SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
The following report originally published 20 years ago this week here at PWTorch.com…
WWE Raw house show report
November 7, 2003
Toronto, Ont. at Air Canada Centre
Report by Mari-Fleuri Magi, PWTorch.com correspondent
The Air Canada Centre was sold out and the show started at around 7:15 with The Fink and some giveaways.
(1) Goldberg (World Champion) & Booker T beat Randy Orton & Batista (w/Ric Flair). Evolution came out first surprisingly to a decent reaction. Flair cut a promo saying that Batista was the one who took out Goldberg and that Goldberg isn’t here. Goldberg comes out and answers Flair stating that he still is the Champion. He then calls out Booker T to back him up. Booker T comes out to a huge pop. Most of the match had Booker fighting Evolution. Goldberg was tagged in for a bit to which Booker said, “Just get a piece, just a piece.” Flair took a bump off the apron and Booker tossed him into the guardrail. Finish: Goldberg hits the spear on Orton and then the jackhammer. Pinfall.
(2) Kevin Fertig (w/Travis Tomko) beat Tommy Dreamer. The Innovator of Violence made his way to the ring amid ECW chants toting his trusty kendo stick. OVW’s prospect Fertig then comes down accompanied by Tomko. This was a pretty bad match as Fertig’s greenness was visible. Dreamer hits the Dreamer DDT on Fertig. Near fall and Fertig kicks out. Finish: Dreamer goes for the Spicoli Driver and Fertig counters with a jawbreaker and wins the match via pinfall.
(3) Val Venis & Lance Storm beat Garrison Cade & Mark Jindrak. Cade and Jindrak came out first to a mixed reaction. Venis and Storm come down to a massive ovation. Decent match with Storm exhibiting why he is an excellent ring technician. He actually did some kind of a springboard leg drop on Cade. It was impressive. Now enter the traditional heel spot. Cade goes down clutching his knee. The match stops as trainers and officials come running down to ringside. No one knows how it happened. Cade gets helped to his feet and then waffles Storm. Ummm…Wasn’t this done with Test on Raw a few weeks ago in the Stacy Service Match? Finish: Superkick on Cade via Storm and Venis then hits the money shot. Pin fall. Post-match Venis and Storm dance in the ring (eewww – shivers) and then Venis gives his towel to a fan in the crowd.
(4) Rene Dupree beat Hurricane. Réné Duprée comes out to a chorus of boos and prances around the ring until The Hurricane shows up (insert teeny bopper girl shrieks here). Pretty good match. You could definitely see that Dupree is the more experienced member of La Résistance. Duprée beats on Hurricane and poses for the crowd. Hurricane gets a second wind. He goes for The Shining Wizard and misses. Finish: Duprée grabs a handful of tights and rolls him up. Pin fall.
(5) Trish Stratus & Lita beat Gail Kim & Molly Holly (WWE Women’s Champion) with Victoria as Special Guest Ref and Stacy Kiebler as Guest Ring Announcer. Stacy comes out (huge pop of course – insert 20,000 male cat calls here) and announces that Victoria is the referee. Victoria gets booed coming out, again except for a select few cheers. Gail Kim comes out next (boos) and then Molly (booed). Then Lita comes out (pop) and Trish (pop) wearing a Canadian Flag as a cape. The majority of the match was mostly Gail/Molly vs. Lita until Trish got the hot tag. Towards the end, Lita went for the pin on Molly and then Victoria broke it up. Stacy went after Victoria and the two catfought on the outside. Finish: Stratusfaction on Molly. New referee came down and counted the pin fall. Post match, Victoria went after Lita and Trish with a chair. She swung and it connected with the ropes, knocking herself out cold. Before the faces left the ring, Trish draped her Canadian flag over Molly.
(6) Maven beat Tomko (w/Fertig). The second OVW guy gets to wrestle now and he comes out to little reaction. Maven gets quite a few cheers. Dreamer came out toward the end, I guess to get revenge on the interference by Tomko in his match. Dreamer wallops Tomko with his kendo stick. Finish: Maven via pin fall.
(7) Rob Van Dam (WWE Intercontinental Champion) & The Dudley Boyz (World Tag Team Champions) beat Chris Jericho & Christian & Mark Henry (Tables Match). Teddy Long with Mark Henry come out. Long complains about the usual: Mark Henry was the one who took out Goldberg, now a white boy is taking credit for it, the white man is pushing down the black man…blah, blah! Anyway, Christian comes out next (mixed reaction); thought there would be more cheers since he’s from Toronto. Y2J soon followed and the roof off the ACC blew! RVD then waltzed his way to the ring to an ovation just as loud as Y2J’s, and then The Dudleys followed. The heels bailed out of the ring and didn’t want to have anything to do with the faces. Finkle then announced that by order of Stone Cold Steve Austin that the fans got to pick three stipulations for the match. So the match ended up being a no DQ, falls count anywhere, table match. Y2J had a fit and said that all the Toronto jacka**es can forget about the match, because he wasn’t going through a table, and he was leaving. Needless to say, Bubba designated Y2J as the official table breaker. The match started with RVD & Christian doing poses for the crowd to garner a reaction. Stalling tactics aside, the match in itself was great, with lots of sound tag action and ring work from the parties involved. They kept Mark Henry pretty much out of the match. Good thing, he’s too slow and lumbers about.
There were comic relief spots as well, such as Mark Henry and Bubba were attempting a test of strength and they couldn’t decide on which hand to lock up first. In the end, it looked like they were dancing and Bubba did bust a move (creepier than the Storm cabbage patch); Y2J had D-Von in a sleeper and Long kept yelling at Finkle to ring the bell saying that D-Von was out, meanwhile D-Von was fighting back; Y2J had a hissy fit ringside and pulled the guardrail from its bearings. Christian went to calm him down. They hugged, Christian kissed Y2J’s forehead, slapped him on the ass, and sent him back into the ring.
The tables soon came into the picture as Y2J dove under the ring for one. He picked it up and got walloped in the head by The Dudleys. Christian and RVD brawled on the outside. As The Dudleys set up the table in the ring, Mark Henry came into stop them, but was quickly taken out. RVD got back into the ring and Christian dove under the apron to hide. His feet were sticking out beneath the apron. Finish: Y2J gets back into the ring and gets 3D’d through the table. Post match: Christian hauls Y2J out, The Dudleys give a piece of the table to a child in the crowd, and they take pictures with him in the ring.
(8) Shane McMahon beat Kane in a cage match. As they set up the old school blue steel cage, T-shirts were shot into the crowd and Finkle announces that on Feb. 9 Raw will be live from the ACC and that tickets go on sale on January 3rd, 2004. Kane came out to a chorus of boos and no pyro. Thank God. Shane soon followed to a decent pop. He looks a lot thinner than he does on TV. Pretty short match to tell you the truth. Finish: Shane DDT’s Kane on a chair.
Overall, the show was pretty good. It’s nice to attend a house show after such a long time. The wrestlers tend to interact with you more. Hats off to the 6-man match. Something like that isn’t easy to put together, let alone make it look good. Kudos to all the players involved.
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