Help for someone who wasn't around: why was 2009 so awful?

[Hypnosis]

Feb 26, 2015 21:59:22 GMT -5 Bear Skin Rug said:

Feb 26, 2015 21:53:37 GMT -5 Chiral said:

up and he sarcastically said "owww that really hurt" on the mic immediately after)

Well I found one thing to look up.

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ewpB53oy_WM#t=118

[cabbageboy]

Yeah Raw was terrible in 2009. Let's also not forget Vickie Guerrero inexplicably being the GM for a while on Raw, which completely exposed how pointless of a character she was without Edge around. But really, it was the truly hideous main event scene that sucked to high heaven in 2009. Any of the Legacy vs. HHH/Cena/Batista/Shane stuff was truly horrible. I think the last straw for me regarding Shane McMahon was the show where HHH and Batista lost matches and thus Shane had to fight all 3 members of Legacy....and he dominated all 3 men.

Oh and how can we forget the terrible Jeremy Piven/Ken Jeong hosted Raw?

[CuJ0 Will Keep Dancing]

The guest host era actually made me tap out of wrestling for awhile.

Really horrible television, even by wrestling standards.

[thegame415]

Go back and watch it, then ask yourself this question. Watch Raw through June. Think that's bad? The worst had yet to come.

[Bub (BLM)]

Guest Hosts
DX
Hornswoggle

But, all that garbage was on RAW. SmackDown was great that year until Punk got jobbed out to Undertaker and the title scene got clogged with the same old faces.

[Dean-o]

Feb 26, 2015 23:12:51 GMT -5 Main Eventer said:

2009 Raw was probably the worst year in Raw's history. Imagine this for a Raw episode:

Guest host comes to the ring

Jerishow interrupts guest host

DX interrupts Jerishow interrupting guest host

Guest hosts makes DX vs. Jerishow for the main event of Raw

Chavo wants a match with Hornswoggle, and either the guest host makes the match with a stupid stimulation, or just flat out beats up Chavo.

DX beats Jerishow and celebrates with the guest host.

Sounds like a crappy Raw right? Now imagine 5 months of that... In a row.

Remember the Christmas episode that ended with digital snowfall?

2009 REALLY sucked.

[Essential1]

[Cvslfc123]

Ah 2009 the year that cemented Kofi Kingston as a future main eventer, I'm so glad that happened and that he didn't keep the same character for the next 5 years before becoming part of a 3 man stable that no one cares about.

[King Devitt: What Plants Crave]

Guest hosts were the reason I stopped watching full Raws every week. Not even HHH's reign of terror did that.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

The fact that most of the guest hosts clearly had very little knowledge of the product was so damn transparent, and that it took them 20 minutes to shill whatever crappy product they wanted to get eyes on, all while mispronouncing at least one name. It was embarrassing.

Remember when Kobe Johnson destroyed Randy's racecar, while the Miz got banned from Summerfest?

[gr1990]

The beginning (and thankfully worst excesses) of WWE's painfully desperate, fawning, masochistic thirst for the merest sliver of mainstream publicity. Basically just allowing celebrities to hijack their flagship show to shill their latest work and disinterestedly take part in a few promos and backstage skits that illustrated just how hitherto unaware of wrestling they were and that they were just using the company for a bit of extra cash and air time. All the negative stereotypes people have about the PG/Universe era began here.

[Deleted]

I remember Raw 2009 started off as awesome. Then it became really terrible after WM25. ECW during 2009 was one of my favorite things in wrestling.

[Deleted]

As I was getting back into the WWE again, I figured to tune in to RAW just to see what was up. It was the RAW with Jeremy Piven and Dr. Ken.

I never tuned in another RAW episode again until the following year lol.

[Big Poppa Pumpkin]

I dropped it after the Piven/Ken episode, decided to give it another chance in December, watched Dennis Miller hosting the Slammys with 'The Show' Triple H and heee-larious jokes, main evented by John Cena vs Randy Orton which Cena won to be crowned Superstar of the Year. Then the following week was the Little People's Court episode.

Didn't watch Raw again until Punk's "pipe bomb".

[Deleted]

As others have said, while Smackdown and ECW in 2009 were both pretty damn good, Raw had basically turned into a variety show, and it wasn't to the company's (or the viewers') benefit. Every week, the show would begin with the guest host delivering the WWE equivalent of a Saturday Night Live opening monologue. From there, we'd have endless comedy segments involving the guest host, along with Hornswoggle and Santino and Khali and occasionally the Bellas or R-Truth. There would be at least three of these segments per show, and in an era where Raw was only 2 hours, that meant that there was absolutely zero time for an interesting undercard. Add to that the incredibly stale main event scene featuring endless matches involving Cena and DX and Orton and Legacy and Batista, including a 3-month Cena/Orton feud.

Yeah, 2009 Raw was really goddamn bad.

[Andrew is Good]

Guest hosts is the answer. Plus, I found there was an insane number of handicap matches thanks to Legacy's existence.

There were a few who were ok. Sgt. Slaughter in Calgary turning heel and hating on Canada was great. Freddie Prinze Jr. did a decent job as a guest host, but he used to be a writer. Also, side note, from what I heard, Freddie had carte blanche to do a lot of what he wanted because he was a celebrity and Vince was star struck and a mark for big hollywood stars, so I think it was easier for him to get his ideas through and not have to deal with the nonsense of Vince and company.

[MrElijah]

Guest hosts. I'll said it before, I'll say it again: The reason the celebs worked in the 80s was that they never overshadowed the wrestlers and wanted to be there, and it seems they had fun.


This time? The only three that were good was Shaq, Barker & Shatner. Thank god for Smackdown 2009

[Deleted]

I hated 2009. The guest hosts were bad but more importantly, I thought the roster and matches were just bland and same ol'.

Triple H is boring. Orton is boring. Big Show is boring. Cena is boring. SRS Jericho is boring. Mysterio is boring. Kane was boring. Even Undertaker had gotten boring. Just boring. Boring.

[Ruthless Pessimism]

It led to Wayne Brady eating an RKO on RAW. I just can't hate on that.

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

Feb 26, 2015 22:06:40 GMT -5 Gerard Gerard said:

It'd be interesting to try find positives from 2009 RAW.

Bob Barker/Jericho segment would be the first one that springs to mind.

Trips and HBK vs Cody and Ted was an excellent feud.

Why was the year bad? Here's just a few things, all having to do with the main event scene

- Triple H and Orton's long feud where they had no in ring chemistry, except for their Last Man Standing match on Raw.

- Cena vs Orton, where the match was beyond played out.

- Mark Henry is red hot with the crowd, even as the biggest heel on ECW, crowds were cheering him. They moved him to Raw, his first night on Raw he destroyed Orton turning face in the process, and they proceeded to do nothing with the momentum. I'm not kidding, around the fanbase even online, people were pumped about the possibility of Orton defending the WWE Title against a face Mark Henry at SummerSlam.