Like Barack Obama’s presidential run so far, WWE’s Capitol Punishment pay-per-view on Sunday night had some really good moments and a few really bad moments. In the end, the show’s approval ratings should be quite high, since overall the card was pretty good. As far as Obama goes, well, time will tell.
The main event saw John Cena defend his WWE Championship against challenger R-Truth. Intense “Let’s go Cena” / “Cena sucks” dueling chants right from the get-go. The story for this one was whether R-Truth could handle the pressure of competing in his first ever title match. To his credit, he started off pretty intensely, hitting Cena with a few fancy moves, including his patented corkscrew elbow. Occasionally, R-Truth would get distracted, either by the crowd or the voices in his head. If it was the latter, they certainly helped him with strategy, as he had Cena down and hurting for much of the match. Out of nowhere, Cena got his second wind and hit a number of his signature moves, though his momentum didn’t last too long, and R-Truth had him down and in trouble yet again. A bit too overconfident, R-Truth went to the outside to mock a “Little Jimmy” sitting at ringside. After stealing the kid’s hat, R-Truth took the kid’s drink and took a big swig. He gave back the drink, but then Little Jimmy got his revenge by splashing the drink right into R-Truth’s eyes. Cena had recovered from his beat-down by then, and threw the blinded challenger into the ring, hit the Attitude Adjustment, and got the pin to retain the championship.
WWE’s next pay-per-view will be Money in the Bank on July 17.
CAPITOL PUNISHMENT FULL RESULTS
During the introduction for the first match, the Spanish announce team was introduced, so look for their table to be crashed through later on.
Match 1: Kofi Kingston vs Dolph Ziggler w/ Vickie Guerrero – United States Championship Match
Kofi started off fast and furious, sending the challenger reeling, including sending him into a near-360 off of a monkey flip. Dolph fired back, and soon grounded Kofi. Surprisingly, the commentary team spoke very highly of the U.S. Title, first by listing some of the former greats who have held the title, and then by them saying that a win would catapult Ziggler’s career. But then they switched over to making fat jokes about Vickie Guerrero, so I guess it was only a momentary lapse of immaturity. After coming back, with a bunch of high dropkicks and then a super high cross body to Dolph’s back, Kofi looked like he was going to end things. But instead, Vickie interfered from the outside, jabbing her fingers into Kofi’s eyes. Blind, Kofi walked right into Dolph’s sleeper hold, which was held on tight until Kofi went limp, causing the referee to call for the bell.
Winner and new U.S. Championship: Dolph Ziggler
Match rating: 8/10
Backstage, a limousine pulled up. R-Truth emerged with John Cena’s belt, and a modified catchphrase of “The Champ is in the House. Fo-Shizzle.” Elsewhere, The Miz badmouthed Alex Riley, saying that his former protégé is only good at carrying someone else’s bags.
Match 2: The Miz vs Alex Riley
Miz started off on the attack with a vicious onslaught of kicks, stomps, and a hard snap DDT. He continued the beat-down with several big moves, but after some time, Riley was able to mount a comeback. Michael Cole had been criticizing Riley throughout the match, and started jaw-jacking him when the match spilled to the floor. In a nice visual, Riley pulled Cole over the announce desk and dumped him on his face. Back in the ring, Riley surprised Miz with a jumping DDT and got the huge upset victory.
Winner: Alex Riley
Match rating: 7/10
Backstage, Sgt Slaughter welcomed a Barack Obama impersonator to the show. Vickie Guerrero came up and serenaded Fauxbama like Marilyn Monroe did for JFK. Jillian Hall did the bad singing gimmick so much better. This segment was a waste of time – the Zapruder film was more fun to watch.
Match 3: Alberto Del Rio vs The Big Show
As Alberto was coming to the ring, Big Show attacked him from behind. He continued delivering the punishment on the floor, but then was flattened by Mark Henry, who ran down to the ringside area from out of nowhere. Henry smashed Show with the World’s Strongest Slam through the Spanish announce table (told you), and then smashed Show’s bad knee. Show took a while to get into the ring, but was able to do so to start the match. Del Rio immediately targeted the injured knee and got the big man down to the mat. ADR did a smart thing and locked on his cross-arm breaker onto Show’s bad leg, but Show stubbornly refused to quit, instead grabbing the ropes to break the hold. Show was unable to stand up, and after the referee gave him a number of chances but Show couldn’t continue, the referee called the match and awarded the win to Del Rio.
Winner: Alberto Del Rio
Match rating: 7/10
Backstage, R-Truth tried to get a photographer to take his picture, but when the photographer pointed out that Truth wasn’t the champion, he got slapped.
Walking to the ring, Wade Barrett criticized the United States for its politicians, its economy, its educational system, its wrestlers, including his opponent Ezekiel Jackson.
Match 4: Wade Barrett vs Ezekiel Jackson – Intercontinental Championship
This was a pretty much a power battle, but the experience advantage gave Barrett the edge in the early stages. He also was able to use his height and reach to avoid Jackson and employ a hit and run offense where he could. Zeke was able to kick out from Barrett’s Wasteland slam, and then blocked a Barrett running boot attempt. He followed that up with a series of bodyslams, followed by the Torture Rack, and Barrett was forced to submit. After the match, Jerry Lawler interviewed Jackson who celebrated his win.
Winner and new I-C Champion: Ezekiel Jackson
Match rating: 7/10
Backstage, Fauxbama met Santino, Beth Phoenix, and Kelly Kelly. Santino tried to show him his Cobra, but secret service took him down. I wish they would have done that before this terrible skit started.
Elsewhere, CM Punk compared himself to politicians, saying that he was better than all of them, and Rey Misterio who hides behind his mask, because Punk tells the truth.
Match 5: Rey Misterio vs CM Punk
These two always have good chemistry in the ring, and this match was no exception. Punk was able counter Rey’s patented offense, and keep the match on the mat. Every time Rey seemed to catch a break, Punk was one step ahead of him. This was paced out very well, with the crowd subdued for the most part, but reacting to the right moves at the right times, including a high springboard moonsault and a cool looking torpedo bomb by Rey and a great sequence of moves and reversals that ended with Rey kicking Punk’s head off. Things really picked up in the end, with Rey hitting a 619 with Punk on the apron, and then Punk countering a Superfly splash by putting his knees up into Misterio’s ribs. Another fantastic series of reversals, ending off with a GTS, got Punk the win. Tremendous match.
Winner: CM Punk
Match rating: 9/10
Match 6: Randy Orton vs Christian – World Heavyweight Championship
| WHAT YOU THINK |
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What did you think of WWE Capitol Punishment? It was great – 5% It was okay – 20% It sucked – 24% Didn’t see it – 51% |
This match started off pretty slowly, with neither man holding a clear edge in the beginning until Christian capitalized by sending Orton face first into the ring steps. This was a typical Randy Bore-ton match, with him not really having any reaction to anything, and just looking ticked off for the entire match. The crowd woke up huge when Christian hit the Spear for a two-count, and then exploded when Orton hit the RKO for the 1-2-3. After the match, Christian protested, arguing that his foot was underneath the ropes – which they were – but the referee was unmoved. While Christian argued, Orton hit him from behind with the title, knocking him out.
Winner and still World Heavyweight Champion: Randy Orton
Match rating: 7/10
Match 7: Jack Swagger vs Evan “Air” Bourne
This one was billed as a “bonus match”, which is just code for “we have extra time to kill.” Even though everyone has seen this match hundreds of times on TV, this one was pretty good. Swagger went for the ankle lock, but Bourne rolled him up for the win.
Winner: Evan Bourne
Match rating: 7/10
Before the main event, Fauxbama came out on the entrance stage, which was set up to look like a White House press conference, and did a speech that was both meaningless and uninteresting. This was a huge waste of time. The only mildly amusing part came when he named the participants in the main event, and the boos for Cena equaled those of R-Truth. After his speech, Booker T invited the “President” to the ring, where he did a Spinneroonie. This whole segment should have ended with a Stone Cold Stunner to make it mildly entertaining. As it turned out, though, this was 100% useless. Somewhere, Bryan Danielson, Sheamus, the Nexus, the Corre, Kane, Zack Ryder, Yoshi Tatsu, Sin Cara, Tyson Kidd, all of the Divas, and everyone else on the roster must have been sitting and watching this segment with blank stares and lingering doubts.
Match 8: John Cena vs R-Truth – WWE Championship
Winner and still WWE Champion: John Cena
Match rating: 6/10
Overall show rating: 7/10
Bob Kapur wants to wish all of the fathers out there a Happy Father’s Day. To his knowledge, he isn’t one. E-mail him your paternity lawsuit claims at bobkapur@hotmail.com. Miss you, Dad!
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