This week's guest hosts are Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne
All aboard! They start the show in ring with Ozzy sitting in his throne. They showed him at WM2 and in 2007 performing. I actually liked that "I don't wanna stop" song although not sure why. "Crazy Train" is my favorite Ozzy song by far, though. That will be my wedding song one day because I will consider myself to be crazy when I get married. Miz came out, wanted to reverse last week's loss to Evan Bourne and Ozzy asked him who the hell he was. Big fan, that Ozzy. Legacy came out, they wanted to beat up Kofi. Big Show came out, he wanted an apology from the Raw guys for beating him up last week and Ozzy had one of the best lines of the night by saying, "I'm so sorry." Then DX came out. They plugged their merch as well as Ozzy's book (the idea that Ozzy Osbourne could write a sentence much less a book is funny in itself) and as always they got the GM to book matches they want. HHH whispered in his ear and Ozzy told us Miz would be wrestling "Evan Braun" for the US title and then we found out Randy Orton would face "Kobe Kingston." Didn't take long for some fuck ups. Then we got Cena vs. Show vs. Jericho in the main because this is WWE, land of the triple threat matches. I'm so fucking tired of triple threat matches.
The Miz d. "Evan Braun"
Braun was on offense most of the match. Then he botched a Shooting Star Press, Miz hit his Skull Crushing Finale and it was done after five minutes because Raw's not allowed to have a match with Braun going longer than five minutes.
Sheamus said that after tonight Jamie Noble's career would be over.
Sheamus d. Jamie Noble
This was a vicious beating. I mean Sheamus beat the shit out of Jamie Noble, who is probably not going to be seen for a while after this. The ref ruled a stoppage, then Sheamus beat him up after. I love how the EMTs take forever to help the guy. Good to know they're on the case. This was really well done although I did have some legit fear for Noble when he took that sick powerbomb on the floor. It looked nasty. I haven't seen somebody beat somebody up like that since Quinton "Rampage" Jackson beat the shit out of that door on the Ultimate Fighter last week. I still don't know what I like more between door beatdowns and human beatdowns. It's like when Homer Simpson had to decide whether Barney's movie was better than football in the groin. Tough call. One day I will decide. By the way, this was so vicious that the announcers busted out the SERIOUS VOICES~! as they showed concern for Noble.
Backstage, Kofi talked about how he won't back down from Orton. That's nice to know. I have no problem with the Jamaican accent being dropped. Let him be himself. It's more natural.
The Kofi vs. Orton match stopped after two minutes when Legacy ran down. Ozzy said he knew this was going to happen. Yes, the guy that didn't know the names of two guys on the show after being told their names in his ear knew that there would be a run-in. What a genius. They set up the next match.
Kofi/Kobe Kingston/Johnson and the Black Dudes in Red d. Randy Orton with his Viper Like Stare and the Baby Oil Boy Club
I was hoping they'd mention Kofi grew up in the Boston area since they were close to there, but they didn't do that. It's not like he grew up in Ghana. He moved to America when he was one. Anyway, there was lots of energy here, which is always great to see. Did you hear the crowd reacting? I love that. It's a sign that this well deserved push for Kingston is working. I liked the story of Orton trying to get to Kofi only to get upstaged by Kofi again when he dropkicked Orton just as he was about to hit Henry with the most obvious RKO ever. I actually want to see Henry take that bump. Henry turned around, Cody jumped into his arms and Mark Henry ate him. At least it looked like he took a bite. No, it was just the World's Strongest Slam for the pin. The WSS by the WSM. Post match the focus was on Kingston one-upping Randy once again. Awesome. I like how they're doing this feud so far.
Raw's Got Talent segment
The Osbournes were judging a talent contest while the third judge was The Great Khali, who apparently has a crush on Kelly Osbourne. Or maybe he wants to crush her. I wouldn't complain. He was walking fine after knee surgery. Please don't do the Khali/Kane feud ever again. Please. Santino came out dressed like Ozzy, then ate a head off a bat…man. This was weak. Not one of Santino's classic comedy moments. He couldn't save this bit. Next was Chris Masters doing a pec muscle salute to Crazy Train. Every time a beat hit, his boobs danced. In a weird kind of way this was actually pretty good. "Get that man a bra!" is what Ozzy yelled. I am sure that Vince McMahon thought that segment right there was the greatest thing in the history of wrestling. A muscle dude doing the pec dance. They should send him on the campaign trail with Linda so he can entertain the masses. After that I lost interest. There was Chavo, there was Jillian, there was Sharon shoving Jillian, Khali chopping Chavo and Hornswoggle dressed as Jack Osbourne hitting Chavo with a splash. This was bad comedy all around. This segment was pretty bad although like I said the Masters thing was surprisingly funny.
Next week's host in England is boxer Ricky Hatton. He's obviously known in the UK and is known in the US for being in some big fights most notably against Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio (both losses for Hatton). Apparently he's a legit WWE fan, so that's nice to see.
Alicia Fox won the Divas Battle Royal
This wasn't pretty. Wow, a coveted six person battle royale. The tight shorts and tight tops were pretty, but the match was not. Alicia won. Keep in mind that she was the number one contender to the belt when Mickie was there, she lost clean and now she's the number one contender again. What a "division" this is. Who has an actual wrestler like Gail Kim pissed off to be the first one eliminated in a match where most of them have no business being in the ring. By the way, the two I found the best looking were Eve and Kelly x2. I miss Mickie James-Canton on Raw. I miss Maryse too!
The dumbass announcers tell us Jamie Noble suffered severe neck and back injuries. Gee, ya think?
The best in the world, Chris Jericho, talked to Ozzy and his annoying wife. Jericho told them that when he grew up he wanted to be just like Ozzy. This is mostly true. He grew up wanting to be a rock star and of course he's become somewhat of a rock star with his band Fozzy although obviously he's a better wrestler than he is a rock star. Chris talked about pandering to the fans, then he realized he didn’t need them and he became better than them as well as being better than Ozzy. It ended with Chris walking out while Ozzy asked Sharon who that was. Way to put over your talent, Vince. Way to go.
Backstage, DX had Horny hanging on a nail by his shirt telling him to stop the DX chops. Cena saved him. Hunter said that he beat Cena two weeks ago, HBK said he beat Cena in England two years ago (match of the year 2007) and Cena mentioned he's beat both of them although he didn't say in back to back WrestleMania main events. Then he said, "we beat each other all the time" and they cut to the Bella Twins, who kinda laughed at the handjob reference. All the guys looked flustered. Shawn mentioned DX had the odds in their favor in the match. Why don't they mention how the belt changes hands every PPV so even if Cena does lose at Survivor Series he's just going to get it back the next month? And why don't they mention how PPV buys are so down that changing the belt every fucking month hurts more than it helps? My bad for using logic. Back to the bad comedy. Cena actually ended it by saying he had four words for DX, "the champ is here." I saw a kid do something similar to that once. He was 12. This wasn't a good segment.
Chris Jericho d. John Cena & Big Show
I recommend people watch this match solely for DX at the announcer's desk. It was gold. Holy shit, I laughed so hard. The part about going to break because the voices in their head told them was tremendous. In case you don't know, they're talking about the director telling them it's time for commercial. What I loved during the match was when Shawn mentioned that "there is no end in the fight of John Cena" and that he should be happy about Cena getting beat up. He said it more than once to make a point that he was being told to say it. The other huge highlight for me was all the times they said vintage, making fun of Cole. I dunno about you, but I enjoyed it. It was funny stuff.
The actual match saw Jerishow beat on Cena most of the way, then in typical triple threat fashion they had some issues when it came time to pin and Cena was able to get some offense in. He was just about to hit Jericho with the Attitude Adjustment when Show KNOCKED HIM THE FUCK OUT and Jericho scored the pin. Show wasn't really upset about Jericho pinning him. Post match, they put Cena in the Walls of Jericho, then DX ran in, Show KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT of HBK, who sold it tremendously well and Jericho hit the Codebreaker on HHH. They left the faces lying. I thought Ozzy would come out to say Show vs. Jericho next week or something like that, but it didn't happen.
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Wrestling wise, not a good show. In terms of storylines, it was above average. They furthered a few different things with the Kofi/Randy feud being at the top of my list for things I want to see done well in the future.
I liked Ozzy as host. His random comments made me laugh and he delivered high marks on the unintentional comedy scale. I think the guest hosts screwing things up on a weekly basis has become my favorite thing on Raw every week.
Three Stars of the Show
1. Shawn Michaels - Usually he's in this spot for a stellar match, but this week his commentary gets him in. He had me rolling.
2. Triple H - His comments were very good too. Shawn's were better, though.
3. Kofi Kingston - Another strong week for him. I'm very intrigued by the feud with Orton.
Qua 11 Nov 2009 - 23:25