A few weeks ago I watched SummerSlam 2004 and tweeted about it. The only thing I initally remembered about the show was the main event in which Randy Orton won his first World Heavyweight championship. The rest of the card turned out to be a mostly pleasant experience. Booker T v John Cena, Triple H v Eugene and JBL v The Undertaker were all a bit of fun if you could look past their shortcomings (Cena's ropey wrestling, the offensiveness of the Eugene character, and JBL being in a WWE title match respectively) and the Intercontinental title three-way was good fun. Plus there was fun nonsense on offer from the Diva Dodgeball showdown (featuring a bunch of women you almost certainly don't remember or have never even heard of) and Matt Hardy v Kane for the right to marry Lita. Here's what I thought in tweet form...

I have so much other better shit I should be doing with my time than watching RAW for three hours.  Not exactly, better, mind you, but responsibilities which I am putting off to bring YOU this RAW recap so that YOU can save three hours of your time.  It’d be nice to throw me a few bucks via PayPal on jasonrivera@gmail.com – that’d be cool of you.  Some other personal hardships are arising in my life as of late but I’ll save discussion of those things for later in the week on Asked or something along those lines.  Anyway, it’s time for a RAW recap while I try to figure out the best way to multitask so that I’m feeling like I’m slacking on other things which need to be handled or accomplished.

Dad Made Ribs.

Seth Rollins is out here probably because for some reason WWE is running some kind of Seth Rollins/Jon Stewart crossover which people like me don’t give a shit about.  This started with promos, then Seth Rollins appearing on the Daily Show, and now Jon Stewart is going to appear on RAW.  And I’m going to appear in the bathroom. 

For the last few years WWE has struggled with its Royal Rumble shows. The titular gimmick match, which is always the central attraction no matter what else is on the show, has seemingly become a problem for them. In theory it’s an easy match to get right. You ascertain who the audience wants to see win and you have them win. Or you pick a hot heel that people really don’t want to see win. WWE’s booking crew seem to have forgotten this, which has led to a string of limp, uninspiring matches.

This year was no different. A man neither the live crowd nor the home audience really wanted to see win was the man that won. Not only that but he did so in the most underwhelming, clichéd manner possible. It was a poor end to a poor pay-per-view.

This was not helped by a generic undercard. The show kicked off with The Ascension versus the New Age Outlaws. It wasn’t a bad match, but that in itself made it a slight disappointment. The Outlaws should have been very quickly squashed by Konor and Viktor in an attempt to erase the memory of the Kliq and the APA, all of whom are well into their forties, easily dispatching The Ascension on RAW. Because it’s The Ascension who are going to be of more benefit to WWE in the future, not the stars form the 90s.

FACEPAINT!!!

But we didn’t get that. Instead we got a competent match that ended with Billy Gunn tagging in to take Total Elimina- sorry, I mean The Fall of Man. It was the right result but the wrong route was taken to get to it.