WWE Monday Night Raw 2/20/2012 - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Putting aside the juvenile thrill I get from seeing a 30-something man say “Skankapotamus” on one of cable’s most-watched shows, everything that went down with Eve this week was absolutely horrific. After last week, we knew that Eve was less interested in the fawning Zack Ryder than the heroic John Cena, which, given how inept the Broski has been at standing up to Kane, makes a certain amount of sense. She was getting pilloried from certain circles online, but that’s what made it great – she had the makings of an ambiguous heel (See: Daniel Bryan). But instead of building up some real next level soap opera shit, with Eve torn between the heroic, hunky John Cena and the loyal, but goofy Zack Ryder, WWE decided to just turn her into an evil, conniving C.

Taking into account how Eve went from zero to bitch in absolutely no time at all, as well as the subsequent segment of Cena shaming her for being a skank, a ho and, of course, a bitch, there’s a fair argument to be made that this is some seriously misogynistic business. Eve wasn’t even really dating Zack in the storylines, and all she did was kiss John after a stressful situation – like Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves at the end of Speed, if you will. But because Zack pissed on her and claimed her as his own, she was forbidden from expressing some pent-up emotion after narrowly avoiding being kidnapped by a pro-hate, and perhaps more frighteningly, pro-Ron Paul psychopath. And just as it was in 17^th century Puritan New England, Eve’s punishment for expressing her evil feminine desires was public humiliation in the form of WWE’s top face running her down and making her cry at the top of the promotion’s flagship show.

On top of all the icky potential misogyny, however, is a more important issue: This storyline is officially one of the dumbest on WWE television (not including whatever the balls is going on over on WWE NXT, because honestly, even I don’t have time to watch that bullshit). Turning Eve into a nasty, reprehensible, manipulative bitch – one so bad that even the other evil bitches (the Bellas) are grossed out by it – is nowhere near as interesting as a legit love triangle would have been. Plus, I don’t mean to sound racist, but I really don’t think white people should date orange people. It’s not that white people are better than orange people; I just worry about what the children would have to go through. Not everyone is as open-minded as we are, you know.

After more than 15 minutes and what felt like a dozen different video packages, we were finally treated to a match, and it was actually a pretty decent-sounding one: Sheamus vs. Mark Henry. Trouble was, the two were thrown together in one of WWE’s signature contests: A Why The Balls Not Match.

Mark Henry has been doing a whole lot of nothing lately, aside from getting injured, hanging out on the periphery of a neat World Heavyweight Title storyline, getting reinjured, and unadvisedly becoming one of the first monster heels to take a serious stance against bullying, as seen on Elimination Chamber, when he sided with John Laurinaitis against Teddy Long. Meanwhile, Sheamus already has a spot as one of the participants in one of WWE’s rapidly expanding list of WrestleMania main events, so there wasn’t really much of anything for him to gain from the match. But since WWE is expecting Sheamus to pull in numbers for the biggest pay-per-view of the year, they couldn’t very well have him lose to Henry, and instead had him beat one of the most impressive, convincing heels of 2011 clean in an unadvertised short match with absolutely no build. Yes, Sheamus needs to start kicking some asses to legitimize himself before WrestleMania, but WWE should have been worrying about this months ago, not a month and a half out, when the only option is to feed him a once viable monster heel, burying said heel in the process.

For those with the good sense to DVR Monday Night Raw and watch the whole sordid affair on delay, fast-forwarding through everything that doesn’t have CM Punk commentary on it, let me recap what, while not WWE’s worst storyline, is certainly its least riveting: John Laurinaitis got fired from his job as Interim General Manager by Chief Operating Barbarian King Triple H, but then reinstated by the board. Then, using his knowledge of THE LAW, Laurinaitis’ lawyer pal David Otunga figured out a way for Johnny Ace to get control of SmackDown as well. Mr. Jennifer Hudson’s master plan? Having Laurinaitis go out to the ring during Elimination Chamber (a pay-per-view fans PAID to watch) and say that yes, he would like to run SmackDown as well. Not unpredictably, current SmackDown General Manager Teddy Long feels strongly that the person to run both shows should, in fact, be him.

Putting aside the fact that this could put the final bullet in the head of the brand extension, which while never perfect, I always liked as a way of servicing fans who didn’t have time for two weekly two-hour wrestling shows, it’s also absolutely mind-numbingly boring. Why would anyone care about this? More importantly, why would WWE think anyone would care about this? Is it just a giant rib on the fans, never paying off the Punk/Laurinaitis feud and instead doing a whole thing with Long and the humongous sentient suit that covers his shriveled body like some type of comically large battle armor? What are the stakes? Aside from that hilariously pandering Martin Luther King Jr. portrait coming down, how would anything change on either show? WHY IS THIS ON TELEVISION?

Yes, it's kind of ridiculous that Black Guys With Nothing Else To Do A & B, Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, respectively, have now arbitrarily been placed together as a tag team, joining both Puerto Rican Guys With Nothing Else To Do A & B, as well as Samoan Guys With Nothing Else To Do A & B in WWE's thriving tag team division. Honestly though, I'd be fine with WWE running a full-on Race War angle with their tag teams if it meant that they started acting like they gave a good goddamn about those belts.

I like Kofi and Truth a-lot, and I think Kofi was absolutely tremendous in the Elimination Chamber this week, and while I don't think it's the best use of either of them, I'd even be OK with the two forming a tag team if that's how they would both get pushed. But by having two guys who have never teamed together join forces and beat Primo & Epico, who are supposed to be THE BEST TAG TEAM IN THE WORLD, it makes the champs, the titles and the division all look like a joke. Even worse, by implying that any two perennial midcarders can team up and beat the champs at any given time, it even chips away at the legitimacy of tag team wrestling as a specific skillset, something that is crucial to maintain if you're serious about having a working tag team division.