WWE Survivor Series 11/26/2006

Ric Flair, Sgt. Slaughter, Dusty Rhodes & Ron Simmons VS the Spirit Squad
- Ron Simmons was counted out.
- Nicky pinned Sgt. Slaughter after a spin kick from Johnny.
- Dusty Rhodes pinned Nicky with a Bionic Elbow Drop.
- Kenny pinned Rhodes with a school-boy.
- Flair pinned Mikey with his foot on the ropes.
- Flair pinned Kenny with an inside-cradle.
- Flair beat Johnny with the figure-four leglock.
I really have to agree with the fans when they chanted bullshit for Simmons getting counted out and Arn Anderson being ejected from the match barely a minute into it! Simmons was definitely still in fighting shape and showed his signature power moves like the snap powerslam and his trademark spinebuster. They should have just let Nicky submit to Slaughter’s Cobra Clutch and then let Johnny hit the kick to eliminate the legend. I was actually rooting for Johnny when he was the last man left with Flair in there. If I booked this, I would have just let the legends squash the Squad.
Match Rating: *

WWE US Championship: Chris Benoit [C] beat Chavo Guerrero with Vicky Guerrero with the Crippler Crossface to retain.
Great match as expected, just a little short. Give these two 20-minutes, and I guarantee they could steal the show.
Match Rating: **1/2

WWE Women’s Championship – Lita Retirement Match: Mickie James beat Lita [C] with the swinging DDT to win the title.
Not on par with Trish’s retirement match, but a great match which started out slow, and built to a great finish with a lot of near falls which won over the crowd. I was actually expecting Lita to kick out of Mickie’s DDT since Mickie kicked out of the moonsault.
Match Rating: ***

Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy & CM Punk beat Edge, Randy Orton, Johnny Nitro, Gregory Helms & Mike Knox
- HBK pinned Knox with Sweet Chin Music
- Punk beat Nitro by submission with the Anaconda Vice
- Matt Hardy pinned Gregory Helms after Jeff hit the Swanton
- HBK pinned Edge with Sweet Chin Music
- HHH pinned Orton with the Pedigree.
Usually I’d complain about a match like this that was technically a squash, but the heat for the face team was so off the charts that it just wouldn’t seem right if ANY of them got eliminated! Punk was over like mad with the Philadelphia crowd, and it was good to see him have a good showing, as well as the Hardys, as it almost seemed like DX sat back and let the youngsters shine, especially Punk.
Match Rating: ***1/2

First Blood Match: Mr. Kennedy beat the Undertaker when MVP hit ‘Taker with a chair.
This was mostly a big brawl as they both tried to bust each other open, and seemed more like they are setting up a face turn for Kennedy as MVP cost ‘Taker the match when he was aiming for Kennedy. Despite the loss, ‘Taker still gets his heat back by destroying Kennedy after the match, giving probably the sickest chair shot of the year before pounding him some more and finishing him with the Tombstone.
Match Rating: *

John Cena, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Bobby Lashley & Kane VS the Big Show, Test, Umaga, MVP & Finlay
- Umaga was disqualified.
- RVD pinned MVP with the Five Star Frog Splash.
- Test pinned RVD with the running boot.
- Sabu pinned Test with a swinging DDT.
- Big Show pinned Sabu with a chokeslam.
- Big Show pinned Kane with a chokeslam.
- Lashley pinned Finlay with a spear.
- John Cena pinned Big Show with the FU
Like the DX/Team RKO Survival match, this one had a lot of potential, but was just lazily booked in my opinion. WWE just seems to love to suck the wind out of the fans tonight when they would pop for some big encounters like Kane/Big Show and have it end it seconds. Sure it makes the fans want more, but when the interbrand PPVs are once every four months, you’d expect them to be a little more generous when interbrand matches take place.
Match Rating: **

World Heavyweight Title: Batista pinned King Booker [C] after hitting him with the title belt to win the title.
I gotta agree with JBL when he said Booker’s reign shouldn’t have ended like this. It would have been better for Booker to kick out from the belt shot and get finished with the Batista-bomb for a more convincing loss. It also would have helped if they made it one of those matches with back and forth near falls leading up to the finish considering the addition Booker loses the title if he gets counted out or disqualified rule. Batista for his part did all he could to keep up with Booker, pulling out some new offense like a scrapbuster and a diving shoulder block off the top rope. Good match overall, but rather slow and they could have done better.
Match Rating: **1/2

Overall: The thing I dreaded the most came to pass as far as the Survivor matches went. Those matches had potential to be really entertaining, but WWE instead went with the quick-kill route with all the survival matches, and wasted a lot of time with out of ring stuff like Cryme Tyme selling Lita’s garments after her match and the Batista interview where he didn’t say anything and the crowd actually booed it. Basically once again a WWE PPV that had potential was ruined by bad/lazy booking.

TNA Genesis 11/19/2006

Handicap Match: The Voodoo Kin Mafia (BG James & Kip James) beat Kazarian, Maverick Matt & Johnny Devine when Kip pinned Devine with the cobra-clutch slam.
Yeah, let’s squash the cool looking cruiserweight team and mention the competition at the same time to get yourselves over, or is that to get noticed by the competition?
Match Rating: DUD

Ugh. As much as I like seeing Raven in the obvious mentor role to the 3 cruiserweights, this is obviously a rip off of All Japan Pro Wrestling’s Voodoo Murders faction! Oh well, at least Raven isn’t wearing a skirt anymore. Hopefully…

The Newly Franchised Naturals with Shane Douglas beat Sonjay Dutt & Jay Lethal
Boring. At least it wasn’t a squash match.
Match Rating: *

X-Division Championship: Christopher Daniels [C] pinned Chris Sabin with a modified cradle.
Great match, but what’s with all the X-Division title matches ending with cradle-pins?
Match Rating: ***1/2

Ron Killings & Lance Hoyt beat Austin Starr & Alex Shelley when Hoyt pinned Shelley with a cradle.
Ron Killings is a former WWE worker and a 2-time NWA champion, and the first black NWA champion at that. You don’t see him pulling a squash match on the new blood here now do ya? And Hoyt just looks goofy trying to act hip hop and dance along to Killings. Is it so wrong for TNA to have a big powerhouse wrestler that’s a face instead of a heel?
This match was just too long for it’s own good.
Match Rating: *

Christian Cage pinned AJ Styles
Styles carried Christian to the best non-gimmicked match of Christian’s TNA career. Too bad it had to be a screwy finish with Daniels trying to help Styles but ends up unintentionally costing him the match. The Styles heel turn should be good for a change.
Match Rating: ***1/2

NWA World Tag Team Titles: The Latin American Exchange [C] with Konnan beat America’s Most Wanted with Gail Kim when Hernandez pinned Storm after Homicide clobbered Storm with a blow-torch.
Great match, almost on par with the LAX/Styles-Daniels tag matches.
Match: ***1/2

Post match, Jim Cornette strips LAX of the tag titles, citing that they aren’t fit to represent TNA as the tag champs due to their actions of threatening to burn the American flag. The crowd is NOT happy with Cornette’s decision.

NWA World Heavyweight Title: Abyss beat Sting [C] by disqualification to win the title when Sting clothelined the referee.
This was a really good match thanks mostly to Abyss’ toy box of thumbtacks and barb-wire boards. Who the heck ever expected Sting to take a chokeslam onto thumbtacks?!? The match took a turn for the absurd when Sting strung up Abyss and used him for a piñata, Sting losing the title by disqualification when he clotheslined the referee for trying to stop him from tossing Abyss off the ramp through a pair of barb-wire boards, which he did anyway. So does this mean Sting is leaving TNA unscathed?
Match Rating: ***1/2

Kurt Angle beat Samoa Joe by submission with the grapevine ankle-lock.
As high as the expectations for this match were, and it was a good match, I didn’t think it was all that great. They just seemed to rush the high impact stuff too much too soon, and I don’t really feel like they built anything in the match. Angle bleeds, Joe brutalizes him, both men kick out of their finishers, both men trade submissions, and Angle-locks on the ground ankle-lock for the win. And Angle didn’t sell any effect from Joe’s Kokina Clutch too. At least Scott Steiner could actually sell for Joe, and I thought that match was better than this one. I know these two can do better, and hopefully they do when the eventual rematch comes around.
Match Rating: ***1/2

Overall: The show got good once they got past all the pointless filler matches.

WWE Cyber Sunday 11/05/2006

Umaga beat Kane with the Samoan Spike
Kane – 49%
Chris Benoit – 23%
Sandman – 28%
This was a really physical match, and one of the best match between the two yet, but could it have hurt WWE to let Kane actually get a few moves in other than punches and kicks? One back suplex was all Kane got in whereas Umaga had a belly-to-belly, a Samoan Drop, a diving headbutt, and others. Umaga technically won the match clean, when he countered a diving clothesline from Kane with the Samoan Spike followed by another one for the win.
Match Rating: **

Texas Tornado Match: Cryme Tyme beat Viscera & Charlie Haas, the Highlanders & Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch
Texas Tornado – 50%
Tag Team Turmoil – 35%
Fatal Four-Way – 15%
Fun match with a lot of non-stop action due to the amount of humanity involved. The match felt a bit short, but all the teams did what they could with the time given and they all looked good. Cryme Tyme was able to steal the win when they pinned Robbie after Cade Murdoch hit their tandem finisher.
Match Rating: **1/2

WWE Intercontinental Title: Jeff Hardy beat Carlito with the Swanton Bomb.
Carlito – 62%
Shelton Benjamin – 25%
Johnny Nitro – 13%
Despite a sloppy start with both men messing up their timing, and a rather slow pace, this turned out to be a really good back and forth title match. They did lose the crowd a bit in the middle when Carlito went for too many rest-holds, but rebounded from that with a good back and forth sprint of big moves and near falls. Jeff Hardy really has looked the best of his career, and even added a few new moves to his arsenal, like the Slingblade (swinging sleeper slam) and the sit-out gordbuster! Carlito took a hard bump landing on his head when Hardy countered a top-rope hurricanrana and hit the Swanton to retain his title.
Match Rating: ***3/4

Edge & Randy Orton beat D-Generation X when Orton pinned HHH with the RKO.
Special Referee: Eric Bischoff
Eric Bischoff – 60%
Jonathan Coachman – 20%
Vince McMahon – 20%
A good long tag match (about 20 minutes), but didn’t feel all to different from what we usually see on RAW. I don’t like that Orton’s RKO can put out anyone BUT Triple H, even if they did play up that it took a few seconds for the referee to get in the ring. Bischoff pulling out the other referee also made sense since he was the elected referee for the match, and HBK has only himself to blame for going after him, leading to HBK getting cracked with a chair by Edge, leading to HHH getting smacked by a chair and Orton hitting the RKO on the chair for the win.
Match Rating: **1/2

WWE Women’s Championship Tournament Finals – Diva Lumberjack Match: Lita beat Mickie James with the snap DDT to win the title.
No Disqualification Match – 40%
Diva Lumberjack Match – 46%
Submission – 14%
The crowd was DEAD for this one, and rather rightfully so since this was far from a good match. Mickie tried, but just couldn’t carry Lita like Trish can, and Lita just didn’t look motivated either. There were even a few blown spots, like Lita not being able to hold up Mickie for the swinging DDT that crashed in an ugly mess. Mickie gets distracted by Victoria & Melina leading to Lita hitting her DDT for the win.
Match Rating: *

World Tag Team Titles: Ric Flair & Rowdy Roddy Piper beat The Spirit Squad (Kenny & Mikey) [C] when Flair used the figure-four on Mikey.
Sgt. Slaughter – 19%
Rowdy Roddy Piper – 46%
Dusty Rhodes – 35%
I finally got one right! But I wished Piper had kept his shirt on as he’s way out of shape. Not a lot to the match, but Flair & Piper winning the belts was a big surprise. I guess now they’ll break up the Spirit Squad since they teased dissention among the Squad before the match, and during the match you could hear Kenny screaming at Mikey to make the tag, but he didn’t, and that lead to the finish where he tapped out to the figure-four.
Match Rating: *

Champion of Champions Match – World Heavyweight Championship: King Booker beat the Big Show and John Cena when he pinned Cena after hitting him with the world championship belt.
WWE Championship – 12%
World Heavyweight Championship – 67%
ECW Championship – 21%
I’m not sure how everyone based their decision for voting, but I voted for Show’s ECW title because I wanted to see the big man win it. Wouldn’t it also have made sense to have the Smackdown! and ECW commentary teams along to call the match since all 3 brands were being represented?
Well, I NEVER expected to see Kevin Federline get involved and costing Cena the match at the end. I also didn’t like that Big Show sat out most of the match, as he disappeared for just too long after that drop-toe-hold on the ring steps from Cena on the outside. But Show was working as hard as he ever has when he was in there. Cena & Booker had a great singles meeting in the ring when Show was out, and put out a solid match up. The fans were booing Cena when he had Booker in the STFU, but booed even more when K-Fed helped Booker retain his title! A rather interesting finish, and it builds anticipation for RAW as I guess we can expect to see K-Fed on the show again and whatever revenge Cena will have.
Match Rating: ***

Overall: There was a lot of sloppyness in just about all the matches. Match of the night would probably be the IC title match and the biggest disappointment probably being the Women’s Championship match. Once again the people have spoken, and once again I question their choices.