Obviously, if you saw the draft edition of WWE RAW last night, you probably know what happened to Mr. McMahon at the end of the show, and you’re probably finding this site through some search such as “Is Mr. McMahon ok” or “Tower falls on Mr. McMahon.”  Was it real?  In a word, no.  My suspension of belief suspended itself during the segment – because it conveniently happened at 11:03PM Eastern Time, right after Mr. McMahon gave away $500,000.  Not to mention that it was painfully obvious that he didn’t get hurt at all, even with the Million Dollar Mania sign “falling on him.”  So I’m not going to waste any more time on it, but I am interested to see where they go with it.  By the way, if you don’t remember, at the end of last year’s draft edition of RAW, Mr. McMahon blew up in his limo.

Anyways, I made my predictions in yesterday’s post, and I actually got three right – including the night’s first pick, Rey Mysterio coming to Monday Night RAW!  If you told me yesterday though, that Triple H and Jim Ross would be making their way over to SmackDown, I would’ve told you that you’re crazy.  Mr. McMahon said it was time to shake things up again, and how right he was.  Other big names switching shows last night include the ECW Champion Kane heading to RAW, and US Champion Matt Hardy heading over to ECW just after his brother came to SmackDown.

The rest of the draft choices, and the matches that got them there, after the jump!

As mentioned earlier, my first RAW pick, Rey Mysterio, really was the first RAW pick, as Triple H picked up a hard fought victory over Mark Henry.  After the match, Rey came to the ring and confronted H-cubed, who showed him his belt as if to say “Welcome to the brand, think you can take this from me?”

Finlay and Hornswoggle teamed up to take on RAW’s Santino Marella and Carlito.  Hornswoggle got the win for his team, pinning Santino after a tadpole splash and sending the Rainbow Haired Warrior, Jeff Hardy, over to the blue show.

Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes came out and everybody fell asleep.  Ted DiBiase Jr. was on commentary though, so a few of us woke up long enough to see the World Tag Team Champions defeat ECW’s Chavo Guerrero and Bam Neely, earning RAW a draft pick.  Mr. Money In The Bank, C.M. Punk brings his straight-edge beliefs and this nice shiny briefcase with him to the red brand.

Y2J tells us we’re not allowed to cheer for him anymore, and that he’d defend the Intercontinental title at Night of Champions against Shawn Michaels, if Shawn weren’t injured.  He also tells us that Lance Cade graduated from HBK’s wrestling school, leading Lance to tell us how he’s the best thing to ever come out of that school and that he’s going to turn on HBK before HBK gets a chance to turn on him.  We also got to watch the video that somebody showed John Cena a few years back of HBK turning on all his partners he’s ever had, with footage added of him turning on Cena and faking an injury against Batista.  Michaels has enough, and comes out to attack Jericho.  Unfortunately for Michaels, Texas Wrestler, in the ensuing brawl his eye hits the corner of the SmackDown announce table, further injuring him.

ECW’s Miz and Morrison were set to take on SmackDown’s Hawkins and Ryder, but in light of recent developments, Vicki Guerrero picked another team to face them instead.  Matt Hardy’s music hits, and out he comes – along with SmackDown’s newest superstar, Matt’s brother Jeff!  Despite the best efforts of the Hardy Boyz though, Miz and Morrison earn ECW their first draft pick of the night – US Champion Matt Hardy!  Matt realises that the Hardyz reunion wasn’t meant to last, gives his little brother a kiss, and sets off into the land of Extreme.

Up next, Melina and Mickie James team up to take on SmackDown’s Natalya and Victoria.  The match is announced as an announcers only match, meaning that only commentators, backstage interviewers, and ring announcers are eligible to be drafted.  The first thought I had is “where is Tod Grisham going.”  Then the unthinkable happened.  Melina “injured” herself on a fall from the top rope, and the heels wouldn’t stop attacking.  Somehow, the referee decided that the match would be a double disqualification – meaning RAW and SmackDown BOTH get a draft pick.  The next thought I had was “I don’t like where this is going,” and just like that, everybody’s worst fears happened – the graphic displayed on the screen tells us that Jim Ross has been drafted to SmackDown.  As JR heads over to the SmackDown table with a sad look on his face, Michael Cole’s face appears on the screen, as he’s been drafted to RAW.  A shocked Michael Cole tells us that he’s been on every SmackDown but two, and Mick Foley tells us he’s glad to be working with JR, but wishes that he was the one who got drafted to RAW, because JR is a RAW institution.  JR replies “well, time to escape from the institution, I guess.”

Ross and Foley get to try out their skills as SmackDown’s World Heavyweight Champion Edge takes on RAW’s John Cena.  Ross ponders why he’s calling this match as he’s now a SmackDown announcer, and this is an interbrand match between RAW and SmackDown.  Edge and Cena have a pretty good match going, before spilling to the outside.  Edge decides not to follow Cena back in, giving RAW a draft pick.  Before the pick is announced, however, Batista comes out to attack the champion.  After Edge escapes, we’re told that Batista is going to RAW.  Edge looks at his title, and waves “bye-bye” to Batista.

Celebrating with his fiance in the locker room afterward that he’s done with Batista, Mr. McMahon drops by to remind him that the Night of Champions matches are going on as advertised, so he still has to defend against Batista this Sunday.

MVP, representing SmackDown, took on ECW’s Tommy Dreamer, who brought Colin Delaney with him.  Colin didn’t bring the luck of the Irish to Tommy though, as MVP picked up the win, bringing The Samoan Bulldozer, Umaga to SmackDown.

ECW’s Kofi Kingston took on RAW’s JBL.  In a pretty decent match, Kofi was nailed with the Clothesline from Hell, sending another draft pick to RAW.  It’s more bad news for ECW – their Champion, Kane is coming back to Monday Nights.

The last match of the show was a fifteen-man over the top rope battle royal for two draft picks.  Whichever show’s team wins the match gets the picks.  Here are the participants by brand:

RAW: Triple H, Kane, CM Punk, John Cena, and Batista

ECW: Matt Hardy, The Miz, John Morrison, Chavo Guerrero, and Shelton Benjamin

SmackDown: Edge, MVP, The Big Show, The Great Khali, and Jeff Hardy

The match started during the commercial break.  We come back to see everybody in a red RAW shirt and everybody with a black ECW shirt ganging up on The Great Khali, eliminating him, then turning their attention to another blueshirt – The Big Show.  Show fought off the competition though, and a story was told in the ring.  Particularly when Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy found themselves on separate brands and fighting each other out of brand loyalty – Jeff eliminated his brother, who was the last ECW representative left in the match, killing off ECW’s hopes for more than one draft pick for the night.  Batista and Edge both went for spears, their heads colliding instead, Batista’s being split wide open.  The match came down to RAW’s Triple H and John Cena, taking on SmackDown’s Edge and Big Show.  After Cena and Triple H eliminated Show, Edge shoved Cena into Triple H, sending The Game over the top and to the floor.  Edge eliminated Cena to win two draft picks for his brand – Mr. Kennedy is the first pick, he comes out and points at Edge, indicating he wants a title shot.  The next pick is Triple H – who doesn’t look too thrilled.

The money giveaways are worth mentioning – the first five winners got $100,000 each.  The first winner’s number was dialed by Kelly Kelly.  The second winner was to be called by Randy Orton, but Orton came out to tell us that he’s coming for the title when he gets back, which will be “sooner than you think,” before telling Mr. McMahon that he wasn’t in the mood to give away $100,000.  Ric Flair dialed the number for the next winner, who was excited when Ric gave her his trademark WOOOOOOOOOO! to go along with the money.  The Great Khali dialed next, resulting in the message “The fingers you are dialing with are too fat.  If you wish to obtain a special dialing want, mash the keypad with your palm now.”  No, ok, not really.  Khali’s dialing job got met with “wrong number, I guess” when Mr. McMahon asked who he was speaking to.”  A second attempt got a winner.  McMahon went solo for the fifth one though – and the winner was right there in the arena!

The $500,000 drawing went off without a hitch – but then the set started crashing down around Mr. McMahon, who was being pulled out from under the debris yelling “PAUL!  PAUL, I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS!”  I already told you my thoughts on that silly little segment though, so I’m not going to give it any more blog time.

This is the type of show we need – a show that focuses mainly on wrestling matches instead of a lot of stupid storylines.  Even the giveaways seemed scaled back and they didn’t take away from the rest of the show.  Of course, things all went to hell with the stupid McMahon tragedy thing that happened at the end of the show.  If we can ignore that sillyness, it was a great show.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens from here, with the WWE Championship residing on Friday Nights, and the ECW Championship residing on Mondays.  It’s also going to be strange to not hear JR’s voice on Monday nights anymore, or to not see Triple H on the show either.  The McMahon thing though, I’ll hold off judgement until we see where it goes from here.

Post by thinksojoe

The founder of BoredWrestlingFan.com and it’s parent company, Fropac Entertainment, ThinkSoJoE has been a wrestling fan since he first saw WWF television in 1986 at the age of four. His first wrestling memory was Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night’s Main Event talking about getting King Kong Bundy in a cage at WrestleMania 2. Sixteen years later, he met Hulk Hogan on the eve of WrestleMania X-8. On December 9, 2013, he legitimately won a Slammy Award (Best Crowd of the Year). ThinkSoJoE currently hosts the weekly BWF Radio podcast.


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