Raw Workrate Report 6/18/07 by S.L.L.

Raw Workrate Report 6/18/07
by S.L.L.

WHAT WORKED:

-The opening video package was all wavey and threatened to make me seasick, but the way they edited the limo explosion like the big spots from a PPV main event the following night was amusing enough to put it up here.

-The Mr. McMahon car bombing made this show interesting - if not necessarily good - by forcing this weird juxtaposition between the characters trying to play it all as a shoot while needing to push forward with the worked gimmicks and angles, and the crowd, seemingly more "inside" on this angle than any of the wrestlers, continuing to boo tributes to heel Mr. McMahon and otherwise reacting like this is an angle just like any other angle. A lot of my decisions on what did and didn't work this week are based on how well the performers coped with an acting task far, far beyond their abilities. With that in mind, you weren't going to find a much better execution of that sort of thing on this show than a backstage, pre-taped, Cryme Tyme comedy sketch where the punchline is the federal investigator walking in to question them. Nothing out of character, nothing that would come off as obviously "wrong" to the fans, ties well enough into the angle at large, and while not the funniest Cryme Tyme sketch, still allowed for a few chuckles. I don't know precisely how the scripting of WWE television works, but I have to assume whoever wrote this didn't write much of the other McMahon-centric stuff on the show, as this seemed almost out of place with all the other weird, Russo-esque worked shootery going on.

-So at some point between his disappearing from TNA and his return to the WWE, Jeff Hardy learned that if you are going to be sloppy and reckless in the ring, it's far more artistically satisfying if you sloppily and recklessly hurt your opponent than if you hurt yourself. Jeff Hardy has gone from being this comically loose dude who will work at half-speed and blow everything to being a guy who actually has really mean looking strikes and takes that same flippy indy offense and crushes people with it. The Whisper in the Wind originated as a spot used to showcase Jeff's athleticism. Here, he does it and it highlights that he is unafraid to hideously flip his body boots-first into Daivari's face. Daivari gives as good as he gets, and Jeff can always be counted on to eat other guys' offense impressively. But yeah, really weird how snugly Jeff works now. He didn't drop Daivari on his head with the sit-out gourdbuster like he usually does, but it still looked nastier than sit-out gourdbusters usually do. Post-match was great. Cade and Murdoch still working as faces, acting like it was the Hardy's who turned heel is a neat twist on the angle. Jeff responding by calmly pescadoing them mid-speech was choice. I wouldn't mind seeing those teams fight each other again a few million more times.


-Innocent romance angles in wrestling sometimes start out well, but they always end badly. Whether of not you liked Molly Holly as an uptight prude, it was a pretty frustrating end to the Spike/Molly star-crossed lovers angle. Jimmy Wang Yang and Amy Zidian were a cute couple, but if she didn't get canned, I'm sure it would've ended in disaster somehow. So as cute as I find the Santino/Maria relationship to be, I'm inclined to think it will end badly. However, for now, it's pretty sweet. More importantly, the implied Santino/Regal feud it's setting up should be fun. Regal switching up his gimmick to become a suave British ladies man trying to corrupt the sweet and innocent Maria, and trying to steal her from the modest-but-sincere Santino has potential both in and out of the ring. William Regal transforming into an evil wrestling Martin Fry is an angle I can get behind, even if the ultimate payoff to the Santino/Maria relationship isn't.

-The Foley/Umaga match - insofar as it was one - was fun, albeit something of a one-man show. I shouldn't expect semi-retired Foley in 2007 to be a worker the caliber of full-time wrestler Foley in 1995. The fact that he seemed a few steps slow here shouldn't be disappointing, but I really dug him in the Edge streetfight from the last Mania, so I guess I was expecting him to deliver against a vastly better opponent than Edge. I could say that he just needs weapons for a good match now, but one of the big things that stood out to me about the Edge match was how crisp all of his strikes looked. For a guy with a rep as an all-time great brawler, Foley's strikes have never been anything to write home about, but they looked really good in that match. By contrast, his strikes here all looked actively bad, which surprised me. Still, it's all besides the point, because this match wasn't about Foley offense, it was about re-establishing Umaga as a monster - something they've desperately needed to do - and it delivered on that. It does make one question the booking going into Vengeance, and the super-random main event therein, but Umaga killed Mick right good, and Mick can still take a beating really well, so I dug this.

-The Mr. McMahon car bombing made this show interesting - if not necessarily good - by forcing this weird juxtaposition between the characters trying to play it all as a shoot while needing to push forward with the worked gimmicks and angles, and the crowd, seemingly more "inside" on this angle than any of the wrestlers, continuing to boo tributes to heel Mr. McMahon and otherwise reacting like this is an angle just like any other angle. A lot of my decisions on what did and didn't work this week are based on how well the performers coped with an acting task far, far beyond their abilities. With that in mind, you weren't going to find a much better execution of that sort of thing on this show than Jim Ross's somber reading of the Skittles advertisement. JR was spot on this whole show, playing the guy who hated his dead boss, and rather than dishonestly praise him after his death, plays everything low-key and tries to avoid talking about it whenever possible. Lawler is feeding him lines to get him to make out-of-character responses to the angle and JR just blows him off like he was Art Donovan at King of the Ring '94 asking how much a wrestler weighed for the eight millionth time. Actually, that's probably a bad analogy, as JR's football worship would force him to hang off of Art's every word like it was the wisdom of Solomon. But you get the idea.

-For whatever failings Mr. Kennedy has as a wrestler, they don't seem to bother the viewers much at all. His last TV angle seemed to be setting him up for a face turn, so hearing the rather massive amount of cheers disappear when he re-established his heelness kinda seems like a wasted opportunity. On the other hand, I feel like a heel Kennedy makes more sense in the Cena era than a face one, and the fans booed him just as loudly as they cheered him. That's some pretty impressive crowd control. Interview was nothing special, but dedicating his career to Mr. McMahon seems like an appropriately kayfabey way for him to react to this.

-Main event was a fine little match, if unspectacular. Orton getting the clean pin on Lashley was surprising. WWE is a promotion that threw Batista in the doghouse by letting him wrestle in every World Title match on PPV this year. Promotion that threw RVD in the doghouse by letting him win his last match and send him off talking about his legendary career. Orton actually getting a clean win over the nigh-invincible dude seems more in line with the WWE's usual punishments than what he's had thus far.

-The Mr. McMahon car bombing made this show interesting - if not necessarily good - by forcing this weird juxtaposition between the characters trying to play it all as a shoot while needing to push forward with the worked gimmicks and angles, all while the crowd, seemingly more "inside" on this angle than any of the wrestlers, continues to boo tributes to heel Mr. McMahon and otherwise react like this is an angle just like any other angle. A lot of my decisions on what did and didn't work this week are based on how well the performers coped with an acting task far, far beyond their abilities. With that in mind, you weren't going to find a much better execution of that sort of thing on this show than Stephanie McMahon's main event promo, because she doesn't actually have to go out-of-character. Her gimmick is "Vince McMahon's daughter", so when she delivers a barely-contained emotional breakdown as promo, it actually feels real. It also gives you a chance to enjoy the juxtaposition of performer trying to work the crowd and crowd refusing to be worked fully. It is totally within character for Stephanie to react this way, and it is also totally within character for the fans to boo her out of the building as she bursts into tears talking about her dead Dad. This one skit is pretty much what they've been trying to go for with everything on every show this whole angle, but this is really the only situation where they can effectively pull it off.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

-So I shouldn't be surprised with Mick being a few steps off in the ring, but after last week, I do feel properly surprised by his tepid micwork. The Mr. McMahon car bombing made this show interesting - if not necessarily good - by forcing this weird juxtaposition between the characters trying to play it all as a shoot while needing to push forward with the worked gimmicks and angles, and the crowd, seemingly more "inside" on this angle than any of the wrestlers, continuing to boo tributes to heel Mr. McMahon and otherwise reacting like this is an angle just like any other angle. A lot of my decisions on what did and didn't work this week are based on how well the performers coped with an acting task far, far beyond their abilities. Foley cutting an awesome promo last week about Vince having no friends, and then doubling back after his death to be apologetic really just makes him look insincere. Randy Orton calling him out on this feels like a face move, and Foley's wishy-washy response feels like this interview was scripted by Kevin Cook. King Booker comes out and accuses Lashley by virtue of his military training in an attempt to save this, and Lashley had the courtesy to not actually talk during any of this. Cena's promo was what it was. But I kinda feel like that actually makes it worse. Foley's worked shoot stuff looks insincere. Orton's stuff next to it makes him look like a face. Booker's stuff exposes how much better he is at pulling off this balancing act than them. Cena's stuff felt like a typical Cena promo, and seemed a bit out of place next to everything else. Lashley's stuff reminds me that this is all leading up to Lashley wrestling. Put together, this illustrates the flaws of how this angle is being executed pretty strongly.

-I'm not shocked that a World's Greatest Tag Team match was bad, but I am a bit thrown that it wasn't because of them. WGTT really should leave the flippy indy shit to guys who can actually do it, because when they work the amateur-style stuff they did here, they look a lot better. But for some reason, the WGTT match was dragged down by Paul London. I shouldn't have been surprised by old man Foley working at half-speed, but Paul London doing it was odd. I'm writing this two days after the fact, and my memory of the match is a little hazy in terms of details, but I basically remember Paul looking like he was working the match with the stomach flu. Maybe I just wanted to see more shoot takedowns.

-I know Carlito's gimmick is that of cool, unemotional guy, but if that's the case, you don't have him use all the superlatives to describe The Sandman. Cool, detached, unemotional guy does not read the same dialogue that Joey Styles does. I guess it was maybe supposed to be sarcastic, but Carlito just came off as bored.

-The Mr. McMahon car bombing blah blah blah blah blah......Jerry Lawler really struggled on commentary with balancing being a serious worked shooter with being a heel McMahon toady with being a generic strictly heel announcer. Jerry is one of the all-time great micworkers. He made crazy Memphis angles convincing all the time. He should be able to handle this. Then again, Foley's an all-time great micworker, and he's struggling with the material, too. Still, no excuse for him arguing that Trevor Murdoch didn't push Jeff Hardy's foot off of the rope when he was the one who pointed it out in the first place (and after they replayed him doing just that right before the Hardy/Daivari match). Or claiming that this was the first time Lashley and Booker had faced each other. The King ain't much on commentary, but his work here was sloppy even for him.

-Look, I like The Iron Sheik as much as the next guy, but enough already.

-One of the neater developments to come out of Vince going crazy and exploding is that WWE.com has actually become a site worth reading regularly. All the kayfabe pieces covering the angle have been really well-done, and fills a gap of kayfabed wrestling coverage that had been left unfilled for far too long. The flipside to that is that it makes me realize that the interview with the limo driver was a waste of airtime, and that it would have been much better suited to a WWE.com news update.

-The women's tag was good enough that I almost could have gotten away with putting it up top for extraneous reasons. Unfortunately, those were gone once I realized that the Richmond crowd was chanting for hometown girl Mickie James. If I had been correct in misinterpreting them as "HBK" chants during a Divas match, I'd pretty much have to put this up top. No such luck.