The Top 25 WWE Matches of 2008: part 5 of 5

THE DRAMATIC CONCLUSION!

(It’s all soon to be compiled in one big long list anyway…)

05. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
(Great American Bash, 20/07)
I’ve written time and time again how amazing the Jericho/Michaels storyline was, and at the time I really thought this was going to be the peak of it (but then Jericho punched Shawn’s wife in the face, Michaels went on a quest for revenge and we were lucky enough to get a few months more!). It isn’t a ‘good match’ in the same way a back-and-forth, hold-for-hold technical bout would be, as 75% of it is just Jericho beating the holy hell out of Shawn and trying to end his career. But for the storyline, that was perfect, and they really do a damn good job of getting that across. Michaels is willing to throw caution to the wind to get back at Jericho for injuring his eye in the first place, but really this match is about advancing the angle as a whole and fully transforming Jericho into the bitter, twisted, heartless swine he is today, so the turning point is Jericho elbowing Shawn right in his injured eye, causing Shawn to sport the ol’ crimson mask (heh). This leads to just a complete demolition of the Heartbreak Kid, with Jericho ruthlessly going after the eye with punches, kicks, elbows, stomps, and a particularly awesome headbutt in a cold, calculating manner. There’s one bit where Shawn is practically dead in a pool of blood and the crowd is concerned (kids are crying, I swear), the ref asks HBK if he submits and Jericho asks “he said no, right?!” before kicking him directly in the face. The ending with Jericho trapping Shawn’s arms out of the way and then repeatedly punching him straight in the eye until the referee has no choice but to stop the match was fucking brilliant. Simply put, without this match, the whole saga probably would’ve just been another wrestling feud.

04. Cage Match: Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga
(Raw, 07/01)
I saw this match right at the beginning of 2008, and it’s stayed on the list since then, which is a testament to three things: how big of a Jeff Hardy fan I am, how I’ve missed Umaga since his injury, and most importantly, just how good of a match it is: a great, exciting TV main event. But it was when I watched this again recently that I realised how good it really was, basically an instant classic. Jeff and Umaga have faced a lot of times, and always have good chemistry against each other, mostly because Umaga is awesome at kicking somebody’s ass, and Hardy is awesome at taking a beating. As a Cage match, it’s worked brilliantly, and I like that pins/submissions are legal as well as escaping the cage, as it makes Jeff’s eventual victory seem like more of an achievement. This was when Jeff was gaining momentum for his WWE title match against Randy Orton, and Orton played his role well as the antagonist on the outside of the cage, desperately wanting Hardy to lose. Both guys go out of their way to make this a good and memorable match, with Umaga doing great ‘big man selling’ so that the crowd goes nuts when Jeff is finally able to take the monster down; and Jeff taking his usual ridiculous bumps, including a back body drop into the cage wall which looked insane. Orton bringing chairs into the match was good too, with Jeff ultimately using them as an equaliser, setting up Poetry in Motion against the cage, and later just hurling them at Umaga’s head. The false finish of Jeff flooring Umaga and heading for the door, only for Randy to come flying in and send it crashing against his head, was awesome, and the fans really bought it as the end of the match, and hated Orton for it. Jeff somehow manages to survive though, and incapacitate Umaga for long enough to climb to the top of the cage, but before he can climb out, Randy Orton is there to block his way, leading to the ending which has since made it’s way into dozens of video packages: Jeff takes a last look at Orton, and then hits a fucking phenomenal Whisper in the Wind from the top of the cage back into the ring on Umaga, which gets the hugely popular three count.

03. Hell In A Cell: The Undertaker vs. Edge
(SummerSlam, 18/08)
I’ll get the one bad thing about this match out of the way first: lack of blood in an epic, feud-ending Hell In A Cell match. It’s the whole WWE PG thing; I get it and for the most part support it, but come on…Undertaker, Edge, Hell In A Cell. Anyway, that aside, this was awesome. Some people didn’t seem to like it but I thought it was brilliant as an epic, feud-ending main event Hell In A Cell match, and that the whole build-up and payoff to it were great too. This was when Edge had gone crazy at the prospect of ‘going to Hell’ with The Undertaker and was pretty much channelling Heath Ledger’s Joker , and Undertaker was on a murderous quest for revenge, so it was a pretty interesting dynamic. Edge going mental meant that he wasn’t afraid of The Undertaker here, so spent a good portion of the match in control; hitting Taker with some nasty chairshots, hitting a Spear with Taker leaning against the steel steps, and destroying him by diving off a ladder while holding a chair, putting Undertaker through a table. I guess some people didn’t like Edge bringing in the tables, ladders and chairs and making the match more about them than the cell itself, but to me it takes sense: TLC is Edge’s speciality match, as Hell In A Cell is one of Taker’s. One of the best moments of the match was Edge Spearing Undertaker against the cell wall, causing a panel to break and both of them to go crashing out of the confines of the cage. This looked great and got a good crowd reaction, but did kind of tease that they were going to climb up to the top, which is probably never going to happen now that the cell is even bigger and they don’t employ Mick Foley. Edge hitting another Spear after running across two of the announce tables, putting Taker through the third, was pretty bad ass too. And the ending sequence was a perfect end to the storyline too: Undertaker gets the ultimate payback, doing to Edge everything Edge had done to him over the course of the feud – throwing Edge from a great height through two tables, hitting a Spear of his own, smashing Edge in the head with the camera really really hard, and finishing with a devastating Conchairto. One Tombstone later, and Taker has his revenge…but then decides to finish things off by literally send Edge to ‘Hell’ by chokeslamming him off a ladder all the way through the ring, STRAIGHT TO HELL, complete with smoke and flames. I fucking loved this match and also marked out at the ridiculous ending; it’s The Undertaker, not Ring of Honor. A lot of the complaints about this was that some of the other HIAC matches were more violent, or intense, or bloody, but as a conclusion to a storyline, as a spectacle, and as match, I just thought this was really awesome and it’s probably the match I’ve watched the most from 2008 actually.

02. The Undertaker vs. Edge
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
Three matches in the top ten from the same two guys is pretty impressive by anyone’s standards…I suppose some people may wonder why I rank a ‘regular’ match, which was almost the start of the whole thing, as the highest, when the same feud produced a TLC match and a Hell In A Cell match. Well, because this was no ordinary match, it was a huge, impressive, highly entertaining, WrestleMania main event. The crowd and the arena and the general setting gave this a big time feel, and it more than lived up to it in my opinion. Edge being in the main event of WrestleMania was huge, and so was the fact that despite being against The Undertaker, he managed to be in control for a large percentage of the match. They worked a story that Edge was always one step ahead of Taker, and had counters for all his major moves, which was proven by him continually escaping the chokeslam, Tombstone, Last Ride etc. The best one of these was probably doing the ’ten punch’ bit, so Undertaker would predictably reverse it into the Last Ride, only for Edge to slip out of it and take him out with the Edge-O-Matic for a near fall. Another really cool thing about this match was that Edge actually got to kick out of the Tombstone piledriver, in what the entire crowd assumed was the finish. After a great, attention-grabbing main event match, the climax was fantastic: Undertaker stops Edge’s lackeys and their constant interference by chokeslamming one of them off the apron onto the other (I don’t care enough about Hawkins & Ryder to know the difference), then turning around straight into the Spear, which gets a very close near-fall. By this point the atmosphere is electric. Edge then takes Taker down with a second spear, but while he hesitates, Undertaker reaches up and out of nowhere traps him in Hell’s Gate (or as it was known at the time, “That Deadly Submission Hold, Coach!”)…Edge struggles and fights it as the stadium crowd goes insane, and he finally taps out to end a brilliant WrestleMania main event. Undertaker then poses with the World title as the fireworks go off and the crowd goes home happy. WrestleMania moment, right there. Seriously, I feel as if my write-up of this really isn’t doing it justice because it’s just a really, really good wrestling match.

01. Ladder Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
(No Mercy, 05/10)
It’s fitting (and somewhat predictable) that something that is widely known as the best storyline the WWE have done in ages, and a feud which I myself have banged on about time and time again (several times in this very countdown), produced my favourite match of the year. I was always going to like this: here was a feud that got better almost every week, with a real sense of rivalry and hatred, and brilliant performances and believable characters from both of the guys involved, and it was going to be in a Ladder match, which is usually my favourite type of gimmick match. The feud had always been about personal rivalry, jealousy and animosity, and it had not only completely saved the career of Chris Jericho and made him arguably the best he’s ever been, but had made Shawn Michaels more interesting than he had been in a good while as well. But now it was about Chris Jericho’s newly won World Championship, and it was in the match Shawn Michaels made famous in the WWE, the Ladder match. This was going to be good.

The only slight worry I had before I saw the match was that I thought for a second it could end up being another ladder match built around crazy falls and stunts, with most of the match basically being there to fill in the gaps before another big spot. Don’t get me wrong, I like those matches, I included two of them in this list, but for what was probably going to end up being the conclusion to this feud, it wouldn’t really have worked. Luckily, what we got instead was a match built around two men who despised one other, using the ladders as dangerous weapons in an attempt to permanently maim and disfigure their opponent. In the case of Jericho, this ended up legitimately happening after the “slingshotting the ladder into the face” spot inadvertently causes him to break a tooth and bleed from the mouth a fair bit. There really was a ton of stuff to like in this one; liked how they paced this, and didn’t immediately go for the ladder shots, but instead had Shawn do things like reverse a whip into the ladder by jumping up and climbing it for a dive. I also really liked Jericho kicking the ladder from his back, sending it flying into Shawn’s face, and then placing his head inside it and slamming it shut, which looked incredibly painful. There’s a brilliant sequence later on in the match where Jericho trapped Shawn under the ladder, mocked him and then climbed it, only for Shawn to use his legs to tip it up and send Jericho flying all the way to the floor was both awesome and pretty scary, as that could have gone wrong in plenty of ways, and Jericho landing on his legs/knees could’ve ended horribly. And then the ending sequence is amazing and very memorable too; from Jericho getting his leg caught in the ladder (a cool call back to when the same thing cost him Money In The Bank), to Lance Cade’s desperate interference to give the win to Jericho and getting superkicked for his troubles, to the finish with both men fighting atop the ladder, grabbing a side of the belt each and having a tug of war which ended with the momentum causing Jericho headbutting Michaels right in the face, causing him to fall and Jericho to retain the title. Fucking awesome.

The Top 25 WWE Matches of 2008: part 4 of 5

Newcastle was both highly enjoyable and pretty ridiculous, and The Wrestler was fucking incredible. I haven’t done much else, but I also haven’t finished this because of work, laziness and general being a jerk. But here goes the start of the TOP 10!!

10. John Cena vs. Triple H
(Night of Champions, 29/06)
I really liked this when I first saw it but I haven’t seen it since, so maybe it should be higher/lower, I’m not sure, but I remember it being pretty great. I also remember it as having a real ‘big fight’ feel, and that they did the sensible thing of switching back and forth between who played the face and who played the heel, which guaranteed a hot crowd who were hooked from start to finish. Cena’s subtle heel work in going after HHH’s hurt leg was pretty awesome if I remember rightly, as was the finishing run of false finishers, reversals, teases and whatnot. After Cena kicks out of the Pedigree and HHH kicks out of the FU, we get an awesome finish of the Pedigree niftily reversed to STFU, fought and reversed to Crossface, powered out of into the FU position, escaped with elbows to the head, and finally a Pedigree to end it all. Hell yeah.

09. Big Show vs. Floyd Mayweather
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
This was far better than it had any right to be and is clearly the best ‘celebrity’ match of all time. I liked this way more the second time round, when I began to appreciate just how good it was as a WrestleMania ‘spectacle’ match, especially considering Floyd Mayweather isn’t a wrestler and Big Show hadn’t been in action in over a year at this point. But against all the odds, it was brilliant and really felt like a big historic match. Show was obviously the glue that held it all together, and pretty great in his own right, but Money Mayweather is a better wrestling bad guy than 90% of wrestling bad guys. So many things he did were awesome: his ridiculous entrance complete with an entourage, money falling from the sky and a fur coat; hitting and moving, dancing around like a little jerk; even stopping the match to drink from a bejewelled chalice. This all meant that when Big Show finally got his hands on him and started to kick his ass, the crowd loved it. At the time, I was kind of mad that Floyd won, but that’s probably just because he was that good a heel, and he kind of had to. The finish was good anyway in that it didn’t hurt Show as it took low blows, chair shots and a knockout punch with brass knuckles to finally put the giant down.

08. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge vs. Triple H
(Armageddon, 14/12)
Perhaps I’m a bit biased with this one and I’m ranking it a bit too highly based on how genuinely happy I was about Jeff Hardy finally becoming the WWE Champion. On the other hand, perhaps not, as it was the best WWE Triple Threat match in a long time. It was action packed, dramatic, edge of the seat stuff, a good showing from all three men. There was plenty of stuff to like in this match; from Edge playing the desperate madman who in no way wanted to relinquish his title, to the constant teases and usage of the Pedigree, to Jeff just doing whatever it took, and looking like he had the match won several times, only to be taken out by the third man. The Whisper in the Wind to Edge sat on HHH’s shoulders was fucking great, and the announce table spot, in which Jeff escaped the Pedigree, HHH avoided the Twist of Fate, and then Edge appeared out of nowhere to come flying in and Spear Jeff from one table onto and through another was brilliant. And then, HHH hit the Pedigree on Edge, the referee counted to two, and suddenly Hardy hit the Swanton, got the pinfall and I had a heart attack of pure joy. What a moment. But yeah, even looking at it a bit more objectively, really fun main event with a great atmosphere.

07. TLC Match: The Undertaker vs. Edge
(One Night Stand, 01/06)
This match seemed to get a mixed reaction when it happened, but clearly I thought it was great. I’m usually a fan of this type of matches anyway, and this one had a clear story and purpose for happening, and genuine drama, excitement and surprises. Plenty of highlights in this one, including Edge getting chokeslammed on a ladder set up between the apron and the barrier, Taker disposing of Edge’s lackeys Hawkins and Ryderby just hurling them through tables, and Taker giving Edge an awesome Last Ride from halfway up the giant ladder through a stack of two tables. Hell yeah. But it was nothing compared to the end…given the stipulation, there was literally no way that I expected Undertaker to lose, so when he did, it was shocking, but not as much as the insane fall he took in doing so: from the top of the big ladder, crashing to the outside through no less than four tables. At his age, and at this point in his career, it is fucking mental that The Undertaker would be willing to take such a ridiculous bump.

06. Career Threatening Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
I know a lot of wrestling fans have listed this match as their number one of 2008, but to me, it comes down to how attached to Ric Flair you were. I liked Flair and respect him as a legend, but I grew up on the WWF as opposed to WCW/NWA so I’ve never seen a lot of his best stuff, so don’t really have any emotional attachment to him. Having said that, this match was still really, really, goddamn good. Michaels lived up to his ‘showstopper’ reputation, and Flair had one last great match to go out on. There were a few dodgy bits where things didn’t seem to go to plan, but considering Ric Flair is older than God, it’s forgivable, especially in a match where the focus is really more on the spectacle and storytelling. Although, having said that, Shawn missing a moonsault and crashing ribs-first into the announce table was easily one of the highlights. The emotion in this one really was off the charts, the performances by both men were great, and the closing minute or so was pretty much perfect: Flair begging Shawn to put him out of his misery, Michaels being heartbroken at retiring his idol and the big “I’m sorry. I love you” line shouldn’t have worked so well in a fake sport built around men fighting, but it did, and it was glorious. HIGH DRAMA.

Incredibly lazy or not, I truly intend to finish this and then post the whole, proper countdown, before the end of this week, so that I can then write a review of the Royal Rumble, which I am fairly excited for. :)

The Top 25 WWE Matches of 2008: part 3 of 5

I’m going to Newcastle for a few days so you will have to wait for the top 10…

15. Money In The Bank: CM Punk vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Mr. Kennedy vs. John Morrison vs. Chris Jericho vs. MVP vs. Carlito)
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
This was one of those ‘spotfests’, but I tend to like that kind of stuff anyway, especially when it’s done well. This was, as it had the spectacular moves and the big stunts, but it also had a sense of structure, as well as some memorable moments, from Morrison’s incredible moonsault to the floor while holding the ladder to Jericho bringing back the Walls of Jericho atop a ladder, from Matt Hardy’s big return to Shelton taking an insane front flip bump off a ladder through another ladder! Of course, the most memorable of these moments was the finish, as I never saw CM Punk’s victory coming, and it really felt pretty special.

14. John Cena vs. Batista
(SummerSlam, 18/08)
This was good but I’ve got a feeling they’ve got a better match in them somewhere down the round. Regardless, it’s my 14th favourite match of 2008 so there’s plenty to enjoy. It had the feel of a big deal even if it had kind of been randomly announced out of the blue, and there was the usual back-and-forth action you’d expect from a match like this. They told the story of Cena’s heart and drive vs. Batista’s size and power and it worked pretty well. The bit near the end, where they traded punches on the top rope, Batista fell down and Cena went for the diving leg drop thing only for it to be reversed into a massive Batista Bomb, was awesome too.

13. The Undertaker vs. Big Show
(No Mercy, 05/10)
This was great, just two giant monsters beating the living shit out of each other until one of them could take no more. Nothing more, nothing less. Undertaker wasn’t the biggest man in the match for once so he got to use speed and skill, while Show just battered him. I really liked Show catching him in mid-air to reverse Old School into the chokeslam, and Taker later countering a second chokeslam into a big DDT. The match ending via referee stoppage after Big Show literally punches Taker’s head in is pretty fantastic. If ‘slobberknocker’ were a real word, this would be the definition.

12. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
(Judgment Day, 18/05)
Great match, the official start of the best feud in years, and totally different to their later matches. This was while Jericho was still a face, with the seeds of the heel turn planted, so the match was about competition and respect, and so was much more technical-based than the rest of their series. Some really good spots in here too, such as the now-common ‘Lionsault, opponent gets the knees up, but Jericho turns it into the Walls of Jericho anyway’, as well as a Codebreaker reversal of Sweet Chin Music, and an awesome superkick on the apron. Shawn winning with a cradle instead of more decisively added weight to Jericho ‘snapping’ later too. I should probably re-watch this someday.

11. Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy
(No Mercy, 05/10)
Really strong match and awesome for getting the viewer hooked, for drama, and at presenting Jeff as a guy who you really thought was finally going to get the title victory but just couldn’t do it this time, and HHH as the talented champion who was one second away from losing his belt. HHH played a great role in this match as an old school, slightly-heelish champ, and the crowd were going mental for every time it looked like Jeff had a possibility of winning. These two really have great chemistry against each other, and I really liked the finish, of Jeff actually connecting with the Twist of Fate and Swanton Bomb, only for HHH to surprise him with a roll up and steal the victory. Great finish which kept them both strong and furthered the storyline well.

The Top 25 WWE Matches of 2008: part 2 of 5

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.

The Top 25 WWE Matches of 2008: Part 1 of 5

Quite late but since when that is that a shock…

I intend to post the whole thing properly afterwards, with a good description and stuff, but considering there’s pictures and everything, and just because I’m too lazy to finish all the write-ups yet, I decided to also split this into sections. Enjoy!

25. Extreme Rules: John Morrison & The Miz vs. Tommy Dreamer & Colin Delaney
(ECW on Sci-Fi, 12/03)
Including Tommy Dreamer on a list of the best anything seems wrong, but this was tons of fun. It probably wouldn’t have registered a few years ago when this kind of stuff got beaten into the ground, but here it was great nostalgia and just highly entertaining. The highlight would obviously be Morrison’s moonsault to the floor while holding a trash can, but Colin Delaney going nuts with weapons and then acting flabbergasted at what he had done was hilarious.

24. Non-Sanctioned Match: Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels
(Unforgiven, 07/09)
As part of the best feud in recent memory, the reason this match isn’t any higher is because I was so PSYCHED for it and it just didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s still a really good heated brawl though, with plenty of things to like about it, it just could have and should have been better. Shawn’s revenge-seeking performance as a good man pushed too far was amazing though, and I really liked the stuff that called back to their previous stuff, especially the referee stoppage finish. Really needed some blood though, but that’s the new family friendly WWE for you.

23. John Morrison & The Miz vs. Rey Mysterio & Evan Bourne
(Raw, 08/09)
This was just a random Raw tag team match but it was awesome; just six or seven minutes of fast-paced non-stop exciting action. You could call it a ‘spotfest’ if you want, but it had heart, and it made sense. Everything was hit well, everything was crisp, everything looked good, and all four men left the match looking better than they did before it. The crowd loved it too and it probably seemed even better because it was in the WWE, where matches like this don’t happen every day. Rey Mysterio is so much better these days in tag team matches, by the way.

22. CM Punk vs. Batista
(Great American Bash, 20/07)
CM Punk has had quite a lot of good matches this year, but this stood out for me because I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. This was also part of Batista’s ‘hot streak’ that I keep banging on about. It was a good title match, with the story of Punk trying to prove himself worthy of being World champion. Punk just killing Batista with a brutal kick to the head was awesome, as was Batista hitting the spinebuster on the concrete floor. The only downside to the match was the double disqualification finish. Give this a proper ending and it would have ranked way higher.

21. Matt Hardy vs. MVP
(Smackdown, 04/04)
MVP and Matt Hardy are two of the most consistently good wrestlers on the roster, but the problem with that is that sometimes no one match stands out. This one did, partly because their entire storyline and build was good and partly because it was a really good TV match, where they really brought the hate and beat the shit out of each other. MVP played his usual ‘arrogant but skilful’ gimmick and threw in aggression, and Matt was already mad enough thanks to all the stuff MVP had done to him leading up to this, so yeah, this was pretty violent, and all without weapons, just two guys punching and kicking each other to death. Good stuff.

Parts 2, 3 and possibly 4 tommorrow! Which kinds of defeats the purpose of splitting it into parts but whatever. :)

Armageddon thoughts: Quite late, very biased!

Yeah so turns out I haven’t been writing on here more after all. Ah well. WWE Armageddon was over a week ago now (14/12/08, fact fans) but my sister’s been visiting all last week so I haven’t had chance to write about it yet. Be warned, this is probably going to be the least objective review of a wrestling show I’ve ever written. Yes, even less so than last month’s Survivor Series recap where I freaked out over Edge returning. If you can’t already guess why by now, here’s why. OH MY FUCKING GOD. I’m going to attempt to contain myself until it’s time to write about that match because Armageddon was overall a really good show in it’s own right, but seriously, this is the best thing ever and it makes me genuinely happy. :)

Vladimir Kozlov vs. Matt Hardy
I quite like Kozlov, think he plays the unstoppable Russian cyborg role well, and certainly don’t think he deserves a lot of the criticism the net likes to give him. I do think he’s way better at just ploughing through scrubbers than in longer competitive matches like the one with HHH from last month, but this is a good middle ground between the two. Matt Hardy is really one of the most dependable wrestlers in the company so yeah, this wasn’t bad at all. I liked the part at the beginning where they put their dukes up, Matt’s general never-say-die attitude, and the bit near the end where Kozlov hurls Matt head-first onto the ring post, then floors him with the battering ram headbutt. THE MOSCOW MAULER gets the win after some sort of uranage/spinebuster thing. Sweet.

CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio
This was the finals of a tournament to decide who got a shot at William Regal’s Intercontinental title, which meant he was sitting at ringside on a glorious throne! This was real good, starting off slow and building up, with matwork and trading holds at the beginning, before Punk started to bring out his strikes etc. and Rey went to the high-flying. The crowd didn’t really seem to know who to cheer for at the start, but they ended up being dragged into the match whether they liked it or not. Things I liked: Punk breaking out Alex Shelley’s Border City Stretch while working the arm, Rey reversing a tilt-a-whirl into a swank armbar of his own, and Rey’s moonsault and general flying seeming a lot crisper than in a good while. Eventually, Rey goes for a spinning hurricanrana but Punk counters it into a fucking devastating GTS for the victory. Seriously, he totally just nailed him in the nose with his knee, it’s sick. After the match Regal gives Punk the slow clap. That match should rule.

Finlay vs. Mark Henry (Belfast Brawl)
Before this match, Finlay told Hornswoggle to stay backstage out of harm’s way, which meant we got more of the Finlay of old, beating the shit out of his opponent with kendo sticks rather than getting into comedy japes. This was a perfectly enjoyable match, nothing spectacular but certainly nothing bad. Probably the most impressive bits were actually showcases of how much of a beast Mark Henry is: throwing the ring steps into the ring like it was nothing, snapping first a shillelagh and then a kendo stick over his knee, and compressing a trash can with his body into Finlay’s. Eventually, that disobedient swine Hornswoggle runs out anyway and manages to throw another shillelagh to Finlay, who brains Henry with it for the victory. One of the most bizarre and unsettling things about watching WWE in 2008 is how many Mark Henry matches I have quite enjoyed…

Randy Orton vs. Batista
Good match, especially for their first major meeting, but I think they’ve got a better one in them somewhere down the line. Still pretty good though. Randy Orton just carries himself like such a star at this point, he’s just so over, I think he’s finally ready to live up to the level of stardom WWE have always wanted him to be at. Batista was pretty good in this too, but as I write this, he’s just gone down for a good while with a torn hamstring, so his hot streak is officially over. Orton’s offence was exactly what it needed to be in this: nothing but chinlocks, submissions, nasty stomps and vicious punches. He’s not there to flip about or make you cheer for him; he’s Randy Orton, son of a bitch. The two best bits though were built around Batista knowing Orton so well from the Evolution days, so countering his two main moves: first, reversing the RKO into a cool backdrop-into-Side effect move (it was Mark Jindrak’s finisher, but as if I remember anything about him), then blocking the PUNT with a spinebuster into the corner. Orton briefly makes a comeback and attempts an Alabama Slam out of the corner, but it gets reversed into the Batista Bomb for the win. Nice match.

Michelle McCool, Mickie James, Maria & Kelly Kelly vs. Maryse, Victoria, Natalya & Jillian Hall
This was a ‘Santa’s Little Helpers’ match, which meant they all dressed in awesome little Santa outfits, except Michelle McCool was dressed as the world’s sluttiest toy solider or something, because Undertaker is a filthy old man. The match was, you know, what you’d expect. Things of notice were: how fantastic the outfits were, the brief interaction between Mickie and Natalya being quite good, the commentators clearly not caring about the match so just enjoying themselves and bantering, and Maryse being fucking awesome as usual – cowering in the ropes from Mickie, DOING HER TAUNT, and then going back to cowering as soon as Mickie went for her. She is so great. Michelle got the win for her team after blind-tagging Maria so she could steal the limelight, and hitting the Styles Clash on Jillian. McCool replacing Christopher Daniels’ finisher with AJ Styles’ is pretty funny, like she’s the world’s biggest fan of 2005 TNA or something.

John Cena vs. Chris Jericho
At this point it feels like I haven’t done anything to get over how much I’m honestly enjoying this show. Really nearly everything has been at least good, and the Divas match was good for eye-candy and Maryse, and was kept short enough to be perfectly fine. Punk/Rey was pretty damn good actually and Orton/Batista was maybe better. There was a segment with JBL and Shawn Michaels in between some of the earlier matches, which helped to make their storyline both more interesting and more plausible, and after the Diva match The Great Khali came out with hilarious new Punjabi music and ended up making out with Mae Young, which normally I would be against but his genuinely disgusted reactions were funny so it was cool.

But anyway this match was actively really good, and it’s a shame the Smackdown title match inevitably overshadowed it. I’ve enjoyed a few Cena matches this year quite a lot (HHH, Batista and the first Jericho one mostly) but this was the first time that he looked as good as he did constantly in 2007. And Jericho is way better recently than I can ever remember now that I’ve grown up beyond thinking “will you pleeeeeeeeease shut the hell up?!” is a witty catchphrase, so this is obviously good stuff. They work a story based around their previous match, but Jericho’s antics on Raw (basically being a total prick) have stopped Cena from having any hesitation this time, and he just goes all out with wanting to beat up Jericho. Jericho obviously targets the injured neck again, and his kicks and everything look really hate-filled and awesome. At one point, they made you believe a sleeper was a dangerous move because of Cena’s neck and all that. I don’t really get a criticism of Cena being that he isn’t very good at selling. Some of the other stuff I get even if I don’t agree, but that just seems pretty obviously wrong. Cena took a really good bump off the apron into the steps too. Jericho clearly had no chance of actually winning the match but he made you think he did, especially the reversals section, with continually escaping the FU and hitting the Codebreaker and then freaking out when that didn’t get the job done, and reversing the STFU into the Walls of Jericho. Cena looked really good here too, obviously, and got the win after finally trapping the little rat Jericho for long enough to put him in the STFU. My one problem with this match would be that it’s possibly a bit short, and Jericho seemed to tap out from the STFU instantaneously but whatever, pretty fucking good all in all.

Edge vs. Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy
I have been looking forward to Jeff Hardy winning the WWE championship for like eight years. As soon as the Hardyz started facing Edge & Christian a lot I started to like them, and after all the ladder and TLC matches happened I started to believe that they’d both be, and Jeff in particular, future main eventers. Jeff Hardy is probably the wrestler I have the most ‘connection’ with. Undertaker is my childhood favourite, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels are my favourite wrestlers from an in-ring standpoint if that’s all we’re looking at, and I just really like practically everything Mick Foley’s ever done, but with Jeff, it’s like I’ve grown up with him, as clichéd and lame as that might sound. Anyway, now, it’s happened. There’s been pitfalls along the way of course, mostly because the only thing Jeff loves more than dying his hair and endangering his body is TAKING LOTS AND LOTS OF DRUGS, but for the past year, WWE have been teasing the fuck out of us with Hardy getting so close to winning the belt time and time again, but just not being able to do it. It had gone on for so long that I just assumed they were going to wait until WrestleMania to do it, which I would have definitely preferred, but I’d rather this than it never happen at all, and if Jeff lost many more times he would’ve seemed like a choke artist and WHO CARES BECAUSE JEFF HARDY IS WWE CHAMPION YAAAAAY!!!

Right. Before I go totally insane with unbridled joy, the match itself. It was really good, basically. Even if I wasn’t such a massively biased Jeff Hardy fan, and even if the ‘moment’ at the end wasn’t amazing for me, it would have still been a really entertaining main event. It’s the best and most enjoyable Triple Threat match in the WWE I can remember in ages, and it’s just action-packed and balls to the wall, which suits a Jeff title win perfectly. There’s twists and turns without it becoming like TNA ‘interference for the sake of it’, as Kozlov coming out to stop Triple H from winning at one point made storyline sense, as did Matt Hardy running out, both for revenge and to help is brother. Edge was pretty good in this match, by the way, as the desperate madman who’d just gotten his belt back and was in no hurry to lose it. HHH wasn’t bad…I’m not picking on him or anything, just didn’t seem to ad as much to the match as either Edge or Jeff, but maybe that’s the point, I dunno. They did put the Pedigree over well, with his opponents either escaping it or breaking up his pin attempts, which tied into the end. Jeff stopping HHH from hitting an early Pedigree with Whisper in the Wind looked great too.

I’m not going to list everything I liked because we’ll be here all night and it’s nearly Christmas for god sakes, but I have to say that HHH being an unwilling assist for Poetry in Motion right at the start as fun, and later the Whisper In The Wind with Edge sat on Hunter’s shoulders was fucking great. Edge is a king among men for taking that. Er, I’m trying to think of more cool things HHH and Edge did so I look less like a squealing Hardy fanboy. There was a cool bit with Edge trying to Spear Jeff, who leapfrogs him and HHH gets nailed instead, I guess. Whatever, this was mostly built around being a microcosm of the whole ‘can Jeff do it?’ storyline, with him repeatedly coming close to victory but bad luck or the third man in the match cutting him off or taking him out. Although the coolest spot of the match, and one of the best table stunts I’ve seen in a good while, fittingly involved all three men: Edge gets taken out of the picture briefly while HHH and Jeff fight on an announce table. H sets up the Pedigree, Hardy escapes and goes for the Twist of Fate, HHH escapes, and sidesteps a charging Edge who has appeared from fucking nowhere to Spear Jeff off the Raw table all the way through the Smackdown announce table!!~ Hell yeah!! That was fucking AWESOME.

This leaves HHH and Edge to fight for a bit, with HHH actually getting to hit the Pedigree, which brings about the Kozlov/Matt interference I was banging on about earlier. Before he leaves, Kozlov throws a barely recovered Jeff Hardy off the top to the floor, because he’s a jerk. Edge hits the Spear on HHH but it only gets two, so he goes to the outside to get some chairs as JR amusingly shouts “LOOK AT THIS MANIAC!!”. (I guess by this point I am actually listing everything I liked after all but bare with me). Edge attempts the ConChairTo, only for Jeff to pop up, steal a chair off him and KILL him with a chair shot. Hardy goes to the top rope, only for HHH to thwart him and hoooly shit is this exciting! HHH capitalises with a Pedigree on Edge. Triple H goes for pin…1..2..HOLY FUCKING SHIT SWANTON OUT OF NOWHERE!! Jeff gets the pin, the ref counts three, the crowd goes wild, Jeff Hardy goes wild, I go wild. You’ll notice that when I write about wrestling I tend to show how much I like something by pointless exclamation marks and even more pointless capital letters. I didn’t do that then because there are not enough exclamation marks in the fucking world, and I would have to write in capitals ten feet tall to fully convey how great this was. Just have a look at this again and imagine be going fucking MENTAL with excitement. I don’t care if the actual title reign lasts about three weeks, this was brilliant. JEFF JEFF JEFF JEFF!!!~ :D

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!!~

New Japan matches featuring bald Americans I like!

I am going to try and write a bit more on here, and also try and get some more variety instead of just current WWE stuff. I actually had an idea to write about a different match from a different company every day this week, which would have been cool, but then I remembered that I’m probably going to be away from home for a few days, so that’s the end of that. Anyway, I did watch these…

Low Ki vs. Tiger Mask IV
(NJPW Circuit 2008 New Japan Generation, 21/09/08)
I wondered where Low Ki had gotten to, what with his incredible talent for burning bridges and all. Turns out he’s wrestling Tiger Mask for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title, which is pretty cool, but personally I’d still prefer him to come back to ROH. This is a pretty fun match, mostly thanks to Ki but Tiger Mask does some cool stuff too, including a very impressive ‘standing-on-the-top-rope’ double arm superplex which looked really good. Ki does his usual painful kicks and also does some cool heel stuff such as stealing the Tiger Feint (619, but as a taunt instead of a finisher). They also play off the classic Dynamite Kid/Tiger Mask I matches, with Low Ki going for, and missing the Dynamite-style diving headbutt, and then Tiger Mask hitting a Tombstone (with a botch because TMIV is an idiot) and a headbutt of his own. Eventually, Low Ki takes control and hits a devastating running dropkick to the face, the Tidal Crush and the Ki Krusher to win the match and the title. This was good, not great, but fun, mostly for Low Ki being a vicious beast of a man.

Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson vs. Milano Collection AT & Taichi Ishikari
(NJPW Leonis, 20/10/08)
I decided to watch some recent Giant Bernard because I’ve liked him since he was Albert and I was interested in what he’s been up to lately. I haven’t seen Milano Collection AT in years but I always thought he was pretty good and I forgot how good his music was. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the other two guys. For some reason, Bernard comes out with a rose between his teeth and it is one of the more terrifying things I’ve seen recently. This is worked half as a comedy match, with the big lumbering Americans getting tricked and outfoxed by Milano and Ishikari. They get kicked in the balls a lot and they do a funny spot where Anderson and Bernard end up in the 69 position. Eventually the heels get the advantage by overpowering (and cheating), and Anderson actually seems pretty good at working the crowd and stuff. Bernard does an awesome job as the big tough powerhouse who doesn’t need to cheat but does anyway, and his ‘no you must be mistaken’ face when the ref catches him red-handed is hilarious. It breaks down to double-teaming etc. and there’s a good bit where Milano and Ishikari use stereo kicks, dropkicks and enziguris to finally take down Giant Bernard. The bad guys win in the end though after a Bernard avalanche and Anderson’s Gun Stun (Stunner with a really terrible name). I quite liked this. I mean, it was nothing amazing or really worth going out of your way to see, but it was enjoyable enough and A-Train still rules.

WWE (of course), Survivor Series (24/11/08)

So I haven’t been posting on here as much as I could be, in fact I seem to be unable to write much of anything in general lately. I don’t know why, it’s not like I have anything else to do. I wanted to have more of a variety of matches and promotions I wrote about, but it was WWE Survivor Series this past weekend so I thought I may as well write a bit about that. People on the Internet have been complaining about the show a bit, but I don’t really know why. I mean I suppose there was only one really good match (and not even that if you are a big fat stinking troglodyte who STILL can’t work out that John Cena is actually very good at being a professional wrestler), but some of the others were fun, and from a storyline perspective, it was an enjoyable show. The Jeff Hardy storyline has been discussed a lot and I’m kind of in the middle about it: it gave us an awesome moment that should kick off a great storyline/feud, and certainly got people talking, but I’m not sure how good a swerve is when it’s effectively taking the very thing the audience wanted (seeing Jeff Hardy perform and hopefully win the title) and taking it away. I mean, if I had bought the show to see Jeff (or…at all) I might not have been cool with it, but whatever, here’s hoping the end justifies the means. I guess net nerds are just never happy unless they are moaning about something. I don’t think the show was a classic by any means, but it was FUN, and that’s what counts to me. Perhaps people would enjoy wrestling more if they did something about their goddamned negativity. I don’t know, I’m no expert; I’m just a guy who genuinely enjoys watching this shit.

Shawn Michaels, Rey Mysterio, The Great Khali & Cryme Tyme vs. JBL, Kane, MVP, John Morrison & The Miz (Survivor Series Elimination Match)
See this is exactly what I was talking about when I said the word ‘fun’. I was consistently entertained by this match from start to finish. In fact, even though the main event was a ‘better’ match, I probably enjoyed this one a bit more. There was so much to like, from MVP finally getting a pinfall again, to any and all Khali/Rey interaction, to JBL acting like a real captain in rallying his troops, to John Morrison continually doing Shawn’s shtick and just generally being awesome. My favourite part of the match though was probably just after MVP had eliminated JTG, Khali steps over the top rope and MVP’s team freak out telling him to turn around. He does, straight into the Khali Chop, gets pinned and eliminated and the crowd just erupts into a HUGE ‘Khali, Khali’ chant. It was great, people have clearly been dying to get behind lovable giant Great Khali! Rey doing his stupid splash off Khali’s shoulders to eliminate Kane was cool too. Oh yeah, and Shawn doing his flying forearm>kip-up spot (which Morrison had thieved earlier) and then crotch-chopping in JoMo’s face was hilarious. Speaking of which, Morrison being the last surviving member of his team, even outlasting JBL, was fantastic. Basically, this match was just pure entertainment and a great opener. The sole survivors were Michaels, Rey and Khali by the way, which led to more wacky hi-jinks as they celebrated and Khali lifted Rey in the air with one arm. Aww.

Beth Phoenix, Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Kelly Kelly & Jillian Hall vs. Michelle McCool, Maria, Victoria, Natalya Neidhart & Maryse (Survivor Series Elimination Match)
I usually try and defend the divas. Many wrestling fans are hateful misogynists, I try to balance this out the best I can. Even if a match isn’t very good, I still can’t agree with losers bitching about five throwaway minutes of hot chicks in the middle of dozens of sweaty men in their pants. But this match really wasn’t very good at all. Mickie James and Beth Phoenix were both pretty good, and Kelly Kelly showed her usual effort and enthusiasm, bless her, but overall, it was all pretty sloppy and bad. Thankfully, Maryse is fucking AWESOME, and nearly saved the match for me. Not quite, but almost, that’s how cool she was in this match. She’s got a way to go yet, but here she showed she’s getting all the ‘little things’ down, and she’s getting really good at being a conceited bitchy heel without even saying anything. Pushing (her own captain) Michelle McCool off the apron to the floor and then strutting off looking so proud of herself was incredible, as was constantly attacking the Raw team (especially Beth) on the apron and then tagging out at the first sign of danger. Oh yeah, and she did a sweet hook kick straight to Beth’s head, before finally losing to the Glam Slam. I would be genuinely interested in a Phoenix-Maryse title match. I’ve had a special place in my heart for Mickie James for the longest time, but it might be time MARYSE moved in there…but yeah, that aside, this match sucked.

The Undertaker vs. Big Show (Casket Match)
This wasn’t a very good match either which is both a shame and a surprise, seen as their last two matches (No Mercy and Cyber Sunday) were both thoroughly enjoyable. I can’t remember the last Undertaker match before this that wasn’t good, he’s had surprisingly decent ones with Festus, Khali, everybody. And I know some people don’t think Big Show is any good because he doesn’t do flips or kill his family or whatever, but he had a shockingly good match with a 4ft boxer so he’s alright by me. I don’t really know what went wrong here, it wasn’t a complete disaster of a match or anything, but it just seemed to drag on and on. Undertaker did legdrop Show through the announce table, which was pretty cool, and they did more stuff based around Show’s big right hands, but this was just pretty boring. It didn’t help that after they brawled to the top of the ramp, they teased a bump off the stage, only to instead have Taker just whip Show into a second, vertical, casket, which was a really anticlimactic ending. It reminded me of how you would win a casket match on Smackdown vs. Raw or something.

Batista, Matt Hardy, CM Punk, Kofi Kingston & R-Truth vs. Randy Orton, Mark Henry, William Regal, Shelton Benjamin & Cody Rhodes (Survivor Series Elimination Match)
Thankfully, this was another fun elimination match. I was a bit pissed off that Regal got eliminated by Punk in the first ten seconds, but then I found out that Regal had the flu or something, so it’s understandable. It also sets up a (hopefully awesome) feud, and allowed Layla to angrily throw her shoe at Punk and BLAST him right in the eye, which was hilarious. This was a pretty good match, I like most people in it to varying degrees, and guess what, Mark Henry was perfectly effective as a big tough powerhouse who could eliminate Matt Hardy but just wasn’t up to the challenge of Batista. Cody Rhodes actually getting to eliminate CM Punk was quite interesting too, so was Kofi taking a brutal looking rope-assisted DDT from Orton to get eliminated. The main story about this match though was Randy Orton, specifically just how fucking over he is now. The finish of this match was one of my highlights of the entire PPV: Batista is on a roll, and sets up Cody for the Batista Bomb, only for Orton to sneakily tag Rhodes in mid-air. Big Dave hits the Bomb, while Randy slithers in behind him and just goes crazy and writhes and undulates and beats the shit out of the mat with the world’s best ‘TURN AROUND MOTHERFUCKER’ RKO taunt, before capitalising on Batista’s confusion to hit it, and get the win, with the crowd actually chanting along and giving him a great reaction. Awesome. As long as he continues to be pretty much the biggest prick on the planet and doesn’t suddenly become a nice guy, I’m completely fine with Randy Orton as some sort of reluctant anti-hero.

Triple H vs. Vladimir Kozlov (vs. Edge!)
I’m going to assume that the only people who are going to read this are me and my ego, so I’m not going to full explain the whole Jeff Hardy situation. Basically, it was meant to be a triple threat match, but Jeff was ‘attacked’ and was deemed unable to compete, so they went with HHH vs. Kozlov. One of the problems with this was that the live crowd really, really, really wanted to see Jeff, so as a result HATED this match. Another problem was that not only is Kozlov far from a proven main eventer, but so far his style has mostly been showcased in short squash matches. He’s not used to (or ready, possibly) for long title matches, and HHH is far from the guy he should be wrestling in that situation. I like H, but he’s never been known for having good matches with people who aren’t as good as him. A further problem was that they worked a slow, ground-based, old-fashioned wrestling match, in front of a modern WWE crowd that hasn’t been conditioned to appreciate something like that at all, and what’s more, were desperate to see Jeff Hardy, who is pretty much the opposite of that style. This resulted in lots and lots of boos and ‘we want Jeff’ chants and really loud ‘boooring’ chants. And to be fair, in parts it really WAS pretty boring. But on the other hand, I don’t think it was as bad as the crowd or the net made out. It was very slow, but that was the point, and I thought HHH’s selling and that was pretty good and that Kozlov came across as a real threat to him.

But, you know what, none of this really matters, because it set up one of the most awesome surprises in a while and the real reason I was very glad I’d managed to avoid reading spoilers for this. After Kozlov misses the battering ram headbutt into the corner, Triple H follows up with the Pedigree, but is too hurt to go for pin straight away. This allows Vickie Guerrero to come out and excitedly inform the fans that the match is going to be a triple threat match after all, and let out a hilarious “HE’S HERE! HE’S HERE! HERE HE IS!!” as the crowd cheers and goes wild and OH MY FUCKING GOD IT’S CRAZY EDGE BACK FROM HELL WITH A BIG MENTAL BEARD YESSSSSSSS!!!~ At this point, objectivity goes out of the window because I love Edge and this is fucking incredible. He stalks to the ring working the crazy eyes and Spears the shit out of HHH, only for Jeff Hardy himself to come running down to an immense cheer (seriously, it was like Beatlemania) and beat the fuck out of Edge, then go insane hitting Kozlov and HHH (after Edge ducked) with chair shots!! He goes for Edge again, but gets Speared, and Edge then picks up the pieces and pins HHH to snake his way to another WWE championship!!~ GET THE FUCK IN. Seriously, I meant it when I said I can no longer be objective about this, I loved every second of this. I am fucking psyched to have Edge back.

Chris Jericho vs. John Cena
This was really good, primarily because it was John Cena’s Hollywood-style comeback match, but let’s not forget how incredible of a career revitalisation Chris Jericho has had this year. I’m not going to go into the Great Cena Debate again, there’s really no need, but he told a really good story in this one. Again. You fucking rubes. I did really like this match, but I’m kind of tired from getting SO EXCITED about the Edge return so I’m not going to go into masses of detail. The main thing I liked was the story it told; Jericho, being the evil, bitter son of a bitch he is, going out of his way to re-injure Cena’s neck, and Cena selling fear, trepidation and hesitation because it was his first match back. Easily the best example of this was Cena starting to go to the top rope for his diving Fame Asser move, but hesitating and being unable to do it, because last time he tried that he ended up breaking his neck. Then, throughout the match, Cena gains more confidence and has to take more risks to overcome Jericho’s assault, and successfully hits the move later. Things like THAT are what make Cena so good, jerks. I really don’t want to overlook Jericho though, he had a really good showing in this match, he’s really had a great year overall. Anyway, I said I wasn’t going to describe every move so I won’t; eventually a battered and exhausted Cena rolls through to escape Jericho’s inside cradle attempt, lifts him from the ground to his shoulders and hits a big FU to win the World title in his comeback match in front of his hometown crowd! YAAAAAAAAAY. I feel like I should probably watch this match again one day and write a better review cos I did like it a lot, but whatever I’m cream crackered.

WWE CYBER SUNDAY (26/10/08)

Cyber Sunday wasn’t anything really outstanding, but it was entertaining enough, and the fajitas we made for it were AWESOME. I did enjoy all of the matches in their own way, even if I didn’t always agree with some of the choices the ‘WWE Universe’ voted for (no Kozlov?!) but democracy is a flawed concept at the best of times, never mind when the people you are giving a voice to are rubes, nerds and children. ;)

Rey Mysterio vs. Kane (No Holds Barred)
This was a fun opener, if nothing particularly memorable. People can diss Rey all they want (and I watch practically every WWE event with my friends Jasp who hates the shit out of him) but this feud has got Kane to actually start putting in some effort again. I especially liked one bit near the start where Mysterio got whipped ribs-first under the bottom turnbuckle into the post, and Kane followed him in with a baseball slide dropkick, then just stretched him round the post. Rey, for his part, actually showed some aggression with some nasty chair shots, and generally played a good underdog role like he usually does. Also the bit where Mysterio went for the 619, ran into a choke instead, and then reversed the chokeslam into a hurricanrana was awesome. Rey won after the 619 and his stupid dolphin splash, so I’m guessing this feud is either over or close to it now. Time to update the Ongoing Kane Tally!

Matt Hardy vs. Evan Bourne
This was pretty great, not a classic like I briefly imagined it might be, but very good. It was exciting throughout, with Bourne continuing to impress me more and more. Hopefully him getting a chance to be on PPV will allow him to get more over, because let’s face it, nobody watches ECW on Sci-Fi. All of Bourne’s kicks and knees looked awesome, with one in particular looking like it knocked Matt silly. Matt getting to play the bigger man for once was quite fun too, and set up a cool crucifix powerbomb into hurricanrana reversal from Bourne. The crowd seemed to get more into the match as it went on, and the ending was cool: Bourne misses his stunning shooting star press, Matt goes for the Twist of Fate, only for Evan to reverse it into a VERY close near-fall, then Hardy actually hits the Twist of Fate for the win. Nice.

Cryme Tyme vs. John Morrison & The Miz
This was the match I was hoping for, although I would have been almost as happy with CM Punk/Kofi Kingston vs. Priceless (wouldn’t have minded Jamie Noble/Mickie James vs. William Regal/Layla either but there was no way that was winning). Anyhow, this was good, nothing spectacular but a good tag team match. I can’t remember many specific bits I liked, except Cryme Tyme’s usual shtick, Miz being a total prick, and Morrison being John Morrison. Oh, actually I just remembered JTG managed to counter Miz and Morrison’s trademark ‘slingshot into a forearm’ double team, that was cool. The end came when Shad had Morrison set up for something, but The Miz snuck in and kneecapped him, allowing JoMo to hit the Moonlight Drive.

Santino Marella vs. The Honky Tonk Man
This was just as you’d expect: Santino’s hilarious mic work, and then a two-minute comedy match. Santino really was great before the match though, picking on the Honky Donkey Man and making reference to SHAZAM O’NEAL who happened to be sat at ringside. The Honky and Santino had a dance off, Saninto jumped him, got overwhelmed, Honky went through the motions, and Beth Phoenix interfered to cause the disqualification. I’m not making it sound very entertaining but it really was. Afterwards, Santino yells at Beth, and she starts sulking, then Roddy Piper and big fat Goldust come out and beat him up some more.

Big Show vs. The Undertaker (Last Man Standing)
This was really good. I’m undecided if it’s better than their No Mercy match, but either way, definitely worth a watch. It was pretty slow in parts, but that actually worked for it, adding to the drama, getting over the punishment they were taking, and making everything seem more deliberate. This match was mostly all Big Show just battering The Undertaker from pillar to post and back again. Taker did get chance for revenge, but it was almost all Show and his devastating punches. Taker also took a big chokeslam off the crowd barrier through the announce table, which was neat. The use of the count for the Last Man Standing stipulation was done well here too. Eventually, it looks as if Undertaker can’t answer the count, so Show looks to finish him off with the killer knockout shot to the back of the skull he did at No Mercy, but this time, Taker grabs his arm and pulls him into THAT DEVASTATING FORBIDDEN CHOKE SUBMISSION!! I guess it was only banned against Edge, or Last Man Standing matches are an exception, or Vickie Guerrero will have something to say (prediction: Excuse Me!) on Smackdown about it, but regardless, Show was choked the fuck out and Undertaker wins the match. Awesome.

Mickie James then won the Divas Halloween Costume Contest. She was Lara Croft, and she looked hot as usual, but there wasn’t enough boobage for my liking: Kelly Kelly or MARYSE had better costumes. Ah well, I guess I shouldn’t be complaining that Mickie has a connection with the crowd that’s more than ‘tits’ though. Oh and Victoria dressed up as a fucking dancing bannana. WACCA WACCA WACCA.

Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy
As good as the last match was, I think this may have been better. At the time, I wasn’t as impressed with it as I probably should have been, because I wanted the fans to vote for HHH vs. Jeff vs. VLADMIR KOZLOV in a triple threat match, but I forgot that the fans are buffoons and don’t realise that if they pick a triple threat match they still get to see Jeff. I gave it another watch just then though, and it’s really cool. They worked a similar story to their No Mercy match, with speed/heart vs. power/experience, as well as Jeff Hardy getting better and better and getting SO CLOSE to winning the big one and finally winning the title, but he just can’t do it…yet. In this case, it’s his own tendency to take risks that costs him, which is pretty cool. One of my favourite parts of the match is, after the usual ‘going for their big moves early, psyching each other out’ stuff, Jeff gets the advantage and goes for his swinging corner dropkick, but HHH reverses it into a massive spinebuster. That was fucking sweet. Oh and at one point, Tazz says “don’t let him build any momentum, Trips!” because Tazz is outstanding. Then he puts Jeff in the Crossface for quite a while, until Hardy manages to counter it into a cradle, then hits Poetry in Motion style attack using the steps at ringside. This sets up a portion of the match with Jeff hitting everything, but it’s just not enough: two Whispers In the Wind, the corner dropkick, Twist of Fate, even the Swanton Bomb! However, instead of going for the pin, Jeff goes to the top and goes for a second one, because, well, he’s an idiot. This time he lands right across HHH’s knees, which probably hurt a good bit. Triple H goes for the Pedigree, but Jeff reverses into a roll-up near-fall, then a big dive to the floor, but when he goes for another Swanton, HHH catches him, hooks his arms and drags him off the turnbuckle into the Pedigree for the pinfall. Very entertaining match, especially the second time around. You can bitch about HHH taking everything Jeff had and kicking out and it only taking one Pedigree for him to win if you like, but a) HHH is a swine, it’s nothing new and b) it works in the context of the match and the storyline, and also c) whatever. So yeah, probably the best match of the show, although I expected Kozlov to do a run-in at the least.  The young girls in the front row getting more and more agitated at H beating up Jeff were adorable though.

Chris Jericho vs. Batista (Special Referee: Stone Cold Steve Austin)

I don’t remember a lot from this match, I think I was falling asleep. Not that that’s an indication of it being a terrible match or anything, I’m just getting old and weary. The match itself was just okay, nothing brilliant, but nothing bad, but everything surrounding it was pretty exciting and fun. By which I mean all the shenanigans at the end, with special guest referee Stone Cold getting taken out, leading up to all sorts of shenanigans involving JBL (helping Jericho out because, I dunno, he hates Batista I guess) and the other two choices for the referee spot: Shawn Michaels (who ran out, did a hilarious slow count and then beat the shit out of nemesis Jericho), and Randy Orton (who ran out, jumped Austin, and then did the world’s greatest sell of the Stone Cold Stunner). Eventually, after all sorts of wackiness, Jericho shoves Austin, who goes for the Stunner, but Jericho escapes it, and turns round straight into Batista’s spinebuster. One Batista Bomb later and we have a new World Champion! I was genuinely surprised at the outcome too. I quite like Batista, but it just seems a weird time to do it, as it’s not like the match was hyped up huge or it was meant of a big feud or anything. On the other hand, this way Jericho’s character gets to become even more bitter and paranoid (and to be fair, the odds actually WERE stacked against him this time), Stone Cold’s yearly appearance is always great, and Batista is probably the biggest star on Raw anyway, and if it means we get Batista/Cena II for the World title, then, as the kids say, it’s all good.

Random stuff: A Ladder War! Cactus Jack in ECW! KANE! VS. ALBERT!

It’s Cyber Sunday this week, and I intend to watch it at Jasp’s house along with our usual tradition of beers and Mexican food. I’m sure it will be entertaining. I noticed that the last thing I wrote about was the previous WWE PPV, so for a bit of variety, a quick update on a couple of matches I’ve seen lately, to squeeze in the middle :)

Briscoe Brothers vs. Kevin Steen & El Generico (Ladder War)
(ROH Man Up, 15/09/07)
I had this sitting on my computer for ages before I actually got round to watching it and I have no idea why because it is fucking AWESOME. It’s like the opposite kind of Ladder match to the equally awesome Shawn/Jericho one I talked about last time, as although there is a strong rivalry and violence in the match, there’s also loads of just mental stunts. I liked this match so much that I had originally planned on doing a big entry on it until I got lazy and decided to do this ‘quick update’ instead, so I’m not going to list every great/sick thing in this match. I will mention that one of the coolest ladder spots I have EVER seen is the springboard Doomsday Device on El Generico with crazy Mark Briscoe diving THROUGH the set-up ladder for the clothesline. It’s incredible. Other honourable mentions are a Package Piledriver through a ladder, a Jay Driller through a ladder and well…I’m stopping there because otherwise I will go on forever. Excellent ladder match.

Cactus Jack & Raven vs. Terry Funk & Tommy Dreamer
(ECW November To Remember, 18/11/95)
I got out my beloved Mick Foley: Greatest Hits & Misses DVD again (I was meant to do a full review, if I do I guess I’ll be copying & pasting this..) because I was bored and I remembered this match being pretty wild, and it still holds up in that regard. As the definition of a crazy ECW weapons-fest, this is pretty hard to beat, especially when you consider that this happened in 1995 before the rest of us had been exposed to such insanity. There’s very little in the way of wrestling, but it’s part of the hate-fuelled Raven/Dreamer saga, the crowd are rabid, and a few weeks earlier Cactus set Terry Funk on fucking fire, so what do you expect. For what it is, which is pure ECW craziness, it’s pretty great. Dreamer pulling Mick’s homemade Eric Bischoff t-shirt over his head and pumelling it with a chair is hilarious too.

Cactus Jack vs. Mikey Whipwreck
(ECW Big Ass Extreme Bash, 06/03/96)
This is from the same DVD, and I don’t really like it as much. It was Cactus Jack’s final ECW match, so the crowd is pretty awesome for it, and it does have some fun parts, but I dunno…Mikey Whipwreck is a twerp. It’s not bad though, it’s your usual ECW Cactus Jack match with some different stuff thrown in, including the debut of the Mandible Claw (to no reaction, because ECW fans were clueless rubes) and using a Leonard Cohen LP as a foreign object. I do like the ‘never-say-die’ attitude of both men, makes the match seem more important. I also like Cactus repeatedly murdering Whipwreck with a chair, piledrivers and the Double Arm DDT, because like I said, he’s a dork. To be fair, this is still pretty fun.

Kane vs. Albert
(WWF Smackdown, 14/06/01)
Man, the Ongoing Kane Tally! could really have done with this instead of the Gauntlet debacle on Raw this week. Albert comes out to the awesome X-Factor Uncle Kracker theme and this match is already brilliant. It’s really legit good though, and this was before either of these guys were known for having good matches. The match is basically five or six minutes of just straight up balls-to-the-wall action between two big powerhouses, which makes a really entertaining TV-style match. The best bits are Albert easily gorilla press slamming Kane (causing Tazz to just go “..Albert’s a freak” which is lol), Albert reversing the chokeslam into a DDT, and Kane reversing the Baldo Bomb with a mid-air dropkick type thing! Seriously, that happened.

Kane vs. Albert (No Disqualification)
(WWF Smackdown, 28/06/01)
That was so good I watched the rematch straight after. It’s not as the good as the first match, but still fun. Haha this time, Tazz says “Albert’s a moose, a monster, an ANIMAL!”. This match also features the mythical hurraKANErana which none of my idiot friends ever believes actually happened. It gets a massive reaction too. The No DQ stipulation doesn’t much come into play until Diamond Dallas Page runs in and hits Kane with the Diamond Cutter (which he sells like a Stunner because, you know, Kane), allowing Albert to hit a huge Baldo Bomb for the win and the Intercontinental title! Man I love A-Train.