Palumbo's RAW Review, 7/10/07

Right about now you’re probably thinking, “What the hell makes you, Jake Palumbo, qualified to review Monday Night RAW???” Well, because Nate said so and that’s the bottom line. Seriously folks, like Memphis’s Mid-South Coliseum all through the 80’s, watching wrestling on Monday nights is good, honest American tradition; it just feels right to have RAW on Mondays, to the point I was never able to really get into watching SmackDown.

Knowing that the contributors of SGM (as well as most of its readership) are also card-carrying wrestling geeks like myself, it’s comforting to be amongst my people and not have to tout my so-called credentials like a lot of the internet wrestling community feels the need to do.

Although I should point out, as a token of my realness, that I have seen both the Fake Razor Ramon and the Fake Diesel wrestle live. Beat that.

A couple things you need to know about me - My mentality when it comes to the squared circle is very old-school; not as old-school as say, Beau James, but I often long for the days when the Horsemen slamming Barry Windham’s hand into a car door would generate heat that Triple H fucking the dead corpse of Kane’s DUI victim could only dream of. Also, I have a tendency to still refer to Vince’s promotion as the WWF.

With that said, let’s jump into tonight’s Monday Night RAW, coming to you live from the Cajun Dome…

Our curtain-jerker for the evening pits Bobby Lashley against King Booker. Is it just me, or does Booker T have this look of “Please Kill Me Now” these days? Seriously, the man left his intensity in Houston or something. Maybe it’s the long-term effects of rocking a gimmick that’s stupid and unnecessary; maybe Charmel has been putting Seroquel in his mashed potatoes to keep him from doing Spinneroonies at the dinner table. I don’t know. But I do like Bobby Lashley; he has the size and charisma of a Brock Lesnar with some pretty decent mat wrestling ability, almost like Kurt Angle Lite. Lashley is also smart enough to keep himself basically off the microphone, given that he has the Tony Gwynn syndrom of the-voice-doesn't-match-the-man.

The match was cut short my Mr. Kennedy’s interference, with a nasty double-team on the former ECW champ. The melee is broken up by Jonathan Coachman, ordering the heels to lay off Lashley, because Kennedy and Booker will be facing Lashley and a partner of his choice in the main event of tonight’s RAW, providing Bobby can find a partner. I love that booking logic – with a roster of wrestlers backstage, where in the hell are you gonna find a tag team partner at this hour??

Intercontinental Champion Umaga vs. Santino Marella – I have little-to-no-use for Umaga (I know they need a “monster” heel, but he’s not your guy. I just don’t buy it. You want a monster, I would look toward the Great Khali…) and Santino Marella’s fan-in-the-crowd-becomes-IC-champ story brings back (bad) memories of Savio Vega. Well, Santino was here to exercise his rematch clause for the IC title. Luckily this match was only on my TV for a few minutes, with the Champ squashing Santino in the timely manner I like my Umaga matches to wrap up in.

Up next we have the tag-team action of Cade & Murdoch vs. the Highlanders. I didn’t think much of Cade & Murdoch when they debuted, to me it seemed like they were hired just so the WWF could have something resembling a tag team division, but those two have grown on me recently, especially with their “good sportsmanship” angle; that shit was just funny. Basic tag-team wrestling, once again, short and sweet with Cade & Murdoch getting the pinfall victory.
I was kinda disappointed to see Snitsky squash the living Juvi-Juice out of Super Crazy in the next contest, being that I think Super Crazy is a very under-utilized talent. Let the man simply be a great luchadore, quit trying to pair him with Divas to get people to like him. One of Vince’s faults (aside from cocaine-fueled booking at times) is his inability to let workers do what they do best in an attempt to get over. He always has a “better idea” it seems like. Like the Red Rooster.

At the top of the hour, we cut to a vignette from last week’s program, involving the “Legend-Killer” Randy Orton disrespecting none other than “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. Big Dust was backstage with his son Cody, probably dropping knowledge about going to “the pay window” or something equally wise, when Orton comes over to pick a fight. What killed me was how much Dusty Rhodes’ son didn’t look like Dusty. Frankly the kid had the look of a male model that didn’t get the Abercrombie job and was forced to push jeans for Structure or Hollister instead. I’m supposed to believe that one of Dusty’s offspring came out a Jeff County quarterback and the other one came out Goldust???? Anyway, as you might have seen last week, Orton gave a (surprisingly girly) slap to Dusty’s face, right in front of the son who proceeded to NOT whoop Orton’s ass.

Back in the Cajun Dome, the viewers at home are serenaded with the fabulous entrance music as The American Dream enters the ring…

He’s just a common man
Working hard with his hands
He’s just a common man
Working hard for the man…

Sapphire was unavailable for tonight’s RAW on the count of being dead.

Of course Dusty demands the Legend Killer come and face him in the ring, in order to chastise Orton on his lack of respect for his elders in the wrestling “bidness.” Inevitably, Orton ends up challenging Rhodes to a match at the Pay-Per-View he made famous, The Great American Bash. Dusty admits he isn’t in the best shape of his career (shocking), but agrees to the match on the condition that it also be the match he made famous…The Texas Bullrope Match!!! Which proceeded to confuse and puzzle the 21-or-under crowd who probably don’t know what the fuck a Bullrope match is? Hell, I watched one the other day on WWE 24/7 and I’m still not exactly sure what it is. After some good old-fashioned tough talk amongst the Legend and the Legend Killer, Cody Rhodes caps the promo off with a (not surprisingly girly) slap to Orton’s face.

Back to the ring, we see newcomer Paul London take on Shelton Benjamin in what ended up being some decent catch-as-catch-can wrestling. This was the first time I’d seen Paul London, and his wrestling attire was somewhere between a bi-curious Sabu and Al Snow when he was Avatar for about two weeks (crazy kudos to anyone who remembers that…) Jim Ross deserves respect for the heartfelt effort he puts into trying to get good mat wrestling over on television. “Folks, those arm-bar slams are just EFFECTIVE. Really effective.” London manages to impress me with a very nice Enziguri only to finish off Shelton Benjamin with a modified Hurracanrana (“You call that a Frankensteiner, Mike Tenay…”) into a pinning combo. This match was a nice surprise.

The Diva Tag Match featuring Candace Michelle & Mickie James taking on Jillian Hall & Beth Phoenix. Luckily the WWF has forced their divas to actually learn some wrestling moves. As a man who had to sit through Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano 100,000 times in the 90’s, I appreciate that the Women’s division has at least gotten watchable in recent years. There was even a Lou Thesz press broken out in this match. Still though, if you’ve seen one Diva’s match, you’ve seen ‘em all. Candace Michelle with the backslide for the pinfall victory. I do love me some Mickie James though….

We cut to two separate vignettes, one touting the return of Triple H to in-ring action (love him or hate him, and I do both at times, our sport is probably better with him than without him these days. He does at least stand for the old-school values of this “bidness.”), and the second vignette showing Bobby Lashley having a conversation backstage with road agent Arn Anderson. Jim Ross swears Anderson, a great tag-team wrestler in his own right, is giving him pointers on choosing a partner, but I could have sworn they were discussing Die Hard with a Vengeance.

Back in the ring Lord Steven Regal is getting ready to face The Sandman. Less than two minutes into the action, The Sandman (who I suspect had been drinking), starts swinging the Singapore cane at everyone within a 50-foot radius, earning William Regal a DQ victory.

Before our final match of the evening, John Cena is live via satellite hot off an appearance on Larry King Live this evening. Cena kept cracking a grin during his promo, and I think it was because he was genuinely gassed to be on Larry King. Anyway, this was your basic Cena promo, but what I found refreshing about it was Cena and Bobby Lashley (who will lock horns at The Great American Bash) seem to be feuding over…the title. What a novel concept. How long has it been since the title has been the focal point of a championship match?

Finally, onto the Main Event…

Booker T and Mr. Kennedy make their way to the ring, followed by Bobby Lashley. His surprise partner is…wait for it…Jeff Hardy. Huh? Not exactly what I expected. I won’t deny for a nano-second that the Hardy Boyz can wrestle their asses off, and have put themselves at great personal risk for the excitement of the fans. But Matt has a permanent look of I DON’T UNDERSTAND on his face, and Jeff is a flaming homo.

The match was once again, short and sweet. Good quality brawling, with Bobby Lashley hitting the spear for the pinfall on Mr. Kennedy.

So what does this all mean? Given the odds being totally stacked against them, with the Benoit debacle, the McMahon death debacle, the fact that frankly their roster is limited right now, with most of the veterans out of action (Michaels, RVD, etc), the WWE definitely had their work cut out for them to try and get things back on some sort of reasonable track. It will take time, love and tenderness, as a man name Bolton so wisely sang in the 80’s, but if they can put the focus back on good wrestling and storylines that actually make sense, things might just come back around.

I give tonight’s RAW 3.5 out of 5 Honky Tonk Man Hasbro Action Figures.

Till next time, Science Gone Mad…