(Source: Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer)
Val Venis vs. Tyson Tomko opens the show as the Heat match. Tomko won after a high kick. Venis did a good job here and it was better than you’d think.
Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Jericho for the IC title is the PPV opener. Crowd early was kind of down. Jericho was clearly the crowd favorite, even to the point of booing when Benjamin mae the ropes on the walls. Benjamin got a cradle pin after a series of reversals of cradles. Very good match. Jericho walked off on an interview after the match, teasing a needed heel turn.
Tag team guantlet match for the titles is next up.
Heart Throbs vs. Regal & Tajiri starts this off. Tajiri pinned Antonio with a sunset flip out of the corner
Regal & Tajiri vs. Maven & Dean ended with Regal pinned Dean after a running knee
Regal & Tajiri vs. La Resistance ended with Conway pinning Regal after a schoolboy holding the tights
La Resistance vs. Hurricane & Rosey ended with Hurricane doing a splash off Rosey’s shoulders onto Conway so they ended the match a the new tag champs. There was enough of Grenier for the comedy bad stuff, but most of the match was fine.
Edge vs. Benoit in the last man standing match is up now. Brutal match, combining big wrestling moves along with garbage can shots. Benoit was out there killing himself including a tope into a garbage can lid swing like a baseball bat by Edge, something like 8 German Suplexes and a missed diving head-butt off the top of the ladder. The last man standing frequent 10 counts hurt momentum and crowd heat wasn’t great for the finish but the people popped for a lot of early stuff. Match was so strong that after a few minutes, there were no more Matt Hardy chants after loud chants early. Edge won via ten count after hitting Benoit in the back of the head with a brick. Crowd chanted for Benoit and Benoit’s selling of the KO was great.
They were about to interview the various Divas after showing bikini shots plugging the magazine when Chris Masters showed up. His challenge is up to $3,000. He picked a woman out of the crowd, who was Melissa Coates, a former pro bodybuilder who wrestles in OVW and laid her out. They acknowledged her name, but not her background. She claimed to be from Manchester, and Masters made a joke about putting the Man in Manchester.
Viscera wanted to take Trish Stratus to a bed & breakfast.
Kane vs. Viscera is next. They have several challenges ahead of them, between following the match and the fact Lita is at ringside. Lita did seem to be going heel in her pre-match promo.
Kane got the pin after a choke slam. Terrible match. Stratus told Viscera he was pathetic. She said she’d have never slept with a loser like him. She said she’s getting a real man to take out Viscera. Viscera gave her a quick bearhug and big splash. I’m guessing Stratus has to take time off for her back injury. Stratus went out on a stretcher.
Hogan & Michaels vs. Hassan & Daivari is next. Crowd went nuts for Hogan of course, during the intro, and for some of his trademark spots. Hogan didn’t do the legdrop but aside from that, looked about the same as he did the last time around. He didn’t limp at all this time. Michaels superkicked Daivari and Hogan pinned him. Then came the long posing routine which got over huge as well.
They did an ECW PPV commercial. Heyman did the VO on the commercial.
Looks like we’ve got a 20:00 main event coming.
Christian came out for a rap. Crowd booed him. He was mostly building up going to Smackdown to face Cena.
Batista pinned HHH with a Batista bomb. They had a good match. A couple of ref bumps, all the usual short cuts. HHH did a pedigree but it was during a ref bump. Batista sold most of the way. HHH knocked down Flair and gave a pedigree to the ref after the match.
Thanks again for reading,
Joe
