"The End Is Here". That’s the slogan for "Armageddon", WWE’s annual "apocalyptic" PPV event.
Following the disaster that was ECW "Dismembered In December", many fans have come to the conclusion that WWE’s "new breed unleashed" will be history by next year. SD!, meanwhile, hasn’t been predicted to have a much brighter future. Indeed, in the eyes of many, the "B team" has been on life-support for months.
It’s not hard to see why. Forget the fact that Raw has been a WWE staple since 1993 and will always be the "big one" as far as McMahon-driven TV shows go. SD! has always had a problem when it comes to star power. It seems whenever they have a huge star (for example, John Cena), he defects to Raw. Likewise, some of their newly established stars (i.e. Lashley) may also jump to ECW.
When you look at SD’s "big name Superstars", their biggest is unquestionably The Undertaker (and even he’s part-time these days). They did recently acquire Kane from Raw, however that was only because "The Monster" lost a "Loser Leaves Raw" Match to Umaga (so in hindsight, it looks [at least on paper] like Kane is a "Raw reject" and has stepped down to the "minor leagues").
However, despite their limited talent pool and the overall "B show" stigma, SD! did a decent job of building interest in Armageddon. Obviously, the booking of two gimmick matches (an "Inferno Match" and a "Last Ride Match") was a shameless way of attempting to boost the buy-rate, but to be fair, these matches were far more appetising than regular, standard rematches between the relevant participants.
As mentioned in my "predictions", I was very much looking forward to Armageddon. So now let’s see if me paying £14.95 to watch the show on PPV was worth it.
Kicking off the show was the "Inferno Match". This was the 4th of its kind to be held, with the last one taking place in September 1999.
Obviously, it was a dangerous match, which is why it’s only done on rare occasions (Michael Cole wasn’t lying when he said that the announcers’ desk and the fans had to be moved back several feet).
It would be unfair for me to draw comparisons between this "Inferno Match" and previous efforts such as the first one in 1998 between Undertaker and Kane. That particular match had an aura behind it before it even began (I will say, though that this "Inferno Match" between MVP and Kane served its purpose and was definitely the best match of Mr Porter’s WWE career thus far).
WWE deserve credit for the finish, as no "tricks" were used. MVP really WAS on fire and was burning from his back. Perhaps he didn’t run quick enough to sell the overall horror of his "human torch" act, but credit to the man for "taking one for the team" so to speak and proving that he’s willing to put his body on the line in the name of "Sports Entertainment".
On paper at least, Paul London and Brian Kendrick’s tag-title match with Brits William Regal and Dave Taylor looked like a terrible clash of styles. And although both teams had proven that they COULD work together convincingly on TV, there was always the risk that the live audience could "switch off" for their PPV meeting.
However, there was no chance of this happening when SD! GM Theodore Long showed up before the match was due to start and announced (completely out-of-the-blue) that this would now be a four-way Ladder Match involving two other teams!
The mystery opponents were MNM and The Hardys. Fans didn’t care that neither team officially resided on SD!. All of a sudden, a fairly interesting match had turned into a potentially exciting, high-risk gimmick bout that you simply could not afford to miss.
The match did not disappoint. It was unquestionably a strong contender for "Match of The Year" and was truly the best thing to happen on a SD! event all year.
Early on, Joey Mercury got completely busted open when he took a sick ladder shot to the face following a "see-saw" routine from The Hardys (Mercury suffered a broken nose and lacerations around the eye. The blood loss was so severe that he was forced to leave the match and immediately get rushed to a nearby hospital).
Left on his own, Mercury’s partner, Johnny Nitro drop-kicked a ladder, sending Jeff Hardy flying onto and catapulting off the top rope.
In other action, Paul London took a nasty back-drop from the top of a ladder from Matt Hardy and Brian Kendrick nearly broke William Regal’s neck with a slightly-botched "Sliced Bread # 2" from the top rung of another ladder.
In the end, London and Kendrick retained the titles. But it was the fans that were the real winners. This was truly an awesome match, although you have to wonder why WWE didn’t advertise it beforehand (it surely would have boosted the buy-rate). Perhaps they just wanted to give the fans something special after the unbelievably bad "December To Dismember" event 2 weeks ago.
Gregory Helms’ Cruiserweight Title defence against Jimmy Wang Yang was in some ways, a pointless exercise (they had no story line reason to fight, other than Wang being the number 1 contender, and even that was done at the last minute). That said, they did make the effort to have a very good match, even if the fans lost interest halfway through.
"JBL" (who really brought his "A game" to Armageddon) actually ripped into the fans when they began to chant "BORING" as Wang and Helms continued to ply away in the ring (in one way, he had a point, but on the other hand, again they were given no real reason to have a match, and Helms has been cruiser champion for so long now that it was somewhat predictable that he would retain the title).
Helms did get the win, after hitting a "chin-crusher" variation on Yang, after the "Redneck" missed a twisting sky-press from the top-rope.
The "Last Ride" Match was always a huge selling point of Armageddon for me. Even though a victory was inevitable for The Undertaker, you just knew that the match itself would live up to the hype.
And it did. Kennedy took a beating here, and towards the end of the match, was busted open by a brutal chair shot to the head. However, he did give "The Dead Man" a run for his money.
On more than one occasion, Kennedy managed to get Undertaker into the hearse (but could not drive it away). He also threw ‘Taker several feet from the Armageddon set (which looked great, until WWE foolishly showed a replay that proved that "Big Evil" landed on a padded area of the stage).
But in the end, he fell to "The Reaper". Undertaker took a bloody Kennedy and gave him a "Tombstone" on top of the hearse. He then rolled him into the vehicle and drove out of the arena.
GM Theodore Long had really delivered the good with his unadvertised ladder match earlier on, however his 2nd surprise of the even was comparable to having a lump of coal (or worse) in your Christmas stocking.
It was a "Naughty Or Nice" Lingerie Contest between Layla, Kristal, Ashley and Jillian (I presume that she was filling in for the recently-fired Amy Zidian, as I haven’t seen Ms Hall on SD! [let alone PPV] in ages).
It would have worked fine if the Divas had been wearing attire that was at least half-sexy. Unfortunately, this was a disaster, especially when "Santa Claus" stripped off to reveal himself as the awful male-stripper "Big Dick Johnson". Apparently, "everyone" was declared the winner, although upon seeing the fat Johnson dancing around in a thong (as opposed to the Divas), I would say that everyone was a "loser" here.
Unfortunately, the show was now in somewhat of a rut, from which it never quite recovered. The tag-team main event between Batista & John Cena and King Booker & Finlay would have worked fine as a TV match, however it came across as a mediocre affair on PPV.
To make things worse, the boos for Cena could be heard loud and clear and Batista was the worst he’s ever been here (and this was a tag-team match).
In the end, Cena tackled Finlay and took him out of the match, allowing Batista to easily finish off "The King" with a "Batista Bomb". Overall, this was a pretty flat way to end a show that had by and large, been rather strong.
I think that Armageddon surprised many people, especially after the "doom and gloom" that came with the backlash from the ECW PPV. This was proof positive that WWE CAN do great PPV’s, even SD! ones.
More than anything, Armageddon renewed faith in the SD! brand and proved that WWE are eager to make up for the disastrous ECW show and get back to justifying their #1 spot. And with TNA breathing down their necks, they’d better keep up the good work in 2007.
Previously posted on Smash Wrestling:
http://www.firetank.com/smashwrestling/
