Highly Overrated But Still Good

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Blistering performances.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

First Match: Garrison Cade and Jonathan Coachman vs Tajiri and Rhyno. It's pretty ballsy to put a match made literally an hour before the show starts as the opener, but the crowd was surprisingly into it. A straight-forward tag team match, but a good way to start the night. Rating: 3/5 Second Match: Chris Jericho vs Batista. I miss when Jericho used to wear actual pants for his matches. They were really trying to get Batista over as more than just a wall of muscle, and pitting him against Jericho was a good idea. Batista does put out a good match, and doesn't get out-wrestled by a technical guy as is usually the case with "powerhouse vs technician" matches. Rating: 3/5 Third Match: La Résistance vs Ric Flair and Eugene, World Tag Team Championships. Let me just say right off the bat that I hate Eugene. Eugene is the worst gimmick I have ever seen in all my years of watching wrestling. How they managed to get away with it back then is beyond me. However, as far as a Eugene match goes, it's not bad. I say that mostly because of Flair's reactions, and La Résistance being punching bags. Not a bad match, but an OK one. Rating: 3/5 Fourth Match: Matt Hardy vs Kane, No DQ match. The story going into this was ridiculous, however, I will always say that a good match can make up for a bad story. It's certainly not the worst story I've witnessed, even though they play it dead serious. The match is good for what it is, even though it's essentially what I call a "reality-check match", meaning that even though one guy should have an advantage over a monster because there are no rules, he still can't mount an offense. While straight-forward, it is pretty hard hitting, and I thought Matt winning was a surprise. Rating: 3.5/5 Fifth Match: Randy Orton vs Edge, Intercontinental Championship. Ladies and gentleman, I give you a prime example of why your match should never revolve around rest holds. Holy cow this match is boring. Even though both Orton and Edge are physically talented wrestlers, for some reason 2/3 of the match is rest holds. Not counter-wrestling like a Benoit/Angle match, but literally "dead-stop-to-momentum" rest holds. Do you know how many "Boring!" chants I agree with? So far two, and this is one of them. The last third of the match picks up the action but it goes so slow from the beginning that it almost doesn't matter. Imagine an Iron Man match where the first 40 minutes are just headlocks. Sounds boring right? That's essentially what this match is. Rating: 1.5/5 Sixth Match: Victoria vs Molly Holly, #1 Contender's match for the WWE Women's Championship. The match is nothing special, but a breath of fresh air compared to the borefest that came before it. Also Victoria hits an amazing super-kick that almost takes Molly's head off. Rating: 3/5Seventh Match: Chris Benoit vs HHH, World Heavyweight Championship. Benoit was still riding his amazing wave of success since the Royal Rumble, which is great to see. He also takes a hell of a beating at the hands of HHH, but manages to stay in the match thanks to his technical skill. The match does drag towards the end thanks to Eugene, but Benoit does win, so I won't hold it against the match that much. Not the best match of either men's career but some great one-on-one wresting for the majority of it. Rating: 4/5 Final Rating: 6 out of 10, an OK show that's leaps and bounds above the PPV that came before it. To get the full enjoyment out of it, just skip the Orton/Edge match.R.I.P. Chris Benoit

This was just a solid PPV Raw event FIRST MATCH- RHYNO & TAJIRI VS. JONATHAN COACHMAN & GARRISON CADE Even though this wasn't really a good tag team match which did not reach my expectations, it was great to see Rhyno & Tajiri pull out the great victory over the two losers from Raw which are Garrison Cade & Jonathan Coachman. 3/10 SECOND MATCH- BATISTA VS. CHRIS JERICHO I thought this was going to be a squash but it turned out okay. Still not a good match. Batista wins after nailing a Sit-Down Powerbomb on Jericho & pinning him to a 3 count as the referee did not see Jericho's foot on the rope. 3/10 THIRD MATCH- LA RESISTANCE VS. RIC FLAIR & EUGENE FOR THE WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP Now seriously this tag team match is just a big sucker. Eugene & Ric Flair seriously have no great chemistry in the ring together & this match is just boring. La Resistance retains their titles by disqualification after Eugene came & wouldn't stop pounding away on La Resistance which led to the DQ. 3/10 FOURTH MATCH- MATT HARDY VS. KANE IN A NO DISQUALIFICATION MATCH This match also was pretty boring but it was okay knowing to the fact that Matt Hardy made the match interesting. Matt hardy beats The Big Red Machine after Lita gives him a chair which he uses on Kane for the victory. 4/10 FIFTH MATCH- RANDY ORTON VS. EDGE FOR THE WWE INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP Thank you. Finally a good match which has got great action from both of these men. Even though the match took very long, both men tried everything to get a win out of each other, but Edge got the victory over Orton after a Spear to become the new WWE IC Champion. 6/10 SIXTH MATCH- VICTORIA VS. MOLLY HOLLY IN A NO. 1 CONTENDER MATCH Now I'm not really a fan of Diva matches as I said before, but this match was good. Victoria gets the victory after a Widow's Peak & becomes no. 1 contender for the WWE Women's title. 4/10 SEVENTH MATCH- TRIPLE H VS. CHRIS BENOIT FOR THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP At the start of the match HHH was dominating the most but Benoit was still able to fight it out with HHH & also nail a couple of his moves. Later on in the match the referee gets knocked out which leads to Eugene coming in the ring & getting a steel chair ordered by HHH. While Benoit knocks HHH down, Eugene & Benoit argue over the steel chair {As Benoit is trying to get rid of it}, Eugene accidentally hits the chair on HHH which leads to Benoit pinning him for a 3 count to retain his World Title. 5/10 Now I was a bit disappointed as this wasn't really that much of a good PPV event. Bad Blood {The previous Raw PPV event} was way better than this.Overall: I'll give it a 6/10 & a D+

The opening promo for this PPV promised "Triple H vs. Chris Benoit, one-on-one, NO DISTRACTIONS". It lied.1) Jonathan Coachman and Garrison Cade vs. Tajiri and Rhyno. Tajiri's fantastic kicks and Rhyno's boundless energy make this, arguably, the most enjoyable match of the night. These two RULED as a team - too bad Rhyno is no longer with the WWE. The company could use more "no bulls**t, down to business" guys like him. *** 2) Chris Jericho vs. Batista. An obvious mismatch. Batista applies two full nelsons (perhaps the only wrestling holds of the match), delivers a powerbomb and generally dominates his opponent rather easily. The "instant replay" at the end makes the referee look totally blind. ** 3) La Resistance vs. Ric Flair and Eugene (for the tag team title). Oh, look! Mr. Woooooooooo! and Mr. Unfunny Retard against the Stale-Gimmick-National-Anthem-Singing-Canadians. Aren't you excited? Woooooooooo! 0 4) Kane vs. Matt Hardy. No disqualifications. The match was too boring and routine to pay attention to, so I was thinking about Lita instead. Thinking how frustrating it must be for this woman to have worked so hard to be one of the very best at what she does, only to get wasted in a stupid, pathetic, insulting story like this "love triangle". *1/25) Randy Orton vs. Edge (for the intercontinental title). Orton must be one of the best actors in the business. I like his facial expressions and his cocky attitude. I also like his simple but expertly executed submission holds. The match, however, is too long (30 minutes) for what it has to offer. Mediocre most of the way, it does pick up some steam near the end. **1/26) Victoria vs. Molly Holly. After the EXCELLENT match Victoria had with Lita only a couple of months before, in "Backlash 2004", this is a major disappointment. Molly Holly looks ridiculous with that wig and has no audience pull whatsoever. What's more, Victoria hurts her left shoulder for real (I think) in the middle of the match, and it's obvious that she is unable to perform as well as she would like to (I still love her). But she does strike with an impressive (and great-sounding) kick for the finish. ** 7) Triple H vs. Chris Benoit (for the heavyweight title). For the first 20 minutes, this was better than I expected. Mostly technical in-ring wrestling, with a particularly focused HHH performance. In the last 10 minutes it turns into a real mess, as Eugene shows up, the ref gets knocked out and a steel chair is introduced to the mix. Putting Eugene in the main event and having him play such a major role in its outcome tells a lot about how seriously the WWE takes the second "W" in its name. **

Raw has been absolute gold this year. I saw a Raw House Show in May, in Manchester, and was highly impressed with the improvement in quality of the brand. Raw is far better than Smackdown at the moment and one need only compare the reviews for Backlash & Bad Blood against Judgment Day and the Great American Bash to see that. Backlash and Bad Blood were both very impressive, so I had reasonably high hopes for Vengeance considering the card that had been put together. Unfortunately, Vengeance was a disappointment compared to the other Raw brand PPVs of 2004. The matches were as follows: (*Spoilers*)Match 1: Tajiri & Rhyno vs The Coach and Lance "Garrison" Cade. The Vengeance card began with this unremarkable tag match that had been signed on Heat. I'm puzzled why Coach has wrestled on every Raw PPV this year. He bumps well, but he's not a wrestler. It's a little odd. The match itself wasn't great. It might look good live, but on TV it was quite boring up until the 'hot tag' to Rhyno. The former ECW alumni got the win when Tajiri misted Cade (who was subsequently Gored) and kicked Coach in the head for the pinfall. Good that Tajiri avenged his Backlash loss against Coach, but not much else to recommend about it.Match 2: Batista vs Chris Jericho. Dreadful match with the wrong result. Batista dominated Jericho for nearly the entire match with boring restholds (chinlocks, headlocks, sleepers, etc.) Jericho is used way too much to put other guys over. If Shawn Michaels and Chris Benoit can beat Batista, why not Jericho? He should've won this match; instead Batista gets an utterly pointless pinfall victory despite Jericho's foot being on the rope. I'm a fan of Jericho's, but this was possibly one of the worst matches of the night. Bad match, bad finish. A massive disappointment.Match 3: Eugene & Ric Flair vs La Resistance. Entertaining enough tag match with Eugene copying all of Flair's moves (chops, thumb to the eye, the strut, the "Flair Flop", etc.) An amusing enough encounter, but this does nothing to increase the credibility of Raw's tag division. Eugene gets his team DQ'd for bumping the ref. Match 4: Matt Hardy v1.0 vs Kane (No DQ). I can't believe WWE have gone back to these stupid soap opera story lines. I bet Stephanie McMahon has something to do with this plot. She wrote the atrocious Al Wilson/Dawn Marie saga of last year, and demanded that the Cruiserweight belt be put on Jacqueline. This storyline involving Lita and her "baby" is ridiculous, and I feel bad for Matt Hardy- a great wrestler with a terrific gimmick (the whole 'Version 1'/'Mattitude' thing), who is stuck in the middle of this feud with a guy who has not had a good match in ages. This match was quite poor and the only good thing was a) Matt Hardy was finally back on PPV and b) he won! albeit with interference from Lita. Lita prevented Kane hitting Matt w/ the steps so Matt blasted them into Kane's face w/ a chairshot for the pin. I hope Matt can step out of this awful feud and build a good niche for himself on Raw cos he has a good following.Match 5: Randy Orton vs Edge (Intercontinental Title match). Incredibly boring match up until the action at the end of the match. Orton used rest hold after rest hold and grinded the match to a snail's pace. Like the Batista match earlier, I would sum up this match with the same phrase- bad match, bad finish. In other words, the wrong guy "went over" again. Edge won with a Spear, ending Orton's reign as champion. (He held the belt since December of last year when he beat Rob Van Dam at Armageddon.) Edge should not have been the guy to, as it were, dethrone Orton. He brought a bit of class and credibility to the title and should have kept it til maybe Survivor Series to enjoy a long reign as Champion. Edge vs Orton may have sounded good on paper, but it was a slow tedious match for the most part.Match 6: Molly Holly vs Victoria. This match was for the #1 contender ship for the Women's title (currently held by an injured Trish Stratus, who has been a great heel of late.) This match (a rematch from WrestleMania XX) wasn't great. Molly & Victoria don't seem to have much chemistry in the ring, and while the match wasn't dreadful, I would've rather seen Gail Kim vs Molly or Victoria for a change. Victoria won with a kick to the face.Match 7: Chris Benoit vs Triple H. (World Title). Good match between these two. There was some excellent 'psychology' with Triple H working on Benoit's injured chest and this was (for the most part) a satisfying main event. Unfortunately, I felt the antics involving Eugene certainly took away from the match. The finish, (Benoit rolled up HHH after Eugene accidentally hit him in the head with a chair) was lame and was a disappointing end to an otherwise good match. OVERALL: Having bought this on pay-per-view, based on the strength of the card, I feel let down by Vengeance. It wasn't Kenzo Suzuki bad, but it was definitely a step back for Raw from a PPV point of view. Jericho should've beat Batista, and Orton should've beat Edge, so I was very disappointed by the overall booking for Vengeance. With results like this and another silly soap opera story, I'm beginning to question the strength of the writing on the Raw brand. I just hope they contribute well for SummerSlam, and that their next solo venture (No Mercy, I think) will be a hell of a lot better than this.