Saturday, August 25, 2012

Saturday Morning Ringside: WWE Saturday Morning Slam (2012)

Dating back to its early days as the World Wide Wrestling Federation, the WWE has had an on-again, off-again presence on Saturday mornings, depending on where you lived. The last series, AM Raw, still airs on USA, but in the wee small ones due to extra small ratings.

Now, two years after moving Friday Night Smackdown from CW to SyFy, WWE returns to CW with Saturday Morning Slam, a half-hour magazine series that gets its basis, whilst not acknowledged on air, from WWE Kids Magazine, which could certainly use the boost in attention. Superstars announcer Scott Stanford is the off camera narrator guiding viewers through the 30 minutes.

If there is a flaw in the design of the show, it's poor timing in terms of the match that aired on today's opener, pitting Kofi Kingston vs. Heath Slater. The match was taped prior to last week's Summerslam PPV, with then-US champion Santino Marella joining Smackdown announcer Josh Mathews on commentary. Since the event, Marella has dropped the US belt, and Mathews was held off TV this week after an injury angle involving Kane. Given there was 11 days between the time the match was taped and when it aired, changes could've been made.

Additionally, a PSA by Daniel Bryan is slightly out of date as it presents Bryan as a babyface (fan favorite), which he hasn't been in several months now. It'll be interesting to see going forward how WWE addresses these mistakes.

The 3rd Degree segment is an offshoot of the YouTube series, WWE Inbox, in which selected superstars are asked a particular question. This edited sample features JTG, Jack Swagger, Cody Rhodes, & The Miz. Missing from this clip is Natalya Niedhart. Blame it on WWE's editing department. WWE's YouTube channel provides the footage......



Rating: B+.

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