So last night, WWE introduced their three-hour Viewers’ Choice RAW. And I’d have to say that that should have been a warning that nothing interesting or remotely good was going to happen. Some of you might recall this experiment having been done before in the form of the brief Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday series of Pay-Per-Views… yeah, they actually charged money for the same concept that was given away for free. Morons.
Whatever…
Big Show beats Chris Jericho in a Bodyslam challenge… and also a Submission Match… and also an Over The Top Rope Challenge match… so he satisfies all three choices.
Hart Dynasty beats the Viewers’ Choice tag-team of the Great Khali and Hornswoggle. Other choices were the Usos (the new Samoan team that showed up a couple weeks ago) and some team that busts dudes or something. This is lame.
Apparently, someone stole Lawler’s crown and he’s hired the cast of the A-Team movie to help find it… Why, yes. They are in character. Why do you ask?
Vladomir Kozlov beats Santino Marella in a dance-off. You had a regular match, arm wrestling match, and a dance-off and you pick THE DUMBEST of the three choices? Are you fucking shitting me? Good God this show sucks so far!
Maryse wins a 12-diva battle royal that I don’t care about. Other choices include 6-Diva tag match and a Champion vs Champion match that I don’t care about. Yeah, I took a piss break and saw the tale end during this match. Blow me.
Kane runs into Sheamus and accuses him of taking out Undertaker, but Sheamus denies this. By the way, the choices of who Sheamus gets to fight are MVP, Mark Henry, and Kane. Gee, I wonder who’s going to be chosen.
Sheamus beats Kane by countout. Gee, what a shock.
Wade something something, some kid from NXT won it or something. I don’t know, I don’t care. Just give me Daniel Bryan Danielson pissing off Michael Cole some more and I’m fucking happy.
More crap with the A-Team. Apparently, Lawler didn’t pay his taxes or something. Good fucking lord this show sucks.
Miz and Zack Ryder (partner chosen by fans) beat R-Truth and John Morrison (partner chosen by fans). An okay match, but nothing special really.
Randy Orton beat Edge via DQ in a one-armed ass-kicking match. Meh. Edge retaliates with a few well-placed chair shots. Someone took a page out of the Bret Hart 2010 playbook. NEXT!
Matt Hardy (chosen opponent over two guys who don’t matter) defeats Drew McIntyre in a match that would matter if I regularly watch Smackdown. Actually, I kinda wished I DID watch Smackdown rather than this tripe.
Roddy Piper has issues with “Rampage” Jackson because he looks like Mr. T and Piper don’t like Mr. T. Let me guess – the Night-Elf Mohawk screwed him over in World of Warcraft, didn’t it? Fortunately, old-timers Dusty Rhodes, Mean Gene Okerlund, and the other “A-Team” cast member save the day. Yes, two old WWE guys and an actor saves a UFC fighter from more WWE guys… What does that tell you about the UFC when one of their real fighters can’t even take on a bunch of fake rasslers? Who wants to bet that Dana White just shat his pants?
Oh yeah, Lawler got his crown back… wimp.
John Cena and CM Punk (chosen opponent over Jack Swagger and Rey-Rey) wrestle to a no-contest when a bunch of NXT guys destroy everything… I guess they thought the show sucked too.
This show sucked… every single bit of it sucked…
Except for the ending.
That ending… kicked ass.
Didn’t take long for someone to upload the ending (give it a watch and see for yourself while it’s up) and I left the following comment:
“Pure fucking genius. The ending was pure fucking genius that more than made up for an atrocious 2 1/2 hours of crap filled with lame dance-offs and stupid skits. For the first time in YEARS, I can say that I’m actually interested in a WWE story and I’m looking forward to where they go with the whole NXT rebellion deal. Seeing Cena getting the crap beaten out of him sweetens the deal for me. Excellent ending.”
Waking up this morning, I decided to re-watch that last portion again and a few random thoughts came to mind:
I’ve mentioned that the ending more than made up for the 2 1/2 hours of drivel that comprised RAW. Someone mentioned that the show was purposely bad so that the audience might be caught off-guard when it eventually does happen. While it didn’t have the same effect on me – the show aired an hour later in Canada and I skimmed through the results to see if it was worth continuing – it did pique my interest tremendously and I’m really looking forward to where they go with this.
More to the point; everything with that ending clicked. It wasn’t just “Let’s beat up John Cena and show ’em how bad-ass we are.” Just about everything is laid to waste. Not just the superstars, but also the ringside crew, the ring is taken apart, announce table’s destroyed, chairs are tossed around, the works. It’s a very stark, very different turn that you would expect from a WWE show. And to see all the former rookies gangbang Cena in spectacular fashion sweetens the deal. In fact, the only guy who seemed to escape unscathed is Michael Cole. That’s going to be an interesting little scenario if they play their cards right.
And that’s the whole deal. I really want this thing to go off without a hitch and there’s that nagging feeling that somehow, someway, WWE will fuck this up. But for once, I’m willing to put that feeling side and give these guys a benefit of a doubt. For the first time in a long time, I actually care about what’s going to happen in a wrestling show as opposed to having a passing interest in the day’s angles. For the first time in a long time, I anxiously await the next chapter in this story they’re telling. And there are questions in my mind that I’d like to see answered; “What kind of statement was made in that invasion? Where was the rest of the locker room during this invasion? What will happen next?”
Give some props to Cena – for all the complaints people have had against him for acting like an invincible Superman (and that includes me) and being a terrible salesman, he played the role of the helpless victim perfectly. He didn’t overcome the odds, he didn’t get up and walk back to the ring unscathed. He didn’t look like he was getting a beating from eight guys. It looked like he was damn-near getting MURDERED and laid there forever to the point where they had to stretcher the guy out of the ring… I take points away for the shitty thumbs-up, but whatever.
Another random person called the most well-designed work ever conceived in years. And I have to agree wholeheartedly. The whole thing was pulled off wonderfully well. It was different, it seemed fresh, and perhaps most of all, IT FELT REAL. And there’s always that belief in which if you were able to blur the line between FACT and FICTION, you would have a goldmine.
This is that goldmine.
Please don’t ruin it.
Later.
dtm666 