Live Report: WWE Raw 5-23-10

I suppose it's only apropos that I'm writing this on National Geek/Nerd Pride Day.  Of course, I pride myself on being quite the geek...just not in the traditional sense.  For example, today is also Towel Day (for fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) and Star Wars Day was earlier this month.  But I myself have never read any of Douglas Adams books or even seen all of the Star Wars movies to completion.  I've only seen The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi in bits and pieces but all of those bits probably add up to seeing them multiple times.  Plus, I fell asleep during the last half-hour of Episode III.  So you see, science-fictiony stuff like this doesn't really grab my attention like it does for most nerds.  But thankfully there's so many things out there that you can be a nerd over practically anything.  All it really takes is a intelligent, persistent and fervent interest in something.  I consider myself a little bit of a computer nerd (at least enough to build my current PC out of random cheap parts), a geek for horror and action films, cheesy or not (Geek-sploitation, perhaps?) and a huge nerd for heavy metal music.  But I'm sure the one that trumps them all is my geek-dom for professional wrestling.  Much like most Star Wars fans, my fandom for pro wrestling started young.  I'm nearing 27 years old and I'm sure I've been a fan for 20 of those years, probably more.  However, despite watching it over the years and amassing quite the DVD collection (though its probably not much compared to other die-hard fans), I have NEVER been to a live wrestling show.  My parents never took me to any growing up and now that I can go to them on my own, I always seem to be broke or something when they pass through my area.  But when WWE announced that they would be airing a live episode of Raw from the new arena in Toledo, I kinda HAD to go.

Honestly, I'm surprised that WWE even wanted to run a live television taping in Toledo.  Watching some old matches on DVD, I saw that they had done a show back in the late '80s-early '90s but probably haven't done any since.  From then until now, WWE has only ran "house shows" (or non-televised events).  Even when TNA tried to run a house show in Toledo a couple years ago, they had canceled it due to low ticket sales, which I think is the only time TNA has done that.  It just seemed like Toledo wasn't a good spot for wrestling.  Even in the days leading up to the show, when I got an email alerting me that tickets were still available.  As my friend and I took our seats, I made sure to watch the seats fill up and it worried me to see so many empty spots.  But by the time the show started, it looked like every seat was taken (save for maybe the upper level seats that I couldn't see).  And even though the crowd was predominantly children and their parents (and thus VERY pro-John Cena), it made for a good loud crowd.  As a bonus, we ended up sitting next to a few other "smarks" ( -noun, short for "smart mark", a derogatory term meaning a fan of wrestling who spends much of their time on the internet complaining about something that they supposedly love.  Possible synonym: "fanboy".)  and ended up getting into a few arguments with small children about why we weren't cheering for John Cena.  Ah, wrestling.

Anyway, let's get on with the show itself.  But as an aside, I was actually kinda surprised how small the whole stage setup was.  In reality, it probably isn't all that small but it just looks massive on TV.  I don't know, just something that kinda weirded me out about the whole thing.  Thanks WWE for shattering my entire universe.

Dark Match: Goldust over Dos Caras
For those that don't know, a "dark match" is a match that takes place before the show is taped or televised.  Usually it's a tryout for someone who hasn't yet officially debuted.  In this case, it's Dos Caras (though I didn't hear the ring announcer so I'm not sure if that's the name he's going by).  I remember hearing when Dos Caras was signed to a contract, people were like "Really?  They pick him out of all the possible Mexican wrestlers out there?"  I hadn't seen him wrestle before but I can see why he was chosen: He may possibly be the "whitest" Mexican ever.  He looks like Antonio Banderas by way of Ben Affleck.  Of course, that didn't stop the crowd from booing him like crazy because, let's face it, Northwest Ohio is full of racists.  Thanks to professional wrestling, I've learned that "Foreign = Evil".  Caras cut a promo in Spanish but then, in well-spoken English, told us to learn Spanish if we wanted to know what he said.  When Goldust came out as his opponent, the crowd popped huge.  Probably due to the fact that he's not a minority but we (meaning me, my friend and the guys sitting next to us) cheered because Goldust is awesome.  A pretty good match all around, with Caras hitting some sweet moves like a running enzugiri (basically a kick to the back of the head) in the corner.  But in the end, Goldust won.  For America.

After this match, they taped a few matches for Superstars.  Superstars airs Thursday nights on WGN and its basically for the wrestlers who aren't on the more "important" shows (Raw or Smackdown) on a regular basis.


Yoshi Tatsu over Primo Colon
Yoshi is a Japanese guy who comes out to J-Pop, automatically making him awesome.  Primo is a Puerto Rican, but due to the fact that he can barely grow a mustache, his ethnicity HAS to be in question.  Last week, Primo's brother Carlito was fired due to refusing to go to rehab for a painkiller addiction.  So the guys next to us decided to start a "CARLITO" chant.  It didn't go over.  But it did end up causing a little girl behind us who didn't sound any older than 5 to start a "Carlito sucks!" chant, mistaking Primo for Carlito.  I kinda called BS on Primo kicking out of a Shining Wizard from Yoshi, a move that used to be awesome and ended up overused on the indies because of it, but Yoshi ended up winning with a spinning crescent kick off the top rope.

Zack Ryder over Evan Bourne
Evan is a guy who does awesome aerial moves.  Zack is a Jersey Shore-esque douchebag who's entrance music is a knock-off of Corey Hart's "Sunglasses At Night".  So I'm kinda torn on who to cheer for, myself.  Solid match between the two but Zack puts Evan away when he misses a Shooting Star Press attempt.

After this match, Raw officially goes live.

The show starts with an injured Batista being helped out by referees into a wheelchair set up inside the ring.  On Sunday's Over The Limit pay-per-view, John Cena beat Batista in an I Quit Match and though he did get roughed up quite a bit, Batista was probably overselling the severity of his injuries.  In recent months, Batista has been quite the douchebag...and it's been quite hilarious to actually see him with character.  Batista says that he wants a rematch with Cena but the new General Manager of Raw comes out...and it's BRET "HITMAN" HART!  YAY!  Hart says that if Batista wants a rematch with Cena, then he's going to have to qualify to face him in a Fatal Four-Way Match at the next pay-per-view called...Fatal Four-Way.  Yup.  Hart tells Batista that his opponent is Randy Orton (who, oddly enough, was legit injured at the PPV but apparently not severely enough).  Batista whines and says that he's unable to wrestle and threatens to quit if he does.  So Bret says that Orton wins by forfeit and automatically advances to the Fatal Four-Way Match.  After Bret leaves, Batista throws a temper tantrum (while still in the wheelchair, which is quite funny) and actually quits!  Rumor has it that Batista was supposed to have a starring role in an upcoming WWE Films project but when it went to Triple H, Batista was all like "Screw you guys" and turned in his notice.  Anyway, the crowd booed Batista like crazy and it was hilarious to be a part of it.  I'm actually kinda sad that after all these years of being super uninteresting, Batista has finally shown some personality...and now he's leaving.  But at least I got to see his final appearance live...at least until he decides he wants to come back.  They always do.

Fatal Four-Way Qualifying Match: Sheamus over Mark Henry
Mark Henry is a giant sweaty black guy.  Sheamus is a giant tall white guy.  And by white, I do mean WHITE.  Sheamus might be the greatest ginger who ever lived, though I can't imagine much competition for him.  And because of this, coupled with the fact that he kicks people in the head for a living, I'm a fan, as well as the guys sitting next to me.  Later on in the night, a little kid in front of us was telling us that we're cheering for the wrong person whenever we cheered for Sheamus.  So one of the guys told him "But I'm not 8."  Anyway, it was a good match but the result was a foregone conclusion.  So now it's John Cena vs Randy Orton vs Sheamus vs ??? for the WWE Heavyweight Championship at Fatal Four-Way.

After the match, they announced that The Miz and R-Truth would face off for the United States Championship later that night, which confused us considering that Bret Hart was the US Champion and they never told us that he vacated the belt.  Ah well.

After a commercial break, we get a backstage segment where Celebrity Guest Host Jon Lovitz was confronted by Maryse.  I know she may be one of the fakest women on Earth, what with her fake bleach blonde hair, her fake bake tan and her fake boobs...but she's still 100% sex from concentrate.  I would willingly be her slave for whatever she wanted to use me for.  Therefore, I wasn't really paying attention to the segment as much as I was ogling Maryse's boobs.  People tell me Jon Lovitz was funny.  I wouldn't know.

And in another backstage segment, Edge confronts General Manager Bret Hart for getting a spot in the Fatal Four-Way Match, setting up Edge vs John Cena for the main event.  But Chris Jericho then makes his case for that spot, so Bret Hart makes it Jericho vs Edge vs Cena.  It was quite awesome seeing three of my favorite wrestlers all in the same segment together.  If I were a Canadian, I'd probably be crapping my pants.  And to cap off the segment, Edge says that he's not only a better Champion than Bret or Jericho but a better Canadian.  OH SNAP!  I'm kinda bummed that I had to work earlier in the day, or else I would've gotten an autograph from Chris Jericho at the mall.  Boo-urns.


Maryse and Alicia Fox over Divas Champion Eve and Gail Kim
You know, I think I know the reason why the live audience never really reacts to women's matches.  It's not that the matches are bad (though more often than not they are, due to the talent level of most of the female "wrestlers" that the WWE signs).  It's just that we're too busy ogling hot chicks to react audibly.  I mean, that's what happened to me.  They're lucky I wasn't any closer to the ring or else I would've passed out.  And before I knew it, the match was over.  I'm not even sure what happened.  All I remember was that it must've been sexy.


R-Truth over The Miz To Win The United States Championship
R-Truth is a super-athletic breakdancing rapper.  The Miz is...a douchebag.  You know, between The Miz, Batista and Zack Ryder, it seems en vogue to be a douchebag in wrestling.  This was actually a really good match but there was a scary moment midway through when Truth went for a dive outside the ring and it looked like he landed on the floor right on his head.  I was afraid he was hurt, especially when he didn't get up and had to be thrown into the ring by Miz.  But Truth ended up winning the match, though it kinda seemed out of nowhere when he won it with a Lie Detector, which is basically a flashy forearm.  First of all, who really finishes a match with a forearm, not to mention that the way he spins with it almost looks like it would decrease the impact.

After the match, we got a backstage interview from John Cena.  Due to all the kids in the arena cheering for him, I could hardly hear what he said, other than him calling Sheamus "whiter than Cloud Nine".  Honestly, I like Cena but I think that he could be a lot better.  He is usually super goofy or super serious, sometimes multiple times within a promo.  Go on YouTube or something and search for a "Five Questions With The Champ" segment that he did for WWE.com and see how infinitely more entertaining John Cena can be.

After a commercial break, Celebrity Guest Host Jon Lovitz came out with the Bella Twins as arm candy for a Superstar Talent Show.  I wasn't looking forward to this because 1) The Celebrity Guest Host segments are almost always the worst segments of Raw and the reason Raw mostly sucks right now and 2) They literally did a segment exactly like this a while back when Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne were Guest Hosts.  First up was The Great Khali, singing "Puttin' On The Ritz" a la Young Frankenstein.  Now get this, you have an almost 8-foot Indian man with poor command of the English language, if any at all, wearing a tuxedo and carrying a cane muttering lyrics as best as he can.  Seeing this live and in person was just surreal and awe-inspiring to say the list.  But needless to say, Khali was buzzed off.  Next came Jillian Hall, who's gimmick is that she sings horribly.  I was getting ready to plug my ears but Lovitz hit the buzzer before she could even open her mouth.  With that act alone, Lovitz put himself over the majority of the previous guest hosts.  Deciding that he didn't want to see the hidden talents of the WWE Superstars, he looked to the fans in attendance, resulting in an obvious planted fan coming into the ring, claiming he can pop his eye out of his head.  It looked like the guy was just stalling for time until a wrestler could come out to interrupt him but after a minute or so (which felt like forever), he finally popped his fake eye out.  Seeing this, it was like "He's taking forever.  Is someone going to come out?  This is borin...OH MY GOD!  THAT'S DISGUSTING!"  But after he took it out, Ted DiBiase (Jr.) came out with his manservant Virgil.  The guys next to me were marking out hard for Virgil and I joined in, hoping my "I Came To See Virgil" sign got on TV, so I didn't really notice that Ted came out for the ludicrous reason of buying the guy's fake eye.  Really?  You're the son of the Million Dollar Man and you're buying fake appendages?  So Santino comes out to save the day, using the lethal nerve pinch that Jon Lovitz supposedly taught him and knocked Virgil out cold...somehow!  He tries it again on DiBiase but he can't get it to do right, so DiBiase slaps on the Million Dollar Dream sleeperhold and drops him down with a slam.  Poor Santino can't get a break.  Now I'm hearing from fans who saw this on TV that this segment was horrible.  I'll admit, it might not have played off very well on TV but it was pretty funny live.  Also, a good 75% of the previous Guest Host segments were way worse in comparison, so I've definitely seen worse.

The Hart Dynasty over William Regal and Vladimir Kozlov To Retain The Unified Tag Team Championship
At least I think this match for the titles, not like it mattered because the match was over in like two minutes.  And honestly, I couldn't tell you all of what happened because I spent the bulk of the match looking at Natayla Neidhart's butt.  Sorry.  No I'm not.  Still, it was awesome to see William Regal live, even if everyone else in the arena booed him.  And in a funny moment before the match, as Kozlov was warming up during the commercial break, it looked like he was jumping in tune to Raw's theme music, which is a crappy Nickelback song, and it all reminded me of this:



But after the match, The Hart Dynasty was jumped by a new team from out of nowhere.  This would've been cool if it weren't for the fact that no one in the crowd knew who they were, so there was no live reaction.  Anyways, the team (and their female counterpart) all ascended the top rope and leaped off with awesome splashes onto The Hart Dynasty and Natalya...or it would've been awesome if one of them hadn't slipped on the top rope and kinda laid there on the turnbuckle while everyone laughed at him.  Not the best way to make your debut, bro.  Anyway, I kinda figured the chick with them was none other than Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka's daughter as I heard she was training but apparently the team with her are actually the sons of Rikishi.  Another lesson I learned from professional wrestling: All Samoans are related.

After this, we get some word from the remaining NXT rookies, whom I've covered in a previous blog entry.  And Michael Cole talks from the announce table about being attacked by Daniel Bryan last week on NXT...but since we couldn't hear it, no one was cheering or doing anything.  So I decided to yell out "YOU SUCK MICHAEL COLE!"  I doubt you could hear it on TV since I was pretty far away, but I hope my "Michael Cole Fears Daniel Bryan" sign got on TV at least.


Edge over Chris Jericho and WWE Heavyweight Champion John Cena To Qualify For Fatal Four-Way
The stipulation of this match is if Edge or Jericho wins, they go on to the Fatal Four-Way Match at the PPV.  But if John Cena wins...they clone John Cena and he faces himself?  Actually, I think Bret Hart said that he'll just pick someone else but still, that'd be kinda funny.  So my friend and I and the guys sitting next to us were cheering for Jericho as loud as we could because he's awesome.  But we were still pissing off the little kids sitting in front of us, to the point where their dad had to tell them to turn around and shut up.  Nice.  Hey, I like John Cena...I just like Edge and Jericho more.  Plus, Jericho's pretty much one of my favorite wrestlers of all time so I gotta be on his side.  Aside from a few botches, this was a really good match.  I was jumping out of my seat, begging Edge not to tap out to Cena's STF submission, but then yelling at him to tap out when Jericho turned it into a Walls of Jericho attempt.  In the end, Edge gave Jericho the Spear and pinned him to win, making sure that Cena didn't officially lose.  Of course, it still made the kids in front of us sad.  After the match, Sheamus came out to stare down Cena and Edge but then Randy Orton came out to stare down his opponents for the PPV.  Despite him not doing anything but coming out on stage and looking at things, I'm still surprised he showed up injured.  And that's how the show ended...on TV.

After Raw went off the air, Edge left through the crowd and Orton soon left afterwards but when Sheamus tried to leave, Cena called him back to the ring and challenged him to a fight.  Sheamus declined, triggering massive boos, but then ran back into the ring when Cena had his back turned.  Of course, Cena being Cena, he knew it was going to happen and dropped him with the FU.  Yeah, I know WWE is trying to be PG and all but I still can't call it the "Attitude Adjustment".  It took me a few years to call the WWF the WWE when they changed their name.  But that was the end of the show.  I was kinda hoping that Batista would come out and give us one last match or something but oh well.  He probably packed his bags and left by now.

So yeah, that was my first wrestling show and it was pretty damn awesome.  And I'm not just saying that because I was there live and all.  Due to the spotty quality, I hardly watch Raw that often on TV and was really hoping that the show wouldn't suck.  But it didn't.  Even if I was just sitting at home, I'd probably check it out on TV or at least wish I did if I didn't watch it.  If Raw does come back to Toledo (and they probably should considering they packed the arena), I'll definitely be there.  Hopefully I'll have enough money for a front row seat this time so I can tell Michael Cole that he sucks to his face...and get kicked out.  As for now, I gotta go find the show on YouTube and see if I actually made it on TV.

UPDATE!  I did make it on TV!  (...kinda)

(Sorry to end this on a down note but while writing this, I found out that Slipknot bassist Paul Grey was found dead at age 38.  Even though I haven't really followed them in recent years and kinda "outgrew" the band, Slipknot was at one time my favorite band and listening to them helped get me through some of my teenage years.  It's such a bummer, especially since he was a founding member and was kinda the glue that helped Slipknot stay together when everyone else wanted to branch off and do side projects.  Having nine members in the same band butting heads with different ideas has to be difficult but being in the middle of it and just wanting to keep going with Slipknot must've been that much more difficult.  And from all accounts, he was such a good, decent fellow to be around.  This really is a bummer for me, especially right on the heels of the deaths of Ronnie James Dio and Type O Negative's Peter Steele.  RIP)