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Show opened with John Cena. Crowd was insanely hot. Cena was totally beloved, at least during his entrance. Some boos when he started talking. The heat was just amazing. The crowd was into this one way or the other. I mean… ridiculous. Anyway, Cena is of course talking Nexus. He talked about how when Nexus wanted someone hurt… they got hurt. UNTIL LAST WEEK. Cena said that friends, enemies, whatever, Raw stood united to END NEXUS at Summerslam. Crowd cheered like he was a war hero cutting a promo on Iraq. Cena explains that they want to take over the show and maybe end it. Cena does some lame comedy about his team being the “Superfriends”. It was typical shite. Actually, below typical. Dave Meltzer recently said with regards to Cena’s promos; if The Rock got lines like this from writers he would laugh and throw it back in their faces. Cena needs to do that. Chris Jericho interrupted. He was much loved and got a BIG Y2J chant. That character is dead, fools. It’s 2010. Jericho cut a promo on being a part of “Cena’s team”. He talks about how he doesn’t want anything to do with Cena or the parasites in the crowd. He’s in it to get at Nexus and in particular Barret. Cena says he can have the team. All that matters is beating these dudes. Jericho said Cena would not DARE PATRONISE him and went off on this big rant before Cena knocked the mic out of his hand. Cena said it wasn’t about either of them it was about the BUSINESS. That’s a great line from Cena. The irony. Cena said Jericho is essential to the team. The crowd chanted Y2J again. Jericho said that Nexus wasn’t the only threat to the business. He said CENA was also a threat. He says Cena is just like Nexus. Taking what he wants, saying what he wants, interrupting people. Cena looked sad/mad. Jericho says after Nexus, he’s targeting Cena. Cena and Jericho squared off and then…

BEEP BOOP BEEP!!!

Mitchel Cole got an email. Cena and the crowd looked irritated. Cole announced that the Summerslam match will be contested under elimination rules. Makes sense. He said that Nexus would face seven RAW superstars tonight to give a preview of Summerslam. He said Jericho and Cena would work together tonight too, to see if they could. Then he said “if you’re not down with that, I’ve got two words for you…”. They were in San Antonio, so you had to expect that. Damn fine segment. 18 minutes of talking, and barring some brief comedy it really didn’t drag. Jericho and Cena were both on form and the crowd was eating out of their hands.

Back from break, Sheamus is out. Thought he was on commentary, no. Randy Orton is in action. Against… Jey Uso. These guys come out… to the most deafening silence. From this crowd, that sucks. They have a short, good match. The Usos are really freakin’ good. In just a short time they’ve managed to stand out. Anyway… get this… RANDY ORTON WON! I know shocking. He hits the RKO and gets the clean pin. The other Uso ran in. Sheamus tried to capatalise and hit his kick but he nailed the Uso and got RKO’d. Miz tried to cash in his briefcase but also got RKO’d. Huge ovation. Randy Orton just looked like a monumental star here. They continue to tease Miz cashing in. I’ll stick to my prediction that he cashes in on new champ Orton at Summerslam.

Backstage, Edge is sucking up to DiBiase saying he wishes he was on Cena’s team instead of Khali. No idea what this was supposed to be.

Sheamus and Miz are arguing after break.  Cole gets ANOTHER email. God I hate this shite. Sheamus and Miz will face Cena and Jericho later.  Oh boy. Tag teams who don’t get along.

Khali is annoyed. He shouts at Edge. Ranjin Singh translates. Didn’t he turn heel a few weeks ago? What wackiness this is. Edge says if he beats Khali, he’s off the team. I’m crossing my fucking fingers now.

Khali vs. Edge. As Khali is strolling to the ring, Cole says he got an email telling him that Lawler is on the team to oppose Nexus. Makes sense. Khali threw Edge around and slapped him.  Nexus came out. Edge bailed leaving Khali on his own. Big Khali chants. HA. Khali then… backed off. Nexus looked at him, he looked at them. It was all tense. And that was that. I have no idea what this was supposed to accomplish.

Nexus vs. a team of Raw dudes. Mark Henry, Evan Bourne, Goldust, Lawler, Tatsu and the Harts. Tarver pins Tatsu in less than a minute with his reverse powerslam deal. Heath took out Lawler during the break. Tyson and Heath in the ring coming back. David Hart beat down Slater. Slater eliminated a SECOND person with his finisher which is the exact same move as Dolph Ziggler’s. In came Goldust. Hugely over. Otunga takes him out with his spinebuster.  Sorry; “spinebuster”. Mark Henry dominates. Sheffield hits his BIG ASS clothesline and takes Henry out. Down to Tyson and Bourne.  It, of course, boiled down to Bourne vs. Nexus. Bourne kneed Barret in the face, knocked all of the Nexus off the apron,  but got caught by Barret and took his slam for the loss. Good match that got the Nexus over STRONG. They all hit their finishers, and looked crazy strong in a match thats identical to the Summerslam match. In terms of match quality this was a good TV match.

They beat up Bourne and hit the 450 on him.

Barret cut a promo about how dominant Nexus were. Big heat. Barret said the cracks were visible in team Cena. Come Summerslam; they would be exploited. Sheffield said Cena’s team was composed of individuals and lacked focus. Unlike Barret, Sheffield got “what” chants. Tarver did very well on the mic this week and also largely avoided the chants. Tarver said they were going to tear Cena apart.

Sheamus and Miz had a confrontation. Sheamus was pissed at Miz. Miz said they should have their match tonight and did another horrible Sheamus impersonation. Sheamus got pissed and slapped the briefcase out of Miz’ hand. This was great. These two are the best thing on the show.

Alicia Fox vs. Bella #1. Women segment. Jillian helped Alicia win. She tried to sing and Alicia kicked her. Shit.

Truth is on commentary for Morrison vs. DiBiase. Maryse looks hotter than ever. EVER. They had an okay little match which ended when Truth interfered to help Morrison, but they clunked heads and Morrison lost. Morrison refused a hand shake and left. Simple build to the Summerslam match. Anticipate a FIERY Cena speech next week. Cena was in fact watching on a monitor backstage. Looking sad.

Josh was backstage with Orton. He said he was going to beat whoever the champ was at Summerslam. It was like 10 seconds. Pointless.

Miz and Sheamus vs. Jericho and Cena.  Jericho was much loved. Real babyface heat in this one. He actually worked really well as a face, with Miz. Good TV main event here with lots of time. Jericho finally got the hot tag to Cena only to give him the Codebreaker before the attitude adjustment.  Miz pinned Cena. Great win for Miz. Great build for Summerslam. Then Cena slapped the STF on Jericho. Khali broke it up. Edge speared Khali. Morrison and Truth ran down. There was a big drama and Khali beat up Edge and Morrison and RAW went off air with Team Cena falling apart.

Okay show. Not as strong as last week. Built well to the PPV. They established Orton as a monster babyface, Nexus as super strong and united, and Team Cena as potentially divided and unable to cope with these dominant heels. Good stuff here. In terms of matches there was really only the main event to speak of (Nexus match was fine but more functional than entertaining).

6/10