09/20/10 RAW REVIEW: COMMENTARY VS. WRESTLING

This is the only way I can describe how it felt to watch tonight's RAW: It's as if I was watching the show, paying attention to a match, and Michael Cole entered my home and starting poking me and tugging at my arms but I couldn't tell him to fuck off because he was actually on the TV screen and not in my home. Make any sense? I'll try and explain.

MONDAY NIGHT RAW - 09/20/10

LIKE: MIZ & A-RI'S ROUGHING UP OF DANIEL BRYAN

DISLIKE: MICHAEL COLE DERAILING THE SHOW

Photo - WWE.com

LIKED

- DH Smith's Drew McIntyre impression.

- The good and bad of what's going on with John Morrison. Holy hell. Okay, there is some bipolar shit going on with whoever is behind the recent focus on his Parkour stuff. First, it's awesome that they're showcasing it since it totally adds an entire new dimension to Morrison. So they show the replay from last week where Morrison applied his Parkour training to his match with Sheamus, and then they show him warming up backstage. BUT THEN, they do that weird Tim & Eric Awesome Show extreme zoom-in on his face for some reason right after he flips his hair back. It's not an accident, because they did it last week too. So they saw it then and were like, "hey, looks great, PRINT IT!" and now they're doing it again. It's clearly a choice and an idea someone came up with, zooming in on his face like there should be a slidewhistle sound accompanying it. It's so weird. Phew. But the focus here should really be on the crazy shit Morrison has pulled out two weeks in a row now. Even if he punches weird, he is doing some bonkers stuff I've never seen before, so that makes up for it.

- Zack Ryder/Edge budding bromance. I like these two together. Ryder can be funny without making me smack myself in the forehead, because it makes sense, and he's not banging chalk brushes at a nun while being taught by Teddy Long how to speak.

- Also, back to Morrison. He looks way cooler and way less lame when he doesn't do his Melina posedown during the slo-mo fireworks. Tonight he just took off his coat and glasses and walked on. If they turn him into some kind of real life superhero (not like Cena) then I'm all for it, no matter how hokey that sounded to me right after I typed it.

- Michael Cole may as well have been reaching across the table to jerk Miz off when he showed up. That was hilarious, no matter how much it truly annoyed me deep down to my core.

- Bryan Danielson using the Ride of the Valkyries as his theme music. That is awesome. So are all of the comments that are already up on this song's YouTube video (including the one guy pointing out that this is in fact also Sara Del Rey's theme music).

- Edge vs. Daniel Bryan and the beatdown that followed. This entire segment made the show worth watching. Edge and Danielson may have had a pretty good match, although it was hard to tell what with all of the super distracting bickering going on at the commentary booth. Alex Riley (now signed to a "personal services" contract, lofl) and Miz beating down Danielson was great. It pissed me off and made me want to see Bryan make Miz tap out again. That, along with Edge's infuriated rant towards the omnipresent general manager, made this the segment of the night. And I can't stress how awesome of a pairing Miz and Riley are. They look like two spoiled rich kid buddies fell out of a teen movie.

- Chris Jericho playing internet private detective.

- John Cena adding a dropkick to his moveset being news! Not only that, but he delivered one last night to someone and totally whiffed on it.

- The final segment. Cena actually seemed to bring it in this promo, same for Wade Barrett. The booking of the main event had the crowd hot as Michael Cole's taint after shaking The Miz's hand. But I'm going to touch on Cena in a second here...

DISLIKED

- John Cena is a strange character. Going into a match, all he cares about is the WWE Title, the WWE Universe, the WWE, etc. It's the most important and most serious and most preacher-voice-worthy thing ever. He's our hero and will only settle for victory. Then the next night, after he loses, he jokes and plays it off and doesn't really care. He smiles and passes his loss off as nothing. How long can this go on before people are like "why should I believe that you care about something when you show time and time again that you don't?" Maybe I'm nitpicking, but the video package for Night of Champions had about twelve quotes from Cena saying THIS IS ALL I GOT!!! and then he lost but it doesn't matter.

- Randy Orton needs to remain a badass. He's walking a fine line right now where I can sense some pointing and smiling on the horizon. Thankfully, he still talked about RKOing grandmothers, so he's not there yet. I wonder if Sheamus' grandmother would take the RKO by jumping into it headfirst like Sheamus does.

- Also, I still don't understand the Sheamus character. Does he believe what he says? Is he scared of people or not? He says he's not, but runs away all the time. He says he ended Triple H's career with his bare hands, but he used a pipe. He says one thing, does another. But no one questions him. The announcers, wrestlers, whoever, they just keep trying to convince us that he's dominant and dangerous and whatever other thing they want us to believe.

- R-Truth's new song is SO BAD. What's Up worked because it was at least catchy on some basic level. This song is so goddamned bad. Doesn't everyone realize that rap and rock NEVER WORK?! STOP IT. JUST STOP. FUCK. They really should've tried to get someone good to help him write the song. This song is literally less catchy and relevant than "Gettin' Rowdy" and I'm not saying that to be funny at all, it's actually how I feel. Having Eve do her aggressive dance moves does not help. Nor does it distract anyone from how terrible this is.

- After writing that rant, Ted DiBiase's new theme came on. ...

- And finally, Michael Cole. He was in fine form tonight. Normally, I can totally dig Michael Cole's heeling out at times, but it has to make sense. His attempt at burying the Hart Dynasty in the most forced sounding way (right when he introduced them) was ridiculous and awkward. The rest of the commentary on that match was so distracting and frustrating and didn't put anyone over. Not even the heels in the match - he was just giggling about Cody's legs. So the commentary didn't help the match, it didn't help the guys on guest commentary, nothing. It was just five minutes of chaos on the ears while you tried to watch what seemed like it could've been a fun match.

Cole zapping back and forth between heel Cole and company shill Cole is completely jarring to watch. The heel stuff made way more sense when it was just on Bryan Danielson - Michael Cole is a company shill and is offended that Danielson has been getting so much praise for what he's done on the indies, and yet he's done nothing in the WWE. Therefore, Cole hates on him. Makes sense. Michael Cole raking the Harts over the coals (pun not intended) makes no sense.

Even Cole himself doesn't know what he believes. At one point he talked about how much he loved it when Jericho calls people (a.k.a. John Morrison, a guy he was just putting over in that same match) a "stupid man." King quickly pointed out, "why would you like that?" And Cole admitted himself that he'd been called that by Jericho and he didn't know his name for about 10 years or so. Is he schizophrenic? A masochist? WHAT ARE YOU

If this somehow leads to Michael Cole leaving commentary in favour of being a manager, then colour me ELATED. He could join up with Miz and A-Ri and instantly keep them from turning full-blown face. Not only that, but when the time was right to turn Miz, they would have an easy way - beat the living shit out of Michael Cole. But I get the feeling this isn't happening.

They need to sort this out because my brain already hurts enough when I watch this show.

RAW THOUGHTS - 08/16/10: DANIEL BRYAN = CANADIAN RATINGS!

Last night's episode of RAW was the most watched sporting event in the history of The Score (the network that airs all WWE programming in Canada). Apparently, about 1 in every 60 Canadians watched RAW last night. That. Is. Crazy.

Is this thanks to Daniel Bryan's triumphant return on Sunday? Or maybe it's because of Undertaker returning at SummerSlam and looking like he'd lived about a thousand lifetimes in his body? Or maybe it's because the Nexus. IS. HISTORRRRAAAAAYYYYY thanks to John Cena? Or maybe it's because the Bachelor Pad featured several girls throwing up after a pie eating contest and that's just not 1 in every 60 Canadian's particular fetish?

I don't know. I'm not a ratings doctor.

RAW - 08/16/10

LIKE: DANIEL BRYAN/MIZ, ORTON'S BLACKOUT RAMPAGE

DISLIKE: CENA BURIAL/NEXUS LOGIC

Photo - WWE.com

LIKED

- There were really only two things that stood out to me about this show. One was, which should come as no surprise to you if you frequent this pro-Dragon blog: Daniel Bryan. Even though he had to withstand Michael Tarver's flurry of Shane McMahon's daughter's punches, he still stole the entire show.

The attack on Danielson was awesome. I have HUGE heat with Miz and Riley thanks in part to Michael Cole's ENRAGING COMMENTS. He boils my blood with every word he speaks. I can't control it. I know it's a show and I know it's fake and I know he's told to say these things but I INSTANTLY get my back up about it. I love Bryan Danielson like a brother son (my mom called during the replay of the Miz/Bryan segment and I had to hurry her off the phone), and I'll be DAMNED if I let a truly fucking pudgy dweeb in Michael Cole say ill about him!

- The Miz and Alex Riley together form some kind of self-important megazord of douchery. It's amazing to watch, because it truly gets under your skin. These two guys deliver their promos with such real contempt towards their opponents that it actually with resonates you - also because they say valid shit (like Riley's "this is what a real star looks like!" which is true), unlike when Sheamus just calls Triple H a loser.

- Quote of the night is a toss up: The Miz: "HOW. DARE. EVERYONE." or very serious man in crowd: "I HATE YOU HEATH SLATER. I HATE YOU."

- Remember how I said there were really only two things about RAW that stood out to me, named one, then went on an incoherent endless rant? Well, that second thing was Randy Orton's blackout rampage on Sheamus. So many smarks get up in arms when they see Orton yell and freak out in the ring and go "he's maaad!" thinking someone fucked up. He truly is just that awesome. He beat Sheamus like he was silencing a rat in a mobster movie. Like he was tenderizing the whitest, human-sized steak in the world. Like he was-- YOU GET IT. HE WENT CRAAAYZAY. Michael Cole said it was terrifying and I don't think he was fed that line.

No one gets fired up like Orton. Any of these shitty rookies (Michael Tarver) when they scream or beat their chests (or scream at the referee for no reason and run into a big boot like Michael Tarver does every match) have nothing on the Viper. Not that they should. But they still don't.

- Justin Long, Jason Sudekis & Charlie Day. These men are all hilarious. And the Khali segment made me LOL for real you guys for real!

- Chris Jericho putting Wade Barrett over clean. It was the only way to keep Barrett strong as the leader of Nexus. Very impressive.

- Jon Lovitz drunkenly shouting into the camera. Can we do this every week?

- John Cena vs. Darren Young was like when there were two Doinks in the ring at the same time. I was hoping for an invisible mirror spot :(

- I think I might be in the minorty when I say I like the new WWE Tag Team Titles. Cool shape, they look classic. And kind of like big pennies. Which I wish I never realized because it definitely makes me like them less.

DISLIKED

- I hate Michael Tarver with a Clay Guida-like ferocity. Tarver coming over after Danielson's big dive onto Miz and Riley just to fumble around, clearly not knowing what he was doing, was embarrassing. Can someone give this guy some tips or something? He's so bogus in the ring that it's not even fun making jokes about him anymore.

- I bet Michael Cole doesn't get this many emails in real life. And his outbursts are so random sometimes. He just got sick of What's Up? with no explanation. I like him (read: hate him) when he's cutting down Daniel Bryan or figuratively deep throating the Miz, but when his heel traits pop up for no reason? I get confused.

- John Cena's Nexus burying promo. It had ups and downs. I laughed at his "lol we beat u" pose when he walked out. I frowned at his Justin Gabriel gay joke. I liked when he put Daniel Bryan over. I disliked when he buried the entire group who have been presented as renegade psychopathic maniacs. I laughed at his "CYABYE." I cried when I realized that the Nexus have gone from unstoppable terrorists to bumbling doofuses in a day's time (although this was rectified as the night went on, partially).

- The booking of the Nexus and how it's suddenly devoid of logic. They were built as this group who were at their strongest when they were united. That's what John Cena and everyone else kept saying. Then they lost, as a group, at SummerSlam, and beat the same group of guys the next night in one-on-one matches (and one tag match). WTF. Whatever.

- R-Truth hitting Otunga with a move that looked like it legitimately hurt the both of them for real.

- Everything is always hilarious when two or more divas are walking backstage, on their way to the ring, and no one is telling jokes. They just laugh (and point) because it is the primary biological function of the WWE Diva.

- Melina taking the worst looking bump onto her face. Worst not as in it looked like it hurt... worst as in it looked like she just decided to jump onto the ground and hit her face off the mat for no reason.

- Essentially, Nexus beat a collective 21x World Champion tonight. 22x if you count John Morrison's ECW World Title reign. More if you count R-Truth's NWA Title reign(s?). Which no one does.

- Pretty sure that Nexus were ready to leave the ring at the end of the show, and referee Jack Doan had to be like "HEY GET BACK HERE" for them to do their show ending pose. Whoopsie.