I was trying.

I really was trying not to write anymore bad reviews about pro wrestling but ten minutes into the show last night, I muted the TV because Jeremy Piven was so damn lame on the mic.

Let's start with opening segment between Piven, that Asian guy no one really knows, and The Miz. (For the record, I am not a racist. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a thing for blonds.)

The segment...was terrible.

For five minutes we had to endure Piven in his lame attempt to get some kind of reaction from the crowd. The only remotely interesting part about it was his stint on the ramp.

Yeah. I can relate. I've always wanted to make pyro come out from behind me too.

After that though, the rest of the segment was pretty much pointless.

I don't understand why The Miz was subjected to such a burial last night. His mic skills are good but why not have Jericho greet the hosts instead of Miz?

Why must we be subjected to another Cena vs Miz match when precious air time could have been used to fuel the feud between Orton and Cena in preparation for their match at SummerSlam?

Raw's so bad now that we don't even get the "soap opera" part of the show anymore. I mean really?

When was the last time we've had a good, long segment between two people feuding for a championship belt? Where are the Cutting Edge promos?

I swear we haven't seen anything remotely worth mentioning on Raw since Trips, Stephanie, & Orton. Shawn and The Undertaker's segments before Mania are also worth mentioning. Now all we get is 2 hours of a damn informmercial.

What the hell?

Bourne. Poor Evan Bourne. You know, most of the people I know were really excited about having Bourne on Raw but not me.

I've never wanted him on Raw because I knew what would happen.

Since his Raw debut, what has Bourne done that's worth mentioning? I know it's not his fault and that's exactly my point. There's no room for guys like him on the 'A' show.

Just look what happened to Brian Kendrick.

He was doing so good on Smackdown. Let's ignore the fact that he was a pot head. If we can ignore the fact that Hardy was also one then why not give Kendrick the same respect?

The kid was a great performer in the ring. You may not think so but if you watched him on Smackdown prior to his move to Raw then you know what I mean. And let's not forget his classic first promo. (Thanks Sulayman for reminding me of such greatness.)

Kendrick had so much potential but he was sent to Raw and buried. They had no idea what to do with him or his character and that's a shame.

I also think that he had it hard because Raw is stacked with so many larger guys.

You may think that's no excuse but not everyone can fight big guys like HBK did in his prime and make winning against them believable. Just look at Rey Mysterio who's still hated to this day for winning that damn World Heavyweight Championship.

Bourne and Miz should have been sent to Smackdown ages ago. Or they could have left them on ECW.

People are always so quick to shoot ECW down but the show has its purpose.

While people like Kendrick and Matt were getting buried on Raw every week, Bourne and the Hart Dynasty were able to shine. Bourne was a star on ECW. So was Miz but now they are nothing more than a couple of mid-carders getting lost in the shuffle that is Monday Night Raw.

Moving on...

Words cannot describe how happy I was with Trips' match against Priceless.

Unlike some people, I figured Priceless (with some Orton help) would find a way to beat Trips. They didn't even need Orton which was great.

The match was good and Teddy just shined like the star he's going to be someday. I even got a laugh at Hunter's crack on Evolution.

I was more than happy that Shawn didn't make his return last night and as Shane pointed out to me earlier, he probably won't be back next week. But can you blame him?

Moving on...

I disliked all but one backstage segment which was the one where Trips supposedly phoned HBK.

"Are you ready?" "You're not watching the show?" (I'm not sure why the hell I kept watching either.)

The others were either bad plugs for the new Piven's movie or completely pointless.

Mark Henry was....interesting.

Chavo is still lame. Must they continue to kill him week after week?

Kofi and Show was pretty good.

MVP's segment could have been better.

Carlito's match would have been more memorable had the crowd actually cheered.

The main event... I don't even think I need to say anything about it. We all knew how it would end and the Piven's heel turn could have been so much better.

To sum it up, the show was terrible and a waste of my time.

Piven's may have had a better show if he didn't have the fake pimp co-hosting with him. In my opinion, Dr. Ken was more of a bad distraction than anything. He wasn't funny at all.

It's pretty bad when the only remotely interesting part of the show was commentary by a former champ. Jericho was my highlight of the night.

The crowd was beyond uninterested. I mean, it was so dead last night that even HHH couldn't pull a good pop. The crowd could have at least pretended to be interested in someone other than Cena. Oh well...

I really don't care for the guest hosts week after week but at least next week we'll have a host who actually knows a little something about wrestling.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing what he brings to the show. DX has quite the history with Sgt. Slaughter so it will be interesting to see how the drill sergeant acts towards Hunter and Shawn (if Shawn's there).

I also find it mildly funny that Raw is in Calgary next week. Wouldn't it be funny if Shawn actually DID come back? I'm sure the Bret fans would piss their pants from excitement.

In the meantime, I'm going to go back begging my folks for a Direct TV package upgrade. RoH on Monday nights? I'll be in heaven! Until next time...

~Nef