RAW June 27, 2011 results, live retro blog: CM Punk’s pipebomb

Ok, the last time we did one of these, I did say that the Live Retro Blog was done until the new year.

Then this happened.

At 6:05pm ET on December 3, every episode of Monday Night RAW ever (including the RAW Bowl as of last night—thanks Jacob!) had been uploaded to WWE Network. Suddenly you have a hell of a selling point for the service. Not only (nearly) every PPV ever, but (nearly) ever RAW ever.

Oh, you’re asking what’s RAW #944?

Okay. RAW #944, the June 27, 2011 episode holds a pretty important place in WWE history, though you’ll probably never hear them speak of it again. What exactly happened, you ask?

Mark Henry rammed Big Show through a steel cage.

Oh, and CM Punk delivered one of the most scathing worked shoots in wrestling history. There’s... there’s that too.

The “Pipebomb” as it has since become known capped off RAW Roulette 5, where every match on the show was determined by the spin of a wheel. Good times.

Showtime for this Live Retro Blog is 8pm ET Saturday. That’s 7pm CT, 5pm Pacific, 3pm Hawaiian, and 1am early Sunday in Britainnia. Everywhere else, figure it out. Of course, active WWE Network subscription is required. This blog will be treated as live, so you’ll need to refresh often. GIFs and pics are okay, but don’t abuse it.

This Saturday night, see the time when CM Punk blew everyone’s mind.

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Howdy! I’m Eddie Mac. Let’s watch some live retro wrestling action.

RAW June 27, 2011 from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rated TV-PG (V).

Nickelback.

Stock shots of Las Vegas. Then cut to the Raw Roulette wheel, which will be determining all of the matches on the show. Booker T's handling the wheel.

Ah! Ah! Shawn! IT'S HBK! THE HEARTBREAK KID! SHAWN MICHAELS! Shawn tried to stay away, but he can't quit cold turkey. Shawn plugs his show on the Outdoor Channel. Shawn also has a Twitter.

Pardon the interruption, here comes the remains of the nWo Black and Gold—errrrrrr—the New Nexus: CM Punk and the WWE tag team champions David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty (no Mason Ryan, he was injured over the weekend). Punk talks about him leaving soon and he's actually gonna stay gone. Win-win for everyone, says Shawn Michaels. Punk mocks Michaels for going out a loser, and he's gonna go out a winner. Punk gets on the crowd, and Shawn delivers an inconvenient truth: he's better. Punk retorts that Shawn was better then and Punk's better now.

And David Otunga just died via Sweet Chin Music.

IPHONE NOTIFICATION! RAW GM says that since Punk's leaving soon, he's gonna make the rest of his time count. Let's spin the wheel.

Wheel of pro wrestling, turn, turn, turn. Tell us the kind of match CM Punk will learn. Question mark. That means Chick Magnet Punk will have a mystery opponent. That mystery opponent is THE EVIL WELDER KING.

And Michael McGillicutty just died via Sweet Chin Music. Good luck with all that.

EVIL WELDER KANE, HELLFIRE, BRIMSTONE AND ALL enters as we head to break.

Match 1: EVIL WELDER KANE defeated CM Punk by countout in 4:18. Punk in full "what are they gonna do? Fire me" mode takes a powder just as he was about to be on the business end of a top rope clothesline. Start the walkout early, I guess. Punk is the #1 contender for the WWE Championship. He's got nothing to gain from the bout. So what if he doesn't get the winner's purse.

Big Show versus Alberto Del Rio later. Also John Cena vs. R-Truth. Both determined by the RAW Roulette wheel.

WWE Poker plug.

Match 2: Sin Cara defeated Evan Bourne in a no countout match in 4:50. MOOD LIGHTING! Weird explanation about last week's voting on the Power to the People episode. I won't bother going into it. Good little match though. Sin Cara wins with La Mistica. (FUTURE EDDIE ALERT: Sin Cara Originale could have been a big deal if he had his shit together.)

Backstage, Kofi Kingston with Booker T and the roulette wheel. Vickie Guerrero cuts in and spins the wheel and gets... Player's Choice. But since Kofi was the player, he gets the choice. His choice: Kofi vs. Dolph, with Vickie Guerrero banned from ringside.

Stock shot of Las Vegas, and the announcers have a brief chat about the RAW Money in the Bank ladder match (Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, Evan Bourne, Alberto Del Rio, R-Truth, The Miz, Jack Swagger, Alex Riley).

Vickie Guerrero interrupts Kofi Kingston's entrance and referees escort her out. Did you not understand you were banned, Vickie?

Match 3: Kofi Kingston defeated Dolph Ziggler in 7:35. Good match. Fat jokes at Vickie's expense. Please stop with the fat jokes. Please move these two on from each other. Seriously. It's every Kofi and Dolph match ever. (FUTURE EDDIE ALERT: Know how many matches these two had together on TV and PPV? 25 as of today. 25.Thankfully, after this episode, the two wouldn't meet again until March 2012.)

John Cena vs. R-Truth later.

Booker T with Maryse. Alberto Del Rio interrupts. Booker is about to spin the wheel, but Alberto decides to let Maryse spin it. And she lands on... Steel cage match. She didn't spin that. Tell me she did not just spin that. Sucks for you, Alberto. Women can be cruel sometimes.

SLAM OF THE WEEK PRESENTED BY JUST FOR MEN. Big Show killed Mark Henry dead on Smackdown two weeks ago. Mark Henry gets revenge at Capital Punishment when he delivered the World's Strongest Slam through a table.

Steel cage match! Pinfall, submission, or escape with both feet on the floor to win.

Match 4: Alberto Del Rio defeated Big Show in a steel cage match at 5:19. Near the end of the match, Mark Henry rips the door off the steel cage and brings it in. No, like he literally brings the cage door into the cage. Alberto escapes through the opening and wins. Meanwhile, Mark Henry does a number on Show with the door, even ramming him through the side of the cage closest to the announce position. Holy shit. Mark Henry will do what he wants. Can't stop. Won't stop. And he's challenging people in the audience as we go to break.

Big Show able to get up on his own during the break.

Out comes Kelly Kelly who won her first Divas title a week ago from Brie Bella. There's the heel Cole we've been waiting for. Kelly's opponent will be Nikki Bella. I guess Brie's biding her time to exercise her rematch clause. Booker T spins the wheel. He's hoping for a pillow fight. But we get... submission match. Oh, and it's for the Divas title.

Match 5: Kelly Kelly defeated Nikki Bella in a submission match to retain the WWE Divas Championship in just 81 seconds. FUTURE EDDIE ALERT: Show of hands if you thought in 2011 that in five years, Nikki would be one of the best in WWE and Kelly would be out of the business altogether. Put your hands down because you're probably lying. Oh, Kelly wins with the Walls of Jericho. Foreshadowing, and you didn't even know it.

Correction: it was a non-title match. Brie will get her rematch at Money in the Bank. Bellas double-team until Eve comes to Kelly's rescue.

WWE DID YOU KNOW? WWE offers all US military personnel free tickets to all WWE events held in the United States.

LAST MONTH on RAW: Andy Leavine won Tough Enough. We check in with Silent Rage. FUTURE EDDIE ALERT: "Silent Rage" violated the Wellness Policy in August and pretty much never had a chance after that. Leavine was released in April 2012 and retired from wrestling just over a year later.

Backstage, Booker T's with Rey Mysterio with a spin in progress. Tornado match. Rey Mysterio and Alex Riley vs. Jack Swagger and The Miz in a tornado tag match. A WILD DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE APPEARS! He's shilling The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro (hosted by that DDP fella). Drew McIntyre appears. Drew wants to know what about him, what about his TV time. Drew wants the WCW legends to vacate in 10 minutes or he'll stretcher them out...

And then Drew McIntyre died via Sweet Chin Music.

Shawn has no memories of WCW, you know, him being in WWF at the time and all that. Yeah, you could benefit from that DVD. You could see some of the stuff that nearly drove the WWF out of business.

B.A. Star promo.

Match 6: Alex Riley and Rey Mysterio defeated Jack Swagger and The Miz in a tornado tag team match at 11:43. Best match on the show.

A preview of Shawn's Outdoor Network show, MacMillan River Adventures.

Backstage, conspiracy theorist R-Truth talking to himself before Booker T interrupts. R-Truth spins... tables match. Truth says Cena's gonna get got. Truth's talking to Lil' Jimmy.

Stock footage of Las Vegas brings us to our MAIN EVENT.

Match 7: R-Truth defeated John Cena in a tables match at 5:14. So if you're scoring at home, both the WWE Champion and its #1 contender lost on this show tonight. Punk had a hand in Truth's upset win. Just as Cena was about to Alcoholics Anonymous Punk, Truth speared Cena through a table in the corner. Punk looks at his handiwork, but before he calls it a night, he sits down on top of the ramp. And he let's off some verbal steam... on a lot of people.

"John Cena, while you lay there, hopefully as uncomfortable as you possibly can be, I want you to listen to me. I want you to digest this, because before I leave in three weeks with your WWE Championship, I have a lot of things I wanna get off my chest.

I don't hate you, John. I don't even dislike you. I like you a hell of a lot more than I like most people in the back. I hate this idea that you're the best - because you're not. I'm the best. I'm the best in the world. There's one thing you're better at than I am and that's kissing Vince McMahon's ass. You're as good at kissing Vince's ass as Hulk Hogan was. I don't know if you're as good as Dwayne. He's a pretty good ass-kisser. Always was and still is. Oops - I'm breaking the fourth wall. [Punk waves to the camera.]

I am the best wrestler in the world. I've been the best ever since Day One when I walked into this company. And I've been vilified and hated since that day because Paul Heyman saw something in me that nobody else wanted to admit. That's right, I'm a Paul Heyman guy. You know who else was a Paul Heyman guy? Brock Lesnar. And he split, just like I'm splittin', but the biggest difference between me and Brock is that I'm going to leave with the WWE Championship.

I've grabbed so many of Vincent K. McMahon's imaginary brass rings that it's finally dawned on me that they're just that. They're completely imaginary. The only thing that's real is me. And the fact that day in and day out, for almost six years, I've proved to everybody in the world that I am the best on this microphone, in that ring and even on commentary. Nobody can touch me. And yet, no matter how many times I prove it, I'm not on your lovely little collectors' cups, I'm not on the cover of the program, I'm barely promoted, I don't get to be in movies, I'm not on any crappy show on the USA Network, I'm not on the poster of WrestleMania, I'm not on the signature that's produced at the start of the show. I'm not on Conan O'Brien, I'm not on Jimmy Fallon, but the fact of the matter is I should be. And trust me, this isn't sour grapes, but the fact that "Dwayne" is in the main event of WrestleMania next year and I'm not, makes me sick!

Oh hey, let me get something straight. Those of you who are cheering me right now - you are just as big a part of me leaving as anyone else, because you're the ones sipping out of those collector cups right now, you're the ones that buy those programs that my face isn't on the cover of, and then at five in the morning at the airport, you try to shove it in my face thinking you can get an autograph and sell it on eBay, because you're too lazy to get a real job.

I'm leaving with the WWE championship on July 17 and hell, who knows, maybe I'll go defend it in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Maybe I'll go back to Ring of Honor.

[Punk waves to the camera again] Hey, Colt Cabana, how you doing?

The reason I'm leaving is you people because after I'm gone you're still going to pour money into this company - I'm just a spoke on the wheel - the wheel's gonna keep turning. And I understand that Vince McMahon's gonna make money despite himself. He's a millionaire who should be a billionaire. You know why he's not a billionaire? It's because he surrounds himself with glad-handing nonsensical douche bag yes-men like John Laurinaitis, who's gonna tell him everything he wants to hear. And I'd like to think that maybe this company will be better after Vince McMahon is dead, but the fact is, it's gonna get taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family.

Let me tell you a personal story about Vince McMahon. You know we do this whole bully campaign— [microphone cuts off]

I've been silenced!"

[cut to black]

I guess we won't be hearing that bully campaign story because the feed just abruptly cut to black.

EDDIE MAC'S QUICK REVIEW

Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and say it: that end-of-show promo is the only reason this episode of RAW is remembered at all. Take that promo away and you have what is at best an average episode of RAW in 2011. I'd tell you to watch the show for the promo, but the promo video's up there. If I were to judge the show on just the end promo, it's a 10 out of 10. But I have to judge it as a whole. So.. 4 out of 10. Watch it for historical purposes (for the pipebomb), but you'll forget the rest of it within a day or so.

For the curious, here's how the site reviewed it on its original airing, and how the site reacted to the promo itself.

And with that, the Live Retro Blog is back on vacation. Next weekend is Roadblock: End of the Line. Then Christmas Eve. Then New Year's Eve. So this feature will be going away for a while. It will be back on January 7.