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August 6, 2008 An Adamle Original A tale of two RAWs this week for me. I had a lot of fun with hour one and then it took a nosedive into Shitsville. I absolutely hated the second hour, although I dug most of the World Tag Team Title match. GM Mike Adamle scored big points with me when he invoked Ronald Reagan. I love when the GMs model themselves after famous world leaders. Theodore Long had portraits of Martin Luther King and Mr. McMahon on his office wall. William Regal looked up to Queen Elizabeth II and occasionally Elton John, if I remember correctly. (All GMs seem to worship WWE Magazine since there's always a framed portrait of the latest issue on their wall.) And now Mike Adamle fancies himself as Reaganesque. Well, jury's out on that, unless someone tries to assassinate him. Adamle's character was interesting to me. Some thought he'd be portrayed as a clueless GM. Some (like me) figured he'd be outright vindictive and heelish. Instead he acted like he wanted to prove he could do a good job and earn some respect. He was met with the expected torrent of boos but the matches he made didn't get negative reactions. He wisely shut the hell up when JBL and Chris Jericho, two of the best promo men in the company, were beside him arguing. (I did like Adamle's "Whaddaya say about that? Hah?" after he made the handicap match with CM Punk.) As for whether or not Adamle will be a heel, he didn't behave in any outright heelish way. He explained away booking Michael Cole to wrestle last week as "trying to inject some excitement" into the tag title match. If you think about it, Cole wrestling, if you can call it that, was more interesting than watching Hacksaw Jim Duggan, who seems to be forgotten now. However, last week on Jim Ross's blog, I left the following prediction: "Of course, for Mike Adamle to truly match the hatred the fans have for Vickie, he'd have to begin a seemingly endless love affair with a RAW Diva. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on one's point of view, Beth Phoenix is already "taken" by Santino Marella. Oh well, there's always Jillian. But if they really want to piss fans off, Mike Adamle can fancy Mickie James or Kelly Kelly. There ain't a man in America who wouldn't want to kill the new GM if he puts his hands on either of those two beauties." And what happened last night? Kelly Kelly drops by the GM's office and cuddles (I'm guessing) with Adamle on the couch while they watch the main event together. I do like some aspects of Adamle's style so far. I like the graphics when matches are "An Adamle Original". I chuckled every time I saw that. Apparently, Mike Adamle GM Rule #1 is he doesn't think anyone should get more than one ring entrance. Since Katie Lea was already in the ring for Paul Birchill's losing effort against Kofi "In Jamaica, we are free to kick women in the head, mon" Kingston, her match with Mickie James started immediately. Mike Adamle GM Rule #2: If you're already out there, you stay out there. Mickie James might be the most emotional Diva on the roster. In every match, even when she wins, her face is flushed and she looks like she's one "owie" away from bursting into tears. I was hoping this would be the night Katie takes the Women's Title, but the Burchills seem doomed to lose every feud they instigate. Hard to be upset about it when Beth Phoenix finally asserted herself as the number one contender to Mickie. Santino's unibrow is glorious and their ass grabbing was sensational. Who can blame "that glamorous amazon" for being interested in Santino? I like the Winners Take All idea. I'm looking forward to the new power couple of Santino Marella and the Glamorous Amazon Beth Phoenix reigning together as Intercontinental Champion and Women's Champion at Summerslam. Everything started to go down hill from there. Chris Jericho in trunks is still weird to me. The only thing weirder now would be seeing Undertaker in wrestling trunks. Jericho's shiny, glistening shaven legs were blinding. I thought the finish to the handicap match was amazingly well executed, right down to the last second, and I sure don't mind watching World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk lay down, but ugh! JBL vs. Punk at Summerslam? Ugh. All three World Title matches look like crap on paper. They're completly relying on Hell in a Cell and John Cena vs. Batista to sell Summerslam if they're booking three such awful World Title matches. This is how they book the 20th anniversary Summerslam? Babyface Kane sucks. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hate babyface Kane. If he's not setting Jim Ross's ass on fire, Tombstoning Linda McMahon, marrying Lita, or strapping a car battery to Shane McMahon's balls, I have no use for Kane. "I went through a rough patch and I'm doing better now"? Get off my TV and don't come back unless there are jumper cables in your Burlap Sack of Mystery. So once a year John Cena must have an Odd Couple tag team angle where he wins the tag belts with the guy he's feuding with. Swell. It was too soon to sacrifice Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes's tag title reign to selling a Cena vs. Batista match. I hated the start of the match but I got into it when DiBiase and Rhodes fell into a groove and started that Brain Busters tag team wrestling I love so much. Quick tags in and out. Double teams. Cutting the ring off and keeping the opponent in the wrong part of town. I hear Gorilla Monsoon in my head during their matches. I loved Batista not making any effort to tag Cena and then switching to the other side of the corner. (What? He thought Cena was closer from that side!) Ric Flair taught Batista well in being a dick tag team partner. I was almost sure Batista was going to pull a classic Flair turn: tag in and then immediately turn on Cena the way Flair did Sting. Instead Batista squashed the two kids and won the belts by himself. I'd have preferred a Flair-style turn instead of the Lex Luger and Bret Hart 1994 popularity contest. I mostly loved the past month of RAWs but seems like they threw a lot of that good momentum away just to sell a crappy looking Summerslam. Smells like another McMahon Original. July 28, 2008
General Apathy If you ever wanted to see the pro-wrestling equivalent of air being let out of a balloon, look no further than the "shocking blockbuster" announcement at the end of this week's RAW that Mike Adamle is the new General Manager. I've never seen a crowd drop dead quite like that. Total silence and apathy greeted Adamle's reveal. So much that Adamle booking the first-ever John Cena vs. Batista match was met with a wall of silence. As Lance Jr. accurately put it, "It's like they're in an empty arena." The RAW Creative team really blew this one. They had actually concocted a crackerjack little mystery throughout the show of who the new GM was. I have to admit, I got sucked into the "whoisit?" When Michael Cole was suddenly booked into the World Tag Team Title match and put out of commission, that pretty much meant the new GM was a heel. But that also deepened the mystery of who it could be. The guesswork added a component of who would have something against Michael Cole? (Although it turned out Cole was just a sacrificial lamb that didn't directly coincide with any grudge against him.) Shane McMahon taking great, elaborate pains to remain gender non-specific with the new GM's identity was meant as a red herring, but I went down that road of speculation anyway. If the new GM were a woman, I reasoned, there were only a few potential names who were "major enough" for the job. My short list of potentials was only three names: Sable, Trish Stratus, or Vickie Guerrero. Sable was a near-impossibility and I dismissed her pretty much immediately. Trish was highly unlikely. It would have been great and I'd love nothing more than to have Trish back in WWE even as a non-wrestler, but the Cole switcheroo ruled her out. Trish rode out of WWE a hero so she wouldn't have sent a mere announcer into the ring to be beaten down by two young turks. That left Vickie. Vickie was actually quite feasible for the following reasons: 1) Vickie gets nuclear heel heat. Clearly, WWE is happy with the work she's done on Smackdown as General Manager. A promotion to RAW wouldn't have been out of the question because... Other potential GM candidates would have to have included Ric Flair, but again, the Cole beatdown indicated the new GM is a heel. Instead it's Adamle. The kneejerk reaction is naturally to complain, but I can understand why they went with him. Adamle is actually meant to be the next Vickie Guerrero. They sort of lucked into how Vickie turned out on Smackdown as GM. In the beginning, no one was enthused with her taking over as leader of the brand. The Edge love affair storyline was cringe-worthy in the beginning, and sort of still is, but it's now undoubtably a success. The heat Vickie receives from the crowd is amazing to witness, and she has really grown into her evil, cackling, conniving dictator role. Clearly, they're hoping to catch lightning in a bottle the second time with Mike Adamle. He's a lot like Vickie was in the beginning: a character no one is enthused about except to always complain how out of place and bad he is at his job. He's as unlikely a choice as Vickie was to suddenly ascend to being the leader and figurehead decisionmaker of RAW. Plus he has obvious qualities that make him unlikeable. His lack of credibility for one. Seems to me they're trying to create Vickie Guerrero number 2 with Mike Adamle. They're hoping six months from now, Adamle's mere presence will invite massive showers of boos and hatred the way Vickie does before she even ahems, "Excuse me! Excuse me!" It's too early to speculate how Adamle will do in his new role, but I'd say the intent and expectation of how we the audience is meant to react to him is obvious. Except, right now, we don't give a shit, as the Washington DC audience's complete apathy clearly showed. But we're stuck with Mike Adamle now so we'll see how it goes. I did like the cutaway from Shane where Adamle "magically" appeared in the ring between Cena and Batista. It sure does suck to see Mike Adamle get such a plum assignment when the last guy to have that job and do it incredibly well, William Regal, returned to action on the very same night. It's no surprise Regal, fresh off of wellness policy violation suspension, got passed over, but it still really sucks how he screwed himself and us over. Seeing Regal get passed over stung just slightly less than Jeff Hardy getting shafted aside for a WWE Title shot at Summerslam in favor of The Great Khali. On the other hand, Regal was amazing in there against CM Punk. Regal's savage whipping of Punk's ass instantly became one of my favorite matches of 2008. I mean, he just thrashed the Straightedge Jesus. The boot to the head against the ringpost was killer. The bloody nose which he then clawed at was sick. The full nelson suplex folded Punk up like an accordion. Man, do I love watching Punk get the tar kicked out of him. Sure, Punk was booked to win with the GTS, but the joy to me was in the journey. I'm sure glad to have Regal back. Punk laid out during the JBL and Kane confrontation post-match was also sweet. I doubt I'll ever get tired of watching CM Punk beaten up. Chris Jericho is in a class by himself right now. He's the single best performer in the whole company at the moment. The feud of the year is Jericho vs. the audience that let him down and betrayed him by siding with Shawn Michaels. And man, that was a sharp suit he had on. Santino was amazing with Beth. "You kissed me." "Debatable." "Strictly professional." A big win for Santino by pinning Kelly Kelly followed by post-match celebration antics, then sexual tension, and then Beth planting one on Santino... perfect. This storyline is pure comedy gold. Finally, if there's one guy on RAW who stands to benefit from Mike Adamle as GM, it's Kofi Kingston. As Adamle said, "That's my guy. I really love him." Jamaican me crazy! July 14, 2008 RAW Was Not Poopy No sir, it was not. That was a terrific RAW. It felt like a 1998 episode where Anything Can Happen! July 1, 2008 Punk'd I'm not a CM Punk fan. I've got nothing against Punk, although he doesn't do anything for me. I'm certainly not a fan of the way he's been booked as the DJ - designated jobber - since WrestleMania XXIV. I thought watching him lay on his back every week for anyone and everyone was good for a laugh riot, but if that was WWE's way of making a main eventer out of him, it was a crooked road they walked him on. Given my recent history of CM Punk bashing, I'm not crazy about pulling the Money in the Bank trigger now. I think it's absurd the job boy from the C brand is now World Heavyweight Champion of Monday Night RAW. Fresh, exciting, unexpected? Sure. Also, not credible to me in the slightest. I still say he should have been built up over the next few months and cashed in the briefcase after he earned the position where he's seen as an uncrowned champion. But whatever, it's done.
Hilarious. Some idiot on a message board wrote:
They finally did something I've wanting, to stop the build-up crap that never works and just put the title on someone fresh, and they did just that.
Imagine a CM Punk who has momentum at his side from months of victories and a run as Intercontinental Champion cashing in his golden ticket on the top dog on RAW at the biggest show of the year. And then having a match that wins his doubters over with his skill and tenacity on his way to becoming World Heavyweight Champion. That would have been a surefire way of creating a main eventer. |
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