In Perspective: Why The Gold Rush No Longer Matters

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RAW was a little bit of everything last night: a little bit boring, a little bit exciting, a little bit entertaining, and sometimes tasteless.

The night was clearly going to end on a heel turn, if it wasn’t predictable enough last week by the initial setup of the Gold Rush brackets. This week the clues of Lita’s non-normal punk girl like outfit, Edge’s threatening of Lita leading to Kane choking Edge later on, the make out session with Kane and then of course, the actual turn and post-make out session with Edge and Lita afterwards. Normally I would want to discuss this point last, but the entire thing is both necessary and unnecessary at the same time that I just want it out of the way. This could have all been avoided by splitting up Matt Hardy and Lita on separate brands, and there would have been no need to fire Matt and I highly doubt this story would have enraged fans as badly because I do believe the three individuals involved could have worked together professionally despite the personal problems. The storyline of now, only became necessary because the right thing of personal responsibility didn’t occur to begin with and the fans caught wind and WWE has decided to run with the momentum. The gimmick suitcase was slid into the ring by Lita which Edge used on Kane for the win. The post-make out session, borderline gimmick infringement on Christian and Trish Stratus’ make out session on Wrestlemania 20.

The biggest problem is the wrestling was completely overshadowed which is why WWE seems to only do solid programming every other week because the writers tend to lose sight of this. I believe the match and the finish happened so quickly, that the fact Edge is wrestling Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship doesn’t even matter anymore (despite it being the whole point of the Gold Rush Tournament) because Batista is not going to lose his momentum because of real life drama behind the scenes. This has now turned into, “how harsh will Kane’s scorn be?”

So now that the main event picture is damaged (and this can’t be directly linked to Triple H this time), the positives of the show are Captain Charisma and Ric Flair – though sadly being pushed into the first hour, providing a entertaining match that I hope will occur at least one more walk down the aisle for the next PPV. I like what the writers are doing with teasing a possible breakup of Triple H and Flair with Batista’s “whoo!” of respect and saving The Nature Boy from the post-beating. The writers can and should push Christian now – he has the ability to work a solid match and give the most memorable promos of the night. I’ve said this before but it is worth repeating, Christian has The Rock break out potential.

Speaking of potential, it was nice seeing a aggressive almost ECW Stevie Richards return to attack Chris Masters. It wasn’t overdone, unlike the Big Vis/Lingerie Pillow Fight Match that was five minutes too long. Granted, I was entertained by Viscera’s serenade for the beautiful Lilian Garcia just because I didn’t expect Vis to be doing a Barry White interpretation. However, I can laugh at that briefly but the reality is the storyline is about sexual harassment and stalking. With no offense meant to The Hurricane and Rosey, the person to rescue Lilian should be a singles wrestler.

I’m enjoying the inner conflict within Chris Jericho’s character – making him the natural heel for even considering something other than wrestling. Considering where Jericho is, in this point of his career, it’s perfectly realistic. If I had the book, I would consider bringing in The Rock within this storyline since he chose something outside the sport and see what kind of dynamic that would raise and that’s putting it in perspective.

Thank you for reading and you can always drop me a line at Bam@4sternstaging.com.