Raw Review for July  21, 2008 by: Colin "Colb" Bonham

 

The Raw Report – The Animal Cheated Out Again

Last night’s Raw was more of the same thing that we have been seeing since the draft in June. By that, I mean the show is fresh and more unpredictable than it has been for a long time. Having said that, I didn’t enjoy the show as much as I had the previous 3 weeks, as they didn’t seem too make much progress in any area. On to my thought on the show:

• The show begins with a video package from the Great American Bash. The package shows the World Heavyweight Title match and the ending where Kane screwed Batista out of the title. I assumed that that would be the focus for much of the show, with much of the attention directed at the new rivalry between Batista and Kane. Now I’ve never made it a secret that I am a big fan of the Big Red Machine, and think that if utilized properly, he can still be an effective talent. As you’ll see from my thoughts of later in the show, I was again disappointed with the way it was booked. The video package ends and we go to the production truck where Batista has just finished watching the package. He then heads to the ring and cuts a decent promo about the fact that he’s putting himself in charge without Steph and Shane being at the show (again). Batista says he’s only going to make one match for the night, and that’s a World Title re-match between Punk and himself. JBL comes on to the big screen and disagrees with Batista, telling him he’s had his shot, and that it’s JBL’s turn at Summerslam (hypocritical isn’t it?). Key CM Punk, who makes his way to the ring and tells Batista that he can beat him, and that he wants to prove it. So he accepts Batista’s challenge, setting up a World Title match as the main event. A fine segment that made sense except for the part where JBL says he should have a title shot, like he hasn’t already had his chance.

• After the break Shawn Michaels’ music hits and the crowd goes crazy. The music stops after a few seconds and changes to Lance Cade’s music. Cade cuts a good pre-match promo, encouraging Michaels to come down to the ring to face him, so they could have words they should have had a long time ago. Cade’s opponent is Paul London, who gets squashed by Cade in a couple of minutes. I like that they are having London semi-involved in the fued because of Shawn Michaels being his idol, but they killed any chance of him having any kind of impact on the fued, having him squashed two weeks running. Cade says that if that wasn’t enough for Michaels to come out, maybe the next thing will be. Chris Jericho comes out, and cuts a great promo in my eyes. I love it when heels try to gain legitimate heat like Jericho does, blaming the fans for what is happening to Shawn Michaels, instead of just telling them they suck or something. While he’s getting booed, he definitely deserves louder boos than he’s getting, because what he’s doing week after week is really showing him to be a great heel. WWE did a good job with the video package they showed of Jericho laying in to Michaels eye from the Bash, it looked stiff and semi-legit, which I suppose is the most you can ask for in a situation like that.

• After the commercial, we get Kelly Kelly against Beth Phoenix. I have to say, when I heard Beth’s music, I expected total squash. But credit to WWE for giving Kelly Kelly some offense. She’s incredibly hot, and vastly improving in the ring, and I thought the two ladies had a decent bout, better than I expected. Obviously Beth came away with the victory (I don’t think there was any question of that) and I don’t think Kelly Kelly will ever be great in the ring, but she’s on the way to becoming completely passable, so she can be a useful face diva from here on. She’s been getting a good pop from the crowd too, which is encouraging.

• Cole and Lawler announce that after the break will be a rematch from last week’s Raw, seeing Cena and Cryme Tyme take on JBL and the Tag Champs. My initial thought when I heard about this match was that they better do something different, otherwise there was no real point in the match. So back from Commercial and we have Jim Duggan in the ring saying that Rhodes and DiBiase were right, it’s probably time for him to hang up his boots. Jerry Lawler gets into the ring and says the business doesn’t have an age limit, and if he wants to continue he should. The Tag Champs come out and talk about how old both Lawler and Duggan are, and Lawler gives Cody a good slap around the face. I hope to God WWE aren’t planning on having Duggan and Lawler form a team and take the tag belts from DiBiase and Rhodes, because the Tag Belts have enough credibility issues as it is. So we get in to the match, and I’m hoping and wishing for a different result. And the match did end differently…Instead of pinning Rhodes this week, Cena pins DiBiase. I was utterly confused as to the point of the booking here. It’s not like Cena needed to win a match tonight after his loss last night. Cena is over and credible enough to take losses for a while and pinning the Tag Champs two weeks running shows that the Champs are more of an afterthought. Again, the credibility of the Tag Titles takes another hit here. The match was fine for what it was, but the booking left a lot to be desired.

• Backstage we see Cade and Jericho walking, probably leaving the building. They open a door and Kane appears. He stares at them before walking off, probably to find Batista. Here, I was still in hope for something good later in the night.

• Next we have an Inter-Gender tag match. Paul Burchill and Katie Lea against Mickie James and Kofi Kingston. Now after last week, where both Paul and Katie Lea lost to their opponents of tonight in singles action, I was hoping that they’d come away with a victory to keep the feuds going. Sure enough they did. The match was fine, and the two feuds in one match continue for another week. Kofi isn’t hurt by the loss, because he looked like he had hurt his ankle with the missing the Kick on Burchill on the ring-post spot.

• Next we have another backstage segment with Jamie Noble, again trying to convince Layla to be with him, and again getting shown up, this time at the hands of Batista, who is angry and looking for Kane. Noble is funny in his role, but I fail to see how much further they can go with this. At this point in time, Noble is like Santino Marella, in the sense that he’s entertaining, but nobody expects him to win matches. Maybe they should form a team…I’m kidding.

• We then have CM Punk with Todd Grisham. CM Punk cuts another good promo (he’s making a habit of them as of late), but is interrupted by JBL. Punk asks him what he wants, and JBL says he wants a title shot at Summerslam, and tells Punk he’s a Transitional Champion. Punk tells JBL to check the record books to see who Punk’s first Title defense was again. I’m glad they mentioned this, cause I was starting to worry they’d forgotten that these two had already had a title match, with the way they are having JBL demand his shot.

• After the commercial, Santino Marella comes to the ring, and says his open challenge was meant to be for a man. And he wants to re-issue it, to a man only. We have the re-debut of D-Lo Brown, who got a nice pop from the crowd. I like D-Lo, and I’ve always enjoyed his in-ring work, and last night was no different. I could see him as an Intercontinental Champion in the coming months, and I think him, Kofi, Burchill and whoever else could have some good matches. Obviously D-Lo got the victory. After the match, Beth Phoenix comes back down to the ring, and we have this awkward segment, where Beth and Santino begin to fight, but stop. They then kiss in the middle of the ring, before Santino leaves awkwardly. I liked the whole segment and match, and I’m looking forward to seeing the storyline with Beth and Santino progress. Maybe Beth will encourage Santino to be a little more competent in the ring. Who knows?

• Then we move to the main event, and Batista is out first. Followed by, not Punk, but Kane. My hopes of a good angle here were dashed, as I didn’t possibly see how anything good could happen before we’d even had the title match. If something good was to have happened, we wouldn’t have had a title match, which the crowd would have been pissed about. So Punk comes down to the ring after Kane chokeslams Batista, and knocks Kane out of the ring. Does Kane get back into the ring to fight back? No. He walks up the ramp with his brown bag, and we don’t see him again. Great. I’m not saying they could have done much more here, but the point is, I don’t think they should have had Kane appear at this point in the show, because there was no much they could do with him, if they were going to have a title match. The match itself was fine, not as good as the bout they had last night, again ending in DQ, this time with JBL stopping the match instead. We then have Cena running down to the ring to stop JBL, and inadvertently hitting Batista instead of JBL. Cena and Batista brawl to end the show, planting the seeds for a feud in the future. So two night’s running, the World Heavyweight Title match ends in DQ, and at the end of the show last night, I was left with a feeling that not much was different from after The Bash went off the air on Sunday night.