I’m knackered (having a job is not my forte) but here’s part 2…the rest tommorow and maybe the whole list in a nice, neat package in a couple of days. It’s only half-way through January 2009 after all…

20. 30-Man Royal Rumble Match
(Royal Rumble, 27/01)
It’s hard to rate Royal Rumbles in comparison to other matches…because of their nature, sometimes they seem worse because it’s not really like a normal wrestling match, sometimes they seem way better because of how exciting and unique they are, so I had a hard time ranking this. I did really enjoy it though; I always enjoy Rumbles anyway, everyone does, but this one was well booked, had some really good stuff involving Undertaker and Shawn Michaels in particular, and John Cena’s return was a phenomenal moment and one of the few ‘surprises’ these days that was genuinely surprising.

19. John Cena vs. Randy Orton
(No Way Out, 17/02)
The ending of this match manages to be both annoying and awesome at the same time. Annoying because the match was just getting good when it abruptly ended, awesome because that was the entire point, and it fit in well with Orton’s cowardly champion gimmick. After being unable to beat Cena by either pinfall or count out after an RKO on the floor, Orton is so desperate to keep his title that he intentionally gets himself disqualified by slapping the referee in the face! This is a great cheap heel trick and the crowd hated it, but it did stop the match when it could have developed into something great. As it was, it was still pretty good. Cena and Orton also showed brilliant chemistry so I have high hopes for their future matches.

18. Cage Match: The Undertaker vs. Big Show
(Smackdown, 05/12)
This was a great TV main event, and was also a much better end to their feud than that shitty Casket match would have been. This seemed like a bit of a throwback to an old school cage match, as they really beat the bejesus out of each other, as well as throwing in some impressive spots, such as Show’s missed Vader Bomb, and Undertaker missing a massive top rope leg-drop. The visual of both these big monsters fighting while climbing the cage was pretty good too, as was the decisive Hell’s Gate finish.

17. John Cena vs. Chris Jericho
(Armageddon, 14/12)
If this match was a bit longer, it would’ve been way higher but as is, it’s pretty damned good. They play off some of the stuff from their Survivor Series match well and Jericho is great at relentlessly going after the recently injured neck, going in you assumed he had no chance of winning but he actually made you think he could. Cena was great too, and I really enjoyed the reversals sequence, with them both escaping/countering the FU/STFU/Codebreaker/Walls of Jericho time and time again. This was real good, but like I said, could’ve been longer, and I didn’t really like Jericho tapping to the STFU almost instantly, but to be fair that is splitting hairs a bit.

16. Stretcher Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Batista
(One Night Stand, 01/06)
This was a brilliant use of the match gimmick, definitely the best Stretcher match I’ve seen. This tied in to both the Michaels/Flair and Michaels/Jericho storylines, as well as their previous match in which Shawn lied about his injury, so Batista promised to hurt him in this match. Which is exactly what he did, with Shawn really getting the shit beat out of him. I enjoyed this being a Stretcher match that really was about incapacitating your opponent, instead of the usual ‘push it past the line!’ tomfoolery. Chris Jericho, as a disingenuous face who was just about to turn heel, coming out to stop Michaels from leaving the match, willing him on when really he just wanted Batista to dish out more punishment, played his role well too. Big Dave’s “I DON’T love you and I’m NOT sorry!!” line before he finished him off was awesome too.