Raw Thoughts for August 18th

A few ongoing notes from watching Raw.

- Jericho was superb again. How is he more menacing in a suit? Exiting with no music was also a great touch.

- King says twice that the Cena v Batista match was one of the best matches he has ever seen, and that Batista would surely think that it was his greatest match ever. Look, I know I was more critical than most about the match, and I am happy to hold my hands up and say that if people enjoyed it then it was a good match, but it just sounds ridiculous building it up to that status. It was good, but nothing more.

- Cole says “A buzzsaw of emotion”. I don’t know if he means the arena or Batista....or what. That’s probably because ‘Buzzsaw of emotion’ makes no sense at all.

- Nice way to make a new Raw roster member look important – by running away to speak to John Cena. Must make Primo Colon feel dead special.

- Cole and Lawler are so fake and empty together. It is just a constant stream of plugs for WWE.com, WWE magazine, other affiliates and so forth.

- The women’s match looked overly scripted to me – at least there were certain spots where you could clearly see one girl waiting for another to hit their mark. Just slowed the match down and lessened the reality feeling of the match.

- Now I am watching this in England and on Tuesday afternoon, so I am not going to change the channel, but it strikes me that flashing up the graphic that more viewers watched Raw last week than Monday Night Football is self-defeating. There must be people who would see that and then think “oh yeah, the football is on, I wonder what the score is” and switch over to see.

- JBL squashes Noble. Boring to watch, and frankly shows how little they think of CM Punk that he has yet to be seen after winning his biggest match so far – and the show is in his hometown.

- By the way, a completely nonsensical ending. The referee allows Jamie to get beaten down, but doesn’t allow the pin. What, lying on his back for three seconds is too much punishment. Just get down and count.

- Terrible Raw so far.

- Adamle with a clipboard actually looks good. Kind of gives him an authority – he should carry it everywhere.

- The new concept for the title is idiocy. The “Scramble” just sounds so desperate and bush-league, no matter how many times they call it ‘innovative’.

- Why did Shane and Stephanie make Adamle say it? Why couldn’t it have been his idea, just like the Elimination Chamber was Eric Bischoff’s? This isn’t an Adamle original?

- Was it me or did Lillian take ages to say the tag team champions’ names?

- I liked seeing Ted do his father’s fist drop. Nice touch.

- Why must every interesting tag team get killed before they have a chance to shine? If we are supposed to believe them beating a team of Cena and Batista, why are they in a handicap match with one of their previous opponents. Cena doesn’t need building back up, this just brings the champs down. I know the champs got a lot of offence in, but them losing was unnecessary.

- Jerry says that it’s obvious that Jericho didn’t mean to hit Rebecca Michaels last night. Not obvious enough to you to say different earlier in the show, King.

- It’s also obvious, from seeing the footage from after Summerslam, that HBK forgot the coat he took to the arena.

- How in the name of Clarence Mason does D-Lo Brown get a title shot? Oh wait, not he doesn’t – Cole screwed up.

- As pissed off as I am with this show so far, I can’t help but smile at Santino. God that man is awesome.

- Hey, I got to see Trish too. Albeit in a 24/7 clip. This show has risen to about 2/10 so far.

- The best bit of the show so far. Kane does a promo which serves a function. With nice lighting, he explains why he attacked Rey Mysterio. We are even treated to a bit of continuity, as Batista emerges to attack Kane for his comments. I like that, because Batista and Rey are acknowledged friends on TV. Suspect this means Kane v Big Dave next week.

- Hmmm. Not crazy about the main event outcome, but at least Punk lost to a man who deserves it – Jericho – and it wasn’t completely clean.

- Cole finishes with another ludicrous statement. He said that Jericho was “basking in his irreverent glory” which doesn’t really mean anything. Cole just throws word together. I’m expecting next week to hear something like “Kane is a congenital statement” or “look at John Cena – he is a conflicting example of serendipity” – just nonsense. Remember JR’s voice ending a Raw – I miss it.

Just such a poor, poor, Raw. I’m hoping to put my thoughts into words later in the week, hopefully on The Sun’s site.