By Shane McKinley, PWTorch Specialist

Batista Apparently Has Been Studying Santino In Playing To The Camera

Chris Jericho came out with his busted mouth and I all I could think was the movie Spinal Tap, in where David St. Hubbins gets a cold sore on his lip from living "the rock and roll life". Jericho makes a big deal of his tooth being chipped. Perhaps Jericho and Edge can form a tag team to fight tooth decay with their perfect smiles. Santino has apparently been teaching Batista how to ham up for the camera. Batista is the man now.

Speaking about Santino, there was plenty of weird things going on in his match with Mickie Noble alongside Beth. For one, do not know why William Regal's chair has dogs on it or if he always has a constipated look on his face. Regal sure made up for it by going insane after the fight. The illusion was broken and I believe that Regal is bonkers. Which makes him even cooler. Santino makes fun of Seattle by proclaiming his love for the Oklahoma Thunder. You see, this is using relevant and current humor. Jillian coming out and singing a Nirvana song makes me think that the writers are still living back in the 90s. Grunge? Really? Could Jillian screech out current songs? Possibly from this decade? Or maybe just not at all? Somebody must think Jillian is a riot. I admit loving her bit, but nowadays it is just embrassing.

Santino should be holding a lesser title (or not a title at all in the first place). Bring back the European title. This is wrestling. Make up a flimsy storyline and there you go. What is next for Santino? Well he will face somebody for his intercontinental championship at Cyber Sunday. I can picture it now. Santino complaining that he does not know who his champion is going to be. Santino riffing on all of the opponents. And lastly, Santino keeping the IC belt again. His opponents are Piper, Golddust, and the Honky Tonk Man. Fans can text (standard rates apply) instead of going to the website and voting. Uh, no.

Piper would probably be the most logical choice for new fans to pick. After all, he ate some popcorn with Cousin Sal or something 2 months ago. Good thing I manage to miss that entire match. Golddust (who I thought was still employed by TNA as Black Reign) could also be possible, as Golddust would get his freak on in the ring and Santino can ham it up. But the most interesting choice is the Honky Tonk man. What WWE should do is run video packages of all of these three guys (Santino can make fun of them) because frankly some people have no idea who the hell Golddust is. They know of Piper, but the Honky Tonk man new fans do not know about. It would be great if one of these guys did win, but then got stripped of the title because they are not WWE wrestlers. Thus, you can take the belt off Santino without him losing too much heat.

Still Waiting On The Second Generation, Punk and Kofi As Tag Team Champions

Liked the HBK promo, but what I did not like is the work done by Ted Dibase. Fans are just sitting on their hands waiting for The Second Generation to have a breakout match. Probably will be Punk-Kofi vs. Rhodes-Dibase for the tag team titles at Cyber Sunday. Cryme Tyme is pretty much feuding with JoMizzy. JoMizzy is also feuding with Evan Bourne and Ricky Ortiz. Hmm.

John Cena Is No Stevie Richards

The first bit of the John Cena video packages was a bit overdone. Like they were making "The Marine II: Back Into Action". The second bit where various wrestlers came in and talked glowingly about Cena was a nice touch. I still root for my man the Miz, who said that he would have just stayed in his hotel instead of visiting his buddies. Nice touch with the throat surgery, but it was not like when Stevie Richards took a guard rail to the throat in a ECW arena and had to get at least 9 surgeries over the course of his career (probably even more). I think it gets past the point of absurdity when Cena can live after being run over by JBL and surviving being trapped in a burning car. This video package made Cena look like a cool dude, but in good sense it is hard to take a guy seriously when absurd stuff is thrown his way. By comparison, Randy Orton did not get the same treatment. Because nobody loves Orton anymore.

Kip James, Idiots Who Do Not Buy "No Mercy," Good Finishes, And WWE Talking About Baseball

Dolph Ziggler is pretty much Kip James, but he is only regulated to saying hello. Not sure why WWE feels the need to be aggressive in getting people to buy No Mercy. Frankly I did not enjoy some low-rate 1950s spoof telling Johnny and Suzy that they were idiots for not shelling out money for a wrestling PPV. Liked the finish of the Mysterio-Matt Hardy vs. The Monsters. Good positive about WWE is that they keep their finishes fresh. The thing that would be on the negative side is WWE talking about the Red Sox and baseball in the middle of a broadcast. Although Kane tombstoning Pete Rose in Boston was a great wrestling idea.

Lance Cade And The Troubled Shawn Michaels, The Problem With WWE DVDs, The Move To MyNetwork Handled Nicely

Liked that Lance Cade took his match seriously. I believed him as he tried to take out HBK. HBK snapping at the end and delivering a million chair shots will probably play into the hands of Chris Jericho, as he will point out that this man is not right in the mind and therefore should not be in the match.

The main problem with WWE DVDs is that for the most part they are not the greatest buys. A Hell in the Cell DVD is coming out, but 14 matches on 3 discs seem a little wasteful. There will be some questionable entries and omissions. The Rock DVD is probably a good example of some matches that one has to wonder why they even made in on the DVD.

What is not questionable is the work done to keep fans tuned into Smackdown. WWE had an all-star kickoff, sent email out, and now will have a championship match between Big Show and Triple H. Which makes a lot of sense. The move was handled nicely.

Khali Looks For Love In All Of The Wrong Places

Darn it, Johnny Knoxville! The Great Khali just wanted a respectable interview from a man who threw himself into elephant feces and zapped his own nuts with a taser. WWE has not been hitting it out of the park with celebrities recently, but I smell a Cyper Sunday match with these two. At last Khali gets some humor with the Khali Kiss Cam. Lillian got her head eaten by the Great Khali. At least it was not Big Daddy V smooching on Lillian from years ago (shudder). Khali actually looks cool, and the line "The Great Khali says he will call you" could be put on a shirt. Khali raising his arms in victory after forcing a kiss with Lillian is much, much better than the Punjabi Prison. Or Khali as world champion.

JoMizzy and Cryme Tyme Drop Some Knowledge, Stone Cold As Ref In A Batista Match (Just Like Last Year)

I actually did not mind the train wreck that was the match between Kelly Squared and Jillian. Forget the match, this was an Oh Snap! Battle. Shad had a good line about bedazzler, but it is evident that JoMizzy are the world champions in mocking somebody.

The show ended with the best bit Mike Adalme has done all year. No longer wearing the tie? Whoa. Anyways, Adalme announcers that it will be either Randy Orton, HBK, or Stone Cold (POP) for the special guest ref. Excuse me, but is not WWE and TNA getting a little carried away with this whole special guest ref angle? Anyways, Orton is a no because frankly his character right now sucks. Stone Cold would probably happen, but what sucks about this is that Cyber Sunday last year involved Batista in a championship match with (wait for it) Stone Cold as special guest ref. There is nothing wrong with Stone Cold at Cyber Sunday, but I think the more interesting bit would be HBK, as he has a beef with both men. Plus it would be cool to see how that match would be executed.

RAW'S FINAL VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Not much in the way of match quality, as enough time has to be put aside so that JoMizzy and Cryme Tyme can yell at each other. Randy Orton on television right now is hurting his appeal (he is like Jeremy Shockey back when he was with the Giants, the team is moving ahead without him yet he is still being dragged along). At first it was "Hey Orton is here!", but now he is simply just filler. From the looks of it Batista is going to wind up on top with the championship at Cyber Sunday. At least on Raw now the boring parts have been replaced by silly parts.

LEAVING YOU WITH MY ABSURD THOUGHT: Just played TNA's wrestling videogame. Probably the best moment of the game was watching Rhino waddle down the ramp at high speed. Or the constant and long loading/saving screens.

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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