Category: Wrestling Television Musings

WWE.com would like to extend condolences to the family of Rey Mysterio for their recent loss. Meanwhile, DTM would like to extend condolences to anyone who actually bought that.

John Cena and Batista, one week after winning gold they didn’t need, lost it back to the other guys… then got into a fight. What a buildup to a bigtime match.

CM Punk (the World champ, you know) loses a drinking contest to JBL by tossing whiskey in Bradshaw’s face. Not very sporting.

WWE got honored by some award group. Considering what else is on these days, it’s a worthy choice… that WAS sarcasm.

Meh…

Some quick notes:

– Looks like Mike Adamle is going to be one of those paper GMs with no personality whatsoever. Man, I have never seen anyone bore me faster than this guy… even Triple H seems exciting in comparison.

– Please fire Layla. Nothing against the girl, but if all she does is dance (badly) and be a MacGuffin for Jamie Noble to do stupid stuff, then it’s time to dump her. And poor Regal is stuck in the middle of this mess.

– So we now have a Summerslam World Title match and it’s a match we’ve already seen on free TV. Seriously, what was the point?

– Cena and Batista are the new World Tag Team champions. Further proof that WWE simply does not care about their tag titles. Absolutely painful to watch… almost as bad as watching Cena be WWE champion.

Well, that was well worth sleeping early.

Shane and Stephanie plea one last time for order to be maintained or else actions will be taken. Oh God, don’t tell me you’re bringing Triple H back to RAW. The show’s actually starting to get good.

(2011 Update: Why is that whenever the idea of HHH coming back is entertained in some fashion, I automatically assume the show is going suck as a result? It can’t be a coincidence.)

Actually, I don’t have much to comment on. I had a really bad case of indigestion last night that prevented me from paying full attention to the show, but at least the show wasn’t boring. I don’t like Punk’s chances of walking out of GAB as champion, though.

Another attempt at making Kane an interesting character… yeah, this is going to go over well. Let’s face it: Kane was at his best when he was wearing a mask. Now he’s like a second-rate Undertaker.

Finally, John Cena gets run over by a car. If only this were to lead to a nine-month leave of absence like it did that other fellow…

Overall, decent RAW. Not amazing, but still decent.

What was that thing people keep saying? Nothing ever happens during a WWE Draft?

Epic stuff going on, as this draft seemed to have made some actual hard changes.

Continue reading “RAW (June 23rd, 2008) – Draft Thoughts And… Yeah.”

Not so much to note on for last night’s RAW because I didn’t see everything. And the reason I didn’t see everything is because I was busy playing Mega Man X. You know, the original game for SNES. Before the Mega Man games started to SUCK.

But I digress. Let’s get to the three segments of RAW I did watch (the latter half mostly).

– Ken Kennedy defeated General Manager King William Regal The Third to fire Regal in what I thought was a perfectly good match. Mind you, it wasn’t one of their best matches, but it wasn’t boring and it certainly wasn’t filled with much silliness (except for that bit towards the end there).

– The Piper’s Pit segment hosted by Santino was fairly decent. I like Santino because he’s funny. What I don’t like is Santino being involved with a match with Jimmy Kimmel’s Cousin Sal. Who the fuck is Cousin Sal? (Sorry, I don’t watch that much Jimmy Kimmel).

– Randy Orton and JBL defeat HHH and John Cena to decide the stipulations for their respective One Night Stand rematches. Okay, how many times do we have to get hammered with Orton/HHH bouts on PPV? It’s bad enough we had to put up with it in 2004/2005, but enough is enough already. Those matches sucked ass then and they suck ass now. There isn’t anything they could do that we haven’t seen before. As for Cena/JBL, nothing they do will top their Judgment Day 2005 I Quit match in my mind… in fact, nothing Cena’s done since then has been able to top that.

That’s it for me.

The main event between Shawn Michaels and Jeff Hardy was actually pretty good – it’s almost make wonder if I’d pay money for this had it been on PPV. As much as I want Jeff to get the big one that he truly deserves, it’s probably not going to happen. After all, we know who’s winning that match and that’s the guy with the three Hs… who hasn’t been on TV for the past couple weeks.

I don’t know – seems pretty stupid to give the win to a guy who hasn’t been on TV for two weeks – regardless of their reasons – simply because it’s in the books, but this is WWE we’re talking about. Their booking plans make almost as much sense as TNA’s.

Other than that, nothing particularly special happened. Vince had his match with Hornswoggle and booked a rematch in a steel cage. Yeah, that’s going to bring in ratings.

Last night, WWE made the leap to high-definition filming for all their programming, with RAW being the first show of this new technological advance. Great for some people who have HD televisions, noteworthy for those who don’t… but otherwise, I can’t comment on the quality of the video since I still have an old TV and the differences are negligible.

Now, the show on the other hand… heh. That’s another story.

Continue reading “RAW (Jan. 21, 2008) – Now In Pretentious HD”

Three hours of RAW and… something to show for it. While the overall show was generally better quality than what usually goes on RAW, it’s still a pretty forgettable show. However, it’s eons better than the RAW X “awards” show, which was nothing remotely special. Some quick notes on the show:

– McMahon family portrait. It was nice to see a bunch of older folks like Sunny, Godfather, Patterson… Bastion Booger and his son… uh, never mind. The more pleasant faces were tolerable.

– Ladder match was fairly good. I did get the feeling that it was safer than others (not sure how to explain it, but it felt really standard and nothing daring – just like a regular WWE show these days), but still watchable.

– RVD beats Santino with an educated foot and a four-and-a-half-star frog splash (he didn’t get hurt, so it’s only four-and-a-half stars). Short, useless match, but it’s good to see RVD and it’s nice to see that JR didn’t forget that he was a former WWE champion.

– Evolution reunion. Meh. Leads into a six-man tag-team bout which doesn’t really do much for me, but it’s a solid match nonetheless.

– Hornswoggle vs. Khali Round 2… or at least it would have been if it weren’t for the debut of a new superstar… Hulk Hogan. No comment, next.

– The “anniversary” battle royal… which is a nicer way of saying “Gimmick Match” featuring familiar faces such as Al Snow, Scotty Too Snotty, IRS, and… hey, they got Pete Gas! And Steve Blackman! And Gillberg! And who wins this match? Ted Dibiase, who buys out the match. Sweet.

– Kennedy vs. Jannetty. Okay match. Nothing special.

– And finally, Vince gets his ass kicked by Mankind, ‘Taker, and Stone Cold for naming himself the greatest RAW superstar. Stone Cold then declares the fans as the greatest superstars. I’m sure those fans are still waiting for their paycheques.

Meh. Okay show.

By the way, there’s a PPV this Sunday.

RAW at MSG – the show was admittingly better than last week and this bastard child angle is actually getting a few chuckles with Vince’s indiscretions. Some quick notes:

– Stephanie McMahon speaks… okay, I take back what I said about this show being better than last week.

– So they’re pushing Randy Orton as the next big threat by showing promo videos of all the legends he killed in the past few months. Yeah, I would feel threatened by a guy who’s making a career out of giving bloated legends past their primes a shitty little knee to the head. But I digress. At least they’re pushing Orton to be the next monster heel and hopefully he’ll end Cena’s reign of terror (at this point, I’ll side with just about ANYBODY!)

– Poor William Regal. Got the General Manager job and the only notable thing he’s doing is hosting rip-offs of game shows to advance a “love trapizoid” between Super Santino, Stupid Maria, Ron Simmons, and a piece of cheese. Fortunately, these are pretty fun so far and anything that involves the Iron Shiek should always be gold.

– So it’s been announced that Booker T will face Triple H at Summerslam. Because apparently, Booker hasn’t buried one too many times by the man of three Hs. It’s almost looking to be the umpteenth coming of the Ultimate Warrior and Booker T is assuming Hunter’s role of being McSon-In-Law’s bitch for ninety seconds or less.

That’s all I got. All in all, a pretty solid show that was at least better than what we got last week.

So after RAW’s glitchy abysmal rating, Mr. McMahon strikes back by announcing that he did fake his death… to hide any evidence of his rejuvinative powers. So what happens? William Regal wins a battle royal to become RAW General Manager. Well, it took them a year and a half, but RAW finally has a general manager.

Carlito’s Cabana becomes Cena’s Cabana. Holy Crap, this is a good reason why Cena doesn’t have a Cabana.

The Dating Game with Jim Duggans, Ron Simmons, and Santino… ugh.

Kennedy bored the shit out of me. And really… when the best promo guy on the show bores the shit out of you, it’s time to rethink your show.

Last week’s RAW may have scored a somewhat low rating, but at least it was a fairly watchable show. This one just reeks of crap. I’d rather watch No Holds Barred and Suburban Commando back to back to watch the rest of this putrid pile of vomit! If this is their answer to turn things around… well, keep trying guys.

Cue Ron Simmons.

DAMN!