Welcome to our coverage of tonight’s Monday Night Raw taping from the MEN Arena in Manchester, England.

For those who may want to remain spoiler free for certain shows, we’re splitting tonight’s tapings up so if you missed tonight’s ECW on Sci-Fi taping ahead of it airing tomorrow night, you can read spoilers by clicking here along with pre-TV dark match results.

Tomorrow night, we’ll also have coverage from WWE’s Smackdown TV tapings, with two tapings taking place, also in Manchester.

- Lilian Garcia sang the national anthem before introducing Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler.

- Batista opens the show. He wants his rematch for Chris Jericho’s World title. Stephanie McMahon appears on video screen and says he won’t get a shot before Survivor Series.

- Stephanie makes Rey Mysterio vs. Kane in a No DQ match for later tonight, plus Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho in a Last Man Standing match.

- Randy Orton comes out to talk to Batista. They go back and forth with a promo before we learn Randy Orton vs. Batista will also take place tonight!

- Santino Morella vs. William Regal for the IC title opens the show. Santino debuts the HONKYTONKYPERFECTMOUNTIEMETER! Genius. They combine to a whopping 123 weeks. Regal comes out to a huge ovation. The bell sounds, knee to the head by Regal, he makes the cover and its done in 30 seconds. New IC champion. Regal takes the mic and talks about how proud he is, although that may not be shown on TV.

- Mike Knox beat D’Lo Brown in under 2minutes. Nobody cared.

- They played a video plugging the amount of WrestleMania 25 ticket sales to date.

- Backstage, Santino is upset. He reveals he’s made Beth Phoenix vs. Mickie James for the Women’s title tonight!

- After a long John Cena video, Chris Jericho makes his way to the ring. He rips into Shawn Michaels and goes over the history between the two. He warns that not every story has a happy ending before leaving.

- Rey Mysterio vs. Kane is next. Rey picked up the win after sending Kane into an exposed turnbuckle. Rey looked to have hurt himself at the end of the match.

- Backstage, Randy Orton talked to Manu and Cody Rhodes, telling them both neither were in his league.

- JBL comes to the ring wearing a neckbrace. Its announced that we’ll see Team JBL vs. Team HBK at Survivor Series. JBL says he’s going to give away £1,000 to a fan and invites one into the ring. He says the fan can have the money if he can name five U.S Presidents. He names five, but JBL doesn’t give the money because the fan didn’t know the vice-Presidents.

Out come Cryme Tyme. They take the money and say JBL has to answer five questions of his own to get the money back. JBL fails and Cryme Tyme give away the £1,000.

- Randy Orton vs. Batista never started. Rhodes and Manu came out. Rhodes said he’ll beat Batista himself and they did that match instead. Batista wins in around five minutes then hits Manu with a spinebuster afterwards. Orton looks on from the ramp before backing off.

- Beth Phoenix beat Mickie James to retain the Women’s title. Santino celebrated as if he’d won himself.

- Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho in a Last Man Standing match is up next. Wild match. They fought up to the stage. Jericho locked in the Walls of Jericho on the taxi. Michaels then threw him off the stage and they fought in the crowd. Eventually they make their way back to the ring. A ladder is brought into the ring and Jericho nails Michaels with it.

Michaels then throws the ladder at Jericho, knocking him out.  Michaels sets up Jericho on the announce table then climbs the ladder and drops an elbow onto Jericho, sending them through the table. Awesome.

JBL interferes but Michaels fights him off. Jericho then nails Michaels with a chair. Michaels fights back and hits Sweet Chin Music but JBL returns and lays out Michaels. Jericho makes it back to his feet just before the ten count to win the match. Great stuff.

A huge thanks to Brett for helping out tonight with our Raw and ECW coverage. We’ll have live coverage of tomorrow night’s Smackdown tapings from around 7pm GMT/2pm EST on Tuesday!

Phil Lowe
phil@ifight365.com