Category: Wrestling Television Musings

So yeah… John Cena’s off my TV this week due to an injury. That’s the best belated Christmas gift I’ve ever got. Unfortunately, he might return next week to sell more merch. Because that’s all the fucker could sell.

Other RAW thoughts:

– So the whole story is that Wade Barrett has been usurped from Nexus by new arrival CM Punk. Does this mean Barrett goes away for a while or is this the beginning of a face turn of some kind? I’m probably reading too much into this, because Nexus’ relevance died in 2010 and I have very little faith that CM Punk’s inclusion into the group is going to revive it. Yeah, CM Punk is a solid talent and a great talker, but even he can’t save Nexus from being a footnote.

– The Miz retains his WWE title in a match against John Morrison, defeating his former partner in an pretty awesome match (Did I say it was okay? I was stupid). Strange that a title match would open the card, but whatever… Watching the match again, I have to tip my hat off both guys for opening up with a phenomenal match. This should have been the main event – this was good enough to close out the show – but instead we’ve got a lethargic cage match between Orton, Sheamus, and Wade Barrett… that Orton won.

– So anyone willing to fork money over for the Royal Rumble will get yet another Miz/Randy Orton main event. Some people might get upset over this because Orton’s been in one too many title matches (last one he had was LAST MONTH), but as long as it’s not John Cena in the title match, I’m very happy either way. That fucker needs to go away and get new material.

– Nice job by the tag-team champions. Those will really boost the credibility of those titles… wait, Santino and Koslov are still the champions? Never mind.

– Alberto Del Rio defeated R-Truth in the only real sour spot of the night. It wasn’t a bad match per se, but nothing that kept me from fast-forwarding.

– So they’re bringing back Tough Enough, huh? Hopefully they’ll play it straight and make good use of whoever wins the competition… oh, who am I kidding? This is going to be a complete waste of time. I have very little faith in these people’s ability to run a credible show.

– Why do the Bella Twins still have jobs? And where’s Daniel Bryan Danielson? I want a good wrestling match to my wrestling show, not more plastic.

But, yeah this was actually a good show. A rare one that included a lot of wrestling. John Cena should suffer more injuries more often if it means giving the WWE Universe quality sports-entertainment programs such as this one. Top-notch effort.

I initially stated that I hadn’t caught the TLC PPV live… well, that’s a bit of a fib, isn’t it?

You can check out my quick TLC thoughts if you’d like, but after seeing John Cena’s attempt to murder Wade Barrett and subsequently bury him both figuratively and literally, it was nice to see CM Punk return the favor tonight on RAW. If someone had to do it, it may as well be Punk because that guy is awesome.

Yeah, that’s right, Mizzles. Punk is awesome and you’re not. What Punk did to Cena was awesome. Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, we have not awesome in the form of the Miz – your reigning WWE World Heavyweight Champion, by the way – getting pinned by a 60-year-old man and then I’m supposed to take this guy seriously as a top draw? Isn’t the World Champion supposed to be someone with some level of credibility? The guy is a total tool. He makes JBL seem like Hulk Hogan in comparison… never thought I’d see the day where I’d be complimentary towards either JBL or Hogan.

(Though to be fair, JBL is a better talker and color commentator than he was an active wrestler, so I’ll give him that much.)

Oh, and Michael Coleslaw?  Jerry Lawler earning a victory with an assist from Randy Orton is less cringe-inducing than the Miz retaining his WWE title in a later match with an assist from a scrawny little commentator, you fucking moron. No matter how hard you try, you will never be as good as The Coach.

So, I guess with the apparent killing of Wade Barrett, does that mean Nexus is over and done with? If that’s the case, then it’s probably for the best that this failed experiment was buried in a dozen folding chairs with very little fanfare and circumstance. I guess I have to update that funeral video, don’t I?

Dug the William Regal/Daniel Bryan match – great stuff.  I also dug the match Bryan had with Dolph Ziggler on RAW a couple months back. Can’t say the same for the match Dolph had with John Cena. In fact, the only good thing was the aforementioned returning of the favor by CM Punk.

That’s all I got. The show wasn’t really anything special save for the Punk attack. I’d expect things to pick up steam now that Cena is done burying rookies for a change.

So… um, yeah. A rare night off means I got to watch RAW live… and I wasn’t too particularly impressed. In fact, the show didn’t really hold my interest for the interim and I ended up playing Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game for Playstation. I did catch most of it, so I guess I’ll drop a couple quick thoughts;

– In what was probably the smart thing that was done, the tension between Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler was quickly resolved with an RKO on Cole, thus preventing things from going back to the way they were as if nothing ever happened. Of course, I fully expect that to happen next week, but at least they didn’t jump the gun THIS WEEK.

– Speaking of gun jumping, John Cena is rehired next week. Of course, you wouldn’t know that he was fired because they still play his music during . Also, nobody arrested him for assault and property damage… because ticket-holders are allowed to do that sort of thing. Gee, I did not know that.

– Santino Marella and Vladimir Koslov are YOUR new WWE Tag-Team Champions after John Cena (who’s fired, remember) interfered in a bleh match… although to be honesty, I only saw the tail end of this match. (My game was done, anyway).

– Not enough Daniel Bryan… and why do the Bella Twins still have jobs?

Maybe I’ll watch the replay later on, see if I missed anything… but man, this show was bad. Really bad.

In a rare occurrence, I did catch the three-hour RAW replay and the King of the Ring tournament. And it was alright. Just a couple quick thoughts:

– Sheamus is king. Good for him, he deserved it. In fact, I didn’t think anyone was more qualified to win this tournament than the Celtic Warrior… or do we call him the Celtic King now?

– The main event between Miz and Lawler… good stuff. Props to the King who looked great and was able to keep up with the younger Miz. However, I didn’t like that Miz needed Michael Cole’s help in retaining his title. That wasn’t awesome, man. Other than that, a solid main event with an end result you saw coming, but at least it was entertaining.

– On a related note, nice work on the Lawler video montage. WWE production crews do some nice work with these things.

– Remember when Shawn Michaels retired and gave that heartfelt speech early in 2010? Remember not seeing him ever again on WWE TV (for the foreseeable future) outside of montages? Yeah, somebody better send that tape to John Cena, because being FIRED means YOU DON’T SHOW UP. ASSHOLE. (Sorry, Ken.)

That’s about it, really.

Wasn’t able to catch the full show (although I did managed to catch up by watching the rest of it on YouTube), but for the most part, I thought the show was a nice concept. The show itself wasn’t all that special, but the whole attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a 1980s WWF show (old sets, old ring set-ups, Wrestling Challenge-esque interview boxes during matches, old ref shirts with little bowties, MEAN GENE OKERLUND, HOWARD FINKEL, JIM ROSS) gave it a nice little atmosphere and overall, I enjoyed the show more on that merit than on the content itself. I’d be open to another one if they decide to go for it… it’s certainly better than a lot of their other 3-hour RAWs.

Some random thoughts that might or might not be related to the actual content of the show:

– Feels totally weird to see all the original WWF block logos all over the place but they can’t actually MENTION the initials or even the old name unless they want to be bitchslapped by the pandas again. Would have been nice if they’d gone the whole way and reverted to the old name, but at least they didn’t use the butchered WWE Legends logo that appears on merchandise. (2015 Update: Subsequent “old-school” themed shows would use said WWE Legends logo and feel even more half-assed than this initial effort.)

– Hey, why isn’t Jerry Lawler wearing the old cape he had really early on? And what’s with the bland beige jackets? What about the canary blue jackets?

– Nice to see Daniel Bryan and Jack Swagger have a great match with enough time to do their thing. Also nice to see Jim Ross call a match one more time… even if Coleslaw had to ruin it.

That’s all I can really say. Show was okay, but I just like to look at the old-school set-pieces.

Some quick thoughts and pointers:

– Awesome, awesome match between Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler, a rematch from the Bragging Rights PPV that nobody saw. Apparently, they had another match on Smackdown and therefore, I must see that. In fact, I would probably order every PPV if they featured a match between these two. Excellent stuff.

– Miz beats R-Truth in a pretty watchable match. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it was still a nice piece of wrestling, so I can’t complain, really.

– So one day after Otunga and Cena win the tag titles, they drop the belts to Justin Gabriel and the guy who looks like Wendy… by laying down. And so we continue to watch WWE treat their tag titles like a baby treats its diapers. Also, a rematch between Barrett and Orton for the WWE Title is booked for Survivor Series, with Cena appointed the special referee. The additional stipulation pretty much guarantees a Barrett title win, but the real question is whether Miz will cash in.

– Sheamus jobs to Santino Marella… yeah, that’s right. Sheamus jobs to Santino Marella… what, did he piss off Triple H or something?

– Someone please shoot LayCool… now.

That’s all. Overall, a rather solid showing for RAW. I’m impressed.

From a pretty solid PPV to… THIS shit. Some quick notes:

– So John Cena joins the Nexus by wearing the Nexus armband (but still gets to keep his merch – bullshit) and must follow Wade Barrett’s orders or else he is FIRED. So what we have here is another Million Dollar Man/Virgil storyline. Oh yeah, Barrett’s the number one contender after winning some battle royale – so Barrett’s  facing Randy Orton at the next PPV.

– By the way, this is probably a good time to mention that John Cena is the absolute WORST actor this side of Hulk Hogan… oh wait, I’m sorry. Hogan tends to show SOME acting ability… not a whole LOT, but SOME. I can’t say the same for Cena. Seriously, he can’t convey emotion. He just stands there like a fucking idiot staring at this armband while having this really morose look on his face. And when he’s reading this statement… he’s supposed to be sad, but he doesn’t sound sad. He sounds monotone. He sounds lifeless. He sounds he doesn’t care.

– Edge is traded to Smackdown, much to his relief since he’s tired of all the stupid from the Raw GM and Michael Cole, who apparently personified stupidity since 1997. Line of the night here: “I would rather listen to a tape recorded J.R. than a live Michael Cole.”

– Speaking of stupidity, way to bury your United States Champion there, gents. Not only by having Sheamus beat the crap out of him without a shed of offense, but also with the nameplate dangling off the title belt. Jesus Christ, does anyone take into account this signs of stupidity here? For fuck’s sake, man!

– So Goldust was the one sending messages to Ted Dibiase’s Million Dollar Championship that means nothing. Mauro Ranallo said it best on Right After Wrestling: Do YOU care about Goldust in 2010?

Yeah, I don’t either…

QUICK SIDE-NOTE: As you can probably tell, I’m doing these RAW Bytes on Wednesdays as opposed to Monday or Tuesday. Reason being that because I’m now presently working (in the evening) and I tend to catch the replay that airs later on.

A quick note before we begin: I currently have a couple new videos up on YouTube at the moment (a game review and a random video) and I’ll be posting those here soon enough when I get the chance. And now back to our show.

Apparently, there have been conflicting reports as to what the rating for this episode was. Some say it was 2.7, others say it was 2.38 (which would make it the lowest-rated RAW in recent memory – the last time the show saw a number like that was in October 1997). In either case, I think not a whole lot of people were watching because the show was generally crap. By the way, did you know there was a PPV this Sunday? You’d never know that because very little effort was made to push for the PPV.

Quick points… and not a whole lot.

– Awesome promo by Chris Jericho, listing off all the wrestlers he beat. As for the match, it was alright. Nice way for Jericho to go out and tour with Fozzy for a bit.

– Edge beats up a computer… chances are he moves to Smackdown and if that’s the case… what a sad way to go out.

Eh… that’s it.

Presently got an evening gig, so no more live viewings of RAW. I’d stay up late to digest what I can, but sometimes it’s just not worth the bother. But in any case, here are some thoughts I had:

– So the match is made between Randy Orton & Sheamus for the WWE Championship at the PPV in two weeks. No mention of whether this will take place in Hell In A Cell (the cage, not the show… God, this is stupid.)

– From wikipedia.com:

“The Ride of the Valkyries (German: Walkürenritt or Ritt der Walküren) is the popular term for the beginning of Act III of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas by Richard Wagner that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen. The main theme of the ride, the leitmotif labelled Walkürenritt was first written down by the composer on 23 July 1851. The preliminary draft for the Ride was composed in 1854 as part of the composition of the entire opera which was fully orchestrated by the end of the first quarter of 1856. Together with the Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin, the Ride of the Valkyries is one of Wagner’s best-known pieces.”

How dare Cole not know his classic music? Especially a piece which has been used in countless movies and shows, one of them NOT being Star Wars? Moron.

– Of course, Daniel Bryan Danielson is made to look like a punk. Obviously, no one is going to take this guy seriously if he keeps getting punked like that.

– So after several months of seeing what started as an awesome angle wither into a dead one, the Nexus will formally be buried in two weeks… yeah, as if you actually expect Cena to LOSE. Perish the thought.

That’s all I got at the moment. Will post a follow-up later or tomorrow.

This was a weird show – advertising it as RAW Roulette, but only feature the Roulette in a couple moments at most. We got wrestling matches tonight… wrestling on a wrestling show? You jest.

Continue reading “RAW (Sept. 13th, 2010) – RAW Roulette… with 75% less roulette”