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Chairshots

9/5/01

Raw Thoughts
Welcome back, everyone. I hope you had a lovely holiday. If you're like me, you didn't do much other than wash the car, feed the ferret and watch Raw. I suspect many of you have just decided you are nothing like me.

"Stop saying 'what' when I say my name. My arms are getting tired."

Nonetheless, Raw was live on Monday from Toronto, Canada. The WWF writing team has been rehashing a lot of memorable bits from old feuds and incorporating them in to the Angle vs. Austin feud. For the most part, it has worked and I've praised them for it. However, on Monday we got to see Kurt Angle snap, kidnap Austin and his new truck (which was described in painstaking detail for what seemed like 20 minutes), take him to a nearby bridge and threaten to throw him off. It was an entertaining bit, but it's the fourth homage to previous feuds we've seen in the last few weeks and I'm tired of it. If the writing team is out of new material, then the WWF should at least hire Vince Russo back since he wrote most of this stuff the first time around. Raw did have it's good side, though, with Christian finally turning on Edge and RVD, Chris Jericho, Rhyno and Jeff Hardy in the main event. Does anyone else think that when we see Hurricane Helms backstage, he should be in his secret identity?

Smackdown Thoughts
Tuesday night was the night to see Smackdown this week since Viacom didn't want the WWF and the MTV music video awards to fight over the 14-25 year olds. That's just fine with me as I thought Smackdown was a very good show. Following Raw, I made a mental note that Christian needs to follow up his heel turn with a good heel promo and Edge needs the night off to sell that vicious chair shot. Both my wishes came true, plus Rob Van Dam beat Austin in the ring. What an unexpected bonus! As much as I think that the WWF writers have dropped the ball on the whole invasion angle, they have booked RVD (who got himself over with the crowd) in all the right matches to make him a star. Now he has one clean win over Steve Austin. Next, he needs to go for a second tier belt like the Intercontinental championship. The WWF will have a brand new star on their hands. Kronic, those big mean looking APA rip offs from WCW, made their debut. I'm always glad to see new faces, but Brian Adams and Bryan Clarke are hardly new. The rest of the show was enjoyable. The overnight rating was 4.6, which is great considering how little notice the WWF was given about the night change and that the overnight rating for last Thursday's Smackdown was 4.8. As always, the final number for the show will be lower once all the results are in.

Tough Enough 2
As announced on Smackdown last night, the WWF has begun accepting applications for the second season of Tough Enough. The contest is open to anyone and you do not have to have any wrestling background. Get your spandex and baby oil ready and go here for all the information.

Another New WWF Show
Sources in the WWF are saying that they will be doing a new show for the WB network in the fall. It will involve a wacky family of all black wrestlers and their nerdy neighbor. Okay, not really. The basic format will be matches and in-studio commentary. Isn't that what Excess is?

Pointless Rant
Speaking of Excess, I have a bone to pick with the WWF. On one hand, the fans are pissed because the show is nothing but a recap of Raw and Smackdown, which they already watched. To this, I say, "duh, the show replaced Livewire and Superstars. What did you expect?" However, the WWF is missing a prime opportunity here. There are so many wrestlers on the WWF roster right now that not all of them get to be on television. The WWF needs to dedicate the two hours of Excess to the really low level wrestlers like WCW used to do with Saturday Night's Main Event. The show gives a chance for people like Crash Holly, Bill Gunn, Bull Buchanan, D-lo Brown, Essa Rios, K-Kwik, Chavo Guerrero, Hugh Morrus, Shawn Stasiak and the rest a chance to have longer matches and build their characters. Plus, since it's on cable late at night, we can see the return of more adult characters like The Godfather and Val Venis. More wrestling plus more mature content will bring in more viewers than WWF reruns. If these guys step up and do a good job, then they get to wrestle on Raw or Smackdown. If the show is successful, then the WWF knows that it can put original programming on Saturday night and people will tune in. Then they can finally launch WCW as a separate promotion. WWF, you have my number. Call me. We'll talk.

That's it for today. Talk to you all on Friday.

Michael Goodson

 

 

 

 

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