Vengeance Fails to Deliver on Most Matches
Not very good. That is my first observation of Sunday night's Vengeance PPV from Houston. A show that I did not have high hopes for going in was right along the lines of what I thought. The absence of Chris Benoit from the ECW Title match, and letdown when C.M. Punk didn't win, the bogus end of the Batista vs Edge match, and the just plain awful tag team of ancient Jimmy Snuka and Sgt.Slaughter were the low lights on a card that really could have been much better.
First off, it was billed as the "Night of Champions," as they rolled out 9 matches on a 2 hour 40 minute show. Now remember that WrestleMania 23 had 8 matches, and the show lasted 3 hours 40 minutes. In other words, a lot of the night felt rushed right from the get go. To make matters worse from the start, a match that should have been a given for being solid - The Hardy's vs Cade and Murdoch, was the worst of the matches I have seen these two teams have. It wasn't an awful match, but let's just say that the two teams didn't seem to be on their game as in the past. The ending with Jeff being pinned was not a shock, as I expect now that Matt will continue a singles push on SmackDown, and Jeff will be back to being a singles wrestler on RAW.
The Cruiserweight title, a belt that is about as wasted as any in WWE history, was defended, as Chavo Guerrero beat Jimmy Wang Yang with a frog splash to his back and then turned him over for the pin. Not a bad match, but no heat what so ever, and again, this title is such an afterthought in the eye's of the people making decisions in the company I am surprised they even defended it here. As I stated on Friday, Yang is a solid wrestler, but the gimmick is just plain awful. Chavo, even with a belt around his waist, is not nearly used enough as a solid mid-card wrestler.
Then we started what I knew would be a focus of the night, and that is the ongoing stupid saga of Vince and the limo. They showed the limo explosion, which has now officially been seen on WWE TV about 1.3 million times since it happened.
After that we had the ECW Title match, with no announcement till the ring announcer made it that Chris Benoit is not there, and instead of Benoit vs Punk we have Nitro vs Punk. Not a bad match, but both men were out of sorts throughout. Fans used a "We want Benoit" chant during the match, and it seems clear that if he would have been there, Benoit would have won the belt clean. Instead, they gave it to Nitro, as he won clean with a corkscrew neckbreaker in a bit of a shock. Nitro is not ready for the belt, and you can bet Benoit may win it back as early as Tuesday provided he's there.
Santino Marella vs Umaga was next, and this was just brutal. I keep saying that Marella is not even remotely close to worth being a titleholder, and here he basically took a 2 minute beating just to get the win by DQ. Crowd for the first time ever cheered Umaga, and I don't blame them. I don't know if the long term plan is to turn Umaga, but from what it looked here, I can see it. As for Marella, let's end the joke here and get the IC belt on someone who actually deserves it. Marella is destined for mid-card jobber once the belt is off him. Mark it down.
Next was Ric Flair and MVP for the US Title in another waste of a match. Short, not much heat, and just blah. Flair is really starting to show his age, which is tough to say, and there was no doubt that in this match you could tell he and MVP were not experienced together. A short match that saw MVP win with a thumb to the eye and the playmaker. It was by now that I really started to yawn as this PPV was doing nothing for me.
Then came my new vote for "worst match of the year" as SmackDown tag champs Deuce and Domino took on the oldest tag team in WWE history - Sgt.Slaughter and Jimmy Snuka. Consider this fact - Snuka and Slaughter are a combined age of 122. Who in their right mind would put a 63-year-old Snuka and 59-year-old Slaughter in a ring, and even more, in a PPV??!! Of course there is some history here, as Jimmy Reiher Jr. (Deuce) is the adopted son of Snuka (no joke), so maybe this was a favor somehow? Whatever, this was a bad as it gets, and the champs won on a reverse body press on Snuka. What they should have done is use Rick Martel and Tony Garea, who were at ringside and did a run-in post match during a beat down of Slaughter and Snuka. Oh well.
Edge vs Batista was next, as I guess with the finish they planned they figured they had better do this early and save the WWE Title match as the true main. The end saw Batista clearly in control, and then upon going at it outside the ring, he threw Edge back in, but it was on the count of 9 and Dave got counted out. Total wasted ending, and a good match was ruined by a bad ending. Crowd was for sure into Batista in this one, and it seemed for awhile there was going to be a switch. Now Batista is out of title shots, and we'll see what worthy challenger steps up for Edge at the Great American Bash.
The women's title belt did switch, as Candice beat Melina clean for the title. Missed spot at the end was the finish, as Candice gave Melina a spinning heel kick that seemed to miss and she won clean. Another short match with no heat from the crowd, but I guess you can say at least they finally did a title switch. Candice cried when she got the belt, which I guess means either the belt means something to her, or she cried about the botched finish.
Then the main event, which was good, but only about 10 minutes, which in a match with five guys seemed kind of short. The match was John Cena vs Bobby Lashley vs Randy Orton vs King Booker vs Mick Foley. The end saw Cena pin Foley with the FU. Lot's of false finishes, and the match seemed pretty intense for it being a short match with 5 guys. In the end though, seemed like a blow off as you know that they simply didn't know who to put with Cena, so let's just throw five guys in there. I really thought this would go 15-20 minutes at least. I think we'll see Booker next up for Cena, but that's just a hunch.
On a grade scale, this one gets a low C for me. While I didn't hit on it too much, the McMahon things time after time are just turning me off right now. I almost don't want to even bother with this three-hour crap tonight on RAW. I hope they actually have some decent wrestling on the show tonight, otherwise, it might be an early to bed night and TiVo for me.
