Yo. You’re reading the mid-week News and Analysis.
The WWE presented Backlash on Sunday night. Lots of mixed feelings on-line about the PPV. I thought it was an “ok” show. Nothing spectacular, certainly, not that bad of a show. Goldberg defeated The Rock in thirteen minutes in what was somewhat of a brutal main event, but did it for me, since I really didn’t expect much more than that. Elsewhere on the show, the Cliq was clicking as Triple H pinned Kevin Nash after using a sledgehammer. Triple H pinning an upcoming Superstar, or a returning Superstar who’s just about to go big… So surprising, no? Jazz became the new Women’s Champion as she cheated to defeat Trish, while the masters of cheating, Los Guerreros left Backlash with the tag team titles, but didn’t actually win them, they stole them (what they do best besides cheating. Can you believe I just typed this?) Oh yeah, Big Show used Rey Mysterio as a baseball bat and basically said “Suck it” to Kevin Nash for using Rey Rey as a dart in WCW. Sean O’Haire won in his first match back.
Come Monday night, RAW hit the airwaves. The main focus on the show was turning Goldberg the ultimate face WWE should have turned him into upon his arrival but failed to do so. They seemed on the right track and did a fairly good job with it. That area of the show I enjoyed. Also, Linda McMahon made an appearance to introduce Steve Austin as the new 50-50 co-General Manager of RAW. Booker T faced Christian on the show, The Hurricane picked up a win over Chief Morley, and Kane and RVD successfully defended their tag team titles against Triple H and Ric Flair with some help from Kevin Nash. RAW’s rating is in and in what’s good news for WWE, the show scored a 3.9 rating, which is up from last week’s 3.8 score and is a fair one for an after-PPV show. It’s off of hours 3.7 and 4.1 if you are intersted in that information. I think it’ll be more interesting to follow next week’s RAW rating as that will show if WWE has any momentum going with Goldberg and if the Austin storyline played out well.
At Backlash, The Rock had his last WWE match for a while. The Great One is off to shooting another movie, and will probably be back in early 2004, with some saying we might even see him again before 2003 is over. The Rock did the job for Goldberg at the PPV in a 13-minute match that wasn’t all that quite frankly. However, I feel that what WWE did on RAW with Goldberg was more important. It was obvious that they treated his character the wrong way ever since he debuted. Like I said last week, he just seemed like another “flavor of the week” to me, and not like the super-powerful monster he’s been portrayed his whole career in WCW. Instead, we saw Goldberg with a wig, Goldberg dealing with Christian, and Goldberg getting the hell beat out of him by Rock. It just wasn’t cutting it. The result was obvious as Goldberg got booed at Backlash! However, on Monday night WWE did a complete turn-around in his character and it was all for the better. They used simple, yet effective ways to get Bill over. To work on the “super-power” side, WWE had him spear Jamal through the ring-side barrier in what was a nice spot. As far as the rest goes, they had him booked in a segment with a heel (In Chris Jericho’s new talk show), and then had him help out a face (Booker T) as well as engage in a converstaion with a face (again Booker T). It’s really simple, isn’t it? Had to think of it earlier guys! Ah well, let’s not bitch and complain and just enjoy.
Speaking of Goldberg and his altercation with Chris Jericho, the Highlight of the Night himself debuted a new talk-show segment on RAW, entitled Chris Jericho’s Hi-Lite Reel. I’m looking forward to future editions as Jericho is THE man you want to pick when it comes to a talk show host. I think he’ll be perfect for it, and we might have seen the seeds of a Y2J vs. Goldberg feud being planted last night. Time will tell.
Kevin Nash and Triple H seem to have started their feud which is expected to last for a month or two. After getting a hammer shot at Backlash, Nash was on the hunt to retaliate on RAW, but the champ escaped. Nothing much to say here. I just found it really interesting that RVD and Ric Flair got the loudest pop from the crowd during the tag team titles match. You could also clearly see that RVD was working his best on RAW, and was trying his hardest to prove that he deserves to be in the ring with Triple H. Too bad nobody cares about this but the fans, Rob. As far as Nash and Hunter go, it’s now questionable if Triple H will drop the belt to Kev for a month or two since Hunter did pin him at Backlash, but I don’t see that happening. Right now it’ll actually be better if Triple H won and then lost the belt to Goldberg. This way we’ll finally have the STRONG face we needed in Goldberg to freshen things up.
Steve Austin is the new Co-General Manager of RAW. With Rock out of WWE, they decided to go ahead and re-introduce Austin. In an interview with WWE.com, he recently stated that he’s done with wrestling. To quote him he was “99.9% sure” that his last match was with The Rock at WrestleMania XIX. I really can’t see Austin as Co-G.M. for too long. It’s just not his type of gimmick. Guys like Mick Foley and Shawn Michaels were great at that gimmick, but they had that skill that put them over. Not that Austin doesn’t have it, it’s just that it’ll be really hard to convince the fans on Austin’s new role as they’re used to seeing him fight it out, as that’s what ultimately his character has always done. I think time will tell and Austin certainly can do a great job, but again, they have to make sure his act is fresh. They’ve teased the firing of Bischoff twice now. Is it just me or when it comes time for him to actually get fired, nobody’s going to buy it?
La Resistance debuted on RAW. A lot to look foward to from these guys. Rene and Sylvan are two very young and talanted superstars which WWE has high expectations of. Rene is the youngest wrestler to ever sign a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment, while Sylvan has already been a part of the main event of a WWE PPV, and not just any match — he was the referee of Rock-Hogan 2. These guys will be big players, and I think they proved on RAW they have a great gimmick going on. Unfortunately, the current times aren’t probably the best ones to do what they’re doing, but I enjoy their work. It’s solid. I think it’s also a nice way to introduce Steiner and Test as a feud. Pair them up against La Resistance for a while, and then break them apart to feud with each other. We’ll see what they come up with.
The Pro-Wrestling Torch Newsletter reported some disturbing news recently. Vince McMahon is getting frustrated more and more with time, as his product is going downhill. The latest is that Vince is worried many people from upper management will soon get to the point where they’ll push for Stephanie and Shane McMahon to take over soon. The report also said that Vince gets frustrated with that thought and does not plan to follow it anytime soon. It also says that Vince has been taking his frustrations out on Shane. I don’t understand this last part. How can he take his frustrations out on a mature male, who’s above 30, and is his own son? It just doesn’t sound right to me. Nevertheless, I think it’s about time that Vince McMahon wakes up and realizes that he’s behind with what he’s doing. Listening to Triple H and not consulting others sources could be a reason for his nagging. His personal life is also another reason as he has absolutely no time to follow modern traits of not only wrestling, but life itself. Face it, folks, Vince is getting a bit old, and his approach to wrestling has changed completely. His ideas are not exactly working, and he doesn’t seem to listen to anyone around him besides Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. As far as they go, I don’t exactly think they provide the type of ideas the fans will be entertained by. It’s time for a fresh change, it’s time for a new generation to take over. I think it’s time for Shane McMahon to take over. Vince, right now, is the perfect man to help out, but not to be the main leader. If Shane, his own son who’s been around for a while, is given the chance, and he has the help of Vince and experienced people around him, I just feel that there will be something fresh brought to the company. However, an important point to make is that this is not enough to change things around. It’s just a small fraction of what has to be done for things to get better. Main events involving Triple H, Kevin Nash, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, The Rock, and Steve Austin aren’t gonna cut it. Obviously the last two aren’t around, but the rest need to take a hint.
Thanks for reading. See ya.
Eddie
