WWE One Night Stand Review

Rob Van Damn v. Randy Orton

TKG: What the fuck? This was shockingly good. The whole finish line stretcher stip is stupid but this was shockingly good. RVD is known as a guy with really shitty looking offense who isn't good at selling but is good at taking huge bumps and pointing to himself. And they run a match where he does lots of offense and lots of selling. And his offense looks good. All of his kicks and forearms look good. His punches don't look good but they don't look awful either. RVD is a guy whose offense looks loose and horrible even when he's shoot potatoeing his opponents. He's a guy whose offense looked loose and awful in All Japan, looked embarrassing in ECW. This is his last match in the fed and he decides now is the time to learn how to work good kicks? It was absolutely shocking. I mean RVD has been in some good matches in his career, but I can't think of any other one where his offense contributed to their goodness. He still isn't good at selling. He isn't good at glassy eyed concussion selling. Better than Michaels but still isn't really good at the facial selling. The RVD blows huge spot because of concussion was cool. As you expect RVD to blow a huge spot, then get up and redo it, so him staying down was totally unexpected. Orton is a guy who will eat a bump well and is good at selling. His post-posting crumple sell was pretty great and almost a flaw in the match. As kind of hurts the match when the guy with the "concussion" gimmick isn't selling as well or as big as the guy who's working "healthy" guy gimmick.

PAS: Yeah I was amazed at how good this was, Orton has some of the best timing in wrestling, and the counter of the rolling thunder into a powerslam was completely awesome. Not only did RVD's kicks look good, he seemed to be throwing a bunch of variations I hadn't seen before. His little short knee to the face was awesome. The somersault plancha to the floor is a completely nutty spot, and really should have ended the match. Ending a stretcher match with the "tricky baby face hits the turnbuckles after the heel” strap match finish is really crappy. WWE has a tendency to get too clever with gimmick match finishes, RVD is leaving the fed, have him stretchered out. The Pain Killer on the floor post match, does feel like something that should send a guy out of a promotion though, fuck was that crazy.



New Breed v Originals

TKG: Ehh this really wasn't much. This felt like a really mediocre semi-main on a Jack Sabboth card. I'm from DC, and having a straight edge guy dap drunk ass Sandman just isn't believable. Whose idea was it to start this off with Monte Brown and Tommy Dreamer exchanging holds? They really shouldn't be exchanging standing switches and doing mat reversals. Not so much because it doesn't fit with their gimmick but just that they can't pull it off. Sandman was a lot of fun in this, taking giant bumps running around trying to cane people, trying to break stuff up, and just running around recklessly. But this was really a solo performance by him. This really needed Wayne the Convenience Store guy to help hold it together. Sabboth would have been smart enough book him in this.

PAS: Sandman isn't a peer of C.M. Punk, he is an older guy. I don't remember irritating straight edgers when I was in college lecturing guys 15 years older then them. Jac Sabboth wouldn't run this without blood, it would have had New Jack and everyone in it would be either drunk or high. I kind of like sober Sandman, but sober Tommy Dreamer is pretty useless. I do like them filing an injunction to keep Team 3-D from yelling "get the tables" and then having C.M. Punk and Tommy Dreamer do it. I still think the WWE made a mistake buy not bringing in Dances and Little Snot and giving them the tag belts. Those two as "ECW originals" would have been awesome

Hardys v. Worlds Greatest Tag Team

PAS: I dunno whether ladder matches have just past me by or something, but I thought this was completely ass. Benjamin and Haas both looked really awkward and tentative, and the Hardy's seemed to be taking house show ladder match level bumps. I really don't understand why World's Greatest Tag Team suck so bad, you figure both guys are good athletes, with amateur backgrounds, is there any reason they are both so much worse then the Miz?

TKG: The thing is it’s not just that they're bad wrestlers. Kurt Angle is a guy with a great amateur pedigree who doesn't get wrestling. But it’s not just that I don't think Haas or Benjamin know how to put a match together. Haas and Benjamin are guys with athletic backgrounds whose athletic stuff doesn't look good. They look unathletic. The Benjamin improv blown spot save looked better than the stuff that he hit cleanly. Haas and Benjamin linking arms and then doing the rolling Hotshots spot was just painfully bad. I kind of liked the comedy spots built around tossing ladders at Haas, and maybe this match needed more comedy. This stank.

Mark Henry v. Kane

PAS: Nothing spectacular, although worlds better then the ladder match. Henry takes amazing bumps on the top rope clothesline and the chokeslam. The lumberjack stuff was pretty fun, as I loved everyone being scared of Kane and Henry throwing off five guys. Still Kane kind of stinks, and while I like the bearhug as a finisher as a concept, he really needs to make it more dynamic, throw the guy around a bit or something, as it looks like a rest hold bearhug which ended a match.

TKG: He's done bear hug into bridged pin on Raw years ago, it’s a cool way to mix up the bear hug. Also for match that starts with a back posting and ends with a bear hug, it kind of needed some spots where Kane sold back pain. The undercarders as lumberjacks who didn't want to mess with these hosses was amusing. Hey, Balls Mahoney still has a WWE job!! Made me kind of feel sorry for Benoit who was positioned between Val Venis and Stevie Richards..."this is what the fed thinks of me?" . I mean it's nice that he gets a PPV pay day but still. Stevie Richards preventing Miz from interfering made me really want to see a Stevie/Miz program. Overenthusiastic Val was also a ton of fun. I assume he was trying to audition for role as manager/second after the draft. And I don't get the Chavo/Dykstra interference at all. Bobby

Lashley v. Vince McMahon

TKG: Someone needs to teach Umaga how to catch a dive as he blows catching both Lashley and Shane. This was deadly dull. I mean shockingly boring. Most of the match is a three on one with Lashley eating a beating. And he eats a beating by just lying there and eating offense. He needed some comebacks, something. Instead he just laid there and ate offense. Lashley has some energy behind his own offense but this was a match built around the offense of Umaga, Vince and Shane. Umaga is a guy with some nice stuff, who can work stiff. But this wasn't worked with Luger beating up face so JJ Dillon could get a pin. Match wasn't laid out to make Umaga's offense look strong while Vince looks sneaky. Umaga's offense was no more deadly than Vince's choking spots or Shane's tribute to backyarders. Their was no real hierarchy of what offense is deadly vs. what is just stinging, all kind of equal which left it all equally flat. So long sections of flat offense on a guy who just laid there. Boring.

PAS: Yeah Lashley really needs to work on wrestling from the bottom. If you contrast that to Cena taking beatings from Khali and Umaga, you can really see the chasm which separates the two of them. Vince wrestling in the shirt kills me, he must me in a bad way, still he did have nice eat of a spear for a sixty year old guy who is probably dying of cancer.

PAS: Man does Ron Simmons look like All In the Family era Sherman Helmsley.

Candace Michelle v. Melina

PAS: It really looked less like a pool full of pudding, then a pool full of refried beans with sour cream on top. We have written tons about how up and down the card people are working really stiff in the WWE, especially compared to the traditional style. Nothing illustrates that better then Melina throwing Johnny Valentine level forearms to the back and face in a pudding match against a Playboy model. Pudding match Melina was working stiffer then WWF Vader.

TKG: Not just stiff forearms and elbows but a really deep choke too. "One Night Stand where the only rules are no rules." I remember liking the build to spots in Candice Michelle's Wet N Wild match so reason to believe that she could work a good garbage match again. Pudding isn't exactly a bed of thumbtacks or a four corner of death box filled with glass and mousetraps. It's not even a table. But same principle. As once both women were lubed up they brawled outside of what otherwise would be bed of nails trying to throw each other into it. Could of used a fall from a higher height but the attempted suffocation leading to tap out was a good garbage finish.

Batista v Edge

TKG: JBL reminds us that this is Florida and that there have been lots of great cage matches in Florida. This wasn't worked like a Championship Wrestling From Florida cage match. This was worked like a WWE bloodless feud ending spotfest cage match. Perfectly fine by the numbers WWE style feud ending spotfest cage match. Not a high end one but unobjectionable. The thing is those matches are usually run on your television show. They're TV main event matches, not really PPV main event matches. You run that type of bloodless feud ending spotfest cage match on PPV and it’s a midcard Venis vs. Rikishi match.Main event PPV cage match needs t be built around heat not spots. This was a lot better than their last PPV match. I really liked the colliding spear shoulder tackle spot and the match really picked up after that. But it really felt like a television main event, or a PPV midcard match.

PAS: I kind of liked some of early Edge attempts to escape, but this was a really nothing match. The finish was pretty stupid. This was a show full of really poorly thought out creative finishes, this finish, the stretcher match finish, the finish to the main event. Really the only finish which worked at all was the drowning tap out finish in the pudding match.

Great Khali v. John Cena

TKG: The whole he's only been submitted but never been pinned set up for this was kind of goofy. And this may have had the least heat of any of their match ups. All of Khali's back elbows look great as Cena really is tucked into them. Cena did a nice job selling for all of Khali's stuff and kept the pace moving. And the big Cena bump from rope to floor was set up nicely but this really was the least of their matches. You could see them telegraphing the Brian Lee v. Tommy Dreamer big fall spot from the moment they started to climb the crane. It's a spot that the WWE has done again and again. And well Brian Lee actually took a giant fall, whenever the WWE does it they have an obvious crash pad. They never figure out how to film the crash well, either. Someone seems to think that the way to disguise the giant mattress is to put lots of stuff (pipes, wires, etc) on top of the crash pad. But the end result is guy takes a fall, lands and all the stuff around him bounces in the air. The bumps into the pudding look more awkward and nastier. Maybe they should have put the bowl of pudding on the crash pad, as refried beans bouncing and flying everywhere would be a better visual, made for a nastier looking bump and a more humiliating finish.

PAS: Cena really has a formula for working Khali now. They have really great spots, catching the chop, the elbow counter of the FU, the spinning kick. Still by the third match you can really see the formula. Cena takes some huge bumps here, but then outside of the ring brawling did feel a little prop heavy, and this really could have used some blood. The crash pad was shot especially bad here, as you could really see the bounce.

TKG: Not just shot poorly but miked poorly as you could also hear the springs bounce. Pudding splash might have drowned that out too.