Yesterday, I produced a whole blog on how last week’s WWE and Impact shows left me feeling bitter, Over The Limit was no difference.
I warn you right now, if you’re planning on watching Over The Limit and don’t want to read on incase of spoilers… just read on. WWECW’s December to Dismember is widely regarded as one of the worst pay per views in the companies history, certainly the absolute worst in recent memory. In my honest opinion, Over The Limit comes to close to topping it. It felt like I was watching a 3 hour-long episode of your average Smackdown, not (in the US) a $45 quality Pay Per View event. The WWE creative team must have all been busy circle jerking when booking Over The Limit. Lets have a look at what went down shall we?
We open with R – Truth vs Rey Mysterio:
Truth is decked out in his graffiti jacket ring gear again; his jeans say shut up on them… he’s never going to be taken seriously as a heel. On a positive note, instead of his ‘What’s up’ theme song we are treated to utter silence as he walks to the ring, awesome! Truth fumbles around on the mic to introduce our first filler into the show. Honestly, the match was mediocre at best. Rey Mysterio has a canny ability to bring out the best in his opponents but things didn’t work out that way at Over The Limit. If you’ve ever watched his stretch in TNA, R-Truth has a decent amount of in-ring ability but he wasn’t at the top of his game tonight. It’s a shame because this match had the potential to be better than it was. In the end R-Truth gets a surprising victory, at least they’re trying to make him look strong, I guess. * star.
Winner by Pinfall: R – Truth.
Wade Barrett vs Ezekiel Jackson for the Intercontinental Championship
Apart from the top matches on the card, this bout probably had the most build to it. Considering how Barrett has done nothing with the IC championship since defeating Kofi Kingston last March, and Zeke is on a “hot streak”, you’d think a title switch is bound to happen tonight. Wrong. Instead, we get a boredom-inducing match. I’m pretty sure half of the crowd were lulled to sleep by it, as they were silent for the majority of the time. Remember when Wade Barrett was going to be the next star heel? WWE dropped the ball on that one just because he didn't turn into a superstar immediately following his original Nexus run. Barrett now has little to no heat and he’s fading into obscurity, and fast. What’s more, The Corre interfered for the DQ. It was like watching quite a poor standard Raw match. Uck. ½ a star.
Winner by DQ: Ezekiel JacksonSin Cara vs Chavo Guerrero
I’ve said it before and this match proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, Sin Cara is not ready to be working one on one PPV matches in the WWE right now. He has yet to adjust to the style! Look back at some of his matches from Mexico as Mistico, his style works fine because everyone is used to working that fast paced highflying style. WWE is a completely different ball game. Officials have even brought out Chavo Guerrero from obscurity, someone who is used to the Lucha Libre style, to bring out a good match from Sin Cara. Even that didn’t work. There were a couple of minor botches in the match however, Sin Cara royally fucked up the finish. If you’ve seen it, it didn’t look like ANYTHING. It was just a headscissors takedown that looked like shit. Chavo gently fell to the mat and Sin Cara got the 1 2 3. WWE desperately need to admit they made a mistake by bringing him straight to the main roster and send him to FCW before he severely hurts himself or an opponent. Honestly though, bar the finish it was a decent match and I have no doubt when they’ve worked out the kinks, Chavo vs Sin Cara could have some nice matches in the future. Chavo hasn’t done anything noteworthy since he was the ‘ECW’ champion back in 2008, since then he’s done nothing but job… he even jobbed to Hornswoggle for a while… was there any doubt in anyone’s mind who was getting the win, then?
* ¾ stars
Winner by pinfall: Sin Cara.
An anti bullying video airs. I know it’s for a good cause and everything but I never understand how a wrestling company, with bully characters, vindictive characters… hell just watch Tough Enough to find out how trainers treat new wrestlers… can promote anti-bullying. It makes little sense to me.
Alberto Del Rio comes out to add to the filler for the pay per view. He cuts the same promo he’s been cutting since he debuted (destiny, blah) and gets interrupted by Kane and Big Show… I guess we know who’s challenging for the WWE title next then.
Kane and Big Show vs Mason Ryan and CM Punk for the Tag Titles
Wow. Just… wow. Mason Ryan is just horrible in the ring. He doesn’t know how to work a match and needs to be sent back to FCW immediately. It was just slow and blasé. I think the most noteworthy thing was a very loud ‘Batista’ chant from the crowd which had me spitting out my Ben and Jerry’s I laughed so hard. CM Punk deserves so much better than this, as do Kane and Big Show to be honest. At least Punk got to pay tribute to Randy Savage with a flying elbow. ½ a star.
Winners by pinfall: Big Show and Kane.
Brie Bella vs Kelly Kelly for the WWE Divas Championship
Brie Bella applies a 5 minute long arm hold. Kelly Kelly no sells it. Bella’s win by twin magic. Blah. In wrestling, it's usually a rule of thumb that when you have a hot angle going you use it on television as much as you can. The hottest angle that WWE has going right now involves Kharma taking out the rest of the divas. Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be seen on the Over the Limit event last night. That is a pretty glaring omission on WWE's part simply because everything that they have done to build up Kharma would have led one to believe that she would be a major part of the match between Brie Bella and Kelly Kelly. But no, it was just a match with Brie retaining the title by having Nikki get involved. You could almost hear the disappointment in the crowd when they realised that Kharma wasn't going to be there. That goes to show just how much Kharma has meant to WWE in just a short time, and how important she is to the divas division. I honestly have no idea what WWE creative team were smoking when booking this pay per view. They probably got it from Jeff Hardy though. Please let Natalya and Beth Phoenix wrestle at the next PPV. ½ a star.
Winner by pinfall…. Erm…. Nikki Bella.
Randy Orton vs Christian for the World Heavyweight Championship
Far, above and away better than everything else combined tonight. A genuinely great match between the two. Some sweet back and forth action… that’s all a wrestling fan wants, unpredictability. Both men had several believable falls, both men got equal amounts of offence in, both men saved the show… if only for a little while. For the first time throughout the PPV the crowd had a reason to come to life… and they most certainly did. Some nice, loud duelling chants and at last… a pay per view quality match. Hands down match of the night, a contender for match of the year so far. Exactly what a match should be. ****
Winner by Pinfall: Randy Orton.
Michael Cole vs Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler in a kiss my foot match.
I said in my blog yesterday that this feud needs to be put to bed. The match was a whole lot of nothing really, until the end. ½ a star.
Winner by pinfall: Jerry Lawler.
Technically, nothing happened in the match except a few punches. The payoff however, was pretty fun. King invited a few friends out to get their revenge on Cole. Firstly, Eve comes out and ACTUALLY LANDS her moonsault on Cole. G’wan girl. Next up is JR who comes out and squirts some of his BBQ sauce all over Cole. Cole isn’t taking anymore and just as he’s about to exit the arena, Bret Hart’s music hits, which receives a huge pop from the crowd. Bret applies the sharpshooter to Cole at the same time as King shoves his foot in his mouth. The commentators rejoice. As will I, if this is the end of the feud. I have a horrible feeling that it isn’t though.
John Cena vs The Miz for the WWE title in an I Quit match
I can conclude from this match that Vince Russo is totally still under WWE contract. This was such a clusterfuck, it made my head hurt. At one point I thought it was genius booking at another I thought it was shocking booking. I honestly didn’t know how to take the match. I do now, and I hated it. At the beginning of the match, The Miz got onto the stick and claimed that since its no DQ Alex Riley could get involved as much as he wanted. This effectively killed the match and essentially turned it into a really, really, really long and drawn out beat down. Miz was dominating John Cena, absolutely dominating him. We got a rehash of the 1999 Royal Rumble "I Quit" match between Mankind and The Rock with a recording of Cena saying "I Quit" from a previous promo was played, and the match was ended in favor of Miz. Replaying the Mankind/Rock ending was bad and lazy enough. That wasn't the end, though. As the referee is going to retrieve the WWE Title to present it to the new champion, he sees a tape recorder on the ground near Cena. He picks it up, notices the tape is at its end, and rewinds it. When he hears the recording of Cena's voice, he restarts the match. Cena puts Riley through the announce table, whips The Miz a couple of times with a Leather belt, puts in the STF and that’s it…
People complain and complain about the ‘supercena’ booking and this was an absolutely horrible, disgusting display of absolute shit, lazy booking. It was terrible, Cena takes a beating that would kill another man, hulks up and beats The Miz with one move. This isn't the 1980s anymore. I'm sure most of you are aware of that minor detail, but it doesn't seem like the Creative Team is. We know damn well that Vince McMahon isn't aware of it. Wrestling fans, in general, are too smart for the old Hulk Hogan routine of getting beat up for a while, then "Hulking up" and hitting three or four moves to win a match. Back then, fans ate it up. Those were the times, and the people loved Hogan. People didn't question the booking. We’re now in 2011, people question the booking, people expect more from matches. Look at the Orton vs Christian match, evenly split offence, great back and forth action THAT is what we should be getting in most matches, especially pay per view main events.
Furthermore, how fucking weak do you want The Miz to look? He can’t get the job done in a handicap “I Quit” match, but on top of that WWE creative made him look like an absolute bitch by quitting to one move. I get that heels aren’t really supposed to win “I Quit” matches but it should not have gone down like this. This just about finishes Miz in the eyes of the casual viewer. Nobody's going to take him seriously now. They have no reason to. He's nothing more than a bitch in their eyes now, and for what? To give Cena a victory he was going to get, anyway?!?
The match should have been about both men’s desperation at obtaining the title. The Miz should have shown the aggression he showed, absolutely. However, Cena should have been just as desperate, he should have pulled out all the stops, beaten The Miz down to within an inch of his life… but The Miz won’t quit either… both men struggling to make each other quit… beating the living shit out of each other. Until finally…FINALLY… Cena makes the Miz quit after a tremendous amount of punishment. Everything the WWE have done to build up the Miz character was squashed in this one match. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been bemused by a match so badly in a long time. ½ a star.
Winner: John Cena.
Ladies and gentleman, prepare yourself for more… BOOKER T COMMENTARY HATRED.
Get this, in the main event Booker T claimed that John Cena gets by 'with limited skill and ability.’ Booker, why are you employed? You're meant to put over the face of your company, biggest draw and current champion, Booker you absolute bell end. Plus, you were around when WWE booked him to have more than 5 moves, just because his match formula doesn’t have him producing technical classics doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the skills necessary to produce a technical match. Dear GOD.
Over The Limit was a poorly booked 3-hour version of Smackdown. No shit. Apart from the Orton vs Christian match, no match went over one and 3-quarter stars for me. The matches lacked any sort of quality and the main event was an utter clusterfuck.
Miami Heat played the Chicago Bulls in the NBA, the PPV had little to no drawing power… I shudder to think what the buyrates are, and I feel sorry for anyone who shelled out the money for it.
Terrible.
What were your thoughts on Over The Limit, Let me know!
Lets Talk Wrestling.
No comments:
Post a Comment