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WWE Monday Night Raw comes waltzing back into our lives tonight (July 2, 2012) from the Laredo Energy Center in Laredo, Texas, and features Brock Lesnar answering Triple H's challenge for a match at SummerSlam.
That doesn't mean he'll be there live and in color, of course. In fact, there's almost no way in hell Brock will be in the building but it's possible he pipe in via satellite. Or, and this is most likely, Paul Heyman will come back out to read some prepared statement.
All this so "The Game" can finally go over on one of the few men he never did while acting as Vince McMahon's hired gun in this goofy fantasy real world the WWE boss has created for himself.
Teddy Long is acting General Manager for this week, so expect tag team action in the main event. Probably something along the lines of Kane and Big Show teaming up against John Cena and Chris Jericho. You know, since they're all in the Raw/WWE championship Money in the Bank match.
Speaking of that title, CM Punk is still wearing it, Daniel Bryan is still chasing it, and AJ is still smack dab in the middle of it all. They've managed to keep me invested this long, so let's see this thing through, shall we?
All that and more.
Raw starts at 9 p.m. ET on USA, so be sure to make your way back here to chat with all your favorite Cagesiders during the show. It's always a fun time. Raw live blog after the jump.
WWE RAW RESULTS LIVE BLOG JULY 2
Geno here.
Broadcast is live.
A video recap of last week's main event airs showing Cena and Jericho going at it until Big Show crashed the party to destroy Cena as the show went off the air.
Nickelback plays the show in and I die just a little more inside. Believe it or not, there are actually people in this world who believe Nickelback makes good music.
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John Cena will start us off with his usual breaking of the fourth wall before running to the ring while Cole and Lawler gush over him.
He grabs a mic and starts putting over the crowd for being excited. He then brings up the beatdown he suffered last week and says he thanked Jericho and Show for it. Essentially because they helped introduce him to what it means to be in a Money in the Bank match, which is to say anything can happen.
What an explanation.
After his education last week, Cena says he really needs to be prepared for giants and heavy metal singers and chairs and ladders and all that and he will be. He promises to send Big Show home as an empty handed sewage baby and grab the briefcase before cashing it in to win the title.
Suddenly, Daniel Bryan starts doing his YES! chant while coming to the ring to no music.
Cena says that means Bryan agrees.
Bryan says he didn't even know Cena was out here.
Ha.
He goes on to say he's going to beat CM Punk to win the WWE title and if Cena wins the contract, he'll become the first guy to cash it in and lose. Cena says those are strong words but he can think of at least one person who disagrees.
"Actually, John, I can think of a lot more people that disagrees with Daniel," says CM Punk, who comes walking down to the ring, also without music.
He asks if Cena disagrees with Daniel. Yes. Does Jerry Lawler? Yes. Does the popcorn guy? Yes. Does this side of the crowd? Yes. Does that side? Yes.
Punk starts skipping around and screaming YES! until Bryan tells him he can't wait for someone to have an original thought instead of stealing his catchphrase.
Well put. Punk looks ridiculous out there. Like another version of Cena except less popular.
Punk tells Bryan AJ is the special guest referee and she'll count Bryan down on the mat. And then if Cena wins, it will be Punk vs. Cena once again.
Cue Chris Jericho, who actually gets music.
He comes down and says Punk doesn't have original thoughts, he just steals everyone else's shit and he should know about it. So Bryan needs to stop complaining about his one-word catchphrase and come up with something new.
Bryan tries to talk and Jericho shuts him down by telling him to shut the hell up. "Welcome to Raw is Jericho. And after tonight, none of you will ever ... EEEEVVVVVEEEERRRRRR ... be the same .... AGAIN!"
Nice.
Now it's Jericho's turn to say he's going to win the MITB ladder match. And he dares anyone to come down to the ring and tell him otherwise.
Cue Kane's music.
He says one word and Big Show's music hits. Cena in the ring asks for Show to come on down and Bryan attacks Cena from behind. Everyone suddenly goes nuts and starts attacking each other.
Show no sells everything and ends up the last man standing in the ring. His music plays again and off he goes.
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Oh look, another tag match.
Primetime Players, David Otunga, and Cody Rhodes vs. Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, Christian, and Santino Marella -- Cole makes sure to tell us this match was set up by Teddy Long and Lawler says he likes Long being the GM because he doesn't come out and run his mouth, he just puts together great shows.
Uh, yeah.
Christian takes early control on Darren Young before tagging in R-Truth, whose foot appears to be fine. He does some dancing off the ropes and tags in Kofi, who gets a flying clothesline. That gets a two count.
Titus O'Neil grabs Young and pulls him out of the ring to safety. That is until Kingston hits a suicide dive on O'Neil before getting laid out by Young. The two teams show up on both sides and tease a big melee but no one does anything as Raw goes to break.
The heels are in control coming back, working over Kingston. He gets a hot tag, though, and Santino comes in to work over David Otunga. The Primetime Players jump in to make a save and get beat down by the tag champs, so they just walk away.
Otunga tries to tag Rhodes in but he just says 'fuck this' and takes off too.
Suddenly, Brodus Clay's music hits and he comes waltzing out. Otunga tries to bail but the babyfaces keep him in, eventually trapping him. Otunga ends up getting hit with the Cobra and pinned.
Just for good measure, Christian hits the Kill Switch and Clay hits the Dino Drop or Dino Splash or whatever the hell that thing is called.
The music plays, the lights go down and little kids show up in the ring to dance with the wrestlers.
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Backstage and Teddy Long is dancing with a big goofy grin on his face while watching a monitor.
Alberto Del Rio shows up and says he's happy Long is in power for the night. Del Rio is unhappy that every time he's had his singles match for the world heavyweight championship, something has happened to mess it up.
Long says he doesn't think ADR is the number one contender but the Board of Directors have decided to give Del Rio his singles title shot against Sheamus at Money in the Bank.
That's on July 15, though. For tonight, Long says he has a surprise match for Del Rio and it goes down next.
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Alberto Del Rio vs. Sin Cara -- The match doesn't even start properly because Del Rio just starts unloading on Sin Cara as soon as he gets in the ring. He sends him to the outside and locks on the Cross Armbreaker on the floor. Sin Cara taps while referees try to get ADR off him.
Cole says this was a message from Del Rio to Sheamus. The crowd has been chanting "asshole" at Del Rio the entire time.
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AJ is shown backstage wearing straight edge tape on her hands. Daniel Bryan walks up with a rose and says he always cared about her. He was just frustrated at himself and he didn't know how to react.
He apologizes and gives her a rose.
"Daniel, that's so sweet."
"Yeah. Yeah it is."
Awesome.
AJ wonders if this has anything to do with her being named special guest referee. He says it doesn't and she says he doesn't care about her and he never did.
She continues by saying she can't wait to win her match tonight and run right into the arms of the man the WWE Universe sees as her soul mate.
She then bites the rose off and spits it out before handing it back to Bryan.
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Video replay of Triple H challenging Brock Lesnar to a match at SummerSlam.
Cut to a video of Paul Heyman. He says Lesnar has made a decision on Triple H's challenge and he'll announce it to Trips' face in three weeks at the 1,000th episode of Raw on July 23.
Heyman continues by talking about lawsuits and making everyone want to tune out. He goes on to say he figured out why Triple H wants the match and it's because "The Game" is using Brock as an exit strategy. Because if he really wants a match against Lesnar, he knows he'll take the beating of his life and it will mark the end of his in-ring career.
If Brock accepts the match, it won't be a match -- it will be a mercy killing.
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God. Yet another tag match.
Sheamus and AJ vs. Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero -- AJ tries to attack Vickie to start and Sheamus gets her to calm down and take to the apron so he can start with Ziggler.
They get to it and Ziggler takes early control with a couple of elbows and a drop kick. He works an arm before running the ropes and getting sent flying through the air and bumping on his stomach.
Jumping DDT from Ziggler gets two.
Dolph continues his attack but Sheamus comes back with a forearm in the corner. Immediately after he hits White Noise and hits the corner to call for the Brogue Kick. Ziggler tags Vickie in before he can get it.
He ends up hitting it anyway.
AJ comes in and nails Vickie and gets the pin and the victory. She climbs out of the ring and grabs a mic to do the YES! chant while she skips up the ramp and out of there.
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They show AJ backstage looking for Punk.
She finds him and he's on the phone. He tells her to hang on for a second and she gets jealous, demanding to know who he was talking to.
He gets off and says it was his sister.
"What did you think of my match?"
"What match? I didn't even know you had a match, I was on the phone to my sister for the last 15 minutes."
She gets upset that he wasn't paying attention to her and starts to cry before running off. He looks a bit regretful but also points to the phone and drops his shoulders.
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Time for Heath Slater to get squashed.
They run video of him getting run over by Vader and Piper and what not. He tells the crowd it's not funny and he's not a clown.
Cue Doink the Clown down to the ring.
HA.
Swerve!
Doink the Clown vs. Heath Slater -- Doink works a sleeper before slapping Slater. Kick to the gut from Slater and he starts working over Doink while complaining to the crowd.
This leads to Doink regaining control while Michael Cole laughs at the fact that Doink actually had a successful career.
Slater hits a running neck breaker and gets the pin!
Before he can even start celebrating, Diamond Dallas Page's music hits and he comes waltzing out to the ring.
The crowd chants for him big and DDP is giving Slater props. Of course, he ends up hitting the Diamond Cutter after they shake ends and exits the arena after a self high five.
Good stuff.
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Kane vs. Big Show -- This was announced by Teddy Long on Twitter earlier in the night. Or at least that's what the Raw GM account said. I don't believe it was him. I mean, it's a singles match.
It's also no disqualification.
They start by brawling. Lots of punches, with Show's body shots looking like absolute crap. They end up on the outside and Show misses a big boot into the barricade. He reverses Kane into the steel steps and now both guys are having leg troubles.
That's great news for two big dudes who can already barely move.
They tease a choke slam from both guys near the announce table but nothing comes of it. Show sends Kane back in the ring before grabbing a chair. He slides it in the ring but gets met by Kane, who delivers his trademark uppercut throat punches.
"The Big Red Machine" goes up top and misses the flying clothesline.
Kane picks up the chair but gets speared with it in hand. Show sells a shoulder issue because of it but choke slams Kane on top of the chair and gets the three count for the win.
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Backstage and Teddy Long is walking around. He runs into Eve, who immediately starts sucking up to him. He says he's got something for her.
It's a name tag. She rips it up after he walks off.
She runs into AJ, who is all upset. Eve says she needs to leave the mind games to grown ups and do what little kids do and sit in the corner and cry.
AJ says Eve will do anything to get attention and wonders who Eve will brown nose next. "You want to see how to get attention? I'll show you. I'll show all of you."
AJ smiles and walks off while Eve does her best to look troubled.
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Tyson Kidd vs. Tensai -- Both guys look at the MITB briefcase hanging above the ring before the bell. Once it does, Tensai blitzes him and starts working him over in the corner.
Suddenly, Kidd rolls him up and gets the pin!!!
Kidd takes off and Tensai starts utterly destroying Sakamoto in frustration. This is the first thing he's done since coming back to get himself some real heat.
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Backstage again and Chris Jericho is getting his jacket on. Daniel Bryan shows up to bash him for his jacket, calling it stupid. Jericho says Bryan's jacket is stupid and so is his beard.
Jericho says they need to quit bickering and take out Punk and Cena, agreed?
"YES! YES! YES!"
Jericho gets upset and they start going at each other with catchphrases.
Cut to Punk and Cena chatting and Punk says he thinks he's grown as a leader since he's been champion for so long, so maybe Cena needs to listen to him and let him take the lead out there.
Cena kind of chuckles and says, "Cool, I'll just listen to you."
Punk gives him a look like he can't trust him before they cut to break.
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Josh Matthews interviews Tyson Kidd in the locker room and asks him how he feels after his big upset win.
Kidd says he's feeling like he's on top of the world ...
SMASH!
Tensai runs in and sends Kidd's skull into the lockers. He's really upset, you guys.
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Main event time.
CM Punk and John Cena vs. Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan -- To get an idea of how Cena has transcended the WWE championship, he came out last for this match.
Punk is wearing black and green, the same green Cena is wearing. He's basically Cena with black hair and tattoos, at this point.
He starts with Bryan and an arm drag leads to a YES! from Bryan. Punk acknowledges.
They run the ropes and this time Punk gets a few arm drags out of it. A couple of knife edge chops and a suplex leads to a pinfall attempt but Bryan kicks out at two.
Punk backs into his corner so Cena can tag in and he comes in to hit a bulldog. Bryan tags out to Jericho quickly after and now they get this feud going some more.
Shoulder block from Jericho. Cena ends up sending Jericho out after some back and forth and that leads to a commercial break.
The heels are in control coming back, of course, and it's Cena taking all the offense. Bryan gets his YES! kicks in the corner and Cena actually makes them look pretty damn good. He manages to kick out after a two count, though, and Jericho comes back in.
That's when the dueling chants start. Cena sucks but they want him to go.
Meanwhile in the ring, Cena looks for a fisherman's suplex but Jericho blocks. Cena then powers and tries to pick Jericho up to slam him but Jericho just backs out.
That was an ugly, ugly botch. I'm not sure what the hell just happened.
Jericho works a sleeper right after. Once Cena powers out, he tries the AA but Jericho reverses into a DDT. Irish Whip reversed into the corner but Jericho gets a boot up. He tries a bulldog but Cena sends him into the other corner and it looks like we've got a hot tag coming.
Cena overacts like he's Jim Carrey but gets the tag to Punk, who comes in with a springboard clothesline on Bryan, who also gets tagged in. Neckbreaker into the running high knee. Bulldog doesn't get there but Punk locks on the Anaconda Vise. Jericho makes the save but Cena comes in to send him out and they battle up the ramp.
Back in the ring and Punk and Bryan go back and forth.
Punk hits a big superplex that only gets a two count. The crowd is insanely hot for this.
So, of course, AJ's music hits and she comes out to skip around the ring. Punk and Bryan continue the match anyway and AJ realizes no one is paying attention to her. She doesn't like this. They also refuse to acknowledge her once she gets on the apron.
Both men end up laid out in the middle of the ring after a crossbody collision.
AJ goes around the ring and looks underneath it. She pulls out a table. While Punk and Bryan sell in the ring, she sets it up on the outside.
She then proceeds to climb up the ropes and it looks like she's going to send herself through the table. Oh, hell no.
Bryan finally gets down and pleads with her not to jump. He says it's not worth it. Now Punk shows up and climbs up to get in her way. She kisses him and then pushes him on top of Bryan so they both go through the table.
AJ, still on the top rope, looks down on them and does the YES! chant.
AWESOME!
End.