The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
OK, so I took a week off. You can’t blame me for that, I’m a busy guy. Kinda. OK, so maybe I’m a little lazy, but at least I’m back now. Well most of me is, part of the column is being ditched. No, not the show review part I’m afraid, the Newsreel. There’s just no room for it in this crazy mad world we called the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And also because it’s not as if it adds that much, you can check out the news anywhere you want. Enough explaining, time for some RAW stuff…
WWE RAW
April 10th, 2006
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Edge/Cena/HHH segment
If you had asked my opinion on this last week, I would’ve praised the three involved and said what a fun promo it was, especially the back and forth between Edge and HHH. But this week just seemed far too similar to last week, and I would’ve much preferred to see some evolution of it. HHH seems to be doing a great job of making Edge look like a second best heel compared to him, despite the crowd noise seeming to vary from that particular opinion. If only Edge was the dead cert for the WWE Title at Backlash instead of the guy most likely to be pinned.
Verdict: Bad
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Rob Van Dam vs. Rob Conway
A Conman sighting! Which of course means his AWESOME entrance music. And getting punched by HHH, which seemed fairly pointless to me. And we also get Shelton on commentary, which is not the most awe-inspiring sound in the world. In fact, he barely said anything, just lots of gaps between points. Meanwhile, RVD was doing his usual stuff, and doing it well. I don’t know why RVD is curtain-jerking, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason and he’s not being held down.
Verdict: Good
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See No Evil/Kane going crazy
I’ll just quickly say that advertising a movie starring a WWE wrestler in the starring role is fine by me. It’s the movies that have WWE wrestlers in small extras roles that shouldn’t be advertised. Now for possibly the most controversial part of the column…. I don’t have much of a problem with the Kane going nuts thing. Yes, we can hear his thoughts, but this isn’t reality. This is the WWE, not a documentary. So we can hear his thoughts, so what? We could hear Harold Bishop’s thoughts in Neighbours, and nobody complained. All that matters is that we’ve got heel psychopath Kane back. On the other hand, it worries me just what they’re leading to with the Kane storyline…
Verdict: Average
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World Tag Team Titles Match
Spirit Squad © (Nicky & Johnny) vs. Kane and Big Show
Firstly, I’d like to state I am pleased that the Spirit Squad have won the Tag Titles, and am even more pleased that they have chosen to run a Freebirds angle, where all five of them can defend the title. And for the most part this match wasn’t all that bad, but a few things dragged it down for me. Firstly, I think it ran too long, there’s only so much bumping that Squad can do for Kane, and only so many double team moves they can perform. Secondly, the ending was bizarre. Kane merely threw the chairs into the ring, he didn’t actually use them. He could’ve set them up and had a seat with the Spirit Squad where they could have discussed their problems and sorted it out in a non-violent way, but the referee ruined that by ending the match. And thanks to the referee’s decision, Kane went angry and killed everyone, setting up the “long-awaited” Kane vs. Big Show match. At least that’s my take on it.
Verdict: Bad
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Vince and Shane Visit a Church
First of all, everyone claiming about all this blasphemy stuff should shut up, and realise that TNA performed a similar skit in a funeral parlour that involved someone urinating in a casket. Yet that segment was called “hilarious” by most people. They had Abyss try to murder Christian Cage in a swimming pool, and nobody bats an eyelid. It’s double standards that really annoy me. This segment was funny in a lot of ways, from the “Only taking cash” thing to Shane’s prayer and Vince’s commandments. Yet many people decided automatically without even giving it consideration that this segment was blasphemous, boring and a waste of time. Replace Vince and Shane with Christopher Daniels and Kurt Angle and you have to wonder if the same comments would occur.
Verdict: Good
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Los todos, escuchame, everybody, listen… TO ME!
His name, is Armando, Alejandro, Estrrrrrrrrrrrada!
Aka, Big Lalo.
And some Samoan guy v Colt Cabana under a different name.
OSA…. ARMANDO IS ON RAW! I didn’t get the chance to go on about how happy I am about this last week, so just take into account that I LOVED Estrada’s work as Osama RRRRRRRRRRRRODRIGUEZ Alejandro in OVW, and he’s beginning to show glimpses of his awesome charisma in the small portions of the show he’s been given thus far.
I’m not a big fan of someone like Colt Cabana getting squashed, but TAFKA Jamal looked pretty impressive. People are complaining about the Wild Samoan gimmick being out-dated, but I don’t see much of a problem with it. His running butt smash is impressive, and whilst I preferred the torture-rack neckbreaker to the Asiatic Spike, at least he’s got a good manager to get him over.
Verdict: Good
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Carlito/Masters segment
I’ve spent the best part of the week trying to explain to people that CARLITO is the one being BOOKED as the heel, despite getting the face heat. He’s getting the face heat because Carlito is Carlito, and Masters is Masters. I think the WWE are actually confusing themselves with this now, they’ve still got Carlito acting heelish, i.e. hitting Masters with a chair, yet Coach is praising Masters, and Coach is the heel announcer, but Masters is being booked as the face but, but, but…
Screw it, the chair shot was awesome and Carlito rules.
Verdict: Good
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WWE Women’s Title Match
Mickie Stratus © vs. Maria Punk
Maria’s hardly the finished article when it comes to wrestling, but you can tell she’s learning something because her kicks are pretty damn stiff. It was only two minutes of action, and the result was always obvious, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Verdict: Average
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Trish comes out dressed as Mickie
I haven’t mentioned it for a week, but the Trish/Mickie feud is my favourite feud of 2006 thus far. And it gets BETTER, with Trish now reversing the roles and all of the psychological games back on to Mickie James, and it’s going to extend the feud further and make it that little bit more original. Plus, Trish was wearing a short skirt and a thong, which I believe to be the greatest (female) clothing combination of all time. More next week, PLEASE.
Verdict: Good
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HHH & John Cena vs. Edge
I would love to know why HHH has a different theme for his promos and a different theme for his matches, but I’m sure I know the answer already. I also have no idea why he’s acting like a face when he isn’t one. The HHH v Edge portion of the match wasn’t too bad, although I fail to see the point of HHH willingly taking a beating just to not tag in Cena. Surely CENA should’ve taken the beating, and HHH should’ve refused to tag? Maybe that just makes too much sense or something. Despite Edge being “called up” to the main event feud, he was made to look rather dumb by HHH and Cena at the end, but I’ll hold my comments about his chances at Backlash until we see Cena/Edge v HHH next week. And if that does happen, please note me down as predicting that HHH wins. This match wasn’t too offensive to the eye, but it just seemed to stall too much, and the confusing booking tended to ruin it a little.
Verdict: Bad
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So, overall we have:
Good: 5
Average: 2
Bad: 3
That seems to show an improvement to RAW, and to be honest I didn’t think it was too bad at all. Of course, it’s nowhere near SmackDown! levels of entertainment yet, but with the introduction of Dalip Singh to SD!, it might not be too long until we have an even balance between the two brands.
Don’t forget, you can contact me at:
[chris@wrestling101.com]
And I will later in the week for SmackDown!. Toodles amigos.
Chris Dewing