Monday, August 6, 2007

Raw Comments & Speculations


Alot was given to us to digest on Raw, although it seems that few matches took place on the show overall. Here's some thoughts and speculations, which many others might agree or disagree with. I found that overall the show included a lot of commentary by Vince, and some predictable match outcomes along with filler. I know they are still trying to recover from the injuries to quite a bit of talent and needed to do something big.

The battle Royal was a nice twist. I was shocked when Sandman won, despite the fact I had read rumors of Regal becoming GM on various sites. They pulled the "Edge" idea of having Regal exit with a fake injury then re-enter to win. I almost believed Sandman would be our new Raw GM, similar to how Austin was at one point. Mainly because Sandman rarely wrestles and doesn't have much to do. However, Regal is a smart choice as GM and carried the role very well with some humorous comments and speeches he gives.

Vince talking about the US Congress thing - Strange. To me it didn't make Vince look strong in the face of US Congress requesting records. I'm not too into politics, but the Congress request is what it is. They requested records and McMahon has to face the music. But discussing it as he did on Raw made him look a bit nervous, as he tried to make it laughable. I'm not sure as a business move, bringing that up on the Raw TV show makes the most sense. A press release from WWE saying "we fully cooperate, etc etc" always looks good to shareholders. Possibly Vince is nervous about what the info will show to Congress and the public. But he has a few more days to mull that over.

The receiving a fake summons at about 11PM EST on live TV, is almost insulting to the audience's intelligence. I enjoy the show and all, but make it believable to everyone if you want the story to work. Not many people are working at that hour in a business suit ready to go issue a summons in person. I'm not trying to be overly cynical here, but WWE needs to be a bit smarter with a few things like this. An "Earlier tonight" video replay with Coach saying "Vince this arrived earlier" would work just fine. Not trying to nitpick either, but WWE must realize that it has viewers of all ages and in order to make a storyline seem legit, the devils in the details.

The Dating show while some may call it cheesy, seemed to get crowd laughs and response. Personally, I thought Regal's comments were hilarious, such as "we didn't see that coming" after Simmons gave his routine "DAMN!". It's always good when WWE can poke fun at itself, to me that involves putting some creativity and wit into the show. It was a good move to make Regal a GM at this point, because it was hard to see him contending for any titles (despite people believing he deserves them). Ron Simmons also seemed to have the crowd laughing quite a bit.

The King match was predictable and I think we can all see what's coming. Triple H will interrupt next week's coronation ceremony in Madison Square Garden. It's a good place for Triple H to do it. Makes sense and we know Booker will probably go on and on about how he is the true "King of Kings", until HHH breaks things up. That will set up a match for the two at Summerslam and maybe give us HHH a few weeks early. Let's see.

They had no choice but to make Umaga into a "good guy". With Jeff Hardy either injured or suspended, and now Santino in an arm sling with an injury, they know Umaga needs a Summerslam opponent. They turned him face tonight and he will probably compete against Carlito at Summerslam, defending the title. Or perhaps Shelton Benjamin, but smart money is on Carlito for now. They don't like giving the crowd "bad guy" vs "bad guy" matches too much.

This also raises the injury question, and that is why is it happening so much? Are they overdoing it? Are wrestlers not being trained in how to prevent themselves from really hurting each other? Or are guys just messing up and causing their own injuries? I understand accidents happen, but we saw Cody Rhodes mess up in the battle royal tonight. He didn't get hurt, but it makes you wonder if this plays a part in why injuries are happening. It gives Congress fuel for fire to say that maybe these guys need to be given time off regularly and not put on such a hectic schedule.

Finally, WWE did well to introduce that new "mystery storyline" at the end of Raw. It was also a sharp mocking of the limo explosion, as they made us all think "here we go again". I actually expected Vince to walk away from the limo after hearing the news and we see it explode again. Vince put yoke on our faces though and had a different plan in mind as Coach informed him of the fact there's yet another McMahon that Vince illegitimately fathered, running around out there. It will make us wonder who exactly that child might be. Are they full grown to the age of Stephanie and Shane, or are they younger? Will it be a current or former or even new wrestling superstar? Most importantly, Will that get people watching like Vince's fake death and limo explosion? Probably not, but it's a start for possibly getting people interested and getting the ratings up slightly.

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