OO Column: Online Onslaught by Rick Scaia (Pro Wrestling News, Analysis, and Commentary... WWE, WWF, WCW, ECW, The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, Rob Van Dam, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Trish Stratus, Lita, Stacy Keibler, Divas, RAW, SmackDown, WrestleMania

ONLINE ONSLAUGHT RAW RECAP
Now You See Him, Now You Still See Him...
April 26, 2011

by The Rick
Undisputed Lord and Master of Online Onslaught

So... anyone getting sick of me, yet, what with all my spewing out a metric crap-ton of wordsmithery over the past month?

Well, if so, I got some good news for you: PyroFalkon has just informed me he'll be good to go again starting next week. Convenient timing, if you ask me, coming back just in time for the very same show where The Rock will also be appearing for the first time in a month....

Somebody else to look forward to returning: Adam will have a new OOld Tyme Rasslin' Revue later this week. That'll be a return from a substantially-longer-than-one-month hiatus, but ironically enough, the retro PPV is Unforgiven 2004, which featured Christian as a late injury replacement for Edge in a Ladder Match against a wrestler of Mexican descent.

Sound like a familiar scenario? Perhaps one that is timely, as if torn from today's headlines, not 2004's? SpOOky, eh?

So you've got all that to look forward to. For now, however, you're stuck with me. Let's ride:

Hey, there's no Opening Theme/Pyro/Etc... instead, it's a Cold Open, with a match already in progress.

20 Man RAW vs. SmackDown Battle Royale

It's 10 guys in red shirts and 10 guys in blue shirts. You know the drill: whichever side wins, gets a draft pick. And play-by-play-wise, you know that drill, too: nothing all that notable happens until after the herd is thinned a bit. For the first 5-6 minutes, that means playing up the "team" concept, where RAW guys help either regardless of heel/face orientation (and same for SD). Because of this teamwork, Kane and Khali both get eliminated early on. Other big 'uns follow when Brodus and Mark Henry get tossed. It's lather, rinse, repeat until it's time for....

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Back, and we're down to 4-on-4: Santino/Dan Bryan/Evan Bourne/ Mason Ryan (3/4ths of APPLE and 1/4th of the Nexus) for RAW, and Big Show/Kofi/McIntyre/Rhodes for SD. Bourne did some pretty cool tease-work on the apron and hanging from the ropes, and one of those spots saw him eliminate McIntyre. Funny spot where Santino was eliminated by his own Cobra (Show caught his wrist, and did the classic "why do you keep punching yourself" sort of deal). Cody and Bryan are both eliminated in non-descript fashion, leaving us with Bourne/Ryan vs. Show/Kofi.

When it came down to those 4, you knew which team was gonna win. But at least they made it interesting, as Show and Ryan lumbered over to a corner and did nothing while we got an extended sequence between Bourne and Kofi. When all four men reconverged in the middle of the ring, Bourne tried to use Ryan as a prop to hit a top rope move on Show, but Show caught him out of mid-air and tossed him to the floor. With Ryan alone in the ring with two SD stars, it didn't take long before he was jettisonned, too.

Your Winner: Team SmackDown, via Big Show/Kofi Kingston survival, in 15 minutes. Had its moments, but I'd put it a notch below the SD Battle Royale that they had a week ago.

DRAFT PICK #1: John Cena is headed to SD. Well, color me surprised. And also suspicious. Ahem. Cena comes out, and dons a blue t-shirt, all while a backstage camera shows the SD half of the lockerroom cheering and the RAW half crestfallen. Funny how 364 days out of the year, wrestlers are apt to be booked into a "loser gets fired match" because they want their arch-rival banished to the other brand... but on this 1 day of the year, they want to "win" as many picks and steal as many top stars from the other brand as they can. Not "ha ha" funny. Just, you know, funny.

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Backstage: John Cena cuts a promo about being excited to head back to where it all started for him. On SmackDown. And because of SD's new network, he proceeded to work in a bunch of science fiction movie references, especially focusing on "Back to the Future." Long story short: he's still got one RAW-related item of business to tend to, and that's beating Miz for the WWE Title at Extreme Rules. And then he's taking that belt with him over to SD. At this moment, Miz conveniently appears from stage left to dispute Cena's story. In fact, Miz will be retaining the WWE Title on Sunday, and then on Monday, "With you gone to SmackDown, your stupid little catchphrase will finally be true, Cena. I won't be able to see you." Punctuated with the appropriate hand gesture.

Lengthy Video Package: Everything Morrison/Truth related from last Monday. I don't care if they found a way to make it more palatable with editing. I still FF'd.

I Liked It Better When He Was Smoking Cigarettes

So out comes R-Truth. He's got a microphone, but is not singing and dancing. Instead, he tells the people to shut up. Which pretty much has the opposite effect. In fact, the live crowd starts in with the 10-year-old "What?" chant, which causes Truth to frequently pause and re-start his promo, and takes what should have been a tolerably concise 90 second monologue and turned it into a 5-minute long ordeal.

I hope you had fun, "Campus of North Carolina State" (no city name given), but for the sake of those of us watching at home, you really should have stopped with that crap after the first time Truth said you were pissing him off.

Anyway, the point Truth wants to make is that if anybody out there is upset with the new Truth, they shouldn't blame him. They should blame themselves. Everything Truth has done over the years has been to entertain the people, up to and including his decision last week to put his #1 Contender spot on the line. He didn't want to do it, but he knew the fans wanted him to do it. So he did. And look how it turned out. And it's all YOUR fault, fans.

So from here on out, Truth is giving the fans the boot. He's done with them, and he's looking out for number one. Or, in his words (once he finally took the long-cut to get to the end), "Finally, the Truth has set me free."

Knowing a punchline when he hears it, John Morrison decides this would be the right time to run out and attack Truth as revenge for Truth's post-match attack last week. So they brawl for a few minutes until refs/officials can separate them.

A logical/sensible follow-up to last week's events, and Truth had the makings of a damned fine promo, too (but the interruptions did seem to get him off track, and he'd lost a bit of steam by the time he hit his big punchline). The Morrison attack/brawl was enough to remind us that even though Morrison's first task is to be a Spot Monkey inside a cage this weekend on PPV, his main issue is with Truth and will be resuming after the PPV.

Hype: as previously known, the Rock is going to be live on RAW next Monday. It's in his hometown, and it's also his birthday. All the stars from RAW and SD will be there, as will other surprise guests. Should be a good one...

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Vignette: for the third week in a row, a large black women destroys a Barbie. Difference is that this week, she has a name. You once knew her as Awesome Kong, but now she will be Kharma. WWE's graphics people did a neat trick where "HARM" flashed across the screen first, and then the second time, they added the extra letters to get KHARMA.

Eve vs. Layla (RAW vs. SD Draft Pick Match)

Michelle grudgingly accompanies Layla to the ring while the announcers get us up to speed on the "couples therapy" and whatnot... and then before the match can even really start, Cole is up and out of his cubicle, trashing the entire women's division as boring and stupid, and wanting us to pay attention to him, as he's leaving for backstage to get ready for a match later tonight.

In the middle of him talking, Michelle tried to offer some advice to Layla, but Layla didn't want to hear any of it, and the distraction allowed Eve to roll her up for the win.

Your Winner: Eve, via pinfall, in under 60 seconds. I can't overstate how much I'm ready for Cole's character to die so he can go back to doing commentary, instead of being a distraction. Maybe after the King administers one humbling beatdown, we can make sure he'll never resort to his old ways by tacking on another beatdown from Kharma. I hear she can be a bitch.

After the Match: Layla confronted Michelle about causing the loss, but Michelle was putting it all on Layla. A shove from Michelle led to retailiation by Layla. Vicious retailiation, including use of furniture and ringside implements. All the while, however, Layla was crying, because she really thought Michelle was her friend and they'd be BFFs, but now it's come to this.

DRAFT PICK #2: Rey Mysterio is coming to RAW. Kind of an awkward segue, going from a woman crying at ringside directly to remembering Eve won and there's a draft pick to celebrating joyously that it's an excellent pick. But whatever... I noted two things at the time of this pick: (1) they'd already switched Cena over to be in the SD Draft Pool, and (2) I would gladly have accepted any wager in which somebody else bets against Sin Cara going to SD.

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Backstage: an interview with Cody Rhodes. Speaking from under his stylish windbreaker hoodie, Cody addresses the issue of Rey being drafted to RAW... in essence, he promises to break Rey's face on Sunday, and if RAW thinks they're going to showcase Rey's talents in the future, they'd better be planning on broadcasting from a hospital.

Sheamus vs. Kofi Kingston (RAW vs. SD Draft Pick Match)

Both guys were in the Battle Royale earlier, but are more than happy to pull double duty in this non-title match. Maybe Sheamus should have declined... before I can even start settling in for what I assumed would be a really solid match, they've FF'd to End Game, where Sheamus is going for finishers, and Kofi's countering, and they triple-reverse'd into a Trouble in Paradise. Just like that.

Your Winner: Kofi Kingston, via pinfall, in 2 minutes. So much for re-establishing Sheamus, eh? Or even giving them 10 minutes so at least it'd be an actual match? On the other side, Kofi co-won the Battle Royale for SD, and here, he single-handedly won ANOTHER draft pick for them. If it's me, I DEFINITELY use that as a storyline plot point where SD GM Teddy Long is grateful/indebted to Kofi, and Kofi capitalizes on the opportunity to breakthrough to the next level...

DRAFT PICK #3: Randy Orton is headed to SD. Pretty much every shred of speculation the past week considered this move to be a no-brainer. Vince just doesn't trust Christian as a top guy, so SD needed a top babyface. Say hello to Randall Orton, SD World Champ by SummerSlam. Possibly much sooner. [Oh, and to those of you wondering why Cena -- also drafted to SD -- wouldn't qualify as the replacement for Edge, I'm very, very sorry that you are that easily fooled.]

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Lengthy Video Package: Cole/JR/Lawler crap from last week. If it sucked when it was fresh, imagine how much it stank after sitting at room temperature for a week.

Jim Ross vs. Michael Cole

With Lawler getting up to second JR (in response to Jack Swagger in Cole's corner), Booker T joins Josh Mathews for commentary. But not enough of it. As has become unfortunately commonplace over the last month, the announcers stayed silent for awkward, over-long stretches so fans could hear the wrestlers and ringside guys talking.

In this case, that meant hearing 3 full minutes of Cole being an assclown, taunting fans, JR, and Lawler with his awfulness.

At the 3 minute mark, Cole and JR locked up. JR won, shoving Cole to the mat. Cole called for a time-out and retreated to a corner. Another 90 seconds of stalling, and a reuvenated Cole tried for a bodyslam. But JR was too heavy, and Cole collapsed with JR landing on top. JR landed about a half dozen right hands. Swagger tried to help Cole. Lawler tried to stop Swagger. Swagger dropped Lawler. Swagger got in the ring and stomped on JR to cause the DQ.

Your Winner: Jim Ross, via disqualification, in 6 minutes. Just excruciating TV; not just the part where literally nothing happened for the first 5 minutes, but also the part where we are subjected to watching guys do stuff they're not good at, just because Vince has a shitty sense of humor. The idea is to try to hide the flaws, and spotlight the positives. You don't send two guys out there knowing they're both going to look bad.

After the Match: Swagger had JR in the ankle lock, allowing Cole to recover so the two of them could remove JR's belt and whip him with it. Lawler recovered to make the save, but before any lashes could be administered to Cole, he and Swagger retreated. Then the RAW GM chimed in, and declared that their PPV tag match would now be a "Country Whipping Match." Nee haw.

Of note: Cole was bloodied during the melee. JR broke a knuckle punching Cole in the mouth. Or so he tweeted. Knuckle injury or no, Cole's lip was split.

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Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler (SD vs. RAW Draft Pick Match)

First, Ziggler got no ring entrance, which would allow me to qualify this as a squash, if I wanted. Second, with no ring entrance and no blonde hair, Ziggler is completely unrecognizable. Third, am I the only one who mentally associated Orton with RAW and Ziggler with SD at least once during the match, when (in fact) Ziggler was fired from SD last month and Orton was drafted to SD last hour? And fourth: Randall forgot to shave, either in an attempt to butch up a bit, or in homage to his savior, CM Punk.

And sixth, for some reason, this match is for TWO draft picks, even though Orton wasn't even on SD until 20 minutes ago, and even though the guy from RAW is a jobber. These are not the guys either brand should be banking on in a doubly important match. Baffling.

Seventh, I still don't recap squashes.

Your Winner: Randy Orton, via pinfall, in under 3 minutes. These are not the droids we're looking for. Move along.

Your Silly Draft Picks Can Wait Theatre

CM Punk's music interrupts the Draft Pool graphic, and he comes out onto the stage with a mic. He wants to deliver a message to Randall: that CM Punk doesn't see what "Rules" have to do with the Extreme Rules PPV. Because anything goes in a Last Man Standing Match. There are no rules. And Punk intends to take advantage of that by using kendo sticks, hardware, furniture, brains, elbows, knees, feet, and his own two hands to put Randall down for a 10 count. And what's Randall got in his arsenal? The patented "RKO out of nowhere"? Punk LAUGHS at the RKO out of nowhere. Randy may have used it to pin Punk for a 3 count, but it will do him no good on Sunday.

Randy got a mic to reply. Bad idea. I don't know if he's been doing it just for my benefit while I'm on recapping duty or not, but he's really been reverting back to his old Mantard ways where it's not entirely clear if he graduated from high school. Orton assured Punk he's ready for Sunday's match, and he'll take it to the extreme. Then he tried to mimic Punk's "laundry list" element of his promo by doing his own. Let me quote (each "." equals one second of pausing by our master of lethargy): "On Sunday... you won't be talking, Punk... you won't be.. walking... or. eating... or. drinking... all you'll. be doing. is... sleeping............... unconscious..... sleep."

After visibly struggling to figure out how to end that sentence, Randall's patience-trying slowness at least seemed to be on purpose for his punchline of, "And I........... will be......... the.. Last................................ Man........................... Standing." You know how some crafty left-handed pitchers are said to pitch "below hitting speed," which frustrates hitters who've come to expect stuff no slower than 80mph? Well, I hereby (re)declare my frustration at Orton talking "below comprehension speed." I am capable of having entire, fully-formed thoughts during his pauses, requiring me to refocus every time when he finally utters his next word.

It's either that, or try not to think any thoughts. In which cases the pauses are probably long enough that I'd get bored, and wind up drowsing off. In which case I would not doubt do Randall proud by sleeping unconscious sleep.

Anyway, after the punchline, they play Randall's music, and promise that we will get around to the issue of draft picks, but only after these....

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DRAFT PICKS #4 & #5: Mark Henry and Sin Cara are headed to SD. So if you would have taken that wager above, you owe me money! Can't have both masked high flyers on the same show... and this gives Sin Cara the benefit of being on the pre-taped show where his flubs can be edited while he gets accustomed to the WWE ring.

Wade Barrett vs. Rey Mysterio (SD vs. RAW Draft Pick Match)

Same exact deal as the Sheamus/Kofi match. It's non-title, I'm settling in hoping for a good contest, and it's over in 2 minutes, with the mid-card champion doing the clean job.

Only difference is that -- for some still inexplicable reason -- this one is ALSO worth 2 draft picks. Oy.

Your Winner: Rey Mysterio, via pinfall, in 2 minutes. And now the IC Champ has something to commisserate over with the US Champ. What a waste.

DRAFT PICK #6: Big Show is headed to RAW. For the time being, that means half the tag champs are loyal to RAW, and the other (Kane) belongs to SD.

DRAFT PICK #7: Alberto del Rio is coming to RAW. Huh. Don't know if this speaks well of Christian's chances of a transitionary title reign, or if they'll do something wacky with the SD World Title (teasing a unification if both champs end up on RAW, maybe). Also: let me appease my fans out there who may have Wanker Tendencies by pointing out that Alberto's pretty much been on RAW since January, anyway, so this draft pick means nothing.

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Hype: lengthy plug for the PPV. FF'd.

Announcement: Teddy Long comes out to tell us that he's just put together our main event match. It'll be a star-studded six-man tag. So of course, now this is only worth ONE draft pick. Mind-bending. Team RAW will be WWE Champ Miz, #1 Contender Alberto del Rio, and CM Punk. Team SD will be #1 Contender Christian, #1 Draft Pick John Cena, and Mark Henry. And it starts right now.

Miz vs....

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Miz/Alberto del Rio/CM Punk vs. John Cena/Christian/Mark Henry (RAW vs. SD Draft Pick Match)

Miz entered before the break. And apparently kept the live fans occupied somehow, because when we come back from the ads, nobody else has entered. So we have to sit through all five ring entrances, which is an absolutely huge time management faux pas, if you ask me.

It gets even worse: after 5 minutes of ring entrances, we get 1 minute of Christian/Miz back-and-forth to start, then Christian tags Cena in, and Miz goes into full retreat mode and ducks out of the ring. While he confers with Alex Riley, it's clear that 90 seconds of in-ring action is FAR too much for fans to stomach, so we break for....

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Back, and Cena's in moderate trouble. Miz is in control, and then gives way to Punk for a bit. Against Punk, Cena's able to get to his corner and hit a Decoy Hot Tag to Henry. But Henry is less a house afire than embers aglowing. Once he hits a few moves, he tags in Christian, and now is when we settle in for the real mid-match heel beatdown.

Ring is completely cut in half, and Miz and Punk make the most frequent tags and hit the majority of the offense. The exception is when Christian is in especially bad shape, which is when del Rio decides he wants to tag in for a taste. In a nice touch, all of del Rio's offense was working on Christian's arm and shoulder, which was mentioned as proof that Alberto's looking beyond winning or losing this match, because he cares mostly about softening Christian up for the cross-armbreaker in their PPV title match.

It's actually during one of Alberto's stints that Christian begins his big rally. A flurry of action ends with del Rio trying for a superplex, but Christian is able to counter it into a Tornado DDT. Both men down. Both men crawling to their corners. And this time Christian hits the REAL Hot Tag to Cena, while del Rio tags Miz.

Cena is a full fledged flammable domicile as he goes to town on Miz. But when he runs the ropes for the Five Knuckle Shuffle, Mark Henry intercepts him with a clothesline. When Christian's all "What the hell, dude?", Henry flattens him, as well. Then Henry leaves the ring, leaving everybody confused.

Everybody but Miz, who takes advantage by hoisting up Cena's carcass and hitting the Skull Crushing Finale. One, two, and three.

Your Winners: Team RAW, via pinfall, in 10 minutes. Closest thing we had to a wrestling match all night, and decent enough given the amount of time they had. The finish is a total head-scratcher, as there is no discernable motivation for Henry to sabotage his own team. Going forward, I guess you could have Henry in Teddy Long's bad graces (which could offset with Kofi being in Teddy's good graces). Or you could forget the brand allegience issue, and just consider it as a heel turn in a vacuum (in which case, Henry now is a ready-made opponent for Christian on SD). I dunno...

DRAFT PICK #8: You guessed it, John Cena is back to RAW. What a shocker. I'd like to know what percentage of the audience honestly believed John Cena would be moved to SmackDown on a permanent basis. And then I'd like for that percentage of the audience to stop watching TV so that WWE won't have your dumdum demo to target.

After the Match: Cena has recovered enough to be happy. Because he lost the match for SD, but doesn't care because now he's on the RAW team. Or whatever. Miz and Riley try to put a damper on Cena's heroic return to RAW by sneak-attacking, but Cena's not having any of that happy crappy. He may get pinned and sell it for upwards of 20 seconds, but after the match, he's still got his Superman chops. Miz eats the Five Knuckle Shuffle afterall, and when Cena tries for an F-U, he changes his mind and press slams Miz out of the ring and on to the conveniently located trio of del Rio, Punk, and Riley.

Ring cleared. Superman victorious. Now get him a new red t-shirt to put on as we fade to black.

And so ended the show. Pretty terrible outing if you're a fan of the actual wrestling part of wrestling. Mixed bag on the entertainmenty side... the Draft is always good for a little bit of speculatory fun, and the lame Cena swerve aside, there were still moves that'll get us talking. Unfortunately, whatever good was accomplished on that front was undone by the excruciating Cole segment.

Cole/JR was 6 minutes bell-to-bell, and featured two announcers in a match where nothing was on the line. That's more bell-to-bell time than Sheamus/Kofi and Wade/Rey COMBINED, which both featued a singles champion in matches where a combined 3 draft picks were on the line. If anyone can justify that time management or prioritization by WWE, I'm listening. But I doubt I'll hear anybody trying...

Just not a real strong cohesive effort. Sometimes it felt like a show where the Draft was the important thing. Others, it felt like the PPV was the important thing. And still others, it felt like next week's Rock Appearance was the important thing. I know Edge turned the company on its ear, and they're having to re-write a lot of stuff, but if you're good at your job, your internal chaose shouldn't be so readily visible to the home viewers.

We'll see if they can retcon some interesting fallout from the Draft (or at least retcon a reason for Henry's actions) and/or build more actual momentum for Sunday's PPV when we check out SmackDown this Friday... or at least when *I* check it out, and then you come back here to check out my recap.

See you then, kids...

RAW SATIRE: Nunzio, the Female Body Inspector

RAW RECAP: R-Truth is One Angry Black Man

SMACKDOWN RECAP: The Terrorists Win

RAW SATIRE: Wrestling's Most Wanted

RAW RECAP: T-Minus 48 Weeks, and Counting

PPV RECAP: WWE Extreme Rules 2011

OOTRR: WWE Unforgiven 2004 Re-Revued

RAW SATIRE: WHAMMY'D~!

NEWSFLASH: 2011 WWE Draft Results

RAW RECAP: Now You See Him, Now You Still See Him

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Edge's Busy Retirement

RAW SATIRE: England is Flavor Country

RAW RECAP: Changing Plans

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Bittersweet Victory

RAW SATIRE: Who is Sin Cara?

RAW RECAP: Other Stuff Happened, Too

NEWSFLASH: Edge Retires

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Third Time's the Charm

RAW SATIRE: Think of the Children!

RAW RECAP: Cena and Rock Ask You to Save the Date

PPV RECAP: WWE WrestleMania 27

ONLINE ONSLAUGHT: A Throwback WrestleMania?

PYRO'S PPV CORNER: WrestleMania 27

RAW SATIRE: Big Red Tromboner

RAW RECAP: Finally...

RAW SATIRE: Thrown Under the Bus

NXT RECAP: Like a Cow Chewing its Own Cud...

RAW RECAP: Sweet Sweet Vengeance

RAW SATIRE: Jersey Wisdom?

NXT RECAP: The Case for William Regal

RAW RECAP: Miz = Winning

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Who Won NXT, Again?

RAW SATIRE: G-Rilla is Here!

NXT RECAP: Is This Really Necessary?

RAW RECAP: The Soul Crushing Finale

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Christian to the Rescue (Again)

RAW SATIRE: Miz's Addition by Subtraction Theatre

NXT RECAP: Johnny Curtis?!? Really?!?

RAW RECAP: Phoning it In

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Hasta la Vista, Vickie

RAW SATIRE: Scandal in the Tag Ranks

NXT RECAP: What the What?!?

RAW RECAP: Silence is Golden

OO: What I'll Remember About Chris Benoit

NEWS CENTRAL: All Updates About Benoit Tragedy

E-MAIL RICK SCAIA
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Rick Scaia is a wrestling fan from Dayton, OH. He's been doing this since 1995, but enjoyed it best when the suckers from SportsLine were actually PAYING him to be a fan.