Wrestlemania 24
Date: March 30, 2008
Location: Citrus Bowl, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 74,365
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman, Joey Styles, Taz
America The Beautiful: John Legend

Since this Mania is just over a year old, I’m going to assume that most of you already know the main ideas behind it. Your truly big match here was Ric Flair in what was known would be his last match vs. Shawn Michaels. Without a doubt to me, this should have closed the show. World Titles aside, neither match is going to be as emotional as this. Flair was offered the chance to close the show and said absolutely not which I can admire.

Your other big feuds coming into this were Orton vs. HHH vs. Cena and Edge vs. Undertaker. There was also a match between boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather and Big Show which still boggles my mind to this day. I’ve heard some great and some bad reviews for this, so I guess we’ll have to see how well it holds up a year later.

We get a recap kind of telling us how the entire year has gone which is kind of a cool thing that would help a lot if it was a permanent thing. The open stadium concept is truly awesome and looks great. They have kind of a dome over the ring to keep the rain out which is also smart of them. After America The Beautiful, it’s time for our first match.

JBL vs. Finlay

This is a Belfast Brawl, meaning no DQ I suppose. This match/feud stems from the most absurd storyline I can ever recall as Vince had his illegitimate son Hornswoggle face him in a cage match. Vince beat him up with a belt as Finlay came in for the save. JBL then cuffed Finlay to the cage and beat up Horny.

I remember this buildup being quite good but looking back at it now, I can’t believe I actually thought this was good. Seriously, they’re fighting over a freaking midget. Then we get the DRAMATIC reveal that Horny was Finlay’s song all along. REALLY??? The tiny leprechaun that hangs out with the Irishman who is the only person on the planet that cares about him is his father? I’m stunned.

They start on the floor and the bell hasn’t actually rung yet. Ok so it’s one of those kind of fights. JBL gets a big shot with a trashcan and Finlay is in trouble early on. JBL had lost a ton of weight and actually looked fairly lean by this point. After he takes forever to get some stairs into the ring his Piledriver on them fails though and here comes the older dude.

Nothing all that special here as it’s back and forth but intense for the most part. Well as intense as this match could be that is. Both guys control for awhile and then get hit by something to break the momentum. Is it bad that seeing Horny all scared and nervous makes me laugh and smile?

Finlay busts out a table as JR tries to make this seem all serious and such. It’s set up in the corner as I’m getting into this far more than I should. DOWN GOES THE MIDGET! Finlay goes the heck off on him with trashcan lids and JBL is more or less done on the floor. A suicide dive eats lid though and Finlay is in trouble all over again.

More going off follows as the crowd is into this. I’m not sure why but this is actually working pretty freaking well. It’s not a great match or anything but it’s very fun. JBL finally goes through the table for a LONG two. Finlay comes at him with stairs but JBL gets a kendo stick shot into the knee. The Clothesline From JBL ends it though. Fun match.

Rating: C+. If there has ever been a match where the term “fine for what it was” is appropriate, this is it. This match was designed to get the crowd going a bit and not be anything serious and that’s exactly what they went out and did. Nothing bad here at all but nothing to go out of your way to see. Run of the mill hardcore match but rather fun, and that’s all fine and good.

Kennedy says he’s going to repeat as MITB. Kim Kardashian did the interviews at this show so at least we have something nice to look at.

Money in the Bank: Shelton Benjamin vs. Carlito vs. Chris Jericho vs. John Morrison vs. CM Punk vs. MVP vs. Mr. Kennedy

You know the drill by now I’m sure. It’s weird to see Morrison as a heel. Morrison is a tag champion, MVP is US Champion and Jericho is IC Champion here. Nice to see the titles being treated so well here. I wouldn’t expect to see much in the area of play by play here as it’s way too much to call move for move.

Everyone not named MVP runs out to grab a ladder so he steals Kennedy’s when it comes into the ring. He and Jericho have a joust with them with the Canadian winning. Morrison grabs a ladder and puts it perpendicular to himself. He then climbs to the top and moonsaults while still holding the ladder to take out just about everyone! Sweet looking stuff!

Kennedy and Jericho are left in the ring with Jericho launching Kennedy into a ladder. Kennedy is like screw that and holds on before scurrying up. Morrison rides a ladder from the corner onto the middle ladder to stop Kennedy in an awesome spot. Kennedy sets for a suplex but Shelton jumps over Kennedy in a sunset powerbomb which pulls Morrison over too in a Tower of Doom spot. This is all in less than four minutes mind you.

With everyone more or less dead Punk goes up but just kind of stops so Shelton can make the save. GTS to Shelton and Punk goes up again. Carlito makes the save as I forgot he was even in this at all. There’s a ladder between the ring and the railing which makes me think nothing is going to go well for the ladder.

And I’m right as Shelton almost makes it up there but gets the whole ladder shoved over and flips onto the bridged ladder, breaking it in the middle. Morrison almost makes it but gets caught in the Walls by Jericho in a spot he and Benoit did at the 01 Rumble. Now Kennedy comes up so Punk has to springboard up. Carlito enacts Puerto Rican Affirmative Action and gets up as well, giving us five guys on two ladders.

Naturally they all fall down and leave Jericho there but Carlito saves it. Total spotfest so far. Backstabber off the ladder to Jericho and everyone is dead until MVP gets his wits about him. With no one in sight, Matt Freaking Hardy runs through the crowd and gets a Twist of Fate off the top to save the match. MVP had hurt Matt a few months ago.

Morrison is under a ladder in the corner and Jericho wedges the top of another into the rungs of the one in the corner, kind of making a big V shape. Morrison shoves the original one forward which allows him to be able to climb the ladder without having to have it open due to the wedge design. This is awesome stuff. Naturally Morrison gets crotched on the top but it’s still cool looking.

Jericho goes up again but Carlito spits apple at him instead. Kennedy drills him and shoves him off but Punk drills Kennedy. Jericho pops up again and hits the Codebreaker with a ladder to take out Punk. Punk more or less no sells it though and climbs up to stop Jericho as everyone else is pretty much dead. Punk knocks Jericho down into the Tree of Woe and grabs the case to win it. Total war the whole way through.
Rating: B. It was a wild brawl, but we just got done with a wild brawl. This was solid and the backflip ladder spot was sweet looking. Other than Matt returning though, there’s not much to hate. This was Jeff Hardy’s to win before he got wellnessed out of it. Another fun match and one of the best MITB matches ever as it was a total spotfest the whole way, which it’s supposed to be.

Hall of Fame Ceremony. This is Flair’s class, but he’s in the back getting ready so his kids accept it. The only ones that truly belong in to me are Flair, Solie, and the Briscos.

HHH is ready.
Snoop Dog is here. He sends Festus after Santino in a dumb segment.

Batista vs. Umaga

This is the Brand Supremacy match that was thrown together because there was nothing for either of these guys. I really wouldn’t expect this to be anything resembling good. Power match to start us off as you would of course expect. The GMs, Teddy and Regal, are here also. Umaga gets a spinwheel kick to take down Batista and take over.

A big boot sends the Animal to the floor. There’s the nerve hold as it’s all Umaga here. Middle rope headbutt misses though and here comes the Animal again. And so much for that as we hit the nerve hold again. This is rivetingly bad if that wasn’t clear. Samoan Drop mostly ends Batista so of course it only gets two.

Batista gets a quick comeback and so much for that as it’s over already. Samoan Spike is blocked though and Umaga’s head eats post. Spinebuster puts him down and the Batista Bomb ends it clean. WOW. That might be the least interesting match I have ever seen, which is saying a lot.
Rating: F+. These two had no chemistry together at all and it showed badly. This match was a waste as you had a multi-time world champion against a top mid carder. These brand supremacy things are rarely good and this was no exception. The other stupid part was Batista went to Raw a few weeks later. Totally bad match and I have no idea what they were going for here, but it didn’t work at all.

Mayweather vs. Show is anything goes and you can win by knockout.

Mayweather and company are here.
ECW Title-Kane vs. Chavo Guerrero

Kane won a battle royal before the show started to get this shot. By the time I was done typing that previous sentence the match ends. Here’s your match: bell rings, Kane chokeslams Chavo, pinfall.

Rating: N/A. There’s no match here so I can’t rate it, but this was exactly what was needed. Kane absolutely dominated here and it made him look like a monster. Well done actually.

Painfully bad Mania promo for the show that is already on.
Raven Simone does something for Make-A-Wish. Can’t stand her but it’s a cool charity.
Note: the following was written BEFORE Flair signed in TNA and before he came back to WWE in 2009.

And here it is. This is the match that defines this Wrestlemania. Many people, including myself, feel that this should have been the final match of the night. We knew that Flair was going to lose, but it’s the pure symbolism of the match that’s important. Many people have this match because it’s “an old man that should have retired 10 years ago.”

To them I have one thing to say: get the heck over yourselves. Ric Flair was the man that drove the NWA and WCW through the roof in the 1980s. Without him, Sting, Luger and the Horsemen, and therefore DX, the NWO and the Monday Night Wars don’t happen.

Ric Flair means more to this business than all but a very few and if he wants to wrestle until his body falls apart then so be it. When anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can last in the business at a high level for as long as he has, let me know. I’ll be at my wedding to Trish Stratus.

Some people like to talk about how Flair needed to hang it up. Maybe those people need to SHUT it up and let the man do what he wants. Vince didn’t let him go did he? I’m willing to go out on a short limb and say Vince has forgotten more about wrestling than any of us will ever know, so get off your high smarky horses.

As for the other participant in this match, Shawn Michaels may not have been the perfect choice here, but I don’t have a problem with it being him at all. So what if he and Flair are friends in real life? It’s Flair’s last match and if he wants to go out to Shawn, then blast it he should be able to go out to Shawn. Shawn puts on his best this time of year so why should this be any different?
Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels

The intros for both guys are of course great. You can tell the fans and the entire world knows that Flair is losing here but that’s fine here much like it can be at other times. We exchange hammerlocks to start and no one can get an extended advantage. They shove each other and Flair shouts OLD YELLER HUH?

Flair might have bitten his lip or something as it’s busted open a tiny bit. Shawn goes up but gets slammed off in a nice little touch. Flair goes up and GETS A CROSS BODY for two. That was kind of awesome. Old men flying through the air is cool for some reason. Baseball slide takes down Flair again though Shawn misses an Asai Moonsault and slams into the table, possibly legitimately injuring his ribs.

A nearly perfect suplex gets two for Flair as he’s hitting everything perfectly here. Remember if he loses he has to retire so they’re playing up the fight for survival deal here and it’s working for the most part I think. Shawn gets a neckbreaker to come back and hits a moonsault off the top to the floor to leave both guys laying. When I say hits I mean Flair sticks an arm out which slows Shawn down a bit mind you.

Forearm sets up the nipup and here comes Shawn despite not really being in trouble for the most part. There’s the elbow and Shawn sets for the superkick but can’t do it. Flair is like ok then and double scoops the legs to throw on the Figure Four. Flair has aged about ten years in this match so far. The rope is grabbed soon and we go to the backslide sequence that Flair has done a million times. That being said, Flair can’t really do it due to his age. That’s rather sad.

Flair goes back to the knee and now we get the REAL Figure Four. I guess the other was just a preview edition. Shawn reverses though into a cradle for two. Enziguri misses and THERE is the Figure Four. A rope is grabbed again but this time more damage is done here. However Flair does one WOO too many and gets drilled by the kick for two as Shawn couldn’t cover immediately.

Shawn sets for the kick again but Flair gets a low blow which brings a nice little smile to my face. That only gets two though as this is fairly solid stuff. Shawn gets his disfigured figure four on but like Flair is going to lose to that. He’s Shawn Michaels, not Jay Lethal. A rollup get two for Flair and they chop it out. Shawn is like screw it and kicks his head off. Flair gets up again, and although Shawn is sorry and he loves Flair, the third superkick ends Flair’s career. Well for about a year or so at least.

Rating: A. As I said, this wasn’t about the match. This was about saying goodbye to one of the greatest performers of all time. That night, the titles weren’t important, the atmosphere wasn’t important, and the show wasn’t important. This night was about Ric Flair saying goodbye to being an in ring competitor.

Should this match have gone on last? Yes I think that it should have. Nothing, and I mean nothing, was as important to the industry as the moment when his final match ended. It was a sad day, as Flair didn’t get to go out on his own terms completely, but at least he went out on the biggest stage in the world.

As for the match, it’s not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Yes, some spots are blown. Yes, we knew what was going to happen. Some find “I’m sorry, I love you” to be corny. That’s fine that you think that way, but this match almost had me in tears all over again.

It’s so sad to see Ric Flair having reached the point where he can’t bridge up for a backslide anymore. This man was once the greatest performer in the entire world and now he can’t do a simple reversal spot. He broke out all of his old classics including the cross body block that made him famous by giving him the world title at the first ever Starrcade. This match isn’t great from a wrestling perspective but it’s more than that. This match is about the end of an era.

Flair gets a big sad moment but the real one would come tomorrow.
Edge says the Streak ends tonight.

So who gets to follow that match? I hate to say it but whoever they are, their match is going to go down a letter grade or so as it’s simply not going to be easy to touch what just happened.

Beth Phoenix/Melina vs. Maria/Ashley

Oh screw it. I was going to try to be nice to whatever came next and I get “bunnymania”? Well crud. This is a lumberjill match, hosted by Snoop Dog in a pitiful attempt to bring celebrity status to this show. He’s driving something that looks like a golf cart that looks stupid. Santino is here to annoy all of us again as he helps the heels cheat to win.

Well at least Maria looks good. Actually only Ashley doesn’t here. Beth has to sell for this Ashley pest which makes my head hurt quite a bit. Snoop is so stoned he can’t stop smiling. Sweet merciful crap make this end already. Total time in before my head hurts: 34 seconds. Well I lasted longer than I thought I could.

The girls on the floor waste their usual time and no one cares at all. Maria saves Ashley. You can see the issue here with her being the better worker of the team. And there go the lights. Yeah you can’t see anything at all for about a minute or so. Ah there’s a spotlight. Well that helps a little I guess.

Glam Slam is blocked and we get some heel miscommunication. The lumberjacks get involved again and Maria gets two on Beth. Here’s Santino but Lawler attacks him which led to nothing of note. Beth pins Maria after Musclebuster. Snoop attacks Santino and kisses Maria, somehow making me less interested than I was when this started. This led to Glamarella if you’re interested for some reason.

Rating: F. Another waste of time in a bad match. How long is it going to take for the WWE to realize something: someone that is willing to be in a magazine doesn’t mean they can wrestle. The teams should have been switched so Melina can face Beth, as both can actually work. The lights went out during this match, as God himself is showing that he doesn’t care, and neither did I. Such a waste of time.

Recap of the Raw World Title match. Orton was champion, Cena got in by winning the Rumble and challenging Orton at No Way Out but Orton got intentionally DQed, and HHH is in because he won the Elimination Chamber that same night. I have never once liked three way matches for world titles at Mania.

The idea is supposed to be one on one for the heavyweight championship of the world, not three guys with false finish after false finish. I am however glad that this isn’t the main event of the night. It wasn’t the biggest match of the night and it wasn’t billed as such.
Raw World Title: Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. HHH

Cena gets a full marching band entrance here. That’s rather awesome. Everyone goes after each other to start and we’re on the floor already. FU attempt on Orton almost immediately but he gets nowhere with it as HHH apparently fears Cena as he’d rather save Orton than get rid of him. You can tell Cena isn’t taking this seriously: he isn’t in his black jeans.

Orton gets both guys down and covers both of them multiple times which gets him nowhere. He keeps up the advantage though by slowly, and I do mean SLOWLY stomping both guys. Wouldn’t he give them more time to recover by taking so much time like that? Couldn’t he do better by stomping their heads the whole time? Double elevated DDT and our heroes are in trouble!

Cena comes back and hits the Throwback to HHH and the Fameasser to Orton but Orton manages to send Cena into the post on the floor to buy himself some time. Back to Hunter vs. Randall now. HHH works the knee but Cena comes in to distract him. Once John goes down the RKO takes down HHH.

Cena saves of course and the STFU to Orton has him in trouble. This is going by FAST. Cena tells him to tap but Orton doesn’t listen. I guess Cena isn’t one of the voices in his head. Back with HHH now as he hooks a freaking Indian Deathlock on Orton. WOW he’s busting out the way old stuff here. HHH back to the floor thanks to Cena and there’s the STFU again.

HHH literally comes in to pull Cena’s arms off of Cena. I guess HHH wants to cuddle him. He throws a Crossface on Cena for fun. I know he wants the title but I didn’t think he wanted to kill him. The fans are all over Cena here and it’s kind of funny to see. Boo/Yay thing with the punches and here comes Cena.

He initiates the ending sequence on HHH and sets for the FU but gets taken down by a clothesline. Pedigree and STFU are reversed but a facebuster and clothesline set up the spinebuster which sets up the Pedigree. Orton Punts HHH out of nowhere and climbs on Cena for the pin to retain. Nice little ending there.
Rating: C+. It’s ok and that’s all. Like I said, there’s nothing special here whatsoever. It’s not a bad match but it’s just ok. There was nothing Mania-like here at all. It was three men in a standard formula match. Why should I get emotionally invested into this match? There was no reason for me to and simply put, I didn’t.

We recap the boxer vs. wrestler thing. Okay, this feud has been over and done with for a solid year and there’s one thing I’d still like to know: WHO IN THE WORLD WAS THE FACE SUPPOSED TO BE??? This feud was ridiculous.

In case you don’t know, Big Show returned at No Way Out and got in the face of a really good boxer named Floyd “Money” Mayweather, who legitimately broke his nose with a punch. This led to a feud between the two, culminating in this match.

Over the course of the 5-6 weeks, we got terrible promos from Mayweather and Show and it was never once made clear who the face was. Should we cheer for the underdog that is an outsider or for the monster that looks like a bully? That was never answered which is a problem.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Big Show

Mayweather does the whole raining money deal. Naturally Floyd has gloves on. Mayweather dodges a lot and that gets him nowhere as we’re more or less just killing time for awhile. Floyd throws punches which don’t do much. This is going NOWHERE. Out of boredom, Show beats up one of Floyd’s posse.

Show grabs Mayweather’s hand and tries to step on it which doesn’t work. This is about 85% standing around and “jockeying for position”. Show almost gets a chokeslam but Floyd gets on his back for a choke. After nearly a minute and a half of this, Show flips him over and steps on his hands to send Floyd’s posse into a frenzy.

Big chop by Show in the corner as the posse shouts that Show can’t do various things, such as stand on his chest. I hate this match very deeply at the moment. Them shouting THIS IS FOR YOUR KIDS when Mayweather has like 50 million dollars makes me sick. He has money. I don’t want to hear about how he’s doing this for his kids. If they can’t survive off the paychecks he makes already, there’s a major problem.

Show hurts him a lot and drops an elbow. This is AWFUL. The posse pulls him out, Show goes to get him, he beats up the posse, the posse tries to give Floyd a chair, Show beats that guy up again, Mayweather pops Show with the chair and a shot with brass knuckles ends this via knockout, FINALLY.
Rating: D-. This was a mess. These things rarely work and this was following the norm of not working. Mayweather is simply too small to get this to work. He stands 5’8 and while he’s a great boxer, no one honestly believed that he could beat Show.

There’s no way to make this work: if Mayweather wins, Big Show looks weak. If Show wins, he beat a tiny man at Show’s own game on his turf. Either way there’s no way to make this work and they didn’t have one.

The other thing that’s a problem is that Mayweather has no business wrestling. He’s a puncher, but even with that there’s no way to believe that he has a chance here. They tried to make this look competitive, but the crowd was completely behind Mayweather for the simple reason of he’s average sized and Big Show is……well he’s BIG. This did not do it for me at all.

There’s a new attendance record.

Taker gets this title shot from winning the Rumble. That’s all you need to know.
Smackdown Title: Edge vs. Undertaker

Edge brings out Vickie in the wheelchair. Taker’s entrance remains completely awesome. He came out first which is odd yet traditional. What an odd thing to see. Edge is a four time champion here, meaning he’s won a world title every six months since then. Keeping in mind that he hasn’t had one since April of 2009, that says a lot.

Very basic stuff to start as we’re not going anywhere so far. Old School is countered but Taker shifts around in mid air into an arm drag. It gets NO reaction. That’s saying a lot as no one cares after something I don’t remember seeing before. Taker gets a running knee to the head and goes over the top in a nice looking move. Taker may have hurt his arm though.

Edge takes over and almost gets a countout. He goes up and gets caught like any good heel and here comes the Deadman. VERY slow pace so far as each short sequence they’re doing is taking 2-3 minutes each. Lash Ride won’t work as Taker’s back is messed up from various attacks by the evil Canadian. Edge drops Taker’s back over the railing and the Deadman is in trouble.

In the ring again and Edge throws on a half crab as a joke I suppose. Much like everything else in this match, that goes on for two minutes. They slug it out and take a guess who wins that. They FINALLY speed things up a bit as the chokeslam is countered into the Edgecution for two. Spear is avoided and the chokeslam gets two.

Old School is blocked AGAIN for two as Edge pounds away in the corner like an IDIOT. Last Ride is countered into a neckbreaker for two. Taker calls for the Tombstone but Edge counters AGAIN into the Edge-O-Matic for two. The third Old School hits and Edge is in trouble again. And there goes the referee to a big boot. Ok where are the cronies?

Low blow takes down the Deadman as does a camera shot but there’s still no referee. Like an idiot, Edge goes for a Tombstone and is reversed but there’s no referee. Charles Robinson runs down to count two. I don’t think you can count that as Edge doing the same as Batista and Shawn kicking out of all the finishers though so we won’t do it.

Ah I was right. Here are Curt Hawkins and Zach Ryder (shut up about him being in the Mania main event) and never mind as a double chokeslam gets rid of them. Spear from nowhere gets two and the fans are into it now. Edge sets for another spear but runs into the whatever that thing is called for the chokeout and submission.

Rating: A-. There’s just something missing from this match and I just can’t place it. All the elements are there as Edge and Taker are both well established main event players, the Streak is on the line and Taker gets a world title at Mania like he should, but there’s just something missing from it. Maybe it’s that these matches were done better later in the year. Either way, it’s certainly good, but not a masterpiece.

Overall Rating: C-. There’s a lot of good stuff here, but there’s only one truly good match. Yet again the tradition of messing things up with the Brand Split comes into play as the best match doesn’t go on last. This show should have been about Ric Flair, not a world title. Not many people can get that honor but it should have happened here.

At the end of the day, no one cared about what happened in the two title matches, or any other match for that matter. Flair going on in the middle of the show hurts it a lot. Other than him, there’s nothing noteworthy here to me at all. The show isn’t bad, but it’s hardly memorable. Mild recommendation but don’t go out of your way for it.

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Wrestlemania 23, really headlined by Vince vs. Trump, did 1.2 million buys.  Do you think Rock vs. Cena will break that?I think so.  Last year with Rock in the undefined role of Host, they did over a million.  With him vs. Cena, I don’t see how they couldn’t.  adding in the Cell and the other celebrity stuff, I can’t picture it not happening.

Thoughts?

Monday Night Raw
Date: March 26, 2012
Location: Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

It’s the final show before Wrestlemania so I wouldn’t expect much in ring action tonight. They’re probably worried about potential injuries and that’s completely understandable. This is usually the least interesting show of the year and that’s ok because they have the biggest show of the year in less than a week. Let’s get to it.

Rock and Cena square off face to face tonight.

Booker T is here for commentary as well. They’re taping some matches for Smackdown tonight as well so that’s why he’s in the house.

Randy Orton/Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan/Kane

Now there’s a different kind of heel team. Bryan kisses AJ before the match, making me very jealous of him. He starts with Orton who takes him down quickly for the circle stomp. Bryan comes back with some kicks and the moonsault out of the corner. Not that it matters as Orton takes him down with a clothesline for two. Off to Sheamus so Bryan bails out to Kane. This would be a pretty awesome pairing if it was 13 years ago for Kane.

They slug it out with Sheamus hitting a knee lift but Kane hits an elbow. Sheamus goes up for the top rope shoulder for two. Sheamus loads up the Celtic Cross but goes after Bryan instead. Kane knocks him to the floor and Bryan hits the knee from the apron to take Sheamus down. We take a break and come back with Bryan holding Sheamus in a headlock. Everything breaks down quickly with Orton coming in and cleaning house. Kane gets rammed into the post but Bryan hits a baseball slide to take Orton out. Back in and Kane pounds on the now hurt Orton.

He hooks on a chinlock and then adds his side slam for two. Kane goes up and hits his clothesline before calling for the chokeslam. Orton snaps off a dropkick to block it and it’s a double tag to bring in Sheamus and Bryan. Sheamous pounds him down and hits the Irish Curse. The good guys knock Kane to the floor and Orton follows. RKO on the floor is countered and Orton goes into the post. AJ gets in the way of the Brogue Kick and Sheamus gets crotched. Kane chokeslams Sheamus and Bryan pins him at 11:40.

Rating: C. Just a standard main event tag here, but I’m not sure on Bryan getting the pin. Why have Sheamus look weak going into the title match when he hasn’t gotten a one up yet on Bryan? I think I get what they’re going for here but I would have had Sheamus get the pin on Bryan, if nothing else to give him some more momentum.

We get a clip from last year’s Mania with Rock hitting the Rock Bottom on Cena. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing about a thousand of these tonight.

Jerry talks about the Battle of the GM’s and Cole is in the ring in a Team Johnny shirt. He’s the official announcer of Johnny’s team. Here’s the team namesake who announces Vickie as the official flag bearer. Booker introduces Teddy who introduces

David Otunga vs. Santino Marella

Santino grabs a headlock to start but Otunga runs him over with a shoulder. Otunga runs him over again and grabs the Team Ace flag. Horny comes in and it’s a battle of the flags. This lets Santino load up the Cobra after Otunga hits himself in the head with the flag pole. Cobra ends this at 1:30. Tully Blanchard, Magnum TA, Chris Benoit, Santino Marella ladies and gentlemen.

Teddy and Santino abuse Ace post match, but Miz runs in to break up the Cobra, officially joining Team Ace. Johnny calls it Team Teddy but then corrects himself, because expecting him to remember his own name is too much for him in one take. No word on who the sixth man on Team Teddy is yet.

Rock and Cena challenge each other the night after Mania. I still don’t get why the Corre interfered.

Long video on HHH vs. Undertaker with Shawn on the side. Again I have to ask: they do know that HHH lost last year right?

Eve Torres vs. Kelly Kelly

Eve controls to start but ducks her head so Kelly can do her screaming headscissors. Moonsault misses and Kelly rolls her up for the pin at 2:31. Yes they gave it that much time.

Rock and Cena teamed together at Survivor Series. Still so stupid.

Christian vs. CM Punk

Before the match, Jericho pops up on screen and says he has some new information. Punk’s mom has no vices, but Punk was born before his parents were married, making him the definition of a bastard. Christian jumps Punk and lays him out, sending him to the floor. I never heard a bell so I don’t know if this is the match or not.

Punk goes off on Christian, ramming his head into the table and hitting the high kick followed by a TON of elbows to the side of his head. There’s a GTS onto the steps followed by an Anaconda Vice. Psycho Punk is working for me. Referees come outt o break it up but Punk jumps over them and puts the hold on again. No match obviously.

Video on Axxess.

Christian may have reinjured his neck so there’s a chance he won’t be at Mania.

Brodus Clay vs. Curt Hawkins

I really hope Brodus is the last member of Team Teddy. He needs something to do. Hawkins takes Brodus down at the knee and hits a bulldog for one. Jerry keeps calling him Curtis. Headbutt to the stomach and a right hand to the same place set up a knee lift, the t-bone suplex and What The Funk ends this at 1:08.

Rock and Cena have had a war of words. This is confined to the last month or so.

Big Show vs. Primo

Christian is officially out of the GM match on Sunday. Chokeslam ends this in 47 seconds. This is my big complaint with WWE lately: why did this need to be one of the tag champions? Why in the world could this not be say, JTG?

Cody comes out and makes fun of Big Show post match. You know the drill here I’m sure.

Lord Tensai is coming.

The Bellas argue about Johnny vs. Teddy. Ryder comes up and gets on their nerves. They leave and Eve comes up. She sweet talks him again and asks what hotel Ryder will be at. She invites him for a visit after Wrestlemania.

Punk says ask Christian how he’s feeling. What Jericho said about his father is true, but the stuff about his sister and mom isn’t. He’s not a bastard. He’s the best wrestler in the world. Big pop for that.

Great Khali vs. Mark Henry

Drew McIntyre is replacing Christian. Both GM’s distract their opponents. Khali chops him a lot but the World’s Strongest Slam ends this in 50 seconds.

Post match Ace throws Teddy in to Henry and waves out Team Johnny to block the entrance. Henry takes forever to do anything until Kofi breaks through, using part of Team Teddy for a springboard….and he jumps right into the World’s Strongest Slam to take him out. World’s Strongest Slam to Teddy is loaded up but Booker makes the save. So he’s the last member of Team Teddy? Seriously? With EVERYONE they could pick, Booker T is the last member? He accepts the spot and we get a Spinarooni.

Here’s Rock for the final sell for Wrestlemania. Rock talks about how ever since Wrestlemania XX, everyone has asked him when he’s coming back. He was told to drop his pants, turn his head and cough, then asked when he’s coming back. Then he told his dentist that he wasn’t dropping his pants. His dentist is freaky that way. Betty White offered him pie for the answer and he declined.

It was last year at Wrestlemania in Georgia (pop) when he decided. The next night he knew he had to do it and it was because of the people. There’s only one man that the millions want to see Rock face and that’s John Cena. Mostly heat on Cena after the name drop there. Rock talks about how Rock’s last Wrestlemania match was the same night as Cena’s first, and since then Cena has become a huge star. However, he’s never faced anyone like the Rock.

Cue Cena who says that Rock is half right: Rock is never going to face someone like Cena. Rock may be the best trash talker ever, because he brought Cena’s mom into things. He may be a great trash talker, but he’s not the first. There was a ten year gap in which everyone has talked trash about John Cena. The fans start the dueling chant (Rock isn’t mentioned) and Cena says the words of the chant. Everyone has turned their back on the WWE Universe, except Cena, who rises above and wins.

That right there is what gets to the fans that hate Cena: they give him their best and he keeps coming. As much as they hate him, they know he’s going to win at Wrestlemania. He knows they hate it, but they know it’s true. Cena has some stats for Rock. Cena has been in the WWE longer than Rock. Rock was here during the Attitude Era when things were awesome, but Cena was here when it wasn’t cool to be a WWE Superstar. He’s the one that beats the WWE drum and says he loves to be here. No matter how much you hear it, everyone knows he means it.

That’s why Cena has to win on Sunday. No matter what happens, Rock is staring in G.I. Joe this summer. It’s going to make him an even bigger star. But after Wrestlemania, the WWE is still Cena’s life. Rock is just standing there taking all this. Cena says he’s not going to let a visitor come in here and take his life from him. Cena has to win because no one remembers second place. This is all he’s got and he has to win it.

Now Rock says that it’s important to Cena. Cena was talking about the people. Rock isn’t a visitor to WWE. He built this house that Cena lives in now. Rock says the fans know that there’s never been an opponent Cena can’t overcome….until now. The fans know that Rock has come back to beat Cena. No one has ever been able to say that he’s walked into Wrestlemania and beaten Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and John Cena. Rock needs to beat Cena to become the best of all time. That’s on a professional level.

On a personal level, Rock just doesn’t like him. In six days, Rock is going to give Cena the beating of a lifetime and everyone knows it. Cena says that’s a fine speech, but it doesn’t matter what the Rock thinks. He’s going to put this in terms Rock can understand. On April 1, Rock will be able to see Cena, because he’ll be the one standing over Rock with his hand raised. And that’s it.

Overall Rating: C+. Here’s the thing: if you came into this show expecting ANYTHING but a big commercial for Wrestlemania, I have no idea what’s wrong with you but you missed the point. This was all about hyping the show and the wrestling was there as an afterthought. However, this was much more entertaining than most of the Raws like this over the last few years, because there was ONE match to point towards. Even HHH vs. Taker (where were they anyway?) pales in comparison to Rock vs. Cena. I could see how people would find this boring, and I’d say they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Results
Daniel Bryan/Kane b. Sheamus/Randy Orton – Bryan pinned Sheamus after a chokeslam from Kane
Santino Marella b. David Otunga – Cobra
Kelly Kelly b. Eve Torres – Rolling Cradle
Brodus Clay b. Curt Hawkins – What The Funk
Big Show b. Primo – Chokeslam
Mark Henry b. Great Khali – World’s Strongest Slam

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Monday Night Raw
Date: November 1, 2004
Location: Peoria Civic Center, Peoria, Illinois
Attendance: 4,600
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Based on what I can find, this is the 600th episode of Raw (again remembering that WWE has issues with numbers at times). I figured I’d do this, #700 and #800 straight through just to get them out of the way. This is part of the buildup to Survivor Series 2004 which was Team HHH vs. Team Orton, so some of the matches tonight are about that feud. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week where Evolution named themselves as the hosts of the show in Bischoff’s absence. The guys that would become Team Orton stood up to him which he didn’t like. This resulted in Orton vs. Flair which Orton had to win to be able to ever challenge HHH again. HHH interfered to give Flair the win, even though Orton, Maven and Jericho all interfered. A big HHH beatdown ensued.

Theme song.

Gene Snitsky vs. Eugene

Snitsky is the evil monster of the month, having Pillmanized Kane’s neck at Taboo Tuesday. This is a hardcore match and we see Regal in the back and Regal says that he’ll be there with Eugene tonight in this evil match. Eugene says no he has to stand on his own two feet.
Snitsky brought his weapons out in a baby carriage which is pretty awesome. Eugene grabs a kendo stick to control early but Snitsky comes back with a few chain shots.

Here’s the majority of the match: Snitsky beats on Eugene, Eugene gets in a single shot to get a breather, Snitsky beats him down even more. Eugene is about to have his throat Pillmanized so he makes his brief comeback, only to walk into a pumphandle powerslam for the pin.

Rating: D+. Nothing much to see here, but that was the point with Snitsky. The problem with that was once the Kane feud was over, there wasn’t much left for him to do and he went the way of most monsters. That’s fine though as at least he got his run in the company and that’s all people like him can ask for.

Snitsky sets to Pillmanize Eugene’s neck but Regal with the brass knuckles makes the save.

HhH criticizes everyone that attacked him, as well as the people that threw him into the ring for the beating, because he’s the guy that brings the people into the arena. He’s putting the food on their families’ table. You just know he believes everything he’s saying too. HHH won’t be here in the arena tonight so let’s see how the show does tonight. He’s great and without him, Raw is nothing.

Tajiri of all people is asked what he thinks of HHH so he quotes Network and hits on the very hot Maria. Flair and Batista pop up to massacre him.

Flair and Batista keep walking and head out to the ring. Think they might want to talk about The Game a little? Flair says what happened last week was unacceptable and what happened to Tajiri just now will happen to everyone unless something changes. Bischoff, either fix it or face the consequences. Bischoff comes out and announces the Raw matches for Survivor Series, including Christian vs. Shelton for the IC Title, Lita vs. Trish for the Women’s Title, and Team Orton (Orton, Maven, Benoit, Jericho) vs. Team HHH (HHH, Batista, Edge and Snitsky).

Flair is annoyed about not being on the team but Bischoff says he doesn’t really care. He’s mad at Evolution for not helping him when he got his head shaved at Taboo Tuesday. Eric has gotten nothing out of sucking up to Evolution for two and a half years, so after Survivor Series, Eric is taking a month long vacation. Batista says that’s stupid and threatens Eric, so Eric says get over it, because without the world title HHH is nothing. The winning team gets to control Raw for that month. This was almost a face turn for Bischoff but nothing would come of that.

Hurricane vs. Christian

This is a result of some sneak attack by Christian recently. About five seconds into the match, here’s Edge (I believe debuting Metalingus (the Alter Bridge song)) to promote his book as the match is going on. Hurricane has a headlock on Christian as Edge talks about how he doesn’t like Peoria. It wasn’t nice of those people to not vote him in at Taboo Tuesday but he’ll write an epilogue for that later. JR seems annoyed so Edge offers him a signed copy. The match is nothing and the camera is mostly on Edge during this.

Edge leaves and Hurricane comes back with a clothesline. Neckbreaker gets two as does a top rope cross body. Hurricane is sent into the post and the Unprettier ends this. I’m not going to review this due to the length and the majority of it being about Edge talking about the book and the match being background noise.

Shelton chases Christian off so Christian says he has a new problem solver because Tomko is hurt. Cue Viscera for a double beatdown and a World’s Strongest Slam.

Here’s Edge who says he’s here to defend the titles with Benoit, despite walking out on him at Taboo Tuesday. Benoit pops up and Edge takes one of the belts from him. Edge warns Benoit he might be defending on his own tonight and Benoit is ok with that.

Maven goes into Evolution’s locker room, probably due to those eyebrows weighing down his brain. For the life of me I don’t get why they picked Maven for this spot. He tells Dave and Ric that something is going to happen to Evolution. Flair gets defensive but Orton and Jericho pop up behind them and Evolution backs down.

Here’s Simon Dean in the ring for a promo about his Simon System. Be glad this isn’t in Philly because even though Dean is an ECW guy, he’d get murdered by the crowd. He insults some fans, calls them fat, calls in a “fan”, makes fun of him, fan goes nuts and Simon beats him up. That took about seven minutes.

Raw Tag Titles: La Resistance vs. Chris Benoit/Edge

Conway and Grenier this time. Edge isn’t here to start so the French Canadians pound on the Canadian whose Canadian partner isn’t here yet, prompting a USA chant. Or are they cheering for Conway? Either way he starts with Benoit who has to fight off both of them. Neckbreaker by Conway puts Benoit down and the challengers take over. Benoit goes off on both of them with release Germans and here’s Edge.

Edge is walking around the ring for awhile. And never mind as he’s on the apron now. Grenier pounds on Benoit but Chris breaks through, only to have Edge walk out on him. Back with no Edge in the ring because he’s on commentary now. This is when the commentary desk was near the entrance. Edge and Jerry are talking about the book at Benoit gets worked over even more.

Benoit hits a clothesline but there’s no Edge to make the tag to. Back to Grenier who stomps away. Benoit comes back and suplexes both of them with ease. He snaps off the Rolling Germans as Jerry talks about a picture of Edge’s puppy. Edge goes down to ringside because he thinks Benoit needs a hand. There’s the Swan Dive and Crossface to Grenier but Edge distracts the referee and Au Revoir (suplex/side slam combo) gives us new champions.

Rating: D+. This was a handicap match and on that front, it was pretty boring. That being said, this was all about the angle instead of a match, which is fine. This was around the time that the tag titles were rapidly dying in importance, and a lot of that is for stuff like this. Edge basically said “here you take this, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Edge lays out Benoit with a belt and busts him open. A spear puts him Chris down as well. Edge puts Benoit in the Crossface to complete the psycho heel turn. Benoit taps.

Flair rants to Bischoff because that’s all he knows how to do. Bischoff isn’t going to punish Team Orton so tonight it’s Maven/Orton/Jericho vs. Flair/Batista/HHH if HHH shows up. Otherwise it’s a handicap match.

Here are the debuting Muhammad Hassan and Daivari. Hassan says he’s an Arab-American and a Muslim but since 9/11, he’s been branded a terrorist. This had potential…I think, but when you bring in the idea of terrorism you’re asking for trouble.

We run down the rest of the Survivor Series card, including JBL vs. Booker and Taker vs. Heidenreich. Oh…..fun.

Shelton Benjamin vs. Viscera

Shelton has bad ribs here. Viscera hits him in the ribs and takes the tape off. This goes very slowly because that’s as fast as Viscera can go. Shelton rams him into the middle buckle and splashes him, but the T-Bone isn’t going to work. Choke bomb is countered and Shelton wins with the Dragon Whip.

Rating: F. What in the world was the point of this? Was it supposed to make us want to see Shelton vs. Christian? There’s no history between Viscera and Christian but apparently just saying they work together now means something. The match sucked on top of that and Viscera was gone soon thereafter.

Smackdown ReBound is about Tough Enough, which only resulted in Miz coming in second. He was somehow even goofier looking back then. They had to call out Big Show and then he slammed all of them. Oh and Ryan Reeves was in this too. You know him better as Skip Sheffield.

Here’s Trish who is much hotter when she’s evil. She’s been getting wishes from her family for safety because her career and life might be in danger. We get a video on Lita called the Kiss of Death. Essa Rios disappeared, as did the Hardys and the show Dark Angel. She comes back to be with Matt and Matt gets injured. She marries Kane and starts to like him so Snitsky hurts him. Then after all that, Lita lost her baby. She’s fat too. Cue Lita who is MAD. Lita takes her down and beats the tar out of her but Gail Kim runs in for a 2-1 beatdown. Trish hit a level as top heel Diva around this point that hasn’t been topped since.

Smack Down Your Vote!

Chris Jericho/Randy Orton/Maven vs. Evolution

No HHH so it’s 3-2. Orton and Batista start things off with Batista not quite being his awesome self yet. It was coming very soon though. Batista uses pure power to take Orton down and it’s off to Flair for a slugout, won by Orton. Powerslam puts Flair down and it’s off to Y2J. Jericho takes him down with the usual stuff and sets for the Walls but Batista comes in for the save. Team Orton all stares him down and Big Dave backs off.

Orton suplexes Flair back and Maven adds a missile dropkick. We go back in to Jericho for the sake of talent and it’s a big beatdown. Maven chokes Flair ala Flair as the referee has his back turned in a nice touch. The referee looks at Batista so Jericho hits Flair low. Flair avoids the Walls by kicking him into the corner where Batista can get in a shot. Off to Big Dave who hits a spinebuster for two.

Off to Flair who hammers on Jericho with his usual punches and chops. Jericho comes back with the running enziguri to give us a Flair Flop. Double tag brings in Orton and Batista with Orton cleaning house. Powerslam gets two on Batista. Flair and Batista try to walk and…IT’S TIME TO PLAY THE GAME. And never mind because it’s Tajiri doing a HHH impression. The match breaks down and everyone hits their finishers on Batista, ending with the RKO for the pin.

Rating: C-. This was pretty dull and I really don’t get what Tajiri added to it. HHH being imitated is always good and Tajiri is usually funny but it didn’t click here. Anyway, decent match with the Flair stuff being great as he got his own tricks used on him, but the rest was pretty dull.

Team Orton and Tajiri celebrate to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a very odd show. The show itself worked well but if you’re not into the stories, which a lot of people weren’t in 2004, this didn’t do much for you. The Trish vs. Lita stuff was great and Bischoff’s face turn was promising, but without it ever meaning anything, it’s just a promise that doesn’t mean much. Decent show but nothing memorable.

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Is this the match that made Cena legit?I don’t really think so.  I’m not sure if there really is a single match that made Cena.  He was already a big deal at this point and the win didn’t really put him up to a higher level.  He did have to beat HHH at some point though, which makes this match more of a foregone conclusion than anything else.

Thoughts?

Wrestlemania 22
Date: April 2, 2006
Location: Allstate Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 17,159
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz
America The Beautiful: Michelle Williams

Now this is an interesting show. We’re now fully into what I guess you would call the modern era of both the company and Mania. Cena is the dominant world champion, Orton was his evil self, Taker’s Streak is at full power and Shawn is his Christian self. This show is much like 19: it’s solid, but easily forgettable for some reason. The wrestling is good but at the same time nothing jumps off the page at you.

This is also Kurt Angle’s more or less swan song in WWE as far as major angles go. He was drafted to ECW a few months later and after that did little to anything of note until his release and arrival in TNA. Jeff Hardy was about four months away from his comeback. The card looks somewhere between good and better than good so let’s get to it.

An added factor to this show is that I went to the follow up Raw exclusive PPV, Backlash, the next month. Since I remember it fairly well, I’ll be able to throw in some post show stuff leading up to Backlash.

After America the Beautiful it’s the standard history package to start with I Dare You by Shinedown playing which is a very good song here. The recap videos are something that WWE has always done very well. I don’t remember much of this buildup as it was three years ago but the packages help a lot. The theme song here is Big Time which is a bad pop song. Wrestlemania is supposed to have a freaking ROCK song with it, not a bad pop song.

A video runs us through the main matches and I have to think of the stupid Rey main event tour. Also tonight it’s Cena vs. HHH and Shawn vs. Vince. This is one of the weaker Manias as far as cards go if you didn’t get that.
Raw Tag Titles: Big Show/Kane vs. Carlito/Chris Masters

This was around the time that the two giants were just crushing everyone in their paths with reckless abandon. Carlito and Masters were two young guys that weren’t quite thrown together to face them here. As usual the Chicago crowd is white hot. Kane and Show come out together and weigh over 800lbs. How in the world is Kane the lightweight on a team?

Masters vs. Kane to start us off here. This is the first time in seven years that the titles have been defended at Mania in a traditional tag match. That’s kind of pathetic when you think about it. Show comes in and drills Masters a bit. Big chop in the corner makes people say WOO even though it’s a different kind of chop than Flair threw.

Show slams him and steps on the chest of Masters who tags out to Carlito. The Puerto Rican tries a wristlock and is promptly lifted up into the air and crotched with ease. Show launches Carlito onto Masters on the floor. Kane throws out a clothesline to both but lands between them resulting in a massive THUD on the floor but is up first. Total and complete dominance so far.

Somehow the challengers got the buckle off and Carlito dropkicks Show’s knee to send Show’s head into the buckle. Off to Masters now but like idiots they try a double suplex and get launched for their troubles. Kane comes in and a huge backdrop takes down Carlito.

Carlito gets a boot up and that more or less ends his offense. Masters manages to get the Masterlock on Kane but Show kicks him in the face to break it. Backstabber to Kane but Carlito walks into a chokeslam. Masters saves but Kane gets up. There’s no end to these guys. Chokeslam to Carlito ends this.

Rating: D+. It wasn’t a classic but it wasn’t supposed to be. This was little more than a glorified squash and that’s just fine for an opener. Both teams would be split up within a month though as the heels argued over who cost them the match here, leading to the Backlash opener which the newly face Carlito would win with a Backstabber. Kane and Show would lose the tag titles to the fraking Spirit Squad of all people and Kane would begin to go insane.

They began a weird tweener vs. face feud where Kane’s voice would play throughout the arena as somehow not only could we hear his thoughts but they were wired around the arena. It tied in somehow to Kane’s See No Evil movie, but it was still pretty bad. It culminated with a fake Kane, apparently from Kane’s past, beating Kane at Vengeance. It made no sense and was a total waste of about three months.

Masters and Carlito argue post match with the fans supporting Carlito.

Shawn says he doesn’t regret telling Vince that Vince needed to grow up because it was the truth. He talks about how he’s always stealing the show at Mania but not to expect a five star classic out of HBK. Tonight is about violence because tonight it’s Vince that needs to pray as tonight Vince is enduring his own personal nightmare. Wow Shawn cursed. That’s a rare one.
Money in the Bank

Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin, Finlay, Ric Flair, Lashley, Rob Van Dam
Lillian in that dress with the cut down to her stomach made me lose consciousness for a bit there. Shelton is IC Champion here so no defense of it again. All four commentators are talking here. Van Dam is pretty clearly the most popular guy here. Lashley is a freaking beast. Flair comes out last because I guess he’s the most exciting one with a ladder? That pink robe kind of makes me think he’s not very extreme.

This is only the second of the matches so there isn’t really a track record. RVD chant to start as Lashley destroys everyone with power. Matt brings in the first ladder but Van Dam hits a baseball slide to stop it from coming in and dives on the ladder onto Hardy. No one is in the ring at the moment until Finlay vs. Shelton goes on there. Shelton hammers him with a ladder which is set up in front of the ropes like a ramp. Shelton gets a running start and hits a big flip off of it onto everyone not named Flair.

Finlay and Flair go up but the ladder isn’t in the right place for Flair. Matt goes up and suplexes the young 57 year old down. Flair is in agony and the referee throws up the X for him. Hey, did you know he broke his back in a plane crash in the 70s? Didn’t know if the first million or so times we told you that got it through or not. RVD drops Shelton onto the ladder but misses Rolling Thunder on it. There are only five people in there still at the moment.

Lashley goes up very slowly of course but Shelton runs up only to get popped in the head. Shelton fights him off but can’t get a sunset bomb to take him down. Matt and Finlay help him out and down goes Lashley finally. Another big RVD chant starts up. Matt takes over on offense but when he puts a ladder in front of Finlay to charge at him Finlay throws the ladder at him for a FREAKING OW MAN moment.

Here comes Flair because he hasn’t been on camera for almost five minutes. Did he need to be oiled or something? Since the ring is empty he sets up a ladder but is stopped by Matt. Flair chops some people away and touches the case. Finlay pops up with the club that no one can spell and takes Flair down. The case is swinging though so Shelton is able to stop him or at least slow him down.

Shelton knocks him down and tries to go up but Lashley shoves it down. Van Dam hasn’t been seen in a good while. Oh there he is with a chair on the top. He jumps off and dropkicks the chair into the ladder and everyone is down. Hardy, the idiot that he is, sets up a ladder in the corner. Oh instead he’s doing a signature move instead of trying to win. What a shock.

He goes up and gets a hand on it, drawing a ton of boos. Finlay makes the save and we’re told he’s not a ladder specialist. Dude you go up. How hard can it be? Side Effect to Finlay off the ladder takes down Finlay, Hardy and the ladder. Van Dam climbs the ladder in the corner and drops a regular splash on Finlay. It’s good that he didn’t do the Five Star version as he would have killed himself.

In one of my all time favorite spots, Van Dam goes up top but Shelton springboards from the apron to the top rope to the ladder to catch Van Dam. That’s simply incredible and beats everything I’ve ever seen. Matt puts up another ladder but he and Shelton go down. Van Dam is alone and is like dude that’s awesome and wins the match by pulling down the case. He would win the title in June but lose it in three weeks due to getting high with Sabu.

Rating: B. Solid stuff here of course but WAY too short to be a great match. This was less than twelve and a half minutes long to give you an idea of how short it was. This was good but at the same time they needed more to it. Also with only Lashley and Van Dam being legit contenders out there it was a bit weaker than last year. Good match though.

Josh Matthews, with a lot of hair, is with Gene Okerlund who has no hair. Orton interrupts and says he’ll win the title tonight. Batista pops up and says he’s returning soon, which is true. Just three short months later he did return.

It’s time for the Hall of Fame class to come out. Bret Hart isn’t here which is understandable I guess. The rest is Mean Gene, Sensational Sherri, Tony Atlas (they’re all accompanied by Divas here if that means anything), Verne Gagne, William “Refrigerator” Perry (he couldn’t get a suit for this?) the Blackjacks, Eddie Guerrero (represented by Vickie who wasn’t a TV character yet) and of course Bret who isn’t here.

United States Title: John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Chris Benoit
No real storyline here as it’s really just JBL challenging him for the belt. In a really cool looking visual, the entrance ramp rises up like a garage and JBL’s limo drives out of it. Good lord Jillian Hall looks amazingly hot as a cowgirl. JBL has a hand injury here. JBL grabs a headlock to start and takes Benoit down with a shoulder. Benoit tries the Crossface out of nowhere but can’t lock it in.

Instead Chris settles for some hard chops in the corner. Out to the floor and JBL hides behind Jillian to take over. Benoit tries to chop back so JBL KICKS HIM IN THE FACE. Why mess with what works? Rolling Germans by Benoit must have JBL wanting to throw out some Nazi salutes. Benoit goes but get crotched. Eh with all those steroids in him the balls didn’t feel anything. JBL does Eddie’s dance to draw big heat and hits a superplex for two.

In a stat that I find almost impossible to believe, Cole says that only 5 matches in Mania history have ended in submission. I had to stop the match and go back to check on that. I found 7: Angle vs. HBK (21), Benoit vs. HBK vs. HHH (20), Rick Martel vs. Koko B. Ware (6), Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega (12-sleeper) Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin (13-Austin never tapped so I’m not sure if that counts), Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis (3-sleeper) and Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund (11).

Even with Cole being wrong, that’s still amazing. 7 in the first 21 shows meaning just one every three years. That’s either really impressive or really bad. Anyway JBL dances a bit more and hits Three Amigos. Benoit counters the third one but gets kicked in the face for two for his troubles. Off to a chinlock by JBL as things slow down a bit.

Benoit fights back and does Three Amigos of his own with Cole saying “this is how it’s done”, despite Benoit getting up differently than Eddie did. JBL did the same thing Eddie did. Flying headbutt by Benoit gets a long two. Clothesline from JBL misses but JBL grabs the referee to avoid the suplex. Clothesline attempt #2 is caught into the Crossface but JBL casually rolls him over and grabs the rope for the title. That’s the ending? Really?

Rating: D+. Seriously, that’s all there is here? The ending was flat out terrible. It made no sense at all and came from nowhere. JBL literally wasn’t in the Crossface for two seconds, and I timed it, before he rolled out. This match felt like it didn’t have a beginning and started at about 5 minutes in if that makes sense. Really not that good at all.

We recap the hardcore match between Edge vs. Mick Foley. Now this is the match this show is remembered for and with good reason. The story is that Edge stole the WWE Title from Cena using his MITB contract. Foley was the referee for some reason during the rematch, won by Cena. Edge of course says it was biased officiating. That leads to Edge challenging Foley, but Foley saying it’s hardcore. We get this.
Edge vs. Mick Foley
Joey Styles is on commentary here as he dang well should be. Lita looks INSANELY hot here with the Edge vest, bra and jeans. Good freaking lord. Edge has a ball bat with him. Edge’s facial expressions as Foley comes to the ring makes this match already. That’s his best asset and always has been. When he gets in a big match, Edge’s face is just amazing. Foley has his (blue) flannel shirt on so you know he’s serious here.

Styles actually analyzes Foley’s choice of flannel which is a bit odd. Styles really is a great choice for commentary here as his voice just fits this. Edge swings away with the bat almost immediately which gets him nowhere. Tree of Woe by Edge early as Foley drops an elbow on him. Edge gets a shot in and has Lita hand him a cookie sheet.

These shots are LOUD. Foley takes a street sign to the head and rubs hit stomach. Do the sheets smell like cookies? Edge hits the spear after maybe two minutes and is writhing in pain from it. Foley gets up and rips off the blue flannel to reveal a belt made of barbed wire and the RED FLANNEL SHIRT!!! Foley whips him with the barbed wire and Edge is bleeding from the arm.

Edge is now tied up in the rope and the crowd pops for it. Foley hits the floor and finds Barbie, the barbed wire baseball bat. Lita comes in for the save by jumping on Foley’s back (seriously is there anyone she won’t hit on?) so Foley is like screw it and we get a Cactus Clothesline to the floor. That and a neckbreaker outside both get two.

It appears Foley has become Cactus Jack but when he tries a running knee into Edge into the steps he gets hip blocked into the steps which looked awful. Again the knees go into the steps. Does anyone wonder why Foley can barely walk anymore? Chair time by Edge. Sorry that there aren’t many jokes in this but there’s not much to make fun of. Edge hits the floor again and busts out a table.

Foley rolls off before Edge can put him through it so instead he just rams him into the steel of the ramp. That sound made me cringe. Back in the ring now and Edge has…oh dang it he has lighter fluid. He pours it on Foley but Mick is able to get a Piledriver to save his own life. Using a cookie sheet instead of a second chair Edge almost takes a Conchairto. He manages to get up and give Foley a DDT (not) on the cookie sheet.

Edge with Barbie now (is Lita Ken?) and he hammers Foley with it to draw blood. A bulldog onto Barbie gets two. Out to the floor goes Edge and he finds a bag of tacks. Oh dear. Apparently he had a bunch of weapons hidden underneath the stairs. Foley manages to reverse though and suplexes Edge onto the tacks. Considering Edge wasn’t wearing a shirt that was awesome.

Here’s Socko but Foley wraps it in barbed wire. Claw to Lita as well and now Foley has Barbie (make sure to use protection since Edge already had her). Edge takes a shot to the head and is busted open as well. Oh man he’s cut BAD. Foley, the nice guy that he is, rips the barbed wire deeper into the skin of our Canadian villain.

Foley finds the lighter fluid and holds it up like a treasure in a Zelda game. The table gets soaked in it and yep they light it on fire. In the famous spot from this show, Edge dives through the ropes and spears Foley into the flaming table, burning both men in the process. The pin is academic.

Rating: A. They wanted to make Edge look awesome and they certainly did it here. Foley looked great too as once in awhile he can break out a great match and that’s what he did here. This was exactly what they needed and was enough to let Edge get back into the main event. Great match and the Mania moment that both guys were looking for. In true WWE style, they would be partners weeks later.

Foley gets a standing ovation to leave.
Booker and Sharmell are in the back and Sharmell is freaking over Boogeyman. Booker says he’s not a freak magnet. He then runs into Pirate Paul Burchill and then Ted DiBiase and Eugene doing the basketball thing as I mark out. The basketball thing was where DiBiase would say that if a guy could bounce a basketball 100 times in a row he would give them 1000 dollars.

On about 97 he would kick it away. He laughs and offers Booker a chance at it, saying everybody’s got a price for the Million Dollar Man. Seriously people, go look up his old stuff. In my opinion, he is still the greatest heel that ever lived. One more note about the basketball trick, back in the 80s, a young man from Battle Creek, Michigan named Rob was swindled by DiBiase. He eventually changed his name to Rob Van Dam.

He also finds Snitsky licking Mae Young’s toes and Goldust dressed as Oprah. I love these kinds of segments. Goldie says Booker has to accept the freak in him to beat the Boogeyman. There’s talk of worms in mouths and in a place that Booker is angry over having Goldust whisper to him. DiBiase’s laugh takes us off.

Ad for Backlash. Hey I was there!

We see some sweepstakes winners that no one cares about.

Joe Theisman and Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child are here.

Booker T/Sharmell vs. Boogeyman

The idea here is Booker keeps faking injuries to get out of matches and is threatened with being fired if he doesn’t wrestle. He was found out anyway and here’s your result. Oh and they’re both terrified of Boogey. Yes Booker, a five time world champion, is terrified of the Boogeyman. Booker wants Sharmell to start us off. It’s weird to hear Cole as a normal announcer at this point.

Booker comes in and hammers away. This is about what you would expect: Booker pounds away, it doesn’t work, Boogey dances a lot and Booker still can’t hurt him. Book End hits and Boogeyman gets up at two. Booker is sent into the post and Boogeyman pulls out a pocket full of worms. He has a snack and Sharmell tries to hit Boogey with his staff. She gets kissed by a mouth full of worms and runs. Chokebomb ends this with Boogeyman winning.

Rating: F. If I need to explain this, you’re an idiot. Did Booker get caught screwing Stephanie while giving TNA inside information and choking out Vince at the same time or something?

We recap Trish vs. Mickie. In short, Mickie was psycho and wanted Trish. This involved seeing Trish sans clothes and kissing her. I think they dressed up as each other a few times also. Trish finally has enough and Mickie loses it. Trish has been champion for like a year at this point so the title change was long overdue. Watching this video, the build to this was pretty awesome.
Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James

The main perk here would be their looks. Mickie would wear these really loose skirts which would often fly into the air. To the shock of no one, Trish looks incredible. It’s so ridiculous to see how far the Divas have fallen today. These girls have personality and are interesting and I want to see them fight after what felt like a somewhat epic storyline built around them.

Trish goes right after her and gets a Thesz Press to take her down. Big chop puts Mickie down. Trish knocks Mickie down into the splits and then kicks her in the head. Out to the floor and the Chick Kick hits the post to set the story for this match. Mickie works the knee because she’s intelligent despite being psycho.

She DDTs the leg for two as the fans are almost ALL behind Mickie here. Lots of knee work here which is the main thing involved in Trish’s finishers. She pulls Trish’s hair and slams Trish’s face into the mat in a painful looking move. Mickie jumps onto the leg and spins around, looking for praise.

Mickie is mixing up her offense on the leg between holds and strikes to it. See, THAT is important. It makes things far more interesting as instead of just sitting around with one thing we get a variety. She puts a leg bar on but Trish wraps her legs around Mickie’s head and gets a headscissors out of it. That was rather good actually.

They slug it out a bit more with neither girl having a real advantage. Mickie goes up but Trish catches her in the Stratusphere. Mickie counters that though and drapes the leg over the top rope again which gets two. Half crab is rolled up into a small package which gives us two and a great body shot. Mickie goes up again but is caught by a sitout powerbomb for two.

Trish hammers away and the Matrish avoids a kick of some sort. She sets for Startusfaction but Mickie rubs Trish’s crotch to break it up and then licks the hand that was down there. See, little things like that get the gimmick over. They set for the ending which is Mickie using the Stratusfaction but Mickie TOTALLY misses the rope and botches the heck out of it. A weak kick to the head ends it instead. JR’s line of THE NUTJOB HAS WON THE TITLE sums this up perfectly.

Rating: B. This would have been an A if not for the finish. I’m not sure which is better: the tiny outfits and how sexy both were in them or the fact that this was really a great match. The botch at the end almost kills this though, but aside from that it’s great and one of the best women’s matches I’ve ever seen. More importantly than anything though: I cared about it because there was an interesting storyline with developed characters. DO THAT MORE OFTEN!
All four McMahons are in the back and they pray. What do you really expect here?

Undertaker vs. Mark Henry

This match came about after Henry was for some reason pushed as top heel on Smackdown, feuding with Angle for the title. Angle beat him clean at the Rumble and then Taker had Angle beat for the title on Smackdown but Henry attacked the dead man. Taker than challenged Henry to a Casket Match for some reason and we get this. No buildup video for this either as they’re not even trying to convince us the Streak is in jeopardy. Henry is of course not afraid of the dark.

Taker gets the big entrance with the druids. Oh wait that’s just for the casket. Hey we do get a brief recap. I see why it didn’t get a full one. Daivari is Henry’s manager at this point but isn’t here. This would lead to the debut of Great Khali. Henry jumps Taker during his entrance, more or less sealing his fate. Taker gets a big boot and clothesline but can’t take Henry down.

Clothesline by Henry shifts momentum a bit. Can you believe that this is the same guy that was able to have classics with Shawn and then on the other hand you have Henry who had been there ten years at this point and has gotten worse after starting bad? If you can’t tell I’m trying to not have to talk about the match. Henry goes into the steps, Taker goes into the steps, Old School is blocked and the casket is open.

No one in the world thought Henry had a chance here and the fans are more or less accepting that. When Henry is on offense there’s no heat at all. Taker gets a boot to the shoulder and hammers away on it. Old School hits this time and Henry still won’t go down. Taker tries a Downward Spiral but is blocked, drawing a Henry Sucks chant.

Henry goes after Taker but misses, landing in the casket. Taker winds up in there also and they fight in there for a bit. Taker reaches up and chokes away as this is already needing to end. Back in the ring with Taker striking but he jumps into the World’s Strongest Slam for no cover as Henry isn’t that intelligent. Taker stands up in the casket and gets out rather easily.

Taker gets beaten down in the corner and then like the moron that he is, Henry climbs up to pound down punches. When do you see Taker try cross bodies or Henry do that? Not a fan of moves like those. Taker doesn’t get a Last Ride but more or less falls forward to put Henry down. Henry goes onto the casket so Taker dives over it to take him down. Tombstone in the ring and the ending is academic.

Rating: D. This was bad for one simple reason: there was no drama to it at all. Taker matches at Mania can work very well but at the same time there are matches where there’s no point to him being there, such as this one. I mean dude, Mark Henry? This was a joke and everyone knew it. Boring match and nothing happened at all.

There’s a Divas Lingerie show coming up or something.

We recap Shawn vs. Vince. There was a Raw in Montreal and Shawn apologized to the fans, who kind of accepted it. Vince comes out and laughs about it. Shawn says he needs to grow up, then throws a super kick at him, intentionally missing by as little a margin as he can. This launched a feud which mainly consisted of Vince trying to get Shawn hurt.

Marty Jannetty returned to try to help Shawn but was fired after something like two weeks. Shane faced Shawn on SNME in a street fight and they redid the Montreal finish. Somewhere in there Shawn was forced to kiss up to VInce. It was an ok feud but nothing great. The blowoff was supposed to be here, so let’s take a look. This was supposed to be Bret but he didn’t do it for four years.

Shawn Michaels vs. Vince McMahon

Shawn comes out first which is kind surprising. Vince is demonic according to JR as he comes out. McMahon is very proud of his physique and can you blame him? He has a framed cover of his Muscle and Fitness magazine at ringside which might as well have an X on the middle for the part that goes on his head. Shawn goes straight to the floor and we head to the tables quickly.

JR loses his headset which makes this match more enjoyable. Shawn grabs the framed cover and cracks it over Vince’s head. JR is completely one sided here because of Vince treating him badly over the years or something. The Spirit Squad hits the ring to make it 6-1. Who would have thought that Dolph Ziggler (Nicky!) would be a world champion before Shawn?

They hit their finisher which is where they all grab the other guy and throw him into the air as high as they can. Kenny misses a guillotine legdrop and Mikey grabs the bullhorn which is applied to the sides of their heads. Vince is able to recuperate during that time and hammers away a bit. Off comes the belt and the whipping begins.

Vince sets for Sweet Chin Music which is caught. Maybe he should have tuned up with a little Stand Back before he did that. Shawn fires away with the forearm and nip up so he can whip Vince a bit. Top rope elbow hits and it’s time to Tune Up the Band. Cue Shane with a kendo stick to crack Shawn in the head.

With Shane standing guard, Vince takes down his own pants. Yep it’s time for the kissing spot but Shawn gets his momentum back and sends Shane’s face into his dad. Shawn pulls handcuffs out of somewhere (Vince maybe?) and ties Shane to the rope. After doing Shane’s dance, Shawn beats the tar out of him with the stick.

Chair time and a HUGE shot puts Vince down. Shawn sets for chin music but stops as Vince collapses. Instead he hits the floor and pulls out a ladder. A shot to the head puts down Vince as I think you know what’s coming here. Vince is dripping blood here. Chin Music is stopped again as Vince is almost lifeless.

Shawn pulls out some garbage cans and a table. Shane is still cuffed mind you. The table is set up after a can shot. Shawn goes up the ladder with Vince on the table and then climbs down. He had a scary look on his face before he came down. Out to the floor again and it’s the BIG ladder. Lawler says it’s 30ft high, meaning Shawn is about 15 feet tall. Shawn fires a crotch chop from the ladder and drops the biggest elbow ever to kill Vince. Sweet Chin Music finally ends this with Vince just collapsing from it. The pin is academic of course.

Rating: C+. Well this was supposed to be a beating and that’s exactly what it was. Vince can take one heck of a beating when he has to and this was no exception. Shawn looked great here with the whole letting the old Shawn sneak in as his mind was being affected by Vince. Good beating but Vince had literally nothing for about 8 minutes at the end. Granted he wasn’t supposed to so that’s easily forgivable. Fun stuff but not great.

Vince flips off Shawn from the stretcher which is just classic.

WM 23 is coming to Detroit.

We recap the Smackdown World Title match. Angle is the champion. Rey won the Rumble in honor of Eddie Guerrero and last eliminated Randy Orton to win. Orton went insane heel by saying Eddie was burning and managed to get Rey vs. Orton at No Way Out for the Mania title shot. Orton won and Teddy just made it a triple threat because he could. You knew there would be a triple threat in there somehow. This gets the music video treatment tonight, set to I Dare You by Shinedown. Love that song.

Smackdown Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton

POD plays Rey to the ring which is always awesome to see. This would be cool but Rey has a massive headdress on which I think is taller than he is. Dang it Rey does no one look at you before you go out there? Orton is cocky here and therefore awesome.

Kurt got the title when Batista was injured and Kurt won a battle royal. See, that’s the perk of having guys like him or Shawn. Got an injury? Need a totally credible main eventer to throw in there? How about Kurt Angle or Shawn Michaels as world champion? I think most people would be cool with that. I would be.

Orton jumps Kurt and the fight is on. Kurt is on the floor and Orton gets a dropkick on Rey for two. Angle gets back in and grabs a German on Orton. Then he suplexes both at once and Rey goes FLYING. That was awesome looking. Angle is all fired up here. Belly to belly to Orton as Kurt is killing it. Rey hammers away at baldie and the fans audibly boo. But it’s about EDDIE!!!

In a great spot, Orton is sitting on the ropes and Rey charges at Angle. Angle grabs him and launches him over Kurt’s head and Rey lands in a perfect rana on Orton for two. Angle suplexes Orton back into the ring and the fans are behind him. Rey gets a kick to Kurt’s head to take him down for two. The fans chant 619 and Rey gets a headscissors to Kurt who crawls into the 619 position like an idiot.

Ok maybe not so much of an idiot as Kurt grabs the ankle lock out of nowhere. Orton distracts the referee so the tapping by Rey isn’t seen. Kurt and Orton slug it out but I guess Kurt gets bored so he suplexes everyone in sight and hits the Angle Slam to Rey to the floor. Ankle lock to Orton and Kurt gets the grapevine. Rey pulls the referee out as Orton taps so Kurt has won twice in theory.

Kurt throws it on again but this time Rey drops the dime to break it up for two. Fans aren’t thrilled by that at all. Rey is sent into the post but Orton counters the Angle Slam and hits the RKO for two. Randy goes up so Kurt pops up the corner and gets the belly to belly. Rey botches the 619 then does it right.

Seated Senton gets two on Kurt. Orton kicks Kurt to the floor and gets a slick backbreaker into a neckbreaker for two on Rey. He sets for the RKO but Angle hits the Slam on him for two. Rey avoids the Slam and sends Kurt to the floor via an armdrag. 619 sets up the West Coast Pop to Orton to give Rey his first world title in less than ten minutes. Seriously, that’s it?

Rating: D+. Seriously, that’s it? The match was ok but for a world title match at Wrestlemania, that’s it? How many world title matches have you seen at Wrestlemania that don’t crack nine and a half minutes? The title reign was awful, namely due to him being booked like a joke but that’s another story. The match was ok but I thought it was clipped as it was so ridiculously short.

HHH and Cena are getting ready. The fans are clearly behind HHH here, openly booing Cena. Ross says most of the fans are traditional as he’s clearly out of stuff to talk about. Maybe a match ran short? LOUD Cena Sucks chant.

Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle

This is a Playboy Pillow Fight and the reason they were stalling I guess. Candice is introduced from the wrong city. JR says the gate tonight is over $2 million dollars. That’s insane to say the least, especially considering this isn’t a stadium and has less than 20,000 people. Torrie’s music was recycled and is now used by Laycool. She has a freaking dog with her. Ross makes my head feel better by saying the next show is in Lexington. That made me smile.

These two had both been in Playboy. There’s a bed in the ring and pillows and all that jazz. You win by pin or submission. Do I need to explain what’s going on here? They’ve in evening gowns, they don’t stay on long, Torrie wins and they’re in very little clothing. We’re done. This got nearly 4 minutes. Yes, this got almost half as long as the world title match. This couldn’t have been added to that match perhaps? I guess not.

Rating: F. Long, dull, and a waste of my time.

We see some clips from the Wrestlemania press conference. Cena and HHH cut basic promos about being champion post show.

No real backstory here. Cena was champion and HHH won some worthless tournament.
Raw World Title: John Cena vs. HHH

HHH comes out looking like Conan’s mostly metrosexual brother. He’s wearing a fur pelt and a crown and a breastplate. He rises from a throne to play up the King of Kings bit. He looks absurd but at least after a few seconds we switch over to All About The Game which is a better song I think.

We then see…a newsreel about the Great Depression? Yes indeed, as we hear about the rise of Capone and organized crime in Chicago. The stage rises again as a 1930s era car comes out and fake gangsters armed with Tommy guns ride out. As a geek note, the one on camera side is clearly none other than CM Punk! Total mark out moment for me there as the gangsters surround the ring.

Even the fans are confused here. Cena’s music finally hits and he is booed out of the freaking building. He comes out in a black suit and fedora which would have been awesome had it not been for him wearing shorts and making the trench coat look like a bathrobe. He fires some blanks (honey it happens to a lot of guys I swear) and throws off the coat to reveal his t-shirt and the main event black shorts. We get the big match introductions which will never get old.

HHH is introduced as the Cerebral Assassin, the King of Kings, the Game, the 10 Time Champion. Cena is introduced as the Dr. of Thuganomics. They even get checked for weapons. That’s not something you see anymore. After a long staredown process they lock up and HHH grabs a headlock into a hammerlock. Technical stuff to start here.

Back to the arm stuff as we’re in a feeling out process here. The fans are all over Cena with a huge F YOU CENA chant. Cena tries an FU early but HHH reverses and DRILLS Cena with a right hand to take him down. Cena has to reset a bit as a HHH chant starts. The Game throws him to the floor as they definitely haven’t gotten going full speed yet.

HHH plays to the crowd but Cena sneaks up on him and hammers away. Back drop gets two. Fisherman’s Suplex with a floatover gets two also and we hit the chinlock. YOU CAN’T WRESTLE chant starts up which is just hilarious at this point. Cena throws him into the corner and HHH goes over the top and out to the floor. Out onto the aisle and HHH wants a Piledriver but is backdropped onto the steel instead.

Cena’s main offense has been the right hand and I can’t blame him at all for that. HHH fights back and chokes away. Out to the floor for a bit and Cena’s shoulder goes into the steps. Now why would HHH let the referee count? It’s giving Cena a chance to breathe and he won’t win the title that way. I guess you could argue it lets HHH rest.

Back in and HHH hits a suplex and Flair knee drop. Facebuster gets a big pop and a clothesline puts Cena down for two. HHH is covering after almost every move or two that he does which is a very nice thing for him to do. It makes him seem like he wants to win every time which is the idea. They slug it out but another neckbreaker takes Cena down for two.

Modified chinlock/neck vice goes on and Cena is in trouble. Cena fights up but walks into a sleeper. He hasn’t had a steady string of offense all match other than a brief one about 8 minutes ago. John fights out and takes HHH’s head off with a clothesline and both guys are down for a bit. Powerslam puts HHH down and Cena is in control.

Protoplex sets up the 5 Knuckle Shuffle. The shot of Cena looking at the crowd before he goes for it is great. HHH gets up and catches him in a spinebuster for a long two. Nice move there. Right back to the sleeper but Cena reverses quickly into the Shuffle which hits this time. He pumps the shoes and grabs the STFU out of nowhere.

In a nice show of strength though HHH crawls to the ropes and we’re not done yet. FU is reversed and the referee is crushed in the corner. HHH throws a low blow and hits both guys. Crotch chop to Cena as we have more DX foreshadowing. There’s the sledgehammer but Cena blocks it and hammers away (no pun intended) until a shot to the head takes him down. THAT somehow gets two.

Pedigree is reversed and here comes Cena. FU hits and gets two which results in an eruption from the crowd. Very good match here so far. Cena has no idea what else to do as both of his finishers have more or less failed. A splash of all things misses but the Pedigree is countered into another STFU and the referee checks the arm. HHH keeps it up (Stephanie says yay!) but then after almost a minute in the hold HHH taps and Cena keeps the title.

Rating: A-. Great match here and definitely Mania main event worthy, but the problem comes down to this doesn’t feel epic. It’s a great match but at the same time it looks like just another title defense for Cena. This would have been a lot better if HHH had come in with the title and Cena had taken it here, but at the same time this worked fine.

Overall Rating: B. If there was a rating between B- and B this would get it. The whole thing is good overall but there are some spots that make you shake your head. For instance the Booker match, the pillow fight thing, the World Heavyweight Championship match, the MITB being so short etc. It’s a good shot, but it’s nothing I’d want to see over and over. It’s good for a rainy day but that’s about it. Recommended but not incredibly highly.

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Judgment Day 2000
Date: May 21, 2000
Location: Freedom Hall, Louisville, Kentucky
Attendance: 16,827
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We kick off the series with this, which for the life of me I didn’t go to for some reason. The main event and more or less the only reason this show means anything is Rock vs. HHH in an Iron Man match for the world title. Other than that there more or less is nothing as that match takes over an hour. The only other good match is Benoit vs. Jericho in a submission match. Let’s get to it.

The opening video lists off things that happen in an hour, including births, deaths and flights taking off. Think they’re playing up the Iron Man match as important here?

This is going to be a tricky show for me as a friend of mine that I was supposed to go to the show with is visible on camera for almost the entire show.

Vince is with his kids and DX along with Brisco, the current Hardcore Champion. Patterson isn’t here so Brisco is the errand boy. They’re all in action tonight for the most part. Vince makes Shane vs. Show hardcore for the most part. Rock is champion coming in mind you. Even the mention of HHH’s name gets mad heat.

Brisco is getting the coffee and the Headbangers jump him, carrying him off.

Shawn, the referee for the main event, is here in fall too small shorts.

Too Cool/Rikishi vs. Edge/Christian/Kurt Angle

Angle is fresh and as goofy as ever here and I love it. He’s “all that” according to various teenage girls. He gives a nursery rhyme about chastity and “not shacking up with a bunch of guys, but stay pure by following his three I’s”. I love Angle from this era. Edge and Christian are tag champions here and bring out some bags. The mispronounce the name of the town and have a new Five Second Pose. They bust out banjos for one called Jug Band The out of context visual here is great.

Crowd pops BIG for Too Cool. Or is that for Rikishi? Their music is catchy if nothing else. The heels jump the dancers and it’s on. That doesn’t last long as Rikishi and his lackies clear the ring. Too Cool beats down Edge for a bit. Apparently Stephanie was in Shawn’s locker room earlier in the day and left smiling. I’m not sure how Becca would feel about that.

Scotty vs. Christian now with Scotty in control. Too Cool does some double teaming and Edge tries to emulate it, resulting in him getting crotched on the top rope. Grandmaster starts dancing and his pants fall down. Oh dear. Off to Rikishi now as this is moving a bit too fast for my tastes. Rikishi tries to drop his fat on Kurt but missed, giving Team ECK (Edge, Christian, Kurt, which is their actual name and not something I made up) the advantage.

Angle beats him down in the corner and the champions add in a beating of their own. Rikishi remembers he’s an upper midcard guy and fights them off to bring in Scotty. Edge illegally comes in so of course the referee believes that he made the tag. Off to Kurt and Scotty actually beats him down a bit. Crowd is all over Kurt here. Christian beats on Scotty for a bit as they’re tagging in and out that fast.

Scotty sets for a powerbomb and drops Christian back into a hot shot to bring in Rikishi. Is Grandmaster crippled or something? Can he just not come in at all? All three heels get stacked up in the corner and are splashed at once. Stinkface to Angle makes Lawler scream. Angle and Christian tries a DDT on Rikishi for no adequately explored reason and the fat man hits Kurt again.

Edge spears Rikishi down, being the only one with some intelligence on his team. He gets bulldogged down and it’s the Worm. And so much for that as Christian pops Rikishi with the bell. Grandmaster FINALLY does something by dropping the leg off the top to break up the easy pin and putting Scotty on Edge for the pin.

Rating: C+. This isn’t anything too bad and was a decent enough opener. It’s a fairly fast paced six man with some fun comedy spots and popular guys in there. This sums up this generation pretty well: I’m currently redoing the Mania reviews and am doing #13 at the moment. This match was more exciting than all but one match on that show and arguably a second. Let that sink in for a bit.

Of course we get some post match dancing.

Shawn is with Cole and says he’s going to call this down the line. There are apparently internet rumors about Shawn being jealous of Rock and Shawn says if it’s on the internet it MUST be true. Nice little shot there.

We get a clip from earlier of Eddie and Chyna arriving. Dean gets in their face and Saturn gets in Dean’s face.

European Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Perry Saturn vs. Dean Malenko

Dig that pop for Eddie. Dean is Light Heavyweight Champion here which he would be like forever. Dean and Saturn beat him down with relative ease, throwing in a modified Decapitator ala Demolition. I love hearing them drop F Bombs in the corner. Leg lariat by Malenko takes Saturn down as Eddie is down in the corner.

We get some nice three man spots including Eddie getting a mule kick as a low blow to both guys. Eddie fights both guys back and gets a nice rana on Saturn to take him down. Dean leans into a headscissors and gets a side slam for two. Tornado DDT by Eddie to take Saturn down for two as Malenko saves.

Butterfly suplex by Malenko is countered into a sunset flip by Eddie which is countered into a Texas Cloverleaf which is countered by Saturn. Saturn double crosses Malenko as they set for a Doomsday Device. He throws Eddie at the top rope to crotch Malenko. Eddie gets up but walks into the middle rope gutbuster from Eddie. Saturn busts out a Frog Splash on Eddie for two as Malenko saves.

Perry tries a Texas Cloverleaf on Dean which Eddie breaks up. Brainbuster to Saturn as this has gotten quite good. Saturn charges at Eddie who ducks and it’s down to Eddie and Dean for the moment. Dean gets a suplex and a top rope splash for two. It’s a triple/double/whatever else JR calls it suplex as Dean suplexes Eddie and Saturn suplexes Dean. Chyna drills Saturn with the flowers and trips Dean to send him head first into them. Eddie rolls up Dean for the pin to retain.

Rating: B. Another fast paced and fun match. This is what happens when you put guys out there that know each other and have no issues with letting the other guys look good. There were some very creative spots in there and all three guys worked very hard. Fun times indeed and the second good match in a row.

We get a clip from Smackdown where Crash was taking a nap and Brisco came in with a referee and got a quiet pinfall to win the Hardcore Title. That actually was kind of funny. Brisco is sneaking around in the bathroom so of course the announcers are whispering. Brisco tries to jump himself in the mirror as he’s all paranoid.

We recap Shane vs. Big Show which is fallout from Mania. Show has turned face and is having fun and being funny now, so Shane ripped him for it. Shane challenged him for no apparent reason so Show promptly destroyed him on Raw. McMahon made him run a gauntlet match and managed to chokeslam Show (with some help from T&A).

Shane McMahon vs. Big Show

This is in essence a hardcore match. Show has almost rap music here. I kind of dig it actually. Shane dives over the top and gets caught with ease. Let the massacring begin. All Show to start as he easily throws Shane into the ring from the floor. We’re just filling time until the Corporation comes in to clean house.

Show calls for the Chokeslam and here’s Boss Man for the save. He drills Show in the knee multiple times with the nightstick but here comes Show. Show gets a powerbomb on Boss Man which is a move he could use more often I think. T&A come out with chairs so Show drills them both in the chair to knock them into the faces. Trish tries a low blow which doesn’t work so Show throws her onto T&A on the floor.

Shane tries to run so Show follows him up the ramp. Show launches him into the set like a rag doll. He rips the thing apart but Shane jumps up and grabs the bottom of the Tron to kick Show in the face. T&A come back to beat Show down a bit so Shane can shove an anvil case into Show’s face for two. Test even tries a cinder block but can’t get a shot in with it. Shane climbs the set but Bull Buchanan pops up with the nightstick. They knock Show into the sound equipment which falls onto Show’s leg. A shot to the head with a cinder block gives Shane the pin.

Rating: C+. Match was short but fun. Show is great as the monster and having everyone come in there to beat the heck out of him is a nice touch. Not a bad match at all especially since Shane had no direction at all for the most part. I would have had Show fight off the odds but that’s Vince’s company for you at the end of the day. Fun though.

Brisco is still looking for a place to hide. He picks the referee’s locker room and nods off. Naturally the referees in there try to steal the title but he yells at them and leaves.

HHH is talking to Shawn about his shorts which are far too small and far too tight. Apparently it looks like he’s smuggling bananas in them.

We recap Benoit vs. Jericho who are in their annual CAN YOU TOP THIS contest. Benoit made the challenge this time and is champion coming in. Jericho has a counter to the Crossface apparently. Hardcore Holly attacked Benoit with a chair on Smackdown so Benoit’s knee may be messed up.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit

Ross liked Benoit’s hold better because it can go on faster. That’s logical. Back and forth to start and Jericho goes for a Fujiwara Armbar out of nowhere. I would make fun of the lack of psychology, but here any submission works and Jericho is trying to get something quick so that’s ok. Tombstone attempt by Jericho is countered into a shoulderbreaker by Benoit.

Benoit gets a shoulder lock on and Jericho is in some trouble. Jericho reverses into a Walls attempt but Benoit blocks that as well. Springboard dropkick takes Benoit down to the floor. Crowd is WAY hot here. Val Venis is watching and gets a title shot tomorrow apparently. Jericho gets Benoit and the knee into the steps to further his dominance. Back into the ring and Jericho gets a Tiger Bomb into a backbreaker.

They chop it out and those things sound great. Off to Benoit now as the turnbuckle is exposed. Jericho’s shoulder is rammed into said buckle and then he does it again. Off to an armbar again which Jericho reverses and they slug it out one more time. Benoit may have a slightly broken nose from a few weeks ago. Cross armbreaker by Benoit and Jericho is in trouble. Sorry for the lack of jokes here but it’s hard to find stuff to make fun of in a good match.

Hardcore Holly is watching too, I guess because he’s a voyeur or something. Flapjack by Jericho has the crowd in a frenzy. Jericho goes after the knee and tries to get the brace off of it. There it goes so let’s whip Benoit with it! Lionsault goes onto the knee and Benoit tries to escape. Jericho locks on the Walls around the ropes in a very cool looking spot. I love it when you tweak a move like that to adapt to your surroundings.

Benoit kicks Jericho in the face to get out of it. Why mess with an idea that works I guess? Triple Germans by Benoit and he goes for the shoulder again. Jericho gets a shot to the knee and tries for the Walls. Benoit gets a shot with the knee brace and hooks on the Crossface! Jericho almost gets to the ropes so Benoit releases it and pulls him to the middle. Jericho gets out AGAIN but Benoit slips the arms beneath the chin and Jericho passes out to end it.

Rating: A-. Oh come on were you expecting anything other than a great match from these two? These are guys that I start on a higher level than I do most matches as I know it’s going to be good. The idea here was how good was it going to be and this was quite good indeed. Both guys had the psychology going of course and it worked quite well. Good stuff of course, but their ladder match the following January was even better.

We get a clip of Brisco getting jumped earlier. Cole talks to Brisco who says he can’t have any peace as everyone, including his kids and his neighbors are trying to take his title. Behind him some venders are talking to a referee. Apparently his StoogeSense kicks in and he pops them in the head.

Shawn is talking with Rock who says that this better be called down the line. This is one of the few dream matches that we never got.

X-Pac/Road Dogg vs. Dudley Boys

This is a double tag match, as in you have to put both guys through tables and I don’t think it’s elimination rules. Tori is freaking sexy. Tori put Bubba through a table and Bubba looked downright orgasmic from it. Road Dogg does his usual schtick that is on the verge of being done at this point. The Dudleyz charge and clear the ring including the Fink who was still doing their entrances.

There are a ton of tables around ringside. You have to tag in and out here for no apparent reason. The Dudleys are the faces here. Roadie and D-Von start us off but it’s off to Pac and Bubba rather quickly. Pac gets a spin kick to take him down and it’s to the floor. Never mind it’s back to the ring. Bubba gets a middle rope clothesline of all things to keep control.

What’s Up to X-Pac and you can see Tori cringe. She gets up on the apron so it’s What’s Up to Road Dogg too. DX retreats to the floor as the fans chant for tables. The boys in green try to run and the fight is on in the aisle. Back to the ring with D-Von and Road Dogg. I think we’re at the point now where the rules are thrown out the window. Bubba gives Tori the eye and Pac seems to be ok with it.

Back to the actual rules part now which is rather stupid. Bronco Buster to D-Von makes me very angry indeed. D-Von fights up and tags Bubba but the referee didn’t see it. Naturally he lets DX change when he didn’t see them do it. Spin kick takes down D-Von but a double clothesline gets him out of trouble. Here’s Bubba who cleans about half of a house. Eh make that the whole house I guess.

It’s table time and the fans are into this all of a sudden. We get two set up in opposite corners and another at ringside. Road Dogg reverses D-Von and the Dudley is sent through a table via a pumphandle slam to make it 1-0 DX. Pac, like an IDIOT, tries a rana in front of a table and goes through it. Next guy of Road Dogg or Bubba that goes through it ends this.

They slug it out in the middle of the ring and get annoyed at the referee. Yep the referee goes through a table. Brisco wanders out here as Road Dogg takes a 3D through a table but there’s no referee. Tori comes in like an idiot and D-Von sets up a table while Bubba grabs her. Brisco saves her from a middle rope powerbomb with a low blow to Bubba. X-Factor through the table ends Bubba and DX wins it.

Rating: C. I know people aren’t fans of me saying this but this was what it was. It’s a gimmick match with a lot of violence and people going through tables. Not bad but nothing great at all. It’s nothing more than a way to catch your breath before the main event and there’s not a thing wrong with that. Not bad but nothing we haven’t seen before.

Brisco comes in and throws out some crotch chops at the Dudleys and say it with me, gets a 3D for his troubles.

Another His Judgment Day is Coming video, which changes into His Judgment Day is Here. This is set to a song by Kid Rock and had been airing for a few weeks now. WHY DID I NOT GO TO THIS SHOW???

The graphic for the main event is shown and the fans pop big. We recap Rock vs. HHH which is a feud that has gone on for like ever. Rock FINALLY won the title back the previous month at Backlash after HHH escaped Mania with it. This is considered the third chapter in their feud even though it’s their second one on one match in this feud. Shawn is the guest referee due to his experience in Iron Man matches. There’s history here as the last time Shawn was seen he kicked Rock to cost him the title. Both guys have threatened Shawn if he screws them. This video goes on forever and basically is both guys saying ONE HOUR.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. HHH

Iron Man match and if there’s a tie Rock keeps the title. HHH comes out with all three McMahons. He actually sends the McMahons to the back to fight on his own. Wow indeed. Rock gets a great reaction. Remember this is an hour long so expect a lot of writing for this one. Here we go. There’s a clock in the upper left hand corner of the screen so we have an idea of what’s coming here. And never mind as it’s gone.

Staredown and trash talking to start us off here. Huge pop for the lock up. No one can get an advantage but they have a ton of time in this. Rock is swearing a lot in this. We’re about two minutes in and there hasn’t been any real offense by either guy yet. Rock grabs a headlock to get a tiny advantage early on. Top wristlock battle goes to the Rock and it’s back to the headlock.

Rock gets a trio of twos on rollups so HHH hits the floor to clear his head. They talk about playing the clock which is very true indeed. The smart thing to do would be to bring handcuffs and chain a guy up outside and get like 100 ten counts. Back in and we hit the headlock again. Big punch sends HHH back to the floor again. Back in and back to the headlock, which makes sense here.

HHH tries a leap frog so Rock hits him in the face. He avoids the Rock Bottom and takes Rock down via a clothesline. HHH works on the arm as we haven’t had the clock since the very beginning so it’s kind of hard to say how much time last gone by. Rock starts fighting back but walks into a DDT on the arm to be put back in trouble. Ah there’s the clock and we have just over 50 minutes to go.

More right hands by Rock and HHH hits the ropes. ROCK BOTTOM OUT OF NOWHERE and Rock is up 1-0! Crowd pops huge for the first fall as that was incredibly sudden. HHH isn’t up yet and we have 49 minutes to go. Jerry points out that Rock is more or less up 2-0 as HHH has to beat him, not tie him.

We head to the floor and brawl up the aisle with HHH going into the railing. Rock suplexes HHH back in to get two. Shawn has been a nonfactor so far. Rock wraps HHH’s leg around the post and is dominating at the moment. A lot more knee work by the Rock and HHH is in big trouble. Rock goes back to the knee even more.

Here comes a Figure Four and HHH is screaming OW! We get into the always interesting debate over should HHH give up to break the hold or try to fight out of it. Rock gets three two counts here as HHH needs a break badly. There’s a reversal so he managed to get said break. His leg is almost destroyed though.

Out to the floor and HHH can barely walk. We fight into the crowd for a bit with Rock landing in some big shots. Back to ringside now with HHH in control. We’re past 20 minutes in now. Sorry for the lack of time details but they don’t put it up so I can’t keep up with it that well.

An elbow gets two for HHH. Actually he gets a bunch of twos here. HHH hammers in the corner but Rock gets some kicks to the knee as he’s using some psychology. He gets thrown to the floor for his efforts though and the count is on. HHH breaks up the count and gets thrown knees first into the steps to reinjure them.

Back in and Rock stays on the knee. HHH hammers away but Rock gets a knee crusher to break that up. Rock wants another Figure Four but HHH shoves him off and gets a Pedigree out of nowhere (that’s been happening a lot in this match) to tie it up with 34:30 to go. Instead of covering again he chokes Rock for no apparent reason. Rock is mostly dead on his feet so HHH ducks down into a small package to get his second pin in 67 seconds to take the lead! 33:23 left.

We hit the floor and Rock is sent into the barricade. Rock walks up the aisle as HHH follows him in an attempt to get some breath. HHH catches him but Rock whips him into the set. Rock tries a suplex but HHH counters into one of his own to take Rock down. Both guys are down in the aisle and we pass thirty minutes. This is the longest match either guy has ever had apparently.

Rock whips him into the apron and gets a backdrop to go after his back a bit. Shawn is yelling at the announcers, saying there won’t be any BS countouts. Rock sends him in but puts his head down, getting caught by a facebuster. A Piledriver of all things (Lawler loves it) gives HHH a 3-1 lead with 27:30 to go. Shawn screws up as HHH is still laying on Rock but Shawn doesn’t count.

Rock gets a huge clothesline out of nowhere but HHH takes his head off for two. The guys are starting to get tired but it’s nothing serious yet. HHH goes up but Rock slams/arm drags him off the top. Both guys down now with 25 minutes left. Rock is up first and he SMACKS HHH with some rights. The Rock: laying out justice with his fists.

La Magistrol (a Mexican cradle that Eddie often used) gets two for Rock. Rock might have a small cut on his forehead. There’s a sleeper by HHH which as JR and I agree on, is a smart move. Rock gets his arm up before the third drop so HHH channels his inner Flair and puts his feet on the ropes. Repeat the last sentence but this time Shawn catches HHH and breaks up the hold.

Rock fights up and gets some right hands. Another sleeper is blocked into a belly to belly but both guys are down. Rock tries the spinning DDT that he used as Rocky Maivia. That is botched to heck and back as instead of a DDT Rock loses his grip. He settles for a regular DDT instead and it’s 3-2 with HHH still in the lead at 19:20 to go. They’re mixing things up here as we’ve had five falls and two have been off finishers.

Out to the floor again and Rock drops him on the barrier. HHH grabs a chair but Shawn grabs it away from him. Rock sends him shoulder first into the steps. Back in the ring and HHH blasts Rock with the chair for the DQ to tie it up at just over 16 minutes left. Since Rock is out cold, HHH throws out a rollup to go up 4-3 at just under 16 minutes. That my friends, is psychology.

Rock is busted open now. 15 minutes left and Shawn looks at the cut which is nothing bad at all. HHH throws on a sleeper again which of course gets two arm drops. Rock fights back with punches but the sleeper goes on again and this time it actually gets a fall, giving HHH a 5-3 lead with about 12:30 to go. HHH won’t let go so Shawn makes him break the hold. Shawn gets in his face and HHH doesn’t like that in the slightest.

The argument lets Rock get to his feet and it’s time for more punching. HHH gets sent over the top rope, landing on a cameraman to give us the eternally funny view of the camera flying everywhere. Ten minutes to go and HHH goes up top. Being a heel he gets crotched and it’s a superplex by Rock to get the crowd right back into it. 8:45 to go.

Both guys are down and the count is on. Rock drapes an arm over but can only get a long two. 8 minutes left. HHH gets knocked to the floor and Rock lands a slingshot to put HHH into the post. The Great One gets sent into the steps and both guys are down with six minutes to go. And now, for the announce table.

Five minutes left and HHH wants the Rock Bottom on the table. Rock counters into a Pedigree and the table doesn’t break! FREAKING OW MAN! HHH is more or less dead so Rock slides in and it’s a countout for the Rock to make it 5-4 at 3:50 to go. HHH is bleeding now too. Here come the McMahons! Shawn starts the count again and HHH beats it by a second.

Rock is all fired up and they crank this up again. DDT gets two as Rock drills both McMahon men. Spinebuster sets up the People’s Elbow and we’re tied up with 2 minutes to go! DX is here too. Shane pulls Shawn to the floor so Shawn beats up both McMahon men as well. There’s a strange noise in the arena and DX is in the ring. Shawn gets knocked to the floor, and a video appears on the screen.

It’s the nursery rhyme video from earlier and Rock gets a Rock Bottom. DX and Shane beats the tar out of him and Shane gets a big chair shot. The funny thing about the video at this point is someone was covering up the letter I in “Is NOW” so I thought the video said Snow, making me wonder why Al Snow was here.

Anyway in case you’re a moron, it’s the Undertaker and the debut of the biker character. The song saying “He’s here!” just as we got the first shot of Taker on the motorcycle couldn’t have been more perfect. The crowd loses their minds as Taker annihilates DX and the McMahons, including the BIGGEST CHOKESLAM EVER to X-Pac. Serves you right you little pest. Everyone gets drilled including Vince.

Stephanie tries to be the hero but Taker grabs her by the throat too. HHH makes the save and gets a chokeslam for his troubles. Now this is where they screw it up. The clock shows about 5 seconds left as HHH is chokeslamed. Shawn sees this but Taker gets a Tombstone as well, clearly after the time (the clock disappeared with 3 seconds left) expired and the buzzer sounded late. Taker waited for the buzzer to go off to hit the Tombstone, but Shawn calls a DQ anyway and HHH wins the title. The chokeslam would have been enough for the DQ, but the way they ended it kind of screwed things up.

Rating: A. This was FUN. They realized they screwed up in 96 so this time they made it all about can you top this with the fast pace and most importantly, NO REST HOLDS! I have zero problem with guys being out there for 40 minutes and needing 60 seconds to catch their breath, but in 96 the match was probably 20 minutes resting.

This was a fast paced match between two stallions and the whole thing came out great. The ending was a bit botched but it was insane enough that the fans ate it up with a spoon. Another important thing was the lack of finishers. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be able to kick out of everything after such a war so they didn’t insult our intelligence by having them do it. Excellent match that flew by.

Overall Rating: A. GREAT show here with not a bad match to be found. 2000 might be the best year the company ever had and this is a great example of it. Everyone was working hard out there and the results are proof as to what hard work can do. There isn’t a bad match on the card with even the worst match being ok. The company was hot at this point and WCW was already decaying in their grave. Great show and definitely worth checking out.

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Great American Bash 1998
Date: June 14, 1998
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 12,810
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Mike Tenay

By the law of common sense, this HAS to be better than Road Wild. The main event is Sting vs. Giant for control of the tag titles since Giant joined the Black and White. The rest of the card at least looks ok and far better than the abomination that was Road Wild. I just finished that show if it wasn’t that clear. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is shots of the big names and shots of patriotic things like flags and eagles.

Tony declares that the people in the tag match tonight are the four best in the world today: Hogan, Hart, Savage and Piper. I’ll let the jokes make themselves there.

Gene talks about the main event to fill in some time. Sting has joined the Wolfpack so they have to have the match for later tonight. They’re the WCW/NWO Tag Titles now too.

Now the announcers talk to waste time. The fans want Goldberg.

Here’s a clip from Thursday where Bret hit Booker with a chair to cost Booker a match in the Best of Seven series. Benoit didn’t want it that way so he gave the match away via DQ. That was the seventh match but Booker didn’t want the win that way. Instead they’ll have an eighth match tonight and the winner gets Finlay for the TV Title tonight. Yeah that’s what this whole thing is for.

Chris Benoit vs. Booker T

The winner gets the title match later tonight. The opening bell rings 9:40 into the show.
Benoit snaps off an armdrag to start and Booker retaliates with a hiptoss. Oh and there’s a chance Benoit might want to join the NWO but he’s never said yes. Benoit gets in a shot and Booker heads to the floor. He has a bad knee due to a previous match with Benoit. Down to the mat for a bit and things are continuing to be slow.

Booker hits a hard elbow to the face for two and slams him down, getting the first advantage. Benoit comes back with a dragon screw leg whip to work on the bad knee. Belly to back gets two. Benoit hooks a chinlock but Booker elbows out of it. That doesn’t last long as Benoit chops him right back down, followed by a snap suplex for two. A belly to back is countered into a cross body for two.

Benoit keeps control and it’s time for a chinlock again. Booker gets up again but Chris knees him in the ribs to take him right back down. A front suplex puts Booker on the top rope. Benoit hits a hard clothesline for a pair of twos and now he’s getting frustrated. Back to the chinlock again and then a surfboard submission. Booker fights out of that and hits a powerslam.

Booker goes up but takes too much time, resulting in his cross body hitting the mat. Crossface attempt fails as Booker makes the rope. Now back to the chinlock for the fourth time. Does he realize he’s Chris Benoit? Booker fights up, probably due to the amount of practice he’s had so far in this match, and hits an enziguri followed by a spinebuster for two. Pancake sets up the Spinarooni but the missile dropkick is countered by a crotching. Superplex puts both guys down but Benoit can’t cover.

Instead he goes with the rolling Germans but hits a dragon (full nelson) suplex for the final one which only gets two. The crowd reaction says they thought it was over. Swan Dive hits but again he can’t cover. A delayed cover gets two, but then Booker pops up, hits a pair of side kicks and the missile dropkick for the pin to win the series. REALLY anti-climactic ending.

Rating: C. The match was ok but man was it underwhelming. The knee wound up meaning nothing at all and the ending comes out of nowhere with almost no comeback by Booker. Benoit controlled about 90% of the match, but the chinlocks were distracting. When’s the last time you remember four rest holds out of Benoit? Decent match but this should have been a lot more.

Chavo says Eddie wants to fight him but Lee Marshall disagrees.

Kanyon vs. Saturn

Saturn is in the Flock still. A guy dressed in Kanyon’s old Mortis attire (it’s known that they’re the same person at this point) comes out of the entrance until Kanyon himself comes through the crowd and jumps Saturn to start. Ok not so much jump him but wait for Saturn to turn around and make the whole thing pointless. Swinging neckbreaker gets two for Kanyon. Kanyon puts him in an electric chair position but drops Saturn forward for two.

Here’s the Flock but Kanyon knocks all of them around with ease. Saturn is sent to the floor which winds up going nowhere. Kanyon sets for something but Lodi distracts him, allowing for Riggs, Kidman and Horace to triple team him. Not that it matters to Saturn who dives over the top onto all three of them. Nick Patrick ejects everyone other than Lodi I believe. Kanyon is sent into the barricade and Saturn is in control. Saturn hits a move that I’ve seen Kanyon use before, as he suplexes Kanyon back in from the apron while standing on the middle rope.

Back in Saturn hooks an ankle lock and then a hold that resembles Cattle Mutilation but has half of the normal grip for that and a half nelson at the same time. Cattle Mutilation looks a lot better. A springboard clothesline puts both guys on the floor with I think Kanyon taking the worse of it. Saturn brings in a chair, prompting this from Tony: “Is this Raven’s Rules? We haven’t heard anything about that.” To anyone watching along with me, press rewind for about seven minutes and twenty seconds, to the part where Tony says: “Saturn coming to the ring for this next match, which is under Raven’s Rules we understand.” Moving on.

The chair is used as a springboard to set up a dropkick in the corner ala Poetry in Motion. There’s Sabu’s Triple Jump Moonsault to fill the moves stolen from ECW quota of the night. In a cool counter, Saturn tries a slingshot shoulder block but Kanyon counters into a northern lights suplex for two. Saturn comes back with a swinging neckbreaker for two of his own. Time for a chinlock and the fans aren’t pleased. A belly to back gets two for Kanyon and a Stun Gun puts Saturn down but Kanyon can’t follow up.

They do a weird backslide move where Saturn is sat out and gets two out of it. Rings of Saturn is transitioned into a two count somehow. They’re trying some different stuff here and it’s really not working. Fireman’s carry into a pancake gets two as does a torture rack neckbreaker. Downward Spiral is countered into a half nelson suplex by Saturn, getting two. Saturn’s Death Valley Driver is countered but he KILLS Kanyon with a superkick. Saturn does seem like he knows what he wants to do.

They both go up and both get crotched and fall to the floor. The Mortis from earlier in the match comes in and make that two of them. The smaller one hits the taller one and this is getting goofy now. They fight to the floor as Saturn jumps into a Downward Spiral which gets the pin for Kanyon.

Rating: D+. This was a really strange match. They were trying to be different I think and while they accomplished that, it wasn’t exactly good stuff. A lot of it looked like they weren’t sure what they were doing and it came off as kind of sloppy. Also at 15 minutes, this was too long. Not an awful match, but they overthought it and that brought things way down.

The smaller Mortis is unmasked as Raven, who DDTs Kanyon on the floor. I’d assume the much taller one was Reese. Raven gets on the mic and yells at Saturn for losing and has the Flock beat him down. Saturn fights them off because most of them suck.

We recap Malenko vs. Jericho. Malenko won a title shot in disguise as Ciclope and then the title later on that night but Malenko had to surrender the title. Jericho didn’t get it back because we have to have a rematch with Malenko vs. Jericho tonight.

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko

Title is vacant coming in. Jericho is announced as being from Calgary here which is a new one for him. They double clothesline each other to start but both pop up with Jericho spin kicking him down. Malenko goes crazy and pounds on Chris in the corner. That’s a new one for him. Jericho comes back with a shoulder block and some shadow boxing with the referee. Liontamer is easily countered and Dean hits a suplex for two.

Off to a surfboard submission and Jericho screams like a girly man. Jericho gets out and is caught in the Tree of Woe but Dean’s baseball slide misses. Out to the floor and Jericho hits a pescado. He pounds away on Dean and both guys are looking fired up here. Suplex sets up the posing cover for two. Off to a sleeper by Chris but Dean counters into one of his own. Jericho counters that with a belly to back for two.

Lionsault misses and Dean hits a leg lariat into a cradle for two. Tony says we’re ten to fifteen minutes into the match but it’s more like eight. Knee to the head of Jericho gets two. Dean takes him to the corner and sets for the top rope gutbuster but Jericho counters into a fast rana to put both guys down. Jericho gets a very delayed two. Dean counters a powerbomb but Jericho rolls him into the Liontamer. Ok more like the Walls of Jericho but same idea. Dean gets the ropes and Jericho is furious. He threatens to hit the referee but the power of Billy Silverman stops that.

Jericho takes him to the corner and counters a headscissors atttempt into an Alabama Slam. Dean counters a Liontamer attempt into the Texas Cloverleaf for a BIG pop. Jericho makes the rope to make the crowd get sad again. The butterfly suplex into the backbreaker puts Dean back down and Jericho slaps him. He shouts that Dean is nothing like Dean’s dead father and Malenko snaps. They go to the floor and Dean hits Jericho with a chair for the DQ to give Jericho the title (which wasn’t announced until tomorrow night because WCW likes to screw its paying customers).

Rating: C+. This was a pretty decent match which picked up a lot near the end. Dean would never get a singles title in WCW again while Jericho would go on to be wasted in the midcard until he jumped to the WWF a little over a year later. Pretty good match but it was based on emotion and the title changing hands on a DQ was stupid.

They brawl to the parking lot and get near the traffic where Jericho has to avoid being hit by a car. He runs into a building across the street as we try to figure out who the champion is.

Eddie says Grandma Guerrero doesn’t want them to fight and starts crying about it.

The announcers think Jericho should be champion but we’ll get a ruling tomorrow I guess.

Video on Juventud Guerrera who never gives up. It’s him walking around set to very slow Latin music.

Juventud Guerrera vs. Reese

Reese is 7’2. That would be the extent of his list of talents. He also played Yeti at Halloween Havoc 1995. The idea here is that Juvy needs to prove himself again after losing his mask. The announcers are STILL talking about Jericho. No contact for the first minute as the Jericho chatting continues. WE GET IT ALREADY. Reese throws him around but Jericho keeps charging. Reese goes to the floor and Juvy dives at him, getting caught and rammed into the post.

Juvy says bring it on even more and crotches him on the top rope coming in. He fires off kicks at Reese’s knees and jumps up into a choke off the top. Reese shrugs all that off and bends Juvy over his knee in a backbreaker. He spends a few minutes destroying Juvy and throws on a bearhug. Juvy finally hits a low blow to slow Reese down but Reese drops to his knees so he can punch Juvy in the face. Reese suplexes him down but Juvy is up at 9. Reese goes to get a chair but the referee pulls it away. Van Hammer, former Flock member, comes out and hits him with it so Juvy can hit an AWFUL rana for the pin. Shoulder was up too.

Rating: F. What in the world was the point of this? Juvy is supposed to be some new man that never quits. Yeah that’s true, but he’s also a man that was getting killed until Van Hammer came in to save him. This match was REALLY boring and could have been accomplished in about four minutes instead of the nine that it got.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Chavo is a little psycho here. Heenan: “You know I asked Grandma Guerrero what she thought of this match.” Tony: “What did she say?” Heenan: “I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish.” The idea here is that since Chavo is nuts, Eddie is afraid of him and doesn’t want to fight him. Chavo slaps him in the face and Eddie is fired up now. Eddie chops away and Chavo does the same.

They go to the mat and Eddie pounds away as this becomes a brawl. Chavo misses a splash in the corner and Eddie does the spinning face grind with his boot. Now Chavo launches Eddie over him and onto the corner. Leave it to WCW to make sure that two of the best wrestlers in the company have a brawl instead of a wrestling match. Chavo goes to the floor and Eddie kicks the rope into his crotch on the way back in.

They exchange control over the arm and Chavo goes to the top. He flips forward but Eddie moves out of the way. Chavo lands on his feet and runs to the other corner to hit a moonsault press for two. SWEET. Eddie sends him to the floor and into the steps. Back inside a brainbuster puts Chavo down and Eddie slaps him. That wakes Chavo up again and he snaps, resulting in him going off and it’s time for a chase scene. Back in Eddie rams into Chavo’s knee to take him down and it’s figure four time.

For some reason Chavo doesn’t reach two feet to his left and grab the rope. Well to be fair he’s crazy. The hold finally is broken up by Eddie and it’s back to the knee. Now the Gory Stretch which is appropriate here. Chavo escapes again but the knee gives out and Eddie hits a regular dropkick to take over again. Now off to a camel clutch for some reason. Oh for the love of…..YOU’RE GUERREROS!!! FREAKING JUMP OFF SOMETHING ALREADY!!!

Now an over the shoulder backbreaker. Are you kidding me? He spins that into something like an Eye of the Storm and we get a LOUD We Want Flair chant. Chavo takes over again and does the Eddie chest slap thing. He loads up a Frog Splash but Eddie crotches him. Eddie’s Frog Splash misses and both guys are down. Tornado DDT is countered by sending Chavo to the floor, but he comes back in with a springboard tornado DDT for the pin.

Rating: D. Allow me to reiterate: YOU’RE GUERREROS. This was ridiculous as the whole thing was dull, much like the rest of the show has been. There’s just too going on tonight that is pure boring. At the end of the day, there are way too many talented guys out there being boring. Gee, I wonder if that’s a coincidence: the talented guys get time and they all keep it in slow. I think I smell a Bischoff.

We recap the making of the tag match later. Roddy said no one knows Savage so Savage got in his face. Piper says he’s not selling anything and they had a brawl. They’re teaming against Hogan and Hart later. How does that set it up? Who knows?

TV Title: Fit Finlay vs. Booker T

Remember what I said about talented people having boring matches? I haven’t seen this match perhaps ever, or at least in almost fourteen years. How much do you want to bet that this match is slow and boring? Booker has already had a sixteen minute match tonight so he’s tired coming in. Feeling out process to start and since no one cares about this match, the announcers talk about the tag title singles match later.

Booker sends him to the floor and hits a dive over the top to take Finlay down. Back in Finlay hits something like a spinebuster and off to some leg locks. Now a half crab. The leg work goes on for a few more minutes and MY GOODNESS DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!!! I’ll bet that the main event matches are all energetic and “fun” and I’d bet even more that the other guys were asked to be slow and boring, because they might show someone else up otherwise. I need something to rant about during this match because there’s only so much you can say about Finlay laying on Booker’s leg.

Mr. T. makes a brief comeback but takes a knee crusher to put him right back down. Out to the floor and Finlay wants to use a chair which isn’t allowed. Instead the leg goes into the post again. Back in Finlay Vader Bombs the knee and stomps on it some more until Booker decides to pop up and spin kick Finlay down. The fans think this is boring and I can’t argue at all. Powerslam sets up the ax kick as the knee is perfectly fine. Finlay puts him down but the Tombstone is countered. The champ misses a charge and a piledriver gvies Booker the title.

Rating: D. Technically this was fine as the whole thing was about the knee work, but then they just finished the match, which is something Booker would never do. This show is ridiculous with the boring matches and now it’s time for the “draws” to come into play. This can’t end well at all.

US Title: Goldberg vs. Konnan

Konnan is Wolfpack and has Hennig and Rude with him. Goldie is 99-0 at this point, meaning he’ll be 104-0 by tomorrow night and 110-0 by the Nitro after that. The cheering is so canned here it’s unreal. Konnan gets knocked to the floor in about a second and this isn’t going to go anywhere. A bad leglock puts K-Dawg down again, double leg takedown is called a spear, Jackhammer ends this. Total squash.

Hennig and Rude beat on Konnan post match and reveal Black and White shirts. Luger and Nash make the save.

Hollywood Hogan/Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper/Randy Savage

How is this the third PPV I’ve done between here and February of 1999 and this is Bret’s first appearance? Hogan is world champion because it’s WCW. Why are these four fighting? Who knows? The only thing we got from WCW was Piper and Savage fighting, which doesn’t explain a thing. Stalling before we get going until it’s Piper vs. Hogan getting things going. After more stalling, Piper goes into Three Stooges mode and brings in Savage.

Tony praises Savage/Piper for their ability to make tags. Yeah that’s what they’ve reached. No ability to talk about Jericho now is there? Piper atomic drops Hogan back into their corner and the beating continues. Disciple hits Piper in the back with the belt to shift the momentum for the first time and it’s off to Hart. Bret and Hogan take turns punching Piper as you can tell that even these four aren’t interested at all.

Bret does his usual stuff and whips Piper in, resulting in Piper going into slow motion for a small package. Pipes tags Savage but it doesn’t count for some reason. That worked so well that they do the same thing again. Things break down a bit and Savage tries to bring in a chair, but instead of hitting Bret with it, he puts it over Piper’s stomach to prevent a headbutt from Bret. Savage gets the tag and the fans don’t move at all. Everything breaks down and Savage goes up but his knee gives out on an elbow attempt. Hogan wraps it around the post and Savage gives up to the Sharpshooter.

Rating: F. There’s no excuse for these four to be wrestling in one of the featured matches on PPV when you have this roster in the year 1998. None. These four are the “draws” right? Then why do you keep them on top while the company’s massive lead has died and WWF is in the lead? That would mean putting someone other than Hogan on top, and we just can’t have that right?

Gene comes in for a post match interview with the losers and a match breaks out.

Roddy Piper vs. Randy Savage

This was scheduled due to the loss apparently. Savage jumps him to start and this is as bad as you would expect it to be. Now he can hit the elbow but the knee is too hurt to cover him. Instead he punches the referee and Piper puts him in a figure four. A second referee runs in and Savage gives up AGAIN. This was like 90 seconds.

Someone smarter than I am, tell me what those two matches solved. What were they even fighting over? Why am I trying to figure WCW out anymore?

Tag Titles: Sting vs. The Giant

Winner gets both belts. Why are they fighting? Again, not explained. Giant is smoking on his way to the ring. Yeah that was their attempt to make him EXTREME. If Giant wins, he’s picking Disciple as his partner to be champions. I would say even WCW wasn’t that stupid, but I would be very wrong. Giant blows smoke in his face so Sting fights back and puts him on the top rope on his back for a splash. The second attempt eats boot and Sting is tossed to the floor.

Back in Sting runs the ropes and hits a cross body but Giant just stands there. Elbow drop hits Sting and YET AGAIN they walk around as slowly as possible. This is the main event too, so why in the world are they doing this here? Bear hug to Sting to further keep things boring. Sting dropkicks the knee out and hits two Stinger Splashes. There’s an easy slam but the Scorpion is easily broken up. Death Drop gets two. Death Drop gets two. Death Drop from the middle rope gets the pin.

Rating: F. This was the main event. It lasted seven minutes and was awful. Was this really the best they could come up with? Somehow, I think it was and that’s why you don’t see WCW around anymore: we don’t get the announcement of who Sting’s partner is as it was made the next night on Nitro. In other words, there was no need to pay for this show at all.

Overall Rating: F+. And yet somehow, it was still better than Road Wild. The problem here was that nothing was interesting at all. Everything was VERY slow paced and boring with nothing at all being even remotely good. With the card they have, this could have been a decent show, but instead they made sure it was in slow motion and that the two decisions that came out of the show weren’t revealed until Nitro, making this show show TOTALLY POINTLESS. Thank goodness I only have twelve of these things left. I can’t take any more than that.

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Which did you like better back then?At the time Batista was the bigger deal and since I wasn’t huge on Smackdown back then, I was liking Batista more.  There’s something cool about a monster that runs through everyone and can’t be stopped.  See also Warrior, Mr.

Thoughts?