Raw, Smackdown, TNA Bound For Glory Results, Bragging Rights Preview, & More - October 19, 2009

Welcome to the “when I looked at the clock near the time of the Shawn/Jericho match, I realized we weren’t going to get a match” edition of The Wrestling List. That figures too cause that was the match that I was looking forward to.

Rupp Arena hosted Smackdown last week and here is a recap of the show. Teddy Long opened up the show announcing Chris Jericho, the team captain of Smackdown. Jericho talked trash on DX and then was interrupted by Kane. Kane was saying how he was going to be a co-captain. Jericho said that was his idea all along for him to be in that role which was pretty funny. Smackdown team qualifying matches took place all night. Dolph Ziggler qualified by defeating Finlay and Mike Knox in a triple threat match. Finlay nailed Knox with the shilleigheigh (yeah, I’m sure that isn’t how you spell it, LOL) but Ziggler stole the victory by pinning Knox. Next was a tag team qualfiier. Cryme Tyme defeated The Hart Dynasty when JTG pinned Tyson Kidd. Eric Escobar defeated Matt Hardy to qualify. Escobar is Vickie Guerrero’s new man. Vickie got the distraction of Matt which led to Eric getting the pin on Hardy. Drew McIntyre was the last one to qualify by defeating R Truth. In other action, Rey Mysterio got a win on Batista in the main event. Rey hit a 619 and then went for the springboard which was caught. Batista went to hit the Batista bomb but Rey countered it into a rana. Rey got the win but Batista’s shoulder was up with the ref not seeing it. Batista argued the call with the ref but then let it go. He congratulated Rey and left the ring. CM Punk hit the ring and attacked Rey with the GTS. Punk took off through the crowd. Batista ran back to the ring to help Rey. Really good back and forth between John Morrison and The Miz as they reunited on The Dirt Sheet. They talked trash on one another. I really liked the line of Morrison’s by saying that Raw had become a cheap version of Saturday Night Live. You know, it really does remind me of SNL now that I think about it with a little bit of wrestling thrown in. The talk was how teams break up and one goes on to super stardom while the other goes nowhere. That brought up The Rockers with them arguing over who would be Marty Jannetty. The divas had a segment backstage with Mickie and Beth both making their statement to Michelle and the Women’s title.

This week’s Raw was a better show than last week. It had more wrestling on it which I liked but I was hoping for more. Cena and Triple H was good but I was really looking forward to another Shawn Michaels/Chris Jericho match. Tonight’s show was guest hosted by Snoop Dogg. I thought he did a solid job. He’s a long time WWE fan and also does good with his appearances. He got in some action as well getting to throw some shots at Chavo. DX talked about the Smackdown team including doing a lot of comedy. They introduced their team. Basically, the problems started with the team not getting along. DX then announced that the team would then be in action. Not including DX of course. So, Henry, Big Show, Kofi, Swagger, and Rhodes took on the team of MVP, Bourne, Primo, Chavo, and Masters. The idea was that if anyone from Team Raw lost the match, they would be replaced by the person who pinned them. The finish had Cody hitting the crossrhodes on to Primo. Swagger then tagged himself in and made the pin on Primo. Swagger stole the win from Cody. This started problems between them and then the whole team ended up going at it. DX was watching from the monitor in the back at this time. Later, John Cena took on Triple H. This was hyped as Cena’s possible last match on Raw. Lots of counters and kick outs to finishers. Cena kicked out of the pedigree while Triple H was able to kick out of the adjustment. The finish did have Triple H winning with the pedigree. After the match, they shook hands. Cena got up and saluted the fans with a look of knowing this could be his last Raw match. The show finished with the Shawn Michaels/Chris Jericho match. Well, it didn’t happen. Jericho got on the mic instead and brought out his Smackdown team. Shawn was on his own till Triple H brought out a reunited Team Raw. They faced off with Triple H telling Jericho that what brought them back together was their common hatred for Jericho, the team, and Smackdown in general. Vickie Guerrero arrived saying that she was a consultant for the team and denied the fight happening. Triple H mocked Jericho about listening to his boss and then said that they don’t work for Vickie and Team Raw started the fight. The show went off the air with the brawl going on. Snoop Dogg set up a match with Orton taking on Dibiase. Dibiase said he had been trying to call Orton all week but got no response. Orton walked in on the interview saying that Dibiase would do the right thing tonight and show respect by not fighting back against him. Dibiase’s excuse of the pin last week was saying that he did what he had to do to get a win adding that Orton would have done the same thing. The match took place with Orton landing a shot and then he would stare at Dibiase. Dibiase would look furious and then Orton would land a kick. This kept going including Orton shoving Dibiase. Dibiase then shoved Orton back and Orton landed on the mat. Dibiase then backed off and then Orton hit him with a RKO for the pinfall. After The Miz called out Jannetty last week, Snoop appeared replacing Miz’s opponent for tonight. Marty Jannetty was the opponent and got to have a decently competitive match with Miz. Miz won with the skull crushing finale. Melina defended the Divas title against Jillian Hall who was accompanied by Chavo. Hornswoggle stopped Chavo from interfering and then Melina hit the split legdrop for the win. After the match, Chavo went after Hornswoggle but Snoop Dogg ran out to save him. Snoop then landed some shots on Chavo. The divas came to the ring and everyone danced including Hornswoggle as well.

Other notes from Raw. Great tribute to Captain Lou Albano tonight on Raw. I’m not sure that mocking the Smackdown team on how nobody knows who they are is the best way to build a PPV match. Why? Well, because the team does have talent on it that people don’t know. LOL. I’m not sure that WWE making fun of the Triple H/Kane angle was a bright thing to do when Linda is trying to fight in politics and they are bringing that stuff up against her. Yes, the people fighting against her have brought up some of the more tasteless angles that WWE has done over the years and that has been one brought up in the last week. I did laugh at Triple H bringing up Kofi’s accent being gone. That has been discussed a lot lately with wondering when that character change happened. Wow, Mickie James didn’t even get put on the Smackdown Divas team. She was replaced by Natalya who barely gets to wrestle anymore. That music video of the Cena/Orton feud was really well produced which aired tonight. Their production team is just amazing at putting together video packages like that especially set to mainstream music. Isn’t it kind of silly to promote this as possibly Cena’s last match on Raw? They do cross promotional shows all the time. Even if he loses on Sunday, the odds are that Cena would be on the next three hour Raw which is coming up soon. I did laugh at Santino when he walked in cause I got the Charlie Brown/Snoop Dogg joke immediately. Wow, WWE sure was balancing that kids rating tonight during that whole segment with Snoop Dogg lighting……candles. Did anyone else laugh at the “did you know” segment which asked if we knew that they were the longest running entertainment program? Yes, we did know that. You remind us of it at least five times every show. I’m not sure why you would have Triple H go over John Cena right before Cena’s big iron man match where he is going in as the challenger. That just didn’t make much sense to me other than making Triple H look bigger.

Wow, how weak does the Smackdown team look against Team Raw? That fatal four way on Smackdown really took a lot of star power out of that elimination match. I just don’t get how you build this match with so many unknowns on the Smackdown side especially when you have them being mocked as nobody’s. The star power is very one sided for Raw. It didn’t help that they put Show on the Raw side when he would have at least added some star power to the Smackdown side. Smackdown has some young guys with potential but not enough has been seen of them yet. Escobar and McIntyre are being thrown right in there with not much known about them. I’m wondering if this match turns into a squash with Jericho being the only one left battling.

Next week’s Raw will be guest hosted by Nascar’s Kyle Busch and Joey Lagano. When I saw that Busch would be the host, I had to look on the schedule to see where Raw is next week. I was kind of surprised to see that it takes place in Buffalo, NY which is out of Nascar country for the most part. If you aren’t familiar with either, expect to hear a lot of boos for Busch. He has become Nascar’s bad boy. Lagano is a youngster who recently started driving the #20 that used to be driven by Tony Stewart before Tony left to form his own team this year.

TNA held their Bound For Glory PPV last night which is of course their WrestleMania show of the year. The show opened with the TNA X Division title match with Amazing Red defeating Suicide, Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, and Daniels. Daniels did suffer a separated shoulder and hurt his neck during the match taking a nasty bump off of the Ultimate X wires. Sarita and Taylor Wilde defeated The Beautiful People to retain the Knockouts tag team titles. Eric Young defeated Kevin Nash and Hernandez to win the Legends title when Young pinned Nash. The Full Metal Mayhem match featured Team 3D taking on Beer Money, The British Invasion and Booker T/Scott Steiner for the TNA and IWGP tag team titles. The belts hung above the ring and that was the way to win. Devon was able to grab the IWGP tag belt to win those for Team 3D. A few minutes later, The British Invasion was able to win the TNA tag team titles. ODB defeated Awesome Kong and Tara in the Knockouts title match. Bobby Lashley defeated Samoa Joe but Joe never tapped out. The ref called for the bell since Joe was out of it in the submission. The crowd was much more into Samoa Joe. The LA crowd was booing Lashley. Joe also wrestled this match with the flu. In the Monster’s Ball match, Abyss defeated Mick Foley which also had Dr. Stevie as the special referee. Lots of nasty spots in this one. The biggest was Daffney being chokeslammed on to a barbed wire board. Abyss took out all three of them and counted the three count with Stevie’s hand. Kurt Angle defeated Matt Morgan. The crowd was very mixed on Angle and Morgan. The finish had Morgan catching Angle’s moonsault attempt but Angle rolled up Morgan for the win. Then it was main event time with AJ Styles defending against Sting. If Sting loses, he would walk away from wrestling. AJ was able to defeat Sting with the pele followed by a splash to retain the title. Sting and AJ shook hands afterwards. Sting let AJ have the moment in the ring with the victory. AJ called Sting back to the ring to speak for the fans. He thanked the fans and put over AJ’s victory. Sting said that he didn’t plan on pulling a Brett Favre and making an announcement. He said that he didn’t know if he’d come back but wanted to stay forever after hearing the fans reaction to the match. Glad to see AJ get the win.

Jerry Lawler will be commentating on Smackdown this week and be reunited with Jim Ross. Todd Grisham is on his honeymoon after recently getting married.

The Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 video game is released tomorrow in stores. The WWE Batista: I Walk Alone DVD is released in stores tomorrow.

Well, we’re halfway through October and WWE has yet to put up ANY voting for next month's Pick Your Big Month for the five year anniversary of WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand where the fans choose the programming.

It appears that WWE has listened to the fan complaints of the editing of blood on WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand. For a few months, WWE started going black and white during bloody matches to mask it. They got a lot of complaints over it and I’ve already voiced my opinion of leaving original footage the way it is. There have been several matches that have aired which do have blood in them and the black and white is gone.

The WWE Bragging Rights PPV is this Sunday on PPV and here is the lineup for it. Randy Orton defends the WWE title against John Cena in a 60 minute iron man match with no rules. If Cena loses, he leaves Raw. The Undertaker defends the World title against Batista, Rey Mysterio, and CM Punk in the fatal four way. Team Raw of DX, Mark Henry, Big Show, Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger, and Cody Rhodes take on Team Smackdown of Chris Jericho, Kane, Cryme Tyme, Dolph Ziggler, Eric Escobar, and Drew McIntyre. Intercontinental Champion John Morrison takes on US Champion, The Miz. Raw vs. Smackdown with the divas as well. For Raw, Melina, Kelly Kelly, and Gail Kim take on Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, and Natalya from Smackdown.

That is it for this week. Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!