By: Todd Martin

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Blog: toddwmartin.blogspot.com

Date: 11/09/09 from Sheffield, England.

The Big News: There’s only one Ricky Hatton. Or maybe two.

Show Analysis:

Ricky Hatton came out to Blue Moon, looking in Hatton’s renowned non-fighting shape. He got a nice reaction but no singing of “Hatton Wonderland.” I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Hatton said he has had some good memories in Sheffield but was there to make some new ones.

Jerishow came out, with even Jericho looking significantly taller than Hatton. Somebody should point out to Vince McMahon that Hatton’s last fight drew significantly more US PPV buys than WrestleMania. His infatuation with size has over time become something akin to a World War I general infatuated with horses.

Big Show said his breakfast was bigger than Hatton and told Hatton t get out of the ring. Hatton mocked Show for the Floyd Mayweather KO. Show offered Hatton a free punch. Hatton was going to take it but Jericho stepped in. That led to more bickering between Show and Jericho. Hatton made Jerishow vs. DX for later on Raw. Jericho and Show together then turned their sights on Hatton, but DX came out. HHH pointed out how Jerishow keeps screwing with guest hosts and bad things keep happening to them. DX took out Jericho, and Show left rather than choosing to fight two on one.

Alicia Fox beat Kelly Kelly in one of those women’s matches where they try all these elaborate moves and two out of three look bad. Kelly used a sloppy huracanrana and rocker dropper. Alicia came back with a sloppy axe kick for the pin.

Sheamus beat somebody. They had a ring introduction and said this was a one fall match, but then only announced one competitor. The announcers never announced the opponent’s name and WWE.com just announced him as “a local competitor.” Is it so hard to just give him a name? Oh well. Sheamus won with a uranage into a back breaker, big boot, and razor’s edge for the finish.

Backstage, Ricky Hatton did a comedy vignette with Chavo Guerrero and Santino Marella. Santino was dressed as Ricky Fatton. Hatton beat Chavo at darts. Chavo challenged Santino to a match. Hatton accepted the match himself. Elsewhere, Miz was doing an interview talking about beating John Morrison at Survivor Series. Jack Swagger interrupted and they bickered about who would be team captain.

Evan Bourne beat Jack Swagger. So much for that great winning streak. Swagger threw Bourne around and hit a Vader bomb and big boot. Miz came out to distract Swagger. Bourne hit a spinning kick and shooting star press for the pin. This was like the prototypical WWE match where they accomplish nothing other than teaching the audience not to take a young star seriously. It’s so stupid that it should be outrageous, but they do it so often it’s just expected.

MVP Lounge featured MVP, Mark Henry and Kofi Kingston. I’m very happy that they made a Survivor Series tag match with Kingston and Randy Orton as captains. It will allow them to showcase both Kingston and Orton without hurting either. MVP and Henry put over Kingston and they had some champagne.

Legacy came out to interrupt. Orton said they are low class street thugs and they should go back to the hood where they came from. Kingston slapped Orton. I hate racial angles. I don’t think it makes you mad at the heel; it just makes WWE look sleazy. At least MVP was actually in prison. I don’t see what about Henry (a US Olympian) or Kingston (a graduate of a highly selected university) suggests criminality to WWE other than the color of their skin.

Randy Orton beat Mark Henry. Orton dominated the early part of the match. Henry was starting a comeback when Orton reversed a choke slam attempt into the RKO for the pin. A lot of people cheered Orton here. Orton slapped Kingston after the match and Kingston punched him back.

Ricky Hatton beat Chavo Guerrero. They announced this as “mixed martial arts” rules, which they then explained meant the boxer could only win by knockout and the wrestler could only win by pin fall or submission. Hatton wore boxing gloves. He landed some punches. Chavo scored a takedown but Hatton got back up. Chavo looked for another takedown but was caught with a punch for the ten count. This was pretty darn awful.

Celebrity angles can be a cool way to generate attention (although there is an issue of diminishing returns) and do fun angles. However, I think when it comes to athlete guest hosts you should just do angles and not bill matches. Boxers doing matches has been a big money attraction many times in the past. To me, doing it as a throwaway comedy midcard TV angle makes it a lot harder to make money next time.

They did another John Cena/DX comedy bit in advance of their Survivor Series match. Cena was with Hornswoggle and DX wanted Cena to hand him over. Hornswoggle eventually came out, but was dressed like Cena rather than DX. When DX left he went back to his DX gear. They announced Roddy Piper as guest host for next week. That should be fun.

DX beat Chris Jericho and Big Show. Jericho and Show worked over Michaels, who eventually got the tag to HHH. HHH came in with a face buster on Show and went for the pedigree but Show reversed it and hit the spear. John Cena was doing commentary for this and trying to hard sell the Survivor Series match, which was quite interesting. He was trying his heart out, god bless the guy.

HHH eventually tagged Michaels, who gave Jericho a flying forearm, inverted atomic drops and the elbow off the top. Michaels missed sweet chin music and Jericho went for the Walls but Michaels got out. Show hit a corner avalanche on both Jericho and Michaels. He then went for the KO punch on Michaels but hit Jericho instead. HHH sent Show out of the ring and Michaels covered for the pin. They then announced next week will be a triple threat match with Jericho and Show vs. DX vs. Undertaker and John Cena.

Final Thoughts:

On an absolute scale, I didn’t care for this show much, in terms of angles or matches. Relative to a lot of the recent shows, I thought it was pretty much average. Because DX/Cena feels stale and because they aren’t really pushing it very hard anyway, it feels like the top angle on Raw these days is the revolving guest host gimmick.