Monday Night Raw – November 20, 2006 (2021 Redo): I Love This Kind Of Thing

Monday Night Raw
Date: November 20, 2006
Location: 1^st Mariner Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 6,500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s the go home show for Survivor Series and the show is mostly set. That is a rather good situation to have here as WWE is fresh off a European tour so they might not be going as hard as usual. You can always use a nice push towards the pay per view though and that very well may be the case here. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Here is Team Cena to get things going. John Cena talks about how they are ready to go but the Big Show had to jump him last week. If that’s the case, then come out here and let’s have this fight right now. Instead it’s Rated-RKO coming through the crowd with their pretty awful remix and the rest of their team. They are ready for Johnny Nitro to win the Intercontinental Title tonight and that is going to give them four champions on their team (plus MIKE KNOX!).

Hold on though as here are Ric Flair and some other legends, with Flair calling out Rated-RKO for winning the titles in a glorified handicap match. Rated-RKO and company are pathetic….and speaking of pathetic, here is the Spirit Squad through another part of the crowd with Kenny saying he has a special cheer for being the youngest Survivor Series captain of all time. Cue Team DX through the crowd, with Shawn Michaels saying we should start the Royal Rumble RIGHT NOW!

HHH offers a quick correction and make jokes about how easy the Spirit Squad really is. Now yeah Cena wants Big Show out here, but HHH saw an open case of Twinkies in the back so he isn’t coming out. HHH introduces his team but Edge cuts off the catchphrase, saying everyone is sick of them. Even Cena must be sick of them! Cena says not exactly, but he’s ready to fight Team Rated-RKO right now.

Instead here is Team Big Show on the stage, so Cena says let’s just have everyone get in the ring and see who is left standing. People start getting in but here is Vince McMahon to interrupt. We aren’t going to have a bunch of individual matches tonight, but we will have an eight man tag captain’s main event. That seems to work with everyone, though I don’t know how much choice they had.

Umaga vs. Sabu

Umaga knocks him down to start and the pace slows in a hurry. Sabu gets knocked outside and then thrown back inside so Umaga can knock him down again. Back up and Sabu hits a few hip attacks, setting up a springboard tornado DDT to rock the monster. That’s about it though as the Spike finishes Sabu in a hurry.

Rating: D. Just a quick squash to make it clear that Umaga is a mask. He does that kind of thing quite well and having him beat up Sabu worked well. Sabu is one of those people who can take a loss without being damaged in any serious way and I can’t imagine he is going to be that big of a factor in the Survivor Series match anyway.

Torrie Wilson is in the ring with the t-shirt gun and Jerry Lawler gets on the table so she can shoot one at him. Cue Chris Masters to say that’s a big gun, but has Torrie ever seen guns like his? Masters knows Torrie can’t break the Masterlock, but he knows some better positions for her anyway. Cue Carlito to interrupt and say that Masters may have big guns but it’s just a little pistol where it counts. Carlito drops Masters and hugs Torrie, which allows Masters to get up with the Masterlock. Lawler makes the save.

Johnny Nitro and Melina dedicate Nitro’s ladder match for the Intercontinental Title against Jeff Hardy to Kevin Federline. They’re winning tonight and then at Survivor Series, and then they are going to party with Kevin Federline after he beats John Cena on New Year’s Day.

Kenny picks Nicky to face Dusty Rhodes tonight. Hold on though as Kenny goes to yell at Ric Flair, who seems to be enjoying the company of Candice Michelle. Candice whispers in Flair’s ear and Flair smiles, but Kenny promises to end him on Sunday. Flair has two words for Kenny: WOO, and Ron Simmons, who is replacing Roddy Piper on Sunday, says the other. Kenny realizes he’s in trouble.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Johnny Nitro

Nitro, with Melina, is challenging in a ladder match. They go with some grappling to start until Hardy is sent into the corner. Nitro charges into a raised boot though and Hardy hits the Whisper in the Wind. Hardy sends him outside for the suicide dive and we take a break. Back with Nitro cutting off the climb so Hardy moves the ladder into the corner. For some reason Nitro climbs as well so he gets shoved down in a big crash.

Hardy dropkicks the ladder into Nitro for a nasty crash and goes up, only to have Nitro come up again and kick him down for the crash sequel. Back up and Hardy slams him onto the ladder but the Swanton only hits ladder. Nitro throws the ladder at him and it winds up hanging around Hardy’s head for a pretty awesome visual.

A dropkick drops Hardy and Nitro throws him into the ladder in the corner for another knockdown. Nitro hits him in the back with a ladder but Hardy brings in another one, meaning it’s a double climb. Hardy is fine enough to hit a heck of a sunset bomb down and then hits the signature jump over the ladder into the big legdrop. With Nitro down, Hardy puts the ladder on top of Nitro and climbs up to retain the title.

Rating: B. Rather good TV ladder match here with some pretty cool spots. Hardy winning should end the feud, at least for now, and they have traded the title enough over the last few weeks. You don’t get to see a match that feels this big on regular TV so it was pretty cool for a blowoff to a pretty how feud.

This Week In Wrestling History: Undertaker debuted at Survivor Series 1990.

Dusty Rhodes is ready to do various things to Nicky, including cooking and smoking. There are very few people who can make such nonsense work.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Nicky

They starts slowly with Nicky being smart enough to bail from the threat of the Bionic Elbow. Back in and Nicky gets in a few shots to the ribs to knock Dusty into the corner. A kick to the knee takes Dusty down but he’s back up with a few right hands. The gyrating sets up the Bionic Elbow and the strut into the big elbow drop finishes Nicky.

Rating: D+. What else were you expecting here? Dusty is mostly retired and it isn’t like the Spirit Squad is going to lose much by taking another loss. Nicky is just another name on a list of losers at this point so getting beaten by one of the biggest stars of all time is hardly some career death sentence.

Edge and Lita are enjoying each others’ company but Randy Orton brings Maria in for a question. She asks if the two of them are going to be able to win twice in a row….but there is some kind of hullabaloo in the next room. It’s Cryme Tyme yelling about something so Rated-RKO goes in, with Orton saying they are going to be champions for a long time if this is their competition.

Cryme Tyme calls him a metrosexual and….something else. Orton has no idea what they just said but Edge says he is down with this. He spent a lot of time, ahem, bonding with Whitney Houston videos when he was younger. Maria: “I LOVE WHITNEY HOUSTON!” After a pause over that, Edge promises to make DX just like Cryme Tyme, by beating them black. And blue. Rated-RKO leave but Cryme Tyme stop Maria so they can watch See No Evil together. Maria doesn’t seem interested by they put her on the couch and get rather close to her. Well that got rather creepy in a hurry.

Lita vs. Mickie James

Non-title and Lita has another stipulation: this time Maria has to be blindfolded. Coach puts the hood on her but Mickie gets in a few shots anyway. That doesn’t last long though as Lita knocks her down and hits the DDT. The moonsault (with the leg hitting Mickie in the face) finishes Mickie in a hurry.

Post match Lita grabs the mic and goes on a rant about how awesome she is. She single handedly revolutionized women’s wrestling in WWE. Before her, women were all eye candy but then she brought in moonsaults and Litacanranas. She has sacrificed her knee and her neck while the people yell at her every week. Without her, there is no Mickie James or Trish Stratus because she inspired a generation of women (true, at least on the inspiration part). That’s why it is going to be so easy to walk away on Sunday, because she is retiring after Survivor Series.

Rated-RKO run into Kenny and Big Show, which makes Orton think they are ready.

Here’s a look at the violence on the See No Evil DVD, because now we need the home video pounded into our head too.

Smackdown Rebound.

Survivor Series rundown.

Rated-RKO/Kenny/Big Show vs. D-Generation X/John Cena/Ric Flair

It’s a brawl to start before DX is here to even things up. House is cleaned in a hurry with Edge getting beaten up by all four of the good guys. Big Show saves him from Sweet Chin Music so they beat Show down instead. We take a break and are joined in progress with Kenny slamming Shawn to set up a very quickly broken chinlock.

Orton comes in for some stomping and Show drops the big leg. Edge pulls on both arms at the same time before Orton comes back in….to miss the RKO. That’s enough for the hot tag to Cena and the house is cleaned in a hurry. Everything breaks down and Cena hits the FU to finish Kenny in a hurry.

Rating: C-. This felt like they just threw a bunch of people out there at once and hoped for the best, which is not the worst idea in the world. They didn’t want to do anything too big before the pay per view and what we got here was good enough. Cena pinning Kenny isn’t going to hurt him as, again, the Spirit Squad have been portrayed as losers for months. The rest of the people just happened to be there too.

Post match the rest of the teams come in for the big brawl to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. Pretty good go home show here as it made me want to see the pay per view a lot more than I did before. Having all of those teams out there made for a really cool feeling and having them all in action on Sunday should make for a good show. I liked this more than I was expecting to and you could feel how important the whole thing is going to be when we get to Survivor Series.

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and head over to my Amazon author page with 30 different cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

AND

Remember to check out Wrestlingrumors.net for all of your wrestling headline needs.