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OFF AIR NOTES FROM THE RAW/SMACKDOWN SUPERSHOW IN MONTREAL

Warrior Man reporting.

I just returned from the Sept 18 Supershow in Montreal, and thought I'd pass along a few tidbits I found interesting from tonight's show.

I assume it came out the same on TV, but the crowd was on fire all night. The Bell Center was full and the crowd was rowdy from the moment we started with the Val Venis -vs- Rob Conway dark match.

The wrestler who got the biggest pop, amazingly, had to be Sylvain Grenier, who was literally treated like Bret Hart tonight, complete with insane heeling of his adversary Tatanka upon every offensive maneuver! Sylvain prefaced his match with a bit of mic work indicating that his opponent would have to go through every person in the crowd to beat him, and boy did we roll with it... It was hilarious, considering the players involved. Sylvain indicated he felt goose bumps after his victory and must have been feeling like a million bucks for sure. As an aside, we were also greeted by 2006 Diva Search loser Maryse Ouellet at some point during the Smackdown! taping, so she did sign that contract she was offered a while back. Would it be crazy to suggest pairing the two would certainly help them both? I mean, rarely has a guy suffered from having a beautiful girl by his side, and their accent alone would generate enough heat to make them a viable heel duo, in my opinion. At least in the US...!

Also amazing in terms of crowd reaction was Shawn Michaels, who got only a minimal amount of boos - not even sure it was evident on TV. After RAW went off the air, John Cena left DX in the ring alone and Shawn took the opportunity (after some hilarious mic work by HHH, mentioning amongst other things how he thinks he saw a boot up Show's ass the night before, right when he went to shove Vince's head in there...) to thank the Montreal crowd for "forgiving him", even if for a single night. Lita, on the other hand, was again the recipient of some pretty nasty chants in French much like the last time WWE was in Montreal, which amounted to proclaiming her *ahem* privates didn't exactly smell like roses, to put it "nicely".

And in a moment I almost forgot to mention, but which - after reading the recap posted on your website - seemed to not have made the air, HHH picked up the title belt after DX came out to help John Cena in the opening RAW segment and had an ever-so-slight tease with the Champ over it (presumably during the commercial break for the home viewer). It isn't much, but such subtleties that hint at continuity - a rarity nowadays, it seems - make moments like those simply better. After all, there SHOULD be some level of animosity between HHH and Cena after there "storied" past...

Overall, an awesome show with tons of energy that hopefully translated well on TV!

TOP FOR MATCHES ANNOUNCED FOR SMACKDOWN'S NO MERCY PPV

J-F Lalande reporting.

The following matches were announced for No Mercy at last night's Smackdown taping in Montreal:

Finlay vs. Batista
Lashley vs. King Booker
Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero in a Steel Cage match
Undertaker vs. Mr. Kennedy

RAW RATING DISAPPOINTING AGAIN

Last night's edition of Raw did a 3.7  cable rating, with a six share.  That is up slightly from last week's 3.6 but coming the day after the Unforgiven PPV isn't what the company was hoping for.  By comparison, ESPN's Monday Night Football game did a 10.6 cable rating.

ECW ON SCIFI PREVIEW (NON-SPOILER) 
by Buck Woodward 

Taped for tonight on ECW on Sci Fi: 

- Rob Van Dam vs. King Booker T. 

- Sabu, Tommy Dreamer & The Sandman vs. Test, Mike Knox & Matt Striker.

- Balls Mahoney vs. Kevin Thorn.

- CM Punk vs. Shannon Moore. 

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