I'm happy to give you feedback, since you're recapping a show I actually watch (poor kingpk...).
I felt guilty for the thankless, unrewarding, and no doubt irritating and time-consuming recaps you'd do for Smackdown. I don't think anyone would miss them and you'd have some freed up time if you just said the hell with them. It's a job I'd only wish on my worst enemy.
People are giving Keith a hard time. All he really seemed to mean was that if Smackdown doesn't turn out to be worth watching in the next X weeks, he's through recapping it. He doesn't really think that anyone in WWE would see or care either way, and it seems like another silly reason to bash the guy. People seem so concerned about distancing themselves from him, since his mindset seems to be the "typical smark," and people want to avoid being lumped in with him. So rather than just ignoring him and not taking his opinions as anything more than opinions, they bash him, call him FATLOL2004 and so on. Whatever.
"I tried to enjoy this one, I really did, but this is simply a shell of the former greatness of Ric Flair. Absolutely no psychology to speak of, and then Flair of all people fails to remember to kick out on time. Of course, blame Chioda for that as well, as he had to have been taught to finish the three count regardless. And with this show being live, there's no way to edit that one."
Hey, at least Ric didn't look completely falling-on-his-ass drunk like he was a month or so ago for a couple weeks. Although I appreciate him having an on-air role, I get annoyed with WWE building up a match for him, acting like it would be a big career boost to beat him, when it doesn't really mean shit.
Although Edge looked better than he did in his match with Orton, at least. I want to see him working really well, although I still have no interest in his current push.
Will this IC title quest lead into an HHH match? Regardless, I think it kind of cheapens the tag titles, since they're little more than a ring accessory which aren't really necessary because the feud with Evolution has been well established and didn't need to involve the same guy going after a title when he already holds a tag title.
"Live from Rockford, Illinois, sayeth Good Ol' JR and The King. And earlier today, Mr. McAsshole (surrounded by a bevy of beauties) announced the first-ever $250,000 Raw Diva Search. And the fans of Raw will choose the winner a la American Idol."
Yeah, just what the hell Raw needs, a fucking Torrie of its own.
Vince mentioned "classy," but I doubt he's looking for anything of the sort, or he added some extra letters.
"Todd Grisham stands in front of Lita's dressing room, leading to clips of Lita answering 'yes' to Kane last week. But what was the question? Grisham tries to find out, but Matt Hardy v.1.0 has been worried about Lita since he's heard nothing. She still loves him -- how sweet...and they kiss. But she'd rather show him how much she loves him. She enters her locker room to grab her bags, and we conveniently have a camera in the locker room to see Kane enter from behind. She thought he said it was over, and he says 'It's all over.' She leaves all distraught, then out of the building with Matt's arm around her..."
Anyone know where this is going? Why is Kane still pissing around with Lita and Matt with a title match coming up? This seems to be leading to dragging Benoit and the title down to the midcard. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now as far as the ending, but Crash TV, Lita's acting, and the further wasting of Matt makes me very pissed off and apathetic. It's the worst angle on Raw right now, from what I've seen.
"and after all that, we still don't know what the question was...and why it can be "over" a week later. Could it be that WWE couldn't think of anything either and decided to drop this a la "What is on Baby Doll's photos", but tried to do a shitty explanation anyway?"
They had time to fill? You know, time they couldn't use to further build up the World Title match with Benoit and Kane actually interacting?
I guess the reasoning is that Kane will be more of a heel squashing people fans care about than jobbers like Spike and Helms, but it isn't working for me. Ask a mark how it's working for them.
"Triple H and Batista await Shawn Michaels, and a car backs into the parking lot. Batista and Triple H attack...Steven Richards? But isn't the Heat taping over? ::rimshot::"
You're right! How can it be he's just arriving?! Was he actually booked in a match on Raw? I must know!
"Unlike the opening match, we tried to establish some sort of psychology by working on The Hurricane's leg, but as usual, it has no actual bearing on the finish. And would somebody explain to me the point of the hot tag in a short match? The face-in-peril isn't even breathing heavily yet, and we're supposed to be in tune for the big comeback. Credit the crowd for being into it though."
Good eye spotting that, as I was fixing a sandwich at the time. The crowd enjoyed it? Well, bully for them, but also why would they bother with psychology in a short match anyway? Just slug it out, do some spots, end the match, get out of there.
"It almost seems counterproductive to Orton's push to have Jericho essentially punk him out on the mic, but the idea is to get Orton riled up enough that he accepts Benjamin's challenge. Don't be surprised to see Benjamin pick up the pin here."
I wonder why Jericho would even care. Because he's a face? His whole personality changed because he's a "good guy" now? Lame. Face Jericho is totally ball-less and annoying. Didn't WWE ever learn that Piper's Pit-style segments hosted by faces suck? It's not like it's a weekly thing either, so why'd they do it?
Okay, it set up a good match, so it's kinda forgiven, but little things like that annoy me.
"And Trish at the booth is sucking the energy out of this match. Batista with the keylock as Trish sounds like Ben Stein on the Wonder Years. Batista turns the hold into a hammerlock. Jericho chops out of it, and for the love of God stop making Trish talk!"
It's the odd weakness of Slutty Heel Trish 2004. However, she was a lot better back in 2001, so what the hell happened?
"Some excellent arm work by the two members of Evolution on this one, but then Batista started working on the wrong arm. And then the arm work means nothing since Jericho's arm didn't get involved in the finish. But Benjamin getting the pin is the right direction to go, as now Orton can't claim that Benjamin isn't worthy of the shot. Good stuff overall. But could somebody explain to me why we're still working on the Jericho-Trish feud at this point? And people think Dutch Mantel has problem letting a feud die! We had a cage match two weeks ago. If the cage wasn't the blowoff, what's the point? How is Jericho still a problem for Trish when Jericho hasn't so much as mentioned Trish in two weeks?"
If the arm work leads to something, such as certain moves being neutralized, a submission taking far longer to escape, etc, it doesn't matter if it factors into the finish. It should have some point in the match, though. Jericho did go for the springboard dropkick and tagged out to Benjamin shortly after, so that's at least in there subtlely.
I guess no Edge-Orton PPV match, but Benjamin-Orton would probably be a lot better based on the match two weeks ago that Edge and Orton had.
I'd imagine the Christian/Jericho thing isn't over because a) Christian was legit injured and they decided to use it to keep the program going and lead it into the PPV or b) they want to do Jericho/Tomko and are building it up for the PPV. However, shouldn't they have Jericho buzzsaw through the bodyguard first, and then Christian?
...
Oh right, HOSS BAH GAWD, right? Gotcha. Tomko/Jericho is the MONEY match, or maybe they're hoping Tomko will manage not to kill Jericho and get a few lessons on how to wrestle out of the deal.
"And here comes Kane to the ring. He apparently envies Chris Benoit for being World Heavyweight Champion, for living a life of normalcy, and for living out his dreams. Kane lives in nightmares. "My world is shattered and burned. I live in darkness and shadows." But that will change at Bad Blood on June 13, because Kane wants the title. And he always gets what he wants. Including Lita's body? He doesn't say."
And it turns out to be a bet with Christian for one Canadian dollar--oh, different storyline. Well, at least it wasn't mentioned in that segment like it was that big of a deal, but "bend over for me and I won't kill your boyfriend" seems to be implied but not exactly the sort of thing you want to explicitly explain on-air, is it?
"COMMERCIAL BREAK
Let's give them credit for getting across exactly how much Triple H and Shawn Michaels hate each other at this stage of their careers, as they're not even letting the fact they're in the GM's office stop them tonight. Good stuff there. Unfortunately, they're already completely half-assing the World Title Match at Bad Blood, as while that was a decent promo by Kane, they've focused more on Kane and Lita than on the title, thus making the title the third most important thing on the show. Isn't the title supposed to be treated as more important than anything else?"
More important than HHH? He's ABOVE the title, damnit! He's the man who draws the $ and the ratings!
"It's the end of an era, as Victoria has new music so she can dance. And while I like the dancing, I already miss the theme song. If I wanted to listen to techno, I'd hit a club. It fits the change from crazy Victoria to fun-loving Victoria though."
Face Victoria is so fucking annoying I don't care that she's still hot. Shoulding she be hanging out with a skinny breakdancing wigger and a fatass Samoan? The psycho stuff seemed really forced at times, but this is pathetic. Trish had more pride as a face.
"It's not that the match was bad, but it was so anticlimactic that it didn't really mean anything. Victoria has gained an edge in the war with Gail and Molly, but quite honestly, it hurts the momentum Gail Kim had been building over the past few weeks. You'd think they're building toward a Kim-Victoria match at Bad Blood, but why not let Kim keep the edge leading up to it?"
It seems more like Kim/Molly vs. Victoria, so I expect Kim to be dishing out some Gold-Club style sucky-sucky soon again, but there's absolutely nothing here we haven't seen before (and enough of the un-wigging, Victoria. At least Hogan did it to Kurt once, but how many damn times do you have to do it for a cheap pop?), so I can't get excited either way.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but why would Bischoff care if Eugene gets a fair shake or not when he's supposed to be preoccupied with the Triple H-Shawn Michaels situation? You mean he's been panicking for half an hour, but then he can suddenly remember he wants to screw Eugene over? Or is Nitro acting on his own thinking that's what Bischoff would want to do? Or am I thinking too logically since this is WWE we're talking about? I'm leaning toward the latter."
Probably the plans were made in advance by Bisch, and Nitro is just acting on orders given before the HBK/HHH situation exploded.
"This is essentially the status quo we've seen with the Eugene story, as just when it seems like the odds are officially stacked against Eugene, he finds a new friend, this time in the form of the World Heavyweight Champion. While the match was nothing special at all, it was certainly an entertaining way to kill seven minutes or so, and I'm still amazed they got this thing over so fast."
Benoit was an odd choice, and it's too bad that they did nothing to acknowledge the upcoming Kane match. Kane chokeslamming Eugene would have been some massive heel heat, although that could end up with him inserted into 3 feuds at once, unfortunately.
"And the one angle that was built the entire show hits the obvious payoff, and while I think these two men were on this show way too much tonight, this did an excellent job of establishing exactly how much these two men hate each other."
Agreed, because at least the HiaC warrants the buildup to a end of show announcement. However, for this match to really mean something, we'd have to forget that that HHH has about 2 to 3 wins for every 1 that Michaels got over him. Besides, the way they've built it up, I find it hard to believe that the feud could ever blow off entirely without a retirement match. If HBK loses, he's such a stubborn bitch he'll expect ANOTHER match despite getting his ass kicked in the last 5 or so. If HHH loses, he's not going to be happy until he's had the last laugh and gotten it back.
"Overall, this wasn't as good a Raw as we've seen the last few weeks. Sure, the HBK-HHH stuff was top notch and was built over the entire show, but outside of the tag team match that bridged the two hours together, you didn't get nearly the awesome in-ring action we've seen over the past few weeks. Add that to the fact that outside of a two-minute promo we didn't build to the World Title PPV match at all, and it equals a good but unspectacular show. But hey, if you're a Shawn Michaels or Triple H fan, this was your show. "
If it's what it takes to keep the fire under HHH's ass, I can somewhat live with it, but give the spotlight to the freakin' champ a bit more, damnit.
I didn't see last weeks Raw, but I enjoyed this one far more than the disappointing Raw from two weeks ago. While it wasn't terrible, it was a letdown from the buildup that was given to that.
Still beats the ass off of Smackdown without batting an eye, though. Quit reminding us that show is still on while we're trying to enjoy Raw, though, WWE, or start making it good.
