Welcome to the “why has Raw gotten so boring?” edition of The Wrestling List. Has the “guest host” gimmick taken too much attention of the show and left little to the rest of it or is it just boring overall?
Tonight’s Raw was the last Raw before this Sunday’s PPV. The guest host was Rev. Al Sharpton. I just thought tonight’s Raw was dull overall. It is just the same stuff every week with a different guest host. The show opened this week with the VIP Lounge with MVP and Mark Henry. MVP went to announce Sharpton but instead got Jericho and Big Show. Jericho and MVP argued over bigger ways to introduce Sharpton. Al Sharpton was introduced to the crowd. He promoted his education tour and then MVP laid down a challenge for Jericho and Big Show. Jericho mentioned how they had a match already and then had the tag title match on Sunday so they didn’t want it. Sharpton asked the fans if they wanted a tag title match tonight and of course there were big cheers. So, he made the match and it was underway. Jericho and Big Show defending the tag titles against MVP and Mark Henry. The match went for about twenty minutes. Some impressive power spots in the match involving Show against Henry. Show’s distraction led to a codebreaker by Jericho to get the win on MVP to retain the tag team titles. The main event of the night was the gauntlet match with John Cena taking on Jericho, Show, and Randy Orton. Cena faced Jericho first. Jericho hooked the walls and Cena got to the ropes. Jericho wouldn’t let go of the hold and the ref called for the DQ. Lawler put over how this must have been the plan by Orton was to injure Cena. Jericho didn’t let go of the hold until Big Show arrived. Jericho stayed at ringside. Cena eventually got Show up for the adjustment and then Jericho attacked from behind. The doubleteam got going and then Show hooked the clutch. Orton then arrived and slowly made his way to the ring. Cena got back to his feet and the two faced off. Cena pointed up at the Cell above the ring. It started to lower and Cena grabbed Orton where he couldn’t get away till it lowered as he started to run. The door however was left open. Cena challenged Orton to go for it and he did. Cena cut him off from getting out and the two went at it. They did end up outside the Cell. Cena picked up Orton for the adjustment and Orton grabbed the Cell and climbed to the top of it to avoid getting hit with the move. Cena followed and the two battled on top of the Cell. Cena then hit the adjustment on to Orton on top of the Cell. The show ended with Cena standing triumphant on top of the Cell. In other action, Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase went to the ring talking about the Cell match against DX and talking about what they would do to DX. DX interrupted doing comedy stuff from up in the top of the lower level of the arena. DX then made their way to the ring and said they weren’t waiting for Sunday. Rhodes and Dibiase bailed out as DX got in the ring. Jack Swagger defeated Evan Bourne following a powerbomb. Swagger was still wearing the stolen US title. Miz made his way to the ring after the match while Swagger was talking trash about Sunday. The two ended up in a fight and then Kofi ran out and grabbed the US title taking it back with him. Mickie James defeated Rosa Mendes who had Alicia Fox in her corner. Mickie won with a spin kick. Hornswoggle and Santino took on the team of Chavo and Masters. The finish had Masters winning with the masterlock submission on Santino. Afterwards, Masters looked to help Chavo and then put the masterlock on Hornswoggle. Chavo looked frustrated and punched Masters to break the hold and left. The rest of the stuff with Sharpton was mostly comedy kind of sketches and then finished off with him singing while the Bellas danced with him.
Other notes from Raw. It really is a bummer that there aren’t more stronger workers for Mickie James to work with on Raw. It really is almost that feeling of let’s just have a round the clock Mickie/Beth feud. I say that in respect to Gail Kim but it appears that WWE isn’t going to push her and that match on Raw a few weeks ago is likely the reason. Jericho was great on the mic tonight but he always is anyway. That did look impressive where Mark Henry caught Big Show running into the corner. Besides the closing angle with Cena and Orton on the Cell, not much to talk about overall on this show.
WWE announced tonight that NFL star, Ben Roethlisberger will guest host next week on Raw.
This Friday will be the 10 year anniversary special of Smackdown. Expect to see some “best of” stuff along with the announced 8 man main event of DX, Undertaker, and John Cena taking on CM Punk and Legacy. I have heard that The Rock has done a pre taped message which will air during the Smackdown anniversary show as well.
Rey Mysterio is back from his wellness policy suspension and will team with Batista on Sunday’s PPV against tag champions, Big Show and Chris Jericho.
It didn’t take long for Jim Cornette to end up somewhere after he and TNA parted ways. Cornette showed up at the Ring Of Honor event over the weekend and appeared on the TV taping.
Lilian Garcia’s farewell last week at Raw continued after the show went off the air. DX and Cena remained and brought Lilian in the ring. She did their catchphrase with them and then DX left. This was a lot of fun. Line of it was Triple H saying “and for the millions….not watching around the world” since they were off the air at that point. LOL. Sign of the night portion of it is the WWE Sign Guy holding up a sign that says “why can’t Chimel leave instead?” “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” then played in the arena as Lilian waved at the fans. Lillian’s fiancé was brought into the ring and he and Lillan danced in the ring. Afterwards, Lillan made her way around ringside saying goodbye to the fans. Also, Lilian posted on her Twitter account today that she got married today. Big congrats to her and her husband. Wishing them all the best!! Speaking of her Twitter account, she posted this picture of her and the other divas backstage at last week’s Raw: http://twitpic.com/io6u1
I watched the Shotgun Saturday Night episode from January 1997 which is currently airing on WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand (well for one more day anyway). This was fun to watch again and featured the Austin/Terry Funk brawl. I watched this thinking how great it was to just have a heel that didn’t back down. I’ve heard this talked about lately in a lot of wrestling discussions about how most of the heels are all scared now. Austin was different and stood right up to whoever. Yeah, I loved him for it and was a huge fan of his way before his face turn. I loved Funk talking trash to him at the announce table on this show and Austin just saying that he’d better quit talking about him. As Funk got back in the ring, Austin finally got sick of it and got up. He walked right in the ring and stood face to face with Funk. You just don’t have heels doing that anymore. Why can’t we have tough heels anymore? You might remember that Shotgun Saturday Night originally started as a format of matches taped inside of a club type venue. I liked the concept just because it was something different at the time. The format didn’t last long at all. It is still fun to watch and look back on it.
Here is the lineup for the WWE Cell PPV this Sunday. Keep in mind that not all of these matches will take place in the Cell. This isn’t a format like TNA Lockdown. CM Punk defends the World title against The Undertaker in the Cell. John Cena defends the WWE title against Randy Orton in the Cell. Shawn Michaels and Triple H team up to take on Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase in the Cell. US Champion Kofi Kingston defends against The Miz and Jack Swagger. Unified Tag Team champions Chris Jericho and Big Show defend against Rey Mysterio and Batista. Intercontinental Champion John Morrison defends against Dolph Ziggler. Mickie James defends the Divas championship against Alicia Fox. This should be a solid show but one thing that I’ve heard discussed a lot is just how to you book three Cell matches on the same show. How you make every one of them exciting? There have been multiple Cell matches on a PPV before as King Of The Ring 1998 featured the Mankind/Undertaker match followed by Austin and Kane. My point being is that how many people talk about Austin and Kane’s Cell match from that night and that involved a title change!! Mankind/Undertaker has always been the story of that show. I’ll be curious to see how these three Cell matches play off of each other on this show.
Wishing all of you a great and safe week!! Take care and God bless!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.