Monday Night Raw
Date: March 28, 2005
Location: Fort Worth Convention Center, Fort Worth, Texas
Attendance: 7,300
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s the go home show for Wrestlemania and odds are that means a lot of final pushes towards the show. You might see less action than usual as well as WWE won’t be wanting to risk any unnecessary injuries before the biggest night of the year. Batista and HHH are going face to face tonight so we’ll see where they go with their last chance. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Opening sequence.

Chris Jericho is in the ring for the Highlight Reel and of course there is a ladder in the middle with the briefcase above it. Jericho talks about making history by becoming the first Undisputed Champion and he’ll do it again by winning the first Money in the Bank ladder match. He knows what it feels like to be World Champion and he wants to feel it again. That brings him to his guests: Chris Benoit and Shelton Benjamin.

Jericho says the three of them are kind of friends but he’ll do whatever it takes to win the briefcase. That’s fine with Benoit, but what isn’t fine is Jericho saying he wants to win more than anyone. Shelton interrupts to say that he’s never been World Champion but he’s the only one with gold right now. Cue Christian and Tyson Tomko to say that they’re all lame and that Christian is winning on Sunday. Christian asks what will happen when he gets his first World Title shot. Shelton: “Probably get your a** beat by Batista or HHH.” That was funny.

Christian takes credit for winning two ladder matches at Wrestlemania so here’s Edge to interrupt. He had something to do with those wins but on Sunday, he’ll be winning his third on his own. Edge doesn’t want to hear about Intercontinental Titles or broken necks because he’s done all of that. He’ll do whatever it takes to win the title so Benoit lunges to start the brawl.

Chris Jericho/Shelton Benjamin/Chris Benoit vs. Tyson Tomko/Christian/Edge

Joined in progress with Christian coming in to hammer on Jericho in the corner. Jericho grabs a suplex and brings Shelton in for two off a very fast running shoulder. Benjamin fights out of the corner without much effort but Tomko catches him with a Boss Man Slam. The villains start taking over on Shelton as Lawler explains the details of the MITB contract. That sounds like old hat now, but explaining that someone could cash in on an injured champion at a moment’s notice was a new concept back then.

Shelton powers over to the corner but the referee doesn’t see it and the trouble continues. The chinlock goes on for a bit until Shelton fights up for a double clothesline. The diving tag brings Benoit in for a quick suplex into the Sharpshooter with Christian having to save Edge. Therefore, Benoit German suplexes Christian over and over but Edge crotches Benoit on top. A superplex brings the bloody Benoit (busted open off a headbutt to Tomko) down and we come back from a break with Benoit covered in blood.

He’s also fighting out of a chinlock and getting elbowed in the face for two with Benjamin making the save. Benoit is fine enough to headbutt Christian off the top and hit the Swan Dive, setting up the real hot tag to Jericho. Everything breaks down and Edge spears Tomko by mistake, only to have Shelton Dragon Whip Benoit by mistake. The exploder plants Christian but Tomko hits a heck of a big boot on Shelton. Jericho doesn’t mind and puts Tomko in the Walls for the win.

Rating: C+. This was your standard “get (almost) everyone in the big match in this match for a preview” and the talent in there made it worked. Tomko was a good enough Kane substitute as he was only in there for the power stuff. The good thing about having this much talent is you can throw them into any combination and get a nice match, which is what they had here.

Post match Christian brings in the ladder but here’s Kane to take everyone out.

When Harry Met Sally Wrestlemania trailer.

Eric Bischoff comes in to see Batista and makes him promise a lack of physicality when he and HHH face off tonight. Bischoff can’t afford an injury, so Batista says HHH shouldn’t get injured. Batista promises to not start anything tonight, but he’ll finish anything HHH starts. That’s enough for Eric, but he comes back to ask about Batista’s used car salesman last week. Bischoff brings up Batista’s movie trailer and thinks he could be a Hollywood star (the man knows talent). Batista appreciates that and thinks Bischoff reminds him of someone in Pulp Fiction. That would be the Gimp.

Trish, Christy (in a dress, with Lita), arm wrestling, Christy wins after delays, Christy wins a rematch, Trish nails Lita in the leg. Every one you’ve ever seen of these things.

Classic Steve Austin Moment: the beer truck.

Here’s Randy Orton for a chat. We see a clip of him attacking Stacy Keibler last week, earning Orton a mixed reaction. Perhaps from fans who are glad Stacy is gone? Last week, Stacy hesitated when Orton asked if he could beat Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Orton isn’t waiting because you’re either with him or against him and he wants no distractions. Undertaker is undefeated at Wrestlemania because everyone is beaten before they get into the ring. His future involves a Hall of Fame plaque, which says he beat Undertaker at Wrestlemania. The Undertaker is a legend but Orton is a legend killer.

The lights go out and we see a video counting down the Undertaker’s victims at Wrestlemania over the years. These Wrestlemania videos are always well done and they played a big part in making the Streak feel so important. Back in the arena, the posts catch on fire and Orton is scared to death on the floor. These segments have been good, but I’m not quite buying Orton as a threat after how far he’s fallen in the last few months.

Post break Kane comes up to Orton and sees through his confidence. Kane was lucky to escape two Wrestlemania matches against Undertaker. Orton says he knows what he’s getting into but Kane says Orton needs to prove that he isn’t scared of Undertaker. He has six days to prove it. So there’s a Smackdown segment.

Tag Team Titles: Simon Dean/Maven vs. La Resistance vs. William Regal/Tajiri

Regal and Tajiri are defending and it’s one fall to a finish. Dean and Maven hit a double hiptoss on Tajiri to start so Regal comes in for a double elbow to Maven. La Resistance make their own save so Dean can hit a swinging neckbreaker on Regal. The chinlock doesn’t last long so Grenier gets in a cheap shot from the apron but Regal is right back with a snap bell to back suplex. The hot (though you wouldn’t know it by listening) tag brings in Tajiri for a bunch of kicks, including a big one to pin Maven and retain the titles.

Rating: D. So that didn’t do much. These four were thrown on the show because they had nothing to do at Wrestlemania (save for maybe being in the battle royal), which doesn’t seem to matter despite Regal and Tajiri being champions. I know they’ve been around forever, but would dropping them be the worst thing? Just for now? Other than house show matches, do they really serve an important purpose?

Bischoff tries to convince HHH to stay calm tonight but HHH says Bischoff is forcing him into the ring tonight. HHH will stay calm but if Batista blinks at him in the wrong way, it’s on. These segments feel like filler but what else are they going to do on this show? Promote something else for Wrestlemania?

Smackdown Rebound.

Muhammad Hassan vs. Shawn Michaels

Hassan and Daivari do their usual stuff before the match and it’s a bit more over than usual in Texas. Hassan goes with a knee to the ribs to take Shawn down early and hammers away with right hands. Back up and Shawn is smart enough to stomp on Daivari’s interfering fingers as we take a break.

We come back with Shawn’s back in trouble as Hassan’s offense continues to not be impressive in any way. A back elbow gives Hassan two and the chinlock goes on. There’s a hard whip into the corner to hurt the back even more as they’re managing to kill a Texas crowd in a Shawn Michaels match.

More whips into the corner have Shawn’s back in more trouble and the USA chant proves Hassan’s point all over again. The camel clutch (loose, to be countered version) is broken up with a grab of the ropes and the fans….don’t seem to care. Shawn’s comeback is on with the atomic drop into the forearm into the nipup into the top rope elbow. Sweet Chin Music is loaded up for a very long time but Kurt Angle runs in for the DQ.

Rating: D. This was a great example of what happens when you’re just not that good. Hassan tries but his whole appeal is his gimmick, which isn’t that good either. It’s such a one note promo and idea and while it can work in small doses, we’ve heard the same promo about prejudice time after time. Then he gets in the ring and is so boring that there is no reason to care about anything he does. Even Shawn couldn’t lift him up so who else can make it work?

Post match Angle hits Muhammad by mistake and Shawn fights him off, sending Angle into the crowd as security comes out.

Bischoff tells security to be ready for the Batista vs. HHH brawl.

Wrestlemania Taxi Driver trailer.

Bischoff is in the ring to moderate the big showdown so here are HHH, Flair and Batista. HHH gets to go first and takes his time (shocking) to call Batista ungrateful. After everything HHH has done for him, this is how Batista repays him? No one knew who he was before he met HHH and now Batista is a star.

This goes on and on (shocking) until Batista gets to talk about how he’s going to win on Sunday. He does make sure to throw in some compliments to Flair, because we must praise Flair. Batista promises to take HHH out on Sunday so there goes the table. HHH slaps him in the face (so much for Bischoff’s warning) and security has to be dispatched, leaving Batista standing tall to end the show. That was about as uneventful as you could get, with Batista doing everything he has done before and HHH saying everything he has said before. It changed nothing for Sunday, but the match has been set for so long now that it doesn’t matter.

Overall Rating: D. I wasn’t into this one as they basically shut down everything for some of the same builds toward Sunday, which we’ve covered extensively in the last few weeks. The six man was good but that’s not enough to carry things. This was what happened when the big show is already set and has been for months now. I’m no more interested in watching Wrestlemania than I was before and I felt like I needed to get through this show more than enjoying it and that’s not good with six days to go.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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Monday Night Raw
Date: March 21, 2005
Location: Jefferson Civic Center, Birmingham, Alabama
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Wrestlemania is less than two weeks away and that means we’re in the final stretches of the build. That can be both good and bad as some of the stories can be interesting but at the same time, some of them are running on fumes and not that great. Tonight it’s another Pick Your Poison match with Batista facing Kane. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Opening sequence.

Shawn Michaels vs. Rob Conway

Sylvain Grenier is here with Conway while Shawn is on his own. An early Grenier distraction doesn’t do much as Shawn sends Conway outside and beats up both French guys. That means a big flip dive to the floor for a bonus as I’m not exactly buying Shawn as being in much danger here.

A cheap shot with the flag pole gives Conway two and we take a break. Back with Shawn fighting out of a chinlock and skinning the cat to avoid a nasty landing on the floor. They slug it out as Conway is getting in far more offense than you would expect here. Shawn makes the real comeback with the usual and drops the top rope elbow. A very hot crowd is pleased as Sweet Chin Music finishes Conway.

Rating: C. That was better than I would have expected with Shawn working hard in a match that doesn’t mean anything for him. That’s how you get a crowd more interested in Wrestlemania as if Shawn can do this against someone like Conway, what could he do against Angle? Rather nice surprise here.

Video on Kurt Angle, who has won everywhere he goes and will do so again at Wrestlemania. The ankle lock gets a lot of extra attention here.

Christy Hemme is ready to fight and has been working on her kicks. She offers to demonstrate to William Regal and Tajiri, who immediately cover their crotches.

Basic Instinct Wrestlemania trailer. That’s a bit of a flashback over the last few weeks.

Molly Holly/Simon Dean/Maven vs. Christy Hemme/William Regal/Tajiri

Oh this is going to hurt. Trish Stratus comes out (with her hair pulled back for a change, making her look like a shorter Michelle McCool) to watch as a bonus. Regal takes Dean down by the arm to start and runs him over with a shoulder for no count. Tajiri comes in and gets dropped by a cheap shot from Maven.

It’s Tajiri getting beaten up as JR tries to keep Lawler from talking about Playboy. Dean goes after Regal but gets kicked in the face by Tajiri, meaning it’s off to the women. A Trish distraction doesn’t do much good as Christy kicks away at Holly but Dean breaks up a sunset flip. Regal knees Dean to the floor and the Molly Go Round misses. The reverse Twist of Fate finishes Molly.

Rating: D+. Well it could have been worse. The whole point of this match was to showcase Christy and have her look good in her outfit while managing to do the one move that she needs to do for the title match. The Tag Team Champions were just kind of there, but that has been the case for years now with those titles.

Classic Steve Austin moment: Vince and the bedpan. Vince’s heart monitor freaking out in time with the beatdown was a great touch.

Here’s an angry HHH for a chat, but first he sets a chair in the ring. He can’t believe how underappreciated he is for everything he does for this business. Do you know what it took to make Batista and Randy Orton into stars? The two of them ruined their own careers with their bad decisions and look where they are now.

Orton is currently volunteering to put his head on the chopping block for the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. He groveled for nothing when he was in Evolution too, but at least he was a star, just like Batista. See, Batista could have made the right decision and gone over to Smackdown, where he could have beaten JBL and John Cena. Now Batista is coming to Wrestlemania and he’s going to lose there too.

Batista went to Wrestlemania once and then won the Royal Rumble so he knows how to win now? The problem for Batista is that he’s coming up against a wrestling god and now the big loss is coming. Last week, Chris Benoit was added to the list of people that Benoit has beaten when Batista picked his poison.

Tonight HHH gets to do the same, as Batista faces Kane in a lumberjack match. HHH gets to pick the lumberjacks of course and anything goes. He’s going to make a decision that needs to be made the animal will be put down. We get some references to the Terry Schiavo case to finally end this after nearly fifteen minutes of HHH’s slow talking about how awesome he is.

Chris Jericho/Shelton Benjamin vs. Edge/Christian

Remember the previous tag match that looked bad? This one doesn’t. Tyson Tomko is here with the Canadian team. Jericho’s headlock on Christian doesn’t get him very far to start so a shoulder gives him two instead. Christian gets knocked outside though and it’s a meeting with Edge and Tomko, allowing Shelton to bust out the big flip dive for the showoff moment.

Edge comes in so Shelton hammers away in the corner until Christian gets in a cheap shot from the floor. Christian’s neckbreaker gets two and we hit the chinlock. Shelton gets up and hits a kick to the head, allowing the tag to Jericho (which looked to have been a bit short). The Lionsault hits Christian but Jericho has to dropkick Tomko off the apron, allowing Christian to hit the reverse DDT.

Back from a break with Shelton coming in off the second hot tag and powerslamming Edge for two. Everything breaks down and the Canadians load up Poetry in Motion, only to have Shelton use Edge as a launchpad to clothesline Christian. Jericho drops both Edge and Christian but dives into Tomko’s boot. The Stinger Splash hits Christian but he’s right back with a belt to the head, setting up Edge’s spear for the pin.

Rating: B-. This Edge and Christian reunion has been a lot of fun so far as they have the natural chemistry but it doesn’t feel like a rehash of the same stuff they’ve done before. They’re different people now and it’s the two of them as singles stars instead of a regular team. You can throw any combination of the awesome upper midcard scene at them and get a good match, just like this one.

Post match Edge and Christian lay out Shelton but Chris Benoit runs in for the save. Tomko brings in the ladder to drop Benoit.

Ric Flair gives the lumberjacks a pep talk, saying that Batista ruined their careers by not going to Smackdown. Tonight can be their own Wrestlemania and they need a new member of Evolution.

A nervous Eric Bischoff comes in to see Batista, telling him that he had nothing to do with the lumberjack match. He’s worried that Batista won’t be happy around here after winning the title at Wrestlemania but Batista says he isn’t worried about it. Batista asks if Bischoff has ever considered running for office. It turns out Bischoff has considered running for mayor of his hometown in Arizona, which is what Batista is talking about. Batista leaves but comes back, saying maybe Bischoff should just be a used car salesman. This didn’t work very well.

Randy Orton has a box for Undertaker and wants Stacy Keibler with him when he goes to the ring.

Smackdown Rebound.

Here are Orton and Keibler for a chat. Orton is ready to add another moment to his legacy at Wrestlemania when he ends the Streak. We see what is in the box: a shirt listing off all of the legends that Orton has killed. He isn’t afraid of Undertaker (take a shot) and will do whatever it takes to win. We get a video on Orton killing various legends before Orton talks about wanting to kill Undertaker’s legend.

That brings him to Stacy, and something he has wanted to do for a long time. They kiss, and it’s an RKO to lay her out. I’m hoping that the big moment was supposed to be their first public kiss because I find it hard to believe that nothing has happened between those two otherwise. I know this probably sounded good on paper, but Orton and Stacy belonged together as much as Stacy did on a wrestling show.

Classic Hulk Hogan Moment: the Mega Powers Explode. Sylvester Stallone will be inducting Hogan for your celebrity appearance.

Tyson Tomko vs. Chris Benoit

Fallout from earlier and Benoit has taped up ribs from the ladder shots. Tomko hits a running knee to knock Benoit to the floor at the bell but Benoit is fine enough to roll some German suplexes. One heck of a Swan Dive (which Benoit might have left short) hits (maybe) Tomko but the banged up ribs means it’s only two. Tomko boots him in the head as Lawler shouts to WORK ON THE RIBS. Another big boot misses and it’s the Crossface to finish Tomko. Always listen to Lawler.

Muhammad Hassan comes up to Shawn (who always looks weird in a suit) to tell him that Shawn knows nothing about adversity. Hassan should be on Wrestlemania because he has not been pinned on Raw. Daivari rants a lot but Shawn cuts them off, challenges Hassan for next week and dubs himself Mr. Wrestlemania.

Wrestlemania trailer: Taxi Driver, featuring a bunch of people doing the famous line and Batista doing his best Jim Ignatowski bit.

Kane vs. Batista

No DQ lumberjack match with HHH on commentary. Kane shoves him into the corner to start but gets powerslammed right back. A Muhammad Hassan distraction lets Chris Masters get in a cheap shot on Batista and it’s time for the slow power brawl. Batista has to kick La Resistance away, allowing Kane to get in a DDT to put him down again. Kane chokes on the ropes but stops to kick Snitsky, allowing Batista to slam him off the top. A big clothesline gives Batista two as the fans are looking at someone who appeared to fall down.

The chokeslam and Batista Bomb are both blocked so Batista shoulders him outside. Snitsky and Viscera go after Kane with the latter posting himself like a moron. The rest of the lumberjacks go after Batista but Edge, Christian and Tomko beat up Kane. Batista gets back up, fights them off, kicks out of the chokeslam and hits his two moves for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was every lumberjack match you can think of and that’s neither good nor bad. What was pretty bad was the match itself, as Kane isn’t the best when he’s up against another monster. He wrestles rather slowly and it makes for some pretty dull matches. Batista winning was never in doubt as he probably won’t be losing a match for several months, let alone this one.

HHH is livid to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. The only thing that matters on this show is Batista vs. HHH as the other matches have been hyped up on either both shows or Smackdown alone. What we got here was good enough, but they’re running out of ways to hype up Batista vs. HHH in a pretty clear ending. Wrestlemania as a whole looks good, though the World Title matches have a limited hype ceiling and we reached that a few weeks ago.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Monday Night Raw
Date: March 7, 2005
Location: RBC Center, Raleigh, North Carolina
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re less than a month away from Wrestlemania and that means it’s the Batista Show, which is exactly what it should be right now. In addition to that though we have Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle to keep setting up, plus Chris Jericho doing something with a ladder. I’m sure that won’t go anywhere. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

We open with a recap of HHH being all upset and Batista not being worried.

Opening sequence.

Here’s Shawn to address Angle. Shawn talks about having a long and brutal match last week and then Angle attacked him. That’s why he showed up on Smackdown last week and gave Angle a beating of his own. We see a clip of Shawn coming to Smackdown and jumping Angle, which got Shawn thinking. Why is Angle having so much rage lately? It’s the kind of rage that comes from doubt, because Angle may be a Gold Medalist, but does that mean he can hang on the biggest stage of them all against Mr. Wrestlemania?

Angle pops up on screen and says it does go back to 1996. Yeah he won in the Olympics but then he kept being asked about turning pro. Shawn wrestled Bret Hart for over an hour and reporters talked to him about that instead of his gold medal. Angle wants Shawn to watch Smackdown as Angle is going to take four weeks to do what Shawn took sixteen years to do. Shawn doesn’t look sure to wrap things up. This was a very solid promo exchange as they gave a good story to a match that didn’t need one, which is always appreciated.

HHH vs. Rosey

Non-title as Rosey wants revenge for Hurricane from last week. A very early Pedigree attempt is blocked with Rosey hitting a running splash in the corner instead. Rosey misses a middle rope moonsault (which looked better than you might have expected) so HHH hammers away. HHH whips him into the steps and takes it back inside for the spinebuster. The Pedigree finishes things quick.

Post match HHH gets in a sledgehammer shot to further make his point, whatever that was supposed to be.

Jerry Lawler got Christy Hemme to sign his Playboy today.

Video on the Playboy shoot.

Ric Flair is worried about facing Batista tonight but HHH talks him into it. Promising to be out there with the sledgehammer makes Flair feel better too.

Chris Jericho, Edge, Shelton Benjamin, Christian and Chris Benoit are in Eric Bischoff’s office. Bischoff explains the concept of the big ladder match but Edge doesn’t want any part of it. The tease of getting a chance to be World Champion brings him back though, with Bischoff first dropping the term Money In The Bank. Tonight, the six participants will be facing off, with Christian getting to face the sixth participant next.

Kane vs. Christian

Christian tries to hammer away in the corner to start but gets shoved down with ease. Kane gets in his choking in the corner but a Tomko cheap shot gives Christian a break. Like any normal sized person against a monster, Christian tries the sleeper and has some more success than usual. Kane swings it around into a side slam and there’s a powerslam for a bonus. The big boot looks to set up the top rope clothesline but Kane has to kick Tomko down first. Not that it matters as Christian charges into the chokeslam for the pin a few seconds later.

Rating: D+. It was so nice to see a match like this that didn’t involve hearing 184 instances of commentary talking about building momentum. Instead they talked about the carnage coming in the ladder match and how big of a force Kane could be. It was a specific discussion instead of the generic terms that they use most of the time in the build to these things.

Post match Tomko hits a big boot on Kane before bailing with Christian.

Stacy Keibler helps Randy Orton get dressed so he can make his official challenge for Wrestlemania.

Lawler enjoys some Subway.

Chris Jericho vs. Edge

Edge has a banged up arm coming in after last week’s street fight. We start with the YOU SCREWED MATT chants as the feeling out process gets us going. Now it’s a YOU SCREWED LITA chant as Jericho starts in on a hammerlock. Some knees and a dropkick to the arm set up an attempted cross armbreaker as Edge is having some issues to start.

The running enziguri puts Edge down again and it’s the springboard dropkick to put him on the floor. A plancha to the floor takes Edge down and takes us to a break. Back with Jericho kicking at the ribs and going up top, only to have Edge catch him with a top rope superplex. The chinlock with a bodyscissors goes on but Jericho fights up, only to get kneed right back down.

A clothesline works a bit better for a comeback and Jericho gets two off a DDT. The running bulldog sets up the missed Lionsault and Edge gets two off a big boot. Jericho grabs the legs for the Walls attempt but Edge kicks him into the referee. Edge gets a boot up in the corner (the boot works well for him) but the missed spear sends Edge outside. Since there is a ladder out there with him, Edge brings it in, only to get taken down for a Lionsault to the back. There’s no referee though so Edge hits Jericho low with the ladder. The Edgecution gives Edge the pin.

Rating: C+. I was expecting a bit more given the time they had, but Edge cheating to win fits him very well at the moment. He’s obsessed with winning the title and will do anything he can to get a step closer to being champion. The match was good enough due to the talent involved, but these two can do better.

Bischoff has a new idea: Batista picks HHH’s opponent and the week after that, HHH picks Batista’s opponent. Coach declares this to be genius, with Bischoff dubbing the idea Pick Your Poison.

Hulk Hogan Hall of Fame video. We covered that last week.

Here’s Orton for his Wrestlemania challenge. When he was five years old, he sat in front of the TV and watched his dad wrestle, which was pretty cool. This year, his dad is going into the Hall of Fame and Orton is so proud of him. Wrestling is about making an impact and that is what he’s going to do right now by challenging the Undertaker for Wrestlemania. Undertaker is a legend and the Legend Killer is putting an end to the Streak.

This brings out Bischoff, who thinks he drove Orton to the challenge. He’s looking forward to Raw winning the interbranded matches at Wrestlemania because the stock options will be great. Orton asks Bischoff about running WCW and his success against Raw. Bischoff agrees and Orton thinks that makes him a legend. Bischoff: “That’s right Randy it…..does.” The RKO drops Bischoff. Orton vs. Undertaker sounds good on paper, but it would have had more of an impact had Orton not been destroyed over the last few months.

Wrestlemania rundown.

Chris Benoit vs. Shelton Benjamin

Non-title. They go straight to the chops to start with Benjamin getting sent outside for the big dive, which sends Benoit crashing into the ladder, bending it in the process (that’s a hard one to watch). Back in and the top rope clothesline gets two but Benoit is right back up with the rolling German suplexes. The Swan Dive misses though and Shelton rolls him up for one. The Dragon Whip misses and Benoit grabs the Crossface, eventually rolling into the middle to make Benjamin tap.

Rating: C. That was intense but rather short as they didn’t even get five minutes. These two could have an instant classic with more time but given that Edge vs. Jericho got the time earlier, it’s not like the time was given to something worthless. Shelton tapping isn’t the best idea, though it doesn’t mean much given the circumstances.

Wrestlemania trailer, this time with Undertaker as Dirty Harry. That doesn’t fit well during the Deadman phase. Neither is Undertaker shooting the guy with a shotgun.

We look at HHH hitting Rosey with the hammer again.

Bischoff is banged up when Muhammad Hassan and Daivari come in. Hassan should have been in Money in the Bank and claims discrimination. Bischoff based the participants on their past success at Wrestlemania and that doesn’t apply to Hassan. Revenge is promised.

Smackdown Rebound.

William Regal and Tajiri are impressed by Christy’s Playboy but Trish isn’t quite so keen.

Here’s Christy for a chat. Lawler: “I go from 0 to horny in about 3.5 seconds when I hear her music.” Even JR sidesteps that one and I think we’re all better off for that. She wants Trish out here right now so here’s the champ. Trish tells her to make this quick but thinks she knows what is going on: Christy wants her out here for the announcement that Playboy goes on sale this Friday. Maybe Christy can even autograph it “s***”, like Trish wrote on her last week.

Actually Christy wants a title shot at Wrestlemania. Trish laughs and then promises to end Christy’s career. Christy wants the match so Trish says it’s on. It turns out that Christy has been receiving training from Lita, who comes out to a reaction that almost makes you forget that it’s Christy Hemme getting a Wrestlemania title shot. Granted it’s not like there is anyone else to challenge though. Christy takes advantage of the Lita staredown and hits a reverse Twist of Fate, with the camera catching most of it.

Bischoff won’t let HHH go to ringside for the main event, at least not with the sledgehammer. HHH and Flair complain but Bischoff shows some backbone and makes HHH drop the hammer.

Next week: HHH vs. Chris Benoit.

Ric Flair vs. Batista

HHH is here with Flair. The fans aren’t entirely behind Batista as this is certainly Flair Country. Batista shoves him down with ease to start so Flair goes at him again and gets shoved down a second time. A backdrop sends Flair flying and Batista hammers away in the corner.

HHH offers a distraction and Flair gets in the classic chop block. Flair chokes away with the boot before going back to the knee. The greatest hits only work for so long though as Batista gets up and glares at Flair. The big slam off the top checks off another box and there’s the spinebuster. HHH tries to run in and gets tossed out, setting up the Batista Bomb for the pin.

Rating: C. This was a paint by numbers match and that’s the right call. Flair (or anyone for that matter) isn’t going to be seen as a threat to Batista at the moment but beating him fits the story. Batista gets another win and gets to look dominant as well as smart. That’s a good use of seven minutes, even if the match was never in doubt.

Post match HHH comes back in with a spar sledgehammer but Batista takes it away. The hammer is broken over Batista’s knee, sending HHH into a panic to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. There was a lot more to this show than the wrestling and that worked fairly well. They set up a few matches for Wrestlemania, one of which will actually be good, and kept going with more between HHH vs. Batista. The Pick Your Poison deal lets them have two weeks of storyline stuff, which is better than cramming it into one week. Stuff was done on this show, though it does make it clear how much more Raw has to offer than Smackdown for Wrestlemania.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Summerslam 2014
Date: August 17, 2014
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 14,079
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, Jerry Lawler

Time for a redo of a show with a main event billed as the Biggest Fight of the Summer. The more I think of that line, the more I like it. The main event here is Cena (subbing for the injured Bryan) defending against Brock Lesnar, who is having his first match since breaking the Streak. Interestingly enough, I don’t even remember another match from this card. Let’s get to it.

I usually don’t say anything on the pre-show, but my goodness Renee Young is stunning. I know you often hear about the Divas looking great, but she is just beautiful, especially in a nice red dress here.

Pre-Show: Cesaro vs. Rob Van Dam

No real story here. Rob rolls out of a wristlock to start and we hit the ECW chants. My goodness there’s other stuff to cheer over people. Cesaro is sent to the floor and Rob slips a bit on his dive but still manages to kick Cesaro down and hit Rolling Thunder on the outside. Back in and Cesaro simplifies stuff by just pummeling Van Dam in the corner before throwing him down with the gutwrench suplex.

We take a break and come back with Cesaro holding a chinlock as the announcers give us one final hype for Cena vs. Lesnar. Rob fights up for a rolling cradle and the split legged moonsault for two, followed by a superkick to put Cesaro back on the floor. This is Van Dam 101 here, which was the biggest criticism he faced during this time. The Five Star is broken up by a big uppercut but Rob is still able to block a superplex.

That earns him another uppercut though because Cesaro is pesky like that. Van Dam shoves him down again but Cesaro hits the third straight uppercut, only to be shoved down yet again. Rob is finally able to dive…..right into an uppercut of course. This time it’s Cesaro kicking Rob in the face for two and frustration is setting in. Back up and Van Dam hits his quick step over kick, followed by the Five Star for the pin at 8:06.

Rating: C-. The uppercut sequence was nice but like I said, Van Dam was just doing high spots here and nothing else. That was the case for most of his 2014 run and that’s not really doing anything for him at this point. Cesaro was just wandering around at this point, which makes his Wrestlemania battle royal win feel like the biggest waste of a rub in recent history, which is really covering a lot of ground.

In a sign of the times, Hulk Hogan is brought out to open the show. Well to be fair it worked really well at Wrestlemania XXX so this isn’t the worst idea in the world. He thinks it’s appropriate for Hollywood Hogan to open the show here in Los Angeles and talks about how amazing Summerslam really is. This turns into a commercial for the Network, all while Hogan’s video is playing behind him. Hogan hits the catchphrase and he’s out in less than three minutes. This was fine and got the crowd fired up while also plugging something. Well done.

The opening video is in the theme of an old 1980s action movie trailer (Follow the Buzzards Productions) with the usual previews for the main events, but with everyone’s nickname instead of their actual name. I really liked this as a movie geek and it holds up quite well a year later.

It’s a shame that the curse of the standardized sets has hit Summerslam as well. It’s the second biggest show of the year. Mix that stuff up people.

Intercontinental Title: The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler

Miz is defending and has the Hollywood star gimmick. I still really like his work in this and still find him to be one of the better done characters. Before the match, Miz talks about being real instead of CGI and brags about how jealous you all should be of the moneymaker. Tonight he’s going to make Ziggler the WWE version of the Lakers. Feeling out process to start as the announcers talk about the Ice Bucket Challenge, back when that was still a thing.

The threat of a superkick sends Miz bailing to the floor as we hear about the Shawn Michaels vs. Rick Martel match from Summerslam 1992 where it was agreed that neither would hit the other in the face. Back in and a quick rollup gets two for Dolph but he gets whipped chest first into the corner as Miz takes over. With his variety of stomps used up, Miz kicks Dolph hard in the face before slapping on a chinlock.

The fans tell Miz that he can’t wrestle, but you could say the same thing about Ziggler so it’s not really clear. Dolph punches him out of the air and hits a Stinger Splash before a rollup gets two more. Now the superkick connects with the moneymaker for two so we get the required attempt at bailing, only to have Dolph baseball slide him down.

Somehow that earns Ziggler a Figure Four (because Miz needed a submission hold and it’s always a good thing to pay tribute to Flair, who won SO many major matches with that hold right?) but Dolph is in the ropes. His leg is fine enough for a Fameasser but Miz pops to his feet for the Skull Crushing Finale before he starts to sell. The kickout shocks Miz again but he misses another running boot, allowing Dolph to score with the Zig Zag for the pin and the title at 7:57.

Rating: C-. These two don’t have any kind of special chemistry but they would fight each other for the better part of eternity because WWE doesn’t know how to set up anything fresh more than once every few months. Ziggler winning the title gave the fans a nice moment but there was nothing to the match.

We recap the latest part of the RIVETING Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon feud where Stephanie brought Daniel Bryan’s physical therapist to say she and Bryan had an affair, leading to Brie slapping the therapist and getting arrested, just as she had done to Stephanie a few weeks earlier. The affair stuff was so hated that they dropped it pretty much the next day.

Brie talks about doing a bunch of reflecting while she was in jail where she thought about Stephanie torturing Nikki while Brie was gone, how she insulted Bryan and how she paid the therapist to lie about an affair. She’s going to take out the beast tonight because that’s best for business. Oh dear I think I’m going to have something to say about this.

Divas Title: Paige vs. AJ Lee

Paige is challenging and they’ve been feuding for most of the summer with AJ returning and winning the title, causing Paige to start imitating her for reasons that still aren’t clear. They’re friends and enemies at the same time (yes I know there’s a word that combines the two and no I won’t use it) so Paige offers a handshake, only to have AJ rip some of her hair out. AJ stays all aggressive (Heaven help me if I say the other word about her) and sends Paige onto the announcers’ table, only to have Paige come back with a knee to the ribs.

The champ gets dropped onto the barricade but Paige realizes she can’t win the title via countout. Back in and we get Paige’s sexy crawl over AJ before she pulls her own hair extensions out. Well no one ever accused Paige of being normal. The chinlock on AJ goes nowhere and she’s able to shove Paige off the top, though she’s nice enough to blow her a kiss first.

A top rope clothesline to the floor drops Paige again. The Shining Wizard gets two but Paige kicks her in the face, only to have the Paige Turner countered into the Black Widow. Just like at the Raw after Wrestlemania though, Paige powers out again and scores with the Rampaige for the pin and the title.

Rating: C+. This was similar to the Divas version of Shawn Michaels vs. Mr. Perfect back at Summerslam 1993 where they basically guaranteed a classic but just had a good match instead. This was one of the last good feuds before Nikki took over the title in a few months, which we’re somehow still surviving nine months later. Lucky us.

Summerslam 2015 will be in New York/New Jersey. That would be slightly changed to Brooklyn

Jack Swagger vs. Rusev

Speaking of things still going on later, these two are still having the same match the following summer. This is also a flag match, meaning a regular match with the winner getting their flag raised. Lana (rocking the white suit here) and Zeb Colter (remember him?) are the seconds. Before the match, Lana says that Hollywood is a great example of everything wrong with America. In real life, there is no happy ending and America is full of worthless cowards.

Swagger counters with members of the US Army Color Guard to present the American flag. Rusev jumps Jack before the bell and the American flag falls, which is a big sign of disrespect. Swagger counters into a Patriot Lock as we’re still waiting on the bell. The referee breaks it up so Lana orders Rusev to his feet. Now the bell rings and Jack goes after the leg and ankle again.

Rusev bails to the floor so Swagger, showing some fire for a change, follows him out with a hard clothesline. The Vader Bomb hits knees though, which really should hurt the bad leg but why bother with logic? Jack happens to have bad ribs coming in so Rusev has his own target now. With the leg breaking down, Rusev opts for a bearhug, meaning he has to stay on his feet anyway. Jack can’t belly to belly his way to freedom but his second attempt works a bit better.

The Vader Bomb connects but hurts Jack’s ribs all over again. Rusev’s superkick is caught in the Patriot Lock but Rusev is quickly out, only to walk into a powerslam for two. The second superkick connects and the Accolade (on one leg) goes on, only to be countered into the Patriot Lock. Rusev kicks out of that as well, spinwheel kicks Jack down, and Accolades him again for the knockout victory.

Rating: C. This is a tricky one to grade, as yet again, since these guys have fought roughly a dozen times, I never once believed Rusev was in trouble. That being said, they did a good job here of using the ankle injury to try to add some drama. It’s a very difficult thing to do when there is almost zero doubt as to who is winning, but they gave it a good try.

The problem for these two is they’re still fighting on occasion and it never gets any closer for Jack. That’s something WWE is really bad about: they don’t understand that fans don’t want to see the same obvious match over and over again but that’s what we get because there’s no one other than Swagger (or Henry) to take these losses. Bring back unknown jobbers or something, because they have about the same chance of winning and would at least feel fresh for a change.

Rusev attacks Colter post match and the Russian flag comes down.

We recap Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose, which is Dean’s first attempt for revenge on Seth after Rollins broke up the Shield over the summer. Seth ran a lot previously but tonight it’s time for a lumberjack match so Dean can finally get his hands on him.

Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose

Most of the lumberjacks were attacked by Rollins and the Shield at some point in the last year and a half. Rollins is Mr. Money in the Bank here. It’s a slugout as soon as they’re both in the ring with Dean taking over and knocking Rolling outside. That goes as badly as you would expect for Rollins so he goes back inside for something a bit safer: Ambrose ripping at his nose. This time it’s Dean being sent outside for a beating but some guys hold the attackers back.

Now it’s Rollins in control for a bit so Ambrose just punches him in the face. He goes up top for no logical reason (to be fair he’s supposed to be crazy) and gets caught in the Tree of Woe as Seth really takes over. A chinlock doesn’t go very far as Dean is sent to the apron, only to suplex Rollins over the top and out onto the lumberjacks in a big crash. The whole thing turns into a war with Dean backdropping Rollins over the barricade.

Dean dives onto the lumberjacks because he’s nuts and then down the announcers’ tables to get to Rollins in the crowd. This is more like what the match should have been and it’s about time they got to it. They fight into the balcony as Kane comes down to tell the lumberjacks to do their job. Bo Dallas stops Rollins from powerbombing Dean off the balcony so Seth runs towards the entrance but gets caught by Stardust, Big E. and the Usos.

Rollins is literally carried back to the ring but Dean is waiting on them with a huge dive off the top. Back in and Dirty Deeds is countered but Ambrose blasts him with the rebound lariat. NOW the crowd is way into things and Dean curb stomps Seth, only to have Kane come in for the save. The lumberjacks get in another fight because they all have anger management issues. Dean dispatches the Wyatts but walks into a briefcase shot to the face for the pin.

Rating: B-. This is one where your opinions may vary wildly and I’m not going to put up much of an argument either way. There were only so many ways that they mess with the idea to keep the lumberjack gimmick going (which fit the story) while also being insane. Good, insane brawl here and that’s what it needed to be.

We recap Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt, which started because Bray decided it was time and didn’t like Jericho calling himself a savior. Jericho beat Wyatt clean at Battleground in a stupid decision so tonight the Family is barred from ringside. I have no idea why they thought this would make me interested in seeing it again but it’s better than another gimmick match.

Bray Wyatt vs. Chris Jericho

The fireflies are still so cool looking. Bray goes right after him to start and they’re quickly on the floor with Jericho stepping over Bray’s hat. That’s polite of him. Jericho gets shoved to the floor as the announcers start reading Tweets. I know the match isn’t the most thrilling story in the world but come on. A running knee sends Jericho’s head into the steps and Bray drives him into the post for good measure.

Back inside and we hit the chinlock, because no matter how insane or unconventional someone is, they make sure to throw on a chinlock. Like everyone has ever done, Jericho fights out with ease and gets one off an enziguri. Jericho’s dropkick stops a charging Bray but he walks into the release Rock Bottom for two. Sister Abigail is countered into the Walls but Bray gets a rope (unlike in NXT where he tapped to the Walls years ago).

Bray goes to the middle rope so Jericho can hurricanrana him back down for a delayed two. I’m never a fan of people going up just so someone can hit them with a move. It’s a stretch of the suspension of disbelief. Bray spiders up and says that he can’t die because he is already dead. Jericho breaks his code for two and Bray slides outside where he smacks Jericho in the face, setting up Sister Abigail into the barricade. Back in and another Sister Abigail is enough to give Bray the pin.

Rating: C-. I wasn’t really feeling this one as it’s a match that Bray was supposed to win and then did. He was still trying to recover from the huge blow of losing the feud to Cena and losing the first match to Jericho really didn’t do him any favors. The match was nothing to see either as Jericho was starting to run on fumes again here. This would have been so much more effective if Jericho hadn’t won the first match.

Bray serenades us post match.

We recap Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon, which was a recap I needed when I watched this show live as the whole thing was such a mess. So Stephanie was all evil to Daniel Bryan, but Bryan is on the shelf with his neck injury so the feud was transferred over to Brie, because Brie and Bryan are totally the same thing.

Stephanie threatened to fire Brie but Brie quit first, leaving Stephanie to torture Nikki by putting her in handicap matches against such devastating forces as Alicia Fox, Rosa Mendes, Cameron and Eva Marie. Yes, this was really supposed to be intimidating. Brie and Stephanie sued each other over slapping each other because that’s what this feud needed. Then Brie offered to drop the charges in exchange for a match with Stephanie at Summerslam, because that’s how wrestling works.

Stephanie McMahon vs. Brie Bella

This is Stephanie’s first match in ten years and the announcers act like it’s Bruno vs. Hogan. We immediately get to the point as Stephanie comes out in something that looks like a superhero outfit with skin tight leather that shows off every inch of her figure. Oh and of course she throws the Four Horsewomen sign to Ronda Rousey and the other three women whose names no one knows (in the front row when Rousey was just starting to make noise as a big time star) because Stephanie is cool like that.

The announcers swoon over Stephanie like it’s Trish in 2000 and then give Brie a polite response. That’s the match right there: Brie looks good while Stephanie looks amazing and it’s entirely by design. Stephanie shoves Brie against the ropes to start and blows her a kiss. Brie gets back up and can barely do a lockup properly. Some shoulders in the corner have Brie in more trouble as the announcers try to act like Brie is some big physical threat while also pointing out that Stephanie has long legs.

The big slap is blocked though and the threat of a YES Lock sends Stephanie outside, likely out of fear due to how bad Brie made the hold look on Raw a few weeks back. Brie’s suicide dive is blocked by a forearm to the face and it’s Stephanie in control again. Stephanie talks trash and busts out a Hennig neck snap, drawing a YOU STILL GOT IT (shut up. Stephanie never had it in the ring in the first place. Think before you chant) and even more praise from the announcers.

Stephanie cranks on both arms as Brie has been on offense for all of fifteen seconds so far. An evil look that would make Edge jealous looks to set up….something, but Brie comes back with a Thesz press and the YES Kicks in the corner. Well close enough to them as she can’t get the timing right because the one spot that is going to get her a cheer is too complicated for her.

The middle rope dropkick gets two on Stephanie and Brie follows up with some of the absolute worst punches I have ever seen. I mean even Lita’s horrible punches (go back and watch her matches. She’s one of the most athletic women in wrestling history but she couldn’t throw a good punch to save her life) look great compared to these. HHH comes out but Nikki is here as well because those two are so equal. The Pedigree is countered into whatever Brie calls her imitation of the YES Lock because that’s not the hold her husband uses.

HHH pulls the referee out anyway, which shocks Cole for some reason. I have no idea why Cole is switching sides so fast because he’s spent the last ten minutes praising Stephanie. Brie baseball slides HHH and does the YES chant, only to have Nikki come in….and turn on Brie because that’s the least logical and worst idea they could go with for this story. Stephanie Pedigrees Brie for the pin.

Rating: D+. Where do I even start with this one? First and foremost: Brie Bella is a horrible wrestler. She’s a beautiful woman, she’s found the right look for herself with the ripped tights and shirt tied around her waist and she can clap on the floor, but she just does not have it in the ring. Some of the stuff in here was Eva Marie level work with those punches and the inability to do a lockup properly just being unforgivable.

On top of that, this is the wrong story. After the months and months of the Authority tormenting the Bellas, they win here in the end with Brie getting squashed until a quick comeback at the end, only to have it all taken away from her again so we can get to the Bella feud that no one other than the Total Divas producers wanted to see. Nikki turning on Brie would lead to the “I wish you died in the womb” nonsense that went on forever and was then just dropped, but I spent a three months ranting about that so I’ll cut myself off for now. Brie should have won here, no matter how bad she looked in the ring.

That gets us to the final point: this match was ALL about Stephanie. Brie was just the person in the ring to bounce off of her as Stephanie got to look great (both mechanically and physically. I know she gets a lot of flack, but Stephanie can rock some tight outfits) out there and even had the crowd cheering for her. That praise was well deserved though as Stephanie was as polished here as any Diva had been since probably Mickie James but, as is always the case, Stephanie has to look great and can’t get any comeuppance. In this case though, she deserves a lot of praise because this was one heck of a performance.

Some fan won a contest and got to make a character called Mama’s Boy, complete with some training. He even got to make an entrance at NXT, to the Hurricane’s old theme song for some reason. Eh cute enough.

Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns

This is due to Reigns costing Orton a title shot and Reigns’ first big solo match. I like the blue trim on Reigns’ attire but it can be a bit distracting. Orton goes right at him to start and is quickly headbutted out to the floor. Some right hands and a clothesline put Orton outside again but he sends Reigns into the steps and takes it back inside for a chinlock. This isn’t exactly thrilling stuff so far. We hit the Garvin Stomp followed by a nice top rope superplex for two. I love a good superplex.

Back to the chinlock for a bit before Reigns counters into a rear naked choke of all things. See, why doesn’t he do stuff like that more often today? There’s more to life than clotheslines. Orton falls backwards to escape and we’re right back to the chinlock. Orton isn’t exactly giving Reigns much to work with here. The Samoan drop gives Roman a breather and he jacks Randy’s jaw to set up the apron kick. Lawler: “Reigns kicked the Kryptonite out of him!”

Orton whips him into the barricade to take over again though and drops him onto the announcers’ table to keep Roman in trouble. Back in again and Reigns punches his way back into it (shocking I know), followed by a super Samoan drop for two more. The Superman Punch knocks Orton silly but he counters the spear into one heck of a powerslam. That looked great.

The Orton DDT gets two but Reigns gets up for another Superman Punch, only to dive into the RKO for a very near fall. Randy is livid so he loads up the Punt, which is about the dumbest thing you can do against someone who uses the spear for a finisher. Well that’s how it should have ended but instead Reigns just moves away from the Punt and then the spear is good for the pin.

Rating: B-. This was supposed to be a huge turning point for Reigns’ career but it came off as just an ok match with some good moments. The first seven to eight minutes really dragged this down as the chinlocks took the crowd out of things. Now to their credit, Orton and Reigns were able to get them back later on but this needed some tweaks to really make it work. It’s Reigns’ biggest win yet but it really wasn’t anything great.

Long recap of John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar. The idea is Cena beat Lesnar two and a half years ago when Lesnar returned, but since then Lesnar has reached his full Beast Mode and is the unstoppable monster. Cena is pretty clearly a fill in for the injured Daniel Bryan, who would have made for a better story here. They really aren’t hiding the fact that Lesnar is going to win the title here but you know Cena isn’t going down without a fight.

WWE World Title: Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena

Cena is defending of course. They do the big staredown across the ring before the bell and we get one of my favorite Cole lines: “It’s the biggest fight of the summer.” I know that was the tagline going into this match but I love his delivery there. Before we get started, awesome sign in the crowd: “Cena wins, we logically discuss on Twitter.” Cena charges right at him but gets taken down to the mat…..and the F5 connects at thirty seconds. I actually screamed “NO WAY! NO WAY!” when I saw that for the first time.

Lesnar shouts that Cena just had his one chance and I think everyone in the building believes him. Cena looks totally out of it and we’re 90 seconds into this. The first release German suplex sends Cena flying and the fans are just stunned. German #2 has Cena’s mouth hanging open and the replay makes it look even worse. Cena wildly swings but only hits the mat.

A quick drive into the corner and some shots to the ribs just annoy Lesnar as he knees Cena to the mat and slaps on a chinlock so Cena can remember what planet he’s on. More punches from Cena are stopped by a knee as this is even more dominant than I remembered. Four more Germans (six total, counting a snap that I didn’t mention) have Cena a crippled mass in the middle of the ring. Lesnar drives even more knees into the ribs and pulls Cena up so he can throw another German.

The referee FINALLY checks on Cena, who says he’ll have two eggs and sausage. John goes flying off another German but elbows out of the next and gets in some right hands and a clothesline, followed by an AA for two. That seems like Cena’s last gasp though and he can’t follow up. Lesnar does the Undertaker sit up…..and starts laughing. He tells Cena to get out of the corner and bring it on while bouncing back and forth on his feet. Cena charges and gets taken down and pounded in the head.

Cena can’t even move on the mat but tells the referee to let it keep going. Lesnar is ticked off at Cena not quitting so he rolls four straight German suplexes, earning what sounds like applause. He still won’t quit, so there are three more rolling Germans. With Brock standing over him, Cena sweeps the leg and puts on the STF but Brock rolls over and just unloads on him with right hands. The F5 finally ends the slaughter and gives Brock the title.

Rating: A+. This was hard to watch. Not hard in the WCW or TNA hard to watch way, but in the “that’s enough, stop this before Cena dies” hard to watch way. This was a complete squash that ran 16:14. In that span of time, and this is being VERY generous at times, Cena was on offense for 1:22. That’s including the opening where they were grappling on the mat and the time where Cena was trying to break Brock’s grip.

Above all else though, this match did what it was supposed to do, which is make Brock Lesnar look like the biggest monster this side of Godzilla. This wasn’t a technical masterpiece or anything, but the fact that it got this kind of emotion out of me is doing something right. Outstanding performance and Cena selling so well made it even better.

Cena is checked on and can’t move to end the show.

Overall Rating: C+. Something occurred to me as I was getting ready for this show: I didn’t remember anything about it other than the main event. I can tell you the main event for all of the big four shows and every In Your House off the top of my head, but I had no idea that Orton and Reigns had a match here. Looking back, it’s easy to see why. Other than Lesnar vs. Cena, nothing on here is anything outside of the average range. Almost all of the redo ratings are in the middle of the pack and nothing else is memorable. It’s a watchable show, but totally forgettable, which isn’t something you should say about Summerslam.

Ratings Comparison

Rob Van Dam vs. Cesaro

Original: C-

Redo: C-

Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz

Original: C

Redo: C-

AJ Lee vs. Paige

Original: B-

Redo: C+

Jack Swagger vs. Rusev

Original: C+

Redo: C

Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

Original: B

Redo: B-

Bray Wyatt vs. Chris Jericho

Original: C

Redo: C-

Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon

Original: C+

Redo: D+

Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton

Original: C

Redo: B-

Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena

Original: A-

Redo: A+

Overall Rating

Original: A

Redo: C+

……what? I mean just…..what? That overall rating doesn’t even make bad sense. Other than Brie vs. Stephanie and maybe Orton vs. Reigns, nothing really changed drastically, but it went from great to above average? I REALLY got into that Lesnar vs. Cena match the first time around. That original rating actually made my eyes bug out when I read it to see what I had originally given the show.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2014/08/17/summerslam-2014-on-the-a-list/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Summerslam 2014
Date: August 17, 2014
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Commentators: Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, Jerry Lawler

It’s the second biggest show of the year and much like last year, the main event seems to pretty much set in stone. Brock Lesnar is challenging John Cena for the World Title and I can’t see any real reason for Cena to keep the title. There’s always the chance of Rollins cashing in but it doesn’t seem like something that happens. Let’s get to it.

Pre-Show: Rob Van Dam vs. Cesaro

Rob takes him into the corner to start but gets thrown into the corner himself with pure power. Cesaro charges into a boot though and they head outside with Van Dam hitting a quick Rolling Thunder. Back in and Cesaro just throws Van Dam down as we take a break. We come back with Van Dam caught in a chinlock. A knee drop to Rob’s back gets two but Rob comes back with some clotheslines.

Rob gets two off the split legged moonsault before kicking Cesaro to the floor for an apron moonsault. Back in and the Five Star is broken up by a running uppercut but Rob breaks up a superplex. Another uppercut breaks up another Five Star attempt but once again Rob shoves him off. They do the sequence a third time until Rob finally gets off a cross body, only to jump into another uppercut. The Neutralizer is countered into a backdrop but Cesaro lands on his feet and levels Van Dam with a big boot for two. Not that it matters though as Rob kicks him in the face, setting up the Five Star for the pin at 7:56.

Rating: C-. Nothing special here but it’s good to see Rob get a win to reestablish his credibility. I guess they can rebuild Cesaro at some point in the future, though I feel like I’ve been saying that for months now. How in the world did he win a big match at Wrestlemania and fall all the way down here?

The show opens with Hulk Hogan coming out to hype up the WWE Network once again, talking about all the shows you can get for just $9.99. Nothing wrong with Hogan opening a show.

The opening video is played like a movie trailer (from Authority Pictures and Follow the Buzzard Films), playing up everyone’s nickname in a nice idea.

Intercontinental Title: Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz

Miz is defending and talks about all the movies coming out on his way to the ring. He isn’t a talking turtle or robot, but even Drax the Destroyer would be intimidated by him. Tonight he’s going to turn Dolph Ziggler from a star to the WWE’s version of the Lakers. Feeling out process to start with Ziggler easily taking over on the champion, only to miss a charge in the corner.

A kick to the head gets two for the champion and we hit the chinlock. The fans tell Miz that he can’t wrestle so he nails a big boot to quiet them down a bit. There’s the running clothesline in the corner but Dolph blocks a top rope ax handle. A facebuster gets two for Ziggler but Miz avoids the Fameasser and tries to send Dolph outside. Ziggler skins the cat and fakes Miz out on a superkick into a small package for two. The Figure Four is easily countered and a superkick nails Miz in the face for another near fall.

Miz heads outside but gets sent into the barricade, only to slap on the Figure Four back inside. The hold stays on for a good while but Dolph finally makes it to the ropes. Ziggler gets back up and hits the Fameasser out of nowhere but it hurts the knee again, allowing Miz to hit a quick Skull Crushing Finale for two. Miz is stunned, allowing Dolph to hit a Zig Zag out of nowhere for the pin and the title at 8:00.

Rating: C. It wasn’t much of a match but I like the ending coming out of nowhere like that. You could see that the title was going to change as soon as Miz’s finishers didn’t work, but it was still a nice finish. Ziggler getting the title is a good thing as he’s needed a boost for a long time now. Granted he’ll probably lose while holding it over and over, though it’s still better than nothing.

We recap Brie vs. Stephanie/Megan on Raw.

Brie talks about being incarcerated on Monday and thinking about all the times Stephanie has insulted Bryan over the years or tortured Nikki week after week. She says Megan is lying and Brie isn’t going to let this chance slip through her fingers. Tonight she’s going to let the beast out.

Divas Title: AJ Lee vs. Paige

Paige is challenging and these two have traded the title since the night after Wrestlemania. Paige recently turned heel and injured AJ so tonight is her chance for revenge. AJ won’t shake Paige’s hand to start but bites the fingers instead. She pulls at Paige’s hair, sending the British chick out to the floor. Back in and a ticked off Paige chokes on the ropes but AJ kicks her in the face.

Both girls head outside with Paige dropping her face first onto the barricade. Paige takes her back inside and drops I believe a piece of her own hair on AJ’s face. We hit the chinlock on the champion before AJ sends her out to the floor. A BIG top rope clothesline drops Paige again before a bad looking Shining Wizard gets two back inside. Paige kicks her in the face but AJ counters the Paige Turner into the Black Widow. Again Paige counters into Rampaige (fisherman’s DDT) for the clean pin and the title at 5:00.

Rating: B-. This is the physical match that the Divas have been looking for and it was worth the wait. These girls beat the tar out of each other and almost nothing missed the entire time. That Rampaige is a great looking finisher and gives Paige a third finishing move if she keeps the Paige Turner around. Good stuff as this solid rivalry continues.

Sting WWE2K15 video.

Rusev vs. Jack Swagger

This is a Flag Match, meaning a regular match with the winner’s flag being displayed after the match. Lana talks about how unrealistic Hollywood is, because there will be no happy ending. Swagger comes out with a military escort and a presentation of the American flag. Rusev jumps Swagger before the bell so Swagger puts on the Patriot Lock. They’re finally separated but Lana says Rusev is too injured to wrestle. The referee says ring the bell and Swagger goes after him in the corner.

Rusev is sent outside but Swagger takes him back inside and hammers away. The Russian keeps running so Swagger runs him over with a clothesline on the floor. All Swagger so far. Back inside and the Vader Bomb is countered with a kick to Jack’s bad ribs. Rusev fires off some shoulders in the corner and puts on a bearhug. Jack can’t belly to belly suplex him and Rusev cannonballs down onto his back again.

Swagger fights back with a running clothesline and a big boot followed by the Vader Bomb for two. The superkick is countered into the Patriot Lock but Rusev quickly rolls out. A hard kick to the ribs has Rusev in trouble and a kick to the face sets up the Accolade. Rusev can’t stand on the bad ankle though so it’s a one legged Accolade instead. Jack rolls over into the Patriot Lock but Rusev rolls over and kicks at the ribs. A spinwheel kick to the shoulder drops Jack again and there’s a Warrior Splash, setting up the Accolade and Swagger is out at 8:53.

Rating: C+. Good match here with both guys bringing their harder games. Swagger looks good by not tapping out and the right guy wins. This should end the feud between the two though and hopefully sends Rusev after Sheamus and the US Title. Does anything else really make sense at this point?

Rusev nails Colter like a true villain would post match. The Russian national anthem is played and the flag is raised.

We recap Rollins vs. Ambrose. They were members of the Shield but Rollins turned on Ambrose and joined HHH. They were scheduled to fight last month, only to have a fight breaking out in the back beforehand. Therefore, Ambrose wanted a lumberjack match.

Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose

It’s a brawl to start with Dean getting the better of it. He stomps Rollins down in the corner and sends Seth outside. The lumberjacks do their job but Dean punches a few of them when he’s thrown outside. Back in and Ambrose is sent face first into the middle buckle and now the lumberjacks give him a beating. Rollins drops a knee for two but runs into a boot in the corner. Seth is able to tie him into the Tree of Woe before sending him to the apron.

Dean suplexes Rollins onto the lumberjacks, including sending Seth face first onto the announcers’ table. The lumberjacks have to break up the brawl on the floor until Dean backdrops Seth over the barricade and into the crowd. Dean dives onto a bunch of lumberjacks and then runs the announcers’ table to get at Seth, even taking out some more lumberjacks at the same time.

They brawl into the crowd as Kane comes out to yell at the lumberjacks for not doing their job. Dean tries to suplex Rollins over a barricade but they’re finally dragged back to the ring by the lumberjacks. Rollins beats up Sin Cara for no apparent reason and tries to leave, but an army is waiting for him at the entrance. They literally carry him back to the ring with Dean diving off the top to take everyone out in a big pile.

Dirty Deeds is countered into an enziguri, but it knocks Dean into the ropes for the Rebound Clothesline. Dean Curb Stomps Rollins (you read that right) but Kane comes in to break up the pin. Goldust of all people gets in Kane’s face and it breaks down into a huge brawl. The referee hasn’t called for the bell so the match is still going. Everyone is cleared out and Rollins hits Dean with the briefcase for the pin at 10:54.

Rating: B. It was awesome while it lasted but I could have gone for another seven or eight minutes. They kept this going very well and the lumberjacks were an interesting idea. There’s no way this is over and there’s a good chance this sets up a rematch for the briefcase, probably at Night of Champions.

We recap Wyatt vs. Jericho. Chris returned a few months back but was targeted by the Wyatts for reasons not entirely clear. Jericho won last month at Battleground but the feud isn’t over, setting up this rematch tonight.

Chris Jericho vs. Bray Wyatt

The Family is barred from ringside. Jericho takes over with elbows and chops to start, followed by a springboard forearm to put Bray on the floor. Back in and a cross body gets two for the Canadian but Bray sends him out to the floor. Bray drives in knees to the ribs before taking Jericho inside again for some solid shots to the head. Jericho is sent shoulder first into the posts and throat first into the ropes for good measure.

We hit the chinlock for a bit before Jericho scores with an enziguri. Bray runs him over with ease though and hits the backsplash for two. A dropkick takes Bray down again but he comes back with heavy right hands. Jericho, sporting a nasty bruise on his thigh, takes Bray down into the Walls but Bray is right next to the ropes. Wyatt rolls to the apron and is able to DDT Jericho onto the apron for two.

Now it’s Bray going up top but Jericho counters with a hurricanrana for two. Jericho dropskicks him down again but Bray spiders up. He shouts that he’s already dead but there’s the Codebreaker for two. Bray avoids a baseball slide and sends Jericho into the barricade with Sister Abigail. Back in and Sister Abigail is good for the pin at 12:18.

Rating: C. Another pretty good match here with the right ending for a change. Bray getting the pin without the Family interfering is a good sign for him and hopefully the start of something new. It wasn’t a great match or anything but it’s very refreshing to see Bray get a pin on pay per view for a change.

Bray says Jericho learned what it means to follow the buzzards. Singing ensues.

We recap Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon. This is a complicated story but it boils down to Stephanie being mad at Brie for embarrassing her when she was trying to get Daniel Bryan to forfeit the title. Brie quit instead and ruined Stephanie’s plans. Then Brie got her job back by threatening to sue Stephanie for slapping her and set up this match. Stephanie brought up something about Bryan cheating on Brie and the whole thing is WAY more complicated than it needs to be.

Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon

Stephanie is almost in a black superhero outfit. They slowly shove each other to start until Stephanie stomps away in the corner. Brie comes back with a YES Lock attempt to send Stephanie running outside, but she blocks Brie’s suicide dive with a forearm. Back in and a Hennig necksnap gets two on Brie as the announcers talk about how awesome Stephanie is. She stomps on Brie’s head and cranks on the arms as Brie looks mildly annoyed.

Brie finally kicks her in the face so Stephanie turns on the EVIL FACE, only to get caught by a Thesz Press. Some kicks in the ribs have Stephanie in trouble and a hair drag does the same. A middle rope missile dropkick gets two on McMahon and there are some HORRIBLE looking right hands.

Cue HHH for a distraction but Brie counters Stephanie’s Pedigree attempt into the YES Lock, but HHH pulls the referee to the floor. Brie kicks HHH down and starts a YES chant as Nikki is at ringside as well. Nikki comes in and stops Stephanie from leaving before turning on Brie as almost everyone expected her to. Nikki helps Stephanie up and a Pedigree gives her the pin at 11:05.

Rating: C+. Well you knew she wasn’t going to job. It’s on a bit of an adjusted scale but the match was shockingly good. That being said, it was NOWHERE near enough to justify the push its been receiving. All this to set up the Bellas fighting each other? They really think this is something people are going to be interested in? Dear goodness imagine the promos we’re going to have to sit through. The girls all looked good though.

JBL sums up the entire story: Nikki was fed up with having to deal with the problems Brie caused her. Unfortunately that doesn’t make a lot of sense as the people she joined were the ones beating her up the whole time, but that’s WWE for you.

Package on some guy that won a contest and got to go to the Performance Center and create a character: Mama’s Boy.

Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns

Orton is mad at Roman for costing him the chance to be #1 contender. Roman pops him in the jaw to start and follows up with a headbutt. Orton is sent to the floor and into the barricade but he reverses Reigns hard into the steps. Back in and Orton slams him head first onto the mat before stomping on Reigns’ hand. A big superplex gets two for Randy and we hit the chinlock.

Roman fights up into a chinlock of his own but Orton falls back to break it up. Reigns grabs it again and squeezes very hard, only to get caught in a side slam for two. Back up and Reigns nails a Samoan drop before winning a slugout. Some running clotheslines have Orton in trouble and there’s the apron kick. Reigns is reversed into the post and barricade for two though and the fight goes back outside.

Randy throws him over the announcers’ table but gets caught by a Stunner over the ropes. Orton fights out of a superplex attempt but Roman muscles him up into a top rope Samoan drop for two. There’s the Superman Punch but the spear is countered into a very fast powerslam for a near fall. The RKO is countered but Reigns dives into a second attempt, only to kick out at a VERY close two. I bought that as a finish for a second there. Orton misses the Punt and walks into the spear for the pin at 16:41.

Rating: C. The match was good but not really good if that makes sense. The fact that Reigns was the obvious winner didn’t help, but at least the match was good on the way to the ending. Reigns kicking out of the RKO is a big moment for him as his rise to the top of the company continues. This was by far his biggest win to date.

Summerslam is in New Jersey next year.

We recap Lesnar vs. Cena. There isn’t much to say about this one. Cena beat Lesnar at Extreme Rules 2012 but Brock came back by conquering the Streak. Tonight is Lesnar’s chance at the title.

WWE World Heavyweight Title: John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar

Cena is defending and charges right at Lesnar, only to get taken to the mat and pounded. Lesnar fights up and hits an F5 for two in less than thirty seconds. Brock: “THAT WAS YOUR CHANCE JOHN!” A wicked release German suplex sends Cena flying as this is starting like the first Cena vs. Lesnar match. Another one sends Cena across the ring and John is coughing. Brock hammers on him even more and just stares at Cena.

John drives him into the corner and hammers away but a single knee to the ribs puts him back down. Lesnar cranks on a chinlock and slams him head first into the mat as this is totally one sided. He stands on Cena’s hand before throwing him around with more German suplexes. The referee is looking at Cena like he wants to stop it but Cena waves him off. Lesnar hits his fifth or so German as Cena is looking like a ragdoll. The referee keeps checking so Brock suplexes Cena again.

Brock loads up another but Cena fights out with elbows and some clotheslines, only to charge into the F5. Cena escapes and hits a quick AA for two. Brock is down though and Cena has a chance to get a breather. Cena can’t follow up so Lesnar does the Undertaker sit up and smiles at Cena. He even dances a bit and tells Cena to bring it on. Cena gets up and charges at him but gets pounded on the mat UFC style. The referee tells Brock to get off and Cena can barely move. Now it’s rolling Germans and Cena isn’t moving.

Lesnar lets him get back to his senses before rolling even more Germans. This is probably about fifteen total now. Charles Robinson won’t call it off as some idiot fans say this is boring. Brock yells at the referee but Cena trips the leg and puts on the STF. There’s no strength though and Brock just unloads on him. Another F5 gives Brock the Title at 16:07.

Rating: A-. This was a squash. Lesnar demolished Cena and that’s exactly how the announcers are playing it up. This is the killer that Lesnar is supposed to be and the match was total dominance. I have no idea who beats Lesnar but whoever it is will get the rub of a lifetime. Awesome match though not quite as great as the 2012 version.

Overall Rating: A. It never ceases to amaze me how WWE TV can be so horribly dull at times but their PPVs have been on fire this year. Off the top of my head there might have been one show this year that wasn’t somewhere between good and great. This one is on the high end though as nothing was bad and the main event was a sight to behold. Totally awesome show with everyone looking great and setting a really good standard for the coming months. Excellent show.

Results
Dolph Ziggler b. The Miz – Zig Zag
Paige b. AJ Lee – Rampaige
Rusev b. Jack Swagger – Accolade
Seth Rollins b. Dean Ambrose – Briefcase to the face
Bray Wyatt b. Chris Jericho – Sister Abigail
Stephanie McMahon b. Brie Bella – Pedigree
Roman Reigns b. Randy Orton – Spear
Brock Lesnar b. John Cena – F5

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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Summerslam 2010
Date: August 15, 2010
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 14,178
Commentators: Matt Striker, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

Tonight’s show focuses on one idea: the Nexus Invasion. Back in February of 2010 ECW was replaced by a new competition show called NXT. Eight rookies tried to become the next WWE Superstar with Wade Barrett winning the competition. One night in June, these eight men invaded Raw and took over the arena to end the show. Over the next three months, these men, now called Nexus, terrorized the company and John Cena in particular. Tonight it’s Team WWE vs. Nexus in a Survivor Series elimination tag match. We also have Kane vs. Mysterio and Orton vs. Sheamus in the title matches. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how change can affect so many things, such as Nexus destroying everything in sight.

Intercontinental Title: Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler

Dolph is defending and has Vickie with him. These two have fought a ridiculous number of times, even trumping Edge vs. Cena. Ziggler took the title nine days ago with Vickie’s assistance. Vickie’s EXCUSE ME is finally cut off by Kofi’s music. Kingston quickly takes him down and stomps away before clotheslining Dolph to the outside. A suicide dive totally misses though and Ziggler gets a breather.

Back in and the champion pounds away before getting two off a neckbreaker. We hit an early chinlock but Kofi is out of it in a few seconds. Instead Dolph sends him face first into the buckle for two before hitting a Hennig neck snap for two. Off to a reverse chinlock for a few moments until the jumping elbow drop gets two for Dolph.

We hit chinlock #4 but Kofi gets bored and goes off on the champion before hitting the Boom Drop. The middle rope cross body is rolled through, getting a two for Dolph as things speed up. A Fameasser puts Kofi down for two more but he pops up and clotheslines Dolph back down. The champion avoids Trouble in Paradise and hooks his sleeper but the Nexus runs in for the DQ.

Rating: D+. These two are capable of having far better matches if they don’t have to kill time until the run-in ending. Far too much of the match was spent in the chinlockery and it’s a rare bad opening match for Summerslam. Kofi continues his career path as Ziggler is about to start his climb to almost the top of the company.

Ziggler bails and Nexus destroys Kingston. Barrett talks about how Team WWE only has six men but the seventh doesn’t matter because Nexus is going to destroy them. This felt like the opening of Raw.

Jericho begs Mr. MITB and the US Champion the Miz to be on Team WWE. Edge is on the Miz’s other side eating a Slim Jim because Edge is awesome. Jericho says Miz doing this in LA could be bigger than Titanic or Avatar Miz doesn’t seem intersted.

Divas Title: Alicia Fox vs. Melina

Alicia is champion and the flavor of the month of the division. Melina has on a headdress that makes her look like a peacock. She looks….stupid. Melina takes forever taking off her furry boots before we’re finally ready to go. After they stare at each other for a good while Melina shoves her into the corner and then they stare at each other some more. The champion takes it to the mat with a headlock before Melina comes up with forearms. Off to a kind of Indian Deathlock with a curb stomp to Fox followed by a pair of knees to Fox’s ribs.

Some more forearms have Fox in trouble but Melina lands on her bad knee which cost her eight months off. The knee is good enough for Melina to superkick Fox, only to be sent shoulder first into the post. Back in and Fox goes after the arm because she’s not that bright. Melina realizes how stupid this is and makes her comeback with a kick to the ribs. A LOUD scream sets up a kick to the back and kind of a Diamond Cutter faceplant for the pin and the title.

Rating: D-. Both girls looked great but my dear merciful goodness Fox was embarrassing out there. When Jerry Lawler is making fun of you for having a lack of psychology, it’s a bad sign for your match. The Divas division hit a black hole after Trish and Lita left and this was a great example of how bad it was getting.

Post match Josh Matthews goes in to talk to Melina but here’s Laycool to interrupt. They’re the co-women’s champions here after literally tearing the belt in two. They try to take a picture with Melina but she kicks them both in the ribs. Layla trips Melina up though, allowing Michelle to clearly not make contact on a big boot. Fox tries to join in but gets beaten down as well. The titles would be unified next month.

Trace Adkins, Marlon Wayans and Michael Clarke Duncan are here.

We recap Big Show vs. Straight Edge Society. Mysterio had won a match against Punk, forcing him to shave his head. Punk wore a mask to hide it but Big Show ripped it off to humiliate him. Punk’s Society (Luke Gallows, Joey Mercury and Serena) got together and broke Big Show’s hand in a segment much funnier than it should have been due to Big Show’s face while being choked out.

Big Show vs. Straight Edge Society

Three on one handicap match. Punk has already grown his hair to a bit shorter than it is in 2013. We continue the awesome that is CM Punk as he wears a shirt saying “I Broke Big Show’s Hand”, which is a reference to Greg Valentine’s “I Broke Wahoo’s Leg” shirt from about thirty years ago. Show takes off his cast to reveal that the hand is fully healed and to freak Punk out a bit.

Mercury charges right into a chop and Gallows gets the same. The Society has to tag in and out here so Punk calls a conference on the apron. Gallows and Mercury jump Big Show and apparently tagging isn’t required here. Show easily throws away the lackeys and palms Mercury by the head, throwing him over the top and onto Gallows. Punk is the only one left now and a few shots to the back easily put him down. Show misses a chop and hits the steps, giving the Society an opening to go after the hand.

The Society pounds away with really basic stuff as we’re just waiting on the comeback. Punk charges into a back elbow and Show cleans house for a bit until Punk hits a high kick to slow him down. Some running knees in the corner stagger the giant before a double DDT from Punk and Mercury gets two. Punk goes nuts on the hand but Show picks him up on his shoulders. After dropping Punk over the top, the lackeys are destroyed again and Show chokeslams Mercury onto Gallows for a double pin.

Rating: D. Another dull match here as Big Show never once felt like he was in any kind of danger at all. That was the problem with this whole feud: Show treated Punk like an annoyance rather than an opponent. This would lead up to the destruction of Punk in a one on one match next month because Big Show needed that push right?

Kane is standing by Undertaker’s casket and talks about getting revenge on Rey Mysterio for attacking Undertaker. Raw World Champion Sheamus comes in and proposes an alliance but Kane wants no part of it. Kane says Sheamus has guts and they’ll be on the floor if he interrupts Kane again. Sheamus is still a heel here and is actually pretty awesome.

Speaking of awesome, here’s Miz to answer Jericho and Edge’s offer from earlier. Miz doesn’t care if the fans want him on the team or not because he’s the missing link in the WWE chain. Earlier today Cena admitted he was wrong about Miz and brags about Bret Hart begging him to be on the team on Raw.

Jericho gave Miz a Fozzy CD but Miz threw it away. Miz’s former partner John Morrison admitted Miz was the HBK of the team, Edge gave him Slim Jims and Truth wrote him a rap. Miz is the future and brags about how much bigger he is than everything else. He actually agrees to be on the team tonight but the fans aren’t allowed to do his catchphrase with him. Cole loses his mind over Miz’s announcement.

We recap Orton vs. Sheamus. There isn’t much to say here as Orton won a three way over Edge and Jericho on Raw to earn the shot. Sheamus won the title at Fatal Fourway with the unintentional assistance of Nexus. Sheamus has been hurting a lot of people lately and he claims Orton is the next victim.

Raw World Title: Sheamus vs. Randy Orton

Orton is challenging if that somehow wasn’t clear. This is during Orton’s bare arms phase which was always a strange look. Cole lets us know that if anyone interferes on Sheamus’ behalf, they’re suspended. If Orton loses, he gets no rematch. Sheamus shoves him into the corner and shouts in his face. It works so well that he does it again, earning him right hands to the face. Orton stomps Sheamus down into the corner and hits a hard clothesline to put him down again.

Orton drops him with another clothesline and a third to send the champion to the floor. The fourth straight clothesline sends Sheamus into the crowd but Orton has to go back inside before the ten count. Back in and Orton hits the circle stomp for two and a catapult into the bottom rope sends Sheamus outside again. The champion FINALLY gets a breather by sending Orton shoulder first into the steps. They’re doing the methodical build here which implies they have a lot of time.

Sheamus takes over with the power brawling via a knee to the ribs and a reverse chinlock. Back up and Orton counters a suplex but the Elevated DDT is countered into a backdrop to the floor. Sheamus rams Orton’s back into the barricade and the look on Orton’s face is great. Back in and a hard ax handle to the head gets two. This is surprisingly good stuff so far which leaves me with little to talk about.

Sheamus grabs something resembling a cross face chicken wing as is the case with most guys who come out of FCW. That’s one of the problems with one training area: you get a lot of the same spots from guys. Orton comes back with kicks to the ribs but another ax handle to the face takes him down. Back to the chicken wing and Sheamus channels his inner Jericho, telling the referee to ask him. Back up and Orton suplexes Sheamus down but can’t follow up.

They slug it out with Orton taking over. The fans are WAY into Randy here. A bad powerslam puts Sheamus down which Cole calls “A malignant growth of momentum.” Lay off the JR metaphors dude. A superplex gets two for Randy but he walks into the Irish Curse (note that at this point, the High Cross (Razor’s Edge) was called the Irish Curse. I’m using the more well known move: the Rock Bottom backbreaker) for two.

The Brogue Kick misses and Sheamus falls to the floor, only to be caught in the Elevated DDT as he comes back inside. The RKO is shoved off for two but Orton escapes the Irish Curse. Brogue Kick is only good for two which is a very rare sight to see. What isn’t a rare sight tonight is a bad finish, much like here as Sheamus gets himself disqualified for a chair shot.

Rating: B-. Bad finish to a good match here. Sheamus is getting better and better which makes you wonder why they book him so badly in present times. The guy is clearly talented but he hasn’t had to really work hard to beat a guy in months. This was a good match though and they clearly have chemistry together.

Post match Orton snaps and kicks Sheamus low before RKOing him onto the announce table. The fans want Miz but get a trailer for John Cena’s new movie instead.

We recap Kane vs. Mysterio. Kane won MITB and cashed in the same night to win the Smackdown Title over Rey. This was at the same time that someone had attacked Undertaker and left him in a “vegetative state” because we can’t say coma in WWE. Kane swore to find who did it but Mysterio accused Kane of doing it himself. Tonight is the rematch and somehow a way for Kane to prove his innocence.

Smackdown World Title: Kane vs. Rey Mysterio

Kane brings out a casket and I think you know where this is going. Kane hits a quick slam to start but Rey avoids an elbow drop. Rey tries to fire off some offense but Kane easily throws him around. The 619 is easily countered and Rey is sent to the floor. He slides back in and hits a quick baseball slide to get an advantage. Back in and Kane punches him off the top rope before ramming Rey back first into the post over and over.

Kane drops him ribs first over the top rope and slaps on a bearhug to keep things slow. Rey forearms out and dropkicks Kane in the chest, only to have Kane clothesline him down on a 619 attempt. Mysterio is sent chest first to the floor and kicked off a springboard to the floor. Kane follows him out but gets caught in a drop toehold into the barricade. Back in and a springboard headbutt to the chest gets two on Kane but he backbreakers Rey down again.

There’s a nice story going here of Rey speeding things up but Kane easily stopping him with power stuff. Power vs. speed is going to work almost every time and it helps that both guys are very talented. Kane bends Rey’s back over his knee before getting two off a side slam. Mysterio manages to break up the top rope clothesline but a rana attempt is easily blocked.

Now the clothesline misses and Mysterio counters another backbreaker into a tilt-a-whirl reverse DDT (here’s a good example of why Matt Striker is annoying. He calls it a Slop Drop, which is another name for a reverse DDT, but come on: does ANYONE think of the Godwinns when they see that move? Is there some Godwinn fan base out there that he’s trying to appeal to? It comes off like him trying to sound smart without adding anything at all). The seated senton puts Kane down and a spinning DDT gets two more.

A hard kick to the face gets the same but Mysterio dives into an uppercut. Kane opens up the casket to show that it’s empty but Rey sends Kane into the ropes. The 619 is caught and Rey is thrown into the casket but he kicks out of danger. Now the 619 connects but Kane gets the feet up on the springboard splash. Rey stops in mid jump though and gets two off a rollup, only to be chokeslammed to death for the pin.

Rating: C. This was about as good as this match could be. At the end of the day, it’s almost impossible to buy Mysterio as a physical threat to a guy the size of Kane. Yeah something like the 619 could stun him but it’s hard to believe anything but that or a rollup is going to get more than a one count. That’s not to say either guy is bad, but it’s the problem with a guy Mysterio’s size.

Post match Kane wants to make Rey pay for what he did to Undertaker. He promises to make Mysterio hurt for eternity and lays him out with two chokeslams and a tombstone. Kane goes to the casket and yep Undertaker is inside. HOW DID HE DO THAT I ASK YOU!!! Taker asks the half dead Rey what happened but Rey says no. The brothers go at it and Kane beats Taker down, I guess turning heel again and shocking no one. The idea is that Taker is still banged up and doesn’t have his full powers back yet.

Video on Axxess.

We recap Nexus vs. Team WWE. I think I’ve covered this well enough but it’s the first season of NXT coming to the main roster to try to take over the company. Over the last few months they’ve attacked various people and tonight it’s about revenge. Great Khali was originally on the team but was taken out by Nexus, leaving Team WWE with just six guys. Team WWE (also called Cena’s Army) is having a lot of problems with Jericho and Edge quitting over Cena’s leadership, only to come back later.

Nexus vs. Team WWE

Nexus: Wade Barrett, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, Michael Tarver, David Otunga, Justin Gabriel, Skip Sheffield

Team WWE: John Cena, Bret Hart, Chris Jericho, Edge, R-Truth, John Morrison, ???

You should know most of the Nexus, though Sheffield later changed his name to Ryback. As for Team WWE, Miz isn’t the last man. He comes out but Cena stops him, because it needed to be someone who made his decision earlier. Instead it’s……DANIEL BRYAN! This requires a backstory. The night Nexus debuted, Bryan was a member of the team. However he got fired for choking ring announcer Justin Roberts with a necktie as it wasn’t PG. Tonight is Bryan’s return and he wasn’t a surprise at all. See, WWE.com actually spoiled the return by mistake, ruining it for anyone who saw the website before the match.

It’s a huge brawl to start and Cole RIPS into Bryan for the sake of Miz. Bryan starts with Young and a quick LeBell (YES) Lock makes it 7-6 in less than 45 seconds. Justin Gabriel is in next and gets to fight Chris Jericho for his troubles. Some kicks to the ribs allow for the tag to Truth as things speed up. A suplex into a Stunner is good for two but Gabriel comes back with a spin kick to the face. Off to Tarver who was about as worthless as you could ask for a man to be.

Tarver charges into a boot in the corner and it’s off to Morrison to clean house with some dropkicks. The Fying Chuck (Disaster Kick) sets up Starship Pain (split legged twisting moonsault) for the second elimination. The remaining five members of Nexus hit the floor for a meeting before everything falls apart. Sheffield gets the nod and easily throws Morrison around. A big powerslam puts Morrison down and some snap suplexes work on his back even more. Morrison tries a comeback but Gabriel kicks him in the back of the head, allowing Sheffield to hit a big clothesline for the elimination.

Truth comes in and another clothesline ties the match up maybe twenty seconds later. Jericho comes in but gets sent into the buckle, allowing for the tag off to Barrett. Otunga is in a few seconds later, before he got good in the ring. Now let that one sink in for a minute. Anyway back to Barrett to crank on his NXT mentor’s arms but Jericho gets a boot up in the corner. A clothesline puts both guys down and it’s a double tag to Slater and Hart.

Old Man Bret pounds away on Heath for a few moments and doesn’t look half bad doing it. It doesn’t have the same snap that it used to but Bret’s offense still looks good. He puts on the Sharpshooter but Wade slides in a chair. Bret lets go of the hold and cracks Sheffield over the back in self defense, drawing a DQ. There really wasn’t another way to get rid of him due to an inability to take bumps. Sheffield staggers to his feet and walks into a Codebreaker from Jericho followed by a spear from Edge to tie us up.

To recap it’s Cena, Jericho, Edge and Bryan vs. Gabriel, Barrett, Otunga, Slater. On paper, this should be pure domination. Gabriel is in to face Edge but after scoring some kicks to the chest, Justin walks into an Edge-O-Matic for two. A big spin kick puts Edge down and it’s off to Slater, whose shorter hair makes him look like an even bigger tool than he does today. Slater pulls Edge into the corner for the tag off to Barrett who hooks the chinlock. Edge quickly fights up and scores with a spinwheel kick but gets caught in a swinging neckbreaker.

Back to Otunga who is almost booed out of the building. A standing spinebuster is easily countered into Edge’s Impaler and there’s the tag off to Jericho. Has Cena even been in yet? The running bulldog sets up the Lionsault and the Walls are good for the submission from Otunga. Jericho immediately knocks Slater off the apron and into the announce table to take him down. Back in and the top rope back elbow has Heath reeling but Jericho almost runs into Cena, allowing Slater to hit his running sleeper drop to pin Chris.

Edge comes in to yell at Cena but Slater rams him into John for a rollup pin thirty seconds later. Edge lays out Cena and Jericho adds a few kicks to the ribs of his own. So we have Cena/Bryan vs. Slater/Gabriel/Barrett with Cena getting caught in the Nexus corner. Barrett comes in to pepper Cena with rights and lefts before it’s off to Justin to crank on the arm. Cena tries to fight back but walks into a side slam from Barrett for no cover. John comes back with a quick fisherman’s suplex but Slater breaks up the hot tag attempt.

Cena hits a hard clothesline to put Slater down and dives for the hot tag to Bryan. Daniel comes in with a quick German suplex on Slater as Striker calls for Cattle Mutilation, which means absolutely nothing to most WWE fans. Bryan backflips over Slater in the corner and hits the running clothesline before sending him to the floor for the FLYING HAIRLESS ANIMAL! Back in and Bryan hits the missile dropkick and counters a rollup into the LeBell Lock to get us down to two on two.

Bryan looks at Nexus but here’s Miz to blast him in the back with the MITB case, giving Barrett an easy pin. Gabriel hits a hard right hand in the corner to put Cena down but Cena comes back with his finishing sequence to take Gabriel down. He loads up the AA but Barrett makes a blind tag and breaks it up with a shot to the head.

Nexus stomps away on Cena in the corner and a big boot from Wade sends him to the floor. Gabriel and Barrett peel back the mats at ringside and a DDT on the concrete knocks Cena out cold. Back in and Gabriel misses the 450, allowing Cena to score a quick pin. Barrett comes in and gets caught in the STF out of nowhere for the final elimination 20 seconds later.

Rating: C+. The match was entertaining and never dragged, but the ending doesn’t hold up when you take it out of the moment. Now one thing that does need to be kept in mind is Cena wasn’t in the match until over twenty minutes after the start so he was hardly banged up until the very end. That DDT on the concrete is a bit too much to take though, as Cena goes from out cold to fine in less than a minute. I can’t quite buy that.

This also brings up to the problem with Nexus: they never really won anything. At the end of the day, Barrett was the only one to have any success for a long time and to this day he’s one of two of the seven here to do much of anything. You have Ryback doing pretty well, but the rest are all midcard to lower card guys who haven’t accomplished much. As of August 2013, Tarver is gone, Otunga and Young are lucky to have jobs, Slater is a comedy jobber and Gabriel is a Superstars mainstay. That’s what killed Nexus: at the end of the day, they were a bunch of jobbers who swarmed big names and nothing more.

Overall Rating: D. This is a pretty terrible show with only two matches being decent at all. The main event is pretty good but it’s absolutely nothing worth going out of your way to see. Nexus fizzled out so badly that their existence is really just a big footnote anymore. Bryan wound up being the big star out of all of them and he was literally on the team for one night only. Nexus would go on to do nothing but annoy fans over the next few months, even with new members and Punk as a leader. The show isn’t worth seeing and thankfully things would pick up next year.

Ratings Comparison

Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston

Original: C+

Redo: D+

Melina vs. Alicia Fox

Original: D

Redo: D-

Straight Edge Society vs. Big Show

Original: D+

Redo: D

Randy Orton vs. Sheamus

Original: D+

Redo: B-

Rey Mysterio vs. Kane

Original: C-

Redo: C

Team WWE vs. Nexus

Original: B+

Redo: C+

Overall Rating

Original: B

Redo: D

My goodness what was I thinking?

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/08/13/history-of-summerslam-count-up-2010-a-one-match-show-almost-literally/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Summerslam 2010
Date: August 15, 2010
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Commentators: Matt Striker, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

Well we’re back again for the *insert Summerfest joke here* show. This is the epitome of a one match show as EVERYTHING has been about the Nexus invasion. The theory is that Cena turns tonight but I’m not sold on it. Nexus more or less has to win tonight or the angle is worthless. I’m not sold on this card very well at all, but it’s starting now so let’s get to it.

The opening is of course all about Nexus, which makes sense. The arena and set look great as this really is a huge show.

Intercontinental Title: Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston

Pretty clear that Dolph retains here. Vickie does her usual whining and catchphrase here just to be annoying. Nice pop for Kofi but nothing great. We’re in MALTA BABY! Kofi misses a dive to start and is in trouble early on. Apparently the tag titles either aren’t major titles or his win is forgotten into the Rocker Tag Title Book of History. King makes a joke about liking 11s or 12s. On a 1-10 scale you freaking perverts.

Dolph is mostly dominant here as he hooks a chinlock. Kofi can’t get the “controlled frenzy” going according to Cole. Does everything have to have a name now? Dolph gets two on a roll thru of a cross body. We get a Fameasser reference from Striker as it makes Kofi famous. Even Lawler chuckles at it. He’s more energetic tonight for some reason. Trouble in Paradise misses, which might be because OF THE MASSIVE CHANTING OF BOOM BOOM BOOM by Kofi.

Sleeper goes on….AND HERE THEY COME? Yes, Nexus hits the ring and beats them up before circling Kofi. The big beatdown follows as I have a bad feeling about where this show is going. Barrett says this is a preview of later tonight. Expect a Kofi run-in later. Nexus is united apparently.

Rating: C+. Not a bad match for what they had, but the ending is very strange. This wasn’t bad, but with no ending like this it really hurt things. I really do expect the Cena turn now for some reason, which is why it likely won’t happen. Anyway, this needed a finish to be good but even still it’s decent.

Jericho wants Miz on the team tonight and so does Edge. Edge eating a Slim Jim is epic for no reason at all. They say he could be a huge star but doesn’t say yes.

Alicia Fox vs. Melina

Well at least this should be short. Melina has a freaking headdress on and she looks like a freaking idiot. Fox is attractive with straight hair. Shame that’s not the case here. Melina is in the skin colored tights which are always weird looking. Melina is the hometown girl so she’s all awesome and such apparently. Yep this is boring. It’s not bad, but seriously does ANYONE care about this match?

Still waiting on something to happen here. Melina might have hurt her knee on a move from the ropes. Alicia of course does nothing about it. Nice superkick by Melina. This is just boring me to death but Melina’s gyrations are helping a bit. That girl could make a KILLING as a stripper. After FAR too long, Melina wins with more or less a weird snapmare. Apparently it’s called the Mind Trip. Ok then.

After the win, cue Laycool to annoy Melina. They say this is awesome and want to take a picture with “two champions” in it so hopefully this will lead to a unification thing soon. Brawl ensues and the worst kick every by Michelle misses by at least 8 inches. Laycool’s music continues to be awesome. Michelle does a knee into the tables to put down Melina for a good while.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad. The ending came out of nowhere but thankfully it ended a bad match. I’m very glad to see that there might be a unification soon, but will anyone care even after that? It’s definitely the right move but with people like Fox chasing it then the whole thing is in trouble. Not a good match.

After a quick recap of the SES vs. Show, we go to this.

Straightedge Society vs. Big Show

How appropriate to have this after that video package. It’s Mercury, Punk and Gallows. Show dominates Mercury and Gallows in about a minute to get us to Punk, who gets face cheers. Oh and Show’s hand is fine. Gallows and Mercury get back up and the 3-1 beatdown begins.

Show comes back of course as it occurs to me that Punk has the most hair of anyone out there. Punk goes for the springboard clothesline and gets caught by the throat. He kicks Show in the head which was cool looking. Cole calls a bulldog a DDT because he’s a stupid man. Punk does a bunch of strikes to the hand and it just ticks Show off. Punk gets knocked to the floor and leaves. Mercury gets chokeslammed and pinned while on top of Gallows. Here lies the SES.

Rating: D+. Pretty weak here as more or less we knew it was just going to be Show winning in the end due to his huge size advantage. This was an ok match and the ending advances the story, but dang man why do they have to crush the SES again? For once could they actually let something go on for more than a month without crippling it?

Kane talks to the casket and Sheamus of all people comes up, saying he’d like to borrow the casket to put Orton in. Kane says no. Sheamus says stay out of his way and Kane yells at him. Odd moment but cool potential.

And here’s Miz. The Raw title match is next so he has a reason to be here. He wants to know if he should be on the team. The fans cheer but he doesn’t care what they think. Allegedly Hart and Cena begged for him to be on the team. He talks about every person on the team and how they’ve all done things to get him on the team. Awesome promo but he wants the fans to admit it. After a HUGE delay, he says yes he’ll be on the team. Cole orgasms loudly.

We recap Orton vs. Sheamus, which isn’t much at all. Orton won a match and now he’s the number one contender. The hype for this has more or less not existed.

Raw World Title: Sheamus vs. Randy Orton

Orton is in purple and Sheamus is in green, making this just freaking weird looking. Sheamus powers him back to start which is odd since he’s kind of quietly powerful. Slow start here which should be a good sign but I’m not sure here. They tease a countout and Orton is dominating which is a weird formula for a match.

This is just boring as they’re going WAY too slow. Orton’s arm gets worked on and the elevated DDT is reversed into a backdrop. Sheamus is in control and not much is going on. He hits basic moves and covers. This is apparently the main event and it started about 5 minutes after 9. He gets technical with a drop toehold to put Orton down.

Sheamus likes to use a double axehandle which is kind of a cool move for him to use. More people should use it. When I say more I mean like one total. Sheamus at least works on the arm which is the right idea if nothing else. Orton gets the backbreaker as this is just DRAGGING. The boo/yay cheers start up for punching. Orton does his usual array of clotheslines as I fight off sleep due to this.

Middle rope suplex gets two for the guy with non-mayonnaise colored skin. Sheamus hits his backbreaker for two which of course Cole is surprised by when the kickout happens. Brogue Kick misses though and Sheamus hits the floor. There’s the DDT but the RKO is countered which surprised me. He shoved him off and it legit looks like he hit it from both angles. Clearly countered though which was cool.

High Cross and RKO are both countered but Orton walks into the Brogue Kick for two as the fans are into this now. That’s the issue with WWE Title matches: you don’t have to get into them for a long time and everyone knows it so for the first ten minutes no one cares. Sheamus gets a chair and shoves the referee out for the CHEAP DQ.

Rating: D+. Oh this was bad. The ending crippled the actually solid last 5 minutes or so as the rest of this was just flat out boring. The slow style of both guys crippled each other and the ending had me shaking my head at how freaking dumb it was. I don’t get this at all as if nothing else have Sheamus get the chair shot and win that way but dang man, this was freaking stupid.

Post match Orton snaps and hits the RKO on the table. Good for him. Table didn’t break so at least it looked good. Sheamus is announced as still champion which should make us wait for either HHH or Miz’s theme music. Naturally we get the Legendary trailer.

We recap the way overdone Rey vs. Kane issue, which comes down to one thing: how would Rey know who did it? This took almost five minutes.

Smackdown World Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Kane

Kane brings the casket with him. Striker even throws out a quick summary of the Taker/Kane childhood which you NEVER hear anymore. Kane goes right for him and gets kicked in the knee. They talk about the keys to victory and King says that Rey’s potential innocence should help him win. Uh, what? Striker thinks this is speed vs. power. You can’t buy commentary like this people!

Kane takes over and we slow it down again. He gets a baseball slide which is cool looking. Can you imagine Kane playing baseball? That’s just funny for some reason. 619 is blocked and Kane takes his head off with a clothesline. We’re clearly just filling in time until the finish. It’s been mostly Kane here and as soon as I say that Kane goes into the post. Rey hits a flying battering ram move but Kane takes over AGAIN with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, a cool move.

Cole likes to talk about people being in the box. Kane wants the referee to ASK HIM. He’s been chilling with Jericho I guess. Top rope rana is blocked and Rey’s knee might be hurt. Wait wasn’t his ankle hurt on Smackdown? Springboard Splash misses so Rey just kicks Kane in the head. Well that works if nothing else. After more uneventful stuff, the 619 is blocked and Rey gets thrown into the casket.

The casket is closed and you know Taker will be in it soon. Chokeslam is blocked and 619 hits. Rey gets two off a counter to a counter to the springboard splash as the end is clearly near. Chokeslam hits to retain THANK GOODNESS!

Rating: C-. Better than the last match as at least this had an ending. It was still boring but Kane winning clean is a nice perk. You know it’ll wind up being Kane vs. Taker but Kane getting a clean win like this is good for him because he flat out needs them for some credibility. Not horrible but I’ve seen worse.

Post match Kane says he’s going to put Rey in the casket and opens it, showing that it’s empty. Two chokeslams and a tombstone (sick one too) and of course Taker is in the casket. He goes for Rey and asks if he’s heard of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Taker asks him why he did it but Rey insists it wasn’t him. Hand around throat and the throat slit sign but he turns to Kane. Kane breaks Taker’s grip and tombstones him, leaving him laying. These guys are on and off more than all the high school relationships in history. Yep Kane is the heel again.

Ad for Smackdown on Sci-Fi.

Clips of Summerslam Axxess which looks awesome.

Recap of Nexus vs. Cena’s Army. If you don’t know this by now, go read the Raw recaps since I’m sick of this story.

Nexus vs. R-Truth/Edge/Chris Jericho/Miz/John Cena/Bret Hart/John Morrison

Remember that this is elimination. This should go for a LONG time. New shirt for Cena. Miz comes out last and Cena has something to say. Cena has a replacement, and it’s DANIEL BRYAN. The really weird thing here is that there was an article up on WWE.com where it spoiled this half an hour before it happened. That’s very freaky and I can’t imagine the speech he got because of it.

Nexus vs. R-Truth/Edge/Chris Jericho/Daniel Bryan/John Cena/Bret Hart/John Morrison

BIG brawl to start as Cole runs down Bryan every second because he has to. The official starters are Bryan and Young. This should be quick. Hey I’m right as Bryan gets a crossface and Young is out in like 30 seconds. That evens things out since Hart is more or less worthless. Gabriel and Jericho are in now and don’t expect every tag to be mentioned since it’s going to be very fast paced.

Tarver comes in and throws a lot of punches. Morrison gets a nice pop as the hometown boy. Flash Kick and Starship Pain put Tarver down to make it 7-5. He landed on his back this time so we’ll call that a success. Barrett wants a huddle. Sheffield comes in and boxes with Morrison kind of as Nexus takes over. The fans want Bret as it’s all Sheffield. Morrison makes a comeback but walks into a kick by Gabriel and the clothesline from Sheffield to make it 6-5.

Sheffield hits Truth in like 30 seconds to tie it up. Jericho comes in and gets beaten down. Why do they keep calling them Team WWE? Nexus is in WWE officially right? Jericho vs. Barrett is an interesting match actually. Bret and Slater come in as Cena hasn’t been in yet, which is rather interesting. Bret does basic stuff and gets the Sharpshooter but there’s a chair in. Sheffield gets the tag and Bret pops him with the chair for reasons of basic stupidity. That’s the best way to get rid of him since he can’t take a power move due to his health so there isn’t another way to do it really.

As a recap it’s Cena/Edge/Jericho/Bryan vs. Sheffield/Barrett/Slater/Otunga/Gabriel. Sheffield gets up and walks into the Codebreaker. Spear ties us up at 4. Gabriel gets a SICK spin kick on Edge. The kick itself was just ok but the impact looked great. Barrett and Edge slow us down a bit. Edge gets a spinwheel kick which is one of his old moves. I haven’t seen him use that in forever.

Otunga comes in and is booed out of the building. Edge hits the Edgecution and gets a face pop for it. Not sure whether it’s for Edge or against Otunga but whatever. Edge gets the tag but STILL no Cena. This is certainly compelling. Lionsault hits and Striker says HE HIT IT! Jericho loses the Walls for a bit but Otunga eventually taps to get us to 4-3 Team Cena. Jericho is wrestling like Lionheart here and a BIG Y2J chant starts. I still want a Jericho face title run.

And he runs into Cena, resulting in Slater hitting his Zig Zag for the tie. Cena and Edge both want in and Edge yells while Bryan plays peacemaker. Slater runs Edge into Cena and rolls him up to get Jericho and Edge in less than a minute. Edge and Jericho beat up Cena before leaving. Jericho: YOU’RE A STUPID MAN! Cena/Bryan vs. Slater/Barrett/Gabriel. Cena is finally in now and gets his head kicked in.

Very good match so far as Nexus has looked STRONG. Cena can’t get anything going and Cole will not shut up about Bryan. Gabriel gets a DDT on Cena that looked good. Everyone beats on Cena and as I say that we get a double clothesline. Bryan comes in and cleans house, using a freaking big boot. Striker wants Cattle Mutilation. Where’s PETA when you need them?

Cena is down on the floor which makes me wonder where this is going. Cena as heel vs. Bryan as face? After a lot of GOOD stuff from Bryan he gets Slater to tap. And cue Miz with the briefcase to blast Bryan and make it 2-1 with Barrett/Gabriel vs. Cena. Cena is more or less dead though despite not being beaten down past anything overly special. He goes into the ending sequence though after a missed Gabriel splash in the corner.

FU doesn’t work as Gabriel makes the tag and Nexus takes over again. It’s a massive beatdown here as Cena has NOTHING. The two guys pull the mats on the floor back and Barrett hits a DDT on the exposed concrete. Gabriel gets tagged in and the 450 MISSES! Cena rolls up Gabriel and instantly gets the STFU on Barrett for the TAP AND THE WIN!

Rating: B+. This was very good. They booked it perfectly, including the ending. As I said in the LD, Cena moved, covered, did a drop toehold, laid on Barrett’s back and pulled. THAT’S IT. That’s how he beat them both. He wasn’t doing an FU to both guys after escaping their finishers and hitting 4 shoulder blocks each. He outmoved them and it worked fine. Nexus looked solid out there and the whole thing looked fine. This was a good match and well done. It certainly wasn’t bad and is nowhere near what people are making it out to be. I loved this and it made the show for the most part.

Overall Rating: B. This was a good show, but it’s a kind that would need a footnote. This is the definition of a one match show. I don’t mean one match is great and the rest suck. I mean this was built around one single match and nothing else on the card mattered at all. Other than the 7 on 7 match, what else was hyped at all?

Luckily, that match was very good and hit on all cylinders. The rest of the card is ok, but it could have been better. The Orton/Sheamus ending was just bad. Kane overpowering Taker is interesting as it actually gives us some intrigue. This was a good show overall, powered mainly by the main event’s success. Not worth seeing much other than the main, but that’s expected with a show like this.

 

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Monday Night Raw
Date: February 28, 2005
Location: Dunkin Donuts Center, Providence, Rhode Island
Attendance: 7,500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Last week saw a big change as Batista officially turned face and announced that he is going to be challenging HHH for the World Title at Wrestlemania. That’s where the story has been going for months now and it’s nice to see them FINALLY pull the trigger, especially when the story built up to it as close to perfect as possible. Let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

We open with a recap of the big angle from last week, which is all that matters around here right now.

Here’s HHH in wrestling gear to get things going. He gets straight to the point: he isn’t scared of Batista but the fans think Batista is going to become World Heavyweight Champion. The fans like that idea so HHH yells about being the best in the business and that is not a slogan on a t-shirt. Batista thinks he’s gotten somewhere after sitting under a learning tree for two years.

The reality is that Batista is a child and HHH is his father. When a child stands up to his father, it is up to the father to take the son back down a notch and teach him a lesson. Batista has been doing good but at Wrestlemania, HHH is teaching him the difference between doing good and being good. Cue…..the Hurricane?

HHH vs. Hurricane

HHH jumps him during the entrance and kicks Hurricane into the steps as the announcers aren’t sure if the bell rang or not. Hurricane gets dragged up the ramp and it’s a Pedigree onto the steel as the match (if there was one) is thrown out.

HHH grabs the mic again and says Batista’s lesson starts tonight.

Chris Benoit vs. Muhammad Hassan

Daivari is extra loud tonight as Benoit stomps away in the corner before hitting a belly to back suplex. Hassan kicks away but tries a terrible looking clothesline which was only designed to feed Benoit the arm for the Crossface. That means a Daivari distraction so Hassan can get in a cheap shot to take over. The USA chants begin, which is a lot more support for Hassan than I was expecting. A suplex gives Hassan two and we hit the chinlock.

That’s broken up in a hurry so Hassan goes with a backbreaker for two instead. The bodyscissors goes on but Benoit slips out and hammers away. Benoit rolls the German suplexes but Hassan knocks him into the referee. Daivari slips Hassan the referee, only to have Benoit snap off another suplex. The Swan Dive hits Hassan in the shoulder….and I guess Benoit was supposed to hit the bell, even though he was clearly a foot away from the thing. That only gets two so Hassan goes low for the DQ.

Rating: C. The action was good and intense while it lasted but the ending was really awkward as they botched the ending and then went with something else, which really didn’t work. Hassan has gotten so much more interesting just by going after some bigger names, though he still isn’t working all that well. At some point he’s going to have to do something on his own and that isn’t happening yet.

We look back at Edge attacking Shawn Michaels last week.

The latest inductee into the Hall of Fame: Hulk Hogan. He’s one of the names you have to have in there if you want it to be legitimate so this is as obvious as it gets.

Batista arrives and Coach warns him of what HHH said earlier. That doesn’t seem to bother Batista, who wants to thank HHH for unleashing the Animal.

Ric Flair tells HHH that Batista is here but HHH has a plan.

Video on Christy Hemme getting to be in Playboy.

Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Gene Snitsky

Shelton is defending and can lose the title via DQ. Benjamin goes straight at him to start and gets slammed down for an early two. The armbar goes on for a bit, followed by an armbar so Snitsky can shout a lot. Snitsky’s pumphandle powerslam is countered into a reverse DDT and they’re both down. Snitsky comes back with a big boot but goes to get a chair, which is quickly dropkicked away. Shelton grabs a big DDT and the exploder retains the title in a hurry. Can we move on to something better for Shelton already?

Smackdown Rebound. They haven’t done one of those in a few weeks.

At Wrestlemania, it’s Piper’s Pit with Steve Austin as his guest.

Chris Masters vs. John Walters

Walters isn’t named here. Choking, stomping, ax handle to the chest, Masterlock for the win.

Remember about an hour ago when we recapped Batista’s decision last week? Here’s the second hour version.

JR brings out Batista for a chat and gets straight to it: why did Batista pick HHH? Batista talks about Randy Orton winning the World Title last year but it was still all about HHH. Then Batista won the Royal Rumble, but it was all about HHH again. As the song goes, it’s all about the Game and how you play it. Last week, HHH got played. Batista isn’t scared of HHH and has been out here every single week on Raw.

HHH is probably the best in the business and maybe the best there has ever been. The problem is Batista is bigger, smarter and better. It’s just evolution, and to be the man you have to beat the man. At Wrestlemania, Batista becomes the man. Cue HHH and Flair for the brawl but only Flair gets in, meaning it’s a spinebuster so Batista can wait on HHH. As you might expect, HHH bails from the fight and a loud BATISTA chant. JR: “I don’t understand this strategy!” I’ll leave that one alone as it’s a Batista Bomb to Flair and the thumbs down to HHH.

Wrestlemania Recall: the Hardcore Title shenanigans at Wrestlemania X8.

HHH tells Bischoff that next week, it’s Batista vs. Flair. Oh no: the muscle monster vs. a 55 year old that he just wrecked in ten seconds!

Chris Jericho vs. Maven

Jericho knocks him into the corner to start and the springboard dropkick puts Maven on the floor. Back in and Maven manages a hot shot before rubbing Jericho’s face into the mat. Jericho fights back with the ease of Chris Jericho making a comeback on Maven and hits the running enziguri. A top rope elbow to the jaw sets up the Walls for the easy tap.

Rating: D. After watching Maven be so lame as a semi main eventer, it’s quite entertaining to see him get taken apart. There’s nothing wrong with having him as a jobber to the stars or some low level guy like this, but just keep him away from anything important in the slightest. Jericho needs something to do but I think he’s going to be fine around Wrestlemania.

Post match Jericho talks about everything going on at Wrestlemania and wants to do something special. He has an idea that involves himself, five more people, the chance of a lifetime and a solid steel ladder. Jericho looks VERY happy about whatever he has in mind.

We get a new Wrestlemania trailer, this time of A Few Good Men with John Cena as Tom Cruise and JBL as Jack Nicholson in the big courtroom showdown. It’s one of my favorite movies and this is the best acted and performed one so far as you can see the fire in Cena’s eyes and JBL has gotten great with the serious promos. Coach as the judge is a great bonus.

Here’s Christy Hemme for the unveiling of her Playboy cover. The cover is unveiled (complete with a story about Saddam Hussein getting a prominent feature) and here’s Trish Stratus to interrupt in a hurry. Trish talks about Christy taking her spot but praises her for the cover, save for one thing. She pulls out some spray paint and covers up the word CHAMPION on top of the cover. The fight is on with Christy getting kicked in the head (Trish: “Your head is so hard it broke my shoe.”) and having s*** spray painted on her back.

Superstar Billy Graham (it’s weird seeing him on Raw) is glad that Hulk Hogan is going to be going into the Hall of Fame when Randy Orton comes up. They’ve been talking lately and Orton wants to continue doing so, with Graham suggesting that Orton do something big at Wrestlemania (complete with Graham’s rhyming promo for a bonus). Graham leaves and Orton looks at Smackdown Magazine, featuring the Undertaker.

Edge is looking forward to letting off some steam by hurting Shawn Michaels and keeping him out of Wrestlemania.

Edge vs. Shawn Michaels

Street fight with both in street clothes. They go straight to the slugout with Shawn taking off his belt to whip Edge across the back. A clothesline puts Edge on the floor and it’s time to bring in an already dented trashcan. With Edge down, it’s time for a ladder but Shawn takes way too long, allowing Edge to get in his own trashcan shot. A chair is set up in the ring and Edge hits a very slightly lifted DDT onto said chair to bust Shawn open (and it’s a heck of a blade job) as we take a break.

Back with Shawn bleeding a ton and hitting a clothesline. The trademark bloody Shawn stagger lets him go and get the ladder, which takes too long as well. Edge goes up so Shawn throws the ladder at his head (egads) to knock Edge outside again. The suicide dive doesn’t work as Shawn is too weak to make the jump so Shawn puts the ladder over the middle rope.

As expected, Shawn is sent face first into the ladder and Edge, with Shawn’s blood on his face, hits a splash off the ladder. It bangs up his ribs so much that it’s a delayed two and Edge does that thing where he grabs his face and screams. Edge grabs a chair but gets catapulted into the ladder for a double knockdown. It’s Shawn up first with a big chair shot to the head and Edge is knocked outside.

Back in and Shawn hits the forearm into the nipup, followed by a kendo stick shot to the head. Shawn drops the top rope elbow into Edge’s “psychotic torso” but Sweet Chin Music misses. Edge hits him low with a chair and loads up the Conchairto, with Shawn punching him low for the save. The spear gives Edge two so Edge tunes up the band to set up another, allowing Shawn to hit Sweet Chin Music for the pin.

Rating: B. There’s something about having them in street clothes that makes this feel so much more serious and intense. It was also a rather good match with Edge’s frustrations going one step further, albeit after a heck of a fight with both guys beating the fire out of each other. These two work well together and Shawn’s blood made it that much better.

Post match Kurt Angle runs in to beat the heck out of Shawn, getting Shawn’s blood all over himself in the process. The Angle Slam leaves Shawn dead and Angle accepts the challenge to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This was a pretty weak show that got bailed out by the main event. Other than the HHH vs. Batista build and the street fight, this was a bunch of short matches that didn’t seem to add much to Wrestlemania. Jericho is teasing a ladder match and that would help, though just a tease isn’t enough to make that feel important here. It’s not a bad show, but they’re banking everything on the Batista vs. HHH match. Angle’s run in helped a lot though, and having he and Shawn yell at/attack each other on both shows will work just fine. They’re putting pieces together, but they need to get more concrete with it.

Remember to check out my website at kbwrestlingreviews.com and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

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Summerslam 2005
Date: August 21, 2005
Location: MCI Center, Washington D.C.
Attendance: 18,156
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman

Tonight is the first show in a long time with a special attraction main event. Tonight’s main event is the returning Hulk Hogan vs. Shawn Michaels in a match billed as legend vs. icon. Other than that we have the first Summerslam with the new generation on top with John Cena defending against Chris Jericho and Batista defending against JBL. Let’s get to it.

The Navy color guard presents the flag and Lillian Garcia sings the National Anthem. She may stumble over a lot of announcements but she can sing the heck out of that song.

The opening video is about Cena vs. Bischoff with Eric’s surrogate Chris Jericho. This would be the 185^th attempt to recreate Austin vs. Vince, each one less successful than the previous. It covers the rest of the matches too, focusing on Hogan vs. Shawn of course. The theme song is Remedy by Seether so we have another good song this year.

Never mind as the main song that will be played in the arena is some stupid hip hop song.

US Title: Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan

Jordan, the most worthless wrestler I can think of at the moment, is defending. He took the title from Cena of all people and defended it over the course of the summer. In some of the smartest booking you’ll ever see to open a show, Benoit shoves him into the corner, snaps off a German suplex and puts Jordan in the Crossface for the submission and the title in 25 seconds.

When a guy is so bad that you can’t trust Chris Benoit with him on live TV, this is the right move. Benoit would go on to show how fast the match was by timing how long it took him to do things like go to the bathroom or have a cup of coffee, each of which lasted longer than the match. Brilliant stuff here and the crowd is instantly on fire.

Vickie Guerrero, not yet a character, begs Eddie to calm down about Mysterio and Rey’s son Dominic. Eddie says Vickie doesn’t get it but she tries to talk him down. He interprets this as Vickie thinking he can’t beat Rey and throws her out.

We recap Matt Hardy vs. Edge. Matt dated Lita in real life but Edge stole her away (both on screen and in real life) while Matt was out with a knee injury. Hardy was released from WWE while Edge and Lita became an on screen couple. This led to an AWESOME angle where Matt, who had been rehired VERY quietly, showed up on Raw and attacked Edge from behind. He did it again but was arrested, shouting that he’d be at Ring of Honor. Matt was finally brought back full time, setting up a white hot feud with Edge. They made the feud feel as real as any I can remember in a long time before it was to a degree.

Edge vs. Matt Hardy

This is during Lita’s heel phase and DANG does it work for her. The fight starts on the floor with Matt in control before heading inside for a bell. Hardy grabs a choke but Edge gets into the ropes. Back to the floor for a bit before Edge gets in a right hand inside to take over. Edge spears him off the apron and out to the floor in the spot made much more famous against Mick Foley.

Back in and Matt hits some HARD lefts and rights before going into the corner to rain them down. Edge steps forward and drops Matt face first on the post (with Matt clearly pulling himself forward to hit it correctly), busting Hardy open. Edge goes after the cut….and the match is stopped in less than five minutes. We get a good shot of Matt’s head and the cut is shown to be just a step above nothing, making this ridiculous. I’m guessing the idea was due to a head injury (not a real one mind you) but it makes Matt look like a complete joke.

Rating: C+. This was fun while it lasted but the length and ending crippled it. Matt was on fire coming in but he would be made to look like the jobbiest jobber of all time during the feud with Edge. Eventually Edge would send him to Raw and keep Lita, ultimately winning the world title in a few months. This was more or less it for Matt as far as being a big deal.

We recap Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio. Oh this is a fun one. They were tag team champions in the spring but Eddie started to get paranoid that Rey was better than him. Rey beat him at Wrestlemania in a friendly match and Eddie was set off. He turned on Rey and started going after Rey’s 8 year old son Dominic.

Uncle Eddie said he had a story to tell Dominic but Rey kept stopping Eddie from telling it. They had a match at Great American Bash where if Eddie won he could tell the story but if not he had to stay quiet. Eddie lost, but told the story anyway: he’s Dominic’s actual father but gave him to Rey because Eddie was in no condition to be a father. Then he wanted custody of Dominic, so there was one solution.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

Here’s the solution: “The following contest is a ladder match for the custody of Dominic!” That line summed up the entire feud and is a famous line today. Eddie looks at Rey to start before kneeing him in the ribs to get things going. A hard belly to back suplex puts Rey down but he comes back with a monkey flip to send Guerrero to the floor. Rey is sent straight into the steps and then the ladder as Eddie maintains his early control.

Eddie slides in the ladder and goes up but a springboard dropkick takes Guerrero down. Another ladder is brought in but Rey dropkicks it into Eddie, sending both the ladder and Guerrero to the floor. A great looking springboard seated senton takes Eddie down but Rey is too banged up to immediately climb. They slug it out on the ladder with Eddie taking over but they botch the first big spot of the match: Eddie tries a sunset bomb but Rey falls off a second late, meaning he falls on Eddie instead of with him.

Back up and the ladder crushes Rey in the corner before Eddie brings in a second ladder. Rey is sandwiched between the ladders so Eddie can hit a slingshot hilo in a painful looking spot. Guerrero goes up but Rey sets the other ladder up like a ramp to get to the top. Eddie is backdropped onto the ladder ramp, sending both ladders and both wrestlers crashing down to the mat. Rey goes up one more time but has the ladder dropkicked out from under him in the second crash in 90 seconds.

Eddie lays a ladder on the top rope and drops a charging Rey chest first onto the steel. Guerrero goes up but Dominic gets in and shakes the ladder to stop him. Eddie gets in his face and shouts that he’s the new daddy but Rey stops him from punching the kid. Mysterio moves the ladder against the ropes and sends Eddie into it for the 619. Rey Drops the Dime on the ladder onto Eddie and goes up but gets caught in an electric chair. As they’re about to fall, Rey spins around and slips down Guerrero into a powerbomb.

Rey slowly climbs again but Guerrero kicks the ladder away and catches the falling Rey in another powerbomb. In a smart move, Eddie puts the ladder over Rey before climbing up and grabbing the briefcase. Since he’s a heel in a ladder match though, he takes FOREVER to work the simple clip, allowing Rey to kick the ladder over and pull Eddie down. Rey can’t follow up though and gets caught in Three Amigos with the third on the ladder. Eddie goes up again and here’s Vickie, which makes me think the slow climb was a missed spot where she was supposed to come out. She shoves him down and Rey gets up the ladder for the win.

Rating: B-. This was good but the botches hurt it a lot. The other major problem here is the whole thing is so silly. It’s really hard to get into a match with the prize being a custody of a kid. Are we supposed to believe that Eddie is going to win and presumably abuse the world’s stupidest looking eight year old? I’ve seen far worse but this wasn’t a great match by any stretch. Eddie of course would be gone in about two and a half months but he would beat Rey in a cage match in about ten days.

Rey hits Guerrero with the briefcase post match.

Jericho says the time is now for him to become WWE Champion. After Cena loses tonight, he’s nothing more than the flavor of the month. I mean, Jericho beat Rock and Austin in one night to become the first Undisputed Champion. Tonight Jericho will win the WWE Championship and Eric Bischoff can have a champion to be proud of.

Eugene vs. Kurt Angle

Yep he’s still around. This is for Angle’s gold medal and Eugene has Christy Hemme as a cheerleader. Eugene won some Olympic challenge by lasting three minutes against Angle, so this is no time limit. They really couldn’t find something better for Kurt? Angle easily takes him to the mat to start but Eugene comes back with a spinebuster to LOUD booing. Angle takes his head off on the People’s Elbow attempt for two and the fans go nuts. A BIG release German suplex puts Angle down and it’s time for some knees to the face.

Kurt sends him into the buckle but Eugene Hulks Up and does his goofy punching and a Rock Bottom for two. A Stunner gets the same and Eugene is pulls invisible straps down to set up an ankle lock on Angle. Kurt easily gets up and hits the Angle Slam followed by the ankle lock for the submission.

Rating: D. They booked a five minute squash at Summerslam for KURT ANGLE??? Seriously? This was a horribly dull match and Eugene had no business being in there. He barely even acts slow anymore and is really just Hacksaw Jim Duggan minus the patriotism. Thankfully Kurt would move on to face Cena for three months straight after this.

Angle stands on a chair and has the medal placed around his neck.

The Divas are in bikinis and washing a limo. It has the Presidential logo on the door and Vince comes out. “Hey, why not?” THANKFULLY this went nowhere.

Undertaker vs. Randy Orton

Wrestlemania rematch and I think that’s all you need to know. Orton immediately bails to the floor before being slapped right in the face. Taker misses a right hand in the corner but runs Orton over with a shoulder block. Off to a headlock on Randy followed by a big boot, leaving Orton with a dazed look in his eyes. Taker grabs a key lock but Orton armdrags him off the top to break up Old School. Orton hits a HARD right hand to the face, earning him a launch into the corner and rapid punches from the dead man.

Orton gets up a boot in the corner but charges out straight into a big boot for two. The jumping clothesline puts Orton down for two more and a running knee in the corner has Randy in big trouble. Randy manages to dodge a running big boot in the corner but can barely follow up due to the beating he’s taken. As Taker gets back in from the apron Orton gets in a shot to the leg to take over.

Orton cannonballs down onto the leg and wraps it around the post before putting on a basic leg lock in the ring. A knee drop to the face gets two before Orton takes him into the corner to wrap the leg around the ropes. Randy powerslams him down for two and it’s off to a leg lace. Taker fights out of it and rams Orton’s knee into the mat but Randy comes right back with a chop block to the front of the leg. More cannonballs onto the knee have Taker in bigger trouble but the big man kicks him out to the floor.

The legdrop across the apron has Orton in more trouble and Taker does a one legged Old School. Uh Dead Man, there’s more to selling than just limping before you do a move with no issues. Taker hits Snake Eyes but he can’t run fast enough for the big boot, allowing Orton to dropkick him down. The RKO is countered but Taker has the tombstone countered twice and Orton hits his backbreaker for two. Taker rolls through a high cross body and hits the chokeslam but a “fan” comes in and the distraction lets Orton hit the RKO for the pin. It’s Bob Orton (Randy’s dad) of course.

Rating: C+. This was ok but the ending was stupid. It doesn’t hold a candle to their Wrestlemania match but the rematch inside the Cell at Armageddon was WAY better. Bob Orton didn’t add much to this feud and Orton wasn’t ready to make the jump to the full time main event scene just yet. The match wasn’t bad or anything though.

Some big shot Republicans are here.

We recap Jericho vs. Cena. As mentioned there isn’t much to talk about here. Bischoff doesn’t like Cena and has Jericho to take the title away from him. This is Cena’s first feud as champion on Raw. This gets the music video treatment.

Chris Jericho vs. John Cena

They stare each other down to start before trading chops to Jericho’s advantage. A snap suplex puts Cena down but Jericho’s springboard cross body misses Cena entirely and Chris hits the floor. Back in and Cena hits a running elbow into the face but charges into a dropkick to slow things down again. A suplex gets two for the challenger and he follows it up with a dropkick to the jaw. Jericho sends him out to the floor and dropkicks him off the apron for good measure.

Cena gets choked with a microphone cord before being thrown inside to be beaten up even more. A superplex has Cena in trouble but it shook Jericho up too badly to cover. Cena starts pounding back but misses a flying shoulder, allowing Jericho to try the Walls, only to be kicked out to the floor. As Jericho gets back in, Cena drops a top rope leg onto Chris’ head for a close two count. The FU is countered into a DDT and both guys are down.

The fans are split here as Jericho chokes away on the ropes. Cena is in trouble but he comes back with a HARD clothesline to put both guys down again. They slug it out with Cena taking over and hitting his usual finishing sequence, including the spinning powerbomb but as he loads up the Five Knuckle Shuffle, Jericho counters into the Walls. After a long crawl, Cena finally makes it to the rope to escape. A belly to back superplex gets two for Jericho but as they get back up, he charges right into the FU to retain the title for Cena.

Rating: C. The match wasn’t bad here but it didn’t really click for the most part. This was an off time for Jericho as he didn’t fit as a heel because he was more or less the same guy he had always been but he was supposed to be bad now. Cena was starting to click as a main event guy though and that’s a really good sign, but the feud with Bischoff didn’t do anything for him as everyone saw it for what it was.

Chicago gets Wrestlemania 22.

We recap JBL vs. Batista. Basically it was supposed to be Muhammad Hassan taking the title off Big Dave but there was the whole terrorist angle (Hassan had terrorist looking guys attack Undertaker on the same day as the 7/7 London bombings and the backlash got Hassan released) so JBL was thrown in. This is a rematch after the Great American Bash where JBL won by DQ, so tonight it’s no holds barred.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

JBL dollars rain from the sky before we get going. The fight starts in the aisle and a belt shot to the head has JBL in trouble. They head over to some of the equipment with JBL being sent into various metal objects. Batista is whipped into a steel case and they brawl through the crowd to ringside where the champion spears JBL through the barricade. A dazed Batista is sent into the post and we finally get inside the ring.

JBL pounds him down into the corner and whips Batista with the timekeeper’s belt. The choke with the belt goes on longer than any human would be alive but Batista fights out and whips JBL with the belt as well. Batista hits the corner shoulders but charges into a boot and JBL’s Clothesline is good for two. JBL brings in the steps and loads up a powerbomb off of them, only to be backdropped down instead. Batista hits the spinebuster and the Batista Bomb but he doesn’t cover. Instead he picks up JBL again and powerbombs him onto the steps for the emphatic pin.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t much at all and the ending was never in doubt. It’s just over nine minutes and about a minute of that was spent on JBL choking Big Dave. JBL was the main event jobber at this point which meant he was ok at best. Batista was still the biggest star in the company at this point but Cena was rising fast.

We recap Hogan vs. Michaels. Hogan was inducted into the Hall of Fame and the fans chanted one more match. HBK was dealing with Muhammad Hassan and Daivari and begged Hogan to join him for one more match. They teamed up for the win at Backlash and became a semi-regular tag team until the 4^th of July when Shawn superkicked Hogan after a win. Shawn accused Hogan of living off a reputation for twenty years, setting up a showdown here tonight. Shawn turned heel for the build because goodness knows Hogan isn’t getting booed on his nostalgia tour.

Shawn Michaels vs. Hulk Hogan

Michaels cools his heels on the floor before the bell as the fans are way into this. Hogan easily wins the first lockup and shoves Shawn down a few more times. The fans tell Shawn that he screwed Bret as he hooks a headlock to take over for a few moments. A hard shoulder block puts Shawn on the floor and Michaels stalls again. Back in and Shawn chops away before being whipped onto the top rope for some punts to the ribs. Shawn is crotched on the top and punched in the face for his efforts.

Michaels finally wises up and thumbs Hulk in the eye, only to have Hogan come back with a backdrop. Hogan sends him to the floor and launches him back inside before walking into some right hands and chops. Then comes the mistake as Shawn slaps him in the face, cuing the Hulk Up. Shawn slaps him again….and it seems to work. He fires off more chops but gets sent into the corner for the Flair Flip and a big right hand to send Shawn to the floor.

Hogan drops him on the announce table and pounds away with those “ham-like” right hands. Shawn is posted but Hogan breaks the count at nine. Hogan tries to ram him in again but Shawn slips off and posts Hulk instead. The bald one is cut open and Shawn pounds away at the cut. They fall to the mat with Shawn staying on the assault and the cut being in such a goofy straight line that you almost have to chuckle.

Off to a sleeper with Hogan’s blood GUSHING onto Shawn’s arm. Hogan’s arm only drops twice and he comes out of it with a belly to back suplex. Both guys are down and Hogan looks very confused. Back up and there’s the forearm into the nipup but the big elbow misses. There’s the finger point but another forearm breaks up the big boot. The referee is bumped though just before Shawn nips up again. Shawn goes to the wrong corner for the elbow so instead he puts Hogan in the Sharpshooter as a second referee slides in.

The hold stays on for a LONG time but Shawn has it on so badly that it’s easily believed. Hogan makes the rope so Shawn loads it up again, only to be kicked off and into another referee. With no referee, Shawn hits Hogan low and grabs a chair. A bad looking shot to the head puts Hogan down and there’s the big elbow. It didn’t work for Savage in 89 and it’s not going to work here. Sweet Chin Music gets two and I think you can fill in the blanks here. One Hulk Up, big boot (with infamous overselling that would make Rock say “DUDE tone it WAY down) and a legdrop later and we’re done.

Rating: C-. This is your standard Hogan match but that’s not exactly the best thing to see in 2005. It’s a cool idea for a match in theory but it didn’t quite hold up in actuality. Shawn had to tone his main event style WAY down to let Hogan keep up with him and it was all nostalgia after that. I’m ok with the booking here as Shawn didn’t need the win at all and was the guy to put over everyone in his return so putting over Hogan is fine. The match is worth seeing for historical significance but not much more.

Shawn and Hogan make up and massive posing ends the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a hard one to grade as it’s not exactly a bad show, but there’s nothing here that you should go out of your way to see at all. This was a bad time for the company as they were in a big transition to the new stuff but the new guys weren’t ready yet. That leaves an uninteresting show with matches that were easy to predict. It’s not terrible by any means and there are FAR worse shows out there, but this isn’t worth seeing other than the main event for history.

Ratings Comparison

Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan

Original: N/A

Redo: N/A

Matt Hardy vs. Edge

Original: B+

Redo: C+

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

Original: B

Redo: B-

Kurt Angle vs. Eugene

Original: A+

Redo: D

Randy Orton vs. Undertaker

Original: B-

Redo: C+

John Cena vs. Chris Jericho

Original: C

Redo: C

Batista vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

Original: D

Redo: D+

Hulk Hogan vs. Shawn Michaels

Original: B-

Redo: C-

Overall Rating

Original: B

Redo: D+

The Eugene match was because I liked seeing Eugene get beaten up. The overall rating doesn’t even make bad sense.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/08/08/history-of-summerslam-count-up-2005-shawn-vs-hogan-and-cena-vs-batista/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s History Of In Your House (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/05/31/new-paperback-kbs-history-of-in-your-house/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Summerslam 2005
Date: August 21, 2005
Location: MCI Center, Washington D.C.
Attendance: 18,156
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman

The main change can be summed up in one word: Cena and Batista. They took the world titles at Wrestlemania and haven’t looked back since. Other than that, there’s not a lot of differences. The main changes would be the alignments of some faces and heels. Eddie is now a heel, as is Orton, who was getting to the tweener stage last year. Edge is also full heel now, but that deserves a special mention later.

The main event however has none of those people to worry about. Tonight, the main event is a clash of two titans. Ok maybe more like a titan against Zeus, as Hulk Hogan meets Shawn Michaels. Now this wasn’t much of a rivalry as much as it was a challenge. At Backlash, the two had teamed up to fight off the evil of Muhammad Hassan and Daivari.

Then on the Fourth of July, Shawn superkicked him to end Raw, leading us here. To say the promos that Shawn did leading up to this were hilarious is the understatement of the year. Anyway, that’s the undisputed main event and also a source of controversy which I’ll get to later. Anyway, let’s get to this. Oh yeah one last note: due to the draft, the titles have switched shows.

Lillian sings the National Anthem which is awesome as always. You can see how much she puts into it and it’s awesome.

The video is great here, although that may be because it’s set to Remedy by Seether, one of my all time favorite songs. We get the usual highlights of the feuds, but then once it looks like we’ve done them all and the song plays for a bit, Shawn kicks Hogan to bring it to a dead halt. It’s just really well done and highlights all of the matches that are coming up tonight.

US Title: Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan

Jordan is champion here. Jordan won the title from Cena about 5 months ago. He really never did much with the title other than have some bad looking boxing moves, despite being a decent boxer as an amateur. He beat Benoit at the Great American Bash but had to use the turnbuckle to do it. This is Benoit’s rematch.

The Crippler gets a great pop. Always interesting to see a guy go from main eventing to opening the show. Wow I forgot how annoying Jordan was. That all being said, this match lasts 25 seconds. Here’s the whole match: They lock up, Benoit takes him to the corner, Jordan punches him once, Benoit hits the German, crossface, new champion.

Rating: N/A. This was AWESOME. The crowd was losing it as soon as he got the crossface on and so was I. I won’t give it a rating but if I did, instant A. The crowd is completely fired up now and they think they can’t miss a thing now. GREAT way to start the show. I loved this.

Since there was next to nothing to say there, here’s the aftermath of it. They would have three rematches. One would last longer than this, clocking in at an earth shattering 49.8 seconds. It led to some very funny segments with Benoit trying to find things he could do that lasted longer than the match. Again, this was AWESOME.

Eddie is in the…HOLY CRAP IS THAT VICKIE??? She’s got red hair, a MUCH nicer voice and is thin. Ok, now I could see him marrying that. I’ll go into what they talk about later, as the angle is without a doubt the dumbest I’ve ever seen and deserves its own discussion.

There are soldiers there from the military hospital. That never stops being cool.

We recap Edge vs. Matt. Holy crap where do I begin here? This is one of the best stories of all time. Notice I didn’t say storyline there, because it was a real event. Matt and Lita were dating, and she left him for Edge. This became public knowledge and Edge kept teasing that Matt would come and beat him up for it.

Matt was at ROH for awhile, and then in what was one of the most shocking things I can ever remember, Matt showed up on Raw from out of nowhere, stunning everyone including the IWC by shouting that he’d see everyone at Ring of Honor. Yes, ROH was mentioned by name on WWE television.

The key to this was simple: the announcers weren’t told it was coming. How in the world are they supposed to respond to it? It threw everyone off and was a huge success as NO ONE saw this coming. If you want to credit Edge’s rise to the top to one thing, this is it.

Matt Hardy vs. Edge

To say Lita looks good is like saying Sly is an ok debater. She’s looking extra hot here, with the jeans and bra but her stomach is all muscular and thin. I can easily see why a fight would break out over her. Edge is just about booed out of the building. The pop for Matt is huge. If there was ever a time that he should have been pushed to the moon, this was it. This is likely to be a shoot and not a regular match. Yep, it’s a shoot.

If this was a work, then give these two freaking medals. I know at least some of those shots were legit. This might be the hardest hitting match I’ve ever seen. Other than a spear through the ropes like he did to Foley, everything is a strike that you might see in a UFC fight. Matt’s head gets opened up and after a bunch of stiff shots to it, the referee stops it. I know that part was a work, as it’s a bad cut but not horrid.

Oddly enough, Matt would go on to cleanly win the next two matches before losing to Edge in a ladder match and having to leave Raw. It looks bad now, but he would redeem himself. The replay shows that the post spot where Matt got cut was a work, as he more or less crawls forward to get in position. Even still, very fun match.

Rating: B+. For what it was, this was great. For a wrestling match, it was BAD. However, I loved it for how brutal it looked and how great Lita looked, so while a lot would go the opposite here and I wouldn’t argue with them, this was fun. It wasn’t good, but it was fun.

There’s two songs apparently, a very bad pop/rap song and Remedy.

And now we have arrived. What we have next is without a doubt the WORST angle I have ever seen. Before I do the recap, allow me to quote Tony Chimmel’s announcement of the next match.

“The following contest is a ladder match FOR THE CUSTODY OF DOMINICK!”

Yes, the stipulation here is that the winner of this match gets custody of an 8 year old boy. Here’s your story: Eddie and Rey were tag team champions yet for awhile they had some one on one matches and Eddie never won. All of a sudden he started talking about a secret, which clearly was that he was Rey’s son’s real father. Eventually they had a match at the Great American Bash where if Eddie won he would get to tell the secret, but if he lost it stayed a secret.

Rey won, but on Smackdown Eddie just said it anyway which was something that I loved. Either way, Eddie gets custody of Dominick but is willing to put it on the line in a ladder match for one more chance to beat Rey. Dominick is at ringside with his social worker, just to make this even more ridiculous. One final note: Rey Mysterio is a lucky man, as his wife is smoking.

Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero

This, as I said, is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of, but the match should be good. Tazz and Cole talk about their sons as Rey hugs Dominick. This is what Eddie and Vickie were talking about earlier if you didn’t get that. We start with a stall as neither guy really moves at all. Yeah that’s a great way to get the crowd more fired up: don’t move. Apparently Eddie is 0-6 vs. Rey in his career. Dominick, the scared little boy, standing next to a guy in a Cactus Jack shirt is funny to me for some reason.

I get that he’s supposed to be scared and I think he’s playing his part well, we don’t need to see his reaction after every move. They bring the ladders in pretty fast and it’s mostly just their regular moves with the ladders involved along with some basic stuff. Rey is off a bit here which makes great sense as he’s worried about his son.

That’s a nice piece of logic and it makes perfect sense here. In a great spot, Eddie is almost up the ladder but Rey sets another ladder up like a ramp and climbs it to stop Eddie. That’s pretty good but the good part is the backdrop off the ladder, which causes both of them to fall and the crash is just great. Cole calls Eddie sick about 10 times which makes me think he needs some antibiotics.

Ok, now this match just gets bad. Eddie hits a big spot to knock Rey out. He’s climbing the ladder and is about to win, and DOMINICK runs in to shake the ladder. Eddie drops down and says things like “Give me a hug” and “I’m going to be your new daddy!” Ok, where do I begin here? Number one, where is security? They can’t stop an 8 year old boy from jumping the guard rail, or I guess in his case climbing it, getting in the ring, grabbing the ladder, or Eddie from raising his fist at him?

Number two, where was that social worker or whatever? Isn’t her job to make sure that the kid is safe? Yes, I’m sure that it’s safe for a child to run into a wrestling ring and shake a ladder with a grown man on it. Number three, isn’t a social worker a local thing? What kind of social worker would allow this to even happen? How could a professional wrestling match determine the custody of a child? And we have another 7 minutes to go! Where is my medicine?

Finally, does anyone else think Eddie sounds a little perverted with what he said in there? He says more than what I said, but it’s just a bit odd sounding. Anyway, Rey does another dumb spot as he hits the 619 into the ladder into Eddie. Yeah, that’s very smart Rey. And you wonder why your knees are shot. Oh and Eddie looking over his shoulder while in position didn’t help things.

After Rey hangs from the cord, (Eddie catches him in a powerbomb but Cole keeps calling it a Spinebuster until Tazz corrects him after seeing the replay) he gets pinned under the ladder as Eddie climbs up. Eddie then proves how stupid these matches can be as he spends like 20 seconds trying to unhook the stupid thing while waving at Rey. Rey of course counters and shakes the ladder and Eddie hangs on the cord.

Who makes those things, NASA? I would have loved it if Eddie had tucked his knees in and Rey had tried to jump up to grab him but he just wasn’t tall enough. Cole and Tazz go one and on about how Eddie has no heart. I love how last year he had the biggest heart in the world, but now it’s revealed that he’s always had a black heart. My goodness I love kayfabe. Where in the world did they come up with that term anyway?

Rey is in trouble again as Eddie goes up but Vickie runs out and shoves him off. Tazz’s line of she doesn’t belong out here made me laugh out loud. You know, if she wore something other than brown she could actually be attractive. She’s probably 40 pounds lighter here if that means anything. Dang how many times does Rey have to be saved here? Anyway, Rey climbs up and Vickie grabs Eddie to hold him back so Rey wins.

Dominick jumps the railing again as Rey’s wife walks down the ramp to join them. Seriously, how bad is security in this building??? Eddie throws a fit as Cole’s commentary tells us just how stupid this whole thing really was. Rey slides back in and with Eddie looking at him the whole time, he nails Eddie in the head with the briefcase. Great way to treat something you worked so hard to get.

Rating: B. The match was fine, but DANG the storyline couldn’t have been shoved down our throats any harder. We get it: Eddie is evil and Rey is about to lose his family. You spent half the match talking about it. This is an example of where commentary can hurt a match. At the end I almost wanted Eddie to win so I could laugh at Cole and Tazz. Either way, the match itself was fine, all stupid parts aside. It’s hard to think that Eddie would be dead in three months.

Jericho cuts a solid promo about how he will win tonight and that Cena is just the flavor of the month. He says that he beat Rock and Austin in the same night and that Cena can’t compare to them. There’s a thread there, and remember this was 4 years ago.

Eugene vs. Kurt Angle

My goodness why does Eugene keep getting the good wrestlers at this show? Christy Hemme comes out with Eugene dressed as a rather nice cheerleader, so maybe there’s something to Eugene. The story, which isn’t told here, is that Angle had been offering his gold medals to anyone that could last 3 minutes with him. Eugene won them, and now he wants it back. That leads us here as there’s no time limit for this match. Oh joy, oh rapture.

We’re finally at Kurt’s best known look, as he’s bald and has the You Suck chants. The odd thing is that he miss times his pyro so as he’s walking to the ring it goes off instead of when he’s pointing up. Eugene is getting killed for the early part here but comes back and tries a People’s Elbow. Angle pops up and takes his head off with a clothesline to one of the biggest pops of the night. Angle is just killing him here and the fans are WAY behind him.

Eugene looks like a jobber with his offense here and is getting booed out of the building from just a few basic punches. See WWE, there’s this thing called LISTENING. Try it sometime. German suplex is called an Angle suplex as Eugene is just about out of it, drawing another huge pop. I’ve heard of wrestlers being hated before but this is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Coach says Angle wants to continue to beatdown the beatdown. Right, thank you Coach.

Eugene hulks up and hits a Rock Bottom that gets two. He asks the referee if it was three and then remembers his gimmick is that he’s slow. A stunner gets two as the crowd is as hot as Christy. Eugene pulls down some invisible straps so it looks like he’s scratching his shoulders and puts on the ankle lock. I thought he was emulating his favorite wrestlers. A guy that hates him is his favorite? Whatever.

Angle counters, hits the slam and makes Eugene tap to the roar of the fans. They kept it short, which was a great idea here as last year’s 17 minute match was just flat out stupid. Even Ross is talking about how dominant that was. Afterwards, Angle stands on a chair and has the referee put the medal around his neck which is kind of cool.

Rating: A+. Anytime Eugene gets destroyed like he did here, it’s a great match. He was just annoying at this point. A year ago he was ok I guess as the gimmick of someone that was slow but was a wrestling savant was actually kind of cool. Now he’s just slow as his wrestling ability has been forgotten and he just uses big time finishers. See, that’s how you can tell they’ve given up on him. They had a cool idea and then they just dropped it. That’s never a good sign, period.

The Divas are in bikinis and washing a car for no apparent reason. We see that it has the Presidential logo on it. The window rolls down and Vince is in it. He says why not? A bumper stickers says McMahon for President. Nothing ever came of this.

Randy Orton vs. Undertaker

We cut back to the arena and just hear a gong. Thanks for the buildup or anything guys. This is just a Mania rematch which happened because Orton wanted to stop the streak. I’ve always liked Burn in My Light better than Voices. Orton standing in front of the pyro doing his pose just looks awesome. Even though he’s a heel he actually gets a solid pop.

I miss this version of Orton. For one thing the color of his skin is a bit less orange. It’s weird seeing Taker come out first. Orton hits the floor early to hide and I can’t say I blame him. Taz seems to agree with me. Taker slaps him in the face and the beating is on. I love seeing Taker grab someone by the throat and throw them into the corner. It’s just awesome looking.

Apparently Orton smiled after taking a chokeslam on Thursday so he’s getting in the head of the Deadman. Sounds to me like he’s getting chokeslamed which usually means he would lose. Old School is blocked by an arm drag which gets two, likely because it was an arm drag. Orton might have a bad shoulder thanks to a match with Benoit on Smackdown.

Orton takes over with punches. Take a guess as to how well that goes for him. BIG boot takes Orton down for two. This is different than their Mania match and I’m not sure if I like it better or not. Just waiting on Taker’s momentum to die until he gets beaten up for like 8 minutes and then we hit the finish. Running knee in the corner has Orton in big trouble.

Taker keeps going after the referee for no good reason. He tries the same running shot in the corner and of course it misses, allowing Orton to take over. He gets a modified elevated DDT as Taker is coming in for two. Orton goes to the knee as no one has EVER tried that on Taker right?

Powerslam by Orton gets two. And so much for a pin attempt as he goes back to the knee. With his good leg he hits the apron legdrop and actually SELLS THE LEG. I’m just so darn proud! He somehow manages to hit Old School but can’t follow up due to the knee. Snake Eyes hit but the big boot can’t work so Orton gets a dropkick to put Taker down. RKO is blocked though.

Tombstone is reversed and of course that doesn’t work but the reversal is reversed into the backbreaker for two. WHY WOULD YOU TRY TO TOMBSTONE UNDERTAKER??? That has never worked once unless your name is Kane. Does no one watch tape anymore? Crazy new generation. Chokeslam hits and there’s the sign for the tombstone.

A fan runs in and it’s Bob Orton. For the life of me I will never get the appeal of him. Seriously, what’s so great about Bob Orton? What makes him a legend, aside from hanging out with Roddy Piper? That isn’t revealed though until later. Taker goes to get Orton and walks into the RKO for the pin. And the fan is Bob Orton.

Rating: B-. It’s nowhere near their Mania match, so that’s not helping things. I like how they had Bob come in at the end though as it adds something new which furthers the story a bit. There would be two more matches with these two before they finally blew it off in the Cell at Armageddon.

This was fine, but I prefer Mania by a lot, as we had seen a lot of this before, 4 months prior to this. Still not bad at all though. It amazes me how Orton has gone from the rookie wonder last year to this in just a year’s time.

They point out some Republican politicians in the crowd and no one cares.

Time to recap Jericho vs. Cena, which Ross messes up by saying Jericho is champion. This was more about Cena vs. Bischoff as they try to redo Austin vs. McMahon. Jericho is his handpicked opponent to become champion. We knew Jericho was leaving after Raw the next night so there was a real chance they would do the one night title switch and put it back on Cena the next night. Jericho is walking to the ring as we see him from the back coming through the curtain as his music plays. That’s kind of cool.

Raw World Title: Chris Jericho vs. John Cena

In a weird sounding thing, Lillian says that Jericho was born in New York. When have they ever worded it like that? This is being built up as rock vs. rap. Yeah that’s great. The Cena pop is huge. Wow Lawler is 3-0 at Summerslam? That’s actually quite surprising. They point out that it’s wrestling vs. brawling here, and mention Rock and Austin. Dude, it’s great, but even I’m sick of hearing about it. On the floor Cena hits….let’s call it a spear I guess.

It’s kind of just a running tackle that they call a spear. Ross surprisingly says he’s not a Cena fan. He says that he tells it like it is, which makes me laugh even harder. This is pretty much dominance to start, as JR uses the word sycophant. Dang how much foreshadowing are they going to do? Ross is being kind of a jerk here as he keeps telling Coachman to shut up. For once I agree with Ross. Coach uses Rock lines which make me shake my head.

The commentary is more interesting than the match here as Jericho is pretty much dominating. Top rope superplex is cool. In a cool looking spot Cena goes for the shoulder block and Jericho slides between his legs. You know Jericho has two of the worst finishers of all time with the Lionsault and the Walls. When did they ever win anything when he was a heel? By the way, the STFU was a few weeks away at this point. He does however use the top rope leg here. You can tell he’s still not entirely comfortable with being the top star, but he’s getting there.

FU is blocked into a DDT, which was foreshadowed by the feet of Jericho kicking. That’s the natural counter to everything I guess. We have very loud dueling chants of let’s go Cena/Jericho. At the time, Jericho just failed as a heel because he was far too much like his old face persona. A lot of his movements and mannerisms are the same, which is why his current persona works much better. It’s completely different than his old one was and there’s little likable about it.

Five moves are countered, namely the You Can’t See Me. Jericho’s epic counter you ask? He rolls over. I love how “big” moves are blocked so easily at times. The Walls of course do nothing at all but get a face pop. Cena goes for an FU from the second rope which doesn’t work.

Jericho gets a running start but Cena grabs him and in a very cool looking sequence, hooks him in a tilt a whirl up onto his shoulder to FU him for the finish as JR yells louder than he did when Austin was champ. That ending was very cool looking.

Rating: C. This felt way too short. Cena was beaten up almost the whole time but in the end of course he hits his big move to knock off the enemy. It was fine for a PPV match I guess, but it was far from special. They would have another match the next night where the loser was fired. Jericho lost and would leave for almost 3 years.

WM 22 is in Chicago.

Recap of the JBL vs. Batista feud which more or less is them having a match at the Bash but Batista gets disqualified. That makes JBL want this to be no holds barred.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. JBL

JBL makes it rain 100 dollar bills to get the fans to cheer. They find that they’re JBL dollars to make them boo. The speed at which this crowd changes is amusing. Batista gets the big pop as the home town boy. However he gets jumped on the way to the ring as I think they figured out that this just wasn’t going to be a good wrestling match no matter what they did so they just made it a big brawl. They go into the crowd for a bit and Batista spears JBL through the barricade to get him back to ringside.

Well that’s one way to do it I guess. Hokey smoke they’re in the ring. For the second time tonight Cole knows the amount of time that the people have been champions. Thanks, but isn’t that a bit of overkill? As usual, a leather belt is brought in. Why would you wear one of those in a match anyway? It’s not like you think it’s safe or something. No one could be that stupid. Wait this is JBL and Batista. Ignore what I just said.

This is just a lot of hitting each other with power moves and the no holds barred thing is kind of stupid. The epic clothesline isn’t enough to stop Batista, so JBL gets some steps. Those are some freaking huge steps. This is just really bad. JBL misses a powerbomb from the steps, not onto them mind you. Batista Bomb but he doesn’t cover, but instead stands there like a moron with his mouth hanging open. The fans chant one more time so I guess you know what’s coming.

Yep, it’s a power bomb on the steps. I’m not impressed either. Of course this ends it. The impact wasn’t that good either as it’s such a far shorter drop that there’s no time to get any momentum behind it.

Rating: D. Yeah this was bad. It’s less than ten minutes and that might have been too long. The problem here is simple: these two are just big strong brawlers and that style doesn’t work against each other and it didn’t here. You need someone of a different style so that the power works well against it. This was really bad though as it was obvious who would win and there was no drama at all. Bad match and no drama means a waste of time.

Recap of the real main event, which I have to give them credit for getting right here as neither of the other matches should have closed out the show. Short version: Hogan and Michaels teamed up to fight the evil Middle Eastern guys, and then they teamed a bit more. Shawn said he had to know if he could beat Hogan, and that’s how we got here.

If I went through all of the promos for this I’d run out of room for how funny they were. I don’t think they were trying to make Shawn heel here but rather the less good of the two guys. This was actually a major match when you think about it and it was treated as such, so what more can you ask for here?

HBK vs. Hulk Hogan

We come back to the arena to dead silence. I mean nothing is going on but the general noise of the fans. Yeah that’s a great way to come out of a good video package guys. A few seconds of this is fine, but it goes on for about 15 seconds. That doesn’t sound like much but it’s a LONG time when you’re just sitting there waiting. Shawn FINALLY comes out to a pop but not a huge one. We still have no commentary.

Shawn prays as he usually does. I wonder if he’s praying to Hogan. Listen to his old promos and tell me he doesn’t sound like he thinks he’s God. The announcers try to make Shawn out to be an evil heel but it’s just failing. Dang the MCI Center needs a new roof. The fans just blew it off. A massive American Flag drops from the ceiling and it just looks awesome. The commentary is just completely biased as only Coach is on Shawn’s side.

Ok Hogan’s entrance is now at four minutes long. Neither has ever lost at Summerslam in a one on one match. That’s saying a lot. Shawn, forever the strategist, thinks it’s a good idea to try to overpower Hogan. Do I even need to make fun of that? A LOUD you screwed Bret chant starts up. It could be debated that such a chant could be directed at either person. They try to play this off as being the biggest match in Hogan’s career. That is just flat out funny.

This isn’t even the biggest match of Hogan’s career in this building, as this was where Hogan vs. Sting happened. Michaels’ bumping is just funny here as he’s selling a punch like a shot from a cannon. They talk about the big men that both men have beaten. Shawn is credited with Vader (he never beat him though), Diesel and Sid. Ok that’s all fine. They mention Hogan beating Andre and Coach mentions Big John Studd. This gets dead silence.

While it’s true that he beat John on some house shows, I don’t think he ever did it on a major show or a national broadcast, so I can see the skepticism there. Shawn slaps Hogan twice and actually gets away with it. They go to the floor with Hogan just killing him, but eventually Hogan goes into the posts head first. Amazingly enough he rubs his head, and right where he rubs it he’s bleeding. What are the odds of that?

You have to love that Shawn is beating up a 52 year old man. You have to love that this match isn’t stopped for the blood yet Matt vs. Edge was. Do you mean that Hogan isn’t as important as Matt Hardy? Shawn with a sleeper that Ross says is cutting off the flow of blood to the brain. Wouldn’t that kind of be helping Hogan since blood is flowing from his head? They ask how many people can say ended Hogan with his blood on their hands. I’m thinking Brock Lesnar there boys.

Shawn hits what I guess is supposed to be a forearm but Hogan just kind of falls over. Shawn goes for ANOTHER forearm but the referee goes down because of it. Do we really need that in this match? Just let one or the other get the win. The fans want Bret. Where in the heck does that come from? Shawn then applies the absolute WORST sharpshooter of all time.

He looks like he’s bent over in prison or something and Hogan looks like he’s in a half crab, which isn’t his fault as Shawn didn’t put it on right. Shawn got the leg crossing wrong I think. Yeah he did it’s supposed to be with the other arm. We have another referee here by the way. JR says that both men are looking for a win. I thought they were both looking for the way to Sesame Street. The other referee is down too. Yeah this isn’t overkill at all.

Shawn with a low blow that JR calls a low blow and then that it doesn’t need a description. Isn’t calling it low a description? Chair is brought in and barely hits Hogan as he falls early from it and Shawn lets it slide over the top of his head. Sweet Chin Music connects which gets a huge pop as Shawn circles Hogan to cover him correctly so Hogan can do the power kick out. Yep there it is.

Ok, now I can get that when Hogan is hit by an elbow or a splash that he can kick out like that, but this is a hard blow to his head. That makes NO sense, even from a wrestling perspective. We get the boot and leg drop, complete with Shawn’s insane selling that’s drawn a lot of criticism.

If Hogan can completely no sell the kick, Shawn can do that for the boot. Post match Shawn tilts face again. I say tilts because he never really turned in the first place. Oh and all of a sudden the commentators love him again too. The famous poses play us out.

Rating: B-. It was what it was, but no one believed Shawn was going to win. However, he should have. Hogan is certainly the bigger star, but he’s not a full time wrestler at this point and Shawn was. If Shawn wins here, he’s instantly getting a huge push as he just beat Hulk Hogan. Now I get that Hogan should win as the bigger star, and if they were both leaving or both staying you would be absolutely right, but that’s not what they were doing.

Shawn was staying and a win for him would be a huge push. Yes Hogan is the best ever, but he’s not even active at the moment so it looks like Shawn lost to some guy that just came back and beat him. I just don’t agree with this booking at all.

Overall Rating: B. This is a show where the overall product is much better than the individual matches. Batista vs. JBL is the only truly bad match on the card. The rest are good if not quite good. I don’t think there’s a true classic anywhere here or even a great match, but with everything being at least decent save for the WHC, this is a solid show. I’ll recommend it, but not completely.

 

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