Welcome to the “I’m excited for Raw next week with Piper and a MSG crowd” edition of The Wrestling List. That MSG crowd is always a big barometer when it comes to whether they like the current WWE product and they are never afraid to voice their opinion. It should be interesting. Piper will get a HUGE ovation.
Tonight’s Raw was held from Sheffield, England with Ricky Hatton being the show’s guest host. The show opened with Hatton being confronted by Jericho and Big Show. Hatton mentioned how he loved how Show was previously knocked out by a boxer. Show offered him a free shot but Jericho stepped in. Jericho and Show ended up taking jabs at each other over their title match at Survivor Series. Hatton made the main event match for tonight with Jericho and Show taking on DX. They surrounded Hatton and then DX arrived. Triple H said that they came out just to stop them from getting themselves embarrassed by another Raw general manager. Shawn got the action going as he punched Jericho out of the ring. DX and Hatton surrounded Show and then Show stepped out of the ring. The main event was DX against Show and Jericho with Cena at ringside on commentary. The finish had Shawn ducking Show’s knockout punch and it caught Jericho. Triple H clotheslined Show out of the ring. Shawn then pinned Jericho. After the match, it was announced that there would be a triple threat tag team match on Raw next week. DX vs. Jericho and Big Show but also Cena would be involved and have a tag team partner. Cena pointed at the aisle and The Undertaker made his way on to the ramp. Cena will team with Undertaker next week. In other happenings, Kofi Kingston was the guest on the VIP Lounge hosted by MVP and accompanied by Mark Henry. Legacy interrupted it. After an exchange of words, Orton said that he was going to send the three of them back to where they came from, the hood. Kofi then slapped Orton and we went to commercial. The Orton/Henry match was underway when the show returned. Henry was on his way to victory but picked up Orton off the mat. Orton hit a RKO and got the win. Kofi got in the ring and checked on Henry. Orton snuck up from behind and then slapped Kofi. Kofi fired back with a right hand sending Orton from the ring. Ricky Hatton put himself in a MMA match against Chavo Guerrero. Hatton won with a right hand putting Chavo down for the count. Jack Swagger confronted The Miz backstage about wanting to be the captain of their Survivor Series team. Swagger took on Evan Bourne in a match and had it under control. The Miz arrived and walked to ringside. Swagger got distracted and Bourne took advantage. Bourne won with the air bourne finisher. Alicia Fox accompanied by Jillian defeated Kelly Kelly who was accompanied by Gail Kim. Alicia won with a scissor kick to the back of the head.
Other notes from Raw. I definitely have to admit that I have no idea on who Ricky Hatton is. I think I have heard his name before but maybe that is it. So, he was a brand new personality for me tonight. Miz got a big reaction from the fans in England. There was a very audible “Miz is awesome” chant. Well, at least we heard “really” said about ten times again this week during the Miz/Swagger segment. LOL.
Raw will be at Madison Square Garden next week. That will be a fun show as the MSG crowd is always a lot of fun. The special guest host will be none other than Rowdy Roddy Piper. Now, that is a great guest host for MSG. Looking forward to that!! The main event will be a triple threat tag team match with DX vs. Jericho/Big Show vs. John Cena/Undertaker. The new Raw theme song will debut as well which will be Nickelback’s “Burn It To The Ground”. I mentioned last week that WWE was recording footage of it at the Raw tapings a few weeks ago.
On Smackdown this week will be a main event of Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho.
Some matches for Survivor Series were added to the lineup. Thankfully, they are traditional Survivor Series matches. Team Kingston (Kofi Kingston, Christian, MVP, Mark Henry, and R Truth) will take on Team Orton (Randy Orton, Ted Dibiase, Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, and William Regal). Team Morrison (John Morrison, Matt Hardy, Finlay, Evan Bourne, and Shelton Benjamin) vs. Team Miz (The Miz, Jack Swagger, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, and Drew McIntyre). Women’s traditional Survivor Series match will have Team Mickie (Mickie James, Melina, Kelly Kelly, Eve, and Gail Kim) vs. Team Michelle (Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, Jillian, Layla, and Alicia Fox). Happy to see WWE adding these style of matches to the PPV cause that is what has always made this event unique.
WWE released their quarterly numbers last week. Their numbers basically went like this. PPV buyrates are getting worse. SummerSlam had the biggest hit on dropping buys. SummerSlam did 477,000 buys last year and only had 369,000 buys this year. Night Of Champions did 267,000 buys while Breaking Point did only 169,000 buys. Live attendance was up and WWE pointed at them lowering ticket prices as the reason for it. Home video revenue was up. WWE Classics On Demand was down a bit from last year.
Vince McMahon was on the conference call last week with investors discussing their quarterly numbers. Vince was asked about Shane’s departure from the company and had these comments, “The other aspect of family, because some people perceive this to be a family business, but I do not. But none the less, my son Shane, as well, has decided to pursue other opportunities in the marketplace. Nonetheless, I've mentioned before that the strength of our management team, is stronger now than it has ever been. And if your last name is McMahon or not, decisions are always made on your abilities, in terms of whatever position you hold now and/or will in the future, and be judged on your performance, not because your last name is McMahon. So, I'm pretty strong on that as well. And other than that, we will entertain questions, from everyone, and I hope there would be any number of them."
Wow, I’m not sure about this decision. It appears that WWE is going to raise the prices on PPV’s again beginning with the Royal Rumble. The PPV’s will now cost $44.95 a piece. WrestleMania will remain the same price at $54.95. WWE is also going to do one less PPV in 2010 than they did in 2009. At a time when the PPV buyrates are not good, it just seems bizarre to me to ask people to pay more money for shows.
I talked of WWE raising their PPV prices. Well, TNA is doing the same thing. They are going up $5 on their PPV prices as well.
If you watched the opening of TNA Impact last week, you saw a meeting that was held by Dixie Carter where she talked to those in the company including talent and officials. This was a legitimate meeting that was allowed to be recorded for airing. The basic deal of the meeting was Dixie telling everyone that changes have been happening and are coming with the company as she looks for the company to grow.
Hulk Hogan was on Bubba The Love Sponge this morning and spoke about TNA. Some interesting things said on it. For one, he said that he had reconciled with Randy Savage and that he was in negotiatiions to bring him into the company. Now, that would be interesting cause Savage has not been seen anywhere in wrestling since his appearances in TNA several years ago. Hogan and Savage’s relationship is just as on and off in real life as it has been on TV over the last 20 years or so. Now, this next one is one that I just can’t believe. Hogan said that Stone Cold Steve Austin might be coming to TNA. Hogan also added that he is “running the show” in TNA. Keep in mind that Hogan does tend to hype things big sometimes and I think this is a case of him getting people talking. There has never been any kind of talk about Austin being interested in doing anything other than WWE and he isn’t really even that interested in that at the moment. As far as Savage, sure, I could believe that. Their relationship has been up and down so it is possible that the two have worked things out. Hogan did mention that he’d like to bring in The Nasty Boys to TNA. Now, I will for sure believe that one. Austin and Savage though is one of those “I’ll have to see it to even consider it really happening” type deals.
As far as the November programming for WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand goes, the news on it has slowly started working its way out this week. My question has been for a month that is fan voted, where are the voting choices? One person mentioned about an online survey that they did for the service a while back and talked of how that might be where they got their voting results from. I do think that could be it as I do remember filling out that survey. That is all I can think of cause it is humorous to look on the programming and seeing voting results when I saw no options to vote. Maybe it did come from that survey. With that being said, it is a fairly weak lineup based on the fact that it is a big anniversary celebration. The shorties this month are all falls count anywhere matches. It is funny to look at the other options for votes and see how obviously that was going to win. In second place were hair matches. I kid you not that one of the options were matches featuring something on a pole. Well, that would be easy to fill up on programming. Just go to Vince Russo era stuff to get matches with stuff on a pole. Here is what has shown up so far. The Hall Of Fame profile is on Jimmy Hart. WWE is airing shows from New York based on the results of what cities of shows that we'd like to mostly see shows from. So, one of the big ones airing includes Survivor Series 1996. This was a great show. Austin vs. Bret for the first time in their big feud. Shawn vs. Sid. Then, we have The Rock's debut on this as well. TV classics airing include: ECW (December 1996), NWA (February 1987), Prime Time Wrestling (May 1988), and Monday Night Wars (Raw and Nitro from February 1998). They are also airing the Best Of Saturday Night's Main Event DVD set which I'm thrilled about cause I've never bought the DVD. I've basically quit buying DVD's for the most part too cause they eventually turn up on here. The delay is a long one though. A new Legends Of Wrestling roundtable will air later this month which is the talked about Managers edition.
Hey, we have voting for next month on the WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand website. The voting on the Big Ones is between WWE SummerSlam 2002, Royal Rumble 2000, and New Year's Revolution 2006. These are some interesting choices and all of them are winners to me. So, I figured I'd that I'd talk a little about all of these events. WWE SummerSlam 2002 was a great event. The match that is obviously the most talked about on this show was the return of Shawn Michaels as he took on Triple H in the street fight. I will never forget that night as a long time Shawn Michaels fan. Seeing him back in the ring was a dream and just unreal to see how he hadn’t lost a step in four years. One of the most amazing performances ever. This was also the night of Brock Lesnar’s jump to the top of WWE when he faced The Rock. One of the things that I remember most about that match is just how much of a face reaction that Brock was getting. Royal Rumble 2000 was an incredible show and might possibly be the best Royal Rumble of all time in my mind. This Rumble took place in front of a hot MSG crowd in New York City. This featured the Rock's Royal Rumble win. It also has the championship match between Triple H and Cactus Jack which is an incredible street fight. The event opens with Tazz's debut with the company and gets a huge pop from MSG as he faces Kurt Angle. Great show. New Year's Revolution 2006 is an interesting show which took place in New York. The show features the Elimination Chamber match with John Cena defending the WWE title against Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle, Kane, Carlito, and Chris Masters. This was also the night that Edge cashed in the money in the bank. He cashed it in in front of a very anti-Cena crowd and was greeted with a big reaction. So, what would I vote for? I am personally voting for New Year's Revolution 2006. Why? Yes, it is the worst of the three shows in my opinion but I have never actually seen the whole show. So, I would like to watch it. Yeah, selfish me. LOL. Seriously though, these are some very solid choices. The other two shows are tremendous.
Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
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