RAW WORKRATE REPORT 5/31/05
WHAT WORKED:
TKG: Nice superkick by Victoria. Holy shit was that a great superkick. Stevie's flower is back in bloom. Heel Victoria means that I'm going to have to deal with her fake Lon Cheney with M.S. faces but it will be worth it, if it means she dumps the shitty face highspots offence and goes back to stiff ass widows peak.
PAS: Lawler has a really nice shirt. I also got really excited when Viscera came out to interrupt and I briefly thought we were going to get a Double Kings reunion tag. I liked Viscera better when he was playing Gus forcing Flora to jump off a cliff. Now they have tried to turn him into a romantic lead, so they switch his lust from the white lady, to a latina. Will Smith doesn't get to fuck Bridget Moynahan, the best he can hope for is Salma Hayek.
TKG: That main event was pretty fun. Fit Finlay is now on both shows ??? AWESOME!!! I kept waiting for Batista to hit Finlay so they could dump the current Batista program and go with that one instead. That may be the best Hassan's offense has looked yet. Batista brings back his great clotheslines too. Finlay blading Hassan was really nasty. Had the feeling that they were trying to build toward a Finlay vs. New Jack match at the ECW
PAS: I didn't mind the tables match, but I am amused that people are going to end up paying $300 for front row seats to a PPV main evented by Maven, La Resistance, Chris Masters and Coachman v. Dudleys, Sandman, Sabu and Tommy Dreamer. I can just see the big finish of Coachman handcuffing Dreamer in the ropes crucifix style and giving him an unprotected chair shot.
TKG: Hey but it least Bischoff is bringing in Edge so Danny Doring can piledrive Miss. Congeniality.
TKG: BORING chant from crowd during Helmsley interview was amusing. Last week Helmsley comes out and beats up Batista and then announces that the only way Batista will get to face Helmsley is in a "HELL IN A CELL!!!" Helmsley screaming hell in the Cell got about as big a pop as the announcement that Grenier was going to be Jericho's opponent....I mean the smallness of the pop was hysterical. They recognize it and go with the full on Jeff Jarrett only does pre-taped interviews so as not to get heckled out of Orlando segment. Helmsley does his pre taped interview and the crowd can't even chant "drop the belt" so they go to the old stand by "BORING".
WHAT DIDN'T WORK:
TKG: Vince announces that he's dedicating this episode of RAW to the troops and that we should never forget the true meaning of memorial day, and that we owe our troops an incredible debt of gratitude, unless they have the temerity to have flashbacks while delivering a promo. He follows that up by hiring his cousins useless nephew to play the bugle. I have never heard a shittier version of taps played, it was all saliva and missed a bunch of notes. Its not like taps has a lot of notes. How much would it cost to hire a guy who can play taps properly?
TKG: Wow that three way dance sure buried Shelton. If you're going to do a two guys fighting to see who can hit third guy the hardest spot "No this is how its done" section.... you need to use two guys who are really going to beat the hell out of the face. Having two guys who softly bounce the face into the turnbuckle pad just makes the whole thing a mess. this match was ugly.
PAS: Jesus is Greinier on the gas, he looks like a short haired Chris Walker, and kind of wrestles like a short haired Chris Walker. I imagine this feud will get blownoff in a Greinier v. Conway Stairway to Hell match at the ECW PPV.
TKG: If you're going to have Eric Bischoff on commentary, the least you could do is use Tajiri so he can get all excited about all the varieties of kicks.
PAS: That Kane segment was kind of lame. If you are be pricks about this, you might as well go all the way and have Kane in a Slipknot T-shirt holding a gun talking about his surgery scar. WWE writers really can't write dialogue, so you would think they would be eager to steal from live journals.
TKG: So supposedly according to Meltzer the GENIUS money making gimmick that the Heart Throbs had in OVW was that everyone was supposed to think they were gay, while they were in fact heterosexuals oblivious to the impression that they left. Oh HA HA nudge, nudge, get it , they're not really gay. GENIUS. According to Meltzer the WWE ruined this gimmick. this misunderstanding around sexuality gimmick was MONEY. He writes in all CAPS about how much the WWE blew it. Meltzer is a fool. In the fifties Jack Pfeifer ran a really controversial angle where he had The Great Herackles disappear from the circuit for three or four months...and had the announcers hint that Herackles was in bed with hepatitis...six months later Herakles returned admitted that the rumors were true and then introduced his new Greek tag "partner" Hepatitis. The Greek Lovers made Pfeifer a ton of cash and created all sorts of controversy but its never worked since then. NEVER. Lenny and Lodi as special friends who turned out to be just really close brothers. Get it nudge nudge...nope not funny, no money. Billy and Chuck not really gay just a publicity stunt, funny, nudge nudge...nope not that it either. It isn't the fifties soldiers aren't returning to their families with the hep...the nudge nudge jokes booking won't ever work again.