Monday Night War Report

So this is the first official week of the New Monday Night Wars. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will fade away?

Before we jump into things, let's just leave the ratings at the door. It's too soon to be calling rating out each week. It's too soon for that to matter. For the opening salvo I'll give Raw a 3.3 rating and Impact a 1.6.

Here's the breakdown. Each week we'll look at four categories, matches, production, segments and announcing. Each category will be graded, then each show will get it's final grade for the week and announced as the winner.


Matches:

Impact: This week week got seven matches. A really good one, Six mediocre.
Raw: This week we got five matches. A really good one, Two bad ones. Two mediocre

Grades: Impact: C+ Raw: D+
Winner: Impact

Production

Impact: Still we are getting the one minute breaks for commercial breaks. The camera men still seem to get lost from time to time.
Raw: If nothing else, you can always count on Raw's production values.

Grades: Impact: C Raw: A
Winner: Raw

Segments

Impact: While most of the segments did include Hogan, they all were part of furthering the storylines.
Raw: Most of the segments furthered the storylines, but they still insist on the guest host filler idiot segments.

Grades: Impact: B Raw: C-
Winner: Impact

Announcing

Impact: Tenay can get on my nerves as can Taz, but they helped sell the action tonight, almost as well as RVD did his beating from Sting.
Raw: Most of the time it seems like Lawler and Cole are talking about something totally different than from whats going on in the ring. At least tonight Lawler didn't call anyone by the wrong name, and unless I missed it, we didn't get a vintage the whole night.

Grades: Impact C+ Raw: D+
Winner: Impact


Final Grades

Impact: C+ Raw C
Winner: Impact - even with my grading giving them three of the categories, Raw's production was almost enough to give Raw the win.


Raw may win the ratings, but this week I give it to Impact.

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