Wachovia Arena
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
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After a recap of last week's first round of the Gold Rush Tournament, Triple H is on his way to the ring. He gets in the face of some of the ringside fans as they chant "You tapped out". He says that the tournament is bogus and that Batista is afraid of him. Naturally, Batista is out now. It is somewhat interesting that Batista kept the dress like a Four Horsemen look as a babyface. Batista says that he is here to face his fears since he is so afraid of Triple H. Hes faced him twice, he beat him twice. Triple H says he is going to walk out and go back to his big mansion and watch Batista fail. Batista says see ya later. That was a weird promo. In comparison to the Eddie/Mysterio segment that opened the SmackDown episode I last reviewed, it was not even close in terms of quality.
Triple H is outside and getting in the limo but Ric Flair is trying to stop him. He leaves without Flair.
Muhammad Hassan and Daivari are here. Daivari is dressed in his wrestling gear. He speaks in English to Hassan here. He gets on his knees and apologizes. He issues an open challenge. Jericho's music hits.
Daivari vs. Chris Jericho
Daivari attacks Jericho on his way in, but Jericho hits him with an elbow and some chops. Jericho charges at him, but Daivari steps out of the way and Jericho hits his shoulder on the ring post. Daivari works on the shoulder and then heads up to the second rope. Jericho hits him in the midsection and then shoves him face first to the mat. Jericho tries going up top, but Daivari stops him. Daivari goes for a hurricanrana, but Jericho stops him and drops down into the Walls of Jericho and gets the victory. Jericho has to be one of the few people on the planet that any wrestler would let do that move to them on. After the match, Hassan attacks Jericho and puts him in the Camel Clutch. Shelton Benjamin is out to make the save. That was about as good as a 3 minute TV match is going to be.
Match Rating: *1/2 (out of 5)
Eric Bischoff and Christy Hemme are backstage. Bischoff lets her know that Divas are eligible for the draft and talks about the upcoming Diva Search. La Resistance comes in and Bischoff lets them know that they are both in singles matches tonight against surprise opponents.
Ric Flair is on his flip phone backstage. Tomko and Christian are here and Christian is here to make sure Flair is doing all right. Christian lets him know that if he's looking for someone to suck up to, he can suck up to him now. Flair wants a match with Christian tonight and Christian accepts.
Sylvain Grenier vs. Viscera
Rob Conway walks to the back and leaves Sylvain on his own. Viscera hits a slam and then basically humps him. Viscera then misses with a splash and then Grenier hits a missile dropkick for a 2 count. Viscera hits his rolling kick and then a sit down chokeslam powerbomb for the victory. At least it was short. After the match he takes nachos away from a fan in the front row. He then makes inappropriate comments to Lillian Garcia while she holds the microphone for him. God, make this stop.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Kane is backstage with Lita. Kane grabs her and reminds her that it's been 9 months since they were married. He says that he will be World Champion soon. They then tease a little bit of a lack of trust between the two.
Gold Rush Tournament Semi-Final Match
Kane vs. Chris Benoit
Kane misses with a boot and Benoit dropkicks his leg out from under him. Kane hits a side suplex for a 2 count. Kane goes off the top rope, but Benoit hits him with a dropkick. Benoit hits 5 German suplexes in a row, which is pretty impressive. Benoit is going up top for the headbutt, but Kane sits up so Benoit dropkicks him. He goes up top and hits the headbutt and gets a 2 count. Lita gets involved and appears to hurt her knee and Benoit checks on her, allowing Kane to attack him from behind. Kane hits a chokeslam and that's all she wrote. Kind of a weird match and I'm not sure why. Everything worked, the crowd was into it but it just felt a little off for some reason.
Match Rating: **
Ric Flair vs.
Christian says that if Flair wants a piece of him, he has to go through Tomko first. Flair goes right after Tomko, but is quickly stopped. It's weird that Flair is kind of the face here, even though he and Triple H are traditional heels in their current roles. Tomko is distracted by the ref, allowing Flair to clip Tomko and put him in the Figure Four. Christian gets involved and the ref throws him out. Flair hits a low blow and rolls up Tomko for a 3 count. Well, that was quick even by Raw standards.
Match Rating: 1/4*
They show some bikini pictures of some of the potential Raw Diva Search competitors.
Stacy Keibler is here to promote her Stuff Magazine photo shoot. She starts to undress, but her zipper gets stuck and asks Todd Grisham to help her. Simon Dean and Maven interrupt and take the mic from Todd. They try to make her drink a shake, but she drops it, which infuriates the duo. They start harassing Stacy and Hurricane and Rosey are here to save the day.
Eric Bischoff is on the phone when Coach interrupts. Coach brings up the One Night Stand commercial that was shown, which angers Bischoff. Bischoff says he is going to squash ECW just like in his WCW days.
Robert Conway vs. Shelton Benjamin
Conway attacks Benjamin before the bell. Conway controls the match until Shelton hits a Samoan Drop for a 2 count. Conway drapes Shelton over the top rope and follows up with a knee lift. Shelton hits a charging Conway with a kick to the head and then hits a springboard bulldog for the victory. Lots of short matches tonight.
Match Rating: 1/2*
As Shelton gets to the top of the ramp, he is attacked by both Dairvari and Muhammad Hassan. Hassan does the choke on Shelton that would later get Daniel Bryan fired in a few years.
Edge is shown backstage getting ready for his match tonight.
We get to see the John Cena music video again.
Shawn Michaels lets us know that he is the real Money In The Bank.
Gold Rush Tournament Semi-Final Match
Edge vs. Shawn Michaels
Michaels teases leaping over the top rope and then turns it into a springboard crossbody. Edge is able to recover and drop Michaels on the ropes to take control. In the back, Batista is watching a monitor, at an angle of course. Edge is doing a lot of early match rest holds here. Edge goes off the top rope and Michaels is able to kick him in the gut and both men are down. Michaels hits his top rope elbow drop and is now getting ready for Sweet Chin Music. Edge ducks and goes for a electric chair, but Michaels counters it into a victory roll for a 2 count. Edge ducks a clothesline and Michaels accidentally hits the ref. Edge goes for the spear, but Michaels hits Sweet Chin Music. We have no ref, so Michaels tries to wake him up. Michaels ducks Edge's briefcase and rolls him up. Edge grabs the briefcase and hits Michaels in the head. The ref is up and sloooowly counts to 3. The finals are all set with Edge and Kane for next week. The match never really clicked, but it was Shawn Michaels so it was still pretty good.
Match Rating: **1/2
While the episode was definitely not bad, it kind of felt like filler for next week's show. There were no particularly great matches and the Viscera stuff continues to be embarrassing. On the plus side, the show went by pretty quickly and it looks like next week will be a good one.
Overall Rating: 52%
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