A couple events that took place on Sunday and on Raw. Firstly, on Sunday, the newswires blew up that there were new WWE Tag Team champions in Primo and Epico. When I read this, I thought I was off by a couple weeks and that I was missing the Royal Rumble! But no, I wasn’t missing anything. They changed the titles in a house show. Then on Raw they explain the change and the new champs go over Air Boom in a short rematch in the first match of the night.

Now, the tag division has been suffering for YEARS in WWE. It’s reported Vince McMahon HATES tag team matches because he’s paying four guys for one match, they only still do them because they’re a staple of pro wrestling, kinda funny considering how many matches they have where multiple people are crammed in, Rumble excluded, it’s a special event.

But how low does a division, or even a champion (Or team of champions as the case my be) have to be on the ladder to not even change the belts on television when you have a show less than 24 hours later? Then, not only do they not bother to give the champions the courtesy of having the titles change hands on TV, but the new champions were almost beaten in their first TV match as champions. The could have, and SHOULD HAVE, had the match on TV and make the new champions look strong. The way they were booked it looked like a fluke win at the house show, and even a bit of a fluke on TV But, in WWE, Air Boom doesn’t matter, Primo and Epico, even Rosa Mendes don’t matter and the WWE Tag Team Titles don’t matter. So change them wherever, they have been made into the least important titles in the WWE. Which is a shame when you think of all the great tag teams that have come through the WWE. The belts don’t even serve to get anyone over anymore. To even the most diehard fan the champions have become “Oh yeah, those guys hold them now.” And those guys get 5 or so minutes on TV and they’re gone with no real storyline.

At one point the tag titles meant something. They could be used to get guys over. They were a legitimate stepping-stone in ones career. Edge would have never become a 9 time world champion, a guy who’s held the most championships in WWE and a Hall of Famer if not for being part of Edge and Christian early in his career. Regardless of what you may think of them now, Jeff and Matt Hardy were stars. Jeff had a great feud with CM Punk over the world title and Matt had a great series with MVP over the US title. None of which would have happened if they hadn’t become the Hardy Boyz early in their careers. JBL would have never happened without The APA. Bret Hart would have never happened without the Hart Foundation. Shawn Michaels would have never been without The Rockers.

The Tag Team Titles can be important and SHOULD BE important. Just like every title SHOULD BE important. And to water down the importance of a championship then waters down your talent and inevitably your entire roster.

To drive this point home, how important have the titles been booked over the last couple years? And once you’ve answered that, how many guys seem like legitimate stars like there were 10 years ago.

I rest my case.

-Mike Perry

Being in a creative field like cartooning, I can fully understand the difficulty of making an interesting installment of a story week-to-week. Sometimes to get from A-Z in a story L,M,N, and P might miss a step. And for some reason, as stories tend to change from the initial conception, there might be some numbers thrown in just to muddy the works. I know Ben also understands this difficulty because I don’t think I’ve seen him write ANY interesting installments of his stories. (I kid, Ben. I kid.)

 

But knowing this, when the last five episodes of Raw have ranged from utterly confusing to downright boring, I had to believe they were kind of on auto-pilot leading into episode 1000. The Money in the Bank PPV was even in that mix and it got overshadowed by the 1000^th Raw, something that shouldn’t have happened considering the implications of the contracts that Dolph Ziggler and John Cena won that night.

 

Then Raw 1000 came and of course, I was right, as the show was fun from top to bottom.

 

The show started with a new signature at the top of the show ending in the WWE logo with the words “Then. Now. Forever.” Followed by a highlight reel of the last 999 episodes of Raw that included so many great moments I can’t even begin to list them.

Vince McMahon comes out and welcomes everyone to Monday Night Raw amidst a “Thank You, Vince” chant from the live crowd. And whether you like Vince McMahon or not, there was no one else who should have started the show. Some label him a genius, others say that label is horribly undeserved because very few things he’s created have succeeded, but Raw definitely has done that and Vince should be respected, if nothing else, for creating a show that really changed the wrestling landscape.

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