wrestling / TV Reports
The Extreme Rules 2009 Breakdown
June 8, 2009 | Posted by
| Extreme Rules 2009 by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Free-for-all to start. MVP and Kofi toss the heels and go at it. Regal, though, jumps in and hits Kofi with the Butterfly Superplex. Matt tries to pick the bones, but everyone keeps kicking out. Kofi goes nuts with his wacky offense until MVP catches him with a sick snap belly-to-belly suplex. The MVPeople’s Elbow follows. Regal tries to toss Kofi, but Kofi bounces off the ropes and hits Trouble in Paradise on Regal to pick up the win at 6:43. Pretty short for an opener, and they just rushed through. ** Jericho’s entrance promo is incredible. Nice bit of foreshadowing/story-building as Ross and Grisham talk about the legacy behind Rey’s mask and how he wouldn’t be the same wrestler without it. The storyline du guerre is that Jericho is an evil motherfucker and Rey might not be quite willing enough to do what it takes to beat him. The secondary story is that Jericho keeps going after Rey’s mask, and Rey is more worried about that than his title. Jericho slows the match down early and keeps things at his pace until Rey catches him trying a springboard dropkick and just dropkicks him out of the sky. The ringpost 619 follows. Jericho goes for the Walls of Jericho, but Rey reverses to a small package. Jericho finally just tosses him under the bottom rope to the floor. Shinni no make follows, giving us the lone slow point in the match. Rey comes back with a suicida, and we get the greatest camerawork in history as Rey looks like he’s going to knock Jericho through the TV screen into our living rooms. HDTV is so awesome. Anyway, Rey goes for the 619, but Jericho counters to an Argentine Backbreaker. Awesome! Jericho misses the Lionsault, so Rey hits him with the 619 to the back of the head. Rey springboards… right into the Codebreaker. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Jericho grabs a chair, but Rey dropkicks it back in his face. Arabian Facebuster follows. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Jericho catches Rey springing off the chair and turns him over into the Walls of Jericho. Rey grabs desperately grabs the chair and WHACKS Jericho in the head with hit. That sets up the 619, but Jericho rips off Rey’s mask in mid-move. Awesome! Rey is so shocked that Jericho is able to roll him up for the win and the title at 14:39. Once again, Jericho shows that he is the best storyteller in the business (right up there with Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker, but they’re MIA). The feud evolved to include the importance of Rey’s mask, so Jericho used that aspect to tell the story of the match – a factor that not only makes this match, which was already quite good, even better, but it also adds importance to Rey’s mask. We’re assuming 1999 never happened, of course. ***1/2 Punk fires off a few kicks, but Umaga just shoves him down and touches a few buckles. Punk catches him with a knee. Rinse. Repeat. Punk uses his “Muay Thai” kicks to stun Umaga and crotches him with the strap. He touches three corners, but Umaga yanks him into the swinging uranage. Weird flashback moment for me: remember when Umaga was part of Three Minute Warning and he tried that on Test, but Test’s legs were too long so they caught on the mat and nearly broke him in half? Punk knocks him to the floor and tries to touch the corners, but as Grisham points out, it is geometrically impossible to do that. Grish, you’re awesome. Umaga yanks him down and climbs up top. Punk uses the strap to slam Umaga to the mat. He touches three corners, but Umaga blocks the fourth. Umaga charges… right into the Go2Sleep. Punk touches the last buckle for the win at 9:00. Not exactly Sting vs. Vader, but better than a lot of strap matches. They played up Umaga’s overwhelming strength advantage and Punk’s resourcefulness. Hmmm… Punk’s resourcefulness… taking advantage of a situation as it arises. I wonder if that will become important later on. *** Fan sentiment is with Dreamer all the way. Swagger tries to keep it a wrestling match, for the most part, but dammit, it’s an ECW Title match. WE DEMAND PLUNDER! Dreamer and Swagger toss in a lot of trash cans, a Singapore Cane, some chairs, there’s, uh, a crutch, a rooster, some nude photos of Matt Striker, and a Braden Walker DVD. They work in the Tower of Doom spot with Dreamer getting superplexed through the trash cans. Christian gets a two count and grabs the crutch. He comes off… right into Swagger’s boot. Swagger picks him up for the Doctorbomb, but Tommy nails Swagger with the Singapore Cane and finishes him with the DDT at 9:37. Hey, they actually did the right thing! The match was okayish. Just a lot of trainwreck spots in lieu of telling a story… kind of like the old ECW. **1/2 Vickie turns the match into a handicap match at the last minute. Chavo objects because he’s wearing nice clothes. Santina tosses some mud at him, pissing Chavo off enough for him to smack her around and rub mud in her face. Wait. Why am I calling Santino “her?” Why am I asking you? Vickie tags in, but Chavo accidentally slops her. Santina slops him and bucket-punches him. That leads to the pin on Vickie to return the crown to its rightful owner (2:42). Well, at least Michael Cole got a kick out of it. After the match, Chavo and Vickie blame each other for the loss and roll around in the mud. Oh, it’s straight out of Smokey and the Bandit. DUD The Big Stamford Meatgrinder rears its ugly head as both guys are wearing shiny black short trunks, have shaved heads, have similar upper back tattoos, and use John Boehner Brand bronzer, so when they pull back to the hard camera position it’s difficult to tell them apart. Randy tries to go over the top at the opening bell, but Batista drags him down and goes about the process of methodically destroying him. Orton backdrops out of a Demonbomb. He sets up for the RKO, but Batista shoves him into the cage and hits the Demonbomb at 7:06. Word ’round the campfire is that Batista is injured, and I certainly hope so, because if these two guys are incapable of simply filling a seven-minute match while at full strength, it’s going to be a long summer. *1/2 Cole and Lawler talk about how it is absolutely impossible to put Big Show in the STF, but it is possible that John Cena might have learned another submission hold. Wow, he’s been in the WWE for seven years, and he might have two whole submission holds in his repertoire?!!! STF and arm•BAR? Show playfully bats Cena around the ring for a while. Did Cole say Big Show’s ring was 22-inches? That can’t be right. Maybe he meant wrist bracelet. If he had 22-inch-round fingers, he’d be working in porno movies. Pretty boring stuff here. The idea here is to build a storyline that Show is completely overpowering and invulnerable. The problem with that is, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in winning the match. He gets one submission move off a failed Cena slam… a sort of manly hug. Not a bear hug. More like a “Hey, haven’t seen you since the wedding” hug. To the floor, Show tosses Cena rib-first into the post. That sets up an abdominal stretch. Cena comes to life and jumps off the top… right into the bearhug. A submission at this point would be logically consistent with Cena’s injuries, but if Cena submits, a newborn puppy dies, so he hustles, loyalties, and respects his way into an eye gouge. See, that’s the problem with the Cena character. No matter what happens to him, it doesn’t matter because he will always overcome it. It’s like Ben Stiller in the first ten minutes of Tropic Thunder. No matter how many times he gets shot, he just fights back against that adversity and keeps going… even to ridiculous extremes. Well, that and there’s just not much depth to his character. Show punches him out of the ring, but Cena OVERCOMES ADVERSITY and tosses Show into the post. That sets up the Cenasser. Cena ties up Show in the ropes and finishes with the Crossface at 19:04. *This* they gave 19 minutes?! Slow, plodding and, with a result that was never in doubt, each ensuing minute of it was more irritating. And what was with the submission finish in the ropes? I mean, I agree that it should be allowed (just as a submission on the floor should), but this seems to be the one time it was allowed. * That is a lot of ladders at ringside. Jeff backdrops Edge onto a ladder and goes up. Edge yanks him down and tries a flapjack into the ladder, but when that doesn’t work, he just throws Jeff onto the fallen ladder. Ouch. Edge slaps a ladder-assisted Sharpshooter on him for a tapout. Great, the ladder match now has a more compelling tapout spot than the submission match. Edge goes up, but Hardy dropkicks the ladder out from under him. Jeff sets up the ladder upside down and front suplexes Edge onto the little stabilizer bar. Twist of Fate and Jeff goes up a big ladder. Edge rolls out of the way, so Hardy just leans forward and grabs hold of the line holding the title belt. I’M TARZAN, BITCHES! Edge yanks him down before he can untie the belt. WHISPER IN THE WIND! To the floor, Edge hits a big boot. He sets a ladder across the ring and barricade, but Hardy blocks his suplex. They fight over to the announce table and grab a big ladder. Oh, this can’t be good. They set it up and fight all the way up it before it tips over, sending them crashing through the bridge ladder Edge had set up earlier. Both guys get back in and crawl up ladders. Edge thinks he’s going to spear Jeff off the ladder just like he always does in ladder matches, but Jeff counters to a Diamond Cutter in mid-air. Awesome! Edge goes up, but Hardy pulls him through the rungs of the ladder and traps him! Edge is helpless, so Jeff goes up and retrieves the belt at 20:06. Great, inventive spots in this one, which is really all I ask out of a ladder match. The creativity is a plus, and there were only two spots where I thought they overdid the death-defying spots. **** Jeff can barely stand, so Punk hits the Go2Sleep. ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Jeff small packages him for two. Punk gets pissed, kicks him, and hits a second Go2Sleep at 1:00. The fans are not impressed with Punk for that, which makes Punk’s in-your-face celebration that much better. 1/4* |
| The 411: Started out really well, then hit a MAJOR crap spot right in the middle before finishing strong with a great match and a surprise twist. Whether Punk is a successful heel champion or not (which is where I assume they’re headed) depends on how much input he has into his character (see Jericho, Chris). Interestingly (but not surprisingly), the same pattern as the last PPV emerges – Raw laid a big, stinky egg while Smackdown and ECW saved the show.
Thumbs up for the ladder match and semi-surprising twist at the end. |
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