Oh my God. The Spanish Announcer's table! That alone has me pumped as I hope someone gets thrown through it for nostalgia purposes lol.
Intercontinental Championship: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. Kofi Kingston
In twenty minutes when Drew McIntyre gets to the ring, I'll start reviewing this match. "So Vince McMahon matters more than our fans?" Sometimes I wonder that myself. Is it just me, or are the camera angles in NXT format tonight? I hope they don't standardize that, as it feels awkward to me. This is a good match to pick for the opener. It's not too exciting where the ppv peaks early on, but it's not killing the momentum right off the bat either. I liked the twist on the Boom drop where McIntyre was laying on the ropes/turnbuckle. Any time someone does a variation of their move, it's cool in my book. SOS wins the match? Wow. I personally like that better than the Trouble in Paradise, but I'm surprised they used it as the finisher. Decent opener, made better by the title win.
WINNER (and new Intercontinental champion): Kofi Kingston via pinfall.
Drew McIntyre gets on the mic and says that Teddy Long needs to come out and reverse the decision, letting McIntyre retain the title. Matt Hardy comes out instead, looking for revenge with a Twist of Fate. Drew's elbow is bleeding. Quick! Somebody patch it up!!
CM Punk and the Two Dwarfs
The Straight Edge Society is backstage watching Punk pull a "mirror, mirror on the wall". Punk gets some praise from them about how great he is and he talks about how he'll beat Mysterio tonight and convert him over.
R-Truth vs. Ted DiBiase (w/ Virgil)
Even though it's just a rehash of his father's character, I'm really liking this story with Teddy. It seems to have given him much more confidence and it's definitely helping him come off as a more interesting character instead of just being Orton 2.0 and a generic lackey. Michael Cole says that not everybody wants to be rich. I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Cole. "There's that Krispy Kreme look in his eyes. He's glazed over!" Lawler's still good at those one-liners. He follows it up with "Never argue with an idiot because they bring you down to their level and beat you with their experience." They're really ripping into Striker tonight. Very stalled 2 and a half count after DiBiase gives Truth an Electric Chair. Truth hits a cool looking "suplex stunner" as they classified it and finishes the match with the Lie Detector. Not a bad match by any means, even for R-Truth.
WINNER: R-Truth via pinfall.
Backstage with McIntyre Luther King Jr.
Teddy is in his office talking about how he can't wait to see Cena vs. Batista when Drew comes in, bitching that he should give him his title back and fire Matt Hardy. Teddy naturally refuses, so Drew starts destroying the office. Long begs him not to destroy the Martin Luther King Jr. picture because it means a lot to him. Drew says he'll leave it up to be an example of what McIntyre is but Long isn't.
CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio
There's a nice little change up of things as Rey's been doing this spot where he's thrown to the outside but this time, he's thrown into the barber chair. Best part of the match so far (and it probably won't be topped). The match comes to a complete dead stop as Punk is bleeding. Ugh. I hate how they do this. Now the entire match and the ppv itself comes to a stand-still and everything is put on hold. They're men. They can bleed. Just tell them not to blade anymore. THANKFULLY the fans start chanting "boring". Good. Show them how stupid it is. The match is restarted and Punk's smart enough to realize they're suffering from the stall so he puts a ton of energy into it immediately. Punk does a series of three straight edge pledge variations of the Five Knuckle Shuffle. Rey hits a nice sunset flip powerbomb in the corner. Nice to see him actually willing to try something new for once. Rey hits the 619, misses the splash, but rolls Punk up for the three. I'm ok with admitting when I'm wrong and they proved me wrong for this. I thought it would be much worse, but outside of the stall (which neither of them are at fault for), it wasn't too bad.
WINNER: Rey Mysterio via pinfall.
The Straight Edge Society attacks Mysterio but Kane makes the save. Punk gets handcuffed to the ropes and is given another 619. I find it funny that while Rey is shaving Punk's head and Punk is screaming, he's also bleeding, which makes it seem so much more violent than anything that happened during the match that they stopped it for. Michael Cole says that Punk is "ugly as sin". Striker, pissed at all the comments he keeps getting from Lawler and Cole, shoots and says they jump on him any time he says something, then makes fun of them doing the clipper sounds. Striker does a Cole impression to make him sound stupid, saying "I'm Michael Cole, I get beat up on TV". These guys are either playing it up and doing a great job at it or they're really annoyed by each other. Punk leaves with a towel covering his head.
Backstage with JeriShoMiz
Big Show warms up and Jericho talks about how Big Show was the dead weight of their teams and Jericho/Miz is much better. Big Show threatens to knock them out, so they leave.
Prince of Persia Commercial
Yeah, a commercial on a pay-per-view. Part of the money you've paid goes towards watching a commercial. Ridiculous.
Unified Tag Team Championship: The Hart Dynasty (c) vs. Chris Jericho & The Miz
One of my favorite things about Harry Smith is how long he can keep that vertical suplex. He's not that huge, but he's a good size where he can play the power game but also be reasonably quick as well. Too often, big guys are limited like Khali or smaller guys can't come off as powerful, but Smith is at a good size. Random Y2J chant which was short lived. They make references to bad haircuts and even say Striker needs a new one, yet nobody's mentioning the horrible situation with Tyson Kidd? Kidd springboards but lands right onto a Codebreaker. Not too shabby. It's only a two-count, so Jericho yells at the ref. The Miz tries to trip Smith but there's only another two-count. Natalya follows it up by tripping Jericho, allowing Smith to hit a power slam, though that's followed by a two as well. I thought that would be the end. The Miz tries to put the Sharpshooter on Smith, but he escapes with a roll-up. Lots of close near-falls here, all of which are making me think it could be the end. It truly ends, however, with the Hart Attack on the Miz.
WINNERS: The Hart Dynasty via pinfall.
Randy Orton vs. Edge
Slow, unimpressive match for a very long time, which elicits a small (but still audible) "this is boring" chant. There's nothing really to talk about yet. This feud has suffered with being rushed but on top of that, they're not trying hard enough to actually have a great match. This is slow, lumbering, and going nowhere but the norm. Orton basically stops the match, kicks Edge out to stall some more time, and is really acting weird with his arm. He may have injured himself after punching the mat while psyching himself up. Orton definitely looks injured and it appears as if they improvised by having a double count-out with Edge missing a spear on the outside. If Orton's injured, you can't blame them for anything that happened after that. All the crap beforehand, yeah, that sucked, with no excuses. Every so often, things happen in wrestling that seem like fate, if you think about it. Maybe this is a sign that it was indeed too early to do this feud. Hopefully Morrison gets a push to fill in the gap.
WINNER: N/A. Double count-out.
World Heavyweight Championship: Jack Swagger (c) vs. Big Show
Big Show throws his shirt into the audience so a fan can use it for a bed sheet. It seems like any time Big Show turns face, people are willing to accept it. And good lord, Swagger is a big guy and looks small in comparison. Nice taunting from Big Show, doing Swagger's patented push-ups. The match isn't too bad, but it's cut VERY short after Swagger hits Big Show with the belt and intentionally gets disqualified. That sucks. I was looking forward to this. Swagger then hits Show in the back with a chair. I guess they weren't sure how to have Swagger retain and just went with the cheap DQ out of unoriginality. Big Show then chokeslams him and hits Swagger with the chair in retaliation. Then, he chokeslams him again, this time on the bent chair. This is followed by a knockout punch, and it all ends up with Swagger looking like absolute crap. Great job. They could've easily had Swagger win the match legit and come out of it looking like a strong champ, but no, they've once again got to recede into "heels can't win clean and every new champ has to be booked to look weak in their first title reign".
WINNER: Big Show via disqualification.
AXE Shampoo Commercial
Again, a commercial on a pay-per-view. Up the price for each show, then add commercials too. Yeah, and they wonder why people look for free streams instead. Jackasses.
Backstage with Batista
Batista says he's going to win. Same old, same old.
Diva's Championship: Eve Torres (c) vs. Maryse
Blah blah blah. Etcetera, etcetera. Maryse is hot. Yadda, yadda, yadda. So on and so forth. Maryse yells "do your freakin' job" to the ref after she doesn't score the pin. I think the PG-police is going to arrest her. Eve is trying to improve. I'll give her that. She may not be good, but she's trying. Eve wins after doing a sort of bulldog with her ass. Jennifer Lopez's ass can sell records, but Eve's can win wrestling matches.
WINNER: Eve via pinfall.
WWE Championship: John Cena (c) vs. Batista
Batista gives Cena the option to quit before he "puts his ass in a world of pain". Why didn't Batista have this much character beforehand? The guy decides to leave and suddenly becomes so much better. Not before long, the "Let's go Cena!" / "Cena sucks!" chants start, and naturally, Michael Cole has to try to cover it up by using their buzz-phrase that "nobody evokes a bigger reaction, good or bad, from the crowd than John Cena". Everything about Cena is repetitive - even their response to chants. Batista clamps on his new submission move, but of course, Cena doesn't quit. Cena then just flips him over and puts on the STF. Random hulk-up moment #1. Batista passes out, so Cena gets a water bottle and dumps it on him to wake him up. We all know that if you're unconscious from physical reasons, water fixes that. And despite being knocked out, Batista's immediately able to hit a spinebuster and a Batista Bomb on Cena, the fresh guy. C'mon. Batista hits a running powerslam and destroys the Spanish announcer's table. I'll admit it, I smiled. Nostalgia's great. Cena's busted open, though. You know what this means. Everybody freeze! The boos start. Guys, get louder when this happens. Send them a message. Cena and Batista walk through the crowd and Batista falls into a bunch of people that are planted there to catch him, which comes off looking rather bad. Apparently, the whole point of going out into the crowd was for that spot, as they're now heading back. All that time spent setting up a really lame spot that looked cheesy and fake. Now they're around the entrance ramp. Please, don't do any of those terrible exploding set things. Figures. They combine both the fake pyro spot with the fake car crash spot by having Batista get into the car that's been on stage all night for decoration and back up into the set, where it magically just bursts with 2 weak spots of fireworks. Cena then throws Batista onto the car with an Attitude Adjustment, gets on the mic and says he's glad Batista didn't quit there. He threatens to give him another Attitude Adjustment from the top of the car onto the set, so Batista quits like a pussy. Cena does it anyway and Batista falls through a pre-cut out section of the stage which looks like it's made out of cardboard. Such a waste of potential. Cena is attacked by Sheamus. I was already annoyed. The last thing you needed to do was remind me of that overrated piece of crap.
WINNER: John Cena via Batista leaving the company and needing to go out looking like a pansy.
Alright, so overall, the ppv averages out to about a C. The main events and Orton/Edge were severe let downs, but the rest of it was good. And to be fair, Swagger and Show only sucked because of horrible booking. So really, the fault lies on Orton and Edge not having a good match even before Orton got injured (as like I said, I don't blame them for anything after the injury) and on both the booking of Cena/Batista and their performances in it. Now the story becomes "what's next for Fatal Four-Way" as well as "what's the story with Orton's injury?"
What did you think of the ppv? Leave your thoughts below.
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