It is so great to be back, and believe me that is an understatement. As you know this has been a very difficult time for me and you have been so understanding and so caring. Your emails meant the world to me, thank you all for your condolences. Your words really gave me a lot of strength. Just starting to type this column is getting me all hyped, yeah it’s great to be back. Now I wish I could start 2008 on a positive note, but I can’t. Last night’s Raw was sub par at best; I was really looking forward to a fun show with the Raw roulette wheel, but fun is definitely not what we got last night. With the exception of two matches, one being off the charts there was very little that excited me last night.
I thought Raw got off to a good start with William Regal explaining to Vince why he took Hunter out the week before in his match against Ric Flair. This all led to Regal leaving Vince’s office and being attacked by Triple H. This was really good because Hunter had every right to go after the man that screwed him out of a spot in the Royal Rumble match. I really enjoyed everything that happened during the opening and I thought this would be set the tone for a good show, but I was so wrong. We certainly got a lot of Vince last night; in fact he seemed to be the guy that did most of the mic work. And that kind of bothered me because the first match of the night was a Strange Bedfellow match with Shawn Michaels and Mr. Kennedy vs. Charlie Haas and Trevor Murdoch.
I want to explain why Vince dominating the mic got to me. This feud with Kennedy and Michaels is just there. Okay wait let me get to their match and then I’ll explain what I mean. The match itself was okay. It really didn’t have a good flow to it at all. I liked the beginning when Kennedy was in the ring and HBK made a blind tag. Shawn then came in kicked Kennedy and threw him out of the ring. See I thought this would lead into a lot of brawling between Kennedy and HBK, but it didn’t. This was an average match at best, and to have Charlie Haas leave the ring and come back with a mask was just plain stupid. This guy can wrestle, and yet they do nothing to build him up. It seems like he’s always the guy that gets pinned and now he’s stuck with a ridiculous gimmick. So let’s just say that the first match of the night was a disappointment. This is the reason why I feel so strongly about the lack of mic work for the HBK/Kennedy feud.
Last week Shawn and Kennedy wrestled and that was it. Last night Shawn and Kennedy wrestled and again that was it. Why not give these guys the mic and start trash talking each other. Michaels and Kennedy need to build major heat for this feud. And that can’t be done with wrestling alone. I don’t know about you but I forgot why they even started going at each other. That’s because all these two guys seem to do is wrestle. The focus of this feud is totally gone. I’ll tell you it would not excite me if they were to book one final Michaels vs. Kennedy match at Royal Rumble. The thrill is gone, and it’s ashame because if this would have been booked the right way we might have gotten one hell of a feud. On to the next Roulette match, Trading Places, with Carlito coming out with a blonde wig mocking Bob Holly, and Holly reciprocating and wearing an afro wig and carrying Carlito’s signature apple. I have to say I liked the match. I thought Carlito and Holly worked very well together. This might not have been the match of the night, but at least it had some substance to it. I’m not going to go in detail with most of the segments that followed. For instance the Diva’s Lingerie match was what you would expect, but I have to say Jillian coming out to here dreadful song had me laughing so hard. Oh and Ashley returned last night. And she seemed as lost in the ring as she was before she left.
I mentioned Raw gave us two very good matches last night, and one was Triple H vs. William Regal in a First Blood Match. Now after Regal interfered in the Triple H/Flair match last week I figured we would get a Regal/Triple H feud. But now I’m not so sure because of their match last night. I thought Regal would get out of the match and that would keep things going, but we got such a good match and one that wasn’t really rushed that I’m wondering if this Regal/Hunter thing was a one time thing. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens, but the match as I said was very good. And the crowd which was not exactly the nosiest sure came alive while this was going on. I want to say that this was the first time at least since I started watching back in 1998 that William Regal got so much heat. The “Regal sucks chants” were extremely loud and consistent. This match was the bright spot of the show, because up until the First Blood match things were not exactly going well.
Of course I got turned off very fast when Jericho found out that he would be facing Snitzky in his handicap match. You can imagine how much I wanted to see that. I’m so out of it that I didn’t see JBL coming out as Snitzky’s tag team partner. This match was nothing, but there was a reason for that. This segment wasn’t about a handicap match; this was about JBL brutalizing Jericho. Now let me say this, I thought JBL came off perfect as the slime ball heel that he portrays, and I had no problem with Bradshaw strangling Jericho with the cord, BUT this went on WAY TOO LONG. It lost its effectiveness pretty damn fast. I think the positive of all of this is that JBL cemented his character extremely well, and even though JBL isn’t the best in the ring Jericho and JBL in the weeks to come just might give us a very strong feud, one that the majority of the fans will enjoy. And before I get to the main event I want to say Santino was gold when he interacted with Hornswoggle. I got a kick out of him, but I wish I could say that I got a kick out of the Hornswoggle/Foley vs. The Highlander’s match. I really thought Hunter would pair up with Hornswoggle; defeat the Highlander’s which then would put him in the Rumble. I didn’t see Mick Foley coming. I didn’t like this match at all, and having Hornswoggle on both Smackdown and Raw is just a little too much for me.
And now for the off the chart main event with Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga in a Steel Cage match.
What a fabulous match, and Jeff Hardy showed us last night that he is so deserving of the spot that he’s in right now. He just seems so comfortable in the title picture. And he did something that Chris Jericho could not do. And by no means am I blaming Jericho, no I blame on creative. But last night Hardy brought Randy Orton to life. Orton was animated and moved, he didn’t just stand there like a statue. I LOVED this match, Jeff Hardy was amazing and Umaga did a very good job as well. Everything flowed unlike most of the show and Jeff Hardy’s Whisper in the Wind off the top of the cage onto Umaga was just unbelievable. This was just an outstanding match and it kind of helped me forget about how blah this show was. And to top it off the Uncasville, CT crowd’s reaction during the entire match was just fantastic. This was one hell of a way to end Raw. Jeff Hardy is looking like a true main eventer.
Yeah it’s so nice to be back and I’m looking forward to talking about Smackdown over the weekend. But before my weekend column comes out, I would love to touch on a few things that have been on the sites in the last few weeks. Trust me I am dying to talk about a few of them. So I will try to have something later in the week with a few of my favorite topics. I want to end by saying Happy 2008 to all of you and I want to thank all of my webmaster’s for being so kind and understanding about my time away.
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
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