Raw begins with Triple H walking in the back.  John Laurinaitis walks up to him.  He says he had no idea that Brock Lesnar was going to attack him two weeks ago.  He says it was embarrassing for him to watch Lesnar humiliate Triple H.  Triple H says what he has to say he’s about to say in front of the world.  The Raw intro video airs.  Immediately I think that this segment could have been cut out since we have to watch Triple H in the ring in a few moments.  I’m sure that 30 seconds could have been used to make the Diva’s match 1:30 instead of 1:00 later tonight…

WWE Monday Night Raw Results 5/14/12 from Pittsburgh, PA.

Triple H comes to the ring.  His arm is in an arm contraption.  Unlike when he was with Floyd Mayweather last week.  So Triple H makes a joke about Lesnar trying to make the WWE legitimate. He says during his Wrestlemania match he was waiting for someone to come out and make it legitimate.  #TimeToPlayTheGame and Triple H are trending on Twitter.  He drops a bunch of legendary names and said that they are all offended by Lesnar.  That gets a big pop from the Pittsburgh crowd.  He puts Lesnar over by saying when he met him he knew he was “The Next Big Thing.”  Then he takes a shot at him by saying that when it got too hard he quit and went to the UFC.  And then he dominated UFC.  But then someone kicked his ass and he quit again.  And then he came back to the WWE, targeted Cena, lost, and quit.  He says quitting is what Brock Lesnar always does.  Lesnar’s music hits.

Paul Heyman comes out.  He says what Triple H is saying is what every promoter always says when they lose their biggest star.  He says Triple H doesn’t get what he’s missing with Lesnar.  But he does get….served.  A little ginger looking guy serves Triple H with a lawsuit.  Heyman says he’s glad Lesnar broke his left arm, because he needs his right to write a multi million dollar check to Lesnar.  Triple H smacks the microphone out of his hand and pushes Heyman into the turnbuckle.  ECW chants break out.  Triple H says “you tell Brock Lesnar he’s going to get everything he deserves.”  He turns around and leaves.  Heyman grabs the microphone.  He says Triple H now has two lawsuits, one for Brock, and one for assault on Heyman.  Then they cut to Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler who are supposed to analyze the situation.  Instead they stare at the ring and reference something going on in the ring that we can’t even see.  Cole says “well Heyman just left the ring.”  Then they sit in silence for like 10 seconds.  Which is like a minute in TV time.  You’d think that they would be tightening up on production mistakes with McMahon being outraged over all the ones they’ve been making lately.  Paul Heyman is trending on Twitter.

Excellent promo by Heyman.  His mic skills are as good as ever.  He’s so damn smart.  Too bad that segment sucked overall.  It was just boring.  Nothing really happened.  Sure it progressed the storyline a little, but it could have put me to sleep.  Overall I really like this storyline.  The kayfabe angle that Lesnar has quit and has a lawsuit against WWE is a good idea.  People have actually asked me if Brock Lesnar is really gone.  That means that the storyline is working.  The angle really makes sense given Lesnar’s current character.  He believes he is bigger than the industry.  So since he’s not being treated like an out of the industry superstar talent, he’s not competing.  It also makes sense to have him fight every few months since that’s what he was used to in the UFC.  I’m liking the angle, it’s just being conveyed in a boring manor.  CM Punk comes to the ring for his match before commercial. #itsclobberintime and CM Punk are trending on Twitter.

WWE Champion CM Punk and United States Champion Santino Marella vs. Daniel Bryan and Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes-  Huge pop for Daniel Bryan when he comes out.  Very loud YES chants.  Punk and Rhodes start the match.  They work themselves into the corner.  Punk comes back with a body slam.  Slow start.  YES chants from the crowd.  Punk whips Cody into the corner, but he gets his knees up.  Rhodes charges Punk but he hangs onto the ropes and sends Rhodes flying.  Then Bryan comes running and is sent to the outside.  Double suicide dive by Punk through the ropes.  Santino goes for a suicide dive, but doesn’t make it through the ropes.  He falls to the mat and holds his gut.  That’s the first time in months he legitimately made me LOL.  Hilarious spot.  I’ve never seen that done before.  But I loved it.  It takes us to commercial.  “Punk and Santino” and “Santino” are both trending on Twitter.

Back from commercial it’s Rhodes and Santino.  Michael Cole complains about the people on Twitter and how they make stupid things trend.  Because of that Michael Cole is trending on Twitter.  Santino punches, Irish Whips, and is caught with a back elbow.  Daniel Bryan is tagged in.  Running drop kick in the corner to Santino.  Nasty knee drops to the face.  The crowd chants YES on each one.  He covers for a two count.  Because his moves have emphasis.  Multiple tags back and forth between Bryan and Rhodes as they work Santino.  Bryan uses multiple YES kicks to the chest.  He hooks in an arm bar and pulls back on Santino’s mouth.  Santino tries to fight back but is kicked in the chest again.  Rhodes comes in and uses a body slam, followed by a knee drop to the face.  So he pretty much did everything that Bryan did but in a far inferior way.  Bryan tagged in again for more hard kicks to the chest in the corner.

Rhodes is tagged back in but Santino rolls around him and dives for a hot tag.  But Santino doesn’t dive far enough and lands flat on his stomach.  Another comedy spot.  Rhodes laughs at him.  He gets up and dives again.  Hot tag to Punk who comes in with clotheslines, a drop kick, high knee in the corner, and a bulldog.  He goes for Go To Sleep, but Rhodes rolls out.  Punk hits a Yankuza Kick to the head.  Bryan comes in, but Punk catches him in the GTS.  Bryan wiggles out and dives out of the ring.  Santino teases Rhodes with the Cobra.  He backs right into CM Punk and the GTS.  Punk covers him for the win.

Ehhhhhhhhh.  Santino’s comedy spots were funny.  And I don’t say that very often.  The problem is that I don’t want to see funny during a CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan match.  And the fact that both of these guys were in the match and never touched each other is highly disappointing.  But that’s the point.  It creates build.  Once again it’s pretty lazy build.  But that’s the best that the writers can come up with nowadays.  It’s time for me to debut a new gimmick in this article.  And Now It’s Time For Another WWE Writers Discussion.  “Hey, how can we build up a feud between the best two wrestlers in the world?  I know, I know!  Put them both in a random tag match with other guys who aren’t feuding, and don’t let them touch each other.  The people will love that!  And instead of letting CM Punk show off his arsenal we can use comedy spots!  Make sure Daniel Bryan comes out quickly so that the people can’t chant YES too loudly.  We are trying to ware it out.  Kinda like how we did with ECW.  Since the people kept chanting ECW, we made a terrible version of ECW to make them forget it forever.  So if we give Daniel Bryan under card matches we can make him less important.  So then we can get rid of the YES chants forever.  But before we do that let’s put it on a T-Shirt to milk some money out of it.  Everyone in favor say I.  IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII”  Go jump out of windows please.

Alicia Fox vs Beth Phoenix- Let’s see if this match is 1:00 as I predicted earlier.  Ding ding ding.  Tie up.  Alicia is pushed into the corner.  Beth misses the punch.  She charges her but its leapfrogged.  Botched roll through.  Alicia charges Beth and is hit with a clothesline.  Layla comes out to the stage and watches.  Beth puts Alicia on the top rope and Gorilla Presses her off.  Beth stares at Layla.  Glam Slam.  1-2-3.  About 1:00 in length I’d say.  Layla claps.  Beth picks Alicia up again and Layla runs down for the save.  She face plants Beth.  Beth rolls to the outside.  Layla puts her arms in the air.  The crowd doesn’t cheer.  They are dead.  So they just built Beth back up to be a monster and then let a 75 lb dancer take her out in seconds?  Pathetic.

And now it’s time for another WWE Writers discussion.  “Hey you know what the people want to see?  Layla.  Yeah, your right.  They love her!  She has a great arsenal, awesome mic skills, and is even better without Michelle McCool.  She’s definitely better than Beth Phoenix too.  She’s bigger, stronger, and more talented.  Let’s have her embarrass Beth!  Yeah!  That makes sense.  The people will love this!  How long should the match be?  Well, since we put a lot of time into thinking about this let’s give them twice the time that we normally give the Diva’s…1 minute!  Everyone in favor say I.  IIIIIIIIIIIIIII”  Alicia Fox is the #1 trend worldwide on Twitter.  Beth Phoneix and Glam Slam are also trending.  Alicia Fox is the most underused Diva in the division.  Aside from her botch tonight, I think she’s a very good wrestler.  About 14 times better than Layla.  Maybe 15.

Recap video of Big Show, Eve, and Laurinaitis.  Really?  This thing just started last week.  And they had a 2 minute recap video of this new angle like it’s been going on for a month?  It actually had it’s own background music and looked like the packages they put together to show off the PPV feuds.  After the Recap video Laurinaitis and David Otunga come to the ring.  Thank god David Otunga is back.  Then we go to commercial.  The entire block was used to show a recap video and a Laurinaitis entrance.  Seriously?  They wasted an entire block on that?

The Big Show vs. Kane- Please no.  Why are they doing this to us?  Michael Cole keeps putting over the angle that this could be The Big Show’s last match.  Because if he doesn’t apologize to Laurinaitis he’s going to be fired.  I can’t wait to do the play by play for this match.  I get to relax and go from typing 100 words a minute to about 14 words per minute.  That simulates how slowly they move.  Tie up to start.  Belly to back suplex by Big Show, followed by a headlock.  Kane punches his gut and works him to the corner.  Shoulder thrusts.  Punches in the corner.  Big Show reverses with torso blows in the corner.  Hip toss, head butt, Irish Whip to the corner.  Kane moves out of the way of a charge.  Kane bounces off the ropes and hits a running cross body.  Chin lock.  Sweet!  A rest hold!  YES YES YES.

Big Show pushes Kane off and uses a shoulder block.  Clothesline and body slam to Big Show.  He almost falls down on the body slam.  He laughs about it and yells “woooo.”  Kinda like he did in those Wrestlemania videos from WWE New York.  Michael Cole says that he just got a text from Laurinaitis saying that he’s doing a good job.  That’s pretty funny seeing how Laurinaitis is sitting right beside him.  Big Show misses a Vader Bomb.  Kane goes for a chokeslam, but Big Show pushes him off.  Kane is tossed over the top rope to the outside.  Big Show follows him out and sends him into the barricade.  Big Show uses a running spear on the outside.  He tosses Kane back in the ring as Laurinaitis gets on the mic.  He wants an apology right now.  Kane attacks Big Show from behind and hits the worst chokeslam ever.  Big Show got about 3 inches off the mat.  That’s it.  Kane wins.

Laurinaitis gets into the ring and says it wasn’t smart for Big Show to make fun of his boss.  He wants an apology right now.  Big Show says he broke into WCW at 23 years old.  He’s done it all and finally had a Wrestlemania moment this year.  He says he could walk away with his head held high.  He says he loves performing with all the people, seeing the smiles on kid’s faces, and making bonds in the back.  He starts crying.  He tells Laurinaitis not to take 18 years of his life away.  He says if making fun of his voice offended him he apologizes.  He says he’s sorry.  Laurinaitis says people in the cheap seats and in the back didn’t hear him.  Big Show says it again.  Laurinaitis wants Big Show to get on his knees and beg for his job.  Big show walks around for a minute and wastes a lot of time.  He begs and says he doesn’t want to get on his knees.  Laurinaitis says Big Show disgusts him and that he will do what’s best for business.  Big Show continues to cry.  Laurinaitis walks up the ramp and begins to give his future endeavored speech.  Big Show yells wait, gets on his knees, cries, and apologizes.  Laurinaitis wishes Big Show the best in his future endeavors and fires him.  Big Show cries some more.  Big Show, Johnny Ace, and #Raw are trending on Twitter.

So this is what they should do.  Continue to fire long tenured faces.  Jerry Lawler takes up for Big Show on commentary and says that he shouldn’t have been treated that way.  Jerry Lawler should be fired next.  And I’m not talking about legit firings.  I’m talking kayfabe.  Then you can have your group of fired faces coming together to try to get Laurinaitis out of power.  The firings make his power trip more legit.  They make him look more credible as an authority figure.  As stupid as that whole crying thing was, it did actually give Big Show a different kind of angle.  He is now relevant again.  This entire angle can turn into some big Summerslam match.  Much like the big match at Wrestlemania.  It’s a way to fit multiple talents onto the big PPV’s.  Hornswoggle tweets later on in the night that what Laurinaitis did was pathetic.  Add him to the firing list.  Brodus Clay comes out.  Jerry Lawler says the crowd isn’t reacting to Clay because they are stunned by what happened to Big Show.  No King, the crowd isn’t stunned because of The Big Show, they are dead because of that last segment.

“The Funkasaurus” Brodus Clay w/ The Funkadactuls, and WWE Tag Team Champions R-Truth and Kofi Kingston vs. The Miz, Jack Swagger, and Dolph Ziggler w/ Vickie Guerrero- Brodus Clay is still the only living breating Funkasarus in captivity.  Fascinating.  I did not know that.  R-Truth and Swagger start it off.  Swagger throws Truth off the ropes, but Truth stops and dances.  Then he slaps Swagger.  Tag to Clay.  Clothesline to Swagger.  Miz runs in.  T-Bone suplex to Miz.  Ziggler runs in.  Kofi and Truth clothesline him to the outside.  That’s a commercial spot.  Thus a commercial airs.  Back from break we get Ziggler applying a chin lock to Kofi.  They cut to a skybox that has AW, Mason Ryan, Epico, Primo, and Rosa Mendes in it.  That was odd placement for that.  It has no relevance to this match.

Truth fights up, is cut off, and Miz is tagged in.  Miz uses his grounded boot to the face.  Then another chin lock.  Sweet!  Another rest hold!  YES YES YES.  Miz turns around to punch Brodus Clay.  When he turns back around he’s hit with a dropkick.  Another pointless shot of the skybox.  Hot tag to Kofi.  Flying clotheslines.  Lot’s of them.  Botched huricanrana.  He hits Miz with the SOS.  Swagger breaks it up.  He runs at Truth but is sent over the ropes.  Ziggler runs at Clay and is hit with a headbutt.  The Clay headbutt to Ziggler was the spot of the night.  Kofi hits Trouble In Paradise.  Tag to Brodus Clay.  Running Splash.  1-2-3.  Clay wins.  Kofi wins.  Truth wins.  Miz jobs.  His impressive win two weeks ago is now buried.  Clay has a bunch of stupid kids in the ring.  They dance.  I gag.  Brodus Clay, and Mason Ryan are trending on Twitter.  Big Show is still trending.

CM Punk and Alex Riley are walking in the back.  AJ runs up to Punk.  She wishes him luck.  Punk says he doesn’t want to get involved with her and Daniel Bryan.  He calls her unstable.  She is angry.  I really like what they are doing with AJ.  The psycho chick.  Keep pushing it!  Take it far.  It’s literally one of the only good storylines in the company right now.  Scratch that.  The only good storyline.

Chris Jericho vs Randy Orton.  Sheamus is on commentary.  Can’t believe it’s time for the main event already.  I’m still waiting for Raw to really get started tonight.  Tie up to start.  Shoulder block by Orton.  Orton reverses a hip toss and goes for a cover!!!!  HE GOES FOR THE COVER ON A HIP TOSS!!!! A HIP TOSS!!!!  Didn’t we go over this last week?  You only go for covers on moves that you think had enough impact to beat your opponent.  Moves that garnish covers have the most meaning in your arsenal.  So if Orton goes for a pinfall on a hiptoss and his hanging DDT through the ropes, what he’s telling me is that they have the same impact.  Therefore, his hanging DDT through the ropes doesn’t have much power or emphasis.  He has to rely on moves like hiptosses to try to get pinfalls.  Thus Randy Orton’s arsenal looks incredibly weak.  Nothing he does to Jericho in this match is credible to me now.

Back from commercial it’s a chin lock.  During the commercial Jericho pokes Orton in the eyes for the turn.  Orton gets out of the hold but is met with a high knee to the gut.  Jericho catapults himself over the ropes from the apron for an elbow drop.  he pushes Orton into the corner and punches.  Orton fights back with punches and stomps.  They seem weak to me.  Irish Whip into the other corner is met with a Jericho boot to the face.  Running enzuguri by Jericho.  Sheamus stumbles over his words on commentary. Jericho has Orton’s arms torqued behind his back.  He goes for a Lionsault but Orton moves.  He comes back with clotheslines and a snap power slam which has no importance.  He already belittled his arsenal tonight.

Orton uses his inverted back breaker.  Looks weak to me.  He goes for the hanging DDT through the ropes, but Jericho wiggles out, and back body drops Orton to the outside.  Jericho follows him out and throws Orton into Sheamus.  Jericho throws Orton back in the ring, follows him , and is kicked.  Hanging DDT through the ropes.  Looks weak to me.  Sheamus pulls Jericho out and clotheslines him.  Jericho wins by disqualification.  Orton is angry.  He confronts Sheamus.  He invites him into the ring.  They both get in but referees separate them.  End of segment.  I don’t care about their fatal 4 way.  Terrible lazy booking.  Eve tweets that Orton will face Sheamus on Smackdown.  I watch Smackdown because Daniel Bryan gets more than 5 minutes of air time.  Orton vs Sheamus does nothing for me.  I bet Orton tries to pin the bigger man after a chop.  That would make sense.

John Laurinaitis coms to the ring.  Because we haven’t seen enough of him tonight.  I was just thinking. I’d really like to see Laurinaitis for the 11th time tonight…  Laurinaitis apologizes to the fans for having to root for Cena.  He says he is better than The Rock and Brock combined.  When he beats Cena he will prove to the fans that they are all losers.  Doesn’t WWE represent “Be A Star?”  Doesn’t Be A Star try to stop bullying?  So why is the Head of Talent Relations telling all the people that they are losers?  Cena’s music hits.  He makes fun of Laurinaitis.  He makes fun of his voice and says what he did to Big Show was pathetic.  Cena goes over Laurinaitis’ track record.  Laurinaitis wanted CM Punk removed as champion, and he’s still champion.  Then he brought in Lesnar to take out Cena.  But he lost and quit.  He calls Laurinaitis a loser and does the worst Jim Carrey impression of all time.  As a die hard Jim Carrey fan I’m now forced to stick my fingers down my throat.  Because I literally want to vomit.  My body deserves vomiting after I made it go through that.

Cena polls the people on wanting to punch Laurinaitis.  They all appear to want to do that.  They chant YES YES YES.  Cena begins to kiss Pittsburgh’s ass.  He talks about beating him like the Steelers.  Isn’t he a Patriots fan?  Then he brings up the Pittsburgh Penguins.  I really don’t want to type the conversation that happened next.  I’ll do it quickly to get it over with.  Cena said loser every time he tried to talk Laurinaitis said they are losers there are Penguins in the crowd Cena got out a puck and said go puck yourself.  Moving in.  Here comes Eve Torres.  She interrupts him, whispers something in his ear, and hands him a paper.  Cena grabs it from him and accidentally rips it in half.  Cena reads the letter which is from the WWE Board of Directors.  So the Board of Directors sit around in a room all together and watch Raw?  And then they have meetings and send emails?  Hmmm I see.

The letter says that the Cena vs Laurinaitis match will be 1 on 1, with no special referee, no count out, no DQ, nobody can interfere, and if Laurinaitis loses he’s fired.  The crowd pops like crazy for that.  Cena wants to hear Laurinaitis’ major announcement now.  Laurinaitis slaps Cena in the face and walks to the back.  Cena does the angry face.  Kings says “maybe we will see the last of Laurinaitis Sunday.”  Sunday?  The PPV is this Sunday?  Already?  How did I not know that?  Nobody in their promo said “this Sunday” one single time.  I really had no idea.  How terrible of a marketing move.  The PPV already had little and terrible build as is.  John Cena, Johnny Ace, and Jim Carey (spelled wrong) are all trending on Twitter.  Ha!  Jim Carey is trending.  Love it!  That’s the first time I’ve smiled in the last 2 hours and 17 minutes.  (That’s when Raw started.)

How to end this?  How to end this?  Oh, I know!  And now it’s time for another WWE Writers discussion.  “What should the emphasis of tonight’s show be?  Well, since Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk will be amazing, let’s make it that.  No, no, no, that match isn’t important enough.  It only has the WWE title involved.  There are more important matches that involve authority figures.  So let’s put that on the under card.  Okay, but do you think we’ve built it enough?  Sure we have.  Those idiot internet fans will watch that for what it is.  We can just throw the match on the card, not let it main event, and make it mean nothing.  Those idiots will buy it, and we will look like we are doing our jobs because of the strong PPV buys.  Great point!  But what if they all just stream it online?  Well they can’t because we have internet nazis watching to take down all the feeds.  Oh, good.  Well let’s move on then.”

“Let’s make the show about the Fatal 4 way match!  No, that won’t work.  The World Heavyweight Championship has even lesser value than the WWE title because it represents an inferior show.  Very true.  But it does have Jericho in it right?  Yeah, but we only brought him back because the network didn’t want him to appear on other networks anymore.  USA felt as if they owned him.  So we have him stuck in this contract now where we control him and make him compete in useless story lines.  He’s really only here to put over CM Punk and Sheamus.  Yeah, your right.  Moving on.  So let’s give the most popular guys in the company the most time tonight!  Well, we already discussed CM Punk, so he’s out.  Zack Ryder is restricted to internet duties, so he’s out.  We don’t want Daniel Bryan to get cheered because he’s supposed to be a heel, so he’s out.  So let’s just go with Laurinaitis vs Cena since that’s going to main event the PPV!”

“Welllllllllll…..that match has enough hype already because we spent 40 minutes on it the last two weeks.  What if we make the emphasis of the show Laurinaitis vs Big Show.  That totally makes sense to me.  The purpose of Raw is supposed to be to push storylines that have no significance to the upcoming PPV.  It’s booking 101.  Duh, we all know that.  Why spend time promoting PPV matches?  The people will buy the PPV’s regardless because we have a monopoly on the industry.  What about TNA?  Everyone laughs.  What about ROH?  Everyone laughs.  Everyone knows that ROH is better, but we have the money to steal all their good talent.  So we don’t worry about them.  Oh yeah, that’s right.”

“So it’s settled.  We will make the emphasis of the show Laurinaitis vs Big Show.  It will have little significance to the upcoming PPV, which makes it perfect for television.  Everyone agrees.  So how long do we give it?  10 minutes?  Nah, too short.  20 minutes?  Perfect.  A quarter of the show.  So then we can take 5 minutes away from Punk and Bryan and make that match 5 minutes in length.  Perfect.  And we will stick Santino in that match to make people care.  Punk vs Bryan doesn’t have enough appeal.  It needs Santino.  Agreed.  Is Great Khali available?  Damn, we didn’t book him tonight.  Would have been great to job Daniel Bryan to him in preparation for the PPV.  We could have had Bryan sell an injury during the whole match so that both men wouldn’t have to bore us with psychology.  Too bad.  All in favor say I.  IIIIIIIIIIIII”

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