Summerslam 2002
Date: August 25, 2002
Location: Nassau Veterans Memorial, Uniondale, New York
Attendance: 14,797
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Jim Ross

Another year and more changes have occurred. The main one is simple: the Brand Split. Yes, Raw and Smackdown are now two separate shows etc. However, there is an Undisputed World Champion and his name is the Rock. He’s defending tonight against the greatest rookie sensation of all time: Brock Lesnar. No one had EVER seen anything like Brock and they likely never will. He took the company and the business by storm, winning the shot by beating RVD in the KOTR final.

There were even rumblings that he could actually win the title tonight but that could never happen. What a silly idea. Your other main event is the return of HBK, facing HHH in what is considered a classic. This show is considered to be a rival to Wrestlemania 17 as the greatest WWF PPV of all time, or at least of the new millennium. Now I watched this show a few months after it aired and I remember it being good but not great. Let’s see if this is as good as it’s built up to be.

Oh also, two months prior to this, a new branch of the National Wrestling Alliance debuted: NWA: TNA.

Oh it’s also WWE now.

No opening video this year. That kind of sucks.

Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio

No real buildup here other than they don’t like each other. Given the amount of matches that they have to put together now, that’s the sacrifice that they had to make I suppose. Angle is wearing red and white stripes with a blue star, making him look like a barber pole. This was back when Rey’s knees weren’t falling apart yet and was close to what he was in WCW, which is to say, amazing. This is about as perfect of a pairing as you could want.

Rey is fast enough to wrestle with heavyweights, while Kurt is small enough and versatile enough to keep up with him. Going for Rey’s ankle makes sense as it could ground him and take away his best asset, so what’s not to like? My answer: nothing. This has been a very  good match so far. The fans are very hot for this too so that’s always a perk. Rey keeps getting closer and closer here but Angle keeps getting up.

What you have to keep in mine here is that at the time, Rey wasn’t a huge star like he is now. He was a rookie that only had a handful of experience outside of the cruiserweight ranks. Think of him like a better Evan Bourne and think of Angle like Jericho. Imagine Bourne and Jericho opening a PPV and Bourne getting so close every time but just not being able to put Jericho away, but Jericho can’t win either. That’s where you get this match.

These guys are killing each other out there and it’s great, as neither can put the other away. Rey gets Angle on the floor but the referee won’t let him dive. Rey says screw it and jumps over the referee and lands on Angle in a sweet looking front flip (Do a barrel roll!).

619 (which in WCW wasn’t an attack but rather a fake out) and West Coast Pop get two as Rey doesn’t know what to do. Rey goes up top and flips forward to avoid Kurt and goes for a hurricanrana. Angle more or less jumps forward and grabs the ankle. He goes to the middle and just cranks on it until Rey taps.

Rating: A+. Awesome match. That’s the only way to describe this. These two just went out there and did it. This was back when Rey was relatively healthy before his knees just got destroyed. He’s still good now, but back then he was insane. Rey in WCW was the most fun I’ve ever had watching a wrestler.

If you think Bourne is good, Rey from back then would run circles around him. This was as close as Rey ever got to that in WWE, and it was great. Find this match and watch it as it’s absolutely great. Screw it, this gets an A+.

Stephanie is mad that Bischoff is in her office but she agrees to share it with him for the night, as she proves she just can’t act. She does have nice legs though.

Ross and Lawler are talking about the show, but for some reason they had them really far away from the ring back then. It made no sense to me and just looked odd.

Chris Jericho vs. Ric Flair

Again, no backstory. We get a clip from them fighting on Raw, including Flair breaking all of Fozzy’s equipment, but it’s never explained why they’re fighting in the first place. This was when Flair was still fairly mobile and not all old and disturbing looking. He was only 52 and still could be decent in the ring. Being in there with Jericho is going to help as Jericho can wrestle Flair’s style, and is smart enough to know how to wrestle a Flair match.

See, Flair is considered one of the best of all time because he knew what he did best and it worked with anyone. Flair had a formula, and all he had to do was plug his opponent into that formula for the majority of the match and then have the finish. This was exactly what he did throughout his career in WCW and it hardly ever failed. Yes, Flair’s matches are pretty standard, but they’re also pretty good. I mean his stuff from when he was in his prime mind you.

Go back and watch some of that stuff from the NWA in the mid to late 80s and tell me if you can find a truly bad match. Now not everything is going to be a classic of course, but he hardly ever had a truly bad match. On the rare occasions that he did, it was because the other guy wanted to run the style of the match, which traditionally meant Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes was notorious for insisting on having his style of match, which worked for him and him alone.

Go watch their Starrcade matches and you’ll see what I mean. It’s just not looking like a normal Flair match and it just isn’t that good. Granted, this could be because Dusty just was awful in the ring as he couldn’t go for more than 5 minutes without resting. He was lazy on a snapmare in that match. It’s one of the most basic moves in wrestling and he’s lazy with it.

Anyway, the point of this rant was that at the end of the day, the reason Flair’s stuff was bad near the end of his career was the matches stopped playing to his strengths and became based on what the other guy could do. Flair made a career out of taking a guy that was good and making him great by making him look great.

Look at Sting. He was a good wrestler, but his rivalry with Flair is where he got noticed, because Flair made him look great. In WWE, Vince didn’t let this happen and it caused Flair to look bad and the guys that were against Flair didn’t look as good as they could have.

Ok, rant over at least for now. Once I get going in those things I just can’t stop. For some reason we don’t have Flair’s normal music. It’s the weird imitation that he had back in 92. We’re a minute into this match and they’re already talking about how he beat Rock and Austin in one night. My goodness that is never going to leave. It’s a huge deal but good grief let it die. The WOOS are loud tonight.

This is a stat that blew me away. Jericho has been around for a LONG time right? He was 2 when Flair debuted. That’s just ridiculous. Flair has been wrestling almost as long as Jericho, a veteran at this point, had been alive. Jericho calls a spot to Flair in fairly obvious fashion. He just leans over and whispers it to him. It’s scary to think that Flair, at 52, has miles better cardio than most of the roster in their 20s and 30s. This match has been very physical to say the least.

There are so many little things that Flair does that show why he’s great. It’s not a bunch of big impressive moves with a few botches here or there. It’s a simple, basic style that has practically zero mistakes in it. In other words, it’s not about what he’s doing well. It’s about what he’s not doing wrong. Then the little things like getting the referee looking somewhere else to use a bunch of punches. He plays to the crowd well too.

How sad is it that so many people today would be clueless about how to do this? We get a cool sequence where Flair goes for the Boston Crab and Jericho gets a figure four, showing how fairly stupid it is to have finishers like that which almost anyone can do. That’s why I like the liontamer, the one with the knee in the back, more. No one else uses it. Apparently over time the amount of points that the figure four puts pressure on has gone from 5 in Gordon Solie’s days to 7 now.

In a brilliant move, Flair grabs the ropes and taps. The thing is, since the hold should be broken, the submission can’t count. That’s a very smart thing to do as it buys him a lot of time. Referee gets a thumb in the eye, or maybe a short knee (rep for the first person that gets what I’m talking about) allowing Flair to low blow Jericho and put on the figure four. Anyone think it’s a bit sexual looking when Flair bounces up and down while in it? Yeah I never thought that either. Jericho taps.

Rating: B. While not as good as the other match, this was still very solid. As good as Flair is though, I’m not sure I’m sold on him practically beating Jericho, who was world champion earlier in the year, clean. It was a very good match with Flair being the better of the two, but still, it just had me kind of wondering.

Promo for Hogan DVD.

Heyman is with Lesnar and talks about him ending Hogan’s career. Lesnar is a freaking tank.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Edge

Dang 3 matches and 6 world champions. Again, very limited backstory here as they just don’t have the time to do it. As awesome as Edge’s old music was, he desperately needs something more hardcore at this point. He’s rocking the glasses and the trench coat though so you can see the future Edge trying to get out. However, in less than 6 months he’d be out for over a year, so that kind of got put on hold.

Apparently Eddie is upset about Edge being popular and a sex symbol (really?). That’s almost creepy given who Edge would be married to on WWE TV. Just as I say that about Edge’s injury, he might have gotten hurt. He has a bit of a stinger according to Tazz, who would know something about having a Steve Borden. If he is hurt, Eddie doesn’t seem to care at all.

In case you didn’t know, Edge is a HUGE face here and way over with the crowd. Apparently it’s Edge’s shoulder….er neck…..maybe shoulder…..can the commentators make up their freaking minds?? Either way, Eddie is crushing him right now. Eddie is just going insane on Edge’s shoulder, so if nothing else we have a simple story going on that works really well. If nothing else, how can Edge spear someone if his shoulder is killing him without hurting himself really badly?

The main thing of this match is nothing more than Eddie working over the shoulder. Frog Splash misses but after a brief Edge comeback including the Impaler, Eddie hits a splash down onto the shoulder. Of course, because he’s the charismatic face though, Edge is able to spear Eddie without his arm falling off for the pin.

Rating: C+. The ending just ruined this for me. I got into Eddie’s shoulder work, but then when Edge more or less no sold it at the end, it was a total waste in my eyes. What’s the point in working an injury and taking away a guy’s finishing move if the other guy is just going to no sell it and use his move anyway? That was just bad and made me shake my head, which sucks as the match was pretty good.

Tag Titles: UnAmericans vs. Booker T/Goldust

Now this was a gimmick that I thought was very solid. Christian and Lance Storm represent the UnAmericans here, with Test being the third member of the trio. In short: they don’t like America. They were given the tag titles but very soon after this the gimmick was just completely dropped. I’ve never quite gotten why though. Either way, the odd thing here was that Booker and Goldust were also a team, yet they have absolutely nothing in common.

Hearing the announcers try to give them something in common really is quite funny. The fact that they’re both from Texas never really seemed to sink in. Either way, they were a fairly decent team, albeit they were far more comedic than serious, but Booker would be pushed towards the title picture soon and then put into a serious team with RVD, so all is good I suppose.

Anyway, on with the match. Hearing Lawler try desperately to make Booker and Goldust pro-America is rather interesting, as he compares them to the Great American Melting Pot without ever referring to it as such. The USA chants are really loud to say the least, so if nothing else the heels are drawing heat like they’re supposed to be. Ross’ repetition is nothing short of annoying.

Goldust hits a Bossman Slam as I try to come up with a connection between those two and it’s not working. We get a classic ref didn’t see the tag spot which needs to be done more often. It’s as simple of a way to draw heat as there is in a tag match. This crowd is HOT. Booker gets his own chant as he’s clearly the big star in this match. We knew he was a big deal, but they didn’t push him as such until March, when he was fed to HHH.

Oddly enough, HHH had everyone on the planet fed to him until tonight when he let Shawn, his old buddy, have a classic with him. It’s not like these jokes have no basis in reality, but I’ll save that rant for later…maybe. Anyway, Booker finally gets the hot tag to a huge pop. He throws chops at Christian so fast that the crowd can’t WOO fast enough. That’s actually pretty impressive.

Booker hits his missile dropkick which would have won him the world title in WCW but since this is the WWF and Christian is for some reason popular, he kicks out at two. It always amazes me how a finishing move can just lose its power over the course of a year. Booker spins up as Mark Madden gets another ego boost.

The faces dominate for a good while until Test runs out and kicks Booker’s head off to keep the titles for the heels. On replay, we see the referee looking right at Test leaving as Booker is left lying. Yeah that makes sense. The Smackdown tag titles would be debuted in about two months.

Rating: C-. This was about as cookie cutter of a match as you could have imagined. While it’s ok, it’s just ok. Booker and Goldust would eventually get the titles later on in January for all of two weeks. It wasn’t bad, but just not great.

Nidia does some stupid thing at the World, which is the new name for WWF New York.

Eric and Stephanie make some stupid sex jokes.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. RVD

This is cross promotional, so we have two announcers which is both kind of cool and kind of stupid. Benoit and Eddie have been jumping rosters lately, going from Raw where he won the title to Smackdown. The US Title on Smackdown was about a year away at this point, so there was only the midcard title on Smackdown. Van Dam kicks the freaking heck out of Benoit to start, so you know this is going to be physical to say the least.

This was a weird time for these two as Van Dam was kind of replacing Angle in the triad of the midcard. You always had Benoit and Jericho, but Angle was always a step ahead of those two, and eventually as he was phased up into the main event, Van Dam was thrown into the middle of the card more or less as an experiment and I’d say that it was a success. Frog splash misses and Benoit gets the crossface, which he locks on for about 30 seconds.

No tap though as we’re really just getting going. Over the course of the next 5 minutes or so, Benoit gets another two crossfaces on Van Dam who STILL doesn’t tap as we’re entering HBK at Mania 12 territories of not giving up. In a nice touch of comedy (in my eyes at least), Van Dam locks in the crossface, at least I think that’s what it is although he never was one for submission holds, on Benoit.

This lasts all of 4 seconds though as Benoit is the master of it so why wouldn’t he be able to get out of it? I’m not wild on the two matches with focus on the shoulder like this, but in this case it makes much more sense with Benoit’s finisher focusing on the shoulder. I guess with Eddie and Edge it made sense due to some psychology being thrown in, but I’m still not wild about it at all.

In something I never once remember seeing before, Van Dam’s hair tie comes undone and his hair is freely flowing. I’ve never seen that before and I really don’t like it. He looks almost like Tyler Reks with it like that, which works fine for the surfer, but it just doesn’t look right on Robbie V. I’m thinking I forgot a Ross joke here. That’s going to bother me now. The ending here is just not that great.

Benoit has a belly to back suplex countered as Van Dam rolls over onto him and lands in kind of a cross body/splash. In a very nice looking move, Van Dam looks down at Benoit from the top rope with Benoit’s feet pointing to him. He turns in the air and lands a Five Star for the pin and the title. Really not huge on that ending, as it’s just kind of there. There’s not a lot of drama as Van Dam just jumps up and hits the splash and pins him. However, a guy winning a title clean is a very refreshing thing to see. There was no interference or anything. Van Dam simply countered and hit his finishing move to get the pin. That’s both good and bad I guess, but the rest of the match was good so I’ll take it.

Rating: B. This was very intense and well done. It’s probably Van Dam’s biggest win of his career up to that point and is probably one of the biggest of his career even to this day, with the world title obviously being ahead of it. He beat Benoit, one of the best ever, clean. If that’s not validation of his ability at least on one night, I don’t know what is. Very good match though and worth checking out.

Stephanie, with those gorgeous legs showing very well, before laughing for no apparent reason at Bischoff bragging. Not sure what this led to, but it might have been the US Title. Actually that’s not it, as the IC Title would soon be unified with the world title, in one of the biggest head scratchers of all time. It would be revived about 8 months later when everyone realized how truly stupid it was, and THAT would bring about the US Title.

We’re getting ready for Test and the Undertaker. JR says a lot of people want to know who the UnAmericans are, why they’re here, and why they’re doing this. In short: Lance Storm, Christian and Test, they’re professional wrestlers and TNA was a baby at this time and since Vince had more or less created a monopoly there was nowhere else to work, and they’re Canadians that don’t like Americans. Why is that such a complicated thing to figure out?

The UnAmericans carry around an upside down American flag to symbolize how messed up America is. That’s either brilliant or really stupid. They keep saying they hate America, so the American wants to beat up Test. On a side note, William Regal would join them later on. Taker’s punches were called soup bones for no apparent reason around this time, as JR continues to get further and further away from this lovely little thing called reality.

Oh yeah we’re in the Tough Enough era here and Tough Enough 3 was going on. The winner of that was one John Hennigan. You may know him as John Morrison. The other winner was named Matt Cappotelli, and while you may not have heard of him, I was lucky enough to see him in OVW.

He was absolutely awesome and I can guarantee you of this: he would have been either as big a star as Morrison or far bigger. The guy had that X factor to him and you knew he would have been something very special. His retirement speech almost had me in tears. I wish I could find a copy of it.

Undertaker vs. Test

You won’t hear this, but JR says that Test has been living on nothing but potential forever. How true that is of so many workers today. This is part of the UnAmericans vs. everyone else so Taker busts out a hiptoss of all things as he dominates early. The big clothesline hits but Old School is blocked to let Test take over.

Test’s fairly generic big man offense takes over. This is rather slow paced and not very interesting. Taker gets a belly to belly to get out of most of the trouble but an elbow misses. They slug it out which of course Taker wins which lets him get a running DDT for two. Old School connects and the bigger man is in control.

Test’s big boot misses and a chokeslam gets two which is probably the high point of Test’s career. Christian and Storm run in which gets them nowhere. It does however allow Test to get his big boot for two as Test PANICS since the one solid move he knows did nothing at all. He grabs a chair but it gets kicked into his own ugly face and a Tombstone ends it. That was a rarity at this point so it was cool to see. He celebrates with the flag afterwards.

Rating: D. This wasn’t that good. It was certainly more about the angle than the match, and while there are occasions that I’ll make exceptions for that such as Hogan vs. Andre, this isn’t one of those occasions. It’s just not good as their styles were too similar and while Taker is good enough, Test just didn’t care at this point and it shows. Solid angle, bad match, as Test just wasn’t in Taker’s league, ever.

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Taker is just now leaving, so that was an extended celebration I guess.

We start the build for what I think (and yes it’s very debatable) was your real main event. Shawn hasn’t wrestled in over 1600 days. That’s a lot of sleepless nights for Becca. Lawler says that a lot of these people have never seen Shawn wrestle, which means that a lot of people have never heard of home video obviously, or Lawler thinks it’s 1940 and there’s no such thing as taping a match.

In case you’ve never heard it, here’s the basic build for this match. Shawn and HHH were in DX together as you likely know. However, Shawn got hurt and HHH took over DX and became the star that he is today. Now, in the Summer of 2002, Shawn came back for a night, unbeknownst to us, healthy and sober. That night, it seemed to be all about Shawn again, which was unfair to HHH who had actually had a more successful career as far as title reigns and time on top than Shawn had.

That night, Shawn came up with the idea of reforming DX (I want that man shot) and HHH went along with it, or at least he did in the beginning. They do the two words line, but then HHH kicks him and pedigrees him. You can tell this is serious because it goes into slow motion. HHH hits a very weird pedigree as he jumps way too high and it looks like Shawn was countering it with a backdrop.

Anyway, HHH says that Shawn used HHH to get to the top, so now HHH used Shawn to get to the top, which makes even less sense but whatever. Now this is the part of the storyline that I never understood. HHH is cutting the promo in the ring where he says all of that stuff. Ok, that’s fine. A guy gets his attention and says that something happened.

HHH bolts from the ring and goes off to find a bunch of guys around Shawn who is laid out on the ground bleeding and there’s a hole in the window of a car. HHH says he’ll find who did it and when he does, that person is a marked man. Shawn comes back a few weeks later for a satellite interview, and he has the footage from the security camera, and naturally it’s HHH. As I’ve said many times, what’s the point?

For one thing, why wouldn’t it have been HHH? He’s cutting a promo about how he can’t stand Shawn, and since Shawn has been back for all of 2 weeks, why wouldn’t it have been him? Seriously, who else was it supposed to have been? Why wouldn’t they have just shown it being him, maybe ending the show like that, and THEN have the interview where Shawn challenges him for Summerslam? HHH says that he did it to prove a point, which was that Shawn is vulnerable.

Ok, that’s all well and good, but WHY WOULD HE GO ON A FREAKING MANHUNT IF HE DID IT? That makes no sense! What’s the point in turning him heel one week, turning him face for two weeks, and THEN revealing him to be the mastermind for lack of a better term, thus turning him heel all over again? It’s just pure overkill and was absurd. ANYWAY, Shawn says that he’ll be completely recovered by Summerslam. So let me get this straight.

Shawn couldn’t get better from a broken back, which is something that could have paralyzed him, in four and a half years, but if you cut him on the head he’ll recover in less than a month? Are you telling me that all Shawn had to do to completely be healed was cut himself shaving? If that’s the case, Becca might have a fit. This match is non-sanctioned, which Bischoff says means that it never happens. HHH says the logical thing: Oh Eric, but it will happen.

See, that’s my issue with matches that never happen. YES THEY DID! When you erase something from the record books, people still remember the matches themselves. That’s why taking down banners for basketball games or erasing wins is freaking stupid. The games were played, and therefore we’re going to remember who won, who lost, by how much, and what kind of shoes they were wearing.

The match not only happened, it happened in a WWE ring, on a WWE PPV, had WWE commentators and had a WWE referee, but people know who freaking won it! The match DID happen, so what’s the point in saying it’s non-sanctioned? If it was non-sanctioned, then this would be happening in a parking lot somewhere instead of in front of 14,000 people. Since it’s not an official match, why is HHH in wrestling gear?

Does he wear that in his everyday life? Is there constantly a referee following him around to check and see if he wants to go for a pin? Does he think he’s Nighthawk and that he’s competing to become Champion of Wrestling (OCW joke for those of you that have NO clue what I mean)? Are you starting to see how stupid this really is? Just call it what it is: a WWE street fight. It sounds better, it looks better, and above all else: IT MAKES SENSE!!!

They get a full music video before the match here, which actually does show off how great of a match this could be. HHH’s line of “YOU CAN’T WRESTLE ANYMORE!” while as corny as it sounds, actually tells the whole story here in just four words.

That’s the sign of a good promo: it sums up everything simply, without having to use a big elaborate bunch of words to fill in time. All that being said though, the buildup had you actually believing that something special was coming, and for those of you that have seen it, you know that it is. For those of you that haven’t, be ready to enjoy.

HHH vs. HBK

Before I begin, one note that I’m likely to forget. In an interview that HHH gave about Shawn and this match in particular, he says that this was a 45 minute match. From what I’ve seen, it clocks in at about 27-30. That’s a far cry from 45 if my math is correct, but I digress. To say the pop for HBK’s music is massive would be like saying Hogan was a little over.

The flashbulbs are going off all over the place as this is actually a very epic moment. It’s not like Shawn was doing nothing when he left. He was wrestling in the main event at a major show as the world champion and he retained. It’s fairly obvious that he would have gotten at least a rematch with Austin at Backlash and likely have been champion again somewhere down the road. However, it’s likely that his addictions would have caused major problems.

Geez I need to stop these tangents. He gets the mega star treatment which he deserves, including pyro, confetti, etc. He’s actually looking like it’s a non-sanctioned fight, wearing an undershirt and jeans. His shirt says Philippians 4:13, which for you football geeks is what Tim Tebow has on his eye black in every games. For those of you that don’t know who that is, watch some real football, not that nonsense they play in Europe and find out.

For those of you that have no idea what it means, it’s a Bible verse that reads “For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That makes a lot of sense for this match. Usually I want the face to come out last and get the big pop, but here I think it’s better that Shawn came out first. Also, Lawler says that no one in history has had more charisma than Shawn.

Not sure about that King. I’m thinking of a guy in red and yellow. He posed a lot, kind of made wrestling what it is today. In an odd fact that you may not know, the man who wears red and yellow, despite many tries, has never once beaten Jerry Lawler by pinfall. They fought dozens of times, but Lawler never lost cleanly to him. SCREW these tangents!

HHH gets the booing to end all booing. You have to keep in mind: HHH is at about the level here that he’s at today, so it’s not like Shawn was coming back to fight Dolph Ziggler or someone like that. He was taking on one of the very best. Shawn is all calm here, even doing the lay on the rope like a hammock thing. I really like that actually, as it plays to Shawn’s laid back persona that he had when he was at his peak.

If he was all serious and angry that would have made sense too, but I think this actually works a bit better. Shawn starts fast, throwing his PERFECT towel in HHH’s face and punching him. Apparently this is due to his Texas pride. What in the world does Texas pride have to do with this? He jumped him. Isn’t that being a bit cowardly actually? Why am I trying to make sense of something JR said?

Shawn starts by throwing punches for the most part, but within two minutes he launches over the top rope with a plancha, followed by more punches. That’s a very smart idea actually. Shawn has been out of the ring for four and a half years. It’s not like he’s going to be the Shawn that was wrestling just before the injury. He’s going to have a lot of ring rust, so punching makes sense.

Also, it’s a good safety advertisement for kids and adults. Since this isn’t an actual match, it’s not actual wrestling right? Therefore, Shawn not doing a lot of wrestling moves is showing that people shouldn’t try this at home. Now it’s ok to punch someone’s head in, but don’t try to slam them. We get weapons brought in, namely the trashcan of death, as JR talks about Shawn’s son watching at home.

There’s a great parenting lesson: if you’re ever possibly walking into a match where you have little to no chance of winning and could be paralyzed because your pride got in the way of your thinking, make sure your kids are watching, because it could be your only chance to look good for them. Sweet Chin Music misses and HHH lands a backbreaker, which Shawn sells like death, opening the main psychology of this match, which was to be expected.

You know, you’d think that after four and a half years his back would be a bit better. Oh, Lawler has used vintage four times inside of 5 minutes. I wonder if that’s where Cole got it. You can almost see the Harley Race coming out of HHH already as he looks just pure evil. Ross says that WWE has nothing to do with this match as I am fighting from rehashing what I said earlier.

Chair is brought in and cracked over Shawn’s back, but since he has HEART, he can kick out of what would pin others, despite it being his weakest point. JR says HHH is 6’4 and a half and weighs 260, despite him being listed as 272 just 8 minutes ago. I feel like I’m watching a Captain Planet parody with all these heart references. DDT on a chair which should have crippled someone but he kicks out with ease, but he’s bleeding.

Lawler says this match may have been the biggest mistake of Shawn’s career. He hung out with Luna, so that’s a big negative there King. HHH gets the sledgehammer as Shawn fights him off. HHH goes for an abdominal stretch which I’m sure has Gorilla Monsoon complaining in his grave. HHH grabs the rope, which I’m still trying to figure out how that actually adds anything to the hold.

Earl Hebner yells at HHH about it and you can tell he means business because he has a mic on him, but keep in mind: this IS NOT a real match. Shawn gets crotched on the top rope as a little bit of Becca’s soul dies. Another chair shot to the back would normally end anyone else’s career, but SHAWN HAS HEART! I know I’ve made fun of a lot of this, but this match really has been good.

I’m rarely a person that can pick out specific things a guy does in a match, but even I can tell that HHH is a master heel. They do a spot where HHH sets up a chair and Shawn is side slammed through it. If it broke then it hurts horribly, and if it doesn’t break then it hurts like the 7th circle of torment. We get probably the 5th spot that would kill anyone else, but Shawn has….screw it even I’m getting tired of that joke.

JR says Shawn is limp. I’m sure Becca could fix that. Ok I’ll try to keep the Becca jokes to a minimum now. Shawn starts his comeback in his comeback match by countering the pedigree. The fans are white hot here, even 15 minutes into this. From out of nowhere, Shawn gets Sweet Chin Music into a chair but Shawn is spent, which makes sense. The psychology is definitely here, as it’s always nice to have guys that actually know how to work the mental side of a match as these two do. HHH is busted.

Ok, now this is just getting ridiculous. Shawn has had maybe 5 moves that would have ended any match with ease, including a DDT on a chair, and 5 minutes later he’s fine? Even Hulk Hogan thinks that’s a bit much to swallow from Shawn. Becca says…never mind. All of a sudden Shawn is limping around again, so I guess I can buy the adrenaline excuse. JR calls the chair shot a Jason Giambi like swing which makes me laugh. Of all the power hitters in history he picks him?

The commentators have a crazy idea: Shawn could win. I get that this is supposed to be his last hurrah, but is it that hard to believe? Ok yes it would have been at the time. The fans want tables, so HHH is put on the most famous one of all time: The Portuguese Announce Table! In a weird spot, Shawn pulls the shoe from one of the commentators, which Lawler says is a heel for a heel as I can’t believe he still has a job at this point.

You can say heel but you can’t say belt or strap? It’s ladder time. DAng why can’t it be wiggle time? HHH gets a solid shot right in the hand with it. In case you didn’t know, this is non-sanctioned. Did you know it’s non-sanctioned? I just want to make it clear that this is non-sanctioned. And last but not least, it’s non-sanctioned. HHH busts out a baseball slide as two things happen: he uses a new move so screw you HHH haters, and I am WAY past my record for talking about one match.

You can tell this is a big match as HHH goes up top. Shawn gets a weird float around sunset flip but he shoves himself off at two because the spot looks bad if HHH kicks out on his own. JR randomly throws in how evil HHH is. That is yet another example of why I love professional wrestling. Where else could someone try to cripple you but just a few years later you’re best friends again and fighting on PPV together?

That must have been one heck of a Christmas card that HHH sent him. “Hey man, sorry about that whole wanting you in a wheelchair thing and the attempted manslaughter. Next time we hit Waffle House, you can get a Coke on me.” Drop toehold into the stairs for HHH and we actually get a realistic looking impact. Why are tables such a big deal? It’s not like they’re that deadly.

Wouldn’t it actually break the fall a bit as you have less time in freefall? Shawn comes off with a splash from the top to the floor with a table, which is just cool looking no matter how long he’s been out. The holy crap chants have started, which is fine as this match is awesome. Correction: this match is greatness. There is a difference. The odd thing about that though is that this is really just an extended hardcore match with big names.

They’re hardly doing anything revolutionary, yet the match certainly is great. I think that goes to show just how awesome both of these guys are. They’re taking stuff that we’ve seen dozens of times before but by using storytelling and style, they’re making it look better than ever. Shawn lands the Screw You elbow and bounces up. The old school stomping on the mat clues HHH in to what’s coming and it’s countered into the Pedigree, but Shawn rolls him up to shock the world and win the match.

Normally I would have been for the Sweet Chin Music and the clean pin, but with that we can’t have what follows: HHH drilling him in the back with the hammer to become Satan incarnate. He then does it AGAIN to make Satan look like a baby bunny named Lucy.

Lawler is absolutely losing it in some of the best commentary I’ve ever seen. Ross sounds like any other heinous act, but Lawler is probably at his best ever here. The fans are chanting for HBK, but since he’s not Hulk Hogan, he can’t get up. Shawn is stretchered out as the fans are almost dead silent.

Rating: A+. Holy crap this was awesome. You have to remember, Shawn hadn’t done a freaking thing in nearly 5 years. This would be like Austin coming back and stealing the show and having one of the best matches of his life. Both guys were so on here that it’s not even funny.

Norcal says it’s in the top 5 matches of all time and I’m not sure I can disagree. I might not rank it that high, but dang it was fun. Easily one of the best I’ve ever seen and if you haven’t seen it before, turn the lights out and watch it right now. It’s certainly worth the 30 (not 45 HHH) minutes.

Ok, now I have to bring this up because it was the talk of the IWC around this time. As you know, HHH gets a LOT of criticism for never putting people over and while today that’s complete nonsense, those complaints started around this time and I think that at this time they were completely true. “But KB, he JUST put Shawn over.” Yes he did, but you have to remember that at this time no one, not even Vince himself thought that Shawn was coming back full time.

This was a one off performance and that was it. It’s no different than when Hogan came back and beat Orton and HBK. He had nothing to lose but he didn’t put them over as they needed. It’s no different here. HBK didn’t need to win here, given the circumstances at the time. Yes, HHH put someone over, but he put someone over that didn’t need it. Less than a month after this HHH would be awarded the WHC and after a brief Shawn run HHH would hold it for over 9 months.

In that time he beat everyone and beat them soundly. That right there is where he got the reputation for never putting anyone over, and I think those are valid claims. Prior to this he had won the title at Mania 18 and lost it to Hogan, who was just another nostalgia run like HBK was right here. In other words, for over a year and a half, HHH put over HBK, his best friend, and Hogan, the biggest star of all time.

Starting with the creation of the Undisputed Title in December of 2001 and ending with Wrestlemania 21 almost three and a half years later, the longest HHH wert without being world champion: just under four and a half months. Once the second title was created in September of this year or about 2 weeks after this show until Mania 21 (Batista and Cena winning the world titles): 5 months.

Both of these times he was feuding with HBK for the majority of the time. Therefore, I think there certainly was something to those claims back then that he was either playing politics or hogging the title while refusing to put anyone over, as he was either champion or feuding with HBK.

Since we had an amazing moment, we follow it with a bit that is supposed to be funny. This was the Get The F Out campaign because of those panda lovers.

JR and Lawler don’t think HHH is a very nice person. No valentine’s day cards for them.

Howard Finkel has something to say as we have entered the Twilight Zone. He says that he’s dedicated to the business and while MLB may be going on strike (they didn’t), the fans will always have the Fink. For no reason at all, Trish comes out for this. Apparently….they’ve been feuding?

Like I said in my Smackdown review, it’s kind of awesome hearing Fink’s voice being ticked off. Trish hits on him for some reason. Howard references his rather personal area as my scars are scarred for life. Lillian is behind them and she beats up Fink and leaves with Trish. Aside from having two very hot women appear, this may have been the most pointless segment I’ve ever seen.

We see a promo package on the rise of Brock and how Rock has been training “specially” for this match, which means he’s getting in shape to film the Rundown.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Brock Lesnar

After all that, Tony Chimmel is announcing. Brock’s music is great and Heyman is in his element as the jerk agent. This match was Rock’s very last time being around any title period as he would make one last 3 month run in the spring, beating Hogan and Austin before putting Goldberg over and riding off into Hollywood, only appearing for Mania the next year.

Basically, this was to launch Brock as high up as they could in one match and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done better. Rock was really just a trophy champion at this point, having no title matches and never really being the focus of the show at all. Since Austin was on hiatus at this point, Rock was all they had left as HHH was busy with HBK. They figured they would roll the dice on Brock and just see what happened.

There’s not a lot to say here other than Brock is destroying him. I mean this is almost an extended squash, with the fans all over Rock. It’s a smark crowd so I’m assuming they know Rock is gone after tonight. Either way, Rock is getting booed out of the building here and the fans LOVE Brock, who was turned face about three months later at Survivor Series. Actually it was a bit before, but it was official that night as Heyman turned on him, making Brock face by default.

Brock puts on a bearhug which I kid you not lasts nearly three minutes. Granted, it’s the hug that killed Hogan off, but DANG that’s a long time. After the nap I was taking ends with them finally doing something, they go to the floor and Lesnar is down. During this time, Heyman gets the worst Rock Bottom of all time through the table. Back in, Rock hits the Rock Bottom and Lesnar kicks out because that’s what monster heels do.

He hits his own Rock Bottom which Tazz calls, say it with me, the Brock Bottom, and yes, it is stupider than it sounds. They trade punches with Rock winning and going for the Elbow but Brock pops up to just take his head off with a clothesline. That was one of the hardest moves I’ve ever seen.

We get a great series of near finishers and counters, but Brock lands the F5 to completely shock the world and win the title as the fans go nuts. The ending is really fast with clichéd lines like the next big thing has arrived. I think they were pressed for time or something here because the show is over maybe 15 seconds after the pin without even a single replay.

Rating: C+. This again wasn’t about the wrestling but what it meant. As I said this was Brock’s big moment and they couldn’t have put him over any stronger if their lives depended on it. He dismantled Rock and made it look easy. Of course they would screw this up royally by putting him with Big Show who would injure him at a house show because he was too fat for Brock to throw around without hurting himself.

Scratch that. Brock could throw him around, but Show just sucked badly at this time. Either way they had no choice but to give Show the belt in an angle that was just horrid as it made Brock look pretty weak. Also, less than two weeks after this the Undisputed belt is made exclusive to Smackdown which I think is what Stephanie was laughing about earlier.

Anyway it leads to HHH being given (literally) the World Heavyweight Championship which Shawn would win at Survivor Series in the first Elimination Chamber. DAng I got off topic again. Anyway, Brock was awesome, Rock put him over and bailed, and Austin was long gone, so Brock is officially a big deal.

Overall Rating: A+. This show is awesome, but HHH/HBK should have gone on last, plain and simple. It was by far and away the bigger story and got more attention. Also, after that match, the fans weren’t spent but they weren’t as alive as they could have been for the title change.

Other than that, I don’t have any issue with this show. It’s solid all around with nothing bad on it at all. I’ve heard it compared to Mania 17 and while I don’t think it’s better or equal to it, it beats anything for second place at least off the top of my head. Highest recommendation all around here.

Summerslam 1997
Date: August 3, 1997
Location: Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 20,213
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon, Jim Ross

Well, it’s another year but this time we’ve had some solid changes. Actually, no we haven’t come to think of it. Austin is still his usual self, but in this case he’s going after the IC Title from Owen. Yes, this is the infamous piledriver match. Other than that, it’s the time just barely before the Attitude Era. We’re not quite there yet but we can see it staring us right in the face.

Montreal was three months away and Taker vs. Shawn would be established at the end of the show. This would of course lead to the first ever HIAC match. Other than that, there’s a lot of the same stuff from last year s we’ve only kind of slightly evolved since Summerslam 1996. This is more of a transitional show, but it still had its moments. Let’s get to it.

We get a great opening video about how life isn’t fair for Bret, Taker and Shawn, all of whom are involved in the main event tonight with Bret vs. Taker and Shawn as referee. The tagline of the show is Hart and Soul, which is kind of cool I think. This is all fallout from the EPIC Canada vs. USA war that happened over the summer. This would wind up causing Montreal, which I’m sure you know the story of.

HHH vs. Mankind

In a cage.  This is the blowoff for a feud that’s been going on for months. They met in the KOTR finals with HHH winning but they kept feuding forever. HHH is using Ode To Joy which is one of my all time favorite heel themes. This match is just after Canadian Stampede where they brawled all over the arena. It’s escape only which means it’s much better than matches where you can win by pinfall, which I’ve always thought was a cheap way out.

For some reason the governor will be there later. Yeah I don’t care either. How odd is it to have a cage match as the opening to a show? I like it though as it prevents the mind numbing delay of having to put the stupid thing up which is about ten minutes in its own right. Mankind dominates the early part but Chyna keeps interfering, mainly by reaching through and choking Mankind.

Oh and at this time, Austin and Dude Love are tag champions, but Mankind isn’t. That’s what’s great about this character. It’s not three different gimmicks. It’s one guy playing three different gimmicks if that makes sense. They never hid that Foley was all three guys. They wallowed in it. That’s something you simply don’t see and in this case I think it certainly worked. It made him see even more insane than he already was, if that’s possible.

JR says that it’s a no DQ cage match. In the words of Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men, is there any other kind? The only noticeable spot for the opening part of the match is a suplex from the top of the cage that’s not hyped up enough by the announcers and wasn’t nearly as good as Hogan and Bossman from 89. They’re going old school here with the big blue bars that need to come back.

Chyna keeps choking and cheating like there’s no tomorrow which is what she’s supposed to do I guess. It’s weird seeing these two as midcarders. We get a Dominic Denucci shoutout. How can you top that? Kowalski would have beaten him though, so that’s not really fair. This is a really physical match as they are just beating the living tar out of each other with some sweet as well as sick shots. Both guys climb the ropes but HHH gets caught in them.

For some reason Mankind goes for the door and in an absolutely sick shot, Chyna slams the door on his head. Foley said this was one of the most painful spots he ever did in his career, and when it’s Mick freaking Foley that says it, that’s a painful spot. Chyna beats up the referee and since it’s no DQ, what can really be done? Chyna finally gets nailed to a HUGE pop from the crowd.

We then get the ending as Foley hits a double arm DDT onto the chair to knock HHH out. He climbs out and is a step away from winning as Chyna is trying to drag HHH out. However, the fans are losing it so Foley pulls the mask off and climbs back up. Chyna, for no apparent reason, stops pulling him and goes to the floor. In the truly famous spot of the match, Foley pulls his shirt open to reveal the Dude Love heard and dives off with the elbow.

Now as he’s climbing again, Chyna starts pulling HHH out but Mankind gets to the floor first to blow the roof off the place in a cool moment. He collapses on the floor but soon his foot starts to tap. Then the music kicks on. He starts dancing. Dude Love has returned, despite holding a title at the moment. This was a cool moment and another example of why the idea behind Foley was so genius it’s hard to comprehend.

Rating: A. This is an awesome old school 80s style cage match and it was great. With the manager trying to cheat every 3 minutes, the face ultimately triumphing, the big spot at the end and the fans response, this was awesome. Al kinds of sick shots in there but it never went far enough that it wasn’t believable, which is what makes a match like this great. Foley should have won and he did, which makes it even better. Excellent match here and I loved every bit of it.

Todd is with the governor of New Jersey. This doesn’t go well, like, at all.

Tiger Ali Singh is here. This was a gimmick that just sucked. Imagine Khali plus Million Dollar Man plus Hassan, then add in a lot more suck. You get Singh.

Brian Pillman vs. Goldust

This is a weird feud to put it mildly. The basic idea is this: Goldust doesn’t like Pillman because he’s implying that he and Marlena had a relationship prior to her meeting Dustin and perhaps after she met him. For no reason at all, if Pillman loses, he has to wear a dress until he wins something. This is standard pre-Attitude Era stuff.

There’s really not a lot to say here. BAD botch on a sunset flip by Goldust. He more or less crawls over Brian’s back instead of clearing it. The commentary is all about the Pillman/Terri angle, which was fine but kind of generic. The sad thing is Pillman would be gone just months after this so we never got to the end of the angle. Eventually Terri blasts him with the loaded purse to get the pin.

Rating: D. This was just boring, plain and simple. The botch didn’t help things either. It was predictable and fairly stupid, so how can I grade it highly?

Legion of Doom vs. Godwinns

This is stemming from a botched Doomsday Device where Hawk nearly broke Henry’s neck. Godwin just slammed head first into the mat and cranked his neck nearly in half. It was one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen. Anyway, WWF of course decided to play it up in a real feud, because a near death experience is good for one thing: making money off of it, naturally. Anyway, this is a standard late 90s LOD tag match: not very good.

This is another case of a team (the Godwinns) just completely failing as heels. They’re supposed to be fun characters but as heels they’re not menacing, but creepy. Anyway, this is even more standard stuff than the last match. I think that’s the issue that LOD had: they had no substance at all in the latter half of their career. This match is a prime example. They don’t really do anything other than just look intimidating.

Another major issue for them was their lack of involvement in the tag title picture. They were used more to put young teams over, which is fine, but the hype is a bit too much for me, although I could see how some would think it works. LOD wins with a spike piledriver, and after about 10 minutes, I’m just bored pretty badly.

Rating: C-. Again, just a bunch of meh here. It’s bland and dull for the second match in a row and nothing makes me think this should have been on PPV. LOD and the Godwinns were too similar to make this work. Nothing at all here and it was just barely watchable.

For some reason, we have a million dollar giveaway or something like that. It’s really not clear what the point of this is, other than to have Sable and Sunny looking GREAT. This is a lot like million dollar mania, yet more stupid as the first 3 callers don’t answer.

The people pick a number from 1-100 for a key to open a coffin with a million dollars inside. This takes up 8 freaking minutes, which could have been used for, oh I don’t know, A FREAKING WRESTLING MATCH??? Is there a point to having it in a coffin that I’m just missing?

European Title: British Bulldog vs. Ken Shamrock

For some reason that I just don’t get, if Bulldog loses the match he not only loses the title but has to eat dog food. This is even more fallout from America vs. Canada. We hear about a show called One Night Only which was a British PPV where the ending just ticked me off as Shawn took the Title from Bulldog and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it before handing it to HHH, all because he just didn’t want Bulldog to have it anymore.

Big brawl to start as Shamrock is all kinds of ticked off due to being force fed dog food on Raw. Ankle lock goes on almost immediately but rope is grabbed. This starts off with mainly all Shamrock but a boot in the corner gets the Englishman in control. This is a rather ugly match to put it mildly.

Bulldog takes over while we get a long chinlock. Instead though we see about 15 seconds of the crowd and random people which serve no point at all. Shamrock grabs something off the announcers’ table and blasts Bulldog in the head with it for the DQ.

Rating: D-. It wasn’t the worst match I’ve ever seen but it couldn’t have been much worse. Shamrock and Bulldog had this horrible clash of styles going on here and it made for a very uninteresting match here. At least it was short though at about seven minutes.

The post match insanity is by far more important here as it makes Shamrock look like a freaking psycho, which is what he needed to be all along. He half kills a ton of referees, making him look like a monster. He got the push that he needed because of stuff like this. Oh and he choked Bulldog out.

Los Boricuas vs. Disciples of Apocalypse

Oh great why did I put up the Euro match? This is the gang wars period of the WWF, which NO ONE wanted to see. The original idea was to have three groups: the Nation, the Boricuas and the DOA and have them randomly fight each other. While that sounds ok in theory, the Boricuas had one guy anyone had ever heard of in Savio Vega. Go check their wiki pages and see what I mean. The other three have one major career accomplishment: being in Los Boricuas.

As for the DOA, they were ok as well, but they were just a generic biker team fighting a bunch of tiny guys and always losing. The Nation you already know. The problem here was simple: there was no story. Why are these teams fighting? We’re never told. They’re just feuding, but we don’t know why or over what. There were never any promos or anything like that.

It’s just fighting for the sake of fighting which NEVER WORKS. This is an 8 man tag, so at least we don’t have to worry about multiple matches. At first the Nation was in this feud too, but they eventually dropped out when they realized they had actual careers. The biggest issue with this feud though: the DOA NEVER WON. It was always an upset for the Boricuas, which makes even les sense as if they’re dominating, how can it be an upset?

What are you expecting here though? It’s an eight minute match followed by a run in from the Nation which is accompanied by Ahmed who botches the Plunge on Chainz on the floor, leading to him getting pinned. I forgot Ahmed’s horrible heel turn that lasted all of five minutes. He joined the Nation and of course was injured within a month. He was even supposed to get the title shot at Canadian Stampede but that didn’t happen, as he couldn’t stay healthy for more than 10 minutes.

Rating: D. My goodness what was the point to this feud? It made no sense, no one liked it, and it was boring beyond belief. Just a waste of time for guys like Crush and Brian Lee that were good workers, stuck with this stupid gimmick.

We get the recap for the showdown between Austin and Owen. This is based off one thing: Owen pinned Austin (which was a big deal) at Canadian Stampede. Hart was the IC Champion, yet him getting a pin was a big deal. That either makes no sense, or shows you how big Austin was. I think it’s a bit of both.

Since Hart beat Austin, naturally it means Austin should get a title match. Umm, right? Oh if Austin loses he has to kiss up to Owen, literally. Well let’s get to it, as this is far more famous for one spot than for anything else, as you likely already know.

Intercontinental Title: Owen Hart vs. Steve Austin

On the way to the ring, Michael Cole, a newcomer at this point, tries to talk to Austin by calling him Mr. Stone Cold. It’s what you’d expect, but Cole is always a tool, now and forevermore. The pop for Austin is huge, as you can see he is the undisputed future. Owen goes for the knee while Austin is up on the ropes and the start is very fast. The crowd being white hot helps a lot here, as this is a heated feud already and they’re both looking great early.

Austin works the arm here and actually does it really well. It’s weird seeing him use technical stuff, but he’s doing it quite well here. Before the neck injury he was a completely different worker, but after it he found something that worked perfectly for him, so while obviously it’s not good that he hurt his neck, it turned out as well as possible for him. I know I’m doing more play by play for this one, but this is followed by a pair of spots that I really like.

Owen comes up from a wrist lock and does that series of flips that he’s always used to counter it, which I’ve never understood. At the end of that all he does is grab the other guy’s wrist. Does he need the flips or an I missing something here? Anyway, he does all those, and Austin just pokes him in the eye to get control back. It’s one motion, almost like what Piper would do.

After that he goes to a hammerlock and Owen grabs his head and jumps into the air to try to flip Austin over. Steve just stands there and lets Owen slam into the mat. I love those as they’re so simple yet so effective, which is a lot of what Austin’s offense was based on if you think about it. His main offense was kick, punch, jump on people (Thesz Press) and Stunner, which is grab them and sit down. That’s really not a lot when you think about it.

Anyway, moving on. Owen works on the fingers and hand, which against a guy whose main offense is throwing punches makes a ton of sense. Austin even busts out a powerbomb for a counter, which isn’t something that I’ve ever seen him use. It’s always fun to see guys throw new stuff like that from nowhere. It keeps things exciting. Owen hits a neckbreaker which is frightening foreshadowing.

I think he’s selling the move, but I think it’s more legit than work here, which explains a lot about the upcoming move. German suplex and Austin’s neck is hurt even more. My guess is he initially got hurt in one of these moves but of course the big one was the piledriver of course. Vince tries to figure out why he’s one of the most popular wrestlers today but he just doesn’t get it. That amuses me for some reason, as they lay the ground just slightly for Austin vs. McMahon.

And there it is. Austin is dropped on his head, changing his career forever. This really was scary as it was entirely possible that he never could wrestle again from that injury. That’s a very scary thought to say the least. Completely apart from his health issues, this meant a ton as far as the WWF went.

Austin’s injury and Vince not allowing him to work because of it was one of the earliest issues that the pair had, as Austin and the fans wanted to see him get in the ring but Vince said for the safety of Austin, he couldn’t allow that to happen. This is a case where real life and wrestling mix, which usually makes for better angles and promos. It’s easy to convey an emotion in front of a camera when that’s how you really do feel.

As for the match itself, I have to give credit to Owen here as he handles this as well as he can. You can see him setting for a cover and I guess Austin says that he’s hurt to him or something, as Owen looks down at him for a second and then gets up and plays to the crowd to buy Austin some time. There was no way Austin could have kicked out there and you certainly couldn’t fault him if he got pinned.

About thirty seconds later Vince gets that something is wrong after clearly being upset at first. After that he calms down and says that Austin must be hurt. JR I think handles it better by not really ignoring the injury but taking the focus off of it and talking about the Canadian and American fans chanting at each other.

I could see this going either way but I’d rather use Ross’ method here, as it keeps the story going on the chance that Austin is able to fix himself and that it was just temporary, which there’s no way to tell the extent of the injury this quickly.

Either way, it was handled well I think. We then get the worst roll up of all time as Owen sells like a god to try to make it look like he’s in trouble, but Austin is more or less just laying there with Owen’s legs in the air as it was the absolute best he could do at the time. The referee fast counts as well as he can to give Austin the title as he just collapses afterwards.

This is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen as he can’t even walk on his own. The referees have to carry him out, but not before he throws the belt over his head and gets another massive pop. You can tell just by the look on his face that he’s completely gone.

Rating: B. The match itself was actually really good I thought. They went back and forth and due to the finish they had, it’s obvious that Austin was going to get the title in what I’m assuming would have been just a standard Austin finish which would have worked just fine.

I’m certainly not going to hold the ending against them as there was nothing they could have done about it. These two had great chemistry together and it showed here. Excellent match that could have bordered on classic and been famous rather than infamous.

We get a recap of Bret vs. Taker, which more or less is Canada vs. America again. Shawn is referee as you know.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Undertaker

Bret wants the Canadian National Anthem to be played. His heel stuff was just masterful to say the least. Shawn’s pop is big to say the least as he is the referee like I’ve said many times now. He and Bret are forever linked together and that’s obvious even now, which is saying a lot considering their biggest moment would be about three months later. Oh yeah Taker is here too.

Another massive pop for the WWF Champion as the crowd is red hot tonight, despite the show kind of sucking. The explosion when the lights come on draws one of the loudest short pops I’ve ever heard. Apparently there’s a ton of stipulations here, with the main one being if Bret doesn’t win the title he can’t wrestle in America again, so the ending is pretty clear. There’s also one on Shawn, but it’s not made clear.

Bret jumps Taker and hits him with his own belt before the match starts, because he’s a real Canadian. For the most part, the opening here is just a brawl. That’s fine as both guys can certainly fight, and this is no exception. Shawn is trying to call it fair, but you know something is coming later on. This is a long match though as there’s 30 minutes to go and we’re just started.

We get a report that Austin has no feeling in his hands and has been taken to a hospital. As you may know, it wasn’t a good diagnosis. For the most part, Taker is dominating. Of course, just as I type that Bret starts his comeback as Taker is called a redwood for the second time in about 5 minutes. Ross’ line of Bret having visions of sharpshooters dancing in his head made me laugh.

Bret gets a figure four as we touch on Taker never losing by submission. As this hold is on, Paul Bearer comes out. Apparently he’s been saying Taker’s brother is still alive. Yeah nothing is ever going to come from that angle. After escaping, Taker goes outside and drills Bearer but Bret takes over again because of it. We get the Heartbreaker, which is the figure four on the post.

I still don’t get how that’s really a big additional help but whatever. Owen and Pillman hit ringside for no apparent reason other than being nefarious. “They’re not offering moral support. They don’t have any morals.” That was kind of clever and kind of crap. After a good long time HBK gets rid of them, but in doing so he misses the cover following a chokeslam.

Somehow of course Hart pops back up and gets the second rope elbow, just after a double bird to the fans. I love how a heel turn can make whatever you preached for a year mean nothing at all. Always loved that quick legdrop that Bret uses from time to time. Bret goes for the sharpshooter as Shawn looks in very close. I guess he’s taking notes on how to put it on properly for later on or something.

Oh come on I had to make one joke. Taker with a sweet over the top rope from the apron chokeslam. This has been a very solid match, but I’d have preferred no Shawn. He’s not hurting things as he’s been consistent and he had to be there for the ending, but I’d have preferred a standard match here. Ross says that we’re seeing Vintage Hart. Oddly enough, Cole was a relative rookie at this point. I guess he also took good notes.

Finally we get the sharpshooter, and after it’s been on for a little while, Taker just launches Bret with nothing leg strength. Isn’t it amazing how after one person (Austin) broke the unbreakable hold, it happens more and more? That always makes me chuckle for some reason. Bret counters a tombstone and puts the Sharpshooter on again, but this time he uses the post. However, the post isn’t even touching Taker’s leg or back, making the use of the post, say it with me, COMPLETELY POINTLESS!

Seriously, it’s not even touching him and because it’s there, Bret can’t put any torque on the hold. Isn’t the point of the hold to raise up the legs while the torso stays still to put pressure on the knees and back? With this it’s like Taker is just lying on his stomach with his legs crossed like he’s in Terms of Endearment. Now how’s that for a bad image? To get out of it, Taker kicks him off with ease, since there’s NO PRESSURE ON HIS LEGS.

Of course Bret lands on HBK, and Michaels assumes that Bret just jumped on him, since of course Bret would just jump on him and let go of a hold. Bret slams Taker with a chair as Shawn is trying to get his knee to work, and since it’s Shawn’s knee, you know that’s nothing but legit. I mean it’s not like he’d fake a knee injury for a match involving Hart. That would be just a waste of everyone’s time and effort, so why would Shawn fake a knee injury in an angle involving him and Bret Hart?

Such a thing would obviously be impossible. Anyway, Shawn comes back in and asks Bret about the chair. As this is happening, Taker gets up and is standing behind Bret. Shawn is standing there arguing with Bret and pulls back the chair. Now let’s pause for a second here. Shawn is looking at Bret. Bret and Shawn are arguing. Bret is considered to be one of the smartest wrestlers of all time. Shawn pulls back the chair.

Was Shawn supposed to think that Bret was just going to stand there and get hit in the head with a chair? Oh and don’t worry about the big demon behind Bret. He’ll just move. You get the point don’t you? Yeah, that ends Taker’s title reign as Shawn is completely disgusted that he had to do that, since obviously there was nothing more intelligent that he could have done in this case.

The fans are going nuts as Bret is pelted with garbage while Taker leaves to go get him a piece of HBK. Insert your own Becca joke here. For no apparent reason, this is the upset of the year or something. Why? Bret is a former what, 3-4 time champion? Is it that far out of the realm of possibility that he could beat the Undertaker for the belt? We go to replays as Bret is joined by the Hart Foundation and the party is on.

They’re still talking about how this is shocking. WHY IS IT SHOCKING??? Pillman runs up and kisses the belt as we go off the air, which is sad as he would be dead in two months or so.

Rating: A. VERY good match. They hammered each other the whole time, and as I’ve said countless times, the key to a great match is not knowing who the winner would be. While it was clear given the stipulation about Bret that he would win, I actually forgot about that. That’s the sign of a good match in my eyes. Absolutely great match here and something that you should go out of your way to see.

Overall Rating: B. This was a very hard grade for me to come up with. The show could be called good but some could call it awful. As you can see, I liked it more than I didn’t like it. This is very hit or miss. The best summary I can give you: the parts that are good are good and the parts that are bad are bad. The cage match is excellent and to me the best match on the card, but I’m a fan of the older style.

The main event is solid as these two have great chemistry together and brought it hard here. I’m fine with the ending as it set up one of the great blood feuds of all time. The rest of the card is at least ok. The IC match is more infamous than famous but it certainly holds up. To sum up in one word, Summerslam 97 is passable.

It’s got enough good here to make it above average, but not by much. Too much filler in a row and the million dollar thing was just a waste of time. Overall, it’s certainly not bad, but it could have been better.

Summerslam 1996
Date: August 18, 1996
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 17,000
Commentators: Mr. Perfect, Jim Ross, Vince McMahon

Well it’s certainly a new era in the WWF. For one thing, Shawn is the undisputed biggest star in the company right now. Bret is on hiatus, and a loud mouthed guy from Texas is flipping people off and cursing a lot. It’s like there’s a growing Attitude or something going on. Eh nothing will ever come of that. I remember this show really well but actually have never seen the main event all the way through.

When I was watching the show live I taped it and for some reason never watched the main event. I guess the tape messed up or something like that, but I’ve never seen all of it so this will be virgin territory for me. This is the night of the first Boiler Room Brawl which is by far and away the most famous match on the show. I have fond memories of this show, so let’s see if they’re justified.

Dark Match: Yokozuna vs. Steve Austin

Austin won the KOTR earlier this year and with his post match promo, instantly became one of the hottest things on the planet. Yoko weight 660 here and would be gone pretty soon. It really is sad to see someone that had undeniable talent reduced to this, simply based on the fact that he couldn’t control his weight. This is a very short match, maybe three minutes or so.

Austin tries to knock him down and can’t, Yoko takes over and goes to the corner, and then in one of the most infamous botches ever, the ring ropes break and Austin just pins him. I’ve never heard anyone say that was planned and based off the announcers’ reactions, it wasn’t planned. Yoko was clearly surprised when that happened, so I’d guess that was all unplanned. Like I said, Austin just kind of rolled him up for the pin afterwards.

Rating: C. This is very hard to grade so we’ll call it average I guess. N/A would probably be a much better grade actually. It’s way too short to tell if it’s good or bad, but it wasn’t terrible and it was on free TV, so how can I complain about bonus not awful wrestling?

We get a very well done intro talking about monsters that wear masks and the heroes that fight them. That’s a really cool idea as both heels wear masks which is a nice connection to make. This was one of the better packages I’ve seen in a long time.

Savio Vega vs. Owen Hart

No real point to this match other than to have a fast opener which there’s nothing wrong with. Apparently both are good with martial arts. I think I missed that memo. Owen has a cast on his hand from an injury that I don’t remember happening. He’s doing the Orton thing as he’s been hurt forever apparently. Cornette isn’t there as he’s with Vader for the main event instead. Savio keeps going for the arm which is very basic yet quite intelligent strategy.

Ross wants to know how Owen passed a pre match physical. Are we supposed to believe that when matches are made on the fly that everyone has pre match physicals? Come on JR give us more credit than that. We go split screen to see Vader warming up for the main event as Vince says that Owen should feel slighted by being ignored by his manager. Why is it that every time someone throws a kick they’re instantly a martial artist?

Anyone else find that to be WAY too broad of a generalization? I certainly do for one. Savio doesn’t seem like much of a martial artist to me and neither does Owen, not in the slightest really. Vince continues to stir the pot saying that Stu isn’t as proud of Owen as of Bret. With talk like that, it’s no wonder he was almost a career heel. Owen has an armbar on Vega for a decent while and he bites Owen to escape. That’s either cool or just freaking stupid and I’m not sure which it is actually.

Clarence Mason, who is the lawyer for Cornette, starts walking towards ringside but no one is sure why. It turns out that he’s more or less staging a coup of Camp Cornette, but that was a bit off in the future. He was worthless to say the least. I’m pleasantly surprised with this match. It’s not mind blowing but it’s certainly not bad at all. I’d even go so far as to say it’s good.

A long match with faster guys is usually an excellent combination. It has one of the critical points that I think makes matches great: I’m not sure who is going to win. That uncertainly factor can work wonders for matches as it gives you a reason to want to see the ending. That’s what makes a match successful or any entertainment for that matter: you want to keep watching it because you’re not sure what’s coming.

They do a belly to back off the top but Savio’s head slams against the cast. Owen plays possum and slams the cast into Vega’s head before putting the Sharpshooter on him. Clarence comes in to celebrate but Owen isn’t sure why he’s there. Not a fan of the ending but this was a good match. On the replay you can see that the referee would have obviously seen the cast shot.

Rating: B+. Like I said I’m not a fan of the ending, but this was a very solid match in my eyes. It was up tempo, there was some storytelling in there, and I wasn’t positive who was going to win. It was a good way to set the tempo for the show and it’s given me high hopes. Based on this match alone, this show is better than last year’s.

Bradshaw comes out and beats up Savio with whom he was feuding with at the tiem in a decent but completely forgotten feud.

Todd goes into the boiler room to talk to Mankind, who says Taker shouldn’t come in here and that he’s ready for battle.

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. New Rockers vs. Godwins vs. Bodydonnas

Again I ask, is it really that hard to get the tag titles on the show? New Rockers are Al Snow and Marty Jannetty, but Snow is known as Leif Cassidy at the time. This has elimination rules which automatically makes it better as it more or less gives you three matches for the price of one. Skip has a neck brace for no apparent reason. Dang the copyright for getting rid of Don’t Go Messin With A Country Boy. JR is given the task of explaining the tag title scene this year. Good luck good sir. You’ll be needing it.

Sunny as a cowgirl is incredibly attractive to say the least. Billy shouts about something unintelligible. She should have been one of the biggest names ever. Not just because of her looks either as she just had a great presence about her. You could see she just knew what to do in front of a camera. That’s a talent that no amount of looks can buy you. Yep, the champions are heels here, I guess along with the Bodydonnas and maybe the Rockers.

This is starting off very slow as would be expected until get the comedy idea of having the Guns fight each other. This lasts about 8 seconds as Zip comes in. He gets tripped and pinned very fast as I think Skip’s neck injury was legit. It seemed way too convenient and pointless to have them out there and eliminated so fast, so I’m assuming his neck really was hurt. I think they were faces or at least tweeners actually, which surprises me. Rockers take over on Hank.

This doesn’t last long as Hank realizes he’s fighting the freaking New Rockers and beats them up with relative ease, pinning one of them after the Slop Drop, bringing it down to the Guns vs. the Godwins. Due to the rules being the way they are, any way this ends means the titles can change hands. Not sure if that makes sense but it’s mid 90s WWF stuff so I’m just going to go with it. Billy just will not shut up and I’m sick of it already.

They beat on Henry for a long time until Billy being the brains of the team sets for a corner splash but screams first, leading to him getting caught. This allows for the lukewarm tag that no one could care less about. Apparently Bill Clinton is turning 50 today.

Hillbilly Jim goes after Sunny which allows for the double team to end the match and the Guns keep the titles. Afterwards Sunny talks about how great she is and offers a gift to the arena unveiling a massive poster of herself, which I’m certainly not complaining about.

Rating: B-. Eh, it was a pretty bland four team match but it let the Guns keep the belts with relative ease and it filled in some time on the card. It wasn’t particularly good, but it certainly did the job it was supposed to: title defense that took up some time and made the champions look good. That’s as good as it can get I guess.

British Bulldog vs. Sid

Not entirely sure why they’re fighting but I think Sid is feuding with all of Camp Cornette at this point. No Cornette with him though as Jim is with Vader. Sid says his usual insane stuff that goes nowhere at all. Again, why was he so freaking popular? Vince thinks Psycho Sid is crazy. Nice one there Vinny Mac.

Vince thinks fans are the same all over the world. Does he sleep through the Canadian shows? After Ross says don’t expect a lot of technical stuff from Sid he breaks out a headlock takeover and various suplexes, the last of which is countered into Davey’s suplex. Clarence Mason comes down to be pointless. Yes we have two big power guys here, laying on the mat with headlocks. I give up.

We see Vader warming up in the back with Cornette. They get it right here for the most part though by showing this while Sid is out on the floor rather than in the middle of action. Powerslam to Sid but Cornette comes out to yell at Mason. A second powerslam is blocked into a chokeslam and powerbomb by Sid to end it.

Rating: D. Boring match that did nothing at all but further the horrible Cornette vs. Mason feud for control over his stable. Once Mason took over the stable died completely. This was just a quick match that had nothing at all going for it and no one cared at all, or at least I didn’t.

Quick video on Shawn.

Goldust vs. Marc Mero

This is stemming from Goldust hitting on Sable a lot in the past few weeks. At least there’s a reason for them to fight. That’s a nice lesson that the writers today need to learn: it’s very possible to have a decent feud with even the most basic of stories. Running in to beat on someone isn’t really a storyline. That’s the common issue that starts “feuds” anymore and that just doesn’t get it done most of the time. Mero says that he’s going to win.

Goldust has been calling Sable mommy or something like that. That was never really explained which I think is the best move. Vince says that Mero and Sable are special people. I’m guessing it means he slept with Sable. JR hints at something called the Wild Thing. It’ll end the match. Naturally in a Goldust match it starts with random stuff from him that inspired the character that is known as KB. I’ve always found Mero to be overrated but he’s doing pretty well here.

Who would have thought that Goldust would still be active 13 years later? Ahmed Johnson, the IC Champion, is out with an injury and they’re not sure what’s going to be done about the belt. It’s vacated very soon if I remember correctly. Correction it was vacated earlier in the week. Mero would win it in a tournament in about a month or so. Goldust takes over for awhile until Mero is beaten down pretty badly.

Mankind comes out for no apparent reason as he and Goldust were working together for no apparent reason. Mero goes into the corner and comes off with a….well he jumped off and…it was kind of like….well he just jumped backwards and hit Goldust. This was of course very risky since it was from Mero. We’re told that Pillman is interviewing Sid on the Superstar line. Have to love that they’ve gotten over Sid nearly killing him in the War Games match in the early 90s.

The fans and commentators are just bored out of their mind but the classic ten punches in the corner gets them going a bit. Mero finally gets in the air a bit and wakes the people up somewhat. After beating Goldust up, they completely screw this up as Mero debuts the Wild Thing, more commonly known as a Shooting Star Press. Now, Mero just debuted a new big move that was clearly a finisher. So the logical thing would be to have him get the pin with it right?

Apparently not as Marlena is on the ropes for all of 5 seconds, which added to the two count is enough for Goldust to kick out. Yeah, that’s great. Let Goldust just kick out of it. If you’re going to do that, have the two count and THEN Marlena up on the apron so the count stops and Mero goes after her. Just don’t kill the move’s credibility that quickly.

They show the double screen of Mero doing and talk about how great it was. Goldust hits the Curtain Call for the pin. I just don’t get that. What’s the point of debuting a huge move like that and have him lose? Goldust tries to kiss Sable but Mero beats him up pretty well for it.

Rating: C+. This just has me shaking my head. It made the Wild Thing look weak here to have Goldust simply kick out of it, as well as just have Goldust beat him clean maybe 90 seconds after it. The wrestling was fine, but I do not get what the point was of the Wild Thing.

Sunny and Farrooq come out, as Sunny’s stable now consists of two cowboys and a black supremacist/gladiator. Does that sound like the beginning of a bad joke to anyone else? Two cowboys, a gladiator and a gold digging woman? Either a bad joke or a cheap B movie. His blue helmet just looks so stupid.

He’s out there yelling about not being the IC Champion. To make even more sense, he lost the tournament in the finals to Mero of all people. Simmons desperately needs to get in the Nation of Domination. Sunny says she gets what she wants and she wants the IC Title. Does that mean she’s going to be in the tournament?

We see a recap of Lawler vs. Jake Roberts. Now this was a very interesting and intense albeit short feud. The idea is simple: Roberts is a recovering alcoholic and Lawler is making fun of him for it, even having a big bottle of alcohol in the corner with him for the matches and offering Jake a drink. Lawler, as a heel, has a huge fear of snakes. Some of the this is actually really disturbing as Jake has a bad issue with alcohol, which means I don’t think it should be used as an angle.

Before the match, we’re introduced to the World’s Strongest Man, Mark Henry. Oh dear. He comes out to Luger’s music of all things so you know this is going to be bad. He can’t even get the headset on right to do commentary. For a guy like Vince that is obsessed with musclemen, this is just a big orgasm, complete with pyro for Henry.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jake Roberts

He’s been on commentary 10 seconds and I’m already annoyed with him. Lawler has a bag of his own but we don’t see what’s inside yet. He’s also rocking a Baltimore Ravens jersey, which is considered cheap heat but to me that’s just pure awesomeness. For an Indians fan like me, this is just fun. Sandy Alomar is there and he says he’s left tickets for the Modells. He brings Jake’s partners, the Jim Beam twins.

He insults Jake’s wife as Henry is cracking up at the jokes, despite being a face. They point out that Henry was injured in the Olympics, as Lawler says that he’s dumb enough to bronze a gold medal. Henry is just awful on commentary. His comebacks are that of a 6th grader. Lawler is just doing one liners here as is his trademark. I never realized how tall Jake is but he’s about 6’5 which is taller than Orton and HHH.

Harvey Whippleman is the referee so Lawler is the most normal person in the ring. Lawler shows what’s in his bag: a massive bottle of alcohol. Henry shows that he’s a long term heel, saying that he’s afraid of snakes. Roberts wraps Revelations, the big yellow snake, around the King. Wouldn’t that be a foreign object? Ross sounds like he’s giving moral support to Henry which is just stupid sounding. After about 7 minutes of stalling, they finally make contact.

However in this case, I’m ok with the stalling as it makes sense here. Vince talks about how Jake is a veteran. I’d think Lawler has more experience actually. Lawler steals a soda from the floor and throws it at Jake. Henry of course is concerned about the fan’s drinking tonight. My goodness he’s terrible at this. Ross suggests that Henry learn the DDT. Yeah that’s a big negative. Lawler hits Roberts in the throat with a bottle to pin him with the tights.

The ironic part of Perfect being on commentary was that he was a huge alcoholic too. After the match, Lawler pours whiskey down Jake’s throat. He gets another bottle to do the same, but Henry, the face, stops him. This got really quite intense, but it was better in ROH when Raven did it to Punk, with Dreamer’s help.

Rating: C-. This was all about the angle and not about the match at all. The match itself would probably be an F, but the angle is very solid. It’s a real life angle that can actually work out. The sad part was how Roberts fell apart with alcohol and drugs in the future as has been well documented.

Backlund is campaigning to be President.

Recap of Taker vs. Mankind. Nothing here that needs explaining.

Boiler Room Brawl: Mankind vs. Undertaker

The way you win here is to come to the ring and claim the urn from Paul Bearer, who will be standing in the ring for the whole match. This is an odd match as Taker comes into the boiler room and immediately stats looking for Mankind. The big problem at first is you can’t see anything. The lighting is terrible and it’s a lot of lurking in the shadows and stuff, which is fine but not for a wrestling match.

Everything is way too dark to really get anything going. The commentators are talking about how Mankind could be anywhere. Now we get to the weird part: as soon as Mankind sneaks up on Taker and beats him up, we lose commentary. It’s not like the audio dies, but they just stop talking. It’s really weird to have a match like this with no audio at all other than the wrestlers themselves and whatever sounds they make while beating on things.

As for the match itself, it’s mainly the two of them hitting each other with random objects, which is fine as it’s just a big brawl in an odd place but the chemistry they have is perfect with each other, making this very fun. We get random things from the announcers, but it’s like a word between all three of them a minute. I’m assuming there’s closed circuit or something in the arena. The video goes out momentarily too but Vince says they’re sorry for it. Ah there it is.

This is mainly just weapons use, which is ok but can only go on for so long. Mankind launches some steam at Taker, which may or may not have been scalding. The crowd pops huge for Taker getting a pipe to the balls for some reason. This is really starting to show how important commentary is to a match as it would help a lot here. Running knee to the area near Taker’s head into a steel door would hurt horribly I think, if nothing else it would hurt Mankind’s knee.

Taker is getting his head handed to him like never before, which seems to happen in every match he competes in against a big time heel. Mankind’s incoherent babbling is a very nice touch. More technical difficulties as I’m pretty sure the fans are watching on closed circuit as they boo the heck out of it. This is the longest its been out for, although we pop in long enough to see Taker being slammed. We’re back now and Mankind has a ladder.

When I say ladder, I mean an old wooden one, not the kind in ladder matches. Here’s where we get the most seen spot of this match, with Taker pulling Mankind off the ladder and him falling onto a bunch of pipes and pieces of metal and wood. Oh, apparently it was a big box. As Taker goes for the door, a thought occurs to me: when Taker was looking around for Mankind just after coming in, why didn’t he just turn around and leave?

The rules just said once they were both in the first to get to the urn in the ring wins, so why not just turn and run? Probably because it wouldn’t be much of a match if that’s what they did I suppose. Big shot with a fire extinguisher which is always cool. They get through the door which is good as this match was in bad need of a change of venue. Mankind does something very smart and barricades the door. That’s actually a brilliant move when you think about it.

The dumb part comes when he stands there to help barricade it. Isn’t the point of blocking the door to be able to run from it? It’s weird seeing wrestlers standing in the hallway as these two fight. Mankind throws hot coffee on Taker, which could be fake I suppose. After about 20 minutes they’re in the arena. The good part is that it doesn’t feel like this has been going that long, which to me says it hasn’t been boring.

Ah good we have TV monitors there to show the people what was going on during the earlier part of the match. That’s nice of them. They fight even more trying to get into the ring. This is a great touch as it’s just more brawling and I like that after this long there’s no real leader. In a sick looking spot, both are on the apron and Taker slings the ropes back and Mankind slams down on the concrete. Taker gets in the ring and takes the knee, but Bearer won’t give him the urn.

Mankind takes him out with the claw as Bearer is laughing. He slaps Taker as JR screams to stop that. Taker crawls to Paul, reaching up for the urn. Bearer slams him in the head with it and hands Mankind the urn for the win. This was huge at the time as Taker had always had Paul Bearer with him. As they leave, Bearer says he’s Paul Bearer and you’re not. Well I’m glad he can say his own name. Maybe next he’ll know his phone number.

We get a single gong which I thought was a mistake but the lights go out and druids start singing. They head to the ring I guess to help Taker. What was it like when they got to the arena? I’m trying to imagine them asking where their dressing room is. The druids carry him out in more darkness.

Naturally, he’d be back soon but feuding with Vader over the WWF Title #1 contender spot, eventually taking the belt at Mania. This would in turn lead to what was likely the biggest angle of his career, as in less than a year, Bear would mention the name of the man called Kane.

Rating: A-. This was a very good fight. The angle was huge at the end, but I think the brawling in the boiler room went on a bit too long. Coupling that with the lack of commentary and it’s just below a classic. This at the time was one of the most brutal matches ever, but what they would do in the summer of 98 blew this so far out of the water it’s unreal. Still, this was great.

In Your House promo.

Vader and Cornette, who is still a bigger name than Mark Madden as he’s on Summerslam here cutting a promo just before the main event, say that they’re going to beat up Shawn and take the title.

WWF Title: Vader vs. Shawn Michaels

Vader had been built up as unstoppable all year and had pinned Shawn the previous month in a 6 man tag. The opening/formula is exactly what you would expect: Shawn starts off hot by throwing all kinds of high risk stuff and punches at Vader and they work for a long while. However, soon Vader takes over after landing a power bomb on the floor. Granted that’s the same move that nearly killed Mick Foley, but we can let that slide I suppose.

Shawn is just getting the tar beaten out of him here so he’s following the Bret Hart formula of start hot, look good getting beaten up, and then make your comeback. Shawn has some mini comebacks and Vader counters with a thumb to the eye. There’s something funny about that to me. Perfect drops the term go home, which means to end the match. That doesn’t happen at the moment of course though as that would just suck for a main event.

Shawn skins the cat which to me is one of the most athletic moves you can do along with the nip up. He gets caught though and Vader just throws him which is a cool looking move. Perfect just hates Shawn to say the least. Shawn keeps trying to come back with punches and clotheslines but they just don’t work. In an odd spot, he slides down to try a sunset flip but Vader puts his foot on Shawn’s chest. Shouldn’t that be a pin since Shawn’s shoulders are down?

He finally takes Vader down with a big clothesline. I think Shawn botches a move as he has Vader down to the elbow but he pulls up and just kind of lands next to Vader on his feet. I think he was trying to make it look like a big stomp but it just missed totally. I wonder why it wasn’t the elbow at that moment. They go to the floor and brawl again, but this time Vader picks up Shawn and drops him over the railing chest/ribs first.

Vader slides into the ring for the count out win. Wait, what the heck? Yes, Vader wins by count out that quick. The female fan at ringside is SCREAMING at Shawn to get up as apparently Becca has made her way to Cleveland. Cornette is ticked off and shouts into the mic that it’s not over yet and demands to keep going. Shawn is called a coward and agrees to keep going of course. Vader beats the tar out of Shawn but a powerbomb is countered by a bunch of punches.

Shawn finally gets the elbow but Cornette throws in the racket. Shawn catches it and beats the heck out of Vader, which is merely Shawn returning the favor for Cornette beating on Shawn earlier in the match. Vader wins by DQ. And so ends Summerslam…again with Shawn leaving to fight another day. Apparently it doesn’t though as Cornette is talking (stop the presses!) again.

Shawn of course accepts one more restart and they’re at it again. Shawn is killing him to start but gets caught. In between the ref goes down and there’s no one to count the pin. Also, Vader gets up from SCM. They set for the Vader Bomb but Shawn moves as the big man goes for the moonsault. He hits a moonsault from the top of his own onto Vader to get the pin. Perfect is ticked off and leaves the announce booth. He comes back all of three seconds later. Shawn poses us out to end the show.

Rating: A-. This was another very good match, but the triple ending just kind of left me scratching my head. It would have been fine had they just done a standard match by giving Vader a ton of time to beat on Shawn, ending with the moonsault to win in. Either way, this was a fine version of David vs. Goliath with Shawn looking like the giant killer at the end of it all to send the fans home happy.

Overall Rating: A. This show was AWESOME. It was the polar opposite of that excuse for a show we had last year. Every match is at least good with some solid angles, brutal matches and good technical stuff. I really liked what I saw here tonight and yes, this certainly lvies up to the hype. It’s certainly in the running for best Summerslam to date and perhaps best ever, but at the moment I’ll have to go with 92 just ahead of it. Still, excellent show and a big recommendation.

One Night Only
Date: September 20, 1997
Location: NEC Arena, Birmingham, England
Attendance: 11,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

So more or less, this is the first European only PPV, meaning it only aired in Europe and Canada because of Bret wanting it to, so there you are. We’re between Ground Zero, where nothing of note happened and Bad Blood, where the Cell and Kane debuted. This is on a Saturday for no apparent reason and other than the main event, nothing of note happens here.

Vince was really just trying to expand his audience a bit so he threw this out there to them to give them something. The main event is Shawn vs. Bulldog for the European Title which doesn’t mean much but over there it would be a big deal. Oh and the other reason I’m doing this is because I want to have done everything in the 90s and this was one of the few I had left. Let’s do it.

Oh before I forget, most of you have likely never seen this whole thing. Unless you have 24/7 or know how to find shows online, it’s unlikely you’ve seen the full show. The American release was heavily cut and is missing 2-3 matches. This is the full show that was only available in Europe or Canada on tape or PPV, meaning you would have had to tape it when it aired at first.

We start with a recap of Summerslam 92 because that’s the extent of mainstream wrestling. This is really just a highlight reel of Smith’s career leading up to tonight, meaning it’s very short. That was rather pointless.

HHH vs. Dude Love

Love had turned into what he is now at Summerslam where he entered as Mankind. Again, this feud was over, but they’re not really putting a lot of thought into it. Should be fine though. The ring announcer is very Irish. Since I just got done doing KOTR 97 about 3 hours ago this is a nice companion piece. HHH is REALLY hitting his stride here as he’s turning into a perfect snob but also has the muscle mass and capabilities coming in for him.

Apparently you have to be a good athlete to be King of the Ring. That’s not true due to Mable but points for trying. Love, getting a big pop, gives a promo with English words thrown in. It’s rather amusing. Foley is freaking TALENTED. I’ve always loved Dude’s music for some twisted reason. They do that annoying air horn thing but accompany it with DUDE LOVE at the end instead of claps.

It’s the thing where it’s 5 blows of it then 4 then two more to end it. Instead of the two at the end they chant the name. Lawler keeps using British insults and Vince is getting ticked off at him for it. Foley puts a leg lock on HHH that if you look at it closely enough you can see that there’s very little pressure on the leg but it looks good if nothing else. Sweet Shin Music misses. Ok now Lawler is just getting annoying.

We get another instance of HHH backing down from the referee which never gets old. HHH is mostly in control here as would be expected. He’s got insane heat on him too. He goes for the Pedigree but Foley reverses with a slingshot where HHH misses the post by about 6 inches minimum. That was just awful looking.

In a spot I like, Foley puts HHH into all three buckles three times each. There’s no tenth into the mat though which is odd. Chyna saves HHH from the Double Arm DDT which ticks off Foley and allows the Pedigree to hit for the pin.

Rating: B+. This was a great choice for an opener. These two have almost always had great chemistry together and this was no different.

We hear from fans about the main event tonight. They need to do that more often. They’re actually fairly split but Bulldog is ahead. One chick here looks EXACTLY like Becca, but Becca would be like 6 at this point so it isnt’ her.

Sunny comes out to be the announcer for the next match to a HUGE pop. They make references to the Spice Girls and Page 3 girls. I actually know what those mean! She always looked like she was having fun so that’s always a good thing.

Leif Cassidy vs. Tiger Ali Singh

Singh was kind of like Ted DiBiase mixed with Muhammad Hassan. He wasn’t any good in the ring but whatever. He’s Canadian too but whatever. His father is Tiger Jeet Singh who was a great wrestler that most of you have likely never heard of. I have no idea who the face is here but I think it’s Singh, which is very odd.

Cassidy is more commonly known as Al Snow, but this is before Head showed up so no one cares and no one has heard of him. goody two shoes but no one likes him. He would become a snob soon after this. Snow works on the arm which is smart enough I suppose.

It’s basic psychology but it’s psychology nonetheless. We talk about Brian Christopher for no apparent reason. A random Tiger Bomb (Pearl River Plunge traditionally but on second viewing it’s a bulldog so that makes no sense) ends this.

Rating: D+. There was nothing at all to this. It was about 5 minutes and just boring. I have no idea why they put this on but it was just a completely uninteresting match. Not particularly bad, but not interesting at all.

Oddly enough I just got done watching Tribute to the Troops which I guess has some similarities to this.

Sunny hits on all three of the announcers which is pointless.

We see a clip from Ground Zero where Austin cost Owen and Bulldog the tag titles in a match for the vacant titles. That leads us to this.

Tag Titles: Los Boricuas vs. Headbangers

The Headbangers had a month long run that no one remembers or cares about. Los Boricuas were just a waste of time. They’re Savio Vega and a guy named Miguel. They were an offshoot of the Nation that went nowhere at all but were given a ton of TV time anyway. For some reason that I’ll never understand, the champions are over. The heels jump them early and it doesn’t work at all.

This crowd is approaching Canadian Stampede levels and it’s FOR THE HEADBANGERS! Then we go to a headlock and the crowd DIES. The only time close to that was when Hogan lost at the Main Event where they went silent. Apparently the Headbangers went to college. Wow indeed. The heels take over so they’re going with a formula. This is surprisingly decent. Good night Miguel is a freaking hairy man.

In something that makes me laugh, the referee calls Thrasher Headbanger. He can’t tell them apart either. I love that. After Thrasher takes a powerbomb, Mosh jumps off the top rope for the Stage Dive (Seated Senton) for the pin. That was a very good and fast paced ending. The pop is very solid indeed.

Rating: B. This was actually really quite good. The crowd helped this match a lot as they were hot the entire time. It helped that I had zero expectations here but this came off pretty good. They were about the same kind of teams with some very basic light power stuff but mostly high flying and speed moves which made a decent match. It’s no classic but it’s not bad at all.

We get a sit down interview with Davey who talks about all of his family in the arena tonight.

Flash Funk vs. The Patriot

Flash Funk is more commonly known as 2 Cold Scorpio and is a pimp without the name of being one. Patriot showed up a few weeks before this and somehow had a title shot at the previous PPV which went nowhere. Naturally he “came within an eyelash” but that didn’t mean anything after that show.

Patriot has Angle’s old music which it’s just odd to hear in 1997. He’s more or less a heel here since he comes out with the American flag. Patriot says he wears a mask because he represents the face of every American. I don’t know that many men that have golden skin like that. Flash is wearing a freaking zoot suit. This isn’t as good of a match as it could be but it’s ok I guess.

It’s about as generic as you could get but that’s fine. Vince calls Flash the Funkmeister. I’m done. Patriot was just annoying as he never went anywhere. He wasn’t that good at all but was built up to be this great worker which he just wasn’t at all. They keep saying the reason they’re not being all violent and crap is because they don’t hate each other. That’s better than nothing I guess.

If nothing else this should tell you everything you need to know about Patriot: his finishers are a full nelson slam called the Uncle Slam and a top rope shoulder block called the Patriot Missile. Funk’s finisher is called the Funky Flash Splash. A full nelson slam ends this. That was a waste of time.

Rating: C-. Again, this was just there. It wasn’t particularly good or bad, but Patriot got some decent heat which is really all you can ask for. Funk went for a big move from the top and it missed for the Uncle Slam. That’s better than nothing I guess. It could have been a lot worse I guess, but this just wasn’t the best choice of a pairing.

The LOD say they’ll win and they don’t like the Godwins. Hawk is OUT THERE.

Legion of Doom vs. Godwins

So yet again the Godwins are heels here and it was another total failure. This started because the LOD botched the Doomsday Device and injured Henry pretty badly. No motorcycles this time in England which hurts things a bit. This was around the time where they were considered American Originals, yet they’re popular here.

That’s just odd as they’re Americans but Patriot is an American character and gets booed. That’s very interesting. We start out with Henry and Animal which I guess would be the best combination but that’s neither here nor there. Ross gets in a not very subtle jab at Bill Clinton that Vince scoffs at which is most odd. Oh the Godwins have a new manager that’s not here named Uncle Cleatus.

It’s Dutch Mantel, who until recently was a booker in TNA. They transition from a line about mad cow disease by saying there’s a lot of beef in there. I’m tired of Lawler’s stupid British lines already which means he’ll keep going all night with them. Henry uses a Fujiwara Armbar which stuns both myself and Ross. I hate to that jump into the boot when the guy is on the mat spot. It’s just freaking stupid.

Seriously, what was Phineas trying to do there? Vince saying do your job to a referee makes me laugh as back then we never knew he could fire the referee. Henry hits the Slop Drop (reverse DDT) on Hawk but waits too long and only gets two. We get a history lesson from Ross about the Confederate Flag. Ok then. After a brief brawl, the LOD hit the Doomsday Device on Henry for the pin.

Rating: D+. This was an ok match I guess, but DANG how many times can these teams fight? They were the Orton/HHH of the tag division of their day as this feud just went on and on and on and never stopped until one team left the company. It never went anywhere and never got interesting at all. Somehow, this might have been the best of their matches, which isn’t saying much at all. This was pretty bad, but whatever.

Apparently Shamrock is hurt and can’t fight Vader tonight due to some injuries. He was just hitting his stride in the ring and was starting to get some reactions from the crowds which was the point all along. Rockabilly, Billy Gunn’s current failure of a gimmick, comes down for no apparent reason. He talks trash and taps to an ankle lock to keep Shamrock hot which is smart I guess.

Bret is in the back and gets another mixed reaction. He’s a heel now but in Europe he’s much more popular. Never mind as he’s getting booed rather loudly again. This is one of the most boring promos of all time and Vince tries so hard to make Bret the heel here as he continues to put idea in the heads of the people which doesn’t work here. Bret admits he cares what the fans think to wrap this up.

Vader vs. Owen Hart

Owen is subbing for Shamrock here and Vader means absolutely nothing anymore. Vader is Patriot’s friend or something like that. It was one of those hey we’re friends now despite having nothing at all in common things. Owen gets a very solid pop. Lawler brings up an interesting point as he says that the fans boo Bret and cheer Owen, which is indeed odd.

This is an interesting matchup if nothing else. So I’m about 8 minutes into this and it’s actually really good. Owen keeps trying to slam Vader for the kind of Hogan vs. Andre moment but of course it doesn’t work as he’s less than half the size of Vader. Vader uses very basic power stuff but it’s working very well. I’m not sure what it is but this is working really well for me. It’s slow but it’s not boring at all really.

Vader uses an ankle lock of all things and gets out by injuring his own leg. Owen keeps trying to get in various holds or shots but the power game keeps getting him out of there. He hits the middle rope splash which only gets two to stun everyone in the world. Owen hit the kick that half killed Shawn to get the Sharpshooter and the fans are INTO this. He actually gets the slam and of course it gets two BECAUSE IT’S A FREAKING BODY SLAM!

One shot from Vader and he sets for the Vader Bomb but Owen gets the knees up. That should have pretty much snapped both of his legs but whatever. He goes up and hits a missile dropkick and nips up and the crowd is going nuts. He goes up again and gets powerslammed for the pin. Awesome match.

Rating: A-. That’s probably high but I really liked this. The fans helped it a lot as they were hot. This was basic big guy vs. little guy which is a formula that just flat out works. It’s hard to mess that up and they certainly nailed it here. Owen and Vader could work very well when given the chance and that’s what they did here. This was likely Vader’s last meaningful win.

Taker says Bret should be ready to rest in peace.

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

This is the rematch from Summerslam where Michaels cost Taker the title to Bret, leading to the Shawn vs. Taker feud that ended in the Cell. Taker’s entrance is short here, only taking about two or three minutes. Man it’s awesome to think that Bret signed again, and I’m not even a huge fan of his. This is an interesting case as Bret is clearly the big heel in America but worldwide he’s far more popular, yet here he’s getting booed anyway.

Taker’s pop was great. Bret’s…existed. I freaking LOVE that thing where Taker is getting punched in the corner and grabs the other guy by the throat and throws him into the corner to beat on them. It’s easily my favorite Taker move. Less than two minutes in, Bret takes the turnbuckle pad off to really make himself the heel. Oh he didn’t get it off but he tried. Ok never mind it is off. That was odd.

Vince says WHAT A MATCHUP THIS IS about 3 minutes into it. That must have been a heck of a three minute interval. The fans are unsure who to cheer for here. It’s hard to believe that Montreal was less than two months away after this. After we brawl on the floor for a bit we’re back in the ring as Bret uses a DDT, making him instantly cool. This is going back and forth which is always a good thing I think.

If Vince says mixed reaction one more time I’m going to freaking scream. WE GET IT ALREADY. After hitting the buckle, Bret gets his back worked over. Bret comes back and naturally goes after the leg, which makes sense. That of course goes on and on for days. Sorry Maria just came out on Smackdown so the song is in my head.

He gets the figure four on the ringpost that of course does very little pain but we’ll ignore that for the sake of disbelief. Lawler calls Bret Bret-Man for some reason that I don’t get. He goes to a figure four as you could almost plot out a long Bret match. Again we hear that the figure four puts pressure on seven different parts of the leg.

That number has changed about 100 times over the years so we’ll go with 7 for now. After it being reversed, Bret gets the ropes to a chorus of boos. Taker, freaking learn to sell a knee. I’m tired of this. You’ve been a huge part of the company for the better part of ever and you can’t sell a basic knee injury.

Come on man. You’ve had your leg worked on all night and now you have the leg strength to run the ropes back and forth. That’s just freaking stupid. Oh sure NOW your leg hurts. Give me a freaking break Taker. Bret uses the Summerslam 91 counter to hook the Sharpshooter which never gets old. Taker powers out which no one has ever seen before, so obviously they weren’t at Mania 13.

A second attempt is countered by a hand around the throat. And here comes the Pheonom. The chokeslam doesn’t hit, but he’s back again. The lack of leg selling is just ticking me off though. Dude, limp. Is it that hard to do? Bret is even limping a bit after having the figure four reversed. He grabs the bell but a boot to the face stops that. Taker can’t use it either and gets a chop block as a result.

He goes for that cannonball onto the bottom rope again but it fails as Taker kicks him through the ropes and into the camera man, giving us the eternally amusing spot of the camera going all over the place. Old School gets reversed as they’re busting out everything here. Tombstone is reversed into a rollup for two as the fans are into this. Bret, like an idiot, goes for a tombstone. Because he’s not named Kane, it doesn’t work.

Somehow he gets his head stuck between the ropes which has to hurt badly. Taker starts hitting him which draws the CHEAP DQ ending. That earns the referee a chokeslam. Owen comes and gets Bret out along with I think Brisco who gets chokeslammed also. And now Taker gets booed. MAKE UP YOUR STUPID MIND ENGLISH PEOPLE! Bret being announced as still champion gets a, say it with me, mixed reaction.

Rating: B+. This is like Sting vs. Vader: it’s freaking HARD to mess up. Do you remember a truly bad match between these two? I certainly don’t. They had a solid match here but Taker’s lack of selling was complete and utter crap. I hate that about Taker. Also, this was kind of a standard match between these two for the most part, but that’s fine I guess. Either way, this was very fun with the five minutes before the ending being incredibly good.

The cheapending sucked badly though. Seriously, after nearly half an hour we get a DQ over something like that? That doesn’t work for me at all. If those two things are fixed, this is an easy A or A+.

Shawn says he’s ready.

European Title: Shawn Michaels vs. British Bulldog

Now if you want to talk about a mixed reaction, Shawn gets a mixed reaction. I mean it’s right down the middle. Davey of course gets the big old hero pop that you knew he would get. While it may seem obvious as to who is going to win here, this wasn’t as in the bag as it appeared to be. Smith losing here would have caused about as big of a riot as Bret losing in Montreal.

Smith is about as over here as Vince would be in a “Who’s got the biggest ego contest”. Shawn walks up the ramp for no apparent reason before coming back to the ring. Smith starts off by completely overpowering Shawn who again walks up the ramp. In a cool looking spot, with Shawn on the apron and looking away from the ring, Smith hooks him for a reverse suplex and just drops him back into the ring. It looks a lot better than it sounds.

Vince says he’s surprised Shawn didn’t break in half. Say that again in about four months Vinny. How many freaking big time matches have these guys had? They have the final SNME match, they have KOTR 97 and now this. That’s a lot for a series of big matches when you think about it, especially over that long of a stretch of time. Bulldog is ridiculously popular and is dominating.

Apparently he’s dropped about 20 pounds or so, which is about 2 stones. Vince says Shawn is in his prime. I don’t know about that, but it’s close enough. As Bulldog beats on him for a good while, here’s Rick Rude, who was the insurance policy for Shawn in what would form into DX. They had been hanging out lately but nothing concrete had happened yet.

We hit the sleeper now to kill off a bit of time which is fine by me. Lawler says not to adjust the TV. Who does that? I mean really, have you ever adjusted your TV? I certainly haven’t. The pace slows a lot with Shawn working on the arm, which means you know what’s coming. Yep, there it is, as Smith shows incredible power and picks up Shawn while he’s in an arm lock.

Here’s HHH and Chyna as I wonder WHERE ARE THE HARTS??? Shawn starts his finishing sequence and goes for Chin Music in the corner of all places but Smith counters into the powerslam. Rude grabs the foot and we hit the floor where the kick connects. Rude and HHH beat on him as somehow the referee sees none of this which is just completely ridiculous but whatever.

HHH even hits the Pedigree on the floor. Apparently Davey is wearing a knee brace for a bad knee which hasn’t been mentioned until just now. Well alright then. HHH and Chyna help Shawn and pull him about 6 inches. Seriously, how can the referee not freaking notice this??? Now Rude interferes again as this is beyond stupid now. Oh apparently Bulldog slipped off the platform that the ring is on and hurt his knee.

Well that’s something I guess. The referee stops the match to give Shawn the title and the Grand Slam. There are rumors that Smith was supposed to win but Shawn and HHH played politics to get the win as close to two days before this show. Somehow, I could completely buy that. There was zero need for Shawn to win here, especially in a show never mentioned on American television.

I really don’t…oh you have got to be messing with me. Shawn puts the hold back on and Smith’s wife gets in to help but is picked off by Chyna and BRET AND OWEN HART RUN IN FOR THE SAVE. WHERE IN THE WORLD WERE THEY FIFTEEN FREAKING MINUTES AGO??? COME ON VINCE WILL YOU THINK ONCE IN YOUR STUPID LIFE??? THAT MAKES NO SENSE!

If they’re going to run in for the save NOW why not do it when there were three people cheating to help Shawn? DX poses forever to end this. Yeah, after that stupidity, I’d totally buy the HHH and Shawn politics thing.

Rating: B-. The ending here is just so stupid that it makes my head spin, which makes me really think Shawn and HHH had something to do with it. Honestly, what did Shawn gain here? Does anyone remember anything about his European title reign that had to do with him defending the belt? I certainly don’t.

Actually, I remember him losing it on the Christmas show to HHH after Slaughter made them fight because he hadn’t defended it in over two months. What in the world was the point of him getting it here other than to help his own ego? That makes zero sense. Other than that bringing this match WAY down and the Harts looking like idiots, this was a kind of slow match and overly long with the interference sucking the life out of it at the end. It’s not bad, but not great at all.

Overall Rating: B. This was a good show overall. They treated it like a big time PPV and while nothing actually happened, it still came out pretty well I thought. Bret vs. Taker and Owen vs. Vader are both great and the main event isn’t bad at all. The show isn’t bad, but it’s like a lot of other shows from this era: slow at times which hurts it a lot I think.

It’s certainly good with an AMAZING crowd, but the commentary hurts it too as Lawler is beyond annoying with all of the British terms that most don’t get. To be fair though, this was a European PPV so more people would get it. If you can find the full version of this, check it out for sure as it’s certainly something different and worth seeing.

In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies
Date: April 28, 1996
Location: Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon
Attendance: 9,563

So Wrestlemania has come and gone, and of course the big deal is that Shawn Michaels, the undisputed king of the midcard has broken through the glass ceiling and defeated Bret Hart to become the world champion, ushering in the new era of the company. No one knew what that era was, but I guarantee you no one knew about the juggernaut that was about to steamroll both Vince and the WWF that July when the NWO would form.

Shawn would continue to be the face of the company until around November when a new star would emerge. Little did the company know (whenever I type that I always hear the voice from Stranger Than Fiction which always creeps me out) that by putting the title on Shawn, they ultimately made the move that would save them in the long run, but I’ll remain cryptic and explain that concept for later on for those of you that don’t get the historical aspect which would be impressive as it’s very indirect.

Anyway, as for tonight, the title of our show refers to Shawn and Diesel, who are going to have their big match that would end their feud once and for all: a No Holds Barred match for the title. The most important thing about tonight though was very simple: it was Hall and Nash’s last televised appearances with the company.

These departures, the so called Curtain Call incident, next months’ In Your House, and Bash at the Beach which was held in July of that year, are four nights that shaped the business as a whole and may be four of the 5 nights that are the reason the WWE won the Monday Night Wars. Explanations coming later including one in this review, but for now let’s start the show! Oh yeah and Foley is here now also.

Standard recap video package to open as it once again tries to play this off as equal to Mania but no one really buys that. No one gave Diesel a chance as no one believed that Shawn was going to lose in his first title defense. It was simply not going to happen after the amount of time and effort he had put into his buildup.

Diesel had turned on him at a house show which prompted Shawn to say what the company tried to build up as a famous line “I’m going to kick his 7ft face.” Yeah that really isn’t that famous. Time for the first match.

Owen Hart/British Bulldog vs. Jake Roberts/Ahmed Johnson

This is kind of a rematch from Mania, minus Vader and Yoko per team. The whole showdown with Vader and Yoko never happened as someone woke up and realized that match would just bomb so they turned it into a 6 man by adding these guys. Owen and Bulldog were by far and away the best tag team around this time but they didn’t get the tag titles until September and they held them until May which was some kind of a record or something that I don’t feel like looking up right now.

They were kind of emulating the original Hart Foundation with the power/speed and while it wasn’t as effective, it was good enough to dominate the tag division for about 9 months. Anyway, here we go in a rather pointless tag match.

We get a pre match interview from Jake but Vince of course cuts off one of the best promo men of all time to push some stupid story, as Vince has to be the center of attention. Before the match, Cornette’s annoying lawyer has a court order banning Jake’s snake from being used. Jake of course rips it up and throws the snake on the heels. Why is it that every heel has a horrible fear of snakes? WWE needs a psychologist on staff to help deal with this.

Apparently Johnson was a surprise partner, even though he was Jake’s partner last month. Part of the story is that Bulldog is worried he’s not as strong as Johnson based on arm wrestling or something. Oh and he broke Johnson’s thumb. So far this is a pretty formula based match with Jake and Owen doing most of the heavy lifting. Whenever Johnson is in, Bulldog runs to tag in Owen to avoid the confrontation.

Johnson is over as we have a very hot crowd. Johnson somehow botches a clothesline. That’s like the most simplistic move of all time. DONALD FREAKING TRUMP did a decent one. Apparently this was supposed to be Bulldog vs. Jake. Vince of course says Owen would be nothing without Bret, even though Bret wouldn’t be around for about 6 months at this point.

Jake is in the ring far more than Johnson as the company knew that Ahmed just flat out sucked in the ring but he was over and had a great look. We go to the rest holds as you can tell this isn’t going to be over anytime soon. This should sum up things very well for you: Jake is in the ring for about seven minutes straight, taking most of the offense.

He finally makes the tag to Ahmed, and Johnson is literally in the ring 30 seconds before tagging back out. That’s how much faith they had in him. Ending comes when everyone is brawling and Bulldog hits Jake in the knee with Cornette’s tennis racket a few times and puts him in a leg lock for the submission.

Rating: C. This isn’t a bad match. Ahmed had no business being on live PPV, but it’s not bad. It was decent for an opener and that’s about all you can ask for here. Jake shows he still has it and he would get a decent little push in the next few months. Nothing special really, but just a little something to keep the fans happy.

Intercontinental Title: Ultimate Warrior vs. Goldust

Yes that Ultimate Warrior and that Goldust had a match. Warrior had made a return at Mania, squashing HHH in less than two minutes and taking a Pedigree, yet being on his feet before HHH was. Goldust is accompanied by Marlena, who was supposed to be really sexy I guess, but she never did it for me at all.

He’s also accompanied by his bodyguard Brusier Mastino. Earlier tonight….wait a second. Brusier Mastino? That’s the name that Kane used when he was a jobber in WCW back in the early 90s. That’s clearly not Kane here as he was playing Isaac Yankem at the time. What the heck? Why use the name of a guy that did absolutely nothing in WCW as a character here?

According to Wikipedia, the man with Goldust is the same one that played Mantaur a year ago. Huh? That’s really weird. Anyway, earlier tonight, Warrior was giving an interview when Marlena blew cigar smoke in his face and Goldust threw gold dust into his eyes. Why would you want to tick him off? GOldust ran away and fell, apparently hurting his knee. Goldust is coming off a mini feud with Savio, and McMahon says that he hopes that feud isn’t over. What is Vince on anyway?

The music hits, the crowd pops, Vince screams, and Warrior jogs to the ring. The massive pyro display is kind of a cool touch for him. We haven’t started the match yet and Lawler is up to two movie references. Make that three, and there’s the bell. Goldust starts our epic showdown by hobbling to the back and apparently leaving.

Then, in something you can tell Vince is furious over, the Warrior picks up Marlena’s cigar from the aisle and starts smoking it. The fans have no idea what to think of this, especially after those Warrior PSAs from the late 80s about not smoking.

Movie reference #5 by King. The bodyguard leaves as Warrior gets Marlena’s director’s chair and sits it in the middle of the ring. Mastino comes back with Goldust and Marlena, screaming “HE’S GOT THE CHAIR!!!”, like it’s the end of the world or something. As Lawler makes his seventh movie reference, Warrior is sitting in the chair, smoking the cigar, as the trio leaves to Lawler’s ninth movie title joke.

Warrior keeps messing with his hair as Lawler calls him a Rebel Without a Clue for number 10. Goldust gets on the mic to say something but the fans boo him. He threatens to come out there and kiss every person if they don’t shut up as this continues to be the weirdest match of all time and we haven’t even started yet. Number thirteen hits as Goldust and Marlena get into the ring, while the cameraman keeps getting shots of her back.

Warrior holds up Goldust’s robe like a bullfighter. Warrior gives Marelena her cigar back which she pops right into her mouth like it’s no big deal at all. In what takes another full minute, Warrior gives Goldust his robe back, accompanied by the fifteenth movie pun by Lawler. I know you might be getting sick of my counting them, but seriously, they’re the most entertaining thing going on right now.

This is at 10 minutes and counting so far and they haven’t even touched each other. Apparently Goldust being outside the ring for seven minutes isn’t enough for a countout either. McMahon says Warrior will do whatever it takes to get the match started. I’m not even going to acknowledge that with a joke or an insult. Goldust sits in the chair and rubs his chest as Marlena…does something.

Even Vince is sick of the jokes at #18. Warrior takes the cigar again and puffs away as King is starting to repeat jokes. Vince asks what everyone is wondering: what is going on? Goldust sticks out his hand which Warrior puts the cigar into before clotheslining him to the floor. Goldust walks to the back for the count out. Are you kidding me? THAT’S IT? The bodyguard takes some clotheslines and a slam as Warrior is announced as the winner.

Vince and Lawler both say something to the effect of the winner of what contest? There was a match here? Post match, Lawler breaks into the twenties in jokes as Warrior puts Goldust’s wig on with the bodyguard’s hat over top of that and climbs the ropes to end this.

Rating: G-. This is so bad it’s below an F. This went on nearly 15 minutes and the contact between the two was a cigar to the hand and a clothesline. The crowd was on fire before the “match” and then we get this? This is why Warrior is blacklisted in wrestling forever. Not this particular thing, but the full thing of shenanigans like this. This was a total waste of time, there was no match, and the fans had no idea what was going on. Easily the worst segment of all time.

We cut to the back to see Bulldog FREAKING out about something as he tries desperately to get into Shawn’s dressing room, saying something about his wife Diana. This turned out to be the start of Shawn’s next storyline and his first real feud. The story would go on to be that allegedly Shawn either hit on or attempted to rape Diana backstage, which would turn out to be false and just a way to get Bulldog a title shot. This would lead to a match at the next In Your House.

We come back to the arena with Warrior’s music still playing and you can see that Vince is ticked at what just happened in the “match.” Vince attempts to play off his anger by saying that he’s mad that Goldust was such a coward. While that’s at least somewhat plausible for the time being, knowing that Vince was the boss the whole time makes it laughable. As he and King talk, apparently, IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME, IT’S VADER TIME!!!

Vader vs. Razor Ramon

And it’s official: Razor is jobbing on his way out. Since no one knew he was leaving though, this wasn’t a given domination by Vader at the time. This is an interesting pairing here, as Razor usually does a lot of power moves but in this case, he’s having to do more hit and run stuff.

His size makes this plausible though, so it’s an interesting match. Vader of course dominates most of the match with Razor getting in some shots here and there, but ultimately getting knocked right back down by Vader. In an odd scene, Razor kicks out of the Vader Bomb. Razor amazes me by hitting a standard suplex on Vader after ten minutes have gone by. The more I see of his stuff, the more Razor impresses me.

Razor hits his big man finisher with the second rope bulldog but that doesn’t work. He almost gets Vader in the Razor’s Edge following a missed Vader Bomb but he can’t do it. He does however hit an electric chair drop on him which is quite impressive. Finish sees Razor set him for the Edge but getting backdropped and Vader just sits on his chest for the pin.

Rating: B. This was a very solid match. Razor made Vader look like a million bucks here, just like he should have. Razor’s last night would be three weeks away, but for all intents and purposes he was done after this match. Vader was going to be the top heel over the summer as he would eventually challenge Shawn for the title at Summerslam. I think Vince knew what he had with Vader, but Vader was too much of a business risk with how insane he was.

After the match, Doc Hendrix shows up and says that President Monsoon has determined that based on Vader’s victory here, he’ll be on the next In Your House, facing Yoko. Vader had injured Yoko on Raw by breaking his leg, resulting in a very funny scene where they had to bring a forklift to carry Yoko out of the arena, but apparently it has healed.

Cornette goes into one of his legendary rants, talking about how Yoko is a dead man. He says that Razor is the example of what Vader does to people in the ring. Razor came into this match as a handsome man and left looking like Margot Kidder.

For those of you that don’t know, that’s the woman that played Lois Lane in the Superman movies. What that has to do with anything is beyond me, but it’s Cornette doing what he does best: ranting and raving like a crazy man.

Tag Titles: Bodydonnas vs. Godwinns

Ok, there’s actually a somewhat lengthy backstory here. The Smoking Guns had vacated the tag titles because Billy hurt his neck, leading to a tag title tournament. The finals were held on the preshow of Mania 12. Prior to that, Sunny, the Bodydonnas manager and the woman that I think was most of our first fantasies, won the Slammy for best buns.

At the end of the match, Phineas had the match won and Sunny allegedly flashes him, which is stupid because you can clearly see she’s covered up, but man it was 1996 so it was shocking at the time. This led to the Godwinns losing the match.

This is the rematch, but earlier in the night, once again on the preshow, the cameras saw Phineas and Sunny off in the back of the building and Sunny flashes her chest at him. Another thing, the Godwinns have comical nicknames. Henry O. Godwinn (HOG) and Phineas I. Godwinn (PIG). They have Hillbilly Jim as a manager now, meaning they can use his old music, Don’t Go Messin With a Country Boy, meaning they get huge pops.

We cut to the back where Mr. Perfect, absolutely rocking the suit he’s in, is with Sunny and the champions. Sunny, looking instant orgasm hot, says that she showed PIG a thing or two and hits on Perfect, before saying that tonight the Donnas are going to outwrestle them. Perfect has a great line by saying that Sunny certainly has the greatest, most amazing pair of…….tag team wrestlers he’s seen in quite some time.

Ok it was funnier when he said it.

Anyway, on with the match. Of course, we have the biggest sex symbol in the history of the company on the way to the ring so we stay on a wide shot of the crowd the whole duration of their entrance. This is another standard though not bad tag match which really is a tale of two halves: to begin with the Godwinns just beat the living tar out of the champions before PIG gets beaten down in the other corner.

This is what you would expect from two such teams. The big guys overpower the smaller ones as the smaller heels do what they can to hang in there until they finally get the advantage. This eventually leads to the power guys making their comeback. Anyway, that eventually happens and Sunny runs to the back, drawing all the attention with her. She returns with a signed photo of herself, autographed to Phineas.

This distracts him as Jim is about to throw the slop onto Sunny. In the ring, Henry hits the reverse DDT on one of them, but he’s distracted by what’s going on outside. The BodyDonnas switch and Henry gets rolled up for the pin. After the match, the losers console their love struck partner, but as they leave he hides the picture in his overalls.

Rating: B-. This wasn’t a bad match. It was standard formula stuff which is what most good tag matches are. The main focus was on Sunny which makes sense as she was the biggest star of all these people. There were some great theme-based tag teams back in this era and these were two of the most memorable.

We cut to the back with Mark Mero apparently ticked off at HHH over being jumped earlier tonight on the preshow. Sable is jaw droppingly hot at this point and somehow people care even less about Mero than they would later on.

Time for your main event recap. They screw up by saying No Holds Barred Championship, implying it’s a new title or something. You know what they meant, but it was written poorly. How sad is it that I rented this tape so many times that I haven’t seen this recap in years yet I know the narration word for word? You know, the build up for this is making it feel pretty epic. At the time, this was a big match as Shawn had never beaten Diesel.

Shawn promises the Kliq a party tonight no matter what. Diesel says he’s got a surprise planned. I know what it is, but I won’t spoil it for you.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel

JR is an interviewer. That’s just a shame. Maurice Mad Dog Vachon is in the front row. Shawn’s entrance is cool. He throws up a hand sign, power walks down the aisle, and takes off the vest and the belt before sliding in to start the slug fest. This is very fast paced and it’s working really well. We’re a minute into this and Shawn has come off the top rope twice.

Once for a twisting moonsault and the other to hit Diesel in the head with the boot he stole from the Spanish announcer. Diesel gets the best snake eyes I’ve ever seen as he throws Shawn up into the air to smash him down into the buckle. Diesel is just beating Shawn up at the moment but for some reason, considering it’s no holds barred, Diesel takes the tape off his wrist and chokes out the referee.

Then he whips Shawn with the referee’s belt. Diesel hangs Shawn over the ropes, which is pointless as Shawn can clearly touch the floor which would just make him uncomfortable and not unconscious. This is getting very violent. Not as bad as some of the future stuff, but at the time this was big stuff. Momentum swings when Diesel does the classic chair to the top rope spot to hit himself in the head.

Shawn is doing the Ricky Steamboat method of getting the heck beaten out of him then doing something big to win. He’s getting the tar beaten out of him and having him kick out time after time makes him look strong. Diesel was leaving so it wasn’t a big issue at all. Diesel jackknifes Shawn threw the announce table, which was a new thing at the time so there’s no joke to it. Shawn looks dead after this, and rightfully so.

Diesel goes into the ring with the title which is a nice touch. Vince screaming at Shawn to let it be over is so melodramatic it’s funny. Shawn of course doesn’t listen and is up on his feet like the true no seller he is. Shawn starts his comeback and we have no commentary which I really like. We all know Shawn’s moveset down to the letter when he’s making his comeback but it’s nice to just see it.

It gives the sequence the feeling of a house show and it’s a very nice little break from the norm. Of course Vince can’t let us have something cool for awhile without him so he’s back. He hits some of the most wicked chair shots to Diesel I’ve ever seen. These two are putting on a heck of a show out there as you can really feel like they hate each other.

While they were very close in real life, seeing them beat on each other like this is nothing but great as you can feel the natural chemistry that they share. This is great. Shawn hits the screw you elbow after a brief Diesel comeback but the kick is blocked, despite Vince screaming give it to him Shawn give it to him! Now we get the famous part of the match.

Diesel goes over to Vachon, the guy from earlier, and attacks him. He chokes him to the ground and RIPS HIS PROSTHETIC LEG OFF. I don’t care how scripted it was, that was sick. There’s nothing at all that makes you a bigger heel than that.

He attacked an old man and literally ripped his body apart. Shawn low blows him to stop him before hitting him with the leg, then hitting the chin music, after stomping loudly on the mat about 12 times. Seriously, if you hear the stomping, WHY WOULD YOU TURN AROUND? Also, the genius cameramen has the cameras on Shawn’s feet so you see Diesel fly back from the kick but not the impact of it. The pin ends the show.

Rating: A+. I absolutely loved this match when I was a kid and I still love it to this day. It had the big match feel and it never lets up. These two had mad chemistry together and this is probably their best match ever. They don’t use a ton of weapons which is what makes this good. There are indeed a few good things in there but it never overshadows things to become stupid like a hardcore match.

They use a chair, a rope, a boot (one time), and a prosthetic leg. The fire extinguisher and the table are semi weapons as it wasn’t the table that hurt but the power bomb through it, and the extinguisher is more of an annoyance than pain. Even with 6 weapons, it never gets old or boring as they’re well spaced out.

This is just a fun match and a great way to make Shawn look incredibly strong in his first title defense. People still use this as a reference for Shawn’s ability in no rules matches, and it holds up today with ease. Great match and one you should all see.

Overall Rating: C-. The main event is amazing, but the middle is killed worse than Mania 25 was by Kid Rock. It just sucks the life out of the show and it never recovers until the main event. However, I’d recommend that segment just to see how out there it is. Overall, this show is somewhere between good and bizarre.

The main event is a great match and probably somewhere on my list of favorite matches of all time, but nothing else here is really good at all. There’s some ok stuff, but nothing ever rises above that. Avoid the show, watch the main event.

Wrestlemania 25
Date: April, 5 2009
Location: Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas
Attendance: 72,744
Commentators: Jim Ross, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler
America The Beautiful: Some Pussycat Doll

Please keep in mind that this show was partially written live so excuse some of the in the moment emotional reactions.

Since this show literally is happening tonight, I won’t bother with any kind of a recap. We start with your standard history package that somehow never gets old to me at all.

Money In The Bank: CM Punk vs. MVP vs. Kane vs. Christian vs. Finlay vs. Mark Henry vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Shelton Benjamin

Finlay is breaking out the old school Fit Finlay shoulder pads. I’m digging it. After ten minutes of entrances, we’re underway.  As usual I’m not even going to bother trying to keep track of everything that’s going on in this as it’s going to be all over the place like it always is.

Henry and Kane clear the ring almost immediately and the fans chant for Christian.  Christian and Shelton take care of them as it’s back and forth already.  Kofi may have hurt his knee on a big jump over the ladder and a dropkick.  Henry and Kane go up but can’t get anywhere as we’re three minutes in.  An army of midcarers takes care of Henry.

Four guys go up the ladder and the big guys take them down again.  Finlay clears the ring and dives out on Kane.  Christian takes out Kane and Finlay as this is kind of all of the place.  What a shock indeed.  Henry takes out all three of them to continue the tradition.  Punk and Kofi hit stereo suicide dives.  Shelton dives off the ladder and more or less lands on his head.

Shelton may have killed himself with that stupid flip. That scared the heck out of me. Also for those interested, I just found out that the tag titles was the preshow match with the Colons winning. It’s your general spotfest so far and that’s what it’s supposed to be. Crowd is fairly hot too.

Horny busts out a stepladder which gets him nowhere at all.  Naturally a jumping midget can take out six guys.  Finlay brings out the big ladder which is required viewing anymore.  Kofi takes a good shot and is down already.  He’s taking a big beating and it’s working pretty well.
Kofi is bumping like a crazy man in this match. I’m loving him so far as he’s the highlight of the show. Kane and Henry were dominant early on but here come the smaller people. Henry is back and is setting up a ladder.  While he holds it up, Kofi runs up the side of it but falls and is caught in the World’s Strongest Slam in a sweet spot.

MVP comes in to pound of Henry which gets him nowhere again.  MVP stops Shelton, Punk stops MVP, Christian stops Punk.  Punk and Christian do a cool spot on a ladder that’s balanced from one ladder to the top rope and even though the Unprettier was botched horribly, that’s hard to blame them for.

MVP almost makes it again but Shelton makes an incredible save.  He runs up a ladder leaning against the ring then across a ladder between the rope and a ladder in the ring and then up the other ladder that MVP is on to make the last second save.  That was incredible and as usual Shelton gets the spot of the match.

The botches in this match are killing it. These matches are really hard to call. Kane, Christian and Punk are fighting on the ladders and all but Punk fall, making him the first two time MITB winner!

Rating: C+. The problem here is the botches. There were a ton this year and the winner was kind of a letdown, and remember Punk is my favorite wrestler. It was a great opener, but not a great match if that makes sense. Too many people and really just a lot of one on ones for about twenty minutes. Not bad.

Axxess recap. Would be funner to be there to watch it.

Kid Rock performs. We don’t care as this is a food break for me. He’s on his third song and the reaction is priceless. There is absolute silence here as the fans simply could not care less. He does two old songs and his new one. My lord this is a waste of time. We don’t get the tag title match but we get this? Waste of time.

He is on his fourth song now. At least All Summer Long is a decent song, but do we need to hear this now? My goodness, he’s doing another one. The divas come out to dance with him. My headache is now at the grab a hatchet level, as this is at ten minutes now. After a big pyro display, it’s time for the battle royal. Holy goodness I’m bored.

25 Diva Battle Royal

Not even going to try to call this as we don’t even get the intros here. This is a freaking joke, thank you Kid Rock. No Trish or Lita means this isn’t a legit battle royal. We don’t even have a list or a face shot of all the divas. It’s a standard battle royal and I literally couldn’t be more bored. The commentators are sucking up to Kid Rock so much that I’m about to mute this. Literally people are being eliminated and it’s the first we hear of them. This is pathetic.

Santino is in drag as this is somehow even dumber every second. Never in my life have I seen a worse Mania match, period. Final there are Melina, Beth and Santino. I knew it. Freaking Santino wins. The commentators apparently don’t realize the massive tattoo on his chest. Has wrestling really fallen this far? The SFAC is going to be proud of this, and that is completely sickening to me.

Rating: N/A. This is the worst Mania match of all time. It was designed to get a stupid comedy guy on the show, we don’t know who was in it, they got no face time, and Kid Rock is the freaking cause of it. I am officially angry about this show. Such a waste of time. I’m not rating it because there isn’t a rating low enough for it.

Chris Jericho vs. Roddy Piper/Jimmy Snuka/Ricky Steamboat

Jericho has to beat all three to win. Massive recap as we’re somehow led to believe that Rourke won’t be at the show. Yeah right. Rourke actually is here. I’m surprised. They kind of get their own intros as their musics play but they stand on the ramp instead of going to the ring. Piper gets a decent pop. He looks decent too. Considering he had cancer less than two years ago, this is amazing. Flair accompanies them.

Piper is wearing a shirt which is likely a good thing. PIPER THROWS A DROPKICK!!!  Off to Snuka who does his usual offense that gets him nowhere at all.  And there’s the Liontamer to end him.  He looked awful out there.  Piper is mind blowing here. He looks as good as he did in WCW. Now is that a compliment or not?

As I type that, he’s eliminated via Codebreaker.  This is literally 5 minutes in and it’s 1 on 1.  I know this didn’t seem like it was five minutes but that’s how slowly these guys are moving.  The old guys are getting to throw out some basic offense but it’s just leading to them being eliminated.  Steamboat skins the cat in his 50s and of course we don’t see it. HE JUMPS OVER THE TOP ROPE! This is making up for everything.

Ross talks about how Jericho is staying with the Legends like it’s surprising.  Steamboat is tearing this up and I’m wanting to stop the review to look at him go.  This is incredible stuff considering no one expected a single thing out of him.  He gets the cross body for two as Jericho is reeling.  And then he walks into the Codebreaker to end it.  That was amazing while it lasted.

Steamboat had me freaking out. Flair runs in and gets beaten up too. Of course Rourke gets in the ring and they have an impromptu boxing match. Rourke knocks him down as this is somehow dumber than it was before.

Rating: C+. Considering their ages and level of rust, this was mind blowing. Jericho had to win though. Steamboat had me on the edge of my chair. How he’s not called one of the best ever is beyond me. We’re three matches in and Steamboat has carried this. That’s a very bad sign. Let me make sure I have this straight: four hall of famers can’t beat up Jericho, but a 56 year old guy that boxed almost 15 years ago can beat him up?

In something funny, when they said go into the storm, it thundered at my house.

We get the recap talking about how Matt more or less tried to kill Jeff about three times. Of course he doesn’t prosecute him. He wrestles him. You have to love WWE.

Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy

I miss Matt’s old heel attire.  He looked like a legit monster.  Naturally they got rid of them and made him an overrated face again.  This has happened before but they made it big this time.  I don’t think people are interested in this but whatever.  Matt takes a shot with a WWE poster.  How EXTREME!  Matt takes Jeff down but Jeff gets up first.  Well of course he does.

Crowd is waking up a tad here which might be exactly what this show needs. Matt has a bit of a gut which surprises me.  Poetry in Motion with the assistance of a chair misses and here comes Matt.  He takes out Jeff’s knee and just cracks him with the chair for two.  Matt grabs a dry-vac from under the ring.  Why a dry vac is under there is beyond me but it’s WWE so I’ll just kind of go with it.

Side effect on a chair gets two.  Matt is dominating here as he bends Jeff’s back around the post.  It’s table time but there’s no D-Von around to get it.  What are we going to do???  They slug it out and neither guy goes through it.  This is intense but kind of dull at the same time if that makes sense.

Jeff gets a kendo stick to crack away at him and here come the required trashcans.  Slingshot dropkick into the can into Matt has him in big trouble.  Swanton misses and Jeff is in trouble.  Twist of Fate connect and only gets two.  Almost zero heat on the kickout either.  Matt goes for a Swanton which is blocked.  The people of Houston just avoided a huge earthquake.

Matt gets CRACKED over the head with a chair in a sick looking and sounding shot.  Jeff sets Matt on a table and then another table on top of that and splashes it and dang if he didn’t almost hit him!  Back in the ring it only gets two.  This needs to end like now.

The more successful one goes to the floor and pulls out some ladders.  Well of course he does.  Jeff misses a huge bump by setting up a huge ladder and then climbing up a regular one and jumping over the big one.  He crashes down in pain and I’m slightly entertained. Matt does a sick looking Twist of Fate on a chair to close this out.

Rating: C. This wasn’t terrible and the ending was perfect. Matt’s finisher, not Jeff’s mistake ended it. There was no way Jeff could win this and he didn’t. It wasn’t great, but it could have been far worse. Not terrible.  I just don’t think they had the intensity they wanted with this and it kind of showed through.

Legends of Mania commercial.

Orton is getting ready.

IC Title: JBL vs. Rey Mysterio

I miss the intros as I heat up my tacos. Mysterio looks like Doink the Clown. How does he manage to come up with a dumber outfit every Mania? Rey looks so ridiculous as apparently he’s the Joker. He’s also wearing bright green suspenders. Holy goodness it’s a 10 second match! WHAT ARE THEY DOING??? Rey hits the 619 and a splash and wins it?

Rating: N/A. This is officially the dumbest Mania of all time. There has to be like 40 minutes each for the last three matches.

JBL’s big announcement is that he quits, getting the pop of the night.

Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels

If this match isn’t a 5 star classic, this is officially the worst Mania of all time, end of argument. Massive recap to start of course. The entrances are of course mind blowingly sweet with Taker coming up out of darkness and Shawn coming down from the ceiling in a white chariot like an angel.  Ok that was awesome.

This just feels epic on all levels which is how it’s supposed to feel.  And here we go.  The fans pop for the bell.  Think they’re excited?  Sign a few rows back: It’s still real to me!  OH YES!  Shawn scores a few points with some chops and then runs.  Taker blocks a punch and throws Shawn over the top but Shawn catches himself.

HBK fakes a knee injury.  Now that’s just brilliant.  You know he’s never done that for Wrestlemania before!  Basically an extended feeling out process here as neither guy can get an advantage going here.  Big back drop by Taker and Shawn is in some trouble.  Elbow gets one only.  Old School gets a big ovation and Shawn is in trouble.

And so much for that as Taker misses a kick in the corner and Shawn goes for the knee.  There go the dueling chants.  Sharpshooter is blocked so Shawn uses a reverse figure four and Taker is in little trouble because he’s not going to tap.  Taker’s solution to get out of this?  Punch Shawn in the face.  You can’t beat simplicity at times.

Taker unloads on him in the corner and gets the Snake Eyes and big boot combination.  Shawn gets a bad crossface out of nowhere which sees Taker laying on his side.  Taker stands up and gets a side slam to break up the hold.  Nicely done.  Shawn kicks him in the face and Taker glares at him.  Forearm puts Taker down and we get a nip up at the same time Taker sits up.

Shawn sets for the elbow from the top but Taker sits up and Shawn is in trouble again.  He counters that but walks into Hell’s Gate as he goes for the Figure Four again.  A rope is grabbed and we head the to floor.  Apron legdrop misses and Shawn avoids trouble.  Baseball slide puts Taker down again.  Moonsault to the floor misses though and Shawn is in big trouble again.

The momentum is changing every few seconds here and it’s great stuff.  Taker hits the ropes and OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS!  Taker dove over the ropes but overrotated and slammed his freaking head into the floor!  He more or less killed a cameraman and there was a loud cracking sound.  Luckily the replay shows that it was just the camera hitting the ground which is a nice break I guess.

Wow that was insane looking though.  I was legitimately thinking they were going to have to stop it there.  That was as scary as any bump I’ve ever seen.  SOMEHOW, and I mean that literally, Taker isn’t dead.  Shawn does a semi-heel turn and tries to get the count out win.  To be fair though that might be better for Taker’s health at this point.

Taker BARELY makes it back in at nine and a half.  I was actually thinking it was over there.  There are those dueling chants again.  Superkick is caught by a BIG old chokeslam for two as the crowd explodes.  Tombstone, superkick, chokeslam.  All of those were countered in a row but Shawn gets a BIG superkick for two.  Sweet goodness I’d have bet on that one.

Shawn’s ticked off face is great.  Taker grabs him by the throat and goes for the Last Ride but Shawn gets a sunset flip.  Taker grabs him again and is like boy you’re getting drilled and hits a HUGE Last Ride for TWO.  Wow these kickouts are incredible.  Taker goes up and misses an elbow as both guys are down again.

Shawn is sent over the top but Skins the Cat.  Taker catches him AGAIN in the Tombstone and Shawn is DEAD.  Apparently DEAD doesn’t mean three though as Shawn kicks out AGAIN.  This is incredible.  Taker’s face is like NO FREAKING WAY.  Shawn counters another Tombstone attempt with a spinning DDT of all things.

Michaels somehow gets up to the top rope and hits the big elbow but both guys are down again.  Sweet Chin Music out of NOWHERE gets two.  Well of course it did.  With nothing else left from either guy they slug it out from their knees.  Shawn chops away but Taker kicks him in the face to put him down.

Tombstone is countered AGAIN and Shawn gets a boot into the jaw of Taker in the corner to buy himself some time.  Shawn goes up for a moonsault press but Taker somehow catches him and Tombstones him to death to FINALLY end this.  In-freaking-credible.  Absolutely amazing stuff and it WINS.
Rating: A+. Wrestlemania has been saved. Future edit: no it hasn’t.  Go watch this match right now as it’s the best match I have ever seen.

Draft is coming in 8 days. I’m shaking after watching that. Never before have I been on the edge of my seat for a match.

World Heavyweight Championship: Edge vs. John Cena vs. Big Show

Standard recap leading to Edge and Show coming out first. Cena’s old rap song comes on and an army of John Cenas come out. There must be 80 or so of them. They all do You Can’t See Me and then Cena’s music hits. Pretty cool visual. We get the big match indroduction which I always love. Cena gets a decent pop with boos mixed in.

Edge is champion coming in here.  We head into the triple threat formula almost immediately with various people being knocked out for awhile each.  That’s fine but it gets rather repetitive.  About five minutes pass with nothing but various one on one combinations.  That’s not terribly interesting but it’s what we’ve come to expect in these things.

Cena hits his top rope Fameasser off the top rope and down goes Show.  Off to Edge vs. Cena as I doubt Show will be in there for awhile.  Edgecution gets two.  More weak stuff here as Show is in faster than I expected him to be here.  Chavo of all people runs out to save Show and takes an FU for his troubles.

Show gets tied up in the ropes and loudly shouts GET ME OUT OF HERE!  Cena goes off on Edge as the fans aren’t really liking him.  Five Knuckle Shuffle to Edge.  Vickie gets up to save Edge but winds up getting speared onto Chavo.  Both guys go down and Show is still stuck.  Ah there he’s out.

Show goes off on them and manages to chokeslam Edge.  FU attempt on Show but he gets out and drills Cena with the punch.  Loud THANK YOU BIG SHOW chant from that.  Edge gets a running spear through Show through the barricade.  Back in the ring Cena counters the spear into the STFU.

Finally Show comes in for the save as this is actually pretty good.  Back to Show vs. Edge for awhile as JR runs through Show’s measurements again.  Show misses a Vader Bomb and here comes Cena again.  The two non-monsters suplex Show in an always cool looking spot.

Everyone trades some more finishers and Edge gets a spear for two on Cena.  Here’s your HOLY FREAKING CRAP spot of the match as Edge jumps on Show’s back with a sleeper so Cena is like screw it and picks up BOTH OF THEM AT ONCE IN THE FU!  Edge falls off and Show takes the FU.  Cena hits one on Edge onto Show for the pin and the title.  Freaking sweetness.

Rating: B-. This was better than people gave it credit for. This wasn’t supposed to be the great and mighty be all end all title match and it wasn’t. It was a way to get the title onto Cena and make him look strong. It wasn’t bad and it accomplished its purpose. I liked it, but man this would have been better if it was three matches earlier.

WM 26 is in Phoenix.

HOF Ceremony. Austin drives his ATV around and has a mini beer bash to kill time. I have no problem with this at all. It was needed to give the fans a breather and it’s not like Austin doesn’t deserve it.

Attendance is announced, but not called a record as we kill off even more time.

Massive recap video beforehand which kills the time so dead it’s scary.  They’ve hated each other since Evolution, Orton is nuts and kissed Stephanie, HHH snapped, Orton faked being insane, HHH can’t disqualified or he loses the title.
WWE Title: Randy Orton vs. HHH

In the back, HHH passes both McMahons. Orton’s entrance literally goes on nearly two and a half minutes. There’s no special ordeal or anything. He’s just walking really, really slowly. HHH’s intro is long but not as long. We get BMI. Orton gets an RKO inside of two minutes but goes for the Punt and misses. HHH is up in about a minute and hits the Pedigree. What in the world is going on here?

And remember, HHH can’t get disqualified in a match based on hate.  This is going so slow that it’s painful.  They’re moving like molasses out there for crying out loud (as I quote my inner Hayden Panitierre from Remember the Titans).  HHH has a bad shoulder now.  Orton takes over for a good while as he works on the arm.

I like the pace of this match as it’s very slow but more violent. That’s what this is supposed to be. You’re supposed to have a guy that’s completely insane and a guy that’s desperate to defend his wife’s honor. Would you expect guys to be using Greco-Roman style here?

I like the brawling stuff. Wait for it…wait for it…YES! We get an Orton chinlock! All is right with the world! This is a more physical style and while it’s not great, it’s also not awful. This match isn’t really building to anything though.  Ok I’m thinking I’m changing my mind on the pacing thing.  This needs to be FAR more brutal given the story backing it up.  It’s similar to Kane/Undertaker at Mania 14 where they were supposed to be in a war and just weren’t at all.

Orton takes him down with the backbreaker for two.  I love that dropkick that Orton has.  HHH FINALLY sends Orton to the floor to break the very long stretch of momentum he’s had.  On the floor HHH keeps teasing various weapons shots but won’t do them because of the title thing.  He sets for the Pedigree but Orton backdrops him through the announce table.

Elevated DDT hits on the floor and HHH is more or less done.  He beats the count of course and Orton mixes up his offense with various types of stomps.  Orton catches HHH coming of the top rope (WTF???) with a sick dropkick. Ref goes down and Orton hits an RKO. He gets the sledge but gets kicked leading to him getting punched beyond all reasonable measure. Pedigree and Orton is dead. Fireworks and we’re out. Well, that sums up the whole show.

Rating: F+. The ending was just a total letdown. Forget a good pace. This was a complete waste of time and had nothing good to offer at all. The ending is HHH’s revenge for his recent losses. Terrible way to close it out, absolutely terrible. Never in my life have I seen someone with a bigger ego. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever here for HHH to go over. Not a single one.

Orton was pushed to the moon recently and he gets nothing for it? Likely he’ll get the belt at Backlash or something, but this was a waste. Any credibility he has is killed. That was awful and I don’t want to see even the letter that comes after G for a long, long time. Horrible.

It’s the same issue that many recent Mania main events have had: it’s not a bad match, but there’s nothing mind blowing. It’s like they’re in safe mode or something. Orton catches HHH coming of the top rope (WTF???) with a sick dropkick. Ref goes down and Orton hits an RKO. He gets the sledge but gets kicked leading to him getting punched beyond all reasonable measure. Pedigree and Orton is dead. Fireworks and we’re out. Well, that sums up the whole show.
Overall Rating: D. This show had one good match in it. That’s all. You have a decent opener so that was ok. Then the Women’s match was absolutely a disgrace. Never in my life have I seen a dumber thing. Seriously, we get a ten minute concert of all things and then you don’t even see the older divas, in a match for NOSTALGIA get introduced? My goodness that’s a joke. Plain and simple, that was pathetic.

That was to get a weak comedy act in when it could have been something very cool. Austin could come out at the end but not come out to beat up Jericho? That would have saved that whole thing. Hardys match was just ok. Not great but could have been worse by far. IC Title was to get to JBL quitting so I don’t even call that a match. Then we have the one match: Taker and HBK was an absolute classic, hands down.

Maybe not the best ever as Steamboat and Savage was almost too incredible to ever be passed, but this was by far the best match in many years. After that, the three way was ok and the main event was just a waste.

Overall, watch Taker and HBK and if you’re out of other good matches to watch, check out MITB and the Triple Threat. Other than that, avoid this show. Is it the worst Mania of all time? It’s not due to HBK/Taker, but that’s literally the only thing keeping it ahead of 2 and 9. Terrible show.

Wrestlemania 23
Date: April 1, 2007
Location: Ford Field, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 80,103
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield
America The Beautiful: Aretha Franklin

After reading the card, the idea that I get is there are a lot of similarities between this year’s show and last year’s. The show is pretty packed, there’s adequate filler, the titles are defended, it’s got a huge crowd (second biggest ever) and it looks like a big show. However, as I remember it, it just doesn’t feel like a great Mania. I have reasons for thinking that which I’ll get into at the end, but for now let’s just see how this goes. Your main difference here is that ECW is now a part of the WWE.

After the standard Mania opening video package which is well done here, complete with someone is a dead ringer for James Earl Jones’ voice, JR and Lawler welcome us and the Smackdown commentators to the show. JBL really does have talent at the announce table. Aretha Franklin must weigh nearly 300lbs. As we should start off with, our first match is this.

Money in the Bank: Matt Hardy vs. Finlay vs. Randy Orton vs. Edge vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Mr. Kennedy vs. CM Punk vs. King Booker

I never got why they put so many people in these things. Having six or even four would make it MUCH better and you could spare some people for midcard matches. The arena looks incredible. The entrances take forever to get through so we’re going to be at about 12 minutes into the show when the first match starts. Kennedy does the Mic Drop. Big reactions for both Hardys.Everyone kind of stands around to start until Kennedy finally goes for a ladder. I never would have pegged him as the smart one.

Finlay of all people does the big dive to start the match. Edge almost gets up the ladder 90 seconds in but Matt makes the save. Orton and Finlay both go up but Jeff makes the save. You can’t say they’re not flying through this.Kennedy stops Hardy as Booker pulls out a stepladder by mistake in a funny bit. Edge picks up said stepladder and PELTS THAT THING at Punk’s head. Edge sets up the ladder as a bridge between the apron and the railing as I think I know what’s coming. Orton vs. Booker in the ring at the moment. Booker clears the ring and stops for a Spinarooni, allowing Edge and the Hardys to come in and stop him.

Edge suplexes Matt onto a ladder which I think breaks another one underneath it. In a SICK looking spot, Kennedy goes up for the Kenton Bomb onto Matt on the ladder but misses and the back of his head smacks the ladder. FREAKING OW MAN! Jeff throws in a Swanton as punishment for move infringement. Matt and Jeff go up and hammer on each other for a bit but Finlay shoves them both off.

Edge cleans house with about seven spears in a row but Punk makes the stop. Unfortunately there’s no ladder. Once he finds one though he busts out the Terry Funk Ladder Spin in a nice ECW homage (he was ECW at this point mind you). Edge busts out the BIG LADDER but Orton is shoved down. He walks into a Gordbuster by Jeff as we set up the huge spot of the match.Matt puts Edge on the ladder between the ring and the apron as Jeff goes up the big one. Instead of grabbing the case (JBL: GRAB THE CASE YOU CRAZY FREAK!) he dives off the ladder onto Edge, snapping the ladder right down the middle. INSANE spot and Edge is stretchered out which makes the flow of the match far better.

Everything more or less stops for a bit to take Edge out which is certainly understandable. Orton RKOs everyone in sight but Punk makes the save. RKO off the ladder ends Punk though as they just left Hardy laying there which is kind of funny in a sick way. Booker gets a Bookend off the ladder to Orton as everyone is down again.

Booker and Matt go up but Sharmell grabs Matt’s leg. Matt fights her off and threatens the Twist of Fate on her if Booker grabs the case in a creative move. Finlay’s head is busted BAD. Matt takes a Celtic Cross onto the ladder. Finlay’s back is too messed up to climb so here’s Horny to climb up and get the case for Finlay. Kennedy goes up and we get a Green Bay Plunge off the ladder on the midget.

Finlay is all like screw that and blasts Kennedy in the face with a ladder. In the words of Heenan: I told him not to touch that midget. Punk dropkicks the ladder to stop Finlay from going up. Kennedy vs. Punk on the ladder and down goes the blonde. Kennedy grabs a ladder and uses it like a javelin to mostly kill Punk and climbs up to get the ladder and end this.

Rating: B+. It’s not as good as the first MITB but it’s better than last year. The extra time helps a lot here but the ending is still relatively weak. Kennedy just climbs up the ladder to win the match. It’s fun, but it’s not mind blowing. It’s really a mess, and there’s nothing wrong with that as it got the crowd going like almost nothing else was going to.

Kennedy would of course get hurt and lose this shot to Edge who would use it to steal the title from the Undertaker. The Hardy/Edge ladder spot is absolutely insane and one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen. Kennedy says that he’s coming for the title. This makes me laugh.

Kane vs. Great Khali

Here’s your backstory: Khali was dominating Smackdown and said he wanted better competition. Kane accepted his offer and here we are. Kane looks absolutely tiny compared to Khali here and it’s almost scary. This is the big man battle and something tells me it’s not going to be very good. Oh and it’s inter-promotional.

I think you get the idea of what’s coming here. King says Khali is scarier than Andre which is again an eye rolling line. Lillian is looking AMAZING in a little blue dress. Khali dominates to start and continues to do so for awhile. Kane hammers away but it isn’t enough to get him anywhere. They’re using the big on big formula which isn’t very effective but what else can they do here?

And we hit the nerve hold as apparently a minute and a half is too long before we need a rest hold. King goes on about how awesome Khali is. He really is scary in person but he’s got nothing on Andre. JR calls Khali’s offense bowling shoe ugly. Preach it brother. Lawler calls him ugly in general.

Kane never can really get going here including not even putting Khali down with the clothesline. Khali gets tied up in the ropes and the beating is on. Kane is in trouble but he uses the meathook from his movie to get an advantage before slamming Khali which is the only thing here that actually gets the crowd awake.

The whole place is dead until then but soon thereafter Kane looks for a chokeslam but Khali counters with his two handed chokeslam to win. Afterwards he chokes Kane out with the rope from his hook. Nice thing to see there: attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon. All hail the PG Era!

Rating: D. Short and bad usually makes a match better, but this was just flat out boring to me. The slam is all that’s keeping it from an F as neither of them were able to really get anything going here. Not a great match at all, but it did have one very cool moment in it. They went for a recreation of the Andre Slam but it just didn’t work at all.

Eugene is sad about being bald so Cryme Tyme helps him out by finding Kelly, Layla and Brooke. This leads to a dance party with a ton of HOFers and Legends. Ricky Steamboat, in full karate gear, pops up to stare everyone down but dances too resulting in the Ron Simmons catchphrase. Fun stuff of course.

United States Title: Chris Benoit vs. MVP

MVP comes out with cheerleaders as he’s the full on jerk here. I could get behind that, not the nice guy he turned into though. It never worked for me in the slightest which this was rather entertaining more often than not. He’s the brash young rookie and Benoit is, well he’s Chris Benoit and the US Champion. I think that sums this up pretty well. Basic story is MVP wanted a shot and Benoit said ok.

Benoit takes it to the match but MVP actually counters him in a nice move. MVP puts Benoit down and shouts FIRST DOWN in a cool bit. Benoit goes for the Sharpshooter but puts the leg in the wrong way for some reason. Crossface is countered and Benoit’s lip is busted. MVP works on the arm which takes away the Crossface which makes sense.

The referee says six minutes rather loudly which always makes me chuckle for some reason. Benoit busts out the Germans but MVP gets up to stop the headbutt from coming off the top. Superplex has Benoit in trouble as it gets two. Benoit’s arm hits the post and MVP pounces like a crazed Benoit. Wait that’s an oxymoron. He pounces like a Benoit and works the arm hard.

In a nice sequence, Benoit holds the rope to avoid a big boot but when he comes in MVP hits the boot anyway. I liked that. Crossface is attempted but MVP hammers the arm and Benoit can’t hook it. Pretty good stuff so far. Ballin, which is called Count It here gets two. Big boot in the corner misses and here come the Germans again.

More Germans come in as you would think this is happening in France. There’s the headbutt…and it gets the pin? They didn’t even use the full six minutes. The ending kind of came out of nowhere but it worked for the most part as the Crossface would have been a headscratcher here.

Rating: B. The ending is what ruins this for me. It’s like they were cut off mid match and it really hurt them. Other than that, this was great stuff. MVP surprised me here and would go on to beat Benoit in two straight falls to win the title at Backlash. Give this another three minutes or so and it’s great stuff indeed.

Trump runs into the Boogeyman and seemingly couldn’t care less.

Hall of Fame class is presented. This one was kind of weak as the main people were JR, the King and Dusty Rhodes. Not terrible at all but there wasn’t a big name in it, much like the first of the new round of classes.

Recap of Batista vs. Taker. The idea here is simple: Taker won the Rumble and picked Batista. This was a pretty big buildup at the time and it worked quite well I thought. The best part about this match is it marked the end of the really annoying tag team main events at No Way Out.

All it would be was the Smackdown main event teaming up with the Raw main event in a tag match with one “turning” but not getting booed. This year, Batista made the “turn” and once again, no one cared. Also, this should have been the main event. Taker in a title match at Mania is something special.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. Undertaker

Taker gets the full on entrance here complete with lightning, thunder, smoke and druids holding fire. A poll says that there’s an 80% fan vote that Taker wins the title here. And people say WWE fans aren’t smart. The entrances and buildup took nearly 15 minutes in total for this. Spear by Batista IMMEDIATELY but Taker throws him into the corner as we’re on hard and fast.

They slug it out on the floor and Taker eats steps with his knees. That must be incredibly awkward at dinner. Batista goes up top and comes off with a shoulder block for two. They’re going all big and hard here and it’s awesome so far. Taker punches up from his knees and it’s Boo/Yay time. Snake Eyes and the big boot combination put Batista down for two.

Old School connects but Batista blocks the chokeslam to HUGE heat. Taker beats him back and hits the apron legdrop for a nice reaction. BIG Taker Dive has Batista reeling. We stay on the floor and Batista reverses to send Taker into the timekeeper’s table. We enter Spanish Land with JBL and Cole having to get out of the way as Batista gets a powerslam through the table.

White heat on Batista as he rolls Taker in for two. Batista Bomb is blocked to a sweet reaction. Belly to belly by Batista gets two. We go Mania X-7 as Taker gets the Last Ride out of the corner to counter the ten punches. It’s really just a powerbomb but it worked fine. Naturally that only gets two as this is pretty solid stuff so far.

Spinebuster hits but Taker is like forget that and sits up. Chokeslam gets two as the fans are COMPLETELY behind Taker. Bad spear by Batista shifts momentum again. Batista Bomb gets two as the fans are scared to death at this point. Another Bomb is blocked and because Batista is STUPID he goes for a Tombstone. Taker is all like boy please and the REAL Tombstone makes Taker 15-0.

Rating: B+. This match was solid to me. There’s no real botches other than arguably the Last Ride which you can attribute to a few things: Batista’s size, Taker being spent, the speed he pulls it off in etc. Although to be fair, it wasn’t like it looked terrible. It was just a regular powerbomb.

This is probably Batista’s best match ever. Taker put on quite a performance as well, just like he does every year here. The only thing I didn’t like was the ending, which while it wasn’t as bad as Benoit/MVP, it wasn’t the best. Either way, definitely a good match and I was entertained the whole time.

This was two guys out there throwing bombs at each other and while it’s not quite as good as some of their later matches, this was a war with both guys working hard the whole time. The crowd was awesome the whole time too as they let Batista know they didn’t like him at all and there’s not a thing wrong with that. Good stuff indeed.

Stephanie and the next generation of McMahon are in the back with Vince. Nothing of note, although there’s a camera in the stroller of course.

Sandman/Rob Van Dam/Tommy Dreamer/Sabu vs. Elijah Burke/Marcus Cor Von/Matt Striker/Kevin Thorn

This one really makes me scratch my head. Why in the world is this not a No DQ match? They had that next month at Backlash, so why not here? It would make so much more sense for this to be one of those, rather than just an 8 man tag. That ECW song never gets old to me. Standard old vs. new thing here. ECW guys are wrestling at Wrestlemania. How weird does that sound?

Burke is now more commonly known as D’Angelo Dinero and collectively they’re known as the New Breed. Striker as a wrestler is just odd indeed. Striker vs. Sabu starts us off here. Sabu totally misses a springboard clothesline for two anyway. Sandman goes up and hits a legdrop across the back of Striker as he’s laid out over the top rope.

Cor Von (Monty Brown) in now as they’re tagging in and out very fast. Dreamer plays the face in peril and gets the tar beaten out of him of course. Big back drop by Burke and Cor Von sets up the double knees in the back of Dreamer by Burke. Sitout powerbomb by Thorn gets two as Sabu makes the save.

Double tags, one to RVD and the other to Striker. That’s just amusing given what we know now. Sabu dives over the top to take out Cor Von and lands on his head. Dreamer plants Striker and with everyone else down, the Five Star ends Striker with ease.

Rating: D+. This was there and that’s about all I can say about it. Again, why in the world was this not a hardcore match or a weapons match? Joey freaks about the ECW guys winning at Mania, which is so against what they stood for originally that it’s not even funny. Kind of a cool moment though I guess.

Recap of the Battle of the Millionaires. This is your real main event but it’s not for the wrestling. The reason this show got the ratings that it got was Donald Trump possibly getting his head shaved. As I’ve mentioned before, Trump must really like wrestling given this is his 4th appearance at Mania.

There’s a big problem with this match: Lashley was as big of a lock to win as anyone could ever believe. He was being pushed to the moon, Umaga never won a really big match yet and there was no way Trump was getting shaved, which no one actually thought would happen.

Austin is your guest referee as he has to be at Mania. This is what he should be. He gets the big pop and is still viewed as a tough guy. I like these appearances but few others do. Anyway, the idea is that each billionaire picks a guy and they have a match. The losing rich guy gets his head shaved.

Bobby Lashley vs. Umaga

The entrances literally take over ten minutes as Vince, Umaga, Trump, Lashley and Austin all have their own entrances. Right off the bat, this match looks boring. Shockingly enough, I’m right. Trump has real $100 bills rain from the ceiling which is pretty awesome. Lashley is ECW Champion here and Umaga is IC Champion here but that doesn’t mean anything.

Ross points out that Umaga has no amateur background. Gee you think? Austin breaks something up for Lashley and the darker skinned dude doesn’t take kindly to it at all. Middle rope shoulder block puts the Samoan down. Umaga gets a foot under the rope and Lashley isn’t thrilled with it being broken up. He kills Estrada to vent some frustration.

Umaga misses a charge and hits the floor with a big old thud. Ross and Lawler calling wrestling is just…right. A few seconds after Umaga hits the floor, Lashley does the exact same thing, crashing out on the outside which I’d assume will set up Umaga’s dominance which I’d assume will include a nerve hold. Big splash gets two for Umaga.

Points to Trump for being INTO this. He’s cheering for Lashley and is clearly interested in what’s going on. Have to give him that: the guy is at least acting like he wants to be there which is a lot more than you can say about some celebrities at Mania. Umaga chokes on the ropes and Austin pulls him away by the hair. Can’t beat a tough referee. Ok you can but you get the idea.

Samoan Drop hits as it’s all Umaga here. Vince’s eyes are sparkling. Lashley gets some punches in but can’t slam Umaga. I guess he’s no Hogan. Lashley sends Vince down by mistake. No wonder he got fired. Bobby manages to slam Umaga off the top and both guys are down. Austin counts but gets to 9 and just doesn’t count them out.

Shane comes out to help Vince up and hangs out at ringside. Austin pulls Umaga off again, this time by the eye. Samoan Spike to Austin and the evil smile on Vince’s face for that is just awesome to see. Shane gets in and hammers on Bobby for a little bit. Vince busts out some garbage cans because what’s wrestling without garbage cans?

The garbage can is set up in front of Lashley’s face and the Van Terminator hits. Shane pulls his shirt off and has a referee’s shirt on underneath of it. A top rope splash kills Lashley but Austin makes the save. Umaga puts him down again and Trump isn’t sure what to do. Vince yells at Austin and TRUMP CLOTHESLINES VINCE! HOKEY FREAKING SMOKE! Umaga goes after Austin again but a Stunner takes him down and a spear from Lashley ends Vince’s hair.

Rating: C-. This was just a match really with nothing at all special going on in it. Make no mistake about it though: this is why Mania 23 was a success. This was HUGE and having Austin thrown in there helped a lot. Austin screwing over Vince is just right. This wasn’t anything great but it was fun and that’s what matters.

We get the head shaving thing which goes on for a good ten minutes. Vince glaring at Austin the whole time is just great. They really do shave the whole thing off too and Vince is bald. Austin stuns Trump as again this guy earns respect from fans.

Ad for Backlash.

Ready for your pointless filler?

We look at the dark match of all things which was a lumberjack tag match with Flair/Carlito vs. Chavo/Gregory Helms with Carlito pinning Chavo off the Backstabber. Is there a reason we’re watching this?

Women’s Title: Melina vs. Ashley

It’s a lumberjill match. Well at least we can look at the girls. You can tell they’re trying to fill time as they list off every one of the girls. Ashley is the Playboy chick of the year which is the only reason she’s here. Let the sloppiness begin. You can tell the fans are mostly not caring here.

Melina gets a surfboard as the crowd is just DEAD. When you can’t get fans excited over a ton of hot women you know you’re in trouble. Ashley is just horrid in the ring and everyone knows it. She misses a horrible looking elbow off the top and is covered for two and ZERO heat at all. A rollup keeps the title on Melina.

Rating: F. This was terrible and a waste of match time.

There’s a big brawl with all the girls post match.

The fans favor Cena 59-41.

We recap Cena vs. Shawn which is happening because Shawn won a triple threat match against Orton and Edge. They play up the old vs. new thing here which is fine. The start of the video is music playing very lightly in the background with no lyrics against video of the two of them. They change that at the end and switch it up to a more traditional package but it worked rather well for a big buildup video.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels

This should be awesome. Shawn comes out to the DX music which isn’t right for the main event of Wrestlemania, period. Oh Shawn and Cena are tag champions here. I forgot about that and it means jack here. Thankfully Shawn doesn’t wear the title belt to the ring as it would look so painfully out of place. The fans boo Cena as soon as Shawn’s music ends so you know what to expect.

Cena’s awesome entrance this time: a Mustang is shown driving around Detroit and into the arena. The booing when Cena’s music hits as he gets out is epic. Shawn sits on the top rope all calm and cool which is very Shawn of him. Shawn offers a handshake but slaps Cena instead and it’s on. Crotch chop for Cena.

Shawn wins the opening strike off and puts Cena down with a chop. Shawn controls for the most part and speeds things up so Cena takes his head off with a clothesline. Can’t beat that at times. Shawn is starting to get all ticked off here which means this is about to start getting good. A hiptoss sends Cena to the floor and it’s almost all Shawn.

Enziguri has Cena reeling. Shawn hits the ring and lands an Asai Moonsault onto Cena and onto the table which is AMERICAN so it doesn’t break. I think this legitimately hurt Michaels’ ribs but I’ve heard different stories on that. Cena gets the skin peeled off his chest with chops. A shot to Cena’s knee has another part of the champion hurting.

Things slow down a bit here as Shawn talks to Cena in a way we’re supposed to see I think. Cena gets a big punch in but Shawn throws a shoulder to keep Cena in the corner. Shawn charges again but his head eats turnbuckle (George Steele did it better) and he’s busted open. Ah ok the replay shows that it was the post which makes more sense.

Cena gets some mounted shots to SOLID heat. Superkick misses and down goes the referee. He has a bad habit of doing that at Mania. There is blood all over Cena’s shoulder. FU is countered into a DDT for no cover since the referee is out cold still. Shawn hits the floor and unhooks the steps. How are we just barely over halfway through with this?

Somehow that only gets two as another referee comes out. Shawn busts out the forearm, the nipup and the elbow. It’s time to tune up the band but Cena gets a clothesline out of desperation to make the stop. FU is reversed. Might have worked better if Cena hadn’t stopped to turn to the camera. I wonder if that’s Shawn’s blood or Cena’s blood on the top of John’s head.

FU hits on the second attempt and Shawn is in big trouble. That only gets two but you would think the Lions just made the Super Bowl. The only difference is that this was possible. Cena sets for the FU off the middle rope but Shawn fights him off and gets a cross body. Cena catches him and rolls through into the FU but Shawn counters and looks for Chin Music. Cena ducks with a drop toe hold but Shawn counters THAT into a small package for two. Great sequence.

Enziguri misses and STFU is locked on. A rope is grabbed and Cena yells at the referee. BIGGEST CHIN MUSIC EVER takes Cena’s head off but Shawn can’t cover in time and it only gets two. Double count gets us to nine and Shawn swings away but the champ counters into the STFU again and Shawn can’t get out this time and Detroit all wants to cry as Cena retains.

Rating: A. Great match. Cena can turn it on in the big matches like few others can. Shawn is one of those few that can turn it on even better though and he certainly did here. They beat the tar out of each other with both guys working incredibly hard out there to show off for the huge crowd. Cena has made both members of DX tap in consecutive Manias. How many people can say that? The leg injury disappearing holds this back a bit, but great match either way.

Overall Rating: B. This is a solid show but it’s not great for some reason. There’s just a little something stopping it and I’m not sure what it is. I think that part of it is the main event. It’s a great match, but the problem is that once it’s done things are exactly as they were before.

The Battle of the Billionaires was good but it could have been so much more. The show is worth seeing but there are far better ones out there. See the main event for sure and Batista vs. Taker is worth seeing too. Good show overall, but just a step behind the great ones.