[2007-10-28-WWE-Cyber Sunday] HHH vs Umaga (Street Fight)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Triple H vs Umaga - Cyber Sunday 2007 Street Fight

 

Umaga is the greatest Hogan opponent, who never got a chance to wrestle Hogan. He has such a strong grasp of what it means to be a violent, unstoppable monster. He is athletic, but still vicious. His grasp on how a monster should sell and bump is strong. He is the best at weeble wobbles but don't fall down selling since Blackwell. I love he takes HHH's best shot over and over again and he just keeps coming. They try to go for too much too soon with the spear through the entrance set. No pop and no real setup. They settle into a great David vs Goliath match. It is is really a testament to Umaga that he can make HHH into a sympathetic David. HHH is teeing off on Umaga and he just wont go down. I love it. He gets the garbage can puts him down for two. He swings for another and Umaga counters into a Samoan Drop, Then it becomes the Umaga show, Absolutely brilliant heat segment. Umaga is completely laser focused on the abdomen and never lets up. So many great cutoffs to the ribs. Great selling by HHH too, but Umaga just rocked this heat segment. I liked Umaga going for the chair when he cant put HHH away, but HHH uses the low blow and a DDT on chair for a hope spot. But Umaga just flings HHH off with a huge sidewalk slam. The big spot of the match is Umaga running across the announce tables and splashing HHH through the table. Great sell by HHH. I think that would have been a great finish to set up a rematch. Umaga misses a flying headbutt. I liked how it takes Umaga hurting himself to set up HHH getting the Sledgehammer. They do a great job with HHH missing the hammer, Umaga going for the Asiatic Spike, miss, Sledgehammer, weeble wobble, Kick Wham Pedrigee! Good stuff there, but honestly they could have gotten more mileage out of this feud because this was amazing.

Does anyone actually remember this feud? Because I sure as hell don't and I was watching at the time. This is the absolute best HHH has ever looked as a babyface. Umaga crushed it. This was not your typical great uptempo street fight, but HHH cant do uptempo. So that's neither here nor there. I thought they did a great job telling David vs Goliath working in great body psychology and selling and really making Umaga this very credible monster that really takes a lot before he will go down. ****1/4

[DMJ]

Totally agree with everything above.

As a lifelong WWE viewer (especially pay-per-views), I've seen a lot of Triple H matches and, though he's one of my least favorite workers/personalities, I've also seen enough of his work to say that I don't hate *everything* he's ever done. He does have some great matches on his resume and this is one of them.

Of course, the irony is that this is the version of Triple H we probably saw the least over the years - a babyface who can't overpower or outwit a monster but still brings the fight to him instead of trying to wrestle his way out of it. There are a handful of other times that Triple H has done this (I recall a match against Big Show on a random episode of RAW around 05' where he basically just pinballed wonderfully), but where was this Triple H in the feud with Lesnar? To be fair, Triple H wasn't a babyface against Batista or even really Taker and I don't think he ever faced Mark Henry during his Hall of Pain run, but man, this Triple H vs. Henry might've been pretty good in hindsight. 

I guess my point is that, when he wanted to not be "The Game" who dominates and controls every match because he's the Cerebral Assassin, Triple H could actually do "John Cena" pretty darn well. This isn't as good as Cena's match against Umaga from the Rumble of the same year, but its still a very good match with some very good spots, including Umaga missing an awesome crossbody by the guardrail, the aforementioned table spot, and a devastating sidewalk slam. I also like that, because this isn't a "kitchen sink" hardcore match with tons of weapons, when the sledgehammer does come into play, it feels like a kill shot because we haven't seen a dozen other weapon strikes. On my blog, I don't do quarters or halves, so 4-out-of-5 is where I landed (essentially a "must see" if you're at all a fan of either guy and a "should see" if you're a WWE fan who might've not caught this one before).