The 1000th episode of Monday Night Raw was promoted throughout the past few months, and it certainly did not disappoint.
With advertised returns of The Rock, DX and Brock Lesnar, it was sure to be a great night full of many surprises…and was.
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The night began with the return of D-Generation X, or simply DX. At first, Triple H and Shawn Michaels were the only members to come out, but it did not take long for the rest of the guys to join them. Road Dogg, Billy Gunn and X-Pac made their way to the ring. The only notable omission was Chyna, but that is for obvious reasons that are better left unsaid.
After engaging in some vintage DX fun, the guys were joined in the ring by Damien Sandow. He clearly had is the antithesis of DX, so he came out to denounce their childish ways. This resulted in some “Sweet Chin Music” from HBK which was quickly followed by a “Pedigree” from Triple H.
It was great to see the entire group back together, as it was only Triple H and Shawn Michaels who were with the group during their final run. They still had one more classic DX segment later in the show, which involved the lovely Trish Stratus.
This segment was followed by a six-man tag match that featured Rey Mysterio, Sin Cara, and Sheamus versus Chris Jericho, Dolph Ziggler, and Alberto Del Rio. The match featured the legendary Jim Ross on commentary, which made everyone remember just how great of an announcer he truly is and was in the past.
The match was won by the team of baby faces, which featured three of the most popular men in the business. The main point of this match was to further the heat between Ziggler and Jericho.
Jericho delivered a “Codebreaker” to Ziggler last week on Raw, which led to Ziggler punching Jericho, who ended up losing the match for his team. This feud should lead up to SummerSlam, which gets both men on the card even without being involved in a title match. Both are great technical wrestlers, while also being great on the mic. More non-title feuds like this will be needed as Raw is now permanently three hours long.
The Daniel Bryan-AJ wedding was the next, but not before a conversation with Charlie Sheen on Skype and a truly funny backstage segment. Sheen was supposed to be tweeting about the action before he decided to quit tweeting a week before last night. His comments would be more interesting as the show went on, but that will be discussed later.
The backstage segment featured AJ and Layla talking in the back, and AJ opened up the door to her room to show Layla how “unstable” everyone in the company truly is. First, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan walked by, and he was followed by Roddy Piper and R-Truth playing with “Little Jimmy”.
The best part of the segment, and one of the funniest moments in recent memory, came when Mae Young walked by with a man in a hand costume who introduced himself as her son. This referenced when Mark Henry got her pregnant, only for her to give birth to a plastic hand. Only in WWE will storylines like that happen, but they can actually turn out to be quite hilarious.
After Brodus Clay, (who was joined at ringside by Dude Love), beat Jack Swagger in under a minute, the wedding was finally set to take place, with Slick being the guest reverend. No wedding in wrestling ever goes off smoothly, which turned out to be true once again when AJ said that she was not saying yes to marrying Daniel Bryan. She said she received a proposal from another man, which is when Vince McMahon’s music hit.
This instantly set off confusion, as there was no chance in hell (pun intended) that AJ could be marrying Mr. McMahon. He made it clear that he was not out to marry AJ, but instead he announced that she was in fact the new GM of Raw. This shows just how far AJ has climbed up the ladder in WWE since her debut.
With Bryan being out of the title picture for the foreseeable future, AJ putting him in a variety of matches as revenge gives him something to do until he once again competes for a major title.
After AJ left the ring, Bryan began to throw a tantrum that prompted CM Punk to come out, and basically make fun of him. After claiming that he was the “greatest of all-time”, The Rock made his return to confront Daniel Bryan. This resulted in The Rock verbally bashing Bryan and finally giving him a “Rock Bottom”.
Before he finished off Bryan, The Rock let it be known where his next match will occur. At the Royal Rumble The Rock will take on the WWE Champion at the time in a match for the title. (Based on a poll on the show, it appears as if it will be Punk, Cena or Big Show taking on The Rock in January).
Check out Part 2 for talk about Lesnar’s return and the WWE Championship match between Cena and Punk.
About Steve Kubitza
