With Game 6 of the baseball World Series being held tonight in New York, many people believe that the New York Yankees (leading 3-2) will close things out tonight with a victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Why? Because they are on their home turf, the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium, where they have enjoyed an unqualified amount of success this season.

Friendly confines. Home turf. Those words have also got to be music to William Regal's ears. Additionally, his persistence for wanting another opportunity to become ECW Champion has also become a reality, as next Tuesday he does challenge Christian for the ECW Championship...in Sheffield, England.

After the dust settled last night, it became very apparent that undaunted, Regal was successful in goading Christian into wanting this match-up. And although chomping at the bit to get his hands on the Englishman, Christian was agreeable to this contest to be held, literally on Regal's terms. And to perhaps tip the scales a tad into the champion's favor, ECW General Manager Tiffany has ruled that both Ezekiel Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov are banned from ringside for this all important match.

Make no mistake about Regal's intentions. The British WWE Universe fans are extremely rabid to our product, as well as loyal and supportive to their own individuals who are part of this great organization. And I would also suggest that Christian has his fair share of British "peeps". Regal has had a modicum of success while competing in England. Might it happen again? Next Tuesday, November 10,we will all witness if having the "home field advantage" works if favor of Mr. Regal, or drives the reigning ECW Champion back "across the pond" triumphant!

It is refreshing to me to see Rosa Mendes making some inroads in ECW. When she was traded from Raw a month ago, I predicted that the trade was going to prove to be a plus for her. Well, since arriving, she has begun to talk up a blue streak that sometimes has gone a mile a minute. She did a decent job as ring announcer last night for the Zack Ryder -vs- Shelton Benjamin match last night. She said she practiced the announcement all day, and although forgetting the weights of the competitors, it was not bad. Identity is so important for success in WWE, and evidently Rosa realizes it....as does Zack Ryder. The "woo woo woo" man seems to have become smitten with the lovely Diva, so much so that it cost him a match last night against Shelton Benjamin. Not good on his won-loss record, but I would think that Ryder chalked it up as a "what, me worry" (for those of you who remember the legendary Alfred E. Neuman) night, knowing that the allure of Ms. Mendes could potentially be the beginning of a "new winning streak" for Ryder.

Ballsy move by Paul and Katie Lea Burchill towards the Hurricane last night, with Paul's pronouncement to end their issue once and for all and have a match. If Hurricane loses, he gets unmasked; Burchill loses, he and Katie Lea leave ECW. I totally understand the stipulations. Now as much as I enjoy seeing the Hurricane in action, I have been most impressed with Paul's continued performances in ECW, and I feel that he currently is the most underrated superstar on the ECW roster. This match basically will have one man move onto another phase of his wrestling career; who do you like to win?

This and That: ECW's newest superstar is Vance Archer, and I guess he has already been labeled as being "intense". It was quite an auspicious debut last night for the Dallas native, as he destroyed his opponent in no time flat. If first impressions are lasting ones, Mr. Archer's going to be around the ECW Universe for awhile... Byron Saxton has moved into the TV broadcast position in a surprisingly smooth fashion. I am liking how he's meshing with Josh Matthews on the telecast. Keep up the good work, Byron. ...Finally, I have said this before and I will say it again. Proper announcing protocol: When the Champion of your group gets announced, he should be introduced last!! In the tag match last night, Yoshi Tatsu came out after his partner Christian did. To me, that is total disrespect of your brand's champion. This also happened when Tommy Dreamer was Champion, and when he competed in tag matches; he was always announced next to last. Where in the world is Rodney Dangerfield when you need him??? :)

Anyway, I'm done with this week's diatribe. I appreciate your comments on your take of my take, or your own thoughts on last night's show.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Ah, the guest hosts that frequent Monday Night Raw on a weekly basis. Some have been nothing more than a Shot in the Dark, while some have taken us on the Road to Nowhere. Well at least for last night there were No More Tears shed by this person, as I felt that Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne were extremely entertaining in their own unique way in leading the Raw charges to an interesting show.

To have the Prince of Darkness and his very shrewd wife as guest hosts last night fit like a glove. They are universally known, cater to a somewhat similar demographic as Raw caters to, and are consistently in the mainstream entertainment media. It all worked well, although thanks to the more than capable assistance of Triple H and Shawn Michaels, matches were made last night that met with the audience's approval.

I enjoyed the Triple Threat match between Chris Jericho, the Big Show, and John Cena. And even though DX joins the WWE Champion for a Triple Threat Match at Survivor Series on November 22, they were quick to aid Cena when the Unifed Tag Champions were not satisfied with the victory that Jericho had attained. And for their efforts, DX also were laid out by "Jerri-Show" when they tried to come to the aid of Cena. I'll have a further comment on this match later.

So it was Kofi Kingston going one on one with Randy Orton, in another match that the Osbournes "made". You know, it never ceases to amaze me that for more weeks than I can shake a stick at, Rhodes and DiBiase are always coming to the aid of their leader when things get tough for him. I applaud the Osbournes for turning a singles match into a tag match, with the addition of Rhodes, DiBiase, Mark Henry. But something has to come to a head with the consistent interference Ted and Cody run for Randy. But then again, sometimes all is not peaches and cream with this trio. It's hard to decipher if Legacy is all for one, or none for all. And you know, our appetites were just slightly whetted by the Kingston-Orton one-on-one match-up. I think I speak for many of you when I say that I want to see this match take place, with NO distractions or interruptions.

Well I believe that Jack Swagger has set his priorities straight. The All American American's object of his attention and affection has evidently turned from the United States Championship to Raw Diva Eve. Swagger's coming out to get a better view of Eve caused a slight distraction on her part, and additionally cost her a chance to become the

# 1 contender for the Diva's Championship in the battle royal last night. I for one am interested in seeing if the native Oklahoman has enough "swagger" to woo the lovely lady going forward.

Speaking of the Diva's Battle Royal, right place, right time for Alicia Fox...again. It's like finding lightning in a bottle, as this is the second time that she has won the right to become the # 1 contender for the Diva's Championship in the last two months. Her first attempt to gain the gold was unsuccessful against Mickie James, so perhaps this time she can sing a different tune against current titleholder Melina when this match takes place.

So how do you like me now? If you're Sheamus making that statement, you might not like him, but you have to be impressed. The Keltic Warrior did a complete 180 in his match last night against Jamie Noble, and in the process put the WWE Universe on notice that he fully intends to become a force to be reckoned with! When opportunity knocks, you have to open the door and enter; Sheamus was like a bull in a china shop last night, with Noble being smashed to smithereens, per se. I don't know where Sheamus is going, but he's on his way.

Odds and Ends: This week, once again I have to voice my view on another move by one of the WWE referees that had me scratching and shaking my head. Following the Triple Threat Match won by Chris Jericho, and John Cena lying on the mat, instead of trying to keep "Jerri-Show" back, or even attend to Cena, the referee just left the ring and went out to the floor!!! That allowed the Unified Tag Champs to have a field day on Cena, until DX came to his aid. And yet there was still no referee to try and regain some semblance of order. If you are out-manned, then call on your fellow officials to help you out! Week after week the WWE referees get inside the squared circle to do the very best job that they possibly can. But their responsibilities do not end after the match is over and the announcement is made. I have no idea what in the world the referee was thinking about when he did what he did. Perhaps it's time to employ a Supervisor of Referees to oversee our current group of referees. It certainly can't hurt the cause.......

Do you have an opinion on that, or anything about what I said, or your own thoughts on last night's show? Then please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Late Tuesday afternoon I was made aware of the fact that ECW General Manager Tiffany was to be the invited guest on the Abraham Washington Show, of course one of the components on the ECW telecast. I was further tipped off that Mr. Washington was going to question Tiffany about some of the arguably curious decisions made / not made by as of late by her concerning her roster of ECW superstars. Now being somewhat critical of Tiffany's actions from a business perspective, I was interested to hear if her comments were going to be ones that exhibited a sensible business rationale; I'm not so sure that it did.

I've spoken to Tiffany many a time, and she does come off as a pleasant, articulate businesswoman. She certainly has a vision for where she wants ECW to go, and as being a WWE loyalist since day 1, I'm fully supportive of positive direction. But when you are in charge of said direction, you can also dare to be different in the process. And after listening to Tiffany's comments to Mr. Washington's questions, I wonder if there is some misdirection in Tiffany's step. Here's my take and opinion:

WWE BRAGGING RIGHTS

When Mr. Washington pointed out that ECW had zero impact, Tiffany thought that ECW had a "tremendous impact". She proceeded to bring up the fact that the members of Team Raw and Team SmackDown, in addition to John Morrison, and Kofi Kingston all had their first break on ECW. For the most part that is true; no argument there. With the exception of DX and Cody Rhodes, all of the other participants in the SmackDown -vs- Raw teams at Bragging Rights were involved in the ECW brand at some point in time. So here I felt that Tiffany put a spin on the question. My interpretation of the question was more of the extent of why were none of the current ECW superstars on the card itself? I would suggest that in the grand scheme of today, our WWE fans will look at all of the names that Tiffany alluded to as current Raw and SmackDown superstars, and not from whence they came.

SHEAMUS TO RAW

As many of you know, Sheamus debuted last Monday on Raw. Raw commentator Michael Cole mentioned that he was signed as a free agent. According to Tiffany, she said that she worked under the premise that "if you don't want to be here, I don't want you here". Sheamus said that he wanted to leave, Tiffany said he could leave for good, but he had to take on Shelton Benjamin in one last match. Fair enough. But in my Raw blog last Tuesday, I wondered how Sheamus could just pick up and leave; Tiffany clarified it. But this was very reminiscent of earlier this year, when then ECW General Manager Theodore Long allowed Matt Hardy to take off for SmackDown. At that time I was critical of Long not trying to work a trade out with SmackDown to receive a suitable "playa" in return. It's déjà vu all over again, almost. Tiffany was at somewhat of an impasse here, because if she wanted to make a deal with Raw and receive someone in return, whom would she have dealt with? Raw has no General Manager, just guest hosts. And as an aside who did Sheamus agree to terms with? Regardless of that, Raw got a blue chipper in Sheamus, and Tiffany lost a roster member.

Now I applaud Tiffany for one thing: the New Talent Initiative. She carried this program over from the Theodore Long administration, and indeed some really good talent are blossoming from it, in particular Yoshi Tatsu (more on him later). Now of course I'm nothing more than an armchair quarterback every Tuesday night in my ECW viewing. But to me, there is no doubt that this armchair quarterback believes that although Tiffany has what it takes as General Manager to carry the ECW ball downfield, she has to add a little "pep to her step" so that going forward she does not fall short of the goal line like she has in my eyes.

No, thank you Yoshi Tatsu! To me, he certainly proved his worth last night in wrestling ECW Champion Christian. And although unsuccessful in emerging victorious, Japan's latest export showed that he had the heart of a lion, and a drive than many WWE superstars would covet. The future is certainly bright for the man from the Land of the Rising Sun!

Speaking of the ECW Champion, evidently William Regal can't take no for an answer. Despite being told once again by Tiffany that he would not be receiving another title match, the venerable Englishman decided to send his goon squad of Ezekiel Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov into the ring after Christian emerged victorious in his match. I think that Regal will face severe consequences for as actions, perhaps suspension. I'm anxious to see where this goes. Madame GM, it's now up to you...

That's it for this week. And it's up to you to leave a comment, if you'd like.

Take care everyone...

I am always interested as to what direction the good ship WWE sails out on the night after a pay per view event. And after last night's Raw, that ship is heading into uncharted waters that should make for some interesting travel going forward.

From a completely analytical perspective, I have to say that the individual who got the yeoman's share of attention last night had to be Kofi Kingston. Once the two + hours of Raw was over and done with, I came out of it by thinking that whether it was being exposed for a Jamaican accent last week, or being called Kofi Johnson by guest host Kyle Busch last night, we saw a Kofi Kingston like never before. He was the consummate bowler that rolled a perfect game. The win over Chris Jericho, and the bold and brash accosting of Randy Orton's "gift" (payback for what Orton did to Kofi earlier in the night), gave us an obviously refocused individual who now seems to be on a collision course with Orton. Looks to me liked Kofi grabbed the brass ring last night, and is going to hold onto it for as long as he can...And he will....... Now all he needs to do to solidify his positive momentum is to get rid of the music that he now has, and get some music that has a definitive kick to it. I truly believe that Kofi Kingston last night began to ascend the proverbial "Stairway to Heaven", and not the "Highway to Hell".

Cease and desist. Sometimes to me those three words express my feelings about some of the guest hosts that have been on Raw in the past. But last night, no bigger words applied to the littlest WWE superstar Hornswoggle, who received a cease and desist notice concerning his wearing merchandise of D-Generation X, which I did not understand.....and evidently he did not as well (because he was still wearing it at the end of the show), so much to the point that Hornswoggle evidently was instrumental in convincing Guest Hosts Kyle Busch and Joey Logano to put them in with WWE Champion John Cena in a Triple Threat WWE Championship Match at Survivor Series on November 22. There has got to be a method behind Hornswoggle's madness for suggesting this, and I for one hope that we will finally get to hear him explain himself next week. Hornswoggle is just a fun loving fellow that actually was helping DX' shop items by wearing their swag. That makes me wonder if Triple H and HBK were behind it. We shall see. Wow, they just keep throwing ammo at John Cena, they just keep throwing the ammo at him, but he no doubt will be ready to do battle at Survivor Series.

And speaking of DX, I think that they certainly made Big Show pay for his decision to betray Team Raw at Bragging Rights last Sunday. So much for the Raw superstars being lumberjacks; so much for John Cena being the special guest referee. If Big Show did not learn his lesson from the vast majority of the Raw roster causing a field day on him, then I guess he will never know.

Odds and Ends..... For once I have to say the Miz was well within his right to strut his stuff. He was individually claiming Raw Bragging Rights last night, being the only one in his grouping to gain victory on Sunday. But all of a sudden he and Jack Swagger look to be in a battle for the affections of Eve, Raw's newest Diva. I like the moxie of Swagger. He believes in his own publicity, and love to stir things up like he did last night; that got the best of the US Champion, who forgot about his match against Evan Bourne, went after Swagger, and wound up getting counted out because of it. Two huge egos colliding; does anyone care? Oh, by the way, was it me, or did the referee in this match screw up his count out in this match? Miz was in the process of being counted out (thanks to Swagger), when Evan went "air-bourne", and out he went after Miz. The referee should have re-started the count as his previous count was broken up, but he just continued his count to ten. A sloppy job of officiating there.......Sheamus is Raw's newest acquisition; and a great pick-up for Team Red. But according to Michael Cole, he was a free agent. That's strange, because I think we all saw Sheamus as an active part of ECW as late as last week. Did his contract expire over the last seven days? If so, what was ECW GM Tiffany doing about it?  (More on that in my ECW blog tomorrow) And if that was the case, why not a do a sign and trade for the Keltic Warrior? But who would have represented Raw in the negotiations? I know, I'm looking into this way too deeply.....And so it goes........Next week's guest hosts are legendary rock music icon Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon, a very astute businesswoman. It should be a unique evening. And I'm trying to figure out how the Bella Twins will factor in with the Osbournes. If there are celebrities on Raw, chances are that Brie and Nikki will be not too far away....... Finally, I wanted to wish my friend Jim Ross a continued speedy recovery from his latest affliction with Bell's palsy. You're in my thoughts and prayers, JR!!!

I'd love to know your thoughts on my thoughts, or if you have any thoughts from your thoughts on last night's event....You're always welcome to leave a comment.

Thanks for reading!

For a little over six months now, Tiffany has gone from being the Interim General Manager of ECW to the permanent ECW GM. Last night she had the chance to make a strong statement through her superstars, and she didn't. That chance was potentially being offered to her in person by Chris Jericho, one of the mainstays of Team SmackDown, who takes on Team Raw this Sunday as part of WWE's Bragging Rights pay per view event.

Jericho showed up unannounced last night on the ECW TV program. Apparently he is not totally enamored of Team SmackDown as it relates to their forthcoming battle against Team Raw. He was able to speak with Tiffany and let her know that he was there to scout ECW talent to see if anyone was worthy to possibly become a part of Team SmackDown; smart business move. But Tiffany effectively told Jericho that that was not going to happen on her watch, and that Jericho was not going to cherry pick talent. Um, I don't think that Jericho said anything about raiding talent or taking talent; he was just respectfully letting Tiffany know that he was on a scouting mission. I'm sure that if any ECW talent were to Jericho's liking, he would have discussed things in the proper vein with Tiffany.

In my opinion, Tiffany has shown herself to be a very smart and assertive businesswoman since becoming ECW General Manager, but last night's emphatic no to Jericho's scouting mission bordered on complete absurdity. Look at the line-up for Bragging Rights this Sunday. Do you see any ECW representation on the card? No. But Jericho was at least contemplating to give some of ECW's superstars consideration for his team. That in and of itself should have been music to Tiffany's ears to have some of her superstars potentially showcased on a WWE pay per view!!

But all of that turned into Tiffany putting Jericho in a match against her ECW Champion, Christian. Now I also wondered when Jericho was given word by Tiffany about her decision to have him face Christian why he did not just say nope, and leave. As one half of the WWE Unified Tag Team Champions, yes he can compete within any brand....with his partner. But actually folks, I'm glad that Jericho did compete, because his bout with Christian was one of the better matches that I've seen on ECW-TV in a long, long time!

Bottom Line: Tiffany's deserves to have bragging rights for putting the Christian-Jericho match together, but in my view she deserves to be taken to task for not entertaining Jericho's modus operandi for Bragging Rights this Sunday.

Speaking of the ECW Champion, there's no rest for the weary, as he will defend his title next week against Yoshi Tatsu. The young, upstart Japanese became the # 1 contender by defeating Zack Ryder last night, which has to make William Regal seething inside. Regal is still lobbying for another ECW title opportunity, but that ship has sailed on for him, according to the General Manager. Yoshi has not competed in ECW all that long, and if he can pull off the win next week, I would consider it being a major upset that would go down as one of the biggest stories of 2009 in WWE!!

This and that:  Loved the intensity of Shelton Benjamin last night as he interrupted a match that Sheamus was competing in. One of the things that I felt was the Gold Standard's weakest competitive link was said intensity. But if the Keltic Warrior brought that out of him in the issue that they have, then I'm hoping that it sticks..... Another ECW superstar who continues to grow on me is Paul Burchill. His ring work has been credible for some time, and now he is also delivering from where it is so important... his mouth. Not withstanding his current issue with The Hurricane, it's important to be able to emote your feelings in a manner that will make folks stop and listen; Burchill's is doing that...So now we know the name of the new ECW Ring Announcer, Lauren Mayhew. I said nothing on her ring announcing last week, but after watching her last night, I'll say that in a general sense she did all right. There are some things that I hope she will work on, such as my pet peeve about matches announced as being "set" for one fall, when they should be announced as being "scheduled" for one fall. She said it right in the first match, then reverted in the second match. I will continue to see how Lauren progresses, and will praise her when it is warranted, and criticize her accordingly. After all, after being a part of that important position of the presentation like I have.....I can do just that!!

And I can also ask that if you watched ECW last night to leave a comment pro or con on the show, my take on things, or anything ECW. As always, it's much appreciated!!

Take care, everyone...