Before I get into Raw, I did stick to what I said on Sunday, and did not order Unforgiven. Did I regret my decision? I would have to say yeah I think I did. Why? Because so many of you emailed and said that I missed a very good show. I am so happy that the show turned out to be a very pleasant surprise for so many of you. And now I’m happy because one of my friends will be mailing me a copy of the show. So I will get to see what the majority of you raved about. I missed two out of eight matches, which isn’t bad, a perfect score would have been so much better. But seriously I’m glad this show came off so well. And I think Raw also came off very well last night. With the exception of the Tomko match I think everything just about clicked last night.
I was a little concerned with the way Raw opened last night. In all honesty I’m very tired of the Eric Bischoff character. So having him open the show wasn’t exactly what I needed to get me ready for the rest of the night. I was also concerned when Bischoff brought Kurt Angle out that we would see the title stripped off of John Cena. Then Kurt Angle would then think that he was now the WWE champion. Then when Vince McMahon came out I thought of last years Raw where there was no title until the Survivor Series, so I figured that Vince was going to repeat that angle. Thankfully that didn’t happen. While Kurt smiled form ear to ear thinking that he WAS the WWE champion, Vince quickly ended his happiness by keeping Cena the champion. So right off that was a good start. I felt Vince was a little off of his game last night but he still got the Wichita Falls fans popping loud for him. Vince did a nice job hyping up WWE Homecoming. Remember this is the night Raw switches back to the USA network. I figured Vince wouldn’t be allowed to mention USA on Spike, but hopefully the majority of the fans are ready for the big move.
I can’t say that Vince’s decision to have a title match with Eric vs. John Cena for the title that night is a great move, but other than that the opening turned out very well. And as I said the crowd responded very well to all of this. After the break I was entertained by the Vince and Eric show. Bisch tried very hard to get Vince to change his mind about the match. And of course Vince led Bischoff on by saying he would think of it. You know this is the Eric I can handle. He plays a coward so well and watching him interact with Vince is always entertaining, at least it is for me. So Vince had Eric believing that there was a chance that the match would be canceled, and naturally Vince then said it was still on. I’m sure that Eric will find a way to deal with this, but at least last night, Bisch and Vince made things kind of fun. Since I didn’t order Unforgiven, I was very pleased to see Trish in a match last night. I’m still not happy with the role Victoria is stuck in, but I’m noticing Torrie is coming off like a spoiled brat, which means she’s playing the heel role well. Candice is giving her all out there as another bitch and so far except for Victoria I like the change in characters of Candice and Torrie.
The match was nothing spectacular, but yet I enjoyed it. It’s great to have Trish back and I guess Torrie, Victoria and Candice don’t feel that way, since after Trish’s win they beat the hell out of Trish and Ashley. But a decent segment and so far Raw is sailing along just beautifully. Now I’m kind of excited about this next match. I really liked Trevor Murdoch vs. Hurricane Helms. Those facial expressions on Murdoch are so damn funny it’s something I’m not used too. I think he did a nice job against Helms, and Helms was right on as well. I think Murdoch and Cade will do a lot of good for the tag team division. However and it’s not their fault, really who the hell do they have to oppose other than the Heart Throbs? Vince has hurt this division so badly that it’s going to be hard to build it back up, but I think putting the belts on Cade and Murdoch was a smart move. I noticed Carlito was not in a pleasant mood last night. I guess his loss to Ric Flair at Unforgiven wasn’t sitting well with him. From so many of your emails their match Sunday seemed to be a good one so I was really looking forward to their Raw match last night. But first Edge also seemed a little put out by his loss on Sunday to Matt Hardy. Edge demanding that Eric Bischoff fire Matt, just seemed to anger Eric a teeny tiny bit. So on that big night when Raw moves over to the USA network, on October 3rd, (trust me I’m plugging this for free), Bischoff set up a ladder match with the winner getting the Money In The Bank contract and the loser leaving Raw. So I guess we can assume that the loser will go to Smackdown. This will not only be a hell of match but it will be interesting to see what does happen to the loser. Who is the man? That’s an easy one, why it’s Ric Flair. I have to say that Ric Flair made me feel like I’m old enough to be his mother. This man whom by the way is a few years older than I am stayed in that match with a bruised eye for around 20 minutes and just worked his ass off. I was so thrilled with this match. I think Carlito did a good job thanks to Ric but this was all Flair’s baby. I wish I was half as energetic as Ric is. He put on a magnificent performance and he made that IC title look like it’s one of the TOP honors in the business. This was my match of the night.
The main event was set up at the beginning of the show with John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Big Show and Matt Hardy taking on Kurt Angle, Chris Masters, Gene Snitzky and Edge. There was a short backstage segment with Todd Grisham and the four faces. It was another situation with Cena getting a nice rub from guys like Shawn and the Big Show. It was Cena that took each guy and talked about just how they will contribute to the match. Again Cena taking the lead didn’t endear himself to me, but if you are a Cena fan than I’m sure the segment was a hit. For me it was okay. I can’t complain about it.
Ric Flair’s interview with Maria got cut short when Carlito attacked him. Carlito called in Chris Masters to help out and Flair was down. I find it interesting that Masters teamed up with Carlito and I’m wondering if these two are going to kind of help each other out when needed. Now let me tell you about one super main event. This was right up there as match of the night. It’s so rare to see a Raw main event go for close to 25 minutes. And in that 25 minutes it moved really well. Matt Hardy did a lot out there as did Shawn and Edge. In fact they all contributed a lot except I noticed Kurt Angle wasn’t in too much, but what really hit me was that John Cena the WWE champion maybe put two minutes in the whole thing, if that. I found that kind of weird that they kept him out like that. I also noticed that Chris Masters did a decent job in the ring. Instead of him just focusing on that Masterlock. I know so many of you said on Sunday that he came off very well in his match against Shawn, and last night I saw a side of him that I didn’t expect and that I didn’t mind. This is what WWE has to do with him. Stop pushing his Masterlock, let the guy wrestle and not for 2 minutes, give him time, and I think I will definitely see a much different side of him, a very favorable side of him. As I said I loved this match and it was a great way to end the show. I found it odd that no one beat the hell out of Cena since that seems to be the going thing on Raw and trust me I’m only kidding; it was good to see him not playing the victim last night. And it was good seeing a strong Raw with a good crowd. I’ll be back either on Thursday or Friday with some miscellaneous thoughts. Okay I have another request from a reader. Here we go, he’s looking for old Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels T-shirts. You can email him at cena2004@msn.com, and in advance thank you.
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
