Welcome to Week 2 of the Monday Night Rabble! Joining us this week is Erik H, Jenna, Eric G, Jimmy, Val, and as always Danielle. Two important things to address before we get to the wrestling event: First, I received my first piece of fan mail about the MNR the day after the last one was posted which simply insinuated shortly, and sweetly that the quips and quotes were all fictional. The gimmick behind the column is, seemingly, a lie.
I had decided to take a photo of us all watching, with something obvious like a newspaper. Sadly, due to the Christmas confusions, Dani’s digital camera was left at her house, so in an attempt to parodize the dumbass who decided to not even critique me, but just insult me – I give you this random group shot of people I found on Google.
THE FORUM RABBLE
This place is reserved. In the future I’ll use this space to show you people good reasons why you should join the Inside Pulse forum legion. Next week, I will have a contractually obligated heart to heart with none other than Hardygrrl, winner of the Inside Pulse Poetry Contest.
Now… onto Raw!
The show starts off with a recap of the vacancy of the title, and WWE.COM has promised us that tonight we are going to get another new bit about News Year’s Revolution’s Evolution Chamber. For the record, so far it’s Y2J, Trips, Benoit, Edge, Orton, and Batista. We get a recap and here comes Eric Bischoff.
Bischoff explains the rules of the Elimination Chamber, leaving out the all important ‘Bullet Proof Glass’ – tonight’s surprise is that each of the competitors are going to have a ‘Beat The Clock Challenge’ meaning each of them will have a timed match versus an unknown opponent. The person with the shortest match will be the last man chosen in the Elimination Chamber. BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! If one of the Elimination Chamber fighters is beaten in their match they will be replaced by the man that defeated them…
Later we will be finding out our Special Guest Referee. First though, the first match.
Jericho vs. CHRISTIAN!
“Those are very mariachi-esque pants!” – Erik H on Christian.
Quick roll-up and backslide for two. Drop toehold, rolls Christian up for two. Christian with a couple fists, but Jericho drops him with a short spear, and misses the Walls of Jericho. A combo of pins leads to no final pin. Finally Christian comes in with more realistic offense, but it is stopped quickly as Jericho just throws him from corner to corner and goes for another pin. Jericho gets stopped against the ropes and Christian finally starts to show that he too can wrestle. Christian puts him into a chinlock, some hold spots and Jericho throws Christian out of the ring, with Captain Charisma getting at least 10 feet of air. Jericho then leaps to the top turnbuckle and launches himself onto Tomko and Christian outside. Off to commercials…
We come back and Christian is on the offensive, a monkey flip into the corner, but Jericho launches catches himself and leaps onto Christian. A lionsault and lands on his feet as Christian moves out of the way. Tomko leaps up and stops Jericho for a quick roll-up by Christian (hot spot!) – he leaps onto the top corner, dropkicks Tomko and hits Christian with the Walls of Jericho!
FINISHES AT 10:47!
Back in the locker room, Evolution is taking bets as to who is going to win their match first. $100 goes to the quickest, but Flair wants to have none of it. Apparently, whomever wins quicker, Triple H wins. Batista is suppsed to throw his time off, seemingly.
One of the bim’s of the WWE is interviewing Randy Orton, and his resolution for this Revolution is to win. So Slutty McBreasts is rubbing off on Orton as his interview is laden with stutters, but he’s next!
A brief cueing mistake has Christie coming out as the timekeeper in the dark, and Orton coming out midway through his own song. Who is his opponent?
“Michael Cole.. just kill him. Please!” – Eric H on his favorite person.
Randy Orton vs. MAVEN!
“Maven has Golden Arches on his tight… he’s wearing a McDonald’s logo. He’s Mc’Aven.” Danielle on Maven’s tights.
Lock-up brings both to the corner; a thumb in the eye pisses off Orton. Orton tosses Maven into the ropes and a great combo of leaps sends Orton to the apron where they fight it out. Maven once again gives a thumb in the eye, a strong dropkick sends Orton to the outside. The Blue Chi… I mean, Maven tosses Orton into the stairs and they are really pushing him!
They both come back in the ring and Maven capitalizes, catches Orton in a modified Tazmission, Chicken Wing, Naked Choke… thingie!
“It’s the Big Mac!” Dani on Maven’s moveset
Continuing in the ring, Maven’s got Orton into a chinlock and he’s holding it much stronger than Christian was. Orton fights his way out, and they both go outside again. A russian legsweep drops both men, but in Orton’s favor. Randy pulls Maven in through the second rope and then DDTs Maven to the ground. A flying crossbody, a RKO reversal, an RKO annnnnnnd! Randy Orton wins quicker than Jericho at 6:14.
Raw Recap: Snitsky getting stopped by the wall of fire.
“Oooo briight” – Erik as Snitsky.
Changing pace, we move onto what is being labeled as a Diva’s match, here comes Lita. Announced for New Years Revolution is a rematch for the women’s title, which leaves us for Lita to face the only other Raw Heel Female, Molly Holly.
Lita vs. Molly Holly
Non-Title Match
Molly starts off the match by beating the hell out of Lita, until finally Lita hits the Thesz Press and starts pummeling Molly. Tosses her into the corner and gets an elbow in the face in return. Lita recuperates and catches Molly with a spike DDT for the win. Out of nowhere comes Snitsky! No fire this time as they run around the sides to the back. Lita locks herself into a room and Bischoff stops him to announce that Snitsky is going to face Kane.
“Are you having fun?” Eric Bischoff
“..yeah, I’m having a blast!” Snitsky pawing at the door Lita’s locked behind.
Commercial break.
We come back with Rosie in the ring. We get a flashback from Heat two weeks ago where Simon Dean blindsides Hurricane so who’s he facing?
Rosie vs. Simon Dean
Simon comes down with a microphone to do the obvious making fun of the audience for eating too much Christmas food. He oinks at the crowd and tells us how Momma’s little piggies eat, but Rosie pulls him into the ring and starts the match up. Big body slam, and Dean, in his obnoxious powder blue gets tossed into the ropes, tries for the sunset flip, but gets Rosie testicals dropped onto his face in response. Tasty. Dean catches Rosie in the corner and starts to take down Rosie’s leg. Twists it around the turnbuckle, tries to get him into a figure four.
In a great spot, Simon puts on his weight belt and tries to bodyslam Rosie… and fails. Rosie goes for the belt to use it as a weapon, and Dean gets the quick roll-up win.
Commercial break.
“You think you know me!” Here comes Edge, whose theme song is growing on me more and more with each passing week. And who is his mystery opponent.
Edge vs. EUGENE!
Edge grabs Eugene and before he even has time to take off his jacket has been tossed, rolled up, packaged, and beaten around like a reta… sorry. A toss in the ropes from Edge and Eugene hits him with a hiptoss and drop toe hold. Edge charges him and Eugene slides out of the way to have Edge leap out of the ring.
“Eugene.. the retarded Taskmaster” – Bill on wrestling and comics.
As Edge crawls back in and catches Eugene against the ropes. He comes in and starts taking Eugene to task, a standing dropkick and a pin only gets two, and seemingly to stretch out the clock (if you pay attention, you can even see him watching it), he keeps pulling Eugene into holdspots. Edge hits the ropes, and Eugene hits the ropes and the crisscross begins as Eugene leaves the ring to go say hello to fans. Edge is left in the ring, confused. He goes to ask Eugene what the hell he is doing, and Eugene shakes HIS hand and crawls under the ring.
As Eugene pokes his head out playfully, he gets a strong boot to the head. He gets Eugene back into the ring, hits the spear, but Edge has officially run out of time to be the last guy. Edge is royally pissed and as he picks up Eugene he gets a KICK WHAM STUNNER! Eugene is crawling over to Edge, because Eugene in an Elimination Chamber would rule! The pin gets two, but Edge slams his head into the mat and that’s the trigger for Eugene to Tard Up! Edge though gets the best of Eugene and catches him in Edge’s standing figure four to get Eugene to tap out. He is still in the Chamber, but he isn’t #6.
We go back behind to hear Bischoff baiting the audience with the Special Guest who will be here later.
“This makes me so moist” Me on WWE 24/7.
Benoit comes down the ring, no pomp and/or circumstance… and his opponent is…
Chris Benoit vs. VISCERA??????
Why? Whyy! Even Benoit looks sad. For the record, they’ve given Viscera music and a video package. It sounds like Viscera’s theme is the Unsolved Mystery theme.
They lock up, and it’s seriously just funny to watch as you can fit 3 Benoit’s into one Viscera. The lockup leads to Benoit being thrown into the corner. Benoit goes to clip the leg and Viscera lifts his leg so we can see Benoit get friction burn across the ring. Chops seem to be the only thing working… until they stop and Viscera hits Benoit with a spinwheel kick.
“Can you make that face?” – Jimmy to Eric
“I’m sorry, I’m not black and scary.” – Eric on Viscera
I’ve never liked Viscera, but he is a fairly impressive huge monster in this match – doing the proper sells and no sells. I am completely impressed with someone who I used to despise as much as X-Pac. Benoit leaps against the ropes, Viscera catches him and drops him with a HUGE samoan drop. This continues until Benoit hits him with a tiny German suplex. Benoit hits the Crossface and wins it with 30 seconds left on the timer.
We get a pointless shot of Stacy…… or is it?
Commercial Break.
…the Westside Story Rumble commercial is on again… I don’t care – it is horrible, but makes me laugh so hard.
We’re back and here comes Stacy, hey there was a point! She announces that she is the 2004 Babe of the year and gets interrupted by Muhammed in full Sabu headgear.
“Next time he comes out, he’ll be riding a camel.” Bill on Muhammed and Vince’s tact.
“We have nukes pointed towards all of your capitals” Erik as Muhammed
We have no idea what he’s talking about since we riffed on him for his entire speech. Sorry.
Honestly, he was getting severe heel heat. His manager goes and starts ranting against Lawler and JR. We go to an odd commercial break with Muhammed nose to nose with Lawler.
When we come back, JR is bleeding from where he got whupped by Muhammed and Lawler is obviously upset. But here comes Batista and his mystery opponent is…
Batista vs. RHYNO!!!
Batista starts the match by asking Rhyno to ‘Come on!’ Instead of a lock-up though Rhyno goes belly to back, and gets tossed by Batista. Batista taunts Rhyno, begging him to hit him.. so Rhyno hits him. Followed by a HUGE spear! Batista hits a spine buster, followed by the Batistabomb and Rhyno is out. Batista in a pandering moment for the crowd realizes he has more time. (roughly 3 minutes) So he hits Rhyno again with the Batistabomb. Pin and win with the new time to win of 3:02.
Here is the new music combo to CHRISTMAS IN IRAQ PART DEUX… With the SAME CREED SONG!!! Wheee?! Not to seem insensitive – Vince is doing a good thing by going over there and giving the troops some entertainment, but it seems a bit less genuine when we’ve seen packages for this damned event at least 5 times in the last two weeks.
Back to the show, Bischoff is talking about glazing one of the new Raw Diva’s faces like a donut. Nah, not really – but our special guest ref is in the building.. but who is he? So Muhammed and his manager want JR and Lawler in a tag match. Bischoff playing the level head, invites them to a debate next week… how.. umm.. hardcore. His Manager speaks in some foreign language and we go back to… another part of the arena.
“He said, ‘I want to lick your chest'” – Jimmy on translations
Trips is mad at Batista. Batista was supposed to not beat the clock, and now Trips is pissing him off. The dissention of Evolution continues.
“When Batista gets mad, does he turn into a meek and mild scientist?” – Jen on Bruce Banner
Back in the ring, all of our other Elimination Chamber opponents are sitting outside as Trips and Batista come down for Triple H’s match versus… oh wait, Triple H gets to go and staredown each and every other person in his Elimination Chamber match, like he is going to tell us who killed Mister Body.
Triple H vs. SHELTON BENJAMIN!!!!
A great little thing where the faces stand up and clap as Benjamin comes down. Before the bell rings a clothesline from HHH drops him hard. He tosses Shelton outside the ring, into the stairs and Shelton. Trips brings him in pins and gets two. A spinebuster gets him two. A sleeper gets countered sending HHH into the corner turnbuckle. Shelton gets some offense, gets a kick in the stomach and reverses the set-up for the Pedigree. Trips goes right back to the sleeper and we are down to 30 seconds…. 20 seconds… 10 seconds… 5… 4… 3… and at one, heh catches the third arm down BUT! Shelton shoots his leg onto the rope to stop the count.
Trips is arguing with the ref and here comes Benjamin with a splash roll-up for TWO!!!! DAMN! Shelton is now on the hard offense with chops, kicks, spin kicks, and he even gets out of the Pedigree AGAIN! Benjamin goes up to the top rope and Flair is distracting the ref. HHH gets hit with Benjamin’s powerslam, gets two. Sadly a few moments later, after HHH has taken quite a beating, and Shelton has taken very little, Pedigree and done.
Before the celebrating can continue, Bischoff comes on and announces that our Special Guest Ref is… WHAT EVERY SIGN IN THE AUDIENCE TOLD US.. H – B – K! Apparently nobody in the ring likes this idea.
Overall!
“So.. the only thing that’s different is now Batista comes out last? Why should I care?” – Eric G on tonight’s Raw.
Some fun matches, and a surprising match out of Viscera of all people. An important show? No. It established some matches and gave us the return of HBK. Anyway, that’s that for this week. Hope you had a safe holiday, and we’ll see you next year.
