Whoa a SUPER Royal Rumble a very hot Raw and one of the loudest groups of fans filling the arenas both nights making Sunday night and last night two of the best nights ever in WWE programming. And maybe I’m just a little more upbeat since I got all my predictions right, I don’t get to say that often so I’m still feeling damn good with about that. Okay let me talk a little about the pay per view and then it’s on to Raw.
I won’t make the Rumble section long because except for the Casket match, everything else worked very well Sunday night. Here’s the thing if it wasn’t for Kane sitting up in the casket the whole match would have been a total loss. I thought it stunk, but Kane managed to salvage a little of it for me. I did like Snitzky and Heindenreich having their moment backstage before the match. I was waiting for one of them to propose to the other. I will say those two guys interacting is damn funny. And as far as the triple threat match with JBL, Angle and Show no it wasn’t the best but I had no problem with it since it seemed to pick things up after that dreadful Taker/Heindenreich match. HBK vs. Edge was probably the best of the night not counting the Rumble match, and Hunter vs. Randy Orton was good, not great. I will say Randy certainly had me fooled with this “concussion.” His eyes said concussion all the way but from what was out there it was just a work, Randy is a hell of an actor and in my Raw section I will get into more of Randy’s great acting. Now for the Rumble match. In my eyes it topped last years. What I want to do is just list some of the highlights for me, the ones that blew me away.
1. Eddie and Benoit being the first two out there
2. Eddie and Benoit beating the hell out of the over confident Daniel Puder
3. Eddie, Benoit and yes Bob Holly really beating the crap out of Puder
4. Benoit, Jericho, Shelton Benjamin and Edge, facing off against Booker, Rey, Eddie and Luther Reigns. I will never ever forget the crowd reaction once they started going at each other
5. All the above taking care of Hassan IMMEDIATELY
6.Shelton and Charlie Haas bringing back a nice memory when the two were together and took out Renee Dupree
7.Shawn Michael eliminating Simon Dean in seconds and then taking out Kurt Angle
8.Kurt Angle coming back once eliminated and throwing Michaels over the top rope
9.Ric Flair doing his thing strutting and smiling and taking a few out, then trying to remove Batista, this was just Gold
10. Batista and Cena have a stare fest and the fans just eating it up
11.No not Vince getting hurt but crowning Dave Batista the Royal Rumble winner. As I said this was a classic that I will never forget. And a must see pay per view.
And things just kept going with Raw last night. While Hunter and Flair opened the show, it was when Batista was introduced by Hunter that things picked up. While we all are almost 100% sure it will be Hunter vs. Batista at Wrestlemania. WWE put a little tease in there. I was thrilled watching on screen an earlier interview with Josh Matthews and JBL. JBL was trash talking Batista and you could see Dave was taking all of JBL’s words in. Maybe Batista will go after JBL at Wrestlemania, not Hunter. Let’s face it prior to JBL, Hunter was just too happy to congratulate Batista and hype up their match at Mania. I think most of us knew immediately that Hunter put JBL up to his Batista promo. After all getting Batista to Smackdown would make Hunter a very happy man. So a nice opening one that seemed to really set the tone for a very good show. The first match with Shelton Benjamin vs. Simon Dean did nothing for me. Here’s the thing most of us all know Simon when he was Nova in the ECW. So we know what this guy can do in the ring. If they would only allow that on Raw then Shelton and Simon could definitely make things interesting. But this match was done in seconds so it really never took off.
While Hunter continued to play innocent and wonder who put that JBL video up, he took his frustrations out on Eric Bischoff, naturally threatening Eric to find out who was behind that or Hunter would ruin Eric’s life. Good stuff here since Eric wasn’t going to cower because of the champs threats. I knew when Hunter left and Eric made a little threat of his own about Hunter we would probably find out what Eric had planned for Triple H at the end of the show. I like seeing Eric stand up to Hunter more and more it makes Bisch seem like a leader, and not some weak yes man. I again loved watching Edge antagonize Christy who thankfully wasn’t doing her bouncing act last night. Edge has totally won me over and the more frustrated and bitter he is the better he is. And add Shawn Michaels to this segment and again another highlight to the show. Shawn did terrific job in keeping the future feud between him and Kurt Angle alive when he talked about Kurt embarrassing him and tossing him out during the Rumble. And to top things off, while Edge refused to have a rematch and demanded Shawn to leave Shawn just added a little sweet chin music right to Edge’s face to lay him out keeping their rivalry going as well.
Ah so we are now seeing Maven get some victories. I will say this right now I thought that he looked good last night against Hurricane Helms. Both men did a nice job, my only complaint? It was just too short. Let’s see if these guys continue because it might turn out to be a good feud. How funny was it when Snitzky surprised Candace and Maria and stared down and told him that he liked their shoes? Listen if the rumors are true about Wrestlemania, it’s going to be Taker and Kane vs. Sniztky and Heindenreich, I will guarantee you that John and Gene on the mic will make things so damn freaky and funny that this could be something to view. Holla Holla Holla, Theodore Long did a nice job hyping his Smackdown pay per view and even more importantly in putting thoughts in all of our heads that Batista might switch to Smackdown since Long offered him a very nice deal with lots of money. See I liked this little angle, could Smackdown soon be getting Batista? Probably not, but then again who knows?
You have no idea how badly I wanted La Resistance to drop the belts to Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. Sure both men should be on their own, but come on at least that division would get some new life into it. This was a hell of a match by all four. I truly loved this one. The ending with a double DQ was strange and rather stupid, yet we found out why later it was probably a good decision. Sgt. Slaughter vs. Hassan was exactly what I expected, it got the crowd chanting their asses off and that’s what counts. Okay back to Benoit and Jericho. We see them backstage, and they are both nose to nose and I mean nose to nose questioning why they lost that match. They each talked about their best and in fact said that they each bring the best out in each other. Later on Eric would make a match a submission match between these two guys. I can’t wait to see that. I really can’t. The Eugene ad for Wrestlemania imitating Forrest Gump doesn’t send me. It’s clever don’t get me wrong but maybe I’m just spoiled by the singing WWE superstars doing that Royal Rumble
commercial. Hunter did his usual bullshit with Ric in the locker-room. Hmmm Hunter was doing a lot of thinking and maybe just maybe wanting to work with Batista at Mania made him selfish. With Batista on Smackdown and winning the WWE title Evolution would have power on both shows. Oh my God what crap, this would tell anyone that Hunter was so behind the JBL tape. I can’t wait until Hunter is discovered as the culprit and I hope it’s Dave that discovers it first.
Before the next match, Eric Bischoff came out and not only made the submission match for next week in Japan, but also Tajiri and William Regal vs. La Resistance for the tag team titles, and Edge will get a shot at the World title against Hunter, this was what Eric was talking about his way of putting the screws to Hunter. These three matches should not only be a hit with the live fans in Japan, but for all of us watching it should make Raw another awesome show. Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton vs. Hunter and Flair was next. By far this was the match of the night and this was even better than Orton and Hunter’s match the night before. This was off the page and again the fans were out of this world while this was going on. Remember when I talked about Randy’s concussion and that it was a work? Well before Raw I would have said NO WAY, but Randy did it again last night. He had that dazed look on his face after his head hit the mat. This guy sells concussions like no other. Now here’s the reason for this angle. Supposedly this is going to be the way to turn Randy back as a heel. The face turn has turned into a fiasco and they want to change his character. So I do see Randy turning maybe at Wrestlemania and I see him going back with Evolution. But he did a super job last night along with Michaels, Flair and Hunter. This is the match that should have been the main event, not the cage match with Kane and Snitzky.
Up until Gene took the door off the cage, I thought I was watching this match in slow motion. Once that door was off things improved but still this should have been done in the middle of the show. All in all a terrific Raw and fabulous pay per view and now it’s on to Smackdown. I have read the spoilers so I won’t say anything but I will be back on Friday with my thoughts. Oh and this just hit me, Tazz and JR did one hell of a job calling the Rumble match. I remember last year they came off very well. It’s obvious that they have very good chemistry and I enjoyed listening to them very much. And I was just emailed this news from a friend, it’s from the WWE. WWE Chairman Vince McMahon underwent successful surgery, performed by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama, to repair torn quad tendons suffered at the Royal Rumble.” Wow, I didn’t expect that.
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