If you have any interest in WWE beyond a superficial one (and if you’re reading OO, you probably do), you might want to check out this post by one of our OO Forums members. It’s a forward from a spontaneous Q&A session of an “alleged former WWE writer” (or writer’s assistant), and the post seems legit, in that it all makes logical sense and doesn’t paint the writer in question as some rich and powerful omniscient employee. It’s interesting and informative enough that, if it’s all true, I’ll feel a little uncomfortable referring to the writers as the “WWE ‘Creative’ Team,” since the implication is that Vince is the one who puts most of the more retarded ideas out on TV.

The whole post will take you maybe twenty minutes to read, which will provide a nice distraction from the hot-as-butt weather. And I’m not saying “hot-as-butt” like Jamie Koeppe, but a butt you want to get away from as fast as possible. A “4am Taco Bell run full of jalapeño peppers, five-layer burritos, and Doritos Locos Tacos chased by poisoned whisky” butt, if you will. I suppose this is what we get for having a bitching December where we could wear T-shirts and shorts for a couple weeks right before Christmas. Hopefully you all enjoyed your Memorial Day barbeques or whatnot safe and with entire bottles of sunscreen.

  

So let’s get to RAW, where… uh… some clever pun about the heat and/or butts here. I dunno. I’m not feeling my metaphors today, which probably means a winner is you. Let’s roll… 

Segment 1: After a Memorial Day tribute video and a recap of the Cena/Show events from last week, we’re opening tonight with Big Show hitting the ring. Show begins by slapping a smile on his face and saying that by smiling, he’s doing his job… just like he did his job by making all of us smile every week. He admits that he didn’t mind making the fans smile, but it was still ultimately a business decision. This, of course, runs counter to the logic of the last week or two where he was saying that this was always his super-important and awesome dream job, unless we’re expected to believe you put all of your soul and passion into something you really don’t overtly care about.

But I’m over-thinking it, I suppose. Show gets What’ed almost immediately, but he plays off that and says that it’s part of the reason he’s not fond of us fans. And the reason he doesn’t have to care about pleasing us anymore or worrying about our smiles is because he’s got an ironclad contract. Pause for Cena chant, and Show goes on like he didn’t hear anything. He’s set for life with the contract and its bonus, so he no longer has to worry about putting smiles on our faces. After all, he’s not an entertainer… he’s a giant! And there’s no athlete in any form who can even touch him, especially not in WWE.

But then, Show reasons, maybe that’s why no one came to his defense when he was begging for his job. That’s why a mere couple minutes after he was fired, Brodus Clay came out and did his dances with kids, like he wasn’t important or something. We’re just shallow and phony for cheering Brodus mere minutes after pitying Show!

Still, Cena is a worse jerk about all this than we are. Cena hit the ring in the main event promo that night, and Show had assumed Cena would fight for him and beg Ace to have Show rehired. But instead, Cena did his best Jim Carrey, and betrayed Show with it. Cena hurt Show’s feelings, so Show got even by hurting him… by knocking him out twice in 24 hours (at Over the Limit and RAW). But if we think Cena suffered his worst loss at WrestleMania to The Rock, we don’t know nothing, because Show will make it worse at No Way Out. And that puts a smile on Show’s face. Way to bring it around, big man!

So, uh, that’s it… Show’s music plays and he leaves. No violence, no one to crash the party.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Alberto Del Rio (w/ Ricardo Rodriguez) reverse-squashes Santino Marella by submission. Santino got in all the early offense for like 30 seconds, then went for the Cobra. But ADR gave him a quick kick to the boot, applied the Crossed Arm Breaker, and Santino tapped before the hold was firmly applied.

After the match, RR got in Santino’s face while the Italian was still on his back and selling the arm, and over-enunciated ADR’s name as the winner, just to be a jerk.

Segment 3: In the back, Alex Riley sucks up to Eve. He starts to hit on her, but then Big Show arrives. Eve says that Show is in action, but he gets to pick his opponent tonight.

Eve leaves, and Riley immediately starts sucking up to Show. Show tells him that he’s not picking him as his opponent tonight. Alex exhales… but Show wants to send a message to the locker room, so he grabs Alex’s face and slams it into the concrete walls.

Segment 4 [Tag Team Match for the WWE Tag Team Titles]: R-Truth & Kofi Kingston defeat Jack Swagger & Dolph Ziggler (w/ Vickie Guerrero) by pin, and retain. Solid match but pure formula with no noteworthy spots. Truth and Kingston show they still work great together!

Post-Segment 4: After the match however, we get something noteworthy. Dolph is pissed off and says that he’s totally better than this stupid team, and he walks off despite Vickie’s protests. Tease for a face turn or just a red herring?

Segment 5: Santino is walking in the back, assisted by a trainer due to his newly sore arm. Show appears, intimidates the trainer away, then wonders if he should pick Santino as his opponent tonight. Before Santino has a chance to crap his singlet, Show grabs Santino’s face with his giant hand, then hisses in Santino’s ears that Show didn’t see him out to defend his firing either. He then rhetorically asks if Santino finds Show’s situation funny.

But then Brodus barks at Show and arrives on-camera. Show tosses Santino aside, and Brodus basically makes the challenge. Show accepts, but says forget about dancing: after tonight, Brodus won’t be walking. Show leaves as he and Brodus glower at each other, while Naomi and Cameron arrive just to look worried.

Segment 6: Here comes Johnny Ace, who’s again in his little Rascal, and flanked by Eve and David Otunga. Once he gets in the ring, he announces that Brodus/Show is definitely on tonight, and Cena/Show at No Way Out will be a steel cage match to prevent interference. Sure.

But now, apparently, Ace himself is the most popular WWE wrestler ever. And why? Because he’s on the cover of the WWE ’13 when it comes out in October, and shows off the cover sorta like how Kelly Kelly shows off her awful Maxim covers. Ace loves his own cover and says WWE ’13 “will be bigger than Pac-Man.” Heh, that’s actually an amusing line.

Well, here comes CM Punk to respond to that mess. Punk’s first act is to put his chewing gum directly on the seat of Ace’s Rascal before getting in the ring, which is just plain awesome. Punk gets in the ring, grabs a mic, then basically tells Ace that he’s an out-of-touch douchebag without testicles. Oh, and the real person who’s on the WWE ’13 cover is way more attractive.

Cut to a wide shot, and some pyros go off above the ring as the real cover rolls down from the ring lights. It’s Punk! With half his face cut off by the Xbox 360 logo! So “attractive”! Punk compares cover sizes ostensibly to compare dick sizes, then mentions that a wrestler on a wrestling game is super-totally awesome.

Then he tells Ace to “get out of my ring,” because though Punk excepts Ace wants to put him into some impossible match, he already has a scheduled match against Daniel Bryan, and the Board of Directors probably won’t like him messing with that. Ace just says “Good luck” and leaves while Otunga takes care of the aforementioned gum.

As they retreat up the ramp, Punk places Ace’s cover in the turnbuckle and kicks a hole in it… after two attempts.

Cut Scene: Seems like the new trailer of WWE ’13 will be on the front page of IGN by the time you read this. You know I’ll plug the job I’m actually proud of any chance I get.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: Daniel Bryan defeats CM Punk by pin. Very good match (or great match even), won’t be topped tonight, and a great display of what these two guys can do. The entire first half of the match was non-stop, though that doesn’t mean it was exactly super-fast-paced. Rather, it was chain wrestling after chain wrestling, technical skill after technical skill, and the epitome of what most of us from the Attitude Era want to see again.

Great spot to lead us into commercials. DB tossed Punk out of the ring on the west (ramp) side, then tried to follow up with a baseball slide. Punk dodged and responded with a kick to DB’s gut, then hopped up on the apron. From there, he rebounded off the ropes for a… uh… rebound flying crossbody? That sounds about right. It put DB down and gave Punk some momentum.

And that’s when AJ came down wearing a Punk shirt, unnerving our favorite straightedge champion. Commercials, then back to the match.

From there, it was DB on offense thanks to a during-commercial running knee from the apron to ringside. DB was all about the arm-targeted offense, but Punk continued to counter while absorbing the pain. AJ remained outside of the ring to the north, smiling and happy with Punk’s attacks, but without being overly expressive.

We entered the end game as DB hit a superplex off the top rope in the northeast corner, but failed to make the pin. So DB started pulling the turnbuckle pad off the southeast corner, causing AJ to hop up on the apron and start yelling at the referee. Nice girls finish last too apparently, as all this did was cause the ref to keep his back to DB.

Once he finished and things got reset, Punk was up on his feet first and delivered a roundhouse kick, but still didn’t get the three. DB crawled over to the southeast corner while Punk complained to everyone in general. Then Punk charged DB, who saw it coming: he gave Punk a flapjack face-first into the exposed turnbuckle, and that was it.

Post-Segment 6: As DB celebrated, Kane appeared out of nowhere and beat the shit out of him with a chair, then chokeslammed onto the chair. Face turn!

Or… not, because he started going after Punk too. But AJ knows her wrestling, so she tossed in a chair for Punk. Punk easily handled the threat, sending Kane packing. AJ was all smiles as Punk looked on at her, still unsure about her but obviously thankful of the assist.

Pre-Segment 7: Cody Rhodes is here on commentary for the next match. They also mention Chris Jericho, who I guess was supposed to face Christian here, but has been suspended for 30 days. No one talked about it here (Jerry Lawler just said “I don’t know what to make of it,” which makes no damn sense), but you can head to WWE.com to find out why Jericho was suspended. Or, you know, read Online Onslaught more, since Rick had it up all weekend.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Christian defeats The Miz by pin. Solid match but nothing special. Rhodes was a dick to both Cole and Lawler on commentary; that’s not a complaint (that’s his character after all), just an observation. Rhodes, in fact, cut basically a solid promo in the form of his dialogue with the commentators.

At the end, Rhodes got up from the table and gave Christian just a visual distraction merely by existing. But Christian wasn’t going to lose cheaply tonight: he kicked out of a small package, then after some back-and-forth, nailed his Killswitch and frog splash to Miz for the win.

After the match, Christian and Rhodes made eyes at each other, but nothing happened.

Segment 9: Ace is meeting with Eve and Otunga in the back. Ace actually finds some continuity here as he says that Otunga tapped out instantly to Cena’s STF last week, while Ace himself was in it twice at Over the Limit and survived it. Otunga starts to make excuses (since Cena so totally had it more locked on for him than for Ace), but Ace isn’t hearing it, and wants Otunga to nut up.

And Eve failed too, because Sheamus didn’t apologize to Ace on SmackDown, and Eve was supposed to arrange that! Otunga immediately volunteers to take on Sheamus tonight to kill two birds with one stone.

Ace hopes they get their act together, because he won’t be doing the job forever, and “in ten or twenty years, I might want to retire!” Ah, the punch lines write themselves.

Anyway, Ace goes on that he needs good people to take his place when he’s ready to go, so Eve and Otunga really need to straighten up. Some stupidity involving Teddy Long happens too, and trust me, you don’t care.

Segment 10: After commercial, it seems Miz is still in the ring. He complains that he made the decisive pin at WrestleMania for Team Johnny to secure Ace’s job, but now, he’s not even wrestling for a title. Where’s his ironclad contract? His bonus? His cover of WWE ’13? His championship match? Miz declares he will not leave this ring until—

Uh, here comes Orton. Orton beelines to the ring and gets in the ring as Miz tells him in no uncertain terms to get his ass back to the locker room. Orton takes one look at him, then logically responds by RKOing him. Hit the music again!

We smash-cut to the back, where Vickie and Dolph are watching a monitor as Orton preens. Dolph says he needs to be out on his own, then points at Orton’s crotch and says “That’s me! That’s where I need to be!” Grossness aside, Vickie says she’ll see what she can do.

Segment 11: We get a video package of John Cena talking about the military and Memorial Day. Good tribute as usual from WWE.

Segment 12 [Singles Match]: Sheamus extend-squashes David Otunga by pin. Decent enough match for what it was. Did everything it needed to do storyline-wise.

Segment 13: Brodus Clay hits the ring with his full entrance for his match. Show comes out second but stands on the stage and talks some shit to Brodus. Show says that he may have done some embarrassing stuff in his career, but they were always business decisions first. The way he sees it, Brodus is doing embarrassing stuff every night just because he is an embarrassment. Maybe once Brodus is tired of dancing, he can slap on some makeup and be the next Doink!

Brodus exits the ring to meet him at the foot of the ramp as Show concludes that the difference between Brodus and Doink is that Doink actually had talent. Show punctuates this by Spearing Brodus out of his boots.

Thus begins an assault, where Show just chucks Brodus face-first into everything while the girls cower in the ring. Show concludes by shoving Brodus spine-first into the ring post.

With Brodus down, Show starts to clear off the announcers’ table. Kofi and Truth hit ringside to stop him, but Show puts them both down. Then, the stomps the table so it collapses. That… didn’t make sense.

Oh wait, Show picked up a section of the table as a weapon and bashed it into Brodus’s spine twice. The second time was enough to make Brodus spew profanity, I assume, hence a censor silence.

Show hit him one more time with the table piece, then started assaulting Truth and Kofi some more, because why not, I guess. Show concluded his violence spree with a WMD punch to Brodus. We get replays as Show pimps his way up the ramp and to the back without bothering to look at the crowd or his handiwork.

Ace pops out to meet him at the stage and hold Show’s arm up in victory and shake his hand.

Final Thoughts: This keeps Brodus’s undefeated record intact, which the commentators were talking about before Show went crazy. Cena was conspicuously absent, and unless I missed it, they never said why, only that he’ll be back next week.

No post-show notes and I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say, so I’m done here. Kinda lean for one of my recaps, but hey, it’s everything you need to know. Be sure to check it out on YouTube or whatever for the Punk/DB match, and I’ll see you at the end of the week for SmackDown.

Episode Grade: C+