As I was watching the live edition of Heat, or the “bore you stupid with recaps before we show you one match” show, I ended up getting stuck into the latest book I’m reading, and I recommend it for one and all to read : Motley Crue - The Dirt. A must read for anyone with even a passing interest in the music world. But you didn’t click on this page to read a book review... and if you did, boy, are you lost!
First up - the Mysterio / Noble match on Heat was most joyous and filled with all sorts of flippy floppy Cruiserweight goodness. Why not on PPV? Who knows. We ended up with Mysterio picking up the win in a short but good match that seemed to heat the crowd up. And in this match, we spotted the welcome return of the Canadian crowd and their hilarious way of shouting “TWO!!!” at every two-count - I love that! Don’t ask me why, but I do.
So on to the main show, and to be honest, it was a show of two halves... it’s an old cliché, but it’s true. Four of the matches were good, the other four were merely there. The expected wave of crowd reaction that I expected for the Rock / Hogan match never really materialised either - maybe it’s the fact it was only a 16,000 crowd as opposed to a 60,000+ crowd, or maybe Hulkamania’s all played out at last, but either way the crowd just weren’t into it.
The crowd were, however, into a hot opening match between Chris Jericho and Jeff Hardy, and it resulted in one of the best matches of year so far. Yes, I’m as shocked as almost anyone else. Sure, Jeff fluffed a few spots, but by his standards, that ain’t bad. The crowd were torn as to whether Jericho was a local hero to be cheered, or a dastardly heel to boo, and in the end settled for a mix of both.
Jericho took the popular (in my household anyway) victory to send the body painted freak scuttling back to whatever hole he crawled out of with his tail between his legs... well, until he would VICIOUSLY attack his brother Matt later in the night for no reason! All Matt did was point out that if Jeff still had Mattitude, he might not be such a loser now - a fair point, I feel.
And isn’t Shawn Michaels a brave man? Showing his face in Montreal after the last time he was there... the crowd were more lenient on him than I expected, there was a fair share of cheers for his brief appearance, and I’m sure that Shawn won’t let us forget that fact.
But back to the running order of things - and I’ll take this time to note that for all the people that slag off JR’s commentary, me included - However bad Jim Ross may be, and we’ll get to that later, The Coach is on a level all of his own. Man, does he suck. He takes sucktitude to a new domain. In the dictionary under the word “sucks” is a four page full colour pullout of The Coach with a pair of commentary headphones on.
Speaking of sucking, here’s William Regal! Yay! What a poor, sorry little excuse for a match this was. Regal being nearly knocked out looked strange to me, didn’t look nearly as bad as the suplex he gave RVD a few minutes later... I did like the finish with Kane’s mask causing some temporary blindness so that he chokeslammed Rob instead... or did it? Maybe Kane’s turning heel. These freaks are temperamental, y’know. Oh it’s true.
However it happened, Regal & Storm manage to hang on to their belts, no doubt so they can drop them to the Dudleys at WrestleMania next month. As long as Michael Cole isn’t in charge of travel arrangements, and they get there on the right day...
The bad memories of that match were wiped away with the beginning of the era of... Mattitude! Bye-bye cardboard boy, your 15 minutes are over! Hardy beats Kidman, and everything is right with the world again. This was probably Kidman’s best match since he arrived in the WWE, all things considered - the difference in styles, pointed out well by both Tazz and Cole, meshed nicely, and a solid little match was put together.
Matt played a heel in this one as well as he ever has, and hopefully, his run with the title will throw up a quality match at WrestleMania, either with his misunderstood pupil Shannon Moore, or the master of the 619 Rey Mysterio - either match looks good to me. This match, however, showcased what Matt could do, and surely must put him in the good books of those in power backstage.
Then shock news from backstage! Edge was attacked and out of action! It was never explained what exactly had happened to him, my own personal theory is that someone jumped him, and snapped his toothbrush - the psychological damage of such an incident caused him to fall headfirst into that pile of rubbish.
And lo, and behold, that was followed by in my eyes, the match of the night - Undertaker vs. Big Show. Damn, if I’m not surprised by that as much as you are. This really was a great match - nicely booked, nice psychology, and nice work from both men - Undertaker sold like a demon for the Big Show, making this a much better match than it had any right to be. Without a doubt, this was the Big Show’s finest moment in the WWE to date - hands down.
Who would have thought in a card with Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam, that the Undertaker of all people would steal spot of the night awards? The return of the much missed “no hands flying Dead Man outta control over the top rope” plancha was superb! My jaw hit the floor when I saw it... not even the threat of a Taker vs. A-Train match at WrestleMania could knock the shine off this one.
Taker winning by a submission as his power moves wouldn’t work against the giant Show was a nice little storyline worked into the match, and given his flirtation with submission wrestling last year, actually made sense. Top match, folks - really.
With Benoit & Lesnar opting not to replace Edge with someone else... such as Rhyno, for example, the sparkling six man tag match turned into a three-on-two handicap, and I felt it suffered a little. Haas & Benjamin are without doubt stars in the making, but the segments of the match that really gelled last night were when Angle was in the ring.
The Benoit / Angle exchanges were as sweet as ever, and the brief Lesnar / Angle grapples promised much for next month’s flagship main event, but without Edge, or indeed any sixth man, this match just seemed to be lacking something.
The latter part of the match was incredible and action packed, but in my mind, having Benoit & Lesnar beat all of Team Angle was just a bit daft - yes, it; makes those two look exceedingly strong, but it devalues Angle to the same extent - even the fact that Lesnar F5’d Angle. Of course, there’s now the psychology for the next match that Angle knows when the F5 is coming and can avoid it, but I doubt that’s the effect that the WWE were going for. Good match, nothing great though.
Now, this is the line. At this point, forget any hopes of stunning five star wrestling exchanges and just hope that strength of emotion from the crowd could carry the remaining matches through. And it very nearly did, just not quite.
Triple H and Scott Steiner put on a match that was horrible, although nowhere near as bad as their Royal Rumble suckfest. What worries me is that it took a belt shot, Evolution and a Pedigree to finally down Steiner - please no, don’t give us any excuse for a rematch! The most enjoyable thing about this match was the crowd - they were SO against Steiner that it was hilarious, not to mention one of the biggest pops of the night being for Triple H when he pushed Earl Hebner, who still got his fair share of “you screwed Bret” chants.
Surely this is going to be the end of Steiner as a main eventer - nobody cares about him and his steroid enhanced freak size extra large arms... nobody cares about him, period. The man is incapable of working even a basic match at the moment, and no way on Earth should he be anywhere near a PPV match, let alone main eventing one. If the WWE can’t see this, and can’t see how popular someone like Booker T or Rob Van Dam is, then maybe they don’t deserve to see their ratings go back up.
Bischoff smarmed his way out to the ring next, not before Good Ol’ JR returned to his spot at the commentary desk after sitting out most of the PPV selling Bischoff’s attack on Monday’s Raw. Bischoff had his plans ruined earlier in the night when Vince told him that the match was one-on-one only and anyone interfering would be fired on the spot... we can only hope that The Coach runs down to ringside, but sadly it never happens...
Austin appears, and the crowd goes insane, as expected. Bischoff tries to smooth things over on the mic with Austin but ends up on the receiving end of some big time right hands and right boots as Austin literally stomps the mudhole that is Bischoff dry. Credit to Bisch, he took some pretty good bumps in this match... he did get one kick in to Austin’s ribcage, which Austin no sold with one of the sickest grins you’ll see in your life... and following that there was a hat-trick of Stunners, and that’s all she wrote for Austin’s return to WWE action.
Which would have been fine were it not for JR exploding up at the commentary desk. Honestly, I half expected JR to get down and one knee and propose to Austin at one point it was that bad. Sure, he’s supposed to be on Austin’s side and against the man that assaulted him less than one week ago, but to the point where you get the overriding urge to kill the sound, the TV or whatever happens to be within kicking distance surely isn’t right... “Bah God Austin’s Back! I’ll have his babies! I want that man’s children! I’m here Austin, take me big boy!!!” Is about the only comment we didn’t get from JR this evening...
Putting the Austin match on directly before the Rock vs. Hogan match may have been responsible for the slightly muted reaction for the two would be movie stars. Yes, there was a reaction, but I don’t think it was on the level that the WWE were expecting, going by the amount of hype placed on this match.
Rock’s new “Hollywood” entrance is nice though, and that would pretty much prove to be the highlight of the match. What worked in Toronto seemed forced in Montreal, all the Hulk poses of old, and not even the Rock’s over the top heelishness could make it seem like anything other than an old man shaking his head about aimlessly.
We all knew the Montreal screwjob was on the way, but the way it was presented was different to infamous incident in 1997. The lights going out let a lot of people down when they came back up and there was nobody standing in the ring... that would have been the perfect entrance for some, you feel, perhaps even Goldberg, heaven forbid... but the referee being in on the finish to that extent was a neat idea.
At the end of the day, the match was never going to set the world on fire, but it never got the chance to - all the stalling and time spent outside the ring, and the overbooking inserted by Vince McMahon to basically set up the WrestleMania match of Hogan vs. McMahon seemed forced to me, and just ruined any chances the match had of catching the attention of the fans.
They spent all of Smackdown setting up Rock as an UltraHeel, when at the end of the day, he looked to be nothing more than Vince McMahon’s henchman. Having the PPV go off air with Vince mocking Hogan posing shows you exactly what this show was about - building to WrestleMania.
The four matches that were good, were excellent entertainment, but not even those four moments of greatness could cover over the cracks caused by the overbooking, sloppy work, and lack of interest in the other 4 matches. Had the last three matches not been on the show, it would have been not too bad... but the last three matches left a bad taste in my mouth, and I would find it hard to say it was a good show on that basis.
Until next time, have fun, go mad.
