Royal Rumble 2011
Date: January 30, 2011
Location: TD Bank Garden Arena, Boston, Massachusetts
Commentators: Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler

Well we’ve finally, and I do mean FINALLY arrived. This is the first 40 man Rumble and while I’m still not behind the idea it could be good I guess. There are only 4 matches tonight: the Rumble, a Divas match and the two world titles. It should be fun as WWE has been on a straight up roll recently. Let’s get to it.

Smackdown World Title: Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge

Well you can’t say they’re going easy to start. And Edge’s pyro doesn’t go off. Remember that the Spear is banned here and if Edge uses it then Ziggler loses the world title. Vickie comes out to do the intro and tries to start a Spear chant which is kind of funny. We get big match intros too which is always nice. Lawler: “Ziggler is just like Santa Claus. Everywhere he goes he takes that old bag with him.”

Dang Edge goes from winning the match to starting the show the next year. Quite a drop…yet he has a title here. I love logic or whatever you call it in wrestling. Striker is doing a great job of tossing softballs up for King to get good lines off of. Lawler has always been a guy that needs someone to set him up but once he gets a start he’s fine.

Edge controls a lot early on with some basic stuff. We hit the floor and it’s all Edge. Ziggler gets a kick to the side of Edge’s head as they come back in to get his first advantage. Off to a chinlock now as the LET’S GO EDGE chant gets going. Sunset flip is blocked for two. More chinlock and this time a longer version of it. Big elbow drop gets two.

Dolph gets a running charge to send Edge out to the floor and into the barricade. Back in that gets two. Hey look it’s a chinnlock! Edge fights up and a double cross body puts both guys down. Stinger Splash in the corner misses by Zigs. Ziggler gets that Downward Spiral into a Stunner for two. Edge counters the Fameasser into a sitout powerbomb for two.

Uncharacteristically for Edge he goes up top but Ziggler beats him to the punch. Cross body off the top is rolled through for a VERY close two by Ziggler. Dropkick gets two on Edge. Zig Zag is blocked and Edge busts out the Edgecator (modified Sharpshooter) for two. Edge misses a charge at the ropes and the Fameasser hits for two.

Big Boot puts Ziggler down and Edge sets for the Spear in the corner. Vickie like an idiot, yells at him to not do it. Ziggler wants the sleeper but gets caught in the Edgecution but Vickie grabs the referee. She and Edge get into it and Kelly of all people comes out to beat on Vickie. As Edge is watching the catfight a Zig Zag gets two and that more or less seals the ending here.

Dolph gets the sleeper and Edge is fading fast. Oh of course he fights it off. He manages to get a big jawbreaker out of it instead and down goes the referee. Vickie is down as well so there’s the Spear. Edge pulls an Eddie and lays down too. Cole: SOMEONE HAD TO SEE THAT! He’s totally right you know. Edge uses an Unprettier of all things to end it.

Rating: A-. This was a solid back and forth match, but I really don’t like the Spear in there. Striker calls it the Unprettier which is supposed to be the Killswitch I believe? Anyway this was a very good match with Ziggler getting some very close near falls out there. It’s your regular Rumble match that had a challenger who simply wasn’t going to win but Dolph looked great. Very good opener indeed.

Mania is 63 days away! Naturally we have the Chamber in there which is going to take away a lot of that time.

We recap Miz vs. Orton which goes back to Miz cashing in. That’s still sweet and was perfectly done. DEMON CHILD!!! Also Miz beat the heck out of Orton on Raw.

Miz and Riley say Miz will win and insult Boston.

Raw World Title: Randy Orton vs. The Miz

Cole talks throughout the WHOLE entrance and then in the ring he says that this is a big match for Miz. Thanks for clearing up that defending the world title on PPV against one of the biggest stars of all time is a big match. Miz chant to start as it’s all Orton early on. Back in the ring as Orton stomps away and Lawler and Cole get into it as always. I’m still thinking that results in a Mania match which it should. Lawler deserves a match at Mania.

Orton beats him down in the corner and Cole says this is unfair to him. Nice flashback to Heenan in 92. Riley interferes and here comes the Champion. Orton fights back but misses a charge in the corner to give Miz the advantage back. The Miz is a Triple crown winner. Let that sink in for a bit. Ok he kind of is at least. Corner clothesline gets two. More beatdowns and a knee to the ribs get two.

Orton is able to get back in there with a kick and up the ropes we go. Superplex gets two as Cole talks about Riley. Elevated DDT is countered by a backdrop and we hit the floor again. Back in Miz gets two. Miz goes up and a double axe gets two. He throws on a chinlock as it’s all champion here. Back to the floor one more time and Orton eats the post.

He beats the count at 9 and the beating is on again but this time with Orton in control with the Thesz Press. Powerslam sets up the stomping. Orton sets for the powerbomb but Riley distracts him. Miz gets that backbreaker/neckbreaker combo he’s been using lately for two. Angle Slam hits so Miz wants to get the title and leave. Instead Orton kills him with a clothesline.

Since we’re looking at a split screen replay we miss what Miz hits to get two out of nowhere on Orton. Miz misses a kick and Orton grabs a rollup for two. Elevated (called Suspension by Striker which works also) gets two. He sets for the RKO and HERE THEY COME! It’s the New Nexus minus Punk who stare down Orton. As the referee is distracted Riley gets in and in an AWESOME spot, Orton picks up Riley and LAUNCHES him over the referee and onto Nexus. Riley was AIRBORNE! There’s the RKO but Punk runs in with a GTS and Miz retains! Cole jumps up and down like a little girl in celebration.

Rating: B. Good match but definitely not as good as the previous one. The thing is that with a show like the Rumble, everything besides the one big match is pure bonus. The two title matches have been rather good so this show is already looking up. This was very good stuff for the most part here which is pretty much expected. If nothing else it gives us some new direction. Not bad at all here and a pretty good match.

Cody Rhodes gives a prepared statement while we can’t see his face which is always funny.

Divas Title: Natalya vs. Laycool

Just before the match starts we get an E-Mail, making it a fatal fourway and he adds….Eve? Uh…ok. Oh and the GM makes fun of Cole and all the people that complain about him. No tagging here of course. There isn’t much to say here as it’s an insane spot fest for the most part. Natalya gets the double Sharpshooter on Eve and Layla which is a great visual. Layla gets the neckbreaker on Natalya. There isn’t much to say here like AT ALL. Michelle kicks Layla, Eve wins the title with a moonsault. Natalya might have pinned Michelle at the same time.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad overall. It was a mess of a Divas match which is bad as usually they have some good stuff going for them and certainly have been recently. This was bad and it was the epitome of a bridge to the Rumble. Speaking of which, let’s go to that.

Bellas/Gail/Bryan segment. It’s stupid and the same thing from Monday but with the Bellas pretending to be nice with flowers.

Rumble By the Numbers.

Royal Rumble

Punk is #1 to the shock of no one, and to no one else’s shock, Corre has a member in at #2 but they all surround the ring. Punk gets beaten down by everyone until Nexus comes down for the save. Cole gets an E-Mail which says STOP IT! Everyone but Punk has to leave and only Punk is in at the moment. LOUD Punk chant and #2 is Bryan. The IWC just orgasmed loudly.

Bryan speeds things up and takes Punk down with some nice shots. It’s dueling chant time as Bryan hits the top rope dropkick. In at 3 is Gabriel. Gabriel beats Punk up with ease but misses the 450 and Bryan tosses Justin easily. The timing is absurd already as you expected it to. Number 4 is Zach Ryder. He gets both guys down in the corner and manages to get a Rough Ryder on Punk. Bryan throws him out with ease as I hope we’re not going the 95 route.

Regal is in at #5 and he cleans house which isn’t very dirty at this point. Lots of suplexes all around. Regal and Bryan slug it out with European uppercuts which surprisingly Bryan wins despite not being, you know, European. Bryan kicks both guys with ease and we get #6 in the form of Ted DiBiase. Backbreaker for Bryan and dropkicks to him and Regal. Down goes Punk to the following clothesline.

Bryan vs. Regal and DiBiase vs. Punk for awhile which gets us nowhere. Seventh is Morrison to a BIG pop. Springboard kick puts Regal down and Morrison cleans house, including with his eternal rival in Punk. C4 to Bryan. I had Morrison as a dark horse but methinks that’s out the window. He gets thrown by DiBiase but lands on the apron. Morrison gets launched to the railing and GRABS THE WALL like freaking Spiderman, climbs up to the apron, tightrope walks it to the steps and gets back in. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not going to be topped tonight.

Tatsu is #8 and he does nothing at all. Ninth is Husky Harris. Regal went out somewhere in there that I missed when I was dying from Morrison’s wall grab. Harris immediately gets in front of Punk for defense so Morrison and Bryan try to kill him. He’s 23 and the youngest person in this Rumble. That’s rather impressive. We get to ¼ of the way through this with Chavo.

Seven people in there now as Gabriel, Ryder and Regal have been eliminated so far. Three Amigos to DiBiase but Punk cuts him off. And never mind as he takes three of his own. Punk’s get broken up so it’s suplex time to Morrison. Here are some for Bryan as well. He must have done ten suplexes in like 30 seconds. This is kind of cool actually. FINALLY he gets the third in a row.

Number 11 is Mark Henry to clear out some dead weight. There go Chavo and Tatsu. Punk beats Henry down a bit as it’s time for JTG to be #12. This portion of the Rumble brought to you by not Michael Hayes. JTG, Henry, Punk, Harris, DiBiase, Morrison and Bryan in there at the moment. Hey I’ve actually got this up to date! Number 13 is Michael McGillicutty to give Punk some backup.

Punk tells him to HURT EVERYBODY. There goes JTG as we’re getting a bit cluttered here. Granted a lot of that is Henry and the midcard is well represented. Harris and McGillicutty put out DiBiase to make room for Masters at 14. Masterlock to Punk but he can’t get him out as McGillicutty makes the save. Bryan hammers on Masters as #15 is Otunga. That makes four members counting Punk in there at the moment.

Bryan is out almost immediately and Masters joins him soon. Nexus cleans house and gets Morrison out too. Over to Henry now and yep he’s gone too. Just Nexus left in the ring now. Tyler Reks is the sacrificial lamb at #16. How long can he be unknown for? There he goes of course. So are we just waiting on Cena now? I think that’s pretty clear. In at 17 is Kozlov who has history here.

Why not just wait on the floor and wait for like five people to get together to at least have even odds? Vladimir is out with ease. Punk gets all meditational on us and it’s Truth in as the Rumble is now legal. Striker agrees with the whole wait it out. This is a great way to run through some of the weaker guys though. Punk gets the corner clothesline and bulldog. In between, he looks at the camera and raises the roof shouting WHAT’S UP in a sarcastic voice. Funny stuff.

Truth is gone. And here’s trouble in the form of the Great Khali. He chops them all down and gets rid of Harris to break up this blockade. GET BETH PHOENIX STAT! Naturally in next is Mason Ryan (20). India vs. Wales goes to the darker skinned ones until Ryan gets him out. BOOKER FREAKING T IS NUMBER 21!!!!! SCREW YOU MAIN EVENT MAFIA!!!!! Epic pop for him too and Booker looks awesome.

Kicks all around and a Book End to McGillicutty. SPINAROONI! SPINAROONI! OH MY GOODNESS A SPINAROONI! Punk charges but Ryan makes the save. Booker is out but that was insanely awesome. My screen froze on Booker’s eyes bugging out. You knew it was coming. John Cena is in next and the fight is on. He takes everyone down with basic moves and there goes Ryan to a low bridge. Otunga and McGillicutty to a double clothesline and it’s down to Cena and Punk!

Cena charges into a corner elbow but Punk can’t get GTS. Double clothesline puts both men down ala Hogan and Warrior in 1990. Number 23 is…..it’s Hornswoggle. The look on Punk’s face is hilarious. More or less it says “no…..freaking….way.” Punk gets up and drills Horny but goes after Cena instead. FU TO PUNK AND HE’S OUT! Cena is left with Horny as #24 is Tyson Kidd. Headscissors to Kidd by Horny sets up an FU and there he goes. Ok no he doesn’t yet as Horny wants to do it. Horny gives him an FU and there goes Kidd.

Twenty fifth is Slater who takes a low blow from Horny and a super Stunner which actually looked pretty cool. Double You Can’t See Me. Tadpole Splash and there goes Slater. It’s Kofi Kingston at 26 and this could be awesome. Cool moment as they stare down and look at the Mania sign. I totally buy Kofi as a threat to Cena here which is a very good sign. Kofi beats on him a bit but it’s really a standoff. Swagger is 27^th and takes down the weakened guys.

Vader Bomb to Cena and one for Kofi as well. And now….dude go for the midget already. Swagger goes after Horny but Kofi kills Jack with a cross body. Double Boom Drop as Horny is a bridge for Kofi to jump off of. 28 is SHEAMUS. Oh yes. This guy is a, and I will never ever say this again, a dark horse to win this. Sheamus cleans house and goes after Horny. Cena saves him AGAIN and it’s another Tadpole Splash coming. Never mind actually as Sheamus KICKS HIM IN THE HEAD to eliminate him.

Rey is #29. We have Kofi, Cena, Swagger, Sheamus and Rey in there at the moment. Trouble in Paradise to Sheamus but Swagger takes him down. Rey was on the corner and Swagger tries the running belly to belly. Rey ducks and knocks him to the apron and a 619 takes him out. Barrett is 30 as this is FLYING by. Wasteland to Kofi is blocked by a kick to the knee by Rey.

Cena vs. Barrett goes to Wade in the form of a Boss Man Slam. That could so be a finisher for someone. Maybe Ryan? The first #31 in history is Dolph Ziggler??? Oh snap man, that could be a shock. He hammers away on Sheamus as Barrett is in trouble. Dolph, Sheamus, Barrett, Kofi, Cena and Rey at the moment. Cena is in trouble and the crowd reacts BIG.

32 is DIESEL???? WOW! The crowd pops HUGE. I can’t get used to hearing him called Diesel. Drew is 33^rd. Nash looks kind of awesome in there. Drew and Sheamus hammer down Diesel who is all of a sudden getting a HUGE chant! Dude sign this guy up! 619 to Diesel which I can’t believe I just typed.

34^th is….the Miz??? Oh wait it’s Riley. He slides in and Cena just drills him. Striker got cut off mid sentence in a laugh. Barrett puts Diesel out. ANOTHER big Diesel chant as he leaves. Miz sits in on commentary for a bit. Big Show is number 35 and it’s time to clear out some guys. Show and Diesel look at each other. Oh man there’s some history there. The Celts jump Show as he comes in which doesn’t go well for the UK guys.

Miz sounds like he has a cold. There goes Ziggler at the hands of Show. I want to know who #40 is. 36 is Big Zeke. Uh oh. Show puts Drew out. Zeke puts Show down and OUT on his own! There are four entrants left. Who isn’t out here yet? Rey, Zeke, Cena, Kofi, Barrett and Sheamus at the moment. Santino is 37^th and gets a solid pop. He goes right at Sheamus of all people. And now he goes for Zeke who growls at him.

Santino gets knocked to the floor under the bottom rope. Alberto is 38 and I completely forgot about him. Ricardo does the intro! No one else has gotten an intro but no one else is Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio takes his sweet time and isn’t in before Orton is 39^th. ONE MORE TO GO! RKO to everyone and there goes Kofi. Sheamus is out too as is Drew. And then, it’s Cena vs. Orton. The crowd just went SILENT and in the awesome way I mean.

They stare it down with the Mania sign between them and there’s the clock. And it’s Kane. Uh, kind of anti-climactic but ok. So it’s Kane, Cena, Orton, Santino, Rey, Del Rio and I think that’s it. I likely left someone out though. Oh and Zeke and Barrett. Zeke beats up Kane with relative ease after Kane cleans some house. There goes Zeke. Ok now we’re down to Barrett, Kane, Cena, Orton, Rey and Del Rio. Kane is put out by Rey! Barrett puts out Rey! I LOVE YOU BARRETT!!!

Final four are Barrett, Orton, Cena and Del Rio. Cena and Del Rio are in trouble but both hang on. Randy and John (sounds weird calling it that) stare it down again to another hush. There they go with the punches. Both finishers miss as FU is broken up by Barrett for no apparent reason. Maybe he’s the new Corre member? Del Rio vs. Cena and Barrett vs. Orton at this point.

FU to Del Rio but here comes Riley again for no adequately explained reason. MIZ ELIMINATES CENA!!! LET THE INTERNET ERUPT!!! Dang it not Orton again. Is Santino still in? Orton busts out a bunch of his basic stuff and there goes Barrett! DEL RIO PUTS OUT ORTON TO WIN THE ROYAL RUMBLE!!! Wait Santino is back! COBRA!!! THEY WOULDN’T!!!!! Oh thank goodness Del Rio threw him out to officially end it.

Rating: A. I was wrong. I thought this would be overblown but it felt more epic this way. HUGE props to WWE for putting someone new in there. That is absolutely huge for WWE as they are actually giving someone the huge push and the momentum to do it with. He’s a glorified midcarder and he won. This is exactly what they needed to do with this and it worked wonderfully. Mania has matches set up for it now and we got some great surprises. Epic Rumble although maybe just a step beneath next year. GREAT ending though.

Overall Rating: A. This was a great show indeed. The Divas match was the only bad thing all night and on a card with four matches you can’t argue that in the slightest. They’re setting Mania up very early this year and that’s nothing but good. This was a great show as WWE now has two big wins in a row. I’m freaking pumped up for Mania now as this was great stuff indeed. Loved it and bring on Elimination Chamber baby!

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Royal Rumble 2010
Date: January 31, 2010
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Jerry Lawler

First off, love that announcing trio. Having 6 guys was WAY too much for PPVs. I’m excited for this Rumble. Yes the title matches are easy to see, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be bad. Sometimes you need predictable matches and this is one of them. The matches look good on paper and the build was all there. The Rumble winner is pretty up in the air actually. That being said the show is starting so it’s time to shut up. Actually it isn’t but you get the point. Let’s get to it.

The video is what you would expect: a look back. Basic but well done as usual.

ECW Title: Ezekiel Jackson vs. Christian

They’ve built this up great as it finally feels like the night Christian is going down. I’m not so sure though. Jackson is a freaking scary man indeed. My stream is choppy so this is kind of like a fast moving slide show mixed with good audio. There goes Regal after a few minutes. Striker talks too fast at times. Cole sounds sick or something. We hit the formula based stuff which is likely the best way to do this.

Since Jackson is still limited in the ring, it’s probably best to have him be carried by the far more experienced and better Christian. We’re in our second chinlock of the match already. Seriously Striker: CALM DOWN! Christian hits the jumping reverse elbow making him awesome. And then he does those stupid claps to take that away. “Hmm, I have him down and I’ve walked around in a circle so he doesn’t know where he is.

I’ll clap since that doesn’t give him a tip at all.” Jackson hits a big clothesline and we get LARIOTO from Striker. Jackson is really limited. Like Monty Brown levels of limited. I love that slingshot kick that Christian does in the corner. Why should I care about who last won the title where? No one says a word and Striker says nothing? That’s very amusing. Sleeper time. And there’s the Killswitch out of freaking nowhere for the pin. What the heck was that???

Rating: C+. This was your run of the mill big man vs. little man and the more I think about it the more I like the ending. Christian couldn’t hang with Zeke going head to head so he stopped trying to and got a quick win. I actually like that one.

Cryme Tyme both want to be in the Rumble but only one spot is available. Apparently they’ve managed to trade Khali’s spot for a kiss from Tiffany. Apparently not. Gender stereotype humor fails and Khali imitates Urkel. Shad is almost able to look eye to eye with Khali. This is so stupid. Miz comes in and Teddy, who has no authority on this show, makes the US Title match.

Rhodes sucks up to Orton and throws Ted under the bus. I’d bet on the same thing happening later with Ted,

US Title: MVP vs. The Miz

Talk about two guys that have gone in completely opposite directions. Miz used to look like a joke and is now awesome and MVP used to look awesome and now is a borderline joke. Something tells me he’s winning tonight though. MVP was US Champion what, back in 2007 and he’s still in the same place how long later? There’s a big MIZ IS AWESOME chant. Or was it AWFUL? Either one is a good sign.

MVP is all over him to start which points to Miz hanging onto the belt. Ok, we get it: MVP hung out with some chick from The View. It means nothing at all. Ah there we go. Miz is back now. He’s grown more than anyone else I’ve ever seen in the past two years. We get it also: MVP used to be in prison. Let it die already. MVP is just a failure as a face. His character is designed to be a heel but we can’t have street wise heels that look like stereotypes of course.

Ok, so MVP hits a face crusher and literally 12 seconds later the Ballin Elbow hits. Are we supposed to believe that Miz isn’t going to get up in that amount of time? Seriously? There’s a Pounce from MVP and called so much by Striker. Oh, period. Wouldn’t want to forget that.

I actually don’t know who’s going to win here which is rare in matches like these but it’s a nice plus. And Miz hits a rollup as MVP is getting back in for the pin. And that’s what he needs: wins, even by fluke, that are clean. MVP attacks him after the match and is heavily booed. Please let that be a heel turn. Cole implies it’s not. Dang it.

Rating: B-. Not bad at all. The ending was great here as it literally came out of nowhere. Miz needs more wins like these but it gives him more and more credibility every time which is what his character needs at the moment. I haven’t seen them get a character’s development much better than his in a LONG time and I’m loving it.

Jericho and Show continue their bromance. R-Truth laughs at Jericho and says it’s every man for himself. It’s better than it sounds but it’s still dumb.

Orton is walking. Yes indeed he is. And there’s Ted to say he’s here for him. No Cody in sight though and I was right with my prediction.

Ad for Raw. I love that they feel the need to advertise a show that you likely would have had to see in order to buy this show.

Soldiers are here. Oh they’re from the National Guard.

Raw World Title: Sheamus vs. Randy Orton

And the champion comes out first for no apparent reason. Sheamus is another character that has gotten a solid push from nowhere and I’m liking it. It’s working bette than Bradshaw’s when they did the same thing and I think that’s because there’s nothing of his past to compare it to. Bradshaw had nothing to go off of in the main event either but we had known him for years and he sucked. Orton gets a bit of a pop.

Please: give him a face title run. It could work. A heel vs. heel title match isn’t something I would have guessed on but it should be awesome. I’m pulling for the Irish dude just to prevent anything resembling Orton vs. HHH or Cena again. We get the big match intros too. Orton gets a straight up face pop. Sheamus gets heat but it’s mild. Still though, likely his best ever. It’s weird seeing Orton not being taller.

Sheamus is getting a bit of heat here. I like it. MASSIVE Randy chant. The fans Vince. LISTEN TO THEM. Yep, he’s wrestling life a face too. Sheamus is dominating here as he should. I’m glad they never went anywhere with the kick he gave Lawler. Orton goes for the knee which makes a lot of sense here. There has been talk of Sheamus holding the belt until Mania. I like it. We’ve begged for a new main event guy and we’ve gotten one.

Giving him a long reign is making him far more credible as a champion and main event player. It’s a brilliant move and I think it’s working. Orton STAYS ON THE KNEE! Oh blessed psychology how I love you! Sheamus works on the arm of all things. It’s different if nothing else. There’s the stupid boo/yay thing. Fans are more or less completely behind Orton which is something Vince needs to listen to.

Sheamus goes for the Razor’s Edge but his knee gives out. See what psychology can do for you? Orton hits that elevated DDT that is varying degrees of awesome. They’re trying so hard to have him be heel in this and it’s failing epically. The Punt, which again is more of a freaking place kick but what do I know. Vince started the XFL so obviously he’s smarter than I am. It misses of course because that never hits on PPV for some reason.

Oh wait forgot HIAC. There’s likely a reason for that one. Rhodes runs in and attacks Sheamus but the RKO hits, meaning Sheamus keeps the belt. YES! Came out of nowhere but whatever. The fans are calling for the RKO on Rhodes but they settle for a choke instead. Ted comes down and gets that beating he deserves. Grr and there goes the stream again! Orton more or less fires them, HOPEFULLY turning face. And Sheamus kicks Orton in the head and everyone leaves him there. Not bad at all.

Rating: B. I liked this a lot more than I should have. The psychology was all working here and it played into the match later on which is nice. The DQ ending kind of sucked as I would have preferred Sheamus to get a pin but this worked just fine I think. Legacy is FINALLY over though which is the far more important thing.

We recap Mickie vs. McCool which is by far the best build to a match I’ve seen in years. It’s even better than the Mark Henry vs. Viscera match. Short version: McCool and Layla were saying that Mickie was fat and it led to this. It’s a lot better than it sounds, trust me.

Smackdown Women’s Title: Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool

I’m actually pumped for this thing if you can believe that. Odds are it’s going to suck but whatever. The video had Beth in it which implies she’ll be here tonight. Sweet goodness change Michelle’s music. I freak can’t stand it. McCool cuts a bad promo before the match. Mickie isn’t here apparently?

And here’s Layla in the fat suit. This was stupid Friday but cute I guess and now…never mind as Mickie is here. And it’s a 20 second match as Mickie freaking murders her. Ok then. And they bring out food and poor it on the heels. Good to know.

Rating: N/A. Not sure if I like this or not. Mickie dominating is good as it ends this quickly, but it feels flat otherwise. I think I like it though. Yeah let’s go with that.

Ad for Elimination Chamber. Yeah nothing says SPECIAL gimmick match more than two in one night baby!

We recap Rey vs. Taker, which more or less is Rey won a contender’s match and then Batista is a whiny man. Something tells me that’s your ending because he has muscles and therefore he’s a good wrestler, at least in Vince’s eyes.

Smackdown World Title: Undertaker vs. Rey Mysterio

They call this the biggest match in Rey’s career. Yep, far bigger than winning the title at Mania I’m sure. As bad as a champion that he is, that belt looks awesome on Taker’s waist. More big match intros which while they’re usually good, they kind of don’t work for Taker for some reason. This is likely to rock or suck with no real in between. This is like a wet dream for Vince: both guys are big faces so why wouldn’t this work?

Taker at 299 pounds sounds odd for some reason. Rey gets freaking launched to the floor but lands on his feet. Nice indeed. Taker has done maybe two moves and he’s put Rey on the floor twice. This is all Taker so far. Thankfully the 619 misses. Taker goes for the Tombstone but Rey uses the ancient Chinese principle of kicking his feet to get out of it. Taker of course messes up his knee because that’s all he can do in most matches anymore.

His hip is in a lot of legit pain at this point so it’s likely not a ton of acting. We get the Asai Moonsault for the Japanese fans out there. Taker’s chest looks the same as Michelle’s used to look like. I wonder if they got them done in the same place? They seem like they’re killing time, which screams BATISTA to me.

Surprisingly enough though it doesn’t come as Taker just more or less casually hits the Last Ride after countering a flippy. Where’s Norcal when I need him? Oh yeah at a bar with muscle guys.

Rating: C-. I wasn’t thrilled here at all. The only good thing was that there was a clean ending which was my main concern here. It’s two more old guys in the main event but at least they’re popular so that’s all I can ask for. Not awful, but underwhelming.

Shawn and Kane talk. HHH and Shawn talk. Greatness personified.

I freaking LOVE that video package about the numbers.

Royal Rumble

Dolph Ziggler is first and Evan Bourne is second. Ok then. And the Zig Zag hits a few minutes in. He pulls a Davey Boy Smith though and doesn’t make sure he goes over. The Shooting Star hits and Punk is third. With the roll he’s been on lately he needs a LONG run here. He starts off hot by throwing out both guys and has time to cut a promo. The heat is there, the look is there and the ability is there.

He has to job to the old guys though right? Number four is one of Cryme Tyme. Oh it’s JTG. Please….make it quick. Hey I got my wish! It lasted just a few seconds as we get our second promo of the night. I love Punk in case I didn’t make that clear. Fifth is Khali. Don’t you freaking put Punk out to this imbecile! You know they will though. Please, sacrifice Serena or something. I beg of you Vince, use your freaking brain.

Nope, Punk gets his head kickedin. Oh I get it: Khali is a “fun” character so that makes the idiocy ok. He gets the vice but it doesn’t last long enough and…Beth Phoenix is 6th? Well ok then. It’s different if nothing else. Beth gets picked up and placed on the apron where she kisses Khali before ELIMINATING HIM!! Punk hits her with the GTS after a brief skirmish. Didn’t see this coming. Seventh is Zach Ryder. This is odd indeed.

Beth is odd as we get some awesome music from Ryder. Punk tries to recruit Ryder and then hits him to MASSIVE face pops. He’s alone again as this is awesome. It’s another promo. Kane or Show will put him out soon enough. He says he’s better than whoever is next and you can smell the elimination coming from here. And it’s HHH. Bye Punk. Have fun in the belly of HHH’s ego. His intro takes the better part of ever so at least he’s consistent.

Hey Punk actually lasts until McIntyre is 9th. And HHH puts out Punk to get his ego up again. Yep, can’t have these young talented and over guys taking the place of guys like HHH. HHH is called the future of the company. That’s a scary thought. DiBiase is 10th. We’re 1/3 of the way through this. Oh great. Morrison is 11th. Nothing of note is happening at all. McIntyre takes Starship Pain and here’s HHH to take his head off anyway.

Kane is 12th, To recap it’s HHH, Kane, DiBiase, Morrison and McIntyre in there at the moment. The IC Title boys take a double chokeslam and it’s all Kane meaning he’ll be out soon or last a long time. And HHH saves DiBiase. Ok then. I guess the whole end your career thing is forgives. Cody Rhodes comes up on the monitor and Striker says it must be Rhodes. What would we do without you Matty? Legacy dominates…kind of. Morrison is acrobatic as all goodness.

Rhodes underrated in the ring. Striker says he’s the seed of the Dream. BAD FREAKING IMAGE MAN! Kane of course is moving and Cole can’t tell McIntyre and HHH apart. MVP is 14th. Miz jumps him in the aisle and blasts him with the belt. Know what would be nice now? A shot of the ring. Oh there it is. Morrison hits a SICK springboard spinkick to the head of McIntyre. MVP is taken out as I’m pretty sure HHH is going to win here.

My guess is Shawn vs. HHH somewhere down the line because of Shawn’s incessant ego. Carlito is 15th and apparently he’s interesting. Yeah that’s nosense if I’ve ever heard it. He hits a nice springboard reverse elbow to Legacy. That was nice. MVP will likely run in and attack Miz later. Nothing predictable at all there. HHH takes the Backstabber as do a lot of people. Holy crap he’s dominating. Sixteenth is Miz. Amazingly MVP doesn’t jump him. That’ll be next I guess.

The Skull Crushing Finale hits Carlito. The fans pop like a cherry pie for Miz vs. Morrison and here’s MVP to put himself and Miz out. Legacy has HHH in trouble and of course he doesn’t go out. Carlito hangs onto the rope and stays in. Number 17 is Matt Hardy to a huge pop. This crowd is awesome. To continue the trend he dominates and hits a bunch of people before Kane puts him out and Kane is out by HHH.

You really can see it coming. I hope I need glasses. Spinebusters all around. A hot crowd pops for him so that validates this I suppose. HBK is 18th and I think I feel a showdown of 1990 proportions coming. Rhodes and Carlito and DiBiase are gone. Ok we have Shawn, McIntyre, Morrison and HHH in there at the moment. Ok take out Morrison and the showdown is pretty clear.

Shawn has the second most eliminations in Rumble history apparently. Yep it’s showdown time and there’s the clock. It’ll be a jobber and…never mind it’s Cena. Vince the Survivor Series bombed with this main event so why wouldn’t this do it too? And of course he beats up DX. A double You Can’t See Me is booed to an extent. HHH stops an FU and takes a Pedigree AND HHH IS SUPERKICKED OUT OF THE FREAKING MATCH! I am STUNNED. TAKE THAT MELTZER!!!

Shelton is in now and I’m switching my bet to Cena. Shawn has put Shelton out like three years in a row or something. This is his eighth consecutive Rumble. Wow I wouldn’t have guessed that one. Cena ends Shawn’s streak and puts out Shelton. Holy Mania rematch Batman. Yoshi Tatsu is 21st. I like this guy for some reason. Of course Striker has a dumb name for him: the Poison Fist of the Pacific Rim. Cena dumps him in a few seconds and we’re back to Shawn and Cena.

Nothing overdone about that AT ALL is there? Ok Atlanta is allowed to do the WOOs. Big Show is 22nd. Show almost goes out but saves himself. Cena goes for an FU but it misses. Shawn has to skin the cat (what a name I tell you) because Chin Music misses. Mark Henry is 23rd. Well they’re having some big names in there at least. I still can’t get over HHH being out already. It’s a curveball if nothing else. Henry goes for a slam can can’t get it.

Why do I have a feeling he’s not the world’s strongest man? He gets the slam a bit later but then almost gets an FU. Masters is number 24. Have to have some jobbers I guess. He press slams Shawn and of course doesn’t throw him out. Instead he puts the Masterlock on Show and he gets tossed for it. Henry and Show go at it again as we have a clock. It’s R-Truth….AND HE PUTS OUT SHOW AND HENRY.

I guess there is a youth movement. It’s Truth, Cena and Michaels here. He shows his TNA connection by hitting Cena with the Stroke. The fans are chanting boring. This hasn’t been bad at all. Swagger is 26th as Norcal pops. This is his first Rumble. I wouldn’t have guessed that. Vader Bombs all around. NO! Stream went out! Never mind it’s back!

Kofi is 27th. There goes Truth. Jericho is 28th. Kofi put out Truth in case you were wondering. He follows that up by kicking the heck out of Shawn and then gets thrown by Cena. All three are down and here’s 29. HOLY CRAP IT’S EDGE! Ok it’s not really shocking but still cool moment. Oh yeah he’s a face. Just like he should be. Spears all around and we might not have a surefire winner now.

There goes Jericho and Edge is domination. Sweet the Edgecution is back! Fans are WAY into this. Shame Batista will be 30th. It would have made sense to just have it be Edge in at 30. Ok final four are Cena, Shawn, Batissta and Edge. Naturally Batista is dominating. Anyone of these guys could win. Edge spears him down and Cena FUs Edge so everyone is down. Shawn nips up to another great pop. That’s one of those moves that just plain works.

Shawn is dominating here and Striker screws up again by saying that Edge has had no vigor. Shawn is dominating here and this is exciting me. Cena gets kicked and si does Big Dave. Edge clotheslines Shawn to the apron and then gets superkicked back in. DAVE PUTS SHAWN OUT! The crowd just goes dead silent. That came from nowhere. This is wide freaking open at this point. WOW I haven’t heard a crowd die like that ever.

That…might not have been what was supposed to happen. He goes nuts an goes back in, beating up referees. Could this be a Shawn HEEL TURN??? I certainly freaking hope so. More referees come down as Shawn looks freaking crushed. Striker says this is heartbreaking (no pun intended I’m sure) as he says Shawn has never achieved this. If he means beating Taker he’s an idiot. He’s also never achieved a good buyrate but we’ll ignore that.

Ok so it’s Edge, Batista and Cena. Cena reverses the Batista Bomb and Batista reverses the FU and there goes Batista! This would suggest Edge winning but I’m not so sure. He sets for the spear with those great visuals of his and it misses of course. Cena goes for a clothesline and EDGE WINS IT! YEAH!

Take that people screaming this was going to be predicable! Love that ending, even though it’s the same thing they did with Cena but not as exciting/sweet. This is what we needed too: a FRESH face that is going to get some POPS. Great move all around and a great Rumble match.

Rating: A. Very solid Rumble here. Edge winning was a very pleasant shock and I liked it a lot. They had the star power in there tonight and no Santino or Duggan or jokes like that who are just going to waste time and spots. The formula works great when it clicks and this was no exception. I was bored until HHH got dumped but it wasn’t awful before that. Once he’s gone though, it’s straight through the roof. Very good Rumble and likely in the top five ever of them.

Overall Rating: A-. I was going back and forth between B- and C+. The whole show was indeed nothing great, but there was nothing that bad really. The right people won, for the most part they won clean, Orton is a face…I think, Shawn is snapping, Legacy is OVER, and Edge is back as a top level face.

This was a very good show and if you want to say it was predictable, let me know so I can laugh at you. Fun show and worth checking out, just don’t expect a classic. Edited: what the heck am I thinking? This show was great. A-.

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Great American Bash 2008
Date: July 20, 2008
Location: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York
Attendance: 12,454
Commentators: Jim Ross, Mick Foley, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Mike Adamle

This is the last of the Bashes and the card looks pretty good. The main event is for the Smackdown Title and is one of the few big matches that never got a big time PPV main event slot: HHH defends against Edge. Other than that we have a parking lot brawl with JBL vs. Cena and Jericho vs. Michaels in a match where HBK’s eye is bad. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Vickie and Edge’s wedding. Edge them cheated on her with wedding planner Alicia Fox but this was ok I guess. The rest of the video is about the matches I mentioend.

Oh and this is officially the last show before PG began.

Smackdown Tag Titles: John Morrison/The Miz vs. Finlay/Hornswoggle vs. Jesse/Festus vs Curt Hawkins/Zack Ryder

Miz and Morrison are defending. Festus is Luke Gallows who freaks out at the sound of a bell. Jesse and Festus clear the ring so the champs send Horny in to fight him. Smart move guys. Horny wants to try it but instead dives through the ropes to take out the champ. Festus vs. Miz gets us going officially. Off to Jesse with the only world champion to be found in this match in trouble.

Morrison and Finlay come in and the Irishman is in trouble. Foley asks why you would tag into someone on another team since this is one fall to a finish. Miz and Morrison use various nefarious techniques to hurt Finley and it’s off to the chinlock. Miz and Morrison switch in and out twice and Finlay gets in a shot. I don’t think Hawkins and Ryder have been in yet and as I say that Ryder comes in to steal a pin attempt, getting two.

The former Edgeheads/Major Brothers hammer away on Finlay but he counters into the rolling fireman’s carry slam, whatever that was called. The Irish Club is brought in and I don’t know who got hit as Miz and Morrison ran in to break it up. Finlay gets in a shot on I think Hawkins and it’s off to Horny. Jesse tags himself in to beat on Hawkins. There’s the not hot tag to Festus and he cleans house. He and Jesse load up a rocket launcher but Ryder pulls Festus to the floor and Jesse gets slammed off the top. Hawkins pins Jesse for the surprise title win.

Rating: C-. Hey, you ever seen one of those multi team tag matches where not a lot really happens because there are so many teams that nothing can get going at all and no one is able to get anything going and the ending is a big mess with a team that didn’t do much stealing the win and it wasn’t bad but you’ve seen something just like it before? Well this was one of those matches.

US Title: Matt Hardy vs. Shelton Benjamin

Shelton is the Gold Standard and challenger. The announcers point out that no one has ever lost the title at the Bash and of course they treat it like the same show as the WCW incarnation. Shelton takes over with a headlock but Matt takes over with an armdrag of his own. A quick Pay Dirty (Little Jimmy) and Twist of Fate are both countered and Matt takes over again.

Matt tries to skin the cat but Shelton dropkicks him to the floor. Shelton rams him into the post to take over. The fans are into this and I presume they’re behind Hardy but I can’t really tell. It might be split. Matt tries a Side Effect but Shelton counters into an STO for two. The Dragon Whip looks to set up the Stinger Splash but Matt counters. Middle rope leg and sunset flip get two for Matt. Twist attempt is countered and Shelton looks for a middle rope belly to back superplex but Matt knocks him off. Moonsault gets knees and Pay Dirt gives Benjamin the title.

Rating: C-. This wasn’t bad but I really didn’t get into it. Matt was certainly better as a guy that was chasing the title rather than actually holding it. Matt would go on to win the ECW Title soon after this as Shelton would hold the US Title for like 8 months and then would just chill on ECW until being released in 2010.

On Monday, Punk said Batista saved him so that Batista would get his shot tonight because Punk is the easier victory. He says he’s not the biggest or the strongest or anything like that. He’s the man that proves everyone wrong, CM Punk, World Heavyweight Champion. I like that ending.

Here’s a video from Smackdown where HHH showed Edge cheating on Vickie with Fox (not yet a Diva).

ECW Title: Mark Henry vs. Tommy Dreamer

Henry is champion and Dreamer is challenging because he’s Tommy Dreamer and it’s the ECW Title. Oh Mike Adamle: how I forgot about you. Tony Atlas is with Henry here. Dreamer has Colin Delaney with him. Delaney is a jobber that Barry Horowitz would laugh at. Dreamer charges at Henry because he’s not that smart. Single leg fails miserably. Mark runs him down and this is pure dominance as expected. Henry steps on his face. That has to hurt.

Henry grabs the wrist and works on the arm for absolutely no logical reason. Dude YOU’RE MARK FREAKING HENRY! GO DESTROY A SMALL CITY! The fans correctly chant boring and I’d be doing it too….maybe. Now back to the arm. The fans try to cheer for Dreamer but he gets beaten even worse. A splash (called the World’s Strongest Slam by Adamle but corrected by Tazz) misses and here comes Dreamer. A neckbreaker gets two for Tommy. DDT puts Henry down but Atlas distracts. Dreamer goes after him and then goes up, where Delaney turns on him, shoving him off. The Slam ends this.

Rating: D-. What a boring match. Tazz freaking out over Delaney turning is kind of funny. This went nowhere at all and was a VERY boring match with Henry literally crushing him for most of the match, other than that weird arm stuff. Dreamer would beat up Delaney for awhile before they finally got rid of his worthless self.

We recap Shawn vs. Jericho. This is kind of a complicated one. So Shawn retired Flair at Mania and Batista was MAD about it. He demanded a match with Shawn and got it at Backlash. Jericho was referee for some reason. Shawn claimed to injure his knee and won anyway. Jericho had Shawn on the Highlight Reel and said Shawn faked it. Shawn denied it but Jericho persisted. Eventually Shawn admitted he was faking it but Jericho wanted more of a confession than that. It turned into them arguing about who was better and then Jericho accidentally (allegedly) injured Shawn’s eye. Shawn is coming back tonight.

Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels

They stare each other down and here we go. It’s a slugout to start and Jericho controls early. Shawn may have bad ribs but he manages to get in a shot at Jericho’s knee to take over. There’s a reverse Figure Four and Jericho is in trouble early on. Jericho gets in a shot though and the springboard dropkick to the apron makes Shawn backflip on the apron and land on the floor.

Jericho works on the ribs but mixes in some face shots (remember the eye) to show some very nice psychology. Shawn hits the forearm and nips up but the kick is countered into the Walls. He manages to get the rope and fires another kick which is blocked as well. Clothesline gets two for Shawn. Shawn loads up the big elbow but Chris crotches him. Jericho loads up a superplex but gets knocked off and Shawn can hit the elbow.

Here’s Jericho flunkie Lance Cade who breaks up the superkick but Shawn manages to avoid a Codebreaker attempt. Jericho gets a rollup for two and is then promptly launched to the floor. Shawn goes up and tries a moonsault to take out both guys but mostly splits them to crash to the floor. That looked PAINFUL. Jericho pops him with an elbow and the eye is bleeding. Jericho turns into a shark, going after the eye.

Shawn is covered in blood quickly and just has his hands up to try to defend himself but Jericho goes right for the eye with punches. Cade even gets in a shot. Shawn keeps saying don’t stop it. Jericho rams in headbutts and Shawn is in big trouble. Out of NOWHERE Shawn grabs a Crossface but Jericho breaks it pretty quickly. There is blood all over Jericho and Shawn.

Shawn makes the referee promise not to stop it so Jericho hammers away even more. They check it again and Jericho asks if Shawn said keep it going. He’s told Shawn said yes so Jericho kicks him in the face. Even Jericho’s hair has blood on it. Chris traps Shawn’s eyes and shouts in his face as he gets in a bunch of unprotected shots until the referee finally stops it.

Rating: B. It was a great beating and a great example of how blood can help a match and visual a lot, but it didn’t quite reach epic levels, probably due to the ending just being a repeat of everything that had happened for the majority of the match. They would have better matches coming up, but this certainly wasn’t a bad one.

Shawn gets his eye checked post match to eat up some of the ton of time they have left on this show.

Edge is surprised when JR asks him how he feels. He says HHH has taken away his personal life and this is all he has left. All Edge can do is take the WWE Title.

Divas Title: Michelle McCool vs. Natalya

This is for the inaugural title and there’s probably some stupid tournament that set this up. Michelle takes her to the mat and speeds things up. Natalya takes over and hooks a surfboard but Michelle counters (impressively so) into a heel hook attempt which is countered. Nattie hooks the Sharpshooter but Michelle gets the ropes. A second attempt is countered into the heel hook and Michelle wins the title.

Rating: D. The joke here was that hopefully Michelle enjoyed the Undertaker semen that came with that belt. I’m not sure how much anyone cared or if anyone on the planet that didn’t work for WWE thinks there was a need for another female title, but they unified it…eventually, as in like two years later.

Jericho comes out to interrupt the celebration and says keep your ticket stubs because this was the night of Shawn’s last match. Shawn has a detached retina, meaning he’s finished.

We recap the Raw Title match. Punk won MITB and cashed in on Edge after Batista destroyed Edge to open a Raw. Batista I guess too offense to Punk winning the title that way and treated Punk like an easy challenger, which to be fair is how he’s been treated since.

Raw World Title: CM Punk vs. Batista

Punk looks like a kid. He has to stick and move to avoid the power game but Batista gets in a clothesline and boot for two. Batista gets sent to the floor and Punk hits a baseball slide. A suicide dive is mostly countered. I was at a house show about two weeks before this so I saw a lot of these spots before they happened here. Batista reverses a whip into the corner which Lawler calls a desperation move.

It’s amazing hearing Cole and Lawler as a decent commentary team. Cole is good at setting up King with softball questions to knock out of the park. Lawler needs someone to lead him in and then he can more than take care of himself on there. Batista hooks a camel clutch which is broken pretty quickly. There’s a leg lariat by Punk to send Big Dave to the floor. Top rope cross body gets two.

Punk goes for the corner knee but gets caught in a Bomb attempt. Batista takes him down and shakes the ropes. Here’s another try at the Bomb but he grabs the rope again. The corner knee hits and a GREAT high kick takes Big Dave down. Into the corner and Punk grabs the arm which he pulls back over the ropes. That looked cool. Punk hammers away but walks into a clothesline. A charge goes into the post and they head to the floor where Batista KILLS PUNK DEAD with a spinebuster. And here’s Kane for the DQ. Big Dave wins.

Rating: D+. I knew that ending was coming and I still rolled my eyes. This was getting to be something good, but at the end of the day Punk looked beaten and Kane came in. It’s REALLY not going to hurt Batista to go down to a rollup or something. Punk never really had a chance in this title reign and never lost the title. Hate that ending.

Wait…..HOW IS THAT A DOUBLE DQ???? KANE NEVER TOUCHE……oh screw it. Batista powerbombs Punk post match.

We recap Cena vs. JBL. JBL declared martial law because Punk was champion. He had private security carry Cena out. Cena and Cryme Tyme came out and helped Punk keep the title. This turned into the usual culture war of these two. A parking lot brawl was proposed and accepted. JBL attempted to run Cena over in one of the dumbest looking spots you’ll ever see. There was a camera in the car and from where Cena would have been sitting. Jibbles missed of course.

John Cena vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

This is in “the parking lot” and likely was taped earlier today for the most part. JBL is in a shirt and tie and has a crowbar. He takes the tie off at least. They have the circle of cars set up and a referee out there. Something metal hits the ground but we don’t know where it was from. Now a car turns on and Cena drives it at the car JBL is standing on. Ok now it’s on.

Cena chokes him with jumper cables. Then he slams a car hood on him. Now he jumps JBL’s balls. That would kind of, um, KILL HIM. Cena picks up an oil drum and chucks it at a car which JBL tries to escape in. Bradshaw gets in some shots but nothing significant. They knock a car door off. Cena went through it so JBL takes over. Powerbomb on a car gets two. Cena gets dropped on the top of a car for two.

Cena goes through a window and isn’t busted open. Did they hit the blood quota earlier or something? This is really dull by the way. Cena is knocked down then thrown into the back of a car and JBL goes to get a gas can out of his limo. He covers the car with the gas and throws a lighter on it. Uh yeah I’m done here. They put it out but JBL is stealing a forklift. Cena gets out and Bradshaw is mad.

They brawl even more and Cena takes over, throwing JBL into a car then into a car. Cena gets the forklift and spears the car. He lifts the car up and drives the forklift into the arena. JBL gets beaten up on the stage. There’s the Shuffle and Cena loads up the FU. Instead of flipping the fool like a clam shelled cellular phone, he walks towards the car and JBL escapes and throws Cena off the stage into the windshield for the pin.

Rating: N/A. This had nothing to do with wrestling. It was bad, whatever it was. They got WAY too ridiculous here and I’m sure the fans loved seeing a total of maybe three minutes of this live. They were setting up JBL as the next challenger to Punk and Cena moved onto Batista, but this was still bad.

We recap Edge vs. HHH. The whole wedding thing is recapped again but in greater detail. I think that’s about it to the story.

HHH says he regrets nothing.

Smackdown World Title: HHH vs. Edge

How this is used at the Bash and not Wrestlemania I’m not sure. Edge takes him down immediately and they head to the floor. HHH throws him into the barricade and a big forearm back in the ring puts Edge outside again. HHH misses a charge and Edge gets a breather. A quick spear by Edge takes Trips down but the Game hammers away. HHH is champion if I forgot to mention that. There hasn’t been a lot of sustained contact in this.

Edge rams him into the barricade and then the apron a few times. Now to the table. Off to a body scissors to work on the injured ribs. HHH escapes and pounds Edge about the head and shoulders. A Canadian dropkick puts HHH down but he comes back with right hands and a clothesline. Facebuster puts Edge on the floor but Edge slides in so he can miss a baseball slide.

Edgecution might have knocked HHH out on the floor but he manages to kick out back inside. Edge goes up but jumps into a slingshot and a DDT of HHH’s own. That’s still my favorite move. It only gets two here but it looked pretty good. Edge-O-Matic gets two. It’s the reverse X-Factor if no one has any idea what that is anymore.

Spear misses and HHH rolls him up for two. Edge kicks him in the head to put HHH right back down as we’re running low on time. Spinebuster takes Edge down but the Pedigree is countered by ramming HHH into the corner. Edge superplexes him down and here’s Alicia Fox. She tries to slid the title in to Edge but Vickie comes out and breaks it up. Now the girls fight in the ring and the fans seem into it. Edge accidentally spears Vickie which I think is what put her back in the wheelchair. The distraction lets the Pedigree end it.

Rating: B-. Good match but it felt kind of there. It’s good but it feels like an afterthought instead of a big time title match, which is what these two should be. Vickie and Alicia had to get into this because that was by far the bigger story and I’m more than ok with it, but it didn’t help the match seeming just there. It was good though.

Overall Rating: C. This was almost the same as the previous year’s but not quite as good from a wrestling perspective. The main event isn’t as good but the show wasn’t bad overall. 2008 was just kind of there as a year for WWE. They were getting some stuff together but it really wasn’t that great. Still though, this wasn’t bad but I’m never going to want to see it again, which happens a lot with these shows.

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Royal Rumble 2006
Date: January 29, 2006
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 15,000
Commentators: Joey Styles, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jerry Lawler,

The main changes are Batista and Cena. They’ve more or less taken over the company as the biggest things in the world. Except for Batista because he’s out with an injury. Edge is the current reigning world champion though as he had more or less stolen the title at New Year’s Revolution. He’s got his rematch with Cena tonight. On the other side, Mark Henry is main eventing the show. I give up.

The other main issue is of course the death of Eddie Guerrero, which there’s been more than enough written about already. Other than that, there’s just not a lot going on here. This more or less is the first Rumble of what would be classified as the modern era, so let’s get to it.

The intro is just a recap of the major feuds. For some reason, Angle vs. Henry gets the most hype. Naturally they push Raw vs. Smackdown again. Edge is the Rated R Champion now. Lita’s stomach is the thing that dreams are made of. I’ve always wanted to say that. For reasons that no one will ever comprehend, the theme is Roman or something, which meant nothing and no one wanted to see. Stephanie in Roman clothing was nice though.

Cruiserweight Championship: Cruiserweight Open

This is the standard thing they were doing back in the day as they had completely given up on having any kind of storylines or flow to the division, so they just said screw it and threw everyone into one massive match where everyone is legal at once. In this, you have to be either the current Champion or a former champion. The participants are Kid Kash who is the champion, Paul London, Nunzio, Funaki, Gregory Helms and Jamie Noble.

London is wearing a gold mask for some reason that was never really explained. Helms is a surprise here. Oh geez there’s a Roman theme again where they have guys opening the door where people from out of the back from. It’s kind of like KOTR 96 for those of you that have seen that. Helms is from Raw here so he’s an outsider or something like that. Shockingly, the match is a pure mess to start as there are no tags or anything like that. Screw that order stuff.

London’s dropsault is stupid when it’s just one person but it’s cool when there’s two. It’s completely not effective but it looks good. Heck Rock won a bunch of world titles like that though so who cares? London looks like Tajiri for some reason. This is a pure spotfest here with nothing resembling flow or a story or anything like that, which makes sense I guess. At least they didn’t try as that would have been really stupid.

In a nice spot, Funaki whips Noble in and he launches a suicide dive through the ropes to take out two guys. You can tell a lot of these spots are preplanned but that’s fine as it’s working pretty well for what it’s supposed to be. With almost everyone else on the floor, London goes to the top rope and throws a shooting star press to the floor, more or less missing everyone and just slamming into the floor.

It looked PAINFUL and the fans give him a well deserved holy crap chant. In a cool spot that I haven’t seen before, London and Helms are on the top and Helms hits a swinging neckbreaker to get us back on the mat. It looked a lot better than it sounds.

For those of you that don’t know, Kash was a fairly big deal in ECW but other than that he’s been a minor player at best. The steps in the background are orange here so it looks like a bunch of empty seats. They get really fast in a hurry but it gets cut off too fast as Helms hits a Shining Wizard to Funaki for the pin.

Rating: B-. Now before everyone jumps on me, this isn’t the same kind of grade that I would give a normal match because this wasn’t supposed to be a standard match. This was designed to be completely insane and all spots to get the crowd awake and it worked fine. That’s the point of this and it did its job, so it gets a decent grade. There is no story to something like this and there shouldn’t be. Helms would hold the belt over a year.

Vince and Teddy long are around the Rumble drawing and Vince tells Long to leave. Naturally there are three hot women there. Orton and HHH come in and draw their numbers. Orton is happy and HHH hates his. Sex jokes abound as these two continue their eternal battle that never goes anywhere. Victoria looks incredible.

Trish is getting ready to be the referee. Mickie James says she loves her, and we have a lesbian stalker angle.

Mickie James vs. Ashley Massaro

For no apparent reason, this isn’t for the title as Trish is the referee and the champion here. They would have a decent match at Mania. This is back when Mickie was not only insane but also wore ridiculously awesome skirts. Ashley was one of the biggest flops in wrestling history as the winner of the Diva search who was just awful on a lot of levels. If nothing else we have Lillian, Mickie and Trish in the same ring. That’s not bad at all.

They have a headlock and actually go to the floor without breaking it up. That’s hard to do. Ashley can’t even lock up right. That’s almost sad. What’s sadder is that Joey has to say she’s a superstar. Oh yeah this was also when Mickie would scream her head off, which I’ve always liked for some reason. Ashley tried at least so I’ll give her that. The crowd is completely dead by the way. Mickie’s figure is flat out mesmerizing.

This is so odd to see someone with so much talent like James and someone with so little in Ashley. The thing here is that Mickie loves Trish but Trish trained Ashley. There are far too many bad submissions being done here to have a coherent match too. Ashley goes on offense and while it’s really bad, she’s trying. You can tell the different between someone that just doesn’t want to be there and Ashley, while bad, is trying.

However, her offense is either so limited or the fans like Mickie so much that they completely turn on her and boo her LOUDLY. Mickie powerbombs her out of the corner and Trish is really hesitant to count it, which is either part of the angle or then just giving up and saying let’s try to save some face here and just ending it early. Either of those would be believable to me.

Rating: C-. And that’s as generous as I can be. Ashley was bad here, but she was trying as hard as she could and I can easily respect that. Now later on when she just didn’t care, screw that. The fans turning on her like that annoyed me, but I can get what their point was. This was really just to set up Trish vs. Mickie, which is fine.

We see Helms at the WWE Interactive area, which means he’s chatting on WWE.com, which WCW had about 10 years prior to this.

More Rumble drawings with Rey and Big Show. It’s preceded by Vince checking the girls’ tattoos which is just annoying and stupid. In a funny bit, Show can’t get his hand in the tumbler to get a number out. Show is pleased and Rey is…oh screw it. They’re talking about Eddie again, which draws a huge chant and gives away the ending to the Rumble. Ok, before this comes up later, let’s just get it out of the way now.

The WWE needs to understand something. No wait, actually wrestling in general needs to understand something. When a wrestler dies unexpectedly, it doesn’t make them better. Eddie was indeed a very good if not great wrestler, but based on the things you hear about him now, you would think he was Ric Flair. He’s more about the level of Randy Orton or so. However, the undisputed champion of this is ECW with Louie Spicolli.

He was the epitome of an ok if not decent wrestler that was all of a sudden great after he died from a drug overdose. He simply was not as good as people made him out to be. For all of you ECW marks out there, show me ONE very good Spicolli match. It doesn’t even have to be great.

Show me one time where he had a great match. What was my point here? Oh yeah. Eddie was very good, but he only became considered great after dying. “KB you don’t know anything. He won the world title!” Yeah well this is 2 days after TLC and Sheamus is world champion so the belt really doesn’t prove all that much does it?

JBL vs. Boogeyman

The idea here is that JBL is terrified of Boogey. Oh and Boogey bit the “mole” off of Jillian’s face. She’s his assistant here or something like that. My goodness JBL has fallen far since winning the world title less than two years before this. It continues to amuse me when someone like Boogeyman is weighed in. And now I’m annoyed. I’ve never liked the Boogeyman character for one reason: he makes a mockery of wrestling.

Now yes, there’s a lot of stupid characters and while I tend to dislike the majority of them, when they can have a decent match, it’s almost acceptable. Boogeyman couldn’t do that, so when he does stuff like eat worms, then spit them up and spit them down into Jillian’s mouth, I have no use for him at all. It continues to have stupidity attached to it as we have to hear about how disgusted the announcers are.

Seriously, the Four Horsemen are in the same business as this guy. That’s just ridiculous. Thankfully, this lasts about a minute and a half, as after a stupid brawl where Boogey sells nothing at all, JBL misses a Clothesline From JBL and somehow slams into the post in a completely awful looking spot. A pumphandle slam ends it.

Rating: F-. This would usually be an N/A, but this was just a complete and utter waste of time. Seriously, why did this need to happen? I know it took less than 5 minutes, but really, there was NOTHING else we could have used that for? I hate gimmicks like these, I truly do.

Vince hits on the girls more and you can see they hate it. Shelton’s mama shows up. This was a freaking stupid gimmick where Shelton’s mom showed up to make sure he was taken care of. It was some comedienne that no one has ever heard of in a fat suit. You figure out how well it worked. Melina shows up and gets hit on too. Mama prevents him from hitting on her.

MNM, Joey Mercury and Johnny “Morrison” Nitro show up to draw as well. Both seem fairly middle of the road with their numbers. Melina says they’ll eliminate Shawn. We finish this long segment off with more Vince hitting on the girls. They eventually became a stable called Vince’s Devils. Yeah it went nowhere.

Before the Rumble starts, we have the Spirit Squad. Now for those of you that weren’t around for these guys, they were male cheerleaders that won the tag titles from Kane and Big Show. Amazingly everyone said the only one with talent was Kenny Dykstra. The one known as Nick became known as Dolph Ziggler. What does that tell you? Lillian is jaw dropingly hot here.

Royal Rumble

Lillian flubbing her lines is somehow sexy. How is that possible? HHH is number one and Rey is number two. Well you certainly can’t say they’re using no names to start us out. This is big match that’s never happened before. Oh the intervals are 90 seconds here. Oh here we go Rey is driving a lowrider. HEY, WE GET IT ABOUT FREAKING EDDIE! I wouldn’t be so annoyed about it, but seriously, he brought up Eddie in the BATISTA feud.

Oh look he draped an Eddie shirt on the car. This is freaking ridiculous because it’s obvious Rey is going to win here for the sake of “honoring Eddie.” Rey’s entrance reaches Taker levels of time. He does the ten punches in the corner and looks up before he does it. This is freaking ridiculous and we’re just hitting number 3 which is Simon Dean. Cole, who is doing the commentary with Lawler, FREAKS because a Smackdown guy is attacking a Smackdown guy.

They team up and eliminate him easily. Have I mentioned that I hate the Bronco Buster? Psicosis of the Mexicools is 4th. They were a team of Mexican stereotypes who rode lawnmowers. I wish I was making that up. Rey counters a Razor’s Edge to put him out with ease again so we stay with those two guys. Number 5 is Flair of all people. He trips coming into the ring as Rey is down for no apparent reason.

Flair and HHH hammer on each other for awhile as I think HHH is a heel here. Oh yeah he would be. That was a stupid comment. He and Flair feuded over the IC belt of all things in some decent matches. You know for a guy that was allegedly the biggest ladies man ever, he used a lot of testicular claws. He’s gone soon after and we’re back at 2 people. Big Show is 6th so hopefully we get people in here for awhile.

He’s mad at HHH also, which is still going on today, which works as it’s been less than five years ago so a feud can easily go on that long. Naturally Show dominates here. With an eyeroll from me, Coach is number 7. Why did he always get spots in the Rumble? Show puts him out in about 30 seconds. Show demonstrates his intelligence by having HHH above his head twice and not even getting close to the ropes.

The announcers say that Coach might have set a record for shortest time in the Rumble. That’s so stupid I’m not even going to bother making fun of it. Lashley is 8th and they say he could be a dark horse. Can I get a rim shot? He’s a rookie phenomenon here, meaning that his career wouldn’t mean much since Vince refused to ever pull the trigger on him, even though he tried. In an impressive move, he gets a backdrop on Show as Kane, who is currently tag champions with Show, is 9th.

He and Lashley square off in a match of two guys that will never win a world title in WWE again. In a very impressive looking spot that wasn’t really that impressive, he hits the Dominator on Kane. Rey has been down WAY too long for no apparent reason. Sylvan, playing a gay character who doesn’t actually say he’s gay is 10th. He’s the fashion consultant or something. Yeah he’s gone in about 30 seconds.

Show and Kane hit a double chokeslam on Lashley and throw him out. So HHH and Rey are more or less just laying on the mat for about 5-6 minutes at a time which is again, stupid. HHH puts Kane and Big Show out, thus reaffirming his theory that he could out fight God if he had to.

Carlito is 11th, as other than the first two guys, no one has lasted 10 minutes yet. I really don’t like this theory of only having a few guys in there for the majority of the match. The Rumble should have about 6-7 guys in the ring for the majority of the match. It’s just right and it allows for things to not be too boring but also not too weak. Benoit is 12th as we’re picking up a bit.

He chops and suplexes the heck out of everyone just because he’s Chris Benoit and they’re not. Carlito gets a crossface for good measure as Benoit is freaking awesome. He and HHH fight over a suplex with Benoit on the apron which was cool looking if nothing else. The Canadian fights out of that and hits the headbutt on HHH so Carlito can get back up. Booker is 13th and the US Champion at the moment.

He’s wearing long tights which looks odd indeed. He would become king in a few months. Yep Booker is gone already, naturally by Benoit as those two were eternally joined at the hip for some reason. Apparently 20 minutes or so is a long time now. So the most we’ve had is what, 5 people I believe?

Mercury of MNM is 14th and since he brings Melina with him, he’s awesome. I love the way they carried the belts as they hung them from their pants so they swung between their legs. It’s original if nothing else. Mercury really is underrated in the ring. He’s a lot better than people realize. Cole brags about setting ratings records on UPN. That’s just hilarious. Tatanka is 15th to ZERO reaction.

He returned for a few months and no one, I mean NO ONE cared at all. His offense has somehow gotten even more generic if that’s possible which I didn’t think it was. The fans do the Florida St. Seminole chant to try to validate his entrance. Nitro is 16th. More commonly known as John Morrison if you’re not familiar. Tatanka beats on him, which somehow validated Matt Hardy and Tatanka vs. MNM on PPV in a non title match. You read that right.

The fans chant Eddie to just tick me off even more. Only Vince would manage to use death to push storylines. Trevor Murdoch is 17th. To recap we have HHH, Rey, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, Murdoch and for some reason Tatanka. Cole takes a lull to mention that Rey is dedicating this match to Eddie. Eugene is 18th, and is booed out of the freaking building. He’s a classic case of a comedy character being used badly.

Rey hurts him to get a solid pop. For the love of all goodness Animal of the LOD is 19th. Seriously, who picked these people? Oh apparently the new LOD are the long time rivals of MNM. You know, the team that’s been around for a few months. There are WAY too many people in there right now. RVD is 20th to a HUGE pop. Thankfully for the first time in history the company listened to the pop and made him world champion in June before he smoked his way out of the main event.

Oh yeah this was the summer that ECW returned. He cleans house of course. MNM is doing the Demolition thing of teaming up on everyone which is smart. Animal is out thank goodness. Orlando Jordan is 21st and I somehow manage to lose even more interest in this match. There are FAR too many people in the ring at the moment. Chavo is 22nd. Ok, him I have no problem with doing the pointing thing. There’s your difference between Chavo and Rey.

Chavo won a match with JBL on the Eddie tribute show, pointed to the sky a few times, and started using the frog splash. He’s mentioned Eddie a few times over the years, but for the most part he’s just said that he’s a Guerrero which he would have been no matter what. He had one angle with Rey over the Guerrero name, which made sense when you thought about it. That’s perfectly fine.

Then you have Rey, who used the splash, drove a lowrider, blew one up, pointed to the sky and dedicated about a year’s worth of matches to Eddie, using him as an angle and getting the world title because of it. He still mentions Eddie for storylines 4 years after Eddie passed away. There’s paying homage then there’s just being freaking ridiculous. What does Chavo get for being more humble about it? He lasts a minute here while Rey lasts an hour.

Of course Chavo shouldn’t have won or been in the last group or anything, but would 10-15 minutes have killed anyone? Seriously, Tatanka can get a long time but Chavo can’t? Matt Hardy is 23rd. There’s like 12 people in there right now and it’s absurd. You can’t see anything in there at the moment either. Tatanka FINALLY goes out as Super Crazy is 24th. What is the point of half these guys being in here?

Shawn is 25th to a nice pop. He gets pyro when he comes out which is odd in a Rumble match. He ends Murdoch to thin the ranks out a bit. Chris Masters, who is more or less a newcomer at this point, somehow gets pyro also at 26th. I’m not even bothering to try to tell who all is in there at this point. Nothing of note is happening anyway. Viscera, currently the world’s largest love machine is 27th.

He puts out the far more talented Matt Hardy, but not before giving him the Visagra, which is where the other guy is on his stomach and Viscera gets on top of them and gyrates his hips. Yeah it’s worse than it sounds. Shelton is in next along with his mother. This is somehow stupider than I thought it was going to be. Eugene is gone, leaving a huge pool of sweat on the mat beneath him.

They’re really speeding up the intervals here to get through this. Goldust, who is returning for like the 12th time is 29th. That leaves Orton as number 30. Rey puts Crazy out as Orton comes out last. Ok, so your final group is Rey, HHH, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, RVD, Jordan, Shawn, Masters, Viscera, Shelton, Goldust and Orton. Yeah that’s not too many people at all. Screw the sarcasm. YES IT’S TOO MANY PEOPLE!

Geez do you think 14, or just under half of the people being left at the end is enough? Why don’t we just get rid of the whole unique aspect of the freaking match and make it a regular battle royal like the classic World War 3 series that WCW used to do? Those things went great didn’t they? Blast it Vince how hard is it to book a freaking Rumble? You have about 7-8 guys in at the end, 5-6 of them are big names and two or three jobbers.

Three are legit contenders, three are dark horses, and two are jobbers. There, that took 8 seconds to come up with. Orton puts Benoit out which Cole says is a rematch from Summerslam two years ago. More like a year and a half but who cares about facts? Carlito and Masters put out Viscera and then Carlito throws out Masters. Goldust takes forever to set up Shattered Dreams but at least manages to kick that turnbuckle really well.

RVD puts him out just before Orton puts out Jordan. Shawn and HHH go at it to keep the balance of the universe in order. Shawn puts out both of MNM within 5 seconds of each other to further kill the tag division which HHH and Shawn are the current champions of as of this being written. Sweet Chin Music puts out Shelton as Shawn is on a roll. Vince’s music hits as he and Shawn were feuding at the moment. He distracts Shawn so Shane can put Shawn out.

That leaves us with Rey, HHH, Carlito, Orton and RVD. Well I’m glad they took their time getting rid of the people. Shawn goes after Shane but HHH stops him but gets chin music. HBK chases the McMahons out because he’s a face and they’re heels. Van Dam puts Carlito out to give us our final four of Rey, HHH, Orton and RVD. RVD was returning so he wasn’t going to win.

HHH and Orton were possible and Rey was the clear winner so there we go. They split off with HHH vs. Rey and Orton vs. RVD. The faces hit some nice double team stuff to hurt the heels. Van Dam shows how stupid he is by going for a Five Star and gets put out. Orton and HHH get together for no apparent reason other than to beat up a guy that’s 5’5. However, Rey is empowered by the memories of a guy that he feuded with so he takes them both down.

Orton fights HHH. Rey puts out HHH and it’s officially inevitable. Rey gets beaten up by HHH to just further make us take note of how awesome Rey is. Orton acts cocky and yeah Mysterio is going to Mania. Orton would get in and make it a triple threat where Rey would win the title and of course, dedicate it to Eddie since that’s all he’s allowed to do.

Rating: D. Eddie oversaturation aside, this Rumble sucked and it sucked hard. The booking was way off here as there were far too few guys in the ring at first and far too few in the end. The Rey thing annoys the heck out of me as people like to say RIP Eddie, yet they have zero problem with his history being exploited for the sake of bad storylines. Rey was passable as champion, but let him get there on his own and not because a guy died. That’s just stupid.

Other than that, WAY too many jobbers and fillers in there, which kind of reflects on the company as a whole. Seriously, why did Booker and Lashley stay in there for just a bit? To be fair, Booker was hurt so that might explain it. Either way, this match was awful in a lot of ways and I hated it quite a bit.

Rey is happy with his win.

We recap Cena vs. Edge, which was a result of the first cashing in of the Money in the Bank in a truly shocking moment. This was a huge thing as Cena was completely dominant and everyone was TICKED when he held the title again after the Elimination Chamber.

But when Vince’s music went on, everyone knew what was coming and it was awesome. Naturally Cena insisted on a rematch and talked about respect and having the title mean a lot to him. This was also the reign with the live sex celebration that apparently made Edge’s career better than Taker’s.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Edge

So the scaffolds from the ceiling begin to lower. Smoke and lights and pyro go off. Styles says it looks like a spaceship. Yep, Cena is getting a special entrance that of course looks awesome. More or less his feet are where the top of his head would be if he was walking normally. Yeah there’s nothing at all that’s being implied about who wins here at all. Lita of course looks completely amazing. If nothing else I’ve heard Edge’s theme live so that’s cool.

For the love of all goodness, change the spinner belt. The W is spun almost halfway around and it just looks stupid. It starts off with their standard stuff which is traditionally good. Cena starts off in control but thanks to Lita Edge hits a spear into the steps, which more or less proves that he desperately needs a new finisher. We go into the crowd for just a bit but it goes nowhere. Cena dives in to beat the ten count which if nothing else looked cool.

Edge goes old school with his spinning heel kick. Why is Joey Styles the only commentator that mentions the referee’s names consistently? Cena can sell really well if nothing else. Good night Lita’s chest is amazing. The announcers get into an interesting argument: who is the better technical wrestler? That’s a most interesting question that’s going to get a thread soon. Edge’s facials remain awesome as ever. The crowd is fairly loudly booing John here.

Edge chokes Cena so of course despite being put in a hold that should kill him or would end any MMA fight, he gets up with ease. Both guys are down so we get another few shots of Lita’s chest to fill time. Following some botched interference from the hot chick, the FU and STFU give Cena the belt again. That was abrupt.

Rating: B. Eh, this was what it was. Cena and Edge work together just fine so their matches are almost always passable. Edge was more or less given the title as a test run and that’s fine. He got his name in there and that’s what counts. Cena was definitely the right choice to have the belt going into Mania so I have no issues with the booking here. The match was fine and it came off well. It’s nothing great but it’s fine for a title change that goes 15 minutes.

In case you were wondering, Rey is still happy that he won.

We do a very quick, as in about 10 second long recap of Angle vs. Henry, which consists of Henry breaking the ankle lock, which had been done by about 15 people up to this point, but it’s impressive here because of POWER. Angle was a transitional champion if there ever was one.

He took over when Batista got hurt (shocking isn’t it?) so he’s held the title less than three weeks at this point. Angle does his usual solid promo and then comes back to tell Henry he sucks. That’s what makes Angle better than most. He would head to TNA later in the year and be a huge coup for TNA.

Smackdown World Title: Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry

So Daivari used to hang out with Angle but he dumped him for Henry for no apparent reason. Soon after this Khali would show up. Yeah Angle is introduced as the new World Heavyweight Champion here. That’s the beauty of having guys like Angle or Shawn on your roster.

If something like an injury happens, you can throw the title on them for a quick fix and because they hang around the upper midcard with occasional main event matches, it’s perfectly believable to put the belt on them and no one really had a problem with Angle as champion. We get a fairly long feeling out period, but Henry catches Angle in position for the World’s Strongest Slam. Naturally though instead of slamming him though, he throws him to the floor.

More or less Henry beats the heck out of Angle for awhile as you would expect. Good night Henry you’ve been in the company ten years at this point. Don’t you think it’s time you learned some new offense? I mean really, we know you can slam, club, punch and squeeze. LEARN ANYTHING NEW. Angle gets a bad German, but to be fair, look what he’s working with. Angle Slam gets two. Henry powers out of the ankle lock using the same counter that everyone else uses to knock the referee down.

Angle gets a bad chair shot to Daivari and takes it into the ring. The chair is bent which always looks cool. Angle goes Hogan and cheats but remains a face. Two decent chair shots put Henry down but the fans are more or less dead here. They of course get two which gets a decent pop. I really don’t get the point of the chairs this early in the match. Angle pulls the turnbuckle pad off the middle turnbuckle and sends Henry’s head into it on a reversal for the pin. Really? That’s the best you’ve got?

Rating: D-. I have no freaking clue what they were going for here, but it was just an epic failure. Henry had no business being in there but he came off looking like a far bigger face than Angle did. It was really short, and I have no idea what the point was of this main eventing the show. Oh wait. Now I get it.

A gong goes off and the lights go purple. Ok, Taker has druids and a horse drawn chariot. That makes up for the main event. He signals that he wants the belt and sets off lightning. The ropes fall to the ground and the ring collapses as Angle holds the belt to his chest as we go off the air. Ok, that was freaking cool.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a very lackluster show. I know a lot of people will love the Eddie tributes etc. but I HATED them. One or two points to the sky and some frog splashes are just fine but seriously, giving the Rumble and ultimately the world title to a guy over Eddie? That’s WAY too much. Other than that, there’s just nothing special here at all. Edge and Cena is pretty easily the match of the night.

This show really was more about setting up for the future though, as Cena had to get the belt back and Angle had to get set up with Taker, which they managed to accomplish both. This really started setting the table for Mania, so that’s fine, but the show just wasn’t that interesting. Not recommended at all really, although some people might like it.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: June 18, 2001
Location: Ice Palace, Tampa, Florida
Attendance: 10,264
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

It’s the go home show for King of the Ring and that’s about all we’ve got for that show. The tournament gets set tonight I think and we have a main event, but other than that I don’t remember anything being made for the card. The Invasion would get its first big name at that PPV though, so at least there’s that. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is from Smackdown with Austin trying to get a petition together to present to Linda that says the triple threat is unfair. Spike ripped it up when Austin called Molly a bimbo, resulting in Spike getting a world title shot.

Dudleys/Austin vs. Canadians/Spike later. Now this is where things get confusing. That’s what the graphic says, but JR says it’s just Dudleys vs. Canadians for the titles. Oh boy. I wonder who’s getting fired over this one. Now the Dudleys would indeed get a title match later this week on Smackdown (and they’d win the belts), but that’s not what we saw on the screen.

We open with Spike and Molly of all people. Spike talks about how he’s shocked to have been in this ring and gotten to wrestle for the WWF Title and that could have been his moment in the sun. However, Austin had to go after Molly after that, so Spike calls out Austin. Heyman’s reaction is very funny.

Austin and Spike introduce themselves and Austin says he’s not going to be called out by someone like Spike. Spike says he just did and Austin starts to walk away. Spike asks the fans and they want to see it for the title. Austin still says no but says Spike has guts. No one else would, but Molly is still a bimbo. Spike: “YOU TAKE THAT BACK!” Molly slaps Austin and Heyman erupts. Austin looks….happy? That earned Molly respect so Austin sticks his hand out. Spike shakes it and Austin pulls him but doesn’t attack. Molly however gets a Stunner though.

During the break, the Dudleys didn’t seem mad.

Molly is getting looked at and the Dudleys show up. They praise Spike for standing up for himself. However, they want to know what’s wrong with a picture when Spike has been here three months and has gotten a title shot while they’ve gotten zero in a year and a half. Spike says he’ll do something about it.

Now the graphic says the titles are on the line in the main event. Interesting.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Kurt Angle vs. Jeff Hardy

This would be a TNA PPV main event today, almost 11 years later. Angle snaps off a quick German and Jeff is in trouble. He goes after the leg but Jeff speeds things up and we go to the floor where Jeff runs the railing into a clothesline. Angle hits the release German this time but the Slam is countered. A jawbreaker looks to set up the Swanton but Kurt rolls away before Jeff jumps. The moonsault is as gorgeous as ever but Kurt misses, allowing Jeff to hit the Swanton for two. Jeff goes up but gets pulled down into the ankle lock for the tap out.

Rating: B-. What the heck was that??? Jeff Hardy is a midcard guy on his best day in 2001 but this was AWESOME. Well, awesome all things considered. I mean it was just a three minute match but they cranked out a very fun match here, especially when you consider where Jeff was on the ladder at this point. Jeff’s best match ever might have been with Kurt in 2010 so this isn’t really shocking.

Austin needs someone to talk to who understands him. His wife, Debra, volunteers. Austin: “I said someone that understands me.” Debra says understands about titles because she used to be champion. Austin laughs and Debra is hurt.

Tajiri and Regal are talking about the tournament which Tajiri is in when Austin enters. Spike asked for a match with him and Regal made the aforementioned six man, saying the title match will wait for tomorrow. Austin says he’ll do it but he needs someone to talk to and he picks….Tajiri? Regal is confused but goes along with it and leaves.

Tough Enough commercial. Josh Matthews is I believe the only one left from that season.

Tazz, one of the Tough Enough trainers, says that there’s a preview at WWF New York. Hardcore Holly comes up to make fun of him and a match is made.

Kane is at WWF New York…and he’s playing a crane game to win prizes. He doesn’t win so he breaks the glass and steals a bunch which he gives to a kid. You know, I watched a Raw earlier today and Kane was about to win the world title from Austin. The last thing I expected him to do was play a crane game to win prizes. Just throwing that out there.

We recap the Undertaker’s wife stalker thing with Sara being stalked. That’s about it.

Taz vs. Hardcore Holly

The entrances are cut off by a new stalker video of the stalker watching Taker and his wife leaving their house. She almost comes into what I guess is a garage where he is but doesn’t. The voice says tonight he’ll reveal himself. Back to the match. Holly starts out fast with his usual stuff and drops a top rope leg for two. Taz comes back but walks into a powerslam. And there’s the Tazmission out of nowhere to end this.

Austin explains how Linda McMahon is ruining his life. Tajiri replies in Japanese as Austin rants against women. Austin thanks him for the talk and bows to him. Regal comes in and says that Tajiri is up next. Funny stuff at least.

Christian isn’t happy that he has to face Big Show and teases tension with Edge. Angle breaks it up.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Rhyno vs. Tajiri

The winner gets the winner of Edge vs. Saturn. Lillian sounded a step off on the announcing for some reason. Rhyno takes over with power but Tajiri ranas him down and they go to the floor. Back in a spinebuster gets two for Rhyno. Tajiri hits the handspring elbow which is always cool. There’s an Octopus Hold which he shifts into the Tarantula. Buzzsaw kick misses and Rhyno powerbombs him half through the ring. Rhyno loads up the Gore but Tajiri KICKS HIS FREAKING HEAD OFF to counter. Tajiri goes up for some reason but jumps into a Gore for the pin.

Rating: C+. Not as good as the opener but that ending was very good stuff. There’s something awesome about seeing Tajiri just kick the tar out of people and also seeing Rhyno blast someone with a Gore. This was very entertaining and the show is on a roll to start so far.

Post break Regal GOES OFF on Regal. I mean there’s a vein coming out of his head.

Here’s Taker…..or not. It’s the Stalker as Taker is in Houston. He immediately unmasks and it’s Diamond Dallas Page to an ERUPTION. Yep they’re cheering a crazy stalker. He says Taker never saw this coming, just like a Diamond Cutter. Page talks about doing this because he wanted to make an impact, so he went after the biggest dog in the yard.

A few weeks ago, Taker went off on Austin for mentioning Taker’s family. Taker said he’d make Austin famous if he tried that. “You idiot, Steve Austin is already famous!” He says Taker is a liar for some reason so he wants to be famous and he wants to use Taker to get him there. He’ll be at King of the Ring. Security chases him off. Ross tries to tie it into the Invasion but it only kind of works.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Edge vs. Perry Saturn

Saturn is nuts still. We get a clip from a double date on Thursday and Saturn took another shot to the head. See it’s funny because he has brain damage and might go psycho and murder his wife and children before killing himself. Get it? Saturn starts fast and pops Christian but walks into an Edge-O-Matic for two. Edge is in control but Saturn grabs a crucifix for two. Edge goes up but jumps into a belly to belly suplex. Fisherman’s suplex gets two. Christian gets kicked in the face and the Impaler ends Saturn.

Rating: D+. Not great but WAY down from what we had been seeing so far tonight. Edge would be about to start his singles push which didn’t really stop for the rest of his career. Saturn just kept getting hit in the face until he found a mop that he liked better than Terri and that was about it.

Vince arrives, over halfway through the show.

Foley was on Regis and…..Tony Danza?

European Title: Matt Hardy vs. Albert

Albert was in the middle of pretty much the push of his life and he runs over Matt to start. A splash misses though and Matt can keep hitting and running. Matt jumps into a gorilla press attempt which he escapes and hits a running tornado DDT for two. Paul: “Albert is the Rabbi of Retribution.” JR: “Oy vey.” Albert destroys him until he chokes too long for a DQ. Weak.

Pac and Credible run in and hit a double superkick. Jeff runs in and takes them both down. Lita hits the usual gorgeous top rope rana. Albert gets back in it and destroys everyone.

Vince is with Austin and Austin feels good. Austin is getting in touch with his feelings and Vince isn’t wild on it. Austin rants about the divorce and says pick Austin or Linda.

During the break Vince left.

Spike thanks the Canadians for helping Molly last week. Benoit goes off on him, talking about how this wasn’t about him at all. And then they crack up laughing.

Edge and Rhyno get into an argument over who should be #1 contender if they win the tournament. Christian comes in and whines again.

King of the Ring Quarterfinals: Big Show vs. Christian

Angle is on commentary. Christian jumps him and just guess how well that goes. Edge tries to interfere which goes about as well. Show destroys him but they go to the announce table and Angle gets shoved for running his mouth. An Angle distraction allows the Conchairto to end Show and Christian puts all of Team RECK in the final four.

Steve Austin/Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley/Chris Benoit/Chris Jericho

Jericho vs. Bubba to start things off. Ray uses power to start but runs into the speed of Jericho. Off to Benoit and D-Von and the Canadian hits a German on the Dudley. Spike comes in with a double stomp and a rana to have D-Von in trouble. Here comes Austin to pound on Spike. Things finally calm down as Spike remembers he’s Spike and Austin remembers he’s Austin and the beating begins.

Austin calls for some tables but isn’t happy when they come out for some reason. Back to Bubba after Austin freaks due to getting rolled up for two. Bubba loads up What’s Up and both Austin and D-Von go up at the same time. That’s rather awesome. The middle rope backsplash misses and there’s the tag to Benoit. Everything breaks down and D-Von is sent through a table by Jericho.

Dudley Dog to Bubba and it’s time for the Canadian to hit Rolling Germans on the American. The Swan Dive misses though and Austin takes over. A Dudley Dog attempt results in Spike going through a table and Austin grabs a chair. Jericho comes back in for the save and we get the insanely awesome Walls of Crossface double submission to make Austin tap. Hebner asks about 4 times before calling for the bell.

Rating: C+. This was fine for a six man main event and most importantly, it made Jericho and Benoit look like a legit threat for the championship. Until then it was a bunch of fluke victories in tag matches. This was good stuff though as Austin looked like he was about to snap in that double hold.

Overall Rating: B. With all of the good to very good matches tonight, this was a pretty awesome Raw. Throw in that with the comedy from Austin and Vince and how can you go wrong? The DDP thing would be pretty underwhelming on Sunday but that’s life. Also very little mention of Angle vs. Shane, but the focus was on the tournament so that’s ok. Good show here.

Here’s King of the Ring if you’re interested:

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Smackdown
Date: September 26, 2002
Location: San Diego Sport Center, San Diego, California
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

This is another request and the last one for awhile I think. It’s the first show after Unforgiven and we have two main events here: Rey vs. Benoit vs. Angle and what I believe is the blowoff to Edge vs. Eddie in a No DQ match. This is the time when Smackdown was straight up awesome and Raw…uh…wasn’t. After a pretty weak Raw I just did this should be a nice breath of air. Let’s get to it.

We open with a video from Unforgiven where Stephanie was supposed to perform HLA (Hot Lesbian Action) with two good looking chicks but instead Eric made it be some fat chick who was Rikishi. Eric wound up getting a Stink Face.

Rikishi vs. Chavo Guerrero

Chavo beat Rikishi in a tag match last week by hitting him with a camera. He stalls to start (does that make sense?) and jumps Rikishi as they come back in. Chavo jumps into a choke though and Rikishi starts using the power. A knee blocks the splash in the corner and Chavo hammers away a bit. Rikishi hits the post and Chavo tries a Stinkface. Just guess how well that goes. Rikishi sets for one of his own but Chavo moves. The Banzai Drop gets knees and Chavo goes for the camera. It gets superkicked into his face and the Banzai ends this.

Rating: D+. This was fine. It closed whatever little story they had here and it gave them both something to do for two weeks. Little feuds like that used to be more common and they could be used more often. Not all the time or anything but for something quick like this it was fine.

Rikishi dances a bit.

Time for a bikini contest between Torrie and Nidia. Billy and Chuck are the judges for no apparent reason. Nidia is in sneakers of course and drops her gum which she puts back in her mouth. She gets a six from Chuck and a 9 from Billy. Hahaha. Torrie is her usual self and gets a perfect score. Billy and Chuck get in to congratulate Torrie and here are Noble and Tajiri to protest. Tag match ahoy!

Jamie Noble/Tajiai vs. Billy/Chuck

Billy and Chuck are in street clothes. What street that is I’m not sure. Adrian maybe? Billy and Tajiri get started. I don’t remember Tajiri being a heel but he and his partner go after Billy’s knee. Handspring elbow puts Billy down and a big kick gets two. Noble tries to cannonball down onto the leg but Billy kicks him to the floor. Billy still can’t tag as Tajiri knocks Palumbo to the floor. Noble hooks a unique leg lock on Billy’s bad knee.

Can we just watch Torrie slap the mat in that bikini again? Tajiri gets in some shots as we hear about the exclusive contracts between the brands, including Orton being signed to Raw. He was a young cocky heel at this point. I wonder what ever happened to him. Billy manages to get in a kick to Noble and a flapjack allows for the hot tag. Chuck cleans house and tries a powerbomb but Tajiri counters into a victory roll attempt. Chuck holds him in place though and Code Red (Doomsday Device) ends this.

Rating: C. Fine match here and when you throw something together inside of 30 seconds that’s as good as you can ask for. Billy and Chuck had some good chemistry and it worked here. I miss random showdowns like these or the first match and they work pretty well most pf the time, especially when you have talented people in there.

Funaki (POP??) goes to talk to Brock. Funaki is terrified and asks if Taker gets a rematch. Brock says he’ll answer it in the ring, which excites Funaki way too much.

Stephanie is in her office when Kurt comes in. Angle talks about how great things are with the whole Bischoff thing. He wants a rematch with Benoit and Steph says she has a different idea for the main event. Rey pops in and Angle makes a child labor law joke. Triple threat is made with Benoit being added in.

Here’s Funaki for the interview with Brock. Funaki comes out with the chair that Taker half killed Lesnar with at the PPV. He asks Brock about the chair and Brock isn’t happy. Funaki tries to defend himself and the beating is great. The belly to belly literally had Funaki sailing through the air in a free fall. I miss the F5.

Torrie is in the back and Dawn Marie makes fun of her. Is there a point to this?

Eddie Guerrero vs. Edge

No DQ here. My goodness was Edge over at this point. Eddie takes over quickly as they go fast paced. Edge is cool with that and a monkey flip sends Eddie into the ropes. Eddie gets in a shot and a slingshot guillotine for two. The crowd is way into this too. Off to an armbar by the Canadian but Eddie hits an enziguri to take over. Off to a chinlock by Eddie but Edge reverses and hits a scoop powerslam to break the momentum.

Edge goes up but gets caught in a superplex for two. Eddie knocks him to the floor but Edge finds a ladder. Oh dear. The referee goes down via a ladder shot and Eddie pops Edge with a chair. Not that it matters due to the rules but it’s such an Eddie thing to do. A chair shot to the ribs keeps Edge down but the Frog Splash misses. Everyone is down and we take a break.

Back with Eddie stomping Edge down in the corner. There’s a sleeper by Eddie as the referee that took the ladder shot is carried out. Gee I’m certainly glad he got his care in due time. Edge got a very long two off a spear during the break. He goes up again but Eddie snaps off a rana (leg scissors according to Cole) to take over. Guerrero tries to run up the corner for another rana but Edge counters into a sitout powerbomb and both guys are down.

Edge brings in the ladder but Eddie dropkicks it into him. Eddie brings in a second ladder to sandwich Edge between a pair of them. A slingshot hilo looks to have killed the Canadian but since he can’t immediately cover it only gets two. Eddie climbs a ladder and Edge goes after him. After Guerrero rams Edge’s head into the ladder a few times, it’s a PERFECT sunset bomb to kill Edge even more. That looked AWESOME.

Somehow it only gets two. The crowd is way into it as they certainly should be. Eddie sets Edge in front of the ladder in the corner but his charge is countered into a backdrop into the ladder and both guys are down again. They go up to a ladder in the other corner and Edge slams Eddie’s head into the top of the ladder just like Eddie did a few moments before. He loads up an Edgecution and KILLS Eddie with a DDT off the ladder into the middle of the ring for the pin to finally end this.

Rating: A. And this is why Smackdown is better than Raw in 2002. This was about a BRAWL and two guys destroying each other rather than “how many times can we have Flair save HHH’s title while he has the same boring match over and over again”. Great stuff and the fans loved it the whole way through.

Eddie gets a standing ovation as he leaves.

Benoit is congratulated by that idiot Marc Lloyd for his great win on Sunday. Benoit: “YOU SUCK!” That was awesome, but he’s only talking about what the fans chant at Angle. He says he’ll win tonight.

Matt Hardy brags to Shannon Moore about making Undertaker run away. Shannon points out the Lesnar factor in that but Matt takes full credit for it. Matt leaves and Brock is watching.

Video on Wrestlemania which is coming to Seattle.

Undertaker vs. Matt Hardy

Matt offers a handshake which Taker accepts, although he uses it to whip Matt into the corner. Let the pain begin. Matt gets in a few shots but tries a Twist of Fate which just ticks the big man off. Chokeslam kills Hardy but it’s the Last Ride that gets the pin. Just s squash.

Lesnar runs in post match and blasts Taker with the belt. A second shot keeps Taker down and he’s busted open.

Taker is stumbling around in the back and looking for Lesnar.

Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Christ Benoit

Before the others come out, Kurt implies Rey is an illegal alien. Apparently most of San Diego is also. Brawl to start with Rey jumping all over the place. Rana gets a fast two on Benoit. Kurt throws him to the floor though so the amateur guys can go to the mat. In a funny bit, Rey tries to get back in but Kurt knocks him back and heads to the mat again with Benoit.

Ankle lock is countered quickly and Rey is back in. This is one of those matches that is going way too fast to keep up with. Angle is knocked to the floor and Benoit hits a belly to back for two on Rey. Mysterio is pretty much brand new at this point so his legs are still in one piece. Well one piece per leg that is. Mysterio is sent outside and Angle comes back in to take over again.

Benoit and Angle have their usual intense and back and forth mini-match with the Canadian hitting Rolling Germans on the American. Angle Slam takes Benoit down but Rey pops up with a missile dropkick to steal a cover on Benoit, getting two. Angle pulls Rey to the floor but walks into another German so Chris can take over. Rey comes back in with another missile dropkick to knock Benoit to the floor. Kurt launches Rey to the floor but onto Benoit again.

The two bigger guys go at it even more and Benoit gets caught in an ankle lock. They go to the ropes and it’s a double 619. West Coast Pop to Angle is countered but Rey counters the counter into a sunset flip for two. Angle gets caught in the Crossface but Kurt escapes. When he kicks Chris off, Rey rolls him up for two. Benoit Germans Angle to the floor but gets caught in a spinning springboard West Coast Pop (NOT A LEG SCISSORS YOU IDIOT COLE!) for the pin on Benoit. That ending was awesome!

Rating: B+. Another great match here as this was the signature of Smackdown for about the next four months: guys going out there and having great fast paced matches where the young dudes got to tear the house down. They would add Edge into this at No Mercy and have the match of the year for the Smackdown tag titles. Great stuff here.

Overall Rating: A. The first part wasn’t great, but when you get two great matches on one show like this, it’s an automatic classic show. Smackdown was totally feeling it at this point while Raw just got worse and worse every passing month. Lesnar would turn face in a few months as for some reason Big Show got the title but that’s another story. Great show here and one of the better ones I can ever remember.

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Announced on Raw.  Another inductee coming later tonight.

Thoughts on this?

No Mercy 1999
Date: October 17, 1999
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 18,742
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Still trying to finish the millennium by Monday with this and Armageddon to go. The main event here is Austin vs. HHH for the title which I would think needs no explanation. That’s not the important thing here though. The important thing here is the final match in the Terri Invitational Tournament, which is a best of 5 series between Edge and Christian and the Hardys.

This one however, is a ladder match. Also here we have the Good Housekeeping match which ends Chyna vs. Jarrett and has a cool story behind it. Let’s get to it as we have two shows left.

The opening video is about HHH being nuts lately which wouldn’t kick into high gear until the Rumble with the street fight vs. Cactus. The idea here is that neither Austin nor HHH will have any mercy. Wow that’s just riveting isn’t it?

Much like a modern show, we jump right into the first match.

Godfather vs. Mideon

The girls look better than normal which isn’t saying much. Apparently Godfather is mad at Mideon over something from Smackdown and Vince threw this match on the card about 20 minutes ago. Ok then. I never realized how annoying Godfather was back in the day. The Ministry more or less was just these two at this point. That made no sense so far. Viscera is with Mideon. Godfather had been IC Champion in April of this year for no apparent reason.

The main event is no holds barred now. Good to know. That makes more sense if nothing else. Viscera keeps the Ho Train from starting, which is good as it’s an idiotic move to begin with. Yeah I could care less about this match if you couldn’t tell. Everyone in this match is rather annoying yet kept getting jobs for no apparent reason out of this. This is just boring. Is this supposed to get the crowd into the show or something? It’s putting me to sleep and we’re ten minutes in.

Why is this still going on? It’s not interesting, it’s not any good, the crowd isn’t into it, so let’s let it keep on going. Sure why not. To be fair though, this is on first so I won’t remember it in an hour. Ho Train connects and he rolls Mideon up for the pin. Uh ok sure. And as usual Tim White dances with the girls.

Rating: F+. Seriously, what was the point here? I get that they needed to fill in some time but they couldn’t have split up the time and given it to the other matches instead? The ladder match couldn’t have gotten two or three of this and a long promo gotten the rest? I completely fail to see the point in this but at least it’s over. Horrible choice for an opener but I guess it’s best to get it out of the way now and not later on.

We go back to Smackdown where a very injured looking HHH talks to Austin. It’s pretty clearly makeup and yep it’s fake as he beats up Austin. We then throw it to an interview from Heat where HHH brags about what he did.

Wait…if we’re supposed to believe Austin got jumped because he thought HHH was beaten up by Austin (as in HHH told Austin that Austin beat him up), wouldn’t Austin have known better? What sense does that make? Did a match get canceled or something? This was nearly 5 minutes of just talking.

Ah wait we’re not done yet. Ivory doesn’t care about Fabulous Moolah. Moolah has a title shot tonight. She’s 76 years old at this point. Sure why not?

Women’s Title: Fabulous Moolah vs. Ivory

Mae is with her of course. This was when the women’s division was about as boring as you could possibly imaging so this very well may have been the best they could think of. Ivory has a nice figure if nothing else. Dang that’s something I didn’t notice before. Ok I have a reason to pay attention now. Seriously though, this is ok? No one sees anything wrong with this at all?

Having a woman who was in her 20s in World War II being in a wrestling match in 1999 is fine now? Mae breaks up a pin and Moolah gets thrown to the floor. Ok this is officially stupid. Mae gets knocked to the floor. I don’t care if they say they can do this. It’s not something you should allow them to do. If you’re Vince you say no to them. That’s all there is to it. I mean Moolah is taking bumps out there. This is ridiculous.

And now Mae takes a belt shot to the head and falls from the apron to the floor. Moolah wins the title on a horrible looking rollup. This is idiotic and thankfully it’s over. She would lose the title 8 days later to Ivory, making this totally pointless.

Rating: F. No. This is not acceptable. This is nothing but irresponsible. I don’t care if they’re ok with it or anything like that. Vince, you should never have let them in the ring no matter what. This is ridiculous and not right on any level. I hate stuff like this as it’s dangerous and not needed. Don’t have a title match or whatever, but do not do this ever.

HHH is ticked that it’s no holds barred as he thought Austin would get disqualified.

New Age Outlaws vs. Hardcore Holly/Crash Holly

The Outlaws are way over here. They lost the titles to the Rock N Sock Connection a few days ago on Smackdown. Man that was a huge show Thursday night. The Hollies cost them the belts. I guess this was a feud or something at the time. Wait…if the Hollies were fighting them here anyway, why try to cost them the belts? That makes NO SENSE. Can we listen to some Hollies songs instead of watching this match?

It never ceases to amaze me how much praise this era gets yet we’re half an hour into the show and THIS is so far and away the match of the night it’s scary. Road Dogg is very over here. Ah yeah we’re in the super heavyweights era here. Oh and Fink is now the property of Curtis Hughes, as he’s now working for Jericho. Ok then. Holly gets a British Bulldogesque suplex on Road Dogg.

I can’t get over how popular the Outlaws and in particular the canine half of them are. This match is ok. That’s all it is: just ok. There’s nothing that great about it or anything but it’s ok I guess. Again, by far the match of the night at this point. The crowd is hot too. Yep this was supposed to be for the belts so the Hollies cost the Outlaws the belts. Sure why not. Gunn has been in for all of a minute. I wonder what he’s on tonight.

Yeah he’s carrying this team. Road Dogg that is. What was the appeal of Gunn anyway? Dogg was better in the ring and on the mic. Oh that’s right: he didn’t look good or anything so let’s go with the drug addict instead. Oh and he can do press slams. We’ll ignore the fact that he blew every push you ever gave him. A Fameasser on a chair gives the match to the Hollies by DQ. They would win the tag titles the next night.

Rating: D+. This was pretty weak. There’s nothing worth mentioning here. Other than the long paragraph I wrote about it just a few minutes ago of course. Just a standard TV match here without a finish. Again though: best match of the night so far.

We recap Chyna vs. Debra which was actually a solid feud. The deal was Jarrett was talking down to women and had the match won at the last PPV. A substitute referee reversed it though. She has her rematch tonight in a Good Housekeeping match where household objects are allowed as weapons.

Now for the interesting part of this. This match is, among other reasons, the main reason why Jarrett was thrown out of the WWF and told never to come back. In other words, TNA wouldn’t be around if not for this match. The thing was, this had been built up for months at this point. This more or less was the 3rd biggest match on the card. You could argue the 2nd biggest. One problem: Jarrett’s contract expired Saturday night or Friday or whenever.

Point is: he wasn’t under contract for Sunday and was the IC Champion. Vince has a major problem and Jarrett realizes it. So, Jarrett says pay him somewhere around $400,000 or he’s not showing up. He had Vince over a barrel so he got paid. The thing is, Jarrett did nothing wrong whatsoever. Vince messed up here.

He didn’t realize that he had a major issue coming up and he just let it go. Jarrett utilized supply and demand. There was a very high demand for his services and a small supply. He used simple economics and charged Vince a very high price tag for it. Not a thing wrong with it at all. Also, how many times do people get the better of Vince? I love that.

Intercontinental Title: Chyna vs. Jeff Jarrett

Remember this is more or less a weapons match with certain weapons only. Chyna, the liberated woman, is wearing a thong. Sure why not. Miss Kitty is amazing looking of course so that’s no shock. This is a glorified comedy match but that’s working for something like this as it fits the storyline pretty well. Chyna shoves a banana in Jarrett’s face while he has a toilet seat around his neck. See what I’m dealing with here?

All Chyna so far here until she misses an elbow from the apron through a table. She broke the salami that was on the table. Apparently this is falls count anywhere as well. Jarrett hits her in the back with a fish. Ok then. Chyna beats up Miss Kitty but gets caught in the figure four, which was Jarrett’s finisher at the time. Ah there are the ropes. Jarrett comes off the second rope and the tongs he has wind up on his balls.

We’ve got pies. You might notice there is no sort of wrestling or flow to this at all. Don’t bother looking for it as this is a glorified comedy match. Kitchen sink shot gets two. There goes the referee. Who says the late 90s were overbooked? Chyna takes the title to the face…and gets pinned? Apparently so.

BUT WAIT!

The referee says the IC Title isn’t a household item so he can’t use it for the pin. Chyna blasts him with a guitar and that’s ok for the pin and the title. Ok then. Kitty leaves with Chyna, leading to a weird semi-lesbian angle without ever saying that’s what it was.

Rating: C-. Not really a match but it ended the angle in a way that fit perfectly. I’m ok with that as it at least made sense. This was a solid blowoff to the match so that’s all I can ask for I guess. Jarrett would be in WCW in like a day or so.

We recap Bulldog vs. Rock. Bulldog cost Rock the world title a few times and no one bought Bulldog in the main event anymore so this is your final match in it. Oh and Rock cost Bulldog the title too. Yeah it sucked.

Rock vs. British Bulldog

Wow that video took way too long. Sweet goodness Bulldog was worthless at this point. As JR put it, how many times can you repackage a guy like him? Rock is a tag champion here as the belts get killed more and more every day as we wait on the trio of saviors to breathe life into them for a bit. And he had no title here for no apparent reason. Dang it we have to hear about Stephanie’s injury from Rebellion AGAIN???

The perk of those shows is YOU NEVER HEAR ABOUT THEM. In case you haven’t read my review of that show, SCREW YOU. Kidding. The idea was that Bulldog wanted a title shot there and didn’t get one so he threw a trash can and it hit Stephanie, injuring her. They would not shut up about it for the rest of the night. It drove me freaking insane hearing about it but it was so important I guess. Anyway let’s get to the match.

It’s a brawl of course all over the floor and into various things. The vertical suplex sucks here. Holly did it about 10x better earlier today. And it’s chinlock time. They botch a Samoan Drop but it looked like a back body drop so that’s ok. This just isn’t that good. The powerslam gets two and no one cares. Bulldog has no heat at all and it’s just pitiful. Powerslam #2 is countered and Rock Bottom and People’s Elbow ends it clean. What the heck was that?

Rating: D. Seriously, what the heck was that? This was like 7 minutes and Rock was never once in anything close to trouble. Bulldog hit his finisher and no one cared. This was a joke and the definition of an abortion of a feud and a push.

Terri explains how to win a ladder match while Lawler looks up her skirt. She’s not that hot, period.

Edge/Christian vs. Hardy Boys

They’re the New Brood here but you get the idea. The winner gets $100,000 and Terri. This is the night where these four broke through to the other side and changed the company for more or less ever. Keep in mind, none of the spots you’re about to see have ever been seen in the company before so this is all new stuff. What you have here is four guys being told to go out there and just do it. I’ve long since thought this WWF’s answer to the cruiserweights.

This is the Terri Invitational Tournament. Spell it out for yourselves. We start on the floor and this should be awesome. It’s a fight to get to the ladders. I’ve never gotten why you need to get to the ladder first. It’s not like that means you win or anything. I remember in War Games 2000 in WCW you had to get the belt down and leave with it. Kevin Nash just stood at the door. He didn’t have to do anything but leave with the belt, so why risk getting hurt to go up there and get it?

Let someone else do the work. First ladder is brought in and down goes Edge. The reactions to this are great. The fans are gasping at every spot which is what you want: to get the crowd excited. We’ve been in this match maybe four minutes and it’s already way ahead of the rest of the show. Oh Gangrel was thrown out. Swanton to Edge onto a ladder. Looking back this isn’t that great by comparison but it’s still very fun.

You have to keep in mind that there is nothing to compare it to at the moment. This is the first multi-man ladder match so this is just mind blowing. Also it’s the first time that there isn’t a big man like Ramon in there. These guys are designed for matches like this and it’s working really well. Edge is almost there and Matt just chucks a ladder at him. That was cool.

Matt’s crotch gets crushed. You know, it occurs to me that in storyline, Matt and Edge dated Lita, in the Christian/Jericho and Lita/Trish angle it was Christian and Lita and Jeff and Lita had a small thing once Matt was gone. Man that girl gets around. Everyone is down now as Christian takes a Twist of Fate. Second ladder is set up. Jeff takes a Downward Spiral from the ladder.

The great thing about a ladder is that while most of the spots are from about the level of the second rope, having a ladder involved makes it seem cooler. The see-saw spot debuts and Christian and Matt get slammed in the face with it. These things never get old. The look on Edge’s face with him laying on his back with his eyes open is great. All four go up at once and all four come down with all four landing on the ropes.

Crowd is going crazy mind you. The roof camera view is pretty awesome actually. Edge climbs one ladder, Christian and Jeff climb another. Matt slams the ladder with two guys into the other ladder so Edge falls. Jeff jumps from one ladder to the other and knocks Edge off to grab the money. SWEET ENDING.

Rating: A. Just yes. This is the reason to see this PPV. This match just changed the WWF forever as they set the standard for awesome matches with ladders. The fans ate this up like no other and it still definitely holds up today. Just a great match.

Edge and Christian get a standing ovation too. They deserve it.

Mankind tries to find Rock. He slips Rock a copy of his autobiography in the bathroom then runs into him in the hall. Rock hates Mankind at the time mind you but they’re tag champions. The chemistry was great though. For no apparent reason, Val Venis beats up Mankind in the bathroom. Ok then. They have a match apparently. That makes sense. That was on Heat I guess.

Here’s Rock though. He wants the title shot at Survivor Series. Sweet goodness this man was popular. As he’s leaving HHH jumps him with the sledgehammer.

Val Venis vs. Mankind

Random much? Venis has a copy of Foley’s book, which really did rock. Venis was given a way too solid push around this time and this is no exception. Foley is shown in the back helping Rock on the stretcher. We start on the floor of course. There’s not much to talk about here. Mankind pulls Mr. Rocko out of Val’s tights which is as stupid as you would think it is. We hit the floor for awhile and the Claw is on.

Val breaks it by slamming Foley’s head into the post. Nicely done. So Foley has a head injury. Val, using intelligence, goes for THE HEAD. Are you paying attention people? Using simple things like that can make a match that much better. This is a better match than I was expecting. Val hits an elbow to the back of the head and Foley isn’t moving at all. Money Shot misses. Double Arm DDT gets two. I’m liking it. Both guys have socks.

Mankind grabs the mouth and Val grabs Foley’s balls. Ok then. That knocks Mankind out…for the pin? What the….huh? Holy head scratcher Batman. Foley gets Rocko back to end this.

Rating: B-. The story made sense here is nothing else. That’s the biggest thing it has going for it I guess. Foley continues to job for everyone. I still say that he’s the best jobber of all time. Still though, this was a pretty good match that worked well enough given what was going on in it.

We see Kane losing to the Acolytes and still being mad at X-Pac. That leads us to this.

X-Pac vs. Bradshaw vs. Farrooq vs. Kane

It’s elimination rules. Ok then. This is yet another namesake in this WTF show. So are there no tags here? X-Pac gets crushed in about 8 seconds so that means he’ll be winning. It’s Acolytes vs. Kane in the ring and apparently we do have tags. Kane busts out the enziguri here which is always cool to see. Kane and X-Pac still don’t get along for whatever reason. I always hated this team and since I always liked Kane it must be because of X-Pac.

The Acolytes EXPLODE! Doesn’t have the same ring as the Mega Powers does it? I’m still trying to figure out the point to this match but whatever. This was very much in the underdog period for X-Pac which is where he got very annoying very quickly. The problem was simply that it wasn’t realistic for him to be in there with guys this size. The giant killer thing is fine but only once in awhile. Eventually reality needs to set in and it became stupid after a short while with Waltman. Or at least it did with me.

It’s Bradshaw vs. X-Pac in there at the moment. Crowd doesn’t seem to care here either. I love that boot to the face. Not in general but just this one. Seeing him get his head kicked in is just fun. Pac hits a decent tornado DDT. Kane gets in as there continues to be no point in this not being a tag match. I forgot that it was every man for himself for a bit there. Kane gets the chokeslam on Bradshaw for the pin.

A spinning heel kick from the top puts Kane out so it’s Farrooq vs. X-Pac. Riveting isn’t it? Farrooq gets his spinebuster which always makes me want to say boy please. And there’s your horrible ending. Farrooq goes for a flying shoulder block and X-Pac counters into what was supposed to look like an X-Factor but just looked bad. I think that’s the other problem I have with him: his finishing move sucks. Oh look the little guy beat three big ones. Yeah I don’t care either.

Rating: D. Again, what was the point here? This was just filler I guess but it wasn’t that bad. Yeah it was a storyline that was going on at the moment but still, this was rather pointless in my eyes. I hated the ending too but then again we’ll push Waltman no matter what right? Yeah I can’t stand him. Get over it.

Rock won’t go to the hospital.

We recap Austin vs. HHH which is mainly him beating up Austin at Summerslam. That led to Austin being Austin. If nothing else it’s set to his H-Blocks song which I’ve always liked. It’s Austin’s first match since Summerslam so it’s clear he was about to go out for neck surgery here. It was supposed to be Austin vs. Rock vs. HHH at Survivor Series. If a triple threat ever headlined Mania that would have been it. OH OK!

The thing from earlier wasn’t Austin beating him up. It was an actual rattlesnake that allegedly bit him. That makes so much more sense. I couldn’t get a clear signal on UPN for years so I missed a lot of Smackdown in the early years.

WWF Title: Steve Austin vs. HHH

This is anything goes remember. Yep Austin is still over. I’ve always loved HHH’s My Time song. Just a sweet song all around. Vince grabs the sledgehammer from HHH in the aisle and down goes Vince. It wouldn’t be the late 90s if it didn’t start in the aisle would it? Austin goes aerial and takes out HHH with a jumping clothesline from the barrier. Nice. He used to jump around a lot more before his body became suck a mess.

We hit the crowd. Haven’t actually been in the ring yet of course. JR calls that a restaurant quality beating. That’s not a terrible line. In ECW fashion, the fans hand Austin things to hit HHH with. You can see the hardwood that the Cavs play on. Austin grabs one of the boom cameras and spins it so it hits HHH. Those are the ones on big long things that I can’t think of the name of that spin around and film things. You would know them if you saw them.

We still haven’t been in the ring yet. Austin walks up to it and is like nah screw it I don’t know how to get in there. That’s a foreign place to me. We get to the barrier and now back into the crowd. I usually hate this but here it makes sense as they hate each other. Did you know pinfalls count anywhere here? I didn’t either but apparently that’s the case. Well now it really makes sense.

Hmm. I’m a referee and Austin is in a position to catapult HHH. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with standing RIGHT WHERE HHH IS ABOUT TO BE LAUNCHED TO. Seriously, why are referees so stupid? Hey we’re in the ring! Crowd EXPLODES for the Stunner. Good night the referee is down again and just in time for a Pedigree. Hebner runs down but it’s just two. Earl always had fun beating up HHH.

I used to have a picture of Hebner shouting down HHH. The crowd is nuts about Austin. Austin takes over and goes to the floor again. At least he’s consistent. JR loses his headset. Put some barbecue sauce on it and he’ll have a blog up about it in 30 seconds. HHH is bleeding. At least I’m told that. Not like we can see it or anything. Ah ok he is bleeding. AUSTIN SENT HIM INTO THE RING! I’m STUNNED! And I’m so good with puns.

JR is back. Austin flips off the fans. Again, he plays to the crowd when he can even for just a few seconds and he’s one of the biggest stars ever. It’s so simple yet so effective. A bell shot gives HHH control again. Has anyone ever actually been broken in half? HHH finally wakes up and goes after the knee he tried to destroy. We hit a leg lock which at least is focusing on the body part that was injured already. That’s a plus.

HHH brings in a chair but it doesn’t last long. You can tell we’re getting close to the end here. Austin gets the chair and goes off like HHH did at Summerslam after the knee. Here’s Rock with a sledgehammer. And of course he hits Austin by mistake. Pedigree to Rock and there’s the pin. Austin goes after HHH again and they fight to the back. Chyna is waiting with a limo and they bail to end the show.

Rating: B. This was a fun brawl that did its job. This wasn’t supposed to be anything serious and it wasn’t. This was to have HHH vs. Austin in a war and it worked. It also set up the dream match at Survivor Series which never happened in a total bait and switch but that’s another review that I’ve already done. I liked it and it was entertaining, which is the idea here.

Overall Rating: B. Once you get to the Chyna match, this show takes off in a hurry. It’s a great example of a good show. Other than the ladder match there’s nothing worth going out of your way to see, but if you bought this back in the day, I’d say you would certainly have been satisfied and thought it was worth the 30 (Yes as in more than 29 and less than 31, give a 50 and get a 20 back) dollars to see it.

I liked it but fast forward through the first 40 minutes. This era wasn’t kind to opening stuff and this is no exception. Still though, this was a good show with a red hot main event and a historic match in there. Check out the ladder match for sure and the main event if you have some time to kill and want a decent brawl. Whole show is worth a look but the ladder match in particular is must see. Good show overall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maven vs. Eugene

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

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

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

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

Hurricane vs. Simon Dean

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video on Blade Trinity.

Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HHH/Batista vs. Chris Benoit/Chris Jericho

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

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

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

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

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

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

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Lita

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tazz and Cole plug Mania 21.

Team Angle vs. Team Guerrero

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Undertaker vs. Heidenreich

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Lita

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smackdown World Title: JBL vs. Booker T

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Team Orton vs. Team HHH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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