There were quite a few BAD segments last night on Raw, yet around the net it seems like Jeremy Piven’s Summer Fest slip is the first thing that people think of. Trust me that was minor compared to so many other things that were really bad. Before I go on, let me just say that things here have been good to really sad. Our house will get its final inspection Friday and hopefully that will be it and our addition that took way too long to complete, will finally be done. The sad part is that one of our precious dogs, Roxy had to be put down last Wednesday. I know many of you know that she suffered from seizures and that we got her 6 years ago when she was two. To make a long story short for those of you that might not be aware of our girl, I would like to share a few things with you. She was two when we got her at a humane society. We were her third home and she was just a doll. Roxy was a Border Collie/Australian Cattle dog mix and she had a fantastic personality. Through out the years she had suffered some very serious setbacks, but she always made a miraculous recovery. We all thought that she would recover last week, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. We are taking her loss very hard but we are also blessed with Lita and Shane. However not having Roxy with us is hard to deal with. So that’s why I didn’t put anything out last week. Now one more thing and then on to Raw, with things winding down I should be able to get back to my columns, but it might take another week before all the things are done, like carpeting and so on. So again please hang in there with me.
And now on to Do You Think It’s Time To End The Guest Hosts On Raw? Oh I do because after last night I think the thrill is gone. I don’t even know where to begin. Okay what I did like was Triple H vs. Legacy. I thought this was a very solid match and it was nice to hear the crowd really get into this match. I was happy to see Cody get the win and all three really put a lot into this one. Hunter on the mic after his loss was quite enjoyable. Hey I know a lot of fans are pissed that Hunter made sarcastic remarks about Batista always getting hurt, and Ric Flair is too busy signing autographs at VFW Halls. Well I found it kind of weird too, yet I guess there are some bad feelings between Flair, Vince, Hunter and even Shawn Michaels because Flair wants to continue wrestling, and with Batista I am thinking that maybe that remark was done for a potential feud between a heel Hunter vs. Batista the face. No matter the reason Hunter did a nice job getting things going for another return of DX, and as of now I’m all ready for that.
I was quite happy with the women’s tag team match with Mickie and Gail Kim taking on Jillian and Beth Phoenix. I was waiting for Kim to turn on Mickie, and I really think that the turn could happen as soon as next week. It was nice seeing these women work such a nice match. Last week’s women’s match, and this week’s match gives me hope that maybe just maybe the women’s division is getting back on track. I also really enjoyed watching Carlito vs. Primo. Primo really impresses me and I just wish both of these guys could get some mic time which I think would really put so much more focus on their feud. Evan Bourne vs. Jack Swagger certainly had the makings of being a hot match but man it ended way too fast. And I was so happy to see MVP come out to protect a beaten down Bourne. I guess MVP and Swagger are going to get their feud going again, but then again it never really got going before. Hey remember that one night when these two put on a fantastic non-wrestling segment? And after that what could have been a hell of a feud just kind of disappeared. So maybe this time MVP and Swagger will finally get a chance to show just how entertaining they can be. Believe me they could really help Raw, boy could they. And finally I know this is weird but I have to hand it to Chavo Guerrero for showing me something in his going nowhere program with Hornswoggle. At least the guy has a sense of humor. I never saw this side of him and I happen to like seeing him doing comedy. He had a nice little backstage segment with Piven, and when he’s in the ring getting screwed either by the little guy or Mark Henry he makes me laugh, so props to Chavo, and speaking of Mark Henry? Last night he was in and out of that match in a few minutes unlike last week when they had him wrestle too long against Carlito. So I happened to like this little Mark Henry/Chavo/Hornswoggle segment. While Big Show’s match against Kofi Kingston was just what I thought it would be I have to say that Chris Jericho did an awesome job at the announce table. He’s commentary was pure Jericho and I loved it. What a pleasure it was to hear him cut up everyone and back his tag team partner Big Show. Jericho made this segment passable for me. And there were two backstage segments that came off well. The first was with Randy Orton and Piven. See as I said Piven on his own was good and I liked the interaction between him and Orton. Orton basically made Piven believe that he might get a punt to his head just like Vince McMahon. And the other was Hunter on the phone with presumably Shawn Michaels. Hunter told “Shawn” that when he said he was never coming back, never meant anything before. Then he had a good line when he asked if he had been watching and you hear Hunter say, “you’re not watching?” You’re what? You have what? I thought you didn’t do jobs.” Hunter said that he needed him but the caller hung up. Hence the tease, come on we all know Shawn is returning. So this was what made Raw at least halfway decent.
But now it’s time for the dreaded list of all the crap that we got, and believe me we got a lot. And after you read this you will then know why I feel that maybe this should be the start of the end of guest’s hosts on Raw. I mean after Shaq last week, nothing last night with Piven came even close. But let me share all the things that made me want to turn my TV off, but of course I didn’t. Okay here I go.
1. The opening with Jeremy Piven and Dr. Ken. I have never seen Dr. Ken and trust me that’s not a complaint. I really couldn’t take too much of him. I think Piven alone would have been the way to go. Piven is a guy that comes off smooth and has the gift of gab. He could have brought a lot more to the show than sharing with Dr. Ken. Well anyway the opening started out okay with Piven and Le Miz. I happened to like the Miz and Piven going at it on the mic, but once Cena came out I lost all interest.
2. Wait is there a pay per view coming up in a month? Oh yes there is, yet that seemed to mean nothing because there was constant movie plugs for Piven’s movie, The Goods. It’s sad that one of the biggest pay per views of the year is playing second fiddle to a movie. And to make matters worse, every time we got a backstage segment the movie was playing on TV. Yeah that’s quite sad. While I didn’t mind Piven and Dr. Ken insulting the Big Show, I did mind seeing the Big Show. It’s gotten to the point where I just can’t take Show. And to make matters worse Big Show is complaining about Shaq and how he wants to take him on. I could have sworn that Big Show along with Chris Jericho have Cryme Tyme at Summer Slam, shouldn’t that be Show’s main concern? Oh wait no it wouldn’t be, because Shaq brought big ratings in last week, and that seems to be more important to Vince McMahon than Summer Slam and the Cryme Tyme match.
3. Then we get the main event, the Lumberjack Match with John Cena vs. The Miz. Now right before the match our host Jeremy Piven turns heel and picks all heels as lumber jacks because he is a Randy Orton fan. So all the heels come out and it’s John Cena against the world, well the World Wrestling superstars. Okay so I’m thinking this is the match where the Miz finally beats Cena. After all everything is on the Miz’s side but of course just like many of my predictions I was way off. John Cena won this, yeah he took out the entire heel group and Miz went down for the forth time in a row to Cena. There was nothing good here except the very end with Piven and then Dr. Ken, First Piven got on the top rope, jumped on Cena but Cena caught him, and Cena used Piven as a weapon taking out some of the heels. I have to hand it to Piven for the move and I enjoyed that. I also finally got a kick out of Dr. Ken. It might have taken the entire show for him to get me to laugh, but when Cena took out Piven, Dr. Ken panicked. His goal was to make nice to Cena and this was funny. Dr. Ken was doing everything he could to get on Cena’s good side. He yelled “we won the good guys won,” this was a riot and Cena acted like all was good and went to shake his hand and then picked up Dr. Ken and tossed him onto a group of heels at ringside. The bad part was that Ken hit his head hard on the mat and he immediately grabbed his head. However, Piven put up on his Twitter page today that Ken was okay, so that’s good and so was the ending. But the match that took place was nothing.
So a definite mixed bag, and let’s not forget that if the Miz lost Piven at the beginning of the show said that he was banned at Summer Slam and banned from Raw forever. Now with the heel turn I am thinking that nothing Piven said stuck, however many are thinking that the Miz is done OR going to Smackdown. So I guess we just have to wait and see. Of course losing to Cena 4 out of 4 times doesn’t help the Miz at all. I wish I could say that I’m looking forward to Raw hosted by Sgt. Slaughter next week but I’m not. As a host he does nothing for me. I say Raw needs to get back to pushing their pay per views and stars and maybe worry less about the mainstream media. Okay I will try to have a Smackdown column over the weekend; I will see how things are going here. Again thank you all for being so patient and understanding.
Email lindarobin3@yahoo.com
