Raw & NXT Recap & Thoughts, & More - March 1, 2010

Welcome to the “was I watching Money In The Bank qualifying matches or squash matches?” edition of The Wrestling List.

Tonight is the last night that WWE will go unopposed on Monday nights. TNA Impact starts their Monday run next week on Spike TV. TNA will go head to head against Raw from 8-10pm. The main event of the show will see Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair returning to the ring as Hogan teams with Abyss to take on AJ Styles and Flair. TNA is going to run three hours of programming on March 15. Their TNA Epics series will air at 7pm running an hour before Impact goes on the air. In case you didn't know, Stone Cold Steve Austin will be the guest host on that night on Raw. So, it looks like TNA is looking at pulling some viewers in before Impact goes on the air.

Tonight’s WWE Raw was the last Raw to go unopposed. Shawn Michaels opened the show talking about the buzz in the locker room of his peers feeling that he couldn’t end the streak and how he was crazy for putting his career on the line. Shawn called out anyone that felt that he couldn’t beat Taker so they could tell it to his face. Triple H walked out and Shawn was surprised asking him if he really didn’t think that he could beat him. Triple H replied that he knew Shawn could beat Undertaker saying that Shawn is the best that he had ever been in the ring with. He wanted to reunite DX for the night so they could win the tag titles back despite being on separate paths. Triple H’s point was that they wouldn’t have to defend the titles for 30 days. 28 days would be the night after WrestleMania. The tag title win tonight would be a vote of confidence and part of the celebration that they would have the night after WrestleMania on Raw. Shawn accepted and the story of that first segment was Triple H pumping up Shawn. So, the main event takes place with DX against ShoMiz. Shawn lays out Show with a superkick. Triple H and Show both make tags. Shawn and Miz go at it and Shawn is on a major roll. He starts to tune up the band in the corner and then Undertaker appears on the screen. Just a staring look. It distracts Shawn and then Taker rolls his eyes. Shawn turns to Miz looking for the kick but Miz rolls him up for the win. Shawn again looks completely focused about Taker. Triple H looks frustrated and goes over to Shawn and puts his hand on his shoulder. Shawn yells for him to not touch him and walks out. Sheamus then enters the ring and attacks Triple H. He ends up giving Triple H the kick over the announce table. The show ends with Sheamus standing on the table looking at the fallen Triple H. We also had the farewell to Bret Hart segment tonight. Vince arrived first and then introduced Bret who had his leg in a cast and was walking on one crutch. Vince started the segment saying great things about Bret. Bret fired back at Vince saying that ever since he had come back that Vince had treated him like garbage. Vince then went on to say that he had lied again and that this wasn’t a grand farewell. Vince talked of Bret’s challenge for WrestleMania trying to get Bret to follow through on it. Vince continued to talk of all the bad things he had done to Bret to get him fired up. Bret had a good line as a comeback saying “I can’t wrestle. I have a broken leg, idiot”. Vince continued to fire saying that Bret was a coward and had no heart. Vince then kicked Bret’s crutch out from under him and Bret crashed to the mat. Vince left the ring continuing to call Bret a coward. Bret then got up and said that the match was on for WrestleMania. Another interview segment to hype another WrestleMania match which was between John Cena and Batista. Cena talked of how he had moved on from the PPV saying that what Batista did was business to further himself. The next night on Raw was personal and he wanted to know why. Batista arrived with security guards to which he said was to protect Cena. Batista talked of how they were the two biggest stars since the attitude era and that he was mad that the torch from Austin got passed to Cena instead of him. He said that the attack last week was just because he wanted to beat him up and because he wanted to show that he was better. Cena talked of how he had given his life to this business and worked harder than anyone while adding that Batista wanted everything given to him. Cena was shocked that Batista cared enough about some invisible torch. Batista said that he was in WWE to win titles and make money while Cena was there to please the people and kiss babies. Batista then mentioned Cena’s broken neck in one of their encounters while adding that Cena knew deep down that he couldn’t beat him. The segment ended with that as Cena looked intently at Batista as Batista walked off. Two Money In The Bank qualifying matches were held. Both squash matches. Jack Swagger squashed Santino. MVP squashed Zack Ryder. Randy Orton took on Ted Dibiase. The finish had Cody jumping up on the apron as Orton was going for the RKO. Orton took a swing at him but Cody avoided it. As Orton went back to Dibiase, Cody attacked Orton causing the DQ. The doubleteam was on but then Orton fought back. Orton dropkicked Dibiase out of the ring and then the backbreaker on Cody. As he was about to hit the DDT on Cody, Dibiase pulled Cody out of there. Cheech and Chong were the guest hosts. Fairly pointless segments. They had the running joke of the magical Lucky Charms all night as Hornswoggle brought them cereal. It caused them to hallucinate. Yep, PG rating here people. LOL. They booked a pajama pillow fight with the divas. PG. Kelly, Eve, Gail, Maryse, Jillian, and Alicia. Eve pinned Alicia.

Other notes from Raw. Wow, I just realized how little wrestling there was on this show after I recapped it. The talking segments were fine. I thought the opening segment was the best of the three with Shawn and Triple H. Seeing Bret with the cast and the crutch reminded me of early 1997 with the Hart Foundation against Austin. Geez, Dibiase and Rhodes can’t even beat up Orton two on one. WWE is really doing those guys no favors at all. It’s really hard to take them seriously when they get beat up EVERY week. They have to get an advantage sometime to make this feud believable. Batista said that he and Cena were the top two stars since the attitude era. Oh, there are so many jokes that I could say to Batista’s name. LOL. Squash matches for MITB qualifiers? Really? I laughed at Lawler saying that Swagger had home field advantage there in Oklahoma City to make him get the win. Come on, it’s Santino!! LOL. Watching that pillow fight, I just had to think how far that Gail Kim has fallen. She was on top there at TNA and now she barely gets to win. I forgot to mention this last week but all the DX related stuff in the Raw open has been removed and replaced with other superstars. That Shawn/Undertaker WrestleMania promo commercial set to Johnny Cash was really good. It can’t top that amazing video package from last week though. Cheech and Chong, PJ pillow fights with the divas on a PG rated show. What does it say that I didn’t even realize that one half of Cheech and Chong was on Lost until he made that finale reference tonight? LOL. I did not even know that was him but knew he looked familiar.

It was announced that Mad Dog Vachon will go into the Hall Of Fame this year and will be inducted by Pat Patterson.

Next week’s Raw will have Criss Angel as the guest host. John Cena will take on Vince McMahon. Vince set that match up on his way out as he left Bret tonight. Randy Orton will take on Rhodes and Dibiase in a handicap match. That will go up against TNA Impact’s live show with Hogan and Abyss taking on AJ and Flair.

Maria did a XM Radio interview over the weekend talking about her release. She seemed to hint that she thought that her release was due to WWE’s concern over her job interests outside of the company and that they wanted control of it. She did say there were things that WWE wanted her to do that she didn’t and the other way around. She was in negotiations with the company over dealing with her outside interests. She made sure to say again that she did not ask for her release. I still say that this was a big mistake by WWE to let her go. One of the divas that stands out from the others and you let her go. Just makes no sense to me but it is WWE.

I watched the premiere of WWE NXT last week and I’ve got to say that I enjoyed it. The show has a fun concept to it and it’s just a matter of whether WWE sticks to it. They made a star out of Bryan Danielson in one night. That was the big attention getter for me going into the show to see how they used him. His name is Daniel Bryan on there which is going to take some getting used to but I thought they did a great job with him. The show opened with him and The Miz talking in the ring. Basically, Bryan had to cut a promo in the ring and then Miz interrupted him. The two had a nice exchange which resulted in The Miz slapping him with Bryan promising that he would pay him back sometime. The first match had Carlito and Michael Tarver taking on Christian and Heath Slater. First impressions on Heath Slater is that he has potential. I think he could be a much better heel than a face. Yeah, the dance is annoying which could really work to his advantage as a heel. It reminds me of the Brian Kendrick dance from recent years. Slater helped Christian on offense which led to Christian pinning Carlito with the killswitch. I loved the CM Punk promo where he just basically was saying I don’t want to be here and want nothing to do it. I cracked up at it. Darren Young was paired up with Punk. Young is basically a party guy and it is completely opposite of Punk’s gimmick. We had a one on one match with Young taking on David Otunga who is the fiancée of Jennifer Hudson. Otunga was accompanied by his pro, R Truth. Otunga won a quick match against Young with Punk and his crew walking off not caring. LOL. Next was a match that I was very much looking forward to and that was Bryan getting in the ring with the new World champion, Chris Jericho. My thinking was that they needed to make Bryan look good but not make the champ look bad either. They accomplished it. Jericho was accompanied by his rookie, Wade Barrett. Funny moment when Jericho had him introduce him but Barrett went on too long. Jericho told him that he just wanted him to introduce him. Miz was at ringside for this match as well. Really fun match between the two. The nasty spot that everyone is talking about is Bryan diving out of the ring on to Jericho. Jericho caught him and swung him rib first into the announce table. It looked nasty. Bryan got a lot of good offense on Jericho where he had Jericho in trouble for a bit. Jericho did end up winning with the liontamer. That was not a walls of Jericho. That was an old school liontamer with the knee to back of the head. After the match, Miz got in and attacked Bryan. That is the recap of the episode and now into my thoughts. Like I said, I thought they made Bryan look great in that match with Jericho where they showed the potential of what he could be. I’m just hoping that they eventually turn him loose with what we’ve seen from him in Ring Of Honor. I like the idea of having matches where you have the rookies against each other but also having matches that include the pros and rookies teaming together. Good way to balance the talent out and make the fans get into the match. WWE did some very good promo packages on the rookies to give us a background on them. I liked the change of look with as far as how they shoot the matches. They used the crane cam to get close ups on the action in the ring. Something very different as far as style of WWE production. Michael Cole was definitely getting on everyone’s nerves with his comments on Bryan with how he had never competed anywhere including TV. I guess PPV doesn’t count as TV? LOL. The Cole thing is definitely storyline with his heel comments based on how WWE is playing it up on the website including them pulling his WWE Universe profile because he doesn’t want to associate himself with internet fans. Josh Mathews going back at him was fun TV though. It is going to be Mathews pushing the young guys while Cole is against them.

I watched the Monday Night Wars episode currently airing on WWE Classics On Demand which is from February 1996. I really enjoyed watching it and reliving a lot of this stuff. That month of WCW programing was one of my favorite months of the early Monday Nitro episodes with the build to SuperBrawl VI. The focus was around Hogan's upcoming match with The Giant in the cage along with Savage defending the title against Flair in a different cage match. This Nitro episode started off hot with the attack by Flair and Anderson on Savage. Hogan made the save but was then attacked by Flair who returned to continue the attack. Funny to watch Savage question Elizabeth, who had just returned, on why she didn't alert Hogan better that Flair was behind him. If you remember, Elizabeth turned heel at SuperBrawl turning on Savage and joining up with Flair. I was blindsided by the turn at the time cause who would have seen that coming??!! This Nitro also featured the Road Warriors continued return to the company as they took on Sting and Luger. Brian Pillman was really getting rolling on his loose cannon character. Over on Raw, there was a fun Shawn Michaels and Diesel match with them against Yokozuna and The British Bulldog. Yokozuna ended up getting superkicked out of the ring by Shawn causing his team to be counted out. This led to Cornette blaming Yokozuna for the loss and then him turning face and going nuts on his team. The main event of the show was a Bret Hart/Undertaker match. This was back during the Bret/Undertaker/Diesel triangle feud. I enjoyed it at the time and still enjoyed watching it over the weekend. Diesel gets involved and attacks everyone. He was of course getting the title match at the upcoming In Your House PPV in a cage. Undertaker would get the payback coming up through the ring to cost Diesel the title. This was a very fun episode of the Monday Night Wars to watch. It brought back so many great memories as I liked what both companies were doing at the time. It doesn’t even seem that long ago that I was sitting there and watching these original broadcasts.

I’ll be back next week as we go back into the Monday Night Wars round two. I’ll be covering both Raw and Impact. It will be fun to have competition again every week. Take care and God bless!!