RAW: Chris Benoit beat Chris Jericho in a Submission Match Batista pinned Maven William Regal & Tajiri became NEW World Tag Team Champions by beating La Resistance Shawn Michaels pinned Ric Flair Randy Orton pinned Tyson Tomko World Champion Triple H beat Edge
HeAT: Intercontinental Champion Shelton Benjamin pinned Val Venis Gene Snitsky pinned The Hurricane Muhammad Hassan pinned Rhyno
They seem pretty good, and the card looks STACKED. Six matches on RAW? When was the last time that happened?
DVDs; Blog ~New Our Lady Peace album "Vampires" this March~
Originally posted by Freeway420Six matches on RAW? When was the last time that happened?
Was "Beat the Clock" Night that long ago that people have forgotten about it already?
Figured Benoit would win this time since Jericho won the last "friendly" match between them. I still don't want them facing each other at Mania though, unless it's another "friendly" (they should both stay face).
Would it have been so difficult for them to have let Regal have the hometown title-winning pop in Manchester all those months ago? It's not as though La Resistance was any more useful then than they are now...
Welcome to the midcard, Randy. Be prepared for a long stay.
I hope to god that Hunter didn't just KICK WHAM PEDIGREE Edge back into the midcard. If I was booking, I'd have had Shawn interfere and take out Hunter, getting Edge disqualified and screwing around with his head in the process, but they're probably not smart enough to do something like that...
Awaiting more details for what does look like a very good WRESTLING show.
"The feeling come out of the show from a Japanese perspective was it was a strong and entertaining event. The crowd was strong for everything.
The fans enjoyed Kane vs. Gene Snitsky, which is likely a dark match, because Kane threw a beautiful dropkick, which nobody expected and got a huge reaction. They had no trouble with the rest of the match.
There was disappointment that Benoit vs. Jericho was kept so short.
Eric Bischoff in the open on Raw put over that they were coming from Tokyo. It's kind of weird because Saitama is a different and major city of its own. It would be like if All Japan did a taping in Philadelphia and said it was New York, on the guise that their audience would only know New York.
Steve Williams, Katsuyori Shibata and Akebono were at the show. Williams was backstage. He may be at tonight's Giant Baba tribute show. Most of the people I know in Japan are going to the Baba show instead of the Smackdown taping, but the Smackdown taping is sold out, as this show was.
Maven vs. Batista was what you'd expect from 32 seconds.
Regal & Tajiri's tag title win over La Resistance went over well. Short match. Of course the people were heavily behind Regal & Tajiri, and Tajiri did a speech in Japanese after winning the title.
Akebono came to ringside before the Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair match. For reasons I'm not really sure, WWE doesn't like to acknowledge athletes at the show unless they are NFL or NBA players, but I'd think just because he's 480 pounds and looks unique they may point him out.
Flair vs. Michaels went 10:00 and people loved it. They were into everything Flair did. I was told by someone right at the ring that the timing and work was very good here.
They did an angle where they had a fashion show with three women, who I think were Christy Hemme, Victoria and Maria. Simon Dean interrupted it so there was no winner. It was designed to get Hemme over as she gave Dean a low blow.
Randy Orton over Tyson Tomko had Stacy Keibler managing Orton and Christian in Tomko's corner. Orton won with a schoolboy. This was to set up an Orton vs. Christian program, or at least match next week. Christian & Tomko beat up Orton after the match and laid him out. Orton was selling for several minutes with all the referees around, so they played it up as something big, probably off the concussion deal.
HHH vs. Edge for the title was a U.S. style title match with a few Japanese spots thrown in. Flair was at ringside and interfered a lot. Edge played the babyface role. Match was said to be excellent from a timing standpoint. HHH did the Nishimura head-stand out of a headscissors, which got a Nishimura chant going. He did the high knee which reminded people of Tsuruta, although he does that as a Race tribute all the time anyway. They did all their usual spots. HHH survived one spear, and also made the ropes from Edge's submission move. Edge speared the ref when HHH moved. Flair brought in a chair but Edge speared him. HHH did a Japanese style back suplex. Batista came out for the finish. I think there was a secnod ref bump and Batista used a spinebuster on Edge, to set up the pedigree finish. Edge was said to have gotten over really strong in the match. The buzz after was people didn't realize just how good a worker he was. Match went 16:49.
After the show, HHH played total babyface, doing a 5:00 promo saying how much he loved Japan. He shook hands with Akebono. Nobody left until he was done, and when he did leave, they were cheering so much they wanted him to come back out."
"When did they pass a law that says the people who make my sandwich have to be wearing gloves? I'm not comfortable with this. I don't want glove residue all over my food; it's not sanitary. Who knows where these gloves have been?" - George Carlin
That's a pretty stacked Heat as well... as far as RAW goes, it's nice to see that it's all faces going over except for the World title match, which is a heel/heel matchup anyways. It has that "big show" feel to it that RAW is lacking nowadays.
Originally posted by fuelinjectedAkebono came to ringside before the Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair match. For reasons I'm not really sure, WWE doesn't like to acknowledge athletes at the show unless they are NFL or NBA players, but I'd think just because he's 480 pounds and looks unique they may point him out.
How can they not point him out? The camera can't miss him, unless they take great pains to avoid showing him... but it's not everyday an actual Sumo grand champion is at ringside... I'm sure the E would like to garner the fruits of his cred.
Originally posted by fuelinjectedRandy Orton over Tyson Tomko had Stacy Keibler managing Orton and Christian in Tomko's corner. Orton won with a schoolboy. This was to set up an Orton vs. Christian program, or at least match next week.
This bodes well for two reasons: more spotlight on Captain Charisma, which is always good thing, and Orton might learn a thing or two about putting a decent match together by working more with Christian.
(edited by Stilton on 6.2.05 0338) The Goal: SLACK The Method: The Casting Out of False Prophets The Weapon: Time Control The Motto: "Fuck Them All if they Can't Take a Joke"
So the legend killer is officially back to the midcards. That's not a good thing for WWE. Not at all.
I can't be the only one that thinks that Orton ought to be turned heel and reunited with Evolution. Even if the move wouldn't "make sense", it could be a great move for Orton to get the fans to hate him. I really, really liked cocky heel Orton. At first I thought face Orton would work, even when everyone in the world said it wouldn't. But I think that it's safe to say that it won't work, so now is the time to try to salvage Orton.
Whilst the principal of a heel turn is a great idea, repairing him with Evolution would simply be far too much character assassination for the guy to recover from. A move to SmackDown, post-Mania, coupled with the turn would be the best way to go. It'd give a strong babyface to play off of in Cena, at the very least.
Originally posted by oldschoolheroA move to SmackDown, post-Mania, coupled with the turn would be the best way to go. It'd give a strong babyface to play off of in Cena, at the very least.
Who would learn from who, then? I think a good opponent would be someone like Eddie. AFAIK, they don't have anything really planned for him, and it would keep him out of turning heel (since it might be impossible to get a true heel out of him at this point).
You are right though that the best thing for him would be to move to Smackdown. Between failing to build him as a huge heel, and failing to build him as a huge face, they've messed him around with almost the entire roster. I think he's just got too much baggage with the RAW guys right now to really get any momentum going in any direction.
Originally posted by BigSteveSo the legend killer is officially back to the midcards. That's not a good thing for WWE. Not at all.
I can't be the only one that thinks that Orton ought to be turned heel and reunited with Evolution. Even if the move wouldn't "make sense", it could be a great move for Orton to get the fans to hate him. I really, really liked cocky heel Orton. At first I thought face Orton would work, even when everyone in the world said it wouldn't. But I think that it's safe to say that it won't work, so now is the time to try to salvage Orton.
It's been said alot, but here it is again: We, as objective observers, were never given a reason to cheer for Randy Orton. Orton went around winning matches via heelish chicanery and Flair, Batista & HHH interference for basically his entire career. His Intercontinental Title reign would've ended dozens of times if not for Evolution. Triple H's assertation that Evolution made Randy Orton was almost 100% correct. So once Randy Orton did what his mentor could not - defeat Chris Benoit and win the World Championship - Triple H beat him up and cast him out of Evolution. Orton never expressed any regret for his heelish ways or for treating the fans badly. He never gave us a reason to care about what he did. He just turned into Stone Cold Lite a week or so later and went around nailing Evolution with the weakest finisher in wrestling and the WWE expected us to buy him as the second coming of Stone Cold.
Orton needed a face voice-of-reason to convince him that Triple H was a bad guy in order to legitimize him as a face. If somebody went "Hey, Triple H lied to you a lot!" and Orton had a realization as such, THEN we'd be given a reason to care. Somehow, the major weakness of the Orton turn has been the major strength of the Batista turn. Orton himself has told Batista flat-out that Hunter's an asshole. We, as observers, KNOW that Hunter is hiding behind Batista. That's why the payoff will be better than the Orton turn.
DVDs; Blog ~New Our Lady Peace album "Vampires" this March~
Originally posted by oldschoolheroWhilst the principal of a heel turn is a great idea, repairing him with Evolution would simply be far too much character assassination for the guy to recover from.
But what are his options? 12-18 months mid-card slim pickings? Or a crawl back to Evolution set up as a work against Batista set up by the ''cerebral assasin'' to pester Batista and set up a 3 way at WM21 in which Batista finds he has to wrestle 2 teamed up against him. Puts Batista over stronger and allows Orton to be the heel to Batistas face. And yes he spends 12-18 months as a lackey but he has importance. ( sounded alright in my head )