RAW 11/06
The RAW broadcast following the Sunday night PPV was about one of the worst shows they have tried to pass on to viewers in some time, and the creative team had better start getting their heads on straight with two major PPV's coming up in the next three months. The show's premise was that Eric Bishoff was GM for the night since he helped out Edge and Randy Orton on Sunday night at Cyber Sunday, and a night as GM was a "payback" from Vince McMahon on screwing DX. The nights main event, which was a train wreck, was the new tag champs - Ric Flair and Roddy Piper, defending their titles in a no DQ match vs Edge and Orton, with Bishoff again as special ref. As if you couldn't see this coming, Bishoff took a bump, then DX came in, beat up Edge and Orton, and Flair got the pin to keep the belts for the two legend wrestlers. Again, just a flat out disaster.
Other things on the show which made you cringe included a match for the IC belt between Nitro and Jeff Hardy, which saw Hardy win on a DQ, but then Bishoff come out and make the match a No-DQ, which eventually led to Nitro getting the pin after Melina distracted Hardy for about the 15th time in the match and Nitro hit Hardy with the belt. A weak way to put the belt on Nitro, and really a match with no future direction involved. The only thing I can think of is this may be a way to open up Carlito to get the belt down the road.
Eugene's heel turn is basically official after he "snapped" in a loss with Hacksaw Jim Duggan to the Spirit Squad. The stip by Bishoff was that the losing team could never tag again, so you saw this one coming. I don't think a bad Eugene is going to be quite the monster heel that the company is looking for, and maybe this move should have been done about a year ago when he was getting booed as a face in about every building.
Then came the "match" that Bishoff ordered between Umaga and Maria. Yes, Maria. Seems like a jilted boyfriend, Bishoff was still upset that Maria was against him at his "trial" back in December last year, and wanted to get some revenge of his own. So he used a 300+ pound wrestler to samoan drop her then gave her the butt slam in the corner. After all this stupidity, John Cena came out and cleared house on Umaga, setting up their program that should take us through the Royal Rumble.
Cena then cuts a promo, telling Umaga to come get some of him, taking a challenge from Kevin Federline for RAW on New Year's Day night in Miami, and then FU'ing Todd Grisham for no real reason. Again, just a sloppy way to get over the guy you should not have to put over since he is holding the measuring stick for the company.
Three other "matches" took place on the show, all of them weak and basically designed to put the faces at a major disadvantage since Bishoff was running the show. Chris Masters was in the ring and Bishoff said that due to the bashing that Jim Ross was giving him on TV, he was ordering Ross vs Masters. Instead, Jerry Lawler took the challenge, and then in another just stupid move, Bishoff said that Lawler had to be handcuffed to the top rope. Whatever. Masters won.
Shelton Benjamin lost to Carlito when Cryme Tyme stole his shirt and chain. Another just awful finish which I guess is going to open up the door for Benjamin and some partner, maybe Charlie Hass, to get in a program with Cryme Tyme. For all the true talent that Benjamin has, he may be the most misused wrestler on the show.
Lita kept her women's title with a win over a one-armed Mickie James, as the stip in this match was that James had to have her arm tied behind her back. Yeah, that makes total sense. At least for this show it did.
Then we had the sloppy main event with two wrestlers totalling in age of 109 beating two of the younger stars of the company that they are going to need to count on for years to come. This show had better been a one week disaster, because too many more of these and people are going to go away running and never come back.
