12/31 Raw

[rlm]

hoping mat forgives me for doing this one at least. hope mat's having a great new year's eve. i'm only doing this once so mat can rest from the partying. i really wasn't doing anything tonight so here it goes. besides the show i'll be posting some of the behind the scenes stuff.

tonight's show was ok, could have been better.

not aired and before the show dark matches and taping of heat.....

Nick Nemeth vs. Brian Kendrick. Kendrick got the win in a pretty dull match.

Super Crazy vs. Snitsky. Snitsky wins in a pretty quick match.

Davis Owens vs DH Smith. DH got the win and was surprisingly over with the crowd.

Drew McEntyre vs. Charlie Haas. Drew gets the win in a match that saw Charlie wear a luchador mask. It seems Haas has started a new gimmick with the mask wearing. the crowd was said to be over on the whole mask thing.

Hardcore Holly vs Trevor Murdoch. Holly gets the win and a nice pop.

****ok now the main show****

orton is already in the ring and is going on and on, on how he'll be the champion for the entire year. i'll enter 2008 as the champion and i'll still be the champion when 2008 is over. something like that. jeff hardy comes out and stands face to face with orton. orton tries to give hardy an rko but hardy switches it around and gave orton the twist of fate.

it's announced that next week its raw roulette all over again. gimmick matches galore.

matt hardy was backstage supporting jeff. matt asked jeff that if he won the title at the rumble if he could get a title match with jeff. jeff agreed to it and they both walked away.

HBK vs Kennedy. this was an ok match, nothing really exciting but ok. but very surprising to see kennedy get a clean win over HBK. i could have sworn i saw kennedy mouth "thank you" to HBK. although it could have also been " i beat you".

backstage HHH is told by vince and regal that if he loses his match to flair that he is out of the royal rumble. we also see BD Johnson, ron simmons and jillian hall wishing everyone a happy new year with jillian singing badly and johnson dancing. of course we all know what simmons role at the end of that clip is.

vince tells regal to wrestle against hornswaggle later on in the night.

umaga defeats jim duggan in a royal rumble qualifying match. not even worth watching by the way.

JBL make his debute on raw. he comes out in his limo and enters the ring. i couldn't believe how many pyros they must have used on someone i don't think is really worth it. i have never seen JBL as anything special. but man did they go overboard on the pyros. he's in the ring and raises his arms and "pow", pyros go off at the entrance and above. he walks to another part of the ring, raises his arms and once more more pyros. he does it another time to more pyros. he starts to rant on and on until Y2J's music comes on Y2J comes running to the ring and attacks JBL. they end up struggling with each other ringside and security comes and pulls them apart. before the commercial comes up its shown JBL has been cut across the top of his nose.

gotta go see cloverfield.

beth phoenix vs mickie james vs melina. allright match. nothing great. some team ups between mickie and melina to take out beth out of the ring so they could go at it on their own. of course beth comes in and wins the match anyway.

regal vs hornswaggle match ends with no one winning. just filler material. vince wanted regal to use the bare knuckles on hornswaggle but regal couldn't bring himself to use them. vince tells regal he was testing him and tells him to leave the ring. not really sure what the whole testing thing was all about. something about regal not having it in him anymore. maybe he's gone soft? hmm.

jeff hardy vs santino with maria and carlito on the side. seems carlito and santino are teaming up soon. not sure why else carlito was there at ringside. the match doesn't really go on long cuz orton shows up on the titantron beating up matt hardy in the back. he takes out matt the same way he took out cena's dad. remember that? jeff leaves the ring and goes to attend to his brother. i'm guessing santino won by countout. never was really shown.

flair's family was at ringside.
HHH vs flair. HHH was booed heavily throughout the match. after all it was flair country. it was a pretty good match but sometimes i was thinking "how in the world does HHH just come running into a ring and lays out umaga so quickly but yet he's taking forever with flair". flair got HHH in the figure 4 but it didn't work. HHH eventually pedigrees flair. but before HHH could pin flair, regal comes in and pulls flair out and hits him in the head with the bareknuckles. flair won by DQ. the show ended with HHH holding flair up and, hugging him, sort of. with HHH losing the match he won't be in the royal rumble this year.

what wasn't shown......

after the match with HHH and flair, BD Johnson came out and danced on the announcers table. JR pushed BD off and the king poured champagne on him while he was down.

a dark match was had after the show...
jeff hardy and chris jericho vs orton and JBL. hardy and jericho win the match. why didn't they show this too? those dark matches always seem to be better than the stuff shown on tv.

stuff

the new announcer line up for smackdown is..........
michael coleman and the coach.

[SMG Rules]

Raw was pretty good for the most part. The Kennedy/HBK match was good and it's nice to see Kennedy get a win over HBK. I also liked Orton kicking Matt Hardy in the head. Thats the Orton I like, not the one who gets his butt kicked every Monday.

[Mo]

Thanx 4 that guys...

[Mat]

No problem RLM, its appreciated and yes I was out lastnight. Got home at 130am so I am going with little sleep.

I had recorded though so ill leave my thoughts now.

MR. KENNEDY vs. SHAWN MICHAELS A very solid match. I was surprised to see Kennedy get a clean pin. I still have no like for Kennedy though.

HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN vs. UMAGA Why do they make these matches?

BETH PHOENIX vs. MICKIE JAMES vs. MELINA Kinda sloppy at times but the match itself was entertaining. Nice to see Beth get her butt kicked.

HORNSWOGGLE vs. WILLIAM REGAL Interesting segment involving Regal. I liked it.

JEFF HARDY vs. SANTINO MARELLA Boy how the mighty have fallen..I feel bad for Carlito being joined with this Joke.

RIC FLAIR vs. TRIPLE H It was a good match. I kinda felt HHH had to slow down and really gear up his "selling" to flair's moves. Interesting ending also.

Overall Raw was a pretty solid show. Good way to end the near year on a otherwise dull WWE year.

[Gumby]

I didn't watch the show, but some of that sounds interesting. I like Vince testing Regal. Regal used to be portrayed as a true badass who was also articulate and classy (for a heel). That's always been his best character, not this pandering coward he's been since he became GM.

Glad to see they're not making Beth Phoenix invincible. Then again, they never really did. Almost every diva she's faced has gotten some offense in, even some near-falls (even Maria!), but she's bound to lose to Candice when she comes back.

Triple H not in the Rumble?!

The excessive pyros for JBL make sense, given his overinflated view of himself. If they let him and Y2J cut loose on the mic, you could have a golden feud right there. Still wish they kept Jericho feuding with Orton for the title, though. His return has been so botched it's not even funny.

Kennedy will be one of those guys who main events whether people like it or not. Some do. Most don't. He sucks.

I'm glad they're making Orton into the sadist he used to be. Him being completely pwned by HBK was the worst thing they could have done. If they want him to be the next big thing, he needs to be an arrogant bastard who becomes The Terminator inside the ring.

[SMG Rules]

It was clear that HHH had to really slow down with Flair. He can squash Umaga in 5 minutes but it takes 15-20 to beat Flair. LOL

I just wonder how Triple H will get into the Rumble now? We know there is no way he's siitting it out.

[rlm]

maybe HHH will not be in the rumble at all. could happen. we all thought (well except me) that he was going to win over jeff hardy some time back but look what happened. now hardy is having a major push. yeah he could find some way in but maybe he won't. instead he'll just have a regular match with whoever he ends up having a fued with by then. or maybe he'll end up tagging up with flair for a match at the rumble. who knows whats in store for HHH. it unusual for this sort of thing to happen to him.

[Gumby]

The only thing they could do is start his feud with Batista like rumors have said. But honestly, the best thing Triple H could do is relax and remember that his place in the company is pretty much set in stone, so now he should just have fun and put over some deserving guys, just like Jeff Hardy.

Now, if he hadn't had buried Umaga....

[Mat]

Originally Posted by Gumby

The only thing they could do is start his feud with Batista like rumors have said. But honestly, the best thing Triple H could do is relax and remember that his place in the company is pretty much set in stone, so now he should just have fun and put over some deserving guys, just like Jeff Hardy.

Now, if he hadn't had buried Umaga....

True words

Umaga buried himself because of that steroid scandal.

[SMG Rules]

I still think that HHH will be in the Rumble somehow. They could have some last chance match where he gets in. I'll be very surprised if he really does miss it.

Also I read that sources close to Sting say that he might be willing to do a one off match with Ric Flair. Can you imagine Sting VS Flair at Wrestlemania? I bet Vince can already smell the $$$$$ from that one.

[rlm]

maybe if flair asked him personally to do it. but the last thing i heard was sting was signing another contract with tna and that could prevent him from doing so unless the contract runs out before flair retires.