WWE Raw House Show In Cape Girardeau - Live Report - January 23, 2010

Live report time as I attended the WWE Raw house show in Cape Girardeau last night. Solid show and a hot crowd. The building was full for the most part. I’ll go into the pre-show notes. I should point out that The Miz was doing local radio promotion interviews for the Cape show and I heard one of them streaming online with KGMO. He stayed in character with the interview and was very entertaining. Funny moment when he and the host talked about the lack of respect for him. They pointed out that the photo advertisement for the show had him getting beaten up by John Cena. Miz said that here he was doing the local promotion for the show and not Cena but yet they use that photo against him. They went over the lineup of matches for the show including them discussing that Orton always gets a good reaction in Cape due to being near his hometown of St. Louis. It was a fun interview overall. Back to the actual event, Surprisingly not as many people lined up in the parking lot watching the stars arrive as there have been in events past. I was able to get to the front of the line immediately. Most had already arrived by the time we got there but we did see Ted Dibiase, Santino, and Randy Orton arrive. Doors opened fairly early giving people a chance to get their food, merchandise, and find their seats.

On to the event. We kicked off the event with the national anthem and then right into the wrestling action. The show opens with a ECW match with Yoshi Tatsu taking on Zack Ryder with Rosa Mendes in his corner. Wow, that “woo woo woo” gimmick does nothing for me. LOL. Just kind of a blah opener for me but I don’t watch ECW either. Tatsu won with a spin kick off of the top turnbuckle to win the match. The next match was kind of surprising to me as far as Legacy being on the second match of the night. Legacy took on Mark Henry and Evan Bourne. There was a match change there as the advertising had Big Show against Mark Henry. The two other advertised matches took place though. Anyway, very solid match. Big pop for Mark Henry when he was introduced. Cody Rhodes got on the mic ripping on Mark Henry saying that he was the spokesman for a weight loss company while Dibiase was a movie star. Dibiase kept running from Henry early in the match. Evan Bourne got a hot tag at one point and hit his fun high flying moves but Dibiase stopped him giving Legacy the advantage back. Henry would be the next to get the hot tag. Henry slammed Rhodes which led to Bourne hitting the shooting star which looked amazing. Dibiase broke up the count. Henry went to the floor with Dibiase. Bourne got back on offense with Cody but Cody was able to counter and hit the cross-rhodes for the win. After this match, Kelly Kelly was introduced. She came down the aisle and announced that they were going to have a guest bell ringer. She would ask the trivia question of how many participants are in the Royal Rumble match and the winner would be the bell ringer. A girl answered it right and she was brought to ringside. She sat with Kelly during the next match. Johnny Curtis made his way to the ring. Yeah, I had never heard of him and he actually mentioned that in his promo that we were probably wondering who he was. He hyped what he was going to do in WWE. His opponent was Primo. This match went way longer than I expected. Primo ended up winning after nailing a cross body off the top rope. Kind of surprised that Primo got the win to be honext as I expected that they’d put over the new guy. Next was the fatal four way for the US championship. US champion, The Miz made his way to the ring and did a promo about the upcoming match and also about the Royal Rumble. Lots of crowd heat on him. His opponents would be Jack Swagger, MVP, and Carlito. The Miz avoided the action off and on during the match letting his opponents go at it. Swagger and MVP would go at it late in the match. Miz made his way in and broke up the action. Miz went to the top rope only to see Carlito and Swagger waiting for him. Then, they hit the big spot out of the corner where Carlito and Swagger had Miz in a double superplex position. MVP then came over and powerbombed them all out of the corner. Big spot and the crowd erupted on it. MVP then got on big offense from there. MVP hit the playmaker on Carlito but Miz knocked him from the ring and covered Carlito for the win to retain the title. Miz grabbed the belt and paraded down the aisle with it. Next was the six divas tag team match with Santino Marella as the referee. Santino got a good pop and was really playing off of the fans on his entrance. Maryse, Alicia Fox, and Jillian Hall made their way into the ring with Santino trying to get high fives, hugs, or whatever but got nothing. LOL. They took on the team of Gail Kim and The Bellas. Santino does get a hug from that team. Lots of comedy spots in this one. Early on, one of the Bellas and Maryse ended up pulling hair on each other and Santino got in the middle of it. His hair got pulled too and he started his high pitch scream. They then started rolling around and rolled around on him too which was funny. Another comedy spot when Gail and the Bellas did a riding the bull spot on the heels. Got a lot of laughs. Another spot where a Bella (yeah, I can’t tell them apart, LOL) was bouncing off the ropes and Alicia dropped down. Bella went for a high crossed body and was caught by Santino. He kept turning from side to side and then the feet of the Bella twin would catch the other participants knocking them down. Santino then dropped her and went into the corner just sitting there. The finish had Gail pinning Jillian after landing a foot to the jaw. After the match, Santino celebrated with the winners. Time to throw out some free merchandise to the crowd. Kelly Kelly arrives with Hornswoggle and the crowd loved Hornswoggle. T-shirts are thrown into the crowd with the crowd all up on their feet. Hornswoggle did give the DX chop to the ring announcer which was funny.

After intermission time, the action continues. Big Show gets a good reaction as he makes his way to the ring. His opponent was Chris Masters accompanied by Eve. Crowd was definitely with Show in this match. Show even sneered at the crowd at one point for the cheers. There were two guys in the front row that he ripped on with one guy posing like Hulk Hogan. Show said “listen Hogan, shut up” and then ripped on the other guy as well. Show landed a chop at one point and that led to Masters doing his dancing pecs gimmick. He wouldn’t be doing that later with Show landing more chops. They sounded nasty too. Show went after Eve on the floor. She reeled him with a romantic moment and then slapped him. Masters go on offense from there getting Show down to one knee. Masters hooked the masterlock but Show threw him over his head after a few seconds. When Masters returned to him, Show hit the chokeslam for the win. Solid match and the crowd was definitely for Big Show. Next was probably the match of the night. Randy Orton taking on Kofi Kingston. Big hometown like pop for Orton as expected. I love watching Randy Orton matches in Cape cause the mixed reaction is always fun. He brought out his old arms out pose on the turnbuckle which I haven’t seen in a while. Kofi gets a nice ovation as well but the crowd was definitely mixed in this one. Yeah, I was chanting for Orton. Lots of RKO chants from the crowd. Orton had the loud section of fans up on the side. Kofi would hit the trouble in paradise kick but Orton fell out of the ring on it. Kofi brought him back in the ring but Orton was able to kick out of the pin attempt. Orton nailed a RKO moments later but Kofi was able to kick out of it. A frustrated Orton got to his feet and went for the punt. Kofi avoided it and went for the trouble in paradise again. Orton ducked it and Kofi ended up getting hit with a RKO with Orton getting the pinfall on it. Cool finish to the match. Main event time with Sheamus defending the WWE title against John Cena. Sheamus was the first one introduced and did a promo before the match. Cena was introduced and got a huge ovation from the fans. Cape Girardeau loves John Cena!! No mixed reaction here and if there were boos, they were drowned out. Solid match. Sheamus hit his big kick on Cena but Cena was able to kick out. Then, Cena picked up Sheamus about twenty seconds later and hit the adjustment. Sheamus kicked out of that. The finish was well done and laid out a big tease to the crowd. Cena went to the top rope but was stopped by Sheamus. Sheamus hit the celtic cross out of the corner but Cena kicked out. A frustrated Sheamus shoved the referee down and then Cena hooked Sheamus in the STF. The ref rang the bell for the DQ but Cena jumped up like he had won the title since he did have the submission on as the bell rang. The crowd jumped up and went crazy too. Cena’s facial expression was great when he thought he had won the WWE title and then the announcement was made that Cena won by DQ meaning that Sheamus kept the title. Cena questioned the referee and then was hit from behind by Sheamus. Cena hit Sheamus with the adjustment and Cena’s music played to finish off the show. Cena talked with some fans around ringside as he roamed out of there. That was the end of the show. After the show, we stuck around to watch the superstars leave the building. Nothing really spectacular of interest happened. Nice moment when Cena saluted the fans twice as he was about to get in his car. It is usually interesting to see the pairings of who is riding with who to and from events.

Other notes and thoughts on the show. I liked the booked finish of the main event. I kept thinking how are they going to book this to where Sheamus keeps the title but the fans go home happy with Cena winning. Then, the tease happened that Cena had won only to learn of the DQ. Kids were mad!! LOL. When we were leaving, there were kids just furious over Cena getting ripped off. It took me back to my Hulk Hogan days as a kid when Hogan would lose. Let me tell you. The kids love John Cena. They love him. Cena had those kids in the palm of his hands all through the match chanting for him and with him on every move. It was fun to see how many dads put their kids up on their shoulders in the ringside area so they could get a good view of him coming down the aisle. The families are definitely back at WWE events and are dominating the crowd now. There was quite the reaction from fans on the announcement that Cena had signed a lot of pictures being sold at the merchandise stand. Like I said, I love watching Orton matches in Cape. The fans add so much to his matches cause you just get such a mixed group of reactions. He is going to get cheers there and is actually going to get some cheers everywhere. Orton has his fans no matter how big of a heel that he is. I like him and a lot of that has come from watching his matches in Cape over the years. Orton is fun to watch live and he is a heel that I enjoy cheering for at live events. There was a heel fan type section up in another part of the lower level. It’s too bad they weren’t closer for them to be louder in the action. You could hear them though and they were loud for Orton. Show got a big reaction and I wondered if it was more for him or if it was more against Masters as a babyface. Although, Show did get a big pop when he came to the ring. WWE teased no sort of problems between Rhodes and Dibiase at this show and Dibiase was doing a lot of jawing back and forth with the fans. I liked the divas match a lot but missed not having Mickie James on the Raw brand. Santino’s role in the match was fun. Kelly did a good job as host and the crowd liked her. I didn’t get a good look at the merchandise stand to see what was being sold. They were selling drinks at the concession stand where you could get them in a WWE cup only sold at live events. I thought that was a nice idea to sell more stuff. Hot crowd in Cape. Hope you enjoyed the recap. Take care and God bless!!