| Welcome to EBLv4 Forums. We hope you join our league. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you cannot experience many things that our members can. However, sign up and you will get access to these things, such as the EBLv4 Sim Basketball League, the Diary section full of compositions, and many other things Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features |
| RDT PPV Reviews | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Feb 25 2014, 01:46 AM (5,516 Views) | |
| Hajjhowe | Mar 13 2014, 05:57 PM Post #31 |
|
Halfcourt Heroes
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
In Your House: Degeneration X |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 14 2014, 12:45 AM Post #32 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WWE Armageddon 2002 December 15, 2002 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Background: 2002 was perhaps the strangest year in WWE history. What started with a HHH comeback and the end of the InVasion era with the NWO ended with two new (for different reasons) faces on the top of the card. Those faces were Brock Lesnar, someone who received a ridiculous mega push and impressively handled it, and Shawn Michaels, who was out as an active wrestler for four (of the most profitable) years but made a very unlikely return. Never mind that there are now two World Champions, a splitting of the roster (Brand Extension!) and just a real overall change of who WWE was going with. Gone were the days of Stone Cold vs. The Rock headlining (although they’d have one more big match). It was now guys like Lesnar, HBK, HHH, Kurt Angle and Undertaker. A lot of the Alliance guys had spots on the card and would be all over the place. For the first time, I’d argue there were too many guys that could have been at the top, and not enough in the midcard (which is why guys like Jericho, RVD and Kane would never stay in the main event. I didn’t even get into the WWE debuts/returns of Hulk Hogan, Scott Steiner and Eric Bischoff. With that being said, let’s see how it all comes together. The Card I am always going to be a fan of the Armageddon theme. World Tag Team Championship Chris Jericho and Christian© vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. Lance Storm and William Regal vs. Booker T and Goldust Quick 2002 recaps for these guys: Jericho went from Undisputed Champ to midcard with random main event runs, Christian was in an awesome team with Storm, Dudleyz were broken up most of 02 due to the Brand Extension…but at Survivor Series they reunited. Storm and Regal were in the midcard. Booker T hadn’t gotten a big push…yet, Goldust was lucky to be employed. As with most 4 way tags, there is no flow early on as there are so many pieces and different teams tagging in and out. For some reason Goldust and Bubba Ray Dudley are working together. This is exactly what I mean about flow. First elimination is botched. Storm top rope legdrops Bubba Ray and Regal tries to pin him and get the tights…only he pulls so hard so Bubba actually pins him…then Regal redoes it to get the pin. Goldust then pins Regal anyway, so we’re down to Jericho and Christian vs. Booker and Goldust. Goldust takes a nice bump by missing a crossbody and flying out of the ring. Fans are really into Booker T here. This tag match really went up quality wise when we went to two teams. Nice false finish with Jericho hitting Booker with the belt and a Lionsault! Booker T and Goldust win the title when Booker pins Chris Jericho in 16:43. Jericho tries to hit Booker again with the title, but Booker turns it into a Book-End for the win! Pretty good match once it went down to two teams. Didn’t see the point of adding Storm and Regal and the Dudleyz considering how they went out. Nice opener. Josh Matthews backstage interviews Brock Lesnar. Lesnar was turned face here because of the Paul Heyman turn at Survivor Series. He’s here to make an impact! Edge vs. A-Train Here comes the A-Train push. I thought he was actually better than people give him credit for in 2003. Doesn’t mean he was good though. Story here: A-Train is looking to make an impact. He beat up Rey Mysterio Jr.. Then attacked Edge. Here we are. A-Train took a weird bump on a roll-up. Match has been pretty uneventful. Edge with a tornado Edgeucator? The way he pin A-Train was dangerous though…(unless you’d want to see A-Train’s balls). Edge wins by DQ. A-Train nails Edge in the leg with a chair. That’s a TV finish, not a PPV finish. Edge gets revenge though and kinda kills any monster gimmick from A-Train there. Match was uneventful and boring. A-Train still isn’t ready as his timing was off (weird roll-up bump, dove on a facebuster are two examples). Whatever. World Champ Big Show is angry about Brock being in Kurt Angle’s corner later. Heyman said he’ll take care of it. Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit No crowd reaction for either guy…but that’s because Benoit kinda sorta turned when Eddie attacked him. He’s still probably a tweener here. Even though it’s been a fast paced hard hitting start, some small errors by Eddie and Benoit on armdrags. Eddie with a sick looking legheadlock. They kinda mess up the skyhigh pancake as well. Timing very off between the two. Indian Deathlock from Eddie! One of my favorite holds! Totally forgot about Eddie’s Lasso From El Paso submission hold. German suplex after German suplex after German suplex etc. etc. Poor Eddie. More Germans. Eddie finally counters and gets some on Benoit though! Perfect Frog Splash from Eddie! Kickout from Benoit! Chavo’s out here. He smacks Benoit with the tag title belt! Lasso From El Paso! I think it’s a variation of the Texas Cloverleaf, so maybe it’s a Malenko tribute. Ridiculous powerbomb by Benoit. Wow. I cringe a bit when I see the Benoit Diving Headbutt, but it’s still damn impressive. Chris Benoit makes Eddie Guerrero submit in 16:47. Benoit tries to lock in the Crossface, then makes an awesome switch of the sides when Eddie went for the ropes. Roll through…but Benoit holds on and Eddie taps. Sure, it was a slow start, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a great match. I’m sure that surprised no one. Heyman-Stephanie interaction. Nothing special here, Steph just holds that Lesnar will be here. We get the Dawn Marie, Torrie Wilson, Al Wilson angle. Dawn Marie tries to show the night her and Torrie spent together. Of course, it’s teased, but we don’t see anything significant before Al Wilson calls it off. Fans are pissed, and rightfully so. Interestingly, WWE was doing a bunch of gay and lesbian angles through 2002. HLA. Billy and Chuck. Now this. Torrie and Dawn do make out in the video, I’m not sure if that’s considered risky TV in 2002. Anyway, this is ultimately a waste of time. This was the highlight of the angle. Kane vs. Batista It’s easily forgotten, but it wasn’t as if WWE just suddenly pushes Batista to the moon in 2005. They were trying since 2002. Batista had an ugly spear. Kane looks like he’s moving in slow motion. Ric Flair with the highlights of the match as he viciously attacks Kane…and Kane no sells it all. It was pretty funny. Batista was really really green here and it shows. Everything is off. Batista botches the Batista Bomb. Couldn’t get him up all the way. Pretty bad spinebuster that JR calls the Sidewalk Slam. Batista pins Kane in 6:38. Kane hits the chokeslam, but Flair distracts the ref. Batista Bomb for the win. You know Kane was on fire (not literally) when he came back in July. Once the whole Katie Vick deal happened the idea of a serious Kane push was gone. Now he’s making a rookie Batista look good in 6 minutes. They’d try again with Kane next year too. Angle’s looking for Lesnar! A VERY early Thuganomics John Cena is out here for a rap. He’s with B-Squared! Um..ok then. That was it. WWE Women’s Championship Victoria© vs. Trist Stratus vs. Jacqueline Psycho Victoria was an awesome gimmick. Wow crazy start. Skinning the cat from Jackie. Victoria with a somersault legdrop on Trish from the outside. Trish’s Stratusfaction gets turned into a double back suplex! Sick superplex on Trish from Victoria. Jackie and Trish mess up a pin spot as Jackie released before Trish kicked out. Trish with a great kick combo to Victoria! Messed up pin there. Victoria wasn’t in position to break it up, so Trish unnecessarily stalled on a pin and it looked bad. Victoria retains when she pinned Jackie in 4:28. Victoria whacks Trish in the head with the title belt when she had a pin, and Victoria steals it. Had a great start, but fell apart midway unfortunately. Still, I mean, usually if the Women’s match is good it’s a bonus. Angle gives Lesnar a tape of Heyman screwing him over. Really trying to convince him to be in his corner. WWE Championship Big Show© vs. Kurt Angle Story: Show vs. Lesnar at Survivor Series. Heyman screws Lesnar. Lesnar attacks all of Smackdown and gets suspended. Angle wins #1 contendership and asks Lesnar to help him in return to helping gets his suspension lifted. Question is, can Angle beat the Big Show? Honestly, this would be solid. Except…Big Show had been an absolute joke for 2 years before the title win. While this would rebuild him, it didn’t help the story. Big Show couldn’t be a more obvious transitional champion. Angle was also in the Benoit type tweener role…but since this is the Big Show, he became a face by default. Show accidentally tosses Angle over the top rope onto Paul Heyman. Pretty funny. This was Big Show’s weird black jeans wearing period. BEARHUG! Tornado DDT was pretty cool. Match was pretty boring before that. Top rope missile dropkick from Angle! Don’t recall seeing that often. Crowd is not into this…because they are waiting for Brock. Angle Slam…but Show kicks out! Kurt Angle wins the WWE Title by pin in 12:36. Angle makes Show tap but there’s no ref. A-Train runs in and takes out Angle. Chokeslam by Big Show…but here comes Lesnar, F5! Angle gets the pin there. This match wasn’t good, but Angle jumping all over the place gave it something. For the record the twist in this storyline to get Angle on Heyman’s side made no sense. RVD is at The World live from Times Square! What a waste. World Heavyweight Championship: Three Stages of Hell Shawn Michaels© vs. Triple H Fall 1 is a Streetfight. Fall 2 is a Steel Cage. Fall 3 is a Ladder Match. Story: HBK returned after HHH turned on him. HHH vs. HBK at Summerslam was arguable match of the year. HBK then went into the first ever Elimination Chamber and won HHH’s World Title. This is HHH’s return match. This is still the period where we were all kind of shocked that HBK was wrestling at all, nevermind the champ. This was a true throwback to 95-96 HBK. He has the hat, the outfit and the red heart pants. HBK mocks Flair to start which is pretty funny. It gets Flair banned, which is also funny. Opening sequence is oddly timed, it even had a part where HHH just shoved HBK into the ropes. Shawn with a crossbody into HHH and a trashcan. That made no sense to be fair. HBK with a table. I think this is a first for HBK (that isn’t an announcer’s desk). They’ve set two tables on the outside. I hope they use them before the cage match, as if they don’t it will be obvious it’s going three falls (I guess it’s obvious anyway). HHH messes up blocking Sweet Chin Music, as it clearly hit him before he grabbed the foot. This street fight is not clicking for me. Very slow. Figure Four! I’m beginning to think HHH and HBK wanted to do a straight wrestling match but someone told them they had to do a Street Fight. 2x4 with barbed wire. Weird weapon to have in this feud. Now HHH lights it on fire. Even weirder. HBK gets possession and nails HHH with the 2x4 wrapped with barbed wire on fire! Again, I get it’s supposed to be a real hate feud and all that, but it’s not a weapon that makes sense for these two. Now a sledgehammer I would understand. That also wasn’t the finish of fall one. Just weird. HHH wins the first fall in about 20 minutes. He hits a messed up pedigree (HBK’s foot never left the canvas). Also, HBK was been selling the leg since the Figure Four. I did not like that street fight. All over the place. No psychology whatsoever. Barbed wire/fire seemed really wasted here. Cage time. HHH brings a table into the cage before it drops. Flair’s back as HHH and HBK go at it at the top of the cage. Flair sets up another table out there. To be fair, they are selling the whole they could fall from the cage through the table idea. Flair’s in the cage! Kinda defeats the purpose of the cage. Flair takes an entertaining ass-kicking. Flair has been one of the best parts of this show. HBK sets HHH on the table. Top of the cage splash through the table! HBK gets the pin, and its Ladder Match time! Flair’s a bloody mess. HBK misses a top of a big ladder splash. Ouch. Another Pedigree where HBK doesn’t pick one of his feet from the canvas. Weird. HHH wins the World Title in 38:35. HBK nails Sweet Chin Music! HBK slowly climbs to the top of the ladder, but HHH is back and shoves him off through the stack of tables! HHH grabs the title for the win. Really didn’t like this match for some reason. While I loved how it was structured (1st fall should be the longest, 3rd should be the shortest) I felt as if it just dragged. The first fall didn’t know if it wanted to be a wrestling match or a street fight. 2nd fall seemed to be more about Flair. 3rd fall being a ladder match was okay I guess. It was just one or two high spots then the finish. Not a bad match by any means, but not even close to what they did at Summerslam in just a Street Fight. This isn’t a bad PPV by any means, but you can tell this was just a lot of transition. Benoit was in mid turn. Angle was in mid turn. A-Train was being established, which sucked. Big Show was an odd champion and a clear transitional one. HBK was supposed to be temporary. Three title changes as well. Nothing really hit the ball out of the park for this PPV, but I did think Eddie vs. Benoit was very good. 2002 was a strange year indeed, and to be fair a lot of the card looked nothing like it did at the beginning of 2002, so I guess there’s some extra credit for transition or something. Final Grade: C+ |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 15 2014, 01:15 AM Post #33 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WWE Bad Blood 2004 June 13, 2004 Columbus, OH Background: I’m sure I touched upon a lot of stuff when I did the Great American Bash 04 review, so here I’ll just write about RAW at this time specifically. To be honest, it’s the HHH and Shawn Michaels show. I guess I can throw Chris Benoit in there too, but this is the tiebreaker. Royal Rumble? Shawn vs. HHH in a Last Man Standing Match. Mania? HHH vs. HBK vs. Benoit. Backlash was the rematch of Mania. Now this. The only time Benoit would be in the last match despite being World Champion is when he faced off against HHH or when he lost the title to Randy Orton. On the flip side, I don’t think there is anything wrong with putting your top draws on the top of the card, just don’t say you are giving Benoit a chance as a top guy when really you aren’t (it’s not unlike Undertaker and Eddie on Smackdown, except Taker was part time enough to let Eddie have some of the glory. Not that either was optimal though). Also, Benoit was still doing midcard feuds, as he’s in the Tag title match here as well. I guess this elevated Edge, so again, I guess I can’t complain. (I will complain about the absolute waste of Chris Jericho though). Some of the younger guys were really coming along though. Orton was a solid IC Champion who just finished getting put over by Mick Foley. Shelton Benjamin went from a dying tag team to the most exciting guy on the roster match wise. Even Batista looked like a solid force in Evolution. And say what you want about Eugene, it may have been an offensive character, but he was over until Summerslam. If he was booked as more of a serious threat, that could have been a really cool thing for WWE. Of course he was wearing a superhero cape two years later, so so much for that. Let’s get to HHH vs. HBK part a billion. The Card World Tag Team Championship La Resistance (Robert Conway and Sylvian Grenier) vs. Edge and Chris Benoit World champ in the opener! Canadian National anthem in French! Edge interrupts. I wonder if the fans are dumb and chant USA in this match. Benoit is from Atlanta, Georgia. I forgot about that stupid intro thing for Benoit and Jericho. I think you can blame Kenzo Suzuki for that. Most of the match has Edge in the ring. I guess to save Benoit for later. Nice reversal of the double suplex to a double neckbreaker by Edge. Benoit and Edge win by DQ in 10:15. Benoit has Grenier locked in the Crossface, but Kane shows up to cause the DQ. Match wasn’t really much of anything. Benoit got a good pop when he got the hot tag. La Resistance was just never that good. Eric Bischoff and The Coach are backstage. Turns into Eugene and Eric with Eugene being upset that Uncle Eric doesn’t like him. I always thought it was great that Eugene’s favorite wrestler was Triple H. Nick Dinsmore played the character excellently. Chris Jericho vs. Tyson Tomko This was Christian and Trish Stratus’ Problem Solver. Pretty nice Bossman Slam from Tomko. Match is pretty damn boring though. Chris Jericho pinned Tyson Tomko in 5:57. Tomko accidentally knocks Trish off the apron and Jericho hits a standing enzuigiri for the pin, which is a weak finish as it is. Match was boring. Jericho wrote in his book that he was unmotivated here, and it’s kinda obvious. I don’t blame him for how far down the card he went. Randy Orton does this weird interview where he talk to the crowd. It’s like someone doing a horrible Rock impression without catchphrases. Ouch Shelton promo afterwards. Intercontinental Championship Randy Orton© vs. Shelton Benjamin Missed baseball slide from Shelton. Not a good start. Fans are actually behind Orton here. This probably is why he ended up horribly turning face. Thanks fans. Ric Flair’s out here! That reverse gutwrench neckbreaker is a cool move from Orton. Wonder why he doesn’t use it anymore (maybe he does?). Pretty cool slugfest from Orton and Benjamin. Flair saves Orton after a T-Bone by putting Orton’s foot on the rope. Benjamin takes out Flair! Benjamin puts the Figure Four on Flair…and gets booed! He then almost rolls up Orton for the win with the figure four still locked in! Creative! Randy Orton pins Shelton Benjamin to retain in 15:02. Crossbody by Orton who then holds the tights. Shame, as I was really getting into the match with Benjamin’s comeback and nearfalls. Still, a solid match. Probably the 2nd best of Orton’s young career at this point (behind vs. Foley at Backlash). Matt Hardy and Lita make out session! Bischoff interrupts with security to remove Matt from the building, as he thinks he’s going to interfere in the Benoit vs. Kane match later. The Kane-Lita-Hardy feud was not a high point for anyone. Women’s Championship Victoria© vs. Gail Kim vs. Trish Stratus vs. Lita As much as I thought psycho Victoria, bland face Victoria was awful. I am a Gail Kim fan though. Standing moonsault from Victoria looks cool, but makes a strange thud that made it obvious she didn’t hit Kim. Tomko breaks up a Lita pin and he’s GONE! Fun fact: Two of these women began their WWE careers as a Godfather Ho. Gail Kim with an awesome leg scissor with an arm bar. Does AJ do this now? Gail Kim with a Dragon Sleeper! I knew I remember correctly about Gail Kim being awesome. Trist Stratus wins the title when she pinned Lita at 4:43. Lita hits a sick DDT on Gail Kim…then Trish rolls her up for the win! Not a bad Women’s match, when it was a string of 1 on 1 stuff it was good. Eugene vs. The Coach I gotta admit, The Coach was an amazing heel. The Eugene angle also involved an awesome William Regal face turn. Handshake Lock! Fans are really into Eugene here. Eugene was over, there was no denying it. Eugene gets into some weird position I can’t explain for no reason. I didn’t get that. Ok Eugene turns it into a trap on the Coach. Awesome. Eugene is now playing with a stuffed animal from a fan at ringside while Coach just runs the ropes. Weird but funny. I really wish they went the route of Eugene actually being a super serious wrestler. This match is alluding to that idea. A blonde model comes out with cookies. Eugene eats some cookies, and the Coach slams Eugene into the cookies! Garrison Cade is out here and rips apart the stuffed animal. Eugene pins The Coach in 7:36. Coach accidentally nails Cade. Rock Bottom! People’s Elbow! Eugene wins! Eugene Stunners Cade for good measure. Fans chant Eugene. Sure, the match sucks, but I think it’s pretty funny and the crowd was most into this than anything else so far tonight. World Heavyweight Championship Chris Benoit© vs. Kane Sadly, this feels like a battle of two second tier guys. That’s because Benoit wasn’t really the top guy on RAW, and Kane has entered the feuding with Matt Hardy and Lita portion of his career. It’s a shame too, as this could have been a top tier feud in an alternate time period. I did like the booking of Benoit at this time though. He was the tough bring it on guy. Feared no one. Good match early on. Benoit really brings out the best in everyone and Kane is no exception. Kane also looks like he’s really trying. Match is just crisp. This feels like a Bret Hart-Diesel match a bit. Benoit works on the knee! Classic little man big man strategy. No Sharpshooter though, as Kane blocks with a throat grab. Sharpshooter! Germans! Great Diving Headbutt to Kane situp combo. Really making both guys look strong here. Chris Benoit retains when he pinned Kane in 18:12. Benoit locks in the Crossface, but Kane stands up from it! Benoit tries to reverse into opposite side of the Crossface, but then rolls Kane up for the 1-2-3! Great match! The finish was a little disappointing but it works as Kane doesn’t tap out. Keeps Benoit strong for HHH again (nevermind he’s the champ!). Kane stays strong for…Matt Hardy. Whatever. Great match. Best of the unmasked Kane at the time for sure. Hell in a Cell Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H The HHH-HBK video says HBK is entering HHH’s world because HHH never lost a HIAC. At this point, HBK was in the first HIAC…and HHH didn’t win every one he was in either (Armageddon 2002). Early on we get a lot of…wrestling. HHH is the first to bleed by getting slammed into the cell. I don’t really get the early pin attempts. It’s Hell in a Cell. You know it’s going to be more violent. That’s why the crowd is dead for them (Mick Foley pointed this out for his HIAC match in 2000). HHH with the chair! Very slow match here. Maybe if this was their first meeting it would be fine, but this had to be their 100th in two years. I need something different. Nice hip toss by Michaels to HHH sending him over the top rope. We’re about 15 minutes in and we’ve barely used the cell or any weapons. I understand in 2010. Not in 2004. We’re getting some stairs and cell action now. HBK was about to do one of my favorite spots, the piledriver on the steps, but HHH backdrops him to the floor. We’re picking it up a little at least. Some chair action now. They were going with the whole HBK injured back story again…which was fine. Missed Sweet Chin Music turns into a stair shot by HHH. Small holy shit chants…which are unwarranted. HBK is busted open. You know what this is like? A bad prototype of the Undertaker vs. HHH matches at Wrestlemania seven years later. Those work because they are guys you see going at it once a year. This just isn’t working here as again, this match has been on RAW and other PPVs many many times. HBK bringing in a ladder. This is reminding me of HHH vs. Jericho’s HIAC now. Some ladder shots. This match is just dragging. We have a table. HBK with an elbow off the top of the ladder through HHH. Not really a great elbow though, he had to fall due to the roof of the cell. Sweet Chin Music! HHH kicks out. This needs to end. Pedigree (2nd one) and both men are dead. Triple H pins Shawn Michaels in 47:25. Another pedigree and it takes HHH forever to get the cover. He gets the three. I’m sorry, but this match isn’t good. It goes a good 15 minutes way too long and was just a standard street fight. The spots weren’t much, nothing special between the ladder and table spots. Cell was barely used. Also, it didn’t matter who won! That’s probably the worst thing about this match. It literally had no impact on storylines. Win or lose, HHH is still probably fighting Benoit at Vengeance. This was just a flat out boring Hell in a Cell match and they gave nothing you haven’t seen before between the two over the past two years. This card had very little historical significance. It gave Shelton a chance at a big PPV match I guess. HHH vs. HBK really didn’t matter. Benoit vs. Kane didn’t even matter as Kane was headed back to the midcard and Benoit would be back there in a year as well. Emergence of heel Edge wasn’t apparent yet. Jericho wrestled Tomko. We wouldn’t be that far from the Cena-Orton-Batista era…but we weren’t there yet. The main event could have swung this to B status. Instead, it lowered it to C. Final Grade: C |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 15 2014, 05:04 AM Post #34 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WWF Survivor Series 98: The Deadly Game November 15, 1998 St. Louis, MO Background: The WWF has started to regularly win the Monday Night War. Yes, WCW would still win once in a while, but the WWF had control. Vince Russo’s Crash TV was in full effect as you will see here. There are 14 matches on this card, which is a ludicrous amount. Stone Cold Steve Austin, the #1 man in the WWF, had been screwed out of the WWF Title at Breakdown and hadn’t even gotten a chance to regain the title. This tournament was supposed to be his rematch. The Undertaker and Kane were feuding throughout 1998. The Rock, Mankind and Triple H were coming into their own and at least one of them looked to be a star main eventer in 1999 (all three of them would make it). Mr. McMahon was the biggest heel in wrestling. He recently had demoted Shane McMahon to referee status. WWF Attitude was in full swing here. I think there is some good and bad on this show, and I’ll get to each. The Card The main focus of the show is a 14 Man Tournament to decide the new WWF Champion. Smart money storyline wise was on Mankind as he seemed to be who Mr. McMahon wanted to be champion. It’s 14 man because Taker and Kane got byes and start in the 2nd round. I love the Deadly Game theme. Here comes Vince. He’s still in a wheelchair after Taker and Kane dropped the stairs on his leg. Great intro by Vince. “An individual who is looking to take one small leap for man, one giant leap for Mankind”. Mankind is slated to face a mystery opponent. A lot of people thought this would be the return of Shawn Michaels. Not quite. Mankind is in a tux. And he hugs McMahon. Just awesome. When Vince says “WCW” he gets massive heat. It’s DUANE GILL! Deadly Game Round 1: Mankind vs. Duane Gill Mankind pins Duane Gill in 0:30. Double Arm DDT, cradle for the win. Obviously a non-match, but the story is that Vince is making this as easy as possible for Mankind. On Heat Jacqueline attacked Sable. She cuts an angry promo on her. Sable couldn’t really talk either. Deadly Game Round 1: Jeff Jarrett vs. Al Snow Winner faces Mankind in round 2. Debra’sPPV debut here. Al Snow was pretty over here. Or really Head was over. Apparently Mankind’s Socko is a headband for Head. I guess that spoils the winner. Al Snow does a weird corner flip. Top rope guillotine legdrop misses. Nice spinebuster counter into the DDT from Snow. Al Snow takes way too big of a bump when he bangs his head on Jarrett’s back. Al Snow pins Jeff Jarrett in 3:31. Jarrett grabs Head and Snow grabs the Guitar, but Jarrett misses the Head shot. Snow gets Head back and nails Jarrett for the win. Ok for three minutes, even if the finish was whatever. Snow vs. Mankind in Round 2. Deadly Game Round 1: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Big Bossman Stone Cold wins by DQ in 3:20. Bossman slides out and when Austin slides out to follow, Bossman gets him with the nightstick. Bossman proceeds to beat the crap out of Stone Cold with the nightstick, story being he is weakening Austin for later, which I guess makes sense. Vince looks happy about what happened. Nothing notable in the match itself. Deadly Game Round 1: X-Pac vs. Steven Regal Winners takes on Stone Cold. This is a Real Man’s Man William Regal. Regal’s pushing muscle taunt is great. Weirdly placed catapult by Regal. Wonder if that was intentional or not. Match is all submission wrestling from Regal. Regal’s selling is fantastic. Double underhook suplex on X-Pac from the top. X-Pac survives. Double Countout at 8:10. X-Pac and Regal go at it on the outside and are counted out. Vince sends Sgt. Slaughter to start a 5 minute overtime. It doesn’t start though as X-Pac (I think is legit hurt) and Regal runs after him for some reason. I think it’s botched as Regal is all in the ring at first and his running after X-Pac was unnatural. Anyway, Vince is angry that Austin gets a bye. Why not make it a triple-threat? You’re the boss. Anyway, finish sucked. Weird it got the most time of all the first round matches. Deadly Game Round 1: Ken Shamrock vs. Goldust Heel Shamrock is the best Shamrock. Goldust had just returned (he was Dustin Runnels for most of 98) and was pretty over. Shamrock with a great counter to the Shattered Dreams! He pulls the ref in front of him! Ken Shamrock makes Goldust submit in 5:56. Shamrock gets a leaping off the top rope into a frankensteiner combination. Belly to belly then ankle lock for the submission win. Match was 70-30 Shamrock, which makes sense since he was the Jobber to the Stars at that point, and Goldust was closer to the midcard. Okay match. Deadly Game Round 1: The Rock vs. Triple H Winner of this faces Shamrock. Rock is megaover. Instead of Triple H…here come The Stooges! Brisco specifically does some big crotch crops coming in, which is hilarious. Amazing how Vince made Patterson and Brisco into stars in 1998. Patterson announces that…The Bossman will replace HHH! The Rock pins the Big Bossman in 0:03. Roll-up and it’s over. This actually makes sense later. This got the biggest pop of the night up to this point. Deadly Game Quarterfinal: The Undertaker vs. Kane I’ll preface this by saying this may be my least favorite Undertaker match ever, and I’ll explain why shortly. This Darker Side theme is the best Taker’s ever had in my opinion. Undertaker does this awkward sidekick I’ve never seen him do. Undertaker was trying a spinning toe hold or a Figure Four. Kane kicked out, but weird. It’s weird to see Taker do the work on the leg story. Kane with a bad looking top rope clothesline. He also awkwardly jumped over the top rope. Horrible chokeslam from Kane…but I think that was on Taker. Undertaker pins Kane in 7:16. Paul Bearer distracts Kane, and then Kane walks into a Tombstone. Taker actually hooks the leg and Bearer holds down Kane’s other leg for the three, which is a nice touch. But still. Match sucked. Undertaker, while I guess being all evil was going back to the no selling route. But he’s not supposed to do that against Kane. Kane peaked from his debut until this event. Kane had been protected from his debut as a very very tough to beat monster. And this match killed that aura as Taker disposes of him in 7 minutes in a horrible match. And you know what? Kane never truly recovered. This was the end of unstoppable monster Kane, as in a few months he was going to the insane asylum and feuding with Chyna. What a shame. Terrible overall. Deadly Game Quarterfinal: Mankind vs. Al Snow Winner faces Stone Cold, who got a bye. Mankind is still in the tux. Al Snow just uses a chair and the ref doesn’t call for the DQ. How WCW 2000 like (at least the PPVs I reviewed so far). Dammit Russo. Mankind finds Socko on Head…and beats up Head. Ok. Match has oddly been all Al Snow. Socko is over. Mankind makes Al Snow submit in 3:55. Socko for the win. The Socko-Head stuff was bizarre, but I mean, it’s another 4 minute whatever match. Al Snow got in a lot of offense though, which was odd. Deadly Game Quarterfinal: Ken Shamrock vs. The Rock Winner faces The Undertaker. Like Taker and Kane, this is the fourth PPV match of the year between these two, with another involving Mankind. First time with Shamrock as the heel and Rock as the face though. Nice suplex by Shamrock that led to a pin where he hooked the head. You don’t see that often. JR points out that Rock made his debut two years earlier at Survivor Series. The changes he made in two years was incredible. Bossman is here. I’m a little sick of him to be honest. The Rock hilariously sells the frankensteiner. Ankle Lock is in. Fans are alive here, as they might believe this is the finish. Rock also comes off the ropes very awkwardly in the next sequence leading to a double clothesline. The Rock pins Ken Shamrock in 8:20. Rock Bottom attempt…but Shamrock counters with a belly to belly that Rock doesn’t go up for (was Rock really this bad as a worker then?). Bossman tosses the nightstick in the ring…but Rock catches it instead of Shamrock and he knocks out Shamrock for the win. This would make sense later as well. We have Rock vs. Taker and Austin vs. Mankind as the semifinals. Match was definitely the 2nd weakest of the Rock-Shamrock series…Mania was worse, but Mania was barely a match. Paul Bearer says Taker will walk out champ. What else would he say really? Women’s Championship Jacqueline© vs. Sable No idea why the Women’s title returned at this stage. Jackie beat Sable with Marc Mero’s interference a couple months ago for the new title. Shane McMahon is the referee here, which is genius. Subtly plants a seed for later. Horrible TKO by Sable. Sable is not really a wrestler. Sable Bomb on the floor to Marc Mero. Yes this killed Mero, but who cares about Mero anyway? Talking a lot about how Shane McMahon was demoted to ref by Vince. Again, this works well for later. Sable pins Jackie to win the title in 3:14. Sable Bomb for the win. Sable can’t wrestle, but really no one cares. Nor should they. Deadly Game Semifinal: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mankind The card just took a serious turn here. Probably because this is the first match that’s really in doubt in terms of who would win. Here comes Vince! Huge boos. Mankind practically runs away from the Stunner and the Stooges have to coax him back. Austin breaks up the Stooge meeting. This is a great back and forth match. Best of the night easily. Double Arm DDT on the chair! Austin with a really close kickout…and Vince stands up! Stunner! 1…2…McMahon is up! He takes out the referee! He’s healed! Mankind pins Stone Cold in 10:23. He is a botched ending (according to Stone Cold himself). To be fair I knew something was wrong the first time I saw this. Austin gets another stunner. Shane slides in, 1…2…where’s 3? 3? Where’s 3? Double bird to Austin from Shane. That’s an amazing turn there. But here is where it goes to hell, as Austin goes after Shane and the Bossman is supposed to attack Austin here…but there’s no Bossman. Austin even turns around and is shocked at no Bossman. The actual finish is awful (Foley said so himself on his book), as Gerald Brisco hits the worst chair shot in PPV history. Literally. Worse than anything Lance Storm ever did. And Austin jobs to that. Austin should have kicked out on principle and let Mick hit him. Vince and the Stooges hightail it. Austin in pursuit in a car. Could have been one of the all time great finishes. Thanks Bossman. Deadly Game Semifinal: The Undertaker vs. The Rock Winner takes on Mankind in the final! Crowd is a bit deflated because Austin is gone…but they still have The Rock! This PPV officially will be the first since the Royal Rumble to not have Austin in the final match. This is mostly Undertaker here, which makes sense as this is Rock’s first real dash with a main eventer I believe. It would make perfect sense if Taker puts over Rock here. Bossman is still here. Again. Rock mocks Taker with a sit-up, too bad crowd didn’t react to it. Bossman messes up a People’s Elbow…which doesn’t make sense for later. Taker nails the Bossman! The Rock defeats Undertaker by DQ in 8:23. Taker tosses Rock to Kane...Chokeslam to Kane to get Taker DQed. Kane then goes at it with Taker. That finish absolutely blows, and here is why. It actually makes perfect sense for Kane to do that…but then it opens the can of worms of why doesn’t EVERYONE do that. Like, every champ, just get yourself DQed. It’s fine to threaten that once in a while, but don’t actually do it. Anyway, Mankind vs. Rock finals. Mankind promo. He has one more hill…no, one more rock to climb, if ya smell what the sock is cookin! World Tag Team Championship The New Age Outalws© vs. The Headbangers vs. D’Lo Brown and Mark Henry Road Dogg’s intro will always be awesome. Mosh with this great springboard bodypress to the outside. Don’t remember him ever doing that. Match is an absolute mess by the way. Tags that don’t make sense for example. Jerry Lawler points this out as soon as I write it about how many guys are supposed to be in the ring. I don’t remember D’Lo having a top rope hurricanrana in his repertoire. It looks like Road Dogg legitimately hurt his hand on an earlier double flapjack from the Bangers. The Future Lo Down with the double team! Mosh with one of the more awesome low blows to D’Lo. Road Dogg absolutely blows a spot. Billy Gunn gets the hot tag and immediately gets hit with D’Lo’s Sky High, which is a pinning combination. Road Dogg goes flying at Mark Henry instead of making the save. Referee Tim White doesn’t count…as it’s clear he expected Dogg to break up the pin. He makes the count and a Headbanger just makes the save. Yikes. The New Age Outlaws retain when Billy Gunn pins Mosh in 10:08. Awful match. JR diplomatically says so with the classic “this was a unique match”. Gunn won with a piledriver which didn’t even look fluid. Awful match. Terrible. Deadly Game Final: WWF Championship Mankind vs. The Rock OMG, Vince and Shane are still here! Match is very slow and the crowd is dead. Just a lot of back and forth punching. Interesting note. A few moments in Mankind locks in a chinlock. According to Foley’s book, they had no idea what to do in this match and basically call it in the ring during that chinlock. Vince and Shane get some life out of the crowd. Rock nails Mankind with a plastic garbage can…but not before a fan knocks it out of Rock’s hand first. We get some chair action. At least JR has an explanation for it (Vince would never DQ Foley in this scenario). Rock nails Foley with a chair while he has the steps, then beats the crap out of the stairs with Foley under them. Crowd really got into that…then went back to silent. Rock sells a low blow in a hilarious manner. 2nd bad sell job from The Rock tonight. Cactus Flying Elbow even gets no reaction. Mankind with a legdrop on the desk that kinda misses the desk. Mankind leaps from the second rope at the Rock on the floor…but misses and smashes through the table. Interesting note here, this was the move that served as the catalyst to Foley’s retirement in 2000, as he tears his meniscus here. The Rock wins the WWF Title by submission in 17:10. Socko Claw into a Rock Bottom…but Rock only gets two! Rock shoots the Eyebrow at the McMahons. Sharpshooter…and Foley gets Montreal’d. McMahons and Rock hug in the ring to win the title. Match was pretty bad as you can tell they didn’t know what to do, but the finish was what mattered. Vince and Shane cut a promo about what happened. The Rock cuts one as well, pointing out that the fans should kiss his ass. Mankind says he’s confused as he didn’t submit, and the McMahons and The Rock beat him up. Austin’s back! Stunner to The Rock! Stunner to Mankind! Okay, this show is tough to grade. There are two trains of thought here. One, wrestling wise, this show was absolutely awful. In fact, for in ring action, it would be a F. We had two non-matches (Mankind-Gill, Rock-Bossman), a downright horrible match (Tag title), and multiple horrible finishes (X-Pac-Regal, Austin-Mankind, Taker-Rock and even Taker-Kane if you don’t like how buried Kane was here). There’s not a good match on this show, although Mankind and Austin would have gotten there without the weak ending. But storyline wise, this was an A. When you have a cast of characters that people care about, all this swerving and screwing and crazy stuff actually works. Hell, it is how the Attitude Era worked. There are very good stories here. Rock-Bossman made sense…because the McMahon’s were backing Rock. Bossman tossing the nightstick, maybe it was intentional to Rock, again now makes sense. Vince using Mankind to eliminate Austin…makes sense. Sure there are hiccups (Bossman trying to screw Rock against Taker), but it mostly works. They even tie up some other ends on RAW the next night. Historically, this PPV is huge too. The Rock and Mankind come out as top tier players, and in fact would be the WWF Title match for every PPV until Wrestlemania (and their matches would get a lot better too). Also this established Shane as a top authority figure as well. I can’t get past a couple of things though to put this in B range. The Mankind-Austin finish was so weak. I mean, this was the first time Austin was pinned by one guy on TV since July of 97! And the first time it happened in a 1 on 1 match since May of 97! That’s a long damn time! And I can’t get past the killing of Kane and really, the greenness of The Rock. I assume internet forums for 1998 thought Rocky still sucked, and well, it seemed like he still did. What a mixed bag of everything. But it was perfectly fine for what the WWF needed at that point. And that does give it a little extra credit. Better to be good at one thing (story telling) than average at everything. That’s how Hogan-Andre got by, didn’t it? And really, the 1999 PPVs mostly suck in the ring, and that was the biggest year for the business. Final Grade: C+ |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 15 2014, 08:37 PM Post #35 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WWF: In Your House De-Generation X December 7, 1997 Springfield, MA Background: Where to start? This was the first PPV after the infamous Montreal Screwjob. The WWF was looking toward the Stone Cold Steve Austin era, but now had this lull between Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble. Reportedly, Bret vs. Shawn was supposed to be the top feud to get us to Mania for Austin vs. Bret, but here we are. The WWF had just turned to the Attitude phase of their marketing. You can’t really blame them for their lack of success though…WCW was promoting the Match of the Century: Hollywood Hogan vs. Sting which everyone watched. All eyes for the short term were on Bret Hart as well, so WCW really had all the momentum (and with a great Starrcade could have really put the pressure on the WWF). As the WWF was in the lame duck status, they decided to try to get some money out of Ken Shamrock and threw him in the main event with Shawn. The WWF had two really big time things here: DX was in fact revolutionary, and Austin was on the rise. The Card WWF Lightheavyweight Championship Tournament Final Taka Michinoku vs. Brian Christopher You knew the WWF blew the Lightheavyweight title when Brian Christopher was in the final of the inaugural tournament. Match starts off with a LOT of stalling. Taka’s springboard plancha was always a thing of beauty. Taka is doing all he can to steal the show. Nice Asai moonsault using the corner. Most of the commentary is about Christopher being (or not being) Jerry Lawler’s son. Taka Michinoku wins the title when he pins Christopher in 12:00. Christopher misses the Tennessee Jam and Taka gets the Driver for the win. Way too much stalling from Christopher for this to have any flow. At least Taka gets a good pop when he wins the title. The Disciples of Apocalypse (Chainz, Skull and 8-Ball) vs. Los Boricuas (Miguel Perez Jr, Jesus Castillo Jr, Jose Estrada Jr.) The sooner this is over the better. Does anyone care about this feud anymore? This spawned from when Crush and Savio Vega were members of the Nation of Domination, but were fired. They created their own gang and have been feuding with each other ever since. The Truth Commission also got involved at some point. The Gang Warz these are, and they suck. Miguel Perez gets the Albert shave your back chants. Miguel Perez with a standing moonsault. More excitement that I expected. Skull or 8-Ball (can’t be assed to figure out who is who) can’t even take an Irish Whip correctly. Los Boricuas win when Estrada pinned Chainz in 7:58. Perez was faking a knee injury! Somersault legdrop on Chainz! Perez puts Estrada on Chainz for the win. Ridiculously boring. Toughman Match Butterbean vs. Marc Mero Story: Mero thinks Butterbean is a nobody. Mero’s also been treating Sable like crap, which Butterbean doesn’t like. The only person to get over from this whole thing was Sable, and well, that’s how it should be. Four round boxing match here. This is a WRESTLING PPV you know. A whole lot of nothing happens in round 1. Mero takes a cheap shot in between rounds. Mero with some heel tactics in round 2. A knee to the back and a choke with tape. Boring chants are faint, but there. Mero nails Butterbean with a dropkick after the bell. Mero gets his ass kicked in round 3 but is saved by the bell. Butterbean then tosses ice cold water on Mero at the end. Butterbean wins by DQ in 10:20. Mero gets nailed again early in round 4, and Mero lowbridges Butterbean for the DQ. This sucked and the finish sucked. What a waste of PPV time. No one cared. Oh god…here comes The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust and Luna. This shit is just disturbing. He reads Green Eggs and Ham. JR wins the segment by apologizing to Dr. Seuss. You know there’s not a Mick Foley or Kane match on the card for this shit. Luna then shoves Goldust down and then pulls him by his chain. It’s over thank god. LOD promo. Hawk compares the Outlaws to a booger. At least there was intensity there. World Tag Team Championship The New Age Outalws© vs. The Legion of Doom Let me say this, the LOD may have not really worked here…but they way they put over the Outlaws was fantastic. They received instant legitimacy from this feud. Very strange start with LOD trying to fight NAO and the Outalws just running to the back to stretch. Funny spot where Road Dogg crawls to a corner where Billy Gunn isn’t. It ends up happening again, but at least Dogg crawled to the correct corner (Gunn was knocked out from Hawk earlier). Ice bucket shot to the head! This match kinda sucks. Road Dogg busts out the worm? The hell? Hawk sells the knee to the gut with a spin. Well at least he sold it. The New Age Outlaws win by DQ in 10:32. Doomsday Device set up…but Henry Godwinn comes down and smacks Animal with a bucket. Hawk goes nuts with the bucket and gets DQed. Match and finish sucked. I guess putting over the Outlaws again was too much to ask. Promo video putting over Sgt. Slaughter. Look, Slaughter looked washed up against Hogan at Mania VII. This was a bad idea at this point. Boot Camp Match Triple H vs. Sgt. Slaughter Slaughter has the Kurt Angle music…although I assume it was considered The Patriot’s music at the time. This match starts with all Slaughter. What? Slaughter goes for the cover on the outside but ref says it has to be in the ring. What was the point of that? HHH finally takes control. Slaughter takes his over the top rope corner bump which shocks the hell out of me to be fair. HHH tries to grab the ring bell, and the timekeeper holds on for dear life. HHH smacks him with it. How randomly awesome was that? Slaughter does the Ric Flair slammed off the top spot. Powder to Chyna! HHH pins Slaughter in 17:36. Chyna saves HHH from the Cobra Clutch. Pedigree on the chair for the win. Horrible match. Slaughter shouldn’t be in the ring. What was the point of making HHH barely beat Slaughter and for Slaughter to look like the better wrestler? Absolutely horrible on all accounts. Jeff Jarrett interview! He calls Michael Cole “Mark”. The Undertaker vs. Jeff Jarrett This was a quick push Jarrett got as he just returned from WCW. His gimmick was to shoot on things. It would lead to the midcard and the NWA North American Champion gimmick. I’m a Jarrett fan, but this sucked. This is a pretty random match for Undertaker. Jeff Jarrett wins by DQ in 2:52. Here’s Kane! Jarrett tells Kane to attacks Taker, so Kane chokeslams him for the DQ. Funny as he got Taker DQed the same way at Deadly Games. Kane wants to fight Taker. Taker doesn’t want to fight him…yet. Nothing match that felt longer than three minutes, but I guess the postmatch is what mattered. Jeff Jarrett with the postmatch attack! This Jarrett push did not last. Jarrett gets chokeslammed for his troubles. Michael Cole is in the crowd with [Mark Henry! Henry will return from an injury soon! Woo? Intercontinental Championship Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. The Rock There are a lot of similarities between early Randy Orton and early Rock. This was the classic feud with the 3:16 beeper. This was the first real attitude Austin feud. Rock is out with the entire Nation. Austin drives the truck into the arena! D’Lo gets backdropped on the truck. Stunner on the truck! Austin whips Kama into the truck! People’s Elbow didn’t have a name yet! Austin accidentally stuns the ref! Nice spot that worked into the story on RAW! Steve Austin retains when he pinned Rock in 5:31. Stunner gets the win. You can see the first ref calling for the DQ. Fun little match, although too short. The ref bump would led to Austin forfeiting the title to Rock on RAW. This became the standard Stone Cold main event style, so historically, this match is a huge deal. We get a recap of HBK vs. Shamrock. Then a bland Shamrock promo. WWF Championship Shawn Michaels© vs. Ken Shamrock Great kick from Shamrock that HBK sold like a million bucks. Overall HBK is just making Shamrock look like a million bucks. Despite the great selling from HBK this match isn’t clicking. A lot of slow Shamrock stuff with HBK ducking and moving. DX getting involved. Slam by Chyna! HBK with a splash from the apron. That’s new. Shamrock near the end gets caught in the top rope in a weird way and it hits his eye it seems. Strange. Ken Shamrock wins by DQ in 18:27. Shamrock makes a comeback and hits the belly to belly. Ankle Lock but HHH and Chyna cause the DQ in record time. Match didn’t click at all and I assume how this went ended any chance of a Shamrock main event run (I always assumed it would have been Austin vs. Shamrock at some point in 98). Finish blew as well. You know that was the fourth DQ finish of the PPV. Not good. As HBK celebrates on the apron Owen Hart shows up out of nowhere and shoves HBK off and through the announcer’s table (although the camera misses it). It’s a cool moment though and it’s a shame they don’t run with HBK vs. Owen (this would have worked at No Way Out, as both had a history with Stone Cold). Rumor has it that HBK didn’t want to work with Owen (ugh) and we know Austin didn’t (a lot more understandable). So, Owen’s main event push was DOA. Anyway, this PPV is awful. No really good matches. A lot of crap. A boxing match. Whatever the fuck that was with Goldust. Bad finishes. Boring main event. Very close to F status. But this show has a big redeeming quality that helps it tremendously. This was THE SHOW where Stone Cold vaunted to the main event. He was still really an upper midcarder at this point. This also showed The Rock could have a fun match and be that upper midcard guy for a while. HHH was also shown off here, even if the match blew, as another guy at that Rock level. Kane too continued his path of destruction. At least storylines showed progression here. This PPV also showed that some guys just weren’t going to make it on top. Shamrock and Jarrett, I’m looking at you two. And again, the Owen thing was pretty cool, just a shame it went nowhere. Final Grade: C- |
![]() |
|
| Baldwin | Mar 15 2014, 08:38 PM Post #36 |
![]()
6x EBL Champion
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Wrestlemania II |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 16 2014, 12:50 AM Post #37 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WWF Wrestlemania 2 April 7, 1986 Uniondale, NY Rosemont, IL Los Angeles, CA Background: HULKAMANIA was running wild brother! In an attempt to make the 2nd Wrestlemania bigger than the 1st, Vince McMahon decided this would be the first one on PPV. Also, for attendance, this would be held in three different venues, which I’m curious to see what the thinking would be there. This had tons of celebrities as well. Weird fact as well: this was held on a Monday. The three main events? Piper vs. Mr. T in a Boxing Match, a 20 Man Battle Royal and Hogan vs. Bundy in a Cage. That’s Piper, Andre and Hogan, so it makes sense. The Card Opening has a sax solo. I believe the sax was the instrument of the 80s, but I don’t really know. Vince’s co-host is Susan St. James. No idea who that is. Ray Charles for America the Beautiful works though. Piper interview! Pretty racist promo. We start off in New York. ”Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff vs. “Magnificent” Muraco Old wrestling makes me miss entrance themes. Don’t know the whole story, but Orndorff turned face and sided with Hogan, and Muraco was on Bundy’s side. I think. Orndorff with some good wrestling to start. Double countout in 4:10. Muraco and Orndorff fight to a double countout. Fans chant bullshit! No idea fans had that in them in 1986! I don’t blame them, that was stupid, especially since Orndorff would have a Hogan feud later. Mr. T promo. Speaks really quickly. Intercontinental Championship Randy Savage© vs. George “The Animal” Steele Story is simple: The Animal liked Elizabeth, Savage was jealous. Worked out well. Animal bites Savage! St. James says “Yeah Animal, eat his leg!” A lot of biting in this match. Macho Man slams the Animal with a bouquet of flowers. Where’s the DQ?! The Animal has eaten the turnbuckle! Did people really think this was real? The Animal kicks out of the flying elbow! Randy Savage retains by pin in 5:10. Savage takes down the Animal and gets his feet on the ropes for the pin. Match was horrible, but this was the George The Animal Steele character afterall. 2nd turnbuckle gets eaten. Off in Chicago, NFL star Bill Fralic and Big John Studd argue. George Wells vs. Jake Roberts This feels like a jobber match. Vince says Wells is Jake’s biggest challenge so far. So, easy road for Jake so far. Jake was one of the great workers in wrestling right up until Honky Tonk Man almost crippled him. Jake Roberts pins George Wells in 3:15. DDT out of nowhere. DAMIEN! Match was nothing. Hogan promo! He’s with his “buddy” Jesse Ventura. Ring announcer is Joan Rivers. Darryl Dawkins is a judge. Bunch of other celebs I don’t care about. Boxing Match Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper Oh god this can possibly go 10 rounds. They got Joe Frazier for this. If Mr. T is from Chicago, why didn’t they run this one for the Chicago main event? Round 1 ends with a lot of punching. You know this is WRESTLEmania. Jeez. I feel like the amount punches landing in round 2 doesn’t actually happen in real boxing. Piper knocks down T and the crowd erupts. Crowd heavily behind Piper now. He’s the heel, so that should show how well this match is doing. Cowboy Bob Orton throws water at T. Round 3 is all T. T even hits a shot where Piper goes flying out of the ring. Round 4 starts with a wrestling-style slugfest. No blocking whatsoever. Mr. T wins by DQ in 13:15. Piper slugs the ref then bodyslams T for the DQ. While it’s kinda entertaining, I still would have preferred a wrestling match at Wrestlemania, you know? I know it’s 1986, but that’s still a pretty lame show for the Uniondale crowd. Off to the Chicago portion of the show. We have Gorilla Monsoon and Cathy Lee Crosby as your announcers! Women’s Championship The Fabulous Moolah © vs. Velvet McIntyre Moolah is the Hogan of women’s wrestling, and that stretches to the backstage politic part of wrestling too. McIntyre is owning in a fast paced match early on! The Fabulous Moolah retains the title when she pinned McIntyre in 1:25. McIntyre misses a crossbody…and Moolah with the pin. Well that sucked. Especially since McIntyre looked like she could really go. Flag Match Corporal Kirchner vs. Nikolai Volkoff Russian National Anthem! Gotta love the xenophobic fears of the WWF. I believe the rules here is that the winner gets to wave his flag. Kirchner is busted wide open…but that was obvious when they CLEARLY showed Volkoff cut him. Corporal Kirchner pinned Nikolai Volkoff in 2:05. Freddie Blassie throws his cane in the ring…but Kirchner catches it and nails Volkoff for the win. It was so badly done that Monsoon thought it was a double cross. A lot of wasteful matches here. 20 Man Battle Royal: NFL vs. WWF Some notable names: Andre, Bruno, Iron Sheik, Morales, very young Bret Hart. On the NFL side the only notable one is The Fridge. Seems like an Andre vs. Fridge finish makes the most sense, but that isn’t what happens here. King Tonga, aka Meng is one of the first guys out. Seeing Bruno in this makes me wonder why they didn’t ever run a Hogan vs. Bruno program. Studd gets the last laugh eliminating Fralic. Studd dumps Bruno too. Bret and The Anvil oversell near eliminations from the Fridge, but then Studd takes him out. Fridge calls for a handshake…and pulls Studd out! Andre, NFLer Russ Francis, Bret and Neidhart. Harts take out Francis. Harts vs. Andre. Andre the Giant wins in 9:09, last eliminating Bret Hart. Andre kicks the Anvil and he oversells and goes flying over. Andre presses Bret over his head and tosses him onto the Anvil. According to Bret, he suggested this finish to Andre after Andre had a different idea, to the shock of the locker room (no one ever suggested changes to Andre). But, Andre went for it. Pretty bad match overall though, but again, this match really isn’t about the wrestling. Piper interview with Vince. Piper said he was ready for a fight and that T cheated. World Tag Team Championship The Dream Team (Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake) © vs. The British Bulldogs Ozzy Osbourne is out here as well. Easily the best match of the night so far and we are only 3 minutes in. Davey’s hanging vertical suplex is always impressive, but moreso back then. Great teamwork from the Bulldogs. Unsurprisingly. That piledriver from Valentine to Dynamite looks like it clearly hit Dynamite’s head. The British Bulldogs win the title when Dynamite pins Valentine in 13:03. Finish comes out of nowhere. Dynamite whips Valentine into the corner but Davey was on the ropes. Davey takes a plunge to the floor, but Valentine knocked heads with Davey so goes down for the pin. Interesting thing about this match. It’s clear that the purpose was to showcase the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs dominated Valentine the whole time (because you can’t trust Beefcake to make anyone look good). It’s a good match, but nothing special or anything. Time to head to LA. Ventura, Lord Alfred Hayes and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. What a cast of characters. Hercules Hernandez vs. Ricky Steamboat There’s a huge difference of talent here. A lot of armdrags here. Ricky Steamboat pins Hercules Hernandez in 7:19. Steamboat wins with a top rope bodypress. Nothing really to say about the match. Hercules controlled most and slipped on a banana peel when Steamboat got his legs up on a top rope move. Adorable Adrian Adonis vs. Uncle Elmer Crowd actually chants faggot at Adonis. How far we’ve come. I think. Elmer somehow falls after throwing a punch. Adonis is overselling everywhere. Adrian Adonis pinned Uncle Elmer in 3:00. Elmer misses a legdrop. Adonis comes off the top with a splash for the win. Terrible, but you can tell Adonis tried with his selling. I feel like the Adorable Adrian Adonis character is a shot at the original Gorgeous George. Hogan promo brother! Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana vs. Terry and Hoss Funk For some reason Dory Funk Jr. is named Hoss Funk. Terry Funk always does weird things in the ring…but intentionally. Like things that would happen naturally in the ring that would add legitimacy to it (like tripping on Santana’s feet and almost going over the top rope here). Terry’s great here. Awesome save from Funk. Really great hot tag sequence to JYD. Santana tries to get by Funk and eventually does so. Funk takes an over the top rope backdrop. Wow. Terry gets slammed on a table. What? This is 1986! Terry and Hoss Funk when Terry pins JYD in 11:33. Jimmy Hart throws in the megaphone! Terry nails JYD and gets the win. Pretty fun brawl! Terry Funk was great. Another bullshit chant. Although I guess its LA’s first. Here comes the cage. We get 5 minutes of Hogan working out. Great. Now we have a Bobby Heenan and King Kong Bundy interview. WWF Championship: Steel Cage Match Hulk Hogan© vs. King Kong Bundy Story is simple. Bundy avalanched Hogan three times, injuring his ribs. This is Hogan’s revenge. Hogan’s ribs are taped here. Bundy works the ribs and he rips the tape off (which Elvira calls as “he’s taking off more clothes! Oh it’s his belt”). Another on camera blade. Not trying are we cameramen? Anyway Bundy is busted open. Hogan survives an Avalanche! Hulk Hogan wins in 10:11. Hogan outright no sells a second avalanche. Big slam. Legdrop. Escape for the win. Well, that’s classic Hogan for you I guess. It was pretty much a main event squash of Bundy. Hogan beats the crap out of Heenan afterwards. Seems underwhelming for a Wrestlemania main event…but that’s of course hindsight as this was only the 2nd Wrestlemania. Commentary was pretty bad there too, although hilariously so. You know Vince didn’t like this show. That’s why he threw everything at Andre vs. Hogan for Mania III. The idea of expanding to three venues was weird. I don’t think Bundy was nearly a big enough name to headline Mania. Some finishes were lame (opening match double countout? Come on). Hogan vs. Bundy was underwhelming. Kudos to Vince for trying new things, but Wrestlemania 2 is largely forgettable. Heck I don’t remember half the show and I just watched it. No surprise that 70K less people bought this show. The plus side: The Bulldogs match was nice, and the Funks weren’t that bad either…and I guess Hogan doing his thing was still a big deal in 1986. Final Grade: C |
![]() |
|
| Baldwin | Mar 16 2014, 09:55 PM Post #38 |
![]()
6x EBL Champion
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
WCW Mayhem 1999 |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 16 2014, 11:59 PM Post #39 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Bash at the Beach 98 will come first. |
![]() |
|
| Hajjhowe | Mar 17 2014, 04:00 AM Post #40 |
|
Halfcourt Heroes
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
No Mercy 2000 |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 18 2014, 02:25 AM Post #41 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WCW Bash at the Beach 98 July 13, 1998 San Diego, CA Background: I wrote a bit about how WCW was going downhill in 1998…but to be fair they were still doing very well at this particular point. To Eric Bischoff the Monday Night War was everything. When he started losing in April of 98 he began to hotshot big main events that would have drawn big money on PPV. Eventually it would cost him. Yes, Goldberg pinning Hollywood Hogan clean for the World Title was a huge moment. But millions upon millions of PPV revenue was flushed down the toilet for that move. WCW though, still had some aces up their sleeves. At Wrestlemania XIV, the WWF brought in Mike Tyson and it worked out handsomely for them. WCW had its own list of celebrities, and while the later crap with Jay Leno probably hurt the business in the long run, the big tag team match of Hogan and Dennis Rodman against DDP and Karl Malone seemed like it would work. Hell, Malone was in better shape than 80% of the roster, and Rodman at least was there the year before. This card is missing some top tier guys, but hey, sometimes that’s how you get some undercard exposure. I remember this being a fun show, so let’s see if it holds up. The Card Mean Gene plugs the hotline of course. Raven’s Rules Saturn vs. Raven Raven’s Rules of course means no rules. Storyline here: Saturn is the one to break away from the Flock. It came to a head when Saturn needed to beat Kanyon at the Great American Bash and despite interference from a bunch of Mortis’s, Saturn still lost. Raven was one of the Mortis’s. Saturn owns early on. Raven always knew how to sell guardrail spots. Saturn falls off the top rope, but perfectly recovers and hits a dropkick. Mike Tenay puts it over as well, which was nice. Somehow Tony Schiavone calls Raven getting a table “a chair”. Bobby Heenan kills him for it and it’s great. Saturn misses a springboard…something…but it looked pretty rehearsed. Raven with one of my favorite spots: The Russian Legsweep into the guardrail. Springboard twisting legdrop on a chair on Raven’s face! One of the better ref bumps, Saturn with Air Sabu and Saturn ends up kicking Nick Patrick in the face. Bulldog headlock on the steps! Saturn has dominated. Saturn makes a Raven sandwich with two tables, but Kanyon comes and pulls Raven out. Saturn jumps waaayyy too late to make that believable. Kanyon nails Raven with a Flatliner on an open chair though! Raven pins Saturn in 10:40. Saturn superkicks Raven in the face while Raven was holding a chair. Cover, but Riggs runs in to break it up. Saturn hits him with the Death Valley Driver. Raven though, uses the interference to hit the Evenflow DDT for the win. Fun brawl. Great use of the chair. Shows that WCW didn’t need cruiserweights to have a hot opener every show. Mena Gene brings out Eddy Guerrero! He puts over Chavo’s craziness, especially in regards to his decision to wrestle Stevie Ray before he wrestles Eddy. Eddy wasn’t a great promo man yet. Unless you like run-on sentences. Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera Here’s someone who got over from the Flock: Kidman. This was still the itchy heroin addict Kidman. Small story: Who’s finisher is better? Juvi’s 450 or Kidman’s 7 Year Itch (the Shooting Star Press). Juvi also wrestled and beat the Flock’s monster Reese last month. Apparently this is Kidman’s 1st PPV match. Referee total ignores Lodi beating up Juvi. Kidman’s top rope dive though misses Juvi and he nails Lodi, then Juvi goes flying himself to take out Lodi and Kidman. Awesome reverse catapult from Kidman to Juvi. I think that’s what it’s called. Powerbomb/sunset flip off the apron from Juvi to Kidman. Nice. Double leg underhook powerbomb from Kidman to Juvi off the top! Nice! Juvi crotches Kidman on the top rope…then outside to inside hurricanrana for a two. Very nice! Kidman German…but Juvi lands on his feet then hits the Juvi Driver! Only two! Juventud Guerrera pins Kidman in 9:55. Kidman misses the 7 Year Itch…and Juvi follows with the 450 for the win. Very fun match. WCW smartly continued the Cruiserweight division with these two on top through the end of 98. Lee Marshall and Konnan. Konnan asks if Skittles had a shirt give away. I guess that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard Konnan say. Stevie Ray vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. Story: Chavo challenges Stevie Ray even though he was already facing Eddy later. Heenan calls Chavo Captain Cupcake. Imagine if they went with that for the MIA later on? Chavo Guerrero Jr.’s insane 1998 run was great. Best thing he ever did. Eddy makes his way down to watch the match, obviously rooting for Stevie Ray to pound Chavo. Chavo dedicates the match to Eddy! Stevie Ray makes Chavo Guerrero Jr. submit in 1:35. Chavo does some comedy spots…then submits to a handshake! He’s so tired now, I guess it’s time for him to face Eddy! Eddy is furious. Great booking here. Hair vs. Hair Eddy Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. Eddy has major heat. Smh WCW, smh. Chavo with more comedy. You know who Chavo reminds me of here? Santino! Angry Eddy Guerrero is the best Eddy Guerrero. This is just a well wrestled match here. Perfect tilt a whil backbreaker on Eddy from Chavo! Eddy Guerrero pins Chavo Guerrero Jr. in 11:54. Great ending. Chavo goes for Eddy’s finisher, the Frog Splash but Eddy gets the feet up. Eddy then plants Chavo with Chavo’s move the Tornado DDT (a move he should have kept). Eddy though goes for the scissors! Eddy misses a Frog Splash and Chavo hits his Tornado DDT. Chavo then goes for the scissors! Eddy rolls up Chavo for the win. Chavo scares Eddy away though…then cuts his own hair! Chavo was so over as a nutcase here. Three good matches in a row (not counting Ray-Chavo, lol). Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay talk about the Chris Jericho-Dean Malenko feud. You can tell he wasn’t told about the bonus match until that moment. BONUS MATCH Konnan vs. Disco Inferno Alex Wright and Disco try to get with the “lingo” of the Hispanic scene. It’s pretty funny to be honest. Only Wolfpac appearance of the show. But we get Lex Luger and Kevin Nash at ringside, so there’s that. Konnan made Disco Inferno submit in 2:16. Disco throws Konnan outside for Alex Wright to attack. Wright dances afterwards and Luger comes around and racks him. This distracts the ref, and Kevin Nash comes in and kills Disco with a jackknife. Tequila Sunrise (awesome submission) for the win. I mean, it was 2 minutes and Disco got no offense, but it was fun at least. The Giant vs. Kevin Greene NWO time. This originally was Giant and Curt Hennig vs. Greene and Goldberg, but got split when Goldberg won the title. The Giant pinned Kevin Greene in 6:58. Not much to say here. Smartly booked with a lot of hit and run from Greene but Giant’s power being too much. Greene finally knocks Giant down…but a mistake leads to him running into the big hand and the chokeslam for the win. Certainly not horrible. Greene could have been a solid wrestler I think. Marshall is now with Curt Hennig. Hennig says he has the secret to beat Goldberg. Inexperience! More recap of Jericho-Malenko, and how Malenko was suspended because he attacked Jericho even though he wasn’t supposed to. This feud was the highlight of Malenko’s career, and propelled Jericho to superstardom. WCW Cruiserweight Championship: No DQ Chris Jericho© vs. ??? Jericho comes out with a top hat and cane. Jericho equals buyrates afterall, so he’s gonna perform. JJ Dillion shows up and offers Jericho a local opponent (not before sucking up to Jericho. Good stuff all around). Jericho takes it. Huge pop for Rey Mysterio Jr., as he is from San Diego! Brilliant! There is a story here too! Jericho injured Rey back at Souled Out, solidifying his heel turn. Of course Jericho works on the knee. Good psychology. Funny spots here. Jericho runs up the beach ladder in the set (which has tons of sand around). Rey pulls Jericho off the ladder into the sand, which Schiavone has to sell as “oh, that’s a soft landing, but the sand is irritating!” Mysterio then with the top of the ladder hurricanrana on the sand! Jericho misses a top rope knee drop and lands on the chair…and now Mysterio works on Jericho’s knee! Dropkick to a chair on the knee as well! Rey Mysterio Jr. wins the title when he pinned Jericho in 6:00. Jericho goes for the Liontamer, but Mysterio escapes! Here comes Malenko! This distracts Jericho enough for Rey to roll him up on a Liontamer attempt for the win! Jericho runs from Malenko, but Arn Anderson helps him get Jericho. This foreshadowed the Four Horsemen return. Because of the Malenko appearance, Jericho was awarded the title back on Nitro. Okay match, other than the top of the ladder deal you can tell Mysterio didn’t want to do any flying yet with the knee injury. Still, cool moments all around and Jericho is hilarious in the pre-match stuff. TV Championship Booker T© vs. Bret Hart Story: Bret got involved in the Best of 7 Series that Booker T and Chris Benoit had. Booker challenged Bret. Looks like unmotivated Bret here sadly. Match I think is designed to put Booker T over with the upper-level guys, but this looks like Bret going down a level unfortunately. Good psychology here…Booker T does his Spinarooni but doesn’t pop up, Heenan points out it’s because of the knee. Nice. Booker T wins by DQ in 8:28. Booker with a dive over the rop…and Bret catches him midway with a chair! Bret bashes Booker’s knee with a chair…then my favorite hold…the Figure Four around the ring post! What an awesome move. Stevie Ray shows up slowly and Bret leaves. It planted seeds for the Harlem Heat problems later. Okay match, kinda boring. Finish is also meh but Bret made the beat down look good. Stevie Ray says Booker doesn’t need medical help and helps him back. Video recap of Goldberg’s world title win. It was pretty damn awesome. WCW World Championship Goldberg© vs. Curt Hennig Goldberg looks pretty damn incredible with the Big Gold Belt. Goldberg is 111-0 here. Goldberg retains when he pins Hennig in 3:50. Goldberg kicks out of the Hennig-Plex and wins with the Spear-Jackhammer combo. Hennig did something new here going for Goldberg’s leg, but it didn’t matter. Nothing wrong with this, helped Goldberg get that first title defense out of the way. Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman vs. Karl Malone and Diamond Dallas Page A lot of stalling early on with the Malone-Rodman start. Rodman is a great chickenshit heel. Malone slams Hogan! Rodman with the armdrag on Page! Rodman messes up something leading to a collision of the heads. Rumors were Rodman wasn’t in great condition to perform here. Surprising that Malone plays babyface in peril. Now Page is the babyface in peril. Long tag match with not a lot happening. Hogan and Rodman win when Hogan pins Page in 23:47. Page nails the Diamond Cutter on Hogan. Rodman runs in, but Malone Diamond Cutters him for a huge pop. Malone tries to pin Rodman out of inexperience, and The Disciple hits a stunner on Page for the Hogan pin. I mean, it was a spectacle. I think other than the Diamond Cutter a bodyslam was the biggest high spot. It’s supposed to be a spectacle though and I do think overall it’s booked well. Malone gets some moments. Rodman gets some moments. This could have been A LOT worse. Bash at the Beach 98…is pretty entertaining overall. Good matches to start, big names to finish. Some good moments with Mysterio and Goldberg’s first title defense. There really isn’t a bad match on the card (although some boring ones), but everything had SOME entertainment value somewhere. These were WCW’s last great days. They never ran with Page. They didn’t even seriously run with Goldberg somehow. They didn’t run with Raven. Or Jericho. Wasted talent all over the place that did some good stuff on this PPV. But this show itself? It’s pretty good. Three good opening matches. Good comedy with Chavo and Jericho. Big main event. Goldberg squashing a high tiered guy. All good. Final Grade: B+ |
![]() |
|
| MPH | Mar 18 2014, 03:34 AM Post #42 |
![]()
OMAHA!
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
That show kind of illustrated to me why I liked WCW back in the day. They had great wrestling in the cruiserweights like Jericho, Eddy, Chavo, Juvi, Rey, and so many others. They also had guys I felt were extremely talented and under-appreciated like Raven and Saturn, and then they had the big names as well. I was always a huge Raven fan, which is probably why I am such a huge Bray Wyatt fan right now. |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 20 2014, 10:14 PM Post #43 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image WCW Mayhem 99 November 21, 1999 Toronto, Ontario, CA Background: Twelve months before this Vince Russo was the primary booker for the Survivor Series 98 Deadly Game tournament…which was average at best. I’m sure he one of the first things he wanted to do was re-create that idea in WCW…considering that is one of the first things he did. I don’t think the idea is terrible…but the tournament itself was a bit of a mess. Still, the Russo era had begun. Let’s talk a little WCW 99. At this point the WWF had run away with the Monday Night Wars, and WCW hiring Russo was their answer. The issue with WCW was that the whole creating new stars thing wasn’t happening. Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Sting, Randy Savage and the “addition” of Sid Vicious were WCW’s main storyline throughout the summer. Well, Hogan, Sting, Nash and Savage had been on top for years now. It was time to change. Sid wasn’t (and never is) the answer. Thing is WCW had the new guys! Bill Goldberg was being wasted. Goldberg should have been at the very top, but somehow was fighting Rick Steiner or The Jersey Triad. Speaking of the Triad, Diamond Dallas Page got about a month on top (turning heel no less) before being shunted right back to the midcard. Bret Hart too was absolutely wasted in the first half of 1999. Hart may have not been a fresh face…but he would have been fresh in WCW’s main event. To quickly explain why there’s a World Title tournament in the first place: Sting beat Hulk Hogan for the title when Hogan just laid down (UGH!). Somehow a Goldberg-Sting match happened at Havoc and Goldberg won the title. Sting attacked a ref and said he never agreed to defend the title but JJ Dillion stripped Sting of the belt because of that attack. Don’t know the story of why Goldberg lost a first round match to Bret Hart. Anyway, that’s how we are here. We are down to the semi-finals. Benoit vs. Jarrett and Bret vs. Sting. This group of four is actually exciting! The Card We get a recap of the tournament. I missed the Hart-Goldberg explanation. 2/3rd of the matches seemed to have some crazy stip or interference, but that’s how we got to Jarrett, Benoit, Bret and Sting. WCW World Title Tournament: Semi-Final Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit Jarrett had just turned up in WCW after leaving the WWF in October. Benoit is someone fans everywhere wanted to see get a chance at the top. Great having these two in this position. We’re in Canada, so obviously fans are really hot for Benoit. We’re getting Tornado DDTs and Superplexes early on here. This is a pretty fun opener. I don’t get the high impact moves earlier. Oh god Creative Control is here. That’s Ron and Don Harris of course. Nice false finish with the sunset flip counter from Benoit. Chris Benoit advances when he pins Jeff Jarrett in 9:27. Benoit has it won after a Swandive Heabutt, but one of the Creative Control members breaks it up. Jarrett gets control as a result and his the Stroke…but Dustin Rhodes shows up and breaks that up. Creative Control tries to nail Benoit with a guitar, but Benoit gets it and smashes Jarrett with it for the win. Pretty solid opener (even if the finish is overbooked nonsense), and crowd was very into it because of Benoit and Canada. I’d say Jarrett is a step or two behind Benoit in the ring…but who wasn’t really? Creative Control beat down Benoit afterwards. Jarrett and Creative Control beat down Disco Inferno for no reason. I guess they are frustrated! WCW Cruiserweight Championship Disco Inferno© vs. Evan Karagias $25,000 grand apparently on the line too. Yikes. Not exactly Malenko vs. Mysterio here. Or even Chavo vs. Helms. Madusa is with Karagias. Talk about plastic. Disco comes out selling the beatdown from earlier. That’s Tony Marinara, or Tony Mamaluke with Disco. Marinara’s commentary is awful. Worst fake Italian accent ever. I also don’t remember any of this. Match is boring. Fans start chanting boring. They got it right! A lot of the commentary is about the $25,000 being worth a lot to Disco, as if it is his life. I guess being Cruiserweight Champ doesn’t pay? Evan Karagias wins the title in 8:28. Madusa slaps Disco. Marinara tries to hit on Madusa, but Karagias confronts. Disco accidentally nails Marinara with a chair. Karagias gets a crossbody for the win. To think the Cruiserweight Division would be worse off two months later. This sucked all around. By the way, why not just steal Little Guido from ECW for the Marinara role? Would have been a lot better. Bret Hart is here! The off screen Powers that Be. Of course it’s Russo. He admonishes Jarrett for not winning the WCW title tonight. Norman Smiley interview…and of course he screams when a sound is made! WCW Hardcore Title Match Norman Smiley vs. Brian Knobbs This is to crown the first ever Hardcore Champ. No idea about the story. Smiley has a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey on (actually he has the whole hockey gear on EXCEPT a helmet. Smart). I guess he’s the face! A lot of Knobbs in a garbage can. Feels about right. Some really bad shots with garbage can lids here. Norman Smiley wins the title by pin in 7:27. Creative ending spot! Knobbs whips Norman into an elevator but misses an avalanche. Jimmy Hart, Knobbs’ manager tries to hit Smiley with a garbage can but the elevator closes. He reopens it…but accidentally hits Knobbs! Smiley gets the win. Match was a poor version of what the WWF was doing at the time. Just a lot of you hit me I hit you…but Jimmy Hart does steal the show a bit with the food throwing and ending. I would say that this is the way to use Knobbs. Knobbs throws Jimmy Hart into some food afterwards. Revolution promo. Gonna make the Filthy Animals extinct like the dinosaurs! Animals respond. A lot lamer than the Revolution promo. Tony Mariana tells Disco that on Nitro he’s bringing the boys…and Disco thinks he’s a dead man. The Revolution (Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Asya) vs. The Filthy Animals (Eddy Guerrero, Billy Kidman and Torrie Wilson) When the Radicalz collide! This is an elimination match. Saturn takes out his fellow future Radicalz with an Asai Moonsault to the outside! Asya just takes out Kidman with a clothesline. Somehow this match has lost all flow. Eddy accidentally elbows Kidman, and Saturn eliminates him with a roll up. In three minutes. Huge Eddy chants though. For some reason Malenko isn’t finishing his moves well. Like he doesn’t want to hurt Guerrero in real life or something. Huge vertical suplex by Asya to Guerrero. Guerrero pins Malenko with a hurricanrana. Saturn accidentally kicks Asya, and Guerrero eliminates her with the frog splash. Funny enough, the Filthy Animal theme accidentally plays for a second. Saturn makes Eddy submit to the Rings of Saturn. Shane Douglas, idiot he is, claims that Eddy tapped. If you saw the Rings of Saturn, you’see why that made no sense. Saturn vs. Torrie! The Revolution wins when Saturn pins Torrie at 10:55. Saturn hits a low blow and Torrie sells it (commentators wonder if that hurts a woman) and gets the pin. No wonder he left in two months. Somehow (considering the participants) the match was a mess. Only Eddy Guerrero seemed to want to be there. Also, obligatory Asya is a Chyna ripoff statement. It’s even in the name. Creative Control and Jeff Jarrett attacks Buff Bagwell! Retirement Match Curt Hennig vs. Buff Bagwell It’s really only Hennig’s career on the line I believe. Same as Flair’s 2008 retirement deal. Of course Hennig was a heel here, so I’m not sure how it was supposed to work. We get Creative Control and Jarrett instead of Bagwell and they attack Hennig. But then Bagwell comes in to chase them off. Not sure about what sense that made. Another boring match. I assume Hennig wasn’t into anything at this point either. Crowd with some boring chants. Buff Bagwell ends Curt Hennig’s career by pin in 7:47. Buff Blockbuster for the win. Fans do give Hennig a standing ovation. Of course, there’s no reason to really buy this…heck Schiovane and Heenan give it a half-assed effort to. Hennig was back with a few weeks I think. Match was boring. Nothing happened. Heel Sting promo! He brings up a good point that he shouldn’t have lost the title in the first place. WCW World Title Tournament: Semi-Final Bret Hart vs. Sting Bret comes out with a Wayne Gretzky jersey. Personal gut feeling here: I always wondered if Bret told WCW he wasn’t coming back unless he got the belt put on him after Owen died. This is really Shades of Grey Sting…as he did get screwed by the Powers that Be. This is the only crowd to probably hate Sting…and it took Bret Hart and Canada to get it done. Bret gets the referee on a top rope ax smash. Luger’s out here. Bret then attacks Luger! Sharpshooter! Ref calls for the bell! DQs Sting because Luger and Hart were going at it. Bret wants it to keep going. And he succeeds. Match restarted. Bret Hart advances by making Sting submit in 9:27. Scorpion reversed into the Sharpshooter. Didn’t need the Luger run-in, but it helped make Bret look like a solid face. He get a handshake afterwards, which I think makes Sting a face? Match wasn’t much unfortunately, but Bret got a strong win at least. Bret vs. Benoit in Canada! Luger says Bret hurt his neck. Says he can’t go tonight. Dog Collar Match Vampiro vs. Berlyn Vampiro is announced from Toronto. No reaction. Here comes OKLAHOMA! Berlyn nails the ref with the collar. Somehow Jerry Only and The Wall are involved. Jerry Only can’t even do a suplex. Maybe because he’s not a wrestler. Vampiro makes Berlyn submit in 4:57. Camel clutch with the chain for the win. Horrible. Berlyn never even wore the Collar. It was more of a tornado tag than anything. Wall walked out of Berlyn. Terrible match that made no sense. Dr. Death attacks Jerry Only and Vampiro afterwards. About the Oklahoma thing. Honestly, it wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for the mocking Bell’s Palsy thing. But of course, they had to do that, which was pretty damn tasteless. Scott Hall interview. He has both the TV and US Titles. Curt Hennig is leaving. Shaking people’s hands. Kimberly Page is here! She will face David Flair later. Yay? ”The Total Package” Lex Luger vs. Meng Luger still has the neck brace. A lot of no-selling from both sides here. Tony Schiavone basically tells the story of the match before it happens, that the neck brace is to block the Tongan Death Grip. Meng pins Lex Luger in 5:23. Miss Elizabeth accidentally sprays mace in Luger’s face (not well done at all). Meng rips off the brace and Tongan Death Grip for three. Horrible. Hitman interview. Luger randomly walks by looking for Elizabeth. US and TV Title Match Scott Hall© vs. ??? So the story here is that Hall was supposed to originally face TV Champ Rick Steiner but Steiner got hurt, awarding Hall the TV title. The new opponent is…..Booker T. No pop for Booker though. Booker gets a “Rocky” chant. This crowd seems very WWF strong, for the record (Hall and Hennig pops, nevermind Bret). I wonder if they’ll boo Goldberg later. God Jarrett and Creative Control again. Scott Hall retains both titles when he pins Booker T in 6:04. Booker takes out both of Creative Control, but Jarrett’s distraction leads to the Outsider’s Edge for the pin. Boring match. Put Scott Hall on the list of people who don’t want to be there. Creative Control attacks Booker T. BONG! It’s…Midnight, who takes out Creative Control. Another female bodybuilder. At least it wasn’t Seven. Luger is still looking for Elizabeth. Kimberly vs. David Flair Alright, let’s get to this story. Kimberly invited David Flair into her room when DDP wasn’t around. For some reason Ric Flair came instead. Started a fight between David and Kimberly. David Flair then went all The Shining on Kimberly with a crowbar. Weird all around. Ah Kimberly Page…the main reason why the Undertaker vs. DDP stalker angle was real shit. Flair with a weird non-sell of a low blow. Kimberly gets out of being hit with a crowbar by practically teasing a blowjob…then she pulls out the cup and low bridges Flair. No Contest in 4:55. Kanyon and DDP take out Flair…but then Arn Anderson comes out to save him. Flair then beats the crap out of Anderson with the crowbar. Utter garbage. Arn Anderson does do a great sell job though. I Quit Match Goldberg vs. Sid Boos for Goldberg! Although light. Goldberg sucks chant! Huge Sid chants! Armbreaker and Sid’s arm is hurt! Goldberg wins when Sid passes out in 5:30. Cobra clutch and Sid passes out in 5 minutes. I think Jerry Flynn put up a bigger fight. Not a good match. Luger interview. Still didn’t find Elzabeth. He gets even. WCW World Title Tournament Final Chris Benoit vs. Bret Hart You know what’s interesting? I think this match is clearly the right way to go…but the Canadian crowd doesn’t know who to go with. I mean they are cheering for Bret…but they don’t want Benoit to lose. There was this Canadian fan who attacked Benoit earlier that I didn’t mention as I didn’t think it was important…but he does show up here too and attacks Benoit. Turns out it was Malenko! No DQ called or anything though. Tombstone from Benoit! Swandive Headbutt! Scott Hall takes out the referee. Kevin Nash is here too. Goldberg is here and he takes out Nash with a spear! Bret takes out Hall. Heenan points out that the referee is going to let this all go without a DQ as the match is too important. I’m okay with that actually. Split screen now. The World Title match…and the Outsiders/Goldberg confrontation. Bret Hart wins the World Title when Benoit submits in 17:44. Great sequence at the end where Benoit is playing dead…only for him to come alive and hit the triple Germans. Benoit goes for the Crossface…but Bret gets the Sharpshooter and the win. Good match tarnished by the silly interference midway. I guess disappointing based on what Benoit and Hart could do (the Owen tribute match was WAY better), but still good. Bret’s family celebrates with him. Crowd pops big for the Sharpshooter. So that’s Mayhem. It’s a shame that there’s so much crap here because you can see some potential trying to break out with this card. Even though there is way too much interference, at least there were some stories in there that kinda sorta made sense. The Nash, Hall, Goldberg run-ins would lead to Hall/Nash vs. Goldberg and Hart and then NWO 2000, so there is that. The workrate overall was okay, even good in some case (Benoit). And Bret vs. Benoit was pretty new for a WCW main event. Probably the best main event match WCW had in a long time. Even the stuff with Kimberly and Flair and Arn Anderson. If it leads somewhere, okay, maybe something can work (no idea what it led to, I think a DDP vs. David Flair match somewhere). The Marinara-Disco stuff lead to the debut of a new team (Big Vito and Johnny the Bull), which is good. There’s potential! I’m all for giving this PPV a C+ for effort. Here’s why I can’t: Still a lot of crap. While the Kimberly-Flair stuff could have worked…the match itself was garbage. Luger vs. Meng? Bad. Hennig’s retirement? Waste of time. Even Revolution vs. Animals was disappointing and lame. Vampiro vs. Berlyn didn’t make sense. All that alone drops it to a C. And then you have Oklahoma. Fuck off Ed Ferrara. By the way WCW went directly downhill after this. It was once said that Vince Russo can write one hell of a first chapter. For the record, here is a list of the next few WCW World Champions. Bret Hart (Mayhem) Vacant Bret Hart Vacant Chris Benoit Vacant Sid Vacant Kevin Nash Sid Vacant The only question is…how much was Vacant making? Anyway, this would be the last time WCW would have even potentially good storylines going. It was a mess from this point forward. Final Grade: C- |
![]() |
|
|
|
Mar 23 2014, 04:37 AM Post #44 |
|
Tyler
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Posted Image No Mercy 2000 October 22, 2000 Albany, NY Background: The WWF-WCW war for all intents and purposes was over. The WWF had a checkmark next to every conceivable comparison you could make. Biggest stars? Check. Best wrestlers? Check. Most compelling storylines? Check. Characters fans cared the most about? Check. I could go on and on, but the war was just about over. But interestingly enough, and this is sometimes forgotten over time, but the WWF had actually passed their peak as well. While numbers were still quite strong across the board, the RAW rating had went from a consistent high 5s to mid 6s (and sometimes low 7s) to high 4s to sometimes 6 flat. Once again, obviously great numbers, but not the super sky high numbers the WWF did through 1999 and early 2000. There were some reasons for that. One of which was the main storyline here, but also who those new characters were. Although I personally prefer a combination of great wrestling and great storytelling…Crash TV at one point really was the way to go for the highest ratings. In 2000 the WWF moved away from that. There was a new focus on great matches and a lot of it had to do with the new talent WWF acquires or brought up though 2000 (Radicalz, Kurt Angle, William Regal, emergence of Edge, Christian and Hardyz). And well, the real draw of wrestling usually isn’t wrestling. The other big thing going on at the time that really is up for debate is what Stone Cold Steve Austin’s return to the WWF meant in terms of business. For whatever reason, it didn’t do the crazy great business that Austin’s name on the marquee used to do. Once again it isn’t to say that it wasn’t successful, but ratings didn’t bump and actually trended downward once Austin came back. Now, while I’m using Austin’s comeback as a reference point here, I actually don’t think its Austin’s fault that ratings didn’t rise when he came back. It’s just the WWF, great matches and all, had its time in the Crash TV era. You can only have the same guys on top for so long before people don’t care anymore, at least in TV land. What Austin was doing in 1998 and 1999 was revolutionary. In 2000, it was the norm. I assume that’s why they went with the heel turn in 2001. Anyway, I do think the main storyline coming into his comeback also hurt a bit. I get the idea to elevate Rikishi to the top, he was getting great face reactions, but this was totally out of left field and even the WWF kinda retconned it when HHH was the accomplice (even though, I did like Rikishi’s reasoning). This storyline needed a big payoff (HHH was logical, although it’s too bad HBK wasn’t active here). For the record this angle is my reasoning of why Undertaker can’t lose his Wrestlemania streak to just anyone to get them over. The fans won’t buy it. It needs to go to a top or near top guy to further cement them (like Daniel Bryan!) Anyway, No Mercy 2000! The return of the Rattlesnake! The Card Awesome opening promo. It’s a takeoff of Stone Cold’s Survivor Series 96 promo with Bret Hart (the black and white I’m gonna kick your ass thing). “I’m looking at Rikishi, and I’m looking at deadman”. Dudley Boyz Tag Team Elimination Invitational Too Cool vs. Lo-Down vs. Raven and Tazz vs. the Dudley Boyz vs. Goodfather and Bull Buchanan Funny enough, Too Cool look like Public Enemy bringing a table with them and dancing. This is like a Tag Team Turmoil match…just you gotta put someone through a table to eliminate them. D’Lo looks a bit out of shape. This was his last gimmick before he was gone. Some talk about Edge and Christian being sick and unable to be in this match. This is part of something awesome later. Both Lo-Down members end up going through a table. Too Cool advances. Tazz and Raven next. This could have been an ECW dream match at one time. Grandmaster Sexay’s feet accidentally destroy a table. That didn’t give away that it was gimmicked now did it? (And Big Show should be angered he lost the IC title for the same thing in 2012). Scotty does a WORM under a table. Nice. Scotty gets double suplexes through the table right after. I swear Scotty loses more matches when he does the worm than when he doesn’t. Dudley time. They didn’t even get last position in their own match. It’s amazing how the former ECW Tag Champs are destroying two former ECW World Champs. D-Von legdrops Tazz through a table. Here come the RTC! The Dudley Boyz win in 12:18. Stupid finish here. Bull accidentally clotheslines the referee. Bubba powerbombs Bull Buchanan through the table, but the ref didn’t see it since he’s out. Goodfather with the chair shot takes out Bubba and he lands in the table wreckage Ref wakes up and calls it for the RTC…which would have been a fine finish for the heels cheating to win. But a 2nd ref comes in and tells the 1st ref what happened…match restart…3D through table for win. So, why don’t we have two referees for everything then? Still a fun little match though. We get a quick Trish, Test and Albert discussion about it being okay if Trish’s boobs fall out. I’m sure everyone agrees. By gawd, it’s Rikishi! He’s got a sledgehammer! At lot of the commentary during the tables match was that Stone Cold wasn’t at the arena yet. JR guarantees he will be. Lita and the APA vs. Trish and T & A Lita had the worst theme music in the WWF at this time. Story here: Strip poker game with Trish, Test, Albert and the APA went wrong. Also Trish hates Lita. SO here we are. T & A beats the crap out of the APA backstage. It’s a 3 on 1 attack on Lita…but of course the Hardyz make the save. I mean, it would have been stupid if they hadn’t, right? No match, which is always stupid, but I don’t think it was made until late anyway, and it’s way to get them all on the PPV I guess. Edge and Christian backstage and not sick! Pretty awesome interview using the word nuts. Anyway, they’ll be there to watch Los Conquistadores win the tag titles! Steel Cage Match X-Pac vs. Chris Jericho I believe the story stems off of the HHH vs. Jericho feud through the summer. Jericho beat X-Pac at Unforgiven. They’ve been feuding since. Weird start where Jericho baseball slides X-Pac as he was coming through the door. So they end up fighting around the outside. I usually don’t like cage matches that have outside fighting, with a few exceptions. Jericho rockets X-Pac into the cage…and I do believe X-Pac injured his neck there which is why we don’t see him again until February. Backdrop into the cage and X-Pac lands on his head (although the ropes helped break the fall). That might have been where the injury happened. X-Pac goes for the pin. I never understood those spots where people go for pins in non-pinfall matches. Big boos for the Bronco Buster. Powerbomb from the top rope. To be honest, some of these spots are cool, but the match just isn’t clicking. Jericho gets a Walls on the top of the cage, but it looks like crap…and Jericho goes crashing back into the ring. Chris Jericho wins by escape in 10:40. Okay, here is one of the best cage match spots ever. X-Pac has it won and is about to escape. X-Pac stands on the top of the open door and celebrates, and Jericho dropkicks the cage making X-Pac crotch the door! Jericho escapes for the win. Finish was great. Match was fine I guess. Problems with it were that fans were disappointed Jericho had went from fighting HHH and Benoit to X-Pac so they never thought he was losing…and X-Pac heat started around this time. Steve Blackman at WWF New York! Foley’s Office. Rikishi demands to know where Austin is. Foley said if he doesn’t show, he’ll raise Rikishi’s hand. Apparently Eddie Guerrero got hurt against Billy Gunn on RAW for an IC title match. So… Eddie Guerrero and Chyna vs. Val Venis and Steven Richards This was the last days of Mr. Ass. At least until 2003. Gunn would lose the name to the RTC in a few weeks. Chyna was still very over at this point. I don’t know where it went off the rails for her exactly, but she was done in nine months. Gunn would be done as a potential top guy after having a bad match with Benoit in December. I do think they should have went with the Outlaws again here as they would have been a perfect foil for RTC. Some psychology! They work on Gunn’s shoulder, which he just came back from having surgery on. Never liked Chyna’s cartwheel elbow. The elbow part was always so weak. Val Venis and Steven Richards win when Val pins Chyna in 7:10. Goodfather and Bull take out Gunn (to no DQ?). Chyna is about to Pedigree Val, but Guerrero wins in and smashes her in the back with a pipe disguised by flowers. Val gets the win. Nothing really to say here. Not bad, not good. Not anything. RTC were natural heat magnets and Chyna was pretty damn over. HHH is backstage. This was his small time as a face before the Austin angle played out. Stephanie McMahon wants to be at ringside with HHH. HHH thinks it’s too dangerous for her to be at ringside with Benoit out there. They start to argue a bit when she talks about helping her business partner Kurt Angle. No Holds Barred Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Rikishi Just as Foley comes out to raise Rikishi’s hand…here comes Austin in a truck! Austin gets a huge pop of course. This is ALL Austin. All Austin. I’ll explain why that wasn’t the way to go afterwards. Austin beats the shit out of Rikishi with a chair. Rikishi’s busted. Rikishi has gotten a little offense and a kick in. Stone Cold and Rikishi wrestled to a no contest in 9:21. Austin puts Rikishi in his truck and brings him to the street. Austin then tries to run over Rikishi, but the police intervene and arrest Austin. Pretty sure that means Rikishi should be the winner, but whatever. The brawl is pretty good for what it is, but the problem is the booking all the way. I’m going to take some time to explain what’s wrong with this angle and where and why it went wrong, assuming that no matter what the WWF was going to go with Rikishi. And by the way, if Austin gets arrested here, shouldn’t Rikishi have been arrested for running over Austin in the first place? Okay, so I wrote earlier in the background about why Rikishi was not the best choice for the angle…but once WWF decided it was him, they had to stick with it. The first match between the two here at No Mercy needed to be a 50:50 (or even a Rikishi beat down)…although understandably you want Stone Cold to look good and kick ass on his return match. Here’s why you can’t have an Austin beatdown: it kills Rikishi. Think of it this way. Wrestlemania XXX, John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt. If Cena kills Wyatt in a 10 minute match, what happens? It’s practically the end of Wyatt. What if Wyatt beats down Cena or it’s a 50:50 match where Cena barely wins? Heck what if it’s a five minute squashing of season, what happens? Makes Wyatt look like gold and doesn’t hurt Cena one bit. For example, Wyatt beating Daniel Bryan at the Royal Rumble is perfect. Made Wyatt look great, didn’t hurt Bryan one bit. Well the idea of taking Rikishi seriously as a top guy went to hell. Rikishi had flashes with the main event…but this was his first true test and he looked like a chump. AND when he went back to a dancing fool eight months later well, I believe that was one of the storylines that killed the goodwill of the fans from the Attitude era. Even if he flopped as a heel (not like his turn to babyface worked or anything), the thing he did (running over Austin) was bad enough that he had to stay there. By the way once HHH was involved in the feud, well, you might as well have stuck a fork in Rikishi as it is. (Also for the record, the four guys WWF was pushing toward the top in 2000 were Angle, Benoit, Jericho and Rikishi. The only one to get a big win over a main eventer was Angle, and not surprisingly, he was the biggest star of the four up until 2008). Back to our regularly scheduled programming. WWF European Championship William Regal© vs. Naked Mideon Regal tells us that Foley said Mideon had to wear clothes. Thank god. Early on Mideon teases the shirt taking off and Regal is disgusted. Regal’s facial reactions are amazing. Shirt comes off. Ugh. OH MY GOD CENSOR THAT SHIT NETWORK. Pants went flying off. William Regal retains the title by pin in 6:10. There is a funny moment at the end as Regal goes for the Regal Stretch but doesn’t want to touch Mideon (understandable) and goes for the Regal Cutter instead. By otherwise that was awful. How Naked Mideon didn’t win the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Worst Gimmick is beyond me. Yes this is worse than the shit WCW did to Mike Awesome. Now for some awesomeness. They show the Kurt Angle-Rock “interview”. Angle spliced up old Rock interviews to make it seem like he ran down Stone Cold and that fans don’t want Rock to win tonight. Great stuff. Angle was hilarious. Now for some more awesomeness! The Los Conquistadores! They are interviewed by Kevin Kelly (no idea Kelly made it this long). Of course Kelly gets no answers. WWF World Tag Team Championship The Hardy Boyz© vs. Los Conquistadores Story here: The Hardyz beat Edge and Christian and Mick Foley said no more tag title shots. Suddenly Los Conquistadores returned to the WWF and won a tag team battle royal to win this title shot. Oddly they never seem to be in the same video shot as Edge and Christian…so of course everyone thinks they are Edge and Christian. At this moment we don’t have proof though. They play it up so great. Somersaults. The way they walk to the ring. Conversing with the Spanish announcers. Edge and Chri….I mean the Los Conquistadores are great. The worked disgust of Jim Ross is incredible. Another awesome thing here. The match sucks…but it has to because Edge and Christian have a totally different moveset than Los Conquistadores. We finally do get a flying dive over the top that Christian normally does. But still. Los Conquistadores win the title when Uno (I think) pins Matt Hardy. Matt unmakes Dos…but Dos has ANOTHER mask on! Brilliant! Uno hits the Unprettier for the win! Crowd pops for it too! Match sucked…but it was supposed to! Great stuff. Ugh it must have been cut out for some reason…but there’s an interview afterwards with the new Tag Champs and then Edge and Christian walk into the shot and make the challenge for tomorrow on RAW! That had a great payoff as well. Great angle to extend the Hardyz vs. E and C feud. Triple H vs. Chris Benoit Story here: Benoit headbutted Stephanie. HHH wants revenge. HHH works on the knee. I don’t think the technical route made sense for the story…but that’s not a big deal. Not like it’s Orton vs. HHH at Mania which made no sense. Lawler and Ross state that they are shocked that HHH is outwrestling Benoit. Which just puts both guys over. HHH busts out an Indian Deathlock! How come we don’t see that anymore? He then bridges the Deathlock with a neck vise! Nice! Now Benoit works on the arm. Hammerlock back suplex. Great old school technical wrestling match. Perfect inverted suplex from HHH. This is really shaping up as a great match. Full nelson suplex from Benoit! Another one! HHH gets out of a Crossface by getting to his feet and hitting a Death Valley Driver! Stephanie’s out here! Slap to Benoit! This leads to… Triple H pins Chris Benoit in 18:33. Great Crossface to Pedigree to Crossface to Pedigree counterfest that HHH ends with a low blow, the Pedigree and the pin. Great match. Shame that it didn’t propel Benoit to the main event. I feel like in this match HHH was out to prove that he’s just as much of a wrestler as Benoit is. He isn’t, but I mean, he can be damn good when he wants to be. AH! Here’s the Edge and Christian-Los Conquistadores backstage thing I was wondering about earlier! WWF World Championship The Rock© vs. Kurt Angle Story here: Match has weird dynamics storywise, as The Rock is caught between two storylines…the Rikishi-Austin one and the HHH-Stephanie-Angle triangle. Stephanie is in Angle’s corner because she is out to prove she’s not a liability at ringside. Match is suddenly announced as a no DQ match. Really driving home the Stephanie factor early as Angle takes control over a Steph distraction. Also establishing the Angle meanstreak with a chair shot. HHH is watching this match on a TV that is seriously blue. Rock smashes a steel chair on Angle’s ankle! Ouch! Rock with a good sharpshooter! Angle taps…but Steph distracts the referee. I don’t like Angle’s tapout there to be honest, way too early. You know what’s weird? Watching an Angle match with him going for the Ankle Lock every two minutes. Angle didn’t have that in his arsenal I believe until February 2001 and the rematch with the Rock. More Steph interference…and Angle gets a belt shot to the head on The Rock! But Rock survives! Rock and Angle just have awesome chemistry. I always liked Rock’s belly to belly suplex/throw. Rock Bottom to Stephanie! Angle just stops the People’s Elbow on Stephanie though. HHH is down here. Pedigree to the Rock after he attacked Angle! Now we have Rikishi down here. Angle knew to attack him…Rikishi hit him back and rolled him back into the ring. Kurt Angle wins the WWF Title by pin in 21:01. Rikishi accidentally nails Rock with a butt avalanche and a superkick. Olympic Slam to Rikishi! A perfect Olympic Slam to The Rock for the 1…2…3! Angle ends the show with one of the most iconic World title victory celebrations with the dropping to the knees and crying. Rock bitches out Rikishi, and rightfully so. Interference was a bit much, but a great match is a great match. I already expressed my frustration with the Rikishi-Austin angle earlier. The rest of it was fine, although proving Stephanie matters was a bit much. I can’t put this show in the A range though. While there is some really good stuff, including basically all of the last half of the show there was a lot of stuff that didn’t matter (Cage, sadly Austin-Rikishi). Also Naked Mideon is the absolute worst. I can’t get past Austin-Rikishi. Fun brawl sure, but if I paid for this show when it first aired, I would have felt a bit ripped off with it. And it was the first step that killed Rikishi. Very good show overall though. Final Grade: B+ |
![]() |
|
| Baldwin | Mar 23 2014, 03:39 PM Post #45 |
![]()
6x EBL Champion
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
WCW Beach Blast 1992 |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Wrestling · Next Topic » |
| Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
4:46 AM Jul 11
|





![]](http://z5.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)






4:46 AM Jul 11