Welcome to the “Jerry Lawler had to have beat his own record tonight by saying ‘bizarro land’ only one minute and fifteen seconds into tonight’s Raw in Calgary” edition of The Wrestling List. What I love about tonight’s Raw is that it gave me a lot to discuss. Always fun. Seriously, I get so tired of WWE getting all bent out of shape about the fans when they aren’t reacting like they’re “supposed” to. Just let the fans cheer and boo who they want. It makes the show more fun. That is why I love the Canadian crowds and love the MSG crowds.
WWE released their quarter numbers last week. Their overall numbers were better than the last quarter. WrestleMania was in this quarter so that is obviously going to help out. WrestleMania did 960,000 PPV buys which is definitely very good. I think it is VERY fair to say that Shawn and Undertaker were responsible for a lot of those buys. Backlash had 182,000 buys compared to last year’s 200,000 buys. Judgment Day had 228,000 buys compared to last year’s 252,000 buys. Extreme Rules did 213,000 buys compared to last year’s One Night Stand which did 194,000 buys. The Bash did 178,000 buys. DVD sales are down in the quarter with them pointing out that they haven’t had as strong of titles in that quarter. I expect it to rebound a bit in the next quarter with the Randy Savage DVD. Vince McMahon did speak during the conference call about needing to address the drop in PPV buys and the DVD sales.
Moving on to tonight’s Raw from Calgary. Ok, seriously, what is WWE’s obsession with messing with the Canadian fans? The thing that I noticed is that they never get the upper hand either. It’s like WWE messes with them through an entire show and then the Canadians get no sort of payoff. Sgt. Slaughter was the “guest host” tonight and he got some boos at first but talked of the respect he had for Canada. He turned on them and then demanded they say the pledge to the American flag. Slaughter returned later and messed with them some more. This time he brings out Jillian Hall to sing their national anthem. Now, comes the big part which I just don’t get and I’m glad that Canada is smarting up to it. Slaughter walks out and apologizes. He brings out a Canadian hero, the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be. Bret Hart’s music plays and I was happy to see that the fans didn’t pop. They knew they were about to get played. The music stops and out walks Hacksaw Jim Duggan with an American flag. What is WWE’s obsession with always playing the Bret Hart card? You aren’t fooling the fans anymore there. It doesn’t even draw heat anymore from the fans which is what I find funny. You can only cry wolf so many times. The fans are just bored of it. When his music hit, I just thought please fans, just sit down and ignore it. Now, Canada did have something going for them in the first segment. A pro Canada Chris Jericho promo. I was thinking, oh good, they’re going to actually let the fans just do what they want and cheer Jericho. Then, we had the segment later where Jericho was “caught” on camera bashing on Canada. Why can’t WWE just let the fans cheer who they want? Jericho is Canadian and they love him there. Just acknowledge it and move on. Say that Jericho is from there and the fans are going to get behind him and leave it there. You don’t have to say well, this is bizarro land, when they don’t cheer who they want you to cheer. For example, see The Hart Foundation vs. Austin/Shawn Michaels and company from 1997. That was incredible with how the fans would react differently in the U.S. and Canada. It made for amazing TV. I love crowds that just cheer who they like and boo who they don’t. Some of the most fun I’ve had at live shows is when you have a split crowd. I think shows come across better on TV and more fun when you have a split crowd. It brings the atmosphere up. I just don’t get why WWE always has to do this kind of stuff when they go to Canada especially with Bret Hart. It appears that the fans are over it. Like I said, they don’t react anymore to it. WWE on the other hand is the one that appears to not be able to get over it. Anyway, just thought that stuff was annoying. I was just hoping that a superstar was going to come out and get a “home town” pop and save the day for Canada. Just so they would get a payoff but nope, they got nothing.
On to the action. The show opened with Randy Orton in the ring talking about how he wasn’t a bully but also didn’t want to do anything for the fans. John Cena came out and said the opposite and the two went nose to nose. Big Show and Chris Jericho arrived. Big Y2J chant from the crowd. Jericho played to the Canadian crowd. Jericho announced that he had gotten himself a match with Cena for tonight from Slaughter. Show also announced that he got a match as well against Orton. Show wrestled Orton first. Orton got on offense hitting the big DDT off the middle rope but Show did the power kick out. Orton went for a RKO but Show threw him off. Show nailed a chokeslam but Orton got his leg on the rope to stop the count. Show went for the knockout punch but Orton ducked it and took off. He took the countout loss and the match was over. Jericho took on Cena in the main event. The finish had Jericho stuck in the STF. Orton arrived and got in the ring causing the DQ. As Cena was watching Orton, Jericho hit the codebreaker from behind. Jericho then attacked Orton but Orton got rid of him. Show arrived and chokeslammed Orton once again. Slaughter walked out and then said that he had one more thing to do as host for the night. He was making a match for next week with Orton and Cena taking on Show and Jericho. The other big thing on the show was the DX reunion. These segments were fun and I found myself laughing quite a bit at the last one. Basically, the concept was that Triple H went looking for Shawn Michaels to talk to him. He meets him in an office building and finds Shawn arguing with a little girl over her food. He’s working as a chef. The little girl was the daughter of the boss. I think I got that right. Anyway, Shawn was sick of her. Shawn told Triple H that he was done after WrestleMania saying that he had a job where everyone liked and respected him now. This cued the girl to walk up and throw tater tots in his face telling him how bad that they were. Shawn said that he was good and happy with what he is doing now. About that time, the grill goes up in flames and he runs back to put it out. Shawn returns saying “ok, I’ll listen”. Triple H ends up working behind the counter with Shawn and they put on the aprons. Kind of reminded me of their chef gear segment from back in 1997. Triple H said that Shawn belonged back in WWE with him. The boss shows up yelling at Shawn over the grill and that he is yelling at little kids. This was when the segment got really funny. You could see where it was building and I thought this guy is about to get tuned up. Superkick to the boss. Shawn tells Triple H “I’m in”. You can still hear the little girl complaining in the background and Shawn tells Triple H that he has to take care of something. He goes over and goes face to face with the little girl. They pull the camera back where all you see is a superkick and food going flying teasing that he had superkicked the little girl. When these segments started, I thought that I wasn’t sure how they were going to end up but the payoff was funny. Typical DX comedy segments. Jack Swagger defeated Evan Bourne following the gut wrench. MVP came out and challenged Swagger for tonight but Swagger said next week. MVP shoved him down. Later, MVP took on Masters and MVP won with the playmaker. Swagger got involved. Masters hooked the masterlock from behind on MVP and then Swagger hit the gut wrench on MVP. Gail Kim defeated Kelly Kelly, Alicia Fox, and Beth Phoenix in a four way match where she won a future Divas championship match. I would like to point out that this one women’s match was better than ALL of last week’s Raw. Really good match. There was a contract on a pole match (who let Vince Russo in?) between Eugene and a new star, The Calgary Kid. Who was under this mask? That was my question. Kid won and the mask was pulled off. It was The Miz. Nice swerve but it was just kind of strange. They do that booking last week so he can return this week. Just bizarre or as Lawler would say, bizarro. LOL. Hornswoggle and Henry are set to take on Chavo and an opponent. Chavo says he can’t wrestle due to still recovering from his injuries. His replacement team is Priceless. They take out Henry momentarily and then Dibiase hits dreamstreet on Hornswoggle for the win. Afterwards, they said that they were ready for DX at SummerSlam.
Other notes from Raw. If I could take one word out of Jerry Lawler’s vocabulary, it would be bizarre, bizarro, or anything associated with it. Make it stop. You just get the feeling that Vince is in Lawler’s ears with the way he stumbles trying to come up with reasons on why the fans are reacting the way that they are. Ok, you can’t make matches for next week, Sgt. Slaughter. I thought that was lame. Why do the storyline of guest hosts if the person in control next week has already lost his main event? Ok, I liked the DX lines tonight with Shawn saying that he thought SummerSlam was “Summer Fest” referring to Piven messing it up last week. Did you catch the boss calling Shawn by his real name followed by Triple H saying “what kind of a name is that?” I couldn’t believe that only 51% of the people on that poll got the question right on who did Slaughter defeat for the WWF championship? I figured people would google it if they didn’t know it. Ahh, memories of watching that PPV live that night. Did you see the “The House That Hart Built” sign? How cool was Beth Phoenix picking up Gail and Kelly in that submission hold? Seriously, that match was better than all of last week’s Raw. I just laughed when I heard that there was a contract on a pole match. Somebody has been watching their TNA Impact. I was about to rant tonight if Priceless had gotten beaten by a tadpole splash. LOL.
Freddie Prinze Jr. will be the “guest host” on next week’s Raw from St. Louis.
Smackdown opened with CM Punk talking about the differences between him and Jeff Hardy. He said that he tried to get the fans to not love Hardy but it just made them love him more. He added that the fans went to Hardy cause it was easy instead of being a strong person like himself. Jeff arrived and their match was set to start the show. Instead, a brawl erupted with Jeff and Punk having to be pulled apart. Long walked out too trying to get control. Vince McMahon arrived on the stage reminding Long that he was on probation and couldn’t get control of his own superstars. McMahon said he’d get someone that could keep control and there would be a special enforcer in the World title match later in the night. The two then went back to brawling. So, the match happens and the special enforcer is the returning Matt Hardy. Matt would not look Jeff in the face when Jeff walked into the ring. Matt didn’t get involved for a while. Punk went for a diving kick but it missed and caught Matt instead. Punk countered the swanton and went for the pin. As the ref went to make the count, Matt pulled the ref out stopping the count. Punk was upset but Matt said that he was the official. Then Jeff rolled up Punk with Matt making the three count. Matt then walked off and left. Punk went up on the stage mad over the loss but returned. He attacked Jeff in the ring. Punk threw Hardy into the announce table repeatedly and then used a chair. Punk then wrapped Jeff’s neck in the chair and rammed him right into the post. Jeff was then out of it laying on the floor as a stretcher arrived. Long then walked out on the stage as Punk proclaimed that he wanted a rematch. Long announced that there would be a rematch announcing a TLC match for the World title at SummerSlam. Punk was not happy with that announcement. Other action on the show. John Morrison defeated Tyson Kidd following the starship pain. Chris Jericho took on JTG with Show and Shad at ringside. Jericho hit the codebreaker but the ref wouldn’t start the count for a pin because JTG was under the ropes. As Jericho pulled him to the middle, JTG rolled up Jericho in a small package to get the win. Dolph Ziggler defeated Finlay, Knox, and R Truth in a four way when he pinned Finlay. Ziggler will face Rey for the Intercontinental title at SummerSlam. Rey was doing commentary on the match and the two faced off. Rey jumped off and hit a senton on to Ziggler. Khali won a squash match on Ricky Ortiz. Afterwards, Kane’s pyro went off. Kane snuck in from behind knocking Khali over the top. Kane then left through the crowd with Singh. Slam Master J defeated Charlie Haas following a top rope splash. Cryme Tyme and Eve watched the match from backstage.
Wow, did anyone like Raw last week? I have listened to audio show after audio show of everyone ripping last week’s show. No, it wasn’t good at all. I listened to one rant last week that had me laughing from start to finish.
TNA Impact and ECW continue to go neck and neck with the ratings. Impact is averaging about a 1.3 now with ECW around a 1.2.
That is all I have for this week. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
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