GREAT AMERICAN BASH LIVE REPORT
- 07/21/2008 (2:58:34 am)
- Georgiann Makropoulos
…..
Great American Bash Live Report
from rikterfuge
i'll try to be short and to the point because i was so thoroughly
disappointed by tonights event and talked about it in great detail
with the group of friends i attended with...
Kennedy v Umaga was the opener/dark match...
Kennedys response, as well as crowd interaction with his opening
schtick was huge! People are SO into Kennedy, so in what we later
found out to be typical for the night, he was essentially squashed and
made to look pretty bad. Umaga came out to a lackluster response and
made short work of him in a pretty boring match very similar to their
smackdown match. Beat him with the spike.
4 way tag match for the wwe tag belts opened the actual PPV. Miz &
Morrison got a decent heel champion response. Jesse and Festus got a
decent reaction. Finlay and Hornswaggle got a moderate response in
comparison to what I was expecting to be a huge pop and Hawkins and
Ryder got a typical unimpressive response, despite them being from LI.
They wrestled in NYWC for a little while but they are by no means
"hometown heroes" and we all know they play goons on smackdown. A "we
want finlay" chant broke out pretty loudly towards the beginning, but
the crowd quickly lost interest when the match was all over the place.
When it finally seemed to pick up, they set up the finish, which had
Ryder and Hawkins go over for the belts when they pinned Jesse. It
makes no sense to me why they would a) take the belts off the miz/
morison team in this manner (not having them involved in the finish)
when they were having a nice run with these belts and getting over and
b) put them on hawkins and ryder at all at this point. i was/am
confused and the vast majority of the crowd didn't seem to really
care. great start.
matt hardy/benjamin us title match should have been a great match.
matt hardy almost always delivers and (depending on who you talk to)
shelton is always good for a good match. Matts entrance pop was
amongst the biggest of the night. sheltons was bland. here's my
OPINION on benjamin...the reason he's not a top player is because he
is not layered and doesn't have that intangible that pushes him to the
next level. "best pure athlete", "under-rated", "waiting for his big
break", "needs to get passed that glass ceiling"... i don't agree at
all. the chair has been pulled out for him many times and he just
can't sit in it...he just isn't there. well, he half assed his way
through this match and it was relatively uninteresting and the crowd
was back and forth as to how much they cared. in what makes no sense
to me and seems like a wcw '98-99 "write this as we go along with no
plan" type of deal, benjamin goes over hardy for the us belt with his
sloppy new finisher, thus ending hardys way too short singles push
(although he was losing so often anyway) and beginning another
benjamin push of which he will most likely not fulfill his potential
and the "i'm so smart" internet critics can complain that he isn't
being given a chance. by the finish of the match the crowd was not
happy, but not as vocal with their unhappiness of the finish as they
were with their initial reaction to matts entrance.
dreamer/henry ecw title match. i love tommy dreamer and was always a
huge ecw fan, so the prospect of seeing him live in WWE for my first
time was exciting even knowing he was inevitably be used as the jobber
theyve been using him as for the past chunk of years. neither mark
henry/atlas or dreamer with delaney got much of a reaction upon
entrance. the match moved slow and not much memorable happened. in a
completely ridiculous turn of events, Colin Delaney turns on Dreamer
by grabbing his arm and yanking him off the top rope which lead into
henrys powerslam for the win. in what i assume was a shocking surprise
to wwe writers, the crowd didn't really seem to care one way or the
other. lets look at this bare bones here and you will begin to
understand my frustration/bitterness with the event to this point
through this match... the HUGE ecw champion with a legit claim to the
title of "worlds strongest man" not only needs a hall of famer, in
tony atlas, in his corner to beat what is no essentially a jobber
(tommy dreamer) to retain the ECW belt, but also needs the help of a
130 lbs rookie...who tried to garner all the attention after the match
as he walked up the ramp backwards. how does that make anyone involved
in that angle look good? the star of the angle is a skinny white
rookie thats won 1 or 2 matches on TV as opposed to the HUGE champion
mark henry, the hall of famer gone bad tony atlas, or the sympathetic
never say die tommy dreamer? i'm sure they'll go to the old "sick of
being in dreamers shadow" routine before they job delaney out as well.
if tiny kids is the new trend in wrestling, sign me up too.
hbk/jericho...finally, a great match that the crowd was into and TOLD
A COHERENT STORY! both wrestlers had big pops for their entrance.
crowd was a bit more split than i would have thought, with the lean
going towards michaels. cade was absent for most of the match, which
went back and forth. jericho is great in his no-humor heel routine and
ring work. michaels was phenomenal as usual, and never fails to get
the never say die never give in attitude across. shawns top rope to
the floor moonsault onto jericho and cade got a huge response.
michaels started bleeding on the outside and cade kicked him in the
head at some point. jericho punched and kicked til hbk was split open
wide. jericho put him in a type of arm lock and punched him in the
head repeatedly til the ref stopped the match due to blood/hbk's
inability to defend himself. crowd was hot and this match was great.
took a while for shawn to get out of the ring and he needed
assistance. best match of the night hands down.
mccool/natalya diva championship...michelle got a good reaction during
entrance, natalya got a less enthusiastic reaction and the crowd
essentially went to sleep or got food during the match. they didn't
miss much. the match had no rhythm whatsoever. the crowd seemed like
it almost popped for the sharpshooter but didn't exactly. before i
knew it michelle has natalya in a leglock of her own and won the
match. people popped a little for the win but maybe it was just
because the match was over. eve and cherry came out to "celebrate"
with michelle but they were all interupted by a jericho promo stating
that michaels suffered a torn retna and tonight was his last match.
the crowd was pretty hot on the promo and it was done great.
CM Punk/Batista...remember how cena was the biggest crowd favorite
with deafening reactions and such during entrances and big moves, then
became the "cool guy to hate" once he won the championship? enter CM
Punk. everyone loved him and cheered him and got behind him etc...he
gets the belt, now its the cool thing to do to boo him. his initial
entrance reaction was strong, then laced with some negativity, then a
bit of a mix. i half blame that on wwe booking. batistas reaction was
bigger. positive reaction with some negative reactons laced in but not
as much as punks and overall louder. his entrance music was also WAY
louder than anyone elses at that point and he was the first to have
pyro for the night. the match was somewhat decent throughout, although
batista seemed to pick and choose when he wanted to sell and not to.
perhaps their styles are just too different and theyre not used to
each other yet. crowd was into the match but leaned more towards
batista, which strikes me as odd because the batista heel turn seems
imminent. with the confusing booking of this match though, i guess its
to be expected. they followed suit and the finish made absolutely no
sense and much like the ecw match, made everyone look bad as opposed
to everyone looking good. kane beat up batista on the outside. bell
rings, kane beats up punk on the inside. referee dq's both men (?),
kane kicks the camera man in the face and leaves. batista comes into
the ring and powerbombs punk to a loud pop. they really screwed that
up in my eyes and confuses the crowd. i came up with several options
on how that could have been done to make everyone look good as opposed
to everyone looking stupid and weak on the drive home, but i doubt
anyone cares about my coulda/shoulda's. In the end, the crowd had its
moments of being into the match, but i was disappointed with what
seems to be very poor booking in my eyes.
jbl/cena street fight may have been great to watch on tv but live it
sucked. jbl had some decent heat for his entrance music but it was
shortlived becuse he never appeared in the arena, just on the tron in
the back alley. cena appeared in a car in the back, so he had no
entrance reaction. the first view of him wasn't anything mentionable
either due to it being on the screen, not live. the match was filled
with the stuff i personally think is lame in pro wrestling...legit
murder angles. crashing cars, setting people ablaze, dropping people
from high places onto concrete, etc. cena had the strongest pro crowd
response ive heard for him in a long long time and i think that is due
to him being put into a program with JBL...someone the crowd respects,
but doesnt like. the crowd was hot on him even through the screen. the
reactions this match would have garnered had it been in the ring or
mostly in the arena would have been huge. anyway, putting cena in a
program with someone that makes people that would regularly boo him
CHEER him was a great idea in rebuilding his popularity in a more
stable way. the match was what it was and i think they did decent
with the car slamming and such and it would have been better with out
the flaming car and fork lift crash. jbl went over cena when he
through him off the stage into the windsheild of a car. cryme tyme and
the dibiase/rhodes were not involved at all, which i think was a bad
idea being that a cameo by both teams would have been nice to
reiterate that they were both in the main event last raw. once jbl
won, the crowd simmered down and didnt boo him as much they had at the
opening of the match. worse off, once cena got off the car and walked
to the back, crowd booed him a little bit. i feel if cena would have
went over, the "regular cena haters" may have jumped ship and
continued to support him but instead, the ones cheering cena when he
faces jbl were booing him after the finish. more poor booking.
edge/hhh match was a hige disapointment. edge had a good reaction
with some a lot of heat but also his share of vocal fans. HHH had a
huge reaction as well as music louder than even batistas. the match
was lackluster and had way too many restholds for these two people. i
was expecting a great physical match but it was tame and standard. HHH
did about 3 or 4 moves throughout the enttire match and the crowd
started a "Edge can't wrestle" against "you know nothing" chant at
some point. that was the hottestthe crowd was from my seats for the
match. The wedding planner tried to help edge hit HHH with the
championship belt until vicki came down to ringside with a
tremendously huge pop. i don't see the merrit in turning vicki face
but it seems thats the route theyre going. HHH wound up pedigreeing
edge for the win in the short boring match that disappointed me quite
a bit.
i am not usually a bitter wrestling fan. i go into watching each show
and ppv etc, obviously wanting to like and love it, not to tear it
apart anywhere, let alone the net, but this show just pissed me off so
bad because it seems like the point of the show was to ignore any
continuity or logic in almost every story or character involved. add
on top of that the $40 ticket price, the irritation i get from
bandwagon jumpers and the fact that i think i could have written some
more cohesive stories/outcomes. i am being an armchair quarterback
right now which is obnoxious but its how i feel right now.
disappointed by tonights event and talked about it in great detail
with the group of friends i attended with...
Kennedy v Umaga was the opener/dark match...
Kennedys response, as well as crowd interaction with his opening
schtick was huge! People are SO into Kennedy, so in what we later
found out to be typical for the night, he was essentially squashed and
made to look pretty bad. Umaga came out to a lackluster response and
made short work of him in a pretty boring match very similar to their
smackdown match. Beat him with the spike.
4 way tag match for the wwe tag belts opened the actual PPV. Miz &
Morrison got a decent heel champion response. Jesse and Festus got a
decent reaction. Finlay and Hornswaggle got a moderate response in
comparison to what I was expecting to be a huge pop and Hawkins and
Ryder got a typical unimpressive response, despite them being from LI.
They wrestled in NYWC for a little while but they are by no means
"hometown heroes" and we all know they play goons on smackdown. A "we
want finlay" chant broke out pretty loudly towards the beginning, but
the crowd quickly lost interest when the match was all over the place.
When it finally seemed to pick up, they set up the finish, which had
Ryder and Hawkins go over for the belts when they pinned Jesse. It
makes no sense to me why they would a) take the belts off the miz/
morison team in this manner (not having them involved in the finish)
when they were having a nice run with these belts and getting over and
b) put them on hawkins and ryder at all at this point. i was/am
confused and the vast majority of the crowd didn't seem to really
care. great start.
matt hardy/benjamin us title match should have been a great match.
matt hardy almost always delivers and (depending on who you talk to)
shelton is always good for a good match. Matts entrance pop was
amongst the biggest of the night. sheltons was bland. here's my
OPINION on benjamin...the reason he's not a top player is because he
is not layered and doesn't have that intangible that pushes him to the
next level. "best pure athlete", "under-rated", "waiting for his big
break", "needs to get passed that glass ceiling"... i don't agree at
all. the chair has been pulled out for him many times and he just
can't sit in it...he just isn't there. well, he half assed his way
through this match and it was relatively uninteresting and the crowd
was back and forth as to how much they cared. in what makes no sense
to me and seems like a wcw '98-99 "write this as we go along with no
plan" type of deal, benjamin goes over hardy for the us belt with his
sloppy new finisher, thus ending hardys way too short singles push
(although he was losing so often anyway) and beginning another
benjamin push of which he will most likely not fulfill his potential
and the "i'm so smart" internet critics can complain that he isn't
being given a chance. by the finish of the match the crowd was not
happy, but not as vocal with their unhappiness of the finish as they
were with their initial reaction to matts entrance.
dreamer/henry ecw title match. i love tommy dreamer and was always a
huge ecw fan, so the prospect of seeing him live in WWE for my first
time was exciting even knowing he was inevitably be used as the jobber
theyve been using him as for the past chunk of years. neither mark
henry/atlas or dreamer with delaney got much of a reaction upon
entrance. the match moved slow and not much memorable happened. in a
completely ridiculous turn of events, Colin Delaney turns on Dreamer
by grabbing his arm and yanking him off the top rope which lead into
henrys powerslam for the win. in what i assume was a shocking surprise
to wwe writers, the crowd didn't really seem to care one way or the
other. lets look at this bare bones here and you will begin to
understand my frustration/bitterness with the event to this point
through this match... the HUGE ecw champion with a legit claim to the
title of "worlds strongest man" not only needs a hall of famer, in
tony atlas, in his corner to beat what is no essentially a jobber
(tommy dreamer) to retain the ECW belt, but also needs the help of a
130 lbs rookie...who tried to garner all the attention after the match
as he walked up the ramp backwards. how does that make anyone involved
in that angle look good? the star of the angle is a skinny white
rookie thats won 1 or 2 matches on TV as opposed to the HUGE champion
mark henry, the hall of famer gone bad tony atlas, or the sympathetic
never say die tommy dreamer? i'm sure they'll go to the old "sick of
being in dreamers shadow" routine before they job delaney out as well.
if tiny kids is the new trend in wrestling, sign me up too.
hbk/jericho...finally, a great match that the crowd was into and TOLD
A COHERENT STORY! both wrestlers had big pops for their entrance.
crowd was a bit more split than i would have thought, with the lean
going towards michaels. cade was absent for most of the match, which
went back and forth. jericho is great in his no-humor heel routine and
ring work. michaels was phenomenal as usual, and never fails to get
the never say die never give in attitude across. shawns top rope to
the floor moonsault onto jericho and cade got a huge response.
michaels started bleeding on the outside and cade kicked him in the
head at some point. jericho punched and kicked til hbk was split open
wide. jericho put him in a type of arm lock and punched him in the
head repeatedly til the ref stopped the match due to blood/hbk's
inability to defend himself. crowd was hot and this match was great.
took a while for shawn to get out of the ring and he needed
assistance. best match of the night hands down.
mccool/natalya diva championship...michelle got a good reaction during
entrance, natalya got a less enthusiastic reaction and the crowd
essentially went to sleep or got food during the match. they didn't
miss much. the match had no rhythm whatsoever. the crowd seemed like
it almost popped for the sharpshooter but didn't exactly. before i
knew it michelle has natalya in a leglock of her own and won the
match. people popped a little for the win but maybe it was just
because the match was over. eve and cherry came out to "celebrate"
with michelle but they were all interupted by a jericho promo stating
that michaels suffered a torn retna and tonight was his last match.
the crowd was pretty hot on the promo and it was done great.
CM Punk/Batista...remember how cena was the biggest crowd favorite
with deafening reactions and such during entrances and big moves, then
became the "cool guy to hate" once he won the championship? enter CM
Punk. everyone loved him and cheered him and got behind him etc...he
gets the belt, now its the cool thing to do to boo him. his initial
entrance reaction was strong, then laced with some negativity, then a
bit of a mix. i half blame that on wwe booking. batistas reaction was
bigger. positive reaction with some negative reactons laced in but not
as much as punks and overall louder. his entrance music was also WAY
louder than anyone elses at that point and he was the first to have
pyro for the night. the match was somewhat decent throughout, although
batista seemed to pick and choose when he wanted to sell and not to.
perhaps their styles are just too different and theyre not used to
each other yet. crowd was into the match but leaned more towards
batista, which strikes me as odd because the batista heel turn seems
imminent. with the confusing booking of this match though, i guess its
to be expected. they followed suit and the finish made absolutely no
sense and much like the ecw match, made everyone look bad as opposed
to everyone looking good. kane beat up batista on the outside. bell
rings, kane beats up punk on the inside. referee dq's both men (?),
kane kicks the camera man in the face and leaves. batista comes into
the ring and powerbombs punk to a loud pop. they really screwed that
up in my eyes and confuses the crowd. i came up with several options
on how that could have been done to make everyone look good as opposed
to everyone looking stupid and weak on the drive home, but i doubt
anyone cares about my coulda/shoulda's. In the end, the crowd had its
moments of being into the match, but i was disappointed with what
seems to be very poor booking in my eyes.
jbl/cena street fight may have been great to watch on tv but live it
sucked. jbl had some decent heat for his entrance music but it was
shortlived becuse he never appeared in the arena, just on the tron in
the back alley. cena appeared in a car in the back, so he had no
entrance reaction. the first view of him wasn't anything mentionable
either due to it being on the screen, not live. the match was filled
with the stuff i personally think is lame in pro wrestling...legit
murder angles. crashing cars, setting people ablaze, dropping people
from high places onto concrete, etc. cena had the strongest pro crowd
response ive heard for him in a long long time and i think that is due
to him being put into a program with JBL...someone the crowd respects,
but doesnt like. the crowd was hot on him even through the screen. the
reactions this match would have garnered had it been in the ring or
mostly in the arena would have been huge. anyway, putting cena in a
program with someone that makes people that would regularly boo him
CHEER him was a great idea in rebuilding his popularity in a more
stable way. the match was what it was and i think they did decent
with the car slamming and such and it would have been better with out
the flaming car and fork lift crash. jbl went over cena when he
through him off the stage into the windsheild of a car. cryme tyme and
the dibiase/rhodes were not involved at all, which i think was a bad
idea being that a cameo by both teams would have been nice to
reiterate that they were both in the main event last raw. once jbl
won, the crowd simmered down and didnt boo him as much they had at the
opening of the match. worse off, once cena got off the car and walked
to the back, crowd booed him a little bit. i feel if cena would have
went over, the "regular cena haters" may have jumped ship and
continued to support him but instead, the ones cheering cena when he
faces jbl were booing him after the finish. more poor booking.
edge/hhh match was a hige disapointment. edge had a good reaction
with some a lot of heat but also his share of vocal fans. HHH had a
huge reaction as well as music louder than even batistas. the match
was lackluster and had way too many restholds for these two people. i
was expecting a great physical match but it was tame and standard. HHH
did about 3 or 4 moves throughout the enttire match and the crowd
started a "Edge can't wrestle" against "you know nothing" chant at
some point. that was the hottestthe crowd was from my seats for the
match. The wedding planner tried to help edge hit HHH with the
championship belt until vicki came down to ringside with a
tremendously huge pop. i don't see the merrit in turning vicki face
but it seems thats the route theyre going. HHH wound up pedigreeing
edge for the win in the short boring match that disappointed me quite
a bit.
i am not usually a bitter wrestling fan. i go into watching each show
and ppv etc, obviously wanting to like and love it, not to tear it
apart anywhere, let alone the net, but this show just pissed me off so
bad because it seems like the point of the show was to ignore any
continuity or logic in almost every story or character involved. add
on top of that the $40 ticket price, the irritation i get from
bandwagon jumpers and the fact that i think i could have written some
more cohesive stories/outcomes. i am being an armchair quarterback
right now which is obnoxious but its how i feel right now.
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