Post by propaganda on May 3, 2005 14:47:28 GMT -5
We start off with Edge beating Lance Storm for the WWF IC Title. Solid action from start to finish, and both men should be proud of the effort and technique they put in to the match. The psychology of Storm’s assault on Edge’s ribs was spot on, as was Edge’s selling. The whole match flowed nicely, and got the crowd hyped for the night. 3 stars.
Up next, Test and Bubba and DVon beat APA and Spike Dudley. After a brief "I’m a heel now" character setting speech from Test, we got down to it in a 6 man tag match that the crowd were really into - as physical and rough as tag matches can get, the APA and the Dudleys kicked the snot out of each other before we were left with Test and Spike - on this occasion, David couldn’t overcome Goliath, and eventually Spike went through the obligatory table at ringside, and in some style too.
Bradshaw absolutely nailed a powerbomb on Test, before Shane McMahon levelled the big Texan beermonger with a vicious looking flying chairshot, allowing Test to take the win and position himself as a genuine threat within the ranks of The Alliance. 2 1/2 stars.
WCW CW Champion X-Pac beat WWF LW Champion Tajiri. X-Pac now holds both belts. he and Tajiri put on a tremendous show, near falls all over the shop, high flying moves, counter wrestling, submission holds and stiff looking kicks galore - and the crowd ate it up.
Albert made his way down to ring, obviously just to scout some new moves - I can just see Albert moonsaulting - just take a second to mull that image over in your mind... anyway, Tajiri took offence to Albert standing on the ring apron, and hit him with the red mist. And turned round to walk into the X-Factor, allowing X-pac to win. Good stuff. 2 3/4 stars.
Next up, Chris Jericho beat Rhyno via submission. A solid match that the crowd ate up again - it’s amazing how much of a difference a crowd can make to a match - could have been killed by Jericho’s missing a couple of high risk moves, were it not for excellent commentary work from both JR and Heyman. They both put across that mistakes prove how much Rhyno’s offence took out of Jericho, and how well Jericho was doing to shake it off - excellent covering from them. They did, however fail to mention that it was the second time that Jericho and Stephanie had played tonsil tennis, but I’ll forgive them that. Rhyno eventually submitted to a Liontamer... er sorry Walls of Jericho to give Jericho that elusive victory. 3 stars.
RVD beat Jeff Hardy to win the WWF Hardcore Title. A couple of missed spots near the end of the match didn’t detract from the overall effort - if RVD had hit that spin kick while Jeff was hanging from the belt, the roof would have blown off the arena. In the end, it was RVD who took the belt after Jeff fell from the top of the ladder and took a hard bump on the back of his head - I wonder if the match may have been planned to go longer, but I’m not gonna quibble - both men walked away, and that’s the main thing. 3 1/2 stars.
WCW Tag Champs Undertaker/Kane beat WWF Tag Champs DDP/Kanyon. They now hold both titles.A farce was the only way to describe it - the only possible thing I can say this match achieved was to prove that The Undertaker can still move when he wants to - I’m looking at the sequence of splashes he gave page coming off the ropes. Page and Kanyon were given little or no offence, and Kanyon took the big bump off the cage in the opening seconds of the match - when Taker told Kane to let Kanyon go, you knew what was coming - Taker and Kane proceeded to beat the living hell out of Page. Kanyon doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with crap like that either. 1 star.
Kurt Angle beat WWF Champ Steve Austin via DQ.Angle and Austin both beat the hell out of each other in one of the most brutal matches I’ve seen - Angle took the bulk of the abuse, but Austin took his share of the licks too - Multiple German suplexes in the ring, and a couple of wicked bumps on the concrete - credit to a man who knows one bad landing and he’s in a wheelchair.
Angle kicked out of Austin’s stunner, Austin kicked out of Angle’s Slam - both men willing to go to the limit for the sake of the match - nice to see. I know a few people I’ve spoke to said the DQ finish ruined the match, but it was the perfect finish to the match in my opinion - no one lost face, and Angle benefits from the ‘win’ - let’s face it, Angle came out of this match looking by far the better man. Makes you wonder why he wasn’t booked that way when he actually was the champion, but that’s another train of thought... a fantastic match, and one that should have been main event - this match drained the crowd, and anything that followed had no chance in hell of living up to this. 5 stars.
The Rock beat Booker T to win the WCW World Title. It was never going to be a great match. Rock’s first main event match in 4 months, Booker’s first solo main event in a WWF ring. But they kept the pace up, and Rocky unveiled another wrestling move to bring his arsenal up to nearly double figures now!
Overall, a damn good PPV.
