Full Credit: F4WOnline.com’s James Shannon
Mysterio kicks off the show coming to the ring with his Intercontinental Championship. The main event tonight will be Team Ego of Edge and Jericho taking on Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio. Rey switches back and forth between Spanish and English. They’re in California (Rey’s hometown), so every sentence is getting cheered. He says that he’ll do anything he can in his upcoming extreme rules match to shut Jericho up.
Jericho comes out in a suit and tie. He’s the best talker in the WWE Universe. On a side note, there’s a big black and white sign in the crowd that simply reads “GAY”. Someone spent time on it, so the least you could do it think about their message for a moment. Done? Good. Rey says that Jericho’s word means nothing, since he didn’t win the IC title at Judgement day, nor beat up Rourke at Wretlemania like he said he would. This leads to a shot of Micky Rourke’s Hair, who is sitting in the crowd. Jericho chews out Rourke a little, before talking down to Rey some more.
Jericho brings up Rey’s mask, saying only criminals and cowards with dirty little secrets hide behind masks. Mysterio ducks a shot from Jericho, drop toe hold’s him to the middle rope, only for Jericho to powder out of the ring before the 619 can be hit.
Match Number One: R-Truth & The Great Khali Vs. Mike Knox & Dolph Ziggler.
KHALI RAPS! What’s up indeed Great Khali, what’s up indeed. Can’t wait for those drops.
A nice enough little mach. Story being Khali trying to get his hands on Dolph. I get Ziggler, I really do. Knox takes most of the punishment, and is eventually pinned cleanly by Khali when Dolph walks out on the match. Khali does a little dancin’ with Truth in the ring after the bell.
Winners: R-Truth & the Great Khali, pinfall.
Match Number Two: Melina (c) Vs. Alicia Fox w/ Michelle McCool, Non-title Mach.
McCool is without her fringe. Fox, sadly, is with her perm. Melina wins a pretty awkward mach. Nothing was horribly wrong, but the timing was always a second off and there is just that feeling that someone could get hurt when Fox is in the ring.
Winner: Melina, Pinfall.
After the mach, McCool takes the Women’s Championship from the ref, admires it, then pushes it into Melina, before leaving ring. Fox was still on the ground.
Mathews interviews John Morrison in the back about his match with Umaga tonight. Lots of talk of trees and other such poetic imagery. Benjamin enters the shot to remind Morrison of their finished business.
A video is shown of Jeff Hardy announcing his Ladder Match, and of Hardy’s history in Ladder Matches. Bizarrelythough, that spear wasn’t shown.
Hardy comes down to address why he would choose such a crazy and “career threatening” match. He addresses the history he and Edge share in Ladder Matches. Really short speech. Ross played up that he was “disconnected” tonight.
As Jeff walked up the ramp, Umaga walked down, strap in hand.
Match Number Three: Umaga Vs. John Morrison.
Umaga’s facepaint has a silver outline tonight. Makes it look like it was drawn on by a texta. Morrison gets a little chant to begin, as they are in his hometown.
They note that a Samoan Strap Match is won by touching all four turnbuckles in succession, while strapped together. Sound familiar?
Fun big man/attractive quick man match for a while, before settling into a nerve hold or three. Awesome Samoan Drop lead to the ad break. Ross says “calculated risk” no less than ten times regarding Morrison’s offence. Morrison hit something that resembled AJ Styles’ Pele Kick, and Ross actually called it. Morrison also hit London’s dropsault. As Morrison looked to be getting back into the match, Umaga unleashed with the strap.
Winner: John Morrison, DQ.
The strap makes a really good slapping sound. Umaga ties up Morrison the same way he did Punk last week, and after a few kicks, Punk runs down. He nails Umaga in the heads with the briefcase a few times, before hitting his running knee in the corner into a bulldog onto the briefcase.
Umaga leaves, so Grisham enters the ring to interview Punk. Punk says he has no strategy for the Strap Match. Good little promo, putting over Umaga, but saying that Umaga’s not CM Punk.
Match Number Four: Cryme Time Vs. The World’s Greatest Tag Team.
This apparently came about after Cryme Time distracted the WGTT on Superstars in their match against the Colons.
Haas continues to flourish since his repairing with Benjamin; otherwise it was pretty much a paint by numbers match. Finish saw Benjamin hit Paydirt on Shad for the clean pin.
Winners: World’s Greatest Tag Team, Pinfall.
A rundown of the last month of events between Eve and Layla is shown, with their match being next.
Match Number Five: Eve Torres Vs. Layla.
This made the Melina/Fox match look polished and pristine. Honestly, skip this match. It is was not good, not even a little. Eve got the pinfall by rolling through a lateral press. Then after the bell, Layla charged at Eve, who tossed her through the ropes to the outside.
Winner: Eve, Pinfall.
Edge approaches Jericho in the back, telling him to follow his lead. Jericho tells Edge to have the match on his own tonight, because he’s done, and walks away.
Match Number Six: Edge (c) & Chris Jericho Vs. Rey Mysterio (c) & Jeff Hardy.
Edge takes the mic after he enters the ring. Edge says Hardy is summed up by the two words: “wasted opportunities”. He said Jeff could pick any match, and he picked a match that Edge owns, that he is the most successful in. He says that Jeff always impresses, always makes the highlight reel, but Edge always wins.
Jericho’s music hits, but he is nowhere to be seen. Not surprising as he did JUST say that Edge would have to do it on his own.
As Rey walks to the ring, he does his forehead to forehead thing with the young kids in Rey masks. After he does it with the last kid, he turns away, but the kid grabbed his head and slammed it into the guardrail. It was Jericho in the mask and Mysterio shirt. Had me fooled. Jericho beats Mysterio on the floor, and looks to tear the mask off of Mysterio’s face. Get’s a good rip in it, when Hardy finally runs down for the save.
Mysterio is out cold on the floor as we go to an ad break. When we return, we see a recap of what just happened. Funny thing, when Hardy ran down to get Jericho away from Mysterio, his momentum carried him through, knocking his head into the camera lens, leaving a greasy smudge on the bottom of the screen.
Hardy has agreed to turn this into a handicap match.
Match Number Six (take two): Jeff Hardy Vs. Edge (c) & Chris Jericho.
Good start, with Hardy going a mile a minute, taking out both men. Jericho looks terrible wrestling in his suit pants and shiny black shoes. Black is meant to be slimming, but the shade is certainly failing here tonight. Hardy develops a tiny cut around his eye.
Hardy hits the Whisper in the Wind on both men after Jericho enters the ring. Then he hits a screwed up Twist of Fate on Jericho (Jericho took a neckbreaker bump), only to be speared by Edge, and it’s over.
Winners: Edge (c) & Chris Jericho, Pinfall.
This wasn’t a bad match, but nor was it half the match of last week’s main event.
Edge pulls out a ladder afterwards, running it into Hardy’s face. He then lies it down on the ground, opens it up, sandwiches Hardy in the middle and slams it shut upon him. The show ends with Edge posing over Hardy’s body, still sandwiched in the ladder.
This may not have been as good as last week’s SmackDown!, but if you needed something to get the horrible taste of Raw out of your mouth, this should do you just fine.
