Most of the feedback that I started getting immediately after Raw really summed up the way I felt about the three hour King Of The Ring edition of Raw. I hated the show, and so did so many of you that emailed me. You all expressed your feelings probably better than I could, but I’m going to do my best to tell you what I really thought of last night’s show. I will start out with the highlights and then look out I have so much to say and it’s not going to be pretty. Let me just say that I didn’t do a Smackdown column over the weekend because the show absolutely bored the hell out of me. I figured I suffered enough viewing the show, why bother to write about it and bring back all the bad memories. And then you get the crap we got last night and then I start to wonder what we the fans did to deserve the garbage that Vince has been giving us lately. Granted I might be taking this all way too seriously, but I think because of what took place last night WWE put me over the edge. So let me talk about what was really good and then as I said brace yourself it’s going to get nasty.
Listen when Raw kicked things off with the first of four King of the Ring qualifying matches with MVP vs. Chris Jericho I was thrilled. Sure we have already seen Jericho vs. MVP on Smackdown, but I thought this was a great way to start the show off, and I was very happy with the match. I thought MVP would get the win over Chris Jericho, but Jericho’s victory definitely worked for me. We then got the next match Matt Hardy vs. CM Punk and so far I’m eating all of this up. How cool it was to see these two in action. This match came off very well and so far the KOTR is playing out beautifully. If you would have been sitting with me you would have seen a big smile on my face, things were really going well. But just like a light switch, things turned sour. Now I’ll get into all of that, but I want to continue with two more highlights. The next one was Shawn Michael and Batista’s segment. I will say that I thought creative could have given the guys a much better script, because Shawn brought up the Ric Flair stuff again which is something that I thought was a thing of the past. Okay so the script wasn’t great, but Shawn again did all he could to make it a GOOD promo and along with Batista these two made this a major highlight of the night.
And my match of the night was Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk. This was just fantastic, and I’m hoping that maybe some of the Punk critics might now ease up on him after not only watching Punks vs. Matt, but after watching CM and Jericho work together. This was such a great match and not only did Punk look like a star last night, but JERICHO IS BACK and back in a big way. Jericho, MVP, Matt Hardy and CM at least gave me hot wrestling last night, and HBK and Batista gave me a strong non wrestling segment other than what I just mentioned RAW was crap. Now you might want to know why I didn’t mention the 8 man tag team main event with The Undertaker, Triple H, Kane and John Cena vs. Chavo, Randy Orton, JBL and Edge. I would have listed this match as one of my highlights of the night, but unfortunately this was such a short match, that it really wasn’t as HOT as it could have been. This could have been BIG, you had some of your top stars in here, but Vince found it more fitting to allow time for the other garbage that was on the show. Also while I watched this main event, I noticed just how out of place Chavo looked. Now I’m a big Chavo fan, but Chavo just didn’t fit that match last night. The guy is loaded with talent, but not enough to have him hang with the big guys. Now this wasn’t a bad match, but the lack of time as I said kept me from raving about it.
And now I’m going to vent like crazy. As I said the first two King Of the Ring matches were awesome and then something clicked and boy things got bad, very bad. As soon as Khali’s music hit I knew we were in trouble. And while I’m a huge Finlay fan, but having these two oppose each other has been done way too many times on Raw and Smackdown so this match immediately started to bring my mood down. The sad part about all of this? This thing called a match just showed how bad Khali is as a wrestler. I know I’ve said this many times, but I really like the guy, I wish I could say I don’t but I do, however, he can’t wrestle, and he SHOUDN’T wrestle. Come on we all know there are other ways to use this guy. This segment was absolutely pathetic and I really believe this was just done to bring in Big Show and heat things up for their match at Backlash, and I don’t feel they got things going at all last night.
And things then went from bad to worse with William Regal coming out and facing Hornswoggle. Well here’s a match we know Regal is going to win. This was just senseless and now I’m starting to really resent this three-hour show. Carlito vs. Bob Holly is another match that has been done a few times, and because of that I lost interest in it as soon as it started. But I will give Cody Rhodes some credit for his mic work. Hey it might not have been much but at least the guy got to talk for a change. I guess you could say I’m just looking for something nice to say. Regal vs. an “injured” Finlay for the second round of the KOTR tournament was just what I expected. A down and out Finlay trying his best to beat Regal with no luck. This was another quick match that again did nothing for me. Finally it’s Regal vs. Punk with the winner becoming the King of the Ring. This wasn’t a bad match at all; in fact maybe I should put this in the hit section. Now I never expected Punk to win, and I don’t feel that he should have since he was the MITB winner at Wrestlemania. But I never EVER saw a Regal victory and that victory totally pissed me off.
Now I have nothing at all against Regal, he’s absolutely terrific on the mic, and in the ring he can wrestle, in fact lat week he and Randy Orton put on a five star match, but I guess in my mind the winner of the KOTR would be a young guy, a guy like Matt Hardy, Mr. Kennedy who was not even on last night. You know a guy WWE will build on for the future, but instead we got veteran William Regal. I don’t get it and I don’t like it. He’s already the GM of Raw; I really don’t understand why he has to be the so-called King of the WWE. This whole KOTR really got the best of me. I’m very disappointed in the way that it was handled. And I just don’t know if I want Regal pushed to the hilt, right now I guess I don’t, but listen I have been known to change my mind pretty fast, so maybe in a few weeks I’ll be singing a different tune about King Regal.
Well if the KOTR got to me you can imagine my thoughts on that atrocious “wrestling match” with Obama and Hillary. Instead of this crap the time could have been given to the main event. I hated this and I was hoping WWE wouldn’t stoop to this level since the three candidates pre-taped messages. I thought oh good we won’t have to suffer through a non-humorous match, well I certainly was wrong. I despised that segment and as far as the pre-taped messages go, they were a little juvenile, okay they were cheesy but hell they were better than that match that we had to suffer through.
I always welcome three hour Raw’s, but not if they are going to come off like last nights. I want to add one more highlight. I enjoyed the diva’s coming out and I thought Beth Phoenix did a super job on the mic. I was very impressed with her, and I just read that they have added a 12-diva tag match to Backlash with Kelly Kelly, Mickie, Michelle, Cherry, Maria, and Ashley vs. Beth Phoenix, Victoria, Layla, Jillian Hall, Natalya Neidhart and Melina. I think that’s a cool match to add to the show. Okay so I hated Raw; now let’s see if Smackdown wins me over. Before I go I have a request from a reader. I have been searching for No Way Out 2001 on DVD for a while and can’t seem to find it in any store. Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can email me at jatingstrom@hotmail.com. Okay I will be back over the weekend with my Backlash predictions.
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
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