The Katz Files – Arnie Katz
My Weekly RAW Notebook
The Kingfish Arnie Katz wrestles with some of the major issues raise by the 10/12 episode of WWE’s Monday night TV show.
Bragging Rights
Since the interval between pay per view events is so short this time, WWE went into overdrive to rev up for Bragging Rights. The show features a seven-on-seven melee between representatives of RAW and Smackdown.
The attempt to build excitement was somewhat frustrated by the absence of Shawn Michaels. Hey tried to cover it with comedy, and a lame excuse, but it further trivialized a match that’s already more or less meaningless. No one’s going to buy the idea that the team that wins the match proves that their show is better; one thing doesn’t really connect to the other.
I give Triple H an “E” for effort, but really, could one guy doing a tag team intro be any more ludicrous? They should have made HHH the sole captain and then, next week, added Michaels if they felt they needed it for some down-the-road booking idea.
Big Show’s angle had a dreadful ring of familiarity to it. Fans can only hope that we won’t have to see Big Show strip off his RAW jersey to reveal a Smackdown shirt.
Big Show & Chris Jericho
The match told an interesting story, even though it may’ve been laud on too thick. Big Show didn’t try to hurt his partner, while Jericho was less reticent.
Given the weird RAW, with so many performers working two and three times in and out of the ring, it’s hard to tell whether the it was a tease of their eventual break-up or just a space-filling piece of nothing.
The split seems inevitable. They are both singles competitors. Big Show’s drawing power is debatable, but Chris Jericho main events have filled many arenas. WWE needs them back in the heavyweight division, so I wouldn’t expect their tag team reign to last much longer.
WWE has always liked small man versus big man – Savage-Hogan and Michaels-Undertaker are examples – so they probably will go ahead and have a babyface Big Show battle Chris Jericho. We might also see Big Show and a returning Edge team against Chris Jericho and maybe Kane.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back Sunday with a fresh installment of the Internet’s fastest-rising pro wrestling column. I hope you’ll join me then and, please, bring your friends.
— Arnie Katz
Executive Editor
Crossfire4@cox.net
(10/15/09)