WWE Vengeance
July 27, 2003
Live from the Pepsi Arena in Denver, Colorado
The apogee of two months of pathetic build to the first ever SmackDown-only PPV was Vengeance: a PPV with little problems, good match work, and solid, logical booking that exceeded expectations. While not polar, per se, it is a major difference from last month’s RAW offering, Bad Blood, with surprisingly better buildup than in the past but an awful PPV show at the end of the line.
My main problems were the finishes of two matches: Kurt Angle over Brock Lesnar and Undertaker over John Cena. I have no problem with Taker, himself, but with the writing. The way the match was booked was awful. Not only did, at the end of the match, Taker go over Cena, but he buried him once before when Cena needed three people to interfere to go over, and the finish of the match at Vengeance wasn’t designed to put Cena over, but make Taker look good. Taker dominated the entire match and then kicks out of his move at the end, buries him, and pins him. There isn’t any justification for that no matter where they want to go with this, especially considering Taker is the face. Because with the way this has been booked, a win by Cena in the future would be a fluke victory in the mind of the fans. That’s not good for business in any way. Apparently even the editors of WWE.com see how it’s supposed to be push, writing this summary, “With obvious internal injuries, the Undertaker pinned John Cena after a Last Ride Powerbomb.”
The other was Kurt Angle pinning Lesnar rather than Big Show, but I guess I’ve come into the belief that it won’t matter anyway because of the steps that they’ve already taken to make sure than an eventual recast of their feud wouldn’t draw a dime. The match wasn’t bad.
Gunn/Noble was short and bad but it doesn’t matter because both are buried, and how they were used the following Thursday helped to cement that. In and of itself, I suppose it was effective but the blown finish certainly took away from that. The barroom brawl was heinous. Not to mention there were no rules announced and eliminations weren’t called. Wade Keller who is usually an apologist for these types of segments said, “The barroom brawl was what it was, and I can understand why it was there, and I can live with how it played out. It wasn’t taken seriously or meant to be taken seriously.” Nah, I think Eddie said it best in his PPV edition of News and Analysis, “Nice waste of PPV time.” All the gimmicks, like the Easter Bunny and the Conquistadors were all white guys from OVW.
Stephanie/Sable was, beforehand, over pushed. On the PPV, I had no problems time-wise or quality-wise. Both women exceeded expectations. Benoit/Guerrero was a tremendous opener and TWGTT vs. Mysterio and Kidman was a very good tag team match. I have no clue what Jeremy Borash is talking about when he says that America’s Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) are the surefire best bets for tag team of the year and while they are good and have improved, you just can’t count out the others who are in contention for the prize and have been more consistent that AMW, albeit against talented competitors.
Overall a good, solid showing so I’m going to give a generous score.
{8/10 (8/10 for work; 8 for entertainment; 8 for booking)}
—————-
WWE Bad Blood
June 15, 2003
Live from the Compaq Center in Houston, Texas
And with this PPV, WWE has embarked on the PPV split. It’s unfortunate too, because the best thing for those involved would be to just forget that the event happened. It was a mix of the odd, the ill-placed, the ill-timed, the unfunny, the mediocre and for what it was, was successful because it wasn’t atrocious. There was enough average on this show for the company to get out of things with a C average. But that’s not a good sign.
When a company puts out shows like this, what’s the point of trying to sugarcoat things and say “good effort.” This was not a good effort, but rather a passive descent into hell. I’m not sure if the members of the Armed Forces who got the show for free even got their money’s worth. For a company of this size, with this backing, with this support, with these resources, and their history, what a waste. Why am I mad? Because I support this company with my money and my time and they don’t even have the respect to try to put on a good show, or at least try… and come up short. We can sit here and play masturbatory games with each other, but there’s a problem, there are several, and if we’re just going to shut our mouths and say nothing than I want no part of it. I idly sat by and watched WCW sink into hell because of stupidity and then I watched a pathetic episode of WCW Monday Nitro for the last time as the company was sold cheaply. The company’s dead carcass was then turned into circus with people presented as the WCW jobber heels and the Invasion PPV drew about 700,000 buys with people hoping for the best and getting the worst. Heat killed. And then WWE ignores those mistakes, and I’m supposed to watch the same thing and not even voice my opinion to fans and colleagues alike. What crap.
Austin’s credibility is getting pretty close to ruined. His interactions with Mae Young were cruel, unfunny, and ill-timed. Even worse, the next night, Test attacked Mae Young similarly and was demonized. Ross didn’t care when Austin did it. Austin also put his stamp of approval on this show, which is a really bad thing. Then he does the redneck triathlon with Bischoff which took up way too much time and wasn’t funny. Even if it was funny, this would have been too much time to spend on it. Bischoff went from good heel character to cheap heel that we laugh at in about one week.
The undercard saw these results: Christopher Nowinski and Rodney Mack b The Dudley Boyz in 7:10 when Nowinski pinned Bubba Dudley; Scott Steiner b Test to win Stacy’s services at 6:40; Booker T b Christian via DQ at 8:01 in a match for the Intercontinental Championship; La RÈsistance b Kane and Rob Van Dam in a match for the Tag Team Titles at 5:50 when Grenier pinned RVD. The wrestling was bad (disappointing in most cases) and the booking OK.
Goldberg b Chris Jericho at 11:00. I liked how the match was booked in general, but Goldberg is all but ruined at this point and with the conflict between him and the company being at the point it is, everything is up in the air as to where the situation progresses from here. Also, both sides are paranoid to make this situation worse. Jericho has been a supplementary mid-carder ever since he lost the title.
Ric Flair b Shawn Michaels at 14:07. Huge disappointment with a bad finish. Michaels complained online and they took it down.
Triple H b Kevin in a Hell in a Cell match for The Title (or is it “a title” nowadays) at 21:00. Best match on the card for me but all it was is a short but good brawl.
{3/10 (4/10 for work; 3 for entertainment; 2.5 for booking)}
What do you think? Head over to The X-Forums to let your opinion be heard!
– E-mail feedback to THunnicutt@aol.com
– Read more of Figure Four Leglock!
