Your Monday Night RAW thread 8PM Eastern/7Central

[Smart Ass Monkey]

The Rundown

8 matches
44 total minutes of bell-to-bell action
Average of 14.3 minutes of wrestling per hour
bringing us a total of.....

22.5% of the show dedicated to in-ring action

[LucklessWonder]

So, how smarky is the Boston crowd at NOC gonna be? IIRC they weren't exactly in Cena's corner during the last WWE event there.

[verbaltoxin]

In short:

Punk is the WWE Champion. Has been for 9 mos. He doesn't main event unless Cena's involved. Cena's not the champ. He main events 99% of the shows. Punk attacks the Rock one time, and frankly the part timer fucking deserved it. Attacking the guy who left the business 7 years ago to make movies is "turning your back on the WWE Universe."

All this is laid out in a fairly decent promo. All logical points. How does Cena respond? Rebuffing it all and going into pointless bullshit about the fans and respect - and then being a passive aggressive bitch about getting a title shot in Boston. Saying Punk has to be "vindicated" when he has lost three matches to Punk.

Then Punk ignores it, and goes back to bullying Jerry Lawler. The guy who made a half-assed, insincere apology and then wouldn't call the WWE CHAMPION the best in the world.

Just remember, we're supposed to boo CM Punk and cheer John Cena here. We're supposed to boo Punk for beating up a little toadie who disrespected him.

I now realize what it must be like to watch TV in North Korea.

[Cuvis the Conqueror]

They were so close. They almost had a feud based on characterization that went past "face vs heel", they almost had something they could hang some really cool, complex characterization on, they almost had something intriguing. And then they had to have Punk kick Lawler in the head.

[verbaltoxin]

Cuvis the Conqueror: They were so close. They almost had a feud based on characterization that went past "face vs heel", they almost had something they could hang some really cool, complex characterization on, they almost had something intriguing. And then they had to have Punk kick Lawler in the head.


BECAUSE PUNK IS BAD! HE DOESN'T HAVE THE FANS' RESPECT! HE DOESN'T RESPECT HIMSELF! IF HE JUST LOVED THE TROOPS AND AMERICA MORE, BUT NO! HE HAS TO HAVE TATTOOS AND LISTEN TO GARBAGECORE! BOO HIM! BOOOOOOOO!!!

[verbaltoxin]

Okay seriously, we're this close to 400.

[verbaltoxin]

@crankyvince

IT'S NOT WORK IF YOU LOVE WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING. AND I LIVE TO FUCK A GOOD THING UP. FUCK YOU.

[morrius]

Well, I think I can safely say there's no reason to tune in until Survivor Series, when HHH and the Rock come back. And even that's iffy.

[lurch_E_bean]

Fake Belt!

[verbaltoxin]

lurch_E_bean: Fake Belt!




and.....NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW

[Ed Becker]

I guess I'm back to the point of where I was with WWE before the threads on Fark started. Then the product picked up some. We got the glimmer of hope with Punk's push, the return of Lesnar, the rise of Daniel Bryan. All that fizzled into meh. TNA had some bright spots, but the main focus was Ric, Sting and Bischoff and Russo behind the scenes. I would keep track via the sheets and tune in when something looked interesting or when nothing better was on.

IMDO, (in my drunken opinion, and sober for that matter...) the folks in CT are overthinking the whole thing, almost trying to reinvent their version of the wheel. With the convoluted finish of ADR/Sheamus and various workers flipping with no explanation. Wrestling companies have always told, or at least prodded fans on who to cheer for in booking them as babyfaces and heels. Sometimes you have people booked as heels that get over. Turn 'em baby. Sometimes you need to shake things up. Have a baby do something shocking that turns him. Sometimes you have someone that's over either way and you have a 'tweener.

So, on Raw they tag Kane and Ryder. Kane's a baby? Okay. He ends up destroying Ryder. Kane's a heel again. Jericho puts Ziggler over clean, comes to and beats the shit out of him and does a babyface walk to the back. Punk and Cena do their thing. Cena leaves and Punk kicks Lawler, one of the most over guys in the company, in the head. So Punk's a heel now.

So Kane's a heel again as is Punk. Jericho doesn't matter as much as he's done for a while and that didn't turn Ziggles into a babyface. They're doing too much at once. They need to let it breathe. You had effectively 3 turns in one show. I think that's too much. Remember what a shock it was when someone turned? They've burned that out.

I'm okay with Punk. That's been brewing for a few weeks, which is an eternity with the E. I would hope they run with him as a heel champ. I really don't need to see him and Cena again. It's also stupid to have Rock as the instant #1 challenger if he's not coming back to a full time schedule. Not that WWE.com or TV could kayfabe something along those lines.

Nostalgia draws are fine, but you need to give your present workers the chance to run. And you need to remember that professional wrestling based entertainment is based on professional wrestling.

[sharktrager]

OK, I watched on DVR, fast forwarding commercials and anything I didn't care about. I watched the whole show in an hour.

I get what they did with Jericho because he "just lost his job" so he was pissed. And they set up his return when the Uproar Festival tour is up. He got to put someone over but still be tough which makes sense in that scenario.

I also get Kane doing what he did because he has history with Zack and he's never really been a face. He's only effective as someone everyone fears because he's nuts.

The frustrating part, other than the fact 2 of 3 hours was filler, is Punk. They desperately want him to be a heel and the fans won't stop cheering him. That was as much of a Mark crowd as they get and there were still more people not booing than booing. They need to just let him do his thing and let the fans that like him like him. Let the guy be a loner and a rebel, which suits him well. One thing they can keep from the Attitude Era is that you don't have to have the clear cut heels and faces for every wrestler. But instead of going with it they are trying to turn his fans against him with whiner story lines because, dammit, heels don't have fans and we decided he's a heel!

90% of his speech was perfect. There wasn't a thing he said that was wrong, and he pointed out that he has beaten Cena repeatedly. The 10% where he suddenly demands Cena and Lawler say he's the best is stupid. His personality isn't to do that. He'd have got in Jerrry's face and challenged him to tell him who is the best. And, if they were smart, that would have set up his next angle. Instead we got what we got, which was stupid.

[verbaltoxin]

Okay I'm gonna say a few things about CM Punk.

The fact is that CM Punk, from all appearances both in the media and in wrestling, is a major asshole. I've read his interviews for multiple magazines, some going into detail about his personal life, and based on what we've been allowed to see, he is very much a cagey, judgmental, egotistical and womanizing prick. I grew up around the punk subculture as a teenager and in college, and anyone who still has to make a point to say they're straightedge at 33 is a douche. I know it's become marketable for him to play up that image, but having said that, straightedge is something only the truly self-obsessed cling to once they should've matured. It's fine to not drink, do drugs or be promiscuous for your own self, but it's the mark of posturing to still think you're making a statement, or that having an X on your username or hand, means anything to anyone who is at the age of having to work for a living and raise a family.

That said he is very talented and charismatic. He certainly doesn't hurt for the tail he supposedly doesn't chase. He also has the ability to put his pulse on the thoughts of smarks and the youth, being the eternal adolescent he is, and use it to work an audience. No doubt Punk works us. He's a pro wrestler, it's his job. We'll parse over what was real and not in his promo from last year, but suffice to say it's a work, even if he agreed with some of it. Punk told Vince McMahon, rightly or wrongly, to shove it up his ass about a year ago, it got worked into an angle, and Punk got what he wanted out of it. It should surprise no one that he has subsequently toned down the act and become a good, corporate mouthpiece like he has. CM Punk is not a radical. He's not "punk" in any of the independent, DIY sense. He's a guy who liked Earth Crisis a lot as a teenager and formed it into a persona. He's no more punk than Green Day or the Offspring. Punk had priorities and they didn't involve living hand to mouth on the indie circuit his whole career. I don't fault him for his choices, even if I do see a hollowness to his acerbic character.

So there is always going to be a portion of the audience partial to CM Punk, no matter what he does. He has a well-crafted image, that has now been refined to the point where he can use it regardless of his current characterization. It'll never be Rock/Austin/Foley levels of a draw, but it's a draw. John Cena is his perfect foil just because Cena is so brazenly, overtly and suffocatingly commercial. Even if Punk's rebelliousness is manufactured, his image is at least empathetic to smarks, and he legitimately enjoys the things he says he enjoys.

WWE's problem is they can't let Punk just be Punk, an asshole who can talk the clothes off certain women and fanboys.

[Ed Becker]

VT: What you see with Punk is what you get. He seemed pretty stiff when I was around him a zillion years ago. The straightedge thing is real. Never saw him drink with the boys or go out to smoke gimmick. Saw him eat chicken tenders with Ian Rotten. Never heard of him eating pain pills. He's in it for himself.

There will most likely not be draws like Rock or Austin. I think Foley's success was with the hardcore fans and that he'd take any bump. And the Nitro bullshit. The awesome promos that Austin and Foley cut in ECW didn't hurt, either. The business usually ebbs and flows in 7 to 15 years. WWE trying to be entertainment is meh. Remember, Steve and Mick were there in the mid '90's. The biggest carny in the room is trying to make movies. I think in carny when I'm drunk. Eat me, Vince.