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Terrie Neilson of Las Vegas, Nev. (8.0): Best: Cena vs. Hardy; Vince promo. Worst: Divas tag; Cade and Murdoch's in-ring attire. Judging by the reviews I read, One Night Stand got off to a great start, faltered in the middle (namely the stretcher match and the legit injury to Randy Orton), with a surprise finish (Taker losing). The outgo show was good, and got off to a good start toward the end of June. If it wasn't for the draft being the Monday before, Night Of Champions could have lent to a night of surprises. Kennedy-Umaga was kinda "eh," but Umaga selling more than usual fit the context of the match. Too bad Umaga's stock is so low these days as this served more to feed Kennedy-Burchill than what could have been a decent Kennedy-Umaga match. Not that I'm complaining about the Kennedy-Burchill feud mind you as both have something good to sink their teeth into. The crowd seemed to take Hardcore Holly's statements to Cody Rhodes as meanness, but he made valid points. Cody's well-meaning gesture cost them a match, a match that could have been for the titles. Roddy Piper served the dual purpose of feeding into his issues with Santino and adding a much-missing facet to the Holly-Rhodes partnership. The only thing missing was a followup from him outside of mentioning the "match" on Smackdown. A frustrated Chris Jericho is becoming a very interesting character to watch. Last week it was a banged-up face Shawn Michaels in a passive position with Jericho poised to level a chair; this week it was banged-up heel JBL. He's on the verge of completely snapping, and I'm liking it. So long as the reason for when he does completely blow a gasket isn't something really lame, there could be some potential here. The divas' tag match got off to a good start, then totally botched the end. Katie looked like she could cut it in the ring, then the finish kinda made me take that thought back. Cade-Murdoch wasn't very good match wise, and the crowd got lost in it because their feud isn't being invested in completely. One redeeming quality is that Murdoch's choice of songs lyrically fit the situation. Hardy-Cena was a good TV main event that had actual technical wrestling to go along with the signature moves. They meshed pretty well in the ring together, and the sportsmanship at the beginning was a nice touch. With four weeks to build to a PPV instead of two, the feel wasn't as intense but looks like WWE is off to a good start.
Leonard Tripodi of Kenilworth, N.J. (6.5): Best: Cena vs. Hardy. Worst: Kennedy vs. Umaga. I would have given the worst match to Cade vs. Murdoch, but the Kennedy match lasted only three minutes and the finish bothered me (as well as Caldwell, I presume). I know it was done to advance the storyline of Kennedy-Burchill, but they could have let the match go longer and give Kennedy some offense before the senseless finish. An why have Umaga lose by countout when everyone knows what a monster he is... or was? I just don't like the booking logic here. WWE usually gives us plenty of booking logic to complain about. The rest of the show was pretty decent, less the Cade-Murdoch snoozefest. They should have kept them together as a tag team, but now its obvious that one of them is going to Smackdown via the Draft. I guess you could toss Umaga's name into draft talk, too. I didn't mind the Jericho-JBL finish, since they are doing a great job with Jericho's character and gimmick lately. The women's tag was filled with intensity and some drama. I loved when Melina went nuts on Beth, only to get destroyed again. Katie has some talent, but she was a little awkward in there. But working her into the program by utilizing her in a tag match with three of the best female wrestlers in WWE is a great way to start. The Cena-Mickie soap continues and is becoming interesting, but I'm not so sure Cena needed this boost when it could have gone to a mid-carder with lesser interest. Gotta love Mickie, though. She's so damn adorable in any segment. Cena-Hardy was nothing short of a stellar TV main event. The crowd was hot and both men delivered. It really didn't matter who won, because the loss didn't hurt Hardy and Cena is the next logical opponent for Triple H at Night of Champions. I guess Edge is going to get Batista, but that is only early speculation. I'm not very interested in Vince's million dollar giveaway, mainly because I'm not going to be the recipient and somehow it will turn into a letdown, that is, unless he actually gives the money to someone in desperate need. But either way, Vince is taking up more TV time and hyping next week's Raw to get more casual viewers to watch. I would rather this nonsense be kept to a minimum and done on WWE.com instead, but they tooled Jerry Lawler into shilling the website before the main event so Vince can brag about how many hits they received on the site next week.
Mark DiNatale, of Los Angeles, Calif. (2.5): Best: Jericho Promo (that's the 2.5). Worst: The state of the WWE as a whole. I used to disagree with Wade every chance I got, but now I find myself agreeing with him a lot more these days. The WWE is stale right now, and I for one am turned off more than ever by this money giveaway. Jericho is the highlight of Raw, because his character is the only one that is interesting and fun and the guy can wrestle. HBK is always good as well, but dearly missed on this show. Raw is all about building to the next PPV, which always seems like one is two weeks away. WWE=overkill right now. Too many PPV's, its expensive for fans, the matches are nothing exciting half the time. There is no time to build up storylines, and nothing matters. Raw is not special anymore. Why are Cody and Bald-core still tag champs? I can't stand to watch Santino and Carlito wrestle them one more week. Kendrick & London are great, they don't get promos, you never see backstage segments with anybody but the top five guys or the divas. Three minute squashes with Trevor and Cade, stupid. Like many, I feel the Cena, Triple H, Orton, JBL matches in a different order every week are sickening and boring. Jeff Hardy should be the IC Champion putting on matches with guys every week, and demanding title matches with Triple H. It's that simple. If Vince and the WWE want to turn things around, forget money giveaways. Make Jeff Hardy the focus of the show. Move Undertaker to Raw, promote Raw matches ahead of time, have a title change every now and then. create new stars, elevate mid-card guys, make the titles mean something, and stop having PPVs so close together. Boring show and no way makes me want to blow $500 a year on PPVs. When the free stuff is this bad, how can I bring myself to pay? Orton is the lucky one he gets to go away for two months. Too bad the same cannot be said for Triple H, Cena, and JBL.
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