RAW 8/13
WWE RAW from Madison Square Garden on Monday night to me felt a little underwhelming, considering the hype that was going into what a lot of people thought was going to be a big show. The "return" of HHH was nowhere to be seen, and the main event with unlikely tag partners of John Cena and Umaga vs Randy Orton and Carlito just seemed flat. Even the final scene with Linda McMahon telling Vince that he no longer had a home was a bit on the boring side.
The other "big" news on the show was the start, in which we learned from Stephanie McMahon that one of the WWE wrestlers was actually Vince's son/daughter. Again, this was a no-brainer, so I can't actually believe that they tried to play this off as some sort of surprise. They also teased after the announcement that the "son" of Vince was Mr.Kennedy, meaning that they must have gotten wind through the net that the rumor was spreading, so they are now going to have to move in a different direction.
In looking at todays roster, it's such a tossup AFTER Kennedy as to who would be Vince's "son" that who it could be is anyones guess. Sure they could go with the obvious choice in Kennedy, but I think now that plan will shift. What would be interesting is if they made it a guy like Steve Austin, or an older wrestler (Mick Foley could be in the mix as well), who wants to comeback and be a part of the company as the commish or GM or whatever. I also wonder how long we're going to play this thing with the "Who's Vince's Kid" thing out?
Back to wrestling, they didn't have all that much on the card, with Kennedy beating Sandman, another long drawn out Cryme Tyme skit with them selling Lilian Garcia's chair, then losing to Cade and Murdoch via DQ. Snitsky squashed Highlander Robbie, Cody Rhodes rolled up Charlie Hass for a pin, and then the main event. In between we had the comedy skit of the night with "WWE Idol" as Jillian Hall, Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik (which was great!) and Lilian Garcia singing for judges William Regal, Maria, and Mick Foley.
The end of the skit came as Santanio Marella, who is clearly going heel, came out and stopped Lilian, and then tried to get Maria to come back with him to go to Little Italy. Then Ron Simmons came out, got in Marella's face, and threw him into the staging, knocking him out. He was then declared the winner. I can't really understand the whole thing with Regal, as I guess his role as GM will be to do a comedy skit each week. I don't forsee him being in this role too long.
As for Simmons, I know that the whole thing with him is to do the one word thing that ends in "am," but eventually that is going to run out as well. They have a choice there, either don't run him out there every week, or if they do that, you have to start eventually letting him actually talk. He doesn't have to do long winded speeches, just say a few things here and there.
They also finally did the Booker-HHH setup for SummerSlam, and it was done well as Jerry Lawler told Booker in the ring he would be facing HHH at the event, and they didn't role HHH out there, which is what everyone thought. I guess in hindsight, keeping both Rey Mystero and HHH off TV until SummerSlam is going to make more people want to buy the event. Heck, they need to do something.
So in the end, kind of a weird show, not much in the ring, and a lot of soap opera stuff that didn't seem to go nowhere. Next week more of the same with Vince, and then we'll have the Maria-Ron Simmons date from the dating game show they did last week.
