Jeff Hamlin is not a clever man. Still, this does not stop him from trying, at times, during his F4Wonline Live Raw coverage to fool us into believing he is.
He also rushes things.
First, in his haste to get the show on the road, he somehow managed to post three front page stories about his Raw coverage:
Luckily, he only covered the show once…
Which brings us to the Big News portion, where Hamlin informs us that, had it not been for the stellar debut of Sami Zayn tonight in the John Cena US Open Challenge for the United States title, that Dean Ambrose (or is it Amrbose) would have been the “main of the night”
“It appeared that Ambrose would be the main of the night until Sami Zayn made his debut.”
Hamlin then spills into his always-too-long, anti-paragraph tl;dr mess of an opening re-cap of the first segment. This time, he rises to the relatively tame Montreal Screw Job bait and plays to the Meltzer crowd by indignantly looking down his nose at the obvious tongue-in-cheek joke the New Day were written to play off the obligatory reference.
In response to Xavier Woods’ line about not wanting to listen to Orton and Regins’ Montreal Boo-Hoo Job, Hamlin pounces!
“God, someone get Vince a shrink instead of hashing out over something that happened 17 years ago on national television already. The irony is Kofi Kingston then said “What’s in the past is in the past.”
On the plus side, Hamlin appears to have given up on getting Bray (Brey) Wyatt’s name right, and has decided to refer to him simply as “Wyatt.” Works for me.
Now, if someone could please pass along the note that there is no Bryon Sexton working on this show, that would be splendid.
“Lana did a promo with Bryon Sexton. He asked her about the positive reception she has received from fans lately. She appeared uncomfortable and acted like she didn’t know what Sexton was talking about.”
During his recap of the Amrose (Amrbose) vs Rollins match, Hamlin tries again to whelm us with his cleverness while actually showing us otherwise.
“Michael Cole popped off about how Rollins won the WWE title at WrestleMania in triple-threat rules. Didn’t he cash in his briefcase in a singles match? This was only five weeks ago. I mean, I know having Vince scream at you for 20 years can impact your memory, but c’mon.”
Sorry, Jeff, but actually what happened “only five weeks ago” was that, when Rollins cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcase, as Cole announced at the time, that the referee allowed the match to continue under Triple Threat Rules which, Mr. Smarkypants, is why Rollins only had to pin Reigns, and not Lesnar, to win the title. I know having Dave cough in our ears for 20 minutes can impact your memory, but c’mon.
Based on the last few weeks of me doing this recap of Hamlin’s recap, I know that this is typically the time when he starts losing steam, as he does not yet have the stamina of a Martin, or McCarron… and sure enough:
“A preview of the NXT segment on E60 aired. Based on the preview, they most pushed person in developmental in Xavier Woods.”
One of the top two segments on the show was next, as Cena came out for us US Open Challenge. There was something in the air with these fans, and Hamlin picks up on it.
“Fans chanted “Olay, olay, olay” after [Cena] tried to start his promo.”
Hamlin would later cover an important nuance in the new relationship between Naomi and the returning Tamina Snuka, who is taking on the role of Naomi’s bodyguard and enforcer.
“Cole explained Tamina and Naomi were cousing by marriage.”
Hamlin would go on to end the report with a bit of schizophrenia, as he relates to us that the Cena/Zayn match “rivaled anything you’ll see this year in terms of pure emotion” despite previously writing during the match recap that, “but you could also sense [the crowd] felt it was a foregone conclusion [Zayn] was losing.”
Better luck next week.
SUMMARY: I was happy to see the schlocky jokes from previous recaps has been retired. Gone were non-sequiturial 30-year old references and “territory humor” present in prior recaps. Hamlin would be best served by cutting back on foolish editorializing, which in this week’s review really exposed him as being clueless, and spend more time on paragraph structure, learning the names of the wrestlers and interviewers on the show, and spelling their names consistently. A 5 Hour Energy mid-show might also help him get over that hump at the 90 minute mark, as I can imaging keeping up with a three hour show could be quite the chore.
I like hamlin’s errors, they remind me of so bad it’s good movies like The Room.
In fairness to Hamlin, he was just trying to avoid having people think fans were chanting for Ole Anderson.