Watching this show with a crowd made me feel like I had a different perspective on it that was worth sharing. Also, I feel bad about my lack of TNA content, so I want to make up with it by contributing something, without actually having to talk about TNA.
Ric Flair vs. MVP- Career Threatening Match
Flair got a great reaction from the live crowd, although one section of the bar was way too amused with how many times they could “whoo!” in time with him. Of course, I have no idea how many drinks deep they were, given that I got there about 15 minutes before showtime and it was standing room only.
At any rate, this was a solid match, even if Flair looked like he was barely hanging in there at certain points. That said, the crowd (at the bar, at least; it’s hard to gauge the audience reaction in there, when the sounds even working at akll) was hanging on all of the near falls, so this angle certainly brings a ton of drama. It was nice to see Flair get a clean win for once during this angle, even if they did also make an attempt at “even steven” booking by letting MVP get the pin when Flair’s foot was on the rope.
Overall, I could have used more work on MVP’s leg, but the match didn’t overstay its welcome and served its purpose very well, so I’ll be generous and give it *** stars, even if I get the feeling it didn’t deserve it.
Y2J vs. JBL- Battle of the Acronyms!
The bar crowd was pretty dead for Jericho’s entrance, which surprised me a little. They were in to the match, though, and that’s what counts. I was actually surprised by how much I liked this one, as I was wasn’t expecting a whole lot out of them. After all, they both have a lot of ring rust to work off, and it’s not like JBL was Mr. Workrate before he had to take a year and a half off.
That said, this played to his one big strength; brawling. Jericho was up for it, doing the requisite manly blade job and balancing a great sell job with timing his comebacks well. So, while he may be a ways down the RAW depth chart, he’s still got what it takes to be their most valuable player, or at the very least an indespensable utility man.
The DQ ending is never satisfying, but I can live with these guys feuding another month or two, given that they had a quality match without the kind of gimmickry JBL had to resort to get anything decent going when he wasn’t wrestling Eddie Guerrero during his big main event run. Truth be told, I’d rather have him as announcer, but I can live with his comeback if he can keep his matches around this standard. I’ll go *** again, and I feel a lot better about this one. If nothing else, I’m always impressed when two established guys work a match without running through all of their established spots, and they did that here.
Rey Mysterio vs. Edge (C), World Heavyweight Championship
The crowd was really in to Rey. It’s not really suprising, since I live in South Texas and Rey’s the biggest Latino star in the business now that Eddie’s gone, but it’s always nice to hear, since I’ve been a mark for the guy since WCW. This was easily the match I was most excited about on the card outside the Rumble, because I’m a big fan of both guys and have been anticipating this match up since Edge moved to Smackdown. It didn’t disappoint, even if Edge beating the hell out of Rey’s knee sort of strained my suspension of disbelief, especially when Rey was doing things like double stomps during his comebacks. It also lacked the insane high spots I was hoping for, although truth be told, I’m not sure the Rey Mysterio who could pull those off exists outside of DVDs anymore, with all the wear on his knees. He did bust out a pretty awesome tornado DDT through the ropes to the floor, but I can’t help but miss the days when his matches seemed like a contest to see how many ways he could hit a hurracanrana.
The one we do have is more than capable of putting on a damn good main event match, and Edge held up his end of the bargain, showing a lot of ass by giving Rey a bunch of near falls. This had a really cool finish, too. Again, this is a feud I wouldn’t mind seeing more of on Smackdown and PPV, because I’d give this match ****. It must be noted that 1/2 of that is for Vickie taking the 619, on the principle that if the valet’s taking bumps, it deserves an extra half star. Okay, I made that one up, but I think it holds true.
Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton(C), WWE Championship
Hardy got a huge reaction, up there with Mysterio and HBK (who gets all of the pro-Texas bolsterism), and just behind a certain surprise entrant to the Rumble. I didn’t get to watch this whole match, so no ill advised star rating. What I did catch played out pretty much how I expected, with Hardy going balls out with the highspots only to come up short. I was surprised that Hardy lost clean, although the RKO’s “out of nowhere” nature mitigates it a little. This is the strongest win of Orton’s title reign, although that’s not really saying much.
They can probably get another match out of this feud, (if not for Money in he Bank being so near, I’d expect a ladder match), and it will be a solid one. I’m more interested in seeing if the good job they did building up Jeff will wind up helping him advance to this position on the card again, or if it’s a higher level of the annual push he used to get during his first WWE run and he’ll be bumped back down the card. If nothing else, I would think that this would earn him a main event spot on Smackdown or ECW, although that’s not saying much.
Glossing over the Maria segment, even if I am happy that we’ll see her heavily photoshopped nude body on the Road to Wrestlemania, I’ll go straight to teh Rumble. I thought it was a pretty bold move to start out with Undertaker and HBK, and it was a pretty cool bit of continuity to have the last two guys in the previous year’s Rumble start this year’s, especially since their series with each other to end the match bumped it up a notch or twelve.
This Rumble was better than last year’s installment in general. Where last year was all about building to Khali’s Diesel push, bogging the match down for the match down during the body, this year they tread the line between timely eliminations and building up the numbers for the big deck clearing spots. Not that there couldn’t have been quicker eliminations (what’s with Shelton doing the coolest spot of the match without taking out Miz or Morrison?), but at the very least they tossed one out there every 10 minutes or so before HHH and mystery guy really cleared the deck. We got a good comedy spot (Santino’s quick exit), some eye opening performances from young talent (Cody Rhodes was pretty impressive, I thought), feuds were furthered (Kennedy taking out HBK, Palumbo dumping Noble, Chavo taking out Punk again), and a very high amount of star power was present throughout;there was a credible winner in the ring through the duration of the match, which is something you can’t always say.
Other than exposing the number of “monster heel slugs” and the disturbing sight of Roddy Piper shirtless, the meat of the match was really entertaining this year, and at least that kinda sad Piper/Snuka stand off had some historical cache behind it, even if Jimmy still can’t get revenge for taking that coconut to the bean in the ’80s.
Funny aside: The last two times Jimmy Snuka’s made a PPV appearence, I’ve been in the bathroom. Well, I find that amusing.
The most memorable moment of the show was the suprise entrant. Cena was a huge surprise, and the crowd I was watching the show with went insane at his entrance. I have a hard time they planned this; I have the feeling that this was Lashley’s spot before he decided to pull a Brock Lesnar and move on. To be honest, I was sort of interested in seeing what they were going to do with the guy once he did come back, and am amazed that they did not have anything in place for his comeback given the absurd overpush he got last year. I’m not neccessarily going to miss him, but it’s amazing that a guy could go from the cusp of being one of the biggest stars in the business to taking off for greener pastures; I mean, even Brock gave it a couple years before deciding he’d rather be on the Vikings practice squad than be the WWE Champion.
But I digress; let’s talk about the overpushed guy who’s still on the roster; Cena got the biggest pop I’ve ever heard at a wrestling show, and that includes the house shows I’ve been to. Of course, the only WWE level show I’ve been to was a RAW house show in 2004 when Randy Orton was the top babyface, so it’s not a fair comparison, but that was an exceptionally loud sustained pop. Some of the waiters even started going crazy. That’s what really fun about watching these shows with a bunch of people (beyond the fact that I dinner and show for less than the cost of the PPV); they have a lot of enthusiasm for the show, and give you a look at how fans outside the IWC view guys like Cena. For a real contrast, watch while sitting next to an 8 year old or a woman; they not only give you a glimpse at Cena’s target audience, but also give you an extreme contrast within Cena’s own fanbase. Especially when the woman spends the whole match yelling about how big a whore Lita is. The twelve year old was at least raised well enough to use his inside voice while doing it.
So, after my ears stopped ringing, I got to actually see the end of the show. It was hard to believe Cena was really in the match, and harder still to believe he was going to win it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and right up until the end I was figuring HHH was going to win it. By the way, that three way showdown between HHH, Batista, and Cena was one of the most entertaining pieces of gesturing I’ve seen in a long time. Even after Cena FU’d Hunter over the top rope, I kept expecting Orton to come out and put him on the shelf again.
Not that it won’t happen on RAW, mind you. It all depends on Cena’s health, obviously; if it’s humanly possible for him to main event the biggest show of the year, I’m sure they’ll do it, although my gut tells me HHH is going to have to get his win back at Mania somehow after jobbing clean 3 consecutive years in the main event. Even if it’s a total red herring, it was a hell of a moment and one of the few genuine suprises in a major show context we’ve had in awhile, which has to count for something. It certainly made for an electric atmosphere and a memorable ending to the show, which is more than what you can reasonably ask for for a $5 cover. Throw in a rock solid, crap free undercard and you have one of the best WWE shows I’ve seen in a long time (keeping in mind I watch one about every four months). Before I qualify this thing in to oblivion, I’ll just say that it’s one of the stronger Rumbles in recent memory and well worth watching if you didn’t happen to catch it.
