punching machine WWE Raw house show report
Charleston, West Va.
Report by Dot Net reader Eric Parsons
The show kicked off shortly before 7:30 with GNR猬"s 猬SWelcome tothe Jungle猬 blaring, and out came the night猬"s ringannouncer猬none other than Howard Finkel. He welcomed everybodyand told them that Layla was in the building and would be makingoccasional appearances to give away prizes猬he appeared fourtimes.
The first time was to upgrade the seats of a family of four to猬Scloser to ringside.猬 They had to answer a triviaquestion猬Where was Wrestlemania 24 held?猬and up they went. (Shecame out to pick a guest manager for Kofi Kingston, to pick aspecial bell-ringer, and to help with the fan participation.Frankly, I found her voice very, very annoying.)??
The Fink then announced that the fans could choose the specialstipulation for that night猬"s match for the World HeavyweightChampionship between CM Punk and Batista by texting (to 44993) A)if they wanted a falls count anywhere and anything goes match; B) 2out of 3 falls; or C) No disqualifications.?
Jamie Noble then got a huge pop when he entered猬and he shouldhave, given that he is from nearby Logan, W.V. (he猬"s billed fromHannibal). He spent some time shaking hands, etc., but what struckme was just how small he appears to be. Charlie Haas (billed from,curiously enough, Dallas , Texas) drew huge heat, and spent quite abit of time taunting the fans.
1. Jamie Noble defeated Charlie Haas. The match seemingly took forever to get started, but opened withHaas slapping Noble across the face. Jamie displayed some of histrademark cruiserweight high-flying, dominated the majority of thisstandard match, and won with a knee to Haas猬" head from the topturnbuckle.?
Santino Marella entered next and really got the crowd worked up byputting down the state of West Virginia (猬Syou are all frauds猬looked for the 猬躮ountain mama猬" and she is nowhere. Fraud!"etc.) He then promised that his new finishing move, the MazarattiClutch, would 100 percent guarantee the victory! D-Lo Brown madehis entrance, interrupting Santino.
2. D-Lo Brown pinned Santino Marella.
After a couple of early spots where D-Lo bulldozed the Italian,Santino was in control much of the match, putting D-Lo in his newfinishing move猬nd D-Lo escaping all three times. Finally, itended with D-Lo reversing Santino into a powerbomb and hitting aFrog Splash. At the end, Santino had the Fink assure the crowd thathe was 猬SOkay.猬?
Next to enter was Kofi Kingston, and he received a warm response,and then Paul Burchill and his sister made their entrance. KatieLea took the mic and told Kofi that his smile was nauseating, andthat Paul was going to knock the fake happiness out of his head,once and for all.
3. Kofi Kingston beat Paul Burchill (w/Katie Lea) to retain theIntercontinental Title.
A decent match, we could hear Burchill yelling the whole time, andtwice Katie Lea tried to interfere, once ducking under Kofi猬"skick at her head, and the other time, she was knocked off the apronby her brother when Kofi moved. As soon as Burchill turned around,Kingston landed his Trouble in Paradise and covered for the threecount.?
4. Chuck Palumbo defeated Paul London. This match was the least interesting. Chuck Palumbo got huge heatwhen he entered on foot, and I must admit that I didn猬"t know theguy was that big猬t猬"s either that, or Paul London is really,really small. Palumbo dominated the majority of the match, with afew high-flying moves from the former tag-team champion, and a lotof over-selling from Palumbo when London scored some offense.Palumbo won with a big boot to the face, and London appeared to belegitimately injured, and was helped out. Palumbo seemed like hewas going to actually kick the snot out of a couple of people atringside, he looked pretty pissed about something.?
5. Mickie James pinned Beth Phoenix to retain the WWE Women'sTitle. Big pop for Mickie, and Beth Phoenix had incredible heat猬猬"mstill convinced she猬"s a dude. Phoenix was in control the majorityof the time, but when Mickie countered a superplex into a flyingcross body, she picked up the victory. Pretty standard.?
Following intermission, The Fink came out with Kelly Kelly, who wasthere for no apparent reason.?
Lance Cade came out and proceeded to do the Chris Jericho bit abouthow Shawn Michaels is a liar, and how the student was going toteach the teacher, blah, blah, blah, until Michaels came in todeafening cheers.
6. Shawn Michaels beat Lance Cade. They were in and out of the ring quite a bit, with Cade startingto get the upper hand after Michaels hit his flying elbow. Stillselling the eye injury (the tape came off pretty early), Cadeattacked it. He countered Sweet Chin Music, hit his finisher threetimes, but each time Michaels kicked out. Finally, Michaels duckedunder a wild hook from Cade, nailed the superkick and covered. Hetook quite some time making his exit, but the crowd loved him forit.?
Next, the results from the text voting were announced, and it wasgoing to be a falls count anywhere match for Batista and CM Punk.When Batista made his entrance, I thought the building was going tocome down from the pop he received, and, the dedicatedStraight-Edgers aside, CM Punk was mildly received, at best. He wasbooed quite a bit, too.
7. C.M. Punk pinned Batista in a falls count anywhere match toretain the World Hvt. Title. Batista dominated, for the most part, with Punk landing some earlychair shots, but Batista throwing him into the crowd at one pointand going nuts with a ?chair. When they finally got back into thering (we couldn猬"t see the majority of the out-of-ring action),Punk started to hit some of his knees, but when he tried to landthe bulldog, Batista picked him up and powerslammed him.
There was a chair in the corner of the ring, and Punk staggered toit. He turned, with the chair in hand, in time to have Batista hithis head on the chair with a spear, and Punk scored the victory,much to the crowd猬"s anger. Batista got an extended pose-down andexit for his exit; seems to me that he will likely get a title runvery, very soon. As a side note, I don猬"t think I猬"ve ever seenso much sweat on one individual in my lifetime.?
The main event was announced as a special, six man tag match, andimmediately, Cryme Tyme entered. JTG put a hat on The Fink, and hedanced for a moment, before looking mad and throwing the hat down.Every time I see John Cena enter the ring, I am amazed at how louda building-full of 10 year olds get猬ncredibly painful pop forJohn Cena in Charleston. Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes drew someimmense heat during their entrance, and the crowd seemed confusedat Kane猬"s turn, though it was shown on Raw. Not to insult my ownkind, but maybe they don猬"t have cable.
8. John Cena and Cryme Tyme beat Kane and Ted DiBiase and CodyRhodes. Shad opened the match and was pummeling both Rhodes and DiBiaseand tagged in Cena. Cena smacked Rhodes around a bit, until hetagged in Kane, and Cena and the Big Red Machine had a prettyintense face-off, but then Kane proceeded to beat the holy hell outof Cena.
Cena was largely used as a punching bag for the other guys, landingsome offense now and again (and getting screwed by botch afterbotch by Cody Rhodes猬oo bad, he is really starting to stink outloud, because I thought he could have been good猬an example wasRhodes falling backward on a bulldog by Cena; no, it was not acounter, as Cena got right back up, and seemed genuinely confusedby Rhodes now being six feet away.) Kane, DiBiase, and Rhodestagged in and out quite a bit, but when Cena countered Rhodes猬"bulldog attempt, he managed to tag in JTG, who managed to getdestroyed by Kane.
Eventually, Shad ran in and hit a couple of people, includingknocking Kane off the apron, while JTG tagged in Cena. ?Rhodes wasthe legal man for the 猬Sheels,猬 but Kane got back into thering猬nd chokeslammed DiBiase pretty hard. Cena landed the fiveknuckle shuffle, and FU猬"d Rhodes for the victory, while Kanestomped out of the arena.
Notes: We left pretty quickly, but we could hear Cena inside praising thefolks holding up the 猬SJBL is Poopy猬 signs, calling them 猬SrealRaw fans,猬 and saying that he and Cryme Tyme were forming afaction called 猬SCTC,猬 standing for 猬SCryme Tyme Cenation.猬
Very good show, the main event was the best I猬"ve seen live (I wasat Armageddon 2007, which was largely flat, and I猬"ve been toseveral house shows), but I would say that the Charleston CivicCenter embarrassed themselves by having a terrible sound system.Without elaborating, the speakers cracked quite a bit, and The Finkoften sounded as though he were having a stroke.
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