The Redman Report: WWE Raw 6/6/11: SECEDING FROM THE UNIVERSE.By Jimmy Redman| June 8, 2011 The Redman Report Because this is a joint Raw/Tough Enough Finale show I’m going to recap all three hours here. This week, all I have to offer is four words. C. O. N. Spiracy. This is actually the first episode of TE I’ve watched start to finish. It was on at a bad time for me through the season so I only saw bits, but because this one bled into Raw they had to show it all at once here, so I got to see it. I already knew Luke was a douche though. He comes off less like a wrestler and more like a reality show guy in this reality show that happens to be about wrestling. He’s playing the part of a wrestler. His physique sure went to sh*t too. I dont think its over for him though, there’s room for him as a minor douchebag character, in the short term at least. Andy is fine, he’s a giant man which was always going to help, but he’s kind of boring and, when he was talking all through this show, its like, he sounds like some nervous guy they pulled from the crowd. When Vince went “are you nervous?” thats what I was thinking, thats how he sounded, talking really fast and stumbling over words. He seems to have no idea how to talk in front of a crowd, not that he’s a bad promo, but that he’s actually nervous talking in front of people. Which is a pretty big stumbling block, to be honest. Although he can get around it by being a giant. But still. He comes off to me like a normal guy in the street who stumbled into this wrestling show. I’m not convinced he’s going to be anything. Anyway, you cant hate this hour because RICKY THE DRAGON STEAMBOAT. Plus, I got to see Trish, Booker looked like he was having a blast, and Steve Austin talking is always fun. Vince was a nice surprise too. I’m not even mad about Andy being Stunned because at this point, if Austin is on TV, they’re going to ignore every shred of logic and sense in order to find somebody for him to Stun. Its inevitable. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY MOSES! I’d like to present to you, ladies and gentlemen, the brand new GREATEST MAN IN THE ENTIRE WORLD: R. F*cking. Truth. What an insane motherf*cker. Prancing out in a CONFEDERATE ARMY UNIFORM, I laughed forever. Austin and Vince just staring at him trying not to laugh was great. “R…R is your real name, right?” was INCREDIBLE. “I’m sorry to the soda for wasting you. It was refreshing” was INCREDIBLE. R-Truth giving a history lesson was great, leading into him SECEDING FROM THE UNIVERSE. Awesome. Truth is the anti-WWE Universe rebel. Ties nicely into the no music. Anyway, then we had The Miz being fine, Alex Riley getting another POP (still love his music), and John Cena. I could really, really do without Cena’s lolarious “FLIBBERDIGBBET BATMAN, AN EMAIL YOU SAY?!” making up words thing, but apart from that, whatever. I enjoyed the “out of _____” bit. And we get a tag team main event! Enjoyed, all of this. So we go from that to…Otunga and Mike, TAG CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD. These f*cking goofs. Go away. Anyway, Santino was here so it was fine, I’ll never get tired of Santino working no matter whats going on. And ahahahaha, Mike the Tag Champ loses clean to Santino. Ahahahaha. What a bunch of f*cking goofs. Yay women. So glad to see Beth Phoenix back on TV. This was a fine tag, the Bellas work well with their ‘quick tags’ schtick, Kelly sells and Beth runs wild and kills everyone. Beth getting a pinfall was great too. Totally fine. But wait, there’s MOAR TRISH! Yay. This was fine and then Swagger interrupting and Booker manning up was cool. It astounds me, when I think about it, how much I enjoy Booker T in 2011. I like Punk’s gimmick of sitting on the stage. The “600 times” line was funny. Anyway, this was Punk vs Rey. It was great. Another fun 10 minutes from them, and the finish RULED. Ryan tries to interfere again but this time Rey is ready, BAMTORNADODDT and Rey outsmarts the heels. So enjoyed this. And they played up the 1-1 scoreline (for singles matches, on Raw, this month I guess) so hopefully this means we get at least a tiebreaker, maybe a series. OK, I was tiring of them quickly but the Truth-Obama skit was hilarious. Obama going from happy face to stoneface was great, as was the rant about the BOAT. Enjoyed. I like that they at least acknowledged that Riley was on Miz’s side at the last PPV so Cena doesnt automatically trust him now he’s a babyface. Man, Alberto. He’s still trying hard, he really is, but man has he gone downhill since SD. He joins a long, long list of guys whose careers went off the rails when they moved to the Raw midcard. Also a list of guys whose careers went off the rails by feuding with Big Show, God love him. You know he’ll get back on track eventually, but man. He’s not that ‘must see’ guy to me anymore, he’s just there. A KOFI video! A win. Ahahaha Zack Ryder on TV! Woo! Climbing the ladder here, folks. And Dolph on commentary, which could actually be good. This was a fun 5 minute match, Ryder is a fun heel jobber, and Kofi is Kofi. The finish made me mark out because it was another Kofi/Christian finish and I just love that all the time. Dolph, for his part, was pretty good on commentary, which puts him in a small club. I loved him marking out over the facewash. All good stuff. Give me Kofi vs Dolph #598. Poor Swagger. I mean…poor Swagger. Booker looks exactly the same. This guy has to be like mid-40s, and he looks basically the same as he did when I first saw him 8 years ago. He’s in phenomenal shape considering. This was fine as a stand-alone ‘hey, Booker working!’ thing. I never really liked him in the ring, at all, but as a special attraction I could enjoy it. But anyway, you just knew one way or another Evan Bourne was running in here to do something, and there you go. This was fine, like I said, as a one-off thing, but on a show groaning under the weight of babyface victory and heel humiliation, it was unneeded by this point. I really liked how the main event started, with the heels trying desperately not to get caught with their respective enemies. Then we came back from the break and it had turned into a normal tag, but still, this was fine. They built up the hot tag really well and blew the roof off with it when it happened. I liked the little tease with Riley holding the briefcase, but apart from that, man, that wasnt a good ending. Its hard to hate on a babyface victory, but coming after 3 hours of overwhelming babyface victory – and coming after doing the EXACT same finish with the babyface ref screwing the heels only two weeks ago – and after Austin had already got his victory and Stunner and Beers in, they should have done something else. Like, I dont know, make R-Truth look like some sort of threat to Cena. But hey, thats just me. And then we get ANOTHER babyface victory by beating up Cole (with the no-sell of the Stunner) and I’m just done. And we’re supposed to care when Steve Austin does all of this again next week for another three hours. You gotta think this through guys, geez. But anyway, whatever, it was fun I guess.
