PPV review

Just wanted to write a review of the April PPV for 2004 and would like to hear what everyone else thought too.

First up was Ric Flair against Shelton Benjamin. If anyone has just recently become a fan of wrestling and never has seen Flair in his prime, I encourage them to buy some old tapes on eBay or better yet buy his DVD. He's nowhere near what he used to be, but this match shows that he's still entertaining. His matches on Raw have become fairly predictable and formulaic, but on a PPV he was given a chance to do some different stuff. I thought this was a good match and I especially liked when Flair chop blocked Shelton's leg and all the work he did after that on his knee. I was glad Benjamin won this match, but I do kind of wish they didn't have Flair job all the time in singles matches. Seems the only time he wins these days is when he's teaming up with Batista. I believe this was Shelton's first PPV singles match and it showed me that he'll be a main-eventer for 10-15 years to come. Grade: B+

Next up was The Coach and Tajiri, which sucked to me. I did enjoy seeing Coach do some actual wrestling moves and hearing how surprised King was that The Coach could actually do them. Coach sold Tajiri's kicks pretty well and the dropkick to Coach's head while he was in the Tree Of Woe was one of the PPV's highlights for me. Normally I don't have a problem with this kind of match, but what bothered me was the finish. Garrison Cade (WTF?) runs down and punches Tajiri one time and that was enough for Coach to get the win. No brass knuckles, just one punch. At least hit your finisher, oh wait, Cade doesn't have a finisher. I don't mind Tajiri getting upset cause it wasn't expected but Cade should be in OVW not WWE. Grade: D

Chris Jericho took on Trish and Christian in a handicap match. This was a well done fued with solid writing and in this match, solid wrestling. I would have liked to have seen Trish get pinned or better yet tap out, but I was glad Y2J got the win nevertheless. It wasn't as good as the Wrestlemania match, but with these two guys in the ring, it wasn't disappointing. Grade: B

The women's title was up for grabs with Victoria vs. Lita. If I remember correctly, this match kind of came out of nowhere and there wasn't really a feud. The beginning wasn't very good. They reversed a couple of each other's moves and kind of smiled at each other and shook hands like RVD does whenever there's a combination of moves that end in a stalemate with his opponent. Too bad in this case, it sucked and no one cared that they were evenly matched. It got better later in the match and seeing Lita in that surfboard submission (I think it's called the Mexican Deathlock) was nice. Victoria won which was a surprise to no one since she only won the title the month before. One thing I didn't realize that was brought to my attention during this match by good ol' JR was that Lita hasn't held the women's title since 2000. I know she missed a year but that was kind of shocking seeing as there's usually no more than 8 or so active women wrestlers at one time. Grade: D+

Randy Orton vs. Mick Foley. No holds barred. No disqualification. Hardcore. Intercontinental Title. There was a lot of hype leading to this match and they did not disappoint. About the only thing you could get disappointed about was Orton winning since Foley is a hardcore legend and it would have been nice to see him win. But at the same time it was a great win and helped elevate Orton from IC Title status to World Title. I knew Foley wasn't going to become Intercontinental Champion but I still thought he might win and they'd have a tournament or something. The barbed-wire bat or Barbie, was used a lot which was cool, but sometimes Foley missed Orton's head by so much it was comical. Throwing Randy off the stage was good and Foley's dive on top of him was nuts. Watch it and you'll see a piece of wood jutting out from where the table used to be and just how close Mick was to hitting it. I couldn't believe Randy kicked out there. That was when I knew he was going to win the match. The thumbtacks were awesome. I was surprised it was Orton that went into them. I just figured it would be Mick since he wrestles with a shirt on while Randy doesn't. The crowd went nuts and you couldn't help feel bad for Randy. I was glad to see Mick kick out of one RKO and I was glad it took an RKO on top of Barbie to finally do him in. Grade: A

Hurricane and Rosey vs. La Resistance for the number one contender for the tag team titles. At least I think that's what they said but I can't remember Flair and Batista defending against Hurricane and Rosey who won this match due to some inadvertant interference from Eugene. I like both of these teams but this just wasn't a great match. It was more an excuse to get Eugene onto the PPV for something. Eugene was really over then as it was only a couple of weeks after his debut. This set up his first match on Raw which was against Rob Conway. Grade: C

Edge makes his return against Kane. Not really much of a feud here as it was set up the week or so before by Eric Bischoff to punish Edge for spearing him. I find Edge's moveset to be very limited even when he's healthy. Combine that with the ring rust he had in this one and it wasn't a good match. Edge wins by weakly hitting Kane with his cast and spearing him. Kane deserves better than this. Edge as a face really bores me. Also, isn't his Spear just about the worst finisher of all-time? I mean, it's cool when Goldberg does but he's about 300 pounds and follows it up with a Jackhammer. How come Edge spears Kane and gets a win but if Kane were clotheslined viciously by Batista or powerslammed by The Undertaker, those wouldn't pin him. They're much more high impact moves. I like continuity from WWE and a smaller wrestler (who I'll admit has bulked up considerably over the last 2 years) shouldn't beat main eventers with a weak move just cause it's his "finisher". Grade: D-

And now on to the main event or as it's called here, The Final Encounter. Hmmm, Chris Benoit comes back to his hometown in front of his family to defend the title that he won just a few weeks before. Often, this kind of predictability can kill a match, but with three of the best going at it in Benoit, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, this one was superb. A lot of different endings were teased but eventually Michaels tapped out to Benoit with Triple H only seconds away from making the save. I liked HBK diving off the turnbuckle through the Spanish announcer's table although I thought he should have gotten up a bit quicker. He was down for somewhere between 5-10 minutes. Hey, here's a little memo for you Canadians: 1997 called, they want their storylines back. I know WWE encouraged it in this match with Mike Chioda getting knocked out and Earl Hebner running down to the ring while HBK had Benoit in the Sharpshooter. But give it a rest. What should the WWF have done, allow Bret to keep the title and take it with him to WCW? It was the birth of the Mr. McMahon character and helped usher in the Attitude era, probably the most successful time in the company's history. Stop with the You screwed Bret chants, it's just not relevant anymore. It's just kind of dumb when Michaels is getting cheered all throughout the States but then he gets to Canada and gets booed like he's David Arquette winning the WCW title. This was a wonderful match. I loved when Triple H got thrown in the crowd right next to this old lady. I thought she was going to have a heart attack, she was so shocked. As expected, we saw all their finishers and they all gave a great effort. Grade: A

An average PPV made great by the Intercontinental Title match and the World Title match. Also good efforts from Flair & Benjamin, and Jericho & Christian.

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