WWE Cyber Sunday 2008 Review

With a pretty tepid build up I wasn’t expecting much from Cyber Sunday. I do like the concept behind Cyber Sunday and enjoy the fact that we now have distinct events outside the big four like One Night Stand being a show of hardcore matches and this show having a card full of matches which fans get to vote on but I don’t think the WWE have really delivered on the potential of this event.

Good Points

Evan Bourne on PPV

It was great to see Evan winning the vote to challenge for the ECW title and then put on a brilliant match with Matt Hardy. This was my favourite match on the card and I hope it will be the start of a great push for Evan as I think he would make a good ECW champion or could revitalise a cruiserweight division on Raw or Smackown.

Santino is comedy gold

Santino did a great job with the Honky Tonk man and provided some great comedy moments in his match which saw Piper and Goldust get involved. Santino showed that it’s not about winning or losing it’s about entertaining.

Bad Points

Changing for change sakes

Putting Batista as champion for me just smacked of just making a change for change sake. Now things always need freshening up but that doesn’t mean you have to change the champion to do it. Just as Jericho had established himself as the champion to have him give it up made no sense.

Killing Jeff Hardy

Jeff Hardy as predicted got voted in to the title match against HHH but again he was made to lose clean. The fans love Jeff Hardy and he moves a lot of merchandise but the creative team aren’t ready to trust him with the ball and the Smackdown brand is getting very stale with HHH consistently winning clean against Hardy. To save Hardy’s position they should have had Kozlov coming down and costing him the match so then that would have built a good triple threat match for Survivor Series.

John Cena’s return

The event was used to push John Cena’s return at Survivor Series. Now it makes great sense to promote the next PPV whilst people are watching a PPV but to promote it so heavily that the show you have paid for looks like a commercial for the next PPV is wrong. The most important thing on the PPV should be making the show they are watching the best it can be and not promoting the next PPV. If a PPV is really good people will buy the next one regardless of promotion.

Overall

CM Punk was the main face of the promotion and WWE didn’t even use him and then put on a below standard show with very few highlights was very disappointing. Hopefully things will pick up for Survivor Series with all the promotion they are putting in to it.

After a below standard Raw I was hoping Smackdown could provide some light at the end of a dismal week to get us hyped for Cyber Sunday. With a huge main event I was interested to see what the show was going to be like.

Good Points

Main Event Push

I thought it was great that they made the main event HHH vs. Undertaker as that is a huge match that gets people interested and it provided scope for various run ins as these two are in separate matches at Cyber Sunday. The match was one of the longest Smackdown main events in some time and although the ending was predictable it did what it needed to do for Cyber Sunday.

Use of Primo and Carlito

It’s great to see WWE really pushing this team. Carlito has had to put up with a lot over the last few years but this brother tag team was worth the wait. They scored a good win over Chavo Guerrero and Bam Neeley as well as getting some backstage segments of them goofing around. With these two at the helm Smackdown could have a good tag division again.

Bad Points

Jeff left out in the cold

I think WWE are really trying to get people to vote for Kozlov as they are really going out of their way to push Jeff to one side. Jeff is such a fan favourite I don’t think it matters but this week to open the show he was pedigreed by HHH and then didn’t get involved in the run ins at the end of the main event or have his own match on the card.

Khali Kissing segment

This is cringeworthy TV and a reason why people are scared to tell their friends that they are wrestling fans. I hope this idea gets killed really quickly as at the moment it is just more ammunition for the anti wrestling brigade.

Overall

A much more exciting show than Raw although that wasn’t hard. Had some lulls during the show and maybe had some of the wrongs guys used for matches but the right stuff got pushed and the ending was effective.

WWE Raw Review - 20th October 2008

With one week left to go to Cyber Sunday it was time for the Raw brand to put the final parts in the storylines together for their matches at the PPV.

Good Points

Nice build for Main Event

The creative team did a good job of building Jericho vs. Batista with both getting mic time in the ring and then both of them participating in the evenings main event. Mike Adamle put them both in gauntlet matches which gave the fans a chance to see and predict who they thought would come out on top this Sunday. If you are judging by what happened on Raw you would have to make Batista the favourite this Sunday.

Great Santino Segment

Santino came to the ring to deliver a promo dressed as a mixture of all three of his possible opponents this Sunday at Cyber Sunday. I enjoy Santino’s comedic work so he had me in stitches and although I am no Jim Duggan fan it was good to have him involved in the segment.

Bad Points

The return of Snitsky

Just when you think the WWE have gotten rid of Snitsky as you haven’t seen him for ages he comes back only to be used to lose in a throwaway match. This week it was a loss to Rey Mysterio. So I except to be writing the same sort of comment in a couple of months time.

Cryme Time / 2nd Generation feud

I like this feud but what they did for it on Raw was shocking. Their match was thrown out before it even started as Manu got involved in a three on two beat down which last a couple of minutes and then that was it. Didn’t do anything to inspire or get me interested.

Overall

Not the most exciting Raw ever and really missed Randy Orton and Michaels who I thought would put in an appearance as they are involved in the voting for the main event at Cyber Sunday. Maybe this all a ploy by WWE to make their shows boring so that people crave John Cena’s return more.

WWE Smackdown Review - Friday 17th October 2008

After a fairly poor Raw I was looking forward to see what the Smackdown crew were going to produce this week. With viewing ratings being considerably low even by Smackdown’s standards since the switch to MyNetworkTV would WWE be working hard to get those ratings back.

Good Points

Undertaker on Smackdown

It was good to see Undertaker in ring action this week against Khali. The match kept his feud with the Big Show going nicely as it gave Big Show the chance to interfere only for The Undertaker to get the last laugh. Next week’s main event is Undertaker vs. HHH which could be the biggest main event in Smackdown history and is being hyped as such.

Nice title feud

Slingshotting Kozlov to the top has added some extra spice to the title scene. Now we have Jeff Hardy the fans favourite wanting another crack at the belt but then we have Kolov the guy that the fans hate but seems to be an unstoppable force at the moment.

Bad Points

Kizarny

Two vignettes were played for this new character which reminded me a bit of Michael PS Hayes back in the day. His character a make up wearing either Carnival worker of Carnival enthusiast didn’t do much for me. When I see characters like this it gives me awful memories of WWE in 1992/1993 with characters like Papa Shango an Doink.

Another John Cena video

Ok I understand the WWE promoting John Cena on Raw but we don’t need it on Samckdown as well where he isn’t on the roster. Also WWE seem to be playing the same two videos over and over again. If it was a new video every week I could understand but it is getting a bit repetitive now.

Overall

A great episode of Samckdown two great main event feuds which should deliver at Cyber Sunday, can’t wait for next week’s episode.

WWE Raw Review - 13th October 2008

With Cyber Sunday getting ever closer it was going to be interesting to see what matches and storylines WWE were going to add and work on this week.

Good Points

Good Build for Batista vs. Jericho

They actually did a good job of developing the feud this week. Jericho and Batista were given the chance to pick opponents for each other to face on Raw so Jericho picked Michaels for Batista and Batista picked CM Punk for Jericho putting himself as the referee. I like the Cyber Sunday gimmick for this one with the fans being able to pick the referee as it keeps Michaels involved in the storyline as he is one of the options.

John Cena video

Another John Cena video again this week to keep his name around. I like them as they are doing a good job of trying to show John Cena’s passion for the sport and to win over his detractors although they have to be careful not to over do the videos too much.

Bad Points

Jackass Crew

Now I understand the idea behind getting outside celebrities involved in wrestling storylines to help generate a buzz but I think with Jackass that their popularity is on the decline so they have missed the boat with this one. Also the section they featured in was an absolute mess with everyman and his dog getting involved when it should have just been about developing their feud with Khali.

Poor storyline development

Besides the main event nothing else was really developed on the Raw side of the card for Cyber Sunday Mysterio tagged again with Matt Hardy, JBL wrestled against Charlie Haas and Cryme Time had a throwaway match against the Miz and Morrison.

Overall

As a two hour TV show I don’t think it would have entertained the casual fan. I know Cyber Sunday isn’t a big PPV in the WWE calendar but they still need to do more than what they are doing to hype it and get fans interested.