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The show started with MVP hosting the VIP Lounge with Mark Henry sipping on some Kool-Aid in one of those chairs. I love how they act like this is a regular show even though it happens maybe every three months. Note that the crowd is into MVP a lot. Will that mean a singles push? Nah, of course not. He goes to introduce Al, but out comes Jerishow. They took turns kissing Al Sharpton's ass before bringing him out with Jericho saying his name quickly just as MVP was saying. Jericho's comedic timing is impeccable. Al comes out, he gets booed and he acknowledges it by saying, "tough crowd." MVP asked him to book them in a title match against Jerishow and he actually said the Jerishow name. Good. It's catching on. Al, looking confused, handed it over to Jericho. Chris went into his rant ripping the fans using the big words that reminds me of Bob Backlund's heel run (look at those hands). Al asked the crowd if they wanted a title match, they cheered and that meant it was on right now.
Chris Jericho & Big Show d. Mark Henry & MVP
I can't remember the last time they gave a tag team match 19 minutes on TV. Even on Smackdown they don't get that long. That's pleasing to me. Even though they are still lacking true teams in WWE, you can't deny that Jericho & Show have done wonders for those once worthless belts. Whoever beats them for the belts are going to be elevated just by scoring a win over such a dominant team. Of course watch it be DX. The match was the usual between these four. The faces worked over MVP for much of it, then they of course went to the floor for the commercial and they worked on Mr. Kool-Aid a bit too. I'm a huge fan of the Big Show tackling Mark Henry. It looks great visually. The other power spots are okay, but the tackle (or spear) clearly works the best. I love how MVP is shocked every time he hits the elbow after the Ballin' spot and he doesn't score the pin. It's like, "come on ref, I've never won with this move before. Let me win with it now!" Um, no. I still don't like the Playmaker finisher. We never got to see it since the big dudes fell out to the floor (literally) and Jericho finished MVP off with an awesome looking Codebreaker for the win. I'm not going to complain about matches on Raw getting time very often, but in this case it might have been too long.
Backstage, Primo welcomed Al to Raw. Did he ask for a match? No, that would be crazy. He just stood there while Chavo chased Hornswoggle around. Then Chavo introduced his partner, Chris Masters. Way to rehire a guy and never use him. Not that I'm complaining. Santino came in to try to save the segment. He thought Al was Don King, which was pretty funny. We would have a tag match later on and Primo appeared again to tell Sharpton that things were "loco" on Raw. That means crazy. I got some other words for it.
Orton did a promo. Said Cena will be in a struggle later in the night. You'd think that, wouldn't you? This was an okay promo. Still feels like they feed Orton some bad lines to say. It doesn't come off as natural as you'd like from a top heel all the time.
Mickie James d. Rosa Mendes
This was brutal. My poor girl Mickie. I need to console them…I mean her…after this one. I feel a rant coming on. Rosa was awful, proving again that she should not be wrestling on live television. Look, I know she's beautiful and I have no problem with her standing outside the ring with Carlito, but in ring she looks as lost as anybody I've ever seen on WWE TV. She was out of place for a few of Mickie's moves when Mickie was throwing clotheslines, she didn't even know how to bump for a Thesz Press properly (that awkward "mauling" as Cole called it) and her only offense were some shoulderblocks in the corner that didn't look good either. Making all of it worse was Michael Cole yelling "What a match!" when it was over. Um, yeah, what an awful match. Stop putting Rosa in matches for her sake, for the sake of the other women that might get hurt and for our sake as viewers. Why not give Jillian a role that actually allows her to have serious matches rather than putting inexperienced people in there? I don't get it. By the way, absolutely no mention of Beth Phoenix inexcusably beating Mickie in a minute on last week's show, which was incredibly rushed. Mickie vs. Alicia Fox on Sunday. Alicia is carrying the hopes of all the wedding planners that became wrestlers. She's an inspiration to them all. Yes, I know I've used that joke before. I will continue to use it and beat it into the ground.
Ted Dibiase with two healthy looking ears and Cody Rhodes came out to the ring to talk. They said nobody expects them to beat DX, but that they were going to win. Then they cued up a video package because nothing says badass like getting the production team to show a video. They put over HHH as a "surefire first ballot future Hall of Famer." Hey, just like Randy Savage! Oh wait, they have ballots and the Hall of Fame is a joke. My bad. Then Cody put over HBK as the greatest performer in the ring, which I tend to agree with. DX interrupted them up in a skybox with Michaels yelling, "Boring." Hunter called them assholes by saying they're like butts, but like the center part. Wow, so creative. I'm sure Michael Cole was told to think that was the greatest joke ever. They got into saying they're like the Incredible Hulk in that once they become the monster they're unstoppable. DX came down to the ring, Ted and Cody bailed and we had another standoff with no contact. I liked most of it. Some of the DX jokes were bad and the Incredible Hulk thing didn't really work, but I like that they didn't have a predictable brawl. I'll be very surprised if DX doesn't win on Sunday. I think the story of Hell in a Cell will be the unraveling of the Legacy trio.
Jack Swagger d. Evan Bourne
Bourne has moved in the world from beating the guy that loses to the midget all the time to…jobbing in three minutes. What a waste of talent. I like Swagger, so I'm not mad about him winning. I just wish they did something with Bourne, who has basically been useless on Raw for his entire time on the show. The fans are into the guy, but the booking team clearly isn't. What a shame. After Swagger won, Miz came out claiming he'd be US champ. They argued about it. As Swagger and Miz fought, Kofi came down to get his belt back, which Swagger had stolen. I guess the message here is it's not stealing if it's yours. Triple threat match at the PPV with Kofi defending against Miz and Swagger.
Chris Masters & Chavo Guerrero d. Santino & Hornswoggle
It was a comedy match that only gets 1/4* because of Santino's Three Stooges like offense. That was hilarious. Masters got the win when he put Santino in the Masterlock. Santino trying to fight out of it with fury and strength only to collapse was great. I love that man. Masters grabbed Horny, the announcers kicked in their SERIOUS VOICES~! and Chris put the leprechaun in the Masterlock. Chavo was stunned. Instead of helping Masters, he decked him with a punch. Then we walked out of the ring staring at his hands. Hey, another Bob Backlund reference! The feud of the year could have a twist. Oh, the intrigue.
Orton talked strategy with Jerishow backstage. Or maybe Orton just stared. You never know with him.
Next week's guest host: Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers with his offensive line. I like Ben. Good guy that has a foundation he wants to plug. I wonder how many fans outside of North America know who he is? They've been screwed by these guest hosts. Guys like Barker, Sharpton and now Roethlisberger aren't really known worldwide.
Al's last backstage segment happened next with Jillian singing to him. He told her politely to get lost. She is in my top five list of people in WWE that should be used better. I don't have an official list, but she's in it. Then the Bellas, who are supposedly on ECW if that even matters, got him to sing "I Feel Good" by James Brown because he was his tour manager back in the day. He said goodnight as I said thanks for saying goodnight. Have to love how they mocked things for being stupid on WCW when they plugged that DVD and then they have segments like this.
I'm looking forward to the Smackdown 10th anniversary show this week. I hope Edge is there. I also hope that when they talk about the history of the show they don't omit guys like Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar just because they're not in WWE anymore. It will also be very cool to see The Rock have a video message. Love that guy.
Gauntlet Match: John Cena vs. Chris Jericho, Big Show and Randy Orton
What's the point of reviewing the ten minutes of a beating that Cena took from Jericho and Big Show when none of it mattered in the long run? They each got DQ'd on purpose, putting him in their deadly submission holds. Then it was immediately forgotten. Orton walked out with the pace of a 90 year old man. He made the Undertaker look like Usain Bolt compared to him. How does that make sense? Cena got beat up for ten minutes, so Orton walks out there slowly? Yeah, what a viper. What's the stupidest animal there is? A donkey? That's Orton's new nickname, the Donkey. Cena signaled for the cage to be lowered. He held Orton to prevent him from escaping. Yes folks, the twisted heel that wasn't in a match is trying to run away from the guy that got beat up for ten minutes. Why why why? The cage got lowered, Orton ran out the door and instead of going up the aisle he ran up the cage because they have a PPV to promote. They fought up top. If Orton hit the RKO to end the show I'd have forgotten about Cena no selling everything. Instead, Cena hit the Attitude Adjustment (remember Orton was not in any kind of match) on the top of the cell, which gladly did not break. Hey look, John Cena looking strong. Not exactly a new concept.
Rant time. I don't understand the point of booking Cena so strong all the time. He beat Orton clean at Breaking Point, took his title and then after getting beating up for ten minutes it was as if nothing happened. He looked stronger than Orton, who was fresh, when they had their confrontation. His back wasn't sore from being in the Walls of Jericho and his neck wasn't hurting from being in the Colossal Clutch. They had no effect. He climbed the cell with ease. He picked Orton up and dropped him with the Attitude Adjustment on the cell as if he was fresh as a daisy. Why do they expect fans to shell out $50 (or however much it costs) to see him beat up Orton again when we see it every single week while Orton, the supposed dangerous Viper, looks like a tool week after week. The only explanation is maybe they will have Orton win on Sunday to end the feud once and for all, but I really doubt that. Why move the belt over to Cena for a three week reign? That's pointless. Booking Cena like this all the time hurts more than it helps.
Cena's winning on Sunday and like I said earlier I think Hell in a Cell will be the start of the Legacy group breaking up with Ted going off on his own within a month or two.
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It's hard to like the show when the booking of the finish left such a bad taste in my mouth. I like Cena. It's nothing against him. It's just that if you book a babyface to be this strong ALL THE TIME it's hard for people to get behind the guy, ya know? I understand the Cena haters calling him "Super Cena" or "Hulk Cena." I mean, hell, I hated Hogan as a kid for the same reason. Fans in their late teens, their twenties and up are going to hate the guy that wins all the time even when he gets beat on by three guys. Why should we root for Cena when he's always coming out on top? He doesn't need us. That's what the fans think. It's the stupidest possible way to book a babyface.
I think it's great that Al Sharpton wants to help educate the youth of America. It really is. As a guest host, though, let's just say he wasn't somebody that was going to captivate the WWE audience. I understand it's about the message and WWE likes to promote themselves to kids, but people are going to remember the fans booing the guy when he first came out rather than his message.
The highlight of the show was the opening and the tag match. It wasn't great, however, so it was hard for me to give the show a high mark just for one match. I didn't dislike the DX/Legacy thing. It was smart not to book either side having the advantage. I strongly dislike seeing Evan Bourne being booked as enhancement talent (that's the politically correct way of saying jobber) and the performance by Rosa looked worse than most indy matches you will see.
There was nothing on this show that made me want to see Hell in a Cell more than I did before I watched this edition of Raw. The problem is it all comes off as very predictable to the point that most fans, including me, don't want to pay money to support the "good guys" because they always seem to have the advantage.
Lazy booking from top to bottom. That's the product of having too many PPVs and not enough top guys to sell those PPVs because not enough people are getting elevated.
Three Stars of the Show
1. Chris Jericho - Works two shows every week, saves promos, worked two matches on this night. What a talent.
2. Big Show - Ditto. I haven't enjoyed watching Big Show this much since the Mayweather feud.
3. Santino - He really does save a lot of the bad comedy segments. His in-ring offense was hilarious too.
Qui 15 Out 2009 - 21:18