THE SPECIALISTS PARKS BLOG: Bragging Rights PPV hangout report - What are the chances of D.H. Smith pinning Triple H?, Don't Touch the Red Button, Vintage Bragging Rights!
Oct 25, 2009 - 11:59:46 PM
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By Greg Parks, Torch specialist
Well, we found out that Hooligan's wasn't showing the PPV this month, so we had to watch it at our place instead. The atmosphere isn't as great, but at least I can go to the bathroom in peace. It was Kurt, Doug, and me, as Phil was glued to the Yanks vs. Angels game (like most of the rest of the sports fans in the country). I don't remember who won the prediction contest....pretty sure it wasn't me though. Kurt went to bed three-fourths of the way through Cena vs. Orton and Doug is sleeping in our living room, so I'm not really going to wake them up to ask them.
We had Pizza Hut pizza, Stuffed Crust (thanks Jim Breuer!), and wings in lieu of our usual Hooligan's food. It worked just as well and I think we spent less money.
(1) The Miz vs. John Morrison: The three of us talked about our Halloween Costumes for our party here on Saturday, and coordinated amongst ourselves our trip to Buffalo and Rochester the next two days for WWE TV events. Kurt mentioned that they should've compared Morrison and Miz to other tag teams; like Miz is Henry, and Morrison is Phineaus. Match was fine, but a little underwhelming. Didn't quite get to three stars, IMO. (**3/4)
(2) Kelly Kelly & Gail Kim & Melina vs. Michelle McCool & Beth Phoenix & Natalya: Okay, so Beth didn't turn face here. Nothing memorable about this one, which was an unfortunate running theme throughout this show, but they had some good workers in there to make it watchable. Interesting that Melina took the pin. (*3/4)
(3) Undertaker vs. Batista vs. Rey Mysterio vs. C.M. Punk: Not a lot to say here. Didn't even go ten minutes; I know Taker is hurting, but I figured they could find a way around that to make it seem worthwhile to the buying public. We got our pizza around this time too, so it wasn't a total loss. Batista sounded drunk in his post-match promo and him turning heel was kinda expected. (**3/4)
(4) Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown: I got a kick of the lady interviewed saying Smackdown would win because of Matt Hardy. Give it up, lady! This felt, in general, like every multi-man TV main event that we get. Despite the hype, this didn't quite feel special. Some of the pin attempts were funny: like I'm going to believe David Hart Smith has a chance of pinning Triple H for the win. Michael Cole let out a "Vintage Bragging Rights!" during the match; what does that even mean?!? (**1/4)
(5) John Cena vs. Randy Orton: I was ready to count the number of chinlock sequences during the match after Orton's early one, but I don't think there was any others during the match. Probably because there was little actual wrestling. Doug and Kurt talked about Smackdown vs. Raw the video game, as Doug just bought it a day earlier. Orton got a pretty cool RKO out of an Attitude Adjustment, which I didn't notice until the replay. If I were Orton, I would've taken off and hidden somewhere in the arena once I got the lead; that's the trouble with having these kinds of rules in a match like this. When Orton was contemplating blowing Cena up and was staring at the giant red button, I couldn't help but think of "don't....touch....the red.....button" from Rocko's Modern Life. About a minute before the ref bump, I had remarked how it's good there hasn't been one in the match...but I knocked on wood! The suspense and action, for the most part, was there, but there didn't seem to be enough actual wrestling and too much down-time to get over four stars. (****)
A real forced show in terms of the "brand supremacy" crap and it showed. Aside from the main event, nothing memorable about this show at all. Thumbs down.
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