Monday, February 14, 2011

LIVE Raw thoughts

11:20 - So that was pretty electrifying -- haha -- stuff. The Rock wasn't unpredictable, but it was the best possible alternative. Shawn Michaels hasn't been gone long enough, Austin appears too often, and Triple H doesn't have the virtual universal appeal and good will with the audience. And while the role of the "WrestleMania host" is vague, he had some fun with it. And they could have played things happy and safe, like they did with HBK and Bret (which I think was the right choice), but they went full throttle with the Rock/Cena stuff. And man, they went all out. I have to wonder if they're going to let Cena show some edge and fire back at Rock, or if he's going to play it squeaky clean. I can't help but feel like the fans will devour Cena if he's up against a cool, hip, funny, returning Rock. Remember, Cena's the guy who's still going to be around in 3 months. And he's the guy you're building your company on. Don't eat him alive.

I do have to wonder, though, whether the fans will turn on Rock when he DOES leave again (after promising he won't).

11:13 - So the Rock goes from saying he has nothing to promote, to having the address to his Facebook page shown on the bottom of the screen?

11:12 - Wait, when did Cole grow back his sole patch?

10:49 - Imagine if I told you a couple of years ago the following sentence would actually be uttered: "The winner of the Elimination Chamber match will face either the Miz or Jerry 'the King' Lawler for the WWE Championship." Said by the biggest heel in the company, Michael Cole.

10:44 - I miss the dark leather crown Sheamus wore after he first won the King of the Ring. It was cool looking, and unique. This gold one looks cheap and typical.

10:33 - Appreciate the excitement from Ariel Winter. Cole, be nice, though.

10:27 - That was some pretty crappy officiating.

10:21 - You know, it occurs to me that the false hype of the WrestleMania guest host is rather curious. They're throwing out huge names like Brad Pitt and Will Smith, and "pop culture" personalities like Ryan Seacrest and Russell Brand. By comparison, wouldn't pretty much anybody they announce be a disappointment?

10:14 - Miz has the mic. Rock interruption?

10:13 - It was a great match, but I am disappointed that Miz won (cleanly, no less). To give the devil his due, Miz has tremendous chemistry with Bryan and he's not being carried all that much. I also didn't care for Cole referring to Bryan as warm up for Lawler. Sigh.

10:11 - I love how there's clearly a laptop set up on the announce table, yet Cole still needs to go to a podium to check e-mails from the GM.

10:01 - I'd actually hate to see Miz win this match, only because I enjoy it when one competitor always has the other person's number, no matter how much the "loser" climbs up the ladder. For example, Chris Benoit pretty much always had Triple H's number. Virtually every time they fought, Benoit won. Ditto for Batista, who also always had Triple H's number. Did Triple H EVER get those wins back? I'd hate to see Miz get a win back so relatively early in their rivalry.

9:57 - I wouldn't say Raw is going slowly (it's been pretty packed), but it's hard to believe the first hour isn't even done yet.

9:55 - Unless I'm mistaken, and they have, but is there a reason why neither the Nexus or the Corre has approached Michael Tarver?

9:52 - If they put Ariel Winter out there with the live audience, I truly do hope that they're kind to her. She's on my favorite show (Modern Family) and she seems like a genuine sweetheart. Plus she actually responds to my comments on Twitter, so she's already one of my favorite celebrities because of that! She's a little girl, so I hope the crowd doesn't verbally tear her apart.

9:44 - This is why I think Matthews and Cole work together FAR better than Cole and Lawler. Matthews is willing to give Cole his due. If he makes a good point, he acknowledges it. If he says something funny, he laughs. They don't fight for the sake of fighting. And is Maryse dead?

9:36 - I have to wonder why Vickie is so determined to get the title on Dolph BEFORE the Elimination Chamber -- a match in which there is absolutely no championship advantage whatsoever. I mean, if he's given the Championship Friday, he still has to defend it on Sunday, in which he'd have to exert just as much effort to defend the title as he would challenging for it. For what it's worth, I suspect Long returns Friday, keeps Edge as champ, and reveals that he sent Clay Matthews down to ref the rest of the match.

9:30 - If the Rock is the guest host of WrestleMania, the time to interrupt would be during Del Rio's promo. If not his, then the Miz's.

9:28 - Is there any chance whatsoever that Del Rio isn't getting drafted to Raw this year? Ditto for Dolph Ziggler, I'd say.

9:22 - Trust me, I completely understand that the vast majority of wrestling fans are smart enough to know that Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler are playing characters, but I still found it odd that they decided to have Cole, and not Matthews, explain to the audience why Lawler wasn't there. I'm glad they took the sincere route, but why not have Matthews make the announcement? It just seemed odd having Cole say, "I had the chance to talk to King today, and he assured me that he would be at Elimination Chamber."

9:20 - CM Punk channeling his inner Eddie Guerrero tonight. And that's a good thing!

9:17 - By the way, I bought one of those CM Punk Rumbler action figures to put on my desk. They're small and look animated. They're pretty cool looking, actually. They need to make one of Edge. With sunglasses, of course.

9:08 - It still bothers me that the CM Punk/John Cena feud won't be properly concluded due to the WrestleMania build of Orton/Punk and Miz/Cena, presumably.

9:05 - Cena saying that his prediction is "rock solid." A hint, perhaps?

9:03 - With all due respect to Jerry Lawler, who unfortunately just lost his mother, the best thing about tonight's show is that Cole and Matthews will be calling it.

8:51 - Check back in about ten minutes for my LIVE Raw thoughts. Tonight they're announcing the host of WrestleMania and I can't help but ask -- is there ANYBODY truly invested in this announcement? The odds on favorite is Rock, who hasn't truly appeared in WWE for, what, about 8 years? And even with that sort of speculation, all of the excitement is coming from WWE, not the viewing audience. We'll have to see how it plays out tonight.


1 comment:

Kyle Litke said...

It literally HAD to be Rock by that point. As soon as Cena VS Punk led off Raw I figured it had to be him...the only reason that wouldn't be the main event is if the guest host was last, and if the guest host went on last and was a random celebrity, the crowd would have rioted and booed them out of the building. Austin or HBK wouldn't have gotten booed, but they wouldn't exactly have been a watercooler topic to the point where I saw about 5 or 6 people on my Twitter who have nothing to do with wrestling and who, as far as I had known, had never even watched before, going crazy about the Rock. Baseball beatwriters, a few celebrities, all were talking about it, and that's something Austin or HBK wouldn't have brought, because they're just not mainstream enough. Rock is the only mainstream personality that the wrestling fans would have accepted at that point.