Full Credit: Todd Martin, WrestlingObserver.com
WWE Raw Report
By: Todd Martin
Email: MartinT2007@lawnet.ucla.edu
Date: 03/28/05 from Fort Worth, TX.
The Big News: WrestleMania is Sunday.
Title Changes/Turns: None.
Match Results: Chris Benoit, Shelton Benjamin & Chris Jericho b Edge,
Christian & Tyson Tomko; William Regal & Yoshihiro Tajiri b Maven & Simon
Dean and La Resistance; Shawn Michaels b Muhammad Hassan-DQ.
Show Analysis:
For those of you in the Westwood area, I will be performing this evening on
the rooftop of Olive Court at Weyburn Terrace. It’s a song and dance number
dedicated to Houston Mitchell, who is officially The Man.
The show started with the Highlight Reel. Each of the participants in the
Money in the Bank Ladder match except Kane talked about why they wanted to
win the match. They ended up brawling. It was a boring, predictable opening
segment that didn’t make me want to see the match. It continued the trend of
wrestlers talking about why they want to win, rather than actually winning.
Edge’s fire was the strong point of the segment. They ended up brawling
which led into a match.
Shelton Benjamin, Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit beat Edge, Christian and
Tyson Tomko. The heels worked over Benjamin, but after a double clothesline
with Benjamin and Edge, Benjamin made the tag to Benoit. Benoit gave Edge
the sharpshooter and Christian the rolling Germans. He then busted himself
open hardway with a brutal head butt to Tomko. Christian went for a
superplex on Benoit, but Benoit knocked him off the ropes and hit the diving
head butt. Benoit made the hot tag to Jericho, who came in with drop kicks
and enzuigiris. Dissension was teased, with Christian attacking Edge and
Benjamin accidentally attacking Benoit. In the midst of chaos, Jericho made
Tomko submit to the Walls. Christian attacked Jericho with the ladder after
the match. Kane came out, delivered a choke slam, and climbed the ladder
standing over the six other men. This match was a pretty good opener.
Backstage, Eric Bischoff didn’t want Batista to get into a fight with HHH.
Batista said he wouldn’t start anything, but if HHH starts something he will
finish it. Batista then said Bischoff reminds him of the Gimp from Pulp
Fiction. Explaining Batista’s motivation would get him over better as a main
eventer than these WWE Goldberg style light comedy bits. Christy almost
instantaneously beat Trish Stratus in arm wrestling twice in a row.
Whatever. Trish attacked Lillian Garcia and Lita in response.
Randy Orton did an interview. He said Stacy hesitated when he asked her if
he would beat Undertaker, which is why he attacked her. He said you’re
either with him or against him, and she was a distraction. He said
Undertaker defeats people by intimidating them, but he won’t be intimidated.
He said he will be in the Hall of Fame, and mentioned as the only man to
beat Undertaker at WrestleMania. They then aired a very well done video of
Undertaker’s WrestleMania victims. The ring posts set on fire and Orton was
afraid. Backstage, Kane confronted Orton and said Orton doesn’t know what
he’s getting into. He said Orton has six days to prove himself to
Undertaker.
William Regal and Tajiri retained the tag titles by defeating Simon Dean &
Maven and La Resistance when Tajiri gave Maven his kick. Bischoff tried to
convince HHH to be civil with Batista. HHH said if Batista were to start
something, it wouldn’t be civil.
Shawn Michaels beat Muhammad Hassan via disqualification. The crowd chanted
“what” at Hassan prior to the match. I hope that doesn’t come back. Hassan
controlled the match with a bunch of rest holds. Daivari and Hassan both
wrapped Michaels’ back around the ring post. Michaels came back with a
flying forearm, inverted atomic drop, back body drop, body slam and elbow
off the top. Michaels was going for sweet chin music when Angle came in.
Angle and Hassan tried to double team Michaels, but Angle nailed Hassan.
Angle missed the Angle slam, Michaels missed sweet chin music and Michaels
hit Hassan with the superkick. I don’t know what Hassan was doing in this
segment, because it didn’t build Angle-Michaels much, and damaged Hassan
strongly.
Bischoff yelled at security for letting Angle in the building and said he
wanted all the security for the HHH-Batista face off. They aired a package
on WrestleMania, including a video on Batista-HHH. HHH actually came across
as the face in it, primarily because no one has provided a counter-narrative
to his story of a protege that turned against him.
That counter-narrative didn’t come in the final segment. HHH called Batista
an ungrateful piece of crap, and said he was nothing prior to HHH. Batista
responded by again thanking Flair and HHH. He then called HHH an asshole but
didn’t elaborate. HHH slapped him, he thanked HHH, and then attacked him.
Security tried to pull them apart.
