The SmarK Rant for WWE One Night Stand 2008
– Live from San Diego, CA.
– Your hosts are JR and the gang
Falls Count Anywhere: Jeff Hardy v. Umaga
Jeff runs into an elbow and gets stomped down, but hits the Whisper for two. He comes off the top and gets caught with a Black Hole Slam (actually CALLED that by JR) , which gets two for Umaga. He charges and hits the floor, so Jeff follows with a pescado for two. Umaga tosses him into the front row for a good bump, and they head into the crowd, where Jeff tries to fight back with…a traffic cone? Umaga thankfully no-sells that and boots him for two. He misses a charge and Hardy hits him with a fire extinguisher (boy, I bet he’s wishing that he had THAT a couple of months ago) and they head into the backstage area, where Umaga sends him into a wall for two. And out to the parking lot, where they ram each other into truck doors and Hardy gets two. Finally, the big spot, as they fight on a ladder on the side of a truck and Umaga goes down first, and Hardy follows with a swanton bomb off the truck to finish at 9:19. Given the delay in the move and the forced camera perspective, it’s pretty obvious there was either editing or a crash pad involved. Bunch of walking around and a couple of big spots, yay. Just the usual stuff you used to see on RAW every week in 1999. **
-Mick Foley gives us a preview of the stretcher match.
Singapore Cane On A Pole Match: Big Show v. John Morrison v. CM Punk v. Chavo Guerero v. Tommy Dreamer
Show tosses everyone around to start and drops elbows, but Punk and Morrison double-team him and everyone hits their finisher on him. And all four little guys climb for the poles and fire away on Show with them to get rid of him, then turn on each other. Punk and Chavo brawl on the floor and Chavo “accidentally” hits a football player and gets a cane to the head back for his troubles. In the ring, Dreamer hits Morrison with a cane-assisted pumphandle slam, but Punk hits Dreamer with the GTS, which Dreamer blocks and reverses to a Texas Cloverleaf. Chavo goes up to set off a Tower of Doom spot, but Show revives and he’s angry and bleeding. Which then sets off the great logical hole in the match — he grabs a cane from a bucket of them at ringside, leaving me to wonder why the hell anyone would bother climbing for one of them? Show canes everyone down and chokeslams Dreamer. Then picks him up and canes him down again to finish at 8:35. See, Big Show is BIG and everyone else is small. In case you didn’t get it yet. Show did nothing here and everyone else got to bounce off him like pinballs. I anxiously await Show v. Kane next month. *1/2
Meanwhile, Vince updates us on the "million dollars" to be given away on RAW.
First Blood Match: John Cena v. JBL
They immediately rip turnbuckles off and JBL pounds Cena down, but Cena comes back and they brawl to the floor, where JBL hits the announce table. Back in, JBL tosses Cena and drops an elbow on the floor. Back in, JBL elbows him down and boots him off the apron. To the aisle, where JBL tries rubbing John’s head on the grating to cut him open, with no luck. Cena fights back, but JBL pokes him in the eye and grabs a chair. He misses and hits the post with it, and now Cena fights back, but JBL hits him with the microphone. Back in, Cena fights back with his usual stuff and gets booed. You know, at least JBL is trying stuff that might WORK, as opposed to Cena’s stupid fistdrop. Back to the floor and Cena hits the post, but miraculously he doesn’t bleed. Even his SKIN no-sells! Next up, JBL tries using the stairs and misses, so he rams Cena into the railing instead. Still no blood. He tries a DDT on the stairs, but Cena blocks it and then hits JBL with the mike in an impressive-sounding spot. Back into the ring, but Cena hits the turnbuckle…and we’ve got no blood. And my cable goes out for a bit. Fucking Sasktel. We return with JBL finding a chain in his towel, but he gets caught with the FU. Which really does no good in this match. JBL comes back and boots Cena into the ropes, where he gets tied up. JBL gets really out there now, finding a WHIP under the ring, but Cena fights out and takes him down with the STFU, causing JBL to bleed from the mouth at 14:23. Guess what? The move still sucks. And these guys just have no chemistry together. **1/2
Meanwhile, Randy Orton pitches the idea of Evolution 2.0 to Batista.
I Quit Match: Beth Phoenix v. Melina
Melina immediately catches Beth in a guillotine choke, but Beth puts her down with a backbreaker. Another one turns into a submission hold, but Melina breaks out. Beth tries a superplex, but Melina reverses to a tornado DDT, into a bridged Indian deathlock. Beth escapes and hits the floor, but fights back in the ring and stomps her down. Body vice, but Melina manages to fight out, so Beth goes to an armbar. Shockingly, Melina doesn’t submit to that, either. That drags on until Melina fights back by sending Beth into the post with a leverage move, into an armbar takedown. She gets the Fujiwara armbar on Phoenix, then turns it into a cross-armbreaker, but Beth powers out of it. She flattens Melina with a facefirst powerbomb,then wraps her up with a double chickenwing submission, and when that doesn’t work, she just bends Melina backwards in ways the human body wasn’t intended. That gets the submission at 9:02. WAY, way too long with a dead crowd. **
Meanwhile, Mike Adamle annoys John Cena and Mickie James.
Stretcher Match: Batista v. Shawn Michaels
Even after the video package I still don’t get the issue here or who I’m supposed to be cheering for. Shawn attacks to start, but Batista slugs him down and clotheslines him to the floor. Shawn gets dropped on the stretcher, but whips Batista into the stairs and then into the post. Batista catches his foot, so Shawn puts him down with an enzuigiri and then runs the stretcher into him. Batista recovers and Shawn hits him with it again. First attempt to get him onto the stretcher, but Batista knees out of it and tries a demon bomb on the floor. Shawn flips into a guillotine choke in a slick reversal, and Batista seems to be out on the stretcher. Batista fights up again and sends Shawn into the post, then the apron, and the railing. Back in, he levels Shawn with a clothesline and Shawn does the Jannetty sell, then Batista hits him with a corner clothesline and a powerslam. A blind charge hits the post, however, and Shawn comes back with the flying forearm and flying elbow. Batista stops the superkick with a clothesline that misses by a foot and tries the powerbomb onto the floor, but Shawn sneaks out and superkicks him onto the stretcher. Ah, the irony. Shawn tries to drag the stretcher down the aisle, but Batista falls off, so Shawn rams the stretcher into him until Batista uses his ANIMAL POWER to hit Shawn with it himself. Back into the ring, Batista hits him with a spear to set up the powerbomb, but Jericho comes out to lay the badmouth on Shawn while Batista puts him on the stretcher. Or inspire him, whatever. So back in we go, and Shawn does a lame superkick attempt before collapsing. Batista tells him "I don’t love you and I’m not sorry" and then powerbombs him again, and Jericho again heads out and prevents Batista from wheeling the stretcher across the finish line. So Batista grabs the stairs and hits a spinebuster onto them, and Shawn’s done at 16:56. This was weird and slow, with Jericho’s involvement not really adding anything. And the finish was kind of an anti-climax, even more so in a match where the stipulation crippled things from the beginning. A pinfall would have been much more effective, Foley’s over-the-top commentary aside. **3/4
Last Man Standing Match, RAW World title: HHH v. Randy Orton
They immediately brawl to the floor and Orton hits the stairs, then the announce table. Into the ring, HHH sends Orton into the post twice to start working on the shoulder. Orton comes back with his dropkick, but HHH tosses him and they fight out there again. Next victim is the ECW table, as they trade finisher attempts on it and Orton DDTs HHH from the table to the floor. First count sees HHH up at 9. Orton pulls up the mats and tries the RKO, but HHH sends him into the post instead. Both guys are up at 6 and back into the ring for the Garvin Stomp, and he follows with the stairs to the head. HHH is up at 9, and fights back. Orton chokes him out with an extension cord, but HHH is up at 8. RKO is countered by HHH, putting Orton on the floor, and HHH produces his trusty sledgehammer. And that finishes at 13:15. Huh? That’s the big finish? Two anti-climax finishes in a row. Must have been a legitimate injury off the bump to the floor because the last 10 minutes of the match were basically missing. **1/2 Replays show that he landed REALLY badly on the shoulder and probably broke it.
Tables, Ladders & Chairs Match, Smackdown World title: Edge v. Undertaker
UT slugs away in the corner to start and throws headbutts, then clotheslines Edge down and goes old school. He grabs the first ladder, but Edge baseball slides it back at him and stacks a couple of tables. Taker batters him with the ladder to put him down, then builds up the stack of tables even more. Edge takes him into the stairs and makes the first attempt to climb for the belt, but Taker yanks him down and sets up for Snake Eyes on the ladder. Edge counters out of it and we get ladders on opposite corners, but Edge gets run into one. Taker climbs for the belt, but Edge follows him up and gets knocked down, landing on the ladder in the corner. However, he has enough left to knock UT into the OTHER ladder. OK, that was a tad contrived. Edge sets up another ladder in the corner, but gets dropped with Snake Eyes and hits the floor. Taker follows with a vicious chairshot, but tries the legdrop on the apron and hits a chair instead. Edge comes back and starts working on the leg, then hits a blatant low blow to block a powerbomb. Taker fights up, so Edge drops him with a chairshot. Taker sits up, so Edge flattens him again with the chair and puts him onto a table. Edge splashes him through the table and climbs again. Taker pulls him down, so Edge spears him to put him down again. And it’s back to the leg, as he puts the leg into the ladder and smashes it with the chair, then retrieves an even bigger ladder for another climb. But first, he puts Taker down with another pair of sick chairshots, leading to the Conchairto, but Taker hits him in the nuts to come back. He follows with a chokeslam onto a ladder outside… and here comes the circus. The Edgeheads run out and attack Undertaker, then sandwich him between two tables, but that doesn’t end well for them. Hawkins gets chokeslammed through a table on the floor, as does Ryder, but Edge spears UT off the apron and into the railing. So now Edge stacks another pair of tables in the corner for no adequately explored reason and climbs up with his back to them, but Taker shockingly powerbombs him off the ladder and through the tables. You’d think that would do it, but the match won’t end until someone goes through the stack of tables on the floor. Taker climbs, and now it’s Chavo and Bam Neely to break it up, but they can’t hit him with chairs. Taker puts THEM down with chairshots, but then moves the ladder AWAY from the center…allowing Edge to push him over and through the stack of tables. You might as well send a telegraph for some of these spots. Major heat for all of this, though. Edge climbs and wins the title at 23:26, which I was NOT expecting. So Undertaker is retired, and since everything in wrestling is forever and they always follow through on stipulations, we’ll never see him again. Ever. Dumb and contrived, but it was a lot of fun and I liked that they built the match like a normal wrestling match instead of the usual trainwreck series of spots. ***1/2
The Pulse
Nothing particularly BAD on the show and a really good main event equal a slight thumbs up, although the Shawn-Batista match was so boring that I was fighting sleep most of the way and the dead crowd didn’t help. Plus all the gimmicks really felt like overkill. And really, who’s buying this Undertaker "retirement" angle? So if you watch it, you’ll probably enjoy it, but I wouldn’t go out of your way or anything.
