They open up with that new, great video montage of "The Power Is Back." To continue my week-long shilling of the montage, it's a great way to get pumped for some wrestling. They then show the lackluster Heat package (which actually shows no footage of wrestling) and we go into the quick Heat before No Mercy.
Steve Romero and Josh Matthews open it up talking about the live audience and they go right into promoting the casket match and world title match before showing the No Mercy press conference. It's a pretty good segment actually, but really only because of the Batista-Guerrero exchanges which are gold as always. They announce a tag team main event for Heat which is the British Lords Vs. the Shooting Stars. Considering the British Lords' work on Friday and the recent workrate of London & Spanky, that should be a great match. Funny side note here: what they don't tell you on WWE.com is that the actual live edition of Heat Sunday night had no sound for the first five minutes! From the start until the Ultimate Warrior DVD plug, all we could to do was guess what they were saying which really isn't that hard if you've ever watched pre-PPV Heat before.
They then show the JBL-Rey commercial followed by the Ultimate Warrior commercial I mentioned. Romero and Matthews then hype up the US title match and JBL-Rey before showing some exclusive JBL footage from the SmackDown! tapings. This is good. This is really what Heat and Velocity need to start doing more. Exclusive footage of bigger names is going to draw in more people to watch Heat and Velocity. They then will stay to watch the rest of it and will get to see wrestlers they otherwise wouldn't. JBL basically was shown in the arena concessions area looking for Rey Mysterio. He then acts like he found him, but it's only a bear. JBL with that bear was hilarious though. "Hi, Rey! Got anything to say?" The bear then tries to speak. "Sorry, I don't speak Spanish." This is the kind of JBL promo that he has become famous, or rather infamous, for. He then uses that opening to bitch about Texas and Spanish and the college football scene and blahbidty blah blah blah. He finishes by calling Texas Northern Mexico, rips up the teddy bear (I bet Eugene cried about it), and says he will show Rey what he is: a wrestling god. The promo started out amazing as the comedy spot with the bear was classic, but after that, the promo basically became a generic JBL promo. Those aren't bad, but after a while, you just yearn for something more, right?
They then show all the commentators coming out to Tazz's music and titan-tron for some reason. I still get a chuckle out of the fact that someone with the gimmick of Tazz actually became a pretty good commentator during his gimmick run. Just seems odd to have a guy putting over others while in a thug gimmick. They show the Wrestlemania 22 commercial (it's time to start advertising it obviously) and Cole and Tazz are now on the mike talking up the casket match. Another funny side note: they edited out the spot from the live edition of Heat where Cole and Tazz were doing mike testing and Tazz and Cole were even rehearsing their lines! WWE.com is exposing a bit too much methinks. We then go right into the build-up recap for the casket match. The build-up package for this feud is so incredibly weird. You keep thinking it ends, but then it keeps going. It's not drawn out, but they do the music fade out on a powerful line like three times and keep going. Just weird.
Josh Matthews is then with the Ortons and he asks them what they were feeling about the casket spot from SmackDown! Bob gets on the mike and cuts a decent promo which was surprising considering the last time he talked on one; I wanted to pull a Van Gough. Bob says they weren't scared and they had a plan; Randy then repeats the thought and it was pretty much over. They alluded to a possible fire spot to end the casket match as well. We haven't seen that in almost 7 years so naturally it's time to re-do it! A ridiculously cliche Shop Zone commercial was then shown. Why can't they just make an actual commercial instead of trying to pass it off like wrestling is actually "cool" in pop culture? I love wrestling as much as you guys reading this, but who the hell is WWE fooling by trying to sell wrestling like that? They then show the commercial for the world title match and we go to the main event! Yay!
Shooting Stars Vs. British Lords
Pretty good match, but not as good as I expected. Strangely, there were a ton of blown spots in the match; and considering the quality of all four workers, that's something that genuinely surprised me. Everyone has accidents, but I don't think I've ever seen so many botches in one match by any four workers. Spanky played the face-in-peril here after taking a bump off the top to the outside. When Spanky took that spot, London was pure gold. He hopped off the apron and rushed over to his partner to make sure he was ok and to help him back into the ring so they don't get counted out. How many times do you see that in WWE nowadays or even TNA to round it off? I'll answer for you since you're too busy trying to fathom my dead logic: never! Regal and Burchill were good on the control, but if you saw their control of LOD in the short tag team match on SmackDown!, you know this is probably considered average by them. All in all, it was a good match, but definitely considerably lower in quality than I expected. It may sound like I'm being nitpicky, but if you saw the way the British Lords took control of the LOD on Friday or if you saw any of the Shooting Stars work from 2004, you would know that this is an average match from the two. To compliment them though, it shows how good all four are when an average match by their standards is still pretty damn good. Finish came after a botched Moonsault and Burchill hit a shoulder breaker onto London. Spanky (or rather Brian Kendrick) sent himself and Burchill out of the ring and Regal locked on some variation of the Regal Stretch (I'm such an idiot) and London had no choice but to tap.
Winners: British Lords
Star Wrestler: Paul London
Man, London is a divine workhorse. His offense is so unique, yet so well-placed unlike other people. A lot of people in today's wrestling world have unique offenses, but they just can't seem to place it in the grand scheme of things so it makes sense. Simply stated, they really come up with about four unique moves and they just use them constantly and at any random point. London has so many tricks up his sleeves though and always uses them in at a great time. For instance, I loved him getting tagged and jumping over the rope and kicking Regal who was near-by. It didn't even look like London meant for it to be a big kick, just a distraction while he went after Burchill. It was great. Add in the selling he did and the way he used tag team psychology; London was on his "A" game as always here.
To finish Heat off, they then run down the card for No Mercy and the build-up package of the Batista-Guerrero feud. That's going to be one hell of a match and I love the feud going on. Then again, I love anything and all things Eddie Guerrero. He's great!
Overall, it was a PPV Heat; you can't really expect anything earth-shattering from it because all it's going to do is shill the PPV. Do you really think it's smart to do anything else thirty minutes live before the PPV? However, I love the fact they have cut Heat down to thirty minutes. Those hour-long pre-PPVs Heat used to be so time draining because it basically contained the same that this one did besides recaps: one interview and one match. So what happened during the other 45 minutes of the old Heats? Recaps, commercials, and shots of the superstars entering the arena. Good stuff, huh? All in all, this was one of the best pre-PPV Heats in recent memory for the pure fact that it didn't drag on, but I have a feeling that as WWE.com gets more comfortable doing live shows, they will get a chance to edit out the kinks like no sound and revealing Cole/Tazz rehearsing (which was hilarious) and make the show that much more better. It had a good match and good segment and was about what I expected from the pre-PPV Heat. That's going to wrap it up this time for "Squared Circle Reviews." This is your perennial host Doug Nunnally signing off and hoping you enjoy what you watch!
Copyright © 2005; TheWrestlingVoice.com & Douglas Nunnally.
All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer & Privacy Statement
| What Did You Think About WWE Backlash 2008? |
|
|