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WWE CYBER SUNDAY 2007 VIP ROUNDTABLE REVIEWS: Mitchell, McNeill, Caldwell, Parks, Keller rate and review last year's PPV
Oct 25, 2008 - 12:41:56 PM |
WWE CYBER SUNDAY ROUNDTABLE
OCTOBER 28, 2007
WASHINGTON D.C. - MCI CENTER
LIVE ON PAY-PER-VIEW
James Caldwell, PWTorch columnist (6.5)
Very solid wrestling show. Not spectacular or flashy; just three or four good-to-very-good matches that carried the show. The finishes were suspect for two of the bigger matches on the card, but WWE put the matches in the correct order to have a satisfying clean finish to the main event heavyweight title match. Undertaker and Batista had another good title match, this time using Steve Austin to add an extra variable to the formula. The frenzy of nearfalls following signature moves kept the consistently-hot crowd guessing for the finish to add more energy to the match. Good work all around, with the feud being a leading contender for WWE's feud of the year, based on three very strong matches this year.
Orton vs. Michaels took a while to get rolling, but it was very strong near the end. The cheap finish to fit Orton's character hurt the match, but at least it wasn't the main event. To assuage fan's fears of every heel champion using a DQ or countout to retain a belt, WWE might want to incorporate a stipulation where the champion would lose the belt on the second title defense where he is DQ'd or counted out. Right now, WWE is booking one too many non-finishes for big title defenses, going back to the Cena-Orton match from two PPVs ago.
Triple H vs. Umaga incorporated the stipulation effectively, and they delivered some memorable spots, especially Umaga flying through the ECW announce table onto Hunter. Umaga is a valuable big match wrestler who usually delivers, whereas most big men on the roster slug through slow-paced snoozers. No surprise on Hunter winning, but Umaga had plenty of offense to remain as credible as possible considering the damage done to his character on TV leading to the PPV.
Other than the MVP vs. Kane snoozefest, there wasn't a bad match on the card. Mr. Kennedy vs. Jeff Hardy was disappointing, but it wasn't bad. Just when it seems that Hardy has some momentum in a main event position, he loses a mid-card match when he needs to have a strong showing on PPV to legitimize himself to the audience. Kennedy going over clean was a telling sign on who they're looking to push more right now. Considering the expected addition of Chris Jericho to the babyface roster, along with Hunter and Michaels, Hardy might be back on the outside looking in, with Kennedy moving up to a permanent main event heel role.
Greg Parks, PWTorch.com contributor (6.0)
A decent night of in-ring action, with a few less-than-satisfying finishes along the way. Nothing stood out as memorable or earth-shattering, and some of the bigger matches just didn't have that "big-match feel."
Finlay-Rey was a very good opener, and they had some pretty neat spots with the stretcher... The cable at the place I was watching went out in the middle of the Matt Hardy segment, and came back on about two-thirds of the way through the Miz vs. C.M. Punk match. I was very surprised to see that Miz won the voting. The last few minutes of the match were decent, but Miz just doesn't seem like a serious threat to the title at this point... I thought Kennedy vs. Hardy was a notch or two below their Raw match from a few weeks back. Kennedy seemed a step off throughout the match... I'm surprised we only got one backstage clip of Foley all night, and none of Austin... MVP vs. Kane was okay, and once again, MVP took the coward's way out... Unfortunately, we saw the same type of non-finish (or non-clean finish) in the very next match, which I did not expect WWE to do. The match itself was good... Triple H vs. Umaga was a good brawl, and I almost, for a split-second, thought Umaga might win... Batista vs. Undertaker showed they deserved the main event slot by the match they put on. Very good near falls at the end, but I was surprised that Austin had pretty much no extracurricular role in the match.
Bruce Mitchell, PWTorch columnist (5.5)
The best thing about this thing was Jim Ross telling the truth/turning on that cable access Diva Halloween Costume. And how about Mick Foley? Forget "Cane Dewey," I think Foley ate Dewey. Why the hell did the retired "Stone Cold" Steve Austin take a Clothesline From Hell from a retired announcer?
Undertaker and Batista had another good match, just under the one at WrestleMania, and Batista beating Undertaker clean was the right finish. Shawn Michaels's match with Randy Orton was disappointing. Michaels is noticeably slower since he came back this time from knee surgery. The shaky low-blow DQ in this match was hurt further by the referee instaneously calling for the bell instead of selling the shocking move for a few seconds.
Umaga vs. Triple H was on the better end of what you might expect from those two. Umaga running across three announce tables for the splash would make a great finish for a match with anyone but the big-headed Triple H.
Mr. Kennedy's win over Jeff Hardy was interesting. C.M. Punk's win over The Miz wasn't, but the voting result that picked Miz was. They need to move Rey Mysterio past Fit Finlay after two disappointing matches. MVP couldn't win with those three stiffs for fans to choose from, and the Kane match was no-win. The crowd was pretty dead tonight. That didn't help.
Pat McNeill, PWTorch columnist (6.0)
It seems unfair to complain after a show which ended with three strong matches, but this show seemed flat. The main positive from Cyber Sunday was the way the card was laid out, in that Batista's match with Undertaker was on last. The final match was the highlight of the show, with Undertaker putting the champion over clean and giving Batista the victory in his hometown. It was curious to see the politics involved in the guest referee decision, what with Mick Foley going through the motions and Stone Cold having to sell for John Layfield. Also, would it have killed Austin to throw a referee shirt on?
The bad portion of this show featured the back-to-back title matches with screwy finishes. Kane's match with MVP was a bad idea to begin with, pairing two wrestlers who have already had plenty of below average matches for one more go-round. The Michaels vs. Orton match would have been fine, and was on its way to being quite the good match, before we got our second disqualification finish of the month with these two.
Triple H and Umaga delivered a fine brawl without a lot of the cheap conventions we saw at the end of the Attitude era. It would have been nice for WWE to do a better job of protecting Umaga, since there aren't a lot of main event heels on Raw. Outside of the final three matches, there wasn't anything special on the show, or at least nothing you couldn't see on an average episode of Raw or Smackdown.
Also, kudos to Jim Ross for speaking his mind on the stupid diva costume contest. Having said that, Maria deserved to win.
Wade Keller, Torch editor
A good show. Not a great show. Undertaker and Batista showed unlikely good chemistry again. I loved Taker's escape from a pin attempt by applying a submission leg scissors to Batista's head from underneath. It seems more people are following Taker's lead and incorporating the cool, realistic submissions from the MMA world into pro wrestlng matches to keep things more interesting. Taker continues to be a step ahead of everyone in that regard.
Batista needed a win over Taker to prevent having his image cemented as being the Rich Franklin to Undertaker's Andreson Silva - someone who just isn't at Taker's level. It also helps establish Batista as a strong WM main eventer against Triple H if they go that direction, with Taker's legendary status safe despite the job on PPV.
The Cyber Sunday format was handled about as well as could be. It's an off-brand, in-between PPV, so it needs to have a "hook" that sets it apart from the established PPV brands it falls between. More and more, though, with the tri-branded format, WWE PPVs are just a string of interchangeable events that happen to have unique names (other than WrestleMania and Royal Rumble).
Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton wrestled like they were third from the top and saving their best stuff for a later time. The finish left fans unhappy, but what other option was there? Michaels isn't keen on doing jobs, especially shortly after doing WWE a favor by returning sooner than planned due to the John Cena injury. But WWE isn't going to want Orton, a younger, full-time centerpiece heel, to job to Michaels and lose his title this early in his reign. They placed the match in the right spot on the card given the tough circumstances. The clean finishes in the subsequent two matches made up for it. I would have eliminated the Kane-MVP countout, though, just so the fans weren't as irritated as they were by the time the Michaels-Orton finish sunk in.
The undercard was passable, but nothing stood out. No Match of the Year contenders on the show, but the final two matches made it a satisfying event worthy of a replay purchase, but it came up short of qualifying as a must-see show.
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