RAW Redux - June 16, 2008
16 comments | Posted by Melanie
This week on RAW: Divas from all three brands competed in a Summer Bikini Blowout bikini contest. Meanwhile, Mickie James evened the odds teaming up with Mr. Kennedy in his feud with the Burchills, Paul and Katie Lea.
Thoughts & Reactions
This week’s RAW was about as fucked up as it gets… a freakin’ bikini contest?! Are you kidding me?! Here I thought the women’s division was on the up and just as I was looking forward to RAW each week, they throw us a curveball. Hey WWE, why don’t you just come out and say what you really think?! This week’s RAW was like, “Here’s your weekly dose of slop, eat it up you pigs.” It really was a demeaning, counter-productive and totally shitty segment. I honestly don’t have a clue why Melina was involved in this pile of garbage, it really hurt her character and the momentum she’s gained over the past few weeks. This did nothing for storyline development in her feud with Beth Phoenix, in fact it hindered it. If freakin’ Maria can get more cheers than Melina, it kinda hurts Melina’s growth and transition to a face in her feud with Beth. There was absolutely no logic to this stupid bikini contest and it’s just unfathomable how WWE can actually go backwards rather than forwards.
Do you think WWE’s creative team are masochists? They create a hot feud that the crowd are so into, which actually gets viewers tuning into RAW each week - and then they pull crap like this. It’s like they enjoy fucking things up, they enjoy taking their good work and turning it into shit. Fucking retards.
There was nothing decent about the bikini contest, it was all boring and cliche. Charlie Haas is apparently the new Val Venis, Eve thinks it’s cool to wear sunglasses in-doors and Maria was probably happy to just be relevant again… even if it was a bikini contest. That’s right Maria, take your victories where you can find them.
As for the mixed tag team match, finally we get back to decent action. I’d like to say it made up for the shiteous bikini contest but it wasn’t nearly enough. I loved Mickie and Katie totally beating the crap out of each other, it was very physical and a lot of fun to watch. Maybe Katie can add some fire into Mickie’s character that has really been lacking during her feud with Beth Phoenix. I’m already enjoying this feud and they haven’t even had a singles match yet. In comparison, the Beth-Mickie feud was stale before it even started. I think this is the logical match-up to go into Night of Champions, but it hasn’t had much build up. WWE has teased this feud for the past month or so, stopping and starting the feud and only now are taking it off pause. This is what really pisses me off about WWE, they stop and start feuds at their whim and think they can just continue it up a few weeks later like nothing’s happened. Given a continuous storyline over the past few weeks, Mickie vs Katie could have been a great “must-see” match at Night of Champions. They’ve done the same with Michelle and Natalya, it started out very, very strong and many of us were anticipating a match-up between them… then they stopped having them appear on SmackDown! and it all kinda got less exciting. Of course, now they’re looking to restart the feud but that initial excitement is gone. We now have the same thing with Beth-Melina, they haven’t followed through this week and it’s dampened the investment, we as viewers, have in this feud.
The RAW women’s division is really in a precarious position at the moment, because someone thought it was logical to start up a feud between Beth Phoenix and Melina, a feud not associated with the Women’s Championship, in the run-up to Night of Champions. Don’t get me wrong, I really love this feud but at the same time, they should’ve developed the Mickie vs Katie feud rather than dump it on us now. The Beth-Melina feud should be reserved for RAW and Mickie-Katie should extend to the pay per view. WWE has no one but themselves to blame for poor ratings, their booking is horrible. I have no doubt that the end product will be great i.e. the eventual Mickie-Katie match and the eventual Michelle-Natalya match, but the booking leading to it has been so all over the place I can’t get as excited as I would if they had a continuous feud.
Individual Assessments
In this portion we will look at each of the Divas individually and the role they played, adding more thoughts yadda yadda:
Eve: What the hell kind of dancing was that?
Jillian: This gimmick is so tired.
Katie Lea: A fantastic outing for Katie Lea, 2-0 against Mickie James. Great momentum going into their match at Night of Champions, I’m really looking forward to it. I don’t expect her to win the title just yet though.
Layla: Layla looked hot.
Lena Yada: Is Lena the least watched woman on television? I think so. I’m sure it was a nice day out for her to come to RAW for the day. But back to the pit with you.
Maria: Savour the victory, Maria.
Maryse: I think I prefer when she’s being beaten up by Cherry.
Melina: Why the frig was Melina in this stupid thing?!
Mickie James: For once in my life, I was actually glad to see Mickie James. It’s no secret I hated her feud with Beth, but I’m loving her work with Katie.
Fashion Focus
The Good: Layla and Maria’s bikinis looked pretty good.
The Bad: Eve’s bikini and Mickie, as per.
The In-Between: Katie Lea and Lena looked okay.
Photos
Below, are digitals of the Divas match from RAW. Copyright to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under RAW Redux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
I agree…I got excited when i saw Melina, i thought that Beth will come in and attack her….But no….Insted they give Maria a victory…..Oh god,Maria againg….I really hope that she goes to ECW , cause she can do bikini contest all she wants…..Don’t ruin raw for me….
Mria is starting to annoy me! She acts all shy and cap when she POSED FOR PLAYBOY! gosh but anywyas.
Melina looked so out of it. You can tell she didnt feel as comfortable as Maria and Eve and all the other girls. Lovedthe match. But i wish Mickey would have won!
maria*
Just when I thought that WWE would have decent booking and have great matches on RAW…there is a bikini contest ugh. What ever happened to the great Beth-Melina feud? Looks like WWE wanted us the fans to delete that match off our minds and now we have to ‘pretend’ it never happened. Wow,way to go WWE! I love how you set up storylines and feuds in the Women’s Division *insert sarcasm*
Seriously, I too Melanie, don’t understand WWE’s booking. And like you said the ONLY one’s who is to blame for their low ratings is themselves.
come on,a big diva like melina joined the bkini contest??WTF?
may be it would be better if beth attack melina when she wants to show her bikini
Ive got to say even a young guy i found the bikini contest to be completely useless after lass week`s attack on Beth i was expecting the storyline to continue. Even though the wwe divas looked absolutely gorgeous as always, i was very disapointed with Raw overall(regarding the divas)
They haven’t had anything like a bikini contest on RAW in a LONG while, so why are people complaining?. This is still the WWE, so you can’t expect them to abandon T&A altogether. I thought the tag match was a little underwhelming, though. I’m not really impressed with Katie, yet. Maybe she’ll show something at NOC. It was fair for the Divas all in all.
Bikini Contest:
I was surprised Maria won. I was expecting Melina to get that one.
Ugh, Layla, it was a bikini contest, not a dance off. You don’t need to dance everytime we see you.
The tag match:
I was surprised, becused the women’s half of the match was 10x more exciting than the men’s portion. I liked Katie applying the “Kat-Snap” at the end for the victory. Let’s hope we see her in more singles competition in the future
Ugh, the bikini contest pissed me off. Save that for ECW, please.
Maria may won the bikini contest but can she win a match ? i like her but only a lil bit !
do you know that Eve’s bikini is on fashion top?
I think that Maria is Awesome and she deserves the victory a lot more than Melina…a lot more.
Off topic: WWE Women’s Champion Mickie James vs. Katie Lea Burchill at Night of Champions =)
On topic: Bikini contest was pointless and rushed. I don’t care if they have a little T&A bit every now and then but like everybody else said they need to save that for ECW. I don’t think the Beth - Melina feud is over. The writers just didden’t have nothing planed that night. Who knows…
As for the mix tag. I loved it! I don’t think Katie will win the title this soon but I can’t wait for watch them go at it at NOC. =)
Brittany, I don’t mind that they had the bikini contest. I do mind that Melina was involved and it was at the expense of her developing character and her feud with Beth. Beth and Mickie weren’t lowered to this shitty bikini contest so why should Melina be? They could have easily done it with the 6 other Divas and then have Beth/Melina in a backstage brawl.
I naturally enjoyed seeing all the divas in bikinis, but i’d also like to have seen the feud between melina and beth continuing. But its not likely to have both, kinda chucking Melina in there was a bit wierd but I enjoyed it
XD. I was looking forward to this redux as i know it would have wound you up. I was watching the contest thinking ‘this isn’t going to go down well’
Does anyone know why Beth wasn’t on Raw at all? Not even in an interview segment or as others here have said…attacking Melina during the contest.