The SmarK RAW Rant – April 18 2005

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The SmarK RAW Rant – April 18 2005

– Live from MSG.

– Your hosts are Coach & King.

– Bischoff starts us off by making the EXPLOSIVE JR-HHH main event into a no-DQ match, and adding Batista into JR’s corner. Two shocking developments to be sure.

– Edge v. Chris Benoit. Geez, bringing out the heavy artillery already. Benoit attacks to start and goes for the german suplex, getting ther rolling version very early on. The crowd is more into chanting “You screwed Matt” as Benoit gets five of them and then releases. Benoit quickly heads up for the diving headbutt, but misses and hurts the arm again. Edge-O-Matic gets two and we hit the chinlock. Benoit escapes and throws some chops, then takes Edge down with the crossface. He quickly makes the ropes. They brawl outside and Edge gets sent into the railing, as they head into the crowd and do some passionless brawling. They head backstage and it’s a sportz entertainment finish at 5:00 or so, as the refs break it up. Not much of a match there. *

– Meanwhile, the refs’ efforts to break up Edge & Benoit have failed, as they fight into the women’s locker room. Bischoff butts in and makes a Last Man Standing match for Backlash.

– Trish calls out Lita to talk about the recent stalking, and the crowd absolutely MURDERS Lita, viciously turning on her. Trish plays it up as heel heat for herself. The crowd keeps interrupting Trish with “You screwed Matt” chants, completely throwing them off. Trish apologizes for everything and declares her love for Lita, but the crowd is more interested in Matt Hardy. Lita tries to retort, but the crowd overshadows the whole speech. They boo everything she says and won’t pop for her big lines. She promises payback as Kane comes out to attack Trish, but Viscera makes the save. This has bad idea written all over it. Viscera brings him to the ring and destroys him, and the crowd then chants “Let’s go Mabel”. And you thought Philly was bitter. Please don’t tell me I have to sit through this on PPV.

– Meanwhile, Viscera puts the moves on Trish, expecting a little more than a simple thank you. He may suck in the ring, but he’s got the moves. Reader Brian Malby, however, immediately has another opinion on things…

“I think whomever came up with that idea should be fired. You know, I usually make fun of people who cry “racism” at the drop of a hat. But, it is hard to ignore the racist overtones in that whole thing seeing as they kept slapping me in the head for about 10 minutes.

Aside from the obvious (I.E. Why should we give a shit about Viscera all of a sudden), that had to be the creepiest thing I’ve seen from the WWE since Katie Vick.

What do you think — overreaction on my part or did it disgust you too?”

My reply — I just thought it was a funny contrast to see Viscera trying to be all smooth while dressed like a member of the undead.

– William Regal & Tajiri v. The Heart Throbs. The Heart Throbs’ entrance is like Billy & Chuck on crack. Funny, funny stuff. Antonio gets a headlock on Regal to start and a crossbody for two, and he’s so excited that he just has to dance. King thinks that they’re a little light in the loafers, but Coach insists that they’re all man. Tajiri comes in and grabs an armbar on Antonio, and then brings Romeo in for a monkey-flip. Regal comes in and gets caught in the wrong corner, as the Throbs work him over and Antonio gets two. They keep working Regal over in the corner as this really starts to drag bad, but he makes the hot tag to Tajiri, who throws kicks and gets the handspring elbow on Romeo for two. Regal necksnaps Antonio into a Tajiri sunset flip for the pin at 4:21. Not sure if it was for the titles or not, although it really didn’t matter. Heart Throbs have a funny gimmick, but it just died once they got in the ring and showed nothing. 1/2*

– Muhammad Hassan v. Shawn Michaels. Hassan tries the attack to start, but gets chased out of the ring for his troubles. They slug it out and Hassan goes down first and bails. Back in, Hassan pounds away, but runs into a boot and gets chopped down. Shawn chases Daivari around the ring, and thus gets jumped by Hassan, who appears to be thanking Allah for the advantage. Man, you don’t wanna be freely expressing differing points of view with Hulk Hogan around. Shawn dumps him and we take a break. We return with, shock of shocks, Hassan in control. An inverted Twist of Fate gets two. He gets a neckbreaker for two. We hit the chinlock, but Shawn fights out and knocks Daivari off the apron. He goes up and drops the flying elbow on Hassan. He goes after Daivari again and Hassan gets the WMD, but it’s a DQ at 10:07. Beatdown follows, and Hulk Hogan makes the suprising save. It’s so shocking that the WWE sent out a press release beforehand. Now, I’m all for advertising his return ahead of time, but then don’t act like it’s a big shock and assume people are total idiots. Hogan and Shawn clear the ring, and then the Balding Egomaniacs pose together. I’m already sick of him again. Match was pretty dull stuff, again with the copout ending. * And to add onto the previous letter about Viscera, after seeing them trot out the horny black guy who won’t take no for an answer, the oblivious homosexuals who gyrate for heat, and the evil Arabs who hate New York and are opposed by Hulk Hogan, I think I’m a bit more offended than I was before.

– Chris Masters is out for his full-nelson challenge. This is gonna get ugly once the crowd turns on him. The challenge, which I (and the announcers) thought was to wrestlers, is now extended to the crowd as well, and an obvious plant answers. I love how they want an “average fan” and then bring out a guy who’s obviously in shape under his shirt and has the same haircut all the wrestlers and bodybuilders seem to have these days. And as usual, our jobber of the week is unable to escape. Wow, that was so worth a week’s buildup. Seriously, what was the difference between that and every other shitty squash he’s been in?

– Shelton Benjamin v. Simon Dean. Chris Jericho comes out to the stage before the match and actually DOES perform “Shelton is a Little Bitch”! I feel so validated! Sadly it sounds terrible and makes Jericho look like a big dork. This allows Dean to attack to start and get a flying clothesline for two. Dean does a nice move, putting Shelton in an inverted headscissor and then doing a pushup to ram his head into the mat, and hits the chinlock. That goes for a while, but Shelton gets a northern lights suplex and backbreaker to come back. Flapjack and he gets a knee to the head to set up the stinger splash, and the exploder finishes at 3:20. Crowd barely made a noise for any of it. 3/4*

– Christian and Tomko are out to say not much of anything, but Vince McMahon, about a week after giving an interview saying that he wouldn’t be on TV anymore, interrupts. Uh, that pair of torn quads sure healed quickly. Is he a robot or something? Seriously, what the hell? Anyway, Vince announces the annual draft lottery, and there’s a funny moment as Vince tells Christian not to interrupt, and Tomko clamps his hand on his mouth to make sure. We don’t have a date yet, besides “about a month”. Christian thinks he’s worthy of the main event, so Vince books him against Batista next week. I don’t really see why, kayfabe-wise, things needed “shaking up” out of nowhere like that, but it’s a pretty thin premise to begin with anyway. Maybe we’ll get another blockbuster like Nidia going to RAW last year!

– Backlash rundown:

– Daivari & Hassan v. Balding Egomaniacs
– Edge v. Benoit
– Benjamin v. Jericho
– HHH v. Batista

If they don’t put at least a three-match buffer between the tag match and the title match, Batista will be dead in the water heat-wise. Nobody is gonna watch a Hogan-Michaels team and then still buy into Batista as a star afterwards.

– HHH v. Jim Ross. Big stall to start as Batista fails to show and HHH offers a hand of friendship. Then punches him down. Given that HHH is a wrestler and JR isn’t, and people have likely seen MMA before since it’s on right after RAW, that punch should have been enough to finish Jim. But in fact JR fights back with his own punch, so HHH beats him into a pulp on the mat. JR starts bleeding, which is really silly for an announcer to be doing. The crowd is supposed to be chanting for Batista, but they chant “boring” instead while HHH keeps beating on JR. The match just keeps going and has absolutely zero heat as HHH moves onto choking him out with his own belt. Is this supposed to be entertaining? Finally Lawler has had enough and heads down to make the save, pulling HHH off of Jim. And then they stop and talk. This is a total carwreck. Finally the crowd clues in and chants for Batista, as HHH Pedigrees Lawler and the announce team gets beat down. Finally, Batista, having set a new record for lateness by not showing up until 3 minutes after the official scheduled end of the show, drives up in his limo and runs out to put an end to this. The crowd gives him a polite face pop as he storms in and gives HHH a corner clothesline, but stops to go after Flair and gets hit with a chair by HHH. HHH is again unable to Pedigree Batista, who comes back with a chairshot of his own to knock HHH out, and then puts JR on top for the pin at 11:26. Nice of HHH to put the young talent over like that. -*** Seriously, are we supposed to go “Wow, that HHH is a hell of a guy for putting Jim Ross over!” or something? He’s a friggin’ set dressing, not a wrestler. This was so bad it was beyond words.

The Inside Pulse:

An absolutely awful RAW, as they continue trending downward after Wrestlemania. I don’t know what’s happening with this show lately, but two things are becoming apparent — Batista is not long for that title, and he’s not the most popular babyface on the show. He’s not even in the top 3 at this point. I can almost see them switching Cena to this show, because he’s at least super over and seems to fit his spot, and they can edit Batista’s crowd reactions upwards on Smackdown. Backlash at least looks like it’ll have two good matches to carry things.

Anyway, bad matches and overdone angles dominate this week. Thumbs down.