Monday, October 27, 2008

Where does Jeff go from here?

Cyber Sunday was actually a pretty fun show. I had a good time with it...

Let me start by saying, I was pretty shocked, as were most I’d imagine, that the fans voted in Cryme Tyme vs. M&M 2.0 over the tag title match. I think this speaks to Cryme Tyme’s popularity, but Kofi/Punk vs. Priceless was one of the matches I was looking most forward to. Cryme Tyme have stepped up their in-ring game, but this match would have been a better fit as the hour one main event on tonight’s RAW rather than on a PPV. They actually tried to sell it as a dot com rivalry, which was nuts.

Nice showing by Evan Bourne and an even better showing by his opponent Matt Hardy. Hardy’s performance in that match is what makes him a “smart” favorite, but what sometimes keeps him under the radar to casual fans. He let Bourne go and made Bourne look like a legitimate superstar. He sold the shit out of each and every high impact move and pretty much worked a flawless and very un-selfish match.

The match of the night, for me, was Taker vs. Big Show in the last man standing. Being pretty sure going in that Show was going to have to do the job, I really didn’t want him saying “I Quit” and the knockout match had exactly zero appeal, so this stip was one the fans got just right. The crowd, however was DEAD during this match, which was a shame because for a big man match it had a lot of great moments. It seemed like Taker took everything and just kept getting up, which could be seen as a slight to Big Show, but it’s the Undertaker – that’s been his gimmick forever.

Was Taker fucking with Charles Robinson, though? He just wouldn’t get up and he kept forcing Robinson to slow down his count to the point that Robinson started to look biased. Maybe he was just gassed, but it seemed like it may have been a power move. Either way, I had a lot of fun with this match and I keep becoming a bigger and bigger Big Show mark.

The low point of the show was certainly the Divas costume contest, though it was nice to see the fans vote for Mickie James who looked great.

Santino’s bit was not so great, through no fault of his own. They gave him and HTM no time to wrestle and then everyone came out and beat up on Santino, which is probably annoying to those who paid to vote.

I am a huge Goldust fan, I think he’s one of the top three wrestling characters of all time, but he looked like shit last night. Is he coming back? He better get in shape if he is.

On a side not, my girlfriend told me that it sounds like I’m doing a racist Asian impression when I try to say “64 weeks” like Santino. I, on the other hand, think it’s spot on.

Oh, Rey and Kane was a passable opener.

Did you see HHH’s face when the fans picked Hardy? Did you see Hardy’s face when the fans picked Hardy? Neither one of those guys was happy about it. Hardy knew he was going to have to do a pretty devastating job, which I’m sure he didn’t want to do and even further, I don’t think Game wanted to be the one to do it to him.

This match was good…really good. Not as good as No Mercy, but good. Truthfully, I can watch those two guys wrestle each other any day of the week – but the clean Jeff Hardy job is a tough one to swallow.

Everyone involved wanted this triple threat so Hardy wouldn’t have had to be pinned and HHH could have kept the title. Hardy getting voted in just made him seem like a guy who will never be WWE champion. Like a guy who is just not ready.

Memo to creative, though – the fans want Jeff Hardy to be champion!

I’m not even suggesting HHH should have dropped the title last night, but I didn’t want to see him get the clean pin. It didn’t look as though Trips was too happy about it either. I think Trips genuinely respects Jeff Hardy and knew that getting the win here was going to really hurt Hardy’s future in the title hunt and really didn’t want to be the guy to do it.

Where’s Jeff going now that it’s pretty clear creative is moving towards a Game/Kozlov feud?

Turn him heel? Take him off TV for a bit?

As for the RAW main event, I loved it. It was booked a bit like TNA what with all the run-ins, but here it worked. There are so many people outside of Big Dave and Jericho involved in this story, and none of their names are Stone Cold Steve Austin, that it made sense to have all those guys in there.

I love Jericho. I really do, but I actually think the title is on the right guy. I do wish it would have happened at Survivor Series, but in all fairness Batista has been placed in a number of title matches only to loose. Batista should be running the show on RAW and this sets up a sure-fire Cena/Batista main event at Wrestlemania 25.

It was a decent show all around, though I am worried about where Jeff Hardy goes from here.

No comments:

Post a Comment