Well following the last two weeks, it was really hard to get myself to watch RAW. I guess you can say I’ve become one of those fans who tune in every Monday night simply because it’s a habit from all the years. However, unlike the past two weeks, I was glad to tune in today.
This week’s program was a much better show, as it’s usually the case following a PPV. Not to mention that this RAW was the beginning of the Survivor Series build, which in the old WWF meant the beginning of WrestleMania build. Sadly it hasn’t been the case in the past couple of years, which is just another sign of how pro wrestling has changed. The reasons I enjoyed this show: it provided better wrestling than usual; it didn’t insult your intelligence as much as their storytelling has recently; the announcing wasn’t all that bad; and it served as a build platform for the upcoming three-hour RAW and Survivor Series.
The show opened with a pyro display~! It had been a while. You might think I’m being picky, but you would be amazed at how much fireworks add to the program. Obviously for the TV viewers it’s not as exciting as it is for the crowd that is in the arena. However, getting the crowd excited helps you keep them interested the whole night, which was the case tonight. And when you have a hot crowd, even the bad stuff looks good.
First off, it was way too early to take the belt off of Jericho. I’m not sure what they were thinking there, if they were thinking. His opening promo was good and now that he’s no longer champion, he has fresh material to work with, which was the problem the past couple of weeks. I liked the little bump he gave Adamle, as he made his exit. By the way, how about giving Adamle a theme song different from RAW’s theme? Do we really want to associate RAW’s theme song with Mike Adamle?!
Ever since he’s been back, Randy Orton seemed to be lost in the shuffle. That changed tonight, when he was finally a huge part of the show. In one of the better angles they’ve built in a while, he promised to quit (go to TNA) if Mike Adamle isn’t fired next week for having put Orton in the title match at Cyber Sunday which caused him to get stunned. I liked this angle for a few reasons. One, it wasn’t insulting to my intelligence where I had to sit there and wonder why Orton and Adamle acted the way they did. Two, this was easily Mike Adamle’s best two minutes since he’s joined the WWE, minus the slap that looked horrid. Three, this actually made me want to tune in next week to see what happens. So this was an all-around good segment in my opinion.
Then we had the title change with CM Punk and Kofi Kingston winning the Tag Team Championships from DiBiase and Rhodes. It was a very decent match that went for about 15 minutes which was nice to see. Today WWE had a lot of wrestling on the program and for the most part they stuck to long matches, which I think is a direction they have to explore. Having two-minute squashes is fine, but when you allow the wrestlers to tell a story during their match, it not only adds to the quality of the program (if they’re good), but it also gets the audience interested in those characters even more than a promo or talking segment would sometimes.
I was a bit upset to see the titles change hands. The only reason for it was because unless they do a quick switch next week, CM Punk is all but forgotten when it comes to his push, as he’s now relegated to the tag teams division, which has been nonexistent for years. On the other hand, guys like Kofi and Punk could be used to add some credibility to the tag belts, which is always a good thing. We need Randy Orton’s help in this storyline here, and Priceless’ in-fighting after the match makes me think we’re headed that way pretty soon.
Santino was hilarious out there today, but what’s new? I liked that little segment for what it was worth, and Charlie Haas as Beth Phoenix? Wow. It was scary how good he was…
Mike Knox is coming to RAW. Great. Why is ECW talent being built to moving to RAW as if they got drafted I don’t know. If he was drafted, let’s hope it was for Snitsky. That’s a fair trade, really.
Big Dave was a disappointment on the mic tonight. In my column last week, I talked about this “edgy” character with the smirk and laugh being a problem sometimes when he needs to be serious. The thing is that this character works for him when he’s not the World Champion. Now that he’s the man on RAW, I don’t know that the “I’m too cool for this” persona fits so well. He struggled through that interview with Michael Cole a couple of times, and it was obvious that he didn’t know what to say. Again, this title switch was just too out there and at the wrong time. I don’t like it one bit.
The six divas worked hard tonight. As expected, it was ugly when Layla was in there, which is a shame because she’s my favorite. They need to get Regal and Noble back on this show. While on the topic of the divas though, I must bring up how good it felt when Mickie James won the Costume Contest at Cyber Sunday. Here she was, dressed as a plain character with an outfit nowhere near as revealing as some of the other top pretty-girls, yet she won. It speaks volumes about her popularity with the fans.
JBL is one of those people that if you tell him he has 45 seconds to cut a promo on Shawn Michaels that will have to help the main event for the evening, he will do just that. While I never thought of JBL as a WWE-Champion caliber wrestler, I must admit that his ability to talk is very much on that level.
Another reason I decided to watch RAW tonight is that I found out Rey Mysterio will go one-on-one with Evan Bourne. You just can’t afford to miss a match with these two. They delivered what I felt was one of the better matches on RAW in the past couple of months. They did screw up a couple of times, but when you work this kind of style, it’s forgivable. Bourne’s promo before the match is up there with some of the worst interviews I’ve seen, but we’ll let that go this week. They just really need to stop scripting everything and let the wrestlers get a feel of their characters. Paul Heyman understood this concept so well, and often times let the guys run with it, and only served as a guide that helped out when needed to. WWE needs more of that direction, especially with guys like Matt Sydal (Evan Bourne), who’s a proven in-ring performer. Speaking of that, did you notice how quickly Bourne went for the pin and saved the botched spot where Rey slipped off the ropes? That was a nice touch.
Miz and John Morrison were very strong in the delivery of their promo. The problem was the promo itself. This is similar to what happened with Evan Bourne in the previous segment. The way the promo was scripted was just too absurd. Nobody talks like that, and while Miz and Morrison do a very solid job with these characters, they still feel contrived and unreal. It’s promos like this one.
The main event didn’t do it for me. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t horrible or anything like that, I just didn’t find it too exciting. I guess, after all, the purpose of this show was to promote next week’s 3-hour extravaganza, so in a way it was a success as they did a good job of that.
I doubt that Jerry Lawler is reading this, and I don’t know if he stumbled across my last column, but he made sure to be in control tonight, and held the commentary together. To his credit, Michael Cole didn’t sound as ridiculous as he normally does as well. I’ve always said this about Lawler — when he’s on top of his game, he’s easily one of the best color commentators out there. It’s just that often times Vince expects him to act a certain way or say certain things that prevent him from doing it. Other times, he loses interest quickly or is just not as motivated to deliver. You can truly tell when he has a good night if you pay close attention. Take a look at Randy Orton’s match with Chris Benoit at SummerSlam a few years ago, which was Orton’s first title win following his whole “destiny” storyline and break-up from Evolution that came next. That night at SummerSlam, Lawler was so right-on in doing the color commentating that Jim Ross found himself challenged to keep up. In fact when the match ended, in the usual Jim Ross spot where he puts over big what we’ve just witnessed, Lawler got the spotlight and ran with it. Being the smart man he is, Ross let him go, and it was a great moment. Tonight Lawler did great and it’s so much better when he corrects Cole or ignores him instead of follow up on his stupidity sometimes.
Let’s see how next week’s 3-hour debacle turns out.
Eddie
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |