Coming a few days after being branded “negative” by a ‘fellow’ writer (apparently I’m not “talented” enough – now I cry myself to sleep at night) I was hoping that this week’s edition of Raw would give me lots of positives to sing about and afford me all the optimistic aura of one of those little birds you see in old Disney films. Alas, Raw this week was shit. Hang on, that wasn’t very analytical, I’ll try that again. Raw was shit. Oh well, seems like no matter how many times or from how many different angles you approach this Monday’s programme it always comes out the same way. Looks like those of you who think I’m too negative in my reviewing technique should look away now or, better still, stop watching wrestling altogether and take up politics where spin reigns supreme and the truth is merely a lie you intend to keep.
For the most part, the performers themselves weren’t to blame for producing a bad show. The booking team has to take the brunt of the discontentment for offering very little that was vaguely satisfying, let alone any standout Raw moments. There was a general misuse of talent throughout and if they were expecting a good reaction from the crowd at what they had planned then their expectations bordered on the naive. I can only surmise that staff had taken their eyes off the ball with the impending European trip looming large but such an accomplished group of ex-wrestlers and experienced writers should not be finding themselves guilty of such poor quality preparation. The whole show was like a Chinese meal, small portions but lots of courses, and this can sometimes give a magazine-style sense of freshness and rapidity to the proceedings but with so many of the segments failing to impress the broadcast fell very flat.
Well, if we’re going to start somewhere we might as well start with my buddy Hulk Hogan. Despite this being his most scrotum-tightening recent appearance, I’m going to cut the old turd some slack this week and leave him alone. The fans were obviously into it and he only made a mockery of the ‘sport’ that I love for a few minutes so I guess I can bite my tongue for now. Hassan entered probably one of his best wrestling performances to date, even though he still seemed way too cautious at times, and from a technical point of view the match was a vast improvement on their first encounter several weeks ago. After the match, Michaels and Hogan gently pulled eachother off in the middle of the ring for the fans enjoyment (well, that’s how it seemed anyway). WWE fans amaze me sometimes. So many times I hear we want new this, new that, new ideas, new superstars and yet you cave the roof in when an old man with zero wrestling ability waltzes back using his nostalgic heat to kill everyone else’s. Oops, I said I’d leave Hogan alone. My bad.
Mind you, if the bookers are going to treat new talent like they did this week then what chance to they have of succeeding? The ‘Heart Throbs’ (and I use that term loosely) were prodded out through the curtain with no build up, no vignettes, no squashes and expected to get heat based solely on the stupidity of their gimmick. They did well on debut, wrestling a solid match against awkward tag champs and the post-match beat down is at least a crumb of comfort that maybe their WWE careers aren’t over before they’d started. As for Chris Masters and his ‘headlock challenge’, just when you think things can’t get any worse for him he’s gone from squashes only to pulling plants out of the crowd for a boring, pointless waste of air time. This spot never worked for Rick Rude, Ted Dibiase, Tiger Ali Singh, Val Venis or Ivory (amongst others) so I’ve no reason to believe that it’ll work now. I know, they’ll do it for a couple of weeks and then a wrestler will come from the back to accept the challenge and that will (hopefully) be the start of his first feud but it’s unnecessary to prolong the pay-off when the bait is so painful to watch.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that the first week we don’t have a decent, well-booked match from the mid-card, the show is a flop? The opening encounter between Edge and Benoit was always going to be more of a set-up for their PPV match but to spoil the tv match just to keep it fresh is cutting your nose off to spite your face. Add to that both Y2J and Christian on mic duty only and Benjamin against an out of sorts Simon Dean and you’ve lost most of what’s made Raw great over the last few months.
But first, the main event with HHH against JR. 2 problems. Seen it before and it was way too obvious. ‘No disqualification’? That’s JR probably winning then. ‘Batista side-tracked’? He’ll turn up late then. All this meant that the fans knew what was coming and the beating, even with the blade, was uninspiring and it all came across as meaningless rather than shocking. Batista made the save, chair shot to the ex-champ, slumped JR over HHH for the pin and it’s done. Everyone did their job but what have we really gained from it? Maybe someone would realised if one of the writing team dipped their finger into JR’s blood and wrote on the wall “Was it worth it?”
Finally, we get to a few small positives. Trish Stratus did a fantastic job in both turning the crowd’s vitriol at Lita into heat for their segment and helping Vis add some colour to his character that’s been badly needed since he started in Men on a mission back in ‘93/’94. Two good matches (Edge/Benoit and Hassan/HBK) but neither went the distance or finished in a satisfactory manner. Christian and Vince were the stars for me, going out there and entertaining the crowd leaving us all feeling buzzed and interested albeit in a short talking spot. If only the rest of the show had done the same.
I guess if you like Hogan then I guess you would supposedly enjoy his bit, I guess. Not having had a lobotomy I wouldn’t know.
Y2J is to singing what Michael Jackson is to child-care.
RAW AWARDS
Match of the night – Hassan v HBK.
Worst match – Benjamin v Dean.
Star(s) of the show – Christian/Vince/Trish.
Moment of the show – Vince/Christian segment.
Best sign – “SMASH JR TO DEATH”.
Best quote – “I don’t believe a word that’s coming out of your mouth” (Lita).
I know this column is shorter than my usual Raw reviews but I really don’t want to say any more, the show left me quite deflated and disinterested in writing this column. I hope to have more positive things to say about Raw from the UK next week.
Lee
