WWE Raw house show results
April 11, 2012
Moscow, Russia
Report by Brzhesch Pushpeki, PWTorch reader

The arena wasn't packed, but it was still okay - about 6,000 people in an 8,000 capacity venue. There were multiple merchandise points, but the merch itself was poor: Cena's old "Rise Above Hate t-shirt, Ryder's old "Spike Your Hair" shirt, Punk's "In Punk We Trust" shirt, Orton's old "Apex Predator" t-shirt, and a WWE Raw Tour t-shirt. There were also Punk and Cena wristbands, as well as a tour program. Punk's shirts went off really fast and there were huge amounts of little kids (around 10-years-old) wearing them. It was funny because Cena's merch was seen mostly on more grown men.

The show started with an announcement about photo and video as well as "don't try this at home" lines. Then the arena went to darkness. Jericho? Taker? Sting? Oh yeah, Justin Roberts. Nevertheless, everyone was pretty happy with him and he immediately announced a tag team match to start the show.

Kofi and Truth got a massive pop and Primo and Epico got some real heat. R-Truth made his old entrance singing, "What's Up," and Kofi's entrance looked funny without pyro. Primo & Epico's entrance was a blast with Rosa dancing and the guys walking down the ramp like bandidos. Their acting was strong. When they came to the ring, Kofi did a little impersonation of Rosa, dancing not so sexy but still entertaining.

(1) WWE tag champions Primo & Epico beat R-Truth & Kofi Kingston to retain the WWE Tag Titles. Primo and Truth started the match with Primo interacting with invisible Little Jimmy - once again, pretty funny. Kofi and Truth got some really, really big support in the audience chanting their names and popping for every move. Monkey flip by Kofi was really well done, but the selling by Epico was even better. I also liked Truth's vertical suplex facebuster and Kingston's cross-body tag entrance. Otherwise, it was pretty standard match, just like most of the others on the card. The champions got their win just like the one when they took these titles with the backstabber to Truth. After the match, the champs attempted to beat down their opponents, but Kofi and Truth struck back.

(2) David Otunga beat Alex Riley. Otunga and Riley did a pretty boring job, still getting some serious heat (Otunga) and cheers (Riley). It looked like everyone was more happy about Riley's music than A-Ry himself. I really liked the spot with Alex facebusting Otunga from the turnbuckle - I've never seen this move from him before. It looked like Christian's falling inverted DDT, but with the opponent turned face down. Otunga got his win after pulling A-Ry throat first on the ropes and executing his finishing spinebuster.

(3) Brodus Clay beat JTG. JTG's entrance was funny because very few knew him and those few didn't recognize him because of his new glamor look instead of the gangsta one. Funkasaurus got the most massive pop at that time. He wore black and his girls wore blue. The match wasn't a straight squash since JTG had some winning moments, but it was still pretty quick win for Brodus and the most interesting part of this match was Clay's entrance and post-match show. The girls were dancing their curves off just like on TV and Naomi did an impressive standing leg-split. Funkasaurus - definitely one of the highlights of the show.

(4) Zack Ryder beat Jack Swagger. Swagger and Ryder offered one more standard match. The crowd was popping widely for each of Zack's moves and it seemed like everyone chanted, "Woo Woo Woo," along with him each time he pumped his fist. Nevertheless, Swagger also got some serious cheers and nobody really booed him. I think if Swagger would face, say, Alex Riley, then the crowd would be after Swagger. The Broski Boot looked extremely fake with Ryder not even getting his foot close to Jack's face. Ryder won after a regular Rough Ryder. It was strange that Vickie Guerrero wasn't there to present or support The All-American American.

Then, The Miz came out to a surprising big pop. It's not too strange since he was in Moscow a month ago and there were lots of fans at his signing session. In order to give himself more heel heat, he took a mic and cut a little promo starting with an ear-aching "Shhhhh!" He said that we don't even understand how big this moment is, then he mocked us, asking really slowly: "Am I talking slowly enough for you to understand what I'm saying?" He said a few words in Russian, which meant: "Yes! Yes! Yes! I am cool! I am very cool! Because I'm The Miz and I'm..." and then he screamed, "AWESOME!" in English. He was really good in our language, so he again got a huge pop. Everyone was happy to see his opponent, Santino, but it seemed like The Miz still got a bigger cheer from the Russian audience. The problem was that Justin did not announce that the match was for the United States Championship, but referee raised the title before the match showing it to competitors and to the audience.

(5) U.S. champion Santino beat The Miz to retain the U.S. Title. The match itself went pretty weird, as I didn't liked that Miz hid in-between the ropes and jumped out of the ring. It looks nice when he's fighting Big Show or even Cena, but Santino...? Well, silly. During the match, there was a very impressive moment when Santino fell down and doctor came to the ring to look at his knee. Everyone got into it and believed it was an injury. Soon, Santino stood up limping, but then he did his signature speed-walking, making everyone laugh. After escaping two Scullcrushing Finales, he finally hit a Cobra and won. I was really disappointed with Miz losing once again since it appeared for a time that the match would not be for the title.

After the match, Miz took his microphone and started screaming that it wasn't fair and he won't leave until he get a re-match. After a few moments of waiting, "The Game" hit the speakers and the crowd went absolutely crazy. Triple H came to the ring doing his fountain entrance while wearing a suit, heh. He took off his tie and jacket, took a mic, but then kicked Miz in the gut and delivered a Pedigree. Then, he did pretty long posing and handshaking with everyone in the first rows and it looked really genuine. This segment was the biggest highlight of the show since everyone knows who this man is. Older fans saw his glory on Russian TV in the early 2000s and the younger fans know him as a badass authority figure.

Next was intermission after Justin Roberts promoted merchandise. The 15-20-minute break led to a Divas match that few in the crowd cared about.

(6) Divas champion Beth Phoenix beat Kelly Kelly to retain the Divas Title. Eve was a special guest announcer and attacked Kelly at the end of the match, giving Beth a chance to hit the Glam Slam. Pretty long match and still pretty poor performance from Kelly.

Then, Roberts announced a Last Man Standing match between Cena and Kane, and the rules were translated into Russian. Cena came out to a thunderous pop wearing his old black merch. It was a smart decision to promote the merch, but I can't understand why they didn't bring his new green shirts. Cena was really excited as he stood in the ring and observed the storming audience. I kind of expected some heat since it's really trendy in the Russian wrestling community to hate Cena, but I was happy being wrong. Actually, John's entrance was my personal highlight and I was enormously happy to see him live. Kane didn't get a big pop, which surprised me since he was the only man except Triple H who was there from the old Russian TV broadcasts.

(7) John Cena beat Kane in a Last Man Standing match. This was my favorite match on the show since they brought chairs, a microphone, and even a gong to action. Cena tried some Attitude Adjustments, but couldn't lift Big Red Monster and fell down. Kane did a gorgeous chokeslam with Cena jumping really high yet still managing to stand up before ten. The most entertaining part was the use of tables. Kane pulled one from under the ring, put it on the canvas, but when he tried to set it up, both legs fell off. It looked strange, but I still think it was a work. Kane put the remaining tabletop in the corner and whipped Cena into it. Then, he set up another table - now properly. He tried to chokeslam Cena, but John reversed it to a successful AA through his table, which gave him win. The match wasn't too long, as I expected, but it made Cena more dynamic. "Let's Go Cena / Cena Sucks" chants were there all through the match and the funny thing is that I heard a lot of people chanting both lines. Actually, it became pretty clear that the Russian fans don't follow all this "had enough with Cena" stuff too closely.

The main event was the WWE Championship match between Punk and Ziggler. Vickie Guerrero came out to introduce Dolph Ziggler and to catch her signature heat as well. Punk came out to a solid top-face champion pop and posed with the title. Just before the match, David Otunga came out and announced that he is the legal council of the General Manager and he decided to bring a special enforcer to the outside of the ring - himself.

(8) WWE champion C.M. Punk beat Dolph Ziggler (w/Vickie Guerrero) to retain the WWE Title. Punk started the match with Vickie and Otunga around the ring, which looked very nice to give some weight to Ziggler as a heel title challenger. I really didn't like the beginning of the match, though, when Punk caught Dolph's foot and started to run around with Ziggler jumping on one leg. It looked more like a Benny Hill show than WWE Championship match. Later in the match, they started to wrestle more seriously. Ziggler did all of his signature show-off headstands and pull-ups, and his whole performance once again blew me away. He just NEEDS to be back in the main event as soon as possible. Punk had his regular glory moments with an elbow drop and knee/bulldog combo, which was cheered by the crowd. They also did the fantastic Royal Rumble spot with Ziggler reversing the GTS into a Fameasser, and I personally cheered for that one. In the end, Vickie distracted the referee to allow Otunga to interfere and attack Punk. Ziggler then hit the Zig-Zag, and Punk did a classic kick-out at 2.99. A few moments later, Punk finally hit a GTS to retain his title and send angry Ziggler right into Otunga.

The show ended with Punk celebrating and hugging fans for a very long time. Overall, I really liked the show even though I understand it was really regular and standard. I think the most important part for the house shows is entertainment, and the segments with Truth singing, Rosa and Funkettes dancing, Triple H spewing water, and Miz cutting a promo in Russian were pretty much above the wrestling itself. I didn't expect them to do something outstanding in the ring, so I was really excited to see two broken tables from Cena and Kane. The one really bad point in the show was that not a single actual storyline was there. Cena ended his feud with Kane a month ago, just like did Punk with Ziggler and Ryder with Swagger. Also, there was no serious background for Miz-Santino and a tag team matches. This led to me personally not getting into the matches as much. Anyways, everyone did great job entertaining the crowd, yet saving themselves for TV. I'm thankful to WWE for bringing their show to Russia!

[Torch art credit Travis Beaven (c) PWTorch.com]

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