On Monday, January 28, 2008 at 11:29 PM EST WWE RAW
January 28, 2008
Philadelphia, PA
Commentators: Jim Ross & Jerry “The King” Lawler
Reported By: Hunter Golden of WrestleView.com
A video put the Royal Rumble match over last night.
2008 Royal Rumble winner John Cena came out to as 50-50 a reaction as you can get. He said he knew Philly would only give it to him like that. He said he was going to answer the question everyone wanted to know and that was how he’d come back so quickly. He said in his absence life would go on in the WWE but his life was wasting away in a hospital bed.
By now the crowd’s booing and it’s pretty great. Cena said he’s gambling it all, but he’d do anything to main event Wrestlemania and sure enough, the impossible has happened. He is back and he’s going to Wrestlemania. He said if he has it his way, he’s challenging for that belt. He said he wanted Randy Orton tonight for the WWE Championship. That got a massive pop. He wants the Mania match tonight. He asked Orton how he felt out back.
He waited around and sure enough, Orton’s music hit and he came out to the ramp. Orton said he had an answer for him, but likely not one he’d like to hear. He said he’d been issued challenges from everyone. Triple H wanted to win three matches in a night. HBK wanted revenge. Jericho wanted to save us and Hardy wanted to break through and sure enough, the same thing had happened in every case, he had beaten them.
Cena mocked him for a short time before telling Orton he did what no one /* could and that was put him on the shelf. He said he was a smart champ, saw opportunity and took it. He said Randy DID put him on the shelf, but he never did beat him. He said he knew in his heart he needed every advantage he could get and now he’s got it.
Orton smiled and sneered. He said ‘here’s the thing’. He said ever since he put him on the shelf, he had become a very, very big deal. A bigger deal than he ever was for sure. He said he would never defend his title against anyone unless they opened their wallets and paid to see it and that meant he wouldn’t be facing Cena tonight. But since he couldn’t wait to Wrestlemania, he was on at the next pay per view, No Way Out unless of course, he wanted to wait until Wrestlemania. He said it was on but that still leaves tonight.
He said he doesn’t forget. It doesn’t get rid of the pain, suffering or anything /*. He said it was four months since he got the chance to be in the ring.. He wanted some and he promised to get some.
****Commercial****
Mickie James & Ashley v. Jillian Hall & Beth Phoenix
Jillian and Mickie started things off. The two tussled in a hammer lock before exchanging some nifty counters that resulted in Mickie booting Jillian in the face. Beth tagged in and we’ve got a stare down.
Mickie let the forearms fly before getting chucked into the ring post. James recovered quickly but ate a Jillian kick to the back and was scooped up in a one armed side walk slam. Jillian hit an elbow drop after the tag and got a near fall but found herself wrapped up in a James head scissors.
Beth rushed in and Mickie grabbed a crucifix for a one count. James hit a neck breaker for yet another near fall. James looked for the implant DDT but got snagged by Jillian. Jillian got tossed to the outside but the small opening was all Beth needed and she crushed Mickie with the fisherman’s buster and that’s it.
Winners: Jillian Hall & Beth Phoenix via pin fall
Vince was telling William Regal to ‘let em have it’ at No Way Out. He said the question though was who would face the winner at Wrestlemania. Regal said he talked about ‘that match’ with Vince and Vince looked stunned. The winner would face the winner of an elimination chamber at Wrestlemania.
****Commercial****
Raw GM William Regal’s music hit and he’s on the ramp. He said whoever was WWE Champion after No Way Out would face the winner of an elimination chamber. The participants would be as follows: Umaga, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, JBL, Jeff Hardy & Triple H. He wished them luck and said may god have mercy on their souls.
Mike Adamle is in the crowd announcing the matches for later tonight. We’ll get a pair of tag matches: Triple H & a mystery Partner v. Umaga & Snitsky as well as the team of Jeff Hardy & Chris Jericho v. JBL & Randy Orton.
****Commercial****
Carlito v. Cody Rhodes
Carlito hit a kick to Cody’s gut before whiffing on a whip follow up and getting arm dragged out of his boots. Cody locked in an arm bar only for Carlito to fight his way to his feet and pound away at Cody in the corner. He jaw jacked with Holly a little too long and got a whip countered into a quick roll up for two.
Cody grabbed an arm drag and we’re back to the arm bar. Cody hit some forearms in the corner and then grabbed the arm hold again and dropped the leg on it for fun. The two tussled some before there was an exchange on the apron that ended up in a clothesline that sent Carlito to the outside.
Cody pursued Carlito and hit some strikes before tossing him into the ring. Santino distracted Cody quickly and just like that, Carlito leapt up and hit the back snapper for the win.
Winner: Carlito via pin fall
Triple H and Shawn Michaels are in the back talking about the elimination chamber. Oh joy, a DX reunion.
****Commercial****
DX v. Snitsky & Umaga
Are you ready?
No.
Snitsky and Triple H are starting it off. Triple H asks the crowd for some breath mints, tooth brushes or something along those lines.
The two lock up and Snitsky begins pummeling Triple H but gets clotheslined out of the corner. HBK tags in and grabs an arm bar and then just tags in Triple H who keeps up the fun. Snitsky hit a scoop slam to get out of it but didn’t connect with an elbow and HBK’s now chopping him back.
Snitsky whipped him to the ropes, but HBK hit the nip up and nailed Umaga just because which was dumb and Umaga returned the favor by spiking him off the top buckle to the floor.
The heels worked HBK over for a little while and we’ve now got lots of love and a big ole bear hug. Snitsky dumped HBK into the corner again and distracted the ref while Umaga made him his woman. Umaga tagged in and hit a snap mare before slapping on the big old vice grip. Lots of ‘big olds’ tonight. Hey! Big old bear hug.
****Commercial****
We came back to Umaga hitting the diving head butt in the corner and ruthlessly hammering away on Michaels in the corner. Snitsky tagged in and went back to the bear hug. Apparently he’s really good at this. Michaels got hammered back into the corner and Umaga tagged in and got that giddy look in his eyes. Time for running booties to the lips and he whiffed big time. HBK ALMOST got the tag out of the bear hug. Umaga tried to reverse it into the tilt a whirl slam but HBK caught it quickly enough to turn it into a DDT.
Michaels made the hot tag to Triple H. He pounded Snitsky back and leveled him with the running knee. Triple H avoided an Umaga rush and hit him with a lariat before giving us a double noggin’ knocker. It didn’t phase Umaga though, who nailed the Game with a Samoan drop. HBK clocked him with sweet chin music and sent him to the floor before hurling himself over the top rope with a plancha.
Snitsky missed a big boot and got laced with a spine buster which ended up being a pedigree and that’s all she wrote.
Winners: DX via pin fall
WWE Champion Randy Orton is in the back. JBL approached him and said history would be made. He said the legend killer would be made tonight as he and Orton would team up. He said more history would be made when he faced JBL at Wrestlemania. Orton said he hoped he would win because he knew he could beat him. JBL said he’d drag him all over Wall Street like a bag of garbage. JBL said that would be Wrestlemania though. He said tonight he hoped he could trust him. He’d take care of Jericho so long as Orton took care of Hardy. Orton asked him about what would happen if John Cena showed up. JBL said they’d both do a way with Cena.
****Commercial****
Todd Grisham is with Jeff Hardy. He said he was at a cross roads but he wouldn’t give up. Last night wasn’t the end of the road for Jeff Hardy, it was just the beginning.
Vince is thinking. He gazes at Hornswoggle and tells him he let him down. He said he wanted to be in the Rumble and he didn’t come back like a McMahon, he came back like a loser. He said he was ashamed of him and told him to get out of his sight.
****Commercial****
Brian Kendrick v. Mr. Kennedy
Kendrick said he was going to get a win that’d put him on the map.
Doesn’t start well for him as he gets tossed to the corner and BRUTALLY stomped in the face. Kendrick fled from the ring and got Kennedy to follow him and turned and viciously attacked him. Kennedy reversed a whip and slammed Kendrick’s arm into the mat HARD.
Kendrick’s selling great here in the hammer lock but eventually fights out and hit’s a wheel kick. Kendrick kept stinging like a bee until he missed a missile drop kick in a big way and got planted with the mic check. That’s it folks.
Winner: Mr. Kennedy via pin fall
Kennedy got on the mic after the match. He said he begged Regal to leave him out of the elimination chamber, not because he didn’t want to be WWE Champion, but because he wanted to do something of historical value at Wrestlemania. He said he wanted to end the career of Ric Flair. He said he was going to do Flair what people do to animals when they couldn’t function because he knew people were sick of seeing the same old dog do the same old tricks. He said he’d waste him.
Ric Flair came out to the ramp. He said he had two things to say to him. First, good luck and second, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. That works.
****Commercial****
Melina v. Maria (w/ Santino Marella)
Bell rings and Melina comes right at Maria. She grabs a take down and works the leg but Maria counters out nicely with some chain wrestling only to eat a back elbow. Maria hits the boot to the gut and hit’s a running backside to the face like Umaga.
Maria breaks out the bronco buster and went to rip Melina out of the corner but got slammed into the middle buckle. Melina hit a snap mare and grabbed a front face lock to keep Maria at bay.
Maria struggled to her feet and she HAMMERED Melina with a hangman’s neck breaker. Melina fought back with punches further frustrating Melina until hitting a wicked gut buster but Melina kicked out. Wow, this is way better than expected.
Maria missed the follow up in the corner and almost got rolled up pants and all. Her butt is hanging out and she sits on Melina’s face. It’s over.
Winner: Maria via pin fall
Santino quickly covered Maria off and went off on a HILLARIOUS tirade about puking in the liberty bell and small trouser monuments from JR. He doesn’t want us to see Maria naked. Boo to him.
Todd Grisham is with Jericho and he asked about this new Jericho. Jericho said last night after he was cut open so bad he couldn’t see, after he choked him senseless, a new Chris Jericho did emerge and he wanted to get to know that Jericho better. He said he’d do it tonight to JBL tonight and blah blah JBL’s in Disney world?
****Commercial****
Mike Adamle is back with us. He puts over the No Way Out card thus far.
WWE Championship
Randy Orton v. John Cena
Elimination Chamber-- Winner receives a title shot at Wrestlemania 24
Triple H v. Shawn Michaels v. JBL v. Chris Jericho v. Umaga v. Jeff Hardy
Ric Flair v. Mr. Kennedy
Chris Jericho & Jeff Hardy v. Randy Orton & JBL
Orton stepped in against Jericho to start it off.
The two locked up and had a quick stalemate. Jericho grabbed a headlock and brought the champion to his knees before Orton tossed him off the ropes only to eat some Jericho chops and a back elbow that knocked him down.
Jericho suplexed him hard to the mat. Jericho talked smack to JBL on the outside while seemingly dismantling Orton in the corner. Orton fought back only to eat a code breaker before Jericho bolted towards JBL and took him off the apron.
Hardy hit an impromptu swanton and got a two count, but Orton got saved by JBL.
****Commercial****
We came back to Hardy getting a near fall on Orton. JBL tagged in and began working over Hardy on the mat. JBL flat backed him with a shoulder block but missed an elbow and got punted with a mule kick and then ate a pair of legs to the junk. JBL white washed Hardy with a big boot and almost got the pin, but it was broken up by Jericho.
Orton tagged in and began working over Hardy’s arm. After a near fall, he worked a rear chin lock as the crowd got behind Hardy. The heels kept working over Hardy before Orton tagged in and out quickly and on the second tag got taken down.
Jericho and JBL went at it on hot tags and Jericho got the early advantage. Jericho dispatched of Orton and went for the Walls, but JBL fought out. He caught the big man with a boot and followed up with a running forearm and a lion sault for two. Hardy ran in and bedlam insued.
JBL got stuck in the walls of Jericho but Orton popped up out of nowhere with an RKO. JBL slumped over Jericho and got the pin fall win.
Winners: JBL & Randy Orton via pin fall
Cena’s music hit and he came running down to the ring as JBL promised to help Orton. JBL took off and Orton’s all by himself. The two went at it but Cena caught him with a shoulder block. Cena loaded Orton up and FU’d the pants off him and posed for the crowd. RAW THOUGHTSShow Thoughts-- I honestly am really surprised at how badly the WWE dropped the ball tonight.
The opening 30 minutes of the show completely killed the crowd. There was DEFINITE disappointment in the way they’ve decided to take everything and I gotta say I’m one of them.
There’s NO DOUBT that I think John Cena and Randy Orton should be the two to headline the Wrestlemania show this year. Both have had fantastic years in and out of the ring, the story is SO there for a main event that probably would have had as much heat heading into it as I can remember since Austin-Rock at WM X7. Instead, we’ve got this really overbooked thing where we’ve got an elimination chamber that looks like a distraction more than it does an interesting swerve. Umaga’s got little shot, JBL and Jericho are in the middle of a great feud and that gets put off more, Hardy really should be in something where there’s more focus on him and Michaels and Triple H are a sore case of been there, done that.
Don’t get me wrong, Cena-Triple H will draw gangbusters at the box office, but for whatever money the WWE’d be making on that main event I feel they’d be making twice as much over the long haul with Orton-Cena. Sure, Cena’s walking out and it’s predictable and all but it leaves both in a good place and caps off a feud in the most appropriate of places for a feud like that to more or less end. Conversely, I think a Triple H-Cena match doesn’t do much good for anyone. If Cena loses, the last few years might as well have not even happened. If Cena wins, it’s really not doing anything for him his last two WM wins (one ironically of which was over Triple H) already did.
I’ve gotta say for the first time in a while I’m really sour on the way WWE’s decided to handle all this and to be honest, it couldn’t be at a more worse time for everyone involved.
DESPITE the fact that all that killed the crowd for the rest of the show there were some definite bright spots including a really good DX-Umaga/Snitsky tag and a shockingly fun Melina-Maria match that I didn’t expect to get out of them.
Really though, it’s nearly impossible for me to get past the poor decision on the part of the ‘E to go with the booking they did. The rest of the show was booked pretty oddly to boot, as it was obvious they were looking for a big reaction from the crowd on the elimination chamber announcement. The first not so great Raw I can remember in a while.
Overall Grade: C-
Quick Results
Beth Phoenix & Jillian def. Mickie James & Ashley
Carlito def. Hardcore Holly
DX def. Umaga & Snitsky
Kennedy def. Brian Kendrick
Maria def. Melina
Randy Orton & JBL def. Chris Jericho & Jeff Hardy
Who’s Hot, Who’s Not?
Biggest Pops
1. DX
2. John Cena
3. Jeff Hardy
4. Chris Jericho
Most Heat
1. Randy Orton
2. JBL
3. Umaga
4. Mr. Kennedy
Match of the Night: DX v. Snit sky & Umaga **1/4
Power Rankings5 Points= Title Win
4 Points= World Title defense/win
3 Points= Singles PPV Win
2 Points= Tag PPV Win
2 Points= TV Singles Win
1 Point= TV Tag Win
0 Points= Loss
WWE Champion: Randy Orton 3-1, 5pts. (Last Week: WWE Champion) --Orton puts together another strong week with a pair of big wins and some good stick work to boot. He’s looking to be in trouble though heading into the No Way Out show.
Intercontinental Champion: Jeff Hardy 2-2, 4pts. (Last Week: IC Champion)— Here’s a guy who I feel bad for here. Rug’s been ripped right out from under him with not only losing clean (which isn’t really a bad thing) but moreso, no real follow up to his push. Sometimes it’s not the title match that gets guys like him to stick, it’s what they do with him afterwards.
1. Shawn Michaels 4-0, 6pts. (Last Week: 1) —I’m going to keep HBK in the #1 spot thanks to the best record on the brand right now.
1. Triple H 3-1, 5pts.(Last Week: 2) -- Looks to be headed back to a Wrestlemania main event I really don’t think he should be anywhere near right now. Bleh.
3. Ken Kennedy 2-1, 5pts. (Last Week: 4)-- Kennedy’s looking better these days. He’s had some seriously great stick work, but the ring work seems tighter and now that he’s got a legit finisher, it’s easier for him to structure matches. He’s looked better in the past few weeks.
4. Ric Flair 2-0, 4 points (Last Week: 5) -- Win over MVP vaults him up comfortably into the top five. Woooo!
5. Chris Jericho 1-3, 2pts. (Last Week: 3)-- Worked a strong enough match with JBL at the Rumble but again, seems like they’re going to have to kill a lot of time to keep this going through the elimination chamber silliness.
6. JBL 2-1, 4 points (Last Week: 7) -- Moving up slowly but surely. He played a great supplemental role in the main event tonight. Too bad the thing with Jericho is on pseudo hold though.
7. Umaga 1-2, 2 points(Last Week: 6) -- Definitely floating aimlessly right now. It’s a total waste.
8. Carlito 2-1, 4 pts. (Last Week: 10) -- Carlito bumps up back into the top 10, but considering the way they’ve been (barely) using him, I doubt we’ll see much anytime soon.
9. John Cena 1-0, 3 points. (Last Week: INJURED) -- Rumble win helps him make a big splash in a big way. Cena’s back in the saddle for sure.
10. Hardcore Holly 1-1, 1pt.. (Last Week: 8) — I’m not going to dump Holly, despite losing to Carlito. Terrible short match and all from both, but really I don’t feel like Carlito’s really moved ahead of Holly in any capacity. Argue with me all you want. It’s my list!
OTHERS :
Cody Rhodes 0-1, 0 points (Last Week: 9)
Jerry Lawler 0-0 points (Last Week: 10)
Lance Cade 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: 8)
Santino Marella 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: 9)
Paul London 0-0, 0 points(Last Week: NR)
Brian Kendrick, 0-2, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Trevor Murdoch 0-2, 0 points (Last Week: 7)
Super Crazy 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
William Regal 0-2 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Bobby Lashley 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: INJURED)
Ron Simmons 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Harry Smith 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Jim Duggan 0-0, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Rory 0-2, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Charlie Haas 0-1, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Robbie 0-2, 0 points (Last Week: NR)
Mick Foley 1-0, 1 point (Last Week: NR)
Sgt. Slaughter 0-0. 0 pts. (Last Week: NR)
Val Venis 0-0 0pts. (Last Week: NR)
Snitsky 1-2, 2 points (Last Week: 10)