Fire Up the Brand

Brands are important in wrestling. I'm not talking about the Hardy's and their pals putting the word at the end of their Twitter name. I'm not talking about John Cena wearing Nike sneakers, either.

Many wrestling fans are amazingly loyal to the wrestling organisation they prefer. ECW is a classic example of this. ECW had it's own style, it's own ethos. You can say what you want about your preferences and whether you liked ECW or not, but the fact is there was an aura which surrounded it. And continues to.

Four years after the company closed it doors and promoted it's last official card, a DVD of it's Rise and Fall broke merchandise records. It was successful to the extent that a Pay Per View event was commissioned, which was a critical success. The ECW brand was revived to a lesser degree, and fairly obviously was not such a success.  Just last year, TNA produced a PPV, Hardcore Justice, dedicated to the memory of ECW.

Although not all of the above was financial, critically or morally successful, the fact that almost a decade removed  from the death of ECW it's ghost still haunts wrestling is a remarkable example of brand loyalty and awareness.

You can see a similar thing with many small wrestling organisations. From ROH to Dragon Gate to CZW, small wrestling companies have core, loyal audiences that have a devotion to one organisation as opposed to the wrestling business or an individual wrestler.

And then there is TNA.

I would liken TNA's brand identity to that of the opposition party in politics, or a local rival team in football. If I was being particularly brave I might even compare to people from Scotland or Wales. Let me explain why.

I am an Englishman, and a proud one. I have many, many Scottish relatives, and I have friends who are from Wales. There is, though, an undeniable dislike, or perhaps disdain, for the English from these nations. Whatever those reasons are, I think getting caught up in how much they dislike us stops people appreciating their beauty and positives traits. Both Wales and Scotland are fine countries, which great traditions and values, but too often their national characteristic is hating the English. I can't make them like us, but I wish they'd promote themselves rather than bash us.

Politics is the same.You seldom hear a Labour politician talk at length about how great his or her party is, extolling the virtues of their manifesto and explaining why their collective outlook is best. Instead, their rhetoric is far more likely to be comprised of cheap shots and attacks on their Conservative counterparts and where they believe their faults to be. And before anyone brings it up, the opposite is true. The Liberal Democrats haven't typically been embroiled in this to the same extent, but they are exempt from blame either. In short, it isn't "look at us, we are awesome", it's "don't look at them, they're awful".

And it goes on with football. Pick your team and listen to the fans songs during one game. There will probably be just as many "We hate Arsenal" songs at White Hart Lane as there are pro-Tottenham songs, and the pattern is repeated whether the teams are Wolves and West Brom, Southampton and Portsmouth, Burnley and Blackburn or any combination of heated rivals.

I don't think it is necessarily TNA as a company that provoke the reaction, but I see a lot of TNA fans as not particular pro-TNA but anti-WWE. They dislike Vince McMahon's juggernaut of a corporation and see something they hate, whether it's the cheesy comedy, PG tone or flat out bad wrestling. They might not have the access or the inclination to seek out more niche products like ROH or similar, and TNA have international reach, so it's a bandwagon to hop on.

If you are a major WWE cynic then it's not the worst bandwagon in the world, I guess. TNA have things WWE don't have.. Individuals like Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam and Jeff Hardy, who fans are familiar with and respect, wrestle in TNA. There are big-name stars like Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan, WWE midcarders that didn't get a run like Elijah Burke/D'Angelo Dinero and Matt Morgan. There is blood and bad language and raunchier girls. In short, it's everything WWE was eight years ago.

It's one of the reasons I worry about TNA. If they had any identity, ever, it was with the X-Division and the Knockouts. I'm not saying the way to overtake WWE is with that, but the niche they used to at least try to occupy still exists.

I went to all three of their UK tour shows last week. They were great fun. I had loads of people say to me that they had been to WWE house shows, and the TNA ones were way better. And I endorse the view. However, there was nothing on these shows that had me thinking "TNA are different". Back in the day, if you'd seen an ECW live event, you'd have left knowing it was different. I am absolutely not endorsing gratuitous violence and danger, but it was different. If you get to an ROH show, you'll leave thinking you've seen some of the best wrestlers in North America, or the world. Similar could be said of a Dragon Gate style organisation, with the inclusion of Japan in the unique selling point.

Taking out any frustrations we (mostly) all have about TNA's booking, what are the differences between them and WWE? Take an episode of Impact and an episode of Raw. Are they really that different? They share lots of the same conventions. The shape of the ring; a pair of announcers; hype videos for matches; backstage segments; music to greet a wrestler; a pose on the ramp; numerous belts; match length; monthly PPVs; a ring announcer; similar rules of matches and outcomes of matches; in-ring promo confrontations; and more. Now I am not saying that they should scrap all of those things. Quite the opposite - wrestling has survived for decades on many of these staples - but they need, I think, to differentiate themselves in some many other ways, to make them feel special.

They have tried with the use of more violent matches and stronger language. I don't so much have a problem with them doing this, but to me the execution of them is so poor it makes them look second rate. Washed up has-beens like Ric flair or never-beens like Tommy Dreamer bleeding everywhere all the time cheapens the moment when ten minutes before the end of a crucial title match on a major PPV RVD bleeds to sell jeopardy.

As for the language and edgier content, I think they may have a slightly better job than with the blood, but it feels like it is there for the sake of it. Steve Austin, if you talk to him in real-life, drinks beer and cusses when he talk to you. That's the way he was built. He's a brash Texan who likes a good time and says what he feels. Stone Cold worked because of it. It felt organic and it felt natural when Austin told you he "couldn't give  damn about the some bitch. I'll kick his ass, the rat bastard.

But Eric Bischoff is an executive. He's a smooth talker and a clever businessman. He may be a foul-mouthed guy in real-life - I haven't met him - but his on air character has been a smarmy heel for his whole career, virtually. I don't feel it when he swears. It just seems like it is being forced.

And enough already with Velvet Sky saying "bittch". That's not a typo, she stresses two 't's in the word. "Where's Winter? I'm going to make that 'bittch' pay". And then there is a Abyss who is such a cartoon you can't take him seriously anyway, so his use of 'bitch' (one T for him) also feels like it is being placed in the show to attract people who like swearing. The stress on the words is so ultra deliberately it makes the show feel low rent.

Anderson I can deal with. Ken has developed a way of talking in and out of the ring that means I can live with him calling his fans 'assholes'. I think it's kind of funny. It works for him. And I know it is his idea because he used the "nice guys finish last, thank God I'm an asshole" line on Wrestlecast in about 2006. But because needless cursing all over the show simply waters down what he says.

Perhaps TNA finding a brand identity might have to do with what their ambitions are. I can't speak for anyone at ECW or Ring of Honor, but I imagine that, certainly to begin with, their intentions were not to attempt to be the number one wrestling organisation in the world. They had different visions. Ring of Honor was to be a product which catered to "wrestling" fans. They brought in the 'pure' title and showcased technical wrestling that wasn't on show anywhere else. Not on national television in the US, anyway. ECW wasn't just about hardcore wrestling. Their underground success was just as much about the featuring of great wrestling, such as that demonstrated by Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit, and the import of wrestlers from Japan and Mexico.

Even somewhere like Shimmer was founded on the basis of giving female workers somewhere to ply their trade, since they were not being appreciated on the biggest stage. The founders of Shimmer were, I'm sure, not doing it to become millionaires or to take over the wrestling world. I'm sure if they make a few bucks from it they'll be happy. But the point was to offer something new. Something different. A brand that has it's place in the world.

It wouldn't hurt TNA to take a look at a bunch of the smaller, niche, but interesting indy promotions that exist. Study how they draw fans in a different way, what makes the viewer tick and the ticket-buyer view. Don't copy one, but use some of those methods to help your own product.

An example? Look at how ROH makes wrestling matter. ROH is not an major international wrestling company for many reasons, including but not limited to lack of funding, substandard (compared to the big guns) production facilities and an in built lack of appreciation in the general populous for the art of pro wrestling. They are not big enough to re-educate, but they can provide a service to those and want it. And what a service.

ROH take care to make their guys look as though they care about what they do, that they have a reason for being in the ring. TNA have Shannon Moore spreading the word of DILLIGAF and Robbie E pretending to be Jersey Shore. That's fine in their own world, but tell us WHY they are in a wrestling company and not on a reality show. Shouldn't they want to be the best, to win titles, or at the very least earn money? ROH is somewhere that tries desperately hard to make it's matches count, and often delivers. If TNA took a quarter of the energy ROH does and put it into making wrestling matches count, they'd start getting something back from their audience. It would take time, but they can do it.

This doesn't mean having way more wrestling matches on the show. The opposite, in fact. Rather than having 5 x four minute matches and one ten-minute main event to total half an hour of wrestling, have just three matches and have two go eight minutes and one of them go twelve. Twenty-minutes of action, but so much more meaningful. Talk about the importance of those matches the week before and talk about the consequences of those matches the week after. It wouldn't be hard. It fact it would cause them less stress because there would be less to book.

And make the matches simple. No need to for throwaway gimmicks to pop 0.02 of an extra rating point. Using a ladder match stipulation randomly on Impact without hyping and with no real need, storyline-wise, for it to occur, means that people will simply not pay for this down the line. Why should they? You've told them it doesn't matter. You're always telling them it doesn't matter.

(TNA aren't the only ones guilty of this, by the way, as WWE can fall foul occasionally, but WWE are not the ones kicking unbelievably hard just to stay afloat. They are still making millions of dollars each month, just not as many millions as they were a few years ago.)

They could put more emphasis on X-Division action by occasionally theming a show to feature more X-Division wrestlers, including matches and profiles. Maybe even flashbacks to classic matches. They could do the same another week with the Knockouts. They could sign X-Div style wrestlers and female indy workers to one week contracts and simply bring them in to work a match here and there. It would indicate that it was the most prestigious belt of it's nature that people flocked to try and win. It would be different, it would make TNA stand out.

Perhaps you could got the same route with Tag Teams? You could even diversify into different weight classes (Though that's a blog for another day.) The point is to develop a television product which people put on their TV and say "I've never seen that before." It's what happened when Scott Hall walked into Nitro for the first time. No-one had seen a wrestler from a rival stroll in and take over. It was compelling. It happened when Austin starting flipping off Vince McMahon and raising hell. Wrestling had been homogenised for decades, and when this uncouth redneck told his boss where he could stick and did what he wanted to do it struck a chord.

TNA can't switch to a new style and double ratings overnight. Hell, they may even lose a few viewers to begin with, and this is I think is they main reason they wouldn't do it, because Spike would freak out if they experimented and dropped to below 1.0 again, like they did by going to Mondays. But that is the entire point in a nutshell. TNA went to Mondays and failed to offer anything different. The novelty of seeing Ric Flair and Ken Anderson and Jeff Hardy and Hulk Hogan in a different environment soon wears off, and while some will stick around for some blood and cursing, many more will flip back to WWE and watching something that is often very ordinary but occasionally displays class and logic, something TNA almost always misses the boat on.

I find myself getting into blogs like this with such passion because I actually care about TNA. I spent loads of time with them last week. They are nice people almost to a man and woman. They make you feel so welcome, and make you want to see them succeed. Which I do. And which is why I find myself making pleas to them to change because Impact simply doesn't work. Not as a viable, long-term alternative to WWE which is what they claim to want to be.

The audience for them is there. They have seen spikes in ratings on January 4th, the night after Bound for Glory and other times when they have announced a surprise or booked something intriguing. But they always lose that audience, because that audience wants to see something remarkable. Either the same as WWE but better or something different and equally as interesting. They won't still about for something which can't touch WWE in some ways, and is infuriatingly illogical in others.

TNA's brand identity could be so much. You could go two ways with it. It could be that TNA is the place to go to find the most diversity in wrestling. We got high-fliers, we got technical wrestling, we got funnymen, we got legends, we got girls, we got it all. In some ways they probably think they already have it. But they don't they. They have watery versions of each of them, which collectively add up to very little. If you don't think you can have X-Division style action and more, then ditch it. Forget it. Consign it to history. I think it would be a mistake but you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Don't go half-heartedly, give it your all. If you don't think it draws, bin it.

But I don't think they need to. As long they treat something - anything - with respect, they can get it over. Don't pretend the other brand doesn't exist, then in the same breath say it sucks. Do the opposite. Acknowledge WWE's existence. Even go so far as to publicly say the WWE is great. But then make you can say "WWE is great, but in our opinion we something a little different, and a little better" and then PROVE it. Because at the moment it is all words.

I wonder if TNA have a mission statement, or a constitution which defines who they are and why they are in the wrestling business. And I wonder how accurate it is. Because right now there is no way in the world a loyal TNA viewer could explain to you why they watch the show without referring to WWE. "I watch TNA because it is better/different than WWE" as an opinion statement is fine, but when you try to put meat on the sandwich there is nowhere to go. I'll be willing to bet that the follow would include either "I'm a huge AJ Styles/Jeff Hardy/Samoa Joe fan" or "I hate the fact that WWE is PG". Neither would be able, I'm sure, to say what they like about TNA. Both statements suggest that if something minor changed they'd be off like a shot. If WWE signed AJ or scrapped the PG thing, those fans would have their head turned.

But if you create an environment where the whole show has an exciting, fresh, different feel, and use this to create some top individual stars which can draw money (real money, not Impact Zone pops) then people might start saying "I love TNA because you know you'll get a great match every week" or "TNA is the best because they never phone it in" or "I never miss Impact because there are so many guys I care about" or "My whole family watches Impact because there is something for everyone".

As it is, TNA might as well be called NWWE, as in Not World Wrestling Entertainment. And the sad thing is that with a Brand vision there is unlimited potential for a company that makes fans care again, and has the finances, exposure and production set up to capitalise.

There is only one wrestling organisation that can do this.

We're still waiting.

Raw Number Ten

So it's getting near that time. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you thinking about purchasing Wrestlemania IX? If the answers to any of the previous three questions is 'yes', then you are a Gonzalez-size berk, but I applaud your honesty.

We are back in Manhattan Center for the tenth edition Monday Night Raw, taking place approximately two weeks before Wrestlemania. It will be the last proper Raw before Mania, since the next week's edition was essentially a countdown show.

We are welcome by Vince McMahon (the real one this time), who along with Savage and Bartlett (as himself) greet us with the usual "Uncut, uncensored and uncooked" greeting that I've actually been sparing you from. Anyway, the butcher it, and off we go to a World Title match. No we don't, it's a special tag team match. No, sorry, it's a Wrestlemania showcase. No, wrong again.

It's the Michael Landon awards. Yup, the Michael Landon awards, which narrator Sean Mooney (hey they got off the street and into an edit suite) tells us took place last Monday in New York (this'll be why Vince wasn't there last week, then). We see Debbie Gibson, Cindy Crawford and others from the event and WOW, it's the Hulkster, with his wife, who is smiling. Collectors item.

Then we see Randy Savage shaking hands with Ric Flair. That's odd, didn't Flair leave and those two are mortal enemies? Wait, no, it's Leslie Neilson from Naked Gun, I got confused. Sure looks like Flair.

Right, I'm having a laugh, but it is a serious thing. It's a do for the National Children's Leukemia Foundation, and they are honouring WWF for charitable efforts. Fair enough. Good on them.

However, we get a speech/promo from the Hulkster, complete with tux and red badanna, where he actually says "my biggest body has got to be my heart." Oh my.....

a) that's not something you should about yourself, it's for other to judge and b) that's obviously why Linda left him. Searching for a bigger "body part"

In fairness, I think he was trying to say Vince taught him to be kind. Not that this is much less nauseating. I'm not knocking WWF for working hard for charity, I'm not knocking the cause at all, but WWF's "aren't we awesome" presentation is a little too much.

Hilariously (when you consider the context today) Hogan calls McMahon his hero. He also calls him the "True Champion of Children" which make me wonder who scripted this. Finally, he botches the name of the award McMahon is getting. The band Rocky's theme (not particularly well) as Vince walks to the stage. WWF didn't often acknowledge Vince as the boss at this time, so that's pretty interesting.

Vince starts to give a speech (by the way, we are eight minutes into Raw at this point) and puts over the superstars as worthy of the award. Fair enough, too. It's quite a nice speech, and pretty heartfelt too, I think.

The Raw theme hits and ten and a half minutes into the programme. I don't they would have run this head-to-head with Nitro back in the day. Finally, it's the dreaded three shot of Bartlett, McMahon and Savage. The Macho Man looks like a zebra on acid.

Bushwhackers v Damien Demento and Repo Man, says Randy, is to come tonight. Kamala v Doink, too, plus Money Inc and Tatanka.

Bushwhackers music hits, and here come the wacky Kiwi duo, to face the rather odd duo of Repo and Demento. Let's give them a name. Erm, let me think.........oh, I know, we'll mix up their names, and somehow get Redemption. Sort of works. Think about it.

Hang on, where are the Bushwhackers? The music plays for ages, with even Howard Finkel doing the 'where are they?' look. Turns out Luke and Butch are in the balcony. They come down during the break. Now, I'd like make a lot of fun of this nonsense, but I loved it when I was a kid.

I haven't seen a Bushwhackers match in years. I can't believe what I'm watching. Some of the least convincing offense of all time, including the old Greco-roman bite to the arse. But somehow, it's funny.

Demento and Repo turn the tide, and get on top, and now it's some of the ludicrous bumping of all time from Bushwhacker Luke. It's like he is on a time delay. Bushwhacker win in, workrate-wise, may honestly be a contender for worst Raw match ever. And I mean that.

Reno Riggins, who is mulleted up good, in next in the ring, asking as proverbial lamb to a proverbial slaughter, facing the undefeated Tatanka. The Native American wasn't the most agile of guys, and this is a bit of a bumpy affair. Not too much clicking between the pair. That's probably why they didn't have a lengthy, nine-month feud, right?

Riggins actually gets a lot of offense in, but that's most probably so that Tatanka can do his warpath thing (Tanking up). He hits what I have in my head is called the End of the Trail, but Vince calls it the Papoose To Go. Damn, that's what my mate Paul called it. I've always told him he was full of it. No-one tell him, ok?

Nice little package in memory of Andre, and then it's Money Inc time. Scott Rich and Jeff Armstrong, are their jobbers in question. Nice rattail on of them, not sure which is which. Shock horror, Irwin says something dry about taxes.

The match starts, and Ted immediately takes control. For some reason, the camera goes behind Bartlett, to show he has a TV. He is flicking through the channels. Vince asks what he is doing - he says checking the competition. Vince says "There is no competition." Hmm, give it just a couple of years, Vinny, then we'll see. Interestingly, just to the left, you can see Bruce Pritchard with a headset. If you're interested. Randy then curiously says that he reckons he can "put that TV inside Bartlett with him knowing what it is." That's a scary visual. Please don't elaborate, uh, 'Randy'.

Money Inc dominate, and win with an IRS clothesline. Nothing to see here.

Gene Mean is here for another Mania rundown. He only mentioned three matches. Hogan/Beefcake v Money Inc, Bret v Yoko, Taker v Giant. He spends more time talking about the toga party. He does, though, mention that Bret v Yoko contract signing is going to be on Superstars and Challenge. Remember when important stuff DIDN'T happen on Raw, but elsewhere?

Kamala v eeeeeevil Doink, next, according to Vinny. Should be fun. If anyone ever tries to deny to you that WWF in the early/mid 90s was cartoony, show them a video of this show. Man alive.

Doink offer Kamala a present, but pulls it away when the big guy goes to grab it, and takes him down. Good stuff. Doink works the arm for a week or so, before Kamala makes a small comeback. As soon as he does we go to a break, and when we come back, Doink is back on top. Kamala gets the momentum back, throwing Doink to the outside. Kamala gives chase, and Doink runs to get the present. He gives it to Kamala, who stares at it, and promptly gets counted out.

Kamala chases Doink again, who runs under the ring. Vince says Kamala will be running after Bam Bam Bigelow at Wrestlemania. I don't remember that match - did that get pulled from the line up? Kamala chases under the ring, but Doink emerges the other side and grabs a (non-folding) chair. He slams in against the side of the ring a couple of times, as Kamala appears to coming out, but the big guy emerges on another side of the ring, and sneaks up on Doink. (as much as a 400-lbs guy with a painted face and stomach can sneak) He chops him, then chase Doink with the chair. Kamala is virtually Eugene at this point.

As Doink runs up the aisle, full of fans swinging arms, someone knocks his wig off, but the camera cuts away quickly. As this is pre-war, we don't get to follow backstage to see what is happening. Instead, it's a plug for WWF Mania, and then Vince informs us that the Bret Hart respect video will have a World Premiere on that show. If I recall that was just an Aretha Franklin song with Bret Hart clips played over it. Or the other way around if you like.

Final break, and Vince promises us "The Rob Bartlett fan club" after the break. And when we have it.....oh joy, it's more fat jokes, as the oversized ladies who are cruelly made to carry the Raw signs are grinning behind our beloved third commentator. McMahon congrats Bartlett on being the "1993 Spam Eating Contest winner". (Is that a euphemism?) I'll spare you too many details, but basically Bartlett makes out with one of them. You happy?

Vince plugs The March to Wrestlemania with Bam Bam v Taker and Macho v Yoko. Savage guarantees victory. (Spoiler: he loses) and Vince promises midgets. Seriously. Unfortunately, I don't have this show, so we'll sadly to have to miss Savage not making good on his promise and midget wrestling. Oh well.

Next time: Wrestlemania IX. Maybe the worst Mania of all time. I can't wait........

Raw #8

It's the eighth ever episode of Monday Night Raw, and its with......hmm, a little message to inform us all that the show has been pre-recorded. Ok. Straight after that, it's Hogan time. In a studio along with Brutus and Jimmy, on full hype mode for a match against Money Inc. Hogan calls his partner "Brutus the Barber Bionic" at one point.

Brutus says something irrelevant about putting title belts on their Harleys, then Hogan sings a song from The King and I. No, I'm not kidding, he sang a song from The King and I. Admittedly his singing was a two on the Jillian Hall scale, but he sang nonetheless. "Getting to know you". He tells Money Inc they have a surprise for them (I genuinely can't think what that is) before all three do the "From New York, it's Monday Night Raw" bit, although they can't say 'Live'. Because it isn't. They do, however, add "Whatcha Gonna do?"

The annoying Raw titles play. The even more annoying siren sounds afterwards. Then Vince introduces us to the ludicrously annoying Rob Bartlett. Good start, then.

Vince references the abysmal Elvis stuff from last week for some reason, before Macho Man launches into a run-on sentence which I think ended with him saying that Money INc are wrestling Virgil and Tito Santana, but don't quote me on it. Bartlett shouts, albeit with no emotion at all, that he's looking forward to Rick Martel v Mr Perfect.

After a very obvious cut (not live, you see) Virgil and Tito emerge. Tito is, of course, El Matador at this point, in full bullfighting gear. I wonder how well that would go down these days? They may well have PETA onto them. Perhaps Tito is coming to mop up the bull coming out of Bartlett's mouth.

Good heat for Ted DiBiase and IRS, the tag champs, who of course have a history with Virgil. IRS says to the audience that tax cheats with have to pay thanks to Bill Clinton. Err, ok, thanks for that. Tito gets the better of Ted and tags in Virgil, so DiBiase quickly tags out to IRS. Crowd are really hot for chanting "Irwin" at Shyster.

The faces are well on top early on here, and for some reason they are cheating behind the ref's back with fake tags. Makes no sense. Vince says that the Nasty Boys stepped aside to let the Mega Maniacs have their title shots. And Hogan is still finding them work seventeen years later.

We come back after a break and Money Inc are on top. Eventually Tito tags out, and Virgil fires off some.......very unconvincing offense. He is soon tripped by Ted, allowing IRS to hit a back suplex. And, wow, that's it. Do you know what, when I think about it, I don't remember IRS having a finisher. Anyone?

Clips are aired of Tatanka getting the better of Shawn Michaels a lot recently, before The Model wanders down to ringside. He isn't here to wrestle yet, apparently, but to criticise the dress sense of one of the Raw girls. Obviously he does this whilst wearing a sailor's hat, red white and blue smoking jacket and pink boots. Yikes. The lady takes the criticism in good part, and Martel does her job briefly, to a chorus of boos. Cute little segment.

Tatanka is in action next. I never really understood the popularity of Tatanka, and lets be certain, he was pretty hot at this stage. He'd been booked well - he is undefeated at this stage, and had been for over a year. His opponent here is Bill Apollo, I believe. No, I don't know either.

Tatanka, after a very slow opening exchange, hip-tosses his opponent to the outside, before indulging in about 40 minutes worth of Irish Whips and chops. Vince gets Michaels on the phone, who says Tatanka rolled the dice and got lucky twice, but it'll come up Snake Eyes in Las Vegas. Nice analogy. I see a future in this boy.

Tatanka misses an elbow, allowing Apollo to land a couple of right hands and kicks. When he slams Tatanka's head into the buckle, he does his Hulking Up thing. (What do we call this, Tanking up?) He then hits a bunch of chops before The End of the Trail. No name-check for the move yet. He must have named it later down the line.

Gene Mean does another Mania report. He leads with Mega Maniacs v Money Inc. He says it's a double main event, and goes to comments from Bret, and then some from Mr Fuji on behalf of Yokozuma. (He still says it with an 'M') Next is Paul Bearer and Undertaker threatening Giant Gonzalez. Gene Mean says it's going to be best Wrestlemania ever, then gives a wooden statement towards McMahon, saying that the Model isn't 'perfect' at being a Raw ring girl, or something. That was the thing I hated about the Mr Perfect gimmick. Every promo was just a pun on Perfect all the time. That wasn't so bad when he was a heel, because it was supposed to be annoying. I don't think it worked when he was a babyface.

Martel gives another lesson to a ring girl, while Vince sends us to a break promising Papa Shango coming next. I was terrified of Shango as a kid. Seriously. I was petrified. I'm probably over the worst now.

When Shango does appear, I can't help but notice the difference between then and now in terms of presentation. There is no tron at this stage. The music Shango has is bland. He gets to the ring quickly. There is no dimming of lights. If he as a character came along now, they'd play this up, bbig style. I suppose the nearest example is probably The Boogeyman, and look what they did with him.

Mike Edwards is the sorcerers apprentice for this one. I'm not I can recall seeing a Shango match where he doesn't use his magical voodoo powers. Let's see what we get here.

Well, it's an easy squash. About a minute, and four moves, in Shango goes for a pin and then does the heel thing of raising the opponent up to prevent the three count. Don't see that much any more.

The commentators talking about the Model v Perfect. Savage says he wants the Model to lose because of what he is doing to the Raw girls. Bartlett - and I am not making this up - says to Vince "I thought you told me Mr Perfect was going to win". Seriously. I think he was trying to a bit post-modern with the irony, but his delivery sucks, and he ended up sounding like he got a bit lost in kayfabe.

Shango wins with an inverted shoulderbreaker which Vince calls thus: "Shoulderbreaker........that might have broken the back." Sometimes I feel bad for my (endless) criticism of Michael Cole. It probably isn't his fault he sounds like such a tool.

Hey, it's Bobby Backlund, out to wrestle a fella name Tony Demoro. Backlund lasted over an hour in the Rumble, so it's a bit of a surprise not to have seen him sooner on Raw, really. This is his first showing, I do believe. Lots of Raw debuts tonight.

The crowd are very vocal in their support for Backlund. He really got himself over in that Rumble. When he came out he had no reaction, but by the end the people were really behind him. In this case, Demoro heels up well to the crowd, including a guy, front and centre, wearing a "Bob Backlund WWF World Champion" yellow t-shirt. Well done that man.

Backlund makes it a sort of amateur-style grapple early on, while Vince says that if Backlund goes to Mania it'll be his first one, because when he was champ there were no Wrestlemanias. Backlund with a couple of hip tosses, and Demoro slides to the outside, leaving Bob to soak up the crowd chanting his name. Meanwhile, Vince sends Bartlett on an errand to go interview The Model.

Backlund allows himself to be elbowed in the corner, but soon reverses an Irish whip, and hits a double underhook suplex. A three-quarter nelson pin, and it's over.

Bartlett with The Model, and he makes me laugh for the first time. The Model says "no class" about seven times in thirty seconds, to which Bartlett responds "So you're saying he has no class?" I'll give him that, that was pretty funny.

Break time, and The Model is out for real this time, music and all. Sadly Bartlett made it back too. Mr Perfect's awesome music hits, and it's s genuinely big pop. I can only guess that Curt Hennig's head wasn't necessarily on straight, or his accumulation of injuries held him back, because Perfect really ought to have been a main eventer at this point onwards, but he never really got there.

Martel gets some mini-victories early on here, before Perfect makes him look a fool when avoiding a monkey flip variant. Pantomime stuff here in the early going. Model gets the upper hand again as Savage and Vince discuss Lex Luger hitting people with a dodgy forearm. So can the WWF physicians not check him out? How long is the waiting list for ensuring the wellness of....oh wait, I forgot. Best leave that.

Perfect does a sort of low bridge on Martel, who goes to the outside. And we go to an advert. Now there is something that is exactly like today. Back from a break and Martel is back on top. Pretty slow this one, though, it has to be said. After one of the weakest backbreakers you'll ever see (no word from Vince about whether it might have hurt the shoulder) Hennig blocks a splash attempt, and starts to turn the tide. The Model's bumping is a touch on the ludicrous side, though. He was another character that I couldn't stand. I used to think (still do, really) that he had go-away heat. Switch-the-TV-off-heat. I'd-watch-anything-but-him heat.

Anyway, Perfect gets on top, but it's another advert. Low rating in the last quarter hour, I suspect. We come back to the match and......it's finished! Perfect's music is playing. That's idiotic. They missed the end. I know they are perhaps trying to make it feel live and spontaneous and frenetic. The old "anything can happen" feel. But this is post produced, isn't it? They told us at the start it wasn't live. So why edit out the finish? Don't get that one.

They do show us a replay, with Hennig hitting the Perfectplex, but that misses the point, really. McMahon says Perfect has "all kinds of momentum" heading into Wrestlemania. How many different types are there, Vince?

Shockingly, more ads ensue, leaving just enough time for Perfect to re-emerge in the arena, complete with Raw girls on each arm. I'll give them points for a little mini-story during the show, I guess.

Next week - Kamala! Wow, what a hook (note sarcasm). Razor Ramon is also in action. That's a little better. The feature match? Typhoon v Bam Bam Bigelow. There's some catch-as-catch-can action for you, right there. I wonder if we'll be able to keep up with that..........

Raw Number Seven

We kick off the seventh ever installment of Monday Night Raw with the music of the World Wrestling Federation champion, Bret "The Hitman" Hart who is out for his title defence against.......one of the Headshrinkers. Hmm, big time. This is only the second time, I think, that we have seen Bret in the flesh on Raw. They talk about him a bit, but it's interesting that the focus on the champion, or at least the top babyface, is much less in this era than now. If Cena missed a week, Sheamus only got seen once a month, there'd be uproar.

Bret is out to a strong reaction, despite wearing a highly suspect Sgt Pepper style black and pink coat. Great wrestler, bad wrestler, was ole Bretty. The opponent is actually Headshrinker Fatu, who in years to come would morph steadily into Rikishi - the size of his success corresponding with that of his arse.

The camera switches quickly to the announcers. Vince in the centre with a little red bow tie, Macho Man to his right, bedecked in red and white ..........and a man I assume to be Rob Bartlett, dressed as Elvis. Or a future vision of Scott Hall. I don't know why. Maybe he'll explain. Anyway, there is nothing like a bad comedian doing an Elvis impression to lend itself to the serious, big fight feel of a World Title match, right?

Fatu is taking an age to take off all his ring adornments. Meanwhile flicks back to Bret, who appears to have a massive scar on his nose. Vince asks "Elvis" if he still lives in Las Vegas, and then segues (not very) neatly into talking about Wrestlemania, which of course was in Vegas that year. Was that why they made him dress as Elvis? Meanwhile, two guys run along the second tier of seats at the back of shot, and hold up a poster, very quickly and very childishly. The director cuts away, and the two pre-pubescent's boasts to their buddies that they were on TV will be largely unwarranted. Poor souls.

The irony of this match, if you can call it that, is that Bret is wrestling the cousin of Yokozuna, whom he was scheduled to face at Wrestlemania. Bret takes earlier control working on the arm. There is strange moment where Bret seems to trip over Fatu, who has sunk to the floor with Bret running the ropes. Vince says Afa (Fatu's manager/trainer/keeper/feeder) tripped him, but Afa is on the other side of the ring. Hmm. Bret starts to sell a leg injury, but quickly hops up and rolls Fatu up for a two count. I guess the story was that Bret was playing possum.

Fatu starts to take charge with a nice thrust kick and series of clotheslines. Vince and Savage sell the importance of the match, how Bret can counter, whether a Headshrinker could win the title. Bartlett, meanwhile, still chunters on about Elvis. Seriously, someone tell me he is removed after Mania. He is a pox on this show.

Samu, Fatu's partner, wanders to the ringside area, and while Afa distracts, he attacks Bret on the outside. You know what, when I was kid, I always thought the big guy who is the Headshrinkers manager here was called Arthur. I just thought the diction of the commentators was poor.

Fatu hits a piledriver and gets two. Seems weird seeing piledrivers now. A bit like watching football (soccer) and seeing them pass the ball back to the goalkeeper and him picking it up. Something of another era. Headbutt from the second rope. Also two. Goes to the top and Bret hits a superplex. Bret hits a bulldog - how did that hurt him, I thought their heads were impervious to pain? Backbreaker, Forearm, Sharpshooter. Afa with another distraction, Samu into the ring to club Bret, and the headshrinkers do the old switcheroo. Twice. Bret somehow bumps the two together, gets Samu caught in the ropes. He dropkicks Afa off the apron and then Sharpshooters Fatu. Game over.

Not the greatest match in the world - it was very slow when Fatu was on top, but a well-booked conclusion to get Bret over as a clever, fighting champion. A bloody looking Bret celebrates. He got a bump on the nose, says Vince. McMahon rebukes Elvis for eating on camera, and we go to Gene Mean for a Mania report.

We learn that "The Mega Maniacs" of Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake have been challenged by Money Inc. Gene Mean runs down Taker v Gonzales, Tatanka v Shawn, Luger v Mr Perfect, Bret v Yoko.

Next, it's Coco the Clown. No wait, it's Koko VERSUS the Clown. Well it will be in a minute, because first we head to a slightly portly looking Crush, on a beach in Hawaii. Yeah, that's all very well, but shouldn't you be at work? Crush says "Brudda" about fifteen times, then crushes (get it?) a coconut to show what he'll do to Doink at Wrestlemania.

Speaking of said clown, he's out next, to one of my favourite reactions. When a crowd cheers because they are seeing someone, then boos because they recognise he is a good heel. That used to happen to Santino before his (in my opinion ill-advised) babyface turn. As the weeks go by on these old Raws, I remember more and more what a splendid character Heel Doink was.

Doink has a small present with him, which he teases giving to fans, then changes his mind. He squirts some with his flower. Brilliant.

Koko B Ware......correction, "Hall of Famer" Koko B Ware is out next, with his old "Bird Bird Bird" music I think, rather Owen's, which he entered the ring to previously. Vince says "here is a young man who will thrill youngsters." Yeah, moving on.....

Doink makes fun of "The Birdman's" signature flapping movement, and then attacks him from behind, as any evil clown should. Vince talks about a guy in a clown suit being an accomplished wrestler, and he's right. Doink goes straight for Koko's leg, slapping in a single leg Boston Crab in the first minute of the contest, transitioning it into an STF. He attempts a Figure four, Koko blocks it, and Doink goes for his finisher, the Stump-puller, successfully. It's all over, Koko submits.

Really good outing for Doink. Nice booking again, making him look menacing and legit.

Of course, the serious tone is soon shattered because Bartlett, sorry, I mean "Elvis" decides he wants to meet Doink. As you would expect, 'Elvis' asking for food results in a custard pie to the face, and therefore a big cheer from the crowd. What was the point of that? You just started to get a guy over as a heel, then he pie-faces this idiot, drawing cheers. Nonsense.

After a break, Savage again appeals for Donations towards the "Headlock on Hunger" appeal. I wonder if Money Inc have donated. And whether IRS ticked the Gift Aid box. Speaking of the Tag Team champs, it's interview time for them, in the ring with Vinny Mac.

They talk about some guy who was Chief Exec of American Express. I guess he got a massive, scandalous payoff, and DiBiase makes it sound like a million plus in severance pay and $700,000 a year is a pittance. I get it, Ted has loads of money, feels sorry for someone who is earning a fortune, ergo is a dickhead. Fair enough.

(Vince's haircut is out of control, by the way. A massive quiff. And he has the temerity to be taking the piss out of Elvis on this show.)

Ted has a go at Hogan, belittling him, and says they were happy to get rid of Jimmy Hart. IRS says they gave Beefcake a wake-up call. Irwin has a very sweaty brow. Mike Rotunda was a good wrestler, but a relatively poor promo. DiBiase asked the fans if they should put their titles on the line. IRS says the odds are against Hogan and Beefcake. OK promo, nothing special.

Luger is next, and poses in a mirror outside the ring. The damn Elvis thing is still going, incidentally. Luger's opponent is a fresh faced youngster called PJ Walker, who went on to be The Portuguese Man O War Aldo Montoya, and more famously Justin Credible.

Bobby Heenan is on the line, while Luger is in the ring. Heenan says he is going to Philadelphia soon, but fears he will get killed. Things get ever more bizarre as Heenan denies to Vince that it's really Elvis. He says it's George Steinbrenner (Wiki-ed for your ease of reference if you don't know who he is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Steinbrenner). To prove it, he says, here's Priscilla. What sounds like an old lady mumbles something about this not being Elvis.

What the hell is going on here? This is a wrestling show, with a (supposedly) hot talent in the ring, and they are talking about Baseball owners and Elvis, with potentially cameo from Bobby Heenan's mother. Insane.

Finally Bobby gets round to talking about Luger, and starts putting him over, but is interrupted by 'Elvis' asking Bobby to make Lex 'do that booby dance'. (Before Chris Masters, Lex used to flick his muscles too.) Bobby, in all this insanity, hits the line of the night, saying "You're a strange man, George." Trust me, in context - this strange, strange context - it was funny.

Luger basically just hits an odd shoulderblock on Walker, who drops like a ton of bricks. Luger pins him with one finger. Vince says speculation is building about the use of the forearm, but goes no further. Luger throws his victim outside, and put his face to the mirror. He shouts that the guy is an "atypical American Male". Either he meant to say Typical, or he is second confused about who Scotty Riggs is again.

He basically runs down 'Aldo' for being skinny, and says he is the envy of all man. Vince says coming up next are the Steiner Brothers, "Rob and Scott". Don't have a go at me, that's what he said. He called Rick Steiner "Rob". I know it is a highly desirable name, but in this case it isn't correct.

When eventually The Steiners emerge, they are wrestling premier jobbers Duane Gill and Barry Hardy. Savage calls Vince on getting the name wrong, and Vince says he hopes they take it out on the opponents and not him. He then says that the Steiners will wrestle The Headshrinkers at Mania.

This is another rather effective squash for the Steiners, because they looked like everything they did hurts. That probably is because it did. Especially the Frankensteiner that ends this match.

Plug for WWF Mania, and we are pretty much done here. Vince advertises Perfect v Martel for next week - first Raw appearance for Martel I think. And we're out!

Raw Number Five

Lawks a mercy, we're rattling through these now. If this your first step onto this page for a while (or ever), then welcome (back). To catch you up, I decided to have a little look at the first ever Raw a couple of weeks ago, since we were heading into Raw #900. It was so much fun, I kept going, and we're onto the fifth one already. If you want to read reviews of the first four, then scroll down or use the navigation on the right hand side.

For those that are ready, let's crack on with Raw number five, brought to us on February 15th 1993, approximately six weeks before Wrestlemania IX. As I recall, we were promised Brutus Beefcake v Ted DiBiase this week. I can pretty much remember what happened, but I'll feign a lack of recollection, and we'll get into it.

The show begins with a couple of jobbers already in the ring. Who will they be fed to, I wonder? Our commentary team is once again Vince "I'm the boss but I don't really want the world to know yet" McMahon, Randy "Quite Macho in my spangly gear and I don't really want to commentate really Man" Savage, and Rob "How I've still got a commentary job after four excruciating weeks is incredible, the WWF must have signed me to a stupid contract or they think I am giving them street cred" Bartlett.

Vince reminds us that it's Beekcafe's return tonight, and turns to Savage for advice. He actually calls him "Macho" which is very odd. Bartlett is dressed the same as the show previous, and it turns out it's a really bad lapel, not a scarf. That doesn't save him, he still looks like a prat.

The jobbers are for the Steiners, as made evident by the playing of the Michigan fight song. Oh, and the emergence Rick and Scott. Scott hits a couple of heavy looking suplexes, while Savage can't get his mic working. One of the jobbers appears to be called Bobby Hoo, which gives a chance for Vince to do his Abbott and Costello routine that he would later do when Jim Neidhart was put under a hood and forced to be "Who?"

The Steiners win, and just assume that during the last paragraph they hit a clothesline and a stiff suplex in succession for about three minutes.

Gene Mean gives us a rundown of matches booked for Mania. So far it's Bret v Yoko, Taker v Gonzalez and Crush v Doink.

Back in the arena, and for the second week running, and the third of five Raws, Yoko's in town. Ross Greenberg is the feed for today. Savage is still off mic, by the way. Although we can sort of hear him, almost like he is on a phone in space. We can hear agitated comments which sound deliberate, but Vince and Rob are ignoring or can't hear them.

Vince tells us that Hacksaw Jim Duggan, who fought Yoko on another show the previous weekend, was the first man to knock the big guy off his feet. Hey, I thought Savage did it at the Rumble? Does getting out of the way and letting Yoko run into the buckle not count?

Yoko wins nice and simply, and Savage steals a mic from Bartlett. I can only imagine the asides we can hear were put on in post.

A cardboard cut-off brings us a special report.....oh wait, no, it's Lord Alfred. He's here to tell us about Duggan knocking Yokozuna down. Apparently it was on WWF Superstars. Duggan eventually knocking Yoko over after a couple of shoulder charges, but the big Samoan threw salt in his eyes to get DQed, then hit the Banzai Drop a couple of times. Ouch.

Back to the arena, and Vince says that the 16 guys who will be in a battle royal later on all refused to take part if Giant Gonzales was involved. They go to highlights (using that term very loosely here) from Superstars of the Giant winning a handicap match by count out after the 3 opponents legged it. One of them was Louie Spiccoli I think.

Right, I'll try to work out the sixteen guys in the Battle Royal for you - this could be tricky. I can see Michaels, Razor, Backlund, Beserker, Kamala, Koko, Tatanka, Kimchee, Typhoon, Terry Taylor, Tito Santana, Damien Demento, Owen Hart, Skinner and I think Iron Mike Sharpe. That's fifteen, but it's all I can see.

It's very tricky to keep up with eliminations, although I should say this is given a nice amount of time to develop, and isn't rushed at all. It's a lot of fun. I liked seeing Shawn and Owen have a little battle, years before the duo made it bigger. It also amused me to hear the crowd chant 'Huss' along with a departing Beserker.

I should point out that on comms Savage put over Michaels getting upset by Tatanka on Superstars. Man, Superstars is where it's at, not Raw!

Kamala is eliminated by Kimchee, amongst others. When eliminated, he climbs back in and throws out his former handler, and chases him through the crowd and into the hospitality area. After a break, we are told Kamala is still chasing, and we see him continue to chase across the balcony. Back in the ring, Michaels backdrops Typhoon out to leave Tatanka, Michaels, Tito and Razor in the ring. The heels form a little clique (heh heh) of sorts, and the two duos square up.

Surprisingly, it isn't a babyface next out, but Shawn, disposed of by Tito and Tatanka as a pair. So who is going to win.....? Might be a moot point, as Giant Gonzales comes wondering in and starts to attack Tatanka and Tito. Razor sneaks away, and I guess wins by default because Gonzales threw the other two out. Yup, Finkel makes it official. Ramon wins. Hey yo!

After we have a break, the familiar "Money" theme plays, and it's time for Ted DiBiase and Brutus Beefcake and their, erm, Face Off, if you will.

Ted goes for a couple of hook ups at the start of the match which Beefcake avoids and does a little strut. Savage says he is worried about Beefcake and "the facial type sutuation. You know what I'm talking about." I don't want to know about that at all, 'Macho', thanks all the same.

It's all Brutus in the early going, with DiBiase swinging a couple of times at the face, but missing. Jimmy Hart keeps telling his charge that Beefcake is no pushover. Brutus, it's key to mention, hasn't taken a bump yet, several minutes in. There is a lot of stalling with DiBiase going to the outside.

Brutus holds a headlock for about a week, and during this pause IRS wanders to ringside, complete with steel briefcase. It doesn't take the man with the red braces to nail Brutus in the back. We have a DQ. Money INC double team Brutus, with Hart looking pained. He tries to stop IRS from inflicting more damage, but no luck. Irwin smacks Brutus with the briefcase after throwing Jimmy down.

Eventually the heels leave, with Jimmy left to try to tend to the fallen Beefcake. Brutus does a good job of holding his face and not letting the camera see it. Actually, this angle was pretty well done although the payoff (eventually) was pretty awful. To conclude the show, Vince tells us that Beefcake is standing in the dressing room and might have a broken nose. Other than that he'll be ok. Huh. I thought they could of held off on that for a little longer. He says Money Inc will be in action next week, so expect to see Beefcake try to exact revenge. He also says it wouldn't surprise him to see Hulk Hogan show up at Raw. That's an odd way to sell the Hulkster's big return after nearly a year, isn't it? A flippant comment in the closing moments of the show. You'd think it'd be big news that Hogan would be there, or no mention and the return comes as a surprise. Hmm.

Anyway, that's that for episode five. I shouldn't have thought it'll be long and I'll have episode six done and dusted. Let's hope no-one fixes Bartlett's microphone before then.

Raw number 2

I had some fun with the retro review of Raw #1 last week - more than I did this week's 900th effort, anyway - so I thought I may step on a week and see how WWE followed up their first ever Monday Night flagship show.

If you didn't see the review of the first show, then either scroll down a little bit, or if you are particularly lazy, just click here. http://robmcnichol.blogspot.com/2010/08/900-to-1.html

S0 lets fire up the time machine, and head back to January 18 1993, six days before the Royal Rumble of that year.

The show starts with Vince McMahon, Randy Savage and Rob Bartlett - a man who I had forgotten the existence of until review last week's show, and I realise exactly why my brain had chosen to blot him out. I prefer Michael Cole.......just.

Bartlett rips up a piece of paper with a picture on it, and says "fight the real enemy." I couldn't see who the picture was of (Heenan maybe?).

In a fun start, Savage is attacked from behind by Barry Darsow, in his guise as The Repo Man. Vince and Rob talk to Savage, as the very annoying opening siren drones on. Macho Man appears to have lost his hat. Oh dear. Sorry, I mean, OHhhhhhhh De-yuh!

After the opening theme music, it's......well, what do you know, TNA head of Talent Relations, 'Terrific' Terry Taylor. (Don't say rooster, don't say rooster, don't say rooster.......) His opponent is Mr Perfect, who was really over as a babyface at this point, having turn in the build up to Survivor Series, 1992, accepting the position as Randy Savage's tag team partner, replacing The Ultimate Warrior who had disappeared following one of his 465 sackings from WWF.

Savage meanwhile, on this show, hasn't spoken so far, so I'm assuming he's gone backstage and will re-emerge to wrestle Repo later on.

The match begins, and Vince acknowledges that Randy is 'on the prowl' looking for Repo Man. He soon returns, and says Repo Man clocked him, but he'll get him at some point. Perfect meanwhile, dominates the early stages, and the crowd chant "We Want Flair".

They've got Heenan on the phone now, and it apparently was Heenan's photo who Bartlett ripped up. Heenan plugs All American Wrestling. Savage asks about Repo and his hat. Uh, there's a match on. They go to a break, and they are all over the place.

Back from ad, and Heenan is still on the phone, Taylor on top in the ring. Heenan tells Vince he is calling collect - Vince says to hang up. Funny.

Perfect gets back on top, while the commentators plug the Rumble. Oh, here's Flair. He's looking old and telling the President of the company they are drop dead gorgeous. Oh no, that was Impact last week. Here, Ric looks like he did for most of career - like the challenged brother of Naked Gun actor Leslie Neilson.

Taylor knocks Hennig to the outside, and Flair attacks with the ref's back turned. Perfect is rolled back in the ring. Triple T attempts a suplex, but Hennig responds with.......well, it's known as a Fisherman's suplex, and Perfect called it the Perfect Plex. Vince calls it a Superplex. I guess I shouldn't get so annoyed with Cole when calls Randy Orton's powerslam a scoop slam, should I? Perfect gets the win and runs to the back, obviously to attack Flair.

A sign of the times - the camera gets to the curtain and stops. No going backstage in 1993.

After a break, a slightly skanky ring girl hold up a sign, before we get the same ICOPRO and Slim Jim ads as last week, as well as Lord Alfred plugging X-Men and Spiderman on SNES. I feel old.

Bret is next, appearing on Raw #2, where he was slightly more relevant than at #900. Decent interview, with the most notable thing being that Vince asks Bret about his strategy. They talk about being a technical wrestler, and about how he plans to win. Good lord, how we don't hear that any more. That should be the primary focus of World Title matches. Sure, have a reason for them to feud, of course, but they'll get that 'big fight feel' that they love to talk about if they actually treat wrestling as a serious sport.

After Bret, it's Paul Bearer and Taker in the blue screen interview room, where they talk about the Headlock on Hunger event to raise money for Somalia. No, I'm serious. Couldn't they have found someone other than THE TWO PEOPLE IN THE COMPANY ASSOCIATED WITH DEATH to try and get people to pledge money to, uh, stop people dying. The big guy says "No-one should starve to death". Uh, thanks Take, for those words of exquisite wisdom. That was just odd.

Marty Janetty v Glenn Ruth (DJ - Designated Jobber) is next. Marty on top, and Shawn is on the phone. He calls Janetty a simpleton, amongst other things, and says Sherri will be in his corner at the Rumble. Janetty eventually wins with the Rocker Dropper (Vince doesn't recognise it)

Crush isn't going to the Rumble apparently. We flip to WWE Superstars from the previous weekend, where Doink took out the big Hawaiian with a fake arm. Lawler and Savage on commentary do a really nice job, but Vince freaks out that Doink took his own arm off. I can't believe how bad Vince is, listening back. I thought he was good when I was a kid.

Poor Sean Mooney is still stood outside the building, just like last week, only this time he finds Repo Man, not Bobby Heenan. Repo has the hat, and Savage goes beserk, even though he changes his hat every week. They talk via the earpiece, and Savage takes off again. Repo Man is one of those gimmicks/acts that shouldn't work, but somehow did via the ridiculously over the top performance by Darsow.

Gene Mean is back with another Rumble plug. Razor with a brief threat to Bret. I loved that Razor character. I thought Scott Hall was fantastic for about three years as Razor. Gene Mean runs down some of the Rumble competitors. The gimmick of the graphic is that the still photos are 'bursting' through the wall. Which sounds lame until you see a picture of Fred Ottman (Typhoon) grinning ludicrous, and if you're like me you have a Shockmaster flashback. Poor Uncle Fred.

Back to Mooney outside, and Savage runs past him. Savage looks like such a bizarre, campy clown with all his purple tassles. I don't care how good a wrestler he was (and he was awesome) I always felt his attire hurt him around this time. Savage can't find Repo, so it's back to the ring.

Vince McMahon calls Tito Santana one of the greatest ever. So why did you dress him up like a bloody bullfighter? He is wrestling Ric Flair, with his appallingly bad midi file 2001 (A Space Odyssey) entrance music. Savage is back, and it'll be interesting to see how much he comments on Flair, since the pair of them had a rivalry that lasted most of the previous year.

It's no fun listening to anyone except Heenan call a Santana match. I miss Bobby. Does he get back onto Raw? I can't remember. Two minutes into the match and you start to recall why Flair was so great. He hasn't even got close to an offensive move yet, he has just fed for Tito the whole time, making him look good. I mean, Tito was pretty good, but Flair's way was to build the opponent convincingly, only to knock him down. Classic.

On commentary, Vince confirms Savage v Repo Man for the week after. Savage says he has to think of what to do for 7 days. Vince suggests, uh, the Rumble? Savage says "you're right". Nice to know the runner up cared so much.

Tito hits his big forearm, but for some reason doesn't cover Flair. He waits for him to get up, then charges again, misses, and falls to the outside. As he does, Perfect emerges to pull Flair out, drawing a DQ. Refs and agents come to break it, and they do the whole wild brawl spot. Savage calls it a Pier 9 brawl. I thought it Pier 6 was the rough one? Trouble must be spreading.

They brawl backstage, and Vince asks we can get a camera back there. Apparently not, since we now get a ten second close up of the curtain. They promise a word with Flair or Perfect after the ads......

Or not. Flair and Perfect fight through the curtain again. They split apart, and Flair heads to McMahon. Mic time......Flair says the WWE isn't big enough for him and Mr Perfect, so he is challenging Perfect next week on Raw in a Loser Leaves Town match.

Perfect soon wanders over, after Flair leaves. Perfect says he'll take it in a heartbeat. He calls he and Flair the two best athletes in the WWF. His music hits and the crowd cheer. I loved Perfect's music. One of the best ever.

The show ends with Repo Man having possession of that hat and a car. Oh yeah, I should have told you. Bartlett kept droning on about checking his car throughout the show, I just thought he was telling a bad joke.

Well, ok, he WAS telling a bad joke, but it was actually leading somewhere. I apologise for the omission. Please try to sleep tonight, won't you?

900 to 1

Next Monday, WWE celebrates the 900th edition on Monday Night Raw. Whether this is or isn't the exact 900th ep (their 800th one was a little off) and whether you like WWE or not, this is really is a marvelous achievement.

I was curious to see, though, how exactly the first show would be able to compare with the most recent offerings, so I got into to my high tech, patent pending McNichol Time Expander (a subsidiary of the McNichol Eliminator company) and went back to January 11th, to the Manhattan Center, for the first ever Monday Night Raw.

Here are my findings.......

So, we're ready for the first ever Monday Night Raw. And who will be the first ever guy we see on the Broadcast? Vince McMahon? Shawn Michaels? Bret Hart?

Nope, it's legendary announcer Sean Mooney. There's a trivia question to ask your friends. Mooney tells us it is cold in New York, but hot in the building. Or something. He stumbled over the word 'Elements', which was sort of funny because it came over a little bit like "elephants" - "braving the elephants" would have been a fun gimmick for the opening night.

Mooney is interrupted by Bobby Heenan trying to get into the building, but Mooney tells him Rob Bartlett is hosting. Who? I don't remember him at all. Wait, stop the tape, Google time.........

Wow, Bartlett hosted along with Vince and Savage for the first 3/4 months of the show. I genuinely have no recollection of the guy. Admittedly during this time we didn't get Raw in this country, but we were shown highlights on WWF Mania, with Todd Pettengill (ooh, I wonder if we'll get Pettengill, the poor man's Borash, on this show?)

Back to the tape, and Heenan is upset because he can't even buy a ticket. Nice (not very) subtle way of saying they are sold out.

After some dubious theme music - I think Raw have had some great theme tracks, but not this one - we hear the familiar "welcome everyone" of mid-90s Vince. He intros the show over a very annoying siren. I assume that's the fashion police come for Savage's garish gear and Bartlett's appalling sunglasses.

Bartlett does an Adamle, and tells us it's going to be Koko B Ware v YokozuMa. Not Jeff Harvey then? Actually Adamle did his faux pas in MSG, so maybe it's a New York thing.

Sure enough, here is Koko, quite oddly to Owen Hart's music. I always think of Bird Bird Bird and Piledriver when it comes to Koko, but I forget he teamed with Owen for a bit in High Energy. Indeed, Yoko also teamed with Owen, winning the tag belts.

Yoko comes out, and he is pretty sizable. Yoko was a big star and a multi-time WWF champion. The other was a jobber. Which one is in the Hall of Fame?

McMahon says that Yoko has a combination of all of the martials arts. Yeah, he was a real high-flier, with some great kung fu style kicks, wasn't he? (Note sarcasm) Bartlett says Yoko is "One big butted Oriental." McMahon replies "In a manner of speaking, yes." I assume in the manner that he has a big butt, and not oriental, since he was Samoan. Bartlett says ass, and Vince and Savage piss themselves a little bit. Remember when WWF was PG and you couldn't say 'ass'? Oh right......

From this point, just assume that Bartlett does a weak Yokozuna - sorry, YokozuMa - size joke every twenty seconds, and suffixes it with "eh Vince?"

Vince gives a plug at this stage for the Royal Rumble (it was thirteen days later) and says tat Yoko will be in it, as will Savage. In fact they were the last two remaining.

Yoko has a big bruise on his left, erm, breast, but it doesn't stop him, erm, standing basically still, but throwing Koko all over the ring. Eventually he drops a leg, hits the splash in the corner then the Banzai Drop. The ropes look really loose, by the way.

After a Rumble hype video and an ad break, it's back to Vince and co, with a swift cutaway to a gratuitous shot of a young lady in a leotard holding up a Monday Night Raw board. Wearing a one-piece, still PG.

They cut to a Bobby Heenan-in-front-of-a-curtain promo (despite him being outside the building). He talks up his new charge "Narcissus", who is yet to be named as Lex Luger. He would be unveiled at the Rumble, and he'll be going after Mr Perfect. Good stuff from Heenan, though he ended up going well overboard at the Rumble.

Steiner time next. Bartlett exposes idiocy a little bit more by asking which is Scott and which is Rick. I didn't catch the names of their opponents, who are such uber jobbers, it seems, that they don't get clear announcements and are under hoods, too. I'm guessing they are called The Executioners, because they did that gimmick a fair bit back then, with different outfits.

(As soon as I typed that, Vince called them Executioners)

Just as this match starts, with Scotty hitting a hard looking tilt-a-whirl slam, Doink appears in the background, with Vince referring to him as "That goofy-looking clown." and not by name, initially. Eventually Bartlett calls him Dork the Clown, and Vince actually agrees, and has to be put right by Savage. Quite the turning of tables.

The Steiners destroy their opponents with an array of good (and painful) looking moves, including a finisher of a bulldog version of the Doomsday Device. I miss these old squash matches. They only take up a couple of minutes, and really get over the moves of the wrestlers in question.

Cut back to Mooney outside. (I like how they wouldn't let Heenan in, but Mooney is on the team and still has to stay outside) He sees a security guy stopping a 'woman' who claims to be Rob Bartlett's aunt. Of course it's Heenan, and it's ludicrous, but it's funny because Heenan was just a riot.

In house adverts next. Bret putting over IcoPro (it was a supplement that WWF promoted), Savage putting over Slim Jims, and Lord Alfred (badly) putting over WWF video games. I think he said Bert The Hitman Hart.

Next it's Razor Ramon, who was number one contender at the time, doing his Bad Guy Cuban shtick. He does draw some cheers for this with the (slightly) raucous NYC crowd, but overall it isn't a big sell promo considering he is a world title match less than two weeks later.

Some promotion for Headlock for Hunger charity event later, it's time for the IC champ. Which was.....any guesses.........? Yes, you at the back, well done, it was Shawn Michaels.

Before HBK, we get the entrance of Max Moon, who gets no music and seems to firing off some balls of fire. Bizarrely, though, this is shown from a very long range camera. The music starts and the focus comes in as he enters the ring and does a couple of forward rolls. That's Paul Diamond (Kato) in the suit by the way.

Michaels has his old music, the one Sherri sang, and a blue strap to the IC belt. The crowd are getting a little behind Shawn (the heel) as Vince says "Thus far it seems to me Max Moon is outclassing Shawn Michaels." I guarantee that is the only time that sentence has ever been used in the history of man.

Mid match break, and it's back with Michaels on top, and a little plug for Shawn v Marty Janetty. This is all over the place now, because Doink is back out, while Bartlett does a bizarre Mike Tyson impression for about five minutes, with Vince 'interviewing' Tyson and including a reference to two royal divorces. I wonder if they played this to Iron Mike (Tyson, not Sharpe) when they got him on board in 1999.

Michaels, near the end of the match, hits Sweet Chin Music, but this is before he put lead in his soles, or whatever, because it is simply called as a "savate kick", and he actually finishes Moon with a side suplex, which was his finisher at the time. Imagine someone having a side suplex as a finisher now.

After a WWF Mania plug, it's Gene Mean and his little mustache to give us a Royal Rumble Report. Promos from Shawn and Marty, and a run down of some of the Rumble competitors. At one point Fuji talks for his charge, and says YokoZuma fives times. Not just Bartlett then.

A guy with a big beard and ringlets tries to get into the building. Hmm. No joy there for Bobby Heenanstein. Which is nearly the name of the other ballroom, funnily enough.

A flashback to Superstars shows a Kamala face turn, when Reverend Slick tried to stop Kimchee and Harvey Wippleman berating the Ugandan Giant, and Kamala turned on is captors. Man, face turns were easy back then.

BONG! Taker is here......I think. The crowd cheer the weak sounding gong, and the camera stays on Damien Demento, Undertaker's opponent for the evening. No lights out, nothing. Suddenly Taker is getting in the ring. We just take that entrance for granted now.

Taker swiftly beats Demento, as Vince plugs Santana v Flair and Perfect v Shango for the following week's show. He also plugs Woody Allen v Mia Farrow in a steel cage, which I assume was a one hit joke, as I don't remember a Donald v Rosie style segment, though I may be wrong.

Finally, we get Doink (dork?) with Vince outside the ring. Vince asks why Doink makes kids cry. The clown says they have no sense of humour. Vince says Crush is after him, to which Doink sells no fear. Crush comes out to threaten the clown. I don't remember too many Crush promos. I now know why. Doink squirts the big Hawaiian with a water gun. Crush chases him (slowly) around the ring a little, then gets into the ring, and his music plays. Is that it? Remember this angle would play out at WRESTLEMANIA.

The show ends with Bobby Heenan finally being allowed into the building. The joke being that the show is over, and Bobby doesn't realise it. Har dee haha.

So that's it. How does it compare to today? To use an Eric Bischoff phrase, it's apples and bricks. There are aspects of wrestling that worked in that era that could still be used, like the squash match, but we've evolved so far we often don't even realise it. From a production standpoint, this looks so different. There are less big stars, a lack of quality in the ring. The crappy Vince humour is prevalent in both, mind you.

I quite enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane. Maybe I'll take a look at some other old shows in weeks to come. Thanks for joining me in this little jaunt. Mind your step, now.

Captain's Blog - Stardate January 16, 1995

Let’s wind the clock back, folks. Let’s transport ourselves from this era and remind ourselves of what things were like fourteen years ago.

Ah, it was so very different. For it was the run-up to the Royal Rumble. Shawn Michaels was the favourite to win, and Bret Hart and William Shatner were about to appear on Raw.

Wait, hang on..........

Anyway, I thought it might be a little bit of fun for us to have a retro review of the last time William Shatner popped up for a guest appearance on Monday Night Raw, direct from The Summit in Houston, Texas.

A little backstory. Captain Kirk had appeared on a talk show segment known as the King’s Court, hosted by none other than Jerry Lawler. This, we should point out, was Lawler as a slimy heel, which is of course when he was at his best, and not being a sycophant who laughs along with Michael Cole every week.

Shatner was talking to the King to promote his new show “Tek Wars” which had a wrestling tie-in because.......well it had no relevance at all, except Tek Wars was to be shown on USA Network straight after Raw. That’s pretty much why that guy from Psych was on this week.

King was a little embarrassing in the sense that he had to say Tek Wars was great, but told Shatner that he must be really impressed to be in the ring with the King. Shatner told King off, and Vince on commentary laughed uproariously.

Shatner pulled an elementary wrist lock on King to shut him up, then as Lawler charged he monkey flipped him. I mean, it wasn’t like we were going to mix Shatner up with Rick Steamboat, but it was impressive, I guess. Bret Hart rushed the ring to raise Shatner’s arm, while Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie (Road Dogg/BG James) emerged to console Lawler. This set up the following week’s Raw match of Bret v Jarrett, which was taped that same evening.

So let’s jump to that week, but rather than delve straight into that feature match, I thought it’d be fun to see the other amazing offerings that the one hour, taped, unopposed Raw was doing in the pre-Nitro era.

We kick off with theme music I don’t remember at all. Just a generic beat and saxophone solo before we hear the music of the Heavenly Bodies in the background. Vince greets us and says it’s two weeks until the Superbowl, but the Royal Rumble is before that. He is joined by broadcast colleague......SHAWN MICHAELS?! Wow, I don’t remember Shawn doing much commentary, but then I guess at this point we in the UK only used to see highlights of Raw on WWF Mania hosted by Todd Pettengill every Saturday Morning. (We’d have Superstars that evening and Wrestling Challenge on the Sunday. Them’s were the days)

Shawn says that William Shatner better watch himself, because Double J might send him to a Galaxy Far Far Away. Who wants to tell him that was Star Wars, not Star Trek?

The Heavenly Bodies are facing 123 Kid and Bob “Spark Plugg” Holly, who had got to the finals of a tag team tournament to find new Tag Team Champions. The Bodies have Jim Cornette with them, and jump the “Cinderella team” as Vince calls them.

Vince is very high-pitched early on, and he and Shawn reflect on the fact that Kid and Holly beat Heavenly Bodies to advance in the tournament. Bodies dominate early on, but my thoughts are on the commentary duo, who not only play the old “heel v face” battle in order for each man to promote each team, but they actually talk solely about these two teams, the match, and the match at the Rumble for Kid and Holly against Tatanka and Bam Bam Bigelow. No mention of WWE.com (it probably didn’t exist, but you get my point) no plugs for other things on the show. Just proper focus by the commentators. It’s very effective.

After Holly gets killed for about six minutes, 123 comes in and starts fast. The Bodies double team him, go for a double suplex, but while he is in the air Bob Holly takes out Tom Pritchard, and the Kid nails a Northern Lights Suplex to beat Del Ray. Bammer, Tatanka and their manager Ted DiBiase, who have wandered to ringside, look on.

A really, really strong opening segment for its purpose. The match was no better than average, but it was the week before the Rumble and effectively sold the reasons to watch one of the matches on the show in under seven minutes.

Next we go backstage with Bret Hart and William Shatner. Vince asks Bret if he has “ring rust” to which Bret vigourously denies this, saying he is 100%. While he does so, Shatner continually butts in while Bret keeps talking, with statements like “I’ve seen him work”. Thanks, Bill.

Shawn then asks Shatner if he is watching Bret’s back, who is watching Shatner’s. Shatner replies that no-one needs to. That actually makes Bret look less tough than Shatner in a way. He then does a bad does a bad job of threatening The Roadie, calling him Roadkill, before the interview ends and Vine promises us the Monday Night Raw debut of Mantaur. I think he had had several matches on Superstars, though.

After a break, we get mooing, and Mantaur appearing along with Jim Cornette, who apparently was making his first appearance with the Cowman, because Vince sells shock at seeing Jimmy. Mantaur is facing a gentleman with too many consonants in his name.

Vince and Shawn now do stray away from the match, but it’s a little more understandable because they are trying to sell the Rumble match, in which Mantaur is entered. Shawn says it doesn’t matter if he draws number one, which is fortunate, because he did, and he won. Vince basically tells him he won’t win, and plugs The Action Zone. I’d forgotten that show.

Shawn says “a couple of nice wrestling moves......I guess.” As Mantaur just runs into his opponent, knocks him over, falls on him, and pins him.

We then head off to the Royal Rumble report with Todd Pettengill in front of a sunshine graphic. The Rumble was in Tampa that year, I believe. He checks in with Jarrett and the Roadie backstage at the arena for some reason, then gets on with his report.

He says about the Pay Per View that it is from the WWF, “The originator, not the imitator”, whatever that means. He reminds everyone that Pamela Anderson will be the ‘host’ to the Rumble, then talks about the main 30-man match, including a brief rundown of how the match works. They made the Rumble 30-minuntes that year because the talent roster sucked, basically.

Plugging other matches, he mentions Undertaker v IRS, and we get warbling Paul Bearer and Taker threatening Irwin in the usual manner, except the graphic behind them is of a seashore with the tide rolling in. Slightly juxtaposed images there.

Todd bigs up the “Cinderella Story” of 123 and Holly (he got the memo, then) and then says that Diesel v Bret will be awesome. It wasn’t, but it was pretty good until the booked the hell out of it. He concludes by saying that Jeff Jarrett will challenge Razor Ramon for the gold, then starts to ‘interview’ Jeff but is clearly just saying a scripted line and they cut it together in post. Actually, although it’s clearly manufactured and Double J says the usual thing, it is quite cool little exchange.

Onto the match, and we come back after a break with Jarrett in the ring and strutting to his music. Vince thanks the owner of the building for his hospitality, then weakly segues into talking about the match. HBK talks the match up, and indeed Bret’s popularity. The reaction is genuinely massive for him, which is interesting because they will have already seen him in the taping that evening. Bret was unbelievably over back then.

Jarrett stalls early in the match, as Vince speculates as to whether we’ll see Lawler during the match. The story of the match is basically whether Bret has “changed”. He’d been away since the previous Survivor Series when he lost to Bob Backlund and lost his title, and upon his return they had Bret occasionally flouting the rules and being more aggressive. Bret dominates the early stages while working on Jarrett’s arm.

Shawn on commentary, meanwhile, puts Bret over in spades, and alludes to being happy with the Hitman being Diesel. Jarrett gets on top and we got to a break.

On return Double J is on top, while Shatner cheerleads. Bret turns the tables, and Vince says that Shatner is offering “words of encouragement”. The only audible words we hear from Bill are “Take him down” while Jeff is flat on his back. Yeah, doesn’t Bones need you in Sick Bay or something, Kirky?

Bret’s fightback ends when Jarrett blocks the Sharpshooter, and after a little Roadie help, Jarrett has the advantage and locks in the figure 4, but Bret has the ropes. Shortly afterwards, Jarrett rolls Bret up, but is reversed, and Bret gets the three. Roadie comes in and meets a Shatner forearm, gets his head rammed into the turnbuckle and gets thrown over the top. Roadie must be a Romulan or something, Shatner hates him.

That it for that segment, but Raw is nowhere near finished. That’d be a sure-fire main event and closing segment now, but not in ‘95 it seems.

We get an ad break, then a recap of the tag tournament, including clips of Bam Bam and Tatanka beating the Headshrinkers, and Kid and Holly beating the Heavenly Bodies. Another break, and it’s the Kings Court will all of the Million Dollar Man’s Corporation. Hey, King never appeared at all in the Shatner/Bret/Jarrett deal.

DiBiase is announced as the CEO of the Corporation, and he says that for the “mongoloids” who don’t understand, that means Chief Executive Officer. Mongoloids? Really? Really? (/Miz)

By the way, the Corporation at this point appears to be Bam Bam, Tatanka, IRS and Bundy. This is when the Faction idea was very effective with the right leader.It still could be to be honest. DiBiase runs down the Undertaker, and explains why IRS will beat him. Then he praises Bam Bam and Tatanka, saying they’ll easily win the Tag Titles. “It’s a shoo-in” he says. (They lost). DiBiase also explains that his new champions will defend against the Smoking Gunns, who had vacated the title in the first place. Then he explains why Bundy will win the Rumble and go to Wrestlemania.

In five minutes, we got build up for three matches, including the Rumble, a manager putting his stable over, and a plug for a title match on the following week’s Raw. What more can you ask?

Big Mabel is out next, along with his rapping manager Oscar, in full purple babyface mode. For the uninitiated, Mabel is Viscera/Big Daddy V. Mabel squashes Lee Tobin, with the commentary drifting by now to Shawn talking about how awesome he is. Vince and Shawn interview Mabel post-match, with the big guy just generically saying he’ll win. Shawn asks why he’ll win, and Mabel starts talking about being the biggest and the baddest before being interrupted by Bundy. Mabel challenges him, and it’s into the ring they go.

Quick ad featuring Pam Anderson and hype for the Rumble, and we come to Shawn and Vince talking up the Rumble and next week’s Raw. Then a hype video for Diesel? Huh? What happened to Bundy and Mabel?

And that appears to be it. Interesting stuff. I’m not necessarily saying it was better or worse than the modern product. Some differences, some for the better and some for the worse, and fascinating to look at some of the guys who find themselves in prominent positions now (Nash, HBK, Jarrett, Hart, Shatner) and how they’ve developed. Also ought to be noted that this one hour show featured very few of the roster, especially the stars. Bret was wrestling, but IC champ Razor Ramon, top of the card act Lex Luger, The British Bulldog and WWF champ Diesel were all absent apart from mentions and clips. Shawn on commentary actually was a masterstroke for getting character over the week before the biggest night of his career at that point.

Hope you had some fun with this – looking forward to seeing Bret and Shatner again this week, and indeed the Rumble on Sunday.

Monday Night War reactions: 1 - the Impact positives

Wow. Quite a day.

It’s taken me until now to get a look at both Raw and Impact, and its fair to say the combination of both shows being on at the same time has led to probably the biggest day in wrestling since Vince bought WCW back in 2001. Make no mistake, this is momentous. Not necessarily notice given that TNA will take over, but enough to suggest to me that they can be, and indeed perhaps already are, a player.

My thoughts, initially, soon after digesting both the shows and the fallout are that there is no clear winner here. I would think both sies are happy with their output. TNA debuted a raft of new stars – maybe too many – and got a great deal of people talking about their product. From what I hear of their rating – a rumoured 1.5 – they must be ecstatic about that too. They were never going to beat WWE on Monday, but they have drawn bigger than any point in their history. They now know that they CAN go on a Monday night.

WWE produced one of their best shows in a while as competition. Not just the Bret Hart stuff, mind. Bret’s exchanges with Shawn Michaels and Vince McMahon were captivating, but you can’t base a whole show on that. DX had a great match with JeriShow (anyone else see Hunter give something to a front row fan? Possibly a cheeky dig at Bret?) and Orton continued his character development, first with a great exchange with Vince, before his Legacy brethren put him in his place. The wheels are really in motion for DiBiase v Randy again.

I’ve talked about WWE aplenty in my review at The Sun – CLICK HERE - so I’ll get down to a much more detailed appraisal of Impact in this blog. Stay tuned – there a lot of things to get through.

I’ll start with the positives, because there were many, and although numerically the negatives are going to probably win the day, I’d say a great many of these positives re more important.

I’ll start with what I felt was the most important thing of all, and suggest to me that Eric Bischoff had a HUGE amount to do with the TV show, and that is that the show felt chaotic. That is absolutely not a criticism, and is a huge piece of praise. I loved that old-school Nitro (and I mean early, successful Nitro) feel for the show. It felt live (well it was live, but Raw doesn’t even feel live any more, it is so sterile) and it felt as though anything could happen. That is why Nitro took over Raw because the WWE’s offering was taped at the time and the hook of Nitro was shocking happenings.

I particularly liked the cut during a match to the backstage area to show that the Motor City Machine Guns had been laid out. It showed that things could happen at any point. That a potential assailant was not pausing for the end of a match before attacking was great.

The show had Bischoff fingerprints all over the thing, and that’s great. Here’s the thing that is never said about WCW – what if Bischoff had more power? What if he hadn’t been shackled so much by the corporate environment? Admittedly he wouldn’t have been able to spend so freely, but that now doesn’t become a factor, since they have the talent they need available. I think Bischoff is a very intelligent man who will have learned about everything that ahs happened to him over the years. I’d reign back his on air performance as much as I can, but encourage him to get involved backstage as much as humanly possible.

Let’s note a couple of other things I really loved. Obviously the main event has to be respected. A fantastic match between two brilliant wrestlers with top notch quality. It was a good decision to have a seriously good match to close the show. No-one really knows how many typical Raw fans saw it, but that was probably better than any match which took place on Raw in 2009. It would help cement TNA as wrestling, not sports entertainment.

I liked the Sting cameos. I know it is old, but as long as he doesn’t stalk Hogan for a year and attack him like he did in WCW, then its fine by me. Sting can’t be expected to be one of the guys or to wrestle every week. Everyone knows his rafters gimmick, so can buy into it quickly. Do this for a month or so and then have him rappel at some point for a big angle, whatever it may be. Sting is talented enough on the mic to be babyface or heel – I’d make him a heel. Has Sting ever really been a heel? Not often, if ever. If there is going to be a Foley/Jarrett stable of sorts to fight Hogan and co. then I’d side Sting with them. Have him call the people idiots for cheering Hogan and saying people like him come to TNA, give them blood sweat and tears and then get kicked to the curb.

I loved Flair getting out of the limo. That felt major. In fact I liked the intrigue surrounding Flair full stop. Ric Flair is a promo guy par excellence who should be allowed sufficient time and focus to make his first verbal gambit. Not lost amongst a sprawl of tons of stuff. I have no idea how Ric Flair will be used, but I hope they find something useful for him, because he will be earning plenty of dollars.

I also liked Flair taking a look at the main event and nothing more being made. I like that kind of segment which isn’t explained. It suggests that things are in the pipeline.

I liked the initial comment by Nash that Hulk Hogan was coming “but not alone”. There was then someone switching limos to join Hogan. I assume that was meant to be Bischoff. It wasn’t clearly explained, but I really liked the build that Hogan’s arrival was a big deal. He made it look stupid by saying “I’ve been in the back all day” when he was supposed to be arriving by limo, but I guess you could explain that away by saying that he was, then disappeared to pick Bischoff up.

I am keen on the fact that there were plenty of questions to be answered throughout the show and indeed plenty still remain. I might have liked my announcers to play them up a little more, but think of: Who is the guy in black that attacked AJ? Is Hogan siding with the (former) nWo? What will happen with Foley and Jarrett? What are Sting’s intentions? Will Jeff Hardy stick about? Lots to think about, and more besides these points mentioned.

I liked Foley trying to get in and being thwarted. In fact more than anything else I liked that they had a spot with Christy Hemme as an interviewer talking to a generic fan but interrupted it so she could, run and talk to Mick. I’m sorry that Christy’s body is in a bad way, but I think she’ll be a very, VERY good backstage interviewer. Back on track, I felt that Mick’s spots throughout the show build nicely from a polite wish to get in the building to a furious drive to see Hogan. I especially liked parts of the last segment where Mick talked to Sean Morley (more on that later) and (gasp) logic came to the fore. Morley mentioned an office “down the hall on the left” and Mick commented that there was only one office “down the hall on the left”. The underlying meaning here was that Morley didn’t know whose office that was, and Foley knew that he meant the office that he (Foley) once occupied.

I liked Hogan being on the show at the top of the hour. It made great sense, and showed me that TNA understand the scheduling of a head-to-head show. That may sound obvious, but it was a boneheaded mistake WCW used to make.

As long as they don’t hang about for three years and take up loads of TV time, I liked the Nasty Boys’s involvement. Ignore the fact that they are Hogan’s buddies, they are interesting, they have character, and a tease for a brutal match with Team 3D is exciting.

I really enjoyed the Girls tag match. The initial Tara v ODB match where a title changed watered down the tag title switch, but the match itself was very good.

I know it was a bit derivative, but I liked the Beautiful People segment. Look, WWE is going PG, so it behoves TNA to go down the opposite path. Therefore, if you have three hot women whose gimmick is being beautiful, and at least one of them (Lacey) can’t really wrestle, it makes sense to me to have them strip down a bit. The show will lose credibility quickly if there is nothing but scantily clad girls dancing about, but if this supposed to be an adult show it doesn’t hurt to have to sexual content. And actually this isn’t even sexual content, it was just slightly titillating.

The former Val Venis, Sean Morley, is a solid hand, and it really would not surprise me that his return is as much as an agent as a wrestler. Either way, it’s a solid acquisition.

Krystal did a great job on Bobby Lashley’s behalf. I have met Bobby Lashley and Krystal, and they are genuinely nice people. Bobby is a hell of a guy and I hope he does fantastically well in MMA. That said, I always thought he was overpushed in WWE and that his TNA run has been poorly received, at least compared to the hype. I was in California for Bound for Glory, and Lashley got booed out of the building trying to play babyface against Samoa Joe.

I’ve now seen the ratings – I’m not going back and editing, because I can’t be bothered. I like the fact that this is stream of consciousness, and it gives you a flavour of how long this blog post has taken me so far.

In fact, I’ve gone on for plenty enough time. That’s pretty much it for the positives aspects of TNA. I have plenty of negative points which I’ll come back to in a post very, very soon.

Stay tuned.