Raw Thoughts, Edge, Tough Enough, and More - April 18, 2011

Welcome to the "shouldn't Morrison be the heel?" edition of The Wrestling List.

Last night's Raw was honestly a pretty dull show. London hosted Raw so the show was taped earlier in the day from when we saw it due to the obvious time difference. The show opened with R Truth doing a promo and was happy about being in the main event at Extreme Rules. John Morrison came out and got Truth to give him a match with the winner going on to Extreme Rules. Truth ended up losing the match and then lost it afterwards. He pounded on Morrison badly blaming him for what had happened. Ok, here is my point on this and I'm going to go in depth more on the talking part. First, the promo stuff was pretty bad. Second, how is Truth the heel here? Morrison is supposedly Truth's friend, right? Morrison comes out and works on Truth to give him a match. Morrison had his chance and lost last week. Morrison shows video of Truth drinking water in between matches and how he wasn't in shape. Definitely an embarrassing kind of deal. Next, Morrison goes on to say that Truth smokes and that it doesn't help his health at all and hurts him in the ring. Now, Morrison is attacking his "friend" on another level in front of an audience. Truth kind of gets persuaded into this match. Then, Morrison gets his way and wins. Now, Truth is without a title match that he worked for and Morrison got what he wanted at the expense of his "friend". Truth then pounds on Morrison for what happened. Now, how is Truth the heel here? It seems to be that he was done pretty dirty by his friend in the ring. Just kind of my observations of that storyline as it played out last night. Just didn't make sense to me. The Michael Cole being knighted thing was so silly. I know it's supposed to be silly but wow. This was Lawler/Bret Hart kiss my foot level bad. Literally. Just a silly and dumb segment. Niki Bella and Eve had a decent match with Eve pinning Niki. However, there is Cole right after it saying well now that that silliness is over, let's get to my stuff. Give me the divas match anytime over that Cole segment. Randy Orton and CM Punk was the best thing on this show. Solid match and fun to see the crowd being split on who they were cheering for. Nexus returns and almost takes out Orton only for him to avoid a punt kick from Punk and hitting a RKO. Dolph Ziggler with a new look took on Evan Bourne. It's going to take a lot more than a new look for me to get interested in Ziggler. John Cena gets involved in the Sin Cara/Riley match when it looks like a doubleteam of Miz and Riley is about to occur. Solid match. There were other things on the show but those were my main points on it.

Other notes from Raw. Well, Truth suddenly being talked about with smoking was sure a random out of nowhere thing to insert into the storyline. I did laugh at the people in the audience being goofy over the storyline. I can't blame them. This was such a random thing to add in there. I don't like having a guy smoking on TV especially even more with kids there but it's WWE. Just bizarre. How awesome was that Edge tribute video? Just great, great stuff. New look for Ziggler, same boredom from me. Did you see Sin Cara hit that entrance perfect this week? Probably the best he has done it. He's had a rough go of it so far and it really is a dangerous entrance. Dangerous especially when we've had a guy have to retire from neck trouble. The draft conversation got to be annoying with them talking about what would happen if Cole went to Smackdown? Well, what would be different? He is on Smackdown every week anyway.

You knew this was coming especially with Edge's retirement. Enter the WWE Draft next week. The draft is kind of pointless with the way that talent jumps shows but I think it is more important on the live event end than it is on TV. House shows are obviously going to have their talent set by who is on what roster. So, who is going to be moved? With Ziggler's new look, I think he will be on the move. I'm also thinking that Truth and Morrison may be on their way back to Smackdown. A new heel in Truth so it would send a fresh heel back to Smackdown. Send Punk back to Smackdown? He has thrived on Smackdown and what else is there for him to do on Raw? I really think we'll see LayCool split up. One will move to Raw and the other will stay on Smackdown. That is a major gut feeling there from me especially with the timing of this split.

If you aren't watching Tough Enough, you really need to be. It is fun. Last week's episode was pretty intense. Running from attack dogs which Austin sure had a lot of fun with. I think he had too much fun. He almost seemed disappointed when they got away from the dog. LOL. Then, they had to take a running Bill DeMott move in the corner followed by five bodyslams. Wow, that was rough. Matt was sent home last week. He was one of the front runners but it didn't help his cause when he just didn't show that personality. He didn't show enough early on in the competition. Last week had John Cena making an appearance. SPOILER ALERT if you have not seen this week's episode yet cause I'm going to talk about it. This week's episode had two people making appearances which was Big Show and also Stacy Keibler. Loved seeing Stacy and Trish back on TV together. Two of my very favorites ever. Luke looks like a major front runner right now. He also got to go in the ring with Austin this week. He did get knocked down a peg in that last challenge. Eric is still battling his conditioning. Big Show gave him some advice on that one. Michelle quit this week after missing her daughter. It was a really nice moment with her and Austin talking to one another. He understood her position saying he had children and that he was just now getting to know them. Picking between the two, she wasn't about to pick this business over her family. Good for her on that. Mickael, Ryan, and Rima were picked as the bottom three. The trouble between Mickael and Ryan was brought to a head as Austin let it be between the two of them on who went home. Austin had them cut a promo on one another and it was not even close. Ryan destroyed him on the promo and it was the best thing that Ryan has done so far this season. Like I said, you really need to watch this show if you're not.

Edge's farewell speech was aired on Smackdown last week. If you didn't read the List last week, you need to cause there is a link to the additional farewell that he got after the show went off the air. On Smackdown, there were some edits to the speech. The mentions of the writers, Michael Hayes, and Lita were removed from the segment. It is strange how WWE does not want writers names out there. Dave Lagana talked on a recent podcast of his where he said that they were mentioned in a Hall of Fame speech but it was cut off the DVD. They weren't happy about it and Stephanie McMahon made sure that they got an unedited version of it with them being thanked. If you have not seen the amazing music video tribute to Edge that aired last night, here is the link to it set to a song by 3 Doors Down.


It has been announced that The Rock will be back on Raw on May 2. This is also the Rock's birthday.

WWE is really getting behind Chris Jericho with Dancing With The Stars. They were sending out alerts last night telling you to vote for him and how to do it.

TNA held their Lockdown PPV over the weekend. I'm hearing up and down things on the show. The obvious good thing was the lethal lockdown match which sounded like it was great. Good thing for TNA there especially with how they closed their show last month. A scare for Kurt Angle when he took a powerbomb off the top rope from Jarrett and landed wrong. Angle is a guy that I just don't know how he is able to keep going with all the injuries over the years.

Hulk Hogan commented on Twitter about Edge's retirement last week with multiple comments. Here was his first post: "if any of the guys like me,Flair,Hardy,Andre,AA,Blanchard,orndoff,Henning would have listened to doctors we would have quit15yrsago. but I don't know Edges working environment because they are a media company not a wrestling company. HH"
"wrestlers work hurt! What about Foley! I bet EDGE still wants to keep wrestling,he's one of the boys big time!!! HH"
Then, he pulled the other comments because they came off bad and he was getting criticized for them from fans. He then posted this one to finish: "I'm not saying anything bad about Edge but he's a real wrestler,Stone Cold and Cena had neck surgery and u couldn't stop em,Or Edge it's in Edges blood,he lives for this business he's a real wrestler,he a lifer,he's one of the real boys,he's hard to hold down,that's all. HH"
Sigh, I don't even know what to say here. I love Hulk Hogan but my goodness. It should be pointed out too that Austin did have to retire for the very same reason that Edge did so that ruins that point of his. Just pay tribute and don't make it look like you're using it to take a shot at the other company.

I now have a book in my possession that I have heard so much about over the years. The Death Of WCW. People say that it is a very interesting read and I just finally had to check it out.

That is it for tonight. Hope you're all doing great!! Take care and God bless!!