Expecting something else? That’ll come up next week. In the meantime, enjoy this musings on a “classic” WWE PPV event from 2004.
On August 15th, 2004 – the night of Summerslam – Randy Orton defeated reigning World Heavyweight Champion Chris Benoit to win his first World title at the ripe young age of 24. The next night on RAW, Orton successfully defended the title against Benoit and was soon swarmed by his stablemates in Evolution, with HHH giving his young protege the thumbs up… before giving him the thumbs down and booting young Randy out of the group. This, along with a series of bits designed to make Randy the beloved hero by having him run away a lot, would lead to McSon-In-Law getting a title shot and subsequently beating Randy for the title; please pretend you’re shocked at this development.
The burial had begun.
Fun fact: I have not seen this show back in the day and if my revisits to the olden days of 2002-2003 a few years back are any indication, I’m going to be in for a rough ride with this one. Anyway, let’s get this out of the way and then next week, we can go back to finishing off the last couple WWF ’99 PPVs for the next couple weeks before we hit Double Or Nothing.
Consider this a bonus musings before the regularly scheduled PPV musings for the day pops up later on. Long story short; I was feeling a bit sick and this popped up, so I figured “why not?”
The good news is that the show was a little under three hours and went by fairly quickly. Not only that, but for the most part, the wrestling was largely good, even if some of the finishes were somewhat weak. If you’re going into this just wanting some good wrestling, this Backlash show (I refuse to call it the full name) covers that bare minimum quite nicely.
With that said, if you’re looking for something a little more worthwhile and worthy of the premium live event moniker that they like to toss around, then this isn’t it. This was a case of a show where nothing of note happened. Yeah, Ronda won the Smackdown title in that I Quit match, but that’s a win that should’ve happened at Mania and other than that, you’ve got a show of rematches where nothing of note happened. Again, there’s good wrestling on here if that’s all you want, but otherwise, you could easily skip this and not miss a beat.
Continue reading “WWE Backlash 2022 (a.k.a. Wrestlemania Rehash)”
The final WWF PPV of 1999… and while its main event set the stage for the main event picture of the new millennium (in more ways than one, as it would turn out), the rest of the card… well…
Let’s just dive in, shall we?
This is the show where someone ran over Steve Austin with a car to write him off the show so he could properly deal with his nagging neck issues. I don’t know who that fellow is, but he must be some mean bastard.
Spoiler: It was Rikishi. He did it for the Rock, you know.
Revisiting late-1999 WWF with No Mercy… which is actually the second WWF event in 1999 to have that name, as the original No Mercy show was a UK exclusive that took place earlier in the year. This is the first PPV not head written by Vince Russo, but his influence still lived on in a particular match.
Haven’t watched Mania yet… after this year’s Rumble, could you blame me for having better things to do than to watch a show I wasn’t really looking
You know, I had a grand ol’ time revisiting that Fully Loaded PPV from last week that I decided to continue down this road of 1999 WWF PPVs. I rewatched Summerslam for the sake of it, but I had already done musings for that show some time ago and it still holds up even with the added context. And that brings us to out September 1999 PPV called WWF Unforgiven, which is now its own thing and not the subtitle for an In Your House event, which ended its run with Backlash back in April.
Anyway, the show is known for three things; it is known for the Six-Pack Challenge for the vacant WWF Championship, which was last held by Vince McMahon… yeah, don’t ask. It is known for being the final WWF PPV in the tenure of head writer Vince Russo, as he would jump ship to World Championship Wrestling some time later… though this would not be the final WWF show that he would influence… and of course, it is known for the most infamous match in WWF history; the Kennel From Hell.
Oh yeah, this is a great way to kick off the show.
It’s 3:16 Day… allegedly. And so to celebrate the occasion, we’re looking at an old WWF PPV from 1999. Today’s offering is Fully Loaded ’99, featuring the main event of reigning WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin defending his title against the Undertaker in a First Blood match, wherein the Austin/McMahon rivalry comes to an end… allegedly.
Okay, I’m excited. Not really, but let’s check this shit out, bro.
So this is one of those shows I skipped out on during my 2019-2021 moratorium on WWE PPVs, which took place due to the horrific Hell In A Cell PPV that took place a couple months prior. I will admit that there have been times where I might’ve caved in and given this show a sample. Any PPV with Asuka and Kairi Sane in the main event is something worth supporting.
On the other hand, this match featured WWE Blue Belt Champion Bray Wyatt defending the title against the fucking Miz and that’s what made me go “no buy.”
So I’m revisiting this show somewhat because I am genuinely curious as to how bad it is… which might be because of one match… and… well… ellipses mania bro.
Let’s get on with it.
dtm666 