Dark Age

Yeah. Because JBL is a MUCH better opponent than Booker. Oh and the Booker/Eddie match was the best SD match since the draft. Of course, that means nothing because the show sucks, but still.

Jericho should challenge Benoit at Vengeance. Booker T should challenge Eddie at SummerSlam. Triple H should get his rematch against Benoit at SummerSlam. And lose to end the feud. Benoit will then face Christian at Unforgiven or No Mercy (depending on which is Raw). Eddie can maybe drop the belt to Book for a couple of months before getting it back to restart the feud with Kurt. Benoit can then beat heel Shawn to end that feud, then go on to face Edge. He would have had the belt for about 9 months at this point, so maybe have Edge win it or something.

Does he even have a character to begin with?

What's with all the dog hate?

I think there is two ls. Oh, and Ostriches. Vile, vile things.

That be the Devil himself. Moths for me. Horrid creatures, or insects or whatever the hell they are.

Ha. I called the Tag Title match. The preview makes no mention of the IC Title, so I'm betting that it's a Non Title match with Shelton going over to finally prove to Orton that he deserves a shot. Long sentence there. Still, I'm hoping for 2 good, long matches from both. Some Eugene antics and I will be set.

Or, better yet, no Sting at all! Just don't sign him then you won't need to put him on either brand.

Benoit and Edge vs La Resistance, I'm thinking for tonight.

Just reading on 411 that Christian is going to be back in 2 weeks. I dunno what the hell Coach was talking about.

What reason do they have to care about them? Maybe if they were actually used once in a while people would care.

No Edge, Coffey? And I don't think Christian did get injured in the cage match. It is something to do with his back but I don't know what. Still 2-3 months of Jericho-Tomko (God forbid) is not something I want to see.

You're insane.

I think Triple H vs Shawn will be 'the main event' but Benoit vs Kane will go on last, if that makes any sense.

Fantastic.

Agreed. I think Benoit vs Kane (so long as it gets time and Kane isn't working injured) could be really good. It just would be the show that I go to that they have their worst and quickest match, wouldn't it? BTW, on the Int. Heat today, Coach announced that Christian would be out for 2-3 months. Which os both good and bad. Good - Christian vs Jericho will be fesh once Christian is back for, hopefully, SummerSlam. Bad - Jericho vs Tomko

Screw ending the split. Everything that needs to be said is said above me. The reason Raw has become as good as it is now is simply because SmackDown! got screwed big time. They lost Benoit, Edge, Shelton, Hardy, Tajiri, Rhyno, Train and Palumbo to Raw, lost Angle and Show to injury, Brock walked out, Taker hardly ever appears and is in the Deadman gimmick (not good) and whereas Raw is pushing alot of new guys like Eugene, Tajiri (not exactly, but he's made to be more important than when he was on SD) and Shelton, SmackDown!'s new stars/big pushes are Mark Jindrak, Suzuki, Mordecai, Bradshaw, Chavo Classic and Mark Jindrak. It's prefectly clear why SD sucks. It's just that they won't do anything about it.

I was going to put these up last night, but I didn't get back until 2am. Crowd is buzzing. The lights go out and 'The Fink' appears in the ring. Huge pop for him. "Hello Newcastle". I couldn't decide whether that was really funny or really sad. Either way the crowd didn't care, still popping huge. I thought they would have got all over him for that. He babbles on for a while before introducing a very special guest. I had to expect she would be here after reading the other show reports, but I didn't really care either way. Yep, it's Stephanie McMahon. Another huge pop for her. It's funny being surrounded by marks. All of them were gasping and going nuts, talking about Stephanie 'being back'. They wondered what she would do to Vince, and why she is on Raw. She talks for a bit, but the mic is really quiet and so we can barely even hear her. Of course when you can't hear Stephanie McMahon, you know what she has to do, right? Yep, she starts screeching and screaming all over the arena. Ugh. She says some things that only the first few rows can hear (no else reacted), and gets booed for it. She then says something about Manchester which get's cheared. I'm sure she was just going through the usual 'mention other cities, then say yours to get a cheap pop' routine. She tells us to have a good time, blah blah blah, leaves and it's time for our first match. Match #1 Matt Hardy V.01 vs Batista Fink announces the match will be for one fall, whcih gets a big pop for some reason. I guess everyone was just excited we were getting underway. OH YEAH! Large pop for Matt. You're gonna have to deal with me looking for vaious ways to say someone got a really big pop, because everyone did tonight. Batista enters to another big reaction. Very mixed thoguh. More boos, but some people were cheering him. Bell rings, crowd pops, we are underway. Stalling for a couple of minutes as both guys try to get the crowd's support. Hardy poses, gets cheered. Batista poses, booed. Big 'Hardy' chant from the crowd. Batista tosses Matt about for a while before Matt comes big with a few punches. Doesn't last long though, as he gets sent into the corner ribs first, and then back first. Crowd was insanely hot. Batista tosses Matt over the top, then puts him in a bearhug in the ring. Crowd get's behind Matt again. He fights back. Matt gains the advantage and hit's a plancha. Back in the ring, sit-out powerbomb is attempted but Matt fights out if it. Matt with the Yodelling leg Drop gets two. TOF is blocked by Batista, who then hits a spinebuster for 3. Winner: Batista in about 7 or 8 minutes Opinion: Not bad actually. Batista has improved ALOT, and Matt is Matt so it was okay. Crowd heat was great, and this was a decent opener. *1/2 After the match, Batista hits another spinebuster then leaves. Referee reverses the decision. MATT WINS! Winner (Take 2): Matt Hardy by DQ after the referee reversed his decision Batista returns again to give Matt another spinebuster before leaving. Levaes to alot of heat. Matt finally gets up and leaves to a big pop. Match #2 Hurricane and Rosey vs Rob Conway and Sylvain Grenier Howard announces this a tag team match (duh) which gets another pop for some reason. Big heat for La Resistance and a big pop for Helms and Rosey. Not bad, actually. Much better than Raw. Rosey had an actual superhero outfit on! No more homemade threads for him. It was orange and blue, and looked pretty cool. Hurricane with some high flying stuff to begin with, which the crowd is digging. Crowd popped for an armdrag! La Resistance gained the upper hand and dropped Hurricane on the barricade. FIP process began. They delayed the hot tag for about 5 minutes. Crowd chanted USA! This was one crazy crowd. EUGENE came out to a really big pop. He took his jacket off to reveal an England football jersey which just made the crowd pop even more. Rosey got the hot tag and did the usual. Eugene got in the ring and started riding Conway which the crowd loved. Conway went nuts and through Eugene's shirt to the outside. Eugene jumped out after it. Conway and Eugene arguing as Rosey got hit with the flag. Cover got a hot 2 count. Blind tag Hurricane. More arguing between Conway and Eugene which led to Eugene tossing the jacket at Conway. Distraction allowed Helms to hit the neckbreaker/samoan drop combo for the win. Regal escorted Eugene to the back as the super hero and his S.H.I.T (or is he a superhero now that he has a costume?) celebrated. Winners: Hurricane and Rosey in about 9 or 10 minutes Opinion: Solid stuff. Just the usual formula tag match, but it works and there was some nice work from Hurricane plus the hot crowd. ** Match #3 Rhyno vs Garrison Cade You know the crowd is hot when Garrison Cade is getting alot of heat. Rhyno chants from the go. They do the lockup and roll to the outside still in a lockup bit then head back in the ring. Cade goes down and he's injured. Yeah, right. I think I was the only one who knew what was going on, because, you know, I'm cool and everything. Cade stayed down for about 5 minutes. They really dragged it on. He finally goes to leave as the crowd applauds. Rhyno holds the ropes open and Cade (you're gonna be shocked. I know I was) is actually okay, so he boots Rhyno to the outside. Jumping Jacks just incase we missed the point. He rolls Rhyno back in the ring and gets 3. Off a kick? Winner: Garrison Cade Opinion: Hardly even a match. DUD Match #4 Randy Orton vs Shelton Benjamin Ooh, now we're getting somewhere. Crowd popped for Shelton, but Orton get a MONSTER reaction. Well that surprised me. Everyone popped for his entrance, but most were behind Shelton in the match. Good opening to the match, and the last few minutes were really good but they seemed kinda lost for the brunt of the match. It never seemed like they had any actual story or purpose behind the middle portion, and it just seemed like they were wasting time until they could start firing off the near falls, rather than building to them. Alot of chain wrestling to begin with which the crowd didn't seem to get. Shelton gains the upper hand, but Orton drops him on the barricade. Shelton takes a great catapult into the ringpost, which looked really neat. After this it just kinda died. Orton needs to get him a good submission move or something, because at this point he just switched between a variety of restholds. The chinlock, bodyscissors, camel clutch and abdominal stretch were all used. They didn't build to anything, or have any purpose behind them, it was just wasting time. Anyway, once they got that junk out of the way, we had a really hot final 3 or 4 minutes. Shelton got about 5 good nearfalls on Orton. Shel-Shocker got 2. Springboard Crossbody got 2. A great roll-up which seemed like a very lucha manouvre got 2. I can't really describe it. He used the top rope to go into a wheelbarrow forward roll, then rolled backwards for 2. It looked really good. Shelton missed the Blinger Splash, and Orton rolled him up. He get 3 with his feet on the TOP rope. Winner: Randy Orton Opinion: Decent, but the middle portion was boring and served no purpose whatsoever. The ending was great and the opening stuff was decent meaning it was still an okay match, but they really need to improve for Badd Blood. **1/4 Match #5 Triple H vs Shawn Michaels INSANE pops for both guys. The cameras going off when H posed was something to behold. Darn good match that went about 20-25 minutes, but I was expecting more. Still, they didn't hold back or slow down. Shawn bled after hitting the steel steps. H went for a Pedigree on the outside, reversed to a catapult into the ringpost by Shawn. Triple H bled. The last 10 minutes or so were fantastic. Shawn kept fighting, and reversing, every hold used by H. SCM was blocked by H, who then hit the spinebuster for 2. H went for a superplex, but got knocked down. Elbow by Shawn, but H pulled him off the top. Pedigree attempt, reversed to a backbody drop. Flying forearm got 2. Another SCM, this time H ducked, hit a DDT and got another long 2 count. Abdominal Stretch with the ropes by Trips. Shawn fought out of it and got one of his own. Shawn with a crossbody got 2. Up top and the elbow drop got 2. SCM is AGAIN ducked by H, goes for a Pedigree, Shawn reverses to a jacknife ala SS02 and gets..... 2. Brilliant nearfall there. H with the high knee gets 2. Attempts another, Shawn ducks. Shawn with a dropkick misses and H hits the facebuster for 2. A few rollups from both guys get 2. Shawn fights out of a Pedigree and finally hits SCM for the win. Winner: Shawn Michaels Opinion: ***1/4 Match #6 Chris Jericho vs Tyson Tomko Not much reaction for Tomko, which was weird considering the crowd reacted for anything all night. They reacted for the entrance (Christian's theme) but didn't give a damn about him after that. Trish was met with the usual 'slut chants'. Jericho got a big face reaction, but what's new? This was No DQ, of course. Really bad match. I felt bad for Jericho. I don't like laying it into a gut who debuted just a few weeks ago, but man Tomko was terrible. He had no offense (punches and kicks, never used ANYTHING else) and botched alot of stuff. First botch came when Jericho ducked a clothesline from Tomko, Tomko left his leg trailing. Jericho tried to move but just kinda stumbled for a while, then both guys just wandered around for a bit. The next mess-up came when Jericho went for his springboard dropkick. To be fair, this may or may not have been Tomko's fault but it was still bad. Jericho just completely missed Tomko on the dropkick. Jericho stayed down and Tomko had no clue what to do next, just standing on the apron before coming in, lifting Jericho up and then repeating the spot. The No DQ stipulation hardly played a factor. Trish came into the rin to get spanked, which somehow meant she played dead for the rest of the match. Seriously, a spanking injured her? Tomko tried to use a chair, Jericho ducked and hit an enziguri with Tomko landing on the chair for 3. That was the only time a weapon came into play. The match sucked badly, but the ending was pretty neat. Winner: Chris Jericho Opinion: 1/4* Match # 7 Edge vs Ric Flair Big pop for both guys. The crowd was 'Wooing' (or 'Whooing') all night, so you knew they were gonna go nuts for Flair. And go nuts they did. Flair with the strut early on, so Edge decided to strut his stuff himself. He got booed. He seemed P.Od big time after this and bailed to the outside for the mic. Edge then proceeded to go nuts on the crowd, telling us all to "choke on this with your yellow teeth you British bastards". Wow. So that meant that we had a double turn. Edge was now the heel, Flair the face. Edge was the biggest heel on the show (exception possibly being Bischoff), Flair was just over beyond belief. Edge pretty much played Flair in the match, doing the old begging in the corner before the lowblow and eye poke stuff, hitting chops, etc. Flair went for a sunset flip and pulled Edge's pants down. Edge wrestled the rest of the match with his ass hanging out. He went up top (with his ass out) and got thrown off himself! That wacky Edge. Flair went up top... and it worked! Well he came OFF the top anyway, but didn't actually hit anything. Edge hit the spear.... for 2. Big pop there. Flair with the dropkick to the leg, chopblock and then the Figure-Four. Edge tried to fight it, but had to tap out! Winner: Ric Flair in 10 minutes Opinion: Years better than the Raw match. Edge played a great heel. I presume this was just because of the face reactions Flair has been getting on the tour, but could a heel turn be coming for Edge? It seems like he's getting lost in the shuffle amongst the Raw faces, and a non-Evolution heel is needed. Eventually, either he or Shawn is gonna have to turn. **1/4 Match #8 Victoria vs Lita vs Molly Holly Match lasted about 2 minutes. Victoria had the Tatu theme, which was interesting. She also had the 'Yes, I've lost My Mind' soundbite at the begining, which she has hardly used since turning face. Is she just not allowed to use the theme on tv or something? Victoria got a bigger pop than Lita. Match was really rushed. Whethe rit was due to someone being injured, or rushing to finish by the advertised time (10.30), I dunno but nothing of note happened here. Molly got tossed out. Then came back in and tossed Lita out. Victoria hit the Widows Peak. That was the match. Lita had almost exited the second the match ended. Winner: Victoria Opinion: DUD Match #9 Chris Benoit vs Kane Huge pops for both guys. Kane's pyro scared the crap out of everybody. Really rushed. They wanted to be finished by the 10.30 bell time, I presume, meaning the last two matches were really rushed. This one only lasted about 8 minutes, when I was expecting about 15-20. It was booked HORRIBLE. It really was. It may have just been the UK crowd, but this match made Kane look like a HUGE babyface. First, for the first 3 minutes, Benoit kept on bailing on stalling. Not wise to do that with your babyface champ. Then, the actual match was about 5 minutes long. Kane hit a big boot, took the turnbuckle pad off, Benoit reversed Kane into the corner getting a nearfall. Benoit attempted the sharpshooter, Kane fought out. Benoit with 3 Germans. Headbutt, Kane set up, no selling it. Benoit with a dropkick. Another headbutt. Kane no-sells again. Big mistake there, as the crowd popped big time for Kane sitting up, and it got even bigger the second time. They made Kane look great, no doubt, and they were obviusly expecting that after all this, Benoit making Kane tap would make him look great as well. But still, they are gonna have to change something at BB, otherwise Kane will be turned face during the match. Kane attempts the chokeslam, Benoit reverses to the crossface and gets the tapout. BIG pop there. That was the entire match. Really dissapointing. I suspect it would be much better if they had about 20-25. You can't really fault the wrestlers, though, as the match was booked poorly, and was really rushed. Winner: Chris Benoit in about 8 minutes Opinion: 1/2* Not the best wrestling show I have ever seen, but it was still a great few hours and very enjoyable. I can't really do the top 5 pops and heat because it was just too hard to tell. Everyone got a great reaction. Edit - Report is done.

How about Taker beats Mordecai at SummerSlam, the feud ends and Mordecai dissapears? That sounds better than wasting months of tv time on a feud that's dead (oh, what delicious pun!) from the start.

This man can work the WWE style. I do not see what the problem is. Look a couple weeks ago Brian Christopher got a second chance. I miss your point.

Jericho vs Benoit and Christian vs Benoit should both be Title matches before they even think about Orton. They have years with Orton, they don't need to push him to the main event now because he has improved a bit.

Benoit vs Kane Triple H vs Shawn Orton vs Shelton Flair and Batista vs Edge and Tajiri Jericho, Matt and Lita vs Christian, Tomko and Trish Eugene, Hurricane and Rosey vs Cade, Conway and Grenir (add Coach and Regal for an 8 man if you want) Victoria vs Gail Kim Another filler match if you want.

You're right. It is a bad idea.

Still wasn't right though. The guy was an idiot for even getting involved, and for letting New Jack do the blade job for him, but still. Mass Transit died, like, last year, right?

........... I meant to say Mark Jindrak.