by The Rick
Undisputed Lord and Master of OnlineOnslaught.com

Call me crazy, but seeing Foley walk out to the ring after -- what's it been? -- a year and a half is something special no matter whether you knew it was coming or not.  Putting him smack dab in the middle of an angle that needed a pick-me-up, well, that only makes it even more special.

But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.  Here's RAW...

Cold open: Backstage in the GM's office.

Triple H confronts Steve Austin and demands that Austin quit screwing him over and just tell him who the special Hell in the Cell ref is going to be. Austin declines and says HHH will find out when everybody else does later tonight.  In the meantime, he exhorts HHH to "Have a nice day."

Opening music/credits/pyro: with your hosts Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, live from Miami, FL.

Goldberg vs. 3MW's Rosie

Goldberg enters first, and man is the Miami crowd ever cheering loud for him.  Rosie enters second, and well, they're still chanting "GOOOOLD-BERG," so that's something.  And Chris Jericho enters third?  Jericho brings a steel chair out on the entrance ramp and sits himself down to scout Goldberg (and the hot crowd erupts with an "Asshole" chant).  Jericho is treated to Goldberg actually taking some lumps for the first 90 seconds or so of the match, as the 400 lbs. Rosie was in control. Then Goldberg started his superman comeback, prompting Jericho to sprint to the ring with his steel chair; however, Goldberg saw him coming and booted him off the ring apron.  Jericho beat a hasty retreat before Goldberg could even THINK about delivering a Spear.  Rosie tried regaining the advantage by attacking from behind, but Goldberg had entered No Sell Mode.  Spear, (admittedly impressive-looking) Jackhammer, and it was all over.  

Hey, nothing to complain about here: this match had just about anything you could have asked for.  It had Goldberg looking monstrously strong, it had Jericho escaping, and it had a nice little 3 minute time stamp so that nobody had time to get bored.

WWE.com Question of the Day for the Mentally Challenged:  Who will be the HitC referee?  Your choices are Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Shane McMahon, Terry Funk, and the Rock; and Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler want you to get online and vote.  Unless you're on the west coast and actually read the very small print.

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Corporately-sponsored Historical Video Moment of the Night #1:  Last Monday, Steve Austin berates Kane for turning into a pussy, and then Stone Cold Stunners him.

Rob Van Dam vs. Rene Dupree

Although this one was also only around 3 minutes long, it was also just about the sharpest either member of La Resistance has looked yet.  Dupree did a nice job feeding Van Dam for RVD's distinctive offense, and the whole thing had heat going all the way thanks to how easy it is to hate pretty boys with French accents.  RVD whiffed on the Five Star Frog Splash, but instead won cleanly with a roll-up out of nowhere.  After the match, Dupree's partner, Sylvain Grenier, ran out to start a 2-on-1 attack on RVD.  RVD's partner Kane was nowhere to be seen.  

Hmmm:  as I expected, RVD/Kane vs. La Resistance is our tag title match this weekend, but Kane's deal is the only really interesting aspect of it.

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Vignette: amidst a bunch of supposedly-deep "Matrix-ese" doublespeak, Gail Kim manages to look simultaneously hot and cool.  Sort of like the human female manifestation of the old McDLT sandwich.  And if a smokin' Asian babe doesn't sufficiently glaze your personal donut, perhaps a smokin' Asian babe with Lita-caliber highspot capability will?

Backstage: in the GM Office, Steve Austin and Eric Bischoff are chatting.  Apparently, Bischoff has decided to take the point in terms of the upcoming Redneck Triathlon.  He has, in fact, refurbished the RAW Roulette wheel with a couple dozen redneck-ish activities, and suggests that they determine the three events for Sunday's contest totally at random.  Austin decides this is OK, and for shits and giggles, they decide to spin the wheel RIGHT NOW to determine Event #1.  It comes up "Pie Eating Contest."  Eric thinks there will be blueberry and strawberry and pumpkin; Austin calls him an idiot and wonders if he's ever seen The Rock cut a promo.  Apparently the only pie being served for the contest at Bad Blood will be of the poontang variety.  Bischoff is now ever MORE excited.  Sadly, on commentary, so is Jerry Lawler, which means random embarrassing outbursts peppered through the remaining 90 minutes of RAW.  Remember last week how I said the Redneck Triathlon would either be really hilarious or really retarded?  Well, let's just say the scales are tipping, and leave it at that for now.

Tribute to Freddie Blassie: JR manages to rope Lawler in long enough to do a relatively appropriate segue into a video collection of superstar memories about "Classy" Freddie Blassie.  Of the dozen or so personalities interviewed, Vince and Stephanie McMahon's tributes stood out, as it came across like they practically considered Freddie family, and that he felt the same way about them.

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Corporately-sponsored Historical Video Moment of the Night #2: Ivory surprised herself and just about everybody else by pinning Women's Champ Jazz last week on RAW.

Backstage: Kane is sitting around feeling sorry for himself when RVD storms up and demands to know why he didn't come out for the save earlier tonight.  Kane, like last week, remains mute, and just walks away when RVD draws an "Ooohhhhhh" from the crowd by suggesting Stone Cold was right on last week.  If you ask me, Mute Kane is as good a way as any to get the character back on track...  it worked for his first 2 years, anyway.

Ivory and Trish Stratus vs. Victoria and Jazz

Pre-match, Jazz cuts Teddy Long's promo short by grabbing the mic and accusing Ivory's win last week of being a pure fluke.  This leads to Jazz and Ivory jump-starting things with a flurry of fists.  Ivory gains the edge to start, but can't hold onto it; she is relegated to playing the babyface in peril for a few minutes.  Victoria and Jazz effectively cut the ring in half, and we're probably about 4 minutes in when Ivory manages the hot tag to Trish.  Trish gets a few nice spots in and gets her team back in control before tagging Ivory back in for some sort of move off the top rope.  But before Ivory can hit, Victoria breaks it up, and tosses Ivory down to the mat.  Jazz tags in, and thinks she once again has things under control, but Ivory manages a school-girl roll-up out of nowhere for the pin.  Ivory and Trish celebrate the win together (must... avoid... lewd comment... about... how my 2 favorite divas....  might celebrate.... in locker room...  WHEW!  Made it...), while you can almost hear Teddy Long making excuses already.  

Easily twice as long as either previous match... which makes me wonder if I should (a) harangue the creative team for time mis-management, or (b) compliment the girls for keeping the audience interested for longer than matches with 3MW or La Resistance could.  So sue me, I'm gonna go with (b).

Backstage: Chris Jericho is making a big show of Leaving the Building.  Jericho is proud of himself for setting Goldberg on TILT, and says that at Bad Blood, Goldberg will be so crazy-pissed at Jericho that he'll make a mistake that allows Jericho to win. But for tonight, Jericho does not want to see Goldberg again because he can't be held responsible for what he might do to Goldberg if he did.  Christian listens to all this, and though he professes that he's disappointed that Jericho won't stick around to see him beat Booker in a Spin-a-Roonie contest later, he understands.

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At ringside: members of the Miami Dolphins pro football franchise. Or in wrestling parlance: b-level jabronies with just enough clout to get free tickets from The Rock.

WorldWidE: we see a few brief snippets of the successful RAW tour of the UK from over the weekend, including the Insurrextion PPV (recapped yesterday in OO, if you're interested).

Scott Steiner vs. Lance Storm

Steiner makes the big entrance, and again gets the biggest pop of the match by guiding Stacy through a sort-of version of the Hokey Pokey.  Storm gets no entrance at all.  And then, proving that something is cosmically wrong here, Test DOES get an entrance even though he's not even in the match.  Test goes and sits down for some guest commentary during this thrilling Heat re-match from 8 days ago.  Test has nothing substantial to add (nor does it sound like he has any voice left to do it, anyway), so he leaves after about 90 seconds, and goes to the ring to distract Steiner.  It doesn't work, and Steiner wins the squash match at about the 2 minute mark with a move that is probably not going to be called the Flatliner.  

After the match, Test attacks Steiner with a steel chair, then corners Stacy.  He tells her, "It's OK if you don't want to be my girlfriend... because after I beat Steiner at Bad Blood, I'm going to make you my whore."  Whaaaa?  You know, I realize that sounds commendably less-gay than "Because Sunday at Bad Blood, I'm going to make Scott Steiner my bitch" would have.  But, if possible, it also makes exponentially less sense.  Unless Test is planning on stealing the Godfather's old gimmick or something...

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WWE.com Question of the Day for the Mentally Challenged UPDATE:  sixty-something percent of fans think Mick Foley will be the HitC referee, with the other four guys all packed together down around 8-11 percent each.  Can someone explain to me what this poll accomplished?  All it did was encourage the idiot smarks to act even more idiotically smarkish in the future ("Blah blah blah, I'm so smart.  Blah blah blah, I have insider information.  Blah blah blah, I just proved to the whole world I am in the 60th percentile of intellect for all wrestling fans.  All must bow before my barely-above-average-ishness!"), while simultaneously dampening the surprise factor for any true believers who don't rely on backstage rumors to fuel their fandom, who might not give two shits about the internet, or who (gasp!) might even have honestly thought someone else might be the special ref and gotten online to vote accordingly.

Steve Austin Presents the Special Hell in the Cell Referee

From the ceiling, the Cell drops to envelop the ring, as Steve Austin appears on the entrance ramp.  He says it's time to meet the guest ref...  a man who is crazy enough to step inside the cell... a man who was one of Austin's toughest opponents...

Mick Foley. 

Foley gets the predictably huge pop and sustained "Foley" chant before finally settling in for a promo.  He admits that there have been times in the past couple years when he thought he'd never step foot in a wrestling ring again, but that finally, he realized that while "you can take Mick Foley out of the WWE, you can't take the WWE out of Mick Foley."  He says he's got a great family and a great life outside of wrestling now, and that they give him pause for thought when it comes to the prospect of getting back in the very same Cell that no doubt shortened his career.  But he also says that as soon as Austin revealed last week on RAW (Foley never misses an episode, by the way!) that he'd be calling in a special guest ref, Foley began hoping it was him.

He says he wants to do this because even though he's never walked out of the Cell as a winner, he's always walked out under his own power and with his head held high.  And as the special ref on Sunday, he knows he can do that, because his only job is to count "1-2-3."  And then he leads the crowd in chanting "1-2-3" over and over again, which sounded really silly to me at the time, but which -- trust me -- was probably necessary to foreshadow a future plot point when you consider that WWE's target audience is apparently one in which accurately suspecting Foley would be the special referee only places one in the 60th percentile in terms of cognitive powers.

With Foley's staking his claim to a new gimmick as "The 1-2-3 Man," proud father of TV's Sean Waltman, who should decide to interrupt?  Why, Triple H, of course.  HHH -- proving that even the Cerebral Assassin likes to call the nice meaty part of the curve, right around the 60th percentile, home -- announces that he had a feeling he'd be seeing Foley tonight.  Together, Foley and HHH do some pretty intense promo work, reliving the HitC match from 3 years ago in which HHH forced Mick to retire.  And now, it seems, HHH has an offer: Mick can walk away from the guest referee job and go back to his "ordinary, regular life," or HHH will end something a lot more precious than Mick's wrestling career.  This gets a deafening "asshole" chant started, to which Mick, unfortunately, gives the standard "It sounds to me like 15,000 people are calling you an asshole" line (passing up the far more delicious ad-lib option of "I may just be a regular, ordinary guy.  But that sure beats being a spectacular asshole like you.").  Finally, HHH decrees that he'll give Mick "a little less than an hour" to contemplate the decision.  Play his music, because we are outta here.  Whoo hoo!  Looks like another week with a main event promo!

Actually, this was a really outstanding segment, no matter what I might have said about Foley's too-obvious comeback or the fact that it merely sets up a second 15 minute non-match for the main event slot.  Where I will agree with the smarky types is on this: I do think that Kevin Nash is gonna owe some folks some serious thanks after this Sunday's PPV, because he stands to be the beneficiary of a couple of rubs.  First, the HHH/Foley feud (even if it is three years old) is clearly going to make Nash's match about 300% more interesting and marketable.  And second, the HitC gimmick/stip is one of wrestling's only bulletproof concepts, and gives Nash a chance to participate in a match that SHOULD easily surpass last month's good-but-not-very-memorable PPV match against HHH.  The Fed's done everything they can to set the table for Nash and HHH; now it'll up to them to deliver the metaphorical sumptuous feast of ****-plus action.

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Ric Flair in Street Clothes

Flair makes a grand entrance, seemingly to cut a promo?  No, wait... he's just here to try to trick fans into popping for Randy Orton...

Randy Orton vs. the Hurricane

Orton also comes out to Flair's music, and gets some cheap heat by mimicking Flair's strut.  Then Hurricane comes out and gets some cheap heat of his own by disappearing backstage again and re-appearing with Shawn Michaels as his second.  Hurricane and Orton did about 90 seconds of back-and-forth action before Flair and Michaels predictably got involved.  Hurricane seemed to have things won, but Flair broke up the count.  So Flair and Michaels started brawling outside the ring.  The confusion allowed Orton to hit a neck breaker from behind to score the pinfall -- referee Earl Hebner, working earlier in the show than he has in a long time, managed to internalize Foley's earlier numerical lesson and got all the way up to three this week -- at just about the 2 minute mark.

The Michaels/Flair brawl continued after the match, and Flair was wearing a prodigious crimson mask very quickly.  Orton tried to make the save for Flair and drag him back to the locker room, but Michaels was tenacious, and managed to fight off both men.  Finally officials were able to get them separated.  An intensely physical counterpoint to last week's mostly promo-driven Michaels/Flair hype; I liked it.

Backstage: Spike "TV" Dudley gently reminded Mick Foley of just how crazy things can get inside HitC, and suggested that he think about taking HHH's advice and just going back home to his beautiful wife and kids.  Foley didn't completely dismiss the idea, but didn't seem too sold, either.  He just thanked Spike and said he'd consider it.

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The Spin-a-Roonie Contest

Jerry Lawler was in the ring to host the contest, and promptly brought both Booker T and Christian out to the ring.  But before the contest could get started, Booker hijacked the mic and tried to convince me that what I (and the rest of the fans) really wanted to see was a "King-a-Roonie."  Uh, no.  King tried it, anyway, though he only succeeded in paying homage to a Stooge (Christian thought it was Shemp, JR believed it was Curly).  [Note to WWE Creative: using Booker to get people to spin around like out-of-character jackasses might seem like an easy way to get a cheap pop, but it's ultimately destructive to both the Spinee and to Booker.  Object lesson:  when was the last time Rikishi was involved in anything even remotely important?]

Anyway, Christian announces he wants to go first, since he's got a pizza with extra "Peep-a-Roonie" to deliver.  He hits a few steps straight out of Comedy Dance Moves 101 (professor: Buh Buh Ray Dudley, circa 1996), does a sort-of Spin-a-Roonie, and then waits for the cheers.  And waits.  And waits.  Booker grabs the mic and savages Christian's performance, and decides it's time to show the kid how the move is really done.  But while Booker hits the preparatory "five times" stance, Christian tries to attack from behind.  But Booker had him scouted, and knew it was coming.  Booker fights off Christian, and then celebrates in the ring with a proper Spin-a-Roonie.  But all does not end well:  as Booker is walking back up the ramp, he turns around to salute the fans one last time, and Christian sprint out and plasters him with the IC belt.  Booker is left lying as Christian poses.

Well, that makes a grand total of one half-way effective act by Christian since he won the IC Title.  I know it's Booker's home town, and all, but givne how both have been booked in the past month, Christian and the IC Title would both benefit if Christian keeps the title on Sunday...

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Corporately-sponsored Historical Video Moment of the Night #3:  Chris Nowinski helps Rodney Mack defeat Bubba Dudley two weeks ago on RAW.

Rodney Mack vs. D-Von Dudley

Rodney is seconded by Nowinski; D-Von by Bubba.  Since there are enough extra bodies at ringside, Teddy Long goes straight for the commentary table.  He explains the Mack/Nowinski pairing (as a Harvard-certified genius, Nowinski is just as much a minority as a black man, and just as oppressed, apparently).  He also makes a few excuses for Jazz's second "fluke" loss to Ivory, as expected.  Finally, he announces that D-Von Dudley may be "brown," but he is not a "black man," on the grounds that he does not participate in either the "thugging" or the "bugging."  Neither JR nor the King chime in with the potentially hilarious observation that if this had been a "White Boy Challenge," D-Von would have been the one looking to beat his pasty-skinned opponent in under five minutes.  The match went about 4 minutes (second longest of the night), and ended after Nowinski's interference: he ate a 3-D, but the distraction was enough to allow Mack to lock in the "Black Out" submission hold. 

Nothing to see here except a half-match worth of "nerve hold" from Mack and an excuse to talk about how it'll be the Duds vs. Mack/Nowinski at the PPV on Sunday...

Backstage:  Terri is interviewing Goldberg, who decides to keep it simple this week, but only saying that Jericho is "next."  That was Jericho's cue to leap out of the shadows and smack Goldberg in the back of the head with a chair.  So much for him leaving the building, eh?  Jericho briefly lingers with a smug look on his face, then walks briskly away as Goldberg begins shrugging off the chairshot.  Well, pretty by-the-numbers, but it is another successful getaway/moral victory for Jericho leading into the PPV match, so we'll take it.  Goldberg gets to his feet and makes a mean face as we cut to a commercial.

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Backstage: Austin is looking for Mick Foley, and eventually sends some cute PA with nothing more important to do to go find him and bring him back to.... well, wherever it was that Austin was hanging out.

Blatant PPV Hype:  King and JR use the helpful graphics (and three minutes of my life that I'll never get back) to run down the entire card for Sunday's Bad Blood.  Looks like eight matches, assuming you count the Redneck Triathlon.  

Backstage: Foley has arrived at Stone Cold's sort-of backstage/sort-of parking lot location.  Austin tells Foley to zip it and listen, because Austin didn't bring back Mick Foley to be scared or intimidated by HHH.  He brought him back to be the crazy, twisted sumbitch who'd get inside that Cell and take charge.  He says HHH's about to call him back out to the ring, so he better decide what he's gonna do about it.

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Main Event Promo Inside the Cell

The Cell has been lowered, and Triple H wastes no time hopping inside with a microphone.  He says time's up, and calls out Foley.  Foley arrives and stands on the entrance ramp with a mic of his own, and admits that HHH has made some good points about his (Foley's) ordinary life.  So Foley has decided to go back to that ordinary life.  [HHH smiles, crowd boos.]  But not until Monday, June 16th!  [HHH gets pissy, crowd cheers.]

Foley says he's got a job to do Sunday, June 15th, inside the Cell, and he's going to do it the best he can.  He also says he knows that that job will probably entail HHH kicking his ass.  Foley doesn't necessarily feel like living his next week in fear that HHH will get him in a parking lot, or in a hotel, or at his home, so Mick figures he'll get in that Cell right now and take his ass-kicking like a man.  Huge pop.  Foley gets in the Cell and immediately starts trading right hands with HHH.  Foley gets the advantage, and seems to be firmly in control after the running knee into the turnbuckle spot.  But HHH is as resilient as he is politically adept, and once the brawl goes to the outside of the ring, he reverses an Irish Whip, and sends Foley crashing into the ring steps.  Then it's back into the ring, where Foley eats a pair of stiff chair shots.  HHH decides that should just about do it, and leaves the ring.  He's half-way up the ramp when Foley raises his right hand, and slaps the mat three times.  Ah, it all makes sense now:  Foley may take a licking, but unlike other refs, he'll take a bump -- or even a deliberate ass-kicking -- and still be able to count to three!  Pretty damn clever, I must admit...

So Foley makes a phantom three-count as HHH momentarily gives us "shock" before immediately shifting into "pissed off."  Foley even grabs a mic and tells HHH that "I've got plenty more ass here for you to kick."  So HHH storms back to the ring, and continues with the beat down.  This time, the coup de grace is a Pedigree onto the steel chair.  Surely, HHH figures, that should be more than enough.  But again, HHH is halfway up the ramp when Foley's hand goes up, and then comes down three times.  So HHH storms back again, and this time, the rest of Evolution runs out to join in.  Only this time, the attack on Foley is interrupted...  oh, how nice of you to make an appearance, Mr. Nash!  And there's Shawn Michaels, too.  Michaels manages to take care of Orton and Flair, leaving HHH and Nash to brawl.  And in this one, Nash came out on top.  After Nash hit HHH with a Jackknife, Foley once again slapped the mat three times.  It wasn't official, but the point that Nash could keep HHH down for a three count has been sufficiently made, I think.  Show ends with Nash celebrating his fake win, while Foley tried to use the ring ropes to get back to his feet while proudly displaying three fingers.

Final thoughts:  the on-going dearth of actual wrestling -- the women's match was good and respectable in length; of the guys' matches, only RVD/Dupree had any really notably good ringwork, and the rest were just backdrops for various angles/stories -- on Mondays may get old eventually.  But for now, as long as they keep the entertainment level where it is, I'll live.  

A few weeks ago, we went through the phase of trying to explore how the brand-specific PPVs were affecting SD!'s storytelling.  Well, maybe what we're seeing with RAW is a harbinger of additional fall-out from the brand-specific PPV schedule.  I mean, RAW has the same number of workers they had a month ago; but now, they have to come up with all 8 PPV-worthy matches, instead of just four.  That means holding back secondary matches for the PPV, instead of using them as spotlight matches on free RAWs.  Without using Heat-caliber matches, RAW is a bit limited in terms of what they can give us for bell-to-bell wrestling on Mondays without also compromising what they're trying to sell on PPV.

So I guess I'll take 21 minutes of actual wrestling as long as the other 70 minutes of non-commercial time are all reasonably entertaining.  But make no mistake: start serving up total crap (hungover, vomiting Bischoff, for a recent example just to prove I wouldn't wait for Katie Vick 2 before demanding changes), and I'll be begging for the wrestling to get back up to a more reasonable 35-40 minutes, even if it means Rico vs. Tommy Dreamer in a best of seven series of 10 minute epics.

Actually, you know, that probably wouldn't suck at all....  but now I digress.  Good outing for RAW heading into the Bad Blood PPV: they maintained the interest levels in Flair/Michaels and Jericho/Goldberg after the quality work done on those in past weeks, and finally gave us a reason to get just as fired up for the Nash/HHH main event as for those two supporting matches.  Can't complain at all about that, even if they had to resort to limiting Nash's visibility in favor of recycling three-year-old hostility between HHH and Foley to accomplish the goal.

Hey, heat is heat, and entertaining TV is entertaining TV.  I will not quibble.  Bad Blood is about twice as interesting a PPV than "Vengeance" was, and they're doing it with half the roster.  Check my math, but I figure that should mean somebody deserves about 400% more kudos than they did last month.  

But dammit, now I'm digressing again.

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