By Shane McKinley, Torch specialist

"You’d burn the bridge around me to save yourself
Your envy, you can’t be what I am even with my help
Gluttony, take everything from me take it for yourself
My wrath, I’ll just live my own life"
-"Burn The Bridge" by Mudvanye

Lately I'm getting the impression that Raw should be placed on the History Channel.

While looking at Hogan and Bret Hart YouTube videos last week, a lot of comments posted by users talked about how they were wrestling fans, but they got burned out. "2003 was when I stopped watching wrestling," "Man, wrestling used to be so good back in the first Monday Night Wars," "PG WWE sucks," and so forth.

Raw did nothing to help dispute those claims.

What was that? Seriously, what the hell was that?

Raw was like the finale of a show that knows it's going get canceled soon. Impact was all about "change." Raw was all about "closure." Guess what fans want to see more of? Guess what sells more tickets? Guess what generates more buzz? If you think it's a sleep inducing Raw that waited 12 years for a nice but utterly disappointing payoff, you're wrong.

-Bless Bret Hart. Still dressing up like how I did in junior high in his jean shorts. I was pumped up for the Bret-HBK confrontation.

Amidst the "Sharpshooter!" and "Superkick!" screams of the crowd, Bret and Shawn bury the hatchet. That's nice. That's closure. And guess what? There's no reason for me to watch the rest of Raw. Knowing this, they have Bret hype up that he will meet Vinnie later tonight. No, I expect Bret and Vince to share tears and hug. Then Vince looks into the camera and goes, "Okay, folks! Buy the Royal Rumble!"

Okay, so the Bret-HBK feud is dead. Whoopee. Nothing wrong with "burying the hatchet" and letting by-gones be by-gones, but wrestling fans crave feuds. We crave excitement. This isn't it.

-Maryse vs. Brie Bella? In a Divas tournament? Advantage: TNA. Maybe just because the Knockouts don't ask viewers to accept a female wrestler who has spent most of 2009 being arm-candy for guest hosts.

-The Miztake comes out to his new music and pumps up some contenders to his United States title. Swagger, MVP, Carlito, and Mark Henry set some sort of record for number of weakest pin break-ups. MVP gets the win and in the future we'll all get treated to a vomit-inducing Miz vs. MVP match. Can these Raw mid-carders hold the attention of the audience more than five minutes? I'm not feeling this feud at all.

-Triple H and Hornswoggle get their "Mattel toys" merchandize segment. (Advantage: WWE. On Impact, TNA boasted that fans can buy Hulk Hogan trading cards for $40. Whatta ripoff.) Trips and his son Hornswoggle makes for great television. No, really, it does.

-Didn't I already see Jericho take another walk of shame from Raw? Hasn't DX already beaten Jericho and thus forcing him off of Raw back in December 2009? So why do fans keep seeing Jericho on Raw? And why is it easier to believe in the tooth fairy than to believe that I won't see Jericho on Raw next week? Isn't it sad to see WWE rely on this "Jericho leaves Raw" trick two times already? Fail.

-Good gravy, maybe WWE should go back to having PPVs every three weeks. Because the longer they have to pump up the PPV, the more they will just throw out the repeats of the same content we have already witnessed.

-Randy Orton talks to Vince McMahon about punting Bret in the head. Too bad this storyline won't happen, because this is WWE.

-Sheamus, or wrestling's Clubber Lang, is talking about how he's a bad man. John Cena is licking his wounds somewhere in Los Angeles, training with Apollo Creed. "That punk ain't nothing. I've already beaten the man. I won't give him another match." You know, instead of ordering the Rumble for the Cena-Sheamus match, maybe I should just watch Rocky III instead. Dude, wrestling rips off the Rocky movies so much, Stallone should be receiving royalties.

-The 1-2-3 Kid Evan Bourne wants his opportunity. Announcers use this moment to talk about how great it is for these young pups to get their shot. Crowd, not giving a damn about Evan, chants for Cena. Who could blame them? WWE dug themselves in a hole with presenting their mid-card talent as chumps (Miz, MVP, Evan, etc.) and now they're trying to get by.

-I have no idea why Kofi vs. Orton took place. The feud ended weeks ago and I don't know if Orton should be carrying around Kofi anymore. To me, Kofi is quickly becoming just another guy the longer he stays losing to Randy Orton. The story of the match was the question if Legacy would stay together. Sigh. This Raw was a whole lot of nothing.

-Here comes the end of the show. The MVP of the night was Vince McMahon in playing the two-face Judas. Vince plays it up like he's a good guy. But then Vince kicks Bret in the coconuts. And what I didn't really want to happen did happen. A purely Bret vs. Vince feud. Oh boy. WWE even mentioned it on the program: the Montreal Incident was 12 years ago. Let's move on. Let's put it behind us.

Bret played his role well. Bret back on TV in general was a great thing to see. And Bret Hart fans get to feel all fuzzy inside to know that their hero will be in a bloodless garbage match with Vince at WrestleMania. We'll know more next week what the plans are for Bret Hart, but I was somewhat disappointed in the return of Bret Hart. Instead of creating a potential exciting new thing, they buried the hatchet and opened the doorway to an almost ancient feud. Which product at this moment am I more interested in right now? It's Impact.

Mind you, HBK and Bret burying the hatchet was a nice thing to see, but hey, I'm a wrestling fan. Bret getting a superkick would have had me doing cartwheels. HBK in a sharpshooter would have had me screaming for joy. And maybe next week, wrestlers will solve their differences by communicating with each other without resorting to violence.

Hopefully these two old coots (Vince, Bret) can deliver some mean promos and make their probable WrestleMania match-up exciting. But as of tonight, it's hard not to feel that WWE went the safe, predictable route with the Bret-Vince feud. Hell, I'll take Bret Hart pouring cement into the prized Corvette of Vince McMahon. You know, back when wrestling was the thing to watch.

-I hope that Impact does land on Monday Night. Because, on Impact, you get the impression that you have to watch what goes down. In one of my articles, I threw around ideas about what WWE could do with Raw concerning HBK, the Bret-Vince feud, etc. Now the only reason to check out Raw next week is ... Mike Tyson. "Remember when he did that? And when he did this?" Yes, WWE, but what about the future? "More Hornswoggle comedy! Hyuk Hyuk!"

-In WWE they are relying on quick fixes to cover up the fact that apparently nobody in WWE remembers how to create an exciting feud (especially on the Raw side) or to create buzz around the product. It's become stagnant and tepid. WWE content leading up to the Rumble has been stupid, silly, and a large waste of people's time.

Raw did do one thing right: It gave a real good reason to cross the line. The Bret Hart trump card? In my view it really didn't do a damn thing. People waited 12 years for a fuzzy HBK handshake and a predictable kick into Bret's gnads by Vince. Yawn.

-As for both Impact and Raw getting new wrestling fans, are you kidding me? I can imagine a lot of people watching Impact and going, "Hell, I saw this same act in 1997." I doubted that casual fans would have stayed with Impact for three hours to catch Styles vs. Angle while getting another Nasty Boys (e.g. 1990s Dinosaurs) skit.

Yes indeedy, Raw had Bret Hart. Raw also didn't have people talking when the show ended. People were leaving for the exits in the stands during the Bret-Vince conclusion. Impact gets the nod for its new look and new stars, but ultimately Jan. 4, like with most things in wrestling, couldn't live up to its hype.

It seems that nobody in WWE wants to talk about how the fire has gone out. It's too bad. I'm off to jury duty. I'll ask around if anybody watched wrestling last night. "Did you see the Nasty Boys? Hell yeah! The Nasty Boys are back on TV, bayabee!"

(credit to lordvalek.com, i.cdn.turner.com and files.myopera.com for pics)

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com. Follow me on facebook by typing "smk5q2@hotmail.com" in the search line.

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