After watching Bob Barker do a tremendous job at being a game show host last night on Raw, I started to wonder how much WWE was going to continue to bend over so that these celebrity GMs don’t look like idiots on national TV.

They are definitely working hard to try to make the celebrity segments look half way decent, but it’s at the expense of their own PPV product.

Now, I completely understand that the WWE is going to make the USA network happy by both looking more major league by having “celebrities” on their shows, and by slightly increasing the ratings any way they can. Hell, they used to do it themselves at WrestleMania every year by booking celebrity guests.

But by using up so much time during the show to make the celebrities entertaining, it seems to me that they are sacrificing their own ability to make money from their PPVs. Again, making USA happy is definitely a major goal as is making your brand look more major league. But after watching the Bob Barker show last night, I’m not sure that I necessarily wanted to watch the upcoming Breaking Point PPV show this weekend, or buy Barker’s book instead.

I think they need to slow down the celebrity hosts and possibly use them twice a month at most, and never during the last week of a serious build to a PPV show. This way, they won’t go through as many hosts, and there will be a better balance in both trying to be entertaining and “Hollywood”, and giving us compelling reasons to buy their PPV shows. Both major angles coming out of the show with Randy Orton and John Cena and DX and Legacy were serious and as important as you can expect when half of the show was about goofy “The Price Is Right” segments. I just wonder how much more compelling they would’ve been if they were given more time and energy.

In no way do I think they should discontinue the celebrity host idea, especially with my girl Trish hosting next week, but the bloom will soon be off the rose and these “celebs” might not mean much unless they slow it down. I think a happy medium should be found.

I’m interested in what others think about the celebrity host idea and whether or not they should continue to do it every week.

Fox 5 News in Las Vegas is reporting that the home of Floyd Mayweather Jr. was raided and searched by authorities in the Las Vegas area today after his vehicle was found in the vicinity of an incident involving gunfire at a location called the Crystal Palace Skating Center.

The authorities obtained a search warrant for Mayweather’s home prior to arriving. Mayweather is not a suspect for any crime thus-far and there is no proof of any connection between Money May and the shootings.

Mayweather is scheduled to come out of retirement and make his big return against Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 19th. In addition, Floyd is scheduled to be the guest host on tonight’s edition of WWE Raw. I am not sure as of yet if this writing if anything has changed with regard to that and he is still scheduled to appear.

The Fox 5 Story can be read here.

Monday’s historic commercial-free edition of WWE Monday Night Raw scored it’s highest rating in quite some time – 4.5. While a part of me is happy for WWE and I’m sure people are doing cartwheels at Titan Tower, I feel they failed to put on a blowaway show. If I have to watch another boring Big Show vs. John Cena match again, I think I may just drop WWE altogether. Orton vs. Triple H was another lackluster match, but nowhere near as terrible as the Wrestlemania match. Still – other than a couple of fun angles – I don’t think the show succeeded in drawing people back next week.

When I think about it, there are numerous reasons as to why the show did such a good number, but I’m not really sure what really pushed it that high. The show had a series of pay-per-view caliber matches in terms of booking (in fact a lot were rematches from the past couple of PPVs and Wrestlemania) as well as the presence of WWE superstars from all three brands. However, the main draw of the show was that it was the first (and we would find out last) night with Donald Trump as the “Owner of Raw”. They did a big press conference and whatnot to build up hype for the show and perhaps that popped the rating and got most of the casual audience to watch.

Therefore, a number of theories pop up as to why this show was so successful in terms of viewership:

- Commercial Free Aspect
- Because of the presence of all three brands
- Because of Orton vs. Triple H on Free TV
- Curiosity views from people who thought Trump bought Raw legitimately
- Other

So us here at FightGameBlog want to hear from YOU – the readership. We appreciate each and every one of you who check out our little site that could and want to hear your thoughts. Tell us what YOU think helped Raw get a 4.5 and why. To answer, click the little comment button underneath this post and let us know! When you click it, it will ask you for your name, e-mail, and website (if you have one) as well as a blank box. Feel free to fill in what you think and let us know (and don’t worry – e-mails are kept private).

Tonight I covered the 2009 WWE Draft with some thoughts from fellow site members GG and Duan, commenting on all of the moves from brand to brand. Some interesting moves – including some that were expected and some that were “eh”, but nothing totally insanely surprising like last year’s Draft. At the end of the night, I just said to myself – what’s the point?

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2009 Draft Match #1: Rey Mysterio (RAW) defeated Evan Bourne (ECW): Rey is the IC Champ, but this is non title. Striker just said PURORESU on WWE TV! This match could’ve kicked all kinds of ass, but was disappointing and rushed.

Draft #1: WWE United States Champion MVP from Smackdown to RAW.

Big D – Nice push for MVP. Rey is probably going back to Smackdown and taking the IC Belt with him. I hope MVP doesn’t take a pedigree anytime soon.
GG – It either means that Rey is moving next, or that they’re going to unify the IC and US belts.

2009 Draft Match #2: Kane (RAW) defeated Brian Kendrick (SD): Squash.

Draft #2: Big Show from Smackdown to RAW.

Big D – Eh… alright
GG – It looks like they’re going to continue the deal with Vickie and him. I wonder if Edge also moves over?
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This Monday Night, WWE will present a 3 hour RAW focused on the WWE Draft. Quite frankly, I see the draft as pointless because guys work on other shows on a weekly basis, with a handful of guys working all three (Miz & Morrison and Finlay come to mind). What is the point of even having a draft? I guess it’s just to say, “this is a Smackdown guy who will ALWAYS wrestle here, but you might see him on RAW from time to time.” Sure… I’m sure Brian Dawkins will play for the Broncos MOST of the time… but you may see him on the Eagles on an off-week.

Lame.

WWE.com broke that 12 guys will be drafted. We’ve already heard from numerous sources in the industry that the main purpose of this year’s draft is to strengthen RAW. Funny, I could’ve sworn that was the purpose of the draft every year! I’ve heard through the rumblings that Michael Hayes has been pushing for Rey Mysterio to go back to Smackdown. Besides that, I believe Dave Meltzer has stated that Swagger is scheduled to go to Smackdown.

Here are my early predictions for who will move. I’ll probably be wrong but, oh well:
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There was a lot to like about the last Raw before Wrestlemania 25, but there was a lot that made you scratch your head too. Before I get to that, I’d like to get one major gripe out of the way. Can we please stop calling this the 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania? Unless they’re celebrating the anniversary of Wrestlemania Zero, they’re wrong. Next year would actually be the 25th Anniversary of the first Wrestlemania.

Ok, I got that out of my system and now I can move on.

I have to say that if I was a fan that hadn’t just watched many weeks of television, the last angle to Raw was a lot of fun. But being that I’ve been watching Raw for many weeks leading up to Wrestlemania this weekend, I just can’t pretend that the angle closed off perfectly.

What was needed to really bring it home that Triple H wants to kick Randy Orton’s ass? For one, Triple H needed to talk. He needed to tell the fans that if Wrestlemania was his last night on earth, he would get revenge on Orton for what he did to Stephanie. But he’s such a terrible babyface, they instead made him nearly get revenge on the show before Wrestlemania. I almost wish that last week’s angle where Orton planted that gnarly kiss on a knocked out cold Stephanie was the last thing we see until the match. Really, Orton and HHH shouldn’t have even touched tonight.
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