Monday Night Raw Recap (from ADementedJim/Jim Aronson) from Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
The WWE returned to Madison Square Garden in New York with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper as the Guest-GM. The house was rocking, as the Garden was either a sell-out or at 98% capacity! And boy, did we show them the “New York Attitude.”
Here are the results, reactions, and the best Pops and Heat of the night…..
Dark Match:
Primo vs. Ted Diabase Jr.
Not much of a crowd reaction for this one, but Dibase gets the win.
Superstars Taping:
Cody Rhodes vs. Mark Henry
Henry was WAY over, major Pops, and the crowd was into it, as “The World’s Strongest Man” got the win.
BIGGEST POP OF THE NIGHT:
Lilian Garcia returned to the Garden to sing the National Anthemn…..She receives a standing ovation!
Before Raw went on the air, a montage was shown highlighting all the good works that the WWE has dome over the years. Celebrities and Politicians are shown who have appeared on Raw.
BIGGEST MONTAGE POP: Barack Obama
BIGGEST MONTAGE HEAT: John Cena (for the record, New York HATES Cena…..)
Raw kicks off (finally), and Piper is shown in his Pit with actor Luiz Guzman. Very funny segment, and the Garden crowd flips when Piper introduces the Iron Chef, err Sheik…..
Miz vs. MVP
Crowd heavily for MVP, but he goes down to the Miz in defeat.
Chavo vs. Santino
I am not sure how well it played on TV, but Santino’s multiple wardrobe cahnges went over HUGE in the Garden. He comes out in A Ranger jersey, then it’s a Giants jersey, then Jets, then Mets, Phillies (?), and of course Yankees! (Big Yankee contingent in the Garden…)
Santino gets a long-overdue win with help from DXSwoggle…
Hornswoggle-DX Segment
Crowd just knew Horny was in trouble here–and loud pops when he got pedigreed…
John Cena promo
Crowd was so loud you could barely hear him at the beginning (Are they any Cena fans here tonight?)
DIVA’S TITLE MATCH:
First off, who in the hell is Judah Freelander? The crowd just hated this guy…..
Melina beats Alicia to keep the belt….(and boy, did I have a great view of the Champ’s entrance…)
Match was much too short however….No time to build a story with these two….My guess is Alicia’s title challenger days are done.
Piper in-ring segment
Good heat between the Boss Vince and Piper, but totally embarrassing when Piper screwed up having 7000 car crashes, and 30 matches! And exactly, how do you retire someone in FULL? (Me thinks Piper has lost some of his classic mike skills…)
Seamus
The guy comes out, and yes, he does look whiter than a ghost! But what was the point of this segment? He makes an open challenge, and no one answers it. So he beats up the timekeeper and then kicks out Jerry Lawler. This would have been so much better had someone done a run-in, or even if they had a Lawler-Seamus match later in the night…..What a waste, and it took a lot of steam out of the New York crowd.
Bourne-Swaggart
Crowd solidly behind Bourne; Swaggart had NO REACTION from the crowd…..(You could have heard a pin drop when he was announced.)
Swaggart gets the win and creeps away to the back.
Piper-McMahon?
No McMahon, and when Orton comes out, New York fans were all over him…..You could see Piper’s fate before a punch was thrown. Thankfully, this debacle was saved by…..Kofi Kingston. (One note: Orton’s attempt to kick Piper looked even worse live than it did on TV. They needed to play Kofi’s music earlier, as Orton stopped from kicking Piper about two seconds before Kofi’s music even hit. So, now we KNEW he was coming!)
Now the crowd was flipping out! Kingston and Orton fight all over the arena….When Kofi eventually leaps off the section wall with the bone drop onto Orton, the crowd is out of its mind! Totally awesome!
TRIPLE-THREAT TAG MATCH
Major heat on Jerishow as Jericho talks all kinds of crap about New York…..Definitely a DX crowd here;
Cena again, get booed excessively everytime he gets on a screen or in a ring in the Garden.
Match was good, but much of the crowd was disappointed as they really wanted to see The Undertaker and he spent most of the match out of the ring and out of sight…
Cena gets the pin (and more boos), but for his efforts receives a Tombstone from the Taker.  Crowd is estatic again, and can go home happy….
AFTER RAW WENT OFF THE AIR:
Once the ring cleared, DX grabbed a handicapped boy out of the crowd, and let him do the DX Chop with them in the ring. They then shook hands and hugged with all the fans around ringside.
BIGGEST POPS:
1. Lilian Garcia
2. The Undertaker
3. Santino Marella
4. Kofi Kingston’s leap
5. The Iron Sheik
BIGGEST HEAT:
1. John Cena
2. John Cena
3. Chris Jericho
4. George Bush (in the WWE Montage video)
5. The Miz
