Hey, Tom Pandich here. I write in Games. Oh, I write in Movies too. I pop up in TV once in a while too. I’m a versatile writer. Tonight, I’m doing the Live Raw coverage. We’ve got Cena versus Angle in a First Blood match. I wonder what’s more likely. A Bret Hart appearance or a First Blood match without any outside interference. Besides that Shelton Benjamin got a phone call and someone is coming to make it all better. I smell some Wrestlecrap on the way.
It’s the first Raw of the year and it screams: “Thank god football is almost over for another few months so our ratings can go up!” I’ll be here all night updating all night too. Stick here and I’ll keep you up to date while you’re flipping back and forth between college football and Raw.
WE ARE LIVE FROM THE CONTINENTAL AIRLINE’S ARENA!
Cena/Angle and Flair’s Road Rage are on tap for tonight and here comes Vince.
Vince’s cockiness strut is at a 4 on a scale of 1-10. Vince says he has announced a zero tolerance policy meaning he’s not taking crap from anyone. Vince is in full heel mode tonight while a minor “We want Bret” chant starts up. You know the drill, “I should have fired (Shawn’s) ass on the spot”, “It’s all about me,” and so forth.
Vince says that he made the First Blood match for his own personal amusement as well as this next match. He calls Lilian Garcia over, pyro and Kane comes out. Female cries and here comes Shawn Michaels! I’d like to see how old that chick is one of these days. Vince cuts off Shawn’s music and we learn that if Shawn uses the Superkick its an automatic DQ.
Shawn Michaels versus Kane: No Band in the House match
Shawn catches a charging Kane with an elbow, but Kane turns it around pretty quickly. Kane works over Shawn until Michaels goes for a small package for two. Michaels gets a sunset flip for two. Kane takes over again, works Shawn over in the corner, and gets a two count with a scoop slam.
Shawn gets tossed into a corner and Kane eats a face full of boot. Michaels clotheslines Kane over the top rope and then does a dive to the outside which gets a very undeserved “holy shit” chant. Vinnie Mac comes over to jaw with Michaels and we know where this is going. Kane nails Michaels with a clothesline as we cut to commercial.
We’re back and I’m one Sprite up. Hm, apparently House is going to be on USA starting this Friday. Shawn has Kane down with a sleeper. Kane powers Michaels up and slams him into a corner. Michaels locks on the sleeper hold again and the same results happen. Michaels gets a third sleeper and Kane plants him with a belly to back suplex. Kane misses his big elbow. Michaels goes up top and eats a Kane clothesline. Kane chokes Michaels out and then drops the big leg across Shawn’s neck for two.
Kane does some more choking/rest hold bullshit and gets a pinfall for two. Shawn powers up from a side headlock and we get Trading Punches: Xtreme Edition. Kane ends it with a few kicks to the mid section and tosses Shawn into the ropes and puts his head down. Shawn kicks it, but gets caught in a chokeslam. Blown arm drag out of the chokeslam and Kane takes over in the corner. Michaels gets tossed into the ropes and hits a flying elbow. Nip up and a Shawn DDT gets two. Swinging neckbreaker gets two.
Shawn goes up top and hits the big elbow and starts tuning up the band, and here comes Vince with a mic. He says he’s going to not only disqualify Shawn Michaels if he uses Sweet Chin Music, he’ll also toss him out of the Elimination Chamber. Kane does the sit up and hits the chokeslam. 1-2-3 and we’re done.
Winner: Kane
It looks like we’ve got a post match interview. Vince whispers something to Todd Grisham as we cut to commercial.
We’re back. Apparently Shawn’s going to be the number 1 entrant to the Elimination Chamber. We get announcer booth banter and Novocaine Helms is bitching about the King. Oh god, the King is going to have another match, isn’t he? To further Eric S’s pain, here come Gregory Helms and he wants Helms in the ring. Helms says King has nothing funny to say in the ring. King says at least when Helms was the Hurricane, he was half way entertaining. Now, he’s “just a guy… who sucks!” BURRRNNN. Helms slaps the King, the King punches Helms, Helms bails and we’ve got our piss break match for New Year’s Revolution. Commercial time.
We’re back and our sponsors are Snickers and Burger King. I could go for some Wendy’s right now. New Years Revolution promo video recaps the Elimination Chamber with footage from the first one at Survivor Series. We’re back with McMahon talking with Mickie James about her kiss with Trish. Daviri and Kurt Angle burst in. Angle is going to make Cena bleed so badly that McMahon is going to take him to the hospital. He also promises to make Michaels tap out. Mickie James begins to explain herself and we cut to the announcers to talk um about Trish and Mickie talking.
We get video of the kiss and now Trish is running up and down stairs. Here comes Todd for the interview. Todd Grisham asks what Trish thought about the kiss, and it made her feel uncomfortable. Todd asks if it might have been mindgames by Mickie and Trish doesn’t know. She needs to take a shower and we cut to commercial before we go to the inevitable Trish shower scene.
We’re back and its Maria! Maria is doing the “kiss cam” for WWE Unlimited. Maria has the world’s best facial expressions. Here comes Victoria in a neck brace with her henchwomen tweedle teet and tweedle tit. Victoria bitches about Carlito and then Maria. She’s a heel, she doesn’t need to be rational about her bitching. She announces her and Maria have a match.
Victora versus Maria: “Why Is It That Half the Divas Don’t Have Last Names” match
Victoria does some hair pulling, a surfboard, and more hair pulling. The match ends when Victoria misses a splash in the corner and Maria rolls here up for a three count. Heel beatdown follows and Maria gets stripped to her bra and panties. Ashley runs out and gets beat down as well.
We cut to the back and here come Edge and Lita. More commercials? Yep. It’s not even 10 yet and this Raw has felt like its been on for hours. That makes me a sad panda.
Back from commercials. USA is the cable home of the Olympics. Yay for Olympic curling! Apparently we’re having a bra and panties gauntlet match at New Years Revolution. We’re at the Trish Stratus shower scene. Mickie takes Trish’s towel, apologizes, and says “nice boobs.” I blame you Joe Q VirginMcParentsbasementliver for this.
Here’s Edge and Lita. Lita looks like hell this week. Edge says he’s one of a kind and RVD says “whatever” from the bottom of whatever bong he’s living in. Edge says he has video of Ric Flair’s brutal road rage. Edge doesn’t lie as he does a horrible Ric Flair impression. The only redeeming fact of this horrible video is the crowd Wooing along with the Edge Flair chops.
Edge says that these people are laughing at you whether it’s the road rage incident or his divorce. Ouch. Slut chant breaks out for Lita. Edge is going to rescue the Intercontinental title from Ric this Sunday. Here comes Ric and he’s smacking the hell out of Edge. Lita jumps on Flair’s back as he’s going for the Figure Four. Lita gets dumped and Edge dashes off. Lita gets the Figure Four for a few moments before Edge races back to save here. That takes us to commercial.
We’re back and Stacy Keibler is talking about “Dancing with the Stars”. I bet she finishes third. Here comes Shelton Benjamin. Who’s he against? Why it’s Chris Masters!
Gym Bunny versus Black Gym Bunny Who Can Wrestle: “Another Loss for Shelton” match
Masters sends Shelton into the corner and tosses some shoulder blocks his way. Shelton gets tossed into the ropes and hits a hold on crucifix for two. Another roll up gets two. Shelton goes for a suplex, Masters blocks it, but Shelton flips through. Shelton tries for a backslide, but eats a big clothesline. Masters slows things down and we’ve got a slugfest!
Masters gets tossed into the corner face first and eats a belly to back splash. Shelton hits a big clothesline followed by Shelton’s enziguri kick. Shelton gets three but the ref says Master’s foot was on the ropes. Masters gets up and catches Shelton with what looks like a fallaway slam converted into a half nelson. Shelton breaks it but gets put in the Masterlock shortly after that. Shelton almost reaches the ropes but passes out.
Winner: Chris Masters
We see another Elimination Chamber video. This one has Goldberg and Kevin Nash back a few years ago from Summerslam. Those were good times…or not. Commercial time.
We’re back and it’s time to chat it up with Ben Roethlisberger and some of the Steelers. It’s the usual “I respect the wrestlers so much deal.” The Coach gets burned by Big Ben at the end of the interview and responds by saying he’s rooting for the Bengals this weekend.
Here’s HHH and I’m going to take a little tiny nap. Wake me when the promo is over. Let me copy and paste the Sparknotes to HHH promos. First there may or may not be footage of some horrible thing HHH did last week. It’ll be followed by him patting himself on the back about what he did to someone. If its the week before a pay per view and he’s taking on a rookie he will talk about how he is eons ahead of them. If its a veteran he’ll talk about how he’s a younger, better version of them and it’s his time. If its someone that is his contemporary (Rock, Austin, Kane, Big Show, etc) he’ll talk about ending their career. He’ll show at least one piece of footage. The wrestler he is doing a promo against will come out and either do a promo against HHH ending in a beat down of HHH, HHH will bail, or no talking will be required. Half of the time, HHH will be the winner of the the beatdown. If that happens, HHH has a fifty/fifty shot of winning the match.
As for this one, the Big Show has a cast on his right hand and now the Big Show has a weapon. Show punched out a chair and a monitor and HHH tripped taking apart the announcers’ table. Essentially it’s as good as a beatdown and HHH has a 99.9% chance of winning now.
It’s time for the Smackdown Rebound. Melina is suing Dave! for sexual harassment. We cut to the MnM versus Batista and Rey Rey match. Batista is about to win, but Mark Henry comes out and interferes. MnM wins the tag titles and we have an utterly brutal match coming up at No Way Out for the World Championship.
The first blood match gets promoted for the thirtieth time tonight. That takes us to commercial.
We’re back and Big Momma’s House 2 looks like a strong canidate for worst film of the year. Oh no, its SHELTON’S MAMA!!! Shelton’s Mama threatens Shelton with some corporal punishment and may well end up being my new favorite character depending on how racial insensitive the WWE is with it.
We get last year’s Elimination Chamber video. The announcers run down the card for the match:
-HHH vs The Big Show
-Trish Stratus vs Mickie James for the Women’s Championship
-Jerry “The King” Lawler vs Gregory Helms
-Ric Flair vs Edge for the Intercontinental Championship
-Ashley vs Victoria vs Candice vs Maria vs Torrie in a Bra and Panties Gauntlet Match
-John Cena vs Kane (last entry) vs Carlito vs Shawn Michaels (first entry) vs Chris Masters vs Kurt Angle
My personal odds: Masters, Carlito (both 100-1), Kane (50-1), Michaels (15-1), Angle (5-1) Cena (3-1).
That takes us to commercial.
We’re finally at the First Blood Match. Here comes Cena! Cena cuts a promo and he is getting some pretty big boos from the crowd. Cena gets some cheers for cutting down Angle but Angle gets a huge positive reaction for interupting Cena’s promo. Huge “You Suck” chants! This is a big pro-Angle crowd and we cut to commercial AGAIN! Dammit!
We’re back with the fourth match of the night, one of which was a woman’s match and another had Chris Masters. It’s been a long night folks.
Kurt Angle versus John Cena: First Blood match
We cut back live and this crowd is giving Cena mad heat. Triple germans to Cena and Davari exposes the turnbuckle. Angle tries to nail Cena’s head to the turnbuckle but Cena blocks twice. Huge boos to Cena. Cena launches Angle outside with a backdrop. The crowd is going absolutely apeshit as we’ve got dueling Let’s Go Cena/Angle chants.
Angle finally nails Cena into the exposed turnbuckle. Cena covers his face and we’ve got no blood! Angle slam to Cena and Kurt gets a chair. Cena ducks and hits Angle with a shoulderblock. Cena’s got the chair and here comes Daviri. Daviri gets dumped and Cena goes for the FU. Angle blocks and locks in the Ankle Lock. Cena counters and the ref gets taken out. Cena picks up the chair, and Daviri comes in for the third time. Cena drops the chair and Angle’s got it. Big chair shot and some closed fists open Cena up and the match is over.
Angle puts Cena into the FU but Cena counters and hooks on the STF. Kurt taps while its hooked on. The ref finally gets up and calls the match for Angle.
Winner: Kurt Angle
Here comes Carlito and Chris Masters for the post match beatdown. They turn on Angle and Daviri and it’s officially a clusterf*ck. Kane comes out and cleans house. He then eats a Superkick from Shawn Michaels who has slipped out from the back. Michaels is measuring Cena for a Superkick but Cena catches him in the FU and lays Michaels out. Everyone’s down and we pimp the PPV one last time before Sunday as we look over the carnage of the match.
Horrid show this week, but the PPV card could be a lot worse. With the crowd reaction, I think it’s a lot more likely for Cena to lose now then I did twenty minutes ago, but I still think he’ll hold on to the belt until the Royal Rumble. See you all around the Pulse, particularly in Games and Movies, and whenever someone needs me to fill in here.
