WWE house show results
June 22, 2013
Tallahassee, Fla.
Report by Kyle Weaver, PWTorch correspondent

Tallahassee hosted the Raw Revenge tour on Saturday night as WWE made its unprecedented second run through Florida's capital city of 2013. It was a hot night in the panhandle with a white-hot, two-thirds-full crowd at the Leon County Civic Center.

The show started with the arrival of Tensai & Brodus Clay, with the Funk-a-dactyls. They danced their way to the ring for what was scheduled to be an inter-gender eight-person tag match, but it was contested as a regular tag team match. (The Divas were slotted in singles action later.) Out next was the arrival of Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes, collectively known as Rhodes Scholars. They cut a very anti- New Age Outlaws promo and then jumped right into the action with their opponents.

(1) Tensai & Brodus Clay beat Rhodes Scholars. The match definitely geared toward Team Funk, as more often than not they had the upper hand. Midway through the match, Tons of Funk homage to Rikishi, hitting simultaneous stink faces on their adversaries. The end came swiftly as Tensai & Brodus hit a double splash on Sandow to gain the victory. Scholars immediately bolted from the ring, leaving their opponents to dance with children at ringside. Of note, there were “Albert” and “Cody’s Mustache” chants throughout the match. Also, Tensai was much more into the dancing than Clay was.

(2) Justin Gabriel beat Jinder Mahal of 3MB. Justin was just as agile and just as limber as always. He hit his 450 Splash and gained the victory with ease. After the match, he celebrated, backing up the ramp.

Suddenly, the Wyatt family ran out and laid out Gabriel. Bray got on the mic and said that tonight they make everyone in Tallahassee believe that monsters are indeed real.

After Gabriel was helped to the back, the reason for the schedule change in the first match of the night was explained by Vickie Guerrero, who definitely got the biggest boos of the night. She said she would be the guest ring announcer for the next match, which would pit Brie Bella, alone, against Funk-a-dactyl Naomi, with Cameron.

(3) Naomi (w/Cameron) beat Brie Bella (w/Nikki Bella). Early on, Brie got in Vickie’s ear and Cameron was forced to leave the ringside area. Brie seemed to control much of the match, but Naomi was able to pick up the victory, thus proving that tonight was definitely going to be a face-driven night.

Up to this point, it was announced that Dean Ambrose would defend the U.S. Championship against R-Truth in a “fans decide” match; the choices were 2/3 Falls or a Street Fight. I honestly don’t think anyone voted. Surprise…surprise…Street Fight won.

(4) U.S. champion Dean Ambrose beat R-Truth in a Street Fight to retain the U.S. Title. This, in my opinion, was the best match of the night. I say this because it wasn’t one-sided, it went longer than five minutes, and a story was told. Ambrose is going to be fine on his own once Shield is over. He put on a clinic, utilizing spots not used enough in WWE. He used a chair to apply a seated sleeper, and when the fans chanted for a table, he played it up like he was going to...then blew off the fans. Dean even used a classic move taking the turnbuckle padding off. Prior to the climax of the match, Rollins & Reigns unnecessarily came out to help Ambrose. R-Truth hit the exposed turnbuckle and Ambrose hit a neckbreaker/face plant variation for the win.

After the match, all three Shield members assaulted Truth. All of a sudden, the lights went out, and fire shown on the screen. This brought the arrival of Kane & Daniel Bryan, Team Hell No. Truth got out, Ambrose followed, and it was announced that the Tag Team Title match would happen…right now! Rollins and Reigns got back in the ring and the match began.

(5) Kane & Daniel Bryan beat The Shield via DQ; Shield retained the Tag Titles. Bryan wrestled a good bit of the match, as it seemed early on that Kane was favoring his left knee at times. This also meant that Bryan took most of the abuse. There was a very anti-climatic big-men face-off, as it was shown very quickly that Reigns is about a foot shorter than Kane. Kane went for the chokeslam on Rollins, only to have Ambrose run in and gut Kane with a steel chair, causing a disqualification.

After the match, Shield jumped in and went after Kane & Bryan, but R-Truth came down to help Kane and Bryan fend off their rogue opponents. Kane hit the chokeslam and Bryan hit…a chokeslam, too?! Bryan & Truth celebrated in the ring as Kane looked on, saying, “That’s my move!” over and over. Finally, he and Daniel faced off. Daniel grabbed the mic and said Kane had no reason to be mad because not only did he do a better chokeslam…he INVENTED the chokeslam. Bryan then grabbed Kane around the throat, which got a laugh. Bryan, unable to lift Kane, was then on the receiving end. But, before Kane could chokeslam Bryan, Seth Rollins ran back out and Kane delivered another chokeslam. Bryan and Kane then hugged it out and they, along with Truth, left the ring together.

After a brief intermission, it was re-iterated that tonight was a special night since it was “Ron Simmons Appreciation Night." What seemed to be just a ploy for the Wyatt Family to get a more heelish reaction turned out to be a real segment. Justin Roberts introduced the special guest for the evening, Simmon's former tag team partner, JBL! JBL said that tonight he was proud to be there to present his former APA partner with a special plaque. JBL made a great speech, talking about how his time with Ron was the happiest time of his life and how Ron was his best friend and his best man at his wedding. Simmons then came down and was shown a highlight video of his career, with shots of his stint at FSU, even getting a personal message from current FSU head football coach Jimbo Fisher. He was then presented with a plaque that deemed June 22, 2013 as “Ron Simmons Day." JBL then asked Ron several times if he had anything to say, and Ron seemed speechless. Finally, after much goading, Ron yelled a resounding “Damn!” for everyone in attendance.

After the ring was cleared, a Bray Wyatt vignette was shown. Then, Bray and his “family” came to the ring. He called everyone in attendance sheep, with one of his group members even wearing a sheep mask. Then, Alex Riley made his way to the ring for his scheduled match against Bray. Wyatt told Riley that the only way he would wrestle Alex tonight would be if Alex beat his family member, Luke Harper.

(6) Luke Harper beat Alex Riley. A cluster match ensued with Harper overpowering Riley before winning with a devastating clothesline.

It seemed that only one member of 3MB would wrestle on this night, but we were wrong based on the arrival of Drew McIntyre. He air-guitared and gyrated throughout the match against his opponent, Zack Ryder, who sported a highlighted blonde hair-do.

(7) Zack Ryder beat Drew McIntyre. It seemed like their match was cut short because of time restraints, as the match seemed to end abruptly with Zack hitting his Rough Ryder and earning the pin. Both quickly headed to the back, unhappy with the match as a whole it seemed.

It was then time for the main event. Scheduled to be contested as a “tables” match, John Cena defended the WWE Championship against Ryback.

(8) WWE champion John Cena beat Ryback in a Tables match to retain the WWE Title. A grand total of three tables were used in the match, two broken by a steel steps wielding Ryback, who slammed the stairs through two consecutive tables. Finally, on the third table, Cena went for the Attitude Adjustment, Ryback reversed into a Shell-Shock attempt, and Cena countered into an AA through the table for the win.

All in all, it wasn’t a horrible show. I would rank it a 6 1/2 on a scale of 0-10. The show earlier this year was much worse, I’d say. Overall, Cena definitely deserves his spot and I feel that Ryback deserved a better shot at the spot he was given. Let's see where WWE goes from here.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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