Elimination Chamber PPV Results, Raw Recap, & More - February 22, 2010

Welcome to the “talk about burying the hatchet, WWE is putting Wendi Richter into the Hall Of Fame” edition of The Wrestling List.

Major story out of the WWE Elimination Chamber PPV and that was that The Undertaker was involved in a pyro accident on his way to the ring. Basically what happened was that he walked out with his normal entrance. As he got to the stage, the flames continued to come up through it. One flame covered him completely and he jumped out of there quickly. Taker threw his jacket off on to the ground and then hurried to the ring. On the PPV, it didn’t look as serious from the angle that they had. However, there have been videos posted online by fans from other angles of the incident with them showing the seriousness of it. I thought that it actually didn’t look too bad on camera with his reaction cause it just looked like maybe he had put his game face on and was pumped for the match. When he got in the ring, he was put into one of the pods as he wouldn’t enter the match until later. Bottled water was continually handed to him as he stood there by a referee to pour over the burns. He worked the match obviously. After the show went off the air, there were several live reports from fans that said that he gave a look and many words to the people over toward the pyro area over what had occurred. Taker was said to be furious backstage understandably. Just an accident that went badly wrong and thankfully he wasn’t hurt seriously. You could see a noticeable red spot on his chest during the match. This is a guy that is battling through injuries already to keep going and this surely did not help his cause. Interesting that no one seemed to even notice that Taker was burned watching the show based on what I was hearing as the show went along. That shows that the angle that they had covered the seriousness of the accident. People didn’t find out about it until the backstage news got out about it after the show went off the air.

As I said, WWE held their Elimination Chamber PPV last night from St. Louis. The show opened with the Raw Chamber match for the WWE title. The first two to start the match were Sheamus and Kofi. The order of entrants after that were Triple H, Randy Orton, Ted Dibiase, and then John Cena. Orton and Dibiase worked together for a bit but all that came to an end. Cody got himself involved by throwing a pipe into the ring. Orton tried to get rid of Cody. Dibiase ended up getting it. Orton and Cena countered finishing moves and then Cena had Orton up for the adjustment. Dibiase ran and nailed both Orton and Cena with it. Dibiase stood over both of them and then pinned Orton. Dibiase did give a little smile as Orton left the ring. However, you go from that big moment of Dibiase's to him being eliminated seconds later by a trouble in paradise kick from Kofi which eliminates Dibiase. Another quick elimination after that as Sheamus pins Kofi after hitting him with the kick and the celtic cross for the pinfall. Sheamus was the next man eliminated. Sheamus went for the celtic cross on Cena and then Triple H hit Sheamus low followed by a pedigree. That gets us down to Triple H and Cena. Both men were slow to get up as the match had hit 30 minutes at this point. Cena was able to hook the STF and Triple H ended up tapping after not being able to get to the ropes. John Cena is the new WWE champion. Vince McMahon's music hits and introduced Batista as his next opponent at that very moment. WWE title match and Cena was too worn out to take him on. A thrown punch by Cena missed. Batista speared Cena and then hit the Batista bomb for the pin to win the WWE title. Two title changes in minutes. The next match to follow was Drew McIntyre defeating Kane to retain the Intercontinental title. Next was set to be the finals of the Divas championship tournament with Maryse and Gail Kim. Vickie Guerrero arrived at the beginning of the match talking of how the Raw divas had disrespected the Smackdown divas and postponed the match. The match was now Gail and Maryse against Michelle McCool and Layla. Not sure how Vickie gets to change Raw matches but whatever. LOL. Predictable finish with a hurt Gail trying to tag in Maryse but Maryse shoves Gail back in not taking the tag. Michelle then pinned Gail with the Styles Clash. Yes, I'm still going to call it that cause that is what the move is. LOL. After the match, Maryse got in the ring and nailed Gail with a DDT. William Regal arrived in the ring talking about NXT but was interrupted by Edge who talked of how Regal was boring the fans. Edge revealed that he would tell which champion that he will face at WrestleMania on Raw and then speared Regal to end the segment. The Miz retained the US title by defeating MVP. Big Show and Mark Henry got involved in it. Henry went after Show. Show was laid up against the barrier and Henry charged at it. Show moved and Henry took the barrier out. As the ref wasn't looking, Show knocked out MVP with his punch and then Miz got the pinfall. The last match was the Smackdown World title Chamber match. First two in the match were CM Punk and R Truth. Order of entrants into the Chamber after that were Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, and Undertaker. Truth was eliminated after a GTS from Punk. Punk beat him before anyone else entered the chamber and got a couple of minutes rest. Rey Mysterio defeated Punk a few minutes later after hitting a rana to the steel outside followed by a springboard splash back into the ring. Rey Mysterio was eliminated by Morrison after getting hit with the starship pain. Undertaker was then the last one in. Morrison was eliminated after Undertaker chokeslammed him onto the steel. Undertaker rolled him in and got the pinfall. That left a final two of Undertaker and Jericho. Really cool finish here. The two went back and forth a bit. Undertaker hit the last ride but then collapsed. He got back up and was ready to finish off Jericho. Shawn Michaels then comes out of one of the panels inside the chamber in street clothes. He nails Undertaker with a superkick. Jericho stood there in shock and pinned Undertaker as Shawn stood over Undertaker. Chris Jericho is your new World champion. The show ended with Shawn continuing to stand over Undertaker. Well, there is how Shawn is going to continue to get his rematch. I liked that finish.

All right. My overall thoughts on the booking of the show. Well, it definitely left us knowing where we’re going for WrestleMania. Edge would obviously challenge Chris Jericho with the story of Edge getting revenge with the talk from Jericho with the end of their tag team. Shawn Michaels did what he had to do and that was cost The Undertaker the World title to get his attention for a WrestleMania rematch. Cena vs. Batista now is set up with the WWE title in the mix and then Bret and Vince will be put in it somehow. Orton against Legacy continues with the tease that Dibiase has finally stepped up. I fully expect to see Orton vs. Dibiase at WrestleMania. We’ll see it either being a three way involving Cody or maybe Cody will be in the corner of one of them. Sheamus is now without a title and maybe goes after Triple H for costing him the title.

Tonight’s WWE Raw opened with the new World champion, Chris Jericho, in the ring bragging over his title win and how he was going to WrestleMania. Edge’s music hit to a big pop and then Edge ran in through the crowd hitting a spear on to Jericho. Edge got on the mic saying that Jericho was going to WrestleMania and that it would be against him. So, Edge has made his choice on which champion to face. Right after that, John Cena hit the ring furious over last night. Cena demanded that his rematch with Batista take place tonight. He also added about how he could now add his own name to the list of people that McMahon has screwed. Vince arrives saying that Batista would not be defending the title again until WrestleMania. He revealed that there had been a deal made with Batista getting a title shot anytime that he wanted in exchange for helping with Bret. Vince told Cena that he would get a chance tonight to get into WrestleMania but that he had to win the match or he’d be watching the event from the skybox while Sheamus would get the shot. Cena’s opponent tonight? Batista. The match took place to end the show. Well, it wasn’t much of a match. Cena tried to get on offense. Batista kicked Cena low right in front of the ref causing the DQ. Batista then threw Cena all over ringside and destroyed him with a chair on the floor. The DQ does mean that Cena gets the title shot at WrestleMania but the story of Batista in this match was that he was sending a message and enjoying it. The other big news of the night was Shawn Michaels explaining himself against Undertaker. Shawn arrived saying that he did what he felt he had to do to try and get his rematch. He knew it wasn’t the popular move to do but was willing to risk that. Shawn added that there is always a reaction to every action and was counting on it. Undertaker did arrive and Shawn told him that they had a great match last year and Shawn was one moment away from the perfect match. Then, he blew it and knew that Undertaker understood that he couldn’t live with that. Shawn told him that if he wanted his revenge, it would be at WrestleMania. Undertaker accepted the match but then said it was under one condition. Undertaker wants Shawn’s career on the line. The streak vs. the career. Shawn accepted saying that he had already said that he had no career if he couldn’t beat Undertaker at WrestleMania. Shawn agrees to the match. Really good segment. In other happenings, Randy Orton was shown talking to Cody Rhodes backstage with Orton taking the blame for their problems saying that he bullied them when things didn’t go right. Orton had made a six man tag match to get them all back on the same page. As Orton walked out, Dibiase walked in asking how the conversation went. Cody said that it went a little too well while they talked of their plan still being on. Legacy takes on Kofi, Bourne, and Tatsu. Orton gets on offense in the ring while Cody and Dibiase chat on the apron. Cody tags himself in and then Orton catches him. Orton DDT’s him off the middle rope and walks off. Dibiase goes after Orton and spins him around. Dibiase yells at Orton questioning him on what he just did. Orton then RKO’s Dibiase on the floor and walks off. Tatsu and Bourne then finish off Cody as Bourne pins him with the air bourne. Dibiase watches furiously at Orton from the ring. The final for the Divas championship tournament takes place with Maryse defeating Gail Kim to win the Divas title after hitting a DDT. The first Money In The Bank qualifier took place with Christian defeating Carlito following the killswitch. Vince McMahon invited Bret Hart to Raw next week to get a better farewell. It was announced that Bret suffered a broken leg with tendon and ligament damage from last week’s incident. It was later announced that Bret accepted the invitation and will be on Raw next week from Oklahoma City. There was a Divas bull riding contest hosted by Raw guest hosts, Jewel and Ty Murray. The face divas all lasted the duration. ShowMiz interrupted and talked trash on the competition and the hosts. Show was talked into competing and thrown off of the mechanical bull. Jewel and Murray then had ShowMiz face Henry and MVP for the tag team titles. ShowMiz won after Show KO’d Henry with the punch for the win.

Other notes from Raw. Ok, so that’s it. The WrestleMania streak has to end. LOL. They put down the stipulation for me to make the streak end. I am very curious to see what happens here and what WWE’s plans are. I really have no idea but you know what I am cheering for at this point. No Shawn Michaels? Sorry, not an option for me. Did you see Undertaker showing some physical signs of that pyro incident last night? How incredible was that video piece that WWE put together of their history over the last year? Wow, it was so good. If you’re in a six man tag team match and looking to get yourself back on the same page, you have to feel good when two of the three guys on the other team are Yoshi Tatsu and Evan Bourne. LOL. Tonight saw the WWE debut of Bryan Danielson as Daniel Bryan. He was on screen watching The Miz who will be his mentor on NXT. I know I let out a cheer when I saw Danielson. Just this feeling of let’s turn this guy loose in the ring. There were a few others that did promos as well of the NXT guys. Wow, that Slater guy looked really green with that promo. Ok, isn’t it just silly for Vince to even tease that Cena wouldn’t be competing at WrestleMania if he didn’t win tonight. He’d be watching from the skybox? I think that is just silly to say something like that considering you want one of your top guys on the show competing so you get bigger buys for the show. Just one of those WWE booking things that get on my nerves. Well, at least the bull riding was better than Springer last week. LOL. I had a lot of laughs listening to audio shows over the last week with people ripping on that Springer segment. Yeah, it wasn’t just me that couldn’t stand the segment. LOL. Speaking of bull riding, was it me or were the divas staying on there for much longer than 8 seconds?

TNA has announced their main event match for their first Monday night show on March 8 which will go head to head with Raw. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair will return to the ring. It will be Hogan teaming with Abyss to take on AJ Styles and Flair.

WWE has made more PPV changes in the last week. It appears that all of the classic PPV names are gone. Backlash is gone for April and has been changed to Extreme Rules which will now take place earlier in the year. Judgment Day is also gone. Other new names include WWE Wild Card in May, Fatal Four Way in June, and a Money In The Bank PPV in July.

ECW ended thankfully next week. It was kind of bizarre to see WWE pay tribute to the original ECW at the beginning of the show. It almost kind of annoyed me to be honest based on what the show became after the relaunch. Ezekiel Jackson won the ECW title to be the last ECW champion. NXT premieres this Tuesday night in the same time slot with the show being an Ultimate Fighter type show. WWE superstars will be mentoring developmental talent. There is one in there that has gotten a lot of fans fired up. Here is the list of who will be mentoring who. Chris Jericho mentors Wade Barrett. William Regal mentors Skip Sheffield. Matt Hardy mentors Justin Gabriel. The Miz mentors Daniel Bryan. Christian mentors Heath Slater. Carlito mentors Michael Tarver. CM Punk mentors Darren Young. R Truth mentors David Otunga. Now, the one that obviously got the most attention was The Miz and Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan is of course Ring Of Honor’s Bryan Danielson. Yeah, I’m thinking he doesn’t need a lot of mentoring and should be the star of the show. However, I could see this being used as a storyline later where Danielson moves on to challenge Miz after the show. That is one thing that has been discussed in the wrestling media with speculation on that possibility. John Morrison even joked in an interview that Danielson could probably teach Miz more on actual in ring wrestling. Miz has really become a strong character on TV so that could be fun. This concept does sound like it could be fun. Just a matter of how much work that WWE puts into it. They do have a tendency to just drop ideas after a month so we’ll see. What will be great about this show is that it will give us fans an idea of who these new guys are before they hit TV. Instead of them just randomly showing up on TV, now we’ll know more about them.

Before there was Bret Hart and Montreal, there was Wendi Richter and Madison Square Garden. Wow, I did not see that Hall Of Fame announcement from tonight coming. Wendi Richter is going into the Hall Of Fame. Richter was a big star in the mid 80’s during the Rock N’ Wrestling era. She was paired with Cyndi Lauper and did very well together. Well, the end of her run in WWF was over contract issues. WWF decided to get the belt off of her and put her in the ring against someone by the name of the Spider Lady in MSG. Little did Richter know but that it was The Fabulous Moolah under the mask. The match would go on and it did not go as planned for Richter. She would be pinned to the mat. The ref knew the plan and counted three despite Richter kicking out at one. Richter continued to attack Spider Lady after the bell and got the mask off of her where it was revealed to be Moolah. Moolah continued to no sell her offense. Richter left and never returned to the company. I am not positive but I seem to hear of there being an interview in the last couple of years where she talked about taking responsibility for her wrong doing in the situation. I’m not sure so don’t quote me but I do seem to remember there being talk of her softening on her anger at WWE. Inducting her into the Hall Of Fame will be Rowdy Roddy Piper. Interesting choice as he was involved with a lot of that stuff with Richter and Lauper at the time. I would have liked to have seen Lauper get to do it. WWE loves to have celebrity tie ins to these Hall Of Fame inductions and this was one to do it with but oh well. Piper will do a good job as always.

Mickie James has her debut song out for listening from her upcoming country album. I have to say that it is a catchy song. You can preorder the album at this link including the first 10,000 to pre-order getting an autographed copy and an exclusive t-shirt. http://www.mickiejames.com/

The March programming is close to debuting on WWE Classics On Demand but no word yet on a lot of the programming. The theme centers around tournaments and they are definitely showing Starrcade 1989, Crockett Cup 1988, and more including WWE WrestleMania 25 and the Hall Of Fame focusing on Curt Hennig.

Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!