RAW 2008: WWE Kicks Off a New Season

Happy New Year everybody! The first Monday Night Raw of 2008 kicks off with William Regal and Vince McMahon.

Regal is explaining his actions of last week where he smashed Ric Flair with the brass knucks, citing that he thought the boss would be happy that he ruined HHH's Royal Rumble chances as his excuse.

Vince assured Regal that he was pleased that HHH lost his Rumble spot but would also be even more pleased if HHH ended up injured on the first Raw of 2008.

Vince was going to put HHH in a match with none other than the Raw GM himself, but the match stipulation would be decided by the "Raw Roulette wheel." A spin of the giant wheel revealed that Regal's match with HHH would be a "first blood" match.

Looking rather shocked and afraid, Regal proceeded out of the room, only to be ambushed by a waiting Triple H who wasn't going to hang around to get his share of Regal. Both men were eventually restrained, leaving the crowd salivating at the prospect of a bloodbath later on! 

HBK & Mr.Kennedy vs Charlie Haas & Trevor Murdoch (Strange Bedfellows match)

HBK and Kennedy make their entrances and figure they will be fighting each other...only when Vince arrives on the titantron to spin the wheel and select the match, they are drawn in a "Strange Bedfellows" match. Vince then explains that this means they will actually be teaming up as a tag team against Charlie Haas and Trevor Murdoch.

In a rather quick and uneventful match, HBK and Kennedy show that they have no intention of working with each other by regularly tagging themselves into the match. After around 10 minutes, HBK delivers a sweet chin music to Haas out of nowhere, only for Kennedy to come into the ring, "Mic Test" HBK and cover haas for the three-count, staying in the ring after the bell sounds to talk trash to an unconcious Shawn Michaels.

Carlito w/Santino Marella vs Hardcore Holly w/Cody Rhodes (Trading Places match)

The object of this match is to wrestle dressed up as your opponent...so Carlito makes his entrance dressed as Hardcore Holly and then, sporting a RIDICULOUSLY large black afro wig, Holly makes his entrance dressed as Carlito. In another pretty quiet match Holly pretty much dominates, finally ending it with the Abdominal stretch.

Cut backstage for a conversation between Maria and Vince about arranging a Diva match. Maria is given the honor of spinning the wheel and it finally comes to rest on the submission match! She is confused and so Vince tells her to close her eyes and think happy thoughts. He shifts the wheel silently around to "Lingerie Pillow Fight" getting a great reaction from the crowd!

Following the decision for the Diva match, the main event of the evening is announced and Jeff Hardy will face Umaga in a steel cage match!!Next comes a spot with Vince talking to Hornswoggle (Raw sound engineer will probably be picking up his p60 after this cockup cause we can't hear a single word that Vince is saying!)

A few VT's later, we get a second chance to see the Vince and Hornswoggle spot, in which Vince is saying how he is going to bestow such a huge match on Hornswoggle...A “Mr. McMahon’s choice” match which basically mean Vince decides what the stipulation will be. He tells his son that he wants Hornswoggle to find himself a partner and compete in a tag match against the Highlanders, with the winners receiving a place in the Royal Rumble!

DIVA’s Lingerie Pillow Fight

Next up is the Pillow fight and we begin to find out which Diva’s will be taking part. Melina is first to the ring followed by Maria, Mickie James and Jillian Hall. Just as the match is about to begin, some familiar music hits: ASHLEY is back!! Sporting a new punk style haircut with bright pink streaks, and looking in great shape, she makes her way to the ring to join the fight. The usual Diva shenanigans ensue with pillows, duvets and diva’s being flung around the ring. After a short while all the Divas gang up on Jillian Hall, holding her down on the bed to allow Ashley to elbow from the corner of the ring and cover for the win! A nice welcome to raw!

HHH vs William Regal – FIRST BLOOD MATCH

The match begins with HHH in control, but it isn’t long before Regal gets himself back into the contest and once he starts to really fight, his experience shows. He goes to work on HHH giving him a beating that doesn’t normally happen when the game is in action. Regal strips down a turnbuckle to use to his advantage in trying to bust HHH open, and when that fails, he heads to the outside in search of his brass knucks. As he re-enters the ring with the brass knucks ready to strike, HHH regains control with a devastating spinebuster, before going to work on Regal with his fists.

The second unplanned mistake happened as HHH was punching Regal in the head. We see the Game pause and cut Regal’s head with something he has in his hand!! I’m pretty sure the viewers were not supposed to see that but it’s clear a day for all to see!! The second sloppy mistake of the night and the first Raw of the year is beginning to look a little sloppy. Regal is bloodied and HHH wins the matchWe are now shown a segment with Hornswoggle trying to convince Santino Marella to be his partner but to no avail. Following this a VT is played of the feud over the last few weeks between Y2J and JBL, before Y2J makes his entrance for his match

HANDICAP MATCH

Y2J discovers he will be competing in a Handicap match against Snitsky and JBL. Now my thoughts on why this match would have been chosen are that JBL hasn’t wrestled for a long time so a handicap match where someone else could take over if JBL gets tired too quickly seems the sensible option, but it soon became apparent that this didn’t even come into the equation! The bell rings and Snitsky starts the assault on Jericho but it isn’t long before JBL gets involved and all of a sudden Snitsky seems to have vanished because that’s pretty much the last we see of him.

Cue the third comical error of the night as JBL uses the ring bell to rap Y2J over the head. The referee deems it a disqualification and calls for the bell! OOPS! JBL just threw the bell over Y2J’s head so no one can ring the bell! Oh, well in that case we’ll pretend he didn’t call for a disqualification and carry on like nothing happened! JBL wraps cable around Y2J’s neck and drags him like a dog up the ramp and attempts to hang him from a seemingly useless structure by the stage. The match is stopped as officials surround JBL and that is the end of that! Probably the worst match of the night so far!

MR.McMAHON’s CHOICE MATCH: Tag Match with winners receiving Rumble placement

Hornswoggle makes his entrance and it becomes apparent that he couldn’t find anyone to be his partner as he is accompanied by a very skinny wrestler by the name of B.J Jordan. The crowd seem to pretty much write off his chances against the highlanders but just as it seems all is lost, Mick Foley’s music hits and he replaces BJ Jordan as Hornswoggle’s partner. Foley is his usual hardcore self bringing out Mr.Socko to dispose of Rory and hitting the DDT on Robby. He tags in Hornswaggle to hit the Tadpole splash and claim the win! Hornswoggle and Foley will be in the Royal Rumble!!!

MAIN EVENT: CAGE MATCH: JEFF HARDY vs UMAGA

Jeff Hardy make their entrances and Randy Orton comes to ringside to watch the match unfold. Throughout the match he’s pacing around the ring barking orders at Umaga to punish Jeff...to destroy him! After some good wrestling Orton begins to get agitated that Umaga can’t finish off Jeff, and so throws chairs over the top of the cage for Umaga to use against Jeff. Umaga smashes Jeff over the back with a chair and pins. 1....2....Jeff kicks out to the horror of Orton.

Then Umaga places Jeff in the corner for the running Bulldozer attack (basically the move when he slams his rear end into his opponents head) but Jeff dodges and assumes control, setting up a chair and slamming Umaga through it with a DDT, heading for the door in the aftermath. As Jeff is climbing out, Orton slams the door shut on Jeff’s head sending him back into the ring and Umaga pins again. 1.....2....Jeff kicks out again!!! Orton can’t believe it!!!

More back and forth between the two before Jeff hits the Twist of Fate and scales the cage wall. As he reaches the top he see’s Orton standing below. Rather than attempt to get out and be stopped by Orton, Jeff turns and Corkscrew heelkicks Umaga from the top of the cage and pins...1....2.....3!

Hardy wins an awesome match and could have just done enough to prevent this first Raw of 2008 from being a total shambles!