| Date: 03/04 | 3:30 AM |
| Views: 2,736 | |
As Nikes the Sneaka Pimp serves our country in the armed forces it's likely he got sent out on a mission with no advance warning - it seems to happen more and more often. Don't begrudge him the Raw Recap when he couldn't give me advance warning he wouldn't be here, and I couldn't give it to any of you in turn, just thank him for his patriotic service as I do and move on with me as we take a look at what happened on last night's Raw!
The opening segment this week was William Regal having a meeting backstage with all three co-main eventers for 'Mania. Long story short he's going to put each one of them in charge for a three week span starting with Cena tonight.
MY THOUGHTS: This is fairly predictable. Cena will book Hunter v. Orton, and so on as we go dosey-do all around the trio. It seems that WWE is always desperate to do parity booking any time there's a 3-way at WrestleMania - they all have to win once and lose twice and nobody ends up looking strong. In fact when Rey Mysterio won the belt in a 3-way at WrestleMania 22 he went on to have one of the shittiest world championship runs in history - getting beat up on TV every week and then retaining on a fluke at PPV. In these situations you either need to make one man look strong and have the other two decide whether or not they can get along long enough to beat him, or you need to have them in as few matches as possible against each other before the PPV - or BOTH.
Next we had the promised match where Big Show took on a real boxer, although quite honestly I've never heard of Brandon 'The Thrill' Hill. Mayweather was watching live via satellite from Las Vegas. Show beat up this skinny man (who Mayweather aptly described as "a stack of pancakes") and LAUNCHED him over the top rope in one of the most awesomely evil bumps a non-midget has taken on live TV in ages.
THOUGHTS: This was exactly the opposite of that WWE has been trying so hard to accomplish. They want Big Show to be the villain so badly, but wrestling fans love a spectacle and seeing the colossal Wight delight in throwing around a puny foe harkens back to the days when promoters booked Andre the Giant for local shows and fed him 4-5 jobbers PER MATCH. That's entertainment. To make matters worse either due to a delay in the satellite feed or because Mayweather has been getting booed in every appearance thus far, Mayweather went into business for himself and started ad libbing. If you didn't see the WrestleMania press conference or never saw the "24/7" specials leading up to the De La Hoya fight, Mayweather is a NATURAL HEEL when he ad libs. You can't fight the fan reaction - they love seeing Big Show in the ring again, and they see him as the man standing up for pro wrestling against the arrogant, overpaid (kayfabe $20 million) boxer who broke his nose. If they thought the size disparity would make Mayweather the babyface BIG MISTAKE. It would only get worse later... or if like me you like this turn of events it only gets BETTER.
HBK/Flair took on Cade & Murdoch. We had a simultaneous finish with Flair getting the figure four and HBK getting his inverted figure four, and both men tapped. Afterwards Shawn Michaels tried to back out of the match with Flair again, not wanting to be the man who retires him. This time he cut Flair off at the pass, saying I know you're going to tell me that beating you is not a given, but I'm the Heartbreak Kid, the Showstopper, and if you force me to have this match at 'Mania I WILL stop your show. He left and Flair was speechless.
THOUGHTS: Good subtle heel turn by Shawn Michaels here to build up heat for their match at 'Mania. Nothing more to say than that!
Somewhere in here they did a whacky commercial with Maria and Carlito where he tries to get her to dump Santino but ends up being attacked by a seagull. It's very hard to explain better than that so look for it on WWE.com or YouTube. Next Regal sent out Umaga to squash Super Crazy and joined the announce booth for commentary. He put over Umaga strong and said there was no better man to represent Raw in the inter-brand match against Smackdown's own Dave Batista.
THOUGHTS: Exactly what this match needed to be - quick and decisive. Poor Super Crazy though. I wonder if they still let him team with Hacksaw Jim Duggan on Heat.
We had another strange segment where I think WWE achieved the exact opposite of what they intended. Jericho brought back the "Highlight Reel" segment and made Jeff Hardy his honored guest for the evening. Jericho showed clips of last week's match on his "brand new, obscenely expensive, high definition Jeritron Six Thousand" and then told Hardy they were friends up until now but since they're now opponents in Money in the Bank friendship is out the window and Hardy is "just a target." He vows to do whatever it takes to win - anything goes! Hardy says he couldn't agree more, shakes his hand, and then pulls him in for a Twist of Fate. Jericho is left laying as Hardy leaves to a surprising number of boos.
THOUGHTS: Another case of WWE completely misunderstanding their audience. Jericho's "Highlight Reel" segments were always popular, even when he was a heel, and this was the most Jericho has been acted the Y2J of old since his return. You could literally feel a shift in the air - even the new WWE fans who don't know the old Chris Jericho dug how charismatic and "attitude fueled" he was here. As a result Hardy was the one who came off as the heel attacking the babyface at the end of the segment, when undoubtedly they wanted Hardy to get a pop for beating up the smug talk show host. NEWSFLASH - today's wrestling fans LIKE the arrogant heel with tons of charisma and the wrestling acumen to back it up. They really should know it even at the top levels of WWE but someone on the writing team tonight was not clued in. Mistake or not I think they should run with it since Jericho might finally get over as the babyface they've wanted him to be ever since he came back, and Hardy as a heel would be quite the "twist" no pun intended.
Since Cena is in charge of things tonight we get John Cena and Mr. Kennedy Kennedy in a one-on-one match. Some might say this is revenge for the Mic Check he got last week, others might say it's revenge for the torn pec he had in a match with Ken that put him on the shelf. Thankfully there are no such accidents here and Cena eventually locks in the STFU for the tapout.
THOUGHTS: The chemistry between these two has never been great but this match was as good as you could expect particularly for free TV.
The King hits the ring to introduce Maria's Playboy cover, and she's accompanied for the introduction by Candice Michelle. We learn from Lawler that SNOOP DOGG WILL MC THE BUNNYMANIA MATCH. Now I need a clever Snoop Dogg sign to take to Orlando - send your suggestions to steviej@angrymarks.com if you have a few good ideas. So far all I can think of is something about a Sensual Eruption. Maria has an eruption of her own when they unveil the cover and all her feminine attributes are covered by pictures of Santino's smiling face. He comes out and gives the spiel about how it's wrong, nobody should see it, and tells her we're leaving right now. She says NO. He thinks it must be Maria's "timing of the month" and more or less tells her you do what I say. A more emphatic NO. He tries to forcefully take her from the ring and Lawler gives him a shove that sends Marella FAH-LYE-ING across the ring. When he takes a powder they reveal a SECOND Playboy cover that was hidden in the rafters and this one is totally uncensored!
THOUGHTS: I'm sure their only goals here were to get over Snoop Dogg being at 'Mania and Maria's feature in Playboy, but this is the second week in a row where Santino and Lawler have had an issue and DAMNIT I WANT SANTINO V. LAWLER AT WRESTLEMANIA. We're going to be there for hours on end in the Orange Bowl anyway, so why not have a fun old school match between these two to kill some time. Santino is a great cocky heel, Lawler sells like hell as a babyface, and his worked punches when he makes a comeback are among the best in the business. THIS MUST HAPPEN.
Carlito and Cody Rhodes had a Money in the Bank Qualifier. For the first time in a long time this was a qualifying match where it wasn't IMMEDIATELY clear who would win from the outset. Carlito ultimately escapes a victory roll and hits the back cracker for three.
THOUGHTS: I suspected Carlito would get the nod but then again I wasn't sure they'd reward a guy who has been phoning it in of late with a big 'Mania payoff - I thought they might give the young Rhodes the nod. He is a tag team champion after all, for all the little they care or remember to even have him defend it. I hope this means Holly & Rhodes will actually defend their titles at WM24 but I really doubt it.
We're reminded that next week's Raw will be three hours long before Floyd Mayweather returns via satellite again. If the first segment did a bad job of getting him over as a babyface, this one was a hundred times worth. He called himself Money Mayweather, he said Jerry Lawler was a fake king and he was the real thing, and said that ever since he arrived WWE had turned into MME - Money Mayweather Entertainment.
THOUGHTS: Can it be ANY more obvious that Mayweather is the heel in this feud? He's insulting The King, he's insulting wrestling fans, and he's making himself out to be more important than the company that's allegedly paying him $20 million in cash. In fact he was so heelish in this segment that I almost suspect it was on purpose this time. WWE may have finally realized which direction the wind was blowing and told him off air to go for broke and talk all the shit he wanted to. If they didn't they'd better start right now. They could re-edit the press conference to make Show the heel and Mayweather the face, but after two straight segments of Mayweather on live Raw there's no way they can keep that idea alive any longer.
Mike Adamle introduces our next Hall of Fame inductee as Mae Young, and nearly botches it in the process.
THOUGHTS: She deserves to be recognized, but I'm sure the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame beat WWE to the punch long ago. Furthermore they did her no honors by including the clip of her giving birth to a hand in the highlight reel.
Fit Finlay comes out and his new music sucks a black Scandanavian cock (inside joke for our friends from Figure Four Weekly). He was supposed to confront JBL but Vince McMahon confronts him instead. Finlay says Vince isn't good enough to be Horny's father and finally admits Hornswoggle is his own flesh and blood. Let's just put aside the logic holes here such as "the deal" McMahon and Finlay had that was never explained - a deal which might have justified why Finlay let McMahon pretend to be Hornswoggle's dad all this time. Next up is JBL, also live via satellite, from Hornswoggle's hospital room. The lights go out and horrifying sounds are all we here.
THOUGHTS: It's generally not a good thing if the closer you get to a PPV the LESS sense an angle makes, but that's exactly what they've achieved here. Furthermore I was all fine with the first beating JBL gave Hornswoggle because it was done in a wrestling context that got him heel heat, but beating up a midget in a hospital room doesn't get him more heat than he already had - it's just repugnant television to watch.
Last but not least we get the match Cena booked earlier, and he comes out to do commentary as Triple H and Randy Orton lock horns (non-title of course). To make a long story short Orton tries to bail on the match, Cena cuts him off, Trips takes advantage and it's a big cluster between all three with Cena getting the worst of it. Orton tries to whack Hunter with the belt, he blocks it, a pissed off Cena hits the ring and the ref calls for the DQ. Triple H wins.
THOUGHTS: I suppose a clusterfuck finish was probably better than a clean pin for the reasons I outlined earlier, but it stlll would have been better to not do it at all. Post-match Cena gave the FU to Hunter, but Orton hit Cena with the RKO. The fact Orton was left standing strong at the end of Raw was for me what saved the whole segment and booking wise ended Raw on a positive note.
CONCLUSIONS: WWE still has three more weeks of Raw until WrestleMania 24 so there's still enough time to make changes. They need to learn from tonight's mistakes and make those changes QUICKLY.