Category: Wrestling Television Musings

Having been bored with what has happened on RAW (not to mention it was past my bedtime), I left the show to tape overnight and had just finished watching the rest of it. Final thoughts is that for a show building towards a PPV, it was rather lackluster and from a purely entertainment standpoint, I maintain my earlier “dry paint” statement. Ironic that they’d use that as a joke when it says so much about the show right now. But like I said, the PPV is shaping up to be a fairly decent card.

High Points: A bunch of Scots slapping the crap out of each other never seems to get old. Also, Jeff Hardy, no longer content with covering himself with paint, now has to cover other people with paint. Still doesn’t make it any more fun but it’s cute. Only decent match was the Trish/Mickie match…

Low Points: The main event sucked. Let’s not kid ourselves here: there’s nothing historical about McMahon wrestling in MSG since it’s not THAT big a deal. Certainly, Hunter tried to get something watchable out of Vince, but it ain’t happening.

Other than that, not much happened on the show that stood out. There were a couple decent matches buried within a couple crappy matches, but nothing that stands and says memorable. So if you missed the show, you didn’t miss much.

So yeah… I’m watching RAW right now and… good god, this show sucks.

Let’s have the so-called hardcore match that was heavily hyped feature 80% promo and 20% lame beatdown. BRILLIANT IDEA!

Let’s have Foley turning heel by having him and Edge beat on Tommy Dreamer, a guy who, other than a PPV last year, hasn’t wrestled a full-time schedule since 2002. BRILLIANT IDEA!

Let’s have a 5-on-2 handicap main event match with absolutely nothing happening. BRILLIANT IDEA!

On top of that, let’s NOT mention Joey Styles, who gave such a great promo last week that for one brief second, I almost thought I was watching another wrestling program instead of the usual sports-entertainment drivel that I’ve being widely ignoring. BRILLIANT IDEA!

I mean, come on, guys. You’re not even applying the usual half-assed effort here. And bringing back Jim Ross isn’t doing much for me. There is nothing remotely appealing or good about tonight’s broadcast and that’s sad because of the hype jobs you’ve been doing for a couple matches that could have been great masterpieces but ended up being lame TV matches nobody gives a shit about.

Not exactly an encouraging notion for me to watch the shows now that I’m home in the evenings.

On the bright side, I got some story done and slipped in a movie review. All of these items will see the light of day soon enough. But for now, I’m calling it a night because I’m tired and have to go to work [study].

Now there’s a BRILLIANT IDEA right there! Better get to it so the ratings might go up.

Later.

So last night, I watch RAW and I see Joey Styles tells it like it is. For those who missed it, here’s a transcript courtesy of SLAM! Sports:

“You want to apologize? Like nothing happened. Like you didn’t knock me on my ass in front of millions of people worldwide, and I’m gonna come down there and work with you. I’m not coming back, and now thanks to the magic of live television I’m gonna show the whole world, why for seven years in ECW I was the unscripted, uncensored, loose cannon of commentary.

“Six months ago, WWE called me, I didn’t call this company because I was looking for a job. I didn’t need a job. WWE called me because they had humiliated and fired… again, Jim Ross. So I get JR’s spot, and from week one, week after week I’ve got an ongoing lecture about the differences in professional wrestling and sports entertainment. I’m not allowed to say ‘pro wrestling’, I’m not allowed to say ‘wrestler’. I have to say ‘sports entertainment’ and refer to the wrestlers as ‘superstars’. I’m told to deliberately ignore the moves and the holds during the matches so I can tell stories. Well ignoring the moves and the holds is damn insulting to the athletes, the ‘wrestlers’, not the entertainers who leave their families three hundred days a year to ply their craft in that ring.

“Here’s the best part, because I’m not a sports entertainment storyteller I get pulled from Wrestlemania, and the reason I’m given is, is because I don’t sound like Jim Ross who’s the guy they fired in the first place. That makes sense, right?

“So I swallow the bitter pill, I’m a company guy. I get bumped from Wrestlemania. Then I get bumped from Backlash? I’m not good enough to call Backlash!? In ECW, I called live pay-per-views on my own, solo, no color commentators dragging me down. Wasn’t done before me, hasn’t been done since. But I’m not good enough to call Backlash because I’m not a sports entertainment storyteller.

“Well you know what? I am sick of sports entertainment. I am sick of male cheerleaders. I am sick of boogers and bathroom humor and semen and I am sick of our chairman, who likes to talk about his own semen, he mocks God… he mocks God!!!!! And makes out with the divas all to feed his own insatiable ego. I am sick of sports entertainment, and most of all I am sick of you fans who actually buy into that crap! This sports entertainment circus! I never needed this job, and I don’t want this job anymore. I quit!”

And so we return you to your regularly scheduled bingo hall life.

Later.

So yeah, the recent episode of RAW has left me offended. No, it’s not due to the Photoshop pictures of McMahon in famous religious works of art (although to be honest, I don’t think they’re trying anymore). Nor is it the starting up of his own religion (which will last for a few weeks when people realize there won’t be a martyr involved to legitimize the whole thing – nice try, Vince, but if your bodybuilding fed and your football league went down the crapper, a new religion isn’t going to be any more successful.) So what offended me on RAW?

The cheap pyro-effects… because if God doesn’t give you a sign, you make one up. Unfortunately, the effects used were so un-God like. If you really wanted God-like effects, I would dare you to blow up the ring (not shoot a few bolts and have it collapse… I mean have it really EXPLODE!). But you won’t do that and for that… well, actually, that’d be really, really stupid. So good on the sane folks who opted not to do this.

Besides that piece of business… gee, I don’t know. That’s probably the only thing that was noteworthy about that last RAW. It’s not a terrible show or anything, but really nothing that memorable… which would make it a bad show, right?

Right?

Okay, I did my completely random rant of the morning.

 

2026 Note
Retroactively labelling this as a RAW Byte entry, despite the fact that it has little to do with RAW.

And so after months of… whatever the fuck you want to call what we were watching on WWF television since June, this stupid Invasion angle finally came to an end, with the WWF team vanquishing the WCW/ECW Alliance team at Survivor Series, where the fate of both entities was determined by the remaining captains of both teams, The Rock (representing WWF) and Stone Cold Steve Austin (representing the Alliance.)

Both were contracted WWF wrestlers. Austin is the biggest draw in WWF history outside of, maybe, Hogan in his heydays. All the non-WWF guys were eliminated early so that the spotlight would stay on the WWF guys who had been there forever. This whole Invasion thing was a farce and I’m just happy that it’s over and done with.

So what happens the next night on RAW?

Jerry Lawler makes his return to the commentary table and dejects Paul Heyman. I guess he got over the Kat or whatever… I don’t know. I don’t care to know. All I know is that I’m going to miss Paul E. on commentary, but JR and the King back together ain’t a bad deal, either.

And then later that night in the main event segment, who should appear to great Vince McMahon in the ring but the one and only Nature Boy himself, Ric Flair… who was last seen jobbing to Sting on the final Nitro all the way back in March.

Oh, and Flair is apparently half-owner of the WWF with Vince because he bought Shane and Stephanie’s shares. Flair waited until this whole Invasion shit was done to finally appear on WWF television. I guess I can’t blame the guy. If I were Flair and I had seen how guys like Booker T or DDP were being portrayed on television during that debacle, I wouldn’t want anything to do with that shit, either. That was the right call on his part.

Still, though, I don’t know when the deal with Flair went through. So if they signed him recently, then fine. But if they’ve been sitting on him for months while they nuked this Invasion thing to oblivion…

Remember, the common reason given for WWF not signing all the big WCW names like Goldberg, Sting, Hogan, or the like (according to those in the know… or not, who even knows with this shit?) was to not disrupt the pay scale and the locker room culture. I would like to think that some of those guys were happy getting free money from Time Warner while their contracts were still running than go for a release to appear on WWF TV and be booked like absolute jokes.

After all, Vince needs members for his new club.

Anyway, that’s the end of the Invasion. Good riddance to all that. I’m wondering why you’d want to keep the Big Gold, though. That’s a WCW thing…

Oh well…