Instant Feedback: I Know How This Show Sucked This Summer

Let's get the positives out of the way, as there were few. Freddie Prinze, Jr. wasn't atrocious. In fact, he was good, way better than Piven at putting over the product and showing that he genuinely cared about it, and he stayed out of the way for the most part, which was great. When he was on, he was effective. The first two matches they had were pretty good too. And while they telegraphed a DX win on Sunday with that beatdown, it was still awesome.

That being said, it was an awful show, as awful a show as you could put on as a go-home show before a PPV. Let's see, an almost complete replay of the awful DX reunion comedy skit from last week? Check. A Pretty Butterfly Title Match that ended on a whiffed kick and weak elbow from two wrestlers who are capable of far better? Check. The unreal and inexplicable continuation of the Hornswoggle/Chavo feud that should have been for the live crowd only from jump, replete with a movie reference almost 20years too late? Check. A lumberjack tag match short two lumberjacks? Check. Cena standing tall again with the announcers acting utterly surprised that he was standing tall? Check. Ooh, but I forgot, they were unpredictable and will have "water cooler talk" with Macaulay Culkin appearing. Wow, I'm just so impressed.

Okay, the last one before the sarcastic jab at Culkin is defensible, at least the first part. Cena and Orton standing in defiant glare of each other is a perfectly fine way to end the show. However, I think that I found out the main reason why I hate the Cena-as-Superman stuff so much. It's really not so much that Cena is booked as Superman. I can take that if it's balanced out by competition elsewhere. Again, Cena's a good wrestler and an ambassador for the sport, so he gets a lot of leeway here. However, it's that the announcers always act so utterly shocked that he overcomes the odds week in and week out. I mean, come on now, fucking wise up. Don't act so surprised when "he beats the odds" because he's been doing it for a few years now. Maybe the odds were never against him. Maybe acknowledge that he's one of the best the industry has ever seen and that the fans love him because they recognize his greatness, not because they want to see him play underdog.

Honestly, if I were on the fence about the PPV, I probably wouldn't order. If I didn't know the PPV was on Sunday, I might still not know since they did very little in the way of really driving the show home outside of the beatdown from Legacy to DX. Luckily for them, I'm more in the favor of ordering it, with Punk/Hardy, Ziggler/Mysterio, Christian/Regal and the Tag Title match on the card, with the prospect of Swagger/MVP and Sheamus/Goldust (a pipe dream I know for both) possibly being added as well. Still though, as far as go-home shows, this screamed more "go home and don't watch our product" instead of "go-home towards the PPV".

And they can't blame it on Prinze either. Maybe on top of luring in the "casuals" that they so desperately desire with these guest hosts, they should think about putting on a good show to keep people watching week after week.