Tube Tied - 1.10.06

"Cringeworthy" is the operative term when the Wheeee puts out a Raw like it did last night (1.9.06). Many of the elements within make me wonder why I bothered watching wrestling again in the first place.

Topping the card, of course, was the "live sex celebration" between Edge and Lita, in recognition of Edge's surprise win in the Elimination Chamber at New Year's Resolution (tm Chris Masters). Listen - it's not the Puritan in me that makes faces at things like a "live sex celebration" - it's the adult in me.

(It doesn't help matters that, when the Wheeeee puts the words "live sex celebration" in a goofy font like it did, I find myself flipping over to the Smoky Mountain Knife Works shopping channel for something to gouge my eyes out with.)

Anyway, it was a segment that went overly too long, no matter how nice the retrospective video segment they put together for The Toothy One was. (He's really come a long way from beating the hell out of the Hardys every other week, which seemed to be the gist of the video package.)

Ric Flair came out to save the segment, which evoked yips of joy from me, even though he's so old that his Social Security number is in Roman numerals. Alas, his head became the meat in a chair sandwich. And then John Cena came out, wiggered around for a minute and killed what remaining enjoyment I had for the segment.

In other Raw news, I thought Kurt Angle's performance last night was priceless, as always. The closeup of him concentrating intently on the end of tag rope while his tag partner Shawn Michaels was being beat down by Carlito and Chris Masters was humorous, as was his discussion with Daivari about his gold medal while Michaels was desperately reaching for the tag.

I don't get what they're doing with Shelton Benjamin, other than killing his career. I think that Barry Windham got more mileage with his Widowmaker persona than Benjamin is getting with this overprotective mother angle.