WWE Raw review 15th February 2008

Now that the hype from No Way Out has died down and because we are still five Raw’s away from Wrestlemania it is now time for the creative team to start working overtime. Normally there is only three or four Raw’s between main events so the creative team have to be sure to pace the feuds right to make sure they reach bubbling point just before Wrestlemania. With the importance of Mania and the extra editions of Raw I was interested to see how the creative team were going to work this one.

For me this Raw will be remembered for a couple of good matches and some terrible booking which was annoying after witnessing a well booked Smackdown last week.

Crazy Booking

There were three booking decisions for me that made no sense and one case of lazy booking. First off we had Jeff Hardy fighting Chris Jericho and if Chris Jericho won he qualified for ‘Money in the Bank’ at Mania. For all of you who watched Raw last week you are not wrong, Jeff Hardy did qualify last week but in a crazy booking idea was put against Chris Jericho. You knew Jericho was going to win as Hardy had nothing to fight for which is stupid booking. It was a much better match than the qualifying matches last week on Raw which I said they needed to do but they souldn't do that at the expense of sensible booking. So well done WWE for listening to me about match quality now sort out the booking. However Jericho’s backstage segment with Regal was very funny and a great moment for long term WWE fans as Jericho joked about things that happened when they last feuded.

Next we had Vince McMahon coming down to the ring to demand an apology from JBL over the beating he gave his illegitimate son. To which JBL informed Vince that he had found out that Hornswoggle was not his son after all. After all the build up they gave the storyline when Hornswoggle was announced as Vince’s son it made no sense to say it was all untrue now with no warning, no hints or no flowing storyline. The only reason they did this was to get a JBL/Finlay/McMahon feud going for Mania when if they just kept the JBL / Jericho feud going which was starting to get hot instead of dropping it with no warning then they wouldn’t be in this position desperately trying to find JBL a storyline.

The final bit of madness came at the end as after John Cena had won the tag match for him and HHH against Randy Orton and Mr. Kennedy for Kennedy just to come back in and deliver his finisher on Cena as the show went off air. All through the show they were building Kennedy with backstage promos where he was telling Randy Orton about how he was going to win ‘Money in the Bank’ and cash his chance in that night at Wrestlemania. When it is Mania time you have to push your main event as the biggest attraction every Raw not have someone who isn’t anywhere near the main event of Mania in a non feud storyline match which is ‘Money in the Bank’ pushed ahead of the main eventers as it devalues your main event.

Lazy Booking

Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels was finally officially set up when Flair came in to the ring after HBK’s match to say he wanted to fight Michaels at Wrestlemania. To this HBK said he didn’t want to be the one to retire Flair to which Flair replied he just wanted to have a great match at Wrestlemania to which Shawn agreed to. Now if you didn’t want to fight someone or retire them you wouldn’t have your mind changed in the space of a minute after a couple of lines. All I have to say is very lazy booking.

Again there were some good points though

Stronger Matches

After last week there was an improved level of match quality with Hardy / Jericho being match of the night. The quality was also help by the return of DH Smith a rare appearance by Carlito and a solid main event. The WWE managed to get more out of ring segments and better quality matches which is the mix they needed.

British Invasion

Was great to see Burchill, Katie and Regal in a backstage segment togther after watching DH Smith son of the British Bulldog have his first match back. This was Burchill’s first proper backstage segment so it was great to see although he didn’t get any in ring time this week. They even teased the possibility of him having a match at Wrestlemania so watch this space.

So all in all hat WWE need to do now is really focus in on the feuds, simplify them and apply logic. The match quality has gone back up and the time spent on out of ring segments compared to in ring stuff has become more balanced so it just needs better booking and I am sure we will have an awesome Wrestlemania as they have the matches and the talent to make it a memorable one.