The John Report: The Raw Deal for August 3/09

Welcome to the Raw Deal. I'm sticking to the basics this week. We'll have the rundown of what was not a good Raw including some extended final thoughts by me as I vent a little bit and then the usual sarcastic thoughts from my Facebook friends. It's as simple as that this week. I should note too that it's very likely that I will have a rare Smackdown review on Saturday because I want to see and write about the Punk vs. Hardy World Title match there. Plus, it will help me wash out the stench that was this show.

Live from Mohegan Sun (Uncasville), Connecticut here's the Raw Deal…

This week's celebrity GM…Jeremy Piven
I like Piven on Entourage. The show isn't as good as it was in earlier seasons, but his character Ari Gold is tremendous largely because he plays it so over the top. He's got Dr. Ken, an Asian American comedian, with him. He was in the Hangover and also Knocked Up, where he was tremendous as the doctor. Piven comes out basically as the actor that he is while Ken is content in playing this over the top hip hop loving character that looks funny for about two seconds until it looks bad. They should have started playing the "Kung Fu Naki" song just for fun. Nobody would know.

This segment was awful. I tried to like it. I really did. They tried being funny, it didn't really work. When Miz came out, Dr. Ken interrupted his words the way a kid in kindergarten might behave. Miz wants Cena because I guess he wants another loss, so Cena comes out. He mentions Piven's movie "The Goods" a half dozen times or so while pointing out that we've seen it before. Of course we have. This is Raw. We see the same shit all the time, sometimes for years. The "creative" booking sees Cena vs. Miz being a lumberjack match. Wow. Then we learn that Miz would be banned from "Summerfest" if he loses, which Piven corrected as Summerslam. I won't give him a hard time with that because he quickly recovered and made fun of himself for screwing up. That's admirable. Then we learn that if Miz loses he is banned from Raw "forever." That basically means he's off Raw until they have a three hour show and he's wrestling on it because he's a top guy on Smackdown. That's forever. This took what, 12 minutes or so? Felt like 40. As much as I like Dr. Ken in his other work, he was over the top to the point that it was annoying. I really don't think they have to open Raw with the guest host talking for this long every week. Can we get something different for a change?

Jack Swagger d. Evan Bourne (*)
They showed a clip of last week with Bourne winning. I thought, "Hmmm, maybe they changed the booking style on Raw and we'll get a nice 12 minute match from them." Nope. Swagger won clean in 3 minutes with Bourne getting little to no offense. I'm alright with Swagger looking dominant because I like him a lot, but I'm also of the belief that the best way you can get these guys over is by putting them in actual matches. Post match, Swagger continued the assault and MVP made the save. Cole mentioned the history between them. What history? They did the one promo, then they had a match and it ended. Notice the crowd chanting for MVP even though he's the second worst booked character on Raw (after Chavo)? Good crowd.

This week on Smackdown: Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk for the title. I'm excited for it. I'm going to try to avoid spoilers. It's very likely that I'll be doing a Smackdown review that will be posted on Saturday, so look out for that. Speaking of Smackdown, why don't they have a video package showing what happened on the show last week? They actually have matches and good main event angles on there. Maybe you should do that instead of plugging a movie that's likely going to be bomb.

Video package showing Shaq as GM from the week before. Even though I loved Shaq as GM last week, this was longer than the Swagger/Bourne match and was treated like the greatest thing ever by the idiotic announcers. Maybe they have Shaq signed to appear at ringside at Summerslam. If you do then feel free to promote the guy, but if you don't then what's the point?

Piven and Ken made fun of Show, who happened to standing right behind Ken. Not as funny as they intended. He was humiliated, so he wanted to fight Piven. He said no, you get Kofi Kingston and a chance to become US champion. He was fine with that.

Beth Phoenix & Jillian Hall d. Mickie James & Gail Kim (*)
Mickie and Gail came out, then they went to commercial. Then they went to a clip of The Goods that wasn't very funny. This movie is not going to do that well. How long were Gail and Mickie in the ring doing nothing? Four minutes? Five? Lucky for the fans at ringside who were checking out their asses. Good for the fans. As for the match, remember the tension with Mickie and Gail that might have existed last week? Not even mentioned this week. Beth won for hear team by pinning Gail clean. I'd prefer Mickie to turn heel, but I guess they're heading towards Mickie vs. Beth again. Does it even matter when a division has only eight or nine people? Not really. Did I mention Mickie and Gail have nice asses? They do. Very nice, how much?

There's HHH walking to the ring. Damn, nobody hit him in the knee in an unintentionally funny moment like last week.

Ted Dibiase & Cody Rhodes d. Triple H (**)
You know what happened to me during this match? As soon as HHH's entrance hit I felt groggy. Then, when HHH beat the heels up so that they could do the "lay on the floor so that the announcers can throw it a commercial" spot, I literally fell asleep for a few minutes. I wasn't even tired. I wasn't drunk. I just plain fell asleep. I did manage to wake up, make a snack and have a few drinks to keep me awake for the rest of the show. Maybe I should have stayed asleep, huh? Anyway, I managed to catch the very end. You know when Dibiase ran in illegally and hit his finisher with the ref watching the whole thing, isn't that cause for disqualification? I mean, isn't that the point of the rule that is enforced sometimes? Then shockingly, Rhodes actually had a finisher too. I was stunned by that. I didn't know he could actually win a match with a finishing move. The Cross Rhodes is the name apparently. I've seen that move a lot in WWE used by various people and it's never gotten over. I don't see that changing a whole heckuva (TM John Madden) lot. The idea that this win put Legacy over HHH makes me chuckle. Nobody believes in them as threats. Two guys beat one. Yes, HHH almost never loses and Legacy almost never wins, so having them win a 2 on 1 handicap match isn't going to make people say, "wow these guys are great." Two guys beat one. Lose a one on one match. Lose even a regular tag match. Plus, when they have a regular match with HHH and Michaels we all know who is winning, so this thing that happened here will be rendered meaningless at Summerfest.

Post match, HHH had to cover his ass by not putting over Legacy. He basically laughed at them saying "ow ow ow" on the microphone in a joking manner. Then he said maybe he'll re-form Evolution, but Randy's a jerk, Batista's always hurt and Ric's signing autographs at VFW. Good for Ric. Better than being on this trainwreck every week. Then he said he'd make one phone call and if you're not down with that he's got two words for you. The announcers made no mention of Shawn Michaels like it would be a surprise if it happened now. They just acted as if they didn't know who he would make the phone call to.

More backstage with Piven, Ken and Chavo talking. This was brutal. Who did Chavo piss off to become the worst booked performer in WWE? Is it all because they're mad that Vickie quit? What a shame. I wish I stayed asleep by this point. The worst part is Chavo was excited about the idea of wrestling Hornswoggle FOR THE FIFTH FUCKING TIME!

Carlito d. Primo (*1/4)
I still don't understand why the team was broken up. They receive no promo time. No backstage segments. No time between the breakup and these matches. Why is everything so rushed? You hear how dead the crowd was? It's because this has been terribly booked. Carlito's inherited Randy Orton's "I'm a heel now so I better look constipated all the time" face now while Primo's all energetic despite the fact that his brother beat the crap out of him on more than one occasion. The crowd woke up a bit when Primo got some offense in, but that quickly ended with Carlito scoring the win with the Backstabber for the win. Is that the end of this already? Probably. Who knows anymore? They team up for months, they capture the "coveted" unified tag titles, they break up before they should and then it's all settled in a three minute match on one of the worst WWE TV shows of the year. And you wonder why people are frustrated in the product? This entire relationship sums it up.

ECW this week has Christian defending the worthless title against Dreamer in an Extreme Rules match. That’s nice. Move Christian to Smackdown, please. Keep him away from Raw. He's too good for it.

Markswoggle d. Chavo Guerrero (DUD)
What a swerve. Horny's sick, so Markswoggle takes his place. I'm sure Vince came up with that idea and the dozen or so writers that are paid to kiss his ass told him it was a great idea. I don't know what makes me feel stupider: Having watched this match or typing out Markswoggle? You decide. Post squashing, the midget beat up Chavo again. Hey, at least this was better than seeing Mark Henry wrestle for almost 7 minutes like last week. I can deal with him in one minute matches. Oh wait, Mark Henry just did the "click the heels" thing. I never need to see that again. Please.

More backstage with Piven and Ken this time with Orton. He's never allowed to be serious or smile, so this didn't work very well. Next.

We learn that 83% of the fans that voted on wwe.com think Shaquille O'Neal can beat Big Show. Meanwhile, Vince McMahon is hoping Shaq works a match for him down the road. I still think it happens after he retires, but that's another two or three years away. Pay him $5 million to work a WrestleMania, Vince. He's worth it.

Kofi Kingston d. Big Show via DQ (*)
This was good only for Jericho's work at the announce table. One thing about Show is that he is willing to bump for the shorter guys and make them look good. He did make Kofi look impressive here for a brief period. The problem is this does nothing to improve Kofi's stock or Show's either. Kofi winning by DQ just means that Show refused to stop beating the crap out of the guy. It doesn't mean Kofi's better or that he's ready to move on to the next challenger. It just means that they don't know how to properly book somebody to win a match and look good. Can Kingston have a real feud? I'll take Kingston against Swagger. That will be fine.

Backstage, apparently Triple H makes phone calls in his wrestling gear while talking on landline phones. I guess he can't afford a cell phone. At least he's got a camera on him making a call. That's realistic. The person he calls isn't watching Raw. We have to assume it's Shawn Michaels of course, so my admiration of HBK goes up a bit more for not watching the show. "I thought you didn't do jobs." Yes, way to reference HBK's selfishness from 1997. I'm sure that went over the heads of most of the fans. Of course the announcers can't say HBK's name.

Next week's GM: Sergeant Slaughter. I love how they have the American flag flying in the background for him despite the fact that the show's in Calgary. Maybe he should bring the flag and be a heel GM for a night. That would be a nice change. I'm fine with ex-wrestlers as GM. The show doesn't have to be about them, which is the way it should be.

Lumberjack Match: John Cena d. The Miz (*)
In a swerve, Jeremy Piven admits to being a huge Randy Orton fan, so he let Randy pick the lumberjacks. They are all heel wrestlers. What's funny is Chavo Guerrero is one of them even though 20 minutes ago he was put in a match against the Kool-Aid man, yet everything's cool now apparently. Great storytelling. The match was boring because they don't let Miz do anything to Cena. Masters put him in the Masterlock, Cena still looked strong in the ring. Legacy beat him up, but Cena still looked strong. He ducked a cane shot, then hit Miz with the FU and that was it after five minutes. Just like that Miz is off Raw. That's fine. Move him to Smackdown where he'll actually get to compete in matches and not get squashed every week. Great long term planning, Vince. Real organized. As soon as the match was over, nobody mentioned Miz again.

Post match, Cena beat up all the bad guys by himself and Piven came at him with a cross body. He used his body to attack some more heels. Ken hit him with a cane, Cena no sold it and tossed him onto some midcard heels who didn't catch him very well. It looked like he hit his head pretty bad on the ground. Way to go, wrestlers. The show ended with Cena and Orton staring lovingly in eachother's eyes. Oh wait, they were going for intensity. It's hard to know that since they barely interact or do anything to make you think there's dislike there.

That was a terrible ending to a horrific show. I think the ending was worse than the beginning, but that's up for debate. Neither one was very good.

Three Stars of the Show
1. Chris Jericho – He's too good to be on this show.
2. Kofi Kingston – He hit a nice legdrop.
3. Kool-Aid – Seeing Mark Henry in that outfit made me remember the greatness of Kool-Aid. I will buy some tonight.

Rating: 2.5 (out of 10)
Last week: 5.5

I think that's the lowest score in the nearly three months that I've been doing this. By the way, three months equals seven months in WWE Universe.

What can I say, really? I feel like sharing a story here. Ten years ago I was getting off a bus heading to work. I was at a stoplight. The light was red. On the other side of the street, this dude decided to jaywalk. What he didn't see was this car coming out from behind another bus right into him. It was going at least 80km/h, the jaywalker went flying and died instantly. I had to stick around as a witness to explain it to the cops. I didn't know what to say or how to say it. I was stunned. I hope to God I never have to see anything like that again in my life. This edition of Raw was the wrestling equivalent of that horrible event to me. A horrible accident that I wish I didn't have to witness.

Raw absolutely sucks right now. I don't want to say it's "as bad as ever" because I remember the Katie Vick angle, I remember how bad HHH vs. Steiner was and it's not as bad as those things. However, it is bad.

Nobody working in WWE can watch this show and honestly say it's a good product. It's not. I just hope somebody within that company has the testicular fortitude to tell Vince McMahon. If they don't, give me his email address. I'll write him an email. I'll call him. I'll fly to Connecticut if he wants me to tell him to his face. This show is bad. It shouldn't be bad, but it is. Smackdown's usually very good, ECW is okay, Superstars is a good showcase for younger talent and Raw is just downright brutal. It's not an issue of talent. It's the booking philosophy. Please change it. Don't make me stop watching because I'm a lifelong fan that has stuck with this company through the good times and bad. I want to continue being a fan, but if this crap continues what choice do I have?

Summerfest, or Summerslam if you want to call it that, is coming up in a couple of weeks. I can't wait for Show vs. Shaq and Piven & Ken vs. Cena. Feel the excitement! Oh wait, neither of those is actually happening. Way to promote the "biggest party of the summer" Vinny Mac.

Thoughts from the Facebook friends
Here are some random thoughts from some of my facebook friends (just head to Facebook.com/thejohnreport) after I asked for some comments about the show. I will put some additional comments of my own when necessary in brackets following the quotation marks:

“That was so bad I'm actually happy to see Cena.”

“jdfghgbn ojetaogfoeg......sorry, I just banged my head into my keyboard after only watching 7 minutes of it....oh wait, here comes Cena....jvfsfsuinvnionjgmjhb jhj jrmjrnbjrymnb.”

"summerfest? u gotta be kidding me."

"It's official....I'm starting a petition for the WWE to re-hire Russo....his writing was in WCW and is on TNA is SHAKESPEARIAN compared to this bullshit." (Whoa, hold on a second. That's crazy talk.)

"I feel terrible for everyone who spent money to go see RAW tonight." (See that? The readers of The Raw Deal are not heartless.)

"I'm a Cena fan for my sins, but his promos are shocking!! That first 15 mins were awful...what the fuck was the little asian dude doing?? I closed my eyes and prayed for Hornswoggle and Chavo to appear on screen!!" (Wow, praying for Horny. That's never good.)

"Was the worst beginning to Raw ever? Man that was annoying!! Yeah, I don't think it was what WWE had in mind as it had me rooting for Miz. This is getting LAME people."

"THAT WAS THE WORST 13 MINUTES OF RAW I HAVE EVER SEEN!" (I doubt it, but it's the most recent worst 13 minutes at least.)

"America, I give you the beginning of the end of the RAW guest host, Jeremy Piven and his pet rhesus monkey..."Summerfest" indeed..."

"SUMMERFEST- it's the WRESTLE-RAMA of the SUMMER!!!! ORDER IT THIS AUGTEMBER!" (Ha, that's tremendous.)

"Is it just me, or was the first match of the night less than half as long as the opening skit???" (It was about 1/5th as long.)

"best part of raw so far... clip from commercial showing undertaker going through the stacked tables.."

"Kelly Kelly confuses me. As a wrestler I think, "Why are they putting this crap in here." And then I just look at her and wipe away the drool."

"Half hour in and best part of the broadcast has been the Inglourious Basterds commercial. Oh, and a recap of what a good guest host looks like."

"Let me ask this...If Raw is the most watched cable show on tv on Monday night's why do we have to see what happened last week...again?"

"If i don't comment again, it's because I've committed suicide from listening to Dr ken." (Fear not, she is alright.)

"Why is it that girls almost always look better in hats? Thanks Mickie, although Gail is looking good too." (Because when they're hatless they spend hours fixing their hair and they neglect the other parts. When they wear a hat, they can focus on the goods. See, I just promoted a movie while talking about the body parts of a woman. Classy.)

"beth phoenix and jillian hall...i almost forgot they existed."

"I'd rather listen to a whole entire Jilian Hall album than hear dr ken speak 1 more word."

"I love how the announcers say Beth Phoenix is the most powerful diva ever... what about Chyna, I swear the announcers have goldfish memory." (I have no problem forgetting Chyna, so it's fine with me if the announcers forget about her too.)

"Before tonight, i might have considered going and seeing The goods, now i am definitely NOT! Way to overpromote." (And I probably won't illegally download it. So there!)

"Is it safe to say raw so far has been a clusterfuck?" (Very safe to say, but it's also a bit of an insult to other clusterfucks also.)

"I just came up with an awesome idea... the WWE takes all of it's superstars and has one or two of them gradually kill off the rest of them... oh wait... HHH and Cena..." (Even though the use of "oh wait" is my thing, I will strongly support others using it for comedic purposes.)

"Suplex...wow! That will be shown during smackdown this week lol."

"Wow legacy won a match!"

"Cleanly too. Well I guess as clean as 2 on 1 can be

"Isn't DX going to need a more appropriate slogan than "Suck it?" That's not very PG..."

"DX brand lollipops. They'll be fine."

"O FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THE CHINESE MAN'S BACK." (The viewers have fear in capitalized letters even.)

"Don't make fun of Hornbuckler's height there Piven, you two wear the same size clothes."

"Mark Henry looks like the Kool-Aid guy.... and clearly related..." (So I wasn't the only one.)

"Mark henry looks like the black Koolaid man!" (Or two. Kool-Aid rules, by the way.)

"Markswoggle.....bet creative were up all night thinking up that one." (All night? No, more like weeks! Comedic gold like that takes weeks to think of. I have sources.)

"So based off of the crowd's reaction through this whole show so far, I guess that not MVP, not Evan Bourne, not Mark Henry, but Hornswoggle is the #3 face behind Cena and HHH. That's just disheartening." (And it's true.)

"Sweet... so the September PPV... Hornswoggle vs. Orton ... you know... I'd pay for that..." (See that, Vince? One PPV buy!)

"I feel bad for you john to have to read so many comments!" (If you want to feel bad for me do so because I watched Raw without fast forward.)

"And we finally see the WWE Champion at 10:30pm... ugh...." (He was busy making angry faces all night in front of a mirror. Or maybe he was constipated. It's the same look.)

"83% think Shaq can beat Big Show, all I have to say is REALLY?"

"What is that noise...oh Y2J is coming to the ring....no wait, it's Big Show....no, wait it's Y2J....hang on it's Big Show...I give up, that theme music is just wrong!!"

"Does anyone else see the JeriShow sign in the audience? John should have trademarked that." (It was a name that a facebook friend came up with for last week's Raw. However, I will continue to use it.)

"I will have to say that I really do enjoy hearing Jericho calling the match... too bad he can't call a match while wrestling at the same time."

"Has anyone been DQ'ed before just by excessive punches in the ring? This is insane."

"Shawn's not watching...I dont blame him..lol."

"Why is Chavo out there, he just got put in a match with Markswoggle by Piven???" (Shhhhhh, stop making sense like that!)

"the house show i went to in hampton beach friday, beat this raw hands down, oh yeah it was a smackdown show...hmmmmm."

"VINTAGE VIPER SLITHERING ORTON HHH WAS BLINDSIDED GRR CENA NEVER GOES TO THE TOP ROPE CONTROLLED FRENZY HAHA SHAQILICIOUS I MUST BE A SUPER MARK BECAUSE VINCE KNOWS WHERE I LIVE" (I don't know why, but capitalizing Michael Cole-isms really makes me laugh.)

"Now the Miz can move on to Smackdown, and WIN!! God, I hate Cena."

"So I know the Raw creative team doesn't think we can remember what we had for breakfast, let alone what happened several years ago, but didn't John Cena "unofficially" break the masterlock before on a much buffer Chris Masters?"

"i said it once ill say it again just change the name of wwe to hhh and cena entertainment call it H&CE...although cena would cry that his initial isn't first."

"So I turn on the tv and some crappy "comedy" drama is on? where's raw?...That was raw? You Kidding?"

"Cena once again prevails against all odds. Seriously, I don't hate Cena but he is the weapon used by the creative team to destroy everything we know and love about wrestling."

"Am I supposed to think legacy has a chance against DX at Summerfest when it took everything in the book for them to defeat just one member? I don't even think a seven year old gets that logic." (No, but maybe a six year old does.)

"Look for my "Summerfest?!?!" sign on Smackdown! this Friday. I will be in the crowd." (That is tremendous. I strongly support Summerfest signs!)

"I think the use of celebrity guest hosts is getting BAD. They over use the guest hosts which leads to less wrestling. And what was with Hornswaggles korean cousin dressing up like a pimp?!?! Dumb!!! Just dumb!!!"

"Raw was akin to the worst episode of Impact. Dr. Ken makes Michael Cole look like JR. And HHH is so tasteless--he'll insult Flair and then plow through his record with his bland title runs. That was the biggest waste of a Monday night...." (Man, that Dr. Ken-Cole-JR line was money.)

"You know when you said the guest host thing works if the person gets it? Well Summerfest boy doesn't and the show sucked because of it." (Summerfest boy is a catchy name. I like it. Gentlemen, use it on the ladies.)

"Markswaggle brought back a smile to my face though. An extremely large black man in a very small, novelty Party City leprechaun hat. It made me think of his glory days, and birthed hands."

"I don't know what's more retarded-- the Eugene character or WWE's creative team."

I don't think we could have ended the comments section any better this week. Excellent job, people. We'll do the same thing every week. I'm not putting in names to protect the people, but join the facebook page and throw your comments in after Raw and it could show up in the column. While I won't only post funny stuff, I would suggest the funnier you make your comment(s) the better. I post this Tuesday afternoons so get in there and join the fun.

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The rare Smackdown review with a possible inclusion of ECW also is coming on Saturday, so look out for that.

Smell ya later,
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