Raw 1000 Official Thread contains minor Spoilers

[Christophersp10]

Below are the currently-advertised and previously-announced segments for next week’s 1,000th episode of RAW:
* The show begins at 8EST and will be three-hours weekly (8-11EST) starting next week.
* WWE Title Match: CM Punk vs. John Cena.
* DX Reunion: Shawn Michaels & Triple H return. This will open the show at 8EST.
* Intercontinental Title Match: Christian vs. ???
* Brock Lesnar returns and will confirm his match with Triple H at SummerSlam. Paul Heyman will be there with Lesnar.
* The Rock returns to WWE to address his quest for the WWE Title.
* Daniel Bryan and AJ will have a wedding.
* The announcement of a new permanent RAW General Manager.
* WWE Legends Bret Hart, Mick Foley and Roddy Piper are all confirmed to return.
* Roddy Piper posted the following, discussing whether or not he will appear at the 1,000th RAW… “If I go to Raw’s 1000th episode I’m not doing lame work. Let me roll Vince. I’ll show them why Raw’s the longest running show!” As noted above, Piper is confirmed for next week’s show.
* Local Advertisements in St. Louis are promoting Bret Hart to appear at Monday’s 1,000th RAW. Hart was advertised a few weeks ago, but then there was no follow up. The new local ads that started to run this week pushed Hart as appearing. As noted above, Hart is confirmed for next week’s show.
* Vince and Stephanie McMahon will appear on the show. Shane McMahon is said to be a long shot and Linda McMahon probably won’t happen because of her ongoing Senate campaign trying to distance her from the WWE product. There will also be the usual “2nd tier” legends appearing as well.
* Both Stephanie McMahon and Jim Ross will be in St. Louis, Missouri next Monday, the site of that day’s unprecedented 1000th RAW episode. The WWE Hall of Famer appeared Wednesday on KREF Sports Talk 1400 The Ref and confirmed he would be on the show. He added he has no idea what his role will be. McMahon, who participated in a Twitter chat Tuesday and hinted but did not confirm an appearance on Raw, will be in the area that day for a ‘be a STAR’ anti-bullying at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis’ Herbert Hoover location (2901 N. Grand Ave.). She will be joined World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus, The Miz, Eve and American Idol finalist James Durbin.
* Whether or not The Undertaker will appear depends on if WWE plans for him to work SummerSlam. With the episode of RAW as stacked as it is, it wouldn’t make sense to bring him in unless they were building towards a match.
* WWE has apparently put together a list of names they are expecting to appear on the show, but want to keep several names unadvertised. They have told these names to do “anything and everything” to keep the surprises secret including saying publicly that they will be somewhere else the night of the 1000th RAW.
* Tatanka, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, DDP, Steve Blackman, “Mean” Gene Okerlund, Vader, Doink the Clown, Bob Backlund and Sid Vicious have all also teased appearances, appeared recently, or been contacted by WWE about appearing. Expect a ton of former WWE talents to appear in addition to these names.
* Any talents who are under contract with TNA (Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Kurt Angle, etc.) will obviously NOT be appearing at the event.
* Ric Flair will likely not appear due to the ongoing TNA vs. WWE lawsuit. WWE isn’t going to risk taking any chances with TNA talents.
* The company didn’t promote Charlie Sheen as Social Media Ambassador, suggesting he will not be involved due to the fact that he quit Twitter.
* Goldberg shot down rumors that he will be at RAW next week for the 1,000th episode. When asked over Twitter by a fan, he posted: It’s not true!! RT @mrpops96: @Goldberg there are videos and rumours suggesting that you will be at Raw 1000 is it true?
* The Ultimate Warrior recently addressed rumors that he would be appearing at the 1,000th RAW. On Twitter, a fan posted the following message to Warrior… hey did you hear everyone thinks you will be at #RAW1000 Warrior responded with the following… I’ve never done what everyone else thinks. Never. Not once. As of last week, there were no plans to feature The Ultimate Warrior on the show. Of course, plans can change but he is not expected to appear as of this writing.
* Former WWE announcer Todd Grisham has stated that he will not be attending the 1,000th episode of RAW. The Coach will also not be at the 1,000th RAW event.
* During a Q&A session at Comic-Con last week, Dave Batista commented on a potential WWE return. Here is what he had to say… I’m not against going back. It’s just definitely not going to be this year.
* Road Warrior Animal has been telling his Twitter followers to petition WWE for him to appear at next week’s 1,000th RAW event. That likely means he has not been contacted to appear.

[DGW]

Jim Ross might be announcing the main event.

Could The Godfather and Papa Shango appear on the same night?

[jr lucosa]

Could The Godfather and Papa Shango appear on the same night?

Only if Kama the supreme fighting machine and Goodfather show up as well.

[studcrackers]

i so want a gimmick battle royal w/a bunch of legends w/heath slater winning, maybe gets his ass kicked afterwards or something. he's one of the highlights of raw each week

[kdawg32086]

or a battle royal where they all take turns landing their finishers on Slater...

[Celtics_Champs]

I didn't read all that, which is ironic because it's probably your most positive post on this board. But yes, I'm excited too christopher.

[Stanford]

or a battle royal where they all take turns landing their finishers on Slater...

I'm with stud on this one. He should win first. Then succumb to a finisher beatdown.

[skbucks1985]

Lots of rumors about a "big" angle starting on Monday in the vein of Summer of Punk or Nexus. Nothing will probably happen but its always fun to speculate about what it could be.

I doubt we'll see any debuts Monday. Dean Ambrose seems like the only FCW blue-chipper that isn't on NXT and debuting him Monday he might get lost in the shuffle but also it doesn't seem like there's a story line in place to debut him. Foley is going to be on the show but they seemed to scrap whatever ideas they had about those two.

The most obvious "big" story line would be to turn Punk heel and have him cut something similar to the ROH "Devil" promo.

[Coach Smiley]

they'll never turn cena, but if they do take the title off punk a heel turn would be great, maybe that explains why cena has been getting all the main events, fuel for Punk's fire

[Celtics_Champs]

I don't think they scrapped that feud safi, I think it's just being put off till wrestlemania. That's just my guess/hope.

[skbucks1985]

I don't think they scrapped that feud safi, I think it's just being put off till wrestlemania. That's just my guess/hope.

If you're talking about the Ambrose/Foley feud then I, and I say this sadly, disagree. When Ambrose mentioned Foley's kids if you've seen interviews with Foley and the topic of Cane Dewey comes up its the one thing that seems to make him genuinely upset. I think when Ambrose mentioned his kids that was the point when Foley no longer wanted to work with him.

I don't think this is the kind of match that you put off till Mania. This is the kind of match that gets the second or third spot on a second-tier PPV instead of the 5th or 6th spot on Mania.

[jr lucosa]

I do remember reading Foley didn't want to work with Ambrose because he mentioned Mick's family. At the time I wasn't sure if it was a work or not but as more time passes I think it probably wasn't a work.

[skbucks1985]

^^^ In addition to that, he mentioned that he didn't think he could trust Ambrose and brought up Ziggler as a guy whom he could trust and would be willing to feud with. Bringing up Ziggler the way he did makes absolutely no sense as a work comment.

[Celtics_Champs]

Yeah thats the feud I was talking about.

And, damn it! I didn't know that. Too bad.

[ChicagoStrong]

Good, OP is suspended. Won't have to read his whining tonight.

[Stanford]

I have a strange feeling that we’re eventually going to find out that Dean was the only one on the inside of this feud. MAYBE Foley. There just wasn’t enough WWE involvement to make me think it was a way to introduce him. They also started it way too early if that was the actual plan. To play the entire feud out on twitter, only to start it from the start on TV as if it never happened online would be weird.

Also, Mick hasn’t been relevant for a really long time. I’m not sure how much an audience of 10 year olds would care about someone they’ve never heard of saying bad things about the fat guy that played Santa that time.

Dean is a true talent; the best they’ve had since Bryan, and one of the best prospects they’ve had in the last decade. It will be really hard to screw him up. If he’s given 10 seconds of TV time, he’s going to make an impact. He reaches through the screen in that way that makes guys stars. And if dark matches are any indication, he can get heat from a live crowd as well. So I’m not really worried about how they introduce him.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if he debuted within the next few weeks, if not tonight. He hasn’t worked FCW in a long time, and hasn’t worked a single NXT.

[Stanford]

Good, OP is suspended. Won't have to read his whining tonight.

Wasn't me, I swear.

[Dunthreevy]

Heard Kelly Kelly is returning tonight.

Woopdy doo!

[skbucks1985]

I have a strange feeling that we’re eventually going to find out that Dean was the only one on the inside of this feud. MAYBE Foley. There just wasn’t enough WWE involvement to make me think it was a way to introduce him. They also started it way too early if that was the actual plan. To play the entire feud out on twitter, only to start it from the start on TV as if it never happened online would be weird.

Also, Mick hasn’t been relevant for a really long time. I’m not sure how much an audience of 10 year olds would care about someone they’ve never heard of saying bad things about the fat guy that played Santa that time.

Dean is a true talent; the best they’ve had since Bryan, and one of the best prospects they’ve had in the last decade. It will be really hard to screw him up. If he’s given 10 seconds of TV time, he’s going to make an impact. He reaches through the screen in that way that makes guys stars. And if dark matches are any indication, he can get heat from a live crowd as well. So I’m not really worried about how they introduce him.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if he debuted within the next few weeks, if not tonight. He hasn’t worked FCW in a long time, and hasn’t worked a single NXT.

When he confronted Foley he used the name Dean Ambrose and there was a WWE writer next to them. Plus if he had done this without there permission, just interrupted Foley talking to fans that's definitely a fireable offense. All of that leads me to the undeniable conclusion that there confrontation was a work on all sides.

Having said that, there confrontation could've been WWE testing the waters of Foley-Ambrose and maybe they or Foley didn't like how it played out and scrapped the idea after that. Or, and I still say this is most likely how it played out, when Ambrose mentioned Foley's kids he crossed the line.

As far as whether kids will remember Foley, I don't think every single thing WWE does is intended for the 8-12 year old crowd. The average age of a Raw viewer is 37 and having a story line that is primarily for them isn't something WWE would outright dismiss.

I absolutely agree about Ambrose as a talent.

[Celtics_Champs]

37? Whered you read that? That number is higher than I would have guessed.