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Chairshots

9/17/01

Raw Preview
Raw is live tonight from Nashville, TN with only 6 days until Unforgiven. Steve Austin and Kurt Angle are sure to have words with each other in order to build the hype for their match. Will we see some other rip off...I mean "homage" to an old Austin angle or will we see something new?

Just like Smackdown, The Rock is once again taking on Test and Stephanie McMahon which makes no sense since The Rock has a match against Booker T and Shane McMahon this Sunday. Either the WWF writers got the scripts mixed up or you can expect some Booker interference in The Rock's match tonight.

Edge has been off TV since his brother turned on him. He should return to action tonight, as should Kane. Kane has finally recovered from his elbow infection and is probably looking to lay the smack down on Kronic for putting the Undertaker through a table last week. All this plus Stone Cold Steve Austin teams up with Rob Van Dam to take on Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho.

10 Ways to Improve WWF Raw
Slow news week, for obvious reasons, so I figured I'd finally weigh in with a few simple things the WWF can do to keep fans happy and improve the show.

#1 Due to the recent rise in interference and disqualifications, Commissioner Regal is banning all wrestlers from ringside (except managers) for 90 days. This will force the WWF creative team to work a little harder to build heat for feuds.

#2 Along the same lines, Commissioner Regal declares that all matches must end in pin fall or submission for the next 30 days. Any wrestlers that use foreign objects in a non-hardcore title match will be heavily fined. Again, this provides the fans more clean finishes since the creative team can't end every match in a big screw job.

#3 Stop showing the "moments ago" segments after commercial breaks. The WWF started doing that when Nitro was running at the same time and fans switched back and forth between the two shows. Now the fans were all watching "moments ago" and you're just boring them.

#4 No match on Raw can be under four minutes. I'm so tired of two minute matches with screw job endings.

Meow.

#5 Less X-pac, Albert, Billy Gunn, Big Show, Test and Saturn. More Tajiri, Raven, Chavo, Hurricane and full female frontal nudity.

#6 Provide a good explanation as to why WCW and ECW are still invading the WWF and why the WWF continues to let them be on television at all.

#7 Ok, this idea is a little out there, but...In every other sport the announcers talk about a team or player's stats. "Team A is on a 3 game winning streak" or "Player B is close to a new world record." Why not do the same thing with wrestling? Wouldn't one wrestler interfering in another wrestler's match cause more excitement if it meant that a 12-win winning streak had been broken? It also gives more reason to hate the heel wrestlers because you know they cheat just to pad their stats. It's not the best idea I ever had, but it could work.

#8 No McMahon can speak on camera for more than four minutes per week combined. From Raw to Smackdown, each McMahon gets four minutes of speaking time to cut promos, do backstage skits or whatever, but no more than four minutes! Wrestling is about wrestlers and the good wrestlers are never going to learn to talk if someone else is always doing it for them.

#9 Never mention Debra's cookies again. If you've been watching long enough, then you know that the cookies started out as a simple joke, but it has snowballed in to this giant "HERE COMES DEBRA'S COOKIE SEGMENT OF THE WEEK" thing. Enough already.

#10 World Title defenses should happen only on pay-per-views. I'll get flack for this, but the title should really only be defended once (maybe twice) a month. Having a title defense every week ruins the excitement of a pay-per-view. Isn't it more thrilling to buy a pay-per-view if you know the title may change hands that night, rather than the next night on Raw? This makes room in the main event for those mid-card wrestlers that need to be elevated.

I guess we will see how Raw does tonight. Tune in Wednesday for more pointless ranting.

Michael Goodson

 

 

 

 

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