wrestling / TV Reports
Raw From The Campaign Headquarters 1.31.05
WWE Raw on Monday, January 31st , 2005 (or Feb 1st if you’re in a proper timezone) live from San Jose, California
This is my first time doing Raw for 411mania, but I’ve been doing various bits and pieces over on thesmartmarks.com for a couple of years now. Check them out for columns about baseball and the occasional wrestling column.
Last week
I got drunk and couldn’t be bothered to review Raw. Instead I guessed what would happen…
Gere goes. Im trying tmy best here but im quiote drunk so ill work around it. Lids I mean kids don’t drink yoyll end up like me. This si my last artic le for tsm and so ill do it drknk because that s funnier
Instead of reviewing raw im togoing to gesus what happens and hope microsotf word for windows corrects my smistakes
Raw opened with a hueg hhh promo where he put himself over for being a 100 timie camp and nearly as good ad flair and not quitre cos hhh isn’t the fukken nature boy and hes got no whoooo acthcpharse so hes just akm arse when he talk s and fuck I wish hed just shut uip. I bet he pust jertciho down and tells us abot how he beat him and whooo he retired cactus fuckin’ jack and omg cactus jack is here wait no he isn’t
Oh no ghood it s ranyd Orton and hes going fto tell us boring fuckin shit that notbody cares about but his musicis pretty cool I just wish hed fucking stop twirling like a fagg
I AM THE GAME WE HAVE A MATCH ON SUNDAY I KNOW YOU SAW IT FOR FREE A COPLE SOF WEEKS AGO BUT THIS ONE WWLL BEE BETTER BECASE WE WILL DO BETTER THINGS
OH NO MR HHH I AM SKACERD OF YOU DON’T HURT ME LOL ONLY JOKING RKO TIME
In other exlciting momrnet on raw we say that dude who ahates America only he doesn’t really hate tem hes just bitter about 9./11 or something we daont get to hear wat he has to say becase som e JACKASS has too leet him to shut p
Hell say something that s agasints America and thewn someine witll com e out and say omg shut up ajckkass your not a rporeper amrecian and I am thass why I don’t criticisie this cgerat nation and shut up jackass lol America rules you suck and the crowd agree
Heres batista hers a monster and hes going to kick hhhs ass oh no it was a joek because dave is funny lol tahnks dave for the laughs get on with it now omg he just dug up yokozunas bosy and powerslammmed him what a monster a monster jr can you vbelieve it
Simon oyure a cunt hi I ihate ou
Col heesrs jecricho I wonder what he will do oh no he jobbed
Edge oh no hes good I like him I hope hes going to get revenge on hbk vbut were no t in cadana so I bnet he does bad and ihe will he should be friends with chirstian afgain because he s bettetr than Tyson tomko hoo is just a lanky cunt he shud just shag trish again even thou she lies on AIM she is fuckin hot aned that s good
Lol Eugene is a retard
Royal rumble buy it now order it and support t the tsunami
Wow its john cena but hes a smaclkdown superstar what cpould he be doing on raw wait that didn’t happen either
19 time fucking champ rembmer
Best raw ever! Seyo onn 411nania dor com
[email protected]
What actually happened?
JR got beaten up in Oklahoma, by HHH
Batista qualified for the Rumble, beating La Resistance, and upsetting HHH
Viscera and Hassan also qualified
Orton beat Flair, despite interference from HHH
A whole bunch of stuff happened at the Rumble, which I can’t be bothered to summarise, but I’ll review the show at some point. Note that when I say I will do something, it means I intend to, but probably won’t.
The Preview
Evolution’s Batista won the 2005 Royal Rumble, giving him the right to fight in the main event of WrestleMania 21. Now, Batista must decide. Will he choose to face World Heavyweight Champion and fellow Evolution member Triple H? Or will Batista go the other way and challenge SmackDown’s JBL for the WWE Championship? Watch RAW for more on this developing story.
Gee, I wonder.
Before winning the Rumble, Batista was the target of Ric Flair. “The Dirtiest Player in the Game” tried to sneak behind Batista and eliminate him from the match. Flair was obviously unsuccessful. But will Batista let “The Nature Boy” off easy? Watch RAW to find out.
At least pretend there’s some suspense, guys. Come on!
Also at the Royal Rumble, Edge gained some extra leverage from the ropes to defeat the legendary Shawn Michaels. Will this be the end of this long rivalry? Or will HBK demand retribution for what appeared to be a tainted victory for Edge?
I’m loving how they go to great pains to explain how Edge CHEATED TO BEAT HBK DID YOU READ THAT EVERYBODY HBK DID NOT LOSE TO THE BETTER MAN EDGE IS A NAUGHTY CHEATER. Judging by the interactions between Michaels and Angle at the Rumble (as well as HBK ignoring Edge during the actual Rumble), I’d suggest the rivalry is, if not over, on the backburner.
What we do know is that two big matches have been signed for tonight: Kane and Gene Snitsky will take their hatred to another level inside a Steel Cage. Also, the team of Randy Orton and HBK will face Evolution’s Triple H and Ric Flair.
You’re fucking joking me. I sat through Snitsky and Kane enough times already. Why, dammit WWE, why? Putting Flair into the match instead of Batista is very obvious, so we’ll see how that goes.
But with the damage done to last night’s competitors, what condition will they be in for matches on RAW?
I’m sure Gene and Kane will be in no condition to put on a good match. Ever.
The Show
JR and the King hype the two previously announced matches. I love Jim getting so excited over things he really shouldn’t be.
HHH and Flair are out to start. It would be Hunter to open, wouldn’t it? Nobody speaks of Batista, but he is conspicuous by his absence. HHH’s self gratifying waving of the belt to the crowd elicits nothing by way of reaction, and in fact the crowd care more about “whoo”ing Flair than anything. Flair brings us a drawn out verbal blow job of how great Triple H is, putting him over as better than either Flair or HBK. He didn’t actually name HHH until the end, instead going over and over about “last night”. It would have been great if Flair had joined with Batista then, instead of HHH being the one to break off Evolution.
Talking of whom, here’s Dave. HHH puts him over hugely for winning the Rumble, but really, nobody buys that it’s for the long term. At least, not once Dave announces he’s going for HHH’s title and not JBL’s. I don’t watch SmackDown, but holy shit is the barb wire cage match going to suck. Hunter is proud of Dave and everything he’s achieved. It’s taking him ages to make his point. Dave has it all now he’s in Evolution, unlike Randy Orton. Surely Dave’s smart enough to see what happened to Orton when he was put in a similar position. Shit, wow – HHH claims it’s an honour (I’m from England, I can spell like that. I also say “mobile phone” and have bad teeth) to defend against Batista at Mania.
We cut to JBL at the Rumble, who – in a totally out of character move – tells Batista to bring it on. This isn’t the JBL we all know and barely tolerate. That JBL knows he’s fucking useless and hanging on to the title by a thread. HHH is weirdly determined to defend against Batista, but this possibly comes from the control that he put over earlier – he talks about how he made Batista, and that there’s still that power HHH holds over him, although there was no implication that Batista would just lay down for him.
In a few years, we’ll be able to look back on this as a textbook wrestling angle, with interesting and well thought out characters and dynamics. I can’t think of anything that’s touched this in a long time.
Commercial
Coming up tonight – La Resistance defending against Chris’ Benoit and Jericho
Match 1: Intercontinental Title. Shelton Benjamin vs. Simon Dean
What the hell has Dean done to deserve this title shot, really? This kind of match is what makes titles worth nothing.
Dean is given 30 seconds of shitty token offense, before resorting to cheating with his kitbag, blocking the Stinger Splash with it, getting a VERY long two count. Before long we’re back to the typical Shelton match, where he sticks to the few moves he seems comfortable with. In this instance though, the spin kick is enough to get the three. Dreadful.
Dean tells us the only reason Shelton won is because of the Simon System. Shelton takes exception to this and comes back with his other comfortable moves; the Stinger Splash followed up with the T-Bone.
Shelton is so protected with the way they are booking him at the moment, and the best thing about it is that he doesn’t need to be! Give him a proper opponent and feud, please!
Backstage, HHH is angry with Bischoff because of the JBL interview that was screened. Bisch knows nothing about it, and stands up to HHH, who has to fucking remind us that he’s the champion, and he calls the shots. Does a punchline even need to be included?
Commercial
And we’re back with Christie, who’s shooting T-shirts, until she’s interrupted by Edge, who’s not happy. He cuts a great promo, being incredibly bitter about losing in the rumble, rather than accentuating the positive of last night, and beating HBK. Shawn is out, and my housemates are home and drunk, so I only catch bits of it. He does talk about being beaten by Angle, before challenging Edge to a rematch tonight. Four matches in two days, Shawn? Come off it. Edge declines, and reminds Shawn of his offer to shake Edge’s hand. He reluctantly does, before superkicking Edge, who sells it like he’s been murdered. Good one Shawn, do the un-clean job, have the loss barely mentioned and in fact downplayed, and then get the upper hand on Edge..
Commercial
Superkick repeated x 100, from every angle
Match 2: Maven vs. The Hurricane
I see Maven finally won on HeAT last night, beating Rhyno, the poor guy. The Hurricane has no chance here.
Maven sticks to the type of generic offence that he’s used to, and Hurricane is the guy to bump around for him. Short and dull, Maven won’t amount to anything, and Hurricane is horribly misused. Maven wins after some very slow paced rubbish that really went nowhere.
Backstage, Snitsky creeps out two generic whores.
Commercial
Bischoff and Coach don’t know how the JBL tape got played (although that’s never been an issue before.) Of course! It needs a playa’, and here’s Teddy Long. He didn’t play the tape, but he’s here to tempt Batista away. While Teddy puts over the steel cage barbed wire match, I have to wonder where the incentive to climb out is, really. Coach is in charge of keeping Teddy and Dave apart.
Orton is with Stacy, and it looks like they’re together, in *that* sense. Orton’s promos are bland and generic, and his lack of expression and intonation makes any words meaningless. He talks about how the World Title is his life in the same way that you’d expect him to ask Stacy to pick him up a newspaper or suck him off.
Chris and Chris are… WALKING~!
Grr, I hate these throwaway segments where there’s no wrestling. Even worse are the 30 second ones. Having never really had access to Raw live before (aside from the internet streams last summer), it’s only just hit me how annoying they really are. Especially since the sponsors (SmackDown vs. Raw for PS2) use the same 5 seconds of in-game music on every single bumper.
Commercial
Match 3: World Tag Titles. Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit vs. La Resistance
Team Chris beat Tomko and Christian to earn this shot. Not that earning it has mattered in a long time, but never mind.
A small “USA” chant breaks out. Gotta love that blind patriotism.
La Resistance stick with tried and tested tag tactics, focussing on Benoit, and focussing on wearing him down and not allowing the tag to be made. Sure, it’s simplistic stuff, but it works.
Twice, Benoit goes for the tag to Jericho who is justifiably absent both times. But with wrestling being what it is, there’s a good chance Benoit won’t see it like that.
Jericho goes for the least effective finisher ever, in the Lionsault, but winds up somersaulting onto his feet. Seriously, he never wins from that.
There’s confusion as Jericho holds one of La Res in the Walls, as Benoit brawls outside with the other. The referee throws the match out as a double DQ, in a shitty, shitty finish to what was shaping up as an alright match. JR and King speculate that the non-legal man was in the ring with Jericho. Trying to decipher that is a mission of its own, and I’m staying away. Ignoring the finish though, La Res put up a decent fight, perhaps the best match I’ve seen out of them, as they kept things simple and stuck to the heel tactics that work well enough against the right babyfaces. Benoit’s never say die attitude was working well, and they could really have done with more time and a better finish. The crowd were going to shit on anything that involved a La Res retention, though, so perhaps there was a better time for the match. It’s a shame that the tag champions are looked upon at such a low level.
Commercial
The same Chris Masters promo airs again. A third rate Mark Jindrak rip-off. Now THAT is saying something. Especially since he’s a third rate Lex Luger rip-off. Also, please can we move on from this, y’know have him actually do something or even make an appearance? Thanks. I’m sure I’ll regret that request when I see him.
Hassan is out, and he’s pissed about his treatment in the Rumble. Great! This is what the Rumble should be for – an opportunity for people to interact that wouldn’t normally, and to jumpstart angles.
Major props to the “Hassan is right” sign, right next to a Union Jack.
He’s sick of superstars ganging up on him, like in the Rumble, and he’s calling out ANY American. That music… it’s not? Ah, fuck. It is.
Match 4: Muhammad Hassan vs. Sgt. Slaughter
One punch and Hassan is in the cobra clutch.
Sarge dramatically oversells everything, ridiculously diving off of an Irish whip to the corner, and dancing like a tit in a bearhug. It’s great how over Hassan is, but it’s a shame that it’s done in this way. Every time he comes out, Lawler is half a second from screaming “fuck you, darkie”, and the Go USA YEAH YEAH YEAH sentiment is getting really tired, but hey – it’s over. At least Hassan, unlike most, has a clear motive to fight. He wants to get his message out, and to teach Americans (or Canadians, but you whities are all the same) a lesson. It’s better than 95% of the roster.
Anyway, his unnamed DDT and camel clutch finish Sarge in short order, and it’s another boring throwaway match for Raw. It’s just like, let’s go out there for a couple of minutes, do a couple of moves, doesn’t matter which, and then you win with this.
Benoit is in Jericho’s face. They both think it wasn’t each other’s best, and they want to see their best. I guess Benoit as #2 heel is preferable to him as #4 face, if this is leading where I think it is.
Commercial
Repeat of the Eugene / Forrest Gump parody that was shown at the Rumble. It’s hilarious, and really well done. Describing it doesn’t do it justice. I hope there’s a series of these.
HHH is backstage looking thoughtful. HHH thinks he’s being selfish by wanting the Batista match so much, when there’s a lot of money on offer from Teddy Long. This angle gets better as HHH makes it looks like he’s doing Batista a favour by letting him go to SmackDown and then Evolution can own Raw and SmackDown.
Bischoff is out and on the stick. Next week… Raw is in Japan. Jericho is taking on Benoit in a submission match (kudos to the production team for guessing it’s a submission match before Bischoff announces it.) Regal and Tajiri are back together to take on La Resistance for the tag titles. And finally, as a reminder to HHH as to who runs the show, Edge finally gets his title shot. Some potentially good matches there, as Edge has been impressing me lately, and I’m sure HHH will bring it for the Japanese crowd. Regal and Tajiri are always fun together, and I’ll never turn down Jericho and Benoit. I can’t see it being a particularly promo heavy show, either.
Match 5: Randy Orton and Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H and Ric Flair
Commercial
Hopefully they’ll blaze through Evolution’s entrance in the commercial. Oh, nope. We have to sit through it again. Notably though, Dave is with them, so it looks like things are all sorted in Team Evo.
All this banging on about who played the tape is starting to annoy me. Are there a bunch of VCRs backstage that override the TitanTron whenever someone puts a tape in? Someone on the production team must have noticed something.
Flair and Orton start, and we go through the standard Flair circa 2000 onwards spots, with the chopping and back body drop. Since he’s run out of things to do, HHH is in, and Orton has a look of determination in his eyes, which is great, as HHH sells it well.
Normally, Orton tagging out so quickly wouldn’t reflect well, but had JR and the King played up HHH and HBK’s history a little, it would have made a lot of sense.
Some of HHH’s transitions make no sense – planting HBK on the top rope and then awkwardly climbing up and trading punches just looks bad.
Batista distracts the referee, allowing Orton to throw Triple H into the steps, again something that should be played up by the announcers. Dave then flips out for no reason and goes mental with some chairs, before being sent off home. He’s got a huge smile on his face, and it’s very obvious what his intentions were. Nicely done. As well as getting himself out of having to help HHH and Flair, he’s also showing HHH that he’s fucking crazy and could do anything.
Commercial
Flair’s onto Generic Flair Spots #3 and #4 (strut and chop), before going onto #2 (falling face first) and #6 (half Flair Flop). Note to Jerry: It’s not “vintage” Flair, it’s all he ever fucking does.
Michaels back and ribs are hurting, playing up his history of back problems. HHH goes right in on that, and it’s great that the crowd still get into submission spots enough to bother chanting for the face in peril. Sadly, the whole time, I’m waiting for the HBK nip-up and no sell, which despite being a crowd pleaser is pretty insulting.
Orton’s motives are clear; once he’s tagged in, he quickly despatches of Flair and goes right for HHH. The referee gets bumped, and after an RKO on Flair, Randy has “concussed” himself again.
Edge runs out to attack Shawn, but the spear misses and hits HHH. I don’t think Edge ever spears who he wants. Orton manages to get an arm over HHH and get the pin. It makes Orton and HBK look like fluke winners, but it does put Edge and the spear over for next week’s match. The focus is all on Orton’s concussion though, with HBK showing concern for him. This’d be great if he wound up like Goldust and came out stuttering or with Tourette’s or something. I actually thought he was hurt at the Rumble (it’d explain the shitty match, anyway), but he turned on the vacant look so quickly and easily tonight that I think looking like a retard comes easy for him.
Not a bad match, but Flair’s limitations are getting more and more irritating, and HHH never taking a clean fall puts a damper on things. Edge’s reasoning for running in works fine after the humiliating Sweet Chin Music earlier, but things were fairly plodding and again was too short for HBK to become a really sympathetic face in peril.
Flashback to the last time Snitsky and Kane fought, which was a whole fortnight ago. Why a steel cage tonight? Who cares, it gives them another way to hide their weaknesses.
Commercial
Gene is already out, robbing us of the awesome “IT WAS NOT MY FAULT” at the start of his music.
Dull brawling, punch, kick, grapple over who’s going to hit the cage.
Why would anyone climb over the cage instead of taking the door? Seriously, you’re turning your back on your opponent, it’s slower, and you’ve got more to lose if they catch you.
Anyway, still no sign of a wrestling hold as they continue to just hit each other. FINALLY! A sidewalk slam, as Kane realises that the door is a great idea.
Trish lurks at ringside, so presumably the match won’t end until she gets involved. It’s the same rule of wrestling that covers when a turnbuckle is uncovered, or a table is set up.
Kane pulls a Jeff Hardy, and refuses to climb out, despite a clear opportunity. I guess we’re meant to think that he’d rather hurt Gene than win, but that would have been more effective had he not tried to get out a few times earlier.
Kane goes for the door, and Trish tries to slam the door on him, but Kane stops it, and pulls her inside for a chokeslam.
Sniktsky uncharacteristically helps Trish out of the ring, and also has an opportunity to win, but instead takes the cage door off and continues the fight. The same point I made about Kane applies here. In a horribly contrived move, Gene runs at Kane with the cage door held forwards, and ends up having it kicked into his face. Low blow on the door, followed by a chokeslam onto it, and that’s goodnight Snitsky.
Horrible match, as we’re told that they’re sadistic monsters that’ll do anything to hurt each other, but then nothing they do matches up to the hype.
Overall
A decent match from the Canadian Chris’, and an alright match from the TEN TIME, TEN TIME World Champion cap off a fairly dull show, with not much in the way of anything happening outside of the Evolution self-destruction. The road to Wrestlemania is well underway, and they need to start really pulling matches together and building to that point. It seems like they know where they are going, but Orton is looking to be a third wheel in the Batista / HHH story, or stuck in a meaningless match. If it’s the latter, then WWE have definitely lost faith in him, and we all pray they have. Having no resolution to the “who played the tape?!?!?!?!?” thing, or that they had Teddy Long in da house was a let down, but hopefully they’ll sort that out next week. When Teddy isn’t around.
E-mail me any feedback, comments, pornography to [email protected]
Nik
