WWE Raw Review - 19th May 2008

After being away for over a week and missing TNA Sacrifice as well as all the weekly WWE and TNA shows I was looking forward to tuning in to Raw to see what had happened since I had been away.

Good Points

Good Start

The show started with a bang with the return to Raw of Jeff Hardy after his surprise appearance at Judgement Day. He has been thrown in to another programme with Umaga but at least it was an intense match with Umaga knocking out Jeff Hardy outside of the ring. This is also a good way to ease Jeff back in before he hopefully makes his way back up the card.

Setting up for One Night Stand

With only two weeks to go before ONS they used this episode of Raw well to get four matches announced for it. We had Batista beating Jericho to get a match against HBK at ONS, we had the team of Randy Orton and JBL beating HHH and John Cena so that they could both get rematches from Judgment Day and we had the returning Jeff Hardy beating pitted against Umaga. All of these are stipulation matches.

Katie Lea given some promo time

It was great to see Katie Lea given some promo time as she confronted Mickie James backstage. She is great on the mic and has some great character skills. That would be a big boost for her career if she was put in an ongoing storyline with the Women’s champion.

Bad Points

Lack of use of HHH

We had to wait nearly two hours until we saw the heavyweight champion on screen and his only involvement was a quick backstage segment followed by his match. A heavyweight champion is suppose to carry the brand and be the main reason that people tune in so to use him like this is majorly under using him.

All the time invested Regal gone to waste

Over the last few weeks Regal has been given more on screen time than ever before to build his character of the out of control general manager. All of WWE’s investment came to nothing this week as after he had to be suspended for his second drug violation. To get him off screen quickly he lost to Mr. Kennedy in a loser gets fired match which was all very rushed. I think that drug testing is positive for the company although it can play havoc with the storylines. If WWE is going to invest time in someone they need to make sure that they are clean.

Overall

A mixed bag in all. They did well setting for One Night Stand but they need to remember that to get pay per view buys you have to get people watching the free weekly shows and to do that you have to put on an entertaining show. So they need to learn to build for PPV’s in a way that is entertaining for the viewers although trying to build for a PPV in two weeks is madness.

No Blogs and Reviews for two weeks

hey guys,

Just to let you know that due to my work and life outside of wrestling there will be no blogs for the next two weeks.

Keep on enjoying Raw and Smackdown and I hope TNA Sacrifice is a great event.

WWE Raw Review - 5th May 2008

After last week’s shocking episode of Raw I was hoping to see some clearer direction in tonight’s show and two hours of understandable entertainment.

Good Points

Making the best of the bad situation

After Regal’s crazy moment last week of cutting the Raw feed the WWE have decided to run with the ball on this one. The show turned in to the Regal show as at numerous occasions he would interfere in matches by switching off the lights or changing commentators. From an entertainment point of view it works but from a visual point of view if I was to be channel surfing and I came across raw when it was in darkness I would probably keep on switching. Only problem was that too much time was given to Regal on the show.

Recent returns of legends

Last week Rowdy Roddy Piper made an appearance on Raw backstage which he followed up with another appearance this week which was added to by Trish Stratus featuring in a backstage segment with Trevor Murdoch. It’s great to see legends used in small roles and I think they can continue to add to the shows.

Continuing push for CM Punk

This week on Raw CM Punk got the chance to wrestle Randy Orton to add to his CV of main event stars he has wrestled. He was kept strong as the match went to a no contest after Regal turned the lights off which was good thinking by the creative team.

Bad Points

Who is in the main event for Judgment Day?

If it hadn’t been for the last moment of the show with Randy Orton delivering the RKO on HHH after his main event match teaming with Kennedy against the entire ECW roster I would have had no clue what the main event for Judgment was if I had just tuned in to Raw for the first time. Regal vs. Kennedy should be a great feud but it shouldn’t be pushed ahead of HHH vs. Orton.

Mix of reality in Wrestling

Finally the return of Calirto’s Cabana where this week he interviewed Roddy Piper following the Rowdy one slapping Santino last week on Raw. This was a great idea but poorly executed as Roddy had to bring up Santino’s recent brush with the law. It would have only been the internet wrestling fans that knew about this and the core of WWE’s audience those who don’t log on to internet forums all day would have been left confused so it was silly to bring it up.

Poor handling of Burchill and Katie Lea

With these two now getting a regular spot on Raw the creative team need to give them promo time and put them in to a storyline with someone and not just have them fighting against jobbers or guys who are rarely seen on TV each week.

Overall

A vast improvement from last week but that wasn’t too hard. I may not like the storyline with William Regal but it is good to see WWE committing to it and trying to make it work.

TNA iMPACT Review - Thursday 2nd May 2008

After WWE’s disastrous week I was hoping TNA provide me with some entertainment and light at the end of the tunnel.

Good Points

Finally a big push for LAX

After months and months of sitting round and not doing that much without being involved in any decent storylines since they last lost the tag titles LAX have finally got a new push. With a big win over Kaz and Eric in the Deuces Wild qualifier they got good mic time to call out none other than Hector Guerrero. The crowd were popping as LAX asked Hector to corner them for the tournament at Sacrifice. This is great to see them being built and having a new direction.

New Talent

In WWE normally if you are an up and coming talent you will have to wrestle for months on Heat or in Dark Matches before you are given a chance on a main show and then it would only be sparingly and as a jobber for a so called big star. However in TNA this isn’t the case as we were treated to a match featuring two brand new knockouts Cheerleader Melissa and Daisy Haze. They were given more than five minutes and put on an excellent match. I am a big fan of Cheerleader Melissa and have watched her work in the Indy’s for some time and I think she will have a big future in TNA.

Push for Scott Steiner

After a couple of bad weeks for Scott Steiner the creative finally decided to give him a push having him involved in the first segment of the show, some backstage stuff and then as the last man standing in the main event match which saw him and Petey Williams vs. Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle. They need to keep this up though as the only way we are going to believe he can win at Sacrifice is if they keep building him.

Bad Points

Too much emphasis on Deuces Wild

Now I know Deuces Wild will be a big part of the Sacrifice show but to push it as the main attraction is wrong giving it the last segment of the show to announce the egotistical eight. This should have been done in the second to last segment with the Steiner main event match as the final segment.

Matt Morgan needs matches

Since his turn from bodyguard to wrestler we have barely seen Matt in the ring. We need to see Matt in a one on one singles match before Sacrifice or at least a big tag match to really assess him. His feud with Kip James seems to be for no reason and just thrown together because nobody had any better ideas. They need to invest some time in this monster.

Overall

TNA put WWE in the shade this week a really strong show with major announcements for Sacrifice, the right people getting pushes and a lot happening. I’m still not sure how this Deuces Wild concept will work after having to sit through the old WCW Lethal Lottery shows and other tag tournaments but with WWE’s lack of good tag teams and time given to them it will be good to see an event with some good tag tem action.

WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 2nd May 2008

After the worst Raw in living history I was hoping Smackdown could provide me with some thought out entertainment as well as their usual quality wrestling bouts.

Good Points

Strong Start

The show opened solidly with a Theodore Long announcing that all the Smackdown belts were going to be on the line tonight. Although the intelligent fans know that titles rarely change hands on TV it gets the casual fans and the live audience hyped up.

Start of a new feud

After his feud with Khali, The Big Show has now started a feud with the only remaining monster for him on Smackdown mark Henry. Although I’m not a fan of big man matches it’s nice to see Big Show enforcing his dominance by beating on the other big guys which will then put him in a strong place for main event feuds with smaller guys.

Bad Points

Not enough talking

After recent improvements with Smackdown and them having more non wrestling segments it was back to the old formula of just having match after match. Viewers start changing channels when they aren’t interested by who wins or loses and the only way you make them interested is by giving them a storyline. If they want to keep viewers and attract new viewers they need to find a brand of sports entertainment like they have on Raw but put their own spin on it.

Poor card strength

I went to a Samckdown house show a few backs and was impressed by the strength of the card however if I had pay to be in the audience for this Smackdown taping I would have asked for a refund. We had Finlay fighting a non named jobber, Koslov fighting Colin Delaney a rare appearance by Nunzio and the return of Jesse and Festus going against Edge’s cronies. For a card boasting three title matches it was very weak.

Smackdown ends like Raw with a crazy finish

Ok this wasn’t quite on par with Raw’s worst ending ever but it was still very poor. After building Undertaker for so long they decided to have Vickie Guerrero strip him of the title in a move that no one saw coming and for a stupid reason. The reason given was because his choke hold was illegal and that he was hurting Smackdown stars. It would have made more sense to have Undertaker getting disqualified on a regular basis first because of the choke hold and then get the title taken away. Because this wasn’t built many fans would have missed this so was a very silly out of the blue idea which like Raw I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just cooked up five minutes before the show.

Overall

I’m glad I am going away in a week’s time to escape the current terrible state of WWE booking. I can’t believe both shows were so terribly booked.

WWE Raw Review - 28th April 2008

After a very entertaining and interesting Backlash I was looking forward to see what the fall out would be on Raw. However little did I know that a disaster in booking and a terrible show awaited me.

Good Points

Kennedy is back and already lined up in a feud

After pushing Regal at the KOTR and then not having him on Backlash, Regal was finally put in to a feud with none other than the returning Mr. Kennedy. I am interested to see where this feud goes as although it is a bit down the card for Kennedy after being pushed in to main event status over the last few months.

New feud for Jericho

Was great to see a new feud started between HBK and Jericho after what happened at Backlash. Jericho claimed that HBK feigned his injury in his match against Batista during his Highlight Reel section. The only problem is where does this leave Batista? Unless we have Batista vs. Undertaker for the fiftieth time there is not much out there for him. Although I’m looking forward to the prospect of another HBK vs. Y2J match after their Wrestlemania classic.

Bad Points

JBL goes from hero to zero

After being in the main event at Backlash JBL this week was booked against one of the Highlanders who haven’t been on Raw for many months. The great consistency in the WWE booking at the moment is great. JBL Booked against a Highlander, Cena nowhere to be seen and no match for CM Punk add to this Cody Rhodes beating Marella and you would start to think they are employing five year olds in the WWE creative department.

Crazy Cade and Murdoch

After their most recent defeat against Kendrik and London Trevor Murdoch took it upon himself to stand on top of the announcers table and sing a song. Murdoch doesn’t have a history of singing so for him to do it with no reason was highly bizarre.

Shoddy camerawork

Some of the camerawork this week resembled some of the live TNA programmes. Don’t who they had on cameras this week but whoever they were it wasn’t the best.

No strong HHH promo

After winning the belt at Backlash many were expecting a strong HHH promo to start his reign as champion but instead of being given the chance to do this he was cut off within a few minutes by Randy Orton and then we barely saw him until he got in the ring for the main event.

Worst ending ever

Randy Orton and HHH gave us a good long match compared to many other Raw main events but was ruined by a Vince Russo WCW booking style ending. For no reason whatsoever William Regal ordered the feed to be shut down during the main event so the show went off to darkness with fans watching at home wondering what was going on. It wasn’t like Regal had been threatening to do something like this for some time or that Regal has a history of psychotic episodes. It was like they had no ideas for the finish so at the last minute someone came up with this hairbrain idea.

Overall

Besides a couple of moments of the light the show was the most unusual mess of a show I have witnessed in some time. Big improvements need to made from this terrible outing.

WWE Backlash Review

It’s always a hard job to follow Wrestlemania as the next PPV which normally shows with Backlash. Normally Backlash is an event with a couple of decent matches but not much storyline movement as most of this would have happened at Mania and the WWE wouldn’t want to change direction that quickly. So Backlash is always an event I go in to with low expectations but hope to be surprised by.

Good Points

Matt Hardy wins the US title

Great to see Matt Hardy and MVP kicking off the show and Matt Hardy building on his comeback push with a title victory. It was an obvious result to guess but needed to happen as the US title had been on MVP for far too long. I hope this now frees up MVP for new feuds as he is my talent to watch for this year.

Nice ending to Edge vs. Undertaker match

Again it was obvious that Undertaker was going to hold on to his title but it was nice how they ended the match. The match ended with Undertaker failing to let go of his submission move for long after the bell forcing Edge to be taken out of the ring on a stretcher. Will be interesting to see how they use this in the storyline development.

Finally Triple H is back on top

In a move which should have happened at Mania HHH finally got his title in an unexpected win in the four way elimination main event. This leads me to believe that Orton has either caused problems backstage or has injury problems as it makes no sense to push him at Mania just to drop the belt a month later. I think it is a shame that such a historic moment wasn’t done at Mania where a lot more people would have seen and o have it mean so much more. I’m just glad though that it has happened and I am looking forward to see what happens with HHH as champion.

Bad Points

No Tag title matches

To have two sets of tag champions and have none defended on a PPV is ludicrous. Every PPV should have a tag title match or at least a well built tag match. What is the point of pushing Carlito and Marella or bringing back Cryme Time not to use them on the PPV. The idea of the weekly TV shows is to build for the PPV’s. I think they should unify the tag belts having two separate tag divisions one on Raw and one on Smackdown but with champions who fought challengers from both brands. It’s like on Smackdown what’s the point of having a women’s division with no champion or no chance for them to fight the Raw champion.

Batista losing to Michaels

I’m not a big Batista fan but to keep booking him low down the card or losing in big matches is starting to really effect his position on the roster. I think it would have made more sense for him to win and then trade to raw to face new champion Triple H and have a Raw guy transfer to Smackdown as a new opponent for the Undertaker.

No matches for Regal or CM Punk

After having Regal win the King of the Ring and CM Punk having his biggest push to date it made no sense for these two not to have matches. Again the weekly TV shows are suppose to be used to promote the PPV’s so what’s the time of giving these two major ring time and not have them on the PPV. It’s just a waste of time on the weekly shows.

Overall

Happy about the two title changes and there were a couple of decent matches in there but I think they used the wrong talent. Out of the pool they have they could have made a much better card which made more sense than the one that was on offer.