Tha Sneaka Pimp is back!!! Be sure to hit F-5 often to follow progress of the show.
We start with a nice video package of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preaching freedom and equality for all. This is followed by a recap of last week's CRAZY confrontation between Orton and Jeff Hardy. And then.....
Live...from Hampton, VA...RAW....IS.....H.D.!!!!! They have a new set out which looks....like a set. I'm not overly impressed. J.R. and King welcome us with the announcement that Jeff and Randy will be forced to shake hands tonight and agree to a temporary truce heading into Royal Rumble.
HBK is the first person out tonight, and he's facing...Mr. Kennedy (Kennedy).
MATCH: SHAWN MICHAELS V. KEN KENNEDY (SQUARED) J.R. points out that this is a rubber match of sorts between the two, and the crowd is immediately hot for HBK. Kennedy starts off strong with a couple of arm drags and a bar in the middle of the ring. They both go into a series of chain wrestling featuring holds and reverses. Neither man is able to establish a clear upperhand early on.
Kennedy finally takes charge at about the 3:00 mark. Kennedy is getting really brutal in his wrestling style lately, and I like it. It's about time his ringwork matches his mouth. Michaels finally fires back at about the 6 minute mark and buys himself some time with a couple of chops and a neckbreaker. He goes into his finishing sequence at the 7:00 mark with the kip up, atomic drops, bodyslam, and up top for the elbow. He lands that and TUNES UP THE BAND~! Kennedy sees it coming and dives out of the ring. Michaels, all like, 42 years of him, does a suicide dive over the top on Kennedy to the floor as we go to break.
Back from break, and Kennedy's back in control after a Hotshot into the ringpost on Michaels during the timeout. Kennedy's really working the swagger in the ring. He's turning into an incredible crowd-antagonist. Michaels barely kicks out at the 12:00 mark. He fires back with a smattering of offense and both men are down for a standing 10 count. Both men are trying to get their finishers in out of nowhere, but not successful thus far. Michaels foils Kennedy's attempt at a Superplex, throws him to the floor, and tries another elbow. He hits Kennedy's knees instead. Ouch! Kennedy comes up into a rolling Samoan Drop for 2.9. Kennedy comes up and he's busted open over his left eye. Michaels tries Sweet Chin Music again, fails, kips up, and hits it this time for 3. Kennedy sold it like a MAN too.
WINNER: HEARTBREAK KID SHAWN MICHAELS at 17:00
Backstage, Orton is holding his neck and trying to get something clear with Vince. He wants to know why he should shake Hardy's hand after what he did to him last week. Vince tells him he knows he's hurting, but it's exactly what he's going to do. Randy recaps for Vince and the rest of us what happened to him at the end of RAW last week. He says there's no way he's shaking Hardy's hand. Vince informs Randy of how many times he's had to shake hands he didn't want to (which is why he carries Purell with him), and he educates Randy about the politics of perception in shaking hands when you don't want to. He's trying to sell the psychology of the thing. Randy's so fucking stupid he's actually buying this shit. We end up with Vince imploring him to do the thing and Randy trying (and failing) to act with his face. It's like Orton's been to the Ben Affleck school of bad facial expressions. Breaktime.
Back from break, and I have to hand it to WWE. We've only had one match in the first 30 minutes, but it went 17 minutes. More wrestling than talking! What a concept!
Anyway, Dog The Bounty Hunter, ERRRRRRRRRRRRR, Beth Phoenix is out with her belt and muscles bigger than my car (a new 2007 Nissan Pathfinder, by the way). She's followed by Virginia's own Mickie James. Guess they're gonna have a.....
MATCH: WWE WOMEN'S CHAMPION BETH PHOENIX V. MICKIE JAMES Beth is in control from the onset. Mickie tries to reverse out of a hold and Beth just overpowers her. Hell, she could overpower half the New England Patriot football team. Anyway, Mickie finally asserts herself in the match with a couple of actual wrestling moves and a Thez Press. Mickie's trying to introduce a little scientific class to this match but Beth is only interested in lawn-darting her around the ring and looking mannish. Mickie needs to be careful anyway. Her lowrise tights are just BARELY on. Doesn't matter anyway. Beth gets her with a Perfect Plex for the win.
WINNER: WWE WOMEN'S CHAMPION BERT (ER, BETH) PHOENIX at about 4:00
Backstage, Todd has HHH for a few words. Apparently The Game gets another qualifying match. I thought he already lost his. Oh yeah. He's HHH. Anyway, he tries a bad joke about Vince needing industrial makeup artists to hide his liverspots on HD tv, and it bombs. He moves on to how he WILL be in the Royal Rumble this Sunday. He informs Vince that it's not a promise, it's a GUARAN-DAMN-TEE. He gives his best CroMagnon look as we go to break. NOT some of his better promo work.
Back from break, and we're treated to a recap of John "Bradshaw" Lardass dragging Chris Jericho around the arena by a camera cable two weeks ago. Y2J is in the building, by the way.
Backstage, Brian Kendrick and Cody Rhodes are trading thoughts about being in the Royal Rumble. Bob Holly shows up and asks Cody if he has his back against Carlito. Cody goofs on him a little about having to dress like Carlito and says he put it on his Myspace page. Bob acts like he doesn't know what myspace.com is, but he says that if anybody gets in HIS space during the Royal Rumble, even Cody, he's throwing them OUT. He stomps off and Brian tells Cody that Bob is a grouch. Cody goes, "Yeah...that's him on a GOOD day!" Not a bad little sketch there.
We cut to a video package of Randy Orton's career from beginning to present. We get a montage of Orton beating up a bunch of old dudes, breaking The Rock's record as the youngest World Champion in history, putting John Cena on vacation last year, kicking Matt Hardy's appendix scar AND his melon, and the current feud with Jeff Hardy. J.R. announces again that there will be a forced handshake between the two tonight, and then we cut backstage, where Finlay and Hornswaggle are headed to the ring for a tag match NEXT!!! Breaktime.
Back from break, and Finlay and Hornswaggle are out to...Hornswaggle's music?! They'll be taking on The Highlanders.
TAG TEAM MATCH: FINLAY AND HORNSWAGGLE V. THE HIGHLANDERS Finlay starts out against Rory. Finlay takes early control by knocking Robby off the apron and controlling Rory. Rory reverses the tables and goes after Hornswaggle. Little Bastard gets out of the predicament by biting Rory and giving Finlay time to recover. Finlay scores a Celtic Cross on Rory and tags Little Bastard for the Tadpole Splash and the win.
WINNERS: FINLAY AND HORNSWAGGLE at about 2:00
Looks like the complete burial of the Highlanders in particular, and the tag division in general continues. The winners dance around the ring as we cut to the back. Y2J is making his way to the ring as we go to break.
Back from break, and we get a video recap of JBL *PWNING* Y2J so far in their feud. Back to the ring, and The Ayatollah of Rock 'N' Rollah is out! He still has the feathered Rod Stewart hairdo, by the way. He says he could have come out tonight ranting and raving about wanting JBL tonight instead of waiting until the Royal Rumble. He says he can't anyway since JBL refused to show up tonight when he found out Jericho was in the building. He points out that JBL is a coward for bringing his children into this, and that he had to explain to his 4 year-old son that he's not the coward JBL accused him of being. He says it's now personal because JBL created doubt in Little Jericho. He says JBL made a mistake NOT by hurting him like he did, but in not finishing him off. He says that when they face off in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, home of some of the greatest shows of alltime, he's not going to be interested in a Great Show. He's only going to be interested in a Fight. Cue music. Again...this promo fell flat for me. He's had two weeks to think about what to say, and this was all he came up with? Wow.
J.R. and King run down the Royal Rumble card as it stands right now.
Backstage, and now it's Jeff Hardy's turn for a couch talk with Daddy Vince. Vince jumps his ass for risking his AND Orton's lives last week. Vince then tries to pump Jeff up for the handshake with pretty much the same speech he gave Orton. Vince playing both ends against the middle! He asks if Jeff is willing to play ball on this, and Jeff assures him of only one thing. That he's going out there to give everyone something to talk about. He flashes his hand sign at Vince, sits back, and glares at him all "Eat shit and die, dude!" AWESOME! Breaktime.
Back from break, and we're losing traction FAST on the "wrestling v. talking" ratio. They've gone all TNA with their short, choppy matches and long-ass video packages since that first match. I'm NOT digging this, peeps.
Anyway, J.R. helpfully reminds us that HHH has a mystery opponent to qualify for the Royal Rumble later tonight. Which he's already lost out on once. But I already said that.
Brian Kendrick is out next to attempt to qualify for the Royal Rumble. Regal comes up on the TitanTron to let Kendrick know that he's facing.....wow. Big surprise. Umaga. I swear I saw this coming the second I heard Kendrick's music. No points for creativity here.
ROYAL RUMBLE QUALIFIER: BRIAN KENDRICK V. YOU-MANG-A Umaga is in control from the start. Kendrick gets a token amount of offense in before Umaga resumes the UBER-squash. Umaga misses a high spot and Kendrick comes off with a Missile Dropkick. And a body block. And a running enziguiri. Umaga shrugs it all off and hits a Samoan Drop. Umaga signals the Samoan Spike, adds a twist by picking Kendrick up by the throat and hitting it in mid-air for the pinfall.
WINNER: UMAGA at about 2:30
Backstage, Maria is trying to console a weeping Mickie James. She's frustrated at continually losing to Bert Phoenix. Ashley comes up and Mickie leaves. Ashley tells Maria she was talking to Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion, and he had a TERRIFIC idea! Santino walks up before she can finish and tells Ashley that he overheard, and her idea is not needed. He doesn't want a free subscription to Playboy, because afterall, why buy the cow when she lets you milk her for free? *LOL* Maria takes exception to being called a "cow," but she and Santino leave together. Ashley tells Maria she'll call her, and then we get the Soap Opera zoom-in pregnant stare that I guess WWE is going to start making a big deal of now that we're HD, baby! Breaktime.
Back from break, and now we're getting a video package of Vince and Donald Trump together on Celebrity Apprentice. It's chock-full of reminders of their feud at Wrestlemania last year, and a pissing contest about who invented the phrase "You're Fired!" Vince will be on Trump's show this Thursday on NBC.
Backstage, HHH stalks around like he wants to drag women around by their hair as he's getting ready for his LAST CHANCE to qualify for the Royal Rumble. Back to ringside, and King is wearing 3-D glasses. He and J.R. goof about that for a minute, and then we get.....BIG SURPRISE!!! A VIDEO PACKAGE!!! This time it's of Jeff Hardy. I know Vince is proud of his tech crew, and they do a GREAT job, but SHIT. ENOUGH WITH THE RECAPS ALREADY. Like they used to say in the last days of WCW...SHUT UP AND WRESTLE!!!
I guess not, though. This segment included two video packages, a little banter between J.R. and King, and NO WRESTLING. Breaktime.
Back from break, and Carlito is out with Marella and Maria. J.R. comments that he considers it a miracle that Maria is still with Marella. He calls it a miracle. I call it good booking. Anyway, we get a...EVERYBODY SAY IT WITH ME, NOW....video recap of Carlito wrestling Bob Holly in a reverse-gimmick match 2 weeks ago. Bob Holly is out next with Cody Rhodes in tow.
MATCH: CARLITO (w/Santino Marella/Maria) V. "HARDCORE" HOLLY (w/Cody Rhodes) Carlito is in control early. He works Holly over with his limited moveset of elbows and fists, and manages to mix in a chinlock because this *is*, you know...WRESTLING. Holly comes back with chops and a snap suplex. At least one of these dudes knows how to work. J.R. reminds us that Carlito's a second-generation wrestler (he must have missed the "wrestling" gene).
Holly continues to pit his wrestling ability against Carlito's lazy moveset, but Carlito still manages to steal the win after Santino comes to the apron to distract Holly long enough for Carlito to hit the Backstabber for the win.
WINNER: CARLITO at about the 4:00 mark
Breaktime.
Back from break, and yep! A video package! HHH winning the Royal Rumble in 2002. Mr. Perfect was in the match. Anyway, we cut to the ring and HHH is out for his (second) Royal Rumble qualifier. If anybody EVER gets a second shot at this again, I'm going to call it the "HHH Rule." His opponent is a mystery, at least until HHH finishes his 5:00 entrance. Sad. His intro has lasted longer than all but two matches tonight. The opponent? Regal is out to help us with this. He says, "Triple HAITCH, it's not who your opponent IS, but who they ARE." He's putting HHH through a 3-man Guantlet (over the ropes).
ROYAL RUMBLE QUALIFIER (Guantlet): HHH v. 3 OTHER DUDES First opponent? SNITSKY. Seeing him come out makes me grateful I haven't invested in an HD Dish receiver yet. Bacne, anyone? Anyway, HHH jumps him immediately and almost gets him over. Snitsky fights back and HHH is in trouble already. He barely stops Green Gene from lawndarting him to the floor, and Regal looks pensive at the top of the ramp. A little brawling in the ring, and Snitsky is out at about 1:30. Regal congratulates him, then introduces Trips' second opponent.
SMACKDOWN'S MARK HENRY! Somebody gonna get they ass kicked, so the music goes, and Henry is in the ring. HHH jumps him immediately too but Henry catches him off the ropes with a body check. Henry goes for a throw over the ropes, and he has HHH hanging on for dear life. Trips is back in and Henry goes back to work on him. Henry with a backbreaker, and Trips is down and hurt. I'm wondering if his last opponent is going to be Khali. Anyway, Regal looks on as HHH tries to fight back. HHH tries to pick Henry up for the throw over the ropes, but Henry weighs too much and HHH collapses under him. Henry backs up to charge HHH from across the ring, but Trips sees him coming and low-bridges him over the top rope for the win at 6:00. Regal looks BRITISH PISSED at this point, but he's got one more ace up his sleeve, which is......
REGAL HIMSELF!!! He apparently waved off HHH's real opponent and decided to take matters into his own hands. He charges HHH in the ring and almost gets him over, but HHH fights back and hits the "Double A" Spinebuster. HHH picks him up and hurls him over the ropes for the win. He's now qualified for the Royal Rumble.
WINNER: HHH at 8:00
Post-match, HHH tries to match the length of his intro with a victory celebration that rivals those of Hulk Hogan while Regal stomps around and screams outside the ring. He's probably in trouble with the Boss now!!! We get a....fuck. VIDEO RECAP of the match result and cut back to HHH *still* posing down in the ring.
Backstage, Hardy and Orton are shown via split-screen each making their way to the ring for the Handshake O' Doom~! Breaktime.
Back from break, and the A.V. guys really ARE running the world. And to think I used to make them eat glue in high school. Video recap of Hardy and Orton hating on each other (AGAIN), and then Vince is out in a gray suit and red power tie. Folks, we have NO CHANCE IN HELL~! Damn. I gotta learn that pimp walk. Vince warms up the crowd by asking for applause for "VINCE MCMAHON IN HD!!!"
He introduces Randy Orton, who Abercrombies his way to the ring with John Cena's belt slung over his left shoulder. He's doing it gingerly, though, apparently selling the pain of Jeff's 30-ft. Swanton onto him through the stage last week. Okay. I'll give Orton that. He's at least selling. We don't get his Atlas Shrugged pose, though, just a slow lifting of the WWE belt for us to admire.
Vince then introduces Jeff Hardy, pointing out that he has a chance to join Hulk Hogan and HHH as the only simultaneous IC and WWE champions in history. Hardy looks limber and loose compared to Orton's sore, stiff walk to the ring. He has *his* belt over his RIGHT shoulder, by the way.
FORCED HANDSHAKE SEGMENT: RANDY ORTON V. JEFF HARDY Vince wonders aloud if we'll see any more death-defying antics at the Royal Rumble...anymore over-the-top maneuvers in an attempt to win the title match. He then instructs Jeff to step forward for the mandatory handshake. He asks them if they have any last comments before they commence.
Orton takes the mic first and says he wants to be honest with Jeff Hardy. Ever since he found out Jeff would be his opponent at the Rumble, he was relieved. He says Jeff has done some amazing things, but hasn't come close to earning the WWE title. He admits to underestimating Jeff, and everytime he closes his eyes he sees Jeff crashing down on him from 30 feet in the air (the crowd loves this), and although Jeff won't be winning the WWE title on Sunday, he's earned something almost as important....Orton's respect.
Jeff takes the mic and the crowd is chanting "Hardy! Hardy!" Jeff says that just so Orton knows, he doesn't care about earning his respect. He didn't hit the 30 foot Swanton to impress him, he did it to HURT him. He did it for Matt. He did it because he waited to earn this opportunity. Most of all, he did it to show Orton he'll do ANYTHING to win the WWE title. If he's going to shake hands with people he respects, Orton has a LONG line to wait in, because there are a LOT of people he respects more than him. He rolls out of the ring to shake hands with J.R., King, Lillian, and members of the audience he doesn't even know. Ryan, Bobby, some kid named Corey, Ethan, Justin, Kevin, Chris, Wade, Jordan, Christina....okay Jeff. We get the point.
He rolls back in and he and Orton go into Staredown Mode. Orton holds his hand out for the mandatory shake, and Jeff just stares at him. Orton sticks it out again with a menacing look on his face, and Jeff feeds him a WICKED Twist Of Fate out of nowhere for his troubles! He flashes Matt's V-1 sign at Orton and we fade to black.
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK FOR ALL THE POST-ROYAL RUMBLE FALLOUT ON WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW!!! Be sure to check back here as I recap that show!!!
Also, tune in to the Angry Marks Podcast on Friday, January 25 on ANGRYMARKSDOTCOM!!! Our host Stevie J, Killa Kev, myself, and DJ Complejo will shoot on all that is right AND wrong in the world of wrestling!