The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Real sorry this is late, but I’m getting a lot of mid-term work and assignments and stuff at the moment which is keeping me very busy, but feel free to complain all the same. That sounded sarcastic, but it wasn’t meant to, really complain if you want.

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RAW began this week with a GONG!

The Undertaker came out and his fire took its sweet time coming on, unsurprisingly. And he took his sweet time getting to the ring. I think it was like two minutes or so. He cut a promo about Shawn having a dark cloud above him, namely his obsession with Taker and his streak and that this obsession will end up costing him his career. He said his career would Rest In…and then came HBK in his winning Mr. Camp 2010 outfit.

HBK said he didn’t have the right to finish that line, and he admitted the dark cloud was hovering. HBK said that because Taker intefered in his match last week, this showed fear, because he didn’t have to intefere, whereas Michaels did at Elimination Chamber. Shawn said Taker is scared of how close he came to losing last year which is why Taker demanded Shawn put his career on the line. Shawn said he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t know he could win. Taker said he didn’t know if Shawn was showing confidence or desperation. Shawn said he wasn’t desperate, and he wont take a count out or DQ, so he wants just that, a no DQ match, and he promised to beat Taker. Taker then told him Shawn could be the greatest of all time, but that he would do all in his power to end his career. Taker cut a more human promo than he has in a long time there. Shawn says post-Wrestlemania, the dark cloud will be back but this time it will be on Taker. This was a great promo segment, but I thought the no-DQ stip would be better on the Hart/McMahon match, but we’ll see what happens.

Alicia Fox, Katie Lea Burchill, WWE Divas Champion Maryse vs Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim and Eve Torres
Alicia Fox and Gail Kim had as good a segment as you’ll probably see in a divas match. Other than that this was a pretty standard divas match in that it was sloppy and lasted three minutes. Eve got the win again, with her pretty cool rolling armbar on Maryse. I wonder if she wears a shiny green gi when she trains jiu jitsu. 3/4*

Hornswoggle was backstage with Criss Angel until the Bellas came in and asked to be his assistants. They asked for a demonstration when he said no. He then put a thread in his mouth and pulled it out of his eye. That’s entertainment. Then Jillian came in. She sang. Everyone hated it, and Angel magically turned off her voice. Earn those paychecks ladies.

WWE Unified Tag Team Champions The Miz & Big Show vs John Morrison & R-Truth, Non-Title Match
Miz before the match said that Morrison and Truth didn’t deserve the shot, and compared them to Luger and Bulldog, and that they’d much rather face an actual team like The Bushwackers. Absolutely no idea why they’re giving away this for free. Perhaps in case they decide they’ve overstacked Mania and need to cut something. Morrison and Truth cleared the ring early and hit a double baseball slide on Miz. But then the match was ruled out of control. For about thrity seconds of chaos. Right. After the match, they beatdown Miz and shoved Show’s head into the post. Morrison said that that was how real of a team they can be. What? Losing tag team matches? Score. At least they didn’t give it away for free. N/A

Cool Batista and Cena package that led to a Cena promo backstage. Cena said Batista was right last week when he said that Cena can’t beat him. Cena said all he can do is go out there and beat Batista.

Backstage, Evan Bourne thanks Criss Angel for his MITB Qualifier. Skip Sheffield walks in followed by William Regal. Regal called Sheffield a muppet. They did a magic trick. Angel guessed the number Regal wrote down. Epic shit. Really like the Sheffield/Regal dynamic though.

They recap the most recent edition of Troubles with Legacy in anticipation of…

Legacy vs Randy Orton, Tag Handicap Match
Orton attacked from behind. I still hate the way Cody comes from the curtain backwards. Screw that. Orton had full control at the start, meanwhile, Cole failed on commentary. Eventually DiBiase cheapshotted Orton so Cody could take over. Legacy, however, continued to use numbers to get the advantage. DiBiase hit a nice dropkick on the outside. There was a lot of crowd support for Orton. DiBiase in general looked very good here. Orton also is starting to play his role of quasi-babyface better now, actually selling his beatdowns, and actually being dynamic in his comebacks and hope spots. Eventually the numbers worked against Orton though and he got pinned clean by DiBiase after Dream Street. They need to announce this one quickly if they want it at Mania so they can build to it. Other than that, pretty good for a handicap match. After the match, Legacy further beat down Orton  and mocked Orton by doing his arms spread pose over him on the mat. **1/4

Matthews was now backstage with BATISTA now without his douchey clothing unfortunately. He said Cena was paranoid, and gave his word that he wouldn’t get involved in Vince vs Cena tonight. He said he was pulling for Cena.

In the last 11 Wrestlemanias, if you forget about him being injured for Mania 23 (that did one of the best numbers for Manian recently just saying), this year will be only the second occasion that Triple H has not wrestled for a world championship, following matches with The Rock & Big Show and Mick Foley, Chris Jericho, Booker T, Shawn Michaels & Chris Benoit, Batista, John Cena, Randy Orton & John Cena and Randy Orton. Trips came out and they recapped him getting beat down by Sheamus. He said Sheamus did what Triple H himself would have done, and then he was interrupted by Sheamus himself. Sheamus challenged Trips to a Wrestlemania match and questioned whether he had the guts. Triple H said that Sheamus had a good first year, but he’s nothing till he’s made his name at Mania. Triple H made the point that he tried to jump on the biggest dog he could see to make his name at Mania (Ultimate Warrior) but he got crushed. He said the people that beat him at Mania went amazing places in their careers. He said that the list of people who lost went way further down though. Yeah Rock, Jericho, Orton. You’re nothing. Triple H said that before Sheamus takes that gamble, he better be sure. Sheamus went to beatdown Trips but he got clotheslined out of the ring. He missed the pump kick and they went flying into the ring bell area. Sheamus tried to flee but Trips jumped him. Sheamus rammed him into the announce table before getting spinebustered. Strong segment, and another big match for Mania. Card looks stacked especially if they can add Punk/Mysterio in there too. Strong promo from Triple H.

Backstage goofery with Santino and Criss Angel. Angel did another magic trick involving cups and a knife, Santino had to hide the knife under a cup, and Angel had to crush the cups without destroying his hand. I’ve seen this one before. Angel SOMEHOW SURVIVED.

Evan Bourne vs William Regal w/ Skip Sheffield, Money in the Bank Qualifying Match
Christian was on commentary. But why would Regal get in here when he’s afraid of heights!? Quick simple match, Bourne got a knee to the face and hit the shooting star press for the victory. Not much of a match, but seeing Evan Bourne in there should be awesome. 1/2*

Next week….STONE COLD STONE COLD STONE COLD. Can’t wait. They’ll also do some Wrestlemania rematches, like Cena/Show, HBK/Jericho and Triple H/Randy Orton. And a Bret/Vince/Austin contract signing. Sounds like quite the show.

Criss Angel came out to be special guest announcer. He got the crowd worked up to be fair.

John Cena vs Mr. McMahon
There’s a chance this one might not get five stars. Vince of course looked ridiculous and walked ridiculously. Before the match Vince mocked Bret and told him to enjoy the match and told Cena that he would beat him. Vince made it a handicap gauntlet match. So he brought out KOZLOV !

John Cena vs Vladimir Kozlov & Mr. McMahon
I’ve missed you Vlad. Kozlov threw Cena around. Vince thought he had Cena so he tagged in and only got a two count.

John Cena vs Drew McIntyre & Mr. McMahon
McIntyre beat him down and hit an STO before McMahon tagged in and only got two again.

John Cena vs Jack Swagger & Mr. McMahon
We came back from a break to Cena hitting the five knuckle shuffle on Jack Swagger. Swagger took Cena down and slammed him. Swagger hit the Vader bomb twice and tagged in Vince. However, once again this only got two.

John Cena vs Mark Henry & Mr. McMahon
Henry begrudgingly hit the World’s Strongest Slam and tagged Vince in. Cena powered out of the pin though, so he got the ring bell, and made the match a no-DQ handicap match. Henry tried to stop Vince using the bell. So Vince tried to make Mark do the hitting. Henry threw the bell away and walked into a spear from Batista. This for some reason brought out Kofi Kingston and he ran wild but ended up powerbombed.

When Batista went back for Cena, Cena had supermanned up. Vince threw the ring bell away and tried to reason with Cena but Cena tried to FU instead and Batista speared him and hit the Batista bomb. This got the pin for Vince. 1/2*

Now I didn’t like this for a number of reasons. It didn’t really build to Bret/Vince, only the final image of Batista standing over Cena built to Batista/Cena and it buried a load of the mid card guys. It wasn’t even a good match and just seemed to be a poor way to end a generally good show.

The wrestling wasn’t amazing here, but this did build to Wrestlemania quite well. However, I was very much soured by the main event, so…

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs in the middle.

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.

Hey everyone and welcome to another edition of Chris Considers RAW. Paul was busy with work commitments this week and asked me at the last minute to fill in which means he will once again be covering Smackdown this coming weekend. He sure got the better show last week!

First off my apologies this is a little later than Paul gets them up but since I only found out at the last minute I needed to do this I had already scheduled my work hours for the week and so despite my best attempts was unable to stay awake past 4am last night (Tues) and tonight I did not even get home till 2.30am!

So WWE have made some unsurprising roster cuts and TNA have made a surprising roster cut this past week, as usual I will take a look at each name and what I hope happens for them in the next stage of their careers

Maria: This was the only WWE roster cut that caught me completely by surprise. Whilst Maria has never been that solid in the ring she had something that many other divas on the roster don’t and that was she was incredibly over with the fans. I cannot fathom why WWE would chose to release their most popular diva (she won the Slammy for diva of the year remember as voted for by the fans), especially since she had just started a storyline romance with Matt Hardy and had as of late been cutting some pretty good promos. To be honest I cannot see Maria wrestling again, I think she will pursue music and modelling opportunities which I imagine she will be very successful in.

Paul Burchill: A great shame to see my fellow Brit released but I cant say I didn’t see this one coming. Burchill proved time and time again that he can go in the ring and I think it is a huge shame that WWE couldn’t come up with anything decent for him. The most obvious destination for Burchill is TNA where he could immediately link up with the British Invasion and show WWE what they are missing out on. An incredibly frustrating example of a good talent wasted by poor booking.

Hurricane Helms: Another eye brow raising call here from the good folks at WWE creative. Whether wrestling as the Hurricane or as himself Helms was over with the fans and it is just mind boggling that a roster that includes the likes of The Great Khali, Vladimir Kozlov and Hornswoggle cannot accommodate Helms. I know he got himself in hot water with his arrest but so did Jericho and now he is World Heavyweight Champion! Helms will almost certainly link up with Shannon in Jeff over in TNA and I would imagine it is only a matter of time (or his contract expiring) till Matt Hardy joins them.

Charlie Haas: Haas is, or should I saw was, one of the best pure wrestlers on the WWE roster. If he had been booked and pushed correctly he could have easily become the next Benoit or Angle. Instead he was saddled with crappy gimmicks, useless partners (not Shelton obviously) and chronically underused. Haas could put on a five star match on any given night and WWE creative are complete idiots for the way they used him. I would imagine Haas would make a great fit in either ROH or Dragons Gate USA and I hope gets regular thirty minute matches to give a big FU to Vince and Company.

Scott Armstrong: Armstrong was heavily featured in a major storyline last summer with CM Punk and The Undertaker. I feel very sorry for him as he always seemed to go out and do his job very well. The good news for Armstrong is he will almost certainly get picked up by one of the other promotions and hopefully they will show him more loyalty than WWE!

Awesome Kong: Seriously what the hell was Hogan thinking letting Kong walk. I think it is a definite sign that he really couldn’t give a crap about one of TNA’s most popular divisions when he lets one of the talents that made it walk. Kong is probably one of the top three female workers in the world and a huge asset to any company she wrestles in. TNA are MAD for letting her go and you can sure they will regret it. I have one main thing to say: Fuck you Bubba The Love Sponge, thanks to you the heart and soul of the Knockout division is gone. I think it is a formality that Kong will sign with WWE and hopefully with women on the roster like Kong, Kim, Beth and Mickie, the Women’s division can be utilised properly once more although recently it seems neither WWE or TNA really give a crap about women’s wrestling which is a real shame.

I would discuss more but I really want to get this up so expect more in depth discussion including a full analysis of WWE vs TNA round 2 in next weeks Smackdown blog!

Lets talk some RAW!

Cole and Lawler hype up Bret Hart’s farewell speech as well as Ted DiBiase taking on Randy Orton

Opening Segment: Shawn Michaels & Triple H

Shawn comes out to a pop from the fans and we see highlights of Shawn taking out the Undertaker at the Elimination Chamber followed by the AMAZING promo last week with Shawn’s career being put up against the streak. Shawn seems surprised by the loud ‘HBK’ chant and talks about the buzz around the locker room and everyone thinks he is crazy for putting his career on the line. Shawn says as he walks around looks at his peers they look away and not one of them believes he can defeat the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Shawn says he recognises the streak but also none has given the Undertaker a run for their money like Shawn as and he knows as an undeniable fact he is Mr Wrestlemania and he believes he can end the streak. Shawn says his peers now have the chance to come out and look him in the eye man to man and tell him he can’t win. Triple H’s music hits and Shawn looks distraught, Hunter makes his way to the ring and Shawn asks even his friend of 15 years thinks he cant beat the Undertaker. Triple H says he doesn’t think he can beat the Undertaker he knows Shawn can beat the Undertaker (big pop from the fans) Hunter says this is not about the fans, the cameras or anyone else this is between him and Shawn and he can tell him that after 15 years wrestling everyone in the business he can honestly from the bottom of the heart say Shawn is the best he has ever been in the ring with. Hunter says that Shawn talks about his peers, well in this locker room he has no peers as he is in a class of his own. Hunter says that every year their paths to Wrestlemania lead them apart but DX will never die although it may be a long time before they are in the ring together again. Hunter says he doesn’t want the last memory of DX to be losing the WWE tag titles to Show-Miz which is why he has invoked their rematch clause for tonight (huge pop from the fans) Shawn says he appreciates the opportunity but they are going down separate paths, Hunter says as tag champions they don’t have to defend the titles for 30 days and in 28 days time it will be the RAW after Wrestlemania after Shawn has beaten the Undertaker Hunter says they come out and throw a party like only DX can throw. Hunter says it has nothing to do with championships but all about his belief in Shawn, he believes Shawn will be here the night after Wrestlemania, he believes The Undertaker’s streak will come to an end, he believes Shawn’s career will be alive and well and he believes Shawn will beat the Undertaker. Hunter asks Shawn what he believes and Shawn looks at the fans and says he believes they have some tag team titles to win tonight.

Chris Considers: Wow, just wow that was awesome. To anyone knowing that was not scripted you could have believed that was real. For the first time in a long time on RAW I was able to completely suspend my disbelief and hear every word both Hunter and Shawn said. Such emotion and such a fantastic way to open the show! Plus a match featuring DX is guaranteed a decent amount of time so we will at least get one strong match tonight!

The guest hosts Cheech and Chong are backstage, I have never heard of or seen either of these guys but I guess they do a lot of drugs. The Bellas come on to them and they make some bad sexual innuendo jokes before the Bellas take one of them on a tour whilst the other guy looks at Hornswoggle who gives him some Lucky Charms and apparently has some kind of acid trip.

Chris Considers: From the very good to the very crap… RAW in a nutshell I guess.

Match 1: Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase

Orton gets a pop on his entrance and seems to have speeded up his walk to the ring. Ted looks really fired up and ready to go. The two exchange strikes and kicks before Orton gets the upper hand with a clothesline. The story early on here was Ted pretty much wrestling a very similar style to Orton until Orton gained the upper hand slamming Ted’s face into the post on the outside. After a commercial Ted is stomping the hell out of Orton and completely dominating him. Ted looked really good here and got a near fall after a big kick to the face. Orton hit a big time power slam to turn the tide and stomped the hell out of Ted before calling for the RKO, Cody got involved however and causes the DQ as Legacy double team Orton who comes back and ejects them both from the ring before trying to give Cody a through the ropes DDT only for Ted to save him. Legacy stalk up the ramp as Orton stands tall in the ring.

Result: Randy Orton defeats Ted DiBiase via disqualification **1/2

Chris Considers: This was a really solid match, obviously they were not going to give too much away considering they will be going at it at Wrestlemania but I really enjoyed this. It is fascinating watching Ted wrestle an almost identical style to his former mentor and it led to a very even match up. Cody interfering was predictable although I would have personally liked to see Ted sneak the win to build the feud in Legacy’s favour. It is certainly interesting nothing Randy’s very positive face reactions!

We see Bret Hart hobble out of a limo backstage.

The guest host is still “smacked” on Lucky Charms and thinks he is rubbing Eve and is actually rubbing Regal. Chris Masters talks as Kelly Kelly and then Hornswoggle turns up and gives the other host some Charms and they both get ‘stoned’

Chris Considers: My how PG… the thing where he was rubbing Regal’s hair was actually pretty funny though.

We see a solid promo video hyping the Cena vs Batista feud, not a patch on the Shawn/Taker one from last week but still pretty good.

Match 2: MITB Qualifying Match: Jack Swagger vs Santino

Jack Swagger reminds me of a gorilla when he does his entrance. Hopefully 2010 will start looking up for a guy that has lost pretty much every match he has been in this year. Swagger hits his Gut Wrench power bomb in about 10 seconds for the win

Result: Jack Swagger defeats Santino To Qualify for MITB N/A

Chris Considers: If we hadn’t had that rubbish with the guest hosts this could have actually been a match…

In Ring Segment: John Cena & Batista

Cena comes out to a monster pop, I am going to take a moment to mention how hideous that Orange T-shirt is! He should have stuck with the beware of the dog one, at least that looked pretty cool. Cena looks pretty happy at his reception and says people tell him that Batista stole the title from him at the Elimination Chamber. Cena disagrees and says it was about business and it wasn’t the first time someone has cashed in an opportunity on him and it wont be the last. Cena says he doesn’t understand why Batista has been assaulting him as they have both been in WWE a long time and at some points he even considered him a friend and Cena has never had a problem with Batista but now Batista has a problem with him. Cena says he has a silver lining and he is going to the main event of Wrestlemania. Cena says after last week he should pay Batista back and he believes he should do it right now. Batista comes out flanked by security and holds the belt high on the ramp. Cena laughs and if he is seeing things Batista rolling with security. Batista says the security are not here to protect him, they are there to protect Cena and to stop Batista from hurting him again. Batista tells Cena he can thank him any time and Cena invites him into the ring and calls him a pansy. Batista tells Cena he amuses him and says he did what he did last week because he wants to face him at Wrestlemania so they both get what they want. Batista talks about them starting out and how their rise to the top was identical despite them being different. Batista says they are the two biggest stars since the Attitude Era and both won world title at Wrestlemania 21 and never looked back. Batista says for an insane reason the company has labelled Cena the man and name and face of the company with championships, magazines, commercials, movies, the torch was passed from Austin to Cena whereas it should have been Batista. Huge Cena chant from the fans cuts from Batista who screams that he did what he did because he wants to prove to everyone that he is better than Cena and he just cant stand him. Cena asks if it is about a fictional torch and at Wrestlemania he wants the title. Cena says he is going to say something very real, he works his butt off for the company, he is the first there and the last to leave whereas Batista is too cool to show up on time. Cena says he has given his life for this business whereas Batista expects the business to be given to him. Cena says Batista is selfish and Batista agrees and says he is here to make money and win title and he does not care about the people and tells Cena to keep hugging babies and kissing fat girls and whilst he is doing that Batista will be in a gym training. Batista tells Cena when they are in the ring bad things happen to Cena and he broke his neck. Cena gets riled up and Batista tells him he doesn’t care what he is thinking all he is good at and all he does is bark. Batista tells Cena to fire up the fans with a catchphrase and tells him he cant beat him and deep down he knows it. Cena looks broken in the ring as Batista poses with the belt.

Chris Considers: Batista just oozed cool here and came off so well on the mic. He is just awesome as a heel on the mic! Cena switched from goofy to serious which was irritating but once again I liked the serious Cena. Very solid promo that furthered this feud.

The guest hosts are backstage and everyone is dressed as Mexicans including Primo, Carlito, Chavo, Katie Lea and Yoshi. Santino as a chicken tells us a diva pillowfight is coming up.

Chris Considers: Vince is spot on, the guest host gimmick has run its course…

Match 3: MITB Qualifying Match: Zak Ryder with Rosa Mendes vs MVP

MVP gets a nice pip whereas Ryder doesn’t even get an entrance. MVP dominates early here and hits an overhead throw, Facebuster, Ballin Elbow and Playmaker and its over.

Result: MVP defeats Zak Ryder via Pinfall to qualify for MITB N/A

Chris Considers: So Zak Ryder can go for twent minutes against Christian on ECW and yet barely lasts 30 seconds against MVP??? Total Bullshit. There is so much crap on this show and so little wrestling it is a wonder anyone watches it…

Diva Pyjama Pillow Fight

So this is the crap I get instead of a competitive match between Zak and MVP. Right… the guest hosts stumble before the girls still pretending to be high on Lucky Charms. Morons. I really wanted Miz to come out and save this with his mic work, sadly that did not happen. If anyone cares Jillian beat down everyone until everyone Kelly tried to pin her. Gail Kim cleans house on the heel divas until Eve takes here out and hits pretty sweet flip drop kick for the win. Micheal Cole calls it a great match, what a fucking moron. Afterwards Hornswoggle comes out and hurls cereal around everywhere. Seriously gripping stuff this here…

Chris Considers: I cannot believe I have battled against sleep and stayed up to cover this! Utter garbage!

We learn Mad Dog Vachon is the next inductee into the WWE Hall of Dame. I am not that familiar with his work but have read about his work in the past. Definatly a deserving figure

King and Cole run down the Wrestlemania card to waste a few more minutes that could have been devoted to wrestling.

In Ring Segment: Vince McMahon and Bret Hart

Vince cuts off Roberts as he is introducing Bret and struts to the ring. Vince says it is an honour to introduce a man who is about to make his final farewell. Vince runs through Bret’s titles and says he has the upmost respect for him (I think we all know where this is going) Bret comes out on a crutch in plaster although he is actually walking on the leg a bit which is ridiculous seeing as I did exactly the same injury last year and couldn’t hobble let alone walk for over 4 weeks! We see highlights of the “accident” Vince says he had nothing to do with the accident and Bret says he doesn’t know if that’s true or not but since he has come back Vince has treated him like garbage and if he wants to let Bret say his final goodbye Vince should get out of the ring. Vince says Bret called him a world champion liar and he was right, Vince says he didn’t invite Bret here to let him say goodbye. Vince gets in Bret’s face about challenging him to a match at Wrestlemania, Bret points out his injury but Vince says even an old fossil like Bret can heal in six weeks. Vince taunts Bret for not coming back to make peace but for really wanting to fight Vince. Bret agrees and says he has wanted to fight Vince for 13 years. Vince says they should fight at Wrestlamnia and challenges Bret to face his dreams. Vince says he is the guy who screwed Bret in Montreal, sent him off to WCW where he embarrassed himself, who spat in his face, who lied about Stu being in the Hall of Fame. Vince says if that is not enough how about for his fans all over the world. Vince asks the fans if they would like to see Bret vs Vince at Wrestlemania and they pop. Bret says he knows what Vince is trying to do and tells him he cant wrestle, he has a broken leg and calls Vince an idiot. Vince tells Bret his last name used to stand for something but now he has no heart and has let everyone don. Vince gets in Bret’s face, calls him a coward and kicks the crutch away to heat from the fans. Vince continues call Bret a coward, yellow to the bone and rotten to the core. Bret screams they have a match at Wrestlemania and the fans pop. Vince says next week to show off his physical conditioning he will take on Bret’s biggest fan: John Cena.

Chris Considers: This was the third long promo of the night but unlike the Hunter/Shawn and Cena/Batista promos, I did not enjoy this as much. Vince can over do it sometimes and did so here. I like the idea of them facing each other at Wrestlemania (however bad the match will be) just so I can see Bret make Vince tap.

Main Event: Unified Tag Title Match: Show-Miz © vs De-Generation X

DX come out to a great response from the fans but don’t do their usual spiel as I am guessing the show is over running. After a break Shawn is chopping Show before getting decapitated by a clothesline. Miz stomps away at Shawn and gets a near fall from a boot to the face. Big Show does his big punches and talks smack to Shawn before applying a bear hug. Shawn continued to play partner in distress until he is finally able to make the hot tag to Hunter who cleans house on Big Show but Miz stops the Pedigree only to eat a Spinebuster. Show the chokeslammed Triple H but the ref was distracted with Miz and Shawn nailed Show with a Superkick and both men are down. Both men tag out and Shawn takes the Miz apart with his signature offence and calls for the Superkick but Undertaker appears on the Titantron and rolls his eyes at Shawn who turns right into a rollup from Miz who gets a very quick three count. Shawn is livid following the match

Result: Show-Miz defeat De-Generation X to retain the Unified Tag Titles *1/2

Chris Considers: I actually thought we were going to get a decent main event but it was far too short. Show-Miz were booked as chumps here and were completely dominated and only retained due to Taker’s appearance. I did like the spot where Shawn nailed Show with the Superkick whilst the referee was distracted but that was about it

In Ring Segment: Sheamus & Triple H

Shawn yells at Hunter and stalks out of the arena which allows Sheamus to strike and Sheamus annihilates Triple H with an impressive beat down complete with an Irish Curse Kick over the announce desk. Sheamus poses to huge heat from the fans. Unintentionally funny moment, a fan at ringside yelled at Sheamus ‘ooo your gonna get knocked the fuck out’

Chris Conisders: This sets up a Wrestlemania showdown between these two nicely. Good booking here as Sheamus got a tonne of heat.

Ok so first off the positives. Well we got some good build here for Wrestlemania in that Vince and Bret was added to the card and the Batista vs Cena and Undertaker vs HBK feuds were furthered. We also got the two other feuds likely to make the card (Legacy vs Orton and Sheamus vs Triple H) develop which was good. Orton and Ted had a really enjoyable match and the opening promo between Hunter and Shawn was by far the best moment of the show. The tag title match I will put in the middle, it was nether good nor bad just was, it furthered HBK vs Undertaker and set up Triple H vs Sheamus but was too short to make an impact. However the negatives of this show were once again glaringly obvious. The two MITB qualifying matches were a complete joke in their length and the way they were booked as total squashes, Zak Ryder has proven he can compete at a high level and deserves better, Santino, well is Santino so they should have had Swagger go against Masters or something. Anything involving the guest hosts was total crap and certainly not in keeping with WWE’s usual PG theme but I don’t care it still sucked and wasted what could have been wrestling time. God I was embarrassed to watch it and pissed off that I have stayed up all night to cover something which sucked so much. There were also so many promos and recap videos and skits that we got maybe twenty minutes wrestling maximum. Not good enough from WWE’s flagship show. When you get more wrestling in one hour of NXT than you do in two hours of RAW you know you have a problem… Hopefully Paul wont need cover again for some time as I really don’t want to be sitting through this crap every week. At least normally I can read Kendra’s results and pick out the bits of the show I want to watch but when I am reviewing it I watch it all and it certainly feels a LONG two hours.

You know what this RAW reminded me of, an old episode of WCW. Short pointless matches and long drawn out promos and videos. Don’t get me wrong some of the promos tonight were awesome, and I would say the Hunter and Shawn one is must see but one average match in a two hour wrestling show is appalling. I would hope that at least 50% of WWE’s viewing audience actually watch the show for the wrestling so vote with your feet next Monday and watch TNA and force Vince to up his game because I want to start enjoying my Monday night viewing again!

Match of Night was Orton vs DiBiase and the show scores a poor 5/10

I hope you have enjoyed my second WNW RAW review. I wish I could have been more positive but the in ring action tonight was only a slight improvement on last week! I hate being negative on WWE’s product but if they put on crap they will get a crap review. Ill be back later this week with a Roadrunner blog and then in a couple of week’s with Chris Reviews Smackdown. As always you can email me on a_agreement_called_forever@hotmail.com , add me on facebook: www.facebook.com\wnws.chris.jacks  or follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/WNWsChrisJacks  I would love to hear from you!

Hey everyone and welcome to the first ever Chris Considers RAW. As I mentioned in my Smackdown blog it is my 25th birthday this coming weekend an I am away partying in Nottingham for much Jagermeister consumption (What would CM Punk think!) So Paul kindly agreed to swap shows with me and cover Smackdown this week. I figured this would be much better for you guys than a Smackdown blog the following Monday!

Now since Kendra does such a marvellous job with the play by play for RAW the format of this blog will be very different to the ECW/Smackdown blogs I have written in the past and instead of calling the match I will just mention the main points from each segment and analyse them which means it has taken 2 hours to put this together rather than the usual 5-6!

For Elimination Chamber thoughts check out my guest review blog with WNW regular Jason Velez. I don’t really have much else to discuss other than The undertaker pyro incident which from the sounds of things really pissed of the Deadman and rightly so. The Undertaker rarely makes mistakes and for something like this to happen live must have been hugely embarrassing and also rather scary and I can fully sympathise with Undertaker’s disgust the malfunction as the equipment should have been fully tested before use. The WWE pyro crew clearly didn’t buy their cable systems from Igus! (that’s the company I work for!) The fact so many reports, photos and videos have surfaced online today only increases that humiliation for Taker who always delivers and works his ass off for the company regardless of his ailing physical shape. I imagine flame pyro will be a thing of the past in WWE so look for Kane, Taker and MVP to have modified entrances from now on!

Ok lets talk some RAW!

We get highlights of Cena temporarily winning the belt at Wrestlemania only to lose it to Batista instants later, for my thoughts on this see my EC review!

I am instantly reminded why I dislike Michael Cole so much. Apparently tonights Guest Hosts are some rodeo riders and singers I have never heard of.

Opening Segment: Chris Jericho & Edge

Justin Roberts introduces the new World Heavyweight Champion and he comes to the ring suited up with a huge smile on his face. Jericho gets heat from the fans as he shouts he is going to Wrestlemania. Jericho talks about how he said he would never return to RAW after being attacked by Tyson even though he is the face of the WWE. Jericho says he changed his mind after he beat the Undertaker two times in a row and who else can claim that and as a result he is world heavyweight champion. Jericho repeats this a few times and Edge’s music hits and the crowd pop huge, Edge appears behind Jericho Spears him and announces that he is going to Wrestlemania against him. The fans go nuts and Jericho is pissed.

Chris Considers: As always solid promo from Jericho. From this monster pop it seems Edge will now be working as a full fledged babyface which is awesome! Somewhat predictable selection but this is a match we all want to see!

In Ring Segment: John Cena & Vince McMahon

Cena stomps out to the ring to a massive pop and grabs a mic, he looks pretty pissed. Cena says add him to the list of people Vince has screwed. He goes on about how he should be celebrating but he is mad as hell. Cena says he was champion last night and demands his rematch right now. Vince’s music hits and he struts out. Vince says he is all about business and admits making a deal with Batista to take out Bret and in return he got a title match whenever he wanted. Vince says it is not personal but just business and reminds Cena he told Batista to come get some and that’s just what he did. Cena says tonight he wants the damn thing back. Vince says Batista will not be defending until Wrestlemania and reminds Cena that Sheamus also deserves a rematch but who should get it. Vince tells Cena if he wins a match of Vince’s choice then he gets to face Batista at Wrestlemania if he loses Sheamus gets the rematch and Cena can watch the rematch from the locker room. Cena screams he will take it and demands to know his opponent, Vince tells him it is Batista. Cena looks dejected as we go to commercial.

Chris Considers: I much prefer the serious Cena than the suck up we see so often. This was a decent promo and I am sure we can already guess the way the match is going tonight!

Match 1: Divas’s Championship Match: Maryse vs Gail Kim

The match that should have happened at the pay per view last night is happening tonight on RAW. As I said in my predictions you cant make chicken salad out of chicken shit and this match was sloppy but not just from Maryse but also from Gail. I did like Gail countering Maryse’s finisher and bridging for the near fall. Maryse injured herself during the bout and Gail kept looking up as if she was expecting Maryse to do something. Maryse nailed her DDT after about four minutes for the win.

Result: Maryse defeats Gail Kim via pinfall to win the vacant divas championship ½*

Chris Considers: Sloppy, boring to watch and utterly killed the crowd. Maryse is not on the same level of Gail who had to work painfully slowly for Maryse to keep up. Maryse defiantly hurt herself and may have to immediately vacate the championship which would be ironic.

We see the guest hosts and they say there will be a diva bull riding contest tonight. Jillian comes in and does the awful singing. Most outdated gimmick ever! Jewel who is a female singer slaps Jillian and the face divas love it. Really useful use of three minutes.

We see Cody and Orton backstage and Cody says he knew Ted would betray him and the pipe was meant for Orton. Cody asks how Legacy can co exist tonight? Orton says he is at fault for what happened as he has taught Ted and Cody way too well and he has bullied them when things haven’t gone his way. Orton says he requested the match tonight to show they are on the same page. Orton says to tell Ted that he is sorry. Orton leaves and Ted arrives and asks how it went, Cody says almost two well and the two agree to keep to the plan

Chris Considers: It seems WWE are determined to turn Randy Orton babyface in this angle. I wasn’t expecting this and to be honest I cant see it working. Orton is like Jericho, a natural heel whereas someone like Edge or Triple H can work equally well as either.

Match 2: Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne & Yoshi Tatsu vs Legacy

I noticed Kofi was selling the injuries from the Chamber match last night, whereas Orton was not. I guess Yoshi has signed with RAW now which means a year jobbing in the undercard like Evan Bourne. Evan Bourne looked good in this match and took it to Cody which was good to see although the match dedcended into Borune being worked over by Legacy until he made to hot tag to Kofi but Orton took him out whilst the referee was distracted and absolutely took him apart. Cody tagged himself in and Orton hit his through the ropes DDT on Cody and left the ring before Ted got in face and asked him what the hell he was doing and ate an RKO to a massive pop from the crowd. Bourne pinned Cody with the AirBourne and Ted and Cody seethed in the ring at Orton.

Result: Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne & Yoshi Tatsu defeat Legacy via pinfall *1/4

Chris Considers: This match was really nothing special. The ring work from Ted and Legacy was solid but it was all over far too quickly for me to really get into the match. Yoshi played a less than impressive part considering this was his RAW debut which is not a good sign. The Legacy breakdown was well done but leaves me very confused as to where they are going with it. Did Orton just keep himself heel and turn DiBiase and Cody face? Guess we will have to tune in next week to see…

We get a really awesome video package of Shawn Michaels’ quest for a rematch with the Undertaker. This was so well done as it showed Shawn’s breakdown in quite a sympathetic light suggesting once again they he will be working against Taker as a face.

In Ring Segment: Shawn Michaels & The Undertaker

Shawn comes out to a mixed reaction from the fans. Shawn says he is not going to take up a lot of time because what he did was not complicated and he did what he had to do. Shawn says he understands what he did will not be popular and he can live with it. Shawn says he understands for every action there must be a reaction and he is not just hoping for a reaction from The Undertaker he is counting on it. The Undertaker’s music hits and he comes out clad in his Ministry of Darkness attire. The Undertaker looks really pissed as he glares at Shawn and tells him he now has his attention. Shawn says they had the greatest match in Wrestlemania history, some people say the best match ever and as flattering as that is he wrestled nearly a perfect match and made one mistake which cost him everything. Shawn says Undertaker should know that is something he cannot live with and Shawn begged him for a rematch and Taker ignored him which is why he cost Taker the World Heavyweight Championship and Shawn knows Taker is angry with him and he knows he wants revenge so face him at Wrestlemania and get the revenge. The Undertaker accepts and the crowd go nuts, Shawn goes to leave but Taker stops him and says on one condition, this year Shawn has to put up something as well, his soul. Undertaker says if Shawn beats him, he ends the streak but if Taker beats him Shawn’s career is over. Shawn says if he cant beat Undertaker at Wrestlemania he has no career.

Chris Considers: Awesome, just awesome segment that set up one of the most anticipated matches ever, and now with Shawn’s career on the line it adds so much. This was incredibly well booked and the fans just ate it up.

We learn that Wendi Richter will be the next HOF inductee, Cant help but feel someone like Trish is a little more deserving.

Match 3: MITB Qualifying Match: Christian vs Carlito

Christian has apparently signed on with RAW, big mistake in my opinion! Anyway I am glad to see MITB is staying at Wrestlemania despite having its own PPV. This was a quick match which Christian completely dominated hitting a few of his signature spots. Carlito fought back briefly with a swinging neck breaker and countered out of the Killswitch twice but Christian connected for the pinfall and victory on the third attempt

Result: Christian defeats Carlito to qualify for the MITB Ladder Match *1/2

Chris Considers: The wrestling so far has reminded me why I did not want to reiew RAW regularly. I am a WRESTLING fan above all else. There was nothing bad about this match but is was just too short to get into. Had this been on Smackdown or ECW it would have been given ten minutes at least. Both these guys are talented stars and deserve to actually be able to show what they can do in the ring. I think Christian would have been much better off on Smackdown and am disappointed he is moving to RAW as he will be lost in the shuffle.

Diva Bull Riding Segment with Jewel and Ty Murray and Show-Miz

The perfect example of what I was just talking about. Cut out this crap and pointless segment and Carlito and Christian could have had an awesome fifteen minute match. Apparently Jewel has sold 27 million albums and yet I have never heard of her. Divas ride fake rodeo bull and dont fall off, some don’t, who cares. Thankfully Show-Miz come out to save the segment and mock the competition and ask if that what the show has descended to. Ty Murray challenges Big Show to ride to the bull and mocks him saying he couldn’t do it better than the girls. Show struggles to climb on the bull which goes crazy quick for him and throws him off. Miz points out that is was much faster than for the divas and Ty Murray mocks him. Big Show flips out and punches the bull and Miz tells the hosts yet another guest host segment ending in disappointment just like the Colts in the Superbowl which gets HUGE heat. Jewel tells them that they will face The Worlds Strongest Tag Team for the titles next.

Chris Considers: The Miz on the mic was the only good thing here and what he said was spot on. Utter waste of time garbage, but I am sure you know by know what I like and what I don’t like in a Wrestling show so I was always going to hate this!

Match 4: Unified Tag Title Match: Show-Miz vs The Worlds Strongest Tag Team

We see Daniel Bryan watching the Miz backstage. As TWSTT make their way to the ring we get highlights of the hilarious Mark Henry KOOL AID SMASH! from Elimination Chamber. MVP took it to Miz early on until Show comes in but MVP takes it to Show only to eat a huge Spear. Show-Miz dominated MVP until both big men got in the ring, Henry hurt himself doing a splash and nailed The Miz with the World’s Strongest Slam but Big Show was the legal man and KOed Henry for the win

Result: Show-Miz defeat The Worlds Strongest Tag Team to retain The Unified Tag Team Championships *

Chris Considers: Their match last week was better, that was really just too quick and is a theme of this whole show. The ending was also really dumb. Mark Henry knew he had just been fighting Show and knew he was the legal man so why go for Miz? The wrestling tonight has just sucked, lets hope the main event delivers.

Main Event: John Cena vs Batista

Cena comes out to a good response from the fans whilst Batista gets plenty of heat. Batista sure looks daft with that hideous spinner belt! Michael Cole was trying to make it sound like John Cena had never main evented Wrestlemania before, idiot! Batista takes ages making his way to the ring and immediately ducks under the ropes before nailing Cena in the groin with a low blow getting disqualified. Justin Roberts announces Cena as the winner and all the kids cheer despite what was clearly about to happen. Batista beats the crap out of Cena after the match stomping and kicking away before going to leave but changing his mind and hurling Cena into the ring post. Batista continues to beat on Cena on the outside and slams him back first into the ring post before going to leave again whilst paramedics see to Cena. Batista grabs a chair and nails Cena with it, really cool spot with Batista pumping the floor with the chair waiting for Cena to try and get up and Batista just kept pelting him back down. For once Super Cena does not Hulk up and stays down as the fans boo the hell out of Batista.

Result: John Cena defeats Batista via Disqualification No Rating

Chris Considers: Absolutely criminal that this was the main event considering it was an instant DQ. However the post match beat down from Batista was pretty awesome and really helped continue this feud and the crowd absolutely HATED Batista which was exactly what was needed.

In a two hour wrestling show we got about fifteen minutes of wrestling in total. That is just unacceptable. I know this can sometimes happen on RAW, but John Cena and Triple H had nearly that time for one match last week. However there was some good booking going on here as all three major matches at Wrestlemania were made tonight which gives us a solid five weeks of build. Promo-wise I really liked the opening with Jericho and Edge as well as Cena and Vince but nothing came close to Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker, that was just awesome. I hated the stupid diva bull riding crap but at least the guest hosts didn’t dominate the show this week. So some excellent promos and good early build for Wrestlemania but wrestling wise the show needs to improve in the next five weeks or the Wrestlemania but rate will suck

There was no match of the night but the moment of the night was defiantly Shawn and The Undertaker’s promo. This week’s RAW scores a disappointing 6.5/10

I hope you have enjoyed my first ever RAW review. I wish I could have been more positive but the in ring action tonight was just not good, I hate being negative on WWE’s product but I have to call it like I see it. Ill be back later this week with a Roadrunner blog and then in a couple of week’s with Chris Reviews Smackdown. I shall defiantly be checking out WWE NXT tonight and am looking forward to what the show has to offer. As always you can email me on a_agreement_called_forever@hotmail.com , add me on facebook: www.facebook.com\wnws.chris.jacks  or follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/WNWsChrisJacks  I would love to hear from you!

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Some stuff to talk about here. They’re dropping the Survivor Series. I understand a lot of people are upset about this, and I can see why; a lot of people have fond memories of the Survivor Series (I was too young to take in this show when it was in its pure form of all Elimination Matches with all the big players involved). However, the Survivor Series hasn’t been what it started off as for a long time, and especially in recent years, it’s been just another PPV. What is stupid though is WWE blaming this on the name not being a draw any more. I think it still was. A lot of people bought the Survivor Series still for the history and the nostalgia, what got it a poor buyrate was the stupid way they built to it, with lots of Hornswoggle crap. Oh well, we will have to see what next November brings.

Some TNA talk now. I checked out Against All Odds from last Sunday and I was left with mixed feelings. I really enjoyed the world title match and give The Pope a clean tournament win and a good push is also good, but a lot of the tournament matches felt like Impact TV matches to me, which isn’t what you want from a PPV. And the less said about 3D/Nasties the better in my book.

The move to Monday nights. This will certainly be interesting. I ranted when they did the first time, but TNA shut my mouth last time, with lots of surprises and a good rating, so I wont make any bold predictions of failure this time round. What I will say though is that they are wise not to be expecting to be beating RAW instantly, as it will be a couple of years (in my estimation) before they can even hope to be close to competitive in the ratings. Also, for those thinking TNA will storm the way they did on January 4th, I will also say, that a lot of interest has dwindled in the company since then, because of the way certain things have been booked.

I also wanted to say thanks to the commenters on the comment board for sorting their stuff out, and cutting out all the personal crap. Some good wrestling discussion was to be had last week, and long may it continue.

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RAW is live and rolling from Des Moines, Iowa the home of everybody’s favourite ROH jobber ‘Sugarfoot’ Alex Payne.

On with the show.
We start the show with a musical deal of a different kind this week as RAW celebrates President’s Day with a local girl singing the Star Spangled Banner, and this is followed with the titles, now with more Maryse flicking her hair!

WWE Champion Sheamus vs Randy Orton, Non-Title Match
So these guys had a very very very run of the mill match, with Orton playing quasi-face again. The crowd went for it, but Sheamus, definitely in this arena anyway, isn’t over as a heel. Cody and Ted came down which led to Orton getting distracted and Sheamus taking over. The thing is, these guys have both a very methodical and frankly dull style of vanilla offence, and so when Orton did hope spots or his comeback the crowd weren’t into it because it wasn’t fiery babyface style. They did go for his stalking and mat pumping though. Orton posted Sheamus on the outside and Legacy intefered when they thought the ref’s back was turned, but the ref saw and this led to the DQ in favour of Sheamus. Bad match, even worse finish. 3/4*

After this Legacy argued in the ring, and Orton RKO’d Rhodes, Sheamus pump kicked DiBiase and Orton RKO’d Sheamus, to a big pop. If they go for a threeway feud between Legacy, Orton would definitely work if they want him to be babyface.

They recapped all of the Cena/Tista/Vince/Bret stuff from the last couple of weeks. This was good stuff but as always the WWE makes everything seem really epic with video packages.

After this, Bret Hart came out. Bret said that if Vince had shown up this week, Bret would have been waiting for him, because he came to finish things tonight. The crowd ‘what?’d’ him until he talked about beating Vince up, which the crowd liked. Bret ran down Vince as a liar. He said he wanted one last victory at Wrestlemania, but it wasn’t to be. He thanks the wrestlers and the fans and even John Cena. And he says goodbye once again, not to much of a reaction. So the crowd didn’t buy it, much like I’m not. I swear he did the Wolfpac sign on his way out but I might have been dreaming.

Bret was backstage and he said goodbye to Kofi, Jack Swagger, Alicia Fox, all of whom were very nice to him. Bret says to Primo to say hi to his Dad. He says bye to Evan Bourne and Gail Kim.

John Cena asked Bret if that was it and Bret says it was the end of the line. Nret tried to get into his car but apparently some woman went into the car as Bret was getting into it. Gail and Evan came in and Cena brought a doctor through. They show Bret getting put onto a stretcher and taken a way by an ambulance. INTRIGUE. Was Vince behind this? If not, then that woman is an idiot.

WWE Unified Tag Team Champions Big Show & The Miz vs MVP & Mark Henry, Non-Title Match
ShowMiz have a new mashup theme, its not bad, but its nothing on the Big Show/Jericho one. I thought Henry and MVP weren’t a team any more. The heels tried to work on MVP but Henry came in and hit his finishing slam on Miz but Show broke the pin. MVP reversed a Miz pin attempt into a crucifix to win. Not much of a match, but its cool to see them tie together the Miz/MVP stuff with the new tag team championship reign. I assume that this makes Henry and MVP #1 contenders, because if not, that was a truly baffling way to go here. 1/2*

The did you know was that the only guy to win more than one Elimination Chamber match is Triple H, who has won four. Interpret that as you will.

Next up was The Jerry Springer Show on RAW, with intimate relationships revealed. Oh dear. First up was Kelly Kelly, well as far as intimate relationships go, this could take a while. Apparently Kelly is pregnant and she says there’s a lot of possibilities for who the baby’s Dad could be. Santino is prime suspect apparently. Christ. But wait- somebody had to finish the job when Santino was sleeping. Michael Cole stands up but wait so does The King. Jerry makes paedo about jokes about King which was beautiful. Santino referenced Grand Master Sexay  as a bad reason to have The King as a Father. The Bellas came out and announced that Brie is a man. Then Chris Masters came out. Kelly couldn’t resist herself. Oh dear. And out comes Eve. They did the oh snap stuff and had a pull apart, but it turned out that Eve had been with KHALI. Imagine that. Or probably don’t. Jerry has paternity test results. Its apparently Hornswoggles. Jerry says this is nuts, but I’ve seen porn that says otherwise. Jerry says this is madness, and clears off. King says that this was a charade, and Runjin Singh says this has been a waste of time. And then they bring out Mae Young, to reveal Jerry’s intimate relationship. Please no. A midcard mess of a segment that was so much for WWEPG. Not like they could have had a wrestling match or something here apparently.

Kofi Kingston vs Ted DiBiase
They had a one sided match with DiBiase getting absolutely nothing for two minutes fifty five of the about three minutes this went. They were playing up the idea that after beatdowns from Cena and Sheamus he was physically spent. However, he got a desperation victory after ducking under a Kofi mount attempt and dragging Kingston from the second rope, into dream street for the win. This match could have taken place inside an empty arena, the crowd straight up did not care. Interesting booking going into Sunday, but again not a good match. 3/4*

They announced Antonio Inoki as the next entrant into the Hall of Fame. As mentioned his founding of NJPW makes him a legend alone, nevermind his matches. They called Inoki vs Muhammad Ali a ‘mixed martial arts superfight’, not sure about that. However, he is a true legend of this business.

They did an awesome hypejob explaining the Elimination Chamber, the nature of the cage, and the rules.

Jerry Springer’s Final Thought. Jerry (still with Mae Young’s lipstick on) did the hard sell for Elimination Chamber, then walked away with Mae Young. Don’t judge him.

John Cena came out for a confrontation with Batista. Before this got under way they showed the video of Batista owning Cena after RAW two weeks ago. Cena called out Batista, but DaveYe Batesta appears on the screen. Batista said Cena wants none of him, and that when they do come face to face he’s gonna wish it was a bad dream. Cena says Batista is only acting tough. Batista said its funny how Cena keeps talking when Batista isn’t there, and he’ll be at RAW to see how much Cena talks when he’s there in person. Cena said if Dave wants some, that he can come get some. And then it was time to play the game.

Next week will be Jewel and Ty Murray. I’ll try and care by then.

John Cena vs Triple H
The lack of crowd interest in the early going here really hurt the feel of this match. And while the crowd got into some things including the nearfalls, the interest this match usually has was nowhere to be seen here, and it hurt overall what was the usual good match from this pair. It was physical and it was back and forth and was without too much downtime, which when you consider the endless battles Randy Orton had with these men, was a Godsend. Cena repeatedly went for his version of the STF, but he couldn’t get it til the third or fourth time, but Trips made the ropes. Whats funny is that the staleness of the main event scene is largely attributed to these two, but they always have a far more entertaining match than any other main event combo. Anyway, what was turning into a great match ended with Sheamus running in a pump kicking Triple H as he was going for the pedigree. He missed the same move on Cena, but an eye rake led to him getting it anyway. He then hit the Razor’s Edge on Hunter. **1/2

Sheamus standing tall in the middle of the ring over two of his challenegers is a good final image to take us into Elimination Chamber. RAW was odd this week. Wrestling wise this was a total one match show, and even that match didn’t have a finish, which under the circumstances was understandable. The Elimination Chamber was dual-focus of the show, and the announcers talked it and its participants regularly, which is a good move when TLC was barely promoted due to an oversaturation of guest hosts and the only way the Survivor Series main event was hyped was through comedy. However, the wrestling here was a big let down. I was also disappointed at a lack of follow up in the Shawn Michaels storyline. However, if he is to play some part as a surprise at Elimination Chamber, keeping him out of sight and out of mind is probably a good move. I am perplexed at where the Bret Hart thing is going, but that is definitely better than being annoyed at a lack of direction. So for creating some intrigue, but not following up with good wrestling…

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs in the middle.

Match of the Week:

ROH Man Up

ROh World Tag Team Titles: The Briscoes vs Kevin Steen & El Generico, Ladder War

So you might have heard of this match. The Briscoes and Steenerico had many great matches in their feud in ROH, and this really cemented that feud as a true return to great tag team wrestling in ROH, a long time tradition for that company when we look back at Aries/Strong, The Briscoes, The Second City Saints and many others. This was such a brutal match and when you put those damn Briscoes in any match…well you’re certainly in for…something. This is another out and out spotfest, however, with a little more story than last weeks. Hope you enjoy guys, if you remember all the hype at the time this happened, and you never got to check it out, do it now.

Part 1

Part 2

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Okay so, as I promised various things to talk about.

The Royal Rumble has been done for eight days. I actually, unlike Richard, really enjoyed the show. I think that while the Rumble match wasn’t as great as others have been, there were several little points in the match, like Punk’s early spree, Shawn superkicking Hunter, the marking out to do with all things Edge, that gave me a good feeling coming out of the show. Additionally, for two old guys with busted knees Undertaker and Rey had a great match, Miz and MVP put on a half decent impromptu title match and Ezekiel Jackson had a far better match than a guy of his skill and level had any right to have. And I’m really glad I was wrong about the women’s match. It was the perfect payoff to the whole angle to have Mickie beat Michelle so convincingly and quickly. I thought that Michelle would win and I am so glad I was wrong.

Speaking of what I thought, gotta say, not enjoying the irony of the winner of the Blog Writer’s Challenge ‘09, being dead last at the start of the 2010 competition. Not a pleasing feeling. However, I hope to come roaring back with my divine predictions and I have some idea of where I think they’re gonna go for Elimination Chamber and Wrestlemania, so we’ll have to see how on the money I am.

So my old blog home of ECW will be leaving our screens, to be replaced by WWE NXT. I think the best thing out of all of this is the removal of the ECW name. Don’t get me wrong the show has it’s weeks, but it was in no way the original ECW and the original deserves to have some legacy that can’t be confused with became of ECW2.0. WWE also gets a chance to give us a whole new concept, and I can only presume that the new one will get a similar 0.9/1.0 rating. That number must be the hardcore WWE fans, who watch Superstars as I don’t see any reason for people repeatedly tuning into the two shows that are irrelevant to the general direction of WWE, so I can only assume that its a section of viewers who just really love WWE’s brand of wrestling. And I can’t see NXT and the concepts (such as a reality Ultimate Fighter/Tough Enough hybrid) being proposed for it increasing the rating that allegedly caused the killing off of ECW. Without star power and without a relevance in the general WWE universe so to speak, you’re not giving more than that hardcore WWE fanbase reason to tune in. I am going to be open minded, however, and see where they plan on taking the show.

I also said last week I was going to talk about Jericho/Hurricane’s arrest, but the whole thing has blown over and I don’t really think I have anything to add to what has been said.

Anyway, the blog is in a different form this week as my computer apparently hates me and died when I originally wrote the report yesterday, just before the Cena/Vince/Bret stuff, which is a long ass section of writing, especially play by play writing to have to be redone. I wrote the blog in a more opinion/analysis based style and if this gets a hugely positive response, I will switch to this style permanently, as it is certainly easier for me to write every week. But if people want the minute-by-minute analysis and description to stay, by all means make your voice heard and you will get your wish.

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RAW is live and rolling from Lafayette, Louisiana hometown of no-one big in the wrestling world as far as I know, feel free to correct me though.

On with the show.

Show started with a summation package of Bret Hart since his return to WWE, i.e getting his ass kicked left, right and centre. Then we got titles, theme tune pyro, yadda yadda yadda. We see a NASCAR spinning backstage, that came into the arena, and it was not our guest host for the week Carl Edwards, but Hornswoggle. SWERVE. Kelly Kelly introduced Edwards, in a voice and tone so irritating, that I was begging for the return of Tiffany to my blogging endeavours.

Edwards came out and got a cheap pop for the Superbowl and pimped out the Daytona 500 next Sunday. A mention of his friend John Cena brought out Sheamus. Sheamus noted that as WWE champion, he is THE ALMIGHTY OIRISH OVERLORD OF MONDAY EVENIN’ RAW and that he demands Edwards give him the last entrance in the Elimination Chamber. What he got instead was Christian.

Christian came out and introduced himself, and Lawler said it had been a long time since Christian hadd been on RAW. Eight weeks Jerry, eight weeks. Christian made sports references, and he said he felt offended that Edge didn’t consider him for a Wrestlemania main event, but realised why when Vince announced ECW was folding. He mentioned the new and shiny NXT and said that all the ECW wrestlers would become free agents and not unemployed as Sheamus had suggested. Anyway, Christian said he was trying out RAW to potentially sign there and wanted to get his toes wet by wrestling Sheamus. Edwards liked this idea and he made the match for RIGHT NOW.

WWE Champion Sheamus vs ECW Champion Christian, Champion vs Champion Non-Title Match
They had a short seven minute television match, but after the usual formula of long opening segment and coming back to a crappy match after the break that we’ve seen lately, this was very refreshing. They kind of worked a long match formula, but crammed it in. Sheamus took over by ramming Christian’s arm into the ring post on the outside after eating a springboard move. This played into the finish, as he posted Christian again later on, and this allowed him to hit the bicycle kick/Razor’s Edge combo for the pin. This was your usual Christian match, which consequently made it a lot better than your usual Sheamus match. **

TO THE BACK~! next for some backstage story stuff. Triple H and Shawn Michaels were backstage and Shawn said that while he had been distracted lately with The Undertaker, he thought it would be cool if DX could go to Mania together for the first time. HHH said that actually, he had qualified for the Chamber, unlike Shawn, and that he wanted to win the title and go to Wrestlemania as champion.

Meanwhile Ted and Cody had a confrontation. Ted said he was proud of qualifying for the Chamber and Cody said he only had to beat Mark Henry, compared to Cody’s battle with Cena and that he didn’t think Ted could win in his position, which Ted refuted. Randy Orton came in and questioned both of their claims, and announced Ted Dibiase vs John Cena later and that he himself would wrestle Cody.

Luke Gallows & CM Punk vs DeGeneration-X vs The Miz & Big Show, Triple Threat Elimination Match for the WWE Unified Tag Team Championships
Pre-match CM Punk said it was sad that even in times of joy like Superbowl victory and Mardi Gras that Louisiana turned to drugs and alcohol. He then attempted to convert Jared the Subway Guy, by force if necessary, to Straight Edge. DX interrupted though.

The match was decent, and I enjoyed a lot of the spots, but in the second fall with The sXe guys gone, it was a bit sloppier and they didn’t all seem on the same page workwise and it made the match feel a bit stuttery at times. The first fall came when Punk had HBK up for Go2Sleep but Shawn got out and Punk turned round into Sweet Chin Music. The second fall ended when Triple H got a hot tag and as he RAN WILD on Miz, Shawn blind tagged back in and Hunter confronted him about this, leading Miz to ram Shawn into Hunter and roll up HBK for the win and the titles. I was interested in Punk and Gallows as champs, but Miz and Big Show leads to more possibilities I suppose, with both guys doing funny promos together, although where this leaves MVP, I’m not quite sure. I guess Miz will finish with him, probably by retaining the title. As I say the match was good not great, but I enjoyed some of the spots, specifically Serena taking out Miz and Miz running into a spinebuster from Triple H on the outside. **

Backstage Miz and Big Show celebrated their win with Show saying how this team already beat his previous one as he and Jericho could never beat DX. Miz said together he and Show could run the WWE. He said they are The Miz Show and they are awesome. Show prefers ShowMiz as in showbiz. Me too.

Shawn Michaels was backstage and he was hunting maniacally for Teddy Long. He found him and demanded to be traded to Smackdown and to replace somebody in the Elimination Chamber, so he could win, go to Wrestlemania, where he would give Undertaker his rematch, and he could end the streak. Teddy said that while he would love to have Shawn, the Chamber is full. Shawn was in full on desperation mode and when he was told the bad news grabbed Teddy angrily. Hunter stopped him doing anything, and asked is this how far his obsession had taken him? Shawn said his career was over and superkicked Teddy long before stalking off angrily. I like where this is going, and I am intrigued by Shawn’s character direction. Nice one WWE.

Jillian Hall vs Gail Kim
The Divas title match will be on PPV. Fantastic. Maryse was on commentary for the mere seconds this nothing of a match lasted which Gail Kim won with the falling boot to the chin. After the match Maryse played nice to Gail Kim before saying mean things in french, but shaking Gail’s hand afterwards. N/A

They announced the first inductee for the Hall of Fame will this year be THE MILLION DOLLAR MAN TED DIBIASE. And about time too.

Cody Rhodes vs Randy Orton
Cody got a jobber entrance. There wasn’t much to this but this was okay because it was more meant to be an angle anyway. They shoved each other and in the end Sheamus distracted Orton and Cody snuck up on him and hit CrossRhodes for the shock victory. After the match Sheamus pump kicked Orton but backed off after Cody came back into the ring with a steel chair. This Legacy breakup or not breakup is intriguing but I need a more solid direction soon or as a fan I will be frustrated and not in a good way. 1/2*

Backstage Carl Edwards went back on an earlier segment where he said Jerry Springer would make three singles matches next week between the participants of the Elimination Chamber, and went ahead and made them here. He made Sheamus vs Orton, Dibiase vs Kingston and HHH vs Cena. He slightly overdid the delivery on this as he tried to make it sound like it was the biggest deal, but it just isn’t.

I wont rate Cena vs Dibiase as it wasn’t a match as advertised. Basically Dibiase came out and got mauled and tapped to the STF on the floor. Cena looked generally more angry than normal coming to the ring and during this in general. He said he didn’t care why Batista attacked him last week, he just called him out. When Batista didn’t come out, he called out Vince instead, who did come out, with ten security guys.

Vince said the only reason he likes Cena is because he draws, and Cena interrupted him saying he’s all about the money whereas Cena actually loves the business. He started talking about loving ‘the moment’. This was all kind of cheesy but due to his delivery, Cena pulled it off and got pop from the live crowd. Cena said Bret wanted a match with Vince at Wrestlemania, and while Vince claimed Bret didn’t want that, he accepted the match. Vince telling Cena to shut up was very funny.

Vince addressed Bret as being in Calgary, and he showed a video package of the stuff last week to show why Bret might not want any of Vince. Bret hit the ring and ground and pounded Vince. The security came to the ring but Bret fought them off and grabbed a steel chair. Vince decided to change his mind on the mania match and ran away. Bret started destroying the TV equipment and the announce, in reference to his post show stuff at Montreal. Not sure the crowd recognized this. He stood in the ring looking pissed as his music played, before posing for the crowd as the show went off the air.

I sit here shocked that RAW for the first time in forever, put together a two show streak of really good programs. There was a mix of good wrestling, decent promos and some great segments that furthered storylines. I actually feel bad for Luke Parks, my predecessor, as I feel that if he’d given it another month or two, these recent RAWs could have made him change his mind about his decision.

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs up.

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Match of the Week: This is a new feature, where I will give you some video orgasm, in just a random out of my collection of favourite wrestling matches, linked – for your pleasure – below. It wont always be WWE, just so you know.

Match of the week number one by the way will be:

Kota Ibushi vs Jigsaw vs Nick Jackson vs El Generico

Ibushi is a Japanese indy superstar, Jigsaw is a big player in CHIKARA and former member of The Vulture Squad in ROH, Nick Jackson is one half of the Young Bucks or Generation Me and El Generico is the very same former one half of the ROH Tag champs. This is a semi final match from the Rey de Voladores tournament, a high fliers mini-tournament held every year at CHIKARA’s big King of Trios tournament. This match is just an out and out spotfest, but a great one at that, and you can buy the show this came from (I very much recommend you buy all three nights of this tournament which includes appearances from Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries, Al Snow, Dave Taylor, Eddie Kingston, Mike Quackenbush and many more) at Smart Mark Video, and the DVD is CHIKARA King of Trios Night 2. The match is in video form below:

Part 1
Part 2

There may be a ad beforehand, but its worth sitting through.

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Not too much pre-game tonight, as I have to borrow a friend’s internet access here, which is also why this blog is real late, because I’ve had internet problems since Tuesday morning, and although they were originally supposed to be solved today they just haven’t been, but next week I’m gonna catch you guys up with my thoughts on the Royal Rumble, my lack of prediction success, the second death of ECW, WWE NXT, and the Jericho/Hurricane situation plus any other big wrestling news that transpire. Also, I’m gonna introduce one of the new features I told you about in my first RAW blog.

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RAW is live and rolling from Nashville, Tennesse

On with the show.
Jack Brisco memorial screen starts us, before the usual look back through time thing. Then our RAW title screen now with more Gail Kim pointing! Yeah.

Tonight Bret talks to Vince! William Shatner is our guest host! Things happening!

And here comes Edge.

I remember when this dude was Gangrel’s cronie, and now he looks like a star. He’s back, he says. But he’s not just back, he’s back in the main event of Wrestlemania. He reminds us of him getting injured during his tag title run, and how he may never have been able to come back. He says he watched the Slammy awards and Jericho thanking him for getting injured. He saw Jericho mocking him and the room (?) got very silent, and it wasn’t because Dennis Miller bombed, it was because he promised that he would be back for Wrestlemania. He realised that he is the Ultimate Opportunist, he promised he would prove the doctors wrong, and he did. He promised that he would enter the Rumble and win. He said Jericho has a Slammy, a mugshot on TMZ but Edge has a main event at Wrestlemania. Burn. He says two years ago he faced the Undertaker and lost. He says that unlike HBK if he wants Undertaker, he can have him. He however says, that he could have a match against a guy who’s unbeaten at Wrestlemania, or a guy whos never wrestled at one. He’s gonna wait to make his decision, and the one thing he knows is that he’s going to Wrestlemania.

Sheamus is now out.

Sheamus accuses Edge of mouthing off and says a lot has changed, which Edge acknowledges saying RAWs been taken over by an evil Ronald McDonald. Sheamus says that he could beat Cena which Edge couldn’t do at Mania, and that he beat Orton last night. Edge says he made a career out of beating Cena, but Sheamus says that was a long time ago and he will walk out of Elimination Chamber as champion, and he wont break a sweat beating Edge, and he tells him to run off to Smackdown before he rips his head off. Edge stands to Sheamus and Sheamus gives him a micshot and floors him with a forearm. He gets ready for the push kick, but he misses and Edge takes him down and does some ground and pound. He preps for the spear and gets it, goreing the LIVING SHIT out of him. Love that move.

So Edge smiles, walks away with Sheamus left lying. Cole discusses the Elimination Chamber, and we get a video package for it. Scary.

Cena is walking backstage! Walk boy. He will try to qualify for the chamber next.

John Cena vs Cody Rhodes, Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match
What is with the walking out semi-backwards thing Cody does? Its less noticeable when he comes out with Ted but it kind of looks like he’s talking to someone in the back on his way out. So it looks stupid. Anyway, Cody gets a two off a side-Russian leg sweep and works over Cena with the basics. Cody cuts off the five moves and gets two off a rollup, but Cena picks up where he left off with the protoplex and the five knucks. Cody blocks the FU and hits a short-arm clothesline and a front suplex for a two. Cody goes up top and hits a moonsaul, without looking behind him which looks very fake. Anyway, Cena kicks out of that and hits the AA from nowhere. Well that was blunt.
Winner: John Cena

Opinion: As decent a three minutes as you’ll get with those two. *1/2

We get a segment looking back at Survivor Series 97.

Matthews asks Vince if he’s seen Bret Hart yet? Vince says no-one will see him because he doubts he’ll show up. He goes to his office and is surprised by someone barging into his office off camera. Its a Canadian, and Vince asks if he has something to say. And it’s Shatner. Burn. As a fellow Canadian, Shatner can’t wait for Bret Hart to embarass Vince tonight. And he walks off. Thanks for showing up.

Jack Swagger vs Triple H, Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match
So wonder who’ll win this. Fresh matchup though, maybe a first time ever? Correct me if I’m wrong. Anyway, no follow up to Shawn kicking him out of the Rumble? Of course not. I mean Cole mentioned it, but there should be some interaction presumably. They mat wrestle until Hs makes the ropes. Swagger does press ups but Mr Helmsley isn’t impressed and knocks him down with punches and a high knee smash before taking Swagger over the top to a break. Back in, and Swagger gets two off a DDT. I personally feel that Swagger could be a cool way of injecting a new face into the title scene, and they need a couple of extra bodies in the Chamber to work the early stages of the match anyway. Hunter hip tosses his way out of an abdominal stretch and lowbridges Swagger to the outside. Swagger smashes HHH into the apron and back inside eats a powerslam for two. I like it when Triple H actually gives the younger heels some stuff. Makes him a far more tolerable babyface. I remember in like 2003/2004 and he would just bury pretty much everybody. Swagger goes for the Vader bomb but Triple H gets his knees up. Swagger does one of the eternal dont’s in wrestling by ducking after tossing H to the ropes, so he takes the facebuster, but Swagger kicks out of the spinebuster. Triple H goes for the pedigree but Swagger powers and back body drops out. He hits the Vader bomb again but Triple H kicks out at the last second. Belly to belly gets Swagger a two. He rams the midsection the corner and poses on a bodyslam, so Triple H counters to a pedigree.
Winner: Triple H

Opinion: Not too concerned by the result as it was a foregone conclusion. Short and sweet little match there and proof that when he wants to Triple H can wrestle a good TV singles match. The Swagger thing is bizarre because he’s been getting owned in 30 seconds in the lead up to the Rumble, but every now and then a guy like Cena or Hunter here will make him look really credible. **3/4

RKO vs HBK for a place in the Chamber is next. We get a really weird thing with Shatner doing a spoken word version of Sexy Boy. Shatner’s visuals were fucking weird. He then does The Time Is Now. I never actually knew the words to that. He then does Booyaka 619 and The Game. It was like one of those cheesy CD ads, but still surreal.

Especially when transitioning to SUPER SERIAL SHAWN BACKSTAGE~!    Trips comes in and wants a second to talk but Horny interrupts. Hunter shrugs him off and asks what was up with last night. He says he would have done it too, so no worries. WHAT A PAYOFF. This fucking company. Shawn is still spaced out that he didn’t win the Rumble. Hunter says that Shawn is losing it. Hunter says that all Shawn has to do to get to Wrestlemania is beat Orton tonight. He thanks Hunter, but you can tell his head was elsewhere. Apart from the lack of payoff regarding the Rumble, a good segment to continue Michaels’ downward spiral.

Randy Orton vs Shawn Michaels, Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match
Had a bit of a moment watching Shawn’s entrance. Weird to think that when Shawn came back in 2002, it was initially potentially gonna be a one shot deal. Well look what happened. Anyway, Shawn Michaels feud with Orton at the end of 07 was one of the few times I’ve been entertained by an Orton feud. Orton is somehow looking less skinny this week. Shawn fires off with chops, and hits a neckbreaker. Orton, however, takes a powder. Orton tries to take advantage by going for the draping DDT but Shawn blocks and hits a high cross for a two. Shawn hits his usual corner bump off an Irish whip. Orton hits his side headlock backbreaker. Orton stomps away at Shawn’s core. As soon as Michaels looks like coming back Orton hits his big dropkick. And then THE CHINLOCK. This is what I came to see. Orton puts Shawn on the top rope. Shawn blocks a superplex and knocks Orton down. He then goes and hits the big elbow. And those sounds guys start tuning up the band. Orton slithers under the superkick but rins into an atomic drop and a chop (twice) before the flying forearm, the kip up but Orton rolls him up as he’s doing it for the win.
Winner: Randy Orton

Opinion: Actually enjoyed this match and it’s cool that Shawn got taken advantage of during the kip up because after the forearm Orton knew that was coming so he knew just when to go for the roll up. **1/4

Shawn is really pissed off at the end of the match. I am actually interested to know how Shawn is gonna get to Wrestlemania now.

More SS97 nostalgia as we look back to Bret screwed Bret. They show the Mania package from the Rumble. The song really sucks for it.

Orton is backstage and Ted congratulates him and apologises about last night. Orton squares up to him and scowls before walking away.

Mark Henry vs Ted DiBiase, Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match
Mark Henry, someone I desperately don’t want in the Chamber. Bizarre pop though. Anyway whichever of these guys gets in will at least be interesting as for a new face. Henry mauls DiBiase to start with, taking him to the outside. DiBiase rams Henry’s arm into the ring post. He drop toe holds Henry into the steps. I fear a countout here. Thankfully not, as back inside DiBiase works over Henry’s injured arm. DiBiase kicks Henry in the face but ends up getting mauled again. He gets his boot up on a charge though. Henry catcnes him on a high cross attempt and DiBiase hotshots Henry’s arm on the ropes. DiBiase then pins Henry with a short arm DDT. This could be interesting.
Winner: Ted DiBiase

Opinion: Nothing amazing, nothing that bad though. This match is more notable for the result. *1/4

Big Show and Kofi are warming up backstage as they will be the final qualifier. Cole and Lawler take time out to talk about Jack Brisco’s passing. Rest in peace.
They show a video package.

Diva shit backstage. Maryse is really looking forward for that championship match with her. Maryse says Mickie and Michelle are embarrassing, and that she and Gail are grown up women and they should show what real women can do it. She says something I can’t understand. Gail and Kelly say this is weird.

Miz and Show are chilling backstage making jokes at Shatner’s expense. The sXe society walk in and complain about the lack of tag title shot. The two teams argue about who gets the shot and Show says they give bald people a bad name. Shatner walks in and theres a graphic joke I don’t understand. Shatner climbs on a chair and makes a triple threat title match for next week on RAW. That works huh. Jokes I don’t understand follow. Maybe I should watch American TV to understand these things.

Triple H consoles HBK backstage, and he tells Shawn to move on. He says there are plenty of other guys for Shawn to compete with at Wrestlemania. But Shawn says not for me and walks away. DX seemingly unconcerned at their triple threat tag match next week.

Kofi Kingston vs Big Show, Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match
Cole actually acknowledges Kofi getting ambushed at last year’s elimination chamber. Big Show has a new t-shirt. Before the match starts, The Miz comes out for some reason. Apparently its for commentary. Not much happens match wise its basically just Kofi getting mauled. He ducks out of the way of  Show charge and Show crocthes himself on the top rope and Kofi kicks him off the apron. During the break Show speared Kofi. This seems to be more about Miz on commentary. Speaking of which with Kofi on the outside, Miz starts yelling at Kofi. MVP comes out of the crowd and chases Miz away. Kofi hotshots Show and Kofi goes up top he falls off the top rope and completely fucks a dropkick. He hits more dropkicks to chop down Show. He hits the boom drop. This gets two. Kofi struggles his way up to his mounted corner punch and eye rakes his way out of a chokeslam. Show went for the KO punch, but he took out the ref. He throws Kofi out but the ref is out. Show calls for another ref. And that ref calls for a DQ. Show seems really concerned about this ref. However he is really pissed off that he got DQ’d. He didn’t mean to do it. He does have a point. Well thats an awesome way to build up Kofi.
Winner: Kofi Kingston (DQ)

Opinion: Well that sucked a whole load of dick in every way. 1/2*

We recap Vince screwing Bret 2010 version.

Carl Edwards of NASCAR will host next week where there will be a triple threat match for the tag titles. King is in the ring to introduce his ‘bff’ William Shatner. The Bellas of course bring him to the ring. There is an actual trekky in the crowd. Shatner trips on his way into the ring and asks if King is ok. This is weird. shatner thanks the crowd for having fun. Shatner introduces Bret Hart. Man I’m such a mark for this guy. He looks better in jeans rather than the shorts. He doesn’t look happy though. He doesn’t give his glasses away either, he wears them.

He says he’s had a month to think about everything and put it all into perspective, he says he came here for all the right reasons, and he tried to come and make peace. He says he was naive to think he could put everything behind him. He says he was wrong and he doesn’t like it. He says tonight he came to talk to Vince, not to make peace, He tells Vince to get his ass out here. He says he doesn’t like to wait.

Vince eventually strusts out dancing like the retard he is. He feigns surprise that Bret is there. He wants to get a few things off his chest, and he’s never regretted anything he’s done to Bret. Bret congratulates him on his honesty and says that Vince is the world’s greatest liar. He goes through all the lies Vince told last month. He says that Vince couldn’t lace up Stu’s jockstrap. He says that when Cena called Vince pathetic, and Bret says that he knows all about pathetic. He felt pathetic, in a wheelchair after his stroke. He told himself that someday he’d get out of his wheelchair and never feel pathetic again. He says when Vince screwed him on January 4th, he felt pathetic again. He says he wrestled constantly for Vince, and thought that someday Vince would appreciate him, but he never did. Bret says that this stick of chewing gum (referring to a couple of weeks ago) has enough flavour in it to kick Vince’s ass right there and then. Vince rolls through Bret’s nicknames and calls it all a crock of shit. Vince mocks Bret being a Canadian hero. Vince says Bret isn’t a hero. The crowd is not pleased. Vince says he can’t understand what the people see in him. Vince thinks he’s pathetic. He says he has no personality compared to Austin, Michaels and Perfect and that he’d be a midcard footnote if not for his opponents personality. Vince says he has no charisma, no command over the English language, a hound dog looking face, stringy crappy hair (assuming its his) and that he dresses like a hobo. Bret continually asks whether he’s finished. Vince says Bret deserves to be screwed. Great stuff, this. Vince says he was going to nominate Stu for the hall of fame, but he’s rethunk it and it’s not going to happen because he doesn’t deserve it. This takes Bret iver the limit and he beats down Vince. He goes for the sharpshooter but Batista hits the ring and pulls Bret away. Bret is downed on the floor until Batista holds Bret’s arm at Vince’s command. Vince screams at Bret. He gets his receipt for 12 years ago by spitting in Bret’s face. And with this RAW goes off the air.

Overall, a great RAW, especially comparing it to the ones from the past few months. Lots of good wrestling, not too much goofy shit, and an awesome segment at the end there. They started lots of little things, as I am excited to find out what’s going to happen with Bret Hart, what’s going to happen with Shawn Michaels, and I’m a little excited for the tag title match next week. They also built to the Elimination Chamber, even if they did botch Kofi’s build a little bit. All in all, one of the best RAWs in a long time.

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs up.

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Only pre-game this week is a little note on the Mickie/Michelle stuff on Smackdown. This better pay off properly with Mickie beating the shit out of her, or this is absolutely horrible booking that is completely against the kid friendly ideals that WWE is trying to promote.

Also, I from now on will be attending a class immediately before writing this blog, and that class is called ‘Linguistic Variation and Change In The British Isles’, which as I’m sure you can work is infuriatingly boring, so you will know what to blame if I’m OTT angry at the show one week,

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RAW is live and rolling from Columbus, Ohio hometown of TNA’s Madison Rayne!

On with the show.

This week we start with our opening video now with even more Eve dancing pointlessly!

Mikey C tells us we are six days from the Rumble and tonight our guest hosts are James Roday and Dule Hill…I thought Roday was off the show. Anyway. Are we ready?

We recap the melee at the end of last week’s show. Can’t believe these guys are wrestling not in the main event. I like how it isn’t even mentioned that they are defending their titles on Friday night. Usual pre-match schtick as always from DX. Trips notes a lack of Hornswoggle, as apparently Shawn sent him home. To boos. Christ. Shawn wants Hunter to understand that if Shawn wins the Rumble he can go on to Undertaker. Hunter says that this is too much to ask. Triple H says the jokes are over, coz the Rumble means it’s time to get serious. HHH says he knows how much Taker means to him, but he wants the title. He says they could work together and throw the 28 other guys out, probably pretty easy (BERRIED!), but it will still come down to him and Shawn, but if he has to step on his dream to get to his own, then he’ll do it. Shawn says he understands.

WWE Unified Tag Team Champions DeGeneration-X vs Legacy, Non-Title Match
They now mention the title match. Trips and Cody start and Triple H cgoes for the pedigree, but its blocked. Apparently we’re gonna get news about the guest host after this break. James Roday is not here. Anyway, now it’s Shawn and Cody who hits a bodyslam and Dibiase distracts him from the big elbow, but Shawn crashes onto Legacy from the top rope to the outside. Cody hits a draping neckbreaker. Dibiase and Rhodes isolate Shawn and tag frequently. Dibiase hits a nice dropkick after Cody went to ground. Dibiase hits a snapmare and a kick to the face. Cody blocks a tag to Hunter but runs into a back body drop. Shawn wants the tag but he’s not there. Dibiase whiffed on the superkick so shawn took advantage and tags Trips in to RUN WILD. Spinebusters to both Legacy members and as he was going for the pedigree. Shawn blind tagged in. Cody pushes Trips into Shawn. Shawn hits the sweet chin music on Dibiase to get the win.

Winners: WWE Unified Tag Team Champions DeGeneration-X

Opinion: Decent way to build dissension between DX, and build to the rumble match but as a match that felt like it never got out of first gear. *3/4

We sneak peak Psych which will co-star John Cena for this episode. Everyone verbally blows Cena. Yayy.

In a little while MVP vs Big Show. Sucks to be MVP.

MVP vs Big Show
MVP gets on the mic. He tells Miz that he’s his #1 contender and that he can try and hide behind guest hosts and Big Show, but he can’t keep running away and that eventually he will have to face him, and lose the title. This brings out Miz. Miz references MVP’s ballin’ catchphrase and makes a prison gay joke. Miz finds it strange that everyone accepts MVP and can’t stand Miz. While MVP was having mug shots, Miz was on reality TV. What an achievement. MVP tells him the reason people dislike him is because he is a jackass. Miz is not a balla, but Miz would have a lot of ‘friends’ if he went to prison, and then he questions Miz’s friendship with Big Show. Ah gay jokes. Miz says he would like nothing more than to have their US title match right now. Miz says he wont because he has a friend that wants to make a statement. Miz is the Miz and is awesome.

Big Show mauls MVP early with headbutts and his usual offence. He then hits a corkscrew plancha. Well not really but its more interesting. MVP hits his Yakuza kick and goes for another but runs into the chokeslam.
Winner: Big Show

Opinion: Well they sure know how to build a title challenger. Not even really a match, but comepletely counterproductive booking. 1/4*

Apparently later, Mr McMahon has a decision about Bret Hart.

Legacy were about to argue backstage but Randy Orton comes in and stops. Orton says there’s been tension and as soon as they sort things out, Legacy don’t help Orton with Sheamus and lose to DX. Orton says he will beat Sheamus with or without them.

John Cena is backstage with Dule Hill. Cena is outraged at the lack of James Roday. Apparently he’s having an appendectomy. It’s not a nice surgery. Cena enjoyed the skullduggery of Psych. Cena tells Hill to make this his night. Miz walk into his office. Miz says they could have had Miz on the show not Cena. Miz says he is more famous than both of the stars of Psych. Hill makes a match for Miz vs someone later. This show is so mediocre.

Maryse vs Eve Torres, Divas Title Tournament Semi Final
Maryse gets on the mic. Ruh roh. She says the other divas are wasting their time and then some French. There were a load of fireworks, and Dule Hill is shown to be playing with them. He apologises. Maryse does not accept this apology. This brings out Eve. This show is a mess. Wow this match gets Antarctica heat. Eve gets two off a dropkick. Eve hits a flipping senton for two. She hits a poor bodyslam and goes up and misses a moonsault. Not quite as graceful as Kurt Angle misses them. Eve hits a Northern Lights for a two count. I know. Anyway Maryse hits the French kiss for the win.
Winner: Maryse

Opinion: Not good, but a couple of different moves compared to normal divas matches. 3/4*

Vince is struttin through the corridors backstage with a smile on his face.

Vince walks out and they recap the Vince/Undertaker stuff again. Vince says if Taker was here he’d call him out and dare him to call him a coward. Vince says there is no reason for him to bring Bret back and that he sold Bret to WCW. What? Vince says everyone had forgotten about Bret until Shawn told him to bring him back. Loud we want Bret chant. He asks are they sure? Vince immediately announces Bret will never again appear in the WWE. Vince says that if everyone thinks they know better than Vince, they must all be billionaires. Vince asks the crowd for reasons to bring Bret back. One says that its because he’ll take him down. He’s in the crowd. This is bizarre. Another guy says he’s awesome. The announcers cackle in the background. But this is just weird. Vince says that Bret is a part of the past, and that he is concerned with the present and the future. Vince gives his thanks and tries to leave, but here comes John Cena.

Vince says Cena can’t change his mind. Cena says he has a problem with Vince because he dissed Bret and treated Piper badly. Vince says his ‘ugly’ purple jacket is better than the orange crap Cena wears. Cena says in the building of Vince’s empire he had a lot of help. Cena gets annoyed thart Vince looks at his wrestlers as commodities. Cena says people don’t respect Vince because all he cares about is money and ego. Cena says he cares so much about ego that he brought Bret back to kick him in the gut. Cena calls him pathetic. Cena says next week he invites Bret back to RAW and that Bret deserves a chance to face Vince face to face. Cena says that if Vince doesn’t do it it proves that Vince only thinks of everyone linked to WWE as a commodity. Cena says that come Vince’s 90th  birthday Cena will be a used up piece of gum too, so he will find Vince and beat him up. Cena says Vince has to do the right thing.

Vince tells him to wait. Vince says he’ll invite Bret back next week. Vince puts Cena in a match against Sheamus. Quite enjoyed that segment.

United States Champion The Miz vs Kofi Kingston, Non-Title Match
So this guy still needs new music. They wrestle and Kofi hits an armdrag. Kofi hits a running crossbody but goes flying into a boot by Miz for two. He gets another boot for two. Miz hits a leg drop before going for a chinlock. Kofi comes back with kicks including a pendulum kick and he hits shadows over hell for two. Miz hits his double neckbreaker. At this point MVP comes in and this makes Miz run right into Trouble in Paradise
Winner: Kofi Kingston

Opinion: Decent while it lasted. I don’t get why Big Show had to beat MVP, as the part where that isn’t happening is good build for this feud. *3/4

Dule Hill and Carlito are in the production truck. Carlito is babbling. They bring up the matchup graphics and brings Carlito up. Hill puts Carlito in a random match. Against Kelly Kelly. Carlito calls Hill the best guest host of all time.

Carlito vs Kelly Kelly, Fucking Stupid Bullshit Match
Well I’m glad we’re getting good wrestling out of this. Oh wait no. Kelly doesn’t look pleased. Then Santino comes out. Santino has a copy of The Best of RAW 2009 DVD, and Santino is in it looking stupid a lot. Santino says he’s going to take Kelly’s place, and he will win the Royal Rumble. However, Swagger comes from behind. Carlito very casually leaves the ring and Swagger beats down Santino and throws him over the top rope. Before celebrating. Swagger plows Santino into the ring post before doing press ups and beating his chest. He steps on Santino on his way out.
Winner: N/A

They do the Royal Rumble stats package. I like.

Cena is backstage sucking Dule Hill off. Cena has a photo of Dule and James Roday. He’s on speakerphone and he says something about gentleman pecs. Then there’s Bezerker and Carrot Top jokes. Alicia Fox walks in. She wants a prediction on her match and Dule says she’ll win. Hill will be at ringside. Weird segment.

Gail Kim vs Alicia Fox, Divas Title Tournament Semi Final
Gail didn’t get an entrance, and Dule Hill is on commentary. Gail hits a kind of monkey flip and just tosses Alicia around. Alicia nearly hits a backbreaker on Kim for a two count. Hard Irish whip by Fox. She misses a big boot and walks right into a powerslam. Alicia gets two from a small package. Kick from Gail and Alicia walks into that falling boot to the neck. Gail wins. Dule now has to face the consequences. Alicia decks Dule. Nice.
Winner: Gail Kim

Opinion: Alright, but as always they botched every other move. The women’s division especially on RAW is just awful. 1/2*

Next week Bret confronts Vince. And it will be WILLIAM SHATNER as our guest host. Epic.

WWE Champion Sheamus vs John Cena, Non-Title Match
Providing there’s nothing at the end of the show it looks like this will get a while. They pose and lockup until Sheamus misses a clothesline and gets bulldogged for two. Sheamus clubs Cena down. Cena hits his sort of fisherman’s for two. Sheamus clotheslines Cena down. Sheamus hits a suplex for two.  Lots of general hossiness from Sheamus. He hits a running knee on Cena to the outside. This pace is making my balls ache. Sheamus misses another knee blocks the AA and hits a DDT for two. A powerslam gets two. Due to the general lack of him on tonight’s show I predict a Randy Orton run in. you’re not missing anything here by the way. Sheamus counters Cena’s STF to take him outside. Sheamus tosses Cena into the steps. Sheamus tells him to stay down.Cena gets in again at 9.36236233673. Sheamus misses an elbow and feels them FIVE MOVES OF….DOOOOOM! He shuffles the knucks. However, Sheamus blocks the AA and hits his uranage backbreaker for a nearfall. Cena has the STF but Sheamus gets the ropes. On the outside, Sheamus hits that huge bicycle kick. I actually really like that kick. Anyway, as predicted, Orton comes in and hits the RKO with Sheamus back turned for the DQ. Orton does his psycho thang. Cena gets hung in the ropes and goes for the draped DDT and Cena counters hits the attitude adjustment.
Winner: Sheamus (DQ)

Opinion: Really a hit and miss match, good at times but boring in others. The booking pissed me off. What good did it do to have Cena own the champion and his challenger. That’s so stupid. Cena is over enough that he didn’t need that heat going into the Royal Rumble. **

Okay so tonight’s RAW was not a good show. Dule Hill had some charisma, but all of the segments and most of the matches were all just absolute crap, except maybe the Vince thing, which was actually surreal in some places.

Before I give the rating, I’m gonna adjust my ‘thumbs’ rating system. As it stands I have a ‘thumbs up’ ‘thumbs in the middle’ and ‘thumbs down’. I am now adding a ‘thumbs of contempt’. Because tonight’s show was a thumbs down show. However, recently I have seen much worse shows than this one, and therefore I need a way of distinguishing between the two types of bad show. This was just a bad show. There was very little wrestling (and what there was of it was rarely good), a lot of the mic segments were stupid, there was retarded booking and just boring stuff left right and centre. However, there have been RAWs that have been mind blowingly retarded, that buried people, that had the worst attempts at comedy ever and had so little, little wrestling. So there you go, that’s how I’m rolling from this point on. As I said…

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs down.

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.

By the way guys, check out the Blog Spot this weekend where a new SUPERPREDICTIONTEAM will be coming together to kick off the new year and predict the Royal Rumble. See you guys then.

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Watched TNA Genesis over the weekend. I honestly don’t think the switch to the four sided ring is that big of a deal even if it does take away one of the unique parts of TNA. I enjoyed Wolfe/Pope, Red/Kendrick and Angle/AJ, but I actually thought Kennedy did not look good at all. And sucks to be Daniels, jobbing out to Val Venis. Wow bad times. A very hit and miss show to me, but I guess we can wait to see as to where things like AJ’s heel turn go from here.

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RAW is live and rolling from Knoxville, Tennessee the home of Buddy Landel!

On with the show.

We open with a little video for Martin Luther King Day. No jokes here.

We then open with the title screen now with more Gail Kim pointing!

Next up is pyro and the sickening, infuriating sound that is Michael Cole’s voice welcoming us to THE NUMBER ONE SHOW BLAH BLAH. Tonight we have John Cena/Kofi Kingston vs Legacy. Our hosts are Don Johnson and Jon Heder. Sweet?

Out comes V-Daddy. As in Vince, not Viscera’s new gimmick. Recap of Vince kicking Bret SQUAW IN THE NUTS. Vince talks about decisions, such as bringing RAW to god-forsaken Tennessee and allowing Bret Hart to return to WWE and HUMBLING him. He did it for THE ROCK..uh, the fans, because he wants them to remember Hart as The Excellence of Execution, not a broken down old warhouse who needs to be put down. Vince says it’s his decision to put people down. He makes an analogy. Something about gum losing its flavour. Thanks for clarifying this obviously infinitely complex concept Vince. He says if he had allowed Bret to stay here, he would have ended up having to chop off his hand. This made marginally more sense if you watched it. He pulls a Jericho calling them all hypocrites. He kind of shoots by saying they want it hard hitting and that they want it all, and says that it was the fans who made the decision to ban Bret and- GONG.

The World Heavyweight Champion, The Undertaker makes his way to the ring. The lights turn blue. Vince says he wasn’t finished. This does not see to bother Undertaker. Undertaker sees it as his time. Vince doesn’t seem to be in a position to argue. Taker came to address Shawn Michaels, but since Vince is there, he came to tell him something. He says not many people that were around in Montreal are here now. He saw Vince’s fear then and he also sees it now. Taker points out that Vince screwed Bret twice. He says that Vince is terrified of the consequences, as he should be. Taker says Vince acted like a coward. Vince sheepishly disagrees and runs away saying it’s Taker’s time.

Taker says that like Vince, Shawn is angry, in denial and stubborn. Taker says Shawn proved that he is Mr Wrestlemania but he didn’t break the streak. Taker says that he will answer Shawn’s rematch request now, face to face. And out comes Shawn in DX garb. Shawn says he anxiously awaits his answer, and that he is all ears. Taker says Shawn came closer than everyone else, but still failed. He says a rematch would only result in more disappointment and that he has nothing to prove. Taker turns the match down. He says however, if Shawn is truly convinced that he can beat him, it’s on, tonight. Woah. But Shawn says no. Shawn says it has to be at the grandest stage of them all. Shawn says he will enter the Royal Rumble, win, and there will only be one champion he will face. Poor Rey. Taker says the rumble is Shawn’s only chance. Shawn says at Wrestlemania, the streak, the title, Taker’s soul, will be Shawn’s

Evan Bourne vs WWE Champion Sheamus, Non Title Match
Can’t see this going well for Evan, especially considering the jobber non-entrance he got. Randy is at the ramp. Sheamus mauls Bourne from the opening bell. Sheamus is distracted by Orton and gets the feces kicked out of him with kicks and knees. Bourne hits his double knees off the top for a nearfall. Sheamus hits a backbreaker. Then the Irish Curse. He throws him with the Razor’s Edge. Winnar.
Winner: Sheamus

Opinion: Basically a squash match and I will rate it as so. Sucks to be Evan. SQUASH.

After the match, Orton gets in the ring, and the two men staredown. Sheamus lifts his belt high and walks away.

DX are backstage. Trips says the earlier segment was some powerful stuff and Don Johnson walks in. They ask if Jon Heder is around, Shawn doesn’t know who he is. Shawn leaves. Hunter says Heder is an idiot and who cares whether he shows up or not. Johnson bumps into Carlito dressed as Napoleon Dynamite. Carlito HILARIOUSLY claims never to have seen the movie. Excuse me while I die of laughing. Or maybe just die. Christ.

We take an emotional look back to the ALL AMERICAN AMERICAN challenge from last week. Leave the memories alone.

Swagger has the mic and says last week was a fluke and he is an ALL AMERICAN AMERICAN AMERICAN AMERICAN AMERICAN. He issues another one of his challenges, again to Santino. Santino is dressed as Sonny from Miami Vice. Santino says he would love to beat Swagger again but he is president of the Italian Don Johnson Fan Club, so he is busy tonight, but he has found a suitable substitution in Mark Henry.

Jack Swagger vs Mark Henry, ALL AMERICAN AMERICAN CHALLENGE
On a roll with the mat classics this week. Henry press slams Swagger over.
Winner: Mark Henry

Opinion: Christ sake. N/A

The Bellas and Jon Heder get out of a limo. Heder tells someone else to wait in the car.

Our hosts (pimping When In Rome), make their way out with The Bellas. Johnson says they are thrilled to be there. Heder says he knows what they are thinking. H ewants to hear it for movies. Johnson puts DX in the main event, shocking. Heder says DX is ok, but he wants something new. Boos. American Football reference. Heder brings out his close personal friend The Miz. Douchebags unite.

Miz says its nice to have actual celebrities and says thanks to Jon for putting him in the Royal Rumble. Miz says Triple H thinks Johnson should host alone. They bitch about grosses. Miz says Johnson much like Miz is now, everyone wanted to be him. Miz says no-one remembers Tubbs, which Johnson denies. Miz says Tubbs is MVP. MVP thinks he can compete on Miz’s level which Heder says is a Miztake. MVP comes out and actually gets a pop. MVP says there’s a Miami kinship between himself and Johnson and apologises to him and the WWE universe for having him time wasted by Miz and Napoleon Dynamite. MVP announces himself as in the Royal Rumble and announces his intention to throw Miz out, and asks why wait? Why doesn’t he do it right now, and wants to throw Heder out too. This for reasons I don’t understand brings out Big Show. MVP is trapped between the two and gets knocked out by Show. Big Show gets in the ring and high fives Heder. Big Show is Heder’s insurance policy. Johnson wants no part of a conspiracy against DX. Heder syas Miz and Big Show could be good friends. Heder makes a tag team match between DX and Big Show and Miz. Heder kisses Big Show. Leave the memories alone.

John Cena and Kofi Kingston vs Legacy
John Cena is announced as being in the Royal Rumble match. King recaps last weeks triple threat match claiming RANDY SAVAGE RKO’d Kofi last week. Wow. Cena and Rhodes will start. After Cena throws around Rhodes, Dibiase tags in and gets mauled and faceplanted for two. Dibiase brings Cena down and Rhodes tag in, and there is many punches and kicks. Dibiase chokes Cena with the ref’s back turned. This gets two. From here we get frequent tags and punches and kicks. Eventually hot tag and Kofi RUNS WILD. With jumping and stuff! He hits the boom drop on Dibiase. Dibiase rolls away from Trouble In Paradise and after an exchange clotheslines Kingston down, with Rhodes stomping away. Back from a break and Kofi is getting worked over by the frequent tag method and heelish antics. Rhodes misses a knee as they tease the hot tag but Dibiase gets in first. However, he misses a corner splash but this time Rhodes blocks the tag. Decent fundamental tag psychology here. Cutting the ring in half and all that. Kofi blocks a chinlock with a stunner but he just misses the tag. Kingston hits a backdrop but can’t capitalise. Cena gets the hot tag and EL FIVE MOVES OF DOOMIO. Rhodes blocks the AA and hits a side Russian leg sweep for two. Cena throws Rhodes out of a bulldog and hits the Attitude Adjustment but Dibiase breaks it up. Kofi got the blind tag and hit a crossbody on Rhodes, with Dibiase being in the line of fire but moving out of the way. Kofi gets the three. Dissension!?
Winners: John Cena and Kofi Kingston

Opinion: Basic stuff but I enjoyed it. Cena’s audience connection is clear when you look at how big the pops were for the hot tag teases. This transfered some babyface heat to Kofi. Interesting stuff. **1/2

Post match Cody is angry with Ted and he walks away from him.

Heder and Miz Show are backstage. Hornswoggle walks in to a pop, on a stepladder. Triple H turns up. Hornswoggle’s growling, apparently meant nobody likes Heder. Horny challenges Heder to a match. Hunter verbally bitchslaps Miz and Hunter makes it a trios match with Heder and Horny joining the respective teams. Horny nonsense closes the segement. Heder doesn’t know what happened. Me neither. Not hopeful for this main event.

POURQUOI!?

Maryse and Alicia Fox vs Gail Kim and Eve Torres
My general summation of the participants? They’d get it. Gail and Maryse start with SHOUTING. Gail hits a missile dropkick for two. Alicia distracts Gail which leads to Maryse kicking her out of the ring. Maryse hits a backbreaker for two. She tags in Alicia and they slam Kim down doubleteam style. Fox hits a better backbreaker for another two. Not looking forward to the Eve hot tag. Alicia misses a bicycle kick and a corner splash and Gail tags in Eve to absolutely NO HEAT. Eve takes a kick to the face but hits hip toss, botches a dropkick HORRIBLY, before redoing spot, actually hitting her, but it looking little better. She clotheslines her down and hits a handstand senton for two. Eve hits a hurracanrana armbar (WHAT THE FUCK) and Gail blocks Maryse’s inteference and Alicia taps. Wow.

Winners: Gail Kim and Eve Torres
Opinion: Generally horrible, but the finish was interesting. 3/4*

We look at Stone Cold on Chuck. Stone Cold looked like he continued his Shakespearean like acting career with this appearance.

Johnson is doing something to Kelly Kelly (earn that paycheck) while Heder is hyperventilating. He asks Johnson to take his place. Miz says he has nothing to worry about, apparently Big Show and Miz are already clicking better than Jerishow. Johnson tells Heder this is a mistake. Miz says Miami Vice things are a mistake. Heder says he thinks he’s gonna be fine. They give Heder a Flair-like robe. Dumb.

Rundown the Rumble card. Looks okay..just okay for now. It has the Rumble though which means it is win.

Vince is backstage with Hunter, telling him he’s not a coward. Vince says he might call out Taker. Hunter says McMahons always have to have the last word. Hunter says if Vince doesn’t bring Bret back he’s a coward. Shawn walks in, and so does Hornswoggle. He growls. They still have something to talk about later. Shawn doesn’t want to grab Hornswoggle. But Hunter does. nice guy. Hunter’s legs looked tiny there. Orton wrestles next.

Randy Orton vs Chris Masters w/ Eve Torres
I wonder how this will go. I’d actually forgotten Master’s was employed. I don’t watch Superstars I’m afraid. Anyway, Sheamus’ music hits. He comes to watch. Orton hits an uppercut and blocks the Masterlock. Orton punches away at Masters and hits a big boot. Masters comes back with a powerslam for two. Orton hits a side headlock backbreaker and telegraphs the RKO but Masters counters to the Masterlock. King said he doesn’t know if he’s ever seen anyone escape the Masterlock. That whole idea was a huge thing for ages ON THIS SHOW THAT YOU WERE COMMENTATING ON AT THE TIME. Orton struggles but can’t escape. Orton fades away but crashes into the ropes to get the hold broken. Orton hits a sudden RKO for the three.
Winner: Randy Orton

Opinion: Okay while it lasted. Was weird to see Orton tease losing like that. Too short to be of any real quality *1/4

Post-match, Sheamus runs in and lays out Orton with his bicycle kick. Guess Orton is the quasi-babyface for this one. Next up is Dynamite/Miz/Show vs DX. Deary me.

Guest hosts next week will be James Roday and Dule Hill, from Psych. Sweet, more random actors from shows or movies I don’t watch.

Big Show, The Miz and Jon Heder THE FLAME vs WWE Unified Tag Team Champions DeGeneration-X and Hornswoggle w/ Don Johnson
I estimate that by the time the bell rings there will be about ten minutes of actual show time left. That will surely be painful. I wonder how people like MVP feel when they see Hornswoggle main eventing TV shows. We join in progress to Miz eating a flying forearm and an an atomic Drop from HBK. Miz hits a sloppy double neckbreaker for two. He hits some mounted punches and stomps away. Big Show tags in. Big Show hits a big sidewak slam and walks over Shawn before tagging in Miz. Miz hits a running kick to the face, but Shawn comes back with chops. Shawn hits a falling clothesline. Hornswoggle tags in and does stuff that I refuse to commentate. Miz takes him down as Heder calls for the tag. THE FLAME TAGS IN and looks a little like an unfit Bryan Danielson. His ring work doesn’t quite match this comparison. Heder kicks him and bites him in the ass and tags in Hunter before taking a powder. Johnson rolls him back in and Trips punches him down. Show goes for the chokeslam,but eats sweet chin music before falling on top of the downed Heder. Shawn superkicks Miz off the apron, Hornswogle tags in, goes up for the tadpole splash and he pins Heder for the win. Five stars.
Winners: DeGeneration-X and Hornswoggle

Opinion: Dumb but sort of a little entertaining. If Horny had to get the pin, at least it was on Heder. *3/4

Hunter wants to tell Shawn the thing from all night. Hunter tells Shawn he needs to figure out another way to get the match. He doesn’t think it’s gonna work out going for the championship. This for some reason leads to Cena coming out. Cena announces his entering the Royal Rumble match pointin out that the last time he was in it, he won it. From #30 John. Big Show gets in the ring. Show has news. He will also be in the Rumble. He says the Rumble is designed for a guy like him. Despite him being eliminated from the last two twice. Show lays out DX but gets shoulderblocked out of the ring. DX throw Cena out, and Hunter throws out Shawn. Hunter says none of those guys will win the Rumble, but Triple H will.

Decent closing segment.

This was another hit and miss show for me. The story stuff has actually been pretty decent in building the WWE title match, and the Royal Rumble but at the same time I feel like the guest host concept (long since ran out of steam) is taking up too much time on the show, still after all this time and it’s detracting for everything. I don’t care enough about Crockett or Napoleon Dynamite to see them main event a TV program. The other thing is that the wrestling isn’t good enough. I think the promos have generally been of a decent standard, but there’s too many three minute matches, which bury the loser and don’t achieve much for the victors. When the best match on your flagship show is a decent, but fairly run of the mill random tag team match, there is serious problems with the wrestling aspect of your wrestling show. So while I enjoyed bits of RAW this week…

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs in the middle.

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

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We start with our opening wideo now with more Hornswoggle being a douche. YEAH.

Justin Roberts doles out the verbal fellatio for tonight’s guest host THE BADDEST MAN ON THE PLANET, Mike Tyson. Tyson is looking very nondescript. He says it’s great to be back before sucking up some adulation. He remembers last time he was on RAW as being a memorable experience, and thus they show clips of his and Austin’s confrontation, and show Tyson holding up Austin’s hand and knocking out HBK. Sweet. You screwed Shawn chant. THE CELTIC WARRIOR~! interrupts though.

Sheamus quibbles Tyson being iconic. Sheamus says Tyson is a washed up ex champion. Bite him Tyson! Sheamus notes his WWE championship which makes him the baddest man on the planet. Tyson goes for it and Sheamus jumps back. Sheamus makes some threats leading to Randy Orton coming out. HEELFEST.

Orton doesn’t want a Sports Centre Moment, he wants the title, and Orton suggests he gets a shot at the Rumble. This brings out John Cena.

Cena says hello. Cena lists reasons why he came. They were fake, the real one though is for the WWE championship. Sheamus says no. Cena says he has beaten everyone in the ring, even Tyson ON HIS VIDEO GAME. Thank God King mentioned that cause I had no idea. Cena says he deserves the shot, but here comes KOFI. So, this guy needs new music.

Randy notes that Kingston lost last week. Kofi says both of these guys have had a bazillion WWE title matches and Kofi hasn’t had one. He just repeated the IWC’s thoughts. Kofi pauses for Cena sucks chants. Wrong move Kofi.  Kofi wants a shot at the title and that he wont take no for an answer. Sheamus says he wants the Rumble off. Interesting way of getting it. He tells all three of them to win the Rumble. Tyson says he never ducked a fight in his life. Tyson sets up a triple threat match for the number one contendership. Cena makes American pop culture jokes I don’t understand. Yay!

What is next in Mr McMahon vs Bret Hart asks Michael Cole. He renders this question pointless when he tells us we’ll find out later. Anyway, DIVAS TITLE TOURNEY TIME!

Kelly Kelly vs Alicia Fox, Divas Title Tournament First Round Match
My opinion on both of these girls…she’d get it. They very lightly brawl before Alicia gets a snapmare and a chinlock and hides her hair pulling of KK from the ref. Cool idea.  Kelly pulls Alicia over the top rope and hits a dive from the apron. Wasn’t as good as it sounded. Clotheslines by Kelly and a spinning headscissors take over. She goes for another but hits a powerbomb.
Winner: Alicia Fox

Opinion: Not bad, but I always get scared these two in particular are going to kill their opponents, so putting them in together definitely didn’t help. That powerbomb looked like it killed Kelly. *

We recap John Cena at ze Fiesta Bowl. They talk up his strengths, being a nice guy and having kids love him. Can’t argue with that.

Legacy vs Mark Henry & Evan Bourne
Teddy and Cody get on the mic and note how Legacy was three of the final four in the Royal Rumble. Ted says it’s his turn to win. Ted says Cody’s Dad says he has movie good looks, but it’s Ted who has actually been in a movie. They rip The Marine 1. They tease dissension off mic. Their opponents will be random tag team combination #38205. All four of these guys will be in the Royal Rumble so says Cole. Bourne and DiBiase begin. Bourne hits a Rana a dropsault but he eats a knee and a dropkick while on the apron. Cody rammed him into the barrier on the outside. Bourne gets back in and put in a sleeperhold as Cody asks for a tag, but it is ignored. Cody comes in and hits a nice dropkick for two. Bodyslam by Cody and he hits a knee drop for two. The announcers discuss whether the Rumble would split Legacy up with Cole saying no and King saying yes. Wow that almost seems like real announcing. Bourne hits an enziguiri and gets the hot tag to Henry, who RUNS WILD. Henry hits a massive gorilla press. He calls fo’ tha flippy dippy and tags in Evan who wanted the SSP but Ted pulls Cody away. Henry gets lowbridge. Evan hits the double knees on DiBiase but walks right into CrossRhodes for the win.
Winners: Legacy

Opinion: Decent enough, did the job of starting to tease Legacy dissension, even if the match didn’t really have enough substance to be that good. *3/4

DX are backstage. Hunter says confronting Mike Tyson is not a good thing. Shawn wants to make peace.  Hunter points out that Tyson is insane. Shawn thinks he’s changed. A non-stupid DX segment? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH D-GENERATION X.

HBK is backstage with Tyson and tells him he wants closure with Tyson. Shawn says he forgives him for KOing him at Wrestlemania. Tyson says he doesn’t need forgiveness and that he doesn’t regret knocking him out. Jericho shows up SHOCKINGLY and tells Shawn to go away and says Tyson and him have something in common. Jericho says he and Tyson are friends. Jericho says tonight DX have a match and if they lose, Jericho can show up on whatever show, whenever. That definitely makes sense. Tyson makes DX vs Jericho and Tyson. Well this could be interesting. HBK says he still owes Mike one. Cole is excited. And it is disturbing.

We recap last week’s RAW. Mainly Bret and Vince’s confrontation.

Back from a commercial, Swagger is in the ring and he declares that he will win the Royal Rumble. He says no-one has the ability to eliminate him, and issues a challenge as to whether anyone can come out and throw him over the top rope. This brings out Santino. Apparently the streak of not stupid shit was in need of breaking. Santino was also coming out to issue the same challenge, fancy that. Santino calls for the bell.

Jack Swagger vs Santino Marella, ALL AMERICAN AMERICAN AMERICAN Challenge
Swagger tosses Santino around and hits the Vader Bomb. Swagger goes to toss Santino out, but Santino clings to the top rope and Swagger’s momentum takes him over.
Winner: Santino

Opinion: Well they could have done something with Swagger and made him look like an actual threat. I guess this happened instead. Nice work dickheads. -**

They recap the Austin/Tyson brawl from 11 years ago.

Randy Orton vs Kofi Kingston vs John Cena, WWE Championship #1 Contender’s Match
Kofi needs new music. Cena and Kingston hit a double suplex, Kingston hits a body splash and an uppercut on Orton. Cena hits his sort of fisherman’s suplex on Orton and Kingston hits uppercuts. Orton goes to the outside but Orton gets thrown into Kofi strikes. Cena hits an elbow on Orton. Orton gets thrown out and its Kingston and Cena.  Cena looks for heat but doesn’t get it. Sheamus comes out for a looksee. Orton sneaks in with the faces distracted and stomps them down as we go to commercial. Back in Orton shockingly has a chinlock on Kingston and Cena is on the outside after he ate some stairs and had Kofi thrown at him. Cena is on the apron though but he gets hit with the draping DDT by Orton. Kofi goes up top though and hits a crossbody for two. Kofi fires off kicks and punches before hitting another jumping forearm. Orton hits a side headlock takeover on Kofi but Cena comes back with strikes, but he posts his shoulder. Kingston hits the SOS but Orton is out at two. Cena drop toe holds Kofi and Kofi gets put in the STF. Orton ends up making the save. Cena hits shoulderblocks, the protobomb and calls for the five knuckle shuffle. Cena goes for the AA but Kofi saves hits and takes Cena down with strikes and kicks before hitting the boom drop on Cena. He hits Cena with Trouble in Paradise and takes Cena out of the ring with it. On the outside Cody dropkicks the stairs into Cena and distracts the referee as DiBiase takes out Kofi. Orton hits the RKO. He gets the win. Orton vs Sheamus. Not sure how that will work. Ok.
Winner: Randy Orton

Opinion: The match was okay workwise, but the crowd really didn’t seem into it which was weird. Not sure the decision was right especially with Orton pinning Kofi again. Kofi would have made more sense as it would be a face/heel match and it’s known that in general Rumble title matches aren’t that important. Oh well. **1/2

Matthews is backstage with Tyson and Hornswoggle walks in and ducks and weaves and crotch chops. Tyson tells Swoggle that if he sees Swoggle in the match that he’s gonna rip his guts and his brains out. Wow.

They recap MVP becoming the #1 contender to the US title. The Miz is ready to comment.  Miz says when he first arrived, no-one respected him, he said everyone wanted rid of him, he got kicked out of the locker room for spilling chicken on a referees bag. He says JBL would rip him, he said everyone would ridicule him. He says he used all the negativity as fuel to become the star. He says he now has his own locker room, and the general locker room is for the Evan Bournes and the MVPs. BERRYAL. Miz says he will humiliate MVP, and that he thinks MVP should still be in jail. He says he’d rather be booed for what he is instead of liked for what he isn’t. He says he is the best superstar and the reason people watch RAW, not for MVP. Miz says MVP still sucks despite all his bling. He demands respect from everyone, because he is The Miz and he is awesome. What was awesome was that promo.

MVP comes out in a suit. He says everyone knows about his past and that he doesn’t run from it. He doesn’t want people to make the same mistakes. He says he worked hard to earn respect. MVP says Miz sucks. He begins undressing. Don’t like where this is going. Miz is awesome chant. Well that kind of goes against the point of this segment. He says he is a tiger and that Miz is a monkey slinging poo. Miz hopes the poo hits MVP’s lips so he knows the taste of what comes out of his mouth. MVP says that he survived prison and that their worlds are far apart. MVP dares Miz to open the cage to the tiger. MVP takes Miz down but Miz comes back. MVP hits the drive by kick taking Miz out of the ring. Really good promo segment there. It’s almost as if they care about the midcard. Shame the crowd was a bit flat though.

They look back at last year’s hallf of fame with emphasis on Austin. They announce the tickets will be on sale for this years Hall of Fame soon.

Katie Lea Burchill vs Eve Torres, Divas Title Tournament First Round
Maryse is out being terrible on commentary. Katie Lea takes control but Eve comes back with a kick in the gut and a clothesline for two. Eve hits her dodgy dropkicks and something happened that we missed to look at Maryse. Eve rolls her up for the win.
Winner: Eve Torres

Opinion: Well one word for that. Horrible. 1/4*

Next round will be Maryse vs Eve and Gail Kim vs Alicia. Good times. We see videos of Tyson knocking bitches out.

Carlito is coming on to Gail Kim as Vinny Mac walks by looking angry. Lawler sounds like he has lost his voice.

Mr McMahon makes his way out. Vince prevented Bret’s presence with extra security but then goes on to say that Vince intimidates Bret. Uhh. Vince says 12 years ago Bret screwed Bret but last week, Vince screwed Bret. Vince says that he doesn’t play nice, that he doesn’t forgive and forget. Vince says Bret humiliated on the canvas is closure to the situation. Vince says if he wants closure, he’s gonna get it because he says Bret will never bee seen in WWE again, and he leaves with a smirk. I call shenanigans. Anyway, good way to carry on this story without overexposing Bret.

Tyson is hitting mitts backstage with Jericho. Napoleon Dynamite and some guy will be hosting next week. Watch me not care.

WWE Unified Tag Team Champions DeGeneration X vs Chris Jericho & Mike Tyson
Triple H gets mic time. He asks are we ready? Shawn says he is also ready and he asks Undertaker for an answer and says he wants his answer on RAW regarding their Wrestlemania match. They also have two words. No idea which ones they were. This crowd is so dead for some reason. Tyson and Shawn start. Tyson throws him down. They lock up. Tyson knocks him down again. Tyson knocks him down with a forearm. Triple H tags in. They then lock up. They shove each other. In the corner, Jericho tags in and punches Triple H. Triple H foesn’t get the pedigree but he does get the high knee smash. HBK comes in with an atomic drop and a chop. They exchange pins and Jericho tries for the Walls but Jericho gets rolled up and his ass revealed. Jericho hits an enziguiri and tags in Tyson. Then Hornswoggle’s music hits and he says a boxing robe. Cole says it’s Evander Holyswoggle. Christ. Jericho tagged in. NO. WE’VE BEEN WORKED. Tyson reveals a DX shirt. Naturally he gets knocked out. VINTAGE TYSON says Cole.
Winners: DeGeneration X

Opinion: Do you think was a set up all along asks Cole. Idiot. Yeah that was a horrible main event, but the crowd woke up for Tyson’s punch. 1/2*

Tyson’s son gets in the ring as Jericho rolls out. I wonder what wacky reason we’re gonna have for Jericho turning up next week. Everyone crotch chops and we get pyro.

Although some of the matches sucked here, I enjoyed the promos, and outside of the goofy Tyson ending, most stuff here was good. They turned it on for a Miz/MVP feud and we now have a WWE title match for the Rumble. I did enjoy the contender’s match but I still thought that too many of the matches sucked here, and the people complaining RAW is the same week in and week out, this will have done nothing to change that opinion.

This week’s RAW gets a thumbs in the middle.

The RAW Report

By Paul Smith

paulsmith3010@gmail.com

Welcome to The RAW Report and I am your host Paul Smith.

The Pre Game: Hey everyone, I am the new RAW Recapper, if you haven’t seen any of my blogs before, feel free to check out my ECW recaps. The basic format of this blog remains the same as the ECW one but once I have a little more time (in a couple of weeks) I’m probably going to add in a couple of new features. I would also like to apologise as I said I’d be doing this live, but I just wasn’t able to due to technical difficulties I’ll get to in a minute.

I just wanted to say goodbye and thankyou to blog spot legend and general cool guy Luke Parks, for all his work here at the site, and just being a cool guy to chat to. He’s left me difficult shoes to fill at a time when RAW is a very hit and miss show. Hopefully he’ll pop in to comment or even pen a guest blog from time to time.

Anyway, as I was writing this (at 2-4am mind) my computer blew out. Just it got too hot and the cpu shut down without warning. As I’m an idiot I didn’t save my original blog file (which I wrote in notepad) as I was going along, so I lost everything from the start to the end of the Sheamus promo. So there you go. As a result of this, the first half of the blog is more opinion based, whereas my usual recapping style starts again when I got up today and watched the rest of the show on the internet. Sorry about that for my first blog, but these things do indeed happen. Anyway, enough guff, let’s do this.

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RAW is live and rolling from Dayton, Ohio the home of Chris Hero who, if you believe his theme music, is awesome.

On with the show.

They start off with a Bret Hart video package, that ran down his accomplishments and had a small look at the Montreal Screwjob and then HBK telling Vince to bring Bret back last week. I was marking out already at this point.

Next up was BRET HART coming to the ring and he had it all, the shades, the leather, the wet hair. Bret basically thanked everyone and called out HBK. Wow. There was never a point where I thought this would happen. Bret wanted to bury the hatchet. Shawn wanted to tell Bret that he thought he deserved what happened to him, but a lot of things had changed and that Shawn thought that both of their careers should be remembered for more than just Montreal, and things like their Wrestlemania Iron Man match instead. Bret said Shawn wasn’t the easiest guy to get along with at the time either and they shake hands, and Shawn goes to walk away, kind of looked like he wanted to superkick him, but hugged him instead. Fantastic segment, and a set of awesome promos. The crowd are lucky to have been able to see that moment. Bret calls Vince out, but Vince does not answer the call.

After the break Josh Matthews is at Mr. McMahon’s door. Vince was apparently in a meeting (during his main show?) and missed Bret calling him out. Vince says he will deal with Bret on his own terms and will call him out himself later on.

The announcers, well announced, that Melina is injured and is vacating her title. There will be a tournament to crown the new champion. Makes sense, but considering who the participants will probably be, this may be the tournament from hell.

Maryse vs Brie Bella w/ Nikki Bella, Divas Title Tournament First Round Match
This match wasn’t fantastic. However, considering these two, from a work standpoint this was probably as good as you’re going to get in about two minutes. Brie got most of the offense in and eventually, the twins did the switcheroo, for nothing apparently as Maryse hit her DDT finisher straight away. Stupid finish.
Winner: Maryse *

After this Miz came out and said that the future was his and that if Maryse won this tournament, he’d consider calling her back.

MVP vs Jack Swagger vs Carlito vs Mark Henry
We joined this in progress. They did lots of multi man spots with Henry and Swagger both using the two smaller guys as missiles and weapons. The finish came when MVP used Carlito as a weapon against Swagger and with Swagger stunned MVP hit the playmaker. This match was okay, but it wasn’t really long enough to make it really good. They had some cool spots though. The thing is though, these endless #1 contender matches leading to one match title feuds all gel together. The point of wrestling, especially in this company is to fuse sporting competition and personal issues and it seems now more than ever that everything except the main events is based purely on random matches.
Winner: MVP *3/4

Jericho was backstage with his big muffin of love, Big Show, and Show was concerned with this being their last title match. Jericho says he has a plan that Bret Hart can’t pass up that will swing things in their favour.

After the break we see Jericho talking to Hart. He remembers training in the dungeon, and perfecting the Walls of Jericho on Bret’s brother. Jericho’s offer for Bret is that he should place himself as guest referee in the title match and call for the bell when Jericho puts one of DX in the Walls. Bret said that he doesn’t want to be like Jericho and that Jericho has to win his match on his own or he leaves RAW. He noted that it was Jericho screaming when he was being stretched. Cool segment.

In complete contrast it was time for goofy DX shit of the week time as they shilled for the new action figures and Hunter showed how he had trained Hornswoggle like a dog, as he got Santino dressed as Jericho in, whom Hornswoggle attacked. Triple H gives Hornswoggle a cookie. Beforehand, Horny had been told he could only play with the toys after DX won their match. HBK had told Trips that he shouldn’t talk to him like a child, pointing out that he has a beard.

WWE Unified Tag Team Champions DeGeneration-X vs Chris Jericho and Big Show, WWE Unified Tag Team Championship Match
This was a really enjoyable match, and it got really good when it got to the finish, just could have done without the Hornswoggle spots as they take a serious competitive match and kind of leave me just annoyed for the rest of the match. They got heat on both members of DX at certain times and both got hot tags. Finish was Jericho eating a superkick after countering the pedigree to the walls of Jericho. It was a cool little finish. What will be interesting is whether they can stick to their guns and really keep Jericho off of RAW. After the match Trips tried to conduct the crowd into a rendition of “hey na na goodbye”, but they’ve messed around with the crowd to the point where none of them really believed that Jericho was leaving.
Winners: DeGeneration-X ***

Orton is backstage with Vince. Vince is angry orton has come to see him but Orton Vince is still angry with Bret. Vince points out that despite everything that happened with Bret, Orton terrorised his family. Orton says Vince has always done business with guys he hates. Orton proposes that he adds Bret to the list of legends he has killed, with a punt. Vince akss whats in it for Randy, who replies that he wants the number 30 in the Royal Rumble. Vince says that he has his own security team and wants Orton to never confront him again.

More angst followed for Randy when he met with his Legacy cohorts. As a receipt for last week they tell Randy that if he loses his match with Kofi Kingston they will kick him out of Legacy, and they’ll be sitting ringside. A good couple of segments, not too much stupid comedy this week so far and that is a good thing.

They promo Mike Tyson as GM next week. With Bret and then with Tyson it’s getting to be like the Attitude Era all over again for Shawn.

The announcers recap Sheamus vs Cena from last week. King called this an epic battle or something equally stupid. Yeah what a fantastic two minute DQ WORLD TITLE match that was. This leads to Sheamus making his pale presence felt. he sad that despite what happened Cena still didn’t beat him, and that he fulfilled his promise of ending 2009 standing over Cena’s beaten body. He has to defend his title at the Royal Rumble, but refused to do so against cena. This led to Evan Bourne, credible title challenger that he is, to come out and say that Sheamus was given an opportunity, and that if given the same one Bourne would be able to beat Sheamus. Sheamus laughs it off and says that if Bourne can beat him right now, then at the Rumble it will be for the title.

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And that ladies and gentleman is when my computer had a meltdown, so now normal service will resume with play by play and such like.
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WWE Champion Sheamus vs Evan Bourne, Non-Title Match
Evan comes straight out with kicks and goes straight up for SSP. He hits it but Sheamus kicks out. Not sure if I’ve seen people kick out of it before. Bourne gets caught flying with a fallaway slam and gets clubbed in the head. Loud Cena chant. Great. Bourne gets hit with the Irish Curse and the Razor’s Edge for the win.
Winner: Sheamus

Opinion: Well that was a squash. Was cool with such a hot opening, but when you beat a guy like Bourne, who has lost most weeks for the last six months or so, you’re not really making much of a statement and it doesn’t look that impressive. *

They pimp Kofi vs Orton mark four or five and the McMahon/Hart segment.

They take some time to remember Dr Death Steve Williams, even mentioning his legendary status in Japan. This was acually really nice, especially when you consider that Williams was nowhere near a big star in the WWE, and when you get other guys not even getting an ‘In Memory’ screen. Nice to take time out of the show to do that.

They show the same video they did at the start except with a more extended look at the 97 Screwjob.

Kofi Kingston vs Randy Orton
I will say this every week until he gets it, Kofi needs new music. Legacy are indeed at ringside. Cool character touch with Kofi looking nervous, despite the reason Legacy are at ringside, he is still suspicious. Kofi hits a springboard forearm but Orton thought that was too interesting so he gets a headlock and a shoulder block. Kofi leapfrogs and hits a flying reverse elbow. He hits a corner splash and clotheslines Orton to the floor before eating a baseball slide. Orton went for the draping DDT but got back dropped to the outside and we go to commercial. After the break we have a chinlock by Orton. Surprised? Me too. Orton took over by launching Kofi into the barrier at ringside. Orton stomps away on Kingston. He follows this up with punching. I just don’t see the deal with this guy. He’s decent sometimes characterwise, but his offence isn’t methodical its just boring. He guillotines Kofi on the bottom rope to get a two count. Kofi gets a crossbody, but hurt himself in the process. They engage in a punch battle and Kofi gets back with a kick combo and a big drop before the big leaping punches in the corner. Big uppercut and then a side Russian leg sweep. He hits the boom drop and telegraphs the trouble in paradise. Randy rolled out but got nailed by a tope. Back in the ring Kofi hits a crossbody off the top for a nearfall. Kofi hit the SOS after nearly getting hit by the RKO for another two count. Pro Orton crowd this one. Orton blocked the trouble in paradise and gets the three.
Winner: Randy Orton

After the match Ted and Cody look on not looking particularly happy. Tough love according to Cole. Dimwit.

Opinion: Good match and even though this result kind of had to happen, Kofi could have done with a win at some point in this feud. I fear he’ll be back with the midcard. I hope Orton works with another midcarder because he did a good job elevating Kofi until the booking fell apart at Survivor Series. Presumably he will be working DiBiase if the website leak is anything to go by. ***

Another hypejob for Tyson. Justin Roberts brings out Vince.

vince says there is no real reason to call out Bret because they got some closure at the start of the show. The crowd are “what?”ing Vince. Vince thanks Bret for being GM and pimps Tyson. I don’t know why they expect pops for announcing next week’s GM as why would the fans be excited for something thats going to happen in another city, rather than theirs?

However, Bret has made his way out to the ring. Bret takes his jacket off (why?) he knows that the people want to see Bret put Vince in the sharpshooter. Vince wants to hear what Bret has to say but wants to say some things himself. He does believe Bret screwed Bret, he’ll never forget Bret spitting in his face, sucker punching him after the show, snubbing him at the Hall of Fame, and trash talking him in the media. He’s hoping Bret will say two words: I’m sorry. Bret suggests he’s thinking of two different words. Use your imagination kids. Bret came to bury the hatchet and with Shawn dealt with, he felt half way there. He knows both of them want a truce and to put the incident behind them. What Vince thought he wanted was to kick Bret in the gut. Vince says that Bret is right and he does want a truce as badly as he does. Vince remembers the first Wrestlemania Bret appeared in, in a battle royal with Andre, and he says he knew Bret was the future even then. He says Bret fought to the top. And he says its not just a catchphrase and that he really is the excellence of execution. He says the Montreal thing was so personal because they had a father-son like relationship. Vince says he wants to induct Stu into the hall of fame. Bret appreciates that and that it would mean a lot to a lot of people. Vince says that he thinks everyone wants to thank bret for everything he did for the company. Vince thanks Bret for being the best there was is and ever will be. And they shake hands. Awesome segment. If this was really a one shot deal, that would be an awesome end. Vince raises Hart’s hand and they pose for the crowd. but Vince kicks Bret in the nuts! It must be so frustrating being in that company with a 60 year old man always being the best heel going. Vince walks away with Bret on his knees in the middle of the ring. Bret gets to his feet and looks disappointed.

Well that was seriously a really important episode of RAW. To me this is what RAW should be about, great interview segments, good storyline advancement and a couple of really solid matches. Not the bad Saturday Night Live we’ve had for a while now. What I found most fascinating was during the opening and closing segments (before the angle) was how much truth was probably in what they were saying and how much real emotion would have been involved. Anyway, good show to start 2010 off. From what I’ve seen TNA sounded interesting, but a little hit and miss. Anyway, I’ll see you guys next week.

This episode of RAW earns a thumbs up.

Until next time, I have been Paul Smith. Thanks for reading.