Monday, May 30th, 2005
Pengrowth Saddledome
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2
They dedicate this edition of Raw to the veterans.
They kick off the show with Jerry Lawler in the ring saying there will be a Raw swimsuit competition. Christy Hemme, Candice Michelle, Maria, Victoria and Lilian Garcia are the competitors. Lilian is up first and out comes Viscera in a suit. He picks up Lilian and takes her to the back. The other four show off their bikinis and Jerry Lawler picks Christy to win. What an honor. Candice and Maria celebrate with her, while Victoria decides to attack them and absolutely drills Maria with a kick to the face. She finishes it off with a low blow to Lawler and a Widow's Peak to Christy. We are 14 minutes into the show and this is all we have to show for it.
After the break, we get an interview with Victoria. She is sick of Christy and she says that everything she's achieved should have been hers.
World Tag Team Championship Match
Rosey & The Hurricane vs. The Heart Throbs
Stacy is out with the champions in her superhero gear. The Heart Throbs take the early advantage and the crowd shows their interest by chanting "Stacy's hot". Hot tag to Rosey, he quickly destroys the Throbs and Hurricane hits the splash off of Rosey's shoulders and gets the victory. The Raw tag division was not treated seriously, so this match felt like nothing.
Match Rating: * (out of 5)
We get a recap of Batista's troubles from last week's show. Bischoff then informs Batista that Triple H is not here tonight. Batista accepts the challenge of a Hell In A Cell match and that he wants Triple H here next week. In walk Muhammad Hassan and Daivari, who point out that Triple H has lost to Batista twice and that he is undefeated. Batista gets in his face and Bischoff makes the match for tonight.
Intercontinental Championship Match
Shelton Benjamin vs. Robert Conway vs. Sylvain Grenier
The La Resistance members quickly begin to disagree and fight over who gets to do what to Benjamin. Shelton is able to fight back until Grenier sets Shelton up for a double team move and they fight over who gets to pin Shelton. This leads to them getting physical with each other. Shelton knocks Grenier to the outside and hits a crossbody from the top, but Grenier breaks up the pin attempt. La Resistance again starts to go at it with one another. Shelton is able to slip in and hit the T-Bone suplex and get the victory. I have to say I was surprised the crowd was in this one as much as they were, but a good win for Shelton.
Match Rating: **
Highlight Reel time and Chris Jericho's guests tonight are Kane and Lita. Jericho announces that next week he will be interviewing the first draft pick from SmackDown. Jericho is pretty much full blown heel now here, asking what it was like to be cheated on and how he has never been dumped by a woman before. Jericho then makes a Blockbuster Video reference, making me feel even older now for watching this. Edge pops up on the Titan Tron. He says that he won't put his woman in harms way, like Kane would. Lita comes on and says that she is filing for divorce and makes fun of him for being sweaty and lacking skills. She takes her ring and flushes it down a toilet. They make out while Kane looks depressed.
Eric Bischoff is out by JR and Lawler. He talks about his crusade against ECW and that the reason he is allowing the tables match tonight, he is just trying to prove that he can out-ECW ECW. Benoit will take on one of the people against ECW, Edge.
Tables Match
Edge vs. Chris Benoit
Benoit is obviously over here, being that it's in Calgary. The "You screwed Matt" chants continue. Edge attempts to pull a table out from under the ring, but Benoit hits him with a suicide dive. Edge tries to bring a table in again and this time is greeted with a baseball slide into the table. They duel on the apron in front of the table, but Benoit ends up suplexing Edge inside the ring. Benoit brings out another table and puts this one in the ring. Benoit superplexes him, but Lita moves the table out of the way to save the match for Edge. Edge grabs the briefcase from Lita, but Benoit hits him with three German suplexes. Edge sets Benoit up on the table and goes up top, but Lita pushes him off. Bischoff leaves the booth and out come Tomko and Maven to attack Benoit. Bischoff now calls out Snitsky and he hits Benoit with a big boot to the face. Lawler claims that there's nothing more extreme than Snitsky. Edge then powerbombs Benoit through a table and wins the match. Edge is bleeding from the mouth and you can see Lita shoot him down. The match was to continue the Bischoff against ECW angle and to continue to get Edge over as a top heel. It did both of that and the action was solid.
Match Rating: **3/4
They show a recap of last week between Triple H, Batista and Ric Flair. We get Triple H via satellite at the WWE TV Studios. He puts over Hell In A Cell as the most violent match in this industry and says that he has made a career of ending people in Hell In A Cell. He names Kevin Nash and Mick Foley.
Chris Masters is out for the Master Lock Challenge and offers $10,000 to anyone who can break it tonight. Instead of challenging the fans, he is challenging anyone in the locker room. Out comes Val Venis in 2005. A lucky man in the crowd catches his towel. Val surprisingly isn't really that much smaller than Masters. Masters takes a cheap shot on Venis and then slaps on the Master Lock. Val is doing everything he can to break the lock, including pushing off the turnbuckles, but eventually it's just too much. That was easily the most entertaining Master Lock Challenge.
Out comes Christian to a solid pop. He talks about the SmackDown roster, including ripping on Cena. He says that they are lacking a Canadian, which I think is actually accurate. He says that if is drafted to SmackDown, they will get an injection of the 3 C's. Charisma, Canada and Christian. That was a solid little promo there by Christian, even if it sort of telegraphed what would happen.
Next week we are getting a contract signing between Triple H and Batista and the Highlight Reel with the first draft pick.
Muhammad Hassan vs. Batista
Hassan tries to surprise Batista, but he gets nailed with an elbow. Batista is wearing a bandage on his head to sell the attack from last week. Hassan hits a DDT after a distraction from Daivari. This is an interesting test for these two, as they usually have a ring general in there with them to bring out the best of them. The result so far is a match that feels heavily scripted. Daivari gets involved again and is busted open. I have to say, I wasn't expecting a blade job in this match. Batista is repeatedly stomping Hassan in the face. He continues to stick his knee in his face and won't back off and is disqualified as a result. That felt really flat. Batista continues his attack and starts slamming Hassan's face into the concrete outside of the ring. He then hits Hassan with a chair shot to the head. Hassan is now busted open and Skinner is out to try and stop him. Batista hits Batista Bombs on both of them. Batista celebrates as we go off the air. Not a great match there and I'm not sure the ending was quite as effective as they were hoping.
Match Rating: 1/2*
That was a middle of the road episode. The main event was evidence that Batista wasn't quite ready to carry a lesser opponent yet (he'd get there) and the Victoria heel turn segment was way longer than it needed to be. The tables match was solid, even if they were capable of better and Christian shined in his short segment. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful as we continue to (kind of) promote One Night Stand.
Overall Rating: 49%
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