RAW 22nd July 2013Video recap of Heyman betraying Punk. OMINOUS PIANO. Ominous piano is interrupted by the intro to Brock's theme, but we go right back to ominous piano. Strange.
Brad Maddox in the ring wearing jeans. Jeans. He's meant to be GM and he wears jeans? Heathen. Cena comes out, and once again I shudder at the sight of that horrendous t-shirt of his. It may honestly be the worst t-shirt in wrestling, ever. EVER. Brad doesn't seem to like Bryan, which is just another thing wrong with him to add to the list. Some fat cunt in the crowd not doing the "YES!" probably because just walking up the steps has exhausted him. I like how Cena is all "I DID IT FOR YOU, INTERNET FANS, LOVE ME." Maddox not letting D-Bry speak
Sheamus vs. Alberto Del RioGod damn, Sheamus' leg is blue. Feels weird Alberto coming to the ring with no Ricardo intro. Why does Cole think we need to know what channel every country watches RAW on? Nice spot with Alberto locking in an armbar over the ropes, Sheamus lifting him up and just punching him straight in the face. More guys need to use the German Suplex, by the way. More guys need to use suplexes in general. They need a guy who uses all the suplexes. Ha, I liked that. Del Rio nearly went flying through the ropes, but saved himself on the apron, only for Sheamus to do the clubbing blows. Nice twist on that old spot. Del Rio wins! I'm honestly a bit surprised, but thank goodness he did. There's no way the WHC should be losing to an injured opponent. Solid match too, was a bit stop/start to begin with, but the latter...third...I think, dunno, shut up. It was about a third. The latter third was good. ***
Renee Young is interviewing Booker T and Teddy Long. They're forming the new Nation! Oh, she's asking about the whole GM thing. Disappointments. Teddy sounds a bit like Morgan Freeman. He also has no facial expressions. Is there going to be a Booker/Teddy feud? Teddy will obviously need a guy to do the wrestling for him. Titus, maybe, if the PTP are disbanding, although I don't think he needs a mouthpiece. Zeke is another option. I'm guessing they'll pick a black dude anyway.
Christian vs. Titus O'NeillThe sight of Titus just launching Christian up into the air is great. Christian wins a pretty "paint-by=numbers" match. I do think that Titus has something though, and I may have to adopt him as my midcard "push-this-guy" guy. **
An interview with Ryback. Yay. Lol at Josh trying to sidle away from Ryback whilst still holding the mic to his mouth. That was actually good! More of that, please Ryback.
Mark Henry is here to split asses and kick wigs. Mark says words, and then basically challenges three guys to a fight. I love you, Mark. The Usos are out for the save. Mark was going to fight back anyway, but this works too.
Darren Young vs. Dolph ZigglerThis match happened. There were moves. * Big E comes out to kill Ziggler after, but fails. The great big lummox.
The Miz is out in the ring with some women. The Total Divas women to be precise. The Miz tells the crowd that he's hosting Summerslam, and the apathy is deafening. One of the Bellas is angry because they've hired a diva that looks like her. YOU'RE A TWIN, YOU DUMB WHORE. NO MIZ, YOU DO NOT GIVE JERRY A MI...he's giving Jerry a mic. I hate life. Jerry seems to think Eva Marie is Ave Maria. That's a song Jerry. EVA MARIE HEELING IT UP. Jesus, woman, that man had a heart attack! If I catch any of you watching Total Divas, you should know now that I will consider that an unforgivable slight against me, and I will not rest until I have hunted you down and brought fiery justice upon thee.
More build for the McMahon family feud. I hope Linda comes back and turns heel again, because that always works.
Fandango vs. Cody RhodesI might be being a bit slow here, but I've just noticed Fandango's entrance video has "daaaa da!" in karaeoke style. Holy shit, Cody nearly botched a moonsault horribly there, great work by Fandango to make it work. Cody wins, match was pretty dull. *1/2
They've got a segment with Punk next called "Punk Rocked." Fire whoever was responsible for that. Interesting here that when Punk starts listing wrestlers, the crowd don't pop or boo the names, but just chant his name throughout. Don't see that often, and I think it shows how popular he is with the WWE Universe. Oh, here's Heyman. This is all fine, and they're both doing good jobs, but for some reason this just isn't grabbing me. I actually missed some of what Heyman said because I got distracted, which isn't good.
Wade Barrett vs. Rob Van DamI warn you, I'll likely not like this match. Van Dam has bloodied Barrett's nose. Other than that, this is exactly the kind of match you'd picture if you heard these two were facing each other. Very predictable. RVD can look very good against very good opponents, but a very good opponent Barrett is not. *
Daniel Bryan vs. Jack SwaggerI'm going to rate these seperately. BECAUSE I AM, IS WHY. Zeb's going to cut a promo, even though Daniel is clearly from America. I think most of the heat Swagger's getting here is because he's from Oklahoma. Swagger taps to the Yes Lock. Good, but as it's the first in a gauntlet match it wasn't great. **1/2
Daniel Bryan vs. Antonio CesaroAWW YES. Cesaro apparently locking in something called the Adele Vice. Presumably he sings her songs whilst his opponents are in it. Then again I'm a tiny bit deaf at the moment, so it may be called something else. Ouch, Cesaro just did that double stomp, and it looked like he landed right on Bryan's wrist. Forearms from Bryan (which I love), and Cesaro hits this awesome Inverted Angle Slam looking move. GERMAN SUPLEX! KICKS TO THE HEAD! These are things I have to capitalise. That leaping European Uppercut to Bryan on the top rope was great. EUROPEAN UPPERCUT BATTLE? SO. MANY. EUROPEAN. UPPERCUTS. That was beautiful. That was just absolutely fucking brilliant. Seriously, guys in the offices at WWE need to notice that there were two guys in that match, and push the other one as well.
Pictured: Minkaro's reaction that entire thing. ****
Why is Riley backstage with Maddox? Was that Riley? Looked like Riley.
Daniel Bryan vs. RybackThis fits in really nicely with Ryback's new "bully" gimmick. Ryback just sauntering down to the ring all "yep, I gots this." This is...well, it's Ryback dominating Bryan, exactly as it should be considering this is the third match in a series for Bryan. Ryback grabs a table, so Bryan suicide dives over it into him. Bryan really didn't think that one through. Ryback getting to the ropes on the Yes Lock is good, because Ryback had to drag himself from the centre of the ring. It's that kind of thing they need to have him do, it's all well and good making Bryan look good, but this is also a chance to rebuild some of Ryback's momentum. Ryback powerbombs Bryan through the table, which I'm fine with. You could look at it as him taking the easy way out, I prefer to see it as Ryback just being a dick for the sake of it. I'll give that one ***.
Cena makes the save, and a Cena chant starts up. He wants a tables match, which Ryback instantly accepts. This Ryback is better than OWMYLEGHURTSHELPME Ryback...that we only just had last month.
Vince doesn't like Bryan
. Pretty funny how he's obviously playing up to the "Vince hates indy guys" reputation. Bryan vs. Kane for the next RAW then.
I enjoyed that RAW. Don't think I had too much to rant about. The divas section was horrible, but it was really short, so can't really moan about that. Although the shortness of it made it kind of "I am Eva Marie, and now I am heel. SLAP. BYE."
Subject: WWE RAW 22nd July review 
