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| RDT PPV Reviews | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 25 2014, 01:46 AM (5,517 Views) | |
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Mar 4 2014, 04:22 AM Post #16 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image ECW One Night Stand 2006 June 11, 2006 New York, NY Background: I don’t remember when it was decided that WWE would add a third brand, the ECW brand, but I remember being shocked about it. This was a huge deal. The revival of ECW! And it’s going to have all of the classic ECW guys like RVD and Sabu! And you know what, it really looked like WWE wasn’t going to mess this one up. The Rise and Fall of ECW was a great documentary. One Night Stand 2005 was one of the greatest PPVs ever (or…at least a great PPV) and actually sold quite well. The money would practically print itself. Sigh. One Night Stand 2006 was the launching pad for the ECW brand. This show was more of a new start than a reunion show. Some storylines focused on ECW stealing some RAW and Smackdown talent. Kurt Angle and The Big Show would both become ECW talents. Also, both Sabu and RVD had shots at the World Heavyweight and WWE titles respectively. Anything could happen at this PPV…and surely, anything will. People were legitimately excited for this prospect. The Card The crowd is electric early on! ECW! ECW! ECW! Yeah, that was the first line of the ONS2005 review. Well, that’s just what ECW fans do! “If Cena Wins, We Riot.” The classic sign. Paul Heyman’s out first. This ain’t Raw. This ain’t Smackdown…this ain’t even WWE! Heyman thanks the fans. I’m sure he means it. It’s a pretty awesome promo. Paul Heyman is one of the best promo men in wrestling history. Taz vs. Jerry Lawler This began with the Joey Styles worked shoot and Lawler slapping him in the fact. Lawler was the perfect ECW heel, he basically just played it like he did in 1997. Taz makes Jerry Lawler pass out in 0:35. Lawler slaps Styles on the way to the ring. Styles jumps on his back. When Lawler fends him off and sets him up for the piledriver, Taz locks him in the Tazmission for the win. Fun way to start the show, good way for Lawler to get his comeuppance. Taz joins Styles on commentary. Sorry, but Taz is not as good as Mick Foley. WWE vs. ECW recap video. Highlights Big Show’s ECW turn. And the John Cena vs. Sabu match. Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton There’s history here. These two were part of the World Heavyweight Title match at Mania 22, and Angle snapped Orton’s ankle later (or, wellness strike #1). One of the best things Orton has ever done is use pyro as heel heat. Kurt Angle’s theme is a bit remixed to drown out any YOU SUCK chants. What a difference a year makes. Fans are all for Angle here. This time last year they were telling him that he sucked dick. Great chants here. “Angle’s gonna kill you” and a break his ankle chant. This match is purely used to put Angle over as a shoot wrestling killer. Just like the original Taz. This match can be described as Kurt Angle making Randy Orton his bitch. There’s a beautiful spot where Angle traps Orton with his legs then just slaps the back of his head a few times. Orton finally gets some offense in…but you just know he’s getting killed soon. Pretty sure Angle stole the triple German from Benoit. Kurt Angle makes Randy Orton submit in 15:07. Orton goes for a RKO but Angle counters by just shoving Orton hard to the mat. Angle goes for the Angle Lock, but Orton rolls him up for 2. Angle gets the Angle Lock and grapevines the leg for the win. Good match to make Angle look like a bad ass. It’s a shame his WWE days were numbered. I do think Orton gets a little too much offense in at the end, but it works. Don’t worry Orton fans, he gets his return win at Vengeance. The FBI (Little Guido and Tony Mamaluke) vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy I laughed about this match, simply because it’s basically the same match from last One Night Stand. That match was damn good though. Big Guido is the only FBI member back from last year. Tajiri just comes all nonchalant and breaks up a submission by kicking the hell out of Mamaluke. This is a very different match than last year’s international three way dance. A lot of technical wrestling from Tony Mamaluke. Admittedly, the commentary taking shots at Smackdown is a little annoying. Double Tree of Woe! Stereo dropkicks to the face! Super Crazy hits a springboard Asai Moonsault to the FBI to the outside…and lands on his feet! Big Guido beats up Crazy. Super Crazy I think botches a backdrop or a flapjack, that could have been bad but he gets away with it. Camel Clutch on Crazy and a second rope dropkick from Guido! Tajiri with an Octopus Hold! Awesome. Double Tarantula! They chop down Big Guido! The FBI win when they pin Tajiri in 12:24. Little Guido hits this brutal dropkick on an inverted Super Crazy to get rid of him, then the FBI hit a double brainbuster for the win. Very fun match. Not quite as good as last year’s, but that’s not fair at all. Here comes the Big Show! He takes out everyone…and hits Tony Mamaluke with a Cobra Clutch Backbreaker! What happened to that move? It was sick! It’s JBL! He shoots on what he did to The Blue Meanie last year. Which was pretty fucked up at the time to be fair. He points out that RVD, Big Show and Kurt Angle are stars because of Vince McMahon. He’s mostly correct on that. JBL makes fun of ScyFy. Thanks to Taz leaving Smackdown, JBL is now the voice of Smackdown! He calls ECW the minor league. To be fair, he’s not wrong. I like JBL…but that really wasn’t necessary. World Heavyweight Championship Rey Mysterio© vs. Sabu Admittedly don’t understand why Sabu got a shot at the title here. RVD had to use Money in the Bank afterall. Sabu has weird fuzzy pants. No baggy pants for Rey this time. He should have swapped attires in regards to his ONS choices. Dueling chairs to start! There’s something wrong with Nick Patrick being the referee in an ECW show. Oh, no dueling chairs afterall. Dueling chairs! Air Sabu early! Air Mysterio! Pretty nice hurricanrana there. Pretty sure Sabu gave Rey a concussion with that chair throw there. Perfect top rope moonsault from Rey! Rey drives Sabu through a table! Sabu looked like he hurt his throat there. Great sequence of missed flips and stuff. Hard to explain but it works. Triple Jump Moonsault…I think Sabu legit hurts Rey there though. My god that had to be a concussion. Holy shit. What a chair to the head. Sabu and Rey Mysterio wrestle to a no contest in 9:10. Springboard into a DDT through the table! Oddly some guy in a tux who’s a doctor is out and says it’s over, neither can fight anymore. It’s a very weak finish that at the time maybe was creating a no violence NY State Wrestling Commission character, but it didn’t work. But the match up until the actual finish is great. Mick Foley, Edge and Lita vs. Beulah, Tommy Dreamer and Terry Funk Reading Mick Foley’s Hardcore Diaries really gave a lot of insight into this match and how frustrating it was for Foley specifically. Vince had no hope of this match being any good. It almost became an eight man tag. Foley turned heel here and went with the “I once was a part of ECW, but I became a bigger star in WWE” route. Mick does the classic “You’re right, I sold out…..I sold out Madison Square Garden etc.” Just classic. He brings up that he once loved ECW….when it was owned by Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley! Long live the Alliance! What an awesome line that is. Edge is great here too. “This is their Christmas, only their Santa Claus is Jewish, fat, bald and gives out an endless supply of bullshit” Lita’s mic skills were never good. This match is originally just a tag without the women, but Beulah knows about Lita’s fondess for threesomes…so six person tag it is. Man Terry Funk makes slaps even look good. It doesn’t take long for the weapons to come out. Edge gets hip tossed on a ladder! Spinning ladder! Edge sends Terry Funk crashing down as he climbed a ladder. Funk was 61 years old here. Barbed Wire board! They suplex the board on Dreamer! Dreamer went through so much in these ECW PPVs. Makes you feel worse when you remember he jobbed to Daivari 6 months later. Fans want fire. Sick bastards. Foley in the wire! Jeez. Funk takes the board to the face! They’re all sick. Foley punches Funk in the face with barbed wire on his arm….then Foley tries to take out the eye! Funk keeps yelling “My eye! My eye!” Most amazing seller in the business here. Funk gets taken to the back. Poor Dreamer. Poor poor Dreamer. Socko! Socko to Beulah! Edge is about to have his way with Beulah….but here comes Funk with a 2x4 with barbed wire on it! Funk owns them all. The 2x4 is on fire! Fire to Foley! Foley’s on fire! Foley through the barbed wire board! Oh My God! Edge sends Funk into Foley….their night is over. Dreamer accidentally chokes Edge out for real here with the barbed wire, which I think Lita knew. Beulah takes her down…catfight! Death Valley Driver to Lita! Educator with the wire to Dreamer! Edge, Mick Foley and Lita win when Edge pins Beulah in 18:45. Edge spears Beulah! Great facial expression from Beulah. Edge gets the win with the most provocative cover in wrestling history. Violent match. Great match. Watching Funk try to get out of the wire is something else. There’s John Cena in the back, thinking about the match! There’s Rob Van Dam in the back thinking about the match! Masato Tanaka vs. Balls Mahoney A lot of wrestling early on. Which isn’t the way to go with Mahoney ever. This match is to put over Balls I guess. Crowd is into it, which helps. I did like how Balls would use people’s beers as a weapon. Balls Mahoney pinned Masato Tanaka in 5:03. Dueling chairs! Tanaka gets the advantage but misses the chair shot. Mahoney nails his chair shot and dents the chair! 1…2…3! The first okay match of all the One Night Stands. It was to put Balls over, and it did. We get the RVD vs. Cena video. I’ll get to this match in a sec…. Here comes Eugene! As Eugene’s uncle Eric Bischoff once said, Eugene is as smart as a ECW fan! Are you saying boo…or U for Eugene! BOOOO! Thanks everybody! Eugene has a poem for us! ECW’s the place to be. I love Terry Funk and RVD. Stevie Richards makes me cowl. I take a bath and use Taz’s towel. ECW is not phony. I want to hug Balls Mahoney. I want to hug all of you. I want to picnic with Sabu! I have to say….Sandman’s entrance isn’t the same without Enter Sandman. Sandman is in amazing shape compared to last year. Eugene goes for the hug…then gets the everliving shit caned out of him. WWE Championship John Cena© vs. Rob Van Dam RVD won the 2nd ever Money in the Bank and decided to cash it in at One Night Stand. Makes perfect sense. For a while, RVD was the only one to cash in the briefcase in an actual match. This match is actually the Dr. J to Cena vs. Punk at MITB 2011’s Michael Jordan. I actually have a lot of respect for Cena here. If he had actually won he might have not left alive…and really dealt with the boos well. Cena tries to throw his gear into the crowd and the crowd keeps throwing it back. It’s pretty cool how RVD just absolutely owns the arena. Here comes the toilet paper! Early on they do a bunch of things to play to the crowd (the boo-yay-boo-yay sequence). ECW fans are hypocrites. They chant “same old shit” to Cena…but RVD’s been doing the same old shit longer than Cena has. RVD with a moonsault off the stairs! RVD’s corkscrew legdrop with his opponent lying on the railing was always a great spot. Rolling Thunder on a chair! Split Legged Moonsault on a chair…but Cena gets the chair up! Cena uses the ropes like a heel, nice! Cena sends RVD head first into a chair in the corner! Cena with the Five Knuckle Shuffle! He then plays to the crowd. Cena can be a great heel sometimes. Pretty sure RVD botches putting Cena on the top rope…but the crowd chants “Cena fucked up”. Nice. Table propped in the corner! The STFU! Love Cena not breaking the hold after RVD got to the ropes. Cena takes out the ref! Rob Van Dam wins the WWE…now ECW Title when he pins John Cena in 20:41. Cena sends RVD to the outside. A guy in riot gear comes in and spears Cena through the propped table! I assume that was done to make it seem like it’s Rhyno…but it turns out to be Edge. RVD hits a Five Star and Heyman runs in to make a three count which did feel kinda odd. Taz makes a horrible call on commentary (Ok, I guess!). Match is good. It is clear that RVD isn’t the RVD of old though. RVD celebrates with the new WWECW! This show was classic ECW’s last great moment. It’s hard to pinpoint the blame of WWECW’s demise. Was it when ScyFy demanded things like The Zombie? Was it the first ECW show that was just in a normal arena? Was it because Kurt Angle was gone a few weeks later? Was it when RVD and Sabu got caught smoking pot and Big Show became champion? Was it when Batista and Big Show headlined an ECW show? What about when Undertaker did one? Rob Van Dam winning the classic ECW Title is a moment I’ll never forget. It’s too bad that everything went downhill from that point forward. I believe at this point the next year Vince was ECW World Champion. Just wow. But this show, while not the first One Night Stand, was still a good and fun show. Almost everything hit, and even the things that didn’t weren’t horrible or even bad. Final Grade: A- |
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| Darth Vader | Mar 4 2014, 02:01 PM Post #17 |
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I AM YOUR FATHER.
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One of my fav PPVs ever, ECW ECW ECW, RVD! RVD! RVD! Match was so good. |
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Mar 5 2014, 04:20 AM Post #18 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Unforgiven 2008 September 7, 2008 Cleveland, OH Background: 2008 was something of a bounce back for WWE. WWE was experimenting in trying to build new stars and they ranged from sure fire future superstars (Jeff Hardy, CM Punk) to intriguing (The Brian Kendrick, MVP, The Miz, Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase). There was also the rebuilding of some stars that quite never hit their potential…but WWE hadn’t given up yet (Matt Hardy, Mark Henry, Shelton Benjamin). This made for a very interesting time in WWE. It is also worth pointing out that this is a John Cenaless PPV. There aren’t many of these post 2002, and there aren’t many without him on or near the top post 2004. It is always interesting to see the quality of a PPV without him. Some quick storyline recaps here: For Smackdown, it seems inevitable that Jeff Hardy is going to win the World Title. Wrestlemania 25 seems like the best bet, but for the time being he’s a solid #2 behind World Champion HHH…and whenever Edge would return (note: Edge returned at Survivor Series…Hardy won the title at Armageddon). On RAW, CM Punk shocked the world and cashed in MITB on Edge, winning the World Title. To be fair though, it may have been a little too early. In Punk’s defense though (and as his documentary stated), WWE didn’t give Punk nearly the proper build as a guy who supposed to be the top guy on RAW. I do think Punk’s time came next year though. ECW…while not the ECW of old, had turned into a fun weekly show. Matt Hardy was doing the poor man’s version of what Jeff was doing on Smackdown and mainly feuding with Mark Henry. I should also point out that Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho hate each other! Probably since Jericho hit Shawn’s wife. Let’s go over the Scramble Match though, as there are three of them on this card. It works very similarly to the Wrestlemania 2000 Hardcore Battle Royal and a Royal Rumble combined. Two men start and every five minutes another one enters until all five men are in. Then there is five minutes after that until the match ends. Anyone can pin anyone at anytime, and if successful becomes the interim champion. Whoever is the interim champion at the end of the time limit is awarded the title. I actually have several issues with the Scramble match that I’ll detail at the end of the review. The Card ECW Championship Scramble Mark Henry © vs. Matt Hardy vs. Chavo Guerrero vs. The Miz vs. Finlay First Championship Scramble. I never really liked the look of the new ECW title. Title belts should be gold. Matt Hardy is #1. The Miz is #2! Fans are pretty hot for Matt. For the record Matt would never be this high again, as 2009 was a down year for Hardy, and he didn’t last through 2010. Miz hits this cool spot where Matt is on the 2nd ropes (in 619 position), only Miz runs up Matt’s back, jumps over the top rope and hits him in the back of the head. Don’t remember seeing that one before. #3 is Chavo Guerrero. Chavo quickly hits a Frog Splash on Matt and gets the three. He’s the interim champ. Matt Hardy hits the Side Effect on Chavo get become interim champ. #4 is Mark Henry. Somebody gonna get their ass kicked! Henry was finally coming into his own in 2008. World’s Strongest Slam on Chavo…he regains control of the title! Finlay’s the last one in, Hornswoggle is here too. 5 minutes left in the match! Shillelagh shot to Henry! Finlay nails Hardy with the Celtic Cross and controls the title! Twist of Fate to the Miz, Matt Hardy controls the title with 3 minutes to go! Matt Hardy wins the ECW Title in 20:04. Nice ending as Matt Hardy breaks up about 20 different pin attempts and holds on. Match was pretty average overall. Set up Hardy vs. Henry as Mark Henry never lost a fall. World Tag Team Championship Ted Dibiase and Cody Rhodes © vs. Cryme Tyme Story here is that Cryme Tyme actually stole the tag belts, but Dibiase and Rhodes got them back. This was an important point in the formation of Legacy. This is a very meat and potatoes tag team match. JTG is the babyface in distress. It’s pretty boring unfortunately. Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase retain when Rhodes pinned JTG in 11:35. Pretty cool ending sequence that ends with Dibiase reversing a small package that JTG had on Rhodes. Match was pretty damn boring though. Cryme Tyme attacks Dibiase and Rhodes, but we get the debut of Manu to help them out! Woo? Unsanctioned Match Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho Let me just say this. When Chris Jericho came back in 2007, after an initially good response, he kinda fell flat. This feud is what transformed Jericho back into a surefire main eventer. Jericho and HBK had some issues in the summer (Jericho even threw HBK into the jeritron…which was a big screen tv), but it all came to a head at Summerslam. HBK was announcing his retirement…and Jericho got involved. HBK told Jericho that he could tell his kids he will never be HBK. Jericho responded by trying to hit HBK...but HBK ducked and Jericho hit HBK’s wife. I will say that the idea of an unsanctioned match is stupid. It’s in a WWE ring. With a WWE ref. On a WWE PPV. But that’s beside the point and a small nitpick. It’s a slugfest to start and HBK beats the crap out of Jericho with his boot. We’ve got a table! Jericho goes for a powerbomb but HBK fights out. Jericho with some chair action! Jericho goes for a vertical suplex from the ring through the table on the outside…but another block from HBK. HBK makes a comeback and goes for Sweet Chin Music, but stops, instead deciding to beat the hell out of Jericho some more. Crossface! Jericho is able to slam HBK’s face into a chair in the corner…and then focuses on the injured eye from the summer. Walls of Jericho. Apparently HBK told Michael Cole about some bible verse about the fall of the Walls of Jericho or something. Somehow HBK is able to grab a fire extinguisher while in the Walls…he gets out by spraying Jericho of course. HBK suplexes Jericho on the ramp. Ouch! Lance Cade in the house! He’s on Y2J’s side here and attacks HBK. HBK dispatches him quickly. Cade gets a shot in and hits a clothesline which HBK sells by spinning in air and landing on the concrete floor. HBK has an injured arm, and Jericho wraps it around the post as Cade hits it. Chair to the arm. Ouch! Another HBK. SCM to Cade! Jericho’s laid out on the top rope…chair to the head…and Jericho goes crashing into that table! Jericho is now getting beaten down with the chair. Some pretty great screaming from Jericho here. HBK elbowdrops Cade and Jericho though the Announcer’s Table! Now HBK is whipping Jericho with a leather belt. He actually whips him in the eye once, which looks brutal. Now HBK is beating Jericho with the metal part of the belt. Again, pretty brutal beatdown. Shawn Michaels defeats Chris Jericho via stoppage at 26:53. Referee calls it as HBK keeps beating down on Jericho. HBK keeps going, and HBK superkicks the ref. I actually….don’t think this match is that good. It had the feel of a feud ender, which it wasn’t. It didn’t click for me until the part when HBK sent Jericho through the table…and even then it became overkill later. I think this is because super emotional HBK just isn’t natural for him. It’s not the best HBK. The only time it really worked for me is against Ric Flair at Wrestlemania XXIV. This result also hurts the very end of this PPV…which we’ll get to. Rhodes, Dibiase and Manu talk to Randy Orton (why is he here?) Apparently Orton still isn’t impressed with them…since beating Cryme Tyme isn’t a big deal. He’s not wrong to be fair. WWE Championship Scramble Triple H© vs. Jeff Hardy vs. The Brian Kendrick vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. MVP Jeff Hardy is #1! How unlucky for the Hardyz that they each drew #1. Then again…Matt won earlier. JR and Taz go over the rules of the Scramble Match. Uh…we had one earlier tonight you know. #2 is Shelton Benjamin! This is Gold Standard Shelton. Benjamin counters a kick with powerbomb in the corner. Unexpected but cool. #3 is THE…BRIAN…KENDRICK! THE MAN WITH A PLAN. Hardy pins Kendrick to become the interim champ! The KENDRICK! Kendrick pins Jeff to become interim champ! It’s MVP at #4! The Game gets 5 minutes of work in tonight I see…. Nice super dropkick from Kendrick! Knocked MVP right out. Kendrick was great in this gimmick. Too bad he couldn’t stop smoking weed. It’s something seeing MVP, Benjamin and Kendrick in the ring wrestling for the WWE Title. Here comes the Game! Can he unseat THE BRIAN KENDRICK?! Pedigree to Kendrick. HHH is interim champ. That was fast. Twist of Fate! Jeff Hardy controls the title! 3 minutes to go! HHH pedigrees Kendrick again…and pins him again. HHH is champ again! Swanton to Kendrick! Jeff Hardy is champ again! 90 seconds to go! We get the powerbomb-superplex spot from MVP, Benjamin and Kendrick! 30 seconds, can Jeff hold on?! Triple H retains the WWE title in 20:16. Jeff takes out everyone but HHH…but HHH pedigrees MVP at the last moment and pins him. Finish is botched a bit…as Jeff clearly could have broken up the pin…but instead tried to pin Shelton. It’s a good match though, as it continually pushed Jeff Hardy as someone who keeps getting so close…but whose moment seems inevitable. Also, Kendrick, MVP and Shelton had some good moments. HBK interview! Still looks upset. HBK is happy that for the first time in months, he doesn’t have to go to a hospital after a PPV. He’s content with how tonight went down. Not satisfied though. CM Punk interview! Orton interrupts. Rhodes, Manu and Dibiase attack Punk! Kofi Kingston tries to help, but gets beat down as well. Orton then punts Punk in the head! Orton is impressed now with Rhodes, Dibiase and Manu. Michael Cole talks about what that means for the Scramble Match later. I’ll talk later about why this sucks, but it sucks. Diva’s Championship Michelle McCool© vs. Maryse I miss both of these Divas. Taz talks about how Maryse and McCool have totally opposite personalities, that McCool is humble etc. Kind of funny considering Lay-Cool later. Michelle just kicks Maryse right in the face. Pretty messed up sunset flip, but Michelle saves it with a dropkick to the face. I don’t remember McCool’s offense being all kick based. Michelle McCool pins Maryse and retains the title in 5:42. Face-buster (I wanna say it was called the Wings of Love or something) for the pin. Pretty well wrestled Diva’s match I must say. Ok, so a couple of times JR has talked about a poll about whether Vickie Guerrero should have allowed Big Show in the WWE Title Scramble. 77% said yes. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but there’s apparently an angle later. Raw GM Mike Adamle states that CM Punk will probably not be able to compete. I get putting over Orton’s punt, but it’s a little bs…which I will explain why later. Here comes the Big Show. Big Show suggests that Adamle should enter him in the World Title Scramble. You know…that actually makes sense compared to who was actually picked. Why not the Big Show? Here comes a Guerrero move talented than Chavo…Vickie! She’s mad that Big Show is causing a disruption. She called him a big dumb Giant! Um…we get some druids. This took a weird turn. Big Show’s cracking up. I admit that’s pretty funny. Druids are bringing out a casket. Undertaker on the titantron! Taker offers her the chance to go into the coffin herself. Or he’ll come down there and put her in there himself. Obvious heel turn coming up. GONG! Here comes the Undertaker! For the record the history here is Taker beat Edge at Summerslam inside Hell in a Cell. And Taker and Vickie had problems as a result. Something like that. Vickie tries to run, but Big Show holds her so she can’t. Taker grabs Vickie…and Show punches Taker! Big Show beats the crap out of The Undertaker. This would set up a Casket Match at Survivor Series. That was a pretty boring beatdown to be honest. We couldn’t we do this on TV? We recap the recent history with Orton and Punk. William Regal thinks he would be a great candidate to replace CM Punk if needed. I agree! World Heavyweight Championship Scramble CM Punk© (Maybe) vs. Kane vs. JBL vs. Batista vs. Rey Mysterio Batista is #1! Let’s go over the Scramble rules again! #2 is a WRESTLING GOD….JBL! Figure Four by Batista on JBL. How unexpected…although he’s obviously honoring Flair. #3 is KANE! It’s all Kane vs. Batista. JBL is on the outside or something. Interesting that the three big men were the first three in. Chokeslam to JBL! Kane gets the pin and is the interim champion! #4 is Rey Mysterio. We get some drama…will CM Punk make it for #5? Mysterio has some mohawk thing going on. Looks out of place. Rey and Batista work together to hurt Kane! That was something else that replaced the original Eddie Guerrero and Batista friendship angle back in 2005. #5 is….Chris Jericho! I guess he wasn’t beaten down that badly afterall? Jericho is still selling the injuries from earlier. Kane’s still champ right now. Can he hold on? Michael Cole points out that Jericho doesn’t seem fit to be in this match in the first place. That’s a great point Michael Cole. Three minutes left…can Kane hang on? Why does Kane go for covers? Lawler correctly points out that it changes nothing. A minute left, but Batista is beating up Kane! Spinebuster! Batista gets the pin! Batista is champ with 30 seconds left! Here comes Rey…Batista counters him with a powerbomb…but Jericho covers Kane…1…2…3! Batista should have just pinned Rey…he had 6 seconds left. Chris Jericho wins the World Heavyweight Championship in 17:15. Match was just plodding along to be honest, I can’t remember a meaningful spot or moment until Jericho shows up…and Jericho does nothing in route to winning the title. Ok, let’s talk about this whole CM Punk thing. It makes little to no sense backstage wise, and storyline wise it’s okay except for one thing. Backstage wise, according to the CM Punk documentary, the Jericho-HBK feud needed the title. They did a ladder match at No Mercy, do I get that. Fine. BUT…Jericho and Punk have a steel cage match a couple of weeks later for the title which Jericho won. So…why couldn’t Punk just drop the title there? I don’t know. Somehow Punk just giving up a chance to defend the title made more sense. It doesn’t, but that’s what we got. Pretty ass backward thinking there. Storyline wise it could have worked…except Chris Jericho should be in a lot…A LOT…worse condition than CM Punk was in. I get the punt was being put over as death. But Chris Jericho was beaten down, but through two tables, helped out of the ring, etc. etc. I get that Mike Adamle was supposed to be dumb or something…but that was really dumb. Big Show, William Regal ,heck, even Randy Orton made more sense! Even if Orton was still “injured”…he was in better shape than Jericho! Let’s talk the concept of the Scramble Match. It worked out well in the ECW Title match…but Jeff Hardy not breaking up the pin in the Smackdown one is pretty dumb. Why are you going for a pin? You were the interim champion! In the RAW one…Chris Jericho did nothing. He took a spear, then did nothing and covered Kane. If your match is designed in a way where an injured broken down wrestler can just sneak in and get a pin without the element of surprise (like MITB would have) and win the World Title, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t really work for me. There has only been one more Scramble Match in WWE history I believe, in 2009. While I think you can make the concept work, it needs to be booked better overall. I don’t think this is a bad PPV, but it just has a lot of mishaps overall. Nothing really clicked (although I liked the Smackdown title Scramble a lot). The angles seemed more important than the matches (Legacy, Punk going down, Taker-Show), and HBK vs. Jericho didn’t feel right at all. In the grand scheme of things though, irrelevant. WWE storylines would keep going as they always did. Final Grade: C Edited by RDT, Mar 5 2014, 04:37 AM.
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Mar 6 2014, 03:48 AM Post #19 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WCW Halloween Havoc 2000 October 29, 2000 Las Vegas, NV Background: Um…WCW was in full trainwreck mode at this point but they were going in a good direction with Booker T and Scott Steiner feuding for the World Title. This card overall looks like a disaster though. By looking at the results I see a First Blood DNA match, a Kickboxing match and two handicap matches. It’s going to be one of those shows…isn’t it… WCW though, was nearing its end. Hollywood Hogan has departed a few months earlier. Guys like Scott Hall, Ric Flair, Kevin Nash and DDP are nowhere to be found on the card. Randy Savage is gone. The card is made up of young guys that never got the rub they needed from the generation before them. How bad can this be? The Card Video asking fans who’s gonna win between Goldberg and Kronik. Some actually said Kronik. Apparently this PPV was brought to us by the game WCW Backstage Assault. Backstage Assault is the biggest ripoff ever in regards to wrestling video games. It was just the backstage portion of WCW Mayhem. Sigh, I have to listen to Mark Madden. WCW Tag Team Championship Natural Born Thrillers (Sean O’Haire and Mark Jindrak) vs. Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. The Boogie Knights (Disqo and Alex Wright) I like how Disqo and Wright look different, but they basically have the same gimmick they had 3 years ago. Hm…Jindrak now. Why is it Palumbo and O’Haire later? Anyway Madden just said he sees Arn Anderson in Mark Jindrak. Rey with devil horns! Just sigh. Madden: Jindrak and O’Haire remind me of a white Harlem Heat. Mark Madden is the worst. Just realize that’s Stevie Ray on commentary as well. Konnan is also on commentary calling everyone a piece of crap. Ok then. Nice springboard bodypress from Jindrak. It’s notable that Jindrak and O’Haire haven’t completely grasped the art of selling. Jindrak especially looks raw. O’Haire and Rey get into a weird punching sequence that O’Haire screws up. Double toss from the outside INTO the ring on Kidman from NBT. That was cool. This commentary is awful. Alex Wright with some kind of attack on Rey…which ends up with Wright dumping himself out of the ring. So many botches. Disqo misses a kick but still hits the Last Dance (Stunner!) The Natural Born Thrillers retain the title when Sean O’Haire pins Disqo in 10:06. O’Haire nails Disqo with a Sean-Ton Bomb for the win. The botches really took me out of the match. It could have been fun. O’Haire and Jindrak were not ready for this level yet. Wow talk about exaggeration. Mark Madden says this was one of the finest matches he have had the privilege of calling. Also, hilariously, Rey Jr. is getting beat up with a chair by Alex Wright…and Konnan debates helping him! I mean he does, but your best friend is getting beat up with a chair! Get in there! They hurt Konnan too, apparently injuring his knee. Sgt. AWOL for the save! WCW Hardcore Championship Reno© vs. Sgt. AWOL Add the The Briscos and The Midnight Express as teams Madden compared Jindrak and O’Haire to. AWOL is already through a table. Apparently WCW has instituted old school hardcore rules. Apparently new school rules meant matches started in the back. Um..ok. Mark Madden: You can get old school hardcore rules anywhere in Vegas for $150. Thanks Mark. I don’t know how hitting one another with kendo sticks and garbage cans could be boring…but this is. Reno hits the Roll of the Dice on the floor! That’s Cody Rhodes’ Crossroads for anyone wondering. Backstage Assault advert RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MATCH. Reno through two tables. Even that looked boring. I guess putting people through tables has no effect on anyone. AWOL decks…Finlay? How random. Reno retains the title via pin at 10:50. Roll of the Dice on a table. Reno wins. That might have been the most boring hardcore match I’d ever seen. It was basically the definition of going through the motions. The Perfect Event (Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) now attack AWOL. He comes Lt. Loco (Chavo Guerrero) and Cpl. Cajun (Lash LeRoux) for the save! Hilarious backstage segment. It’s not supposed to be, but here is why it is. The Perfect Event was just in the ring attacking AWOL in their wrestling attire. Well backstage Shane Douglas is telling O’Haire and Jindrak good job on the attack on Konnan earlier, like it is a live backstage segment….except The Perfect Event is there too in different attire. Great planning WCW! Video showing what happened with Goldberg hitting his head on the ringpost against Kronik. Backstage, Kronik says that they don’t think Goldberg will show up. Lt. Loco and Cpl. Cajun vs. The Perfect Event Bonus match! You know, there doesn’t really seem to be enough time on this show for this. At Greed, Chavo was normal Chavo. I wonder what the storyline progression was there. Mark Madden: You know Stevie, as a member of Harlem Heat I know you were used to bad teamwork. You know Mark, they only won like 7 or 8 (maybe more) World Tag Team titles. For fucks sake. Apparently the Perfect Event are having problems getting along or something. Backstage Assault ad AGAIN. In the middle of the fucking match. Stasiak can’t even taunt naturally. LeRoux basically no sells a big boot from Palumbo, that even seemed to surprise Tony Schiavone on commentary as he stuttered when it happened. Mark Madden fawns over Chuck Palumbo’s chain wrestling. I wonder if Mark Madden has ever even watched wrestling before. Chavo is by far the best wrestler in the ring. By far. Lt. Loco and Cpl. Cajun win when Loco pins Stasiak in 9:23. Palumbo accidentally superkicks Stasiak into a Loco Tornado DDT. This match was boring and it sucked. Lash LeRoux is awful. Palumbo and Stasiak aren’t ready yet. Konnan is tending to his knee. He asks other members if the Filthy Animals to take his place, but they all had a match already. Konnan gets mad and says whatever. Ok then. The Franchise and Torrie Wilson vs. Konnan and Tygress Torrie Wilson is in sexy Wonder Woman gear for no reason. A positive! Mark Madden practically admitted to jacking off to Wonder Woman as a kid. Thanks Mark. Tygress is willing to do a handicap match as Konnan is hurt. Didn’t Konnan say he was coming out? Why is Tygress even in the ring. She’s already done a horrible armdrag and she can’t even do stomps correctly. Stomps! Here’s Konnan(from the crowd for some reason)...and Douglas takes him out. Apparently it’s a back injury and not a knee injury. He still got in the Rolling Clothesline though. Nice selling. I feel like if DC Comics knew this match existed they would have sued WCW so fast. Tygress misses a baseball slide. Totally misses. At least Torrie didn’t pretend to sell it. Tygress is owning The Franchise. I guess Douglas wasn’t getting a main event run. Tygress gets punched in the face by Douglas. You know it’s bad when I practically cheered that happening. Mark Madden said the punch was justified…and you know what, he’s right. Stevie Ray calls the Camel Clutch the Boston Crab. Great stuff. Tygress was in a Crossface Chicken Wing from Douglas, but she escapes by slowly running around the ring and then sending Douglas through the ropes. Torrie with the Franchiser on Konnan! Good thing I hate Konnan. Konnan and Tygress win when Konnan pinned The Franchise in 8:38. Konnan pins Douglas after they hit a double Stuff Buster (X-Factor) on Douglas. For some reason Torrie doesn’t break up the pin. Awful. Absolutely awful. A little storyline behind this next match. Stacy Keibler found out she was pregnant at New Blood Rising (I think). She cheated on David Flair with Buff Bagwell. Now we get a First Blood DNA Match. Believe it or not, I don’t think that’s that terrible. I mean it’s bad, but it’s a creative way to figure out if Buff is the father! First Blood DNA Match Buff Bagwell vs. David Flair “It’s time to find out if Buff Daddy is the real daddy!” Clever one Buff. The first move is botched. Bagwell tries to slam Flair face first into the turnbuckle, but he lost grasp of David’s head. Is Buff the face? He yawns, which is a heel thing to do, right? Flair does his dad’s turnbuckle flip then is thrown off the top rope like his dad. Nice I guess? Wow he just did the Ric Flair falling face first spot. That was a bit much though. This match is Buff Bagwell beating up and mocking David Flair. This is practically a comedy match. Weak chairshot from Bagwell, and David goes over the rope and clearly hides by the apron to blade. Come on. Buff Bagwell wins in 5:37. Buff Blockbuster…and the ref sees the blood from the chairshot. Match sucked. I don’t even know what the point of this was other than to beat up David Flair a bit. Lex Luger is here….and he turns on Buff Bagwell! Bagwell into the post and he’s bleeding from the mouth. David Flair gets his sample! Luger and Bagwell were friends again 5 months later. I sense that because of Flair’s blood, the sample will be messed up or something. For the record, Mark Madden used the terms spots and angle in this match. Reality Era 11 years early! Take that WWE! Goldberg’s in the house! Scott Steiner interview! Booker T will find out that size does matter! Kickboxing Match for WCW Commissioner Position Mike Sanders vs. Ernest Miller Perfect Event is out there with Mike Sanders. I guess that whole angle with the Perfect Even not getting along earlier is being ignored. I believe this will be contested with two minute rounds, three rounds total. This is what this PPV needed, a Kickboxing Match. Mike Sanders: “This is no Tyson Fight, no Thrilla in Manilla, no Rumble in the Jungle…just me being dead in your ass.” What the fuck Mike Sanders. This might be over in 30 seconds! Miller nails a kick to the face. Sanders makes it up at 8. Damn. Sanders goes down again. Up at 9. Round 1 is over. This match sucks. Mark Madden: “Did the Cat bite Mike Sanders’ ear”? Shut up already. Round 2 is all Miller. Sanders down again! Up at 7. Miller with the dancing split uppercut! Sanders is down! Palumbo wanted to throw in the towel, but Stasiak doesn’t let him. Sanders is up at 9! Shane Douglas is out here. I guess he needs to be involved in two shitty matches tonight. Final round! Cartwheel kick to Sanders! He still survives. End this shit please. Douglas nails The Cat with a chain on a fist! Miller gets up at 9? Ref stopped counting for some reason with 7 seconds left. Match keeps going? Mike Sanders wins. The Cat fights Douglas on the outside…and gets counted out. Literally makes no sense. The round was over. None. Zero. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Backstage, Goldberg is tested by some doctors. Goldberg says he’s been a little dizzy since Monday. Even though the post thing happened Wednesday on Thunder. Mike Awesome vs. Vampiro That 70s guy! It takes 30 seconds to see that Vampiro fucking sucks. No selling, and doesn’t even take a back bump correctly. Vampiro takes out a security lady when he fails to land on his feet in a backdrop into the crowd. A fan attacks Mike Awesome and Awesome and Vampiro kick the crap out of him. Nice. Vampiro can’t even stand on a announce table. I wish I was exaggerating how bad this is. Flying clothesline looks terrible. There is a chair in the ring and they used weapons in the crowd, I guess this is a no DQ match? Vampiro tries a Van Daminator. Guess what? He fucked that up too! A clothesline! Seriously. How does that not happen correctly. Wow. Vampiro almost injures both himself and Awesome with a top rope belly to belly suplex. Vampiro fell of the top and threw Awesome over his head. Just wow. Vampiro attempts to throw Awesome’s face into a table…but just lets go early and Awesome doesn’t complete the move. What? How? Mike Awesome hits a really hard forearm on Vampiro in the ring. Vampiro doesn’t sell it. It’s so sad that this match would be one of those that would show a kid that wrestling isn’t real. Mike Awesome pins Vampiro in 9:49. Awesome Bomb from the top for the win…followed by that terrible music. That was one of the worst matches I have ever seen, and by far the worst match on the show, which is saying something. Vampiro is absolutely terrible. Mark Madden says that underneath the gimmick, Mike Awesome is one of the best wrestlers in the world. Well no shit (although that’s a little bit of exaggeration). It’s almost like the gimmick should go. Great, a General Rection interview. General Rection came back for everyone or something. Vampiro being helped out. Tony Schiavone says that this is one of the most awesome spots we’ll ever see. WCW Canadian (US) Championship: Handicap Match Lance Storm© and Jim Duggan vs. General Rection Major Gunns is being held captive by Team Canada. If General Rection wins, he wins the title and Major Gunns back. Not usually a fan of the Handicap Match for the title idea, but it’s more unusual when the team has the title. Lance Storm’s promo was the 2nd bright spot after Torrie’s outfit. I assume the Misfits In Action theme is dubbed on the WWE Network. Because it’s awful. At least the crowd is into it by chanting USA. Duggan looks horribly out of shape here. Stevie Ray asks on why she’s called Major Gunns. I think he seriously doesn’t know. Just curious, any reason we just didn’t get Storm vs. Rection here? Nice superkick from Storm. Duggan is the legal man, but ref counts a pin on Storm anyway. Duggan embarrassingly stomps and misses Rection and gets Storm. It looked so bad, Schiavone tried to sell it as maybe Duggan meant to hit Storm. Storm and Rection mess up a headlock spot. I’m gonna assume that wasn’t on Storm. Crazy ref bump in all this too. Duggan with a piledriver! Rection kicks out and sends Duggan onto the ref. Primetime Elix Skipper is here, but Gunns knocks him off the apron. This distracts Storm. General Rection wins the title when he pins Jim Duggan at 10:07. Duggan misses Rection with the 2X4 and Duggan gets knocked down. Duggan clearly throws the 2X4 out of the ring, only it doesn’t make it, so he clearly shoves it out. Rection hits No Laughing Matter for the win. Another really bad match. The Lance Storm match isn’t even good. Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett Story here is Jarrett has been mocking Sting and saying he has no heart. Jarrett interview: He’s gonna show a metamorphosis or Sting’s career, from a nobody to a has been to a never was. I do think that’s a good line. Sting with a chair! I guess this is no DQ. This is all Sting early on. Here comes someone dressed as the old Sting. Apparently it is specifically 1989 Sting. 2000 Sting hits 1989 Sting with a Scorpion Death Drop on the floor. Ok then. Now we have 1990 Sting! Hair doesn’t work here! 1990 Sting botches going over the top rope. Well he got thrown over eventually. Hiptoss on the stage on the 1990 Sting. 2000 Sting with a Scorpion Death Drop on the stage on 1990 Sting. Wolfpac music! Wolfpac Sting in the house! 2000 Sting beats up Wolfpac Sting with a baseball bat. 2000 Sting Scorpion Death Drops Wolfpac Sting on the stage. Jeff Jarrett gets his first offensive move in with a baseball bat shot! It took three fake Stings and a bat, but Jarrett now has firm control of the match. Sting’s making his comeback! Scorpion Deathlock….NWO STING COMING THROUGH THE CANVAS. Real Sting gets dragged into the hole…but he emerges and has bloodied the NWO Sting. Two Stinger Splashes and the lights go out. We get another fuckin’ Sting from the rafters! The wig almost falls off. The crowd got the wig! Real Sting puts the 5th fake Sting through the Announcer’s Table with a Scorpion Death Drop. Scorpion Deathlock on Jarrett…where ANOTHER fake Sting smashes a guitar over Sting’s head. Oh, this is a bloodied fake Sting. So this is Sting #4. Real Sting recovers easily…and Scorpion Death Drops the fake Sting. Jeff Jarrett pins Sting in 14:38. Jarrett comes in and smashes Sting (the real one) with a guitar! 1…2…3! What was the difference between this guitar and the last one? Ok so wow. What the fuck was that? Why couldn’t we just run Jarrett vs. Sting? It probably would have been a solid match. This might have been the stupidest match I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know who this was supposed to put over, or what the point was. I’m so confused. Plus they need to fix the ring. Booker T interview. He respects Goldberg, so he wants to go on against Scott Steiner now so buy Goldberg a little more time to get cleared so he can face Kronik. I’m sure those 15 minutes are everything. WCW World Championship Booker T© vs. Scott Steiner I feel bad for Michael Buffer. Scott Steiner beats up an agent in the back because he wanted to go on last and main event. Steiner just looks scary as hell beating up Booker. Steiner’s trying to go into the crowd to beat up fans. Booker with a nice leapfrog to spinkick combo! Steiner is threatening Stevie Ray. I actually like that. It makes sense…he’s Booker’s brother afterall. Steiner scarily threatens the ref when he only gets a 2 count. Steiner with a Samoan Drop from the 2nd rope. Nice. Booker’s making the big comeback! Midajah pulls Booker on the top rope, crotching him. Booker recovers and gets a missile dropkick. Axe Kick! Steiner nails Booker with a lead pipe. Then he takes out the ref. Steiner Recliner…then Steiner takes out ref #2. Booker T retains by DQ at 13:26. Steiner takes out another ref right as he calls for the bell. For the record a chair was used earlier, so why the DQ? To be honest, this match is not bad at all. Best match of the night (that’s not saying anything though). But it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t particularly good, but it wasn’t bad. Really makes Steiner someone to be feared. I like how Jarrett runs out to calm Steiner down. I’d guess Steiner had a beatdown planned, but with only 10 minutes or so left on the show Jarrett had to run down to cut that short for the main event! Career Threatening Handicap Match Goldberg vs. Kronik Brian Adams promo. Cause that’s what this show needs. Kronik says there is no match, Goldberg isn’t cleared. Hard to believe this was once Crush. Doesn’t really look like him. Here comes Goldberg! Here we go! Goldberg has to beat them both. Adams gets a table! Double Chokeslam though the table…no! He spears Clarke though the table! 2 minutes in he pins Clarke! Goldberg thinks he won…I guess it wasn’t clear he needed to beat both. Adams attacks him from behind. Goldberg wins when he pins Adams in 3:35. Um.it was 3 minutes. I get it was a Goldberg match, but come on. I guess it was the 2nd or 3rd best match on the show. Okay. This show felt like it went on forever. This shit is the absolute worst. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Opener was below average with potential. Hardcore match was boring. Bonus tag sucked. First Blood DNA was bad. Kickboxing Match was awful and made absolutely no sense. Awesome vs. Vampiro was one of the worst PPV matches I had ever seen. US/Canadian Title Handicap Match was bad. Jarrett vs. Sting was unnecessarily stupid. Booker vs. Steiner was decent. Main event was rushed. I haven’t seen all the WCW PPVs, but I have a feeling this one may be the worst. It’s amazing how much better Greed was than this. It doesn’t surprise me that this won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards for worst major show. It does surprise me that they even made it to March of next year. If you factor in expectations and the fact that there is a multi-billion dollar organization behind WCW, this PPV may be worse than Heroes of Wrestling. Horrible. Final Grade: F Edited by RDT, Jul 13 2014, 07:14 PM.
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Mar 7 2014, 05:13 AM Post #20 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Wrestlemania 22 April 2, 2006 Chicago (Rosemont), IL Background: We are well into the John Cena era, and there have been some recent bumps along the way. Cena was a very popular WWE Champion for about three months….and then went up against workrate favorites Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle and lost his babyface steam. Amazingly, Cena would actually never regain that babyface steam, constantly being booed for the next eight years. The John Cena character is one of the weirdest ones in WWE history when you think about it. There was a small hiccup in the Cena reign though as Edge cashed in the first Money in the Bank and held the title for a few months. Batista, someone else who’s been the face of the WWE for the last year, got injured. Kurt Angle made a surprise move to Smackdown and won the World Title, trigging a short but exciting time for WWE in general. Edge and Angle as champs were more interesting than Batista and Cena for sure. Have no fear Cena and Batista fans though…these two would be at the very top for the next five years…and even eight years from the event as well. Also, it is worth pointing out that Eddie Guerrero passed away five months prior. One of the major storylines revolved around Eddie Guerrero’s death, which involved Randy Orton being an outright dick and Rey Mysterio shocking everyone in winning the Royal Rumble. The Card This is the last Wrestlemania that was held in an arena I believe. It’s been a three year streak (Mania XX at MSG, XXI at Staples). World Tag Team Championship Big Show and Kane© vs. Carlito and Chris Masters The only small story here is that Carlito and Masters have had some recent issues getting along. It’s interesting that Chris Masters got a push when he wasn’t good, but when he was improving in 2011 he got released. Kane with a flying clothesline from the top to the outside. Probably the best spot we’ll get in this one. Carlito and Masters with a double flapjack on the Big Show. What strength! Kane and Big Show retain when Kane pinned Carlito in 6:01. Masters accidentally hits Carlito, and Kane gets the chokeslam. Masters an Carlito argue afterwards. Match was 80% Kane and Big Show. This would be the end of the Chris Masters run for the most part, and the idea that Carlito could be a top guy didn’t make it to 2007. I guess this was okay, not really the hot opener Wrestlemania needs. The Coach interviews Shawn Michaels. Did Coach turn face at some point? He was a heel in late 05. Money in the Bank Bobby Lashley vs. Ric Flair vs. Matt Hardy vs. Finlay vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Shelton Benjamin Only Shelton returns from last year. This is an odd group to be honest. Lashley, Finlay and Flair? Finlay was such a random comeback in 2006. His run was enjoyable though. Fans hot for RVD. RVD with an over the top rope dive onto Matt Hardy, who was holding a ladder. Lawler points out that was a stupid move. I agree, it probably hurt RVD more. Benjamin sets the ladder up as a stairway up the ropes….then does a running Senton onto Lashley, RVD and Hardy. Nice! Benjamin made a star out of himself at Mania XXI’s MITB. Matt Hardy superplexes the 57 year old Ric Flair off the top of the ladder…which leads to Flair screaming in pain. Refs throw up the x, but I think that’s a work. RVD misses a Rolling Thunder on the ladder. Ouch. Benjamin with an awesome sunset flip powerbomb attempt off the ladder to Lashley…only he needed two others to finish the powerbomb. Flair makes his way back! WOOO! Flair takes ANOTHER top of the ladder bump when Finlay hits him with his club. Flair is so sick. RVD knocks Lashley off with a dropkick/chair combo! Not sure if that’s called the Van Daminator in that case. RVD with a top rope splash off a ladder to Finlay. ECW! ECW! Amazing that a year 2006 turns out to be for ECW. RVD is about to win before Benjamin goes all Spider-Man. Rob Van Dam wins in 12:14. Benjamin and Matt Hardy fight on a ladder next to RVD’s, and RVD kicks the ladder away. I think Benjamin is supposed to straddle the top rope but misses. RVD then grabs the case. While this is a fun match, it’s arguably the weakest Money in the Bank Match. It was too short, and outside of Shelton Benjamin, lacking any creativity. Lashley and Finlay seemed miscast. Randy Orton interrupts Hall of Famer Mean Gene Okerlund! The injured Batista interrupts Orton, tells him he’s going to win the belt when he comes back. Funny, these could be considered shots fired to set up Wrestlemania eight years later! Hall of Fame. There is a nice trolling line from Howard Finkel. “Ladies and Gentlemen Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart….was not comfortable in participating in this evening’s event. Awesome Fink. Okerlund, Sherri, Tony Atlas, Verne Gagne, William “The Fridge” Perry, The Blackjacks. And Eddie Guerrero. Huge cheers here. And rightfully so. WWE United States Championship Chris Benoit© vs. JBL Story: Benoit apparently broke JBL’s hand in the past…but it is healed now. Cole says that JBL bragged about beating Eddie at GAB 04, so if he beats Benoit here, in his mind he becomes the greatest technical wrestler ever. Tazz says that remains to be seen. Um...no it doesn’t. Not at all. This is going to be a stiff one. Benoit tried to be JBL the same way he beat Orlando Jordan….with the Crossface in 30 seconds. JBL has never been in the greatest shape…but he’s clearly not in good shape here. This match has absolutely no flow. I know it may be easy to blame JBL here, but I do think Benoit might have just given up at this point as well. Probably 75 on JBL, 25 on Benoit. Eddie starts mocking Eddie Guerrero. I didn’t think the Rey stuff was in bad taste…but JBL doing it here? That’s bad taste. JBL won’t stop with the Eddie stuff. JBL now doing a very slow Three Amigos. Awful. Benoit later does the Three Amigos. Benoit is the best friend of Guerrero, and he’s the face. That’s why it’s better there. JBL wins the title when he pinned Benoit in 9:48. Benoit locks in the Crossface and JBL easily rolls into an advantageous pin combo for the win. He also used the ropes. Finish was okay I guess, but the match didn’t flow and had some bad moments. One of the worst Benoit matches I’d ever seen. Hardcore Match Mick Foley vs. Edge Apparently Foley was a ref in a Cena-Edge title match, and Edge blamed Foley for the loss. Edge is also disgusted that Foley went from Hardcore Legend to a human muppet. Joey Styles gets to call this match! He’s about to lose his Wrestlemania virginity! Foley looks really fat coming out…but that’s actually intentional. Brutal cookie sheet shots. Jeez. Baseball slide dropkicks a sign into Foley’s face! Spear….but Edge is hurt? Foley was wearing another shirt…and underneath was barbed wire! Edge’s arm is bleeding. Foley starts whipping Edge is the wire. It looks sicker than it sounds. And it sounds sick. Lita saves Edge from Barbie by jumping on Foley’s back, but then Foley has the sick idea to do a Cactus Clothesline with Lita on him! Great spot. Wow Edge just slams Foley hard on the steel ramp. That hurt me. Edge douses Foley in lighter fluid. My god. Foley is about to con-chair-to (with a pan and a chair) on Edge but Lita tries to make the save. Foley looks downright frightening and Lita sells is great when Foley threatens to hit her with the chair. Edge with a perfect shot to Foley’s head with Barbie…Foley’s busted. Edge actually brings in the thumbtacks! Foley counters Edge and makes Edge a human pin cushion. Oh My God! Barbed Wire Socko! Lita gets Barbed Wire Socko was well! You have to give Edge a lot of credit here. He didn’t wear a shirt for all of this violence. I’m sure he still has scars. Edge pinned Mick Foley in 14:36. Foley pours lighter fluid on the table…but Lita hits him with Barbie! Lita lights the table on fire….and EDGE SPEARS HIM THROUGH THE 2ND ROPE THROUGH THE FLAMING TABLE. What a sick fuck. Edge should have just been handed his Hall of Fame Ring right there. Edge gets the pin on the floor. I’d have to double check, but I’m pretty sure this was my 2006 Match of the Year. This also provided a great backdrop to the One Night Stand 06 six person tag. Incredible match, and it made up for what had been a lackluster show so far. At first I thought Edge was just selling the fire brilliantly, then I realized he probably just burned himself instead. What a sick match. Booker T goes through a hallway of freaks…Pirate Paul Burchill, Gene Snitsky, Ted Dibiase, Eugene, Mae Young and Goldust in a dress (Oprah-dust). Funny segment…even if the Snitsky-Young part is a little too much (He’s licking her foot). Dibiase with some epic laughing at the end. Handicap Match Booker T and Queen Sharmell vs. The Boogeyman Can this match follow Edge vs. Foley?!? I liked the Boogeyman character. I liked the theme song. I liked the entrance. I hated Boogeyman wrestling. Haha Booker tries to have Sharmell start the match. Awesome. It was a trap! A funny one though. Booker is owning early. Boogeyman does sell the side kick brilliantly to be fair. Boogeyman is doing the Boogeyman version of the Hulk Up! Book-End! Boogeyman kicks out! Boogeyman offense looks uncoordinated. OMG THE WORMS! He ATE THE WORMS! The Boogeyman pins Booker T in 3:43. Boogeyman kisses Sharmell with the worms…then chokebombs Booker T for the win. This was pretty bad…although it should have been a lot worse. What the fuck did Booker T do to deserve this for Wrestlemania? Amazingly, King Booker would be World Champion four months later. Probably the best booked Women’s Title feud ever coming up. Women’s Championship Trish Stratus© vs. Mickie James Story: Mickie James is Trish Stratu’s stalker. It started off as her biggest fan…and turned into being sexually attracted to her. It’s not just the storyline that’s great…but how convincing Mickie is in the role. No idea what happened to Mickie afterwards as I don’t remember a thing until Piggy James four years later. Jim Ross takes a random shot at Lawler…telling him Mickie may be too old for her because she is in her early 20s. I do believe there is a taunt from Mickie edited out of the WWE Network version of this….which is Mickie air licking a V made by her hands. You figure it out. Trish with some really hard chops. Blocked kick turns into a split from Mickie. Nice. Trish dropkicks Mickie from the ring. Hard to explain, but it was a cooler than the standard dropkick. Trish Chick Kick’s the ring post. Creative spots here. Mickie DDT’s the ankle. Just tons of creativity. Crowd is very hot for Mickie James. They actually boo Trish Stratus. Mickie really works on the leg. Fantastic head scissors by Trish with her legs crossed. Horrible fans for booing that. Mickie counters the Trish corner handstand and starts shrieking like a maniac. Amazing. Running powerbomb by Trish…but Mickie showed excitement when her legs were wrapped around Trish’s head. Amazing telling of the story. Mickie counters the Stratusfaction by grabbing Trish’s crotch. Just wow. Mickie James wins the Women’s Title when she pinned Trish at 8:48. The match is just amazing…but unfortunately Mickie’s Stratusfaction attempt is horribly botched. The WWE Network cuts out the botch…but I remember it clearly. Mickie tries to save it with a Chick Kick, but that hurt the match a lot. Still a very good match. I forgot that all the McMahon’s, even Linda, were heels here. Time for a McMahon family prayer! “God, let’s face it, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me.” And it only gets better. Sure maybe mocking God is in bad taste, but I do find it funny here. Casket Match The Undertaker vs. Mark Henry This was before Henry’s 2008 emergence as a legit bad ass. In 2006, he still kinda sucked. Henry has the very underrated “Echo” as his theme music. It’s pretty awesome. Taker had just morphed into Match of the Year Taker as he had a match of the Year Candidate at No Way Out a month prior against Kurt Angle. Just wondering, why didn’t we get Angle vs. Taker here and Orton vs. Rey for the Title? Match is being built as Mark Henry being an immovable object. I get it, but it doesn’t really work here as the Undertaker should be able to take down Mark Henry here. Old School! Nope, Henry ruined it. Taker gets it on the 2nd attempt. Taker hasn’t knocked Mark Henry down yet. See, it just doesn’t seem that believable. World Strongest Slam! Cover! Mark eventually figures out there are no pins in a Casket Match. Taker does the Samoan Headbutt spot with Henry. Taker powerbombs Henry out of the corner. He finally knocked Henry down! Undertaker busts out the over the top rope dive to Henry! He outright clears the casket too! Undertaker wins in 9:28. Tombstone then Henry is rolled into the Casket. Match is a lot worse than I remember it…but Taker saves it a little with the over the top rope dive. Sometimes it is the moment that matters. No Holds Barred Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. McMahon Story here: McMahon gives the fans what he wants. HBK gives the fans what the fans want. Vince is looking to screw HBK worse than he screwed Bret. Vince has a poster of him on Fitness Magazine at ringside. Shawn smashes the poster over Vince’s head. Pretty funny. Shawn dominated the beginning…but here comes The Spirit Squad! This is Dolph Ziggler’s Wrestlemania debut everybody! HBK takes out the Squad. Vince has control thanks to the Squad. For the record this is how Vince should be booked. He’s not a wrestler, so he should need help to get advantages. Vince is mocking Bret Hart here. Now he’s loading up for Sweet Chin Music! Shawn blocks! Michaels’ regains control and hits his spots. Very nice elbow from the top. So now that he’s in control, you know what that means? It means Shane McMahon is here! Kendo stick shot to Michaels! Shane’s got handcuffs! Vince is taking off his pants. Kiss My Ass Club time! Shawn counters…and Shane joins the club. Shawn handcuffs Shane to the outside of the ring. Shawn mocks Shane’s taunt…then beats the crap out of him with the kendo stick. Crowd gets into it. Absolutely brutal chairshot to the head of Vince. You will not see shots like that ever again. Ladder shot to the head of Vince! Garbage Can shot to the head of Vince! I’m starting to feel bad for Vince. Shawn Michaels pins Mr. McMahon in 18:22. Shawn gets a huge ladder and sets Vince up in the center of the ring on a table. You can see Shane holding down the ladder on the outside. Vince is on the table in a garbage can. We get the DX sign. Huge elbow drop through Vince and the table! Shawn makes sure to get Sweet Chin Music in for the win. I mean this is a good match overall I think. I do think it is a bit much at the end when beats the crap out of McMahon. Weird as it sounds, but this match is the violent version of Bret vs. Vince four years later. It never looked like Vince was the better wrestler, which is good. Also, the moment is once again really good. Also, bonus points for Vince flipping Michaels off while being stretchered away. Also good DX foreshadowing. World Heavyweight Championship Kurt Angle© vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton Angle had absolutely taken out the comedy portion of his character at this point. It’s a shame we didn’t see an extended WWE run of this Angle. Of course, the exploitation of Eddie Guerrero’s death is all over this, and while it’s a bit much, I do think it’s okay. Like I am okay with Rey doing Eddie stuff. But not when Orton says Eddie is in hell. I totally forgot how lame it was to get Orton and Rey in the match. Teddy Long just re-adds Rey back in after Orton beat him at No Way Out. POD Live for Rey. Rey looks like a mini-Tatanka with his entrance attire. Angle’s pyro is pretty incredible. Orton with a great start, takes the WHC belt from the ref and nails Angle. Angle does a double German suplex to Orton and Rey…and Rey goes flying! These three do a lot of really fun spots, like Angle sending Rey into Orton, who was on the top rope…and Rey finishing with a hurricanrana. Let’s Go Angle. Shame fans aren’t more into Rey. Another reason they should have went with Taker vs. Angle and Rey vs. Orton. Angle counters the 619 with an Ankle Lock! Rey taps, but Orton distracts the ref. Angle is just destroying everyone with germans. Poor Rey landed on his face. And he got Angle Slammed over the top rope. Now Orton taps….but the ref was distracted by Rey. Really protecting Angle here, and actually, I’m okay with that. Angle kicks out of a RKO! Rey tries a 619 using the ringpost, but he loses grip. Unfortunate botch there. Orton does this gutwrench neckbreaker. Why doesn’t he bring that back? Orton survives an Angle Slam. Rey Mysterio wins the World Title when he pins Orton in 9:19. Rey counters an Angle Lock into an armdrag that sends Angle out. 619 and Springboard Hurricanrana to Orton for the win. Match had good moments, but it was underwhelming. This was supposed to be Rey’s big moment, but all we got was a 9 minute match that Kurt Angle dominated anyway. The moves were really good though. Angle was the man. Don’t remember Rey being booed like that in favor of Angle though. Rey winning is a good moment though. I never thought Rey Mysterio would win a world championship. He ended up with three. JR is hyping up HHH vs. Cena. Video of Cena got booed. I think JR has forgotten about the Pillow Fight. Playboy Pillow Fight Torrie Wilson vs. Candace Michelle I think Torrie’s theme is dubbed…as this is the Laycool theme playing. Maybe I don’t remember correctly and she had this though. Candace is hot. Torrie is hot. That’s the whole match. Looking it up, it looks like Torrie had the Laycool theme before Laycool. How about that. Candance does get this one cool leg choke that’s where she handstands on the apron. Torrie Wilson pins Candace Michelle in 3:54. A little too long for my tastes, but it was great to look at for sure. WWE Championship John Cena© vs. Triple H Story here is that HHH thinks Cena is a second rate champion. I normally don’t like that narrative as it usually diminishes the title, but it works here as Cena kinda was that as he won the title on Smackdown. New HHH music. Behold the King…the King of Kings! Triple H’s entrance is ridiculous. He looks like a 2nd rate Conan the Barbarian. JR brings up that this was HHH’s 11th straight Mania, and the record was set by Bret with 12. HHH wouldn’t get there, as he missed Mania 23 with an injury. Cena’s is a bit funny (it also described the 1 vs 99% thing) although just as ridiculous with the 20’s gangster feel. But now, the most important part of the show. CM Punk was in the main event of Wrestlemania!!!! He’s hanging on the car in Cena’s entrance! Anyway… Cena is just getting booed out of the building. Shows Chicago hated him away before CM Punk vs. Cena at MITB 11. The storyline is very similar to HHH vs. Booker at Wrestlemania XIX. HHH shows dominance early, giving the impression that he’s outwrestling Cena. There’s even fuck you Cena chants in this. Didn’t think that began until ONS 06. HHH goes for a piledriver on the floor…but gets backdropped on the ramp. Ouch. NANANANANANANA HEY HEY HEY GOOD BYE chant. No idea why. Awesome clothesline from HHH. HHH working on the neck. Neckbreakers, neck vices, sleepers. Big Cena comeback here. BOOOOOOOO! Five Knuckle Shuffle countered into a Spinebuster! He gets it the second time…and here is the STFU! Will the Game tap?! HHH survives. FU…countered and HHH shoves Cena and the ref into corner…then low blows them both! HHH with the DX crotch chop. Foreshadowing! Here comes the Sledgehammer! HHH nails him! Cena kicks out! FU to HHH! HHH kicks out! Cena up top? Okay? Totally misses the crossbody. How random. John Cena retains the title by making HHH submit in 22:02. HHH goes for the pedigree…but Cena turns it into a STFU. HHH tries to get to the ropes…but he’s forced to submit. It’s a solid match, but I don’t think it’s anything special. HHH put Cena over here, and that seems correct. You can’t go with the “this guy isn’t a good wrestler” narrative and then beat him down too (right Booker?) This Wrestlemania had some good moments, some bad moments and a lot of whatever. Opener was whatever. RVD winning MITB II was good, and the match was decent. No idea what happened to Benoit, must have been an off night or JBL was that bad at this point. Foley vs. Edge was amazing. Booker/Sharmell vs. Boogey was the opposite. Trish vs. Mickie was great. Taker vs. Henry was whatever, but Taker gave it a moment with his dive. HBK vs. Vince is a bit of a fun brawl with some parts that dragged. Rey’s title win was a let down, although the match I guess is okay for what it was. Pillow Fight was fun to look at. HHH vs. Cena was solid, although not the most exciting of Wrestlemania main events. Interesting note here: You know why WWE doesn’t care if you boo guys like Batista now? Because you booed Cena eight years ago and it didn’t matter, no one bit. Fans will give their money to WWE no matter what it seems. I’m included with that. I bought the Network after all. Enough good moments here to get this out of C range, but I wouldn’t flat out call it good. Final Grade: B- |
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| Darth Vader | Mar 7 2014, 01:31 PM Post #21 |
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I AM YOUR FATHER.
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That was an okay WM, but i remember seeing that spear, just holy shit, still one of the most amazing things to date. |
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| Baldwin | Mar 7 2014, 01:54 PM Post #22 |
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6x EBL Champion
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I'd like to make another random request: WCW New Blood Rising |
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| Mofoticon | Mar 7 2014, 01:59 PM Post #23 |
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EBL Commissioner
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Money in the Bank 2011 |
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Mar 8 2014, 10:11 PM Post #24 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Money in the Bank 2011 July 17, 2011 Chicago, IL Background: Ever since WCW went bankrupt, American Professional wrestlers didn’t have a whole lot of leverage anymore. There was no real competition. Sure, there was TNA, but a few notable wrestlers…only one who was a sure fire main eventer at the time (and one WWE legend)…ever went there. (Kurt Angle is the main eventer...even though Jeff Hardy, Mick Foley is the legend). Other guys had other non-wrestling ventures they could look at, but usually, they came back (Big Show, Chris Jericho, Batista). In terms of North American pro wrestling, the top is WWE. The money is in WWE. The stardom is in WWE. The case of Kurt Angle actually showed that Vince McMahon could have all the leverage. Angle…fresh off of main eventing Wrestlemania, went to TNA and ratings hardly moved. Vince had went from a system of having one or two top guys (The Hogan Era, the Austin-Rock Era) to many big guys with only one that was at the very top (an argument Vince used with Hulk Hogan regarding Hogan’s Summerslam 06 payoff). I believe this actually dilutes the product, but that’s another discussion for another time. Creatively though, WWE had really hit a down point after a solid 2010. That glass ceiling that’s existed for years and years in WWE seemed to be in clear view of the fans. In 2010 guys like Sheamus, Wade Barrett, the Miz and Daniel Bryan were coming on strong. In 2009, the same could be said about CM Punk. All of these guys here had been something ranging from kinda buried to buried. Sheamus went from bad ass heel champion killing Triple H to joke King of the Ring to actually outright missing the Wrestlemania card in favor of a Rock promo. He only recovered in early 2012…only to get buried because of his stupid 18 second World Title win at Mania 28. Barrett was the leader of one of the most creative angles WWE had done in a while in the Nexus. John Cena squashed him and the Nexus at TLC 2010, and Barrett has never reached that level again. The Miz was the WWE World Champion coming into 2011. Maybe he was somewhat average in the ring, but his character was just pure heel heat. Cena buried him at Over the Limit 2011 in one of the worst booked I Quit Matches I can remember (it’s not that Cena won…it was how)…and then losing to Alex Riley. Bryan hadn’t really been buried, but he also missed the Mania card and seemed to just be in that jobber to stars role after a really hot 2010. That brings us to CM Punk. WWE was still trying to make new stars, but some were not catching on or not quite ready (John Morrison, R-Truth for the former, Alberto Del Rio for the latter.) There was something different with Punk though. The fans were connecting to him. For whatever reason, WWE wasn’t listening. He eventually got a world title shot for MITB though, which was the day his contract expired. Punk delivered a famous worked-shoot promo which ushered in the reality era for WWE. Punk was supposed to be the heel, but there was not a chance in hell that was happening, especially with the PPV in Chicago. The hype was tremendous. It was the most non-Mania anticipated PPV since One Night Stand 2005. Vince got involved in the storyline. It felt real. Someone was so good, they finally had some leverage. Some other stories for this show: Mark Henry was actually becoming a bad ass. Christian had won his first World Title and lost it to Randy Orton two days later (which was absolutely awful in a lot of ways), leading to a heel turn for Christian. The Card They use that awful Donald Trump theme song for the PPV. At least it has to do with the theme. Smackdown Money in the Bank Sheamus vs. Heath Slater vs. Justin Gabriel vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Wade Barrett vs. Sin Cara vs. Kane vs. Daniel Bryan If I remember correctly, the smart money here was on Wade Barrett. I wonder in retrospect if that was just hope though. To be fair, he wasn’t the obvious favorite, as Sheamus and Bryan def could have won. Cody was still doing the broken face gimmick…which is what eventually made me a fan. There are still some remnants of the Corre vs. Nexus storyline…which we see here with Gabriel and Slater. This would be the last time we see anything resembling the Nexus though. Bryan with a perfect top rope dropkick to knock Rhodes off the ladder. This is going to be good. Various wrestlers doing over the top and through the rope dives…with Sin Cara finishing with his sky high plancha on Sheamus. This is fun so far and they’ve barely used the ladder! Forgot Sin Cara had the top rope C4 in his arsenal! This has to be Sin Cara’s peak here. Powerbomb from Sheamus off the apron through a ladder. Poor Sin Cara. I believe this was used as a storyline to injure him as he had a Wellness Violation. Brutal spot though. Sin Cara was stealing the show before that powerbomb. Actually it looks like both Gabriel and Slater were members of the Corre. Tells you what I remember. Cole is still anti-Bryan. Kane and Sheamus go LOD on Bryan. Nice spot, especially when you remember LOD is from Chicago. Fans behind Daniel Bryan. When wasn’t he over? Slater with a nice neckbreaker off the ladder to Bryan. Sheamus and Barrett use the ladder as a fork and Health Slater’s the meat! They somewhat botch it as they dump him into Kane…but it was cool nonetheless. Kane chokeslams Sheamus off a ladder into a ladder that was propped on the bottom rope. Ouch! Rhodes uses a ladder for a Disaster Kick! 450 from Gabriel on a ladder bridge on the top rope…and he nails Kane! Very impressively done! Daniel Bryan wins in 24:27. Bryan and Rhodes fight on the top of the ladder with Bryan locking him in a front choke. Barrett tries to sneak behind and grab the title, but Bryan sees him and tries to elbow him off. Barrett teases a Wasteland on that propped ladder, but Bryan escapes and kicks Barrett in the head, knocking him off. Bryan grabs the title. By the way, the original Flight of the Valkyries being played for the Money in the Bank winner is pretty awesome. Anyway, match is fantastic. Creative. Only dull point was actually when Cara went out, as fans thought he was really hurt and he was winning over the crowd. Bryan got a good pop when he won as well. Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis here. Still trying to sign CM Punk. Diva’s Championship Kelly Kelly© vs. Brie Bella Kelly went for a flying headscissors…but didn’t quite scissor the head. Story here is apparently Kelly Kelly is mad that the Bellas said her Maxim shoot was airbrushed. It probably was. Kelly Kelly does that leg stand choke that Candace Michelle did at Wrestlemania 22…and Brie counters by escaping and shoving Kelly…who falls face first on the floor! Ouch. Brie with a leg wrap around waistelock. Not bad. I don’t remember Brie being a good wrestler. Has this always been the case? Brie screws up on the bulldog as she drops too early. Bellas are much better heels than faces. Kelly Kelly retains by pin at 4:46. Kelly hits a Rocker Dropper (the K2 or K Squared maybe?) for the win. Nikki complains that Kelly doesn’t even eat. Wasn’t there a bullying campaign being touted by WWE at this time? Anyway, pretty solid Women’s Match overall. We’re 2 for 2. Best of Nitro DVD! Big Show vs. Mark Henry If you threw this match out there in 1999, it would have been absolutely horrible. In 2008 Mark Henry went from looking like an actor playing a scary motherfucker to looking like a scary motherfucker. Why WWE wasted that in 2009-2010 I don’t know…but Henry now is full blown bad ass, and you see the difference everywhere. Big Show with a flying shoulder tackle! Love the selling of each other’s strength here. Show shoves Henry into the stairs and Henry actually sells by flying over them. Great. Henry works on the knee…apparently Show was coming off a knee injury. Half-Crab! This match is at a faster pace than I ever would have guessed. Big Show with a shoulder tackle off the 2nd rope…but he hurts the knee! Flawless World’s Strongest Slam…and a kickout! Mark Henry pins Big Show in 6:00. Another WSS, and then two Splashes for the win. Henry then traps Show’s leg in a chair and drops a Vader Bomb Knee Drop (Pillmanizing!), injuring Show which would lead to some more Show vs. Henry goodness later in 2011. Exactly the win Henry needed to get him in the main event and continue to get him over as a legit bad ass. Well done. Good match. We’re 3 for 3. 2nd Stretcher of the night. First Cara, now Big Show. Vince still hasn’t re-signed CM Punk. It’s getting close to the expiration date! Vince says he offered the most lucrative contract he possibly could. This is the man who gave Bret Hart 20 years once! RAW Money in the Bank Alberto Del Rio vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Evan Bourne vs. The Miz vs. Jack Swagger vs. Alex Riley vs. R-Truth This one’s winner prediction was more clean cut. It was pretty obvious Del Rio was winning. Booker T talks about Alberto Del Rio’s claim that it was destiny for him to become champion. Sad that he never got passed that mindset. Even though I was disgusted with the idea of Truth main eventing Capital Punishment, he was a funny heel. Everyone grabs a ladder to start to defend themselves, and Truth grabs a small step ladder to put over a fear of heights. Pretty funny. Miz was still over here. Poor Del Rio. He gets knocked around and put under a ladder on the outside, and everyone just tosses their ladders on him. The future Awesome Truth have a step ladder duel. Bourne and Kingston climb up an unopened ladder. You know, Kingston was the reason they were able to cut Shelton Benjamin. Of course Cole is pro-Miz and anti-Riley. Bourne with the Air Bourne (Shooting Star Press) from a super high ladder to everyone on the outside! That tops John Morrison’s spot from Mania 27. Miz is hanging from the title belt and falls badly. It looks like he wrecked his knee and he screams like it. Doctors at ringside and it looks like the kneecap is dislocated. Poor Miz. He avoid stretcher #3…but is helped to the back. Double falling hurricanrana from Bourne and Rey at the same time, which was cool. Swagger puts on the Ankle Lock on Kingston when Kingston is hanging on the ladder! Booker T is critical of Kofi Kingston’s dancing in matches. What a hypocrite. Spinarooni anyone? R-Truth just botched something. I can’t really explain what. Kofi Kingston just nails Rey with his legs on the top of the ladder. Rey falls like a dead man. Wow. It’s the Miz! Was a face turn on the horizon? Got a huge reaction…and when Rey stopped him he got booed. Alberto Del Rio wins in 15:54. Rey is about to win, but here is Del Rio! Rey hits Del Rio with the briefcase on top of the ladder, and it really looks like Rey is about to win…but Del Rio goes for the mask! Brilliant (if you ignore WCW)! Rey covers up and Del Rio shoves him onto the ladder next to him…which is amazing in itself since he practically can’t see as he’s hiding his face. The ladder does topple over messing up the finish, but it’s still fine as ADR climbs up and wins. Another very good match! People thought Punk was winning tonight, and Del Rio was cashing in. We’re a month early for that! Anyway, we are 4 for 4 with 2 matches left! Del Rio interview…he actually originally had the title match at MITB before Punk got it. This foreshadows the MITB cashing…if it happens. World Heavyweight Championship Randy Orton© vs. Christian If Orton is DQed, or if there is a bad referee call, he loses the title to Christian. Story here: As I wrote earlier, the IWC was spit at with the two days Christian title run, but it did lead to a good story. Orton seemed to feel bad for Christian. In future rematches, Christian would keep getting screwed somehow (like, he had his leg under the rope in the Capital Punishment match). Eventually, Christian turned heel as he thought WWE was protecting their “golden boy” (which fits the theme of this PPV brilliantly). Orton mentioned at first it was all respect, but now he was getting angry. Which leads of course to the DQ stip. There were Christian’s last good days. Christian starts by throwing a chair into the ring and sliding it to Orton. Nice. This is a solid match, but nothing exciting is really happening, if that makes sense. It’s actually the standard for Christian. Orton does bust out a nice dodge and roll-up from the corner. Orton has one of the best dropkicks in wrestling. Top rope headbutt from Christian. Orton survives the Kill Switch. Christian wins the title when Orton gets DQed at 12:20. Christian spits at Orton, and Orton low blows him for the DQ. Crowd pops. Orton beats the hell out of Christian and RKOs him on the announcer’s table. Table doesn’t break. You can kinda tell the refs want him to come back to try again. Table holds on the 2nd time as well. In all seriousness, it’s a basic solid match. Christian was the master of those. While the ending was stupid, it does make sense within the story. You know how HHH tells Daniel Bryan that’s he’s a B+ wrestler. That’s what Christian really was. Still though, a solid match is a solid match. We are 5 for 5. Will Cena-Punk deliver? WWE Championship John Cena© vs. CM Punk Get ready for the spiritual successor to RVD vs. Cena at One Night Stand 06. The one thing that made little sense that they had to fix in this match build-up was that there’s no good reason Vince would ever give Punk a title shot if he could leave. So, that’s how the if Cena loses he’s fired bit was added, as Cena was the one who wanted this match. CM Punk’s entrance here is one of the greatest of all time. The crowd reaction is amazing. Punk absolutely owns the arena. Michael Jordan could show up and I think the focus would be on Punk. It’s a shame that Punk didn’t keep “This Fire Burns” longer. The line “even through these darkest days, this first still burns” fit perfectly here. The heat for Cena is immense. Snapmare by Cena. BOOOOOOOO! “You Can’t Wrestle” chants…and Punk clarifies that they are talking about Cena. Haha. Great wrestling early. Cena really gets high on a hip toss…he has his selling shoes on for Punk, that’s for sure. Every move Punk makes just works. The crowd is absolutely white hot here. Punk with a leg sleeper. Punk busted out everything for this match. Punk with a low-five to Colt Cabana! Cena is hung on the apron…and Punk comes off the top with a knee to the back of the head! Small botch…Punk hits a twisting crossbody, but he’s a bit too low and hits Cena’s knee. Cena suplexes Punk to the floor from the apron! There are a lot of finisher teases here, which really works the crowd. Cena with a new move, a slam into a reverse DDT type move. Pretty cool. You Can’t See Me…blocked with a kick to the head! Suicide Dive from Punk! He hit it good too! Match is practically perfect so far. You Can’t See Me hits! AA…but Punk almost lands on his feet. Punk then hits a sweet kick combo with a sweep! Awesome! GTS blocked into a gutwrench slam. Stiff knees to the face from Punk and a bulldog! That 2nd one clearly hit Cena in the face hard. Match has steadily built up to the point where it’s concievable anyone can win. Punk in the STF! Huge cheers when Punk gets the rope. Punk off the top, but Cena rolls through and gets the AA. No, AA countered. GTS…amazingly countered into a STF. Incredible sequence! Punk counters the STF into the Vise! AA….1…2……….NO! I remember thinking that was the finish. Cena hits a huge legdrop from the top, but Punk gets out at 2! Another AA, I really thought this was it, but no, another kick out! Cena goes for a top rope AA….but Punk counters into a hurricanrana! GTS hits….but Cena falls to the outside! Punk gets Cena back into the ring...but Vince and Big Johnny are here! Huge boos. STF! STF! Vince sends Johnny to ring the bell! CM Punk wins the WWE Title when he pinned John Cena 33:44. Cena knocks out Big Johnny and tells McMahon that a man is gonna win this fight. Cena goes back in and walks into the GTS, 1…2…3! Crowd ERUPTS! Vince panics, then in an interesting move goes to the announcer’s desk and calls for Alberto Del Rio to cash in MITB. Del Rio comes, but Punk kicks him in the head and leaves through the crowd. Vince looks like he’s crying in the ring. This ending is a very weird (in an interesting way) moment, as you are mixing shoot with work elements there. I don’t know what the greatest wrestling match of all time is, but this is without a doubt a contender. The story. The build. The layout of the match. The two characters in the ring. The two men in the ring. The moves. The false finishes. Everything. Everything hit. When WWE said that the Mania 27 Undertaker vs. HHH match was the Match of the Year, they slapped Punk and Cena in the face (that’s coming from someone who likes that match a hell of a lot). It won every other match of the year award out there. The WWE had a goldmine waiting with CM Punk after this. But even with his eventually super long World Title reign, he was still never the man. True change never happened. The sad thing is that it fulfilled what CM Punk said in the famous shoot: Vince McMahon will make money in spite of himself. There are six matches here and at a minimum, all six are good. That combined with the fact that you have an arguable Match of All Time candidate, well, how is this not one of the greatest PPVs of all time? Final Grade: A+ |
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Mar 9 2014, 04:00 AM Post #25 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WCW New Blood Rising August 13, 2000 Vancouver, BC Background: We’re a little earlier in the trainwreck era of WCW. The Millionaire’s Club vs. New Blood had fallen apart with the Hulk Hogan-Vince Russo Bash At the Beach 2000 debacle. It does make the PPV name a bit funny, although I guess you can argue that the New Blood were now going forward with the promotion. There are way too many negatives at this point that you could read in any WCW book or article or whatever. So, I’ll focus on some positives. I believe there are three. 1. There are some good wrestlers in the company. Maybe they’ll get pushed (lol). 2. There are some hot women in the company. 3. Booker T is the WCW World Champion. If done correctly, #3 could help WCW a lot. Of course, it wasn’t. Let’s get to this trainwreck of a show. The Card I’m a Jeff Jarrett fan…but he never should have been a top guy. Ugh, Mark Madden. Ladder Match Three Count (Evan Karagias, Shannon Moore and Shane Helms) vs. The Jung Dragons (Kaz Hayashi, Jamie-San, Yun Yang) Three Count has Tank Abbott with them and they sing! I am a Three Count fan, I can’t lie. Jamie-San is Jamie Knoble. They are fighting for a gold record AND a recording contract. For some reason is starts as a six man tag match…no idea why there’s any tagging or anything in a ladder match. Yang backdrops Moore into a propped ladder…but only his leg hits and that looked like it worked. Ouch Yang gets crotched on a ladder rung, I don’t remember ever seeing that. It’s a Dragons Sandwich on a ladder. Moore with the splash, which looked bad. Dueling Springboard Doomsday Devices, one pro Dragons and one pro 3 Count. Jamie with the crossbody from the top of a ladder onto the floor and various opponents! Nice. Tank Abbott is on the apron and a bit distracting… Helms runs up a step on a ladder to neckbreaker Jamie off. Very nice! Suplex from the ladder on Hayashi! Helms superkicks a ladder into Yang! Very nice spots here. Yang does the Daniel Bryan run up the corner flip…only on a ladder with Jamie behind it! Very nice. Moore goes from the top to the outside and splashes a ladder to cause a see-saw…that nails Jamie-San and Helms in the face! Ugly double splash from the top of the ladder to Moore. Yang gets the gold record! Match isn’t over yet though. Why not just grab the contract too? Yang falls off the ladder and the record ends up in Abbott’s hands! What was the point then? Jamie top rope legdrops Karagias when he’s in a ladder sandwich…but did it to his head without any effect from the ladder. Sick powerbomb from Jamie to Moore off the ladder. Abbott whipes out both guys going up ladders for the contract. Three Counts Wins in 11:32. Karagias runs up to get the record contract. I’m confused, so the Dragons get nothing for getting the record? Whatever. Other than Tank Abbott being ridiculously distracting on the apron, this was a good match. It’s not nearly as good as the WWF’s first TLC (which was being run at about the same time frame), but a fun match with some sloppiness to it. Good start to New Blood Rising! Backstage Filthy Animals at in Commissioner Cat’s office. They want a Tag Title shot on Nitro and wanna referee the match tonight in exchange for helping The Cat beat The Great Muta. Miller says okay but he doesn’t need the help. Disqo tries to be street or something and the Cat throws him out. Ernest Miller vs. The Great Muta I wonder how embarrassed The Great Muta is to be there. The Cat: “Muta, I know you don’t understand English, so let me say this so you understand”….then he proceeds to speak English…what? Muta with some solid chain wrestling early on. This match has a lot of kicks. Here comes Tygress! Remember, the Animals said they would help the Cat. Nice Dragon Screw from Muta! GREEN MIST! Tygress knocks out Muta with a chair. Tygress has now owned Shane Douglas and The Great Muta in the PPVs I’ve watched. Ernest Miller pins The Great Muta in 6:47. Feliner for the win. Poor Great Muta. Ironically I could see this being a good kick boxing fight, as a wrestling match, it was okay thanks to some Muta stuff. Buff Bagwell is looking for his mother. Sigh. Judy Bagwell on a Pole Match Positively Kanyon vs. Buff Bagwell It’s really going to be Judy Bagwell on a forklift. I guess that makes more sense? This is one of the better wrestler impersonations out there (Kanyon as DDP). Surprised Vince McMahon didn’t do a double DDP thing in the InVasion. Bagwell goes right for the forklift. That actually makes sense. See, Bagwell playing to the crowd makes no sense here. His mother is on the line, be serious! They still focus on the broken Bagwell neck of two years earlier, which actually makes sense I guess. It would make more sense with a specific angle in there. Kanyon takes off a turnbuckle pad! Kanyon nails a nice neckbreaker. Kanyon into the exposes corner! BANG! KANYON CUTTER! Bagwell kicks out! Here comes David Arquette. I had no idea he was around past Slamboree. Buff Bagwell pins Kanyon in 6:45. Double Buff Blockbuster to Kanyon and Arquette. Whatever. This whole match was whatever. The gimmick itself is also stupid, but I guess Buff reuniting with his mom was a good moment? Kanyon Cutter to Arquette. Good riddance. We’ve got a bunch of cops and a stretch limo with Canadian flags outside. It’s Lance Storm. That was pretty awesome to be honest. Apparently Goldberg was injured in a motorcycle accident last night. They repeat the whole will Goldberg wrestle drama a couple months later at Havoc too. WCW World Tag Team Championship Kronik© vs. The Perfect Event (Sean Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) vs. Sean O’Haire and Mark Jindrak vs. The Misfits in Action (Gen. Rection and Cpl. Cajun) Filthy Animals are here to be the referees. Whatever. Konnan says the MIA need to be soaked in talent because they are missing a lot. I agree! Konnan then says Jindrak and O’Haire have no charisma. Correct again, although O’Haire would get some. I think it’s funny that Kronik use their last names when Crush and Wrath are tons better. Disqo is the in ring official. Konnan is going overboard on commentary. Some of the comments are funny, but now he’s burying everyone. I like how Disco Inferno’s entire WCW career was basically him trying to be cool and failing. Stasiak hilariously sells a full nelson. Palumbo botches a side kick on Clarke. Or Clarke messes up. One of the two. Maybe both. Disqo slow counts Kronik. Somehow Tygress gets a Bronco Buster in. She’s a ref you know. Disqo slow counts Cajun as well. It’s a Canadian Count according to Konnan. Rection just took a shameful bump to the outside. The Animals clearly want O’Haire and Jindrak to win. Dark Carnival here. Attack Kronik. Kronik retains when Clarke pinned Palumbo in 12:22. Double Chokeslam to Palumbo, then Lt. Loco runs in and attacks Disqo and takes the ref shirt. Then he counts the pin for Kronik. Just so you know, Loco is a member of MIA…so he screwed his own team over there. Pretty bad clusterfuck here that I lost track of. You had 8 guys in there + 4 Filthy Animal referees +2 Dark Carnival members (didn’t see the Demon) + 1 Lt. Loco ref run it. That’s 15 guys for fucks sake. And Loco did something non-sensical. What-fucking-ever. The story is that The Animals thought O’Haire and Jindrak would be the easiest to win the titles from tomorrow. Jeff Jarrett backstage. Bright green shirt is distracting. Talks trash about Booker T. Strap Match The Franchise vs. Billy Kidman Douglas has Torrie Wilson with him. So that’s a good thing. Apparently you can win this strap match by pin. I like how Kidman comes without his shirt on. The strap match, you’d think, is the one match where he should wear his shirt. Mark Madden finally made a comment that made me yell at my screen to shut up. Someething about Kidman failing at pole matches if you know what I mean. Madden also asks if Torrie put on a couple pounds. Of course Torrie here is thin and beautiful. Crowd is in this though, huge heat for Douglas, which didn’t exist three months later. Scott Hudson is even making Torrie is fat jokes? I don’t understand. Apparently there’s a sex tape in this angle. I’m just gonna focus on the match. Nice reverse camel clutch snapback from Douglas. This match has been a real bore so far though. A lot of the commentary is based around praise for them not using the strap. Which Douglas isn’t. So why is this a Strap Match? Nice leaping hurricanrana from Kidman off the top. Billy Kidman pins Shane Douglas in 8:22. Kidman hits the Kid Krusher (Killswitch) for the win. Then he spanks Torrie with the strap. Douglas attacks Kidman then decides to HANG Kidman with the strap. Horrible image. Vito runs in to make the save. Mark Madden says that at least Kidman can say he was well hung. Fuck off Mark Madden. Reno runs in to attack Vito. Vito takes him out too. For the match itself, it was pretty boring for the most part…but the crowd was into it. Kind of a waste of Kidman’s high flying ability since he’s tied to the strap. Hanging was unnecessary. Booker T in the house. He gets attacked by Jarrett by his car. He crushes Booker’s knee with the car door. I like it. Mud Rip the Clothes Off Match Major Gunns vs. Miss Hancock I’m sighing cause I know what happens here. This match starts in the ring. I guess that’s okay. How does Major Gunns make a slap look bad? Whatever, this match isn’t about that. Why is this a wrestling match for. Why is there a pin attempt and a count? What? Another pin attempt. I don’t know the rules here. The wrestling wasn’t absolutely awful I guess. Stacy does a dance when on the 2nd rope. Awesome. Hilariously bad set up for a top rope sunset flip. Stacy had to stagger forward. Stacy is selling a pain in her stomach. They are getting toward the mud and Gunns is nearly naked. I’m sure I appreciated this more as a teenager. They’re in the mud! Major Gunns pins Miss Hancock in 6:43. Stacy dances in the mud…then hurls over. Major Gunns gets the pin. Keibler is still doubled over in pain and David Flair shows up. Major Gunns tries to help her too. They are trying to make this seem like a shoot. Somehow a mud wrestling match began as a normal wrestling match. It was good eye candy, which I guess is the purpose, but we didn’t need all that (not as bad as you would think) wrestling and certainly not this horrible fake shoot storyline. Interview with the Dark Carnival. Vampiro is like the anti-Great Muta. Vampiro says this is The Demon’s test to see if he can hang with the Juggalo Army. Now Tony Schiavone talks about how this Miss Hancock thing wasn’t part of this show and all this bullshit. Whatever, let’s keep moving. The Demon vs. Sting Sting comes from the rafters. I guess the Owen Hart thing taught Vince Russo nothing. Sting pins the Demon in 0:52. Stinger Splash, Scorpion Deathdrop for the win. Nice waste of one of your top draws. Vampiro and Muta show up and try to HANG Sting with cable from the ceiling. ANOTHER hanging? Kronik makes the save and Sting leaves. Kronik offers Muta and Vampiro a Tag Title shot later. Woo? What a waste of Sting. We’re backstage, and Booker is hurt! WCW US/Canadian Championship Lance Storm© vs. Mike Awesome Fat Chick Thriller here…at least his music was good this time. Canadian crowd marks out for Lance Storm! As they should. Lance Storm with a great promo here about how the USA thinks they own the world. He’s right you know. Storm says that Canadian Championship Rule 32B states he can select a special referee. Crowd goes nuts for Bret Hart, chanting “we want Bret”. Storm announces Jacques Rougeau as the referee. Way to get a fellow CANADIAN booed in Canada WCW. Seriously. And this choice gets even dumber 15 minutes from now. Canadian National Anthem is always awesome. Awesome dominating early on here. Nice superkick from Storm. Mike Awesome busts out a table. ECW chant in Canada. Nice. Awesome slips off the top rope…but recovers nicely with a clothesline. Great powerbomb after sending Storm sky high! The ref in the ring counts the three…but wait, the Canadian Rulebook states that a 5 count is required! Nice Alabama Slam from Mike Awesome. Only a three count on the pin! Dragon Sleeper on Storm. Scott Hudson wonders if that’s a tribute to Ultimo Dragon because Dragon once held 10 titles and Storm has three. Um…wouldn’t Awesome be the one doing the tribute? Unless that’s a shoot comment. Storm submits…but WAIT…no submissions in a Canadian Rules Match! That woulda screwed Bret back in the day. Another three count! No close 4 counts yet though. Four count by Awesome on Storm! Awesome Splash. Five count! But WAIT! It’s Texas Death rules. Storm gets a 10 count to answer. Weakish chair shot by Storm. Never Lance’s specialty. Four count! Four and a half! Lance Storm retains the title in 11:28. Both men through a table! BUT WAIT! Whoever gets up first after a table spot wins the match! Rougeau then decks Awesome as he was getting up. Storm wins…and the Canadian crowd pops big! It’s Bret Hart! Bret comes down and looks disgusted at the cheap way Storm just won…but then all three hug. The crowd pop because it’s Canada…but if this is what was going to happen… WHY NOT JUST USE BRET AS THE REFEREE? Anyway, this isn’t that bad, but the problem is how it is booked. It made Lance Storm look awful. He gets beat by Mike Awesome in like five different ways and then can’t even get a legitimate win over Awesome at the end. And since the match wasn’t about Awesome at all, it doesn’t help him either. But it wasn’t that bad. This was a knock-off of Stone Cold vs. Dude Love at Over the Edge 98. We’re backstage with Kevin Nash! Still no Goldberg. Nash says he cares about two things: money and the belt. “I’m going over Steiner” tonight. WCW World Tag Team Championship Kronik© vs. The Dark Carnival (The Great Muta and Vampiro) You know in EWR where you overuse a guy on a show and you get sick of them? That’s how I feel about Vampiro and Muta right now. Shame about Muta, you know, since he’s Muta. Schiavone and Madden imply that it wasn’t a motorcycle accident that shelved Goldberg, but that something went down backstage. This is going to be really stupid later. Vampiro looks like he’s trying. So there’s that. Adams military presses Vampiro…but Vampiro lands on his feet when he wasn’t supposed to clearly. Not a surprise. Brian Adams as the babyface in peril doesn’t really work. Adams with the revenge no-sell: a dropkick to the knees. The Great Muta is really wasted here. Referee gets MISTED. Oh god the Harris Bros. The Great Muta and Vampiro win the titles when Muta pinned Clarke in 9:06. Harris Bros. hit the H-Bomb on Clarke. Muta moonsault for the win. I guess the Harris Bros. wanted revenge on Adams for leaving DOA in 1997? Anyway, this match was boring. Booker T interview. Jarrett didn’t finish the job. Etc. #1 Contender to the World Title Match Kevin Nash vs. Scott Steiner vs. Goldberg (maybe) GOLDBERG musc! No Goldberg though. GOLDBERG music again! Worst Goldberg sign ever in the crowd. It was on box cardboard. No Goldberg again. GOLDBERG’s here with taped ribs. Wow Nash botches getting into the ring. He stepped over the top rope and his leg got caught. Some hard hitting action here. It’s nothing exciting, as the crowd busts out a boring chant, but I mean, it’s not horrible or anything. Kevin Nash goes for the Jackknife…but Goldberg decides to escape. Nash gives Goldberg a perplexed look and Goldberg bails. Russo meets Goldberg near the entrance and Goldberg says fuck you. REALITY. Let the shoot conversation commence. There’s some unintentional comedy here, as the commentators talk about how Goldberg left because going up for the Jackknife would make him look bad, but Nash and Scott Steiner are pros and will improvise a finish. Nash and Steiner. Most professional wrestlers out there for sure. Steiner just shoves the ref as Midajah low blows Nash. Nash low blow. Midajah comes back and elbow drops Nash in the nuts. That was unique. Awful DDT from Nash. Madden says he’s never seen Nash do a DDT. It’s obvious why. Kevin Nash wins when he pins Scott Steiner in 10:48. Jackknife for the win! Obviously the shoot stuff is garbage and stupid, but the match itself isn’t as bad as you’d expect. Once again, it’s nothing particularly good, but not really bad either. WCW World Championship Booker T© vs. Jeff Jarrett Booker’s selling the knee from earlier. Jarrett attacks before the bell! Booker with a nice blocked dropkick powerbomb spot. Although it was pretty early for that. I do like Booker doing all his kicks and high risk moves…then selling the leg when he does them. Good storytelling. I guess there’s No DQ here, as Jarrett smashes Booker’s knee with a chair. Jarrett drops too early on the Scissors Kick…but whatever, SPINAROONI…and Booker accidentally knocks out the ref with the spinarooni. Seriously? Harlem Sidekick….NO Jarrett smashes Booker’s leg with a guitar! I thought that was great to be honest. Figure Four! Ref is back. Apparently doesn’t notice the guitar remnants though. Jarrett holds onto the hold the literal max time after the rope break. A little too long. Ref tries to help Booker up…and Jarrett accidentally nails the ref with the title. Booker sets up a table on the outside. Book-End through the table…but it didn’t really look good. Jarrett with a weak chairshot to the ref…thinking he was Booker. Stroke on an open chair…which didn’t look great either. 3rd ref in, Booker kicks out. Horrible swinging neckbreaker on the chair by Booker. Two count. Booker T retains the title when he pinned Jarrett in 14:54. Book-End for the win. Okay match, weirdness and screw ups at the end kinda ruined it. Good that Booker was getting an established 2000 title reign…since no one else in WCW was. There are some positives in this thing, although certainly more negatives. First I will say this is better than Halloween Havoc 2000 for sure. There is a good match for the opener, a decent Storm match and a decent main event. The only atrocious things on this show is the Stacy Keibler thing and the two different hanging attempts. Even the Goldberg stuff…it may be stupid but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Booker vs. Jarrett is a decent main event. I will say this though. They should have run a legit 25 minute Storm vs. Awesome Canadian Title Match as the main. Have Bret Hart be at ringside or a commentator or something. Lance Storm was megaover here and obviously so was Bret. A lot of bad stuff, some horrible stuff, some decent stuff and a little good. It’s enough to avoid the flat out F, but it was close. Final Grade: D Edited by RDT, Mar 9 2014, 09:05 PM.
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| Baldwin | Mar 10 2014, 12:31 AM Post #26 |
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6x EBL Champion
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Great American Bash 2004 |
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| Darth Vader | Mar 10 2014, 12:46 AM Post #27 |
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I AM YOUR FATHER.
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If i can ask for 2, id like Armegeddon 2002 and Hell In A Cell 2004 please. |
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Mar 11 2014, 01:07 AM Post #28 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image ECW Barely Legal April 13, 1997 Philadelphia, PA Background: This was it. ECW for years had tried their damnest to get on Pay-Per-View. Companies thought they were too violent. Companies thought they were real. ECW actually got on the PPV schedule for 1997, but the Lesbian Kiss angle, Sandman Crucifixion and most importantly, the Mass Transit incident got them kicked off. ECW found a way back on though. Amazingly if not sadly, things wouldn’t be that great for ECW much longer. Their talent rosters had already been raided (mostly by WCW) and the more notable they got, the more that would happen. Nonetheless, this is a big moment for ECW, so let’s dive into it. The Card Joey Styles runs down the card…but The Dudley Boyz show up. Dudleyz cut a promo. They weren’t ridiculously offensive yet, but still riot inducing heels. We get the ECW Opening Video. Weird order of things. Joel Gertner with his limericks! ECW World Tag Team Championship The Dudley Boyz© vs. The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn) Sign Guy Dudley “attacks” the Eliminators…and gets hit with Total Elimination! This is more of a Texas Tornado match early on. Springboard backflip from Saturn into a double dropkick. Nice. Saturn would be in WCW in September of 97. Double Feliner (that’s all I know it as, damn Cat) from the Eliminators! Double twisting top rope splashes. This is all Eliminators. Kronus catapults Saturn in a backflip/moonsault from the ring to both Dudleyz on the outside. Space Flying Kronus Drop! Totally forgot that Saturn once had one of the best top rope elbow drops in the business. Double jump springboard moonsault from Saturn. Really a shame he tore his ACL a couple months from this. Kronus with a nice 450 splash! The Eliminators win the title when Kronus pinned Buh Buh Ray Dudley in 6:11. They double kick Buh Buh, then hit Total Elimination for the win. Match was 95% Eliminators. It works because ECW was trying to be different, and this was. How many total six minute ass kickings did you see on the WWF and WCW at the time? Also, great idea to start the show with a title change, makes the show feel important right out of the gate. As for the wrestling, it is a bit sloppy, but some of the spots you just didn’t see on a national stage in the US at the time. Perfectly good way to start the show. I’d even bet this match is how Saturn got signed away to WCW. Joel Gertner states that in his scoring system, the Dudleyz win 86-83 and they are still the champs. He also gets Total Elimination…which led to the broken neck cast for his career (he even uses it at One Night Stand!) Sandman hype video. He was the #2 guy behind Raven over the past year. Lance Storm vs. Rob Van Dam This match has some historical significance. Chris Candido, fresh off being Skip, got injured and was supposed to face Storm. RVD replaced him. RVD was legitimately upset over this as he felt he was overlooked. Smartly, Paul Heyman took advantage of this, first convincing RVD to stay, then running with the Mr. Monday Night gimmick and how everyone wants RVD. Of course, RVD is the biggest star to ever come out of ECW. Surprisingly, neither of these guys would get a WWF or WCW deal until 2000 (Storm). Some okay chain wrestling early. RVD always had a great leaping somersault plancha. Storm jumps to the top rope cleanly and hits a back elbow. Storm goes SPLAT. RVD with a moonsault off the railing! RVD has the arrogance thing going on. Sell-out chants for RVD. You know, Paul Heyman knew how to do the REALITY thing. Frog Splash from RVD. Kick out from Storm. It wasn’t his finisher yet. Storm with a nice last second splash off a cartwheel. Storm gets the floatover Crab, but it wasn’t clean. Storm with the weakest chair shot of all time…but when a very nice powerbomb on a chair. How confusing. Storm tries to hit a top rope guillotine legdrop on RVD and an open chair, but it doesn’t quite work. RVD botches one of my favorite moves. He crotches Storm on the top rope (not a corner) then goes for the springboard flying back kick…but he falls and only hits an elbow. Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 10:10. WEAK chair shots. But…RVD punishes Storm with a Van Daminator (the coolest move in the industry in my opinion at the time). Match was designed to get all of RVD and Storm’s spots in to show them off on a national stage. But, the match was pretty damn sloppy and some stuff was just botched. You don’t hear this match as one of those where RVD stole the show. Nonetheless, RVD does a “No Respect” promo which launched Mr. Monday Night. Gran Hamada, The Great Sasuke and Masato Yakushiji vs. Taka Michinoku, Terry Boy and Dick Togo When Jim Ross said Sasuke vs. Taka was each of those two’s first North American PPV match at Canadian Stampede…he missed this. Michinoku Pro are honorary members of the BWO. Streamers! Must be a Japanese thing according to Styles. Sasuke would have some more ECW matches, most notably putting over Justin Credible. Taka would be WWF Lightheavyweight Champ by December. Dick Togo is like a great power cruiserweight. The crispness of these moves is awesome. Hamada with a lightning fast armbar. Nice. AMAZING sequences of moves between Terry and Sasuke. I can’t even explain it, but it had about 10 reversals and some cartwheels. Wow. Ouch, they stand Sasuke on his head and Taka dropkicks him right in the gut. Michinoku Pro with an awesome group taunt and they included Sasuke! Terry Boy is named that as a tribute to Terry Funk. He busts out the Spinning Toe Hold. Wow Terry Boy props up Masato with a weak slingshot…so Togo can clothesline him down and Taka can come off the top with a flying knee drop! Michinoku Pro gets a triple powerbomb on Masato, but they botch it on Sasuke. The only mistake this whole match. Bad Sasuke hurricanrana counter as well. Sasuke with a Asai Moonsault and he lands in the crowd! Hamada with a really nice leaping swinging DDT. Sasuke, Hamada and Yakushiji win when Sasuke pinned Taka in 16:55. Sasuke hits a Tiger Suplex on Taka for the win. Very good match, although I recall this being heralded as one of the best matches of the year (it wouldn’t even crack my top 3 matches on PPV that year). But nonetheless very fun and very good. Big Stevie Cool backstage skit. BWO! He didn’t think he was a man being Raven’s flunky. He was in WCW in three months as well. ECW TV Championship Shane Douglas© vs. Pitbull #2 Story here: Douglas broke the neck of Pitbull #1. Revenge for Pitbull #2, maybe. Francine was also the former manager of the Pitbulls. Francine is pretty damn hot. Pitbull #1 is in the front row. Douglas interview, talks about breaking Pitbull #1’s neck. Also about the masked stalker he has. By the way, the Triple H Game gimmick was done first by Douglas. Although Douglas never evolved. Headlock start really killed the crowd. Bad start. It’s early, but this match is missing on all accounts right now. Very boring. Blown spot where Douglas does a twisting crossbody and the Pitbull catches him…but then has to drop him. Pitbull does a weak Fall Away slam for Douglas to go over the top rope and though a table, but even that looks weak. Pit Bull #1 gets involved, and crowd didn’t even pop for it. This is not a good match. Pitbull #2 throws a steel guardrail in the ring. They botch crotching Pitbull #2 on the guardrail. Jeez. Even the brass knuckles spot is boring and unexciting. Shane Douglas retains by pin at 20:43. Overhead belly to belly out of nowhere for the win. Match was awful. While Douglas seemed off, Pitbull #2 had to put in the laziest performance of any wrestler I can remember, Vampiro included. Horrible punches. He wouldn’t even kick out right at the end. No surprise that he was gone in a few months and never caught on with WWF or WCW. Terrible match that went 12-13 minutes too long. Paul Heyman apparently apologized for it as well. Here comes the masked man! He’ll take off the mask if he gets the girl! Everyone seems to know it’s Ruck Rude, including Joey Styles. Shocker…it’s not Rude…as Rude comes out from being disguised as one of Douglas’ bodyguards! It was Brian Lee who’s turned on Douglas. No idea why this all happened, but it was better than the 20 minute snorefest we just got. Crowd agrees. By the way, both Lee and Rude were in the WWF in 4 months. I feel bad for ECW sometimes. Raven interview! He kinda gives away the fact that Terry Funk is going to win the three way to face him later. You know, since he’s cutting a promo on him. Taz promo. Last hype job for the grudge match of the century! Sabu vs. Taz This match had been built up since 1995 I believe, when Sabu left Taz while they were World Tag Champs. It turned into a lot of moments where both men were close to coming to blows, but never would. Each claimed to be scared of the other. To be honest, the build was absolutely fantastic. Taz is the heel and Sabu is the face. This just has a big match feel. Taz with the early Taz-Mission attempt…although Sabu escapes and Styles calls it as a huge deal. Focus is mostly on Taz outwrestling Sabu, which I don’t really think is the way to go to be honest. I always thought Sabu’s springboard leg lariat was a real creative move. Sabu with the plancha into the crowd! Landing was a bit off…but it incites a serious ECW chant nonetheless. Nice submission holds from Taz (Bow and Arrow), but this isn’t what the crowd wants. Some nice chair spots. Sabu misses Taz on an chair springboard dive, then Taz overhead belly to belly suplexes him over the top (which makes Douglas’ finish look awful anyway). Unfortunately, while I’m sure it hurt, it didn’t look great. Sabu goes for a swinging DDT though a table off the apron, but Taz counters and sends Sabu through the table. Bill Alfonso, who is Taz’s manager here, starts begging Sabu to get up. Styles calls it mocking, but this makes sense in a few minutes. Sky high legdrop from Sabu! Very nice. Taz wins when Sabu passes out in 17:49. Sabu escapes a Taz-Mission with a suplex…but Taz suplexes Sabu in return on his head. Sabu though then busts out his own T-Bone Tazplex! Sabu locks in the Taz-Mission on Taz! Taz counters and drops Sabu on his head twice with two suplexes…then the Taz-Mission ends it. Watching Alfonso here is also quite telling as he looks disappointed, too bad it isn’t referenced. Sabu and Taz shake and hug to boos…but here comes Rob Van Dam! They double team Taz! Sabu botches driving Taz through the table, then dangerously does it a 2nd time (where we easily could have broken his neck). Sabu chokes out Taz with his own hold. Alfonso then reveals a Sabu shirt! How often does the manager end up siding with the loser of the team (he bet money on Sabu to win)! Anyway, this began the awesome RVD-Sabu team. RVD says he “loves to work Mondays”. Awesome. Let’s talk about this match for a bit. It’s a good match, but this is the problem. This was supposed to be the greatest grudge match in history. Taz said it best in the ECW Rise and Fall documentary that there was no way the match was going to live up to expectations and unfortunately he was correct. I do think they should have done a different type of match though. Maybe because it wasn’t late enough yet or something, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of violence on this show. This match (and Douglas-Pitbull #2) needed hardcore matches, not wrestling matches. Here comes Tommy Dreamer for some commentary for the main events. I wonder why he didn’t wrestle on this show. #1 Contender to the ECW World Championship The Sandman vs. Terry Funk vs. Big Stevie Cool BWO! BWO! Here comes the Sandman. Dubbed entrance, but I do like Megadeth’s Trust anyway. This may be a while. Sandman starts the match off by drinking and spitting the beer in Stevie’s face. Tommy says he won’t interfere in this match or the one with Raven for Funk. Again, just giving it away are we? The crowd is hot for this, which is good, because this has been some sloppy wrestling so far. Four neckbreakers on Stevie Cool. Sandman just throws a ladder in the ring and nails Funk, what a throw. Funk with a moonsault off the top of the ladder (nutcase) which totally misses Stevie…except for a boot. Still, crazy old man with a crazy spot. Sandman takes the ladder and comes off the top and smashes Richards. You don’t even see that in Ladder matches today! Funk with the spinning ladder! Styles with the accurate assessment: Funk’s nuts. Catapult move seem to get botched somehow, as the ladder doesn’t come up. Crowd clearly wants Stevie to win this thing by the way. Stevie Kick gets 2 on the Sandman…crowd chants bullshit. Some crazy Sandman over the top rope dive to catapult the ladder into Stevie’s face. Ouch. Sandman with a PERFECT toss of a trash can into the ring…as it lands with a crash on Terry Funk’s head! Another ladder catapult! The ladder goes flying and almost ends up in the crowd. Sandman must be drunk. Double powerbomb eliminates Stevie. Fans are not happy. I never realized Stevie was so over here. Sandman finds barbed wire in the streamers that were thrown earlier! Funk though, gets it and whips the hell out of the Sandman with it. Ouch. Terry Funk wins when he pins Sandman in 19:07. Sandman legdrop from the top only gets two. Richards on the apron, but Sandman (who wrapped himself in barbed wire) body splashes him off. Funk gets control by getting the can on Sandman’s head. Stevie Kick, then a Funk Moonsault for the pin. Very sloppy…but I guess it could still be classified as a fun brawl. Raven’s out right away, as there is only ten minutes of show time left. ECW World Championship Raven© vs. Terry Funk This is booked smartly early, as Raven beats the crap out of Funk. Funk just wrestled a 20 minute violent brawl. So it makes sense. Funk is bleeding everywhere. There’s a doctor in the ring, but Funk continues on. Commentary from Dreamer is awesome, as he’s near tears as he promised he wouldn’t help his mentor. Doctor’s in there again. The Funker fights on. Raven drives Funk through a table with a flying dive over the top rope. That looked very cool! Raven takes out the doc! Reggie Bennett is out here. No Idea who she is, but she attacks Funk (Raven’s Nest did own). Raven gets on the mic. He says he’s going to end Funk’s career right here. Big Dick Dudley attacks Dreamer with a hard trash can shot! Dreamer turns the tide though and chokeslams (kinda) Dudley off the stage through a stack of tables! OH MY GOD from Styles! Dreamer’s coming for Raven! Dreamer throws a trash can at Raven…who catches it and throws it back at Dreamer. It gets Dreamer good…and he awesomely no-sells! Terry Funk wins the ECW Title when he pinned Raven in 7:20. Dreamer DDT. 1…2…no…? Fans thought it was over. THE BELL EVEN RANG….but Raven kicked out. Small package…and that gets the three! Big pop for the title win. Match wasn’t even a match really, in fact the small package was the only move Funk got in. But it was a fun mess of interference and Raven kicking Funk’s ass…with a great moment at the end. This is a tough one to grade. If I grade it purely on its quality of matches, it is a disappointing show overall, somewhere in the C+ range. One great match quality wise, a couple of good ones (even if one of those didn’t live up to the hype) and some crazy brawling. If you grade it on the historical aspect, this PPV launched RVD’s career. It launched Taz’s top run as a face. It put ECW on PPV, and it lasted four more years in a very competitive era for wrestling. It had great moments. This was an ECW fan’s dream. Sometimes you have to go with history. It’s almost a B+ and would be if not for the disappointing hype around Taz vs. Sabu (still a good match)….and the disaster that was Douglas vs. Pitbull #2. Final Grade: B |
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Mar 13 2014, 04:15 AM Post #29 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image The Great American Bash 2004 June 27, 2004 Norfolk, VA Background: Smackdown in 2004 is a strange time. Ever since the Brand Extension, Smackdown had some of the best wrestling in the world and was a critically acclaimed show. Suddenly though, Brock Lesnar was gone, Chris Benoit and Edge were on RAW and Kurt Angle and Big Show were injured. There were definitely guys who could step up and main event with WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero…but the one WWE went with was totally unexpected and the decision was panned at the time. (And still kinda is, even if I did become a big fan of JBL, his reign was not good business wise). The misuse of Rob Van Dam and Booker T just made no sense here…as did the idea to not keep Edge on Smackdown. You’ve gotta feel bad for Guerrero. This was the classic set up to fails scenario. Smackdown was not going to succeed with him on top with the lack of star power on the brand no matter how good he was, and evidence in his book you can see that the pressure to succeed as champion was really tough on him. Another point to note is that we do see the continued emergence of John Cena here as well. We’ll talk about The Undertaker when we get there. The Card Torrie Wilson is our host I guess? Opening video does make this card seem a lot better than it is. WWE US Championship: Four-way Elimination John Cena© vs. Booker T vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Rene Dupree One of these is not like the other. I think this is an outright strange choice for a match considering the lack of star power on the roster…and how other matches on this card would suffer. Also, Booker T and RVD needed to be used better than half of a US title match. This was also still Thuganomics John Cena. Man RVD gets no crowd reaction. How do you ruin Rob Van Dam? For the record, RVD getting injured later in the year was a blessing for him, as it allowed him to have a hot comeback with ECW. Booker and RVD were feuding here, kinda. It led to the worst finish in Smackdown history, as Booker was DQed for punching RVD when he was in the ropes. Rene Dupree does have big heat on him being French here. Dupree has a headlock on RVD while Booker T is just hanging outside. Cena is standing around too. While it actually makes sense for Booker and Cena…it doesn’t make a good match. Now Cena vs. RVD with Booker and Dupree standing outside. Who decided it was a good idea to structure the match this way? THE FRENCH TICKLER. The only thing Rene Dupree did that was memorable. Cena rolls up RVD for the pin to eliminate him. Wow, Dupree lasted longer than RVD. Booker pins Dupree after Cena FUs him. Cena vs. Booker left, and since they would go this direction, it makes sense. John Cena retains when he pinned Booker in 15:52. Booker misses a Scissors Kick and Cena gets the FU for the pin. There’s nothing really wrong with this match, but it is a shame to see RVD flat out wasted here. Kurt Angle admonishes Charlie Haas. He’s disappointed in him as he was his protégé but now he has a better one in Luther Reigns. He sets up this impromptu match. Sable promo about how she looks better than Torrie Wilson. Depends on your preference I guess. I’d take Torrie. Charlie Haas vs. Luther Reigns People just don’t care about Luther Reigns. That wouldn’t ever change either. Unfortunately, people didn’t care about Charlie Haas post World’s Greatest Tag Team either…but that’s actually a bit of a shame. Anyway fans boo the early offense of Reigns. Haas clearly misses a dropkick but Reigns sells it by stumbling back anyway. Nice suplex from Charlie Haas there. Luther Reigns pins Charlie Haas in 7:11. Reigns hits the Roll of the Dice (CrossRhodes, whatever) for the win. Absolutely nothing wrong with this match either, in fact I thought Haas looked good as a babyface in peril. Too bad he never got the chance Shelton Benjamin got post draft (remember, Benjamin went over HHH right away). Fans really couldn’t give a crap about either guy though. Still, not really a bad match as really it was just boring. JBL promo! I did think it was weird that JBL went all New York City but then brought back the Texas Bullrope Match. WWE Cruiserweight Championship Rey Mysterio © vs. Chavo Guerrero Three problems with the idea of this match before it begins. #1. Chavo just got finished jobbing the title to Jacqueline in a program I’ll never understand. Sure screwed the prestige of the title though. #2. Rey Mysterio and Chavo have probably wrestled tons of times at this point. On PPV they only had one match so far (in WWE at least) at No Way Out 2004. This wasn’t a hot feud, but really moreso they had nothing planned for either so just keep cruiserweight titling it away! #3. Rey Mysterio is a perfect example of someone where if put in a better spot, could have helped this show a lot. Really couldn’t run an Eddie vs. Rey for the title program? The standard fast paced chain wrestling and springboard counters start the match. Revolutionary in the US in 1996 surely, but not in 2004. Chavo dropkicks Rey off the top rope, very Jericho like. Story of the match is for Chavo to work the knee. This match is all mat based, which is okay I guess. I think the problem is this is Chavo’s best style…but he’s nowhere near as good as Benoit, Eddie or Jericho, who were all in the promotion at the time. Weird double facebuster off the top rope. I actually like the Gory Guerrero Bomb. It’s a cool move. West Coast Pop into a half-crab was nice. Rey Mysterio retains when he pins Chavo in 19:40. Chavo goes for another Gory Bomb, but gets caught in that awesome sunset flip for the three. This is a good match where Rey really sold the knee well. The issue is, most people watch Rey Mysterio for high flying stuff, and the story of the match had little high flying due to the knee. But it was still good. Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn Attitude vs. new school! Kenzo’s never been pinned or been made to submit yet. 2003 was the last gasp to try to make Billy Gunn a top guy, but he floundered. By this point, the Mr. Ass run was on its last legs. Kenzo was always just really awkward in the ring. That’s the best way I can describe him. His selling is strange too, very one second he’s selling the next he’s not (as evidenced by a Billy Gunn boot to the face). Three of the eight minutes of this match was spent in a resthold. Pretty bad. Fans hate it. The way Suzuki telegraphs moves actually reminds me of The Great Khali. Take from that what you’d like. Shining Wizard gets two. First exciting thing in the match. Kenzo Suzuki pinned Billy Gunn in 8:06. Kenzo botches a reverse DDT into his knee…and that gets three? Isn’t that one of Christian’s secondary moves? Why not just use the Shining Wizard? Anyway, match was boring and bad. Nothing happened and the finish was botched. No surprise Kenzo only lasted a year. Paul Heyman and Paul Bearer in the back. Heyman is mad that everyone thinks he’s bluffing about putting Bearer in the Concrete Crypt. Bearer’s facial expressions own here. Sable vs. Torrie Wilson Battle of Playboy covers here. Cole says the Great American Bash is used to matches like Dean Malenko vs. Arn Anderson. Just had to point that out eh Cole? Nice neck snap from Sable! I didn’t expect that. They follow with botching a rollup. But whatever. Match has slowed to a crawl with the self-chinlock. Horrible floatover suplex. Sable landed with her feet somehow, and Torrie didn’t complete the floatover. They both knock heads and are down! Sable pins Torrie Wilson in 6:06. Horrible botched finish here. Torrie gets up from the bumped heads spot, but Sable doesn’t. They go with the “Torrie wants to pin Sable but the ref says back up I need to make sure Sable is okay” finish (which never makes any sense. She’s not supposed to be okay, which is why Torrie should go for the pin!). Then a surprise roll-up from Sable…but somehow she goes too far so Torrie’s shoulder is WAY off the canvas, but the ref counts three anyway. Horrible. Awful match. It was so bad they had to talk about the finish on commentary. Best interview ever with Rene Dupree. It’s because of what Dawn Marie is not wearing. Nunzio gets involved and is a bit funny here too. The FBI own Dupree. Hardcore Holly vs. Mordecai New school vs. Attitude era part two! The story for this match was funny. Hardcore Holly and Moredcai were just found brawling last Thursday, and here we are. For the record, the past three matches were all made three nights ago, and Haas vs. Reigns was made this night. Here is someone who just doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing in the ring. Just sloppy all around. Long headlock here. I think a neckbreaker was supposed to happen, but somehow Mordecai and Holly bang heads. I think it was off Mordecai jumping way too high on a stun gun. Mordecai pins Hardcore Holly in 6:31. Alabama Slam reversed into the Crucifix Bomb for the win. Match was boring, one spot was botched. I guess not as bad as the previous two matches, but not good either. It was bad enough that despite being undefeated and getting a win on PPV, we never saw Mordecai again as he was sent to OVW. He wasn’t good as Kevin Thorn. I actually liked the gimmick…but it didn’t work. WWE Championship: Texas Bullrope Match Eddie Guerrero© vs. JBL Touching the four corners rules in effect. The cowbell is a weird weapon. A lot of choking with the rope early on. Eddie dropkicks JBL into the corner and it’s JBL’s second corner. Establishing this actually makes sense for later. Big chairshot busts JBL wide open. Good story as it’s revenge for what happened at Judgment Day 04. Another chairshot to the head. Was this the first time Bradshaw ever bled? I don’t remember him doing so as a member of the APA. Eddie’s corner lights stop working. Weird. Eddie hits a frog splash! Eddie has dominated this match. JBL rolls out of the ring, which is a genius move here as Eddie can’t reach the corner now. JBL uses the rope as a noose and sends Eddie from the corner onto the announce table (which didn’t break)! Nice spot though. Powerbomb through the table by JBL! JBL wins the WWE Title in 21:06. After some near JBL wins, Eddie beats the crap out of him with the cowbell. Eddie then goes to touch the corners, but JBL follows and touches the first three behind Eddie. (JBL’s first light doesn’t work. Nice job WWE). JBL then gets the advantage as he pulls Eddie and goes for the fourth corner. Eddie does a dive at the corner and gets it, splashing JBL in the corner in the process! Eddie retains….but no, Kurt Angle points out that JBL’s shoulder hit first and he wins the title. Dusty Finish aside, the match is pretty good. Probably the best of JBL’s career. Concrete Crypt Match The Undertaker vs. The Dudley Boyz Your main event! You know this is a bad idea when I’m hating an Undertaker match. Story here: Taker returned all dead…but there were no top heels on Smackdown for him to face (my theory on why we got JBL). He kinda buried Booker in May. So, Heyman became that top heel, and challenged the Dudleyz to make a difference or get tough or something. Dudleyz abducted Paul Bearer and Heyman used that to control the Undertaker in what would have been an awesome heel turn (and opponent for Guerrero). Nonetheless, here we are. If Taker doesn’t do the right thing (lose?) Bearer gets entombed in cement. What’s the point of the Dudleyz winning then? I don’t know. Why is this the main event? I don’t know. I love the Undertaker, but Eddie vs. JBL needed to be main eventing. It’s not a feather in the Dudleyz cap if Taker lays down for them…since they really wouldn’t be beating him you know. So far anytime Taker is owning the match, Heyman threatens to bury Bearer. Heyman eventually has enough and does it, but Bubba Ray Dudley begs him to stop because he wants to finish off the Undertaker. Now it’s all Dudleyz. But since the outcome is in little doubt, it’s pretty damn boring. All the mic work is being down by Bubba. I never realized it, but I bet this was a chance to see if Bubba Ray Dudley could be a top guy. The answer is no by the way. (At least in 2004, Bully Ray is pretty cool in TNA). Michael Cole actually calls the inverted double neckbreaker as the double team. Just lol. The Undertaker defeats the Dudley Boyz when he pinned D-Von in 14:42. Tombstone for the win. Ok, so Taker shoots a lightning bolt at Heyman when Heyman tries to finish off Bearer (where was that shit earlier Undertaker?), then gets to Bearer. Instead of saving him though, he tells him it has to be this way and finishes the job. It’s like writers were so happy to get the old school Undertaker back, so they decided to write an angle for him, forgetting the fact that it’s 2004 and not 1994. Anyway, match is a disjointed mess and made no sense. I would have assumed this to be the main event of a WCW 2000 PPV. Why couldn’t we just run Eddie vs. Taker in the summer? Anyway, this PPV has some good moments but kinda sucks when you put it all together. Only one really good match (JBL! And Eddie of course). One good match that was missing something (Rey-Chavo) Everything else ranges from decent (US title) to borderline ok (Reigns-Haas) to terrible and bad. Historically it became a running joke that the Great American Bash was the worst PPV of the year. The JBL title reign wasn’t exactly a draw, but it was surprisingly entertaining. This wasn’t a heel turn for Undertaker, just an explanation to get away from Bearer (and a dumb one), nevermind that it seemed to imply that Taker killed Bearer. This would be a C or C+ in normal circumstances, but for the crap it’s gotta be a bit lower. I do think it’s overall better than December to Dismember though…and actually it was a lot better than I remember it. Final Grade: C- |
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| Baldwin | Mar 13 2014, 05:43 PM Post #30 |
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6x EBL Champion
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Survivor Series 1998 |
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4:46 AM Jul 11