WWE House Show Results from Kalamazoo, Michigan 2-19-05
Submitted by Calvin Martin on Sunday, February 20, 2005 at 9:54 PM EST





Report sent in by Jay Taylor
http://www.geocities.com/Jay8720724/BJWWE.html



WWE Road to Wrestlemania
Event: Raw House Show
Live from Wings Stadium, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Feb. 19th, 2004


Opening Notes: Wings Stadium was probably 90% full which is much better than the past house shows in Kalamazoo. The crowd was also very alive and active all night. There were no “boring” chants and the fan reacted to almost everything the wrestlers did. The show had many high points throughout the night. However there was one major low point. Batista, Shawn Michaels, and Ric Flair did not make appearances. I am guessing that Batista and HBK are traveling with the Smackdown crew to Pittsburg for No Way Out.

The show started with the general announcements about the show and merchandise and the fans rose for the National Anthem. During the second verse La Resistance’s music hit and Grienier and Conway came to the ring waiving the Quebec flags and received tremendous heat. For the 15th time in the past 6 months Grienier began to sing the Canadian National Anthem only to be interrupted by the face opponents for the night, who happened to be the Tag Team champions Tariji and Regal. Irony: U.S.A. chants broke out for a British guy and a Japanese guy. This was a decent match to start the night off. Throughout the match, “Regal” chants boomed. After back and forth action, the Tag Team Champions retained their title when Tajiri kicked Conway in the face while on his knees and pinned.

The second match of the night introduced Chris Masters to the crowd. The fans did not know whether to boo him or not. Known as the “Masterpiece”, this guy looked fairly impressive. There is no doubt that he has a hell of a physique, but could he wrestle and perform a strong match? His opponent was veteran Val Venis who is always solid in the ring. The match shifted momentum quickly back and forth and I think the crowd was somewhat impressed with Masters in the ring. He played the crowd well and won with what I think is his finisher, which basically was a powerful choke-out submission. Val Venis was forced to tap out.

The third match was a disappointment to be honest. The card was advertised as Maven versus Batista. Instead of Batista, Hurricane faced Maven. Hurricane, who I think is very underrated and misused, helped carry Maven to a decent match. Hurricane belongs on Smackdown where he could have some great matches with the cruiserweights. Maven often yelled at the crowd and played to them well but Hurricane got the victory with The Shining Wizard.

Christy Hemme came out next and was announced as a future Playboy model to the delight of the crowd. She came dancing into the ring and threw a few t-shirts to the crowd. The second one she threw was a missile and almost took this ladies head off. Simon Dean came storming to the ring to interrupt the fun. He said that Kalamazoo should be changed to The Zoo because there are so many fat hippos, whales and monkeys that live there. He then ripped on Christy Hemme calling her “crusty”. After laughing loudly at the crowd, Christy Hemme dropped down and gave Simon a shot to the jewels. Simon Dean is a good gimmick and gets great reactions from the fans. I know there are mixed reviews on him, but I think he just needs a storyline with an established wrestler to get him going. All his bits are really funny, at least to me they are. Whether the Kalamazoo fans liked him or not, he got strong reactions.

The Coach came to the ring next and ripped on the ring announcer for doing a terrible job. Coach said he would be handling the announcing duties for the next match which was a triple threat match for the Women’s Championship. Trish came out, Molly came next, and Victoria brought up the rear. Victoria received big pops and high-fived everyone sitting at ring side. This match was a typical 3 way where two face-off and rotate. Trish retained he title with the Chic Kick to Victoria. Note: Trish had an awful black-eye that was almost impossible to cover up with makeup. Not sure when she got the black eye.

The 5th match, which was definitely the best match of the night, was for the Intercontinental Title. Christan and Tomko came to the ring first followed by the champion, Shelton Benjamin. This was a Pay-Per-View quality match and I hope these two face off with this match on Raw. Christian is the most underrated wrestler in the business in my opinion and with the unbelievable talent Benjamin brings to the table it was not hard to see why these two had a great match. There were plenty of comical spots and smooth action during the entire match. After a T-Bone, Benjamin retained his title. Christian called a great match, and I know he was calling it because I heard a few directions called out by him. It is time he gets a bigger push like Edge is receiving.

INTERMISSION

The 6th match was between Muhammad Hassan and Chris Jericho. Hassan came out first and the crowd erupted at him. He talked about how he grew up just over in Detroit like many of the fans in Kalamazoo but he is not treated the same because he is Arabic. Rumor has it that he is actually Italian. Next Daviri got on the microphone and I kid you not, spoke English, but only for a few sentences. He then began to speak in some form of Arabic and received the loudest jeers from the crowd all night. He was impressive in the match as the manager for Hassan against Y2J and was tossed into the ring by Jericho and put into the Walls of Jericho. During the match Davari got on the microphone and yelled at the crowd a little more. I think he did this because the match became a little stale 5 minutes into it. This Arabic tongue lashing seemed to liven the crowd and they were louder until Hassan hit Jericho with his finisher for the victory. Jericho was extremely solid as usual and Hassan did just fine too.

Note: I went to the show with my best friend who happens to be Arabic. There were so many rednecks in the crowd that take things far too literally and when we were cheering for Hassan (for fun just to spark some controversy), they became hostile and actually threatened my buddy. I counted 24 mullets in the crowd if that helps describe some of the fans.

The 7th match was one of the slowest but still solid matches of the night. Kane and Snitsky fought for the 47th time in the last 4 months and tonight it must have been Kane’s turn to win. Kane won with a chokeslam. Snitsky has come a long way and looked comfortable in the ring performing well.

The 8th match was a submission match between Edge and Chris Benoit. Edge played a much less confident Edge tonight than we are use to seeing on Raw. Many times he tried to leave the ring as if scared of Benoit. Edge was on the receiving end of the loudest “whooo” Ric Flair chop in history. I think that Edge was a bit stunned and lost his breath because he rolled out of the ring to catch his breath. Who rolls out of the ring after 1 “whooo” chop? These two veterans put on a very good match and the crowd exploded when Benoit reversed Edge’s modified sharp-shooter into the cross-face crippler. I hope we see this reversal on TV soon because it was one of the coolest and quickest reversals I have ever seen If you know which positions the wrestlers were in by my description of their moves, you’ll want to see this reversal too. Only Kurt Angle could have pulled off a reversal like this one. Benoit received the loudest pop of the night when Edge finally tapped out to The Crippler Crossface.

The Main Event was next. Triple H came out first followed by Randy Orton for their Street Fight Title Match. We met HHH earlier in the day at a book signing and he seems like a good guy. As boring as a book signing has to be, Triple H gave the fans what they wanted by trying to be as friendly as possible. However, he looked extremely tired. For the main event, Triple H did not look tired but while posing in the corner he almost fell backwards and had to break his pose to catch the ropes. He played it off well though and stared down the crowd until Orton’s music hit and all was forgotten. Although it was not quite as good a match as the IC title match, it was very good. They brought the fight into the crowd a few times to the delight of the fans. A chair was brought in and the two took turns trying to use it but missing. Triple H brought a rope into the ring and choked Orton for about 30 minutes. HHH then exited and tried to get the top part of the ring steps but it took him about 30 seconds to do so. He ended up picking up the whole thing and throwing it until it broke apart. After drilling Orton in the face with the steps, he pinned but Orton kicked out. Triple H went for the Pedigree but Orton reversed it into the R.K.O. Orton, who played like he had his 10th concussion in his last 10 matches, could not find enough strength to pin Trips. Triple H soon got the chair, fired a chair shot, and pinned Randy Orton.

Orton stayed out quite a while after getting up and shook hands with all the guys around the ring and gave every woman in the front rows a hug. My girlfriend has a new favorite wrestler now because she received one of those hugs. Overall I would say the show was very strong despite the absence of Batista, Flair, and HBK. At the merchandise stands, they sold out all the Batista shirts. He may be the next Heavy-Weight Champion. Well, take care everyone and enjoy the road to Wrestlemania 21………

Biggest Pops
Orton
Benoit
Victoria
Regal
Y2J

Biggest Heat
Davari
Muhammad Hassan
Simon Dean
The Coach
La Resistance

Mixed Reactions
Triple H
Chris Masters
Molly Holly
Edge
Christian


Peace Out

Jay Taylor
http://www.geocities.com/Jay8720724/BJWWE.html








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