Category: Wrestling PPV Musings

Last Sunday night was the celebration of a milestone in WWE, as it marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the debut of WWE’s most enduring and iconic superstar. Unfortunately, the Gobbledy Gooker was unavailable, so they settled with 25 Years Of Undertaker instead… so there’s that, I suppose. There’s also that WWE World Title tournament to fill the vacancy left by former champion Seth Rollins, who hurt his knee at a overseas event and is supposed to be out for six to nine months. Get well soon, Seth.

Anyway, on with the show, which opens up with Lillian Garcia singing the National Anthem to show terrorists that we won’t be threatened by them. Well, I guess it’s better than moving to a smaller venue due to poor ticket sales… er, I mean, a bomb threat. Right.

Continue reading “WWE Survivor Series 2015”

November 22, 1990 was the day the fourth annual WWF Survivor Series event took place at. This event was notable for two noteworthy events; the hatching of the Survivor Series egg that introduced the world to the short-lived Gobbledy Gooker and the rather unassuming debut of the Undertaker. I will let you decide which of those two went on to become something of a big deal, but given the two choices, it’s obvious which one is the correct one.

So on this day, twenty-five years to the day since that event took place, I give it something of a quick lookie at this event that would give us perhaps one of the most enduring Superstars of all time… the Gobbledy Gooker.

Oh yeah, and that other guy too.

Now, for those who have no clue what Survivor Series entails, here’s the brief scoop. The event mostly comprises eight-man tag-team elimination matches where two teams of four men compete against each other. When a man is pinned, submits, gets counted out, or disqualified, he is eliminated from the match, leaving his teammates to fend for themselves. The winner of the match is the team that outlasts the other team; the “survivors” if you will. This edition featured an additional caveat where the various survivors of the match would compete in a “grand finale” match of the sorts, which is your main event for the evening.

As you can probably imagine, this doesn’t seem all that interesting in hindsight. I can’t say if it was interesting back in the day, but I could probably imagine not.

Continue reading “WWF Survivor Series 1990”

So, this write-up is being posted a couple days after the event because I’m only watching it a couple days after the event. For those who missed it, I ended up watching No Mercy 2002 instead and posted a write-up on that. But I eventually did watch the show and here are my less than impressed musings on the show, along with some other ramblings along the way.

Continue reading “WWE Heck In A Cell 2015”

So… there’s a PPV event coming up… and for the first time in a good long while, I’m not particularly inclined to watch it.

Let’s be honest here; I wasn’t the biggest fan of Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker when they had their ‘Mania and Summerslam matches – other people thought they were the shit, I thought they were shit sandwiches with a side order of piss –  and putting them in a Hell In A Cell match – a match that is severely hindered by PG limitations – isn’t going to make me clamor for another one that will most likely end in the proverbial “fuck finish.” Seth Rollins vs. Kane is not interesting in the slightest, nor is the guessing game of whether the soon-to-be-abayent John Cena will do the favors or the the 1,291,091,938,471th match between Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt… I might want to check out Kevin Owens defending the IC title against Ryback, but that might be opening match or even relegated to the pre-show or something.

Now for all intents and purposes, I did PVR the damn thing and I’ll probably watch it some time during the week, so chances are you’ll still get your usual write-up somewhere down the line, but as far as watching it live, not interested.

So what I ended up doing last Saturday night – aside from other stuff worthy of my time – was pop in an old recording of one of the older WWE PPVs that I had on DVD-R. The PPV in question? No Mercy 2002, whose only real significance is its main event – reigning and defending WWE champion Brock Lesnar facing off against the Undertaker in a Hell In A Cell match.

Now it’s time for context building. 2002 was the first year in which WWE divided up its roster into two shows; RAW and Smackdown. RAW was the more “sports-entertainment” oriented brand (as well as the HHH show for the next three years) while Smackdown was the more “wrestling” oriented brand (as well as the only watchable thing to come out of WWE during that three year period.)

Okay, context building over. On with the show.

Continue reading “WWE No Mercy 2002”

So I’m watching this with something of a stomach ache and a sore throat. So I imagine that I’m in for a long night… but, in a bit of good news, Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker has been announced for next month’s Hell In A Cell PPV event, so there goes my fear of having this become another Wrestlemania match that doesn’t need to happen. Have it at a B-level PPV, put them in a Cell, book it as their final battle, and let ’em beat the shit out of each other to the point where I never have to see either one of them again. If even ONE of them walks out on their own power, this match will suck.

God, I’m somewhat bloodthirsty… In any event, let’s get this over with.

Kevin Owens defeated Intercontinental champion Ryback with a down-and-dirty raking of the eyes and a roll-up to win the title. Well, that finish should make Jim Ross happy that a heel got to win with dirty tactics. Nice touch adding the shoulder injury in there and making it seem like a key part of the match. All in all, this was a fun opening content and I’m happy to see my fellow Quebecois win a major title in WWE. So far, we’re off to a great start.

Dolph Ziggler defeated Rusev when Summer Rae (who seems destined to be the eternal “sloppy seconds” Diva in WWE) threw a fit and ended up throwing a shoe at Rusev, which allowed Ziggler to score a ZigZag and the pin… don’t worry, Ru. Hulk Hogan once jobbed to a shoe… wait, he don’t exist no more, doesn’t it? I suppose this wasn’t too bad, but it felt like it went on forever and I lost interest after a while. Please let this be the end of it. Bad enough we needed to endure bad acting from Lana before she got hurt, but the last thing we need is more bad acting from… everybody.

The Dudley Boyz defeated WWE Tag-Team Champions The New Day via DQ when Xavier Woods jumped in. New Day retain the titles as a result. My guess is they’re probably going to have a rematch somewhere down the line… maybe next PPV or something. As long as the rematch turns out to be as good as this match was, I’ve no complaints… also, major props to Xavier Wood’s trombone playing. He should stick with that from now on.

Oh boy, they’re talking about the #LOLDivasRevolution… I guess it’s time for a pissbreak, right? I mean, for fuck’s sake, they’re really treating this like a thing people give a shit about, aren’t they? I suppose if they really cared, the four Divas that really mattered would be n the upcoming video game… oops.

So Charlotte defeats Divas champion Nikki Bella to win the title and end the wretchedly bloated reign of the world’s most undeserving plastic-boobed bimbo… as if it means anything at this point. I mean, seriously… what’s the point? Charlotte had her chance on Monday and blew it. A few days after Nikki got the record reign (a move that I firmly believe was to spite the former record holder’s husband), Charlotte finally gets the big win and I’m like… so what? I guess from what little I paid attention to of the match, it was alright… might’ve been one of the better Divas matches in a while… I’d like to believe that… if I cared enough… but I didn’t care, so I can’t believe that.

So I guess we can count down the days before Eva Marie shows up and wins the title in a couple months or so… because it’s not about diva revolutions or some corporate bullshit buzzwords like that. It’s all about teh Total Divas… and as long as THAT show exists, a “revolution” in the truest sense of the word is never going to happen

Oh well… back to not caring about the Divas division unless it’s on NXT.

Oh look, Ric Flair’s in the house… I wonder if he’s gonna turn on Sting… because god forbid we haven’t seen that in a while. (Spoiler Alert: He doesn’t… not that it would’ve mattered.)

The Wyatt Family defeated Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, and mystery partner Chris Jericho, whose sole purpose was to job to the new guy whose name I don’t remember… can’t complain, actually. If it were a new guy, I probably would… but Jericho has been used mostly to “put over” others that this doesn’t bother me. For what this was, it was alright. Nothing special, but alright.

John Cena defeated U.S. Champion Seth Rollins to win the title for the fifth time. Well, that was disappointing. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised (and I wasn’t) but it would’ve been interesting to see Seth win here… setting that aside, those guys put on a great showing on par or better than their Summerslam match. Whether you approve the ending or not, at least the match went way above and beyond what you’d expect.

WWE Champion Seth Rollins defeated Sting to retain the title… Hey, look… all things considered, I expected a hell of a lot worse and this was actually alright. There was a moment where doctors were looking at Sting and they were gonna have to do some shit ending, but Seth won with a roll-up and there’s nothing wrong with that. (Update: Turns out Sting might have suffered a legit injury during that corner bomb bit.)

All in all, not that bad of a match, and Sting actually looked good out there and looked like he gave a damn. Didn’t surprise me that Sting didn’t go over here, but I actually wouldn’t have minded it… shocking. Amazing that Sting could have a decent match with Seth, but with McSon-In-Law… well… I could blame McSon-In-Law for that fail of a match.

Wait a minute… here comes Sheamus… wait a minute… here comes Kane… wait a minute… Kane chokeslammin’ Seth… wait a minute… Kane tombstonin’ Seth… wait a minute… it’s gonna be Seth vs. Kane, isn’t it?

Where’s that image? Oh, here it is…

You know what, though? I have little cause to complain about this show. Couple title changes, handful of good matches, a couple returns, near cash-in, and a showcase of what Seth Rollins could do if given the chance and he brought the house down… All in all, this was a far better show than it had any business being and I enjoyed it. So there.

I purposely held off this one until the very end of the run. And there’s a very good flipping reason for that. It’s Summerslam from 1995.

*shudder*

If you’ve been following the blog over the course of this month, you’ll probably notice that when it comes to the various ’95 events that I’ve mused over, my reactions have been rather negative. Perhaps I’m being too kind. 1995 was a shit year for wrestling; whether it’s the Hulk Hogan wankfest at WCW or… whatever the fuck they were doing in WWF… Look, kids. There’s a reason ECW got hot during that time and it wasn’t because it was the best looking product out there.

So, here we are… Summerslam 1995. Your main event for the evening is WWF World Champion Diesel defending his championship against 1995 King of the Ring winner, Mabel.

Fuck me. This is going to be painful.

Continue reading “WWF Summerslam 1995”

It starts with Wrestlemania IX… where Bret Hart lost the WWF title to Yokozuna… who would then lose the WWF title to Hulk Hogan in an impromptu match… who would then do fuck all with the title before dropping it back to Yokozuna at the King of The Ring PPV, which would signal the final appearance of Hogan in the WWF for eight years. Yokozuna would then hold an open challenge on the U.S.S. Intrepid, where many have tried (and failed) to bodyslam the 500-pound behemoth. Then, when all was said and done, along came Lex Luger to fulfill the deed, earning himself a shot (his “only shot” according to Jim Cornette) at the champ at Summerslam. What followed was a cross-country tour, kissing babies and getting support from the paid extras posing as locals.

And then, we come to the match itself and… well, that’s jumping ahead here.

Continue reading “WWF Summerslam 1993”