Matches From 2007

[Loss]

Based on what I've had a chance to watch so far, here's where everything stands for me.

 

2007

#1 - Shawn Michaels v Edge (WWE, 01/22, Street Fight, Lafayette, LA) ***3/4

#2 - Kintaro Kanemura, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Onryo v Daisuke Sekimoto, Yoshihito Sasaki & Hiroyuki Kondo (BJPW, 01/02, Tokyo, Japan) ***1/2

#3 - John Cena v Umaga (WWE, 01/07, Kansas City, MO) ***1/2

#4 - Jeff Hardy v Johnny Nitro (WWE, 01/07, Cage Match, Kansas City, MO) (*)

#5 - Mitsuharu Misawa v Takeshi Morishima (NOAH, 01/21, Tokyo, Japan) (*)

#6 - HHH & Shawn Michaels v Edge & Randy Orton (WWE, 01/07, Kansas City, MO) (*)

 

Brief notes on each match:

 

#1 - Michaels v Edge 01/22/07 Lafayette, LA

- I was really surprised by how good this was. Michaels is much better working a gimmicky match where the focus is more on the emotion than the wrestling, and he can just worry more about keeping the crowd involved and getting his character over than building something that makes sense. This match is almost more notable for what it doesn't have than what it does have. There's no Shawn-by-the-numbers comeback and no annoying back work for him to just shake off when he feels like it, and when you take away half his schtick, he's much more tolerable. One thing that typically bugs me about modern HBK matches is that they'll hype up what's supposed to be a "classic" or "pure" match and he works table spots in it that completely contradict what the match is supposed to be. See Flair at Badd Blood '03 and Angle at Wrestlemania XXI for examples. Those types of spots are really out of place in a match like that, but in a street fight setting, it works. This isn't a perfect match by any means, as WWE has gotten over garbage can shots as comedy spots over the last few years, so seeing one in what is supposed to be a heated match seems out of place. Still, they get past all of that early and the final stretch looks really good. Shawn may not be a great wrestler at this stage of his career, but matches like this sure do a lot to keep him effective. I should also give props to the WWE production staff for the way this match is filmed. The commercial break timing is really good (even if Edge catching Shawn with a trash can lid to counter a plancha is a pretty bizarre transition to heel offense) and the camera angle when Orton interfered was pretty amazing, because it really got over that he appeared out of nowhere. Michaels in matches like this where he's doing more brawling than wrestling and doesn't go over 15 minutes is a Michaels I can actually enjoy. Good match!

 

#2 - Kintaro Kanemura, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Onryo v Daisuke Sekimoto, Yoshihito Sasaki & Hiroyuki Kondo 01/02/07 Tokyo, Japan

- Another case of a match where breaking it down piece by piece would make it look pretty bad, but taking the whole match into consideration makes it pretty enjoyable. There's a lot of life and fun in this match I haven't seen in a US match in quite some time. Watching them do something a bit more American style in build where you have a face in peril for much of the match is pretty cool as well. There are some spots that are a little overly contrived, specifically picking up a guy who is already picking up another guy, but they get great heat for the nearfalls and everyone is working really hard. It's a good mixture of highspots, comedy and false finishes. Again, this is far from a perfect match, but it's easy to get into.

 

#3 - John Cena v Umaga 01/07/07 Kansas City, MO

- A throwback to the mid 80s where you have a scary monster heel facing a pretty boy babyface and the babyface manages to get lucky enough to escape with his title. Cena gets a bad rap that he really doesn't deserve. He's not a great worker, but he does have strengths, and if he's in the ring with someone who works with him instead of trying to upstage him, he tends to have a really good match. He also always works hard. We see that here. Cena's big strength is selling and taking a beating. The FU and bodyslam attempts where he can't quite hit the move are really good, and the rollup doesn't bother me either, since it's obvious they're building to a rematch. Umaga has some really good offense for a superheavyweight, specifically the leg lariat he pulls out in the middle of the match to cut off Cena's comeback. Good stuff.

 

#4 - Jeff Hardy v Johnny Nitro 01/07/07 Kansas City, MO

- Hardy looks as good as he ever has since returning and is also pretty over. Nitro is improving. This is a good effort. A few too many cage-centric highspots without enough heel/babyface dynamic to get it to the next level, but again, they worked hard and came up with a nice finish that was a bit complex. Nothing to get too excited over, but it does the job.

 

#5 - Mitsuharu Misawa v Takeshi Morishima 01/21/07 Tokyo, Japan

- Morishima throws bombs all over the place, but he's a bit exposed here. Misawa is concussed early and Morishima's response seems to be dropping him on his head another half dozen times instead of maybe building a match in a different direction. Not really any heat after the entrances, and the finish comes out of nowhere. Not a good match at all. I give Misawa credit for staying somewhat alert, but we already knew Misawa could work through a legit injury.

 

#6 - HHH & Shawn Michaels v Edge & Randy Orton 01/07/07 Kansas City, MO

- Oh my God. Everyone should see this. The first part of the match is perfectly okay, even though it's a bit too back and forth for my tastes with the heels not really in a position to work over the babyfaces for any length of time. But the match goes straight to hell when HHH gets injured. Randy Orton is hilarious here, running around with a chair for no reason and juicing himself hardaway. Edge stays down instead of getting up and doing something ridiculous. Michaels does what he can to save the show by attacking the ref, jumping off the top rope through the announce table and destroying both guys with chair shots. HHH never fails to impress, because he knows he's torn his quad obviously, but still calls spots for both Edge and Orton to feed him kickouts instead of improvising and maybe eating the pinfall since he'd be out for a while. Total trainwreck of a match.

[Bix]

Did you catch the Benoit-Chavo No DQ match on Smackdown last week? I thought it was easily the best match they've had together and made use of the stips really well.

[Dylan Waco]

Kanemaru/Suguira v. Briscoes 1/7/07

 

Just watched this and it was really disappointing. I guess I have been a bit spoiled by the last five or six Briscoes tags I've seen, all of which have been good to very good "top this" style matches. The best part of the match was the finish doomsday device and the fact that the Briscoes come out to Skynard. Everything else seemed very pedestrian.

[Dylan Waco]

Great call on Michaels in gimmick matches btw. I've been saying for years that the strength of Michaels is that he's a great guy for getting over new gimmick bouts (Ladders, HITC, et.) because he's a good stunt worker and good at conveying emotion through his movements. I've often wondered if Michaels only really significant influence on the business is preponderance of gimmick matches in the "attitude" era. Not saying he deserves all the credit, or even any of it, but he seems like the guy that was the "bridge" in alot of ways

[anarchistxx]

Suprised to see you liked HBK/Edge so much. Might have to check it out, because I love angry HBK in a street fight.

 

How does it compare to their street fight on Raw last year?

[Loss]

Did you catch the Benoit-Chavo No DQ match on Smackdown last week? I thought it was easily the best match they've had together and made use of the stips really well.

 

Yes, I did. I need to talk about that and Matt Hardy/Joey Mercury, both of which were fun matches.

[Loss]

Great call on Michaels in gimmick matches btw. I've been saying for years that the strength of Michaels is that he's a great guy for getting over new gimmick bouts (Ladders, HITC, et.) because he's a good stunt worker and good at conveying emotion through his movements. I've often wondered if Michaels only really significant influence on the business is preponderance of gimmick matches in the "attitude" era. Not saying he deserves all the credit, or even any of it, but he seems like the guy that was the "bridge" in alot of ways

 

Shawn Michaels has strengths that are pretty much the same strengths he always had. Where this match impressed me was more seeing him show the charisma and confidence again that he hasn't shown in a long time. He looked like a contender instead of a tired old man running through the motions for the first time in years. Who knows if it will sustain or not, but for one night, he looked pretty good. Michaels tends to think of himself as a modern Ric Flair, which is the same problem HHH has, when neither guy is really that type of worker. If they could accept that they do have limitations and work within those limitations, I think I'd probably be a fan of both. But that's a big if.

[Loss]

Suprised to see you liked HBK/Edge so much. Might have to check it out, because I love angry HBK in a street fight.

 

How does it compare to their street fight on Raw last year?

 

Never saw the street fight from last year, but Shawn was fired up last night more so than I've seen him in a long time, and Edge has improved considerably in the past 12 months, so I'd imagine it was a better match. I don't know if they did things like start brawling before the match started or if they both bled to get over the hatred last year, but they did that in the match last night.

[Guest Chainz]

I havn't yet seen Hbk vs Edge from Raw although i'm waiting for it to air this friday in New Zealand. As i said in SC, I loved Umaga vs Cena. It flowed really well, I loved Cena's over the top rope bumping, and he also had little bits of great selling that seem to go unnoticed, like holding his arm when he got up from a move that didn't focus on the arm, but since it had been worked on he still sold it. Great stuff. Story was bloody great too. It's my current MOTY

[jdw]

HBK v Edge Streetfight '07 in two parts:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUhD7IPjJfE

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2VzbO7AYC8

 

John

[anarchistxx]

Cheers.

 

I watched it and it was good. Not sure I'd rate it as high as Loss did, as it still seemed pretty usual for a Street Fight, but I dug that HBK upped the aggression, and I've liked what I've seen of Edge lately.

 

My MOTY; wait, it's the only match I've seen this year. make a SD comp someone.

[Bix]

Watched some of the Rumble PPV...

 

While the WWE title match was quite good (maybe not as good as hyped but still excellent) and the Rumble match was fun and a big improvement over last year's, I was most impressed by the opener.

 

While it's not necessarily something epic enough that it should/will get MOTY consideration 10-11 months from now, it was really an excellent match. It was reminiscent of a MX-R&R match where everything would hit on all cylinders plus they'd break out a bunch of creative spots and twists on the tag team formula. I loved the work on Hardy's jaw, and the creative stuff I mentioned was fun without being cutesy or overly contrived. Of note:

 

- The Hardys trying their legdrop/splash combo, only for Nitro to get his knees up and knock the wind out of Jeff while still eating the legdrop and setting up a double KO.

- Nitro countering Poetry In Motion by diving low and Oklahoma Rolling Matt.

- Matt hitting the Twist Of Fate on Nitro to set him up for Jeff's Swanton, only for Mercury to tackle him out of the ring before he can tag out. Jeff tags himself in mid-tackle and hits the Swanton anyway for the pin.

 

Well worth going out of your way to see.

[Tim Cooke]

Watched this after seeing Bix's review.

 

That was the best US tag I have seen in years. I have never really been impressed by MnM but they were spot on in this match, really making sure that everything they did had meaning.

 

And the Hardy's know how to do the babyface schtick and are over, so they held up their part of the deal.

 

I imagine when more people see this, it will start getting some recognition. Certainly liked this more than Benoit/Angle vs. Edge/Rey from No Mercy, especially with one being a very mediocre southern tag and the other being a greater primer for how to do southern tag wrestling in 2007.

[anarchistxx]

That was the best US tag I have seen in years.

Out of interest; better than Ki/Cide v Joe/Lethal from ROH P: TFC?

 

Or those awesome Eddie/Tajiri v WGTT tags?

 

Oh, and I don't know how you can call NM 02 'mediocre'?

[Tim Cooke]

Ki/Homicide vs. Joe/Lethal is a great match, but I will always have a soft spot for a classic southern tag.

 

Those World's Greatest Tag Team matches were okay spotfests, but nothing I would want to re-visit.

 

The No Mercy 2002 match isn't medicore (bad choice of words). It is not great though. When you have Benoit and Rey Jr. opposite of each other, you should be reaching the "good" level without having to try hard. But Edge is hardly more than passable here with his indy innovation offense really sticking out (I imagine Heyman was stressing that he should use all of it during this 12 week run). Even Benoit was bogged down, having to resort to using german after german without thought to keep up with his "go-go-go" partner Angle.

[anarchistxx]

Ki/Homicide vs. Joe/Lethal is a great match, but I will always have a soft spot for a classic southern tag.

Yeah, different styles I guess. But the ROH match is a good southern tag for about 15 minutes before it breaks down into a brawl. Top 3 ROH match ever.

 

Those World's Greatest Tag Team matches were okay spotfests, but nothing I would want to re-visit.

Hmm, I thought they were great last time I watched them. Great FIP sections, WGTT were busting out some great offence, some stuff you don't normally see in the WWE, and they all had hot finishes.

 

The No Mercy 2002 match isn't medicore (bad choice of words). It is not great though. When you have Benoit and Rey Jr. opposite of each other, you should be reaching the "good" level without having to try hard. But Edge is hardly more than passable here with his indy innovation offense really sticking out (I imagine Heyman was stressing that he should use all of it during this 12 week run). Even Benoit was bogged down, having to resort to using german after german without thought to keep up with his "go-go-go" partner Angle.

Yeah, I can see why people don't like it. I've never got the idea that the earlier tag on the same show was better though.

 

Edge was the weakest link of the match, but I thought Angle put in a stellar performance to compensate. I thought Benoit was great as well, intense and seemed motivated.

 

Still, every match can't please everyone.

[Loss]

I think the Bookerdust v Jerichristian match earlier in the night accomplished just as much in a third the time. The match also had more heat (there were no chants for anyone by name in the other tag match) and Jericho/Booker having their confrontation was teased and delivered better than any pairing in the other tag match. They also had to deal with the ropes collapsing and still salvaged a good finish.

 

I'm definitely in the minority with this opinion, but I think the RAW tag division with these two teams having several TV and PPV matches for the tag titles was better around this time than the Heyman-booked Smackdown tag division.

 

What's ultimately a shame is that the split had already happened at this point, because having all the big teams of the time (Jericho/Christian, Booker/Goldust, RVD/Kane, Benoit/Angle, Edge/Rey, Eddy/Chavo) on one show would have made the tag team titles seem pretty important and the potential number of good matches would have increased.

 

The Smackdown tag booking took six months worth of matches and blew through them in six weeks, unfortunately.

[Resident Evil]

The No Mercy tag is untouchable in my view and is several steps ahead of any WWF/WWE tag match I've ever seen. The flow of it is superb, the teamwork is excellent and the rollarcoaster ride it gives you is terrific. The tag earlier in the show was fine but it didn't leave you with the mouth hanging to the floor feeling. The knockout punch if you will. I take this over some of the best tag work in other leagues too.

[Dylan Waco]

The appeal of the No Mercy tag is that it's a dream match, with a bunch of guys who have good wrokrate and do cool shit in the ring. So was The Steiners v. 2 Cold and Benoit from ECW, and while I like the match alot, it wasn't as good as Haas and Holly v. MNM, and neither was the No Mercy tag..though BookDust v. the Blondes may have been.

 

I actually would love to see a comp of forgotten good tag matches. Shit like the Raw match with BookDust v. The Blondes, The Blondes v. Test/Steiner (shockingly good match), Hollys v. APA from Heat, MNM v. Haas and Holly, et.

[anarchistxx]

The BookerDust/Blondes match seemed really standard to me. They did a nice job, but it wasn't memorable at all.

 

In comparison, the SD tag was really memorable, as WP said excellent temaowkr and flow, they worked the FIP segments nicely and there was a breathless finish with loads of awesome spots and nearfalls.

 

The Raw tag was a solid, traditional tag. The SD one was an exciting, memorable tag.

 

I hardly think some of the Haas/Holly tags compare. I've seen them, and they're decent efforts, but they aren't anything to remember.

 

And I love a lot of the SD6 stuff, which now has become underrated in some circles, with people claiming it's just a bunch of spots. There's a lot of good stuff in there, and I remember at the time, Raw was abysmal.

[Loss]

I don't think the opening match is much more than solid, traditional tag fare either. I just think it's better than the other match that night. Benoit not doing anything particularly heelish and not having good chemistry with Edge at all really hurt the heat and dragged the match down for me. The doubleteam moves from Edge and Rey also seemed pretty hokey. It's not that I love the opener as much as it is that I don't see the appeal in the other match at all. I've watched it two or three times thinking it was me, and it still just doesn't do anything for me.

[Resident Evil]

The appeal of the No Mercy tag is that it's a dream match, with a bunch of guys who have good wrokrate and do cool shit in the ring. So was The Steiners v. 2 Cold and Benoit from ECW, and while I like the match alot, it wasn't as good as Haas and Holly v. MNM, and neither was the No Mercy tag..though BookDust v. the Blondes may have been.

 

I actually would love to see a comp of forgotten good tag matches. Shit like the Raw match with BookDust v. The Blondes, The Blondes v. Test/Steiner (shockingly good match), Hollys v. APA from Heat, MNM v. Haas and Holly, et.

 

Benoit/Scorpio vs the Steiners was fun but it wasn't legit and I'm not exaggerating here 1/20th of the No Mercy match. I went into detail on this match one time. I should go and try to find that. It's buried deep somewhere within my million posts though.

[anarchistxx]

Benoit not doing anything particularly heelish

I don't think he needed to. Angle was the dick on his team, and not only that, Edge and Mysterio were really over, so Benoit could get heat just by being intense and beating them down. And to recall he did do a few heel manouvers.

 

The doubleteam moves from Edge and Rey also seemed pretty hokey.

Pehaps, but they got a huge reaction, and I've seen stuff that looks a lot more 'hokey' in a lot of ROH tag matches.

 

not having good chemistry with Edge at all

I didn't think they had great chemistry, but they were fine working together, and I don't think it hurt the match.

[Resident Evil]

I don't understand how the double team moves looked hokey. I thought they looked great. And I thought Benoit looked great here as well.

[Loss]

I'm just not really interested in American tag matches where the heels don't cheat or attempt to cheat at some point in the match. That's typically my big problem with most post-2000 WWF tags is that being a heel means slapping on a chinlock. If cheating isn't going to happen, at least telling the crowd to shut up or bending the rules -- something to establish the heels as being jerks the audience shouldn't be cheering for -- would be nice. It's weird to say Chris Benoit is your least favorite part of a match, but he was for me in this one.

 

Maybe the doubleteaming wouldn't seem so hokey if Edge and Rey had actually used any of those moves in the tournament prior to this match.