The Redman Report: WWE Raw 9/1/12: LIVE FROM PLANET FUNK!By Jimmy Redman| January 11, 2012 The Redman Report I…wh…th…. There are just no words. Apart from one: FUNK. Kane putting a mask back on to do Social Commentary is so wacky that I continue to love it. Really liked the opening here, the brawl was fun and stuff like this, brawling around backstage is sorely lacking in this day and age. Orton and Barrett, bringin’ sh*t back! Anyway, fun brawl. I laughed too much at the shot of Sheamus’ entrance where like one kid jumped up and nobody else cared at all. And Jesus, this was fine as a nothingish babyface semi-squash, but I have to laugh that after they went to all that trouble on SD with Jinder/Sheamus, this is how they build that match. In a good way though, because, and I just cannot say this enough, Jinder f*cking SUCKS. I hope Sheamus squashes his ass on SD and we get a real feud with Barrett pronto. “I’m not Little Jimmy…I’m Big Johnny!” ACE IS SO EXCELLENT. Miz at this stage gets worse and worse by the week, sadly. It feels too early for Edge, just because he’s so young and he just retired, but whatever, you knew it was happening. And his absence has allowed me to let go of a lot of my hatred of active Edge, so I’m quite happy for the guy. Kane standing in a cupboard listening to Zack Ryder’s phone conversations. In other words, Doom: Impending. Now, King Dick Bryan is certainly growing on me, but man, him coming out here against Kofi was like the jobberiest of jobber matches dressed up as a world champion wrestling a tag champion. I mean, yikes. Anyway, this has potential, while this match wasnt anything the finish RULED. That crossbody into the LeBell Lock was AWESOME. Kofi and his finishes, my long lost love. Liked the Bryan and Show bit and really looking forward to seeing how Bryan gets out of the rematch. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY F*CKING SH*T! THE FUNKASAURUS! But possibly even more important than that… NAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! HOLY FREAKING GOD. BRODUS. NAOMI. FUNK. DANCING. NAOMI. BRODUS. FUNK. NAOMI. BRODUS. FUNK. A. SAU. RUS. This is the greatest repackaging job in HISTORY. Unbelievable. The dancing, the absurdity, “You didnt see that coming”, the lewd dancing waistlock counter, the Brodus offense, “My bad!”, the dancing, the outfit, the Earnest Miller music, all of it. Brodus having the time of his life dancing around like Dusty Rhodes while he kills bitches is awesome. Naomi getting on TV and coming a step closer to being a women’s wrestler on TV is equally awesome. And hell, Brodus is going to get over like GANGBUSTERS as the new Rikishi/Flash Funk/Ernest Miller/PN News/Dusty Rhodes. I can imagine so many people getting completely indignant over this, and they can all just get the f*ck out of pro wrestling. If you cant have fun watching this, just go home. Seriously. Wrestling is supposed to be fun. Raw in general has, in the last few weeks, turned into the wackiest, campiest, goofiest pro wrestling romp of all time, and I am enjoying it more than I have in at least six months. Anyway, Punk vs Swagger. This was more great Johnny Ace Killing Punk With Kindness and A Fair Hand work. Match itself was pretty good, Swagger has been doing work lately, Punk saving himself from announce table death was cool, but I actually missed the finish. Apparently it was botched. If it was they all deserve a million points for saving it and putting it to good use regarding Ace as Special Guest Referee. Cole especially, and in general he was remarkably normal all show, which really helped me to enjoy everything more as well. As lame as Miz has become I actually dug the Ricardo angle. It was a novel way to end the search for a bodyguard beyond the expected “chooses a giant face who turns on him”. Ricardo came off so sympathetic backstage. And even moreso in the ring. He was so great being the scared dweeb forced into doing this. Half assing his “calling out” speech was tops. Its funny, the way the segment progressed was sort of backwards compared to how the crowd reacted. At the beginning Truth asked if he should spare him and they all went “No!” But by the end of the segment, after he’d done what Miz asked, humiliated himself with the singing and then offered his own mic to Truth as an apology, THAT was the moment that the people turned the corner and went “Aww Ricardo!”, but unfortunately that was also the moment that Truth attacked him, which ended up making him look like kind of an Asshole. I love how Miz is just completely incompetent though, even after the ruse worked. But much, much more importantly…THE FOUR HORSEMEN! Flair goes in twice, Ole misses out, but ‘The Four Horsemen’ loosely translated mainly means ‘Arn Anderson bitches’ which means I am one happy JR. Excellent news. Jericho came out. He trolled. I read a book. Not even kidding. I dont hate this per se, but its just so boring to sit through so I’m just waiting for the next step. With the amount of time left on the show here and a main event to come, I figured they’d just dropped the women’s match, so I was pleasantly surprised that it actually had a point. Eve in terror! Run for your lives Eve and Zack! A flat tire! Change the tire Zack! Hurry! This continues to be amazing fun. All the way from Eve in the ring until the tire changing I kept imagining where Kane would pop up out of, horror movie style – through the ring, under the apron, inside the locked car! And Zack spending like ten minutes of Raw TV time changing a tire is up there with the most absurd things ever booked. Along with everything else on this show. All this notwithstanding, its a shame that Cena vs Dolph had to happen on Raw…on this Raw, because its a hell of a match on paper, and while it was on it was the best showcase for Show Off Dolph I’ve seen yet. His headstand headlock, the neverending elbows, it was really good while it lasted. Oh no Kane got to the car! Save him John! I really loved how Cena tried a few times to start up the ramp in aid of Zack but kept getting SLEEPER’d, because the match was still on and Dolph didnt just stop wrestling. Anyway, Zack gets CHOKESLAMMED TO DEATH ONTO A MATRESS (visibly…I laughed forever. THIS FREAKING SHOW IS KILLING ME.) and Cena ambles over only to get another beating. Like I said, wackiest, campiest show OF ALL TIME. And I completely loved it. I cannot explain to you how happy it makes me that I can enjoy watching Raw again.
