The John Report Wrestling Blog

Angle Anatomy – The Nexus
By Matty J. Douglas

Hey everybody, I’m trying something new this week. I want to test out this new format to add to my existing format “A Matter of Character”. It’s called “Angle Anatomy” where I would take a look at a specific angle and analyze what made it work, or what made if fail. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Factions are common in the wrestling world. Strength in numbers is a principle that everyone can understand and is the simplest explanation for the formation of any faction. That being said, these alliances are expected to fall apart, because at the end of the day, each member has the same long-term goal, which is to one day be WWE Champion. In order for an alliance to believably remain loyal to one another, there needs to a clearly defined motivation to do so. Read more…

The WWE Raw Deal for 12/27/10
By John Canton (Follow me on Twitter @johnreport)

Before I get started this week I just want to say I hope everybody has a Happy New Year. It’s been a roller coaster year for me in a lot of ways, but that’s life. I wrote about every single Raw in 2010 except the one when Miz cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase to win the title because I was on vacation. Let’s see if they can end this year on a high note after last week’s quality show. Also I should note that Monday Night Football ended for the season, which means I should be doing some of these Raw Deal’s live on Mondays and they will generally get posted earlier on Tuesday. At least until September. You are welcome.

Live from Albany, New York this is the Raw Deal…

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LATE MONDAY EDIT: It’s about 4:30pmET as I write this. WWE.com has changed the Slammy award nominees: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/archive/11292010/articles/2010slammyawardscats So some of what you read is now irrelevant. I’m not about to edit. I guess they had a productive creative meeting today huh?

Coming up tonight on Raw is the 3 hour Slammy Award show where they honor the best in WWE using various categories to determine the winners. I don’t fully agree with the awards, but I’ll be able to cover that next week when I do the 2010 WWE Johnny Awards (you can read the 2009 WWE Johnny Awards while you wait). What I’ll do here is list the categories, then give you a short take on who I think SHOULD win and who I think WILL win since WWE is booking the awards. Let’s get to it.

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This is the discussion for tonight’s Raw. I’m posting it now because I’m going to be out for a while and I’m going to miss the first hour. I’ll get caught up by reading your comments, so don’t skimp on the details. Should be a decent show, considering they have a lot of material to touch on. Who will be Randy’s next opponent? What will Wade Barrett and the Nexus’s reaction be to last nights show? Will John Cena really be fired, and if so, what are ramifications? So many questions to be answered coming off of last nights PPV.

Since WWE has four weeks until TLC we might see some of the main event matches put into motion tonight. Here’s to hoping Mark Henry finally gets his chance. Yeah, I know that’s a John joke, but you guys clearly miss him. Don’t worry he’ll be back to running the ship again in a few days and I won’t have to put up with your emails anymore.

Make the comments fun and about the show. Who knows? Since the cat is away, maybe the mice will bring back a festival of sorts for one week only. A “comment” festival.

Just kidding. You’re never going to see that stupid thing again.

Christian will be here tomorrow with the Raw Review. Have fun kids, and play nice!

Welcome to Smacked Up! Before we get started, today marks the 5 year anniversary of Eddie Guerrero’s death. No doubt that Eddie was one of the greatest professional wrestlers to ever grace our television screens. In the comment section it would be cool to know what your favorite Eddie matches/moments are, so please leave them below. RIP Eddie. Now it’s time to get Smacked Up!

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Live from Manchester, England this is the Raw Deal. There was no Jerry Lawler this week because he had a knee surgery and stayed at home. Josh Mathews filled in. He did fine. Unlike Lawler he actually pays attention to stuff.

We started out with the usual promofest. Mr. sad face John Cena was in the ring reading a prepared statement written by Wade Barrett, which introduced Wade to his hometown Manchester crowd. He got booed coming out in his hometown with Nexus at his side. Otunga got scolded by Barrett for taking the group to Smackdown and losing. Cena and Barrett had a funny exchange at one point. Wade: “What happened to you John?” Cena: “Well first it started out as a joke when I rapped on Thanksgiving, then I started to wear my hat backwards.” Wade: “I mean what happened last week John!” That was clever. I admit. Randy Orton comes out, says he doesn’t care who the ref is because his goal is to keep the belt away from Barrett. The GM buzzed in to announce the title match at Survivor Series could be won by only pinfall or submission, which I guess means it’s a no DQ, no countout match. Later tonight it’s Team Barrett vs. Team Orton in a ten man tag (just like Smackdown had) with Orton finding out his team later.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Smacked Up! With the last edition of the Saw movie franchise debuting in theaters last week it got me thinking. Which WWE Superstar would you most like to see put in a Saw trap? I expect some interesting answers. Post them in the comment section. You think about that while getting Smacked Up!

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Live from Long Island, NY this is the Raw Deal.

They started the show with WWE Champion Randy Orton slithering his way to the ring. He was worried about Survivor Series and said if he loses a match that’s fine, but he loses because of a crooked referee that’s not acceptable. He wants Cena to tell him what he’s going to do. Cena comes out in the purple and goes over the stipulations a bunch. If Barrett beats Orton then Cena is free from Nexus. If Orton beats Barrett then Cena is fired. Cena goes on some rant saying Nexus has taken over WWE. They have? At least Cena put over that Barrett might be able to win the belt on his own, but he doesn’t operate that one. He’s a big meanie, says Cena in his own verbiage. Barrett comes out and says Cena can talk all he wants for now. Orton called Barrett pathetic. He dared him to fight. The GM buzzed in to say that tonight’s main event is Orton & a partner vs. Barrett & a partner with Cena as ref. It’s the GM’s way of showing us what Cena will do at Survivor Series. It was a decent 10 minute opening segment. It felt like it dragged a bit, but they got their points across.

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Welcome to the Raw Deal. Before we get to this week’s show, here’s my recap of WWE Bragging Rights plus Lesnar-Undertaker rumors. Congrats to Smackdown for winning the COVETED TROPHY~! and for having the rights to brag. Read that if you haven’t already and then get back here to read about this week’s Raw.

Live from Green Bay, Wisconsin this is the Raw Deal.

The Nexus came out with purple boy John Cena with them. They talked about taking out Undertaker, but wouldn’t say why they did. Probably because Undertaker vs. Barrett is a possible match at WrestleMania. That’s why. They showed pics from Bragging Rights where Cena gave Barrett the AA to keep him from winning the title, but he won by DQ. Then they mentioned how Cena & Otunga were tag team champions while not mentioning how much of a joke the tag division is. The GM buzzed in and said Orton vs. Barrett is happening at Survivor Series with a special guest ref. Orton will face a member of Nexus later. Wade picks Cena, so we get Orton vs. Cena again. In case you’re wondering, the last Cena vs. Orton match was on 9/18 with Orton winning that Tables match. Otunga grabbed the might complaining about Cena from Bragging Rights. He said Cena should be fired. Wade says no, but they will defend the tag titles against Slater & Gabriel. How is Wade able to make that match too?

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This is the 13th TJR podcast recorded on Tuesday, October 19th sponsored by clickwrestle.com. I am “Classy” John Canton and I was joined as always by my buddy “The Other Guy” Jason Lynch. The show was 58 minutes this week. A rundown of topics:

- This week’s Raw with additional discussion on Sunday’s Bragging Rights PPV.
- TNA’s Impact show last week that barely had any wrestling and lost viewers by the time they got to the main event.
- Discussion on Matt Hardy’s release from WWE.
- Jason and John discuss WWE.com’s top 25 talkers list, share their own lists and talk about the big omission on there.
- John gives a classy tip. It’s in the first five minutes, so get a pen & paper ready to write it down.
- The Q&A brings it home along with some shoutouts.

To listen to it click on the player below, save the MP3 file or go with iTunes. The details are below.

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This is the 12th TJR podcast recorded on Tuesday, October 12th sponsored by clickwrestle.com. I am “Classy” John Canton and I was joined as always by my buddy “The Other Guy” Jason Lynch. The show was 56 minutes this week. A rundown of topics:

- This week’s Raw with discussion on Raw’s newest superstar CM Punk.
- TNA’s Bound for Glory angle and discussion on their big show ending angle. Jason actually watched it!
- Jason and John each list their five favorite heels ever.
- The Q&A brings it home.
- John teases his singing. Twice. We’re sorry.
- There are some audio issues this week, but we tried to clean it up as best we can.

To listen to it click on the player below, save the MP3 file or go with iTunes. The details are below.

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Live from Seattle, Washington this is the Raw Deal. I’m guessing no Oklahoma City Thunder jerseys in the crowd huh? Too soon?

The show started with Cena, in purple gear, talking to the fans about how he would never give up. He’s got the Nexus arm band on as well as his purple shit. He spoke about how if he didn’t listen to Wade Barrett he’d be out of WWE. He can’t just go to Smackdown. He’d be out of WWE all together. It’s all he knows. He has nothing else. What about movies that nobody watches? Oh right, WWE gets him into those. I guess he’s right. He should have ended it by talking about how he texts Vince McMahon to tell him he loves him every day. It was so adorable! Hey don’t blame me if you throw up. I had to listen to this too!

The Miz came out to interrupt with Alex Riley and his briefcase. Miz talked about how he was going to captain Team Raw against Team Smackdown and right the wrong of last year when Big Show turned on team Raw to give Smackdown the win. Holy shit, we’re allowed to remember a storyline that happened a year ago? That is crazy. Sound the alarms. We can remember history! Barrett came out, told Cena his job is to be in his corner for the match against Orton at Bragging Rights. He needs him focused. The GM buzzed in to say they’ve booked matches to determine team Raw. For team captain, it’s Cena vs. Miz. After the announcement Miz said he’ll win that match and then maybe cash in on Barrett at Bragging Rights. Nothing he can do about it. Barrett went after him. Then Cena saved Barrett. Good opener. Cena was in his SUPER SERIOUS VOICE~! early on, but then lightened up when Miz came out. It worked well. All of them did a nice job of putting over the angle.

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