by The Rick
Undisputed Lord and Master of OnlineOnslaught.com

But it wasn't.  Whew.

Here's what happened.

No Video Package: just straight to the opening music, pyro, etc.  And then your hosts The King and The Coach welcome you to the show, and to a very special new home for RAW....

Spike TV Moment: making good on the promise of last month's press release, RAW spends all of 10 seconds showcasing a big "Spike TV" logo made out of fireworks.  Wow, any network that can spend a couple hundred dollars on sparklers MUST be awesome.  I was wrong about you, Stripperella!  Will you ever forgive me?

Eric Bischoff Promo

Bischoff opens the show by heading out to the ring, almost channeling a bit of Vince McMahon's cocky swagger.  Once in the ring, he insists that Lilian Garcia once again announce him as the winner of the match from last week, just in case people missed it.  Then he follows up by showing the highlights from his win over Shane McMahon from last week, including three slow-mo replays of his pinfall over Shane.  Bischoff goes on to say that he has the utmost respect for Vince McMahon, that he even admires the "big breasted and mature" Linda McMahon, and that at the end of the day, he has to admit that Stephanie McMahon is a competent professional, too (but is apparently NOT big breasted enough to be specifically complimented for it; oh boy, PLEASE, Steph, don't take it personally, Bischoff's not the one you have to impress!!!).  But he loathes Shane McMahon, and feels he's a loser, a failure, and would have amounted to nothing in life if he wasn't a McMahon.  Shane is the "Frank Sinatra Jr. of WWE."

And before the mocking of Shane can go much further, he comes Jim Ross.  In his big return, JR is lightly limping to sell the burns to his back and legs, as announcers tell us doctors have NOT cleared him medically to return.  JR tells Bischoff that he feels Bischoff set him up on that Kane interview last month.  And so, he's going to forego pressing charges on Kane.... and instead sue Bischoff's ass off for putting him (JR) in an unsafe working environment!  Whoo Hoo: LAWSUIT, baby, that's how MEN settle business!  But Bischoff is scared, and immediately starts kissing JR's ass, calling him the best announcer in the business, and ordering Coach to vacate JR's chair, post haste.  But the crowd and JR aren't really buying it.

And neither is Stone Cold Steve Austin, who makes a grand entrance, and announces he thought something like this might happen between JR and Bischoff.  So he offers a compromise.  JR drops the lawsuit, and in return, Bischoff competes in a match against "a certain individual" here tonight.  Bischoff immediately assumes it's Shane McMahon, and after a moment's hesitation, realizes Shane is probably still less than 100% after being decimated by Kane last week.  So Bischoff signs the contract, opting not to carefully read the fine print (even when asked by Austin to do just that).  When Bischoff starts getting cocky about his chances of beating an already-injured Shane McMahon, Austin drops this bombshell on him:  Bischoff just signed a contract to face Kane in this very ring, later tonight!  By god, KANE!

Bischoff gives us shock and horror and JR and Austin celebrate in the ring with a few beers, giving us the perfect opportunity to check out some neat....

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Scott Steiner and Stacy Keibler vs. Rico and Miss Jackie

Rico does Stacy's little head-and-shoulder fake going through the ropes during his entrance, which is about as funny as this match gets.  Rico gets scared of Scott after about 30 seconds, and tags in Jackie, so the girls do the rest of the work in this one.  To Jackie's credit, her second ever RAW match was about a million times less embarrassingly bad than her first.  She and Stacy even do a very nice sequence of near falls and reversals at one point.  A spot of interference from Rico gives Jackie an edge, and she dominates for about a minute or so.  Just when she's ready to make a hot tag to Steiner, Test runs out and pulls Steiner off the apron, and brawls into the crowd with him.  The ref doesn't see it because he's distracted by Jackie, and also doesn't see it when Rico attacks Stacy and clotheslines her against the top rope.  Jackie drops a leg (actually, she almost sat on Stacy's face, and not in a way that makes that even remotely want to make some non-witty double entendre), and gets the pinfall.  Maybe all of 2, 2-and-a-half minutes, but surprisingly non-offensive, especially considering that the focus was on the girls, neither of whom is known primarily for in-ring competence.

Post-match storyline: Steiner made it back into the ring to check on Stacy, who was recovering nicely.  Then he grabbed a mic and announced, "This is bullshit."  He's tired of Test messing in Steiner's business, and no matter what he thinks, Stacy's with a real man now, and she isn't going back. The smacktalk eventually develops into a challenge for a match.  Test says he'll do it, next week, but only if Steiner puts Stacy's services on the line.  Stacy herself accepts, and we have a match for next week.  You know, I said a month ago that Stacy with Steiner was not nearly as good an idea as going for the old Macho Man/Liz vibe with Test and Stacy... maybe next week they set this right?  I'd be cool with that.

Backstage: Ric Flair is commiserating with Randy Orton about how Austin has forced him into a No DQ rematch against Goldberg tonight on RAW.  HHH walks in, and says his life's no bed of roses, either, what with having to defend his title against FIVE guys now.  But young master Orton reminds him that it's really two guys defending that title against four.  HHH picks up on the logic, and smiles, saying that tonight, Evolution's tired of being screwed over, and they'll be getting some revenge.

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Backstage: Kane arrives in the back of a police van.

The Dudley Boyz vs. La Resistance (NON-TITLE Match)

La Resistance charge the ring to jump start a brawl.  It goes all of 30 seconds before Dupree took the American flag the Dudleys had brought to the ring, and swings it upside Bubba's head for an instant DQ.  Then a double team on D-Von, and before you know it, both Dudleys are KO'ed.  Grenier and Dupree proceed to grab a bottle of (presumably) French wine, and drink some of it, and pour some of it over the lifeless carcass of the Dudleys, all while gesturing broadly to indicate that they are French.  Then they drape the American flag over Bubba and D-Von and pose some more.  Surprisingly, this got HUGE heat.  I guess even La Resistance's one note can get over big time if you play it loud enough, eh?  This was nothing as a match, but I guess the post-DQ beat down was perversely entertaining in its way...  I didn't think this feud had this kind of legs left.

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Backstage:  Molly Holly is polishing up her women's title belt when Goldust walks in.  He congratulates her on her go-go-go-Go-Power-Rangers-go-go-GOLD, and then announces that he'd really like her to meet a friend of his.  A very NON-boring friend.  The non-boring friend misses his cue, and Goldust has to re-introduce him.  And out comes Lance Storm, in complete Goldust make-up.  He says, "Greetings, it's a very nice to meet you," in a voice that is, if possible, even more stilted and awkward than usual.  Storm throws in a one-tenth-hearted Goldust-style snarl/chomp.  Goldust is not impressed with the delivery, and immediately tells Storm to go to the cue cards.  So Storm whips out his trusty three-by-fives, and proceeds to compliment Molly on her huge ass-ass-ass-ass-ass- (Molly gets increasingly indignant, and finally slaps Lance and walks out) ass-ass-ASCENSION (gain, all in a perfect monotone) to the top of the women's ranks. But it's too late and Molly's gone.  Goldust consoles Lance, and tells him that they'll keep trying.  Meantime, he should buck up, because Goldust has got hot dogs, kielbasas, sausages, and midgets waiting out in the car, and all will be right with the world once they get out there.  Four words: Segment of the Night.  If Lance's in gold make-up, delivering those lines the way he did wasn't funny enough, Goldust's tag with the kielbasas and midgets put this over the top. 

Backstage: Kevin Nash and Shawn Michaels are trading hair care tips, seeing as how Nash will be answering Jericho hair vs. hair challenge later tonight, when talk turns to the Elimination Chamber.  Nash believes that he'll walk out victorious.  But Michaels reminds him that only one man in history can say he's walked out of the chamber as the World Champ, and that's HBK.  Goldberg must have overheard this and decided to interrupt, saying HE was gonna be the next World Champ.  Goldberg, Michaels, and Nash all agree that a little friendly rivalry is a good thing, and may the best man win at SummerSlam.

Booker T vs. ?????

Hey!  That's not Booker T!  That's Christian, and he's coming out to the ring to Booker's music and pyro.... and wearing Booker's InterContinental belt!  The Coach promises a full explanation, but only if we promise to pay close attention to a few....

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Christian Promo

Christian spins us a yarn about this match he had against Booker T last night in Des Moines, IA.  You see, he beat Booker T, and injured him really badly.  And now, Christian is once again the IC Champ.  [The announcers mildly correct Christian, and make it clear that Booker had a back injury PRIOR to the match, and lost the title because he had decided to honor his commitment to wrestle despite the injury.]  And Christian is a fighting champion, and he has decided, on the birthday of Spike TV, that there is only one appropriate foe for him to face tonight....

Christian vs. Spike Dudley (IC Title Match)

Christian dominates early, going for Spike's ribs, mostly.  He hits a wicked stomach breaker, and then slows things down with an Abominable Stretch. But Spike rallies.  The heat sequence for Spike has announcers wondering if maybe Christian underestimated Spike's heart.  But none of Spike's moves (battering ram, top rope stomp to the gut, et al) could put Christian away.  Spike tried for the Dudley Dog, but that's when Christian reversed his way into the Unprettier out of nowhere to get the pinfall win.  One of those 5 minute good-but-short TV specials: entertaining while it lasted, but nothing you'll remember a week later.

Backstage: police are releasing the Kraken... but Eric Bischoff walks up and interrupts.  He wants to talk with Kane for a minute.  He makes sure Kane remembers who helped him out last week, and that they made a good team.  He suggests to Kane that they do things the Easy Way.  Bischoff promises to just lie down for Kane in their match, and Kane should just take the quick pinfall, and that's it.  Kane declines, and says we'll be doing things HIS way tonight.  Bischoff gives us wetting-his-pants-in-terror as we cut to....

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Jim Ross' Return, Pt. 2

JR's snare-laden entrance theme plays a second time, and he makes his way over to the announce table, where there are awkward handshakes as Coach realizes he's the odd man out and must leave.  Coach gives us good-mannered-resignation, though, and leaves quietly, allowing JR to return to action.  He wastes no time telling us that in this upcoming match, he hopes that Kane breaks every bone in Eric Bischoff's body, and then proceeds to leave the arena and get run over by a damn truck.  Heh, now see, that's a line Coach could never have pulled off!

Kane vs. Eric Bischoff

Bischoff enters first, giving us perfect facial expressions all the while.  Sometimes, it's the little things that count.  And hey, you want little things: by the time security got done with unshackling Kane during his big long entrance, Kane cued his ringpost pyro at the exact INSTANT that his theme song hit that angry bridge part, and it was perfect.  Note to Kane: time it that way every time, and you'll be gold.  Look at what timing the spit-take to music did for HHH!  Little things are about all there are to praise here, because the match consisted of this:  Bischoff laid down.  Kane grabbed him by the throat and hoisted him up for a chokeslam.  Kane realized people were cheering for the chokeslam, so he set Bischoff down.  Kane left the ring and wandered around ringside.   The ref counted to 10, and Bischoff was your winner via countout.  Why Kane, why?  

Kane grabs a mic and says he knows the fans wanted him to destroy Bischoff.  But he's tired of doing what other people want.  He's only going to do what HE wants.  Suddenly, out from the back, here comes Rob Van Dam to try to get the better of Kane...  a back-and-forth bit of brawling (including a steel chair) ends with Kane holding the advantage, however.  RVD went for a frog splash, but Kane dodged it, and RVD landed three-quarters of the way across the ring directly on the steel chair.  Kane then followed up with an absolutely RUDE chair shot to the skull that KO'ed RVD.  JR is livid -- Bischoff got off scot-free, and Kane's just dominated RVD -- as we head to some....

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Backstage: Terri approaches Gail Kim with a few questions.  Like, "Why did you attack Trish last week?".  Gail's all like, "Oh, so NOW you want to talk to me?  Where were you when I won the women's title?  Or how about when Trish kicked me in the face to make me lose the women's title?".  Now, it seems, we're finally going to be introduced to the real Gail Kim.  No Oscar necessary here, but a logical enough bit of justification.  Also, Gail's utter lack of any character/gimmick earlier on now makes perfect sense...

Molly Holly vs. Trish Status vs. Gail Kim (Women's Title Match)

The focus here was mostly on Trish and Gail doing a few highspot.  Unfortunately, one went awry when Gail didn't catch quite enough air launching herself over the top rope to the floor, and she and Trish both landed awkwardly.  They recovered, however, and got the match back in the ring, where they set up a very neat closing spot.  Molly and Gail teamed up to dominate Trish, and eventually tied Trish to the Tree of Woe.  Molly, ever the ring generalette, directed Gail to step back, get a running start, and nail Trish with Tajiri's Dropkick of Woe.  So Gail stepped back to the opposite turnbuckle, got a running start, and then ate a wicked clothesline from Molly just before she got to the corner.  Molly quickly hooked a leg and got the pinfall win over the stunned Gail.  HA!  Molly's as smart as she is too-cute-to-be-truly-evil!!  The three minute match was a bit scattershot, but I loved the finish.

Backstage: HHH returns to Evolution's lair with a package of some kind.  Turns out that Austin's actions last week with regard to the SummerSlam main event -- he couldn't change the match, but he could add to it -- gave HHH an idea.  So he went to Bischoff -- who was still so happy about his win over Kane that he would agree to almost anything -- and got Bischoff to not change, but add to tonight's Flair/Goldberg no-DQ match.  He pulls a ref's shirt out of the package, and says that Randy Orton will be the special guest ref tonight in Flair's match against Goldberg.  Flair is ecstatic, and in his glee he playfully swats the now-shirtless Orton (he wanted to change into his stripes) across the chest.  HHH, caught up in Flair's moment, does the same.  Orton clutches his ever-sensitive nipples in pain, and I'm left thinking that if they'd only called Orton "Sparky" at some point during the segment, Jeb Lund might actually have been pleased with it.

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Earlier today: an old woman is having trouble crossing a busy street.  Luckily, Roosevelt, our Super Hero In Training, is here to rescue her.  He walks her across the street, and then, when she asks his name, he says, "I'm Rosie, the S, H, I, T."  The old women is all "S, H, I, T... well I NEVER!" and hits Rosie with her purse and scurries off.  Hurricane swoops in with a bit of wisdom: "No good deed goes unpunished."  You know how Lance, Goldust, and Molly were super funny tonight?  Well, this was just about the opposite: tortuously obvious at every step.  The CONCEPT of "the SHIT" remains funny to me, but the presentation was as un-clever as possible here.   

Backstage: Eric Bischoff is relaxing the GM office when Austin comes in and plops down on an adjacent couch.  Bischoff says something about Austin having the class to come in here to congratulate Eric even after Bischoff has outsmarted him two weeks in a row.  But that's when Austin reveals just who had been outsmarted.  Turns out, there was more fine print in that contract Bischoff signed.  A stipulation of the Bischoff/Kane match was that the winner of the match would face Shane McMahon at a later date.  And now that Bischoff has won, he'll have to fight Shane again.  Austin decides that SummerSlam would be as good a time as any for the rematch, and that's the bottome line.... cuz Bischoff didn't read the contract.  [I know it's a subtle point, but I wish they'd made it clear that Austin had the clause put in the Bischoff/Kane contract because he was trying to circumvent Bischoff and Vince to get Shane the match he wanted against Kane... and that Bischoff's cheap win, while unexpected, now gives Austin the pleasure of forcing Eric into another match against the younger McMahon.  Probably nobody but me would appreciate that logic, but it was right there, and they never even touched on it.]

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Hurricane vs. Rodney Mack

Announcers tell us that Theodore Long is expected back from a "world cruise" next week on RAW.  Thank god.  I don't know who should be happier about that, me or Rodney.  On one hand, it's his career; on the other, it's my valuable couch time.  Decent enough little match, but I'm increasingly getting the idea that in-ring action isn't where the focus is tonight when Hurricane wins cleanly after a flying body press in all of 4 minutes or so.  After the match, Mack attacks, and the S.H.I.T makes the save.  Sadly, they cue Hurricane's music before the "Holy SHIT" chant can get started properly.  Big mistake, there.  Another decent-but-forgettable match, but it probably sets up Hurricane/SHIT vs. Mack/Nowinski with Teddy Long back in the mix down the line, so it was not without purpose.

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Highlight Reel with Chris Jericho

Jericho starts us off by correcting a misconception:  his hair vs. hair challenge to Kevin Nash was this... if Nash loses, he must shave his head bald.  But if, by some miracle, Jericho should lose, he would completely shave his revolutionary, chick-magnet facial hair.  Keep in mind, Jericho is clean shaven (and has been for a few months) when he says this.  Eventually, the shenanigans come to an end, however, when Jericho's guest, Kevin Nash decided to hit the scene.

Nash has a briefcase, and since I've been advised that Matt Hocking has already absconded with the joke I immediately thought to make about said briefcase, I'll just leave it at that.  Nash, ever playful and hilarious, has decided that just verbalizing what he'd like to do Jericho isn't enough.  So he's brought some visual aids.  Pictures of Jericho with various hair-styles are displayed on the JeriTron 5000 until Jericho's had enough.  He attempts to bring an end to the hijinx by dropping the term "Nashhole" into discussion.  For some reason, that just made me keep giggling though.  Nash wasn't giggling, however, as he got up from his stool, and started rummaging through his briefcase.  He came up with a pair of hair clippers, and got in Jericho's face.  The back-and-forth taunting eventually netted us this result: next week on RAW, it's Jericho vs. Nash hair-versus-hair (none of that facial hair nonsense comes into play, they made it clear somebody gets shaved down).  Then Jericho said, "We're done here, now get out of my ring."  Nash, after doing the very five-year-old thing of saying, "I'm leaving but only because I want to leave, not because you told me to leave," turns his back to depart, only to be attacked by Jericho.  Nash, however, regains the edge, and eventually knocks Jericho out to ringside.  Nash goes through his case again, and eventually comes up with a giant pair of scissors, obviously planning on taking a sample of Jericho's hair tonight.  But Jericho scurries under the ring to hide, and when Nash pulls him out, Jericho's got a fire extinguisher, which he uses to blind Nash long enough to make his escape.  I thought SOMEbody -- preferably the opposite of whoever will lose next week -- should have had a small clip job done to their hair to put the proper icing on this cake, but that's small potatoes.  There was some funny stuff here, and then they got serious enough to do a nice job hyping next week's match as a big deal.  Well enough played.

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Goldberg vs. Ric Flair (No Disqualification)

Orton enters first to yet another remix of the Evolution theme, then Flair.  In the ring, the two apparently are up to something, as Orton went into his short-shorts (dammit, why did he have to take a page out of HBK's best-selling book, "How to Gay it Up as a Guest Ref?") and handed Flair a pair of brass knucks.  After Goldberg's extended ring entrance, Flair's first act was to attack with the knucks to gain the edge.  Goldberg sold for about a minute-and-a-half, along the way, having to kick out after Orton's ludicrously fast count.  But finally, Goldberg turned the corner, and started no-selling Flair's chops.  Goldberg's offense didn't look quite as crisp and sharp as it could (you probably blame Flair for not quite having the spring he once did), but it was credible enough that Orton's now-ludicrously-SLOW counts were getting fans riled up.  Orton was also more than happy to provide the distraction so that Flair could hit a chair shot and low blow on Goldberg to regain the advantage.  This time 'round, Flair targeted Goldberg's knee, and eventually locked him in the Figure Four for about a minute.  Once Goldberg was able to break out of the hold, he kept selling the knee (whoa! Has hell frozen over, too?).  But he was also still able to mount a comeback.  He had Flair lined up for a Spear, but Orton wandered into the path at the wrong moment and ate it, instead.  With the ref out, Shawn Michaels ran out for Reasons Unknown.  He actually got in Goldberg's face.  But then, as soon as Orton was coming around, Michaels turned and gave Randy the Sweet Chin Music, knocking him out for good.  Goldberg then speared and jack-hammered Flair, and Michaels got back in the ring and grabbed Orton's hand to make a three count.  Apparently, that's official.  Goldberg wins at about the 8 minute mark in the longest match of the night.  HBK retreated, as Goldberg celebrated and gave him a covert Thumps Up/Wink as way of thanks to end the show.

Yeah, so this RAW didn't have any one really good WRESTLING match that stood out like last week.  But it also didn't have the half-hour's worth of pointless, forgettable segments like the two or three weeks prior to that.  Flair/Goldberg was main event length, but was sloppy at times and didn't really impress me as a wrestling match as much as it was an effective storytelling device for tying together some of the six-way hostilities going into the Elimination Chamber.  I mean, it wasn't bad, but it also wasn't Jericho/RVD.

But in the absence of in-ring action, this was still a very entertaining RAW.  Every segment, even the mixed tag and Hurricane/Mack, had either a preceding vignette or a post-match story (or both) that made them all interesting and worthwhile.  This is a welcome change from the latter half of July when RAW would regularly feature segments that would have you wondering where the remote was when they started, and then wondering doubly hard why they even bothered to waste your time once it was finally over.

It also doesn't hurt that the bit with Goldust, Lance, and Molly was probably the funniest thing WWE has done in.... well, I don't like making giant blanket statements that I can't retract at a later time, so let's just say "in recent memory."  That's nice and vague.  But seriously, that skit was hilarious.  I'd say it's worth watching Heat for, but they'll probably spend their valuable recap time on Heat showing us Kevin Nash's allegedly-comical altered hair-style images of Jericho.

A second Thumbs Up week in a row for RAW, in any case.  More thoughts and fall-out tomorrow in my regular OO column.  

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