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Arena Reports
7/25 WWE Smackdown/ECW in Hampton Beach: Henry vs. Hardy headlines, Shelton vs. Wang, Khali vs. Finlay Jul 26, 2008 - 11:16:59 PM
WWE Raw show
July 25, 2008
Hampton Beach, N.H. at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
Report by Jeff Siracuse and Carrie Daniel, PWTorch.com readers
Show was sold out. Very small venue - I'd say somewhere around 1,000 fans. Lots of kids and fairly traditional face cheering audience. Very weak star power for a show just an hour drive out of Boston. Also every match had almost the exact same pattern and formula (working the body part, restholds, etc). No shows by Kane, C.M. Punk, and Big Show.
Howard Finkel did the announcing for the night.
(1) Carlito beat Rocky Ortiz. Carlito now has his hair in dreadlocks. Decent action that saw Carlito win by holding the tights. Ortiz did a pretty good job working the crowd.
(2) R Truth beat Nick ??? (didn't get the last name, kind of looked like Billy Gunn). Same R Truth/K-Kwik as usual. Nothing match with Truth winning with a roll up.
Diva Dance off: Victoria vs. Maryse vs. Tiffany vs. Cherry. Tiffany won followed by the usual post-pose-down/dance-off heels attacking faces and the faces evetually drove the heels off.
(3) Great Khali pinned Finlay (with Hornswoggle). Pinned him after a chop despite a low blow from Hornswoggle. Kali is HUGE in person.
Intermission - the put up tag ropes, which for some reason were never used.
(4) U.S. Title - Shelton Benjamin vs. Jimmy Wang Yang. Both pretty much phoned it in with Shelton winning with his new finisher.
(5) Evan Bourne defeated Bam Neely. Small "Sydal" and ECW chant. Probably best match of the night mainly due to Bourne. Bourne wins with a shooting star press.
(6) ECW Title - Mark Henry (w/Tony Atlas and Clin Delany) pinned Matt Hardy. Big groan when they said this was the final match. Hardy got the biggest pop of the night. Pretty bland match with Mark Henry winning with the world's strongest slam. Post match Colin Delany attacked Hardy who then gave him the twist of fate to send the crowd home happy.
Overall disappointing show. Low star power, just under 2 hours, lots of no shows and pretty lackluster action. However, due to it being a small venue every seat was a great one.
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