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Welcome, cats and kittens to yet another edition of the soon to be blog of the year, Cewsh Reviews…For your reading enjoyment tonight we have a review of none other than WWE’s Judgment Day PPV, and while some people may very well tell you that WWE runs into a slump in the summer time and that the shows are less interesting, Cewsh Reviews would like to remind you that the worse the shows get, the better our reviews seem to be. So root hard now for that one day dream match of The Great Khali vs. Rhino. Root hard, and maybe one days all our snarky dreams will come true. At any rate, there’s cause for excitement in the air with this show, with the whole WWE world going topsy turvy and everything being turned on its head as a result of the draft, and fallout from Wrestlemania wrapping up, so this show has intrigue written in bold type all over it.
So without any further ado, let’s do a motherfucking review.
Segment 1 – OPENING VIDEO FEVER!
Cewsh: Jesus Christ, somebody got ahold of some new Photoshop filters, and this whole thing is just epic to a ridiculous extent.
Don’t get me wrong, epic is very, very good. But this PPV just doesn’t seem important enough to warrant this much…well…epicness, I guess. Can’t fault the video crew, though. It never matters what’s going on, those glorious fellows make it feel like Wrestlemania.
Segment 2 – CM (Couch Marlin) Punk vs. Umaga (zine).
Cewsh: So they’re in Chicago tonight, and Punk has lately been working the gimmick of threatening to cash in Money in the Bank on Edge every time Edge is laid out. Methinks I smell something fishy in the air tonight. And I have, more or less, been waiting for this moment for all my life. HOLD OOOOOOON! Bumbum bumbum bumbum bumbum bum bum.
Ahem.
So the person stopping the Punker from cashing in all those times is the Dr. McMaga here, who inexplicably keeps attacking Punk before he can manage it. Is Edge paying him off? Does Umaga just like attention? Is any of that on Umaga’s back an advertisement for Planters Nuts? None of it has, as of yet, been explained, though the announcers make a point of saying that they didn’t know either, so we’re probably not supposed to know right now either.
Anyway, Punk is OVER in Chicago. Like, the Rock wouldn’t have gotten a bigger ovation or louder chants than Punk was here, and they’ve really done a great job with Punk in making him sort of the official superstar of Chicago, giving them an instant big time match or hot main event whenever they go there, and Chicago is a big goddamn market, so its even smarter. Punk, in his own right, has earned every bit of his push so far, and always seems to have that extra bit of juice when he’s in front of a Chicago crowd so I expect good things here from him. Umaga, on the other hand, had that great run a few years back, and has essentially just been entirely lost out of the shuffle since then. He’s very talented at playing his role, but at this point it really does seem almost random to have him be pushed this strongly out of nowhere. Is he a credible threat or not, WWE? You can’t pick and choose with this sort of thing.
As for the match? Well, it was really good, actually. Don’t get me wrong, these guys are both world class performers, but this isn’t exactly the kind of match I expected to be top notch, and I didn’t expect either of these guys to have any chemistry whatsoever. And obviously, I was wrong. This was a fun, hard hitting match, where both guys were on top of their games and, this can not be stated enough, the crowd was absolutely white hot for Punk. When you watch classic wrestling, its common for fans to chant for their hero all the way through a match, and make tons of noise for every shift in momentum, and every offensive move. Nowadays you don’t tend to see that so much anymore, but tonight that’s exactly what CM Punk illicited from this Chicago crowd, and it was truly a joy to watch.
Great match, great crowd, great fun.
Great opener.
The finish is probably going to anger some people, with Punk losing clean in his hometown while they’re building him as a championship contender, but I look at it like this. Punk can beat Edge, Umaga can beat Punk. But Punk had the title shot, and Umaga didn't. But by beating Punk, Umaga now deserves a title shot, and there's the intrigue of whether or not champion Punk can silence his critics and prove that he's the best. Same with Kane last month. As long as Punk has Money In the Bank, he has momentum that is hard to suppress, so establishing some legitimate contenders for his eventual title run, as opposed to the same old guys, especially when you’ll want other main events surrounding him to protect him, as he may lack drawing ability right away, that’s just smart business. That’s my say on it. Also: Pie.
80 out of 100.
Cewsh’s Download Seal of Approval.
-->Vice: So, two things strike me at the start of this match.
2. Holy god Punk is over. Yeah, it’s Chicago, but still. Fucking hell. Watching little Punker rise to fame in ROH and other indies, I really never thought I’d see him being successful in WWE. He’s a former World Heavyweight Champion and has won MITB twice, and is still holding his second briefcase. Hopefully he cashes it in and loses, as much as I love Punk, to add some spice to the MITB gimmick. It’s just not nearly as fun if eeeeveryone goes on to win the title.
Umaga over CM Punk Following a Samoan Spike.
Segment 3 – What’s More Wooden? The Acting or the Table?
Vice: Hi Vickie. Oh, hi Big Show, how are you? I am fine. Hi Chavo. Hello Big Show. Hi Vickie. Hi everybody. Oh. Hi Edge. Grr I want the title. No. You will die.
Cewsh Note: Not actual transcript. Actually better than real dialogue.
Segment 4 – ECW Championship – Christian (What TNA, I Never Worked For Any TNA) © vs. Jack (Sparrow) Swagger.
-->Vice: Jack Swagger appears to have lost some of his Swagger now that he doesn’t possess the GIANTEST (which is an actual word? Huh…) MOTHERFUCKING TITLE EVER. Seriously, it’s almost the size of Christian himself. So, I have high hopes going into this match, because their work together has generally been really good. Christian is on fire, doing some of the best work of his career that doesn’t involve tables, ladders, chairs, and Samoa Joes. I mean, he’s always been solid as hell, but I’d say that only in the past 3-4 years has he REALLY gotten it to the point where he can make a match great by himself, rather than being a fantastic ball of clay that someone else can work with. Swagger is still pretty cool. I love his body type, his attire, and his, well, swagger. He just moves so awkwardly, like a four foot guy was put in a massive body and hasn’t gotten the hang of his new size yet. That’s great.
I really hate shit like that, by the way. Like at Wrestlemania I think it was, when JBL beating the shit out of Rey Mysterio before the bell rang didn’t start the match for THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY just because that’s what WWE wanted to do with the match. Ugh. The finish is neat with Christian getting a handful of Swagger’s tights after pulling his singlet down moments earlier. But you’ve got to wonder—why didn’t the ref check to see if Christian had some tights? He’s a wily veteran, you know.
Cewsh: Man, this is exactly what I like to see. Two stars going at it for the first time over the title, giving me a unique match full of moves and exchanges I’ve never seen before, and really injected a breath of fresh air into a PPV card.
Oh wait, no, this is Christian/Swagger IV. And I can see these two wrestling when I close my eyes. But let’s ignore that, and try to enjoy this match, as I have managed to enjoy their previous, very high quality, encounters.
Unfortunately, well, it was a Christian vs. Jack Swagger match. It was good, smooth, and fun to watch, but…well…alright look. I didn’t want to see this match, so I didn’t enjoy it. Simple as that. I like to think of myself as open minded, but the fact is that this match was just too similar to their prior encounters, and it made the match harder for me to enjoy, it really did. Simple as that. The match was fine, and if it was your introduction to the match, it might even be great. But it wasn’t my introduction, and this feud seriously needs a rest.
The end, though, was probably my favorite of all the finishes to their matches. After being thwarted by the younger, strong, and more talented Swagger the first time out, Christian has adapted and now uses wily, and admittedly cheating, tactics to hold on to the title. Swagger, being from the straightforward collegiate wrestling world, doesn’t know what to make of it, and Matt Striker does a fantastic, fantastic job of telling us so, and giving us a chance to understand the complexities of the match. Great finish to an otherwise uninspiring match.
72 out of 100.
Christian over Jack Swagger Following A Roll Up With A Handful Of Tights.
Segment 5 – Edge Is Harsh, Bro.
Cewsh: Chavo wants to know what’s up between Edge and Vickie, and accuses Edge of not even sharing a house with her anymore. Edge turns it around on Chavo by calling him “not even a man” for letting Santina get away with calling Vickie a pig. He’s kind of got you there, Chavo. Man the hell up.
Segment 6 – Shelton (I Have A White Sidekick Named Charlie) Benjamin vs. John (Wait, So I’m A Pretty Boy, Douchebag…Face?) Morrison.
Cewsh: Gah! There’s so much that pisses me off about this match.
First you have Benjamin, who has really been flourishing in his role as an upper midcard heel, who works strong matches, and he has really been getting better with his promos. Charlie Haas is a guy who has never grasped the WWE style enough to make it on his own, and showed his greatest potential as a guy who impersonated other wrestlers. He’s the new Val Venis at best. They once teamed together when they were nobodies 4 years ago. What to do with them? Why, pair them together of course! Dragging Benjamin down and not doing anything to lift Haas up. Benajmin has now been saddled with his less talented former partner yet again, just when he was showing flashes of becoming the complete package that WWE has desperately wanted him to be for so long. Great. Just great. They’ll be a great addition to the Smackdown tag teams of Cryme Tyme and…
Sigh.
And then there’s John Morrison. I get why they’re going with his face turn. His big, awesome moves get him face pops, he’s pretty for the ladies, and frankly he’s just too cool to get booed. His gimmick was never going to go further than it had as the character he was portraying. His new Corckscrew Split Legged Moonsault finisher is a surefire crowd pleaser, and he seems to be getting over well enough. But they pulled this on us so abruptly it was ridiculous, with absolutely no explanation as to why we should be cheering him now, when we were booing him 2 months ago. And it seems like nobody gave him the memo either, as he’s slowly showing comprehension as to how to wrestle like a face, but he still shows very little fire, works the crowd non at all, and he’s STILL THE SAME DOUCHEBAG HE WAS BEFORE.
Ah well. It could be worse, I guess.
As for the match, it was nothing you wouldn’t expect. They have an enjoyable 12 minute PPV match that was very back and forth, and featured a Springboard 450 to the outside by Morrison that was just amazing. Past that, I can’t really recommend it. It was a Smackdown match, not a PPV one.
70 out of 100.
Vice: If I watched more WWE, I might not mind Morrison as a face. Or if I just accepted whatever WWE tossed my way. But, I do mind him as a face. He should be a heel. He should always be a heel. After investing so much time and effort into getting him over as a massive heel, they make him a face. Now he can’t just happily go back to that character if he needs to be a heel again. And why does he need to be a face to begin with? He’s a natural dickhead you want to punch in the face because he’s cooler than you and far, far, far more attractive than you will ever be. He can also cut his “deadpan” promos as a heel and have them be effective for the most part. His promo skills as a face? Ahahahha. Right. Has anyone tested him for steroids? His body is freakishly unnatural.
John Morrison over Shelton Benjamin Following The Starship Pain (Corkscrew Split Legged Moonsault).
Segment 7 – The Miz Is My Favorite Wrestler.
Cewsh: The Miz proceeds to deliver one of the greatest cheap heat promos I have ever heard. It is absolutely perfect in its douchish brilliance. Then Santino comes out and is completely outshown in midcard heelishness by the Miz. Except that Santino is kind of a face or something? I really don’t get it at all. Then Santino basically turns face and starts ripping on the Miz and beating him up to huge cheers. Fucking Christ. Then Miz lays out Santino, and Chavo comes out (CONTINUITY and frog splashes Santino. Which must be really hard to do in a suit.
Anyway, yeah, this is called a filler segment kiddies. You can make one yourself. Just take a big chunk of time you need filled, and have your friends tell unfunny jokes in it. Now you too, can be an awkward midcarder asked to take up more PPV time for no reason than they’ve been given all year up to now.
Vice: Onobakalope! Ookatrouplelamatrampoline! GAKALOPETROKALA! KAKALAKADOOMATRONX3000! Hacalanawatropa. Guh.
Cewsh Note: At this point, Vice had to be restrained after he was found scrawling bloody words on his walls in some strange language. As best as we can figure, it included the words “hate”, “fucking”, and “filler segments”. Following an extended rest and some bandages, and some Dr. Stevie (and Daffney) couch time, he’s made a full recovery for our next segment. Please forward your flowers and well wishes to our secretary. The monkey using a banana as a phone in the Cewsh Reviews Headquarters Lobby.
Segment 8 – Josh Matthews Is Pulling Double Duty. Heh. Duty.
Cewsh: Jericho is mad. Mumbles something about conspiracies and insults the fans. Yep, pretty much par for the course for his character. Moving on.
Segment 9 – WWE Intercontinental Championship – Rey (LOOK AT MY ENORMOUS FACE ON MY SHIRT!) Mysterio © vs. Chris (Needs Some Dr. Stevie Time) Jericho.
Cewsh: The last time we saw this match, it was ten years and about 30 surgeries and 1,000 matches ago for these guys, so I hardly expect this to be the high flying awesomefest that that match was. Still, these guys are both veterans who have a lot of great matches under their belts recently, so there’s no reason to assume that this won’t be a fine match.
And that is exactly what it was. This was a really well worked match between two top notch performers, who are both universally respected and well liked, but have somehow managed to not have many matches together. So this match had a lot of nice references to the original match, and was a really fast paced match, especially for Jericho, who has been making a point of slowing people down lately. It was a good, fun match in the middle of the card, and it had the right result, with a potential loophole for further character development for Jericho Good times.
78 out of 100.
-->
-->Vice: Rey’s shirt is so frightening, especially when it’s in the smock style of Shawn Michaels. Who thought that would be a good idea? Seriously, it’s the worst way to wear a shirt. So, so, so awful. Buuuut, I suppose he needs to wear it because it’s for sale on WWEShop.com, available now for the low price of somewhere in the vicinity of $25 plus shipping. If you didn’t catch that,
http://www.wweshop.com/Product_detail.asp?cat=cat-reymysterio&productId=01-10393
Rey Mysterio over Chris Jericho Following A 619.
Segment 10 – WWE Heavyweight Championship – Randy (Hotcakes) Orton © vs. Ba(p)tista.
-->Vice: A good start to the match. The hype video made Batista seem legitimately angry, and the match starts off with them ready to lock horns. Orton wants none of it, so he slides out of the ring. I like the way his character moves and reacts, but he’s also really stupid to a degree. Some guy wants to kill you, so the best bet is to slide out of the ring and stand there with your back to a massive pissed off guy for 5 seconds and hope to god the ref can convince the bloodthirsty animal not to commit murder. Fortunately, the ref was able to convince a bloodthirsty animal not to commit murder. Kudos to him. Perhaps he could get a job at a suicide hotline when he can’t ref anymore?
Cewsh: God, its really gotten to the point where every time I hear Randy Orton’s music hits, I sit forward in anticipation, because I know that good shit is going to happen, and I don’t want to miss it. There are not a lot of people in professional wrestling today that can make me do that, and Orton, right now, might very well be the best at it. With him, here, facing Batista, I’m not really sure what to think though. I like Batista, and enjoy his matches sometimes, but they don’t have great chemistry, and its as clear as Crystal Pepsi that Batista is not winning the title in this match, because him doing so would absolutely kill all of Orton’s carefully constructed momentum.
So with the result already set practically in stone, and this match having been offered to us a few months ago (granted, under very different circumstances) this is another match I’m having trouble summoning a lot of interest in. I know I’m usually a gung ho iron man about even the crappiest reviews, but the fact is that even IWA:EC matches are new and unique in their own terrible way. This match is just sort of there. The bridge between Orton/Triple H, and more Orton/Triple H. And its fine for what it is, but yeah. Just isn’t drawing me in at the moment.
Anyway, the match goes forward, and Orton does his wonderful heel shtick of slowing the match to a crawl and making the fans loathe him, despite their wild cheers for him earlier. -->Batista sells, well, he really doesn’t sell at all, making the whole exercise kind of silly. Then the match continues on, and on, and on, and on. Orton does his best to fix things up and make the match good, but we’re talking about a 20 minute match that should have gotten 15 at most, and ideally around 10. I enjoyed the match, but yeah. Had I been hyped for it, it very likely would have made a better impression on me. As it was, it really didn’t.
-->
Randy Orton over Batista Following Orton Getting Disqualified.
Cewsh: Post match Rhodes and Dibiase hit the ring and attack Batista, doing a number on him before…OUT COMES RIC FLAIR. He then beats the shit out of the young pups and embraces Batista to odd looks from the crowd. Wondering why the odd looks? How about the fact that Ric Flair cannot actually wrestle a match for this feud, so having him dominate actual potential money drawers in it seems a little counter productive. Could just be me, ah well. Welcome back, Ric.
Cewsh: Alright, so the basis of this match is the idea that Cena is still hurt, both from the chokeslam through the searchlight at Backlash, and from the beating the Show gave him on Raw. As a result of these injuries, Big Show intends to officially end Cena’s career once and for all, and Cena is playing the plucky babyface fighting against every odd in the book. Cena is selling it for all he’s worth too, walking to the ring and limping around like a Dialysis patient looking for his apple juice.
As the match begins, the Big Show is pounding on John Cena. And then he pounds on John Cena. And then, just to prove a point, he goes right on pounding on John Cena. Nearly 15 uninterrupted minutes of the Big Show kicking the ever loving shit out of John Cena, in the universal slow methodical way of all heels who claim they want to end a guy’s career. John Cena spends those fifteen minutes selling his beating like his life depends on it, putting Batista’s sorry show from the last match to absolute shame. This whole first bit is actually kind of hard to watch. It’s a little boring, and kind of depressing. But then after Cena’s comeback starts the match picks up speed considerably, and actually gets really, really good. Cena plays the whole thing picture perfect, and Show spends his time being as dastardly as possible.
There’s honestly not a ton else left to say. I think everyone saw the ending coming from a mile away, but that’s the way things go in matches like this, and the story they built around the injured ribs of Cena really added excitement to what would otherwise have been a fairly blah finish to an ultimately forgettable match. I enjoyed it, I really did. But it was just shy of being worth me recommending it to you.
78 out of 100.
-->Vice: Big Show: *PUNCH
Cena: :(
Big Show: *PUNCH*
Big Show: Grrr… *SHOVE*
Yeah, Big Show is big and he is apparently a show as well. Holy fuck though. This was torture to watch. Cena was doing the best he could, which is pretty good, to sell the shit out of Big Show’s offense, but fucking hell. It was so incredibly slow. Cena being too small to lock the STFU on Show was a nice touch the first time, but apparently he’s fucking retarded because he goes for it another two times. Hey dipshit—if you’re too small to lock it in the first time, then why do you keep going for it? Maybe you weren’t sure the first time so you tried again. Second time you’ve confirmed that you are just too small. SO HEY, GO FOR IT AGAIN WHY DON’T YOU. THAT JUST MAKES SENSE. Fucking retard.
John Cena over The Big Show Following An Attitude Adjustment.
Cewsh: These are two guys who could wrestle every night from now until the end of time, and I would be content.
84 out of 100
Edge over Jeff Hardy Following A Top Rope Edgecution (or a “Nasty Superplex” if you prefer JR’s version.)
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Cewsh: This show was fine. Just…fine. It was a filler show between more important PPVs while they shuffle things about for the inevitable charge to Summerslam. As a result, this show turned out to be pretty forgettable. But forgettable isn’t the same as bad, and with two really good matches, and a host of solid ones, this show was exactly that, solid. Not a bad match in the bunch.
Vice: Overall I thought the show was decent. Some was great, some was painful. Everything cancelled something else out for the most part. But hey, at least the Midgar Zolom didn’t sweep me away this week. PHEW.
-->Well that’ll do it for us here at the Cewsh Reviews…Headquarters for tonight boys and girls. Be sure to check in next Tuesday for our review of TNA’s Sacrifice PPV featuring a main event that would have been one of the biggest of all time…in the year 2001. Until then, we bid you good day and farewell, remind you to check out the blog (the posts go up earlier there, you know), and we remind you to keep reading, and be good to one another.
Cewsh's Final Score: 76.5 out of 100.
Vice’s Verdict:
Vice's Final Score: 55 out of 100.
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