It’s always good to break with routine every now and then, so this week I’ll start my Raw review in the period BEFORE the show took place. John Cena and Chris Benoit had been the first two draft lottery picks, Austin was preparing to hold his ‘Stone Cold Court’ with Hassan, the WWE was building up to its Vengeance supercard in two weeks time and the ECW PPV was in the books (which I will talk about on Friday).
So far, the trades have obviously been above even the most optimistic of expectations. I think most fans were worrying that, spread out over the month, the draft would have little effect on either show but the quality of the performers and the immediacy of their impact have made the lottery a success to date. The thought of Austin returning and sucking the heat out of Hassan just like Hogan did was not exactly working for me. Why Austin needs to come back just to kill the mid-card is baffling but I’m always willing to give a segment a chance so we’ll just have to see. The build up to the Vengeance PPV had stalled somewhat thanks to the ECW event and the draft lottery but expectation was that the card would shuffle quietly under the ‘Hell in a cell’ main event and do everything it could to ‘fluff’ for the real match without overshadowing it. Whilst it does seem dumb to let the ECW heat dissipate, my feeling was that Raw needed to put on a strong WWE show to re-establish the product identity and not let the ECW tail wag the dog. As you can see, a lot of subtle reshaping and mental manipulation needed to be achieved – especially difficult when all you’ve got is two hours of oiled up jocks pretending to slap eachother.
And so to Raw. In keeping with the juxtaposition of this review, I’ll start with the little issues first. A question: what do water, air and food have in common? No, they’re not three things that Hogan will ‘wrestle for’. They are things that human beings need in order to stay alive. Unfortunately, this expression does not cover several segments on Raw, which I could have lived without even if it brought about my premature demise. I could have survived without seeing Chris Masters make a bitch out of Sgt Slaughter. We get it. The ‘Masterlock’ is a ‘deadly’ hold that is almost impossible to escape from but do we have to wheel out the damn road agents just to prove that? Maybe it’s the only way of justifying the excess baggage expense on flights because Slaughter carries around his wrestling gear everywhere he goes? The WWE has a fine lower/mid card of underused or de-pushed talent to feed to unbeaten rookies so leave the chin behind the curtain where it belongs. I don’t know what to do about the Diva Search. If I choose to ignore it, I’ll be passing up some unique insult/joke opportunities over the next two months but it’s so far beneath me that I could dig for days and still not reach its rotting, smelly corpse. I’ll see how long I can go without being derogatory towards it. Another thing I could live without is witnessing Viscera butt-rape another WWE wrestler. Granted, Maven did a fantastic job of selling the enormous pseudo-insertion but is that really something he can take great pride from when he lectures this year’s Tough Enough contestants? (“Pay attention class, see how my eyes bulged at just the right moment?”). Adding Lillian to his new gimmick will improve his reaction from the fans but ultimately it’s still Viscera wrestling when the bell rings and that’s just not good enough as far as I’m concerned.
On to more serious matters. After playing the longest and most unnecessary video montage in WWE history, I thought the chances of HHH/Batista being involved in a worthwhile segment on the show was fairly remote. Luckily, the writers of Raw came through with a exciting finish which included promoting the upcoming title match, the third draft pick and the return of a crowd favourite. It started with HHH delivering a short, to the point promo about Vengeance which far outshone his recent efforts. Then Kurt Angle made his way to the ring as the newest member of the Raw roster and engaged in an enjoyable ‘corporate-shoot’ with HHH, the high point for me being when HHH accused Kurt of gimmick infringement after his ‘woo-off’ with Flair. After some further nice interplay mentioning Sharmell and Stephanie, Batista answered the call out and calmly showed the bickering children the error of their ways, even going so far as to accept Kurt’s challenge for next week on Raw. Just when the segment seemed to have peaked, HBK made a welcome return to throw his name into the mix getting a match against Kurt at Vengeance and involving himself in a mildly wild brawl to end the show. All good stuff, nothing dragged on or seemed superfluous and the crowd was lead nicely towards the conclusion of the angle, getting more into it with each upping of the ante.
The match between Cena/Jericho and Christian/Tomko worked really well although I think the heels were a bit quiet throughout. Jericho dominated the early going showing all of the fire and speed that sometimes eludes him so I’m assuming this eventual heel turn is to his liking. Despite not setting up a ‘hot tag’ situation the focus then switched to Cena in the latter stages and the set up for his victory came about rather easily. Tomko is improving all the time and tag matches like this are helping him find his feet in the ring. Christian never really got the chance to shine in this one but that might have something to do with the aftermath. Even with the surprise attack on Cena and the “Jericho sucks” chant from the crowd, this still doesn’t constitute a heel turn yet and he’ll continue to be a tweener until a major spot either during or after the triple threat match at Vengeance occurs. Whatever happens, I see their upcoming match and subsequent draft lottery issues to be a big turning point in the careers of these three guys and it all looks good as far as I can see.
I found the opening interaction between Austin and Hassan to be very entertaining, especially as Austin was playing the sarcastic, self-parodying version of Stone Cold as opposed to the out-and-out nutter he sometimes is. Listening to Hassan’s protestations quietly and thoughtfully made Austin all the more enjoyable to watch and it allowed Hassan to be both gracious and accusing at the same time. I also thought it was a nice touch that Austin ‘leant in’ to get a closer ear to Daivari dishing out his incomprehensible mixture of Arabic and epilepsy. The Hassan/Benjamin match was going nicely until the obvious interruption from Austin. It’s interesting to see that now AJ Styles has decided to stay in TNA, the WWE feels it can spread his signature moves around (suplex into neck-breaker) to the talent it does have. Hassan gets better every week and is now technically ready for a renewed push if only they’d stop feeding him to the dinosaurs just because he’s got good heat. Anyway, Austin ‘saved’ Benjamin (but still cost him the match) and we all go home happy stinking of beer. I hope Hassan gets a rematch for the IC title against Benjamin at Vengeance and Austin stays at home.
Kane squashed Sylvain Grenier but was met with stiffer opposition from Lita up on the ramp. First she brought out Snitsky and absolved him from any blame in the ‘death of her unborn child’ (Jesus Vince, do I have to say that?). Typical man though, one tug on his beard and Gene shoots in his shorts and still claims it wasn’t his fault. While Snitsky waddled off to find a cigarette and a wet-wipe, Edge and Lita further angered the big red sulk by informing him that they are getting married live on Raw next week. I would like to be the first to offer my congratulations to the groom and the blushing slut and I wish them the best of luck with any future relationships they wish to destroy. Oh, and if the person conducting the ceremony next week looks a bit odd, it’s probably Matt Hardy in a mask and this time he’s really pissed ‘cos he’s smoked all his brother’s stash and he wants revenge. Or some cookies.
I digress. Were my concerns about Raw unfounded? Despite the segment being entertaining, I still feel that Austin’s return overshadowed everything else in the angle and that’s not good. It’s not Austin’s fault, he’s not magically going to transform his character into something it’s not, but the writers need to use someone’s return as a blend of nostalgia and progression otherwise the feud stops for the prodigal son and the momentum is lost when they’re not there the following week. The draft angle worked well for the third time in a row and is really adding something extra to each show. I hate it when Vince is right. As for Vengeance, it got good promotion and more importantly picked up some cracking matches for the card, which has turned the PPV around in the space of one evening. And only a few references to ECW. I’m glad it took a break and they gave the spotlight back to the WWE side of life, but I think ECW will be back. One day.
Did you see that blue bikini during the Diva Search? One badly timed cough and she’ll suck that little bit of string straight up her manhole. Don’t worry, Edge will fish it out for her.
(Damn, I almost made it to the end of this column).
Lee
