WWE House Show Results (5/1): Knoxville, Tennessee

 

Tonight’s house show emanated from the Knoxville Coliseum, where I think it was at like 5/8 or 6/8 capacity. The ECW/NXT ring announcer was our ring announcer.

 

It became clear early that the WWE Draft was getting ignored for the week, which was awesome because we got to see John Morrison, Chris Jericho, the Harts, R-Truth and Randy Orton on this show.

 

Show opened with Jack Swagger coming out and saying how great he was, how his last title defense was his best yet. Then, with no music or anything, Randy Orton ran down the aisle and tried to attack him. Swagger’s slinked away, and Orton stared him down from the ring, setting up tonight’s main event. Side note: I’d never seen an angle done before at a house show, and it worked really well, I thought. The reactions when Swagger and Orton came out later were even sharper than the first time they came out.

 

John Morrison defeated Dolph Ziggler with Starship Pain. Ziggler did a brief promo, saying he was great and saying Morrison wouldn’t come out, even if he was here. Morrison then, of course, came out. Ziggler stalled for a bit at the beginning. Morrison got on the mic and said the people in Knoxville came to see a fight. They then tangled. A bit short of a match, but Morrison and Ziggler did all the usual athletic spots that people are accustomed to seeing of them. There was a really cool Flying Chuck where — after Ziggler was crotched by Morrison on the top rope near the turnbuckle, Morrison hit the springboard enziguri on him.

 

The Hart Dynasty defeated Trent Barretta and Caylen Croft to retain the Unified WWE Tag Team Championships when Tyson Kidd made one of the Dudebusters submit to the sharpshooter. Really long, good match. Second best match of the night. The Dudebusters got the heat on Kidd early on, and they teased the hot tag forever with a different way of breaking it up each time. Harts were really over, while Dudebusters were probably the least recognized name (outside of Tyler Reks) of the night. Also the Dudebusters’ taunt — punching the air up and down — is really obnoxious and awesome.

 

JTG defeated Shad Gaspard when JTG hit his finisher. Shad did a generic promo about wanting somebody from the back to face him. JTG came out. Short match with an abrupt finish. JTG just hit his finisher out of nowhere.

 

Beth Phoenix defeated Layla with the Glam Slam to retain the WWE Women’s Championship. Lots of stalling early from Layla. Funniest moment was Beth Phoenix sneaking up on Layla on the outside and tapping her shoulder, then smiling and waving, while Layla freaked out.

Continued on page two …

 

Goldust defeated Tyler Reks with a spinning suplex move. Another rather short match. People didn’t really know who Tyler Reks was. Many treated them as an intermission.

 

Kane defeated Chris Jericho with the chokeslam. Jericho came out and grabbed the mic. He was silent for a long time before finally shaking his head and not speaking because nobody would stop booing. Kane came out, and Jericho got on the mic again, this time cutting a promo. He said that Kane lived "in a cave outside Knoxville," which made him the hometown hero. Jericho said it would be easy to beat him, therefore. He said he could beat anybody in the audience, but Kane would have to be the representative. There was stalling in the beginning, but good back and forth later. Jericho hit a codebreaker, and Kane kicked out. Jericho grabbed a chair and went to use it, but Kane booted Jericho in the face. Finally Kane hit the chokeslam for the win, and the place erupted.

 

Intermission. There was a special at the merchandise booth about John Morrison: Rock Star DVDs with Morrison’s autograph that were just $15. That’s a pretty good deal.

 

Drew McIntyre defeated R-Truth with the Futureshock DDT to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship. McIntyre got on the mic and said he had plenty of insults for the Knoxville crowd and would stay on the mic all night. R-Truth interrupted and did his usual entrance. The two had a short match, with McIntyre hitting his finisher randomly.

 

Rey Mysterio defeated CM Punk with the 619 in the best match of the night. Punk, Gallows and Serena came out. Lots of booing. Gallows and Serena said everyone should shut up and listen to Punk. Punk finally said that 619 was probably the median weight of everyone in the crowd. He said we would not be seeing the 619 tonight. Great match that started a bit slow, with Punk stalling, but got real good toward the end. They teased the 619 at least five times before Mysterio finally reversed a GTS attempt into a hurricana that set up Punk for the 619.

 

Randy Orton defeated Jack Swagger by disqualification in the World Heavyweight Championship match. Short match with Swagger hitting Orton with the World title on the outside. It wasn’t set up at all and happened really abruptly, which made the finish bad. But then Swagger rolled Orton back in, and Orton fought back and hit the RKO. It was comical because the music was cued up to start immediately (and I do mean immediately) after Orton hit the RKO. It felt so fake then.

 

Outside of a weak main event and an underwhelming middle of the card, this house show was quite good.