Archive for July 9th, 2008

Kane goes ape!

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

While Batista winning the Fatal Four-Way main event on Raw to become the number one contender and set up a Punk vs. Batista main event at Great American Bash was a refreshing change of pace, the single weirdest booking moment came after the match, when Kane, among the losers of the Fatal Four-Way, put on a fairly good act of going apeshit, beating up ringside officials and the announce crew to express his disappointment.

I swear, he’d have hit Mae Young with a pella pan if he’d had the opportunity. It was an odd moment.

Odd because it seems to be the centerpiece toward setting Kane up to be a main eventer once again, which frankly doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Kane’s been main-event pushed for well over a decade now, and to be honest, he hasn’t had much mystique since he stopped wearing the mask. Although a faithful and yeomanlike worker, his star just hasn’t shone very brightly … not for quite a while.

Considering that most of Raw was a beginner’s primer, set up to welcome new viewers to the show, rolling out Kane as a monster main eventer in this way is out-of-place with the show’s new direction and certainly won’t help anyone who may have watched 10 years ago feel like much has changed in WWE since the last time they watched regularly.

Cena’s antics vs. Austin’s

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

This week’s RAW got me to thinking about John Cena’s antics and how they measure up to those commited by Stone Cold Steve Austin in his prime. Watching Raw from a new TV wall mount, I was amused by Cena abusing JBL’s stretch limo, with a little help from Crime Tyme, and for a moment flashed back to some of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s trash-a-limo antics in his fued with Vince McMahon.

It’s an easy and obvious comparison, but is it apt? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much WWE has pulled back from the over-the-top, nearly NC-17 antics that were the hallmark of the WWE Attitude era.

See, when Stone Cold struck out at Vince McMahon’s limo, he left nothing to doubt and no thought uncensored. If he spray-painted anything on McMahon’s limo, it would likely say something like, “Austin 3:16″ or “Kiss My Ass” and then he’d flip off Vinnie Mac and the entire audience while cracking open some brewskis. It was on the surface quite similar, but in execution, much edgier.

Compare that to Cena’s destruction of JBL’s limo. The biggest insult Cena spray-painted? “JBL is poopy!”

Welcome to “Everyone Poops!” your host if John Cena, boys and girls. WWE has arrived safely back on TV-14 territory. Hopefully that will mean more viewers.