Wrestling Reviews: WWE's The Bash 2009

Wrestling. Yes, I used to be a huge wrestling fan, it used to be the only type of entertainment I used to watch and for a little while there wasn’t enough I couldn’t consume, I was watching American mainstream (WWE), the independents (mainly ROH), and Japanese wrestling from all time frames, current and older.

Lately I’ve really cut back, I’ve been in and out of WWE since as far back as I could remember. What follows is a detailed description of time-frames in which I was into wrestling, favorite wrestlers, etc… I used to watch Hogan as a single digited little kid in the late 80’s before falling out. Watched in the mid 90’s at the height of the HBK era and watched the humble beginnings of Million Dollar Lackey Steve Austin and stayed with for a long while through the amazing Hart Foundation feud, Screwjob, Austin era collectively called the Attitude era of the late 90’s and into the rise of HHH and Rock in the early 00’s before falling out somewhere around Rock’s winning of the title at Backlash 2000 (I was a huge Rock-Hater and huge HHH “The Game” Supporter). I came back around Summerslam 2002 the moment I heard my favorite wrestler of all time HBK was returning. I watched here and there through my college years, never a devoted watcher but followed everything through the Internet and was really into it during Eddy and Benoit’s big pushes in 2004. Around 2006 I fell out again, very upset by the death of two of my favorite wrestlers in Eddy and Benoit, the new direction of superhuman John Cena and PG-DX, and I cut even more back barely watching through 2006 and 2007. My interested was piqued again during 2008 with Flair’s retirement and Shawn’s subsequent storyline/feuds with Batista and another one of my favorites Chris Jericho’s rather recent return.

I only watch PPV’s now with a couple critically acclaimed matches along the way, and I find it to be a pretty fun way to watch WWE and minimizing the garbage they put out. So what follows is the first entry into the journal of what I think of the PPV matches of WWE. Starting with the WWE’s most recent show, THE BASH 09.

The Bash 09

ECW Scramble (Christian vs. Jack Swagger vs. Finlay vs. Tommy Dreamerv vs. Mark Henry): The scramble gimmick makes a return here. They’ve altered the rules a bit for this match, this time around the intervals are 3 minutes instead of 5, with a final interval of 5 minutes after everyone has been in the ring. It’s a good change as this match doesn’t have enough storytelling potential for a longer match. I’m not a huge fan of any of these wrestlers to be honest, the one I like the most is probably Finlay. Jack Swagger has gotten a tremendous amount of critical acclaim from the internet fans, and honestly the kid has potential but he’s really not there yet and usually bores me more often than wows me (outside of one match with Christian at Backlash). The match itself is what’d you expect, nothing new, and a twist on the same old ECW title feud over the past year. They didn’t really tell any stories at all, there was no focus, just everybody fighting for the title. It wasn’t disappointing, just there, the crowd was into it, and that certainly helped the match. It’s good for what it was, a decent opener. ** ½

Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho: It really is a crime that these two went on second for the second PPV in a row, Jericho’s feud with Mysterio has been one of the highlights from all of WWE for quite some time now. This match was no different, they continue to bring the good each and every match. This time around, they built upon all their previous matches to bring us the best encounter yet, full of hard-hitting strikes, high-flying awesomeness, and amazing reversals. It was an adrenaline rush from beginning to end. The psychology was sound starting with sound heel-work by Jericho, slowly building to a Mysterio come-back, before going into an all-out war. Moves that worked before in previous match may not have worked this time, with the opponent ready with a reversal, the mask continued to play a big part of the story with another very creative ending that played off of their last match, and everything hit on all cylinders with surgical precision. I’m not even sure if they plan to have more, this could easily be the feud ender or they could increase the intensity of the feud and keep going. Whichever they choose this was an outstanding match, the best of the series, and easily the best series of matches this year. **** ¼

Dolph Ziggler vs. The Great Khali: It takes a very special video package to get me interested in a Khali match, that’s what the video package was for this match, very awesome. I don’t care about either of these wrestlers, but the video package alone made me care about this feud. It’s a very interesting booking concept with a smaller athletic heel wrestler constantly outsmarting his more powerful, bigger opponent and a very easy one to mess up too. This feud would have been perfect if THE Brian Kendrick was still on Smackdown. The match was exactly what you’d think it would be and booked exactly as it should have been, with Khali lumbering around hitting his powerful, slow, offense and Diggler trying to take advantage of his speed and try and even up the match any way he could. The match wasn’t great, and honestly, nobody expected it to be, also the booking leads us to believe that Khali is going to be matched up with another big man in order to give us more boring slow lumbering matches. * ½

Well our next match is the tag title match and it hopefully the young guns will impress, hold on Teddy Long comes out and we’ve got a change, the old match is out and a new team have been entered in.

The Brothers Colon vs. Priceless

The Brothers Colon vs. Priceless vs. Edge/Jericho: This is awesome. Both Edge and Jericho bitched to Teddy Long about something, then Vinnie Mac berated Teddy Long, so it leads to this. That’s sequential, logical booking for you folks. The story of the match is interesting as the two teams that were originally in this match are upset by the new addition so try to make sure that the new team never gets tagged in and goes about their business wrestling the match. Of course, none of the pinfalls mean anything and everybody is waiting until Edge/Jericho interfere, snap, or sneak a tag, making it rather dull when the focus isn’t on one of those two guys, but it’s a fun story nonetheless. ** ½

Melina vs. Michelle McCool: I don’t remember the last time a women’s title match was on PPV, but you know the divas always impress me as they seem more competent and more willing to learn than divas of old (like Torrie Wilson) and some of the divas are great wrestlers in their own right (Beth Phoenix). Competent but forgettable and set up to be the piss break of the PPV as people calm down for the triple main even headed their way. * ¾

CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy: What a match…I’ve always been huge on CM Punk and loved his ROH run from 2003-2005 but with his difficulty adapting to the WWE style and his black and white character in WWE has made me a little less high on him. Also WWE seems to run through a cycle of faith constantly gaining and losing faith in CM Punk leading to a type of stop-start booking for him. CM Punk had a title run last year, but it was merely as a transitional champ and he constantly had the knees cut out from under him. This time around, they seem to be doing an excellent job booking Punk not only as a champion but as a character. The black/white is replaced with gray as his character uses controversial tactics but is still gentlemanly and competitive. It makes for a very fun match, with a great slow build. Punk keeps Hardy’s spottiness in check giving the match a great structure and giving Hardy some awesome out of nowhere reversals and hope spots. I actually loved the non-ending and can’t wait to see where it goes from here, it had the crowd literally in the palm of their hands with that ending. But after that, the restart really kills momentum of the match. I love it because it’s used so sparingly and perfect for the new Punk character…but I can understand if most people didn’t like it. *** ¼

John Cena vs. The Miz: Everybody knew this was going to be a joke going in, that’s exactly what it was. Cena schools The Miz, Miz gets an opening, goes to work for a bit, Cena says UH-UH and finished him off. If you thought things would go different, than you were fooling yourself. Cena is one of the most over-protected superstars. It was a fun short ride, and pretty much a showcase to see how far Cena is from the undercarders. Not a great match in the least…but fun. **

Randy Orton vs. HHH: This pairing has very little drama and chemistry, yet they still push this feud like it’s epic, Ben Hur against Massala. Add to that the stipulations suck, there haven’t been many good stretcher matches (I can only think of one and that’s Batista vs. HBK), the Legacy’s interference was expected, and the story was just lackluster. When all is said and done, this was the best match these two have had with each other in this few feud, HHH’s high-risk tactics and Orton’s desperation comes out fully which in a way puts a twist on the typical story. In all honesty it’s not enough to save the match or the pairing from being stale, but it is there and the thought is appreciated. ** ¾

Final Analysis: The show has the final? Match of the best feud of the year in Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho. So definitely check that and the Smackdown title match, everything else is pretty skippable. It’s pretty typical of what’d you expect and what the WWE layout has been, anything involving the new Smackdown Six (Jericho, Mysterio, Edge, Morrison, Punk, Hardy) is good, everything not involving those men is lackluster. Hopefully Raw can pick up the slack because they’re really holding back these PPVs.

Top WWE PPV Matches of 09:

1. HBK vs. Undertaker (Mania 25) - **** ¾
2. Jericho vs. Rey (The Bash 09) - **** ¼
3. Raw Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 09) - **** ¼
4. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (Extreme Rules) - ****
5. Edge vs. Cena (Backlash 09) - *** ¾
6. Mysterio vs. Jericho (Judgment Day 09) - *** ¾
7. Mysterio vs. Jericho (Extreme Rules) - *** ½
8. Smackdown Elimination Chamber (No Way Out 09) - *** ½
9. MITB (Mania 25) - *** ½
10. CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (The Bash 09) - *** ¼
11. Christian vs. Jack Swagger (Backlash) - *** ¼
12. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (Royal Rumble 09) - ***
13. CM Punk vs. Kane (Backlash) - ***
14. Royal Rumble (Royal Rumble 09) - ***
15. Edge vs. Big Show vs. John Cena (Mania 25) -***
16. Shane McMahon vs. Randy Orton (No Way Out 09) - ***