Ray Rhodes' RAW Blog for 3/12/07

by Mr. Ray Rhodes

I missed the first 15 minutes but it seems I didn't miss much. I came during Orton-Flair-Carlito and promptly went upstairs to take a shower. I made it back in time to see Orton lay out Carlito with the RKO and qualify for the Money in the Bank. That wasn't even remotely clever. Have Carlito and Flair get interrupted one week and throw in Orton to qualify. Whatever. It seems that Edge and Orton will overshadow the match itself. Thanks for showing up, King Booker.

Normally I'd applaud any RAW air time for Super Crazy and I marked out for his Super (see also, Crazy) Offense but the Masterlock Challenge was so like, 2006. Yawn.

Lilian Garcia directs us to the TitanTron for...THE ROCK! Even though it would have been 100 times more intense if he was live, the video feed was enough for me. I might have wet my pants just a lil'. Great touch!!

Cena and HBK are in a Gauntlet match for the tag titles. One, I love gauntlet matches. Two, this is a perfect way to drop the tag titles that I've been moaning on about for weeks. WGTT...DAMMIT! Cade and Murdoch . . . DAMMIT! We go to commercial as the cage drops, come back and it's mid match with MNM. Uh...not so great on tonight's segment and break layout, guys. Someone's getting fired. Well, if anyone is going to win, it's gonna be MNM.

....



DAMMIT!

Waitasecond, you mean the WWE used it's tag division as storyline fodder and buried everyone in it even more? They wouldn't do thaaattttt. Sigh.

Well, Jeff Hardy is out and so is Edge but Edge bails out and allows the The Great Khali to consume Jeff's flesh right off the bone, and then squat and take an Extreme dump on the first row. Part of that is true, at any rate. Kane comes out with his See No Evil hook-and-chain and scares off Khali and his bologna nipples. Kane loses on Smackdown (to Batista, but still) and we're supposed to take him as a threat to Khali? I JUST DON'T GET IT. I do, however, hope this brings Kane back to another level. Only thing better than his hook-and-chain would have been a flail or a mace. Every time Edge has a big gimmick match upcoming he takes like, 3 weeks off, has anyone noticed that?

Mr. Fuji is the next Hall of Famer. Strange, I thought he already was. Welcome aboard. Again.

Foley. Todd Grisham. Ashley. All in one segment. That's all I need to say.

Melina takes on Torrie in a match where the kept moving around but nothing seemed to be happening. Afterwards, plain clothes Mickie ran out looking HOT but had crazy hair and soon after Victoria got involved as well. Ashley gets herself some and Melina bails out. Torrie and Mickie throw her back in so Ashley can...throw her out. It seems Ashley is destined to follow in Christy Hemme's footsteps. Diva Contest. Pose Nude. Awful Wrestlemania match. Fired.

Backstage Edge and Mcmahon have a strange talk, Edge convinces Mcmahon to have Lashley fight Orton on ECW and if Orton doesn't show up, he'll get thrown out of the Money in the Bank. He also touched Mcmahon like, 3 times. I was waiting for Mcmahon to tell him to stop. Alas!

I have no idea what Wrestlemania Reversal means.

In a long ass segment, all the players from the Battle of the Billionaires meet up for a contract signing. Estrada has become almost phantom-like. He's there, and you can kind of see him, but he just blends into the background now. Austin comes out, and in a humorous fashion, gets in Trumps face. The segment kept going and going and there is so much tension in the air while I wait for Trump to say something ridiculous. Then, finally, Trump pushes Mcmahon over the table.

This segment had promise but was riddled with the inherent problem of lack of physicality. The main event of a wrestling show for Wrestlemania hype and the "pay off" was Mcmahon getting shoved on a table. Didn't do it for me.

Final Thoughts: Raw just didn't do it for me tonight. Some more decent build up for Wrestlemania but it's beyond me why the Edge and Orton feud is taking place in the midst of the train wreck that is Money in the Bank. It was fun seeing Rock and Austin and they prove once again that they have "it" and say, Chris Masters does not. I'll give it 3 and a half Khali Nipples which will give tonight's RAW a C+.