Past Week of WWE Thoughts

- Another bad Raw tonight. I couldn't bring myself to care at all about the Triple H/Orton match we've seen a billion times before, and anyone could've seen that finish coming a mile away. Terrible. Then again, if we've seen Triple H/Orton a billion times, we've seen Big Show/Cena three billion times. I was paying so little attention to it that I totally missed Miz's interference, so I don't know if it was anything notable. Miz has gotten over since the draft by being a fresh act, but that dull Cena promo went a long way towards turning this into just another angle with just another guy that won't matter in the long run. I'm guessing with Miz's run-in we didn't get to see Cena give Big Show an FU for the 500,000th time and the announcers act like it's never happened before, just like the previous 499,999 times?

- The McMahon/Trump stuff was lame (gee, you think those fans are really getting a refund?), and the commercial-free format meant way too much filler. One more shot of the outside of the arena and the first four notes and "Whoa-oh..." of the opening music and I would've lost it.

- Gotta give a lot of credit to Christian for carrying David Hart Smith to a really good match on ECW last week. Smith (do they realize how awkward "Hart Smith" sounds?) is one of the worst wrestlers I've ever seen. Anyone else catch him totally failing to protect Christian on that Rock Bottom that was supposed to be on the apron, then awkwardly stumbling over Christian on his way back into the ring? Smith has absolutely no ring presence.

- After seeing that match, I really like the idea of a Finlay/Christian feud. In general, seeing Finlay get to be a mad asskicker again should be fun. Bring back the old entrance music, though. That happy leprechaun shit ain't working for a guy who's supposed to be a badass.

- Smackdown was all kinds of fun. Loved the Morrison/Edge match, and both Mysterio/Punk and Hardy/Jericho were fun up to the finishes. Morrison undoubtedly has "it," and I don't think it was any hyperbole on JR's part to call that match a career-changing one for Morrison.

- Punk has been brilliant with this slow-burn turn. I'm admittedly a big Punk mark, but I don't think I'm going too far in saying he's my favorite performer in the company to watch right now. He does an incredible job of using every bit of TV time he gets to help get himself over. Notice how much attention he pays to his entrance -- this week he came out with his usual babyface demeanor, pumped up, raising the belt in the air and shouting, "Come on! I'm the World Champion!" Met with mostly boos, he looked around, slowly pulled the belt down, and started to approach the ring, saying, "Alright. That's cool." The crowd is WAY into this storyline, and it's clearly the hottest thing going in WWE right now. Great little interaction between Punk and Hardy on Raw tonight too. WWE has got a real main event player on their hands in Punk.

- ECW and Smackdown are so much better than Raw right now. It's a real wonder what focusing on wrestling instead of skits will do. Nonetheless, I still think the freshness of the top of the card on ECW and Smackdown is the real reason the shows are coming off so much better. There's still some good wrestling on Raw, but I'd much rather watch a show centered around Punk, Jeff Hardy, Edge, Jericho, and Mysterio than the same old combinations of Triple H, Orton, Cena, Batista, and Big Show, all of whom have worked together innumerable times (as previously suggested here by some wise blogger, MVP hasn't gotten over at all on Raw and it looks like his push is on hold). ECW's got a decent core building up with Swagger, Christian, Finlay, Dreamer, Bourne, and Henry, and Smackdown's supporting cast is far more compelling than Raw's. Hell, even the Ziggler/Khali storyline is pretty decent. I'm beginning to think that instead of making Raw my appointment show every week and watching ECW and Smackdown on the DVR whenever I get around to it, I should just hold off watching ECW and Smackdown until the following Monday and just fast forward through Raw later in the week when I get a chance...