Raw Revelations: Raw is Trump's

Last night saw another one of those 3-hour Raw episodes, the Raw 3-for-All but was it necessary? It seems WWE loves putting on 3 hour shows to see what sorts of new "Did You Know?" facts they can air, such as "Raw had more viewers from 8-11PM then any other channel in the world". Maybe it was scheduled just to bring fans up to speed on who owns which titles since they all moved around so rapidly. In fact, the WWE Title and World Heavyweight title each changed about 3 times within the past several weeks. Much of last night's 3 hour show was spent showing replays of earlier events and last week's events, as well as a lengthy in-ring segment featuring Goldust, The Miz and Hornswoggle. That routine of course helped put Miz over again as another annoying heel on Raw, who rarely wrestles but has taken Chris Jericho's spot on the show.

Still we had some pretty exciting matches with all 3 major titles on the line last night, as well as the Intercontinental Title. Three titles were successfully defended while the WWE Title was on the line as it had been vacated last week due to the Legacy attack on Batista. Randy Orton, Triple H, John Cena and Big Show did battle in a Fatal Fourway. Show fell victim to the Pedigree, Cena hit the Attitude Adjustment on HHH, but Orton ended up winning it by hitting the RKO on Show. Again, Batista's title reign seems so inconsequential right about now, but perhaps its to set up a future program between a returning Batista and HHH. After all, Batista was asking them to get him his WWE Title belt as he was loaded into the ambulance.

The big surprise of the night was not Randy Orton winning the Fatal Fourway to become WWE Champion again, but instead the announcement of Raw being sold to a new owner. Mr. McMahon reluctantly got into the ring and introduced the new owner, Donald Trump! Trump appeared "via satellite" which of course was a previously taped bit, as you could see Vince tried several times to make it appear he and Trump were bantering. That move is interesting, probably set up to bring more attention to WWE yet again, but Trump is by no means a great actor or guy to be running wrestling. However if you start seeing real money raining down from the rafters on Raw, expect ticket sales and attendance to be instant sellouts.

Best match of the night was easily the World Heavyweight Triple Threat, with CM Punk stealing the win by yanking Jeff Hardy off a pinfall and throwing him into the steel steps before pinning Edge. Punk is definitely taking pages out of Edge's own opportunist book. The match though saw all sorts of original spots and maneuvers between the three men, including Punk leapfrogging Edge as Edge speared Jeff. Another spot saw Punk bulldog one guy as he clotheslined the other. Some great action and the Hardy-Punk fight at the Bash promises to be a good one too.

In case you were wondering, here's the order of elimination and who eliminated who in last night's 10 Man Battle Royal to determine #1 contender for Orton's WWE Title.

1st elimination - Matt Hardy by Big Show
2nd elimination - MVP by Big Show
3rd elimination - Big Show by Cena, HHH, Rhodes, Dibiase, Kofi & Regal
4th elimination - Kofi Kingston by Legacy
5th elimination - William Regal by Legacy
6th elimination - Ted Dibiase by Cena
7th elimination - Cody Rhodes by HHH
8th elimination - The Miz by Cena & HHH
9th elimination - John Cena by HHH
Winner: Triple H becomes #1 Contender for WWE Title

I was expecting Miz to somehow eliminate Cena and then HHH to easily dispatch of Miz to win it, but nonetheless Triple H took this one. It'll now be Orton defending against HHH next week on Raw in a Last Man Standing match, prior to the Bash, per GM Trump's orders. I'm not quite sure if we may get HHH and Cena again in a match, but they definitely teased it in the Fatal Fourway and 10 Man Battle Royal. With Batista on the shelf for months, there's not many other guys available besides those four for the WWE Title picture. But we now have at least three matches set up for "The Bash 2009", with Triple H going against Orton for the WWE Title, Jeff Hardy going against Punk for the World Heavyweight and Rhodes/Dibiase facing The Colons for the Unified Tag titles.

So now we await next week and the arrival of Donald Trump to the arena to run the show!