More random thoughts

Monday Night Raw was probably the worst in recent memory. The gauntlet match made absolutely no sense, and neither did jobbing out Jericho the way they did. The past few months have been devoted to making Jericho a monster heel, so they throw him in a gauntlet, let him fight hard, job out, and have Batista win with astonishing ease. The rumor going around is that Vince has decided to take over the booking of Raw again. While I have no idea if this is true or not, it has the fingerprints of the person or people responsible for the glass ceiling and unwatchable quality of the last few years of Raw all over it.

Post-draft Raw has felt like it had a direction. This Raw felt empty and completely without direction.

Punk continues to flounder. Are we really back to Punk v Morrison? Great times indeed, but not the right time or circumstances for it.

Randy Orton was not seen. I admit being disappointed.

Okay, Stone Cold Steven Hasstin was great, but we all know this is eventually going to lead to a Hass flop anyway.

News on Lance Cade is that he had a seizure on a plane. That's the entire story so far. Jim Ross hinted on his blog that it might involve something that caused the seizure but no real details. Dirt sheets seem to be coming up empty as well, just speculation on drug abuse or WWE PR. Either way, I find it a truly odd situation.

Jeff Jarrett has said in an interview he isn't coming back to wrestle on a full time schedule. Either he's lying or he jobbed out Angle because he's a mark for himself. I find either scenario likely.

The sheets are reporting that TNA is about to add another belt, 'unsanctioned' from my understanding, ala The Million Dollar Belt through Booker T. The article I read dubbed it the "Legends Belt" and would be defended against young up and comers. Could be good in theory, but TNA will most certainly use it incorrectly. I'm also fully expecting it to resemble another world class belt...

TNA is going HD soon apparently. Good for them. I'm also hearing they're getting redesigned set; thank god, I always found their set atrocious. Too bad that terrible ring will still be there.

Oh, and one more thing: Raw fell below a 3.0 rating. I hope this is a message.

Seeya Lance Cade

Lance Cade has been released after just recently gaining a singles victory over HBK on the main event of RAW. True, creative was floundering a lot with him turning into a background piece for Jericho, but he seemed in line for a push, especially with the aforementioned victory. There was even a story on WWE.com recently about him being ripe for gold.

It's a curious piece of news and I'll be interested what the dirt sheets write about it in the next few weeks.

Source: WWE.com

Hi, I'm Dolph Ziggler!

And I've been suspending before officially debuting.

After spending a month walking around backstage, shaking hands and proclaiming his own name during random segments, Nick Nemeth aka Dolph Ziggler aka Nicky from the Spirit Squad has been suspended for violating the wellness policy.

I can't help but find this highly comical. None of the Spirit Squad can catch a break.

Bit of clarification.

I wanted to post this real quick as it's relevant to a short rant at the end of my last post. I just caught it while reading LordsofPain.net:

-- Coming off the heels of last night, Sting has won TNA's World Heavyweight Championship at Bound for Glory three years in a row. In 2006, he defeated Jeff Jarrett for the belt in a career vs. belt match. Last year, Sting overcame interference by both Karen Angle and Kevin Nash to pin Kurt Angle after a Scorpion Death Drop. And of course, last night he pinned Samoa Joe after Kevin Nash hit Joe with a baseball bat. It should be interesting to see if Sting loses the belt in a hurry for a third consecutive year. Last year, he lost the belt back to Angle within two weeks on an episode of Impact. In 2006, he lost the belt to Abyss at the following month's pay-per-view, Genesis. He was disqualified after clotheslining referee Rudy Charles. For his match with Abyss, the rules stated that the title could change hands on a disqualification.

So, yeah.

Shameless taken from LordsofPain.net.

A couple of thoughts

-Kozlov seems an odd choice for a push. He's OK in the ring, has a terrible accent, and, that I'm aware of, has not done anything of interest since showing up. I remember him doing his "Double Double E!" schtick for about a month, disappearing, then showing up on Smackdown! and doing basically what he's doing right now at random intervals.

-Punk showing up in the main event on RAW tonight was really great. I hate that it finished the way it did though. I'm not saying it was a burial, it's just another example of misuse of Punk and another scary sign that he really might be resigned to the midcard. Really though, the former world champion needing help from the special referee? I'm also really not crazy about how heelish some faces get to be. I'm fine with some tweener roles, but Batista is usually portrayed as a pure face, so it's odd when the announcers gush over him for being heelish, then dumping on the heels when they do anything to get out of line. Another example would be Punk and Kofi letting MVP run in the ring by himself at the PPV... just odd.

-Jackass in WWE again? And is Khali or RAW or Smackdown?

-Voting is on for Cyber Sunday. I know WWE is better at not faking polls these days, but just a note of interest. People are having to text their votes this year and it cost money, meaning if they fake or tamper with the results it could actually be construed as fraud if I'm not mistaken. Although I do have to say, I'm genuinely unsure about who they wanted picked for a few polls. HBK seems the obvious choice for the WHC match, but then they threw in Stone Cold?

-Jeff Jarrett defeats Kurt Angle at Bound for Glory. Are you serious? They do a 'passing of the torch' match, only to have the torch guy keep his torch. Jarrett hasn't been active in what, 2 years? Kurt Angle is supposed to be their biggest star at the moment.

-They finally pulled the trigger on Nash turning on Joe. Of course it didn't make any sense. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get a long convoluted explanation about how it was Sting & Nash's plan all along. And seriously, is Sting going to win the TNA title every year at Bound for Glory? I would throw in a dirty finish tradition, but I don't remember how it ended last year and I don't feel like looking it up right now.

Oh, Punk.

I didn't want to admit it to myself, but CM Punk really is sliding into a boring mid-carder role. The whole Priceless angle is just feeling a little stale already- especially when Randy Orton isn't on the screen. The whole piece with MVP on the pay-per-view sounded a bit contrived and just made the faces in the situation look like jerks. I really hope the last great moment for Punk isn't slapping Orton- a hell of a memorable spot. I would hate for him to flounder in a bunch of random tag team matches with Kofi against Priceless...

Then again, maybe I'm just getting discouraged too easily. A few weeks in wrestling can seem like an eternity.

A random thought about RAW last night...

Last night on RAW, Beth Phoenix & Jillian Hall took on Candice Michelle and Kelly Kelly. This was a match designed to hype up and give momentum to the title bout between Phoenix and Candice at the No Mercy PPV on Sunday night. These two divas are supposed to be- at the moment- the centerpiece of the entire division, the biggest female stars on the show. Despite this the fan reaction during the match was pretty lukewarm, what one would generally expect from a women's segment.

Let's take a second and rewind to earlier in the night.

Jamie Noble, unable to find a partner for his match against Paul Burchill and Katie Lea, made his way to the ring to a fairly lukewarm response. I found this to be a bit of a surprise, especially considering one of the best heels in the company sitting on the stage, applauding for Noble's defeat. Then again, he was facing Burchill, one of the more poorly pushed mid-carders as of late. Just as the match is about to start, music plays, and the crowd suddenly becomes very excited. Who came out? Micke James.

Mickie James never, ever comes out to anything less than a wild crowd. She is consistently a good performer and excites the fans, no matter how boring or mundane the opponent. Yet Mickie is consistently overlooked in favor of 'the next big thing.' At first it was Ashley- someone who is boring and half-reckless in the ring, and only fairly interesting outside the ring. Since Ashley essentially departed it's been Candice Michelle- who despite the insistence of the announce team has never been interesting in the ring, is borderline reckless, and is about as interesting as watching grass grow outside the ring. Neither Ashley nor Candice have ever incited anything more than short-term excitement with fans and neither have really ever done anything of note.

When Mickie does hold the belt, it's usually just to create some short-term excitement in the division, or just as a belt pillow. Why does she keep getting passed over? It's simple; the powers that be think Candice and Ashley are more attractive than Mickie. We've seen time and time again that WWE is more interested in style over substance in their Diva's division. The very fact that Kelly Kelly is wrestling proves it- the girl is a twig who can stand there and look cute smiling cluelessly. That's basically what she does- not that this is a bad thing, its worked for female valets for years. I'm just not sure why WWE thinks there can be no distinction between valets and wrestling anymore.

It's not that I think Mickie should dominate the division. I think RAW has some great female heels in Phoenix and Melina (when she returns) and having them dominate the division has generally worked better than any other strategy used to get people interested. It's the mentality that management seems to hold toward James- that the next Trish Stratus hasn't been found and thus they should continue to shove these mediocre female stars down our throats and hope they catch on. Lita and Trish became legends because they worked hard and put on great matches, and fans could get behind them and respect the work they were doing. Mickie has done just this, and I'm fairly sure most people actively realize that Trish passed the torch to her in their Wrestlemania match.

And that's my rant for today. Shame on you for WWE for taking Mickie James for granted.