Normally I would do my best to talk about Raw and the pay per view that preceded it the night before, however since I loved Armageddon so much, and I really didn’t care for Raw I would much rather talk about Sunday’s show, and just touch on a few things that I liked on Raw, and I do mean just a few things. I didn’t do so hot with my Armageddon picks, but I was okay with that because I am beyond over the brand new WWE champion. So let me get right to a very good Armageddon and end with just a few highlights of Raw.
The show started out with Matt Hardy losing to Kozlov, no surprise there, and no surprise that Vlad still looked like his push should not be taking place. But and there is a but, I have to give it to Matt for making this a better match than the Kozlov/Triple H match at Survivor Series. Like I said in my column Sunday I figured Hardy could keep the crowd in this one and I was right. Even though Mr. No Sell Kozlov looked like he didn’t belong it was Matt Hardy that gave this a touch of excitement. Unlike the crowd during his Survivor Series match chanting boring, the Buffalo, New York crowd’s reaction was really good. So I give this a passable mark thanks to the very good job that Matt Hardy did.
The next match was off the charts OUTSTANDING. I’m talking about Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk. I knew this would be good but I didn’t know that it would rate as one of the top matches of the show. This was a work of art, and I was so glad that Punk was given a lot of time to show his doubters that this guy can wrestle. I have to give major props to Mysterio and Punk for putting on such a fantastic match. And like the first match, CM’s win was no surprise to me and I really do look forward to his feud with King William Regal. I totally loved Jeff Hardy’s very dark backstage promo. After watching and listening to Hardy I figured just maybe this guy is going to win that title. His character change has really taken off and WWE has put so much focus on him that he just might have a chance. This was one of Hardy’s strongest promos ever.
Now the next segment I didn’t think belonged on the show. I’m talking about the JBL and Shawn Michaels segment. I just felt this all talk segment didn’t belong on a pay per view. And I find the whole storyline rather ridiculous, because if Michaels really was broke I would think his DX best friend; Triple H would be there for him to bail him out. And I know this is just a story and I might be knit picking but I think this is just a weird angle. However, with that said I have to give it to Michaels for the super promo that HE gave. He almost had me convinced that he’s in financial ruin, that’s how good this was. Plus with all my complaining about this storyline, this could turn out to be good, very good. So I might not be crazy about this angle, but I definitely will keep an open mind about this. I will have more to say about this as soon as I get to Raw.
I should have known that Finlay would win the Belfast brawl, but what the hell, I liked this match. Was it a pay per view quality match? Probably not but Henry and Finlay put the E in entertainment for this match. They both gave their all and what made this even better was that it wasn’t too long or too short. They were given the right amount time to brawl like maniacs. The little backstage segment with Santino, Beth, Santa Claas, and some of the divas was funny, not over the top funny, but funny. Of course I thought the best parts were when the Boogeyman popped up and Santino screamed like a woman. And then I laughed when Santino was trying to leave, but Goldust was on the other side of the door waiting for a kiss under the mistletoe. The humor wasn’t over done, and unlike the JBL/HBK segment this was kept very short.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t get into Mr. Kennedy right now. Every time he pushes his DVD movie, I wonder how many will buy it, and more importantly his appearances really don’t add a thing to the shows. But the next match with Batista vs. Randy Orton really added to Sunday’s show. I loved the match, sure it started out slow but it built to something really good and I loved watching the two former Evolution members going at it. I should have stuck with Batista for the win instead of Orton, but I never thought about the ref throwing Cody Rhodes and Manu out of the area. As soon as that happened I knew Big Dave was winning, Orton and Batista really looked good out there and I want a rematch, I really do. I would love to see these two go at it at least one more time.
Mickie James, Maria, Michelle McCool, and Kelly Kelly vs. Maryse, Victoria, Natalya, and Jillian Hall’s Santa’s Little Helper match was okay, it wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad. I had to laugh when most of the other diva’s worked this match and McCool came in for a second and got the pin. As you can see I’m not as big on Michelle as I once was because for a Women’s champion she hasn’t shown me much in a long time. The match was okay, and this led to Khali and the Kiss Cam. Since I read that Mae Young was going to be on the show I figured she was going to be the lucky lady that Khali kissed. I couldn’t stop laughing with Lawler’s one-liners about Mae. And what made it even funnier was hearing JR laugh almost as hard as I did after each one. Well I thought that John Cena vs. Chris Jericho came off better than last month’s pay per view match. I knew Jericho wasn’t going to win, but he gave it a hell of a shot, and Cena looked a little more relaxed than he did last month, which is understandable since his match at the Survivor Series was his first match back since his neck injury. The Buffalo crowd was totally into this one, and I was surprised this wasn’t the main event. But after the main event ended then I understood why Cena’s didn’t end the show.
I’m 54 and not exactly athletic, but when Jeff Hardy won, I jumped up and down for a few at least a minute screaming with joy. In fact I was so focused on the new WWE champion that I didn’t realize that my son and his new girlfriend had just walked in and witnessed this old chick acting like a kid. Not only was this was an excellent match, but giving that win to Jeff Hardy was the right thing to do. I really didn’t expect Jeff to win Sunday let alone ever become champion because of his past problems. I now hope that Jeff sees that Vince has faith in him and that Hardy won’t let Vince or the fans down. But I don’t want to throw one negative thought in here. Jeff Hardy is the new WWE champion, and I think this was a brilliant move and I can’t wait to watch Smackdown Friday night with the WWE champion. As I said this was an excellent match and the win really ended the show on a very positive note. I am so glad that I ordered the show; I totally feel that I got my moneys worth, oh did I.
Okay very quickly what I liked about Raw. I thought Randy Orton and his posse brought A LOT to the show Monday night. Also anytime Chris Jericho was on, he rocked, and thought the main event with Cena/Batista vs. Orton, Manu and Rhodes was very good but my match of the night was the tag team match between Kofi Kingston and CM Punk vs. The Miz and Morrison. These were the highlights for me. I will also add that the Kane/Kelly Kelly angle caught my interest. One of the things that kind of pissed me off was that they replayed almost the entire HBK/JBL segment from the night before. It makes my argument even stronger that this should not have been done on Sunday knowing that it would be replayed on Raw. As you can see Raw was a somewhat a miss for me, but hey the shows have been very good so one bad Raw is something that I can handle.
Okay look for me over the weekend with my Hardy/Smackdown thoughts, and speaking of Hardy, one of my readers Sean was nice enough to fill me in about the new look Jeff Hardy is wearing. This is from Sean. I just wanted to point out that hardy’s face paint looked very much like “corpse paint”, which is the style of a lot of European black metal bands, not the joker, as you pointed out. I’ve included a link to a picture of polish black/death metal band Behemoth’s front man Negral: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Behemoth-Nergal.jpg.
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
