WWE House Show Results from Chicago, IL December 26th, 2010 [Archive]

Travicity

12-28-2010, 03:02 AM

WWE returned to the Allstate Arena on December 26 with the Smackdown World Tour.

The show started a few minutes early, which had me worried that the show would end early as they'd try to get to the airport ASAP because of the east coast weather. But thankfully, this was one of the longer WWE shows I can remember.

What a surprise to see Howard Finkel as our ring announcer. The crowd loved him. His voice is as strong as ever.

The show began with Teddy Long announcing the top matches, which include CM Punk vs. the Big Show, and Edge vs. Kane for the title in a steel cage. Of course this was a change from the locally promoted three-way dance, and the tentatively scheduled four-way match.

1. Kofi Kingston won a battle royal to earn an IC Championship match. Also in the match were Persy Watson, Drew McIntyre, JTG, Tyler Reks, Trent Baretta, Chris Masters, Jack Swagger, Chavo Guerrero, Cody Rhodes, and Ezekiel Jackson, Everyone came out one-by-one to the SmackDown theme. Cody Rhodes posed in the center while taking off his jacket, and everyone ganged up on him at first. It was a decent match, which the crowd loved. The crowd was also firmly behind Kofi. As far as eliminations go, the most notable was Cody eliminating himself to get away from Ezekiel Jackson. Kofi, Drew McIntrye, and Jack Swagger were the final three, and Kofi took care of them both.

Kelly Kelly came out in Santa gear to find a guest timekeeper. She found a young boy at ringside. The question: what is the next PPV? Royal Rumble of course. As if the question wasn't simple enough, from what I saw, it looked like she whispered the answer into the boy's ear before asking the question.

2. Drew McIntyre defeated JTG with the FutureShock. Poor JTG, as the crowd did not care about him one bit. Drew was fuming during his entrance, slamming chairs down and kicking the steps. Another decent match. Drew also blew some kisses at Kelly, who stayed at ringside with the fan timekeeper. Futureshock for the win.

3. Chris Masters defeated Jack Swagger with a rollup. Nothing much of a match. Swagger got a good amount of heat, and Masters slowly got the crowd into him, but it wasn't much. In the end, Masters went for the MasterLock, Swagger countered with the ankle lock, and Masters rolled him up for the win.

4. Dolph Ziggler defeated Kofi Kingston with the Zig Zag to retain the IC Championship. Match of the night. Just great action all around, with the crowd into everything. Ziggler won semi-clean with the Zig Zag.

5. Chavo Guerrero defeated Cody Rhodes. Cody got on the mic to berate the crowd. First he told the Fink that the reason he's not on Raw or SmackDown every week is because he's ugly. Then he said we were the ugliest city in the world, and when pointing out the Mexican population, flat out yelled "I hate Mexicans!" That was surprising. This brought out Chavo, who was obviously playing the face this time. He noted that likewise, all Mexicans hated him too. As expected with Cody now, there were a lot of shenanigans. Chavo stole Cody's jacket and put it on, wouldn't give it back, and nearly broke the mirror. Then, during Cody's early stalling, he ordered the Fink to get in the ring and hold his jacket up so he could groom himself. Fink did this for about 5 seconds before dropping the jacket and leaving. The actual match was fine. As expected, lots of heat for both. Chavo hit the three amigos, and eventually the frog splash for the clean, surprising win.

Kelly Kelly came back out to promote the merchandise stand and toss out some T-shirts, as it was time for intermission.

6. Natalya and Beth Phoenix defeated Layla and Naomi in a Santa's Little Helpers match. Santa outfits all around. OK match. The crowd was mildly into it, and that was just when Layla was in, as the crowd did not care about Naomi. Outside of the NXT invisibility, Naomi looked vastly different in her Santa attire, so pretty much the entire crowd has no idea who she was. Layla was great as the "scared out of her mind" heel, although she did get some good shots in. That said, seeing Layla perform "scissoring" on Beth was a very pleasing site. Natalya made the hot tag comeback, at some point Hornswoggle ran in and bit Layla's ass, and eventually Beth hit a glam slam on Layla, and I believe Natalya pinned her. The faces then did some Irish jigs.

7-1. Rey Mysterio vs. Alberto Del Rio went to a no contest. This was a special challenge match. Mysterio got THE biggest pop of the night, no question. I wouldn't say Alberto's was equally as loud in boos, but people did hate him, although he had a good number of cheers. Alberto did speak to the crowd, with the usual material. Match only went a couple minutes. There was a lot of stalling as Alberto wanted to shake Rey's hand, and he would shake the ref, Fink, and other fans hands to prove he could be trusted. But Rey kicked him instead. After a couple moves, and an attempt to get Rey's mask off, CM Punk ran in to beat the hell out of Rey. Big Show's music hit and he made the save. Teddy Long then came out to make it a "Chicago tag team match." Um, OK.

7-2. Big Show and Rey Mysterio defeated Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk. Crowd loved Big Show, and more hated Punk then they loved him. There was a lot of joking around to start off, such as Alberto and Punk continuingly tagging out. The match was pretty good. There was a very odd thing with Punk, though. He was chewing gum the whole time. At one point, someone clocked him, and the gum shot out to the mat, but he managed to land face first on the gum, and he began chewing it again. He even did it again, when it was on the mat for over a minute. The end saw Big Show choke slam both Punk and Alberto, and Mysterio hit a top rope splash on both. Afterward, Rey and Show hung around to greet the ringside fans. When he came to our area (we were very much pro CM Punk, although I tend to be less vocal in general), he said "I love heel fans, you make the show so much fun", so that was pretty neat.

There was a brief intermission to set up the cage. They had the cage lowering music play while the crew came out to set it up. The cage ended up being stable enough for the wrestlers, but it was very wobbly, and I was certainly concerned that it would fall part. It took them about eight minutes or so to get it ready.

8. Edge defeated Kane to retain the World Heavyweight Championship in a Steel Cage match. The only way to win, in Fink's words, was by pinfall, escape through the door, or escape over the top. It was what you would expect from the two: a bit slow, but some hard shots, and doing enough to keep the crowd entertained. Edge was able to climb out over the top for the win. Afterword, Kane attacked Edge outside, threw him back in, and was going to hit him with the belt, but Edge hit the spear. After some posing, Edge hung around for a good 10 minutes to shake hands and sign autographs.

Fink wished us a happy holiday, and a safe ride home.

Overall an above average show. There was a lot more wrestling than I expected.

Other notes: As noted, the place was not a sell out, with a mostly empty upper level, but I wouldn't say it was deserted. I'm guessing 9,500... Counting all intermissions, the show went just over three hours, which was very much appreciated... There were scattered pockets of heavy lake effect snow overnight, but everything was gone by early afternoon, so I don't think that had much effect on walk-up sales. The Jets-Bears shootout, however, probably did... T-shirts are now selling for $30, which I find ridiculous... I was worried when I saw a yellow John Cena shirt, and thought that was his new color scheme, but I later found out it was an already existing Top Rope brand design... Big Show autographs were sold for $15... The one production truck they used still had Cryme Tyme on it... No return date announced, although I would surmise a March return based on current travel schedules... A bit off topic, but a fan I was sitting next to, knew a friend who knew a friend who likes to get photos with wrestlers, and he even got one with "Miz-Girl" on the day of the Slammys. He showed me a photo, and she even did her infamous facial! Sorta makes you wonder if she was a plant all along, or if she's destined to become a child actress.

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