If anyone is interested in going the Bill Yanney route and trying out for a spot doing RAW reports here on rspwfaq.com, drop me a line with a sample recap for tonight's show. You've gotta be fast, though, as I'd like something I can have up around an hour after the end of the show.
And now, please feel free to discuss the first RAW on the new blog!
And now, please feel free to discuss the first RAW on the new blog!
Sign of the night........"Randy Pooped on my Sign"
ReplyDeleteWas that Chris Masters or Randy Orton? Holy atrophy, Batman.
ReplyDeleteSurprised they didn't debut Harry Smith after this week's wrestling history bit. Seemed to me like the perfect time.
I heard that Claudio made an appearance as a cop. Even THAT doesn't interest me in watching this show, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteMan I am half ass watching Raw. Instead, I am watching the Bengals kick the Packers' asses.
ReplyDeleteWhen Vince walked down to the ring at the end, the camera angle, the way he held the pipe, and the way he walked reminded me of something out of N64's No Mercy.
ReplyDeleteGeez. TLC and HIAC on the same card. Talk about trying to pop a cheap buyrate. Good thing though, as those are traditional feud enders, so we should get a clean slate on Raw after Unforgiven. Cena interacting with some of the guys on SD intrigues me.
ReplyDeleteI was mildly confused about two things:
ReplyDelete1. Did Cena say that he was going to Smackdown no matter what the outcome was after Unforgiven? If so, that's fairly intriguing, b/c I would bet that Batista would go back to Raw somehow and try to pick up the pieces of the mega push he had over there a year ago, since his SD run has flopped so badly. Cena's merchandise moves no matter what brand he's on, so having him on SD! is cool by me, an obvious attempt to pop a good rating for the CW premiere. If it's just a dumb stipulation, then it more than assures that Edge jobs the title back to Cena. TLC would be a nice match involving those two, I admit.
2. ANY Hell in the Cell match involving Vince McMahon would be hard to enjoy for me, but Shawn and HHH always find a way to save these kinds of matches with even the worst performers, so who knows? I MIGHT get it, but that's a big "if"
The McMahon DVD I picked up for peanuts at Wal-Mart is mildly entertaining as a documentary with only two or three entertaining matches, but there is one extra that had me bawling: A feature on the McMahon Walk, and other wrestlers and such impersonating it. Cena's impression (kind of like C-3P0) is great, but the coup de grace is Booker T doing the walk down an entranceway with this wide smile on his face and the most overexaggerated march I've seen since my ROTC days in high school. By the time it was over, I was on the floor laughing. I actually felt okay for buying it after watching just that extra.
ReplyDeleteFrom a distance, Masters looked like Charlie friggin' Haas! There was nothing funnier tonight than watching Masters do his typical flex pose, only with the arm muscle of a high school quarterback. Good God, what a decline, kind of like the 1992 Royal Rumble, where everyone was told for a while to quit juicing b/c of the feds coming down on Vince, so Hogan and Piper and Flair all look like Gumby in the ring.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure Cena said he'll go to SD only if he doesn't beat Edge for the title.
ReplyDeleteGee, Superman's got the odds stacked against him, in Edge's hometown and Edge's match, with his stay on RAW on the line.
Hmm, what ever will happen?
Fucking Eugene can see the match result coming from a mile away.
As far as the other match, Hell in the Cell with Big Show, that will give new meaning to the term overbooked.
Also, Carlito and Trish still don't fit together, hardy looked like he was going to pass out itn he middl eof th ematch several times, and Melina (who should never be in a close-up on TV again) and Nitro got way too much time on the mic.
So is the IC title #1 contender's match a running joke now?
Pretty substandard RAW, with the same never ending stories of Edge/Cena and McMahons/DX.
How sad is it that Umaga/Kane is a more exciting match than both of those 2?
No mention of Trish's impending retirement?
ReplyDeleteOnly comment that I have is that I'm fairly certain that match will go on next to last, to cool the crowd off after the HIAC match. Considering Toronto's bizzaro crowds, you have to wonder who'll be the fan favorite in the WWEC match. I actually have no clue who's going to take that one now; Cena back on SD sure does solve a lot of problems.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone see HHH mess up hitting the pedigree on Regal? Regal landed right on his head. I rewinded it on my DVR and watched it again and it look like his head compressed on the impact. If you noticed during the rest of the show, he was laying outside the ring hardly moving and holding his head and even Kennedy went over to check up on him and to see if he's ok. Hopefully, it was nothing major.
ReplyDeleteCena is not going to Smackdown. He's been shoved down our throat for over a year. When he was booed, they ignored it. When the fans clearly wanted anyone else as champion, they were told to shut up and cheer for Cena. There's no way, after all of that, they're going to move him to the B-Show. I would love if they did so I wouldn't have to watch him anymore, but it won't happen. They don't admitt they're wrong, and they think this guy is the next Steve Austin. He's staying on Raw.
ReplyDeleteIt is going to piss anyone else off that Cena is going to win the belt back in a TLC match? I know he's going to win it back sooner or later, and that's fine, I've accepted the fact that I'll never be rid of him. But, Edge made his name in TLC matches, and I'm sure he'll be the one to bust his ass in this one to. Why use Edge's signature match to put Cena over? It's not like he'll be of any use in it anyway. What can he do? Maybe take a bump or two? Or will he break out the ever dangerous 5 Knuckle Shuffle from the ladder through a table? Please, give him the belt the next night if you have to, but don't shit on the TLC match by having John fuckin Cena win one of them.
Aside from that, there's not much else to say about Raw tonight. This McMahon/DX thing is dragging badly. Adding Big Show and a cage doesn't make things any more interesting. Maybe if DX brings in a new member or two to fight the numbers it might be interesting, but as it is now, no, not at all. I saw those fake DX/nWo posters on the internet. I'd rather see that happen than any more DX/McMahons.
FAG
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess I can't post images here. FAG is in reference to this horrible pic:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wwe.com/content/media/touts/splash/images/3226232
I noticed that too, although I assumed it was Regal who messed it up (doesn't the guy recieving the move just jump forward with their job being to land on their stomach and sell?) Hopefully he was okay.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else find it pathetic how the announcers get their news from WWE.com?
Cena said "if you beat me," not "if I lose." Seeing as there's no way Cena can carry a TLC match and make it entertaining (although obviousbly HITC will be the main event), I'm betting that they throw Jeff Hardy into the mix to help carry the match and to do the j-o-b to Edge. That way Cena can say "you didn't beat me, so I'm staying." I know people would like to see Cena on Smackdown, if for no other reason than it's the show most of us don't watch... but this is the man that Vince McMahon has proclaimed to be the "future" of the company, so the odds of him going to Smackdown are only a little lower than Triple H going there.
ReplyDeleteAny show with Finlay on it gets a thumbs up in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteI think the opening promo did a nice job of building up Finley/Regal/Kennedy and I thought they got a pretty good rub by being booked strong versus Dx - while the Job Squad was jobbed out. Edge, was more of the same. Blah blah blah. Though neither Cena or Edge are good in regular matches they should be good in a sloopfeast.
The Jeff Hardy, new upper mid carder? I'm shocked they put him over their top upper midcard heel, AND pushed him almost beating Edge last week.
Split up the squad. Let Johnny and Kenny keep the straps and defend them again Nicky and Mikey. At least then we will get some decent ring work out of the tag division. Or put Charlie and Shelton back together - or even Charlie and Val. That would be a real solid team.
Anything involving Dx or the McMahons I have no interest in really. Both are played out and not entertaining.
Nitro was REALLY good. I was shocked at how good he was. Melina was really bad.
Umaga is really good in this roll. It will be interesting to see what they do keep the character fresh.
Finley and Regal are so good. Two best heels in the company.
After what DX did to Vince last week (spray painting the plane, spray painting Titan Tower, and taking the back axel off), Vince was totally in the right to do what he did. As a fan, I found myself actually rooting for Vince to bash Triple H and Shawn Michaels with the "lead" pipe.
ReplyDeleteRaw was kind of eh for me last night. I caught the replay after watching Agassi, not much hope for him making it to next week after that performance.
ReplyDeleteThe Edge promo was alright, Cena's contract and the stipulations make it look bad for Edge, but hey, Cena did the job in his hometown, why not Cena? How did Shane know Cena would interrupt, and how did Masters know he would have a match? Masters looked pretty good, obviously, not the same, but still, not bad, solid match, typical ** TV fare.
Eugene needs to get off my screen imediately.
Nitro/Melina held the press conference together quite nicely, though Nitro still needs a little more promo work.
Slept through the main event, but the bits I saw during the original broadcast were alright, not sure what the point of having Kennedy there was though.
Orton/Hardy was pretty good, abotu what I expected, though Carlito's interference was a nice touch. What was with the "somewhere more private" bit when they just moved to the side of the hallway. You'd think Carlito would've known by now since they're all chummy and all, but oh well, I'm not too sure how much I'll actually miss her, though I don't see how she'll make any money outside of wrestling, or at least enough to keep her happy.
Paddle on a pole was worthless because I had to look at Candice Michelle.
The women's title match shows that Lita should be nowhere near the inside of a ring, what exactly is the point of this title reign?
I know I'm leaving stuff out, but again, just kind of an eh show as I look forward to ECW.
"Any show with Finlay on it gets a thumbs up in my eyes."
ReplyDeleteWould that be Finlay's thumb in your eyes? :-)
After the Masters/Cena segment I lost complete interest. Watching a pre-season blow out had more value to me.
ReplyDeleteNitro and Melina held the press conference together well? Is that why it seemed to go on forever, and the fans shit all over it with boos and "boring" chants?
ReplyDeletePlus, I think the general concensus is that Nitro did a much better job than Melina. He still needs some time to get acclimated to this type of public speaking, but he seemed to be the glue holding the segment together, while Melina violently crumbled amidst stammers and rejection.
Was one of those cops in the backstage DX segment Roadkill? It certainly looked like him. If so, all the talk of chickens in the segment seemed apropriate.
ReplyDeleteSo, does Trish go over, and retire as women's champ, or do they have her lose her last match, in her hometown?
ReplyDeleteWhen Estrada got really mad on the mic and flipped his har off his head so quickly, I was impressed. He has great presence and mic skills, I wonder what he can do as a wrestler...
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I hated about this show? The Katrina references fed to JR. Umaga comes down the ring and JR says, "Man, if the Spirit Squad stuck around, we would've had a Katrina-like tragedy." This was after a similar mention of New Orleans in the first hour. Now, I'm biased, because I was a direct victim of the hurricane, so maybe I'm tooting my horn too much, but Vince really needs to grow the hell up about similarizing national hot-button issues with friggin' wrestling angles. I didn't hear many references such as "Man, Kane is about to create another 9/11!" after those attacks. I just simply found that whole thing in really really bad taste.
As someone who wasn't there, I agree, it was in horrible taste, and I have no idea why it was there, I just assumed the show was in LA.
ReplyDeleteUnforgiven looks like this: Edge/Cena TLC, DX/McMahons-Show in HITC (I know, WTF?), Hardy/Nitro, Orton/Carlito, Trish/Lita, Umaga/Kane, and a tag titles match. Sounds at least solid, and will be better than Vengeance was in the vein that it will blow off the top two feuds instead of pushing them along. Hardy will get his big spotfest match at Wrestlemania 23 when Vince needs to sell out Ford Field.
ReplyDeleteOh, Nitro was far better than Melina. Melina seemed to be fine in character, I just took the stammering as a reaction to it and her keep going with it, it's kind of absurd to begin with that she's a heel, who was kind of acting like a face, and then her heel side came out, even though she's already a heel, so I think she's doing the best she can, besides, she's there for her entrance, not her mic skills.
ReplyDeleteIf the hometown Edge and Trish are BOTH jobbed in one's final match and the other's biggest singles match maybe ever, then Vince is just loony-tunes. Toronto IS a weird crowd, but they sure as hell won't boo Trish, and there is NO way Cena gets the cheers.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping that they scheduled her last match in her hometown so she would win, hopefully that's the exception to the hometown hero loses they've adopted since Bob Holly won in Mobile.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else noticed that the DX spiel just simply doesn't make sense? "Let's get ready to suck it! And if you aren't down with that, we've got two words for you- suck it!"
ReplyDeleteIt's like saying "Get ready to suck it, and if you don't want to suck it, you can suck it." Really, it's a beginning and an ending, completely missing a middle that would provide something that people could not be down with.
It's one of those small things that's really just there to garner a crowd response, but it just doesn't make sense.
"It’s one of those small things that’s really just there to garner a crowd response, but it just doesn’t make sense."
ReplyDeleteWow, that sounds like a nice way to describe just about every storyline in the WWE right now. The "If you're not down with that" was the tail-end of the New Age Outlaws intro, so I guess they just wanted to get as much pop as possible in one fell swoop. Pretty dumb, huh?
Oh, and I love the news that Vince was screaming mad that USA waited till 11:30 to air Raw. First of all, he already got the telecast aired on Sci-Fi, so late-night ratings on USA were going to be down no matter whether it was 10 or 11. He should be happy that he even got a replay instead of only having the chance to air at 11 on USA the same way that they did in the early days, when the ratings actually mattered in the war against WCW. Secondly, I was FAR more intrigued at watching Andre Agassi survive a formidable first-round opponent to keep his career going another day than watching a 61-year-old man hit people with lead pipes.
Before we get extreme tonight (I know, that's lame), does anyone know how to actually burn the ECW video downloads from wwe.com? I've gotten the few good matches they've had, but can't burn them.
ReplyDeleteSega and games- http://cm.ebay.com/cm/ck/1065-29296-2357-0?uid=8341970&site=0&ver=LCA080805&item=110027061238&lk=URL
I think its great because theyre building up a storyline where Trish is deprived of the chance to address the fans her way, thus when the match at Unforgiven ends, presumably, Trish will get revenge and get to say what she needs to say. And they could even do this with Trish losing. Its not like they can do a "winner address the crowd" stipulation.
ReplyDelete-Martman
Why doesn't Bill Yanney do the RAW Recaps anymore? I quite enjoyed them when he did them.
ReplyDeleteBeen lurking a while now, finally decided to comment. Tried to watch Raw but The Score is annoying me.
ReplyDeleteWhy they can't start the show at 9:00 is beyond me. I didn't realize there was such a big market to watch horse racing. Also they are going a little overboard on the "bleeps", editing every "ass" reference out. No more crowd shots though.
Was paying half attention to the show really. I hate to see Trish leave but really what else can she do? I don't see much of a future for her in acting or anything though. Is she really getting married? Who's the lucky guy?
Still don't give a shit about Umaga. Do they have a #1 contenders match for the IC title every week?
Was falling asleep for the last half hour or so, woke up to see three Smackdown guys in the main event against DX and turned off the TV. At least it wasn't the Spirit Squad.
Were you under a rock or something during the backlash when Scott had to make 2 separate threads for RAW until the bitter end?
ReplyDeleteI noticed there was two threads but I only read (past tense) the reports and not the comments. So why did he stop doing them then?
ReplyDeleteI tried doing the recaps live and I just really started to hate it at the end, so I stepped down assuming that all the people who said they could do better would step up, horribly wrong on that count.
ReplyDeleteI already answered that above. Thank you for your support. Some was getting laid off from my job, and I still haven't found full-time work. When I do find a steady job again and get everything back in line, I may do it again, especially if no one does it here.
ReplyDeleteOk, thanks for clearing that up, Bill. My apologies for ticking you off slightly, Iceman. On the old blog, I would read the entries that interested me but I wouldn't always read the comments. Thus, I apologize in advance if I ask any more questions that have already been covered. :)
ReplyDeleteSorry for the attitude.
ReplyDeleteI just thought most people here were the ones who used to comment and read the comments on the old blog.
The more you know...
(starwipe)
Yeah, I used to comment on the old thread but I forgot my PW for LJ and when I tried to have my PW sent to me, my e-mail program kept deleting it as spam before it even got to me. Since I couldn't then post, I didn't really read the comments most of the time (since it's fun to reply and all). In any event, I do like this layout and I'm happy to keep following Scott wherever he goes, from Rantsylvania (when I found it in Jan 2001), through TheSmarks, 411, Inside Pulse, the old blog, and this blog. WrestleLIne fits in there somwhere too, I think. :)
ReplyDelete