Commercial Free Raw

I am pulling a double header tonight baby! For the first time ever in Raw's long history it is presented commercial free. It is all thanks in part of the new Raw owner, Mr. Donald Trump. I am still a little skeptical on him being an owner. The first night should give us a good idea of what the Donald will do with his new investment. Did it win this writer over or fail worse than Mr. McMahon "dying" on Raw? Lets find out:

Raw starts with a rundown of last weeks program. The pyro goes on and out comes the new "owner" Donald Trump. He welcomes us to a new era of Monday Night Raw. Wow Donald is giving every fan in the building a full refund. Crazy! I guess he is gonna be a popular guy in Green Bay. Another man who is popular comes out, Larry's boy, John Cena. He has a match vs The Big Show. I hope its not exactly like every other match they ever had. He rolls a tape of The Miz. I don't mind Miz but can we just get to Miz vs Cena. Miz arrives on the scene. Huge you suck chants towards the Miz. Always have to love the crowd getting into the show. Cena announces Cena vs Miz at the Bash. Thank you Cena. Cena goes on for a while longer. He makes some good points. Miz takes a cheap shot and then runs away. This was a good opener for the show. Im glad Cena and Miz are gonna go at it. Off to a decent start.

Smackdown's announcer team is there as well. Jeff Hardy out now. I guess the writers wanted 2 of the biggest stars of the WWE start the show. First Cena, then Jeff Hardy. 6 man tag. Hardy Kahli, ugh, and Rey vs. Y2J, Ziggler and EDGE!!!!! Woohoo!!! Ok now Im excited. I do not get MyNetwork on my cable system so I watch Smackdown on my laptop through hulu.com. I am always excited to see Smackdown wrestlers on Raw. Punk out to do commentary. The match starts off with some high flying action. First Hardy on all 3 then Rey. Kahli climbs up but is stopped before he can take a leap. The match was very exciting. The bad guys hit some of their finishers but in the end Hardy wins. This match helped every feud going on on Smackdown.

So far Raw's in ring action has been great. Backstage segments have been ok. Trump fired Santina. THANK YOU DONALD!!!

Tag champs out next. Wow WWE gave Carlito and Primo microphones. What? Priceless out next. I must have missed something because they have new music. I didn't notice that last week. Primo vs Rhodes. Tag teams getting some time to develop this feud. The match could have gone a few more mins. Rhodes cheats and grabs the tights to win. Give Legacy the tag belts!

The Last Man Standing match is next. They have a very cool Orton HHH video before it to hype it up some more. I actually did some homework this weekend. I told you last week that these 2 men have had 2 other LMS matches. I decided to watch them both. The 2007 No Mercy match was a quality match. Both men used the announcers table and ringside area. The ending was Orton giving Triple H an RKO on the announcers table. The 2008 Extreme Rules LSM was good but couldnt be great. Before Orton broke his collarbone going over the top rope, the match was well done. Both matches had similarities but also mixed it up. I wondered how the Raw LSM match was going to be different. HHH starts off this match quickly. Again the two men use the ringside area well, even going into the stands. HHH focused on the shoulder while Orton focused on HHH knee. A sweet RKO on the announcer's table. But HHH got up. Orton backed drop on the same table. Again Orton got up. The action spilled up the rampway. Close encounters as the battle worked its way towards the stands again. Triple H ran over some poor bastard with a ladder when Orton ducked. Pretty funny stuff there. Pedigree on the entrance way. Both men couldn't get to their feet. Another Last Man Standing Match ending in a draw. A fantastic match. But...

I hate to say this but I don't care for the WWE pg programming. If this was 4 years ago we would have saw blood. In a match where a chair was used, a TV monitor, the steal steps, and the ring post, someone should have been cut open. Just pisses me off. Plus we hear no1 say 'I'm gonna kick your ass'! Instead we get long promos where wrestlers tell each other to shut up or I'll make you. It just makes wrestlers look weak. I would love for them to go back to be a little more edgier.

Trump out in the ring promo. Trump says he will not use a gm. He says he will use a celebrity to run Raw each week. Out comes the boss Mr. McMahon. They showed a few backstage skits with Vince. He hadn't been having a very good night. Vince wants to buy back Raw. I guess this isn't going to last very long. Trump ends up selling Raw back to Vince for double the money. Well Vince is in charge again I guess. So how was this suppose to help Raw? Trump shows up for 1 week and makes headlines all over the world. In one week its over. Awesome! Pardon me, but this is just f'n stupid. I wanted to see this last a few months or so. This did nothing for Raw because now we are either getting Vince as GM or he elects one. Back to square one.

Vince and Orton backstage. Orton asks Vince to have some decency. Yeah that was gonna work. Vince makes 2 out of 3 falls match for the Bash. HHH vs Orton 1st fall regular match. 2nd fall falls count anywhere. If it gets to a 3rd fall, when does it, is a stretcher match. Now theres something to get excited about. 3 stages of Hell match a match only used once ever I remember correctly. Austin vs HHH at No Way Out in 2001. HHH won but the stipulations were different. First fall was regular match. 2nd a street fight. 3rd was a cage match. HHH and Orton had a cage match last year so I guess the writers decided to change it up.

6 diva tag match. Nothing to point out here, Mickie won. Lets get to the main event: Cena vs Show.

Show out first. Cena out with some new Irish green gear. I love Show utilizing the Spear now. He is a huge man and diving at someone with all your might is a great idea. Show also had another cool spot. Lifting Cena up for a powerbomb and dropped him backwards with Cena landing on his head. Slow and methodical match by Big Show. Cena tries to gain momentum a few times. Cena finally hits a big move. His leg drop off the top rope. Show gains it back with a Chokeslam and a splash off the 2nd rope. The finish was wild and crazy. Show won with the help of the Miz. Show looked to choke out Cena. Cena reversed into the STFU. Miz runs down and Cena breaks the hold. Cena gets Show up for an FU but Miz shoves Show on top of Cena. I wonder what will happen at the Bash? Well lets see everytime a heel gets momentum going into a ppv match with Cena, Cena wins.

Raw goes off the air with Triple H attacking Orton in the parking lot. As we fade away, HHH tells Orton this Sunday you are going to hell. Nice ending.

Raw provided a solid show this week. The in ring action was great. The backstage stuff served a purpose. I am really pissed that this Trump story last a whole 7 days. That is just stupid. Overall though it gave fans a great appetizer leading to the Bash. I will have a Bash prediction blog up on Thursday. Be sure to check that out. Also I have a US Open blog up on BBSD. All kinds of stuff happening this week on BBSD.com. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading.

J Call