For our American O-sters who are going to wait until Thursday night to catch "Raw", I won't be offended if you skip this post."Raw" was taped last night and did air in Canada but was preempted in the United States for the Westminster Dog Show. Of all the weeks to have Donald Trump appear on "Raw", you do it on the week that your show is preempted?
I'm not sure how this is going to affect the media coverage of Trump's appearance. WWE is already showing pictures of Trump's appearance on their website, but without any American television coverage, I doubt we're going to see any footage on the entertainment shows until Friday.
If you O-sters see any media related to Trump's appearance from "Raw", feel free to tell us in the "comment" section or e-mail any of us with information on where you saw it and whether it was presented in a positive, negative or indifferent manner.
"Raw" was an average show with some good surprises and an outstanding main event.
The biggest surprise of the night was the appearance of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Piper looked very healthy and thanked the fans and wrestlers for their kind words and support throughout his ordeal battling cancer. Piper then introduced the first inductee into the WWE Hall Of Fame for 2007: "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.
I am a Dusty fan and would recommend to any of you interested in his career to pick up his DVD, as it is a tremendous look at his life in wrestling. However, I don't consider Dusty a "WWE" wrestler. Much in the same way I didn't think Verne Gagne should have been inducted last year, I don't think fans see Dusty as someone associated with WWE history and thus not someone who should have this kind of push as the first inductee into the Hall Of Fame. I am well aware Dusty spent a few years in WWE throughout the early 1990s, but I wouldn't call those years worthy of Hall Of Fame distinction.
If WWE wants to include all professional wrestlers as part of their Hall Of Fame and not just ones strongly associated with WWE history, then that opens up a huge can of worms. If that's the case, then the WWE Hall Of Fame should no doubt include names such as Santo, Antonio Inoki, Vader, and so on. I will revisit this issue in the near future in a separate piece exclusively about the Hall Of Fame.
Leaving out ECW again in a main event match where stars from "Raw" and "SmackDown!" are represented is just ridiculous. If WWE wants to do matches where wrestlers from different brands compete with each other, then ECW needs to be included, if only for the sake of perception. If you treat this brand as minor league and not important, the fans who watch the product will perceive it as such.
I will say however that the main event between Undertaker, Batista, John Cena and Shawn Michaels versus Rated RKO, MVP and Kennedy was really good and ended well with the interesting dynamic of Batista and Undertaker laying out Cena and Michaels. I expect No Way Out to do better than normal business given how well these four have been booked the last few weeks.
I'm not sure where they are going with Carlito now that he lost to Flair and they did the handshake. I was hoping this feud would last until WrestleMania, but rushing these two into a match after such a well received promo by Flair last week is bizarre.
There sure seems to be a "Money In The Bank" scenario forming on "Raw" with Johnny Nitro, Kenny Dykstra, Chris Masters, Jeff Hardy and Super Crazy all in that middle spot. To me that seems like a logical match but, not including the other brands in such a match is not good either. How this will be handled is going to be interesting. How would you book it?
Here are the updated standings for Tha O League after week 3:
1 Tha Hitman - 770 pts
2 Dan-e-o loves Cena - 766 pts
3 Team_Rated_RKO - 749 pts
4 Team Boudreau - 747 pts
5 Sketch - 704 pts
6 Methods Of Mayhem - 666 pts
7 TheEndustry - 656 pts
8 Smashin' Masters 2K7 - 652 pts
9 BigDaddyDonnie - 651 pts
10 Goatbusters - 631 pts
11 wrestling4life - 627 pts
12 Rizo's Roster - 626 pts
13 I love ThaOShow.Com - 619 pts
14 Kelly's Killers - 617 pts
15 D-Generation Next - 612 pts
16 Metal Gods - 606 pts
17 The O Noes! - 583 pts
18 Dan-e-o - 533 pts
19 The Kickassters - 512 pts
20 JorJorBynks - 511 pts
21 Rapsfan - 388 pts
2 comments: on "Raw Is Trump'd"
Overall, I think the whole show was pretty good. The 8 man-tag main event wasn't all that bad either (I was expecting a total disaster). Oh, and Lawler's hair is back to normal too!!!
Thanks for covering "Raw" for me, Frank.
I think that guys like Mr. Kennedy and MVP also seem primed for a "Money In The Bank" type match. SD! and Raw were part of the match last year so I expect for them to keep this up. It always makes for a hype match, and to touch on another one of your points...perhaps ECW stars will be in the match too...it would be about time to properly push CM Punk...who, in my opinion, should win and challenge for the ECW Championship.
At this time, I'm not sure what else they can do to put over that title and that horrid brand.
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