Raw- I was pretty underwhelmed by this week's episode, even keeping in my pretty low standards for Raw over the last few years. Given that the biggest surprise of the week was Bob Holly's triumphant (well, in theory) return to Raw to be surly with Dusty Rhodes' younger, thinner kid, that only makes sense.
Other random musings, in bullet point format:
- I noticed Booker's still in the opening video. I'm not sure if that means anything, but maybe they're giving him time to change his mind. Or maybe the rumors that he's quitting were crap. Who knows? It turned out that way with Flair, and it would be a shame to lose the King Booker character, and a potentially good color commentator once he does finally hangs up his boots, so I hope the WWE tries to convince him to change his mind if he is planning on quitting.
- Speaking of Booker, I remember him jobbing every time they went back to Houston. Candice got to be the latest person to lose in their hometown. I can live with it, because they need to make Phoenix look like a nigh-unbeatable challenger if they're going to keep having them feud and Candice had around a two month winning streak when they elevated to the belt, but it still makes me wonder why they do that so often in general. Is it supposed to put heat on the heel? It was interesting when they had Cena Edge trade title match wins in each others' home towns in consecutive PPV main events last year, but it rarely ever works out like that.
- As an aside, doesn't that mixed tag sound like a pitch for a wacky sitcom, back when they made wacky sitcoms? "What happens when a dayglo haired daredevil, a former Playboy playmate, a really athletic mama's boy, and whatever the heel a glamazon is share a house together?" I would watch that. Then again, I watch Heat.
- All that said, at least Candice or Booker have never had the massive fuck you (or at least that's what I read in to it) that Kennedy recieved recently in his hometown.
- Poor Carlito; I guess. This is probably as high up the card as he's going to get at this point, and while they haven't made much of an attempt to present him as a threat to HHH during this apparently blow off feud, he still seems to be in better standing with the company than he was after talking shit about creative because they couldn't be bothered to give him more than a dark match at 'Mania and being put on job duty for a few months.
- As wrong headed as it seems to transition from Carlito to Vince as far as in ring feuds goes, the Vince/HHH match next week is just setting up an Umaga beat down, I bet, although given the way Hunter's been booked since his comeback, I wouldn't be surprised if he just squashes the portly fellow again, lest he let anyone look good or get over at his expense. You'd think that the massive beating he recieved before going on suspension, and the fact that they haven't built up the match at all, would mean that Umaga would get some heat back on him, but I wouldn't rule out Hunter pedigreeing him and forcing him to compose a sonnet in his honor between now and No Mercy, either.
- Hornswoggle can make matches now? I guess it makes sense, keeping in mind that Shane, Stephanie, and Linda used to do the same thing when the only decent storyline reason was that they were related to Vince.
- Speaking of the little fella, I hope they do more skits with him and Melina in the future. Her uber-bitchy character interacting with the rabid little bastard could lead to some amusing skits, like the ones a heel Trish Stratus had with Viscera when they were teamed up for like a week.
- I totally called the Highlanders turning heel in my Heat recap! Okay, all I said was that Rory was playing a good heel, but still; it's nice to see something from Heat carry over to Raw, especially if I'm going to be watching the former now. A three way tag match between these guys would be a nice change of pace, even it would probably take a Herculean effort from Londrick to make it anything but a train wreck.
ECW is too short to merit bullet points, but there's some stuff I feel like talking about anyway. The three way was surprisingly good considering the fact that we've seen different combinations of these three guys fight roughly 16,000 times in the last year. This still wound up being a good match, and it's nice to see them using the hour format for a good long match lately; I hope they keep it up. I also hope that Tommy Dreamer's bandanna keeps falling off. For some reason, his growing bald spot amuses me to no end. Given the paring they've set up for next week
After the three way, we got two matches made for the fast forward. I feel bad that Nunzio is stuck on Smackdown jobbing to Mike Fucking Knox when he could be working in the newly resurgent Cruiserweight division, although at least it won't take any effort for him to switch between the two shows if he's fortunate enough to get the chance. The Miz rating a generic local worker jobber for a squash is kind of puzzling, although at least they didn't make Stevie Richards do it (although the guy who did the job did seem to be borrowing his hair, circa 1995). The only noteworthy thing about the continuing Balls Loves Kelly storyline, other than Balls's frightening purple bicycle shorts, was that Miz smacked him in the head with the microphone. I never get tired of that. What's really shocking is that two of the best built feuds in recent memory are between this group of misfit toys and Boogeyman and Viscera. I'm not saying that they led to good matches or anything, but they were allowed to build in a reasonable manner and, at least in the case of Vis/Boogey, had satisfying blow off matches. Hopefully they can pay this one off well. The main event was good, solid stuff. They kept it simple, which played to Striker's strengths in the ring; he always impressed me with how smoothly he did the basic stuff when he was first starting out in the WWE, before they decided to make him Dean Douglas for the new milennium and he gradually became more of a mouth piece and less of a wrestler. They told a story pretty well in there, and at least they went with an unconventional body part to do it with; you don't see a lot of people working over the hand, although the fact that most of Punk's offense involves kicks, it didn't make a lot of sense in the long run. That said, this match did its job well, elevating Striker as a worker bit by virtue of how long he kept Punk down, while still putting Punk over strong in the end; that's all you can ask for, really. I wasn't thrilled about Viscera getting in the beatdown to end the show, but you had to expect that, and if it leads to Punk being the first guy to get a win over Mabel since he took his shirt off, I can live with it. If Vis gets an ECW title push, it will also officially make ECW the fat guy recclamation show, given the fact that it was also the place where Big Show went from being a middling mid carder to a dominant main event heel in his final main event push before putting over Bobby Lashley and leaving the WWE for... I'm not sure what, exactly, other than subbing for Jerry Lawler in Memphis in his fight with everyone's favorite VH1 reality TV star. Nah, I'm just kidding; it was Hulk Hogan, not Flava Flav. Now Show vs. Flav? That's a match that could draw. Anyway, if nothing else, it could set a precedent for big fat guys main eventing that would lead to more Joe vs. Punk, should Joe's reluctance to renew his contract with TNA mean that he wants to jump to WWE in a year's time, which I think we could all be happy with. Even if they give him a stupid gimmick. I'm betting on him being Umaga's cross dressing cousin, Umargo, myself.
When I start talking about dream matches with washed up, but verile, '80s rap stars and Samao Joe dressing like a woman, it's time to call it a day. I'll try to come up with something besides show recaps next time I post, but since I bought Halo 3, don't bet on it.
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