You may notice this post is entitled "home schooling no.1". I'm changing things up a little to see how it feels. But this week, i'm not just going to talk about RAW. Sure, none of the other shows have happened yet, but I did get a chance to see Ring of Honor's first episode over the weekend, and i've also got a couple of other things to talk about.
So this new idea I have is basically to make these "go home" posts less about RAW specifically, and talk about a wider range of topics. If RAW has an amazing week, like the builds to Summerslam or the night Vince was "fired", then i'll do a specific post about it. I just have to come up with a catchy name.
Anyway... for now, it's installment one of "Go Home time" (which will probably have a name change eventually, that's how these things go.)
Let's start with RAW, because I just finished watching it.
I didn't like this week's episode. This is your "go home" show right? The last RAW before the pay per view. Don't get me started on how ridiculous it is to have a 2 pay per views two weeks apart (i'll get to that later). Regardless though, isn't this the RAW that is supposed to make people want to buy the pay per view? I'm no closer to buying it than before I watched this week's episode.
So Triple H comes out and does his "i'm going to make a joke out of everyone" schtik... yeah great, you're just making a joke out of two guys who have massive potential as main event wrestlers. That's the problem.
Ok i'm deviating from RAW, but I watched something today that has altered my perception a little. I'm not claiming to be smart to the business or anything though.
Today I watched the "Guest booker with Al Snow" dvd from Kayfabe Commentaries. It was amazingly good. But the one thing that stuck with me is when he talked about heels. And what they're supposed to do.
My idea (now) of a heel, is a guy who you want to see the babyfaces beat up and give him what's coming to him basically. His job is to draw people in, to sell tickets, all that stuff. But to get heat first and foremost. And to get fans to come back/watch again so they can see him get beaten up.
Most of the heels today in WWE.. and I think maybe in TNA (haven't watched it for a long time now) don't do that. I just plain do not want to see them on tv, in matches, in anything. Laurinitis is a perfect example. I really want to see someone kick his ass (because of stories i've read/seen) .. but as an on screen character, it's boring, it makes me want to skip to the next scene.
Del Rio is good, but I'm not that interested in seeing him wrestle.
I don't want to see Jack Swagger at all.
Hogan.. well.. y'know. Sick of it ten years ago.
Christian. He doesn't look like he could beat anyone. And he's orange. I don't buy him as champion. I never have.
BUT, there are some great heels at the moment too. I don't understand why they don't use them more. Dolph being the first guy that comes to mind. Mark Henry (now) has taken that next step. Cody Rhodes is pretty entertaining.
It just seems that a lot of the "bad guys" .. at least to me, get booed because people don't want to see them. As opposed to they get booed because they're actually bad guys. Something needs to change there.
Remember 5, 6.. even 8 years ago? Who were the main heels? Jericho, HHH, Big Show, Kane (when he took his mask off for the first time), Vince, Flair. How could things have gotten so far off track in such a short amount of time?
My point is that people should still want to see the bad guys on tv. At the moment it doesn't feel like there's a lot of those guys around.
Anyway, i digress. Back to RAW.
So as I said, I really wasn't into Triple H making jokes of Dolph and Cody. Christian.. well .. ok that wasn't cool either. There's no point to it. It's not like it builds up your heel guys .. all it does is make the COO look like a bully. As in "Just because you pissed me off, i'm putting you in this match".
The intercontinental title match however, made Cody look somewhat good. It's just a shame that the match for his title belt was overshadowed by the Christian/Sheamus storyline. Why not have a triple threat, Cody, Christian and Sheamus? Or a tag match.. or one on one? Cody and Sheamus for the belt.. and Christian tries to interfere, fails, and Cody picks up the win slightly cleaner... Seems better? Didn't Cody not get involved in the battle royal straight away?
Ok I either really don't understand fashion, or David Otunga dressed in the dark. A bowtie? and an army green shirt? I don't get it. And of course we have to have our obligatory "I'm the executive vice president of dull monotonous sounding promos" bit from Johnny Ace. Really didn't like it. Maybe they're trying to change things up, but .. change isn't always the way to go. If it ain't broke.. dont' fix it right?
FINALLY... something good to say about the divas match. As in, the dominant looking women beat the scrawny model looking girl. Because that seems like it's what would happen if all this was real.. and isn't that the point? To get people to believe it's real? even for just a split second?
Mark Henry is a badass. Slamming Khali just re-asserts that. And that is the only reason that man should be on any kind of WWE TV. To make other guys look awesome. Khali that is, not Mark Henry. Khali needs to be gone.
The WWE title match .. who knows what's going to happen...? They make Del Rio look like he can take both guys.. so clearly he's not going to win the title. My hope is that Cena holds on to it. Not because I don't want Punk to win, but because then Cena will just win it back in a couple of weeks, and he'll be a 13 time world champion.
Triple H is a 13 time world champion. Cena's been wrestling in the wwe for 9 years, and already has more than 1 title run for every year he's been with that company.
Triple H has been wrestling for ... 20 years? Been with the WWE for roughly.. what... 17 of those years? Something like that anyways. Something's wrong there...
Anyway, Cena's promo was a Cena promo.. "I know you all don't like me, but i'm going to do this and i'm going to win, because i'm a man of my word and i stand for hustle etc etc etc". I know he didn't say that, but it was the equivalent. Step backwards for me.
Awesome to see Zack Ryder getting a (real) title shot! The guys deserves it. I don't see the point of after Dolph won, to then have a second match.. I guess they needed something for the Tag champs to do.. surely they couldn't just wrestle against a tag team ..could they?
Raw was missing something this week. Do you know what that something was?
Realism.
CM Punk, talking, on a microphone.
It's the last RAW before a pay per view.. John Cena cut a promo. Alberto Del Rio cut a promo. Why not Punk?
Surely out of the 3, he's the guy you want talking the most right? Yes he was on commentary, but that's not the same thing.
Also they tried to re-do the "My diet soda" spot from a while back... or at least it seems that was the idea.. I don't understand that at all.
Punk and Cena are so good, especially when they work together, that you don't need to rehash things, no matter how funny they are.
So that's about it, I thought RAW was really disappointing, most of it felt like a step backwards. This whole 2 weeks between a pay per view just feels weird. I mean, surely the Titles aren't going to change hands. What a way to destroy a talent.. make them look awful. "Mark henry was a world champion from the middle of september to the end of september".. doesn't really work for me.
Here's what i liked:
- Beth and Natalya finally getting a win after a long time
- Mark Henry destroying Great Khali
- Zack Ryder getting two matches in one night
Here's what i didn't like
- Messy title picture, very confusing
- Triple H being "funny"
- Christian being on RAW (where was orton... isn't he going to be in a title match?)
- Battle Royal
- David Otunga's bow-tie (seriously, it was bad)
- CM Punk being the only guy out of the three who didn't get any promo time
So.. RAW was kinda bad this week. Maybe all the good stuff is being saved for smackdown?
Ok.. quick little thing on Ring of Honor
I don't really know a lot about ROH, it's really hard to watch it over here in australia, but I saw the first episode. Liked the wrestling, thought it was cool to see Haas and Benjamin, But it felt like there were way too many ads. And the vignettes, interviews, whatever, were too long. It's an hour show, surely you could get three decent matches into an hour right?
But it was good, as i said I liked the matches. I'll be tuning in next time for sure.
So what else is there to say.. Well.. i have a few points.. one is.. how much longer are Kane and Big Show going to be off of tv? They've been gone since a couple of weeks (or a few in Show's case) before Summerslam... which was the middle-ish of August.. that's about 6 weeks ago. Hopefully they come back soon. Feels like we just keep seeing the same matches all the time. We're getting Randy vs Christian yet again on Smackdown this week.. why not Christian vs the Returning Big Show!.. I'd tune in for that.
Matt Hardy went to rehab. Not got much to say about it, except that I hope it works for him. At least he had the balls to admit he has a problem, and is doing something about it.
The other thing, and again this something that stuck with me from watching the Guest Booker with Al Snow thing.. he talked about how the idea of wrestling is to get people to suspend disbelief, to buy in to it being real, even though we know it isn't. To buy into the idea of both guys wanting to win, to be specific.
His thoughts about why wrestling isn't as popular as it once was is because people don't believe it anymore. The one example that really stuck out, was when he said something like "One guy knocks his opponent down, and then reaches down and picks him back up".
This happens a lot in wrestling, we've all seen it probably countless times. I've never really even thought about it until I watched this.. but it doesn't make sense at all. Why pick a guy up when you've knocked him to the mat and could possibly get a 3 count? Sure, probably the guy would kick out most of the time, but the point is that people should feel like you're always trying to win, as a wrestler.
And that's what's missing.
It's a really interesting dvd, i would recommend people trying to watch it if they haven't already.
Anyway, that's about it from me, as always leave me a comment (seriously, no-one ever leaves one.. please do!), follow me on twitter @TheOZMouthpiece and that's about all i have to say.
That's it, and that's all.
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