TV REVIEW: WWE RAW - July 13th, 2009

Amway Arena, Orlando, Florida

Celebrities equal ratings, apparently. That’s why Seth Green (you know, does the voice of Chris in Family Guy, was in Austin Powers and Buffy) is tonight’s special guest host of World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship programme, Raw.

Was he any good? Meh..See for yourself.

A Joke with the Robot Chicken Bloke

Triple H begins tonight show in a jovial mood, bringing us up to speed with the whole Trump/McMahon saga and the addition of weekly guest hosts. Cue Seth Green, who immediately makes his mark by booking a Six Diva Swimsuit Summer Spectacular for tonight’s show.

Together, Green and Trippers proceed to promote Green’s new Robot Chicken show (never seen Robot Chicken? Don’t bother, it’s not as good as it thinks it is) then turn their attention to calling Randy Orton a big girl’s blouse. Of course, this upsets Randy Orton and the WWE Champion comes out for all the usual banter.

The point of all this, apparently, is to set up tonight’s main event.

It’s going to be Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase taking on the team of Triple H, John Cena and…Seth Green.

Kill me now.

Six Diva Swimsuit Summer Spectacular: Mickie James, Kelly Kelly & Gail Kim vs. Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendez & Maryse

Swimsuit Summer Spectacular? Yeah, it’s just a tag match in swimming costumes And not a terrific match at that. Then again, diva bouts are rarely show-stealing stuff and this in that respect this one is reasonably acceptable.

Divas champion Maryse planted Mickie James with a DDT to win the match for her team in under four minutes.
Your Winners: Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendez & Maryse

In the back, Chris Jericho pays a visit to Seth Green. The Ayatollah of Rock ‘n’ Rolla chastises tonight’s host for that Robot Chicken Star Wars thing and warns Green to stay out of his way. Utterly pointless, but the Big ‘E probably paid big bucks for Seth and want to get their money’s worth by giving him as much screen time as possible I reckon.

Primo vs. The Miz

You remember reading in my report from last week how Carlito attacked his brother and turned heel on him? Of course you don’t, because that report went missing and never found its way onto the website.

Anyway yeah, so to establish himself as a solo star, Primo got himself some new threads and new theme music. He calls out his brother but gets The Miz instead.

Miz taunts Primo then proceeds to kick his bum all over the ring. Primo fights back, Carlito pops up to cause the distraction and the Slammy award-winning Miz wins this one.
Your Winner: The Miz 

Afterwards, Carlito beats on his brother a little bit.

Edge is Injured

Yes folks, if you haven’t been keeping up with all the Internet goss this week you probably won’t have heard that one half of unified tag team champions, The Rated R Superstar Edge, got himself injured at a recent live event. According to Cole and Lawler, we’ll have an update on that situation later in the show.

A Match for the Ages

For now though, we’ve got more Seth Shenanigans as he books an epic rematch...Hogan/Savage? Nope. Flair/Steamboat? Nope. 123 Kid/Razor Ramon? Wrong again.

We’re getting Chavo Guerrero vs. Hornswoggle. But not yet.

Hornswoggle leaves and Big Show arrives. Apparently, Green wanted some advice from Show on how to survive in his tag match alter tonight (why he didn’t ask the two guys he’s tagging with is beyond me, but what the hey; since when did pro wrestling ever make sense?). Show says to watch his match against Evan Bourne, then wraps things up with an utterly cringe-worthy Dr. Evil impression.

MVP VS. Jack Swagger

In what is easily the best wrestling match on the card so far, Swagger and Porter put on a good effort before the All American American wins with a gutwrench powerbomb on eight minutes.
Your Winner: Jack Swagger

Hey, did you know that WWE Universe, the company’s social networking site received more visits than Facebook, Myspace and Twitter?

Nope, me neither, because it’s so clearly not true. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed that WWE could be so bold as to make such a ridiculous claim.

Anyway, out next comes Chris Jericho. He belittles his partner, Edge, for getting injured and claims to have a clause in his contract which would allow him to pick a new partner of his choosing.

Mark Henry comes out, and it appears Jericho chose him, but no, Henry just wants to beat up Chris Jericho. Jerry Lawler tells us that Seth Green just booked an impromptu match, a ref comes out and yeah, we got ourselves a match!

Mark Henry vs. Chris Jericho

Henry rattles Jericho, Jericho decides he can’t be bothered and walks off. Henry wins another match by count out. How long do you reckon it will be before Henry gets someone in a cage so that they can’t wander off?
Your Winner via Count Out: Mark Henry

And now folks, the match absolutely nobody was waiting for:

Hornswoggle vs. Chavo Guerrero

By the way, there’s an added stipulation to this match; Chavito has to wrestle with one hand behind his back. What’s worse, he loses the match in two minutes.

Poor Chavo.
Your Winner: Chavo Guerrero

In the back, Ted Dibiase and Randy Orton are having words when Cody Rhodes shows up. He says he’s heard rumours that Dusty will be here next week, which must be a good thing, right?

Orton reminds his minions that their job tonight is to take care of HHH and Cena, leaving Seth Green for The Legend Killer.

---

The Big Show vs. Evan Bourne

Uh oh. Bourne in trouble!

With United States Champion, Kofi Kingston doing a decent job on commentary, ‘Air’ Bourne gets flattened by the humongous big show and taps out in less than three minutes.
Your Winner: The Big Show

After the match, Show refuses to release the hold, prompting Kofi to make the save.

Let’s sell some Toys

In the back, Santino is playing around with some wrestling figures for no apparent reason other than to subtly hint that you can spend money on such things. Seth Green shows up and talks to Santino, who leaves when Cena and Trippers arrive.

They talk about their match a little, and then something stupid stupid happens.

Something Stupid

Lawler and Cole announce that our special guest hosts for next week will be…ZZ Top. Oh come on, like anyone under the age of a million will care about ZZ Top. And this is supposed to be the show aimed at the young ‘uns.

Anyway folks, it’s main event time.

Six Man Match: WWE Champion Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase vs. Triple H, John Cena and Seth Green.

OK, here goes.

This…Well, this was a weird one. In parts, it was actually an exciting little match, in others, it was a tale of Seth Green getting into scrapes before Cena and HHH bailed him out. A fun main event for sure, but hardly all that memorable.

In the end, all hell breaks loose and the ref scraps the whole idea.
No Contest.

Final Thoughts: 

Despite ragging on this week’s show throughout most of my review, I actually watched it again before sitting down to do my final thoughts and have decided that, you know what, it was actually quite fun.

Nonsensical in parts, embarrassing in others and with more time dedicated to Seth Green than any of the actual wrestlers, sure, but nonetheless fun.

For what it’s worth, MVP and Jack Swagger had the match of the night, whilst the ‘Who Will be Jericho’s Partner’ saga is actually a hell of a lot more interesting than the main event picture right now. Which is probably not the best thing for WWE.