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Evening all. I’m Tom Pandich here for your live Raw coverage tonight. First though, feedback for Saturday Night Main Event!

First off, Joe writes: Tommy,

Just read your coverage of SNME. I couldn’t agree with you more. That show sucked and I want those two hours of my life back. Three matches in two hours of wrestling? I guess it is like the old days.

Shane wins so that should lead to another Michaels/Shane match on Raw…sigh. I’m not a Mark Henry fan and I think they should give the Undertaker someone better to wrestle at Wrestlemania. But how are they going to build Henry as a credible threat when Taker squashes him on national television. It’s like DDP all over again.

The only good part was when Mickie James finally turned on Trish. Otherwise, this show was terrible.

Thanks Joe I’m pretty much in agreement with you. Nobody buys Henry as a credible threat to the Undertaker. With Orton and Flair a few years back, people bought them as credible contenders. There are about five people on the Smackdown roster right now who would be credible threats to breaking the streak. Orton got beat last year and Batista is injured. That takes away two. The other three (Benoit, Angle, and maybe, maybe JBL) all are involved in title matches. That leaves something interpromotional or someone who is getting a push. Thinking along those lines, Henry makes sense and is as good as anyone.

Next off”¦ oh, Raw is starting. Hm. Ok, I’ll get to those later in the night.

We start with a video recap of Shane O’ Mac’s “win” over Shawn Michaels. We start out with”¦.. THE SPIRIT SQUAD!!! They do a fantastic cheer introducing Shane and Shane gets played in with a brass band (playing When the Saints Come Marching In), confetti, and balloons. The confetti is absurd! ABSURD! Daytona 500 Absurd. Fireworks go off and Vince says “Let’s here it for my son Shane!” which finally brings the crowd to boo. Shane is sporting a nice little scratch on his cheek which he acknowledges. He also calls Shawn Michaels the greatest wrestler in WWE history before saying that he beat Shawn which elicits a “You Suck” chant. Shane talks about how it’s now McMahon: 3, Michaels: 0. Shane puts over Vince who takes over.

Vince gets interrupted with a You Suck chant and an asshole chant. Vince says that Wrestlemania isn’t his greatest creation. He says that Shane and Stephanie are. Aww, Shane looks like he’s about to cry. Vince reviews Shawn’s highway to hell. Vince then says “Shawn Michaels screwed Shawn Michaels” making me gag. Part of me is hoping Bret gets hit with a truck before getting to Wrestlemania just so they can exploit him for something other then Wrestlemania.

Vince then goes on to put over himself some more and now the match between Vince and Shawn at Wrestlemania is now “No Holds Bared”. Also Shawn Michaels will have another stop on the highway to hell tonight. Shawn Michaels vs”¦ The GAME! The band starts up and Vince dances. ABAHBOO! THE CHAMP IS HERE! Cena gets his usual initial pop followed by the chorus of boos. Cena makes fun of Triple H and says that whenever he’s ready to kick his ass, Triple H says “It’s not time” in a decent Triple H imitation. Cena says that it’s now time and that if anyone is going to kick Triple H’s ass, its him.

Shane says that you can see yourself out of here. They can do it the easy way or the hard way. Cena tosses his shirt and cap and he’s ready to kick Shane’s ass right now. Vince interrupts and says that Shane is not kicking Cena’s ass right now nor is Vince (he’s saving himself for Wrestlemania). Instead, he’s giving Cena what he wants. Cena will tag with Shawn and they’ll take on Triple H and”¦. Shane McMahon tonight! Band strikes up and Vince struts out while Shane-o-Mac looks a bit sad.

Commercial time and more feedback. Homercutio writes: “Well”¦ that’s it. This was a horrible horrible show. Easily this was the worst show put on by the WWE this year. Thumbs way down.”

Yeah. I completely disagree. I haven’t been as entertained by a WWE show in a long time. Even if they need to stop beating Montreal to f*cking death already. But I loved it for the most part. Just jam packed with cool shit, like the Attitude era, but with better wrestling, I think, since Shawn and Kurt Angle were involved.

I just felt that the show had way too many commercials. I’m pissed that the Boogeyman/Booker T match got bumped to Wrestlemania. I thought the Wrestlemania main event preview didn’t have any flow, and that the Shane/Shawn match was lacking besides the one bump. I did think the Edge/Foley promo was great. I’m also really happy that Mickie finally turned. I also thought the first half of the JBL promo was really well done.

I guess my problem was that the matches were a bit lacking and that the show had no flow due to the large amounts of commercials. The beer drinking contest was formulamatic as soon as Austin came out. The show just spent too much time meandering around. Kane, Big Show, Fit Finlay, Shelton Benjamin, Ric Flair, Bobby Lashley, all of the cruisers, and MNM could have been used to promo their matches or set up something more concrete. I would have made the last qualifying match here, add in a Benoit/Benjamin match to promo the IC and US championships and cut the beer drinking contest.

I’m glad you enjoyed the show though. To each their own. Thanks for the feedback.

He responded with: Yeah, those a legitimate concerns. I wish that Shelton and Flair had been on there, at least, and I would have liked to have seen Carlito get some mic time, because I’m really starting to like him.
I liked the Boogie/Booker stuff enough to not care that the match is being bumped. Beside the fact that I don’t expect it to be any good, y’know? I liked the opener a lot, and think it was a fun match, but I’m sure I overrated the main event just because Shawn’s patented insane bump. And I always love the way Shawn sells a beating. But I think the main thing that jumped out at me was that so many things HAPPENED. Mickie’s turn on Trish, Mick going apeshit on Edge, the Montreal symmetry… well, that was it. I think I just got sucked in by the hype. But between this and what’s going on in TNA, I am really excited about wrestling again for the first time in ages. I attribute at least part of this to barely reading IWC anymore, no offense intended.
Oh yeah, and Money in the Bank! And M&M! This should have been a 3 hour show, but I liked that they packed in a lot to what they had. I thought they did, at least. I imagine they can’t do this more than 4 times a year (one for every big PPV), but I’m excited to see if they can get more people on there next time.

I think I’m pretty positive. I’m not a big fan of the IWC and I think the current product is pretty good. TNA is getting their act together (especially the main event) and I’ve liked what Raw and Smackdown have been doing. I try my best to be fair with the current product without shitting on it. Saturday Night Main Event was the worst show of the year so far because I’ve been enjoying the products of TNA and the WWE so much recently. Thanks again for the feedback.

We’re back and the Game is concerned about having to take on Cena. He hopes Vinnie Mac has a plan in his “sadistic brain of his”. Vince says “how long have you known me?” and says they’re just one big happy family. Cute Vince.

Kane vs Carlito: Flaming babies vs Flaming apples

Carlito gets an advantage over Kane early on nailing a DDT. Kane sits up though and works over Carlito. Carlito gets tossed into the corner and tries to float over but gets caught. He breaks free from Kane and hits the backcracker. Carlito hits a few kicks before Kane takes over. He nails a few lariats before heading up top. Kane tries the flying clothesline and gets taken out for it with a Carlito drop kick. Pinfall for two and Carlito goes up top. He goes for a moonsault and Kane sits up. Carlito almost lands on his feet and pops right up only to get caught in a chokeslam. Carlito hits a thumb to the eye and chop blocks Kane but gets pushed outside. Carlito tries springboarding from the apron, but he gets caught in the chokeslam. Ovah!

Winner: Kane

We’re back and Carlito and Chris Masters are fighting like crazy in the back. Masters and Carlito jaw back and forth and it looks like we’re going to potentially have champions who hate each other.

We’re going on to the Hall of Fame now. The new inductees are”¦. THE BLACKJACKS! There is a great video package put together that introduces them. Bobby Heenan is inducting them. Another great entry into the Hall of Fame this year. Speaking of them Hall of Fame”¦ WOOOOOOOOO. Triple threat for the IC title is next!

Quickie feedback this time around. This one comes from Kegaveli the Don:

Hey just thought I’d let u know u said that stone cold’s truck was a Ford f-150 which is usually true but on SNME he drove a Dodge Ram just figured u might like to know.

Now I must say I’m a tad unashamed of not knowing trucks. I’ll make the edit and thanks for keeping me honest. Somehow though, I feel a little better not knowing what truck this is.

Triple Threat IC Championship Match: RVD vs Ric Flair vs Shelton Benjamin

RVD and Flair start jawing at each other and Shelton encourages it. Both Flair and RVD go to work on Shelton. They beat the hell out of Shelton until Flair tries for a pin which Dam breaks up. Shelton gets dumped and RVD eats a few chops. RVD gets tossed into the ropes and hits a kick and then a spinning leg drop. Rolling Thunder gets two and Shelton breaks it up. Flair and Shelton brawl on the outside and here comes RVD. Rob Van Dammmmmmmmmmmmn hits a summersault senton bomb over the top rope cleanly. That takes us to commercial.

We’re back and RVD and Flair are both bleeding apparently from the collision of their heads. Shelton back drops Flair on the outside. Apparently during the break Flair took it to Shelton and RVD. Shelton is pretty much in control. He takes it back into the ring and smashes RVD’s shoulder hard against the steel ring post. Flair and Shelton go at it in the corner and Shelton gets the upper hand. Samoan drop for two. Shelton hits another move on Flair and RVD breaks it up.

RVD hits a few shoulder blocks in the corner and hits a belly to belly suplex with a bridge for two. RVD then tosses Shelton into the corner. RVD charges and tries for a monkey roll on Shelton. Shelton lands on his feet but is dazed and he hits a spin kick for two. Flair breaks it up but RVD goes to work on Flair hitting him with a big kick. Shelton pops back in and catches RVD’s kick only to eat another spin kick. RVD pulls Flair into the corner. Split legged moonsault. Shelton is back in with the belt and he eats a spin kick. Benjamin is out. RVD watches him go out and FLAIR ROLLS UP RVD. 1, 2, NO!

Flair and RVD fight each other with RVD getting a slight advantage. RVD goes up top and hits a side kick. RVD goes up for the Five Star Frog Splash! HE MISSES! FIGURE FOUR! RVD is going to tap. Wait, Shelton pins Flair while he has RVD in the Figure Four. It’s over. Shelton retains in a great triple threat.

Winner and Still Champ: Shelton Benjamin

Foley is heading to the ring and he looks cut up. That’s next.

We’re back and Foley/Edge at SNME is shown and recapped. Foley comes out to a nice pop. Foley thanks Edge. Foley recaps Edge ripping on him and how if Edge hadn’t said what he said, calling him a Muppet, he’d come out here, hit a cheap pop, promote a book no one would read, and parade around with a sock. Foley says that he couldn’t sleep after the one man conchairto. Partially because of the pain, and partially because of what Edge said was true.

Foley says that once Edge slammed his head on the tacks, he tasted his own blood. Only it didn’t taste like blood, it tasted like Chinese food. After a few hours more, he wanted some more. Not his though. He wants Edge’s blood. Edge has awakened the hardcore legend. BANG BANG!

Edge’s music hits and here comes Lita. Lita looks rather slutty and gets a magical “HOOOEEE” chant. Lita says that they’re not getting anyway so shut up. Lita says that Edge is still in Detroit. That he can’t fly. “He has like Vertigo and stuff.” Lita wants the cuddly Foley back. That Foley should want to have a wrestling match. That he shouldn’t be a “glorified stuntman”. Foley could have that Wrestlemania moment. The crowd chants “whoop that tramp”. Fantastic.

Foley says that he’s heard this all before. That Edge will come out from the crowd and attack from behind. He yells at Lita to slap him. She does. He starts freaking out on her and she slaps him again. Here comes Edge and Foley stares him down. Lita goes for the low blow but Foley BLOCKS IT! MANDIBLE CLAW ON LITA!!! Edge is standing on the outside as Foley is shouting “Bang Bang” on the inside. This was an awesome, awesome promo. If this feud doesn’t get Edge over, nothing will. Seriously, this was the best promo I’ve seen since Batista’s turn on Triple H.

Torrie is coming to the ring looking slutty as hell. Her and Victoria is next. Break time.

We’re back and Torrie Wilson will be facing Candice Michelle in a “Playboy Pillow Fight”. Awesome, our second piss break match of the night.

Torrie vs Victoria: Speaking of piss breaks”¦

Candice Michelle gets carried down to ringside on a bed. Torrie hits an arm drag on Victoria before pillows start getting thrown at her by Candice. Candice and Torrie get into it. Widow’s Peak. OVAH.

Winner: Victoria

The two heels have a post match beat down and”¦ well here comes Masters.

Chris Masters vs The Big Show: Finally the WWE tries to cram all the crap into one segment.

Wait, never mind. Commercial break.

I’ve been constipated all week. Leave it to the sight of Masters to help me deal with it. The match is on and Big Show hammers away on Masters. Masters hammers away on Big Show. Big Show hits a sidekick which causes Masters to bail. Big Show tosses Masters into the barricade and follows it up with a big boot. Show gets caught up and rolls back into the ring. The ref sends out the dreaded X sign and Masters grabs a chair. He waits for Big Show to get up and hits him with it ending the match.

Winner by DQ: The Big Show

Big Show could be legitimately hurt as the post match beat down is a chair shot and an almost Masterlock turning into being rammed into the post. Big Show is whimpering.

In the back, my beautiful and beloved, Ms. Mickie James is coming down to the ring, in pig tails with a cherry lollypop no less! Huzzah. She’s up next.

There is a giant gift box in the ring and heeeeeeerrrrrrreeeee’s Mickie! Dizamn she’s hot. Sort of like a deer caught in headlights hot. We get a recap of her heel turn at Saturday Night Main Event. Mmm, evil Mickie is super hot. Mickie understands if Trish doesn’t want to be her friend anymore. Mickie wants to be an inspiration to all the girls out there. Unlike Trish, Mickie won’t push away her fans. Mickie has got a present for Trish. Mickie opens up the box and it’s a person covered in a black sheet. Here comes Trish and under the sheet it’s Ashlie tied and gagged looking particularly hot. Trish is able to grab ahold of Mickie’s leg and pulls her out. Trish is all over Mickie in a mean, punchy sort of way.

Trish tries to free Ashlie, but Mickie is up pretty quickly. She’s got ahold of Trish and beats her down. Mickie’s nose is bleeding making her ten times creepier. She hits a huge spike DDT and gives an unconscious Trish a nice little kiss while her blood is covering her face. Awesome! Why couldn’t Victoria have stayed that way? We head to commercial from that.

Final piece of feedback from last night comes from Chocoboat (great name):

Was the end of your column about SNME supposed to be a joke or something? I don’t get it.

It was a decent show with a bunch of entertaining parts to it, seems like you enjoyed it too the way you wrote the column. Raw vs Smackdown match was ok, Foley got his face slammed on the thumbtacks, JBL was funny and Austin was all right, we finally got to see Mickie James turn on Trish, and Shane vs Shawn was pretty good, the best no-rules match I’ve seen in a long time. That superplex out of the ring, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do that before… they tease that spot a lot but never do it.

So it was at least a “fairly good” show I would say… nothing great, but not boring either, nothing terrible happened (like a Boogeyman match) or anything. So why did you say “This was a horrible horrible show. Easily this was the worst show put on by the WWE this year. Thumbs way down.”?

Nope, no joke. I didn’t care for the show. I felt the huge amount of commercials really broke the flow of any the matches. JBL was funny and the Edge/Foley segment was good too but that’s really about all I liked about the show. The fact that the Boogeyman match got bumped to Wrestlemania pissed me off. The main event match shouldn’t have curtain jerked and it didn’t have any flow to it due, again to the commercials. I’m happy about the Mickie turn but the fact that the match took about two mintues was upseting, especially when you have the three most talented women’s wrestlers on the roster involved in the match. The Shane/Shawn match was like the Foley/Undertaker HIAC match. Take away the huge spot and you’ve got a mediocre match. I also thought Austin was boring. He’s been doing the same thing for the past five years and really took away all the energy from the segment that JBL built up. Finally, there were too many wrestlers left off the card. I would have tossed in the finally MITB spot and maybe had a cross promotional match between the US and IC champions. MNM, RVD, Carlito, Kane, the Big Show, all of the cruisers, Regal, and a host of other wrestlers could have and should have been on the show. Instead we get fifteen minutes of a beer drinking contest.

I’m not trying to be an old bitter IWC with my comment. In fact I think that the current product has been really really good. It’s just that this show didn’t click at all for me. I saw it as a truly wasted opportunity. Still, that’s just my opinion and I’m glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate the feedback.

We’re back and “This Week in Wrestlemania History” was Wrestlemania XIII with Austin and Bret Hart, quite possibly the greatest double turn in history. Sure, the rest of the card was brutal but Stone Cold/Hitman was a great match, despite what Eric S says.

We get a Wrestlemania Card Rundown. Here’s the card:

WWE Championship
WWE Champion John Cena vs. Triple H

World Heavyweight Championship
World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton vs. Rey Mysterio

No Holds Barred
Mr. McMahon vs. Shawn Michaels

Hardcore Match
Edge vs. Mick Foley

Money in the Bank Ladder Match
Intercontinental Champion Shelton Benjamin vs. RVD vs. Ric Flair vs. Finlay vs. Matt Hardy vs. final contestant to be determined on SD this week

Casket Match
Undertaker vs. Mark Henry

United States Championship Match
United States Champion Chris Benoit vs. JBL

World Tag Team Championship Match
World Tag Team Champions Kane & Big Show vs. Chris Masters & Carlito

Boogeyman vs. Booker T

Women’s Championship Match
Women’s Champion Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James

Playboy Pillowfight
Torrie vs. Candice

Hall of Fame Inductees for April 1
Bret Hart (inducted by Steve Austin)
Eddie Guerrero (inducted by Rey, Benoit & Chavo)
Mene Gene (inducted by Hulk Hogan)
Sensational Sherri (inducted by Ted DiBiase)
Verne Gagne (inducted by Greg Gagne)
The Blackjacks (inducted by Bobby “The Brain” Heenan)

Triple H and Shane McMahon (/w Vince McMahon) vs John Cena and Shawn Michaels: I smell “angle advancement”

We get a video recap of the Shane/Shawn match from Saturday Night Main Event. Congrads. You just saw almost half of the wrestling at SNME. We take a commercial break (hopefully the last of the evening).

We’re back and the heels stand in the ring. Here comes Cena. Here comes Michaels like a house of fire. Shane bails. Shawn goes after Vince and security is all over Shawn Michaels. Cena is tempting Triple H to come in and Shane comes off the top. Cena catches him with a punch and VINCE DISQUALIFIES CENA FOR A CLOSED FIST!

Winners (by DQ): Triple H and Shane McMahon

Vince has security escort Cena out. Now it’s going to be a handicap match.

Shane McMahon and Triple H vs Shawn Michaels: I did smell angle advancement!

Security holds Shawn Michaels letting Triple H get a free shot on him. The match goes like every other Shawn Michaels handicap match with at least one real wrestler. They work over Shawn. Shawn gets some offense. The crowd cheers. The heels take over. Vince also gets a few shots in. This is about as standard as this goes. I black out while Mark B from games yells at me because I scored Dragonball Z Budokai 3 higher then Tekken 5. Also there’s been a ton of IP drama over the past day or so, so I’m catching up with that. Cena eventually comes back in and security has the crap beaten out of them while the McMahon family makes it escape.

Winners: No one

Vince says that there’ll be hell to pay to Cena and now he’s going to make sure Cena will pay that hell. Next week. It’s John Cena vs Vincent Kennedy McMahon in what will most certainly be another angle advancement match where Cena will have his rap power sucked out due to druggings by a pregnant Stephanie with dead Eddie’s essence (whom is buried in Montreal with Mae Young’s plastic baby hand, I hear).

Alright. For those of you who love me, Gaming Zen will be up later this week along with my contribution to our little WCW feature. Until then, see you all later.