Raw was from the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield,
England, tonight.
To refresh our memories, two weeks (and
seemingly a lifetime) ago Eric Bischoff banished Edge
to Smackdown to take on Batista. It was all a ruse,
however, and was actually a little inter-promotional
stage-setting for Survivor Series.
The announcers for the evening were the
diminutive Joey Styles, Jerry "The King" Lawler,
and Jonathan Coachman.
Team Raw (Shawn Michaels, Kane, Big Show,
Chris Masters, and Carlito) headed to the ring in their
street clothes.
Bischoff introduced the team and promised
victory for Team Raw. He said it was rumored that Team
Smackdown would show up on Raw tonight. (Imagine that.)
With a straight face, he claimed not to believe the
rumor. Todd Grisham was stationed in the parking lot
awaiting the Smackdown invasion. Eric's said his army
would take care of them if they showed up.
Big Show grabbed the mic and said they
were not his army; they were there because they wanted
to be. Too bad about Batista getting hurt and all--wrong
place, wrong guy, wrong time.
Grisham cut in to announce the arrival
of Batista, Teddy Long, Rey Mysterio, Randy Orton, and
JBL, whose limo they'd arrived in.
Bischoff went into panic mode. HBK assured
him that Team Raw was on the way to take care of business.
A sputtering Bischoff ordered them all
back into the ring. They ignored him.
(Commercial break)
Team Smackdown was in the parking lot,
rolling up their sleeves.
Team Raw was headed to the parking lot,
rolling up their sleeves (those that had sleeves, since
Kane and Big Show didn't have sleeves to roll up).
Cue the "West Side Story" rumble
music. The two teams stood toe to toe, then the fists
began to fly. Masters had Mysterio in the Masterpiece,
but off camera there was the sound of glass breaking.
When the camera panned over to show what had happened,
Batista was shown on a broken car windshield, clutching
his shoulder.
(Commercial break)
Grisham was alone in the parking lot,
explaining that Kane and Big Show had chokeslammed Batista
through the windshield. Batista had been taken to one
of those generic "medical facilities."
The announcers wondered what that will
mean to Team Smackdown at Survivor Series. What indeed.
(1) Ric Flair vs. Trevor Murdoch.
As elegant as Flair looked in his bejeweled robe, Murdoch
looked like he just fell off the proverbial turnip truck
(and just about pulled a "Vader" getting into
the ring). Decent match. Lots of "whoo's"
and chops from Flair, who won it by grabbing Murdoch's
tights and rolling him up for the win.
Your winner: Ric Flair.
Murdoch chased the referee up the ramp,
complaining about the dirtiest player in the game's
dirty trick. The ref didn't want to hear it.
Triple H appeared on the TitanTron with
a message and a threat for Flair about their Survivor
Series match.
(Commercial break)
Returning from commercial Tajiri was in
mid-match and putting someone in the Tarantula when
JBL stormed the ring, thus ending the match (such as
it was). JBL called Chris Masters out.
Bischoff appeared on the stage and called
him either the dumbest man on earth or the bravest.
Bischoff said he was probably the former and offered
him a match with HBK tonight. The crowd loved that.
(Commercial break)
John Cena was shown taping an episode
of "Mad TV" which will air this coming Saturday.
Kurt Angle headed to the ring with the
"you sucks" bleeped out--annoying, to say
the least.
(2) Kurt Angle vs. Shelton Benjamin.
Part III. Shawn Daivari came out as the special
guest referee. (Give that guy some new entrance music!)
Angle was pleased, but Benjamin wasn't. As with their
previous matches, it was a technical grudge match. Benjamin
DDT'd Angle off the apron, but Angle got back into the
ring and put Benjamin in a prolonged ankle lock. Benjamin
managed to reverse the hold and roll Angle up for a
pin, but Angle rolled Benjamin up for the one-two-three.
Your winner: Kurt Angle.
(Commercial break)
Angle was still in the ring and began
to explain why he is associating himself with Daivari.
Daivari is a proud American, he said, just like Angle.
Emphasis on American. And from now on, Daivari would
be Angle's own personal referee, including his match
at Survivor Series against John Cena.
Daivari grabbed the mic and shouted something
in Farsi (I think), which was probably what Angle had
just said.
Cena appeared on the TitanTron and said
he was going to find out the real story about Kurt Angle
and went looking backstage for people to comment on
whether Angle sucked or not. He opened a door and it
turned out to be the ladies dressing room. Candice Michelle
gave him a peep show and made a crude joke about sucking.
Cena opened another door and found Snitsky
giving Tomko a massage. I was getting creeped out. So
was Cena. "It's not my fault," Snitsky told
him.
Cena opened yet another door and found
the Boogeyman singing a nursery rhyme. Cena couldn't
believe what he was seeing. Neither could I.
Cena finally quit opening doors and headed
out to the ring. The crowd was chanting his name and
he jumped into the crowd to get their opinions of Kurt
Angle. The comments were unanimously suckey.
Cena concluded that Angle still sucked,
and with that, he jumped into the ring and sent Angle
and Daivari flying.
(Commercial break)
(3) Triple H vs. Val Venis.
Not much doubt as to who was going to win this one,
even thought Venis looked good. Triple H quickly laid
him out with a steel chair, and the ref called for the
bell. But this was all about sending a message to Flair
for their match this Sunday, and Triple H beat the snot
out of Venis as the referee continued to ring the bell
signaling a DQ. The carnage ended with a Pedigree.
Bischoff was in his office when he got
a message that Theodore Long was outside demanding to
see him. "Show him in," said Evil Eric, twirling
his imaginary moustache.
(Somewhere along the way, this turned
into a match for Survivor Series, too--Eric the Karate
Kid vs. Teddy Long.)
(Commercial break)
We were told that the HBK vs. JBL match
would be a lumberjack match.
(4) Candice Michelle (with Victoria)
vs. Mickie James (with Trish Stratus). This
ought to be good. *Rolling eyes* After some of the worst
"wrestling" in the history of sports entertainment,
two masked men abducted Trish. The distraction led to
interference by Victoria, and Candice pinned Mickie
for the win.
(Commercial break)
What was the point of the match? It was
a "clever" ploy to set up an inter-promotional
women's match at Survivor Series. So where was Trish?
Tied up in some dark corner of the arena. It turns out
that her abductors were MNM, and Melina, who wanted
a match at Survivor Series for the Women's Title.
The camera focused on the announcers,
all of whom had their mouths hanging open. Lawler finally
got up and went to help Trish.
Maria was reading a book and waiting for
Shawn Michaels to show up for his interview. It was
HBK's book, coincidentally. Available in bookstores
everywhere. He talked some smack to the Smackdown lumberjacks.
(Commercial break)
(5) Inter-promotional Lumberjack
Match: Shawn Michaels vs. JBL. HBK was accompanied
by Big Show, Kane, Carlito and Chris Masters. JBL had
only three lumberjacks to watch his back--Randy Orton,
Bobby Lashley, and Rey Mysterio.
The match got underway with traded punches,
then each took turns controlling the match. HBK seemed
to have the upper hand and started to tune up for the
Sweet Chin Music. Team Smackdown pulled JBL out of harm's
way, but Michaels leapt out of the ring and landed on
all of them. Splat. Back in the ring, JBL was ready
for the Clothesline from Hell. But HBK was ready, too,
and leveled him with a boot to the chops. The lumberjacks
hit the ring and it turned into a brawl. What did you
expect?
As the show ended, Batista, with his shoulder
bandaged, hit the ring and came after Big Show and Kane.
Batista had a score to settle and gave Show a spinebuster,
injury notwithstanding. Very impressive.
So there you have it. Raw set the table
for Survivor Series, but I think they spilled some metaphorical
gravy on the tablecloth in a few places. Enjoy your
turkey dinner on Thursday and let's hope that Survivor
Series won't be a turkey, too.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
***
Write
to Mallory:
Mallory@WorldWrestlingInsanity.com
Mallory@WorldWrestlingInsanity.com
