Vengeance 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 Matt is over 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. Man 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 heck 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 stupid MTV 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. He’s in the main event tonight. And here’s Randy Orton to be a jerk. Man 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. 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. Dang I’m defending Flair. What the heck 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 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 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

Monday Nitro #101
Date: August 18, 1997
Location: Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, Birmingham, Alabama
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

We’re about a month away from Fall Brawl and the final traditional WarGames match with WCW vs. the NWO. On top of that, we’ve got Sting vs. Hogan looming which would be huge financially, but not so great critically. I’m talking about the future so much because there isn’t much to talk about in the next few weeks other than the final Clash of the Champions a few days after this. Let’s get to it.

Raven reads us a poem about ugly people to start things off.

Harlem Heat vs. Vicious and Delicious

Buff and Ray start things off with Buff running his mouth of course. A hiptoss shuts him up for a bit but he comes back with a hiptoss of his own and some posing. Ray still tries to shut him up, this time with a slam and a tag off to his brother. Norton comes in as well to pound down Booker, only to get kicked in the face a few times. Back to Ray who gets grabbed by Buff to give the NWO a quick advantage. A few elbows are dropped before one from the top by Buff misses. Everything breaks down after the hot tag to Ray and Vincent comes in for the fast DQ.

Rating: D+. Nothing to see here as the Heat were out of the NWO’s league here and Vincent continues to be nothing of note. The match was short too but given that this is Nitro, I almost have to take the shorter ones just to have something to rate. The Heat weren’t long for WCW though as it would soon be Booker getting the big singles push.

Booker clears the ring anyway.

Barbarian vs. Mortis

This feud isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire but it’s nice to see a story getting to run its course. During Mortis’ entrance, we hear about Jericho winning the Cruiserweight Title on Saturday Night. Mortis kicks away to start and pounds Barbarian down into the corner. Barbie misses a charge into the post and Mortis hits a Fameasser off the middle rope for two. The guy not in a mask comes back with a powerslam and pounds Mortis down in the corner. Mortis goes up again but dives into a powerslam for another two count. The Kick of Fear ends Mortis a few seconds later. Wow Barbarian gets a clean win on Nitro. That’s different.

Post match Wrath comes in to take Barbarian out but Meng puts him in the Tongan Death Grip to knock Wrath out.

Here’s the NWO for their weekly chat. Bischoff is looking forward to the party on Thursday because Larry Z and Giant can’t come near him. Apparently Giant was arrested last week. Eric wants his own show for the NWO and says he’ll see us Thursday. Just hyping the Clash here.

Flair and Hennig have their weekly promo: “You’re a Horseman!” “No I’m not, but we’ll win our tag match against the NWO anyway.” More Clash hyping.

Stevie Richards vs. Scotty Riggs

Richards charges to the ring like a maniac. Riggs grabs the wrist to start before nearly botching a monkey flip. A dropkick puts Richards on the floor but he rams Scotty’s shoulder into the post to take over. Back in and a sitout spinebuster gets two for Stevie but Scotty comes back with some clotheslines. Richards loses his half shirt and gets caught in a side slam for two. Raven jumps the railing as Stevie hits the Stevie Kick for the pin.

Rating: D. I guess this was to set up future stuff but that didn’t make this any easier to get through. Riggs is just not that good and Richards is a comedy character which doesn’t make for an interesting or good match at all. Not much to see here but that would be the case for a lot of Nitro matches.

Raven lays out Richards with the Even Flow.

Eddie, Debra and Jarrett make fun of the fans and tell Wright that he has to win the TV Title if he wants to hang out with them.

The NWO says this Thursday is going to be their birthday.

Chris Benoit/Steve McMichael vs. Jeff Jarrett/Eddie Guerrero

Benoit and Guerrero start things off with Chris taking over with a gorgeous suplex to send Eddie crawling to Jeff. Jarrett won’t come in to face Mongo who he faces for the US Title on Thursday. Mongo goes after Eddie instead but Jeff sneaks in with a dropkick to the back of McMichael’s knee. The heels start working over said knee with some Horsemen style tactics. A Benoit distraction lets Mongo hit a three point stance charge to take out Guerrero and make a hot tag. Everything breaks down and Eddie has to break up the Crossface on Jeff. Mongo blasts Jeff with the US Title to give Benoit the pin.

Rating: C+. Short but very hot match here. I was hoping for more selling from Mongo of the knee, but they didn’t work on it that long so it’s not terrible I guess. As usual, the less Jeff Jarrett is involved in a Jeff Jarrett match, the more exciting that match becomes. He would be gone in about two months thank goodness.

We recap Sting’s segment with JJ last week.

The Outsiders say they’re ready for Page and Luger tonight. I believe that was the main event of the Clash as well.

Ric Flair vs. Syxx

Road Wild rematch. They have a pose off to start until Flair is backdropped and sent into the corner. It’s a Flair match. Did you expect things to start well for him? He chops Syxx down and takes over with a headlock followed by another after an escape. Flair pounds on the head and clotheslines Syxx down before going after the knee. Syxx comes back with an enziguri to set up the Bronco Buster, drawing huge heat from the southern crowd.

Some chops don’t get Flair that far as Syxx punches him right back down. A guillotine legdrop gets two and there’s the Flair Flip out to the floor. Back in and a second Bronco Buster misses and you can almost feel the crowd laughing as Syxx crotches himself. They punch each other down and it’s Flair up to backdrop Syxx down again. There’s the knee to the head and it’s time to go to school. That also means it’s time for Vincent, Bagwell and Norton to run in for the DQ.

Rating: C. These two fought each other quite a bit and we got some decent matches out of them most of the time. The respect angle was fine, especially when you have a punk like Waltman and a pretty big jerk in Flair out there talking about it. Not much to see here but it was designed to set up the Clash again, which is fine.

Hennig makes the save post match.

JJ and Nick Patrick are with Gene and Dillon says that Nick did nothing wrong at the PPV. Patrick questions Randy Anderson’s officiating, drawing him out for the always fascinating referee argument.

TV Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. La Parka

Dragon is defending of course. Things start fast with Parka getting flipped over and backdropped. Dragon does his headstand in the corner and fires away with the kicks to take the challenger down again. A dropkick sends La Parka to the floor and there’s a big dive by the champion to take him out again.

Sonny Onoo (La Parka’s manager apparently) kicks Dragon down and Parka sends Dragon into the steps. A powerbomb gets two for Parka so he puts Dragon in the Tree of Woe for a kick to the chest. Now let’s stand around for a bit! Dragon comes back, hits the super rana, Sonny’s interference fails, and the Dragon Sleeper retains the belt.

Rating: D+. Just a quick title match here with no doubt as to who was going to win. Dragon was pretty good at what he did but as usual, the lack of mic skills held him down. If we can’t connect with these characters, the matches have to be amazing for them to get over. Dragon was good, but not that good. He would lose the title soon enough anyway.

Curt Hennig vs. The Giant

Hennig slaps him in the face for some reason and is tossed into the corner accordingly. An attempted whip out of the corner fails completely for Hennig so Curt bails to the floor. Giant hits some of those LOUD chops to Curt’s chest and suplexes him down. He calls for the chokeslam and here’s Eric to say that Giant is violating the restraining order. Doug Dillinger (WCW security) won’t do anything about it so Giant goes after Eric, losing via countout in the process. Short and basically a squash until the ending.

Dillinger still won’t do anything so Larry Z comes out to corner Eric. Bischoff runs into the crowd and escapes as cops hold Giant back.

We recap the Sting segment from last week again.

JJ is in the ring with another offer for Sting which I’m sure will work this time. Apparently he doesn’t have a new contract for Sting tonight. Stupid me, thinking the rolled up paper in his hand that has been a contract the last two weeks is a contract again here. JJ says he needs answers from Sting soon or they may have to go their separate ways. Geez even the WCW on screen bosses are stupid. Sting has until the Clash to tell JJ what he wants.

Here’s Sting in the crowd and the fans go nuts. The fans chant Hogan and Sting points at them again. Even TONY FREAKING SCHIAVONE is saying how obvious this is. Sting takes a sign out of the crowd that says Hulk vs. Sting. And JJ STILL doesn’t get it. Apparently HOLDING UP A SIGN THAT SAYS THE MATCH ON IT isn’t telling him what Sting wants.

The NWO is having a birthday party on Thursday.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. Diamond Dallas Page/Lex Luger

The announcers point out that the Steiners are being passed over AGAIN here. I’m sure another #1 contenders match is coming up soon too. Hall and Luger start things off as we go past ten o’clock which was a different thing back then. Luger slaps Hall in the face and shoves him into the corner to get things going. He beats on both Outsiders in the NWO corner and Hall tags Nash.

The big man wants Page so they both stand in opposite corners for a bit. The high powered offense begins from Nash until Page takes him down with a swinging neckbreaker for two. Page fires off his shoulder blocks but Nash clotheslines him right back down. DDP escapes Snake Eyes and gets two off a Russian legsweep. Back to Hall for a clothesline and the fallaway slam for two.

Off to the abdominal stretch for a bit until Page hip tosses out of it. Nash breaks up the tag attempt to Luger and it’s time for corner elbows. The Outsiders change without a tag and the referee yells at them. Hall makes an overblown tag and now Snake Eyes hits for no cover. They change again sans tag and Anderson is fine with it now.

Off to a sleeper by Hall and Page is in trouble. His arm drops twice before Page comes back with a belly to back suplex to put both guys down. Nash breaks up the tag AGAIN and clotheslines Page down. Page busts out a headscissors of all things and finally tags in Luger. Not that it matters as the NWO runs in about five seconds later for the DQ.

Rating: B-. I was digging this until the obvious ending. We knew the titles weren’t changing hands here and the NWO would run in, but it was cool to see WCW guys hanging in there this long. They played the formula here and as usual, it worked as well as anything else was going to. Good stuff.

Flair and the Giant run in and a brawl ends the show.

Overall Rating: B-. Pretty good show here as they set up the Clash quite well. There’s some stuff on there I’d like to see (including a main event of Page/Luger vs. Hall/Savage which I listed wrong earlier). The Sting stuff would really come to a new level on Thursday which it’s needed to do for months now. Solid episode here as WCW is kind of on a roll.

Here’s Clash of the Champions if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/07/23/clash-of-the-champions-35-the-final-clash-probably-a-good-idea-too/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Yet another idea that hasn’t been used in like 15 years.Goldberg debuted on Nitro seemingly as a jobber.  Tenay, the WCW announcer who seemingly knew everything, had no idea who Goldberg was or knew anything about him.  Ignoring the winning streak and all that jazz, that’s a pretty smart way to debut someone.  Don’t give them a character, don’t give them anything unique, don’t tell us anything about them, but have the guy win and fill in the background later.  It’s better than a ballroom dancer, no?

Smackdown
Date: December 28, 2012
Location: Blue Cross Arena, Rochester, New York
Commentators: John Bradshaw Layfield, Josh Matthews

We close out the year here with a taped Smackdown, which is the norm around here. Odds are this isn’t going to have anything of note on it because we’re in that odd period between TKC and the Rumble. Also after Monday it looks like we’re going to have more Sheamus vs. Big Show, because they’ve only had three straight PPV matches. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the latest stuff with Big Show vs. Sheamus, complete with the voiceover. The AJ/Langston/Cena stuff is thrown in also.

Here’s Sheamus to open things up. He hopes we all had a Merry Christmas because he had a great one. He drank gallons of egg nog flavored ale, got a bunch of sweaters he’ll never use, and a bunch of sunscreen from his mom. Are we going for ironic humor now? Anyway, his New Year’s resolution is to win the title back, so get out here Big Show.

Here’s the champ who wants to know if he looks like Santa Claus. The fans and Sheamus say yes, but Show is fatter. Show makes fun of Sheamus’ bad humor and says no more title shots. He says the victory on Monday meant nothing because Show wasn’t really trying. Show was in Christmas mode and it wasn’t even for the title. Sheamus calls him a coward and says Show’s pride was on the line on Monday and says he’s here for the title. If he can’t get that though, he’ll have to settle for a fight.

Cue Booker before things get physical of course because that’s not how we roll on Smackdown. So much for what Bradshaw says I guess. Booker agrees with Show and says that Sheamus lost at TLC. He did however win on Raw but Show doesn’t want to hear this. Show says no one in the locker room is worthy of a shot at him because it reeks of inferiority. Booker says Show is in action tonight and there’s going to be a drawing to determine Show’s opponent.

The drawing is right now as I guess the entire roster was waiting in line behind the curtain. Teddy and Eve argue over who gets to spin the tumbler because that story is still going for some reason. The tumbler is knocked over to fill in more time. Santino wins the match which I don’t think is for the title. They have a brief staredown which results in non-comdy. Apparently it is for the title.

Primo vs. Brodus Clay

Well if nothing else the girls give us something to look at before the match. Epico offers a quick distraction which gives Primo his only offense. Clay catches a cross body in a powerslam before headbutting Primo down. Splash and we’re done at 1:13.

The Funkadactyls beat up Rosa post match for no apparent reason. Dancing ensues.

Santino is having a sandwich in the back with Sheamus but the pale one throws said sandwich away. Sheamus is offering him some advice and Santino asks to learn the Brogue Kick. Marella can’t get his foot above his waist so Sheamus fires him up. Santino tries it again….and pulls his hamstring, sending him to the floor in screaming pain.

HELL NO/Kofi Kingston vs. Rhodes Scholars/Wade Barrett

This would be the Christmas gift for those of you interested in stuff WAY past its expiration date. Cody and Bryan start things off with Rhodes actually taking him to the mat. Off to Kane instead who isn’t as easy to take down. Kane misses a charge into the corner and it’s off to Sandow instead. There’s a side slam to Damien for two and it’s Kofi in off the tag. Not much to see so far. Cody comes back in for about three seconds before it’s off to Barrett.

Kingston hits his jumping back elbow and puts on a front facelock. Everyone gets in for a standoff and we take a break. Back with the Scholars pounding on Bryan. There’s the Wind-Up Elbow followed by some knees to the face and the big boot in the ropes from Barrett. We hit a camel clutch for a bit before Cody comes in to a LOUD Cody Sucks chant. Bryan escapes a chinlock and drills Rhodes to bring in Kofi. Everything breaks down and everyone hits a mid level signature move. Trouble in Paradise takes out Cody but Kofi walks into the Bull Hammer for the pin at 7:05 shown of 10:05.

Rating: C+. This was fine from a technical standpoint, but man why can’t WWE get this idea of once someone is pinned clean, there’s no reason to continue a feud? Kofi has beaten Barrett 100% clean on PPV, but they’re going to have another match, presumably at the Rumble or on a special. Why in the world should they fight again if we’ve already seen it happen? Well, aside from the writers being lazy and incapable of coming up with more than one idea for a guy every three months of course.

Santino is injured and can’t fight tonight, so we draw another name for Show’s match. The name will be announced later apparently, and by later they mean after a break. It’s Ricardo Rodriguez. Show is very pleased and makes fun of Ricardo by putting the title on his shoulder. He makes Ricardo do the announcement that he (Ricardo) has won the title, but Show knocks him cold instead. Booker promises that Show is in trouble.

Zack Ryder vs. Antonio Cesaro

Non-title again. Cesaro shoves him into the corner to start and suplexes him down for two. We hit a quick chinlock as the fans chant USA. Cesaro cranks on the arm and hits the gutwrench suplex for two. A big double stomp gets another two and we hit a body vice. Ryder fights up and hits a missile dropkick but the Broski Boot misses. The European Uppercut and the Neutralizer end this at 3:28.

Rating: D. This was exactly the same Cesaro vs. Ryder match we’ve seen half a dozen times now. Why would I want to watch this again? This is another of WWE’s problems that I keep harping on: they have a HUGE roster yet they use the same matches over and over again. Was there no one else in the back that can’t be used here? Geez at this point they might as well bring in jobbers. It’s not like anybody buys Ryder as a threat to win this match anyway, especially with Khali getting a shot at the title on Wednesday.

We recap the MizTV segment from Raw.

Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz

I’m not usually one to notice fake pops, but there is no way Miz is getting that kind of a reaction. During the entrances, we see MORE from MizTV. For those of you with a REALLY short attention span I guess. Well to be fair no one watched Raw on Monday anyway so it’s not the worst idea. AJ continues to look great in the Ziggler shirt and shorts.

Miz takes over to start with a headlock as JBL lists off Langston’s power lifting records. Josh runs his mouth so JBL threatens to smack him every time Matthews says something stupid. JBL: “I would do it but I’d hit you so often it would sound like applause.” Miz hits a flapjack and throws Ziggler to the floor, but Langston catches him in mid air. Back in and Ziggler takes over, getting two off the jumping elbow drop.

We hit the chinlock for a bit until Miz comes back with some ground and pound. We take a break and come back with Ziggler getting another two off another elbow drop. Dolph hooks another chinlock as we repeat the same sequence from before the break for no apparent reason. Miz comes back with some clotheslines and avoids the Fameasser. There’s the corner clothesline followed by the top rope ax handle, but a Big E. distraction lets Ziggler hit the Zig Zag for the pin at 7:50 shown of 11:20.

Rating: C. Miz still isn’t over as a face but having him face heels is going to help him a bit. It’s certainly going to do more for him than being an annoying talk show host. I’m a Miz fan but this turn isn’t working for him. The biggest issue for him is he never really had a moment where he turned. He just kind of started to fight heels and that doesn’t work too well. The match was perfectly fine.

Miz makes fun of AJ post match and implies she’s a rather loose woman. Ziggler runs in and takes a mic to the head but Langston runs Miz over.

Ricardo is out of the title shot tonight. Brad Maddox comes in and wants one more shot. For no apparent reason, Booker gives him ONE MORE shot. So Maddox is Christan from last year now? Brad leaves and Alberto says he wants a shot at Big Show for what he did, so Booker gives him the title shot tonight. So is Alberto face again after being a heel on Raw after being a face for weeks after being a heel for years?

Brad Maddox vs. Sheamus

Exactly what you would expect with the only entertaining part being JBL’s response to Josh asking what percentage JBL gives Maddox in this. “About the same as you becoming a good announcer.” The Brogue Kick ends this at 3:54.

Rating: D+. Boring match, HILARIOUS commentary. Maddox needs to change things up now because you can only do this so many times. It doesn’t help that he has nothing going for him at all. Nothing to see here, just like the case for every other Brad Maddox match he’s ever had in any organization.

Raw ReBound is the Santa story along with the main event. I love people that say this insults their intelligence. They’re watching WWE and THIS is what insults their intelligence?

Prime Time Players vs. Usos

The Players have new music which isn’t as catchy. Young and Jey start things off and Darren gets double teamed a bit. Titus makes a blind tag and kicks Jey in the head to take over. There’s some heel miscommunication but Young hits the gutbuster for two on Jey anyway. The twins switch allowing Jimmy to roll up Young for the pin at 2:07.

We hear from the Shield again where they recap everything they’ve done over the year. They promise more next year.

Big Show doesn’t think much of Alberto.

Smackdown World Title: Big Show vs. Alberto Del Rio

Del Rio gets an even bigger fake pop than Miz from earlier. After some big match intros (it’s so odd hearing Alberto’s entrance in English), Del Rio pounds away to start and blocks the chop in the corner. The second attempt isn’t blocked though and down goes Alberto. Show takes him to the mat with a headlock takeover and cranks away on the head.

He throws Alberto to the outside and sends him into the steps before hooking an armbar back inside. Alberto comes back with a kick to the head and some shots to the arm but the armbreaker is broken up by a shove to the floor. Show tries to leave but Sheamus jumps him in the aisle for the DQ at 5:21.

Rating: C-. They kept this short here and that was definitely the right idea. This was a styles clash because Del Rio only has one move that could win here and Show is too big to get it on. Having Del Rio stand up against a bully is the best idea to make him a face that could be used aside from using his money for something good. Not a bad match, but it would have been with more time.

Show walks away but runs into about half the roster (including heels) who beat him back into the ring for an enziguri from Del Rio and a Brogue Kick from Sheamus.

Overall Rating: C-. This wasn’t terrible but it certainly wasn’t good. It did a good job of pushing Del Rio as a face…..which makes almost no sense given what happened on raw but to be fair that was four days ago so we’re not supposed to remember it. The Rumble build will likely begin next week, but most of that show is going to be based around the Rock anyway so it’s interesting to see where the Rumble will rate in importance in the month before the show.

Results

Brodus Clay b. Primo – Splash

Wade Barrett/Rhodes Scholars b. HELL NO/Kofi Kingston – Bull Hammer to Kingston

Antonio Cesaro b. Zack Ryder – Neutralizer

Dolph Ziggler b. The Miz – Zig Zag

Sheamus b. Brad Maddox – Brogue Kick

Usos b. Prime Time Players – Small package to Young

Big Show b. Alberto Del Rio via DQ when Sheamus interfered

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

It was 2.2.  My question: why does this surprise anyone?I’m surprised it’s that high.  We had a taped three hour show where NOTHING HAPPENED on CHRISTMAS EVE.  What were they expecting to happen?  I’m amazed that this is considered a big story by some sites.  Of course it drew a terrible rating.  What did they expect?  Kids to stay up late on Christmas Eve to watch Cena beat up Del Rio again?

Impact Wrestling
Date: December 27, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Todd Keneley, Tazz

Hey it’s Open Fight Night, BECAUSE WE JUST HAD A FREAKING GIMMICK SHOW LAST WEEK! Pay no attention to the fact that these shows never accomplish anything and the ratings keep going down, because clearly these stupid gimmicks are the only thing holding them up as high as they go. The show will likely be fine but man alive I don’t care about this Open Fight thing. Let’s get to it.

After the usual opening recap, here’s Bully Ray with something to say. He realizes he and Hogan can’t get along because Hogan won’t trust him. Tonight, he’s calling Hulk out for a talk rather than a fight. The music plays but there’s no Hulk. Instead we get Brooke who says Hulk isn’t here. We get the melodramatic promo from Brooke about how someone had a camera or something because Hulk knows. DOES NO ONE WATCH THEIR OWN TV SHOWS ANYMORE??? Ray denies anything exists and leaves with Brooke trying to talk sense into him.

Here’s Aries who doesn’t care what the fans think of him. He’ll win the title back soon but tonight, he’s going to be in the main event against Roode for costing him the title last week.

Samoa Joe calls out the hammer guy from Aces and 8’s and promises to take his mask.

Samoa Joe vs. Masked Man

Joe pounds away to start but gets beaten down in the corner. The masked guy (I believe Mike Knox) hits the running crotch attack in 619 position but misses a charge in the corner. Joe tries the MuscleBuster but gets kicked away. There’s the Clutch instead and the masked guy is out at 2:56.

Joe goes for the mask but the rest of the bikers come in for the save. Of course they do.

Robbie E and Jesse have a Dude/Bro off. I’m strangely intrigued by this. The challenge is for a Bro Off later rather than a match of course.

Kenny King tells Christian York to watch tonight and maybe he’ll get an X Title match.

It’s time for the Bro Off, which has three rules: every bro for himself, you have to end everything in bro….and the third rule isn’t listed. Apparently this is a dance off. Scratch that as Robbie dances and Jesse poses. Jesse presses Tara over his head but apparently it’s Bros and not Hoes, so Robbie wins by DQ. Robbie T says that’s not it because he’s in this too. He poses as well before pressing Robbie E over his head. T also fist pumps, backflips, does one handed pushups and humps the mat. The look on E and Jesse’s faces are HILARIOUS. T wins apparently.

Van Dam, looking higher than I’ve ever seen him, calls out Christian York instead of Kenny King.

Christian York vs. Rob Van Dam

Feeling out process to start with both guys missing some strikes. York hits a half nelson suplex to take over and a kick to Van Dam’s back to follow up. A rana sends Van Dam to the outside and a missile dropkick back inside for no cover. The Mood Swing (Eve’s rolling neckbreaker) gets two as does a kick out of the corner from York. York hits a top rope double stomp to the back for two but misses a charge in the corner. Van Dam hits a split legged moonsault for two and Rolling Thunder for no cover. Five Star gets the pin at 4:03.

Rating: C. Nice spot fest here but literally that’s it. There was nothing between these moves which gets really annoying really fast. York is a guy who they’re at least making look competent, which is all you can ask for with a new guy like him. Also at least there’s something to look at, unlike the other Gut Check people who never show up again.

D-Von talks about getting someone new to join the club. Doc is with some girls and approves of the plan.

We get a package on Joseph Park in OVW. Park: “I’m setting the bar for training.” Danny Davis: “He’s dumber than a box of rocks.” We get the clip of Park morphing into Abyss which was the potential that Davis was looking for.

Bad Influence goes to make sure they don’t have any merchandise on sale. They have a post-Christmas present for everyone.

Remember to vote for Superstar of the Year.

Roode says he’s winning tonight and getting the title back at Genesis.

Sting is still going to be back on 1-3-13.

Daniels dances out to the ring and says greetings and salutations to all you ham sandwiches. He’s the reason AJ hasn’t been around anymore so why not do it one more time? He calls out AJ and naturally it’s Kaz in the AJ gear. Kaz cuts a promo in a GREAT AJ impersonation and says how great Daniels is. Kaz: “I’m not going to wrestle you. I’m going to go find Clair Lynch and….” Daniels: “NO! NOBODY WANTS THAT!”

The tag champions come out and challenge Bad Influence for right now.

Hernandez/Chavo Guerrero vs. Bad Influence

Fast paced start with Daniels getting thrown around by Chavo. Off to Hernandez for a bearhug into a belly to belly overhead suplex. The champions pound away on Daniels before slamming Kaz onto Daniels for no cover. Daniels begs away from Hernandez and we take a break. Back with Hernandez doing his delayed vertical suplex on Daniels. I’m not sure if any time has actually passed since we left. Things break down and Daniels takes over on SuperMex.

The non-champions hit back to back slingshot strikes on Hernandez to take over. The match drags on and gets very boring in a hurry with the heels in control. After about 8 hours, the lukewarm tag brings in Chavo who hits Three Amigos on Kaz. Bad Influence hits a Hart Attack for two but Hernandez sends them to the floor. The champs hit a double dive to the floor before throwing Kaz back in for the Frog Splash and the pin at 14:30.

Rating: C. The match was fine but OH MY GOODNESS Chavo and Hernandez are boring. You have Bad Influence getting some of the funniest lines in this company in years and they get to job time after time to this generic Latino tag team. Seriously, that’s the ONLY thing about the champs that sets them apart from any two other guys. They’re the champions and they’re going to have them for a long time, because there is no tag division in TNA.

Hardy has little to say.

Video on Aces and 8’s attacking people with the hammer.

We see the guy that Aces and 8’s wants to join….and it’s Mr. Anderson. He’s offered women to help them out and apparently they’re good enough to sway him into considering it.

Gail Kim vs. Miss Tessmacher

You know, for those people who wanted this feud to be picked up again. Tessmacher takes over to start and does the Stinkface thing in the corner. Gail gets knocked to the floor but takes over back inside. Kim loads up a super rana but Tessmacher blocks it, sending Gail down onto her head. FREAKING OW MAN! A dragon sleeper in the corner doesn’t do much for Tessmacher so Gail takes over again. The sloppiness continues but Tessmacher can’t hit that Tesshocker thing of hers. A top rope elbow misses Gail and Eat Defeat ends this at 5:24.

Rating: D. I can’t stand the Knockouts anymore and these two sucking the charisma out of things that don’t even have charisma in the first place are a good reason for that. Nothing to see here at all and I barely have enough to say to fill in the four lines of space that I try to have for each rating.

Next week it’s Aces and 8’s vs. Angle/Joe in a cage. Sure why not.

Bobby Roode vs. Austin Aries

Feeling out process to start until Aries sends Roode to the floor. He loads up the suicide dive but stops cold when Roode is waiting on him. We take a break (complete with a Hardy voiceover) and come back to see them hammering on each other before Aries is sat on top. They ring each others’ ears and trade pokes to the eyes. Aries knocks Roode down and tries what looks like an elbow, only to roll through when Roode moves.

Bobby loads up a spear but gets caught in the Last Chancery. Roode pokes the eyes to escape and puts on the Crossface which I guess is his secondary finisher. Aries goes to the eyes as well to escape, showing some nice storytelling here. Roode begs off in the corner but trips Aries up for two with his feet on the ropes.

Aries tries a rollup with trunks for two of his own but walks into the spinebuster for two. Hebner disarms Roode of the chair he picked up, allowing Aries to hit a discus elbow for two. Now Austin brings in the chair but Henber will still have none of it. Hebner goes off on both guys so they both deck him and toss him to the floor, throwing the match out at about 13:00.

Rating: B-. I had a great time with this and I’m glad neither guy won. There was no reason to have one guy go over the other and the stereo cheating was a great touch. It’s clear they’re setting up a threeway and that’s probably the right move to go with until we set up Aries vs. Hardy whatever at Lockdown. Good stuff here.

Post match they both go for the chair but Hardy runs out and takes both guys out to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. The first hour was pretty good but after that this show fell off a cliff. I’m not sure what it was but I think the tag match had something to do with it. The problem with TNA is when something is bad, it’s REALLY bad and that’s what happened here. We’re two weeks away from Genesis and as usual, we have NOTHING scheduled yet. The three way is pretty obvious, but other than that the card could go in a lot of directions. By this point though, we should have hit some stops as we head in a direction.

Results

Samoa Joe b. Masked Man – Koquina Clutch

Rob Van Dam b. Christian York – Five Star Frog Splash

Chavo Guerrero/Hernandez b. Bad Influence – Frog Splash to Kazarian

Gail Kim b. Miss Tessmacher – Eat Defeat

Austin Aries vs. Bobby Roode went to a no contest

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

NXT
Date: December 26, 2012
Host: Tony Dawson

Back to Florida and we’ve got a new challenger for Rollins in the form of Corey Graves. That’s by far the biggest thing that happened last week as the main event was Big Show squashing Bo Dallas for no apparent reason. The shows have been solid lately and hopefully they close out 2012 with another good one. Let’s get to it.

Welcome Home…..to a year in review show. Apparently this is going to be highlights from the season, so I’ll be cutting and pasting a lot here. Note that the full matches likely won’t be shown but I’ll be posting the full review from the match.

From August 29:

NXT Championship: Jinder Mahal vs. Seth Rollins

They have a ton of time for this. Fink may be fat and older now (he’s only 62 so he’s hardly ancient), but that voice is still perfect. Mahal won’t shake Dusty’s hand before the match. Rollins tries to take him to the mat to start but Mahal gets back up quickly. A dropkick puts Mahal down again and Rollins hits a hard chop. Mahal gets sent to the floor but he avoids a dive and sends Rollins face first into the apron. A suplex onto the ramp has Rollins in trouble and we head back in.

We take a break and come back with Rollins in even more trouble. Mahal stomps him down and hits a backbreaker to start setting up the camel clutch. Rollins gets choked against the ropes and the fans are behind Rollins now. He tries a comeback but gets kneed in the face by Mahal to take him back down. The camel clutch is escaped so Mahal pounds him in the back again. An enziguri out of nowhere puts Mahal down and Rollins punches Jinder down.

Mahal goes up for another knee but Rollins knocks him off the top and out to the floor. Rollins hits a HUGE dive to the floor and both guys are down. Back in and Seth goes up again, only to get crotched and superplexed from the top. We take another break and come back with the two of them slugging it out. Mahal might have a bad knee but he pulls off a sitout slam for two. A full nelson slam is countered and Rollins goes to the apron.

Seth hits an enziguri to the head and a running knee for two. The near falls are getting closer and closer here. A running forearm in the corner staggers Mahal but he manages to drop Rollins face first into the buckle. The low superkick (I think he calls it Avada Kadavra, making Rollins awesome) gets two. Phoenix Splash (moonsault into a 450) misses and Mahal hits the full nelson slam for two. Rollins gets to the rope before the clutch can go on and Rollins rolls him up for two. Rollins comes back with the buckle bomb and the Blackout out of nowhere for the pin and the title at 14:24 shown of 21:24.

Rating: B. I’m still not wild on Rollins’ in ring work but the fans are into him and he’s not dull. He also needs a new finisher as the Blackout looks pretty forced to put it mildly. As for the match though, they did a great job of building both guys up as unbeatable and then having them go at it. The match was very good as far as making you wonder who was going to win and it turned into a good back and forth fight at the end. Not a masterpiece or anything, but for the first NXT Championship, this was more than acceptable.

We get some clips of the rematch. This segues into clips from Raw of the Shield.

We get some highlights of various stars from NXT, such as Richie Steamboat, Bo Dallas, CJ Parker, Audrey Marie, Big E. Langston and Bray Wyatt (gets by far the most time).

From July 11:

Aiden English vs. Bray Wyatt

Wyatt talks on the way to the ring, calling himself the angel in the dirt and singing Time is on My Side by the Rolling Stones. Wyatt pounds him down and sends English to the floor and into the barricade. Back in and Wyatt rolls around on the apron before splashing English in the corner. Wyatt dances with English a bit (literally) before hitting a rolling Downward Spiral for the pin at 1:48. Awesome debut here and a good transition from promos to in ring work which was what I was worried about from Wyatt.

Bray Wyatt talks about how it’s a new year for your loved ones to betray you in his name.

We get an exclusive match tonight between Kane and Rhodes.

Video on Kassius Ohno. I still don’t care. He talks about inflicting pain on people and we get a recap of his attacks on various people with Regal making the save.

Ohno says a new year is coming and that the year of 13 will be a year for pain.

Punk talks about telling Rollins to beat respect out of people and somehow that evolved into the Shield. The future is here in NXT and he hopes people are taking notice.

Video on Langston and the FIVE count.

From November 28:

Camacho vs. Big E. Langston

This is a match for the $5000 bounty that Vickie has put on Langston’s head. Camacho tries to pound on him but Langston keeps shoving him away. A shot out of the corner puts Big E. down but Camacho slaps him like an idiot. The Big Ending (falling slam) ends Camacho at 2:06.

Langston demands the five count and you don’t tell a man like that no. Camacho gets two more Big Endings for good measure.

We get a clip of Langston debuting on Raw. Ok, now the question is are they going to reference this on NXT starting next week? They’re making it clear what’s going on in the main world, so they can’t (and by can’t I mean will but shouldn’t) ignore it from now on.

Langston says he attacked Cena because he was helping his friend. His business here on NXT is to become NXT Champion. His New Year’s Resolution is to do just that. Unfortunately his manic style is gone now and he sounds all serious.

Video on various people in NXT that we haven’t covered yet, including Kruger and Paige.

It’s Rollins defending against Graves next week.

We get a clip from Main Event of Kane injuring Cody’s shoulder.

Kane vs. Cody Rhodes

This is from July but it’s never before seen. Cody immediately bails to the floor and stalls. Back in and Cody pounds away in the corner, only to be pounded right back down. Kane hits the low dropkick for two and Cody heads to the floor. Rhodes gets beaten up on the stage and aisle before we head back to the ring. Kane misses the clothesline and Cody escapes the chokeslam before sending Kane into the corner.

Cody goes after the knee as we get into a more standard match here. We take a break (complete with a John Cena loves NXT promo) and come back with the announcers talking about a HUGE leap from Cody. We don’t get to see it of course, but here’s a sidewalk slam from Kane for two instead. The top rope clothesline hits but Cody grabs the rope to avoid a chokeslam. There’s the Disaster Kick for two but Cross Rhodes is countered into a chokeslam for the pin at 7:00 shown.

Rating: D+. This was pretty lame. Neither team was formed yet so there’s only so much to care about from these guys. Cody had a pretty awful year after showing amazing potential in 2011 while Kane resurrected his career for about the 12^th time with the comedy team. This match didn’t show much of either though and it was a dull match as a result.

Todd is talking about the upcoming year when Shield cuts into the feed. Rollins talks about being NXT Champion for months but never getting the call from WWE. Ambrose talks about how the WWE is ill and suffering from lies and corruption. The real world has enough injustice in it already and that’s not how WWE is supposed to be. Rollins understands why Corey Graves did what he did but next time, Graves is leaving on a stretcher. Ambrose says they’re the best. Reigns gets in a great line of “NXT is our house and while we may come and go as we please, we’ll always collect the rent.” The Shield is here next week.

Overall Rating: B+. What a great show. This was designed to recap everything that happened in NXT so far and I don’t think they missed a thing. Everyone got at least a soundbyte or a video about them and we got some matches on top of it. The feature match holds this back because it’s just not that good, but it’s nice to see them acknowledging what’s going on at Raw and hopefully incorporating that into NXT. Good stuff here that reminded me what I love about NXT.

Results

Kane b. Cody Rhodes – Chokeslam

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #100
Date: August 11, 1997
Location: Denver Coliseum, Denver, Colorado
Attendance: 7,444
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko

It’s the show after Road Wild and any momentum WCW has going for it is gone. The Outsiders kept the tag titles and Hogan got the world title back from Luger after five days. We’re coming up on Fall Brawl and ultimately the Sting vs. Hogan showdown. After Saturday, you can hear the NWO gloating from here. Let’s get to it.

We open with the Giant getting served with a summons. This can’t end well.

Here are the Outsiders and Syxx with the tag titles still, because why bother changing them after building it up perfectly for the Steiners to win them? Anyway, Syxx runs his mouth and the Outsiders point to their belts as proof that they’re still the best in the world. The fans are seemingly far more behind the NWO here than usual. The Steiners have no claim to being the best in the world because they don’t have titles of course.

Tag Titles: Outsiders vs. Bobby Starr/David Moore

Starr and Moore come out to the Steiners’ music to tease the fans a bit. Hall and Moore start things off and we get some hard chops in the corner. Off to Starr who is caught in the belly to back superplex. Nash comes in and jackknifes Starr for the pin. Short and to the point.

The Steiners come in through the crowd and clear the ring before posing with the belts.

Wrath vs. Meng

This is due to last week’s match with Wrath vs. Barbarian. The brawl starts on the floor with no one getting an advantage so we head back inside where Meng kicks his head off. We head right back to the floor where Meng is sent into the railing hit with a flip attack off the apron by Wrath. Back in and Wrath gets crotched and superplexed down for two as this is going at a very fast pace so far. A clothesline puts Meng down and a top rope cross body gets two for Wrath, but the Tongan Death Grip goes on almost immediately to end Wrath. Short but intense.

Both guys’ partners come out with Mortis and Wrath clearing the ring. Vandenberg has to run from the Faces of Fear.

Here are the Steiners and DiBiase for a chat. The brothers say they had the Outsiders beaten and they’ll get another shot. DiBiase complains about Nick Patrick’s questionable refereeing by compared to the refereeing of Randy Anderson in the main event. They’ll get the titles eventually apparently.

Chris Jericho vs. Eddie Guerrero

Jericho starts off with a gorilla press of all things but Eddie escapes a monkey flip. A modified hot shot puts Eddie down again and a spinwheel kick sends him to the outside. Back in and Eddie begs off but naturally he’s suckering Jericho in. After a poke to the Canadian’s eyes, Eddie hits a dropkick to the side of the head to take over even more.

Jericho comes back with three straight clotheslines but the Lionsault hits knees. A big release German suplex gets two on Eddie as does a tiger driver. Jericho loads up the Liontamer but settles for a giant swing instead. Eddie’s dizziness sends him to the floor where Jericho hits a plancha. Back in and Eddie guillotines him on the top rope and runs to the top for the Frog Splash for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was your usual decent match for these guys but with only about four and a half minutes to work with, there’s only so much they can do. The ending seemed like someone forgot how much time they had and said to go home immediately. Still though it was fast paced enough to work and these two are always worth checking out.

The Nitro Girls dance a bit.

Alex Wright insults the fans and doesn’t have much to say.

Dean Malenko vs. Jeff Jarrett

Weren’t these guys friends last week? Dean seems ticked off and keeps shoving the referee away to get to Jarrett, eventually suckering Jeff into the ring to pound away on the blonde dude. Malenko punches Jeff to the floor where he tries to walk away, only to get beaten up on the floor instead. Apparently Jarrett got himself pinned in the elimination tag on Saturday to make Malenko go it alone in a handicap match. The announcers didn’t tell me that or anything. I just happened to have a review of the PPV available and could check it for myself.

Back in and Dean fires off some leg lariats to send Jarrett right back to the floor. He tries to walk out again and sees McMichael waiting on him. We take a break and come back with Dean pounding away on Jeff even more. We head back into the ring for a belly to back suplex by Jeff as things slow down. Jeff starts to cannonball down onto the leg but the running crotch attack to Dean’s back hits rope. There’s a tiger bomb and the Cloverleaf from Dean but Eddie runs in for the DQ.

Rating: C. Jeff Jarrett continues to be very boring, but if this leads to Eddie vs. Dean I’m more than fine. The heel turn from Dean didn’t go anywhere at all and thankfully they got him away from Jeff as fast as they did. This wasn’t a bad match or anything but my lack of caring about anything Jeff Jarrett does drags it way down.

Post match Mongo runs in for the save but after they clear the ring, Dean beats McMichael up as well.

Here are Curt and Flair with something to say. Flair says that he loves Curt, but hates the fact that Hennig was seen talking to Bischoff. Hennig says he has business with Bischoff and it’s not a big deal. Flair offers Hennig a spot in the Horsemen again but Hennig has a main event tonight with Randy Savage to deal with. Flair says ok but after that, the Horsemen go to Nashville for the Clash of Champions. Hennig says he’ll be Flair’s partner in Flair’s tag match at the COTC, but it doesn’t mean he’s a Horseman.

Here’s Eric Bischoff on his Harley apparently with something to say. Apparently Luger is going to be punished for what he did last week when he beat Hogan. Some more NWO guys get in the ring and Eric congratulates Hogan and the Outsiders for their wins on Saturday. It’s Hogan’s birthday today but he’s on a movie set, so we get a Happy Birthday song from the NWO.

As for the Giant, he can’t come within however many feet of Bischoff due to the papers served earlier. Buff goes down the aisle and spraypaints a line that Giant can’t cross. Giant comes down anyway but JJ and Larry Z go to stop him. Giant says he’s willing to go to jail as cops surround him. Hall comes out and throws his toothpick at Larry to end a decent segment.

Hour #2 begins.

Chris Benoit/Steve McMichael vs. Steiner Brothers

Scott and Mongo start things off with Scott pounding him down with raw power. Make that Nitro power actually to avoid making people think of that other show. Mongo knocks him into the corner but walks into a belly to belly suplex for two. Off to Benoit vs. Rick and it gets intense in a hurry. They fight up against the ropes with Benoit chopping away before getting suplexed down.

Back to Scott for a gorilla press and an STF before Benoit fights away for a tag to Mongo. Rick immediately beats McMichael down but Steve comes back with a slam. He goes up for some reason and jumps into a release belly to belly suplex for a surprise pin. That didn’t look to go as planned as both Benoit and the referee looked confused. Maybe Mongo got hurt on the suplex.

Rating: C+. The intensity here was really good with both teams beating the tar out of each other when they were in there. The ending did seem to be rushed due to the suplex as Rick gave a look as if to say “we won?” at the end. Either way, the match was good while it lasted and the botch makes the Steiners look even stronger here, which is what they needed to do after Saturday.

Here’s Luger to apologize for losing the title on Saturday. Last week was the best moment of his life but he let us down after that. The title win was a moment where everyone came together to show solidarity (this would be roughly the 87^th time that WCW has finally come together for those of you counting). Lex isn’t worried about the officiating because he won the title with the same referee. He’ll come for Hogan again.

Buff Bagwell vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Buff hits a quick hiptoss to take over so Page sits down in the corner ala Jake Roberts, as in the guy who trained him. Page grabs the arm and does those driving shoulders of his into Buff’s arm. After a quick break to the floor by Bagwell, he comes back in and is shouldered right back down.

The discus lariat takes Buff down again but he immediately pops back up and chokes Page down. A neckbreaker gets two on DDP but Buff, ever the genius, argues with the referee over the count. Page punches him down and here’s Vincent on the apron. You should be able to see the ending coming here. Buff is shoved into Vincent and there’s the Diamond Cutter for the pin.

Rating: D+. Not much here but Page getting another win is nothing bad for him at all. Buff was doing his usual stuff here and looked decent in doing so, but when you have Vincent out there it’s pretty clear you’re not going to win. Why was he around now anyway since DiBiase had left the team?

Road Report from Lee Marshall.

TV Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. Mortis

Dragon is defending here. Feeling out process to start until Dragon fires off his rapid fire kicks to take over. Mortis elbows him down and chokes a bit but Dragon kicks him down and loads up the super rana. A Vandenberg distraction fails and Mortis is caught in a front superplex off the top. Mortis hits a Fameasser for two before loading up the Flatliner (Samoan Drop from the middle rope). Dragon counters into a powerbomb and the Dragon Sleeper retains the title.

Rating: C-. This was a fast paced match but they didn’t click for the most part out there. There wasn’t any kind of a flow to the match and it felt a lot more sloppy than it should have. Mortis would get a lot better once he became Kanyon and got to show off whatever freaky offense he had in mind that week.

Here’s JJ to offer Sting another contract. After talking about a bunch of legal stuff that doesn’t need to be explained, Sting lowers from the rafters. The contract is for a match with Syxx but Sting rips it up. He goes to leave but Gene stops him and asks Sting who he wants. The fans chant for Hogan and Sting points to the fans. More good stuff here as the ending was clear, but they had to have a reason to get there. The build for this really is getting good.

Buy NWO stuff!

Tape your Nitro parties!

Randy Savage vs. Curt Hennig

The announcers talk about Hennig being a free agent and Heenan sounds bombed. An elbow to the head of Hennig drops him dead and we go outside. Liz ducks away and Savage gets clotheslined as we take a break. Back with Hennig pounding on Randy in the aisle before heading back inside for the neck snap. Savage goes after the leg but gets leveraged to the floor. And here’s DDP to attack Hennig for the DQ. Not enough to rate but they didn’t do anything of note here.

Hall runs in to help Savage and Hennig bails. The beating goes on for a bit until Luger makes the save.

The announcers wrap things up to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This wasn’t bad but it was mainly just fallout from the previous PPV. The Sting stuff is clearly going to be huge as the fans reacted to that about twice as loudly as anything else all night. Other than that, there wasn’t much here but Giant vs. the NWO is becoming interesting. We’re headed towards Fall Brawl now but that was only mentioned in passing, which is probably a good thing because it was another mostly B level show.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

No Mercy 2000
Date: October 22, 2000
Location: Pepsi Center, Albany, New York
Attendance: 14,342
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This was another request so I thought I’d knock this one out rather quickly. Not much special on this card with a main event of Angle vs. Rock for the title in what should be an easy win for the Great One. The other main match is Austin getting Rikishi after he was revealed as the driver of the car. The feud bombed so HHH was brought in soon but we’ll get to that later. There’s also HHH vs. Benoit but most importantly, MIDEON IS HERE! This was one of the weirder gimmicks of all time but it’s here tonight. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is of course focused on Austin and Rikishi which is how it should be. He’ll have no mercy on him. Get it?

Tag Team Table Gauntlet Match

We start with Too Cool vs. Low Down (Chaz (Headbanger Mosh) and D’lo Brown). There are five teams total. I’ve never been a fan of gauntlet matches as you have to go so fast and it looks like you can beat a team in mere minutes but other times they take two or three times as long to get such a win. No tagging here of course. Chaz looks like Maven minus the eyebrows.

Austin isn’t here yet which is the highlight of the commentary of course. Lawler lists off various uses for tables. His favorite: table dances. Now who didn’t see that coming? It amazes me that this was against Halloween Havoc 2000. You can really see the difference between the two companies as everything there seemed old and dying but this looks very fresh and interesting.

Sky High on Grandmaster as we talk about Edge and Christian being sick. Low Down goes for a double table shot but Grandmaster gets off his table and Scotty shoves Chaz off the top into his so Low Down has been eliminated. The next team is Taz and Raven who I never remember teaming together at all. They bring their own table as Jerry makes shootout jokes.

We start on the floor and Scotty goes up to the apron to put Raven through. Taz, thinking for once, grabs Scotty while he poses and throws the Tazmission on him. Raven tries to suplex Grandmaster to the floor through one but Grandmaster reverses into a sunset powerbomb but his feet break it. They need to fire whoever makes these tables as they kind of suck. Scotty does the worm under a table and because it ticks him off, Tazz throws Scotty through one to advance him and Rave.

The Dudleys are the fourth team. It’s hard to believe they had been around for a year at this point. D-Von is thrown into Raven as I want to chant ECW. Taz and Bubba go at it for a bit. Opening a WWF show after main eventing an ECW show. That’s nearly poetic. What’s Up to Raven and it’s table time. BIG table chant but they brawl for a bit instead. And it all means nothing as a top rope legdrop gets the Dudleys to the finals.

The final team is the Right to Censor which is comprised of Buchanan and the Goodfather. I always hated that name as it just sounds stupid. Big brawl to start as the non white people go to the floor. There are two tables in the ring as Bull blocks an Bubba Bomb. Down goes the referee as Bubba puts Buchanan through the table. Goodfather cracks Bubba with a chair and puts him on the broken table for the win.

And never mind as another referee is here to restart the match. 3D on Goodfather ends it like 45 seconds later.

Rating: C. Eh this was fine for an opener as the fans loved it. Not something you can grade for quality or anything of course due to the nature of the match but for what it was supposed to be this was fine. The Dudleys and their tables were always popular but the ending was a bit predictable. I could think of worse uses for about 13 minutes though.

Trish is with T&A in the back and implies she should flash the Acolytes to distract them.

Rikishi is waiting outside for Austin.

We recap T&A vs. the APA as there was a strip poker game that resulted in them seeing Trish lose her clothes. T&A beat up Lita for no apparent reason other than to set this match up.

APA/Lita vs. T&A/Trish Stratus

Test and Albert if you’re confused. Lita is Women’s Champion here but Trish is a joke as far as in ring stuff goes at this point. In the back we see T&A over Bradshaw who is out cold. They beat up Farrooq also which I think led to them taking some time off. The big heels come to the arena to beat up Lita too. Matt and Jeff, the current tag champions, make the save.

Edge and Christian say their nuts are fine. Peanuts that is. This was about as sophomoric as you could ask for but it was amusing.

Rikishi is still waiting.

Chris Jericho vs. X–Pac

Cage match. Before the match Jericho says they’re feuding and have been for so long he doesn’t even remember why they hate each other. He makes fun of him for never changing anything about himself but it ends tonight. New tights for X-Pac in a funny moment. Jericho hits a baseball slide to the floor to start and we brawl outside the cage to start. Pac never got in so that helps a bit.

Pac misses a huge chair shot and we finally get inside the cage. Standard stuff that you would expect from these two to start us off. Nice springboard dropkick to the leg of Pac to keep him in the cage. Mostly advantage to the non-Canadian (I try to avoid saying the same names over and over again if anyone wonder why I say such odd names at times) here as we wait for the Jericho comeback.

Sweet goodness X-Pac was just not interesting at all. BIG super bomb off the top to half kill X-Pac but Jericho is down too. Jericho goes for the cage but Pac grabs his foot. Jericho kicks him in the face to take care of that. I love basic counters like those. Pac goes for the door and manages to get the chair he swung earlier before Jericho makes the save.

He clocks Jericho with the chair but takes a shot of his own. JR says his eyes look glazed over but that’s typical for him. They go up to the top of the cage where Jericho gets the Walls or a Sharpshooter or something around one of the cables that they raise and lower the cage with. Pac throws him down but celebrates too long which standing on the door. Jericho of course dropkicks it and goes out to win as Pac is left crotched.

Rating: C-. Really nothing special here as Pac was beyond uninteresting at this point. I get that this was a feud but did this really warrant a PPV cage match? It wasn’t bad and the ending worked pretty well I thought, but the match just wasn’t all that interesting at all. Pretty bland though.

Steve Blackman is at WWF New York.

Rikishi yells at Foley about Austin not being here yet.

We see Eddie being injured so he’s out of the match tonight vs. Billy for the IC Title. Instead we get RTC vs. Billy and Chyna. Chyna, who looks more manly than Billy, as in more than usual, says they’ll beat up Eddie. Billy kind of hits on her but that perm is making it too hard to focus on what he’s saying.

Val Venis/Steven Richards vs. Billy Gunn/Chyna

Steven refers to Gunn as rectally obsessed. That somehow fits. Who came up with that gimmick?  They need to be drug out into the street and shot. Val and Rikishi start us off which is as riveting as it sounds. Val punches Chyna on the floor and goes into the steps for his troubles. This is going nowhere fast. I hate that expression but it fits here.

Chyna spins Richards around by the tie. She goes off on him and the heels are in trouble. Val goes after the arm of Billy as this is setting new standards for boring. Chyna gets a very weak tag for the beatdown. Handspring elbow to Val as Billy helps to beat him up. Pedigree attempt but Eddie comes down to hit her with the loaded flowers and Val gets the pin.

Rating: F. Sweet GOODNESS this was boring. I get the injury thing but at the same time this had nothing at all to it. Get on to the next match please.

HHH is in his dressing room and Stephanie wants to come to the ring with him. He says no and she gives him a tape of Benoit using the Crossface. She has to leave to go help Kurt get ready, meaning the Game isn’t happy.

We recap Rikishi vs. Austin. The fat man ran him over at Survivor Series 1999 so that Austin could take a year off to finally get his neck fixed. He came back to go on a manhunt which was really confusing because they kept saying Rikishi hadn’t debuted yet but he had that night on Heat which wasn’t mentioned so it was really confusing to me as I watched Heat. Anyway he said he did it for the Rock as Rock became popular without Austin being around.

Steve Austin vs. Rikishi

This is no rules of course as Austin pointed out that he didn’t want a match but to hurt Rikishi which makes sense. Austin’s line of “this match is going to take brutality to a whole other level” is the iconic line here but it didn’t quite live up to it. No Austin yet remember. Rikishi comes out with the sledgehammer as I guess they’re foreshadowing the HHH involvement.

Rikishi demands that Foley come out here and declare him the winner. And before anything happens here comes Austin with truck. No reason for why he’s late or anything but why would we need that? It’s the same truck that Rikishi destroyed with the hammer. Austin is in shorts and the t-shirt which fits I think. Rikishi goes into the table as this is just a big fight.

Ross thinks Rikishi has no heart. Wouldn’t that mean he’s like dead? They’re in the crowd already as they never were in the ring at all. Austin whips him with his belt as this is just a big brawl. There just happens to be a rope under the ring but Austin goes over the table. It’s no sold of course and HE’S IN THE RING! And so much for that. Big chairshot takes the fat man down and I think he’s busted open.

Austin throws on JR’s hat for no apparent reason and wears Rikishi out with the chair. He knocks the Samoan into the back of the truck and drives the truck out of the arena. This isn’t going to end well is it? Austin puts Rikishi in front of a wall and backs up the truck but a cop car drives in front of it for the save. He gets arrested for old time’s sake.

Rating: D-. Yeah this failed. It was a big old brawl ending with the bad truck thing. The problem was that at the end of the day the Rikishi was way too fat and way too bad as a heel to be worth much. This feud bombed and everyone knew it which is why at Survivor Series Austin dropped HHH from a forklift instead of a Samoan.

And now we replay the ending of the match for no apparent reason. Are they afraid people reached over to pet their cat during the ending of the match?

European Title: William Regal vs. Mideon

That’s his official name mind you. It’s not some random nickname I gave him. Basically he wrestles in a thong and a fanny pack. He comes out in regular clothes but tries to rip them off during the match. Apparently he’s trying to get strip, making him the Kelly Kelly from the old ECW days of this generation. Mideon keeps wanting to take his clothes off but just doesn’t for some reason.

Lawler says he’s a great chain wrestler. He can beat any chain you put him up against. Eh half a point for a decent line. Pretty much total dominance by Regal here. Mideon gets his shirt off and continuously pulls his pants up. Wouldn’t that be against his character in theory? Crowd is DEAD here mind you. And there go the pants. Regal sets for the Stretch but thinks twice about it. A neckbreaker ends it.

Rating: D-. Totally pointless match where nothing of note happened and the comedy didn’t exist. Mideon was hardly a character that was ever going to really do anywhere and I have no idea what the point of this being on the show was. This was a waste of time but I guess it bridges the gap between the big matches.

We recap a rather funny fake interview that Angle conducted with videos of Rock. Funny stuff.

Los Conquistadores say SI a lot.

Tag Titles: Hardy Boys vs. Los Conquistadores

The other team used to be jobbers back in the 80s but these guys are Edge and Christian under masks which is the point of the joke. Christian and Matt start us off. This is more or less a comedy match as the Hardys just beat up the masked guys who do odd offense to prevent anyone from finding out who they actually are.

Jeff is the stoner in peril here as nothing really is happening here. Christian misses a front flip splash off the top to set up the tag to Matt. Matt fights them both off as we’re getting close to the end. Jeff does the rail run to take out Edge. Matt hits a big dive to take out everyone at once. Back in the ring and Matt pulls off his mask to reveal another mask. Unprettier ends him.

Rating: C. This was a hard one to grade as the idea was more along the lines of a comedy match. The title change was a surprise but the way they switched them back is even better. Edge and Christian came out to challenge Los Conquistadores to prove that they weren’t in the masks but Los Conquistadores, who were already the champions, beat them to keep the titles. They unmasked as the Hardys and were declared champions as they were under the masks, meaning in theory they defeated themselves for the titles but you get the idea. Fun match.

Austin’s truck is taken away by a tow truck.

HHH watches video of Benoit beating him up.

We recap Benoit vs. HHH which started with Benoit hitting Stephanie with a headbutt and then going after her even more. I think HHH might be a face here actually which makes little sense but he’s getting something resembling a face pop for his entrance here and JR seems to imply he’s a face so maybe he is. This should probably go in the match part of this.

HHH vs. Chris Benoit

This should be good. Slow start of course but HHH goes for the knee which is a new one for him. Yep there’s a loud HHH chant which isn’t what I would have bet on at all. It’s kind of weird to see him work over it like that. Benoit tries to wrestle him but HHH gets us into an Indian Deathlock. He adds a neck vice to it also which makes it kind of an STF with the guy putting in on being upside down. Pretty sick looking.

HHH goes over the top and might have a bad arm now. Naturally Benoit goes straight for it as any good wolverine would. Northern Lights suplex gets two. This really should have been the main event of Mania XX. HHH goes onto the table as Benoit is dominating. HHH counters a belly to back into a reverse suplex which is a move more people should use.

They slug it out as this is good stuff. Leaping knee to the face has Benoit in trouble. HHH goes all the way up for a superplex and both guys are down. Here come the Germans as Benoit takes over again. What was supposed to be a Dragon suplex looks like a German and gets two. A second is somewhat better but HHH is in trouble now. Crossface out of nowhere and HHH is in big trouble.

It never ceases to amaze me how much longer good guys can last in submission holds rather than heels. In something you’ll probably never see again, HHH gets up and counters the Crossface into a Death Valley Driver. Stephanie runs (best part of the match!) down and slaps Benoit. Pedigree is countered into the Crossface which is countered into the Pedigree which is countered into the Crossface which is countered into a low blow which results in a Pedigree which results in the pin. VERY nice ending.

Rating: B. Very solid match here with both guys looking completely comfortable out there. I’d have liked to see what HHH could have become had he been able to stay heel rather than having to turn again for the sake of saving the Austin story from the awfulness that Rikishi was. Still though, solid match here with a very good ending.

Edge and Christian congratulate Los Conquistadores and apparently there’s a tag title match on Raw. VIVA ESSA RIOS!

Recap of Angle vs. Rock. Benoit cost HHH a #1 contenders match by going after Stephanie. HHH told Stephanie to stay away from the ring as she’s a liability. Kurt more or less stole her and she’s his manager now. Rock is all shaken up by finding out that Rikishi did everything and ran over Austin so he’s a bit off.

WWF Title: The Rock vs. Kurt Angle

This is announced as No DQ as Kurt comes to the ring which is a new development. Stephanie distracts Rock and Angle gets a quick advantage to start. Angle gets a chair shot on the floor and Rock is in trouble. Back in the ring a Samoan Drop gets two for the champion. Angle tries to leave for some reason but Rock makes the stop. Rock throws him through the set as this is a big brawl.

Ross says that Angle is challenging for the richest prize in the Game. Is this suddenly a match taking place inside of HHH? Is the belt his pancreas or something? Stephanie chokes Rock behind the referee’s back as Ross says she’s legally breaking the rules. If it’s legal, how is she still breaking the rules? Rock gets a chair shot to his ankle. This was before the ankle lock I think.

Dragon screw leg whip sets up the Sharpshooter and he taps out as Stephanie has the referee. Angle is continuously selling the knee having it start off as a big hindrance and moving on to a slightly weaker one which is very impressive. He gets a long chinlock to kill some time but winds up on the floor and we’re back outside again.

Angle tries to get a belt shot while Stephanie gets the referee. I don’t get the whole thinking here but they’re trying at least. Angle misses the perfect moonsault and we slug it out. Rock punches the heck out of him and takes over again. Again might be a stretch but you get the idea. A spinebuster sets for the Elbow but Stephanie makes the save. Rock Bottom for her but Angle stops the elbow.

And cue HHH who destroys….Kurt. Ah there’s the Pedigree for the Rock too. That’s more like it. HHH carries Stephanie out as Angle covers for two and a big pop on the kickout. Rock gets a DDT for two as you can feel us getting to the ending. He sends Angle to the floor, walks around the ring with him and throws him back in. Even Rock can have an odd moment I guess.

Here’s Rikishi too as they continue trying to force this push down our throats no matter how hard it fails. He beats on Angle a bit as apparently he’s helping out his Samoan brethren. Rock Bottom out of nowhere but Rock can’t cover. The fat Samoan gets in and accidentally nails Rock in the corner and accidentally superkicks him. Both guys get Olympic Slams to give Angle his first of 9 (not 12 you freaking idiotic TNA) world titles to date.

Rating: B. This was of course solid as you would expect for these two. Angle was still kind of in over his head at this point as he hadn’t locked in that total insanity thing yet. The Rikishi interference was annoying but I get the HHH aspect at least. Amusingly enough Angle won the title once Stephanie left rather than while she was there. Solid match but their rematch in February where Rock would get the title back would be better.

Overall Rating: C-. Not much here other than the last two matches but it wasn’t horrible. This company was the polar opposite of WCW. Back then you had the young guys owning the top of the card while the old guys would be absolutely dreadful. Here though the first 2/3 of the show would be pretty weak but the main matches would rock the house.

The problem would come in about two years as the old guys stopped being interesting. This was an ok show but the two last matches were good. Nothing to go out of your way to see though. Things were thrown upside down as with HHH being turned but that had to happen for the sake of saving Austin which wasn’t his fault.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

I’m suffering through this one at the moment and something sticks out.Vince put a bounty on Austin’s head in this match, promising $100,000 to anyone who eliminated him.  My question: why don’t we see that more often?  That’s a really solid idea to set up a feud in the future between two guys or to advance another one they have going at the moment.  The only other instance I can think of since then is HHH promising money to anyone who took out Goldberg.  Why it’s never been done again in the Rumble is beyond me.