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

OO RAW RECAP
Who's "SAWFT?" Not Rollins, Orton, and Kane
September 29, 2014

by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OOWrestling.com

Welp, if you're like OO, you were kinda sorta maybe starting to wonder about where Kurt Angle would land, now that his TNA contract is up... and you also kinda sorta maybe wanted him to make a final run for WWE, and were even kinda sorta maybe starting to see signs pointing to him returning to face Rusev.

But it doesn't look like it's gonna go down that way...

Today, Angle did an interview where he announced he's made his decision, and he's agreed to a one-year deal where he wrestles just 40 dates, and then he's retiring. He didn't name a company and said a press conference would be forthcoming... but he did reveal he will make his return to the ring (after a knee injury) in January.

Then, as if by coincidence, the news got out that Jeff Jarrett's new start up company has secured a PPV slot for January, which will mark its debut as something other than Jeff Jarrett's Imagination (which has been the entirety of the company since he unveiled it back in March).

Connecting the dots, I figure that either means Angle's going to work for Jarrett, or somebody's at least having fun trying to create that impression. Given that HHH is said to be deadset against Angle being a regular WWE performer, I'll lean towards the former, just so as not to be disappointed by the upcoming announcement.

And FWIW, it's not even that I'm THAT excited for Angle performing in the ring in 2015; I know it won't be up to his old par, and it might even be a case of Angle being self-destructive. But I do think he deserves a final send-off that actually, you know?, means something. Which is something you can't do in TNA. Or with Jarrett. Just ask Sting.

Also, and selfishly, the sooner Angle gets his ass back under a WWE contract, the sooner WWE will quit holding all that sweet sweet Angle footage hostage, and start putting it ont he Network and into a big-ass 3-disc DVD. That's what I REALLY want.

Meantime, what you want is for me to shut the hell up and get on with the business of telling you what just happened on RAW. Your wish is my command:

Opening Video Package for the Benefit of Those with ADD: OO does not recap recaps.

ADD A LITTLE HEYMAN, AND THINGS SUDDENLY START MAKING MORE SENSE

And then we cut to the inside of the Allstate Arena in Chicago, IL, where Triple H and Stephanie are on their way to the ring. The ring is dolled up with pink ropes, and there's a pink ribbon on the entrance ramp because it's (almost) October, and WWE wants you to remember that cancer is bad, and boobies are good.

For the first time, I now have personal, first-hand experience that BOTH those two statements are true. [And no, if you're new around here, that is NOT me admitting that I only just recently got around to touching my first boob. That is my sly referencing of this past winter's Medical Unpleasantness.]

Back on point: Stephanie kicks things off by stating that here in WWE, you get ahead by working hard, by overcoming adversity... not by stealing things. But that's exactly what Dean Ambrose did on Friday when he absconded with Seth Rollins' MitB Briefcase. What a scumbag.

HHH takes his turn, and says that the MitB Contract is a fine and glorious tradition in this business, and what Ambrose did was to disrespect that tradition. And for that, Dean Ambrose will pay....

All of a sudden, Paul Heyman's voice interrupts and he walks to the ring saying that if you want to talk about disrespect, then you have to talk about what Seth Rollins did to Brock Lesnar at Night of Champion. He cost Lesnar the match, and then dared to attempt cashing in said MitB Contract... Heyman then wonders aloud, "So I can't help but think we have a problem with Seth Rollins. And maybe, we have a problem with the Authority."

Enter Rollins, who says straight-away that no, Heyman and Brock have no problem with the Authority. What he did at Night of Champion, he did all on his own. If Heyman has a problem with that, then take it out on him. Rollins continues that he doesn't think they should feel disrespected, because it was the ultimate sign of respect... Rollins was just doing something that Heyman should also respect: he was trying to grab a piece of the spotlight, to hustle his way to fame and fortune. And on top of that, sure, he selfishly wanted to win the WWE Title, but he also wanted to do it the right way: by beating The Best, and that's Brock Lesnar, not John Cena.

Heyman has to wait out a monstrous "SEE EM PUNK" chant (because Chicago), but finally gets to tell Rollins that, OK, what he did took balls, and he kinda does respect that. But if Rollins ever tries something like that again, he should know that he won't be having a discussion with Paul Heyman... he'll be dealing directly with Brock Lesnar.

Threat made, Heyman departs, and you know what? It's still not the best way to have handled things, but that's still an acceptable 7-days-after-the-fact bit of retconning, there. I'll take it.

But we're not done here: Rollins turns back to the issue of Dean Ambrose and the stolen briefcase. He starts ranting and raving about how he had "personal items" in the briefcase, and now Ambrose is in possession of them. Oy... why do I sense shitty attempted comedy ahead? Porn stash? Ladies' underpants? Something dumber?

Ambrose finally pops up on the Titantron, holding the briefcase, and basically daring Rollins to come and get it, cuz Ambrose is more than happy to fight him for it. Rollins starts storming up the ramp...

Then John Cena's music starts, and he intercepts Rollins... Cena wins a quick brawl, but Rollins is able to scurry away and get up to the top of the ramp and the relative safety of HHH and Steph's company, while Cena stands tall in the ring.

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Backstage: HHH and Steph are talking Rollins down. He still wants to go after Ambrose and get his briefcase back. But the Authority think that's reckless given Ambrose's track record and the fact that Cena's out there, too. So HHH has summoned Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury (in suits, as they are now "WWE officials," and maybe we're not supposed to entirely remember they're both former champions)... he says it's their job to get the briefcase back in one piece. And he doesn't care how many pieces they leave Ambrose in. By any means necessary.

Noble chimes in with something schmucky, which HHH shoots down, and my instant thought is that we just may be seeing The New Stooges being born. And it's not the worst idea I've heard today.

DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. CESARO vs. MIZ (w/ Damien Mizdow) (InterContinental Title Match)

This is the fourth IC Title match in a little over a week. The reason why we have two challengers is because Ziggler cheated to beat Miz for the title last Monday, and then only defeated Cesaro on Friday due to a ref error.

Miz and Cesaro decide to partner up against Ziggler for the opening minutes. But once that goes well, and Ziggler powders out, there's no honor among theives, and Miz cheapshots Cesaro. Cesaro does not take kindly to this, and makes Miz his bitch, building up to an attempted press slam.

But that's when Ziggler comes back in with a dropkick to Cesaro's back, and all three kind of land hard in a heap. Which means it's time for us to break for....

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Back, and Cesaro's working a Cobra Clutch on Ziggler... then Miz gets back in the ring to break it up, and sets off a rapid fire series of about 6 near falls/saves/re-pins. Nice. Ziggler ends that by countering an attempted double backdrop into a double DDT.

Near falls on both only gets 2s. Ziggler goes for another double move, as he hits a combo DDT/neckbreaker. Ziggler focuses on Miz, getting a couple near falls. Cesaro rejoins the fray to break that up. Then he hits an uppercut on Miz, and tries to roll him up... but Miz hangs onto the middle rope.

Ziggler surveys the scene, and decides to grab Cesaro's legs and do a slingshot... but in this case, the move causes Cesaro's head to slam into Miz's testicular region. Ouch. Dolph dispatches Cesaro with a dropkick, and then zeroes in on Miz again, leading to a Figure Four.

Miz fights it just long enough for Cesaro to come in for the save; Cesaro hits a double stomp into Ziggler's gut, and then HE picks on Miz, too, It all leads up to a huge Elevation Uppercut. Cesaro's feeling good about his chances, but before he can go for a cover, Ziggler surprises him with a flash superkick, and then covers Miz, himself. One, two, and yep, three.

Your Winner: Dolph Ziggler, via pinfall, in 15 minutes. Very very fine match, nothing too fancy to start, but everything after coming back from commercials was red hot. Also, you can make the case that Dolph still didn't exactly score a decisive victory, but instead took advantage of circumstances.

For added hilarity, when the match is over and Ziggler's celebrating, Miz rolls outside, selling his knee injury.... so Sandow, his erstwhile "stunt double" drops to the floor and starts selling his, too.

Backstage: Noble and Mercury, once again very schmucky, interrogate various babyfaces about the whereabouts of Dean Ambrose. Nobody's telling.

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Sheep Mask Freeze Frame: a pre-taped Wyatts vignette interrupts some blathering nonsense from Cole. Actually, it's just Bray and Luke Harper. And Bray's narrative is that his job is complete, he has "put him back together," and now, he's setting Luke Harper free. Harper tags it with "Peek-a-boo. You're doomed."

Huh. Didn't see that coming. I'm also not complaining, as Harper has definitely been the eye-opening workhorse of the team and should flourish as a singles. But I also didn't expect it to happen out of the blue like that.

Backstage: The New Stooges are reporting their (lack of) findings to HHH, again acting pretty clueless. HHH is not pleased, and Steph even finds a mustard stain on Noble's jacket, proving the two probably just stopped off for a hot dog instead of doing their job. They are sent back out into the wild to find Ambrose, or else.

Then, as they depart, Miz and Sandow storm in... Miz is still hurting so he tells Sandow to do the talking. Sandow says this whole thing is crap, because he is due to have a one-on-one rematch for the IC Title, he's a star, and he doesn't do ensemble pieces. He demands another shot at Ziggler (on behalf of Miz).

HHH just starts chuckling, saying he's so happy to have these two around, cuz they really make him laugh. That just makes Miz even angrier, and he speaks up for himself... and now HHH isn't laughing. He says Miz had better not ever come into his office barking orders again, or else.... but for tonight, he'll give Miz a pass, and instead punish the stunt double. He books Sandow into a match against Sheamus.

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LAYLA (w/ Summer Rae) vs. ROSA (/w Nattie and Tyson Kidd)

This is again prefaced with a clip from That Which OO Does NOt Acknowledge As Valid Entertainment in which Tyson (playing the role of "TJ") acts like a douche, then Nattie acts like an obnoxious bitch, and somehow, we're supposed to care.

The story here is that Tyson is jealous of Nattie's career surpassing his, and he's only out here because Nattie is out here. He has his phone and some headphones, and spends the entire match not paying attention. Presumably because IT'S NOT EVEN NATTIE WRESTLING. So stupid. Nattie is so angry over this that she steals Tyson's phone and walks away. Because he wasn't paying attention to her standing around doing nothing while Rosa stunk up the joint. Ugh.

Then Layla hit the Lay-out, and it's over.

Your Winner: Layla, via pinfall, in 4 minutes. Not only would the story have made more sense if Nattie wrestled and Tyson ignored her, but the match might not have sucked, on the grounds that Rosa is not very good at her job and should not be wrestling. Ever.

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"HE SLIMED ME" THEATRE

Dean Ambrose's music hits and he heads to the ring, with the MitB Briefcase and a duffle bag. He sets up a table in the middle of the ring, and sets up his props while telling us that he was hanging out at a concession stand the whole time, and NOble and Mercury walked right past him, but didn't see him, cuz they were too busy enjoy hot dogs.

And furthermore, he didn't like what he saw at the merchandise stands... $20 for a t-shirt? That's highway robbery! So Ambrose says he's gonna have a very special Everything Must Go Sale. He opens the duffle bag to reveal a bunch of t-shirts...

But then Noble and Mercury come out to the ring and demand the briefcase... Ambrose, "Uh oh, they sent the Cruiserweight Division out to get me." Then he basically dares them to get in the ring and take it. They decline, and instead retreat.

So Ambrose continues with his firesale, giving out about 20 t-shirts to those around ringside.

Then Rollins' music hits, and he, Noble, Mercury, and a half dozen security guys head towards the ring. Ambrose: "Wait, are you guys really security, because I would have sworn you were Rosebuds last week."

Rollins demands his briefcase back, and suddenly, Ambrose demures, and says he didn't realize this was such a big deal. He's stotally sorry, and just wants everybody to get along. So he leaves the briefcase on the table, and exits the ring. Then he heads into the crowd...

Rollins keeps an eye on Ambrose until he's about 20 rows up, and clearly not planning a sneak attack. Then he approaches the Briefcase, and decides it's time to check his "valuable possessions."

But as soon as he opens it, the Briefcase spews green slime all over Rollins face. Heh; it's still not exactly high brow, but it sure beats Rollin's lady garments in terms of making me laugh. Full points to Dean for managing to humiliate Rollins while tangentially referencing the fact that Ghostbusters is getting a special 30th Anniversary re-release this Halloween!

Rollins oversells it to a ludicrous degree, which is also pretty funny, while Ambrose watches on and deadpans, "I totally had nothing to do with that," which is also quite funny.

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Backstage: Rollins is registering his displeasure to HHH and Steph, and they says they understand and Seth should just take the rest of the night off to cool off.

Then Hunter turns to Kane and Randy Orton and says that the solution to this is them teaming up to face Cena and Ambrose later tonight. Orton gets annoyed and says this is more of hi having to put out Rollins' fires, but HHH responds by questioning Randall's testicular fortitude. "Seems to me if you had an ounce of self-respect, you'd be champing at the bit to get back after what those two did to you last week."

And then, there's a weird vibrating noise. They go around the horn, denying their cellphones' responsibility... then we pan back and see that Rollins left the Briefcase, and it's emitting the vibrations.

Rollins pops back in to grab the case and say, "What? It's my electric beard trimmer. Yeah, that's the ticket," and then leaves in shame. Oy, so not lady garments, but instead a lady sex toy...

MARK HENRY vs. BO DALLAS

Henry's still beating himself up over his losses to Rusev, and here, he dominates for about 90 seconds, then whiffs on the Vader Bomb. BoDog, and it's all over.

Your Winner: Bo Dallas, via pinfall, in 2 minutes flat. I can state, with authority, that this was a thing that happened.

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Backstage: Renee Young catches up to Bo Dallas and congratulates him on a huge win. He says it was nothing, just the sort of thing that happens when you BOlieve.

And then Mark Henry storms in and attacks. He destroys Dallas and leaves him in a pile of production crates. We cut back to Cole & The Gang, and they actually spin it as Henry being a sore loser. Huh.

Elsewhere Backstage: Stardust is talking to one of those sparkly electric glass balls. Goldust comes in and says Stardusts toys are just science fiction. But the cosmic key (the tag titles) is science fact. Stardust shoves the glowy orb off the table, breaking it, and then joining his brother for an evil cackle.

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BRIE BELLA vs. CAMERON & THE ONE FROM THAT SHOW (w/ Nikki)

Nikki prefaces the match with a promo about how Brie is terrible for quitting and forcing her (Nikki) to have all kinds of handicap matches or whatever. So here, have a handicap match of your own.

So, along with Rosa, this means that WWE's three least-ring-capable women all wrestled on tonight's show. The live crowd seems to notice the same brain-meltingly sad truth, and starts ignoring the match in favor of chanting "WE WANT AYE JAY."

Then they gt bored of that and do the Yankee Stadium-style "roll call" thing, calling out the announcers. Which is something that annoys me most times. But this time, I cannot blame them.

Then Brie took advantage of heel miscommunication and got the cheap roll-up.

Your Winner: Brie, via pinfall, in 3 minutes. Seriously, two women's matches, and not only is there no sign of the champion or her challenger, but WWE just sent Rosa, Cameron, and the Neon-Haired Reality TV Dumpster Fire out there to "wrestle." This is the sort of mind-bending Wrong that I could write books about, and I'd still be understating the problem.

But I'll spare you.

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LOS MATADORES (w/ El Torito) vs. SLATER GATOR (w/ Mini-Gator)

Yep, Hornswoggle is now dressed as an alligator. So his death feud with Torito is back on? Oh, and Adam Rose is sitting in on commentary (with the full-sized Bunny).

Titus dominates at first. Then he tags in Slater, who gets his ass-kicked. Then mini-Gator creates a distraction and Slater gets the cheap pinfall.

Your Winners: Slater Gator, via pinfall, in 3 minutes. Harmless fun.

After the Match: Titus joined in beating down the Matadores, and then dragged Torito into the ring. Horngator beat him down for a bit, too, but then Rose and th Bunny had seen enough. Rose dumped Titus out of the ring, and then the Bunny hit a big splash on Slater.

Oh, and the Bunny also celebrated with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was seated at ringside, and didn't appear entirely sure of what the hell just happened, but still wanted to play along.

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RAGE AGAINST THE (PROPAGANDA) MACHINE

Rusev, with Lana, heads to the ring, to address what happened on Friday (in which Rusev didn't get pinned or made to submit, but still got KO'd by Big Show).

Lana tries to spin it differently, calling Show's KO Punch a cowardly attack, but only gets about 30 seconds into her spiel before Big Show comes out to correct her. He congratulates Lana on being so good at twisting the truth and running the Rusev Propaganda Machine.

But like all propagandists, she's full of crap. He shoots it to a clip to show what really happened (Rusev getting DQ'ed on purpose and trying to assault Show with the Russian flag when Show defended himself). Show is about to lecture Lana... but Rusev is so mad that he finally grabs a mic and speaks in broken English.

"I want to reach down your throat to pull out your guts. I will bite ear. I will kick groin." Show responds by saying he's tired to talking, he wants action, so "I"m gonna make like the Big Lebowski and knock me down a White Russian." Cute.

Show storms the ring, but Rusev and Lana scurry away. That leaves Show alone in the ring with the giant Russian flag. With a series of gestures (Broad ones, the finest kind of gesturing), he conveys the notion that he'll yank the flag down, if the fans really want him to.

The fans, of course, do, and finally get loud enough that Show reaches up and pulls the flag down to the ground. Rusev is so angry that he charges up to the ring, and then stops and retreats. Then Show mocks him, so he charges up to the ring again, then stops and retreats. It happens a third time before Rusev just departs ringside entirely, leaving Show to celebrate.

Backstage: Renee Young is standing by with John Cena, and wants to know his thoughts about tonight's tag match with Ambrose. Cena proceeds to turn the Pander Dial up to 11, kissing up to Chicago and trying to put over Ambrose in such a ham-handed fashion that I almost assume he was trolling us. Regardless, as he ramps up to a point about how Orton and Kane will be a nice appetizer, but the main course he wants is Seth Rollins, Ambrose himself shows up and starts loitering in the background.

Cena finally has to acknowledge his presence and asks, "Got something you want to say, Dean?" And Ambrose says he's fine teaming with Cena tonight, but just to be clear, if Rollins sticks his nose in, Dean's got dibs. Cena retorts by saying, nope Dean, I got next. And the two have a little staredown that ends with Ambrose saying, "Nobody takes food off my table. Not even you." Then he walks away.

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AJ LEE vs. ALICIA FOX (w/ Paige) (Non-Title)

Well, the fans finally got AJ, and they respond by chanting "SEE EM PUNK" at her. Asshats.

Paige comes out, and introduces Alicia as her new Best Friend, who will really care about her and not just take advantage of her friendship like AJ did.

AJ takes it to Alicia, causing Alicia to powder out to regroup with Paige. AJ just heads up top hits a killer crossbody to the floor onto both of them. AJ skipped around in celebration, then hoisted Alicia into the ring. With the ref checking on ALicia, Paige got a cheapshot in, and then Alicia got the cheap pin.

Your Winner: Alicia, via pinfall, in 75 seconds. So the first time they send the women out there for something that might approximate a competent match and a compelling title-related issue, and it's the shortest of the three women's segments? Jesus H. Christ.... you know that book I could write about how wrong this all is? WWE just caused about 17 new chapters to be written in my head.

But again, I'll spare you the verbosity, since I think it's all self-evident enough that you've all got the same book in your heads.

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Friday on SmackDown: IC Champ Ziggler and US Champ Sheamus will team up to take on Miz and Sandow. Sounds dandy to me.

SHEAMUS vs. DAMIEN SANDOW (w/ Miz)

Miz decides to sit in on guest commentary, to register his displeasure over various perceived slights to his person. Meantime, as the match starts, Sandow does not want Sheamus to attack "the Moneymaker." So Sheamus goes right for it.

Mizdow has to bail out where Miz shouts about the Moneymaker, while Sandow mirrors him. Not just the gestures, but also trying to mouth Miz's words along with him, which is just all kinds of funny.

Getting back into the ring. Sandow's able to clothesline Sheamus' neck over the top rope, and settles in for several minutes of heel beatdown. Pretty convincing, too, with more intensity and brawling than you're used to out of Sandow.

But, as tends to happen, the babyface fires up and starts a comeback. When Sheamus hits the 10 of Club on Sandow, Miz gets up from commentary and tries to put his 2 cents in. Instead, Sheamus tosses Sandow into Miz... Miz falls off the apron, and Sandow stumbles backwards and walks into a Brogue Kick.

Your Winner: Sheamus, via pinfall, in about 7 minutes. Not bad. But also not exactly a thrilling or surprising finish. Still Sandow got quite a bit more in, offensively, than has been his standard, so that's something.

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THE NEW THREE DEMANDMENTS: COURAGE, CONQUER, CURE

Hulk Hogan heads out to the ring, decked out in all pink. The hashtag at the top of the screen switches over to #courageconquercure so I think that pretty much says it all.

For 5 or 6 minutes, Hogan tells us to join in the fight, to donate, to buy the pink gear, because the cure is coming and the help supplied by WWE fans over the years has helped a bunch of brave cancer survivors (helpfully seated at ringside).

Cancer bad, boobies good.

Backstage: Orton and Kane are gameplanning, and it quickly turns into Orton whining again about having to clean up Rollins' messes. Enter Stephanie, who basically echoes HHH by calling their manhood into question. "It seems to me you two would relish the chance to prove what they are saying about you wrong."

Kane, unlike his dimwitted partner, is clever enough to ask "They? Really? Who are they? Or is this just YOU saying this?" To which Steph responds, "Does it really matter?" and walks away. Because honestly, is it better if everybody thinks they're soft, or if their boss thinks it?

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DEAN AMBROSE & JOHN CENA vs. SETH ROLLINS & RANDY ORTON

Abbreviated ring entrances all around, because it's already 10:52pm (eastern). Gee, could axing two absolutely zero-value-added Total Divas segments have solved that? Yep, it would have.

Orton and Cena start, and with the crowd playing a game of "Let's Go, Cena"/"Cena Sucks" he almost immediately becomes a Face in Peril. A flurry of tags, and Orton and Kane have the ring cut in half after 2 minutes. So with Cena flat on his ass, we break for...

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Back, and we rejoin the action, mid-hope-spot for Cena... but off a whip, Orton ends that with his short powerslam. The beatdown continues in fairly methodical fashion. Given that they were obviously forced into Time Compression Mode, Orton's really dragging ass and being extra lethargic.

When Orton goes for the trusty ol' chinlock, Cena fires up out of it, and makes the hot tag to Ambrose. Ambrose immediately clears the ring, and then takes out Kane with a plancha, and Orton with a Flying Goat dive. Tosses Orton back in the ring, hits his wacky rebound clothesline, and then nails Dirty Deeds.

And that's when Seth Rollins shows up and whaps Ambrose with the MitB Briefcase.

Your Winners: Dean Ambrose and John Cena, via disqualification, in a shade less than 10 minutes. Yeah, so that match was a whole lot of nothing until things perked up for the Ambrose's hot tag. Not just too short to hit the necessary gear, but to slow and Ortony while it did last. This is the second time int he past month or so where Orton's really reverted back to some bad habits. Not just slow moving and boring habits, but the much worse wasting-massive-amounts-of-time to the degree that he looks like a complete idiot.

After the Match: Ambrose was able to fight back, taking out Kane and Orton so he could stalk Rollins. But Cena came to at the same time, and the two had to share. This worked OK for about a minute, and then Ambrose decided he wanted Rollins all to himself. So he chucked Cena out of the ring.

Thus, when Orton and Kane got back in the ring, he was flying solo and got his ass handed to him, ending with a Curb Stomp for Rollins. Cena tried to get back in to fight the good fight. And after a promising start, he, too fell prey to the 1-on-3 numbers game.

Curb stomp for Cena, too, and the crowd erupts with cheers. And even a "Thank you, Rollins" chant. Heh, that's not exactly the effect they were going for... they cut the live sound and show some replays to save things. Then they play Rollins music and show the three guys celebrating as we fade to black.

And so ends the show. Two segments where the evil E! "Network" universe bled over and invaded our reality were really the only objectionable things tonight, but part of me can't help but note that there was a trickle-down effect where that time wasted caused the main event to come up pretty short of realistic expectations.

I mean, I totally get that the whole point of the main event was to do the post-match angle where the Extended Authority put one over ont he good guys... that's the main point a lot of weeks, and a tried and true trick of the trade. But when it works best, it's not as bludgeoningly obvious that the match itself is meaningless prelude as it was tonight.

Seriously, that was half-assed going through the motions for all of 10 minutes, which didn't exactly send the right message to the viewer... "OK wow, we've got a huge main event lined up for you tonight, so please stay tuned. And now that it's underway, stop paying attention, so you don't notice how weak it is, and we'll get you straight to the post-match shenaningans." It's OK to still do the shenanigans, but you still shouldn't be subtlely training your fans to expect main events to be no more exciting or action packed than a midshow Damien Sandow match.

So, big time kudos to the IC Title match for being best of the night, maybe even a bit youtube-worthy, if you missed out. Great action, and a finish that actually keeps the ball rolling on the story (Ziggler's taking advantage of circumstances, not scoring clean wins) without being over-the-top cop-out material. Or, as we like to call it: a fine example of Sustainable Episodic TV.

Nothing else scored that strong, but outside of the aforementioned E! Network garbage, there really wasn't anything to complain about, either. Serviceable bits abounded, whether they were pre-tapes (like the new Harper Unleashed one, or the Dust Brothers eschewing toys to put the focus on the tag belts) or ring-based (like Self-Loathing Mark Henry, or Super-Likeable Big Show, or even the harmless bunny/mascot fun)... more than anything, it felt like a show that somebody had put thought into, rebounding from last week's spazzy show that was actually being rewritten on the fly because Vince is getting more batshit insane by the day.

So the final tally is a show that was mostly solid-but-unspectacular, with the sore thumbs being a really good IC match and some really bad total diva crap. Do the number crunching, and I do believe that adds up to a final grade of C-plus.

See you next week, everybody...

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Bonding Exercises

RAW RECAP: The New Guy Blows It

PPV RECAP: WWE Night of Champions 2012

SMACKDOWN RECAP: 18 Seconds? NO! NO! NO!

RAW RECAP: The Show Must Go On

SMACKDOWN RECAP: The Boot Gets the Boot

RAW RECAP: Heyman Lands an Expansion Franchise

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Losing is the new Winning

RAW RECAP: Say My Name

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Deja Vu All Over Again

RAW RECAP: Dignity Before Gold?

PPV RECAP: SummerSlam 2012

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Backfired!

RAW RECAP: Bigger IS Better

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Hitting with Two Strikes

RAW RECAP: Heel, or Tweener?

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Destiny Do-Over

RAW RECAP: CM Punk is Not a Fan of Dwayne

SMACKDOWN RECAP: The Returnening

RAW RECAP: Countdown to 1000

PPV RECAP: WWE Money in the Bank 2012

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Friday Night ZackDown

RAW RECAP: Closure's a Bitch

SMACKDOWN RECAP: In-BRO-pendence Day

RAW RECAP: Crazy Gets What Crazy Wants

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Five Surprising MitB Deposits

RAW RECAP: Weeeellll, It's a Big MitB

SMACKDOWN RECAP: #striketwo

RAW RECAP: Johnny B. Gone

PPV RECAP: WWE No Way Out 2012

RAW RECAP: Crazy Go Nuts

SMACKDOWN RECAP: You're Welcome

RAW RECAP: Be a Star, My Ass

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Needs More Kane?

RAW RECAP: You Can't See Him

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Lady Power

RAW RECAP: Big Johnny Still in Charge

PPV RECAP: WWE Over the Limit 2012

SMACKDOWN RECAP: One Gullible Fella

RAW RECAP: Anvil, or Red Herring?

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Everybody Hates Berto

RAW RECAP: Look Who's Back

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Care to go Best of Five?

RAW RECAP: An Ace Up His Sleeve

PPV RECAP: WWE Extreme Rules 2012

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Sh-Sh-Sheamus and the nOObs

RAW RECAP: Edge, the Motivational Speaker?

SMACKDOWN RECAP: AJ is Angry, Jilted

RAW RECAP: Maybe Cena DOES Suck?

SMACKDOWN RECAP: No! No! No!

RAW RECAP: Brock's a Jerk

SMACKDOWN RECAP: Back with a Bang

RAW RECAP: Yes! Yes! Yes!

PPV RECAP: WWE WrestleMania 28

E-MAIL RICK SCAIA
BROWSE THE OO ARCHIVES

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.