WWE Live Events 8/23 WWE Raw in New York at MSG: John Cena and Batista vs. Chris Jericho and Kane, C.M. Punk defends the World Hvt. Championship against JBL in a steel cage match, William Regal vs. Primo Colon Aug 23, 2008 - 11:17 PM Email This Article | Printer Friendly Page Send Us News & Results | Back to Main Listing WWE Raw house show New York, N.Y. at Madison Square Garden Thanks to Dot Net Reader Jules Mercuri of North Bergen, N.J. Bell time was 7:30 and the event began with the arena about 75 percent full. Tony Chimel greeted fans and introduced the national anthem, which got red, white and blue pyro in the ring. 1. Primo Colon defeated William Regal in about 9:00. Colon pinned Regal with a backslide. Tony Chimel introduced tonight's hostess, Kelly Kelly. She was in the second deck of seats with a family and offered the kids front-row seats if they knew where WM 24 was held. They got the question right. 2. Lance Cade defeated D-Lo Brown in about 9:00. Cade pinned D'Lo after a sitout side slam spinebuster. Kelly Kelly was introduced again and picked a kid from the front row to be the guest manager for Jamie Noble in the match after the next. 3. Beth Phoenix defeated Mickie James in about 8:00. Beth pinned Mickie after a Glam Slam. 4. Jamie Noble (w/guest manager Kyle) defeated Snitsky in about 7:00. Noble made Snitsky submit to a guillotine chokehold. After the match, Snitsky gave Noble a big boot. Chimel came out and announced the World Tag Team title match. Team Priceless came out and Cody Rhodesbegan running down Cryme Tyme and their hometown of New York for being larcenous thugs, referring to Cryme Tyme stealing the tag belts on Monday's Raw. Ted DiBiase added that they would get the belts back once and for all tonight. Cryme Tyme came out to a huge pop, posing with the belts and high-fiving fans in the front. 5. Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes defeated Cryme Tyme (JTG and Shad Gaspard) in about 10:00 for the World Tag Team Championships. DiBiase (I think) pinned JTG with a roll-up. After the match, the referee handed DiBiase and Rhodes the tag belts, but as JTG came to, he and Shad attacked them from behind and stole the belts again. Chimel came out and shilled some WWE merchandise available at the concessions and announced a short intermission, during which the WrestleMania XXIV DVD ad and half of the HBK-Jericho video package from this week played on the monitors. Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix came out for the former's Intercontinental Championship match. Santino cut a long and hilarious promo in which he sung a parody of "New York, New York" ("Start spreading the news/I'm not gonna lose/I am the Intercontinental Champion/Two times, two.") That was apparently all we got "for free, no extra charge" and he then pointed out that he and Beth were both champions. "Look what's on my belly!" He noted that sometimes a member of a team has a rough day, and the other team member has to step up and make sure the team wins in the end—and that he'd done that for Beth this week. "You did good too! You did good too!" he said to Beth, while still putting himself over. He announced that he would be debuting his new finishing move, a move with which he could defeat any challenger, the Maserati Clutch. Before he did the move, he would make an M with his hands ("...for Maserati") and a clutching gesture ("...for clutch") so fans knew when to cheer. Kofi made his entrance and got yellow and green pyro in the ring as he did the three handclaps. 6. Santino Marella defeated Kofi Kingston in about 10:00 for the Intercontinental Championship. Santino pinned Kofi with a roll-up after Beth got up from ringside and gave him an encouraging slap on the ass. Chimel announced that the following contest was a tag team match—up until the day of the show it had been two separate matches: Kane vs. Batista and Cena vs. Jericho. Jericho came out to a surprising pop (though maybe just for the spectacle of his cool pyro) and cut his standard promo, blaming Rebecca Michaels's injury on the fans. Huge HBK chants throughout, which Jericho instructed fans to "get out of your systems, because you'll never be chanting that again" and on and on. Kane came out to some really loud pyro, both fireworks inside the ring and flames on the ring posts. Cena came out to an earsplitting but very mixed (I'd say 50/50) pop and Batista came out shortly thereafter to a quieter set of mostly cheers. They posed together in the ring like totally cooperative tag partners. The combined pyro for Y2J, Kane, and Batista required that a crew member come out and sweep the dust off the entire mat. Y2J heeled it up, gesturing at him to hurry up, and later Cena raised his hand like he'd won a match after he finished. 7. John Cena and "Dave The Animal" Batista defeated Chris Jericho and Kane in about 16:00. Cena pinned Kane after an FU. After the match, Batista and Cena posed for a long time in all four corners of the ring. Batista went to ringside and grabbed a fan's "Batista Hates Cancer" sign and held it up. Chimel announced a short intermission while the ring crew set up the cage. No cage music. Afterward, Chimel thanked the fans for coming out and announced Raw's return to the Garden, another house show on Sunday, December 28. Tickets on sale next Saturday. JBL came out and cut a scathing promo, putting over Madison Square Garden and all the sports history that had happened there, and New York City in general, but demeaned the fans, thanking them for paying to come see him, just as he thanked them for opening doors for him and shining his shoes, but saying that he would never pay money to see a New Yorker besides himself. He pointed out disgraced ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer and hated Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, saying that he, JBL, was the savior of New York. CM Punk came out to the second-biggest pop of the night and high-fived all the fans at ringside, hugging two sets of people in the corners who were family or friends, I guess. 8. CM Punk defeated JBL in about 17:00 in a Steel Cage match for the World Heavyweight Championship. Punk won by escaping the cage, actually being knocked out the door by an errant JBL punch. During the match, the cage door got stuck after JBL slammed it on Punk's head-- the door would only open inward, toward the ring, not outward toward the floor. The referee on the outside fiddled with it for three or four minutes, taking a piece of metal from Tony Chimel at ringside and banging the door with it, pulling on it as hard as he could, etc. until it finally righted itself. This kind of telegraphed that the door would be involved in the finish and was really distracting to fans, but Punk and JBL did a fine job working through it on the other side of the ring. After the match, CM Punk celebrated at ringside. JBL came at him with a chair. Punk dodged it and hit the Go to Sleep on JBL. Punk posed for four or five minutes (two full plays of his music) with maybe a third of the crowd running down to the floor to celebrate with him. Notes: All in all this was an excellent house show. Not a lot of Smackdown-style mat technique, but huge star power and a great, hot, New York crowd. After intermission, the Garden was full to capacity. Tickets had been sold out on Ticketmaster for weeks but were easily and pretty cheaply obtainable on StubHub. With the exception of Snitsky-Noble, which was abysmal, the matches were good to very good. Santino is incredible on the mic and is definitely getting more of a positive reaction than negative. The merch tables had no Rey Mysterio merchandise, presumably because he is dead. Biggest pops: 1. Cena/Batista 2. CM Punk 3. Cryme Tyme Most heat: 1. Jericho 2. JBL 3. Team Priceless Jules Mercuri North Bergen, NJ BOOKMARK DOT NET AND ADD US TO YOUR RSS • HELP DOT NET: TAKE OUR ADVERTISER DEMO SURVEY CLICK TO RETURN TO MAIN LISTING OR SELECT A LINK BELOW FROM THIS CATEGORY WWE Live Events Latest Twelve Articles 11/17 ECW taping in Atlanta, Ga.: Full results of WWE's Tuesday night show, former Smackdown Diva returns to television with a new wrestler 11/15 WWE Smackdown in Dortmund: Triple H defends the WWE Championship against Big Show, Vladimiar Kozlov vs. Jeff Hardy, Kung Fu Naki vs. Ezekiel Jackson 11/13 WWE Raw in Belfast, Northern Ireland: Batista, Rey Mysterio, and C.M. 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