Review the last wrestling match you watched

Ah, back when the IC title meant something. I miss those days.

The IC belt was my favourite as a kid to. I like this plan. :D

Bump...

Triple H vs Chris Jericho (Last Man Standing match) - Fully Loaded 2000

So I finally saw this match, after hearing it being widely praised by a lot of people, some going as far as saying it is Jericho's best match. I don't know about that, but it was certainly very good. Steve said on msn that this might be the only time Triple H has made somebody look good in defeat. I can't think of any more times, but I'm not about to start bashing HHH, because he was pretty great in this match and made Jericho look very good indeed. The feud was pretty much based around Stephanie and Jericho's treatment of her (verbal insults, kissing her etc) as well as costing Triple H a #1 contendership match. I really enjoyed Jericho as the brave face underdog and its matches like this which make me think it was a terrible decision not to push him to the title as a face. He sold the injured ribs well throughout and I really bought into his struggle against the odds. Triple H dominated for the most part as you would expect, but I loved Jericho's refusal to stay down. One of my favourite moments of the match was when he taunted Triple H every time he got up, eventually giving a crotch chop and getting pedigreed. It was also great that Triple H cockily rested on the ropes as the ref counted Jericho, only for Jericho to make it to his feet and Triple H to go crazy and bring in a steel chair. The epic chairshot Jericho delivered to Triple H to turn the tide was also a great moment, and Triple H was BUSTED WIDE OPEN!~ This was a good example of the blood helping to tell the story and it served as proof that the young gun Jericho had given Triple H a hell of a beating in this one, even though Triple H was eventually able to pull out the win after a suplex through the commentators table, Triple H just beating the 10 count. I think this was a great underdog story with both men contributing a lot to make the match good and Triple H making Jericho look extremely good in defeat. Wouldn't go as far as saying it was Jericho's best match but it was certainly very impressive and would feature high on the lists of both men's greatest matches.

****1/4

CM Punk vs Rey Mysterio - IC title #1 Contendership Match - Armageddon 2008

This was the final of a tournament set up by William Regal to find a worthy #1 contender for his title. I liked the idea of the tournament to give the belt some of its prestige back, as wrestlers were willing to go through a whole King of the Ring style tournament just to get a shot at the gold. This was also interesting because it was the first time these guys had faced each other. Both were faces at the time of course, which provoked some awful King commentary (usually Armageddon is about good vs evil.. but these are two good guys). The match itself was very good, and although I need to rewatch Punk's ECW title win, for now I am going to say this is CM Punk's best match in WWE. I liked the chain wrestling at the start, but the match was basically about speed and counters. This started early with Punk countering 619 with an armdrag and Rey avoiding the Go To Sleep with the same move. There were a lot of cool spots in the match. I always love it when a wrestler locks in a submission, and when the guy goes to grab the rope, they grab that arm and turn it into something else. Punk used this on Rey, and it was cool to see. I think Punk should use more submission moves, especially now he is a heel and will dominate matches more. There were a lot of high spots, mainly provided by Rey, unsurprisingly, but Punk hit his cool dive to the outside. Maybe my favourite moment of the match came when Punk tried to lift Rey for a slam after throwing him against the ropes, but Rey spun round and turned it into an armbar. The finishing stretch was pretty impressive, full of near falls and finisher counters, before Punk finally managed to hit a pretty brutal GTS for the win. REY GOT FUCKED UP!!! There was blood all over him.

I thought long and hard over what rating to give this match... but I have to disappoint Ken by not giving it 4 stars. It was very good, but not quite great in my eyes. Hugely enjoyable match all the same. The search for a **** match (imo of course) in Punk's WWE career goes on.

***3/4

Samoa Joe vs. Booker T - TNA Victory Road 2008

Started off very well. I was loving the slow build up of the match. Then like most TNA matches it turned to shit. Why would banging the back of your head make the front of your head bleed?

They then had Joe beat the shit out of Booker. I've always thought that having the hometown hero look weak was counterproductive. Put them in a lesser match and have them win over having them lose badly in an important match.

Sting comes out to save Booker...maybe. As this is TNA you don't know what's happening. This is about the time that something better caught my attention. When I returned to the screen Sharmell was counting the pinfall and Booker was walking out with the title. If I remember from last year when I first watched it, Sting hit Joe for reasons unknown to everybody.

John Cena vs Batista - Summerslam 2008

I thought I'd rewatch this because I hadn't seen it since I watched the PPV live, and I've been giving it **** in threads left and right. Wow... I was wrong. I'm a huge fan of Cena (Batista not so much) and I still consider this a GOOD match, but it is not great by any means, as it has some key flaws and basically just didn't really have enough to it to be a great match. In all honesty, on watching it the 2nd time, Cena pissed me off in this more than Batista did. From his selling of the leg (sold it for a few moves then started jumping around, but this isn't too big of a deal) to, more importantly, his awful weak execution of the STF when he basically just rested without even trying to make it look painful (watch Benoit and learn, John), he wasn't all that great in this. The early going worked, with each man trying to prove they were stronger than the other, and a few power moves being used, and I liked the way Batista worked on Cena's leg after avoiding the first FU attempt, locking in the Figure Four and such, but most of the match was just a Cena power move followed by a Batista power move with no real flow to it. Yes, it was entertaining for the most part seeing these two powerhouses throwing each other around, and like I said, it was a good match, but I think it relied too much on the fact that it was Cena vs Batista to make the match exciting, because it wasn't that well worked a match. Like many "dream matches", they didn't bother doing too much interesting with it and it could have been a lot better. Finish was pretty cool despite the injury though. It's always great when Batista snaps. If they wrestled again I'd expect it to be a lot better than this. Good, but nowhere near great really.

***1/2

The Great Khali vs. Kane - Wrestlemania 23

Yeah, not great this one. I usually like big man matches, but Khali was still a year and a half away from becoming highly entertaining and Kane hasn't been able to bring it in years.