-Of course, we start off with footage of the Vince/Donald meeting from last week.
-We start off with a shot of a Barber pole and chair in the ring. Mr. McMahons music hits as we are LIVE from Bakersfield, California at Rabobank Arena. Brutus Beefcake shouldve been brought out to host this segment, unless WWE couldnt find enough coke to pay him with. Vince says after his man wins, hes going to beat Trump up then cut his hair. Vince says bald is the craze in Hollywood these days. We get some photoshops of what Donalds new hairdo would look like. They seem to use this photoshop thing often lately. He actually doesnt look bad bald. Trump has one week to announce his representative, according to McMahon. Vince announces his man is Umaga. No surprise there. Vince says Umaga will be fighting for the I.C. Title....now. Well, after the break, I guess.
[Break]
(1)- Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga The match is joined in progress. Hardy hits two low dropkicks through the ropes on Umaga, who is on the outside, but Umaga doesnt fall. Umaga catches Hardy coming over the top rope, but Umaga gets pushed into the post. Back in the ring, Umaga with a kick to the throat of Hardy, then a headbutt. Reverse elbow by Umaga catches Hardy coming off the rope. Umagas offense is very punchy-kicky this week. Umaga has the Yokozuna Memorial Trapezius Hold on Hardy. Now the Samoan Submission Machine goes to the middle rope and misses a headbutt attempt. He then misses a splash in the corner and Hardy hits the Whisper-in-the-Wind for a near-fall. Back on his feet, Umaga hits a Samoan drop on Hardy. Umaga drags his prey into the corner, setting up for the running butt slam. Despite taking a long time to set up, Umaga hits. Samoan Spike, and we have a new IC Champ.
Winner: Umaga by pinfall, around 6:00
-Money in the Bank Qualifying Match as RVD faces Edge. Plus, Cena takes on Orton in the main event!
[Break]
-Mick Foley, in a pre-taped interview, plugs his new book, The Hardcore Diaries. Hmm...available in March? They could use him on the show to plug his book....and perhaps be Trumps man.
-Tonight, Melina challenges Mickie James for the womens title (again!).
(2)- Ric Flair and Carlito vs. Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch Wow, theyre not waiting to play the Carlito turns on Flair card are they? Cade and Flair start things off. Flair hip-tosses HBCade then tags in Carlito. Carlito hits his springboard elbow (and gets a little more hang-time than usual) for th two. High knee-lift, but Cade hits a version of the Rock Bottom after Murdoch cheap-shots Carlito. Trevor gets tagged in and hammers away on the mug of CCC. Tag back in to Cade and he brings the pain in the form of forearms across Carlitos chest. Murdoch and his sideburns are tagged in, and hes goes to a rest-hold. Carlito works out of it, but Murdoch elbows him down. Murdoch to the high-risk district, and gets caught with a boot. Carlito gets the tag to Flair, who chops Trevor down, then catches him with an elbow off the ropes. He goes after the knee of Murdoch and sets up for the figure-four. The faces double-clothesline Cade out of the ring, and Flair hits a low-blow on Murdoch while Carlito distracted the ref. Tag in to Carlito, back-cracker and the three.
Winners: Flair and Carlito by pinfall at 4:30 Pretty good match. With King talking up the promise of the team, I thought for sure Carlito would turn tonight.
-Tonight, the WM23 MITB qualifying match between the only two winners of the match, RVD and Edge! Next though, we hear from Michaels and Cena!
[Break]
-Michaels says he wants to make sure nothing happens to Cena before WM. They go face-to-face and Michaels plugs the new DX DVD. And Cena plugs The Marine. Then Big Dick Johnson comes in and gets superkicked by Michaels. These guys are joking around and theyre fighting each other in the main event of WM?
-Edge and Rated RKO are backstage talking. Orton is confident hell take care of Cena tonight. Next week, Rated RKO face Cena/HBK for the tag titles!
[Break]
-We get a bit of history via video packages on the WM Money in the Bank Ladder Match.
(3)- Edge vs. Rob Van Dam Edge and RVD trade arm-locks to start. Crowd clearly behind Van Dam. Edge with a shoulder-block, then a monkey-flip, and another. Edge takes a breather on the outside. This match continues next!
[Break]
Back live, RVD has Edge in an arm-bar. Edge gets back on the offensive, but only for a short time, as RVD oles him over the top rope. RVD hits his leg-drop on Edge on the barricade on the outside, but Edge catches him coming into the ring and both men are down. Edge hits another neck-breaker and gets just a one-count. The Rated R Superstar with a form of a chin-lock on Van Dam. RVD uses his educated feet to break the hold. They trade punches on their feet and RVD hits a vicious heel kick on Edge, who was in the corner. A couple clotheslines by RVD then a savate kick. Another spinning heel kick puts Edge back down. Edge, though, catches him with a Samoan Drop after an attempted Rolling Thunder. Edge places RVD on the top rope, then goes up for a super-plex. RVD puts him groin-first onto the top rope. RVD then propels him to the outside. RVD tries a splash off the top, by Edge greets him in mid-air with a dropkick. Two-count on the pin try. RVD with another solid kick to Edge. Split-legged moonsault for a near fall. Hes got his workin boots on tonight. Edge misses another spear, then RVD hits an ugly spinning kick (you know, the one when he catches the opponents boot then spin-kicks?). That move never looks good. Orton comes out and distracts RVD long enough for Edge to hit the spear and get the pin.
Winner: Edge by pinfall at 13:30 Im surprised RVD got so much offense in. Solid match.
-Still to come, Orton vs. Cena. Up next, Mickie vs. Melina for the Womens Title!
[Break]
(4)- Melina vs. Mickie James Whatever happened to Victoria? I remember when she plowed through the division. Then disappeared. Some hair pulling comes with the collar-and-elbow tie-up, then Melina gets a hammerlock, but Mickie flips her out of it. Mickie with a seated dropkick. She misses another baseball slide to the outside after Melina got knocked out of the ring. Melina gets in some more hair-pulling and even gets a two-count. Melina gets vicious in a hurry but Mickie, the little spit-fire, fights back. And a hair-pull. Mickie lands some knees square to the head. Mickie comes off the ropes with a Thesz press. Melina walks into a reverse elbow in the corner, but Melina holds onto the ropes on a James hurricanrana attempt. Melina goes for the pin and gets it! New Champ! Winner:: Melina by pinfall at 4:22 Pretty good energy, and the paparazzi get Melinas pics with the belt after the match.
[Break]
-Backstage, Mickie is being consoled by Maria and Candice til Todd Grisham butts in. He wont stop badgering Mickie about getting a comment about her loss, so she slaps him.
(5) The Highlanders vs. The Great Khali10:24:45 10:26:16 Highlanders get no entrance. This is a handicap match. Highlanders attack before the bell. Robbie gets thrown out but comes back in and works the back of Khali to no avail. Rory gets knocked off the middle rope with one chop. Robbie catches a big boot by Khali. Two-handed chokeslam on Robbie. He gets the pin with one boot on Robbies chest.
Winner: The Great Khali by pinfall at 1:31 I guess they want to keep Khali on the viewers minds in case they come up with something for him at WM.
-Cena vs. Orton is still to come tonight!
[Break]
-The Barbershop is still set up on the stage. We get highlights of Vinces speech from earlier tonight.
-Kenny is talking to Coach backstage. Until Khali walks in, that is. He wants some competition. Then he leaves. Then Ron Simmons says Damn. Hilarity then ensued.
-On Smackdown, Ashley unveiled her Playboy cover. Its on newsstands March 12th. Melina is backstage with some new announcer, but Nitro takes over the interview before he can ask a question. Melina is pissed that Ashleys video package preceeded her.
-Dusty was announced as the first HOF 2007 inductee last week. This week....its Mr. Perfect. Lot of highlights of him being perfect in vignettes. Again, cant really argue with that.
-John Cena is headed to the ring to face Randy Orton, the match is next!
[Break]
(6) John Cena vs. Randy Orton Collar-and-elbow tie-up in the corner and Orton won that one, stomping away at the Champ. Orton gets reversed into the turnbuckle though and Cena hits his fisherman suplex that would make Hennig wretch. Uppercut by Orton and hes back in control. Off the ropes, and Cena catches him with a hip-toss, cover gets two. A see-saw match to this point, and as I type that, a double-clothesline puts both men down. Orton goes for the chair pretty early (why not? Its non-title). Before he uses it, we go to break.
[Break]
-Back live and Orton has Cena in a chin-lock. During the break, Cena visited the steel steps up close. Off the ropes and Cena misses a flying body-press, as Orton ducked. Orton gets a DDT and Cena kicks out, much to the chagrin of young Randolph. RKO puts the boots to Cena. Flying knee-drop finds the mark, but Cena kicks out again. Standing rear chin-lock now by Orton, and it brings Cena down to the mat. Cena breaks out and now hes pissed. Clotheslines then a shoulder-block put Orton down. Crowd is fully behind the Champ. You cant see me fist-drop hits, but Orton rakes the eyes to get out of the FU. To the top, cross-body by Orton, Cena rolls through and gets a near-fall. Back-breaker puts Cena down and RKO is set up. Cena pushes him off though and now he goes for another FU. Edge comes in though to interfere and hits a spear for the DQ. Edge grabs two chairs from ringside, but before they can use them, HBK comes out to make the save and wails Edge and Orton with the chairs. Cena gets up in time to see HBK with the chair, and goes paranoid. HBK teased a superkick, but only slightly. Cena makes sure not to take his eyes off Michaels. The two stare at each other as the show ends.
Winner: John Cena by DQ at 13:03 Another pretty decent match, but a few too many dead spots (read: Orton rest holds).
(edited by geemoney on 19.2.07 2308)
(edited by geemoney on 19.2.07 2309) College, Sports and more!: Experience It
I've been watching Raw more lately since MNF ended. It looked like Cena kind of "hulked up" during his match tonight. Does he do that a lot?
I'm gettin excited waiting for the swerves to come. Carlito would be best off turning on Flair pretty soon. As for Cena and HBK, I think Cena will be the first to strike. He seems to be getting more paranoid everytime he gets in the ring with Shawn.
I do think Cena got the better of tha duel dvd promo tonight. "In certain parts of the film John Cena is invincible to bullets."
Having Big Dick Johnson knocked the fuck out almost made up for him being on my tv.
"I'm one of the last cats, puttin the flavor back into rap"
Something that bugs me about the WWE Hall of Fame (and maybe this doesn't belong in this thread so much) is that certain aspects of the inductees get overlooked that really contributed to why they're even in the hall of fame.
I mean, I know showing clips of Curt Hennig bouncing around like a pinball would be counter-intuitive for a presentation that's meant to be honoring him, but that's just part of what made him so much fun to watch.
Nice show tonight, from what I saw. I love Michaels making Cena be all Flinchy McFlincherton just by kinda standing sideways a bit.
Hey, do all face/face matchups for Wrestlemania have them teaming up against a pair of heels first and then doing the dissolution of the mutual trust thing? I seem to remember them doing that with Kurt Angle and Triple H in the buildup to X-7, and way back in the day with Earthquake and...Big Boss Man? I really can't remember and I don't know where to look that kind of thing up.
oh well! the build-up to Wrestlemania usually has some entertaining television.
Originally posted by Santa SangreI've been watching Raw more lately since MNF ended. It looked like Cena kind of "hulked up" during his match tonight. Does he do that a lot
My thoughts exactly. I've been watching Raw throughout MNF (it works just fine for west-coaster). I don't recall seeing Cena doing that before. I'll give Cena credit, he made it original for himself. The frustrated kick on the bottom rope and the fist to the head to create the "Hulking Up" effect worked for me. Cena took a staple of Hogan and made it his own (even though I thought about "Hulking Up" when he did it). I'd love it if Cena continued that motion prior to his five moves of death from now on!
I enjoyed just about all of Raw tonight. Count me in as loving the HBK Sweet Chin Music tease. Well executed HBK!
(edited by The Guinness. on 20.2.07 0136) "In Soviet Russia, site fucks you." - drjayphd
Good lordy, that video of Curt Hennig reminded me of just how much I miss him. I think back to his out of nowhere face turn when he teamed up with Randy Savage to take on Ric Flair and Razor Ramon, and how great he worked as a face.
In fact, the aforementioned angle can be found on Youtube, too.
Also...two title changes on FREE TV? I like it! This was an exciting episode of Raw, and I loved it.
I've seen TWO movies so far this year: Because I Said So - (3*); Borat - (5*)
Just for fun (because I have a strange definition of "fun" - also because I forgot to put RAW on the DVR so I had to make use of other available resources - thus, I'm still up at 0430) here are some stills for your own personal use only, not for profit, I'm sure this is all WWE property and please don't sue me, fair use, review purposes only, very poor quality, fair use, fair use, fair use.
Originally posted by AlexHey, do all face/face matchups for Wrestlemania have them teaming up against a pair of heels first and then doing the dissolution of the mutual trust thing? I seem to remember them doing that with Kurt Angle and Triple H in the buildup to X-7, and way back in the day with Earthquake and...Big Boss Man?[/QUOTE]
Wait, what? Angle and Hunter have never even wrestled at 'Mania.
I really can't remember and I don't know where to look that kind of thing up.
oh well! the build-up to Wrestlemania usually has some entertaining television.
This is somewhat true, but I tihnk the 'E deserve some special credit this year. This has been the best-built 'Mania in years so far.
To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires, and lights, in a box.-Edward R. Murrow
Ok, I'll admit, when I saw the barber pole...I felt that Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake was coming out. Didn't happen, but I was prepared for it. Vince then comes out, and I was also prepared for that, getting good use out of my FFWD button.
I like the thought of Flair and Carlito working together, very curious to see where this goes, and kudos to Murdoch, he sold the Backcracker better than anyone I've seen thus far.
Edge and RVD was very fun to watch, and I was just disappointed with the ending. However, very excited about MITB coming back for it's 3rd installment.
Mickie loses the title, but instantly redeems herself by the slap she put on Grisham. I don't know if it just hit me the right way or what, but that had me on the floor laughing.
Can't say I paid attention to Orton/Cena, but all in all, it was a pretty good Raw.
Co-Winner of the 2006 Time Magazine Person of the Year Award
The Mr. Perfect video would have been nicer had it included more wrestling than just the few Perfectplexes. A lot of ring entrances and a LOT of him playing sports. Is the WWE afraid to show his work against Bret or Macho?
"To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
Originally posted by kentishBe glad we didn't get Orton vs. Cena at WM, that was a lot of chinlockin'!
So is Foley going to be Umaga's opponent?
Good show overall, I have to say.
If it is not Foley, then it will be Stone Cold Steve Austin. For the WWE's sake, they better hope it is Austin because that will increase the PPV orders much more than Foley. My guess is if they want to make Umaga more of a monster, then it is Foley. If they want the money and Umaga be damned, then it is Austin.
Do you think God knew what He was doing when He created woman? Huh? No shit. I really wanna know. Or do you think it was another one of His minor mistakes like tidal waves, earthquakes, FLOODS? You think women are like that? S'matter? You don't think God makes mistakes? Of course He does. We ALL make mistakes. Of course, when WE make mistakes they call it evil. When GOD makes mistakes, they call it... nature. So whaddya think? Women... a mistake... or DID HE DO IT TO US ON PURPOSE?
It's going to be Lashley. And there's no way in Hell Trump gets his head shaved - Umaga is going down.
To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires, and lights, in a box.-Edward R. Murrow
for a second last night I thought it might be Austin vs. Hogan. And maybe Vince and Hulk had been working the smarks regarding their "falling out". Austin would align with Trump, and Hogan with Vince. Oh, well.
Dean! Have you been shooting dope into your scrotum? You can tell me! I'm hip!
Call me crazy, but with Khali still having squash matches on TV every week and demanding better competition from Coach, this Raw left me feeling that he's gonna turn face and be Trump's mystery guy next week.
Someone said that Umaga was on the last episode of Hogan knows best. And I am pretty sure this week's episode is about Vince asking Hogan to sign a thirty year deal to secure his rights and come back to work matches for the next few years...
Interesting timing no?
EDITED TO add the VH1 description of this week's show...
Hulkmania Forever Wednesday Feb. 21 12:00 AM EST Remind Me Hulk has more or less retired from wrestling, save for the occasional guest match. But WWE chief Vince McMahon wants Hulk to sign up...
(edited by Monte on 20.2.07 1420) Chris Monte loves to dance!
Haku was on the last episode of Hogan Knows Best, along with Duggan (They made fun of him for being in shape), B. Brian Blair, Knobbs AND Saggs, Brutus, and Greg Valentine (I think I got them all).
This week's episode was filmed last summer around the return of SNME. Vince wanted Hulk to sign a 20 year contract at 12 dates/year, but Hulk got him down to 6 dates/year.
The timing of the episode airing was particularly funny when you take into account that Hulk was supposed to be Trump wrestler, but something happened recently to cause a rift between Hogan and McMahon. (Possibly the leaking of the candidates for the Hall of Fame)
Originally posted by Matt TrackerThe Mr. Perfect video would have been nicer had it included more wrestling than just the few Perfectplexes. A lot of ring entrances and a LOT of him playing sports. Is the WWE afraid to show his work against Bret or Macho?
They weren't afraid to show the TNA World Champion, so I highly doubt it.
Originally posted by oldschoolWait, what? Angle and Hunter have never even wrestled at 'Mania.
I believe he meant Rock and Austin facing them in tags in the leadup to their match. I remember they teamed up against Taker and Kane, Benoit and Angle, etc.
Thread ahead: When We Were Marks: The History of the International Wrestling Syndicate Next thread: No Way Out 2007 Final Thoughts Previous thread: Mike Awesome passes away
I was going to rip on you Brits about ohh boo hoo you don't get 66% of your PPV's for free anymore, I feel soooo bad for you LoL. Edit in: I'm confused, are the free ones still available but the Pay ones aren't?