I did a quick recap of Summerslam before watching Raw this evening. I did enjoy the PPV and had high hopes for Raw. I didn’t think this was, per say, a bad Raw… but kinda/sorta nothing happened. We also figured out where the top half the card is going to be locked for the next three weeks.
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1) As expected, Jericho blames the whole thing on Michaels putting his wife in harm’s way and needing to have his ego stroked by the fans one more time. Nailed It. My God, Jericho is a great heel. He was a great heel when he was crybaby, man of 1,004 holds Jericho (arm-bar) — but this evil, suited Jericho is just taking it to another level.
2) The one negative point about Batista’s clean win over Cena last night is it pretty much destroys my hoped-for heel turn. I mean, there’s really no reason for him to turn heel after legitimately destroying Cena last night. Squash match against Paul Birchill to take the crowd’s temperature after last night. It was hot, if you can imagine. Backstage handshake spot ends the feud (I think) for now.
3) This “just three seconds better” thing to downplay Cena’s loss is stupid. Just three seconds better describes every match ever. Triple H was just three seconds better than Kenny Dykstra on Smackdown. And, besides the point… Batista was significantly more than three seconds better. He caught a top rope move into a Demon Bomb and followed it up with another Demon Bomb. Cena laid in the ring until well after Batista was gone. Batista was about 90-seconds better. Shut up, Michael Cole. I hate you.
4) Addendum to yesterday: two Short Clotheslines From Hell can be a finisher when following the Clothesline From Hell. Really stupid finish to JBL/Noble that saw the ref decide to stop the match while JBL was pinning Noble’s unconscious carcass after the aforementioned three clotheslines. Why would you stop the match WHILE COUNTING the pinfall that Noble obviously wasn’t getting up from? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to call the match after JBL hit Noble with the SECOND clothesline and refused the pin? Weird booking decision or another fired referee? You decide.
5) Championship Scramble: Five contenders enter the ring, a 20-minute time clock is started, last pin or submission before the clock expires wins the title. Each pinfall counts as a title reign. Allow me to be the first of many to point out that this sounds like a terrible TNA-esque idea. What, is the arena holding the next PPV too small for an Elimination Chamber? I made the joke to someone in the last week (Widro, I think) that I feel like TNA is just grabbing all the old WWE gimmicks that didn’t work and trying them out one more time. Now, apparently, WWE decided that the Hardcore Battle Royal idea was a dandy one if they did it with the World Title. Wouldn’t this gimmick only make sense if one of the four had to score a pinfall over Punk to take the title? Now, are we calling this “Punk sneaks out with the belt” or “shoot the title over to someone while protecting Punk before pushing him back down the card”?
6) Could someone… anyone… explain to me the logic of putting one guy over your World Tag Team Champions when you have an ARMY of jobbers in the back whose job it is to put stars over after a loss? This was stupid. Also, I love when Michael Cole calls standing punches to the face “Ground and Pound”. I hate his immortal soul.
7) Whisper was one of my favorite Nitro Girls back in the day but DAY-UM I could now do without the very bad dye-job. C’mon, Shawn. You’re a millionaire. Pop for some good extensions or something.
8) This is the first time I’ve noticed the remix of Kane’s music and the abandoment of the lyrics with his music. I like it. Cue lots of people telling me it’s been like that for months.
9) I like the shift in ring attire for Chris Jericho. He’s moved away from the superhero pants and moved to red trunks… much like Triple H did on his original heel turn. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. Now for God’s sake, change his music.
10) Much like I didn’t remotely see the Cena/Batista match last night ending with a clean win for Batista, I also didn’t see Jericho/Punk ending with a moderately clean win for Jericho. I expected some sort of Michaels run-in or at least a little more overt interference by Cade. So, we just gave Jericho a win over the World Champion in the champ’s home town and Jericho isn’t even in the championship scramble? Buh?
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Raw moves to the Sci-Fi channel for the US Open next week. Very little advancement in the Michaels/Jericho other than the expected absolution Jericho gave himself. Really kind of a directionless Raw that I liked for some odd reason.
Let the brutalizing of the Championship Scramble idea commence.
