WWE RAW 2/27/12 Results and Review – WrestleMania Headliners Face Off!

[Q 1] The show starts with a recap of John Cena’s promo to The Rock from last week’s RAW.

RAW’s intro airs, and the announcers hype The Rock’s return to WWE.

Justin Roberts announces a champion vs champion’s re-match, WWE Champion CM Punk vs World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan. A recap of their previous match airs while CM Punk makes his way to the ring.

Instead of Daniel Bryan, Chris Jericho walks to the ring with a mic in hand.  Jericho starts with “Expecting somebody else, Punk?” Jericho gives credit to Punk saying he is an amazing performer and one of his favorites, but he is not the best in the world. Jericho says he never had to write “best in the world” on the back of a t-shirt because everyone knew it already. Jericho says he of a dying breed of performers who were stars before they ever made it to WWE and cared more about having the best match on the show and didn’t care about personal politics or what the hierarchy thought about them. Jericho says he didn’t give a damn what people thought about him, because he knew he was the best. Jericho says that Punk is nothing more than a Chris Jericho wannabe.

Punk says everything that he’s had, he’s fought for and earned. Punk says neither one of them invented the phrase “Best in the World,” saying Bret Hart called himself the best when they were kids. Punk then started to make jokes about Jericho inventing Bret Hart and Canada. Jericho put an end to the jokes and said Punk needs to take him seriously because him being the best in the world isn’t just a gimmick. Jericho started to rattle off his career accomplishments and uses them as evidence that he is the best in the world.

Punk says that Jericho’s body language proves he is inferior, and he is trying to prove to himself that he’s the best in the world. He accuses Jericho of being jealous of him because he is “THE man”, something that Jericho never was. Punk says Jericho is the best in the world at what he does, but Punk is the best WRESTLER in the world. Punk says that while he is in WWE swimming with sharks, Jericho is out dancing with stars.

[Q 2] Jericho says while he was out becoming a bigger star than Punk ever was, all he could think about was how Punk was ripping him off. He called all of the “end of the world” vignettes all window dressing, because he is only back to embarrass Punk, defeat him at WrestleMania and shove down Punk’s throat the fact that he is the best in the world.

Punk says neither one of them needs celebrities, pyro, or fancy entrances, the only thing they need a ring to find out who the best in the world is. Punk closed by saying when Jericho sees Punk’s hand raised in victory at WrestleMania that “it’s not going to be the end of THE world, it’s just going to be the end of YOURS!”

Daniel Bryan comes down to the ring, accompanied by AJ, John Laurinaitis, and David Otunga. Laurinaitis gets on the ring apron and exchanges words with Punk. Bryan attacks Punk from behind but Punk fights back and throws Bryan out of the ring. [Commercial]

JayDub: Wow that was intense! Great exchange between Punk and Jericho. They’ve officially taken the gloves off.

1. Daniel Bryan defeats CM Punk via disqualification – The competitors traded strikes and submissions before Punk took control of the match. Punk launched Bryan over the top rope and he goes crashing to the floor. Punk attempts to suicide dive onto Bryan, but AJ steps into his way and he stops. Bryan knocks Punk off the apron and throws him into the steel steps. [Commercial]

Daniel Bryan gains control of the contest during the commercial, and has Punk in an abdominal stretch. Punk breaks the hold and begins to strike Punk with kicks.

[Q 3] Bryan breaks up Punk’s high knee/bulldog combo but Punk regains control and hits Bryan with a flying elbow. Punk signals for the GTS, but David Otunga jumps on the ring apron. Due to the distraction, Bryan tries to apply the LeBell Lock but Punk reverses and both men go down with simultaneous crossbodys.

Otunga gets back on the ring apron but Santino hits him with the Cobra, which knocks him off. Laurinaitis then pulls him off the apron and he begins to argue with Teddy Long. Meanwhile, Daniel Bryan starts to walk away from the ring but Sheamus comes out and throws him back in. Punk hits him with the GTS and pins him, but Laurinaitis gets into the ring and stops the ref from counting. The ref rings the bell to stop the match.

Post-match Teddy Long gets into the ring and pushes Laurinaitis to the mat. The two GM’s, Santino, and Otunga start to argue while Punk walks up the ramp. Punk stops on the stage and poses with his title, but Chris Jericho comes out from the back and attacks Punk from behind. He scoop slams him on the stage and applies the Walls of Jericho. WWE officials break the hold and Jericho poses with the WWE title. Jericho then placed the title on Punk’s chest and said “Enjoy it while you can; only four more weeks”.

The announcers teased The Rock’s appearance tonight. [Commercial]

JayDub: I’ve been waiting on Punk and Jericho to let loose, and it seems as if they have done that with the feud accelerating at such a rapid rate tonight.

Backstage Josh Mathews says that CM Punk is in the trainer’s room.

Video package airs detailing Triple H and The Undertaker’s feud, starting with last year’s WrestleMania match.

[Q 4] Jerry Lawler announces that John Cena will face The Miz tonight on RAW. [Commercial]

Michael Cole reads a tweet from Kelly Kelly criticizing Eve for playing Zack Ryder.

2. Nikki Bella vs Kelly Kelly (1:29) – The two Divas roll around on the floor before Nikki Bella takes control. Kelly performs a hurricarana Nikki and then faceplants her on the mat. The Bellas attempt to perform twin magic with the ref’s back turned, but Kelly dropkicks Brie off the ring apron. Nikki rolls Kelly up with a pin attempt, but Kelly counters with a pin of her own and wins the match.

The commentators announce the tag team match of Sheamus and Big Show vs Cody Rhodes and Mark Henry, and hype John Cena vs The Miz which is coming up next. [Commercial]

John Cena makes his way to the ring, followed by The Miz who comes out with a mic. He stops on the stage and starts with “I’ve worked too hard to be treated like this”. He says no one has worked harder than him because he represents them in all forms of media, but he hasn’t been called on for WrestleMania.

[Q 5] Miz says that is a crime, and he will prove to everyone that he IS WrestleMania by defeating Cena just like he did at last year’s show.

3. John Cena defeats The Miz (4:04) – Cena drops Miz with a hip toss and begins to handle Miz easily. Cena gets Miz into position for the Attitude Adjustment but Miz reverses and hits Cena with his backbreaker/neckbreaker combo and takes control of the match.

Cena fights back into the match but Miz DDT’s him and goes for a cover, Cena kicks out at two. Miz performs his signature corner clothesline on Cena and goes to the top rope to perform an axe handle but Cena ducks out of the way. Cena goes into his signature offense, leading him to the 5-Knuckle Shuffle, followed by the Attitude Adjustment and STF. Miz taps out.

Post-match The Rock is shown on the Titantron watching Cena backstage. The Rock does the “You can’t see me” hand motion and the screen fades to black. [Commercial]

JayDub: “_____ got buried!” is one of the most overused phrases among wrestling fans, but when a dude mimics kicking dirt on you before he leaves the ring… I don’t know any other way to interpret that. Miz better stop mentioning that he main evented WrestleMania last year, because that just makes his current state even more pathetic.

Justin Roberts announces a tag team championship triple threat match. R-Truth and Kofi make their individual entrances, followed by the tag teams of Primo & Epico and Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger (both teams accompanied by their respective managers)

4. Primo & Epico defeat R-Truth & Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger, retaining their WWE Tag Team Championships (8:06) - Kofi, Primo and Ziggler start the contest. Ziggler ducks out of the ring and Kofi gets the upper hand on Primo. Ziggler sneaks back in but Kofi maintains control over both by hitting Ziggler and Primo with monkey flips.

[Q 6] Kofi tags in Truth, who knows both legal competitors out of the ring before being attacked by Jack Swagger. Kofi gets into the ring and he and Swagger go tumbling over the top rope. [Commercial]

Primo and Swagger take turns attacking Truth. Swagger tags in Ziggler, who breaks up a cover Primo had on Truth. Truth fights both men off, and they tag in their partners. Truth then gets the hot tag to Kofi and he begins to take control of the match. Kofi hits Swagger with a crossbody from the top rope and performs a double Boom Drop on Swagger and Epico.

Kofi signals for his finisher, but Ziggler Zig Zags him from behind. Truth clotheslines Ziggler over the top rope. Swagger applies the Ankle Lock to Epico but Kofi hits him with Trouble in Paradise. Primo gets into the ring and hits Swagger with the backstabber. Epico pins Swagger and wins the match for his team.

Post-match fire erupts from the stage and Kane walks to the ring. He lays out Primo on the outside of the ring, then gets into the ring and double chokeslams Ziggler and Epico. R-Truth tries to fight back but Kane chokeslams him also.

JayDub: Nice match that got way more time than is usually devoted to tag team matches these days in WWE. And I didn’t think we would see Kane back so soon after his feud with Cena concluded. I wonder if they’ll have him face Zack Ryder at WrestleMania or go into a completely different direction.

Backstage David Otunga and John Laurinaitis discuss the Oscars and Teddy Long enters. Long says he heard a rumor that Johnny won’t be running RAW next week, while Johnny heard a rumor that long was fired. Long calls Johnny a horse’s ass and leaves the room. [Commercal]

Recap of Eve’s “hoeski” antics from last week.

[Q 7] Eve makes her way to the ring amid boos from the crowd and chants of “hoeski”. Eve says she is a woman living in a man’s world, so she tells men what they want to hear and there isn’t a man in the world who wouldn’t want to be used by her. Eve says don’t blame her for her natural strengths; blame the men for their weaknesses. She blows a kiss at the crowd and leaves the ring.

Backstage Kelly confronts Eve and accuses her of becoming a different person. Eve laughs in her face and walks off.

JayDub: I like that they’ve used Eve’s involvement in the Cena/Kane feud to change her character and bring that heat back to the Divas division. The company is littered with a bunch of women that the crowd just doesn’t give a damn about, so their hatred of the “hoeski” will definitely bring interest to the potential feud with her and Kelly.

The world premiere trailer of WWE Films’ newest movie “Bending the Rules” (starring Edge). [Commercial]

Ad airs promoting Randy Orton’s return to WWE on SmackDown this Friday.

Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole speculate on rumors of leadership changes with the GM’s of RAW and SmackDown.

Big Show and Sheamus make their way to the ring, followed by Mark Henry and Cody Rhodes.

[Q 8] Cody jumps up to the ring apron, and reminds us of Big Show’s match with Floyd Mayweather at WrestleMania 24, calling the match “embarrassing” for Big Show. Cody throws to a highlights package of Big Show and Mayweather’s feud.

5. Big Show and Sheamus defeat Cody Rhodes and Mark Henry (58 seconds) – Cody hesitantly gets into the ring to start the contest with big Show, but immediately tags in Henry when the bell rings. Show quickly drops Henry with a spear and chases after Rhodes outside of the ring. Show gets back into the ring as Cody walks up the ramp. While Show yells at Cody, Sheamus tags himself in and Brogue Kicks Mark Henry. Sheamus pins him and wins the match for his team.

Another recap of Cena’s promo from last week. Cole hypes Rock’s appearance coming up next. [Commercial]

JayDub:  Watching Mark Henry be reduced to nothing more than a jobber is highly depressing. He’s been on such an amazing run that was cut short due to injuries and bad booking, two things that are completely out of his control. On a sidenote, I am liking this feud between Cody Rhodes and Big Show.

Cole mentions that Shawn Michaels will be returning to WWE (again) next week on RAW.

The Rock’s music hits and he comes out to the ring.

[Overrun] The Rock says he’s not in WWE every single week, but he once was because it was his job. “The Rock was born and created here in the WWE,” Rock says. He gives credit to WWE and the fans, saying if it wasn’t for them he wouldn’t exist. He says him saying he would never leave didn’t mean he would be there every week. He continued to call out “someone in the back” who criticized his words.

Rock says he is standing in the ring for no other reason than him loving the WWE. He says for years he thought John Cena was a phony, but he realized that he isn’t; he’s just a “Kung Pao Bitch”.

Rock slammed the locker room by saying John Cena may be fighting for them, but nobody fought for past generations because they were men and they fought for themselves. He said while Cena is fighting for the people in the back, Rock is fighting for the fans tired of having him shoved down their throat.

Rock says no matter where he is, ring or movie screen he trailblazes. He then started to talk about his many catchphrases attacking Cena, and the audience chanted them. He also said the most innovative thing Cena has done lately was switching his shorts to camouflage, which works, Rock said, because no one can find Cena’s missing balls. The audience starts to chant “Missing balls” and Cena comes out to the ring.

Cena sarcastically says Rock calling him “Kung Pao Chicken” was genius, and then goes on to say how Rock has the crowd in the palm of his hand. Cena says he loved The Rock, until he met the “self-centered, egotistical, see-through son of a bitch” that is Dwayne Johnson. Cena then claimed Rocky wouldn’t care if WWE closed tomorrow, and called out The Rock for having notes written on his wrist.

Cena said when the world sees The Rock at WrestleMania he will see Dwayne Johnson, and he doesn’t like Dwayne Johnson. Cena accuses The Rock of being afraid, because he may not have balls but he will beat the hell out of him at WrestleMania. Cena then left the ring and said “Continue trending” before dropping the mic and walking to the back.

Rock says that Dwayne Johnson and The Rock are the same person, but it doesn’t matter what his name is because the only thing that matters is he will kick Cena’s candy ass at WrestleMania.

JayDub: Cena has been WAY too passive in this feud with Rock, but that was far from the issue here because he clearly knocked The Rock off his game when he came to the ring. The Rock has never cut a bad promo, but his tone is drastically different than Cena’s and hit cost him points in this battle even before Cena hit the ring. Rock still had the crowd in the palm of his hand when all was said and done, but even the millions (and millions) couldn’t save him from the verbal smackdown Cena just laid on him.

Overall, RAW was a highly entertaining show. The WrestleMania build was in full force tonight and it made for a great broadcast that had me on the edge of my seat- and this is only the beginning. We have many more weeks of the road to WrestleMania, and if this week is any indication of what they will be like then we are in for an amazing ride.