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If you don’t want to read a not-so-veiled bashing of Jean Paul Levesque, then you might want to click over to a different part of TBL. Otherwise, read on!
Hello folks! How great was RAW this past Monday? Really a great show all around – or what I watched of it, at least. One of the things that I cannot stand about wrestling websites these days is that a lot of their “columns” are nothing more than rehashed RAW and Smackdown! reviews. I won’t go into RAW segment by segment – that would just be boring. And besides, as I insinuated earlier, I didn’t watch all of RAW.
This is what I did see, though.
I saw the St. Louis crowd call Lita a slut partly because she is, but almost certainly because she has played the whore role so well. Odd – who would have ever thought that calling someone a whore would be a good thing? Hey Lita, you play a good whore! The crowd definitely reacted to her and Edge getting it on in front of Kane.
You have to love the crowd at these events – and not just the St. Louis crowd either. Take Lita for example. She bangs a married Edge while in a serious relationship with Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy somehow gets fired for it, and the crowd reacts by calling her a slut and telling her loudly and clearly, “You Screwed Matt!”
The other part that I love about the crowd? With the onslaught of internet wrestling websites over the past five to six years the crowd at the arena has become more in tune with the demographic of the common internet wrestling fan. At one point, people would say (I was one of them) that the internet wrestling crowd accounted for no more than 10% of the crowd in the arena. That statistic has easily changed to upwards of 65% to 70% of the arena crowd having gone online to see something wrestling related at least once before attending the show. In short, the arena crowd’s reaction is closer to speaking for the wrestling fans worldwide now than it has been in years past.
The crowd and wrestling fans worldwide were extremely excited to see the introduction of John Cena as the newest addition to RAW. And as the internet has and will detail, this draft acquisition will definitely set the RAW main event scene on fire! I’ve seen some great match ideas being thrown around the internet for Cena and folks, I think I speak for the vast majority of wrestling fans when I say that this is a welcome addition to the RAW roster.
You know what else was great on RAW? The fact that Hurricane and Rosey (and the gorgeous Christy Hemme and Stacey Keibler) got to come to the ring to fight against a new up and coming tag team and Victoria. Dude, Victoria is a great heel. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a good face wrestler, but no one can play the pissed off girl like she can. The crowd seemed to be somewhat into this match – not the same reaction that another tag team got, though…
The Dudley Boyz! I gotta say that the whole ECW thing is good television. I know some of the smarks online are completely appalled by the ECW PPV and they feel Paul Heyman isn’t treating the brand the way they remember it, etc. Blah blah blah. Get over it, folks. This PPV is going to be fun, the ECW segments are fun, and the build-up to the PPV has been done very well. If you don’t believe that, then maybe you spend too much time reading the internet or believing what other smarks write.
I must also say that I have been very impressed with the hatred that Bischoff and Heyman have showed towards each other. The crowd responded as the rest of us did to Eric Bischoff. A bunch of boos when he threatened to take the Dudley Boyz out and when he threatened to kill ECW with the Smackdown! crew. Let’s face it – Bischoff is a great heel.
And probably the best up and coming heel duo on RAW is Hassan and Daivari. Of course this is another area where if you’re an internet smark you’re probably pissed that Daivari hasn’t been given as big a showcase as Hassan, but he’s got a great chance to break away from Hassan in the draft.
These guys bring great heel heat to RAW – and the crowd loves to hate them.
The crowd may love to hate them just as much as they love to hate Lita and Edge or as much as they admire the awesome heel qualities that Christian displays week in and week out (if anyone is looking for a new up-and-coming main event heel titlist, look no further than Christian).
You take all of this – the hatred for Lita, Edge, Hassan, and a cocky prick like Chris Masters and you combine it with the sheer joy the crowd and wrestling fans worldwide have for events like the ECW takeover at the end of RAW, the introduction of John Cena, and the acension of Batista to the World Championship and you have a great show!
Oh wait…Batista. I didn’t mention him above. Oh that’s right. I didn’t watch his segment. I didn’t see him on Monday night. I saw a segment related to Jean Paul Levesque and my roommate turned to the Yankees game (I’m not the only one who refuses to watch this self-promoting scum). It’s a shame really. You have all of these elements that have been working week in and week out to make a really great RAW and once again – just like a few weeks ago – this RAW had a sore black eye on it.
This RAW had a segment that “doesn’t belong” with the rest of the segments. This RAW had Jean Paul Levesque. Why does he not belong? Because I am disgusted by him? No, not really.
He generates no crowd interest. He generates no excitement as a face, no hatred as a heel – he generates nothing. Jean Paul Levesque is the worst thing to happen to wrestling and up-and-coming wrestlers in the past 5 years. He makes an extraordinary show mediocre. He’s not a bad technical wrestler (he’s alright in the ring) so he doesn’t ruin his matches (though he is very boring to watch). He’s also not such a great heel wrestler that he envelopes the entire show (think the type of hatred that Hogan and the nWo had when he first turned heel). He is, however, a waste of air time…almost like a punch in the middle of your chest when you’ve just gotten off the treadmill.
On a night that saw ECW takeover the end of RAW, John Cena debut while still being Smackdown’s WWE Champion, and a great middle card – this RAW will have to go down as not being all that it could be.
And folks, if that’s not a sad comment on the state of the RAW brand, then I don’t know what is.
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