Thumbs up
Best match: ironman
Worst: divas
I thought it was a good show. Miz/Morrison was good. Miz to me has
more potential to main event than Morrison because of his mic skills,
so it was the right move for him to win. Divas match sucked as usual,
fatal four way was fun and the Batista turn on Rey came way too soon.
Undertaker needs to put over cm punk at survivor series (I'm assuming
they are going to continue the fued) and put him over strong ala Brock
in 2002. The bragging rights match was good, but the finish was
predictable. Glad to see kingston is Now involved in a fued with
legacy, he's really good and deserves a top push. Too bad he'll
probably get squashed by orton on raw tomorrow.
The iron man match was awesome, four stars and half in my opinion.
Great pacing, well timed and executed, pyro spot was cool, and it was
probably the second best match of the year. Thanks guys.
Randy Zeidan
SF CA
Hi Dave,
WWE Bragging Rights
Thumbs in the Middle
Best Match: Orton vs Cena
Worst Match: Womens tag
This was a pretty good show workrate wise, but the consistency and
logic of the storylines really brought it down overall. I just don't
get why they expected us to care about the 7 vs 7 tag, especially with
the announcers making fun of the new team Smackdown. And I bet anyone
who watches only Raw and bought this show was wondering where half the
team went. If they made brand identity matter, like they did back in
2002 with feuding GM's and fighting over signings, as well as reducing
trades and really making them matter, this gimmick could work next
year. This year? No.
UFC 104
Thumbs Up
Best fight: Lyoto Machida vs Mauricio Rua
Worst fight: None
This was a fun show, I was glad to see Okami/Sonnen shown on the PPV
and it was a good fight, so I had a hearty laugh at the people who
said it shouldn't be shown. That and the main event really showed how
MMA predictions and pre-fight analysis still have a ways to go
compared to other, more known sports. You'd never see so many off
betting lines in the NFL for example. But that will come as the sport
grows. Aside from that, I understand giving Machida the win - I
thought Rua won but it was a closer fight than people are saying,
especially with the round by round scoring. I anticipate the rematch.
Dream 12
Thumbs Down
Best fight: Eddie Alvarez vs Katsunori Kikuno
Worst fight: None
Decent show. I think the Alvarez/Kikuno fight barely edged out the
opener for FOTN. The cage was OK, but due to the quality of the
fighters DREAM puts on its other shows this couldn't match up to that.
Not as good as DREAM 11.
Thanks,
Neil Ashford
Thumbs way way down
Best match: Miz vs. Morrison
Worst match: Orton vs. Cena
Miz vs. Morrison is exactly how you build a good feud, the only good part of the show.
The divas match was better then expected.
7 vs. 7: Who couldn't see that outcome a mile away ? big surprise, big show turned on hid team and helped his partner. I would be surprised if he didn't. thay just portrayed him as Jericho's "little" helper and bodyguard this last few months. What happened to clean finishes, the matches at southpark's episode are even better then this (El loco polio rules !!!)
4-way: decent short much. batista doesn't work as the bad guy.
Orton vs. Cena: 6-5 ? 6-5?!? come on.... this are two guys that usually can barely pin each other once in half an hour and now 11 pins in an hour !!! sorry for the language but that's bullshit match and disrespects the fans. That's not how you build an iron man match. Now the new chamion was pinned 5 times in an hour, good "championship material". They should have build it slowly to s 1:0 or 2:1 max. The most pathetic iron man match I ever saw.
Daniel Stein
UFC:
Thumbs up
Best fight: Shogun vs Machida
Worst fight: Sonnen vs Okami
The main event was hardly the most eventful or fast-paced fight of the night, but it was a very fascinating encounter, as I was expecting, like many, for Shogun to come out guns ablazing like he did in Pride. This would be a short night for him. He instead came out very intelligently, and had obviously done his homework, and I started to allow myself to get behind Shogun, who had been one of my favourite fighters in the world when Pride was still around. By the third round I started allowing myself to believe he could actually pull this off, and by the end of the fight I was thrilled, we had a new champ! The decision certainly upset the entire room of guys where I was watching, but at the same time, if he's getting the immediate rematch, it probably didn't hurt him one bit. I scored it 49-46, for what little that's worth.
Cain came across as a monster in his fight, and while I suppose the stoppage was early, I suspect it was inevitable.
WWE:
Thumbs up
Best match: Orton vs Cena
Worst match: The ladies
Miz vs Morrison was solid enough, if a little sloppy.
The girls had a perfectly competent match.
The Smackdown match was fun for the brief time it lasted.
The 14 person tag was also fun, but I was hoping for a little more.
Cena and Orton had a hell of a match, and the pyro spots had me laughing out loud.
The two highlights of the entire show were CM Punk's pre-match antics and Chris Jericho's post-match celebration. These are two of the greatest men in the world.
Curtis Hughes
Best match -- Team Smackdown vs Team RAW 7 vs 7
Worst match -- John Cena vs Randy Orton
Thumbs in the middle. Some people may disagree, but I honestly thought this Iron Man match might have been the least eventful ever. There was so many boring parts where nothing was happening, and it seemed like regular matches like Cena vs Edge at Backlash or Cena vs Orton at Breaking Point had more memorable moments in less time than this match offered in 60 minutes. I realize it's difficult to do a 60-minute match, but it was extremely underwhelming, and I was looking at the clock, waiting for it to end.
Though this PPV was pretty consistent. Everything was at least pretty good I thought, even the divas 6-person. One other general complaint -- the finish to Miz vs Morrison was really underwhelming. Just getting knocked off the top rope is the finish? Really?
----------
Robby O'Daniel
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