Category: RAW Bytes

I didn’t watch a whole lot of RAW last night. I caught the opening promo with CM Punk (extra points with the Super Shredder name drop, by the way), and tuned out on the Divas match to play some BPS Tetris and never looked back. Fortunately, the Score replays RAW a couple more times and thus I caught the replay. Honestly, I kinda wished that I hadn’t, because this show was horrible.

Just some quick notes…

– So it turns out that Kevin Nash sent HIMSELF the text message to stick the winner at Summerslam… and then HHH fires him. WHO THE FUCK WRITES THIS SHIT?!

– And even worse, HHH changes the match between him and Punk to a No-Holds-Barred match (after the contract is signed, of course, rendering that piece of business to be a colossal waste of fucking time!!), with the added stipulation that HHH must resign from his COO position if he loses the match, thus telegraphing the obvious result of HHH going over Punk at Night Of Champions and killing whatever good will WWE might have built with CM Punk’s story. Isn’t it bad enough I have to sit through another sleep-inducing HHH borefest? Must I see him kill another guy’s heat to sate his own ego?

– A question to the supposed WWE Universe: What the fuck is wrong with you people? You had a chance to give Coffee Kingston and Evan Bourne a cool tag-team name and you go with AIR BOOM? Are you fucking me, bro?

– Divas match? No thanks… and speaking of which, I don’t care for the Diva Drama taking place online. By the way, insert Bella here, to paraphrase a Simpsons episode from years past; You’ve got no attitude, you’re barely outrageous, and I don’t know what you’re in, but it’s not my face. NEXT!!!!

– Just a stray thought that came to mind and it’s one that has been floating around my brain for the longest time possible, but why did the brainfarts at WWE decide to rechristen Joe Hennig (son of Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig) with the name Michael McGuilicutty? Seriously, I keep thinking that he’s somehow related to Beulah… oh well.

– Okay, I gotta admit. The video package re-introducing Zack Ryder… rather nice job they did with that. The tag-match he was in? Not so much…

– No, Hunter. I don’t want to see your fucking pickle movie! Can’t you see what it did to poor Foolkiller over there?

– Oh goodie, another eight-man tag-team elimination match which features John Cena overcoming the odds (I’m surprised WWE didn’t trademark THAT phrase) and making the heel WWE champion look like a complete and utter tool. With that having been said, it was a rather enjoyable match. Nice variety of talent there… I suppose. Seemed hastily put together, but at the very least, there was a nice bit of wrestling there, so that’s fine.

Seriously, what the fuck happened here? This is like the fucking Nexus all over again! You had a really hot storyline going on, it actually garnered you some media attention, and then you start to fuck it up! Nobody asked you to bring Nash into this, nobody asked you to book him in a match with Punk, only to switch up to HHH. And then before Punk is allowed to even have his chance to get back at Nash, Nash is fired?! What the fuck? Who the fuck wrote this shit? Am I watching fucking Impact all of a sudden?

It’s this kind of “let’s tease change, but just go back to the same shit we usually do” booking that has me hesitant to invest so heavily into any major angle that WWE churns out these days. They manage to reel you in with its “new” and “different” style of storytelling and then they revert to the same old complacent style that they’ve stuck with for years – just ask TNA how well that’s been working for their growth or lack thereof. All the things they could have done to roll with their newfound relevancy and build on that relevancy in hopes of reaching a higher level… and they proceed to do absolutely NOTHING with it. What a heartbreaker.

Maybe I’m assuming too much. Maybe they’ll surprise me at Night Of Champions and Punk will defeat HHH. And then what? That’s the thing. My hopes… such as it is… are not so high right now…

Quick notes:

– So HHH’s new initiative is to disregard any pretense we have a supposed brand expansion and feature talents from both shows on RAW (and presumably vice-versa). So, if anybody was hoping for Zack Ryder to get on television, your hopes may very well have been dashed right then and there… seriously, why are they making a big deal out of all this? They make it sound like it’s never been done before… Geniuses, I tell you.

– Of course, after the sleep-inducing HHH promo that put me to sleep, here comes CM Punk to wake me up again. Then Nash shows up (coming out to nWo music for some reason… at least it’s better than that rubbish theme he got in 2003 that sounds like a cover for his old Diesel theme) and Punk hurls. We supposedly get Nash vs Punk for the PPV, but then that gets cancelled and we’re getting HHH vs Punk instead… Wow, Hunter. What a way to blow your wad…

– Honestly, I don’t know which match I was LEAST looking forward to; the one with flimsy Nash or the one with McSon-In-Law. Let’s be honest here; there’s only one master of making people Go To Sleep and in this regard, it ain’t CM Punk, who’s the master of keeping me awake.

– Here’s a legit surprise on my part; the Randy Orton/Dolph Ziggler match was actually enjoyable and gosh darn it, it was even a GOOD match. Pretty clear that Orton benefited from his feud with Christian and Ziggler’s no slouch either. Good match, gents. I enjoyed it.

– John Cena appeared on my TV, so I used this opportunity to take a dump. Quite a long one, too. Unfortunately, I missed the CM Punk/Miz match, which ended with Nash powerbombing Punk for a match that isn’t happening. Genius.

The rest of the show was rather meh, in all honesty. All the luster of watching another Sin Cara botchfest (even if it’s another guy under the mask) has been lost on me, I’m not really feeling this Air Boom tag team (maybe if they called themselves Team Coffee or something), and I tuned out during the Divas match, as usual.

When I tuned back, they were showing boobies. No, seriously. There were boobies. It turns out someone at The Score (the Canadian sports station that airs WWE programming) jumped the gun and started showing the next episode of that Kenny Powers show before realizing they fucked up and tuned back to the sleep-inducing main event tag match. It was towards the tail end of the show where they made the switch from Nash vs Punk to HHH vs Punk… Whatever.

By the way, tonight is SUPER SMACKDOWN for the SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM! I guess I might post some thoughts on tonight’s show… or something.

Hell of a birthday present, by the way. The follow-up to one of the biggest bullshit moves you could pull off where you have a hot new champion and you job him to a cash-in after getting ambushed by KEVIN FUCKING NASH… and the show is just a thing that happened. Believe me, “a thing that happened” is perhaps the best direction WWE could go for on a sports-entertainment program taking place on my date of birth.

Continue reading “RAW (Aug. 15th, 2011) – BREAKING NEWS! Kevin Nash didn’t tear a quad walking to the ring!”

The show opens with the traditional sleep-inducing HHH promo, who declares himself as the special referee for the upcoming WWE Title match between CM Punk (who is still YOUR reigning WWE Champion) and John Cena (who’s the fake champion). And there goes any potential interest I may have in this rematch… but wait, what about the contract signing?

Punk and Cena traded some barbs, Punk accidentally hits Johnny Ace, there’s a bit of a spat. Show ends.

Other than that… eh, not much of a show that kept my interest. I did enjoy Beth Phoenix winning a No. 1 contenders match and absolutely mauling Kelly Kelly. That was fun… I’m not expecting her to win or anything, but hey, it would be nice, eh?

A few points about RAW:

– The opening interaction between CM Punk and Triple H? Nicely done, nice exchange of words, and for once, both guys came out of it on equal footing; a rare thing involving HHH and a newcomer to the main event scene.

– The Divas Battle…. snore. Oh yeah, Beth Phoenix won, which means there’s going to be a semi-interesting Divas title match down the line, but I still don’t care for the Divas division.

– I enjoyed the tag match between Rey/Morrison and Miz/Truth. It was a pretty solid match that didn’t put me to sleep and for the most part, I was happy with it. I am remotely interested in what comes of the Miz/Truth team-up, since both had a good promo in the back.

– Zack Ryder had a match! He lost, but… he had a match!

– John Cena wins the online poll? Bullshit, I smell me a rigging.

– Johnny Ace should never, ever be given a microphone again.

– So HHH’s decision regarding the controversy is to have a match between the two for the title… not a ladder match or a cage match, but a regular match with the ominous “there must be a winner” stipulation. So much for that push, Punk.

Overall, a fairly paint-by-numbers RAW, but one that had its enjoyable moments. And for all of my cynicism regarding the Punk/Cena storyline, I am getting some enjoyment out of it, so there’s that. Not a bad show, actually.

…and John Cena is “champ” again… and Rey Mysterio is a chump… again…

Well…

That lasted all of a week… really week…

On the bright side, Zack Ryder was on TV.

Aside from that… weak… really weak…

Don’t get me wrong; the last few minutes felt like a great moment… but they blew their load early on this one…

In the meantime, listen to Daniel Bryan Danielson bury people…

THE GOOD:
– CM Punk did not show up and do the job.
– Rey vs Miz for (fake) WWE Title is postponed for next week
– Vince inadvertently says WWF… Quick! Call the Pandas!!
– HHH is apparently the new boss (guess nobody at the board got the memo about Sin Cara)

THE BAD:
– A one-night tournament? Seriously… and on top of that, it was weak
– Zack Ryder isn’t in the tournament
– Divas Match = Piss Break
– John Cena is not fired
– Vince is relieved or something…
– No more awesome CM Punk promos…
– The show ended with two grown men crying…

Wow, that hot angle fizzled, didn’t it?

Despite the many tweets from CM Punk letting the world know that he was going to watch the Cubs win tonigh, people were hoping that he MIGHT show up on RAW. Instead, what we got was a show that was deflated and… really paled in comparison to the past couple weeks worth of television. Honestly, I was damn near BORED TO TEARS. That wasn’t the case last week… and I’d like to think that wouldn’t have been the case at the PPV, given the praise it has gotten due to the “right people” winning.

It’s just too bad that they couldn’t follow up that great feud with something that could keep viewer’s interest… look, I’m sort of glad they’re going with this tournament thing instead of having CM Punk do the job and ruin this thing… and some of the wrestling was alright (hey, it’s mostly wrestling… for once)… but I look at the brackets and I’m like, “Who gives a shit?”

You’ve got Dolph Ziggler, former World Champion for all of five minutes.

You’ve got Rey Mysterio, former two-time World Heavyweight Champion… and both times, he was made to look like one of the most ineffectual and weakest champions that ever existed.

You’ve got the Miz, former WWE Champion who spent most of his reign feuding with the 60+ year old Jerry Lawler and playing second-fiddle to a Rock-Cena confrontation at Mania 27.

You’ve got Jack Swagger, former World Heavyweight Champion… but most likely remembered for playing second fiddle to Michael Fucking Cole.

You’ve got R-Truth, insane former rapper obssessed with lil’ Jimmy… does anyone remember when he was NWA World Heavyweight Champion less than a decade ago? Didn’t think so.

You’ve got Alberto Del Rio, the current Money In The Bank winner… no way he’s going to win this tournament. He’ll probably cash in on the winner. Not to mention every time he tried to achieve destiny, he tends to drop the ball.

You’ve got Kofi Kingston, former IC and US champion… probably deserves the top spot if only for a short time… but probably not going to get it anytime soon…

And then there’s Alex Riley… a guy who’s most likely NOT to be champion.

You want to know the last tournament I saw that I was even remotely interested in? Survivor Series 1998, the Deadly Games tournament. There were a couple favorites, sure, but there were just as many potential winners as there were challengers. Here? There’s probably two or three guys who might get a shot… and then it’s all irrelevant because there’s a guy with a free title shot cash in. So what?

I think, in retrospect, the reason I wasn’t thrilled with the tournament and just uninterested is because it was simply out of the blue. The timing, I find, was awkward. The Deadly Games tournament was announced ahead of time… it was on PPV, but there was a build-up to that tournament. Even the Wrestlemania IV WWF Title Tourney had a nice grace period and build-up before the PPV… Here? It’s just out of the blue and it feels really tossed together. Hey, I’m glad there’s a bit of wrestling… and on second viewing, some of the matches are alright, but at the same time… this is following one of the best PPVs in recent memory and for RAW to turn out the way it did… well, it was lacking.

(Another reason I could care less about this tournament – wait for it – is because the “WWE Championship” under contention here is not the real deal. It’s just going to be a matter of time before either CM Punk comes back or somebody swipes the title from him… that’s assuming he’s still champion, but judging from the pictures  he took at the Cubs game, we can safely say that he took care of Piston Honda just fine.)

And the fact that we’re avoiding the Cena firing (for the best, since it didn’t work out the last time he was ‘fired’) and instead dumping Vince because he wants to fire Cena…yeah, because the Kiss My Ass club and hitting on employees half his age are “sane business decisions.”

For fuck’s sake, this is like really bad fanfiction written by a 3-year-old Cena fan.

Overall, they had a chance to follow up this hot angle with something big… and they BOMBED. The show was alright, but as a follow up to what was essentially a money feud, it was a lot less than it needed to be.

P.S. HHH taking over as kayfabe boss? Not a big deal… only time I would consider it a big deal is if it were real. Thus far, no indication has been made that this is the case… and no, Syxx-Pac’s word does not count.

P.P.S. CM Punk’s Twitter was/is more entertaining than this show… sorry to say.

Been a while since I did one of these… of course, last night was one of those THREE-HOUR Raw deals (with another one coming NEXT Monday) and this was an All-Stars themed edition (complete with footage from the video game of the same name) which meant some old timers showed up… unfortunately, the only old timers of note were Stone Cold and Roddy Piper… who THANKFULLY kept his shirt when he wrestled a match with the Miz.

So here are some thoughts and highlights in no particular order

– So, it’s RAW. It’s from Long Island… and no Zack Ryder. Are you shitting me? The guy is on a roll with his Internet show and getting lots of steam with his show… and you don’t showcase him in front of his home crowd? Are you shitting me? What kind of stupid shit is this? Seriously, bro.

– This is what sucks about Awesome Kong/Kharma taking maternity leave for a year; we’re stuck watching the crummy Diva matches. On the bright side, however, it frees up time for a piss break.

– Stone Cold announces a three-hour RAW for next week and it’s apparently another one of those Viewers’ Choice deals… because that went SO well last year. And on top of that, Stone Cold pours beer over the GM laptop and runs over it with his ATV… yes, ladies and gentlemen, Stone Cold Steve Austin went from stunning Vince McMahon to destroying a computer with beer and an All-Terrain Vehicle… I wonder what Edge is thinking right now…

– I liked the interaction between Austin and CM Punk. Wasn’t much, but it was exactly what I expected… somewhat. I read that the live crowd got to see Austin give Punk a stunner after an attempt at a “Diet Pepsi Bash.” Would have been nice to see that unfold, but whatever.

– Randy Orton ejected from the arena… he’ll go to the papers if he has to…

– Hooray! John Morrison is back… oh wait, no he’s not. He’s unconscious… again. This was a waste of time that could have benefited someone else… someone from Long Island, perhaps? Maybe?

– Punk beat Cena! PUNK WINS! PUNK WINS! PUNK WINS! Doesn’t win the title, but WHO CARES? CENA LOST!

And that’s it. No love for Zack Ryder… or Little Jimmy.

So we open up RAW with Alberto del Rio coming into the ring and cutting a nice promo. Then Rey Mysterio shows up and cuts his usual promo.  Then Miz shows up and cuts his crybaby promo. Then R-Truth shows up and yaps incoherently as I try to decipher what he’s trying to say. The point is that the Raw GM chimes and books a triple threat match between ADR, Rey Mysterio, and Miz… and with R-Truth spazzing because he got hosed again. He leave and the other three fights.

Continue reading “RAW (May 9th, 2011) – “Meh” thoughts on a “Meh” RAW”