The Eyes of Kenneth Mars seduce you into watching Raw. You will do anything the eyes say. You will watch a large, muscular man fit into clothes that were made for a 18 year old anorexic GAP model. You will cheer him for his name is….Bautista!
I mean Batista!
Almost four years after leaving, Batista returned to the ring and did…stuff. In the realms of big WWE returns it felt a little meh. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited as anyone that Drax decided to come back for one final run, but it seemed like there was nothing for him to do. He came out during HHH’s bitchfit at Orton and rode the bus on the ramp while pyro went off and flexed for the people then told Randy he was coming for the WWE World Heavyweight Intercontinental European Championship.
Join the overcrowded party of superstars that want to get their hands on the title including: Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Daniel Bryan, everyone else on the roster because that is what everyone on the roster is going to say even though it will not happen. You think Zack Ryder will ever Woo Woo Woo himself to a world title? Nope, but that is what guys are supposed to say.
The biggest thing about Batista’s return, besides him delivering a Batista Bomb to The Million Peso Man?
What the hell was Batista wearing?
Imagine this:
And put it on this:
Mental picture obtained? OK, now store it away with the things you should never think of again including puppy euthanasia and your grandmother naked.
The Shield were back doing what they do best last night which is winning six-man tag matches. No sense of a breakup even though we all know it is coming and the more I think about it, the more I want to not think about it like the trio of things I just mentioned above.
They spread the wealth this week and let someone other than Roman Reigns get the pin. Rollins hit his finisher on Big E. and props to the big man for selling it like it was truly devastating. With the rumors that the WWE will be unifying the IC and U.S. titles at Mania this plays into many scenarios. A Big E./Ambrose match to unify the belts. Rollins could beat Big E. and have two of The Shield members go at it or, my most wonderfulest of matches on my Mania wish list, a triple threat match between Reigns, Rollins and Ambrose for the IC/U.S. belt.
Technically, if they combine the United States and Intercontinental belts isn’t that kind of like the whole world? I see your mind games WWE! You think Total Divas was a mindfuck? We haven’t seen anything yet!
Of course I suck at geography. And math. And grammar. And comma usage.
WWE also celebrated the life of MLK with a couple of video packages and having both African-American superstars that wrestled lose their matches. Xavier Woods, who is a great talent but needs gimmick help right (stat) now, lost in quick order to Fandango. Yes, Fandango is still a thing.
Kofi had a rematch against Randy Orton but John Cena ran down to get revenge on the bag shitter for attacking his father. So Kofi stood there and cheered on the white man as he took out his aggression. Thanks a lot Cena. I am sure Kofi had a dream…of winning.
The saga of CM Punk vs. The Authority continued with Punk taking on the blonde member of the Voodoo Kin Mafia. Don’t get me wrong, I love when the Outlaws are on Raw. I still think they have one more tag title reign in them but the whole Punk/ Authority thing is boring me. We all know where it is headed. A boring match with Kane at Elimination Chamber and then a date with the Cerebral COO at Mania. Of all the people on the roster for Punk to face at Wrestlemania 30, HHH is on the bottom end of the list. I mean bottom. Like Khali bottom. Why not have a Summerslam rematch with Brock Lesnar? Bryan? Stephanie? DDP? A broomstick to see who is truly the best between him and HBK?
I will give you one guess who Alberto Del Rio had a match with? The master of the 619 (and knee injuries) Rey Mysterio!
The Usos beat The Wyatt Family again with a little help from the newly freed Daniel Bryan. The WWE took almost 40 minutes to even talk about the insane crowd reaction to Bryan’s attack on Bray Wyatt last week which still kind of reeks of neglecting the fact that Bryan is the biggest thing in the company to come along in the past ten years.
I am surprised that they are letting Bryan have a one-on-one match at the Rumble considering the concussion he got on last week’s Raw. Apparently he didn’t remember a lot from his cage match and the ensuing crowd riot afterwards. He was taken out of house shows this week and given all the concussion tests and was cleared on Sunday. With Ziggler still out, scarier and scarier every day, with his concussion from Skip Sheffield I thought the WWE would be a bit more careful with Bryan. That is, unless, they have big plans for him Sunday. Like winning the Rumble match big. If they are having him wrestle against Wyatt only, that is a waste when he could be clearing the cobwebs for another week.
This may sound so 2002 but besides the Rumble match itself I am most looking forward to the Brock/Big Show match on Sunday. We all know Brock will be winning but this is a good first match back for Lesnar leading into Mania. Him and Show work well together and it is not exactly expected to be a MOTY so we may be surprised on Sunday.
If anyone doubted Brock’s ability to lose himself in the madness they saw it last night as he went one on one with the announce table. Jesus, did he beat the holy hell out of that table with a chair and then, not content to just pull monitors from the table, launched one at Show in the ring. He almost went full Steiner.
I actually watched an entire Divas match and had to watch A.J. lose…to a Funkadactyl!
The longest reigning Divas Champion ever lost to Brodus Clay’s former spirit squad. But on the upside, she was African-American.
EQUALITY! It’s what the E in WWE stands for.
Since this was the go home Raw before the Royal Rumble how did things end? If you were thinking a big melee in the ring involving a lot of superstars in the Rumble match to get everyone ready for the WWE’s most entertaining match of the year, you would be so, so wrong.
That would just make sense.
Instead we got Cena chasing Orton up into the crowd and through a skybox.
Keep hope alive! It could still get good! Will Cena give him an AA in the skybox? Maybe Orton gets the upper hand and RKO’s Cena on the t-shirt table!
Orton ran outside and jumped in the passenger seat of a car and got away leaving Cena and his glass-cutting nipples to high-five fans in the frigid cold. No mention from anyone about who was driving. No Rikishi. No “I did it for The Rock”
Nothing.
Just Cena standing there with what I am sure was serious shrinkage to contemplate that he has to wait alllllll the way till Sunday to hulk up in his new neon green attire.
In case you missed it they debuted new Cena crap last night including a shirt, hat, wrist bands and towel. All retina burning neon green and all worn at the same time by the world’s brightest gorilla, and I mean the color of his clothing, not his intelligence. Good God was this shit bright. If you reached for the volume button on your remote, I would not have blamed you for the mistake.
Get ready for the Royal Rumble on Sunday. It should be fun…or severely disappointing. Kind of like the year Del Rio won.
Until next week!
If you were already on the fence about the myriad of Steam Machines releasing this fall (as I was), this may make you fall off completely, at least for one of them.
