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WWE Raw Reax #1: "The DX act is more than ten years old and WWE continuously brings it back for 'one-night-only' situations." Sep 30, 2008 - 5:31:56 AM
Terrie Neilson of Las Vegas, Nev. (7.0): Best: The pretty hot crowd. Worst: Crystal ball predictability both tonight and No Mercy For a go-home show, this left a lot to be desired. The matches were all too short to mean anything. The final builds for the PPV were okay, but not spectacular. I'm scratching my head wondering why Singh came out with "The Great Charli," but I suppose it probably wouldn't have caught on right if he didn't. The crowd crapped on that one some, but it looked like it was more for the Khali choice than Charlie. The crowd woke up when Charlie wrestled as himself. The generation stable seems to have parted ways with Randy Orton, as he looks to be poised to return soon and is already in the title orbit. Randy still continues to be a lightning rod with the face flashes, but he's looking to add himself to the extreme heel-face imbablance that exists. Overall, tonight's Raw made me regret that I am a smart (female) fan. The one-sided mask stipulation bothers me; we know who wins there. I certainly don't see JBL winning against Batista, therefore Shawn Michaels will lose the match that, as it's been constantly reminded, he innovated. And I don't expect the ladder match to top the card with a Jericho win as fans won't want the bitter taste of last month to be repeated. The main event had the obvious partnership due to Friday and the very lame DQ finish. Plus Shawn got the technical win and the only real final offense, which was more a payback to Lance Cade for last week than a forward result againt Jericho. Cade has gotten sacrificed more than a few times; something's got to happen about this soon. The only match without a clear future is the Beth-Candice one, and I'm not looking forward to a Candice win.
Dan Strauss of Goodhue, Minn. (8.0): Best: 8-Man Tag. Worst: Women's match. The Eight-man tag turned out very well and told a few good stories. The action was good, and for some reason the Kane/Mysterio fued has been decent, in my eyes at least. Aside from Candice Michelle, Beth Phoenix is really the only Diva that can actually wrestle good in a match, and she's awesome at it. Santino was good again and "The Great Charlie" Haas was his best act yet. I'm going to sound like a hypocrite on the main event but here are my feelings: The DX act is more than ten years old and WWE continuously brings it back for "one-night-only" situations. HBK's pick of Triple H was highly predictable. But on the positive side, it really spiced up the Raw main event and was fun to watch. The crowd tonight in my homestate of Minnesota sounded good and real hot at times. Hopefully they scratch of a few of the dead crowds they've had lately and move MN up a notch on their live event list. From NCAA champions to World Heavyweight Champions, Minnesota has a very long and rich history in wrestling. Shelton Benjaman and Brock Lesnar wrestled collegiately here. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were trained by Verne Gagne here. I wish that rich history and solid fanbase could bring in more live events. Anyway, Raw tonight was a great show, but longtime viewers should be noticing a bad trend: WWE is continuing to shove meaningless stats down our throats every week. Every time they went into or out of a commercial break, they brought up a stupid, pointless fact about how they've been on longer than Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, or had more episodes than the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Okay, I made those two examples up, but it's basically the same thing. What this tells me is that WWE is not confident in their product. If they were, they'd try and attract viewers and let the product do the talking, instead of trying to keep them with dumb stats and figures. No more "Did you Know's" cause I don't know and don't care. Show us some good, athletic matches with solid character promos and we'll watch you every week.
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