Welcome back to the column that Tito built, the Phat Daily Column. Today, we'll discuss the RAW that was... ok, the RAW that wasn't, as it was one of the most screwed up shows known to man. Can you just hear the $600,000 to $700,000, with incentives, going down the drain for one Kevin Nash, who has been injured twice since his return in February? Both injuries came from hardly wrestling, too. What a deal! I guess when the WWE made the deal, they were hoping that one of the members of the nWo would shine, and they are probably thankful for Hulk Hogan working out well.

That's what the WWE gets for signing older guys with bad work habits and past injury problems. For the last few years in WCW, Kevin Nash was hurt all of the time. Back then, Nash was getting way out of shape, forgetting what he used to look like when he was Diesel. On his WWE return, he packed on muscles the QUICK WAY, you know what I mean, and that results in tendon tears. I'm sure Dr. James Andrews will just roll his eyes when he sees Kevin Nash sometime soon, as you have to know he's sick and tired of seeing athletes with careless tendon or muscle tears caused by muscle enhancements. Oh wait, he gets paid MILLIONS to do that, so nevermind what I said.

Nash never was worth the WWE's time. Himself, along with X-Pac, have obtained some control over the RAW writers, changing finishes for X-Pac or not letting him wrestle twice in one night. And Nash wonders why everyone points to him as a main contributor to WCW's death, especially when his dumbass was head booker at the end of 1998 and start of 1999. If he tore his quad, like it's suspected, then he'll be out roughly 8 months, but probably more since he's older than Triple H. Let's not forget that a quad tear is also a career ending injury, as it takes luck and intense, and I mean INTENSE, rehabbing to get it back to what it once was.

So Nash's days bothering us in professional wrestling could be over. Not that I wish injury on any wrestler possible, but Kevin is a douchebag and I certainly won't miss him, ever.

On to the PDC.

RAW isn't TITO

Vince McMahon talks to start out the show. Wow, yet another one. And they wonder why ratings are slipping from the opening numbers and beyond. Too much repetitiveness from 1998, and at the same time, even worse writing to surround that. Vince gave the Undertaker the night off, which oddly enough, the show was actually worse without him there. Why, I don't know??? Vince would then declare the World Title main event match at Vengeance, which will now be Rock vs. Kurt Angle vs. Undertaker. Ok, that will probably work, but the Undertaker will stink it up a little bit.

Booker T would come out to the live audience, badmouths the nWo, only for Eddie Guerrero to come out, all fired up about last week's RAW. So that would introduce our first match of the night, Booker T vs. Eddie Guerrero. If this was given Pay Per View time, like say 10 minutes or more, this could have been good. But instead, it was cut short, but Booker T did get the win, although the nWo has yet to put him over, as if that will happen. Chris Benoit would run down to attack Booker T, making me happy to see seeds planted for a possible Booker T vs. Chris Benoit match in the future. I can only hope. Goldust and the Dudleys would make the save, thus starting the chain reaction that would end up becoming the Main Event. Oh lord.

Backstage, Booker T would attack a food vendor that looked like X-Pac. Anybody who looks like X-Pac should deserve an ass kicking. Not much seriousness in the WWE storylines anymore, as it's always comedy in the feuds that's pushed. That's a serious problem, and it has been ever since Vince Russo left in late 1999 and when Stephanie McMahon received more creative power backstage.

But that backstage segment wasn't as bad as Jackie and Chris Nowinski trying to rip on Trish Stratus. God damn, that was bad! Especially Jackie, who just can't act, period. Oh no, cowboy hat jokes! You just knew who Trish would pick as her tag team partner (Bradshaw), which is something nobody would get excited about. That's what hurts RAW on a weekly basis: lack of excitement for any surprises.

Lots of Rock promos shown on RAW, the show that Rocky won't be showing up on. Hey, if that doesn't make sense to you, then question why Rock's return to Smackdown is such a big deal when he appeared on RAW a few weeks ago and on King of the Ring 2002?

Goldust's Ben Franklin gimmick wasn't too bad. Let's remember that today's kids don't know their history. A poll was held for today's youth, asking them questions about the 4th of July and why it was celebrated. I can't remember the specific numbers, but it was pathetic about how many students didn't know why the 4th of July is celebrated and what year it occurred on (1776). I'm trying to dig up the poll now, but I can't find that. If someone knows where the article with the poll is, please post it in the "Ask Tito" forum down below.

Next match was Chris Benoit vs. Bubba Ray Dudley. Man, here's a case where you have to miss the absence of Stone Cold Steve Austin. If only he realized that Benoit's return was sooo on the horizon, then maybe he would have stayed just to fight some great matches with the Crippler. Damn it, this sucks so bad! There's no top faces for Benoit to fight right now, given that the would-be top face, Booker T, gets embarrassed by the nWo on a nightly basis, so Benoit is forced to feud with Bubba, instead. OK match, I guess, but like Booker T vs. Guerrero, it was too short. I hated the finish, which made Benoit look bad. Oh wait, the top heels of RAW is the Undertaker or the nWo, so we can't have any other heel look good. More run-ins would occur to set up the main event. Too bad the main event sucked.

I thought the Chris Nowinski tour of Harvard was a nice touch for his character. Too bad he can't cut any live promos.

Ric Flair would congradulate Jeff Hardy on getting squashed, yet again, last week, and then get challenged by Steven Richards. I seriously hope they are into pushing Richards to be on RAW, for a regular basis, if they are throwing him in there with Ric Flair.

Chris Nowinski/Jackie vs. Trish Stratus/Bradshaw was a horrible, horrible match. Nowinski and Jackie, as Jim Ross said, are very GREEN in their early WWE tenure. So if they lack experience, then why not send both Nowinski and Jackie to a developmental territory instead of wasting our time here on RAW? Bradshaw does not work well with inexperienced wrestlers, especially when he can't stiff them up like he usually does with other wrestlers. Trish has polished some turds of matches this year, but she couldn't do much with this large pile of shit.

Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero confront the nWo, oh no, but at least Nash has the decency to say "you don't want to fight us, for we have strength in numbers" instead of fully putting himself over as being nearly a foot taller than Guerrero and Benoit. I'll give credit where it's due.

And then, the show becomes completely hard to watch, as if it wasn't bad before. The nWo comes down, and it's Kevin Nash and mainly Shawn Michaels on the microphone. Shawn makes many references to the Clique, as if anybody even knows about the Clique or even cares at this point. The Clique angle might have mattered a few years ago when Triple H had an interview with Jim Ross, but today, Triple H's character is weak, Nash is old, X-Pac sucks, Hall is no longer around, and Shawn Michaels can't wrestle anymore. Oh yeah, Justin Credible wrestles on Heat. Oh no! HBK threatened Triple H to join the nWo at Vengeance. SMELL THE BUYRATE! Nash would come in and challenge the faces to find a partner to make a 10 man tag team, later that night.

Next, we had Ric Flair vs. Steven Richards. Not bad, but it badly reminded me of those 1980's or 1990's Saturday Night matches, where Flair would fight on a midcarder. Only this time, Flair was a face, and he didn't have to cheat to much to beat Richards, making him tap with the Figure 4. Hell, face midcarders, back then, would reverse the Figure 4, but since Flair is the face now, the move is actually effective for once.

Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar would hit the ring. There, Heyman would cut a very weak promo on ECW and the Philadelphia crowd. ECW is sooo late 1990's, Paul, if you didn't realize that from the weaker business your company did there at the end before it folded. Tommy Dreamer, whom most of the WWE fans didn't watch him wrestle in ECW, came out to a reasonable pop and badmouthed Heyman. Lesnar and Dreamer would brawl, only for Lesnar to get the best of it. Then, Rob Van Dam would run down, knock Lesnar out of the ring, and hit the Van-Terminator on Paul Heyman. Damn, he tried it while he was holding the steel chair, and jumping across that HUGE WWE ring is no easy task. Nice of the camera to switch angles so quickly to hide any error shown.

Jeff Hardy would win the European Title off of William Regal in what I thought was a standard, by the books WWE match. Yeah, that big rub is soooo helping Jeff Hardy become the big star every mark predicted would happen. That European title matters SO MUCH! At least Jeff will be a fighting champion, as Regal hardly ever wrestles anymore or at least putting the title on the line.

And now, the Main Event. It was Rob Van Dam/Bubba Ray Dudley/Spike Dudley/Booker T/Goldust versus Kevin Nash/X-Pac/Big Show/Chris Benoit/Eddie Guerrero. You know what's funny? X-Pac and Chris Benoit, with Guerrero cheering on the outside, participated in the best 10 man match ever on RAW, which was X-Pac/Triple H/Perry Saturn/Dean Malenko/Chris Benoit vs. Rock/Mick Foley/Scotty 2 Hotty/Rikishi/Brian Christopher. I'm thinking the WWE was attempting to grab attention for last night's match as they did that match in 2000? Well, it didn't, as this match was very, very sloppy. Then, in his first match back, Kevin Nash runs into the ring, trips over Booker T, and BAM, he blows out his knee, which was later found out to be a quad muscle injury, leaving Nash in the corner, screaming in pain. The match turned into a brawl, and somehow, Booker T was Superkicked by HBK and then Chokeslammed by the Big Show. Booker T? The next big face? Uh huh. More like face down on the ground.

LAST WORD: This show was mainly built around the 10 man match, as many segments and matches were dedicated to that idea. So when the Main Event doesn't deliver, the show becomes crap all around. The other matches surrounding it weren't too great either. Pathetic show that needs a Steve Austin out there to make some of us care to watch it. Bad elevation of certain guys, while pissing on the deserving ones, shows the lack of good creative ideas that the RAW writing team has. And you wonder why Austin walked out... I'll give this show a

D-

(D minus), as I'll be nice and say that a career ending injury hurt the Main Event, although I doubt it would have been anything anyway. Plain and simple on how to help RAW... GET RID OF THE NWO! They suck. The gimmick is garbage. Push someone to be the new top face, whether it's Booker T or someone else. The show needs it badly. Send the Tough Enough kids to the developmental territories. They suck, and they lack any experience to even tie a regular WWE wrestler's shoes. And finally, call and apologize to Steve Austin and beg him to come back for one last feud with Chris Benoit. Well, the last one may have been my own personal taste, but the previous 3 were legit ideas to help RAW become a little better.

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@Back Wednesday to probably laugh at the low RAW rating. Until then, just chill....

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