MNR (And its liiiive!) spoilers

Marty Tyles here with Monday Night Raw, Live update!

Amusing start to raw. we kick off with a video package of the end of last weeks Raw (the walkout)

And at dead 02:04 triple h makes his way to the ring, just the one cameraman stands alone in the ring. triple h says he is going no where! and that the (i believe it was 55) wwe employees, who are at this time out in the car park, can kiss his bum (his description was the area between his two ass cheeks) the bum, right? Cue Johnathan Cena! He says he didnt walk out because blah blah blah the usual crap, john cena is wwe 'n that. next sheamus comes out, he says he respects triple h despite their past problems, and that is because he acted like a man and dealt with sheamus personally. holy shize i cant keep up. cm punk comes out, he says he loves wrestling, he basically couldnt give a sheet. he asks though, what are they gunna do? so triple h makes a match, he puts cena against sheamus, he himself will be referee and cm punk, well isnt it pretty obvious what punks job will be hes also timekeeper. so here we go sheamus v cena. the match i about 5 minutes when MR Mcmahon returns! gripping stuff! cm punk is stunned into silence. vincent enters the ring and asks for a private word with his son-in-law which is conducted on a microphone infront of around 8,000 people and millions of tv viewers. vince applauds trips for making the show cutting edge but unfortunately the board of directors are very worried about what the future holds for the 'e and so triple h is relieved of his duties!! he declares there will be a new permanent gm but until that is decided john lauren-git-is or however its spelt will be the temp gm.

mega!

we return as the gm welcomes everyone back into the building, however mr john morrison is not a happy man, hes had a shave and he means business and quite outragously says the John L sucks :O John L says ok basically and tells morrison to head straight to the ring and not to bother changing, not a problem for morrison as he doesnt do that anyway. up walks christian who is clearly delighted, John L tells Christian to head straight to the ring to because he wants him to face morrison, christian says ok and brings along his new friends. and so we have an hellacious street clothes match! i couldnt watch!! because i was writing this.. In the end morrison is beaten within about 2 minutes and is then subject to the finishers of rhoes christian swagger and ziggles. nasty stuff.

out walks mark henry, he'll be facing orton, we go to a break. on return John L is on his phone when triple h walks in. John L says something to him, i forget what it was, sorry. triple h responds and you would of thought by the look on John L's face that triple h said somethin about pickin up teeth with broken fingers! and thats exactly what he said.

Marks in the ring, he says how he'll have vengeance at the next ppv called vengeance, hey that was clever of mark wasnt it! then out of nowhere God says no mark, vengeance will be mine. then orton makes his entrance as we go to our 38th ad break of the evening at 02:54am

continued...

so mark henry and orton go at it when cody rhodes appears and distracts orton who walks into a worlds strongest slam, its reversed and orton hits the rko but as he goes for the pin rhodes breaks it up and the ref calls for the bell. orton n rhodes go at it before henry hits the slam, henry goes for the cover for the win forgetting the match has already been thrown out. he hits another in frustration before rhodes hits cross roads and then places a paper bag over ortons head. cody gets on the mic and says a viper without a head is not venomous and he asks orton if he wants a recepit with his bag

(i must add that cody rhodes does NOT decapitate rany orton, thank you)

kelly kelly and her mate beat tamina and someone

great match, i give it one star

out comes John L, hes nervous! his words. he invites jr into the ring for some reason, looks like brady could be right. he calls jr a red neck and stuff because he walked out, michael cole chuckles. John L fires JR. michael cole is delighted.

continued... mason ryan & air boom bt ziggler, swagger & otunga

cm punk vs del rio is stopped by John L who tells the pair that they will now team up in a tag match against a reinstated miz and r truth the boys are back in the barracks! tbh i was wondering what the hell they had planned to finish raw tonight. bte we are on our 3rd ad break in about 14 minutes, its getting ridiculous! its 3:58 as we go into the final part of raw..

the match goes bacn and forth, del rio leaves punk on his own, im gunna guess that john cena will come out to join or help punk somehow.. getting tired, i almost cant be bothered now. the match is thrown out as miz and truth beat down punk. its infact triple h comes out for the save, miz and truth escape. we go backstage with otunga and John L. he decides to make a match for vengeance.. itll be miz/truth vs triple h and cm punk. punk and trips shake hands as raw goes off air......

well, again, not a bad raw imo. 7.2/10 i think triple h is set become a member on the roster again. vince returns as do truth and miz, we have a good tag team match set up for vengeance which imo should be no holds barred or no dq or something. we pretty much have a stable of otunga, ziggler, christian, swagger and rhodes of which the latter is now setting up his feud with orton, very nicely indeed, another strong raw for rhodes.

poor john morrison

goodnight

Sounds like one of the worst Raws ever. Literally in the top 10 bad Raws of all time (I'm not having a dig at your report! Just think the show sounds utterly dreadful and counter-productive).

The company and its business plan are absolutely rotten to the core, in my opinion.

And CM Punk never did get a win over Kevin Nash...

I'm interested to see how this whole power struggle between hhh, john L and vince pans out but I was slightly disappointed by the outcome of raw! There were so many decent ways to take this angle and so many different elements to factor in: miz and truth, punk and Nash, christain and his current stable, the afforementioned guys wanting
control. As I said I am interested to see how it pans out but it seams to me that the potential for something great now seams less and less.

Working back from this RAW to CM Punk's shoot promo does any of it make sense?

Working back from the end of Raw to the start of Raw I'm not sure it makes that much sense.

Vince fires HHH who fired Vince? Seems like the longest way to introduce Laurenitis as GM ever.

Just watched it.... Horrible episode so many questions so little answers. It'll probably pop a rating though as last weeks cliff hanger got people interested I guess... Which will probably have the suits thinking 'hey this is working'

Its been WWE's problem for years Liverbnz no long term planning.... Its like watching WCW from 2000

I don't even know if they know they've completely killed Punk's heat.

JR firing... it just beggers belief. I wish the guy would just leave now for his own self respect

Morrison squashed again

Laurinaitis? So the creepy guy behind the scenes who was suspected all along to be part of the seedy underhand actions of 'The Conspiracy' is now in charge???? & to go with that he reinstates Miz & Truth the two guys who's actions forced the walk out in the 1st place??... I'm assuming they'll be another walkout at the start of next week?

Very confused.

Can someone explain who is COO now? If HHH has been relieved of his duties? My point is he wasn't GM, he was COO.....that wasn't brought up???? (maybe I am wrong). So the anoymous Raw GM has been replaced by John L but he is temp GM.

I don't see where this is heading. I am now guessing that after a while of teaming up, HHH will turn on Punk, which will cause a WM match.

We guessed JR would get shafted in his hometown....I am wondering however whether he was only on a temporary contract at his request? I can see him coming back at some stage though.

Does John L have the charisma to carry off what is, at the moment, the main role on Raw? I presume until a permenant GM comes in (which opens a whole new can of worms), that he will be promo-ing a lot.

Raw sounded disappointing really. Who thought Laurinaitis would make a good GM, the mans last name sounds like a newly discovered STI. I was wondering the other night, what does a Executive Vice President of Talent Relations actually do? I can't remember hearing his name anywhere till punk mentioned it, so he probably wasn't doing a spectacular job. Is there any other company in the world that has that job title? Someone find one. Hes so poor and nervous on the mic aswell.

In a way maybe punks promo did more harm than we thought, since WWE were fairly happy with a Del Rio Cena fued, it seems like they're just making it up as they go along which is making for confusing tv. That said I hope I'm proved wrong

xTwisTx - HHH is still the Chief Operating Officer of the WWE, but he has been relieved of his duties regarding the day to day running of Raw, which he took at the same time. It is only in a bizarre world like the WWE where a guy who is COO of the company can get annoyed at the idea of losing a lower ranked position.

Giz - EVP of Talent Relations is (I believe) code for the guy who is there to support the wrestlers and acts as the intermediary between them and management. I think that overall he is seen as a good guy and I have heard that several of the performers or former performers who have had substance issues have thanked him for helping them.

He may well be good at the job that he does, but I don't think that he makes a great on-screen figure and I would also say that it cuts a bad image for the WWE that the guy who is primarily there to help the performers is playing the heel on screen. Though this is also the organisation that is currently running an angle whereby self-employed sub contractors fearful of suffering injury are mocked by management and the crowd as cry babies so I guess anything is possible.

I suspect that the WWE went with John L in the role because they didn't have anyone else to turn to. It would seem logical that it would be someone from HHH's past who would be stitching him up instead of some suit 99% of fans didn't know existed 6 months ago.

That said, I don't get people complaining about the treatment of Punk... after all, he is now the biggest baby face in the WWE and this is not a role that the WWE bands around lightly. And for anyone who wishes to dispute this listen to the tone of the commentary with regards to CM Punk last night. No mention of the crowd being split on him, Lawler absolutely loved him and Cole absolutely didn't.

I would say that bar a massive falling out or injury his place at the top table is now secure.

JR's firing was a cheap heat moment only to get John L over as the bad guy.

JoMo lost, yes, but he nearly hit Starship Pain and only got hit by the spear because he was distracted. Frankly if it hadn't gone down like that then some people would have been complaining about how much Christian loses!

As far as I am aware, the board fired HHH, not Vince; just like the board fired Vince, not HHH. It was just that each decided it would be best if they broke the news.

I must say that I agree with you in part Cripps in that after the opening segment (which was ridiculously cheesy) my interest waned. I had hoped that they would have gone on with it for a bit longer.

With HHH & Punk teaming at Vengence and HHH massively over as a face, does anyone else think that the SS main event will come down to heel v Punk with HHH screwing Punk?

Not saying it is the best they could have come up with, but it is something.

I think it is most likely that HHH will turn on Punk either at or in the aftermath of SummerSlam. Setting up a WM match.

Thanks for clearing things up Josh.

Something has just struck me. Maybe John L seems nervous now, but so was Vikki G when she first came in. And look at her now.

I am prepared to give him time to adjust to this on-screen performance.

Maybe a returning Kevin Nash that Lauranitis rehires?

That said, I don't get people complaining about the treatment of Punk... after all, he is now the biggest baby face in the WWE and this is not a role that the WWE bands around lightly. And for anyone who wishes to dispute this listen to the tone of the commentary with regards to CM Punk last night. No mention of the crowd being split on him, Lawler absolutely loved him and Cole absolutely didn't.

Seriously Josh? The biggest babyface in WWE? Are you kidding? He's number 3 at best behind Cena & Triple H (that's if you ignore Orton) - He was red hot in the summer but not anymore

There is no denying that Punk has lost momentum, and the whole Nash storyline hasn't/didn't reach any kind of logical conclusion.

As long as they keep him away from Cena, I think the storyline with HHH will keep him elevated for the next 6 months. After that, we shall see where he goes from there. Hopefully not random clueless feuds like a year or so back.

I agree Brady punk is over with the main stream fans now and not just the iwc, but he is still a long way off the companies number 1 babyface. However I do agree with Josh that he cant understand people complaining about punks treatment; he is now more over than ever and although this is down to a lot of his own work, somewhat is down to how he has been booked since mitb, he has been involved in prob the biggest two stories of the year with cena and hhh and now is a top selling merch. wwe have seen that the fans are big on punk right now and are throwing some weight behind him even if that doesn't involve the strap right now, IMO punk doesn't need to be champion ATM to gain momentum and become a bigger star, I do feel however that he needs to be involved in the big storylines and I'm not sure if being sidelined in a match againt miz and truth at v is the right way to go with him.

I understand that firing JR in Oklahoma was an easy way to try and get more heat on Laurinaitis as his role requires it but surely it would have made more sense if JR hadn't walked out last week and stayed to support Triple H who gave him his job back. That way he could have been fired for supporting the old regime- sinking with the ship so to speak. But instead he's fired for joining Lawler, Cole and Booker in the walk out, or turning his back on Triple H (who Laurinaitis doesn't even like). Makes no sense to me, and I'm sick of the poor bloke always being the fall guy.

Punk is not portrayed by WWE as its number one babyface. John Cena, Randy Orton and Triple H are all above him on the totem pole.

Any of those three can main event against pretty much anyone, whereas Punk needs to be against another top star for it to be considered a main event.

For example, Jack Swagger vs Cena/Orton/HHH is a main event. Jack Swagger vs Punk is a midcard match.

It's all about the portrayal of the character, and WWE is still reluctant to stress that Punk is any kind of physical threat to anyone, probably because he isn't ridiculously muscular. Until they do that, he will be popular because of his mic work but will not be considered a great competitor by the mainstream audience.

I can see us finding out that it was Laurinitis behind all the messing around backstage and he was the one uundermining Triple H, he'll probs recieve a pedigree and a GTS. Then Mick Foley will be introuduced as the new official GM of Raw.

Buzzman wrote:I can see us finding out that it was Laurinitis behind all the messing around backstage and he was the one uundermining Triple H, he'll probs recieve a pedigree and a GTS. Then Mick Foley will be introuduced as the new official GM of Raw.

Yes can see that happening , i really didn't enjoy Raw at all this week i thought it was poor .

Completely going against the grain here, I actually thought it was quite good! At the end of the day its not the CM Punk show, its WWE Raw. The main intention is to capture the viewer and make them tune in the following week to see what's going to happen and Raw is succeeding in doing that.

A few of you have expectations which are way too high. Crips, you could pick the holes out of a net, I understand you like to critique but I'd urge you to try and be a bit more open minded about what the modern day casual fan might want to see as apposed to comparing bookings and storylines to that of years gone by. The WWF/E may not reach the lofty heights of its previous success, you need to accept that and just accept it for what it is.

Even though RAW isn't amazing at the moment I actually thought the first segment was done pretty well.
Some of it made no sense, like the JR firing just pointless unless good ol JR is sick again.

but we keep watching in hope for the story to come to a logical and exciting conclusion, but i guess it's going to be Survivor Series Johnny "I eat glass" laurentus team Vs trips team for control of RAW, after HHH gets proof it was Johnny L all along.

Mr H, all I ask for is logical booking that makes sense it's a complete mess at present.

Look at the evolution of Punk's character since June he threatened to walk out with the title now he's one of only 3 guys supporting the current regime! A regime he fought only a month ago!

How can you invest emotion, build suspense in something if two weeks later none of it matters anyway?

Mark Henry's run as champ on Smackdown is some much more effective. He's just a simple bad ass who has been booked strongly as a believable heel. Destorying the competition week after week until a point where he geniuely looks a threat to the previously unbeatable Orton. Keep the title on Henry for a long time & then you can make a star out of the guy who eventually beats him

Personally I quite enjoyed it, first RAW I have watched all the way through with no forward wind for a while. Seems to me that it is clear that Johnny Ace is part of the conspiracy against HHH, but not the head. Ever since the first mysterious text that brought Nash in every time the Laurenitis has been in a backstage segment it either starts with him on the phone or finishes with him picking one up. There was no need for him to be plotting last night as he had already got his way, therefore he is more likely to be reporting in to someone.

Always best when the GM is a heel though. JoMO and Punk were stitched up and Cody, Zig, Swagger, Christian, Miz and R-truth were free to cause havok. The top faces are having to band together so keeping them all on the same side until SS seems the most likely thing to me right now.

Whatever people thought of it I have tuned in without reading spoilers for the last couple of weeks and have enjoyed watching the twists.

KingKenny7Heaven wrote:

Buzzman wrote:I can see us finding out that it was Laurinitis behind all the messing around backstage and he was the one uundermining Triple H, he'll probs recieve a pedigree and a GTS. Then Mick Foley will be introuduced as the new official GM of Raw.

Yes can see that happening , i really didn't enjoy Raw at all this week i thought it was poor .

I didnt think it was poor but I wouldnt say it was good either, and yeah - Laurinitis being behind all the shenanigans is the way I think they're heading and i heard that foley MIGHT return to WWE in some capacity. Not saying it will happen but its a possibility! what do you reckon?

What did everyone think to the fact that Triple H could use a broomstick to out wrestle the entire roster? What a way to build up your talent

I thought that when Sheamus got into the ring with HHH we'd find out something to do with the attack last year...but instead, they just nod and agree it was good. Hmmm...

I fell about laughing when I heard him say that, it was so wrong it was actually funny

I think the problem is, this is all about getting HHH over.

You can't put him with Cena, as Cena is way out of his league. You can't put him with Orton cause they have far too much history. Punk is the obvious choice. He'll work with HHH, they'll get mutual rub and then eventually whichever one turns (i personally think it's 50/50) they will equally be over/hated and it can build from there.

I've been thinking HHH will turn heel for a while and have expected it at Survivor Series or possibly TLC, but it could get to the point where turning him heel is beyond the most far fetched logic, however turning CM Punk heel when he's came across as the most likeable main event face in years would be wrong on every level, one move I really hope they wouldn't do.

I loved HHH grinning like a cheshire cat when Punk said Nash runs through the crowd 'slowly'!

I thought the opening segment was hilarious. I was giggling in a way I haven't at a WWE show in ages.

Why is everyone getting uptight about what position Triple H or John Laurinitis actually holds? It's a entertainment show - we don't need a bloody organisational chart to help us enjoy it.

I wouldn't say the corp structure is paramount to my enjoyment or entertainment but the devlopment of the story is and the way that raw panned out regarding hhh/vince/John L diddnt exactly leave me jumping for joy. I thought the opening seg was decent and it really built up the fact that raw was in turmoil and that hhh had lost the support of the staff and wrestlers. This plot could have gone on for a lot longer and the different avenues that it could have gone down were many I just didnt expect vince to fire hhh and the whole walkout story end there and then. Every good story has a begining middle and end and it just seams to me that wwe creative are desperate to get to the end of every plot as quick as they can, is to much to ask that an angle is well thought out, coherent and logical?

The walkout couldn't have gone on for any longer though could it, realistically? Because you've got an arena full of paying fans.

I agree it would have made better television, and would have been an ace story to drag out - but those fans in the arena have paid to see ALL of their favourite wrestlers.

Fair point. The way I would have liked to see it pan out was that certain wrestlers ie heels side with John L and others with hhh and have a war for control of raw/wwe with ss and wrestlemania not to far away there could have been potential for a great angle.

I think (or hope) that is the idea MtotheC.

I'd be very suprised if Laurinitis was just Raw GM now and no more was said about it.

Going back to CM Punk not being the top babyface (god I hate wrestling terms) in the company and people being annoyed by this.
I see it as CM Punk is now pretty much on the same level as Cena and Orton and slightly behind HHH.
I don't see why we should expect CM Punk after a couple of months of being pushed should suddenly be the top dog. Cena and Orton have been around for a fair few years now and Cena especially has been number one for ages. HHH even more so. Why would, in the space of a few months, CM Punk be expected to eclipse all that? Regardless of how good he is.
I think he's getting there though. And a top level match and victory at Wrestlemania could be the thing to cement it.

I thought the start of RAW has hysterical, I would have been happy with that for 2hrs. I am interested to see where the storyline goes next, presumably something will happen with Punk & Trips' match at Vengeance

Nash will come back after being rehired and cost trips and punk