High Spots from Monday Night Raw, Sept 27 2011

Monday nights mean Monday Night Raw, where men toss each other around in order to become the World Heavyweight Champion. Ah professional wrestling, the guilty pleasure no one likes to admit they watch, but everyone knows of.

I've been a long time fan of pro wrestling, though I've gone through long periods of time where the product just hasn't been able to hold my interest.  I went seven years between tuning in not too long back and it's kind of sad that because of that I missed out on the best parts of the careers of guys like Chris Jericho and the late great Eddie Guerro.

But oh well, that's my tiny cross, point is that these days the WWE seems to be making great strides towards being, well, fun again.  I'm actually tuning in each week not because "I like wrestling" but because they've been doing a truly tremendous job of turning the stale WWE product of the last several years into a true ensemble television program that just happens to be about pro wresting.

In other words I'm fully  on board with all the direction changes they've implemented of late in  WWE programming and here's a few reason why care of tonights Monday Night Raw;

Starting the show with three of the leading midcard heels, which is wrestling talk for "the badguys who aren't quite in the main event" more or less, is fantastic.  In a single segment the on screen COO of the WWE, Triple H, managed to set the stage for the entire night by establishing three separate story lines at once via the constant interuptions by the likes of Dolph Ziggler, Cody Rhodes and Christian.

These are three talented preformers who absolutely deserve the attention, especially since a sizeable portion of the show will involve resolving or furthering these scenarios, but in days gone by it has been the standard to open the show with your biggest stars and set up the main event and main PPV feuds first. What they're smartly doing here is realizing that they don't need to open the show with the big guns, that people will understand that guys like John Cena and Randy Orton will still be there, perhaps not just as the show opens, which of course affords them to use that time to build the stars who are not already incrediably over with the audience.

And how great is Dolph? You don't see a lot of people as confortable with laying into celebreties as this guy is. He's not afraid to hurt feelings which is a great attribute in a villainous character.  I don't think you'd see a lot of guys trying to work the "Your guest star cheap shotted me, the talent. What are YOU going to do about it?" approach against HHH, especially knowing that H himself isn't going to pull punches about it.

Christians schtick meanwhile gets better each week. I admit at first I thought the guy was just getting a rough booking, but he quickly won me over with his sleasy persona.  I can see the whole "One more match" bit being dragged out for a long time and still working, Christian's the guy who could do so and still make you forget how long ago he actually lost "his" World Tittle. I only counted this man as a midcarder because he's not directly in any title contention right now.

I suspect that by the time Christian wins a world tittle again its really going to mean something because he'll have "earned" it during the long interim time. So not this year for sure, but I'll try not to over speculate. He'll be in the same level role from now until whenever that is, going toe to toe with World Champions and other main eventers, baring injury I suppose. Should be good stuff.

Triple H really is a great point man for the company. Not only did he entertainingly and convincingly put over three angles, but also covered two other main event level angles (Mark Henry and Miz & R-Truth) as well as furthering his own "HHH is the man" storyline by all but robbing the defiant Cody Rhodes of his tittle for not backing down.  How many men can work in so many directions at once?  The shows opener is quick, clean, sets the nights stage and gives us many reasons to stick around.

It's just good booking.  On one hand HHH looks strong by putting Cody in a match where he very easily might have lost his Intercontinental Championship, but both Cody and Shamus wind up coming out of it looking like a million bucks.

And the guys who make the crowd really go "Woo" haven't even been needed yet. I love it. Because we know they're still going to show, they're kind of a big deal, so the big pops will still happen which everyone enjoys.

The two Sin Cara's bit is still making me laugh as well. One of Pro Wrestlings strengths is in it's ability to tell stories non-verbally in the ring.  Since I doubt they're going to go give a non-english speaking man much microphone time on American television that's something that should wind up carrying this feud.  I hope other people enjoy it as well.

I've also honestly been enjoying the Great Khali of late. Don't be afraid to book multiethnicly WWE, I'm as white as white can be and all I can say about his and Jander Mihals ongoing angle is that it has done great things to restore my belief in Khali's ability to, well, be believeable in his role as the big man. I don't think we'll ever see him as champ, but he's perfect as the measuring stick for upcoming guys as it's a matter of "If you can't beat the Great Khali what makes you think you can beat the World Champ kid?" I buy him in the credibiity department a lot more these days.

Which makes it that much more impressive when the World Heavyweight Champion, also the Worlds Strongest Man, Mark Henry eats him for lunch. Goddamn Mark Henry by the way. I hope he gets to be World Champ for a long time.  The man just oozes credibility by sheer intimidation factor.  Actually I would love to see him carry the belt all the way to Wrestlemania and then drop it to the Undertaker in what would be, I think a lot of people are suspecting, will be his retirement match. If he's even there.

Then there's CM Punk. It's hard to really say why Punk is so great, mostly because he sort of speaks for himself so well. But what I'm enjoying about the WWE Title scene right now is that the belt has been changing hands so often you can actualy believe that any title match, such as next weeks Hell in a Cell pay-per-views, can result in a new champ.  Normally you want Champions who can retain for some period of time, gives them credibility as Champ which gives credibility to the title itself, but considering we supposedly "know" who will have the WWE Title Belt next Wrestlemania, or so John Cena has claimed for Cena vs The Rock, which is a hard marketing move to argue against, is a great feat as well in it's own way.

So keep up the good work WWE.  The quality differences you're making will add up over time and make the company that much better long term. For those of you who haven't watched Pro Wrestling in a long time, or maybe you never have before at all, well maybe you should give it an hour or two one Monday night soon You might enjoy it.

And if you don't Mark Henry might get angry. Well, angrier anyways.

I'm gonna hurt you. Bad.