TAKE PWTORCH
WITH YOU! Get our iPhone App (FREE!): Click Here Or enter "PWTorch.com" on your Blackberry or other Smart Phone browser for mobile-version of PWTorch.
Arena Reports
1/10 WWE in Rochester, Minn.: Hardy vs. Swagger, Cena vs. Jericho - Cena's reaction much different than in Canada Jan 11, 2009 - 2:47:15 AM
WWE Raw house show Report
January 10, 2009
Rochester, Minn. at the Mayo Civic Center
Report by Doug Clymer & Ryan Flanagan, PWTorch readers
Would guess the place was about 2/3 full; ringside and lower level seating was nearly sold out while upper level was light in some sections. Referees for this evening's event were Scott Armstrong and Charles Robinson.
(1) ECW champion Matt Hardy beat "The All American American" Jack Swagger by pinfall to retain the ECW Title after a Twist of Fate. (11 minute match, ***)
(2) Women's champion "The Glamazon" Beth Phoenix beat Melina by pinfall to retain the WWE Women's Title after a double chicken wing facebuster. (8 minute match, ***)
(3) World tag team champions John Morrison & The Miz beat Cryme Tyme (Shad Gaspar & JTG) by pinfall to retain the WWE World tag team titles after Morrison hit Shad Gaspar with the Moonlight Drive. (9 minute match, ***1/2)
(4) Finlay (with Hornswoggle) beat "The World's Strongest Man" Mark Henry (with Tony Atlas) in a Belfast Brawl anything goes match after Finlay hit Henry with his shillelagh. (12 minute match, **1/2)
There was about a 15-20 minute intermission.
(5) Intercontinental champion William Regal (with Layla) beat Kofi Kingston by pinfall to retain the IC Title after Regal hit Kofi with a high knee. (13 minute match, **)
(6) Randy Orton & Cody Rhodes beat C.M. Punk & Rey Mysterio by pinfall after Orton hit Punk with an RKO. (20 minute match, ****)
(7) World Hvt. champion John Cena beat Chris Jericho by submission to retain the WWE World Heavyweight title with an STFU. (17 minute match, ****1/2)
Good house show; the superstars gave the crowd what they wanted to see.
Best heat (heels): Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, The Miz
Best heat (faces): John Cena, Matt Hardy, C.M. Punk, Rey Mysterio
From those match ratings, that has to be the best house show of all-time?
Or are they slightly inflated? A 3 and a half star tag match between
Morrison/Miz-Cryme Tyme seems highly unlikely.
James
11 Jan 2009, 06:53
LOL@3 stars for a Miz/Morrison vs Cryme Tyme match. Yeah fucking right.
christian
11 Jan 2009, 10:17
First of all the times on the matches isn't even close to being right if so
the show would have only been 90 minutes long...it was 3 hours long with a
10-15 minute intermission, not 15-20..this was a great house show...the
crowd was on fire the entire time, finally and hornswaggle brought a bunch
of kids in the ring after there match and one child was so scared he
wouldn't let go of the rope, hornswaggle spent 5 minutes probably making
the kid feel comfortable enough to dance around the ring, then finally held
the kid up and carried him around the ring waving at people i think that
kid got the biggest pop of the night!
DC
11 Jan 2009, 11:31
The time of the match is when the bell rings until a outcome is rendered.
What happens before & after the match is not what I would consider match
time. Granted it is part of the show but I did not include this in the
report so that's my bad.
JFK
11 Jan 2009, 12:41
Match times aside, can we all discuss the 3 and a half star tag match
between Cryme Tyme & Morrison/Miz? The other reports on wrestlingobserver
say that outside the two main events, nothing was that special. But,
according to this report, these matches were above and beyond PPV quality.
Maybe if we take a star off of each match, we would have something more
along the lines of what actually took place in the ring?
Chris
11 Jan 2009, 13:30
Start ratings are subjective. He could have seen it as a three-star match,
and others may disagree. Star-rating don't mean anything because everyone
follows a different standard. So leave the guy alone.
Well, this is the same thing as rating a movie. Everyone has their own
opinion and uses different methods to judge a movie. But there is a way to
weed out whose opinion of the movie is suspect. For example, if you
thought The Brothers Solomon was a five-star movie, then you would be
basically saying it's an Oscar-worthy movie. Now, if every other critic in
America pans it (it got a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes & made under a million
dollars), then your rating is way off. So, if you're telling me that Cryme
Tyme v. Morrison/Miz wrestled a three and a half star match in nine
minutes, it must have been an awesome match, like a non-ladder Hardy Boyz
v. Edge & Christian match from back in the day. But then every other
report from the same house show gives it mediocre at best, your rating is
way off. You have to admit, those match ratings put that house show among
the greatest shows the WWE has ever put on, in terms of workrate. It would
be the first three star match Cryme Tyme has ever been involved in.
R
12 Jan 2009, 17:55
The star ratings were based only on this show, not comparing it to other
shows. If match A got 3 stars and match B got 4 stars we thought that
match B was 1 star better. Damn some of you guys take this seriously.
INCREDIBLE BENEFITS! Over 50 full-length audio updates per month (iPod compatible)... New weekly award-winning Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter (text and printable pdf versions) with latest exclusive insider news, new Torch Talks, great columns, Keller's cover story, much more... Hundreds of full-length back issues of PWTorch Newsletter from late-'80s to today... Ad-free access to PWTorch.com's Main Listing... VIP Forum with interaction with other subscribers and Torch staff... Torch Talk Library with text and audio of hundreds of interview installments from last 20 years... Great layout... Deepest archives on pro wrestling history anywhere... Keller's PWTorch Today PDF Bulletins with email alerts... VIP Email reports on major PPVs and TV shows... Staff Roundtable Reviews (text and audio) followiing major events... The best staff of writers and world class reporting since 1987... We'd love for you to join us and experience the most entertaining, authoritative, experienced staff of professional reporters and commentators in the business...
Compare the value of four or five months of PWTorch VIP content to the price of just one PPV. Can you cut 25 cents a day from your budget to make room for PWTorch VIP?
AND NEW FOR 2009! Monthly "Vintage Audio Torch Talks." We are releasing for the first time ever audio versions of our text Torch Talk updates, the historical first series of insider interviews ever. Wade Keller's newsmaking in-depth interviews with wrestling's biggest names are now being made available exclusively to VIP members. But you must be a member each month, as these are not archived, so they are replaced with a new one each month! This debuted in January 2009 with a 68 minute interview with the late "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith. Who's next? Hulk Hogan? Eric Bischoff? The Rock? Goldberg? Jeff Hardy?
WWE Raw house show Report
