Some more good advancement in the HHH vs Jericho feud. Jericho defeats one of his main lackeys and this is given a decent amount of time showing Road Dogg still had some stuff left in the tank. A good use of using TV to build a PPV money match without sacrificing anything consequential. HHH pitches a fit backstage when Jericho wins. **

Road Dogg looked fine here and Jericho was pretty spirited at the start of the match up. I was a little surprised to see Road Dogg pull out the moonsault attempt and it's not surprising when it misses. Jericho's Lionsault brings his shin down over Road Dogg's face which looked like it sucked and Jericho continues on his path toward the HHH match at Fully Loaded.

 

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Commissioner Foley, who’s not at the arena tonight, has added a stipulation to the match that no-one can interfere in it, or even confront Chris Jericho backstage, for if they do, Triple H will lose his World title shot at Fully Loaded. As soon as the Road Dogg heard the explosion on Y2J’s entrance music he runs up the ramp and has already started attacking him by the time the lights in the arena come back on. The two fight down the aisle and into the ring as D-X watch the action on a monitor backstage. Jericho kicks Dogg through the ropes to the apron where he nails him with the springboard dropkick. Dogg takes a spill to the floor but he manages to turn the tide, dropping Y2J face first onto the ring steps. He works the heat section although it’s all rather basic and he doesn’t seem to be doing much. Flying forearm by Jericho, facebuster, you know the drill with him it’s the same every match. Y2J looks for ‘the Walls’ and the crowd immediately turn to the entrance way awaiting the run in. I’m guessing they haven’t been told about the ‘no interference’; still it’s not a good sign that they’ve been conditioned like this. Road Dogg is able to kick him off anyway. Stinging lefts to the jaw and then Dogg drops him with a right. Fuck, the Dogg with a moonsault, though like that was ever hitting its target! A pretty careless Lionsault with Jericho’s leg crashing into Road Dogg’s face and he gets the win. After a commercial break and angry Triple H shoves the Dogg, wondering how he could let that happen while X-Pac is forced to play peacemaker, getting between them and reminding them that they’re on the same side.

 

‘Foley’ adding the stipulation was a good touch as Stephanie has been all over Jericho’s matches recently, so it was nice to see him in a straight one on one encounter without her interference. This started out strong with Dogg jumping Y2J at the entrance, but struggled when he was working on top as he’s not the most exciting or diverse of workers, and as I said when running down the match, he’s just a very simple, basic worker. Things picked up towards the end, although in watching quite a lot of Jericho matches recently, the guys got a formula and he sticks to it. The Lionsault was careless and he should’ve made sure Dogg was positioned correctly as I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s sporting a black eye come Smackdown.