I wanted to like RAW tonight, I really did. It's not like it was their worst show or even a bad show. To use the baseball analogy, they made contact but didn't reach base. The show open was very good. That was the promo Vince should have cut last week, but better late than never I suppose. Undertaker coming out actually worked, but between his promo with Michaels and the bullshit finish to the Rey/Batista match from Smackdown two weeks ago, they've pretty much established Undertaker as one giant pussy. Not good for one of your iconic faces, but what do I know.
Jon Heder actually played a great heel guest host as well, and Don Johnson came off as a pretty good straight man. If you don't like Heder or the character he plays in every movie, then I can see not liking it, but I found him amusing. And of course, the Miz was awesome as usual, as was Big Show. When the three of them were on camera together, there was a bit of magic happening.
I liked the tag match between Legacy and Kofi and Cena as well. The most impressive part was Kofi won without using Trouble in Paradise. Off-finisher falls are really what's missing in wrestling on the whole. Combine that with the rampant disrespect of the finisher on the whole showed by some people *cough*AJ/Angle*cough* and it's a wonder why anyone can take the "anything can happen" narrative from any wrestling company, major or indie, seriously. It's refreshing to see a match end with something a little less than predictable.
That being said there was a lot of bad on the show. For one, there was really no reason to do nearly the same squash with Sheamus and Evan Bourne two weeks later, only not as good. The women's tag match was dreadful. The show close was just bullshit posturing, and it felt like everyone was reading from a script.
It's so maddening at times to think that with a few tweaks that RAW right now could be an on-fire brand with the best mix of TV for the longtime fans and the kids alike. The roster right now is outrageously good, they've hit a string of good guest hosts which will probably continue next week with the Psych guys, and they've got competition to pu... I'm sorry, I couldn't finish that last bullet point with a straight face.
Still, it's the little things that kill, and I feel like if they made some adjustments and made more of an attempt to be a wrestling show that was relevant to the mainstream rather than an "entertainment" show that just happened to have half-naked guys hug each other as the backdrop, it'd be freakin' sweet instead of hit or miss.
EDIT: Also, did anyone else catch Jerry Lawler calling Randy Orton Randy Savage? That made my night.
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