From the UK: WWE Unforgiven 2006

PPVs, Reviews

There are times in life when you at some point get crushed by mediocrity. It will grind you down until all hopes have been quelled and you’re ready to accept any dross thrown at you down to sheer apathy. That, in a nutshell, was Unforgiven this year.

Watching it I couldn’t believe the amount of praise it was receiving on the net. Indeed there was the very classy send off to Trish Stratus but that was immediately spoiled afterward when Randy Orton insulted her in a very vulgar manner killing all the goodwill that had just been shown. If that wasn’t bad enough. Orton’s match with Carlito was hardly the thing to scream home about. Sure it was watchable but there are times when that just isn’t good enough.

Randy Orton is a good wrestler, during a babyface comeback. He knows how to sell and back down from his opponents but there’s one thing that will ensure he won’t be the next Flair. He’s dull, eye wateringly dull. In his matches with Chris Benoit he was able to slap on a chin lock and Benoit would work his arse off to make Orton look like he was choking the very existence out of him. Matched against a lesser worker in Carlito, who’s all flips and afro but little substance, he looks ordinary. He certainly doesn’t look like the man who will carry WWE into the future. You may think I’m unfairly placing the critiscm at his feet but the fact is that it’s the HEEL that carries the tempo in a match. Against a good face, an ordinary heel can feed of his opponent, like Orton did in his matches with Benoit, and pace the match accordingly. Randy Orton can’t do that. Without a Foley, Flair or Benoit in there with him he looks lost. The matches with Rey Mysterio were great examples of this.

The matches contested between Orton and Mysterio brought a whole new meaning to the word dull. Especially the No Way Out match. There was a reason I never reviewed that show, the main one being that I just couldn’t be bothered to sit through a mid card as dull as that again. Notice I keep using the word “dull”. The show wasn’t a bad show, neither that matter was Unforgiven, but it was just so uninteresting and by the numbers that at times I wanted to chew my arm off just to liven things up a bit. And that’s my point. I didn’t start this rant to rip into Randy Orton it’s just that he defines the whole mediocre WWE right now. It has it’s moments, sure looks good on paper but it is just boring. WWE isn’t really bad it’s just the least interesting and fresh less 5 hours of TV a week. In some ways that’s worse.

Back to Unforgiven, which was originally what this rant was about before the mini rant. The biggest problem with the show is that, outside of the 4 main matches, I’m at a loss to tell you what the rest of the card was and I only watched it about 3-4 weeks ago! That in itself should give you an idea how unspeakably dull and unmemorable the whole experience was for me. You may be “So what if you forget the minor matches?” Well the fact is I can not only tell you the results of ECW’s Heatwave 98 but I can also give you match times and finishing moves. With this show there were times when I was sitting there just wandering off in my mind. I physically stayed where I was sitting but my brain had failed and just wanted to shut down. And you know what? I KEPT WATCHING!!! My eyes were transfixed, the lights were on but there was no one home and I can’t explain to you why I didn’t just stop watching and go and do something more interesting like put the skin back on a peeled orange.

Hell in the Cell? More like Snore in the Cell. That match was about 20 minutes of crap and I actually sat and watched it. After a while I just hit fast forward to end the agony and when I pushed play Vince McMahon was having his face shoved in Big Show’s derrière. Is that was passes for humour these days? Is this stuff REALLY worth 40 dollars or however much they charge you yanks to watch 3 hours of abject boredom? And then, to my shock and horror, I boot up Inside Pulse and see that Ken Anderson, who’s reviews I adore by the way, gave it ****. Now I love Ken’s work and admire his optimism at the best of times but I nearly bowled over in my chair when I read that. **** for the Vince and Trips double ego stroking? And guess what the feuds not even over. They are still keeping it going. What was the point in having THE feud ending match, wasting it on Vince McMahon and then not even having it as the blow off? And then there was the TLC match”¦”¦”¦”¦

Now as far as ladder style matches go this was good but there was a problem and that is, and always was, that Edge and Cena just don’t “click”. I have yet to see a match between these two where I didn’t have to fast forward, this one included. Sure the spots were great and both men deserve a lot of credit for killing each other for their art but once again this match was nothing outrageous. It was good, probably ***1/4 in my eyes. I enjoyed it for what it was but that was all. I had no emotional connection to the match and one viewing was more than enough to take what I wanted out of it. I can watch the Angle/Benoit matches or Kobashi epics and take something new out of them each time. Same can be said for the awesome HHH Vs Bastista ‘Cell match from last year. After this match I was just relieved it was over.

Let me point out again that Unforgiven wasn’t a bad show, it just stands as example that if you feed people enough shit they’ll be satisfied when they get to drink some urine for a change. Peace brothers of the keyboard.