Dark Match Diaries

I’ll get to my recap of Raw in a minute. First, I have to mention something I caught on ESPN Classic just before Raw aired. Earlier in the day I was watching an NBA classic game between the Lakers and the Cavs, from 2004. Lakers had Shaq, Rick Fox, and Gary Payton! Oh, and Derek Fisher had hair. Weird.

Anyway, I turned off the TV and left it on ESPN Classic. So when I turned it back on around 8:50 PM, I saw AWA Wrestling from 1988. I was two when this aired. I started watching wrestling in 1991 or so. I was intrigued. The match featured a Mulletpalooza match between “Nasty Boy” Brian Knobbs and Ricky Rice? Seriously, even the referee had a mullet. Now I remember Knobbs as part of the Nasty Boys in WCW. He was famous for the Pit Stop. For those of you not familiar with that move, it’s basically Knobbs’s hairy, pale armpit attached to someone else’s face. I guess the theory is no one could withstand the smell and they would pass out, thus losing the match.

But this was not the Brian Knobbs I remember. This was the Brian Knobbs who got DQed for “deliberately” tossing Rice over the top rope to the outside. Seriously? Seriously.

Apparently, times were different back then. This was long before ECW and XPW where hardcore was the norm. Even the Royal Rumble, one of the tamest WWE matches, revolves around tossing the opponent over the top rope. Back then it was faux pas. I think if he did the Pit Stop, the referee would have had him kicked out of the arena. Fun match anyway.

The end of the show announced Greg Gagne in the main event for next week. The announcers stood around and talked about matches. Lee Marshall was one of them. The two guys reminded me of the announcers on ROH Wrestling on HDNet, which you should watch if you haven’t. It’s on at 5 PM on Saturdays.

Okay, enough of the nonsense. Well, not really. On to Raw.

RAW

Raw starts with a video package highlighting the feud between Batista and Orton, culminating in their cage match at Extreme Rules. Batista is the new champion.

Cue Batista. Man, Leviathan has come a long way since OVW. Batista enters and steals the Rock’s title pose on the turnbuckle. It’s kind of like when the Rock does it, but with 99% less charisma.

At one point, the camera zooms awkwardly close to ‘Tista’s face and he makes a silly face. Aww…the Animal has a soft spot for cameras. He looked like a clown for second. No credibility lost.

He gets on the microphone and says he’s the five time heavyweight champion. Hm…why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah? Five time, five time, five time, five time, five time WCW champion Booker T. Yup. I can dig that.

SUCKAAAA!

He says he did this for Ric Flair, himself, and all the fans who are sick of Randy Orton. Cue Orton.

Batista and Orton waste everyone’s time with a five minute staredown. For a few minutes they both looked scared for some reason.

Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase Jr. sneak up on Batista and get destroyed. Randy joins in and it’s three on one. Batista lifts Orton up for a Batista bomb and Cody hits him in the back with a chair.

Ted and Orton stomp Batista’s arm a bunch of times and then wrap the chair around it. Orton stomps it eleven friggin’ times, prompting Batista to yell, “I’m gonna git you, sucka!”

Orton puts on an armbar, with the arm still in the chair and then pushes off the bottom rope to twist ‘Tista’s arm. It looked legit broken. Ouch.

Orton steals the title and runs off, Legacy in tow.

Lawler repeatedly refers to Batista as “Dave” as if they are old pals.

Kofi is out next. He is the new US champ.

Cue Regal. Regal gets on the mic and talks about how “in these uncertain times” we can’t trust a Jamaican US champion. Why not? What’s wrong with Jamaicans? Lawler actually makes a valid point that this is coming from someone who hails from Blackpool, England.

Regal rambles on about being our savior, and that he has class, dignity, and self respect. Yeah, I’m sure he’s still got all of these after years of humiliating/stupid gimmicks.

The match was pretty good considering it only went about 3 minutes. My favorite part was Regal’s impressive rolling senton. Kofi took Regal to chest chop city before dropkicking him with one foot planting squarely on his face. Regal missed an ode to orton punt, cue Kofi’s spin kick of doom out of nowhere FTW.

Backstage, we see the Panting Crew AKA The Legacy, gloating about the job they did on Batista. All three of them sound out of breath. Did they just run laps around the arena during that last match?

Cue Josh Matthews, who totally “didn’t mean to interrupt, but…” he just did. Orton says he’s going to use his rematch clause tonight and if Batista doesn’t show up and “face him like a man”, he forfeits and loses the title. First off, how is Orton going to talk about facing someone like a man when he needs two cronies and a steel chair to fight someone? Secondly, when has someone ever lost a title on a countout?

Cena/Miz is later.

Kelly Kelly vs. Maryse Maryse for the Divas Title

The Divas title looks like an inkblot in pink. A pinkblot if you will.

Mickie James comes out to do commentary, wearing what can only be described as a men’s xtra large t-shirt with holes. She’s hot, but even she couldn’t pull that one off. Mickie James fail.

Cole asks Mickie about the women’s title and she corrects him, saying it’s the Divas title. It was funny. Cole got owned.

Maryse retains with some really crappy looking rope DDT or something. Like the exact opposite of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, it was over too quickly. Maryse slaps Kelly and Mickie enters the ring. Maryse walks off and is like totally whatever.

A video is shown to recap the Hog Pen Miss Wrestlemania match between Santino(a) Marella and Vickie “The Enunciator” Guerrero. Lawler makes an obligatory and completely stupid swine flu joke. Oh, how the Guerrero legacy has been marred since Eddie’s death. Vickie should have never been on TV in the first place.

Vickie is backstage and she says that the Orton/ Batista match is on and if Batista doesn’t show, “Ranny Orrin wins the dubba dubba E champeenship.” (*The preceding quote was typed to phonetically represent Vickie Guerrero’s horrible grasp on English pronunciation. Thank you.)

She also teased an announcement that “would change the face of Raw forever!” Oh joy.

Also backstage are Miz and Maryse. He tries to flirt with her, saying her French speech is hot. She basically tells him that he’s nobody until he beats John Cena and he drowns his sorrows in an appletini. No, screw that. He brushes it off because he’s the Miz and he’s awesome.

Santina’s twin brother teamed up with Goldust and Festus, accompanied by Hornswoggle. This team should be called Three and a Half Men. They take on the team of Jamie “by God” Noble, (The) Brian “Spanky” Kendrick, and Chavo “I Miss Pepe” Guerrero. Speaking of Pepe, I think WWE missed an opportunity in that handicap hog pen match for a Pepe return. Everyone loves a stick horse, am I right? No? Ok.

The match literally starts with Festus teabagging Kendrick. The match is so boring that I start to do what I do at live Baseball games; look around. The scroll at the bottom announces a new Macho Man DVD, and informs us that next week’s Raw is three hours.

Oh, and Hornswoggle interfered, kicking Noble and then doing a suicide dive onto Kendrick outside. Santino rolls up Noble for the win.

So far, it’s nothing to blog about. But I did it anyway, so take that, world!

Cena vs. Miz is next.

I took a bathroom break and when I cam back, it was over. Apparently Big Show interfered and put Cena is some sort of dangerous rest hold. Miz busts out equal opportunity beatings via chairshots to both men. Awesome.

Matt Hardy vs. MVP

Pretty good match. Finish comes when Matt invites MVP to the cast party in the the turnbuckle and MVP refuses to RSVP and hits the playmaker for the win.

Vickie is out to make her announcement. I’m on pins and needles, sweating bullets at the edge of my seat, with a path made entirely of eggshells awaiting ahead.

She cries about being messy for about 5 minutes in the Hog Pen match. Somebody call a Waaambulance.

She says, “I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.” I beg to differ. Remember when she decided to take Vince’s offer to appear on television? Okay, not so embarrassing. But what about being demolished by the likes of Undertaker and HHH? Still not enough? Oh, I remember now. She had naked pictures posted on WWE.com. She kissed the Big Show. She…you get the idea.

At least she didn’t give birth to a hand. I wonder whatever happened to the lovechild of sexual chocolate and Mae Young? I think the hand should return and become daddy Mark Henry’s manager. Anything’s better than Tony Atlas.

Anyway, back to Vickie G. She says she is resigning as “gennil mauhger of Raw!” She’s quitting. Yay.

Cue Edge, who still comes out to Alter Bridge’s Metallingus. Can someone please tell him about the Creed reunion already?

Edge is awesome right now. He says, “I only married you for your power. When we went out, people thought you were my mother.” He basically tells her she’s fat and worthless. Misogyny FTW, folks.

He says he’s getting a divorce. What a waste of time that entire storyline was. Which storyline you ask? Oh, I’m talking about Vickie Guerrero’s life story. Let’s be clear.

Cue blood curdling scream and crowd chanting “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey…goodbye.” That never gets old.

Backstage, Cena basically calls out The Miz and Big Show. Standard stuff.

Okay, I’ve got to be completely honest here, I lost interest in the show at this point. The Colons faced The Legacy in a non title match.

I left the room and my roommate introduced me to the wonders of Skype video chat. I realized that I too had this power, as I just bought a new laptop last weekend, and it came with a webcam. Sweet.

So, even though I didn’t watch it. I found out that The Legacy won, and cleanly I think. To the surprise of no one, Batista didn’t show up to the match, but Triple H did. Triple H destroyed Orton and the Legacy and apparently Vickie’s no Batista, new champion policy went out the window with her sudden departure. Oh yay, Triple H is back. Was he gone? Seriously, someone tell me they noticed.

Well, that’s my Raw recap for June 8th. I missed ECW entirely, as I often do and I can’t promise to recap every show. However, I will definitely go to as many independent shows as my shedule allows and give you my thoughts/recaps of those shows. I know you can just read results of WWE and TNA on their respective websites, but I hope to have that edge that will keep people coming back here.

Until next time,

- Kevin

Don’t Miss:  EWF’s Covina Classic at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Covina, CA, featuring a ladder match between longtime rivals Jeremy Jaeger and Kris Kadillak for the cruiserweight title. It’s tomorrow night at 8! For details, visit Empirewrestlingfederation.com.

Also, PWG presents The Secret of Guerrilla Island at the American Legion Post in Reseda, CA on June 28th at 5PM. This show will feature “Men of Low Moral Fiber” Chuck Taylor and Kenny Omega vs. “Hybrid Dolphins” Bryan Danielson and Roderick Strong in a sure to be stellar match up. For more information, please visit Prowrestlingguerrilla.com.

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