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JR's Blog: Traveling the Northwest with Tazz... No Way Out & Raw Thoughts

Posted: Feb 19th 2009 By: mikeiles

Tazz and I have been on quite the tour of the Pacific Northwest. Our car trip would make a great reality TV show but with our conversations the show would need to air on premium cable. Our weekly food review is that the Seattle Airport Marriott is excellent, 13 Coins Restaurant in Seattle near the airport is awesome, and our traditional lunch stop on our Monday travel day was a hit. We stopped on I-5 about 60 miles north of Portland at a place called the 49'er Cafe.

As I write this we are a few hours from the ever challenging doubleheader Smackdown taping in the Rose Garden. 22 segments of TV all pointed toward WM25. An announcer's nightmare is to try and properly process all the info presented them and to not phone it in. I've always enjoyed challenges and broadcasting 2 SD's in one night is more daunting than calling a Wrestlemania.

If we don't carry our fair share of the water tonight, no one's going to blame a cousin or for being stupid.

No Way Out played out well in Seattle before a really hot crowd. We only had the one match but felt compelled to kick the show off with a bang. Thanks to the SD wrestlers, I think we were able to do that. This Elimination Chamber bout had many "moments." The closing sequence between old schooler's HHH & the Undertaker was especially memorable.

NWO certainly seemed to deliver and provide the fans their money's worth.

Raw was an intriguing show to watch. I viewed it in my hotel room and was able to absorb the volume of talk on the show just fine. Much of the verbiage was spot on.

Cena/Edge/Vickie to start Raw covered a lot of ground and set the stage for things to come.

Piper/Jericho was a compelling segment. Piper spoke from his heart representing how he really feels, in my view, and the promo struck home. Jericho has been awesome in his current role.

HBK regained his smile and threw his hat into the ring to see who faces Taker @ 'Mania along w/ JBL. I expect this matter to become more involved between now and April 5.

Whoever faces Taker at WM25, will still be the underdog.

There are 7 SD broadcasts until Houston.

Loved the Funk's going into the WWE HOF. Fans should really focus on Dory and Terry's complete body of work as it relates to the often used term of "Hardcore" which seems overused and watered down. The Funk's were amazing wrestlers in an era completely unlike today's wrestling scene. Having seen them both in person I can honestly say that in their prime that they would be headlining WWE PPV's today without question. I'll have more on these special brothers later this week. Dusty Rhodes, who will no doubt provide a colorful introduction, battled both his Texas brethren in some classic battles. This presentation should be one of the highlights of the HOF, time permitting.

BTW did any one else think that Rey Mysterio and Mike Knox both came out of their match for the better? Loved this presentation.

The end of Raw was perfect. There was nothing I could have said to make the closing minutes better. Loved the drama. It will be interesting TV to see how SD's HHH will respond to this compelling and personal matter. Personal issues are what built this business and the HHH-Orton matter is damn sure personal.

Check out the new offers in our store that we have just launched.

See you later in the week. Thanks.

Boomer Sooner!
J.R.

Tags: Jim Ross, WWE, Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes