Raw Road Report

We set off at 5am for the plane and with no cars on the road Manchester was only fifteen minutes away. After checking in involving a bizarre experience with a stag party which contained roughly forty men dressed as various characters such as Scooby Doo, Buzz Lightyear, Sylvester, a Pink Lady (of Grease fame) everything went smoothly. A fine plane ride ensued and the luggage came off the carousel as soon as we stepped off the plane. There was a little wait until the final leg of the journey occurred on the train but a Jeremy Clarkson book ensured it flew by. The train journey couldn’t have gone smoother; fine connections and perfectly on time, everything was going swimmingly. It was a half mile from the station to the hotel and thanks to the huge landmark that is Wembley stadium it was no problem to find. Of course we arrived there far too early and couldn’t check in for another two and a half hours, or so I thought until they said we could check in right away!

So everything had gone perfectly, surely something else must be go wrong? The show’s cancelled? We’ve lost the tickets? Hunter’s water bottle hits me clean on the head on knocks me out? Well luckily nothing that extreme happened more a case of a disappearing Asda. I looked on the internet where the Asda website informed me that there was a store 0 miles from the hotel. From that I expected to step outside of my hotel and step into the store. Incorrect. So I decided to take a walk around the stadium. A bunch of people were hanging around all with wrestling t-shirts on, I got chatting to a few of them about who’d turned up and who they’d seen. I have to say this is the greatest part of the trip, the fan interaction. As a wrestling fan, I am totally a minority in fact I know nobody who watches wrestling (at least on a semi-regular basis) anymore so attending these shows and having the opportunity to interact with like-minded people is great.

It turned out that Big Show and Viscera had made an appearance in the canteen (no surprises there) and Joey Styles had also got himself some lunch. Talk of the hunger reminded me that I was in fact very hungry and as I could see the big Asda sign in the distance I headed off for my sandwich… until I nearly reaches ‘Asda’ and it turned out it wasn’t Asda at all it was some stupid green store (no clue what the name is). Turning to my left Asda was visible and this time I can guarantee it was Asda. Finding it was another matter; after heading towards it, the four green letters faded out of view. After half an hour of searching I finally found it and got my food. Why I am writing this? You want the wrestling don’t you? Yes.

It turned out that I missed seeing Flair and King enter but I got my sandwich so everybody’s happy. It came to Raw and although the actual TV show didn’t seem that good, from where I was standing it was awesome. This is my third event of been to and the atmosphere was never as good as this before the show started. Wooooos, Eddie chants and we want God chants, Cena sucks and Cena rules chants prevailed through the arena until Lillian made her way to ring. Some bloke behind me was in love with Lillian and he let it be known throughout the show, unfortunately she never acknowledged it once. She sang the national anthem greater than the England football team has ever sung it before and announced it was time for Heat.

Surprisingly, Big Show was out first to a huge pop (half because he’s Show, half because he was the first guy out). Show is over huge with kids, they love the guy, I suppose it’s the fact that he’s seven foot and looks like he’d kill anybody in sight, take note Vince tough guys work. He faced two jobbers, one of which was German so he got huge heat. The crowd were totally into this as Show took his time to dismantle them, finishing one of them off with a chokeslam where he nearly dropped one guy mid-air. This was a fine opening match that the crowd were into, really perking them up for the rest of the night. This is the way to open a show; an over face winning. Simple.

Lance Cade was the second named guy out of the evening to little reaction as he took on Eugene who was over huge. This was a basic comedy match including Eugene putting on Cade’s hat, hulking up and hitting the Rock bottom. Cade eventually won with the Sweet (I’m guessing that’s what it called as when he did it with Murdoch it was the Sweet and Sour and I presume he’s the sweet guy of the pair). Again another decent match for the live audience with the crowd totally into Eugene.

Goldust & Snitsky teamed for the next match against two jobbers. It was mainly built around comedy spots including Snitsky’s foot fetish where he tried to get his opponents shoe off. A portion of the crowd laughed, but I don’t think that many of them actually got it. Team Bizarre eventually won with some sweet looking German suplex by Snitsky. Sweet looking and Snitsky in the same sentence, there’s something you never thought you’d read. This was probably the match on the card the crowd were least into.

Murdoch versus Kane was the main event with Kane going over in no time with the chokeslam. The crowd were totally into Kane for the same reason they were into Big Show; he’s a well known ass kicker. It was interesting to see that Kane was still wrestling as a babyface here despite his turn on Show last week. The crowd chanted May 19^th at Kane but he gave no reaction to it at all. Another good squash to get the crowd ready for Raw which was next.

Coach came out to loads of heat, Styles came out to no reaction and any attempts at an ECW chant were ignored but Lawler got a huge reaction and plenty of Jerry chants. The Edge/Hunter/Cena saga was comedy gold. Hunter was damn funny with his ripping on Edge and this was apparent amongst the older members of the crowd. The crowd went mad for Hunter and his King of King’s music is awesome live. Plenty of bowing down to him and Triple H chants ensued. When Cena’s music hit the place went crazy; 75% hating him and 25% loving him. It was interesting to see that it wasn’t just kids who loved Cena, plenty of older teenagers and lads in their twenties were chanting for him. The segment went over well with the crowd all in all.

The six-man went over well with huge pops for RVD, Carlito and Shelton. RVD is over huge amongst everyone and there was a lad in the place in front of us who was on his feet all match chanting RVD doing the thumbs, he must have been knackered by the end of the match. Carlito got plenty of chants and Shelton got a good pop. I liked what they did with Carlito by not having him tag in straight away as he has history with RVD. A video or a segment would have been better here highlighting this rather than the Matt Striker heel heat that was attempted to be gained on the Unlimited segment that aired previous. The segments on the show didn’t seem to go over particularly well with the crowd who spent to it talking, can’t blame them really.

Maria did kiss cam which went down well and the two girls kissing got over huge. Fortunately this would not be the only time we’d see Maria that evening. Yay. Kane and Big Show made their Raw appearance in a backstage segment which got a good reaction and more May 19^th chants from the crowd. Most people were asking what the hell May 19^th was, I had no explanation except marketing.

Shane versus Shawn didn’t get a particularly good reaction during the match but got huge pops for Shawn and Vince’s entrances. The elbow through the table went over huge and Vince almost got booed out of the building by the live fans.

Umaga is pretty over. A section of the crowd were chanting his name but I was chanting we want Flair and when Flair finally made his appearance the crowd went wild. They didn’t really know what to chant or say, it was just excitement. The nature boy has still got it with the crowd totally into his chops and thousands of woos coming from all around.

The Trish/Mickie segment fell flat on its face after Trish did the interrupting thing. There was little noise from the crowd as nobody really seemed to care that much which is a shame because actually I like this storyline. They should have a fine match on Sunday.

The main event was awesome. Duelling chants including Fuck You Cena being busted out again and massive pops for Hunter lead to an awesome main event match. The Spirit Sqaud are awesome at just being the Spirit Squad and the crowd loved to hate them. After the cameras stopped rolling Cena got on the mic and commented on the number of DX fans in the house. He asked those who supported Triple H to make themselves known and it was damn loud. He then asked for the Chain Gang to let themselves be known and my god the roof nearly came off the place. The figures seem to flip round and when the heels were quiet the Chain Gang was so loud. Cena pushed the Backlash PPV (it’s free over here John) saying that it was going to be a moment in WWE history when a man comes down to the ring with a sledgehammer in his hand and leaves with a sledgehammer up his ass.

The crowd were awesome for this show, especially during the Cena segements as they totally ate it up. I love the atmosphere that’s created with the two sets of fans for and against the same guy, it makes the show so awesome. It may not have come off well on TV but as a live experience this was just great.

After the show I headed to the place where the wrestlers were leaving and there was quite a crowd there. Security were getting upset because people were looking (yes looking) over the barrier, they really were up their own arses (all but two who’ll I’ll talk about tomorrow). Through the window that looked over the car park I saw Flair and about a hundered backstage guys. This was a really good part of the night because there were a large number of kids outside and women who all loved Cena. As a person who loves to hate Cena I exploited this to the max. An ambulance came out and some kid asked his Dad who was in it; I responded with Cena saying he’s been attacked with a sledgehammer by Triple H. The boys face nearly fell off the end of the earth. I’m not that cruel so I told him I was joking by the way. Somebody drove past in the car with The Time Is Now playing at full blast, I started shouting turn it down and Cena sucks and I got a torrent of abuse from everybody there, but it was all good banter. Like I said before I think this is what is really good about these events.

Eventually RVD came out and gave his wristbands to a couple of fans. This is why RVD is over, he loves the fans so the fans love him. He’s the only guy who came out and I thought that was pretty cool. The coach went past at about midnight with everybody on it. The curtains were shut but Snitsky, Hunter and Victoria had left there’s open so we could see them. A chase ensued with 50 rabid wrestling fans were running after the coaches. We were hoping they were staying nearby but it turned out they weren’t as they sailed off into the night sky, well sailed off through the traffic lights so we lost them.

Overall this was a great experience. A really fun show, mainly due to the awesome atmosphere and meeting some cool people after the show. Shout outs to everybody I spoke to; sorry I tend not to do names (I can never remember them) including the Irish dude who’d traveled over, the guy who didn’t want RVD as champion and all the women and children that got annoyed with me.

I’ll be back with the Smackdown report on Saturday (because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone), don’t forget to download Friday’s podcast with this road report and a big Backlash preview and potentially a Lockdown review.

A Great Weekend in London

I'm back from my trip to London to watch Raw and Smackdown from the Wembley arena. The crowd was awesome both nights and I really hope that this comes across on TV. Raw airs tonight so make sure you check it out.

I'll be posting a full report including my meeting with RVD, Paul Burchill's mother, a run in with Booker T and Mark Henry's love child and bloke who looked like Austin, oh and all the news from the show themselves!

Part 1 should be up on Friday covering Raw and I'll put part 2 covering Smackdown up on Monday to aviod any potential spoilers. A full column will also be up in the next couple of days. In the meantime here's a few photos from the event:

Triple H makes his entrance for the main event on Raw.

Rey Mysterio arrives in London for his World Heavyweight Championship match.

Robson's Raw Thoughts 19th April 2006

Joey Styles welcomes us to Raw as we’re joined by none other than the chairman of the board Vincent K McMahon. Will Mr McMahon go to hell? That’s what he’s asking us; Vince hopes that he has offended us by last weeks church going actions. Vince claims he’s not going to hell, why? Because he ended up where he is now, somewhere in St Louis, cheap heat right there. Vince is now setting up his own religion; McMahonism! I want in! He is the “lord, master and god of all sports-entertainment”, you’re right there. We’re all followers because we buy tickets, nice to know. We’re treated to the McMahonism version of Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel and Vince at the last supper, aren’t religious undertones just great? No? “Boring! Boring!” - the crowd have got this right. Tonight we’re all allowed to convert to McMahonism, we can be disciples of McMahonism, but Shawn Michaels isn’t converting; until Backlash that is, when he falls at the feet of the boss. Vince asks to be struck down if he’s lying. Nothing. What about a sign? Nothing. The god of McMahonism promises victory and wham eat some sweet chin music Vinnie. Shawn back to the ring and gives Vince the DX crotch chop!

Nice little segment here, nice to see Shawn actually get something in on Vince after months of getting screwed. Vince doesn’t half love himself, but the Shawn attack was cool.

Triple H sees Vince backstage and tells Vince to lay off the god stuff, and books Edge and Cena against Hunter, I smell a swerve.

Rob Conway’s in the ring and he’s had enough if being a punching bag. The next person to disrespect him will be dealt with… boom! Kane’s makes is way to the ring and kicks the shit out of Conway. Unfortunately this week we can’t hear what Kane’s thinking, maybe that’ll come later in the evening. The announcers refer to the voices, could they hear them too? Chokelsam 1-2-3. Kane grabs Lillian, but here comes Show, I love Show in a tracksuit. Show gets the chokeslam this week and now two spots have been blown away for nothing. If you didn’t know, Kane’s film is out May 19^th.

We get a package of the Chavo quitting the business, wise move my friend, wise move. JR returns to Raw for the first time since he was ‘fired’ as he interviews Chavo. Chavo says his decision was done in haste, but he let Eddie and everyone down by loosing to Shelton Benjaman and he feels he has made the right decision. Chavo is a damn good interview and a damn fine worker, hopefully they’ll continue to use him. Chavo says it’s all he has ever wanted but he has let down his family. JR says Eddie would be disappointed in Chavo quitting, but Chavo still sees it as the right idea and his wrestling career has come to an end. I like this storyline, as long as they don’t do something stupid with the Eddie reference a la Smackdown.

We’re informed that Lillian has gone to the back after the trauma suffered thanks to Kane, so we’re treated to Coach as ring announcer, unfortunately he’ll be doing colour as well. Shelton’s out first for his match. If RVD wins, Shelton gets MITB shot at Backlash and if he looses he puts the IC belt on the line. His opponent is Charlie Hass! History folks and they’re referencing it! A few nice spots, with Hass flipping over the rope but Shelton making him land on his knee. Shelton focuses on the back whipping him into the steps and hitting a scoop slam on the floor. It’s chin lock time, man this annoys me, you’re working on the back, use a move which hurts the back! At least Hass looks a little different from when we last saw him and he’s no longer just a guy in tights. Crowd even starts chanting for Charlie! Shelton hits rolling thunder, totally mocking RVD, at least they’re doing something to further that feud, Shelton’s looking good in there as is Hass. The mocking continues as he goes for five star, but Shelton misses, Hass roles him up and 1-2-3! Hass wins! It’s Shelton vs RVD at Backlash for the IC Title. Shelton’s IC Champ by the way.

Vince is pissed backstage and Osama (I can’t spell nor remember hi name) and tells us he has convereted and he’s happy to donate Umaga and it will be Umaga going up against Shawn tonight. Shelton comes in begging for help and now he wants to convert, mainly so he doesn’t have to defend the title at the PPV. Vince says he likes people on his knees before him, therefore he’s going to help Shelton.

Umaga’s out first with Osama followed by HBK Shawn Michaels. They’re really pushing the religious part of the McMahon/Michaels feud and it doesn’t appeal to me at all. This is the top of the hour match by the way. One minute in and we’re joined by Vince at ringside as Umaga has control of Shawn on the outside. Vince takes a seat and a mic and sits at ringside. Shawn’s making Umaga look pretty damn good, put him the ring with anyone else and I think he’s going to suck. Shawn goes for the usual HBK comeback and hits two forearms to take Umaga down, flying elbow but Vince stops sweet chin music and Umaga manages to regain control, he begins to decimate Shawn and gets himself disqualified. Vince tells them to leave as he’s going to finish of Michaels himself. Vince ties HBK up in the ropes and grabs the chair he was sat on until god intervenes! God, in the form of a pyro from the ring post stops Vince entering the ring, then a huge one on the ramp. Don’t insult my intelligence Vince come on.

A video package is shown of Austin/Rock from April 1999. This does nothing except make you realise what’s missing from today’s product.

Matt Striker doesn’t agree as he’s out for his classroom segment. He says his students could tell him what happened on Raw, bet they couldn’t these days. He insults the St Louis crowd, calling them thick etc. “School is cool” is Striker’s new motto but it seems Carlito doesn’t agree and he knows what cool is. Striker has stolen Carlito’s apple and Carlito lets us know that he was more concerned with being cool than doing well at school. He once spat apple in his teacher’s face and became cool, he threatens to do the same to Striker but Striker says he’s going to beat down Carlito. Carlito spits anyway but Masters interrupts and hits the Masterlock on Carlito.

RVD’s out with his modified briefcase for a handicap match with the tag champs, everyone’s favourites the Spirit Squad. It’s five on one and if RVD looses he has to defend the MITB against Shelton at Backlash (as well as the IC Title being on the line). Johnny hits the leg drop and pins RVD after some initial fighting off by RVD. Thanks to Shelton’s conversion, it’s MITB vs IC Title at Backlash.

Maria interviews Trish (as Mickie) and she lets us know that Mickie (as Trish) has a surprise waiting for her in the ring.

Trish comes out (as Mickie) to Mickie’s music and invites Mickie (as Trish) for her present. This is bizarre but I like it. Mickie is freaked out and doesn’t want the present. Some dude is tied up and it’s Jack from the other week, you’ll be pleased to know he has now split up with Trish. Trish tells Mickie that if she was Trish she’d care about Jack, but if not she wouldn’t. I don’t get it, but Mickie does as she tells Trish to get her hands of Jack and attacks her, Trish comes back and leaves the ring. Mickie smacks Jack for cheating on her. This is whacky as hell. Poor poor Jack, he’s just an innocent bystander in all of this.

Edge and Lita are joined by Hunter backstage and Edge tells Hunter he’s getting pinned tonight (I doubt it), Hunter tells Edge that Cena is going to stab him in the back. Hunter tries to get Edge to hate Cena and get them fighting in their match later.

May 19^th continues to be pushed. Wow. See No Evil.

Backlash card is the triple threat, the holy tag match, RVD vs Shelton, Carlito vs Masters, Mickie vs Trish and Big Show vs Kane. Shaping up to be a nice PPV, it won’t be the greatest of all time, but there should be a few solid matches on there.

Main event time as Edge is out first with Lita. Hunter’s out second and Cena’s the last man out. Mixed reaction to Cena, despite King trying to tell us otherwise. Crowd mostly in Cena’s favour but there are a number of boos which are quite audible. Triple H hits the crotch chop, second of the evening, take note guys. Boos tend to be more audible now as Cena does his comeback but still 50% cheers. Yes, the crowd reaction is better than the match. Edge tags himself in and takes out his partner as Edge and Hunter go at it. Hunter gets all the offence in but Cena comes in and takes it to both guys. Boos become audible (as opposed to when the two heels were in the ring), ref bump and Hunter goes for sledgie. Takes it to Cena but Edge gets a spear and pins the game. Wow, didn’t see that coming at all. All three guys are actually looking strong going into this match and that’s something of a rarity.