The John Report: The Raw Deal for Sept. 7/09 ("The Price is Raw" with Bob Barker!)

Welcome to the Raw Deal. I'll do the usual rundown of Raw (it will be shorter than my norm) and I was going to write a Breaking Point preview, but I don't have the time for it, so I'll include it in Saturday's Talking Smack column. Last week in the Raw Deal after the end of a good show I asked the following question: Is Raw finally headed in the right direction or is this an aberration? Let's see if we got our answer.

Live from Chicago here's the Raw Deal…

I have always been a huge Price is Right fan. I remember watching it all the time in the summer. Then during the school year when I was sick or skipping class I always made sure I watched it. I don't think I've seen it with Drew Carey more than five times. It's definitely the game show I would most want to be on although maybe Wheel of Fortune because you've got a 1 in 3 chance of winning there and if you're not a moron it'd be easier to make big money. Then again you're guaranteed to win something on a show like Millionaire or Deal or No Deal, so either one of those would be fine too.

The Price is Raw
We start with Bob Barker as the host coming out to the Price is Right theme. Awesome. I loved everything about this. The skinny microphone, the area for the contestants, the cheesy announcing with Howard Finkel and did you hear that ovation Bob good? That was awesome. Having Santino as a contestant ruled complete with him slipping. I was a fan of Jillian jumping up and down. She's tremendous until she talks. Getting IRS out there was good, cheesy fun and Jericho played his role perfect. I was amazed at the nametag sticking on his bare chest. There were a lot of good lines here like when Bob said he liked Jillian's singing, then mentioned he was tone deaf and Santino calling him "Roberto" was awesome. I loved the Jericho/Barker interaction. "Oh, he speaks!" The part about Jericho bidding one dollar because he said "one half of the tag champs" was corny, but again I thought it was fun. All this led to Jericho having a match. This took about ten minutes. I enjoyed it. Lots of mark out moments for me as a Price is Right fan.

MVP d. Chris Jericho (**1/4)
Much like last week, they were given a fair amount of time at about 10 minutes, but it just didn't work as well as last week. I don't know what it was. The timing seemed to be off a bit and some of MVPs offense didn't look that great. It did get better in the final two or three minutes as they hit some good nearfalls. The finish with MVP winning works with me. It's similar to Jericho losing to JTG on a rollup counter last month before that PPV match. It was fine. Good to see two weeks in a row with MVP matches. I wonder what happens next week after they lose at the PPV and he's on his own again.

They aired a lot of local ads for Raw in Toronto next week. They almost always sold out in the past. Not anymore. I'm tempted to go, but at this point I'm not sure. All depends if I can get free tickets. I think by Sunday I'll be able to score free ones.

More Barker time with a very awkward conversation with Kelly Kelly, who is old enough to be his great granddaughter. Yes, he's that old. Anyway, DX came in and did their usual dick jokes that aren't as obvious anymore because it's PG. They had this really lame wheel. They pushed a button and the names of their opponents came up. "I've got two words for you: Spin it," said Bob. Okay, that one was really cheesy. The first opponent was Chris Masters, who Triple H buried by talking about his bad hair plugs. Do you think HHH will let somebody make fun of him? Of course not. Then the second partner was Orton. Oh great, HHH and Orton in the same match. Haven't seen that in two weeks.

Evan Bourne d. Chavo Guerrero (3/4*)
If Chavo won he would get a Corvette. The highlight of this was that Hornswoggle wasn't in a match. He did appear, of course, to spray Chavo in the face with a water gun to allow Bourne to roll him up for the pin. In other words, Bourne couldn't beat Chavo on his own. He only won because of Horny. Way to put over your actual wrestlers, Vince. What's Chavo's record on Raw in 2009? He's the new Horowitz.

Before his match, Cody Rhodes cut a promo saying that even though he had a good dad, he didn't help him as much as Randy Orton has helped him. I actually liked the speech. It shows that Cody's loyal to Randy no matter what happens, which will be key in the storyline when Ted turns face in two or three months prior to The Marine 2 coming out.

John Cena d. Cody Rhodes via DQ (**)
They threw to commercial about 30 seconds in, then they got a good amount of time to finish it up. I thought for sure Cena was going over clean. Then when Orton came in for the DQ I was actually happy because I don't think it would do much good to have Cody lose clean here considering Legacy has barely won much of anything for two months. It was nice to see them actually go for submissions. I wasn't a fan of Cena busting out the shoulderblocks after Cody was working on his shoulder, though. That's not good selling. Still, the actual match was fine for what it was, so no real complaints here.

Next Monday Batista is back for a "career altering announcement." I have no idea what it is although I'm guessing that he will come out, act as if he's about to retire and then somebody will say or do something to change his mind. Probably Orton. Survivor Series is in his hometown of Washington and he's due back around that time.

More Price is Right with White Sox catcher AJ Pierzynski as the fourth competitor joining Santino, IRS and Jillian. Some in the crowd booed him because they were Cubs fans, then he taunted them with his World Series ring. That was funny. The next item was a WrestleMania travel package, which makes no sense for a wrestler to win. I'm not even going to break into the lack of logic there. Just roll with it. I liked Barker calling saying Santino's name as if he said "Santinyo." Santino won, then celebrated and got a chance to win a hot tub, which had the Bella Twins in it. Hey, finally found a use for the twins! He wins it if he wins a bodyslam challenge.

Out came Big Show. He slammed Santino pretty easily. The unintentional comedy of the night came here with Barker wondering who won. I guess he didn't see. It took the ref raising Big Show's hand about 20 seconds after the actual finish for Bob to realize what happened. It was hilarious…at least to me. Barker had wanted more bodyslams, so out came Mark Henry against Big Show in the challenge. What they did last week was better than this week, but the crowd ate it up when Henry slammed him. I would have preferred to see Henry & MVP in an actual tag match considering they've only tagged once before, but this is WWE where not teams exist, so I guess this is what they had to do.

Josh Matthews sat down with Bob as he told stories. Old people love telling stories.

Next week Trish Stratus is hosting Raw. HELL YES! Easily my favorite woman ever and also one of my favorite people ever in wrestling. She's not just hot. She's a genuinely good person who I'll always have a lot of respect. Now, while I am excited to see her it should be noted that she's really thin due to all the yoga she does. What I liked about her before was that she wasn't the super thin model type. She had the curves that I loved. I do like the brown hair, though. It'll be good to see her back.

A cheesy segment was next with Barker hitting a karate chop on Chavo. This was more ridiculous than Vince knocking out Carlito a couple weeks ago. Apparently old guys that are double the age of the guys they are fighting against have superhuman strength. I can't wait to knock out dudes when I'm 84. If I make 84. This was the end of Bob for the night. Kudos to him. I'm surprised he was able to stay awake for that long.

Degeneration X d. Randy Orton & Chris Masters (**1/4)
The DX intro was their typical long routine. I do laugh my ass off at HBK running around the ring with the microphone before he gets tired and gives it to Hunter. That's a funny gag even though we've seen it a lot. The Siegfried & Roy reference? Not so good. I'm sure all the children in the audience got the gay references. Moving along to the match, they didn't do a whole lot of submission attempts, other than Masters' Masterpiece, which of course wasn't going to win the match. Including him in the match gave away the finish immediately. That tells me that they're really protective of the guys in Legacy because they didn't want Dibiase tapping out here. That's smart booking. Ending the match with Michaels getting Masters to tap with the figure four leglock while HHH had Orton in the Sharpshooter (WTF?) was the satisfying ending the fans wanted. I wonder if Michaels will go for a Sharpshooter in Montreal. I guess that's why they'll probably work backstage to avoid the boos and chants that he might get in Montreal.

Post match, DX fought with Legacy in the backstage area with the highlight being Legacy stealing a dude's car ("Hey that's my car!") to get away. Isn't that a crime especially on camera? Where are the fake cops that are actually wrestlers that don't know how to act? Then the camera shifted back to ringside where Orton spoke about how Legacy and he would win on Sunday. That brought out Cena. They brawled a bit, Orton hit him with his awesome DDT off the middle ropes spot that I love and then finished him off with the RKO on the seated chair. It was a cool visual although it was done better two years ago (thanks to somebody sending me a youtube clip of it, to be honest). Still, a good ending to the show with Orton standing strong for the second week in a row. He's not winning on Sunday, though.

Three Stars of the Show
1. Chris Jericho – Loved the way he interacted with Barker and put MVP over clean.
2. Bob Barker – He was terrific. Threatening Jericho was a highlight.
3. Santino – Man, this guy really makes me laugh when they don't overdo it with him (like the brutal Santina character).

Rating: 6 (out of 10)
Last week: 7

It wasn't a bad show at all although I could see some people hating it too. Raw fans are very polarizing. It's either really good or really shitty. I think I'm one of those people that thinks of it as being average most of time while rarely being very good like Smackdown is. The last Smackdown was awesome. The last Raw, the best one I reviewed in a long time, was very good. There's a difference. Raw doesn’t have the show stealing matches that you will remember for more than a day. They have a lot more promos (none of them were that bad this week) and way more comedy (it was above average for the most part.

Bob Barker was a lot of fun. He is probably my second favorite of the guest hosts (that's not a former WWE employee) behind Shaq, who will have a hard time being topped for me. I have no idea if he watched WWE before or if he could name more than five wrestlers off the top of his head. It didn't matter. He made it work because he's Bob F'N Barker and the people love him.

I'm disappointed that there was no Mickie James on the show as well as no sign of Kofi Kingston or any mention of the US title. It's stupid to leave Kofi off PPVs. He's a good worker that the crowd genuinely likes, so leaving him off is detrimental to the show. It's been multiple PPVs now. The guy deserves better. I would have been fine with Kofi vs. Miz for the US title, or Kofi vs. Swagger. It's not like the PPV is loaded with matches.

The biggest slight on the show was the lack of promotion for the Breaking Point PPV on Sunday. I doubt it's going to generate that many buys. I think Cena/Orton has been built up alright. However, for a two month feud it's nowhere near the genuine heat that Punk/Hardy had. The DX/Legacy stuff seems like a cheap way to get Legacy a cheap victory. I don't even know if they're winning, but they probably should. Fans are not going to react to the submissions because they've barely been used. It was going to have a low amount of buys to begin with. The lack of a better build isn't going to help any.

Thoughts from the Facebook friends aka Comment-Fest
Here are some random thoughts from some of my facebook friends (just head to Facebook.com/thejohnreport) after I asked for some comments about the show. I will put some additional, usually very sarcastic comments of my own when necessary in brackets following the quotation marks:

"SKINNY MIC HELL YA!!"

"Ok, Irish guy here... who the fuck is this guy? Is this one of these things where Vince thinks this is the best ever, yet the rest of the world is going WHA? Way to market to THE REST OF THE WORLD Vince..." (See, not everybody loved Bob!)

"Bob Barker got a bigger crowd pop than most of the faces on Raw."

"IRS? This is easily the best opening segment since the Guest GMs started."

"Name tag on a bare chest. Brilliant. Raw isn't Price is Right. Raw is Jericho."

"How did Chris Jericho's name tag stay on his chest with all that oil and sweat?" (Glue.)

"Top moment in Smackdown history. When HHH went back to Raw." (That was pretty random and had nothing to do with this show, but I liked it so it's in.)

"Come on Bob, this is Chicago. The only thing we bid on here are senate seats."

"Santino came out like a real contestant, fell down and truly seems amped about being there he is so funny...awesome at his character."

"MVP vs Jericho needs to be given 12-15 minutes. Let's see how close Raw can get, without going over." (Price is Right humor works.)

"At least Trish Stratus host next week. Giggity Giggity!!!" (Again, pretty random, but I like it.)

"I wonder how many of Cena's "Fans" know Bob Barker hosted the Price is Right."

"I just saw a sign that says "Big Show ate my kids"...awesome."

"Breaking Point! AKA the ppv that wwe has no idea what they're doing with."

"Plinko Chip on a Pole match, anyone?" (On Raw? That's nuts. Save it for WrestleMania.)

"WHAT?!?! Y2J lost a fictional trip to Hawaii! Damn you WWE!"

"Wait, did I just see continuity from last week's raw between MVP and Jericho? And the announcers pointed it out? I'm baffled."

"(spits his water) MVP won clean over Jericho!? Must have been Vince's day off!"

"So we have The Kool-Aid Man and The Mini Kool -Aid Powder Packet (Henry/MVP) vs The Incredible Grape/Blueberry and Y2J (Big Show/Jericho) for the Unified Tag Team Championship. What the hell food item is Chris going to be this Sunday at Breaking Point? A Sour Patch Kid?" (Oh, the intrigue.)

"HAIR PLUGS!!!! Seriously...look to your left... how can you make a hair loss joke."

"Megan Fox in her underwear FTW! I don't care that it has nothing to do with Raw." (I agree.)

"YAY CHAVO VS HORNSWAGGLE! LETS ALL LAUGH AT CHAVO! God damnit. (See, everybody loves it.)

"WAIT A MINUTE! WHERE'S HORNSWOGGLE!? I WANT MY MONEY BACK!" (I told you!)

"OMG I've never been happier to see EVAN BOURNE!!!!"

"No Chavo vs. Horny tonight? I'm slightly concerned...Bob must have mistaken Hornswoggle for a shih tzu and took him to get neutered."

"I just wish one week King would say, 'You know what Cole, you're a Vintage Fuck stick!'"

"I thought Cody did good on the mic...considering he normally doesn't get that much time."

"Took an hour and 5 min to say vintage tonight."

"Does Cole even know what Vintage is??"

"SUPER Cena again ... nice selling Cena after a lengthy armbar then hit 2 shoulder blocks." (I agree. Hated that too.)

"Wow AJ Pierzynski has come up in the world. A few years ago he was only good enough to be part of a TNA angle."

"Trip to Wrestlemania huh? The panel should have been Swagger, Carlito, Bourne and Kofi." (But not Hornswoggle. He'll be in the main event.)

"Santinyo much?"

"Santineeo has to slam Grimace!!! Yes!!!"

"Anyone else ready for their Mickie James fix? (Yes. Then we got nothing.)

"Yes the bellas look veddy niiice tonight. I like. How much?" (Borat references will always make it here. I love that man.)

"For a show that keeps plugging priceless memories, you'd think someone would remember to plug the next PPV."

"TRISH! John C. just creamed himself. Hope he can still write the column." (Thanks for posting, Trish. I'll be the stalker in the third row next week.)

"Nice to see the US Title scene will be completely ignored at another PPV. "

"Barker chop....the most devastating move in wwe history!" (He's so old that it would be classified as vintage, I think.)

"Chavo has had more tv time tonight than MVP, Swagger, and Kofi combined. Then he got Happy Gilmore'd by Bob Barker. Eddie would be so proud."

"Are you ready? NO I SAID ARE YOU REEAADYY....for 40 plus year old men with glow sticks." (Available at wweshop.com)

"Dude hbk was skipping…really he was...rebels don't skip." (You're right. They prance.)

"HHH just primed us with a "get ready to suck it", then Shawn said to "suck it" if we weren't in agreeance with that. So who's sucking who's what? This, all after Trips called Shawn a White Tiger...cute. Vintage physique Chris Masters."

"God, get HHH turned so I am supposed to hate as much as I do now."

"Randy Orton with probably the best drop kick ever." (It's nice, yeah.)

"Cole said Chris Masters is on a role since returning...so how is a loss to MVP on Raw, a loss to Evan Bourne on Superstars and a tag loss tonight to DX considered being on a role...vintage Masters for jobbing to everyone since returning!"

"No Mickie, no Miz, & virtually no DiBiase....but CHRIS MASTERS in the Main Event? I personally have nothing against the guy, but WTF?!?" (Hey, Masters is a vintage loser. Don't forget it.)

"I really liked how they continue to build the momentum for MVP and Kool Aid man...Didn't like how Hogan 2.0 seems to always keep winning on Raw like Vince cannot have his golden boy lose..."

"Hey Vince, way to promote your submissions based pay per view; HBK made a jobber thats not even on the card submit with a weak looking figure 4. That will make me want to spend $50 this Sunday."

"Can I go to bed now..." (Thanks for posting on my wall, Bob Barker. I'm sorry that you had to stay up past your 8pm bed time.)

That's it. Good selection as always. Thanks for the participation.

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Smell ya later,
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