[2006-12-17-WWE-Armageddon] Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs William Regal & Dave Taylor vs Matt & Jeff Hardy vs MNM (Ladder)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WWE Tag Champs London & Kendrick vs Hardyz vs MNM vs Regal & Taylor - WWE Armageddon 2006 Ladder Match

 

Fun fact: This was supposed to be London & Kendrick vs Regal & Taylor, but Teddy changed it right before the match. I hazard to guess a straight tag would be much better than this cluster fuck.

 

This got plenty of hype at the time and then faded into obscurity, which makes sense. It was a car wreck, but does not age well. Besides Mercury's face exploding, there is no real super Holy Shit spot. The energy level was not there. Regal & Taylor were the only ones attempting to add a story element with their being afraid of heights so they try incapacitate their opponents using a ground game to give them ample time to climb the ladders. MNM was just there, nothing noteworthy. London & Kendrick were great at eating offense and taking bumps onto ladders. I like their double stomp on Matt on the ladder. London & Kendrick could have been so much more. They felt like the Rock & Rolls meet the Hardyz. Two outstanding bumpers and sellers that can do the high-flying stuff and are wicked good looking. However, this is the match where pretty boys need to show their mettle. Like the Rockers in those bloodbaths against Rose&Somers, London & Kendrick needed to do more asskicking. The Hardyz were the best at offense. They were the blueprint for London & Kendrick. I felt like they overshadowed London & Kendrick because they were getting the offense that London& Kendrick should be getting. Plus Matt's right hand is sick. Finish was pretty lame. Sliced Bread No. 2 did not come off well and Kendrick looked like he almost died. Then there was no grand finale. It was just London and Matt fighting on ladder with Matt losing.

 

Meh. Which I feel bad about because there was a lot of pain felt here and Mercury's face became raw hamburger meat, but this did not do much for me.

[MikeCampbell]

This the moment that I think I can pinpoint to me and my buddies realizing that we're too 'smarked out' for lack of better term, for our own good. We watched it live and were just like "This is cool, but why wouldn't they announce this ahead of time?" And, being big marks for London and Kendrick at the time, we were actually looking forward to the match with Regal/Taylor.

[stro]

Very interesting in its brutality. Most WWE ladder matches are too clean and neat with their spots and set ups and bumps. This one was brutal. London and Spanky were dying on every spot they tried, Jeff was still in that phase after getting clean where he was relearning how to do everything, and of course Mercury's face getting destroyed.

 

2006 was such a weird time. Bluebloods getting a WWE run, Finlay main eventing PPVs, Tatanka, all the super cartoony gimmicks.

[ohtani's jacket]

2006 was indeed a strange year for the WWE, and not a particularly good one, but I thought this was pretty good by ladder match standards. I had forgotten that Dave Taylor had a run in the WWE. Regal and Taylor had no place in a ladder match, despite some of the great pirate fights Taylor worked in Germany. I thought it was amusing that they spent most of their time on the outside giving people European uppercuts. They also worked a bit of comedy into the bout by doing that shtick about being afraid of heights. That said, Regal was involved in a couple of brutal sequences, including that incredible spot where Spanky caught him with a neckbreaker off the top of the ladder. I like JBL's enthusiasm, but man was he laying it on thick. Did Joey Mercury mess up his nose for real? That was nasty looking. There were a lot of bodies involved in this, and it had the potential to be a train wreck, but I was entertained. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

2006 was indeed a strange year for the WWE, and not a particularly good one, but I thought this was pretty good by ladder match standards. I had forgotten that Dave Taylor had a run in the WWE. Regal and Taylor had no place in a ladder match, despite some of the great pirate fights Taylor worked in Germany. I thought it was amusing that they spent most of their time on the outside giving people European uppercuts. They also worked a bit of comedy into the bout by doing that shtick about being afraid of heights. That said, Regal was involved in a couple of brutal sequences, including that incredible spot where Spanky caught him with a neckbreaker off the top of the ladder. I like JBL's enthusiasm, but man was he laying it on thick. Did Joey Mercury mess up his nose for real? That was nasty looking. There were a lot of bodies involved in this, and it had the potential to be a train wreck, but I was entertained. 

He broke it, actually. That one injury led to him suffering a series of domino effects (additional injuries/concussions) namely a nasty addiction to painkillers that he'd get from the rehab process that ultimately ended his full-time career as a wrestler.

[ohtani's jacket]

9 minutes ago, Ma Stump Puller said:

He broke it, actually. That one injury led to him suffering a series of domino effects (additional injuries/concussions) namely a nasty addiction to painkillers that he'd get from the rehab process that ultimately ended his full-time career as a wrestler.

Well, that's crazy.