Rapppppppaddddooo!

John Cena! John Cena! John Cena!

He’s wrestling Kane tonight.

Also on Raw, we’ve got more IC Title tournament hijinks: John Morrison will face off against Finlay and The Miz will take on Rey Mysterio. I think there’s also some sort of Divas match, but who really cares.

Discuss Raw here.

Before I went to sleep last night, I decided to tune and watch the final segment of Raw to see what the WWE would do with John Cena. Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying the end of the show.

True, Cena’s promo was over-the-top face material, but it wasn’t as bad as people are making it out to be. In fact, I thought it had something that we see very little of in the WWE-passion. Whether or not you like what they guy is saying, he cut a good face promo. Just ACCEPT it.

The post-match beat down was also entertaining. Jericho calls Cena a bunch of names, provokes him, and Cena attacks. Jericho played the heel role to perfection, and Cena showed a real fire with that beatdown. I honestly thought it was a great performance. In fact, I thought I might come on the blog this morning and see some of you guys praising Cena for a good job last night. I was totally surprised when I didn’t.

Face it–last night’s post-promo ass-kicking by Cena made sense within the storylines of each character. Why can’t a face beat down a heel after the heel calls him a “worm” and several other names? Is there a wrestling rulebook that has to be followed at all times by the bookers? If that were the case, there would be no point in watching, because you’d already know what was going to happen.

I thought perhaps we’d see the same old stuff. You know, Jericho attacking Cena from behind, perhaps even with help from another heel like JBL. But instead, WWE switched it up, and we got something new.

I really don’t see last night’s events “taking away” from the upcoming Cena/Jericho match since we already know that Cena can “beat” Jericho in a one-on-one match-up. In case you guys haven’t noticed, Chris Jericho’s playing the sneaky heel–he’s not booked to be the kind of wrestler that would just go in and beat Cena one-on-one. He relies on dirty tricks. So Cena facing up to him and handling him in a brawl situation is totally within the context of each guy.

Bottom line–I want everybody to do something for a second. Take a step back from your pre-programmed, IWC John Cena-hating ways and look objectively at the conclusion to last night’s Raw. Was it really that bad?

Or would you rather see more Batista/Jericho stuff? At this point, I’ll take Cena over Batista. At least Cena has a personality, even if he is lame at times.

What about C.M. Punk? He had a title run earlier this year, and I don’t recall him showing much personality during that run, either. In fact, I thought he was surprisingly boring, although part of that is not his fault since the WWE has neutered his wrestling-style. The CM Punk we see in the WWE is not the same one we saw in Ring of Honor.

OK. So any other faces on Raw? HBK? Well, we’ve seen HBK/Jericho about 1,000 times now, so I’ll avoid that, too.

The only other main event-level face on Raw right now is Rey Mysterio, and while he’s obviously a more spectacular wrestler than Cena, he’s just as kid-friendly. In fact, the way I see it, the only two options right now for a title feud on the face side are Mysterio and Cena.

Kofi Kingston and (I guess) Kennedy are the only other two faces on Raw who could even remotely scratch main event level, and neither of them appear to be ready. Cena’s basically the only option to feud with these guys right now.

Cena’s wrestling skills aren’t the greatest, but he’s not terrible. He’s had some fantastic matches in the past with a range of wrestlers, so I’m not even going to complain about his wrestling considering the WWE’s standards. He has improved by leaps and bounds. He works hard, he’s good to the fans, and like or not, the ratings were better when he was champion.

Don’t think I’m Cena’s Number one fan now, because I’m not. I’m simply pointing out reality. In fact, I don’t think Cena can save this show–it’s gone to shit in the past year. At least if Raw were off-the-wall ala some of the past TNA Impact shows I could be entertainined by laughing at it. Unfortunately, the show has become brutally boring because it’s the same old stuff OVER and OVER again. As enetertaining as I thought last night’s closing segment was, they’ll probably screw this up down the line by doing the same things they’ve already done with Cena. Many of you are right–he should turn heel.

My bottom line here, though, is this: John Cena is not that bad. There’s better and there’s worse. But right now, for Raw, there’s no better option on the face side.

If you don’t like it, do yourself a favor and watch Smackdown, ECW or Impact! Hell, go watch an ROH DVD, because if you hate John Cena that much, you probably aren’t going to need to pay for cable to watch Raw for a long while.

It’s time for another edition of Monday Night Raw, and I couldn’t be more geeked! OK, I lied. I just wanted to see if I could actually use the word “geeked” here, but it just doesn’t work. I can’t believe people use ridiculous phrases like “I’m so geeked.”

On the bright side, tonight’s Raw will actually do something no Raw has done in a long time: spotlight the Intercontinental Title. There’s going to be the first round of a tournament to decide the number one contender for William Regal’s IC Strap–I’m excited about the concept.

Also, Rey Mysterio and HBK will face the Miz and Morrison in a tag match, and some guy named John Cena will return to the show.

Discuss Raw here.

All hail John Cena. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he’s making his triumphant return (again) tonight, meaning I’m not ordering this PPV. I’m hoping WWE won’t give him the title upon his return, but I’m sure they will.

Also, we’ve got the extra wrinkle of Jeff Hardy being “found unconcious” in Boston. I’d love to see them book this so that he overcomes all the odds and still wins the title, but I fear some kind of deal where he’s taken out of the match completely. It would be cool to see him limp down to the ring halfway through.

Here’s tonight’s card:

• World Heavyweight Championship: John Cena v. Chris Jericho(c)
• WWE Championship: Jeff Hardy v. Vladamir Kozlov v. Triple H(c)
• Casket Match: Undertaker v. Big Show
• Survivor Series Match: Team Orton (Randy Orton, Shelton Benjamin, Cody Rhodes, William Regal and Mark Henry) v. Team Batista (Batista, Kofi Kingston, CM Punk, Matt Hardy and R-Truth)
• Survivor Series Match: Team JBL (JBL, Kane, MVP, Miz and John Morrison) v. Team HBK (HBK, Cryme Tyme, Rey Mysterio and Great Khali)
• Survivor Series Match: Raw Divas v. Smackdown Divas (seriously, I’m not writing those out)

As always, here’s the obligatory “will you order the show?” poll:

Feel free to leave your predictions and discuss Survivor Series here. If there’s any more news throughout the day regarding the show, I’ll update this post.

Yo, yo, yo! It’s me, it’s me, it’s that M-A-R-C-U-S, comin’ straight outta the illest hood around, the W-C!

No, I don’t mean West Coast.

No, I don’t mean Washington, dC!

No, I don’t mean Whittier, California! Not Warwick, Connecticut, either! Not even Westminster, Colorado, fools!

Well damn, Marcus, where do you mean? Easy…the REAL W-C, Westchester County! So next time you’re crusin’ down that 287 or that 684, holla at ya boy in the 914!

Now, on to business. I know I haven’t put the old fingers to keyboard for a while, but I thought I’d hit you guys up with a Survivor Series preview.

Survivor Series Match: Raw Divas v. Smackdown Divas

Yo, I got one thing to say here: the real winners of this match are the fans, fo sho! This matches features ten of the hottest babes you’ll ever see, but I think Kelly Kelly’s wrestling skills make the difference here and the Raw divas get the win.

By the way, anyone see that commercial with Triple HHH and Kelly Kelly? Boy would I love to replace my boy Trips on that commercial. I’d stand on stage with Kelly Kelly any time, she’s on fire!

The Marcus Says Raw Divas Win!
(more…)

…and the year that is.

I need help here for my top 10 2008 moments  (WWE)

Here are the ones that I have so far.

-Matt Hardy wnning scramble match
-HBK defeating Flair
-Cena returning
-Jeff Hardy Dives off titantron
-Floyd Mayweather suprises Big Show with a nose breaker
-Glamarella forms
-CM Punk Cashes in
-Edge spears Undertaker through announcer table (starts the spear from table #1 and landing on table #3)

What I need help with is “Which one do I put #1? Cena returning at the Rumble, or Flair getting pinned, and also getting his jaw “broken”(best Sweet Chin Music ever)”

http://thaoshow.com/

Favorite podcast today (sorry Lex)

Here’s the article on TMZ: click here.

MOP’s “Ante Up”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3U3R3b1dOg

Cena’s Theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL7K3iT75uI

PDF File:
http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_documents/4028_cena_opt1.pdf

The suit asks for destruction of Cena’s song and $150K from the defendants. No word from Cena or WWE yet.