It took me a few days but I finally was able to watch this Monday's edition of Raw. I tried to do the recap in the same format that I did Impact's as a more reactionary-type thing instead of a play-by-play. But forgive me if it feels a bit anti-climactic considering I had already read the results and knew what happened before I saw the whole thing.
Fun Fact: Bret Hart is a five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time WWE Champion. Anyway, The Hitman makes his way out to the ring with an updated version of his theme music. Not sure if I like, too many "squeedilies" and "weedilies". I caught a bit of this promo flipping back and forth during Impact but basically he comes out and thanks the fans for sticking by him the past 12 years and allowing him to come back. Soon enough, he calls out Shawn Michaels and wants to bury the hatchet over the whole "Montreal Screwjob" that screwed Bret over on his way to WCW. At first, HBK isn't having none of it and even admits to not regretting the whole Screwjob, which understandably gets a ton of boos. But HBK wants to move on as well and the two shake hands. HBK goes to walk away and stops within perfect Sweet Chin Music distance, only to give Bret a hug. Even watching this on YouTube the next day, I still have goosebumps. Some may complain that another angle or anything didn't come out of this but this exactly what I wanted to happen. I want the whole stigma of Montreal and "You Screwed Bret" erased and Bret to become an integral part of the business again and having the two settle their differences once and for all was the perfect way to do this. After that's all done, Bret calls out Vince McMahon but he doesn't come out. That'll come later.
PS - Raw's new theme, which just so happens to be a Nickelback song, sucks hard and doesn't fit at all. It makes the previous song by Papa Roach look like freaking Rush in comparison.
Vince McMahon explains he didn't answer Bret Hart's call out due to a meeting but says he'll call Bret out later on and have a discussion on Vince's terms instead. Yeah, this never ends well.
Divas Championship Tournament Match - Maryse vs Brie Bella
Due to Melina having suffered an injury recently, she has been stripped of the Divas title and a tournament is in place to crown a new champion. Of course, due to 99% of the Divas on Raw not knowing how to wrestle, this will result in some so-bad-its-hilarious entertainment. I still find it funny that this match went head-to-head with the Knockout Tag Title match on TNA. If it weren't for Maryse being so smoking hot, this isn't worth watching at all. Maryse wins, by the way. After the match, United States Champion The Miz (who joins Spencer Pratt in the small club of douchebags that are actually entertaining) comes out for color commentary for the next match.
Fatal Four Way Match - Montel Vontavious Porter vs Jack Swagger vs Mark Henry vs Carlito
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that Jack Swagger looks like Biff Tannen crossbred with a gorilla. By the way, the winner of this match gets a shot at The Miz's US Championship. I kinda disike that the MVP/Mark Henry tag team has apparently broken up as its the closest I've ever come to being entertained by Mark Henry. But if it means that MVP is getting a push, I'm all for it. MVP wins by pinning Swagger with the Playmaker (aka Roll of the Dice aka one of the worst finishing moves ever no matter who does it). I get a laugh when The Miz calls MVP "Cornrow".
After the match, Chris Jericho preps with The Big Show for their match against D-Generation X tonight and later meets up with Bret Hart. Yeah, a little bit of me is marking out inside due to the fact that my two favorite Canadian wrestlers are face-to-face. Basically Jericho wants Bret to ref their match tonight and re-enact the Montreal Screwjob so that he and Big Show get the Tag Team titles back. Of course, Bret doesn't want to.
Meanwhile, HHH and Hornswoggle are playing with WWE action figures. I'd go into further detail about DX having a new leprechaun mascot but the whole thing is far too annoying for me to recount. And the fact that I'd rather watch Hornswoggle than HHH has a lot to do with it. HHH brings in Santino Marella dressed up as Chris Jericho, who continues his schtick of mispronouncing words, at least until HHH sics Hornswoggle on him. Yup, apparently he's a midget AND a dog. Of course, being the more mature one of the group, Shawn Michaels is not amused.
Unified Tag Team Championship Match - D-Generation X (c) vs Chris Jericho and The Big Show
I join the match in progress because the YouTube account I'm watching Raw from missed the entrances and a beginning chunk of the match and I'm too lazy to look for a different one. I'm over it. I have to mention that if Jericho and Big Show lose this match, then Jericho is off of Raw for good. Not Jericho AND Big Show but just Jericho. They've been doing this for a few weeks, even with them losing a match with the same stipulation a couple weeks back. Even though I don't watch the shows regularly, I still read the results and I STILL can't tell you exactly why Jericho would be barred from Raw for any reason. Plus it's not like the wrestlers actually adhere to the brand split anyway. Jericho gets in some Hogan poses during the match, which reminds me why he's so awesome (Jericho, not Hogan). Surprisingly enough, HHH is the one who gets worked over throughout the match until he gets the hot tag to Shawn Michaels. Kip-up gets a "Vintage Shawn Michaels" call from Michael Cole. Vintage Michael Cole! Pretty good match (much better than the one a couple weeks back where DX got themselves intentionally DQ'ed so that Jericho would leave Raw) but in the end Jericho gets pinned. At least he got to kick Hornswoggle in the head before he went out. Big Show looks down at Jericho disappointedly and walks out, allowing Jericho to leave Raw for good...I guess.
After the match, Randy Orton approaches Mr. McMahon and offers to punt Bret Hart in the head and add him to his "Legend Killer" list, as long as he gets the coveted #30 spot in the Royal Rumble. You know, I'm sure Orton could just bore Bret to death. But Vince doesn't agree to the deal and leaves Orton out in the cold. The rest of The Legacy (Ted DiBiase Jr and Cody Rhodes) then confronts Orton and tells him that if he doesn't beat Kofi Kingston, then they'll kick him out of the group, much like Orton threatened to kick them out if they didn't win their matches last week. You know, as much as I don't really like Orton or The Legacy, I don't see how splitting them up would benefit anybody as they each have the personality of soggy cardboard. And apparently Ted DiBiase, arguably the blandest one of all, is set to recieve a solo face push just because he has a straight-to-DVD movie that everyone has already forgotten about. Nice.
They announce Mike Tyson as Raw's guest host next week. More often than not, the guest hosts tend to suck hard and are a big reason why Raw has been such a joke lately. But Tyson actually has some history with the WWE so it might be good. Plus, I'll mark out if his theme song is Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight". I'll mark in my pants if he brings Snitsky back and they go on a baby eating/punting rampage.
After a recap video of what he did to John Cena last week, which involved kicking and being tall, WWE Heavyweight Champion Sheamus comes out to the ring. This man is hero to all gingers, I tell you. They gotta have somebody to look up to. If the man ever turns face, he needs a Ginger Avenger gimmick. If not that, he could pass for Johnny Rotten exposed to Gamma Rays. Evan Bourne, of all people, interrupts Sheamus and challenges him to a match. I think Bourne is awesome in the ring, but he shouldn't be cutting promos, at least none that don't involve grating cheese with his abs. Sheamus grants Bourne a match and will be willing to give him a title shot at the Royal Rumble if he wins tonight. Yeah, Sheamus and Evan Bourne in a Heavyweight Title match on pay-per-view. I'm not even going to give this match it's own write-up as it's only about a minute. Bourne is able to get a Shooting Star Press in but that's all he gets as Sheamus ends the match with the Not Razor's Edge. That's seriously what they should call it considering they still haven't given the freakin' WWE Heavyweight Champion a name for his finishing move.
At this point, I stopped for the night and instead watched Spoony's vlog, where he covered both Raw and Impact. Surprisingly enough, he's more positive to Impact to I was but makes a lot of the same negative points I did. But he thought Raw was boring. Plus he picked up on some other things I didn't, like the fact that the "Booty Sweat" chant was apparently "Who needs Bret?" instead. Honestly, I think "Booty Sweat" makes more sense. Spoony's reaction is pretty classic, though. "Who needs Bret? Uhhh...you do?" Go watch it.
Picking up where I left off. RIP "Dr. Death" Steve Williams. :-(
Randy Orton vs Kofi Kingston
As an FYI for those who don't know, Kofi isn't Jamaican anymore...despite still having the reggae-sounding theme song. Kofi just dropped the accent out of nowhere and while I don't mind it, I do mind that they never explained why. As much as I dislike Orton, I can admit that he can be good in the ring as long as he doesn't rely on restholds constantly. But he's so devoid of charisma right now that his idea of intimidating and threatening is having staring contests and taking more time to walk to the ring than The Undertaker. This whole match has some sort of creepy vibe to it as Ted DiBiase Jr. and Cody Rhodes watch the match like some tan, oily, pantsless version of the twins from The Shining. A pretty decent match but Orton got most of the offense in and promptly put Kofi down with the RKO. It looks like that's the end of their recent feud and they're going to focus more on a possible Legacy breakup. But while people are saying that this is the end of Kofi's run near the top, I'm gonna disagree. The guy is athletic, energetic, entertaining and, most of all, the fans love him. So even though he didn't beat Orton, I can totally imagine Kofi winning Money In The Bank at Wrestlemania this year.
To end the show, Vince McMahon comes out to the ring, saying that he doesn't need to confront Bret since he buried the hatchet with HBK earlier. So Bret comes out, sans music, a touch I always love and makes the show seem just a little bit more "real". Despite not wanting to get his ass kicked, Vince still does believe that "Bret Screwed Bret" and goes so far as to ask for an apology. Bret isn't having it so Vince goes into suck-up mode, going so far as to induct his father Stu Hart into the Hall of Fame this year. After thanking Bret for all the good things he's done, the two shake hands and celebrate to the crowd...only for Vince to kick Bret in the junk. And that's it. Even though this is pretty much exactly what I expected to happen, I'm kinda "meh" about it. The thing was Vince was so overblown in his "nice guy" mode that it was so obvious he was going to do something since the Mr. McMahon character is the biggest asshole in modern wrestling history. But the good thing is that they didn't make this out to be Bret's send-off as Bret stood back up and looked on disapprovingly, but in a way that you figured he's gonna try to get back at Vince. And this probably won't be the last of Bret as he's signed a short-term deal and rumors abound that there might be a Wrestlemania match between Bret and Vince.
So in the end, which was the better show? To me, it's kind of a toss-up. Other than the return of Bret Hart, Raw's show was kinda "meh". But that's really all that Raw needed. For the past year, Raw has kinda sucked due to the Guest Host experiment. The WWE wants to branch out to a mainstream audience that honestly doesn't give a crap about wrestling and in turn do a bunch of cheesy stuff that no one thinks is funny or entertaining, alienating both potential new fans and old fans that have stuck around, when they should be letting the wrestlers and the storylines speak for themselves. The simple fact that Bret Hart was the guest host this week pretty much eliminated all of that. All WWE had to do was run a coherent and solid Raw and they did that. While the non-Bret segments paled in comparison and the matches didn't really mean a whole lot, the wrestling itself was pretty decent. On the other hand, you had TNA who pulled out all the stops and had a number of potentially great matches, but only Styles vs Angle and the Knockout Tag Team Title Match (surprisingly enough) got significant screen time to make a difference. In my eyes, TNA had the bigger and more bombastic show and were pretty much the reason I'm even talking about wrestling right now. But bigger doesn't always mean better. TNA pulled out too many stops, brought in a bunch of guys that don't really matter even in short-term business and tried to cram in too much stuff into three hours. I am pretty interested as to how TNA will continue this, whether they succeed or fail. As it stands right now, Impact earned a 1.5 rating compared to Raw's 3.8 or so (the official numbers for Raw haven't come out yet). Yeah, the days of 7.0 ratings are far from over. On the surface, it's kinda disappointing considering Hogan was boasting that they'd hit a 3.0 rating and the fact that their ratings dropped over the course of the show. But 1.5 is their biggest rating thus far and it's enough for TNA and Spike to think that they could move Impact to Monday nights permanently. Impact does go back to its original 2-hour Thursday night slot next week and the show has already been taped. I read the results and while the show seems very lackluster compared to Monday's show, it makes a hell of a lot more sense compared to episodes of Impact over the past year or so where I'd read the taping results multiple times and still couldn't figure out what was going on. So have the Monday Night Wars of old returned? In my point of view, no. But this was definitely an opening shot.
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