Raw: Sloppy booking, appallingly executed

3D

The whole "Battle Royal to Title Shot" thing was AWFUL. Why did they even have a 3 hour show?

It seemed a cool idea in the first place, have the battle royal winner face Cena. But the title match wasn't even the main event!!

Not only that, but if it had been built well over the night, with a 25 minute match payoff, it could have been awesome. But instead, the Battle Royal was mildly entertaining, the title match was ruined by a bad spot on the card and a match that was too short.. and the whole exercise seemed totally pointless.

3D. Wrestling Clique, Monksdiner, JimmyVan and KnowYourNews' Crafty Old Veteran.

The Problem Solver

Yep I totally agree.

WWE really needs to get its act together with regards to booking. I dont know if any one remembers my "formula" post on jimmyvans board a year or so ago.

Im sick of seeing tried and tested means of booking shows. Why can they take some risks and inovate something we as viewers havnt seen before!?

Why do they see the need to "protect" people. I would rather see clean finishes and they odd variation rather than what seems to be the other way around. There is no unpredictability at all any more.

An example of this is Edge starting on the outside of the Battle Royal ... I said to my mate straight away "Edge wins". Stupid booking. Plus if they were going to do what they did anyway they could have let Kenny win it!

Once again we need the "booking wrestling for dummies" book thrown out and someone with some balls and a bit of innovation needs to re-write the manual!!!

Tyler Durden

I didn't see it, so my points are irrelevant!!

One thing that I think is amusing every year is how they seem to do Battle Royals on each show on the build up toward the Rumble. Personally, I think they should leave that well alone. The Rumble is such an awesome match that, if you are ever going to do Battle Royals you should do one in the Summer on Raw. It's just too close to the Rumble for me to be watching (or not watching in my case) Battle Royals five weeks before the Rumble.

I understand why they did certain things on the show. They basically had Edge wrestle three times, over stars twice, it made the show sound like a bigger deal with their smaller roster since it was chiefly big names throughout.

Griff0rd

It is an issue if you have a 3 hour show where one superstar is in a match every hour (Edge). I agree that it had so much potential coming into it, but ended in typical RAW fashion with a pointless main event. At least in WCW they would from time to time have the world title change on Live tv. It seems to all be about building up for each PPV to try and make as much as possible, and in the mean time they are killing off their crowd slowly each week by giving mediocre shows... and in giving these mediocre shows, the PPV product has become about as equally appauling. If you are going to set up a good Mania feud, last night would have been the time for a title change. I don't see UMaga as being a buyable main event... Put the strap on Edge or Orton and have Michaels main event it. But Cena as champ = damaged ratings...

God

Super Moderator

When is the last time the wwe title changed hands on raw? i cant remember any in quite a while.

Mr. WikipediaSpamBot

Edge winning the WWE title in that triple threat match back in July.

God

Super Moderator

what about before that? then we can see how long until another is due

Mr. WikipediaSpamBot

I had to do some quick research, it appears the last time the WWE Championshi changed hands on RAW was October 8, 2001 when Steve Austin defeated Kurt Angle.

You have to remember though that the title was on SmackDown from August 2002 until April 2005.

K Jay

The thing that got most on my nerves about this Raw was the fact that the "Title" bout was actually good, it was just starting to motor into a quality match when the ref bumped, I thought "oh well, interference and then back to normal" but no after the Rko and Pedigree they just stopped. They could have gone another 15 mins, the crowd were hot, the psychology was good and just for a minute I started thinking "hey, Edge could have this". It was'nt just poor booking, it was night killing booking. I had it Tivoed and straight after that I turned off, and I would have done the same watching it live. A lot of people criticised the awards in here when they came back Edge & Cena, but for that 12 mins b4 the run-ins they showed why they are the main event in wrestling right now.

I had a sig, once.

3D

I think K-Jay hit the nail on the head - the most frustrating thing about it is the potential of the situation. The Edge/Cena match was becoming really good, a nice, slow build.. and they screwed it up with predictable, shitty booking. *Yawn*

I agree with Tyler totally too - it is Rumble season, so why bother with a Battle Royal? I admit, the Rumble is different because of the time given between entrances. But even so, totally agree there. I thought that when it was announced, but there we are.

It just shows the state of WWE right now - they're literally on the cusp of having a great product, but muddled booking and a lack of vision has ruined the potential of the product. They're finally starting to produce a new crop of main-eventers for the first time in years (Edge, Cena, Orton, etc) and they keep screwing it up with bad booking decisions. They've even got a bunch of midcard stars that, with the right booking, could go on to main-event, but can't because of the poor booking (Shelton, Carlito, Nitro).. and it's so frustrating!

To their credit, the booking on Smackdown recently has been fairly good. And on Raw, Umaga has been handled pretty much perfectly in terms of building a fairly limited wrestler into a true force. But other than that, the booking on Raw right now is a shambles.

3D. Wrestling Clique, Monksdiner, JimmyVan and KnowYourNews' Crafty Old Veteran.