Vengeance Thoughts

I REALLY liked how everything tied into the common "Night of Champions" theme, and bringing in everyone from Rick Martel to Magnum T.A. was a nice touch. Strangely enough, WWE just put out its "Champions" magazine special and didn't see fit to plug it even once. Still, A for effort -- they're going to have do something every month to distinguish the tri-branded PPV's if they want support for them.

The Hardy Boyz vs. Cade and Murdoch was another in an excellent series between these guys, and while I imagine this was the last one (being that, you know, Matt doesn't even wrestle on Raw), I hope that's not the case. The theme of Matt and Jeff breaking the rules was a new twist on their matches, and it definitely worked. More and more, I'm starting to see Matt as the next Bret Hart (particularly in his match against William Regal the other week); he just needs the right opportunity now.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Jimmy Wang Yang was a nice little give-and-take contest. Nothing overly fancy, but it still worked, and JBL's excellent commentary really helped keep the bout in perspective. Although tying the WWE Cruiserweight title to Brian Pillman in WCW DOES seem like a bit of a stretch.

I missed the ring introductions for the ECW Title Match (popcorn run), so I missed exactly what happened with Benoit. You can imagine my disappointment when I saw Johnny Fucking Nitro in there instead. Still, hopefully the "personal issue" with Benoit isn't anything too serious. The match itself was pretty terrible; at least give me a heated contest, given how much Taz had put over the title beforehand. Or have Nitro cheat to win, giving him a bit of an edge until he loses the belt to Benoit. By the way, am I the only one who sees the irony in someone named "Nitro" holding the ECW title? Probably not.

Santino Morella vs. Umaga never really had any chance to develop, though you've got to love the fans cheering for Umaga to go back and squash the guy afterwards.

MVP vs. Ric Flair was perfectly acceptable, and for the record, I'm in the camp of letting Flair do his thing out there for as long as he's willing to. Even at his age, he's still capable of giving the rub to guys like MVP. No, it wasn't a terrific match, but it's still another match MVP can point to on his way up.

Deuce and Domino vs., as JBL called them, The Coffin Dodgers, was quite awful, but at least it was unexpected. I guess. And while I'm all for kayfabing certain things, even in this day and age, would it have really hurt anyone to acknowledge that you had, for the first time ever, father and son fighting each other on PPV? Offhand, I can't even think of another time that's happened (though it probably has). Still, Snuka can't even take a leapfrog anymore, maybe he should go back to the nursing home, brudda.

Edge vs. Batista was easily match of the night for me, and unlike their first two encounters, this one kept things really interesting. Particularly after Teddy Long re-started the match, you started to think Batista had a shot. The false finishes were great, and of course, Edge outsmarted Big Dave to keep his belt in the end. Earlier today, I'd predicted on The W message board that Flair would turn on Batista. Maybe it will be the other way around now? Just a thought....

Candice vs. Melina was the very definition of "meh". Neither of these ladies can touch what Trish (or even Mickie or Lita or Victoria) can do in the ring and it shows, even IF Candice has stepped up her game in recent months.

I was falling asleep towards the end of the Cena Squashes Everyone Else main event, not because it was boring, but because I was getting legitimately tired (I have no idea how I'm typing this now, in fact). Don't get wrong - I love Booker, Foley is one of my all-time faves, and Cena never seems to get his just due from people online. But they were really going through the motions here.

My biggest problem was that I'm once again wondering where they go from here. You could have Orton pin Foley instead, leading to an interesting SummerSlam program. Now, I'm not sure where they're going to go.

Overall, I went 7 for 9 tonight in my predictions (I picked Benoit to win the ECW Title and Orton to win the World title), so it wasn't like it was a shocking event, but could have used a little more enthusiasm.