Monday, December 8 – 2:37 P.M. (CT)

-The three-hour WWE Raw show promises to be interesting. The company has advertised three marquee matches with John Cena vs. Edge in a champion vs. champion match, Triple H vs. Batista, and Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho.

I'd love to think that we'll be talking about these matches after the show concludes tonight, but like most people I'm expecting lame finishes to these pay-per-view quality matches. Rather, I have a bad feeling that we'll be talking about how the Slammy Awards dominated the broadcast. Honestly, I'll be surprised if we get more than one clean finish out of those big three matches.

The Slammy Awards give Vince McMahon and Raw lead writer Brian Gewirtz a chance to write sports entertainment comedy. It seems like Vince and Gewirtz get more excited about writing campy comedy segments than actual wrestling, so my fear is that they will fill most of the three hours with lame skits that do nothing for the actual product.

At the very least, I hope they manage to work a few angles around the Slammy Awards. Perhaps Batista will get upset over a loss to Triple H and for being snubbed in the superstar of the year category. Basically, I just want to see the company do something to hook viewers and make them want to come back for more.

-Here's hoping WWE officials remember that they have a pay-per-view taking place on Sunday. They've done a lousy job of building up the Armageddon show thus far, and with three major matches on this show and all those Slammy Awards to hand out, I could see the pay-per-view being an afterthought on this overloaded show.

I spoke with one person in the industry this morning who told me that with the three major matches they have announced for tonight's Raw, there's no reason to order Sunday's pay-per-view. It's a fair point. The fact that these big matches are airing on Raw tells me not to expect clean finishes and pay-per-view quality matches, but there's no denying that the lineup for tonight's show looks much stronger than Sunday's pay-per-view.

-I am still looking for correspondents who attend tonight's Raw or the TNA Impact tapings. If you plan to attend either show and can file a report, please contact me at dotnetjason@gmail.com.

-The buzz coming out of Saturday's big independent show with Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan is that the son of a pro wrestling legend is going to become a major star in the industry. However, it's not Reid Flair that observers are raving about. "He's the real deal," one observer said regarding Ricky Steamboat Jr. "The kid is gold. I thought I was watching Ricky Steamboat in 1979."

Meanwhile, multiple observers did not have great things to say about Reid Flair's debut. "He can take a flat back bump and that's about it," said one observer. The general consensus is that Reid didn't embarrass himself, but he still has a long way to go to live up to the hype of being the son of the Nature Boy. By the way, you can catch the final minutes of the big tag match with Reid and David Flair vs. The Nasty Boys with Hogan as the special referee by visiting Youtube.com.

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