Raw and Ugly New Tag Belts Revealed.

Now the sunshine may have gone here in England, but SummerSlams beams of light shone through to last nights Raw.

The main and almost only focus of the show was what was going to happen with the Nexus.
We started the show with a promo from the Nexus telling us “what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.”
Cena then came out and cracked jokes and made fun of each member of the Nexus individually.
The GM soon chimed in putting the Nexus in a series of matches against the seven members of team WWE, rules being that the rest of the Nexus can’t interfere in the matches, and the Nexus can choose who goes against whom, except for Wade who will face Jericho in the first match of the night. Wade then announced that if any member of the Nexus loses they are exiled from the team, Otunga then said that the same will go for Wade as well.

Wade then goes head to head with Jericho in good opening contest, Jericho and Wade was both on form. Jericho looked to come close to the win on a few occasions but it was Wade who took the victory.

Next Michael Tarver took on former Nexus member Daniel Bryan. The match was great, Daniel Bryan is so good in that ring, and I enjoy watching him wrestle more and more each time.
Bryan was in control through out and looked to take the win when Miz and his current NXT rookie Alex Riley came flying to the ring, they distracted Bryan which allowed Tarver to take the win.
After the match the three men, Tarver, Miz and Riley fought Bryan outside the ring, Miz then did his Skull Crushing Finale to Bryan onto his Brief Case. Now usually the superstar receiving the Skull Crushing Finale puts there hands in the way of there face at the last moment to avoid injury, but still letting the move look effective, Daniel Bryan though decided to take that brief case head on, it made it look more devastating and a lot more impressive, respect to Bryan for taking the hit.

Before the matches continued we had a segment from the guest hosts, the stars of the new film Going the Distance. They bought out the Hart Dynasty, while the team was in the ring the GM chimed, Cole announced that the unified tag titles will now just be known as the WWE Tag Team Championships, he then introduced Bret Hart to present the Hart Dynasty with the new Tag Team title belts.
My first opinion of these new belts are…. ok I will be honest, I think there horrid, the colour is awful, the design doesn’t look good, and they don’t look no where near as nice as the original World Tag and WWE Tag belts. I have hated the design of previous belts before though, such as the current WWE championship, but they have grown on me, or should I say I have got used to seeing said belt.
While the Dynasty posed with there belts and there Uncle, the Nexus came on the screen to say that they have chose Bret’s opponent for the night, Justin Gabriel.

Justin Gabriel comes to the ring and waits for Bret but the GM had other ideas. He chimed and Cole made another announcement. Apparently the GM doesn’t like Bret and never wants him to wrestle on Raw again, the crowd did not approve of this but there boo’s soon turned to cheers as Bret’s replacement was revealed to be, The Viper Randy Orton.
Orton and Gabriel had a hell of a match and Orton was in control threw out, Orton was on fire from start to finish and the crowd were on there feet almost all the way threw as Orton knows how to pump us all up.
Orton was coiled to strike with an RKO when his snake senses tingled, he span round to face Sheamus, he jumped from the ring and attacked the Irishmen and the two fought into the crowd, while that was happening the Ref started his count out and quickly got to 10 allowing Gabriel to take the win.
When Orton heard that he had lost he jumped to the ring and nailed an RKO on Gabriel, he then went back out of the outside and wailed on Sheamus with a steel chair, Orton then started to leave when he ran back and nailed the RKO on the barley standing jar of mayonnaise.

The next Nexus match was a tag team match. David Otunga and Skip Sheffield teamed to take on R-Truth and John Morrison.
The two big men of the Nexus prevailed, beating down the two popular superstars.

We took a moment out of the Nexus story for a Divas match, nothing to special there.

Heath Slater then took on Edge, another great match but Nexus winning by a count out yet again as Heath dodged a spear by getting in the ring just before the Ref hit 10.

Lastly we had Darren Young vs. John Cena. Before the match the Nexus appeared at the top of the ramp, they didn’t get involved they just stood and observed.
The match went well and Darren Young showed real skill. Unfortunately for Darren he ended up locked into the STF and was forced to tap making him the first and only member of the Nexus to lose.
As soon as it was over the rest of the Nexus ran to the ring and surrounded it. Cena stood ready to fight but realised that the Nexus had left an opening for him to leave; Cena left the ring and headed up the ramp. The Nexus stayed and surrounded there own team mate before pouncing and beating him like they have done too many others before. It looks like Young is the first to be booted from the Nexus.

Where will the story go now? Will Miz join the Nexus? Or will Nexus continue to fall apart? And what roll will Nexus have at Night Of Champions? Only time will tell.

Matty.D signing off.

Daniel Bryan is BACK!

Last night, in my eyes, saw a brilliant PPV. The sun website described the event as lukewarm but I really did not agree.

The main subject of the night was of cores the Nexus vs. Team WWE.
To kick off the PPV we had Kofi vs. Dolph for the IC Title, a good match which looked to Dolph winning as he locked in his sleeper hold, but for some reason Nexus made them selves known by coming in and attacking both men, once Dolph was removed from the ring the team beat on Kofi and Wade did his finisher. All this was to set an example for Team WWE.

During the show we had Jericho and Edge talk to Miz backstage to make a final attempt at convincing him into joining the match.

Later, before Orton vs. Sheamus, Miz came out to cut an excellent promo and also announcing that he is joining the team.

Last match of the night was Nexus vs. Team WWE. Nexus came out first and stood waiting as each member of Team WWE came down the ramp. Just as the last man, the Miz, came out of the entrance Cena started on the microphone and announcing that they have found someone better. The man Cena announced and came out of that entrance I didn’t even consider, so I was jumping for joy when Daniel Bryan came out to join the team.
The match that followed was absolutely brilliant, Daniel Bryan was first in with Darren Young, Bryan eliminated Young in under a minute with a painful looking submission wowing me and the crowd, and showing why he is the best wrestler ever to perform in the independent circuit.
Next was Tarver eliminated by Morrison but next in was the big man Skip Sheffield, who was able to eliminate both Morrison and R-Truth.
Bret then had his chance to show what he has to bring to this match as he fought with Heath Slater, the 52 year old man who has suffered a stroke years before looked good as he nailed some classic wrestling moves, unfortunately when he hooked in the Sharp Shooter Skip was able to get a Tag in, and a chair had been slid into the ring, Bret took the chair and wailed on Skip getting him self disqualified to the boo’s of the crowd.
Jericho and Edge was then able to take out the meat head with a Code Breaker and a Spear.
Jericho then took out Otunga with the Walls of Jericho and continued to be on Fire as he beat on Heath slamming him over the announcers table, once back in the ring though Jericho collided with Cena on the apron allowing Heath to eliminate Jericho, Edge and Cena argued about who will get in the ring which ended up being Edge but he didn’t last long as Heath quickly rolled him up also.
Edge and Jericho took out there anger on Cena outside the ring before leaving.
That just left Bryan and Cena vs. Heath, Wade and Justin.
Cena ended up getting a beating and almost getting eliminated on a few occasions but was able to stay strong. Cena was finally able to tag in Bryan who went nuts on Heath with Kicks and flips and other amazing moves, he was the Sun in this SummerSlam and if storylines and contracts go well, he is a future World Champion.
Heath was about to eliminate Bryan with a quick roll up but Bryan was able to twist it into another submission and was able to eliminate Slater in an almost MMA style move.
While enticing Gabriel or Wade into the ring, Miz came flying down and hit Bryan in the back of the head while the Ref was busy and had his back turn. Barrett took his chance to pin Bryan eliminating him.
This left Cena to take on the final two Nexus members. Gabriel and Barrett worked as a unit to inflict more pain on Cena including a DDT on the concrete outside the ring after the mats were pulled up.
It looked to be all over as Gabriel climbed the top rope for his 450 Splash. He flew, he span, and he missed as Cena rolled away, Cena then pinned Gabriel eliminating him turning this match to one on one.
Cena didn’t take long to lock in the STF finishing the match and winning it for WWE.

It was a great match at the end of a great show.

The other matches were pretty great as well. Well 2 out of the 3 were great, the Divas match of cores was the lowest point, nothing to special and after Melina won the championship LayCool came down for a interesting promo and to end up fighting Melina.

Orton and Sheamus put on a great match but with a not so great ending. After a hell of a match Sheamus gets himself disqualified, an enraged Orton is able to get the upper hand and nails an RKO on Sheamus across the announcers table. This would have been the perfect moment for Miz to cash in but due to the other storyline he didn’t take the chance even with the crowd chanting “We want Miz!”

Kane and Rey put on a reasonable match with an expected ending.
Kane beat Rey retaining the World Title, Kane then moved to putting Rey in the coffin but Undertaker appeared inside. Taker looked pail and with the lack of eye liner made him look ill, obviously playing on his recent vegetative state, he also acted ill and weak. He climbed to the ring and looked to Rey but after Rey pleaded his innocents taker turned to Kane. He locked on Kane’s throat, Kane showed a smile as he took Takers throat and over powered Takers hand releasing his grip, Kane then took Undertaker into a Tombstone pile driver setting the stage for there future storyline.

Overall I thought this was a brilliant show and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I give SummerSlam a 4.5 out 5 stars.

I am really looking forward to Raw tonight, I hope we see Daniel Bryans career pushed further and possibly lead to a US Championship shot. Also I want to see where the Nexus will be heading now that they have been knocked down a peg, maybe Miz will become a new member to the team?

Raw tonight at 2am don’t miss it!

Matty.D signing off.

Lance Cade dead at 29

Well before we talk about SmackDown! And SummerSlam, we have some saddening news as another former WWE superstar has unfortunately died of heart failure, at the young age of 29.
Lance McNaught AKA Lance Cade died this week; WWE was informed Friday by Lances farther.
My deepest condolences go out to Lance’s friends and family.
To read more on this click the link to The Sun website at the bottom of the page.

Anyway let’s get to a more cheery subject of this weeks SmackDown! The final show before SummerSlam.

The main subject of the show was the World Title story combined with the Intercontinental Title story.
We started the show with Vicki Guerrero and Dolph Ziggler announcing there holiday to celebrate Dolph’s win of the Intercontinental Championship. This announcement was interrupted by the former champ Kofi Kingston.
Teddy Long soon appeared telling Dolph and Vicki to cancel the holiday as Dolph will be defending the title at SummerSlam against Kofi, just as I predicted, then he also said that Dolph would be in action against the #1 contender to the World Title, Rey Mysterio. Vicki then said that Kofi would have to take on Kane which Kofi agreed to.

Kofi and Kane then went head to head in great opening contest, Kane picked up the win after Kofi kicked the ring post missing the trouble in paradise, Kane was then able to Choke Slam Kofi from the top rope, then nail the Tombstone Pile Driver to finish it off.

The last match of the night was Rey vs. Dolph another great contest, during the match Kane came to the ring with a casket and stood by the ring with it waiting for the match to end so he could strike.
Rey was able to take the win with a quick roll up; as soon as Rey had won Kane took his chance and jumped to the ring where the two brawled. Kane ended up falling into the casket but like Rey last week was quick to jump straight back out.

At SummerSlam either Kane or Rey will end up in that casket but I bet it will be Undertakers hand that puts someone in. Obvious choice would of cores be Kane but Rey is still an option, how WWE takes the story may still be in the air.

Another story focus was the developing relationship between Cody and Drew, Cody took on Christian and later Drew took on Matt Hardy.
Before Cody’s match Drew spoke to him backstage showing signs of a future possible tag team.
Cody beat Christian in a good match and Drew was able to take down Matt, during Drew’s match he came close to breaking Matt’s foot as he jammed it between the two parts of the Steel Steps before stamping on it.

Big Show defeated three local wrestlers to give him a push before SummerSlam, S.E.S watched on at the top of the ramp and shared words after the match.
Jack Swagger seems to have fallen back to a middle level character as he took on MVP. MVP took the win with a quick roll up.


Let’s look at the final match card for SummerSlam:

Divas Championship:
Alicia Fox vs. Melina

Big Show vs. the S.E.S

Intercontinental Championship:
Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston

Team WWE vs. The Nexus

World Heavyweight Championship:
Kane vs. Rey Mysterio

WWE Championship:
Randy Orton vs. Sheamus

We may see some more matches added on the night and I wouldn’t be surprised as some sort of Divas contest was created as well.

It’s looking to be a good event and hopefully will be a fun show.

SummerSlam will be on SkyBoxOffice and SkyBoxOfficeHD Sunday night/Monday Morning at 1am.

That’s all for now Matty.D signing off.

Lance Cade story:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/3095070/Ex-WWE-star-Lance-Cade-dead-at-29.html

Out of Luck.

Before I start I know that some of you didn’t agree with last weeks NXT blog, but remember we are all entitled to our own opinions and mine was different from yours.

Any way this week saw an interesting NXT with a great rookie match.

The show started with a new NXT challenge. The challenge was a power of the punch challenge. The crowd didn’t quite get behind it but it didn’t last long. Alex Riley won the challenge and won the prize of appearing on Raw with out the rest of the rookies, it will be a good way to push his character.

During an ad break Miz and Morrison shared words in regards to the SummerSlam situation, it lead into the main event of the night being created, Miz vs. Morrison.

We then had the best match of the night as we see another 6 man tag match, a return match from Mondays Raw.
The match was a lot better than Raw’s match. The main man once again was Kaval but all the rookies shone in this match, it was a shame that we were losing yet another one later in the night.
We saw Lucky fly over the top rope in an awesome flying cross body, and Kaval did his usual kung fu style moves and locked in an interesting submission move on McGillicutty. All things went off track there as all the rookies fought and cleared the ring so Kaval can finish the match and receive his first win of the season.

Next was the main event as Miz took on John Morrison.
A great contest showing how good these rising stars are, unfortunately it doesn’t show any unity so if Miz ends up on team WWE at SummerSlam he most probably won’t gel well with his team mates.
Miz won after Morrison missed a kick to Miz and receiving a Skull Crashing Finale.

Last thing we saw of the show was the NXT poll, here are the results.

1. Kaval
2. Michael McGillicutty
3. “Showtime” Percy Watson
4. Husky Harris
5. Alex Riley
6. Lucky Cannon

As you can see we waved goodbye to the man who didn’t get to lucky this time round but he does claim it won’t be the last we see of him. It’s a shame to lose him after his performance earlier on in the night.
Before the show closed off Matt Stryker announced that next week will be a double elimination, so make sure to get your vote in to save the Rookie you don’t want to see go.

That’s all on NXT, last show before SummerSlam will be SmackDown! Tonight at 10pm on SkySports3 and SkySports3HD.

That’s all for now Matty.D Signing off.

The Battle before the War!

Before I get into this weeks Raw I would like to bring your attention to an article from the Sun.
The Sun recently had an interview with the leader of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin. In the interview Austin praises WWE for there PG rating.
To read that article, click the link at the bottom of the page.

Now lets move on to Raw which saw the final steps to SummerSlam.
The main focus was Team WWE still trying to hold together.
The show started with a promo from Bret Hart, Chris Jericho and Edge as Bret attempted to convince the two back onto the team but it lead to small fight, this was interrupted by Natalya as she came to get Bret’s help as the Hart Dynasty was getting beaten backstage by the Nexus which was show on the big screen, eliminating two potential replacements.

Later on Mark Henry looked to be another, potential replacement but as soon as Nexus knew of this they went to work to remove him from that list attacking Mark as he got to the ring for his match against Ted DiBiase.

R-Truth and Morrison showed union as they defeated lower stars William Regal and Zack Ryder. A good match Morrison really shined with a new back flip manoeuvre and for the first time in weeks was able to actually land Star Ship Pain flush instead of missing completely.

The Great Khali was meant to face Wade Barrett but Khali was attacked on route to the ring eliminating him from the SummerSlam match.

Before the final match of the night Nexus cut a promo, the usual stuff there, and we saw Miz approach Cena and Bret making him a possible replacement, before we witnessed Bret Hart and Cena vs. Edge and Jericho.
The match was more of a 2 on 1 as Hart didn’t get tagged in. Through out the match we saw Jericho and Edge throw Cena to the wolves just chucking him through the ropes to the awaiting Nexus who beat him before throwing him back in to the ring to be thrown out again.
Jericho was then thrown out but the Nexus didn’t touch him. Then, in the match, inadvertently, Jericho hit Barrett who was on the ringside, so the next time Jericho was outside he received a beating before the angry Nexus set there sites on Hart and Cena. All of them filled the ring when Morrison and Truth slid in beside Cena and Hart.
Edge and Chris were making there way up the ramp when they stopped and finally had another change of heart running back to the ring and standing tall with the rest of the team showing there reuniting to team WWE.
It was then that the brawl started and the crowd erupted making the arena shake, even the cameras shook as they almost caused an earthquake.
The Nexus ended up fleeing through the crowd as team WWE stood tall and the crowd chanted “you suck” at the Nexus as they stood looking back ending what was overall a good show.

Around all this we did see other matches and story development.

US Champ, Money in the Bank winner, and Awesome one, The Miz, took on the High Flying Evan Bourn in great contest, The Miz took the win after his Skull Crushing Finale.

Melina defeated Alicia Fox earning herself a Divas championship shot at SummerSlam.

And we saw an unneeded summer swim suit match, although the Divas did look very sexy there was no real wrestling involved, and it was a chance for them to just run around looking pretty.
Santino was special ref for this match.

The WWE Championship story continued to move forward as Sheamus has a face to face with Orton, this lead into a fight and Sheamus coming close to being punted. Once Orton had left the ring Sheamus stayed to watch the next match.
That match was the stars of NXT season 2 in a 6 man tag match. Kaval, “Showtime” Percy Watson and Lucky Canon faced Alex Riley, Michael McGillicutty, and apparent Steve Austin favourite Husky Harris.
The match was of reasonable level but the crowd just wanted one star to shine as they chanted, “We want Low Ki!” of cores referring to Kaval’s former in ring name.
Unfortunately even with the back up from the fans, Kaval still fell victim to Husky Harris and lost the match.
It was after the match that the awaiting Sheamus took his chance to attack the rookies and laying an explanation point on Kaval nailing his power bomb on the lower star.

Overall this was great show that I enjoyed; at SummerSlam I believe the Great Khali’s replacement will end up being The Miz, but there is a possibility it could be someone else. We may see the unveiling of a fan favourite who has been absent but I would not be sure who that would be.

Any thoughts feel free to drop me a message or leave a comment below.

That’s all for now Matty.D signing off.

Stone Cold Interview:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/3089667/Austin-praises-new-PG-WWE.html