WWE Raw house show report
Charleston, West Va.
Report by Dot Net reader Eric Parsons

The show kicked off shortly before 7:30 with GNR’s “Welcome to the Jungle” blaring, and out came the night’s ring announcer—none other than Howard Finkel. He welcomed everybody and told them that Layla was in the building and would be making occasional appearances to give away prizes…she appeared four times.

The first time was to upgrade the seats of a family of four to “closer to ringside.” They had to answer a trivia question—Where was Wrestlemania 24 held?—and up they went. (She came out to pick a guest manager for Kofi Kingston, to pick a special bell-ringer, and to help with the fan participation. Frankly, I found her voice very, very annoying.) 
 
The Fink then announced that the fans could choose the special stipulation for that night’s match for the World Heavyweight Championship between CM Punk and Batista by texting (to 44993) A) if they wanted a falls count anywhere and anything goes match; B) 2 out of 3 falls; or C) No disqualifications.
 
Jamie Noble then got a huge pop when he entered—and he should have, given that he is from nearby Logan, W.V. (he’s billed from Hannibal). He spent some time shaking hands, etc., but what struck me was just how small he appears to be. Charlie Haas (billed from, curiously enough, Dallas , Texas) drew huge heat, and spent quite a bit of time taunting the fans.

1. Jamie Noble defeated Charlie Haas. The match seemingly took forever to get started, but opened with Haas slapping Noble across the face. Jamie displayed some of his trademark cruiserweight high-flying, dominated the majority of this standard match, and won with a knee to Haas’ head from the top turnbuckle.
 
Santino Marella entered next and really got the crowd worked up by putting down the state of West Virginia (“you are all frauds…I looked for the ‘mountain mama’ and she is nowhere. Fraud!" etc.) He then promised that his new finishing move, the Mazaratti Clutch, would 100 percent guarantee the victory! D-Lo Brown made his entrance, interrupting Santino.

2. D-Lo Brown pinned Santino Marella. After a couple of early spots where D-Lo bulldozed the Italian, Santino was in control much of the match, putting D-Lo in his new finishing move…and D-Lo escaping all three times. Finally, it ended with D-Lo reversing Santino into a powerbomb and hitting a Frog Splash. At the end, Santino had the Fink assure the crowd that he was “Okay.”
 
Next to enter was Kofi Kingston, and he received a warm response, and then Paul Burchill and his sister made their entrance. Katie Lea took the mic and told Kofi that his smile was nauseating, and that Paul was going to knock the fake happiness out of his head, once and for all.

3. Kofi Kingston beat Paul Burchill (w/Katie Lea) to retain the Intercontinental Title. A decent match, we could hear Burchill yelling the whole time, and twice Katie Lea tried to interfere, once ducking under Kofi’s kick at her head, and the other time, she was knocked off the apron by her brother when Kofi moved. As soon as Burchill turned around, Kingston landed his Trouble in Paradise and covered for the three count.
 
4. Chuck Palumbo defeated Paul London. This match was the least interesting. Chuck Palumbo got huge heat when he entered on foot, and I must admit that I didn’t know the guy was that big…it’s either that, or Paul London is really, really small. Palumbo dominated the majority of the match, with a few high-flying moves from the former tag-team champion, and a lot of over-selling from Palumbo when London scored some offense. Palumbo won with a big boot to the face, and London appeared to be legitimately injured, and was helped out. Palumbo seemed like he was going to actually kick the snot out of a couple of people at ringside, he looked pretty pissed about something.
 
5. Mickie James pinned Beth Phoenix to retain the WWE Women's Title. Big pop for Mickie, and Beth Phoenix had incredible heat…I’m still convinced she’s a dude. Phoenix was in control the majority of the time, but when Mickie countered a superplex into a flying cross body, she picked up the victory. Pretty standard.
 
Following intermission, The Fink came out with Kelly Kelly, who was there for no apparent reason.
 
Lance Cade came out and proceeded to do the Chris Jericho bit about how Shawn Michaels is a liar, and how the student was going to teach the teacher, blah, blah, blah, until Michaels came in to deafening cheers.

6. Shawn Michaels beat Lance Cade. They were in and out of the ring quite a bit, with Cade starting to get the upper hand after Michaels hit his flying elbow. Still selling the eye injury (the tape came off pretty early), Cade attacked it. He countered Sweet Chin Music, hit his finisher three times, but each time Michaels kicked out. Finally, Michaels ducked under a wild hook from Cade, nailed the superkick and covered. He took quite some time making his exit, but the crowd loved him for it.
 
Next, the results from the text voting were announced, and it was going to be a falls count anywhere match for Batista and CM Punk. When Batista made his entrance, I thought the building was going to come down from the pop he received, and, the dedicated Straight-Edgers aside, CM Punk was mildly received, at best. He was booed quite a bit, too.

7. C.M. Punk pinned Batista in a falls count anywhere match to retain the World Hvt. Title. Batista dominated, for the most part, with Punk landing some early chair shots, but Batista throwing him into the crowd at one point and going nuts with a  chair. When they finally got back into the ring (we couldn’t see the majority of the out-of-ring action), Punk started to hit some of his knees, but when he tried to land the bulldog, Batista picked him up and powerslammed him.

There was a chair in the corner of the ring, and Punk staggered to it. He turned, with the chair in hand, in time to have Batista hit his head on the chair with a spear, and Punk scored the victory, much to the crowd’s anger. Batista got an extended pose-down and exit for his exit; seems to me that he will likely get a title run very, very soon. As a side note, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much sweat on one individual in my lifetime.
 
The main event was announced as a special, six man tag match, and immediately, Cryme Tyme entered. JTG put a hat on The Fink, and he danced for a moment, before looking mad and throwing the hat down. Every time I see John Cena enter the ring, I am amazed at how loud a building-full of 10 year olds get…incredibly painful pop for John Cena in Charleston. Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes drew some immense heat during their entrance, and the crowd seemed confused at Kane’s turn, though it was shown on Raw. Not to insult my own kind, but maybe they don’t have cable.

8. John Cena and Cryme Tyme beat Kane and Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes. Shad opened the match and was pummeling both Rhodes and DiBiase and tagged in Cena. Cena smacked Rhodes around a bit, until he tagged in Kane, and Cena and the Big Red Machine had a pretty intense face-off, but then Kane proceeded to beat the holy hell out of Cena.

Cena was largely used as a punching bag for the other guys, landing some offense now and again (and getting screwed by botch after botch by Cody Rhodes…too bad, he is really starting to stink out loud, because I thought he could have been good—an example was Rhodes falling backward on a bulldog by Cena; no, it was not a counter, as Cena got right back up, and seemed genuinely confused by Rhodes now being six feet away.) Kane, DiBiase, and Rhodes tagged in and out quite a bit, but when Cena countered Rhodes’ bulldog attempt, he managed to tag in JTG, who managed to get destroyed by Kane.

Eventually, Shad ran in and hit a couple of people, including knocking Kane off the apron, while JTG tagged in Cena.  Rhodes was the legal man for the “heels,” but Kane got back into the ring…and chokeslammed DiBiase pretty hard. Cena landed the five knuckle shuffle, and FU’d Rhodes for the victory, while Kane stomped out of the arena.
 
Notes: We left pretty quickly, but we could hear Cena inside praising the folks holding up the “JBL is Poopy” signs, calling them “real Raw fans,” and saying that he and Cryme Tyme were forming a faction called “CTC,” standing for “Cryme Tyme Cenation.”
 
Very good show, the main event was the best I’ve seen live (I was at Armageddon 2007, which was largely flat, and I’ve been to several house shows), but I would say that the Charleston Civic Center embarrassed themselves by having a terrible sound system. Without elaborating, the speakers cracked quite a bit, and The Fink often sounded as though he were having a stroke.

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