Tables Ladders And Chairs 2009
Date: December 13, 2009
Location: AT&T Center, San Antonio, Texas
Attendance: 15,226
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Matt Striker

So here we are as I finish off this string of shows and have everything from Night of Champions 09 to whatever show is the latest when you read this review. This show is about violence as we have FOUR gimmick matches: a ladder match, a table match, a chair match and a combo platter with a TLC match. This was a pretty weak looking card on paper but I had a lot of fun with this show. That being said, let’s wrap up this string of shows and get to it.

The video is about going through all of those weapons. Oddly enough just minutes before this, we heard that chair shots to the head are no longer legal under the Wellness Policy. Talk about irony. The set is cool as there are ladders hanging from the ceiling. I like that.

ECW Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian

This is the ladder match. I had almost gotten to the point of being sure that Benjamin would be winning here. Ah sweet we have the three man commentary team now. That’s a great thing to have for the PPVs. Christian gets a solid pop. Dang man there are ladders EVERYWHERE. Why in the world would you ask Lawler about his strategy for a ladder match? Actually that’s good as that’s his job.

Cole has gotten better at setting him up with softball questions which is what King is there for. This should be very awesome. The ECW Title has never changed hands in Texas. Could be because ECW didn’t go to Texas that much but whatever. We hit the floor and Christian gets the BIG ladder. And that doesn’t work so there we are. He’s in the ring with a ladder first but something tells me this isn’t how the match ends and I’m right as Shelton makes the save.

If nothing else Shelton is one of the few people that truly impresses me in the ring at times. Not a lot of people have ever been able to do that but there are times when he has my jaw hanging open. Christian is busted open and I’m pretty sure it’s legit as a ladder fell on his head. Yeah that’s legit. And here’s a guy to check on him. Oh dear. The fans chant WE WANT BLOOD. I love modern crowds. There’s a Santa in the crowd. That’s cool if nothing else.

For no apparent reason Shelton climbs a ladder on the floor. Sure why not? And it’s table time now. Apparently not as Shelton sets up a ladder between the ring and the announce table. Something tells me I know what’s coming. Nothing happens with it yet as we’re back in the ring. Shelton sets for what would be a Stinger Splash but Christian just throws the ladder at him. Simple yet effective.

Crowd is WAY behind Christian. I’m not sure if I like them going with the big ladders here or not. I think I do but I’m not sure. Shelton gets up the ladder and Christian shoves him off very slowly, but Shelton lands on the top rope on his feet. Think about that for a minute. That’s amazing. I know there isn’t much to criticize here but it’s a solid match. Yeah those ladders hanging from the ceiling look awesome. Shelton with a powerslam from the top of the ladder that looks better than it sounds.

Shelton does the Jeff Hardy spot where he hangs from the belt. I’ve always found that stupid. Why not just unhook the stupid thing? Striker wants to know that too. Spotfests are fun. In a mostly cool looking spot, Shelton does that slingshot sunset flip into a powerbomb but Christian reverses into a hurricanrana. Nicely done but slightly botched which is understandable given the move they were trying to do. And now we get to the ladder they set up as a table earlier.

Shelton is trying to hit a German Suplex to Christian through the ladder but it’s blocked and Shelton lands on it. Christian dives through it and the ladder breaks. Has NOTHING on the Hardy/Edge version. Not a thing and the crowd is clearly not as into it as they wanted them to be. It ends the match though.

Rating: B+. Total spotfest but fun. It was missing that epic spot to make it legendary though. Still though, perfect choice for the opener and it did exactly what it was supposed to do: get the crowd into the show. Very entertaining match and I think I lowballed it here.

We recap DX vs. Chris Jericho from Raw where Show beat up DX with ease and Jericho ACTUALLY PINNED HHH! Oh never mind that was a different show.

Intercontinental Title: Drew McIntyre vs. John Morrison

McIntyre was somehow more bland here than he is now if you can believe that. He doesn’t have the sweet entrance yet either. Morrison gets the preteen girl pop. The slow-mo entrance is cool no matter what people say. Striker says it’s been 20 years since there had been a new IC Champion in Texas. That’s so wrong I don’t know where to start. We’ll ignore Rey at Mania 25 right?

Drew is dominating the early parts of the match so far which is expected. This is a far more traditional match than the previous one which comes off as a nice change of pace to me. McIntyre hits a reverse Alabama Slam. I like that. Striker calls it an Alabama Jam, which was Bobby Eaton’s top rope legdrop so that’s just wrong. We’re on the floor now as this has been a pretty decent match. Starship Pain kind of hits.

Cole and Striker actually aren’t sure if it did or not. That’s not a good sign at all. Drew’s foot is under the rope though so there you are. Striker cites the official’s handbook. I want to read that someday. Could be fun. Drew has a foreign object which makes sense for him and the double arm DDT ends Morrison’s reign.

Rating: B-. Solid stuff here. I liked McIntyre more because of this match as Morrison looked good in a loss which is all you can ask of him. I like the double arm DDT as it’s Foley’s move which makes it awesome. Morrison would be in a main event in two months so what more can you ask for?

Quick question: Cole says this is his first major singles title. What’s a minor singles title?

Promo for the Slammys. That show sucked.

Vince congratulates Drew but Josh interrupts…and Vince leaves? Ok then. Drew says it was inevitable. Sheamus shows up and says that was impressive but he’s going to win too.

Smackdown Women’s Title: Mickie Jamesvs. Michelle McCool

I think the Piggy James story just started. Ah yes it has. I liked that angle actually. Michelle looks a tad off here but she still looks decent. We get the Piggy James skit too to hammer this home. Dang Layla looks good too. Lawler points out the obvious: Mickie James is hot. Michelle has crosses on her outfit and Striker says she should be in the HOF. Ok then. We get a weird staredown from the floor to the ring. It’s weirder than it sounds.

This isn’t much at all as it’s your standard TV women’s match. They say the wrong name of the Bash, calling it the Great American version of it. You ethnocentric jerks! Boring match so far. Oh great now we’re on the floor. Who would want to be on the floor with one of these two? Yeah I hate this match. All I can do is look at the women here so there we are. And Layla interferes and Michelle gets the pin. Well at least it’s over now.

She just kicked her? It was a regular kick and that’s enough to get the pin? Cole, San Antonio isn’t the 2nd biggest city in Texas. last it can we get a competent announcer? Please? Oh. Apparently it is bigger than Dallas. Well Cole still sucks so there we are.

Rating: D-. Oh this was bad. I never once cared about this match at all and at least at the time it made no sense because of the Piggy James thing. Now to be fair by the end of it Mickie won…only to lose again. This was a horrible match though that sucked beyond belief. The only perk was the women so there we are.

Recap of Cena vs. Sheamus. Sheamus won a battle royal to get this match and it was deemed a tables match. I like it and at the time I actually had this little feeling that Sheamus would do it. I never said it because I believed it was nuts. Let’s get to it though. The booking here was nothing short of brilliant.

Everything both guy said was true and I totally bought into the whole thing. Rewatching this I’m totally buying into the build for it. That’s a great sign. Cena saying he can make Sheamus a footnote is a great line.

Raw World Title: Sheamus vs. John Cena

Oh man I’m actually fired up for this match. That’s impressive as that hardly ever happens to me on live show let alone ones that are three months old. We see an Irish newspaper with Sheamus in it. That’s just awesome. Oh there are also tables and chairs hanging from the ceilings. That really is a cool look. There’s the little kid pop for Cena. Love it. Love him or hate him, the guy gets a reaction everywhere he goes. Can’t beat that.

It’s big match intro time which really does help things out a lot I think. It makes you feel like you’re watching something special. I’m glad they never had Lawler follow up on getting kicked. Cole says the last foreign born WWE Champion was Yokozuna. Jericho and Edge think Cole is an idiot. Sheamus goes for a table after about 2 minutes. At least he gets to the point. His back is either bleeding or bruised badly.

Either way it has some color to it now. This is the first time Sheamus has ever really been tested so that’s something to keep in mind. Cena gets the first table out but no one goes through it. Back in the ring we get a tease of Cena going through the table as he’s on the apron and Sheamus pounds on him. The drama here is so simple yet it’s great. FU through the table is blocked.

The idea here is simple: Sheamus doesn’t have to pin him or get a tap or anything like that. He has to knock him down in the right spot. That’s brilliant booking when you think about it as it’s unrealistic that Sheamus could beat Cena clean yet, but it’s perfectly reasonable for him to put Cena through a table as he’s done it once before. In case you can’t tell, I like the idea of this match. FU is reversed again. This has been decent so far.

Actually it’s been more than decent as they’re fighting on the ramp now. Cena is ticked off now and it’s more interesting because of it. He’s a great character. Yeah I said it. Back in the ring and Cena has another table. I wonder how packed it is underneath that ring. There’s the pump kick from Sheamus and Cena is down. We’ve got a table in the ring now with Cena down. Make that in the corner but whatever. I’m digging this match.

Five Knuckle Shuffle hits. Sheamus throws the table out. Brilliant again. It’s not often that you see psychology in gimmick matches but that was a good bit of it there. Table in play again as you can feel the ending coming. Cena’s cardio is uncanny. It really is as they’ve been fighting almost 15 minutes and Cena is barely breathing hard.

With the table in the middle of the ring, Cena puts Sheamus on the top to set up the FU. You can feel the crowd being nervous here as Sheamus counters. Instead he goes for a suplex but it’s countered and Cena is shoved through the table and SHEAMUS WINS THE TITLE! I have never heard a crowd go that silent that fast. Love it.

Rating: A. Not for the quality of the match, but for the shock. To anyone that says Cena doesn’t put people over or that WWE doesn’t make any new stars, I give you Exhibit A. This was legit shocking and a legit upset. The Live Discussion I was in for the PPV came to a screeching halt when this happened. Great moment that did exactly what it was supposed to do. I loved this and it was a great moment. The kids being in shock is a great sight.

Cena leaves, completely shocked. He picks up a small piece of the table and slips it into his pocket and leaves to cheers, which is the name of the show I have on in the background oddly enough.

Promo for Tribute To The Troops which is just straight up cool.

Lawler tries to argue that Cena fell through rather than getting pushed which lasts all of 2 seconds.

Switchfoot did the theme song. Worst live band I’ve ever heard.

We recap Taker vs. Batista which is really just Batista’s heel turn and getting the shot through some win that meant nothing. Ok this recap is WAY too long.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. Undertaker

This is a chairs match, which means that chairs are legal. Holy crap what a stupid match idea that is. No one knew what it was leading up to the match as we couldn’t fathom that this was what it would be. We were wrong I guess. We immediately get to the stupidity of the rules. You can only win by pinfall or submission. Ok, cool. That means no DQ right? If you can’t lose by disqualification, that means there are no disqualifications right?

Well if that’s the case, why do chairs need to be deemed legal? If there are no disqualifications, doesn’t that mean that everything, including chairs are legal? If you can’t get disqualified then why are only chairs legal? Also, have you ever noticed that everyone Taker fights, Cole says they dominate the Undertaker like no other? In that case wouldn’t it mean they all dominate him the same? Maybe I’m thinking into this too much.

Batista belongs as a heel. That’s all there is to it. I have to say all this to kill time as both guys’ entrances take the better part of ever. Dude, someone light a fire on Taker to get him to the ring faster. It worked at Elimination Chamber so it’ll work here. Oddly enough Lawler talks about the flames on the way to the ring which is just amusing. Apparently Batista has been Taker’s toughest competition.

That would be Bret Hart who Taker never beat in a title match so there you are. Oh and remember: Batista is NOT afraid. This is BY FAR the longest intro to a match I’ve written in a long time. I like being all wordy like this again. Ok, NOW there can be countouts and DQs? Then why did the announcer say that you can only win by pinfall or submission? I hate WWE at times. That’s the nature of the beast though.

Oh apparently Batista beat Kane to be number one contender. Good to know I guess. Chairs are in play now. This is really just a no DQ match which is ok, but the chair thing is just kind of stupid when you think of it. It’s ok, but at the same time there’s just nothing special really. The ring sounds overly metallic tonight too. It’s not at the levels that The Wrestling Classic was at but it’s still loud.

There’s the spear which I think is growing on me from Batista. He’s got the size to pull it off if nothing else. Spinebuster onto a chair and Batista is WARRIORING UP! He goes for Taker but instead we get the Go Go Platypus from Taker. After some more stuff we get the most oversold low blow this side of Honky Tonk Man from Taker. And a chair shot from Batista…gives him the belt? Cue up Long. I can feel the Dusty Finish coming and there it is.

No music but he’s talking so it’s close enough. Long says pardon his interruption. Are they watching my TV or something as PTI is on now. Long of course says no title switch on the low blow. My head hurts. Restart the match. Tombstone ends it in about 30 seconds.

Rating: D. I did not like this match at all and the ending just killed it even worse than the match itself did. The rules were overly complicated and they should have gone with a chair on a pole or something match like that. This was by far and away the weakest in their usually very good series. Did not like this at all.

Naturally we get a ton of replays of what we just saw. Was Batista champion for a few seconds there? I’m not sure.

Ad for the really good Rumble from this current year.

For a change of pace, let’s recap something! This time it’s Kofi vs. Orton, which was a really good buildup to me. Also it got rid of Kofi’s stupid accent so that’s a perk. The car promo is still great. During this period, Kofi stopped being a goof and started being a credible worker. We also get the MSG Boom Drop which is awesome as all goodness still.

Kofi is in the back warming up and Legacy walks up to him. Yep this is pointless. And Kofi walks into Orton’s locker room. This is odd.

Mariachis are singing on the River Walk. That sounds like some weird code for something or other.

Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton

Randy is getting some slight pops at this point. I think I like Kofi’s weird starting stance. This feud got a decent build to it and I think this is their first full on match one on one. When I say full on I mean they had a short one on Raw that ended in a DQ which was just a few minutes long. I guess Orton has been around long enough to have a vintage. I love that snap powerslam he does if nothing else. Gah Scott Armstrong is the referee here.

I’m glad he’s gone if nothing else. In a SWEET sequence, Kofi catwalks up the steps to the apron up the buckles and then comes off the ropes with a dive to the floor but Orton hits a perfect dropkick to the ribs to block it. That was SWEET. I said SWEET twice. You could even say that was just….two….SWEET! Wow that was a bad pun. Back to the match I think. Orton kicks Kingston in the ribs a lot. Orton is getting more and more pops here and it’s odd to hear.

The pace of this match needs to pick up a bit and as I say that it begins to. Wow I have good timing. Boom Drop hits. The spin kick hits but Orton gets the ropes to a BIG reaction, so the crowd is into this at least. Out of nowhere Orton hits the elevated DDT. Wouldn’t Kofi’s hair block some of that? The Punt is blocked. Dive on the ball you idiots! Another Trouble In Paradise misses to set up the RKO for the ending.

Rating: B-. Good here but not great. Kingston looked good in losing as the whole story leading up to this was about him shedding his goofy image and it worked very well. Kingston wasn’t ready to beat Orton clean so that’s good I think. I liked it but it felt a bit flat. I think it was because this was added 6 days prior to the show so it kind of felt like filler. Still good though.

Don’t try this at home.

Batista is mad at Long and threatens him. He’s right too. Long, don’t try to act. You’re really bad at it.

Watch the awful Slammys tomorrow!

Unified Tag Titles: Degeneration X vs. Chris Jericho/Big Show

No recap here. Odd. Hmm let’s see. DX, the most ridiculously over tag team in the better part of ever in Shawn’s hometown main eventing a PPV that the main event is named after for titles they’ve never won. Yeah my money is on the champions too. In case you need a recap, they just don’t like each other. There’s your recap. I think I like Striker saying “In this analyst’s opinion.” It’s different if nothing else.

And now that they’re broken up, I like Jerishow’s music. This really was the only choice for the main event given the name of the show. Lawler points out the weight issues that Show is going to have with the ladder which is true. Table is brought in first. This really is a star studded main event. I think Show has the fewest world titles with what, 4-5? Or is it Shawn with 4? Either way, that’s saying a heck of a lot.

Yeah not counting the ECW Title as a world title, it’s Show with 4 and Shawn with 4 so you could go with Show ahead with the ECW Title as back then you could argue it was a world title. Even still it’s quite impressive. Naturally the first few minutes aren’t worth much but what do you expect really? HHH has a Pedigree countered on the ramp and all four of them are up there now.

Jericho and Shawn have a chair duel which is fun for a Zorro fan like me. It’s nice to see big stars get into matches like this. I like it if nothing else. The ring looks odd on an HD feed. You might notice I’m not talking about the match much but at this point there’s not much to talk about. DX suplexes a ladder onto Jericho in a cool spot. I love how they say it’s Shawn’s ladder match experience that tells him where to put the ladder.

I’d call it common sense myself but that’s just me. Shawn does a Flair Flip into HHH who is in the corner and hanging upside down from a ladder. Only in wrestling would that sound anything close to normal. In a SICK spot, HHH just throws a ladder over the top rope and hits Jericho in the head with it. Not quite to the level of Kane and Umaga with the steps but close enough I guess. It’s secondary finishers a go-go as Show is the only one left. He sets up a ladder but HHH gets him with a chair shot.

Show just shakes it off. I love that. DX stops his next attempt and hits a double Pedigree. HHH busts out a powerbomb to save the match. That’s a new one from him I think. And Show breaks the ladder. Thank you Striker for making sense of it: now DX can’t climb it. I don’t think I would have gotten that otherwise, and that’s not sarcasm. Oh wait: there’s more than one ladder, making that whole sequence TOTALLY POINTLESS.

The ladder is literally in two pieces. That’s freaking scary when you think about it since Show ripped it up by himself. In a cute spot, Jericho gets on Show’s shoulders but DX is waiting on them. Shawn gets up and kicks the defenseless Show, sending Jericho over the top rope and HEAD FIRST into a table.

That was one of the most painful looking bumps I have ever seen period. It’s a creative ending if nothing else. Now, using a little thing called common sense, HHH holds up the half of the ladder and Shawn climbs it. See why being a heel is bad now? It makes you stupid. Massive posing ends the show.

Rating: B. This was a bit weaker, but the right ending happened which is always a good sign. This sent the fans home happy and ended JeriShow’s reign properly. I’m not wild on the match itself, but it did what it was supposed to do so it gets a solid grade for it. There were some decent spots too and it’s far from a bad match, just not a great one.

OverallRating: B+. I really liked this show. I liked it a lot actually. I think I can safely call this the best of the “gimmick” shows so far as the whole night was about violence and how the gimmicks change things, such as with the Sheamus match. This had a good bit of everything in it and it came off as great to me.

The Divas match was weak but even still it had hot women and was relatively short. The Chair match is bearable I guess and Taker fans will like it. Still, 5/7 is a solid rating and I liked just about everything on this whole card. Definitely worth checking out as it’s a good show and a great ending to the year.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

WWA: The Revolution
Date: February 24, 2002
Location: Aladdin Casino Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
Attendance: 2,800
Commentators: Jeremy Borash, Mark Madden

This is the second of five PPVs these guys did and this time they’re stateside. Also they’re not taped this time, but I’m not sure how close to live this is. The major new name in town is Eddie Guerrero, who was released from the WWF for drunk driving in late 2001. Another name here is Grandmaster Sexay who is somehow getting a world title match tonight. Let’s get to it.

Apparently the main event was supposed to be Savage vs. Jarrett but Savage isn’t there. Neither is Road Dogg who was in the main event of the first show. Oh this doesn’t bode well.

We open with some band singing a rock song about Revolution. Apparently it’s Tantric, who I think has done some stuff for TNA.

Here’s Andre McManus to welcome us to the show and tell us that Savage won’t be there. Again, why does this take so long?

Opening sequence, which is basically a video recap of the last show.

Apparently this is indeed live. Ok then.

Nova vs. Low Ki vs. Tony Mamaluke vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Shark Boy vs. Low Ki

Elimination rules here and no one gets an entrance. It’s probably a good thing that they have to tag here. Styles vs. Mamaluke to start and they trade arm control. The camera keeps changing angles and it’s getting annoying. Mamaluke is bleeding from the nose as he hits a German to send AJ down onto his shoulder. Shark Boy comes in to fight Tony and gets clotheslined down.

Nova is standing on the floor, drinking water. Shark Boy hits an atomic drop and bites the place where his knee went. Off to Low Ki who gets atomic dropped as well, but comes back with a kick to Shark Boy’s head before he gets bitten. Daniels vs. Low Ki now and you know the strikes are coming here. A Capo Kick staggers Daniels and Nova gets tagged so hard that he spills his drink.

Apparently Nova is a businessman now. I’ve never seen a businessman in workout pants and no shirt but whatever. He works on Daniels’ arm a bit before it’s back to Low Ki. A double gordbuster puts Daniels down and it’s off to Mamaluke. There are the kicks from Low Ki and a double suplex by Ki and Sharky, but there was no tag so Shark Boy’s cover gets no count.

Things start to break down a bit as Sharky Boy and Mamaluke go to the floor for some dives. They wind up in the crowd (which is carpeted) as AJ pounds on Nova in the ring. Nova hooks a modified Crossface which goes nowhere because they’re not legal. Shark Boy hits a top rope rana on Mamaluke for two, even though the referee’s hand hit the mat three times. Low Ki comes in and hits a cartwheel kick on the distracted Shark Boy for the first elimination.

Off to AJ vs. Low Ki as the camera angles start to show a few details about the “arena”. There’s no ramp that I can see, and all of the seats are opposite the screen. I believe they’re in a theater, which is a really weird visual and atmosphere. Low Ki hits a HARD kick to the head (I’m shocked) but AJ comes back with forearms to the head. Both guys hit cross bodies so it’s off to Mamaluke vs. Daniels.

An STO kills Mamaluke who is a bloody mess. Daniels loads up the BME (I think) but Styles breaks it up for no apparent reason. AJ gets knocked down (I think. The camera direction here is a nightmare) so Mamaluke hits a belly to back off the top for two. Daniels hits the Angel’s Wings for no cover, instead tagging in Styles for the Clash to get us down to four people.

Nova comes in with a backbreaker on Styles for two before it’s back to Daniels vs. Styles. Even before TNA existed this was happening a lot. Styles tags in Low Ki who strikes away even harder on Daniels. Low Ki charges into a spinning electric chair of all things and a top rope elbow from Nova gets two on the kicking dude. Nova goes up and gets crotched, but as Low Ki goes up, he gets elbowed down into the Tree of Woe. Low Ki sits up and pulls Nova down into a rear naked choke while they’re both upside down.

Daniels comes in and is immediately thrown out, followed by everyone going to the floor. Daniels dives onto Low Ki so Styles hits a Shooting Star Press to the floor. This camera work is REALLY annoying as it either keeps cutting away or it has awkward shots of everything. Back in the ring, Low Ki loads up a rana on Nova, but Daniels runs the corner and hits a top rope Rock Bottom on Low Ki for the elimination.

Nova dropkicks Daniels to the floor so it’s Styles vs. Nova legally I guess. AJ is busted too. Everyone is in now and Daniels kicks Nova down and AJ gets two off a neckbreaker to Christopher. Daniels takes AJ down and hits the BME for two. There’s a dragon sleeper to AJ but Nova hooks a standing Last Chancery on Daniels at the same time. Nova grabs Daniels from behind but Styles sunset flips Nova, sending Daniels flying in the suplex.

AJ shoves Nova off the top and counters Daniels’ rana into a middle rope Styles Clash to get us down to one on one. A pair of rollups get two for Nova, as does a Downward Spiral. AJ gets two of his own off a German and Tessmacher’s current finisher (Tesshocker if you’re a big wrestling geek like me). They both go up with Nova hitting a C4 off the top (flipping Downward Spiral) for the final pin. Not much build to that.

Rating: B. Take six young and small guys, throw them in one match, let them have fun. AJ and Low Ki looked like the stars here, which they would be for all intents and purposes. Nova was already a name, Mamaluke never went anywhere, Shark Boy would become a cult favorite, and Daniels would become a decent sized star of his own right. Still though, fun match and AJ looked good in it, which shouldn’t shock anyone.

The announcers talk a bit, including mentioning that Scott Steiner is returning to the ring tonight.

Here’s Commissioner Bret Hart. His entrance takes WAY longer than it should but they’ve got a lot of time to fill in I guess. He says he never expected to be in a ring again, so thanks for having him. Bret talks about how there’s a combination of established names and young guns here tonight and it’s going to be a great show. As for the main event, there’s no Randy Savage. Of all people, he picks BRIAN CHRISTOPHER to main event the show with Jarrett. Good freaking grief. Does the name EDDIE GUERRERO mean nothing to you?

Bret goes into a strange discussion of 9/11 and says he considered himself a North American. Those people (the terrorists) don’t speak to the world, and that’s why he’s a part of this company. Now he’s talking about the Canadian hockey team, drawing boos. Now he says go take out Bin Laden. What in the world was he thinking when he was talking here? I know he’s not a promo guy, but this was BIZARRE.

Allan Funk, arguably more famous as Kwee Wee, is doing a bad Hogan imitation and talking to two midget wrestlers about how he’ll teach people to drop a leg on someone.

Alan Funk vs. Reno

Funk does the full on Hogan bit here and while he looks like Hogan (minus 6 inches or so), this isn’t exactly hilarious. Reno was an intense guy from WCW in 2000. Funk hits a release powerbomb drop and rips his shirt off. A kind of slam (more like a faceplant) gets two for Funk but Reno blocks a suplex to take over. Reno pounds away for a bit and hits an overhead belly to belly (kind of. Funk landed on his shoulder). Funk comes back with a slingshot sunset flip for two but Reno clotheslines him down.

Off to the chinlock by Reno, followed by a suplex for two. Funk Hulks Up but Reno ducks the big boot and punches Funk down. Reno Rolls the Dice (Cross Rhodes) but doesn’t cover. Instead he goes up and jumps into Funk’s boot because the script calls for Funk to make a comeback here. He pounds Reno down, hits a piledriver and drops the leg for the pin. Apparently he’s the Funkster.

Rating: D. And……so? Reno was nothing, Funk was nothing, the Hogan imitation has been done WAY better before (Showster for instance), and the match wasn’t any good. Funk would go on to be Women’s Champion in TNA and Reno would more or less disappear off the face of the Earth. I don’t think a search party was ever sent for him either.

Scott Steiner arrives with about six chicks.

Disco Inferno comes out to complain about not getting to face Brian Christopher tonight. He’s going to issue an open challenge for later but for now he’s jumping in on commentary. They banter for a few minutes.

Kronik vs. Native Blood

No idea who the jobbers are here but they’ve got an Indian gimmick. Kronik (Adams and Clark) destroy the jobbers before the bell, then proceed to destroy them after the bell. They pound on each other on the floor, followed by a full nelson shove down to the fat Indian in the ring. Now Clark pounds away as this is going badly already. A release Rock Bottom puts the less fat Indian guy. Native Blood comes back with a double dropkick on Clark, so Adams comes in with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Clark hits the Meltdown (pump handle powerslam) for two and High Times (double chokeslam) ends one of the jobbers.

Rating: D-. This was a five minute squash. What in the world are we supposed to get out of something like this? Clark and Adams had a horrible run for about a week in WWE and this is more or less the last time anyone say them. The jobbers were exactly what their names suggest: there to get beaten up. Nothing to see here and it was sloppy on top of that.

Terry Taylor talks to one of the midgets and it’s that idiot Puppet from TNA. This turns into a rendition of God Bless America.

Girls dance.

Tio vs. Puppet

They’re hardcore midgets (Yeah I know. I’m not always politically correct. Get over it) and they start fighting on the ramp. Madden keeps cracking jokes that the crowd can hear so the audience is laughing during violence. Tio puts Puppet in a garbage can and beats on him with a chair. Puppet is down on the ground and Tio actually goes up top for a splash to the floor. That gets two on the floor because this is a hardcore match.

They head inside as Disco and Madden are riffing on the match like crazy. Puppet comes back with a powerslam for two followed by a Jackhammer for the same. A guy that looks like Rikishi yells at Puppet from the front row as the place is silent other than when Madden cracks a joke. Puppet hooks a reverse Boston Crab (Tio is in the regular position but Puppet is shoving Tio’s legs forward instead of pulling back on them) which doesn’t last that long.

Tio comes back with middle rope punches and a middle rope rana….which gets two for Puppet for some reason. Tio sends him into a trashcan but misses a Swanton off the top. They head to the stage with Puppet pulling out a bag of thumbtacks. A Death Valley Driver onto said tacks ends Tio.

Rating: D+. I usually hate these things but this one at least seemed like they were trying. Puppet would go on to be VERY annoying in TNA, making Horny seem like the most entertaining character in years. This wasn’t much of a match, but at least they had some effort and some of the jokes weren’t bad.

Immediately after the pin, here’s Scott Steiner to destroy both guys. Steiner runs his mouth for a bit and grabs Disco Inferno for a match.

Disco Inferno vs. Scott Steiner

Total dominance by Steiner that ends with the Steiner Recliner in about two minutes. Disco got in as much offense as a career comedy character would on a big name power guy.

Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs. Psychosis vs. Eddie Guerrero

Psychosis won the title at a house show since the last PPV. The mic is broken so we hear “ladies and gentlemen” about six times before the entrances get going, and even then they have to go very fast to catch up with the wrestlers. They grab a three way lockup to start and everybody hits everybody else. This is one fall to a finish. Eddie sends Juvy to the floor but Psychosis sends them both out there and hits a big flip dive to take them both out.

Back in and Juvy gets two off a top rope spinwheel kick on the champ. The camera work continues to SUCK as it’s all over the place, which is weird when there are only three people to watch. Psychosis misses a charge into the corner and the sound when he hits the post is SICK. Juvy gets two off a super rana on Eddie before walking into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for two. Eddie hits a brainbuster on Psychosis for two before getting thrown to the floor.

The luhadores fight in the ring with Juvy getting two off a facebuster. Guerrero gets back in and gets chopped against the ropes by the champ. He comes back with a suplex on Psychosis as this keeps going all over the place. To say there’s not much chemistry here is an understatement. Juvy kicks Eddie low to break up a German suplex as the match continues to slow down.

Guerrera heads to the floor as Psychosis works on Eddie’s leg. Juvy comes back in and drops a leg for two. The crowd is DEAD for this. The guys keep stumbling from spot to spot and there’s no flow or story in this match at all. Eddie gets double suplexed to the floor and Juvy hits Rey’s sitout bulldog for two. Eddie avoids a double dropkick and everyone is down.

Psychosis gets put on top by Eddie but Juvy superplexes Guerrero down. Psychosis legdrops both guys but both challengers save the other. Juvy bulldogs both guys for two each and gets the same on Psychosis off a DDT. Eddie decks Guerrera, shoves Psychosis off the top and hits the Frog Splash on the champ for the pin and the title.

Rating: D. This was AWFUL. There was zero chemistry here at all and the match wasn’t entertaining. I don’t know if it was rust from Eddie or that Juvy and Psychosis turned into hacks once they left WCW and stopped caring, but this was a terrible match. Eddie would be back in WWE in like two months anyway and would never lose that title.

Eddie rips on the fans for chanting WHAT post match. He rants about his personal issues until Jerry Lynn comes out to complain. Lynn would be another guy that has more business in the main event than Christopher by the way. They argue and then brawl. Both guys came off as heels here, with Eddie getting on the fans and Jerry making fun of Eddie for being a drug addict. Lynn survives a beating and takes Eddie out.

More dancing chicks.

Sabu vs. Devon Storm

No DQ, because neither guy is seemingly capable of doing a regular match. Sabu works on the arm to start in a token wrestling sequence. Storm (called Chris, his real first name, by Borash) hits a German suplex on Sabu but the Arabian from Michigan hits a springboard leg lariat. They head to the floor to get to the part that they’re on the card for. They load up the steps and Storm tries to suplex Sabu off of them, but Sabu lands on the ropes and falls back onto the steps. This is getting bad already.

Back in and Sabu is bleeding and in control. There’s the camel clutch and Storm looks asleep. Sabu lets go, allowing Devon to come back with a headscissors and legdrop (popular move tonight) for two. A northern lights suplex gets two more for Storm and we hit the chinlock. After more boring stuff they head to the floor for Air Sabu against the barricade.

Fonzie (Sabu’s manager) loads up a table but Storm drops Sabu onto the barricade. He drops him onto the steps as well as this keeps going. Storm tries a sunset bomb over the top and through the table. Instead, Storm’s foot hits but doesn’t break the table and Sabu doesn’t hit the table at all. Storm (called Crowbar here) breaks up an Asai Moonsault attempt through the table but gets caught by a legdrop back inside.

The first chair is brought in and goes upside Storm’s head. Air Sabu hits in the corner and Storm lands on the chair. Storm breaks up the Triple Jump Moonsault by sending Sabu face first into the chair. A Death Valley Driver onto the chair has Sabu mostly dead but it only gets two. A splash gets the same for Devon and there’s a slam onto the chair. Storm hits a slingshot flipping legdrop onto the chair onto Sabu’s face for two.

We head to the floor again because why not do it, and there’s a pescado by Storm. Storm hits a splash off the apron and drops Sabu onto the barricade (it only took two tries to get it right). Back in the ring Sabu blocks a powerbomb onto two chairs and hits a suplex onto the chairs instead. Arabian Facebuster with the chair hits….and there’s no cover. Sabu goes up and Storm pelts a chair at him.

Fonzie sets up another table, this one up against the barricade. Storm is placed against the table and according to the first law of wrestling, Sabu misses the dive through it. Back in and Storm hits a Mindbender (front suplex) for two. FOR THE LOVE OF FREAKING GOODNESS END THE MATCH ALREADY! A frog splash gets two more for Storm and the go up again because this hasn’t gone on enough. Sabu counters a belly to back superplex into a cross body for two.

They go up top for like the 84^th time and Sabu shoves him off for no apparent reason. Sabu tries a rana but Storm counters into a rollup….AND FREAKING FONZIE PULLS THE REFEREE OUT. Sabu dives on both of them again and hits a something back in the ring. No idea what it was because the stupid camera angle missed it, but apparently it was beautiful according to JB. Considering JB booked this show, I have a feeling he’s lying. Fonzie hits Sabu in the head with the most clearly choreographed chair shot by mistake and Storm rolls him up for the win at TWENTY MINUTES AND THIRTY EIGHT SECONDS.

Rating: S. As in Seven. As in Seven People. As in Steve Austin, Chris Jericho, Hulk Hogan, HHH, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Brock Lesnar. These are the seven people that the WWE felt were capable of having one on one matches this long on PPV (and two of them were inside the Cell). Think about that. Guys like the Rock, Benoit, Angle, Edge and Rey Mysterio weren’t trusted with matches that long, but SABU AND DEVON STORM WERE??? This match alone brings the whole show down at least a letter.

Post match, Sabu puts Storm through a table off the big screen, because this hasn’t gotten enough time yet.

The West Hollywood Blondes do gay things because that’s funny right?

Here’s LARRY FREAKING ZBYSZKO with something to say. Larry talks about the only interesting thing he did as a wrestler ever: feuding with Bruno back in 1980. Then he talks about his career back in 1972, because EVERYONE wants to hear about this. Oh apparently Vince sucks. That’s what this is about: Vince sucks. Jericho is called too short to be believed as a world champion and he wants to fight Vince in a match. Larry rants some more and I just don’t care. ANOTHER ten minutes plus wasted here.

West Hollywood Blondes vs. Rick Steiner/Ernest Miller

Miller says if they lose to the girly men, he’ll kiss Madden in a fat area. Since they wasted so much time with Bret talking about hockey, Larry wasting our time, and SABU GETTING TWENTY FIVE MINUTES TOTAL, this lasts a minute with Miller kicking Lenny in the head for the pin.

Miller yells at Madden post match but there’s only one match left so I don’t care. Granted I didn’t care anyway but now I’ve got a reason to.

WWA World Title: Brian Christopher vs. Jeff Jarrett

I’ve complained about Christopher enough so far. Christopher makes gay jokes about Jarrett to start but says he wants to death. Jarrett tosses him around to start and there’s the strut. Christopher comes back with a clothesline to send Jeff to the floor….and then he lowers his pants. A neckbreaker puts Jarrett right back on the floor as we’re firmly in a Memphis formula: do a move, play to the crowd a lot, then do another move and play to them more.

They fight into the crowd, and by fight I mean punch once and walk a lot, and we lose track of them. Brian gets a drink thrown in his face and Jeff chokes him a bit. We finally get back to ringside with Brian shaking off everything that’s been done to him so far. A charge misses in the corner and Brian gets crotched. Naturally, Jarrett poses. A cross body gets two for Brian and it’s off to a sleeper from Jeff.

After nearly two minutes of that, Brian hooks his own sleeper for a few seconds. A kick puts Jeff down and an enziguri (clearly missing by about six inches) gets two. Tornado DDT gets two more and they head to the floor. Brian superkicks a referee by mistake and we head back in. Christopher “hits” a guillotine legdrop for two from a replacement referee…and the referees start fighting. Jeff wins with a guitar shot and Stroke on the belt (there was a referee brawl in between the moves).

Rating: D. Standard match that really was a big brawl with some wrestling moves thrown in. In other words, the WCW main event formula minus five run-ins. Christopher was never believable as a main event threat here because HE’S FREAKING BRIAN CHRISTOPHER. Nothing to see here but it was probably the best match of the second half of the show.

Overall Rating: F-. There was a good opener and those guys are all exempt from what I’m about to say. Actually so are the midgets because they were at least trying. THIS SHOW SUCKED! If someone doesn’t show up, that’s understandable. It’s not optimal but it happens.

That being said, USE YOUR FREAKING HEADS and don’t put a comedy tag team wrestler in the world title match when you have names like Jerry Lynn, Sabu, Eddie Guerrero, Rick Steiner (yes, even he would be better), Scott Steiner, or even Nova because he won the opener available to go out there and be MUCH more believable as a threat to Jarrett.

No, instead we had Sabu and Devon Storm using the same spots (count the splashes by Storm) and blown spots all over the place (count the botches in the twenty minute monstrosity) and a minute long match between a random pair of WCW guys with zero history at all and Bret Hart rambling about being a North American and Larry wanting to fight Vince. Eddie coming in was kind of a big deal, but his match SUCKED because Psychosis and Juvy both dogged it all night. NOTHING to see here after the opener and this promotion is in big trouble.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

From WWE.com:

 

WWE.com has learned WWE Champion CM Punk is currently undergoing surgery on his knee in Pensacola, Fla.

Last night, after Ryback drove him through a table, The Straight Edge Superstar took a late night flight to Florida for an emergency consultation with Dr. James Andrews. A review of his condition resulted in the WWE Champion’s immediate surgery today. (PHOTOS FROM RAW)

WWE.com will continue to report on Punk’s condition as more details become available.

 

http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/2012-12-03/punk-knee-surgery-26073696

 

So if he has to drop the title…..I can’t imagine it goes to anyone but Cena and we get Rock vs. Cena II at the Rumble.  I’d love for it to go to Ryback, but that’s just not going to happen.  What this means for Mania is anybody’s guess, but above all else, remember that this is from WWE.com, so take it with a small truckload of salt.

 

Thoughts/predictions assuming it’s real?

I want to do a special review for Christmas but have nothing in mind for it.  What would you guys like me to do on Christmas Day?  Obvious it requires me to be able to find a copy.  It doesn’t have to be Christmas related.

Monday Night Raw
Date: December 3, 2012
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

It’s the final month of the year and we’ve got two more episodes before TLC. The main story tonight is that Vince is here apparently, which is probably a good idea. Other than that, we’ve got more with Ryback vs. The Shield, who I’m sure would NEVER interfere in the main event of a PPV or anything like that. Let’s get to it.

The usual recap opens the show, and tonight it’s Sheamus/Cena vs. Ziggler/Show.

HELL NO vs. Prime Time Players

The Shield is watching from the top of the arena so Kane calls them down. Titus and Kane get things going and O’Neal is quickly knocked to the floor. Cole talks about “Daniel Ambruce” saying something last week. Rollins and Reigns have gone somewhere else apparently. Kane and Bryan work on Darren’s arm as Reigns is now down in the arena. The Players double team Kane in the corner and Reigns moves down the steps. Ambrose is down in the arena as well. Rollins is nowhere in sight.

Bryan hits his running knee of the apron as the match is now all about looking at the Shield. We go to a break and come back with Titus clotheslining Kane down. Reigns and Ambrose are still in the crowd. Back to Bryan with a running dropkick in the corner for two. GOOD GRIEF stop showing the Shield guys. We get it already. Young comes in and is put in the NO Lock but everything breaks down. Ambrose and Reigns are at the barricade now as the match has more or less stopped, allowing Darren to roll up Bryan, who reverses it into a rollup on Young for the pin at 11:28.

Rating: D. I have no idea if the match was good or not, because they kept cutting away to show the Shield guys. I really hope this isn’t Nexus all over again because it’s really shaping up to be similar to it. The Players will likely get passed over again as it looks like Shield might get the tag titles soon. Nothing to see here, almost literally.

Post match the Shield runs in and crushes Kane’s arm under the steps. Bryan gets beaten down as well as Rollins runs in. The Superbomb leaves Bryan laying.

Sheamus and Cena are talking in the back and I think they’re talking about soccer. Apparently after Smackdown they went out for 15 pints or so. Sheamus says he’ll be focused tonight.

AJ vs. Tamina Snuka

Happy blowoff match people. AJ jumps on Tamina to start and then does it again. Tamina slams her off the top before putting her right back up there. An over the shoulder backbreaker…is released a few seconds after Tamina puts it on. Tamina keeps pounding away as this is going about as far as you would expect AJ vs. Tamina to go. The splash is loaded up but AJ rolls Tamina up for the pin at 3:24.

Rating: D-. What are you expecting here? The match was nothing of note and they didn’t do anything special. Was anybody expecting Tamina to add anything to this story at all? Nothing to see here at all and as usual, the Divas continue to be a complete waste of time. I’ll say this though: AJ can rock a pair of shorts.

Here are Punk and Heyman with something to say after a break. Post break Heyman complains about the new and updated WWE Encyclopedia because there isn’t enough in it about CM Punk. Heyman does however give credit to them for having a list of WWE Championship Reigns in it, and at midnight tonight Punk will tie Cena’s record and tomorrow night at midnight, CM Punk will be the longest reigning WWE Champion of the last 25 years, which is the modern era. Heyman says Punk should be front and center on WWE’s Mount Rushmore.

Punk says that he’s still unfairly persecuted, because he’s still the best in the world. That’s not just a catchphrase, because he’s the best of all time. Punk makes fun of some fans for not having jobs or marriages lasting as long as his title reign. He talks about how the fans credit either Maddox or the Shield for keeping the title on Punk. Punk says that he’s got nothing to do with either of them, but he’s the reason everyone is here tonight. He’s the hottest thing in WWE today and he tells us to change the channel if you don’t believe him. Or get up and leave his arena right now.

He’s interrupted by…….The Miz? The fans are getting into the REALLY chant now. He tells the fans to sit down and enjoy themselves, because no one buys what Punk is saying. Punk wants to know who Miz is, so Miz says he’s the one who took every shortcut he could as WWE Champion, but at least he admits it. Punk has been bailed out time after time by Maddox and Shield….so Punk insults Miz’s shoes.

Miz doesn’t want a fight, but wants Punk to come on MizTV to take a lie detector test. This leads to Miz calling Heyman a walrus, starting a chant. Punk DEMANDS an apology from the fans, so Miz keeps goading Punk into a test. He says Punk doesn’t want an asterisk by his name, so Punk goes for the idea. We spent over ten minutes to get there? Seriously?

John Cena/Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler/Big Show

Sheamus vs. Ziggler to get things going. A shoulder puts Ziggler down, as does a slam and it’s off to Cena. We hit the chinlock but at least this one is short. Cena speeds things up and takes Ziggler down with an armdrag. Off to Big Show who shoves Cena away. Why exactly does this surprise Cena? Cena tries the shoulder and literally bounces off Big Show.

Show hits the big chop in the corner and falls on Cena in a slam attempt. Off to Ziggler for some fast elbow drops for two. Cena avoids a splash in the corner and it’s off to Sheamus vs. Big Show. A knee lift and a running double ax put Show down, but the Battering Ram is blocked by a spear out of the air.

We take a break and come back with Show still working over Sheamus. Ziggler hooks a chinlock with a bodyscissors but Sheamus fights back with the Irish Curse. Hot tag brings in Cena, house is cleaned like the boss is on his way home, and it’s White Noise to Show while Cena hits the AA on Ziggler for the pin at 11:52. Ziggler got up too early after the Protobomb and they had to rush to the finish.

Rating: C. Standard main event style tag match here and I’m always a fan of mixing the feuds up like this. Sheamus holding Show there for White Noise for that long is a really cool visual, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Also Cena pins Ziggler. Again. Not much to see here but it was fine I guess.

Cena and Sheamus celebrate way more than they should post match.

We recap the Punk/Miz stuff from earlier.

The MUPPETS will be at Tribute to the Troops. This results in Piggy hitting on Flo Rida.

Here’s Sandow looking for his apprentice again. As usual, Sandow owns this whole segment, berating the guy after he doesn’t know an English poet. It’s the little insults in this that make Sandow great. He’s totally into the character and the line of “ignorance is curable but stupidity is forever” is good stuff. I loved this. Naturally Santino comes out to make the segment stupid. He asks how many shells did she sell by the seashore, making Sandow go into a lecture about crustaceans. Thankfully Damien drops him with one shot. We get a match.

Damien Sandow vs. Santino Marella

This is joined in progress after a break with Santino doing his power walk thing. Apparently Santino won a power walking contest seventeen years ago. Cole gives a story about why that’s not true or something like that. Wind-Up Elbow gets two as does a small package from Sandow. Santino comes back with his usual sequence and Damien runs from the Cobra. Sandow catches him coming back in and steals the Cobra. Marella guillotines him on the top but misses the top rope headbutt. Terminus and we’re done at 2:40 shown. This was the same match Sandow had with Ryder last week.

TOUT questions to stump Damien with. Oh geez.

Vickie says she’s starting to lose faith with Ziggler, so Ziggler asks for another match with Cena at the PPV. Vickie isn’t sure but goes into her office to see Brad Maddox. There’s a camera on Maddox in the office. Post break, Maddox is asking for a contract and appeals to Vickie’s obsession with her legacy to get a job. He calls himself a Youtube sensation and is told if he wins his match tonight, he gets a contract. I’m thinking Orton for this one.

Sin Cara vs. Alberto Del Rio

Haven’t we seen this match a few times recently? Cara grabs the arm to start before Alberto jumps him in the corner. A knee to the head of Cara gets two before Cara comes back with the usual armdrags. Del Rio sends him into the middle buckle and kicks him in the back. A snap suplex gets two and we hit the chinlock. Cara escapes and speeds things up, sending Del Rio to the floor and hitting a rana off the apron.

We take a break (in Del Rio vs. Cara? Really?) and come back with Sin Cara still in control. Alberto is sent to the floor for a second and as Cara sends him back in, Del Rio shoves him off of a springboard attempt. That gets two for Alberto and it’s time for a chinlock. Cara’s mask goes up a bit and Del Rio gets two off a German suplex. Alberto misses a charge in the corner and Cara hits a solid tornado DDT to put both guys down. Headscissors puts Del Rio down, as does a kick to the head. Top rope cross body gets two, as does a standing Sliced Bread by Cara. The Swanton misses and the cross armbreaker gets the tap at 12:40.

Rating: C-. The match was pretty entertaining, but this is like the opening matches on an old WWF house show: long because we need to fill in the show. Del Rio has now beaten Cara three times in three weeks I believe with the armbreaker. Why did we need to see this match again? Cara doesn’t really get anything out of it and the results are the same. Why should I be interested?

Vince wants to talk to Vickie in the ring.

We recap the set up for the lie detector test again.

Here’s Vickie to suck up to Vince. She tells everyone to clap, because Vince doesn’t get a reaction you know. First up, Vince wants to hear what she’s got for the TLC PPV. The match is going to be Cena vs. Ziggler but Vince wants more. She suggests no DQ, but Vince wants more. He whispers something to her and it’ll be a ladder match….for the MITB case. Vickie thinks this isn’t fair to Dolph because he has nothing to gain.

Vince thinks the AJ scandal hasn’t been fair, so maybe Vickie should apologize by making the match official. The match is made, but Vickie stops to dismiss Vince. Oh you are an idiot. Vince understands there’s a lie detector test going on tonight. If Punk is proven to be a liar about Maddox and the Shield, there should be a penalty against him. After forever, Vickie gets to the idea of Ryback vs. Heyman next week if Punk is lying.

Brad Maddox vs. Randy Orton

If Maddox wins, he gets a contract. Maddox gets in one elbow before it’s a few signature moves and the RKO for the pin at 1:10.

Post match Shield runs in and destroys Orton.

Vickie yells about Shield when Dolph comes in to yell about the ladder match. He says Vickie is becoming just like AJ. Dolph leaves and Heyman comes in to glare at her without saying anything. She finally says that Punk better be telling the truth. Heyman leaves and Cena comes in to gloat, as well as make a joke about Ziggler being the first guy ever to forget the Five Moves of Doom. Vickie has found some Cena bowties in the Divas locker room, which suggests that she’s getting obsessed with Cena. Cena goes on a mini rant about Vickie is lying again, saying the ties aren’t even the right color.

Kofi Kingston/R-Truth vs. Wade Barrett/Antonio Cesaro

Teddy Long comes out and makes it a four way match for a title. What title would that be though? The audience gets to pick what title is on the line and the results are up after the break. Post break, it’s Cesaro’s title on the line in a landslide.

US Title: Kofi Kingston vs. Wade Barrett vs. R-Truth vs. Antonio Cesaro

Truth and Barrett are both thrown to the floor quickly and Cesaro gets rolled up for two. Barrett decks Truth on the floor as Kofi sends Cesaro to the outside. The pumphandle slam gets two for Wade on Kofi, who immediately dives onto Cesaro on the floor. Truth comes back in t beat on Wade before gyrating a bit at him. Barrett to the floor, so it’s Kofi vs. Truth.

They know each other very well so no one can get an advantage, resulting in a stalemate off a double dropkick. The villains come back in and Kofi/Truth botch a spot where Truth was going to launch Kofi onto Cesaro. Kofi hits a suicide dive on Barrett but Truth misses a dive onto Cesaro. Cesaro throws Truth around a bit more as we take a break. Back with the two champions pounding on each other until Cesaro uses a half crab giant swing on Kofi.

Barrett makes the save and knocks Cesaro to the floor before hitting the Winds of Change on Kofi for two. Truth comes back in with the ax kick for two on Barrett, but Wade comes back and loads up a superplex. Truth knocks him down and Cesaro goes up top with Truth. Kofi runs up the corner and hits an armdrag to take Cesaro down. Wade tries the superplex again and we get a Tower of Doom with kofi on the bottom. Cesaro makes a VERY close save to break up the pin before getting two of his own off that fireman’s carry slam of his. That should be his finisher instead of the Neutralizer.

Truth clotheslines Cesaro and himself to the floor, leaving Wade and Kofi alone. Kofi elbows and dropkicks Barrett down as things speed up. Boom Drop hits but Cesaro breaks up Trouble in Paradise. Neutralizer is broken up by Truth and there’s the Bull Hammer to Truth. Kofi kicks Wade’s head off, but Cesaro pulls Kofi off Wade into the Neutralizer for the pin to retain at 12:23.

Rating: B. WAY better match than I was expecting here and a lot of that was because it was a title match. I had a reason to care who was getting those near falls because there was actually something on the line. It gets really dull when these matches have nothing up for grabs, so having something this simple was a nice addition. The only problem I have: why have Kofi get pinned here? Truth was RIGHT THERE but can’t take a loss?

We recap Maddox and the Shield saving Punk’s title twice now.

We also recap the Vickie/Vince stuff from earlier.

Time for MizTV to end the show. He’s got a lie detector test guy here from the sheriff’s department, but he says the wrong county. If Punk lies about the important stuff, Heyman has to face Ryback next week.After Miz explains a lie detector, we get on with the test. Miz asks about embarrassing moments in Punk’s career, like having Rey shave his head and about facing Orton when Miz was in the main event. There’s the walrus thing again. Punk thinks he can beat Ryback by himself, and that’s a big lie. The results are on the screen.

Oh apparently Punk COULD be lying. Miz asks about Maddox and the Shield…..but here’s the Shield to destroy Miz and clear the ring. They hit the Super Bomb and here’s HELL NO. The numbers catch up with the champs and Ambrose goes after Kane’s arm from earlier. Ryback comes out and throws Ambrose to the floor. Make that into the crowd as the beating is on.

HELL NO beats up the other guys and everyone goes into the crowd. Punk is left alone in the ring with Miz and kicks him to the floor. Punk and Heyman pose but Ryback comes back for the Shell Shock to Punk. Ryback gets a chair and a ladder to beat up the champion. Now it’s a table and a powerbomb through it for the champ to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. This was MUCH better than what they’ve been having lately. First of all, the lack of recaps helps A LOT. We didn’t have to waste a ton of time seeing the same stuff five times a show. Second, no stupid AJ/Vickie/Cena stuff. That stuff sucked the life out of shows because it never led anywhere. Now we didn’t have that and we got a major PPV match out of it. Throw in a fourway that actually meant something and Maddox getting massacred and you’ve got a better show. MUCH better than they’ve had in recent weeks, but three hours is still far too long.

Results

HELL NO b. Prime Time Players – Rollup to Young

AJ b. Tamina – Rollup

Sheamus/John Cena b. Big Show/Dolph Ziggler – AA to Ziggler

Damien Sandow b. Santino Marella – Terminus

Alberto Del Rio b. Sin Cara – Cross Armbreaker

Randy Orton b. Brad Maddox – RKO

Antonio Cesaro b. Kofi Kingston, Wade Barrett and R-Truth – Neutralizer to Kingston

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Starrcade 2000
Date: December 17, 2000
Location: MCI Center, Washington D.C.
Attendance: 6,596
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Mark Madden, Scott Hudson

 

It’s time for another of my thing of doing a string of shows in a row, in this case the final three WCW shows that I haven’t done at the end of their run: Starrcade 2000, Sin and Superbrawl Revenge. Anyway, the company is dead and buried with the WWF on the highest of highs and everyone knows it, even WCW. The main event this year is Sid vs. Scott Steiner. And this is supposed to be Wrestlemania to them. Right. Let’s get to it.

 

The opening video sets up the PPV and the feuds all have at least one old person in it.

 

Tony doesn’t care at all and you can tell it clearly.

 

3 Count vs. Jung Dragons vs. Knoble/Karagis

 

These six guys feuded FOREVER, opening Thunder literally about 35 times out of a year. This is a triple threat tag team ladder match, but the person that pulls down the contract gets a single Cruiserweight Title match against Chavo (absolutely awesome at this point) later on. This is on the Best of Starrcade DVD (awesome set for the most part). Knoble and Karagis were members of the Dragons and 3 Count respectively before they broke off to have a three way feud.

 

3 Count is Shane Helms and Shannon Moore, the Dragons are Kaz Hayashi (you probably don’t remember him) and Jimmy Yang (called Yang here) and Knoble/Karagis are Jamie Knoble and Evan Karagis (you probably shouldn’t remember him either). Shannon and Kaz start us off. They’re actually making them tag here in a ladder match. I give up. Things speed up and Shannon tries to get a ladder which fails due to Evan.

 

They finally go after the ladders with 3 Count staying behind and getting one in the ring on their own first. Smart idea if I do type so myself. The Dragons run in for the save as we see the issue here: since one person can win, neither can run interference. As you would expect they drop the tagging almost immediately and the big war starts. I’m not even going to try to call the stuff here as it’s moving way too fast.

 

The title shot is tomorrow apparently. Karagis goes up but his partner makes the save. Yang drills them both and sets a ladder in the corner. Shannon takes a corkscrew moonsault off the second rope from Yang. Kaz takes Shane out as we hit the everyone hits a bunch of big dives and one guy (Knoble) is smart enough to just go up the ladder. Yang gets up and shoves the ladder over.

 

Tony actually tries to explain the slow climbs once you get to the top, in this case because you lose your balance at the top. Makes sense actually. They set a latter in the middle of the ring and put another one in between the rungs and make it a platform between the ladder in the ring and the middle rope. A bunch of people go up and come down, culminating with Helms getting a neckbreaker on Knoble.

 

There’s now a pair of ladders in the ring and the race is on. Yang, 3 Count and Knoble all go up so Shane gets a sunset bomb to Knoble, leaving Yang and Shannon up there. And there they go as well. Knoble goes up but the Dragon’s dominatrix manager Leia Meow makes the save. A third ladder comes in and make that a fourth as there’s one on the mat.

 

The Dragons take over and they use the four ladders to make a pretty solid scaffold. 3 Count takes them down and Kaz is sent flying into the ladder used as the bridge in the scaffold. 3 Count goes up but Knoble and Karagis makes the save. Knoble and Kaz go up to the bridge but Evan knocks Kaz off. Now it’s Yang vs. Helms on the bridge but Shannon does something similar to skinning the cat to pop up there and get Yang down. Knoble gets tossed and 3 Count grabs the contract at the same time so it would be a triple threat the next night.

 

Rating: A-. Awesome match here. It’s not as good as the TLC matches but then again the talent here wasn’t as solid. However this is well worth seeing and I’d bet it’s the match of the year for WCW already. Here’s where you can tell the difference between WCW and WWF though. This is about 3 and a half months before TLC 2 at Mania X7. That’s the match where Edge hit the spear on Jeff Hardy.

 

Later that year, Edge was the King of the Ring and got the Intercontinental Title where he feuded with Christian. Jeff got it even earlier, winning it in May. In other words, half of the six guys in that match won a singles midcard title within 8 months of that match. I think Matt got the European Title in there somewhere also. In other words, they put their bodies on the line (this is being written the day after Edge announced his retirement so in his case it’s almost literally) and gave us a great match. And for that, they were rewarded.

 

Do you think any of these guys did anything but mess around in the Cruiserweight division until WCW died? Of course that’s all they did. And why shouldn’t they? All they’re doing is having the best matches of the night every show and getting the crowd into them. But they’re not stars, so they can’t be anywhere near a push because then the fans might get entertained by them, and WCW could NEVER let that happen, and that’s why WCW isn’t around today.

 

Lance Storm comes up to the reluctant Canadian Jim Duggan (just go with it). Basically Duggan was going to get fired unless he joined Team Canada so they turned him heel but he missed America and couldn’t rejoin it or something.

 

Jeff Jarrett talks to Mike Sanders and doesn’t want a street fight. He wants a bunkhouse match. They agree to have both. They’re the same thing anyway so who cares.

 

Kronik agrees to do something for payment afterwards which is against their policy. They’re in a steam bath and towels for no apparent reason.

 

Lance Storm vs. The Cat

 

Cat kept getting pushes and I have no idea why. He has Ms. Jones with him who is rather attractive and Storm has Major Gunns who is rather appealing. Storm runs down America, blasting them for taking over a month to get through the elections and pointing out that the man with more votes didn’t win. Yep that’s the logic here in America. Never got that but who cares about logic right?

 

Cat wants his music for some dancing. After a few seconds it starts as we’re told that Cat cost Storm the US Title at Mayhem. We get a USA chant from the patriotic/xenophobic crowd. Storm hits the floor to try to kill them off a bit as we wonder where Hacksaw is. They shove each other a lot to start and Cat gyrates a bit. They fight over a wristlock and Cat fires off some kicks.

 

Gunns distracts Cat and Storm gets a shot in. Catfight is teased but the guys break it up. The girls get in the ring and the men break it up again to a chorus of booing. Storm hammers away with very basic offense. He sets for a suplex but gets reversed when he talks too much. Off to a chinlock as this has been rather boring so far. Cat fires back with nothing but strikes because it’s all he knows how to do.

 

Prime Time Elix Skipper drills Cat to take over so Cat beats him up in return. This is rather dull. Storm sends him into the railing so Ms. Jones tries to kick him. Storm ducks and the referee gets his head kicked off in a SICK shot. Dropkick to the back of Jones by Gunns as everyone is down. Storm gets his gorgeous springboard missile dropkick but the referee is delayed. Big kick by Cat gets two as does a Northern Lights suplex from Storm. Here’s Duggan to a big face reaction. He gives Cat a terribly weak shot (intentional) to the back and Storm gets his half crab to win. Whatever.

 

Rating: D. This was terribly boring. I never got the appeal of this feud at all and I don’t think anyone else did either. Cat was terribly boring the entire time that he got a midcard push but that never stopped him anyway. Weak match, bad ending, but you had two hot women….who never fought. Brilliant guys.

 

Team Canada beats Duggan down post match and Cat makes the save. He’s taking this “you hit me and cost me the match 30 seconds ago” quite well.

 

Mike Awesome gets here in an ambulance.

 

Buff Bagwell is the new interviewer and talks to the Filthy Animals. Apparently there won’t be a bunkhouse brawl and a street fight but rather one at the same time. They look like idiots and Konnan tries to sound cool. He fails.

 

Reno and Big Vito are coming to the ring when the Natural Born Thrillers say Reno can come back anytime.

 

Hardcore Title: Crowbar vs. Terry Funk

 

Crowbar is champion and loves the 70s here. Oh dear. Isn’t there already a 70s guy named Mike Awesome? They fight in the back to start as Funk jumps him. A shot into a truck gets two. Funk has been gone for months and everyone is shocked that he appears and has a title shot. I love jokes like that which poke fun at the company without meaning to. All Funk so far as Daffney screams a lot.

 

Crowbar gets a shot in with something that was apparently the grill of a car for two. They’re in the back of a big truck here. Crowbar hammers away to knock him out of the truck but can’t do it. Funk gets a hip toss to send him through a table and Funk chases Daffney away. Low blow puts Funk down and he keeps getting up. Yes, we get it: he can get hit and keep standing up.

 

A door gets slammed on Funk’s head and it’s handcuff time. Another low blow gets Funk out of it and he slams the same door on Crowbar’s head. You can see the video screen over their shoulders which is a weird visual since it’s backwards. Crowbar gets handcuffed and Funk hammers him with a chair. Hmm where have I see this before? They fight into the arena with a car door, although Crowbar is still handcuffed.

 

More chair shots follow and Funk sets up a table at ringside. Funk sets for an Asai Moonsault but Daffney pulls Crowbar off the table. Crowbar manages a chair shot despite being handcuffed which is somewhat impressive. He chokes Funk with the cuffs and gets a pescado through Funk through the table. Since Funk gets up first, Daffney hits Funk with a chair for two. Funk gets some more chair shots and a Piledriver onto the door for the title.

 

Rating: D. Yes, Terry Funk, a mere 56 years old here, is a champion in WCW. This is what they thought was the best move for WCW which blows my mind again and again. Honestly, who thought Terry Funk was a good draw at this point? Isn’t that what a champion is supposed to be? This company never got it and never would, which is why they died.

 

Team Canada blasts Duggan and Gunns messes up her one line. Gene says she can fly that Canadian flag on another pole.

 

Lex Luger, a top heel at this point, is getting ready for Goldberg.

 

Big Vito/Reno vs. Kronik

 

Well we get the very hot Marie here. Kronik is taking pay from someone to take the Italians out. Kronik was the APA ripoff that never went anywhere because everyone knew it was an APA ripoff. They imply Marie is the one paying them and she says it’s not her as the brawl starts. The Italians do their usual stuff which gets them beaten down even more. Clark vs. Vito at the moment with Clark in control.

 

Vito gets a “Mafia Kick” to take Clark down. That’s an insult to Chono. Adams wants the money from Marie now and Vito beats him up for it. When I say beats up I mean glares at Adams while Clark gets up so he can hit a flip at him. Marie still has no idea what Adams is talking about. This is a mess. Reno tries to make a save but gets stopped so it’s Adams vs. Vito at the moment.

 

Clothesline gets two for Vito but won’t tag. Note that Reno hasn’t been in yet and I think we all know what that means. Reno makes a save and I have a feeling that’s all he’s going to do during this match. Clark gets a belly to back and hits the chinlock. The Natural Born Thrillers, led by Commissioner Mike Sanders, come out to watch. Vito tries to fight both of them off and that fails as much as his future crossdressing gimmick.

 

He and Clark collide in a double crossbody and it’s finally the tag to Reno. Say it with me: Reno turns on Vito, hitting Roll the Dice (Cross Rhodes) to end it. Oh and Reno pins Vito for no apparent reason and Reno reveals himself as the financial backer before rejoining the Thrillers. Kronik beats Vito down post match.

 

Rating: D+. And most of that is for Marie looking good. This was a boring match with a boring and predictable feud. The Italians never went anywhere but they kept doing it anyway because they had no other ideas and the theory of cutting people was totally foreign to them so this is what you get.

 

3 Count says they’re the #1 contenders and to be fair it was a tag match so technically they both won. Chavo beats them down, saying they didn’t work hard enough.

 

MIA says they’re not splitting up. Rection (Bill DeMott) says this is about the US Title, which he holds at the moment.

 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Mike Awesome

 

This is an ambulance match. Awesome is also a 70s guy because two of the same gimmick in one company is fine. Thankfully he takes the 70s clothes off and has his regular gear on underneath. We get a Lawrence Taylor reference because we’ve gone over an hour without making a WWF reference. They stay in the ring for maybe 9 seconds and hit the floor. Weapons are used all over the place with Awesome in control.

 

Bigelow gets a cup of something and throws it at Awesome to take over. They fight up to the ambulance as this is pretty dull so far. It’s not a bad match but it’s nothing we haven’t seen a dozen times this year already. Awesome says he’s putting Bigelow in but gets the door slammed on him for his trouble. Window gets busted out by Bigelow missing a right hand.

 

They leave the ambulance place and head back towards the ring because they’re not that smart. The fans chant for Goldberg out of boredom. They fight to the announce table and it’s the same kind of brawl as you would expect here. It’s the same thing we’ve seen time and time again and it’s not interesting anymore. They put a table in front of the ring and Awesome, the guy that set it up, goes through it via a backdrop.

 

We head over to the ambulance again with Bigelow in firm control. You know I hadn’t realized it but both of the people in this are dead and one in the previous match was as well. That’s always rather disturbing. Bigelow rips the lights off the top of the ambulance and Awesome knocks him through the roof of the ambulance. And no one cares.

 

Rating: D. The match wasn’t terrible but at the same time Mike Awesome was a waste of talent here as he was thrown into matches with old guys for hardcore matches again and again and no one cared. Dude, he’s a freaking MONSTER and he’s doing this. And people wonder why WCW went out of business. And yes I know I’ve said that a lot but it’s so obvious that the company is screwing up left and right.

 

Reno says his family is the Thrillers. Sanders isn’t worried about the tag title match later. They say they have a gift for Gene later.

 

US Title: Shane Douglas vs. General Rection

 

Shane has been feuding with the MIA for no apparent reason. Rection is the champion here. Torrie, Shane’s valet, isn’t here tonight and Shane blames Rection. Shane jumps Rection and we’re off and jogging. They chop it out in the corner and we hear about the US Title being the #1 contender belt. I wonder how often that actually happened as I can remember only a handful of times.

 

Out to the floor with Rection badly missing kicks to the head but Shane selling them anyway. To the announce table for about the 5^th time tonight. We head back in and Shane pulls the ropes up to crotch the General and take over. Rection says HIT ME so Shane walks into a bearhug. Madden talks about the MIA (Misfits in Action) all leaving Rection at this point.

 

The fans chant boring and I can’t argue all that hard. Morrus’ answer? More bearhug. Shane breaks up an attempt at the moonsault and hits a swinging neckbreaker. We go to the floor after a Shane beatdown to see Morrus pick him up and ram him into….something and Shane is busted open. Allegedly the back of Shane’s head hit the post and it hit it so hard it busted open the wrong side of his head.

 

The moonsault misses again and Douglas pulls the chain out of his tights. You could call either the real thing or the joke a foreign object I guess. Morrus knocks it out of his hand and here’s former MIA member Chavo. Chavo gets the chain and throws it to Shane, then shows the referee that Shane has the weapon.

 

Rating: D. Again, THIS WAS DULL. That’s been the problem with the whole show other than the opener. None of these matches make me think this is the biggest show of the year. They make me think this is a glorified Nitro and that I want to get to the next match because it means we’re that much closer to the end of the show. Absolutely terrible so far and this was another boring and not very good match.

 

Big beatdown by Shane on both guys follows until the other two Misfits come out for the save. Each checks on one guy and it seems we have a split. Yeah I don’t care either.

 

Scott Steiner says he’s going to win and implies sex with multiple women.

 

Glacier is coming again and the announcers make fun of the whole idea.

 

The Insiders, DDP and Nash, have a title shot tonight and are with Bagwell here. They make fun of being old and that they make a ton of money.

 

Jeff Jarrett/Harris Brothers vs. Filthy Animals

 

The Animals are Kidman, Konnan and the unmasked Rey. This is a bunkhouse (meaning street fight) street fight. There are a bunch of weapons around the ring such as a popcorn machine, a bar (as in NORM!) and a shopping cart full of aluminum cans. At least we get Tygress gyrating. She’s on commentary here also. Naturally this is a total brawl with all kinds of weapons everywhere.

 

Rey and Kidman have a Harris in the ring and that’s done in seconds as that Harris goes into the popcorn maker. The Animals are in control here and the Bronco Buster goes all around. Well except for on Jarrett who gets his foot up and kicks Rey in the balls, much to Tygress’ sadness. Jarrett tries to superplex Kidman onto the bar but instead it’s something like a double spinebuster with Kidman and Rey putting Jarrett through the bar for two.

 

Double bulldog onto a Harris onto a sign onto a trashcan. Getting what we’re up against here? Rey gets a Boom Drop while sitting on a street sign off the middle rope. Apparently this feud started over Rey vs. Jarrett. Rey gets powerbombed into a dumpster via the master of Slapnuts. Everyone beats on Kidman and now, 8 minutes into the match, we start tagging. I give up.

 

Double big boot by the Harrisses mostly misses Kidman. Jarrett gets a sweet dropkick for no cover on Billy. Off to a sleeper now as Konnan checks to make sure that Rey is still alive. Kidman reverses as Tony talks about drinks, sandwiches and laxatives. It was a different time. There’s the balmy 70 degree tag to Konnan who beats up various people until he walks into the H Bomb.

 

This is the Nashville World Order. Just stop guys. Just stop. Table comes in as Madden wonders why there are so many tables under the ring which is a fair question. Rey gets out of the dumpster with a broom and the announcers talk about a clean sweep. Jarrett gets put on the table, only for Rey to dive over him and get dropped through it himself. Kidman fights Jarrett a bit and hits the Kid Crusher. He goes for the Shooting Star though and gets drilled with a beer bottle. Stroke ends him soon thereafter.

 

Rating: C-. This was better than you would think actually. They hammered on each other and until the stupid tagging part came in, this was a pretty fun brawl. The problem is that this was what….the fourth brawl out of six or seven matches? The overkill caught up with them here and it made the match that would have been good seem a bit weaker by comparison.

 

Sarge, the guy that trained Goldberg, says he wished he would fight Luger later. Luger jumps him and leaves him laying. Good for him as Sarge is said to be one of the biggest jerks in wrestling history, including saying that Batista had no future in wrestling and treating him like nothing.

 

The announcers talk about Goldberg’s second streak and how Luger can’t beat him on his own so he has to use stuff like this. Yes, make Goldberg madder. That’ll make the match easier no?

 

We recap the Insiders vs. the Thrillers. The idea is that the old guys beat them already at Mayhem but Sanders stripped them because he could.

 

Tag Titles: Insiders vs. Perfect Event

 

DDP/Nash vs. Stasiak/Palumbo if you’re luckily not familiar. Before the match, Flair, the boss with spiky hair here, says that if Sanders moves towards the ring then the Insiders get the titles. Flair making a token appearance at Starrcade is ok with me. Sanders yells at the commentators here and says something about cupcakes. We hear the “Page is 45, looks 35 and wrestles 25” line. Palumbo vs. Nash to start with Nash of course plowing through him.

 

Palumbo gets a clothesline to put him down but misses the elbow. Nash tags as I continue to wonder how Page fell so far in like a year. I think it was the haircut actually. Off to Stasiak who gets chopped not that hard. Stasiak’s balls get attached to the pole which is how they’re designed to be I think. Page gets a belly to belly for two. Diamond Cutter doesn’t work so he settles for a Rock Bottom (called a chokeslam which is close enough) for two. He sets for the Diamond Cutter again but has to turn around to look for Palumbo to break it up. Jungle (Super) kick puts Page down and the champions take over.

 

Chuck gets an overhead belly to belly and stops a Page comeback so he can send in Stasiak. Ok never mind as it’s back to Palumbo seconds later. DDP fights out of the corner and does the falling into Stasiak’s crotch spot ala Sting. If you didn’t get the idea the first time around, Page fights out of the corner again, this time with a discus lariat. Both guys go down again until we finally get the tag to Nash.

 

Nash cleans house and Pages takes a low blow. The double team move by the champions gets two and Stasiak takes a Cutter on the floor. Belt shot gets two for Palumbo and the other Thrillers get beaten down with relative ease by Page. Big boot and Jackknife to Palumbo give the Insiders the titles.

 

Rating: C-. Very standard tag match here which was fine although I do wonder why they did the title change the previous month in more or less the same match. Oh that’s right: it gives Nash and Page two title changes instead of one. The Diamond Cutter still gets a good reaction which is the sign of a good finisher. Anyway, basic match here and possibly the second best match of the night, which is a bad sign.

 

We recap Goldberg vs. Luger. The idea is that Goldberg has to get to 177-0, breaking his old streak, to get another world title shot. Luger beat up Goldberg’s trainer to set this up.

 

Lex Luger vs. Goldberg

 

This is a rematch from Mayhem. Goldberg is on a 30 match winning streak here. Luger just fell apart after about 1998. Goldberg jumps him before the bell rings and we’re on the floor early. Luger tries to run go Bill beats on him even more in the aisle. This is a total domination. Luger finally shoves him into the post to break the momentum a bit. This is no holds barred apparently, meaning we have ANOTHER no DQ match.

 

Bagwell and Sarge come out and you can smell the SHOCKING yes SHOCKING I SAY heel turn coming a mile away. Also a little over 11 years ago in the past but maybe that’s implied. Goldberg gets a big shoulder and sets for the spear. Luger pulls the referee in front like last month but Goldberg pulls up in time. Sarge goes down and Luger gets a shot with brass knuckles for two. Bagwell sets for a Blockbuster which he of course hits Goldberg with, continuing his bromance with Luger. Buff drills Sarge on the floor as the Rack gets blocked. Spear and Jackhammer end Luger.

 

Rating: D+. Big brawl here which again, WE SAW IT EARLIER. The heel turn went nowhere of course other than setting up the tag match next month where Goldberg lost, never to be seen in WCW again. It’s another stupid turn for the sake of a stupid turn but that’s WCW for you. Not much of a match but it could have been worse.

 

Buff pops Goldberg with a chair and leaves with Luger. Yes, a chair from Buff Bagwell put Goldberg down. I’m done.

 

Goldberg picks up some fan that said he wanted to meet Goldberg. That’s always cool to see.

 

We recap Sid vs. Steiner. Sid was the big surprising return and no one, I mean no one, cared.

 

WCW World Title: Sid Vicious vs. Scott Steiner

 

We hear about various title matches at Starrcade. None of them are anywhere nearly as weak as this one……not even…..hang on a second…….not even Flair vs…….bear with me here……Flair vs. Garvin. Man that was hard to write. Midajah is gorgeous other than her face. Sid is in long tights which I never remember seeing him in. Steiner chops away so Sid pounds him down.

 

This is going to be one of those matches where they have to shoot each other to get the other to sell right? Steiner wants a test of strength and Steiner dominates it with ease. Sid breaks it up and gets a leg drop for two. They head to the floor and Midajah hits him with the pipe. Chair to the side of the head as I’m assuming this is no DQ also.

 

Back in the ring and Scott dominates. The horribly weak looking chinlock goes on but Sid reaches him arm over maybe a good 8 inches to get the rope for the break. It goes back on in the middle of the ring but Sid just stands up. Midajah hits a cross body to Steiner by mistake and Sid adds a chokeslam for two.

 

Cobra clutch by Sid but Steiner pops the referee. Pipe to the back of Sid as this is breaking down by the second. Another referee is here and it gets two. Jarrett comes down as apparently this is our big surprise for the show. The guitar shot hits Scott though for two as Jeff pulls the referee out. In a cool sight, Jarrett swings at thto e referee but Robinson (referee) ducks, slides in, and counts two again. Powerbomb is blocked by a low blow and a few seconds later Sid passes out in the Recliner to keep the title on Steiner.

 

Rating: D-. To the shock of no one, this was a mess. Jarrett and Steiner are apparently the big heel alliance now and no one cares. Of course Steiner, allegedly a nightmare backstage at this point, continues his Superman push. The match ran like 10 minutes. From Race vs. Flair….to this. Let that sink in for a bit. Steiner holding up the belt with one of the side plates falling off is a sad sight indeed.

 

Overall Rating: D. I’ve seen worse shows, but the problem here is that other than the ladder match, absolutely nothing here feels like it belongs on a major PPV. I mean really, the ladder match is worth seeing (although it’s got nothing on the first TLC matches or the triangle ladder match but still) but other than that, I’m not going to remember a thing on this show in about two hours.

 

They managed to make Starrcade, once the biggest show in the world, into nothing more than a run of the mill show. This was a great example of why the company died. There was no reason for the main event to happen, no one wanted to see it, the people in it were never going anywhere, there were ten matches and you could argue six of them were weapons/hardcore based matches and there was one match worth watching with the people in it never getting a push. This my friends is WCW and that is why it died. Off to Sin.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #98
Date: July 28, 1997
Location: Charleston Civic Center, Charleston, West Virginia
Attendance: 9,575
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Larry Zbyszko, Tony Schiavone

Back on Monday here as we’re getting closer and closer to Road Wild. Hopefully we can continue the roll they’re on that started last week. The main stories going are on what side is Hennig on and Luger vs. Hogan, both of which should wind up being interesting ideas. Other than that there are some decent stories going on and I’m enjoying this show more lately. Let’s get to it.

The Nitro Girls do their thing.

Curt Hennig/Ric Flair vs. Vicious and Delicious

Hennig (POP) starts with Norton. Scott elbows Hennig down almost immediately and chops him to the floor. We head inside for Hennig’s arm work to go nowhere, so here’s Flair. Nice job of making your new guy look inept there WCW. Norton runs Flair over and hits a big shoulder block to take him down again. Off to Bagwell but his posing lets Hennig get in a shot to the back of Buff’s head to slow things down. Buff pounds on Flair in the corner so Flair chops him down.

Bagwell misses a dropkick and it’s Figure Four time. Hennig and Norton get in a fight and Flair lets the hold go for no apparent reason. We take a break and come back with Norton choking Flair in the corner. Flair pounds back at Norton but double teaming puts him down again. Norton and Bagwell double team Flair for a bit but Bagwell gets chopped down, allowing the hot tag to Hennig. House is cleaned and Syxx goes after Flair. Flair pulls Norton. to the floor and the PerfectPlex pins Bagwell.

Rating: C-. Really basic match here which was designed to put Hennig over. It did a better job at putting Norton over but at least they were trying. Hennig would be the biggest story in the company for the next few weeks, and unlike Jarrett a few months before, Hennig would actually be OVER by the end of it. See what talent and charisma can get you? Jarrett had talent but it wasn’t the right character for him at all.

Here’s Luger for a chat. By chat I mean strip session to show off how ripped he is. Luger talks about how ready he is for Hogan. However, he mentions a clause in Hogan’s contract that says Hogan has to defend his title every so often, so next week it’s Hogan vs. Luger for the title.

TV Title: Prince Iaukea vs. Ultimo Dragon

Dragon is defending and runs the Prince over to start. The headstand in the corner mesmerizes another opponent and the champ puts on a reverse chinlock. The wide section of empty chairs that were full during the first match is a telling sign about the interest in this match. Then again, the people in the match could probably tell you the same thing. Dragon loads up the super rana but Prince superplexes him down instead. We get a pinfall reversal sequence before Iaukea dropkicks the champ down for no cover. A superkick gets two and Iaukea blocks the Dragon Sleeper. The second attempt works though and Prince taps.

Rating: D+. Dragon was good but man alive Iaukea wasn’t interesting at all. The problem with the TV Title is that it went on guys the fans were given no reason to care about. Dragon is indeed very talented and can put on entertaining matches, but his matches aren’t great enough to make people overlook his lack of personality. That’s the problem with a lot of the luchadores and other guys in WCW and there was no way around it.

Here’s Flair who says that Hennig is officially the newest Horseman. Here’s Hennig who says he’s not a Horseman but Flair says Hennig is just laying low.

Texas Hangmen vs. Steve McMichael/Chris Benoit

The Hangmen are Mean Mike and Tough Tom. They’re masked guys who I have seen in Memphis wrestling before. Benoit starts with let’s say Tom and gets hit by Mike in the back to give Tom the advantage. Off to Mongo who runs over both Hangmen and powerslams Mike down. Some clotheslines do the same thing and we’ve got a phone call for Tony from the Outsiders. Hall tells Tony he better accepts the charges. Tony: “Well if it’s 1-800 Collect I will.”

They were a sponsor at the time, making that somewhere between clever and eye roll inducing. The match gets ignored as the Hangmen take over on Mongo. Steve comes back with a bulldog and there’s the tag to Benoit. The call finally ends as everything breaks down. Mongo can barely tombstone Mike but it sets up the Crossface by Benoit for the win.

Rating: D. Phone call aside, this wasn’t very good. The Hangmen were jobbers and that’s fine, but the Horsemen looked to have a lot of trouble with them which they shouldn’t have had. Not a good match or anything and it didn’t showcase the Horsemen. The phone call didn’t help anything either, especially since it didn’t accomplish anything and it only said the Outsiders would be on the show next week.

Cruiserweight Title: Chris Jericho vs. Alex Wright

Jericho is defending here. The opening part of the match is ignored for the sake of house show ads as Wright slaps Jericho in the corner. They fight for arm control with the champion taking Alex to the mat. Those big stretches of empty seats in the crowd are kind of distracting. A spinwheel kick puts Wright down and out to the floor, causing the match to come to a halt.

Jericho dives onto Wright but gets suplexed down to change momentum. Wright stomps Jericho down in the corner but misses a top rope knee drop. The Lionsault hits Wright’s back but Jericho doesn’t cover. Wright goes to the apron and gets put in a sleeper by Jericho who is in the ring. Alex guillotines him down and hits a German suplex for the clean pin and the title.

Rating: C. This was an interesting match as you had Wright losing most of the first few matches after his turn before winning the title completely clean here. The fact that it was a clean pin helps, but I’m not exactly sure what the point was in jobbing him out the last few weeks to give him the belt here. Still though, not bad.

Here are Jarrett, Malenko and Debra with something to say. Dean says he’s in with Jarrett and Debra is shaking hands with Wright as he walks up the ramp. Apparently Jarrett was seen with Eddie Guerrero on Saturday Night and Dean isn’t cool with that. Jeff says people just want to be with winners. Debra runs her mouth of course. Thank goodness Jeff and Debra would leave in just a few months.

Hour #2 begins and the pyro is back.

Syxx vs. Diamond Dallas Page

They slug it out to start until Page busts out a pumphandle backbreaker for two. That’s a new move for him I believe. A neckbreaker puts Syxx down as well, followed by an elbow to put him on the floor. Syxx comes back with some kicks in the corner and there’s the Bronco Buster. Vincent comes out but Page avoids the Buzzkill. He hits the Cutter on Syxx but the Vincent distraction lets Hennig come in and blast Page with something in the back of the head. Syxx gets the easy pin.

Rating: D+. This didn’t have the time to get anywhere but the match was more about an angle than the wrestling. Page was on such a roll at this point that seeing him lose was actually a shocking sight. Today, you see people losing almost all the time, which makes wins and losses mean very little.

Tony: “CLEARLY CURT HENNIG IS PART OF THE NWO!” Very clearly indeed.

Dean Malenko vs. Hector Guerrero

This should be good. They head to the mat to start with both guys fighting for arm control. Dean takes Hector down with a snap mare as we hear about a Bobby Heenan personal appearance in Milwaukee. He says he’s the human being that made Milwaukee famous, which should get a chuckle out of old school fans. Off to a headscissors on the mat by Malenko but Hector escapes into a modified STF. They trade rollups out of the corner followed by a sunset flip for two for Guerrero. Here are Jarrett and Debra as Dean puts the Cloverleaf on for the tap out.

Rating: C-. Technically fine but this Jarrett stuff is really dull. Allegedly he’s trying to form his own team to fight the Horsemen, but at the end of the day it’s Jeff Jarrett leading the charge. That makes it pretty hard to get interested in the team at all, especially with Debra getting to talk about them every week. Nothing special to see here.

Chavo Guerrero comes out to check on his uncle and gets beaten up as well.

Konnan speaks Spanish and says he doesn’t like Rey. Apparently Rey is filling an Affirmative Action quota. Of Americans? Konnan vs. La Parka later.

Lee Marshall is in Detroit.

Giant comes out for his match but Savage is in the crowd with something to say to him. They’ve got a match at Road Wild. Giant says what Savage is about to see is just a preview.

Giant vs. Great Muta

The bell rings and here’s Eric Bischoff to commentary. Thankfully during his full entrance and the walk to the desk, nothing happened in the ring. Muta fires off some fast kicks but gets caught in the corner and chopped a lot. Giant pounds away in the corner so Muta bails to the floor. Back in and Muta goes to the eyes before firing off some dropkicks. Some more shots to the knees take Giant down and there’s the Muta Elbow. Giant shoves him off of a cover and shrugs off some top rope shots. He grabs Muta by the throat and after covering his eyes from the Mist, the chokeslam gets the pin.

Rating: D+. What did you expect from this match? There are only a handful of ways to fight Giant and going after the knee is the mos common answer. The covering of the eyes is one of those things that seems to be common sense but no one ever does. Muta is a really talented guy but he was basically a jobber in the NWO. Much like the rest of the show, nothing of note to see here.

Post match Larry Z comes to the announcers’ desk and grabs Bischoff. He drags Eric to the ring for a chokeslam to a good pop.

Konnan vs. La Parka

Konnan immediately beats him down and hits his rolling clothesline. La Parka dropkicks him out of the air and hits a legdrop for two. Tony of course is gushing about the chokeslam. La Parka gets a chair with Konnan’s name on it but Konnan dropkicks it into his face. 187 and Tequila Sunrise end La Parka. Quick match.

Psychosis comes out for the save post match.

The announcers talk about the world title match next week and we get a phone call from JJ Dillon. Apparently he and the executive committee want Sting back in the ring by September.

Randy Savage vs. Scott Steiner

Savage slaps him in the face to start before shoving referee Randy Anderson into Scott to take him down. Steiner comes back with a gorilla press slam to send Savage to the floor. Savage throws a chair into the ring and we take a break. Back with Steiner hitting a belly to belly suplex, sending Savage to the floor. Just like old times, Randy hides behind Liz and sends Scott knees first into the steps.

They fight into the crowd with Scott in trouble. Back to ringside and Steiner is rammed into the barricade to keep Randy in control. We head back inside and Scott catches Savage off the top in another belly to belly. Rick and Liz get in an argument, allowing Steiner to backdrop Savage over the top and out to the floor, which should be a DQ. Now Steiner throws Savage into the crowd, possibly injuring Randy’s shoulder.

Back to ringside and they brawl a bit more with Scott maintaining control. Steiner gets two on a small package followed by a butterfly powerbomb for no cover. A Super Frankensteiner puts Savage down but Liz throws in her shoe. Cue the Outsiders for the SHOCKING, yes SHOCKING I SAY, run-in DQ.

Rating: C. This wasn’t bad but it was mainly brawling. Scott didn’t know how to wrestle a main event style match at this point but his singles push was coming. Granted it was years before it actually worked but they were trying at least. The ending was obvious because the announcers were so sure that the Outsiders weren’t there that they had to be there. As usual, not much to see here.

Post match the Outsiders beat down the Steiners until Giant makes the save. He calls out Nash but Nash hides behind security. The security steps aside and says go get him….but we’re out of time. Well we could see Nash get in, but we need to see Giant chokeslam Bischoff one more time to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. The show wasn’t terrible but this felt like a big commercial for next week’s show which in theory is a commercial for the PPV the following Saturday. On top of that, considering there’s a world title match the next week, there wasn’t a lot of focus on it. It seems more like Giant vs. Savage is the world title match when you look at how much hype they got. The matches here were nothing special either.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

December to Dismember
Date: December 3, 2006
Location: James Brown Arena, Augusta, Georgia
Attendance: 4,800
Commentators: Joey Styles, Tazz

So this is more or less considered the standard for worst WWE PPV of all time. There are quite a few reasons for that and I’d say it’s likely true. Number one is Vince McMahon. Heyman was told to run this show and he put together a run sheet and the endings to matches etc.

Since Big Show had made it clear that he was leaving the company as soon as his contract was up two days after the show, the title change was clearly coming. Heyman’s original idea was Punk and Show start the Chamber match and Punk gets Show to tap out inside of four minutes. Punk liked it, Heyman liked it, Show LOVED it, the writers liked it, Vince hated it.

Vince insisted on Lashley getting the belt and a massive celebration ending the show. Heyman said allegedly three or four times that this was going to bomb. It did indeed bomb and guess what happened. Yep, Vince blamed Heyman for the whole thing and Paul quit/was thrown out. The second issue here is that we had seen Survivor Series SEVEN DAYS EARLIER.

Yeah, this is our second PPV in two weeks, so of course the buyrate was through the floor. That was of course Heyman’s fault too. Finally, this was called an ECW show. The problem was it was more or less a really long episode of the TV show with a bit main event. This wasn’t like the TV show now either. This was back when the show was awful and more or less held together with tape and gum every week. Let’s get this over with.

Of course the opening video is all about the Chamber. Oh, it’s an EXTREME Elimination Chamber as the four in pods will all have weapons. Give me a break.

Joey says this show might be infamous. That’s just amusing. He follows this by freaking up and saying there will be a new champion tonight. Thanks for the spoiler Joey.

MNM vs. Hardys

This was an open challenge that was accepted by MNM. Who cares that neither was on ECW at the time? This was one of two matches announced for the show. What does that tell you? MNM beat up the Hardys on Tuesday and that’s all there is to it. Jeff is IC Champion here by the way. Matt and Mercury start us off.

The Hardys are dominating and throw in a spin cycle which is always a cool move. It’s like a double suplex but they spin the other guy around. It’s hard to explain. And now we get the weird part of this: ECW chants by fans that actually think this is a real ECW show. They start a she’s a crack w**** chant at Melina and no one knows how to react to it.

Matt hits splash mountain on Nitro (Morrison) for two. Apparently Melina has herpes. This show really was doomed from the start on this. I didn’t know Scott Armstrong was refereeing this far back. Tazz isn’t helping things either with his idiotic commentary. To be fair though, he could be far more annoying, like that scream from Melina.

Tazz throws in that Cole doesn’t like women. If true, I’m not entirely surprised. In a funny bit, MNM go for the Twist of Fate and Swanton but Matt fights off and gets the hot tag to Jeff. Matt hits a Pescado on Mercury which is more or less caught and reversed to set up the big pile of aerial moves which never gets old.

Jeff misses the Swanton as Mercury pulls Nitro out. This has been pretty good so far. Tazz gets off on the screaming I think. Morrison looks weird with blonde hair. It’s MNM in control now as they beat up Jeff. Yeah Tazz is driving me crazy. Melina is a crack w**** again apparently. It amazes me that she was more or less just the sexy valet at this point and became a great worker (by comparison) in just a few years.

They’re being given a lot of time if nothing else as we’re about 15 minutes into this and there seems to be a good amount of time to go in it. Is Tazz supposed to be Jerry Lawler or something? If he is he’s somehow more annoying than Jerry if that’s possible. Jeff gets a Whisper in the Wind out of nowhere to set up the tag to Matt.

In a cool spot, Jeff is tagged back in and goes up. Matt tries to set Mercury up for a powerbomb by handing him to Jeff but Nitro makes the save and then shoves Mercury up to Jeff so he can hit a hurricanrana. That was freaking cool. Nitro accidentally dropkicks Melina and Jeff rolls him up for a LONG two.

Jeff takes the Snapshot but Matt makes the save. This is awesome stuff now. MNM sets for a top rope Snapshot but Matt saves with a double cutter to let Jeff hit a Swanton onto both of them for the pin. By the way, the Snapshot is Nitro holding up the other guy and Mercury hitting an elevated DDT.

Rating: B+. This was very good stuff as they were given a lot of time and it worked very well. This was a way to let MNM look good, even though at the end of the day they weren’t even the best tag team that Morrison was even a part of. Either way this was good stuff and it worked very well. Definitely good, but the show would go all downhill from here.

Van Dam says he’ll win the title tonight.

Matt Striker vs. Balls Mahoney

See what I mean about them not advertising anything? I think you can see why based on this one alone. They had been feuding back in the day and no one cared so let’s have people pay to see the “blowoff” to it. They kept saying that Striker was a former teacher that had to resign but it was never explained why: he got in trouble for going to wrestle at night.

The match tonight is under Striker’s Rules, meaning very strict. There is no eye gouging, no hair pulling, no top rope moves, and no foul language. I didn’t know that Bill Watts booked ECW. Balls comes out to a bad cover of Big Balls. They make jokes about Striker having a picture of himself on his tights.

If there has ever been a match that belonged on TV, this is it. It’s ok, but it’s certainly not worth paying anything for. After even more boring stuff, this time mainly arm work from Balls, he hits the Nutcracker Sweet, of course not called that here, to get the win.

Rating: D. Not only was it boring, but this was something people had to pay to see without it being mentioned or advertised. Other than the opener and the main event, that’s the case all around tonight actually. You’re starting to get the idea why this show is considered awful.

Punk is getting ready.

Sabu is hurt and Hardcore Holly is replacing him in the main event. The fans, knowing what’s going on, loudly chant bull at this.

Sylvester Terkay/Elijah Burke vs. F.B.I.

This FBI is Guido and Tony Mamaluke. Burke is the Pope from TNA, and yet, he’s still overrated and more or less worthless. “But KB, he can talk so well!” Well that would bet true if it wasn’t nonsenes. He’s talking now and he’s annoying me already. Now in TNA he’s a modern day Slick and just as annoying.

The only good thing about the FBI is they have Trinity and she looks very good. Yep, that’s all I’m going to care about here. Terkay is more or less an MMA guy that wrestled. Apparently Tazz needs a cold shower. Can we please get to the end of this show PLEASE? We have a very weak where’s my pizza chant as I feel so sorry for the live fans.

This was a massive slap in the face of all of ECW and its fans, but hey, Vince gets to feel like he killed the place and his delusions of grandeur are fulfilled for one more day right? All is right with the world now. More or less this is a way for Terkay to beat people up. It’s more or less a squash.

Actually screw that: it is a squash. Naturally the ECW guys get their heads handed to them on an ECW show so that the WWE guys can look great. Oh and after the match, Terkay uses a Muscle Buster to get a big TNA chant going. Ok so not big but whatever. Just move on please.

Rating: D-. Screw you Vince. This was just freaking dumb. I get that you hate ECW but if you’re going to rip off the audience like this, screw you.

Sabu is put in an ambulance.

We get an ad for Raw, on an ECW show. This is freaking garbage.

Daivari vs. Tommy Dreamer

Daivari is more commonly known as Sheik Abdul Bashir recently and here he’s known as the manager of the Great Khali. I wonder what’s going to happen here. Dreamer jobbing would be ok I guess. Those poor fans actually think Dreamer has a chance in this. Khali is thrown out. And now no one else cares. It’s Dreamer vs. a tiny guy that never does anything else.

Dreamer gets some of his big spots in to get the crowd going a bit, but naturally as he goes for the DDT, Daivari just rolls him up with the tights for the pin. I hate this show more and more every time. Of course Khali comes out and chokeslams him on the ramp. Tazz is legit tick off as you can tell.

Rating: W. That stands for who possible cares anymore. I’m not even an ECW fan and I’m even an ECW critic and this is ticking me off. Tell me one reason why Daivari should have gone over like that here. If you’re going to have Khali destroy him, fine, but have that be the reason to end the match. This is just mindless.

Dreamer takes forever to get up as we’re an hour and 15 minutes into this and we have two matches left, one of which is a mixed tag.

Ad for See No Evil, which is of course, a WWE thing and not an ECW thing.

I actually took a break at this point to watch a bad Disney Channel movie. That’s how annoyed I am with this show.

Heyman gives Hardcore Holly the spot in the main event. The fans pause and then know what’s coming, as Holly gets the spot. I actually can’t understand Holly’s first line as the fans are booing so loudly. This was a freaking atrocity and it’s pathetic that it has to be. The fans are just freaking dead now.

Ariel/Kevin Thorn vs. Kelly/Mike Knox

Kelly dated Knox apparently. Kelly at this point is an exhibitionist and AWFUL. I mean she’s ridiculously bad so we get Knox and Thorn. Knox has no beard at this point and is somehow more worthless than he was before. Oh dang it they’re letting him talk. Oh good Kelly is talking instead. She likes Punk, who gets a chant. That chant didn’t happen though. No one likes Punk. What people want is HARDCORE HOLLY AND TEST!!!

Thorn is a vampire and Ariel is a fortune telling gypsy or something. She would become Salinas in TNA in case you’re more familiar with them. This is a freaking disgrace. I’m glad no one bought it as it makes things seem a bit better. No one cares about this either as since both girls can’t wrestle we more or less have a Knox vs. Thorn match.

And here they are. At least Kelly looks hot. Kelly tries to get the tag to Knox but he leaves. Note: the fans chant for Punk to come make the save. To make sure it’s clear: Punk is OVER. Sandman makes the save instead which gets a nice pop.

Rating: D-. Kelly looking hot is the only reason this passes. I just want to get to the end of this.

We get a long ad for Armageddon, which was the third PPV in four weeks. WWE was so stupid at this point that I can’t comprehend it.

Some RIDICULOUSLY hot chick named Rebecca interviews Lashley. She can’t talk but she doesn’t need to. It’s mainly about how Lashley has had to put up with a ton of garbage, more or less confirming that he’ll win tonight, which only Vince wanted to see.

Three of the people in the chamber come to the ring together. We get the same exact video as the one that opened the show. Oh man they knew they had jack. We’re about an hour and a half into the show at this point mind you.

Heyman comes out and talks while saying nothing at all. This is nothing more than trying desperately to fill in time.

ECW World Title: CM Punk vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Test vs. Hardcore Holly vs Big Show vs. Rob Van Dam

Now keep in mind, Punk and Lashley were more or less worthless at this point, so the only two legit main event guys you have in there are RVD who was hated by the company at this point and Show who didn’t care as he was leaving in 48 hours. RVD and Holly start. Remember that as soon as each pod opens up, the person comes out with a weapon which I’ll get to as each pod opens.

Holly is booed out of the building. Naturally Vince will insist that it’s because of how great a heel he is or whatever. So we have to watch Holly and Van Dam for five minutes. Oh joy. The entrances took almost ten minutes mind you. The fans are dead here by the way. We get Rolling Thunder on the cage, which is impressive but we’ve seen it before.

They’ve managed to make the Elimination Chamber boring. That’s just impressive. Note: another Punk chant goes up. I can’t emphasize this enough: PUNK IS OVER. In third is Punk and his chair to a freaking ERUPTION. It’s a shame that he didn’t have a chance to win here. And Van Dam kicks the chair into him so he’s down 30 seconds in.

Ok to be fair, they’re the two most over guys in there so that’s ok I guess. Van Dam is bleeding. Apparently you can get pins outside on the cage now. That’s new I think. Heyman is the evil GM here in case you didn’t know. Punk is getting destroyed by Holly here in case you weren’t sure.

Also Punk would have his first loss in the company to Holly in about a month with the justification being that Holly was the bigger star and should go over. Again: if it’s not Vince’s idea, it’s not a good idea. In fourth is Test with a crowbar. Naturally he nails Punk with it. This is freaking stupid. Test and Hardcore Holly are in the MAIN EVENT OF A PAY PER VIEW.

The idea here is that the heels are all working together which is completely pointless considering the idea of the match but that can’t be Vince’s idea. Heyman “booked” this remember? And then Van Dam hits this Five Star and Punk is gone. Yep, the most over guy in the match is out first while Test and Holly get to stick around.

Test puts Holly out ten seconds later with a big boot. It was only a two but the referee calls it three. The announcers and fans are confused but since this show isn’t for the fans it doesn’t matter. Van Dam goes up on top of Big Show’s pod but a chair shot puts him down. Test hits a big elbow off the pod…and Van Dam is out. Let’s see. Why is this stupid? Number one, the most over guy left is Big Show.

Second, now THERE’S NO ONE FOR TEST TO FIGHT, so it’s just dead time now. Third, you had FREAKING TEST beat RVD. We’re still just sitting around after two replays of the elbow and just waiting on ANYTHING to happen. The fans have completely turned on the match at this point and don’t care at all. Thankfully the next guy in is Lashley.

He gets NO pop at all. Heyman’s security try to hold him in the pod, but using the WOODEN table in the pod with him, he breaks the STEEL chains on top of the pod. ARE YOU CENSORED KIDDING ME??? The table is still in the pod mind you so it’s not like it’s even being used. They keep ramming Test into the Plexiglas to set up Lashley vs. Show.

Yeah, that’s what this whole thing is supposed to end with: the massive showdown between Show and a heavily muscled guy. I know I’ve said it before, but Vince has to have repressed homosexual desires towards musclemen. I mean really, is there any doubt of it at this point? The fans HATE this mind you.

A spear puts Test out with a minute and a half left until Show comes out. In other words, we have nothing to do but wait for the time to run out. You might as well quit reading now as you know exactly what’s coming. Show comes in with his barbed wire ball bat and naturally he gets in no offense as it’s ALL Lashley here.

He avoids the chokeslam and they slug it out. Lashley is terrible in the ring at this point mind you, so this is even more torture. And he wins it with a spear. The main event is over two hours and five minutes into the show.

Rating: D-. This was just completely ridiculous for reasons I’ve already gone into. For another thing, SABU, the guy that has somehow made a whole career out of doing stupid stunts in a ring, is left out here in favor of Holly. Are you freaking KIDDING? This was just so dumb and nothing more than Vince deciding that he’s smarter than the fans once again.

And that’s it. No seriously, the show which cost 40 dollars started at 8pm and was over at 10:05pm, the last 4 minutes being the celebration by Lashley. Do I even need to insult this?

Overall Rating: I. For incomplete. Where’s the last 45 minutes of this? I know WWE cuts their shows early, but this was inexcusable. Not only does it end 40 minutes early, but there were two matches allegedly worth seeing and the Hardys vs. MNM was the only good thing of it at all. This wasn’t a PPV. It was Vince making sure that ECW died the way he wanted it to.

If Vince would listen once all night, he could have heard the fans BEGGING for this to be Punk but the rookie muscle guy gets it instead. Heyman was of course blamed for the whole thing because while he wrote the show, it was his third one or so and the only reason he went with it was because Vince wouldn’t accept anything.

Like I said, the initial idea was Punk puts Show out in about three minutes and we end with Van Dam, Punk and Lashley (if we have to) in a 20 minute war. Alas, that would have been entertaining though so they went with Lashley being given the hero push so Vince would have nice wet dreams that night. This was an abomination and not a PPV at all.

Get the Hardys/MNM match if you like tag wrestling, but other than that don’t do anything with this show so Vince doesn’t get anything out of it. This was an insult to the fans at best and an ego trip by Vince of epic proportions.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

As usual, it’s about taking it back to the past.When Ricky Steamboat debuted, he was billed as the nephew of a popular local wrestler named Sam Steamboat.  Shane Douglas was the nephew of Paul Orndorff when he started.  Kane is Undertaker’s brother.  Why not do this more often?  They harp on how important being a second generation guy is all the time now, so why not make it up?  It’s ok to lie to up once in awhile, so why not try something like this?

Simple idea: what do you want from Xanta Claus for Christmas?  My list:1. Less 50/50 booking.

2. Better stories.

3. Less Hogan.

4. Eve Torres

 

Your lists?