Monday Night Raw -- April 22, 2008

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April 22, 2008 -- Vince McMahon Saves Democracy

Boy, do I have egg on my face. Ken Kennedy is coming back NEXT week. I was wrong. SORRY.

Theme of the week: Leave the Promos for the Pros. Are we fighting a war in Iraq so that the presidential candidates can make asses of themselves?

WWE Books Two Matches That Actually Entertain

Y2J defeats MVP. Typical Y2J match - good one-upmanship, a few near falls, some clever counters, nice back and forth and a series of false finishes to a victory. This guy can put on a good match with anybody...except, apparently, Umaga, if you saw their stink-fest last week.

Next, CM Punk defeats Matt Hardy. Another good match -- nothing new from Hardy or Punk. Great, GREAT finish...Punk goes for the GTS, Hardy counters into a type of victory roll which Punk counters into a sit-down cover for the pin. JR kinda buries Punk though. At one point, he said Punk is an MMA "aficionado," when for the better part of two years, ECW built him up as an expert in Muay Thai, an EXTREMELY aggressive form of kickboxing. In just two seconds, JR makes CM Punk look like a poser.

RAW Staff Suffers Collective Bout of Insanity; Lameness Ensues

Some insanity with presidential candidates beating each other up in the SD! vs RAW video game. Then JBL flaps his gums with the same old promo, although he adds a nice little catchphrase -- "I don't make news...I am news."

Then Khali has a match with Finlay (wha...?). JR says this match is India vs Ireland. Say what?? Is this a cricket match?? Oh, yea, I see how he was confused, as crickets were the only thing I heard from the audience. Long story short, Finlay sells all of Khali's stink and wins via DQ. Khali oozes boring-ness. SNOOZE.

Big Show comes out, pops the crowd and runs off Khali. Prediction: Show beats Khali in a squash at Backlash.

Next Regal beat poor Hornswoggle to set up a match against Finlay. More on this in my RAW ReWrite ^TM

Showmanship Returns

HBK and Batista put on an intense, psychological promo. No new development, but great staging and Batista no-sells HBK's feigned super-kick, then laughs it off and walks right into HBK as he leaves the ring. HBK does nothing and looks LIVID. Tension mounting. Is HBK scared of Batista???

Clinton Stinks Up the Joint

Hillary Clinton stinks up the joint with a "real" promo. TRAIN WRECK. She was wooden, staged and corny. Worse than the worst Matt Striker / Big Daddy V promo. Did Mike Adamle write her script? Pathetic.

Cody Comes Alive!

Carlito picks up a meaningless win over Hardcore Holly, which makes no sense to me. I guess it was finally time for Cody to come alive. He popped the fans BIG TIME when he smacked Santino with the mic. In three more years, he'll be main-eventing, no doubt.

Leave the Promos for the Pros

HHH puts on a great promo, as always. Takes a page out Benoit's book when he tells his opponents "prove me wrong." Hmmm...

Downward Spiral

We got Y2J losing to CM Punk in the best match of the night. It's interesting to note that Y2J and Hardy each popped the crowd way more than Punk. This just shows that CM Punk isn't over enough to win the gold, which doesn't bode well for the money-in-the-bank shot. But then again, he spent most of the last two years on ECW, and since nobody watches ECW, nobody knows that this guy's awesome.

Now here's where I lost interest in the show. Obama gives a stinker promo, very very canned, totally reading off cue cards, same bad puns...ridiculous. I smell what Barak is cooking...and it smells like roody-poo, candy ass!

Next we have Regal beat Finlay with a wicked "Regal Stretch," which Finlay sold like a champ. Ref had to stop the match because Finlay couldn't respond at all. He had this blank look on his face, like he was totally out of it. Too bad the rest of the match was stinker.

Leave the Promos for the Pros

More stink with John McCain delivering more canned, wooden, corny stuff. My wife was totally freaked when she heard this guy. She asked me if he had suffered a stroke at some point. The only thing that would've made this promo worthwhile was if McCain finished by saying "ya whippersnapper." Leave the promos for the pros. PLEASE.

Then Cena comes on and cuts a tight, tight promo. He rips on Orton, rips on JBL, tells us how he takes nothing for granted but he'll make damn sure that he's going to make the other three earn the title. How could you hate this guy? I don't get it...

More insanity with some shtick about the candidates. If you watched the match, the woman playing Hillary took some pretty intense bumps, which impressed me.

Next came the women in full force. This was actually a rare, good skit! Good mic work from Mickie, Beth and then a schmazz. Hot stuff. Do I sense some women stables shaping up?

Less Get-Down, More Letdown

Regal beats Punk for the King of the Ring. WHAT A LETDOWN. Ugh...good thing the King of the Ring is totally meaningless, or I'd be very disappointed.

Which brings us to the main event. Eight-way tag match with Undertaker, Kane, HHH, and Cena against RKO, JBL, Chavito and Edge. Before we start, Orton cuts a promo that shows, again, that this guy has ZERO charisma. But he's a hell of an in-ring performer.

Nice little match. Undertaker starts off with vintage arm twist from the middle of the top rope on Edge. Mayhem erupts, and we go to a really poorly timed commercial break.

Here's the rundown of the match:

Chavito's in the ring with HHH. He misses a two count and tags in Edge. HHH hits Edge with a spinebuster, then tags Cena. Cena delivers a side slam to Edge, calls for the five knuckle shuffle but gets taken over the top rope by Chavito. Orton tags in, kicks Cena while Edge is holding him. JBL tags in and hits a side Russian leg sweep into a two-count. Hard punches to Cena in a corner. A big boot to Cena. A lariat to Cena into a two count.

Then Edge tags in. JBL holds Cena while Edge throws punches until the ref breaks it up. More offence on Cena from JBL, Edge and Orton. Cena gets free and collides with Orton in a mid-ring collision. They're both down for 7, but they manage to tag Chavito and Kane. All hell breaks out in the ring. It's full on schmazz.

Chavito pokes Kane in the eye and tries to jump him, but Kane catches him, choke slams him and goes for the cover. Out of nowhere, Edge spears Kane and covers Kane for the victory.

After the match, Cena hits an FU on Edge. Then HHH takes down Cena. JBL and Orton come into the ring, but Undertaker hits a double choke slam to put the kibosh on them. Good ending.

RAW ReWrite

This show had so many non-sensical things, I don't know where to start. What are the presidential candidates doing giving promos to little kids and apathetic males? Makes no sense.

What's the point of an eight-man tag match? Why is Khali still around? Why am I still typing if nobody's reading?

But the icing on the cake: Regal as King of the Ring.

Huh? What is Regal going to do as King of the Ring that he can't do now? He's RAW GM...How does being KOR do anything for the character?

Here's my rewrite. Finlay goes over on Regal, then Punk beats Finlay for King of the Ring. Punk needs the rub. He's an awesome talent but he needs more exposure to lend credibility to his money-in-the-bank triumph and establish himself as a legit contender.

That way, Punk can go to whatever angle they want him to do. Regal and Finlay start their own angle, and it goes like this:

After the KOR, Regal is livid at Finlay. In retaliation, he makes a deal with Vickie Guererro to "sell" Finlay and Hornswaggle to him as his personal slaves. He treats them like dirt for weeks. Fans get pissed - especially kids, who are crazy about Hornswaggle. Then, after milking the story for maybe two months, slowly building the degradation, Finlay beats up Regal and they go on to a one-month feud culminating with a blow-off at Summerslam.

That's all I got.