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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Smackdown and Raw thoughts

Sorry it's been a few days but when I got to tying out my Smackdown entry last night I realized Raw would be on in an hour or so and I might as well cover both of them while I was at it, so I waited until today. :) So without further adieu, here are my thoughts on the past 5 days or so of WWE programming.

SMACKDOWN

  • I wish they'd followed thru a bit more on the Edge-Vicki Guerrero storyline. I know Raw's position as the 'flagship show' really comes into play at Wrestlemania time when there's more cross-brand storytelling and almost every major event happens Monday night instead of Friday, but surely SD can be thrown a bone with a Shawn Michaels appearance, say, when Undertaker appears on Raw, or Randy Orton could go after Triple H on his own home turf instead of waiting for Monday nights. But it's especially obvious in the Vicki-Edge-Big Show-John Cena storyline. Only one of those involved is a Raw character, and he's not really involved in the heart of this angle, so this would have been an easy one, with Edge, Guerrero and Show all on the Blue Brand, to throw us a bone.
  • By the way I also want to throw in - I understand why Raw is the flagship show beyond just being the older and more reputable/established one; it is also the live one. If they give away major storyline pieces or promos on Smackdown, they'll be inevitably leaked. Still - they could have given away what they gave away this week on Raw, without cheapening it too much by getting out ahead of time. But more on that later.
  • The one major Smackdown-exclusive storyline going into Wrestlemania is the battle between the Hardy brothers. Now I'm a HUGE Hardy fan and I'm glad they're giving these guys a one-on-one matchup on the big stage at WM 25. I'm not entirely sure though, given this is a battle between brothers and therefore already person, and there's so much just from their onscreen lives in the WWE universe to provide background for this feud, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with bringing in what has to be the darkest time of Jeff's life last year - suspended with 10 days to go to Wrestlemania (where he was supposed to win the Money in the Bank match), in a matter of days his house went up in flames, and his dog died. We knew then that Jeff and his girlfriend had been out, and legitimately, Matt, who lived nearby, saw the fire and told Jeff about it etc. They're taking this into WWE land as a storyline, just as Matt had Jeff's car run of the road, and his pyro go haywire, this fire was another Matt-induced sabotage, costing Jeff his beloved dog. Right down to bringing in Jack's charred dog collar. There's 'hitting someone at their weak point, and there's bringing up some really sensitive material from real life. I'm not sure if this crosses the 'taste' line.
RAW
  • Main storyline here being Triple H and Randy Orton et al, I liked the interaction, with the cage etc. and Stephanie making an appearance at her husband's side. Not much was said by way of promos this week but not much was necessary. There's plenty of drama involved in looks, physical action, and non-microphoned conversations that this worked.
  • I'm not sure I like the potential direction this is heading in with Chris Jericho challenging three legends - Jimmy Snuka, Ricky Steamboat, and Roddy Piper - this week. I don't know how it helps anyone. If Jericho wins, great. He can beat up old men. If he loses, it took three men to do it. I'm hoping this is maybe an attraction on Raw next week or the following week, where Jericho's 'real' WM opponent comes in to run interference.
  • I'm intrigued by the Edge-Vicki-Show storyline after this week moreso than I was last week. I was saying, with the Hardys fighting, and the Randy Orton-Triple H storyline involving so much 'reality' and 'worked shoot', that the 'personal issues' and drama injected into this storyline seems forced by comparison - why couldn't it just be about 2 (or 3) main eventers battling for the title? But Show and Edge played their parts well and my personal guess, in terms of the Edge-Show-Vicki threesome can't last for long, is that Vicki and Edge have been playing Show all along and he will ultimately turn face; I think Edge still has more mileage as a heel, and Vicki as well.
So those are my thoughts. Ari and I will be here tomorrow for In This Very Ring, and I will do my best to post some Smackdown thoughts on Friday - as an early warning, we are then going out of town on vacation for 5 days or so, so I'll try to auto-post some fun stuff (videos, etc.), but I might not get to blog live (ie, Raw results or ITVR) until we're home Thursday night. The last two days of our trip will be at my grandmothers so I might be able to put up some Raw thoughts Tuesday sometime but given how busy we get even when we're just at home, I'm not making any promises lol. Nonetheless, tune in tomorrow at the regular time for ITVR and we'll see you later! Cheers all.

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