(*Note: Linda Cardellini plays 'Velma' in the Scooby-Doo movies. If you disagree with me-in any way- that Linda Cardellini is better than a Chris Benoit promo, you are wrong)
Main Event: Christian. Chris Jericho. A 15-foot high steel cage.
(*Note: At 15-feet in height, the steel cage is taller than Thescelosaurus neglectus-a late-surviving hypsilophodontid ornithischian from Campanian-Maastrichtian Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada-is long) Anyway, this match went over well at the last Raw house show with Y2J going over Christian, and that is the same result we got here. I hope this fued never ends, because aside from Shawn Michaels and Benoit, there is nobody for Y2J to have a 5-Star match with. With that said...this WASN'T that 5-star match. I have always found cage matches to be predictable and repetitive.It was a GOOD match, just not a great one. It would be interestin to see what they could do with the same match on PPV. Christian got juiced, and somebody (FINALLY) actually put over the Walls of Jericho. I swear, with all the people who have no-sold that move since right after Jericho's Undisputed Champion run, I am almost surprised he still uses that move. Personally, in my opinion, I think Raw should try something new, like maybe putting the world title on Chris Jericho or Christian...pushing Rhyno...doing something with the A-Train...letting Molly, Gail and Jazz run amok...ENDING the HBK/HHH feud (PLEASE)...doing something productive with Matt, Kane and Lita...fleshing out Victorias' babyface character...and of course, doing something besides what the WWE is currently doing with The Hurricane and Rob Conway.
Apparently, many people out there agree with this assessment (in part), seeing as how Raws' ratings keep dropping. This time, even with THE ADDED BUILD-UP, Raws' ratings dropped again...this time to a 3.4. I'm not going to claim to know what wrestling fans want, because I don't know. Everybody is different. I know what I want from the WWE and I personally don't think they can deliver. Maybe the fact that the WWE has gone out of the way to alienate all of the 'smart' fans while courting the casual fans has come back to haunt them. You see, the 'smart' fans are generally always going to be the ones puying your PPV's and your merchandise and attending your events...for YEARS, not just for a day, or a week or a month...and even SMARTER fans will simply avoid giving you their money at all.All the WWE would have to do is give them a good product. The casual fans want what they want-instant gratification-and if they don't get it...they're gone. They're ALWAYS going to be GONE. That is the nature of the casual fan.
(*Note: This should NOT be taken as literal evidence of truth, but some credence to my earlier claim that Raw and SD are virtually indistinguishable from one another aside from the main-event caliber efforts of 4 guys is gleaned when the 5/10/2004 Raw does a 3.4 and the 5/13/2004 SD garners a 3.1. The gap is not as wide between the two shows as some people would have you believe)
THE PORTION OF THE COLUMN WHERE I SHAMELESSLY PUT MOLLY HOLLY OVER
(*The official theme song for TPOTCWISPMHO this week is 'Radio-Friendly Unit Shifter' from Nirvana's 'In Utero', which was in my opinion their BEST album.)
Here we go. Molly Holly looks better than the demon-eyed Tara Reid and the chicken-legged Terri Hatcher. As a matter of fact, the odds are very good that if you are female, there is a good chance that Molly Holly is better-looking than you are. Molly is also much better looking than me. Molly could demonstrate her thorough knowledge of all things MMA on me, and make me scream. Molly could kick my ass, and in my world, she would...if I ever hesitated for ONE SPLIT-SECOND to PUT HER OVER. And I just did. I put my money where my mouth is...and I did the clean job to Molly in a squash. So, I'll say it again: Molly Holly could grind my ass into dog-meat, and there wouldn't be a blessed thing that I could do to stop her.
Seriously though, on a scale of 1 to 10, Molly grades out better than any other female on the Raw roster...or the SmackDown roster. You don't believe me? BEHOLD!!!
IN-RING(Technical skill/ability to make people look good/ring generalship):Molly (10.0)
PROMO SKILLS(Can you speak?):Molly (7.5)
CHARACTER(Who are you, and why should I care?):Molly(7.0)
CHARISMA(Got any?):Molly (8.5)
LOOK(Hopefully, no explanation is necessary here):Molly (10.0)
ATTITUDE(Are you The Big Show-respected by all-in the back...or are you Grandmaster Sexay?):Molly(10.0)
Going by this highly scientific rating system, we see that Molly drew a 53.0, for an average score of 8.83 per category. Out of a possible 10.0 per category, that is pretty damn good.The only things that held her back where her promo skills-which are tough to gauge, because she doesn't get to speak much. I therefore gave her a conservative score of 7.5. The lowest score was for her character...and I confess to being generous. I was originally going to give her a 6.5, but I based the higher rating off her character during her 2nd title run. The reason for the lowness of this rating? Ask yourself this: Who is Molly Holly right now? I don't know. Her character is amorphous and poorly-defined. Of course, a promo or three and some more airtime could cure all of that. Anyway, her current rating makes her the female equivalent of Edge. Molly JUST edged out Trish (52.5) and Ivory (51.0)...which is even better for Molly, if you look at it this way:The bookers have always been favorable to Trish, and Ivory co-hosts a show. They get LOADS of exposure. Molly gets 4-6 minutes a week on Raw, and she STILL beats them out on MY scale? Hell yeah, Molly is the best. The other Divas(Of which Molly is not...and is clearly so much the better for it):Victoria/Gail Kim (45.5);Lita (42.0);Dawn Marie (41.5); Stacy Keibler (39.0); Jazz (38.5); Jackie Gayda (37.0); Stephanie McMahon (35.0);Jacqueline (32.0); Linda Miles (31.5); Nidia (29.5); Sable (27.0) and of course,Torrie (26.5) bringing up the rear. Honorable mentions to Sharmell Sullivan and Rue DeBona, who blow all other WWE women not named Molly out of the water in the Look Department and to Jillian Hall down in OVW. Molly Holly rules the world, but the once and former Macaela Mercedes has complete jurisdiction over her own hemisphere. Jillian Hall ROCKS. I wonder if this is the woman Lance Storm was referring to when he said that one specific lady really impressed him at OVW.
Just for the record, the two things that brought the womens' ratings down universally across the board were Character and Promo Skills. Not suprising, since the WWE prefers to trot most of its women out in their underwear. Why speak, when you can titillate? Why be three-dimensional, when most of the casual fans are looking for one-and ONLY ONE-dimension? Big ups to Trish and Lita. They defied my ratings by drawing an 8.5 and a 7.5, respectively, in Character. Of course, Trish drew a 9.0 in promo, while Lita pulled a 5.5. Sorry, Lita fans. Amy Dumas is just no good on the stick. I calls it likes I sees it. Anyway, the low ratings in those two areas make sense. Most of the Divas don't get to speak...and some of the ones that DO shouldn't. Any argument you can make for the WWE caring about this particular division (much like the cruiserweight division) would be weak and based on negative evidence.
For starters, look at Vicky's face turn. This was handled POORLY. She goes from The Exorcist to Gidget overnight with no explanation, no angle, no nada. She just turns for no reason. She also doesn't use most of her old moves anymore. There's NO WAY she could be nuts and still be a babyface? I'll have to ask Mick Foley and Kane(when he was still under the hood) about that.
Look at Gail Kim. Isn't it funny how every time the WWE decides to push a woman, the whole division is immediately no-sold? This is probably because the WWE is so loathe to invest any real time in the division, the women are going to get 4-6 minutes a week to show their wares-hardly any time at all to get anything done-and so when 1 woman gets pushed, everybody else gets pushed down. Look at Gail's recent push as an example-an extreme example-as she has no-sold the current Women's Champion and Molly seems to have become Gails' valet. There's no way the WWE could have pushed her on Heat and worked her slowly back onto the Raw roster? I'm not saying she doesn't deserve what she has gotten, I'm just saying that Molly and Victoria deserve the chance to play out their 'feud' infinitely MORE than Gail deserves to win a match over either of them right now.
Look at Molly. I've said it before, let me say it again THIS WAY: 'Let's cut off your hair, so you can wear a wig with a chin-strap and lose-to whoever you work with and...that's it.' Makes perfect sense.
With the 3 or 4 different WWE shows that are either a)dedicated to re-capping Raw and SD or b)simply recap heavy, I don't understand why one of these shows hasn't been dedicated to the WWE women or to the Cruiserweights. I don't understand it any other way OTHER than to say that the WWE simply cares as much about those divisions as they care about legitimate tag-team wrestling and internet fans.And that is not at all. Don't believe me? BEHOLD...again:
WWE Monday Night Raw: 2 hours, 5 mins.
WWE SmackDown! : 2 hours
WWE HEAT: 1 hour
WWE Velocity: 1 hour
WWE Afterburn: 1 hour
WWE Bottom Line: 1 hour
The WWE Experience: 1 hour
According to this rundown of the WWE T.V. lineup, there is no less than 9 hours and 5 minutes of WWE television every week. Afterburn, Bottom Line and The Experience are re-cap shows, so no original matches ae going to be shown on them. HEAT is a Raw show, and Velocity is the sister program to SD, so the C-weights and the ladies, respectively, are going to be on one or the other. I am going to use the ladies here, because it illustrates the proof of my point much more vividly. The women don't spend a whol lot of time on HEAT for some reason, but if I were going to be generous, let's say the women (not counting Trish and Lita) get 7 minutes on Raw (VERY generous of me, these days) and the women get 6 minutes on HEAT. Eliminate both SD and Velocity and The Experience-which should be the ONLY recap show. That is still 5 hours and 5 minutes of WWE programming per week-or 305 minutes. So, on the most generous of scales, not counting PPV matches (which for the ladies in recent months, have tended to be really quick, throwaway type matches usually utilizing the handy-dandy rollup as a finish), the women get 13 minutes per week out of an available 305. Thirteen minutes out of an available THREE HUNDRED and FIVE. Just under 96% of the time, if you are watching WWE programming, odds are a diva not named Trish are Lita is NOT going to be featured.
Way to go, WWE.
This edition of Mollyopoly, I bitched and moaned. For my next edition, number 7, I will address the WWE women from a creative standpoint, as regards their presentation and utilization, while hopefully coming across as a bit more solution-oriented. Bitching and moaning is okay, but not when you do it for 6 issues!
Until later, guten abend
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