“Heeeeeeey!”

Raw 01.07.08

Show opens with a video package about Ric Flair’s career threatening match last week which featured Flair using his magic face powers to fly and the worst looking pedigree of all time. Oh, and also Triple H was kicked out of the Royal Rumble, too bad so sad. Cut to the back with Vince and Regal confronting each other in the back. Vince asks him if he knows this is the first Raw of 2008 and people are expecting something big and innovative. He says he has wrestlers who don’t even know they are wrestling tonight and other don’t know the match type because it’s the return of Raw Roulette. Because nothing says innovative like something you’ve done before. ….wait, what? Vince wishes him a happy new year and Regal asks if Vince likes Trips not being in the Rumble, which he agrees. Vince likes him being injured as well even more….by putting him in a match with Regal. Time to spin the wheel! NO whammy! NO whammy! The crowd looks pumped for Cage match, but it barely clicks over to First Blood. Regal leaves his office and gets his ass kicked immediately by Triple H who must have smelled the jobber radiating out of him like those scents the bitch wolves in a pack put out.

Theme and pyro, minus the pyro part. Michaels is on his way out for a match as we discover apparently that Kennedy’s finisher is called the Mic Check now. Should have been the Drug Test, but close enough I guess. Apparently we didn’t get enough of Michaels/Kennedy last year so it’s time for them to go at it yet again. First show of the new year and we’re already having reruns. Kennedy summons up the power of his microphone but when it finally comes down Vince appears to spin the wheel and declare it a Strange Bedfellows Match which makes Michaels and Kennedy into tag team partners for this not at all rigged random match selection. And by not at all, I mean, completely fucking rigged.

Random Commercial Thought: I’m not even sure what the fuck is going on in this Melina Commercial.

Back to the show where randomly the match is going on.

Mr. Kennedy & Shawn Michaels vs. Charlie Haas & Trevor Murdoch

Kennedy is slamming down Charlie Haas and picks up a two. Haas, who seems to have eaten Shelton Benjamin, gets his ass handed to him, but as he whips Kennedy to the ropes, Michaels makes a blind tag. Michaels kicks Kenned and chucks him to the floor as well as Haas who goes under the ring. Haas returns….wearing a lucha mask. What the fuck? He starts posing like a super hero and manages to gain control when Murdoch cheap shot clotheslines Michaels from the apron. Murdoch tags in and levels Michaels with a boot before hoisting Michaels into a back breaker while Haas climbs up and jumps from the top….only to stand beside Michaels then drop a normal elbow. Oookaaaaay? Michaels looks for the tag, But Kennedy goes to the floor and leaves him. Michaels escapes a back body drop and unmasks Haas who loses all of his powers once more. General Michaels offense now, with the showstopper climbing up top and dropping the elbow. He then super kicks Murdoch on the apron and tunes up the band, but Kennedy distracts him. Haas tries to come back but Michaels flattens him with a super kick but Kennedy tagged himself in, catching Michaels with the Mic Check and stealing the pin.

Winners: Michaels & Kennedy

We get some obligatory pimping for Triple H and Regal.

Random Commercial Thought: Fun Fact. DnB can also stand for Dick in the Butt.

Back to the show. It’s a trading places match next where the opponents must dress as each other. Holly’s music plays and Carlito Holly accompanied by Morella. Next we have….well Hardcore Caribbean Cool? Oh my god. The only thing I can think about while looking at that fro is that the pool must be closed…due to AIDS.

Hardcore Holly w/ Cody Rhodes vs. Carlito Caribbean Cool w/ Santino Morella

Holly has to remove the fro to get his shirt off then puts it back on. Carlito gets pissed at Holly’s imitation and beats him down into the corner until the wig flies off. A spinning reverse elbow levels Holly off the ropes. Carlito follows with a suplex for a one count. At least Carlito’s hair stays. Carlito back suplexes Holly for another two. While Carlito is working the back let me pause to say how amazing it is that for this completely randomly selected match type they happened to have the items on hand to imitate each other, including trunks. What’s more interesting is that loser wrestlers don’t end up with high profile match types. Holly turns the tables on Carlito in the corner with chops and tries to fire up the crowd after a dropkick. The crowd couldn’t give a shit. Santino distracts the ref, but Holly retrieves his apple to spit it in Carlito’s face. Alabama Slam is academic, but I would like to point out JR told us “Bob Holly spits in the face of people he doesn’t perceive to be cool.”

Winner: Holly

Maria is in the back wearing her super slut outfit and spins the wheel for the Diva’s match. It lands on Submission and Vince has her close her eyes as he talks and secretly adjusts the wheel to a Lingerie Pillow Fight. You’re PPV dollars at work folks. There’s some joke about Maria’s pillows be au natural, but I was too busy thinking about her tits to care…oh wait I get it!

Random Commercial Thought: For some reason the breaks seem unordinarily short tonight.

Back to the show where the replay show how Orton delights his soccer mom by proving all those years in the AYSO weren’t a waste, kicking Matt in the head last week. In the back, Tard is interviewing Jeff. There’s a reason Matt was the mouthpiece for the Hardy Boys. He talks like a badly written comic book character or song writer. King is wearing a black shirt with a playing card King (of Spades no less) in rhinestones on it. In the back, Hornwswoggle is playing with the wheel and Vince gets in his way to talk to him. I have no idea what the fuck he is talking about because THE FUCKING MICROPHONE ISN’T WORKING MORONS. The sound even goes out entirely for a moment. It’s a light echoing sound in the room from whatever sound source the camera itself has and finally the scene is just cut off entirely as JR apologizes to us. Pussies.

Random Commercial Thought: Sunshine, so important to science fiction, you haven’t even heard of it.

Back to the show. They replay what happened moments ago with actual sound. He says he wouldn’t allow Regal to hit him it was just a test and he asks him who won the rumble in 1999, it was him. He says Hornswoggle will win it this year if he qualifies in his match tonight. If that happened I’d quit so fast, that I’d have quit before it happened. Vince rallies him up saying it will be a tag match where he and his partner qualify and calls him his boy as we go to the ring for the bed and pillows. Oh damn, bathroom break. But I’m probably going to need my hands now anyway….

There’s nothing to really recap here since all the diva’s run around sluts for a while (Ashley made a lackluster appearance) and eventually team up against one. I’m not even really sure who won this, but it was a clusterfuck…not that type of fuck you pervert.

Random Commercial Thought: Remember when Nintendo owned your soul?

Back to the show where Super Crazy is turning down Hornswoggle’s request to be his tag team partner saying he isn’t that crazy. We are off to ringside for Regal and Trips who at least quadruples the length of Regal’s entrance. Best sign of the night: Nelly’s Fur Taco.

William Regal vs. Triple H (First Blood Match)

Regal tries to come in with a left and Hunter out punches him, so he runs to the floor. Trips follows and slams him at the steps, but Regal blocks. Regal tries to grab the brass knuckles but loses them as Triple H begins to bash his face into the announce table. He grinds his head into the edge of the steps and tears them apart. Regals ducks the stair toss (5.4 on the score card). Regal manages to knock Trips into the steel post and tries to knee the side of his head into it, but Trips ducks and causes him to crack it. Big Regal sucks chant starts while he continues to toss The Game into the posts and grinds his boot on his face back in the ring. JR claims Triple H apparently some how body slams himself as well. Regal exposes the steel turnbuckle and Trips fights back this time, but is sent head first into the turnbuckle. Regal lays in with hard lefts, as opposed to soft lefts, which is probably something best left to imaginary Naruto characters.

Regal tries to send him into the turnbuckle again, but he block and sends Regal into it twice. Triple H counters a back body into a face buster, but Regal counters it into a monkey flip into one of the covered corners. A running knee to the face levels Triple H but doesn’t kill him because he didn’t learn it from soccer, or football as the barbarians in England like to call it. Bastards. Regal goes to the floor to find his brass knuckles. Regal makes for a running strike, but Trips plants him with a spine buster. Hard rights into the face as Hunter holds on and continues to just keep punching over and over until he breaks him open. Winner: Triple H

After the match Hunter drops a knee on Regal and then grabs him by the hair to drag him into a pedigree.

Random Commercial Thought: Genesis health club, where you begin to get in shape…only to be tempted by snakes to eat chili dogs.

Back to the show where Morella asks Hornswoggle if they should get Count Chocula to help them if they were going to team. He eventual tells him midgets are creepy and Horny looks disappointed. Maybe if he learned how to speak English instead of “Creepy Fuckgoblin” as his native language it would help. King says Jericho ruined JBL’s entrance last week because it sure was pretty….pretty boring. Replay of the Y2J sabotage. Back to ringside for Jericho’s expensive entrance. He’s dropped a lot of the blond hair dye at least taking away quite a bit of the gayness to him. It seems apathy follows this poor guy like the plague. We see Vince spinning the wheel as we go to commercial. The suspense is killing me!

Random Commercial Thought: The Eye - even the Japanese version sucked. It’s like were really sucking the true bottom of the barrel for horror films now, remaking crappy foreign films that were never good.

Back to ringside where Jillian says it was ruled a handicap match and here comes his opponent. Apparently Snitsky counts as multiple people, must have a disorder. Snitsky stalks around the ring until JBL’s bells ring. For someone from New York he has some huge ass horns on his limo.

Snitsky & JBL vs. Chris Jericho (Handicap Tag Match)

Snitsky leaps onto Jericho and beats him into the corner, but Jericho dodges between his legs and chops Snitsky to the ropes, hitting a flying forearm and being cut down by a clothesline. Snitsky wildly stomps on him, while I’m sure we all long for the days of the happy go lucky abortionist we all remember. Snitsky misses the Hanger Banger and manages to rack himself on the top rope. Jericho gets tackled from behind to the floor by JBL where he begins to slam John around into the furniture until he clocks Jericho in the head. The ref calls for the bell like an idiot, because he’s holding the fucking bell himself. He tosses the bell back to the time keeper then calls for it but JBL tosses him aside.

Winner: Jericho

JBL chokes Jericho out with a cable and drags him around by it. He eventually pulls him to his feet with the chord to nail him with a clothesline and start dragging him up the rant. The ref seems less concerned with Y2J choking to death as he continues to do his little dance around him. The random gaggle of jackasses who usually break these things up must all be on break. Jericho is slammed into the steel section of the security wall and dragged along some more, The crowd starts a Y2J chant but it’s not getting anything as he is sent into the steel tower. JBL climbs the tower and runs the rope through it, setting up to hang him. Since I guess nobody guessed the correct letters to spell out the word. Y, 2, and J weren’t in it. The word was Bagel. The refs finally break them up as we go to commercial.

Random Commercial Thought: The Orphanage is this year’s Pan’s Labyrinth? By that I guess they mean, horrifying to children every who assumed it was a kid’s film.

Back to the show. The Highlanders are trying to qualify for the Rumble against Hornswoggle and….B.K. Jordan? Some very skinny bald dude who looks like he’s been ransacked by the gay AIDS. Before the match gets qualified though, there’s an apparent car accident in the arena and Mick Foley arrives. B.K. looks happy to give up a chance to be in the Royal Rumble to someone else and leaves. In the words of Walter the puppet: Dumbass.

Hornswoggle & Mick Foley vs. The Highlanders (Royal Rumble Qualifier Match)

Robbie and Foley start off with Foley getting a two count off of a running punch. Hornswoggle tags in and kicks Robbie in the shin, hitting a running dropkick and some kind of crotch dropping senton. Rory tags in and dodges a run by Hornswoggle, face planting him on the mat, but Foley breaks the pin. Who the fuck did Mick eat? Hornswoggle dodges a grab and makes the tag and Foley comes in the beat Rory into the corner hard with a Bang Bang. A running knee to the face in the corner and Million Dollar Knee Lift. Robbie tries a cheap shot and manages to distract Foley long enough to shut him down. A Double team in the corner commences with the Highlanders tagging in and out. Foley counters a double back body and ducks Rory, sending him to the floor. Socko appears but Rory is coming off the top from behind…only to get a Soc in the mouth. Double Arm DDT plants Robbie and it’s time for the Tadpole Splash or the 2 ½ star splash if you would like to call it that. Either way, it’s pretty gay.

Winners: Foley & Hornswoggle

The cage is lowering for Jeff Hardy’s cage match as we go to commercial.

Random Commercial Thought: Meet the Spartans and say goodbye to 10 or more hard earned dollars you’re throwing in the gutter by doing so.

Hardy spastically dances out to the ring, seemingly not knowing the auditions for Stomp the Yard are long since over. Umaga comes along to shake the cage wall, which just really only serves to show how weak those walls really are. Way to break the illusion. Orton’s music hits as I had somewhat hoped he might have forgotten to show up and bore me tonight, but I guess it was too good to be true.

Umaga vs. Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy (Non Title Cage Match)

Umaga chucks Hardy away from himself and screamed. I wonder why if he’s so savage, why he wears elbow pads. Umaga kicks out at one from a dropkick from Hardy. Umaga kicks him in the jaw and stalks around the downed Hardy. Umaga misses a corner splash and chews on some steel cage instead. Slingshot dropkick to the sternum and Hardy goes for the pinfall despite being LESS THAN A FOOT, from the fucking door. That’s right, he could just walk out and leave. Umaga slings Hard to the corner, but he instead springboards up and to the top of the cage, but Umaga grabs him by the legs of his pants and slams Hardy to the mat as we go to commercial.

Random Commercial Thought: Speaking of animated adventures has anyone seen the insufferably gay mascots for the Olympics? It’s horrifying.

Umaga is nerve squeezing Hardy on the ground and Umaga hammers him with an elbow. Couldn’t they take a commercial break during this hold instead? So instead of watching the match, I’m watching the crowd and there’s a guy in the front row turned backwards, pointing back toward the camera while his friend jerks him around by the ear. Hardy rallies back against Umaga and gets back dropped into the steel cage when he runs at him. Headbutts ensue to Hardy who is trapped between the cage and the ropes. Umaga slings him back into the cage and delivers a running splash that slings as much of himself into the cage as he did the last time yet miraculously does absolutely no damage to him at all this time.

Hardy gets his foot on the rope at the two count and Orton starts to chuck chairs over the cage into the ring and yell at the ref through the cage. Umaga grabs a chair and nails Hardy in the back, pinning him for only two. Orton looks pissed as Umaga climbs. Umaga retardedly walks along the ropes like the Undertaker for some reason and Hardy pulls the ropes to rack him. Hardy sets up a chair in the ring and springboards off of it to dropkick Umaga’s head into the cage. Umaga blocks a Twist of Fate and catches him with an uppercut. Jeff and his smurf hair sit in the corner while Umaga takes his dear time with the ass crash that he inevitably misses. Forearms and a mule kick hit Umaga before Hardy throws a chair in his face in the corner. Hardy sets a chair in the center of the ring and drags Umaga over to take a DDT on a chair for two. JR calls Umaga a stallion which creeps me out. Jeff makes a run for the ring door and like an idiot sticks his head out first, so Orton closes it on his face. Umaga drags himself to the cover but only gets two and JR declares Jeff to have apparently sucked Matt’s Will Not Die life force from his brother. Umaga signals the Spike, but Hardy counters to the Twist of Fate. Hardy climbs to the top where Orton threatens him so Hardy pulls the spot of the fucking year already and Whispers in the wind backwards onto Umaga for the win. Holy fucking shit.

Winner: Jeff Hardy

Jeff stand atop the cage and he and Orton stare down as the show goes off the air.

Highlight of the Night: Hardy Whispers in the Wind from the top of the Cage amazingly.

Lowlight of the Night: Jericho continues to look like a chump to JBL.

WWE “Creative” Award: Hornswoggle qualifies for the Royal Rumble. What the fuck?

Congratulations go to Catherine for winning her not at all fake Fanny Award. Oh and some guy named Sean. I don't know who that hack is. Check out the Fanny Awards if you haven't already. Otherwise you're a queer.