Raw Thoughts - September 15th

· My first thought on seeing the cage descend towards the ring t open Raw was that it devalues the title by having it on first on Raw.
· My second thought, soon after, was that if this isn’t the main event, they may have saved something special for later on.
· A world heavyweight title match, unless completely unavoidable, should not have an advert break in it. However, that may be out of WWE’s hands, so I’ll reserve criticism.
· You know what, I love Jericho and think Punk is terrific, but I wasn’t crazy about that cage match. I liked the ending, but I didn’t think the match generally lived up to my expectations.
· Interesting backstage seg – Adamle called Kelly Kelly “K2” (isn’t that a mountain? Mind you, Kelly has a couple of those) then a guy came by and introduced himself. But it sounded like Dull Segue, which seemed like a stage direction. Then it was Jericho’s turn, and once again he showed his phenomenal ability to display the right emotions.
· Jillian is a riot. Her expressions are just so over the top they are funny. She is a brilliant character.
· Her match with Candice....not so brilliant. From every source I know, Candice is a truly lovely human being. But she is not a good wrestler.
· Tommy Dreamer? How does he get on Raw? Earlier on, Matt Sydal....dah, I mean Evan Bourne (I keep going to call him Matt Borne, who played Doink) had a word with Kane. How can ECW have a talent agreement with Raw if they have one with Smackdown too? Must make Tommy feel good. “Hey Tommy, we’re promoting you to Raw this week.” “Cool, the big leagues! Are you giving me a push?” “No, we want someone to be destroyed by JBL. You are expendable.” “Oh, ok. I’ll go drink some toilet water.”
· Batista has a go at Orton, Santino, Beth and JBL whining. He says they are like politicians. Yeah, that’s right Dave. Those no-good, whining, lying, cheating politicians. No good, the bunch of them. Oh, and Smackdown Your Vote kids.
· By the way, Batista was very, very good in this promo.
· Seriously, like I said last week, I’m getting a real kick out of Charlie Haas. Good Ole JH, as he was this week. This is what Raw is supposed to be like, you know. A bit of fun here and there.
· Short win for Noble over Burchill. Don’t hold out much hope for Burchill going forward, but Layla was good here, Noble is a quite a decent hand as the sympathetic babyface, and of course Regal is terrific as the smug heel. By the way, four brits in one segment there, although I am surprised they haven’t referenced thus far that Layla is from London. Regal must be given more airtime.
· Kane v Mysterio was pretty good for what it was. It was never going to be a classic, but told a good story, and I’ll even allow the reasonably weak finish.
· Bourne and Mysterio makes for a very exciting duo. What could be even more exciting is if they get into it down the line and fight each other. That could be extra-special.
· Good build to having HBK announced as the number one contender. Get this – a logical piece of booking, since Michaels effectively beat Jericho in the match at the last PPV. The ladder match stip is also an exciting one. The biggest shame is that they have quite a short build time to the Smackdown main event, because it strikes me that Triple H v Jeff Hardy and Shawn Michaels v Chris Jericho is a good double main.
· Two small complaints. If Batista v JBL is to determine who the number one contender is, what happens if Shawn wins? Doesn’t Jericho then get a rematch because of the alleged clauses in the contracts?
· And finally, wasn’t Adamle terrible in that explanation. It went very flat thanks to his boring speech.
· Overall I enjoyed this Raw and I think the progression of storyline and character worked very well this week.