DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu – Armageddon Review + TNA Viewing Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 4:37 AM EST
THE WRESTLING MENU #289
Welcome one and all to the 289th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.
Fear not LOP'ites, I still exist and I still write a wrestling column!
An extended intro is in the ‘Appetizers’ section today, so it’s immediately on with the show…..
APPETIZERS
Where Were My Predictions?
If you looked closely into the crowd at ‘Armageddon’, most of you would have noticed the “I’m Lost Without DaveyBoy’s PPV Predictions” sign. It was right in between the “Congrats Jeff” and “Hurry The F**k Up New Hart Foundation” signs. Well, not exactly, but I’m certain everyone in the arena thought about taking such a sign, so I thought I would address the question here.
So, have I stopped doing my PPV predictions? Has disposing of fellow LOP Columnist Skittlez so easily in our 2008 Predictions Competition made me feel so superior that I felt I would be ruining it for the fans if I told them who won each match at the upcoming ppv? No, it’s not either of those things. Nor was I away and without access to a computer. As sad as it sounds, the simple truth of the matter is that I thought ‘Armageddon’ was on Sunday the 21st! Why? Well, I have always consulted a copy & paste job on my pc of the 2008 PPV Dates. So, at some time (presumably late last year), the set date for ‘Armageddon’ was indeed the 21st.
Of course, if I had watched Raw last week, I would have known that ‘Armageddon’ was actually on the 14th, but I didn’t catch that episode. When I found out that episode was predominately centered on The Slammy Awards, I wasn’t exactly hyped up for the show… Then, when I found out that the Awards were basically being handed out by the creative department, I showed WWE what I thought of that with my remote control!
While I did end up watching SmackDown, it wasn’t until the weekend. I initially thought of writing up some quick predictions and posting them, but I was so annoyed at myself for not realizing that the ppv was on the weekend, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to write a column. Haha… I could just imagine how it would have come out too… It may have been something similar to the Bad Tito columns from back in the day!
I suppose I should make it all up to you by telling you what would have been my predictions for Armageddon had I done a column last Wednesday. Well, I’m certain that you will all be ecstatic to find out that I predicted the entire card correctly… Not just the results, but the ordering of the bouts… Oh and also the exact durations of the bouts to the nearest milli-second. FIGJAM.
I was actually so upset at my error that I genuinely thought about not purchasing ‘Armageddon’. In fact, I initially did not order the event before it happened live. I eventually decided I should watch the show though and I must stress that I made that decision without reading the results. As it turned out, both that decision to stay away from the internet and purchasing the ppv full stop were indeed the correct call.
MAIN
’Armageddon’ Review
For those that cannot recall my previous PPV review columns, this is the key that explains what the final PPV Rating means:
<50: Ask for a refund for not only your money, but also your time. [F] (Armageddon '04) 50-54: Mediocre & disappointing. [D] (EG: No Way Out '07) 55-59: Average. [C] (EG: Unforgiven ‘08) 60-64: Worth A Watch. [C+] (EG: Survivor Series ’08) 65-69: Good event that was worth the money. [B] (EG: Night Of Champions '08) 70-74: Very good. [B+] (EG: No Mercy '08) 75-79: Make sure you add this ppv to your video or dvd collection. [A] (EG: Royal Rumble '08) 80+: Make sure that the video or DVD is locked in a safe & cannot be erased. Memorable. [A+]
VLADIMIR KOZLOV defeated MATT HARDY in a Non-Title Match: The crowd get behind Matt and the ever-present "U.S.A" chant makes an early appearance in amongst Kozlov attempting to use his greater strength to control the ECW Champion. Vladimir locks in a resthold at only the 3 minute mark and the bout becomes stagnant for a further 3 minutes before Hardy scores with a top-rope move that eventually leads to a close 2 count from a side-effect. Some decent back & forth action then occurs before Kozlov sends Matt's head into the steel post and then finishes him off with a modified choke-slam for the victory after 9 minutes. This was not awful by any means, but Kozlov is so limited in the ring that he brings down the quality of his opponent. It also doesn't help that his character is 20 years past its expiry date, meaning it really is difficult to get involved in his matches at this stage. Match Rating...5.5
CM PUNK defeated REY MYSTERIO in the Final of an InterContinental Title Contenders Tournament: Speaking of someone being past their use-by date, William Regal is at ringside for this bout, which begins with a handshake and some technical mat-wrestling. An early 619 attempt is nicely countered by some deep arm-drags from Punk, who then proceeds to catapult over the top-rope on to Rey at ringside. Mysterio strikes back with a moonsault for a 2 count, but Punk gets the same result with a subsequent scoop-slam. Both men then take turns locking on arm-based submission holds, before Rey quickens the pace to control some offense.
The action hardly takes a moment to let up as Punk gets a 2 count with a bulldog, before Rey gets a 2.9 with an innovative bridge pinfall attempt. Mysterio then misses a 619, but nicely counters a GTS attempt into a successful attempt at his pseudo finisher. While his subsequent springboard splash misses, he gets another super close near-fall with a roll-up. With the crowd on the edge of their seats, reversal after reversal occurs and the exciting sequence finally ends with a wicked GTS at the 12 minute mark. An absolutely terrific midcard match which overcame the awkward face vs face dynamic to be exhilarating from beginning to end. This even back and forth bout was also helped by the unpredictability factor and contained an excellent mixture of all kinds of wrestling. Very impressive. Match Rating...8.5
HBK & JBL Segment: JBL comes out to the ring and introduces Shawn Michaels, who proceeds to explain that since he is nearing retirement, he needs JBL's financial help due to the current financial crisis. I thought we already knew that, but what would someone who didn't watch Raw know? HBK talks and talks as the crowd remain totally indifferent throughout. What to do next? How about practically asking the crowd to boo you? So he does, and most do. I am unsure if I am in the minority with this storyline, but it just isn't doing a great deal for me and its direction appears to be extremely predictable. As for this particular segment in isolation, it was overlong and the payoff was insufficient to justify its placement on pay-per-view. Segment Rating...4
FINLAY defeated MARK HENRY in a Belfast Brawl: Henry immediately picks Finlay up & throws him to ringside where the 2 brawl for a moment, before Henry misses a splash & Finlay starts bringing the plunder! Unfortunately for the Irishman, it is the heel who scores with a trash-can lid shot to the head, before slowing the pace down. The World's Strongest Man then snaps a shillelagh in half before doing the same to a kendo stick and locking in a bear-hug. A Hornswaggle distraction provides some relief, but Henry continues to dominate until the little fella provides his father with a 2nd shillelagh, which ultimately turns out to be the deciding factor in favor of Finlay after 10 minutes. Pretty much like an old-school WWE Hardcore Title match, this was average for the most part, but strangely fun. Characteristically, the finish was a little silly since Finlay was getting his a$$ handed to him for the entire bout before pulling out the miraculous win. Match Rating...6
BATISTA defeated RANDY ORTON: Despite no title being on the line here, there was a good big match atmosphere before the bout, as Orton is accompanied to the ring by Cody Rhodes & Manu. It isn't long until the duo get physical though & they are quickly sent back to the locker-room. Orton takes advantage of the distraction by working on his opponent's arm and he also has the presence of mind to squirm out of a Batista Bomb attempt to continue his control. A rope-assisted DDT gets the heel a 2 count and Randy proceeds to methodically go to work. When the Batista offensive flurry eventually does come, it is underwhelming and short-lived as Orton responds with an impressive superplex.
A spine-buster then gets Batista a 2 count, before both men counter their opponent's finisher. When The Animal counters another RKO attempt to get a 2 count off of a modified slam, it sets up the win for the face as the Batista Bomb gets the job done at the 16 minute mark after some byplay near the top-rope. A solid match overall, even if it did not appear that these 2 meshed together all that well when they were on the move. Orton has re-established his character well following his injury and it actually turned out a little annoying that he easily had the better of the bout yet still lost. Match Rating...7.5
MICHELLE McCOOL, MARIA, MICKIE JAMES & KELLY KELLY defeated VICTORIA, NATALYA, MARYSE & JILLIAN HALL in a Something-Or-Other Christmas Divas Tag Match : Kelly plays the face in peril for a good part of the bout before getting the hot tag to Maria who controls Jillian. Just as the face looks set to finish the match off, Michelle continues to hint at her upcoming heel turn by roughly tagging in blindly and scoring the win with a... (gasp)... Styles Clash at the 5 minute mark. This was a standard multi-diva bout which bored for the most part and was highlighted by some decent heel work by the losing team. Things didn't get a great deal better afterwards when The Great Khali locked lips with Mae Young, killing another 6 minutes. Match Rating...4
JOHN CENA defeated CHRIS JERICHO to Retain the World HeavyWeight Title: Both men receive an excellent crowd response and the intensity between the 2 is strong from the get-go. An early sleeper-hold by Jericho catches Cena off-guard, as a nice sequence sees the champ power out into an F-U position, before Y2J counters sublimely with a DDT. A rather fantastic sequence then occurs on the apron as Cena threatens another F-U, only to have Jericho bulldog him on to the steel steps! Following a resthold by the challenger, Cena scores with his usual entertaining offensive flurry, before falling to a Jericho missile dropkick that scores a near-fall. It's followed by a lionsault for the same result, but a superplex is countered into a not so neat top-rope fame-asser for yet another 2 count, this time for the champ.
Jericho then counters an F-U & hits the code-breaker for a 2.9 count to have the crowd in hysterics. While arguing with the referee, Y2J then falls victim to an F-U and yet another 2.9 count is the result! All kinds of reversals & counters then follow as the end result is a Walls of Jericho. But Cena eventually powers out and locks on the STF-U, which too quickly prompts the tap-out for the face champ to retain after 13 minutes of blistering action. Wow, that was just one of those matches which simply never let up. Any early slow spots were more than negated by some impressive intensity during that period, while the back & forth edge of the seat latter half of the bout was exhilarating to the extreme. Was it a little too non-stop? Yeah, but it's difficult to complain about it when it results in such an entertaining match. I just wish Jericho could have lasted an extra 20-30 seconds in the STF-U before tapping! Match Rating...8.5
JEFF HARDY defeated TRIPLE H & EDGE in a Triple-Threat Match to Win the WWE Championship: As expected, it's mayhem from the beginning with some inadvertent teaming highlighting the early offense. The action heads to ringside after Hardy comes over the top-rope to take out Edge on the floor, but it is Jeff left hurt out there as Edge & HHH go at it back inside the ring. Some nice 3 way action then takes place with a terrific spot seeing Hardy hit his Whisper in the Wind while H was attempting to electric chair the champion. It soon becomes Trips & Jeff alone in the ring and it even appears that we may have a new champ early when the enigmatic one hits both a Twist of Fate and Swanton. Alas, it is not to be as Edge breaks up the count and then battles at ringside with Jeff.
Triple H soon becomes involved in the shenanigans on the floor and teases pedigreeing Hardy through an announce table, which eventually leads to a huge spot where H avoids an Edge spear that ultimately hits Hardy and takes him through an announce table instead. Back in the ring, it is once more Triple H and Edge 1 on 1, with Trips scoring with a spine-buster & then a pedigree! But his resultant cover is interrupted by an interfering Kozlov, as is a subsequent Swanton attempt by a recovered Jeff. Matt Hardy then emerges to force the Russian back to the locker-room, before Edge gets a near-fall on H following a spear. The heel champ then sets up a conchairto, but Jeff stops it & hits a chair-shot of his own.
The finish comes soon after at the 17 minute mark when Triple H pedigrees Edge, but an opportunistic Jeff follows it up with a Swanton to finally become WWE Champion. A super strong main-event which used the triple-threat format very well and was both entertaining & involving throughout. Of course, this bout will most notably be remembered as the match where Jeff Hardy's long climb to the top finally became complete. Thankfully, the quality of the bout fitted that memorable moment aptly and seeing Jeff's celebration with the crowd afterwards will undoubtedly be one of 2008's lasting and most special memories. Match Rating...9
PPV RATING (53/80) = 66
Looking at the key, I have basically given the 2008 version of ‘Armageddon' a 'B' grade & said that it was a ‘good event that was worth the money'. I'm not going to argue with that grade and comment although I know that many will feel this event should have at least been given a B+ grade. I'd rather put it this way; Especially if you didn't watch the show, I very much recommend you get your hands on a copy of this DVD when it comes out. Why? 2 words; "Chapter Menu". It's the advantage of DVDs over videotape. Just go straight to the chapters menu and watch Rey vs Punk, Cena vs Jericho & the triple-threat main-event. If you've got some time left over, give Orton vs Batista a whirl. All of those 4 bouts were very very good and pretty much everything else was either filler or rubbish. Due to the excellent ratings of 3 of the matches (including what is arguably the prototype of a double main-event), 'Armageddon 2008' will be remembered for quite some time and will have more lasting memories than a number of pay-per-views that have actually rated higher than it.
DESSERT - TNA
My columns have been that few and far between of late, that readers have probably not noticed that I have been mentioning TNA a lot more over the last few months. The obvious reasoning for this is because I have indeed been watching at least bits and pieces of TNA Impact during this period.
The thing is; I am not exactly certain why I have been watching it more than previously. Could it be that I am replacing the hours which I have been missing watching some WWE product (namely ECW)? Am I just simply getting a tad bored with WWE’s product and looking to replenish my wrestling fix with something (or anything) different? Maybe, but I doubt it to be honest. More likely, it is the fact that the Saturday night 9:30pm timeslot (which I had previously bashed since it was up against Australian Football between March & September) is now a lot handier and suitable.
Don’t get me wrong, I still tend to channel surf (it is TNA after all), however I also will watch an hour or so block of Impact on occasions. The strangest little things tend to draw me into viewing and they aren’t necessarily the positives. Some negatives interest me on occasions… I guess that’s my column-writing side of things coming out. For example; If the Main Event Mafia are delivering an in-ring promo, then I will look at whoever is not doing the talking and see if they look interested. Haha. Watching Scott Steiner randomly yell at the crowd is always amusing.
Speaking of amusing (but also unprofessional), is Impact now live? Seriously, do they even occasionally go back and edit the shows or do retakes or what-not? A couple of weeks back, The Dudley Boyz - or whatever they are called now - were delivering some kind of motivational monologue to Samoa Joe in the locker-room. Joe had just lost a match & Bubba was trying to tell him that one loss wasn’t the end of the world. He used the example that they were 20 time tag-team champs and that meant they had “lost at least 19 times”. Ummm, good math there buddy, but if you are not the current champs, I’d say that should be at least 20 losses. Did anyone behind a camera, in a booth or cleaning the toilets nearby think to shut Bubba up at the time and have him re-shoot the promo? I don’t really want to do a topic outlining the positives and negatives of TNA Impact, but it really is difficult not to mention at least some annoyances. As those who know my distastes for certain wrestlers will know that one of those is Rhino. I guess that I may be in the minority on this one, but this guy anywhere near the main-event just befuddles me. Furthermore, he has recently been some kind of mouthpiece for the “Frontline” (is that what they are being called?). Give me a break! So not only are Joe & Styles struggling to win a meaningful match, but now they are getting very little mic time as well. I just don’t get it.
But like I said, little things have also been drawing me into the show; Mini-angles like the one concerning The Motor-City Machine-Guns. Their pseudo tweener characters right now is an interesting booking move and one which has actually used the Mafia vs Frontline stable war to its advantage, despite the fact that the tag-team of Sabin & Shelley are not really directly involved in the angle. That’s actually very good booking right there… I wonder if it was by accident.
Of course, one of the main issues which critics of TNA have with the promotion is their want to begin a promising storyline and then either drop it completely or send it in a terrible direction. This tends to suggest that they don’t employ long-term booking to me. Basically, they’re making it up as they go on. When that occurs, there will be some excellent ideas (and I do think TNA does have the occasional excellent idea), but without planning, the potential within those ideas are not capitalized on.
Forgive me folks, I know this has been a bit of a ramble of a topic, but in a sense I meant it that way to mirror TNA’s booking. For whatever reason, Impact is very much watchable at present… There is the shell of a really entertaining program there… Maybe one which is even up to the quality of the WWE product. Yet, Jeff Jarrett & Co are just not quite putting the finishing touches on a lot of their feuds and storylines and that makes a huge difference when all is said and done.
Finding time in the day around this time of the year to reply to correspondence is always tough, but even more so this year since I have struggled to reply to emails for about 2 months now. I have indeed had a read of most emails sent to me, but replying is a totally different matter. I don't know what to say other than to apologize. If you want to try your luck, then my feedback thread in the LOP Forums is located at http://www.lopforums.com/showthread.php?t=159. My email address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com.
There is no way I am even going to attempt to guess when my next column will be posted. But chances are that it won't be within the next 2 weeks since those Wednesdays are Christmas Eve & New Years Eve. For that reason, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you and your families a very merry Christmas and a safe, happy & prosperous new year. Take care all. As always, my column will be posted at the same Wednesday time on the same LOP channel. Until then, this is DaveyBoy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.
