SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
The following report originally published 10 years ago this week here at PWTorch.com…
WWE Raw house show report
January 17, 2004
Madison, Wisc.
Report by Barry Kasten, PWTorch.com correspondent
Coach was our host for the night and got a large amount of boos upon arrival. He announced the card. RVD vs. Orton IC title rematch got a big pop.
(1) Spike Dudley defeated Matt Hardy V1. Maven vs. Matt was announced on the website but we got Spike instead. I read yesterdays Des Moines report and it said that Maven didn’t perform well. Wonder if that was the reason he wasn’t in this match. Average match but much of the crowd was well behind Spike. Hardy went for the Twist of Fate but Spike reversed it into a backslide for the pin. Maybe Hardy is better off pulling a Spanky at this point. What the hell are they doing with him?
(2) Christian defeated Hurricane. Very good match which was given a fair amount of time (I’d say around 15 minutes). Christian had tons of heat from stalling. A couple “CLB” chants started up. End of the match saw Hurricane miss his Shining Wizard and Christian hit the Unprettier.
(3) Lance Storm & Val Venis defeated Mark Jindrak & Garrison Cade. Storm was really on tonight. I’d probably give this match of the night honors. Jindrak was pretty amusing. After beating up on Venis for awhile he went to tag Cade and asked Cade how his hair looked while trying to brush everything back into place. He then announced he was going to hit the best dropkick in WWE history before planting one on Venis. However, Jindrak had these bizarre gold tights on with MJ on the back which inspired many Michael Jackson taunts from the crowd. I believe Venis got a rollup on Jindrak for the win.
(4) Randy Orton defeated Rob Van Dam to retain the IC title. Not as good as the match on Monday but entertaining. RVD got a big reaction out of the gate with his posing and hand gestures. Crowd didn’t seem much into the match after the entrances since many of us pretty much knew who was going to win. Orton hit the RKO out of nowhere for the victory. Kane’s music hit and he stalked RVD in the ring. Right before Kane could lift RVD up for the chokeslam, Booker made the save which started the next match.
(5) Booker T defeated Kane in a No-DQ match. Good action that the crowd was feeling. People seemed to be in awe of Kane. Booker hit a scissors kick but Kane kicked out. Kane recovered and hit a chokeslam later in the match but couldn’t capitalize. Kane got frustrated and went for a chair. RVD ran in and hit a Van Daminator, giving Book another hit with scissors kick and the win.
(6) The Dudleyz defeated Test & Scott Steiner in a tables match. Crowd was all about the tables and that kept them interested in the match. Lots of jumping jacks from Test. Bubba (who was thankfully wearing pants) took a pounding and finally got the hot tag to D’Von. All four of them were brawling around the ring. Just when it seemed Test had grabbed the upper hand, Stevie Richards & Victoria came down and distracted Test. Test got ahold of Victoria and was going to put her through the table but Richards made the save. Richards and Test fought to the back. Steiner ended up eating the table after being left to face both Dudleyz. They Dudleyz destroyed part of the table and ripped off a piece of wood which was then given to a kid at ringside. They brought the kid into the ring and took pictures with him and held him up. Nice moment.
-Intermission-
(7) Chris Jericho defeated Mark Henry (w/ Teddy Long). Long had some hilarious mic work (including calling an overweight contest winner at ringside Heavy D). Crowd enjoyed Teddy but hated Henry. Henry was upset with the reaction he got and teased walking out on the match. Jericho then grabbed the mic and brought me back to the 1,004 holds gimmick for a short while. He said he didn’t care what color Henry was and then named off a bunch of colors (including Fushia and Mold) and told him to get back into the ring. Jericho ended up getting a rollup on Henry while he was arguing with the ref. There seemed to be a lot of matches that ended with rollups.
(8) Molly Holly defeated Lita and Jazz and Victoria to retain the women’s title. Short match that seemed rushed. Good stuff while it lasted though. Jazz quickly eliminated Victory with a sweet Fisherman’s Buster. Lita’s swinging DDT eliminated Jazz. Molly won on the finish from the Survivor Series PPV when she threw Lita into the exposed turnbuckle and got the pin.
(9) Shawn Michaels defeated Batista. HBK got one of the biggest pops of the night. Average match with a very slow pace. Ending came when Orton ran onto the apron, Michaels punched him off, reversed Batista’s powerbomb attempt, kiped up, and hit Sweet Chin Music. Coach and Orton helped Batista up. Michaels came back into the ring and knocked Coach down with Sweet Chin Music, much to the crowd’s delight. Coach had been mentioning all night how he wasn’t happy with Shawn for doing that.
Biggest Pops:
(1) Chris Jericho
(2) Shawn Michaels
(3) Rob Van Dam
(4) Dudley Boyz
(5) Lita
Most Heel Heat:
(1) The Coach
(2) Mark Henry
(3) Christian
(4) Randy Orton
(5) Matt Hardy, Version 1
– I’d estimate the crowd somewhere in the 1,500-2,000 area.
– There was a camera there taping footage, presumably to be shown on Raw. At least that’s what the Coach told us.
-I think this was the first time they’ve been to Madison in 7 years. I really enjoyed the show. There were a lot of little things the performers did that they couldn’t do on TV that were entertaining. Flair wasn’t announced but I was hoping he’d be there. That was about the only disappointment of the night though.
OR CHECK THIS OUT AT PROWRESTLING.NET: Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Seth Rollins vs. Jinder Mahal for the World Heavyweight Championship, Finn Balor and Damian Priest vs. R-Truth and The Miz in a non-title match
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