PPV review

I'm excited that this year's Rumble is only a month away so to get in the mood I watched last year's and wrote a review.

I don't generally like Edge, as I think his moveset is pretty limited, but here he had a good and entertaining match with HBK. It was a good sign of things to come for the rest of the PPV, and I like the decision to put both men in the Rumble match too. Edge won with a rollup and he held on to the ropes. Grade: A-

I guess you can't be surprised that the Undertaker and Heidenreich didn't put on a wrestling clinic in their Casket match. Before the match, there was a segment with Raw's Snitsky talking to Smackdown's Heidenreich, telling each other how much they liked the other and Snitsky saying he had a plan for Heidenreich's match. Well, Snitsky interfered, but in one of the coolest moments of the whole night, they raised the casket lid to roll Taker in and Kane sat up in the casket! Kane came in and cleared Snitsky out of the ring and it was all Taker from there. There was another nice spot where Heidenreich was half laying in the casket and Taker closed the lid on him and then did a leg drop off the apron onto the casket lid with Heidenreich underneath, which looked good. One good thing I'll say about Heidenreich is that he plays his character well and did a great job selling his fear of caskets. But his ring skills basically suck. His punches were laughable and it was amazing this feud lasted as long as it did. Grade: C (this grade helped out by Snitsky and Kane's interference)

On to the first of our title matches as JBL defended against Kurt Angle and the Big Show. Great match with Show dominating throughout. I loved Show taking the television monitor off the skull and tumbling backwards through the announce table. Angle and JBL both looked good and I think Bradshaw in particular was really hitting his stride as a main-eventer here and also at the previous Smackdown PPV Armageddon. Good thing there were no fans near the black guardrail because Show would have killed them when he tackled JBL through the wall. The match kind of lost a little for me once the Cabinet and Jindrak and Reigns interfered. I just didn't like those two stables. What a collection of jobbers to surround your top two heels with. But I guess they needed interference so JBL could retain the belt without cleanly defeating either of his opponents. Grade: B+

I liked the Raw title match a lot. Triple H worked on Orton's knee and lower leg for most of the match. I love watching Triple H work on one part of an opponent's body. He tells a story in the ring and uses great psychology. The end was interesting with Orton getting concussed when his head hit the mat, and Triple H basically having his way with him from that point on. Good energy from both men. Grade: A-

Before we get to the Rumble match I should mention that there were a ton of backstage segments, most having to do with guys drawing their numbers for the main event. I'll try to go through the ones I remember. Eddie Guerrero (RIP) and Ric Flair drew their numbers for the match, Eddie upset about his and Ric ecstatic with his. Then Eddie hugs Ric and steals his number...and his wallet! Classic Eddie, although Teddy Long makes him give Ric his number back. I'm really going to miss Eddie. Christian and John Cena got their numbers at the same time and Captain Charisma cut his own freestyle putting down the champ and praising the peeps. Cena came back with some rhymes of his own, and the U.S. champ was actually funny back then I guess, because I haven't laughed at him on Raw in a while, other than his in-ring ability. Eric Bischoff ripped into Teddy Long for having a title match with so many run-ins, and made the Raw title match so no members of Evolution could come down to ringside. He asked Batista if he should tell Triple H or if Batista wanted to. This was when Batista was still in Evolution but his relationship with Triple H was becoming more strained by the day. Batista said he would tell Triple H about the stipulation, but they never showed it for some reason, which I don't understand because it would have made a good scene. Earlier in the show Triple H and Batista were already at odds because Batista wanted to go pick his number for the Rumble but Hunter made him stay to help plan for The Game's title match, which Batista was not happy about. Also, Teddy Long quickly sobered up a champagne-drinking and celebrating JBL by telling him at No Way Out he would defend the title against Big Show in a barbed wire steel cage match.

What a great way to start the Rumble with Eddie and Chris Benoit drawing numbers one and two. Eddie was and is my favorite wrestler so it's been bittersweet the few times I've watched him since he died. It was hysterical watching Daniel Puder get the hell knocked out of him by Latino Heat, Benoit, and Hardcore Holly. Watching them compete to see who could chop Puder's chest the loudest was great. One thing that was cool about this Rumble was that almost the entire upper mid-card was in the ring at one time. Benoit and Guerrero were joined by Chris Jericho, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Edge, Shelton Benjamin for some serious firepower. I wasn't sure how they were going to have Muhammad Hassan eliminated without making him look weak, since he had never lost before, and they did it by having every person in the ring toss him over. This led to Scotty 2 Hotty being the obligatory guy who gets his ass kicked and never makes it into the match as Hassan took it out on him that he was eliminated. Seeing Haas and Benjamin do one of their old double-team moves was great because I loved that team, and was pissed when they let Charlie Haas go. Angle and HBK eliminated each other and Angle beat the hell out of the Showstopper outside the ring. After this night, we pretty much knew it was going to be these two at Wrestlemania, a dream matchup that had been rumored for sometime. I have no idea how Coach lasted as long as he did, getting almost zero offense the entire time he was in the match. Paul London's elimination by Snitsky was phenomenal. He was clotheslined from the apron and did a 360 before hitting the arena floor. Not many guys could have done that or would even have tried to. Flair came in at #30 and was on fire for a while. It was funny to see him try to pull a fast one over on Batista and toss him out when The Animal wasn't looking. The final 4 were Edge, Mysterio, Cena, and Batista, and Batista and Cena weren't a surprise as the final two. They did the tried and true "both men hit the floor at the same time" bit, until Vince came in and ordered the match restarted. Somehow Vince injured himself trying to stand up in the ring, so he just sat there the whole time. It was pretty funny but you could tell he was just pissed. So Batista wins, but it doesn't really matter as Cena wins a #1 contender match at No Way Out and they both go to Wrestlemania to win their respective titles. Not my favorite Rumble ever, but it's still a hell of a way to spend an hour. Grade: A+

The Rumble matches are almost always good, but this Rumble PPV stood out for its strong undercard. Compare these matches with the five matches leading into the 2004 Rumble and see what I mean. Here's hoping we get the same type of action this year.

P.S. Check my profile for other PPV reviews I've done. Check them out and let me know what you think.