by The Rick
Undisputed Lord and Master of OnlineOnslaught.com

Read on, find out....

Cold Open: The ring is basked in purple light, and there's some sort of Gregorian Chanting going on.  In the ring is a casket, just sitting there.  Announcers Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross briefly theorize -- as the Rhodes Scholars that they are -- that this MIGHT have something to do with the Undertaker, so Stay Tuned, folks!

Opening theme/no pyro, as we cut straight back to the ring and the casket.  Backstage, we see Kane is looking at this casket footage on a monitor, and he decides to come on out to the ring.  So it's time for....

Live, From the Mutara Sector: It's Monday Night!

Kane's pyro and entrance theme are only BRIEFLY able to overpower the Gregorian Chanting.  Once Kane is in the ring, the purple lights and chanting start back up again.  And then, in a scene cribbed directly from "Star Trek III," Kane nervously approaches the discarded casket of a presumed-dead hero... the casket is caked in dirt.  There's even some worms, I guess.  Kane yanks open the casket and reveals....  nothing.  It's empty, no doubt as a result of the Genesis Device.  Damn you, protomatter!

Actually, no, it's not totally empty.  There's a gold urn that flops out of the casket.  Kane grabs the urn and sets it aside.  Then he tears up the casket and the roller-thingie the casket was sitting on and throws them out of the ring.  Then he looks at the urn for a bit and grabs a mic.  He announces, "This is it, Undertaker?  An Urn?  This is your last mindgame?"  Then Kane goes on a tirade about how it's all going to end on Sunday: Taker's mindgames, his WM winning streak, and his very life.  Well, I'm happy SOMEbody remember that little winning streak thing, at least...

But then: Taker's "BONG" hits.  The purply light intensifies.  And hey, look: the ring is sort of shimmying, or something.  First one corner elevates about 3 inches, then another.  Kane sells the jiggling with a look of fear, and JR/Lawler sell it like it's levitation, holmes.  A generic video ("It all begins again at WM20") appears on the TitanTron, then there's some thunder sound effects, and the ring jiggle speeds up as we escape the segment listing to Ross have an aneurysm about how amazingly ominous and intimidating the Undertaker's 3-inch shimmy of death is.

You know: on the well-publicized OO SpookyMeter, this rates pretty far towards the Gay-Spooky side.  First, having JR and King have to sit there, like fricking idiots, wondering "Where did this casket come from?" set us off on the wrong foot (here's an idea: ask one of the 10000 people in the audience who was paying attention as it got set up in the ring).  Then Kane acting all scared of the casket didn't help.  Finally, the "probably sounded awesome on paper, but looked crappy in reality" ring jiggle....  I'd have preferred they kept it simple.  Have Kane come out and act all bold, reveal that HE brought the casket here to show the idiot fans that it's empty.  He opens it, and it is.  Cuts the same basic promo.  Then have a couple of BONG hits, some purple light, and have Paul Bearer show up on the stage with the gold urn to gesture broadly towards the TitanTron.  Simple.  Kane has a reason to be bothered (cuz Paul Bearer's a better harbinger than a shaky ring), fans have another reason to anticipate Taker's return (just in case they hadn't already gotten the message that the Dead Man Taker was the one coming back).  And there's no significant gay-ness to have me rolling my eyes.  But no, we're off the a sketchy start, instead.

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Booker T, Rob Van Dam, and the Dudley Boyz vs. Garrison Cade, Mark Jindrak, and La Resistance

Duds start out, go back and forth with a rotating set of heels for about 90 seconds.  Then RVD tags in and does an ultra-time-condensed face in peril act, leading to an allegedly hot tag at about the 3 minutes mark.  Booker T comes in, cleans some house, but it winds up that a chaotic/semi-awkward Pier Eight Brawl breaks out.  Booker is in the ring with Jindrak (the legal opponent), and is getting ready to hit him with the axe kick for the pin, but Booker (after BLATANTLY looking around to pick the right side of the ring) runs to the wrong set of ropes, and instead of bouncing off to hit his finisher, is clubbed in the back by one of La Resistance.  Jindrak follows up with a quick clothesline and a roll-up to steal the win.  Afterwards, Jindrak and Cade celebrated "their" win, while La Resistance came up and tried to remind them it was a team effort.

Maybe about 4 minutes, tops, with that bogus time-condensed feel early and then kind of awkward/sloppy towards the end.  As a match, this was definitely sub-par, but in terms of getting a story across (Jindrak/Cade are spoilers in Sunday's tag title 4-way), I guess it was mostly harmless.

Backstage: Chris Jericho is pulling the old cellphone walk-and-talk, and is having trouble hearing.  Finally, he locates a secluded hallway, and we, the home viewers, quickly surmise he's talking to Trish. Trish is just getting home from her physical therapy, and Chris is happy to hear she's doing OK.  Jericho promises that no matter what, after he beats Steven Richards tonight, he'll find Christian and kick his ass for what he did to Trish, the girl he cares most about in the entire world.  That little comment seems to spark Trish's interest, and Chris listens for a bit.  Then Jericho says, "You know, that's funny, because I have something really important I need to tell you, too..."  But before Jericho can spill it, Christian sneaks up from behind and punks him out.  A few stomps for good measure, and Jericho is out.  Christian picks up the phone, and tells Trish that Jericho is now in her favorite position: "Flat on his back."  How could Christian POSSIBLY know that for sure?

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During the break: Christian, perennial coward well known for his limber tail, half-jogged from the arena to avoid the Wrath of Jericho.  He hopped into a waiting car, which then peeled out.  You know, *I* can't help but wonder "Who was driving the car?"... but then again, I was the one who put forth a convoluted heel-turn-and-new-brunette-look-for-Trish theory not three weeks ago, so maybe I have a vested interest in noticing such minutiae....  For the record, neither JR nor Lawler stops, even for a second, at any point during the rest of the night to wonder who drove the car.  So it's probably nothing you have to worry about.

Complete Non Sequitur:  As JR and King decide to not think about Mystery Drivers, a guy with a pizza arrives at the commentary table.  It's in a WrestleMania XX box, which is nice and all, but... well, I know there's no such thing as WM20 Brand Pizza, so maybe if this is a promotional box being done by Domino's or something, Ross or Lawler should have announced it as such?  Instead, they just make a vague comment about how tasty the pizza is as they shoot it to...

Backstage: a new TV Personality (just put Terri on the side of the milk carton, already, I guess) has Booker T and RVD cornered for an interview.  His Hard Hitting Question: is Booker getting pinned by Jindrak a sign of what'll happen at WM20.  Booker gets real pissy at this, and does about a 30 second rant about how he and RVD will prevail at the PPV.  He fails to mention that they finally got new team music earlier on tonight's show, which is the best evidence that they're stuck teaming together for the foreseeable future, but oh well....  then Booker leaves in a huff, and RVD pauses just long enough to smile into the camera and get everybody to chant along with Points To Self.  Then he gets an intense look on his face, too, and leaves.

Flashback: Five years ago, in September, 1999, Mick Foley presented his friend and tag team partner with "This is Your Life, Rocky."  The punchline of the entire skit, according to revisionist history: "Poontang your ass on outta here."  God, I love being right.

Backstage: the Rock is walking, and dammit, he's back doing that not-very-endearing thing of fake-smiling and looking at things that aren't really there and stuff.  So when Rock is a babyface, he acts like a jackass?  But last year, when he was a heel, he was so fricking funny we all started to like him again?  You're hurting my brain, Rocky....  Rock bumps into "Oh, it's my biggest arch-nemesis!"  And the camera pulls back to reveal the Hurricane.  Hurricane welcomes Rock back, and puts the past behind them, saying it's good that Rocky's here fighting for the side of good and truth.  Then, Hurricane and Rosey do a set piece where 'Cane says he saw an advance screening of "Walking Tall" and loved it; but Rosey gets a look on his face that says he thinks otherwise.  When grilled by the Rock, Rosey reveals he left for some Ju-Ju-Bees ("Jujubes"?  I honestly don't remember), and came back into the wrong theater.  The alleged punchline: Rosey gives two Thumbs Up to "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen."  Then Hurricane steps in and deflects the conversation by remarking how Rock reminds him of someone else....  he can't quite put his finger on it.... ah, wait: it's the Coach, who just so happens to be standing behind the Rock.  Coach does a spiel about how Rocky could try extra hard and maybe someday become Coach's stunt double, or something.  Rock responds with a spiel about how Coach is a phenomenal kiss-ass and nothing more.  When Coach presses him, Rock just shoves him down, and turns back to the Hurricane.  Rocky goes into serious mode and wishes Hurricane and Rosey luck in their handicap match against Evolution.  And then he tells Rosey to lay off the Ju-Ju-Howeveryouspellit so that we at least get a funny punchline to the bit.  Whole thing reeked of Trying Too Hard To Be Clever, instead of just letting something flow naturally....

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Ric Flair, Randy Orton, Batista vs. Hurricane and Rosey

Squash.  Flair starts, let's Hurricane have maybe 20 seconds of back-and-forth, then puts him down.  I think Orton tagged in and hit one punch.  Then Batista tagged in and finished things off with a series of power moves, culminating in a power bomb.  About 1 minute, flat. After the match, Rosey tried to run in for revenge, but Evolution triple teamed him, leading to a Batista spine-buster.  Nothing to see here, move along...

After the match: Since he did absolutely zero in the match, Orton decided to earn his paycheck with a promo.  The general gist: Rock 'n' Sock are washed-up has-beens, and will get crushed at WM20 because you can't stop Evolution.  Well, at least that explains why Orton had to cut the promo instead of the infinitely more-qualified Flair: having Flair cut a "washed-up, has-been" promo on behalf of the "future of the wrestling business" would have set off Irony Detectors in all the way over in New Zealand.  Pretty much a waste of time, both the match and the promo.

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Video Package: a nice 4-minute recap of the Benoit/HBK/HHH feud as it has developed since January.

Chris Benoit vs. Matt Hardy

Squash.  What the hell am I watching, WWF Superstars from 1987?  Hardy pulls the coward act, steals the offensive for about 15 seconds, Benoit counters with Germans.  Hardy blocks the third German, and Benoit reverses the reversal into the Crossface.  Tap out win, and again, maybe one minute, flat.  A total waste given the talent in the ring.  As Benoit stands in the ring giving us Smoldering Intensity, Jim Ross wonders what's going through his head.  Lawler says, "Why don't you go ask him?"... so JR decides to do just that.  But first....

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Mid-Show Promo Time

JR puts over everything Benoit has accomplished in his 18-year career, and asks what it means to be heading into WM20 this Sunday.  Generic question gets a generic answer: Benoit says he's been building to this his entire career and Sunday, he'll walk out with the World Title.  

Enter Shawn Michaels, who has a dissenting viewpoint.  He says that he respects everything Benoit's about, and that Benoit wants to start a World Title legacy. But HBK says Sunday's not about starts, it's about endings.  Like the end to his "decade-long feud" (c'mon, wrestling fans are dense, but some of us CAN count) with HHH.  Which means that HBK will walk out of WM20 with the title.  Benoit doesn't agree with that, and stammers through something about agreeing to disagree, but then also agreeing to agree on one thing: that they don't like HHH and that one of them will beat him for the title on Sunday.  Shawn considers this, and decides "There's just one thing left to say, then:  Good luck."  HBK puts out his hand, Benoit accepts, and then the two pull each other into the Combined Handshake/Staredown of Mutual Respect But Not Friendship.

Enter Triple H.  He stays up on the stage as he announces this is all "Crap."  It's crap that he has to defend his title against two men at WM20, and it's even bigger crap that his two opponents have apparently decided to form an alliance against him.  But, he says, it doesn't matter because he's super-duper-mega-awesome and he'll win, anyway.  You know what, it'd be more fun to make fun of his boasting if it weren't for the fact that he's pretty much telling the truth about winning every feud he's been in for the past five years, dammit....  oh, wait: I mean, "I'd win every match I was in, too, HHH, if I was banging the boss' daughter regularly."  Gimme back my Internet Jack-off Card!

Of course, HHH doesn't cop to any sort of backstage stroke driving his on-screen success.  No.  Instead, he riffs on how he always wins because he's very crafty and always finds an edge.  Well, there you have it, folks: Edge is coming back to RAW, afterall.  He and HHH will form a new faction.  No, no.... I kid.  HHH's edge is not Edge, in this case.  HHH's edge, so he claims, is the very thing that makes Benoit and Michaels so good:  ego.  HHH says that HBK's ego will prevent him from letting Benoit win the title.  Benoit's ego will prevent him from letting Michaels win the title.  And through the cracks will slip HHH, the Once and Future World Heavyweight Champion.  HHH lets that sink in, and gets a smirk on his face as his music plays.  And in the ring, his psychological warfare is working already: after shaking hands just moments ago, Michaels and Benoit are no walking away from each other.  But very slowly.  And giving each other the skunk eye.  Another good promo, here; nothing new, but a nice underscoring of the key elements of the feud that have already been introduced, namely that there is genuine three-way hostility here, not just two babyfaces and one heel.

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Backstage: Mick Foley is walking!  And bumps into Spike Dudley (proudly wearing a WM20 jersey, which according to Bylaw #4488b means he won't be appearing on the very PPV which he is advertising)... Spike and Mick have a little chat, which reveals nothing of substance.

Lita vs. Molly Holly

Footage of Molly Angry Molly plays during her entrance, but is cut short when Molly decides to jump start the match by attacking Lita before the bell.  She stays on offense for about a minute and a half, then Lita makes a comeback.  It culminated in a neckbreaker (announcers: "Twist of Fate"), but Molly kicked out, and quickly reversed Lita's follow-up move into a roll-up.  Molly also used the ropes, illegally, for leverage, and stole the pinfall.  Maybe 2, 2-and-a-half minutes.  And I'm not even CLOSE to joking when I say it's the best match we've gotten all night.

After the match: Molly tried to keep on pounding on Lita, conveying that she is a New Molly, and very angry, but Victoria made the save.  As Molly scurried away, Victoria made hair-cutting gestures as Molly got a worried look on her face and started fondling her silken locks.  Funny, I'd have wagered a good sum of money on a Victoria promo featuring Fun with Photoshop, if you catch my drift... I guess the Fed deemed that approach Too Obvious....

Last Week: Steve Austin and Vince McMahon did a little vehicular stunt.  And now, Austin's here to respond.  After some....

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Video Package: another nice 4-minute recap -- you should probably get real used to seeing these for the rest of the week, they'll be recycled on Heat, the PPV pre-show, and the PPV itself -- this time covering all the Austin/Lesnar/Goldberg stuff going back to the Rumble.

Steve Austin Contractual Obligation Theatre

Austin walked out to the ring, on the grounds that Brock Lesnar's still go the Justice Buggy.  He starts out by talking about refereeing at WM20, and how Goldberg hit him with the Spear and Lesnar hit him with the F-5, so it's not like he cares about either guy, and he'll just call this one right down the middle.  But then, Austin shifts gears...  because Goldberg's sitting at home just waiting for his contract to expire, but Brock Lesnar is coming around and stealing his property.  Which means maybe Austin's not feeling exactly the same towards both guys.

In fact, Austin says he's gonna head down to Atlantic City later this week.  Shoot some dice. Play some blackjack.  Drink some beers.  Some vodka.  Some tequilla.  And then he's gonna head straight to SmackDown! to take back his ATV.  And then, in what sure seemed like an odd thing to say, Austin announced, "And I dare anyone in that locker room to stop me."  In fact, Austin boasted that there's nobody on SD! he can't whip, and nobody back in the RAW locker room whose ass he can't kick either, and that's the Bottom Line.

Huh.  Really kind of a pointless promo: just a very brief obligatory appearance by Austin to pop the crowd, so he could tell them that his REAL promo this week would be happening on SD!  But then those closing comments... that sure felt like they were setting SOMEthing up, unless Austin was just feeling it and got a little frisky with calling an audible about his ass-whupping prowess....  we'll see...

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Chris Jericho vs. Steven Richards

I guess either (a) somebody hasn't gotten the memo about Stevie being a face, or (b) Stevie's chances to stay a face without being tied to Victoria's hip are slim and none.  Actually, in an odd twist, Jericho comes out of the gates super-fast here, but is doing every dirty heel trick in the book.  Even biting at one point.  The message: Jericho is hella pissed and nobody's gonna stop him from beating Richards.  Stevie makes a mini-comeback at about the 90 second mark, but makes the mistake of stopping long enough to announce "STEE-VEE-TEE" to the crowd.  Jericho powers out, and tries locking Richards into the Walls of Jericho.  But Richards struggles valiantly.  And in the struggle, Jericho is suddenly distracted when Trish Stratus' music starts... but out onto the stage walks Christian, not Trish.  Jericho's distraction, however, is enough for Stevie:  Richards rolls him up, and gets the cheap pinfall.  Another 2 minute match, probably inching out the women for Match of the Night.  

After the match: Up on the stage, Christian taunts Jericho, and makes gestures that seem to say, "This proves my point; even playing that vile temptress' music was enough to cause you to lose."  But then Christian leaves, and Jericho flips out.  He continues the heelish routine by brutalizing Richards after the bell, including slamming him on the steel ring steps.

Hall of Fame: the video package recapping the 11 inductees in this year's Class is played again.  Same thing from last week.

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Backstage: Stacy and Miss Jackie walk into a room, and proceed to boast to each other about how they are very hot and will prove it to Sable and Torrie Wilson at WM20.  Then they start dancing and singing that "Milk Shake" song, embarrassing white folks the world over in the process.  And in walks John Hennigan.  I mean, Johnny Blaze.  You know, that guy from Tough Enough who changed his name last week on RAW.  He promptly announces, "Hey ladies, my name is Johnny Spain."  Then he continues, "That's right, Johnny Spillane is a Star-Maker.  Here's my card.  It clearly indicates that my name is Johnny Stain, and I am Eric Bischoff's very capable new apprentice."  Then he does a few single entendres about how he's hands-on, and whatever.  The words coming out of his mouth are the work of a 14 year old, but I'll grant the guy this: he's selling it hard, and it's good to see one of these new guys exhibiting personality in his first few TV appearances.  Johnny closes by saying he's available to Stacy and Jackie at any hour, day or night, if they need assistance.  Stacy and Jackie, improbably, are not disgusted by the dude's ham-handed come-ons (handsome assholes with good hair have ALL the luck, dammit!), and instead seem charmed by Johnny as they leave the room.  Johnny is very proud of himself, as Eric Bischoff sneaks in from the other side of the room to deliver an awkward tagline about how Johnny did a great job.  I guess he had to get on TV somehow, tonight, eh?

Oh, and I think the guy's name was actually Johnny Spade.  But will it be next week?  Stay tuned....

WrestleMania 20 Hype:  The WM20 card is presented in three segments.  First, JR and King do the RAW-only matches.  Then they shoot it to WWE Studios in Stamford, where Cole and Tazz do the SD!-only matches.  Then it's back to JR and King to close with the three inter-promotional matches.  They way they broke it down, it almost gave you the feel like Goldberg vs. Lesnar (w/ Austin) is the Main Event....  which is kind of funny, when you stop to think.

Backstage: the Rock does more of that obnoxious talking to imaginary people thing as he's walking towards the ring.  Then, just as we get ready to cut to break, he lets us know it's OK, he's just fooling around, by flashing a hokey smile to the camera.  MAN!  Can somebody please explain to me why I SO BADLY want to punch the babyface Rock in the face, but why I would have loved to hang out with last year's heel Rock?  And then, when you're done explaining it to me, go explain it to WWE, because apparently, they don't have any clue....

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This Is Your Life, Mick Foley

Rock hits the ring, and lets the crowd chant his name for a bit.  Then it's time for business.  Rock says he stood by and watched as Evolution took something very important away from his friend, Mick Foley.  They took away his ability to smile.  At WM20, they're won't be any smiling when the Rock 'n' Sock connection whup Evolution's ass, but tonight, he wants to give Mick back that Smile with a little "This is Your Life" action.

So, out comes Mick to be toasted.  Rock says we're gonna go all the way back to when Foley jumped off a roof, and shows us that infamous footage.  Rock says that the first guest on "This is Your Life" is the woman who owned that house, Mrs. Doris Snyder.  Out comes Doris, who Mick welcomes with a friendly hug.  And then the comedy begins:  Mick reminisces about the nice woman who let them play in her yard, and didn't even get mad when they did stuff like jump off her house.  Mick remembers all the kids being invited into Mrs. Snyder's house to enjoy cookies and other treats.  And of course, her mouth-watering pie.  A beat.  The Rock does a double take, and asks for clarification: Mick ate Mrs. Snyder's.... pie?  Yep, all the kids lined up at her door to eat her pie!  The Rock looks disgusted.  Mick says the girls lined up, too!  Rock is feeling sick, and asks Mrs. Snyder if she's still serving up pie.  Mrs. Snyder says no... but she still leaves her backdoor open for struedel.  Oy.  That's enough for the Rock, who tells Doris to go stand over in a corner (and chastises her for looking at the Rock's Ass) while the Rock conducts more business.

Because Rocky wants to bring us to Madison Square Garden in 1983, when Mick hitchhiked 5 hours to see Jimmy Snuka vs. Don Muraco inside a steel cage, the match where Snuka leapt off the cage and inspired Mick's later house-dive.  We see the clip of the match (and of Mick in the sixth row), and then Rocky introduces our next guest... the Superfly, Jimmy Snuka!

Snuka's out to a big pop, and is welcomed warmly by both Foley and by the Rock.  Foley puts Snuka over as the reason why he's became a wrestler and is standing in this ring, and asks Snuka to come on out to WM20 on Sunday.  Snuka says "Brudda, it would be an honor," which sends the Rock into a really funny send up of some of Snuka's more memorable gibberish promos.  He can get away with it, since they're family (sort of).  All of a sudden, Doris starts slinking over towards the Superfly, drawing some laughs.  Rock tries to tell the sick fffffffreak to mind her own business, but Snuka announces "Brudda, I like pie!."  Foley muses that Doris has been kind of lonely since Mr. Snyder passed away... and Rock decides to quit being disgusted.  He tells Snuka and Doris to head up the road to the Holiday Inn, check in on the Rock's credit card, get some room service, and make beautiful babies together.  Big pop, big laughs, and so far, this has all been gold.

But now, it's time to get a bit more serious.  The final phase of "This is Your Life" is Rock's tribute to Foley's Author Days.  Rock has drudged up the "media critic" who did the first NY Times book review of "Have a Nice Day," a guy named Bob Thompson.  The "media critic" is just a book-ish looking middle-aged guy, who gets booed almost immediately upon stepping onto the stage.  The fans' instincts are right.  Before "Thompson" can even make it to the ring, Foley tells them to cut the music, and asks Rock why he'd bring this guy out.  Because this guy savaged "Have a Nice Day" and mocked wrestling and its fans.  And Rock said that's exactly why he did bring the guy out: because Bob Thompson IS Mick Foley's life.  He's the guy who told Mick "You can't be a wrestling.  You can't be a champion.  You can't be an author."  But Mick always proved them wrong.  As funny as the preceding bits were, this is actually a pretty deep and significant climax.  Thompson is smirking all through the Rock's spiel, oozing superiority.  Finally, the Rock is concludes his bit by saying the critics have always been wrong about Mick, just like they're wrong if they think that Mick and Rock can't overcome the 3-on-2 odds on Sunday at WM20.  Rock asks Thompson if he's one of those critics who thinks Evolution will win.  But the guy's a media critic, not a wrestling fan, so he says, "No, but I do think that if you showed this much fire in 'Walking Tall,' Rock, then it wouldn't have been a big piece of walking crap."  Oooooohhhhh, snap!  Rock smiles, and distracts Thompson over in one corner.  Behind the "critic" Foley goes into the pants and finds Mr. Socko.  Thompson eventually turns around, and walks right into the Mandible Sock (as Lawler, for no good reason other than he's apparently an insecure jack-off himself, muses "I wonder if Thompson writes one of those dirtsheets, too").  Thompson is KO'ed in under a minute, and the Rock gets ready to send us home with "If you SMEELLLLLLLLLL"....

But that's when Batista hit the ring from out of nowhere.  He tossed Rock from the ring, and started beating on Foley.  When Rocky came back in to help his buddy, Orton and Flair ran down the ramp to join in.  Against the 3-on-2 odds, Rock and Foley did not fair well tonight.  The beating culminated in Batista hitting his powerbomb on Rocky.  Rock and Foley writhed in pain, while Evolution celebrated on the ramp to close out the show.

Final Analysis

This was a show that practically SHOUTED "Hey, we already did all the hard work, now we're on cruise control."  An icing on the cake show.  A finishing touches show.  Whatever lame cliche you want to use.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I mean, if the Fed needed a blow-away show in the final week heading into WM, it'd mean that they'd been fumbling the ball for weeks leading up to this point.  And they haven't really done that, so.... maintenance mode it is.

Despite the complete dearth of any decent wrestling action, this was a mostly entertaining little show heading into WM.  I was already going to be watching WM20, so I'm probably the wrong person to try to assess the effectively of last night's RAW, but I can't see it being a show that turned anybody off.  And it probably did, especially with the HHH/HBK/Benoit and Rock 'n' Sock bits, sway a few people to check out the PPV on Sunday....

Wrestling-wise, the show was a waste.  I am NOT, in theory, against using squash matches in moderation.  But it did get kind of annoying tonight when it was nothing match after nothing match.  With the exception of the opener, every single match was "Guy (or girl) on the WM20 PPV vs. Guy (or girl) Not on the PPV," which pretty much telegraphs things.  Then (with the exception of the opener), not one of those matches lasted much more than 2 minutes.

They tossed in a little swerve with Richards, from the jobber spot, upsetting Jericho, but really, who won was pointless. The story of that match was "Jericho dominates, gets fluke loss, follows up by destroying the jobber."  And the opener, which I guess was supposed to be the one competitive match on the show (and which was the longest), was kind of clunky and awkward in the end, and never really roped me in.  Probably doesn't help that it was a preview of the single least appealing of all the WM20 matches.

Again: not against the squashes and the trying to protect the PPV talent by feeding them non-PPV talent.  Just got sort of frustrated that they waited to do four of five of those matches in one night last night, without giving us even a single quality TV match to hang our hats on.

Storyline-wise, though, the show was definitely more a winner than a loser.  For all my misgivings about "This is Your Life," I thought it hit the mark, unlike its over-long predecessor.  Funny for about 8 minutes, then serious (with the heel run-in) for another five or so.  Nice range of emotions, and strong throughout.  That was Rock and Mick at their best, which was really cool to see (especially after I'd spent the preceding two hours getting vaguely annoyed at Rocky's inability to seem likeable because he was too busy being convinced of his own all-encompassing cleverness).

And the HHH promo (with guest content from HBK and Benoit) was really good, too.  Like I said, nothing new, necessarily, but it emphasized the right points and makes me feel very good about seeing a top-shelf match, one that fans will be responding to, on Sunday at Mania.

On the miss side of the story-telling: the Taker/Kane stuff.  They could have had something a lot cooler than that for the final push, if they'd wanted.  But I already ranted at length about my specific feelings above, so I'll move on.

Everything else was a push: Austin's promo wasn't bad or good, it was just "Tune in Thursday to see some development"...  the women's match reminded us that Molly is angry and that her hair is on the line, but didn't really put any additional sizzle on that feud...  Jindrak/Cade getting a win over the tag champs is nice, but it's also too little too late to make most people care... and Stacy/Jackie/Johnny Spade was a throw-away segment designed more to get Spade's gimmick over than anything else, but that's OK, because, as it turns out, Stacy and Jackie are still hot and we still want to see them half-nekkid.

Also adding to that "we're done doing the serious work" feel was the 2 or 3 long-ish video packages.  Hey, I'm already resigned to getting sick of those this weekend...  don't start burning me out on them already.  Ahh, hell, I know that's a dick-ish thing to say, cuz they were well-put-together and all, but honestly...  one time on Heat and one time on the PPV is about all I need for those things, and here RAW was feeding them to me a week early when maybe I'd have still liked more fresh developments instead of history lessons.

For me, a measurable step down from the previous week's show.  Still very watchable from a maintenance/final push standpoint, but it didn't do anything really significant for me.  The best bits were either fluff ("This is Your Life") or rehash/underscoring (HHH/HBK/Benoit), not serious fresh developments.

More thoughts/fall-out tomorrow in OO....
 

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