I waited a couple of hours to post my RAW thoughts on tonight’s show, hoping that my anger would go away, but I must say — this was a horrible show. It doesn’t help that last week I drove all the way to Anaheim for a live RAW and it was the worst WWE event I’ve been to in years.
I can’t even begin to talk about tonight’s main event. I’ll just ask you this — did you get it? What were the rules? So Batista and Chris Jericho are having a Gauntlet Match. I’ve never heard of two competitors having a Gauntlet Match before. This bout has always been the following — you start with wrestler X in the ring. Then wrestler Y comes out. They fight. Say X wins. Then Y leaves the ring, and wrestler Z comes out and fights wrestler X. Say Z wins. Then wrestler W comes out and fights the already-defeated X. Of course, I’ve seen variations of this, which made sense. Where it wouldn’t be the same guy (wrestler X) that fights the next pin, regardless of what happens. For example, X and Y start the match, the winner fights Z, the winner of that fights W, etc, until all participants have fought.
Trying to put logic into WWE’s booking these past two weeks has been near impossible. So why did Jericho have to start two of the matches if there are three opponents? Isn’t that unfair? Isn’t it straight-up ridiculous that the guy who has just fought with one of them, has to start a new match with the other? Apparently, folks, these are not all obvious things because Michael Cole had the balls to go on national television and ask Jerry Lawler the following question when William Regal came out — “Batista will start first. Who does that favor? Batista or Chris Jericho?” I mean, really Michael?
I hated the main event, it’s as simple as that. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, as Mike Adamle got confused and had to look at his notes a few times tonight when dealing with this mess. It completely buried William Regal, as well. It made no sense for the champion to lose twice to people who are not going to be challenging him for the belt any time soon, so it buried the belt as well. Even worse, Jericho has now lost three times in the last two weeks (don’t forget CM Punk pinned him last week). This makes the belt worth exactly nothing. One of the reasons WWF was the stronger product in the late 90s was because WCW used to do stupidity like this. They used to book matches similar to the Double Gauntlet Match we saw tonight, or the Championship Scramble. They used to pin their champions for “shock value,” which Vince Russo secretly masturbated to every night. WWF presented a product that was simple enough to work. The reason it’s always good to keep things simple is because simple makes sense and is logical. Even if it’s obvious from miles away, the fans aren’t always looking for a surprise when they tune into pro wrestling. Everybody knew a couple of years ago that Batista was going to turn on Triple H and Ric Flair, leave Evolution, and go face. It was obvious. However, they took months to make it happen (in other words, they made it simple and obvious by taking the time to hint at it logically), and the fans still loved the turn when it took place, even though they saw it coming from miles away. The smarter fans especially don’t want their intelligence insulted, and matches like tonight’s simply devalue belts and make no sense. This was one of the reasons WCW died, and is one of the reasons that TNA is ridiculous. The second you stop carrying enough to make sense, people will turn off.
When WCW was in its last breaths, it’s a well-documented fact that people stopped carrying within the company. On all levels, that is, including commentary where Tony Schiavone was just happy to be getting paid, and that’s about it. Tonight’s performance by Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler was on the same level. I know that a lot of what they said was fed to them (and probably screamed into their ears often time), but there’s no excuse for being so bad. When Michael Cole did his trademark — the fake laugh — and Lawler joined him in it during the Charlie Haas/JBL match, I just about wanted to cry. This was reminiscent of TNA, where the announcers would have to explain why segments are funny, and force you to feel a certain emotion. Every time this happens, the segments just don’t matter and people turn off. It didn’t end there. The first two matches — Candice Michelle & Kelly Kelly vs. Jillian Hall & Katie Lea, as well as Haas vs. JBL — mostly served as a background to the announcers’ outlandish hype of the Divas Costume competition at Cyber Sunday. In fact, when the final pin in the first match was happening, Cole found himself trying to out-scream Lawler who who was desperately yelling about the Costume Contest. Who cares about a costume contest? Are you really going to order Cyber Sunday because of this? At this point in time, I would rather listen to Miz & Morrison try to talk over Cryme Tyme than this crap. The only reason guys like Jim Ross, Gorilla Monsoon, and even Joey Styles are so good at what they do is because they never go over the top and lie to you just to get an emotion out of you, or sell you something. This way when they truly got excited and emotional, you feel the same way as them because it seems real and they add credibility to it. When Ric Flair wrestled Triple H in their now infamous match in 2003 in North Carolina (where Flair had his first “appreciation night” after RAW went off the air), it was not exactly a technical classic. However, Jim Ross calling the match the way he did made it feel amazing. When Flair walked to the ring, Ross got out of his seat and was shown on camera clapping and trying to get a good look. How many times has he done this before? I can’t recall one time. Because he doesn’t over-exaggerate an emotion, he does a great job. Also, if Ross is calling a train-wreck of a match, he’s not going to sit there and try to convince you he’s seeing a five-star classic. Instead he’ll call it “bowling-shoe ugly” and hype it as an ugly fight or brawl, which is the correct way to promote something, and not force it down our throat. Now that the draft is long gone, Lawler and Cole simply don’t work on RAW, and that’s obvious. I think, especially now that Tazz is on SmackDown!, it’s time to bring Jim Ross back which also gives Michael Cole the opportunity to work on tape, and more importantly alongside Tazz, which at one point in time was actually a very good pairing.
I don’t know if you’ve caught it, but Chris Jericho has cut the exact same promo every night since he won the belt. Hey, I love this new character, and his delivery, so I don’t complain as much — but after two months of the same promo, it gets boring. The reason Y2J as a face was so exciting is because his delivery was golden, but mostly because his material was exciting and new every week. Clearly, the dynamics change once you go heel, but you can’t repeat the same lines over and over, you have to find a new way to get under everyone’s skin. Speaking of holes in logic, can you explain to me why Chris Jericho thinks Steve Austin is “the worst” choice of a referee? Again, I understand that they’re trying to hammer the point down — they want us to pick Steve Austin as the special guest referee, and not Shawn Michaels. They event went through the trouble of not showing Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton tonight so that we forget they exist. They had Haas do an Austin impression, and tell Lillian he voted for Austin. Is this really the way to go though? Why is Austin the “worst” case for Jericho if Michaels promised he will be biased and he will make sure Jericho loses. How the hell do you prefer Austin after hearing this? This is just another example of them sticking stoyrlines down our throat. If you want Austin as the result out of fans’ voting, then don’t stick yourself in the hole by putting Shawn Michaels as an option when you know he has a lot of fans that will vote for him.
Am I really supposed to take anything Batista does seriously if he laughs about it? It’s hard, but I must say that I enjoy his smirks. First, Big Dave is not exactly a top-level mic guy, so this more edgy character helps. Second, he does seem to be able to pull it off, so I think they should stick with that. He did a good job of getting serious tonight when needed to.
Then there was Rey Mysterio winning a squash match against Snitsky. How the hell does Rey Mysterio win a SQUASH against Snitsky? Explain to me how this makes sense in a world where Mysterio has been destroyed by Kane on weekly basis and this has been explained to be the case simply due to their size difference. So now Snitsky is a complete goof, which is not that big of a deal since he’s not a permanent character. Mysterio got his big win, which was important since he’s been getting destroyed by Kane week after week, and what have we accomplished? Does anybody care to buy the PPV to see Kane and Mysterio again? No. Will anybody care next time they use Snitsky on TV? No. Will anybody believe Mysterio pinning a much larger guy the next time it happens, or will they remember Kevin Nash throwing him like a dart at a production truck back in WCW if they saw it?
Punk and Kingston had a good match with Miz and Morrison. By the way, Morrison and Miz will be fighting DX at the three-hour RAW, which is why they started the whole program tonight through their “Are you 50?” promo. It was good to see them get a pin, but was really CM Punk the guy who needed the loss? Man, WWE has done nothing with Punk since he lost the belt, and it’s really sad.
Then we went to the only bright spot on RAW in the last few months that is guaranteed to be a good segment. Honestly, I feel that after the last two weeks if I watch RAW again it’ll be only because of the Santino Marella segment. It went a little too long tonight and the crowd wasn’t into it, but I still found it hilarious. Marella has the presence and charisma that no other WWE wrestler has right now. His progress and push should be proof for creative that the old-time saying holds true — if you let someone be the character they feel they can pull off, it usually works. I must say that Beth Phoenix is really good in her reactions and facial expressions to what Santino has to say. It really adds to his segments.
Before I go to bed, I want to make one final point. When I was at the RAW taping last week, there was the usual amount of promotional videos throughout the evening. I asked myself a very important question at the arena. Why is it that every “feel-good” WWE video (that doesn’t deal with entertaining the troops) features mostly guys who are not around anymore, and John Cena? After tonight, my answer was confirmed — the last two years in WWE have been THAT uneventful. What kills me even more is sitting through a TNA TV show, having in mind what opportunity they have.
Let’s hope wrestling doesn’t die soon.
Eddie
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