Monday, September 18th, 2006
Bell Center
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2
We kick off the show with Lilian Garcia introducing the new WWE Champion, John Cena. He naturally is greeted with a chorus of boos. Cena loves it and then starts taking some shots at Edge. Edge and Lita join the party to interrupt. Cena gives him two options, to go screw himself or they can have a rematch right now. Edge rips on Montreal before telling Cena that he won't do it here tonight in front of these people. Edge then tells us that he has a backup plan and it's...Cade and Murdoch. They attack Cena from behind and the crowd kind of half boos. Edge reveals they attacked DX last week and so out comes DX to make the save. They clean house and I smell a 6 man tag tonight. In tonight's performance, Jonathan Coachman will be playing the roll of Theodore Long. He says that in Vince's absence, we will indeed have a 6 man tag team match. This was a 15+ minute opening segment here to kick off the show. It was going along nicely until the "meh" reveal of Cade and Murdoch.
Coach gives a backstage segment telling Shane and Vince that he hopes they are happy with his job tonight on Raw. He says there are some superstars here that want to send their condolences after their humiliating defeat. First up, it's Shelton Benjamin and he says that if he was their partner instead of Big Show they wouldn't have gotten their head shoved up, you know. He then questions why he wasn't their partner. Shelton then says that it's because he is black, which leads Coach to asking him to leave. I do not remember this at all.
Umaga vs. Kane
We get a clash of the big men to start and then Umaga hits him with a belly-to-belly suplex. Estrada tries to hand Umaga a chair, but Kane charges at Umaga and knocks down the referee also. Kane goes after Estrada and it allows Umaga to hit Kane in the head. A second referee runs in and Kane kicks out at 2. After a commercial break, Umaga hits a Samoan drop and sets up Kane in the corner. Kane hits him with an elbow before hitting him with some of his chest slapping right hands. Kane hits a shoulder tackle and lands almost like he was trying to give himself a concussion. Kane goes out of the ring and grabs a chair, but Umaga is able to knock it out of his hands. He misses him in the corner and hits his shoulder on the ring post. Kane hits the second rope clothesline and grabs the chair again. Armando comes in and hits Kane from behind, but Kane still hits Umaga with 3 sickening chair shots to the head. Ugh. When does this garbage stop? Absolutely disturbing.
Match Rating: *3/4
They go backstage and show Kane attacking Armando and then Umaga makes the save. Kane sits up after they walk away.
Maria makes a video for Vince and she wonders if going in Big Show's butt was like the Grand Canyon. She's interrupted by the Spirit Squad and they remind him they are still the champs. Johnny also says that he's challenged Ric Flair to a match and is dedicating it to him.
Ric Flair vs. Johnny
And so the epic Flair/Spirit Squad feud begins. Johnny dominates and even imitates Flair by doing a chop block and slapping on the Figure Four. Johnny goes up top and misses with a kick. Flair battles back and goes for a Figure Four. Johnny counters it into an inside cradle, but Flair counters that and picks up the victory. The Spirit Squad rushes in, but Flair slides out and gets out before they can do anything. This was filler.
Match Rating: 3/4*
Lita is here for Vince, but she's wondering more about the Women's Championship now that Trish is retired. Mickie interrupts and talks about Trish and some more Trish. She makes a joke about Edge and her not being champs any more, so Lita slaps her.
Randy Orton is out here to talk about how great he is and he's interrupted by...Johnny Nitro? He brags about being Intercontinental Champion and questions where Orton's title is. Now Chris Masters is out and they make fun of him for losing to Super Crazy. He's then interrupted by Carlito before he can really say anything. Carlito says he's a sore loser and starts attacking Orton. Out comes Super Crazy and Jeff Hardy. This is quite the random grouping of people. Coach gets on the Titan Tron and announces that this won't be a tag team match, but rather a Six Pack Challenge for the Intercontinental Championship.
Six Pack Challenge For The Intercontinental Championship
Johnny Nitro vs. Randy Orton vs. Chris Masters vs. Carlito vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Super Crazy
After a commercial, we join the match that's already in progress. The match is chaos as you would expect. Carlito gets a little bit of shine with a springboard moonsault and then a dive to the outside. Super Crazy goes for a dive, but Nitro trips him up. He then tries one and everyone moves out of the way and they all gang up on them. In comes Super Crazy to take them all out into a commercial break. We now get to the part of the match where everyone hits their finisher. Hardy gets to hit his last on Masters and Nitro knocks him out and retains his title. This was a good match that felt pretty fresh. The crowd was very much into it as well and it added to the excitement level.
Match Rating: ***1/4
After a SmackDown Rewind, it's another Cryme Tyme vignette of them stealing a car.
Coach hopes that the videos are helping Vince and now we get DX. They show a video of their highlights and when it ends they are dabbing water under their eyes.
Candice Michelle vs. Lita
I'm not sure that this was a match that I ever wanted to see. This match is already longer than I would have expected. Lita is just toying with Candice here. She goes up to the top rope, but out comes Mickie James. Candice powerbombs Lita off the top rope and picks up the victory. I'm not sure that had to be that long.
Match Rating: 1/4*
They cut to Edge who is furious. Cade and Murdoch come in and tell him to forget her and focus on tonight. They remind him that unlike everyone else in the match, they weren't in a TLC or Hell In A Cell match last night and they just gave DX the worst beating of their life last week.
Edge, Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch vs. John Cena, Shawn Michaels & Triple H
Cade and Murdoch just never seemed to be the real deal to me. Cade tries to take it to Cena, but Cena quickly fights him off and hits the Five Knuckle Shuffle. In comes Michael to take on his student and he's able to blind tag with Murdoch and hits an inverted atomic drop/big boot combo. In comes Edge and he hits a standing dropkick. They isolate Michaels in their corner and the crowd has kind of died out a little bit here. Michaels is finally able to hit an enzuigiri and tag in Triple H. I still don't know how to spell enzuigiri. He goes for the Pedigree, but is clotheslined instead. Edge grabs a chair during the chaos, but Triple H is able to hit a spinebuster on him. Murdoch grabs the chair, but Michaels kicks it out and Michaels starts hitting him with it. The ref sees that and calls for the bell. Cena hits a FU on Cade and now Edge is surrounded by all three opponents. Michaels hits him with some Sweet Chin Music and Triple H hits the Pedigree. Well, that was about as lame of a finish as you could have come up with here. If you're serious about getting Cade and Murdoch over, they had to score some sort of victory here. The crowd wasn't buying it and they did nothing to make them feel differently. The match was pretty standard stuff.
Match Rating: **
Minus the flat finish, this was a mostly positive episode of Raw. The Intercontinental Championship was the highlight by a mile, but the rest was entertaining even if you weren't invested in the storylines.
Overall Rating: 67%
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