WWE Raw Review - 3rd March 2008

The anticipation is continuing to grow in the run up to Wrestlemania and I for one am starting to get in to Wrestlemania mood by watching some of the Mania’s from years gone by. I was looking forward to seeing what the WWE was going to do this week with Raw as I sat down for my weekly viewing.

As always there were some good and bad points, I will start with the bad points.

Poor Production

I thought the first in ring segment with Big Show fighting a professional fighter whilst Floyd Mayweather looked on through a live satellite link as he was broadcast on the Raw Titantron. This was a nice idea however was poorly produced as during the introductions of both competitors there were many shots which had other cameramen in shot which is not we are use to with WWE. The when the Big Show got on the mic to talk to Floyd the footage on the screen of Floyd was poorly produced and it looked like it was pre-recorded and not live as he wasn’t really responding to what Big Show was staying as well as just talking over big Show.

Use of Super Crazy

Once one of ECW’s top stars is now used as a jobber every week in other words he loses all his matches and normally in squash style. As Super Crazy is given no promos, no out of ring segments or no coverage from the commentators he reminds me very much of the 80 early 90s style of wrestling where you would have guys like Brooklyn Brawler and Barry Horrowitz who very rarely won a match or had a storyline. Now I’m not saying Super Crazy should be on top of the pile but if you are going to give him TV time and use him you need to do something with him.

Finlay / JBL / McMahon feud

Ok the premise to this feud may be very loose but now they have decided on this direction they need to run with it. They tried to put the feud over by having Finlay and McMahon having an in ring discussion to confirm what JBL had said was true about Hornswoggle being Finlay’s son which was needed. After this though they went to a shot of JBL with Hornswoggle in the worst ever hospital set I have seen on TV. JBL started to put the beat on Hornswoggle and Finlay just stayed in the ring to watch it on the screen. It did a great job of putting JBL over as a heel but took away from Finlay. Finlay was left looking like a stupid, helpless face. Instead of staying in the ring Finlay should have run backstage when he saw what was going on to try and get in a car to get there as soon as possible. Now that would have been sensible storytelling.

No TV time for Burchill

After three weeks of TV time on Raw Paul Burchill and Katie lea were nowhere to be seen this week. When you are developing a new wrestler and character you need to keep them on TV every week it makes no sense for WWE to invest the time in them to then not have them on TV. I know it’s a hard time for them to get established at the moment with everything surrounding Wrestlemania but if you are going to do it you have to commit to it.

Now on to the good points

Jeff Hardy

Jeff Hardy was Chris Jericho’s guest in the return of the Highlight Reel and showed some brilliant character development. Since his feud with Randy Orton he had gone back to just having his regular style matches with no mic or promo time but we got to see more of his developing character today as he hit the twist of fate on fellow face Jericho. We have seen hardy work a character lead feud against a heel but it is good to see him working well feuding with other faces.

Carlito

Was great to see him have a single match on Raw and win a place in the ‘Money in the Bank’ match at Wrestlemania. Two years ago he was in the first match at Wrestlemania last year he was moved to a dark match but now he is in a major match. The WWE need to start re-investing time in him though as he needs more than just the odd match to get his character across.

Randy Orton’s push

The creative team had come up with a great idea to structure the last three Raw’s with a Triple Threat Takeover. Each week before Mania one of the triple threat competitors will have the power to make the main event on Raw. This week it was the turn of Cena who chose to put Orton against Triple H. After the match Cena stormed the ring to hit the F-U on HHH only to be then on the receiving end of an RKO from Orton who left Raw as the last man standing. Triple H and Cena don’t need to be built but it’s Orton that needs to be built to the point where fans don’t think Triple H and Cena will be able to get the belt off him which is starting to be done.

Overall

A very entertaining Raw with lots going on, regardless of the matches and the results as long as the creative team keep it a fast paced show then its going to keep the viewers hooked which is what this show was. I think things are bubbling under at the moment with the pace of build up to Mania which is good as it has got me expecting great things from the next three episodes of Raw which is what the creative team need to do but they just now need to deliver.