Monday, January 25, 2010

Instant Feedback: RAW Is NyQuil

Two things stuck out tonight. One good, one bad. The good first. John Cena's promo on Vince McMahon could have been a shoot, hell I bet there were a ton of guys at home nodding their heads in agreement, and some even in the back as well. It's that gritty realism that makes angles such as these work. Cena's work with the guest host, Dule Hill, was pretty funny as well. All in all, Cena was the star of the night, which is what you should expect from your top guy, but still good to see.

The bad now. The opening match between DX and Legacy was an okay affair, but they had a chance to go with an interesting finish. Instead, they copped out and went with a tired finish. Where I would have finished the match would have been with Michaels getting rolled up by DiBiase after Triple H got knocked off the apron. There you would establish tension through misunderstanding, but you give a reasonable doubt as to the intentions of both guys. Instead, we got a dissention tease that ended with DX figuratively jizzing all over Legacy. Really, the storytelling in the WWE is lazy.

Other than that, it was a lot of sleep-inducing bullshit. Sheamus doesn't appear until the end of the show, and he's effectively neutered. Both Miz and MVP drop matches when they're supposed to building towards a hot feud. Christ on a stick, this was sizzling two weeks ago, and now, we get Show squashing MVP and the fake entrance distraction thing. It's a good mechanism, but they overuse it so much, like there isn't any other way that MVP can get one over on Miz. The Divas are still terrible wrestlers. Too many commercials and promotional spots, and if I have to see that double pits to chesty commercial again, I'm going to kill someone. Okay, that one's not the WWE's fault. Axe is paying good money for those spots that the WWE is glad to take, but for fuck's sake, they PAID people to come up with that tripe? I've been seeing it for a year and it's even more rage inducing than it was when I first saw it.

This was not a good go-home show for the Rumble. It was like taking NyQuil, only not enough to put you to sleep. There were moments, but that was it. I mean, it doesn't matter to me anyway; I'm getting the Rumble because I always get the Rumble, and they're lucky that the Rumble is one of those PPVs that has a built-in buyrate, but this isn't the first go-home show that they've slept through, and it's a pretty disappointing trend.

ETA: Another thing... Sheamus wasn't the only one neutered tonight. Orton was too. Think about it, they effectively took a dump on their RAW title match for the event. The two men who are wrestling for hte biggest prize in the company were down on the canvas, and the only guy standing is one of thirty in the Rumble match, a guy who's probably not even going to win it? Basically, the WWE's two strongest Champions are Christian and Miz in terms of booking. Sheamus is a pussy despite being the most physically intimidating guy on the roster not named Undertaker, Big Show or Khali. Undertaker's the rare face Champion who's a raging pussy and who rarely shows up on TV or even at the fucking tapings. Drew MacIntyre is a sneaky cheater. DX never defend their titles. Michelle McCool spends all her time thinking of ways to call Mickie James fat. There's no pretty butterfly Champion at the moment. Does the WWE value its titles at all? Christ.