Raw + Ventura = Greatness, Survivor Series Results, & More

Welcome to the “Jesse Ventura on Raw equals greatness” edition of The Wrestling List. This was a very fun Raw and Ventura was GREAT tonight!!

The WWE Survivor Series PPV was last night and here are the results of the show. The show opened with Team Miz against Team Morrison. One moment in the match had referee Scott Armstrong getting knocked out legit. He accidentally caught a kick in the head from Sheamus which sent him to the mat. He didn’t return for the rest of the night and had suffered a concussion. The finish had Sheamus pinning Morrison to win the match for Team Miz. The survivors of the team were Miz, Sheamus, and McIntyre. Next was Rey Mysterio taking on Batista. Yeah, this was one of those matches where the crowd didn’t work out like WWE wanted. The show was in Washington D.C. which is the hometown of Batista. So, he was getting cheered. Batista hit him with three Batista bombs and then the ref called for the bell stopping the match. Afterwards, Batista got a chair and sat in it at first just watching Rey. Then, he ended up hitting a spinebuster on Rey on the chair. This is obviously going to be used to get Rey off of TV as he will be gone for several months due to upcoming knee surgery. Next was Team Kofi against Team Orton. The finish was big for Kofi. It ended up coming down to him against Punk and Orton after Christian was eliminated. Punk went for a rollup but Kofi was able to roll on through it and then pinned Punk. As Orton went to get in the ring, he was caught with the trouble in paradise kick which led to Kofi pinning him as well making Kofi the lone survivor of his team. Team Kofi gets the win. Big moment for Kofi Kingston for sure!! He has momentum. Let’s just see what WWE does with it cause you just never know. The Undertaker retained the World title in the triple threat match against Jericho and Big Show. Show hit Undertaker with the knockout punch but Jericho and Show both kept stopping each other from making the pin and winning the match. Show nailed Jericho with the knockout punch. As Show was about to go for the chokeslam on Undertaker, Undertaker countered it into the choke and Show tapped out. Next was Team Mickie vs. Team Michelle. It came down to Mickie and Melina against Michelle. Melina pinned Michelle with the sunset flip slam to win the match leaving Mickie and Melina as the survivors of the team. That gets us to the main event of John Cena defending the WWE title against Shawn Michaels and Triple H in the triple threat match. The match started big just as the bell rang. Shawn nailed Triple H with a superkick sending him from the ring. Shawn had a little smile on his face and the crowd was with him on it. Triple H would later get back into the match and would nail Shawn with a spinebuster through the announce table. Just interesting with DX going at it as hard as they were. All three would battle it out and the finish had Shawn slipping off and avoiding the attitude adjustment of Cena. Triple H went for the pedigree on Cena but then caught a superkick from Shawn. Cena then nailed Shawn with an adjustment that landed on Triple H. Cena pinned Triple H to retain the WWE title.

Tonight’s three hour Raw was guest hosted by Jesse Ventura and this was a really fun show. All three brands on the show. I actually don’t have much of anything to complain about this show. I thought it was very solid and fun. Randy Orton opened the show wanting the stipulation waved of that he couldn’t challenge Cena anymore for the WWE title. Ventura made his way to the ring and said he had a lot of respect for Orton but that things were changing. He was tired of seeing the same guys competing for the title all the time and wanted some new blood to get a shot. Right on with that comment. Ventura announced the breakthrough battle royal. There would be qualifying matches throughout the night with the winners making it into the battle royal. Then, the winner of the battle royal would face their brand's champion at the TLC PPV. The twist on this was that everyone involved in the qualifying matches would be people that had never been world champion. Ventura told Orton that rules were rules so that left Orton without a shot at it. The first qualifier was Kofi Kingston defeating Dolph Ziggler with the trouble in paradise kick. Kofi and Orton did have a faceoff as Kofi was on his way to the ring as Orton was on his way back to the locker room. In the second qualifier, Sheamus defeated Finlay hitting the celtic cross for the win. Next was a six man tag team match with the winning members going on to the battle royal. MVP, Mark Henry, and R Truth defeated Chris Masters, Jack Swagger, and Chavo Guerrero when Truth pinned Masters. The next match was set to be Primo vs. Evan Bourne. Orton attacked Primo as he made his way down the aisle. Orton then jumped in the ring demanding that he take Primo’s place. I should point out that Orton was once again talking to Ventura in his office earlier in the night. Ventura appeared on the screen and said that he had always said that rules were made to be broken and that Orton’s persistence had paid off. If Orton won this match, he was in the battle royal. Bourne fought Orton to a near fall at one point but Orton won with the RKO. Last qualifier had Cryme Tyme taking on Rhodes and Dibiase. Rhodes and Dibiase got the win when Dibiase pinned Shad with the dreamstreet. That gets us to the battle royal which was called by Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura. Yes, that was another one of Ventura’s rulings was they would reunite on commentary. The beginning of the match had Orton walking around on the outside while Sheamus stayed in the ring picking and choosing his shots on opponents. Sheamus got rid of Truth for the first elimination. Orton went after Kofi and their battle was on. Sheamus eliminated MVP. Henry then eliminated both Rhodes and Dibiase but Sheamus followed it by eliminating Henry. That left Sheamus, Kofi, and Orton. Orton thought he had eliminated Kofi but Kofi did a skin the cat move and hooked Orton with his legs pulling him out of the ring. Orton was furious and Kofi and him stared off. When Kofi turned around, he caught a clothesline from Sheamus for the elimintation. Sheamus wins the battle royal and will face Cena for the WWE title at TLC. Ventura then hosted the contract signing immediately afterwards. Sheamus put over how serious of a contender that he was while Cena mentioned that he wasn’t an announcer or camera guy that he could beat up like he had done in the past. Both signed the contract. Ventura then talked about how there was a conspiracy in WWE to keep Cena as the champion cause he was the "perfect looking little champion" that the company wanted. Ventura talked of how he never got a title shot saying that WWE doesn’t want a revolutionary type of champion like he would have been. This got Cena heading toward Ventura but Sheamus attacked with a big kick. He finished Cena by slamming him through the table. Ventura announced that the match at TLC would be a tables match. In other action, the feature was about matches that we hadn’t seen. One of which included John Cena against CM Punk. This was a fun match. The counters to each other’s finishers were cool at the end. Cena countered the GTS into a STF but Punk made it to the ropes. The finish had Cena hit the adjustment off of the second rope for the win. I liked that he had to go to that extreme to pin Punk. Really good match. DX faced The Hart Dynasty. Oh, and I should point out that Shawn and Triple H were shown backstage discussing last night with Shawn saying that he had to do what he had to do in the title match. He pointed out that Triple H would have hit the pedigree first if given the chance to which Triple H agreed. They definitely played up a comedy bit to the whole situation. Anyway, DX won the match when the Hart Dynasty set up for the clotheline but Shawn superkicked Smith in the back while Triple H hit the pedigree on Kidd for the win. Jericho interrupted after the match saying that they would be facing he and Show at TLC according to Ventura. DX then pointed out that they knew more than Jericho saying that the match would be a TLC match. Jericho pointed out that Show wasn’t there cause he was taking a personal day off while Triple H said that Show was over at the Hershey plant there in Hershey, PA. There was a match with the divas which included the heels being dressed as pilgrims. Mickie James, Melina, and Kelly Kelly defeated Michelle McCool, Jillian, and Layla. The heels were furious over having to wear the costumes. Michelle and Layla got fed up with it and left during the match. Jillian was then pinned by Melina. Here comes a really cool moment. Before the match, the special timekeeper was announced. The Gobbledy Gooker. I kid you not. Well, after the match, the Gobbledy Gooker attacked Melina. It was then revealed to be the returning Maryse. This was a cool moment. I laughed cause I knew Maryse was returning tonight but had forgotten and didn’t put two and two together. Batista made a threat in the ring saying that if anyone from Smackdown won the battle royal that he’d take them out cause he was going to take on The Undertaker. This brought out Kane who basically told him to bring it. Batista backed off slowly and walked out smiling.

Other notes on Raw. Jesse Ventura was incredible tonight. He made it seem so easy!! I hope people were taking notes cause that is how you use the mic. Can we have him back on the show permanently??!! Having Vince and him back on commentary was fantastic. Did you notice how suddenly the announcing made logical sense? What was that about??!! Why is it that the match was called logically when it isn’t by other announcers? I just laughed at the commentary cause it was so great and classic. Jesse had not missed a beat and Vince was not commentating like his mid 90's high caffeine style of commentary thankfully. How about Vince McMahon entering to the old Saturday Night’s Main Event theme music by Animotion??!! That was awesome. I find it funny that they play that theme on Raw but always replace it when it airs on WWE 24/7 Classics On Demand. So, with Henry and Swagger in the qualifying matches, I guess that finalizes that the ECW title is not a world title in WWE’s mind. I loved seeing DX vs. The Hart Dynasty just for history’s sake. Just something cool about having Shawn in the ring against Davey Boy Smith’s son since the Bulldog was a rival of his. I just knew something wasn’t right about that Primo/Bourne match cause it just seemed like an odd face vs. face match. Then, there was Orton which then made it make sense. How hilarious was the return of the Gobbledy Gooker? They even had the original theme music playing. Glad that they showed the old 1990 Survivor Series footage cause I’m not sure how much of the audience got the joke. I said this already but I can’t believe I didn’t even put that together that Maryse was in that costume cause I knew she was returning tonight. I thought it was kind of odd that they said that she had been gone cause she was depressed after losing the title. Why not just say the real story that she has been injured?? Wow, Tatanka’s music was played in 2009 on Raw. I would like to point out that it didn’t take long for WWE to start promoting that new Cena shirt and hat. They had an email out from WWE Shop right after that PPV last night promoting that you could buy it. Did you notice that WWE has already put that Kofi/Orton table spot from MSG in the Raw open? Has WWE run out of “did you knows” cause they sure are running a lot of the same ones lately. The setup for next week sure does look like WWE is going with major comedy. Verne Troyer is the guest host. DX got served as Hornswoggle is suing them at little people’s court. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is going.

Upcoming guest hosts for Raw include Verne Troyer (next week), Mark Cuban (December 7), and Dennis Miller (December 14 for the Slammy Awards three hour special).

There is talk that Shane McMahon has been talking to Dana White of UFC. Interesting.

The Briscoe Brothers worked a dark match before the Smackdown tapings last week. If you’re a Ring Of Honor fan, you’ll definitely know them!!

The Hulkamania tour drew all kinds of media attention last week which was really amusing with how it was being reported. Maybe you saw the footage of the press conference with the “incident” between Hogan and Flair. Yes, it was all a plan of course and not real like many media outlets were reporting. It was booking 101 on how to build to a match for a big event. Many in Australia reported as a legit thing and there were media outlets here that teased it being real as well. Well, you’ve got to give them a ton of credit cause it got people talking about the tour. The pictures of a bloody Hogan were shown all over the place. The tour is underway with Hogan and Flair wrestling in the main events. The finish of the show over the weekend had Hogan winning the match. Both were bloodied during the match. Lacey Von Erich was in Flair’s corner. She was a distraction and then Hogan grabbed Flair’s brass knuckles and used them on Flair. Hogan then won the match. No legdrop during the match as expected since Hogan is really banged up and not far removed from having surgery done. Interesting to note in his book is that Hogan talks about how bad of shape that his back and hip are in due to him dropping the legdrop over the years. So, don’t expect to be seeing legdrops.

I’m currently reading the WWE Eddie Guerrero book and am nearing the halfway point of it. Yeah, I am flying through books in the last couple of weeks. I’ve got the Eric Bischoff book in line to read next.

I’m also currently watching the new Hulk Hogan DVD. Really impressed with it so far. I’ll have thoughts on it later down the line when I get it all watched.

It was like the 90’s all over again last week. I’m talking about listening to Don West sell merchadise. LOL. After Impact, TNA did a post show online with Don West and Jeremy Borash doing a big TNA shop deal. Don West was in his usual sports card selling mode with him screaming about the great deals and what you get for your money. I just laughed at it cause I remember how many late nights that I would see Don West on TV selling sports cards. Somebody responded to them saying that it was a gem mint 10 deal. I popped at that one cause he was notorious for saying that over and over when he’d sell stuff.

I have to mention this cause this is just amazing. The Pontiac Silverdome which of course held WrestleMania III recently was sold at an auction. A group from Toronto bought it and the land around it for $583,000. WOW. Yes, they are going to keep it open as well. Can you imagine buying that size of property for that price??!!

Take care and God bless!!