20th Anniversary Raw – Time Capsule Review
8:00: Raw opened with a fun recap of all the opens of the show historically. Then I found it that it was nearly the same thing they did for the 15th anniversary show. Lazy WWE!
8:16: Very loooong first segment. The show opened with Vince saying that the reason Raw has succeeded for 20 years is because he’s a genius and then also said it was because of the fans.
The Big Show came out and complained about the Last Standing Match that he lost to Alberto Del Rio in a match he wasn’t ready for. Vince complimented Show on his weight loss. Did Show lose weight? In some brilliant timing, Del Rio pandered to a pro-Mexican crowd in Houston by calling Show a dog and a jackass in Spanish. He then hit a hurracanrana on Big Show in the middle of the ring which was pretty impressive.
All that being said, I’m not so sure Del Rio is going to get over that well as a face, but hey, it should be a worth the try.
8:33: Wade Barrett just pinned Randy Orton right in the middle of the ring with the Bull Hammer. I need to rewind that to see if it actually happened. Unbelievable.
8:50: At least they got the Team Hell No goofiness out of the way. Dr. Shelby was like Festus when Damian Sandow brought up Dr. Phil.
8:51: Re-wound the tape to make sure Barrett still beat Orton. Yep, still beat him.
9:00: Mick Foley came out as the first Hall of Fame inductee for the 2013 class. A cheap pop later and the Shield came out and circled him. That led to Ryback coming out and getting his ass handed to him. Then Orton came out and got his ass handed to him. Finally, Sheamus came out to even the odds and finally, they cleaned house with Ryback putting Dean Ambrose in the Shell Shock. He then cut a promo which showed his enormously capped teeth. He pulled down the straps, said, “Feed me Shield” and kept popping his pecs. Rypecs can put his shirt back on now.
9:16: I don’t buy Kaitlyn at all. I buy her even less as a babyface. She reminds of Terri Power who played Tori, X-Pac’s squeeze in WWE for a bit. She’s way too muscular and larger than everyone else to be a babyface. And yes, she finally pinned Eve Gracie to win the Diva’s title. Now Eve Gracie can teach jiu-jitsu, or chase Ronda Rousey.
9:33: Brodus Clay said that he doesn’t shuck and jive like Punk said because he has to, he said he does it because he was born to do it. If he was born to do it, he wasn’t born with that much talent. If he was born to do it, he’d dance like the man on my right. Punk made short work of him. And he can probably shuck and jive better too.
9:40: They’ve been showing packages coming out of commercial with old highlights and they are far more entertaining than the show we are being presented with tonight.
9:44: Okay, finally some fun. It was the Rock-N-Sock Connection reunion and this time, Foley didn’t get the Rock Bottom like he did in 2011.
9:53: Sheamus (yawn) lost a Battle Royal (yawn) to 3MB (yawn). And of course, he killed them after. Yawn.
10:08: In a bit of a waste of Ric Flair, he and Miz did some bad improv wooing all over the place. I would’ve much rather seen Flair play musical chairs.
I hope they don’t try to turn Miz into Flair. Jeez it would kill him dead and he’ll be out of wrestling in a year.
10:21: And Eve Gracie has quit the WWE. Good for her. Get out and do your thing girl.
10:51: So let me get this straight. John Cena and Dolph Ziggler are having a Steel Cage match since the regular match after the Ladder Match didn’t resolve the feud? And they need a cage because Big E interferes so much that Cena wins anyway. And in this cage match, Big E interfered, AJ interfered, Dolph hit Cena with everything he had and Cena still kicked out of it all and won. What a horrendous feud this is. And who gives a crap about Dolph now? They’ve absolutely ruined him.
11:14: Rock didn’t really do much of a concert. He played a smidgen of guitar while making fun of Vickie Guerrero. It was probably for the best. He called out Punk and told Punk that he’s not God in reference to Punk’s comment that Rock’s arms were too short to box with God from last week. Then, Punk ran toward him and they had a pretty sedated worked “hold me back!” rumble to end the show. Interestingly, Rock was the one who walked to the back, which made a weird ending since he’s the big, bad babyface.
The 20th Anniversary of Raw was just like most of the three-hour Raw shows. It was long, not all that newsworthy, and at times, head scratching. While there were fun segments, for a 20th Anniversary show, it was definitely short on nostalgia. Outside of Flair, Foley, and Rock, there was little in terms of history. The rumored HBK, Undertaker, and possible Stone Cold sightings never happened.