Report by: Patrick, rajah.com reader
Hey guys, here's some notes on the dark matches and Heat from the RAW show
last night, if you're interested in posting them:
DARK MATCH: Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney vs. jobber tag team (didn't catch
name)
What surprised me is that Balls and Axl may have gotten one of the five
biggest entrance pops of the night. Balls was especially over, with "ECW"
chants coming every 2 minutes or so. Match was relatively short with the
normal spots and "Balls" chants on his punches, with the ECW guys picking
up a popular win.
HEAT Tapings:
1. Hurricane, Rosey, & Viscera (w/ Stacy) vs. Heart Throbs & Tyson Tomko
Viscera is HUGE, and an equally huge waste of time. The fact that they
gave Viscera a 6 minute match and Kurt Angle a 3 minute Invitational
screams "mental illness". The Heart Throbs have the worst entrance I've
ever seen; way to make the gay community less likely to watch your show,
WWE. Hurricane and Rosey were serviceable, as was Tomko. Faces dominated
this match, with the end eventually coming as they isolated Tomko. Rosey
and Viscera hit consecutive big splashes as the Heart Throbs abandoned the
ring.
2. Victoria vs. Tits McGee
Didn't really catch her name either. Victoria cut a really awful promo
about how Christy Hemme was more popular than she was simply because she
was a redhead. Good promo Victoria, that explains the fact that you're
less watchable and charismatic than Trish Stratus, Lita, Stacy Keibler,
Torrie Wilson, Dawn Marie, Lilian Garcia, Sharmell, Ivory, Melina, and Mae
Young. When she did finishing gracing us with her Bull Nakano-esque mic
skills, she proceeded to put on what I felt was a pretty poorly plotted
out match. The advantage went back and forth far too quickly (i.e.
Victoria would hit a decently big spot, and 5 seconds later Jobber Chick
would already be up and countering, and vice versa.) Victoria wins with a
Widow's Peak out of nowhere.
3. Rob Conway vs. Matt Stryker
Yeah, same guy from the Angle Invitational (this may have been a
non-televised match for that reason, don't know). Stryker showed up to
work tonight, apparently, and didn't do a bad job representing himself.
Conway came out looking, acting, and posing EXACTLY like Buff Bagwell.
EXACTLY. He even grew out the sideburns and goatee, and has a very
similar haircut. The match itself was pretty good, with Stryker actually
hitting some decent spots. The end came when Conway hit a pretty cool
finisher; he hooked Stryker up for a suplex, then bounced his mid-section
off the top rope and delivered a modified twisting Stunner/neckbreaker. I
don't know how far Conway's going to go with a completeeeely recycled look
and gimmick, though.
4. Rene Dupree vs. Val Venis
Good pop for Venis, marginal heel pop for Dupree which, to his credit, got
louder as the match advanced. Dupree held the advantage for most of the
match, and actually did not look too terrible here. The end came when
Venis went for the Money Shot and Dupree rolled out of the way, and
eventually made Venis tap out standing to a modified Cobra Clutch. I'd
change his finisher immediately, it wasn't convincing and the crowd really
had no idea they were anywhere near the end of the match. Otherwise, an
all right match to lead into Raw.
-- OTHER RAW NOTES --
1. I don't know what the guy who reported the dark match was smoking, but
while it WAS a double finish, Batista pinned HHH with his flapjack
spinebuster, not the Batista Bomb.
2. I was pretty surprised to see Shelton Benjamin get NO pop whatsoever.
There was no crowd response to the IC title match, and if there was any,
the fans were actually behind Carlito. (Fans were relatively supportive
of the heels that cut great promos, i.e. Carlito, Jericho). I don't know
if they'll show up on TV, but thanks to Y2J there were a lot of "Sideshow
Bob" chants for Carlito. Pretty funny, hopefully it'll stick.
3. Hardy's pop was immense. I can't say it wasn't as loud as Batista and
Cena's. A lot of people weren't sure how "real" Hardy's arrest was, which
was a credit to how it was worked into the show. (I could tell, because
one of the "security guards" ran down the ramp late for the segment during
Edge's entrance. He was having a hard time seeing through the smoke and
almost bumped into Edge, pretty funny.)
4. Interestingly enough, it seems like the people in my section were split
50/50 on Cena. Half went absolutely crazy for him, while the other half
were vocal about how unimpressive and repetitive they found his promos. I
will say this, the whole "cheap sauce"/"Y2Cheap" thing is really F'in
dumb.
5. Snitsky, at this point, just makes people angry. No Flair at the show,
but we have to watch an unbearable clip about Snitsky's foot fetish,
followed by a crappy run-in before the Edge/Kane match is 5 minutes old?
I wish he had gone with the cuts, he was useless months ago.
6. Anyone who didn't see the superkick coming on Piper needs prescription
glasses, HBK telegraphed it for a good 10-15 seconds. I would have been
much happier had Michaels just gone full-blown heel; he actually didn't
get booed too badly from where I was sitting.
7. As loud as the boos were for JBL, Michaels, and Edge, they were equally
as loud for segments of another awful Diva Search segment (especially for
Kristal and Simona, who were pathetic, while the other 5 were merely
terrible).
8. The Kurt Angle Invitational segment was actually pretty fun. The crowd
was so into seeing Angle potentially "lose his medal" that they started
counting down at about 35-40 seconds. I was really entertained.
-- Hope this was all of some service to you guys, I've been following the
site for about 2 years now and have always been very happy with it. Keep
up the good work, and I'd be happy to do some writing for you here and
there if you'd like it.
Patrick (aka P-Roq), (shea3@tcnj.edu)
