WWE Raw Hits

The Highlight Reel with Shawn Michaels and Batista: The HBK and Batista feud is easily the highlight of WWE right now. Michaels is carrying the verbal exchanges, but I love the way Batista is being portrayed. The silence, the smirk, and the misdirected anger toward Michaels have been great. Honestly, I've never been so intrigued by the Batista character. I know the feeling in WWE is that Flair wouldn't work as a heel manager because nobody would boo him, but it wouldn't seem out of place from a story line perspective for Flair to return as Batista's handler. I don't believe it will happen, but I could see a heel Flair using Batista as his weapon for revenge on Michaels and others in WWE.

WWE Raw Misses

Triple H: It would have been more than enough for Hunter to point out that he didn't lose the match at WrestleMania and therefore deserved to be in the title match at Backlash. Rather, he took it too far by making the biggest win of Orton's career out to be a fluke. Meanwhile, Hunter made JBL seem like a complete joke by pointing out how little he's done since he returned to the ring. Why not just point out that the guy's man-boobs are so big that he's replaced Phil Mickelson as the leading candidate to serve as the spokesman for the the manzier? Hunter's comments just hit too close to home and made two of his three opponents look weak heading into the pay-per-view.

Handicap matches: As I stated last night in the live coverage report, I like the pay-per-view lineup a lot more than the way WWE chose to get there. I think everyone expected Triple H and John Cena to win their matches even though the odds were stacked against them. The only minor surprise of the night was Cena coming out and making his case for appearing in the Backlash main event. Unfortunately, his argument was really soft. Great, you beat everyone in the past. I guess the fact that he was pinned clean in the main event of the biggest show of the year doesn't matter. Weak.

Overall Show: This was a lousy effort by WWE. The only segment I enjoyed was the Highlight Reel with Michaels and Batista. The rest was just filler and two predictable handicap matches. And now we're supposed to be excited because heel general manager William Regal is going to wrestle Randy Orton in England next week. I'm sure that will increase the interest level in the UK, but are Raw viewers who live anywhere else in the world excited to see the seemingly semiretired Regal take on Orton? If nothing else, I suppose the live crowd should be hot for the match. I'm just amazed that the same company that booked a great WrestleMania 24 show is already down to one good feud and a series of rematches. By the way, you made the right call if you decided to watch the basketball game rather than Raw last night.

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