Well this year, I’ve kind of switched up. “24” is pretty lame this season, so I’ve been recording it and watching RAW instead. But after last night’s lame episode I might just switch back. At least “24” is only an hour (44 minutes after fast forwarding commercials), whereas RAW packs 14 minutes of entertainment into two hours.

For the second week in a row RAW was simply awful! The overall message and impression that I got from the show is that they want to push MVP to the next level, but have no clue on how to do it. First he tries to make the save of Shane in the opening segment only to get beaten down and has to be saved himself by Batista. Later in the show he loses to Cody Rhodes by count out when William Regal interferes? So MVP loses not only his initial match on RAW, but looks like he will be feuding with Regal in the coming weeks and taken out of the main event scene. MVP is getting the exact same treatment on RAW as Brian Kendrick?

I think the lamest segment on the show was John Cena coming out to face The Miz. The Miz wearing Liza Minelli’s hat calls out a “hurt” Cena, and when Cena eventually makes it to the ring (walking like he has the world’s worst case of Crotch Rot) The Miz bails? Cena takes 20 minutes to get to the ring, shows fewer reflexes than Stephen Hawking, and The Miz is so frightened he bails???? This of course just sets up Big Show to amble out almost as slowly as Cena, who proceeds to beat on Cena for a few minutes until commercial break. Good, we get a “fresh” feud between Cena and Show in the coming weeks. That’s almost as lame as RAW featuring Festus in a singing contest………

Once again, the best part of the show was Santina. His backstage vignette about Swine Flu and Vickie Guerrero at least gave me a chuckle.

Well, enough about RAW…….

Now for something the WWE got right.

If you haven’t picked up the “WWE Encyclopedia” go order it right now! This may be one of the best products the WWE has ever created. If you are a wrestling fan, you will LOVE this book. Written/Compiled by Kevin Sullivan and Brian Shields, this huge reference book covers EVERYTHING a fan could want.

There is so much info packed into this book you will spend hours upon hours reading through the various items presented. You get a thorough history of each and every title in WWE's history, from the Heavyweight Titles, down to the Intercontinental Title and Tag Team Titles to things like the Hardcore Title and European Champ titles as well. You also get the history of WCW and ECW titles too.

You get the history of every Pay Per View the WWE has presented over the years, as well as look at ALL of WWE's TV programming through the years. Of coures the real reason to purchase the Encyclopedia is the indepth SuperStar Profiles. Of couse you get the profiles of guys like "Hulk Hogan", "Stone Cold Steve Austin" and "The Rock", but you also get profiles on everyone from "Doink the Clown" to "The Brooklyn Brawler" and "Haku". No one is left out of this reference, even "Chris Benoit" gets a profile, which surprised me as he's been purged from most other WWE projects. It was nice to see profiles on the older wrestlers as well, guys like Bruno Sammartino, and Black Jack Mulligan get a nice profile, and credit for helping shape wrestling during the early years.
The book is laid out in alphabetical order, so if you want to take a quick glance at say the "Backlash" pay per view history, it's easy to locate. One thing to note, which is a little odd, that the wrestlers are alphabetized by their first names, which means if you are looking for Bobby Heenan for example you would turn to the "B" section, not "H". Another nice addition, is that the various tag teams have both a team entry as well as an individual entry in this reference. So if you were a fan of US Express say, they will have a profile on the team itself, but you will also have individual profiles for both Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo.

The photographs of some of my favorite childhood superstars really brought back some great memories as well. It's obvious WWE spent a TON of time and money on this book, and I can honestly say it's one of the best WWE produced products in a long time. If you were a fan of WWF's Hulkamania era, or the Attitude era there is plenty of interesting info in here for you. Even if you aren't a fan of the current product being put on tv today, you will still enjoy this book.