LIVE Raw Coverage 5/1/06

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Evening all. I’m your host with the most, Tom Pandich. Last night Cena retained, God didn’t show up, and RVD has the chance to become the first double champion we’ve had in a while. I’ll be here all evening despite the dreadfully tempting call of both Ouedan and Castlevania DS pleading at me to pick up my blue love machine and tap it long and hard. Keep it here all night and I’ll be sure to stay with you, barring emotional breakdowns such as last week’s delayed coverage.

Vinnie Mac talks up his big victory over God and Shawn Michaels. Vince is taking the day off, the same way God does all the time. The general managers for tonight are”¦. THE SPIRIT SQUAD!!! Kenny will be against John Cena tonight for the title. Plus there’s going to be a cheerleader Diva match. McMahon joins in on the Spirit Squad spirit break and that takes us to FIREWORKS!!! Whee (no, not Nintendo’s new system)!

Joey Styles is joined by Jerry Lawler at ringside (no Coach). Enjoy Joey while you can on Raw. Tonight Edge welcomes Mick Foley on the “Cutting Edge”.

Maria and Torrie Wilson vs Victoria and Mickie James: I was more of a flag girl guy back in high school

We get a recap of Mickie and Trish’s match last night with a recap of the injury. Jesus Christ, Trish looked hot. Victoria takes over early but Torrie counters with a hammer lock. Mickie gets a tag in but Victoria escapes with a thumb to the eye. Maria takes over with some”¦ um offense. Both Victoria and Mickie end up in the corner. Torrie hits a double stinkface on them and Maria follows up with a bronco buster. Torrie then hits an X-Factor on Victoria. Mickie dumps Maria and the ref moves Torrie out of the ring. Mickie tries to suplex Maria back in but she gets her legs pulled out by Trish! 1,2,3 Maria wins!

Winners: Maria and Torrie Wilson

Maria’s new music plays us to commercial.

We’re back and its three members of the Spirit Squad. Micky, Johnny, and Mikey

Eugene, Golddust, and Snitsky vs the Spirit Squad: Zany partners galore

Golddust starts it out hitting a shoulder black and some arm drags. He tags Eugene who beats up Mikey until he rams his shoulder to a one of the steel poles. We go to the back and Vinny Mac is getting some iced tea from Candice Michelle. The heels dominate on Eugene with some quick tags. Eugene finally stops being the face in peril hitting Mikey with a Rock Bottom. Snitsky gets the lukewarm tag and doesn’t clear house. Instead he gets dumped and double teamed on the outside. Snitsky gets rolled in and manages to take over temporarily with the big boot. Snitsky tags Eugene(?) who tries for a Stunner on Johnny but gets kit with the Johnny-go-round to end it. Meh.

Winners: Spirit Squad

We get a quick pimp for the title match later tonight between Cena and Kenny and “The Cutting Edge” before heading to commercial.

We’re back and during the break Maria got beaten down during her kiss cam. In the back, Josh Matthews is interviewing Eugene. Eugene talks about how he still has a job while Eric Bischoff doesn’t. Hah. Out of no where, Eugene is hit with a dictionary by Matt Striker. Best beat down ever!

This week in wrestling history Vince and Shane beat Shawn Michaels and God. Vince does the voice over. Cute touch.

In the back, the Spirit Squad comes to talk to Shawn. He’s got the night off as a wrestler. He’ll be the guest ref tonight for the Kane/Rob Conway match. They even have a special ref shirt for him, bright yellow with May 19th on it. Fantastic. That takes us to commercial.

Last night, Kane and the Big Show had a match. Kane gets haunted by May 19th. The Big Show tried to exorcise Kane’s movie from him by hitting him with a chair. Well”¦ there you go. Wrestling logic for you. It’s going to be funny when this all turns out to be an elaborate Da Vinci Code promo.

Rob Conway vs Kane: Special Guest Referee Shawn Michaels

Conway comes down first and is blond. HBK is mocked by Conway for his shirt so Michaels gives Conway a low blow and pops the shirt on Conway. Kane comes down and tosses Rob into the steps before rolling him into the ring. Kane goes off and beats Conway down. Blah match. Shawn keeps provoking Kane into beating up Conway more. Garbage can shot, chokeslam, and Kane starts to take off. Michaels calls Kane back in with a May 19th chant and he leaves the microphone on Conway. Kane comes back and tombstones Conway to end it.

Winner: Kane

WWE Slam of the Week comes from the vastly overrated Tomb Raider: Legend. It’s Umaga beating down Flair.

Umaga vs Jobber #357: No comment necessary

In the ring its Our-man-dough Alibabah Esranda. He does an extended intro of Umaga who comes out to deadening indifference. Estrada needs to be drafted and hooked up with someone interesting. I leave and come back. Umaga hits a splash off the top and his thumb of doom. I do like Umaga’s music though.

Winner: Umaga

In the back, Vince has helped Candice Michelle with her chest cold and now she has Labiagitis which Vince asks whether or not it’s acute. She answers that it is cute. Here comes Triple H and man oh man, he looks f*cking torn up. Vince offers Triple H the special guest referee spot for the Kenny/Cena match. Triple H says he really isn’t that interested in doing the job tonight. Why can’t it just be him vs Cena? Triple H offers Vince that he’ll be the ref if next week, if Kenny happens to win, it’ll be Triple H vs Kenny with no outside interference. Vince says he shouldn’t be rewarding Triple H after what he did last night with the sledgehammer. Instead, Vince reminds Triple H who’s the game and who’s the boss. Vince brings up last week’s old man comment and says that if he doesn’t follow orders, he’ll be an old man before he gets another title shot.

We’re one step closer to the Triple H face turn and one more commercial through Raw.

We’re back and it’s time for The Cutting Edge. Lita introduces Edge and he is sporting a massive bruise on his right cheek. Lita favors her back. Edge takes us through how he wasn’t pinned last night and how he still gets no respect. Edge says his victory at Wrestlemania was tarnished because it was called by some third rate ECW commentator. Line of the night: “Oh my God Joey, you suck.” Styles looks like a sad puppy. The King’s look is priceless. Edge introduces Foley and here he comes.

Big Foley chant to start out. There’s a bit of grey in Foley’s beard. Foley talks about his loss and how he was in his best shape ever. Foley says his match with Edge was the greatest hardcore match of his career, perhaps wrestling history. Foley puts over Edge as the “toughest son of a bitch in the WWE” and gives Edge a handshake and Lita a kiss. Aww. Mick Foley says he got his defining Wrestlemania moment and we watch Edge spear Foley through the flaming table. Foley talks about how he can see it in Edge’s eyes that he doesn’t want to go through that type of hell again. However, Foley does”¦tonight”¦in Columbus, Ohio!

Edge says that Foley is on”¦ on crack! Ba-zing. Edge says that next week he’ll take on Foley as its nice he showed up. Edge says that he’ll take on Foley in any match he wants. Foley responds with razor wire, barb wire, and thumb tacks. Foley tells Edge to rest up from his strep throat as he’ll need his voice next week to scream for mercy. “Try to have a nice day! BANG BANG!” Foley and Edge should be given an hour every week as they are gold together.

We go through a Backlash recap telling us to buy the encore rather then wait two weeks for the DVD. The RVD/Shelton match looked sick from the Shelton powerbomb though. Worth a rent at least I’d say.

WWE Rewind is of the Winner Take All match between RVD and Shelton. Speaking of winners, here comes Chris Masters”¦ I love sarcasm. Say what you will about Masters, but heck, he’s good for putting ad breaks in. Masters cuts a boring as hell promo offering RVD the Masterlock Challenge. I wonder why Masterlock never copyrighted that.

Anywho, Masters slaps on the hold and Shelton comes out and wails on RVD. Here comes Carlito and he tattoos Masters with a chair. Micky comes out and sets up a tag match which takes us to commercial.

Chris Masters and Shelton Benjamin vs Carlito and Rob Van Dam: Have fun watching variations of this for the next two months

We join the match in progress with Rob Van Dam being stretched and pulled. In the back, Candice Michelle is sexing up Vince. Joey Styles gets called to the back by the Spirit Squad further taking away from this match. RVD gets powerslammed by Shelton for two, Carlito breaking it up.

Masters hammers away at RVD until he hits the spinning heel kick and gets the tag to Carlito. Carlito cleans house and nails Shelton with a springboard elbow. Carlito hits a suplex on Masters and Shelton nails him with a spin kick. RVD comes off the top and hits the side kick taking out Shelton. Masters dumps RVD and tries to use a gorilla press slam on Carlito who turns things around and hits the backcracker. Shelton tries to come in with a chair but he is stopped by Charlie Haas. Carlito rolls up Shelton for the win.

Winners: Rob Van Dam and Carlito

The Smackdown Rebound is Mark Henry crushing Angle and injuring him. Hah, Angle.

In the back, Joey Styles doesn’t have nearly enough spirit. They threaten to make sure that if he doesn’t show spirit, next week, he’s wearing cheerleader outfit. Yay for crossdressing.

We’re back and it’s time for a See No Evil preview. I need a drink so please forgive me for not caring about watching this featurette. The gist of it is “the sets provide atmosphere”.

Back to the front and the King is giving Joey all sorts of shit. Joey wants to just do his job. King won’t take it though as he wants Joey to show some spirit like it was ECW. “If this was ECW I wouldn’t be working with a hack like you”. Joey pushes the King and then slaps him across the face. King shoves him over and Joey leaves to ECW chants. Great little segment.

We’re back and we recap what just happened. The King apologizes to Joey Styles and asks him to come back and the crowd asks Joey Styles to come back. Joey goes off and says that the WWE called Styles not the other way around. Styles vents about how he’s been getting lectured about everything including his storytelling, the awful jokes, “Sports Entertainment”, how he got pulled from Wrestlemania and Backlash, and everything. He’s sick of Vince and he’s sick of the fans who buy into crappy sports entertainment. Styles quits! Lawler hopes that he’ll feel more at home kissing Paul Heyman’s ass at a bingo hall.

Triple H comes down to the ring looking pissed as usual. Title match is next.

John Cena vs Kenny: Special Guest Ref Triple H

Josh Matthews has joined the commentary team. The crowd seems to be decently into Cena tonight. We’ll call it 75/25. Cena is sporting an ugly, ugly welt across his forehead. The ladies go crazy when Cena takes off his shirt. Cena bitchslaps Kenny. Kenny catches Cena with a foot in the corner but gets caught in the FU. Triple H blasts Cena and Kenny dumps Cena to the Spirit Squad. Triple H is totally indifferent to the match as he misses some counts.

Kenny is getting pissed as Triple H won’t get in there for a count. Kenny keeps flipping out and he shoves Triple H. Triple H slams Kenny and pedigrees Mitch. Triple H heads to the back and here comes Shawn Michaels. Triple H and Shawn Michaels have a brief moment as Kenny hits his leg drop off the top. Shawn comes in and counts two before superkicking Kenny. Crotch chop and Cena takes over.

Winner and still champ: John Cena

That’s it for tonight. The wrestling was pretty weak tonight, but the promos were great. Edge and Foley are gold. The slow burn on the Triple H face turn continues to be great as is the tease for a DX reunion. The Joey Styles quitting made sense but also came out of no where. The wrestling though”¦. Ugh. See you next week.