WWE Raw thoughts, 2012-03-19

This was a surprisingly good raw, I thought. Maybe it's just because I'm trying to focus on the positive and Rise Above Hate.

The opening promo by Punk was probably his best promo as a face. I'm still not a fan of the storyline, but it was sold well by both guys. Jericho's line "But your sister..." was pretty awesome. What I found really interesting though was the juxtaposition of the Punk promo with the Rock video segment, because of a discussion I was having with someone earlier today about "vulgarity" in wrestling.

I've often criticized Rocky and other Attitude guys by roughly paraphrasing their promos as "I'm cool cause I said 'ass.' Tee-hee, get it? 'Ass!'" and he thought this was inconsistent with my amusement at this story, wherein John Cena's mother reacts to Rocky's singalong about her with the line, "If you're starving for sex that badly, then go fuck yourself!" Of course, what I'm criticizing about those Attitude-style promos isn't the use of naughty words, but the reliance on extremely tame not-quite-vulgar language as a crutch to distract from how bland and uninteresting the promo really is, just like storylines use SHOCKING SWERVEZ!! to substitute for genuinely interesting stories.

This was on full display on the show tonight. CM Punk used "vulgarity" in a very effective way to help sell the intensity of his feud and put over how pissed he is at Jericho. Then soon after that we had Rocky saying "ass," because saying "ass" makes 12-year-olds giggle. Language is a tool like any other, it can be used skillfully and effectively to build a storyline, or it can be used clumsily just to get a cheap reaction.

- Rocky wasn't on the show much tonight. Just the prerecorded video segment, only about 30 seconds in front of the live crowd, no live promo. Are they worried about the reaction he'd get from the Philly crowd? Or do they think his promos suck as much as I do? I can't imagine that's true.

- John Cena-Mark Henry was a very good match. Kind of short and formulaic, but well worked by both men. In my dream world Big Mark is still inducting fools into the Hall of Pain.

- Daniel Bryan-Zack Ryder was another short but good match. Bryan and AJ continue to be very entertaining together. The Ryder rally seems like a good use of the crowd that's already there waiting to get into the arena anyway.

- I'm assuming that they wouldn't put the Ryder stuff on TV if he wasn't going to end up on Teddadore's Army. So that leaves two more spots on the face team - who is left to fill them? Great Khali? Hornswoggle? Ezekiel Jackson? The Usos? I'm still hoping for Miz, personally.

- The Aksana-Vickie Guerrero brawl was pretty awesome. Good showing for both of them. Vickie is always great, until they try to change her role.

- The Randy Orton promo was a whole lot of nothing, but it was cool to see them resurrect the old interview position.

WWE Raw thoughts, 2012-03-12

Sigh. After the first hour of tonight's show, I thought it was shaping up to be a really great episode. Oh how wrong I was. Tonight reinforced my feeling more than ever, I completely agree with what John Cena said a few weeks ago: The best part of this year's Wrestlemania will be when it's over and Rocky is gone again and John Cena and Raw can both go back to doing things that have a chance to be entertaining. Jesus I am so fucking sick of the Rock on my TV.

The ironic thing is, I was pleasantly surprised how well the Cena rap bit went. Cena dressed up as 2005 John Cena, right down to how he carried himself, was actually kinda cool. Finally, after a year of hyping the Rock, finally they did a nostalgia bit from a time I actually have some nostalgia for. The rap itself wasn't great, though I was, as I said, pleasantly surprised by how little misogyny and homophobia was used in the rap, especially compared to Cena's raps about Rocky last year. So, kudos to John Cena for that.

Then came Rocky's bit. Sometimes I think I go a bit overboard when I say that Rocky's entire act is nothing sexist and homophobic jokes, with a bit of "I'm cool because I said 'bitch.' Tee-hee, 'bitch.'" thrown in. But god damn if tonight didn't show me to be 100% fucking correct. Rocky is officially at the same level of disinterest as Randy Orton during his Three Years of Suck. I came closer to turning off Raw tonight than I ever have before, the only reason I didn't was because I thought there was a chance Cena would come out to interrupt at some point and I didn't want to miss that.

My main takeaway from all of this is that I think I may finally understand the Cena haters. The Rock has enlightened me, because I find myself kind of angry about how much I dislike Rocky. Like, I've been watching and enjoying this show for seven years, and now this guy has shown up out of nowhere and essentially taken over the show and fucking ruined it. I'm angry that he's taken something I used to enjoy and turned it into something I don't like at all. I'm angry that the man who ruined the show for me is hyped by the show itself and lauded by other viewers as exactly the opposite, that the things I enjoyed were supposedly shite and this new thing I can't stand is supposedly the best thing evar. And I imagine that's kind of how some people feel about John Cena.

- Let's get the rest of the bad out of the way so I can finish with the good stuff: Jericho cutting a looooong promo about Punk's alcoholic father and how he's going to make Punk an alcoholic? Not necessary. I hate when wrestling tries to do overly personal shit like this. Why can't they just fight over who's really the best wrestler in the world? That promo they had two weeks ago was so good, I was completely sold on the feud at that point. Now I'm just uncomfortable. I really think sometimes that WWE writers are so used to building to a PPV every three weeks, when it comes around to Wrestlemania and they have so much extra time they don't know how to stretch a feud that long. With the exception of Long-Laurinaitis, and Orton-Kane due to Orton's injury delaying the start of that feud, every feud running into Wrestlemania was at a better place two weeks ago than it is now. The writers just don't know when to quit.

- H-Taker II(I): I could not give less of a shit about this match.

- Sheamus-Dolph was a good little match, but by far the best thing about it was the interview with Daniel Bryan and AJ in the stands. They two of them continue to play their relationship so freaking well. The was AJ looked down and away after saying Bryan wasn't rude to her? Freaking perfect. These two work so well off of each other, kudos to whoever decided to pair them up. I'd love to see them as a face couple eventually. Yes that contradicts what I said last week about Kaitlyn running an intervention to get AJ away from this controlling, manipulative douchebag. I can desire to mutually exclusive things. I contain multitudes.

- Everything about the Teddy Long-John Laurinaitis feud is incredibly entertaining to me. Santino Marella is awesome at everything he does. Mark Henry is completely awesome at everything he does. David Otunga, I'm still more of a fan of him in a sweater vest with a sippy cup than I am of him in the ring, though I guess he has to make the transition at some point. Even Aksana I'm liking way more now as more of a traditional babyface/girlfriend character than six months of making Teddy Long jittery. And the way Johnny Ace sold that shove tonight, where he basically ended up ass-over-teakettle in Michael Cole's lap, that was outstanding. That deserves some kind of fucking award for heel stooging.

- The fact that they've made The Rudos of Raw vs. Teddadore's Army a 12-man match instead of a 6- or 8-man match just shows you how many guys they have no clue how to fit onto the card when three of the top four spots on the card are taken up by folks who aren't part of the main roster - four of the top six spots if you count Jericho. Plus, they're really short on faces to fill out a six-man team. The heel team is going to be five former world champions and David Otunga, while Santino will probably be the biggest star on the face team.

- Finally, the Funkasaurus is back! Oh how I've missed his funky visage. Though I preferred his old finisher, that flying crossbody was way swanker than just another big splash.

WWE Raw thoughts, 2012-03-05

It occurs to me that I haven't written anything on here since the Rock made his epic return last year, so let me sum up my thoughts on the recent wrestling career of Mr. Dwayne "Rocky Maivia" Johnson: Fuck the Rock. This is supposed to just be about last night's Raw, so I won't spend the entire post outlining how utterly boring and uninteresting Rocky is, or his overreliance on misogyny and homophobia, or how he ruined Wrestlemania last year. Maybe I'll delve into those subjects in later posts, but for now suffice it to say, Fuck the Rock.

Instead I'll begin by giving the man some unexpected kudos: He wasn't bad last night. Those first two video packages were pretty good - though I was accused of harboring an irrational hatred when I pointed out that even when Rocky was in the building live, he still appeared via prerecorded video packages. But dumping the Cena merch in the harbor was pretty funny. The time travel bit was good too. The third video was kind of a big mess of nothing, and the first two certainly weren't without their faults, but they were certainly Rock's best promo work since he was Eugene's friend. Good job, dude.

Then we get to the live promo. Which wasn't horrible, as I had previously theorized having someone else there to help direct traffic in the promo at least prevented him from spending twenty minutes talking about twitter. He came out, he had a message to deliver - he wanted to tell Cena his height and weight, apparently - and he delivered it. It was good because finally he wasn't being a goofball, finally he wasn't wasting time talking about genitals and farts and breakfast cereal and Chinese food - he was actually angry at Cena and he threatened to rip his throat out. His delivery still ranged from okay to holy shit bad, but there was finally content. He finally gave a promo that was part of a feud and not just a way to burn off TV time.

And then, of course, he has to say that he's going to make Cena his bitch. Really, Rock? One promo, Rock. One fucking promo. Can you get through one promo without calling someone a bitch? Just one? Zack Ryder may be hobbling around on a cane to sell his back injury, but Rocky is the one using a crutch.

Cena wasn't a whole hell of a lot better last night, the less said about that empty arena... thing, the better, and his increasingly tortured attempts to explain why he wants to fight the Rock are stupid. Cena was good in the back-and-forth, though.

Anyway, there were other things on the show:

- I already mentioned Ryder, so let's talk about him coming out to call Eve Torres a ho. Actually, let's not. I am so fucking tired of misogyny on WWE TV right now. But as soon as she sees him, Eve breaks down crying, then tearfully chases him down in the back and kisses him. So first she was Zack's girlfriend, then she wanted to just be friends, then she was manipulating him to get publicity for herself, then she was a liberated woman trying to make it in a man's world (which naturally made her the heel), and now she's tearfully chasing after him? This Eve Torres storyline changes more often than George Lucas's interpretations of the original Star Wars trilogy, every time you turn around there's something else it turns out the story was really about the whole time.

- Speaking of shite promos, R-Truth gives some of the best promos on television. That two seconds at the end of his in-box promo was the best thing on Raw this week.

- By far the best storyline going into Wrestlemania is this Teddy Long-John Laurinaitis feud. And really, the hottest superstar going into Wrestlemania this year is Santino Marella.

- I have two questions: Who assigned Shawn Michaels as the special guest referee for H-Taker II(I) and why did they do that? For a feud built on the guy who won the last match demanding redemption from the guy who lost, this is far from the most nonsensical part of the build, but that really did come out of nowhere.

- Other stuff happened, but I didn't really care about any of it.