May 2005

This was a cool feud that came out of WrestleMania, but unfortunately they made them work a Last Man Standing match. The WWE has traditionally been weak at Texas Death Matches and the like, and this was no different. It didn't help that the crowd were dead. I wanted to like this, but it was a bunch of shit you've seen before. The finish kind of bothered me. Benoit made the ten count despite being speared, so Edge opened his Money in the Bank briefcase and pulled out a brick. He struck Benoit on the back of the head and Benoit failed to make the count. Edge pulled a bunch of stupid facials, but what bothered me was the brick. To me that's crossing the line. Maybe I'm being…

This was the pay-per-view opener, and for my money the best match on the card. For the sounds of things, there was a pretty flimsy reason for the match taking place, but Jericho was still an excellent worker at this point and Benjamin's exciting blend of matwork and athleticism make him fun to watch. His theme music and gimmick are shit, and JR leans too far into college crap, but the guy was a blast to watch even if you knew the WWE machine would crush him in the end. JR mentions that Jericho is a record seven time Intercontinental Champion, but I'll be damned if I can remember any of his reigns. It wasn't clear whether he was a heel here. He was acting like a dick, but …

This was marginally better than their WrestleMania match but not particularly exciting. I have a high tolerance for Triple H matches, however I don't think he's the right opponent to carry a Batista match. Triple H vs. power guy isn't the first thing that springs to mind when I think of good Hunter matches. Plus, the entire bout was built around the Pedigree, which Lawler kept annoyingly referring to as "The Truth" vs. the Batista Bomb, and the fact that both men only needed a second to apply their finisher. Not exactly the most gripping storyline in WWE history, especially if you consider the Pedigree to be about as interesting as a sledgehammer spot. JR puts Batista ove…

These two always have good matches against each other and this was another gnarly little bout. Benoit selling a concussion may be disturbing to some viewers. Triple H was merciless with his shots to the back of Benoit's head and Benoit sold the shit out of each blow. Usually, I would hate the run-in at the end, and I was hating it until the brilliant finish that saw Triple H stuck in the sharpshooter and desperately clawing his way to the ropes only for Batista to pull back the bottom rope so Hunter couldn't reach it. Triple H tapped and was sensationally knocked out of the number one contender tournament, which was the perfect outcome even if you know Hunter will weasel …

This was a by-the-numbers Chris Jericho vs. Edge match with slightly increased stakes (being part of the number one contender tournament.) Mentally unstable Edge and his briefcase are my least favorite thing about the WWE right now, but Jericho put in a solid performance, especially since he jobbed on back-to-back nights.

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This was less spectacle, more story. The rudos ruthlessly picked up on Mistico and didn't care if they were disqualified for it. In the first fall, Perro ripped Mistico's mask off to reveal his frosted tips. Mistico had to go to the back and get a new mask, but it didn't stop the beatdown. If I'd been a paying customer, I would have been pissed that of all the weeks I chose to go to Arena Mexico, it was a week where the rudos were prepared to throw the bout so they could foul an opponent. Mistico demanded a hair vs. mask match, so the weekly attendees were no doubt excited about that.

Megumi Fujii in action is always worth a long watch, even if this match was kinda messy in places. The main issue is that these are two of the greatest female mat-wrestlers to ever do it vs two gals who aren't really close to that level of skill: not bad, but not on that level either. That being said this was still REALLY good, the first fall coming after Fujii tripped Kimura up before rolling back into standing position into a super slick Triangle choke and winning in the first minute of the match was a amazing spot alongside Kimura just being shocked afterwards. The fact that they run it back with Fujii doing a slick Frankensteiner right after to try to get another flas…

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This was no Valentine vs. Piper, but it was a decent dog collar match, I suppose. With so many of Rave's crew at ringside, it was obvious that the match was going to end with Rave's people beating on Punk. That made the dog collar gimmick somewhat unnecessary as they could have achieved the same thing with a straight brawl. Punk bled a huge amount for a bout that was basically a sampler for the following week's cage match. I liked his promo afterward.

Lots of pandering to the crowd in the early stages w/ some very nice back & forth work on the mat as well. Eventually Brookside tweaks his knee & Danielson attacks it like a shark - he works it over for rest of the match, and the control is firmly on his hands for the rest of the thing as well. Bryan is great working over Brookside, and while the finish was a bit anti-climatic, it was also clever - Danielson went to the top, leaving an opening for Brookside who IMMEDIATELY capitalized on it & won. Dragon had the control from the moment Brookside hurt his knee until that brief moment where he tried to go & hit that diving headbutt. Very solid storytelling. …

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This was a decent Edge vs. Shawn Michaels match. It was mostly a bunch of nearfalls and high risk maneuvers from Michaels, and nothing really inventive like the Angle or Benjamin matches. That said, it was action-packed and never boring. The ref got knocked out at the end and you'd have to be a first-time viewer not to figure out what would happen next. "Money in the Bank" Edge wouldn't be my first choice to challenge Batista. I'd much rather see a Batista/Michaels match. But Edge is the guy right now.

This was a cookie cutter match despite the talent involved. Very mid-tempo. I think it was a mistake having Hector Garza as the lead guy. I like his shtick, but it tends to slow the bout down and it's better as a secondary thread to whoever the main pairing are. Given that they'd just had a singles match, you'd think it would be Heavy Metal and Halloween, but they didn't make any sort of effort to steal the spotlight. it was never boring -- it's a match with Casas, Halloween and Damian, after all -- but a step down from some of the April spectacles involving Perros del Mal..

Will a 60 minute match dull my interest in this matchup? Nope, i's still the best matchup in wrestling. To be fair, there was a lot of time killing in this bout with a bunch of trashing talking and jawing with the crowd. It was far from their best match, and they've had better and more intense matches that 30 minutes plus. But when they did wrestle, they remained the best pair in the business.

ROH World Title Match: Austin Aries (c) vs. James Gibson I’m not a fan of the finish. It’s not inconceivable, but something about Aries collapsing into Gibson while in a Trailer Hitch, fluking his way to the win rubs me the wrong way. But still, these two are so good together. Gibson’s back is near enough fully healed so he’s more of a threat this time around so Aries attacks his arm to create that weakness himself and the match goes on from there. I thought Gibson’s selling was excellent as well. His defensive body language is something that really stood out to me. As soon as Aries trapped his arm in the barricade, he went into defense mode and I love that. Aries craft…

Not an all-time classic, but this is easily the best and final match in their best of 5 series. It's kind of lame seeing folks trying to escape continuously in cage matches, specially in blood feud cage matches, but that's not the case here as they recognize they are locked in the cage because they want to fight. Great bit with them showing their hate for each other to the degree they were biting each others foreheads, fingers, etc. while battling on top of the cage. There's also a handful of big bumps in this with Danielson hitting a massive diving headbutt off the top of the cage and a big avalanche backdrop off the top rope. Also Homicide bringing back the brass knuckl…

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Awesome match and one of the best sub-5 minutes matches I've seen. The grappling at the beginning is insanely amazing and the rest of the bout is great too. *** 3/4

IWGP Champion Satoshi Kojima vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan - NJPW Tokyo Dome 5/14/05 This is one of the most boring matches I have watched in a long time. It was excoriatingly boring at 20 minutes. Fucking Inoki gave them an HOUR, ONE FUCKING HOUR earlier in the year. Kojima won the title in a match that went 59:30. Are you fucking kidding me? I kinda sorta knew that long match existed because these two might be the most bizarre pairing to ever be given an hour. Going through the IWGP Title Defense history, Nagata/Nakanishi is also weird as fuck to go an hour and Nagata/Chono, I get the booking rationale, but fuck I do not want to see Chono go an hour in 2002. Kojima only othe…

The rematch in what is possibly Kohsaka's best match in NJPW. Nagata is fired up from the ring of the bell, landing a big rolling kick in the ropes before delivering an overhead suplex and a penalty kick. They work the mat in some slick exchanges that result in Kohsaka securing a triangle. Nagata's able to escape the hold and they trade snug face slaps before Nagata attempts the running boot, TK ducks it and slaps on a sleeper hold. When Nagata tries to counter out with an over-the-shoulder armbreaker, TK turns the attempt into a ura-nage and goes right back to the sleeper hold. Nagata is finally able to break away and in a cool moment, he blasts TK with that climbing cor…

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Raven vs Sean Waltman So, Jeff Hardy doens't show up. Thank God for drugs ! So instead of having to suffer through another abomination of a match, we get fucking 6-Pac instead and the best Raven showcase in more than a year ! Fat Raven hasn't looked very good for a long time, after an excellent first stint in TNA. No issue between the two, but it's kinda like a late 90's dream match of sorts. Waltman is all fired up and make Raven bleed immediately by rubbing his forehead in a cage segment. This is a House of Fun match, so it's all gimmicked up, ECW style, with not that much long term selling but heavy on garbage shots, bleeding buckets and keeping the pace relatively…