A few common themes for the PPV tonight. Clean finishes. One thing every match had in common tonight is that they all ended with the victor going over in clean fashion. The other was faces triumphant. And also good quality wrestling.
Kane vs. MVP - Well it was decent enough. Not totally terrible and not a total squash. Those who predicted that MVP would lose since he wears sleeved tights were right. That's exactly what happened. Kane put MVP into the fire after a big flying clothesline off the top to MVP on the floor. Good finish, decent match.
Ladder match for the tag titles - This was the match that Meltzer reported would be changed for the better. Honestly I was disappointed because I was hoping for a Taylor/Regal title win. Also WWE should've definitely advertised a match like this. Mercury about 10 minutes in got severely injured after the ladder hit his face and it looked like his nose broke right off. He had to be taken out of the match and Nitro worked the rest of it alone. Taylor and Regal couldn't win because they were afraid of heights to climb the ladder. Hardyz certainly dominated this match the most and looked like they would win. But London was able to run up and get the tag belts and the champs surprisingly retain. So I hope they don't break up anytime soon. For London and Kendrick this was easily the match and win of their careers. They looked amazing tonight and they won. Hats off to them. Hope Mercury is OK and I hope MNM comes back to Smackdown.
Benoit vs. Chavo for the US title - Well I think booking obviously pointed to a Chavo win here. But Benoit defeats Chavo once again via tapout, this time the Sharpshooter despite interference and distraction by the once again skanked out Vicki Guerrero. Much better than their Survivor Series and SD! match, some decent backwork by Chavo. I thought Benoit was going to bring back the 10 German suplexes but he only went up to 8. Anyway good match, clean finish again, and the champ surprisingly retains.
Boogeyman vs. Miz - well no surprise here, moving right along. Boogeyman wins after his double-chokeslam.
Yang vs. Helms - Definitely one of the better cruiserweight title matches in the WWE, but sadly the crowd didn't care for the most part. Some solid wrestling by Yang and Helms moreso than highspots which I guess might be part of the problem. Some of them started to come in near the end so the match could've maybe gone on a little longer and incorporated some more. JBL did a good job of putting over Helms and the match despite the crowd "sitting on their damn hands." JBL never leave the announce table that is where you belong. Yangs wins, making him the only heel to win tonight.
Kennedy vs. Undertaker - I doubt anyone thought Kennedy would actually win here. Usual from this type of match of the Undertaker. Kennedy got in some nice chair shots though. The throw off the top of the Armageddon stage as nice, but then you see where Taker fell and it's like, "oh--gimmicked." Nice inside the hearse visual of Kennedy in the driver's seat then Taker popping up. Taker chokeslams and tombstones Kennedy on the top of the hearse and then drives it out to win the match.
Lingerie contest - semi-enjoyable until the big reveal with Santa Clause which you kind of saw coming when he got on the mic. Just ugh. I hate this crap in TNA and I hate it in WWE. Layla was the clear winner though.
Tag team main event - From the beginning this looked like a TV main event and that's EXACTLY what it turned out to be. It actually started off really good. Batista and Cena busted out some interesting stuff and looked like we were going to see a wrestling match with Finlay and Booker. Then it descened into the usual formulaic tv main event style and finish. Still a nice clean finish though and the faces going over.
Saw the show for free at Wings N More and I was very satisfied. Smackdown has consistently delivered some great quality PPV matches and TV this year no question. And WWE still treats it like the B show and brand.
WWE Tag Team Championship-- Ladder Match Paul London and Brian Kendrick d. Dave Taylor and William Regal, The Hardy Boyz and MNM to retain the title
(Nice job, by the way, WWE, not advertising a match that people may have actually wanted to see.)
WWE United States Championship Match Chris Benoit d. Chavo Guerrero by submission to retain the title
The Boogeyman d. The Miz by pinfall
WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match Gregory Helms d. Jimmy Wang Yang by pinfall to retain the title
Last Ride Match The Undertaker d. Mr. Kennedy
(Another great job-- have Kennedy and MVP get their asses kicked all the way up through the PPV and then also both lose their matches at the PPV. It's called "building new stars".)
Main Event World Champion Batista and WWE Champion John Cena d. King Booker and Finlay with the Batista Bomb on Booker
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They have a picture of Mercury going in for surgery at WWE.com http://www.wwe.com/shows/armageddon/exclusives/38575801 They say that it's at least a broken nose. The doctor says it's even possible that he could have some brain damage (I assume that means a concussion) from the hit. The prognosis seems to be plastic surgery plus 2 months recovery time.
Originally posted by ekedolphin (Nice job, by the way, WWE, not advertising a match that people may have actually wanted to see.)
You can't seriously get pissed off over something that was surprising, positive and a good indicator that by buying a PPV you may get more than you bargained for.
In all honesty a move like this more often (Albeit not all the time) will increase buy rates long term due to people having that "anything cool might happen" feeling rather then advertising every match with less chance for an excellent surprise.
Take Edge's MITB win at NYR in January as an example. Advertising it takes away from the spontaneity of the moment.
Three oinkers wearing pants, a plate of hot air, a basket of grandma's breakfast and change a bull to a gill, got it.
So I was on the fence about going to see this on the BIG SCREEN, and then I asked Hobbes, and Hobbes said "why not," so I went, and it was pretty good!
The theatre was surprisingly full. Within seconds, I saw and heard some of the nerdiest, most awful people you've ever seen in your life. Wrestling has a bad reputation and it's for a good reason.
I didn't win a prize.
Snacks: large popcorn (no butter), large Diet Coke (x2).
INFERNO MATCH: This was a fun spectacle. The match was nothing great but it looked cool and wasn't overly long. They mentioned that it was the first Inferno Match in six or seven years. There's a reason for that. Any more often, and everyone would notice the pattern: dive over the fire to the floor, one guy crawls under the ring, said guy promptly gets pushed into the fire. At least the flame-retardant stuff wasn't as obvious this time, and Kane actually won his own gimmick match for once.
LADDER MATCH: You know how people complain when WWE gives away a ladder match on free TV? It's a lot stupider to give it away on PPV and NOT ANNOUNCE IT BEFOREHAND. But whatever.
This was great. Really, really great. I didn't like the bit about Regal and Taylor being scared to climb the ladder, but everything else, awesome. I feel kinda bad for liking this, because eight guys killed the hell out of each other, and they shouldn't have to do that, but they did and it was awesome.
Poor Joey Mercury, good god. He took a ladder to the face and was bleeding buckets before he even hit the ground. They showed the replay about 2,000 times and every time, the theatre groaned when the ladder hit Mercury's face. I've never seen a wrestler bleed so much so fast - it was worse than that Eddie Guerrero match against JBL. And when they showed a close-up of his face and his eyes had already swollen shut... unreal. That looked so ungodly painful.
I also figured we saw a double crippling when Kendrick and Regal botched Sliced Bread #2 off the ladders.
Hardyz vs. Kendrick & London would be a fun WM match.
BOOGEYMAN vs. MIZ: This sucked but it was short enough that it was at least an entertaining kind of bad. JBL was awesome in hating the Miz. JBL was kind of awesome in everything, really.
BENOIT vs. CHAVO: Not bad at all. Glad Benoit won. Someone at the W posted that Vickie looks like Princess Fiona as an ogre. That was mean but yeah, I can see it. It was also mean of the crowd to chant VICKIE SUCKS. WWE has done an impressive job of turning the crowd against the widow of a beloved champion.
YANG vs. HELMS: This was pretty good. Crowd didn't care, so JBL kept insulting the crowd, which was awesome. Highlight was JBL, after lots of long, loud ranting, quietly pointing out how handsome Yang is. And Cole agreeing.
UNDERTAKER vs. KENNEDY: Great camerawork in making the Undertaker's big fall seem awesome (and not revealing the gimmicked landing). Also, Undertaker sitting up in the hearse? Good stuff. But this went on too long and I didn't care to begin with. Really, though, this wasn't bad or anything.
Also, one other highlight was this one guy in the crowd who was really intent on telling Ken Kennedy that he sucked. He'd yell YOU SUCK and then YOU SUCK again and then YOU SUCK again, over and over through Kennedy's whole introduction. It got over big in the theatre.
LINGERIE CONTEST: not that boobies aren't nice, but who cares
BATISTA/CENA vs. FINLAY/BOOKER: It was a match. No angle. Nothing exciting. Perfectly acceptable, and a decent TV main event but nothing I'd want to headline a PPV with. Batista is terrible.
Originally posted by ekedolphin(Another great job-- have Kennedy and MVP get their asses kicked all the way up through the PPV and then also both lose their matches at the PPV. It's called "building new stars".)
I don't think Ken is in any sort of danger of becoming irrelavent any time soon. I thought the feud, if this was indeed the end, turned out to be a refreshingly good one. Kennedy was more than protected enough for Undertaker to take a deserved win tonight.
Originally posted by The Vile1To those complaining about WWE not advertising this match:
PPV replays and DVD.
Or downloads, which are available for free about an hour after the show finishes. That way everyone wins except the company who were too stupid to advertise the one match that would have encouraged even the smarkiest of smarks to buy a Smackdown PPV.
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Originally posted by The Vile1To those complaining about WWE not advertising this match:
PPV replays and DVD. The buzz for this match alone will incite the sales.
Like Benoit/Regal at No Mercy last October, this was a cool surprise. More of these on PPV would be a good thing.
But you can have the same number of PPV replay buys and DVD sales if you advertize the match before hand AND have more people buy the initial showing of the PPV. You also have to consider that people might not be able to watch the replay (they might have made plans or some such thing). If TNA pulled a stunt like this, they (actually Russo) would have been roasted.
Kevin Kelly: "Mr. Austin, would you like to comment on Wade Keller's Take that endorsing the XFL hurts your anti-authority character?"
Steve Austin: "Oh shit, he actually said that? I thought the boys in the back were ribbing me!"
Kelly: "No, he really said that. Did they tell you the part about you sitting in the stands, looking all skeptical?"
Austin: "AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah... oh man that was too much."
Originally posted by The Vile1To those complaining about WWE not advertising this match:
PPV replays and DVD.
Or downloads, which are available for free about an hour after the show finishes. That way everyone wins except the company who were too stupid to advertise the one match that would have encouraged even the smarkiest of smarks to buy a Smackdown PPV.
That was my initial knee-jerk reaction, but you know if you think about it, the replays are still available as well as the DVD's. So in the long run I doubt they will lose much.
In retrospect I like that it was a cool surprise kind of like Regal/Benoit at No Mercy '06.
Maybe the company didn't want to have Regal and Taylor get the titles so soon after we were lead to believe Taylor would miss signifigant time with an injury but didn't want to out and out bury them with a clean loss to Kendrick and London? Maybe WWE wanted to show it's fans that when you order a pay per view you never know what fun surprises to expect? Maybe they actually were in the christmas spirit in offering us a little bonus for the 39.99 we shelled out to watch the event.
I didn't shell out $39.99 to watch that event because the card looked didn't look like it had any singularly promising matches. Like say a fourway ladder match between great workers. Joey Mercury's face blew up so that the second lowest number of people to buy a PPV in years liked the show better. Pleasant surprises and overdelivering is one thing but not advertising the far and away most promising thing on your show is idiocy.
My guess is they felt wary over the situation after December 2 Dismember when people were actually calling their cable companies to complain about the quality of the show.
If I put together that video clip that they are using to sell the replay I might have shown more of the unadvertised match that stole the show ... but who am I to say.
they promoted the Hardys wrestling a squash match on ECW TV more than they did them competing in a four team ladder match.
I mean, bully and all and I'll be sure to check it out but, to go back to a phrase used in the Hardys bio, a lot of guys took "bumps" off their "bump cards" for an unannounced match.
Originally posted by ekedolphinWWE Tag Team Championship-- Ladder Match Paul London and Brian Kendrick d. Dave Taylor and William Regal, The Hardy Boyz and MNM to retain the title
(Nice job, by the way, WWE, not advertising a match that people may have actually wanted to see.)
I second that. If I would have known about that match beforehand, I would have bought the show. Shame, WWE.
Originally posted by ekedolphinWWE Tag Team Championship-- Ladder Match Paul London and Brian Kendrick d. Dave Taylor and William Regal, The Hardy Boyz and MNM to retain the title
(Nice job, by the way, WWE, not advertising a match that people may have actually wanted to see.)
I second that. If I would have known about that match beforehand, I would have bought the show. Shame, WWE.
Will this move put any of you over the fence one way or the other when deciding against buying a PPV on the apparent strength of the card?
If anyone in the future buys a PPV "just in case" he misses something like this, it may have been an effective move.
The question is, are there more potential future "Just in case" buys to be had than current "would have bought if I knew about it" buys?