I have a lot of thoughts and musings on a show that may or may not deserve them, the first being that the place was still standing room only by the time I got there (half an hour before the show), despite the fact that Cena wasn't on the show, which surprised the hell out of me. Whenever I watch a Pay Per View, I go to the local Buffalo Wild Wings, and I usually will not find a table if I get there later than an hour before the show, so it wasn't a total surprise, but I did expect a slightly smaller crowd with Cena on the shelf. We'll see if the crowds dissipate more once it's really sunk in that he really be out for awhile and it's not a work. Given the popularity of Rey Mysterio down here (I live in South Texas or, more accurately, Northern Mexico), maybe Cena's not the biggest draw for my area. There were certainly a lot of Rey shirts in the audience, and even a couple masks (making me sort of wish I'd worn one of mine). Anyway, here's my stream of consciousness review of what I remember of the show, which is going to be even less thorough than my usual reviews, because I was unable to pause the show when I was preoccupied (or, in other words, on the toilet; why do I keep eating those damn wings?). Opening segment- I was playing a Golden Tee machine in the somewhat meager arcade, so I have two observations: one, I would sure be annoyed if I paid $40 to open the show with Vince talking; two, I really suck at Golden Tee. I was like Jean Van de Velde on a few holes. Anyway, as annoying as it was to get a Raw opening segment on a PPV, I can see the need for it, especially given what was to come. It's also mildly annoying to see they're keeping the spinner belt (although it was hilarious to see traditional wrestling nerd HHH wearing it later on), but I imagine that it's probably a bigger merchandise item for them, and if nothing else, Orton could probably destroy it tonight for some decent heat and a way to signify that Cena's run is over and he's the top dog now. I was always kind of hoping HHH would break it with a sledgehammer, but that seems more like a heel thing to do. One big observation I have to acknowledge how over HHH is as a face. I'm not particularly fond of him in this role, even if he's funnier now than I found him during the DX Reunion last year; the only thing that kept me from hating their comedy segments was Shawn playing the straight man, and all the bits where they had to write around his being a Born Again Christian. But the crowd was definitely in to him, reacting well to his verbal sparring with Vince and popping pretty huge for his title win. They did a pretty good job putting some sympathy heat on him; as tedious as "the rebellious baby face vs. evil owner" storyline is, especially did it last year, it's probably the only way they can build to a title chase for him.
The opening title match was solid; about what you'd expect in an impromptu match between Young Randal and his future boss. If nothing else, it was a nice change of pace to see a WWE title match in the opening slot; it helped throw everyone off a bit, which they really ought to try and do more of; that kind of thing is what made the Monday Night Wars era wrestling so exciting; there was a sense of the unpredictable. Having HHH win was also a nice surprise; I kept expecting an Umaga or Vince run in.
The six man tag was nice filler, and as a big mark for them, it's always nice to see London and Kendrick get on PPV. That was tempered a little by the fact that they basically said that Shelton's been shuffled back down the card again, but you had to expect that. Hopefully we can still get a ladder match between he and Hardy someday. Kennedy taking his spot makes a decent amount of sense. As much as I enjoy watching Shelton, Kennedy's much more over, and at this point, he probably ought to be feuding over the IC title; while his botched main event pushes were missed chances to make a new star, given the fact that he's still only serviceable in the ring and hasn't even logged a full year on the road yet, it's probably for the best that he hone his craft in the midcard for a while. Besides, he and Hardy had a shockingly good match on Raw a few months back, before they started trading suspensions, so I wouldn't mind seeing more of that.
CM Punk vs. Viscera was bullshit. Not much else I can say. Absolute crap. I mean, by all means, let's keep Vis strong. It's not like he's been proven to be a total bomb in a main event push before or anything. It makes total sense for him to beat the crap out of Punk, because he needs the rub. He's surely the future of the business. I mean, for fuck's sake! Couldn't they have at least thrown Punk a bone and let him win with a role up or something? In his hometown? Or let the match go on a little longer before Viscera squashed him? Seriously, if this is a ploy to make everybody want John Morrison (as an aside, spell check suggested replacing Morrison with moron; no lie) back and accept him as a main eventer, then it's working. Maybe it's leading Punk's first big win that doesn't involve a steroid suspension, but given the fact that they're dead set on making the former jobber in silk pajamas look like an unstoppable monster, forgive me if I am not looking forward to the road that leads us there. I don't want to come across like an overly precious ROH fan who freaks out every time one of their heroes jobs, but seriously; Punk is one of the best performers they have and may be the best of his generation. Viscera has grotesquely large moobs and used to wear what resembled a garbage bag. I guess I can kind of see how, due to how lame he's been over the years, he needs this monster push to be considered a serious threat to the title; I just wonder why Viscera has to be considered a serious threat to the title. I mean, and I can't believe we're at this point, but what about Kevin Thorne? At least he'd be a different flavor of failed monster heel, in that he might actually get over and be effective for years to come. But no, by all means, let's build an entire show around the fat black guy.
And then there was the MVP/Hardy segment; I've liked this feud and all, but when the pay off to a segment is undigested pizza ... well, at least we got to see Maria. And it did fill up the requisite amount of time. It would have been nice to see, you know, a match, on this wrestling show, especially since they had all week to plan for Cena's absence, and the card was pretty thin anyway, but I guess it was vitally important that they not spoil that MVP 2.0/Kanertaker match on free TV on the show people paid money for. That sort of reminds me of WCW promoting their house shows over the Clash of the Champions when Mick Foley worked there.
I've been interrupted roughly 17 times in the process of writing this, so I'll just jump around at this point:I was in the bathroom for the first quarter of Khali/Dave, in the middle of an epic bowel movement. Normally, that would seem a great segue, but this wasn't as bad as I expected. Maybe it was diminished expectations (I think I went in to a coma during their Summer Slam match, so this had to be better), maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, but I thought this was solid; even if it did turn in to a climbing contest, which amuses me, because I remember Mike Tenay giving WWE unending shit during that XXX/AMW match of the year about how all of their cage matches were, and that's exactly what this was. The lack of rope swinging was also a bit of a downer, since that was the only joke I could make about the original. Dave's leap was still pretty cool, even if it ranked pretty low on the Shelton Benjamin scale of impressive jumping. Of course, Dave has a big gold belt and is one of the top stars in the company, and all Shelton has is lame gold hair and just lost his spot to a guy who is only proficient at saying his name, so I guess we know who's coming out ahead on that one. Hopefully they finally have the Khali main event stuff out of their system, although he's probably going to be involved in the Cyber Sunday title match in some capacity.
Rey/Finlay was as good as I expected, as they jelled really well and Rey looked great out there, hitting his spots crisply. However, I have to go on the record right now that I despise the ending they use here. If I never see another match where a heel fakes an injury, everyone acts like its real (complete with somber commentary), only for the heel to pop up again, it will be too soon. That dragged down what was an otherwise entertaining match. This one really had no excuse to go this way; couldn't they have given Finlay heat by, you know, letting him win the match through elicit means? He has a big wooden plot device for that, for God's sake!
Umaga/HHH was another solid, unspectacular match. Given what happened on Raw and the fact that HHH's not among the choices in the Cyber Sunday main event announced on WWE.com today, I imagine we'll see more of this pairing. It also creates an interesting bit of Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday trivia around Shawn Michaels, since he's been in the title match every time he's been in the running, and I doubt his streak will be broken this year. Although if anyone could galvanize the voting, it's Jeff Hardy and his messianic sway over prepubescent girls of all ages; they need someone to get behind now that Cena's on the shelf, and he's just the androgynous daredevil to do it. But anyway, HHH and Umaga should have a lot of time to put on something special in the next few months (provided they don't ship Umaga over to Smackdown to be Undertaker's bitch like they were planning), and this was perfectly good in its own right, even if it was an angle advancement match on a PPV.
Candice vs. Beth Phoenix, or the match only I cared about; it was solid, again, and played to the same forumla Trish and Jazz used years ago. That said, as much as I like Candice, she still has a long way to go before she can actually compare to Trish; those kicks she was throwing were not terribly sharp, and while she's certainly enthusiastic and has improved immensely from where she was. Hopefully she'll be able to further improve from here, but unlike Trish, she doesn't have a great roster of female talent (of Finlay) to help hone her skills. The same thing can be said for Phoenix; she's not as polished as Jazz or Victoria were when they played similar roles, although she can probably be a solid champion doing this whole powerhouse routine for a while, given that most of the rest of the Divas are still just really enthusiastic underwear models. It will be interesting to see how the apparently imminent debut of Natty Neidhart will shake things up. Well, for the five of us who give a crap about the Divas, that is.
The main event wound up being pretty compelling stuff, I thought. The Last Man Standing gimmick played in to that a lot, as did HHH's two previous matches, but I thought they did a good job with the false finishes; the match could have credibly ended 3 or 4 times. While people usually equate an out of nowhere finisher as a baby face thing (since DDP built up the Diamond Cutter that way), but I think Orton could get a lot of heel heat by being on the brink of defeat but hitting a fluke RKO out of nowhere and crawling away with the belt, which is pretty much what he did here.
I thought this was a solid show. Which is really a nice way of saying mediocre. Other than Wrestlemania, that's pretty much all I expect (or ever get) out of a WWE PPV these days. That said, I liked the fact that they made the title situation in to a self contained storyline that ran through the whole PPV. While I (and the crowd, given the Y2J chants during that first segment) would have preferred to have seen Jericho at some point, I can live with the fact that they're trying to make HHH in to a sympathetic babyface, since he's most likely going to fill that role for a long time. Iain Burnside came up with a nice way of doing the same thing WWE did in a slightly more exciting fashion, but I wasn't displeased with what they did. As much as I can understand his reasoning for moving Shawn's return up a night, I like the fact that, for once, a big comeback was a genuine surprise (if I believed that the second hand Meltzer/Alvarez rumors had much bearing on the audience, I'd almost think this story was a plant to throw people off. But I don't). While they didn't really do anything to shake up the status quo or make a new star, I'm fine with the direction they're taking on Raw right now. Of course, we'll see how I feel once we've had a month of HHH, underdog babyface against evil authority figure Vince McMahon and his hand picked champion Randy Orton; with a storyline that fresh, surely I will remain happy with the product! But hey, Shawn's back, and he's even sporting something that looks like it's from the Stalker's wardrobe, so we can at least expect some better than average matches from him. And maybe he'll start integrating some hunting in to the equation.
I'd recap Raw and ECW, but really, all you need to know is that Shawn Michaels came back and kicked Randy Orton in the face. Sure, that excludes all of ECW, but trust me, that is all you need to know.
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