[2003-11-11-WWE-Velocity] Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin vs Funaki & Ultimo Dragon

[Ma Stump Puller]

Ngl this would've absolutely slapped if we were in Japan and these guys had like 15/20 minutes to do a Michinoku-Pro style spot-fest. Sadly they get five minutes and it's mostly to get the relatively new World's Greatest over. That being said, the two lads do bump well for Funaki and co as Funaki lands a good Ghetto-Blaster, Ultimo gets in a nice pop-up Frankensteiner and the two land a assisted baseball slide to Haas that looked fairly convincing: this is a solid start for what I thought was a enjoyable sprint. Despite Funaki's great looking punches he gets caught out when Benjamin superkicks his leg while not the legal man, allowing him and Haas to get in and just beat up said leg for ages, even taking the kneepad off for more damage. Benjamin slaps on a nasty deep single leg Boston Crab before Funaki pulls out some Fujiwara-Gumi antics by slipping out of the hold. 

We get a awesome spot where Benjamin tries for a Samoan Drop, but Funaki counters right at the last second into a reverse DDT for the big comeback. Ultimo gets in for the hot tag afterwards and it is essentially what you would expect; some kicks, flip, Asai DDT tease into backslide, etc, like his typical shtick bottled down to a formula. He gets overwhelmed and World's Greatest try for their weird leapfrog rope-hung splash thing, but Funaki runs in mid-attempt to land a smooth dropkick to interrupt. This gives Ultimo enough time to land a perfectly timed springboard moonsault for a near fall. Funaki tries for a headscissors takedown off the corner, but Benjamin throws him right out of the ring in a nasty bump, leaving Ultimo to get tagged with a vicious superkick after a backflip counter and then slapped into a Haas of Pain for the submission win.

This was actually pretty damn fun for what was about five minutes, with everyone getting the chance to show off even if World's Greatest were always going to go over. Ultimo obviously was in the twilight of his career in this WWE venture and it's not exactly well-regarded overall but I thought he did good enough here even if he was a blatant Tiger Mask rip-off with nearly all of his spots here lol, like bar the stuff I mentioned nearly everything else was just pulling from him completely, which was weird because he usually wasn't that blatant. Funaki is a good hand with the occasional solid moment and World's Greatest are very well put-together as a unit, even if Haas is way, way less impressive than Benjamin.