The OAO Raw Thread for 1/1/07

[Scroby 0]

I also love how Lawler and Ross were screaming about all the "controversy" and things being "controversial" before showing the footage of Rated RKO beating up Flair and DX. What is this, ECW in 1998 or something? Just one of my pet peeves in pro-wrestling.

Tazz: 'This is Extremeeeeee!"

[CanadianChick 0]

Apparently, Shawn's line was about both Bret Hart and Kurt Angle. It was supposed to be vague to build up controversy about who he was talking about.

 

But he's faced both of them the biggest PPV of the year and neither are curtain jerking anywhere...

[Just John 0]

That was a pretty terrible Raw. If I'm a casual fan who tuned in because I wanted to see K-Fed get his ass kicked, I'm never watching Raw again. As a die-hard wrestling fan, it only makes me want to see NYR (a show that has potential) slightly less, but since I have tickets, I'm already locked in. Hopefully it will surprise.

 

The opening segment should've been promos to hype the ME, which should've been Cena vs. K-Fed. Then Cena kills him, Umaga and Cena brawl afterwards, etc. I can't believe WWE booked this the way they did. Well, I can believe it, but it's still sad. Instead, it was too much stalling, the Umaga (not an act you want to introduce to casual fans right off the bat) running down and Cena actually losing. Interferrence or not, that's still terrible if this is the end of the feud.

 

Any casual viewers that stuck around after Umaga were surely turned away by the next segment's 1-2 punch of suck. First you get a bad Melina/Maria exchange and a match announced that no one really wants to see. They didn't even mention K-Fed would be involved, which seems counter productive. Next, there was that god-awful 8-man tag with some of the lamest gimmicks in the company. What ever happened to the WGTT/Cryme Tyme political correctness feud? That was interesting. Now they're just fighting for the hell of it. The Highlanders shouldn't be on tv, and the Rednecks won't ever work until they're booked seriously. At least Shad Gaspard looks like he's added a couple new moves to his hot tag routine.

 

If anyone could withstand that garbage, they get rewarded with Rob Conway looking like a stooge and a Vince McMahon ego-jerk. You'd think Jeff Hardy would be a fun wrestler who you could turn some casual heads with, but you waste him in this? Yikes.

 

The DX promo was alright, if not a little on the strange side. I doubt any casual viewers are left by this point, so I won't complain that this wouldn't hook them. It's certainly better than those two attempting a full-fledged comedy promo.

 

Then there was another uninspired Carlito/X vs. Masters/X match. Dykstra pins Flair again, though this time he had to cheat. R-RKO comes out to beat up Flair again, and DX doesn't make the save. Jesus, they did this last month... Do they really run out of material that fast?

 

The women's storyline could very well be the most coherent on the show. Victoria attacking Lillian Garcia was good. The feud could be better if Mickie were still more psychotic, but she's fine as the last line of defense for sexy divas. It's no Mickie/Trish, but at least it makes sense and I am curious if they'll do anything else with it.

 

The ME went as expected. Cena went over everyone, which was fine, and he did have to use a chair to beat up Umaga. I wouldn't say Umaga was running, as AAE was instructing him to stay back. Cena FU'ing Federline was fine too, except for the fact that this was supposed to be the payoff for casual viewers, and they were never clued into the possibility of it happening.

 

I expected this Raw to be more oriented to non-fans, since that's clearly the goal with all the K-Fed hype. Even from that perspective, this show sucked. Almost to levels of last summer. Bad, bad show all around and I can't see how this will attract new fans or encourage anyone to buy the ppv this week.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Apparently, Shawn's line was about both Bret Hart and Kurt Angle. It was supposed to be vague to build up controversy about who he was talking about.

 

But he's faced both of them the biggest PPV of the year and neither are curtain jerking anywhere...

Personal shots like that rarely make sense.

 

And in regard to Rob Conway getting 'fired':

 

--The future of Rob Conway isn't decided for sure, but the most likely destination is Smackdown and reforming La Resistance with Sylvan. Jerry Lawler hinted on that last night.

[cabbageboy 0]

See, I thought for sure Conway would get more buried and end up in ECW....to reform La Resistance with Renee Dupree.

[RepoMan 0]

Yeah, no shit. And it is beyond me how some people here think Kevin Federline, a guy who wasn't able to sell his own music, a guy who had to hand out free tickets to his own concert, is going to bring in fans. Let's be serious here and stop being pop culture marks who think any interaction wrestling has with it is a huge positive for WWE. No one is going to give a shit Vince called Rosie fat, and people are going to find Kevin Federline wrestling just as stupid as Umaga having face paint on. It's Kevin Federline: he's a joke!

The thing is that Vince is desperate for main stream media attention to help his ego. He wants to think he's part of main stream entertainment and not a wrestling promoter. K-Fed lets WWE get blurbs in stuff like EW and ESPN, and Vince feels validated.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

What a waste of Conway to be re-forming a dead team that nobody cares about. There are better uses and/or better tag partners for him than carrying Sylvan's useless ass through tag matches.

[UZI Suicide 0]

The local news here had a little snippet about the K-Fed/Cena match in their entertainment report last night, the guy said.."The match ended when the large samoan in face paint who goes by Umaga (he pronounced it YOO-MAY-GEE) delivered a punishing blow to Cena, allowing K-Fed to sneak into the ring and pin him, becoming the new world wrestling heavyweight champion."

[TheFranchise 0]

Oh man@news.

 

This is just like the WCW title changing hands in Japan!

 

Or not!

[Guest Dirty Killingsocks]

What a waste of Conway to be re-forming a dead team that nobody cares about. There are better uses and/or better tag partners for him than carrying Sylvan's useless ass through tag matches.

Wrestling 10 minute tag matches on Smackdown > never wrestling on Raw.

[Scroby 0]

What a waste of Conway to be re-forming a dead team that nobody cares about. There are better uses and/or better tag partners for him than carrying Sylvan's useless ass through tag matches.

Looks like WWE is tring to have tag divison's on Raw and Smackdown again so forming another tag team, even if its an old one, would be good for one of the two divisons/

[Dobbs 3K 0]

La Resistance coming back? What next, are they going to have Umaga become Jamal again and re-form 3MW? Let's bring back everyone from RAW's shittiest period.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

What a waste of Conway to be re-forming a dead team that nobody cares about. There are better uses and/or better tag partners for him than carrying Sylvan's useless ass through tag matches.

Looks like WWE is tring to have tag divison's on Raw and Smackdown again so forming another tag team, even if its an old one, would be good for one of the two divisons/

That's fine, there's just better people he can team up with.

[The Niggardly King 0]

What a waste of Conway to be re-forming a dead team that nobody cares about. There are better uses and/or better tag partners for him than carrying Sylvan's useless ass through tag matches.

Looks like WWE is tring to have tag divison's on Raw and Smackdown again so forming another tag team, even if its an old one, would be good for one of the two divisons/

 

But there's no point if the team is just going to split up, or be sent off to OVW within 3 months.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

--We don't have a number, but Raw did a big rating on Monday night. The WWE web site claimed 2.5 million more viewers than usual and a peak of nine million, which would be the highest peak of any Raw show since the glory days if that's accurate. We should have the number later today. The only sketchy details we've gotten so far are that the rating was above average, but not greatly above average, but one of the quarters was through the roof.

[Guest Toddiwod]

What a waste of Conway to be re-forming a dead team that nobody cares about. There are better uses and/or better tag partners for him than carrying Sylvan's useless ass through tag matches.

 

I just hope for his sake that his new partner isn't Val Venis or Scotty 2 Hotty. He'd probably be better off fired.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I kind of think a Conway/Venis team would be decent...the only problem is that Val Venis is a step below being a modern version of Tito Santana, and everyone knows it.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The rating turned out to be 3.9, which is slightly higher than they've been getting lately.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Whew. We dodged a bullet of shows like that for the next couple of months, guys.

[Just John 0]

3.9? That's gotta be a disappointment. And like I said earlier, I'd be surprised if even 5 new viewers would tune in again after that show.

[2GOLD 0]

To be fair to RAW, there was that awesome Boise State vs Oklahoma football game going on. I didn't catch more than one second of RAW with that game.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

I kind of think a Conway/Venis team would be decent...the only problem is that Val Venis is a step below being a modern version of Tito Santana, and everyone knows it.

 

I should note how huge of a Tito Santana mark I was during his generic jobber era (1989-91). He was the personification of white meat babyface and always put on slick matches (except when they would throw him a bone and put him over a fat sloppy jobber).

[claydude14 0]

La Resistance coming back? What next, are they going to have Umaga become Jamal again and re-form 3MW? Let's bring back everyone from RAW's shittiest period.

02-03 is leaps and bounds ahead of today's RAW product. I'd much rather have Trips on top squashing everyone and Bisch running things than the shit we get now. I still tuned in every week back then.