Linda's Thoughts - Unforgiven/Raw

Posted by Linda Robin on 09/15/04 at 02:34 AM

I always try to write the best columns that I can. I try very hard to get all my thoughts out. Of course many of you know I’m very good at forgetting matches or maybe a backstage segment. But today I am taking this very slowly because so much has to be said about Unforgiven and last night’s Raw. The way I want to do this is to really focus on Unforgiven’s main event and who won, and then go right to Raw and tie in my thoughts about Hunter as the champion. So kind of put up with where I’m going here because to be honest with you I’m not quite sure of my game plan.

Okay Unforgiven was a total waste of money. I found the first hour to totally drag. The opening match with Flair/Batista vs. Chris Benoit and William Regal was basically what I expected, average. Benoit added the most and the fans thankfully were into this. By the way you could tell the Portland fans were ready for the show. They were pumped at the beginning. But after this match things fell apart not only with the show but the fans zest for the show quickly started to come to an end. Trish vs. Victoria was good don’t get me wrong; however with the lack of buildup this match was missing something. But the worst thing that possibly could have happened was the miserable segment with Tyson Tomko and Steven Richards. While we all knew that it was Steven dressed in drag helping Victoria, Tomko had to take it further and have a match with Richards. My God this was horrible. Tyson and Richards dragged this thing out for I don’t 10 minutes maybe more. With the power that Tomko is supposed to have he could have taken Richards out in 30 seconds but no, this went on and the more it went on the more the fans in the arena kept quiet and I’m sure the more the fans watching on TV wanted to turn their sets off. We can thank this travesty for bringing the first hour down totally.

Thankfully the ladder match with Chris Jericho and Christian brought things back up. I can’t say enough about both of these men. I knew they would come through and yeah this was my match of the night The bumps they took especially Jericho’s were amazing yet very frightening and by that I’m talking about the fall Chris took on the leg of the ladder right on his ass. That had to be so painful. I’m thrilled that there was no interference and even more thrilled that Jericho won. From here on the matches were good NOT GREAT but good. I was extremely pleased with Kane vs. Shawn Michaels. It was great seeing HBK back and I just liked watching Kane have someone new to beat up. Shawn looked fresh out there after being gone for three months and things just came together well. So did the tag team title match. I might not be a La Resistance fan but Conway and Grenier along with Rhyno and Tajiri gave the fans one nice match. I will say that La Resistance wining not only shocked me but frankly pissed me off. This should have been Tajiri’s and Rhyno’s victory and this kind of soured things for me. But nothing soured me more than Hunter beating Randy Orton. Never in my wildest dreams did I really see this coming. First I liked the match, the fans weren’t exactly into it but then again they sat through a Tomko/Richards match and a La Resistance win. So by now this group wasn’t exactly filled with love. Yeah the match was done very well, and even though the ending was a little much it still served the purpose that Hunter couldn’t beat Randy with out tons of help. I have to be extremely honest with you. As much as a HHH mark that I am and most of you know I AM. Seeing him get that victory upset me so much. How could they take it away from Randy so soon so fast? I turned off Unforgiven in one bad mood. Would I recommend this? Definitely not. This was not worth $35.95.

My bad mood seemed to get worse by Monday. In fact I’m always so hyped for Raw that even I wasn’t that anxious to see it. I didn’t want Hunter coming out and doing his long promo on why he won blah blah blah, frankly I dreaded that. Let me say I was one bitch yesterday. But, after watching Raw, I perked up like you would not believe. Everything was pleasant and just damn good last night, well maybe not the Lita injury angle other than that Raw did for me what Unforgiven didn’t even come close to doing. It gave me hope. I’ll tell you why. Watching Hunter come out to his party with his guys Ric Flair and Batista and their chics to celebrate Hunter’s win turned out to be so much better than I expected. There was no drab promo by Hunter no dead crowd, no, the crowd was HOT, and so was Hunter, well I’ll leave my personal feelings aside. By hot I mean he came out like a true jerk and ended up like a total moron. This was wonderful. Sure we knew that Randy Orton was in the cake just waiting for Hunter, but even the fans that were there loved it when he popped out cleared the ring and made an ass out of Triple H. Watching Hunter fall on to a part of the cake and having frosting all over his face, and then Randy hitting Hunter with the belt and Hunter ending up in the cake upside down with his legs flying was just pure joy to me. You see while some are saying on the net that Hunter has sabotaged Randy’s career by winning on Sunday, others feel that Randy wasn’t getting over as a face, so with a loss and having him chase Hunter for that title it will hopefully get the crowd behind him. And last night that’s just what happened. The more Hunter came of like an idiot the better Randy looked. This opening was just what I know I needed to have a better outlook on this whole title change. And as I said the live crowd also seemed to need this too, because they were super during this. When the show came back from the break they showed footage of Ric Flair and a bloodied nose Batista helping Hunter out of the cake. Once out Hunter was slipping, sliding and falling all over the place, again it was perfect watching Hunter play this role. Backstage Hunter covered in cake grabbed Eric Bischoff who was then also covered in cake and demanded a match with Orton. Eric granted a match but it would be a handicap match with Flair, Batista and Hunter vs. Randy. The first match of the night was Chris Benoit vs. Rob Conway, with Sylvan Grenier in his corner. This was one nice match. Benoit has won me over like you would not believe. Rob Conway looked damn good against Benoit, this was a definitely a sweet opener. As this was going on a well dressed William Regal made his way out to give support to Benoit. But watching him out there made me wonder if he was going to turn on Benoit. It didn’t happen but I’m starting to feel that a Regal turn is coming and coming soon. With almost an hour into the show this was far better than Unforgiven’s first hour. Raw was looking like a winner already.

Stacy came out for the diva Slugfest contest, but she was stopped by Molly. Molly was totally insulted by this diva contest because they were getting so much attention. Then Molly came up with a good one. She told Stacy before they get on with the Slutfest, she meant Slugfest she wanted to challenge Stacy to their own contest. Molly let Stacy choose the contest. Stacy came up with a dance contest. Molly was fine with that and bragged about taking ballet for eight years. She asked for Regal’s music, you know classy music and she did a little number. Then Stacy took over with her dancing and wowed the fans. This caused Molly to attack Stacy and then have Nidia, Gail Kim, Victoria and Trish to come out. Eric showed up and made a six woman tag team match right then and there. And just this match had more life in it compared to Trish’s and Victoria’s at Unforgiven. This was good, it was fun and I’m wondering what the hell Nidia was wearing. Her shorts looked like my grandmothers underwear. But all in all this definitely worked. By the way Stacy got the win on Molly when she Schoolgirled her.

Again things are going so well it’s like night and day from the night before. Kane and Eric had a little meeting last night. Kane was terrific. Very calmly he tells Eric there’s a problem. And then yells “my bitch wife cost me my match against Shawn Michaels.” I can’t tell you how funny this was. Kane has been absolutely super during this whole angle where the mic is concerned. Kane demanded and I mean demanded HBK, but a very frightened Bischoff couldn’t meet the demand. See HBK was the guest on the Highlight Reel, hmmm why can’t he do both that’s what I wondered? Well Eric promised HBK any other night to Kane. Eric promised Kane that he would find him someone and Kane could have any stipulation he wanted. So that’s where that ended. Now the Highlight Reel? One of THE best ever.
Watching to pro’s on the mic like Shawn and Chris Jericho interact was amazing. These two were dynamite. Jericho complimenting HBK on his win against Kane at Unforgiven, yet saying that it wasn’t at big as being 7 time IC Champion and HBK went right along with it. And these two really got things going when Shawn came up with the idea of a match for the IC title. It sure sounded good to me.

However, Christian and Tomko came out and Christian naturally did some of his wise cracking stuff about being the greatest ladder match wrestler win or lose and that HE deserves the shot at the title. Shawn agreed only if CLB could be HBK in a match. Now things really got good when Jericho went to the front row and started going to a few of them saying he knew what they were thinking. My God Jericho is so smooth he’s such a natural when it comes to working the crowd. One of the funniest thoughts was Jericho saying sure they will have the match but the fans know that Tomko will interfere in Christians behalf. Jericho then said what the fans want is Jericho/HBK vs. Christian and Tomko and that’s what they got. This was a fabulous segment and it just made Raw an even stronger show. Their match? Excellent, the match of the night and one that was good in length action and just good wrestling. Shawn and Jericho won after HBK hit Tyson with a super kick. After it was all done Captain Charisma sent Michaels through the ropes and then on the floor Michaels suffered The Unprettier. So it’s kind of looking like Kane and HBK are done and Christian has replaced Kane.

Ah the diva contest, well Vince McMahon joined the last two participants, Christy and Carmella along with Coach, yeah Joy was voted out. And Vince announced that next week on Raw he has a special announcement to make that will affect the superstars, and the fans. From what I’m reading this has to do with the Tuesday Taboo pay per view. The fans are going to be able to vote for who Hunter will face in the main event for the World Title. After the tease, Vince also informed Coach that the last two remaining diva’s would not be slugging each other, not it would be Coach that would get it. Vince informed Coach that his hands remain behind him feet stay where they are or Coach would be fired. So Carmella and Christy put on their oversized boxing gloves and each had thirty seconds to knock out Coach. A segment that was fine mostly due to Vince showing up.

Kane was next and he brought out Lita and faced a jobber. And that was kind of a downer because you knew that Kane would get rid of him fast. However the jobber, Gene Snitzky wouldn’t go down immediately and when Kane was going to do to Snitzky what he did to Shawn with the chair on the throat, Lita took the chair away. Kane then went face to face with Lita and the jobber hit Kane with the chair and Kane fell on top of Lita. And yes it seems like Lita is going to miscarry. While I hate miscarriage angles during all of this Kane became so caring so concerned while trying to reassure Lita that the baby would be okay. This makes me wonder if Kane is going soft and we are going to see the Beauty and the Beast angle where Lita sees this sweet side of him. God I hope not. So this was really the only thing I didn’t care for but in no way did it kill the show.

Okay now while the main event was nothing out of this world, you know Randy forced to face all of Evolution in a handicap match. The match was short but what the match did was again have the fans in Randy’s corner. And when Hunter, Batista, and Flair started beating up Orton all at once, two faces ran in to help Randy. Shelton Benjamin whom I knew was going to show up didn’t disappoint. Shelton got a nice reaction from the crowd and someone who got an even better reaction was none other than Chris Benoit. Yeah the former World champion that opened the pay per view the night before was now right in the middle of Evolutions feud with Randy Orton. What I saw was the majority of the crowd ready to accept all that was going on here. You could definitely hear and see the enthusiasm. I guess what I’m trying to say is, while I wish Orton would have kept the belt for more than a month, I’m seeing things differently. I hope what I’m seeing is what the word on the net is, that Orton needs all of this to build a nice rapport with the fans.

I feel a lot more upbeat and who knows maybe my changed attitude from Sunday night is pre mature but let me see how things play out. I hate to think that Vince gave up on Randy, and I really don’t believe that. And after watching the antics with Hunter during the opening and then the way Benoit and Benjamin and Orton took out the “toughest” group on Raw, I feel like Randy definitely has a future as the World Champion in the WWE. At least I hope so.

Email lvaccarp@hotmail.com

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