WWF Raw 9/22/2003
It's the last Raw before Unforgiven, and it's the first Raw without competition from Nitro in eight years. The announcers talk about the two six-man tag matches coming up as well as a collision between two former best friends. The WWF kicks the show off right with the introduction of the People's Champ and his seventh stop on the Road To Redemption. He's a perfect 6-0 so far, can he maintain his momentum against Bradshaw? Ha. Of course he can. This guy's never going to be a singles star.
Raven is six days away from his match with Scotty 2 Hotty. On SmackDown, Raven beat the towering Canadian T-Money and tonight, he faces T-Money's T&A tag team partner, A-Train. Similar result as last time with Raven hitting the Raven Effect for the clean victory. He puts the boots to Train after the match to demonstrate his dominance.
Trish Stratus and Lita are shown backstage. They don't really do much, but does it matter?
On Thursday, Team BRECK-J's Chris Benoit was defeated cheaply by the Dirty Dozen's Kane. Tonight, he looks for revenge against Kane's stablemate Hardcore Holly (who, himself, lost to Benoit's stablemate Rhyno). Benoit gets his revenge. Holly attacks him after the bell, they brawl to the back. T his is definitely not over.
The aforementioned Kane hopes to keep his momentum alive as he faces off against the man who defeated his stablemate Big Show on Thursday, Chris Jericho. Kane doesn't need to cheat tonight as he plants Jericho with a chokeslam for the victory.
Eddie Guerrero is backstage. He talks about his match this Sunday against Triple H. Hopefully the match gets over, since EWR really doesn't like heel/heel matches. Maybe it's time to turn one of them.
Completing our weird BRECK-J/Dirty Dozen round robin for the evening is Rhyno vs. Big Show. Rhyno continues to look like a monster as he Gores Big Show in half (not literally, that would be gross) for the victory.
We've already seen B, R, and J in action tonight. The "ECK" in BRECK-J are out next for a big six-man tag team match as the #1 contender for the World Title teams with the #1 contenders for the Tag Team Titles. It's Kurt Angle, Edge, and Christian against Dirty Dozen members Undertaker, Road Dogg, and K-Kwik. The match is, as expected, kind of a clusterfuck. Eventually, The Rock takes advantage of a distraction to plant Undertaker with a Rock Bottom, allowing Angle to pick up the victory.
Matt Hardy is backstage, seething after what happened to his brother on SmackDown. He says that he will never forgive Randy Orton for what he did, so it's all that much more appropriate that they meet one-on-one at Unforgiven.
Last week, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, the founding fathers of DX lost to Edge & Christian. They each blame the other for the loss and now, one more time, they butt heads in the ring. It's a good technical match that eventually degenerates (ah? Ah? See what I did there?) into a brawl. The referee has no choice but to disqualify them both.
Our main event of the evening pits the Wrecking Crew (World Champion Brock Lesnar and the Tag Team Champions Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin) against the unlikely trio of John Cena and 2 Cool. Cena in particular looks really strong, but eventually Grand Master Sexay takes an F-5 and the champions stand tall as Raw goes off the air.
Quick Results (Final Rating 5.28)
- ROAD TO REDEMPTION - The Rock over Bradshaw
- Raven over A-Train
- Backstage segment to get Trish Stratus and Lita on the screen
- Chris Benoit over Hardcore Holly
- Kane over Chris Jericho
- Eddie Guerrero promo
- Rhyno over Big Show
- Kurt Angle, Edge, and Christian over Undertaker, K-Kwik, and Road Dogg after interference from The Rock
- Matt Hardy challenges Randy Orton for Unforgiven
- Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H ends in a double DQ
- Wrecking Crew over John Cena and 2 Cool
Unforgiven 2003 Card so far (9/28)
- WWF World Heavyweight Title: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Kurt Angle
- WWF World Tag Team Titles: World's Greatest Tag Team (c) vs. Edge & Christian
- Road To Redemption: The Rock vs. Undertaker
- John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels
- Eddie Guerrero vs. Triple H
- Scotty 2 Hotty vs. Raven
- Matt Hardy vs. Randy Orton