WWE Smackdown/ECW house show
September 13, 2008
Monroe, La.
Report by Trae Wisecarver, PWTorch correspondent

I went to the Smackdown/ECW house show in Monroe last night. All in all it was a fun show. While we were waiting for the doors to open, my friend spotted former TNA wrestler and WWE developmental talent Cassidy Riley at the box office (he's from Monroe and lives nearby). After we argued for a few minutes over whether or not it was him and whether or not to approach him, my wife went over to him and confirmed it was indeed Cassidy Riley, and he came over and signed autographs and took pictures with us. Nice guy.

Justin Roberts opened the show and did the whole "text your vote for the stipulation" thing for the ECW Title match later on. The "choices" were 2/3 Falls, Falls Count Anywhere, and No DQ.

(1) Evan Bourne beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/ Bam Neely) (9:48) with a cradle. Chavo attacked Bourne after the match and then yelled at Neely for not helping him. Neely got in the ring and held Bourne up for Chavo to hit him, but at the last second Neely clotheslined Chavo and left, then Bourne hit the Shooting Star Press on Chavo.

Eve Torres was up in the cheap seats with some fans. She told a family they would get front row seats if the kid could answer a trivia question. The question was "Which superstar is the current United States Champion?" The kid correctly answered "Shelton Benjamin."

(2) Jeff Hardy beat Vladimir Kozlov (5:57) with the Swanton bomb. Kozlov cut a promo before the match about wanting competition. The crowd gave him the "WHAT?!" treatment. Jeff was over huge.

Eve had made her way to ringside and brought some kid in to be the guest bell ringer for the next match.

(3) WWE Divas Champion Michelle McCool beat Maryse (w/ Victoria) (8:37) with a double-underhook face plant that Wikipedia says is called the Wings of Love. The match was what you'd expect. Towards the end Victoria tried to interfere, but Eve took her down to even the score. Maryse took down Eve, then Michelle hit her with the finish.

(4) WWE United States Champion Shelton Benjamin beat Jimmy Wang Yang (15:02) with the Pay Dirt. They had a pretty good match and worked the crowd into it, which is the important thing. At one point late in the match, the referee caught Shelton trying to take off the turnbuckle pad. While the ref was fixing it, Yang caught him with an inside cradle for a phantom three count. Of course, by the time the ref turned around and counted, Shelton kicked out at 2. Finish was Yang missing the moonsault and Shelton hitting him with the Paydirt.

(5) Finlay (w/ Hornswoggle) beat Mike Knox (12:25) with a shillelagh (thank God for spell check) shot. They had the usual antics with Hornswoggle. After the match, they brought about 5 kids and a soldier in the ring to play Chase the Midget… or something. Intermission followed.

(6) WWE Tag Team Champions Curt Hawkins & Zach Ryder defeated Jesse & Festus, John Morrison & The Miz, and Carlito & Primo Colon (15:54) when Hawkins pinned Festus with a school boy. When the bell rang at the start, Festus went crazy and chased the heels all around the ring and up the aisle and back. It was a fun match. Mizorrison are the best thing to happen to tag team wrestling in WWE in ages, and they were pretty popular with the women in the crowd. Primo Colon was very impressive.

Teddy Long came out to announce the "winner" of the text message "vote." It was a No DQ Match.

(7) ECW Champion Matt Hardy beat Mark Henry (w/ Tony Atlas) (11:34) with the Twist of Fate. As is the case every time they come to Monroe, Matt got the biggest pop of the night (and this was a show that included Triple H and The Undertaker). Before the match got started, Teddy told Tony Atlas that if he touched Matt, Henry would automatically lose. The match was what you'd expect. They used a trash can, a chair, and the ring steps. Matt won with the Twist of Fate.

MVP came out for the main event. He cut a promo on Karl Malone, who was in the front row.

(8) Triple H & The Undertaker defeated Great Khali & MVP (22:00) when Triple H pinned Khali with the Pedigree. This was my first time seeing Triple H and Undertaker live, and it was a very cool experience. The match was pretty long, but actually wasn't bad (then again, everything seems better live). The bad guys got heat on Taker forever, but he finally made the hot tag to Triple H. The end came when Undertaker chokeslammed MVP at the same time Triple H hit the Pedigree on Khali and got the pin.

The show ended up going about 3 hours, 10 minutes total. It was the best WWE show I've been to, but it wasn't as good as the TNA show in the same building 2 months ago.

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