Outside of criticizing the entire episode of Raw (which, in short, I felt was incredibly boring and was booked horribly), since this isn't the thread for it, my main thought about how the KOTR went down....
"Bullshit."
Can someone please explain to me what idiot was responsible for what we saw tonight? We start off great...Jericho vs MVP, legitimate match with two guys who could win it. It has a legitimate finish, albeit MVP looked a little weak tapping out and it probably would've been better suited if he was pinned via a Codebreaker "out of nowhere". At the very least though, the ending was good in that it wasn't a run-in or a DQ, which I expected to happen.
CM Punk versus Matt Hardy. Ook...I can deal with it, but it seems a little weird to put two faces together, and the fans in the audience seemed to agree with that statement, as they didn't know who to cheer for, so throughout the entire match, it was mostly silent. Punk wins. Yeah, he's at a better position in the hierarchy than Hardy is right now, makes sense. Doesn't make much sense that he's in the tournament, due to having the MITB, though. Let this one slide.
Then what happens...Khali versus Finlay. Why? Was there a point in having Khali in this match just to hurt Finlay? Why couldn't Finlay have scored the pinfall over someone like Elijah Burke or Shelton Benjamin? (And before anyone says "We needed to see Khali so he and Big Show could have another stare down, that way the audience remembers that they have a feud as well", this is Raw, not Smackdown, so its not necessary, and even if they really had to do a Khali segment, why didn't they just have a Khali squash match in place of the boring as hell Carlito/Holly match, which, again, we've seen 100 times?)
Then, the biggest slap in the face. Hornswoggle is in the tournament. I can't stress "what the FUCK?" more..but...WTF. I know the WWE wants to market to kids. I get it. Its crammed down my throat every week by having Hornswoggle bury your superstars through water gun antics and slapstick bullshit like that. You throw the midget in the Royal Rumble match...for some reason. Now he's taking up a space that you could've given to Morrison, Kennedy, Burke, Benjamin, Kofi, the Miz, freakin ANYBODY.
Jericho versus Punk. At least its a legitimate match. Can't really find too much of a fault here, so I won't bitch about it. Credit where credit is due.
Finlay versus Regal. The only thing I can see coming out of this is a feud between the two. But that brings up the question...why didn't they just have Finlay versus Regal in the first round, have Regal responsible for Finlay's injury, and start the feud from there? Wouldn't that have made more sense?
CM Punk versus Regal. Punk, the Money in the Bank holder, taps out to the General Manager who had an ok showing against Orton last week but before that was being used, along with Coach, to get their asses handed to them by Hornswoggle. For the record, I don't hate Regal, I just don't see why they wanted to give this to him instead of someone that could run with it. To me, its the equivalent of giving Stevie Richards the United States title or something "just because he didn't have anything else to do, and now he does".
So really...what was the point? Did the King of the Ring accomplish any of the following:
1. Add to the MVP/Hardy feud?
2. Add to the Khali feud?
3. Add to the Batista/Jericho/HBK feud?
4. Give an up-and-comer a push towards the main event?
5. Entertain?
I bring up that last one because I don't think it honestly did. Was the crowd going nuts? I didn't hear it. The loudest pop of the night, it seemed, was when Lillian announced that the first match of the night was a Quarter-Finals match. The whole reasoning behind the political angle was to get more people to watch the show that might not have normally done it, true? So if you're trying to get new viewers to the show, wouldn't you want to showcase your best talent? You know, the guys that do amazing things in the ring, carry themselves very well in matches, have you wondering "jeez..how'd he do that"? Guaranteed, if someone that wasn't familiar with the WWE and, by proxy, the garbage that we've been getting lately in some aspects, if they were to tune in to this 3 hour episode for the political angle...they won't be watching it anymore. The political angle wasn't clever, it wasn't funny, and it didn't accomplish anything. Then they sit through matches where a giant who can't speak English smacks a guy's leg on a pole repetitively until a big guy comes out and they walk a circle around the ring, followed by a midget being beaten in like 7 seconds.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but the entire King of the Ring tournament was outshined in class, execution, and most importantly PURPOSE by THE DIVAS SEGMENT.
What a terrible, terrible waste of time. What a terrible, terrible waste of talent. What a terrible, terrible slap in the face to the King of the Ring tournament. Watch out next year, folks, cause if things continue, with Punk winning the Money in the Bank, Regal winning a botched King of the Ring, and pushes going to a midget over the future of the business, then its likely that they'll book Nunzio to win the Royal Rumble.
