The "Power Is Back" video plays followed by a recap of Jim Ross being fired because we all wanted to re-live that moment, obviously. The Raw video then plays and we go right into it as Vince McMahon's music hits. Vince welcomes everyone and talks about Taboo Tuesday and how Bischoff was challenged to make a unique main event. Here's hoping for a six man match and the people choose the stipulation (cough-Elimination-Chamber-cough). Vince goes on to talk about JR and something shiny catches my eye so I get a bit distracted. ADD really does suck at times, but not during some Raw segments. Great, Vince informs us that Linda will be here live since we all love to see her and her academy award worthy acting. Apparently, there is a rumor going on about Austin being there tonight. Is this a legit rumor or something Vince just thought up while talking for an eternity? Oh, jeez; the crowd chants "asshole" and Vince responds by "stop telling me what you think of your hometown." What an idiotic reply to a crowd chant when I don't think I've ever heard someone refer to a city or town as an "asshole." If anyone else used that line, they would be pushed down the card so fast it would make their tights rip. A "Homage to JR" video is then shown which is basically just highlighting all the times JR got his ass kicked in WWE. Funny video, but definitely overkill in this already drawn out segment. Vince then brings out Coach, decked out like JR, who is apparently the new lead announcer. Just when you thought WWE could reach no lower, Coach is made lead announcer. I just realized you can't even make out what his dumb rap imitation music is trying to say; great choice of music there. Coach then grabs the mike and keeps the drawn out segment going and going and going. Where is the Energizer bunny when you need him? Coach talks about JR and taking over and something he over-accentuated; I need to put that shiny foil away if I'm going to review this.
Kurt Angle then catches up with Vince McMahon and says he should be number one contender for beating Cena last week. Hurricane then flies in and the comedy follows, naturally. Hurricane does the sound effect and Vince just looks at him with that annoyed look going, "You're a little late on the sound effect, but go ahead." See, that's the McMahon fire back we know, not telling a crowd that they are chanting "asshole" at their hometown. Hurricane talks, in his own unique, crowd-pleasing manner, and uses more C words than I think the dictionary can handle in talking about Coach. What is up with that? God, Hurricane is gold. Remember those segments with the Rock? Priceless. Vince McMahon again brings back the "asshole boss" character we love by looking around a bit and answering Hurricane by just telling Angle to sic him. Angle follows, because he's Angle, and he takes Hurricane out to the ring and beats the ever-loving piss out of him. Definitely a Triple H-style beat down, but with the vicious angle they are going with Kurt, it makes some sense. Of course, everyone watching at home, including me, starts marking out a bit when Hurricane makes his comeback for the pure hope that Hurricane will actually come out on top for once. Of course, it didn't happen. Of course, Hurricane fans died a little bit inside. Angle was great on the beat-down though with chokes, punches, and just that look of "I'm going to kill you." During this segment, you definitely get a foreshadow for the bad commentating to come as Coach gets a novel line to say about Hurricane and repeats it three or four times to kill time. I'm a pretty bad commentator, but Coach? Coach reaches new level of talent-less garbage. Angle eventually locks in the Ankle Lock and Hurricane screams for pain as the refs come out to break it up. WWE then does the gimmick of having a camera in the parking lot waiting for whoever is supposed to show up. They then hype up Carlito's Cabana and we go to the first break.
Commercial break times one equals a fifteen minute stretch of horrible crowd interaction and mike skills which even a cool beat down couldn't save.
Coach is then welcomed out by King and they do some stupid interaction thing I didn't pay attention to again. I really should put the shiny foil away, but it's a godsend for when Coach is on the camera. Vince is then backstage with Bischoff and he kisses Vince's ass in an insecure way about the beat-down. Taboo Tuesday then comes up and Vince says he wants to do what they haven't done before and give the fans choices and empower them. Excuse me, if you're just now doing that, are you admitting that the polls were fixed last year? He wants a compelling main event for the audience. Bischoff then says it's a Triple Threat match with John Cena against Kurt Angle against someone the audience will choose; three men who will win three qualifying matches. Shawn Michaels against Carlito, Big Show against Edge, and a battle royal with eighteen superstars (which I guarantee you Kane will be in and will win). No offense, but this is extremely predictable. You know Michaels is going over and he will win the voting. I guarantee you that Edge and Kane will win the other two and will lose the voting and be put in a match on Taboo Tuesday to further their feud that was stopped in its tracks earlier this year. Vince then gets a look like he just got orally pleasured and we go into our first qualifying match.
Taboo Tuesday Qualifying Match
Edge Vs. Big Show
Match starts off like a typical Big Show match with Big Show using his size to do a butt bump on Edge and throw Edge out. Not bad, but then again, not a novel idea.
Commercial break times two equals a disappointed reviewer because of the Taboo Tuesday main event.
From here, the match was good, in my opinion. I loved Edge working over Big Show's arm so he couldn't do the Chokeslam, but some of the submission holds he got onto Edge weren't really believable. They made sense for anyone else, but Big Show is so big that all he needed to do was stand up and Edge's hold would have been broken. At one point, that almost did happen though and made for a nice spot as Big Show stood up and lifted Edge out in a unique suplex to take him out and transition the match. Edge was great in control and the little things he did like the springboard elbow drop as Big Show was draped over or just dropping down so Big Show ran straight into the turnbuckle made the match enjoyable. I'd like to see a PPV style match between the two; I'm pretty confident with more build-up and some more time, it could be a damn fine match. Finish came when Edge hit the spear (which Coach called the Gore and screamed it like Paul Heyman; thank you, stupidity poster boy) and almost got the win. He then went for a chair, but tossed it at the ref. As the ref went for it, Lita handed Edge the briefcase and Edge went to hit Show with it, but JBL's music played. Edge was distracted long enough to let Show recover and hit the Chokeslam for the win. Wow; I can't believe Show won this one.
Winner: Big Show
Star Wrestler: Edge
I am truly shocked Big Show won this one. With the way they are building up Edge and given last year's history, you would think they would put him in there. Then again, they already have the same style of main event as well as one of the same choices; why expose the trite nature of the PPV some more? Anyway, Edge was really good in this match and the guy has made some amazing strides this year by working with Benoit, Michaels, and especially his feud with Hardy. Edge working over the arm was a stretch of credibility at times, but in all, he stayed on it and used some great intelligence and selling to make a Big Show match stand out above the giant genre.
They do the stupid recaps and hype up the Cabana again and we go to a break.
Commercial break times three equals Edge being screwed once more. It's all a massive conspiracy against Canadians, I tell you.
Edge and Lita are yelling at Bischoff about what just happened, and Bischoff says it's up to Edge to stop this SmackDown! versus Raw mess and the question is, what is Edge going to do to end this mess? Edge looks oddly like a crazy Brian Pillman for a while and then says to tune into SmackDown! These types of segments aren't what are dragging down Raw as they have a purpose, but the delivery and acting by the people in them should be miles better than what they are.
We then go to Carlito's Cabana and he starts off pumping himself for his match against Michaels. Who the hell believes Carlito has even a fraction of a chance against HBK? He loses to almost everyone he faces! His win-loss record is more pathetic than Matt Hardy's promo skills. Carlito then takes a jab at JR as Coach says it's just not right, yet all the JR jabs Coach is taking is perfectly all right. Don't you just love dumb people logic? Coach must have written the damn book. Foley's music then hits and he comes out to a huge pop and chant. Foley puts over Carlito because it's cool to hang with someone who has worse looking hair than he does. Foley then talks about something that is un-cool which is JR's firing. Overkill it why don't you, WWE? Is this the only reason Foley is on the Cabana? What a joke. Foley talks up about Linda being the voice of reason and Linda shows up on the Titan-Tron and the Oscar winning lady herself delivers an "amazing" performance. Linda talks about JR's colon surgery, how it wasn't Linda's fault, and wishes JR good luck just like they do for anyone who is released on WWE.com. You know the line: "We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors." What a low blow to JR. Linda ends by telling Mick to "have a nice day" in a lame attempt at elderly comedy.
Following that great performance, Carlito keeps it going and says that JR is an unemployed loser like Foley, which is why he brought him on the Cabana as he is the least cool person. Foley puts over how he's not cool and he doesn't want to be cool. Where did I put that shiny foil? Foley goes on in a pretty sad promo for his talent (including another cheap pop) about how he's not cool, but the fans think he is cool and vice versa for Carlito. Really? Thank you, Captain Obvious. This is definitely the sarcastic version of "Squared Circle Reviews," fans. Foley then asks Carlito what he's going to do about it and he grabs an apple, naturally. I would love to see Carlito just pick one up and pelt it at someone. It would be original and definitely fun to watch. Foley then says it doesn't matter if he spits on him as he has been spit on before and it matters if Carlito can match up against HBK. Foley puts over HBK in a true JR fashion and of course, that would be cool. Have a nice day! All right guys, I like Foley as much as the next guy. His promos in 96 and 97 were near perfect. However, this was complete and utter crap. It had no purpose, it had trite phrases and instances, and overall, it was just piss-poor. If they keep building up Foley to come back for simple shit like this, it's really going to kill the novelty of the WWE hardcore legend. Thank you for wasting my time and disappointing me with one of the worst Foley promos ever. They hype up HBK-Carlito as next and then show the Austin cam in the back and we go to another break.
Commercial break times four equals a pointless and utterly mind-numbing edition of the Cabana that may have just killed my buzz for the rest of the evening.
Taboo Tuesday Qualifying Match
Shawn Michaels Vs. Carlito
Like in any Shawn Michaels and Eddie Guerrero match at this point, I'm calling it before it happens: they will be the star of the match. With the quality these two have put out this year, it would be remiss of me not to say that. In the first stretch of this match, it was just bad. It was so generic, like everything else tonight, and it just seemed like they were going through the motions for ten minutes or so. Carlito jumped HBK before it started and rammed HBK's back into the set and ring so HBK was selling the back for a while in the match, despite Carlito doing anything to work it. The first stretch was just piss-poor, but it ended well as HBK went to suplex Carlito out of the ring, but Carlito held on and dragged HBK out with him which turned into a nasty bump. It was a good way to lead out of a bad match into a commercial break, but the key part of that phrase was "out of a bad match."
Commercial break times five equals a drawn-out match going too long and not doing anything to add a story or weight to it.
The match picked up after break, but not much. To the defense of the match, the crowd was way behind it; then again, what HBK match doesn't have the crowd pissing their pants? At one point, I got so sick of the cliche nature as Carlito countered the Sweet Chin Music with an Electric Chair positioning. However, they didn't do the spot from Royal Rumble and HBK countered it into a roll-up. Like I said, the match picked up a lot coming back from the break, but the match still had little weight and story. HBK did his normal comebacks and Carlito did his normal selling. Finish was good though as HBK was positioned in the corner on the outside with his head on the post. Carlito grabbed a chair and tried to nail HBK in the head with it, but HBK ducked out. HBK then capitalized and hit a Sweet Chin Music to the chair to Carlito for the win. Thank god this one was over.
Winner: Shawn Michaels
Star Wrestler: Shawn Michaels
This match just really was lacking and for what it did, it went way too long. At one point, they started repeating the same comeback spots! It was just a generic match, and normally, generic matches aren't that bad; however, when you put a lot of emphasis on a match and have it turn out to be generic, that is what makes it horrible. There wasn't really anything either man did wrong in this match, though. It was just booked all wrong, scripted horribly, and ran too long for the cliche spots they did. Carlito's selling was good as always, but the guy could have worked the back more. HBK was selling that back injury like death to try and add some meaning to the match, and Carlito just stood there and decided it was time to work over the gut. Great common sense. This match was just piss-poor and the only thing that salvaged it was HBK's selling of the back, but in all honesty, even HBK was guilty of being completely trite and lackluster here. This was just piss-poor guys.
As HBK goes out, Ric Flair's music hits and he comes out to a huge pop, but alas, they kill the home audience's interest by leading right into a break.
Commercial break times six equals the worse HBK match I've seen all year, which is sad considering I thought HBK could carry a bag to a good match.
Back from break, Flair is in the ring with a mike and is already half-way freakin' through his promo! What the hell! I know WWE is pushing the Unlimited shit on the internet, but doing stuff like this is just blatantly cheap and idiotic and will do nothing except kill the heat the feud has as well as the overall point of the promo. Flair puts over how Triple H lit a fire under his ass and so on and so on. God, I know I usually recap these segments with some commentary included, but in all honesty, my buzz is completely gone after that crap-tacular match. I don't even care about the rest of this show. It's a good promo with Flair talking about his history with the plane crash and the umbrella incident in Richmond (my home town!) and he asks if he should be afraid of him. Flair then pulls a Piper gimmick and starts to go psycho on his wound that Triple H gave him making him incredibly bloody. That was a great thing by Flair. The image of a bloody Flair throwing down the gauntlet to Triple H is classic old school mentality, and it was great at putting over the beat down Triple H gave him and the resilience of Flair. This may actually be gaining my interest back in Raw. Flair making himself bloody was classic and this is really the only good part of Raw thus far. With it being over half-way done, that shows how sad this episode of Raw is. He calls out Triple H who then comes out. Flair then pulls out a bat and he chases after Triple H who runs away. Backstage, we see Flair looking for Triple H and throwing the bat around and we go to another break.
Commercial break times seven equals one of the best segments Raw has seen this year!
Maria is then backstage with Carlito who goes psycho about Shawn Michaels and blames his loss on Mick Foley and he challenges him to a match at Taboo Tuesday. Yeah, that makes even more sense. You lose to HBK and it's some guy's fault because you interviewed him earlier. From the guy who writes "Column O' Nonsense," let me tell you that stuff like that is definitely worthy of the nod.
Six Woman Tag Team Match
Trish Stratus, Ashley Massaro, & Mickie James Vs. Victoria, Torrie Wilson, & Candice Michelle
This, right here, was a perfectly booked match. You have three people of the six who can't work for shit, so what do you do? Keep Victoria in the whole match and have Trish and Mickie only work for the faces. Great decision by WWE. Plus, it didn't go too long to reveal any weaknesses. This was good for what it was. If you judge it on a regular scale, of course it's going to be bad, but for what it was, it was good. Mickie was on fire too and she proves that all that time spent in OVW has really paid off. The Trish-Victoria interaction in the beginning was a little bland as I feel like they have worked so much that nothing new is coming and they are just looking sloppier and sloppier. Victoria and Mickie were on fire. Mickie James might actually just add some good matches to the abysmal women's division on Raw. The story they are going with apparently looks like Mickie wants to prove she's great to Trish as she wouldn't tag in anyone else in and tried to take on all three. In the end, Victoria caught her with a quick roll-up for the win.
Winner: Victoria, Torrie Wilson, & Candice Michelle
Star Wrestler: Mickie James
It's nice to have an actual star wrestler in a woman's match for a change, isn't it? Mickie was on fire with some unique offense (that didn't look sluggish nor did it expose the business like most of Trish's) and her selling was even on the ball. If this is what we should expect from Mickie, I can't wait till they drop the deadweight and do Victoria-Mickie or eventually Trish-Mickie.
Mickie then apologizes to Trish and tries to make it up to her by taking out Victoria and hitting her with the worst Stratusfaction in recorded history. Is there still time to take back what I said above? Trish looks a little befuddled and we move on thankfully.
Austin's truck is then shown whirling through the parking lot and backstage, and he flies right on out to the ring in true redneck fashion. God, it looks like Austin might salvage this Raw yet. He looks so pissed like he would be and with the little things like almost wiping out a crew member and just slamming the door violently; he's selling what is safely called a ghastly angle. Too bad they ruin the momentum and go right to a break.
Commercial break times eight equals me wanting to see Austin go ballistic.
We come back and Austin has beers all set up and is ready to address the situation. Austin puts over his anger some more by saying he's going to try and keep his composure so he can get his point across. He says he's been here for ten years and there have been some good times and bad times and there has only been one person who's his friend: Jim Ross. He plays off the anger he's got only the way Austin can. He calls out Vince and says he's got forty-some beers and he can wait all night for him. Stephanie then comes out. Sweet! Ballistic Austin versus ballistic Stephanie. I'm just praying she goes nuts like last week; please, God, please! Man, this is the Austin I miss. I haven't seen this Austin since probably 2001. He goes on about how the McMahon family has "balls" and Stephanie claims she has bigger balls then anyone. He follows up by asking, "Am I about to stun my first transvestite?" Classic Austin; however, you know it's sad when Flair and Austin are both on rare form, but the episode of Raw is still pathetic. Austin continues on bantering with Stephanie and she talks about how it's his fault he's gone and it may be his fault he stays fired. Austin talks about how he stunned everyone and she said, "And now, JR is gone." Austin tries to get across that JR had nothing to do with that. Austin says he wanted Vince, but he's going to take her over her knee and be careful so the balls don't fall out, and he's going to give her a spanking. God, this is the Austin I missed.
Coach then stands up and answers "Hell, no" to Austin and says JR is gone and nothing he can do will change it. He then tells Austin to get the hell out of here. Austin cleans out of his ears and he said he was going to whip his ass after Vince's, so why not do it now? Stephanie stops him and Austin imitates her some. Man, Austin and Flair promos tonight are just priceless. Two of the best segments of the year, yet the rest of the show can't back it up to even make the night passable. Stephanie then sets up a Taboo Tuesday match between the two for JR's job. Stephanie then guarantees it to Austin and he says he will drink to that. A waste of match at Taboo Tuesday, but definitely one of the best segments this whole year and it's solely because of Austin. Stephanie then interrupts his beer party and says that if Austin loses, he's fired. Austin then gives her a one finger salute and comes towards Coach to give him that ass-kicking he promised. Coach says he doesn't want any of him; Austin then gives him a chance to show his skills. Austin then goes ballistic on Coach's wardrobe and it looks like Coach just pissed his pants. He then pours some beer into Coach's cowboy hat and puts it right on top of Coach and Austin says he will meet him in two weeks and the end of this amazing segment comes. Man, Flair and Austin are gods among lesser mortals tonight. Pure gods.
The SmackDown! Rebound follows which just recaps the Eddie-Orton feud from last Friday, which again, I missed. Being backed up on reviews sucks so bad.
Commercial break times nine equals an amazing segment by Austin.
Back from break, all the wrestlers are in the ring for the Battle Royal and Bischoff comes out and talks about Taboo Tuesday. He talks about Foley-Carlito, Triple H-Flair, and he brings back the "Fulfill Your Fantasy" Diva Battle Royal. Great, more innovation from WWE! Yay! He then puts over the Battle Royal getting ready to happen, but Cena interrupts him and comes out to a pretty weak pop. Never mind, the crowd saved it for him coming out. I was getting a little scared for a minute. Cena comes out to join the commentators for the main event it looks like. Bischoff then introduces Kane who, like I predicted, is in the Battle Royal. Gee, I wonder if he will win?
Taboo Tuesday Qualifying Match
Battle Royal
Edge, Chris Masters, Shelton Benjamin, Carlito, Rob Conway, Eugene, Tyson Tomko, Kerwin White, Snitsky, Trevor Murdoch, Lance Cade, Viscera, Val Venis, Rosey, Tajiri, Antonio, Romeo, & Kane
The match starts off with Kane botching a Chokeslam onto Carlito (great way to return), but he then picks Carlito up off the ground from the throat and delivers an actual one so that made up for it. He then eliminates Carlito and the match starts. Before the last break, Viscera is quickly eliminated by Kane as the rest of the melee starts to ensue.
Commercial break times ten equals Kane botching his first move back; priceless!
Does anyone else think it's dumb that Edge and Carlito get another shot by being in this match? It's not like WWE doesn't have the roster to add in two more people for them. Even more, why eighteen men? You could have thrown in some others. Like I said, WWE has the roster to do it. During the break, Chris Masters apparently eliminated Tajiri and Tomko. Good for him. He needs to get some credibility back. Kane then eliminated Snitsky and he is being built up very well in this match. He's eliminated three of the six thus far and started off the match with the whole roster pissing their pants over him; you just know he's winning the match. The rednecks then eliminate Rosey after they do the big-man-eliminating spot. It's an all right match, but I do like how the feuds are being show in the battle royal like Eugene-Conway, Masters-Tajiri, Benjamin-White, and some others. It shows some good logic for a change tonight. Kane does a good job of double teaming almost everyone as he eliminated both the rednecks and the Heart Throbs. In the end, it comes down to Chris Masters and Kane and Masters can't even lock on the Masterlock to Kane. Shortly after that, Kane just fires at Masters and eliminates him to win the match.
Order Of Elimination: Carlito, Viscera, Tajiri, Tyson Tomko, Edge, Gene Snitsky, Rosey, Eugene, Rob Conway, Lance Cade, Trevor Murdoch, Kerwin White, Shelton Benjamin, Val Venis, Antonio, Romeo, & Chris Masters
Winner: Kane
Star Wrestler: Kane
It was an all right match (not as good as that Cruiserweight one a few weeks ago) and it did a good job of getting over Kane and keeping the mid-card feuds going. In reality, you really can't tell who the star here was. It was so quick (which was actually a better idea) and so cluttered that I'm just going to give this to Kane for eliminating eleven of the seventeen people.
Kane and Cena then stare off and Raw goes off the air for another week.
Raw tonight was pretty bad, in my opinion. It really only had two good things about it in the Austin and Flair segments and that is really only because of Flair and Austin. The matches were lackluster and generic. The match of the night was clearly Edge-Big Show, but even that wasn't as great as it could or should have been. Like I've said in weeks past, WWE, at this point, is just killing too much time on Raw with drawn-out promos and meaningless segments. While I don't think the competition to WWE has enough talking, WWE clearly has way too much and it's obvious that it's hurting Raw in the long run. In the end, the two good segments were really the only really good things about this Raw and everything else could and should have been miles better, but was enough to make me turn to my foil for amusement.
That's going to do it for me this time. I know I'm backed up with reviews as I've got about ten more to do before I'm completely caught up. I apologize, but I promise I will get caught up. Just to give you an idea, here is the line-up for reviews to come: NECW TV, Whiplash TV, Heat, SmackDown!, Velocity, NWA Main Event, NWA Virginia, Impact, Bound For Glory, and tonight's Raw. It's a lot, but I guarantee I will get caught up. Well, that's it, so ‘till next time, this is "Squared Circle Reviews" signing off and hoping you enjoy what you watch.
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