RAW
RAW opened with John Cena and Armando Alejandro Estrada having a match that was simply an excuse for AAE to get the crap beat out of him. It was fun. They had Armando offer Cena a cigar, his watch and cash, but Cena turned him down, gave him the FU and then the STFU. Then Nitro ran in and gave him a boot to the head (ya-ya!) and Cena sold it forever.

Jerry Lawler and Carlito beat Big Viz and Chris Masters. Wow, Masters is so much smaller. Viz was really sloppy. It’s about time for his annual leaving to lose a little weight. Carlito pinned Viz. That was that.

Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin are back together again! They reunited over the fact that Haas told Cryme Tyme they were an embarrassment to their race. They then had a match with the Highlanders where they won! The World’s Greatest Tag Team dominated early on and then Robbie managed to get his Russian Leg Sweep. Shelton managed to hit Robbie with a Kick and then they gave Rory the World’s Greatest Double Team! They’re back!

I didn’t see all of it, but HHH beat Edge via DQ. The part I saw was adequate, but it wasn’t much special. They had Randy Orton run in and cost H the match, which brought out Ric Flair and then Kenny came out. That led to a restart as a six-man match. That match was pretty fun and it ended with H, Michaels and Flair winning when Flair pinned Kenny when he tried for the Figure Four. Fun stuff.

They had Melina and Johnny Nitro talking with K-Fed on speakerphone. They talked a bit and then Melina left, leaving the phone unattended until Ron Simmons came in and said ‘Damn!’. I still like this gimmick.

Something about this just seems backwards...

Victoria beat Torrie. This was a beating where Torrie got a couple of offensive maneuvers, but not much more. At one point, Victoria bit off one of Torrie’s nails. That’s hard core! Victoria is the best monster heel in wrestling. It’ll be a fun match at the PPV with Mickie James. Chris Masters came in and gave Torrie the Masterlock. Weird…

I missed much of Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga. Umaga just beat the crap out of Jeff and the ref stopped it.

John Cena beat Johnny Nitro, though the story was Nitro almost seriously injuring Cena. Cena was in charge early, using punches and kicks and a suplex. Johnny Nitro managed to come back after he escaped the FU and threw Cena into the steps. They did a Suplex reversal spot and then at one point Nitro managed to hit a Face Buster and went for a Sky Twister Press, which landed mostly on Cena’s knee. That could have been very very bad, but it turned out that he didn’t get hurt. Cena hit his moves and finished off things with the FU. Melina is very very hot. I was thinking about that the entire match.

The Heyman situation
So, Paul Heyman has been sent home, and from reading the latest issue of The Observer, there’s a lot of unanswered questions. The sending home was legit; he’s not fired, though at times various people who should know have thought that he was fired. The ECW PPV’s failure was pinned on him, which is fair because he was late delivering it to Vince, but also a lot of it was Vince’s fault because he has a terrible idea of what ECW should be. The entire ECW thing is probably folding when the contract with SciFi is over at the end of 2007.

There’s a lot of talk about the end of ECW house shows. Since the folks are now touring with SmackDown!, there are fewer slots, and while they’ve added stacked shows, a lot of ECW talent isn’t going on the house shows. This isn’t good for morale or money.

Where he stops noone knows.

They’ve done a good job of building CM Punk, and they’ve obviously got a serious interest in making stars of Lashley, Test, Kelly Kelly and Ariel. They’ve given up on Kevin Fertig (Kevin Thorn) and Mike Knox. The next few weeks should be interesting, especially as Rob Van Dam is considering leaving and many are saying that Sabu may be fired in the next couple of weeks. There’s a lot of talk of cutting even further back and getting rid of a few of the people who are regularly working, like Little Guido.

A Look at TNA’s problems
The biggest problem is TNA’s booking. While they’re able to put on great wrestling matches and the ratings are solid to the point where even running on Thanksgiving can’t shake it too much, they’ve got problems with major storylines and have had a big problem with a fella name of Vince Russo. His booking helped make Steve Austin, but it also was responsible for speeding up the fall of WCW.

Russo's booking is weak, especially right now with the mid-card being very questionable. This, coupled with the release of Paul Heyman, has brought up thoughts that they’ll bring in Heyman to book. It’s not overly likely until Paul’s contract expires, but with RVD likely making the jump and Sabu perhaps returning as well, there’s a lot of reasons for him to go.

The biggest thing that would be facing him would be the fact that Kurt Angle very much soured on Heyman, especially during his ECW run. That’s a little problem in the big picture, but the fact is that Angle is the only real draw they have right now as Sting has cooled off and that has a lot of clout. Still, Angle might even see that the only thing being booked anywhere near correctly is his program with Joe.

There’s a lot of talk about needing to increase the buyrates, and Kurt did a great job popping the last PPV, but the number for last Sunday’s will determine what’s next. They’ve said they’ll only pursue big name wrestlers when it’s financially reasonable, which is when they’ve got enough bump from the folks they have. They’ve not gotten much out of Christian, but Kurt has done well, and so did Sting at first and if the right match were presented (like Sting’s retirement match), he could probably pop one more buyrate.

There’s a lot of questions, but all you have to do is look at the LAX booking to see that there needs to be a change.