Tampa, Florida was the site Monday night of the post One Night Stand RAW, and the show was basically good, with a few swerves and a lot of angry Vince McMahon to go around. The main event was a Vince made triple-threat as he made John Cena put his WWE title on the line vs Umaga and the Great Khali. In what I thought was a solid main event for a RAW, Cena got a clean pin on Khali as he gave the big guy the FU after Khali and Umaga fought a bit and Umaga gave Khali the Samoan spike. The clean win should really now cement that we are done with the Cena-Khali feud, as that is what two clean pins on consecutive nights will do.
The negative of the show is something that I have not been shy about stating, and that is we really need a break from the character of Mr.McMahon. I am at least glad they got the ECW belt off of him, as that simply needed to happen so we could see the thing defended again on TV, and I am thinking already tonight on ECW we’ll have some sort of title match. Other than that, Vince basically being the GM of RAW is getting old, as he needs to take a break with his character and get off TV. We’ve seen too much of Vince over the past year, and with the draft next week, after that it would be a nice time to see him disappear for about 6 months. Will that happen? I wouldn’t bet on it.
The rest of the show was filled with some solid wrestling, the best of which was a tag-title match where we finally saw Cade and Murdoch go back to heel as they defeated the Hardy’s for the tag belts. This came about when Vince made the match, and then in the match Cade covered Jeff for the pin, and Jeff got his foot on the rope at two, but Murdoch pushed the foot off, and the ref counted the pin. After words, Matt and Cade and Murdoch argued, and the new champs laid out the Hardy’s thus turning back to devious ways. This was effective as people, myself included, were beginning to wonder if the two rednecks were really going face. They should learn from this that not every character turn needs to be done in two weeks.
The first bout was a six-person mixed tag, as Cryme Tyme and Candyce Mychelle defeated Johnny Nitro, Kenny Dykstra and Melina. Seems like they have no idea if Cryme Tyme is actually ever going to get pushed or not, and here they did get the clean pin over Nitro, who seems to be back in the doghouse for something as he has been taking a lot of pins lately. No problems with this match, but again, what are they ever going to do, if anything, with Cryme Tyme?
Santino Marella defeated Chris Masters in an I-C title bout. From his ring music to his character as a whole, Marella does nothing for me. I thought the moment the character beat Umaga that it was a nice storyline, but that was basically going to be it. If they have thought that Marella has talent, then fine, let him win the I-C belt for 2-3 weeks, then make him lose it and start from the bottom. No one now buys the fact that he was just a fan in the crowd, and that takes a lot away from the mystery of his character. They need to move that belt, as it looks like a joke right now with Marella carrying it. By the way, for what seems to be the 5th week in a row, Masters lost to Marella with a roll-up.
The WWE’s newest project heel – Randy Orton, defeated Ric Flair in a good match. They are doing a great job building up Orton with his new HHH like character, and I think Orton is back on track with his career after the hotel room disgrace in Europe. The bout was long, back and forth, and in the end, Orton laid out Flair with a kick and then pinned him with the RKO. I think this character that Orton is doing a good job with has a shot to be a World Champion, and will be for sure a main eventer soon.
They also did a Torrie vs Carlito filler match, in which Vince was mad at both Torrie and Ric Flair for laughing backstage, so he made the Flair vs Orton and then the Torrie vs Carlito. Torrie came down with her leg wrapped from a match last week, as if she was on equal footing with Carlito anyway. Carlito was about to let her walk out and take the count-out, then attacked her, threw her down, then gave her the back stabber for the win. I had no problem with this, as we need though to move Carlito along in his heel push and get him away from Flair and Torrie.
Then we had the tag match then the triple threat to end the show, which both were the strongest matches on the night, which made it a good show. Now we’re one week away from the Draft Lottery, so things the rest of the week should build towards that. While I don’t see any big champions moving brands, you never can tell. I would expect at least 8-10 people total to be moved around next week, including managers and possibly an announcer. For sure Teddy Long will move, that will open the door for Vicki Guerrero to become GM of SmackDown, which could end up being the most painful thing to watch in the history of pro wrestling.
