WWE House Show Results (7/4/04) - Sudbury, Ontario
Report by: Jeff Rayne, rajah.com reader
Just got back from the Smackdown show at the Sudbury Arena. Good show,
couldn’t really hear the interviews cuz the sound sucked. Smackdown needs
BIGGER STARS!!!!! Raw is so overpacked and SD is just a training ground it
seems. Reigns/Suzuki/Akio/Sakoda/Jindrak are not enough to draw people to
these shows no matter who they’re fighting. You’ll never see that on a Raw
show. I can’t believe Vince actually thinks this is working. Bradshaw was
great on the mic though, well spoken and hated the fact that he was in
Canada on the 4th of July when there are no Canadians in Iraq helping the
U.S. lot’s of heat for that one. The Sudbury Arena holds 6,000 people but
there were probably 4,500 there. weird since it’s the first time in 10
years that they’ve been here. the four corners were completely empty.
anyway, here’s the report.
Match 1 - RVD vs D-Von
good match, crowd popped huge for RVD. he looks so ripped in person, on tv
he looks okay but none of us could believe how ripped he actually is. there
was this jacked up guy in the crowd wearing the tightest shirt i’ve ever
seen, he was trying to look all big and probably thought he looked good.
when RVD came out he freakin’ dwarfed this guy. funny. RVD wins with the 5
Star.
Match 2 - Kenzo Suzuki vs Billy Gunn
Gunn really played up the fact that he used to be in DX. Suck It, Crotch
Chop, stuff like that. Kenzo is just flat out boring. He chopped “Kip” as
the fans were calling him, haha, and all you could hear was dead silence and
then someone yell “go back to the Ukraine.” which put people in tears. Kenzo
wins with face palm slam.
Match 3 - Luther Reigns vs Charlie Haas
Boooooooooooooring. Reigns wins. Missed finish. Haas looked good but it
was a slow one.
Match 4 - Billy Kidman vs Mark Jindrak.
Jindrak is doing a cross between The Model and The Narcissist (sp?) with a
cape and mirror. Jindrak wins when he reverses a tornado ddt into a
sidewalk slam.
Match 5 - FBI vs Akio and Sakoda
Very impressed by the FBI. I think they’re ready to be put into some main
tag team storylines. They have really good timing and they’re using good
tandem moves. Crowd loved them. One of the better technical matches of the
night. FBI win with a Demolition finish but with a leg drop from the middle
rope instead of an elbow.
Match 6 - John Cena vs Rene Dupree vs Booker T (US Title)
Crowd loved Cena. Spinaroonie from Booker, gay french dance from Dupree.
Short match actually. Cena throws Dupree outside and blocks Booker’s kick
for the FU and the win.
Intermission
Match 7 - Rey Mysterio vs Chavo Guerrero (Cruiserweight Title)
Fast paced match. Kids dressed as Rey (at least 10) loved Rey and were all
over him. Rey got on the mic and said Sudbury doesn’t want a 619 tonight.
Instead he’s gonna give us the 705, you can guess what that is. Crowd
popped huge for that. Rey hits the 705 and a slingshot splash for the win.
Match 8 - Bikini Competition
Scotty 2 Hotty comes out to host the competition. Jackie out first, then
Sable, then Torrie. Jackie looked unreal. Sable in a thong. Torrie was
actually the most dressed but still won.
Match 9 - Canadian Street Fight - Eddie Guerrero vs JBL (WWE Championship)
JBL came out first and ripped on the crowd for the lack of Canadian
involvement in Iraq and the fact that he had to wrestle in Canada on the 4th
of July. Told a little kid to put down his Canadian flag before he whiped
his ass with it. I’m quickly becoming a fan of Bradshaw as champion. Never
thought I’d say that but it’s true. Reverse low blow kick by JBL for the
win. JBL goes to pound on Eddie but Chavo and D-Von run in and take out
Eddie. This brings out Mysterio and RVD, then Reigns and Haas, then Booker
T and Dupree, then Cena and Scotty. Huge brawl in the ring, the crowd is
completely losing their minds. People had already started to leave and were
running back into the arena to watch it when they heard how crazy the crowd
was going. Faces take out all heels except JBL. FU on JBL, followed by the
705, then the worm and chop, then a frog splash by RVD. Eddie, Rey and
Scotty tied JBL’s boots together so when he finally got up he said he
refused to be made a fool of, then took one step and hit the ground. Pretty
funny. RVD/Eddie/Cena/Scotty/Rey all post on the turnbuckles with RVD
standing on the middle rope. Then they all raise eachother’s hands and
posed for the crowd. Very cool. JBL closed out the show by singing God
Bless America with the ref to the Arena as we booed.
Overall I was very shocked that there weren’t more people in attendance.
But I am even more shocked at the professionalism of the Smackdown talent.
They made it look like they were at WM20. They put on such a show it was
unreal. Nobody went through the motions, they all made it look like they
were genuinley pleased to be there. I went to WM18 in the SkyDome and the
4,500 people in Sudbury almost equalled it in ovations. Just a rabid crowd.
When the talent walked to the back you could basically see what they were
looking at. Empty seats with a few scattered fans. But they played up to
those fans like it was there last night as a wrestler. They are in a small
city in Canada on the 4th of July but you’d never know it. I was very
impressed by this.
Biggest Heat
JBL
Rene Dupree
D-Von
Booker T
Biggest Pops
Mysterio
Cena
RVD
Eddie
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WWE House Show Results (7/3/04) - North Bay, Ontario
Report by: Croww, rajah.com reader
Some wrestlers arrived at this point, almost an hour before bell time.
Kidman arrived with Torrie. Sable arrived alone. I thought she’d be a
bitch, but wow. She came right over, signed some shirts for some kids,
talked to the fans and smiled for every picture. After she left, a car
pulls up with Gunn, Chavo and Eddie. Some yells out to Gunn: “Welcome to
hell”. Gunn’s reply was: “I’ve felt like that for the last 200 miles!”
Someone then asks Eddie: “Why are you in the backseat?” Another from the
crowd yells out: “It’s because he lost his title!” Eddie, hearing this,
gives the crowd grief and gives us all the finger. Nice one Eddie, win
over the crowd. Once we sat down, we realized that they won’t be coming
back here again. They may have sold 1500 tickets to this thing, maybe.
(The good news is that I think Sudbury is a sellout at close to 6000
people, I guess the reports will show if it’s true or not.)
Onto the actual card. They mixed it up a little bit due to the absence
of Funaki and OVW bound Mordecai.
Kidman opened up the night with Jindrak. This was a good match with nice
crowd reaction. Kidman teased the shooting star press and then gets
rolled up for the loss to Jindrak.
Luther Reigns comes out to zero theme music because they screwed up.
Near the end of Angle’s theme, the sound comes back on and Luther yells
to cut the music. He then cuts a promo on how Angle didn’t want to make
the trip and that he was here to teach Haas a lesson. Haas, without Miss
Jackie, runs in and takes Luther out from behind. The match starts and
Luther looked impressive in person. Haas was really over with the crowd.
I can’t give you anything exact for this match, but I remember Luther
getting the win. Haas, still in the ring, gets a huge cheer after that.
The Cruiser match was next. Chavo and Mysterio had a very good match. It
was a solid 15 minutes and some nice spots. Chavo had a ton of near
falls. Mysterio got the win with a 619. Mysterio was extremely over with
crowd. Funny part was at the beginning of the match. Mysterio gave away
some of his merchandise to a kid at ringside. Chavo ran over and stole
it. They chased each other around the ring. In the end, the kid got the
item back.
I’m pretty sure the fatal four way was next. (You can’t quote me on the
order of the matches. I didn’t take any notes during the show.) The
fatal four way became a three way match because RVD was used to replace
Haas in another match. (Haas replaced Funaki against Reigns.) This match
was ok. Cena was over huge. The match was really quick, with nothing
special to talk about. Cena won using the FU (people in the crowd were
yelling F-5 Idiots… ) on Booker. After the match Booker heads to the
back, and Dupree attacks Cena from behind only to get an F-U for his
efforts. At this point, we expect a rap or something… but no, Cena did
not oblige.
The 10 minute intermission was more like 15 to 20.
The bikini contest was next. It was “hosted” by Scotty 2 Hotty. Torrie,
Sable and Miss Jackie were in it. After some prancing, Torrie got the
win. However, before they left the ring, a huge Sable chant started.
Torrie, then, shook Sable’s hand and gave her the win. In turn, Sable
waves and shook hands all the way to the back.
The Gunn/Suzuki match was brutal. Suzuki got the win in this 3 minute
match. Gunn was over with the crowd. We just kept turning around and
looking at all these people and questioning their reactions all night! LOL
The tag match was good. FBI won the contest over Akio and Sakoda. My
favourite spot in this match was when the Bull picked up Nunzio to help
him drop kick Sakoda. The Bull was huge over with this crowd. He stayed
in the ring for a quick ovation after the match.
RVD took on D-Von, listed as The Dudley on the card. D-Von had big face
chants during his entrance. To correct this, he cut an anti-North Bay
promo. At least the guy knew how to get cheap heat to put over an
already rooted for RVD. Nothing special by these guys. RVD got the win.
D-Von posed for the booing crowd later.
The main event was pure shit. LOL JBL came out and cut a promo about how
Independance Day was on Sunday and that Canadians were cowards. He
called Canada Mexico of the North and that we all wanted to be
Americans. He then added that North Bay’s former OHL team the
Centennials even moved to the US to make a better future for the
franchise. Eddie came out to huge pop. (They didn’t see the finger
waving in the back.)
This “streetfight” (they beat each other out of the ring for a total of
3 minutes) ended in 10 minutes.
At the end of the main event, JBL got the upper hand on Eddie when he
was cutting a “I Love North Bay” promo. When Eddie turned the tide,
Chavo, Luther Reigns, DVon, Booker and Dupree hit the ring and beat the
daylights out of the former champ. Then, the faces hit the ring,
including Scotty 2 Hotty, Cena, Mysterio and RVD. They helped the former
champ clear out the heels. Once done, they all did their finishers on
JBL and put him out. Once he was out, Eddie put the title on his chest,
tied his boots together, and cut a promo on how he was going to win the
cage match in two weeks. After the faces left to a huge ovation, JBL
took the mic and was giving the crowd an update on this injuries and how
he’d be ok in two weeks. It was a pretty funny promo.
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