Here comes one of my not so nice Raw columns. Hey let’s face it last night’s show was brutal to watch. Last week week’s Raw was like a breath of fresh air compared to last night’s Raw. And I can honestly say there was one highlight, nothing else came close to being a Raw highlight. I guess Vince and his creative team took the night off because as far as my highlight goes, even the writing for that segment was lame. You know what hit me today? And I know this might sound weird on my part but with the final NCAA game last night, I’m just wondering if WWE took the approach of thinking we might lose quite a bit of viewers so we won’t make this a gang buster show. Sure this sounds odd, but the show was so bad that I guess I want to believe that they would give us as little as possible so the “GOOD STUFF” wouldn’t be wasted on fewer fans leaving to watch the basketball game. And again I know my thinking might be way off, but this was one miserable show. So let me hit the highlight and quickly and I do mean quickly give you my thoughts on the rest of the garbage.
Of course the highlight of Raw was the Highlight Reel with Chris Jericho, Batista and Shawn Michaels. HBK came through again just like he did on the mic during his feud with Ric Flair. Shawn was absolutely powerful interacting with Batista, and Batista did one thing as he was walking out of the ring, that was excellent, he walked away from Michaels and eluded to doing something about all of this and then put his sunglasses on and smiled a nice big heel smile. And with that the Albany, NY crowd reacted by booing Batista. This capped off a very strong segment. The reason why this was such a terrific segment was because Shawn Michaels in my opinion answered Chris Jericho and Batista as logically as one would expect. Look after Flair lost to Shawn last week, he showed nothing but love for HBK during the tribute segment. The hug alone showed all of us that Flair did not blame Michaels for the loss and for retiring him. Unfortunately we have the writers giving Batista some ridiculous material. For instance they have Batista expecting HBK to have jobbed to Flair so Flair at the age of 59 could continue to wrestle. They have Batista saying how he would have lost just to keep his friend and mentor from leaving. I guess even though Dave was in that very ring last week, he must have blinked when Shawn and Ric had their moment. The writing is so weak here, I guess what I would like to see is, this whole Flair thing ended and Batista and HBK taking it to the next level. Batista can go right from being upset that Flair is gone to maybe just bringing up some of Shawn’s “nasty” little past. And showing how jealous he is of the career that Michaels has had and is still having.
If Flair left with animosity towards Shawn then fine keep this angle going, but since that’s not the case we need to get better writing and an even BETTER reason why Dave seems to be after Shawn and why Batista is now looking more and more like a heel. Other than the silly things Big Dave had to say I love this feud because it’s new and working with HBK I believe will make Batista more of a star than he is now. So thanks to HBK’s outstanding mic work and as I said Batista’s little grin this baby was the only decent segment on Raw. Thank God for this segment because this was like watching a TNA show with Kurt Angle all over it. Okay so here are the rest of my thoughts. And trust me they aren’t pretty thoughts. Okay damn right I’m thrilled that the Backlash WWE title match is now a fatal 4-Way match. Yes I’m even okay with Cena in there. Here’s the thing. Last week I told you there was no way that I would spend money to see JB vs. Randy Orton. So thankfully that’s not going to happen. But I have a few things to say about this match. First as happy as I am that Hunter will be in the match, I hated the opening. It was totally lackluster for a title match build up. I still don’t want JBL involved and when Hunter made comments wondering how JBL the Smackdown announcer for two years and the guy that beat up a midget became the number one contender, I thought to myself t he’s saying just what many of us have been thinking. As far as Hunter pointing out that Orton beat Cena only because Cena was knocked out from Hunter’s pedigree again was correct. And I don’t feel Hunter hurt Orton or hurt JBL by his remarks. These remarks are true and Orton is a heel and as a heel he’ll win anyway he can. So for all the feedback that I have seen on the sites blasting Hunter I respond by saying those remarks were the only positive of the opener. William Regal giving Hunter a spot at Backlash against Orton and JBL only if he beats Orton and JBL in a handicap match was a joke. I mean come on didn’t you all know Hunter was going to win? There was nothing SPECIAL about Raw’s opener. Now the handicap match was good, I liked it better than I thought I would, but what killed me was when it was all over and John Cena came out and wanted to make it a fatal 4way match. So immediately I’m thinking oh he can call the match he wants, but they put Hunter in a match for his life. So at that point I’m thinking what the hell. Well then Regal set up another handicap match with Cena vs. JBL and Hunter. A Cena win would give him his spot in that title match at Backlash.
I felt the same way as I did about Hunter’s match; here we go again another worthless match because we know Cena will win. Again I did like the main event, it wasn’t great but it was entertaining. My complaint is that something so big should have been written so much better. Also why not bring CM Punk in and tease the fans about Punk using his MITB contract to go after the WWE title. This is going to be Raw’s top match of the night, and last night it was treated like crap. But the crap continued with the rest of the matches. I’m tired of seeing Val Venis job and Umaga squash the jobbers. I think Umaga is in a very bad place right now. I hope the rumors are true and that he will be drafted to Smackdown because on Raw he’s going nowhere. He’s gone through just about most of the Raw roster. Bob Holly and Cody Rhodes vs. Carlito and Santino was rather sloppy. This match did not flow at all; it was all over the place. London and Kendrick vs. Cade and Murdoch was okay, but again it wasn’t great. I guess what we have here is the tease of a Cade/Murdoch breakup since Cade gets extremely upset every time Murdoch gets pinned. The women’s match with Melina and Jillian vs. Mickie and Ashley was the usual except I have to say it was nice seeing Mickie on TV for a change. Maria vs. Beth Phoenix was okay I have to say that Maria is definitely giving her all in the ring. Really there’s nothing else I can say about Raw except that Vince again was not on so there was something positive about the show.
I hate writing such a negative column, but it’s kind of hard to spin this in a different direction.
Hopefully next week’s show from England will be 10 times better. Tonight it’s a contract signing with Kane and Chavo and I bet Punk will show up looking at Kane’s belt. I will be back over the weekend to discuss Smakdown and I’m looking forward to more with Edge and Undertaker and hopefully now that we know HBK vs. Batista will take place at Backlash we will get some more hot mic work with Michaels and more heelish characteristics from Batista. I’m sure WWE TV will improve, because another night like last night is not a good thing. On next week’s edition of Over The Ropes, Nick Malone and Max Caster revive their PPV Pick ‘Em Series when they will announce their picks for TNA Lockdown. Also on the show, Nick Malone and Max Caster will bring in the brightest and the best Mid-West Wrestling voice in Linda Robin when we analyze and break down the following week of WWE action from Raw, SmackDown and ECW. Keep your ears in tuned for at any moment, Nick Malone or Max Caster might bring in onto the show any of Wrestling’s greatest voices yet to be herd and shown on a platform of exposure like never before. If you’d like to call in and be featured and apart of on the Greatest Wrestling Radio Show on Earth and make your voice herd on all the Wrestling Knowledge that you’ll ever need in 60 minutes then dial us live at 516-299-2030. Nick Malone and Max Caster go live each and every Saturday Night from 10-11 PM EST only on www.mywcwp.com
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
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