Taped last night in San Jose, CA:
Raw for 7/6
Ted DiBiase Sr. was in charge. He came out as a heel, but he actually got one of the best reactions of the night as people saw him as a returning legend. He came out with Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase Jr. so he’d get a heel reaction, but the people didn’t get it. Somewhere in the middle of the promo people caught on he was playing heel.
He announced Chris Jericho & Edge vs. Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes for the tag titles at Night of Champions. Apparently there is a moratorium as from next week forward there can be no title matches on television until the PPV. He also announced Rhodes vs. Mark Henry and DiBiase vs. Randy Orton. Neither were happy about that news.
Edge & Jericho b Colons in a non-title match. Not nearly as good as the match on TV tonight. Ref Marty Elias was distracted by Primo, and Jericho used the codebreaker on Carlito followed by a spear by Edge and Edge pinned Carlito. Carlito turned on Primo after the match, pounding on him and throwing him over the announcers’ table. Fans quickly realized Carlito was a heel.
Gail Kim & Mickie James b Maryse & Alicia Fox when Kim pinned Maryse after a kick to the face. Some really funny crowd reactions all night. Most of the people in my section at ringside were asking when did Gail Kim come from TNA. It was clear all night that a very small percentage of the fans here watch Smackdown, ECW or Superstars
Cody tried to pay off DiBiase to get him out of the match. That didn’t work. Somewhere in here Ted cut a promo about how he’s mad because Dusty Rhodes is in the Hall of Fame and he isn’t, and he was a hell of a lot better than Dusty. He also told Cody that he was going to put him in polka dota.
Mark Henry b Cody Rhodes via count out. World’s strongest slam and Rhodes walked out. Henry got no reaction coming out even though he got a good reaction not that much earlier pinning Orton. People did cheer him after winning but not like a star.
Randy Orton b Ted DiBiase with the RKO. Good match, clean pin in the middle.
MVP VIP Lounge with Jack Swagger to start a new feud. Funny line as Swagger was bragging about going to the University of Oklahoma and MVP said, “That’s because you couldn’t get into a better school.” MVP was all over Swagger for walking out of his match against Orton and that’s not something an All-American would do. Swagger said MVP attended Florida State, that is Florida state prison. He called him a phony and a fraud. MVP gave the speech about how he hung with the wrong crowd, made mistakes, paid his debt to society while Swagger acted all bored. MVP, who wasn’t over at all on the first show, took off his jewelry and the place got into him pretty big. He wanted a fight, but Swagger mentioned that he doesn’t fight criminals. Effective segment.
Ted DiBiase and his dad argued backstage. I didn’t get the gist of it, but probably Ted said he was trying to teach his son a lesson. Ted Jr. thought his dad set him up to fail and slapped his dad hard. This was good as well.
Evan Bourne b Kofi Kingston in a non-title match with the shooting star press. Post-match saw Big Show destroy both guys, spearing Bourne and putting the camel clutch on Kingston. Bourne-Kingston had some early athletic stuff but too fast.
John Cena did a backstage promo and was booed heavy.
HHH NC Cena to get the title shot. Cena in his promo said they would be doing a Wrestlemania match. They did a very good match, probably just under a PPV quality match. I’d say crowd was 75% pro-HHH, which was weird because in show one, HHH got a faded star reaction and Cena was the only guy in the first show who came off to the live crowd like they were a big star. Here the crowd was strong into the entire match and booed the hell out of Cena. As they were building the finish, Rhodes & DiBiase ran in to end it. Orton then said that since they both lost, he doesn’t have to defend against either. Ted Sr. then said he was wrong, as he saw it that neither lost and he was ordering a three-way at the Night of Champions.
After the taping was over, Cena did a promo telling the fans that they had just seen a great show and had just seen a Wrestlemania main event. He said people could remember that they saw the best match they had ever seen in their lives. I was about to throw up when he delivered that line. People were with him. He said Rhodes & DiBiase ruined Wrestlemania and wanted all three to come down and apologize. After calling them cowards, they got in the ring. Orton was in HHH & Cena’s face when DiBiase & Rhodes bailed out without Orton knowing. Show ended with an Attitude Adjustment by Cena and pedigree by HHH on Orton, and then Ted Sr. came back out and slapped Ted Jr. in the face.
(credit: wrestlingobserver.com)