TVgasm Recaps

This weeks’ Monday Night RAW took place in Gund Arena in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. I grew up in c-bus, so seeing The Gund on TV was something of a homecoming for me. Meaning the crowd was filled with fat, pasty-white Midwesterners. (Man, I miss having funnel-cake pancakes for breakfast.)

Tonight’s episode was centered around respect. John Cena didn’t respect Eric Bischoff. Shelton Benjamin didn’t respect Eric Bischoff. The people of Cleveland didn’t respect Chris Jericho, the self-proclaimed “Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rolla”. Nobody respects the mullet. But by night’s end, you wouldn’t be able to swing a dead cat without it getting covered in crunchy kibbles of respect.

(Before I get started on this week’s recap, I just wanted to say a special thanks to everyone who left comments last week. The response was positive enough that J-Unit and B-Side have agreed to make this a weekly gig. Hopefully, B-Side will soon regale us with heroic tales of his WWE internship…)

Tonight’s very special episode took place at the Mohegan Sun Arena. Evidently, as Kurt Angle would point out later in the evening, the Mohegan Sun is located on an Indian reservation. It’s good to see the Native Americans haven’t been seduced by the white man’s love for sports entertainment.

Ah, the sacrifices I make for my 5-9 regular TVgasm readers. (You know who you are.) Two-plus hours spent watching and taking notes from my Tivoed RAW. Seven Rolling Rocks. One-plus vicodin. Three-plus snark-filled hours of hunt-and-peck. All to bring you this crap:

Tonight kicked off with the second stop of the Eugene Invitational tour. As RAW was broadcasting from Pittsburgh, PA, the audience wondered who Eugene's "Hometown Hero" opponent could possibly be? H.J. Heinz? Andy Warhol? Jimmy Stewart? Unfortunately, they're all dead, so we had to settle for Kurt Angle. (We can only imagine how cool it would have been to see Andy Warhol's reanimated corpse shuffle into the squared circle...)

When it comes to the WWE, there are three things you can count on: the episode before a big PPV will suck, as they're resting all the superstars for their big PPV matches; the episode after a big PPV will suck, as the superstars are all recovering from their big PPV matches; and finally, any week of Smackdown will suck, as it's just plain horrible. (A custody battle storyline between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio? Jebus! Just hand little Dominick over to the Mexicools and be done with it.)

Unfortunately for us, tonight's episode took place one week before SummerSlam, the WWE's second-biggest PPV, so the writers were scrambling to finalize storylines, which meant every segment had to have a message of some sort.

Don't believe me? Then how else to explain Shawn Michaels' inexplicable 16-minute message to open the show? If you've ever wondered if it were possible to stop a show before it even starts, tonight you learned the answer is yes, if that show is opened by the Showstopper, Shawn Michaels. During his bizarre set, HBK gave the Montreal crowd (which really seemed to hate HBK) a version of the Canadian national anthem that made Roseanne's version of ours sound like a pre-crack Whitney. He also continually insulted Canada (not a good move when the crowd already hates you), and twice faked out the audience, first by playing Bret "The Hitman" Hart's intro music, then later playing Hulk Hogan's intro music. Oh, and he stripped.

First off, let me apologize for not covering this weekend's SummerSlam PPV. There are a couple of reasons for this, not the least of which is the wife frowns upon my actually paying to watch wrestling. To make matters worse, after a sunny afternoon spent fence-building and beer-drinking, I was too summer-hammered to try and sweet-talk mrs. copygodd into letting me watch a PPV.

Okay, with that awkward admission of my whipped state out of the way, let's get to the recapping... As is usually the case following a big PPV, tonight's show began with more questions than answers: What would the fallout be from Hogan's defeat of HBK? Would winning his Olympic gold medal back mellow Kurt Angle any? Which wrestler would be the object of Coach's latest man-crush?

So, how was your Labor Day weekend? Yeah, I know that question's a day late, but then so's this week's recap. But at least I have an excuse: Monday night the wife and I went up to see Tori Amos play Red Rocks. She makes me swoon. (Tori and the wife.) Okay, enough swooning...

Monday's ep started off with another lame match between Kurt Angle and Eugene, the WWE's living, breathing After-School Special. Honestly, I haven't seen a 'tard get beat this badly since TVgasm went after Rosie O. (Of course, the time they went after her movie Riding The Bus With My Sister was pretty rough, too.) You knew right away that Kurt was going to win, as Jim Ross never once mentioned Eugene's "freakish strength." With no freakish strength at which to marvel, the highlight of this match had to be Angle's freakish new red white and blue mouthpiece. While on paper a tri-colored mouthguard sounds like a cool idea, in reality, it just looked like Kurt was sucking on a Bomb-Pop during the entire match. After making Eugene tap out to the Ankle Lock, Kurt refused to let go, which prompted John Cena to run out and protect his special friend. And what did Cena get in return? A special boot to the face from Kurt's new special friend, Tyson Tomko. Coach exclaimed that Tomko "took Cena's head clean off" although subsequent replays showed that Cena's head never actually left his body.

Tonight’s RAW kicked off in a big way with the Big Show taking on Edge. Big Show was having his way with the smaller Edge until Snitsky, Show's opponent at this Sunday's Unforgiven PPV, interfered. Not one to be outdone by a toe-sniffing perv like Snitsky, Matt Hardy rushed the ring and attacked Edge. Not one to be outdone by a no-talent ass-clown like Matt Hardy, Eric Bischoff then stopped the match and made a tag match between Edge and Snitsky versus Big Show and Matt Hardy. The match is okay, but the commentary is definitely top-notch. Case in point: JR asks "Where else can you find the athleticism, the drama and the impact you find here every Monday night?" King adds, "Don't forget the action, adventure and a little humor thrown in every now and then." Coach then butts in with, "And the homoeroticism. Don't forget the homoeroticism." "Oh yeah," the other announcers agree. "We can't forget the homoeroticism." Later, when Big Show drops Edge on the family jewels, Coach points out the distraught look on Lita's face, explaining "she knows what's coming -- or not coming -- in a little while." (Finally, some non-gay commentary from the Coach. Although it was still centered around the output of Edge's thingy.) Eventually, Edge takes out the Big Show with his metal briefcase, and Matt Hardy loses. Again. To add insult to injury, Lita kicks him in the nuts before delivering Matt's own finishing move, the Twist of Fate. Then she pees on him.

I wish I couldn't see them.

Tonight marked the end of RAW's five-year run on Lifetime for Men, otherwise known as Spike TV. And what a long, strange five years it's been. I just hope that the show's return to the USA Network means a return to the RAW of old. Because tonight's episode would've been more at home on my local cable access channel.

Vince McMahon opens the show by promising a championship match, but first he has a few announcements to make. He starts by thanking Spike TV for five great years. And how does Spike repay him? But bleeping out ten seconds of his speech, then continuing to censor the show throughout the rest of the broadcast. Jebus, who's running Spike's dump button? Pig Vomit? I kept expecting JR to starting enunciating "W-ENNNN-B-C." Audio dropouts, "Technical Difficulties" screens, you name it, if there were a way for Spike to ruin the broadcast, they tried it. Unfortunately, if they really wanted to ruin it, all they needed to do was let the show run uninterrupted. Yes, it was that bad.

So, did you guys catch Prison Break tonight? Man, that show has it all: prison family values, the ever-present threat of butt-rape and a character named TeaBag. Of course, RAW isn't without its own share of deviants, but still... something about setting the show in a prison run by Stacey Keach as the tough-but-fair warden with a heart of gold just makes Prison Break seem so much more real than professional wrestling.

Since tonight's ep was three-plus hours, and since I got a late start because I couldn't tear myself away from TeaBag and the boys (as Dave Barry would say, that would make a great name for a rock band), I'm going to attempt a non-live liveblog of Homecoming. Of course, considering how late it already is, I still may not post it till tomorrow morning, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Tonight's show opened with the only things in the WWE more fake than the wrestling: Stephanie McMahon's boobs. Not only have they grown exponentially since she was last a featured player on the show, her voice has gone to hell as well. Did they use her vocal cords for added breast perkiness? Anyway, seems Steph's a little upset that the WWE.com voters said she was their favorite Stunnee. Evidently, everyone is just jealous of her. Women hate her because of her body, and the fact that she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. (Guess that explains the voice.) Men are intimidated by her because she has bigger balls than they do. To prove her point, when one of the crew gives her the "Wrap It Up" signal, she slaps the headphones off his head. With her balls.

In case you'd forgotten, last week's episode ended with Linda McMahon firing JR, arguably the best announcer in WWE history. But in case you did forget, that's okay, because tonight's RAW kicked off with a video recap of the whole painful event, ending with Linda McMahon stiff-legging JR in the balls.

Vince then comes out and immediately starts hyping the Taboo Tuesday PPV. He tells the crowd he personally challenged Eric Bischoff to come up with something innovative and groundbreaking. In other words, something totally unlike RAW.

Since it's Halloween, the Coach and Jerry Lawler are wearing costumes: Coach is dressed as Conrad McMasters from Walker: Texas Ranger, while the King is dressed as himself. I don't know which is scarier. Wait a minute, Coach is actually dressed as a Stone Cold redneck. Okay, I still don't know which is scarier, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need another beer.

Eddie Guerrero passed away on Sunday, November 13th. He was 38 years old. He is survived by his wife Vickie and daughters Shaul, 14, Sherilyn, 9, and Kaylie Marie, 3. The cause of death has not been determined.

Tonight's show opens with Eric Bischoff standing in the middle of the ring. He looks a tad upset. Coach says Eric's been that way all day. Why is he being such a Gloomy Gus? Is it because Team RAW lost last night at Survivor Series? Because he lost last night at Survivor Series? Or because he's missing the Indianapolis/Pittsburgh game on Monday Night Football? You make the call.

Tonight's episode started with a recap of the Trial of Eric Bischoff. It's done just like an episode of The People's Court, complete with music and graphics, except there's no Rusty. That's probably because Rusty died back in 2002. However, judging by the Katie Vick storyline RAW presented a few years back, they're certainly not above digging up a corpse if it'll get a few cheap laughs. Fortunately for Rusty (and us), they decided not to cross that line this time. Otherwise Vince would've spent the night pulling various items from the decomposed back-porch of America's favorite bailiff.