it out of Miz's hand, and use it on both Miz and Riley!  Cena owned both men, and that was after owning Swagger!  What a night for Cena, he's got a huge amount of momentum heading into the PPV!  I'm curious to see if the Miz indeed does have some kind of trick up his sleeve, I guess all will be revealed on Sunday.  In the meantime, a great RAW last night, it was a lot of fun, and I'm giving it two thumbs up! 

Monday Night Raw

Last night's edition of Monday Night Raw was only so-so.  It opened with the new formerly-Smackdown wrestlers, Alberto Del Rio and Rey Mysterio, and Rey challenging Alberto to a match for the right to face John Cena for the Title.  The Miz interrupted them, and said something about the two of them having a 'Taco Bell Parking Lot' match while he faced Cena.  But if you thought that was a bit racist, well, you hadn't heard from former TNA Champion Ron 'The Truth' Killings yet!  R Truth came down and said he wanted to 'spit some hate', and proceeded to do just that.  He talked for a while, insulted the other three men, then said that 'When an angry black man (that would be him) is talking, everybody should shut up', and that he was going to be the one to face 'That lily white John Cena'.  That would seem to make Miz's later comment about Rey and Del Rio being 'day laborers' pale in comparison, but maybe that depends on your perspective.  Is racism really necessary here on Raw?  I'd certainly like to think not.  But I suppose this is following TNA's lead, as you may know they've recently introduced a group called 'Mexican America', which brings out a Mexican flag, and they say things like they're taking America back for Mexico, etc. just insanely racist and stupid stuff.  It seems the WWE is taking a page out of TNA's playbook, as they have been known to do from time to time, usually on better ideas than this.  However this would not be the last time on this show that the WWE steals a TNA idea, more on that shortly.

The highlight of the show came in the next segment, which featured not only the Bella Twins, one of whom is the current Womens Champion, but also the returning Kelly Kelly!  She had been on Smackdown far too long, its so great that she's back on RAW.  This time it was in a tag match, with Eve as her partner.  After a nice little back and forth match, Kelly Kelly reversed an attempted Bella rollup for one of her own, and a 3 count victory!  After the match, it was time once again for Awesome Kong to come out and flatten somebody!  Once again, as last week, Kelly Kelly sat in the corner in fear as Kong, now 'Kharma' in the WWE, made her way to the ring.  This time she behaved more intelligently, as after Kong got into the ring she eventually slid out of it, keeping her distance from the huge woman.  The Bellas, even smarter still, simply ran away together.  You guessed it, that means that tonight's victim would be Eve!  She charged at Kong, only to be met with a clothesline that basicly knocked her out, while Kong chased Kelly Kelly around for a while.  Of course Kelly, being about a million pounds lighter, was able to win the battle of foot-speed, and get away.  That meant Kong had to settle for giving tonight's Impant-Buster to Eve, and she proceeded to do so.  Another dominant performance for the Two-Time TNA Womens Champion Awesome Kong, now known as Kharma in the WWE.

Now about that 'other' idea that the WWE stole from TNA last night, and believe me it's a doozey.  Michael Cole made the announcement that he was retiring from wrestling undefeated, but Jerry The King Lawler didn't want to hear that, he still wants to get Cole back in the ring!  So he offered first to 'induct Cole into the Hall of Fame himself' if Cole accepts his challenge (one wonders how Jerry would have the authority to decide who gets into the Hall of Fame, especially people who obviously aren't Hall of Famers, but wait, it gets better), he also offered to put on the line....HIS HALL OF FAME RING!!!!  Oh baby, you may have thought the days of Hall of Fame Ring storylines were over, but you would be WRONG!  Of course the challenge was eventually accepted, and now its going to be Cole vs Lawler once again, and Jerry's Hall of Fame Ring is on the line!  Any chance the WWE might actually go a step futher than TNA, and instead of simply 'suggesting' that the ring gives you Super Powers, maybe actually have lightning shoot out of it or something, special effects style?  We can only hope :) .

In the Main Event, it was Miz vs Rey Mysterio vs Alberto Del Rio for the #1 Contendership.  A good solid match, at the end we saw Alex Riley come down and interfere, pulling Rey off Del Rio following a 619 and top rope dive onto Del Rio, saving him from being pinned and allowing Miz to roll Rey up for a 3 count, and another shot at the Title!  John Cena then came down and announced that his Title match with the Miz at the PPV would in fact be....an I Quit Match!  His music played as he exited triumphantly, indeed the idea of John Cena saying I Quit does seem highly unlikely, so a HUGE advantage for Cena courtesy of this Stipulation! 

So all in all a so-so episode of RAW.   I thought the race stuff was in poor taste (to say the least), and I certainly didn't expect to see the WWE copying TNA so blatantly (but I guess with so many former TNA Superstars on the show it was only a matter of time), but there was still a fair amount of fun to be had last night also.  Its always awesome to see Kelly Kelly in action, its so great she's back on Raw.  It was good to see the Miz back in the Main Event, not just last night but at the PPV also.  After all, he's the Miz, and he's Awesome!  Or so I keep hearing anyway :) .  Definitely looking forward to seeing him continue his feud with John Cena, and I can't wait to find out who Kharma goes after next week!  No doubt Kelly Kelly will be in her sights again, can she keep escaping the extra-large woman's grasp?  We'll just have to tune in and find out!  Feel free to comment, or leave a question, or even both!  Thanks everybody!