Raw Thoughts, Victory Road Makes Headlines, & More - March 15, 2011

Welcome to the "it's ok John Cena" edition of The Wrestling List.

Last night's Raw was a solid show from St. Louis. The show opened with that really fun taped segment of The Rock talking to the little kid that was supposed to be John Cena. Really funny and really well done. I laughed quite a bit through it. It's ok, John Cena. You took the ball and ran with it. You didn't run far but you tried. Effort. Funny line there. The show closed with The Miz coming out dressed as The Rock to attack John Cena. I bet that crowd had to be furious when they realized it was Miz and it took a few seconds for the fans to realize that it wasn't Rock. It was that convincing. I have to say that Snooki wasn't bad in her role last night. She was the guest star of the night and was put out there during the Trish Stratus/Vickie Guerrero match. LayCool hit the ring and took out Trish helping Vickie get the win which gets her hired on Raw. Then, Michelle got in Snooki's face and she went after LayCool. Trish got back up and going. The two of them along with John Morrison got the best of LayCool, Vickie, and Dolph Ziggler. Now, you know I love seeing Trish back in the ring so that was great for me as a fan. Randy Orton got the huge hometown pop with his entrance. He took out the last member of Nexus that Punk had with a punt to the head. That leaves Orton and Punk one on one. When Cole announced that he had a surprise from Lawler's past, I called it right saying it would be Brian Christopher. My reasoning was that they already had Cole talking about family previously so I thought maybe they'd go down that road again. Wasn't it just bizarre to see Christopher back on TV? I wondered how many of the fans knew who he was with this new generation of fans. After that confrontation, we had another one with JR and Cole. Great to see JR back on Raw. Just wish we could get him back in that announce booth. Swagger takes out Lawler leaving JR against him and Cole. I thought it did a good job of getting more heat on that match. Sheamus is the new U.S. champion after defeating Bryan with a boot countering Bryan's top rope move. Sheamus had put his career on the line so it was clear who was going to win the match.

Other notes from Raw. I laughed a lot when I saw them go on the air with Cole in his protected table. I thought that was hilarious. Although, he made a big deal about how he was staying in the box away from Lawler. Then, a few seconds later the GM sound goes off and he walks out right past Lawler. That made no sense as I just thought why are you leaving the box??!!! Cole is a really good heel character. Notice that I said heel "character". I don't like a heel play by play announcer that takes the attention off the talent in the ring. If they would just make him a character and have him as the mouthpiece for Swagger, I think it would help. I just don't like him dominating the talk especially like last week where he stopped the divas match telling everyone how lousy that it was. That doesn't do a thing to help the talent. Like I said, I loved the Rock segment. Laughed at it a lot. Rock and that kid played off of each other really well. So, I guess Snooki got Kelly Kelly's spot in the WrestleMania match. The rumor had been that six person tag but with Kelly involved with Trish and Morrison. Fun to see the promos with Edge and Christian's reunion being pushed. Loved that tag team.

TNA's Victory Road PPV is making all sorts of headlines..….mostly for the wrong reasons. If you missed the happenings, here we go. The main event went around 90 seconds in length. Yes, the main event went for that long. Sting taking on Jeff Hardy. Eric Bischoff made his way to the ring to announce that this match was now going to be a no DQ match. Sting went right at Hardy landing punches followed by the scorpion death drop and got the pin to retain the title. The crowd was really mad afterwards with chants that were heard over TV. So, the question is what was going on with that finish? Well, there is reasoning behind it and then I'll follow with my criticism of the way this all got handled. Jeff was said to not be in good condition backstage. They went with the quick finish with Sting making sure to hold him down. If Hardy is in that kind of condition backstage, why do you do the match? Why not change the booking? This company does all sorts of last minute booking including them not even having matches announced for this PPV as of about a week ago. Somebody backstage didn't say that we shouldn't send Jeff out there? The backlash has been big among fans as you would expect. People pay money for a show and when you deliver a minute and a half main event, people are going to complain. When this company is trying to draw in PPV buys as it is, this kind of thing doesn't help. So, what is the fallout of this situation? Well, Hardy was sent home from the tapings on Monday. No word yet on potential longterm punishment type scenarios. Sting was said to be very professional considering the situation that he was put in. Fans are furious over it. So, here is my rant over this situation. I blame TNA on this deal. They have made a lot of decisions lately that have made me think, hmm ok. Why do you have this match even happen? Shoot a segment backstage with something happening to Hardy and change up the match. Do something to warrant a change in the main event. It short changed the fans that spent $35 on the PPV, turned off your fan base, and was just a bad decision all around. I don't know what happened with Hardy obviously but there should have been some better decision making here than what they went with.

On the bright side of Victory Road, I am hearing really good things about the AJ Styles/Matt Hardy match on the show. Sounded like it was really good. Actually, several of the matches were said to be good but it's going to be hard for that to overshadow the main event.

Drew Carey is the latest inductee into the WWE Hall Of Fame. Hmm, ok. I think he has made two appearances ever. I know of the 2001 Royal Rumble appearance which was shown last night. It was a funny twist into the Rumble and all of us watching that night got a good laugh out of it especially when we realized that Kane would likely be the next entrant. Now, I think he has appeared again on WWE TV in the last couple of years, right? I think he has but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, I know they like to put a celebrity in every year but there are so many celebrities that have made many more appearances. I like Drew but this is just a bizarre kind of pick.

WWE is currently airing their March Mania tournament in the shorties section of WWE Classics On Demand. I spoke of this last week. Well, Hogan was a 1 seed and Big Boss Man was a 8 seed. They showed a match from MSG that resulted in a DQ win for the Boss Man. That puts Hogan out and my first thought was wow, they really don't like Hogan right now. LOL. I do enjoy waiting to see what matches that they are going to pick to show with these brackets. When I saw Sting vs. Muta in the first round, I thought well, they'll show either the Bash 89 or Starrcade 89 match. I was wrong. They showed a rare match from the old Power Hour show from 1989. I forgot all about that match and loved seeing it. Way to go WWE. Way to pick a rarity instead of the same matches we've seen over and over.

There are some in the business that I would love to see drop their Twitter accounts. It hasn't been a good thing for them. There are some that have really used it well and it has been a great vehicle for them to keep in touch with fans and promote stuff that they're doing. However, there are some that really need to probably just not use Twitter.

That is it for this week. Take care and God bless all of you!!