Nick’s 12/14 Raw Review: The Good, The Bad & The Wrestling
What’s up wrestling fans? I’m here with an in depth look at WWE Raw’s final 3 hour broadcast of 2009, a show which hosted the Slammy Awards in addition to fallout from this past Sunday night’s TLC PPV. WWE finds itself in an interesting time right now. There is no major PPV to built to until The Royal Rumble which is at the end of next month, and the next couple of week’s contain 2 major holidays which tend to drag ratings down a bit. While some may look at this time as a time for WWE to coast and wait until after the new year to build up major story lines heading into The Royal Rumble, I feel the exact opposite.
Last night was the perfect night for WWE to plant the seeds for upcoming story lines as one of our biggest complaints with the current PPV schedule is that there isn’t enough time for solid PPV momentum to be built with only 3 to 4 weeks of time between events. Instead, WWE served up its annual Slammy show, and it was filled with mostly bad humor and a grand total of about 20 minutes of actual wrestling in a 3 hour show!
So with that having been said, let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the wrestling from last night’s Raw broadcast!
The Good
I thought Dennis Miller did a good job of hosting the show. I’ve seen some complaints of his performance coming from different areas of the internet wrestling community and I ask, “what did you expect?” Dennis Miller is an intelligent comedian hosting a show that usually offers up a leprechaun doing crotch chops as comedy. Intelligent humor is entirely wasted on a wrestling audience. The problem here is that while Dennis Miller did a good job, he was not a good fit as host of a wrestling show.
It’s obvious that his career as an actor/comedian is struggling, and it seemed even more obvious last night that he didn’t follow the WWE wrestling product at all. So he agreed to do the gig as I’m sure it was semi-decent pay, and the result was that he came off out of place and in an environment that he clearly wasn’t comfortable in. When that happens, a comedian will usually default to sarcasm and condescension, as Miller seemed to do quite a bit with his quasi-tongue-in-cheek jabs at certain wrestlers and segments.
But for the most part his material was good, it simply wasn’t going over with the crowd because many adults have forgotten who he is, and children never knew who he is, so there was nothing really for them to latch onto, especially when the humor Miller was schilling flew right over their heads. Couple that with the fact that the crowd seemed to be more lifeless than ZZ Top hosting Raw, and it made for an odd combination. Still, however, I file Miller’s performance under the Good column because I thought his material was solid and he did weather the storm quite well.
I also thought some of the Slammy winners were surprisingly good last night, and didn’t entirely seem to serve story line purposes. I realize that in a worked environment it seems most logical to have an award show serve only to push wrestlers who need it, but in a way I disagree. The Slammy’s can effectively be used to make light of certain angles, wrestlers, or moments that deserve to be acknowledged simply because they rose above everything else this year.
It was a refreshing surprise to indirectly find out that WWE’s polling system must actually be real, considering Maria would have been my last choice as “Diva of the Year” in 2009. She missed the better part of the year’s last half, and was used sparingly in the beginning of the year. So the online poll had to be accurate as there is no story line reason for why she won that award. The real reason is she’s smokin’ hot, and the WWE Universe voted as such.
I loved Batista Kanye West-ing Maria’s moment, incidentally. It was a good real-life parody and the sun glasses and popped collar pink polo was a very funny touch. I said in my review of TLC that it definitely appears as if Batista is moving into the “everyone is out to screw me” territory with his character, and I think it’s a good fit for him.
It was also interesting to see Jeff Hardy win the Extreme Moment of the Year award. I’m not surprised that he was nominated, as it clearly was the most extreme moment of 2009, but I was shocked to see WWE make light of Hardy’s existence by having him actually win the statue. A nice touch was having the acceptance speech crashed by Carlito. This guy is hilarious, and a true waste of golden talent in WWE. He had some hilarious lines during his “acceptance” speech, and you might have to go back and listen to them again as it was hard to hear coming through the deafening snores of the abysmally moronic crowd last night. I guess Carlito needed to sling a couple of poo and pee jokes their way to get them laughing. Hey, if all Michael Cole had to do after the embarrassing moment he had at the podium was yell “hook ‘em horns,” then yes, this crowd is very slow.
The tease of Bret Hart hosting Raw was brilliant. Miller and McMahon worked very well together in this segment, and Vince played his part perfectly by simply walking off the stage when Miller asked the live crowd what they thought of Hart hosting the show. If WWE is going after Bret for the January 4th show then it’s a very smart move, because they are going to need something huge to counter what I believe will be the most watched wrestling program that night, TNA Impact. Nevertheless, the segment last night on Raw was very well done, and Miller came off actually looking like he knew who Bret Hart was.
The Bad
Well, this is going to be a longer section, as most would probably guess. With the exception of the above isolated moments, last night’s Raw show fell mostly flat in total, especially considering there wasn’t an ounce of interesting or worthwhile wrestling in 3 hours. I felt like I was watching a partly funny parody of the Grammys or the Oscars, as opposed to what should have still been, overall, a wrestling show.
As I said above, there was some fun and interesting Slammy winners last night, but on the whole, most of them were absurd.
Why did Sheamus win breakout star of the year? Was this simply to put him over further? I would suppose so since the only thing he did on last night’s broadcast, one night after shocking the world by beating John Cena for the WWE Title, was come out and cut a 30 second promo. The rest of the night, yep, you guessed it, was centered around reminding everyone that John Cena is still the man in WWE, and he needed to be rewarded with a 3 hour show built entirely around him because WWE still feels the need to protect him dearly.
I said it in my TLC review and I’ll say it again,. STOP PROTECTING CENA SO MUCH! He isn’t a fragile old man with brittle bone syndrome, he’s the company’s top baby face, so leave him be and allow some of the other talent to grab the spotlight.
WWE managed to pull off a very clever and misdirected task when they crowned Sheamus The WWE Champion: they played into Carlito’s Raw speech about giving someone else the spotlight, but only 24 hours later they put the spotlight right back on Cena. And that light shined brighter and more annoying last night than ever before.
I liked the concept of having a tournament to crown “Superstar of the Year,” as it basically said that all the nominees were deserving of the award, but one would have to fight his way toward winning it. The Slammy became more prestigious by having up for grabs in a tournament, so the entire concept was creative and made sense. Too bad the way it played out was absurd. Good thing CM Punk is on Smackdown, because every time he makes an appearance on Raw he is squashed by one of the brand’s top guys.
Additionally, why couldn’t any of the tourney matches with the exception of the main event be anything more than a ridiculous, minute and a half’s worth of nonsense? I’ll get into that more when I discuss the wrestling.
I absolutely HATE the idea of Cena promising to win every match until he wins the title back. This is going to be a dreadful story line to have to watch progress, as he’ll essentially be tearing through superstars that deserve better to prove that he is the man. If this is what we are going to have to endure now that Cena lost the title to Sheamus, I almost wish he had not. More endless speeches about hustle, loyalty, never giving up, blah, blah, blah. I’m so sick of the same old promo that Cena cuts, and this is exactly why people are getting tired of seeing him in the spotlight. It’s not Cena that’s getting old, it’s the fact that the spotlight has remained the same dull color for way too long.
I hated Michael Cole tonight. In fact I hated the entire broadcast team tonight. Lawler seems to have no idea who anyone is unless they’re on the Raw brand, Matt Striker is so busy trying to come up with new and bigger words to use to seem smart that he ironically comes off as over-the-top and ignorant. And Michael Cole. Man was that acceptance speech horrible. No, I’m not “offended” because he made fun of JR’s time with WWE being over, but the fact that he truly believes his “Oh My” and “Vintage” catchphrases are becoming trendy makes me want to “vomit.” In reality, his over-used terms are what make it painfully obvious that he has no passion for the business anymore.
The Wrestling
Was there any? Why did the Slammy segments fall flat? Why did Dennis Miller fall flat? Because there was NO ACTION to disrupt the stagnation of the talking. Raw is not a talk show, it’s not an award show, it’s not a comedy show. It’s a WRESTLING show, and that is first and foremost what needs to drive the action of an event. Especially one that is 3 hours long.
Kane, The Great Khali, and Christian vs. William Regal, Vladimir Kozlov, and Ezekiel Jacksonn: Why was this on the show if it wasn’t going to be used in any meaningful capacity? Why not have this match be a continuation of the great angle between Christian and Benjamin the night before? This match was a foreshadowing of the meaningless wrestling that was to come for the rest of the night. And I wouldn’t even have minded the meaninglessness if the matches had been any good. But from bell to bell most of them were under 2 minutes long.
Kofi Kingston vs. Cody Rhodes, which became Kingston and Evan Bourne vs. Legacy: This could have been an amazing match, and could have been used to catapult Evan Bourne into the mix to prove he is capable of working with guys like Kingston and Legacy, yet in the end it was simply a pile of nothing that used Bourne as the fall guy. WWE cannot make the mistake of demoting Kingston now that his feud with Orton apparently seems to be over at this point, but on the other hand it’s hard to tell considering last night’s Raw did nothing in terms of story line development, and I fear that will be the case with Raw until January 4th.
John Cena vs. CM Punk: What was the point of nominating CM Punk as Superstar of the Year if you’re going to put him in a tournament match that proves he is anything but Superstar of the Year? This was senseless, and just another pawn in the game of making sure that Cena came off as untouchable on Raw last night.
Randy Orton vs. The Undertaker: This match wasn’t too bad, and at least it ended appropriately. It protected The Undertaker but made Orton out to be the crafty villain that was won him 6 championships in the past. No one was more deserving of Superstar of the Year in 2009 than Orton, so I was glad to see him advance to the main event as I was really hoping he would take home the Slammy last night.
JeriShow vs DX: Eh, I was entertained by the concept, and it would have worked if the matches leading up to it had been longer than a blink of the eye, but in a show that had featured 10 minutes of wrestling up to this point, it just felt like more fluffy sizzle than actual steak. Jericho was hilarious though and played his part very well. I will certainly miss him on Raw every week.
John Morrison, Yoshi Tatsu, and Mark Henry vs. The Miz, Drew McIntyre, and Zack Ryder: Another pointless match. I suppose WWE was testing the waters to see how the crowd would react to Tatsu on the flagship show, and honestly he fared pretty well. The crowd was pretty pumped to see him out there. Big problem is, however, and of course WWE won’t realize this until it’s too late, is that Yoshi doesn’t speak English, and WWE never pushes non-English speaking talents further than the mid-card at best. Maybe they’re changing their ways, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Mickie James, Melina, Gail Kim, Maria, Kelly Kelly, and The Bella Twins vs. Michelle McCool, Layla, Rosa Mendes, Beth Phoenix, Maryse, Alicia Fox, and Natalya: The Divas were in evening gowns for a wrestling match? What? This match was senselessness added to senselessness.
John Cena vs. Randy Orton: This match was the first glimpse into Cena’s new character direction. If it wasn’t bad enough that he was Superman before, now with his new “I won’t lose” decree, he has become Superman, Batman, Captain America, Captain Planet, Catwoman, Wonder Woman and Wolverine all combined into one annoying super hero. I sense it’s gonna get ugly pretty quickly. He went back and forth for an hour with Orton in an Iron Man Match, yet beat him in just over 5 minutes last night. Really?
Overall, last night’s show was a very mixed bag. If you’re a fan of silly entertainment, then I suppose it was you enjoyed the show. If you’re a fan of smart humor from Dennis Miller which was showcased in the worst possible environment, then I suppose you enjoyed the show. But if you’re a wrestling fan, which I think comprises a majority of us, then this is the last show that you would have enjoyed.
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