Thought on Wednesday's SuperShow in Cleveland
Last night the WWE had a "SuperShow" at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, highlighted by both the SmackDown brand and the ECW brand. It was the first house show that I have attended in about 7 years, and despite it being the two lower brands in town, I was impressed with the close to three hour show that the wrestlers and the company put on.
So many times over the years I have read house show reports that said the wrestlers were either not into it, or the matches were too short, or the dead crowd that was use to seeing tons of pyro and stuff killed the event. That was not the case here, as despite the arena only having about 7-10,000 fans, I thought they were into it all night, as were the wrestlers.
I am not going to sit and write about each match, but I will give you the lineup as they ran them out:
Chris Benoit pins Chavo Guerrero
Scotty 2 Hotty pins G. Rilla
C.M. Punk makes Hardcore Holly submit
Matt Hardy pins Gregory Helms in non-title match
The Great Khali/Davairi pins Tommy Dreamer/Sandman
Rob Van Dam pins Sabu in Extreme rules match
Kane in lame finish of the night wins Last Man Standing match vs MVP
Bobby Lashley pins Test
Diva Winter Bikini Contest was more of a comedy skit with Sylvan, Big Dick Johnson, and then at the end the Boogeyman
Batista pins King Booker in a cage match
Overall it was a solid close to 3 hour show, with the only break being the Diva thing and then the setup for the cage. The one thing I was impressed with was the fact that just about every face really interacted with the crowd, and really did a lot of thumbs up, picture taking, and shaking of hands around the ring. I even got a chance to slap hands with Batista after the main event.
House shows are generally meant more for the fans, as the workers don't really have to be at their top, and can at some points halfway it, which was clear in a few spots last night. It's hard to believe that this is how the sport use to be years ago, with limited TV and tons and tons of house shows to really keep the income flowing in. Now most of that has changed with TV and PPV's, but the house shows still do some brisk business, and have really picked up for the company in the past 1-2 years.
Overall, the highlight of the night was the ECW match with RVD and Sabu, which had some sick spots which make you really miss the way ECW use to be back in the late 90's. Matt Hardy was another guy that was over, and his match with Helms was also pretty good. The main with Booker and Batista was okay, as these two never seem to really have good matches for some reason.
A solid night of wrestling all the way around, and the next time the company comes to Cleveland it will be back on TV as they will tape ECW and SmackDown on March 20th to air on March 23rd.
So many times over the years I have read house show reports that said the wrestlers were either not into it, or the matches were too short, or the dead crowd that was use to seeing tons of pyro and stuff killed the event. That was not the case here, as despite the arena only having about 7-10,000 fans, I thought they were into it all night, as were the wrestlers.
I am not going to sit and write about each match, but I will give you the lineup as they ran them out:
Chris Benoit pins Chavo Guerrero
Scotty 2 Hotty pins G. Rilla
C.M. Punk makes Hardcore Holly submit
Matt Hardy pins Gregory Helms in non-title match
The Great Khali/Davairi pins Tommy Dreamer/Sandman
Rob Van Dam pins Sabu in Extreme rules match
Kane in lame finish of the night wins Last Man Standing match vs MVP
Bobby Lashley pins Test
Diva Winter Bikini Contest was more of a comedy skit with Sylvan, Big Dick Johnson, and then at the end the Boogeyman
Batista pins King Booker in a cage match
Overall it was a solid close to 3 hour show, with the only break being the Diva thing and then the setup for the cage. The one thing I was impressed with was the fact that just about every face really interacted with the crowd, and really did a lot of thumbs up, picture taking, and shaking of hands around the ring. I even got a chance to slap hands with Batista after the main event.
House shows are generally meant more for the fans, as the workers don't really have to be at their top, and can at some points halfway it, which was clear in a few spots last night. It's hard to believe that this is how the sport use to be years ago, with limited TV and tons and tons of house shows to really keep the income flowing in. Now most of that has changed with TV and PPV's, but the house shows still do some brisk business, and have really picked up for the company in the past 1-2 years.
Overall, the highlight of the night was the ECW match with RVD and Sabu, which had some sick spots which make you really miss the way ECW use to be back in the late 90's. Matt Hardy was another guy that was over, and his match with Helms was also pretty good. The main with Booker and Batista was okay, as these two never seem to really have good matches for some reason.
A solid night of wrestling all the way around, and the next time the company comes to Cleveland it will be back on TV as they will tape ECW and SmackDown on March 20th to air on March 23rd.
