This may be reaching, but I believe that many, many people missed the first hour of RAW at 8p EST yesterday. I honestly feel WWE didn’t push this as a three-hour show as strongly as they’ve pushed shows in the past. That is unfortunate because Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair had a money segment that probably most of the viewing audience missed.
Besides that, the only strong point of the first hour, thank God started into the second hour: Jeff Hardy versus Chris Jericho, second week in a row, except, it’s for Jeff’s Intercontinental Championship. Besides it being hard-hitting, COMPETITIVE, and realistic, stuff you rarely see in wrestling, especially from two faces, we actually get a title change on TV! This is the same belt that I felt wasn’t meaning anything last week, so thankfully, at least one belt in the company can change hands on TV. I think what wrestling powers-that-be should take into consideration: let titles change on TV more often than twice a year. If you want people to find the product again, surprise us once in a while.
The non-wrestling match with wrestling legends Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff versus Mike Rotunda and Barry Windham, was just a reason for Jillian Hall to get some heat for singing “Born In The USA” and that’s it. I love Jillian, but to just not have a match because of her involvement is lazy, irresponsible booking. I know no one wants to really see those guys wrestle each other because it could be painful to watch and I’d rather remember them in their prime, but a finish is a finish. Gerald & Jack Brisco are being inducted this year, but most fans of the Cena era only know Gerald as Vince’s right hand man over the years. At least fans who are not as schooled have a chance to see what the Briscos contributed besides comedy over the years.
I don’t even know if what to say about the Mayweather/Show mess anymore. WWE has managed to make Mayweather look completely shallow, uneducated, selfish and regardless with how true any of those characterizations are, it hurts the wrestling business that portrays him this way because they are supposedly paying this guy $20 million dollars and it hurts boxing that there could be this guy who has no concept of the real world and be so proud of it as the face of boxing. It’s amazing that they the WWE didn’t think Mayweather would get rejected by the fans and they somehow tried to push Show as a heel in the beginning. How hard is it to figure out that the fans will choose the wrestler over the boxer? I still think the atmosphere for this one at WrestleMania will be electric by the nature of WrestleMania, but they better deliver on all this hype.
Batista and Umaga’s segment was better than most of the matches aired tonight, which is sad since they are both on different brands and Umaga can’t work the mic. WWE is really limited on pushing this unless they do more cross-brand stuff, or at least more cross-brand promotion with these two. Umaga should show up on Smackdown with no build up and same goes with Batista.
Finally, Shawn Michaels and John Cena put on a solid TV match with a slow start with the mat wrestling. However, it did find it’s rhythm and the finish made sense that you can’t have Michaels take his traditional loss to Cena because of his important match with Ric Flair and Cena can’t take a loss to be taken seriously in the WrestleMania main event.
Overall, I hope Triple H’s RAW will be solid as he’s stacked the deck up against Cena and Orton as they have to face “the entire RAW roster.” It was unintentionally funny, as I thought about all the wrestling video games I’ve played over the years.
Always remember, for things to change, you have to make movement. Thanks for reading, for all your support and for all the feedback, feel free to contact me anytime at Bam@4sternstaging.com.
