Source: WWE.com
Less than 24 hours before Extreme Rules prevail at One Night Stand, Superstars from Raw, SmackDown and ECW battled in a proverbial circus of extremes that ranged from the biggest, the smallest, the strangest and the strongest. The result: one of the wildest editions of Saturday Night’s Main Event in WWE history.
The biggest focused on none other than the 7-foot-3, 420-pound Great Khali, who seriously downsized WWE Champion John Cena in non-title competition before their Pinfalls Count Anywhere Match Sunday night. Despite besting the behemoth at Judgment Day by making him tap out to the STFU, The Champ has been measurably manhandled since (many say “foolishly”) challenging Khali to a rematch at One Night Stand. Saturday Night’s Main Event proved no different. Cena’s attempts to mount an offense — highlighted by two failed efforts to heave the mammoth up in the FU — only produced colossal elbows and size 18EEEE boots to his face, a giant chop across his skull and a monstrous chokeslam that laid him out. Khali’s insultingly nonchalant pinfall victory over The Champ left our shocked fans asking the biggest question of all: If Cena can’t hit the FU, how can he possibly pin Khali anywhere at One Night Stand?
SNME’s smallest altercation was anything but belittling for Hornswoggle and Little Boogeyman, whose tiny tete-a-tete on SmackDown Friday night once again drew Finlay and Boogeyman into their growing (?) rivalry. Early in the tag contest, the worm-eating wildmen from the Bottomless Pit threatened to walk tall, but Hornswoggle’s stunted shenanigans would eventually exploit the twin freaks’ short attention spans. Boogeyman would chase the spooked leprechaun up the entrance ramp, allowing Finlay to connect with a big boot to Little Boogey’s face and pick up the three-count. The pitter-patter of panicked little feet rampaged around the arena hallway soon afterward, as an angry Little Boogeyman chased Hornswoggle back out to the ring and effectively cut short Extreme Expose’s performance to Timbaland’s “Throw it on Me.” The leprechaun and mini-maniac earned huge cheers from the crowd when they next hoisted Brooke and Layla on their respective shoulders, prompting the bewildered beauties to playfully engage in a catfight (or in the case of these tiny terrors, a “kitty-diddy”).
Amazingly, SNME’s strangest encounter of the evening was an eclectic Six-Man Tag Match that seemed torn from the pages of Ripley’s Believe it or Not, in which Umaga, Viscera & Kevin Thorn battled Kane, a superhero outfit-clad Eugene and the returning Doink the Clown. Despite early in-ring antics from Raw’s wrestling savant and WWE’s classic horn-honking jokester, freakish fortune seemed to favor the Samoan Bulldozer, the World’s Largest Love Machine and ECW’s bloodsucking Superstar…until SmackDown’s Big Red Monster tagged in. Unleashing pure hell against the adversarial trio, Kane’s bone-jarring chokelsam on the 500-pound Viscera powered his team to victory, and undoubtedly sent a chilling message to Mark Henry, his opponent at One Night Stand. The 380-pound strongman may have the mass going into their Lumberjack Match Sunday night, but the Big Red Monster is more than ready to deliver the mayhem.
Of course, Henry may not have received Kane’s message, since he was helping ECW World Champion Mr. McMahon deliver one to Bobby Lashley. Moments before the “strongest” portion of Saturday Night’s Main Event — an Arm-Wrestling Contest — took place, the self-professed “Doctor of Hardcore” suddenly bowed out. Rationalizing that he’d get to “embarrass” Lashley at One Night Stand, Mr. McMahon decided to name Henry as his arm-wrestling replacement. Needless to say, it was all just a ploy for the World’s Strongest Man to strong-arm Lashley, and allow the “World’s Strongest McMahon” to demoralize his challenger less than 24 hours before their Street Fight for the ECW World Title. All signs point to Mr. McMahon having the last laugh Sunday night; can Lashley somehow curb the ego-centric Chairman’s enthusiasm, and reclaim the ECW World Title?
Prior to SNME’s Tag Team Match against Batista & Chris Benoit, World Heavyweight Champion Edge informed Raw Diva Maria that he wasn’t the biggest, the smallest, the strangest or the strongest. “What I am,” he claimed, “is the greatest.” If by that he meant nervously escaping up the ramp and leaving his partner — United States Champion Montel Vontavious Porter — high and dry, then no one’s better than the ultimate opportunist. Now mere hours away from meeting Batista inside a Steel Cage at One Night Stand, Edge looked more than a little shell-shocked to discover that The Animal’s heavily taped right hamstring (a well-documented injury resulting from three brutal encounters with Undertaker) no longer showed signs of hampering his awesome power. Therefore, the Rated-R Superstar decided to leave MVP to the not-so-tender mercies of Batista and the Rabid Wolverine, whose flying headbutt off the top rope secured the win. He’ll have nowhere to run at One Night Stand, however; locked in the cage with a now-healthy Animal chomping at the bit, it may, in fact, be Edge’s last stand as champion.
