WWE All-Star Raw Review: June 13, 2011
Hello Folks! Welcome to the best All-Star Raw review on the Internet! Today marks a special day, as this is the first review that has deviated from the strict title regime I have stuck to since I started reviewing for Bleacher Report.
Monday’s Raw emanated from Long Island, New York. This special three-hour edition featured stars from both brands and had Stone Cold Steve Austin as the guest Raw GM.
The Miz started off proceedings by coming down to the ring to address Alex Riley. He said he would teach Alex Riley a lesson, when the crowd began interrupting him with chants of “what!?” Now, I’m with Miz when he said that was cool in 2001. People seriously need to get over that chant.
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The Miz called out Stone Cold, and he didn’t have to wait long before deafening “Austin” chants were coming from the Long Island crowd. What a difference it makes being in a town that actually cares about the product.
Austin totally ripped into The Miz in an excellent promo, which was reminiscent of those from the Attitude Era. He proceeded to give Riley and Miz credit for their recent accomplishments and set up a Piper’s Pit for later in the evening.
Miz avoided an ass whoopin’, but only because he smartly left the ring when Austin asked him to.
Del Rio interrupted the rattlesnake and told him that he wanted Austin to pass the torch onto the new generation. Austin replied by saying that Del Rio thinks he’s big just because he ran over Big Show, then introduced Kane as his opponent for the evening.
Kane took early control over Del Rio but soon found himself on his back. It wasn’t much longer before he found himself in the Arm-Breaker, but he got to the ropes. Then something happened that I thought I’d never see: Del Rio got disqualified for not breaking the hold before the count of five!
The Big Show came out to save his buddy and began to wail on Del Rio until Ricardo sacrificed himself. Big Show went to town on Ricardo, punching him so much and so viciously that Kane had to apply a partial sleeper just to remove the giant from the arrogant announcer.
It was announced that Del Rio would face the Big Show this weekend at Capitol Punishment.
A six-man tag match followed this, pitting Legacy and Wade Barrett against the team of Sin Cara, Daniel Bryan and Ezekiel Jackson.
It was fun seeing these superstars compete against each other at the same time. Rhodes and DiBiase looked as tight as ever. The one thing that annoyed me was the fact that this match had Sin Cara’s strange lighting over the ring.
The highlight of the match was when Big Zeke flipped Legacy over the top rope simultaneously and then threw Daniel Bryan on them. Sin Cara won with a cross-body on Barrett, picking up the win for his team and proving the theory that the light never lies—if it’s on, he’ll win.
Hornswoggle was out next firing T-shirts at the crowd. R-Truth came to set us free by kicking Hornswoggle square in the face. It was one of the funniest things I think I’ve ever seen.
Austin took offense and told him to pick on someone his own size, at which point John Morrison was revealed to be standing next to him. I really wasn’t expecting to see him, so I was pleasantly surprised by his appearance.
Jerry Lawler got “Jerry!” chants when he went to check on Hornswoggle.
Santino faced Sheamus next and I’m not going to lie, I seriously thought he might win when he hit Sheamus with the Cobra, but thankfully The Celtic Warrior kicked out. He Brogue Kicked Santino then placed him in a Texas Cloverleaf submission hold, which immediately reminded me of Dean Malenko for some reason.
Anyway, Sheamus picked up the win with the new move he debuted.
Orton was out next to call out Christian. Christian appeared on the TitanTron and told Randy that his career has been handed to him on a silver platter, whereas Christian himself has had to work hard for it.
Randy retorted by saying Edge could carry Christian to the ring after carrying Christian for 17 years—(“What’s one more day?”)
Christian complied and came down to face the Viper, but stopped halfway down the ramp. Security surrounded him and the Raw GM chimed in, telling everyone that Randy has a concussion and will not compete on Monday Night Raw.
He was also told that if he didn’t comply he would be stripped of the title. So that was the end of that.
Austin came on the Tron and set up a match between Christian and Mysterio.
There was a botchtastic moment where Christian fell too soon and missed the second rope, scraping his ear on the bottom one. They even showed a replay of it.
When we came back from commercials, guess what was going on in the ring? That’s right, somebody was in a headlock. I swear 90 percent of the time, when we return from commercials, somebody is in a headlock. Anyone else noticed that?
This match ended in a disqualification when Christian did not break on a five count. I’ve waited years for this decision and it happens twice on the same night!! What are the chances?
Christian began to beat on Rey but Rey eventually got the better of the former World Champion—but Punk distracted him. Rey went for Punk instead and the New Nexus came out and destroyed Mysterio, despite his best efforts to fight them off.
A backstage segment followed, where Austin made Dolph drop Vicky to earn a title match against Kofi Kingston. The whole thing turned out to be a joke. While funny, it kind of made the whole thing pointless.
R-Truth and Morrison were supposed to follow but Morrison never showed up. When R-Truth went to look for him (with an injection of comedy, which was very amusing) he found him lying in the corridor holding his neck. All signs pointed to a jump attack from Truth, of course.
He proceeded to bash a huge metal container into the Shaman of Sexy.
Dolph received a vignette where every reference to his brown hair was removed, and deservedly so.
Evan Bourne, tagged with Kofi Kingston, showed some amazing in-ring abilities and won with an Air Bourne. He pinned Jack Swagger, embarrassing him once again. At least Dolph Ziggler wasn't pinned.
Piper’s Pit followed this brief match.
There were huge “Alex Riley” chants resonating throughout the arena. The Long Island crowd were on fire.
Things got heated and Roddy Piper ended up in a match with Miz with $5,000 on the line. Alex Riley was the special guest referee and managed to distract Miz for long enough so Roddy Piper could win with a roll up. Riley then ejected the embarrassed star from the ring.
Wounded, Miz. Jericho could have gotten away with a loss like that, but not you.
Kelly Kelly beat Rosa Mendes with her half FameAsser thing she does. Sounds like a singles match doesn’t it? That’s what it looked like. It was in fact a 7-on-7 Divas tag team match, though you wouldn’t know it.
I really didn’t see the point in that match.
They celebrated by doing an embarrassing Broadway kick thing. You know what I mean.
Punk confronted Austin, who was hanging with Andy from Tough Enough for reasons I cannot fathom. He should be off screen so people forget that he won a reality show, so he can debut as Silent Rage.
Punk was offered a beer and a multitude of alcoholic beverages to wet his whistle. He refused, and after mimicking the “what?” catchphrase, thanked Austin for giving him a match with Cena.
In the penultimate segment of the night, Austin rode down to the ring in his ATV, made Cole crap himself, did an Edge on the Raw GM and rode off into the sunset, broken laptop in hand.
He also said that next week it will be Power to the People! Which if I was a pessimist—let’s face it, I am—people will choose rubbish matches as they did at the Cyber Sunday events.
Cena faced Punk, and I’m surprised they could even hear themselves. I haven't heard a crowd that loud since I started watching wrestling again. They were so deafening I had to turn my headphones down. That is what it should be like every week! It made the main event seem that much more exciting!
Punk had control before Cena’s Superman act kicked in, however, Truth stole a kid’s hat (it wasn’t as funny as it sounds), distracting Cena long enough to succumb to a GTS from Punk.
Truth then stormed the ring and clocked Cena with a bottle of water, telling him he would win on Sunday.
This was an ok Raw, but not what I expected. It was just like a longer...Raw. Nothing really stood out as being All-Star, as we see Austin and Piper often enough anyway. I would rather have seen the pop Ryder probably got when he came out to his hometown crowd.
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