Monday, February 27th, 2006
Verizon Center
Washington, D.C.
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2
Edge and Lita are here to kick off the show. He lets Foley know that his time is up, but Foley doesn't come out. Lita holds up two tickets to Long Island and says they are flying there tonight. Foley then makes his appearance right here in Washington D.C. Foley reminds Edge that he's not the one who has choked against John Cena. Foley turns him down and says that he has nothing to prove and calls himself the greatest transitional champion of all time. Edge runs down Foley's career and then says that he knows Foley won't accept because he knows he will lose. Foley admits that he's never had that WrestleMania moment that he's always craved. He says that he said no to a wrestling match, but says instead it will be him and Edge instead in a Hardcore Match. Foley goes to the back and grabs the barbed wire baseball bat and chases Edge and Lita out through the crowd. This was better than the usual opening segment on Raw and never dragged.
Big Show and Kane are shown walking to the ring.
World Tag Team Championship Match
Kane & Big Show vs. Val Venis & Viscera
You can now check this match off your bucket list. Apparently Val and Vis won on Heat. It is always forgotten that Val is actually a pretty big dude and not that much smaller than Kane. Kane goes for a suplex, but Val counters and takes out Kane's knee. Kane sits up, so Val tags in Viscera and Kane hits him with a clothesline in the corner. Viscera gets Kane up for a Samoan drop and a 2 count. Kane tags in Show and he hits a shoulder tackle and a big boot to Val. Show hits a huge body slam on Viscera and then a leg drop, but Val breaks up the pin attempt. Kane hits a top rope clothesline on Val and then sends him to the outside. They double chokeslam Viscera and that is all. Honestly, this exceeded my expectations.
Match Rating: *
Ric Flair is here with Todd Grisham and he lets us know that he turned 57 years old. Flair says that he has one more title run in him and follows that up with some "woooo"'s.
Shawn Michaels, wearing an interesting choice for a shirt here, tells Marty Jannetty that he doesn't have to do this tonight. Marty tells him this time to stay out of it because he really needs this job.
Carlito is with Maria and he announces that there will be a second Money In The Bank match at WrestleMania. There will be three qualifying matches tonight.
Money In The Bank Qualifying Match
Rob Van Dam vs. Trevor Murdoch
My money is on Murdoch here. After a quick attack by Murdoch, RVD hits a variety of kicks on Murdoch. RVD misses a leap off the top rope to the floor and Murdoch throws him back in the ring. Murdoch wears down RVD and hits him with a big clothesline. RVD ducks Murdoch in the corner and hits a nice spinning heel kick. He hits a monkey flip and Rolling Thunder for a 2 count. RVD hits the Five Star Frog Splash and punches his ticket for Money In The Bank. RVD does always give his opponents a lot of offense and usually makes them look good, so kudos to him here for that.
Match Rating: 3/4*
They show clips of the WWE in the Philippines.
Mickie James is in the ring to announce the greatest Women's Champion in WWE history and her best friend, Trish Stratus.
Women's Championship Match
Trish Stratus vs. Candice Michelle
Torrie announces Candice Michelle to one up Trish. Candice gets the early advantage, but as she's doing her dance, Trish attacks her. Trish gives us the Matrix and follows it up with a dropkick to the midsection. Candice tries to cheat on a pin attempt by grabbing Torrie's hands, but it is literally right in front of the referee. He breaks it up and Trish rolls her up for the victory. After the match, Mickie gets on her knees and does the Wayne's World before hugging her from her knees. Trish pushes her away and heads to the back.
Match Rating: 1/4*
They show Candice slap Torrie backstage from during the commercial.
Coach is in the ring and he introduces John Cena. Coach tells Cena that he has no chance and just as Cena is about to speak, out comes Triple H. Cena says that he doesn't have Triple H's resume or even his respect, but he does have one thing that he doesn't, the WWE Championship. Triple H makes fun of Cena pumping up his Reeboks. Triple H jumps on the transitional champion bandwagon and calls Cena that. It's amazing how quickly people turned on Cena that they got behind Triple H. It still amazes me 15 years later. Triple H compares Cena to Rocky Balboa, but then says that he isn't a very good wrestler. Cena says that while he has beaten just about everyone, one wrestler who isn't on the list is John Cena. Vince McMahon shows up on the Titan Tron to announce that they are going to be tag team partners at Saturday Night's Main Event. They will be facing Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton. And with that...the segment just kind of ends.
Money In The Bank Qualifying Match
Shelton Benjamin vs. Chavo Guerrero
Shelton works on Chavo until he hits a tilt-a-whirl headscissor. Chavo hits two of the Three Amigos and then Shelton dumps him outside right in front of mama. Back in the ring, Chavo counters a suplex into a really nice DDT. The referee is distracted by mama and then Randy Orton comes from out of nowhere and hits a RKO and Shelton gets the victory. Shelton was the obvious choice to win here because of show stealing performance last year, but I'm not sure why they just hate not having the Intercontinental Championship defended at WrestleMania.
Match Rating: 3/4*
They announce the third Hall Of Fame inductee and it's the legendary Mean Gene. Hulk Hogan is set to induct. I forgot how good this class was.
Vince is on the phone backstage and in walks Shawn and that shirt. Shawn begs for Vince to leave Marty out of this and of course Vince doesn't agree.
Money In The Bank Qualifying Match
Carlito vs. Ric Flair
Of all of Ric Flair's rivals, Carlito is definitely towards the bottom of the list because it is really kind of an odd pairing. They do a quick spot outside the ring and then Carlito suplexes Flair back into the ring. Carlito rolls down the knee pad and mocks Flair and misses with the knee drop. Flair is up and chopping and strutting. He goes up to the top rope and pokes Carlito in the eye. Carlito still catches him with a dropkick on the way down. Carlito goes and grabs his apple, takes a bite, but Flair kicks him on the way in and it sprays everywhere. Flair trips him up, grabs the top rope and steals the victory. Flair being in the Money In The Bank was pretty much the best use of him at this time. However, the whole Carlito requesting the match and then losing always kind of felt odd to me. This was kind of just a match.
Match Rating: *1/4
Meanwhile, Vince is checking out his butt backstage.
The Spirit Squad is here for a cheer to introduce Mr. McMahon. After Vince rips on Marty's life falling apart, he brings him down and shakes his hand. Marty's haircut here was definitely a choice. Vince forces him to his knees and then pulls his pants down. Marty ends up not doing it and so Vince calls out...Chris Masters? Hey, it's the guy we had lose to Kane's big boot last week. He brings out a chair and Vince tells him that he has to break the Master Lock instead. Marty puts up a good fight until Vince kicks him in the gut and then Vince again pulls down his pants. Masters tries to shove Marty's face there, but out comes Michaels to save the day. Just as Michaels is about to go after Vince, Shane McMahon comes in out of nowhere and chucks a chair at him. Vince then makes the announcement that Michaels will take on Shane at Saturday Night's Main event to a pretty mild response from the crowd. He then has Shane shove Michaels into daddy's butt and says that he's going to face Michaels at WrestleMania. Raw officially has their three big feature matches for WrestleMania, even if Vince's heel run definitely had lost a ton of steam by this point.
On one hand, the show was very focused and built to WrestleMania. Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of great wrestling to go along with it. However, the weekly shows aren't necessarily for that as long as whatever they are doing in between is interesting. Obviously this was no classic show, but it was entertaining enough to keep things moving.
Overall Rating: 59%
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