This Week In WWE TV – March 4-10, 2013

This week: While Raw goes Old School, Smackdown goes to Brad School and passes with flying colours. Plus, The Rock compares somebody else to Lance Armstrong (no really), Mae Young celebrates her 90th birthday, The Undertaker celebrates his 90th surprise return to WWE and the still not quite debut of Fandango.

OLD SCHOOL RAW

– The show started with The Undertaker coming out. He stood at the top of the stage and the Wrestlemania logo appeared on the big screen. Then he disappeared for a while.

– Punk and Heyman came out. He complained about not being in the main event of Wrestlemania and blamed the fans. Punk suggested he might not even be at Wrestlemania if he wasn’t in the main event, but that he had a new purpose, beating Undertaker at Wrestlemania and taking the streak from everybody. Orton interrupted and pointed out he beat Punk at Wrestlemania before. He said he came close to beating the streak as a rookie and now, he wasn’t a rookie and asked the crowd who they’d rather see face Undertaker. Big Show came out and said he’d KO the streak. Then Sheamus showed up and said he was the only one of the four who’d never faced Undertaker, which lead Vickie to make a four way later to decide.

– Ryback d. Antonio Cesaro in 4:33. Cesaro did an inset promo, saying he spoke five languages and Ryback barely spoke one. Cesaro attacked Ryback on the bell. Ryback fought him off though and countered the Neutraliser into Shell Shocked.

– Mark Henry d. Zack Ryder in 0:52. Ryback and Mark Henry passed each other in the aisle between matches and had a stare down. Ryder fared about as well as you’d expect before losing to the World’s Strongest Slam.

– The Miz d. Dolph Ziggler by submission in 6:47. Once he could get his microphone working, Miz brought Flair out to be in his corner. Flair ended up getting involved, chopping Big E, with little effect. But Miz took Big E out and caught Ziggler in the figure four.

– The Rock came out for a face to face with Cena. Cena said Rock didn’t know what it was like to fail at something, but he did after losing to him last year. He claimed it sent his life into a tailspin. Cena said he had a chance to rewrite history and get redemption at Wrestlemania. Rock said he was glad Cena won last week, because nobody had his passion, except him. Cena quoted Mike Tyson. Rock said Cena was full of crap like Lance Armstrong.

– Swagger faced Jim Duggan, who was accompanied by Slaughter and Dusty. Swagger attacked them all with the 2×4 though and put Duggan in the ankle lock.

– Team Hell No! d. The Primetime Players (Kane pinned Young) in 3:45. Ted Dibiase Sr. was at ringside. The PTP tried to impress Ted, but lost after Kane chokeslammed Young. After the match Ted stuffed $100 in Young’s mouth and Bryan stole it.

– Brodus Clay and Tensai d. Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre of 3MB (Tensai pinned Drew) in 0:25. Before the match, Slater wouldn’t let The Honky Tonk Man talk. Tensai rolled up Drew in seconds. Slater interrupted the celebration and Honky laid him out with a guitar.

– Fandango was supposed to face Kofi. He didn’t approve of his introduction though and said he wouldn’t debut until Justin Roberts learnt how to pronounce his name.

– HHH came out. He said he’d been training all this time, with no goal in mind. And when Brock attacked Vince, he found his reason to come back. He challenged Brock to a match at Wrestlemania and said the ass kicker was back.

– The Shield asked Orton and Sheamus if they were forgetting somebody by going after The Undertaker. The Shield said they had an undefeated streak of their own and warned the eye of justice was always watching. Reigns warned Show that the KO punch he gave him would never happen again.

– Alberto Del Rio d. Wade Barrett by submission in 4:52. Swagger and Colter watched from the stage. Del Rio won clean with the cross armbreaker.

– The New Age Outlaws d. Primo and Epico (Billy pinned Primo) in 2:54. They said this was the Outlaws first match together on Raw since 2000. Billy won with the Fame Asser. They looked pretty good and they’re supposed to face Rhodes Scholars this week, so maybe there’ll be a mini comeback.

– Mene Gene joined members of the roster on the stage. They brought out Mae Young to celebrate her 90th birthday, with cake and everything. As they sung Happy Birthday though, Punk interrupted to make his entrance for the main event.

– Winner Faces Undertaker At Wrestlemania: CM Punk d. Big Show, Sheamus and Randy Orton in 8:39. Punk tried to start the match on the floor, but everybody else surrounded him. He continued to try and stay out of danger, with mixed results. Show gave Punk the KO punch which took him out for a while. Sheamus, Orton and Show fought it out. Show gave chokeslams to both and got a two count on Sheamus. He then tried the KO punch, Sheamus ducked and hit a Brogue Kick, Orton hit an RKO, but Punk snuck in and high kicked Orton, followed by a GTS for the pin. Undertaker came out afterwards and stared at Punk from the stage.

MAIN EVENT

– There was a graphic for Paul Bearer before the show.

– Randy Orton d. Wade Barrett in 10:46. Before the match Wade bragged about being a huge Hollywood star and introduced a video of him at the Dead Man Down premiere. He also took a shot at The Miz, before Orton attacked. Barrett got the upper hand for a while in a largely even match. But Orton was able to come out on top, countering the Bull Hammer and hitting an RKO. Crowd were into Orton.

– Cody Rhodes d. Zack Ryder in 3:06. Cody avoided the boot in the corner and won with Cross Rhodes.

– Sin Cara d. Antonio Cesaro in 4:14. Sin Cara had some new, pink and gold attire. Cesaro made the perfect opponent for Sin Cara as you’d expect. He kicked out after a perfect yoshi tonic and countered a dive with an uppercut. But Sin Cara countered a second rope powerbomb with a hurricanrana and pulled off the upset.

NXT

– Dusty came out and announced the scheduled triple threat from last week would happen this week. He said he’d beefed up security incase The Shield decided to show up.

– Two On One Handicap Match: Adrian Neville d. Judas Devlin and Scott Dawson in 3:22. This was supposed to be a tag team match, but Neville said he didn’t know where Grey was. As Neville struggled two on one, The Wyatt Family showed up, dragging an injured Grey and leaving him on the stage. Neville tried to go check on him and Devlin and Dawson wouldn’t let him. But Neville managed to hit Dawson with the corkscrew shooting star before running to help Grey.

– Leo Kruger d. Yoshi Tatsu by submission in 3:01. Kruger focused on the arm and won with Nigel McGuinness’s London Dungeon submission.

– The Funkadactyls and Sasha Banks d. Alicia Fox, Aksana and Audrey Marie (Naomi pinned Audrey) in 4:24. After Cameron was worked over, Naomi made an impressive comeback and won with a leaping heel kick.

– Phillips interviewed Bo Dallas. He talked about being in the Royal Rumble and pinning Wade Barrett. Bray interrupted and said the Wyatt Family would have protected him from The Shield if he’d accepted their offer. Bo said he wanted nothing to do with him.

– Renee interviewed Summer Rae, who insisted on being called the first lady of NXT. She claimed Paige was never coming back and people only liked her because she was attainable, unlike her.

– A Shield promo cut into the show and said there was a lot of injustice to take care of on NXT and they were always watching. Rollins said if anyone should be angry it was him for not getting his title rematch. He warned he’d be back to take what was his, when everyone least expected it.

– #1 Contendership, Triple Threat: Conor O’Brien d. Bo Dallas and Corey Graves in 12:09. This worked much better than the singles match last week. Conor dominated both opponents for a while, before they worked together to fight back. Wyatt came out to watch. After some near submissions, Bo hit a belly to belly suplex but Wyatt pulled Graves out of the ring. Conor then gave a distracted Bo a full nelson slam to win.

SUPERSTARS

– Team Rhodes Scholars d. The Usos (Cody pinned Jimmy) in 6:00. Sandow and Cody explained before the match that they couldn’t sit back and let tomfoolery pass off as entertainment anymore, so they were reuniting for the night. They struggled early, before cutting off Jimmy. Jey ran wild, but as things broke down, Cody was able to catch Jimmy with the disaster kick.

– Layla d. Tamina Snuka in 4:23. Tamina dominated, but Layla caught her in a roll up.

SMACKDOWN

– Swagger and Colter came out to cut another of their pro America promos. They were interrupted by Alberto and Ricardo, who played their own mock version of one of their YouTube videos, with them dressed as Swagger and Colter.

– Team Hell No! d. Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre of 3MB (Bryan submitted Slater) in 4:03. 3MB struggled with Kane, before they managed to cut Bryan off briefly. Some miscommunication almost lead to Bryan being rolled up. But he turned it into the NO Lock for the submission

– Striker interviewed Dolph, with his crew. Ziggler said the fans voted for him to face Alberto because of his briefcase and tonight history would be made.

– Ryback ran into Henry backstage on his way to the ring and they had another stare down.

– Ryback d. Damien Sandow in 3:20. Maddox joined commentary for the rest of the show, to oversee the show, apparently unaware Booker T was the Smackdown GM. This raised the show several notches for me. Before the match Sandow claimed Ryback was the man Darwin’s theory of evolution forgot. Sandow held his own for a while, before Ryback got the win with Shell Shocked.

– Striker interview Big Show about being attacked by The Shield after Raw went off the air. Show didn’t understand what The Shield’s problem was and blamed Sheamus and Orton for what happened to him.

– Alberto Del Rio d. Dolph Ziggler by submission in 10:04. After Big E got in a cheap shot early, Ricardo threw a towel at him. Ricardo then tried to throw the water bucket over him but Big E moved and AJ got soaked instead. AJ chased after him and Big E stopped her, before both were thrown out. In the match itself, Ziggler controlled but Alberto fought back. Both earned some close near falls before Alberto escaped a roll up and caught Ziggler in the cross armbreaker.

– Backstage Bryan found AJ trying to dry off. They took some shots at each other, with Bryan pointing out he didn’t walk around with a briefcase when they were together, he was World Champion. AJ pointed out he lost it and 18 seconds and Bryan said she should be used to things lasting 18 seconds with Dolph.

– Mark Henry d. Yoshi Tatsu in 0:39. Henry made short work of Yoshi with the World’s Strongest Slam.

– Striker interviewed Sheamus. Sheamus said he wasn’t surprised Big Show blamed him, because of his ego. He made fun of Show and promised a Brogue Kick.

– Tamina Snuka d. Kaitlyn in 1:23. Layla was in Kaitlyn’s corner. Cody was shown watching backstage. Kaitlyn took a nasty bump face first into the middle rope. Tamina then threw down Layla and Layla tried to go after her, which distracted Kaitlyn and lead to Tamina winning with a samoan drop. Afterwards Cody asked Sandow what he thought of Kaitlyn. He said she’d made the most of herself despite coming from a deficient genetic pool. Don’t use that as a chat up line, guys.

– Fandango was supposed to face Justin Gabriel, but he took issue with the way Lillian pronounced his name and refused to compete again. He called Lillian “Jillian” too. Booker was appalled backstage.

– Sheamus and Big Show went to a no contest when The Shield interfered. Match was mostly a brawl as you’d expect. Sheamus countered a chokeslam and ducked the KO punch before hitting White Noise. Before he could hit a Brogue Kick, Big Show escaped. They fought outside and Sheamus gave Show the Brogue Kick coming back in, before The Shield appeared. Orton ran out to back up Sheamus but they were outnumbered, until Big Show came in to even the odds. After The Shield escaped through the crowd, Show gave Sheamus the KO punch, but Orton reacted with an RKO to Big Show.