What Worked
The
tables match was pretty fun, as they kept the meat of the match to a straight
tag format which Beniot and Gurrerro are masters at. Spike Dudley looked
really good here , breaking out a bunch of offense he doesn’t usually use.
I was mainly hoping neither Eddie or Beniot would take stupid career threatening
bumps, and while Eddie’s was a little dicey, I can tolerate Beniot going
butt first through a table. I hope this feud is over and they can find
something better to do with Beniot and Guerrerro.
Jamie
Knoble continues the weird mat based juniors matches by tearing up Billy
Kidman’s arm. Kidman is pretty generic, although I liked the fireams carry
headbreaker thing in a “throwaway move in a Colt Cabana match” kind of
way. I tried to argue with Dean that Kidman’s shitty powerbomb reversal
was quasi legitimate because Knoble won the title with a powerbomb, I don’t
know if I even convinced myself. Knoble v. Rey Jr. will be really good.
Cena
is pretty useless and Natural Born Thrillazy, but I thought the last couple
of minutes of that match were nicely laid out. If Cena wasn’t so vanilla
and boring this would be a smart move. But he is; so it isn’t. Maybe I
shouldn’t put this up here actually. I did like the last four minutes though.
Regal
and Jeff Hardy don’t match up particularly well,but I did like the story
of Regal countering all of Hardy’s big spots and Regal does so many little
things which put a smile on my face. I really liked the move where he put
his knee in the back of Hardy’s face and smashed it into the mat.
I
find myself actually enjoying Brock Lesner lately, for a big guy he bumps
and sells well, and outside of some really embarrasing RVD kicks (one of
those kicks to the thigh was ludicrously loose) this was a fun energetic
match, the best of Lesner’s WWE run. The ending was really shitty, there
is no reason that Lesner can’t just beat RVD, or RVD can’t beat Lesner
or a countout or Dusty finish or lights going out and Jake Roberts DDTing
everyone, anything but that shitty finish. I really dug the meat of the
match though.
The
two big spots in the Booker T v. Big Show match were big ass fun spots,
and Booker went over. I got no problems with that.
The
main event had some really spotty execution especially by Rock and Taker,
but it was really well laid out. Angle looked awesome, bumping huge, bleeding
and hitting everything really crisp. I love Ross calling him a master of
multiple suplexes when he has two less suplexes then Dutch Mantel. Rock
looked really skinny more like Soap era Crystal then portly City Slickers
Crystal. Angle shouldn’t have eaten the pin, he should have won the title,
he is head and shoulders above Rock and Taker at this point.
What Didn’t Work
That
long ass promo thing between all of those people I don’t give a shit about
took a long time. I predicted that it wouldn’t take me long to get sick
of Bishoff and it took one week. Face Stephanie is very Linda like in her
emoting. I did enjoy them making HHH’s music really loud to cover the total
lack of crowd heat his posing got.
Hogan
looks worse then Eigen at this point, he isn’t even as good as current
drunk Robert Gibson, and comparing him to 80’s (or even 90’s) Gibson is
sacralege, Christian and Storm looked pretty shitty too, especially their
strikes. This match was the drizzles.
Phil Schneider