May 2005

This was more of the same in terms of Perros del Mal picking on poor Mistico, but it featured a fired up tecnico performance, which is always a plus, and the tercera was pretty good. Bonus points for them giving Casas something to do and for Hector Garza finding new ways to amuse me each week.

The Scott D'Amore booked era might already have begun for all I know, although Dusty's still on board. This episode of Impact, one of the last on Fox, was easily the best in a long while, maybe ever. It was capped off by a really good TV match between Abyss, whom the crowd want to cheer despite his alignement with Jarrett, and Chris Sabin, who is in the middle of a feud with Michael Shane/Matt Bentley (the name is changed on PPV at this time, oddly enough). Abyss proves again he is actually a good worker when he's given the right guy, and Sabin bumps like hell, making the mad trucker turned SM fetichist look like, well, a monster. Excellent, spectacular beatdown, with nic…

Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio - WWE Judgement Day 2005 You want to see a violent Rey Mysterio check out this match. Definitely a side you don't see often from Rey Rey and kudos to Taz pointing this out. This was the height of my fandom as a teenager and I loved the original angle with Eddie getting more and more frustrated that he couldn't defeat Rey until he snapped. That beat down with the ripped mask and bloody face is just awesome. An all-time great heel turn and loved the promo afterwards. It was cold and remorseless. Unlike the great 1997 Eddie heel run, this was much colder. The Halloween Havoc is a great balls to the wall sprint, but this is a great fight. Re…

WWE Champion John Cena vs John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Judgement Day 2005 Classic booking of a white meat babyface proving his mettle in a bloody brawl. I do mean bloody. John Cena was wearing a full Crimson Mask, five alarm blade job here. Two JBL matches in a row at Judgement Day where buckets of blood were spilled. I forgotten how damn good a promo JBL was both in the pre-match package. He is such a good bully. Really puts over the gravity of I Quit really well in how you lose your dignity and manhood by uttering "I Quit". Cena was pretty good in standing up to the bully. Liked the clips of Bradshaw bullying Scotty 2 Hotty into saying I Quit. This match got kin…

Usually, I wouldn't watch a match like this, but there's been so much discourse surrounding Kurt Angle lately and he's been in such a rich vein of form in 2005 that I thought I'd see what he could do with Booker. I had no idea about the angle between Angle and Booker's wife. My first thought was that given the recent allegations against Vince McMahon, this type of thing looks even worse, but even without the McMahon scandal this would still be completely and utterly inappropriate. You can flirt with crossing the line, like the Jake Roberts and Elizabeth stuff, but when you start cutting the type of promos that Angle did... Angle claims this angle was a punishment for the …

This was some kind of gimmick match where the wrestlers entered at timed intervals. The problem is that nobody seemed to understand the rules. Not the announcer, the commentators, the referees, and least of all the crowd. It appeared to end when the captain was pinned, but there were eliminations along the way and the captains were never announced. That said, it was basically more of the same albeit in a weird format. Some decent spots and interactions but nothing especially memorable.