WWE Raw/ECW house show report
January 18, 2009
Madison, Wis. – Aliant Energy Center
Report by Torch VIP member MattheWWFanatic

The arena was about half-full tonight with a whole bottom bowl being filled. Lots of Rey Mysterio masks worn by kids and also a lot of John Cena t-shirts. With all the layoffs this week, they only used two referees (Jack Doane and John Cone) and they rotated every other match.

Tony Chimel came out and welcomed the crowd. He made sure to mention that Smackdown has moved to MyNetworkTV and can be seen locally on channel 14.

(1) C.M. Punk defeated Intercontinental champion William Regal (w/Layla) with the GTS in a non-title match. Great reaction for Punk to start the night and it continued throughout the match. Lots of mat holds that the crowd stayed into. Punk hit the GTS after Regal missed a running knee to the head. Layla looked stunning in her leather pants and open back top.

-- Chimel plugged Kennedy's movie (they don't sell it at the merchandise stand) and the C.M. Punk 'armbands.' They did a trivia contest where a family of four won four front row seats.

(2) Melina defeated Candice by pinfall with her Slopdrop/Leg drop. Crowd was very indifferent for both with it being a face vs. face matchup. A few minutes into the match, though, Candice faked a knee injury to get the upper hand. Melina made her comeback and won with the Slopdrop (reverse DDT, leg drop). Candice played a heel to the crowd afterwards complaining her loss was because of her "injured" knee.

(3) World tag team champions The Miz & John Morrison defeated Cryme Tyme (Shad Gaspar & JTG) to retain the tag team titles. Miz played to the crowd and had a lot of heat by the time the match started; he has a very unlikable personality. Finish came when Miz hit the Reality Check on Shad for the clean pin.

(4) Finlay (w/Hornswoggle) defeated Mark Henry (w/Tony Atlas) in a Belfast Brawl. Finish came when Hornswoggle hit Atlas with the Tadpole Splash, which distracted Henry leading to Finlay using the shillelagh to pick up the pin. Pretty much the identical match to the one they had on ECW a month back. Tony Atlas was great playing a sneaky chicken---- manager. A bunch of kids were brought in after the match to run around with Hornswoggle.

[Intermission - Chimel plugged signed Cena framed pictures for sale]

Santino made his way to the ring and cut a promo about how great his 2008 was and how 2009 is going to be the year of Santino. He talked about how the Glamazon was getting him in the gym more and that now, "I have bigger muscles than Cody Rhodes." He went on about how Kofi took the IC title from him but now that he is in shape this will be "a long battle of endurance." (Foreshadowing.)

(5) Kofi Kingston defeated Santino with the buzzsaw kick in 30 seconds. Santino wanted a pose down, and Kofi playfully accepted. Santino missed a move, Kofi caught him off the ropes with the buzzsaw kick for the win. Santino grabbed the mic after the match saying "come back, I wasn't ready."

(6) ECW champion Jack Swagger defeated Tommy Dreamer to retain the ECW Title. Dreamer cut a babyface promo saying how if he won the title tonight, everyone in the crowd would get tickets to tomorrow's Raw taping. (This led to my only outburst of the night when I yelled, "Dreamer you suck" in between a pause during the promo).

Dreamer had the crowd hot for him in the match because of the promo and Swagger had a lot of heat himself. In the end Tommy came out a loser again at the hands of Swagger with the gutwrench powerbomb.

(7) John Cena & Rey Mysterio defeated Legacy (Randy Orton & Ted Dibiase & Cody Rhodes in 25 minutes. Cena and Rey were over huge with the crowd and Legacy got a very good reaction. Orton especially went out of his way to jaw with people around ringside for about five minutes before even entering the ring to firmly have the crowd against him by the time the match started.

Great back and forth match with Orton not wanting to get in the ring with Cena and constantly tagging out. Finish came with Rey hitting a triple 619 followed by a simultaneous top rope splash by Rey on Dibiase and Cena hitting the FU on Rhodes for a double pin. Cena and Rey celebrated for about five minutes afterwards before leaving.

Overall thoughts: Very good show by WWE. Every match ended with clean pinfalls whether it was a heel or face winning. Seemed like everyone on the show worked hard and I can’t complain about anyone’s effort. WWE comes to Madison once a year so the crowd is happy to see the stars and are not jaded by being over exposed.

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