RAW Discussion, Give your thoughts on the latest episode

Oh yes, I'm here the perils of being at work during the week and writing up thoughts on LDN and IPW:UK TV friday night, then going out over the weekend, the thoughts get a bit behind!

So, Raw - the first of three excellent TV shows from WWE last week.

The opening was great, with Edge hyping the TLC wonderfully, then Cena's storming attack that looked devastating. I loved Edge's "you son of a bitch" line when Cena was climbing into the ring, and Cena looks great when he busts out feats of strength like catching Edge off the ladder into that FU. Marvellous.

It's always nice to see Maria, and the first appearance she made where Jeff Hardy left her watching paint dry was funny. Nice to have bonus buts of comedy thrown in.

I really enjoyed Hardy challenging Nitro too, blatant Summerslam Batista match rehash of an ending aside. I agree that Nitro isn't the finished article, but remember he's the last surviving Tough Enough graduate (from series 3), the package with Melina is eye catching, and with Hardy being in the zone too, they had some good stuff. Hope for even better at Unforgiven.

I'm a big Super Crazy mark, and popped huge for him switching to Raw. I see the point that a switch to ECW would have been more obvious, but with no second belts of any kind, what would he do there? Adding him to the Raw midcard should be better for him than labelling him as a cruiserweight on smackdown or a spot on ECW. I liked the fact that with the live crowd, he was given a chance to get over, and did so. I then popped again when he won, and especially as he seemingly landed on Masters face. Ouch! As for Masters, he's obviously in the dog house. That said, he has shown potential, and by working on and paying penance, he'll get his push again. Remember Triple H being squashed by Ultimate Warrior in 90 seconds then feuding with Henry Godwinn?

"The Segment with DX, Vince/Shane/Show & The Security was done to perfection. Old School stuff all the way. I enjoyed it". I couldn't have said it any better. I found it funny to see some NWA Wildside guys, who look huge on the indies (the two fat security guys Tank and Iceberg in particular) looked fairly fat yet still small compared to DX.

Wait a minute. The previous week we had three teams brawling in what seemed to be the start of a feud in the smackdown tag team division, then now we have a 3 way number one contenders match to determine Raw's tag title challengers? So that's two tag team divisions producing actual matches? Excellent. Having the Spirit Squad out there made it feel important too. They're losing the belts to the Highlanders this sunday. Oh yes.

More Maria! Yay. Interesting to see Flair still reference Foley (and cool to see him do his stylin' and profilin') before he was interrupted by Umaga. Then Kane made his triumphant return. Two big men creaming each other like this will always work in WWE. Here's hoping they can keep that pace up at Unforgiven.

Not sure on the Cryme Time thing. Where's the thumbs in the middle smiley???

Finally, a quality main event. What more could you ask for? It was nice to see them given time to do a proper match, and the crowd were rabid for all three intertwining feuds. Props to Orton for his Cena gestures. It kind of hints at a post-Unforgiven feud, but I don't want that to happen, I want Cena to lose and go to Smackdown. Yes.

Thumbs way up. Hope they can do the same tonight from Madison Square Gaerden on the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

Last week's Raw was a bit of an oddity with the Seeptember 11th vibe, so I didn;t bother reviewing it.

This week... I thought the show was good without having the feeling of excitement it had between Summerslam and Unforgiven.

I liked the way Edge managed to turn the whole Montreal crowd against him, and cheer Cena in the opening segment, it was so easy for him it just shows how good he is.

The 'Coach gets people to send the McMahon wishes' segments were mostly funny, but Shelton's racial one was tasteless. Special props for Maria's one, and the end of the DX one with HHH doing a comedy run across the camera.

The setup and last minute of the IC title six pack challenge were good, but the match mostly had no flow. I marked for Super Crazy's dive. Nice to see six guys wanting to fight for the IC belt, like it means something.

Still no Umaga/Kane conclusion, but the unprotected chairshots, Estrada taking a pasting and Kane being a monster again (and Umaga still looking strong against him) make it a

to Mickie James and Lita continuing the women's division, though I'd add Victoria and move Jillian Hall from Smackdown and have a mini-tourney for the belt.

Ric Flair vs Johnny was a fun Flair outing for the crowd but too short to mean anything. I hope this won't lead to a series of Flair vs Squad singles matches. I guess the Highlanders push is over?

That was about it wasn't it?

Oh yeah, while the end was cut by ads, that Unforgiven music video looked great. There seemed to be more ads than usual this week?

Brief and to the point thoughts this week.

What I liked,

The opening segmant with Edge/Cena/The team of Lance Cade & Trever Murdoch/DX was excellent. Edge turning on the fans was great.
The Kane/Umaga fued with help from the brilliant Armando Alejandro Estrada is actually going down well for me...so far...
Maria. Love her.
As much as Vince & Shane have been great over the past few months i'm glad they didnt show up on Raw this week. A break from them is def needed. Hopefully their fued with DX is actually done with now. It's run it's course. Unforgiven did a fantastic job of ending it.
Lita/Mickie James/Candice Michelle. The Woman division lives!
Intercontinental Title, Six-Pack Challenge. I loved the way it was just sprung on us. Shame it wasnt the best of matches but hey its really good to see them pusing the Intercontinental Title.
Good to see Flair as always.
Another quality Cryme Tyme promo. So hope they can wrestle.

What about the Highlanders? I thought they were over?

Decent show then.

Quicker thoughts good. Seeing as how no-one has time for essays at the moment, any short comments will do! (Nice to see you badger, if you read this...)

I figure this can go in here as much as a new thread...

That's October 9, and I assume that the Family Reunion name means the McMahons will return to TV on that show.

The last three hour Raw (Homecoming) was overkill, this will probably be worse.

McMahons should stay away for a good 6 months or so IMO.

A pretty tiresome Raw this week. As a result I'm going back to my policy of only mentioning the positive...

The best bits of the show were the surprises at the end.

First, there was Eric Bischoff taking advantage of Coach running the show in the McMahons abscence, and cutting a great promo that would have been blockbuster five years ago. That's a book I want to read. Could this have been a test for that rumoured DX/nWo feud?

Then, there was King Booker and his court jumping John Cena, adding some much needed hype to the Smackdown brand ahead of their six man tag team match this friday. Looking forward to that one.

Plus, the annoucements of Edge challenging John Cena in a Cage match next week, and the Family Reunion show the week after that, came across well.

In-ring, Carlito and Super Crazy vs Randy Orton and Chris Masters was just getting going nicely, then Masters jobbed again, and Shelton vs Hardy was alright.

I think that's about it...

Piss poor Raw this week.


Whether they are good in the ring or not the Cryme Tyme promos have been great so far.
Eric Bischoff turning up was a suprise but a nice suprise. Was good to see him back on our screens. Enjoyed his promo and The Coach sold his antics brilliantly. A DX/nWo fued? I actually really like the sound of that.
annoucements of Edge challenging John Cena in a Cage match next week and the Family Reunion show.


That really was about it.

Don't forget Raw is live at 1AM TONIGHT

After a fun WWE variety show for the 3 hour season premiere, I thought last week's Raw was below average.

Here's hoping tonight's Raw in comparison is a return to form after a not very good week for WWE TV, though already announced is the return of Kevin Federline , to be in Johnny Nitro's corner for his match with WWE Champion John Cena...

A much better first hour this week, but after the John Cena promo following his saving of Maria (a bit late there, John...) things petered out and there was little heat for the last hour.

Having Bischoff in charge for one night only was a fun idea, but because it was a one off they basically crammed an entire abuse of power storyline into one night. While I expect a short term reign as World Tag Team Champions for Ric Flair and Roddy Piper, as the main event it was natural that the conclusion of said Bischoff storyline would be DX returning to save the day for Piper and Flair and get their revenge on The Bisch, and that was how it turned out to little heat.

Going back to the beginning, I did like the opening with Edge and Orton, Lita and Bischoff and Flair and Piper.

I liked Johnny Nitro vs Jeff Hardy and don't mind the IC title switch at all. Hardy got his reward for some good performances, but Nitro needs the belt much more so in the long term makes for a better choice of champion.

I also liked Spirit Squad vs Duggan and Eugene, the way the Spirit Squad split was teased yet didn't happen yet, and Eugene's heel turn which was really nicely executed. Eugene has the talent, and this is a well earned chance to do something different and progress for him. Did anyone else notice the Squad's Johnny is growing his hair?

WWE continues to make decent use of K-Fed. He seems to 'get it', and using him to try and draw a TV rating on New Year's Day is probably a better idea than putting his match on a PPV where it may turn off the diehards rather than draw casual buys. I liked the use of the big screen promo rather than having him out in front of the crowd as it meant they could avoid any gaffes. I'm guessing it was probably taped the day before too.

I didn't like that Cena made the save for Maria but not until she took not one but two big moves from Umaga. One would have been OK, but two? That's just overkill yet they probably thought it was being edgy. I did like the segment overall though, and Umaga as a fresh challenger for Cena is a good move until they line up someone for Cena to face at Wrestlemania.

Things went downhill from there. Chris Masters vs Jerry Lawler, and Lita vs Mickie had the crowd bored. Cryme Tyme at ringside made Carlito vs Shelton hard to focus on, as they overshadowed it.

The main event also suffered, as by this point they had made it blatantly clear what was going to happen. It wasn't bad, it just suffered from no heat.

Still work to do overall, but better than last week.