Monday, May 25, 2009

Kick-Out's Raw Thoughts - May 25, 2009

Well, that was... something.

If you weren't expecting Vince McMahon to completely bury Stan Kroenke, you might be new to this whole WWE thing. Yes, if history has taught us anything, never get on Vince McMahon's bad side, because you will be humiliated and the WWE audience will have to watch. It actually wasn't that bad of a segment when you consider that if Raw was still TV-14, you know "Kroenke's" lips would be on Vince's ass... literally. Told ya TV-PG was good. So it was utterly ridiculous, but how many Chairmans of publicly-traded companies will go out on national television and do that? The WWE Universe does indeed push back, but couldn't they have found someone creepier looking to play Kroenke?

Kelly Kelly vs. Maryse featured beautiful women, but the match was not pretty. Kelly has improved leaps and bounds in the ring and Maryse is one of the quickest learners I've ever seen, but they were not meshing in this one. I also have to laugh at JR saying "I think the blonde will win," when I'm pretty sure neither of them are actually blonde.

You're in Hollywood and you can't find a better Jack Nicholson impersonator than that guy? Yikes. And by the way, I know I've been talking up Hornswoggle & Goldust for a month, but please don't hold that "A Few Good Men" promo against me. Oh and the Bella Twins are once again with a different guy backstage, these girls are starting to put up Missy Hyatt numbers.

Kofi Kingston vs. William Regal vs. Matt Hardy was a solid Triple Threat match and it furthered the notion that there's an actual US Title division on Raw. For too long, the secondary belts have always been about the champ and the guy he's feuding with at the time, but right now there are multiple guys all with one goal, the US Championship, I like it. MVP vs. Kofi should be great next week, but no idea why they're not doing it at Extreme Rules.

Fired up Ric Flair was great and Randy Orton actually managed to convey some emotion while talking, so I have to give him credit for that. I'm not sure where they're going with this Flair angle but... KENNEDY! FINALLY! Okay, so it's good enough that Mr. Kennedy is back, but he's coming right out and saying he's going to take the WWE Title from Randy Orton?! Yes please... can we make that happen tonight by chance? Or as soon as possible? The greatest source of untapped potential in WWE has returned, now as long as he can put the past behind him, there's nothing stopping him from fulfilling that prophecy. Oh and I totally called Kennedy as the fifth man on Twitter... not that I'm bragging or anything.

Really, WWE? Kofi and MVP have to wrestle on Raw next week, but there's room on the Extreme Rules card for Santina Marella and Vickie Guerrero in a Hog Pen Match? Really?! REALLY?! Hasn't New Orleans suffered enough? Do we need to subject them to this?

Okay, Goldust & Hornswoggle vs. The Brian Kendrick & Festus (in a Clippers jersey!) was pretty funny. Again, it's not my ideal situation for TBK, but at least he's still on television and he's involved in an angle. I know Ezekiel Jackson was drafted to ECW, but they were such an interesting duo, can we just pair them back up and give them the tag belts? Please?

I think the entrances took longer than the match, but the Main Event was actually pretty good. Not the best 10-man tag ever, and some of those guys looked utterly ridiculous in those jerseys - Big Show hulking out of the thing, Legacy looking like they were wearing pajamas and Batista's interesting outfit - but the crowd was into it and it tied together the whole controversy. I'm sure it'll get some mainstream press tomorrow and after WWE emerged from the Denver Debacle smelling like roses, this was really the perfect way to headline the show.

Good match or not, the rest of the show did suffer because of this main event. As I mentioned last week in my column about improving Raw, stacking the show with A-List stars is overkill, and look what happened when they put them all in one match tonight, we got a good Triple Threat match and a whole lot of stuff that could've headlined an episode of Sunday Night Heat. It wasn't a good Raw at all, but I'll give it a pass since it will only be remembered for the main event and the controversy that surrounded the show.

From what I understand, ticket sales are sluggish for Smackdown/ECW tomorrow at the Staples Center; if you or anyone you know is able to go to that show - GO! Smackdown is awesome right now and I guarantee it will be better than tonight's Raw... support the good aspects of WWE before they panic and start screwing with it. That's right LA fans, if Smackdown starts to suck, it's all your fault for not supporting the brand!


  1. Kelly Kelly (what a stupid name) and Maryse should just declare themselves to be twins and take on the actual twins. I'm sure it'd please boys/men across the WWE Universe, and then we wouldn't have to be tortured by them appearing in separate segments on Raw.

    By the way, are there many Wikipedia pages for male WWE wrestlers that list their sexual conquests?

  2. Razor = Legend.

  3. If it was MVP vs Hardy/Regal, it probably would have been at ExR. But face on face with no animosity (and let's face it, they are expressing the very antithesis of that - healthy and congenial respect for each other).

    To me, Extreme Rules is about people wanting to really hurt each other, and I don't think that would have fit in well with a MVP/Kingston match-up.

    My question is why aren't Priceless and The Colons feuding. To me, that is something that could have gotten some heat on it and likely stopped a lot of those handicap matches they've had on Raw the past couple of weeks... err months.

  4. That's a good point MC, there's no reason for MVP and Kofi to gimmick it up at Extreme Rules... any other PPV maybe, but you're right about this one.