Welcome to the “Raw plus MSG equals fun” edition of The Wrestling List.
Tonight’s Raw was held at Madison Square Garden with a hot crowd as always. Tonight’s guest host was Rowdy Roddy Piper. The show opened with Piper’s Pit backstage with Roddy talking to Luis Guzman. He said that he had a guest for him which was the Iron Chef but instead got the Iron Sheik. This was great stuff. Sheik starts cutting a promo on Hogan about the title loss back in 1984. The show then goes into the new open set to Nickelback’s “Burn It To The Ground”. The new open looks really cool and goes well with the song. Now, I’ll skip randomly around with this recap. The main event had John Cena teaming with The Undertaker vs. DX vs. Jericho/Big Show. I can’t remember the last time that I saw this but a member of each team got to stay in the ring at the same time. So, three members would be in at all times. Crowd was into this one. Split crowd on Cena. Undertaker was getting a big reaction in MSG. We had the moment of Shawn and Undertaker facing off. It didn’t last long as Show stopped it and got involved. Finishers started getting hit left and right at the end of the match. Undertaker hit a chokeslam on to Jericho. Triple H then followed with a clothesline knocking Taker from the ring. Triple H turned around into an attitude adjustment from Cena. Cena then got the pin on Triple H. As the celebration started, Undertaker got in the ring. Cena then was tombstoned by Undertaker. That was how the show ended. Piper did a promo in the ring talking about all the crazy things that he had done at MSG including him taking shots at several stars including Hogan. He brought out that classic line of talking about how he was the reason that Hogan didn’t have any hair. He said that he loved every moment of every nasty thing that he had done but had one more that he wanted. He called out Vince McMahon for a match tonight. He talked about how this was the place where he was fired by Vince as he set by to watch the Real Sports HBO interview. Vince did arrive. Vince talked of how bad of shape that Piper looked while Vince prided himself on how great that he looked. He announced his retirement from wrestling in the ring saying that he had beaten them all. Piper said retire was another word for coward and continued to challenge him for later in the night. Piper said that he would be fully retiring him. So, the moment happens later. Piper is in the ring and instead of Vince, he gets Randy Orton Now, I thought this was a cool nostalgic moment. Here comes Bob Orton’s kid to face off with Piper in a place where Piper and Bob Orton caused so much havoc. Randy Orton said that he didn’t know if Vince was coming or not but that Piper now had a big problem. Orton was ready for a fight and kicked Piper. Piper fired back but Orton got the advantage. Orton went for the punt but then this got messed up when Kofi’s music played too late. I’m assuming that the music playing was supposed to stop the kick. However, Orton went for the kick and stopped on his own. Then, the music hit. Orton didn’t look too happy about it either. Kofi hit the ring and the fight was on all over ringside. Piper watched and cheered on Kofi for a minute. The fight got into the crowd. Refs would separate them and then they would get back to each other. The fight ended up over at the technical area. I had a thought that Orton was going over there to punish someone for missing the music cue. LOL. The fight ended up in there. Kofi had him on a table and then got up on the guardrail. Refs pulled him down and away. Kofi broke free and then jumped back on the rail and dove on to Orton crashing through the table. Cool looking spot. US champion The Miz got a win on MVP following the skull crushing finale. Santino Marella won a match against Chavo. Hornswoggle got involved and this distracted Chavo. Santino rolled him up from behind to win. This brought out DX. They brought Hornswoggle in the ring and teased him becoming a member. Instead, Triple H pedigreed Hornswoggle in the middle of the ring. A lot of the crowd wasn’t really sure what to make of that moment. Melina defeated Alicia Fox with her sunset flip slam to retain the Divas title in a lumberjills match. Judah Friedlander of 30 Rock fame was the special announcer for it. Afterwards, the divas all went at in the ring with Team Mickie standing tall. Sheamus called out anyone out of the locker room to face him. He ended up beating up the timekeeper and throwing him across the announce table. Jerry Lawler stood up to him and got a kick in the face for it. Lawler was carried out of there and then Matt Striker stepped in to team with Cole for the rest of the show. Jack Swagger got a win on Evan Bourne following a very nice looking gut wrench powerbomb.
Other notes from Raw. I really like the new Raw open and theme song. We needed a new song for the show. Yes, MSG was sold out tonight. I liked that they had the set up very old school looking instead of the big screen. Sherri Shepherd was at ringside cheering for MVP. MVP put his hat on her as he entered the ring. She also later caught the free DX book that they threw into the crowd. Interesting to hear the crowd reactions always in MSG. Cena got his usual mixed reaction. Big reaction for Undertaker. Randy Orton had a good chant going too when he got in the ring. I loved Undertaker’s entrance. They even broke out the druids entrance for a Raw show. Chiling entrance. What I love about Shawn and Undertaker, they are forever immortalized with each other. Every time they face off, we’re going to think of WrestleMania 25 and about one of the greatest matches in history. Yesss, FINALLY someone called the divas “lumberjills”!!! How long have I been saying this??!! LOL. How awesome was that WWE in MSG music video set to Jay Z and Alicia Key’s song? That was incredibly produced and was a definite highlight of the night. It inspired me to do a recap of my favorite WWE memories of MSG which will be in next week’s List cause I don’t have room for it this week. Seeing the WrestleMania XX stuff in there obviously pointed out something that will be erased from history, the Benoit/Guerrero moment. Well, it is obvious that WWE is going to run that dancing pectoral muscles gimmick with Masters to the moon. You just know how it goes. When they get a laugh with something, they’ll do it every single week until we’re way past sick and tired of it. Like I said though, that was the most entertaining that I have ever found Masters to be when he did that a couple of weeks ago to that Ozzy song. LOL. Miz was able to get some easy heat ripping on the sports teams of New York. The “Let’s Go Yankees” chant was very loud. Lilian Garcia was brought into the ring as a surprise and sang the national anthem to open up the show.
WWE has signed a new deal with USA Network to keep Raw on the network until 2014. This is obviously a no brainer for both. Raw is crucial in helping USA in the cable ratings war.
Jesse The Body Ventura will be the guest host for next week’s 3 hour Thanksgiving Raw on USA Network.
TNA held their Turning Point PPV last night and I am hearing rave reviews for the two main events. I’m talking about the triple threat TNA title match with AJ, Joe, and Daniels. Then, the other being Kurt Angle and Desmond Wolfe. Here are the results of the show. The Amazing Red defeated Homicide to retain the X-Division title after he hit the code red for the pinfall. ODB, Sarita, and Taylor Wilde defeated The Beautiful People in a match where all the Knockouts titles were on the line. ODB pinned Rayne to win the match. The British Invasion defeated Beer Money and The Motor City Machineguns to retain the tag team titles. The finish had Eric Young getting involved. James Storm pulled him off of the apron. Young was ordered to leave the ring by Hebner but Kevin Nash made his way to the ring. Nash grabbed the Legends title from Young and then nailed Storm with it. Roode ended up getting pinned in the ring after this all went down. Later, Nash was interviewed about what happened and said that Hogan told him to do it with what occurred during the tag title match. Tara defeated Awesome Kong in the steel cage match after she hit a flying crossbody off the cage to get the pinfall. Rhino and Team 3D defeated Dinero, Hernandez, and Matt Morgan when Rhino hit the gore on to Hernandez for the win. Scott Steiner defeated Bobby Lashley in a No DQ – Falls Count Anywhwere match after he hit Lashley with a metal object to win the match. Kurt Angle defeated Desmond Wolfe by submission after hooking the triangle choke. After the match, Wolfe made sure to tell Angle that he had not seen the last of him. This match is getting rave reviews by the way. Great start for Wolfe’s TNA PPV career and I hope they keep pushing him big. Next was the triple threat TNA championship match with AJ Styles defending against Samoa Joe and Daniels. AJ retained the title. The finish had Daniels countering out of the musclebuster from Joe. Daniels hit the STO but went for the BME on Joe. AJ then hit a 450 splash from a springboard to pin Joe. This match delivered huge. If this is the style of product that we are about to see from TNA based on these last two matches, it is going to be very good news for all of us fans. Hopefully, TNA is getting on the right path here.
Rob Van Dam had some interesting comments to the UK Sun last week about a conversation he had with Vince McMahon about the new ECW. Wow, and you wonder why it didn’t work???!! LOL. Read what Rob had to say at this link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/2722834/Exclusive-Rob-Van-Dam-interview-on-Vince-McMahon-and-the-death-of-ECW.html
WWE announced that Dennis Miller will be the guest host on the 3 hour Slammy Award edition of Raw on December 14.
WWE also announced that Jamie Noble has retired but tied it to the storyline of the injuries that he suffered on Raw from Sheamus. It does sound like he is just going to be working behind the scenes instead of being in the ring.
Well, let the Ultimate Warrior into the Hall Of Fame rumors begin. WWE and The Warrior are apparently settling their legal dispute and it is starting to end quietly. This is fueling the rumors that maybe The Ultimate Warrior will be inducted into The Hall Of Fame at WrestleMania weekend. Will he? Well, who knows but it is taking place in his backyard so we’ll see.
Stacy Keibler told The Baltimore Sun that she’d be interested in doing a guest host deal for Raw and that her management had reached out to WWE. WWE has not responded. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/wrestling/blog/2009/11/stacy_keibler_on_being_baltimores_biggest_celebrity_whether_shell_host_raw.html
This Sunday is the WWE Survivor Series and here is the lineup for the show. John Cena defends the WWE title against Shawn Michaels and Triple H in a triple threat match. Undertaker defends the World title against Chris Jericho and The Big Show in a triple threat match. Batista vs. Rey Mysterio. Then, we move on to the traditional Survivor Series matches. Team Kofi (Kofi Kingston, Christian, MVP, Mark Henry and R Truth) vs. Team Orton (Randy Orton, Ted Dibiase, Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, and William Regal). Team Morrison (John Morrison, Evan Bourne, Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, and Finlay) vs. Team Miz (The Miz, Jack Swagger, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, and Dolph Ziggler). Team Mickie (Mickie James, Melina, Gail Kim, Eve, and Kelly Kelly) vs. Team Michelle (Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, Layla, Jillian, and Alicia Fox).
That is it for this week. Take care and God bless!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.