WWE Raw show
July 27, 2008
Altoona, Pa.
Report by Dave Maddas, PWTorch.com readers
Just got back from the Raw house show in Altoona, Pa. The Jaffa Shrine is not a very big building compared to the regular arenas that Raw goes to but this show appeared to be sold out. Tony Chimmel was the ring announcer for the night. He started out by saying that the main event of the night was a triple threat for the World Title and the fans would get to decide the special stipulation for the match. The choices were a falls count anywhere match, a best 2 out of 3 falls match, or a no DQ match. The fans could text their choices in to decide the stip. Then he introduced Layla as the special host for the night and she gave a family of 4 who were sitting at the top of the arena front row seats. This lead to the first match of the night.
(1) Lance Cade vs. D-Lo Brown. The crowd seemed to remember D-Lo and were behind D-Lo. This was a back and forth match that turned when D-Lo went for the frog splash but took to long on the top rope and missed which then lead to Cade giving D-Lo a sitdown powerbomb for the win.
Layla came back and out and choose a fan from the crowd to be a special manager for a match later.
(2) Matt Striker vs. Johnnie Curtis. Stryker got on the mic and said that his opponent for the night was making his debut in the WWE tonight and Stryker said that he was too smart to allow Curtis to get his first win tonight. The match was a back and forth match which had each other working on the other's arm the entire match. The finish saw Curtis hitting a sitdown suplex for the pin.
(3) Kelly Kelly & Mickie James vs. Beth Phoenix & Katie Lea. The fan picked from the crowed came out with Mickie and was the special manager for the match. This was a nice long match with Kelly suffering the beat down for most of the match. When Mickie got the hot tag she went after the Katie and Beth went for Mickie but Kelly attempted a crossbody block on Beth but was caught in midair. Mickie then dropkicked Beth causing both Kelly and Beth to be knocked to the outside. Mickie then hit her spinning DDT on Katie Lea for the win.
After the match Santino walked out and talked about what happened on Monday between him and Beth. He then told Beth that both of them had been distracted because of the kiss and that he would show her how to stop being distracted and it would start with him unveiling a new finisher on his opponent tonight who is getting ready to retire.
(4) Santino vs. Hacksaw Duggan. Duggan came to the ring and told Santino that he wouldn't be the won to tell him when he would retire. As the bell rang Santino took his shirt off looked at Beth and then turned around right into a clothsline and a 3 count. Hacksaw wins. After the match Beth and Santino shared a big kiss and then Beth dragged Santino from the ring threw him over her shoulder and carried him out of the arena.
Intermission
As they came back from the intermission Layla came back out thanking Altoona. Then Jamie Noble came out wanting to take Layla out. Layla said she would only if Jamie would sing Eric Clapton's Layla to her first. He did which was so bad it was funny. She cut him off and said she would go out with him. As the two were leaving Kane comes out which leads to
(5) Kane vs. Jamie Noble. Noble runs from Kane to start and then does a couple low drop kicks to the knee but Kane finally catches Noble and nails him with a chokeslam for the win in about 20 seconds.
6) Kofi Kingston vs. Paul Birchill - IC Title Match.Kofi got a nice reaction when he came out with alot of people doing Kofi's hand clap Boom Boom. Crowd was very into the very athletic moves of Kofi. Kofi ends up winning with his Trouble in Paradise finisher.
(7) John Cena & Crime Tyme vs. Chris Jericho & Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes. Y2J and Lance Cade came out first and Lance got on the mic saying that y2J wasn't going to wrestle tonight and the two started to leave. But they came back and Y2J got on the mic talking about how he put out HBK and the only people he trusted were Cade, Rhodes, and DiBiase. Cena and Crime Tyme then came out. The ovation for Cena was off the chart. The crowd blew the roof off the Jaffa. There were no anti-Cena people here. They then stormed the ring clearing it out. As the ref was trying to get control Cade jumped into the ring and nailed Cena. Cena then was on the receiving end of a long beat down. Cena was then able to tag in Shade who had some offense before taging in JTG who then received a long beat down before making the hot tag to Cena. Cena did a double You Can't See Me on DiBiase and Rhodes at one point. In the final sequence everyone hit their finishers. It started with Rhodes coming in a nailing his finisher on Cena, then JTG came in and nailed Rhodes, JTG was then nailed by DiBiase's sleeper slam, Shad then nailed DiBiase, Y2J then hit the codebreaker on Shad, and then Cena nailed the FU on Y2J. DiBiase was the legal man so Cena then put the STFU on DiBiase who immediately tap out giving the win to Cena and Crime Tyme.
(8) C.M. Punk vs. Batista vs. JBL - World Title Match. JBL came out first and ran down Altoona saying he would win the title tonight and the WWE would never come back to Altoona. JBL then kept going after Tony Chimmel for some reason during the intros. At one point you could see JBL trying to keep from laughing as he chased Chimmel around. Batista came out next followed by Punk. Batista first intoed Punk becuase of JBL chasing Chimmel. Batista got the 2nd biggest pop of the night. Punk got a good reaction from the crowd but not as big as Batisita's. Chimmel then announced the text vote winner by 60% was the no DQ. Most of the match was Punk against Batista with JBL taking a powder on the outside. The house mic got used a couple of times during the match to show the no DQ stip. The end came when JBL nailed his clothsline from hell on Batista but Punk broke up the pin. This made JBL go get a chair which he brought in and attempted to nail Punk with it but he ducked and JBL ran right into a AA spinebuster by Batista. This allowed Punk to get the chair and hit a pretty weak chair shot to Batista's back and then Punk covered JBL for the pin. After the match Batista gave Punk a Batista bomb.
NOTES: Overall the show was entertaining. A typical house show. As the wrestlers were leaving, Kelly Kelly, Layla, Crime Tyme, Kofi Kingston, and Batista signed some autographs for some fans. A funny thing was that Beth Phoenix, Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, and Johnnie Curtis were all driving together and Y2J came out with them. Y2J came over to Rhodes and DiBiase and hugged both of them to console them on their loss from earlier. Then Y2J made it look like he was going to come over and sign autographs, but then walked away and waved away the fans. Then Rhodes and DiBiase did rock, paper, sciscors to see who got to ride shotgun as Johnnie Curtis was driving.
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