Yo. You’re reading News & Analysis here at TBL for which I thank you. Before I start today’s report, I just thought I’d thank everybody who has helped me out through feedback. I also thought that I’d remind everyone else that feedback is welcomed, whether positive or negative, so feel free to write me at Levski11@aol.com.
Monday Night Snore hit the airwaves this past Monday night. I honestly felt that RAW was a boring show due to a lot of factors, yet there were still some very good spots on the show. Last week I was saying how when I do my RAW Thoughts, one side of the coin always seems to overweigh the other, and I felt that RAW was a perfect example of that this past week. Highlights included a great main event in RVD vs. Triple H for the world title, the debut of Gail Kim who won the Women’s Championship in her first appearance, a great IC title match between Booker T and Christian that had a B.S.-ending, and Kane “chokeslammed Bischoff to hell” as WWE put it to wrap up the show. Steve Austin pulled a no-show, as he had “food poisoning,” as announced by WWE. RAW’s rating is in and the show went down a bit as it came in at 3.6, down from last week’s 3.9.
RAW was one of those shows that leave you scratching your head for most segments of the night, enjoy others, and be totally confused about a third kind. Yeah, something like that. Overall, I felt bored throughout the show. The dead crowd didn’t really help out. I don’t know whether to blame them since what they were seeing wasn’t all that, but at the same time I felt there were some places where they could have definitely had more energy, and they failed.
The opening video of the Kane unmasking was well-done, but even at the top of the show it was obvious that there’s going to be a new “physical” change to Kane’s face on RAW. It does smell like a botched angle, and at the peak of the show it was obvious WWE decided not to do the make-up on Kane’s face. Instead they’re now relying on different camera angles and his expressions more to put him over. I don’t know, so far, this storyline hasn’t done much for Kane. I also was totally confused and even shocked by some of the stuff they did with him on Monday.
All of the sudden it was Rob Van Dam’s idea to unmask Kane? And just like the tons of other people who shared this opinion, why does all of the sudden Kane chokeslam Bischoff and not Van Dam? It looks like WWE just botched the angle altogether last night and tried to add an element of surprise by having Kane chokeslam the Bisch to hell. So, yeah, they threw us for a loop, but I really want to see what the purpose of all that was. The Kane storyline kind of makes me realize how different the booking on wrestling shows is today. Before, when the old WWF would do such a move, they’d have everything planned and organized for weeks to come, knowing very well what they’re doing. It looks to me that nowadays, they just make the stuff up as they go since there’s no competition. Yet their work does not reflect that at all, since they still think that they’re competing with someone out there. If you don’t get what I mean take a look at the Al Wilson/Dawn Marie storyline. They do something extreme (Kane unmasking, or those two getting together), then they have the attention of the fans but instead of already being prepared for what’s next, they make the stuff up as they go. It usually turns out bad. Let’s hope Glen Jacob’s has better times in front of him.
I felt really bad that they stuck Chris Jericho in the Steiner/Test feud. I’m guessing it will eventually lead up to a Steiner/Jericho bout, but I’d rather hope I’m wrong. Opening the show with the Highlight Reel was a nice touch, and I even enjoyed the interaction between Steiner and Y2J at the beginning, but then it all seemed to die down and drag on. It just took too much to set up the tag match for later on. The match itself wasn’t all that. I appreciated Jim Ross trying to put over the situation by picking on King and being all serious, but really, is Stacy that big of a princess? If I were J.R. at least I’d make it clear that “Hey, Stacy wasn’t in the battle royal earlier, she’s a valet for God’s sake, her place is not in the ring!” At least one line to clear up the whole ordeal. That way it just made Stacy look like some dumb girl who’s not in her place and shouldn’t be on there. We’ll see what they have planned next week, but again, Jericho deserves much better than fighting Steiner headed into SummerSlam.
WWE used Goldberg very well last night, and they did so with Lance Storm as well. I’m guessing that there were some plans for Storm to do another segment with Steve Austin, but since The Rattlesnake was away, they did a good job of handling the situation. It was also very well thought-out by the writers to have Goldberg get the better out of Rodney Mack instead of Storm. It’s still hard to believe that chanting “Boring” at a wrestler is a way to get them over, but Storm is getting the job done quite well. I hope they do bigger things with him in the future. As far as Goldberg goes, they’re doing the right thing, but a bit too late. However, I totally feel that they haven’t missed the boat with him as of yet. There’s still tons of money in him and he’s very over. They just need to cement his place on the roster right now and come SummerSlam start pushing him over even more.
The Women’s Battle Royal was good. I really didn’t expect too much out of it. When you have seven competitors in the ring and they’re not at the rank of a Rey Mysterio or an Ultimo Dragon, or a Billy Kidman, it’s kind of hard to book the thing. Gail Kim’s debut didn’t seem so “exciting” to me, but I felt that giving her the belt was a bald move. Maybe it’s for the better, maybe it’s for the worse, we shall find out soon, but so far I think she did well. I just hope they don’t “push her out there” too much. It’s like “Here’s Gail Kim. She is the new champ! Like her!” I hope we’ll get more of a charisma from her soon. The one question I don’t have an answer to is why does the woman who pinned Jazz three times get eliminated first? Ivory got screwed.
I thought Christian and Booker had one hell of a match. WWE also did a good job in the little brawl the two had before the official match began. What I mean is that they finally realized they just cannot keep having commercial breaks during matches. That really helped out last night, plus it added more heat to the match. The match itself was great, and I give praises to both guys for it. I felt the ending was catchy. It was good because it really adds EVEN MORE heat to the storyline, but at the same it got bad when Bischoff made the ref continue the main event bout. Damn, is Booker going to win the IC belt or what?!
Then we go to Rico and Maven… WWE’s modern-day version of Adrian Street in Rico is very interesting. I think he’s doing more of a good job with his character, as he’s very good at the role. Now, the role itself, that’s a whole other topic. I’m a bit confused over his gimmick, so I’m just going to say for now that I hope all this “male touching” is leading up to some sort of feud with Goldust. That’s about all I can think of. Otherwise, again, I think both Rico and Jackie are definitely taking their characters to the extreme, but are just lacking the push they need. Maven got on RAW. Yay! Now they should bring those two kids from Tough Enough III since they were actually good.
I feel confused with Randy Orton. From one side of the coin, I’m totally up for his push as I think he’s the future of the company and will make it big since he’s talented. On a second hand, I’m getting really fed up with his character. By sticking him in Evolution, they’re kind of making him take stuff out of Triple H and Ric Flair’s characters and feed off of that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, as long as he gets put over, but WWE needs to realize that Flair and Triple H didn’t get to where they’re at by stealing stuff from their peers, but by being original characters with charisma. When I look at Orton I think “Punk” I don’t think “the next Nature Boy.” I think they need to do some work in that department before they push him the way they are. Tommy Dreamer was on RAW two weeks in a row. Crazy. I hope this trend continues.
Spike Dudley is on RAW too. I think Joe Balrog was right — the Heat crew was all over RAW last Monday. With the lack of tag teams on RAW, WWE went ahead and stuck strong mid-carder Hurricane in the tag division. Good move if you ask me. Hurricane has gotten a big push over the past few months (it all started when The Rock came to RAW), and I think now he can cool off in the tag division. I definitely think he’ll be in the fight for the IC belt eventually, but it’s too early for that. I am thinking he’ll keep looking for partners until he finds the right one and will definitely win the tag gold with that very partner. As far as who the man is, I think that his partner has to be a Showstopa, or a Main Event. You do need an Icon to become big. This kind of reminds me of when Edge and Hogan won the tag belts. I think Hurricane/Michaels would be a great team.
To wrap it up, we have the main event. I will say it now — Triple H did what he needed to do. Let go of it. He at least put RVD’s moves over and made him look strong, that’s all he needs for now. I thought the match was great too, although Flair seemed to be out of the place the whole time. I don’t know if WWE is trying to do something by having H defend the belt more often, but I think that he should go on and then cut a promo saying that for weeks now he’s been on top and beaten everyone, so there is nobody better on him on RAW. That should be the cue for Goldberg’s theme. It’s a good storyline if WWE decides to use it.
Before I wrap it up, I want to clear something up. Steve Austin had a vacation planned for Monday, that’s why he wasn’t in attendance. There was some confusion over that, so I figured I’d put it on here. WWE announced that he had food poisoning as a part of storylines, and they weren’t trying to “blatantly lie to you” as a TBL News Reporter wants you to think. I do agree that they could have come up with a better excuse though.
Overall, it was an OK show, but some things need to get fixed on RAW. I will say that the “negatives” outweighed the “positives” for me this week. The crowd’s reaction did have a lot to do with that. I hope that with Austin back next week, there will be something better installed. They don’t need to start storylines for SummerSlam yet, but I think it’ll be really cool for WWE to do that. It’ll give the event the big hype it always gets. SummerSlam is the WrestleMania of the summer after all. Well, that will do it folks. The RAW Thoughts were much longer this week, as I took a look at everything that went down. Hope you enjoyed it. I’d really appreciate it if I hear from you on what you think of N & A lately. I’ll probably be back with SmackDown! thoughts on Friday or over the weekend, and there might be a news report if something big goes down. Later.
Thanks for reading. See ya.
Eddie
