Saturday Night's Main Event Report
Date: 08/02/08 from Washington, DC.
The Big News: Nothing, really.
Show Analysis:
JBL, Kane, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase beat John Cena, Batista and Cryme Tyme. CM Punk did commentary on the match. Cryme Tyme and Batista had early success against Cody, including a military press by Shad. The heels then worked over Shad for a while. Kane dropped him on the barricade, DiBiase applied a camel clutch, and Cody hit a dropkick.
Shad finally made the hot tag to Cena. Cena came in with shoulder blocks, a Cena slam and the five knuckle shuffle on JBL. He went for the FU, but Kane broke it up with a big boot. Batista came in with a spear on Kane and spine buster on DiBiase. Cena tagged JTG and used a rocket launcher top rope splash sending JTG onto DiBiase. JTG covered, but DiBiase wasn’t the legal man. JBL was, and he hit the clothesline from hell for the pin. This was a good opener.
Great Khali beat Jimmy Wang Yang with a body slam, chop and tree slam. This wasn’t much. The match was presumably was put into place as a replacement for whatever they originally had planned to promote HHH vs. Great Khali for SummerSlam.
Early in the show, WWE featured comments on autism from Jeff Foxworthy, Carmen Electra and Ben Stiller. Jenny McCarthy then came in front of the crowd to plug the cause of trying to get at the problem. There was only superficial discussion of the disorder, as they directed people to the website to learn more. You can check it out at
http://www.generationrescue.org/
Edge beat Jeff Hardy. Jeff hit a baseball slide and pescado. He went for a somersault senton on the floor but crashed into the barricade. Edge worked over Jeff for a little while including an implant DDT. Jeff hit the whisper in the wind but Edge kicked out. Jeff went for the swanton but couldn’t get into position in time. Edge went for a spear but missed. As the referee was counting Edge out, MVP gave Jeff a yakuza kick. Edge then came back in and hit the spear for the pin. This was a good main event.
Final Thoughts:
This was just a low key television show. It flowed well and was a solid hour of entertainment. For all the talk about raising autism awareness, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of discussion about autism. The show ended up kind of reminding me of EliteXC last weekend. Both were good self-contained shows for their select audiences, but had nothing to inspire larger viewership or affect the future. The key difference of course is that was WWE’s goal heading in whereas EliteXC took a major step backwards.
The Big News: Nothing, really.
Show Analysis:
JBL, Kane, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase beat John Cena, Batista and Cryme Tyme. CM Punk did commentary on the match. Cryme Tyme and Batista had early success against Cody, including a military press by Shad. The heels then worked over Shad for a while. Kane dropped him on the barricade, DiBiase applied a camel clutch, and Cody hit a dropkick.
Shad finally made the hot tag to Cena. Cena came in with shoulder blocks, a Cena slam and the five knuckle shuffle on JBL. He went for the FU, but Kane broke it up with a big boot. Batista came in with a spear on Kane and spine buster on DiBiase. Cena tagged JTG and used a rocket launcher top rope splash sending JTG onto DiBiase. JTG covered, but DiBiase wasn’t the legal man. JBL was, and he hit the clothesline from hell for the pin. This was a good opener.
Great Khali beat Jimmy Wang Yang with a body slam, chop and tree slam. This wasn’t much. The match was presumably was put into place as a replacement for whatever they originally had planned to promote HHH vs. Great Khali for SummerSlam.
Early in the show, WWE featured comments on autism from Jeff Foxworthy, Carmen Electra and Ben Stiller. Jenny McCarthy then came in front of the crowd to plug the cause of trying to get at the problem. There was only superficial discussion of the disorder, as they directed people to the website to learn more. You can check it out at
http://www.generationrescue.org/
Edge beat Jeff Hardy. Jeff hit a baseball slide and pescado. He went for a somersault senton on the floor but crashed into the barricade. Edge worked over Jeff for a little while including an implant DDT. Jeff hit the whisper in the wind but Edge kicked out. Jeff went for the swanton but couldn’t get into position in time. Edge went for a spear but missed. As the referee was counting Edge out, MVP gave Jeff a yakuza kick. Edge then came back in and hit the spear for the pin. This was a good main event.
Final Thoughts:
This was just a low key television show. It flowed well and was a solid hour of entertainment. For all the talk about raising autism awareness, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of discussion about autism. The show ended up kind of reminding me of EliteXC last weekend. Both were good self-contained shows for their select audiences, but had nothing to inspire larger viewership or affect the future. The key difference of course is that was WWE’s goal heading in whereas EliteXC took a major step backwards.
posted by Todd Martin at 10:43 PM
3 Comments:
Todd,
I've gotta ask you! What did you think of the Foley/Edge segment on SmackDown!?
I think "low key" is an understatement when describing this show.
Granted, I'm looking back through the prism of childhood, but the early run of SNME was an absolute blast. Tons of big names, big matches, and big angles. Almost every show had a WWF World title defense against a major contender that either ended in a clean finish or a huge angle.
Of course, it helped SNME that we had almost nothing but squash matches on free TV, so it was still a big deal to see name-vs.-name matches at all.
This new run of the show has been terrible. It's the same garbage we see on Raw and SmackDown, with no attempt made to step it up a notch or two. And now, due to poor ratings, they've unbelievably decided to take it DOWN a few notches, positioning it as a show that's not about ratings but is rather about helping a cause.
I'm sure there have been worse SNMEs judged by many criteria, but as far as overall feel, this one was by far the worst. Todd, you summed it up perfectly by saying the big news was "nothing, really". I finished watching it, deleted it off my DVR, and I doubt I'll ever think of it again after this post.
I thought the Foley/Edge segment was very good. Whenever Foley gets involved in angles he always carries his end, and Edge is really on these days as well. I don't know how much it did for Edge/Taker specifically, but it was a fun segment that got heat on Edge and made Foley more sympathetic.
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