RAW Rage
By: Roland G
Hi again! Did you miss me? Wait, don’t answer that – I’m fragile. Welcome to the second edition of RAW Rage (exclusive to TBL – registered trademark – all rights reserved.)! I am Roland – currently your Dr. Isaac Yankem, but soon to be revealed as “The Dark One” Joe Balrog’s evil brother – sent to torment him by Eddie, my father-figure and manager.
Our first edition went smashingly, as it was generally met with apathy and a sigh. That’s okay, I’m still a rookie and just happy to be here. I’ll still miss some spots and look green for a while as I look around in wide-eye wonderment at the big crowd – but I promise you that I will give you a hard workrate and do my best not to creep people out like Nathan Jones.
Well, I know your not here to read anymore lame wrestling analogies; you’re here to find out what happened on RAW! Or, more importantly, you want to know what I thought about what happened on RAW – so away we go.
-WWE RAW
-Coming to you with a ten second tape delay (to filter out the cussin’) from Buffalo, New York (0 for 4 in Super Bowl’s, but #1 in our hearts).
-We start out with a recap of Kane unmasking from last week and chokeslamming RVD. They use a weird, fun house mirror effect to make Kane look scarier than he did with the black paint last week.
-Jericho stands in the ring after the pyro for an early Highlight Reel. He talks about how Kane looked like “Crusty the clown on crack” last week (Ha!) but says he wants beauty in the ring with him so he calls out Stacey. Scott comes too and makes her do the bend over thing again and again. Jericho makes me laugh again by telling Stacey that her legs are of the hizzle (I think Jericho might be spending time with Teddy Long – getting all up on his street talk). Chris tells Scotty that he should leave, but Scotty takes offense to that. Jericho is all, “Calm down with the `roid rage, dude,” and shows us Kibble’s spread in Stuff. Jericho makes me laugh a third time by asking Stacey why she is with “King Arthur” when she could be with a stud like him. But Stacey says the rumor on Chris is that he’s got a small John Thomas. Well, Jericho is having none of that. He brings out Test and a double beat down on Scotty ensues. Scotty cleans house though and Bischoff comes out to tell us that Stone Cold is not here tonight (Rehab? AA? Spousal abuse seminar?), so he is in charge. He sets up a match between Scott and Stacey versus Jericho and Test for later tonight. This was a pretty funny segment because Jericho is so on lately, but if they make him job to Scotty, it will be a waste. I’m beginning to wonder what they are doing with Jericho now. He just seems to be there to give the rub to the young heels lately. Christian, Lance, and now Test? We don’t have anyone for Jericho to feud with? Oh well, the younger guys could use the rub.
-The slam of the week is the boring segment for Lance from two weeks ago.
-We are JIP (Joined in Progress) of Lance giving a speech about how he is not boring while the crowd tells him he is. He’s all, “Nuh uh,” and they’re all, “Uh huh,” and then Goldberg’s music hits and everyone is quiet. We are about to witness Lance get squashed by Goldberg (something we have already seen) when The Mack tries a sneak attack from behind on Goldy. But, that didn’t really work for him because Goldberg is a monster and all and he SQUASHED the Mack with a quickness. Then Goldy has about a million facial ticks causing those that are epileptic watching to have a seizure. My wife mentions that when Goldy gives us his INTENSE grin, he looks like he has no teeth. Goldy picks up poor little Mack and Jackhammers him for good measure and then does the tick/gum look at us again.
-Bischoff is backstage with Kane (who wears a towel to cover his “disfigurement”). Bisch tells Kane that it was RVD’s fault that Kane had to unmask because RVD says that Kane doesn’t need a mask. Bischoff tells Kane that since ratings were good when he unmasked that he needs to go out there and address the crowd. Kane shakes his head (“Nah, I looked silly last week.”) Bischoff tells him that if he’s a good boy and does it, he’ll give him a rematch against Trips. Kane shakes his head again (“Nah, how many times do I need to buried by him?”). Well, Bischoff gets mad and tells him that he will give the title shot tonight against RVD instead (“Take that, you wannabe freak!”) and he tells Kane that if he doesn’t show his face out there tonight, he will be fired.
-Battle Royal for the Woman’s Title. Our participants are Trish, Molly, Victoria, Ivory, Jackie, Jazz, and the debuting Gail Kim. Any bets on whether Gail Kim will win this one? Okay, short form here. Ivory was eliminated by Molly, Jazz got hurt by a stiff kick by Victoria and was carried out (looked real),Molly was eliminated by Victoria, Jackie was eliminated by Victoria, Trish was eliminated by Gail Kim who was catapulted by Victoria into her, and Victoria was eliminated by Gail Kim giving us a NEW Woman’s Champion – Gail Kim. Well, I called it. I do have a problem with this because the audience was dead for Kim and with good reason. We have no idea who she is other than the commercials they’ve ran for her. She looks okay, but we have never seen her in the ring – but NO, the booking department is going to force feed us Gail Kim (YOU MUST LIKE HER – YOU MUST BECAUSE WE SAY SO!) even though she has had zero time to make us like her by herself. I just don’t really think this is a good idea. Give her a few weeks to get herself over with the fans and then give her the strap if you must, but not all at once.
-Booker vs. Christian for the IC belt. Christian doesn’t even wait for his entrance before attacking. He’s INTENSE! They brawl out into the crowd when we go to commercial. I’m sorry, but this commercial thing is really starting to annoy me. I may be coming in late on this, but I really tried not to let it bother me. But come on! How am I supposed to enjoy a match that starts out with intensity and be expected to be as excited after three minutes of ads? Anyway, they come back and wrestle and I’m taken out of it a little because of the break. Booker gets a spinarooni in the ring and I start to remember when Ross used to hate that when Book was part of the Invasion saying if he would just cover the guy instead of doing his spin, he would win more matches. Now Ross just marks out. Booker gets a fluke pin on Christian after a superplex, but Bischoff comes out and says both men’s shoulders were down (He’s actually right). He declares this a draw and Christian retains. I laugh. Okay, if you are going to go for goofy endings in Christian’s matches so he keeps the belt without winning, this is a good way to do it.
-RVD talks to Kane, trying to talk some sense into him – Dude. Kane says he hates the fans. RVD makes me laugh by responding, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” It makes me giggle even now. After RVD leaves, Kane mentions that he hates RVD too. I wonder why. Maybe we will get a reason after he interferes with RVD’s match against Triple H tonight or next week because you can see it coming.
-Y2J & Test vs Scotty and Stacy. JR goes way over the top screaming to the King, “Look at her face! You look at her legs every night – LOOK AT HER FACE!” I laugh out loud – hard. That really came out of nowhere. Basically Scott fights a handicap match until Test shoves the ref who calls for the bell and the DQ. Bischoff comes out and says there will be no DQ and this match is now a no DQ match. So, Scott gets a chair-shot to the head and Test forces a tag to Stacy and then he gives her a pumphandle slam for the pin. I was entertained here. I think Test and Scott are really molding together nicely and doing good work. It’s funny to think that Test is pulling good work out of Scotty, but hey, more power to him.
-Wrestlemania recall of LT vs. Bam Bam Bigalo (sp?)
-Rico (with the Gayda Incident) vs. Maven. I wish WWE would spend a little money and really make Rico’s new gimmick into something. That theme music is crap. Spend a little money and get the rights to “Stardust” by Bowie or something. Rico tries to give Maven a hotel key. Funny. More ambiguously gay stuff goes on but the crowd was dead for this one. Ross even pointed it out. Rico won by a back kick. This wasn’t much of a match but I was entertained by all the funny stuff Rico was doing. I just didn’t like that Maven did the job, but someone has to job, I guess. I do think, however, that these two would both benefit from a longer program together because I think Rico could pull some personality out of Maven and teach him some better in-ring skills.
-Replay of the Foley beatdown from last week.
–Randy Orton (with Flair and that cool entrance) vs. Tommy Dreamer. I’ve got my favorite wrestlers (everyone does) and I am really becoming a fan of Orton. I like how he is hanging with the big boys and his cocky, pretty-boy-with-an-edge thing is perfect for the stable. Dreamer chases Flair with a Kendo stick but Orton makes the save and gives Dreamer the RKO for the win. Flair gets the figure four on Dreamer and Orton uses the Kendo on him. Good stuff.
-RVD is backstage stretching. Bischoff comes by and RVD yells at him for exploiting Kane. Whatever dude.
-Bischoff tells Terri she has to go interview Kane or she is fired.
-La Resistance vs. Hurricane and Spike Dud (Who should sue Spike Lee). I am going to try and find something to like about La Resistance this week as I have been generally apathetic to them so far. During the match, a boring chant starts. Spike gets a double flapjack and gets pinned. Hmm. I didn’t see anything I hated but I didn’t really see enough of them tonight. I am going to give them an incomplete and watch more intently next week.
-Terri sneaks into Kane’s backroom, but he is nowhere to be found.
-Triple H vs. RVD for the World Title. Triple gets to beat up two guys in two weeks that he already buried earlier this year. Go Trips! They wrestle and stuff and midway through, Flair comes down. Then another commercial… Anyway, we come back to RVD dominating. RVD gets a 5 star but Flair gets the DQ for his boy with a beltshot. But Bisch is out again to tell us there will be no DQ’s tonight and the match starts again. RVD gets a Van Daminator and tries to get Trips in the ring when Bisch tells him he needn’t worry with such frivolous malarkey – this is a falls count anywhere! So RVD covers but Orton makes the save. Trips tries to leave (always the worker that one) but RVD catches him at the top of the ramp and Trips tries a pedigree, but RVD counters. A 2 count for RVD, but he gets interfered with and then Trips gets an absolutely HUGE DDT on RVD and gets the pin. This one was pretty entertaining from start to finish despite the commercial break. There was good psychology in the ring. But I think the fact that we all knew that RVD wasn’t going to win kinda put the damper on it.
Anyway, Kane comes out to his fire and goes to get RVD in a chokeslam, but instead gives one to Bischoff off the stage! I wasn’t expecting that. Then they focus on his face and he is totally bald now – but where are the black marks? I don’t get his look. They need to figure out real quick what he is going to look like to avoid further embarrassment on this one. Making Glen make freaky faces isn’t going to cut if for long.
Overall, I didn’t hate this one and I didn’t love it. I really didn’t feel a whole lot was accomplished. A lot of this was status quo, but there was enough entertaining things going on to make me a little happy so this week I am giving the show a big old 5 rating out of 10.
WHEW! Well, we’ve come to the end of our second RAW Rage. I again want to thank you for stopping by. You are my favorite person right now. I don’t care what everyone else says about you. Lies…ALL LIES!
Let me give a shout out to my brother who will be enjoying his birthday on Wednesday. Happy Birthday Bro. Also, check out the TBL Forums for some hearty discussions and even a RAW Is Praised by Jacob Spades (who shamelessly plugged me this week – so I will return the favor).
“But wait, Roland,” you say, “I’ve enjoyed reading about wrestling so much, I don’t want the experience to end! And you won’t be back for another week! What should I do?” Easy! Check out TBL’s Opinion’s section. There are plenty of great articles written by some today’s best Internet Wrestling Columnist. My personal star of approval this week goes to Jody Mamaluke who wrote an entertaining piece on stables in wrestling. Check it out:
www.thebalrogslair.com/opinions/mamaluke/2003/0629.shtml.
I don’t know if I can hyperlink that or not – seeing as how I have no idea how to do it in Microsoft Works (Yes, I know Works is poop and Word is better – but I’m not exactly a rich man or a computer wizard – although Triple H would tell you I am a just a 12 year old geek writing on his parents computer!)
If you have any thoughts about this weeks recap/analysis that you want to discuss with me, feel free to email me at: rolandg77@sbcglobal.net
Have a good 4th to all you American readers.
Thanks for reading.
Roland
