Raw, Smackdown, & More - May 4, 2009

Welcome to the “please can Orton move on from the McMahon feud” edition of The Wrestling List. I am really tired of the storyline of Orton having to fight McMahons if you can’t already tell. Just ready for something new for him which I guess will be Batista. Hmm, maybe the McMahons isn’t so bad after all. Ha ha.

Sad news to start with. Former WWF and AWA star, Playboy Buddy Rose passed away last week at the age of 56. His passing is due to natural causes and he has been battling diabetes for a while. For me, Rose will be remembered for that great Midnight Rockers feud in the AWA. Everyone also has to remember the WWF blow away diet commercials which have still stood the test of time of greatness.

I knew Smackdown was going to be good on Friday night based on one thing. The show was in Madison Square Garden. The atmosphere there always brings out a good show and Smackdown was an excellent show. The show opened with Chris Jericho saying that the show was different but the result was the same. Smackdown was now his show. That brought out World Champion Edge who mentioned that he beat Cena for the title while Jericho has yet to beat Cena. Edge talked of how it was his show. Before Jericho could really go back at him, CM Punk arrived who reminded Edge of pinning him for the belt using Money In The Bank last year. Jericho ended up walking out as did Edge not wanting to even give Punk the time of day. Punk then told Edge that Teddy Long had given him a match against Edge on Smackdown. It was non title but Punk said that he was going to win with the GTS and then cash in Money In The Bank while he was sleeping and win the title. Jericho was involved in the four way elimination match for the number one contendership against Edge at Judgment Day. Hey, I thought that was supposed to be a scramble match!! Jericho took on Jeff Hardy, Rey Mysterio, and Kane. This was a really fun match. First man eliminated was Kane. Jeff hit a whisper in the wind and swanton on Kane. As Jeff went for the pin, Jericho pulled Jeff out of the ring. Jericho then pinned Kane. Kane did some damage on the way out to Jericho and to Hardy. He went into a rage throwing chairs in the ring. Rey nailed Jericho and hit the 619. As Rey went for the springboard, Jericho nailed Rey with a chair causing a DQ. That left it one on one with Jeff and Rey. What fun action here!! The finish had Rey hitting the 619 and the springboard but Jeff countered it into a sunset flip for the win. Jeff will go on to face Edge at Judgment Day for the World title. Punk and Edge had a good match to close the show. Punk did in fact hit the GTS on Edge and win the match. Punk then told the ref that he was cashing in the Money In The Bank and the announcement was made of the match. However, Umaga ran in and kicked Punk followed by the big swinging slam of his. As Edge went to hit Punk with the briefcase, Hardy made his way to the ring. Jeff hit the twist of fate and swanton on to Edge to end the show. They made sure to point out that the bell never rang to start the match so Punk’s MITB cash in didn’t count. John Morrison took on Shelton Benjamin and ended up winning with the moonlight drive. Later, Morrison and Jericho got into a fight backstage that had to be broken up. MVP was accompanied by The View’s Sherri Sheppard to take on Dolph Ziggler. They have been doing some back and forth promotion with MVP and Sherri. Cryme Tyme hosted a dance off between Layla and Eve. Eve ended up winning and then Layla slapped her. The fight was on from there. It actually wasn’t a bad segment cause the girls are great dancers.

Other notes from Smackdown. Wow, Morrison is a face now. Interesting. I have thoughts on that so keep reading on ahead. How great was Edge’s heel line of walking out in the World’s Most Famous Arena and then naming the Air Canada Center in Toronto and then saying how you realize how better you are than everyone in there? I thought Sherri Sheppard did well in her role with MVP. One of the better performances by a celebrity that they’ve had come in as of late. What happened to the “first time ever on network TV scramble match”? I didn’t dream that up, did I? I cracked up at JR’s line of that he threw his back out just watching the dance off. Boo to Todd Grisham from a Bulls fan for his John Starks reference on the three pointers at MSG.

Tonight’s Raw was just a middle ground show for me tonight. The focus was Shane McMahon and Randy Orton. The show opened with their match which had Shane attacking from the crowd. Shane was about to drop an elbow on to Orton on the table till Rhodes and Dibiase got involved. MVP ran down and helped but was then thrown out after a minute or so. Batista then ran down and cleared the ring. Vickie arrived on the scene saying that her main event was not going to be ruined. She announced the “win and you’re in scenario”. Batista would face Dibiase. MVP would face Cody. The winners of those matches got to be put into the Shane/Orton match. The idea was that it could be two on two or three on one. MVP took on Cody but Regal was at ringside doing commentary. As MVP was set to get back in the ring, Regal took out MVP’s leg and he crashed to the floor. MVP was then counted out. That put Cody with Orton in the main event. Batista took on Dibiase. The finish had Dibiase slapping Batista which infuriated him. Batista pounded on Dibiase in the corner and wouldn’t stop for the ref’s five count. The ref counted five and DQ’d Batista. That meant that all of Legacy would take on Shane in a handicap match. Batista was later shown backstage apologizing over and over to Shane for what had happened. Vickie ended up making a ruling of that no one could get involved in the match threatening Batista with taking away his title match at Judgment Day. The match took place and Shane did get on a roll at the end. Shane went to do what he tried earlier and that was drop the elbow on to Orton on the table. Orton moved and Shane crashed through the table. Rhodes and Dibiase then held Shane’s ankle on to the steps. Orton nailed the ankle with the chair on to the steps. The second damage came when Orton then picked up the top half of the steps and dropped them on Shane’s ankle. The match was over at this point so Batista made his way down. Legacy ran while Batista checked on Shane and was mad that this had happened. Orton then promised Batista that his judgment day was coming. This definitely had to be the end of Shane for a while as the beating was nasty. In other action. Kofi Kingston defeated Matt Hardy, who is still wrestling under protest, after hitting the trouble in paradise kick. Hardy then knocked out Kofi with the cast after the match as Kofi was celebrating the win. Mickie James got a non title win on Divas Champion, Maryse pinning her with a DDT. Solid match. Carlito pinned Kendrick following a backstabber in the corner. The Miz once again called out John Cena. Vickie had earlier told Big Show that Cena was not going to be cleared to wrestle for two weeks but granted Show a match with Cena at Judgment Day. Miz continued to bait Cena and Cena very slowly made his way to the ring. He carefully climbed in the ring and then Show’s music hit. Miz disappeared and Show stepped in. Cena put his fists up but Show proceeded to just pound on a defenseless Cena. Lots of shots to the midsection followed by a STF that left Cena unconscious. We had a singoff between Festus and Jillian hosted by Lawler. Jillian did her usual singing. Then, Festus was in his catatonic state when it was his turn. Lawler rang the bell and Festus went into singing “Tomorrow”. He also won. Umm, yeah.

Other notes from Raw. Wow, major credit to Cena. He sold that injury BIG time tonight. He was so good that I was feeling bad for him. I thought that told a good story of Cena not backing down but that he was just too beaten to defend himself. Mickie gets a win over Maryse!!! Hoping that means good things for Mickie in the future!! Maybe a championship again?? That segment with Santino, Chavo, and Kelly made me wonder if they are turning Santino face. It sure seems like it. Weren’t you just waiting for Larry Zybysco’s return to Monday nights? He was in a commercial for morphoplex. I was waiting for him to tell me about the “new world odor”. I don’t miss him on Monday nights at all. Wow, even Jared The Subway guy got boos from the Raw crowd. Tough crowd. What was with that singing segment with Jillian and Festus??!! That was pointless and the best part was that Lawler said it was happening to top Smackdown’s dance off. Give me the dance off back. The Miz may get turned face with all of those anti-Cena fans with all the comments he has been saying including how the WWE machine formed him to get the kiddies to cheer for him along with him saying that The Rock had rejected all of Cena’s movie scripts. Wow. I like if they keep doing stuff like that with Miz where he just shoots on things like that.

Wow, WWE is apparently pushing John Morrison as a face now. That came out of nowhere. When Shelton made his way to the ring on Smackdown, I assumed they were tagging up. I then thought that Morrison did get laid out by his partner so that could warrant a babyface turn. I mentioned in my thoughts on the draft that this singles run on Smackdown could be a very good thing for Morrison. Could is the wrong word. Will is the better word. I think they should push Morrison huge. He is really good in the ring and has a fun style. The character is one that I was against at the beginning but grew on me. I’ll admit that I was wrong there. Will pushing him as a face work? It very well could. Just depends on how they do it. I do see similarities of him to an early singles heel Shawn Michaels and have for a while. Good character, solid matches. Coming out of a tag team and into a singles push. He’s been a singles star before but I think the time with Miz helped develop that character. We’ll see if Morrison can step up to the plate.

I saved myself another $40 by watching Survivor Series 2008 on WWE 24/7 this weekend. Solid show but nothing really to jump up and down about. The ending of the WWE title match was fun but the rest of the match was terrible. I liked the opener with Team Shawn Michaels against Team JBL. Fun match and good action. Crowd was into it too. Women’s match was all right but nothing really spectacular. Solid match though. Undertaker/Big Show was all right as well. Team Batista against Team Orton had a fun finish with Orton sneaking in the tag and hitting Batista with the RKO to win the match. Crowd popped for the RKO. That triple threat for the WWE title was a mixed bag with most of it being bad. Triple H and Kozlov going one on one for ten minutes or so was just as boring as I had heard that it was. There were chants of “boring” and also “TNA” among others. I found it hilarious how the crowd popped huge for Edge’s music even though they were expecting Hardy. The crowd was dying for some excitement!! Then, there is a huge pop for Hardy attacking Edge. However, Edge is still able to overcome and pins a hurt Triple H for the win and the championship. Good stuff. Cena and Jericho was a fine match. Only thing that hurt it was that it was predictable knowing that Cena was going to win. Yeah, I realize that I watched this on a three month delay so I knew who won but you knew this at the time that Cena was going to win. His comeback in his hometown. That did make for a fun storyline of the match though. That shot that they had of Cena outside the Garden in that promo video looked awesome!! Solid match. Like I said, solid show. I know soiid is getting to be a boring word in this review of it but that is really the only word that comes to mind. The only bad on the show was the ten minutes of Triple H and Kozlov.

Oh good grief. Vince Russo is writing another book and this one is going to be all about his time in WCW which will be released in early 2010. I can sum it up right now with what he’ll say. He’s going to blame the officials, politics, the network, and everyone else besides his ideas for why WCW ended. Of course, there was a lot of factors that went into WCW going out of business but that Russo era of booking was AWFUL!! Let’s put the Nitro Girls in matches and have them wrestle, put the belt on Arquette to get a USA Today front page but lose half of our audience in the process who never came back….and,,,,,,,ok, I’m breathing now and will hold off from the 8,475th Russo rant of mine. I don’t think I could read that book or I might have to be put on blood pressure medicine by the time I finished reading it. Ha ha.

Ric Flair and Rowdy Roddy Piper are going to be sitting down and doing a shoot interview together for Highspots.com. How scary is that and I’m talking SCARY GOOD!! Can you imagine how great that will be if those two get rolling with telling stories??!!

That is all I have for another Monday night. Wishing all of you a great and safe week!! Take care and God bless!!