PPV review

I live in Maryland so I was able to attend this event live in Philly. I bought the DVD the other night to see how it holds up.

The first match of the evening was Batista and Ric Flair defending the titles against The Dudleys in a Tables Match. I had high hopes for this one because I hadn't seen a Tables Match on a PPV for a long time. I could have done without the Coach's interference, especially when you just knew that was going to give the win to Evolution. It was a pretty sloppy match as Batista and the Dudleys had some ugly punches and a botched spot or two. But all in all, I was glad to see the titles stay in Evolution for a while longer. I wish Batista hadn't interrupted their music when they came out though cause I like their song. He just used it to get cheap heat on the Eagles anyway which caused The Dudleys to attack, as if they care about the Eagles anyway. Grade: C

The cruiserweight title match was 3 minutes long. Unbelievable. I know between the actual Rumble match and a Last Man Standing Match, that's going to take up half your PPV as it is, but come on, three minutes? Good effort from Mysterio and Noble. Grade: D

The battle of Los Guerreros was kind of a let-down. Lots of slow wear-down holds which normally I don't have any problem with, but with the bad blood between these two (not to mention the wrestling ability) I thought there'd be some more high spots. It was kind of annoying watching Eddie refuse to punch Chavo since you knew he was just gonna snap before the match ended anyhow. Grade: B-

I may have been the only person in the Wachovia Center who was excited to see Hardcore Holly challenge for the WWE Championship. Granted it was the most predictable PPV Title match since Big Show/Big Bossman in 1999, but I like it when WWE gives one of their long-time veterans a title shot just to break the monotony of the same couple of guys trading off. So it was fun, although I wouldn't want to see Holly as a consistent main-eventer. OK match, nothing special, which when you're talking a championship match, you hope for something special. Lesnar didn't seem like he had his head too into the match. Maybe he was just thinking about his Goldberg run-in later. Grade: C+

As expected, Triple H vs The Heartbreak Kid in a Last Man Standing Match stole the PPV at least as far as the regular matches go. Both guys took some bumps, both guys bled (no surprise that Michaels bladed himself deeper than a Confucius proverb) I guess the only thing I didn't like was that after Michaels hit Sweet Chin Music he couldn't answer the 10-count. You'd think after a guy hits his finisher he could stand up, but I guess they just needed a way to keep the belt on Triple H without having Shawn put him over. Grade: A

I should probably preface the Rumble review by saying the Rumble match has been and will continue to be my favorite hour of the entire year. Being there live, actually taking part in the countdown for each wrestler was a blast, and the match itself didn't disappoint, even if I was right in guessing who was going to win. Benoit and Orton were the two perfect guys to last the longest time. Their conditioning is fantastic and they're both very entertaining. I liked it around the halfway mark when I think Angle was beating the hell out of Benoit and he looks over at Orton sitting in the corner as if to say, "You want some of this?" and Orton just shakes his head and holds his hands up as if to say "Can't you see I'm sitting down here?" Great stuff. Plenty of great spots so I'll try to be quick touching on them. How in the hell can Bradshaw go from being the first guy eliminated in the Rumble to WWE champ in 6 months. There's always one guy who comes in and hits his finisher on about 4 guys then gets thrown over the top before he can eliminate anybody. This year it was Bradshaw. There's also the guy who gets thrown out almost before his music has a chance to stop (see: Hurricane) I liked seeing Tajiri get eliminated while giving the Tarantula. Creative. Booker T was in and out a little faster than I would have liked but I guess they had enough main-eventers in the last 5 or 6 that they needed someone to go out early. Nobody I talked to thought Undertaker was coming back that night. But we all hoped he would, so when his music hit, the place went nuts. When it turned out it was just Spike Dudley tricking Kane, the crowd really started to boo and get mad. It didn't translate on to the DVD just how pissed all 17,000 of us were. It was nice seeing The Cat dance for a minute and a half just to have Orton and Benoit eliminate him and Lamont. Once again, the roof came off during Mick Foley's entrance. It was nice seeing him and Orton in a slugfest outside the ring and up the entranceway. I noticed Angle and Benoit looked to be doing some nice, high-impact moves through all of this. Too bad almost none of it made it into the broadcast as the camera just followed Orton and Foley for 3 minutes. Watching Nunzio hide outside the ring was great and watching him protest when Cena tossed him in the ring was even better. Brock Lesnar with the F5 on Goldberg was nice because I'm not sure who else was going to throw him out of the match. The Big Show was dominant with a capital D. Watching him throw Jericho, Angle, Benoit, Van Dam and Cena off of him all at once two separate times is awesome. Watching him take four finishers and staying in, not to mention eliminating 4 of those 5 was great. I would have loved to see WWE have the guts to give Big Show the match, but the majority of fans I guess would have been upset with that. Besides, who can argue with Benoit winning the match and headlining Wrestlemania? Also, the ending was great, cause you think, if 5 guys couldn't eliminate The Big Show how can one guy do it, but they did it in a believable, dramatic way. Great, great match. Grade: A+

Wow, had no intentions of writing that much. All in all, it was OK, but live it was amazing. The first 4 matches weren't anything you wouldn't have seen on Raw or Smackdown. But the World Title match and the Rumble Match made up for it and got the ball rolling on the Road to Wrestlemania.

P.S. Check my profile for other PPV reviews I've done. Check them out and let me know what you think.