The OtherArena

[Iron Chad]

That was a RAW spoiler, so if you are on the West Coast and want to be surprised about the "Can't miss" twist on tonight's show then stop reading and come back tomorrow morning to discuss.

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For the rest of you, Vince McMahon (after a mildly funny rehash of the end of the show with the limo angle up to Vince slowly getting in the limo to Coach running up to Vince right before he closes the door to yell "STOP!".

Earlier in the night Coach had accepted service for a summons on Vince's behalf and he ran to find Vince. In the meantime, Santino Marella turned heel on Maria on an episode of WWE Dating Game hosted by new RAW General Manager (whose assistant is Jonathan Coachman) William Regal who won the job in an impromptu battle royal to kick off the show when he swerved Sandman who was drunk and thought he had won when Regal hid on the outside the whole time. Maria picked Bachelor #2 (Ron Simmons) and Marella (Bachelor #3) forbade Maria to go on the date with Ron (SCRAM!). No man canna makes Santino leavea this ringa. Umaga's music hits Santino (and everybody else including Bachelor #1, Hacksaw Duggan in a leisure suit, but Betsy the 2X4 was wearing a tie) did too.

Main event was Cena v. Umaga, earlier Regal had Carlito and Orton pick Cena's opponent (making you think it would be one of them - they reasoned that Orton would beat Cena at Summerslam and Carlito beat Cena last week so neither had a need to face Cena tonight, Umaga would be a fine opponent.

Cena has Umaga in the STFU, Orton and Carlito run in and jump Cena, after beating down Cena, they sit Cena up in the corner and tell Umaga to sqaush Cena's cranium with his deadly Samoan hip. Umaga makes faces and starts beating up Orton and Carlito.

Regal comes out and makes the main event for next week's RAW in MSG, Cena and Umaga (who Regal calls oo-MAN-gah) versus Orton and Carlito.

Jerome Lawler will have to coronate King Booker since he lost (to the worstly setup scissor kick in history) a match to the King.

Vince did a creepy promo about how his family acted when he was "presumed dead". Vince did a weird quasi shoot on the media. Vince was investigated by the IRS (yes WWE Agent Mike Rotunda(o) made a cameo in Irwin R. Shyster garb).

Anyway back to the beginning about the end of RAW, McMahon's summons was for a paternity suit.

"Somewhere there's another member of the McMahon family running around!"

God help us all, Vince must've really liked the Tragic Story of World Class Championship Wrestling DVD (In stores TUESDAY!), because I think he just blew through Fritz's heart attack and Lance Von Erich in essentially one two hour show.

-Chad

[kjh]

You've got to love how Vince McMahon proclaims he has nothing to hide and mocks the mainstream media for not being interested in facts when he has his company doctor and lawyer lie on TV and say that testoterone cypionate is not an anabolic steroid.

[corrado]

A perfect ending to a great battle royal. A great celebration and the return of the great "happy" entrance music for Regal. Its going to be very fun to see Commissioner Regal again.

I didn't care for mr Mcmahon's shoots at the government, media. Sounded like he was getting his kicks in. I did like the IRS cameo though. That was a great-timed gag.

Orton almost saying "WWF" gave me a chuckle. I hope his push doesn't end because of that. BTW, can Orton go through just one promo without screwing up? every promo he's done as of late, he's stammered at least once.

Seeing more McMahons won't give me a chuckle at all. More like shivers and shuddering. I still shudder at the Wrestlemania 2000 buildup with a Mcmahon at every corner.

The dating game segment was pretty darn funny. Best parts were Ron Simmons rhyming "Damn", Regal's deadpan remarks towards the hilarity, and Santino being a dick. I've actually been impressed with Santino's dick gimmick as of late. Reminds me in a way of Kurt Angle when he debuted.

So Umanga is a face now. Perhaps its a swerve since Bobby Lindsey may be back sooner than later and the face part of RAW may be a bit jammed up.

The cliffhanger at the end wasn't fun stuff though. If this leads to Mr Kennedy, kennedy, as his son though I'm all for it. They sort of teased it with Kennedy saying his name 12,000 times before they uncharastically faded to a commercial

Overall, a middle-of-the road raw leaning towards decent.

[Regan]

I would have gone in completely the opposite direction. I thought last night's Raw was the worst one I'd seen since the old one hour, pre-taped Raws.

Too much Vince...much too much Vince. Yes, the IRS gag was cute, but the rest of the time he was talking, it caused me physical pain.

The battle royal was okay, but too many jobbers in the ring let me know nothing interesting would happen until the end, which was true. Also, General Manager Sandman would be a more interesting direction than Regal, even though he is fine in that role.

The women's match. Blah. The Lawler-Booker match. Blah. Game shows. Blah. Snitsky. Blah. Pointless Kennedy. Blah. Rehash of Cabana. Blah. I didn't stop fast forwarding until I hit Umaga and Cena.

Way to build a strong show WWE. Let's put something mildly interesting in the first 20 minutes, and then just piles of dreck until the last 10. Certainly an hour and a half of "please make it stop" is superior to quality. Heck, you'd have to try and maintain quality.

And the capper? Christ. I thought the only positive of the whole sordid Benoit affair was that we were finally done with the shitty explosion angle, and then they go ahead and play it up some more?

I must not be the target audience anymore, and Raw just came off my weekly record schedule.

Kevin

[Jeremy Billones]

Makes me glad I decided to completely bail on the WWE starting with my vacation last week.

I'm even quitting the card game for good now that my last committment got cancelled due to lack of attendance.

I'll probably just waste all the free time on World of Warcraft, though :)

[jdw]

Pulled a 3.8. Obviously Vince is going to think this is Gold~! and keep running with it.


John

[Iron Chad]

To add to the weird WCCW vibe of all of this, it was reported that WWE signed Kevin Von Erich's daughter (Lacey Adkisson, I think) to a (presumably developmental) deal recently.

-Chad

[Regan]

For some strange reason, I'm reminded of something I posted sometime ago, at the height of the "Monday Night Wars", essentially stating that it was a good idea to highlight the McMahon family on the shows, because they were always going to be around. You didn't have to worry about them jumping ship, and that the same couldn't be said for anyone else on the roster.

I didn't appreciate at the time how long "always" was.

*sigh*

Kevin

[eron]