Monday Night Raw
Date: September 22, 2008
Location: US Bank Arena, Cincinnati, Ohio
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

This was on my request list for some reason. I’ve done a few shows from around this time lately so maybe it has to do with that. This is a few weeks after Unforgiven so Jericho would be world champion at this point and feuding with Shawn. Other than that I don’t remember a thing about this time so it’ll be interesting to look at. Let’s get to it.

We open with the world title hanging above the ring and a ladder underneath it. Here’s Jericho to some LOUD pyro. Cole says this is the 800th episode. So that’s probably…..WAIT WHAT??? On November 3 of the same year, they would have a big 800th episode celebration with a three hour show. Can’t they even keep their continuity straight for six weeks??? I’m going to have to do every show in the history of Raw to get the right episodes aren’t I?

ANYWAY, Jericho sits on top of the ladder and talks about how Shawn has convinced Mike Adamle to make their match at No Mercy a ladder match. Shawn has claimed that he revolutionized the ladder match and the mindless sheep that the fans are believed him. Just because HBK says something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Jericho on the other hand is an honest man. The truth is that he’s won three titles in a ladder match. He’s won more ladder matches than Shawn has ever appeared in.

Jericho says the last thing you’ll see at the PPV is this, and he pulls down the title. Shawn attacked him recently but he came back, because he’s just better than Shawn. Jericho keeps talking and is interrupted by….Randy Orton? Jericho starts to call himself champion but Orton cuts him off. He says that if not for him kicking Punk in the head, Jericho wouldn’t be champion. The ladder match doesn’t mean anything because whoever wins is living on borrowed time.

Jericho asks what’s stopping him from punching Orton right now. Punching Shawn’s wife was an accident but this would be on purpose. Randy is still injured here. Orton has spoken to Mike Adamle and anyone that hits him is suspended immediately. Jericho says get well soon and leaves. Orton says he’ll be champion again and throws the ladder out. Randy goes to leave and here’s Punk. Punk gets in his face and slaps him, causing Adamle to come down and suspend him indefinitely.

Now here’s Shane McMahon of all people to dance around on stage in white shoes. Now he dances in the ring a bit. He got a big pop so I can’t complain much here. Apparently he’s here to evaluate Adamle later on. Shane overrules Adamle’s suspension of Punk so Orton yells about that too. The suspension rule is still in effect, but it starts right now. Shane asks Orton to leave and makes Punk vs. Rhodes and Jericho/JBL vs. Batista/Shawn. Shane dances some more and it’s FINALLY over. This segment ran nearly 20 minutes which is WAY too long given what we got out of it.

Cody Rhodes vs. CM Punk

Feeling out process to start. It’s amazing how much bigger this would be in just a few years. Punk uses his strikes to take over, including a spinning elbow to the face. Cody sends him to the outside but Punk kicks him through the ropes. They brawl on the floor before heading back in with Cody hitting a top rope cross body, rolled through for two. Cody hits a few knees, including a big one in the corner for two.

Punk loads up the GTS but Cody escapes and bails to the floor as we take a break. Back with Cody working on the ankle/leg after crotching him during the break. It’s leg lock time as the match slows down. Punk counters that into an ankle lock of all things but Cody makes the rope. The running knee hits but the bulldog is countered of course. GTS gets the pin about a second later.

Rating: C. Not bad here but Cody didn’t mean a thing at this point so the match wasn’t going to be anything good. Punk was really just a glorified upper midcard guy at this point so this didn’t mean much of anything. Somehow Punk wouldn’t get the real revenge he was looking for until 2011.

DiBiase and Manu run in for the beatdown but Kofi makes the save. He and Punk would win the tag titles very soon.

Smackdown ReBound is about Kozlov attacking Jeff Hardy. He also beat up MVP and HHH.

Adamle complains to Shane about being embarrassed out there. Shane says Adamle is doing fine and that he shouldn’t be worried. Kane comes in and wants Mysterio, and he’ll get him at No Mercy apparently. Kane tells Shane to say hi to Linda for him. He leaves and Shane explains the history between himself and Kane.

A photographer is talking to Kelly when Beth and Santino come up. Santino has a facial injury and Kelly laughed last week, so it’s time for pain tonight. He makes fun of Batista who of course pops up behind him. An awkward staredown ensues.

Santino Marella vs. Deuce

We get the Honk-A-Meter prematch but Deuce cuts it off. This is non-title of course. Deuce goes after the injured face and drops a punch for two. Santino rolls him up for the pin out of nowhere. This was like a minute long.

Santino talks about how great Beth is post match.

Kane vs. Evan Bourne

Evan is an ECW guy at this point and is standing in for Mysterio who is still injured. Bourne fires off a kick to the ribs which gets him nowhere, followed by an enziguri to stagger the monster. A Kane powerbomb is countered and Bourne kicks some more. Bourne keeps trying to keep things moving but Kane gets in a single punch to stop the offense dead in its tracks. A big boot misses and Kane gets caught in the ropes. A moonsault to the floor puts Kane down again and the double knees get two. Kane gets in a single uppercut and begins the total destruction. HUGE chokeslam gets the pin.

Rating: C. This was a lot better than I was expecting from it. Bourne is a guy who is small enough to be able to make you feel sorry for him against a monster like this so the crowd was getting into it. On top of that it plays up the Kane vs. small guys feud which is what they’re going with despite it getting annoying. Fun match.

Rey comes out and gets beaten down as well.

Jamie Noble asks Shane for another match with Regal. Dolph Ziggler comes up and introduces himself and leaves. Orton comes up for another distraction and says overturning the suspension wasn’t cool. Shane says it’s cool and that Orton is getting off easily. Orton threatens him so Shane says he’s a fourth generation McMahon. That means something I guess.

Beth Phoenix vs. Kelly Kelly

Beth takes him into the corner but Kelly moves out of the way for some speedy gymnastics. Beth comes back with a Buckle Bomb and yells about Batista. Candace is watching in the back. Kelly comes back with a cross body out of the corner for two. Santino’s interference backfires and Kelly gets the rollup for the pin. This was when the Divas were only bad and not horrible yet.

They set to double team Kelly until Batista makes the save. Santino ACTUALLY HITS Batista. Guess how well that goes.

We recap the feud between the Dirt Sheet and Word Up, Cryme Tyme’s show. They had argued for awhile on their shows, resulting in an AWESOME rap video parody by Miz and Morrison. Dirt Sheet and Miz/Morrison were hilarious at this point.

John Morrison/The Miz vs. Cryme Tyme

JTG vs. Morrison to start things off. Miz cheats as is his nature but JTG comes back with a spinning clothesline for two. Shad comes in with a huge gorilla press to send Morrison to the floor. Shad throws JTG onto both of them and we take a break. Back with Morrison holding an armbar on JTG which is quickly broken. Off to Miz for more chinlockery as he prevents the hot tag. The tag goes through a few seconds later and Shad cleans house. Powerslam gets two on Miz. Delayed release gordbuster puts Miz down but Morrison kicks Shad in the head which lets Miz get the pin.

Rating: D. This wasn’t very good. The problem was that these two were better teams but for some reason neither were tag champions at this point. It’s not that the belts meant anything so it doesn’t really matter but it’s still a pretty stupid miss. Boring match here with the majority of it being spent in chinlocks.

Jericho tries to convince Adamle that Shane is manipulating him. Jericho has an idea but we don’t get to hear it.

We run down the No Mercy card.

Charlie Haas is at Dave and Busters to shill the Mr. Perfect DVD with an imitation. He does the sports bit that Perfect did which is kind of funny.

Shawn Michaels/Batista vs. John Bradshaw Layfield/Chris Jericho/Lance Cade

Jericho’s idea was to make it 3-2 and I guess it worked. Shawn and Cade start things off with Shawn destroying him. Cade reverses a whip and JBL adds a right hand to really give Lance an opening. Off to Jericho for a chinlock and an enziguri puts Shawn down. Off to JBL who hits a swinging neckbreaker for two. Back to Cade for more of a beating in the corner. Jericho chokes away as this has been one sided for the most part. Bradshaw comes in and they slug it out but JBL kicks him in the face to put him right back down.

It’s JBL vs. Batista at No Mercy if that clears anything up. Shawn jumps into the fallaway slam but he counters into a DDT to put both guys down. There’s the tag to Batista who cleans house. Spinebuster to Jericho and a powerslam sets up the Shawn elbow. Superkick is countered into a Walls attempt but Shawn rolls him up for two. Everything breaks down and Batista spears JBL outside. Lionsault misses and it’s off to Cade. Forearm puts him down but Jericho’s distraction lets him hit a sitout Rock Bottom to Shawn for the pin.

Rating: C. Just a main event tag match here that felt like it belonged at a house show. It wasn’t bad or anything but it just wasn’t interesting. There wasn’t much focus on the JBL vs. Batista match at all and Batista was only in the match for about a minute or so. Not bad, but just kind of there.

Overall Rating: C-. This wasn’t a bad show but it was nothing interesting at all. Nothing really happened and while they pushed No Mercy, this isn’t a show that you would need to see to see No Mercy. Orton was in a weird place here where he was hurt, but it was clear they wanted him to be the #2 heel on the roster. That’s hard to do but they tried hard. It came off as forced though and it didn’t quite work. Pretty meh show.

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Wrestlemania 21
Date: April 3, 2005
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 20,193
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz
America The Beautiful: Lillian Garcia

This show is probably considered to be the birth of the modern era of Wrestlemanias. We have Cena and Batista going after their first world titles, the debut of MITB and Randy Orton in a big match. There are some solid matches in here including some that boarder on classics, such as Shawn vs. Angle and Rey vs. Eddie.

This was the first show in a long time without Austin or Rock wrestling and it was up to the new guys to carry the company with the help of the veterans. You don’t hear much at all about this Mania, but that’s not what’s important. All that matters is how good the show is. How good is it? Let’s get to it.

Lillian is her usual stunning self singing America the Beautiful.

Before the first match there’s a montage of the Mania trailers. Since the show is in Hollywood this year that was the obvious theme: Wrestlemania Goes Hollywood. This resulted in an awesome set of fake trailers/movie scenes recreated by WWE guys. For instance there was Eugene as Forrest Gump, Undertaker as Dirty Harry, Cena and JBL as Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson from A Few God Men and a montage of people trying to do “You Talking to Me?” from Taxi Driver. This is set to Behind Those Eyes by 3 Doors Down, my favorite band, so this is great.

This leads to the debut of the final trailer which is debuting tonight: Steve Austin as Gladiator. These are really well done and definitely worth checking out. They’re like a minute or two long so they’re not too long to sit through or anything. Check them out.

The announcers welcome us to the show complete with Lawler in a tuxedo.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

They’re the reigning Smackdown tag champions at this point, but they’ve been having some issues. This would be before the split and the ladder match for the custody of Rey’s son Dominic. Yeah it was stupid back then too. The idea here is that Eddie is doubting his skill and Rey keeps beating him in friendly matches. Eddie’s pop absolutely dwarfs Rey’s.

The set looks great here as it looks like they’re coming out from behind a curtain like an old TV show. They also cost each other victories on Smackdown so there are some recent issues also. Crowd is VERY hot. Eddie grabs an armbar and takes over early on. They hit the precision stuff until Eddie launches Rey over the top and out to the floor. Rey slides in and misses a 619 and we’re at a standoff.

Back in and they try a test of strength but Rey monkey flips Eddie over while holding the grip still. Both bridge out at the same time in a cool visual. Rey lands on his feet of something like a backdrop and another monkey flip lands Eddie in the ropes. Rey gets sent to the floor and Eddie adds a plancha to take over. Big Eddie chant starts up.

Suplex gets two for Eddie. Surfboard goes on and I still wonder how they do that. In something I’ve never seen other than in this match, Eddie almost gets pinned as his shoulders are on the mat while using the hold. STF by Eddie and Rey slaps the mat once. Shouldn’t that be a tap out? They get up and Rey gets an armdrag to counter what might have been a powerbomb.

Eddie hits the floor so Rey busts out a tope con giro to half kill both guys. Seated senton gets no cover but Rey runs into an elbow and it’s right back to Eddie’s control. One Amigo hits but the second is countered into a rollup for two. Another powerbomb attempt is countered into a headscissors but Rey can’t hit 619. Backbreaker by Eddie gets two.

There are the Three Amigos as Rey’s back is being destroyed. Frog Splash misses though and we’re back to even. Rey keeps adjusting his mask. Magistrol (and yes I know that’s likely the wrong spelling) gets two for Mysterio. They speed things up for a bit and there’s the 619. Rey tries West Coast Pop but Eddie FINALLY gets that powerbomb for two. And then Rey gets a rana and grabs the leg for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: B-. Fine opener here but they never hit that gear that I think they were shooting for. Good match but out of these two you would expect more. Rey and the mask adjustments took a bit of steam out of this as he was doing it every 8 seconds. Eddie’s pops were very impressive so of course they turned him heel soon after this.

JBL and his Cabinet runs into HHH and Flair. Good thing that never went anywhere. Both say how great they are and HHH burns JBL by saying eventually someone will believe JBL if he keeps saying how great he is. Orlando Jordan gets a WOO for his troubles.

Adam Sandler and that waste of skin known as Rob Schnider are in the front row.

Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit vs. Christian vs. Edge vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Kane

 

This is the debut of Money in the Bank, meaning this is the one that sets the standard. Jericho looks like a lumberjack with that beard. Benoit is Benoit. Christian is Pre-TNA so he has no chance here. Shelton is more or less at the peak of his awesomeness here and IC Champion. Edge is on the brink of greatness and Kane is Kane. If nothing else now I have the Waterproof Blonde version of Just Close Your Eyes in my head now. Oh and Christian has Tomko with him.

Edge is more or less freshly heel here but hasn’t established himself as a main event guy. He’s kind of going back and forth. In Kane’s entrance the ladders on the stage are lit on fire in a sweet visual. Everyone goes after Kane in the aisle which completely fails. Jericho blasts Christian with a ladder and it’s Shelton vs. Jericho in the ring at the moment.

The other two Canadians not named Christian get dropkicked off the apron by Jericho who adds a plancha to Edge. Christian dives onto all three of them and then Shelton dives on all five of them. Kane is like kid please and takes out everyone including Tomko with a big dive. Kane, the only one alive, goes for a ladder. Edge is in the ring and goes down as does Christian.

Jericho is able to dropkick the ladder into Kane and everyone is down for the most part. He destroys various people with said ladder and stands tall at least for a few seconds. Benoit grabs him while Jericho has the ladder and fires him with a German, sending the ladder flying through the air. He goes up but Kane tries a chokeslam. He gets caught in a Crossface for his troubles as does Edge. Kane breaks that one up with a ladder shot for no apparent reason.

Using the ladder, Kane kind of Pillmanizes Benoit’s arm. Edge takes Kane down as this is far too much at once to keep track of. Edge and Christian work together to take Kane down as Shelton is back in. Ladder in the corner with Edge slamming into it as he misses a spear. Stinger Splash onto it and him in a rare Sting reference.

Everyone goes up onto three different ladders and everyone comes crashing down. The T-Bone Exploder from Shelton to Edge was AWESOME looking. Jericho somehow gets up and turns some ladders over. He has to fight off Christian though and another ladder is set up as a ramp to the main one in the ring. Shelton debuts his signature spot to run up the ladder and take Jericho down with a clothesline.

Christian stops Shelton and then Kane starts going on. They botch a chokeslam over the top as Shelton gets his foot caught in the ropes. Tomko comes in to try and help Christian, even getting him all the way to the top. Kane is like screw that and shoves him off onto Tomko on the floor. Jericho slips trying to stop Kane and they both fall onto the top rope to put everyone down again.

Benoit sets a ladder up in a corner to launch himself off in a swan dive to half kill Kane. Ok poor choice of words there. Great visual on the wide shot though. He might have hurt his arm on that. Kane gets back up and they fight on the top of the ladder with Kane going flying off again. He’s taken a ton of bumps in this. Edge pops up out of nowhere with a chair to drill Benoit in the bad arm and pulls down the briefcase to win it.

Rating: A. Some of the spots in this are just insane, such as Shelton running the ladder. A BIG plus of this match having 6 people is we don’t have to have a bunch of bad injury selling on the ladder while waiting on people to be stopped. That’s the flaw with most ladder matches: you see people climbing a ladder at the rate of a snail.

In this case, that’s not a threat as there’s a total of 7 people counting Tomko. This is a mess, but a fun one. It launched Edge into the main event as he cashed in the contact for the title in January in a stunning event. Great showing, not a great wrestling match, but still fun.

Eugene is in the ring and saying how excited he is to be here. He talks about his favorite Mania moment, which is the midget army fighting Bundy at Mania 3. Muhammad Hassan, the best heel in forever in the company’s music hits. He’s mad about being left off the card and he beats up Eugene. That’s Sheik Abdul Bashir if you’re a TNA fan.

And then, in one of the biggest MARK OUT moments I’ve ever had, Real American hits. The place, in a word, explodes. Hogan slides in and the fans beat him down but Hogan is like boys please and it’s a very old school double noggin knocker. He beats the heck out of Hassan and tosses him out. Daivari the manager tries a chair shot and gets a finger in his face. There goes Daivari and the fans couldn’t eat this up any more if their lives depended on it. Let the posing begin! Hogan simply belongs at Wrestlemania. This led to Hogan/Shawn vs. those two.

We recap Taker vs. Orton. Not much to say here. Orton got thrown out of Evolution and HHH cut his legs out from under him so they threw him against Taker to give him something to do and play into the Legend Killer thing. Oh and Orton’s dad is in there somewhere too.

Undertaker vs. Randy Orton

This marks the modern incarnation of the Streak beginning as Orton challenges Taker for no reason other than to break the Streak. To me, that’s not good. It takes away some of the story as there’s nothing personal going on at first other than honor.

To some people it’s great and it leads to solid matches most of the time, but I just can’t get into them. Orton was a face but challenged Taker so he RKOed Stacy, who was I guess his girlfriend at the time to show how evil he was. His Dad showed up and started helping him and no one cared. As the Legend Killer, this fit Orton like a glove.

Taker gets his usual sweet entrance with druids and torches. Do you think they chant like that in the back at catering? HUGE pop for Taker. Taker floats to the ring with a ton of smoke in the aisle. I mean he’s coming down the aisle and his feet aren’t moving. Is there any reason he came out before Orton though? This is the pre-orange Orton that still had hair and not a ton of tattoos. Always liked this version a lot better. No papa with him for the entrance.

Orton tries to use speed to start and then slaps Taker. That seems like a bad idea to me. We hit a headlock by Taker but a dropkick takes him down for one. Feeling out period to start here. Taker drills him with a right hand and Orton’s nose might be messed up. Orton rolls him up out of the corner for two. RKO is blocked and Orton is shoved to the floor.

Apron legdrop to Orton has him in big trouble. Old School keeps him in said trouble. The running boot in the corner misses and Taker is sent to the floor. They slug it out and Orton takes him down with a clothesline for two. DDT by Taker gets two as we haven’t really had one guy dominating for a long time yet. Side slam for two. Taker hits the Snake Eyes but the running boot is blocked by a back elbow for two as well.

They slug it out again as the fans are all over Randy. Randy tries a clothesline but Taker rams into him so hard that Randy goes down for two. Dragon suplex goes on and Orton taps but since that’s not the finish so we keep going. Somehow he manages to roll through into a DDT for two. And we hit the chinlock which is called a rear naked choke by Cole in an attempt to try to sound smart.

Sleeper by Orton lasts about two seconds as Taker gets a suplex. Powerslam out of nowhere gets two for Randy. Then like A REALLY STUPID PERSON he goes to the corner for punches and stops for posing. The Last Ride doesn’t work but neither does the RKO. Taker tries another Last Ride but Taker drops him or something.

Bob Orton runs in with the cast and drills Taker but the referee is down due to the RKO counter. The very slow count gets two and a big reaction from the crowd. Taker sits up and isn’t happy. Big boots takes down Bob and here’s a chokeslam. In one of my favorite counters ever, Orton shifts in mid air and grabs a good looking RKO for two. Orton wants a tombstone and if you don’t know what’s coming at this point you just fail. The pin is academic.

Rating: B-. Good match for the most part but there were times where they looked a bit confused. Orton had that one great counter and other than that he didn’t get much out there. This is a match that needed about two minutes cut out of it to really make it a lot better. Still not that bad at all though.

We recap Trish vs. Christy Hemme. In short, Trish is champion and Christy is this year’s Playboy chick. She can’t wrestle to save her life but she has Lita training her. There’s nothing else to it beyond that.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Christy Hemme

Well they’re all hot if nothing else. Lita is with Christy here as mentioned. Trish’s music sounds sped up a bit. The set is awesome here as it’s set up like an old school movie theater marquee with the name of the current match on the sign. Trish of course doesn’t take this seriously and it’s sloppy from the bell. The Playboy thing was really annoying as you had girls that couldn’t do anything challenging for the title. Mickie next year would prove how stupid this was.

The fans chant for Matt who was out of the company at this point. Trish misses a kick and Christy gets one of her own for two in a sexy cover. Christy does the splits out of the corner and gets two on a sunset flip. To the floor and Trish is barely breaking a sweat. She shoves Lita who has a bad knee and Christy gets a rollup for two.

Christy kicks away badly and adds in a reverse Twist of Fate which is the whole selling point of the match. Naturally it only gets two. Christy rolls her up and we botch that too as Trish doesn’t kick out in time so the referee stops counting despite Trish’s shoulders being down. Chick Kick ends this like a second later. Trish would hold the title until the next Mania.

Rating: F+. They looked good and that’s all this had going for it. This is one of those matches that doesn’t need much more of an explanation at all.

We recap Shawn vs. Angle. Angle was obsessed with winning the Rumble but Shawn eliminated him. This led to Angle talking about winning the medal in 96 but people talking about Shawn coming down from the rafters at Mania and being the best wrestler in the world. Basically it turned into a game of I’m better than you and they had the match at Mania. That’s about it.

Some celebrities are here.

Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels

 

Something tells me this will be a big better than the previous match. They have about 28 minutes to work with here, so do you really think it’s not going to be great? They stare each other down before the match starts and here we go. This in interpromotional and the referee is from Smackdown for no apparent reason. Shawn slaps him in the face and here we go.

Angle takes him to the mat and rides him with ease. The fans apparently think Shawn violated Bret. Odd choice of words indeed. I say odd a lot in these reviews. Shawn takes Kurt to the mat with a headlock and the fans chant for Angle. Angle suplexes out of it but Shawn holds on somehow. Dueling chants start up as that headlock has been on for awhile now. They have the time though so it’s perfectly fine.

The hold is broken for a bit and we go right back to it again. Angle gets a back elbow to escape but Shawn locks on a short arm scissors. Angle rolls backwards a few times to get two. See how important that is? He keeps working the whole time and it keeps the fans into things rather than just sitting around. We get the Davey Boy Smith counter to it but Shawn rolls through for two. Backslide for two and it’s back to the headlock by Shawn.

They slug it out in the corner with neither guy being able to get the advantage. Angle pulls the hair and grabs an ankle lock out of nowhere. It doesn’t last long as Shawn rolls through and a clothesline puts us both on the floor. They set up the announce table and fight for the move into it. Angle gets the Slam but instead of the table he rams Shawn’s back into the post out of the Slam position. That looked good.

Angle hammers away on the floor for a bit and we’re back into the ring. Suplex gets two and Angle locks on a body scissors. Shawn flips upside down in the corner and a sweet pair of belly to bellies gets two. Kurt locks on a modified camel clutch with a knee in the back to work it over even more. Shawn fights back and they slug it out until Shawn slaps Kurt. A big clothesline takes Shawn down for two. That looked great.

Angle can’t get a belly to belly off the top but the elbow misses too and Kurt never really loses control. There go the straps but the Angle Slam is reversed. Kurt is sent to the floor as Shawn takes over for a bit. Big crossbody to the floor and both guys are down. Shawn wants an Asai Moonsault but Angle jumps up for the attempted German off the apron which never hits. A low blow gets Shawn out of it and he gets his Asai crossbody which winds up being a splash onto the table which doesn’t break. Cool looking move and apparently the tables are reinforced.

They slug it out a bit more and Shawn gets the forearm. I think you know what follows that. Angle is bleeding from the mouth. Slam sets up the elbow and it’s time to tune up the band. What band is it anyway? The Electric Light Orchestra? Shawn finds out why it’s stupid to throw a kick at a guy whose finisher is the ankle lock and can’t roll through it. The rope is finally grabbed and Shawn is in big trouble.

Angle is all ticked off now but the Slam is reversed into a sunset flip which is reversed into another ankle lock which is reversed into a victory roll for two. Another attempt at Chin Music is reversed into the Slam for two. Angle puts the straps back on only to take them right back down. Ok then. Moonsault misses but it looked like Angle’s head slammed into Shawn’s back. Angle is clutching his wrist after the move and it might be hurt.

Shawn pulls himself to the top but can barely move so Angle runs up the corner and hits an Angle Slam from the top rope. Angle immediately covers and somehow only gets two! I’d have bet on that being the ending when I was watching this live. Angle grabs Shawn by the head and screams at him to tap out. Shawn uses all he’s got left for a huge Sweet Chin Music and down goes Angle again. THAT gets two and the fans are way into this.

With Shawn trying to get up as slowly as he’s moving, Angle grabs the ankle again and holds on throughout every roll Shawn tries. He almost gets the rope but Angle pulls him back to the middle again. There’s the grapevine and after Shawn probably setting the record for the longest time ever in the move, Shawn taps to add another classic to his Mania record.

Rating: A+. Oh come on were you expecting anything else? It’s Angle vs. Michaels at Wrestlemania with half an hour to work with. Total show stealing match with two of the best ever out there working themselves to death to have the best match they could. There would be a pair of rematches with Shawn winning at Vengeance and them tying in an iron man match on Raw. Great match and absolutely worth seeing.

We see another of the movie trailers, this one with Benoit, Jericho and Christian interrogating Stacy Keibler ala Basic Instinct. There’s implied HLA with Trish and lingerie pillow fights are mentioned. Way funnier than it sounds. Oh and Mae Young flashes her vagina to end it.

It’s RODDY PIPER! We have a Piper’s Pit here at Mania with special guest Stone Cold Steve Austin. Well this works….kind of. It sounds like it’s great on paper but at the same time, what in the world would they talk about? Piper thanks the fans for the Hall of Fame and talks about Mania a bit. Here’s Austin and the problem is obvious: there’s no reason Austin is here other than he’s Austin and it’s Wrestlemania. Therefore, they have nothing to talk about.

Austin is a rebel apparently. Yeah not for about 5 years Roddy. Piper slaps him and the fans aren’t sure what to do here. Austin of course slaps him right back and Piper likes him. The WHAT chants start up and Piper isn’t sure how to take them. I hate those things anyway. Piper was here when Mania didn’t have a number apparently and that’s still the same argument he’s been using for years. Austin has nothing on Piper as far as being a rebel.

Steve replies and this is just dragging. Piper stopped meaning anything about 12 years before this and only Piper seemed to not get that through his head. Of all people, Carlito comes out and both guys say it wasn’t their idea. This was supposed to be the way to put Carlito over and give him a huge push but it completely failed due to Carlito absolutely sucking. Piper isn’t cool with this and spits the apple at Carlito. Naturally there are Stunners all around and Austin stands tall. This was awful to say the least. Total and complete waste of 15 minutes.

We see the Taxi Driver trailer which was voted the best overall. Basically it’s the majority of the roster trying to do the “Are you talking to me” line which is rather funny indeed. Batista doesn’t get what he’s supposed to say and Big Show keeps ripping his jacket. Michael Cole as Travis Bickle has completely scarred me for life but overall it’s funny.

Ready for the biggest waste of time in company history? Here is it right here.

Big Show vs. Akebono

Who in the heck is Akebono? No one knew and no one cared. Show at the time was doing a weird thing where he was looking for a challenger so they found someone even bigger than Show to face him in a sumo match. They’re wearing the full sumo uniforms here and it’s really bad. No one could care less for this.

They stall forever as Cole and Tazz try desperately to make this work but it’s dead on arrival. The fans boo them crazily as they set to start and then pull up at least 3 times. It’s the two of them slapping each other’s chests. Show loses but of course his music plays as they leave. This lasted a minute or so bell to bell and almost ten minutes overall.

Rating: F. This was a total waste of time.

We recap the Smackdown World Title feud between Cena vs. JBL. JBL has held the title since the previous summer and people are sick of him. The idea of this is old school vs. new and the respect for tradition vs. change. Cena had made a spinner belt for the US Title which JBL wasn’t happy with. Cena is the rapper here still and here’s all street tough etc. He got the match by beating Angle at No Way Out. Cena couldn’t touch JBL but JBL managed to get some shots in to Cena on the last Smackdown.
Smackdown World Title: John Cena vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

 

JBL gets a police escort here to give him his big Mania entrance. JBL dollars rain from the ceiling in a cool bit. The Cabinet, JBL’s team, isn’t here. No special entrance for Cena here. A couple of guys with brooms have to clean the dollars out of the ring. Feeling out process to start with Cena taking JBL down with a shoulder. JBL does the same and takes over with power.

After more strikes from JBL a bad neckbreaker takes Cena down for no cover. The second one gets two as I don’t think they’ll end a match in two minutes. Well at least in theory they won’t. JBL hits a slingshot to put Cena’s throat in the bottom rope. They slug it out a bit with Cena getting some momentum together. Spinebuster takes care of that though and it’s back to JBL in control.

A third neckbeaker gets two. Short arm clothesline gets two. This is kind of dragging here. JBL hits a forearm to the back of Cena as it’s total dominance and has been the whole time. We got a moderate boring chant as we hit a sleeper. Cena gets a suplex to escape and it’s a double clothesline. Never mind though as JBL sends him to the floor and adds neckbreaker #4 to take Cena down again. This is on the verge of a squash.

Superplex back in the ring puts Cena down again and of course it’s for two. Cena gets a powerslam to fight back for the first time. Some clotheslines buy Cena time as does a shoulder block. Crowd is DEAD. Protoplex sets up the Five Knuckle Shuffle and the FU just like that gives Cena the title. In an approximately eleven and a half minute match, Cena was on offense for maybe 90 seconds.

Rating: D. Really? This was like a TV match that would main event Smackdown and it’s good for Cena’s first world title here? This needed to be rebooked and given about five more minutes plus about 8 more two counts. I have no idea what they were going for here but this was a major failure on almost all levels. No wonder Cena was panned for his first title reign.

 

We recap the Hall of Fame induction ceremony from last night which definitely centered around Hulk Hogan. Oh and Piper and some other people went in too. And then that ring would go to Abyss. I give up. Gene brings out the class to be presented to the crowd, eating up some more time that could have gone to Cena and JBL. If nothing else it’s fun to see the Divas all dressed up.

Michelle with her hair back and in a long black dress is something I could get used to. Taz calls Sheik the original Human Suplex Machine. Miss Jackie (Gayda that is) was so hot it’s scary. Maria as a blonde looked great. She’s more interesting than Bob Orton for sure. Jimmy Hart is still awesome. Stacy dancing to Hulk’s music and being on his arm is weird to see. That being said her trying to look beautiful in another long black dress works very well indeed. That’s about it. Most international class ever?

 

Mania 22 is going to be in Chicago.

We recap Batista vs. HHH. The idea here is a simple one. They were both in Evolution and then Batista got very hot and won the Rumble. This led to HHH saying he would get Batista to fight JBL to avoid having to face Big Dave because he had Batista around his finger. Batista heard this and turned face (which he more or less already was) leading to this.

Raw World Title: Batista vs. HHH

Ross and Lawler talk forever to let Motorhead get ready to play HHH to the ring. The singer more or less has no idea what the words are. HHH rises out of the floor like Angle does now. This is all happening before Batista’s entrance, making his look totally weak in comparison. Nice job Game. Batista still has his old school Evolution knockoff music here and no pyro so his machinegun thing looks idiotic.

Flair is with HHH here. We get the weapons check and the title being held up which is always cool. They fight over a tie up to start with neither guy being able to get much of an advantage. Almost two minutes in HHH grabs a headlock for the first offense of the match. He runs into a shoulder though and we chill for a bit. HHH runs him over but can’t get the Pedigree. Gorilla Press puts HHH down and Batista poses a bit.

Batista looks nervous here which makes sense. They’re going very slowly here but I guess they have the time. Backdrop to HHH but the Game gets a running knee to put him on the floor. Flair distracts Big Dave long enough to send Batista into the steps to take over again. HHH and Flair both choke away as we’re bordering on going through the motions here.

HHH works on the back and adds a suplex for two. More choking by Flair as this has been total dominance ala Cena vs. JBL. HHH hammers him down in the corner but Batista gets some punches to take back over a bit. And never mind as HHH uses a spinebuster. You know, that move that NO ONE ELSE IN THIS MATCH USES RIGHT??? Why in the world would HHH, the guy with like 9000 moves in his arsenal, use a freaking spinebuster that is going to make Batista’s look stupid by comparison?

Pedigree is blocked and the facebuster gets two. For no apparent reason HHH goes up top and tries a punch from up there but gets caught by a clothesline. Who is his mentor again? Did he sleep through that day in heel school? Batista gets a spinebuster for two but HHH gets a boot up in the corner to take him right back down.

Batista fires him over the top rope with pure power and we might finally have a shift in momentum. He follows the Game to the floor and is sent into the steps to once again give HHH momentum. Pedigree onto the steps is blocked into a slingshot into the post. Maybe NOW Batista can get some serious offense in. HHH is busted now. Batista hammers at the cut and momentum has completely shifted here.

All Animal here with Batista managing to hit a clothesline in the corner that puts HHH on his back which isn’t something you often see. Powerslam gets two. Out to the floor again as HHH is just trying to cover up. Down goes Flair but HHH grabs a chair due to the distraction. Since it’s a main event though, down goes the referee as he tries to steal it from the Game.

Back in the ring it’s a spinebuster for Flair who brings the belt in. Title to the face which draws huge heat. If that had gotten the pin they may have needed police to get him out of there. Naturally it only gets two and more or less that’s it. Spinebuster doesn’t hit as HHH gets a low blow. Pedigree can’t hit and Batista gets something resembling an Emerald Flosion to set up the Thumbs Down and the Batista Bomb ends this finally.

Rating: C-. HHH ruined this for me. Number one, Batista should come out first, get his massive pop, and THEN you have the big entrance for HHH as something like that is going to get a big pop no matter what. Next, Batista was built up as a monster coming into this match for nearly 5 months, and HHH beats the tar out of him for over half the match.

That makes me think that Batista hasn’t beaten anyone at all and once he faces someone solid he can’t do anything against them. Let Batista come in and beat up HHH, have HHH, the smarter wrestler, learn from what happened the first time around and counter Batista and THEN he beats him up and leads to the finish.

By doing this, it shows two things: it makes Batista seem legit as even HHH can’t stop his offense and then it makes HHH look smart as he was able to adapt his style to stop Batista, and everyone wins. Third, WHY WOULD HHH USE A SPINEBUSTER HERE???

He has like 40 moves in his arsenal and he uses the one that Batista is most known for. The ending was solid but that’s about it. Not the way to start a title reign for a guy that wrestles as a power guy at all. If this were Benoit or someone of that size and style, this would have been perfect.

Overall Rating: C+. This Mania suffers from the same symptom that every show since the brand split has suffered from: WAY too much filler that should have been on Raw or Smackdown. It’s a good show but at the same time the main events were just weak overall with neither new champion looking great at all. The right guys went over which helps a lot, but getting there didn’t work that well. Still a good show though.

Oh and see those trailers as they’re totally awesome.

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No Mercy 2005
Date: October 9, 2005
Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

It’s the final of this set of shows and we’re finally out of the Undertaker in gimmick title matches. Now he’s in gimmick non-title matches, in this case a handicap casket match against the Ortons. The main event is Batista defending against Eddie who is turning more heel by the day but he’s pretending to be a nice guy. It’s also his last PPV match ever. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Eddie vs. Batista with Eddie swearing he’s a changed man. If Eddie crosses Batista, Batista will end him. Also we hear about the handicap casket match.

MNM vs. Legion of Doom/Christy Hemme

This is Animal/Heidenreich which never worked at all. They’re the tag champions here. My goodness Christy was gorgeous. She took a Snapshot on Smackdown so she’s injured coming in. Animal has a taped up shoulder too. Heidenreich pulls Nitro in and the beating is on before he can even take the fur coat off. Heidenreich is all fired up and hits a three point clothesline for two. Off to the large gut with the Animal attached but Mercury gets in a kick to the shoulder to take over.

He keeps kicking at it and knocks Heidenreich to take draw him in. MNM hits the Snapshot on Animal very quickly but it only gets two because of the delay in getting to the cover. Mercury snaps the shoulder over the top rope to let Nitro get two. The double team continues and Animal is in trouble. Neckbreaker gets two. Mercury goes up but jumps into an almost powerslam for two. Everything breaks down and Melina tags herself in. She dives onto Animal and gets caught. Off to Christy for a bad Hart Attack and then a HORRIBLE rana. As in the legs were around Melina’s arms. Doomsday Device ends Melina.

Rating: D-. Christy Hemme is a fine example of a girl that looks good in tight pants and a black bra. She’s incredibly attractive and sexy, but but she had no business being in a wrestling ring as a competitor. It didn’t work for her at all and she was only in the ring for about 45 seconds. Again though, she’s there for her looks and those work very well.

Eddie comes in to see Batista and almost evily says good luck. Batista says it back in a friendlier voice.

Here’s Simon Dean the fitness expert with his assistant who has a plate of hamburgers. Taz and Cole are cracking up at this. Dean talks about how Houston is the fattest city in America. He has 20 double cheeseburgers here and says it’s ok to eat one, but when you eat 20 at once you get fat. He calls out Lashley and says if he loses, he’ll eat all 20 of those burgers.

Bobby Lashley vs. Simon Dean

Lashley is in white here and it’s his PPV debut. This is a rematch from Lashley’s first match which was two days ago. Lashley throws him around but misses a corner charge. Dean throws hamburgers at Lashley and then hits him with the metal tray as the ref is distracted. That doesn’t work at all and Dean is thrown into the corner. They try to do a cool power spot where Dean is sitting in the corner while holding onto the top and having Lashley pull him out by his feet to catch him in the Dominator. The problem is Lashley can’t hold him up so he falls backwards and hits a regular Dominator to win it. Total squash.

Lashley forces the hamburger into Dean’s mouth.

Jillian still has the mole on her face but introduces JBL who says Raw won’t invade tonight. They can’t invade because they’re invited. JBL welcomes a challenge but watch what he does to Mysterio first. Rey pops up and speaks Spanish, talking about the Mexican flag. JBL tells the “intertube boy” that he needs to speak English in America. Rey hands him a Mysterio mask for after the underdog beats him. JBL declines so Rey gives it to Jillian.

US Title: Booker T vs. Christian vs. Orlando Jordan vs. Chris Benoit

Benoit is defending, Booker gets a big pop as the hometown guy and this is one fall to a finish. Benoit beat Jordan in like 25 seconds at Summerslam to win the title. Why he’s in this match is beyond me. Jordan goes after Benoit and takes him down so the heels (Christian/Jordan) can double team Booker. Booker knocks Christian to the floor and kicks Jordan down but Christian pulls him to the outside.

Benoit pops up out of nowhere with a Crossface on Jordan but Christian saves. With Booker on the floor, Benoit cleans house on the other two. Suplexes all around and Christian is put in a quickly broken up Sharpshooter. Booker comes off the top with a missile dropkick to take Christian down as it’s his turn to be in control. Jordan and Christian are knocked to the floor so we get a staredown between Booker and Benoit.

They don’t really do much though as Christian comes in and is suplexed over the top with ease. Benoit goes to the floor to fight his fellow Canadian as Booker and Jordan clothesline each other down. Christian breaks up the Swan Dive by fighting Benoit on the top. Jordan is whipped into them and the Canadians hit the floor. Booker rolls up Jordan for a VERY close two. Benoit comes back in and walks into a side kick.

Cole reminds us that everyone is legal at the same time. Thanks Cole. The first seven minutes of this match didn’t tell me that. Axe kick gets two on Jordan. Christian throws Benoit into Booker to knock Booker to the floor but Christian can’t hit the Unprettier on Benoit. Benoit tries Rolling Germans but Orlando breaks it up.

Orlando is thrown out onto Booker, leaving the Canadians in the ring. After four Germans Benoit misses the Swan Dive. Christian tries a rollup but Benoit reverses into the Crossface. Orlando seems to miss his cue on the save as he takes forever. Jordan is sent to the floor and the Sharpshooter makes Christian tap.

Rating: C. This seems like a match that belonged on a house show. It wasn’t that bad but I don’t think anyone was really expecting a new champion here. Benoit was on a roll at this point and would hold the title for about six more months. It’s not a bad match but it was more of a Benoit showcase than a competitive match.

Sharmell yells at Booker post match.

Lashley is making Dean eat the burgers.

Mr. Kennedy vs. Hardcore Holly

Hardcore shoved Kennedy during a match while Kennedy was on commentary so Kennedy cost him a match. This is Kennedy’s PPV debut. Kennedy does his usual intro before the match. Holly is introduced as The Alabama Slamma. Holly pounds him down to start and hits the dropkick. There are some hard chops in the corner but Kennedy suckers Holly in and sends him to the floor.

Out to the floor for a bit as the fans are just gone. Literally, as in you can see empty seats in the first few rows. Kennedy works on the arm to waste some time. A single arm DDT gets two. This is a horribly boring match. Holly comes back and hits a full nelson slam for two. Kennedy tries a spin kick but Holly won’t sell it. He kicks Kennedy down and they go to the corner. The rolling fireman’s carry slam off the middle rope gets the pin for Kennedy.

Rating: F. OH MAN this was bad. It went on almost ten minutes and was about three minutes of arm work. Holly wouldn’t sell anything and it made Kennedy look like an idiot. Kennedy never quite got it in the ring but he tried at least. There was always something misses for him though, and this wasn’t a good start at all.

Holly takes forever to get out of the ring so Sylvan, the fashion consultant of Smackdown who is more worthless than any wrestler you’ll EVER see, comes out to the ring and attacks the bad ribs.

Simon is still eating burgers.

Sharmell yells at Booker some more. Kennedy comes up and makes fun of them. This takes forever and Sharmell yells more after Kennedy leaves.

John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Rey Mysterio

Rey fires off right hands to start and ducks a big boot. JBL actually goes technical and hooks a side headlock to take it to the mat. Rey takes over again and sends JBL out to the floor to frustrate him. A baseball slide puts Bradshaw down and the rich dude is mad. He uses the power to take over but Rey takes the knee out and a facejam gets two. Rey works over the knee and cannonballs down onto it.

The 619 misses and JBL heads to the floor. Rey bulldogs him to the floor but hurts himself in the process. Bradshaw sends his head into the steps to take over. My goodness JBL has a beer belly on him. Back in and JBL pounds him down before hitting a fallaway slam from the middle rope for no cover. A regular fallaway slam sends Rey to the floor where JBL hits a third one.

Back inside the slams get two. Time for a bearhug. This match has been pretty slow paced. There isn’t much of a story to it either so it doesn’t really draw the fans in that well. JBL puts him on the ropes but Rey comes back with a tornado DDT. Rey speeds things up and hits the Bronco Buster but Jillian gets up for a distraction. JBL almost hits her but puts on the brakes, only to walk into a moonsault press for two. Rey knocks him into the ropes and hits the 619, but the West Coast Pop misses and the Clothesline ends this.

Rating: C-. Not a bad match for the most part but it was pretty boring. It was a nice surprise to see JBL win as Rey would have seemed to be the obvious winner here. This is more or less JBL’s win to keep some kind of importance on him for when he jobbed to everyone on the planet afterwards.

Someone gets fired on Raw tomorrow. It would be JR.

We recap the Ortons vs. Undertaker. Orton had turned heel to try to break the Streak but of course he lost. It became an obsession for him and he beat Undertaker at Summerslam. Taker came for revenge and caskets were brought in. There was an Undertaker mannequin in the casket which scared Taker, according to Randy. Tonight it’s a handicap casket match with Taker against the Ortons.

Undertaker vs. Bob Orton/Randy Orton

Both Ortons have to go in for Undertaker to win. Taker gets the full druid entrance as they bring out the casket. He then gets his own entrance to really fill in time. Taker controls with punches to start, knocking both Ortons around. Then the numbers take over so the Ortons control with punches. Now Taker comes back and knocks them both down. He manages to throw Bob in the casket but Randy throws Taker knees first into the steps.

Undertaker is put in the casket but gets out with, you guessed it, punches. Back in the ring and Bob is down in the corner. Old School is loaded up for Randy but Bob manages to crotch him. Both Ortons go up on the ropes and they manage a double superplex. Bob covers probably out of instinct. They keep trying to double suplex Taker into the casket but Taker counters into a double DDT.

Bob is thrown into the casket and Randy takes the snake eyes/big boot combo. Bob is out of the casket now and appears to have something in his hands. Oh it’s a fire extinguisher. Randy hits the backbreaker in the ring and we go outside. Randy jumps off the apron but gets rammed back first into the post. A big chair shot to the back puts Randy in and Bob gets caught in a triangle choke. Taker finally gets Bob in but Randy gets up and knocks Taker away.

All three are in the casket now as the younger guys stand up and brawl. Taker knocks Randy out and slams the lid on Bob. The announcers talk like that eliminates him but there’s been nothing that implies he would be until now. Randy low blows Undertaker and hits the powerslam. Randy opens the casket but takes a low blow as well. Taker pounds on him some more but Randy hits the dropkick and they go into the corner.

Randy, ever the idiot, puts himself in perfect position for the Last Ride. Tazz: “WHY DID HE DO THAT???” Last Ride kills Randy but Bob pops out of the casket with the fire extinguisher. A blast into the eyes by Bob allows Randy to hit the RKO. Bob tries to roll Taker into the casket but Taker grabs him by the throat. Randy pops up with the fire extinguisher to the head and Taker is knocked into the casket. He pulls Randy in with him and the lid closes, but for some reason that doesn’t end it. Not that it matters as Taker and Randy pop up seconds later and Randy hits him with a chair to win.

Rating: C-. It’s not a horrible match I don’t guess but it never got interesting at all. That’s what this PPV has been in a nutshell: not bad but nothing to get excited about at all. Cole declaring this the final nail in Undertaker’s coffin was laughable because that guy has died more times than I can count but he keeps coming back. Anyway, not bad but it lead to HIAC at I think Armageddon.

Post match the Ortons do the Royal Rumble 1998 thing where the hack open the casket and pour gas in then light it on fire. Taker would come back at Survivor Series and then have a Cell match at Armageddon to blow off the feud.

Wrestlemania is in Chicago.

Taz and Cole talk about how serious this is and how you can smell the gas and the smoke.

Now here are Mexicans on lawnmowers.

Cruiserweight Title: Juventud Guerrera vs. Nunzio

Nunzio is defending after Juvy won a battle royal. The attempted murderers are going to be talking on WWE.com if you’re interested. The Mexicools and Vito are on the floor. Juvy gets three covers inside of 20 seconds. Nunzio gets some rollups as well and it’s a standoff. The crowd is pretty quiet for this. A headscissors gets two for Juvy. Tazz, who was all shocked and serious a few minutes before, is making juice jokes.

Nunzio takes it to the mat with a surfboard hold as Tazz has to remind himself that there’s a match going on. Rollup gets two for Juvy. They both go up and both hit facejams to put both guys down. They speed things up again and a seated dropkick gets two for Guerrera. Inverted powerbomb gets two. Juvy tries a sunset flip but gets shoved off so he headscissors Vito instead. Top rope crossbody is rolled through into two for Nunzio but he hits the Juvy Driver a few seconds later for the pin and the title.

Rating: D+. I feel sorry for the guys in matches like these. No one is interested in seeing them and probably even fewer care who wins. This match is background noise while the fans catch their breath before we get to the main event. That being said, the match was nothing interesting at all as the Cruiserweight Title was long since dead at this point.

The Mexicools do an interview in Spanish.

Simon finishes the burgers but Lashley says that was only 19. Lashley pulls out one more huge one but Simon gets sick. Did we really wait the whole show for that payoff?

We recap the main event. Eddie says he wanted respect but no one bought it. This resulted in a tag match with Eddie/Batista vs. MNM where Eddie hit Batista with a chair but claimed it was an accident. Batista said if you screw me, I’ll end you.

Smackdown World Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Batista

Eddie takes him to the mat to start and Batista looks a bit surprised by the speed. He almost gets caught in a rollup but powers out of it. For some reason Eddie tries a test of strength and down he goes. He climbs the ropes while still in the grip but Big Dave throws him down with ease and Eddie bails for a bit.

Back in and Batista grabs a headlock. Eddie sends him into the corner and it’s right back to the headlock. Eddie tries to escape with a top wristlock but there’s too much Batista. The headlock goes on again but Eddie gets to the floor and grabs a chair. Batista grabs him by the throat and says Eddie wants to screw him with a chair. Eddie guillotines him on the top and hits a Frog Splash to the back for a close two. That was out of nowhere.

Eddie works on the back in the form of a body scissors but Batista powers out of it. Guerrero hits a dropkick to the back and hooks a half Boston Crab to put Big Dave in even more trouble. Batista makes the rope and Eddie goes to the corner and steals a tag rope. He drops it though and dropkicks Batista in the face instead. Nice guy. Off to a camel clutch as the back work continues.

Now it’s back to the body scissors but Batista stands up and hooks a bearhug which is quickly broken. Batista charges at him but Eddie dropkicks the knee out and tries a Texas Cloverleaf. Dave is like BY THE POWER OF MALENKO and counters with a small package before it’s on. Into the corner and Eddie jumps over Batista but stumbles and runs into the referee. Eddie gets a chair but throws it down instead of swinging it.

Batista sees the chair and gets all ticked off. He goes into Beast Mode and runs over Eddie with his power game. His back gives out on the Batista Bomb though so he has to settle for a spinebuster. That gets a delayed two and Eddie makes his comeback, doing his dance and hitting the Three Amigos. Batista avoids the Splash and a second spinebuster retains the title.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t a bad match but it never got to the point where I was wanting to see what happened next. The whole point of the match was would Eddie go rudo or not and he didn’t do it, making the whole story of the match kind of dead because one on one, no one bought Eddie as a real threat to the title. It wasn’t a bad match at all but it’s certainly not something worth watching. The story is that Eddie would have won the title on the Smackdown two days after he died, so this was just the start of a bigger story.

Post match Eddie offers a handshake and Batista eventually accepts it. Batista turns away and Eddie gives him an evil smile which Batista doesn’t see.

Overall Rating: D+. The show is much like the main event: not bad for the most part, but I’d have felt pretty let down after this show. It’s a match that would have been perfect for the In Your House treatment back in the 90s, as this isn’t really an A-list main event. Coupling that with a lot of the filler matches like the six person and the Kennedy match, there’s not much of a need for this to be a three hour show. It passed two hours and forty five minutes but there’s no reason to watch this at all.

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No Mercy 2004
Date: October 3, 2004
Location: Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

This finally finished downloading so I can stop watching Alabama wrestling shows. The main event here is JBL vs. Undertaker in a Last Ride match which is an ambulance match but with a hearse instead. Other than that there’s pretty much nothing of interest on this entire card. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about how there’s no such thing as mercy, spread around between the various top feuds. That’s your first sign of a bad show: a lazy opening video.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Luther Reigns

If I remember right, Reigns was part of Angle’s team at this point along with Jindrak and of course Angle. Reigns starts with the power game but Eddie dropkicks the knee to take over. BIG Eddie chant starts but it dies pretty quickly. Jindrak is at ringside too. Snapmare gets two for Eddie. Luther comes back with a delayed gorilla press for two. There’s a bear hug as I’m starting to remember why I was bored with Reigns most of the time.

Eddie escapes with a poke in the eye but gets his head kicked off for two. Some left hands get the same result. Off to a surfboard hold to waste some time. Belly to back gets two. Luther hits a backbreaker and bends Eddie over. Over his knee you sick freaks. Eddie rolls to the floor for a second before coming back in and trying to go a bit amateur on Luther. Back to the backbreaker with Eddie being bent over the knee.

Powerslam gets two but when Luther tries Roll the Dice (Cross Rhodes), Eddie climbs the ropes and backflips into a reverse DDT for a close two. Eddie pounds away at the ribs and Luther is in trouble. Guerrero loads up Three Amigos but can only get two of them. He goes to the floor holding his ribs. Must be Mama Guerrero’s Taco Surprise.

While he’s near the railing, Eddie steals a blackjack or a police baton from a cop. Eddie brings in a chair which Luther steals, but Eddie dropkicks the chair into Jindrak’s face. Luther is knocked down as well but Eddie misses the Frog Splash. While the referee puts the chair out, Eddie hits Luther with the baton and the Frog Splash wins this.

Rating: C. Not a terrible opening but this is similar to what Eddie did for about a year and a half. It was clever once in awhile but the whole pretending to do something while doing something else got a little bit old to me. Never bad mind you, but kind of repetitive. Not a bad match but it went too long.

We recap the Dawn Marie vs. Jackie Gayda feud. Jackie was with Charlie Haas and engaged but Dawn said she was with Charlie when Jackie wasn’t paying attention. Josh (sounding like he went through reverse puberty) asks her why Dawn did that and she says she’ll do it again tonight. Dawn goes in to see Jackie who is topless. Dawn says Charlie is being blackmailed into marrying her. Oral sex is implied.

Cruiserweight Title: Spike Dudley vs. Nunzio

Spike is EVIL and defending. He’s the Dudley Boss here or something like that. Nunzio got a non-title win to get this shot. They go into a long collar and elbow sequence but Nunzio comes back with right forearms. He hiptosses Spike to the floor as I wonder why this isn’t on Smackdown. Some quick pinfall attempt get two. Spike gets sent to the floor again and Nunzio hits a dive, getting two back inside.

He goes up but Bubba shoves him off to change momentum. Spike uses some of the same rollups that Nunzio used, one of which gets reversed into a Nunzio two count. Johnny the Bull is outside also, meaning we have far too many people here for a Cruiserweight Title match. Spike hooks a full nelson on the mat. Tazz says Cole’s finishing move would be a quarter nelson. Cole says he’d call it the Cole-plex.

Nunzio makes his comeback but gets thrown to the floor. Spike follows him out there but gets backdropped. A backslide gets two in the ring for the challenger. Johnny and D-Von get into it on the floor so Bubba can crotch Nunzio on the post. Spike gets the easy pin to retain. Yep that was lame.

Rating: D+. For everyone that says there needs to be a Cruiserweight Title again, I’d point them to the title after about 2003. The matches and feuds were thrown together and the matches didn’t mean anything at all. This went nowhere and wasn’t an interesting match at all, although there are better Cruiserweights on the roster so maybe this is a bad example.

Undertaker career highlight: beating Hogan for the title.

We recap London vs. Kidman. They were a tag team who won the titles for awhile but Kidman messed up a Shooting Star one night and hurt Chavo’s face. Everyone shunned Kidman and he couldn’t use the move anymore because of psychological issues. Instead he walked away and the team lost the titles eventually as a result. London blamed Kidman and he was labeled a quitter because he wouldn’t give the fans the move they wanted. He said that the fans were bloodthirsty so London slapped him. If Kidman doesn’t fight, he’s fired.

Billy Kidman vs. Paul London

London sprints to the ring but Kidman runs. Paul wants answers. I’m not sure what the question is but I guess that’s up for interpretation. London controls to start and hits a leg lariat for two. A clothesline puts Kidman down and then out to the floor. London hits a sweet springboard moonsault but he might have hit the apron on the way down. Slingshot splash gets two back inside.

Kidman comes back by ramming his face into the buckle and kicking him in the face. London’s ribs are rammed into the post and Kidman goes after the ribs. All Billy at this point as he smacks London in the face. Apparently London had a broken nose recently. See, that’s something good a commentator can do: remind us of something that makes offense more vicious.

Billy stretches the ribs more and catches London in a gutbuster for two. Off to a seated abdominal stretch and London is in big trouble. Kidman gets back up and tries a tornado DDT for some reason. London blocks and hits an enziguri, but his powerbomb is blocked into an X Factor for two. Kidman tries a Low Down but London countered with a rana for two. London tries to speed things up but gets caught by a dropkick. Billy looks to the corner but walks off instead. He comes back at a count of seven and walks into a superkick. London tries a Shooting Star but it lands on knees. Kidman’s Shooting Star ends this.

Rating: C+. That was a solid heel turn match for Kidman. The rib work was great and the ending was solid too. I was liking this quite a bit with a good story the whole time, which is more than you can ask for more often than not. Kidman would be gone by June and London would get stuck in Cruiserweight Title limbo, but it was a good way to get there at least.

London is bleeding from the mouth so Billy blames the fans for it. London is strapped to a back board so Kidman goes up and hits another Shooting Star to the defenseless man. Nice.

Another Undertaker title moment: beating Sid at Wrestlemania 13.

JBL wants to know why the PPV is biased to the Undertaker. Why does everyone think JBL will lose tonight? How is that fair and biased? He talks about how he’s guaranteed victory in all of his title matches but can’t bring himself to say it here.

Smackdown Tag Titles: Kenzo Suzuki/Rene Dupree vs. Rob Van Dam/Rey Mysterio

I vaguely remember Suzuki and Dupree as champions. My guess is that there’s a reason I don’t remember more. I know I remember thinking Kenzo bored me to death. Kenzo tries to sing Born in the USA pre match. Rob and Rene start us off. A quick powerbomb attempt is countered into a pin attempt by Rob and we get a standoff. Rey tags himself in and the challengers speed things up, resulting in a dropkick by Rey for two.

Suzuki comes in. Cole refers to him by his nickname of the bronze warrior, causing Tazz to say “Do you think he aspires to be a golden warrior?” Well at least it wasn’t about pigeons. The champs are both sent to the floor and the challengers hit stereo dives. Cole: “Only on Smackdown!” Except when it’s on PPV right Cole? Rob vs. Kenzo in the ring now but Rob is quickly send to the floor as Rene pushed him off the top.

We hear about Kenzo winning the Young Lions Cup and it’s back to Rene for a neck crank. A knee drop by Kenzo gets two. There’s the hot tag to Rey (minus the hot part) who cleans house and destroys Kenzo. Seated senton gets two. Rene breaks up the 619 but Rob breaks up a powerbomb. Rolling Thunder takes out Dupree and now the 619 connects. Dupree breaks up the West Coast Pop though, only to get taken out by Van Dam. Kenzo cradles Mysterio and grabs the rope for the pin.

Rating: C-. It wasn’t horrible but you could really see that the tag titles were in shambles at this point. To be fair they had been for years so that’s hardly breaking news, but you get the idea. Not much of a match but it didn’t suck, which is really all you can ask for from these thrown together matches.

We recap Angle vs. Big Show. Show came back again and laid waste to everyone which impressed Teddy. Big Show was given a choice of facing Eddie or Angle. Show had injured Angle months ago so he picked Angle for a revenge match. Angle had recruited Jindrak to join him and Reigns against Show. Then on Smackdown, Angle shot Big Show with a tranquilizer dart and the trio shaved his head.

Kurt Angle vs. Big Show

If Luther or Jindrak interfere, they’re fired. Show threatens Angle a lot to start and shoves him away with ease. He runs Angle over and Cole says it’s like running into a concrete wall. Cole: “Go outside and run into a concrete wall to see how that feels.” Tazz: “Yeah don’t do that.” There’s a toss around the ring after Kurt can’t come close to suplexing him. There’s a suplex and Kurt is in big trouble. Angle gets thrown around and says screw this and takes the countout loss.

Never mind as Teddy pops in and says if you leave, you’ll never wrestle on Smackdown again. Yeah because it’s not like there’s another show he can wrestle on where they would welcome him with open arms or anything. Kurt has a ten count to get back in and he does so at nine after tripping over the steps. That was funny. Show keeps up the dominance with a headbutt and chops in the corner.

Now he stands on Angle’s chest. Why get more complicated than you have to? Out to the floor and Show punches a chair into Angle’s face. Back in Show drops a leg and chops some more. Angle has had zero offense and we’re over five minutes into this. He gets in an elbow but jumps into a slam. Here comes the chokeslam but Angle rolls through into the ankle lock. He gets the grapevine but lets it go a few seconds later. Kind of stupid no? Yeah it was because Show kicks him off and into the referee.

Kurt heads to the floor and grabs a chair which goes into the knee. Then it goes onto it a few more times. He hooks a knee bar over the apron and Show is in trouble. Show gets up and shrugs off all of the offense. A big boot puts Angle down but a second crotches him on the ropes. Angle Slam gets two. He heads to the floor and gets the tranquilizer gun again but Show grabs it away and breaks it over his knee. Ok that was cool. Reverse powerbomb kills Kurt and a chokeslam off the top ends this clean.

Rating: C. I liked this for some reason. There’s something cool about having Show just go off on people and destroy them with reckless abandon. That chokeslam looked great as Angle crashed to the mat. Fun match with Angle putting people over which is something he’s always been cool with it seems.

We recap Cena vs. Booker. It’s the final match in a best of five series for the title. Angle was GM and stripped Cena of the title. There was an eight man elimination match where Booker legally stole the title. Teddy Long made Cena #1 contender in a best of five series because of that hater Kurt Angle stealing the title from him. Cena won at Summerslam, Booker won on Smackdown, Booker won at a Smackdown house show, Cena won at Smackdown, tonight is the final match.

US Title: Booker T vs. John Cena

The title can change hands on a DQ or countout here. Cena slugs away to start and gets two off a shoulder block. Booker is sent to the floor and for once it makes sense for Cena to not go after him. Back in and a clothesline gets two for Cena but he walks into a spinebuster for the same. Out to the floor and Cena goes into the steps. Pretty slow start so far. Now Booker goes into the steps.

Back in Booker loads up the side kick but settles for a superkick instead, getting two. Off to a chinlock to kill some time. Cena comes back with a cross body for two. Booker suplexes him and it’s back to the chinlock. Cena hits a fisherman’s suplex for two and it’s back to Booker in control. This is really boring so far. Booker misses the side kick and crotches himself on the top rope.

Cena wins a slugout and a clothesline takes Booker down. The Shuffle gets two. He pumps up the shoes but the FU is countered. Booker comes back with the Book End for two as the crowd is getting behind Cena. Booker goes to get a chair but has to drop it to save the title. Scissors kick misses and Cena gets two off the crash. The FU ends this clean. Wow that was anti-climactic.

Rating: D+. I really didn’t like this one. Cena got a lot better in the next year or two but at this point he was really weak out there. Booker would do nothing for the next year until he won the world title and turned British in about a year and a half. Cena would lose the title on Smackdown to the debuting Carlito.

Taker won his third title at Over the Edge from Austin. That was the Owen Hart show.

Dudley Boys/Dawn Marie vs. Rico/Charlie Hass/Miss Jackie

I miss Dawn. She was gorgeous. Jackie is no slouch either. Bubba and Haas start us off but D-Von jumps him to give them the early advantage. D-Von beats on Charlie but Dawn tags herself in to hit on Charlie. Jackie comes in and there goes Dawn’s top. Bubba pulls Jackie’s hair to give Dawn the advantage then comes in to kiss her. Bubba makes the mistake of closing his eyes though and gets a kiss from Rico instead.

Out to the floor and Bubba is about to be sick. It’s such a shame that Rico got this gimmick as he was AWESOME in OVW, regularly outworking guys like Orton and Cena. Bubba walks out and Rico gets a bunch of (fruit) rollups on D-Von. Bubba comes back to crotch Rico and then officially comes in to give Rico a heterosexual beating. Rico grabs a DDT out of nowhere and double tags bring in the other guys.

Haas cleans house and causes some heel miscommunication. A German takes down Bubba but Dawn distracts him, allowing D-Von to get in some offense. Rico makes a blind tag and hits a cross body for two as everything breaks down. The Dudleys load up What’s Up but Rico is WAY too excited for it, rubbing his crotch and begging D-Von to jump. D-Von won’t do it so we get a catfight instead. Charlie takes down D-Von and Rico finishes him with a moonsault.

Rating: C+. It was a comedy tag match, but every time I watch Rico I love him more and more. This guy was doing everything he could to get this dead end gimmick over and it worked. Rico cracked me up which was the whole point of the character. It’s a shame he wasn’t allowed to just be himself and awesome. Fun match.

Taker won the title from Hogan again.

We recap JBL vs. Taker. Taker had chokeslammed JBL through the limo at Summerslam, resulting in JBL being injured and one of the funniest visuals ever in WWE. JBL was in a neck brace and hat his cowboy hat attached to the top of the halo, making the hat about three feet above his head. It was hilarious. Anyway, Taker was granted the rematch and beat up a lot of JBL’s cronies. it’s a Last Ride match, meaning ambulance match but with a hearse instead.

Smackdown World Title: John Bradshaw Layfield vs. The Undertaker

The champ jumps him to start which is surprising for him. Taker pounds him down and drops some elbows. He’s in full striking mode here. Old School puts JBL down but the champ gets a thumb to Taker’s eye. Taker goes Zombie Mode and chokeslams JBL down but it’s way too early to put him in the hearse.

JBL gets beaten down again and takes the apron legdrop. They fight in the aisle for a bit and JBL goes into the steps. Taker loads up the announce table but walks into steps to the head to give the champ his first real advantage. JBL kicks him up the aisle and hits Taker with the steps again. After a quick trip towards the hearse, they come back into the ring and JBL hits a top rope shoulder to put the Deadman down.

Taker grabs a triangle choke and JBL taps but it doesn’t mean anything. Out to the floor and Taker pounds some more because he’s not that smart at times. Taker loads up the table again but JBL hits him with the steps to break it up. That’s strangely familiar. A piledriver on the steps is attempted (Taker did it to Lesnar last year and Cole was fine with it, but here it’s evil) but Undertaker backdrops him.

They fight into the crowd with Taker in control. Back to ringside and Taker hits a Tombstone on the steps. Cole didn’t seem to think that was evil either. Bradshaw is busted but finds a chair to whack Taker in the head with out of nowhere. That sounded great. A monitor to the head puts Taker on a table. JBL gets the chair and winds up getting chokeslammed through the other table.

JBL’s face is covered in blood. I’ll give the guy this: he knows how to do bladejobs. Taker gets up first and wants to head to the hearse. Into a fireman’s carry and up the aisle they go. Taker opens the door but Heidenreich pops out. He knocks Undertaker out with ether and sends the hearse away but Taker pops out of that too. He pounds on Heidenreich but walks into the Clothesline for Bradshaw to retain.

Rating: D+. Some ok violence but for the love of all things good and holy can we get ANYONE but JBL as champion? His reign probably looks better over time, but at the time it happened it was awful with some of the lowest buyrates of all time as a result. Naturally it went on until Wrestlemania to make sure absolutely no one cared by the end of it.

JBL says never bet against him.

The hearse was being driven by Heyman who instructs Heidenreich to ram a car into it. Taker is blown up AGAIN to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. There’s some ok stuff on here, but there’s no great match like there was last year with Angle and Cena. The main event is lame and the whole car blowing up bit was eye rolling material, as we’ve seen Taker die so many times that it’s almost a cliché at this point. Not a memorable show at all and certainly not worth watching.

 

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Great American Bash 2005
Date: July 24, 2005
Location: HSBC Arena, Buffalo, New York
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

We’re back for more of this nonsense. It’s still Smackdown only and after the recent Draft, Batista and the World Heavyweight Championship are the bees’ knees (I’ve always wanted to say that) on the blue show. The main event is him defending against JBL, but this was before Batista got good against Taker. The rest of the card looks like your basically dull single branded PPV. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about the American Dream and how the whole show is going to be about him despite his matches sucking and not nearly as many people wanting to see him as he thinks. Oh scratch that, wrong American Dream. This is about Batista vs. JBL and Hassan being discriminated against. This is after the London terrorism thing. Oh and we’re in the Eddie vs. Rey for Rey’s kid thing.

You can tell this show is weak: the sponsor is WWE.com.

Smackdown Tag Titles: MNM vs. Heidenreich/Animal

This is Heidenreich/Animal since Hawk died a few years ago. I think this is because of the LOD DVD. Despite MNM being an awesome tag team and the champions (and the predecessors to Miz/Morrison), what do you think is going to happen here? Heidenreich doesn’t have spikes because he’d have to earn them. They’re called Legion of Doom but they changed the music so I don’t consider them a team. Heidenreich runs off Mercury to start and then does the same to Morrison.

Animal throws him back in and Animal gets a big pop. A double suplex puts the champions down and man there’s a gut on him. This is a total squash so far. FINALLY the champions double team Heidenreich and take his knees out. Mercury works on the knee and the announcers try to compare Heidenreich, the guy that raped Cole remember, to Hawk. Morrison misses a cannonball down onto the knee so it’s back to Mercury. This is REALLY boring stuff. After he cleans house, a title shot to the head gets two. Snapshot is broken up and the Doomsday Device gives the not-LOD the titles.

Rating: D. There was zero reason to put this on PPV and it wasn’t a good match in the slightest. They were trying to go for the LOD formula of total domination, but the non-matching tights and the lack of anything resembling charisma (or talent) by Heidenreich kept that from working. Bad TV match and an awful PPV match. Somehow they would hold the titles for THREE MONTHS.

Eddie talks about how he offered Rey a new twist on their match because he likes manipulating people now. He wants Dominic out at ringside for their match tonight to see Rey get destroyed. Eddie’s facials on this are great.

Christian vs. Booker T

Christian is awesome at this point and freshly on Smackdown. Booker is veteran midcarder in residence. Booker chases him into the ring and it’s a staredown. Christian hides, because that’s what cowardly heels do right? They fight up the aisle and there’s no story or reason for this match happening mentioned so far. Back in the ring a slingshot gets two for Booker. The tornado reverse DDT off the middle rope gets two for the Captain.

One arm DDT gets the same results. This is going nowhere again. Christian dominates with an evil headlock and Taz calls it an Anaconda Vice. Wait maybe it was a Vice. It’s not like we could see it, but who cares about something like BEING ABLE TO SEE THE MOVE??? Side kick misses and Booker goes down. Sharmell slaps him to remind us she’s still alive. Bookend hits for two.

The twisting sunset flip out of the corner gets no count but a spinebuster puts the Canadian down. Again there’s no particular reason for this match happening and that more or less sums up the problem with this match: there’s no reason to see them fighting. There’s the Spinarooni but since this is near Canada and Toronto in particular, this isn’t exactly a Spinarooni town.

Booker hits him in the corner but Christian powerbombs him out for two with feet on the ropes. Missile dropkick gets two for Booker. Christian ducks a….something, and they go outside. Booker throws him into steel objects, goes back in, hits the axe kick from the middle rope and that’s it. Seriously, that’s it.

Rating: D+. It’s not a bad match, but this came and went. The ending was kind of cool looking, but at the same time there’s NOTHING interesting here at all. Tazz mentions something about Smackdown from a few weeks ago but it’s not like we’ve heard that in the twelve minute match. The lack of story hurt this a lot, but these two have never worked well together at all.

Some old interviewer talks to Melina who says MNM will get the titles back soon. She’s going to beat Torrie in their bra and panties match too.

US Title: Orlando Jordan vs. Chris Benoit

Jordan is champion and has been since March, beating Cena for the title. Yes, this guy kept the title like six months for absolutely no apparent reason. He has stupid looking puffed up hair here too. Benoit hammers him down to start as Orlando isn’t all that talented. Jordan tries to kick him in the knee and Benoit just chops him down. The champ tries working on the arm but Benoit leg drags him down and we go to the floor.

Benoit goes into the post and Jordan takes the buckle off. That lets the Canadian hit a German on the American to take over. There was no story to this other than Benoit beat Booker to get this shot. Jordan works on the neck for a second and then fires off punches. He used to be a boxer apparently. Ok so now Jordan is on the arm. PICK A BODY PART AND STICK WITH IT!!!

A dropkick puts Benoit down which Tazz tries to pass off as a big impressive move. Back to the arm and this match needs to end already. I’ve been thinking that a lot in this show. Benoit grabs a Sharpshooter attempt to try to get something going but Jordan would rather bore us to death. Jordan hooks something like a crossface chickenwing and then off to the neck because he worked on it for a few seconds earlier.

Jordan goes up but Benoit chops him down and hits a superplex off the top to put both guys down. Another Sharpshooter attempt fails but here are the Rolling Germans. I’m still not sure what popping your hips means. Swan dive gets two after a delay. Benoit chops away but Orlando’s head smacks into Benoit’s to put Chris down. Jordan finishes taking the pad off the buckle and a charging Benoit hits that for the pin to keep the title on Jordan. Yes they really did this. Benoit would win it at Summerslam in like 30 seconds.

Rating: D. Again the problem here is that Jordan is just boring. He’s as generic as anyone could ask for and I don’t think he had an actual finishing move. He might have used a DDT once in awhile. Imagine Honky Tonk Man’s offense, minus anything resembling charisma or ability in the ring. And he held the title for SIX MONTHS!

Benoit gets a standing ovation for some reason.

We recap Taker vs. Hassan. The match is for the #1 contender spot, but the problem was that Hassan had sent in a group of masked terrorist characters to choke Taker out with piano wire. They decided to do this on the same day as the London subway bombings, so UPN (the network Smackdown was on) basically threatened to throw WWE off the air if Hassan kept appearing, so this is his last appearance.

Undertaker vs. Muhammad Hassan

The Terrorists bring out Hassan on a caravan kind of thing. Hassan reiterates that if he loses here he’ll never show his face on Smackdown again. The winner of this gets a shot at Summerslam (didn’t happen). Some of the terrorists surround the ring. Hassan tries to run but gets caught in the corner and hammered on. Old School hits and a Downward Spiral gets two.

Taker charges in the corner but goes crashing over the corner to the floor. The Terrorists hammer away on him and Hassan takes over. Back in a DDT gets two. Taker shrugs off everything and hammers Hassan down. He heads to the floor and beats down the Terrorists, but gets caught by the wire again. Oh and they’re “sympathizers” according to Cole. The ski-masks, black sweatshirts and camo pants would suggest otherwise. Hassan puts his camel clutch on back in the ring which is easily countered. The Terrorists come in and are knocked back down. Chokeslam ends Hassan.

Rating: D+. Somehow a match based around terrorists with zero drama to it at all is the best match so far tonight. This show seems to have no soul at all and it’s really hurting things. This was a really bad period for the company but the show sucking this much is inexcusable. This was the best match of the night so far if that’s possible.

Taker beats up the Terrorists and Daivari because he can. Hassan goes up the ramp but Taker catches him and hits a Last Ride through part of the stage. Hassan was never seen again. This takes like 8 minutes.

Torrie promises to give the troops watching something to remember against Melina.

Hassan is bleeding from the back of his head as he’s taken away.

Mexicools vs. BWO

Oh where do I begin. Ok so the Mexicools are Juvy, Psicosis and Super Crazy as really stereotypocal Mexicans (ride lawnmowers, carry rakes etc). The BWO is here because at One Night Stand, JBL legitimately beat up Blue Meanie. WWE gave Meanie a job for like two months so he didn’t sue them. This is their only match of note. The BWO comes out on big wheels for absolutely no apparent reason. American Chopper joke maybe?

Juvy vs. Nova starts us off. Things break down and the BWO takes over. Psicosis finally hits a corkscrew plancha to take over on Nova. Back to Juvy as Nova gets beaten down. He Hulks Up (NWO parody remember…..in 2005) and Cole messes up the BWO’s names. Hot tag brings in Richards who cleans house. Side slam gets two on Psicosis. Everything breaks down and Crazy hits a moonsault onto Richards followed by a guillotine legdrop by Psicosis for the pin.

Rating: F. This was on PPV. Once you get that through your heads, you’ll get why this was a failure.

We recap Eddie vs. Rey. They had been partners but Eddie never could beat Rey one on one. Eventually Eddie started talking about Rey’s son Dominic and said he was going to tell Dominic a story. Rey said don’t do it and so Eddie wanted one more match. If Eddie wins, he gets to tell Dominic the story.

Rey and his son pray before the match. Dominic follows the time honored tradition of speaking Spanish and then repeating it in English like he’s in a high school class.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio

Cole apologizes for being biased in this match. That’s chuckle worthy given what would come from Cole in like 5 years. Dominic is at ringside and the fans are behind Eddie. Eddie forces a handshake and Rey is getting madder and madder. Rey finally snaps and hammers away as the bell rings. He gets things going and hits the bulldog for two. We keep stopping so Eddie can smile at Dominic.

Eddie goes up but gets crotched and Rey snaps off a hurricanrana. This time Guerrero crotches Rey but Rey counters with a rana and hits the 619 to the ribs. Seated senton gets two. Eddie rolls to the floor to panic a bit then goes up to Dominic. Rey finally remembers that his mortal enemy is hugging his son and goes out for the save. Eddie hides behind him and tells Rey to get on his knees and beg.

Rey of course does and Eddie of course blasts him, because good guys are idiots in wrestling. Cole goes on a rant about how Eddie is getting off on this manipulation. Eddie is dominating here and not much is going on. Rey is basically fighting on instinct and trying to stay alive. Keep in mind that this whole match is based on the idea that if Eddie, the evil psychopathic villain loses, he gives his word he won’t say something. I mean you KNOW he’d never lie about that right?

Gory Stretch is on but Rey counters. He can’t follow up though and Eddie sends him to the floor. Eddie goes after Dominic and Rey speeds up again, taking over with a few shots. Rey grabs a tornado DDT for two. 619 hits but Eddie avoids the Dropping the Dime. Three Amigos hit but Rey rolls away before Eddie jumps for the Frog Splash. He makes it Six Amigos and the last one is a brainbuster. Now the Frog Splash hits but Eddie would rather look at Dominic, allowing Rey to roll him up for the pin.

Rating: C. The problem here is that the match runs about 15 minutes and about three of those minutes were spent looking at Dominic or Eddie stalking him. The problem is that this was based too much on emotion and the match was pretty much devoid of energy or interest. Naturally this feud would continue as Eddie would reveal that he’s the father of Dominic, setting up the line of “the following contest is for the custody of Dominic!”

Eddie freaks out post match.

JBL, wearing a patriotic vest that Apollo Creed would look at and say “yo dude tone it down”, says he’ll win the title which the Buffalo Bills couldn’t do. He’s a great American don’t you know.

Torrie Wilson vs. Melina

Bra and panties rules and Candace Michelle is guest referee for no apparent reason. I’m not particularly going to bother talking about this, because it has nothing to do with wrestling at all. Torrie does look good in pink pants though. She actually puts on an abdominal stretch and pulls the top off of Melina. Melina kicks her to the floor and takes over. Torrie loses her shirt too. Candace has had nothing at all to do in this match. And there go Torrie’s pants. I’m not rating this but they looked good.

Candace strips Melina to end this. She also strips herself. This would be better if they both weren’t in Playboy.

We recap the main event. Cena had been drafted to Raw so there was no champion. There was a six man elimination match to crown a new champion and JBL won it. Then right after it was over Teddy announced that Batista had signed to Smackdown somehow. JBL didn’t get the title but he gets the title shot here instead. Batista said he saw a bully in JBL and he’s here to stand up to the bully. Batista cost JBL a match with the Blue Meanie.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

JBL gets a full police escorted motorcade from outside into the arena. Once in the arena, we get confetti and JBL is handing out small American flags. Batista is mad over. He was significantly ahead of Cena at this point but Johnny was coming up fast. JBL is looking thicker here. Not fat, but thick. Ok maybe it is just fat. Big Dave takes over with power to start as they have about 20 minutes here.

They go to the floor for a bit and they fight over a suplex coming back in. JBL clotheslines him on the top, and then we get the scary part. JBL jumps off with a clothesline and Batista catches him like it’s nothing. THAT. SHOULD. NOT. HAPPEN. Back in Batista’s shoulder goes into the post and a big boot knocks him to the floor. They go onto the announce table and both guys are down.

Jibbles takes over, hammering away with the power game. He gets a flying fist off the table which gets two back in the ring. There are some elbow drops and then a sleeper. JBL’s red white and blue wrist tape is downright keen. The sleeper goes on for about a minute or so which should kill Batista but in wrestling, it’s just a way for him to get a breather. Finally he suplexes out of it and both guys are down.

A Batista charge sends him to the floor and he goes into the steps. Then he goes into the post so one steel object won’t feel left out. It’s always steel. Why is that? Anyway a big boot by JBL misses and a clothesline puts the Texan in the crowd. A spinebuster hits but the referee was bumped. Jordan comes out and gets decked too.

The Bomb is loaded up but Jordan cracks him with a chair. That only gets two of course because thank goodness we’re not getting another JBL title reign. The Clothesline gets two and the second attempt is countered into a spinebuster and then a powerslam. And then Jordan comes in with a chair. Batista cracks Jordan and then JBL with it and that’s good for the DQ.

Rating: D+. This wasn’t horrible, but man they needed something else for an ending. The problem here is that no one bought that JBL had a chance. They go twenty minutes for an ending that we already knew was coming, and then we have a weak DQ ending involving Orlando Jordan. That’s not how you end a show, especially after how badly this shown has gone already.

Post match Batista freaks out and kills everyone with powerbombs. The rematch would be a street fight.

Overall Rating: D-. I reviewed this show all in one day. Now usually that isn’t the case and I do part of a PPV review in one day and then more of it on the next. Sometimes it takes parts of three days, but today I did it in one. I had to look at the card again after the main event because I couldn’t remember what happened on it. That’s how forgettable this show was. Those kind of shows are far worse than a horrible one because there’s nothing you can to complain about and nothing all that interesting. Horribly dull show and I can see why this series is hated so much.

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Survivor Series 2008
Date: November 23, 2008
Location: TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
Attendance: 14,500
Commentators: Matt Striker, Tazz, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole

So here we are at the most recent Survivor Series. This show is built around one thing and one thing only: the return of John Cena. He was coming back from being hurt by Batista, so therefore he’s the #1 contender to Chris Jericho’s title. Considering this is in his hometown, the ending is pretty clear. On the Smackdown side we have the triple threat between HHH, Kozlov and allegedly Hardy, but this was the infamous stairwell angle that I’ve never gotten why it had such a huge backlash.

More on that later though. Anyway, Hardy isn’t there so we have a one on one match allegedly. There’s also three Survivor Series matches so that should be good. They’re going with longer matches this year, which I’m fine with. Let’s get to it and end this review series as even I’m fed up with this show at this point.

The intro is all about Cena and survival. No other matches are mentioned at all. Good to know that the company thinks so much of its other wrestlers. The theme song is by AC/DC though so I can’t really complain. We immediately start talking about the Hardy incident where they claim that ABC, CNN and TMZ have all talked about this.

That would surprise me, but I’d be more surprised if they would flat out lie like that on a live PPV. That’s something that’s a bit hard to cover up, so maybe those outlets did. TMZ I could certainly see doing it. Anyway, Ross’ voice sounds a bit off. Maybe he’s sick or something. Let’s get to it.

Team HBK vs. Team JBL

HBK, Cryme Tyme, Great Khali, Rey Mysterio
JBL, Miz, Morrison, MVP, Kane

The feuds here are pretty simple. HBK vs. JBL, the tag teams, Kane vs. Rey and MVP and Great Khali aren’t really feuding but they just didn’t have anything else to do. My goodness Lillian is gorgeous. How can you have multiple sole survivors? The money aspect of JBL vs. HBK hasn’t kicked off yet but they’re fighting a bit. These entrances are taking WAY too long. To say Rey is over is the understatement of the year.

MVP is in the middle of his big losing streak here that would ultimately make him a face. Miz and Morrison are just awesome, plain and simple. We start with MVP vs. Rey which should be a decent little match. If his partner didn’t suck so much, JTG would be a decent wrestler. He’s certainly the more talented member of his team, but dang he’s small. He’s also eliminated by a Drive By from MVP. He literally turns around and is hit by a Khali chop and pinned.

Well that’s a decent way to get rid of two guys I guess. It’s big on big now with Kane vs. Khali. The camera shot they use of looking up at them is really a cool looking thing. With an assist from Khali, Rey takes out Kane with a very high splash. We move on to Rey vs. Morrison here which should definitely be good.

The commentators are getting a lot of little verbal jabs in at each other which are at least being taken well. Good grief Shad is scary strong. Someone finally points out that Shad wears weird boots when he wrestles.

The commentators get into a long and weird debate/joke fest about 80s bands which makes no sense. They’re interrupted by Miz taking out Shad with a Reality Check. It’s 3-3 here as it’s HBK, Rey and Khali against Miz, Morrison and JBL. We get HBK vs. Miz which is a pretty cool match that I’d like to see more of. After JBL and Miz punch the heck out of HBK’s face, his eye is busted open a bit.

I would love to see Shawn vs. Morrison in a 20 minute match once. It would be awesome. Morrison starts using Shawn’s old moves, after having beaten him with a superkick on Raw this past week. That’s a cool angle when you think about it. After a long time of being in trouble, HBK makes the tag and Rey comes in. He goes completely human highlight reel and takes out Miz like he’s a jobber.

The you can’t wrestle chants kick off for JBL, which I’ve always thought was unfair. He’s a big power brawler. It wouldn’t make sense to have him do flips and technical stuff. It’s not in his nature. Rey has been held down his entire career? Really Grisham? He’s a former world champion, the greatest cruiserweight of all time and a surefire hall of fame guy. He’s really been held down. Morrison gets a nice counter to the bulldog move that Rey does.

I like it when people use counters to signature moves. It’s nice to see as it can’t be as hard as it’s implied. I don’t think it’s fair to say that JBL can’t wrestle, but dang his offense was pretty limited. Almost all he’s used are punches, clubbing blows and shoulder blocks. Throw out a powerbomb or a suplex or something buddy. Shawn comes in and after the nip up throws out a crotch chop to Morrison, foreshadowing the inevitable DX reunion number 18,000.

HBK and JBL go to the floor and fight it out resulting in JBL getting counted out but in a way that reminds me of a video game for some reason. Shawn almost walks into what would have been a SICK Sweet Chin Music from Morrison but naturally he ducks and kicks John’s head off for the pin and the victory.

Rating: B+. This was about as good of an opener as we were going to get. All of the eliminations made sense which is a lot more than I can say for some past matches. The feuds were kept alive which is the biggest thing you can ask for also. Everyone but JBL looked on their game out there and the result was solid. This is the epitome of a good Survivor Series match.

We go to the back where Eve, who is about to fall out of her top, is with HHH. HHH says that Jeff will be back, but tonight it’s HHH vs. Kozlov, which is what it should have been all along. HHH says that tonight is Kozlov’s first Survivor Series, his first title match, and his first loss. That’s a very short but good promo that hit exactly what it was supposed to do. There was a real chance that the Russian got the belt tonight, despite everyone on here knowing how much of a disaster that would have been.

Raw Divas vs. Smackdown Divas

Raw: Beth Phoenix, Mickie James, Kelly, Candice Michelle, Jillian
Smackdown: Michelle, Victoria, Maria, Maryse, Natalya

This is Survivor Series rules. Santino is with Beth here. The Divas are wearing their respective brands shirts which they all pull off. Yep, this is all about wrestling ability. Oh yeah Michelle and Beth are the respective champions here. Ok so more or less this is how the first few eliminations go: rollup, move, rollup, rollup, move. That’s the issue with the modern Divas.

So many of them win matches with nothing but rollups, which I can’t accept is due to anything other than a lack of knowing how to do anything else. That’s just sad. To be fair they’re not just school boys, but they’re all leverage moves or jackknife pins or something like that. That’s fine once in awhile but it eventually gets really old really fast. The Smackdown Divas keep arguing over who the captain is since Michelle is eliminated.

After that big rant, Jillian is taken out by a rollup. Within seconds a Northern Lights suplex takes out Maria. That’s another thing: the eliminations are coming WAY too fast. Seconds later, Maryse takes out Candice with an inverted figure four which in essence is a Sharpshooter where you sit on the leg instead of pulling on it. The final two are Beth and Maryse. Beth wins it with a big power move. This was just boring. Santino of course celebrates because he needs to validate his existence.

Rating: D-. This was just a waste of time. The eliminations were like 45 seconds apart, the moves were just repetitive, this accomplished nothing, and no one cared. That’s the main problems I can think of right now and I’m sure there were more in there. I don’t get why these matches happen. I guess to keep pests off of Vince’s back for doing swimsuit contests.

Matt Hardy says he doesn’t know what happened to Jeff. He knows that Jeff got hit in the head but that’s it.

We recap Taker vs. Big Show’s 10,387th feud which was exactly the same as it always had been. This time it’s a casket match. Big Show says Taker has no power over him. That more or less seals the ending of this match.

Big Show vs. Undertaker

Taker comes out first here to his mega entrance, which comes off as odd to me. Not the big entrance but that he comes out first. That’s just odd. Oh apparently that was just a group of random druids bringing the casket down. Yeah that’s just odd. I always love thinking about the druids getting lunch or something. It’s just amusing. Naturally the gong gets a bit pop.

This starts in the ring for about 12 seconds with most of that being Taker having the casket raised up. Immediately after that we’re on the floor with Show in control. I really don’t like these kinds of matches as they’re just so basic and simple that they’re not very interesting for the most part. Thankfully the ECW guys were allowed to leave.

I’ve always felt sorry for them having to sit out there all night long for a single match and then do nothing for the other two and a half hours but watch the show. Dang the announcers have nice chairs. A legdrop puts Show through the table because we’ve never seen that before. Hey we’re in the ring for a change! This is the big problem with feuds like this: we know Taker is going to win and that Show is just there to give Taker something to do until he’s back in the title hunt.

It gets old after awhile, but it’s kept Taker very fresh over the years so I can’t really complain. Show gets Taker down and has him in the casket but wants the referees to shut it, allegedly due to fear. Of course Taker pops up and starts his comeback. Ross calls Show a mastodon and before the word is out of his mouth he goes up for a Vader Bomb. It didn’t work but whatever.

Show gets out of the casket as apparently we need to do even more of the same stuff. The crowd is kind of into it but not really. They react to spots and that’s about all. With Taker down in the ring, Show tips the casket over and starts to leave. A wall of fire stops him and heeeeeeeere’s Taker. A bunch of druids bring out another casket as Taker is back up. They’re really making Show look strong here which is a good thing.

In something unique they stand the casket up. That’s new if nothing else. After the next ridiculous comeback from Taker, he beats on Show a bit and then Irish whips him into the standing casket which falls over and closes to end it. That was actually a cool ending but it got ZERO reaction. I mean no one did anything at all when it happened.

Rating: D+. This was a waste of time. No one cared, mainly due to who was in it. There was no reason at all to watch this and it was just boring. These two have fought so many times and had so many boring matches that there’s just no reason to watch it. The ending was cool if nothing else, which is why it passes.

Buy Armageddon! We promise it won’t suck!

The Colons hit on the Bellas, who are indeed hot despite what some would like you to believe. Of all things, the Gobbledygooker comes in. I wish I was making that up. They think it’s Charlie Haas, but he walks up. It’s the Boogeyman.

Team Orton is in the back. Orton says he’d rather be fighting Jericho, leading to him and Cody arguing. Legacy hadn’t started yet but it was coming very soon.

Team Batista vs. Team Orton

Batista, Matt Hardy, CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth
Orton, Rhodes, Shelton Benjamin, Regal, Mark Henry

No recap here, which more or less is the case because there’s very little story. The main thing here is about Orton and Batista. Orton put Batista out with a punt a few months earlier and is ticked off about it, leading to this. Punk and Kofi are tag champions here in the middle of their completely forgotten title reign that would end at the hands of Miz and Morrison soon after this. Matt is the ECW Champion here, in the middle of a pretty good feud with Mark Henry.

As for the other guys, there’s really nothing here. The Draft would change a lot around in 5-6 months, but until then there was just not a lot going on in the midcard. This match really was just kind of thrown together and there wasn’t a lot there for it. Rhodes has Manu with him here. The two of them and DiBiase had been trying to get Orton to join them but that wouldn’t happen for about two more months, forming Legacy.

Oh and Regal is IC Champion here, but he would lose it to Punk very soon. Speaking of Punk, he hits the GTS on Regal inside of 15 seconds to take him out. I’m assuming an injury or something like that there, but whatever. Kofi and Shelton get in there and just tear the place up for a few seconds. Truth really does have a cool look to him. Striker says that he’s making a killing here, which is amusing. The crowd is more or less dead here.

The announcers make sure to let us know that Orton vs. Batista is about Evolution. How can the feuds that came from a stable last longer than the stable itself did? I’ve never gotten that. Oh I think Shelton and R-Truth are having a mini feud here but no one really cared about it.

Like I said the feuds here were more or less thrown together and meant nothing at all. Oh I do remember R-Truth and Shelton. I watched them at a house show for the US Title. It more or less sucked. Shelton is US Champion here in case I forgot to mention that.

Truth is just sloppy. He walks into Paydirt though and it’s tied at 4. Kofi comes in off the top and Striker says the Jamaican is getting high. That’s just amusing. MVP would soon turn face and take the belt from Shelton, although not until just before Mania. Orton comes in and the match just slows down so much it’s insane. The second rope DDT takes out Kofi.

I would have thought the hair would absorb a lot of the impact there. Punk and Orton never got the match or angle that they should have after Orton cost him the world title at Unforgiven. That’s a shame as they would have had a great feud I think, or at least a great match or two. Naturally Punk was given a big thing of nothing like the tag titles. Granted he won the IC Title very soon, breathing some life back into it.

He would also get the MITB and world title again, so maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. In what can only be called a shocker, Rhodes hits a DDT on Punk for the clean pin which has to be the biggest win of his career. I get the potential in him, but eventually he has to actually do something with it, and the same is true of DiBiase. We’re on to Henry vs. Hardy with the former slamming the heck out of Hardy to take him out.

Less than ten seconds later Henry is speared out by Batista. It’s 3-1 now in case you were wondering. We have Batista against Shelton, Rhodes and Orton. The Batista Bomb on Shelton makes is what would become Legacy vs. Batista. Dave runs through Rhodes but a quick tag from Orton saves him.

Despite Orton gyrating and jumping up and down waiting on Batista to turn around, the Animal doesn’t hear him. The RKO ends this, setting up the complete throw away match between Batista and Orton at Armageddon. Remember that match? I didn’t think so.

Rating: C-. I didn’t really like it. I liked Orton winning the way he did, but the whole thing went too fast. It wasn’t bad for sure, but it certainly wasn’t anything great. The complete lack of feuds hurt things a lot here too. Having so many people that had nothing to do with the main feud or anything like it hurt things. It was ok, but not great.

Kozlov says something that was supposed to be English I think. Never mind it’s Russian.

We recap the three way feud, despite Hardy not being here tonight. I would recap it, but it means nothing since Jeff isn’t wrestling and he’s the focus of the package.

WWE Title: Vladamir Kozlov vs. HHH

We get a bell for the introductions and a bell for the actual match, so technically the match was paused for the majority of the action. That joke has long since passed being funny. Naturally the USA chants start up. Within seconds the fans are chanting boring. More on that later. They’re doing a very mat based technical style here with some submission stuff. The we want Hardy chant is going strong for about 12 seconds.

A TNA chant starts up as they speed up the pace a bit. It’s not bad, but it’s a different style that I don’t think a lot of the people are into at all. It’s really not that bad. HHH is fighting a guy that’s never lost so he’s afraid to use his best stuff. He’s feeling out Kozlov at first to avoid making mistakes. What’s so weird about that? It’s a thinking man style from the Cerebral Assassin.

Why is that bad? I really don’t like the way Scott Armstrong counts. He’s the blonde referee that has that hitch in his count. It’s so annoying. This goes on for awhile, and while it’s kind of boring, it’s certainly not bad. From out of nowhere, HHH gets a Pedigree. He gets ready to cover him, but Vickie appears on the stage, saying that it will be a triple threat and that he’s here!

Naturally it’s not Jeff but rather the returning Edge. He hits a spear on HHH but Jeff runs out and beats up Edge. Ok wait, hang on a second. Jeff was ok to do the run in (this if from kayfabe mind you) but couldn’t wrestle? I thought he was supposed to be extreme or whatever. That makes little sense. Anyway, Jeff hits HHH and Kozlov with a chair but gets speared. Edge covers HHH and wins the freaking title again.

Rating: D+. This is going to be a long rating. Ok, so the match was pretty boring. Was it bad though? Not really. There was indeed a story there though as I outlined earlier on. Kozlov is supposed to be this master fighter and grappler, so what did he do you ask? He used a bunch of grapples and submission holds to wear down HHH. In other words, he did what his gimmick called for him to do.

HHH was wrestling smart, so he did what his gimmick called for him to do. The Edge twist felt cheap, but it’s nothing that he hasn’t done a dozen times or so already. However, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter called this the worst match of the year. That my friends, is nonsense. The Divas match earlier was light years worse than this.

I would say that’s Meltzer simply continuing his quest to make WWE and Vince seem like the scum of the earth because for some reason he hates them both. He also called the Hardy angle the most tasteless of the year. This is one that I just do not get. Ok, let’s see. The reason the angle was considered in poor taste was Jeff’s past drug issues.

Tell me two things: when was it ever mentioned on WWE television that Jeff had drug issues, and when was it ever mentioned that this incident was drug related? Dang on the freaking broadcast they said he was hit on the head and attacked. It was an angle, nothing more. The drug thing was never mentioned once other than by people on the internet, but of course this is just so tasteless.

We’ll have Vickie Guerrero live off of Eddie’s name and make out with every guy under the freaking sun, but an angle that for all of 16 hours came close to hinting that Jeff might have had a relapse without ever saying it and clearing it up later that night was tasteless? Give me a break. It can be implied that Vince has slept with everything on the face of the earth and has a bastard midget son, but that’s not tasteless.

Women are flat out sex objects and nothing more, but that’s not tasteless. So it’s ok to do all that stuff, but having Jeff Hardy be found unconscious without ever saying what might have happened until on the show where they say he was attacked by a person and not an illegal substance is reprehensible? That’s the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever heard. If Jeff had another relapse, they wouldn’t have mentioned him being found out cold. Vince isn’t that stupid.

This reeked of angle the minute it broke at like 2:30 am the night before a PPV, but of course, it was tasteless right? Give me a freaking break. This is what gives the IWC a bad name: people making a huge deal about absolutely nothing at all when it was so clearly an angle. I said that the night it happened. I said it because it was obvious, but apparently Dave “he is risen again” Meltzer thinks otherwise, so it must be true right?

It doesn’t matter though as he’s barely a wrestling reporter anymore. Sorry I really can’t stand that guy. He does what all of us do and makes a fortune off of it. I’m sure someone will yell at me and tell me how brilliant he is, but no, not really. He’s good, but overrated. Ok, rant over for now at least.

Oh and it was revealed that Matt, Jeff’s brother, was behind everything. Jeff would win the title the next month in a freaking shocker anyway.

We jump from that to a recap of Jericho and Cena, which wasn’t really a feud but WWE kept trying to convince us of that anyway. Jericho had stolen the title at Unforgiven but as soon as Cena was announced as returning, the inevitable was clear. Oh and Batista got the world title for a week for no apparent reason in between. That’s about it.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Chris Jericho

The ending here is about as obvious as you could imagine. Cena’s pop is massive here. They try to make it sound like Cena has been out for a year when it’s been about three months or less. Jericho works on the neck, which here at least makes sense. I get it three months after an injury, but when they reference it a year and a half later, it loses its effect quite a bit. This is really formula based stuff but it’s working ok.

Cena has an early flurry and then Jericho takes over for the majority of the match, working the neck as much as he can. There’s nothing wrong with that as it’s the same thing that worked for Hogan for years if not decades. Jericho’s three finishers all hit and of course none of them work. This is the longest match of the night but it’s likely going to have the least amount said about it. There’s little drama here and after that initial pop, the crowd has been ok at best.

This crowd has completely sucked all night long. Naturally, Cena survives everything and hits the massive FU to get the title back despite Jericho hitting everything he could on him. That closes the show, which is exactly what it should have been.

Rating: B. This was good enough. There was zero drama, but they didn’t bury Jericho. Cena certainly should have won as Jericho was just keeping the title warm for him for awhile anyway. There’s nothing wrong with that. Jericho was a horrible champion anyway and always has been, so this wasn’t a big deal at all. Cena was clearly going to win, and sometimes that’s how shows should end.

Overall Rating: C-. This had its moments, but overall it’s just not that great. With six matches you run the risk of messing up on one or two of them and screwing the whole show up which I think is what this show did. Having Hardy be pulled probably wasn’t the smartest thing in the world as I guess they didn’t want to take the spotlight away from Cena. I get that, but it’s still a good bit of a bait and switch which is the most annoying thing that a promoter can do.

It’s not as bad as Randy vs. Jake in 91, but it’s far from good. Anyway, this wasn’t a great show at all and it pales in comparison to 07. Still, it’s not awful, but it’s certainly not worth going out of your way to see. Not really recommended.

So that’s the Survivor Series. It’s certainly changed a lot over the years. It started out as the other PPV and slowly evolved into the Hulk Hogan Happy Hour as I don’t remember him losing at all until 91. The whole Survivor Series match thing has become an afterthought, which makes me sad as it certainly had the potential to be something big. It would have worked a lot better had they kept the initial formula of letting the heel get the win to tie up the series.

To be fair to Vince though, the ratings for the all SS matches shows were some of the worst of all time so he made the change that had to happen. I am glad though that they’ve at least kept the original matches around, but man they could do so much more with them. There have been some classics and there have been some awful shows, but that’s the case with all PPVs that have gone on for a long time.

It’s probably not my favorite of the Big Four, but it’s certainly a fun show, or at least it can be. Come to think of it, like I said in a thread I made, I don’t know if you can call this one of the Big Four anymore as it’s really more of the Big Three. Either way, this was fun to do, but just like at Summerslam I got annoyed with it near the end.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: March 7, 2011
Location: American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
Attendance: 16,744
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews

After last week’s wrestling light show tonight we’re supposed to get Cena’s response to Rock which he says will be a final knockout.  With Mania more or less set all we have to do for the most part is finish the build to it.  There are four Raws left before then and hopefully they’re better than last week’s.  Austin is here tonight too which should help some.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip from last week of HHH talking about how his only remaining challenge is the Streak and ending it.

In the arena Taker comes to the ring complete with Johnny Cash music.  He talks about how people have been talking about how the Streak ends this year due to Father Time.  Or maybe it’s due to the Game, the King of Kings, Triple H.  Taker says that only one can be the Last Outlaw.  He shows us a highlight reel of the last two Mania matches, showing what happens to people that try to end his Streak.  The match at Mania is no holds barred apparently, and at Wrestlemania, HHH will Rest in Peace.

After telling us about Austin being here tonight we see Orton fighting off someone in the back.  It’s Otunga and Orton is double teamed by Otunga and Ryan.  Punk comes up and says McGillicutty is on the shelf.  Punk gets in his face and slams his head into what looks like a metal wall or cabinet.  GTS to Orton and Punk tells the two guys to take him to the ring as we go to a break.

Back with Nexus beating on Orton and then Otunga saying he’s ready for his match.  Randy says ring the bell.

Randy Orton vs. David Otunga

 

Otunga is in control quickly due to Orton being very weakened.  He pounds away and adds a slam for two.  Otunga gets his spinebuster for two which more or less seals the fate of the ending here.  He picks Orton up again and there’s the RKO to end it at 2:00.  Exactly what you would expect here.

Post match Ryan runs out after being thrown out pre-match and kicks Orton’s head off.  Orton fights him off and hits an RKO to leave him laying.  Punk comes out for the staredown while staying outside.  Orton snaps to attention and runs to the other side of the ring, punting Otunga as he gets up.  He did it so fast it was kind of hard to tell actually.  Replay shots the Punt looking great too.

Cole reveals his guest referee tonight.

Miz isn’t here tonight due to a lack of recognition.  That’s very true actually as it’s been about Rock vs. Cena.

Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio

 

Is there a reason this is on Raw and not on Smackdown?  Albert has Brodus Clay with his which is always a good thing.  Brodus has a mic with him so I might as well get this ready now.

Christian vs. Brodus Clay

 

Alberto says they’re going to fight but not tonight.  First off he has to beat Brodus Clay.  Yep I was right.  Clay takes him down almost immediately but Christian reverses a slam attempt.  Unprettier doesn’t work at all and Brodus takes over with raw power.  That would be opposed to Smackdown power of course.

He locks in an armbar which is very logical here.  There’s that T-Bone suplex but a splash misses.  A pair of dropkicks takes Brodus down for two.  Christian reverses a powerslam and a Tornado DDT gets the Canadian the win at 2:45.  Too short to grade but this was a good power vs. speed match which is the best kind of match.

 

Del Rio puts Christian in the Cross Armbreaker post match.

 

Package on Sin Cara.  They’re making him out to look like a big deal which is a good sign.

The newest Hall of Fane inductee (along with Michaels, Duggan and Bullet Bob Armstrong) is Sunny.  Oh yes this should be happening.  She’s the original Diva and belongs in the Hall of Fame.  Not a bit of sarcasm in there.

Women’s Title: Eve Torres vs. Nikki Bella

 

The bell is after the break.  Gail Kim is here with Eve.  Eve starts all fired up and hammers away on Nikki including a bicycle kick.  Cole talks about going to be on New Year’s Eve and waking up on Christmas morning.  That’s how he feels about introducing his referee tonight.  Cole literally gets up on the table and grabs a mic, saying we need to end this because he wants to announce his referee.  Eve uses the bottom rope as a springboard to get an enziguri.  Twin Magic gets caught and a spinning neckbreaker gives eve the win at 3:12.

Rating: C. Even with the Cole stuff in there the whole time this wasn’t bad for the most part.  Eve dominated and thankfully they didn’t manage to make things look stupid with the Twin Magic getting by again.  It makes the referee and wrestlers look stupid so I’m glad it failed here.  Decent match here and pretty good for the most part.  Should be interesting to see where it goes from here too.

Snooki of Jersey Shore will be Guest Star next week.  Dang it all.

 

It’s time for Cole to introduce his referee.  He has a contract and whoever signs said contract will be the referee.  If that’s not a way to cause some issues I don’t know what is.  Cole talks about how he’s been a fan of this guy for years and how he’s a guy that’s going to call the show right down the middle.  The referee Cole has picked is a legendary Texan and the fans want to cheer him so let’s start the chant: AUSTIN! AUSTIN! AUSTIN!  Cole says he fooled us because the referee is none other than JBL!

JBL talks about how Texas is a failure now with no championships in a long time.  Bradshaw looks slim here.  He talks about how until now no one has ever debuted in the main event, so I guess Lawrence Taylor and Mr. T. no longer exist.  He says that he’ll be an impartial referee and will return to the main event.

CUE GLASS SHATTER just before JBL can sign the contract.  Cole hides behind JBL so it’s a Stunner from him.  Time to drink some beer!  Cole sounds like he’s about to cry on commentary.  Austin looks down at the contract and up at the Mania sign.  With Cole crying that Austin ruined his night, Austin signs the contract and is the referee.  Austin goes out to Cole and shakes his hand before pouring beer on his head.  Cole leaves with one of the funniest looks on his face that you’ll ever see.  JBL gets another Stunner.  Hilarious segment with Cole cracking me up the whole time.

Back and Swagger says he’ll break Austin’s ankle.

Jerry takes over on commentary.

Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus

 

Sheamus charges to start but gets taken down and to the floor by Bryan where Sheamus seems to have hurt his ankle.  That actually gets a countout at 1:11.  Uh, ok?  Sheamus grabs a mic and says he’s on a losing streak but he’ll end that next week by becoming US Champion.  He challenges Bryan and says if he loses he’ll quit.

HBK will speak again later.

R-Truth vs. CM Punk

 

Truth grabs a rollup almost immediately for two.  Punk sends him shoulder first into the post twice and make it three times.  Truth tries to fight back and manages to escape the GTS.  A Rock Bottom and the Anaconda Vice (the real one, not some random hold that is called the Anaconda Vice) ends this at 2:35.  Total squash so no rating.

Shawn talks some more about HHH vs. Taker.  He talks about how HHH can do a lot and can go straight evil at times, taking emotion out of the equation.  Evil isn’t an emotion but rather a way of life I guess so that makes sense.

Vickie Guerrero comes out and we take a break.

Snooki is still coming next week.  I was hoping that was a nightmare but it seems not to be.

Vickie is here and Ziggler is rehired on Raw.  No real shock there.

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler

 

Vickie is on commentary here and apparently she isn’t dating Dolph anymore.  Dolph dropkicks Morrison to the floor where he holds his knee as we take a break.  Back with Dolph in control but Morrison makes a bit of a comeback, even hitting the Moonlight Drive.  That more or less ends the comeback though as Ziggler hits the Zig Zag for the win at about 2:00 shown of 5:30.

Rating: D+. Can’t grade this fairly but it wasn’t much of a match.  Ziggler needed a win on his first match on the show so I can’t really complain much here.  Not much going on here as most of it was commercial.

E-Mail says that Dolph is hired, not Vickie.  She’s a polarizing figure but she can have a job if she beats Trish Stratus next week.  Security comes and takes her away.

 

We get the third clip of Rock’s promo last week.  Cena’s reply is next.

But first, a look at The Chaperone!

After a final piece of Rock’s promo, here’s Cena to deliver the Final Knockout.  Apparently he struck a nerve with Rock last week and Rock calls him various kinds of breakfast cereals.  Cena likes the schtick but apparently Rock doesn’t like rap.  So tonight, Cena will do it in hip hop.  I’ve always wanted to know what the difference is so this should be educational.  He talks about how Rock was reading off a teleprompter last week and how the only thing Rock is beating is himself.   Cena was here last week unlike Rock.  Rock is a disgrace and needs to just show up.  He says he’ll give Rock a pearl necklace, which he produces from his pocket.   Cena has another pocket, this time with Rock’s new shirt in it.  “I Bring It Via Satellite!”  That was good.  Cena says not to call him out again because that’s bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Cena turns around and walks into a belt shot from Miz who leaves him laying.  It’s aboutt ime Miz gets involved like this.  He’s been left out in the cold which makes me think there’s no title change coming at Mania.  Cena staggers up and takes another shot.  Miz says he’s tired of being disrespected and every time Rock and Cena go at it, Miz leaves Cena laying.  Miz: “The Rock, John Cena, Randy Savage and Liz.  Steve Austin and Bret Hart, they’re nothing compared to The Miz.”  Those might not be the right names but it’s the right rhyme.  Miz looks into the camera and tells Rock he’s the star of Mania.  He says he’ll take Rock’s glasses, his catchphrases, his father and his grandfather and shove them in Rock.  Skull Crushing Finale to Cena and a People’s Elbow ends the show.

Overall Rating: B+. This was much better than last week.  There was an energy here and a lot happened on this show.  Knowing that next week we get a Trish match as well as potentially more Austin and Rock and JBL, this worked rather well.  Mania is taking shape and it’s very fun to see the people that come out of the woodwork for the build to this show.  This is a show where the wrestling being light is an exception when they pack so much stuff in as almost everything had a point and wasn’t rehashing already established stuff.  Good show and I’m looking forward to next week, which wasn’t the case 7 days ago.