[derfsucks]

WWE.com's got the RAW preview up - if you're interested, click www.wwe.com/shows/raw/preview/ cause I don't feel like cutting and pasting ...

A few websites have offered up **SPOILER** news bytes for tonight - and though I'm avoiding them all, I'm sure I'd be right if I guessed they'd involve some sort of 'retirement ceremony' for the Nature Boy tonight.

Thoughts?

EDIT TO ADD: Wrestling Observer reports that at some point throughout Mania, there was an announced match-up of Orton and JBL vs. Finlay and Cena -- wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=22460, if you're willing to scroll through the shilling ... That one's not confirmed, but from the WWE preview, we get:

** Flair's 'farewell address'
** Y2J vs. CM Punk
** Maria vs. Santino Marella (yes, seriously)

[bdbdbd]

We should be gearing up towards another draft, even though I swear we just had one less than 6 months ago. There's a three hour Raw in three weeks, it'd make sense there, so it'll probably be announced tonight.

[jetskid48]

I think it was June last year, and that's a bit later than usual right? Either way, there's a good need for a bit of change on each show (as well as the dismantling of ECW forever), so they might as well do it now. It's a new season after Wrestlemania, so its a good time to make changes.



That means you, Paul London. Bye Bye.

[Lucky]

Stop getting my hopes up.

[derfsucks]

bd said:

We should be gearing up towards another draft, even though I swear we just had one less than 6 months ago. There's a three hour Raw in three weeks, it'd make sense there, so it'll probably be announced tonight.

Yeah, the April 21st RAW would make sense at this point (clarified).

Does anyone think that we have any chance of seeing the brand split finally run its course anytime in the near future (say, the next year or so)? I just don't get why it's still in place.

[jetskid48]

luckylopez said:

Stop getting my hopes up.

Lockdown will outsell Wrestlemania.

derfsucks said:

Yeah, the April 21st RAW would make sense at this point (clarified).

Does anyone think that we have any chance of seeing the brand split finally run its course anytime in the near future (say, the next year or so)? I just don't get why it's still in place.

It's not going to end anytime soon. The Smackdown/Raw element, while hurting depth somewhat, is actually great for the talent. Instead of having to work two nights of tv, they only work one now, they wind up doing one less house show, most of the time, per week, and it winds up giving more jobs to people as they need big enough brands for 2 1/2 shows.

If anything needs to end....ECW deserves to die though. I'd be all for that.

[Pun]

I got this from one of the "cut & paste" sites, whom I assume got it from one of the reputable sites.

This afternoon Ric Flair was a guest on Mark Packer's syndicated radio show "Primetime With The Packman". Flair got very emotional during the interview and shed some light on his future in pro wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Flair said that he will not be going into announcing, but will be working with WWE in a "public relations" capacity moving forward. The Nature Boy has several years left on his WWE contract.

Flair also added, "They're doing something big for me on Raw tonight but no one will tell me what it is.

I've heard they are keeping it a secret from Flair all day today.

[Deadly]

Saw this on wwe.com (I was extremely bored, ok?!?)



No "John Cena" option, eh?

[jetskid48]

Full on movie filming time?

[derfsucks]

jetskid48 said:

Full on movie filming time?

Good guess for Cena - I'm assuming a flick could keep him away from full-time through at least the next PPV.

Anyone got odds on having someone interrupt Flair's farewell address tonight?

[Pun]

No Vince?


Not that that's a bad thing.

[Riot Act]

Wow. That's all I can really say. That was perfect. It was class all the way.

There's something about seeing your heroes, guys you put on such a pedestal (let alone Ric freaking Flair) cry like a baby that makes you do the same. By the time the Horsemen music started up, I'm man enough to admit that I was a waterfall.

Most of the time, I'm almost embarassed to be a wrestling fan, let alone a guy who wants to wrestle himself. Right now, I'm just proud.

[Angle]

I didn't cry but I'll admit I was damned close to doing so.

Earlier today, my one wish was to see the Horsemen come out at the end and congratulate Ric. Wow, its gonna be weird not seeing Flair anymore.

Also great to see that Cryme Tyme got rehired.

[BFG]

So did Taker get suspended or something? Because there was no good reason for him not to be out there with the rest of the guys.

[Riot Act]

I'm guessing kayfabe. "Dead Man" Taker wouldn't really be seen hugging a crying man.

[Angle]

riotact said:

I'm guessing kayfabe. "Dead Man" Taker wouldn't really be seen hugging a crying man.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

[jetskid48]

Should have stuck him out there in his Taker street clothes and hid him in the crowd on the ramp till the show ended...everyone should have been out there.

[paddler]

I welled up more than a few times throughout the show. A thoroughly awesome moment and one that Ric, the other performers, and the WWE can genuinely be proud of. We see a lot of shit put on the screen in front of us, but tonight more than made up for a helluva lot of it. The one thing that would have made it perfect would have been for the industry just to let friends be friends and have allowed some of the TNA guys, especially Sting, to cross over just to say their own thanks to Ric.

[derfsucks]

Damn, what a first week to recap.

We open with a "Flair's Last Match" montage and come out of the RAW theme with John Cena's music - no, wait, HHH's music - ah, never mind, it was all a ruse of Randy Orton's. I like Orton's opening, "What - expecting someone else?" but it's all downhill from there. Blahblahblah "respect" blahblahblah "people I've beat (Jeff Hardy mentioned on TV, surprisingly)" blahblahblah. Of all folks, JBL is out to say that not only was Orton's Wrestlemania match pathetic, but his title reign is too. JBL's Smackdown reign was "predicated on dominance," while Orton's RAW reign is "predicated on luck." Ouch. He finishes verbally abusing Orton and leaves. Randy gets all huffy over it and doesn't notice Matt Hardy streaking through the crowd to attack him from behind. Things spill outside the ring, Orton gets a good shot in on Mattitude and heads up the rampway.

Backstage, Regal and Hardy get into an awkward shouting match that goes nowhere. Back to the ring where Cade and Murdoch are awaiting the entrance of ... CRYME TYME? Sweet. I know I'll take shit for this, but they're great for the tag-team division in a Santino Marella kind of way. Sweet double-team move sees JTG lean back on the top turnbuckle and put his legs over Shad's shoulders for Shad to whip him forward by the ankles onto Murdoch on the mat. Uneventful match with lots of clubberin by the Rednecks. JTG gets a roll up on Murdoch for the three, and no one in the ring seems to know that was supposed to be the end of the match. Hilarious, no joke - everyone including the ref was looking around jabbering, and it took a good 15 seconds for Shad to realize that he needed to stop gawking and celebrate, heh.

RAW did offer up clip segments of great Flair moments all night - Flair/Race from Starrcade '83, Flair/Steamboat from WrestleWar '89, Flair winning the Royal Rumble, etc ...

HBK is out to, as JR put it, "pour his heart out." Somber segment as HBK still seems conflicted about having to retire one of the best in the business. He gave Flair his 'A' game out of respect, but now he has to live with the fact that he put his boy Flair out of the business. He leaves pretty quickly after that line, hanging his head all the way back up the ramp. JR plugs Jericho/Punk, and Lawler confirms Hardy/Orton tonight as well.

Regal has a run-in with HBK in the back and tells HBK that he just did what he had to at Mania, while implying it was about time someone did the deed. Regal scoots off and leaves HBK to realize that a very metrosexual looking, leather-jacket clad DAVE Batista is giving him the stink-eye from over his shoulder. He glares at DAVE and exits stage right.

Holly/Rhodes are up next in a non-title match against London and Kendrick. JR claims Londrick have 'worked out their issues' but Kendrick doesn't look too interested in being there. JR says something to the effect of, 'I think that Bob Holly's quite the motivator' and I laugh hysterically. London's taking Holly's chops like they're samurai sword shots, even bumping from the corner up and over the top turnbuckle to the floor on one. He then waltzes right back into the ring to take that nasty full flip clothesline bump of his. Damn. Hot tag to Kendrick after some beating. London pulls the top rope down and sends Holly to the floor, Rhodes pummels London down after him, and Kendrick sneaks up to roll Rhodes up with a back bridge for the three count ... Holy shit, London and Kendrick won?!?!?!? Kendrick's showing off some attitude with that post-match celebration of his.

Rev Theory is here. Woo hoo. Y2J saunters out with a heelish swagger and some stubble to match. Damn, I love CM Punk's theme music. He's already got the Money in the Bank briefcase personalized - nice touch of pride there. This could rule or something. Consecutive (not dueling) C-M-Punk/Y-2-J chants from the crowd. Standard 'feeling out' matwork turns into a few near fall rollups, and now there's a dualing "Let's Go Jericho/C-M-Punk" round going on. Jericho takes control and noticably calls a few spots both verbally and with gestures to Punk. Punk drops down and Y2J whiffs on the springboard apron dropkick, landing rudely on his face. Yikes. Jericho's back up and misses on a sliding dropkick from the ring to the floor, landing and eating a kick to the head for his troubles. Back in the ring with some clubbering and soon there's a fab end sequence full of reversals, misses and counters of both Go to Sleep and the Walls of Jericho (and even more spot calling) leading to Punk eating the Code Breaker. Y2J regains his heat in a nice, albeit clumsy match.

Big Show's out to a standing ovation sporting a brass knuckles 'bruise' on his chin/cheek. Show's awesome here, "congratulating" Mayweather, his bodyguards, trainers and other entourage members for beating him at Mania, heh. During this spiel, there's a crowd shot of some fan holding a giant set of spray painted gold styrofoam/cardboard brass knux on a fake gold chain - so great. Show gets a bit misty-eyed referencing Flair's HOF induction speech, and right as he's saying that he's going back to being a big nasty bastard, Khali interrupts. Khali gets in his face and yells unintelligibly. Show tells him to get out of his face and puts up his dukes. After telling Khali that he's going to knock him out, Khali just steps back over the top rope and leaves. Seriously - it was obvious that Khali wasn't going to interrupt to go point/counter point with Show, so the least he could've done was at least cheapshot him or something. Show was good on the stick, though.

Santino's in the back inflating his warm-up squats count when he sees Maria. Comic gold spews from Marella, who asks the ex if she got her rabies shots after friending around with Snoopy the Dog. He asks if Snoop took her out for kibbles and bits, and laughter made things blurry after that. It all ends with Santino wondering exactly how he should release his frustrations on Maria, so she slaps him silly.

Straight to Orton/Hardy, and the champ enters first? Anyways, slobberknocker to start. From the ring to the floor, Orton back in and Hardy feeds him a jawbreaker to the top rope from the apron. Matt throws out some generic offense and heads to the second rope, but Orton sweeps his legs out from under him and sends him crashing to the mat flat on his back. Back from commercial and Orton's been working Hardy's head and neck. Orton puts Matt on top, but Matt fights him off and hits a moonsault for two. Now we're back to slobberknocking again - wait, here's a Side Effect by Hardy for two. Twist of Fate blocked, Orton with a huge European forearm, misses another and winds up in a backslide for two. Hardy goes for the Loudest Legdrop in Wresting, but Orton bails to the floor. Hardy crashes down on him from the ring and very serenely nails a Twist of Fate on the floor, though he has problems getting Orton's dead weight back into the ring. Surprise, though! Orton was playing possum (after a Twist of Fate ON THE FLOOR, mind you) and hits the RKO on Hardy getting back into the ring for the victory. Superman Cena's got nothing on Orton tonight. Damn good match, though, even if it relied a bit too heavily on button-mash brawling.

A pre-taped Dusty Rhodes calls Ric Flair an "national treasure." Orton's rubbing his neck in the locker room post-match, and JBL lingers around long enough to take the belt from him and give it a loving gaze. I do not want to know what sort of hazing can take place with a championship belt.

Maria/Santino is an Anything Goes match, though Regal declares that Lawler'd better not get involved or else. No matter. Santino locks up with Maria and flops her face first on the mat. He misses an elbow drop before getting swarmed by a gaggle of Divas out from the back. The girls whoop him for a bit and hold him out spread eagle for Maria to salute the crowd and hit him with the 'Whassup' headbutt for the three count. Poor Santino.

The "Flair Farwell" was beyond words. The RAW CG touts him as "2008 Hall of Famer Ric Flair" and it just seems odd even at his age that he's done in the ring. Flair gives a REAL nice, short speech to everyone, stopping to answer a "Thank you, Flair" chant with, "No, let me thank you!" He gives a 'whoooo' and prepares to leave when Motorhead announces the arrival of a smirking, slightly misty-eyed HHH, who bows down to Ric before bringing out The Four Horseman (Blanchard, Dillon, AA and Windham), Ricky Steamboat, Harley Race, Greg the Hammer Valentine and Dean Malenko. Y2J and Cena both hit the ring in full fanboy awe mode, Flair's family comes out and in a neat visual, almost the entire WWE roster hits the ramp to applaud Flair. Seeing the rampway full from front to back of bodies is quite the tribute, indeed.

By the way, God bless Festus for staying in character during the roster march at the end of the show.

[Riot Act]

Just a few more non Flair-related thoughts on the show:

- One of strangest Raw episodes in a while.

- SHOW'S GONNA KILL YOU! might just be my favourite chant ever.

- Nice to see (or rather hear) some of the Wanks in attendance tonight.

- We actually got some good wrestling tonight. Both tag matches were decent, Hardy/Orton was a good little brawl and I thought Jericho/Punk was very good. I hope to see more from those two in the future.

- I'm intrigued as to where they are going with Londrick. All seems well with them, but Kendrick's post-match "attitude" and the fact that they actually WON must mean something. Right?

- Santino fucking slayed me tonight. ...making pasta and making babies. I want that on a t-shirt somehow.

[bdbdbd]

I wonder how many people know "Show's Gonna Kill You" goes all the way back to the original ECW and Taz.

[Mr. Dashbee]

From what I understand, Vince & 'Taker were part of the celebration once RAW went off the air. And Flair wrestled his final match tonight, defeating his sportcoat with an elbow-drop. Good to see Ric go out on top!

I did tear up, especially with Flair's reaction to his family. I'm sure we'll see Flair on TV again in a year or so. He'd make an even better GM now than when he was GM. I read that he's going to be an ambassador for the WWE. Great choice for the WWE and wrestling in general.

Overall, I liked RAW. I wonder if they'll continue to cross brand lines until the draft, or they are just doing it this week since everyone's in the same place.

[Lucky]

I'm actually under the impression that lots think many of these chants originated in TNA and aren't just a staple of smaller and more loyal crowds and have been at least as far back as ECW. And actually part of me imagines that half of WWE's audience thinks "Show's gonna kill you" was a fully original chant and don't even know the "Joe" part.

derf, good recap but you missed the part where HBK comes out before the roster looking as heartbroken as he did earlier. Flair embraces him but man of the people behind him including Cena, Batista, Arn, and HHH look a bit pensive. They weren't cold or refused to applaud or anything, and HHH made some inside joke with him that went over my head but I do think it might have been a continuation of the Batista foreshadowing from earlier in the show that people are less than happy at HBK's decision. I do expect that in the upcoming weeks we're gonna have HBK remain with his guilt while he gets the cold shoulder from some people. And I certainly expect a Batista/HBK feud with either Batista attacking him in a heel turn or HBK having enough of the cold shoulder and turning heel declaring its not his fault and he's over it.

All the Flair stuff was great and whatever problems I had with the general retirement angle and the messiness of the match last night, from the first figure four last night until the end of RAW I think WWE, HBK, and Flair can be proud of how things went. It is at least something that I have already rewatched once and may very well hang onto (although I'll probably just wait for it and extended versions of the celebration and the Hall of Fame speech to make it onto some DVD release). And like I said, I think they actually did find a way to use it to set up some stories so that should help satisfy some of that "they should have given someone a rub" stuff. Flair's retirement may not have been a terribly compelling wrestling angle to me but the personal stuff was top notch and the potential is there for engaging stories to come out of it.


Rest of RAW was weird but that was easily the most enjoyable one I've seen in a long time. Not to say there was a lot I have to praise about it and as I make some notes I'm not sure I have more than a few guys for my early 12-Pack ballot but it had something that I've used to praise ECW and TNA in the past and which bothers me about RAW. It felt like they were trying new things and that we were in state of change. Now do I have any interest in a JBL/Orton feud or did I want to see Hardy in the title race? Can't say I do. But it was different and unexpected without being illogical and seeming to be there just for the sake of swerves and surprises instead of doing something with meat. So for one week it got me interested and probably has me interested in next week. As opposed to the last few months where I just assume I know exactly how the main event picture will play out from week to week because it hasn't really changed in forever.

Cryme Tyme? Huh. Can't say I was their biggest fan the first go around but it was a surprise and I'll give it a shot. I really would like to see Ron Killings show up with them as his backup, just like I wanted them to show up in TNA as his and Pacman's backup. Think Mayweather will be Killings' buddy?

London and Kendrick winning was a surprise but it certainly seems to all be foreshadowing to a Kendrick heel re-turn. Which I really don't care for since I doubt either guy will advance far in WWE as singles wrestlers, but at this stage they haven't been going anywhere as tag wrestlers. I guess that I should be optimistic that the turn and split can be done better than it seemed to be done last week and that maybe there's a bit more hope for their usage than there was a week ago. And at the worst maybe WWE decides after a split that they are of no use to them and releases them where they can head back to ROH or to TNA or whatever. Point is, WWE showing some interest in them is basically a reason to believe there will be change, and change is inherently interesting.

Kane as ECW champ, Punk with the MitB, JBL vs Orton. None of these things really appeal to me but the thing they have in common is that they're different from what we've gotten and thus give me a real reason to care and tune in and wonder where its all going.


Ok, now that I was all positive and hopeful I gotta say this. Boy. Get Big Show back and in the best shape of his career and get me a little interested in seeing a performer I like a lot motivated and pushed... and stick him with a feud with a celebrity in an ill cast feud with no true payoff potential. And then when that's over stick him with that walking sack of suck the Great Khali. Since I've been positive and optimistic this entire post can I take this time to commend WWE for managing to sap my interest in damn near every roster addition they've made the last year or so that I was initially interested in? Show, Jericho, CM Punk, Harry Smith, Paul Burchill, Monty Brown, Elijah Burke. WWE has a knack lately for taking guys I'm interested in and making them uninteresting long enough until that dies.

[salmonjunkie]

Dammit! My DVR ddn't tape all of Raw. It cut off as HBK was heading to the ring. Who came in after him?

[Lucky]

He was the last single guy out. Flair embraced him while a couple of guys gave him the stink eye (Batista specifically). Then HHH invited everyone else out and the lockerroom emptied. Show stepped into the ring to hug Ric but otherwise they just all stood on the rampway applauding Ric and starting a "Thank you, Ric" chant. Pretty much everyone in WWE you would expect except the Taker and Vince.