Vince McMahon's 19th Nervous Breakdown!

Coming off of a pay-per-view ratings are usually strong for Monday Night Raw, however, if the first thirty minutes meant anything, I’m willing to bet that many folks turned their sets off. I just didn’t get it.

The show opened with a “Santa’s little helper” match with four women against four others while dressed in scantily clad Christmas-themed lingerie. Immediately after the bout concluded, Vince McMahon came down to the ring and told the ladies to “scat.” Mr. McMahon then got on the mic and began talking about how disgusted he was by the way the fans and the wrestlers humiliated him at last week’s 15th Anniversary Raw. No problems for me, yet I was kind of hoping that Vince would say enough is enough, no more of getting beaten up by Steve Austin or Mick Foley, ‘cause I’ve got a body guard now and his name is “Psycho” Sid. Nope not to be.

Instead, Jeff Hardy came out and said that Vince doesn’t care about anyone so nobody cares about him. Hardy also made a mistake of saying next week the W.W.E. goes to Iraq while adding that Vince was heartless just like Saddam Hussein. Comparing Vince to Saddam is a stretch, I’m sure even Phil Mushnick would agree to that. Secondly, this isn’t the ‘80s, the fans are smart enough to know that the W.W.E. was already in Iraq and that next week’s show is taped. Anyway, after Hardy finished speaking Vince looked as though he had a nervous breakdown as the folks inside the HSBC Arena in Buffalo laughed at him.

Raw goes to commercial break and upon coming back, Triple H’s theme blares over the loudspeakers inside the arena. McMahon’s son-in-law comes down and tries to get Vince to come back to reality. Shortly, though, McMahon would order William Regal to go get Jonathan Coachman and together they would wrestle Triple H in a handicap match. At this point, I’m disappointed but still OK. The match takes place and as expected Hunter destroys these two. But why? Because Helmsley lost to Jeff Hardy Sunday night at Armageddon, this will rebuild Triple H as a dominant force. The anniversary show was great because of all the surprises, that’s what the fans want to see.

So what was the rest of the show like? Well, new World Tag Champions, Cody Rhodes and “Hardcore”Holly won a pretty intense match with former champs, Trevor Murdoch and Lance Cade. I’m just waiting for Cade to dump Murdoch. Then Ric Flair beat Umaga by count-out. Flair gave a pretty long impassioned speech before the match, essentially thanking the fans. John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) took some time out from his gig at the Fox Business Channel to announce he’s coming back to Raw full-time and exchanged some pretty good barbs with Chris”Y2J”Jericho. That’s when I turned it off. But here is what happened in the final half hour or so: Santino Marella and Carlito beat former W.W.E. Tag Champs, Brian Kendrick and Paul London. It was announced that Ric Flair would face his buddy Triple H in two weeks on the New Year’s Eve show.

Finally, Jeff Hardy and Shawn Michaels defeated Randy Orton and Mr. Kennedy when Hardy pinned Orton. Tonight’s ECW show features E.C.W. World Champ C.M. Punk vs. U.S. Champ, M.V.P.