NEWS: |WWE| The following report is from WWE with full credit going to Andrew Rote…
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Monday was a night of returns as both John Cena and Jeff Hardy appeared on their first edition of Raw after lengthy absences.
Hardy began his comeback by addressing our fans, explaining that he made a mistake and he paid for it.
“Now that I’m back,” he said, “I have a lot of things to do.”
Before he could announce his plans to regain the Intercontinental Championship, Raw General Manager William Regal turned off his microphone and instantly threw him into a match against Umaga. Despite being caught off guard, Hardy rose to the challenge and surprised the Samoan Bulldozer and the general manager with a victory.
Monday marked Hardy’s first appearance since WrestleMania XXIV. No doubt Hardy has expectations for at least an Intercontinental Championship on the way to WrestleMania XXV.
Carlito & Santino Marella entered the first match of the evening with the opportunity to win the World Tag Team Championship from Hardcore Holly & Cody Rhodes. Despite not seeing eye-to-eye lately, Santino invited WWE Hall of Famer “Rowdy” Roddy Piper to watch from the best seats in the house at the announcers’ table. Unfortunately for “Can-tino” and his partner, that wasn’t close enough for Piper, who spoiled the tag team’s dreams for the gold.
During the contest, Hot Rod decided to get involved, offering a metaphoric slap in the face to go along with the physical one he provided two weeks earlier. It was distraction enough for Rhodes to take advantage and pick up the victory to retain the titles.
Marella met up with Piper in the locker room later in the night, promising the Legend that he will get payback.
Lance Cade hasn’t been shy about his frustrations with Trevor Murdoch and the tag teams’ lack of recent success. The sun shined on Cade & Murdoch on Raw, though, as Murdoch notched the three-count to defeat Cryme Tyme in quick fashion, appearing to be back on the winning track. Murdoch sang Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” in celebration. Cade seemed to enjoy his teammate’s spirit, but the mood soon changed when he took out all of his pent up aggression on Murdoch, ending the concert early and leaving Murdoch licking his wounds.
A week after Beth Phoenix took an apparently accidental boot to the face from Melina, the two Divas had a chance to put water under the bridge and prove they could coexist against a Playboy cover girl and the Women’s Champion. But Maria & Mickie James were as hot as ever, and so was the tension between Melina & Beth.
Maria & Mickie coasted to victory after Beth left Melina’s side. When Melina approached her tag team partner afterward, The Glamazon accused her of hitting her with the boot last week on purpose. Melina attacked in response, but Beth took control until Jillian and multiple referees pulled her off.
Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho offered his apologies to Shawn Michaels for accusing him of feigning an injury. He also gave him a chance to back out of their match this Sunday at Judgment Day. The apology turned out to be too soon, though. HBK joined Jericho in the ring, only to admit he in fact did fake his knee injury. When Y2J thought Michaels was simply playing mind games, The Showstopper backed up his confession with some Sweet Chin Music, assuring that their Judgment Day confrontation would happen.
Mr. Kennedy was loud as ever after consecutive weeks of cutting off William Regal with his notorious antics on Raw. Kennedy defeated Snitsky in convincing fashion and is not likely to leave Regal alone anytime soon, as the Superstar is still upset he was not included in the King of the Ring tournament that the general manager won.
Our Detroit fans were lucky enough to see John Cena’s first Raw since Backlash after receiving a punt in the head from Randy Orton in the WWE Championship Fatal Four Way Elimination Match.
Cena made waves when he confronted Regal to kick off the evening, but that ended in the main event contest between Cena and Orton. Guest referee – and Cena’s Judgment Day opponent – John “Bradshaw” Layfield called a quick three-count to give Orton the win, spoiling Cena’s homecoming. Orton’s celebration didn’t last for long, though, as WWE Champion Triple H got involved to spoil the party.
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The opening segment to RAW was only 15 minutes so that’s down from last week (which is good). BUt even then, the content of that 15 minutes didn’t deserve 15 minutes anyway. Lillian singing was not needed, but that’s just me. I think it’s fairly obvious that Regal will cost Cena his match against Orton tonight and I know a lot of you guys are thinking this too. So mark my words at ~9:20PM, Regal will cost Orton the match and WWE writers think it’ll still be a surprise.
One thing I hated was that Cena came in and kinda rescued Mickie James. James is the Women’s Champion and should not be rescued. But this is my absolute biased opinion because even male champions get rescued too. But I think it was the way Cena did it. He came in, put his arm around Mickie and led her away. I think it made Mickie look weak. But again, I’m biased.
Even though I’m bashing WWE’s lack of creativity right now (assuming Regal or an associate of his does interfere), the ultimate point is to make Regal a true heel and I think WWE is doing a good job. The fans were absolutely against him during Cena/Mickie and he got some good heat before Cena calmed them down. So on that point, Regal is getting heat which is good. And even if tonight’s outcome is obvious, if it gets Regal even more heat than so be it.
And by the way, I’m liking Regal a lot right now. His calm, smug demeanor is paying off well and he’s getting over fast.
The opening tag match was decent. I didn’t find too many things wrong with it, but having Piper out there kinda gave away the ending of the match. And since Holly & Cody are barely recognized as tag champs, this title defense meant absolutely nothing. Thus, having Piper cost Santino & Carlito the titles means nothing too.
Kennedy & Snitsky was better than I thought because both looked strong during their match. The fans are already with Kennedy and he’s getting the same reaction Rock would get when he did one of his signature catch phrases. Good, short match.
Is something starting between Mickie & John Cena?
There is no way Mickie’s brother is a fan of Cena. That’s a downright lie.
There’s not much to say about the Women’s Match. It was more for storyline than wrestling content. But the match could have been a lot longer. Again, I’m biased when it comes to the Women’s Division.
I really really liked the HBK/Jericho segment. It was great. Everything from Jericho second guessing himself to the way HBK hopped out of the ring. Really nice. My only problem, and you know I have one, is the reaction of Jericho after he got superkicked. He was laying on his back with his arms up. It was like he was flexing his biceps while laying on his back. What the hell was that? It just looked awkward. But regardless, the fans are still behind HBK after his lie and they laughed along with him. Pretty interesting and great segment.
Good to see Jeff Hardy back. Also good to hear him apologize and still see the fans are behind him. I really wonder how many fans read WWE.com and websites and know what really goes on in wrestling. Granted everything on wrestling websites is not 100% truthful, but it’s is as close as we can get. Do people in the arena really know Hardy was suspended for drugs? It was just something I was wondering about. Anyway, his defeat over Umaga was very surprising. Hardy beat a “super heavyweight” in under 5 minutes. That’s a big statement.
Very nice how WWE had Cade & Murdoch win and then have Cade still turn on Murdoch. And that punch was brutal. This is exactly what I want to see more of…creativity, swerves, well-thought out plans. That’s exactly what WWE needs to make things more interesting and more exciting.
Now that I think about it, I could be completely wrong about Regal or someone of his choosing costing Cena the match. And that steel cage above the ring may change things.
Did you see Beth Phoenix’s attack on Melina backstage? It was awesome. She laid the beat down on her good.
Well thankfully I was correct about Cena getting screwed by Regal and I didn’t look like an idiot. If my mom taught me anything, it’s that what other’s think of you is the most important thing in life.
I think the main event, in terms of wrestling quality, was what we’ve come to expect. Nothing too great and nothing too exciting. I really liked how the cage came down and gave the fans a preview of what’s to come at the PPV. It looked like Orton hit the cage hard when his face slammed into it.
Oh yea, Orton’s new music sucks balls. It’s awful. Why does everyone have singing in their theme music now? Kennedy does, so does Hardy’s new music and now Orton’s. It’s awful. Just plain awful.
With that out of the way, I think RAW delivered this week. It started out well and maintained at that level. Every segment furthered a future storyline and built up to the PPV. Did this RAW make me want to buy Judgment Day? Hell no. I’ve had no desire to buy a PPV except for WM24. And before that, I think all WWE PPVs are poorly built and do not give fans a good enough reason to shell out their money.
RAW had a lot of good segments, some subpar wrestling and one hell of a beat down courtesy of Beth Phoenix.
I dunno about this PPV but what would make me buy the next one is if after their tag-team match with Miz/Morrison, Punk double-crosses Kane and takes the ECW title from him. Somehow MITB looks good only as a heel.
@Xtreeeme What about when RVD beat Cena for the title?
-Matt B & Xteeeme- I want MITB to be heel to, but whne it was RVD that was sorta special, becasue Cena was face but he ended up being heel, that was like a special occasion almost.
@Everyone Yea the RVD win over Cena was a special thing since everyone in the ECW arena was anti-CEna even though the rest of the world was pro-Cena. Those were some great months of wrestling.
I wonder if WWE will have CM Punk cash it in and then still lose.