WrestleMania 25 Matches Announced, Raw, Smackdown, WWE 24/7, & More

Welcome to the “you mean I have to watch Raw on TV like normal people again and not live?” edition of The Wrestling List.

News for the week: WWE News: WWE released their quarterly numbers last week. PPV buyrates continue to fall. No Mercy did 261,000 buys as compared to last year’s 271,000 buys. Cyber Sunday did 153,000 buys which was down from last year’s 194,000. Armageddon decreased as well doing 193,000 buys as compared to the previous year’s 237,000 buys. WWE has announced that WrestleMania 26 will be held in Arizona at The University of Phoenix Stadium on March 28, 2010. WWE announced last week that Ricky Steamboat would be inducted by Ric Flair into the WWE Hall Of Fame. WWE announced Cowboy Bill Watts on tonight’s Raw who will be inducted by Jim Ross. Yeah, not much with surprises going on as the names of the Hall Of Fame have been out for a while now.
TNA News: Big news for TNA a couple of weeks ago. Impact did a 1.3 rating with the Kurt Angle vs. Sting match. That was the highest ever rating for the show. TNA followed last week with another 1.3 rating so the ratings are up and staying consistent so far.
ROH News: Ring Of Honor taped their first three shows for their new HD Net TV show over the weekend. ROH has signed Ric Flair to make some appearances for the company. Flair will be appearing at the St. Louis ROH show on March 13th at the Gateside Center.

I talked in my live report from Nashville about the injury to Jamie Noble when he took Knox’s finisher. Noble reportedly suffered a stinger from it but will be ok. Noble apparently lost all feeling in his arm and hand. WWE.com is saying that Noble plans to be back in the ring very soon. Very glad that Noble is ok cause it looked scary looking back at it on the recording. Knox definitely had a scared look of “uh oh” when he realized that Noble was hurt.

Last week’s Smackdown opened with John Cena. Cena made it clear that he was there continuing to chase Edge claiming that the world title was now held by a coward. He said that he wanted his rematch that night and wasn’t leaving until he got an answer. Edge then showed up saying that he was sick of Cena running his name in the ground and accepted the match. Vickie then walked out saying that her husband was a warrior but that he would not be competing that night. Cena went on to say that he thought this might happen and wasn’t going to let the fans down meaning that he was going to get his hands on Edge that second. Vickie stopped him saying that if he wanted a shot at Edge that she would have to see how he competed against The Big Show later in the show. Big Show dominated most of their match. Cena countered the chokeslam into an attitude adjustor. Edge then rolled in the ring and right back out not making any contact. This distracted Cena which allowed time for Show to nail his knockout punch on Cena. He then hit the chokeslam for the win. As Show walked away, Edge stood over the defeated Cena telling him that it was his show and his belt. Moving on to the rest of the show. Matt Hardy arrived during the show ready for his fight with Jeff. However, Jeff walked out in street clothes not dressed for a fight. Jeff said that he wasn’t fighting Matt “now or ever” telling him that he was his brother and he needed to get over this. Matt said that he didn’t have a brother and that Jeff was used to everything being about him but now it was about Matt and his own needs. Matt talked of how he was always the more talented Hardy but yet his career had been mediocre cause of all the fans that had believed the hype in Jeff. Matt continued to egg on Jeff to fight by giving him a slap. He yelled “fight me you coward” and then nailed him with a backhanded slap. Jeff then got up and gave a look of disgust while walking away. Jeff shook his head down the aisle and waved at the fans who gave him an ovation for not taking the bait. Kozlov got a win on The Undertaker when he countered old school into a powerslam for the pinfall. Shelton Benjamin took on Chavo Guerrero. At one point in the match, Shelton threw Chavo into MVP who was doing commentary. MVP just sat back down. Shelton started showing off and his move got countered by Chavo into a pin. As Shelton was in the ring stunned, MVP ran up and nailed him with a kick. The Colons defeated Miz and Morrison when Carlito pinned Morrison with the backstabber. The Bellas were at ringside for a lot of the match and left with Carlito and Primo.

Other notes from Smackdown. Yeah, I thought the date stuff with The Colons, Bellas, and Miz & Morrison last week was pretty funny. Nicely produced. I loved watching the clips of WM 4 and 5. Isn’t it amazing how WWE used to plan things so far in advance? WrestleMania 4 ended and they started the build to Hogan/Savage at WrestleMania 5.

Tonight’s Raw set up several matches for WrestleMania 25. The show opened with Jerry Lawler’s announcement that Vickie Guerrero had made the Edge vs. Cena match for tonight. This would be Cena’s rematch. The show closed with that match. The finish had Edge hitting the spear but Cena kicked out. Edge got frustrated and grabbed the belt. Cena picked up Edge for the adjustor but the ref picked up the belt taking it out of the ring. Edge grabbed it and nailed Cena with it causing the DQ. Cena wins but Edge retains the title. Show walked out on the ramp standing next to Edge. Vickie then walked out and announced Show as the number one contender for the world title at WrestleMania. Yeah, I’m thinking that Cena will end up in that Show/Edge match. That brings us to Randy Orton deciding on who to face at WrestleMania. He originally said he would be facing the winner of Edge and Cena. The reasoning? Triple H would be in jail and not at WrestleMania cause he was pressing charges over last week. He did have Rhodes, Dibiase, his doctor, lawyers, and a ton of police officers with him. He invited Triple H to the ring and Triple H brought his sledehammer with him. Triple H talked of Orton’s IED but then added that he had complete control of his actions and headed for the ring for Orton. The officers stepped in front but then Triple H dropped the hammer. Orton backed the officers off and let Triple H walk in. Triple H pointed out that Orton needed to beat him at WrestleMania after taking out all of the McMahon’s but more importantly to avenge his big moment. The moment that he spoke of was when Triple H turned on Orton the night after Orton won the world title in 2004. Triple H said that he wasn’t happy with Orton’s success and took back what was his being the title. He pointed out that Orton was afraid and didn’t have what it took to get the job done. Orton’s doctor stepped in as Orton was shaking with anger at this point. He told the officers to remove Triple H from the ring but Orton backed them off. Orton said that he had changed his mind and wanted to face Triple H. The stipulation was that they couldn’t touch each other until WrestleMania unless provoked. Triple H took the deal and left the ring. As he made his way up the ramp, Orton started talking about the damage that he had done to the McMahons. He got to Stephanie and said how he had replayed it over and over. Triple H finally had enough and jumped back in the ring nose to nose with Orton. Triple H finished by saying that the last time they faced off in the ring that he broke Orton’s collar bone. He said that that was business while this is personal adding that he was going to break Orton’s neck. That brings us to Shawn Michaels vs. Kozlov. Kozlov dominated most of the match. Shawn mounted a comeback and hit the top rope elbow. He then surprisingly hit the superkick straight on with no counters and got the pinfall. Shawn goes on to face Undertaker at WrestleMania 25. Undertaker made his way on to the ramp and looked on at Shawn. He then gave the throat slash sign to Shawn. What a match that is going to be!! Mr. WrestleMania takes on the undefeated streak. Another Money In The Bank qualifier was held with Kane defeating Rey Mysterio and Mike Knox when Kane pinned Knox with the chokeslam. Chris Jericho hosted Piper’s Pit. He had brought the original set to the show. His guest? Superfly Jimmy Snuka. Jericho played footage of the Snuka/Piper feud and the famous coconut shot from 1984. Jericho told Snuka that he was the poster child for The Wrestler adding that Snuka was in his 60’s and working independent shows not knowing when to quit. I liked that Jericho brought up the Royal Rumble last year as he said that Piper and Snuka entered taking away two spots from younger stars where a win could have changed their life. Very good lines there. Jericho continued to tell Snuka to hang it up and brought out all the fruit mimicking the 1984 Piper’s Pit segment. Snuka took the coconut away and he threatened Jericho with it. Jericho bailed but then returned knocking the set over on Snuka. He then whipped him with his belt. Mickie James and Kelly Kelly defeated Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall when Kelly pinned Jillian. Melina and Maryse were at ringside doing commentary. Rosa attacked Kelly after the match. This brought everyone in and then Melina went to help. Maryse pulled Melina out of the ring and nailed a DDT on her on the floor.

Other notes from Raw. So, you mean I have to watch Raw on TV this week like normal people??!! We couldn’t have gotten Undertaker on the show LAST WEEK??!!! Isn’t it sad that the first thing that I think of when I hear Bill Watts name is his top rope move ban from 1992 WCW. Yeah, that is just great. Ground all the high flyers. Yeah, it was really lame at the time and still is looking back on it. So, I’m assuming that WWE is building to a Melina vs. Maryse champion vs. champion match at WrestleMania? Yeah, I’m going to be skipping See No Evil when it airs on Sci-Fi this week. I actually have not seen any of the WWE films. The reason is that they promote them so hard that I get sick of them before they even premiere. Fun to see the footage of the WrestleMania 12 ironman match tonight with Shawn and Bret. I did not expect that Shawn/Kozlov match to end so quickly once Shawn got on offense. I’m not complaining though!!!! Nice interview by Todd with Edge. I liked that they had him point out how Edge was giving Cena the rematch days after the knockout punch from Show. Edge then pointed out how Cena had been begging for the match and now he was the bad guy for giving him the title match now. Pretty funny.

The new WWE Superstars show on WGN will premiere on Thursday, April 16 at 7pm central time. WGN is already running promos for it as I saw them over the weekend.

I watched the 2008 WWE No Mercy event over the weekend. Solid show and like I say, I enjoy these shows a lot more when I’m seeing them on WWE 24/7 instead of paying $40 for them. The ladder match with Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho is definitely must see. Only match that I skipped was Batista and JBL. Yeah, no desire to watch that one. The rest of the show was definitely enjoyable.

I watched a Randy Savage/Bad News Brown match from 1988 which was featured in the shorites section of WWE 24/7. They had a nice feud that never really had a nationally broadcast payoff TV match for their feud. So, this was nice to see this match of when their feud was going on.

Speaking of Randy Savage, it appears that the hosts for the Randy Savage DVD set will be Matt Striker and Maria. Well, that is an interesting pairing for a Savage set. Striker definitely knows his history and I’m assuming that they needed a female to host with him going with the Savage/Elizabeth theme so they went with Maria.

Here is the March preview for programming on WWE 24/7. The theme for the month is of course centered around WrestleMania. Big Ones airing include WrestleMania 1, 17, and 24 along with WWE Cyber Sunday 2008. The Pick Your Big One fan voting is between WrestleMania 4, 10, and 12 and the winner will air this month. Yeah, I voted for 4. Old School house shows airing are Houston (11/26/86) and MSG (3/17/85). TV Classics airing include ECW (September 1996), World Class (June 1983), NWA (October 1986), Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from December 1997), and Mid-Atlantic (November 1981). WWE 24/7 will be airing some shows that were the last weekly shows to air before certain WrestleManias which are All American Wrestling from 3/31/85 and Smackdown from 3/29/01. The Rock DVD continues to air along with the Superstars Of WrestleMania DVD set. The shorties will be hosted by The Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase. It will tie to matches featured in the new Legends Of WrestleMania video game. The Hall Of Fame profile will be on Hulk Hogan featuring a profile on him along with matches of his against Big Boss Man, Kamala, Tony Atlas, Curt Hennig, Randy Savage, Kurt Angle, and more.

That is all that I have for now. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!