Monday, May 10, 2010

WWE Raw Report

Date: 05/10/10 from Pittsburgh, PA.

The Big News: Edge and Vickie Guerrero inexplicably reconciled, while Miz will wrestle Bret Hart for the United States title next week.

Show Analysis:

Randy Orton came out to start the show. He said that he didn’t agree to team with Edge last week because Edge really just wanted to keep him under control. And here I thought you didn’t agree to team with him because he cost you a title match for no discernable reason the week before.

Meat Loaf then came out. Yes, Meat Loaf. Great. He was acting like an idiot. Jerry Lawler explained that all the celebrities want to be on Raw. Yeah, I’d want to be on Raw too if they decided their TV show was best utilized as a vehicle to promote whatever product I felt like hawking. Speaking of which, Meat Loaf proceeded to shamelessly hawk his new album. He started singing different songs while Orton and I looked at him with murderous intentions. After about 18 hours, Orton finally laid him out with a terrible looking RKO.

Edge came out and said he doesn’t like the celebrities either. He said he called the WWE headquarters and argued the guest hosts need to go. Wait, is he turning face again? WWE HQ agreed that the guest hosts would no longer have authority on Raw. Well, that’s not good enough. “That’s not good enough,” Edge said. Yay Edge! So he announced that WWE agreed to a new permanent Raw GM. But wait, what about dumping the guest hosts? Keep your eyes on the prize, Edge!

Edge introduced the new GM of Raw, Vickie Guerrero. Edge and Vickie were cool and both happy about this. Let’s pause for a second. So, Edge doesn’t like celebrities and complained about this to WWE. Their solution was to give the celebrities’ authority to Vickie Guerrero.

What relationship do Vickie and Edge have? Why, they were married until less than a year ago when Edge divorced her and proceeded to cut one of the meanest wrestling promos I’ve ever heard on her. Edge demanded a divorce, called her a she-beast, said that he had to go to the bathroom to dry heave after kissing her, and concluded that the only saving grace was that they never consummated the marriage. He left her screaming and crying hysterically.

So, less than a year later, Edge is told that this woman is going to be the person with control over him rather than the celebrities. And he’s fine with this. And moreover, she’s no longer even mad at him. This is such ungodly horrendous writing. Why should we as an audience invest in your storylines if you’re so remarkably inattentive to recent main event angles?

Vickie came out to mega heat. Vickie chastised Randy Orton for attacking celebrities and announced Edge and a partner against Randy Orton in a handicap match later in the show. This was an absolutely terrible start to the show.

Chris Jericho beat David Hart Smith. As a result of the match, Chris Jericho and Miz earned a title shot against Hart Dynasty at Over the Limit. Smith hit a belly to belly suplex and power slam. He applied the sharpshooter but Jericho got to the ropes. Jericho then thumbed him in the eye and hit the code breaker for the pin. This was way too short but was good while it lasted. Edge was shown backstage talking to Batista.

R. Truth and Flavor Flav came out together with Flavor Flav saying “what’s up” and “yeah boy.” Chuck D continues to roll over in his grave. Flavor Flav plugged his crap. R. Truth was supposed to wrestle William Regal in a singles match, but they didn’t even go 30 seconds before Primo and Carlito Colon attacked Truth. The announcers explained that Primo and Carlito reunited on Superstars, which was news to me. Ted DiBiase gave Primo and Carlito envelopes for their 30 second, run-of-the-mill attack.

They showed Maryse in the ring training with someone in a gi. They referenced Eve’s jiu jitsu, but Maryse was just doing horrible judo throws and failing at judo trips. The instructor said she sucks so she kicked him and left. This was counterproductive. Randy Orton backstage wanted Vickie Guerrero at ringside for his match. They then announced a commercial free Raw next week with Buzz Aldrin as guest host.

Evan Bourne beat Zack Ryder in another too short match. Gail Kim and Alicia Fox were at ringside. Alicia hated Ryder last week but this week for no apparent reason she liked him and was rooting for him. Bourne went to the top and Alicia tried to stop him but Gail stopped her. Bourne then hit the shooting star press for the pin. Again, if you’re going to devote a segment each week to one undercard wrestler, why not build it around that guy winning each week rather than having him lose to a different random guy you have no plans for each week? Aren’t you trying to create stars?

Immediately after this match my Raw feed oddly went out. I’m not sure the deal. It came back as Sheamus was walking down to the ring. Apparently in the interim John Cena cut a promo where he announced his match with Batista would be an I quit match and their last match for the title. He then insulted Sheamus for attacking him last week.

As Sheamus came down, Batista also came out. Batista and Sheamus both got their shots in on Cena. Batista sent Cena into the post and Sheamus gave him the big boot. Batista went for the Batista bomb but Mark Henry made the save.

Edge and Vickie met backstage. Edge explained that he divorced her and horribly ridiculed her to get her sympathy. Vickie seemed fine with this explanation and they decided that they should be friends. Edge asked Vickie to come to ringside for the main event. Vickie said no until Edge guaranteed nothing would happen to her.

Tyson Kidd beat Miz. And they didn’t even give them 45 seconds. What can you even say? Kidd just rolled him up for the pin and that was that. This was the most irritating of the show’s ridiculously short matches. As a result of this, a Hart got a title shot against Miz next week on Raw. Miz said that he got to decide who would receive the title shot and picked Bret Hart.

Skip Sheffield, Michael Tarver, Daniel Bryan, Wade Barrett, Darren Young, Heath Slater, David Otunga and Justin Gabriel beat John Morrison, Yoshi Tatsu, Santino Marella and Goldust. This is supposed to get people to watch NXT? An eight on four match? The one highlight here was the slow motion entrance of Goldust, Morrison, Tatsu and Marella doing their various gestures. It was pretty damn funny.

Gabriel and Otunga worked over Tatsu. Slater and Morrison tagged in. Morrison hit clotheslines and punches. He went for starship pain but Slater got his knees up. Bryan and Santino tagged in, and Bryan rolled up Santino for the win. The NXT rookies put Bryan on their shoulders like he was the conquering hero and whooped it up after winning 8 on 4 by pinning Santino. They find new and unique ways of burying Bryan each week.

They did one of their backstage guest host comedy segments. Kozlov wanted a restraining order from Santino. Santino thought they’d make a good tag team. Regal tried to get Kozlov to come along, but Flavor Flav, Santino and Kozlov all wanted Regal to rap. Regal rapped. It was kind of amusing.

Batista was supposed to wrestle Mark Henry but the match didn’t start. Batista attacked Henry with repeated chair shots to the shoulder. Batista then applied the old Rings of Saturn and Henry tapped out even though there was no match. Henry then passed out. I realized when Batista applied the rings, “Oh yeah, Batista never uses submissions.” That’s kind of a drag on the I quit stipulation.

Randy Orton beat Edge and Ted DiBiase. Edge came out with Vickie. The heels worked over Orton. Orton came back with a power slam on DiBiase and sent Edge into the announce table. He gave DiBiase a back breaker but DiBiase avoided the RKO. R. Truth then came out for WWE’s favorite shortcut finish: the old distraction. DiBiase starred at Truth and Orton caught him with the RKO. After the match Orton went after Vickie and she resigned out of fear. Orton then gave Edge the RKO. So Vickie won’t be GM after all.

Final Thoughts:

I hated this show, which rushed through amazingly brief matches to fit in a stream of illogical, stupid and counterproductive angles. The angles consistently made me less interested in the programs and characters they were supposed to build and the Edge/Vickie stuff was a particularly egregious affront to anyone who pays the slightest attention to WWE storylines.

9 Comments:

Blogger AKFooFighter said...

What about the highlight of the night? Mark Henry hitting "Buzz Aldrin" with a chair. Are we going to see every celebrity "reality" show contestant make an appearance before long? Please...make it stop.

I don't think I can wait an entire week for another thrilling, entertaining episode of Raw. Good times.

- Matt in Anchorage

9:58 PM  
Blogger Patrick said...

So...the whole storyline for daniel bryan was that he can't get a win and now he finally gets it in an 8-4 tag match on raw? What a waste!

1:57 AM  
Anonymous The Masterbater said...

We at least got to see a John Cena beatdown.

5:53 AM  
Blogger hobbyfan said...

The matches were too short, except for the main event. More proof that the writing team is the reincarnation of the Three Stooges----all of them, that is, in character---because there was very little that made coherent sense.

Miz wouldn't have gotten away with avoiding a singles title defense vs. any of the Hart Dynasty if they were on Smackdown. Of course, having Piggy Guerrero running things for one night (because Flavor Flav couldn't be trusted to make any coherent decisions on air) allows him that luxury. But what if this backfires, and Bret wins the title in his final match, a la Trish Stratus @ Unforgiven '06? Given how lax they've been in booking US title defenses for Miz, this only continues to devaluate the title.

Cena actually said he wanted to thank Sheamus for buying him some time to make the stip for his title defense vs. Batista @ Over the Limit. Sheamus gets back into the title hunt, and will probably get the belt back before the end of the summer, setting it up for HHH to finally get title #14 by year's end. I think.

By the way, Todd, Chuck D is still alive.

They really need to get rid of Vickie. Period. Her heat is at Sean Waltman go away level now. She quit 11 months ago, and I'm figuring she'll take a summer vacation again this year, but this time, if Vince wants her back, he might as well put her in a PR role. Public relations, mind you, not representing Puerto Rico.

7:08 AM  
Anonymous SteRDLK said...

Regal rapped. It was kind of amusing.

Come on!!! It was fricking hilarious!!!

After the past 2 Raws were fantastic, they go and fudge it up spectacularly. Short, boring matches. Ted DiBiase being boring as hell. Vickie Guerrero being a stupid bitch.

The only saving grace was Randy Orton. Oh my word, he is literally the greatest thing of the past 5 years in wrestling. I would gay up for him. Yeah...

Roll on commercial free Raw, with saggy old men winning titles from the future of wrestling, and John Cena being a complete twat, again. Odds on Cena eating some KFC during a match?

4:18 PM  
Blogger hobbyfan said...

Regal trying to rap without a backbeat was entertaining, and it took me back to when Cena was on Smackdown, getting battle raps from Kurt Angle, Big Show, & Christian, among others. However, it works best when you freestyle, the way Cena used to.

5:20 PM  
Anonymous Bob said...

"Chuck D continues to roll over in his grave."

Well, he's not dead yet, but he probably wishes he were if he saw this. It's hard to believe this clown was in a group that was considered very socially relevant and challenging in its day. I'd actually had a little respect for him if he seemed to feel a little bad that he's now a novelty act that says "yeah boy" in a funny way and nothing more, but, horrifyingly for a member of Public Enemy, he seems totally fine with it.

"They find new and unique ways of burying Bryan each week."

Well, he just got eliminated from NXT, so that's over. Totally bizarre that they let him deliver a promo where he said that Daniel Bryan was no good and was done but Bryan Danielson was a star would would continue on. I'm guessing that means they're doing something else with him at this point, because you don't give a guy a promo like that on the way out.

"Evan Bourne beat Zack Ryder in another too short match. Gail Kim and Alicia Fox were at ringside. Alicia hated Ryder last week but this week for no apparent reason she liked him and was rooting for him."

Let's see: Last week he tried to impress him but lost to Mark Henry, so Alicia and Gail left with Mark Henry (presumably to have a threesome). This week they gave him another shot, and one compliment was enough to win Alicia back over, while Gail, who could easily have been won over as well, didn't get a compliment, so she was mad. So Bourne one and Gail had sex with him. Meanwhile, the Bella twins sleep with every guest host. What part of this don't you understand?

"Miz said that he got to decide who would receive the title shot and picked Bret Hart."

I was totally cool with Bret Hart getting one last go in the ring, even if it was bad, just so we could say goodbye, but this is beyond pathetic. For once, I wish there is no match and this ends in an angle.

"[T]he Edge/Vickie stuff was a particularly egregious affront to anyone who pays the slightest attention to WWE storylines."

I'd tack Vickie over the guest hosts any day. I can't believe I hate the guest hosts so much that I was very disappointed when Vickie resign.

8:37 PM  
Blogger Todd Martin said...

I know Chuck D isn't dead. It was part of the joke, with the idea being that the person referenced is so far under the radar people don't even know he or she is still alive. If I reference someone rolling over in their grave, they're probably alive.

10:42 AM  
Anonymous Swagger! said...

I hate the fact Edge is on Raw. What, so he's going to have a feud with Orton? What then,Cena?

Their is a shortage of main event faces on Raw currently.

3:22 AM  

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