I agree with all your calls on the Slammies, although Glamorella have agood case to be made as Couple of the Year, for sheer enertainment value more than accomplishment. I was impressed to see the Performer of the Year go to someone other than HHH, considering his influence behind the curtain and the fact that he did have the best resume this past year.
I was disappointed in the finish of the Y2J/ Hardy match- why have Hardy lose cleanly in a relatively short match, after all the momentum they've been building for him over on SmackDown? Any thought I had of Hardy winning the title this Sunday is officially evaporated.
And as disturbing as the James/ Khali kiss was, it fit in well with the general bizarre nature of that whole segment. What is with these segments lately where every freak in the backstage comes together to dance? Someone has a very strange sense of humor on the writing crew.

If you can't look at Mickie James the same way after kissing Khali, then you REALLY shouldn't see the photo "spread" she did for a magazine targeted to older males a while back. I know I can't look at her the same way... whew!

Anyhows, Raw was pretty decent. I’d give it a 4/5, and it would have been a 5/5 if there had been one or two more decent matches. Highlights were M & M’s acceptance speech for T.T.O.T.Y., CM Punk vs. Morrison, Vickie Guerrero’s heat, Kofi vs. Rey, Joey Styles’ impromptu “OH MY GOD!”, and the verbal interaction between the announce teams.

RESPONSR FROM KEVIN ECK: I though Styles' OMG got a disappointing reaction, especially in Philly. I plea the fifth on Mickie's photos.

i enjoyed the show. you missed the look on matt hardys face when jeff was giving his speech... he didnt look a suportive brother to me! and how did Cena see jericho coming? that really annoyed me... i though the idea of a preplanned spot is to make it look like no one had any idea it was coming. other than that though it was a good return for the awards that finished just after i was born.

Great Blog Kevin - thouroughly enjoyed reading it --- although I found the show somewhat tiring - I had to fight to stay awake --- could be because I've been fighting bronchitis and not 100% up to par - I do agree that Mickie James should have been diva of the year instead of Beth Phoenix and I am in utter shock that you picked Triple H for Superstar of the Year --- but agreed with your reasoning. I'm a huge HHH fan so I definitely wanted him to win and really thought with Stephanie presenting the award, he was going to. I think they should have let Shawn Michaels wife present that one (LOL) - On another note, I was just reading on some wrestling blog that for the 12/30th match in NJ, it's just been announced that Edge will be defending his championship in a Triple Threat Match against Triple H and Jeff Hardy --- unless they've got that mistaken, then I've got no interest in getting the pay per view Armageddon since I don't feel like watching Edge "steal" another win.......

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: Keep in mind that advertising at house shows often means nothing. I wouldn't necessraily read anything into it.

I thought Festus was awesome. I sometimes forget that he's actually a real person ... I have no idea how he kept a straight face, especially after I completely lost it after Miz started quoting Forrest Gump.

I'm glad Triple H didn't win Superstar of the Year. When I saw that Stephanie McMahon was announcing the award, I groaned because I was expecting Triple H to win and come out and make some kind of stupid joke asking Stephanie if she was seeing anybody, or something that would make me roll my eyes.

Yeah, from a kayfabe point of view he did deserve it, I just didn't want to hear the lame jokes he no doubt would have done.

Are you going to blog about Joey Styles knocking out Bradshaw? Curious to hear your thoughts.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: On Styles-JBL -- it reminds me of that scene in "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie finally stood up to the bully.

I loved it when Melina took off the heels while never blinking and attacked Beth. I was thinking that there was no way the dress was staying on - not that it would have been a bad thing

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: While I worked for WCW I learned a trade secret to prevent such accidents. The key is tape.

"Vickie Guerrero has the kind of heat that heels dream of. Who would have believed that a couple years ago? "

True, but again, this was in Philly!

Hey Kevin what about MVC?

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: It didn't do much for me.

I'm so sick of the stupid MVP storyline.

Having an 8 month losing streak does nothing for a career.

MVC beating MVP serves zero purpose.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: It's go on way too long. Just get to the payoff, I'm begging you.

Kevin:

Were you at the first ever Slammy's that was broadcast live from the Baltimore Arena on MTV? If I remember right, there was then a house show that followed the 1/2 hour MTV broadcast. Weren't all the awards from that first one related to songs on the original "Wrestling Album"? I think I still have a cassette of that somewhere. Man how times have changed.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: Yes, it was in 1986 and I was there.. All of the songs were related to the first album. Rick Derringer and Cyndi Lauper (in disguise) were there. The main event of the house show that followed was a steel cage match between Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff.

In light of the current financial state, wouldn't an angle where Bradshaw loses his money and is down and out and reforms the APA be somewhat entertaining?

Just a thought.

"Are you going to blog about Joey Styles knocking out Bradshaw? Curious to hear you're thoughts."!?!
Can someone shed some light on that one for me? Did I miss something?

Yeah, the March 1986 Slammy Awards at the Balto. Arena was something special. The video "Land of 1000 Dances" says it all about the tremendous WWF roster at that time. I remember MTV's Martha Quinn interviewing Bobby Heenan and King Kong Bundy backstage along with Junkyard Dog's "Grab Them Cakes" performance with Vicki Sue Robinson. Another highlight was Nikolai Volkov winning the "Most Ignominious" Award. Roddy Piper won for best performance in the video but destroyed the 'trophy' at the podium with Vince and Gorilla looking on. The place was really rocking that night. Man were those the days.

KE: "The match itself was fine, but I don’t like when promotions make promises to the fans that they don’t keep."

KE: "Keep in mind that advertising at house shows often means nothing. I wouldn't necessraily read anything into it."

Not to be picky, but which statement is actually your opinion? Thanks.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: The first one is my opinion; the second is a fact.

So you think the boss's son in law should be Superstar of the Year?

Excuse me!

It was a pretty good show.

the miz and morrison wre the best acceptance speech they are soooo funny hahahahaha

I agree that I was pleasantly surprised about how the show turned out since I thought the awards would be brutal.

I'm surprised you didn't touch on Jericho's promo. I kept thinking that he must have heard Vince through a door talking to someone about Cyber Sunday and thought "jackpot!" I liked his Slammy win though since he was really the only one who could generate much heat one way or the other from it.

The MVP losing streak has gone on ridiculously too long, to the point that MVP may be irreparably ruined, which is a shame for someone who could have been a credible world champ earlier this year. No payoff could possibly justify losing clean to comedy acts like Haas and Funaki.

As far as HHH being superstar of the year, on one hand he was champ for more than half the year, but nothing he's done this year that will stand out in a year or two. Jericho has been champ and been involved in arguably the feud of the decade.

Highlight of the night was Kane's line. Perfect delivery, hilarious.

EXCUSE ME!!!...I never get tired of that, but where are the Vikki t-shirts. Come on WWE!

Absolutley loved MVC but hated the MVP loss. I'm so sick of that storyline. What gives!!!

BTW, CM Punk is the bomb... and yes I think Batista should have won superstar of the year. He has a good work rate and I hope that you all noticed that Batista was ahead on the WWE poll but somehow it all change to Jericho at the last minute. Simply put, it was fixed.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: Something in wrestling fixed? No way.

Whenever I think of the Slammy's, I always think of Owen Hart. At one time, didn't he refer to himself as "The two-time Slammy award winner" or something like that? And he never really "won" those to awards did he? I used to love that, he would walk around with the trophies and everything I think.

Were any of these Slammy awards voted on by fans? I ask because I was shocked to hear that Grisham and Striker won Best Announcing Team and it sounded like the 4 announcers on Raw also couldn't legitimately believe it. But I like the ECW team the best and I know that a lot of other fans feel the same way, thanks to Striker coming out of nowhere and being the best new announcer in years. If it wasn't voted on, if it was just a WWE decision to give it to them, I've pretty surprised.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: I don't believe fan voting was involved, but I'm not sure.

I was thinking the same thing about Owen, Mark. Howard Finkel would introduce him as "the Slammy-award-winning Owen Hart," and Owen used the trophies as foreign objects. It was funny.

people say that they do not like wwe doing false advertizment but yet when tna changes the result of a match after someone has obviously won i do not hear anybody crying about that hmmmmm....

Thanks Kevin for clearing up the "rumor" I guess then that I heard about 12/30th and your response was "Keep in mind that advertising at house shows often means nothing. I wouldn't necessraily read anything into it." I've only been following wrestling for about 2.5 years regularly, other than that years ago when my dad/brother watched when Bruno Sammertino was "king" and since I know most of it is scripted, I "assumed" that Edge would win Armageddon. Hopefully the winner will be Triple H or Jeff Hardy, not Edge.
Thanks again.

Vickie I think in my opinion is one of the best heel (other then jerico) in the wwe right now
Excuse me ......

Kev, I am really surprised that you didn't disagree about the dirt sheet winning the wwe exclusive award , I thought you would have prefered santino's casa (me too!)

First of all Chris Jericho deserved Superstar of the Year. Bottom line. I loved that CM Punk won the Slammy but more upset that he's back on mid-card status. Even though his title reign was shorter than I would have liked, I was looking forward to a Punk-Orton feud. That fizzled. Stop teaming him with Kofi, and have Punk on his own again.

Perhaps MVP needs the assistance of Shelton Benjamin's mother. She took Shelton from a losing streak to the Intercontinental Championship after all.

Kevin, I remember reading on a wrestling site that the reason behind MVP's losing streak was because the company was tired of giving wrestler's like Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashely huge pushes only to have them leave, and thus they wanted to see if MVP would stick around for the WWE in the long run. What are your thoughts on this?

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: Highy unlikely.

CENA hater starting to come around....

Hey Kevin, as a former Cena Hater, I find myself starting to come around on him. Not because of the gazillion ads advertising his return and saying how strong he is, and certainly not because he still has the same old boring look - I just watched his match on Raw this week with Edge (I missed Raw and caught it on Youtube) and was exceptionally impressed by the fact that he seems to have learned how to be a very good worker. That sequence of near FU's, counters, ending in a fast drop toe hold to the STFU was impressive. If he changes out of those ridiculous looking jeans and sneakers into something else, he'll have completely won me over.

Speaking of great workers, I think Rey Mysterio's performances as of late have been off the charts. He seemed to go stale for a while, but he is on fire these last few months. If he learns to be better on the mic, he'll be huge. I hope they have a Mysterio / Evan Bourne Feud for WM 25. That would be up there with TLC's in the old days. Throw in the Shawn Micheals vs Undertaker, TLC with Matt, Jeff, Edge (and Christian) like I said on an earlier post and WM 25 could beat WM 3 for attendance.

Hey kevin in your opinion what company do you think is better tna or wwe
i personaly perfer wwe
you definatley should do a blog debate on it.....

In my opinion that was the worst raw in a long time, there was very little about it that made me stop what I was doing and give it my full attention, the awards themselves were mostly given to stupid choices...

Finisher: should have been undertakers hells gate
Extreme moment: they actually got that spot on
Tag team, also good choice
Best couple should have went to Glamarella, for me they are beyond entertaining, i laugh every time they make an appearance, anytime vicky gurerro and edge appear i cannot wait for them to leave again, her voice just goes through me and to be honest she does most of the work in that partnership
Match of the year, not 100% sure which I would have picked but honestly, the shawn michaels - rick flair match was nothing special, of course it was always going to win as it was flairs sendoff but for me it was just not that good of a match.
Diva of the year: I agree with your choice , mickie james has been far better than beth, although I love the glamarella thing she has going on with santino, when she was on her own she was not that special.
omg moment of the year: for me it had to be undertaker sending edge to hell, even if i was not such a big 'taker fan I would have to say it was pretty darn entertaining.
Damn moment: should have been santino marellas splits and I do not know how anyone could say otherwise.
superstar of the year:this one I believe they got right jericho has been on fire for quite a while now, only thing triple h shul dhave won was the screwing the bosses daughter award... That could be a good way for Kozlov to get the title, he would do just about anything for it... does anyone know which way shane McMahon swings?

Finally, the matches themselves, they were a little too predictable for my liking, you could tell who was going to win them before they even started... Really hope they improve it next week.

Undertaker's finisher is not the best. In fact, he shouldn't be using it. Being on your back isn't exactly the best position for a wrestler to be in. The counter is to lean forward and pin him.

Great write up Kevin, enjoyed many aspects of the show myself, mostly involving divas :)

As for Superstar of the Year we could also make a strong case for Orton. He was correct in stating that he defeated most of the other candidates this past year, and held the WWE title for some time. Jericho made his big return to WWE and was ready to save US, but never defeated Orton. Perhaps WWE should have stuck Orton as a nominee in place of Jeff Hardy, and set up the main event matches differently?

I agree with Joe Barber above. HHH might have been champion longer but he hasn't been involved in anything really significant or memorable. For me, the only two credible contenders for the Superstar of the Year award would be Chris Jericho and Edge. I would have also included Shawn Michaels but he was not nominated for some reason.

I think Jericho getting performer of the year was so that he would have another thing to brag about in his constant declarations of being the best - I think the decision for that was more about story arc than anything.

RESPONSE FROM KEVIN ECK: Yes, WWE did choose the winners based on story line. My picks were who I thought deserved to win.

i really think john cena's return was more shocking than cm punk cashing in the MITB on edge......when edge was doing that promo when he came to raw .....i had the feeling punk was gonna cash it in.......and especially after batista attacked him........
and at the rumble....i didnt even think about cena...i was thinkin jeff was goin to be number 30....and i even thought the rock might come back.......cena was definetly the last..no not even the last...i didnt even think he was goin to be there..nobody had any idea he was returning that night