Pretty fun show; extraordinarily good for a pre-PPV outing. Only 5 matches, but the 2 throw-away ones were over quick, & the 3 good ones were all really good.
Was it just me, or was Cena pretty lame with Steph? It seemed like he was trying to do a Kurt Angle infatuation deal, but not managing. Steph was holding up her end (as it were) of the dialog, but Cena wasn't exactly impressing me as worthy of the attention. (I didn't think much of his promo on Undertaker, either. Maybe I'm just bored with the rapper thing, maybe he's used up all his rhymes. "I'm gonna beat him up, & that'll shut him up." Go, Taker.)
Tazz, if you think Sacramento in July is hot, just wait til you get to Phoenix in August. Do I need to tell you about the time that they had to effectively close the airport because of the heat?
What was Sable supposed to be doing back in the garage when Steph found her? Honey, if you're standing around looking for a date, a streetcorner would probably be more effective for you. When Steph picked up the lead pipe, I knew the limo's windows were in ultimate peril, but no. I suppose its hoping for too much that Steph just destroys Sable, & Vince goes to stay at Sable's bedside indefinitely? (Eh, she'd just resurface eventually.)
Interesting handling of the Linda Tombstone on Raw. Stephanie is concerned but professional, & Vince is an ass. That much works.
Rey was killer good! Cool twisting bounce-off-his-butt thingie. (That would be the technical term. Listen for Tazz calling it that next week.) Shannon took a couple of pretty wicked-sounding face shots from Rey. Shannon & Matt did a lovely double team cheat on Billy. Fun match. I love Rey.
You know in Rocky Horror, the scene where they're all standing around saying "Brad!" "Janet!" "Rocky!" "Dr. Scott!" And since Rocky doesn't actually speak, he just kind of turns with a suprised "Ugh!" look. That was Billy's acting inspiration when Torrie made her offer to Jamie. Torrie sleeping with Jamie Noble, next week, here, on SmackDown. I'm sure Nidia will stand by, idly watching on a monitor. Maybe Val's film company will get involved -- that's all I can think of that might make this useful.
This APA thing just gets funnier. Brooklyn Brawler? Meyhem in the ring. Hopefully it stays funny through Sunday. Needs more O'Haire though.
Eddie was amazing. Eddie with Chris. Eddie with Rhyno. Eddie talks, Eddie wrestles, Eddie cheats. Eddie was excellent. Possibly the second best Benoit talking segment ever. Rhyno looking good. Really strong segment -- I liked it a lot. (Are the PPV buyrates up yet?)
Kurt, Brock, BigShow, Charlie, Shelton, even Zach. Zach really got bounced badly on his head. Other than that & the Vince appearance, tons of good stuff!
So Vengeance is going to have 3 good matches (Eddie/Benoit, Kurt/Brock/BS, Rey/Billy/Charlie/Shelton), one hopefully amusing event (the APA Invitational), one uncertain but has potential (Cena/Taker), & 2 trash. If they do the right thing & give the good matches plenty of time, the show overall could be decent.
No O'Haire, no Spanky, I'm scratching my head here... But, good stuff with Eddy, Benoit and Rhyno, and I dug the opener too. The beef I had was with the way the show was plotted. I mean, there were so many filler segments, and the commercials were so long, I actually caught a quick snooze.
I thought Cena and Steph were cute though. Not sure what the hell the purpose is, but hey, she is a nice looking woman, so why not? I also liked the way the Linda thing was handled, but I feel none too enthused about all the McMahons being on TV, but you know, that's the only effective way to go. I won't complain too much about this because I kinda miss Shane. I'll probably open a can of worms, but I don't care.
Oh god, I don't know why but Sable's promo at the beginning was funny as hell. Must've been the body language. "What did you say? You didn't like what I say? Well that's too bad!" LOL! Hell, I can say that better talking to myself in the shower, not that I do that anyway... Okay show content wise, but the format put me to sleep.
I'm bothered by the Stephanie (character's) revelation. After the first viewing, I was pretty much astonished that they'd go there. And particularly on SmackDown, the fun, happy, friendly, 7-9pm wrestling show.
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