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WWE Raw Reax #2: "This was my first time seeing this Evan character. Wow! I do like the high flying."
Sep 9, 2008 - 12:36:23 PM


Mark Dinatale, Los Angeles, Calif. - Dental Insurance Sales Support (7.0): Best Match: Both tag team matches. Worst: Anything Snitsky. First off, I was surprised to see two tag matches last for than five minutes on TV. The six man tag with Manu, Ted DiBiase, and Cody Rhodes vs. Cryme Time was very well done. I like that they are giving team "priceless" a lot of TV time. With Randy Orton playing some mind games makes all this interaction mean something. Looks like we are on the brink of the second/third generation takeover. Usually I hate when guys are just thrown in together as a tag team, but Evan Borne & Mysterio vs. The Miz & Morrison was a PPV-worthy match. This was my first time seeing this Evan character. Wow! I do like the high flying. Somewhere Billy Kidman is crying with the way Michael Cole is carrying on about this shooting star press. My thought on the On Demand highlight is if that Harley Race vs. Ric Flair match was done today, they would be booed out of the building. I was mad that Chris Jericho was made to wrestle after his brutal match 24 hours ago and Shawn Michaels was not even on the show. But the match with Batista was a non event. I didn't see Unforgiven, but the clip with Orton knocking out Punk was interesting, but a concussion? And he's wrestling in a cage match next week? That seems a little crazy. I am not a C.M. Punk fan anyway, so any champion is better than Punk. His matches make me GTS. What was good was there is more time taken for promos and storytelling, but I am confused about Kane and Rey Mysterio. It was nice to see Kane's old mask finally. I am amazed that despite my dislikes, the shows seem so much fresher when they are able to spend more time with the rest of the wrestlers other than John Cena.

Andrew Champagne of Ithaca, N.Y. (7.5): Best match: Mysterio/Bourne vs. Miz/Morrison. Worst match: Santino/Snitsky. As Raw goes, this was pretty good. Jericho's opening promo was typically-great heel work, and I loved how as soon as Mike Adamle said he would face Batista, he started selling his injuries just a bit more. The build-up for Candice Michelle vs. Beth Phoenix looks okay for now, but it stinks that Mickie James, who's consistently gotten big pops every week on Raw since Candice was hurt, is being pushed down the ladder. The Noble/Layla stuff, as well as the CHL bit, was amusing, and Rey's interview before his match was fine. I wish they'd given the tag match just a few more minutes, because it was a phenomenal TV match that Rhodes, DiBiase, and Cryme Time should have been taking notes from. All the Orton/second-generation stuff is starting to become a hair annoying. Are they an alliance? Do they hate each other? They need to pay it off (as an aside, Manu didn't look bad in his debut). Santino's short match was typical, as was his mic work, and as much as I love his act, I fear it has a short shelf life. The handicap match was a normal main-event-style match, and I really didn't have any feelings for or against it. All in all, this was a good show to start the post-Unforgiven fallout, and one that could have been better if they'd speed up some of the angles and their development.

Alex Roberts in the UK (7.0): Best Match: Randy Orton/Second Generation Segment. Worst Match: Santino vs. Snitsky. A solidly enjoyable and entertaining Raw that was lacking in the spectacular but with that said it's enough to keep me watching and that's the overall goal I guess. The opening Chris Jericho promo was good. I wasn't a fan of booking him in the main event, but they handled the main event itself well even if I can't get remotely excited about Batista-JBL or a triple threat title match at No Mercy. I cannot, however, forgive booking Jericho-Punk in a cage next week. This is two of my pet wrestling hates combined - a gimmick for the sake of a gimmick and a match that should have been built for a PPV thrown away on free TV with no real hype. The Kane-Mysterio angle continues to progress somewhat erratically. Can we clear this up once and for all. Did Kane spend weeks torturing Mysterio or was it one attack in a car park weeks ago? With that said I think/hope WWE might be heading toward an angle centred on trying to unmask Mysterio, which is amazingly an angle they've never done and it makes a lot of sense that Kane would be the guy doing it. The Miz/Morrison-Mysterio/Bourne tag match was a fantastically refreshing match on WWE television. I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't enjoy the women's match. Why is Candice Michelle being pushed at the expense of Mickie James? I cannot stand Candice at all. The Santino-Snitsky match I'm going to ignore in the hope that the post-match comes to nothing. The Jamie Noble-William Regal angle took another interesting turn this week. This is a solid undercard feud and WWE hasn't had one of those in a long time, I for one am looking forward to seeing it develop some more. Now time for a sentence I never thought I'd write: I love Charlie Haas! This new gimmick is proving to be comedy gold right now. It's going to get old fast if WWE doesn't have something planned for it, but right now I love it. However, the true highlight of Raw this week was without doubt the Randy Orton/Second Generation segment. I sense this angle is going to replace Michaels-Jericho as the highlight of Raw and the reason for that is simple. Like Michaels-Jericho, this angle is working for everyone involved. It's developing and (re)establishing Orton's character. All three guys in the 2G are being given a chance to shine and develop and all three are running with the ball. Even C.M. Punk is benefiting from his involvement, I care more about him now than I ever have before. This whole angle is brilliant and I cannot wait for it to come together in the coming weeks.

We welcome your 1-10 score and comments on this show for a "Raw Reax" feature in the Torch Feedback section of PWTorch.com. Just to add a twist to this feature, include not just your hometown, but also your occupation (mechanic, lawyer, stay-at-home-dad, college student, etc.) so readers get a flavor for what everyone does as "day jobs." To contribute your thoughts on Raw, click here.

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MORE "Torch Feedback" ARTICLES
Thursday Night TV Reax - SS/Impact: "X Division, we hardly knew ya after Abyss beat up the only two representatives who showed up"
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WWE The Bash PPV Reax #2: "For all this Miz-Cena buildup, the match was simply an unmitigated squash"
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ECW/Smackdown Reax #1: "The door was open to turn C.M. Punk heel, but something key was missing..."
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TORCH READERS WRITE BACK: Why was Kozlov smiling on the ECW TV broadcast?
WWE Raw Reax #4: "I was excited for Miz-Cena - I like the way they're building this feud and I don't want it messed up"
WWE Raw Reax #3: "The burial of Orton and Legacy was sealed with an exclamation point"
WWE Raw Reax #2: "The Vickie Guerrero segment was either a mean-spirited send-off or a completely pointless waste of everyone's time"

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Torch Today
TORCH MONTHLY AWARD VOTING: Polls OPEN for best/worst in pro wrestling from the month of June (Part 2 of 2)
TORCH MONTHLY AWARD VOTING: Polls OPEN for best/worst in pro wrestling from the month of June (Part 1 of 2)
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