WWE Raw house show
August 24, 2008
Bethlehem, Pa. at Stabler Arena
Report by Paul Greer of Elyria Ohio. - PWTorch VIP subscriber

(1) Evan Bourne defeated Chavo Guerrero. Bam Neeley accompanied Chavo to the ring. The crowd was really hot for the opener and popped for all of Bourne's moves. Borne won after a 450 splash. Solid but a little short.

After the match Mark Henry attacked Borne and then told the crowd this is what will happen to Matt Hardy later in the evening.

Eve Torres gave some fans front row tickets. The one guy was so excited he knocked her over.

(2) John Morrison pinned Tommy Dreamer. The match started off with Morrison doing a bump and grind for the ladies, who cheered for him. Tommy responded with a “sexy party” of his own for a nice laugh from the crowd. Nothing special and also very short.

(3) R Truth beat Carlito. R Truth came out to his What's Up song he used in TNA. The crowd was behind Truth and the What's Up chant was is rallying cry. Not a bad match but it was a paint by numbers contest.

Eve Torres picked some kids from the crowd to be Michelle McCool's manager.

(4) Michelle McCool retained the Diva's title by defeating Maryse. This was a really good match. Both women worked hard and really had the crowd into it by the end. If they can show these type of matches on TV they could give the TNA Knockouts a run for their money.

(5) Shelton Benjamin pinned Jeff Hardy to retain the U.S. Title. The pop for Jeff Hardy was off the charts. This maintained through-out the match. Not as good as the last two Smackdown matches, but good enough to be the best match of the evening. Good back and forth action and Hardy hit the twist of fate on Benjamin. He kicked out at two and then quickly hit Hardy with his finisher for the clean pin. Shelton then came back in the ring to shake Hardy's hand. He raised his hand and went for the clothesline. Hardy ducked, hit another twist of fate and followed it with a Swanton. The crowd went nuts.

(6) Hawkins & Ryder retained the World Tag Team titles against Jesse & Festus when Ryder pinned Festus. This was a lumberjack match. The crowd was allowed to text their vote on what kind of match this would be. The choices were jumberjack, texas tornado or two out of three falls. The lumberjacks were all the wrestlers from the first three matches of the night. The fans were into the match and it was pretty good. Jesse did most of the work, giving Festus the hot tags and the pops. Best spot of the match was when Festus was thrown out of the ring so the heels could beat on him. He jumped up from the beating and all the heels ran from him like he was superhuman.

Eve Torres picked one kid to be the guest time keeper for the ECW Title match.

(7) Matt Hardy won by DQ over Mark Henry when Tony Atlas attacked Hardy. Matt got a decent pop, but nowhere near as big as his brother. Henry has really come into his own as a bully champion. Solid match which ended with Hardy getting two or three nearfalls on Henry. When he hit the twist of fate Atlas ran in to attack. Jeff ran out to save his brother .

(8) Triple H and The Undertaker defeated The Great Khali and MVP in the main event. MVP is on the verge of being a superstar. He is still hated enough by the majority of the crowd, but popular enough to get a good section of folks cheering him. Khali is absolutely a spectacle to see. I was in the second row and he looks impressive up close. Triple H came out to a big pop only to be upstaged by the reaction the crowd gave the Undertaker. MVP worked most of this tag match and it was a pretty good match-up. Khali never overstayed his welcome. At the end the Taker fought off MVP by giving him a tombstone and Triple H gave the pedigree to Khali and scored the pinfall for his team.

NOTES: The area can hold about 3,000 fans and I would guess that there were 2,000 in attendence. After the first few matches I was worried this would be a bad show, but it turned out to be a really good evening. The advertised main event was supposed to be Triple H vs. Edge. Taker wasn't even advertised for the show.

BIGGEST POPS:

The Undertaker: Every time he got into the ring the building errupted.

Jeff Hardy: Every girl and little kid I saw was wearing his t-shirt or armbands.

Triple H: Lots of cheers and he stayed after the match to slap hands with ringside fans.

MOST HEEL HEAT

1 . MVP: He received a good share of cheers, just they were quickly drowned out by the boos.

2. Shelton Benjamin: Even though it was a house show, people really thought he was going to lose.

3. Chavo Guerrero: Maybe because it was the opener, but the Chavo sucks chant never stopped.

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