ProWrestlingViews.com

Archive for the ‘No Way Out’ Category

The Jericho-Michaels feud has been money for WWE ever since it began in earnest, just after WrestleMania last spring. Several Match of the Year candidates have sprung out of this feud, and placing the strap on Jericho at the last PPV makes tonight’s match mean even more.

Neither Jericho nor Michaels have ever needed alcohol rehab, to the best of my knowledge, nor have they ever checked into a drug treatment center, and that’s great since it means they had very clear minds going into tonight’s 22-minute marathon main event match, which is a Michaels specialty stip: a ladder match.

Like most ladder matches, this one was full of great high-spots, holy crap moments and near-finishes. After all these months of feuding with Jericho only rarely getting the upper hand, the big win here means a lot more in solidifying Jericho’s claim on the title than it would have meant if not for the six-month-plus build-up of this top-notch feud by two exciting in-ring performers.

Here’s hoping Jericho moves on to a new feud now for a while, to begin a build-up to a potential WrestleMania main event match… perhaps against Michaels. But if they keep harping at this feud every PPV, it’ll be stale by the time the next WrestleMania rolls around.

That’s it for my No Mercy 2008 coverage! Stay tuned for other news and notes between now and the next PPV, which by the way is one of my favorites: Cyber Sunday 2008!

WINNER: Chris Jericho retains the World Heavyweight Title

RATING: 9.0 (out of 10)

Boy, take some time off and the wrestling landscape sure can change.

For the past 10 days or so, my entries have been few and far between because my PC died, I had to buy another one, and then had to get the new PC up to speed. Long story short, I was not at my usual keyboard when No Way Out aired.

In retrospect, it was a bit of a ho-hum, paint-by-numbers PPV. Having Chavo Guerrero defeat CM Punk as the openinig match was further evidence that WWE doesn’t know what to do with ECW now that Heyman’s long gone and his influence is no longer anywhere to be seen.

The introduction of the Big Show-Floyd Merriweather tilt at WrestleMania was strong enough to get some real-world sports media buzz outside of traditional wrestling circles, though the match promises to be tough on both men’s posture correction. And Raw’s ratings are back up in the 4.0 range last week, a good sign for the biz.

I thought the Cena-Orton nonfinish was ho-hum, while the Elimination Chamber all-too-predictably put Triple H over the top. With all the new blood in the Raw picture, going with the “safe” WrestleMania booking of Triple H – Orton or Triple H – Cena, or a triple threat between all three is just too predictable and boring. But, like McCain vs. Obama, it now seems inevitable.

But the best news remains this: I’m not sitting behind a 3GB RAM, 4400+ Intel Core2 Duo, 500GB HD, Acer Aspire; I’m ready for the next big thing, and I don’t mean Brock Lesnar.

Despite a lot of story elements necessary to build hype for the last PPV event before Wrestlemania, namely No Way Out, if anyone had a checking account, this was not a week to bank on Raw ratings as the show offered up few matches that lasted longer than three minutes.

A lot of squashes and in-ring segments filled much of the broadcast, and while the Hornswaggle-McMahon ass-kissing/biting segment was entertaining in a juvenile way typical of the Fed, much of the night was wasted time that did nothing to promote the in-ring abilities of most of the performers.

A notable exception was the six-man tag match that served as the show’s denouement, involving Jeff Hardy, Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels against Snitsky, JBL and Umaga. That match went 16 minutes, highlighted everyone, and was genuinely entertaining.

The rest of the show? Well, let’s just say it left a lot of its game on the bench this week.