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By Sean Radican, Torch Columnist

WWE Great American Bash BLOG of Conscience
July 20, 2008
By Sean Radican, PWTorch columnist

Stay tuned throughout the rest of the evening as I BLOG my way through the show!

1 -- MIZ & JOHN MORRISON vs. HORNSWOGGLE & FINLAY vs. JESSE & FESTUS vs. CURT HAWKINGS & ZACH RYDER -- WWE Tag Team Title match. This was a really good opening match. Festus looked good here, but Hawkings & Ryder got the win in the end. I think they pulled the plug on Miz & Morrison, who were just starting to gain some traction as tag champs. Morrison’s jacket looks nothing like anything Ultimate Warrior ever wore to the ring.

Star Rating: **

2 -- MATT HARDY vs. SHELTON BENJAMIN -- U.S. Title match. Another good match. Benjamin looked good here and he desperately needs to prove he’s worth more than the “Best Bump at WrestleMania” award each year. They never did anything for Hardy in terms of building up challengers for him during his time as US champ.

Star Rating: **3/4

-C.M. Punk cut a great promo that should have been shown on Raw this past week. He also proved to Wade Keller that he can, in fact, cut good promos.

3 -- ECW champion MARK HENRY (w/Tony Atlas) vs. TOMMY DREAMER (w/Colin Delaney) -- ECW Title match. Can someone wake me up when this thing is over? Henry does his best Bryan Danielson impression and put the crowd to sleep. Poor Dreamer always gets screwed, as Delaney turns on him and costs him the ECW strap yet again.

Star Rating: ½*

4 -- SHAWN MICHAELS vs. CHRIS JERICHO. This was a really good match that saw both men try something different. After around 10 minutes of great action, HBK caught an elbow to the eye and gigged. Jericho worked the cut for several times with the ref checking on him and asking if he wanted the match ended. Jericho finally mounted HBK and landed a succession of blows to the cut on his eye before the ref stepped in and declared Jericho the winner. Cade also interfered during the match, which enhanced what they were going for here.

Star Rating: ***1/2. I really liked how they went for something different and left the crowd stunned.

-Ross & Foley interviewed Edge backstage. He promised to ruin Triple H’s life tonight. Edge has great facial expressions.

5 -- MICHELLE McCOOL vs. NATALYA -- Smackdown Women's Title match. This was good for what it was, but nothing terribly exciting.

Star Rating: *

-Chris Jericho came out after McCool’s victory and cut a great promo about how fans should save their stubs, as HBK had a detached retina and they had just witnessed his last match.

6 -- World Hvt. champion C.M. PUNK vs. BATISTA -- World Heavyweight Title match. Wow. That was disappointing, as Kane interfered and caused a double DQ. Punk got the fluke champion treatment, as he got punked by Kane and then Batista. Punk did get in a considerable amount of offense before the DQ and looked good up until the finish.

Star Rating: **1/2

7 -- JOHN CENA vs. JBL – Parking Lot Brawl. This was TNA-riffic early, as Cena jumpstarted JBL’s balls during the early stages of the contest. What a crappy edit job they did when Cena plowed his car into the one JBL was standing on at the beginning of the match. Also I didn’t know there were parking lots backstage. Couldn’t they have at least filmed this outdoors?

So Jericho’s elbow cuts, but Cena going head-first through a car window doesn’t? No crowd noise for this match, either, so this thing is pretty dead to watch. JBL put Cena in the back of one of the cars at one point and went to his limo and grabbed a can of gasoline and pours it all over the car with Cena sitting in the back seat. This is absurd. JBL then lights up a Zippo and throws it on the car as the ref fake screams “fire.”

Some people come out and put the fire out and Cena simply walks out of the car and begins attacking JBL. This is getting awesome in a bad way now.

Cena picks up the car with JBL in it with a forklift and begins driving down the hallways of the arena. He brings the car out to the live crowd and is greeted by cheers as he honks the horn on the forklift. JBL gets out of the car and they begin brawling on the stage. Cena holds JBL too long before delivering the FU, which results in Cena getting thrown off the stage through the windshield of the car below.

Star Rating: *1/2. Wow. This was damaging to both men, but in particular for Cena, who takes a surprising loss to the ever-increasingly immobile and damaged JBL. This was ridiculous and surprising on so many levels. Wow.

The crowd gave Cena a slight ovation once he recovered and limped away from the car

-I really like the new SummerSlam commercial with the “at the movies” theme.

-The AT&T Mobile vote showed the fans sympathized only slightly more with Edge over Vickie Guerrero. I wonder how Wade and Bruce voted.

-Anybody see the new Batman movie this weekend. What a great movie, especially Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker. Just as Ledger got into his Joker character, Edge does a really good job of playing his chickens—t heel character, as is evidenced in the promo package for the main event.

-Eve catches up to Triple H backstage. He tells Eve he has no regrets. I’m glad he can feel good about himself after screwing over the prick heel.

-Edge gets pyro, unlike HBK and Jericho earlier in the night. Does that mean this isn’t a serious match? Edge draws some boos once his music dies down. Triple H gets a good pop once his music hits. They need to have a really good match to save the show.

-Wade Keller just checked in with this gem from his virtual time review of this PPV. “Batista really has come a long way as a worker. What he lacks in grace and youthful athleticism he has made up for with a real obvious effort to be a ring general in other ways. He was not an obvious choice to go with a few years ago coming out of Evolution as someone to build main events around, but other than some terribly clunky Kane matches (which is just bad chemistry in the ring given their styles), he's come through as someone who produces main event quality matches against a variety of opponents.” Wade has clearly blocked out a number of terrible Batista matches from 2006 and 2007 that didn’t involve the Undertaker.

WWE Champion TRIPLE H vs. EDGE –WWE Championship match. Edge cuts off Triple H early and goes to work on his mid-section. Ross & Foley make a great duo on commentary. They’re both enthusiastic and add a lot to the match with their different insights. Triple H makes a brief comeback, but Edge cuts him off right away and hits a DDT on the floor. Triple H mounts another comeback, but eats an Edge-0’-matic for a nearfall.

Triple H goes for the pedigree moments later, but Edge drives him into the corner and sets him up on top. This match has featured some good back and fourth action so far. The wedding planner comes down to ringside and tries to give Edge the belt, but Vickie runs down and clotheslines her to the floor on the outside. We’ve got a catfight on our hands folks, as the ref has his hands full. Edge goes for a spear on the wedding planner, but ends up spearing Vickie instead. Of course Triple H comes up form behind and hits the pedigree for the win.

Star Rating: ***. The action was good, but the finish was predictable given the evens on Smackdown. It’s disappointing in some ways, as all the attention of the match was on Edge and his plight and not a one on one contest against Triple H.

Overall score: (6.0) I can’t give this show a strong recommendation. There was simply too much of a “lets get to SummerSlam philosophy in place tonight. The first half of the show was fine and lead to a strong conclusion with Jericho-HBK, but the second half of the show gave us a lame Parking Lot Brawl with JBL-Cena, a DQ finish for Batista-Punk, and another interference laden match in the main event, as the Edge-Triple H match revolved around the brawling wedding planner and Vickie Guerrero.

I’ll be back with more on this PPV tomorrow in my all new edition of Tales From The Pulpit! Also, be sure to listen to the Radican Audio Showcase with co-host Derek Burgan each and every weekend at PWTorch.com/memebers.

Email Sean Radican.

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