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WWE Raw house show
November 10, 2007
Melbourne, Australia at Rod Laver Arena
Report by Stephen Moore, PWTorch VIP member

It was a packed house for the Melbourne stop at Rod Laver Arena for the Raw Survivor Series Tour. In fact, it was announced just before the main event that we had 'made history' by setting a new attendance record for Rod Laver Arena of 15,360. Lots of kids and young women in Cena gear. Even when he is out with injury, he still rakes in the merchandise.

It was my seventh or eighth WWE House Show (I've gone every time they've come to Melbourne since Global Warning in 2002, and took my nephew to a show up in Brisbane one year), but this time I had really cheap seats, where the view is from over behind the titan tron. Still the view was fine and for $50 I wasn't complaining. After the show I felt bad for those who, like I did last time I went, shelled out $350 for ringside seats - they got ripped off this time around.

Show kicked off about 10 minutes after the show time listed on the ticket. Got the full pyro intro with the accompanying loss of hearing.

(1) Cody Rhodes defeated William Regal with a DDT. Decent opener, bit slow at times. Not a fan of Cody's babyface persona, but he was pretty over with the crowd. Putting him with Regal was a great idea to help him learn the ropes. Regal was great as usual. Funny moment was the audience chanting at Regal 'you are a wanker', and Regal grabbing the mike and replying 'I can't be a wanker, I'm not australian..'. Gold.

(2) Snitsky defeated Brian Kendrick with the pump-handle slam. Longer match than a usual Snitsky squash, and Kendrick got some offense in, but he still got squashed.

After this match, Jillian came out, and told us that she was not going to sing her number 1 smash hit (didn't catch the name, something like 'hot babe' or something). Crowd cheered. She then said instead she was going to sing a song by an australian favourite, kylie minogue, and then proceeded to sing 'can't get you out of my head'. Badly. Very badly. She was interrupted by Santino Marella, who came out to say that the crowd didn't want to listen to her singing, they would prefer him to sing, and so off he went. Marella is very funny, he made a comment that the crowd is very fair, just like Italy was fair against Australia in the Fifa World Cup. That got lots of boos of course. They then proceeded to do a duet, until they were interrupted by Hacksaw Jim Duggan.

(3) Hacksaw Jim Duggan defeated Santino Marella with the three point stance. Sigh. It's bad enough Duggan is still around. But have him defeat an up and comer like Marella? Kids loved it, but the kids suck. It's their fault that Cena was champ for over a year. I hate the kids.

(4) Cade & Murdoch defeated The Highlanders and The Worlds Greatest Tag Team when Cade stole the pin on Rory in a triple threat match for the World Tag Team Championship. Really interesting match. WGTT came out first to a heat reaction. Highlanders came out and got a face pop, then Cade & Murdoch came out and also got a face pop that matched the Highlander's which was a bit strange. During the match though, Cade & Murdoch started to get heat from the crowd, while the WGTT started to get pops, pretty much from Shelton's athleticism and moves like a somersault plancha onto Cade & Murdoch at ringside. Highlanders got the laughs with the lifting up their kilts routine. End came after Rory went up on top, but Shelton ran up and jumped up and met him, and hit a superplex. Cade snuck in and grabbed the pin and the win on Rory while Shelton was still recovering. WGTT and the Highlanders both got cheers from the crowd as they stood in the ring and shook hands at the end.

Intermission.

(5) Mr. Kennedy defeated Hardcore Holly via pin using the ropes. Kennedy got a huge pop when he came out first. Crowd was really into him. He quickly got on the mike, and insulted the crowd, getting his heat back. He also did his 'Mr Kennedy' part, but didn't do the second 'Kennedy!' bit to get more heat from the crowd. Solid match. Was slow in the middle when they utilised an arm bar rest hold, but they picked it up towards the end with several near falls. Kennedy got the pin after Holly had tried to do a sunset flip powerbomb from the top rope, but Kennedy held onto the top rope, then sat down on Holly, and held the ropes for leverage. Kennedy was way over with the crowd initially, but then they started to chant that he sucks. Kids.. WWE's sheep.

(6) Beth Phoenix defeated Mickie James in a two out of three falls match for the WWE Women's Championship. Beth got the first fall with a powerbomb, Mickie got the second fall with a roll up, before Beth got the third and deciding fall with her fisherman's suplex/brain buster finisher. Really good match. Best women's match that I have seen, including PPV and TV. They definitely need to push the program between Beth and Mickie. Mickie is way over with the crowd. Beth is strong as hell, but a couple of times during power bomb attempts, it looked like she was going to almost drop Mickie on her head, so she needs to be careful. Don't want another Candice incident on our hands.

(7) Triple H & Jeff Hardy defeated Randy Orton & Umaga when Triple H pinned Randy Orton after hitting the pedigree. The burial of Randy Orton continues. Randy didn't even get to hit an RKO during the match. Jeff hit twist of fate/swanton bomb combo on Orton earlier on in the match, and Umaga had to come in and get Triple H to come in to distract the ref so Umaga could break up the pin. Triple H played the face in jeopardy role early on, before Jeff getting the tag. Jeff soaked up a lot of punishment for the next while, finally got the hot tag to Triple H, and Triple H runs over both Orton and Umaga, throwing Umaga to the outside, and then hits the pedigree on Orton while Jeff splashes Umaga on the outside, and gets the clean pin on Orton. Crowd loved it of course and went nuts, and I admit, I was sitting there in my Triple H t-shirt, but seeing the apparent WWE World Champion get treated like that left a bitter taste in my mouth. I left right as soon as Triple H's music hit, I didn't stick around for the posing.

NOTES:Why protect Umaga but leave your world champ out to dry? Orton got a huge pop when he made his entrance, for a heel he gets a pretty nice pop. Hardy's pop was amazing. They really need to push this guy, he is money in the bank (pardon the pun). To be fair, Triple H got the loudest pop of the night. The crowd were already chanting 'Triple H' before his music hit, while I was sitting there wondering if it was going to be him or HBK coming out to team with hardy. The crowd went nuts when Triple H came out, and of course he milked it for all it was worth. It was only a house show, but I just don't see what good the result of the main event has done. They could have gone so many different ways with it, it sent the crowd home very happy, but made the WWE champ look weak. Maybe that was the plan. Overall, not a bad show, but I was bored at times. I go every time, so will go again. And I got to see Jeff Hardy live for the first time (again, Vince, start pushing this guy as a top contender!! Same goes for Shelton), and the Women's Title match was excellent. So not a bad night all in all I guess.

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