The ThRAWd.

[Loss]

RAW thoughts:

 

-- The strength of the HHH/Batista feud up until now has been its subtlety. That's gone out the window and I really think they need to lay off of this as a physical feud where they interact or come close to interacting every week and instead go the Rock/Brock route where they show training videos and have lots of staredowns and interviews. I wouldn't have them touch each other before the show, and in fact, I don't even know that Batista touching Flair is necessary. Next week is Batista v Flair. Flair always faces HHH's upcoming opponents. This feud has officially become run-of-the-mill.

 

-- A six-way ladder match just SCREAMS "We have nothing better for you to do." The match is pointless unless something is at stake, be it money, a title shot or a roster switch. I'd wager that the others involved will be Edge, Christian, Chris Benoit, Muhammad Hassan and Shelton Benjamin, but we'll see. Regardless, they really all deserve something better than to be paired with each other.

 

-- Trish is advertising a new Stacker2 product, which means I need to go to all my local pharmacies and BUY ALL OF IT! She's so awesome it hurts, and I appreciate her being so informative and sharing a few of her training secrets with us peons. We SO don't deserve it.

 

-- Trish's NWO beatdown on Christy Hemme was fabulous. Christy is doing Playboy, but why is she even there? They've started just putting women on TV without even a convoluted excuse for why they're around. Yeah, Christy won the Diva Search, but does that mean she's going to get in the ring? The eye candy is worthless unless they're involved in a storyline that's going somewhere. I hope Trish murders her at Wrestlemania. Trish calling her move the Chick Kick is such a lousy name, because no woman would say, "Hey, I think I'll call my move the Chick Kick!" She deserves better. I wish SHE was sleeping with Stephanie instead of HHH.

 

-- Hogan, Austin and Piper will all be at Wrestlemania and I really couldn't care any less. You know the Piper's Pit segment will end with Piper eating a stunner, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Hogan go into business for himself and try to hold Vince up for more money a few days before the event.

 

-- This seemed like a good time to mention that Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley and Steve Austin will all turn 40 this year. They're officially in the Hogan/Piper/Savage/Flair ridiculousness category now. In fact, they're almost worse than some of those names, because some of those names were still useful after they turned 40, and the others just can't go home and stay there. I have no desire to see any of them again, except maybe Mick if he's doing an interview.

 

-- I tuned out before the main event. I can't stand to even watch Shawn with his 13-year old entrance theme and 1996 offense at this point. Adjust to the times or go home, please.

[goodhelmet]

-- I tuned out before the main event. I can't stand to even watch Shawn with his 13-year old entrance theme and 1996 offense at this point. Adjust to the times or go home, please.

Well, I still think the song is catchy as f**k... in a bad way. You can't get the damn thing out of your head.

 

"I think I'm cute... I know I'm sexy..."

 

 

Anyone who read that probably just got the song stuck in their head for the rest of the day.

[Guest KingPK]

Fuck you Will......fuck you.

 

Anyway, there was really no reason at all for Michaels to win there. Edge's heel character has been the best I've seen of Edge since the E&C days, and he is being completely shunned in the upper midcard. I would have had Angle come down, get Michaels' attention away from Edge, which allows Edge to nail him with a spear for the pin, then Angle can commence with his beatdown. Edge goes over, Angle gets involved to further their Wrestlemania angle, and Michaels ends up bloodied and beaten.

[Guest Crucifixio Jones]

That's the main problem with me even attempting to watch WWE nowadays. What they SHOULD and NEED to do is obvious to everyone. What Kingpk described as a proposed finish to the main event is something that any child who's watched RAW for the past month would've come up with. Because it makes sense. The finish we got DOESN'T.

 

When politics or whatever interferes with doing the obvious, it greatly hinders my enjoyment of the product. I know the show shouldn't be predictable but when you're making lefts instead of going right just to not hurt someone's feelings or whatever...well, I can't watch that.

[Loss]

If you look at all the people HBK has lost to since coming back (HHH, Jericho, Benoit, Orton, Edge, Christian, Flair), in every case except HHH, he's come back and beaten them at least twice. I think with Benoit it may have just been once, but the point stands.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

They should have HHH go into exhile until WM. Get him off TV except for the occasional training video and interview. They already have people hyped on seeing Batista beat the shit out of HHH, so they should spend the rest of the time focusing on the bottom car.

[Loss]

You are brilliant. Has anyone told you that in the past 15 minutes?

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

No.

 

But it never hurts to be told that. Though I _was_ completely ripping off of your idea... but I guess you already knew that.

[Loss]

Of course I did. You only steal from the best.

 

We are some backscratchin' muthafuckas up in here.

[Loss]

Oh, and the point was made quite nicely at DVDVR that no one in the 80s would have dared wear designer jeans in a street fight. Edge and HBK really needed some worn Levi's instead of boot-cut Diesel jeans, or whatever they were wearing.

[Guest Some Guy]

Trish has the best spraypaint handwriting I've ever seen and I watched virtually all of the nWo stuff. As has been said she's pretty much the best talent on Raw. They should bring in some real women wrestlers for her to work with, like they did for Madusa in 93-95.

 

I marked when I saw Hogan in the HoF video. I groaned when I saw Piper's Pit and sort of marked for Austin, but they're building up a segmetn that won't deliver. Austin hasn't cut a great promo in years and Piper's humor is very, very dated. Piper's Pit flopped in 2003, I can't see it working here.

 

Batista is dead in the water if they go the way I think they're going next week with him beating Flair and then getting beat down by HHH. Unless he makes a comeback and destroys him. But I agree with Loss in the thinking that they shouldn't touch one another until Mania. They've already established that HHH is scared of him and that Batista is phsycally dominant. If htey make this into a typical heel beatdown one week, face beatdown the next they'll kill the Batista's aura and contradict themselves on HHH being scared. If he beats on him then he's not scared. He should keepup with teasing he's going to fight him adn then back off. They can run that for a few weeks and build anticipation without pissing people off with the monotony.

 

Shawn should have lost that match clean before Angle came down. I would have had the same thing they were doing with Edge going for the spear and HBK for the kick, but had Edge follow through and spear Michael's leg, then put him in the submission move he uses and have Shawn pass out from the pain. Then have Angle come in do the same beatdown but at the end put Shawn in the anklelock where he would tap like mad. This would establish that he is vulnerable to leg submissions, he does wear two knee braces after all. I suspect that Shawn will go over at WM so having him show a little ass and put someone who desparately needs it (Edge) over shouldn't be too much to ask. But, hey what are you going to do?

 

Either way the match was really good. Shawn needs to cut backonthe balding, it's almost sickening how much he bleeds every time. Why would Angle come out in real steet clothes, rather than track pants and a T-shirt is he knows that he'll be covered in blood?

 

Me thinks that Hassaan fucked up that bell spot pretty badly and because it missed by two feet they had to call an audible and go with the low blow finish which in effect ends his unbeaten streak.

 

Sniski should be fired or demoted until he can work a whole match without nearly killing some one. He almost dropped SHelton on his head with that tilt-a-whirl slam.

 

Why not move Shelton into a program with the more heelish Jericho? SHelton beat him for the belt it's an easy angle and would give Shelton a good match to establish himself. I think he has a ton of potential, with a good finisher and a few solid wins he'd be well on his way to stardom.

 

Chris Masters is total garbage. I missed his match last week, but saw this one. The guy is boring and doesn't have the WBF body to pull of the gimmick. It worked for Luger because he looked like he could go on stage and do well in Mr. Olympia. Masters is roided up and full of water weight.

 

Why is it that they keep pushing these muscle bound slugs on TV and having them all work the same match? Say what you want about Goldberg, but his power moves were cool and different. He didn't just do the body slam, shoulders in the corner, bearhug, powerbomb deal. A lot of his moves were inovative and explosive, these guys, Batista included are just fucking boring to watch. Master's match was like watching Hercules squash a jobber in 1989.

[Guest KingPK]

The thing about Edge is that he's rocking the mic right now and finally has shown a sharp edge (pardon the pun) to his character ever since his heel turn. The guy should be REWARDED for this, not completely castrated like he has been with this HBK feud.

 

To salvage this, give him the IC title, make him resent being brought down to this level and have him say he'll defend it like a great champion to prove that he is worthy of the big title. Put some damn prestige back on that belt.

[Guest KingPK]

Ok, I know we all agree that he's an idiot, but Scott Keith just gave us another example by giving the Hassan/Benoit match ***.

 

I mean, is he NUTS? Hassan was horrible, Benoit really didn't do all that much to save the match, and the finish was completely blown. I've swung off Benoit's nutsack myself on occasion, but not as much as Keith does, I guess.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

I place 100% of the responsibility on the shoulders of Hassan for the craptacular nature of that match last night. Tomko and Nathan Jones were able to work a Benoit match fer cryin out loud.

[Loss]

Tomko has actually gone from SUCKING REALLY BAD to just being a bad worker, thanks to being surrounded by HBK, Christian, Benoit and Jericho for the past six months.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

LOTC and I officially hopped on the Tomko bandwagon at the Royal Rumble, though he was noticably better (or better used) about a month before. As long as they don't have him talk, they could potentially set up a short feud with Batista. Infact, they could work a few months of storylines if they elevated Christian to feud with champ Batista.

[Loss]

Christian is actually who I'd put over in the six-way ladder match at Wrestlemania, assuming he's involved.

[Coffey]

I would have had the same thing they were doing with Edge going for the spear and HBK for the kick, but had Edge follow through and spear Michael's leg, then put him in the submission move he uses and have Shawn pass out from the pain. Then have Angle come in do the same beatdown but at the end put Shawn in the anklelock where he would tap like mad.  This would establish that he is vulnerable to leg submissions, he does wear two knee braces after all.

That may be the best paragraph I've ever read. I'd not make HBK pass out from pain though. He could just tap out after a long struggle. That way it wouldn't look silly when he was tapping out to Angle.