So, I guess you can add a portal to hell to all the other dangerous crap they keep under the ring.
MVP over Jeff Hardy, Drive By Kick after Shelton-ference and missed Swanton, ***
The very definition of a solid opener. Wasn’t great, but it didn’t lag, and it warmed up the crowd. The Shelton-ference was as good a way as any to help Jeff not look weak in defeat, and sets up a potentially interesting three way for the US Belt next month, so I’m cool with it.
On the other hand, it was really weird watching these two jerk the curtain when both of them seemed poised for world title runs pre-Mania. We know what Jeff did to screw up his shot, but how MVP did it when seemingly every other black guy in the company has a belt kind of mystifies me. Of course, he was the guy who was dropping n bombs with Michael Hayes, so maybe they consider him kind of responsible for the whole things. Well, that and he’s not neccessarily ready to main event, even though he seems in that weird space with guys like the Hardys, Kennedy, Morrison, and Umaga where he’s outgrown the seocondary straps. And he’s on the same show as HHH, so anyone interested in advancing his career probably doesn’t want to sacrifice him to the beast that must be fed. So that’s not so weird, I guess.
By the way, Jeff’s dreads make him look like a huge pot head. Or a lost member of Korn. Same thing, I guess. So, maybe not the best message to sending in light of the three strikes and you’re out rule, Nero.
Santino Backstage Tomfoolery!
Maria, looking like Poison Ivy a little, has a funny interview with ex-boyfriend Santino and his new girl, Beth, or as they are now known collectively, Glamourella. I may be more of a mark for that name than I am for Beer Money Inc., actually. Anyway, the interview is funny entirely because Maria just lets Santino riff for a few minutes, but still; Maria was involved in a good segment! Good for her. Santino’s declaring the whole thing awkward just made it that much better. It’s a shame he’s such a not good worker, or he could be that Rocky-replacement they’ve been searching for.
Glamourella FTW! over Team Plucky Underdog Babyface, Glamslam, New World Intergender Intercontinental and Womens Champions, **1/4
Santino’s antics elevated this slightly beyond your average RAW co-ed tag match, but not by much. I thought it was interesting that Mickie and Beth mainly carried the match by doing most of the work. Not that that’s unexpected; beyond the fact that they have more experience on the guys, they’ve worked together quite a few times. Still; it’s usually the other way around, isn’t it?
The ultimate result wasn’t ever in doubt, because Glamourella (!) is too good an act to not win, but I was surprised that Santino didn’t become Women’s and IC Champion by rolling up Mickie or something. Apparently the stips weren’t built for that at all, and I just thought they were. Either I missed that on commentary or Mike Adamle explained them stupidly on RAW. Couldn’t have been the latter, could it? Well, all that or they just realized that Santino’s unibrow would bury the entire division were he to do the Andy Kaufman thing.
This has to be said, I think; Kofi’s headbutting the ropes on the fake plancha can’t be good for his neck, can it? I don’t entirely get how that’s even supposed to be cool, either. I wonder if he’s getting the customary rookie depush now that he’s lost the belt, or if this feud’s going to continue in singles matches. Maybe they’ll just do the intergender thing and have Glamourella defend the belts in mixed tags, which is probably the only way to hide Santino’s not goodness in the ring but allow him to get all his comedy stuff in and cheat to win in entertaining fashion. I could live with that.
Shawn’s Big Announcement: Chris Jericho over Shawn Michaels’s retirment announcement, sucker punch on former Nitro Girl, ***
He’s lost his smile. Oops, wrong decade. That and he actually preemptively countered douchey internet references to that by mentioning it while going over his career highlights (does anyone else not like innovate as a verb? Like “I innovated the ladder match. And never jobbing.”). So, you know, good for him, sort of acknowledging that people on the internet (Scott Keith!) would throw that in his face even if that probably was not his intention at all.
But no, seriously, he’s retiring. Also, he brought Whisper with him, so that was cool. Her tears actually sold the retirment angle really well. The fans even did the “One More Match!” thing, so I think even the more cynical ones were at least playing along.
Of course, Jericho got invovled (and wore a swank pinstriped suit, too), and demanded that Shawn give him credit for retiring him, going so far as to demand Shawn tell his kids that Jericho was responsible. Shawn’s comeback was basically “Okay, as long as you tell your kids you suck compared to me. And I would have never jobbed like you did on Celebrity Duets.” Well, maybe not that last one. That leads to Whisper begging Shawn to turn the other cheak and getting accidentally suckered punched for it. Where is your God now? It was nice that she sold the punch without doing a strecher job, although I’m sure some people will take that as Jericho being jobbed out or something.
I’m as bemused as I imagine a lot of people are over the whole soap opera/woman punching thing, although I guess it’s as good a way to set up Shawn ignoring his pretend doctor’s advice as any. I just kind of roll my eyes at this women in refrigerators stuff in any medium, really.
Also, I was kind of hoping that Shawn would keep selling the injured eye so that he and his protege could come out in matching eye patches at some point (maybe even his dog, too!), in a reference only ROH fans and I would get. That’s out the window now that Shawn’s motivation to pound Jericho in to oblivion is over his wife’s honor instead of his eye and
Anyway, good promo despite some of the dumber bits, and I’m more than happy to see this storyline continue. Especially because the longer it does, the greater the chance Danielson will actually show up. That would not only be an awesome addition to WWE and this epic storyline, but it would cause a lot of schadenfreude from the ROH bots, and man, that stuff is always fun.
ECW Championship Match- Matt Hardy over Mark Henry via DQ, World’s Strongest Man saved by World’s Mushmouthedest Man after :30 or so, No Rating
Well, that’s one way to try and get yourself out of a booking corner you’ve created by putting determined, over babyface Matt up against supposedly unstoppable monster Henry; don’t have a real match. They did this exact same thing with a similar dynamic when Punk defend the ECW strap in Chicago against Big Daddy V, actually. So, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Matt will be a real World Champ in less than a year.
So, yeah, they protected Mark Henry by having him near defeat via the Twist of Fate in less than a minute (as far as I could tell, and I will probably never use a stop watch on a match), so time had to be an issue, but still; if I gave a crap about Henry, I’d be enraged. On some level, I am, just because I always find it annoying that they push these lunkheaded behemoths as monsters but stop short at ever letting them be truly dominant; it’s more of a piss or get off the pot already thing, I guess. I’ve felt that for everybody from Kane to A-Train to Big Show. I drew the line at Big Daddy V, because his whole push bemused and bewildered me, especially since it only ended when someone finally realized a man with udders is probably morbildy obese during Wrestlemania weekend. So that whole thing was just a cavalcade of the bizarre.
I think they figured throwing a Hardys reunion (and probably a tag match on ECW this week) in there would distract anyone who might have found the whole “Henry almost jobs in under a minute thing” weird any way, and I’m sure it worked. Of course, Henry needed help from Colin Delaney to beat Tommy Dreamer, so it’s not like there’s not a precedent for this in his title run. I think all of my thoughts on this match have officially doubled the length of the match/segment, so lets move on.
World Heavyweight Title Match: CM Punk over JBL, GTS, FTW!, **3/4
I loved that Michael Cole went so far out of his way to establish Punk’s nerd cred in trying to paint he and JBL as polar opposites (he’s seen Dark Knight 5 times! He plays video games!) He all but read Punk’s Baroness/She-Ra erotic fan fiction I bet he writes under a pen name. We get it, he’s the babyface of the G4 Generation! Although if that led to Olivia Munn as his valet, I could get behind it.
Ahem. This match had its moments, but in the end, I’m just never really going to be in to match where JBL’s in control for that long. Also, a lot of those moments came from Punk being busted open hard way on top of his head, so it’s hard to know how to factor those in to my arbitary punctuational evaluation of the match.
But really, I didn’t care for the actual match much. I’m not really that in to Punk as an underdog to really suspend my disbelief and get behind him on the level you need to appreciate this kind of thing beyond “Man, I sure hope my favorite active wrestler beats the shambling mockery of Stan Hansen with the moobs.” As in, I was rooting for Punk and everything, but I was not nearly as invested in this match as I was in the one he had with Batista last month. Because it wasn’t nearly that good, mainly, but I also can’t bring myself to get in to Punk in this role the way I can for someone like Shawn or Rey Mysterio. I mean, even the ending was in doubt! Being a smark means being pesimistic, so I never believe Punk can actually win until he does.
And still, I could only really watch this as a detached smark instead of marking out, which was the opposite of that match with the same formula last month. Of course, JBL’s general crappiness in the ring is pretty much the whole reason for that, but then if I just said “JBL sucks, Punk rulz” I wouldn’t be writing here. Mind you, I’m not entirely sure how I got a gig writing here in the first place, other than being able to type and willing to recap Impact (and one of those didn’t last very long), but I think I can offer more than the average message board ‘tard. Not WWERULZ79, though; that guy’s sharper than a tack.
In the end, this was less about the work rate and more about the moment of Punk finally getting the clean, decisive win over the guy who kept giving him crap about being a fluke champion. So, on that level it was great, as was Punk’s moment post match, as he soaked up the adulation and stood tall in the ring. So it wasn’t totally unsatisfying. And hey, JBL sold the GTS much better than any other guy his size has ever bothered too, so that was nice. But still; not too fond of the match. Had to make that clear.
WWE Championship: The Hs (all rights reserved, Iain Burnside Industries) over the Stupendous Khali to retain, Pedigree, **
This was not terrible. On a sliding scale, I liked it better than the previous World Title match. So, maybe HHH was right and he needs Shawn to teach him WWE style like he was a remedial student. (Okay, I’m just baiting Glazer there.) He’s totally better at Punk than everything, because he carried Khali to a watchable match. He’s also better than Flair, since Flair couldn’t get ever get much out of Khali’s equivalent during his prime, Giant Gonzales. And Hunter’s also better than Jesus. (Hey, I’m just carrying on the blasphemy here; Hunter’s the dude who calls himself the King of Kings!)
But really, based solely on their matches last night, Hunter’s just much better than Punk can ever imagine being. Punk should renounce his indie ways and learn how to work like a professional. Or at least stop using his knees so much. That’s the Hs appendage, damn it!
Or, on the other hand, it’s more likely that I had such low expectations for it that anything short of the Hs coming to my house and violating me with a sledgehammer while Khali, I dunno, stretched out all my clothes and ruined my Rock Band drums, was going to reach the ** threshold, where as I had some investment in the Punk match, so it kind of sucking bummed me out more. Really, I’m giving everything ** as a baseline just because I want to make reaching * on my scale as big a deal as reaching ***** for other people. It would be a reverse big achievement. Really, I’m just trying to undermine the whole stars thing by using that scale, but that doesn’t seem to be working.
So, yeah, this match, not terrible. Not great, or even much good, but not down to Khali’s usual standards. It wasn’t a broomstick thing for Hunter, but he got a solid match out of the Punjabi Workrate Nightmare, so that’s something. Of course, between the perverse amusment I got out of Tazz’s similies for Khali’s hands (they’re like both a ceiling fan and a telephone pole; at least he got away from the cookware standard established for Big Show) and Khali just being totally jobbed out, the match didn’t have to do much to entertain me.
I mean, the Hs more or less broke the Vise Grip at will and beat him with one Pedigree! Of course, Khali had been more or less a mammoth Jobber to the Stars since losing the World Title last year, but it seemed like Hunter went that extra mile to really make him look ineffectual here. So, you know, at least he’s consistent.
1st Time Ever: Batista over John Cena for the first time ever, with two consecutive Davebombs for the the first time ever, **** for the first time ever!
In trying to accurately depict how much Cole was selling the unique nature of a one on one match between Dave and Cena, I may have beaten the joke so far in to the ground there that it will be appearing at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, I admit. But still; Cole did it first! That’s really not a good defense. Michael Cole should never be used to justify anything at all, other than judicious use of the mute button, I guess.
It was weird that this match was not only not for a title at ‘Mania, but that it went on second to last. I mean, I understand why, since ‘Taker/Edge was in their top gimmick match and a long running feud to boot (beyond Edge’s being so awesome), but still; the whole handling of this thing has been so outside of expectations for its dream match status.
What is also weird; Dave using the Jackhammer as a transition move. Sure, it was always kind of perfunctory compared to the spear, as Vin pointed out, but I associate it with the finish so much that seeing it get two in the middle of a match is some heavy cognitive dissonance. Especially since Dave sometimes uses the spear as an alternate finisher sometimes.
This match reminded me a lot of Hunter/Cena II from Night of Champions a couple months back. It captured enough of the epic feel that they were going for to make for an entertaining match, and it was certainly refreshing that I had no idea who was going to win, but it’s not the all time classic they want it to be. Of course, it doesn’t matter if I think that; it’s the kids that really matter here. It should be said that this match shared Hs/Cena II’s absurdly abbreviated build, too.
I really appreciate when main eventers add moves to their repetories for big matches, so Dave busting out not only the figure four (which makes sense due to the Flair connection, natch (Naitch?)), but a friggin’ Rear Naked Choke! One of the things that made the Rock so cool as a main eventer is that he always added stuff to his moveset for big matches. HHH did that for awhile, too. So, it was nice to see Dave do that here.
I’m not sure where they go from here. I would think they’ll do what they did ith Hs and Cena and keep the 1 on 1 rematch in their back pocket for a while, but you could also easily see them try to make a series out if like they did with Dave and UT last year. Dave’s still due for a heel turn, but I can understand if WWE’s wary of pulling the trigger on that, since he’s so over when Punk isn’t yet and Cena gets all those mixed reactions. And Rey’s apparently been tortured to death by Kane, so they don’t have him in reserve to fill a vacant top face spot.
Cena sure is jobbing a lot this year, isn’t he? I guess that’s meant to offset his going undefeated on PPV last year, but it is conspicuous to see their nominal top star doing so many clean jobs. I mean, it gives the people who hate him so passionately something and helps keep his character from getting stale(r), but it’s still odd. So, who knows what they do from here with either guy, but it’s kind of refreshing to say that instead of seeing the strings so visibly.
Hell in a Cell: The Undertaker over Edge, utter annihilation leads to an academic Tombstone Piledriver, ****1/2
Didn’t like this as much as Glazer, which seems to happen a lot, but it was still a hell of a brawl. Edge finally gets his comeuppance in a straight up beating from a righteously pissed Undertaker, nothing he pulled out of his bag of tricks, from going crazy to relying on his world renowned opportunism can save him from his long deserved shellacking. While it’s a bit over the top even for someone who enjoys a heapin’ helping of absurdity with his scripted grappling, ‘Taker literally chokeslamming him to hell was a really cool visual and capped off things nicely. So this was executed to perfection in many ways, even if it reminded me a whole lot of Johnny Depp being eaten by his bed in A Nightmare on Elm Street. I think a geiser of blood coming out of the flaming hole would have made this ***** in my books, actually.
That said, something about tossing all of the weapons in to a match where there’s a huge weapon around the ring took a little bit out of it for me. Also, seriously, Edge; who wears a thong to a blood feud? Is he homaging Shawn or was that part of the whole “No Vickie and Title make Edge go something something” aspect of the story?
Aw, what the hell, I’ll go ***** just for all the rad spots, flawless execution, and a good old fashioned blow off to a well built feud, something we haven’t seen in awhile.
For the first time in a years, Summerslam served as an excellent capper to a summer of better than average shows, although mostly on the strength of the double main event. Those are two matches worth watching, and the undercard does have a big win for everyone’s favorite teetotaling indie darling and a standout match in the opener, so it’s worth a look on a number of levels. How you do that is between you, your cable provider, your god, World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., and the series of tubes we call the internet. I make no judgments.
But if you don’t pay $40 for it you’re a worthless thief who makes Hornswoggle cry. So, you know, if you can live with bringing tears to the eyes of a little person playing a child, or a leprechaun, or whatever it is now, then that’s between you and your conscience.
