OH BABY, I like it Raw! American Bashed!

Matt and Adam take the brand extension very seriously. They each only identify with one brand and actively follow it. Matt bleeds Raw red and Adam has Smackdown blue coursing through his veins. Being soldiers in the ongoing war for brand supremacy has charged both of them up enough to provide handy recaps of the previous week's show. That way, no new viewers will feel lost. Thus, every Monday and Friday, we here at LOL, Wresslin' will offer you a refresher. Hey, it's the least we can do.

For a theme song to accompany this post, please press play and enjoy...




"The Bash" was last night, so we'll be getting to that momentarily. But first, we should cover one thing that happened on Raw last week. We have a new owner!

No, this isn't a repeat from the week before. Raw has it's second new owner in as many weeks, and really, this one isn't new at all.



Yeah, Mr. McMahon got tired of being in asinine bits, like having his limo break down and his office moved into the men's restroom (the restroom?? That's no place to conduct business! Har har har har har!!) So Vince decided to buy back Raw from Donald Trump.

Look, I know it's hack to make fun of Trump's hair, but seriously dude??

McMahon's first order of business was to make Orton versus Triple H at "The Bash" in a Three Stages of Hell competition. So, you're not going to get one overdone match, you're going to get three. Yay.

Stock up.

So, moving on to "The Bash"...

Still no.

Raw has, effectively, two matches on the card - Cena vs. Miz and Orton vs. HHH. Folks, can you tell me how many of these matches we should be excited for?


Let's start with John Cena versus that heel-of-all-heels, The Miz. Oh man, do I want to see that clean-cut and friendly Mr. Cena beat up The Miz. He's just so cocky. He needs a good butt kicking to show him the error of his ways.


Wait, who am I rooting for again?

Oh right, LOL, Wresslin' fav Mr. John Cena!

Shoot yourself if you get this.

It actually wasn't all Cena during this match. The Miz got in a little offense himself.

Apparently WWE.com writers are now getting their ideas from signs in the crowd.

But it ended just like we knew it would.


So that happened.

We also had the Three Stages of Hell match, but Orton may be in a little trouble here. It seems Teddy and Cody didn't win their tag match earlier in the night and were a little bummed out about that. These men are top notch competitors, so that's reasonable.

However, Orton wasn't having any of that. He want clear heads, since their job was to ensure that he won the WWE Championship later that night. Poor Teddy got hims feelings hurt, and stormed off. It seems he doesn't like to be a lackey for Orton. Uhh, sorry bud, but that's what you are. That's what happens when you're the unestablished member of a stable. Get used to it.

Despite the uncertainty, the match must go on. The first match doesn't take too long.

I thought "Cerebral Assassin" meant more than just hitting someone in the head with a chair.

Trips gives up one fall so he can smash Orton with a chair a few times. Doesn't really seem fair, but whatever. I don't make the rules. Seeing as the second match was Falls Count Anywhere, HHH took Orton to the outside, hit a pedigree and quickly evened up the score.

Finally, a STRETCHER MATCH! This is where you have to put your opponent on a stretcher and push them to a certain point outside of the ring. It's also, by the way, how you spell "big drama."






However, the tables would be turned again, and Orton, with a little help from both Legacy members, would retain the title.

But...

He's...right...behind...YOU...

Yeah, Hunter would get the last word, in the form of a sledgehammer to the skull of Randy. Some things just never change.

Will Orton now have to forfeit the title? What changes does Vince have in store for Raw? Will there be commercials?? Find out at 9/8c on USA!

Death, Taxes, and WWE Stock

Not to get all spoilery on last night's Raw, but sometimes some things are just too big to sit on for a week. Yes, we now have a new owner of Monday Night Raw! Donald Trump sold it to rival wrestling promoter Vince McMahon last night. The King is dead! Long live the king!

"We're leaders-two kings!!!"

Still, WWE is a publicly traded company, and as such, has responsibilities to its share holders. Thus, who cares who the owner is as long as our bottom line (cause Stone Cold said so!) is in the black? Let's take a look at the last ten years of WWE's portfolio.

Just like that.

As you can see, WWE stock opened it's first week rather strong, with $24.00 being the price for just a little of that Smackdown action. True, it closed it's first month down $3 from that initial opening, but $21 a share times a few thousand is a pretty spicy meatball! Also, this was the month that John Carpenter (not of this fame) became the first millionaire in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? history. Obviously America was following him for financial advice at the time.

Thank God we're here to translate all these complicated algorithms for you.

This is the financial chart from the time WWE announced their purchase of WCW to the end of the "WCW Invasion" angle. A year and a half later and the stock has dropped six dollars. Still, it remains pretty consistent the entire time, which should not be a good thing due to the angle of all angles they should have been running. Of course, that logic is pretty sound, since the stock went up after the purchase, only to return to its old neighborhood once the public saw that it was failing.

It's like every time this happens the stock goes down

Oh those wacky wrestlers! What a bunch of jokers! Yup, remember when Mr. McMahon "died" in that limo explosion? Yes, when that happened WWE Corporate issued this press release. All in a days work for a wrestling show, right? Except there was one small problem; Vince McMahon is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. When the head of the company dies people tend to lose faith and begin to jump ship. As exhibited by the above numbers. Thankfully, something else came along to distract buyers from these shenanigans.

Ooo..some good news!

Right. That unpleasantness. What's really astounding is how once the mass media went full on Chris Benoit coverage WWE stock dramatically rose. Then as the craziness died down, the stock dropped below its starting point of the time around the tragedy. Hmm, we guess there is no such thing as bad publicity...

Financial genius our ass

Finally, here are the daily numbers of Donald Trump's crazy week as owner of Raw. Yup, a dramatic decrease. Almost a full point. Could it possibly be because of this? Once again, a crazy wrestling stunt is leading the government to get involved because, hey, we're dealing with people's money here.

Still, most important in all of this is that Vince McMahon bought back Raw. And for the low, low price of double an "offer I couldn't refuse," as he said last week. All for a company that netted -$235,000 last night.

WWE stock! The smartest buy you can make!

OH BABY, I like it Raw! Trumping the competition

Matt and Adam take the brand extension very seriously. They each only identify with one brand and actively follow it. Matt bleeds Raw red and Adam has Smackdown blue coursing through his veins. Being soldiers in the ongoing war for brand supremacy has charged both of them up enough to provide handy recaps of the previous week's show. That way, no new viewers will feel lost. Thus, every Monday and Friday, we here at LOL, Wresslin' will offer you a refresher. Hey, it's the least we can do.

For a theme song to accompany this post, please press play and enjoy...



Last week was the big three-hour edition of Raw, which included matches from Hackdown and ECW, so you can call it special if you want; I call it a waste of my time.

But Raw did have some pretty important things happen, the biggest of which is that the show was SOLD TO DONALD TRUMP. That's right - Vince McMahon decided to somehow sell one of the WWE's programs. We already discussed the ramifications of this on this site, so no point in me going into it now, suffice it to say we have a new man in charge around here.

Raw, however, wasn't going to let a shake-up like this keep it down, and they burst out of the gate with a Fatal Four Way to determine the new WWE Champion. I say "new" because Batista is out for a scheduled unexpected surgery on his arm. The title was vacated, so no matter what, we're getting a new champeen.

Understated, WWE.com writers. I like it.

Randy would eventually sneak in, like the "viper" he is, and pin the Big Show to the win the title. So two weeks after "Extreme Rules," the overall change to Raw is zero.

We like to mix things up around here.

McMahon introduces our new owner, and they have an awkward sounding conversation. It's almost as if Trump couldn't hear Vince at all! Like he was simply pausing to allow a response, and then going on with what he had to say! But then again, he seemed to answer Vince's questions....hmmm, technology is just so confusing.

Back to my moonshine!

Trump said that next week (tonight!) Raw would be aired commercial-free! That's pretty bold. What are they going to cut to when the wrestlers start putting a series of submission holds on each other, only to get back to the action five minutes later? I guess we'll have to find out.

However, Vince wasn't going to let this announcement outshine him just yet. He said there was going to be a 10-Man Battle Royal later in the night to determine an opponent for Randy Orton at "The Bash."

No.

They had a useless Divas match between Mickie James and Rosa Mendes. Mickie won. Maryse attacked her afterward. Does anyone care?

No.

Moving on, we have one of the more odd segments of the show. Goldust and Hornswoggle were shooting t-shirts into the crown, since apparently they have nothing better to do.


For whatever reason, the Miz felt this was his time to shine, and came out to cut his hundredth promo on John Cena. Goldust decided to speak for everyone in America, and said he thought it was a pretty tired bit and the Miz should stop. Of course, the Miz, being reasonable, took this advice and went on about his life not worried about Mr. Cena.


Or not.


That's right. He shot a midget in the crotch with a t-shirt fired from an air cannon. Way. To. Go.

Finally, it's the match we've been waiting about an hour to see - the 10-Man Battle Royal. We have some of Raw's greatest talent, like Big Show, William Regal, Matt Hardy, and the Miz. Who in the world might win??

Oh.

So yes, at the Bash we are going to have Randy Orton versus Triple H for the WWE Title.


What's that? Donald Trump says that match is actually going to happen next week (tonight!) and that it's going to be Last Man Standing match???

Be sure to tune in tonight at 9/8c on USA for no commercials and free PPV matches.

Trumped up changes

You may have heard that Monday Night Raw has been sold to billionaire Donald Trump. Apparently, Vince McMahon was tired of making money off his marquee show, and decided to give someone else a chance. Mr. McMahon announced this shakeup last Monday night, which led us to wonder, what's really going to be different about Raw from now on?

Actually, first we wondered how this was even possible. We weren't aware that each show was its own separate entity, able to be bought and sold like some sort of franchise. We're operating under the assumption that Trump now owns not only the brand, but the TV rights, wrestler contracts, and belts currently associated with the program.

Doing a little snooping, we were able to uncover an inter-office memo concerning some of the changes that Donald Trump was going to introduce to Monday's sole form of entertainment. He said this week that he was going to shake things around, and that certainly seems to be the case here. Let's examine a few of these alterations:

No more Smackdown stars on Raw - This seems like a no-brainer to us as well. Technically, they're a rival company now. Trump will now be competing for not only a higher profile, but better stars, and with his deep pockets and singular wrestling enterprise, he'd certainly be able to offer more than the McMahons could. So it seems only natural that he would not welcome a wrestler from another show, as it would only showcase talent not currently on Raw.

Miss USA and Raw talents combined - Trump also owns the Miss USA pageant, and the beautiful ladies of the contest and the theatrics of wrestling are a natural match. Beauty queens will be introduced into storylines, and some even utilized in the Divas matches. Miss Wrestlemania will be added to the Miss USA competition, and new talent portion will be added - "Promo cutting." Also, the differing opinions of the personalities involved makes for natural feuds.



Board room segment at the end of each show - This a hold-over from Trump's television show "The Apprentice." Each Monday, the losers of all the matches will be called into a board room, where Trump will meet with them and choose one to kick off the show. He will do this by uttering his trademarked catch-phrase "You're fired!"

What??

Appointment of a new Raw general manager - A new GM will be selected for Trump's one and only wrestling program. The memo states the candidate is known for his ability to back up his words with action when needed, and has worked for Trump in the past. Also, seeing as how Donald likes to do most of the talking, this person's soft-spoken nature is a perfect fit as an employee. Bobby Lashley will be the new general manager.