WWE Raw House Show Report

WWE Raw House Show Report
July 8, 2006
John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario, Canada

My brother and I headed downtown pretty close to showtime to try to grab some slightly cheaper tickets outside the arena. We got there a little late, thanks to my extended shower and supper, and Josh forgetting his wallet the first time we went to the bank. There was a guy standing at the corner right as we got out of the parking garage, so we nabbed a few seats from him, and headed on in.

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Match List
Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch vs. The Highlanders
Snitsky vs. Rob Conway
Charlie Haas vs. Shelton Benjamin
Matt Striker's Classroom w/ "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan
Carlito & Trish Stratus vs. Johnny Nitro & Melina
Randy Orton vs. Harry Smith
Spirit Squad vs. Triple H & Ric Flair
Edge vs. John Cena - Non-Title Street Fight


Comments

Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch vs. The Highlanders
Came in pretty much right as this one was ending, so I may be wrong about the match, and whether there was anything before it. As far as I know, Highlanders won, and they may have been beaten down afterwards. Unless the crowd was just booing at Cade & Murdoch leaving.

Snitsky vs. Rob Conway
Snitsky is inexplicably over as a babyface. I heard a short "Baby Killer" chant at the end of the rink. Snitsky wins with a big boot, I think.

Charlie Haas vs. Shelton Benjamin
A match for the smarks. The reactions are a bit nutty, since Haas just kind of turned heel on TV, and Shelton is the better known of the former tag partners. Haas eventually takes the babyface role, thanks in part to a pack of Haasholes on the opposite side of the arena chanting his name. Not a bad match, but some scattered "boring" chants could be heard during the more technical/rest holdy portions. Haas hit a nice ring apron DDT, à la Benoit vs. Angle or Edge vs. Regal. Shelton wins after a twice-reversed rollup spot, where I assume he grabbed the tights.

Matt Striker's Classroom w/ "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan
Striker heads out, and half of our row promptly exits. Where's the love, people? Matt Striker is YOUR TEACHER. Striker goes into a well-coached spiel about London, mentioning "Western University", and how "higher learning and London should never go in the same sentence", or something to that effect. He then claims he was once invited to tryout for the London Knights, but instead decided to go to Peterborough. Seems he was right, with the Petes sweeping the Knights in the playoffs this year. My brother boos him heartily for this. "Hoooooo!" "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan heads out, and part way through his entrance, he swaps the usual stars & stripes for the maple leaf. In the ring, he thanks the Canadian troops in Afghanistan, and elicits a Canada chant or three. Striker wonders what exactly it is that Duggan says all the time. "Nooooo?" No, that's not it. Oh, "Ho". And how appropriate, given all the hos in London. (He's right, you know.) He heads off to start pointing out the hos in the audience, which gets him a beating with the 2x4. Striker bails, and Duggan milks the crowd some more. On his way out, he hands off the wood to a kid, who walked by us a little later, plank in hand.

Carlito & Trish Stratus vs. Johnny Nitro & Melina
Don't remember much about this, but it was fun. Melina gets some of the biggest heat of the night as she walks up the stairs, but promptly redeems herself as she drops into the splits on the apron and scoots under the rope. Carlito was very over, being mischievous as usual, and Trish got a reaction befitting a Canadian darling. Trish beats Melina after the Stratusfaction.

After the match, Mickie James comes out and attacks Trish. As Mickie's leaving, she runs into Carlito, who tosses her back in to Trish. Thesz Press, a little brawling, and the Chick Kick. Carlito looks like he's going to spit an apple on Mickie, but Trish grabs it and does it herself. The two may have had a quick kiss before they left, but I was briefly looking at the crowd at the time.

Intermission. My knees thank me for giving them some room and movement.

Randy Orton vs. Harry Smith
Orton gets a pretty good mixed reaction on his way out. Smith gets a "Who's this guy?" reaction. Orton informs anyone who didn't know that he's the son of the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith, which leads to a few "Bulldog" chants during the match.

I noticed it at last year's show when he faced Batista, and tonight re-affirmed it: Orton is a very good house show heel. His mannerisms are annoying enough to get heat, but still entertaining, and his great selling resulted in some believable near-falls for Smith. Somewhat reminiscent of Flair's reputation in the territorial days, if you'll forgive the blasphemous comparison.

Harry looked pretty good, but eventually fell to a nice-looking RKO, which got a giant reaction. Bulldog's boy gets a better round of applause on the way out.

Spirit Squad vs. Triple H & Ric Flair
It's first announced as a 5-on-1 handicap match. The Squad make their way to the ring, and are very over as heels. They get into some really basic, corny cheers, before being interrupted by the DX music, at which point the place goes BANANA~! Triple H enters, and informs the crowd that Shawn Michaels couldn't make it. (Bret Hart probably got his visa revoked. ) Hunter announces that for one night only (as far as we know), there's a special member of DX. He asks the Spirit Squad if they're wondering who it is. Thanks to the event promotion, the crowd is well aware that it's Flair, and starts to "Wooo!" Hunter plays it off and says, "I know you're wondering too, because I hear you saying 'Whooo?'" He announces the obvious, and Flair's music hits, which segues into the DX theme. Ric makes it to the ring, and awkwardly does the crotch chopping in tandem with Trips.

The match starts out with some comedy. Hunter spots a 6th Spirit Squad member in the crowd at ringside, and berates him a few times during the match.

A few minutes in, after the Squad clears the ring, Hunter grabs the mic, and from my point of view, it goes something like this:

"Give me a T!"
"T!"
"Give me an A!"
"A!"
"Give me a Y!"
"Y!"
"What's that spell?"
Umm... Tay?
"Exactly."
..........
Oh. I thought he said "T". Very good.

The gay thing was a consistent theme in the comedy section, with the Squad doing a Flair flop face to the groin, followed by another guy stumbling into a doggy style position.

The best part by far was somewhat of an extension to a sequence in the Vengeance handicap match. Johnny hops in, ties a Karate Kid bandana to his head, and demonstrates his skillz of a martial artist. Triple H then requests the bandana, and goes into this whole routine including "Wax On, Wax Off", some goofy 280-pound kicks, and various '60s dance moves you'd see a white guy like me try to use, eventually punctuated by a crotch chop. The Squad's exaggerated spasms of disdain during the proceedings were just hilarious. Makes me hope there's video of this stuff somewhere.

Eventually they get out of the comedy, and have a pretty solid match. One of the better spots had Kenny hopping to the top rope, and missing his huge leg drop. Triple H got the pin after a Pedigree, as Flair applied the Figure Four. Thankfully, Hunter didn't prompt for any flashings from the crowd, though I think he may have been looking at the end. All told, a lot of fun. Best match of the night.

Edge vs. John Cena - Non-Title Street Fight
Decent match overall. Not much in the way of weapons for a street fight, other than some blunt mic abuse, but hey, it's a house show.

A few minutes were spent in the entrance way on the opposite side of the arena, so I didn't see much. Cena pretty much got thrown off the boards in one spot, and I think Edge took an unwanted ride on one of those rolling cases in another.

There was some hot, if typical action near the end, involving teased finishers, belt shots, and Lita getting speared by Edge to knock her to the floor.

Given the demographic breakdown for a house show compared to TV and PPV, I was surprised at how much Cena was booed. Edge being a new Canadian champ might have been a factor. There was still plenty of high-pitched Cena chants, nonetheless. And the roof just about blew off when he got the FU and pin. I think half of the place thought it was a title match, since Finkel's announcing was somewhat muffled by the noise. Cena makes his way out, then Edge is given the loser's farewell, as he still holds the title.


Results List
The Highlanders def. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch
Snitsky def. Rob Conway
Shelton Benjamin def. Charlie Haas
Carlito & Trish Stratus def. Johnny Nitro & Melina
Randy Orton def. Harry Smith
Triple H & Ric Flair def. Spirit Squad
John Cena def. Edge - Non-Title Street Fight

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Fun was had, so it was worth going. My knee's none too pleased about being cramped in the JLC seating without being able to stand up for an hour at a time, but it should be fine by tomorrow. This was my first WWE event since last year's SmackDown! house show. (FYI: Mr. Anderson = Mr. Kennedy's former name, and "Marty Wesley" = Bobby Lashley. I almost got it right. ) And my first show overall since last year's Border City Wrestling/TNA International Incident in Oldcastle, with that whole Jarrett winning the NWA Title debacle that stunned and angered the internets.

I got some tickets for Unforgiven this morning, which will be at the Air Canada Centre in September. Nothing great. 16th row in the back corner in the lower bowl. A little better than what we had for my first WWE show back in 2001. Hopefully they'll be wise enough to not put on crap like a Kane vs. Fake Kane (Kake?) rematch in Toronto, or they'll be getting the wave treatment for sure.

In the last bit of live wrestling goodness, there's a new Border City Wrestling show this coming Saturday in Windsor. It's not quite as stacked with TNA guys as the last show, but it's still got Christian Cage, Petey Williams, my favourite dancin' fool Tyson Dux, and Eric Young, who's grown on me a lot since the last BCW show. (For the love of Pete, Dont Fire Eric!)

Eric was hanging around near where we were sitting last time, and I was tempted to go say hi. But at that point, I hadn't watched much TNA in awhile. He was pretty much just a guy I'd watched in some earlier X Division matches, and part of a Team Canada I hadn't seen. So I didn't know what I would say. I did, however, summon up enough courage to say hi to Jerry Lynn after the show, and congratulate him on his match that night with Petey. First meeting with a wrestler since the late Michael Lockwood (Crash Holly) at 'Mania 18 Fan Axxess.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to go to the show. Pretty much depends on whether my brother feels like going, and spending any more money, and if we can acquire a car to go in.

Here's the WrestleFest '06 event poster, which I'm semi-spamming in an attempt to win tickets.