Raw Fusion: Punk’s Payback

by Firefly on 9th February 2011

The 7th February 2011 episode of Monday Night Raw starts with Mr. McMahon making his way out onto the stage. McMahon says now that the Super Bowl is over there is only one thing left, something which supersedes it and has more grandeur, excitement and excitement; he’s talking about WrestleMania.

He says that every year there is something that separates it from the previous one and this year will be no different as next week he will introduce a man who will set a record like nobody else, as nobody has ever presented an event in front of 75,000 people and there is only one man capable of handling this and we will meet him – The Guest Host of WrestleMania – next week.

Randy Orton makes his way to the ring now, giving McMahon a look as he passes. After a video recapping the events last week involving Orton and The New Nexus in which he punted Husky Harris in the head and high-tailed it through the crowd, he grabs a microphone.

Addressing CM Punk, he says that if he thinks that it is over then he is wrong; he is just getting started and it will cost Punk a lot more than Harris. Before he can elaborate, Punk makes his way out onto the stage with a microphone of his own, and asks to be excused as he has to sit down because he is stymied that he and Orton actually agree on something.

Sitting down, he continues by saying that it isn’t over by a long shot and asks if Orton wants to know why he cost him the title at the Royal Rumble, and that he will tell him as the truth will set him free.

A video is shown recapping the events of the Unforgiven Pay-Per-View in 2008 in which Orton and Legacy attacked Punk; an attack which ended with a punt to the head of Punk. Punk says that now Orton knows, and that Orton really is the cold-hearted individual that everybody says he is, and that he doesn’t care that Punk had to forfeit the title that night as he couldn’t compete.

He says that he hasn’t forgotten that night and remembers it like it was yesterday, he says that he has waited this long to get his revenge as he is a patient boy, and he waits and waits and waits and waits. Punk says that the differences between their actions is that his are defensible, but Orton’s aren’t, and that Punk is right and Orton is wrong.

He says that as long as he is around, Orton will never get his title back, and he’s waited long enough to get his revenge so he doesn’t think he’s going to wait until Elimination Chamber but eliminate him right now instead.

Mason Ryan, David Otunga, and Michael McGillicutty make their way out behind Punk now and follow him down to the ring, with the group soon getting the better of Orton but him still getting his own shots in, such as when he knocks Punk down despite being tied up in the ropes himself.

Punk and The New Nexus get the last word however, as Punk hits the GTS on Orton before they all raise their arms and then leave the ring. After a video recapping the attack on Orton, we find out that Michael Cole got an email from the Anonymous Raw General Manager during the break that each member of The New Nexus (apart from Harris who is “out of action indefinitely” according to WWE.com) is to face a participant from Raw’s Elimination Chamber during the show.

The first one to do so is Mason Ryan when he takes on R-Truth – who mistakenly says that they are in Green Bay when they are in Milwaukee, causing a Milwaukee chant and Cole to yell at him about his mistake.

The match ends with R-Truth tapping out to a stretch muffler submission of Ryan’s but as Ryan does not release it and instead carries on by standing up with it still applied, the referee reverses his decision and disqualifies him, declaring R-Truth the winner – the damage is done though.

Going backstage, Ryan approaches Punk and the rest of The New Nexus as Punk looks angry and asks what that was as he didn’t win the match. He continues by saying that he has just one thing to say to him – well done.

Punk tells Otunga and McGillicutty that he doesn’t care about wins or losses and neither should they. He wants them to hurt people so that the participants of the Raw Elimination Chamber are injured – not so injured that they can’t compete, but injured enough so that he has a target. He says that Orton and R-Truth are like that, and Ryan interjects with some Welsh and an English translation, by saying that there are two down and three to go.

Otunga asks Punk if he really wants him to be the one who takes out Sheamus, to which Punk replies asking when he’s going to learn; he has nothing to worry about as he’s always got a plan for everything and all he needs to do is have a little faith.

Back in the arena, Eve, Gail Kim, and Tamina are pitted against Melina and The Bella Twins in a Six-Diva Tag Team match, with Natalya joining commentary and announcing that she has her rematch for the Divas Championship next week on Raw. The match ends with Eve getting the victory for her team after she hits a swing-neckbreaker on Melina.

After a video hyping the Elimination Chamber and the upcoming Pay-Per-View, John Morrison goes against Michael McGillicutty in a match which sees Morrison hit Starship Pain for the 3-count. Afterwards, Morrison exits the ring and makes his way up the ramp – as he turns around after posing for the crowd on the ramp however, he turns into Punk spraying him in the face with something and then giving him a kick to the head which knocks him down.

Next, The Miz makes his way to the ring with Alex Riley and says that last week as he watched the Raw Rumble backstage, he only had one thought on his mind – “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” he was pulling for Jerry “The King” Lawler to win.

Asking Lawler to enter the ring and Riley to exit it so that Lawler isn’t uncomfortable, he then introduces Lawler as the number one contender to the WWE Championship, and then asks him if he knows why he was rooting for him to win the Raw Rumble.

Lawler suggests that it is because he doesn’t wrestle much any more and that he thought that he might get an easy win. The Miz denies this being the case and says that they are all easy wins and that he could have beaten anybody in the Raw Rumble, which is the reason that he is the WWE Champion and they are not.

He says that they are mirror images and says that Lawler had the power to incite riots; whether it was taking down Andy Kaufman on Letterman or insulting Bret Hart’s mother, any time he had something to say everybody would listen.

The Miz says that he’s never admitted this to anyone before, but in some way he has patterned his career after his, and then it happened – he became a modern day Jerry Lawler as he is the one that people are waiting to see what he will say next and he is the WWE Champion.

Lawler says that he says that they are mirror images of each other, but he’d hate to look in the mirror and see a haircut like The Miz’s. He admits that he has had a big mouth for his entire career, but unlike The Miz he can back his words up.

Addressing the fact that The Miz called himself a “modern day Jerry Lawler”, he says that if that’s what he thinks, he doesn’t know him as well as he thinks he does, as the difference is he didn’t pattern his career after anyone as he himself is an original.

The Miz agrees that he is an original, then calling him an original “cheap shot artist” which he says is why he likes him and then shows footage to prove his point of the shot Lawler gave to Ted DiBiase last week. He says that is almost equivalent to a sucker-punch, which Lawler says is funny as he thinks he is a sucker – which he thinks the people around the world and in Milwaukee (cheap pop!) think he sucks too.

Lawler says that not everything that comes out of The Miz’s mouth is poop, compost, or whatever he wants to call it as he has never been the WWE Champion and he has never competed at WrestleMania. He says however that neither The Miz nor anybody else know how much it would mean to him to compete at WrestleMania, as he has been in sports-entertainment for forty years now and he will not let the opportunity pass him by as he will become the WWE Champion.

Lawler says that afterwards when they come up to interview him, he’s going to say “I’m going to WrestleMania!” to which The Miz rebukes and says that is where he is wrong as the only thing the WWE Universe and world is going to hear is “I’m The Miz, and I’m-” but Lawler interrupts with “awful!” and chants it along with the crowd.

The Miz attempts to get in a shot but Lawler ducks it and attacks him in return – Riley tries to interrupt, but ends up being thrown out of the ring by Lawler before he continues his attack on The Miz. DiBiase runs down to get his own revenge on Lawler for last week and starts to get the upper hand along with The Miz, until Daniel Bryan runs down and makes the save.

Bryan and Lawler stand tall in the ring as Cole receives an email from the General Manager which says that Bryan and Lawler will take on The Miz and Ted DiBiase in a match right now, as Riley joins Cole on commentary. The match ends with Lawler getting the win for his team after he hits a diving fist drop from the second rope onto DiBiase for the 3-count.

Next up, it is supposed to be Sheamus being pitted against David Otunga, but Josh Mathews interrupts Sheamus’ entrance to ask him for his response to Mark Henry’s comments about him. Sheamus has no idea what comments he is talking about, so Mathews says that it was relayed to him that Henry went on record and said that Sheamus doesn’t deserve to be in the Elimination Chamber match and that the Anonymous Raw General Manager should replace him with Henry instead.

Sheamus says that Henry has been in the WWE for 13 years and has never accomplished anything in his entire career, and that he’d only win if it was a cake-eating contest, then questioning whether Henry would even fit in the Chamber.

He says that either way, Henry should shut his mouth, or he will shut it for him. As Otunga makes his way to the ring, Henry’s music hits and he makes his way to the ring and starts fighting with Sheamus and ends up getting the better of the exchange by hitting him with two World’s Strongest Slams before leaving, which allows Otunga to enter the ring and stand tall over the fallen Sheamus as Punk, Ryan, and McGillicutty watch on a monitor backstage, smiling.

Alberto Del Rio’s music hits and he makes his way to the ring, introduced as always by his personal ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez. He introduces himself but says that we already knew that, but what we might not know is that Santino Marella thinks that he almost got him at the Royal Rumble match.

Del Rio says it was his destiny to win the Royal Rumble, just like it is his destiny to become the new World Heavyweight Champion at WrestleMania. Marella’s music hits and he runs down to the ring and gets the better of their initial exchange by throwing Del Rio over the top rope in a way similar to the way he himself was eliminated at the Royal Rumble.

A referee rings the bell to officially start a match in which Del Rio gets the victory after forcing Marella to tap out to the Cross-Armbreaker.

After hyping the World Heavyweight Championship match for this week’s SmackDown! in which Edge will go against Dolph Ziggler, with Vickie Guerrero as the Special Guest Referee, we hear an “excuse me!” and Vickie makes her way to the ring with Ziggler.

She says that in two weeks her boyfriend will not be entering the SmackDown! Elimination Chamber match as a challenger, but as the World Heavyweight Champion. She says that she knows this for a fact as on Friday he will beat Edge in a match- but she is interrupted by John Cena’s music hitting and him making his way to the ring.

When asked by Ziggler what he is doing out there, Cena says that he is putting a stop to this as it’s more offensive than Christina Aguilera butchering the national anthem. He says that he’s kidding, but he is out there with an apology from R-Truth, as after the Green Bay packers won the Super Bowl the night before, he thinks he might have celebrated a bit too long – so he thinks he’s still in Green Bay; as a result he is here to tell the world that they are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

As Cole comments that Cena is starting to get boring and is doing the same stuff ever week, Cena comments that the crowd is doing a “Milwaukee” chant which he thinks is amazing. Cena says that he is also out there as the last time the three of them were in the ring together it was pretty awesome, and rather creepily says that he had a sweet, sexy, passionate make-out session with Vickie – and Ziggler was there, so he remembers it.

Vickie says that is enough and that this is not how you show respect to the Acting General Manager of SmackDown of a future World Champion. She says that if they do not get the respect they deserve, then they will leave.

Cena clarifies to ask that if the crowd continue to be rowdy, Vickie and Ziggler will leave, and then tells the crowd to make noise so that they leave. He says the best part is that they have a great way to say goodbye too “Dun dun, dun dun dun dun – Go Pack Go!” which does indeed make Vickie and Ziggler leave.

Since they have now gone, he has to get down to brass tacks – they have all seen that The Nexus has beaten down everyone in their path so far, and he knows why they are doing this as if Punk wins in the Elimination Chamber, it means that he will go on to WrestleMania.

Cena says that there is a flaw in their plan – he is still here, and that though he knows that he is about to face Punk in a match and that The New Nexus are going to come down to try to get involved, he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it but he’s going to win by kicking all their “Elimination Chambers” so he will walk in to the Raw Elimination Chamber in one piece and walk out with a ticket to main-event WrestleMania.

After a video hyping something mysterious for the 21st February, CM Punk takes on John Cena in a match which sees Cena get disqualified when he intentionally gives Punk a low blow. Afterwards, the rest of The New Nexus run down to the ring, with McGillicutty and Otunga entering the ring as Ryan checks on Punk on the outside.

It looks like the odds are against Cena, but Jerry “The King” Lawler gets up, grabs a chair and passes to to Cena, which allows him to hit them both to clear the ring. Lawler’s explanation as he dons his headset again is that Cole has been harping on about Cena pulling down the rope to help him last week, so he thought he’d return the favour.

Cena stands tall in the ring with a chair as Raw goes off the air.

Who do you think the Guest Host of WrestleMania will be? Join in the speculation, or give your thoughts on this week’s episode of Raw in our Forums.

About the Author: Firefly

Avatar of Ron Simmons saying "Damn!"
Discovering WCW Monday Nitro in the 1990s, he has been hooked on wrestling ever since, later going on to also discover WWF (now WWE), and even later numerous independent promotions, TNA and now the very captivating challenger known as AEW.

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