Yup, it’s late. Combination of New Year’s wearing off and way too much to do on an off day. Regardless, as promised, here is part two of The Christmas With Hevia Year in Wrestling Reviews, with ABarker…on with the show…
I have been thinking about this past year in wrestling, and I didn’t know whether to begin at a show I was at live, or if I should start with the ppv from hell that kicked the year off. I mean, I feel bad for the people like me that paid 35 dollars to see 2 matches sent home early for knee injuries, a double squash after a long winded Maven promo, and a Jerry Lawler match that actually made the new guy look horrible. I don’t even remember what the cool down match was before the Elimination Chamber, but the Triple H stat padding win made the show an overall waste of my time and money.
But since I had already committed over $1000 to flying out to Fresno for the Royal Rumble, I decided to accept that branded ppv’s tend to suck anyway. And boy was I glad that they stepped things up at the Rumble. I met Kurt Angle in the gym at my hotel, and Rey Mysterio, Heidenreich, Luther, Orton, Maven, and Mike Chioda in the lobby. I was also going to the meet and greet (Which had both Canadian Chrises (Fuckin Sweet)… and a few jobbers) It was my first time ever in front row seats for a show, and I got treated to a lot of little things. The opening match with Edge and HBK was a little sloppy, but anytime I get to see Edge in action was always a plus since I have been a huge Edge mark since the Brood. I also seem to recall people shitting all over the Heidenreich Casket match, but from my seat, I got to see a lot of the high impact moves. And I don’t care who you are, you slam your knee into the steps like Taker did and its going to hurt. I also loved the casket into the head into the ring spot, even though I could clearly see Taker duck.. it was a great visual. I was on the wrong side of the ring for the JBL/Big Show barricade crash, which sucked, and Orton/HHH was a joke. But the Rumble more than made up for it. Paul London’s sick elimination bump took place about 5 feet in front of me, and I felt legit concern after seeing and hearing that one (he sells like a champ).. and Batista was definitely the first one eliminated, Vince (and his torn quads) be damned.
February was kinda blah, but being live at No Way Out, this New England fan raised some hell with the hometown Angle fans as he jobbed to our Champion… just like Worthlessberger jobbed to my Patriots in the Super Bowl. Of course, I am definitely an Angle fan, and got sick of Cena at a very early stage in his push, but Boston just owned Pittsburgh in 05, so I couldn’t resist. And though I liked the finish of the barbed wire cage match, that was the only enjoyable part of the show.
March brought us 3 very good moments in WWE history.. The build to Angle/Micheals, The Rocker Reunion, and the Angle/Janetty match on Smackdown. And it also gave us a ladder match to look forward to, the start of Rey and Eddie’s feud, and the beginning of the end to JBL’s reign.
April was of course WM21, my second straight live Mania, and a good bonding experience with my dad. We did Hollywood site-seeing along with various meet and greets (Edge, Maria, RVD (who was high), Stacy, John Cena, and The Day of Reckoning video game tournament). We also did the Hall of Fame, which was a great experience, even with all of the chanting and rude comments. Anyone who hasn’t checked it out on the dvd, don’t waste another minute… watch it now. After that, we met about 15 superstars, including Rhyno (in his last night with the company), Gregory Helms, Shelton, Coach, Tomko, Simon Dean, Al Snow, Jack Doan, and Chad Patton. Of course, Wrestlemania itself gave us the WWE match of the year with Angle/Micheals, as well as an awesome ladder match (which ended the right way in my opinion), and the return of Hogan (my dad is a huge Hogan mark, and I marked out like a schoolgirl at an NSync concert), and of course Piper’s Pit was great for the old school fans.
May was Backlash, and my last show for the year. My dad went to that one too. We met Jerry Lawler and Micheal P.S. Hayes in the hotel, and got a few “insider” tips from Jack and Chad. At the show, Edge and Benoit, Hogan’s match, and Christian’s promo were the highlights of my night, as well as Lillian Garcia having a little back and forth conversation between matches with me and the guys sitting behind me. I also got a thumbs up from Hassan and Daivari for my Daivarimania Runnin Wild sign, and a wink and point from Christian for my Christian Coalition Sign. Jack Doan saw my Doan gets all the Hot Chicks sign already, and autographed it, but it did earn him a kiss from Lillian when he pointed it out to her. And of course, Free TV MOTYC when HBK and Shelton Benjamin squared off in the Gold Rush Tournament. A well paced, exciting match with an ending that shocked the hell out of me, and somehow made Shelton look good even in defeat. HBK may not job too often, but he does what he can to make good guys look great.
June was kinda unmemorable… except for a little thing called EC F’N W. I unfortunately couldn’t order the show that night due to cable problems, but I did buy the dvd, and have watched it more than any other live event in history (Except SummerSlam 90). I had never seen an old school ECW show, and all I had to go on was IWC memory columns. I was impressed with the Smark mentality of the whole show, the shoot promos, and of course Joey Styles for the first time ever. I grew up as a wrestling fan that night. I learned of a promotion that I never got to see in its day, and I liked what I saw.
July, hands down the best single brand PPV ever. I mean, when does Christian ever get a main event title shot? Too bad he had to job, but Vince has a hard-on for “The Chump” so whatever. And Christian would eventually do the right thing. The Angle/HBK rematch was top notch, the Hell in a Cell was great not only for the match, but Trip’s third straight ppv j-o-b.
August can be summed up in 3 words: Legend….Versus….Has-been. I love Hogan to death, and can never deny what he was to my childhood as a wrestling fan. But this match was just horrible from a workrate fan standpoint. And after the Hardy match got stopped for blood, Hogan went on to make him look like a chump with his donation to American Red Cross.
September will always be the month that Ric Flair finally hit a top rope move, and Kurt Angle entered a deep funk in his career, characterwise. The only things worth mentioning from Unforgiven are Flair’s speech, where he brought some dignity back to the intercontinental title, the backstage skits with the women, where he restored his image as the party pimp, and the Flair Flop on the concrete. Then Angle did what he could to make Cena look good, which had been a lock in all of their previous encounters, but tonight was off. Cena has lost his motivation since becoming champ, and it is definitely starting to show.
I missed No Mercy, and the only thing I truly remember is Homecoming. It was good to see the beer truck, the milk truck, and the McMahon family again (well, for that night, anyway). I liked seeing Austin back, and all of the different flashbacks. But overall, I really dont recall much of the show because they didn’t do anything that really grabbed my attention.
November makes me cry. I have to be honest. I wasn’t much of an Eddie Guerrero fan when I got into wrestling again in 2003. I only gained an appreciation for him after Wrestlemania 20, when I joined the IWC. I hated seeing Brock drop the title to him at No Way Out, and I really hated seeing Angle lose to him because he cheated. But that night, at Madison Square Garden, I had people tell me all about Brock Lesnar leaving for the NFL. So I did a quick search of the internet and found 411mania.com. >From that day on, I learned about workrate, politics, pushes and depushes. I went from enjoying the characters and their quirks to actually watching the matches for quality purposes. Eddie became a hero to me. I went back and rewatched No Way Out, and Wrestlemania, and the celebration with Benoit after the main. I had a new found respect for Eddie. That carried on as he went into the shitty JBL feud. I enjoyed the JBL character, but could not believe a poor wrestler like JBL could beat a ring technician like Eddie, who also had the element of cunning and the occasional cheating to win. I didn’t realize that he had problems in his personal life that were causing him to feel inadequate as champion. In hindsight, he made the right decision to drop the belt to JBL in two ways. JBL made the effort to improve, and Eddie went back to having fun again. It showed in his feud with GM Angle, and his matches with the broomsticks known as Team Angle 2.0. He went on to a long term feud with Rey Mysterio which had it all. Good build as friendship turned to jealousy turned to hatred. Good matches, which went ok to great, instead of the other way like a lot of feuds go. Then it took on the creepy custody theme that prevailed through SummerSlam. It was an enjoyable feud that was thankfully blown off after running its course. Then came Batista. The face/face dynamic was an excellent turn, because it had that “is he real” feel to it that led to an actual curiosity of what would happen next. Batista seemed willing to learn from one of the greats, and that would have been good for everybody involved, especially the fans. And with the Batista injury, I truly believe that Minneapolis was going to be the start of Eddie Guerrero’s first World Heavyweight Championship reign. But that all came crashing down. In one of the saddest days in the history of Wrestling (In my personal experience, right up there with May 23, 1999), Eddie passed away. I cried that morning. I cried during both tribute shows. I especially cried during JBL, Batista, and Benoit’s segments. It was devastating.
So where does Vince go from here? He pisses all over the memory of Guerrero by using a tribute angle to advance an angle in which a “deadman” was once again “killed,” This time by driving Eddie’s lowrider through the entrance area and exploding. The payoff to that angle being Randy Orton getting completely buried by the Undertaker in a hell in a cell match. Thank you for giving back to the company that has given so much to you over the past 15 years Mr Calloway. Of course, some good came of it, as Chris Benoit uses the Three Amigos in honor of Eddie, and Chavo Guerrero got to drop the Kerwin White character, and has adopted Eddie’s frog splash as his new finisher, both fitting tributes from 2 men that were like brothers to Eddie, his best friend and his nephew.
And somehow, Vince managed to make me forgive him throughout December for all of the times he dropped the ball this year. Eric Bischoff’s court case, where he shot on Chris Masters (Or is it Mordeski), and Mick’s Moonpies, and Maria using big words. Ashlee Simpson (She sucks) and of course the announcement of the Elimination Chamber. And most importantly, the Troop Tribute special from Afghanistan as always, was tastefully done, and it made a very important point of ripping the media for forgetting about the troops and undermining them in every possible way. It was good to see the troops morale improve as superstars made personal appearances at several outposts, as well as during the actual matches. The no ho-ho-holds barred match was great, and played well with Mick and JBL nailing the characters perfectly. And how can you go wrong with hot divas in skimpy clothes when its done for the military?
So this year, for all of its low points, had several high points, both in terms of match quality, but also in things that I got to experience personally throughout different trips around the country to see different ppv events and meet different superstars. Next year is already shaping up to be a good one, with 2 tickets in the third row for the Royal Rumble in Miami. Hopefully it will be another great event and maybe this year might be the year the next boom period starts. At the very least, maybe a few of the smarks might come back to the product, as the new steroid policy might actually force the focus back onto wrestling and workrate instead of “push the big guy.”
Once again a big thanks to ABarker and Hollywood Timmy Hayes. You guys rock!
I’ll be back next week…fresh…new ideas…ready to make some big news…excitiing…adios!
