WWE HEAT
Raw 15th Anniversary Special
(Host - Todd Grisham)
Undertaker Vs Damian Demento: From the very first Raw, with commentary from Vince McMahon, Randy Savage and, so Wikipedia informs me, Rob Bartlett. Who the fuck is Rob Bartlett? Paul Bearer accompanies Undi to ringside and wails alot. Demento starts off with some right hands, but Taker soon takes over and goes for the 'old school' rope walk. Which obviously back then wasn't 'old school'. Taker runs into a boot in the corner, and Demento takes him down with a shoulder block. Taker sits up, ducks a clothesline and comes off the ropes with a diving press before finishing off the match with the Tombstone piledriver.
Winner: The Undertaker (Time 2:24)
Jeff Hardy gives us his favourite Raw moment, when he and Matt first won the tag titles in June 1999 from the Acolytes (Farooq and Bradshaw). The Hardy Boys have got Michael Hayes with them. The Acolytes mostly dominate the match, but the distraction of Hayes and a stick shot from Jeff to Bradshaw allow Matt to pin him with a Tornado DDT.
Jonathan Coachman's favourite Raw moment featured himself The Rock and Eugene. Coachman was being mean to Eugene and telling him that he had no friends, when out came The Rock to beg to differ.
The Rock Vs Hollywood Hulk Hogan: This from February 2002 wasn't a match, but a verbal sparring session. The Rock informs Hogan that it wasn't the fans that drove him away ("They believed in you: Dammit, I believed in you"). Rock challenges Hogan to a match at WrestleMania, as the fans chant 'Rocky'. I seem to remember a few different chants at WMX8. The chant seamlessly switches from 'Rocky' to 'Hogan' and back again, before Hogan speaks, and calls Rock the flavour of the month, questioning whether The Rock is even in his league. The Rock asks the people if they want to see the match. They do. Hogan finally agrees: "It'll be a pleasure to kick your ass at WrestleMania". Rock has the final word, and punctuates it with a Rock Bottom.
MICKIE JAMES talks us through some of the Divas of the past. Of course, they all pale into insignificance compared to the great Ms James, I'm sure we can all agree on that.
Lita Vs Trish Stratus: We join this match, from December 2004, in progress. Many of the matches between these two were downright awful, but there were a couple of crackers. This would be heel Trish, just after she was wearing the face mask to protect her broken nose. That run Trish had as heel was downright revelatory. Unfortunately, we have missed the part of this match where Lita took the phrase 'suicide dive' a litle too literally. Trish is dominating the match, but Lita snapmares her off the top and tries to throttle her. Trish regains the impetus, and we get a replay of the earlier dive. Man, that was nearly as funny as Candice Michelle falling on her face a couple of weeks ago, the difference being at least Lita was trying to accomplish some kind of cool looking offensive move. Lita scores with a superplex for two, then hits an out of the corner powerbomb and looks for the Litasault. Trish stops her from climbing, but gets rolled up for another near fall. Trish holds onto the ropes to block a DDT, then tries a pin with her feet on the ropes, which Lita barely wriggles out of in time. A Stratusfaction attempt is countered and Lita hits a Twist of Fate followed by the moonsault for the win. Lita becomes the new WWE Women's Champion, after what was a real highlight for the division.
Winner: Lita
Cody Rhodes talks about not being allowed to watch Raw, because his dad worked for the competition. After Dustin fell out with Dusty and went to work for WWE, watching Raw was the only way Cody got to see his big brother.
Randy Orton Vs Cody Rhodes: (July 2007) What's this doing on here?
Winner: Randy Orton
CM Punk tells us how Shawn Michaels was his favourite Raw superstar whilst growing up. He also recalls wrestling on Raw for the first time, which he claims was the first time he had wrestled in front of his home town of Chicago. I guess he just means for WWE. Then we get to see Punk take on Kenny Dykstra from March. Seriously, how the Hell have this or the last match got in this programme? Punk wins with his perpetually crappy Go To Sleep.
We get a run down of the line-up for Armageddon. My predictions? My three favourite people (Jericho, Hardy, JAMES) will all lose.
The show finishes with McMahon announcing himself as the greatest Raw superstar, and getting beaten up by Foley, Undertaker and finally Austin.
The first half of this show was a fun look back at some of Raw's highlights from the past fifteen years, of which there is a long list. Then we had matches from Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. Whateca.
{plug}
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