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The Big News: Bob Barker hosted Raw.
Show Analysis:

Howard Finkel announced at the beginning of the show that this would be the Price is Raw. The Price is Right music played and Bob Barker came out to a big pop. He then received a legitimate prolonged standing ovation. It made me happy because I’ve always liked Barker a lot. He put over the people and then introduced a pricing game.

Santino Marella, Jillian Hall, Irwin R. Shyster and Chris Jericho were told to come on down. An excited Santino ran down out of the crowd. Jericho was disgusted by the whole thing. The prize was a Best of Smackdown DVD. Santino wanted to buy a vowel and then bid $1465, which felt lame and contrived.

The notion of a person being stupid and making a ridiculous bid is funny, but at the point you’re bidding over a thousand dollars for a DVD you can’t possibly invest in the actual joke because you’re being beaten over the head with the fact it’s scripted comedy. That’s a big problem with Santino in general. He’s gone from an amusing character to an unbelievable farcical caricature. The reaction is not, “Ha, what a moron that guy is!” but rather, “Yeah, like we’re supposed to believe any functioning human being thinks a DVD costs fifteen hundred dollars.”

Jillian Hall decided to sing and then bid $75, which just continued the trend. IRS bid $50 including taxes, so he was little better. Jericho tried to leave. Barker said that he was being naughty and that his mother would be ashamed, which was funny. Jericho was annoyed at being called Chris and wanted to be called Mr. Jericho. Jericho said he was one half (of the tag team champions), but Barker took this to mean $1 was his bid. So of course he won. The premise here was much more amusing than WWE’s typically ham-fisted execution. Still, Barker made the segment fun.

MVP beat Chris Jericho. Jericho got this match as a result of winning the pricing game, and if he won he would win a trip to Hawaii. The Bella twins modeled for the trip. Weren’t they traded to ECW? Aren’t there any Raw women who could do that? This is such simple storyline consistency stuff. Jericho went after MVP’s back. MVP hit a face buster, but as he went for balling Jericho countered into the Walls. MVP escaped and hit the yakuza kick. He went for the playmaker, but Jericho escaped and went for the code breaker. MVP reversed that into a cradle for the pin.

DX and Bob Barker met backstage. DX said they were big fans. Barker said they would spin the wheel to determine their opponents later in the show, but sadly it was a digital wheel rather than the wheel from Price is Right. Their opponents were Chris Masters and Randy Orton. HHH mocked Masters’ hair plugs.

Evan Bourne beat Chavo Guerrero. They announced that Chavo could win a new car if he won this match. The crowd seemed very pleased when Bourne came out rather than Hornswoggle. I know I was. Chavo dominated the match with an abdominal stretch and the three amigos. He went to the top for the frog splash, at which point Hornswoggle came from under the ring with a super soaker and squirted it at Chavo to prevent him from jumping.

Chavo went after Hornswoggle, allowing Bourne to get a rollup for the pin. So, Evan Bourne needs interference to keep from losing clean to the guy who lost to the annoying midget 200 straight weeks? Great. And with all the garbage DQ finishes they have done in the past few months, blatant interference in front of the referee is not a DQ here?

Cody Rhodes came out to address what happened last week. He said that he is still a member of Legacy. Cody said he doesn’t agree with what Orton did to his father, but Dusty didn’t make Cody a main eventer. That’s definitely true. Orton did. Wait, what? Cody said Dusty was an excellent father, but he’s sticking with Orton. He said he would make John Cena submit as a favor to Orton. Cody said that there’s nothing Dusty wouldn’t do for his son, but there’s nothing his son won’t do for his own career.

John Cena beat Cody Rhodes via DQ. They presented Rhodes pretty strong here given Cena is challenging for the title Sunday, and I’m pleased by the trend towards protecting Rhodes and DiBiase. Cena was in control for a while. Rhodes took over and used some submissions, including a chin lock and a Fujiwara armbar. Cena came back with shoulder blocks but missed a top rope rocker dropper. Rhodes applied the figure four but Cena reversed into the STF. Orton interfered for the DQ. Cena gave Rhodes the FU after the match.

They said that Batista will make an announcement next week on Raw. It seemed to me a retirement tease, but I guess we will see what they have planned. They’re billing DX vs. Legacy at Breaking Point as the first match in WWE history where submissions count anywhere, which is another ode to complete lack of attention to detail given the most famous submission match in company history ended with a submission outside the ring (Foley/Rock).

Bob Barker introduced a second pricing game. A.J. Pierzynski of the White Sox was introduced as the new player. The prize was a WrestleMania 26 travel package. A.J. bid $1,000. IRS bid $2,000. Jillian bid $5,000. Santino bid $1,200. The price was $1,247, so Santino won.

For winning, Santino got a chance to win another prize, a hot tub. However, he could only win the prize by winning a body slam challenge against Big Show. Show slammed him so he lost. For some reason Barker didn’t understand what was going on, as he kept asking whether it was over even after they played the loser music twice. Barker then announced that there would be a second challenge, this time between Show and Mark Henry.

Mark Henry beat Big Show in the body slam challenge. They basically traded slam attempts until Henry got it. Match itself was bad but the slam looked very impressive and they did their best to get over Henry and MVP as challengers in the last week. Backstage, Bob Barker did a mini-interview on his career and plugged his book. It was fun. Trish Stratus was announced as guest host of Raw next week.

Chavo Guerrero backstage complained to Bob Barker about his loss to Evan Bourne. He wanted the car he was offered. Barker said that in any fight the best advantage is the element of surprise, and then suddenly punched Chavo in the gut. He followed with a chop to the back that floored Chavo. He said, “Have your pets spayed or neutered,” and that was it for Bob. This was funny.

Shawn Michaels and HHH beat Chris Masters and Randy Orton. The heels worked over Michaels, who eventually got the tag to HHH. HHH gave Masters a spine buster and tagged back in Michaels for an elbow off the top. Michaels went for sweet chin music but Masters ducked under and applied the Masterlock. HHH broke that up, and HHH and Michaels applied a simultaneous sharpshooter and figure four on Orton and Masters respectively. Masters tapped out for the finish.

After the match, DX brawled to the back with Rhodes and DiBiase. They fought through the backstage area before Rhodes and DiBiase eventually hijacked a car to escape. Orton avoided that situation and came back to the ring. He said that the title is the only thing he considers important in life. John Cena ran out and they brawled. Orton gave him an implant DDT and RKO on the chair. This was a hot ending to the show.

Final Thoughts:

I imagine tonight’s Raw will be a polarizing episode. Some people are likely to view the whole thing as a parody of pro wrestling, while others are likely to enjoy it as a campy fun. It ultimately comes down to what you want out of wrestling. Personally, I enjoyed Bob Barker hosting Raw. It’s not the sort of thing you ought to do every week, but as a special thing it was cute. The execution of the concept was generally lacking, but that’s to be expected from WWE’s writing team. Barker himself was to me among the best celebrity hosts.

There is, of course, the issue of the pay-per-view this Sunday. The guest hosts generally undermine pay-per-view build, but this week it was particularly pronounced. Whether it’s intentional or not, WWE has spent much of 2009 undermining the idea that pay-per-views are important events. But the genie was let out of the bottle a long time ago on that one, so it’s hard to be too bothered. The final ten minutes of the show they did a good job building the pay-per-view, but it kind of accentuated how lackadaisical they were on that count for the rest of it.

Todd Martin
ToddMartin4L@aol.com
toddwmartin.blogspot.com