Voice Of Reason 10.16.01: Raw Thoughts

Archive

I don’t generally do this kind of column (or any kind of column lately), but a lot of things occurred to me as I watched Raw, and I thought I’d share them with you in bullet point format.

What’s amazing to me about Raw, is that it was such a mix of promising changes and same-old booking gaffs. The WWF has so much potential to be amazing, and yet they are making so many gigantic mistakes. What’s worse is that these same mistakes were made by WCW, proving that Vince McMahon is not learning from history.

  • Mick Foley adds a star power to Raw that has been missing for a long time. I don’t exactly know why it has been missing, as the Rock has been back for some time, but Foley made the show seem more special.
  • The backstage vignette with the APA and the Hurricane is exactly the type of buildup that the mid card needs. Years ago, every match on a PPV card had a nice little backstory. The same should be true of every match on Raw and Smackdown. This was a great start. But then the match, which was basically a squash, was exactly what the WWF doesn’t need. Why the WWF continues to invest so much time into the Hurricane to make him a jobber is beyond me.
  • The Hurricane had some new, distinctive music today, with a quote from Molly and a Superman-like melody. It’s about time the WWF gave these new guys some new music, now RVD needs a great entrance in the worst way. Hopefully we’ll see a great new entrance and music debut at the PPV for the Whole Dam Show.
  • The Rock vs. Chris Jericho stuff has been the most compelling WWF booking in months. With both guys still on the babyface side of the fence, the fans are definitely split down the center. Did you hear the boos and Rocky Sucks chants after the Rock Bottom on Jericho? Rock promises that Jericho has “no idea” what he’s in store for at No Mercy. Could we see a Rock heel turn? Or is that designed to get people talking?
  • It still baffles me that the WWF is giving away so many RVD matches for free on Raw and Smackdown. One of WCW’s major errors was burning out all their unique, original matchups for free, and leaving the fans nothing to pay for on PPV. I can only hope that we wont see RVD vs. Austin again for many months, so when it finally happens (WM18?) it will seem special and be worth the fans’ PPV dollars.
  • Although most of you probably won’t remember it, but Chris Jericho was a fresh faced babyface for a good while in WCW before becoming the current, smarmy wiseass he is now. He slowly turned heel when, after each loss in a losing streak, he would “snap” and beat up the ring announcer David Pinzer. The WWF seems to be rehashing this with their attempt to turn Jericho by having him “snap” after losing a lot. Amazing how unoriginal the WWF booking is these days.
  • DDP’s promos last week were getting cheers and laughs. So what does the WWF do? They make him say bash Canada and NYC in cheesy cheap heat-inducing promo. Why does the WWF put DDP on TV if they seem to love burying him?
  • If the WWF really wants to separate the Alliance into it’s own show, it has to stop putting every WWF heel into the Alliance. Christian was just fine in the WWF, and its just another piece of evidence that the WWF will never have two separate promotions.
  • Was anyone else shocked that Kidman pinned Tazz cleanly? Not that Kidman would get the win, but because it was a clean ending. It seems as if every match ends with a screwjob, and it’s getting tiresome. Doesn’t anyone want to job, or would that disrupt the lockerroom too much?
  • I probably could have made one of these points into a full column, but there were too many and I wanted to touch on all of them. WWF booking is so haphazard and boring that sometimes needs to happen in a big way at No Mercy, although the odds are against it.

    I appreciate all the feedback to the new layout. I did make some changes as suggested by the readers, including a visited link color, and I’m working on make the text size bigger. In addition, I am working hard at fixing the WebTV problem. If any of you have WebTV and can be available to me in real time to test changes I make, please email me at Widro@aol.com.

    Jonathan Widro is the owner and founder of Inside Pulse. Over a decade ago he burst onto the scene with a pro-WCW reporting style that earned him the nickname WCWidro. Check him out on Twitter for mostly inane non sequiturs