John Cena Leads The Pleather Mafia Against Team Men’s Warehouse — WWE Raw Recap

On the commute into work this morning, I read this interesting piece about the wrestling promotion Chikara and their passion about really selling storylines before putting over the physical wrestling product.

I’ll nutshell the piece but the promotion actually disappeared for 11 months just to sell the storyline that the promotion was shut down then just reappeared one day. Now that’s dedication to an angle. The WWE would never shut its doors for almost a year but their dedication to the Bella feud feels like it’s going to go on for at least another eleven months.

With that sad possibility, here’s the Raw recap from last night.

Here’s a good indicator tonight’s show was going to be odd — the fans popped when Chris Jericho mentioned Labor Day. In this WWE, holidays get the crowds going. “It’s so good to be here tonight, in Baltimore, on NATIONAL POETRY DAY!

Jericho introduces Randy Orton and he hits the ramp with Triple H, Seth Rollins, Kane and probably an expired gift card for Men’s Warehouse because everyone is wearing fresh pressed dress attire.

Triple H adds an extra W to WWE and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the heads of companies call those companies by a different name. I remember one time in an interview Donald Trump called his corporation Mr. Cocknobs Inc. It was humorous.

Angry John Cena hits the ramp and doesn’t shake any hands on the way down. He’s that mad. Damn you, Lesner. You’ve created a monster.

Orton claims if Roman Reigns were in attendance he’d “drop him” and cue Reigns music and I didn’t know I needed a cardboard cutout of Ravishing Rick Rude until last night.

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Triple H sets the main event of Raw tonight as Gene from Accounting, Seth Rollins and Randy Orton take on Cena, Reigns and Jericho.

The Miz and the Ciz against Dolph Ziggler and Sheamus. The Miz’s A-lister act is growing on me with each week but this should have happened before his month long reign as Intercontinental Champion. The A-list Miz with a belt, pursued by Ziggler, is much more entertaining. This angle also gives Damien Sandow a purpose besides “piss off the hometown crowd.” I’m a fan. Sandow hitting the ring as the stunt double to save Miz was pure genius. Every week, Sandow needs to make a save. Miz should be right in the middle of a beat down, yell “CUT!”, call for his stunt double Sandow to come in and continue to take the beatdown. Miz and Cesaro pick up the win and now I’m calling for Cesaro to be head of security and lay waste to guys in the ring while Miz looks on from the director’s chair. I haven’t been this excited about a threesome since the debut video of Can’t Get You Outta My Heart by 3 Count.

Who was Miz’s makeup girl? Will she be back? She should come back.

The initial installment of Growing Up Bella airs. Brie steals Nikki’s prom date. She never told anyone that story before tonight. She’s a seventeen year old girl who had her prom date stolen by her own sister and this is the first time she’s mentioning the whole situation. “That’s just like a 17-year-old girl to keep everything bottled up inside and not tell a soul” said no one who’s ever met a teen girl.

The stars of Total Divas face off. Losers of the match have to watch the show. The matches ends in a….whatever. All that just to announce Total Divas is back. As if the entire Bella Twins angle wasn’t enough of a reminder that Total Divas is a thing.

The Wyatt Family members Erick Rowan and Luke Harper take on Black & Wight and I’d like to take this time to ignore the match and discuss three really simple ways to return the entire Wyatt Family back on track and out of the swaps of Suckville, Small Town USA. The first step is don’t let Bray Wyatt talk as much. He’s entering Ultimate Warrior-level absurdity in his promos unless the segment is pre-taped and they’re feeding him lines. No more long talks with Bray. One or two lines at the most. Next, Bray needs to act the part of God-like, cult-running lunatic. Even Rowan and Harper should be scared of him because Bray could flip at any moment. It’s a classic characteristic of a cult leader. It’s why people never leave a cult. They’re too damn scared. Every once in a while, Bray needs to take out his anger and frustration on the rest of the Wyatt family. Third step is to add another member, probably by force, but then that person joins because it’s the smartest thing to do. The family needs a fresh face. Remember the angle with Daniel Bryan but then Bryan eventually turned back, well like that, but no salvation at the end. And last but certainly not least, keep them all the hell away from John Cena. The guy derails more careers than dating Wilder Valderama.

Paul Heyman reminds everyone that Cena got killed at Summerslam and will get killed at Night of Champions and shows stills from Summerslam. That was the greatest home movie ever.

Rusev’s belt says Pudgy right? It does in my mind. Rusev makes short work of Zach Ryder and remember about two months ago when Ryder got a cheap win over Fandago and we all thought “oh, maybe Zach will…” well he hasn’t, and he won’t, and it’s sad but luckily we don’t need to dwell on it for long because here comes Mark Henry who’s now on Raw more often than the logo. Henry is going to induct Rusev as the first ever member of international wing of the Hall of Pain. This is the first time I’ve ever pictured the Hall of Pain as a real place and Mark Henry as a security guard asking visitors not to touch the displays and pointing them towards the restrooms.

We’re treated to another Growing Up Bella segment. Nikki talks about how Brie stole their car and wrecked it but Brie didn’t have a license at the time because she failed the driving test. So Brie had taken Nikki’s license and gave it to the police. Nikki says she’s never told anyone that either. She never told anyone her sister took her car, smash it, and got her license probably revoked. Topic never came up. These segments are doing nothing but proving Nikki is definitely the dumber sister.

Michael Sam is invited to Raw next week. No comment. Unless you count this comment.

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Stephanie McMahon brings out Nikki Bella and some boring chants from the crowd. Nikki gets a shot at the Divas championship from The Authority for doing absolutely nothing and so help me Christ if Nikki walks out of Night of Champions with the belt, well, I’ll do nothing about it because we’re all powerless to this horse shit. We’ve all got to just ride this storm out. AJ Lee comes out and explains how the number one contender spot works. Divas champion Paige hits the ring and now THIS is how you make people give a shit about the Bellas. Surround them with people who can wrestle, work a mic and entertain people. Brie is now SO angry/strong she can push down her sister, knocking out Paige, and I’m not sure how all this doesn’t end with AJ getting screwed over because of Punk.

Jimmy Uso takes on Golddust in a one on one match and Goldust and Stardust playing the vicious heels are damn thing of beauty. Goldust pics up the win and Stardust takes out Jey Uso with a vicious chair shot to the injured leg. I’m sure this will lead to the Usos dropping the belts because of Jey’s bum knee though I don’t understand why we’re led to believe the Usos can hold their own against tag teams twice their size but only an injury can derail their tag team title reign. The Usos are not officially the John Cena’s of the tag division.

Mark Henry and Big Show are on AGAIN and Big Show gives Henry a pep talk which leads to…nothing because the show is almost over. Maybe that’s for Smackdown? Or next week? “Remember what I told you last week, Mark! Well, think about that again!”

Even after all these years, the first line of Cena’s theme sounds like Adam Sandler yelling “SHABADOOOOOOOO” and it makes me chuckle every time. How do the heels comes out second, and not just that, Randy Orton hits last to almost ZERO crowd reaction? Didn’t Kane and Orton hate each other a couple weeks ago? Doesn’t Chris Jericho have an LED hat to go with that jacket? Why did they go to commercial immediately after a Codebreaker? Does Kane wear Dockers or St. John’s Bay wrestling slacks? John Cena wears Calvin Kleinboxers  ($40 retail) under his Kmart shorts ($19.99 retail) and that seems to make complete sense to him. I wasn’t crazy about Kane and Daniel Bryan program before his injury but dear god the guy has been BURIED since. Why doesn’t Bray Wyatt come out and take out Jericho prior to Raw next week? Why do I have so many questions that I don’t care to have answered.

Reigns spears Kane, Raw doesn’t go to commercial, 1-2-3 for the win.

Good guys win.

Alright, let’s hear it. Comments, questions and general complaints about last night’s Raw. Leave in the comments.