Results from gerweck.net.

Thanks to all who’ve dropped the feedback into our feedbag on last week’s Backlash rasslin’ roundtable. It ended up being a lot more fun to do than I thought it would be, and I thought it was a pretty entertaining read after looking at it again yesterday. I’m looking forward to the usual suspects meeting up for future confabs, if only for me to nag Birdsong about his place of employment and that damn computer that they sold me.

The results of the PPV notwithstanding, I loved how WWE snuck in the ads for Steve Austin’s movie “The Condemned” at every moment in order to boost that sagging $3.8 mil at the box office to bump it out of a ninth-place debut. That was some fabulous marketing genius, considering the fact that those that plunked down $35 to watch the PPV probably weren’t going to run out of the house at 9:10 PM EDT to run down to the multiplex and put even more money in Vince’s pocket for the night. I caught a snippet of a review Saturday on Ebert & Roeper, and they basically said it was more of an unintentional comedy than an action movie, and that WWE Films basically has produced a lot of crap so far.

Apparently most of those who watched the show were pleased with the entertainment value. On the other hand, I think those same people are appalled with what is going on in ECW right now, and that Vince uses some kind of ECW-brand toilet paper or something. But, I’m ahead of myself. Let’s run through the show…

World Tag Team Champions The Hardys retained over Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch. This was not unexpected, as the Hardys just got their belts and needed a mainstay of Raw to be fed to them to get some street cred with those that weren’t watching before 2002. The Hardys hit their expected spots, the challengers put up a good fight, everybody looked good and this was a good choice for the opener, and I’m 1-1 on my picks so far, so I’m happy.

WWE Women’s Champion Melina retained over Mickie James. This was a pretty good match by WWE standards, although I wouldn’t have liked to have seen Mickie take the bump from the top rope to the floor given that bad neck injury she had in March that nearly paralyzed her. Of course, the only spot anybody wants to talk about is the two of them fighting while doing the splits, which I guess was the eye candy crotch shots that all the 14-year-old boys wanted to see, but these two had a great match otherwise. I predicted Melina would win, but I hope that we get to see more of this feud for a few months.

WWE United States Champion Chris Benoit retained over Montel Vontavious Porter. Benoit continues to make MVP look like a star while keeping his heat and not looking weak. He should write a wrestling textbook as some point, as cliché as that sounds. My only complaint about this whole series between these two is that the storyline started out great, but then failed to build momentum and hook people. But, when you see matches that are this good, you don’t always need that. I wish I could still go up 3-3, considering I did say that MVP would not win the belt, but I guess everybody in the roundtable got it wrong (even though I was closest without going over).

Vince McMahon defeated Lashley to become the new ECW World Champion in a 3-on-1 Handicap Match. Earlier in the show, Shane McMahon convinced his dad to take the title, and Vince agreed. Everybody is complaining about the outcome, but I have only one question in response: why are you so surprised that they would pull this? ECW belongs to Vince, and I guess he can do whatever he wants to it now, including put the belt on himself. On one hand, it would draw tremendous heat from however many old-school ECW fans that are left because it’s a member of the wrestling “establishment” taking their coveted title. On the other hand, I hate the fact that this feud with Lashley has really done little to elevate him or any of the guys in the New Breed.

Anyway, most of this was worked between Umaga and Lashley and Shane (towards the end), and Vince got the pinfall at the end after the work was done. After the match, Vince celebrated and went in the back to run down the ECW Originals. By the way, I’m the only one who picked Vince specifically to win the title, so I’m up two now on everyone else at 3-4.

World Champion Undertaker and Batista went to a double countout in a Last Man Standing Match. This was your typical WWE big man “brawl around the arena and take a bunch of coffee breaks” garbage match, which actually plays to their strengths, I think. I didn’t call the double countout finish, but I called the sparks at the end. They did a nice job of setting up the fact that Undertaker couldn’t believe that Batista kept getting up, although it makes more sense gimmick-wise to do it the other way around.

WWE Champion John Cena pinned Randy Orton to retain his title in the Fatal 4-Way Match. Earlier in the show, Mr. Kennedy teased cashing in his Money in the Bank to Edge, and Orton was mocked by Cena for swinging the other way, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Before the match, half of WWE’s sheeple voted and predicted that Cena would win the match. I would have hotshot the booking right there and had somebody else win. At least we would have had something on the show that was completely unpredictable… it was more a tag match early on until Edge hit Orton with a chair and kept teasing their break-up (so to speak). The finish was Musical Finishing Moves on everybody, as Shawn Michaels hit Cena with the Sweet Chin Music, but he fell on Orton to get the pinfall.

Was it an entertaining show? Yes. Was it worthy of PPV? No. The outcomes ranged from the predictable to the weak. Not only that, but having your WWE champion fall on the guy who trashed the hotel room is a lousy way to put him over. On top of that, the World title match had a weak finish, despite all the fireworks, and the ECW “title” match was easily the least exciting on the card.

If I can guess the majority of the finishes to the show, then there’s something wrong. If you don’t get at least one good surprise on the show, then it probably isn’t worth the $35.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Russ Ray's Rasslin' Ring, The Russ, Wrestling. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.