Haley’s Comment 05.05.04

Archive

Let’s do this.

No News Is Good News

Slow news week this week, so I thought I’d base the entire report around the Little Things. This makes sense as the hottest topic around the IWC seems to be how good RAW has been lately. Yes, a positive note sung in unison by a large group of cynics – it can happen.

1. It Must Be In The Eugenes

The Eugene angle is going about as smoothly as anyone could possibly have imagined. Dinsmore plays the part well, Regal is a perfect manager and the two interact in very humorous ways. The best part about the angle, though, is that there is a story to tell. Eugene has been messing up Conway’s matches and irking the Frenchmen for weeks, so he has to face him inside the squared circle. The suspense is with Regal – will he turn on Eugene or eventually become the proud mentor of his pupil as he surprises us all in the ring? Or, will Eugene be forced to turn on Regal once someone takes note of Eugene and conspires to exploit him? Lots of options and lots of chances for entertaining situations.

Last night, Regal’s dumbfounded facial expressions and Eugene’s random presentation of a HHH water bottle were the most hilarious points of a vignette that featured Regal training Eugene for his match against Conway. The music was also funny in a Rocky-esque way.

2. Now That’s What I Call Music

Less generic music instantly catapults my level of interest when a wrestler makes his way to the ring. That’s just how it is to me.

Shelton, however, still lacks direction from the bookers. This is due, in part, to the fact that the bookers don’t seem to have a long-term plan in store for Evolution. Currently, HHH alone is involved in the Benoit/HBK struggle, is being targeted by Benjamin after a temporary reprieve and got threatened by Y2J during the Highlight Reel. I guess when you are the most over heel on the roster, you’re going to get overtime. Orton’s case is similar – we went from Edge to Shelton back to Edge again.

A lot of the confusion comes from the fact that Orton is a young champ whose heat is still in the process of being established. Ditto for Shelton. They need guys to put them over so their feuds should be drawn up according to that goal. I still contend that Shelton needed a prolonged feud with HHH or Flair to get his character’s point across and hopefully his upcoming match with HHH will pick that process back up again. As for Orton, the program with Edge confuses things from my standpoint as both guys need to keep their momentum going. Perhaps an interim feud with Jericho or another established midcard face would work better.

At the end of the day, one gets the sense that the midcard isn’t being relied upon very heavily to get these new stars over. Instead, we see a lot of HHH loaning his vast wealth of heat out and some give and take between Orton, Shelton, and Edge.

3. You’ll Ruin The Ending!

Our ever-astute RAW recappers both noticed a few slip-ups that possibly gave away endings to stories on Monday. My theory would be that since it has been so long since we’ve seen any direction in the scripting of the show, the unfamiliarity caused the two mistakes. First up is Mr. Szulczewski:

So the Highlight Reel Transition was fine by me. However, there was one Reverse Little Thing that I hope Haley caught: when Matt was making his entrance, Christian’s video side panels were clearly visible, so his entrance later was no surprise (as if the angle didn’t require it).

Well, anything that distracts us from the Matt facts is not ok by me. The Christian run-in was rather predictable though.

Mr. Keith also caught one:

Some may note that Jericho accidentally gave away Shawn winning the title in his promo, but Shawn still owes Benoit a singles job, and we all know that Shawn ALWAYS honors his jobs, right?

The good news is that the Benoit/HBK feud will apparently evolve into a story based on this slip-up. Shawn should manage to steal the belt away for a brief moment before Benoit eventually shows him that he’s on his level. That the HHH-aference came now instead of later on during any of the future pay-off matches bodes well.

4. Randomness

– Face Victoria continues to do ZILCH for me. The shivering, the kid-kissing, etc. is so generic compared to her original character it’s sad, really.

– I do believe I saw Stevie start off his match with Kane with both hands behind his back. That is probably the funniest twist you can add to a total squash match. Stevie really deserves better based on his presence in the ring.

– Benoit giving HBK the extra German suplex to keep him down was an awesome little thing that speaks volumes to his storytelling abilities in the ring. It kinda made it anticlimactic for him to miss the diving head butt, though.

– Conway mocking Eugene’s name with his own retard voice was funnier than it was drawn up to be, I believe.

5. The Bisch Is Back

Bischoff’s hurried command to get Vince’s skybox ready once he heard he was in the building was just another example of him continuing to be awesome after all these years.

Readers’ Picks – Randy Orton Extravaganza

He is picking up respect from the boys in the back as well as the readers of my report. Three separate items are credited to Mr. Orton this week. First, from last week’s RAW, courtesy of Laurent Castellucci:

As for Harley Race’s big whiff on Orton, I thought that looked great, because Orton played it perfectly. He never raised a hand to defend himself, he just leaned back and let Harley miss. Complete arrogance and cockiness. I don’t even like Orton that much, but
he played that perfectly.

Duane Morin picks up on something from last night’s match:

It’s kinda sad when we point out actual wrestling psychology as “little things”, but I definitely noticed when Randy Orton had Shelton Benjamin by one foot, and before spinning him around like would for the typical move, he remembered that Shelton’s got that move where he spins completely around and kicks you in the head, and decided against it. Ten years ago that would have been the natural thing to do. Now it’s an appreciated little thing.

and finally, Icehawk checks in with this detail:

This one is about Randy Orton’s reaction to title shots. Normally when heels get challenged, they get this look of shock or they get really angry. When Bischoff told Orton about his match with Edge last week, he didn’t really say anything. He just gave a look of concern to the belt on his shoulder. Thinking back, he did the same thing when Foley made the challenge for the last PPV.

It’s a look of concern at a legitimate threat at his title. Like he understands the ability of his opponent and the actual possibility of losing the belt. It’s not a ‘huge’ little thing, it’s just something else that it seems like Randy is making his own.

Seems like the kid is going to make it.

I also want to give due props to Mathew Sforcina, who was the guy who pointed out Eugene’s name in reverse on his jacket. Kinda like EVAD Sullivan from the old WCW days. He also had this to say:

I think the whole Eugene/Regal/Annouce team segment was awesome, and
filled with lots of little things. Off the top of my head though.

– Perfect way to start the “Rain-Man” aspect of Eugene by having him suddenly rattle off Patterson’s IC history, complete with WWE History. Great way to start legitmizing the character.
– Eugene’s favourite color is blue then? What color are his tights? That’s a cool bit of continuity.
– Hearing Regal kindly admonish Eugene for doing things but not actually see what he’s doing was cool.
– Ask Regal about the Mist and Tajiri = thumbs up from me.
– Regal does, indeed, have great facial skills. But the way he jerked around in shock when the pyro went off was also wonderful.

You guys always make the report better.

That’s it for me this week. Keep the comments coming and I’ll see you next week.

Haley