Randy Orton and John Cena stood face-to-face at the end of the Survivor Series pay-per-view and it was Orton who came out first for the “WWE Monday Night Raw” episode the next night. Here is the “WWE Monday Night Raw” recap and results from the new episode.
Breakdown
Orton stood in the ring and talked about how great he was before introducing The Authority. When they came out, Stephanie McMahon took credit for The Authority helping Orton retain his title, which Orton took offense to and said he could have done it on his own and didn’t need their help. Before they could get into it even further, John Cena came out to the ring.
Cena came in and Stephanie told him to get to the point because their time is valuable. Cena said that he was challenging Orton to a match with both titles on the line and Orton decided there was a conspiracy against him. That caused Triple H to tell Orton to grow up and then set up a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match between Orton and Cena at the TLC PPV with both titles on the line.
The first match saw The Shield take on The Rhodes Dynasty and Rey Mysterio. The match was pretty good and everyone got their blows in, but the end came when Roman Reigns speared Mysterio and Goldust and then Dean Ambrose hit the Headlock Driver for the win.
Up next is Miz TV. His guest was supposed to be Michael Strahan, but Titus O’Neil came out dressed like Stahan with a tooth blacked out. He mocked Strahan until the real Michael Strahan finally came out. They challenged O’Neil to take a hip toss, but he was working stiff and refused to go over. However, he hip tossed both men and then they all danced to end the segment.
The next match saw Ryback and Curtis Axel waiting in the ring for their opponents, Intercontinental Champion Big E Langston and the returning Mark Henry. It was a short match and ended when Big E knocked Ryback outside of the ring and Henry hit the World’s Greatest Slam on Curtis Axel for the pin.
Up next is a rematch of last night’s Diva’s Traditional Survivor Series match, and once again the cast of Total Divas won, this time with the Bella Twins and Eva Marie all surviving.
The next match was a fan vote for the stipulations between Damien Sandow and Dolph Ziggler. The fans voted for a hardcore match and Sandow won when he hit a DDT on Ziggler on a chair. It was about the same as last week’s weapons match between the two and now they are tied up with a win apiece.
Before the next match, Renee Young is in the ring to interview CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. She never asks a question, strangely. Punk starts asking questions in which the answers are “Yes Yes Yes” until he hits one that is not a yes or no question, which throws off Bryan. Punk then throws in a ton of tag teams from the past and says they could beat them all. Bryan then says they are not finished with Bray Wyatt and asks what time it is, to which Punk responds, “It’s Clobberin’ Time!”
This leads to a handicap match between the Best and the Beard against all three members of the Wyatt Family. The two teams fought long and hard, but the match ended in a no contest when the Wyatts refused to leave only one man in the ring and stop beating down Punk and Bryan. The Wyatt’s picked up Bryan and carried him to the back. However, when CM Punk went after his partner, Roman Reigns speared him from out of nowhere. The Shield then rolled Punk into the ring and hit the Triple Powerbomb.
Kofi Kingston and The Miz fought in a rematch from Survivor Series and The Miz won again, once again cleanly.
Up next, R-Truth came out and said Brodus Clay loaned him the Funkadactyls for the night and they accompanied Xavier Woods to the ring. Woods won his singles debut in the WWE over Heath Slater.
Finally, the main event saw John Cena and The Big Show battle Alberto Del Rio and Randy Orton in a tag team match. This is the start of a big feud between the two that will have a title vs. title match at the TLC PPV and is rumored to be a precursor to the main event at Wrestlemania 30. In an interesting turn of events, Big Show was kicked in the head by Del Rio and started showing concussion symptoms. The doctor came in, but Big Show refused to quit and the heels continued to kick him in the head.
Big Show finally tagged out and Cena came in as Super Cena and pretty quickly made Alberto Del Rio submit with the STF without much trouble. Big Show was still laid out on the floor and when Cena went to check on him, Del Rio attacked and went for the Cross Arm Breaker but Cena reversed it into the Attitude Adjustment. When Cena got back up, Randy Orton laid him out with his title belt, went out and got Cena’s belt, and then posed in the ring with both titles.
Analysis
The fact that they are teasing a title unification made this a WWE Monday Night Raw show that needed to be seen. The opening match with The Shield, the handicap match with Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and the Wyatt Family were both solid and the main event was interesting with Big Show’s concussion angle. Other than that, this was not the best Raw but it wasn’t the worst.