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Mark Dinatale of Los Angeles, Calif. (7.0): Best Match: Tag Match with Rey Mysterio & Matt Hardy vs. Kane & Mark Henry. Worst: Anything Santino. I love when WWE tapes in a city that is not burned out on WWE. The crowd tonight was hot, hot, hot! The tag match with Matt & Rey vs. Henry & Kane was exciting, but elevated even more by the crowd. I love anything with Chris Jericho. The opening promo was solid as was his work as referee in the main event. Not even 24 hours removed from a PPV and we already starting to promote the next one. It's just too darn much. Nice picks for IC challengers. Goldust is the only one that is not past his prime. I know the obvious choice is Honky Tonk Man, but does anyone really want to see more embarrassment coming at the expense of the IC Title? The banter with Cryme Tyme and Miz & Morrison was made even funnier, due to the fact that it looked like all four guys were going to crack up. Special shout-out to HBK for getting Medieval on student Lance Cade. I hope they get a decent program as well. As far as HBK, say what you will, but the guy is willing to make other guys look good. The main event was only good due to Jericho's antics. Announcement for referee at Cyber-Sunday was okay, I liked Steve Austin in his day, but it would be better to have other guys that are in the title hunt to be referee.

Eric Gall of Bridgeport, Conn. (5.5): High Point: Jericho; Khali's Kiss Cam. Low Point: "Did You Know?" segments. While I enjoyed Jericho's promo to start the show, I knew it was just a matter of time until Batista's entrance music would cut it off. The "magically interrupting entrance music" trick is totally overused and illogical, but it's done so frequently that the "all-knowing sound truck guy" is just another sports entertainment entity like the "invisible backstage cameraman." Part of me thinks that Vince would do away with the ring completely if he felt he could and just have two hours of promos being interrupted by music, followed by more promos and the occasional fight. I'm trying to see WWE programming as not really wrestling and maybe something closer to a three ring circus. As such, I thought Khali doing the Kiss Cam was pretty funny, forced kiss notwithstanding. Maybe he should have his own interview segment: "Khali's Curry Shack, anyone? Maybe it's just me, but the "You're mama so ugly" fest between Miz, Morrison, and Cryme Tyme just came off as a big mess. Because they were talking over each other so quickly, it became tough to make sense of any of it. The best way to describe Batista is a "maintainance main eventer" because his big muscles and "hey, I'm cool" attitude are big with kids and women; he just doesn't have that charisma and wit to draw casual fans to Raw and spearhead another wrestling boom. Raw, as usual, continues to be an uneven show with the usual bright spots (Santino, Jericho vs. Michaels) and the usual blights (tired formulaic programming).

Terrie Neilson of Las Vegas, Nev. (7.0): Best: Michaels promo Worst: Q7 (a/k/a - what was supposed to be Kelly vs. Jillian, I guess). Oh boy. How quickly the afterglow of a fine PPV fades away. It wasn't all that bad tonight, but were nearly two quarters of the show (Q6 with the goofy Khali Kiss Cam being the other) needed to level off the buzz to get the crowd into the main event? Not with the Seattle crowd. That just seemed insulting. Jericho opened the show strong. Funny how I'm reading reviews last night that all but demanded Jericho play up his messed up grill, then have problems with it when he does. If it weren't for the continuation of the Noble-Regal feud, there could have been another opportunity to try the mixed-tag double-title match with Noble in place of Kofi Kingston. Big penalty to the serious lack of sell by Rey Mysterio after seemingly losing feeling in his legs last night. Killed what was otherwise a decent tag match. Same with Chris Jericho. The only way you knew he was in a grueling match the night before was in his face; he otherwise moved like he took a walk in the park (no signs of day-after knee selling like Mark Henry did earlier). At least Shawn put some context on it in his great promo, walking gingerly to the ring, and not snapping up as fast, but being hyped up on adrenaline in spurts. I could buy Shawn losing it all over Lance Cade, as Cade has meddled in affairs he should have stayed out of. Meanwhile, The Lance Cade Experiment looks to be over, and I feel sorry for him. There was so much potential, but alas, I'm not seeing any of it take shape in the future. Two weeks ago in reax, I mentioned how Adamle seems to be portrayed as a naive bumbler who rectifies matters when he catches on that he's been had. I could make the connection that the call to a meeting may have been Jericho's conniving to get Adamle out of the way to get his bidding done, but it wasn't there on the program to add logic to the run-in by Adamle. It looks like WWE's gone text-only voting this go round. Looks like they're going to lose a lot of votes compared to last year's 16 million due to both the buck-a-pop price and (for folks like me) incompatibility with the texting system. The Raw main event has a ringer in the choices, and I'm not liking the focus already. It isn't the returning from the DL Orton who has growing issues with Jericho, or Michaels (a perennial vote-getter) with plenty more axe to grind with Jericho to go along with serious refereeing experience, but a Rattlesnake who hasn't been on WWE TV in a long time but with a movie to plug. Nothing against Austin and his still high popularity, but this is just bogus.

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Terrie Neilson of Las Vegas, Nev. (8.5): Best: Jeff/Rey/Finlay/Batista vs. MVP/JBL/Kendrick/Kane Worst: how many commercials did I fast forward through? The one thing about having to tape Smackdown due to work schedule, I can fast forward through the commercials to not lose too momentum from the matches going off to a break. But the enormous amount of commercials killed a lot of the matches. Hopefully that will be rectified after tonight's episode. The crowd was hot, and with less emphasis on storyline (minus Taker-Show) the show moved along fairly smoothly (minus the commercials). The actual worst thing of the night was this whole mess with Chavo. It led to some degree to build for the Taker-Show match, but I'm not sure there looks to be any real idea of a direction. I was angry at first with Shelton losing to Santino, but multiple things were in play (Honk-O-Meter for Santino, Truth for Shelton) that since neither is part of the PPV, the result actually added to both situations. There were surprises tonight. The finishes were relatively clean; there were distractions and such but no DQ or count-out finishes. I was also surprised that Triple H came out second in the main event. With exception of the opening mix-match tag match, the home team combatants came out second. I would have had no trouble with Triple H coming out last under this. My winners' predictions based on the go-homes: Beth retains (if not, Santino screws up again); Taker loses to Big Show to go home and rest for a while; Rey doesn't unmask (sets up Kane re-masking as possible outcome for Cyber Sunday); Hardy retains (something tells me he squeaks by); Triple H retains; Batista faces Jericho at Cyber Sunday (and Cade will have something to do with why)

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