Unsolicited Reviews: WWE No Mercy 2008

PPVs, Reviews

This one’s gonna be quick and dirty. And white and nerdy.

One note to begin; the crowd was really, really hot for this show. Like, they were nuts all show. So that may have bumped the ratings up a bit, but hey, that is a factor, isn’t it? I mean, I seem to remember that in my Smark Handbook at some point. I dunno, I kinda skimmed.

Your hosts were J.R., the Tazz, Cole, the King, Grish, and the King again, because Matt Striker no showed. That sucked. I like Striker a lot on the mic. He’s got JBL’s wrestling cred and he doesn’t let his snob character overwhelm his mic work. But Jerry was more tolerable than usual (he really has been since they broke up he and J.R.), so it wasn’t that bad. But, I mean, who else is gonna make Robert Frost references on a WWE show?

ECW Championship World Title (With Training Wheels!): Matt Hardy over Mark Henry, Twist of Fate, ***

This match set the pace for the whole show; the matches almost uniformly exceeded my admittedly low expectations. That said, I thought this was actually pretty good.

Certainly the best Mark Henry match I’ve ever seen. I mean, that is saying precisely nothing given how I have no basis of comparison for “good singles match for Mark Henry”, but I still thought this was very good, caveats aside. They had their psychology down, and if reading A-Glaze, Vinny, and other ROH-Bots has taught me nothing, then consistency is a really important thing. Also, Henry tried a Banzai Drop. That gets some props.

Women’s Championship Match- Beth Phoenix (w/ SAN-MF’NLOLROLFTW!!-TINO) over Candice Michelle to retain, **1/2

Candice has been earning a reputation as being terrible in the ring, but I thought she carried her end of things well in here. This was again a very good, consistent match, I thought. They played off the established storyline of Beth destroying Candice’s shoulder well, and built some suspense before Beth went over.

I mean, I’m not saying Candice should keep her spot as a top contender when Mickie is loitering about and Gail Kim’s waiting in the wings maybe, given how sloppy she’s been (although, to be fair, she hadn’t wrestled regularly in a year, so can we cut her some slack), but she wasn’t a walking work rate repelling abortion in there, or some other dumb ass thing someone has surely said about her.

Mask vs. Nothing Match- Rey Mysterio over Kane, DQ, *1/2

Yeah, this didn’t work at all. It pains me to say that. I love Rey, and respect Kane a lot and think he’s still a solid worker. But they botched too much and built to nothing. Also, it was a DQ, so they’re gonna milk it for at least a couple more shows, I bet. At least they have they aren’t taking away Rey’s mask (I hope). That and maybe Kane can get an adequate partner so he and __ (Hassertaker?) can fight Rey and Evan Bourne. I would like that a lot.

Really Long Sports Entertainment Segment- CM Punk, Kofi Kingston, and MVP over Priceless and Randy Orton, I guess, **

So, there were parts of this that were cool, and I’d actually mark out over a Punk/MVP teaming, but jeez that was a lot of talking for a PPV. I was all “no buys!” when I was watching this, but then I realized I bought the PPV, and then I felt sad, but then I realized that at least I was morally superior to all of the people who torrenting it. In every way. And then I felt beter. So that was nice.

Seriously, though; Punk and MVP would be an awesome team, I think, and indie marks could get all tingly remembering that they worked FIP together or something.

#1 Contender’s Match- Batista over JBL, Davebomb, ***** for the booking, * for the match, add 12 *s for JBL’s hilarious promo after losing, then at least **** more for Cryme Tyme’s stealing his van and taking the Divas (and Sgt. Slaughter in full costume!) clubbing, round up, divide by 12, and call it ***

So, yeah, that went exactly how I wanted it to. Much like their Summerslam match in 2005 which was pretty much just Dave spearing JBL through a barricade and powerbombing him on steps. That was rad. And so was this whole package, even if I really have no good reason for adding to the star total because Mickie James doing the call and response with Cryme Tyme or Sarge’s huge grin amused the hell out of me. Well, other than that all this star crapola is arbitrary (unless Glazer does it).

Grudge Match- Big Show over Undertaker, ref stoppage of repeated Massive Right Hands of Doom (seriously, if Big Show punched you in the face, that would be doom), ****

No, seriously. They busted their asses out there, hardly ever rested, the ending was good, there were some nice counters; this was as good a match as these two have ever (and probably will ever) have. I also bumped it up a bit because it was nice to finally see Show go over in this long running rivalry, for someone who’s always had a soft spot for the big lug. I have no problem with this ref stoppage thing, because really, they had to acknolwedge UFC somehow, and it is a solid way to make Show look good without compromising ‘Taker’s nigh invincibility.

WWE Championship- HHH over Jeff Hardy, roll up after Swanton, ***3/4

They were able to make it feel like Jeff could actually pull out the big one, and both guys worked hard, so big ups there. This was pretty much exactly what I expected from them, which is no bad thing, but it seemed kind of average when Show and ‘Taker were breaking **** on my scale.

Apparently our man the Hs is moving on to Kozlov because Stephanie has a crush on him, so unless I really am missing the boat on some sort of talent Ol’ Surly Russian Samoa Joe has, this may be the last really watchable Hs match on PPV in a while.

World Heavweight Championship Match Ladder Match- Chris Jericho over Shawn Michaels, *****

No, really. I mean, it’s in the ball park, so what the hell? I mean, the ending was cool, so I can gloss over Cade’s interference, and all the other spots. I barely remember any of them at this point, but I do distinctly remember grinning like an idiot the whole time, so I’m calling it a perfect wrestling match. That seems reasonable, right?