Here are the results from this evening’s awesome RAW brand house show, WWE Unleashed from the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, WA.
The Coach came out and announced that he would be taking Howard Finkel’s place as ring announcer for the evening, and then brought out Eric Bischoff who talked about various things, including “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Ran down the crowd and discussed loyal employees who would be receiving favors during the evening. As he continued on, this prompted The Hurricane and Rosey to come out and confront Bischoff. This leads to the first contest:
· The Hurricane and Rosey defeated La Resistance (Sylvan Grenier and Rob Conway)
· Mark Henry (with Theodore Long) defeated Tommy Dreamer
· Lance Storm and Val Venis defeated Mark Jindrak and Garrison Cade. Point of interest is that halfway through the match, Cade did a leapfrog and appeared to have injured his leg and went down. Trainers were called from the back. Fit Finley was at ringside checking on him. They sent Coach to the back to get help. This went on for at least 5 minutes. As they started helping Cade out of the ring, he sprung up to attack Storm and Venis. Classic heel turn antics. The crowd was totally swerved. It was beautiful. Perhaps a sign of things to come.
· Steven Richards (with Victoria) defeated Rico (with Miss Jackie). Point of interest, Stevie and Victoria were working as faces. The crowd was into Stevie and Victoria big time. They popped huge for the Stevie Kick. Victoria even gave Miss Jackie the Widow’s Peak. Coach announced Stevie as the leader of the “Stevie Corp.”, and this was reflected by a Stevie Corp logo on his tights. I believe at the end of the match Stevie was point to heaven saying a word to his fallen friend Crash Holly.
· Maven defeated Test (with Stacy Keibler). As usual, Stacy refused to help Test, and took a chair away from him that he planned to use on Maven. Maven got the win, and Stacy congratulated him, telling the crowd that she was going to shake her ass for us and for Maven. She took the chair and sat him down on it and began to circle him, as if she was going to give him a little dance. She got too close to the ropes, and Test pulled her down face first and made her leave with him.
· WWE Woman’s Champion Molly Holly defeated Lita to retain her title. Ivory was the special referee in this bout. At one point, Matt Hardy V1 came to ringside to distract Lita. He attempted to prevent her from using a top rope move, but instead fell victim to a Lita-Canrana. Later, Jazz also did a run in and attacked Lita. As Ivory tried to get Jazz away from the action, Lita put Molly in an inside cradle, but Matt came in and rolled the divas over, reversing the pin, allow Molly to steal a win and retain her title. Molly and Jazz began beating down Lita and Ivory. All of the sudden, Victoria does a run in to save Lita!! After Victoria clears the ring, she raises Lita’s hand, and quickly becomes a heel again and clotheslines her. Ivory comes in for the save. God, I love house shows!!
· World Tag Team Champions The Dudley Boyz defeated Chris Jericho and Christian to retain their belts. The Dudleys always rock the house at live events. Tonight was no exception. There was even a humorous bit with Christian bouncing up and down on the ropes, and missing and falling. In the end, Jericho fell victim to the 3-D, and the Dudleys keep the straps.
· WWE Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam retained his title when Kane was disqualified for very very blatantly hitting RVD with a chair. Rob Van Dam and referee Charles Robinson both fell victim to the chokeslam after the match.
· Booker T and World Heavyweight Champion Goldberg defeated Evolution (Triple H, Randy Orton and Batista). Half of the match consisted of Evolution playing the scared heel role and staying out of the ring and continually acting as if they were walking out on the match. The match ended with Goldberg giving Randy Orton the jackhammer and scoring the 1-2-3.
Post match, Booker T invited Coach in to the ring to celebrate their victory, and a great night of WWE action. Booker T told Coach he was his “dawg”, and that everything was cool. Booker T asked the crowd if they wanted to see a Coach-a-rooni. Of course we said yes. So, Booker T showed Coach how it was done. Then, Coach made one of the worst Spin-a-rooni attempts in history. This was reciprocated by a spear on The Coach from Goldberg sending the crowd home happy. This was an outstanding night of WWE action, with the crowd hot for every match the entire night. I’d say the place was around 2/3 full, with a lot of people showing up very late.