Night of Champions 2009 Chris Jericho/???? vs. Priceless: Really one of the angles that I found most intriguing just flew out the window. It was a rather lame pick, don’t you think. Sure it caught me by surprise, I don’t think anybody really expected the pick to be who it was and I really didn’t like it. But Big Show brought it in the match showing that he can mesh well with Jericho as a partner and that he can play a good beatdown or cleaning house segment. The match was a little slow as to be expected, Big Show and Jericho dominated at first, showing off some fun little tag-team moves that involved Big Show using his size to pick up, throw, or whip Jericho into their opponents. The match was a tough one to play out, because both teams were essentially heels, but they noticed that the crowd favored Jericho, so the match played out as if Jericho/Show team were faces. The ending was hot, fast-paced, and exciting. While it wasn’t a great match…it was a decent start to the show, with a hot ending, and a showcase for the new make-shit team. ** ½
CM Punk Interview: Punk cuts another fantastic snobby, preachy lecture on the crowd cementing himself as one of the best heels in the company. Hopefully they keep it up because his character is becoming awesome and more multi-dimensional.
Christian vs. Tommy Dreamer: A pretty sufficient match, Christian looked like he led the match, and thus was able to keep it pretty high intensity and nicely paced. It really was never boring, but just over-all inconsequential (which is how I’ve felt about the ECW brand in general). Nonetheless, Tommy Dreamer was able to keep up with Christian and they had a nice match with some fun reversals sprinkled throughout to show the knowledge the two have of each other. ** ½
US Title Six Pack Challenge Melee of Doom: So I guess it’s a new rule that you’re only allowed to be in one title match each night, because they swiftly took Big Show out of this match and replaced him with Primo. Primo makes more sense in this match anyways. This match involves lots of cool MOVES~! and not much else. They played up a couple of rivalries, mainly the Colon feud and the Swagger vs. MVP rivalry, but the match at its core sense was a quick-paced spotfest. There were a couple of times where the timing was off, but overall it succeeded in what it set out to do, providing a quick-paced high octane, balls to the walls, lots of near-falls match-up. Fun but no story and ultimately inconsequential. ** ¾
Orton cut an interview: that added nothing to the PPV. Thanks, Orton!
Melina vs. Michelle McCool: Michelle McCool has grown on me over the years, she’s obviously gotten better in wrestling, and in terms of charisma and character, she’s also become one of the prime divas in the WWE. Honestly nobody ever expects much from these women’s matches, and they’re used primarily as a cooler between more prominent matches, but this match was a fun little ditty where both women tried to go beyond the norm in terms of typical Women’s matches. It doesn’t have the best pacing and the crowd doesn’t give a shit, but still if you watched it, you got some decent timekiller. The basic story is that, McCool really gets rocked in this match for most of it, and only makes small cheap shots throughout, barely getting through the match by the edge of her nail. It puts over both women, Melina as a confident, maybe overconfident, passionate wrestler, and McCool as the sniveling cheap heel. ** ½
Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. John Cena: I found it very strange that this was going on so early, I was almost positive that this would have main-evented the evening. The match itself was actually better than I expected and while not incredibly innovative, it told a fun story and I had no clue where they were going to go with it. Ultimately the story that started off was pretty typical for triple threat matches, John Cena and Triple H uniting to take on the greater evil of Orton, Orton banking on the two faces to get in each others way, which happened a few times, Orton taking advantage every time it happened. What was different was how the match ultimately came around full circle with Cena and HHH ending up on the same side again. Since this has never really happened before it forced a new, creative ending. It’s quite confusing, but it also adds intrigue to see how they proceed from here, probably something lame like a rematch with another referee but we’ll see. Admittedly the best parts of the match were during the second half with HHH and Cena going at it, I’ve grown to hate Orton because he paces his matches so slowly, and in this match, every time he got involved the pacing slammed on the brake and almost caused a wreck. It’s really grating on me, but HHH and Cena kept up the entertainment factor with a ton of reversals and Orton did his part sneaking in quick moves near the end. Overall, a decent match with a fun story, and a creative, although inconclusive, ending. *** 1/4
Mickie James vs. Maryse: This wasn’t very good at all, and that’s too bad, because I had thought Maryse was better. She impressed me a couple of times in a couple of matches before. But this one was not meant to be. Mickie James seemed to be on but Maryse’s timing was off, her maneuvers looked ugly, and the pacing was all over the place. ½ *
Dolph Ziggler vs. Rey Mysterio: This was Ziggler’s test match, if Ziggler impressed here WWE management would continue his big push. For me, Ziggler didn’t impress. Certainly he was okay, but you just don’t have okay matches with Mysterio. The match was slow paced, and Ziggler used a ton of headlocks and full nelsons, slowing the match way down too often. The high spots were high and they had a little story going where Ziggler was getting some huge moves, each one bigger than the one before, but nothing seemed to work but in between all that was boredom. By the end the crowd only popped a couple of times and popped for the typical finish. Yay? I wouldn’t say Ziggler is done, he’s not, he just needs a lot more experience and hopefully with that experience he’ll become more like Edge and less like Randy Orton. ** ½
CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy: I was really looking forward to this match, as not only did it have a great build to the match, it also had two great characters and a couple of entertaining wrestlers. Unfortunately, the show had killed me by this point, and things didn’t seem to click in this match, at least not as well as they should have. Punk I felt was excellent though, his mannerisms, his cocky attitude, it all fit his persona. As the match got further and further along and Hardy kept hanging in there, Punk was less cocky and more shocked and desperate. It was a decent match with a nice groove (I don’t agree with the ultimate decision) but it took a little bit to get going. That might be to how dead the crowd was, or how much lackluster “stuff” came before, but it just was not as good as I was hoping. *** ¼ But wait a minute….
REWIND: So after cooling off, I gave this match a re-watch. It held up much better without all the crap that preceded. It was better than I had first said. It wasn’t nearly as slow as I first thought and the pacing was actually just right. They didn’t seem rushed and really took their time to tell the story. Punk is still awesome in the match, he’s working double-time and really taking to the coda that less is more. The slaps, the jeers, the awesome facial reactions, all that mattered much more than MOVES~!. Cm Punk really is a huge boon in the company as he gets over characters and the story of the match, with this one telling the story of a cocky, overconfident CM Punk trying to prove a point. But it takes two to tango, and Jeff did fine as his usual consistently entertaining self, pulling in huge hope-spots and perfect timing on the comebacks. The end-game was okay, not the greatest, I actually would have liked it more back and forth, as it felt like Hardy just squashing Punk. The Swanton finish makes sense, because Punk did so well of avoiding it twice earlier, but I wish the finish didn't feel like a Hogan/Cena/or ever Mysterio from earlier in the night finish. Much better than I initially thought though. *** ¾
Final Thoughts: I didn’t like this show, it was just tough to get through. If you really narrow it down there’s only one match that’s worth watching and that was the main event. The rest of the card was offensively bad, it wasn’t good either, just bland and kind of boring. Some of the other PPVs this year have had not so great cards but one or two really good matches. Ultimately, I wouldn’t recommend it. 5/10
Top WWE PPV Matches of 09:
- HBK vs. Undertaker (Mania 25) - **** ½
- Jericho vs. Rey (The Bash 09) - **** ¼
- Raw Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 09) - **** ¼
- Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (Extreme Rules) - ****
- Edge vs. Cena (Backlash 09) - *** ¾
- Mysterio vs. Jericho (Judgment Day 09) - *** ¾
- CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (Night of Champions 09) - *** ¾
- Mysterio vs. Jericho (Extreme Rules) - *** ½
- Smackdown Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 09) - *** ½
- MITB (Mania 25) - *** ½
- CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (The Bash 09) - *** ¼
- Christian vs. Jack Swagger (Backlash) - *** ¼
- Randy Orton vs. John Cena vs. HHH (Night of Champions 09) - ***1/4
- Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (Royal Rumble 09) - ***
- CM Punk vs. Kane (Backlash) - ***
- Royal Rumble (Royal Rumble 09) - ***
- Edge vs. Big Show vs. John Cena (Mania 25) -***
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