Looking At Last Night's WWE Vengeance Pay-Per-View

“Vince, stop playing dead and give me my money back!”

I’m not one to rant about wrestling. Most wrestling insiders get in such a habit of complaining and belly aching about the state of WWE, they lose track of the fact that we are all fans of a wonderful product. However, I must share my thoughts on last night’s PPV, if anything else, to get them off of my chest. I feel like WWE should be sending me a check this morning for $40. Last night’s PPV was a complete lackluster event; plain and simple. Traditionally Vengeance has been a good PPV and I was hoping that it would be an upward swing from some of the more recent WWE PPVs. I was wrong, very wrong.

The night started out decent with The Hardys vs. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch. I’m impressed with how Cade and Murdoch have improved as a tag team and actually looked in my eyes to be among the elite on the RAW roster (as far as tag teams are concerned). I expected The Hardys to lose with WWE wanting them to push them as singles and with their legacy; this loss doesn’t mean a thing to them.

Jimmy Wang Yang vs. Chavo Guerrero was not a terrible match, but does it really matter who holds the Cruiserweight Title anymore? I will say that I am impressed with the work of both Jimmy and Chavo last night as they did pull off some decent spots, particularly Yang. My gripe with the bout is there could have been a title change here. If we’re going to be watching the “Night Of Champions” don’t we deserve at least a couple of title changes?

Johnny Nitro was put in a very tough position, but there is no way they were going to make up without Benoit in this one. I was eagerly awaiting a bout between CM Punk and Benoit and I get Johnny Nitro. Don’t get me wrong, I think Nitro is an up and coming talent in WWE, but the ECW title already? Obviously the title was going to be held by Chris Benoit, but if not him, why not CM Punk? Punk has great wrestling ability and can put on a very entertaining match. WWE missed their mark big time with this one.

Santino Marella vs. Umaga did nothing more than piss me off. What I want to know is, what did Umaga have to do to get nothing but squash matches for an entire year? Why is WWE making their IC Champion look so insignificant? What is the point in building a match for a pay-per-view only to have it end with a disqualification? Isn’t this the Night of Champions? As you can see, there are more questions than answers regarding this match so there is really nothing else to say about it. At this point in the PPV I was praying for something better to happen.

Flair vs. MVP could have been a lot better. I will hand it to MVP, he looked very good in the ring, and I liked the finish, but this bout would have been better suited for an episode of SmackDown. There should be a new stipulation that a PPV match involving Ric Flair must require a tremendous amount of bleeding since he bleeds better than anyone in the business. At least that would put some type of drama into the event!

Was everyone just as thrilled with Sgt. Slaughter and Jimmy “SUPERFLY” Snuka in the ring against Deuce and Domino? No disrespect, but Jimmy “SUPERFLY” looked more like Jimmy “SUPEROLD”, honestly, it looked like he had a hard time walking to the ring. How are we as fans supposed to take a match serious that features people old enough to be our grandfathers? At least Flair can still move gracefully at his age. The worst part is, they pretty much dominated Deuce N Domino throughout the entire night. What a great way to build young talent! At this point I was in disarray that I had just spent $40.

Edge vs. Batista, oh boy, what a disaster and it wasn’t really with the match itself. The match was fine up until the ending and I’m talking about both of them. Edge gets himself disqualified, which didn’t surprise me, but when Teddy Long restarted the match, I was looking for a surprise. Did I get it? Nope, the only surprise I got was that even though I can hear the referee’s count, everyone in the arena can hear the referee’s count, Batista CAN’T HEAR the referee’s count! Honestly, a count out on a pay-per-view, you’ve got to be kidding me. That is ridiculous! Vince, start writing people checks for this debacle you call a $40 pay-per-view!

Candice Michelle and Melina was all that it could be, I’m not much into women wrestling, and miss Trish dearly. If I can’t see Trish, I’d rather see Mickie. Putting the Women’s Title on Candice doesn’t make much sense, but Melina isn’t that much better of a wrestler. Hey, at least we got a title change! A night that is supposed to focus on Championships and we have one change, wow, how dramatic.

Main event time and I was mad before it started. Time was running out before the introductions, so I knew it was going to be disappointing. There were a couple of big spots including Lashley’s dive out of the ring which was incredible, but there wasn’t enough in this twelve minute match to save the event. There was nothing that I wouldn’t expect from a RAW main event (other than Lashley’s huge spot). John Cena overcame the odds and one the title, which didn’t surprise me. Why would WWE feature a main title change on a night that is suppose to focus on the titles? I guess it would make too much damn sense! After all, we get to enjoy a three hour fake funeral tonight.

All and all Vengeance was a huge disappointment. From top to bottom the event did not deliver. There was nothing and I mean nothing that I felt was worth $40 and will go down as one of the worst pay-per-views I’ve ever ordered. There are so many things that I would like to ask the writers of all three brands in regards to the booking of this show. Nothing made sense, nothing! The Chris Benoit no show was a bad enough, why punish us with a disqualification and a count out on the same card? Why couldn’t WWE give us a SIGNIFICANT title change? Hopefully the Great American Bash will be better, because sitting through this for nearly three hours was dreadful!

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