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The following was published five years ago this week…
WWE Raw house show results
March 8, 2013
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Report by Chris Griffin, PWTorch reader
I attended the Live Event in Colorado Springs Friday night. It’s been a while since I’ve had an opportunity to attend a house show. They’ve added video and an entrance stage to make it more like a TV show atmosphere. I’m not good at counting crowds, but it was a 90 percent sell-out, and a hot crowd hungry for live wrestling, since they cancelled the last event due to the wildfire we were having here over the summer.
It started out with a beautiful video tribute to Paul Bearer that I assume was on Smackdown, or at least will be on Raw on Monday.
Vickie Guerrero came out to kick off the show (Justin Roberts apparently had a flat tire and missed the first two matches, leaving Vickie to be the guest ring announcer).
(1) Brodus Clay (w/”Sweet T”) beat Heath Slater (w/Jinder Mahal). Fun opener. Clay won with his big splash. They grabbed a few kids out of the front row to come into the ring and dance after the match.
A video from The Shield then played. They vowed to put an end to the Cena problem tonight.
(2) Alex Riley beat Titus O’Neil. Riley looked great and the crowd hadn’t completely forgot about him. Riley won with his finishing reverse spinning neckbreaker. The Shield came out to attack him after the match.
(3) Bray Wyatt (formerERLY Husky Harris) beat JTG. Wyatt seems to have changed his look enough, no one around me had any idea who he was from his former persona or his current stint on NXT. I was excited to see him wrestle, since he’s usually in a manager role on NXT. He looked great, but I’m not sure if he will connect with the audience. Very strange gimmick, and I could be wrong, but don’t see this leading to a main event spot. Wyatt won clean over JTG.
(4) The Miz beat Dolph Ziggler (w/A.J. Lee). Big E. was banned from ringside after a Twitter vote. Great match, probably best wrestling on the card. Lots of Flair strutting from both Miz and referee Charles Robinson. Miz won with a figure-four leglock.
(5) Divas champion Kaitlyn beat Tamina Snuka to retain the Divas Title. Vickie came out with Tamina as her manager. Her distraction back-fired and Kaitlyn won with a spear.
(6) C.M. Punk beat Zack Ryder. Punk squashed Ryder, who had no offense in the match. After a GTS, he crossed Ryder’s arms and pinned him in Undertaker fashion. He then cut a promo selling the crowd to want to watch WrestleMania to see Taker lose.
(7) Ryback & John Cena beat The Shield via DQ in a two-on-three handicap match. The babyfaces started strong, got beat down after the numbers took advantage, and as they came back, a chair was brought in by The Shield to end the match by DQ.
After the match, Cena broke up a triple powerbomb attempt and they hit double finishers to send the crowd home happy. On a side note, it was very cool for me to see Seth Rollins in a WWE main even live after living in Davenport, Iowa for a few years and having the opportunity to see him when he was starting out as Tyler Black in SCW, a local indie promotion in Iowa.
NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS FIVE YEARS AGO FLASHBACK: 5 YRS AGO – TNA Impact TV Report (3-7-03): Jeff Hardy vs. Austin Aries, Dudley vs. Sting, Samoa Joe, Magnus, Bischoff, Storm, Kaz, Bully Ray, Guerrero
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