I had to get to these eventually I guess. This is widely considered one of the worst series of shows ever and the stage was set for that with the first one. The only good things about the first two are Torrie looking hot on the posters. I don’t think they ever had any idea what they were doing with these shows and the name certainly doesn’t live up to the WCW incarnation. Let’s just plow through these and get them over with.

Great American Bash 2004
Date: June 27, 2004
Location: Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, Virginia
Attendance: 6,500
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

I had to get to do this one eventually. This won worst show of the year according to Meltzer and I can’t disagree with him at all. It’s a double main event with JBL in the world title match and the Undertaker vs. the Dudleys. If the Dudleys win, Paul Bearer is buried in concrete. I’m going to pause to let the idiocy of that sink in for a minute. Let’s get to it.

The opening video has a patriotic theme to it, showing JBL being all awesome. He claims to be a real American while Eddie is a disgrace. Angle also hates Cena so he’s sending him into a fatal fourway. And there’s the stupid Taker vs. Dudleys thing.

Torrie welcomes us to the show. This is Smackdown only.

US Title: John Cena vs. Rene Dupree vs. Booker T vs. Rob Van Dam

This is elimination rules and Cena is champion coming in. Cena fires up the crowd a bit and that’s a LOUD chant for him. He makes gay jokes about Angle in his pre-match rap. Also RVD likes marijuana, Booker used to be GI Bro and Rene Dupree wants to be Cena. This is also a Navy town so Rene is gay right? Booker and RVD go at it as do John and Rene to start us off. This is under tornado rules.

Rob and Booker fight to the floor. I think Rene is the only heel here but I’m not sure on Booker. Off to Rene vs. RVD. Booker is chilling on the floor to avoid getting beaten up which is really smart strategy. Yeah Booker is officially a heel in this. He turned on RVD a few weeks back. See? Cole can be useful at times. Rene hooks a chinlock on RVD to waste some time. Rob fights back and hits a split legged moonsault for two.

Rolling Thunder gets the same. Cena does something for the first time in about four minutes, picking up Rene on the floor, only to get flipped onto by RVD. Cena vs. Rob in the ring now and they exchange near falls. RVD slides to the floor and tells Booker to get in. They get in an argument so RVD throws Booker in for a beating. Cena slides to the floor and throws Rene in to replace him. Cena and RVD are just kind of chilling on the floor.

Dupree hits a powerslam and does the French Tickler (don’t ask) but walks into a Booker spinebuster. Five Star hits Rene but there’s no cover. Cena goes up and gets kicked off by RVD. Five Star hits Booker this time but Cena rolls in and cradles Van Dam for the first elimination. Booker and Dupree team up on Cena with Booker hitting the side kick for two. Rene got the cover and Booker isn’t thrilled with that.

Cena takes advantage of their argument to beat them both up. The fans aren’t exactly thrilled by this match either. Throwback to Booker and Cena pumps it up. FU (noticeably different than the modern version) puts down Dupree. Booker hits an axe kick on Cena and eliminates Rene. So it’s down to one on one now. Side slam gets two and what appeared to be a fast count. Off to a chinlock to kill some time.

The announcers talk about a mini feud Cena has had with Taker. Today, that’s a Wrestlemania dream match. Here, it’s a two week filler feud. Booker chops away in the corner and gets the Jack Brisco spinning sunset flip out of the corner for two. Axe kick misses though and the FU keeps the title on Cena.

Rating: C-. Not bad here, but the problem was in the match structure. With it being elimination rules, it actually made things easier on Cena. Like you saw with Booker and Dupree, you can pretty much just chill on the floor for two eliminations and then get it down to a one on one match. Then again, Cena pinned RVD first anyway so he would have won either way, which again begs the question of why it wasn’t just one fall. That would be because they needed to fill an extra seven minutes.

Cena walks through the back and hits on Jackie Gayda. He leaves and Angle rolls up to yell at Charlie Haas, who is with Jackie. Charlie defends himself and gets thrown into a match with Luther Reigns tonight.

Sable is in a hot tub and says the Divas will be hosting the show tonight. She’ll be interviewing herself. Sable faces Torrie tonight and says she’s hotter than Torrie. Ok then.

Charlie Haas vs. Luther Reigns

Good thing Charlie just happened to be in gear and right by the entrance isn’t it? Power vs. speed here to start but Charlie is in over his head here. Reigns hammers away and is very slow. I mean REALLY slow. A kick puts Haas down as we hear about how Angle can never wrestle again. Angle says he’s loving this. Luther works on the back for a bit but Charlie “hits” (you can see the space between the feet and Luther) a pair of dropkicks. He gets sent to the floor and it’s time for a chinlock.

Luther can’t even do a chinlock right, as the hands are about four inches from Haas’ face. Press slam gets two. The fans are really not all that interested. Luther uses all of his skill to gauge their reaction and puts on a half crab. Angle says they’re running out of time and Charlie hits a suplex for probably his only big offense of the match. German suplex gets two. Charlie’s shoulder goes into the post and a Roll of the Dice (Cross Rhodes) ends this.

Rating: F. Even Jackie’s hotness couldn’t save this. The fans DID NOT care at all here, mainly because the match was thrown together in the back about 2 minutes before it started. Reigns was really bad in the ring and Haas was a total jobber here despite having talent. I have no idea what the point here was, but I think it might be exhibit A as to why not to have brand exclusive PPVs.

JBL says he’ll win the title tonight. It’s a Texas Bullrope match tonight, which means the four corners kind. Oh joy. He says tonight is his vindication and he’s awesome.

Cruiserweight Title: Chavo Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

Match #89 of about 384. Rey is champion and Chavo won a battle royal on Thursday to set this up. They speed things up to start and Rey grabs a pair of rollups for two. Chavo works on the arm so Rey spins around a lot and kicks Chavo’s arm to escape. As they just did a few seconds ago, they fly around a lot and work on the arm. Chavo dropkicks Rey as he’s on the apron to send him to the floor and possibly injure his knee.

The knee goes around the post and Rey is in trouble. Back in the ring Chavo hooks a one legged Liontamer. Rey kicks out of it and hits the bulldog (DDT according to Cole) to break it up. Chavo works the knee even more, kicking it so hard that Rey spins around in a circle. Off to a hold formerly called the Brock Lock to further damage the leg. Chavo charges into a boot and Rey gets in some offense. It’s so nice to see an actual story being told in a match after the previous horrible display.

Rey gets tied in the Tree of Woe but Chavo misses his charge, going arm first into the post. Rey fires off a seated senton to the floor and both guys are down. They fight to the apron and Chavo teases a superplex back to the floor. They both stand on the top and wind up hitting kind of a double facejam to the mat. Rey counters a slingshot into a dropkick and the knee is rapidly getting better. Russian Legsweep gets two.

Seated senton gets two so Rey pounds away on him. He charges into a Gory Bomb for two though as Chavo takes over again. Chavo works on the knee even more but an enziguri sets up the 619. Rey’s knee can barely work so he can’t hit the West Coast Pop. Off to the one legged Liontamer again and then a half crab. Rey slaps the mat as he’s crawling but that isn’t a tap in this case. He finally makes a rope and the crowd is WAY into this now. Chavo loads up another Gory Bomb but Rey rolls through into a sunset flip for the surprise pin to retain.

Rating: B. Good match here and a NICE breath of air on this show. It’s not really surprising to see these two have a good match though so it’s hardly a classic, but it’s always cool to see Rey vs. a Guerrero for twenty minutes. The psychology was here too and it made for a good match. It’s a shame Rey was nowhere near his best at this point though.

Torrie is in the hot tub with various Cruiserweights who say they would have won had they been in there. Torrie stands up in her flag bikini and leaves. Funaki: “God bless America.”

Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn

Suzuki is a Japanese guy who wants revenge for Japan because of what America did to it in World War II. I kid you not. This is a rematch from Smackdown where Hiroko, Kenzo’s chick, threw salt in Billy’s eyes to save Kenzo. Somehow, Gunn’s music (his most famous one) is catchy. Kenzo’s tights are brown/orange. He’s one of those guys that is a martial arts expert, which means he hits a chop and then poses.

Neckbreaker gets two for Gunn. This is a very dull match in case you can’t tell. The Claw STO puts Billy down but he drops a knee instead of covering. Off to a nerve hold, which would be a little more effective if he would, like, squeeze his hand or something. After what seems like an eternity, Billy gets a rollup for two. Suplex gets two for Suzuki.

Off to ANOTHER chinlock kind of move and the fans are loudly booing now. They slug it out and Billy hits a Stinger Splash to set up the Fameasser but Kenzo stands up. Shining Wizard gets two but he walks into a tilt-a-whirl slam for two. A low blow slows Billy down and Kenzo gets a pin after that knee to the back out of a reverse DDT position that Christian does. It didn’t even look good. HORRIBLE finish.

Rating: F. Remember when I said the other match was exhibit A? This might have just trumped it. I mean this was TERRIBLE. Who in the world thought these two deserved eight minutes on a PPV? Kenzo was awful and everyone knew it, so they put him with Rene Dupree and gave them the tag titles. Don’t you get the logical progression of events there? Terrible match and Gunn would be gone soon.

Heyman is with the tied up Paul Bearer and tells him that he will in fact bury him in concrete tonight. Yes, this is really one of the main event angles for this show. Heyman almost seems turned on by this.

I forgot to mention: there’s a huge cement truck next to the entrance of the arena, just to further the idiocy of the event.

Sable vs. Torrie Wilson

So they’re fighting over who should be the spokesperson for this PPV. Torrie said she should be, so Sable said she looked fat. You know it’s on after that. To the shock of no one, neither of them can do anything other than look good in shorts. Sable kicks a lot and they mess up a sunset flip. The fans are already booing. All Sable so far here. Time for a chinlock by Sable as this is dying quickly. The fans are mostly silent at this point.

Torrie hits one of the worst suplexes I’ve ever seen. Cole says there are Torrie chants but I don’t hear them. Then again Cole thinks some odd things at times. They collide and both girls are down, drawing even more booing. Sable plays possum and rolls Torrie up for the pin. They couldn’t even do THAT right, as Sable rolled over her and Torrie’s right side was completely off the mat.

Rating: F. If I need to explain this one, you’re not paying enough attention.

Taker is in the back and he starts walking to the ring. His match isn’t next but I guess he needs to get a running start.

Dawn Marie is also looking hot in a flag bikini and talks to Rene Dupree who says he got cheated. He’s going to protest Cena’s title reign. He hits on Dawn and offers to show her his French Tickler. He starts dancing and the FBI shows up. Shoe jokes are made. Hint to WWE production guys: just show us Dawn.

Mordecai vs. Bob Holly

Mordecai is a religious character who wound up in PPV matches with Scotty 2 Hotty and Bob Holly. This would be his last appearance despite implying he was going to come after Eddie next. You might remember him as Kevin Thorn in ECW. Cole just flat out says this isn’t going to be pretty. Holly ties him in the ropes and pounds away to start. This crowd is SILENT. For once, I can’t blame them. This is Hardcore Holly in a singles match after watching a horrible Divas match and Billy Gunn in a match.

Off to a chinlock as this match dies even further. Taz makes fun of the way Mordecai talks and basically makes the whole character sound like an idiot. I mean more than the character itself already did. Holly fights back with a hot shot but they collide, I think by accident, when Mordecai bounces off the ropes. Holly hits a bunch of clotheslines, including one off the top for two. A kind of sloppy looking reverse DDT gets two as well. Mordecai grabs a sitout spinebuster for two. Alabama Slam is countered into the Razor’s Edge for the pin.

Rating: D-. Why in the world was this on PPV? I don’t think anyone else really knew the answer to that either. Either way it’s not like it mattered as after this Mordecai was sent back down to OVW, which to be fair he probably belonged there anyway. The gimmick didn’t help him, but he just wasn’t ready for the main shows yet.

We recap Eddie vs. JBL. They had a WAR at Judgment Day with both guys just gushing blood. Tonight it’s a bullrope match, because we need to have the match be as boring as possible. It’s the kind where you have to touch all four corners. JBL says Eddie got disqualified intentionally at Judgment Day, so here Eddie can’t run or hide.

Smackdown World title: Eddie Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

Yes, the concrete match is going last. This is no DQ, unless you intentionally unhook yourself. There’s a bell on the rope of course, because we’re wrestlers so we all want to be cowboys! Eddie goes for the leg and chokes him out a bit with the rope. That bell is getting really annoying really fast. They have these stupid lights on the corners because just counting the number of corners for each guy is too much for Nick Patrick.

Both guys get two corners but they get their momentum broken up. The rope goes around Eddie’s neck and there’s a bell shot to put him down. Bradshaw puts him in the Tree of Woe and chokes him upside down as Eddie is in trouble. Here comes the Spanish Announce Table but Eddie blocks a powerbomb through it. Cowbell to the head puts JBL down and it’s Eddie in control.

JBL sends him over the table again but Eddie CRACKS Bradshaw over the head with a chair. Oh yeah he’s busted too. That’s enough for Eddie to get three corners but JBL breaks it up enough for the fourth to not count. Patrick says the momentum is broken, meaning the streak is broken. Eddie gets three corners again and again JBL grabs the rope. After a JBL DDT, Eddie crotches him with the rope and gets three buckles but the streak is broken.

Three Amigos hit and Eddie adds a frog splash for good measure. In a REALLY smart move, JBL rolls to the floor to stop the fourth corner from being touched. Smart because Eddie can’t drag him from the floor like he could in the ring. They go to the top and JBL hits him with the bell. He wraps the rope around Eddie’s neck and throws him onto the announce table which doesn’t break. Cole says it’s like rock or concrete. These jokes write themselves at times.

A powerbomb puts Eddie through the table and both guys are down again. Somehow that only gets three corners back in the ring. JBL gets three corners again but takes a cowbell low to stop things again. Since this is a four corners bullrope match, we get the only ending that ever happens in these things: they both get three and the good guy dives to touch the fourth one just in time.

Rating: B. Pretty solid brawl here but at the same time these matches get really repetitive after awhile. It becomes wrestler A gets a few corners, then wrestler B gets a few corners, then we reset things. The brawling in between that was pretty solid stuff though so I can’t really complain here. At the end of the day though, this gave us JBL as world champion. Here’s why.

Angle comes out and shows us the replay, which shows that when Eddie dove at JBL, it knocked JBL into the buckle first, which means he’s champion. This would go on until Wrestle-freaking-Mania.

We recap the main event. Heyman started managing the Dudley Boys and convinced them to kidnap Paul Bearer and steal the urn. The idea is that Taker is lost without Bearer, because those years and world titles without him never counted. Taker followed Heyman for awhile because Heyman had the urn.

Dudley Boys vs. Undertaker

They’re really vague about the stipulations here. All they say is that Taker has to “do the right thing” or Bearer gets buried. There’s a cement truck with a trough going into a case made of glass. Heyman is at the switch and if Taker does something wrong, Bearer gets buried alive in cement. This was a main event in 2004 on a $35 PPV. Let that sink in for a minute. Oh and the Dudleys are Smackdown tag champions.

Now we get the really stupid part of this. Heyman gives us a “preview” by putting in some cement then turning it off. If it can be stopped, WHY DOES TAKER NOT GO LAY HEYMAN OUT AND TURN THE THING OFF??? Bubba yells that the right thing is for Taker to lay down. In case you’re missing the point, the idea here is that if Taker doesn’t lay down, Paul Bearer will be killed.

Taker lays down but grabs them by the throat. Heyman says that’s not the right thing and the Dudleys take over. They fight to the floor and Taker is in control. He loads up Old School and Heyman says Bad Dog and loads in a lot more cement. The Dudleys take over and this is so dumb. Taker beats them down and goes after Heyman but the Dudleys make the save. Bearer keeps saying that Taker will….the cement is lower than before. Did I mention that this wasn’t live and a lot of the concrete stuff was taped earlier? The ending of the match leaked online earlier in the day.

Bubba stops the cement, saying they can take him out on their own. The fans are loudly booing now. They beat on Taker using very basic stuff like suplexes and elbows. Out to the floor and Bubba basically lays the piece of the announce table on Taker for two. And then it’s a sleeper. Are you kidding me? Thankfully they are as Taker suplexes out of it. He beats up D-Von and it becomes a big brawl. This place is SILENT too. Old School hits but D-Von hits Taker low. Taker sits up and Heyman holds up the urn. And then a tombstone ends D-Von.

Rating: F. Ok come on now. Where’s my real main event? Where’s the match that I really paid this much money to see? I mean it couldn’t be this, because this was a boring 15 minute match with Heyman constantly teasing that he’ll murder Bearer. I mean…ok I’ll drop it now. The match SUCKED and the concept is further fetched than wrestling should be allowed to go.

Heyman goes to pull the lever again but Taker sends a bolt of lightning to stop him. Then he pulls the level himself to kill off Paul Bearer for about five years. The idea was without his conscience he could be more violent or whatever.

Overall Rating: R. As in returned like a bad steak at a restaurant.  Oh just no. I mean NO. This isn’t acceptable. Let’s see: attempted murder, actual murder, Bob Holly, Billy Gunn, Charlie Haas, and JBL, who at the time was a midcard guy for about ten years, is the new WWE Champion. This was AWFUL and while there are some ok matches, some of the things here simply are not acceptable whatsoever. Horrible show, and somehow it might get worse next year.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: December 6, 2004
Location: Cricket Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Attendance: 4,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is a show I’ve wanted to do for a long time but couldn’t for one reason or another. I have a copy of it now though and I’m doing it for one reason: the main event. This is the only Raw that I can ever remember where the main event is a Divas match. By that, I mean it’s the match that is built up and talked about for two hours leading up to it. It’s not the match that happens to go on last and then there’s the real final thing on the show after it. Trish vs. Lita for the Women’s Title tonight is the main event of Monday Night Raw. Let’s get to it.

We open in the Highlight Reel and Jericho’s pretty weak shoulder length hair phase. There’s a controversy over the world title between Edge and Benoit. Jericho is the GM tonight due to his team winning the Survivor Series match and thereby all of them got a night as GM. It’s a big party tonight so everyone gets laid! Hawaiian lais fall from the ceiling in a cute bit. Jericho gets one of his own and asks if some of the kids are old enough to get laid.

Anyway he talks about the title match but says that there’s going to be a Diva limbo contest, with music provided by Fozzy, who is on the stage. We get a clip from last week on Raw where Edge reversed the Crossface but didn’t break it. He had Benoit covered but tapped out at the same time the three went down. There were two referees but it appeared that neither would have been able to see Edge tap. Jericho says he can’t solve this but maybe his guest can.

Here’s Vince, holding the world title. Vince says that it was a tie which he didn’t like. This brings out HHH who was champion going into the match. Vince congratulates him on being a bestselling author which wasn’t what HHH expected. Vince congratulates him again on being a movie star for being in Blade III. It really is fun to hear Vince plugging stuff like he does with the movie and book here because he’s really good at it. I’ve seen the movie and it really isn’t as good as he makes it sounds, but I kind of buy it anyway.

As for the title, HHH isn’t champion. Bischoff gets to make that decision next week, which resulted in the return of the Elimination Chamber at New Year’s Revolution. Vince officially vacates the title.

After a break, HHH freaks out while Batista and Flair try to calm him down. HHH yells at Batista who was on the verge of leaving the team and turning into the hottest thing in the company. He’d win the Rumble and the title at Mania. Batista yells back here and HHH breaks stuff.

We cut to Jericho at his party in the back when Christian comes in. He found a superhero costume in his dressing room and isn’t happy with it. Jericho lists off a bunch of famous captains (Hook and Crunch) because if Christian wants one more match (I kid you not he really said that) with Shelton for the IC Title, he has to be Captain Charisma. Christian leaves and Benoit comes in and Jericho makes Batista/HHH vs. Benoit/Jericho.

We get a video on Trish vs. Lita which is one of those flashback things they do to show how we arrived here. Lita had been scared by Kane so Trish pretended he was coming. A beating ensued.

Maven vs. Eugene

Eugene and Regal are tag champions and last week they retained over Maven and somebody else. They celebrated so Maven turned heel and beat Eugene down because so many people wanted to see Maven right? Both guys have catchy songs. The fans chant something that I can’t understand. They go to the mat and Eugene dances a little.

He hooks a body scissors and rolls Maven around on the mat as I think we’re in a comedy match. Maven pretends to trip and blames Regal, who gets ejected. O’Connor Roll and a northern lights suplex get two for Eugene. Maven kicks him in the knee and chokes in the corner to a count of five for the stupid DQ. Regal comes out for the save post match and Maven runs. Scratch that as he sneaks in on Regal and hits him with a title belt.

Rating: D-. Maven’s song keeps it from failing, but why in the world is Maven a heel? Actually here’s a better question: why is Maven on TV at all? The guy was just Maven and other than that there was nothing to talk about. This was weak and I don’t get the point of this at all. At least it was short, which is never a good thing to say about a match.

Time for Divas Limbo. I won’t complain about looking at Christy jumping everywhere but this is pretty awful. Fozzy plays the music and this is getting multiple minutes. Christy wins. Fozzy plays Don’t You Wish You Were Me while the girls dance. Muhammad Hassan comes out and runs his mouth to break the song up. I like that song but it’s better than the limbo nonsense. Hassan debuts next week.

Hurricane vs. Simon Dean

Simon is Nova from ECW and had a gimmick where he was a sponsor of Raw and pitched a weight loss system. Just take a guess as to how well this goes. This is his debut match. Simon wants to have an amateur style match so Hurricane rolls him up for two. Simon takes over with nothing significant. This is really the best match they can give us on Monday Night Raw? The King makes fun of TMNT and I hate him already. Hurricane breaks a chinlock and hits some fast paced stuff. The Shining Wizard misses and Dean rolls him up for the pin with tights.

Rating: F. This is the best they can do for Monday Night Raw? Seriously? Yeah that’s all I’ve got here.

We get a video of Lita’s surprise bridal shower where the heel Divas humiliated her.

Orton makes fun of Coach and talks about being a GM for a week last week.

Here’s Edge who is all fired up. He’s mad about the title being held up and says that’s a travesty against him. He talks about how he beat Benoit last week (and DID NOT tap out!) and got to hold the world title but got screwed again. The person responsible for that is Randy Orton. He calls Orton’s title reign a failure and calls him out.

Here’s the Apex Viper who isn’t orange and has skin on his forearms. Orton says it could have been one on one but Evolution would have gotten involved. Edge only has himself to blame. I miss this Orton. “Unlike you Edge, I’ve been world champion.” AWESOME line there and it’s nice to see Orton having some emotion. They slug it out until security breaks it up.

Video on Blade Trinity.

Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian

Christian looks like an idiot in the Captain Charisma costume. Get it, it’s funny. He looks a bit like The Flash. Shelton was AWESOME at this point so he uses all of his athleticism to take over including a head fake into a top rope clothesline. Christian takes over with his basic stuff and yells a lot. The Canadian goes up and jumps into a punch to the ribs. A Russian legsweep and a middle rope sunset flip both get two for Benjamin. Shelton gets caught in a rollup off the middle rope and Tomko slides in a title belt. Tomko adds a big boot but it only gets two. Unprettier is countered into the Exploder and Shelton retains.

Rating: D+. Not a horrible match or anything but it was there for the comedy and that’s all. That’s fine, but they need to have something other than that after a Eugene match and a Simon Dean match. This was nothing to see at all here and I really am getting why no one ever talks about this era in the company. This show has mostly sucked so far.

Jericho comes out and makes Edge vs. Orton. He also leads Fozzy in singing the goodbye song to Christian. He’s not fired that I know of but I guess it’s just to humiliate him.

Here’s a Smackdown Recap which saw Team JBL beating down Taker which didn’t end well.

The next Lita clip is Trish interrupting her wedding to Kane in some very nice lingerie for some reason. Not complaining at all.

Snitsky comes up to Lita in the back and reminds her that he got rid of her baby and ended Kane’s career.

We see HHH getting stripped of the title earlier. Flair tries to call Eric but HHH only gets his machine. He says fix this. Flair plugs Raw Magazine and HHH’s book and the movie. Batista comes in and hangs the phone up. He says he’s stopping HHH from making a huge mistake and wants to know what HHH is going to do.

HHH/Batista vs. Chris Benoit/Chris Jericho

Lillian calls HHH the former champion so he chases her into the crowd. HHH vs. Benoit gets us going and Benoit chops away. Off to Jericho who beats on HHH ever more. The fans want Flair. Back to the other Chris who gets the Crossface but HHH’s feet are in the ropes. For some reason Evolution doesn’t tag so Jericho beats on HHH even more. Batista comes in illegally and the Canadian Chrises send him to the floor with a double dropkick as we take a break.

Back with Batista hooking a camel clutch. We see a clip from the commercial with Flair interfering to let Big Dave hit a spinebuster on Jericho. Off to the Game for some abdominal stretchery. Batista comes in but Jericho kicks his leg out to take over. Back to Benoit vs. HHH and Flair is knocked down to HUGE booing of Benoit.

Ever the nice guy, Benoit hits a baseball slide onto an old man to send him flying. Rolling Germans take care of HHH, followed by a Lionsault, a Swan Dive and then the double Liontamer/Crossface. Batista makes the save and takes over on Jericho but HHH brings in a chair to crack Benoit with for the DQ.

Rating: C-. The double submission probably should have ended it but this wasn’t much of a tag match either way. The commercial break took up almost half of the match and it wasn’t worth watching otherwise anyway. Jericho just wasn’t interesting at this point and this was all about Evolution and the post match stuff.

HHH keeps going off with the chair and hits everyone in sight, including the referee and accidentally Batista.

Trish is looking great and stretching when two production guys stare at her. Can’t say I blame them. Lita comes up and kisses Trish (Kiss of Death) and it’s main event time.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Lita

Even in a faceguard with what looks like masking tape over her face, Trish is gorgeous. How is that possible? Lita’s song is great too. 2004 had some awesome theme music. They lockup and go to the floor quickly. Lita takes over with a leg sweep for two. Remember that she’s the hometown girl. They go to the floor again and Lita tries a suicide dive and Lita lands ON HER HEAD, jacking her neck back in a landing that made my jaw drop and be stunned she isn’t dead. I mean she landed on her face and her feet hit her in the back of the head. The referee immediately checks on her and the crowd goes quiet.

The match keeps going as I guess she’s alive somehow. Trish takes the noseguard off and pops Lita in the face with it which isn’t a DQ somehow. Lita fights out of a choke and throws on a sleeper but gets countered into a seated full nelson. Trish goes up but gets caught in a superplex to put both girls down. Back up and the Chick Kick gets two. Trish pounds away in the corner and gets powerbombed to set up the moonsault but Trish breaks it up. Rollup gets two and Trish grabs a DDT for two. Stratusfaction is broken up and there’s a reverse Twist of Fate. The moonsault gives Lita her second title.

Rating: B. Considering that neck shot, WOW Lita was impressive here. At the end of the day, this was a solid match and they made it feel like a big moment. This was Lita’s second title, but she hadn’t won it in over four years so it’s not like this was something that happened every day. Trish would win it back in less than a month and hold it until Wrestlemania. As in the Wrestlemania the year after she won it, giving her a reign of about 15 months.

Overall Rating: D. This show sucked other than the main event. I can really see why no one talked about 2004 and the years around it: this stuff SUCKED. I mean, the first three match include the names of Maven, Simon Dean and TWO superhero characters. This was a really weak show and they couldn’t save it with a solid main event, which isn’t something you see that often. Bad show.

 

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Survivor Series 2004
Date: November 14, 2004
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 7,500
Commentators: Tazz, Michael Cole, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We have entered into what I guess you would call a new era in the company. Orton has split from Evolution as it is starting to crumble. Batista is on the rise as he would win the 2005 Rumble to set up his first title reign. Over on Smackdown, JBL is the reigning champion in the middle of that one title reign that he never stopped talking about. It’s hard to put a finger on it but you can just simply feel that things have begun to change into what we would consider the modern era of WWE.

Cena and Batista would take their spots as the kings of the company in about five or six months. Your main event tonight is HHH’s team vs. Orton’s team, where the winners get control of Raw for the next month. Yet again, this just seems like a preview for next month. Over on Smackdown we have JBL defending against Booker in the random non-feud of the month. This looks weak on paper, but let’s try it out.

We get a video about the history of the Survivor Series. This is painfully weak. If it tells you anything, Snitsky and Maven are in the main event tonight. How scary is that?

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Spike Dudley vs. Billy Kidman vs. Chavo Guerrero

Wow Kidman had a job at this point? This is one fall by the way. Kidman’s music makes me want to die quickly. Billy hurt Chavo with the shooting star, which is one of the main reasons it was banned for as long as it was. Kidman and Spike are your heels here, in case for some reason you care. If that’s the case, I’d recommend a doctor. I know I say that Spike should be only fighting small guys, but he really shouldn’t be wrestling at all. He’s just annoying.

Cole runs through the rules as I think they might have finally picked the perfect opener. More or less no one is going to care about this match but it’ll be full of high spots so if nothing else people will get hyped up over it, or at least they’re supposed to. Tazz recommends that someone hide in a corner, which really isn’t all that bad of an idea. This is the location of the first two Survivor Series as well as the 1992 show so this is the New York of Survivor Series I guess.

Using his expert analytical skills, Tazz points out that the move we just saw was indeed a knee of the ribs. They’re going with the formula here of having two guys go at it and two guys down, which gives the match a bit of a Mexican flare to it. I think I like that. Spike was in his Boss phase here where somehow he was in charge of Bubba and D-Von, because that just makes perfect sense. Now we’re getting into what this should be: a massive spotfest.

Spike crashes when he tries his and that is just great for some reason. We go to Billy vs. Chavo which is the hot feud I guess. In case you didn’t notice the first 20 times they said it, there’s a slim chance that Spike will hold the title as they more or less give away the ending. Why does Tazz keep using the term pin cover? I don’t think anyone else uses that and I’m not sure if I like it. I hate cruiserweight matches where they try to be slow and technical.

Cole continues saying stupid things by saying all four of these men want to become champion of the world. One of them already is you dolt. Somehow they tried to make the Shooting Star Press into a heel move. Seriously? Why would you try to do something like that? It’s one of the most impressive looking moves there is and it will never not get a solid pop.

What’s the smart thing to do of course? Try to make it evil of course, because the only thing that matters are heels, especially tiny ones that are SO intimidating. Spike goes for the Dudley Dog which fails because…because…well because he tried it on Rey Mysterio that’s why.

Chavo hits the Gory Bomb, which of course according to Cole connects. Listen to a Cole match and see how many times he uses that word. It blows Vintage away. In a rather anti-climactic ending, Spike steals the pin after Kidman drops a springboard leg on Chavo. That just wasn’t that interesting of an ending.

Rating: C+. This was probably the best choice for an opener, but I’m not sure if it worked that well. The high spots were fine but Spike was just sucking the life out of this thing. I get that he’s a heel, but there’s not supposed to be depth to matches like these. They’re about big spots and getting the crowd into the show, so why have someone there that’s just slowing things down? I don’t get that. The match was ok but it just didn’t feel right so take that for what you will.

Heyman and Heidenrich are in the back as Paul tries to fire him up. Snitsky shows up and they have an odd exchange. Their mouths are far too close during this. Snitsky likes what his poetry and Heidenrich likes what Snitsky does to babies. They would start a very short tag team feud against Kane and Taker soon. For the record, Snitsky had caused Lita to have a miscarriage if that explains anything. Their noses were touching. That’s just odd.

Here’s the pointless theme song that no one will remember in two weeks.

Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian

Benjamin won the title in a relative shocker at Taboo Tuesday, beating Jericho for it as well as winning the rematch. Christian is getting the shot because he just wanted one I guess. He would be leaving for TNA in about a year at this point. This is more or less the wet dream of any IWC fan and clearly should main event Wrestlemania because….well just because.

I love the Waterproof Blonde version of Christian’s music. This is right before Shelton became the hottest thing in the world and about six months before the classic he had with Shawn at Raw that was the high point of his career. Ross says that Shelton may be a better athlete than Lebron James. Wow indeed. Christian slaps him and gets punched for his troubles.

Shelton gets a sweet springboard clothesline to take out Christian for two. Tomko is at ringside with Christian as he continues to be completely worthless. They chop it out as Christian shouts that he IS Captain Charisma. Benjamin is just scary with how athletic he is out there. Tomko gets involved and it allows Christian to shove Shelton to the floor to take over.

Ross and Lawler get into an argument as to whether you’re cheating if you choke to four. That’s a very good question actually. Christian hammers on Shelton for a good while but here comes Shelton. Solid stuff here so far. Shelton gets a counter into a slingshot reverse suplex for two. Nice. Stinger Splash misses and Christian gets an Edgecution for a long two.

Christian brings the Title in and it gets kicked back in his face. Tomko kicks Shelton’s head off for a two and a solid pop on the kickout. Shelton hits the Dragon Whip on Tomko and there’s the T-Bone on Christian to retain. Sweet match and Shelton looked great here.

Rating: B. THIS should have opened the show. This is what both guys should be doing: wrestling in the midcard and having the best stuff on the show. That’s where Christian and Shelton both fail for me: the company and fans on WZ think that they’re ready to take over the reins of the company and they’re just simply not there yet.

Now maybe they will be someday, but at the moment they’re just not prepared yet. Also, not everyone is going to be able to be a main event guy. Look at Kofi for example. Anyway, this was very solid and it was this time period where Shelton got the reputation that he has now, which is what the IC belt is supposed to be about.

Edge and Angle cross paths in the back with Angle talking about how Edge has never won the title. This is psycho Angle that was some of the fun stuff. This was a pretty intense segment with two guys that have a solid background. I’d like to see Edge come back like this where he’s a heel but not by much. Angle tries to go to the ring but runs into Eugene and suddenly I wish I had a gun or a hatchet. Eugene sings Kurt’s song and the hatchet might not be fast enough.

Hey! Here’s a Wrestlemania moment that has absolutely nothing to do with this show! It’s Austin winning his first title in case you were wondering.

Tazz and Cole plug Mania 21.

Team Angle vs. Team Guerrero

Angle, Carlito, Luther Reigns, Mark Jindrak
Guerrero, Big Show, John Cena, RVD

Angle was hanging out with Reigns and Jindrak at the time and they were feuding with both Big Show and Guerrero separately so there’s that. Cena and Carlito had been having a feud over the US Title which Carlito won from him in his debut match. Since then, Cena was stabbed in a club and had to take time off. The theory was that it was Carlito but there was actually a rumor going around the internet that they were going to bring in New Jack of all people to have been the attacker.

Cena comes out last and immediately chases Carlito off. Cena fights both he and his bodyguard Jesus into the back with absolute ease. The bell hasn’t rung at this point and I have no idea what the wrestlers are in the ring doing during all of this stuff. Jesus and the anti-swallower get away in a car that they steal to add auto theft to their list of crimes. Those are just great things to show on television there Vince. Cena heads back to the arena as I guess they were brawling in the meantime?

The bell finally rings and we have Show vs. Jindrak. Cena’s back so it’s already 4-3. Oh and Angle, Jindrak and Reigns had recently shot Show with a tranquilizer and shaved his head to explain why he’s so ticked off. Everyone beats on Mark because he just completely sucks. That’s a pretty good face team. Who’s the least accomplished on there? RVD I guess? Tazz fails by trying to compare one of these matches to a baseball game.

Eddie pulls off some amazing looking stuff as this was likely some of the best stuff he ever had during this time of his career. That made no sense but a translation would be he was doing very well at this point in time. A little interference from Angle turns the tide though. I’ve never quite gotten that expression. I get what it means but it just sounds odd to me and always has.

Reigns and Jindrak both could have been good but for some reason they both just completely failed. Tazz gets their names wrong. That tells me either one of two things. Number one, they’re so generic that they’re identical, or that everything is fine with Tazz. Barring a few seconds at the beginning, this has been all Eddie which I guess could work but at the same time it’s kind of stupid. I do kind of like the slow pace they’re working here if it builds up to a hot finish.

Now it’s just getting boring as we’re getting a lot of headlocks and chinlocks which just suck the life out of the match. Ironically they were talking about the You Suck chant as I typed that. At the time Jindrak was a combination of Buff Bagwell and Rick Rude but with somehow less talent than Bagwell. He does the hip swivel and it looks awful. The announcers talk about how he’s stepped up huge. That’s just a scary thought.

Van Dam comes in and for reasons that I don’t want to know, Cole calls him supple. He sets for the Five Star on Angle but Mark pulls him out of the way. Is that what he’s there for? Just to be a jerk/show off, Van Dam jumps over Angle and hits Jindrak who is about ¾ of the way across the ring. RVD is one of the few people that I’ve ever been in awe of. He hurts his ribs on the splash (naturally) and Angle rolls him up and grabs the ropes for the heel pin.

In a funny yet stupid moment, Eddie slips in the back while Angle is arguing with the referee to roll up Jindrak and use the ropes the same way Angle just did to make it 3-2. Ok, so two reasons why this was stupid. Number one, Jindrak wasn’t legal. Two, the announcers LOVE Eddie’s cheating yet booed the heck out of Angle. I know they’re faces and heels but at least pretend to not be biased guys.

After some stalling we have Big Show vs. Angle which lasts for all of a stare down and now we have Reigns in there instead. Oh yeah Show has a messed up ankle. They did such a great job of covering it that I was blown away enough to not mention it. Despite the pain, Show shows up and hits the chokeslam to make it three on one. Show immediately sets for a chokeslam on Angle but Kurt counters into an ankle lock.

Angle tries to run but RVD is waiting for him. For some reason, Angle picks to fight the three. In a funny spot he backs up still facing RVD and backs into Show. He stops and looks nervous and reaches up towards Show’s head where he realizes there’s no hair. He shakes his head and slowly turns around. It’s a lot better than it sounds mainly due to Kurt’s facial expressions.

Show sends him in to Cena (in for the first time in the match) but apparently he’s not legal as Eddie hits a Frog Splash to allow Show to pin him. Cena was never legal so I’m guessing injured still. Now that I think about it I think he really was hurt at this time. Actually never mind. He was making the Marine.

Rating: D. This just wasn’t that good. It started off decently enough but then in the end it was like they were told to hurry up and then everyone went out at a ridiculous pace. Cena wasn’t hurt so I have no clue why he wasn’t in there at all. The faces winning was more or less a given once you look at the lineups, so this just wasn’t entertaining at all really. It could have been good, but it just fell flat, but to be fair they were only going to be able to do so much with it.

Buy the history of the AWA which most of the people that were watching this PPV have never heard of!

This must be the strangest PPV of all time as Maven is getting interview time. If nothing else he’s heavily muscled. He’s bad on the mic but gets cut off by Snitsky. After a rather bad beating and by bad I mean pathetic looking, Maven is carried away.

We get a video about the crazy Heidenrich vs. Undertaker, who really wasn’t that impressive at all. He rammed his car into a hearse Taker was in after costing him the world title at No Mercy.

Undertaker vs. Heidenreich

Apparently I’ve been spelling his name wrong. However it’s likely that I’ll be flipping between the two spellings. He comes out in a straightjacket because he’s CRAZY! He’s also about as stock of a villain as you can possibly imagine. I mean he’s just there and there’s nothing at all to suggest that he’s a tough guy at all. The story here is that Taker can’t use his mental games on Heidenrich. Oh come on now.

For years now everyone Taker feuded with has been “immune” to his games or whatever. They just don’t try with Taker so often and it sucks. Oh and Heidenreich allegedly raped Cole. You had to see it and the comedy alone is worth checking on. Naturally since Taker can’t win against this guy, he opens the match completely dominant. Heyman’s interference prevents Old School to give Jon (Heidenreich’s first name and way easier to type) the advantage.

Taker gets crotched on the post. That’s just creepy for some reason. Are his balls dead too? They hit the floor for awhile with Jonny (no not the admin) in control. Even Taker looks bored out there. That can’t be a good sign. Cole talks down about Heidenreich as he desperately tries to validate his employment. I know he’s improved to an extent, but dang he used to be horrible. He’s beginning to put emphasis on vintage here too, so it’s officially begun.

Old School hits to a bunch of flashbulbs going off. In a cool thing, they point out how many things Taker has done at Survivor Series. How cool is it that a guy has dominated two major pay per views like this? Taker hits a downward spiral which I don’t think I remember him ever using other than this. Apparently Heidenreich has taken everything Taker has to offer. Other than the chokeslam, tombstone or Last Ride of course, but those have never been worth anything anyway.

Cole points out that Jon is talking to himself with every move he makes. Given his limited skill, it’s likely him reminding himself to breathe in and out, and as I type that Heyman is screaming don’t let him breathe! Paul, that’s called murder and that’s a bad thing. Also, Heyman in a beige suit doesn’t work. He screams at Heidenrich that he’s Heidenrich. Is he afraid the dog catcher is going to think he’s a stray or something?

This is just taking forever and it’s painfully generic. They go to a punch out and naturally Taker wins this. He goes to the top and hits a cool looking diving clothesline which gets the crowd breathing. There’s two problems with this match. First of all, Heidenreich sucks and he sucks badly. Second, this is going FAR too long. We’re at about ten minutes already and it should have ended at least three ago.

The crowd is dead with even a big move from Heidenreich and a long two getting next to no reaction. There’s far too many punches to from Jon and it’s boring. Just to step it up a bit, he goes to the middle rope and punches. In what should have put us out of our misery, he grabs the bottom rope to break up the pin. This isn’t fair. Oh come on Jonny. A sleeper now? Oh good Taker reversed it.

There’s your boring chant which should have come about 10 minutes ago. Taker sits up to a mild reaction. One of the most famous spots of all time barely got anything from the crowd. That just isn’t a good sign at all. A generic chokeslam leads to a generic tombstone to a generic pin to perfectly cap off this boring match.

Tazz tries to say this is the furthest Taker has ever been pushed. That’s just flat out hysterical. Actually no it isn’t. It’s freaking sad that a man has to lie like that on national television.

Rating: D. This was just boring. There are times when the wrestling is ok, but it’s just that this formula has been done so many times that I’ve run out of numbers for it. How many times have you seen Taker against some big man that you know he’s going to beat and then have a gimmick match against? Naturally there was a casket match at the Rumble because things just wouldn’t be complete without that to continue this.

Thankfully Jon was gone relatively soon after this, at least from major matches. Amazingly he would stay in the company for an entire year after this, even winning a tag title as a member of the new Legion of Doom. Just thinking of that makes my head hurt. Anyway, this was horrible, mainly due to Heidenreich but Taker isn’t innocent either.

Bischoff says that Maven might not be able to compete and there won’t be a replacement.

We get the recap of Trish vs. Lita which begs the question of why these two need a storyline. Lita, the face, lost her baby due to Snitsky and Trish found it amusing. The recap is complete with a pic of Kane in a white tux so it wins based on that alone. Lita really can’t act.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Lita

As I said, Lita is the face and challenger here. For once, Trish looks better than Lita here. I think it’s the evil thing. Lita has some weird suspenders thing on. She beats the living heck out of Trish and we’re on the floor already. Make your own joke for that line. The redhead grabs a chair and swings at Trish twice with both times completely missing.

I mean the camera shows that they don’t hit at all, and even though Trish’s face was away from the chair, meaning they would have hit her in the back or back of the head, she’s busted open. Knowing Trish, she was hurt to explain why this wasn’t an actual match. Upon further review, she had a broken hand so at least this makes sense.

Lita uses what’s called a rear naked choke on Trish which is really more like her just choking her and shaking on the floor. We get more stuff of Lita trying to injure Trish’s face which led to her wearing a nose protector for a few weeks. This would lead to the first ever women’s match main eventing Raw for the Women’s Title in early December which was a very cool moment.

Rating: N/A. It’s a minute and a half and an angle instead of a match so no grade.

Team Guerrero is happy to have won. Teddy comes in and Big Show takes his towel off which is passed over. Cena, clad in boxers, is told that he’s getting a US Title shot. He would get it on Smackdown and destroy him to get the belt hack. I really don’t like this gimmick of Cena’s.

Recap of Booker vs. JBL, which more or less was this: Booker want a shot, he beats Orlando Jordan, he gets a shot, JBL talks down to him, match. That was the issue with JBL’s title reign: it was ridiculously repetitive with the other flaw being that no one bought him as a credible champion yet, but who cared about that?

Smackdown World Title: JBL vs. Booker T

This just sounds bad on paper. I mean think about it. Can you picture these two having a good match together? I certainly can’t. Amazingly enough, the match itself is as boring as I imagined it. The announcers are trying to make this seem like a great match or something but it just isn’t. JBL comes out in the big white limo of his which was his signature as you likely know. Booker just looks like he knows he has no chance at all out there tonight.

There’s just not a lot to say about this match. Nothing stands out at all. It’s just two older guys going through the motions which is never a good thing. I really don’t think JBL had the character down in any sense of the word here and you can tell that based on just how plain his offense is. The announcers are no help at all here as they offer no reason as to why we should buy Booker having a shot.

With the HHH feud the previous year, Booker had pinned HHH on Raw which showed us that it was possible. Here he had only been beating on Orlando Jordan which meant nothing at all. Oh look it’s a sleeper! Oh wait, it’s a cobra clutch! Ok wait a second. Not only did JBL completely rip off Ted DiBiase’s gimmick but now he’s trying to steal his finishing hold. My head hurts from this match.

Orlando tries to do a run in but gets beaten up. He’s been out there for most of the match cheating here and there but now he’s stepped it up a bit. I very rarely skip large portions of the match in these, but I’ve gone about five minutes of video and haven’t typed anything for the simple reason of there’s nothing to talk about.

It’s just not an interesting match in the slightest and I have no interest in it. JBL gets knocked into the referee and naturally Booker finally gets the kick but we have no referee. After some Jordan interference a belt shot ends this. Really, that’s the ending they chose? It’s perfect I guess, as it’s as generic and uncreative as I can think of.

Rating: F. This was just awful all around. There was no build up, there was no drama, there was no good wrestling, and there was no reason to watch this. It was boring and the ending was even worse, so what else could I grade this as? I can’t believe I’m saying this but bring on HHH vs. Orton as it has to be better than what I just saw.

Promo for Tribute to the Troops, which is just flat out cool.

Batista is in the back and HHH comes up to him. They more or less say that once they win the partnership with Edge and Snitsky is over. Like I said earlier the winning team gets to run Raw for a month. After HHH leaves, Batista implies to Flair that he would give himself a title match. This was right about when they started pushing Batista as the super beast that he became known as being, leading to his face turn around February.

He was getting huge reactions for months before that but was still heel. You could see it coming, but it was quite well done. He would eventually turn after winning the Rumble where he was considering whether to face HHH or JBL at Mania. He overheard HHH and Flair saying they were leading him around by the nose and he was a face by the end of the night, setting up the inevitable showdown with HHH that everyone knew was coming eventually.

The recap is painfully simple with clips of Evolution running Raw for one night and the face team standing up to them, leading to Bischoff making this match. Of course it’s set to the theme song, which is a decent enough song, but it has no connection to the match at all.

That’s what sucked about the songs: they completely didn’t fit and when they did, they were used for all of one segment on the show and other than that were always playing in the background. Unless you just really liked the song you were so sick of it by the end of the show that you didn’t care about it anymore.

Team Orton vs. Team HHH

HHH, Batista, Snitsky, Edge
Orton, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Maven

Wow those entrances too way too long. Remember there’s no Maven due to the earlier attack. My guess would be this is Vince coming to his senses about putting Maven in the main event of a major PPV. We start with Edge and Benoit which works just fine for me. Edge in purple tights just looks a bit odd. We move over to Snitsky who is apparently goofier than a pet coon. Who has a pet raccoon? Seeing Orton as a young face is just strange to see.

He stops to pose for a second which gets a solid pop. He really could be a good face if he had more hair. The face team is tagging a lot as Jericho is in now. HHH comes in and the noise noticeably drops. The people were just fed up with him at this point which I think is why Orton got such a great reaction: he was something new. Apparently there’s a stipulation that says that Orton can’t challenge for the belt as long as HHH is world champion.

We get some Batista and Orton since they’re the future and all and somehow still are to this day, five years later. The tags are really fast here which is an issue because it keeps there from being a flow to the match, which is the worst thing that can happen to it, at least in my eyes. The crowd is SILENT. I mean there’s nothing at all and it sounds like there’s no one there. I know it’s a small crowd but they could make more noise than this my goodness.

Benoit wakes them up a bit at least, and I mean that in the most literal of sense. The rolling Germans really do get the people going for a bit and they’re at least popping for big spots so we don’t need 7,500 coffins. While everyone else is brawling, Benoit gets the Sharpshooter on HHH but Edge breaks it up. In some hot Canadian on Canadian action we have Edge in a crossface. Batista breaks it up, leading to one of the worst pedigrees of all time on Benoit.

Edge covers him and takes the win to make it unofficially 4-2. Nice job guys. You have gotten rid of the only person that’s actually getting anything out of the crowd tonight. It’s Edge against Jericho now but as I say that HHH and Snitsky argue over who tagged Edge which includes at least one F bomb. Batista and Snitsky argue as well which gets us a second. Flair gets thrown out for messing with Jericho.

That gets people going as I guess they were just bored at the beginning when nothing was really going to happen, so I guess that makes sense. Since he’s awesome, Batista takes both Orton and Jericho down at the same time. He hits a heck of a spinebuster on Jericho but gets caught with an awful belt shot from Orton and a running enziguri which Jericho was using as a second finisher until he realized it sucked to make it 3-2 or really 3-3 gives how you look at it.

Snitsky uses the best offensive move that he has by choking Jericho. Orton has a really weird style of punching. He’s changed it since but it just looks really weird. After the faces get their collective faces kicked in, their knight with shining eyebrows comes out in the form of Maven.

Now let me get this straight. I understand that Maven was attacked. I understand that Maven was injured and might not be healthy enough to compete. I understand that he might be acting against doctor’s orders. I even can kind of understand how he should be in the main event as he’s a young guy fighting against the establishment. But why in the world after two hours has he not washed the blood off his face?

He looks completely lost out there too. I mean you can tell that he just isn’t ready for this, which isn’t his fault. Granted he never really got much better, but he just wasn’t ready for this yet. He plays to the crowd decently enough but that’s about all he does right. He’s trying as hard as he OH MY GOODNESS what a chair shot! Snitsky just cracked the living tar out of Maven with a SICK chair shot. He’s gone of course but he hits Jericho and Orton with it first.

HHH covers the unconscious Maven to make it Orton and Jericho against HHH and Edge. Maven really was kind of a sacrificial lamb because he was never in there for the most part and was able to cancel out Snitsky. In other words Snitsky was worth as much as a guy that wasn’t in the match for the most part. These jokes write themselves most of the time but never like that. If you can’t tell who the final two are going to be, you’re a freaking idiot.

Edge starts freaking out because he can’t pin Jericho. Why does that sound like the story of his life? Never mind he gets him after a spear to make it Orton against two tall guys, which isn’t a great way to describe them because they’re all about 6’4. We get a pretty boring back and forth segment with Edge vs. Orton a longer version with HHH playing the part of the egotistical jerk in a joke that I don’t even need to make.

They go for the double team and shockingly enough the spear misses and HHH is down. You know what, that was so predictable that it wasn’t even funny to me. It’s such a cliché anymore than it’s absurd. Edge turns around and takes an RKO to get us down to one on one. Orton needs to start doing it like that again. He does it in a more fluid motion at the moment and I’m not a fan of it at all.

This is more Orton is just right there waiting and partially on his way down already when Edge turns around. The impact is a lot better and the move looks better this way. Also he does it with one arm which I like more as well.

Anyway after about two minutes he counters the Pedigree into the RKO for the clean pin, which moves the storyline along because Orton has shown he can beat HHH but isn’t allowed to challenge him, thus strengthening his heel character. Only HHH could come up with a way to get stronger by losing clean.

Rating: B-. This was….ok. That’s the only think I can think of to describe it and it has to have the ellipse which is a two dollar word currently on sale for 89 cents and it means the three dots. The wrestling is pretty good but Maven and Snitsky in the main event? Really? Also Edge was about at the level of John Morrison at the moment (the day before Hell in a Cell in case he’s done something really big in the last month and a half) so he wasn’t exactly a lock to be in here.

Jericho just looked out of place and they had already stopped Benoit’s push as he goes from world champion to first guy out. The match is ok, but it’s really nothing great. Orton won though which was the absolute right ending.

Overall Rating: C-. If I had one word to describe this show, it would be lackluster. I mean look at it. What on the card would make you want to watch this show for free, let alone for 40 dollars? This would have been ok for something like Judgment Day maybe, but not Survivor Series. This is just nothing special at all, plain and simple.

Shelton and Christian or the main event gets match of the night more or less by default which is never a good sign at all. This is definitely not recommended as it just isn’t an interesting show. The wrestling is passable, but there’s just nothing here to make me want to see this at all, which has given me a thread idea so there we go.

 

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Joe vs. Punk II
Date: October 16, 2004
Location: Frontier Fieldhouse, Chicago Ridge, Illinois
Attendance: 700
Commentators: Jimmy Ballard, Mark Nultey

I don’t usually do ROH but this was a request. The main event of this show should be obvious. Joe is champion and this is Punk’s rematch after a time limit draw in their first match. We’re in Punk’s hometown so expect the crowd to be rabid. The whole show is about that match and it’s about 1/3 of the show so I wouldn’t expect the rest of the matches to mean much. Let’s get to it.

Punk talks about how his first match with Joe was a draw and the monster known as Joe couldn’t stop him. He talks about growing up in Chicago and fighting every day when he was a kid, even when the bullies would come to his house and he’d be the one left standing at the end. This is his home and with everyone looking, he’s going to be ready in his home town.

Generation Next (heel stable) talks about how Ricky Steamboat cost them their match last night against the Second City Saints (Punk’s team). Austin Aries, part of the team, isn’t here tonight because of the beating last night. Oh that’s Alex Shelley talking. He has an I Quit match with Jimmy Jacobs tonight. The other two guys are Jack Evans and Roderick Strong and tonight they team up to face the Rottweilers (Homicide/Rocky Romero).

Davey Andrews vs. TJ Dalton

No idea who either are but from what I can find, neither have wrestled for any company of note in over four years. Andrews was in ROH for awhile and Dalton was in OVW for awhile. Yeah that’s all I’ve got. And never mind as two other guys run in and beat them both down about 20 seconds after the bell.

Their names are the Carnage Crew and their names are Tony DeVito and HC Loc. They yell about Mick Foley and how they’re hardcore. I’m guessing this is leading to something later.

Delirious vs. Jay Lethal

Lethal is 19 here and is VERY young looking, probably because he is young. Delirious starts off with his usual insane stuff. Wait. DELIRIOUS WAS THE LIZARD MAN??? I heard about this for years about how ROH had a lizard man and it was Delirious? I’ve wondered who that was for years. Delirious hasn’t won a singles match yet so this is a big deal for him. Lethal takes him to the corner but is knocked off and takes a rana for two.

They exchange forearms which is a required sequence in ROH. There are the chops and the WOOs. Out to the floor and it’s kind of cool to see them using handheld cameras. Delirious hits a front flip dive to the floor to take Lethal down again. Lethal reverses a rollup for two. Delirious shouts a lot but gets caught in a neckbreaker but catches Lethal coming off the top in a Cutter. That’s not worthy of a pin though. Well to be fair Delirious is supposed to be insane. Shadows Over Hell (splash to the back and not called that yet) gets two. Delirious yells some more and gets caught in a dragon (full nelson) suplex for the pin.

Rating: C-. There wasn’t much of a point to it but for the opener this was fine. Lethal would get a lot better and Delirious would get a lot funnier so this is one of those matches that would be much better about 3 years later. Nothing great here but they were trying and for guys who didn’t have much experience, this worked well enough. Just not that interesting though.

Joe says tonight we’ve got a sixty minute match and all Punk has proven is that he can’t beat Joe. Tonight, Punk will fail again.

At this point on the card there’s a match listed as Dixie vs. Matt Stryker (not that one) but there’s no mention of it here. Maybe it’s coming later.

Tracy Brooks vs. Daizee Haze

Brooks you know from TNA and Haze is currently too skinny to wrestle for awhile. They haven’t had much women’s wrestling lately since Alexis Laree left (more famous as Mickie James). They do some basic stuff as the announcers point out that they can be just as good as the men. A forearm gets two for Haze as does a missile dropkick. In a weird ending, Haze tries forever to get a Stunner and finally hooks it but Brooks totally no sells it and hits a clothesline for the pin.

Rating: D-. And no that’s not because they’re girls. It’s because this match was really boring and the ending was awful. It’s like they were supposed to be having a big match and in short, they didn’t. There was nothing here that was interesting and there was nothing that made me think this was better than the Divas or what would become the Knockouts. The ending was as awkward as I’ve seen in a very long time.

Angel Dust vs. Matt Sydal vs. Josh Daniels vs. Trent Acid

Daniels is some indy guy that I’ve heard of and that’s about it. Angel Dust is an indy guy known as Azrieal and had a one off appearance in the X-Division Showcase on Impact as Federico Palacios. Acid is an indy guy that died last year and Sydal is Evan Bourne and a heel here. This is called a survival match but it’s one fall to a finish. Ok then. Acid is in the shirt, Dust is in the bandana and Daniels has the gold/yellow trim. Got it.

Dust is part of a team called Special K which I believe was a bunch of drug addicts. This is a fast paced match but Dust loses a headlock for a second on Sydal in a bit of a botch. Acid sends Sydal (who I might call Bourne) to the floor and it’s off to Daniels. I think if you go to the floor it’s the same as a tag. Daniels sets for a dive but runs into a forearm from Acid. Dust tries a huge moonsault to the floor but misses everything.

The announcers have no idea who is legal here. Everyone is back in now and it’s a big brawl still. A Blue Thunder Bomb gets two for Acid. I think it’s Daniels vs. Acid who are legal but Dust tags himself in. Daniels is like cool man and fires off some kicks. Sydal comes in out of nowhere and tries a shooting star but lands on his feet. Everything breaks down and Acid hits a reverse inverted DDT on Sydal but Daniels hits a German on Dust and they’re legal so Daniels gets the win.

Rating: C. Fun match but it was totally insane. The fans liked Acid the best and were MAD when he lost. Still though, this one got too insane and it was hard to tell what was going on at all by the end of it. That can get very annoying and it did so here. Not a horrible match or anything but it was too big of a mess to make much sense.

Chad Collyer/Nigel McGuinnes vs. BJ Whitmer/Dan Maff

Collyer/Nigel have Ricky Steamboat with them while Whitmer/Maff have Mick Foley. It’s the whole wrestling vs. hardcore jazz. Steamboat and Foley started to hook up in WCW but I guess they figured that one of the best heels vs. one of the best faces would make too much sense and therefore money so they bailed on it immediately. Steamboat asks the four wrestlers to get on the floor because he wants to talk to Foley.

The audio here is AWFUL and I had no idea what Steamboat was talking about for part of it. Ok now I can a bit. The fans are saying speak up. Last night Foley issued a challenge for this tag match and Steamboat says it’s not about skill but it’s about the style the guys use. Steamboat calls it garbage wrestling because you use things like garbage cans in it. “In fact Mick I got an e-mail today from the Chicago sanitation department that says when your next novel fails they have a job for you cleaning up the garbage.” BURN.

Foley gets on the mic and makes fun of Steamboat for being too serious and not an entertaining talker. Foley talks about Steamboat winning the title in 1989 right here in Chicago from Ric Flair (Chi-Town Rumble, well worth checking out). Steamboat may be the greatest pure wrestler of all time. I’m not sure “may be” is needed here. However, saying someone is the greatest pure wrestler of all time “is like saying someone is the greatest softcore adult actor of all time.”

Foley defends hardcore wrestling because it’s about toughness and giving it all you have. He wants to know how long Steamboat plans to ride Flair’s coattails (even though Flair is a washed up loser). The fans are split here. Steamboat comes back with I know Flair, I’ve worked with Flair and you Mick Foley are no Ric Flair. Foley blasts Flair, saying he has a banana nose, orange teeth and looks like Barbara Bush in drag.

Steamboat says those were funny when Funk said them 20 years ago. Foley comes up with some new ones, like Flair says the same things time after time and carries Batista’s bags and sucked up to HHH. Oh and Flair has botox. This is HILARIOUS. Here’s the real burn: “I’m no Ric Flair because I knew when my time was done, I stepped aside for the sake of younger guys.” Bear in mind that about three and a half years later Foley won the TNA World Title, although TNA was still pretty awesome at this point.

Oh hey we have a match to get to. Everyone shakes hands pre match. Ok so it’s Nigel vs. Whitmer to get us going. We go over who has the best trainer in this and Maff is kind of left out in the cold. This is under pure rules, which is an overly complicated system that means you have a limited amount of rope breaks and no punches. Off to Maff as the pure guys are dominating with a lot of arm drags in a nice touch. And here are the Carnage Crew to jump Foley and a brawl breaks out. Not long enough to grade but it was pretty basic up to this point.

Steamboat goes off on the Carnage Crew for ruining the match and even calls them a bunch of dickheads. Announcer: “STEAMBOAT SAID DICKHEADS!!!!!”

Ok so now the match is starting again but it’s under hardcore rules. Well sure why not? It’s a bit brawl to start and once they’re on the floor Foley drills McGuinness with the mic. They’re into the crowd already. The Crew is gone. Maff cracks a water bottle over the head of Collyer and McGuinness gets taken down by a chair. Ok so now we’re into the ring and there are a few chairs involved. This is a total brawl and Steamboat is back now. Ok he wants it to be pure wrestling again. McGuinness gets all technical and such and gets a slick rollup on Whitmer for the pin.

Rating: C+. That’s for the whole thing. Steamboat and Foley were by far the best things about this but I don’t think that surprises anyone. The idea of mixing both styles was interesting but it needed more than it had here. The main conclusion I can draw from this though: MAN WCW was stupid for not following up on Steamboat vs. Foley in 92.

Steamboat rubs in the win post match.

Acid yells at Dave Prazak because he had a pin and says he feels like an outcast here.

TJ Dalton/Davey Andrews vs. Caranage Crew

Nice to see them following up on the angle from earlier in the show. The non-regular tag team takes over early with some nice double team stuff. And never mind as Dalton gets caught in a Doomsday Device as we finally get into a regular match. The Crew settles into rhythm and beats the tar out of Dalton. Andrews comes in and fights back. He’s one of the first graduates of the ROH Wrestling Academy. Not that it matters as the Crew hits a bunch of violent double team moves, finally killing Andrews with a double team middle rope piledriver. Total squash.

Rottweilers vs. Generation Next

This is heel vs. heel. It’s a big brawl to start which leaves us with Homicide vs. Evans and you know Evans is going to start diving. Romero and Stong have a fast sequence in the ring and everything breaks down quickly. Ok so now we’re into an actual tag match, in this case Strong vs. Romero. Romero is half of the tag champions but his partner (Ricky Reyes) isn’t here tonight.

Strong finally shoves Homicide into the corner and brings in Evans to a moderate pop. Generation Next (I keep wanting to say Gen Me) double teams a lot and gets two off a double team splash in the corner. Middle rope elbow gets two for Strong. Strong Hold (Boston Crab) goes on but Strong walks to the corner on his own for some reason. Weird.

Homicide grabs a DDT on Evans to take over and bring Romero back in. Camel clutch goes on but Strong comes in and chops the back of Romero’s neck HARD. See that’s how you break something up: in a surprise and with something other than a weak stomp. The Rottweilers keep hammering away and Evans is such a tiny man that it works more effectively than it normally would.

An Alabama Slam into a slingshot into a backbreaker into a double stomp (there was some double teaming in there too) has Evans in trouble. A reverse double gorilla press sends him flying over the top and onto Strong. Evans finally avoids a swan dive and makes the tag to bring in Strong. Here’s some double teaming with flips but since this is an indy company the selling lasts all of 8 seconds.

A Steiner Bulldog gets no cover for the dog enthusiasts. Evans comes in via a springboard kick where the springboard and spinning weren’t needed at all. Everything breaks down and Homicide hits a piledriver for no cover on Strong. Homicide kills (get it?) Evans but he’s not legal. This is one of those matches where there’s too much going on to keep track of. A top rope splash gets two on Strong. Strong fights back and takes out both Rottweilers with a Razor’s Edge into a Diamond Cutter which lets Evans hit a 630 for the pin.

Rating: C+. Fun stuff here and Generation Next would become a huge force in the company in the next year or so with Aries winning the title soon after this, I think in December. I’m not a fan of this style as the lack of a story and the total lack of selling hurts it a lot. Either way, I like Strong and him being on the winning team helps somewhat. Not exactly bad but I couldn’t get into it.

The Rottweilers want to shake hands post match and yeah they beat up Generation Next because they’re idiots. Romero grants them a title shot post match.

Jimmy Jacobs vs. Alex Shelley

This is an I Quit match. Oh and for all the people that said Ryder was original for the one long leg and one short leg in the tights, Jacobs has him beaten here by about 3 years. They slug it out and then head to the floor quickly with Jacobs hitting a rana off the apron. Shelley tries to throw him back in and takes another rana for his efforts. Jacobs chokes Shelley with a chair but takes a spinning downward spiral into the barricade instead.

Shelley takes over and works over the neck of Jacobs because….well I guess he has to work on something. Oh ok these two are former partners. See how easy it is to explain that? “Jacobs has frustrated Shelley ever since this team split up.” See it’s not hard. Back in the ring now and it’s almost all Alex. Jacobs manages a clothesline and Shelley’s head is rammed into the chair on the mat. That looked good. Or bad. I wonder which one it is.

Jacobs pulls a spike out of his boot which would become one of his trademarks later in his career. Shelley gets it away and rams it upside Jacobs head. “That thing has got to be 12 inches long!” That’s what she said? Now the spike is driven into Jacobs’ head and he’s busted. A tombstone onto a chair half kills Jacobs but he won’t quit. Here’s a kendo stick which always makes me think of the things they put newspapers on at the library.

Shelley uses duct tape and ties Jacobs to the top rope with his back exposed. LET THE BONDAGE AND TORTURE PLAY BEGIN!!! Jacobs gets a low blow in and gets his feet up to his hands where he pulls another spike out to cut himself free. Announcer: “How many spikes can you have in a pair of furry boots?” Jacobs gets the stick and wears Shelley out with it and chokes away. A senton misses and Shelley beats him back and forth with the spike and stick.

Off to something like half of a Regal Stretch minus the leg trap and Jacobs is out cold. His hand only drops twice though and Jacobs fights out again. Something like a Killswitch puts Shelley down but Jacobs is spent. The senton (the backsplash, not the bomb) hits this time and he wears Shelley out with the stick and puts the same hold on Shelley. Jacobs takes forever to set up a pair of chairs with a third bridged over it. And of course he winds up going through it himself in a brainbuster and then back to the Stretch. Jacobs shouts he’s better than Shelley but gives up.

Rating: B. Pretty good and violent match here. When these kind of matches are on they can be very on and this one worked pretty well. Shelley is a guy that can be interesting when you let him do something other than being half of the Machineguns. Jacobs would become a very interesting character who was mentally tortured by a lot of things. Cool match here.

Shelley goes off on Jacobs post match and Strong comes in to help with the beatdown. Steamboat comes out for the save. The Carnage Crew comes out and beats Steamboat down but finally Maff/Whitmer/Foley come out for the save.

ROH World Title: Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk

Punk is blonde here. The fans are split as Joe is the most popular guy in the company but it’s Punk’s hometown. They shake hands and here we go. It’s weird to see Joe using power moves. The idea is that Joe proved he could go long distances and now Punk needs another idea to fight Joe. Feeling out process to start with not much of note going on so far. They go into the corner and Joe breaks clean to tick off the crowd.

Joe hooks a hammerlock and into an armbar. Punk takes him to the corner and it’s another clean break, almost shocking everyone. Punk cartwheels out of a wristlock and Joe is like boy please and takes him down into a camel clutch. Man and he cranks on that thing. He’s channeling his inner humbler. Punk rolls out into a headlock which he used a lot in the first match. They have a ton of time to work with here so this is fine.

In a nice looking move, Joe has Punk in a Pedigree position but they’re on the mat and it’s a submission hold. I like the plug from the commentator as he talks about the shopping site where there are DVDs and all that jazz. That’s all normal and fine but at the end of it he says “Ok we got that out of the way. It’s important but I want to get back to the match.” I don’t know why but I found that really refreshing.

This has been almost all on the mat or in a technical style and I’m digging it. Punk has used a bunch of headlocks here but the idea is he used that in the first match to wear Joe down and had success with it. That’s some higher level psychology and the announcers did their part by explaining it in like two sentences. See it’s not hard. Even a belly to back suplex can’t get the hold broken.

They exchange shoulder blocks and Punk is getting fired up. We hit the strikes and Punk speeds things WAY up, grabbing a rollup and Joe bails for a bit which stuns the announcers. Back to the mat game and man are they fast down there. After Punk chills for a bit on the floor he tries a test of strength because….uh…..why would you try that against Joe? They fire off chops in the corner and while it’s not exactly Flair vs. Steamboat it’s not bad.

They go to the corner now and Punk walks the ropes to start in on the arm. Joe’s arm gets worked on for a long while and now it’s back to the headlock. This has been going on about half an hour now and it’s pretty solid stuff, almost like a chess match. Out to the floor and of course Punk is in over his head out there. Joe is a big power brawler to go with his submission stuff here so he was really more like Benoit actually.

Over to the corner and Joe fires off some face washes but Punk avoids the running boot. Now Punk washes Joe’s face in the other corner. Nice little touch there. Foley is watching from the crowd. Thankfully they don’t cut to him and miss part of the match. A driving knee from the top (knee on the back of Joe’s head and Punk drove him down) gets two. Joe grabs a very modified STF out of nowhere and DANG. They were up on their knees but then Joe bent him back so that Punk was laying on his back but his legs were underneath him. FREAKING OW MAN!!!

Punk goes up but Joe just walks away like only he does. I love that realism thing. Delayed vertical suplex (about twenty seconds) gets two for Joe. Punk goes for the arm but Joe cuts the knees out and hooks a Boston Crab. Joe fires off a bunch of kicks to the head but Punk fires off some forearms. Joe is like whatever and pops him in the face for two. This time Joe gets the Facewashes and the running boot.

Punk finally gets a boot up in the corner and then a rana to the floor. A suicide dive puts both guys down and Punk gets control back. Punk, ever the jerk, hits Joe’s Ole Kick on the floor. He tries another rana off the apron but Joe catches him in a powerbomb position and spins Punk around into the barricade. Now Joe fires off the Ole but Punk blocks. They slug it out on the floor and this time the Ole hits.

After a quick skirmish in the ring they go back to the floor…..and the announcers walk off. They say they want to watch it as fans and say the match speaks for itself. Joe gets a DDT onto the apron and I’m assuming the fanboy announcers are pleased with that. Were they paying them by the hour and run out of money or something? Back in and a spear gets a very fast two.

We’re at 45 minutes. A top rope splash misses for the fat man and they do the slugging it out from their knees spot. A snap powerslam gets two for Joe and it’s off to a cross armbreaker. Punk just can’t get away from that, even today. A big boot gets two for Punk. There’s someone at ringside but since the announcers ran out for guacamole and gram crackers, we’re on our own as to who he is.

Punk gets a tornado DDT and the Anaconda Vice which he lets go for no apparent reason. Joe takes over with a clothesline and follows it up with a pair of busters (gut and brain) for two each. Joe does his powerbomb into a crab into the STF into the crossface sequence. Sunset flip gets two for Punk as does a kick to the head. They do the whole exchange submission finishers and Punk winds up putting the Clutch on Joe.

That gets him nowhere and a double clothesline puts them both down. Two Pepsi Plunges are blocked into a superplex by Joe for a delayed two. Joe sets for the MuscleBuster but Punk goes insane pounding on Joe’s back to break it up. Another Plunge is attempted but Joe counters into the MuscleBuster….and that’s the time limit as Punk is out cold. Uh…shouldn’t the match end with Joe out cold and Punk needing 5 more seconds to win the title?

Rating: B. It’s good, but the feeling I got here was “we have to have a classic”, not “this was a classic”. The first 15 minutes of this were all about the headlock and wearing Joe down and all that jazz, but it never went anywhere after that. The last half an hour or so didn’t really have much drama for my taste.

The problem was they were going for regular moves instead of trying to finish. The problem with that is that you have Joe and Punk who have already gone an hour before and you know that’s not going to finish either guy. This was reminiscent of Hart vs. Michaels, where a lot could have been condensed and the match would have improved a lot. It’s still good, but it’s not the epic classic that it’s supposed to be.

They shake hands post match.

Punk is sure he can beat Joe but he’s not sure if Joe can beat him. Punk wants a no time limit match. That match would happen and Joe would win.

Joe says that was your second and last chance. The job was to beat him, not survive him. He’s right.

Overall Rating: B-. The show is good but other than the last two matches there’s not much to see here from a wrestling standpoint. Steamboat and Foley are great and the Flair jokes are hilarious. I know someone is going to rip me for the Joe vs. Punk stuff and I have a feeling I know who it’s going to be. It’s good, but it’s not the classic it’s said to be and I’m sure the ROH bots are going to explain to me why I don’t get it and I don’t know real wrestling. Let’s get it over with.

Unforgiven 2004
Date: September 12, 2004
Location: Rose Garden, Portland, Oregon
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s 2004 and we’re in the single brand PPV era. This is a Raw show and the main event is HHH vs. Orton since Orton rose to the top of the show and won the title from Benoit at Summerslam. Since someone is getting some traction as a face, we better crush him quickly. Other than that we also have Jericho vs. Christian in a ladder match for the vacant IC Title and the winner of worst match of the year. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how Orton has turned back against Evolution and HHH in specific so tonight it’s payback time.

Batista/Ric Flair vs. Chris Benoit/William Regal

Regal got a small push around this time as he feuded with Evolution because Evolution hurt Eugene. Benoit vs. Batista gets us going and the Crossface is attempted less than a minute in. Benoit uses his technical stuff and has Batista all confused. Off to Regal who tries to brawl and tosses Big Dave around with a suplex. Batista gets his hands on Benoit and brings in Flair. Let the wooing begin!

Benoit is like cool man and chops it out with Flair and the Canadian gets the better of it. Back to Regal and the beat down the old wrinkly man. Flair Flop and Regal drops a knee on his head. Benoit and Regal hammer away on Ric for a bit. He probably owes them money. Benoit goes for the knee again and takes an enziguri for Flair Flop #2. Off to Regal vs. Batista now and Regal is in a fighting move.

Batista takes down Regal and lets Flair get the glory shots in. Well that’s better than a Regal money shot I guess. Belly to back gets two. This crowd is silent. Batista comes back in and he’s really not that good at this kind of stuff yet. Back to Flair and it’s Figure Four time. Benoit comes in to break it up like any good partner would do. Batista beats on Regal a bit but Regal rams into him and it’s hot tag Benoit.

Flair comes in at the same time and Benoit is all fired up. The crowd doesn’t seem to care about anyone but Regal. That tends to be a problem in the Pacific Northwest. Is there an Atlantic Northwest that I’m not aware of? Benoit busts out Rolling Germans on Flair and the Swan Dive drills Flair. Crossface goes on Flair but Batista picks Benoit up like he’s a small Canadian wrestler and Batista is a big power lifter. Regal sends Batista into the post and then into the crowd. The Canadian counters the Figure Four into the Crossface and we’re done.

Rating: B-. Solid opening tag match here that got a lot of time to work with. Regal was fired up here and with him like this I could see him having a bit of a stronger push if they kept him serious. Not a classic or anything but they did enough here to make a good match without much to work with other than Evolution hurt a slow guy and it’s revenge time. Good opener though.

Trish and Christian argue over who gets to use Tomko tonight. Pay no attention to the fact that they have different matches tonight and Tomko isn’t in one of his own. Trish whispers in his ear and Tomko leaves with her. I think that was a breakup also. There’s some mystery chick that is trying to jump Trish which is why she wants Tomko there.

Women’s Title: Victoria vs. Trish Stratus

Trish is champion and Victoria is in this weird stage where she’s dancing and such and it didn’t fit her at all. JR thinks Victoria is the stronger of the two. And this man is in the Hall of Fame. The fans think Trish is a sl** and Jerry disagrees. Jerry wanted to give Trish a pre-match physical since she had been injured. JR: “She had a broken hand. What were you going to have her do? DON’T ANSWER THAT.” Victoria keeps taking over but can’t keep the advantage.

Tomko saves Trish from a dive and Victoria is mad. She gets sent into the post and that changes things around quite a bit. Trish pounds away and chokes a bit for two. She channels her inner Dan Severn and uses the modified abdominal stretch that he used during his limited time in the company. Things slow WAY down as Trish hooks on a chinlock. Victoria makes her comeback and hits her side slam and and standing moonsault (with shake) for two each. A headbutt puts Trish down…and Victoria dives on Tomko. That’s enough for Stratusfaction to end this.

Rating: D. And most of that is because Victoria looks good in little flesh colored shorts. This was really boring and I don’t think anyone cared. For some reason this was to set up the post match stuff because the company thought someone wanted to see it. What is that you ask? It’s the worst match of the year. Here it is.

The mystery woman comes in to save Victoria from a beating and a DDT puts Tomko down. After a brief chat with JR and Jerry, Tomko says he wants to fight the mystery woman right now. Here she comes and even JR says it’s the worst kept secret in wrestling as to who that is.

Tyson Tomko vs. Mystery Woman

There go the clothes…and it’s Steven Richards. Yeah and everyone knew it so this is hardly a secret. And he’s wearing a bra, panties and plastic chest enhancements. Tomko destroys him and asks if Richards wants to be a girl. The fans know it’s garbage and it’s not even really a match. Tomko chokes Richards a lot and the fans aren’t paying attention at all. Tomko slams him and that’s the first non-stomp/choke move of the match. Here’s a neck vice and the fans just die. Richards no sells punches and Tomko calls him a sissy, making Steven grabs his balls. Tomko’s that is. Richards stops to look at the bra and a rack neckbreaker ends him.

Rating: J. As in just no. No way, not working, nothing of value. Next please. This is why we got tired of individual brand PPVs: stuff like this got six and a half minutes. Let that sink in for a minute.

Buy the Chris Benoit DVD which we’ll never mention again three years from this date!

We recap Christian vs. Jericho. In short, Edge was injured (shocking I know) and had to forfeit the title. Jericho got in his face so Christian made the save and a ladder match was announced for this show for the title.

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. Chris Jericho

All outside parties are banned from ringside and it’s a ladder match remember. The fans chant CLB and Christian is in green tights for some reason. Basic stuff to start with these two being their normally awesome selves. Jericho grabs a ladder and throws it at Christian but only hits another ladder. Jericho takes over and hits a running enziguri. Out to the floor and Jericho misses another ladder shot.

And now let’s go into the crowd because there are a ton of ladders out there right? Back to ringside and Jericho chokes on him with a cord. Christian busts out an Unprettier (Killswitch) on the floor which today would probably be an injury angle for Jericho but here it just knocks him out. To give you an idea of what midcard finishers mean, Jericho keeps Christian from even climbing the ladder after taking his finisher on the floor. Imagine that today.

Christian is sent face first into the ladder and JR talks about barbecue sauce. I don’t get how he manages to tie those things together but whatever. Christian puts the ladder on the middle rope and slingshots Jericho into it face first. This is more about beating on each other instead of the title and climbing. Speaking of which, Jericho throws the ladder at Christian to put him down again.

Jericho channels his inner Shawn and rides the ladder down onto Christian, mainly hitting the back and the knees. Since selling isn’t allowed in this match, Jericho gets hung upside down, almost in a Tree of Woe position in the corner. Christian goes up but Jericho flips him off instead of climbing to slow him down. Jericho tries a Lionsault onto Christian onto the ladder but only gets ladder.

Jericho sends him into the ladder and the fans try to get into it. Christian goes up and hangs up there but still can’t pull it down. Instead he crashes, allowing Jericho to go up and be shoved off too. Christian goes up and gets caught in Jericho’s signature Walls on the Ladder spot. Christian falls off and Jericho still can’t get it as Jericho’s tail bone lands on the ladder. FREAKING OW MAN! Captain Charisma brings the big ladder in and Jericho tries on a regular one.

Since he’s an idiot in this match, Christian touches the belt and then stops to look at Jericho. Both guys go flying off after Jericho shoves the belt so Christian has issues getting to it. And then Jericho climbs up to get it in a very pedestrian ending. This would give Jericho the record for most Intercontinental Titles ever, a record he still holds to this day.

Rating: C+. This was a pretty boring ladder match actually. Ladder matches automatically get some bonus points because they’re ladder matches but this was far less about drama for the belt and more about trying to have big spots. Not a particularly good match and most of the time it just got boring. They were trying though and the spot near the end where Jericho fell on the ladder was impressive.

Todd tries to talk to Kane but runs into Lita instead. Lita talks about how she wants Shawn to kill Kane. Kane pops out of his locker room and grabs her by the hair. It’s now a No DQ match. Kane also forces a kiss out of her.

Jericho talks about how proud he is to be champion and the record holding champ. Edge pops up and says that’s my belt.

Mania 21 is in LA.

We recap Shawn vs. Kane. Kane is all crazy and evil and Lita is carrying his baby which was the result of a night with Kane to keep him from killing Matt. Guess how well Kane kept up the end of the bargain. This resulted in a forced wedding because that’s how wrestling works. Kane got an open contract to face anyone he wanted at Unforgiven and planned to get a world title shot but Lita stole the contract and signed Kane up to face the returning Shawn Michaels. Oh and Kane put Shawn out in the first place.

Shawn Michaels vs. Kane

Lita is here against her will. Shawn fires away at Kane and the Big Bald gets beaten to the floor. See, this is why Shawn is great: you can throw him into something like this and it works very well as can anyone question Shawn being in there? Shawn heads to the floor but jumps into an uppercut back inside. Kane misses an elbow due to Shawn moving even though it would have missed by a mile anyway. Out to the floor and Shawn dives over the top to take Kane down.

The lack of a story is hurting it here as it’s just a match with no backstory or anything like that and that’s the meat of any wrestling match. Shawn gets slammed through the table and he bumps like only Shawn can. That only gets two back in the ring because an upper midcard match has to go longer than 5 minutes. A legdrop also gets two. Off to a chinlock to waste some time. The move known as the Punjabi Plunge gets two.

Back to the neck vice which lasts a little longer this time. Shawn finally gets something going and drops Kane with a DDT. Both guys are down so Kane sits up and Shawn nips up almost at the same time. Out to the floor again and a step shot busts Shawn open. Shawn tries to speed things up and knocks a chair out of Kane’s hands but gets knocked down again.

Kane misses a big boot to the post and Shawn sends his head into the steel. Shawn fires away with his usual stuff back in the ring and drops the elbow for no cover. Michaels starts shaking like Terry Funk and it’s time to stomp the mat in an attempt to surprise my opponent. And never mind as Kane kicks his head off for two. Top rope clothesline looks to set up the chokeslam but Shawn hits Kane in the Little Balds.

A big chair shot puts Kane down but Shawn can’t follow up. Since it’s a No DQ match we also have no countouts so the laying around is pretty pointless with no drama at all. Lita steals the chair from Kane and the distraction lets Shawn…miss Sweet Chin Music again but the third attempt hits and it’s good for the pin.

Rating: C. This got almost twenty minutes and while it was a good brawl, I’m not really sure what this proves. Shawn, a bigger star than Kane, beat Kane and that’s it. There’s no story or retribution or anything like that. It was an entertaining enough match but all it really does is advance Lita and Kane a bit more. It would take Gene Snitsky of all people to turn Kane face again.

Video on Shelton Benjamin. He isn’t on the show or anything but here’s a video about him.

HHH talks about how Orton was nothing until he met HHH and how Evolution was about the best, meaning him. Orton is good, but not as good. This takes about two minutes and it takes that much time to say HHH is awesome and Orton needs to be beaten.

Raw Tag Titles: La Resistance vs. Tajiri/Rhyno

Conway/Grenier here. Conway vs. Tajiri starts us off and Tajiri speeds around a lot to take over. Off to Grenier who hits the floor to avoid a Gore. Tajiri comes back in and takes over with a semi-botched tornado DDT. Conway beats on Tajiri and the fans just do not care. Off to a reverse chinlock as the fans chant USA for a Japanese comeback. Rhyno comes in and beats on both French dudes a bit.

This match needs to end like five minutes ago. It’s just boring but you could say that about every tag title match in this period. We hear about Rhyno looking everywhere for a partner as he walks into a double flapjack for two. The flag goes into Conway’s balls but a Gore only gets two. And there’s a flag to the face of Rhyno for the cheap pin.

Rating: F+. This had zero point in being on PPV. It wouldn’t even be a good Raw match, mainly because it went on way too long, getting almost ten minutes. La Resistance would be the heel team of the year for awhile as no one cared at all and it went nowhere at all. The tag division sucked BAD around this point and this is a fine example of it.

We recap Orton vs. HHH which I’m sure you get by this point. They were in Evolution together, Orton won the title, HHH got mad and threw him out, this is the match. Oh and Orton spat at HHH. This gets the music video treatment.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Randy Orton

HHH has the white boots on this time. I miss this version of Orton. Here he’s young and chisled and has elbow pads and isn’t orange and covered in tattoos. They get something resembling big match intros as both guys are checked for weapons and they get the rules read to them. Feeling out process to start and they look at each other a lot. Orton spits at him again and I guess the bodybuilding phase is over.

Orton fires away and drops HHH on his back (a backdrop if you will) and hammers on him even more. Time for the chinlock and Orton looks ticked off while he’s holding onto it. And now that the hold is broken: more punching! They head to the floor and JR calls it no man’s land, and “HHH owns a lot of land in no man’s land.” If this show hadn’t bored me into a numbness already, I’d rip that apart.

HHH gets in a shot to the knee and JR follows that one up by saying he thinks Orton is quicker. Back in HHH goes for the knee as he channels his inner Naitch. The leg goes into the post and the Game works on the knee. By that I mean he spends a LONG time working on it. Off to a Figure Four and Trips puts the pressure on it. The hold goes on for a few mintues as the boring nature of this show continues. The crowd isn’t into it at all either.

The Game finally gets caught in the ropes and Hebner breaks it up. Orton counters another try at the hold and both guys are down. HHH is busted off….something. Orton goes back to the old faithful right hand and a Piper poke to the eye. They trade sleepers and HHH goes up for the dumbest move in wrestling (jumping into the boot). Randy goes up as well and hits a cross body for two.

Backbreaker gets two for the champion. The knee injury is coming and going. Orton loads up the RKO but gets shoved into the referee. Pedigree is countered into the RKO but there’s no ref. Here’s Flair who has the same looking hair as my ex stepmother but down he goes as well. Batista comes in and goes into the post.

A low blow puts Randy down and Coach comes out to referee. There’s a right hand for him but Orton walks into a Batista spinebuster to put him down for two. Pedigree is countered and there’s an RKO for Coach. Flair brings in a chair and takes an RKO too. A low blow gets rid of Batista but HHH pops Randy with a chair and a Pedigree onto said chair gives HHH the title back.

Rating: B-. Good match but the ending really hurts it. Everything went insane and the Evolution team standing tall was already old but here it is again. Batista would hit the hot streak of a lifetime soon after this though and would finally take the title off HHH for good. Oh and that Cena guy won a title too. The match was long though and the leg selling by Orton was so hit or miss that it got annoying.

Overall Rating: D-. There’s some good stuff on here but OH MY GOODNESS this show is boring. This show just keeps going on and on and there are moments where you want to pound your head into a wall to give you something interesting like a concussion. The matches aren’t bad but nothing is really great and there is so much awful on it that it gets pulled down and pulled down deep. Very boring show and nothing worth seeing at all.

Victory Road 2004
Date: November 7, 2004
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Attendance: 700
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay

Well you knew I would start doing these eventually so here’s the first one. TNA is officially the number two company in the world, but back in the day they were more or less fighting for their lives every night. This was a major step for them though as all of a sudden they were mainstream with a show on FOX Sports South and now PPV.

The main two matches here are Jeff Jarrett vs. Jeff Hardy (pre-main event appeal) in a ladder match and the X-Division Title match with AJ Styles taking on Petey Williams. Oh and Hall and Nash are debuting here. This sound familiar to anyone? Let’s get to it.

The intro is kind of a western theme about how we make our own destinies. It’s pretty basic really but it sets the stage I guess. We do however begin the idea of having every announcement be overblown and made to see huge when they just aren’t. It’s not bad but it’s fine I guess.

X-Division Gauntlet

The winner gets a cup. Ok then. This is called a reverse battle royal which in reality is a Royal Rumble and then the final two have a singles match. Kaz is number one and Sonjay Dutt is number two. It’s out of 20 mind you. In other words it’s the main event of the first weekly PPV. The time is sixty seconds here. Michael Shane and Kaz hold the X-Division Title at this point mind you.

Puma, a Japanese wrestler is 3rd. This is pure spotfest stuff here but that’s really all it needs to be for the most part. La Parka is number four. Oh he’s LA Park now. Good to know. I wonder if his brother is named Central and lives on the east coast. He has the chair and does that stupid dance of his. Jerelle Clark, a guy that did nothing at all ever, is number 5.

He’s Mr. 630 because he could do a 630 flip. Yeah I’m not impressed either. Miyamoto is number 6. He’s on Team Japan which is an actual team of Japanese wrestlers. There was a thing called the World X Cup which was way too complicated and not a lot of people cared about it but whatever. They keep the clock on the screen here which is nice. Michael Shane, the co-X-Division champion is number 7.

More importantly than anything else in his career, he’s Shawn Michaels’ cousin, hence the name. Puma is the first guy out. Clark is too. Miyamoto is out We have the champions, LA Parka and Dutt. Number 8 is Hector Garza, who is the captain of Team Mexico. The clock is messed up now of course. Nosawa, another Japanese guy, is 9th. This is taking way too long and there aren’t enough stars in there. You can’t use this crowd to grade it though as they’ll cheer for everything.

Mikey Batts is 10th. See what I’m having to deal with here? There’s just nothing interesting happening at all here. Alex Shelley, a more or less unknown heel at this point, is 11th. He puts Dutt out to clean out a bit of the clutter in there. There goes Parka also. Matt Sydal is number 12. He’s more commonly known as Evan Bourne which is what he’ll be called here.

Shelley goes through the ropes so he’s still in and has a back injury. Sonny Siaki who I think signed with WWE for awhile is 13th. What do you expect: he’s a musclehead. Nosawa is gone. Jason Cross is number 14. Oh great it’s Shark Boy. That’s just who I wanted to see in here. Shelley pulls out Bourne and Psycosis is 16th. D-Ray 3000, perhaps the most worthless wrestler ever, is 17th.

They’re just killing time out here and it’s not interesting in the slightest. Both he and Shark Boy are put out by Siaki. Eighteenth is Amazing Red. Shelley finally goes out. Kendrick, called Spanky here, is 19th. Chris Sabin is 20th as this just needs to end. Seriously, THIS is opening the show. It’s 1/6 of the entire show and everyone is ok with that. Siaki is out. Spanky puts out Shane. I hate that name.

In the most contrived spot I’ve ever seen, we get a seven man Tower of Doom. Give me a break. Jason Cross is gone, no word yet on if anyone not related to him cares. Red gets a nice superkick and puts out Psychosis. And Red is out next. Spanky is out and we’re down to Sabin, Garza and Kaz who started it. Sabin goes out so it’s Garza vs. Kaz for the cup. This is SO much more entertaining than say, the X Champions fighting EACH OTHER?

Garza hits a sweet moonsault that gets a long two. Garza takes a DDT and gets up at four which is called two for some reason. He then misses his big corkscrew move and rolls up Kaz to get the win. I hated this match. Naturally his interview is all in Spanish and there’s no translation. That’s perfect right? Oh there is one. I just don’t care.

Rating: D. The spots were cool, but this was WAY too long. Seriously, we just spent half an hour on a match for a cup. Does anyone else see why this was freaking stupid or is it just me? TNA doesn’t get it, so things are all normal I guess. Garza would be deported in like a month.

Ron Killings/Erik Watts/Johnny B. Badd/Pat Kenney vs. Dallas/Kid Kash/Naturals

Oh look MORE people in the same match. Could this get any worse? Why would you sign Mero at this point? Seriously, why? Dallas is now known as Vance Archer and Killings is R-Truth in case you didn’t know. This is just what you would expect it to be: bad wrestling but overhyped to heck and back by West and Tenay. Badd is said to be a legend.

Even in his own mind I don’t think he’s that dumb. To the shock of no one, this turns into a big brawl. They do the random people jump into the ring and get knocked out again spots as this has no flow to it at all. Badd hits a hurricanrana to set up something resembling a Pedigree from Truth for the pin. Badd was gone in a few months as was Watts. Kenney (Simon Diamond for you ECW guys) was seen once in awhile I think.

Rating: D+. There was just no point to this at all. It was all over the place and had no flow to it. This makes 28 wrestlers in two matches. Do you think that’s enough? It’s complete overkill at this point and is just insane.

Some actor from Dodgeball says that Nash isn’t in a limo with him.

Mascarita Sagrada vs, Piratita Morgan

And we have a midget match. Morgan is a pirate. We hear the history of midget wrestling from Tenay who tries to make this interesting and fails. This is incredibly short and Sagrada wins with a small package. This is exactly what you would have expected it to be.

Rating: N/A. It was no more interesting or boring than any other match not having Max Mini in it.

Hall says Nash isn’t here. Shock and surprise, he’ll be here later. Can no one get to a show on time?

Tag Titles: 3 Live Kru vs. Team Canada

Team Canada here is Bobby (Robert) Roode and Eric Young while 3LK is Konnan and Road Dogg. They use the Freebird rule to fight and will use it if they win the belts here, along with Ron Killings. Anyway, this is the finale of a long feud between them which of course didn’t end here. We start with Roadie and Roode. For the life of me I do not get the hype on this guy. He’s ok and that’s it.

People to this day think he could be a main event guy. Why? Tell me one thing that he could do that would validate him as a main event guy. And I don’t mean a line like just watch him or how can’t you see it. Pretend I’m stupid and tell me what it is that this guy has that makes him a big star. Konnan is in now with Young and these two just amuse me to no end.

We have a guy that no one cares about that tries desperately to play up the gimmick of being from another country which makes him interesting when he’s just bland otherwise and no one cares about him, and then we have Eric Young. We hit the formula portion of our event with the heels working over Roadie to build up Konnan for the hot tag.

Does anyone else see this sucking harder than a Diva wanting to get a job? I miss Scott D’Amore. The guy was a fat waste of oxygen but he was a decent talker and heel manager. Nothing great here but it’s kind of like the first Mania where the tag titles changed: it allows you to have a title change so the show is memorable and has some impact to steal a pun from myself.

Konnan finally gets the tag after a heel miscommunication (remember folks: TNA is breaking NEW ground!) spot and cleans house. It of course turns into a brawl with Roadie being fine after getting taken out for about 4 minutes. D’Amore tries to use the hockey stick but Killings comes in for the save and a BAD looking X-Factor gives the Kru the titles.

Rating: C. It was average, plain and simple. This match could have been on any TV or house show or PPV and it would have been fine. At seven minutes long they didn’t have much time to get anything substantial going but still, this wasn’t much but it was fine for what it was I suppose.

And now we have Piper’s Pit with Jimmy Snuka. This has seriously been done to death and for the life of me I don’t get it. We understand: Snuka got hit with a coconut twenty years ago at this point. WE GET IT! Piper apparently wants to make amends by letting Snuka, who looks BAD hit him with a coconut.

This goes on for a few minutes until Kid Kash comes out. Naturally there’s a brawl, including the Naturals in a nice pun that was unintentional, and everyone leaves as the fat man takes his jacket off. I have no clue why this happened.

Trinity vs. ???

She issued an open challenge, Jacqueline accepts it, the guys she manages interfere, Trinity wins with a moonsault to prove she can wrestle and doesn’t just have a job because she looks decent and that’s it.

Rating: N/A. Can you tell I didn’t care? I hope I was subtle with it.

Abyss vs. Monty Brown vs. Raven

This is the original Monster’s Ball match, which originally was far different. The idea here is that the guys have been locked up without light or food for 24 hours. This aspect has since completely disappeared due to reasons of sanity and now it’s just a regular hardcore match. The announcers say that Raven has the advantage here as he’s smaller and crazier which makes sense, at least in the lack of food and light idea.

We have a table set up inside of 30 seconds. Abyss is dominating here for the most part. It’s really more of an intense triple threat rather than a hardcore match and now we have chairs coming in. Raven really is underrated in the ring. I love what Brown does by just chucking a chair at Raven’s head. That’s awesome. Naturally we have a ref bump because they’re required I suppose.

Now we move to the big spots of the match as we have Brown sitting on the top rope and Abyss busts out the tacks. Since he’s the only one wearing a shirt you know that he’s the guy that’s going to wind up going through them. Yep, Raven comes in to powerbomb him while he’s trying to suplex Brown. That wasn’t predictable at all. Not a bit. Raven gets two off of it and then we set up another stupid spot as the table is set up in the corner and Raven gets Pounced (a spear/tackle) through it. It was a mess of course.

Rating: D+. These things are going to happen and while I can’t stand them, I get that there’s a point to them. There is a market for these I guess and at least they’re keeping it shorter. There’s really no way to make these good without going too far, but this was really lackluster even for one of these.

AJ wants to be champion again.

X-Division Title: Petey Williams vs. AJ Styles

AJ was a huge star almost at this point but he was still the king of the midcard as he would be for a long time to come, as in like 5 years. These two just go freaking nuts like an old school cruiserweight match. AJ hits a perfect backflip off the apron to the floor and then a senton over the top rope to the floor. Petey takes over with a jawbreaker and we get down to a bit more of a standard match to set up AJ’s big comeback.

For a crowd the all loves AJ that’s a heck of a dueling chant they have going. Ok that was cool. Petey puts AJ in the Tree of Woe and stands on his crotch. He does it again and AJ does more or less a really bit sit up and grabs AJ to pull him back in a German suplex which he follows with a Pele. I LOVE that springboard forearm. It just looks awesome.

Both guys counter each other’s finisher and then AJ just chucks Petey into the corner. That’s one way to do it I guess. AJ has the pin but the fat Canadian coach interrupts it. AJ kicks out of a belt shot so at least the match should be ok for the ending as that would have killed it for me. After more interference, we get the awesome finish as Petey hits the Canadian Destroyer, which is just completely awesome. It’s a jumping flip piledriver. In other words he’s got him in a regular piledriver but jumps forward and does a full flip before hitting it. That’s just amazing on a lot of levels.

Rating: B. This was very fun but AJ should have gone over here. I mean it’s your biggest show and your top face for the most part goes over to a generic guy with a cool finisher. That just doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s TNA so why am I surprised? Fun match though.

Dang there haven’t been many interviews tonight.

We recap this way too long of a feud with nothing of note to talk about. They hate each other, end of recap.

XXX vs. America’s Most Wanted

So this feud more or less went on for about two years. That’s not overkill at all though is it? XXX is Daniels, Skipper and Low-Ki, but here’s it’s minus the third guy. This is elimination, last man standing rules although they use the Texas Deathmatch formula of pin then the count starts here instead. It’s also tag rules which makes even less sense but whatever.

Storm and Skipper begin the match after a huge brawl that I guess actually began the match which makes even less sense. Ok we’re two minutes in and we’re at about our fifth double team move including a Hart Attack and a Death Sentence. Why do the names of moves have to be so freaking violent??? We get a pinfall on Daniels but he’s up at about 8.

To be fair this makes it seem like XXX lost inside of 5 minutes but also it could be said that he let himself get pinned so that he could have the 9 second breather, which at least makes sense. They brawl a good bit but for the most part they’re staying in the ring and keeping this as a normal tag match. There’s a chair being used a fair amount which strikes me as odd.

Speaking of striking a shot to Storm’s knee puts him down for thirteen to make it 2-1. After some miscommunication that sends Skipper to the floor, a guillotine legdrop makes it Skipper vs. Harris. Skipper is messed up bad and he looks like he’s got one heck of a concussion. To my surprise the other two are gone. They need to end this, like now. Skipper looks like Brock did at Mania 19 if that tells you anything.

So what does TNA do when the guy can’t even set up his one big move? They have him take a Catatonic, a big spinning slam onto a chair. You couldn’t improvise a leg injury and have him just not be able to stand? To prove how out of it he is, he tries to get up at 10 but the referee more or less shoves him back down to end this. Thank you. At least the referee had some intelligence and decency about him.

Rating: D+. The injury just completely destroyed the ending here and it hurt the match a lot. The point here though is the complete lack of care for Skipper though as he was clearly injured badly but the match kept going anyway. I get that this is supposed to be a brutal match and so forth, but this was just ridiculous on a lot of levels. It’s ok to change something if a guy is clearly injured. Either way, the match wasn’t that good with no violence or brutality to warrant such a gimmick.

Dusty Rhodes has been elected Director of Authority or something. He makes a speech, I need a drink.

Finally it’s main event time. Hardy beat Monty and Raven on Impact to get this. It’s a ladder match here. Jarrett beat him up a few times. This somehow takes five minutes to say.

NWA World Title: Jeff Hardy vs. Jeff Jarrett

It took 9 minutes to get from package to bell. Oh and remember Hall and Nash are both here and allegedly they’re both in Jarrett’s corner. Now in case you don’t know, Jeff Hardy has had ladder matches before. I need to make sure you know this, because the announcers only tell us about 49 times so because they don’t go with the full 50, make sure you know: Jeff Hardy has been in ladder matches before.

West is surprised that Hardy is using the ladder as a weapon. Has he never watched WWF television? Why do the announcers have to keep repeating themselves? There’s really no attempt at getting the ladder and it’s just moves to hurt each other. There’s no flow to this at all and it’s just spot after spot. I know the others have that also, but there’s a clear flow to it and you can easily see the differences between the two.

Hall comes out and hits a Razor’s Edge on Hardy which does nothing at all. The fans for the most part look bored as they have all night. That’s the problem here: all of these spots have not only been done but they’ve been done better by more interesting characters. There’s just no reason to care at all here and it’s painfully showing. And now we have a big ladder. Where have I seen this before?

They set it up on the floor and climb it which is completely pointless as it’s about even with what a regular ladder in the ring would be at. Oh look, Hardy is in control and Nash, with his own entrance music, is coming down. Nothing but good can come of this right? Oh you know it’s coming. They beat up Hardy and Jarrett keeps the title. They call themselves the Kings of Wrestling as they try to do the NWO thing all over again.

AJ comes out to fight them and gets beaten down then Three Live Crew (because I like literacy) comes out and fight to something resembling a stalemate before Macho Man debuts and we go off the air. Yep, the six man was your main event next month and then Savage was gone. What a mess this was.

Rating: D. This was awful. It felt like they said we’re going to have a ladder match then looked around and asked if anyone knew how to do that. It wasn’t interesting at all and it wasn’t any good. None of the spots made you want to see more and nowhere in here did I think Hardy would win. The Outsiders as usual meant nothing. They had one big moment 14 years ago and they’ve ridden it ever since. This felt like an imitation of something better but they knew it was bad.

Overall Rating: D-. I get that this was the first PPV and I’m grading it as such. This was just a failure on almost all levels. Seriously, the two top faces both lose their title matches in favor of Petey Williams, Jeff Jarrett, the Outsiders and a weak NWO parody. 1/6 of the show was one boring match, and the rest was more or less filler.

There wasn’t one moment here where I wanted to see what would happen next. This felt more like a final show than a first show, and that’s just not good, MAYBE hardcore TNA fans will like this, but casual fans will hate it. Avoid for the most part.

Royal Rumble 2004
Date: January 25, 2004
Location: Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 17,289
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman

So another year has passed and the only real change is that Evolution is running wild on Raw. Yeah, HHH is champion again, Benoit is still having great matches but getting nowhere with them, Brock still owns the world, and the Dudleys are still the only tag team worth a thing. The levels of similarity between the two shows astounds me. Oh and Cena is now a face. Yeah that’s all I’ve got.

This really was a show that doesn’t mean much in the history of the company because nothing much happens. Shawn and HHH are going to have another classic in their endless series and Lesnar is having a match with Hardcore Holly of all people. Let that sink in for a bit before we start this up.

Naturally the opening video is about Shawn and HHH, because, you know, they’re more important than the match the show is named after. The whole thing is about roads which is fine but geez, could you be a bit more subtle next time? I didn’t really get what you were trying to talk about here.

Raw Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Ric Flair/Batista

This is in the Evolution period so Flair thinks he’s a Horseman still I guess. It’s a tables match so at least we don’t have to worry about it lasting long. Evolution came in as champions here after having the belts stolen from them a month before. Oh and they’re 17 time champions here. They put Coach through a table on Raw in a pointless segment. Oh dang it they gave Batista a mic. Who thought this was a good idea at this point in his career?

The fight is on in the aisle, and I think Flair is on the verge of bleeding already. In a cool spot, Bubba is on one side of the ring and gets a table out. He slides it across the ring and it hits Batista on the floor on the other side of the ring. That was impressive. Seeing Dave with a lot of hair is just amusing. Flair is told to suck on that by Bubba which is an image I never want again. We go to a completely ranomd shot over the shoulders of the announcers. What the heck was the point of that?

The Dudleys hit that reverse neckbreaker that is always called a 3D by idiotic fans in the crowd. Shockingly, Flair is slammed off the top rope. Coach leaves for no apparent reason as Flair is about to get a 3D. He almost gets the What’s Up but Flair stops it. Batista puts D-Von through a table to end it. That was incredibly pointless.

Rating: C. It’s four and a half minutes long. How much of a rating could I actually give this thing? It was a way to give Evolution a bit more credibility as champions and that’s what it did. They lost them to RVD and Booker a few weeks later but whatever. This was fine for an opener I guess.

We go to the back and I have to take a break for a minute as Josh Matthews looks like a cross between Vanilla Ice and….something not meant to be crossed with Vanilla Ice. I mean it’s just hilarious. Anyway, he’s with Cena who is a face now but he still raps. RVD interrupts him in a bizarre cameo. Cena was getting there but he wasn’t quite there yet.

We see a chair that’s reserved for Foley. This is in the middle of the angle where he was afraid of Orton and refused to fight him.

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Jamie Noble

Talk about two careers that have gone in completely opposite directions since this. Rey comes out first for no apparent reason. If Noble’s music was any more generic it would be off an American Idol winner’s CD. Oh yeah and Nidia, Noble’s girlfriend, has been blinded by Tajiri. It’s a fake, and if that surprises you I have to wonder why you’re here. Apparently Noble has been using her to help him win matches without her knowing about it.

Cole gets in the flat out stupid line of “Nidia looking on”. Cole, you are a plague upon mankind. Even Tazz calls him out for saying something stupid. How bad does that tell you he is? Nidia trips Noble “by mistake” and Rey gets a 619 and drops the dime for the win. Yeah that’s really all that happened. It’s a 3 minute match.

Rating: N/A. There’s more or less nothing here to grade so I can’t do it justice. The angle was stupid though and this is kind of insulting to the crusierweights. They give them 3 minutes for their title? Seriously, what’s the point in even having them out there? This was stupid and is a great example of why this division is considered a freaking joke.

So Chavo can’t stand Eddie because he’s jealous or something stupid like that.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

I put Jr. because Chavo Sr. is with Chavo here. This was right before Eddie turned into the mega face and would become the most overrated wrestler in recent history. Yes Eddie was great, but you would think he was the second coming of Lou Thesz based on how much praise he got all of a sudden. He’s mad over here but still it’s annoying considering they’re still using his name in angles now.

Now in case you didn’t know that they grew up more or less as brothers, they’re going to let you know for the first time in the first two minutes. That should only be mentioned about 15 more times in the match. Oh and apparently Chavo hates Eddie now. I get that we have faces vs. heels, but this pro-Eddie stuff from Cole here is driving me insane. SHUT UP ALREADY. WE GET IT. In a funny spot, Chavo does Eddie’s dance thing and Eddie just flips him off. That was great.

Oh Eddie refuses to punch too. Chavo Sr., who is Eddie’s brother in case you can’t remember the family tree in your head, trips him to give Chavo the advantage. Since Chavo pales in the shadows of Eddie though, that lasts all of a second. Chavo steals Eddie’s sequence of moves, so Eddie follows it up by doing the exact same sequence. This allows for the frog splash to end it. That was just pointless. Eddie follows it up with a long beatdown of both Chavos to fill in some time.

Rating: C+. The wrestling here was quite good, but I still don’t get what was accomplished here. Eddie was just treading water at this point until less than a week later when he was launched into being number one contender for the Smackdown Title in a battle royal. This ended this mini feud so I guess that’s the point it served. I never liked Eddie vs. Chavo for some reason, but the wrestling was very solid.

Buy Mick Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses. No you really should as it’s a cool set.

Benoit is in the back with Josh Matthews but Flair and Evolution interrupt him. If anyone can explain to me logically why Benoit was never made into the next big star of the Horsemen in WCW, I’ll get you a ham sandwich. They talk about Benoit being unable to win the big one, which more or less gives away the ending to the Rumble.

Since apparently I murdered a baby in a past life or something, we recap Bob Holly vs. Lesnar. It’s an even numbered year so it’s time to push him again. Holly fought Lesnar in 2002 and Lesnar messed up a powerbomb and it broke Holly’s neck. That apparently is what it takes for him to get a title shot. Holly kept jumping Brock and trying to hurt him with a full nelson. Yes, Hardcore Holly is getting a title shot at the Royal freaking Rumble. Just take me now.

Smackdown World Title: Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly

They announce Holly and that this is for the WWE Title and I expect Chimmel to just break up laughing. I mean seriously how could you keep a straight face announcing that? It’s amazing to think that Lesnar would be done with the WWE in three months. Holly jumps him before the match starts so the bell rings while Holly is waiting on Brock to get up. He misses a cross body, meaning that he was in control for all of two seconds of this match.

After that, it’s all Brock. I mean literally, four minutes have passed and Holly has been on defense since then. Tazz and Cole are really trying to make this sound like a legit match. They even say that Holly might be pound for pound the strongest guy in the company. That’s just completely stupid. Hey there’s offense! It’s a head slap and two punches and he’s down again. Also most of this is Brock with Holly on the mat in a hold.

He gets a slightly longer one here, even hitting his finisher, the Alabama Slam (think of a guy going for a sunset flip but not getting over and the guy he’s using it on grabbing his legs and slamming him back down to the mat). Naturally though he doesn’t cover but goes for the stupid submission and since that doesn’t work, the F5 ends this in like 6 minutes.

Rating: D-. This was a squash on PPV for the title. I can get the idea of having a throwaway feud that ends at the Rumble to set up the real feud at Mania, but this was just a waste of time. Serious, HARDCORE HOLLY is the best you can do? You couldn’t throw someone like Cena in there for a quick feud and title match that went 12 minutes or so? Vince loved Holly for some reason and refused to quit pushing him until he finally woke up and fired him.

We’re four matches into a six match card. The longest match so far: Eddie vs. Chavo at eight minutes and three seconds. I know I complain about PPVs being too much like a TV show but this is ridiculous.

HHH and Shawn are getting ready for their title match tonight. Of course it’s seven years in the making despite them feuding extensively since then. Basically this time Shawn had gotten a title shot in his home town and pinned HHH, but his shoulders were down too so HHH kept the belt.

That’s a great match that you should check out which I believe is on the Heartbreak and Triumph DVD. They go through the usual whining about HHH taking Shawn’s spot after the injury and I want to beat myself with a rock. This highlight package literally goes on for almost four minutes. WE GET IT.

Raw World Title: Shawn Michaels vs. HHH

This is last man standing. From the beginning of the recap package to the bell was about seven and a half minutes. Shawn is finally back to looking like a pro wrestler instead of looking like a tiny man that he was in the Elimination Chamber. What’s the deal with announcers always misusing the word literally? Monsoon said they were literally hanging from the rafters and Lawler says they’re literally beating the tar out of each other. No, not really.

Ross follows that up with a line saying that Michaels made a calculated mistake. I just shake my head and move on. In a shocking turn of events, HHH works on Shawn’s back. Lawler goes on a limb and says that Shawn’s back might be healed SIX YEARS AFTER HE HURT IT. I love how they try to make it sound like Shawn left and then HHH was a big deal the next day. In reality it took about a year for him to get to the big time and another year and the Rock before anyone took him seriously.

Shawn hooks on a figure four and Ross manages to plug the recently released Flair DVD. If anyone has ever been a better or more hardworking salesman than Vince McMahon, I want to meet them and buy something from them. We’re already seeing the problem that exists in every Last Man Standing match: the first fifteen minutes or so mean nothing.

You can go do something else while waiting on that part to end. There will be some decent spots, but it’s simply not going to end during that amount of time. We move to the let’s dodge each other’s finishers which is clichéd but fine I guess.

Shawn goes to the apron and tries a reverse springboard cross body to the floor but eats table in a good looking spot. Since it’s a big match, Shawn is bleeding. I know he emulates Flair but come on now. Hey let’s get a chair since we haven’t had enough violence so far. Naturally Shawn is up in time because we haven’t had the big face comeback yet. In case you can’t tell, I’m not thrilled by this match. It’s ok, but nothing great.

Shawn blocks a Pedigree and slingshots HHH in front of the turnbuckle so HHH can jump to hit the post. Shawn kills him with the chair for an eight or so. Both guys are bleeding. Shawn nips up and the fans are into this if nothing else. He initiates his ending sequence which is just like what Bret Hart would do even though he’s nothing like Bret Hart right?

For the life of me, if Shawn wants to hit a big kick, WHY DOES HE STOMP THE MAT WHILE THE OTHER GUY IS GETTING UP??? That’s just freaking STUPID. Oh come on now. After Shawn gets low blowed, he hooks a sleeper. While it’s psychologically a good move, it’s the best way possible to kill a crowd dead. This match has been 80% punching and chopping.

This match is going on, but all of the clichéd spots like the long double count are just getting annoying as all goodness. A Pedigree puts Shawn down again. He gets up and since he just took a big finisher he’s able to hit Sweet Chin Music out of nowhere, because you know, that’s perfectly reasonable. This leads to a double count out which gets booed out of the freaking building.

This caused Shawn to be completely ridiculous and consistently demand that he get a title shot and generally coming off like a total whiny little troll. This is why Shawn was in the Mania main event, and yes, I think it had a lot to do with HHH making sure that his buddy got to main event ANOTHER Mania and kept him from having to job to Benoit clean, but you’ve heard more than enough rants about that.

Rating: C+. This match felt like it was missing the middle part. It felt like 18 minutes of the feeling out process and then we shifted to the finish for about five minutes. The double count out thing I couldn’t stand but at least they had a plan for these two moving forward.

The problem though is that it’s just Shawn vs. HHH. This feud went on forever and while it’s a big match, it’s been done. That’s the thing: it’s just more of HHH only making his buddy look good instead of just allowing him to lay down for Benoit at Mania like he should have. It’s not bad, but once you think about it the match loses some luster.

We go to a long video package about the Rumble, mainly focusing on Benoit which completely gives away the winner. He’s number one and Goldberg is number 30. Yeah that’s about it.

Austin, Heyman and Bischoff get together. Hilarity ensues.

Brock and Goldberg look at each other. I think Goldberg wants to go get some coffee.

Royal Rumble

As mentioned, Benoit is first and Orton is number 2. Tazz and Ross are doing the commentary tonight and Orton is the IC Champion here. These two would headline Summerslam in about 7 months in a great match which led to Orton’s horribly botched face turn. GEEZ Orton looks different here as he more or less was all clean cut like some college kid. Compare that to what you see now and you’ll be amazed.

I’m not sure if I like this style of the Rumble. I like having bigger names in at the beginning, but they couldn’t have made it clearer that Benoit was winning if they put the WM 20 poster on the mat for this. I like these hard hitting people if nothing else. Henry is 3rd as I think the intervals are two minutes or so. Teddy Long is managing Henry here which means more or less nothing. After about a minute, Tajiri is 4th. I know this because there’s a graphic in the corner that says Tajiri 4th.

He and Benoit do some sweet looking technical stuff. Bradshaw is 5th and somehow he would be world champion in 6 months. He clotheslines everyone but Benoit who pulls him into a crossface. Bradshaw picks him up and tries to dump him but Benoit holds on and pulls Bradshaw out. Rhyno is 6th here as the intervals are actually staying pretty close to accurate here.

Tajiri puts Henry in the Tarantula but Rhyno gores Henry to knock Tajiri out. That’s actually pretty creative and I liked it. Benoit puts Henry out by just running into him a few times to a solid pop. It was bigger last year but we’re not going to speak of that. Oh Henry took some mist according to a replay to cause him to be in the Tarantula. Matt Hardy is seventh. We now have Benoit, Orton, Rhyno and Hardy in there. Hardy is a face here I think. Yeah he’s getting pops.

I just don’t think he means anything as a singles guy, which would date this show as sometime between 2001 and the present. The two successful singles guys and the two lesser so successful singles guys are together. In at eight is Scott Steiner who means more or less nothing at this point. He dominates for the most part with amazingly enough, more suplexes. In an amusing moment, Benoit is just like boy please and starts throwing Steiner around with them.

Ross points out something interesting by saying that no one in this Rumble has won before. Again, that’s the point of an announcer. Lines like that can do a lot as far as elevating a match. Number 9 is MATT FREAKING MORGAN! They know he’s awesome even here where he’s been around all of a few months. Even WWE bills him as 7’0 tall even though he’s about 6’8. He puts Benoit down with a huge power bomb though.

They refer to him as a rookie here so he hasn’t been around long. I know he came out of nowhere at SS 03 and then left around Mania before coming back as Carlito’s bodyguard. Hurricane is tenth. Morgan throws him out in a few seconds and he lands really badly on his leg and might be legit hurt. He almost puts out Hardy who makes a nice save.

Morgan just looks at him while he comes back in which just looks stupid. Booker is 11th and is apparently a favorite to win this? He has a bad rap version of his theme song. He and Steiner go at it and we get a WCW reference. Benoit and Morgan just sounds like a TNA dream match. Ross says that Benoit is still alive somehow. That’s a creepy line. Morgan has shrunk to 6’10 apparently but grows back to 6’11 before Kane is in at 12.

Steiner goes out off camera thanks to Booker. Morgan either has lifts in his shoes or something is weird about his height as he’s almost Kane’s size. They do a smart thing though and spin the camera angles a lot while they’re fighting though. As a recap, we have Benoit, Orton, Rhyno (who gores Hardy as I say that for his first noticeable anything in about 10 minutes), Hardy, Morgan, Booker and Kane.

Of those seven, three would be in TNA within four years. That’s either saying a lot or nothing at all and I’m not sure which. Kane is the only person up as the clock goes down to zero. The lights go out and a gong sounds. To say the crowd pops is an understatement. Kane had buried Taker alive (again) back at Survivor Series. Only in wrestling would that make perfect sense.

That had ended the biker gimmick as Taker would come back as the Dead Man at Mania to face Kane in a glorified squash match. Kane is distracted and Booker puts him out. Spike comes out as number 13 and never gets in the ring. You figure out why not. Rikishi is in at 14 after about a minute of waiting. Benoit puts out Rhyno as Rikishi gets in. Morgan gets a stink face as he must be counting the days to getting to TNA. Tazz mentions that Benoit is hanging in there, which sent a chill up my spine.

Less than 75 seconds later, Renee Dupree is number 15. He actually puts Matt Hardy out with relative ease. That’s surprising if nothing else. Rikishi puts him out a few seconds later. A-Train is in at 16 as he must be about gone from the company at this point. Yeah he would be gone in November after getting hurt in the summer. Benoit puts Morgan out. Orton puts out Booker and Rikishi in about 15 seconds. That’s not bad at all.

Benoit puts out A-Train just as Shelton gets in at number 17. A-Train goes over the ropes and to the floor, and Tazz says that he thinks A-Train is out and I shake my head. Orton puts out Shelton and we’re back to where we started out. Both are down as a guy in a fake afro comes out to introduce Ernest Miller at 18. This was one of the dumbest signings ever as Miller was barely over in WCW so he got hired here for no apparent reason.

Anyway, after dancing badly for a bit, Orton puts him out. In a very funny moment, Benoit tries to throw out Lamont, the guy that did the introduction but as he runs him to the ropes to throw him, just the hair goes off. It’s a lot better than it sounds. Angle is 19th to a HUGE pop. This is kind of a dream trip in there really. Naturally he and Benoit beat the tar out of each other.

Rico, now in his full gay stage, is 20th. Tazz sums him up in one line: you have to be as tough as Rico to wear those pants in the Royal Rumble. Rico was a guy that never got a fair shake as a wrestler. He was chained down by his gimmick and no one could ever take him seriously. If nothing else though, I’ve never heard a single bad thing about him and before and after wrestling he was a police officer in Nevada where he graduated at the top of his class both times.

Like him or not, that’s very impressive. Orton hits an RKO on him and puts him out. As Benoit and Angle beat even more tar out of each other, Test is 21st as no one cares. Main reason no one cares is he’s not here. Orton hits an RKO on Angle as we cut to the back where Test is out cold. Austin, who was sheriff or something like that at the time yells at someone we can’t see that they’re now number 21 as it was apparently the guys that did this to Test.

Austin sounds like Christian Bale from Dark Knight. It’s Mick Foley as the roof is completely gone after being blown off by his music. This was during an angle where Foley was afraid of Orton and refused to fight him on Raw back in December so he left the company. Ross says he knew Foley wasn’t a coward. The look on Orton’s face is absolutely perfect as he’s scared to death. Foley beats the living tar out of him and a Cactus Clothesline puts both of them out.

Foley beats on him even more on the floor as Christian is number 22. Oddly enough ECW is on at the moment and he’s in the main event (shocking isn’t it?). Orton is just getting killed by Foley this whole time. Scratch that he’s coming back with a SICK chair shot to Mick’s head. They fight up the entry way as they set up Rock and Foley vs. Evolution at Mania and the EPIC hardcore match at Backlash.

If you haven’t seen the Backlash match, go get Mick Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses and check that match out. It’s a great DVD too. The final disc has four Foley matches on it where you can pick between original commentary or Foley and Joey Styles which is a cool idea. Nunzio is 23rd but he walks into Socko on the ramp. We haven’t seen anything in the ring for about a minute and a half at this point, but in this case it’s ok. The crowd is WAY into this.

Orton runs away and Foley staggers after him. Nunzio (Little Guido for you ECW fans) sits at ringside while everyone else fights in the ring. Tazz makes fun of Christian wearing pink tights. Ross says some great Canadians have worn pink tights which shuts Tazz up FAST. Big Show is in at 24. He’s finally back in normal looking tights which I couldn’t be happier about. Again, Ross says something very insightful: Yoko and Studd were both #24 when they won.

See, again, that’s something no one would ever pick up on and it offers something to think about. That’s the sign of a great announcer. Jericho is number 25. We have far too high of a Canadian to American ratio in there. Haas is in at 26th. Nunzio is still sitting outside. Jericho puts out Christian for the second year in a row apparently. Billy Gunn is 27th and is apparently returning.

Why in the world is he getting a pop? I just don’t get it. He gets a Fameasser on both Angle and Show which Ross points out is a bad idea because you have to have Show up to put him out. Ross stays on fire tonight by pointing out that number 27 has produced the most winners in history. Even Tazz says Ross is on a roll tonight.

Cena is number 28 to a solid pop. He would win his first title, the US, at Mania over Show who he’s feuding with at the moment. He puts Nunzio into the ring but gets jumped by the Italian and Show. Show slaps Nunzio on the back and Tazz says that’ll shake your ribs cheeks. Where in the world did that come from??? RVD is 29th and we know Goldberg is 30th. Cena hits the FU on Angle.

Your final grouping as Goldberg comes in: Benoit, Haas, Nunzio, Angle, Show, Jericho, Gunn, Cena, RVD and Goldberg. That’s a pretty sweet grouping when you think about it. Of the ten in there, you have four former world champions and three that would be champion in the future. That’s not bad at all. Goldberg destroys everyone in sight and throws out Haas. There goes Gunn. Nunzio is out. He sets to Jackhammer Big Show and here’s Brock to screw that up.

He nails Goldberg and then Angle throws him out during the stare down. If either guy was staying at Mania, that could have been EPIC. We’ve got six now. Show gets the Andre treatment which doesn’t work at all. Everyone keeps beating on him and then they realize they screwed up because he’s out cold and weighs 500lbs.

Ok, I get that he’s dead weight, but Angle has freakish strength and RVD holds a world record for a dead lift while doing the splits, yet five grown professional wrestlers can’t get him up? Show just goes insane and puts out Cena and RVD. Jericho shows his intelligence and gets the Walls of Jericho on Show. Show puts him out with one arm to just show off. The final three are Angle, Benoit and Show.

If nothing else they’ve saved the best guys for the ending. Angle hits an Angle Slam on Show which never stops being impressive. Benoit takes one that’s close to it but not quite. Show gets a chokeslam but Angle rolls through it into an ankle lock and Show taps again.

In an awesome looking sequence, Show is in the ankle lock and climbs up the ropes, then he kind of rolls forward over them to pull Angle out, because Angle couldn’t you know, LET GO OF HIS FREAKING LEG or something like that. Benoit rolls through a chokeslam with the most basic counter there is to it and continues his streak of being the only guy in history to consistently work on the right arm of an opponent.

Show taps again. That’s a nice bit of continuity there as all three submission guys manages to get him to tap but it means nothing. I like it though as it shows they’ve at least thought this out a bit. It’s so simply yet it ties the match together and shows that while Jericho and Angle are both great, they’re not as great as Benoit as only he gets rid of Show in the end. That’s a nice little touch and it works so well.

Show is in that thing for at least thirty seconds too so that has to hurt. Show breaks it with a similar counter to what Bradshaw did earlier. Benoit breaks the hour mark. Show, with his handlebar mustache, gets Benoit in a gorilla press but Benoit shifts into a chancers (DDT grip with the arm held also) to pull Show over the ropes and in a cool looking finish gets enough leverage to get him out.

That’s a perfect ending as Benoit didn’t use power or some contrived move. He did what he does best: got a hold on Show and used leverage to get him out. That’s textbook Benoit and it’s the only way he should have won this. The pop is great and for smarks everywhere, this was a perfect moment.

Rating: A. This was a great Rumble for multiple reasons. First of all, Benoit wasn’t focused on until the very end, which made it far less obvious that he was going to be the winner. He blended into the background, which helped him out a lot here. In the 92 Rumble where Flair more or less went wire to wire, he was the focus of the match. Here, Benoit was mentioned but it was far more casual. Second, the ending 6 or so were awesome.

There were a bunch of people there that could have won. Angle winning wouldn’t have surprised anyone I don’t think, and Show is always a legit contender in something like this. This match went very well and while it may not have been great, it was very fun. That’s the best way to describe it: fun.

Overall Rating: C+. The Rumble I the only thing here worth anything. Look back at the show and see what else you have. The tag title match is a squash, the Cruiserweight title match is 3 minutes long, Eddie vs. Chavo is ok at best, Hardcore Holly got a title shot, and Shawn and HHH had a decent but far from great match with a bad ending. Then you have a great Rumble. That’s not a lot to go on really.

The part that kills it for me is HHH and Shawn being the only other match longer than eight and a half minutes. Seriously, you couldn’t chop off 6 minutes of that and give three each to the first two matches? Overall, the show isn’t much at all, but the Rumble is great.

I won’t really recommend it as a lot of this stuff felt like it was from a 3 hour special or something. This wasn’t much, but the Benoit Rumble win is great stuff. You won’t find a better example of someone being launched into the main event than that right there. Definitely check that out, but other than that take a pass.