The Redman Report: WWE Raw 22/8/11: “They sit around the conspiracy table…and conspire!”By Jimmy Redman| August 24, 2011 The Redman Report All I need is seven words this week. Truth, and the Rematch of the Rematch. Are you sold? I certainly was. Its time to play the G-oh. OHH. Woah. Umm…OK. Right. Shame. I’ve had a whole bunch of ‘Hunter opens the show again LOLOL’ jokes just sitting around for ages now. And you go and ruin it like that. Screw you Double Double E. Anyway, cant be hatin’ because Alberto Del Rio! John Cena! Not even waiting the customary 5 minutes, how rude. Wow, Cena is legit cranky here. Shootin’ brother at Alberto’s cars gimmick and Miz, of all things, how strange. And yet apropos since the Universe has changed into We’re Shootin’ Brother. Plus at least he’s serious, and about the title. Punk! This is a hell of a title scene. And Punk understandably gets all pissed at Cena trying to get another title shot. I like that both these guys have actual claims to a rematch. I also liked Punk finally making the point that Nash was told “stick the winner” so whoever is behind the C.O.N. would have screwed either of them and seems to want Alberto as the (corporate) champion. Hmm. Alberto, for his troubles, could easily have gotten lost here standing next to a bigger picture, but interjecting with “And I’m ignoring both of you!” brought it all back. Love this guy. Hunter! You’re late damn it! And we end up with the logical title eliminator for NoC and, just as importantly, the Rematch of the Rematch. Cena vs Punk as a TV match. Legit cannot wait for this sh*t. Alberto vs Morrison was, actually, pretty fun. Turned out quite great by the end. Morrison still takes some crazy ass bumps, off of everything. Shades of Dolph. Enjoyed the Asai moonsault fakeout and subsequent death. Also Alberto’s own crazy floor bump. The final minutes really picked up, with the hard German, the tornado DDT and the WEST COAST POP!! Marked RIDICULOUSLY for that sh*t. I miss Rey already. And the finish was cool as hell. Great match, Morrison looked fine and Alberto has already had three clean wins in 8 days. See? It aint that hard. Not to mention all three matches ruled. Had a hell of a week, this man. Weird NatBeth box promo. But whatever. Eve vs Bella was whatever but I do like her Cross Rhodes finish. Swear to God though, if NatBeth come out every week to stand around in those dresses…those dresses, until the end of time, I half wouldnt even mind if they never got around to killing these girls. Yowzers. This is about the time where J.R. would be calling me Uncle Jimmy and rolling his eyes. Swagger vs Riley was…well, OK. Short of using Swagger to somehow put over the Dolph/Vickie pair, I’m not sure what this is really doing. Swagger jobbed in 2 minutes, Dolph was right about this jobber wasting Vickie’s time. Which in wrestling logic means Vickie leaves him for Swagger, but whatever. We’ll see. Aha! Its time to play the Game! I got it in. I like how they get back at me for Hunter being late by booking him in two big promo segments. I mean, really. Anyway, Kevin Nash is so f*cking terrible. I expected him to be at least able to hold a microphone and speak coherently, he’s one of the smoothest talkers in the business, but he is literally incapable of speaking. Its just strange. Anyway, he sucks but this at least served its purpose to reinforce the angle: Nash got the text from Hunter’s phone, but Hunter is adamant he didnt send it, so someone else must have used his phone. Enjoyed Punk coming out to bitch at them. Popped for Clue. I like how he positioned Nash, Hunter or Steph as the suspects, that much was obvious by this point and it needed to be said. Still no clue who done it though, which is wonderful. I thought it was great that as small as Punk is, when he went “now I kick your ass” he sounded completely believable. Then Hunter tries to do the right thing but it just sets Punk off on another diatribe, the guy is pushing Hunter’s buttons more and more and at some point, he’s going to snap at him. Then again Punk gets attacked while Hunter is just trying to stop the violence (remember “so the fix is in?”…) and Punk is just even more convinced he’s f*cking with him. But Hunter from our angle is clearly upset at Nash and is getting rid of him. Great segment to further this angle even…further. KOFI AND BOURNE BITCHES! So, so excited. These f*cking goofs FINALLY lost the damn titles. Hallelujah. Kofi Kingston! And Bourne finally wins his first title after three years, which is a lifetime these days. As weird as it was I’m sorry, I enjoyed the hell out of King burying these f*ckers. So useless, its unbelievable. Hopefully we get even a short run of something with Kofi/Bourne. They desperately need a name though, for my sake. Also liked another backstage celebration, its an easy thing to do and makes things seem even a little more important. Nash in an accident! Christian did it. Oh no wait, thats too obvious, better make it Matt Hardy. Oh, whoops. Santino. I like to think he was trumpeting because it was a victory just to get on Raw. TRUTH! MIZ! OK, they’re together, this rules. No, wait, THIS RULES. AHAHAHAHAHAHA!! OH MY JESUS LORD. MOSES. JOSEPH. MARY. THIS. RULES. Dont even know where to start. Miz being the semi-straight man to Truth’s insane ramblings is the best idea in forever. Truth WHATing the crowd. “They sit around the conspiracy table…and conspire!” was the GREATEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD. Since his last promo, at least. “Y’all gon’ make me lose my mind!” And “Any spiders cross our paths, we gon’ squish it!” Truth managing to work spiders into every promo is f*cking GLORIOUS. Plus, I didnt imagine Miz and Truth doing a double spider squish action, right? Awesome. I just lost it throughout this whole thing. And you have Miz there to back up the insanity with a serious promo to make their actual points. Liked him responding to Cena’s bitch; we’re shootin’ brother is spreading. Also, if this was an attempt to replace “Wassup” with “You Suck” in Truth’s music, Kurt Angle style, then Truth getting his music back would be totally worth it. Oh God, if these guys become a team and challenge Kofi/Bourne I’m going to kiss somebody. Regardless, this was AWESOME. And after 90 minutes of a great show, we still have Punk vs Cena. Everything is awesome. Jesus Raw, who died and made you Smackdown in 2009? So, Punk vs Cena III was AMAZING. It was just their PPV matches condensed into TV form, and it ruled immensely. First of all, the return of the T-Shirt Battle! I could sort of sense Cena was half thinking ‘LOL’ and half thinking ‘We dont have time for this..’ and finding a friendly fan to throw to. Alberto laughing hysterically at all of this was the greatest thing of all time. What a man. Anyway, the match ruled. More cool ass counters that warmed my soul. Punk’s You Cant See Me into Cena’s into the rollup. The first FU attempt into the “I’M FLYING!” clothesline. That was crazy. Speaking of crazy, not sure what the f*ck was wrong with King today, but man he went off the reservation here with the random Punk burial. Weird as hell, this was. And on the flip side, Cole was the most incredibly normal, non-douchey Cole he’s been in forever. I could scarcely believe my ears. Strangeness all round. Anyway, moar counters. The GTS into the STF. The high kick into the CRIPPLER CROSSFACE IN EDMONTON, after we all spent a week arguing about the ridiculous possibility of a Benoit reference on the show. WWE Reads the Board #571. The early GTS kickout. Punk missing his dive which allowed Cena to nail his. Punk using the insane AmDrag elbows in the FU and following up with that crazy RUNNING KNEE. Then Cena finally hitting it and getting kicked out on. This was just some epic bomb throwing by this point. Then the crazy Cena Crossbody Rollthrough into the ROLLUP! Awesome nearfall I never saw coming. And BAM, finally nailed him with the Kick! Another really awesome match. But wait, there’s Kevin Nash! NO WAI! So they move these guys onto their new feuds but Cena STILL hasnt beaten Punk cleanly. And dont forget Alberto bitches! He looked like a madman going nuts on Cena here and having to be restrained time and time again. Good move to make him look more vicious. This was seriously cool. So, Ace was the one who told Hunter about the “accident” and took charge when he left. He was at ringside. Does that mean Ace is the mastermind? He sent the message, then he concocted this ruse with Nash to screw Punk? Or is it Hunter still pretending after all? Was he deliberately, conveniently ‘out of the building’ for the main event so he can keep denying everything? Or was Nash working Hunter AND Ace? Is Nash working with someone else entirely? Did Alberto have anything to do with it? Where does all this leave Steph, also conveniently absent? More pieces of the puzzle come every week, and yet we’re still no closer to unraveling the Conspiracy, we still end up with even more questions than we had before. I so love this angle. And in general, awesome show.
