Event: WWE Monday Night RAW
Airdate: Monday, April 16th, 2007
Location: The Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State University-State College, PA
Results by 411Wrestling.com
PROMO TIME ��” The Coach
He talks about last week and how he wanted to book Cena v Rated RKO on Backlash but Michael Pena, the Make-A-Wish kid, over ruled him. But he got his way anyway because that handicap match will take place here tonight. Lawler acts surprised despite this being announced on WWE.com. Read the website Jerry! He brings out Vince McMahon with his fedora of power. Vince’s limbs are totally out of control on the POWERWALK~! The crowd chant stuff at him, which he doesn’t understand. He says he gets better receptions in every other city in the world. He says that Milan is the fashion capitol of the world but looks at the crowd and doesn’t think much of the fashion. He brings out UMAGA. His music has really grown on me btw. Vince plays clips from last week and how Umaga gave Lashley a beatdown. Vince regretfully informs us Shane isn’t here tonight. He apparently thinks Italians smell too bad. Lashley also isn’t here because of the beating he took last week and customs happened to stop him on the way over and sent him back where he came from. He offers an open challenge to anyone in the locker room to take on Umaga. No one comes out so Vince puts the IC title on the line. Still no one so Vince opens it up to the audience. Umaga starts getting a bit worked up. Vince says that anyone who steps in here gets destroyed. He looks around for a victim and picks on a little kid who promptly hides behind his Dad. Awesome. He picks out a plant instead. Crowd seems happy with the choice. Vince gets confused again as to what the crowd is singing and tells them to shut up, which is greeted with whistles and boos. Vince makes the plant agree to not sue the WWE if he gets his legs broken. The plant’s name is Santino Marella. Now you KNOW it’s a plant because he has Gorilla Monsoon’s surname. Crowd chants “Santino”. Santino has awesome tattoos. Vince says that Santino represents all these fans out here.
IC title ��” UMAGA (c) v SANTINO MARELLA
Santino hits and moves and gets a cheeky roll up for 2. Vince doesn’t like that and jumps in the ring and makes this a No Holds Barred match. Estrada slaps Santino but Santino slaps back. Umaga sees an opening and lays the guy out and drops the leg. Estrada gets a receipt on that slap. Umaga sets up the corner splash off the ropes and they’re getting some serious heat for this. Umaga goes up again but LASHLEY runs in there and slams Umaga off the top. Remember this is no holds barred so this is all legal. Lashley lays out Estrada. Vince comes in with a chair but that’s blocked. Umaga is up. Chair shot! Umaga is still up. “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH” ��” Milan before each chair shot. Umaga survives three but gets speared and Santino pins for the win at 4.23.
Winner and NEW IC champion: Santino Marella via pinfall . Wow. The plant is Anthony Carelli who wrestled in OVW as Boris Alexiev btw. He was the guy that Jim Cornette slapped about for not doing his job as a plant but has since been given a shooter gimmick until being called up today of course. I’ve seen clips of him wrestle and he looks like a talent. He’s sure over like clover in Milano.
POST MATCH Jerry jumps in the ring to interview Lashley. He says he’s keeping his title after Backlash and doesn’t explain how he got past customs. He introduces the new IC champ. He thanks Bobby and shouts “Forza Italia” to a nice pop. I really enjoyed that segment. It’s been a while since the WWE just pushed a new guy differently and out of the gate made him something special. Now he’s a story without doing hardly anything.
BACKSTAGE Carlito & Ric Flair prepare for tonight’s match. Carlito thinks he let Flair down last week. Flair says they need to win to get back in title contention.
RIC FLAIR/CARLITO w/Torrie Wilson v WORLDS GREATEST TAG TEAM
Carlito starts by hip tossing Shelton a few times. Shelton misses in the corner and gets dropkicked. Carlito cleans the ring out and gets a big reaction. Nice to hear a different crowd reacting differently. Flair tags in and “Wooo” is universal. CHOPS! Haas gets his knee clipped. He goes for the Figure Four but Shelton clotheslines him. Haas takes over and the heels cut the ring off. The fans singing is tremendous. WGTT keep Flair isolated and work him over. Flair sneaks out and gets a hot tag. Carlito wails away on Shelton with intensity. High knee for Shelton. Springboard back elbow. Shelton bumped that a little early. Haas jumps in there and the ref gets distracted by Flair so Haas can trip Carlito. Shelton hits the Exploder slam on Carlito and gets it done at 4.14.
Winners: Worlds Greatest Tag Team via pinfall .
POST MATCH Carlito is even more frustrated than last week and storms off leaving Torrie with Flair.
CLIPS ��” We see Michael Pena making the main event for Backlash.
BACKSTAGE Maria has John Cena for an interview. HUGE heat for him just walking into shot. She wants to know his thoughts on tonight’s match. He says there’s only one champ when SHAWN MICHAELS walks in to interject. He pointed out that before Wrestlemania he always had Cena’s back. Now he doesn’t care what happens to him. Especially not next week when they have their one on one match. He’ll leave him on his back and there’s nothing he can do about it.
RINGSIDE ��” the Italian announce team who are here for the first time. Lawler points out the short fat one looks like Tazz. BURN!
SHILL ��” The Condemned. This week it focuses on Vinny Jones. The Italian crowd pops it.
BACKSTAGE Melina warms up for the fashion show. Johnny Nitro gets greeted by Eugene staring at Melina. Johnny doesn’t look impressed.
JOHNNY NITRO v EUGENE
Eugene noly gets in the ring before Nitro puts a beating on him. Eugene mounts an attempted comeback but Nitro is much quicker. He drives his knee into Eugene’s neck and that stops Eugene completely. Hangman’s neckbreaker finishes at 1.12.
Winner: Johnny Nitro via pinfall
Diva Fashion Show
Host for the show is Todd Grisham but he throws over to Paulo something. Candice Michelle is out first wearing a set of wings. Victoria has a white dress on and nearly falls over because she’s having trouble with the high heels. She has some good runway attitude. The crowd seem disinterested. Mickie James is next showing a chic. “Designer denim” according to JR. Maria is wearing a Betty Boop spaghetti top. Do I have to actually call this? Yeah? Shit. Next is Torrie Wilson with black shorts and a lace top thing. Melina is last out with a classical red dress with a large black belt. Melina looks very confident. The crowd LOVE the entrance. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHâ¦.OLE!” ��” as she goes under the ropes. Candice gets a pleasant pop. Victoria gets jeered possibly for her fake tan. Decent pop for Mickie. Crowd gets excited for Maria and pops quite big. They get even more excited for Torrie and she gets another big pop. Boo’s for Melina. Paulo decides that Torrie wins. Melina predictably jumps her from behind but Mickie pulls her off. The faces clear the ring out.
JEFF HARDY w/Matt Hardy v LANCE CADE w/Trevor Murdoch
This is due to the Hardys defending their tag belts against Cade & Murdoch at Backlash. JR has his weekly mark out for Skittles. Heels get zero reaction. HOOK â~EM HORNS! Crowd gets a rousing “Hardy” chant going. JR says that if he was to design a wrestler the prototype would be Cade. He’s a hoss in other words. Whisper in the Wind and a flipover legdrop gets 2. Hardy up top but Cade bails. Jeff throws him back in but Cade takes over with knees. Cade throws Jeff out but Matt makes sure that Murdoch doesn’t attack him. Jeff takes offence at Murdoch thinking about attacking him and dropkicks him through the ropes. Cade greets him with a boot to the face for that. Murdoch gets a cheap shot in and then runs away from Matt. Lawler blames Jeff for attacking him first. Hey, he’s got a point. Cade beats Jeff down in the corner and punches him for 2. Jeff busts out a mule kick as Lawler starts with the country song gags (sidenote ��” my favourite Lawler country song is “how can I miss you if you won’t go away”). Jeff comes back with a jawbreaker and a running forearm. Clotheslines follow. Jeff goes up and the crowd anticipate something good. Swanton gets KNEES. LARIATOOOOOOOOOOOO! Jeff is dead at 5.57.
Winner: Lance Cade via pinfall . No crowd reaction whatsoever for the win, which shows what a lame job they’ve done of building the Cade & Murdoch team but they’re actually quite entertaining. Cade is all business while Murdoch has a tonne of character. I like them. Shame they’ve been buried for so long that no one cares about them.
Sidenote ��” never understood why Sky plug Sunrise at 3am. Do you really think I’ll be awake in time for the 6am-9am show when I’m up at 3am watching wrestling?
CHRIS MASTERS v SUPER CRAZY
Masters has the mic. He says that Italy is known for its great works of art but nothing they’ve created compares to Chris Masters. Listen to that pop for Super Crazy! I like that he’s from “Mexico”. Don’t want to confuse the fans with a town name! It’s like announcing Chris Benoit as from Canada or Ric Flair as from America. Crowd pops all of Crazy’s unorthodox stuff and pops the suicide dive HUGE that flattens Masters at ringside. Back inside the moonsault misses. Masters kicks away at the guts and the crowd whistle quietly. Crazy goes for the crucifix but he can’t get Masters over and Masters sits back into for 2. Masters with knees to the back and a chinlock. Crowd is chanting “Super Crazy” and hey, “let’s go Masters”. It’s DUELLING CHANTS IN MILAN! Masters acts like a jerk though to get his heat back. He throws another knee to the back and goes back to the chinlock. Crazy goes after Masters legs, which Lawler thinks is crazy. He kicks Masters down to size for a dropkick. Standing moonsault gets 2. He goes for a wheelbarrow but gets counted into the OCEAN CYCLONE, which gets the pin at 5.09.
Winner: Chris Masters via pinfall . I like in the spoilers report that they said Masters won with “a new hold, not the Masterlock”. New? Tell that to Al Snow! I love the Ocean Cyclone though. Great move to replace the Masterlock as a finisher. I don’t know who invented it. I don’t even know whether it’s the right name for the move because the move that Manami Toyota uses with the same name-ish is a different hold. But when I saw it used in the States for the first time in the mid 90’s it was called an Ocean Cyclone. Would be nice to get confirmation.
Italian Tazz gets very excited about something.
SHILL ��” Backlash. Lashley v McMahon/McMahon/Umaga ��” 3 on 1, Taker v Batista ��” last man standing, Hardys v Cade & Murdoch, Melina v Mickie James, Cena v HBK v Edge v Orton for the WWE title.
BACKSTAGE Orton visits with Edge. Orton wants to forget the past and focus on teaming up and taking out Cena tonight. They have a big love in before saying they’re both out to get Cena tonight. “You’re the best partner I ever had” ��” Edge. “I was just about to say the same thing bro”.
Sidenote ��” does anyone else think those two lines were leading towards either a big man-hug complete with tears?
NEXT WEEK ��” John Cena v Shawn Michaels in a Wrestlemania re-match.
RATED RKO v JOHN CENA
They’re enforcing tags with Edge starting. Cena picks him off with the fisherman suplex for 2. Crowd isn’t quite so anti-Cena as earlier. Orton gets a tag and the heels give Cena a shoeing. Lawler points out the crowd hate Cena. He picks Orton off with a bulldog for 2. Orton boots him back down and the crowd get some anti-Cena emotion going. Orton hammers away and hits the European uppercut as a local tribute. Edge comes back in and the crowd pop. Final ad break! We return with Edge pounding Cena down. Cena gets shoved off the apron into the Italian announce table. Crowd pops. Orton follows to drop Cena’s face first on the table. Orton throws a load of right hands only stopping to satisfy the ref that he isn’t constantly cheating. Cena fires back on Edge but runs into a big boot. Orton back in for his big dropkick. No cover because he wants to pound away on the ribcage. Kneedrop. “Let’s go Randy”. Edge in and Cena goes after the FU but Edge gets out quickly to stop that. Cena is looking weakened. Edge pounds away and the crowd cheer every shot. “Cena sucks” ��” Milan. Edge looks for a superplex but Cena fights him off. Flying Rocker Dropper but in comes Orton to kick his ass. SHAWN MICHAELS is out here. Edge has a chair but the ref stops it. Shawn low bridges Orton. That leaves Cena alone with Edge. Protobomb! Edge can’t see him. Five Knuckle Shuffle. Edge is staggered. FU but Orton comes in and dropkicks everyone over. The referee ends up on the bottom. Orton and Cena collide leaving everyone down. Edge signals for the spear. Cena & Orton are really close together though and Edge miscues hitting Orton. HBK is in there ��” SUPERKICK for Edge! Cena FU’s him and Cena gets the pin at 12.37.
Winner: John Cena via pinfall . It should be noted that Shawn was aiming at Cena who ducked.
That’s the show. Next week we get a Wrestlemania main event rematch. Until then, and Raw in London, take it easy.
