I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ I'm still fighting the bronchial infection, coughing up a lung at every turn. ______________________________________________________________________ - The WWF had Armageddon on PPV this past Sunday, 12/10/00. Just in case there was any illusion, the structure of the PPV made it clear that this was a one match show. Between all of the undercard matches, they had segments hyping the main event, really pushing that somebody would be nearly killed in the match. After the first three undercard matches, Vince McMahon came out to push the brutality of the main event. Something kept telling me that they wouldn't be able to deliver on expectations, one of the problems that brought down WCW. They even went to WWF New York to talk to Shawn Michaels about the Hell in the Cell. Each of the wrestlers involved also agonized about the match as well. Speculation going into the show was that the title would be vacant afterwards, leading to the Royal Rumble being for all the marbles in January. In order for that result to happen, they'd have to deliver an overbooked main event, wouldn't they? I was hoping for an actual finish. Moments away. Here's the rundown. * Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn & Eddy Guerrero beat Hardyz & Lita: The lead-in to this program was the incredibly dumb segments featuring Lita & Dean Malenko on a date. The silliness was that the stuff was scripted like a TV show, just assuming that the cameras are on. In reality -- remember when wrestling was somehow linked to reality? I know, I know, it's before cars were dropped 40 feet to deliver only minor contusions -- there was a camera man in the hotel bedroom when Dean was being misled by Lita. Totally retarded. The match featured reasonably spotty action. With this many guys involved, that's to be expected, I guess. Still, since this was an elimination match, I was hoping for something lengthier in the final falls. Eddy was pinned cleanly after the swanton. Jeff was pinned shortly thereafter by Perry Saturn after a death valley driver. Very little wrestling in between, in the sense that there really wasn't a chance for this to build to much of a match. Matt & Perry actually worked perhaps a three minute segment before Matt scored the pin. Terri Runnels crawled in, ending with the requisite butt shots. Amidst the chaos, Dean pinned Matt. What a surprise! It came down to Lita vs. Dean. Lita didn't look anywhere near as sexy facially as she has in the past. She outfoxed him with speed, but don't forget that that illusion is largely due to Dean's awesome work. Dean superplexed Lita, but lifted her up at the two. He clotheslined her a few times, to boos. Jerry Lawler's commentary suggested that Lita deserved a beating because she didn't want to have a real date with Dean. The minds that book this stuff have really screwed up views of women. Dean scored the win with the clover leaf submission. Afterwards, they quickly stuck a microphone in Lita's face, with Lita saying that she knows she can beat him. Oh, it's going to get silly. * William Regal beat Bob Holly to retain the European Title: Once again, these two had a technically good match that did nothing for the live crowd. Even with Regal insinuating that the Alabama fans have sex with their farm animals and Holly being from Alabama, the crowd was really dead during the match. Last time around, Regal continually attacked Holly's arm, with the story line being that he was trying to rebreak the arm. Of course, since then Holly has learned that he has a plate in his arm so he no longer sells attacks to the arm. Ooops, change of ideas there. Worse yet, somehow, having that plate in his arm apparently suggested to Jim Ross that Holly would be impervious to Chris Benoit's crossface on TV. That's beyond explainable. Surely, then, this match was going to build to an arm shot with the plate, but before anything like that could happen, Raven ran in to DDT Holly behing the ref's back. Regal scored the pin. Lame finish. * Val Venis beat Chyna: Venis attacked Chyna before the match, but Chyna took instant control. Ivory was at ringside. Terrible match. Val scored the win after Ivory screwed Chyna. Afterwards, Chyna got a hold of Ivory, but Val stopped her before she could lay out Ivory. Chyna looked absolutely terrible. * Kane beat Chris Jericho: These two have had a few matches now, and they just don't work well together. This one proved to be no different. This was a "last man standing" match, so they brawled around a bit before returning to the ring. Kane is so bad that Jericho had no hope of getting anything good out of him. In the ring, the match turned into the usual "big man kills little man" routine. The commentators pushed that Kane would have to knock out Jericho to win. Jericho rallied for a few seconds, but his second move was a lionsault, which met Kane's knees. Kane was on offense for the whole match, which did two things: it killed the match and it killed Jericho. Kane hit a choke slam for a nine count. Kane acted outraged that Jericho got up. Jericho ended up nailing Kane when Kane came back with a chair. Jericho hit a sick chair shot on Kane. He followed up with other head shots. He draped the chair across Kane and lionsaulted it, with both guys selling the impact. Don't worry, though. Kane recovered to full strength and they brawled to the stage area. They tumbled into a table, which seemed like it was supposed to be a bigger spot than it turned out to be. Well, Jericho picked Kane up again and hit a facecrusher onto the same table, with the table again taking as much damage as HHH begin dropped in a car. Jericho tipped over an array of oil drums onto a support structure, with Kane underneath. The commentators sold it like the the drums landed on Kane, when any fool could see through it. See, this is what wrestling has come to. Instead of just having a match where wrestling skill and showmanship build a tremendous athletic contest, we have this sort of junk, which wastes one guy who is so much better than this crap indicates. * Edge & Christian beat Dudleyz and Road Dogg & K Kwik and RTC to win the Tag Titles: Match was a mess of spots because of all the guys involved. The crowd yelled for tables at the third minute, and the crowd obviously didn't care about the match until it came closer to the finish. The Dudleyz seem to be over. Actually, I think the table spot is over, so the crowd gets excited at the thought that they won't see their table spot. Christian nailed Buh Buh and Edge pinned him. I was darn bored by this point in the show. * Chris Benoit beat "The One" Billy Gunn to win the IC Title: "[Gunn]'s been called the best athlete in the WWF," said Jim Ross. "Who called him that?" asked Jerry Lawler. Now that was funny! I think that Gunn's new name is actually an inside rib linked to urination, so I'm going to call him "The Two" from now on, because it's a more accurate description. Benoit gets the chance to carry another weak wrestler to the best match of his career. I wondered when Gunn would blow up. Ever since his return, "The Two" has blown up at the three minute mark or earlier in every match. Here, I was hoping that Benoit would push him hard enough that he'd just collapse at the one minute mark. No such luck. Benoit worked over Gunn's legs. The crowd was dead silent, 'cause half of them were in the restrooms doing "The One" or "The Two." Benoit roll Gunn over into a reversal of Benoit's figure four. Reread that sentence. Gunn resorted to punches as he rallied, with one punch looking worse than the next. As Benoit did his German suplex medley, Gunn barely got to his feet and Benoit had to work hard to get him into each one. Now, the positive reviewer would say that Gunn was selling the effects of the moves, but the honest reviewer has to point out the truth, right? Oh god, more punches from Gunn. If van Dam comes in to the WWF, they should have a "punches only" match between him and Gunn. Gunn hit the famouser on Benoit for a two count. The move came out of nowhere, and the crowd didn't react at all. Gunn was sucking wind at this point. Benoit pummelled his way into the crossface, but Gunn got his foot on the rope. Gunn could barely move at this point. Jim Ross even pointed out that "fatigue [was] setting in," but he was gracious enough to say "both men" afterwards. He did comment that Gunn might not have much gas left in his tank. As Gunn stumbled into another clothesline attempt, Chris Benoit hit the crossface for the submission. Thank god for that result. Afterwards, Michael Cole talked to Gunn, who huffed and puffed and blew the house down. Actually, he said that Benoit would meet him again. Please, no. Put Jericho in there. Get van Dam and put him in there. Something that has some intrigue. It really says something about a wrestler when he can't have a good match with Chris Benoit. The promotion should have a clause in every wrestler's contract saying that he gets fired if he has a bad match with Benoit. * Ivory beat Molly Holly & Trish to retain the Women's Title: Holly did a goofy country bumpkin march to the ring. What's greater: the talent level of all three women combined or the talent level of Billy Gunn? This match looked horrible on paper. Molly & Trish attacked each other to start. Molly clearly outclassed the other two (and, likely, Gunn). Ivory moves a lot better now that they've let her wear pants instead of the skirt. Molly powerbombed Trish, but Ivory knocked Molly out of the ring and stole the pin. Terrible match, kept short for a reason. Afterwards, Test & Albert & Crash & Faarooq & Bradshaw traded shots. The commentators went on and on with "The Acolytes are back!" as if that's a good thing. * Kurt Angle beat Hunter Hearst Helmsley & The Rock & Steve Austin & Undertaker & Rikishi to retain the WWF Title: Well, with the preceding undercard, they surely needed to deliver a winner as a main event. I don't like the Hell in the Cell gimmick match largely because the ante has been upped to a ridiculous level. If somebody doesn't take a fall off the cage, the match didn't deliver. And if they do a totally rigged fall, it's also a failure. I just don't think that building up fans' expectations in this way, educating fans in this way, is all that good of a thing. As HHH came out, Jim Ross "the first opponent...or is he the first victim." Yeah, they were that melodramatic. I'm not exagerrating when I say that the time duration of the ring entrances was the inverse of the number of injuries that HHH suffered when he was dropped 40 feet in a limo. Yeah, forever. Seriously, I started some tea, went to the washroom, checked in on my daughter, talked to my wife about our plans for the next two days, poured the tea, locked up the house, checked that my desk was in shape for work in the early morning, and came back to the family room to ring Rock's entrance just ending. Austin still had to hit the ring. Should we infer anything from the order of the ring entrances? Who knows? They started brawling before they all got into the cage, but they ended up inside with the door locked without much outside of the ring shenanigans. With all of the unispired brawling and walking around, it was hard to believe that a career would end because of this match. Undertaker & Angle paired up in the ring. Undertaker makes Gunn look like Chris Benoit. Rock & Rikishi went into the ring when UT & Angle left. After a clothesline, they left the ring as well, so Austin & HHH could do-se-do in the ring. Lucha libre booking, that, as each man in each trio was paired with another for the opening show of machismo. It broke down then, as more guys came in the ring. They swapped partners. Rock & Angle squared off in the ring, with Rock scoring a two on the impotent champion. Oh god, Undertaker & Angle paired up again. They showed a camera shot of HHH & Austin lying at ringside, presumably to blade. A minute later, four guys were all standing in the same corner outside the ring. Austin rubbed HHH's face into the fence. Shit, if a 40 foot drop in a limo didn't even bruise him, that's not gonna faze Mr. Teflon. Oh, but wait, he suffered a laceration. Austin should have dropped the car on a chain link fence. Austin took a page from Tommy Dreamer's retarded play book, running around the ring while rubbing HHH's face into the fence all the while. Man, that looked stupid. Somehow, Rikishi & HHH ended up in the ring together. Rikishi helped HHH up, hugged him, and HHH then laid him out. Hmmm, maybe that was meant to set up Rikishi for a face turn down the line. He's just a dumb, gullible goof. Angle hit his olympic slam on Rock, but Austin saved. Stunner on Angle, but Undertaker saved. Choke slam on Austin, but HHH saved. I couldn't believe Austin took the choke slam bump the way he did. "Look at the velocity!" Jim Ross yelled, as HHH met the post. Austin laid out Rikishi. Something had to happen, right? There were still 23 minutes in PPV time. Ah, Vince wheeled out a truck with bales of hay in it. Patterson & Brisco were with him. They chained the door to the truck and ripped the door off the cage. You see, Vince wanted to stop the match by dissembling the cage because this gimmick was going to injure somebody. Of course, ripping the cage wall apart would likely mean that the roof would fall down on all of the wrestlers, injuring everybody, but Vince wasn't thinking too straight. Inside the ring, they did stuff, but we didn't see any of it. Foley came out. He argued with Vince and brawled with Patterson & Brisco. Some security guys dragged Vince out of the arena. So, the door was open, the truck was backed up against the cage, and the back of the truck was filled with hay. How do you say "overbooked finish coming?" HHH & Austin brawled outside. We didn't see what was happening in the ring. Oh, everybody else brawled out to the entryway as well. Austin took a face first bump into a car window, blading. Rock tried for the Rock Bottom on top of a car (numerous cars were set up in the Armageddon set). Undertaker lumbered around. This match sucked at this point. I guess that the opinion of the match is all going to come down to the finish. There has to be a way for a wrestling company in North America to find a way to deliver the opposite product to this garbage. You knew that somebody was going to climb up on the cage, but why? For no real reason, HHH climbed up the cage, with Austin following. Look, if Austin let him go up by himself, HHH would be removed from contention, right? Instead Austin followed. The crowd stood on their feet. This was why they bought a ticket. Wrestling fans? Bullshit. Austin punched HHH, who teased falling off the cage. Angle went up too, with Undertaker following. Angle looked uncomfortable up there. The whole match boiled down to who would take the bump off the cage onto the hay. The crowd booed like crazy, but we couldn't really tell why. The commentators said Angle was bleeding, but we didn't see it. Austin & HHH descended. Rikishi climbed up. Some ring hand threw a chair up to Undertaker, missing the first few times. Undertaker chaired Angle. Rikishi chaired Undertaker. Angle descended. Undertaker choke slammed Rikishi off the top of the cage into the truck, which bounced like a, er, trampoline. With that shit out of the way, in the ring, Austin & Rock started pounding each other. Rock gestured for the people's elbow, but HHH stopped him. Angle came in only to be Rock Bottomed, but Austin saved. They finally showed Angle's bloody face. Well, it was not much of a match, mostly garbage, but it had some good suspense at this point. As everybody kept saving everybody, Angle somehow crawled over and put a hand on a stunned Rock to get the pin. This isn't going to get a "match of the year" vote from me, but some are going to rave. Austin stunned Angle afterwards. Overall, I can't give the show a thumbs up. It certainly ended on its best note, but that note was all garbage. Don't get me wrong: I think that good brawling can play an integral part of a great match, and some of the best matches of all time (the Liger vs. Sano blow-off, the Flair vs. Steamboat blow-off, even the impromptu two-fall Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask match) have definitely had strong brawling or out-of-the-ring elements, but somewhere along the way, either as a whole or in pieces distributed amongst the brawling, those bouts also had some of the most tremendous wrestling (in every way) that we've ever been privileged to watch. Can you say that about this PPV's main event, or even the other relatively recently acclaimed matches (the ladder tag match, Foley's Hell in the Cells, etc.)? Hell no. Maybe that's what makes me a bit sad about today's style of wrestling. While it has added a reliance on stunt man bumps and inmatch elements that were previously never considered (guys on fire, big falls usually onto padded drop zones, ladders, lots of walking around, etc.), the loss of that tremendous wrestling was too big of a price to pay, in my opinion. There are people who argue that "professional wrestling" is anything that is marketed under that name, but I can't buy in to that belief. Is "Incredibly Strange Wrestling" really wrestling? Is booked shootfighting really not wrestling? Do we look at the landscape of what is offered by wrestling promoters worldwide, evaluate the success level of the different promotions, and decide that the most successful of the lot defines the term the best? Does wrestling have any intrinsic elements? The heel/face dichotomy of previous generations has disappeared in place of varying levels of "tweeners." The "rules" of pro-wrestling have been modified many times, to the point that there are no rules, except in the rare circumstance when a rule helps advance a story line. I don't see any of these changes as necessarily bad, but, maybe because of all the wrestling I've seen over all the years, I do find badness in the diminishing role of actual tremendous inring wrestling, not just in North America but worldwide. Back to the PPV, had there been something really strong on the undercard, I could have seen myself liking the show, but, as it was, I was in a negative mood by the time the main event came around. I won't be surprised when this show turns out to have a lower-than-average buy rate, and, frankly, I still hope that we are at the beginning of the decline in popularity of this style of "wrestling." - In order to be a pro-wrestling fan, I think one has to mark out for at least some elements of it. Only watching wrestling with a distanced interest at all times isn't being a wrestling fan; it's being a business observer. So, yeah, I think most of us get blown away by an awesome interview, certain moves or spots, or certain story lines. But I don't think that's being a mark. In any case, I don't really care about the distinction that much. This text is meant to be a confession. I have to admit that I believed something foolish. In my hope that a North American promotion would abandon the garbage wrestling, run-in, screw job, flash over substance based booking philosophy that the WWF has made so popular, I actually got excited about a potential change in wrestling. When Ric Flair came out before the past WCW PPV promising that things would be different, when he stopped some run ins from happening, I thought that maybe they finally realized that returning to a sensible product with no screw jobs, perhaps even shifting towards athletic, realistic, and competition-based matches (instead of disjointed spotfests) might help separate their brand name. Sure, in story line, Ric Flair brought in Sid Vicious to face Scott Steiner. Okay, I can accept that they are desperate to create some sort of drawing appeal, and maybe they figure there's something to that pairing. Realizing that that is not the case isn't necessarily the first step towards a cure. Maybe they'd abandon all of the run-ins and screw jobs but still need to develop an appreciation for which talent merits the top spots. I can accept that. But, shit, two weeks later, the television is filled with all the same crap. Flair comes off like the boy who cried wolf, losing whatever credibility he might still have maintained. I gave it two weeks. I tuned in to the shows hoping for a sign, becoming increasingly deflated. Starrcade looks like more junk. The good young (albeit generally unrounded) wrestlers are plopped into a ladder match that will likely be the best match on the show and equally likely will not gain them any increase in status because the promotion thinks they are all too small to be valuable. And why is it a ladder match? Because those other good young unrounded wrestlers in that other promotion had ladder matches that did increase their status. Why? Because their promotion made it seem like a valuable contribution. Why try to outladder those other matches? Why not have great wrestling matches (or as close to great as guys of this calibre can have) and push that as valuable on the subsequent TV shows. Start the reeducation of the fans from there. That's what the WWF did with gimmick matches, converting their whole product to that mold after a couple of years. WCW could attempt a conversion to a great wrestling product using a similar tactic, but they don't see it. ______________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me e-mail. Don't forget to delete the leading "x" from my e-mail address; that "x" is my web spider spam guard. ______________________________________________________________________