February 2005

Not an all-time classic as you would expect we would be getting from these two in a different best of 5 series, but I thought this was still very good and by far the best match they've had in their best of 5 series so far. Most of this develops with some ringside brawling, but it's different than what you would expect as you get a rolling small package running into fans, an airplane spin the crowd, backslide pins, etc. They 've brawled in their other two matches in the series and those where the high points of those matches, but this is by far their best ringside brawl so far. This is the type of brawling I could see Dusty Rhodes losing his mind for and laughing for 15 mi…

This rules. I love Rave's heel work here with the constant cheating scumbaggery - the entire shoelace thing, which lead to the match being restarted, was so much fun. Punk is also terrific at being the ass-kicker at the 2 beginnings of the match, first at the very beginning & then when it gets restarted. He is also class at selling for Rave's work on top. It's a great match with both guys playing their roles wonderfully. ****

This was a sprint compared to their usual matches, but even a sprint is worth watching between these two rivals. More hard-hitting action between the indies' best matchup.

I always thought Edge's heel run sucked until the Lita/Matt Hardy and Rated-R stuff, and this supports that view: the crowd goes mild. Holy shit Michaels bleeds a gusher. Not quite Eddie vs. JBL levels, but not far off. There's a lot of botches at the beginning, which I don't usually care about but it really disrupted the flow of the match, but it get a lot better and more dramatic. They move quite slowly, just going between big spots without much in between. Yet it actually makes quite a refreshing change of pace - there's no big nearfalls until the finish, and most of the spots make sense, especially Michaels throwing a ladder at Edge's head. He also clobbers Edge …