Palumbo's RAW Review, 7/17/07

Coming to you live from the eloquently-named American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, TX - last night's Monday Night RAW was our lead-in to Sunday's PPV, the legendary Great American Bash. Second only to Starrcade in the Golden-Age of Territorial PPV, the Bash has a rich history (of Dusty Rhodes going over) that, while I will always associate it with Jim Crockett Promotions (and for a few watchable years, Ted Turner's WCW); I'm glad to see the WWF, er, E attempting to keep the tradition alive.

After the introductions, the crowd is popped by the music of Motorhead's "King of Kings", which could only signal the Game himself, Triple H. Hmm, they had said he was coming back, so it's not really all that surprising. What is surprising is how in the time off, Triple H came back looking so much like King Booker T and Charmel. Now that's shape shifting...oh wait, that's really just Booker T and Charmel. Booker grabs the stick to chastise Triple H for his use of the "King of Kings" as his entrance theme, declaring blasphemy, being that he is the only true King in the WWE. Using his (delusional) power of monarchy, he "strips" Triple H of his association with the word "King." Does this at all remind you of the time Booker wrestled Ahmed Johnson (or Big T, Mr. T, Sweet Tea, whatever he was in WCW) for exclusive rights to the letter T?

Making his way over to JR and Jerry Lawler, he then attempts to strip Jerry Lawler of his "Kingdom." Jerry tries to reason with him, claiming there is room for both Kings in the WWE. Booker isn't trying to hear that, and attempts to throw his weight around by making Lawler kiss his ring. All of a sudden the greatest hillbilly wrestling fan's voice appears from the 3rd-4th row with a "Don't do it, Jeeeeerrrryyyyy" that had this stoned reviewer rolling. Jerry proceeds to tell Booker that he has been a King for over 30 years (goddamnit) and he's not kissing anybody's rings, and Booker can suck his goddamn dick (although in much more family-friendly language). Booker swings, and Jerry Lawler unleashes a swarm of overhand rights to a crowd pop so huge I got online just to double check that RAW wasn't in Memphis. Score on for the REAL King.

Periodically throughout the night, we are treated to "expert analysis" by the WWE's top superstars, as for their prediction for the Main Event Title Match at the Great American Bash, between John Cena and Bobby Lashley.

Ric Flair places his prediction squarely on John Cena, citing the fact that Cena has been champ before, and true champs (of which I guess he would know...) know how to get the belt and hang onto it.

Back in the ring we have our first contest of the evening, in a 4-way Dance for a shot at Umaga's Intercontinental Title at the Great American Bash. Our participants are Jeff Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, Santino Marella, and Lord Steven Regal. This ended up being a decent match, good mat wrestling with a couple high-impact maneuvers thrown in for good measure. The commentary was cracking me up during this match though, as J.R. referred to Jeff Hardy as the "Rainbow Haired Warrior" (that's a little nicer than what I would have said), and when discussing Santino Marella's disappointment over losing his IC belt to Umaga, Lawler declared that "Santino's reality check had bounced." Jeff Hardy with the pinfall for the IC title match at the Bash.

We then cut to a Kane promo about how Kane is "everywhere", like in the bathroom, the closets, etc. Rather than discuss this stupid vignette to hype his World Title match with Edge at the PPV, I will just include this picture of me and Kane appearing together at an event for charity. Ah, it feels good when celebrities come together to give back to the community.



After an up-to-standards promo from Randy Orton re-affirming his "Legend Killer" status, we cut to Maria comforting a very depressed Santino Marella backstage. Santino professes that he wants to quit the wrestling business, that he feels like a loser. That's the spirit, Santino - if at first you don't succeed, quit. Come on, do it for me. Not gonna happen, as Santino then uses his "smooth Italian ways" to lure Maria back to his hotel room.

Back to our Bash predictions, we're joined by Rhodes Scholar Dave Batista, who gave a very "softball" prediction, saying both guys were tough competitors, blah blah blah. Batista has his money on Bobby Lashley though.

The poster-child for oral-hygiene, Snitsky, cuts a promo flashing his grill that would make Paul Wall jealous. Which then takes us to our next contest, Snitsky vs. Val Venis. Whoa, Val Venis. He's still around? I remember when he first came out, I would get genuinely nervous every time he came to the ring in the towel, that he would in fact be naked underneath and I would be forced to see schlong on RAW in the name of Vince's "Attitude" era. Anyway, Snitsky whooped-the-far out of Val Venis in a match that seemed to leave the audience truly creped out by Snitsky, rather than afraid.

If Starrcade was Ric Flair's PPV, then the Great American Bash was definitely Dusty Rhodes' time to shine. Which would make sense that one of the main attractions Sunday night would be Dusty Rhodes in a Bullrope Match against Randy Orton. Remember what I said last week about the young audience not really understanding WTF a bullrope match is? Well, I was right - and they sent Jerry Lawler to the ring with a bullrope to explain the concept to the crowd, as well as to brush them up on some of the history of the bullrope/cowbell/wrasslin combination.

Which leads us to the in-ring debut of Cody Rhodes. After seeing him for the second week, I am steadfastly convinced that kid is not the seed of Dusty Rhodes. Listening to him cut his promo, his mannerisms, etc....I mean you take one look at Dustin Rhodes, and it's obvious. I don't know what 6-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon you would need to connect this kid to Big Dust, but you're not fooling me.

Cody Rhodes wasn't too bad of a worker, he seemed to know how to sell, but he also kind of reeked of "wrestling school graduate", and was thoroughly taken to school by Randy Orton. Afterwards we cut to a bizarre vignette that seemed to be...highlights of Randy Orton giving knees to the head of guys who were already down. Dastardly.

Our next Great American Bash prediction comes from none other than Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was so polite and non-raunchy, he literally almost seemed depressed. I'm serious, he had the same look on his face as I saw on the mug of Randy "Pee Wee" Anderson on a Nitro re-run last week, doing his "I've wrassled cancer" soliloquy. Austin's pick is John Cena, based on the "tuffness."

Women's competition is back in order with Melina vs. Mickey James vs. Candice Michelle.

At this point, my own personal women's competition took priority, as I received a call from some trim, causing me to miss the next 15 minutes of RAW, so I couldn't tell ya what happened. Unfortunately SGM management will not pay for TiVO, and DVR's are for people who pay their cable bill.

Upon returning to television, Mick Foley was giving his two-cents-worth on the main event of the Bash and his choice of Bobby Lashley, which basically equated to "Lashley - great, Cena - sucks." JBL also weighed in, picking Cena as the winner based on his having more "experrrence."

Back in the squared circle, we have Carlito vs. The Sandman (who I'll be damned if he doesn't look like he had Botox). After interference from William Regal caused a DQ victory for The Sandman, Regal's interference is broken up by none other than Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and I couldn't have been more under-whelmed. Sorry folks, I've just never dug Duggan.

Mr. Kennedy vs. Super Crazy ended up being a decent match, with Crazy pulling out some decent lucha ish. The highlight of this match for me though was once again the commentary, with JR and the King discussing the finer points of the Abdominal Stretch to the point of beating it far to death, as if almost to crack each other up. Every time King would try to change the subject, JR would fire back with "Well how does it affect your breathing, King? Being in the abdominal stretch..." Mr. Kennedy gets the pinfall on Super Crazy.

And finally the main event is...a Debate-style promo set up with podiums and all for John Cena and Bobby Lashley. The debate is hosted by RAW General Manager Jonathan Coachman, who has come a long fricking way, people. I remember when he was first given a broadcasting job, he was the most devoid-of-charisma, uninteresting schmuck I had seen on WWF TV since Kevin Kelly. (Hey, watching Todd Pettengill was like being kicked in the balls by a Dodge RAM, but at least he did have enthusiasm. As an aside, he is one of the most popular radio DJ's here in New York City, so I cannot escape the asshole). But this is about RAW and the Coach, and boy has Coach said his prayers and took his vitamins, the ol' boy's not half bad to watch nowadays.

With both champion and challenger in the ring, Cena lets off with a humorous answer to Coach's first question. When it came Bobby Lashley's turn to answer questions, things got unexpectedly awkward. Being the beast that he is, Bobby Lashley's voice sounds like a 21 year-old manager at Office Depot, and he's not all that keen on promos. Lashley looked visibly uncomfortable and tells the crowd that talking is not what he does, that's what John Cena does, so he should just let Cena do the talking. With that, the challenger tries to leave, only to be heckled by Jonathan Coachman, who orders him to take this seriously, and that this is his segment (bitch). Lashley decides he's going to pulverize the Coach, who then threatens to strip him of his title shot if Bobby lays a hand on him. So who do you turn to? Your champion, John Cena. Love him or hate him (and I've taken a bit of flack from friends for being a Cena mark), the man has enough intensity, charisma, and enthusiasm to compensate his 5-moves-of-doom. For the last 5 minutes of RAW, Cena cut a blistering promo that not only talked Bobby Lashley down from his roid rage, but told the fans they should tune in to the Bash to see two Champions Clash (no pun intended) over the most coveted title in all of professional wrestling.

And this folks is where we end things. What did I think of RAW? Like I said last week, they have their work cut out for them trying to rebuild things, but it really seems like (and I'm not gonna jump the gun yet and give Vince credit for getting things back in order, because as soon as I do that, he will inevitably disappoint me), but for this weeks RAW and last, with more in-ring mechanics, less dramatics, and a new-found focus on the World Heavyweight Title as "the reason we compete", the focus seems to slowly be moving back to good-old-fashioned wrasslin, updated for the 2K7.

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