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!!
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Monday, March 1, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
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!!
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!!
Monday, February 15, 2010
TNA Moving Impact To Mondays Permanently On March 8, WWE Raw Recap, & More - February 15, 2010
Welcome to the “return of the Monday Night Wars begins on March 8” edition of The Wrestling List.
A couple of big news items this week. Let’s start with TNA who made their big announcement today. TNA is moving Impact to Monday nights permanently beginning on March 8. They will air head to head against Raw from 8-10pm. The plan is for Impact to be live on one Monday and then the next week will be taped. They will basically do the old Raw format from the late 90’s. Live Impact on Monday and then tape Impact the next night to air the following Monday. Dixie Carter and Hulk Hogan were on hand at the press conference taking questions from the press. There wasn’t really anything news making out of it outside of the initial announcement. This is obviously huge news and the news that we’ve been waiting for. If January 4 was any indication, this is going to make things very exciting. That date with Raw and Impact going head to head was the most exciting night of wrestling in a very long time. How will the ratings go? Well, it obviously depends on what each company is doing. WWE is in WrestleMania build and will be in it full force by March 8. The last few shows of Raw have been stronger so they are gaining momentum. Impact has slid a bit ratings wise in the last few weeks. They did a 1.4 recently but have slid back down to a 1.1 last week. Being on Mondays will be exciting. The live/taped format worked for Raw back in the late 90’s despite spoilers getting out. What it all comes down to is interest in the product. The real winners in this? It isn’t either company persay but it is us, the fans. This will make each compete and make stronger shows. TNA is going to be ready to roll. It’s just a matter of whether WWE sees them as competition or not.
WWE announced their fourth quarter numbers last week. The changes in PPV’s with gimmicks added did raise the buys but the big news was how far down that Survivor Series dropped. The Cell PPV did 283,000 buys compared to last year’s No Mercy which did 261,000 buys. Bragging Rights had 181,000 buys which is up from last year’s Cyber Sunday which had 153,000 buys. Survivor Series was way down doing only 235,000 buys compared to last year’s 319,000 buys. The TLC PPV did 228,000 buys which was up from Armageddon last year which did 193,000 buys. The overall numbers from WWE looked pretty solid for the quarter. Live event revenue was up as was venue merchandise revenue. Home video was down some as was WWEShop revenue.
Vince McMahon did announce during the conference call that Survivor Series would be no more. Vince was quoted as saying this about Survivor Series: "We think that Survivor Series is obsolete, as far as that title is concerned. It was something that worked many, many years ago, in terms of a creative standpoint, various teams competing. That really is not advantageous as the consumer now looks as what actually they are buying. And it's such a broad ... Survivor Series yes, many years ago, was one of the original four pay-per-views, but it's outlasted its usage and it is one of the things in terms of rebranding, this year and going forward, that will be rebranded. No longer will we have that title, Survivor Series.". This is a major bummer to me. The event started right around when I started watching wrestling. This is kind of odd to me when they keep making PPV events built around gimmicks but yet they are doing away with this one. How about making Survivor Series what it had been? Elimination matches. Yes, we get some but the event hasn’t focused on it in a while. I just can’t stand the thought of Survivor Series going away. It’s tradition.
The TNA Against All Odds PPV was last night from Orlando, FL. Here are the results of it. The show opened with the 8 Card Stud Tournament. Dinero defeated Desmond Wolfe after hitting his finisher. Matt Morgan defeated Hernandez. The finish had Morgan stopping the ref’s count on the outside saying that he didn’t want to win that way. Morgan held the rope open for Hernandez to get back in the ring. Morgan then sent Hernandez into the post and pinned with a handful of tights. After the match, Morgan raised Hernandez’ arm but Hernandez shoved him away unhappy with how Morgan won the match. Next Mr. Anderson defeated Kurt Angle after Angle ran into the corner missing the turnbuckle pad. Anderson (I almost typed Kennedy – LOL) then hit the mic check for the pin. Next was the Abyss vs. Foley match which was no DQ. Abyss didn’t want to use the weapons in the match but Foley egged him on to do it. The finish had Abyss pinning Foley after hitting the black hole slam into the tacks. So, there is your first round of the tournament. Next, The Nasty Boys defeated Team 3D. The finish had Jimmy Hart getting involved and helping The Nasty Boys. Hart handed a helmet to Knobs who nailed Brother Ray with it. Sags then pinned him. In the second round of the tournament, Dinero defeated Matt Morgan by pinfall. Anderson then defeated Abyss. Anderson messed with Abyss’s mask which left him unable to see. Abyss mistakenly grabbed the ref but then Anderson hit Abyss with a low shot. Anderson hit the mic check for the win. Next was the TNA championship match with AJ Styles taking on Samoa Joe. Throughout the night, Flair was furious over the announcement of Bischoff being a special referee. Hogan also told Bischoff that he was to call things right down the middle and that he wasn’t putting up with anything else. Bischoff looked annoyed when told that making it seem like his plan was ruined. AJ did a very Flair like entrance including the robe. The finish had Flair getting involved grabbing AJ’s leg preventing the muscle buster. Bischoff went to the floor and nailed Flair. Joe was upset over having no one to make a count for him and yelled at Bischoff. AJ nailed a kick to Joe followed by the Styles Clash. Bischoff then reluctantly made the three count since he had no choice. The tournament final closed the show with Anderson taking on Dinero. Pope wins the match and the tournament. He is the number one contender for the TNA title.
Tonight’s WWE Raw was a mixed bag. Actually, most of it was good. It was just the segment in the middle of the show that stopped a ton of the momentum of it. The big angle of the show was that Bret Hart arrived in the building ready to face off with Vince McMahon. Vince had no showed and Bret said that he would have been willing to meet up with him anywhere to settle the score. He talked of what had happened to him so far and how low Vince is in life. Bret said that he was hoping for that one last sweet victory to happen at WrestleMania for his career but saw that it wasn’t going to happen. So, Bret thanks the superstars, the fans, and everyone for their support in welcoming him back but says goodbye. Vince won’t take him on so there is nothing else for him. Bret walks out waving to the fans. Good stuff in the backstage area which I thought was interesting. They had faces and heels thanking Bret. I liked that detail of the backstage stuff. They had Kofi saying goodbye but also had Swagger and Alicia saying their goodbyes. Cena runs into Bret hoping to talk him out of leaving. They thank each other and Bret gets in the limo. As Cena walks away, we hear a crash. A blonde woman backed her car into the limo with Bret still getting into it. Basically, the story was that Bret’s leg was crushed. Cena and all the wrestlers and officials in the area run to Bret’s aid. Bret is worked on and pulled out on the other side. He is put in an ambulance and taken out of there. I thought the segment was really good and I’m sure it will be revealed that Vince was involved. Speaking of Cena, he waited on Batista who had said he was showing up on Raw. Batista ended up on the Titan Tron via satellite. Cena continued to call him out while Batista said that he was doing Cena a favor by not being there but said he would be pulling for him to win on Sunday. Batista said that he would be there at Raw next week to confront Cena. Cena took on Triple H in the main event. The finish was a DQ when Sheamus interfered with a boot to Triple H stopping the pedigree attempt. Cena got on offense for a few seconds but Sheamus laid him out with a boot as well. Sheamus laid out Triple H with a celtic cross. Earlier in the show, Sheamus took on Randy Orton. Dibiase and Rhodes arrived early on in the match. Orton had Sheamus on the floor. Dibiase went to hit Sheamus but the punch was countered. Cody then nailed Sheamus and the ref caught it calling for the DQ. Orton was immediately furious as Legacy tried to explain themselves. Orton nailed Cody with a RKO. Sheamus then returned and laid Dibiase out with a kick. However, Orton then hit a RKO on to Sheamus. Orton was really looking like a face in this whole match. His mannerisms were different and he was really fired up after hitting the RKO to Sheamus. Ted Dibiase faced Kofi Kingston later on and defeated him after hitting dream street. ShoMiz was defeated the team of Mark Henry and MVP when MVP countered Miz’s pin attempt into one of his own. MVP and Henry get a win on the tag team champions. The new Hall Of Fame inductee was not a surprise as it had already been announced in Japan. Antonio Inoki will be going into the Hall Of Fame. Great video piece on him. Still amazing that Inoki vs. Flair took place in front of 190,000 people. What was the bad segment? Ok, here we go. Jerry Springer was the guest host on Raw. The subject of the segment was “Superstars Intimate Relationships Revealed”. When this segment started, I thought this will either be funny or be a complete train wreck. See possibility number two. This was so bad. LOL. I need to keep myself alert to recap it so I’m going to make it fun for myself. I’m going to be making some random obscure wrestling references to get through this thing. They introduce Kelly Kelly who announces that she is pregnant. However, she is unsure of who the father is cause she’s had several relationships. Who is the baby’s daddy? It has to be Vince Russo. Now, you do remember that he was going to book himself as the father of Stacy Keibler’s baby back at the end of WCW? Well, that was better than his other idea which I’m not even going to go into. Enter Santino Marella. Come on, you knew that he had to be in this segment. He gives his plea on being the father. Kelly then says that she did sleep with him but that he fell asleep so she had someone else step in. Then, Michael Cole stands up and says that he thought they were going to keep this a secret. Lawler stands up too and takes claim on Kelly too. So, at this point I’m thinking, ok, so Kelly’s new character is that she has slept with the whole locker room??!! LOL. What in the world? The Bellas walk to the ring. I’m thinking, oh great, she slept with them too. This is so silly. LOL. No, they actually say that they saw another guy in the room. Well, this is after Nikki claims that Brie is a man. This gets them into a fight. Where is Joey Styles with his line when we need him? Chris Masters arrives. He does the dancing pecs gimmick to which Springer tells him that he needs a bra. I needed to be knocked out. Actually, this was so bad that it was funny. Eve then arrives upset that Masters was cheating on her. Masters said that Eve wasn’t good enough for him. Kelly and Eve end up in an argument. Eve then says that she has been cheating on him as well and out comes The Great Khali. All we needed was The Yeti at this point. Khali kisses Eve which I only recall cause I wrote it down in my notes. I don’t remember that happening at all. LOL!! Then, we get the results of the paternity test and it is revealed to be Hornswoggle’s kid. So, he runs out and he and Kelly hug. Springer then says that this is even too wacky for him and walks out. Lawler then says that they should let him in on the secret. They made it all up and fooled him. The relationship thing that it was about was about Springer’s and they bring out his lady. You just knew where this was going!! Enter Mae Young. She then starts kissing him. So, this was the bad of the show. It is segments like that that make me worry of Vince Russo sitting there and thinking, oh, I can top this one. LOL.
Other notes from Raw. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Raw getting bumped for the Dog Show like in year’s past. That goes all the way back to the Prime Time Wrestling days. Orton was definitely having a feel of working as a face. I can’t figure out WWE with how they book Dibiase. They’ll have him get destroyed one week and then give him a big win the next week. Sometimes, it happens on the same show. Wow, there is 20 championships between Triple H and John Cena? That was an impressive stat. I was wondering if we would get the Miz and Big Show theme songs combined like the JeriShow theme. The 15 year old girl that opened the show singing the national anthem did a great job. Great way to open up the President’s Day broadcast. Jewel and Ty Murray will be the guest hosts for next week’s Raw.
Tomorrow is the last episode for WWECW. WWE NXT premieres next week in the same time slot.
WWE put up a survey last week asking what fans would like to see for the future as far as gimmicks. Two things on it were the concepts of War Games and Battle Bowl. I did fill out the survey. I do like the idea of Battle Bowl but am not just crazy about it. It would be something unique but it was way overbooked toward the ending of it. War Games is what I pushed for in really wanting to see. I fully expect that WWE will do War Games in the future. It is a concept from WCW’s past that has been talked about for a while including JR pointing out on his blog one time that he’d like to see WWE bring in the concept. If done right, there is your key phrase. It could be very exciting.
The WWE Classics On Demand voting poll for events for March is between WrestleMania VII, XII, and 23. So, I thought I’d go over my thoughts on each event. Let’s start with WrestleMania VII. This is one of my favorite WrestleMania events but the only bummer for me was that it was held in such a small venue. That wasn’t the original plan of course but the LA Sports Arena ended up hosting the show. The show featured the main event of Sgt. Slaughter defending the WWF title against Hulk Hogan. The big American hero vs. the Iraqi sympathizer storyline. Other big matches and moments on the show included the career match between Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage. One of the most annoying endings for me in my wrestling watching life. Five big elbows and Warrior kicks out. What lousy booking is that. LOL. This was also the big reunion moment of Savage and Elizabeth that all of us fans loved. The Hart Foundation defend the tag team titles against The Nasty Boys. Jake The Snake Roberts against Rick Martel in the blindfold match. I just really liked this show but really would have liked it to have been in a bigger venue. The reason that it was moved to the smaller venue depends on who you want to believe. WrestleMania XII. This is a two match show for me. Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart in the ironman match is obviously the big draw for this show. I still remember the moment of Shawn winning the title and how happy that I was for it. The boyhood dream comes true is the line that you’ll remember from the commentary that night. The other memorable moment from the show was the Hollywood Backlot Brawl with Roddy Piper and Goldust. WrestleMania 23. Fun show with WrestleMania returning to Detroit. Undertaker vs. Batista and then also Shawn vs. Cena were the main event title matches. We had the Donald Trump/Vince McMahon storyline going on. Fun show. My vote goes to WrestleMania VII though. Really enjoyed that show. All of them are entertaining shows though.
The new WWE John Morrison DVD will be released tomorrow in stores which includes a program and a ton of matches.
The Vince Russo book appears to be as blood pressure raising as I and many anticipated. Yeah, there is no way that I could read that book. I would have to be put on some blood pressure medication by the time I finished it. LOL.
Here is the lineup for this Sunday’s WWE Elimination Chamber PPV from St. Louis. The WWE championship is defended with Sheamus taking on John Cena, Randy Orton, Triple H, Ted Dibiase, and Kofi Kingston in one Chamber match. The World Heavyweight Championship is defended in the other Chamber match with Undertaker taking on John Morrison, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and R Truth. Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre defends against Kane. The finals of the Divas Championship tournament will take place with Maryse taking on Gail Kim. That is all that is announced for the show so far.
That is it for this week. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
A couple of big news items this week. Let’s start with TNA who made their big announcement today. TNA is moving Impact to Monday nights permanently beginning on March 8. They will air head to head against Raw from 8-10pm. The plan is for Impact to be live on one Monday and then the next week will be taped. They will basically do the old Raw format from the late 90’s. Live Impact on Monday and then tape Impact the next night to air the following Monday. Dixie Carter and Hulk Hogan were on hand at the press conference taking questions from the press. There wasn’t really anything news making out of it outside of the initial announcement. This is obviously huge news and the news that we’ve been waiting for. If January 4 was any indication, this is going to make things very exciting. That date with Raw and Impact going head to head was the most exciting night of wrestling in a very long time. How will the ratings go? Well, it obviously depends on what each company is doing. WWE is in WrestleMania build and will be in it full force by March 8. The last few shows of Raw have been stronger so they are gaining momentum. Impact has slid a bit ratings wise in the last few weeks. They did a 1.4 recently but have slid back down to a 1.1 last week. Being on Mondays will be exciting. The live/taped format worked for Raw back in the late 90’s despite spoilers getting out. What it all comes down to is interest in the product. The real winners in this? It isn’t either company persay but it is us, the fans. This will make each compete and make stronger shows. TNA is going to be ready to roll. It’s just a matter of whether WWE sees them as competition or not.
WWE announced their fourth quarter numbers last week. The changes in PPV’s with gimmicks added did raise the buys but the big news was how far down that Survivor Series dropped. The Cell PPV did 283,000 buys compared to last year’s No Mercy which did 261,000 buys. Bragging Rights had 181,000 buys which is up from last year’s Cyber Sunday which had 153,000 buys. Survivor Series was way down doing only 235,000 buys compared to last year’s 319,000 buys. The TLC PPV did 228,000 buys which was up from Armageddon last year which did 193,000 buys. The overall numbers from WWE looked pretty solid for the quarter. Live event revenue was up as was venue merchandise revenue. Home video was down some as was WWEShop revenue.
Vince McMahon did announce during the conference call that Survivor Series would be no more. Vince was quoted as saying this about Survivor Series: "We think that Survivor Series is obsolete, as far as that title is concerned. It was something that worked many, many years ago, in terms of a creative standpoint, various teams competing. That really is not advantageous as the consumer now looks as what actually they are buying. And it's such a broad ... Survivor Series yes, many years ago, was one of the original four pay-per-views, but it's outlasted its usage and it is one of the things in terms of rebranding, this year and going forward, that will be rebranded. No longer will we have that title, Survivor Series.". This is a major bummer to me. The event started right around when I started watching wrestling. This is kind of odd to me when they keep making PPV events built around gimmicks but yet they are doing away with this one. How about making Survivor Series what it had been? Elimination matches. Yes, we get some but the event hasn’t focused on it in a while. I just can’t stand the thought of Survivor Series going away. It’s tradition.
The TNA Against All Odds PPV was last night from Orlando, FL. Here are the results of it. The show opened with the 8 Card Stud Tournament. Dinero defeated Desmond Wolfe after hitting his finisher. Matt Morgan defeated Hernandez. The finish had Morgan stopping the ref’s count on the outside saying that he didn’t want to win that way. Morgan held the rope open for Hernandez to get back in the ring. Morgan then sent Hernandez into the post and pinned with a handful of tights. After the match, Morgan raised Hernandez’ arm but Hernandez shoved him away unhappy with how Morgan won the match. Next Mr. Anderson defeated Kurt Angle after Angle ran into the corner missing the turnbuckle pad. Anderson (I almost typed Kennedy – LOL) then hit the mic check for the pin. Next was the Abyss vs. Foley match which was no DQ. Abyss didn’t want to use the weapons in the match but Foley egged him on to do it. The finish had Abyss pinning Foley after hitting the black hole slam into the tacks. So, there is your first round of the tournament. Next, The Nasty Boys defeated Team 3D. The finish had Jimmy Hart getting involved and helping The Nasty Boys. Hart handed a helmet to Knobs who nailed Brother Ray with it. Sags then pinned him. In the second round of the tournament, Dinero defeated Matt Morgan by pinfall. Anderson then defeated Abyss. Anderson messed with Abyss’s mask which left him unable to see. Abyss mistakenly grabbed the ref but then Anderson hit Abyss with a low shot. Anderson hit the mic check for the win. Next was the TNA championship match with AJ Styles taking on Samoa Joe. Throughout the night, Flair was furious over the announcement of Bischoff being a special referee. Hogan also told Bischoff that he was to call things right down the middle and that he wasn’t putting up with anything else. Bischoff looked annoyed when told that making it seem like his plan was ruined. AJ did a very Flair like entrance including the robe. The finish had Flair getting involved grabbing AJ’s leg preventing the muscle buster. Bischoff went to the floor and nailed Flair. Joe was upset over having no one to make a count for him and yelled at Bischoff. AJ nailed a kick to Joe followed by the Styles Clash. Bischoff then reluctantly made the three count since he had no choice. The tournament final closed the show with Anderson taking on Dinero. Pope wins the match and the tournament. He is the number one contender for the TNA title.
Tonight’s WWE Raw was a mixed bag. Actually, most of it was good. It was just the segment in the middle of the show that stopped a ton of the momentum of it. The big angle of the show was that Bret Hart arrived in the building ready to face off with Vince McMahon. Vince had no showed and Bret said that he would have been willing to meet up with him anywhere to settle the score. He talked of what had happened to him so far and how low Vince is in life. Bret said that he was hoping for that one last sweet victory to happen at WrestleMania for his career but saw that it wasn’t going to happen. So, Bret thanks the superstars, the fans, and everyone for their support in welcoming him back but says goodbye. Vince won’t take him on so there is nothing else for him. Bret walks out waving to the fans. Good stuff in the backstage area which I thought was interesting. They had faces and heels thanking Bret. I liked that detail of the backstage stuff. They had Kofi saying goodbye but also had Swagger and Alicia saying their goodbyes. Cena runs into Bret hoping to talk him out of leaving. They thank each other and Bret gets in the limo. As Cena walks away, we hear a crash. A blonde woman backed her car into the limo with Bret still getting into it. Basically, the story was that Bret’s leg was crushed. Cena and all the wrestlers and officials in the area run to Bret’s aid. Bret is worked on and pulled out on the other side. He is put in an ambulance and taken out of there. I thought the segment was really good and I’m sure it will be revealed that Vince was involved. Speaking of Cena, he waited on Batista who had said he was showing up on Raw. Batista ended up on the Titan Tron via satellite. Cena continued to call him out while Batista said that he was doing Cena a favor by not being there but said he would be pulling for him to win on Sunday. Batista said that he would be there at Raw next week to confront Cena. Cena took on Triple H in the main event. The finish was a DQ when Sheamus interfered with a boot to Triple H stopping the pedigree attempt. Cena got on offense for a few seconds but Sheamus laid him out with a boot as well. Sheamus laid out Triple H with a celtic cross. Earlier in the show, Sheamus took on Randy Orton. Dibiase and Rhodes arrived early on in the match. Orton had Sheamus on the floor. Dibiase went to hit Sheamus but the punch was countered. Cody then nailed Sheamus and the ref caught it calling for the DQ. Orton was immediately furious as Legacy tried to explain themselves. Orton nailed Cody with a RKO. Sheamus then returned and laid Dibiase out with a kick. However, Orton then hit a RKO on to Sheamus. Orton was really looking like a face in this whole match. His mannerisms were different and he was really fired up after hitting the RKO to Sheamus. Ted Dibiase faced Kofi Kingston later on and defeated him after hitting dream street. ShoMiz was defeated the team of Mark Henry and MVP when MVP countered Miz’s pin attempt into one of his own. MVP and Henry get a win on the tag team champions. The new Hall Of Fame inductee was not a surprise as it had already been announced in Japan. Antonio Inoki will be going into the Hall Of Fame. Great video piece on him. Still amazing that Inoki vs. Flair took place in front of 190,000 people. What was the bad segment? Ok, here we go. Jerry Springer was the guest host on Raw. The subject of the segment was “Superstars Intimate Relationships Revealed”. When this segment started, I thought this will either be funny or be a complete train wreck. See possibility number two. This was so bad. LOL. I need to keep myself alert to recap it so I’m going to make it fun for myself. I’m going to be making some random obscure wrestling references to get through this thing. They introduce Kelly Kelly who announces that she is pregnant. However, she is unsure of who the father is cause she’s had several relationships. Who is the baby’s daddy? It has to be Vince Russo. Now, you do remember that he was going to book himself as the father of Stacy Keibler’s baby back at the end of WCW? Well, that was better than his other idea which I’m not even going to go into. Enter Santino Marella. Come on, you knew that he had to be in this segment. He gives his plea on being the father. Kelly then says that she did sleep with him but that he fell asleep so she had someone else step in. Then, Michael Cole stands up and says that he thought they were going to keep this a secret. Lawler stands up too and takes claim on Kelly too. So, at this point I’m thinking, ok, so Kelly’s new character is that she has slept with the whole locker room??!! LOL. What in the world? The Bellas walk to the ring. I’m thinking, oh great, she slept with them too. This is so silly. LOL. No, they actually say that they saw another guy in the room. Well, this is after Nikki claims that Brie is a man. This gets them into a fight. Where is Joey Styles with his line when we need him? Chris Masters arrives. He does the dancing pecs gimmick to which Springer tells him that he needs a bra. I needed to be knocked out. Actually, this was so bad that it was funny. Eve then arrives upset that Masters was cheating on her. Masters said that Eve wasn’t good enough for him. Kelly and Eve end up in an argument. Eve then says that she has been cheating on him as well and out comes The Great Khali. All we needed was The Yeti at this point. Khali kisses Eve which I only recall cause I wrote it down in my notes. I don’t remember that happening at all. LOL!! Then, we get the results of the paternity test and it is revealed to be Hornswoggle’s kid. So, he runs out and he and Kelly hug. Springer then says that this is even too wacky for him and walks out. Lawler then says that they should let him in on the secret. They made it all up and fooled him. The relationship thing that it was about was about Springer’s and they bring out his lady. You just knew where this was going!! Enter Mae Young. She then starts kissing him. So, this was the bad of the show. It is segments like that that make me worry of Vince Russo sitting there and thinking, oh, I can top this one. LOL.
Other notes from Raw. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Raw getting bumped for the Dog Show like in year’s past. That goes all the way back to the Prime Time Wrestling days. Orton was definitely having a feel of working as a face. I can’t figure out WWE with how they book Dibiase. They’ll have him get destroyed one week and then give him a big win the next week. Sometimes, it happens on the same show. Wow, there is 20 championships between Triple H and John Cena? That was an impressive stat. I was wondering if we would get the Miz and Big Show theme songs combined like the JeriShow theme. The 15 year old girl that opened the show singing the national anthem did a great job. Great way to open up the President’s Day broadcast. Jewel and Ty Murray will be the guest hosts for next week’s Raw.
Tomorrow is the last episode for WWECW. WWE NXT premieres next week in the same time slot.
WWE put up a survey last week asking what fans would like to see for the future as far as gimmicks. Two things on it were the concepts of War Games and Battle Bowl. I did fill out the survey. I do like the idea of Battle Bowl but am not just crazy about it. It would be something unique but it was way overbooked toward the ending of it. War Games is what I pushed for in really wanting to see. I fully expect that WWE will do War Games in the future. It is a concept from WCW’s past that has been talked about for a while including JR pointing out on his blog one time that he’d like to see WWE bring in the concept. If done right, there is your key phrase. It could be very exciting.
The WWE Classics On Demand voting poll for events for March is between WrestleMania VII, XII, and 23. So, I thought I’d go over my thoughts on each event. Let’s start with WrestleMania VII. This is one of my favorite WrestleMania events but the only bummer for me was that it was held in such a small venue. That wasn’t the original plan of course but the LA Sports Arena ended up hosting the show. The show featured the main event of Sgt. Slaughter defending the WWF title against Hulk Hogan. The big American hero vs. the Iraqi sympathizer storyline. Other big matches and moments on the show included the career match between Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage. One of the most annoying endings for me in my wrestling watching life. Five big elbows and Warrior kicks out. What lousy booking is that. LOL. This was also the big reunion moment of Savage and Elizabeth that all of us fans loved. The Hart Foundation defend the tag team titles against The Nasty Boys. Jake The Snake Roberts against Rick Martel in the blindfold match. I just really liked this show but really would have liked it to have been in a bigger venue. The reason that it was moved to the smaller venue depends on who you want to believe. WrestleMania XII. This is a two match show for me. Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart in the ironman match is obviously the big draw for this show. I still remember the moment of Shawn winning the title and how happy that I was for it. The boyhood dream comes true is the line that you’ll remember from the commentary that night. The other memorable moment from the show was the Hollywood Backlot Brawl with Roddy Piper and Goldust. WrestleMania 23. Fun show with WrestleMania returning to Detroit. Undertaker vs. Batista and then also Shawn vs. Cena were the main event title matches. We had the Donald Trump/Vince McMahon storyline going on. Fun show. My vote goes to WrestleMania VII though. Really enjoyed that show. All of them are entertaining shows though.
The new WWE John Morrison DVD will be released tomorrow in stores which includes a program and a ton of matches.
The Vince Russo book appears to be as blood pressure raising as I and many anticipated. Yeah, there is no way that I could read that book. I would have to be put on some blood pressure medication by the time I finished it. LOL.
Here is the lineup for this Sunday’s WWE Elimination Chamber PPV from St. Louis. The WWE championship is defended with Sheamus taking on John Cena, Randy Orton, Triple H, Ted Dibiase, and Kofi Kingston in one Chamber match. The World Heavyweight Championship is defended in the other Chamber match with Undertaker taking on John Morrison, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, and R Truth. Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre defends against Kane. The finals of the Divas Championship tournament will take place with Maryse taking on Gail Kim. That is all that is announced for the show so far.
That is it for this week. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Raw Recap, WWE Ends ECW, WWE's Best Matches of 2000's List, & More - February 8, 2010
Welcome to the “I’m glad they decided to get some mileage out of that Cena/Batista spot on the steps from last week” edition of The Wrestling List. Solid Raw tonight with WWE setting up some more storyline and match possibilities going into WrestleMania.
Tonight’s Raw had Nascar’s Carl Edwards as guest host. He didn’t have a major part on the show just as Shatner last week. The focus seems to be keeping the guest hosts to a minimum as we get closer to WrestleMania. There were several happenings that WWE did on this show. First, DX took on CM Punk/Gallows and ShowMiz. Earlier in the night, Shawn talked to Triple H about wanting to take DX to WrestleMania to compete for the first time but Triple H said that he had other goals obviously since he is in the Chamber and Shawn isn’t. This was an elimination match with Punk and Gallows being eliminated first. Shawn countered out of the GTS and hit the superkick to pin Punk. DX was in control at the end when Triple H hit a spinebuster. Shawn tagged himself into the match which led to a stareoff between Shawn and Triple H. Miz then ran the two into each other and Miz rolled up Shawn for the pinfall. Show and Miz are the new tag team champions. DX sat in the ring stunned over the loss. Backstage, Shawn went to Teddy Long who was at the show. Shawn demanded a trade to Smackdown. Then, Long could replace someone in the chamber match with Shawn. Long said that the match was already set and nothing could be changed. Shawn went off about it grabbing Long out of frustration. Triple H stopped Shawn saying that things had gotten out of control and asked if he was just going to throw everything away over this obsession including DX and his career. Shawn then said “my career is over” and superkicked Long. Shawn then walked off. Really good backstage segment. John Cena took on Ted Dibiase. Cena came to the ring with a game face on and just destroyed Dibiase. He threw him into the barrier and then hooked the STF on the floor. The match never got going. Cena got in the ring talking about Batista and the attack last week. Yes, they showed the footage of the post Raw stuff with Batista attacking Cena and laying him out on the ring steps in Nashville. Cena said that he didn’t care why Batista did it but wanted him out in the ring. No Batista so Cena starts calling Vince out saying that he knew Vince was behind it. Vince does arrive with a bunch of security. Cena said it would take more than ten security guys to stop him. Vince went right in the ring saying that he wasn’t afraid and didn’t need the security. Vince admitted paying off Batista for the attack on Bret but said he had nothing to do with the attack on Cena. Vince said that maybe Batista just didn’t like Cena like he didn’t himself. He said that he liked Cena business wise and then Cena went off again saying how it was all about the money with Vince. Cena went on to talk about how he performed for the love and energy of the fans. He also mentioned that he heard Bret say that he wanted to face Vince at WrestleMania. Cena gets Vince all fired up telling him to either get your WrestleMania moment or stand by the money. Vince then says yes to everyone’s face after being baited by Cena. Cena said that Vince had one more person to say it face to face to. Vince runs the footage from last week of the attack on Bret. When the footage finishes, Bret gets in the ring after coming through the crowd. Bret starts hammering on Vince and then security jumps in. Bret takes out several of them. Vince then walks up the ramp saying that he had changed his mind and says no to WrestleMania. He tells Bret that he deserves to keep getting screwed. Bret goes nuts after that destroying electrical equipment around the staging area. He then destroys monitors at ringside which was very Montreal like. How many times are we going to see that lately between WWE and TNA? In other happenings on Raw, Orton took on Cody Rhodes. Earlier in the night, there was definite dissention between the group. Orton was in control until Sheamus came out to distract Orton. Rhodes hit the crossrhodes for the win. Sheamus then attacked Orton after the match. Rhodes ran in with a chair to run off Sheamus. The opening segment had Sheamus confronting Raw guest host, Carl Edwards, wanting special treatment in the chamber match. Christian made his way out and talked of how the ECW roster would be free agents in a couple of weeks. Christian challenged Sheamus for a champion vs. champion tonight. The match took place with Sheamus winning it. Carl Edwards made matches for next week which will be the Chamber participants facing off with each other. It will be Orton vs. Sheamus, Kofi vs. Dibiase, and Triple H vs. Cena. Gail Kim defeated Jillian with Maryse doing commentary. After the match, Maryse came in the ring and hyped up Gail. She spoke some words in French too which was probably something bad. LOL. The two shook hands.
Other notes from Raw. Just pointing out that I called the tag team name “ShowMiz” weeks ago. LOL. I thought Edwards did a solid job tonight. I was waiting to see if we’d get his trademark backflip. Edwards is a WWE fan and a friend of Cena’s so I knew he’d be better than his Nascar counterparts of months ago. Funny moment with Hornswoggle getting out of the car when it drove into the building. I liked the Shawn stuff tonight. Really good. I like the whole storyline of Shawn just losing it cause he can’t get Undertaker at WrestleMania. His obsession is getting his focus off. Curious to see where they go from here with it. Jerry Springer will guest host Raw next week. Wow, they are going to do Cena vs. Triple H again on free TV? WWE really doesn’t mind giving away that match free for sure.
The first Hall Of Fame inductee for 2010 was announced tonight which was Ted Dibiase. They did a great video package of him. Seeing him kick the basketball away from that little kid sure did bring back memories. Remember all of those things that Dibiase used to do like that? Ahh, memories of watching wrestling on Saturday mornings.
This has been talked about for a while now but WWE is pulling the plug on ECW. Vince McMahon announced that ECW will end on February 23 and that there will be a new show in its place called WWE NXT. NXT will stand for next generation. Vince did a speech during the show thanking the crew and superstars for making ECW a success. No mention of the original ECW and some of them have responded about it. Taz said this on his Twitter account: "So, WWE ending their "vision" of ECW (thank god). ANY ORIG ECW wrestlers get a thanks? How about Paul Heyman did he get a thanks? Classy move!" Tommy Dreamer had this response: "Many people have asked me why I left WWE. If you watched ECW tonight, a piece of the puzzle was revealed for my actions. Stay tuned". Let's get back to what Vince said though. Thanks for making ECW a success. It was anything but a success. We all hoped that ECW would be an alternative. We got that sign at the first One Night Stand of how great it could be if allowed to be. That was a great show. Then, the word came out before the second One Night Stand that ECW was being relaunched. We definitely saw signs of what the new ECW was going to be and it wasn't going to be pretty. My last great memory of this new ECW is going to be the night of the last time that WWE put their "vision" of ECW in front of a traditional ECW audience at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The "change the channel" chant during the Batista/Big Show match remains one of my favorite crowd chants ever to this day. The revival of ECW could have been such a money maker for WWE. Instead it became just another WWE show that looked like all the other shows with the ECW letters unfortunately on it. I'm just glad that the letters ECW are now off of this show or I'll call it what I called it a couple of years ago, WWECW.
WrestleMania 27 will take place on April 3, 2011 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
I actually watched WWE Superstars for the first time last week since its return to see the video of Nashville. Nicely produced show. Solid matches and
Speaking of Nashville, I'm glad that WWE used that Cena/Batista footage from the post show last week. That was too big of an attack and steps spot to just not use. We all groaned in the building when Cena landed on those steps. It looked nasty. I did find the editing interesting making it look like Batista returned right after Cena helped Bret. In actuality, Cena wrestled Sheamus for several minutes before Batista returned for the attack.
During the State of TNA address recently, Eric Bischoff talked about Chris Jericho and how he didn't feel like Jericho was world champion material at the time. Well, Jericho fired back on his Twitter account saying "Bischoffs right I can't headline in TNA...cos I'm not in my 50s".
Hulk Hogan called into Rob Van Dam's radio show last week basically trying to recruit him into coming to TNA. The two talked for a little bit with Hogan saying that they would be going to Monday nights "sooner than later". RVD told Hogan that they needed to have a conversation off air. Well, that is interesting anyway.
The TNA Lockdown PPV on April 18 will be back on the road taking place at the Family Arena in St. Louis.
WWE Classics On Demand recently produced a show called 10 Count. It covered their list of the greatest WWE matches from the 2000's. Interesting list and I just thought it would be fun to go over it. Take some time to reflect on them. I'll start from number ten and work my way up the list.
10. Edge vs. John Cena - TLC Match - Unforgiven 2006. This is a very solid match. Edge and Cena have had one of the best feuds in recent years. Fun crowd reaction to this one and the Canadian crowd was definitely on the side of Edge.
9. Randy Orton vs. Mick Foley – Backlash 2004. This was the night that Mick Foley talks about with how hard that he was working to make Randy Orton's character. Get him to that next level. He definitely did that. This match also had one of the crazier thumb tack spots in it that I can remember. Orton taking the tacks full out. No shirt or anything to soften it. Orton full out lands right on the tacks and I about fell off of my seat when it happened.
8. Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels – Vengeance 2005. Shawn vs. Angle in 2005 was a great series of matches to watch. You put two performers in the ring with each other with the capability of these two and magic will happen. Most people talk about their WrestleMania 21 match from earlier in the year so it was interesting to see this match make it over the other one.
7. Steve Austin vs. Triple H – 2 out of 3 Falls – No Way Out 2001. Fun match. This was the culmination of the whole build of their feud when the storyline was that Triple H had been the one that took out Austin with the car. Great two out of three falls match with each fall being a different kind of match. I still remember the stunned reaction when Triple H won this one.
6. Brock Lesnar vs. Eddie Guerrero – No Way Out 2004. This is probably the best match of Lesnar's wrestling career. Well, you have to throw Lesnar's matches with Angle in there as well obviously. This was the night that Eddie Guerrero catapulted to the top of the wrestling world by winning the WWE title. The crowd went nuts and the celebration with Eddie in the crowd afterwards will never be forgotten. Eddie deserved that moment and he got it.
5. Triple H vs. Cactus Jack – Cell Match – No Way Out 2000. Great series of matches between these two in that early part of 2000. I would have picked the Rumble 2000 match over this one easily from Madison Square Garden but this was a good one too. This ended Foley's career for about a month until he came back for WrestleMania 2000. Big spot in this match that everyone remembers is the backdrop to Foley sending him through the cell to the ring below. That was the play off of the big spot from King Of The Ring.
4. The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan – Wrestlemania 18. Great, great, great match. This match blew away everyone's expectations. This is still one of my favorite matches of all time. The crowd reaction in Toronto was amazing. Hogan goes in there as the heel and 60,000 plus are chanting Hogan. I'll never forget the tie up and then Hogan shoves him off. The crowd just jumps up and roars to life. They booed everything that Rock did. He would land a punch and they'd boo. Hogan would land a back suplex and the roof would go off. This was the night that Hulkamania was reborn and it was a night that all of us Hulkamaniacs got that remembrance of seeing our childhood hero go to battle. The crowd reaction took this match to a whole different level.
3. Hardys vs. Dudley Boyz vs. Edge & Christian – the first TLC match- Summerslam 2000. Great match here. I still think TLC 2 was the better one of their two TLC matches but this was a great one and launched the TLC series of matches that we still see today. All three teams worked hard in this match and put their bodies on the line. Back on the year in review show in 2000, they did a recap of this match interviewing everyone involved. The Dudleys talk about how Devon was up there hanging by the belt and how he is scared of heights. It was funny to hear Devon talk about it. He and Hardy hang from the belt kicking at each other and then Devon just crashes hard on the mat. Unbelievable.
2. Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker – Wrestlemania 25. My first reaction to seeing this at number two was ......what could possibly be number one??? LOL. This would be my number one match of the decade. Incredible match. I've said this many times that I don't throw the "greatest" this or that around hardly at all. This match was one of the best matches that I have ever seen. The chemistry that these two guys had in the ring was incredible. The crowd was just eating out of the palm of their hands. We had so many false finishes. Every time I'd think that has to be the finish, someone would kick out. The psychology of this match was so simple and great. Shawn would just kick and flail around whenever he realized that he was either caught or about to be caught in the tombstone putting over to the fans the seriousness of how he had to get out of that hold. I just kept hoping that there were guys in the back watching this match and taking notes. These two stole the show and it was a bad deal for the two title matches having to try and follow this one. I just don't know if having them rematch at WrestleMania XXVI would be a good thing or not cause how do you possibly top this one? You also have to factor in that Taker is hurting pretty bad right now physically from all the stories I've heard.
1. The Rock vs. Steve Austin – Wrestlemania 17. Oh, the night that they tried to turn Austin heel in Texas. This was a bad idea. Great match. Bad finish. Austin aligns with Vince and destroys The Rock with a chair. Austin pins him and the fans still go nuts. You can't turn Austin heel in Texas. It isn't going to work and didn't. Actually, his whole heel turn really didn't work. Fans still cheered him. There were a lot of things that WWF did wrong in 2001 and this was one of them. I do think that WrestleMania 17 was the best PPV of the decade though.
The TNA Against All Odds PPV is this Sunday on PPV. I haven’t seen Impact from last week but have heard good things about it. Here is the lineup for the PPV this Sunday. AJ Styles defends the TNA title against Samoa Joe. The 8 Card Stud Tournament takes place to determine the top contender for the TNA title which includes Kurt Angle, Desmond Wolfe, Hernandez, and Ken Anderson. Team 3D takes on The Nasty Boys. I’m sure more will be announced on Thursday’s Impact.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Tonight’s Raw had Nascar’s Carl Edwards as guest host. He didn’t have a major part on the show just as Shatner last week. The focus seems to be keeping the guest hosts to a minimum as we get closer to WrestleMania. There were several happenings that WWE did on this show. First, DX took on CM Punk/Gallows and ShowMiz. Earlier in the night, Shawn talked to Triple H about wanting to take DX to WrestleMania to compete for the first time but Triple H said that he had other goals obviously since he is in the Chamber and Shawn isn’t. This was an elimination match with Punk and Gallows being eliminated first. Shawn countered out of the GTS and hit the superkick to pin Punk. DX was in control at the end when Triple H hit a spinebuster. Shawn tagged himself into the match which led to a stareoff between Shawn and Triple H. Miz then ran the two into each other and Miz rolled up Shawn for the pinfall. Show and Miz are the new tag team champions. DX sat in the ring stunned over the loss. Backstage, Shawn went to Teddy Long who was at the show. Shawn demanded a trade to Smackdown. Then, Long could replace someone in the chamber match with Shawn. Long said that the match was already set and nothing could be changed. Shawn went off about it grabbing Long out of frustration. Triple H stopped Shawn saying that things had gotten out of control and asked if he was just going to throw everything away over this obsession including DX and his career. Shawn then said “my career is over” and superkicked Long. Shawn then walked off. Really good backstage segment. John Cena took on Ted Dibiase. Cena came to the ring with a game face on and just destroyed Dibiase. He threw him into the barrier and then hooked the STF on the floor. The match never got going. Cena got in the ring talking about Batista and the attack last week. Yes, they showed the footage of the post Raw stuff with Batista attacking Cena and laying him out on the ring steps in Nashville. Cena said that he didn’t care why Batista did it but wanted him out in the ring. No Batista so Cena starts calling Vince out saying that he knew Vince was behind it. Vince does arrive with a bunch of security. Cena said it would take more than ten security guys to stop him. Vince went right in the ring saying that he wasn’t afraid and didn’t need the security. Vince admitted paying off Batista for the attack on Bret but said he had nothing to do with the attack on Cena. Vince said that maybe Batista just didn’t like Cena like he didn’t himself. He said that he liked Cena business wise and then Cena went off again saying how it was all about the money with Vince. Cena went on to talk about how he performed for the love and energy of the fans. He also mentioned that he heard Bret say that he wanted to face Vince at WrestleMania. Cena gets Vince all fired up telling him to either get your WrestleMania moment or stand by the money. Vince then says yes to everyone’s face after being baited by Cena. Cena said that Vince had one more person to say it face to face to. Vince runs the footage from last week of the attack on Bret. When the footage finishes, Bret gets in the ring after coming through the crowd. Bret starts hammering on Vince and then security jumps in. Bret takes out several of them. Vince then walks up the ramp saying that he had changed his mind and says no to WrestleMania. He tells Bret that he deserves to keep getting screwed. Bret goes nuts after that destroying electrical equipment around the staging area. He then destroys monitors at ringside which was very Montreal like. How many times are we going to see that lately between WWE and TNA? In other happenings on Raw, Orton took on Cody Rhodes. Earlier in the night, there was definite dissention between the group. Orton was in control until Sheamus came out to distract Orton. Rhodes hit the crossrhodes for the win. Sheamus then attacked Orton after the match. Rhodes ran in with a chair to run off Sheamus. The opening segment had Sheamus confronting Raw guest host, Carl Edwards, wanting special treatment in the chamber match. Christian made his way out and talked of how the ECW roster would be free agents in a couple of weeks. Christian challenged Sheamus for a champion vs. champion tonight. The match took place with Sheamus winning it. Carl Edwards made matches for next week which will be the Chamber participants facing off with each other. It will be Orton vs. Sheamus, Kofi vs. Dibiase, and Triple H vs. Cena. Gail Kim defeated Jillian with Maryse doing commentary. After the match, Maryse came in the ring and hyped up Gail. She spoke some words in French too which was probably something bad. LOL. The two shook hands.
Other notes from Raw. Just pointing out that I called the tag team name “ShowMiz” weeks ago. LOL. I thought Edwards did a solid job tonight. I was waiting to see if we’d get his trademark backflip. Edwards is a WWE fan and a friend of Cena’s so I knew he’d be better than his Nascar counterparts of months ago. Funny moment with Hornswoggle getting out of the car when it drove into the building. I liked the Shawn stuff tonight. Really good. I like the whole storyline of Shawn just losing it cause he can’t get Undertaker at WrestleMania. His obsession is getting his focus off. Curious to see where they go from here with it. Jerry Springer will guest host Raw next week. Wow, they are going to do Cena vs. Triple H again on free TV? WWE really doesn’t mind giving away that match free for sure.
The first Hall Of Fame inductee for 2010 was announced tonight which was Ted Dibiase. They did a great video package of him. Seeing him kick the basketball away from that little kid sure did bring back memories. Remember all of those things that Dibiase used to do like that? Ahh, memories of watching wrestling on Saturday mornings.
This has been talked about for a while now but WWE is pulling the plug on ECW. Vince McMahon announced that ECW will end on February 23 and that there will be a new show in its place called WWE NXT. NXT will stand for next generation. Vince did a speech during the show thanking the crew and superstars for making ECW a success. No mention of the original ECW and some of them have responded about it. Taz said this on his Twitter account: "So, WWE ending their "vision" of ECW (thank god). ANY ORIG ECW wrestlers get a thanks? How about Paul Heyman did he get a thanks? Classy move!" Tommy Dreamer had this response: "Many people have asked me why I left WWE. If you watched ECW tonight, a piece of the puzzle was revealed for my actions. Stay tuned". Let's get back to what Vince said though. Thanks for making ECW a success. It was anything but a success. We all hoped that ECW would be an alternative. We got that sign at the first One Night Stand of how great it could be if allowed to be. That was a great show. Then, the word came out before the second One Night Stand that ECW was being relaunched. We definitely saw signs of what the new ECW was going to be and it wasn't going to be pretty. My last great memory of this new ECW is going to be the night of the last time that WWE put their "vision" of ECW in front of a traditional ECW audience at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The "change the channel" chant during the Batista/Big Show match remains one of my favorite crowd chants ever to this day. The revival of ECW could have been such a money maker for WWE. Instead it became just another WWE show that looked like all the other shows with the ECW letters unfortunately on it. I'm just glad that the letters ECW are now off of this show or I'll call it what I called it a couple of years ago, WWECW.
WrestleMania 27 will take place on April 3, 2011 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
I actually watched WWE Superstars for the first time last week since its return to see the video of Nashville. Nicely produced show. Solid matches and
Speaking of Nashville, I'm glad that WWE used that Cena/Batista footage from the post show last week. That was too big of an attack and steps spot to just not use. We all groaned in the building when Cena landed on those steps. It looked nasty. I did find the editing interesting making it look like Batista returned right after Cena helped Bret. In actuality, Cena wrestled Sheamus for several minutes before Batista returned for the attack.
During the State of TNA address recently, Eric Bischoff talked about Chris Jericho and how he didn't feel like Jericho was world champion material at the time. Well, Jericho fired back on his Twitter account saying "Bischoffs right I can't headline in TNA...cos I'm not in my 50s".
Hulk Hogan called into Rob Van Dam's radio show last week basically trying to recruit him into coming to TNA. The two talked for a little bit with Hogan saying that they would be going to Monday nights "sooner than later". RVD told Hogan that they needed to have a conversation off air. Well, that is interesting anyway.
The TNA Lockdown PPV on April 18 will be back on the road taking place at the Family Arena in St. Louis.
WWE Classics On Demand recently produced a show called 10 Count. It covered their list of the greatest WWE matches from the 2000's. Interesting list and I just thought it would be fun to go over it. Take some time to reflect on them. I'll start from number ten and work my way up the list.
10. Edge vs. John Cena - TLC Match - Unforgiven 2006. This is a very solid match. Edge and Cena have had one of the best feuds in recent years. Fun crowd reaction to this one and the Canadian crowd was definitely on the side of Edge.
9. Randy Orton vs. Mick Foley – Backlash 2004. This was the night that Mick Foley talks about with how hard that he was working to make Randy Orton's character. Get him to that next level. He definitely did that. This match also had one of the crazier thumb tack spots in it that I can remember. Orton taking the tacks full out. No shirt or anything to soften it. Orton full out lands right on the tacks and I about fell off of my seat when it happened.
8. Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels – Vengeance 2005. Shawn vs. Angle in 2005 was a great series of matches to watch. You put two performers in the ring with each other with the capability of these two and magic will happen. Most people talk about their WrestleMania 21 match from earlier in the year so it was interesting to see this match make it over the other one.
7. Steve Austin vs. Triple H – 2 out of 3 Falls – No Way Out 2001. Fun match. This was the culmination of the whole build of their feud when the storyline was that Triple H had been the one that took out Austin with the car. Great two out of three falls match with each fall being a different kind of match. I still remember the stunned reaction when Triple H won this one.
6. Brock Lesnar vs. Eddie Guerrero – No Way Out 2004. This is probably the best match of Lesnar's wrestling career. Well, you have to throw Lesnar's matches with Angle in there as well obviously. This was the night that Eddie Guerrero catapulted to the top of the wrestling world by winning the WWE title. The crowd went nuts and the celebration with Eddie in the crowd afterwards will never be forgotten. Eddie deserved that moment and he got it.
5. Triple H vs. Cactus Jack – Cell Match – No Way Out 2000. Great series of matches between these two in that early part of 2000. I would have picked the Rumble 2000 match over this one easily from Madison Square Garden but this was a good one too. This ended Foley's career for about a month until he came back for WrestleMania 2000. Big spot in this match that everyone remembers is the backdrop to Foley sending him through the cell to the ring below. That was the play off of the big spot from King Of The Ring.
4. The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan – Wrestlemania 18. Great, great, great match. This match blew away everyone's expectations. This is still one of my favorite matches of all time. The crowd reaction in Toronto was amazing. Hogan goes in there as the heel and 60,000 plus are chanting Hogan. I'll never forget the tie up and then Hogan shoves him off. The crowd just jumps up and roars to life. They booed everything that Rock did. He would land a punch and they'd boo. Hogan would land a back suplex and the roof would go off. This was the night that Hulkamania was reborn and it was a night that all of us Hulkamaniacs got that remembrance of seeing our childhood hero go to battle. The crowd reaction took this match to a whole different level.
3. Hardys vs. Dudley Boyz vs. Edge & Christian – the first TLC match- Summerslam 2000. Great match here. I still think TLC 2 was the better one of their two TLC matches but this was a great one and launched the TLC series of matches that we still see today. All three teams worked hard in this match and put their bodies on the line. Back on the year in review show in 2000, they did a recap of this match interviewing everyone involved. The Dudleys talk about how Devon was up there hanging by the belt and how he is scared of heights. It was funny to hear Devon talk about it. He and Hardy hang from the belt kicking at each other and then Devon just crashes hard on the mat. Unbelievable.
2. Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker – Wrestlemania 25. My first reaction to seeing this at number two was ......what could possibly be number one??? LOL. This would be my number one match of the decade. Incredible match. I've said this many times that I don't throw the "greatest" this or that around hardly at all. This match was one of the best matches that I have ever seen. The chemistry that these two guys had in the ring was incredible. The crowd was just eating out of the palm of their hands. We had so many false finishes. Every time I'd think that has to be the finish, someone would kick out. The psychology of this match was so simple and great. Shawn would just kick and flail around whenever he realized that he was either caught or about to be caught in the tombstone putting over to the fans the seriousness of how he had to get out of that hold. I just kept hoping that there were guys in the back watching this match and taking notes. These two stole the show and it was a bad deal for the two title matches having to try and follow this one. I just don't know if having them rematch at WrestleMania XXVI would be a good thing or not cause how do you possibly top this one? You also have to factor in that Taker is hurting pretty bad right now physically from all the stories I've heard.
1. The Rock vs. Steve Austin – Wrestlemania 17. Oh, the night that they tried to turn Austin heel in Texas. This was a bad idea. Great match. Bad finish. Austin aligns with Vince and destroys The Rock with a chair. Austin pins him and the fans still go nuts. You can't turn Austin heel in Texas. It isn't going to work and didn't. Actually, his whole heel turn really didn't work. Fans still cheered him. There were a lot of things that WWF did wrong in 2001 and this was one of them. I do think that WrestleMania 17 was the best PPV of the decade though.
The TNA Against All Odds PPV is this Sunday on PPV. I haven’t seen Impact from last week but have heard good things about it. Here is the lineup for the PPV this Sunday. AJ Styles defends the TNA title against Samoa Joe. The 8 Card Stud Tournament takes place to determine the top contender for the TNA title which includes Kurt Angle, Desmond Wolfe, Hernandez, and Ken Anderson. Team 3D takes on The Nasty Boys. I’m sure more will be announced on Thursday’s Impact.
Have a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
WWE Raw In Nashville Live Report
Welcome to the "after 13 years of attending events and seeing Bret Hart at my first one in Nashville and booing him, here I am cheering him in the same building live in 2010" edition of The Wrestling List. I attended WWE Raw Monday night at the Sommet Center in Nashville, TN. They announced on TV that the event was sold out. If it wasn't, it sure was close because it looked full all the way up in the upper level of the building. Fun atmosphere at the show. Lighting looked incredible as always and the sound was awesome. That ending of the show was great to watch live. It was just bizarre to see Bret Hart and Vince McMahon in a WWE ring right there in front of me in 2010!! Unbelievable. Here is the recap and I'll cover all the details of the show and include any live notes to throw in there. Then, I'll give my overall thoughts on it.
The show got underway as usual with the WrestleMania music video. The recap of WrestleMania 25 was shown to get the crowd pumped up. Right after that, we go into the Superstars taping. The Superstars opening and pyro starts up and we go into our first match of the evening. Kelly Kelly and Eve taking on Alicia Fox and Katie Lea. Alicia and Katie get the victory. Solid match. Crowd was into it. Next match was Evan Bourne taking on Carlito with Bourne getting the win following the air bourne. The matches finished up around 7:45 or so. The tease went on the air at around 7:53 or so with us going live on TV for 30 seconds to tease Raw getting ready to go on the air. The lights then went down and they played the Tribute To The Troops recap music video set to Bon Jovi's Superman which was awesome to see live. I love that they always air this video at TV tapings. Great to show what WWE does for the troops and great to hear the great reaction of "USA" chants for the troops when it concludes.
8:00 gets near and we go on the air live. Opening graphic was the tribute to Jack Brisco who passed away earlier in the day. Nice tribute applause in the building for it. The open comes up and we're into Raw. I'm ready for pyro and no pyro. LOL. I thought it was bizarre that they went right from the Raw open into the Bret/Vince graphic. The pyro was coming though as Edge was introduced to open the show. Edge makes his way to the ring to a mixed reaction. I was of course loving it. Edge talked about how Jericho's trashing of him as a partner at the Slammys was one thing that motivated him to get back sooner. He also got a jab in at Dennis Miller during the promo about how unfunny that he was. While watching Raw back on TV, I completely missed his Jericho and TMZ comment. Wow. I did not catch that live. He talked of how he could face The Undertaker who had never lost at WrestleMania or face a champion that has never competed at a WrestleMania. Edge went on to say that the smarter thing to do would be to wait three weeks to see the outcome of the Elimination Chamber PPV. So, that was what he was going to do. Sheamus then arrived and talked trash back at Edge while Edge said that while he had been gone that Raw had been taken over by an evil Ronald McDonald which was funny. Lots of good back and forth between the two. Then, Sheamus punches Edge and the fight is on. Edge avoids the kick and tackles Sheamus to the mat with punches. Edge sets up in the corner and nails him with a spear leaving Sheamus laying in the ring to which I'm fist pumping in the crowd at. LOL. During the commercial, they air the “welcome to the world” WrestleMania 25 music video from last year. In the building, we did not know about the Elimination Chamber qualifying matches until Justin Roberts announced it just before the first one. The first one is John Cena taking on Cody Rhodes. Huge ovation for Cena!! His music hit and the place just went nuts. This match was more competitive than I expected it to be based on how Legacy has been booked lately, especially Rhodes. Rhodes surprised me with that moonsault on to Cena as I haven't seen him use that much or at all. Cena wins with the attitude adjustment. Place goes crazy. The usual. Cena moves on into the Elimination Chamber match. WWE then aired a video package of Montreal from Survivor Series. Kind of bizarre watching this segment at a WWE event all these years later. Then, it is backstage to Vince McMahon running into William Shatner in his office. Shatner tells Vince that he can't wait for Bret to embarrass him later in the show. During this commercial break, it’s time for the fans to hold up their signs to get up on the big screen. This is a normal deal that they do with every televised event while playing the song “signs” in the background. Next is another Chamber qualifying match with Triple H taking on Jack Swagger. Fun to see the Triple H entrance to his "game" music. I was hoping for a DX entrance but seeing the classic Triple H entrance was great and really adrenaline pumping. It just looks incredible with the lighting and the big screen. Big reaction to him in the building as well. I wasn't sure how this match would go cause they book Swagger back and forth so much. He'll be competitive one week against big stars and then get humiliated for weeks by Santino later on. Competitive and fun match. Swagger looks up at the WrestleMania sign as he picks up Triple H. Triple H counters out and hits the pedigree for the win to advance to the Chamber. Lots of Triple H posing after the match which was fun. At this point, I'm thinking that it has to already be 9:00. We were not even 45 minutes in??!! Wow, lots of action on this show in such a quick amount of time. Next was a very funny segment. It was a produced segment of William Shatner speaking the lyrics of WWE entrance theme songs. This was hilarious!!!! Perfect to have him start with Shawn's. He went on to do the themes of Cena, Rey Mysterio, and Triple H. His voice was perfect for this!! So funny. This was great stuff and there were a lot of laughs in the arena. Backstage to DX. Hornswoggle runs in at first telling Triple H of Shatner messing with Triple H's music. Triple H tells him to go bite Shatner or something similar. Triple H tries to joke with Shawn about the Rumble about Shawn eliminating him. Triple H acted annoyed and then said that he would have done it too if he had gotten the chance to do it first. That was funny. Shawn is still focused on not getting The Undertaker. Triple H tries to get him focused on his qualifying match saying that they'll both dominate the Chamber. Then, one of them wins the Rumble and Triple H says he has no problem with the two of them tearing the house down at WrestleMania for the title. Shawn thanks him for the talk and walks off for his match. Randy Orton makes his way to the ring. I actually didn't think that they showed any of his entrance based on how many backstage segments were shown in a row. Orton did his long entrance which I like. Love his theme song and love the glaring entrance. They do go to commercial and when we come back, they show the recap of the Rumble happenings with Legacy. It was fun to just watch Orton's reaction. He just stood in the ring and watched the screen expressionless. Music comes back on in the arena and he is introduced. Shawn Michaels makes his entrance and faces off with Orton. Lots of fans behind Orton in this match. It seemed like overall that the actual chanting was more for Orton than there were HBK chants. They're going to probably end up turning Orton cause he is getting more and more popular. Solid match with them countering finishers at the end. Shawn then nails the forearm and kips up. Out of the kip up, Orton rolls up Shawn for the pin. Shawn sits in the ring frustrated. He gets up and starts screaming while throwing his wrist pads. Another Montreal segment airs which covers Vince's interview on Raw back in 1997 discussing the incident. The music video to WrestleMania 25 of Kid Rock’s “So Hot” is played showing the divas. Back from commercial and the first WrestleMania countdown music video then aired as we were at 55 days till WrestleMania XXVI as of Monday night. Really well produced. After that, it's the normal Nashville camera shot where they send a cameraman across the street to Tootsie's showing a band performing and walking out to show the arena. Cool shot. Backstage, we see Dibiase apologizing to Orton about the Rumble. Orton just gives him a nasty stare and walks off as Dibiase then looks annoyed as well. Another Chamber qualifying match up next with Mark Henry taking on Ted Dibiase. Wow, this one wasn't booked at all like I expected. Henry's arm was worked on throughout. Dibiase's dream street was countered. Henry charged at Dibiase in the corner but Dibiase moved and Henry's arm caught the corner. Dibiase then dropped Henry on his arm and got the win. I was stunned watching it and the building was as well. Dibiase is in the Chamber. WWE aired a really classy tribute video to Jack Brisco. Really well done and the crowd watched quietly and respectfully in the building. Nice applause at the end of it. Backstage segment with Maryse talking to Gail Kim and Kelly Kelly. Basically, she was buttering up Gail about them having a great women's match. She said something in French and walked off which was probably something bad. LOL. Kelly and Gail talk about how odd that it was. Next segment was Miz and Big Show in Shatner's office. CM Punk and his gang walk in and want the same thing as ShowMiz. Tag team title shot. Enter Shatner as "Raw match negotiator". He listens to both sides and makes a deal. He makes a match with DX taking on Punk/Gallows and ShowMiz for next week's Raw. There was a groan in the live crowd when he said next week. His "freeze frame" was pretty funny at the end. Back to DX, Triple H is trying to encourage Shawn saying that he needs to move on and is spiraling down. Triple H says there are other opponents that he could take on but Shawn says there is no one else for him. Last Chamber qualifying match with Kofi Kingston taking on Big Show. The Miz arrived at the beginning of the match and did commentary on it. There was an awesome spot in the match that happened during the commercial and I'm glad they showed the replay when they came back. I'm talking about the spear that Show put on Kofi. It looked NASTY live. Oh my goodness. I'm talking the whole building groaned and were buzzing about it afterwards. Miz was about to interfere at one point. MVP ran out through the crowd. He ran down to the left of me. I didn't even see him until he was over the rail. MVP runs off Miz. The finish of the match had Kofi poking Big Show in the eye. Show is blinded and swings. The knockout punch catches the referee. Referee, Scott Armstrong, makes his way down and calls for the DQ. Show goes nuts saying that he didn't mean to and was blinded. Show throws a fit at ringside hitting the steps and all. The ref is stretchered out of there. So, the DQ costs Show a shot in the Chamber. Kofi is in. Qualifying for the Elimination Chamber match is John Cena, Triple H, Kofi Kingston, Ted Dibiase, and Randy Orton who will be joined by defending champion, Sheamus. The last Bret/Vince segment is shown with the happenings of their meeting last month on Raw. Jerry Lawler made his way into the ring during the commercial break and I was wondering if he was going to be the mediator between Bret and Vince or something. He introduced William Shatner who was accompanied by the Bellas who are always with the guest hosts. Shatner does a funny trip into the ring falling into Lawler which was funny. Shatner then introduces Bret Hart. Music starts and the place goes crazy. However, the level of the noise went up when he actually walked out into the building. Really cool to see his classic pyro going off as he got near the ring as far as the white popping pyro. Bret walks in and gets a big reaction!! He speaks about coming to make peace there after twelve years and that everyone warned him about coming back. He calls out Vince. Vince walks out with a really arrogant strut which should have been clue number one on that there was something in the works here. The power walk is so ridiculous and funny. Bret tells Vince that he is the best liar that there ever was. He talked of his stroke years ago and how pathetic that he felt sitting in the wheel chair. Bret said that he promised himself that he would never feel that way again but yet here he was again a month ago feeling pathetic after what Vince did to him. He talked of how much he had done for Vince with working sick and how Vince never appreciated anything. Good line of him saying that it took him 12 years to build a reputation and then it took 3 minutes to tear it all down. The used up chewing gum line was brought up of Vince's saying that he still had enough in him to take Vince out. Vince fired back talking about Bret’s nicknames and how Bret isn’t a hero to anyone. Vince called him pathetic and said he didn’t understand why the fans liked him. He said that Bret didn’t have any personality and how if his opponents like Austin, Hennig, and others didn’t have those big personalities that he would have been a footnote in history. Vince then mocks Bret’s appearance and adds that Bret deserved to be screwed. Then, the talk turned to Stu and the Hall Of Fame. Vince said that it wouldn’t happen because Stu doesn’t deserve it. Bret then punches Vince and hammers on him. Bret teases going for the sharpshooter and the crowd is going crazy. Batista then runs in and pulls Bret’s jacket over his head. Batista starts throwing some really soft punches. I was watching close thinking easy on the punches and he was. Batista holds Bret and Vince then mocks him. He follows with a spit to the face which was a payback of Montreal. Then, the show goes off the air as we’re all chanting for Cena. The post show had Cena running out and helping Bret. Cena looked stunned over the happenings. He helped Bret to his feet and then embraced him. A handshake and Bret left with his music playing with Cena hyping up the crowd to pay tribute as he left the ring. Cool moment. Then, we go right into the dark match. WWE championship on the line. Cena is introduced and then Sheamus makes his way out to the ring. Solid match and it was funny to see another match of theirs live after just 10 days of the last one in Cape. The finish had Batista getting involved. He destroyed Cena all over ringside throwing him over the table. Batista then grabbed the steps and put them in the ring. Batista hits the Batista bomb on Cena on the steps and it looked NASTY!! I was thinking how brutal this was just for us to see in the arena and it not being on TV. High risk spot for 15,000 people in the building to see. LOL. Batista stands over a hurt Cena and then walks out. Sheamus returns. I had forgotten all about him. LOL. He starts mocking Cena and stands over him with the belt in the air. After a few minutes of this, Cena jumps up and hits the attitude adjustment to send the crowd home happy. Cena poses for the fans and walks out. That was the end of the show.
My thoughts overall on the show. I really enjoyed it. We got top name superstars and a lot of solid in ring action with the chamber qualifying matches. The Bret Hart/Vince McMahon segment was a lot of fun. Lots of crowd heat on it. I really had to just reflect on seeing my first live event in that building back in 1997 and the fact that I was booing Bret. Now, here we are thirteen years later in the same building and I'm cheering big time for Bret. Bret cursing on the show was interesting in this PG world of WWE but this is a heated angle to get over to the crowd. Batista was really pulling his punches on Bret which I was glad to see. If you watch, Batista is being really careful with those punches and pulling the jacket over Bret's head was a nice touch as well covering up those punches. Bret doesn't need to be taking any kind of accidental shots to the head so I was happy to see Batista protecting him with those. I did assume that the Cena save was on TV especially with how quickly that it happened. They must have went off the air and had him sent right out immediately. I guess WWE wants to save that for next week where Cena is going to be the guy to step in against Batista for Bret. I would assume that we're building to a Cena vs. Batista match at WrestleMania with Bret and Vince in opposite corners. Somehow, Bret and Vince will be involved in that one. It was interesting to hear the crowd reactions. The mixed reaction to Cena has stopped. The crowd is mostly with him now at the live events I've been to and he's gotten mixed reactions before. He got a big ovation Monday night when he made his way out. Interesting that the crowd was louder for Randy Orton than they were for Shawn Michaels. I think it is a combination of Orton is drawing more and more cheers and that Shawn is teasing a kind of middle ground between face and heel. I was stunned to see Ted Dibiase defeat Mark Henry especially cleanly. I'm not sure what that says about either. WWE has been booking Dibiase and Rhodes to get beat up all the time and a lot of times by one guy. Henry was a monster on ECW and now loses to Dibiase. Which side does that weigh more on? Did WWE help Dibiase more or hurt Henry more with that booking? William Shatner was funny!! He really was. His backstage stuff was funny. I thought him reading the lyrics to the theme songs was hilarious. It drew a lot of laughs in the building. I really was thinking at 9:45 that we weren't going to be seeing him live in the building. It is interesting to watch the show later to see what you guys were seeing as opposed to us in the building. For instance, they put the graphic for the Orton vs. Shawn match on TV as coming up but we didn't see that. The first mention that we knew of the match happening was when Shawn and Triple H were talking about it backstage. The Show/Kofi match was fun. For one, that nasty spear that I mentioned already. The other was the KO punch of the ref. My thinking is that if that KO punch knocks out wrestlers. That should end a ref's career. LOL.
Other notes from the show. Like I said earlier, that show did appear to be a legit sellout. If it wasn't, it was really close. Merchandise was a hot seller. They were selling out of just about everything and this was at multiple merchandise stands around the building. I know because I didn't get to buy the shirt that I was going to buy. They were also selling autographed photos of John Cena for $20 just like they were in Cape. I'm curious to know how many that they had because that is very reasonably priced. I did look and saw a big stack of them.
Overall, really fun show. Great fun and one of the better Raw shows in a while. I’m assuming it will be late summer before another show appears around here. Hope you enjoyed the live report!! Take care and God bless!!
The show got underway as usual with the WrestleMania music video. The recap of WrestleMania 25 was shown to get the crowd pumped up. Right after that, we go into the Superstars taping. The Superstars opening and pyro starts up and we go into our first match of the evening. Kelly Kelly and Eve taking on Alicia Fox and Katie Lea. Alicia and Katie get the victory. Solid match. Crowd was into it. Next match was Evan Bourne taking on Carlito with Bourne getting the win following the air bourne. The matches finished up around 7:45 or so. The tease went on the air at around 7:53 or so with us going live on TV for 30 seconds to tease Raw getting ready to go on the air. The lights then went down and they played the Tribute To The Troops recap music video set to Bon Jovi's Superman which was awesome to see live. I love that they always air this video at TV tapings. Great to show what WWE does for the troops and great to hear the great reaction of "USA" chants for the troops when it concludes.
8:00 gets near and we go on the air live. Opening graphic was the tribute to Jack Brisco who passed away earlier in the day. Nice tribute applause in the building for it. The open comes up and we're into Raw. I'm ready for pyro and no pyro. LOL. I thought it was bizarre that they went right from the Raw open into the Bret/Vince graphic. The pyro was coming though as Edge was introduced to open the show. Edge makes his way to the ring to a mixed reaction. I was of course loving it. Edge talked about how Jericho's trashing of him as a partner at the Slammys was one thing that motivated him to get back sooner. He also got a jab in at Dennis Miller during the promo about how unfunny that he was. While watching Raw back on TV, I completely missed his Jericho and TMZ comment. Wow. I did not catch that live. He talked of how he could face The Undertaker who had never lost at WrestleMania or face a champion that has never competed at a WrestleMania. Edge went on to say that the smarter thing to do would be to wait three weeks to see the outcome of the Elimination Chamber PPV. So, that was what he was going to do. Sheamus then arrived and talked trash back at Edge while Edge said that while he had been gone that Raw had been taken over by an evil Ronald McDonald which was funny. Lots of good back and forth between the two. Then, Sheamus punches Edge and the fight is on. Edge avoids the kick and tackles Sheamus to the mat with punches. Edge sets up in the corner and nails him with a spear leaving Sheamus laying in the ring to which I'm fist pumping in the crowd at. LOL. During the commercial, they air the “welcome to the world” WrestleMania 25 music video from last year. In the building, we did not know about the Elimination Chamber qualifying matches until Justin Roberts announced it just before the first one. The first one is John Cena taking on Cody Rhodes. Huge ovation for Cena!! His music hit and the place just went nuts. This match was more competitive than I expected it to be based on how Legacy has been booked lately, especially Rhodes. Rhodes surprised me with that moonsault on to Cena as I haven't seen him use that much or at all. Cena wins with the attitude adjustment. Place goes crazy. The usual. Cena moves on into the Elimination Chamber match. WWE then aired a video package of Montreal from Survivor Series. Kind of bizarre watching this segment at a WWE event all these years later. Then, it is backstage to Vince McMahon running into William Shatner in his office. Shatner tells Vince that he can't wait for Bret to embarrass him later in the show. During this commercial break, it’s time for the fans to hold up their signs to get up on the big screen. This is a normal deal that they do with every televised event while playing the song “signs” in the background. Next is another Chamber qualifying match with Triple H taking on Jack Swagger. Fun to see the Triple H entrance to his "game" music. I was hoping for a DX entrance but seeing the classic Triple H entrance was great and really adrenaline pumping. It just looks incredible with the lighting and the big screen. Big reaction to him in the building as well. I wasn't sure how this match would go cause they book Swagger back and forth so much. He'll be competitive one week against big stars and then get humiliated for weeks by Santino later on. Competitive and fun match. Swagger looks up at the WrestleMania sign as he picks up Triple H. Triple H counters out and hits the pedigree for the win to advance to the Chamber. Lots of Triple H posing after the match which was fun. At this point, I'm thinking that it has to already be 9:00. We were not even 45 minutes in??!! Wow, lots of action on this show in such a quick amount of time. Next was a very funny segment. It was a produced segment of William Shatner speaking the lyrics of WWE entrance theme songs. This was hilarious!!!! Perfect to have him start with Shawn's. He went on to do the themes of Cena, Rey Mysterio, and Triple H. His voice was perfect for this!! So funny. This was great stuff and there were a lot of laughs in the arena. Backstage to DX. Hornswoggle runs in at first telling Triple H of Shatner messing with Triple H's music. Triple H tells him to go bite Shatner or something similar. Triple H tries to joke with Shawn about the Rumble about Shawn eliminating him. Triple H acted annoyed and then said that he would have done it too if he had gotten the chance to do it first. That was funny. Shawn is still focused on not getting The Undertaker. Triple H tries to get him focused on his qualifying match saying that they'll both dominate the Chamber. Then, one of them wins the Rumble and Triple H says he has no problem with the two of them tearing the house down at WrestleMania for the title. Shawn thanks him for the talk and walks off for his match. Randy Orton makes his way to the ring. I actually didn't think that they showed any of his entrance based on how many backstage segments were shown in a row. Orton did his long entrance which I like. Love his theme song and love the glaring entrance. They do go to commercial and when we come back, they show the recap of the Rumble happenings with Legacy. It was fun to just watch Orton's reaction. He just stood in the ring and watched the screen expressionless. Music comes back on in the arena and he is introduced. Shawn Michaels makes his entrance and faces off with Orton. Lots of fans behind Orton in this match. It seemed like overall that the actual chanting was more for Orton than there were HBK chants. They're going to probably end up turning Orton cause he is getting more and more popular. Solid match with them countering finishers at the end. Shawn then nails the forearm and kips up. Out of the kip up, Orton rolls up Shawn for the pin. Shawn sits in the ring frustrated. He gets up and starts screaming while throwing his wrist pads. Another Montreal segment airs which covers Vince's interview on Raw back in 1997 discussing the incident. The music video to WrestleMania 25 of Kid Rock’s “So Hot” is played showing the divas. Back from commercial and the first WrestleMania countdown music video then aired as we were at 55 days till WrestleMania XXVI as of Monday night. Really well produced. After that, it's the normal Nashville camera shot where they send a cameraman across the street to Tootsie's showing a band performing and walking out to show the arena. Cool shot. Backstage, we see Dibiase apologizing to Orton about the Rumble. Orton just gives him a nasty stare and walks off as Dibiase then looks annoyed as well. Another Chamber qualifying match up next with Mark Henry taking on Ted Dibiase. Wow, this one wasn't booked at all like I expected. Henry's arm was worked on throughout. Dibiase's dream street was countered. Henry charged at Dibiase in the corner but Dibiase moved and Henry's arm caught the corner. Dibiase then dropped Henry on his arm and got the win. I was stunned watching it and the building was as well. Dibiase is in the Chamber. WWE aired a really classy tribute video to Jack Brisco. Really well done and the crowd watched quietly and respectfully in the building. Nice applause at the end of it. Backstage segment with Maryse talking to Gail Kim and Kelly Kelly. Basically, she was buttering up Gail about them having a great women's match. She said something in French and walked off which was probably something bad. LOL. Kelly and Gail talk about how odd that it was. Next segment was Miz and Big Show in Shatner's office. CM Punk and his gang walk in and want the same thing as ShowMiz. Tag team title shot. Enter Shatner as "Raw match negotiator". He listens to both sides and makes a deal. He makes a match with DX taking on Punk/Gallows and ShowMiz for next week's Raw. There was a groan in the live crowd when he said next week. His "freeze frame" was pretty funny at the end. Back to DX, Triple H is trying to encourage Shawn saying that he needs to move on and is spiraling down. Triple H says there are other opponents that he could take on but Shawn says there is no one else for him. Last Chamber qualifying match with Kofi Kingston taking on Big Show. The Miz arrived at the beginning of the match and did commentary on it. There was an awesome spot in the match that happened during the commercial and I'm glad they showed the replay when they came back. I'm talking about the spear that Show put on Kofi. It looked NASTY live. Oh my goodness. I'm talking the whole building groaned and were buzzing about it afterwards. Miz was about to interfere at one point. MVP ran out through the crowd. He ran down to the left of me. I didn't even see him until he was over the rail. MVP runs off Miz. The finish of the match had Kofi poking Big Show in the eye. Show is blinded and swings. The knockout punch catches the referee. Referee, Scott Armstrong, makes his way down and calls for the DQ. Show goes nuts saying that he didn't mean to and was blinded. Show throws a fit at ringside hitting the steps and all. The ref is stretchered out of there. So, the DQ costs Show a shot in the Chamber. Kofi is in. Qualifying for the Elimination Chamber match is John Cena, Triple H, Kofi Kingston, Ted Dibiase, and Randy Orton who will be joined by defending champion, Sheamus. The last Bret/Vince segment is shown with the happenings of their meeting last month on Raw. Jerry Lawler made his way into the ring during the commercial break and I was wondering if he was going to be the mediator between Bret and Vince or something. He introduced William Shatner who was accompanied by the Bellas who are always with the guest hosts. Shatner does a funny trip into the ring falling into Lawler which was funny. Shatner then introduces Bret Hart. Music starts and the place goes crazy. However, the level of the noise went up when he actually walked out into the building. Really cool to see his classic pyro going off as he got near the ring as far as the white popping pyro. Bret walks in and gets a big reaction!! He speaks about coming to make peace there after twelve years and that everyone warned him about coming back. He calls out Vince. Vince walks out with a really arrogant strut which should have been clue number one on that there was something in the works here. The power walk is so ridiculous and funny. Bret tells Vince that he is the best liar that there ever was. He talked of his stroke years ago and how pathetic that he felt sitting in the wheel chair. Bret said that he promised himself that he would never feel that way again but yet here he was again a month ago feeling pathetic after what Vince did to him. He talked of how much he had done for Vince with working sick and how Vince never appreciated anything. Good line of him saying that it took him 12 years to build a reputation and then it took 3 minutes to tear it all down. The used up chewing gum line was brought up of Vince's saying that he still had enough in him to take Vince out. Vince fired back talking about Bret’s nicknames and how Bret isn’t a hero to anyone. Vince called him pathetic and said he didn’t understand why the fans liked him. He said that Bret didn’t have any personality and how if his opponents like Austin, Hennig, and others didn’t have those big personalities that he would have been a footnote in history. Vince then mocks Bret’s appearance and adds that Bret deserved to be screwed. Then, the talk turned to Stu and the Hall Of Fame. Vince said that it wouldn’t happen because Stu doesn’t deserve it. Bret then punches Vince and hammers on him. Bret teases going for the sharpshooter and the crowd is going crazy. Batista then runs in and pulls Bret’s jacket over his head. Batista starts throwing some really soft punches. I was watching close thinking easy on the punches and he was. Batista holds Bret and Vince then mocks him. He follows with a spit to the face which was a payback of Montreal. Then, the show goes off the air as we’re all chanting for Cena. The post show had Cena running out and helping Bret. Cena looked stunned over the happenings. He helped Bret to his feet and then embraced him. A handshake and Bret left with his music playing with Cena hyping up the crowd to pay tribute as he left the ring. Cool moment. Then, we go right into the dark match. WWE championship on the line. Cena is introduced and then Sheamus makes his way out to the ring. Solid match and it was funny to see another match of theirs live after just 10 days of the last one in Cape. The finish had Batista getting involved. He destroyed Cena all over ringside throwing him over the table. Batista then grabbed the steps and put them in the ring. Batista hits the Batista bomb on Cena on the steps and it looked NASTY!! I was thinking how brutal this was just for us to see in the arena and it not being on TV. High risk spot for 15,000 people in the building to see. LOL. Batista stands over a hurt Cena and then walks out. Sheamus returns. I had forgotten all about him. LOL. He starts mocking Cena and stands over him with the belt in the air. After a few minutes of this, Cena jumps up and hits the attitude adjustment to send the crowd home happy. Cena poses for the fans and walks out. That was the end of the show.
My thoughts overall on the show. I really enjoyed it. We got top name superstars and a lot of solid in ring action with the chamber qualifying matches. The Bret Hart/Vince McMahon segment was a lot of fun. Lots of crowd heat on it. I really had to just reflect on seeing my first live event in that building back in 1997 and the fact that I was booing Bret. Now, here we are thirteen years later in the same building and I'm cheering big time for Bret. Bret cursing on the show was interesting in this PG world of WWE but this is a heated angle to get over to the crowd. Batista was really pulling his punches on Bret which I was glad to see. If you watch, Batista is being really careful with those punches and pulling the jacket over Bret's head was a nice touch as well covering up those punches. Bret doesn't need to be taking any kind of accidental shots to the head so I was happy to see Batista protecting him with those. I did assume that the Cena save was on TV especially with how quickly that it happened. They must have went off the air and had him sent right out immediately. I guess WWE wants to save that for next week where Cena is going to be the guy to step in against Batista for Bret. I would assume that we're building to a Cena vs. Batista match at WrestleMania with Bret and Vince in opposite corners. Somehow, Bret and Vince will be involved in that one. It was interesting to hear the crowd reactions. The mixed reaction to Cena has stopped. The crowd is mostly with him now at the live events I've been to and he's gotten mixed reactions before. He got a big ovation Monday night when he made his way out. Interesting that the crowd was louder for Randy Orton than they were for Shawn Michaels. I think it is a combination of Orton is drawing more and more cheers and that Shawn is teasing a kind of middle ground between face and heel. I was stunned to see Ted Dibiase defeat Mark Henry especially cleanly. I'm not sure what that says about either. WWE has been booking Dibiase and Rhodes to get beat up all the time and a lot of times by one guy. Henry was a monster on ECW and now loses to Dibiase. Which side does that weigh more on? Did WWE help Dibiase more or hurt Henry more with that booking? William Shatner was funny!! He really was. His backstage stuff was funny. I thought him reading the lyrics to the theme songs was hilarious. It drew a lot of laughs in the building. I really was thinking at 9:45 that we weren't going to be seeing him live in the building. It is interesting to watch the show later to see what you guys were seeing as opposed to us in the building. For instance, they put the graphic for the Orton vs. Shawn match on TV as coming up but we didn't see that. The first mention that we knew of the match happening was when Shawn and Triple H were talking about it backstage. The Show/Kofi match was fun. For one, that nasty spear that I mentioned already. The other was the KO punch of the ref. My thinking is that if that KO punch knocks out wrestlers. That should end a ref's career. LOL.
Other notes from the show. Like I said earlier, that show did appear to be a legit sellout. If it wasn't, it was really close. Merchandise was a hot seller. They were selling out of just about everything and this was at multiple merchandise stands around the building. I know because I didn't get to buy the shirt that I was going to buy. They were also selling autographed photos of John Cena for $20 just like they were in Cape. I'm curious to know how many that they had because that is very reasonably priced. I did look and saw a big stack of them.
Overall, really fun show. Great fun and one of the better Raw shows in a while. I’m assuming it will be late summer before another show appears around here. Hope you enjoyed the live report!! Take care and God bless!!
Royal Rumble Results, TNA Impact, & More - January 31, 2010
Sunday night was the WWE Royal Rumble from Atlanta, GA. The show opened with the ECW title match with Christian defeating Ezekiel Jackson to retain the title after winning with the killswitch. The Miz retained the US title by defeating MVP following a small package for the pinfall. They had been teasing dissention between Legacy prior to the WWE title match. Dibiase and Rhodes both told Orton that the other was talking about winning the Rumble and challenging Orton for the title. So, the WWE title match takes place with Sheamus defending the belt against Orton. The finish had Cody Rhodes getting involved in the match. Cody hit Sheamus on the floor. The ref went out and went after Cody. As Sheamus got back in the ring, Orton nailed a RKO. As he went for the cover, the ref rang the bell for the DQ. Orton was DQ’d for Cody’s interference. Cody got in the ring and apologized for what happened. Orton nailed Cody and then just hammered him into the mat yelling that he had screwed everything up. Dibiase ran in trying to step in but Orton nailed him too. He told them that they were both done while both continued to apologize. Sheamus then got back up and laid out Orton with a kick. Legacy left as did Sheamus while Orton was still down in the ring. Mickie James defeated Michelle McCool to win the Women’s championship. Very happy about this obviously!! The match opened with Michelle and Layla doing more jokes on Mickie. Mickie then ran to the ring and took out Layla. Layla was then up on the apron seconds later and Michelle charaged for a kick which caught Layla instead of Mickie. Mickie then hit the DDT for the win and the championship. After that, the divas then came out and put a cake into the faces of Layla and Michelle. The Undertaker defeated Rey Mysterio to retain the World title. The finish had Rey hitting two 619s and then Undertaker caught him with the springboard attempt. Undertaker hit the last ride for the win. That brings us to the Rumble match itself. I’ll cover the major happenings of the match itself. Miz and MVP continued their war into the Rumble. MVP was attacked by Miz as he was set to enter the match and MVP was ruled unable to compete. Later, Miz entered the Rumble and was attacked by MVP and MVP took him out of it. Shawn Michaels entered at number 18. He threw out both Rhodes and Dibiase. DX worked together for a bit and then Cena entered at 19. Here is where it got interesting. Cena took on DX and had Michaels up for elimination. Triple H saved Shawn and then hit a pedigree on Cena. Shawn then nailed a superkick on to Triple H sending him over the top. Triple H out of the Rumble before even number 20 had made his way in. Here comes your surprise at number 29. Edge is back!!! Oh yeah!! This Edgehead since 1998 was very happy. Edge and Jericho face off which goes back to the storyline of their breakup although Edge was of course really hurt. Amazing that he is back this quickly. The time table on his return has been all over the place for months now. Edge nailed spears all around and one of them was for Jericho. Edge eliminated him. Number 30 was Batista which left a final four of Shawn, Cena, Batista, and Edge. Edge and Shawn battled it out with both knocking the other on to the apron. Shawn superkicked Edge back into the ring and then Batista then knocked Shawn out of there. Shawn was furious afterwards and started throwing refs including a superkick to Robinson. Shawn ended up leaving finally. Batista was eliminated by Cena when Cena ducked a charging Batista and pulled down the rope eliminating him. That left a final two of Cena and Edge. Cena avoided the Edge spear and nailed a kick. As Cena ran at Edge, Edge moved and sent Cena over the top rope. Edge wins the 2010 Royal Rumble!! Wow!! Here are the order of the entrants:
1. Dolph Ziggler
2. Evan Bourne
3. CM Punk
4. JTG
5. Great Khali
6. Beth Phoenix
7. Zack Ryder
8. Triple H
9. Drew McIntyre
10. Ted Dibiase
11. John Morrison
12. Kane
13. Cody Rhodes
14. MVP
15. Carlito
16. The Miz
17. Matt Hardy
18. Shawn Michaels
19. John Cena
20. Shelton Benjamin
21. Yoshi Tatsu
22. Big Show
23. Mark Henry
24. Chris Masters
25. R Truth
26. Jack Swagger
27. Kofi Kingston
28. Chris Jericho
29. Edge
30. Batista
Well, last week’s TNA Impact was much more enjoyable than the previous week’s. Solid show. The main storyline of the show focused on Hogan getting to the bottom of what happened last week with Angle. Hogan called Earl Hebner into his office and got the truth out of him. Hebner said that Flair cut him a really good check to do what he did. Hogan was very upset and said that was unacceptable. Hebner was put on suspension. Kurt Angle did a promo in the ring talking about how disappointed that he was with AJ. He said that Flair was using him. Hogan went to talk to Angle about last week’s incident. They had already talked in the office earlier and Hogan said that he did what he said he was going to do and had gotten to the bottom of what the deal was last week. Hogan said that spitting in his face was unacceptable. Angle did apologize saying that it was the wrong thing to do but pointed out that as leader, Hogan is responsible for everything that goes on in the ring. Hogan also had already put him in the qualifying matches for the Against All Odds tournament. The two shook hands and put it behind them. Hogan walked out. Angle was then attacked by Hall and Waltman. They were later kicked out of the building again with Hall saying they’d be back next week. As for AJ, he and Flair were partying it up with the ladies. They kept talking about having 30 days off but Bischoff shut that down. He said that under this new regime that all talent should be ready 24/7. He also said that Flair’s contract was signed and delivered with nothing that they could do cause he signed with TNA before the regime change. I mentioned the tournament. There are qualifying matches underway now with the winners moving on to the 8 Card Stud Tournament at Against All Odds to crown a new number one contender for the TNA title. In the matches on this show, Desmond Wolfe defeated Sean Morley with the tower of London to win the match. Then, Hernandez defeated Daniels to get in it as well. Jeff Jarrett went to Bischoff and Hogan to work things out. He apologized for all the attorney talk and was ready to prove himself even if he had to start from the very bottom. Earlier, Ken Anderson had made a challenge to anyone for a match on the show. Bischoff had Jarrett be the guy. Jarrett assumed it would be at the PPV but Bischoff said it would be on Impact. Jarrett wasn’t happy about it saying that he had been out of the ring for seven months. So, Jarrett goes to the ring for the match. Bischoff had called for his music to not be played. Jarrett was playing to the fans on the way out so he appears to be a face in this thing. The finish had Jarrett going for his finisher but Anderson nailed a low kick with the ref not seeing it. Anderson made the pin and won the match. Afterwards, Anderson got on the mic and then continued the beating on Jarrett laying him out with the mic check. Mick Foley talked to Bischoff and Hogan. Foley said that he had nothing to do with the beating on Bischoff and said that if he had done it, Bischoff wouldn’t be walking. Foley later said that he wouldn’t work for Bischoff but Bischoff threatened him with Abyss and Borash of names that did want to work for him. So, the storyline is that Bischoff is threatening Foley with his friends getting fired. Speaking of being fired, Lashley was brought back in and Bischoff fired him. Security had to pull Lashley out of there. The Nasty Boys and Team 3D had a back and forth segment out in the Impact Zone. The Nastys arrived first but then Team 3D weren’t allowed in the ring by security. 3D talked of how much they had done in the last ten years while the Nastys had been on the sidelines. Knobs came back talking of all the legendary tag teams that they had beaten. Basically, security kept them apart and that was the segment. The Beautiful People took on the team of Kong, Hamada, and Tara. Hamada was set to get the win but Madison nailed her with the ugly stick while the ref’s back was turned. Madison then pinned Hamada. They continued the beating after the match and then Angelina Love ran in and took out The Beautiful People. The Motor City Machineguns teamed with Kendrick against Generation Me and Amazing Red. The Guns were set to get the win when Kendrick tagged himself in. Kendrick ran in and nailed a kick on Red to get the pinfall. Kendrick took the win away from the Guns and they were showing their unhappiness over it. The British Invasion then arrived with Big Rob carrying his X-Division title match briefcase. They attacked Red and then Rob was ready to cash it in. However, Brutus told Rob to give it to Doug Williams. Williams cashes it in and ends up winning the match to win the X-Division title. Williams and Brutus celebrated while Rob was not celebrating at all on the outside looking disgusted of giving up his title shot.
Vince Russo got a lot of people fired up last week when he blogged about doing a 1.3 rating with only having 16 minutes of wrestling on a 2 hour show. He bragged about it after a wrestling writer pointed out that there was only sixteen minutes of actual in ring wrestling on the last Impact. Russo said that he was proud of that with doing actual promos instead of having “fake wrestling on a fake wrestling show”. Yeah, this didn't go over with the talent who are out there getting hurt all the time. Just the latest time that Vince Russo has put his foot in his mouth. Well, Taz was someone that took offense to his comments posting this on his Twitter in reference to Russo: “I’ve seen many workers get bad injuries in our world. I’ve torn up limbs, calling my wife from ER’s all over the U.S. and a broken neck. I can’t throw a baseball with my son for more than a few mins due to bicep rip/shoulder surgeries,…numbness in right arm – all very REAL! I mentioned those injuries for a REASON…not a “fake” reason." Russo later apologized for his comments saying that he got upset over the criticism that he was reading online of his work while talking of the great respect that he had of the workers.
Taz posted on his Twitter account last week that he is going to be needing a knee replacement surgery in the future. He said that he may not do it now but will have to have it done in the next couple of years.
The preview for WWE Classics On Demand for February is “Global Warning”. No real preview as far as programming just yet. It’s getting frustrating trying to find out what is going to be airing.
1. Dolph Ziggler
2. Evan Bourne
3. CM Punk
4. JTG
5. Great Khali
6. Beth Phoenix
7. Zack Ryder
8. Triple H
9. Drew McIntyre
10. Ted Dibiase
11. John Morrison
12. Kane
13. Cody Rhodes
14. MVP
15. Carlito
16. The Miz
17. Matt Hardy
18. Shawn Michaels
19. John Cena
20. Shelton Benjamin
21. Yoshi Tatsu
22. Big Show
23. Mark Henry
24. Chris Masters
25. R Truth
26. Jack Swagger
27. Kofi Kingston
28. Chris Jericho
29. Edge
30. Batista
Well, last week’s TNA Impact was much more enjoyable than the previous week’s. Solid show. The main storyline of the show focused on Hogan getting to the bottom of what happened last week with Angle. Hogan called Earl Hebner into his office and got the truth out of him. Hebner said that Flair cut him a really good check to do what he did. Hogan was very upset and said that was unacceptable. Hebner was put on suspension. Kurt Angle did a promo in the ring talking about how disappointed that he was with AJ. He said that Flair was using him. Hogan went to talk to Angle about last week’s incident. They had already talked in the office earlier and Hogan said that he did what he said he was going to do and had gotten to the bottom of what the deal was last week. Hogan said that spitting in his face was unacceptable. Angle did apologize saying that it was the wrong thing to do but pointed out that as leader, Hogan is responsible for everything that goes on in the ring. Hogan also had already put him in the qualifying matches for the Against All Odds tournament. The two shook hands and put it behind them. Hogan walked out. Angle was then attacked by Hall and Waltman. They were later kicked out of the building again with Hall saying they’d be back next week. As for AJ, he and Flair were partying it up with the ladies. They kept talking about having 30 days off but Bischoff shut that down. He said that under this new regime that all talent should be ready 24/7. He also said that Flair’s contract was signed and delivered with nothing that they could do cause he signed with TNA before the regime change. I mentioned the tournament. There are qualifying matches underway now with the winners moving on to the 8 Card Stud Tournament at Against All Odds to crown a new number one contender for the TNA title. In the matches on this show, Desmond Wolfe defeated Sean Morley with the tower of London to win the match. Then, Hernandez defeated Daniels to get in it as well. Jeff Jarrett went to Bischoff and Hogan to work things out. He apologized for all the attorney talk and was ready to prove himself even if he had to start from the very bottom. Earlier, Ken Anderson had made a challenge to anyone for a match on the show. Bischoff had Jarrett be the guy. Jarrett assumed it would be at the PPV but Bischoff said it would be on Impact. Jarrett wasn’t happy about it saying that he had been out of the ring for seven months. So, Jarrett goes to the ring for the match. Bischoff had called for his music to not be played. Jarrett was playing to the fans on the way out so he appears to be a face in this thing. The finish had Jarrett going for his finisher but Anderson nailed a low kick with the ref not seeing it. Anderson made the pin and won the match. Afterwards, Anderson got on the mic and then continued the beating on Jarrett laying him out with the mic check. Mick Foley talked to Bischoff and Hogan. Foley said that he had nothing to do with the beating on Bischoff and said that if he had done it, Bischoff wouldn’t be walking. Foley later said that he wouldn’t work for Bischoff but Bischoff threatened him with Abyss and Borash of names that did want to work for him. So, the storyline is that Bischoff is threatening Foley with his friends getting fired. Speaking of being fired, Lashley was brought back in and Bischoff fired him. Security had to pull Lashley out of there. The Nasty Boys and Team 3D had a back and forth segment out in the Impact Zone. The Nastys arrived first but then Team 3D weren’t allowed in the ring by security. 3D talked of how much they had done in the last ten years while the Nastys had been on the sidelines. Knobs came back talking of all the legendary tag teams that they had beaten. Basically, security kept them apart and that was the segment. The Beautiful People took on the team of Kong, Hamada, and Tara. Hamada was set to get the win but Madison nailed her with the ugly stick while the ref’s back was turned. Madison then pinned Hamada. They continued the beating after the match and then Angelina Love ran in and took out The Beautiful People. The Motor City Machineguns teamed with Kendrick against Generation Me and Amazing Red. The Guns were set to get the win when Kendrick tagged himself in. Kendrick ran in and nailed a kick on Red to get the pinfall. Kendrick took the win away from the Guns and they were showing their unhappiness over it. The British Invasion then arrived with Big Rob carrying his X-Division title match briefcase. They attacked Red and then Rob was ready to cash it in. However, Brutus told Rob to give it to Doug Williams. Williams cashes it in and ends up winning the match to win the X-Division title. Williams and Brutus celebrated while Rob was not celebrating at all on the outside looking disgusted of giving up his title shot.
Vince Russo got a lot of people fired up last week when he blogged about doing a 1.3 rating with only having 16 minutes of wrestling on a 2 hour show. He bragged about it after a wrestling writer pointed out that there was only sixteen minutes of actual in ring wrestling on the last Impact. Russo said that he was proud of that with doing actual promos instead of having “fake wrestling on a fake wrestling show”. Yeah, this didn't go over with the talent who are out there getting hurt all the time. Just the latest time that Vince Russo has put his foot in his mouth. Well, Taz was someone that took offense to his comments posting this on his Twitter in reference to Russo: “I’ve seen many workers get bad injuries in our world. I’ve torn up limbs, calling my wife from ER’s all over the U.S. and a broken neck. I can’t throw a baseball with my son for more than a few mins due to bicep rip/shoulder surgeries,…numbness in right arm – all very REAL! I mentioned those injuries for a REASON…not a “fake” reason." Russo later apologized for his comments saying that he got upset over the criticism that he was reading online of his work while talking of the great respect that he had of the workers.
Taz posted on his Twitter account last week that he is going to be needing a knee replacement surgery in the future. He said that he may not do it now but will have to have it done in the next couple of years.
The preview for WWE Classics On Demand for February is “Global Warning”. No real preview as far as programming just yet. It’s getting frustrating trying to find out what is going to be airing.
Monday, January 25, 2010
WWE Raw, Royal Rumble Preview, TNA vs. Impact Zone, Montreal Revisited AGAIN....By TNA - January 25, 2010
Welcome to the “if TNA is trying to do something different than WWE, why are they recreating the Montreal match finish down to the very last detail?” edtion of The Wrestling List. Wow, if you saw Impact this past Thursday, it just left me frustrated thinking why are they recreating this too? It was 1997…...again…in a different company. LOL.
First, let’s get into tonight’s WWE Raw. Really enjoyed tonight’s show. Solid booking, solid matches. There really wasn’t anything on it that I disliked. The show was guest hosted by Dule Hill. He was set to be joined by his co-star on Psych, James Dulay, but the story on his appendectomy was true. That was the real reason that he wasn’t on the show tonight. So, Hill was left on his own and was one of the better guest hosts. He was funny, didn’t stumble at all, and was entertaining. Good solid performance out of him tonight. The big news of the show was the Vince McMahon segment in the middle of the show. Vince talked about selling Bret down the river to WCW and how the fans forgot about him. Vince went into the crowd asking fans to give him one good reason on why he should bring Bret back. Vince eventually said that there was no good reason to bring him back and that Bret would not be returning to WWE. John Cena made his way to the ring and confronted Vince. Not the usual Cena entrance either as he walked straight to the ring with a game face on. Cena said that he wasn’t there to change Vince’s mind but said he was tired of the treatment of the legends that had helped Vince build the company to where it is today mentioning Bret and the treatment of Piper at MSG. Cena mentioned that Vince has put an expiration date on all of them for when they can’t make him any money anymore or help his ego. He pointed out how Vince wants the fans’ last memory of Bret to be of Vince kicking him a few weeks ago. Cena said for Vince to invite Bret to Raw next week or show that Cena is right about him but promised that when his own expiration date had passed that he would be knocking Vince out of his wheelchair on Vince’s 90th birthday. Cena then walked out after saying to Vince again to invite Bret to Raw next week. Vince got the last word by telling Cena that he was booked in a match tonight against Sheamus. However, the confirmation was made later in the show. Bret Hart will be on Raw next week to confront Vince McMahon. As for the Cena/Sheamus match, Randy Orton made his statement in it. Sheamus had Cena knocked out on the floor following a kick. As the count almost got to ten, Orton ran in and hit a RKO on to Sheamus causing the DQ. Orton then saw Cena crawling into the ring and went for the DDT off the middle rope. Cena got out of it and hit Orton with an adjustment to close the show. Other happenings on the show had DX opening it up against Legacy. Shawn and Triple H did a promo before the match saying that they each have a dream to win the Rumble and they’ll have to agree on that. During the match, Triple H was set to hit the pedigree and then Shawn tagged himself in. The two faced off for a moment and then Cody ran the two of them into each other. Shawn hit a superkick to Dibiase. Shawn turned back to Triple H. Triple H ran with a clothesline and Shawn ducked with the clothesline hitting Rhodes teasing on where that clothesline was intended. Shawn then pinned Dibiase for the win. After the match, Triple H offered his hand to Shawn. The two celebrated together and high fived giving a mutual respect look at each other. Legacy later was showing cracks in their foundation backstage as Orton walked in when the two were about to have words over the last couple of weeks of happenings. Orton said that they all needed to get on the same page now. MVP and Miz had more words back and forth before MVP’s match with Big Show. Show ended up beating MVP fairly easily following a chokeslam and Miz mocked MVP after the match. MVP would get his revenge later on when Miz faced Kofi Kingston. MVP’s music hit and he walked out on the stage. Miz then got distracted watching MVP and Kofi hit trouble in paradise to win the match. The semifinals of the Divas championship tournament took place. Maryse was cutting a promo before her match when guest host, Dule Hill started playing around with the pyro scaring her. Maryse ended up defeating Eve following a DDT to advance to the finals. Before the next match, Alicia Fox went to Hill asking for him to predict the future on whether she would win. They did put James Roday on speaker phone as Cena was in the room. So, he did get to appear on the show in some form. Roday started to say that he was actually the psychic on the show and then Hill hung up on him. He said that Alicia would win the match. Well, Alicia lost to Gail Kim who will face Maryse in the finals. Alicia goes out to Hill who was on commentary and ready to sneak off. He told her that he was just an actor who played the friend of a psychic. She ended up slapping him and walked off. The slap looked really good too. Earlier, Hill was with Carlito and went into the production truck. Hill said that he would pick a random graphic and that would be Carlito’s opponent for tonight. It landed on Kelly Kelly. LOL. So, Kelly was set to face Carlito. Santino arrived asking to take the place of Carlito in the match. Swagger then attacked Santino from behind getting revenge for previous weeks and put him into the post.
Other notes from Raw. Like I said, I liked the show and thought Hill did a very good job as guest host. Fans have to be thankful that Ticketmaster is hosting the Axxess tickets and not Live Nation after the mess with the Hall Of Fame tickets. The Miz’s catchphrase is really getting over. Fans are chanting with him. I don’t really have any other thoughts on the show other than what was put in the recap. Solid show.
Next week’s Raw has Bret Hart confirmed to confront Vince McMahon on the show. The guest host for the night is William Shatner.
This week’s Smackdown will feature DX defending the tag team titles against CM Punk and Luke Gallows.
Two things being released by WWE this week. The Best Of Raw 2009 DVD will be released tomorrow and will include matches and moments from the year. Also, WWE will release WWE The Music Volume 10 on Thursday and will be an Amazon download exclusive. The cost? Only $3.99. The price does go up on it after February 1. Theme songs included on it will be Legacy (Dibiase and Rhodes), Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, Christian, Bret Hart (his new remixed theme), Sheamus, Tiffany, Ezekiel Jackson, Evan Bourne, Primo, Zack Ryder, The Hart Dynasty, The Bella Twins, and JeriShow.
Stone Cold Steve Austin appeared as a guest star on tonight’s episode of Chuck along with another favorite guest star of mine, Kristin Kreuk from Smallville. The episode was fun and it was fun to see Austin guest star on one of my favorite shows.
If you attend a TNA live event, you are not a fan but a cast member. That’s right. A cast member. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but before the Impact tapings last Monday night, TNA Director of Production, Steve Small talked to the live audience. He basically laid down a set of ground rules for fans after the crowd reaction to the Genesis PPV there in the Impact Zone. Some of the things that were mentioned were him telling fans, oops, cast members, that you need to help them tell a story to the audience at home. He wants the crowd to be rowdy and have fun. However, he wants the crowd to not be cursing, throwing up middle fingers, and gang signs due to there being kids in the crowd. I think the gang sign thing is something that the TNA audience has come up with for themselves as they have their own fun group name and signs for themselves. I don’t know that story so you’ll have to excuse me on that part of it. He talked of how they have to spend money to edit out the cursing on the broadcasts and really put over there being kids there. Ok, this is one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard of happening at a live event. Here is my counter points to this thing. I get the whole “we have kids in the audience” thing. That is completely understandable and I am perfectly fine with that of course. However, you have a show during the new regime change where a wrestler threw up a middle finger. What is the difference in that and the fans doing it?? You also have wrestlers cursing all the time on that show including Kurt Angle throwing out all kinds of loud words on last week’s Impact which was bleeped out and which was taped AFTER this meeting took place. LOL. Another point of mine is that you are talking about having kids watching when you had a strip poker game going on during the January 4 live show and having women dressing as they dress. Then, you have Beer Money, enough said there. You can’t tell the audience one thing when your show is doing the opposite of what you are telling them. Then, the sign issue. Bring your signs, unless we don’t like them, and then we’re taking them. That is the case there and at WWE events. That goes to the whole we’re telling a story and we want you to help tell it thing. It comes off like help us tell the story that we want you to tell. To nitpick this thing (LOL), aren’t cast members supposed to get paid??!! This whole thing was such a turnoff for me cause it was so contradicting of what they were telling the audience to do and what the show is. Just really turned me off. I’m really hoping that the TNA audience down there does revolt on this thing and protest it. I think it is getting ridiculous. You want to get the opinions of the fans of what is working and what is not. I guess if you don’t like something, just sit there and do nothing. If you don’t like the show, sit there and don’t move. LOL. There were ways for TNA to address this problem with the fans and all. I just don’t think that was at all the way to go about it.
TNA Impact last week. Oh, where do I start with this show? This show left me so worried about the new creative direction of the company. So, now WWE is not the only one recreating Montreal as now TNA is doing it too and right down to the last detail. Let’s run down the recap of what happened and compare it to Montreal in 1997. AJ Styles and Ric Flair open the show bragging over the win at Genesis. Out comes Kurt Angle followed by Hulk Hogan. Hogan talks of how he had changed his mind on Angle only getting one title shot in 2010 due to the unfair events of Genesis. The rematch would take place on Impact which had AJ and Flair furious. So, the rematch takes place. Hogan makes his way to the ring as the match continues. I should also point out that Earl Hebner was the official in the match. AJ and Angle start reversing holds. Angle’s anklelock gets reversed into one by AJ. As soon as AJ hooks the anklelock, Hebner calls for the bell. Angle playing the part of Bret Hart gets up furious. AJ playing the part of Shawn Michaels takes off out of there. Hulk Hogan playing the part of Vince McMahon gets all sorts of words yelled at him by Angle. Yes, lots of words that had to bleeped out over TV. Remember the lecture that production gave the TNA audience about language with kids in the building? Well, here is Kurt Angle yelling all sorts of words. Angle spits in the face of Hogan who was still standing on the floor. Angle yells how he is quitting TNA and going back to WWE. Angle goes nuts and roams up to the announce position grabbing a chair and slamming it against the staging area. That is the same as Bret Hart destroying ringside equipment after the finish of the match in Montreal. This was so bad and just had me wondering what are these guys thinking? You are trying to be an alternative to WWE and you do a finish that is EXACTLY the same as the Survivor Series 1997 finish in Montreal. This finish has got to be the most overdone finish in wrestling history. It has been just over twelve years later and we still are seeing companies booking this finish. Like I said, this finish and the rest of the show left me concerned over the future of the creative direction. Mick Foley continued to try and get to talk to Bischoff throughout the night. Foley eventually got his wish and Bischoff asked the cameras to leave after Foley ranted about how he wasn’t going to let Bischoff and Hogan ruin the company that he had helped build. At the end of the show, Bischoff walked to the ring bloody and got the mic. He said that Mick Foley was fired. What happened with The Band? Well, Hogan talked to Nash and said that Nash was under contract while Hall and Waltman weren’t. Hogan told him that he had to get them under control to which Nash replied that he understood but they were like brothers to him. Hogan said that this was time to work and not play like with what Hall and Waltman had been doing. Hogan told Nash to get the job done tonight as he had a match with Young against The Nasty Boys. Later, Hogan and Bischoff were in the ring when The Band arrived. Hogan told Hall and Waltman to hit the road and that they didn’t work there anymore. Nash was later shown with them backstage as they were being escorted out. Nash told them to just go and that he’d find a way to fix this. So, Young is concerned that Nash doesn’t have his back cause of The Band being back. Nash assures him that things are cool with them. The match takes place with Nash and Young against The Nasty Boys. The finish has Knobs nailing Nash into the ring post outside. Saggs hits a pump handle slam on to Young for the pinfall. In other action, Orlando Jordan got a clean win on The Pope. Yeah, Jordan is now winning matches over Pope and Pope has had all sorts of momentum. Ken Anderson arrived in the ring during the show. He talked of how everyone hypes what they are going to do in TNA but he isn’t because he is going to let action speak louder than words. As he talks trash on Abyss, Abyss sneaks up behind him listening to him. He speaks a few compliments on Abyss but then starts bashing him. Abyss goes on the attack but Anderson is able to bail out before Abyss can hit the black hole slam. Hernandez and Matt Morgan defeated The British Invasion to retain the tag team titles. Rob Terry got involved and threw a briefcase in the ring. The swing of the briefcase backfired as Hernandez ducked it. The British Invasion was then pinned. Terry got in the ring afterwards and the finger pointing began on who cost who the match. Foley then arrived and destroyed them with a chair as that was one of his attempts to get Bischoff’s attention on the show. Madison Rayne took on Angelina Love. Angelina won it with a bicycle kick. After the match, Angelina continued to hammer on Madison. Velvet and Lacey made their way to the ring with the “ugly stick”. Angelina stayed on offense against them as well but the numbers added up. The Beautiful People ended up beating down Angelina. They also played audio throughout the night of Bubba The Love Sponge calling Jeff Jarrett live on the air talking about TNA and the new Hogan/Bischoff regime. It was really lame to be honest. LOL. So, can you tell how I felt about this show? Like I said, I am very concerned over the creative direction of this company right now after seeing the Montreal finish AGAIN and so blatantly done. I’m still giving this time as it is early with the company making changes but I am beginning to get concerned.
This release really had me surprised. TNA released Alissa Flash last week. What in the world?? I have been a fan of hers after seeing her on the TNA house show. Solid in the ring and good gimmick. The fans were into her but they let her go. Someone is going to have to make me understand the decision on letting her go.
The WWE Royal Rumble is this Sunday on PPV. The lineup will consist of these matches: the 30 man Royal Rumble match with the winner getting a title shot at WrestleMania, Sheamus defending the WWE title against Randy Orton, The Undertaker defending the World title against Rey Mysterio, Michelle McCool defending the Women’s title against Mickie James. ECW champion Christian defends the belt against Ezekiel Jackson.
That is it for tonight with The Wrestling List. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
First, let’s get into tonight’s WWE Raw. Really enjoyed tonight’s show. Solid booking, solid matches. There really wasn’t anything on it that I disliked. The show was guest hosted by Dule Hill. He was set to be joined by his co-star on Psych, James Dulay, but the story on his appendectomy was true. That was the real reason that he wasn’t on the show tonight. So, Hill was left on his own and was one of the better guest hosts. He was funny, didn’t stumble at all, and was entertaining. Good solid performance out of him tonight. The big news of the show was the Vince McMahon segment in the middle of the show. Vince talked about selling Bret down the river to WCW and how the fans forgot about him. Vince went into the crowd asking fans to give him one good reason on why he should bring Bret back. Vince eventually said that there was no good reason to bring him back and that Bret would not be returning to WWE. John Cena made his way to the ring and confronted Vince. Not the usual Cena entrance either as he walked straight to the ring with a game face on. Cena said that he wasn’t there to change Vince’s mind but said he was tired of the treatment of the legends that had helped Vince build the company to where it is today mentioning Bret and the treatment of Piper at MSG. Cena mentioned that Vince has put an expiration date on all of them for when they can’t make him any money anymore or help his ego. He pointed out how Vince wants the fans’ last memory of Bret to be of Vince kicking him a few weeks ago. Cena said for Vince to invite Bret to Raw next week or show that Cena is right about him but promised that when his own expiration date had passed that he would be knocking Vince out of his wheelchair on Vince’s 90th birthday. Cena then walked out after saying to Vince again to invite Bret to Raw next week. Vince got the last word by telling Cena that he was booked in a match tonight against Sheamus. However, the confirmation was made later in the show. Bret Hart will be on Raw next week to confront Vince McMahon. As for the Cena/Sheamus match, Randy Orton made his statement in it. Sheamus had Cena knocked out on the floor following a kick. As the count almost got to ten, Orton ran in and hit a RKO on to Sheamus causing the DQ. Orton then saw Cena crawling into the ring and went for the DDT off the middle rope. Cena got out of it and hit Orton with an adjustment to close the show. Other happenings on the show had DX opening it up against Legacy. Shawn and Triple H did a promo before the match saying that they each have a dream to win the Rumble and they’ll have to agree on that. During the match, Triple H was set to hit the pedigree and then Shawn tagged himself in. The two faced off for a moment and then Cody ran the two of them into each other. Shawn hit a superkick to Dibiase. Shawn turned back to Triple H. Triple H ran with a clothesline and Shawn ducked with the clothesline hitting Rhodes teasing on where that clothesline was intended. Shawn then pinned Dibiase for the win. After the match, Triple H offered his hand to Shawn. The two celebrated together and high fived giving a mutual respect look at each other. Legacy later was showing cracks in their foundation backstage as Orton walked in when the two were about to have words over the last couple of weeks of happenings. Orton said that they all needed to get on the same page now. MVP and Miz had more words back and forth before MVP’s match with Big Show. Show ended up beating MVP fairly easily following a chokeslam and Miz mocked MVP after the match. MVP would get his revenge later on when Miz faced Kofi Kingston. MVP’s music hit and he walked out on the stage. Miz then got distracted watching MVP and Kofi hit trouble in paradise to win the match. The semifinals of the Divas championship tournament took place. Maryse was cutting a promo before her match when guest host, Dule Hill started playing around with the pyro scaring her. Maryse ended up defeating Eve following a DDT to advance to the finals. Before the next match, Alicia Fox went to Hill asking for him to predict the future on whether she would win. They did put James Roday on speaker phone as Cena was in the room. So, he did get to appear on the show in some form. Roday started to say that he was actually the psychic on the show and then Hill hung up on him. He said that Alicia would win the match. Well, Alicia lost to Gail Kim who will face Maryse in the finals. Alicia goes out to Hill who was on commentary and ready to sneak off. He told her that he was just an actor who played the friend of a psychic. She ended up slapping him and walked off. The slap looked really good too. Earlier, Hill was with Carlito and went into the production truck. Hill said that he would pick a random graphic and that would be Carlito’s opponent for tonight. It landed on Kelly Kelly. LOL. So, Kelly was set to face Carlito. Santino arrived asking to take the place of Carlito in the match. Swagger then attacked Santino from behind getting revenge for previous weeks and put him into the post.
Other notes from Raw. Like I said, I liked the show and thought Hill did a very good job as guest host. Fans have to be thankful that Ticketmaster is hosting the Axxess tickets and not Live Nation after the mess with the Hall Of Fame tickets. The Miz’s catchphrase is really getting over. Fans are chanting with him. I don’t really have any other thoughts on the show other than what was put in the recap. Solid show.
Next week’s Raw has Bret Hart confirmed to confront Vince McMahon on the show. The guest host for the night is William Shatner.
This week’s Smackdown will feature DX defending the tag team titles against CM Punk and Luke Gallows.
Two things being released by WWE this week. The Best Of Raw 2009 DVD will be released tomorrow and will include matches and moments from the year. Also, WWE will release WWE The Music Volume 10 on Thursday and will be an Amazon download exclusive. The cost? Only $3.99. The price does go up on it after February 1. Theme songs included on it will be Legacy (Dibiase and Rhodes), Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, Christian, Bret Hart (his new remixed theme), Sheamus, Tiffany, Ezekiel Jackson, Evan Bourne, Primo, Zack Ryder, The Hart Dynasty, The Bella Twins, and JeriShow.
Stone Cold Steve Austin appeared as a guest star on tonight’s episode of Chuck along with another favorite guest star of mine, Kristin Kreuk from Smallville. The episode was fun and it was fun to see Austin guest star on one of my favorite shows.
If you attend a TNA live event, you are not a fan but a cast member. That’s right. A cast member. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but before the Impact tapings last Monday night, TNA Director of Production, Steve Small talked to the live audience. He basically laid down a set of ground rules for fans after the crowd reaction to the Genesis PPV there in the Impact Zone. Some of the things that were mentioned were him telling fans, oops, cast members, that you need to help them tell a story to the audience at home. He wants the crowd to be rowdy and have fun. However, he wants the crowd to not be cursing, throwing up middle fingers, and gang signs due to there being kids in the crowd. I think the gang sign thing is something that the TNA audience has come up with for themselves as they have their own fun group name and signs for themselves. I don’t know that story so you’ll have to excuse me on that part of it. He talked of how they have to spend money to edit out the cursing on the broadcasts and really put over there being kids there. Ok, this is one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard of happening at a live event. Here is my counter points to this thing. I get the whole “we have kids in the audience” thing. That is completely understandable and I am perfectly fine with that of course. However, you have a show during the new regime change where a wrestler threw up a middle finger. What is the difference in that and the fans doing it?? You also have wrestlers cursing all the time on that show including Kurt Angle throwing out all kinds of loud words on last week’s Impact which was bleeped out and which was taped AFTER this meeting took place. LOL. Another point of mine is that you are talking about having kids watching when you had a strip poker game going on during the January 4 live show and having women dressing as they dress. Then, you have Beer Money, enough said there. You can’t tell the audience one thing when your show is doing the opposite of what you are telling them. Then, the sign issue. Bring your signs, unless we don’t like them, and then we’re taking them. That is the case there and at WWE events. That goes to the whole we’re telling a story and we want you to help tell it thing. It comes off like help us tell the story that we want you to tell. To nitpick this thing (LOL), aren’t cast members supposed to get paid??!! This whole thing was such a turnoff for me cause it was so contradicting of what they were telling the audience to do and what the show is. Just really turned me off. I’m really hoping that the TNA audience down there does revolt on this thing and protest it. I think it is getting ridiculous. You want to get the opinions of the fans of what is working and what is not. I guess if you don’t like something, just sit there and do nothing. If you don’t like the show, sit there and don’t move. LOL. There were ways for TNA to address this problem with the fans and all. I just don’t think that was at all the way to go about it.
TNA Impact last week. Oh, where do I start with this show? This show left me so worried about the new creative direction of the company. So, now WWE is not the only one recreating Montreal as now TNA is doing it too and right down to the last detail. Let’s run down the recap of what happened and compare it to Montreal in 1997. AJ Styles and Ric Flair open the show bragging over the win at Genesis. Out comes Kurt Angle followed by Hulk Hogan. Hogan talks of how he had changed his mind on Angle only getting one title shot in 2010 due to the unfair events of Genesis. The rematch would take place on Impact which had AJ and Flair furious. So, the rematch takes place. Hogan makes his way to the ring as the match continues. I should also point out that Earl Hebner was the official in the match. AJ and Angle start reversing holds. Angle’s anklelock gets reversed into one by AJ. As soon as AJ hooks the anklelock, Hebner calls for the bell. Angle playing the part of Bret Hart gets up furious. AJ playing the part of Shawn Michaels takes off out of there. Hulk Hogan playing the part of Vince McMahon gets all sorts of words yelled at him by Angle. Yes, lots of words that had to bleeped out over TV. Remember the lecture that production gave the TNA audience about language with kids in the building? Well, here is Kurt Angle yelling all sorts of words. Angle spits in the face of Hogan who was still standing on the floor. Angle yells how he is quitting TNA and going back to WWE. Angle goes nuts and roams up to the announce position grabbing a chair and slamming it against the staging area. That is the same as Bret Hart destroying ringside equipment after the finish of the match in Montreal. This was so bad and just had me wondering what are these guys thinking? You are trying to be an alternative to WWE and you do a finish that is EXACTLY the same as the Survivor Series 1997 finish in Montreal. This finish has got to be the most overdone finish in wrestling history. It has been just over twelve years later and we still are seeing companies booking this finish. Like I said, this finish and the rest of the show left me concerned over the future of the creative direction. Mick Foley continued to try and get to talk to Bischoff throughout the night. Foley eventually got his wish and Bischoff asked the cameras to leave after Foley ranted about how he wasn’t going to let Bischoff and Hogan ruin the company that he had helped build. At the end of the show, Bischoff walked to the ring bloody and got the mic. He said that Mick Foley was fired. What happened with The Band? Well, Hogan talked to Nash and said that Nash was under contract while Hall and Waltman weren’t. Hogan told him that he had to get them under control to which Nash replied that he understood but they were like brothers to him. Hogan said that this was time to work and not play like with what Hall and Waltman had been doing. Hogan told Nash to get the job done tonight as he had a match with Young against The Nasty Boys. Later, Hogan and Bischoff were in the ring when The Band arrived. Hogan told Hall and Waltman to hit the road and that they didn’t work there anymore. Nash was later shown with them backstage as they were being escorted out. Nash told them to just go and that he’d find a way to fix this. So, Young is concerned that Nash doesn’t have his back cause of The Band being back. Nash assures him that things are cool with them. The match takes place with Nash and Young against The Nasty Boys. The finish has Knobs nailing Nash into the ring post outside. Saggs hits a pump handle slam on to Young for the pinfall. In other action, Orlando Jordan got a clean win on The Pope. Yeah, Jordan is now winning matches over Pope and Pope has had all sorts of momentum. Ken Anderson arrived in the ring during the show. He talked of how everyone hypes what they are going to do in TNA but he isn’t because he is going to let action speak louder than words. As he talks trash on Abyss, Abyss sneaks up behind him listening to him. He speaks a few compliments on Abyss but then starts bashing him. Abyss goes on the attack but Anderson is able to bail out before Abyss can hit the black hole slam. Hernandez and Matt Morgan defeated The British Invasion to retain the tag team titles. Rob Terry got involved and threw a briefcase in the ring. The swing of the briefcase backfired as Hernandez ducked it. The British Invasion was then pinned. Terry got in the ring afterwards and the finger pointing began on who cost who the match. Foley then arrived and destroyed them with a chair as that was one of his attempts to get Bischoff’s attention on the show. Madison Rayne took on Angelina Love. Angelina won it with a bicycle kick. After the match, Angelina continued to hammer on Madison. Velvet and Lacey made their way to the ring with the “ugly stick”. Angelina stayed on offense against them as well but the numbers added up. The Beautiful People ended up beating down Angelina. They also played audio throughout the night of Bubba The Love Sponge calling Jeff Jarrett live on the air talking about TNA and the new Hogan/Bischoff regime. It was really lame to be honest. LOL. So, can you tell how I felt about this show? Like I said, I am very concerned over the creative direction of this company right now after seeing the Montreal finish AGAIN and so blatantly done. I’m still giving this time as it is early with the company making changes but I am beginning to get concerned.
This release really had me surprised. TNA released Alissa Flash last week. What in the world?? I have been a fan of hers after seeing her on the TNA house show. Solid in the ring and good gimmick. The fans were into her but they let her go. Someone is going to have to make me understand the decision on letting her go.
The WWE Royal Rumble is this Sunday on PPV. The lineup will consist of these matches: the 30 man Royal Rumble match with the winner getting a title shot at WrestleMania, Sheamus defending the WWE title against Randy Orton, The Undertaker defending the World title against Rey Mysterio, Michelle McCool defending the Women’s title against Mickie James. ECW champion Christian defends the belt against Ezekiel Jackson.
That is it for tonight with The Wrestling List. Wishing all of you a great week!! Take care and God bless!!
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