WWE Raw Live Report From Nashville - February 24, 2009

Preshow notes. Doors opened just after 5:30 and we were in our seats before 6:00. Arena was mostly full. Even the upper deck was mostly full. There was a part of it that was tarped off but it was one of the bigger crowds in Nashville in a while. Quite a bit of different merchandise at the show. Wow, t-shirts are now $30. Too expensive for me especially with that annoying WWE authentic patch on it.

ECW. The show opened at 6:45 with Kofi Kingston being the first one out. He took on Ryan Braddock. Braddock did a promo before the match saying that he was going to main event WrestleMania 27. Solid match. Kofi got the win. ECW was taped after this. It’s funny cause I haven’t watched a full show of ECW since the Smackdown/ECW tapings in Nashville back in September. DJ Gabriel and Alicia Fox made their way to the ring. Then, the lights went out and the WWE opening came up. The ECW pyro went off and the show was going. Then, Gabriel’s music went back up and they were introduced. His opponent was Mark Henry. Henry mostly dominated the match. Gabriel did get a little run of offense but Henry caught his move off the top rope and sent it into the world’s strongest slam for the win. Next was Tyson Kidd with Natalya taking on an enhancement guy. Kidd had my interest immediately when he was announced as from Calgary and wearing Hart colors along with being accompanied by Natalya. Wow, I really don’t pay attention to ECW considering I had no idea of him or that Natalya had been switched over. Kidd was trained in the Dungeon if you want to know. Kidd gets an easy win. The Tribute To The Troops music video then aired which looked and sounded incredible. I love seeing that video. Next was Tommy Dreamer taking on Paul Burchill with Katie Lea. Finish had The Boogeyman showing up and trying to drag Katie under the ring. Dreamer then hit a DDT on Burchill for the win. After the match, there was about 8-10 crew people that ran out to make sure they got all the worms cleaned up. They were done in probably 30 seconds tops. Next was the main event with Christian making his way to the ring first. Good reaction for him and I love the sound of the new version of his music. Jack Swagger made his way out and the match for the ECW championship was on. The match went back and forth a ton and the last five minutes of it really had the crowd waiting in anticipation of what the finish would be. There were a TON of near falls that had the crowd up. I was wondering myself who would win it. Swagger was able to send Christian shoulder first into the post which weakened Christian’s unprettier attempts. Swagger countered the last one into the gut wrench powerbomb for the win to retain the ECW title. Christian waved at the fans on his way from the ring and then the crew went into big time work to get the ring set up for Raw. The t-shirt guy came out and used the cannon to shoot shirts up into the crowd for about 10 minutes. It was to watch and filled time nicely. That has to be a fun job was what I was thinking. Fans were having fun. We had one shirt get close to us.

Raw. We went live at about 7:54 with the 30 second tease on USA previewing Raw. 8:00 came and the lights went out. Definite chills seeing that WWE promo opening up the show as the crowd was cheering. As the recap from last week was airing, Vickie Guerrero was sent into the ring. Good job on distracting cause I did not even see her make her way out. She announced that she was the GM for the night replacing Stephanie McMahon. She promised that she would do things right just like she does every week on Friday Night Smackdown. John Cena’s music hits and he gets a huge pop from the crowd. Very loud for his entrance. Cena goes on about how stunned he is over the Board Of Directors picking Vickie. He said that they should just bring back Adamle or even make Cole the GM. He then said that he wasn’t going to cry about it and welcomed her as GM just wanting her to do the right thing for the fans and not just for Edge. He said that he was cashing in his rematch clause for tonight. That then brought out Edge. I definitely went crazy for this surprise seeing him walking to the ring. I think I was one of the few fans of his in the arena but I made some noise. Ha ha. Yep, Edgehead since 1998. Big Show came to the ring with Edge. Edge complained about the match and said that he didn’t answer to Cena but answers to Vickie. Edge said that he felt bad for Cena cause he wants to be the loser guy that wants to have all the kids looking up to him. Edge said it will never happen with Cena being the greatest cause he is in the same era as himself which I thought was a good line. Show spoke up for Vickie wanting Cena to show respect to Vickie. Cena then asked where Show fit in in this equation and said he figured out referring to the love between all of them. Vickie then spoke up saying that she had chosen to put Cena in action tonight against either her friend or her family. Cena said that he would either be slaying a giant tonight or become the new world champion as he walked from the ring. Legacy was shown arriving backstage and they were looking all around for Triple H. First match of the night was the Money In The Bank qualifying match with CM Punk vs. Miz vs. Morrison. The briefcase hung over the ring as a reminder of what they were fighting for. It was a doubleteam for a while. There was an awesome spot in the match where Morrison did a shooting star off the apron which accidentally caught Miz. That looked really pretty in person. Miz was down on the floor for a while after that. Miz and Morrison eventually went at it when they each wanted the win. As Miz went to suplex Morrison back in the ring, Punk slid in and caught Morrision in the GTS. As he had him up, he used Morrison to knock Miz from the ring. Punk hit the GTS for the win and is going to Money In The Bank at WrestleMania 25. Punk then celebrated as he pointed to the WrestleMania sign. During the commercial, the WrestleMania music video from the My Network special set to Ladies and Gentlemen aired in the building. When they returned, we got to see the Triple H Smackdown interview once again which I thought was very good. Backstage segments aired with Grisham talking to Dibiase and Rhodes. Then, we got the funny segment of Santino meeting Dolph Ziggler and commenting on Dolph’s “abobinimals” instead of adominals. Funny. During this break, Grisham came out and the song “Signs” played over the sound system. Grisham had everyone hold up their signs as they put the best ones up on the screen. Fun segment and there were some clever ones. Some are in my sign of the night section. One girl had a sign that said “Cena Prom?”. Lots of good ones and it was a really fun way to fill up the commercial time. Next was Melina and Cryme Tyme taking on Santino, Beth, and Ziggler with Rosa. Good reaction to Melina and Cryme Tyme. I love the Melina entrance. Santino got a good pop too. Good comedy with Santino against Shad. He actually tried to tag out to Beth but then got pumped up and ran at Shad. Shad then hit a move on him and pinned him. Melina and Cryme Tyme get the win. Fun match. Shawn Michaels then appears up on the big screen walking through the back. In the building, WWE ran the WrestleMania 13 video package from a few weeks back. Back from commercial and the WWE WrestleMania 25 music video package airs set to Shoot To Thrill. Cena’s movie video did air in the building as it aired on TV as well. JBL’s music hits and the limo comes out on our side of the building. Yeah, just filling time until HBK’s music hits. Shawn Michaels music hits and he appears on the stage. Shawn’s entrance was a lot of fun and he was big time playing to the fans. Solid match and it was all about waiting to see Shawn win. JBL was on offense for a lot of it. One thing that looked nasty in person was Shawn taking that boot in the corner from JBL and then crashing on the floor. The finish had JBL sending Shawn over the top rope but Shawn skins the cat back into the ring. He turns around right into a clothesline. JBL then mocks Shawn and yells at him to get up. JBL then runs for the clothesline and then Shawn catches him with the superkick. Big pop from the crowd when he won. Shawn watched the replay of the finish up on the big screen. Shawn goes on to WrestleMania to face The Undertaker. Or does he? Kozlov makes his way to the ring. Shawn and Kozlov stare off. Shawn lands a couple of punches but then Kozlov picks Shawn up and slams him. Kozlov stands over Shawn and then left. It was later announced that Shawn will have to face Kozlov next week on Raw with the winner moving on to face Undertaker. Jamie Noble entered the ring during the commercial break. Upon return from the break, WWE aired a video piece on last year’s WrestleMania. Really well produced and it was fun to watch in the building. Noble was in the ring watching it as well. He then cut a small promo saying that he would last longer than he did last week. His opponent, Mike Knox. Yeah, no reaction to Knox. No one even stood up. Knox defeated Noble in 29 seconds as they timed it on the screen. Scary moment with the finish as Noble landed really badly hurting his neck. I didn’t even notice that Noble was down as WWE went to the video screen. They showed the video package of Ricky Steamboat as he was announced as the latest 2009 Hall Of Fame inductee. The video package was so great!! It was great to see the Steamboat/Savage match footage. I still say it is the greatest Intercontinental title match ever. I got chills watching the footage of the Steamboat/Flair match from Chi-Town Rumble 1989. Definitely a big round of applause for Steamboat and it was an honor to get to pay tribute to him live. It was then that I noticed that Noble was still down in the ring. A stretcher had been brought to the ring and the officials were not moving Noble. They had a brace on his neck and WWE was scrambling during the commercial break. It was clear that Noble wasn’t going to be out of the ring in time for the break to be over. They rushed Michael Cole up on to the stage to conduct the interview with Ricky Steamboat. Ricky Steamboat was introduced and it was an honor to give him a standing ovation. So great to see him. Steamboat thanked the fans saying that if it weren’t for the fans, he couldn’t have achieved this great honor. Chris Jericho’s music hit and interrupted him. Jericho thanked the Academy for not voting for Mickey Rourke to win the Oscar. He then said that Steamboat was just like all of the other legends that couldn’t leave the business except that Steamboat was working behind the scenes in the company. He continued to bash on Steamboat and his career. Steamboat fired back at how Jericho could never make up his mind on whether he liked the fans or not. He told a great story of how Jericho was a hypocrite and one of those fans years ago that met him and got his autograph as a kid. That is a true story by the way. It is in Jericho’s book and a good story. Steamboat said that Jericho had called him his hero. He said that Jericho never being able to make his mind up on how to treat the fans was being a hypocrit while adding that he himself never turned on the fans. Steamboat then said that he was something that Jericho may never be and that was a Hall of Famer. Jericho then had enough and punched Steamboat in the head with the mic as he yelled at him. This was an awesome segment!! What about Noble? Near the end of the segment, they rolled Noble off to the left of the stage to the backstage area. Definitely a lot of concern for him among all of us. After this segment, the commercial break seemed to go on forever. I noticed that at one point, the big screen went from black to having just a close shot of the ring. That screamed technical issues and sure enough it was. The commercial break went long and WWE played the Jeff Hardy “Rooftops” music video for all of us. It sounded and looked awesome in the building. I was looking at the clock at this point seeing the time thinking how are we going to fit in a possible Cena/Edge or a Cena/Show match along with the Triple H/Orton segment into just about 20 minutes. Next up was John Cena making his way back to the ring. Vickie Guerrero announced that the world title match would not be taking place tonight. Cena then said that he would be following her everywhere she goes until he got his title shot. She said that he would be facing family tonight and his opponent was named as Chavo Guerrero. My first thought is squash match and that was how we were going to fit this all in in time. Cena won with the attitude adjuster followed by the submission tap out. Cut to backstage and we see Legacy leaving their locker room with Orton with sledgehammer in hand. Legacy made their way to the ring and Orton said that he was standing right there waiting for Triple H to show up. Orton said that he was a victim and that he just wanted to move on with his career but the McMahons wouldn’t get out of his way. He justified what he had done over the weeks with his IED. Orton said that he hoped Triple H’s kids were watching last week so they could learn from their mother’s mistakes. Big pop from the fans as we saw up on the screen that Triple H was walking through the back. Big anticipation in the building waiting for him to walk through. No music for his entrance. He just walked through in his street clothes carrying the sledgehammer. He looked awesome up on the stage as he stared down Orton. Triple H slowly made his way to the ring. Orton talked saying for them to drop the sledgehammers and settle things like men. Orton dropped his and then Triple H dropped his. Triple H walked in the ring and Legacy slowly started surrounding him. As Triple H took off his jacket, we all cheered. Why? He had his back to us and we saw the sledgehammer tucked in on his back. As Legacy approached, Triple H pulled out the sledgehammer and took a swing at Orton who ducked. He caught Rhodes with it and then slid out after Orton. One wild swing missed Orton but he got the table with it. Triple H then chased out Orton as we all watched on our feet in the building. The lights dimmed out in the building so we could watch all the happenings on the screen backstage. Orton and Dibiase locked themselves in a room and put the couch in front to block it. Triple H beat the door down with the sledgehammer and then throwing himself into it along with kicking it. Triple H got in the room. He caught Dibiase with a couple of hammer shots. He backed Orton into in front of the mirror. A wild swing broke the mirror as Orton ran. Orton and Dibiase ran back down the backstage area with the talent watching. Orton and Dibiase then pick up pipes ready to fight and say forget it and run. We all laughed in the building at that. Cody is waiting with the car and they jump in. They don’t get away unharmed though as Triple H swings and shatters one of the back seat windows. The car speeds away and he throws the sledgehammer at it. WOW!! What a finish. It was incredible to watch this in the building.

After the show. As the show ended, Vickie walked back out immediately announcing that a world title match was set to take place. It would be Edge defending against John Cena. Edge made his way to the ring. His pyro went off while he stood in the ring. Cena entered and got another big pop. Show made his way to the ring as well standing in Edge’s corner. Match didn’t go for a very long time. Cena went for the five knuckle shuffle and Show tripped him up bouncing off the ropes. Show pulled him out and the ref called for the DQ. A doubleteam on Cena went on. Cena avoided the spear and then turned into a chokeslam attempt. He avoided it and took out Big Show. Cena then hit the attitude adjustor on to Edge and that was it. Edge and Show bailed as Cena celebrated for the fans. Cena made his way down the aisle greeting the fans as he carried the world title. He held the world title up on the stage and walked out. That was the ending of the show at around 10:30.

Other notes from Raw. It really is interesting to see how many families are making their way back to WWE shows and it is really nice to see. There were a LOT of kids there last night. One of the more louder Nashville crowds as of late. The crowd was just kind of eh for the most part through ECW not really getting into anything. The crowd got into the Mark Henry/Gabriel match near the end when Henry got the win. The crowd was really into the Christian/Swagger match with all the near falls. Cena got a huge pop from the fans. The kids and the women love him. We had two kids over to the right of us with their Cena gear on complete with championship belts. No Lillian Garcia which was a bummer. Justin Roberts did the announcing for Raw. The Triple H/Randy Orton segment was great. We watched the chase up on the screen as they ran backstage. They turned the lights off in the building and had the sound cranked up in the building so you could literally feel the bass out of the sound system on every shot of Triple H swinging the sledgehammer or kicking the door. It sounded awesome and the crowd was eating it up in the building. Big cheer when he took out the window as Orton and crew sped off. The Steamboat/Jericho segment was awesome!! It was one of the things that I was completely glued to throughout the night. We just stood and took it all in. The WrestleMania 25 promo that aired set to "Shoot To Thrill" sounded incredible in the building. How funny was it when Cena said that Michael Cole could constantly say “vintage Michael Cole” when he was GM? That was what I had mentioned with his commentary a few weeks back. WWE loves that shot of the camera from inside Tootsie’s across the street and then walking outside to show the arena. They did the same shot at Smackdown back in September. It looked cool then and looked cool at Raw. It was funny seeing the ECW promo airing in the building for Christian vs. Swagger when we had just seen the match. Vickie Guerrero is a heat magnet. She was getting such big boos that I couldn’t even hear her at one point. Her “excuse me” is hilarious and we were cracking up. No Mickie James??!! I noticed that the WrestleMania 24 recap video had been reedited to have the World title match ending the music video. I love seeing the Tribute To The Troops music video in the building. The screen around the video turned to red, white, and blue while they were showing it. There were a lot of military guys from nearby Fort Campbell in attendance. Seeing that video always brings out emotions in praying for all of the military that are fighting for us. Seeing a Raw in the Road To WrestleMania was very fun and made the show even more important and we just had the feeling that big things would happen on the show. Fun to see the big WrestleMania logo hanging in the building. The advertised dark match had been Cena vs. Orton but I knew we weren’t going to get that when Orton ran out of the building. I wasn’t sure we were going to get a dark match but Edge was definitely a nice replacement for me.

Line Of The Night: “You all the sudden got a dose of courage cause you’re standing in the ring with a barbaric, disgusting 400 pound beast…and of course you brought the Big Show out too.” Cena to Edge referring to Vickie Guerrero.

Signs of the Night:
Chuck Norris Can See John Cena
Randy Orton Hit List: (check) Vince. (check) Shane. (check) Stephanie. (unchecked) Linda.
Hey Mom, does HD make me look fat

That is it for my Raw live report. Hope that you enjoyed it!! Really fun show and quite a bit of happenings on it. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!