IT WAS a mad idea, but I did it anyway – WWE’s Wrestlemania Revenge tour was bringing both the Raw and Smackdown brands to Australia in April and, as luck would have it, I had the opportunity to see both.
Raw was playing at the Sydney Superdome on Saturday, April 9, then Smackdown was on at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre the next night.
I knew friends were planning to go to the Adelaide show so it seemed logical – to me anyway – to attend the Sydney card, then fly to Adelaide the next day and watch Smackdown, too.
Which is what I did.
RAW on Saturday was good although I really only went to see the main event – new world champ Batista teaming with one of my heroes Chris Benoit against Triple H and the MAN, “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.
Anyway, I got to the Superdome and WWE claimed this was a sell-out crowd, but there were a reasonable number of empty seats. Still, it was packed with 10,000+ rabid rasslin’ fans.
The crowd was hot for everything as the show began and La Resistance got a lot of heat for interrupting Lillian Garcia as she sang the Australian National Anthem. Tajiri and Regal received thunderous applause and the crowd loved this match, even though it was a standard, by-the-books tag match. Regal won with a knee to the head of one of the La Resistance guys (sorry I can’t tell ’em apart).
WWE then tried to put the crowd to sleep with Tyson Tomko vs Hurricane and “Masterpiece” Chris Masters vs Val Venis. The latter even got the first “boring” chants of the night 'cos a) no-one’s cared about Val Venis since 1999, b) Masters’ gimmick sucks (and his body isn’t particularly spectacular next to the likes of Batista and Tomko) and c) Masters stinks in the ring. Tomko won with a boot to the head and Masters won with a full nelson, respectively.
The women’s match was next and I have to ask: what does Christy Hemme bring to the table? She can’t act, she’s not very pretty, her body’s no better than Trish Stratus or Stacy Keibler, she’s a charisma-free zone, she can’t wrestle and, after this night, I can tell you she can’t referee a match either.
This was pretty ordinary. Molly tried and Victoria’s OK, but the crowd really didn't give a hoot about it. More “boring” chants and they barely went five minutes. Sad. Christy nearly botched a near-three count, making the crowd believe she’d screwed Victoria at one point. Victoria won with whatever her wrestling finisher is, then celebrated with that scrawny waste of space.
Shelton Benjamin beat Christian (w/- Tomko) with his snazzy suplex thingy in just under 20 minutes. This was a great comedy bout but with solid wrestling thrown in as well. Actually, it was the best match of the night – Christian was awesome and Benjamin kept up with him step for step. These two really got the crowd back into the show.
After intermission, Muhammad Hassan beat Chris Jericho with a roll-up after Y2J had his manager Khosrow Daivari in the Walls Of Jericho. The match was OK. Lots of heat for this one and Jericho was way over with the crowd.
The only surprise result of the night for me was Kane beating Edge in a so-so match. I thought they would’ve kept Edge strong as he’s supposedly a world title contender, but I thought wrong. Both guys were over with the crowd and there seemed to be some confusion as to who was the heel in this match. The crowd didn’t want to boo Edge while Kane goofed round a bit but still played a monster heel.
It was time for the tag match everyone had been waiting for and, thankfully, it delivered.
The main event went nearly 30 minutes and mixed a lot of comedy – with four Flair face-first flops and even a Triple H flop as well – along with some serious wrestling. Flair came out to a big pop, followed by Hunter with a bigger pop. Benoit's pop was bigger again, then...how much bigger could the champ’s pop be?
Pause.
Suddenly, his music hits, Batista comes out and the place comes unglued. It’s the biggest pop I can recall for a WWE wrestler since they started touring Oz regularly in 2002.
Everyone but Batista did mike work and Triple H played comedian much to the crowd's delight. Yep, race-baiting and homophobia IS hilarious, eh readers?
Some early parts of the bout itself didn't work for me or the crowd. Hunter and Batista did several tests of strength that the crowd hated 'cos they just wanted to see Batista destroy Hunter. They didn't like seeing him overpowered (even if it was only temporarily).
Eventually, it settled into a pattern of Benoit doing an ungodly amount of selling until he eventually hit the hot tag to Batista.
The ref got bumped and Triple H hit the pedigree to get the visionary fall, then Hunter threw Benoit out of the ring like he was garbage.
But it gave time for Batista to recover and, after some more shenanigans, he hit the Batista-bomb on Hunter for the pin.
Yeah, it wasn’t the greatest bout or the greatest live card I’ve seen, but at least I got to see Benoit and Flair chop the hell out of each other in a WWE main event, which means I was a happy lil’ camper.
RESULTS: 9/4/2005 Sydney (WWE Raw - 10,000+): World Tag Titles: Tajiri & William Regal b La Resistance, Tyson Tomko b Hurricane, Chris Masters b Val Venis, Victoria b Molly Holly, IC Title: Shelton Benjamin b Christian, Muhammad Hassan b Chris Jericho, Kane b Edge, Batista & Chris Benoit b Ric Flair & Triple H.
I flew to Adelaide the next morning and caught up with Kami, Diane and their nine-year-old daughter Beth. All three are recent WWE converts and big fans of the wrestling.
We got to the building that evening and it was close to a full house. The punters were even more rabid than Sydney fans, probably ’cos it was Adelaide’s first WWE/WWF event in 20 years. Even Hardcore Holly and Mark Jindrak were over with the fans, that’s how starved they are for WWE wrestling in Adelaide.
The opening tag match of Holly and Charlie Haas vs the Basham brothers was average – in fact, similar in style to the opening tag match in Sydney, but the crowd lapped it up. Holly won with his Alabama jam (which ain’t a patch on the Alabama jam legdrop from the top rope Bobby Eaton used to do in the NWA).
The cruiserweight match ran for only seven minutes – which is a shame – but the fans got to see Scotty’s “worm” and a couple of big moves from London before he pinned Spike with the 450 splash. London’s hottest move (and the hottest move I saw over two nights of WWE wrestling) was a combination dropkick on Funaki followed by a moonsault on Spike in one fluid movement. Spectacular.
Rene Dupree has improved a lot as a wrestler – he’s a regular bump machine and made the match with Jindrak bearable. He won by hitting Jindrak with the snake eyes on an exposed turnbuckle.
The tag title match of champs Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio Jnr vs Kurt Angle and Luther Reigns went 20+ minutes but dragged early on due to lots of long headlocks that even had parts of the crowd chanting “boring”. The pace picked up when Eddie and Kurt did some comedy, then everyone got going in the final five minutes and it turned into a good match before Rey hit the 619 on Kurt, followed by Eddie's frog splash for the pin. Luther sucked, but the other three guys worked hard for the most part.
Torrie Wilson vs Dawn Marie was brief but awful and only served the purpose of allowing Carlito to come to the ring and cut a funny promo. Torrie won but nobody cared.
Everyone then got chased from the ring by Heidenreich, who’s beyond awful.
Booker T cleaned him up pretty quick with a sloppy axe kick and it would seem to me that WWE has given up on Heidenreich’s push. Good.
The main event of new WWE heavyweight champ John Cena and the Big Show vs US champ Orlando Jordan and JBL went for 15 minutes and was entertaining considering who was in it. To be fair to JBL, he was quite hilarious on the microphone.
It was another typical tag match these four have been doing all over the world, with Cena pinning JBL with the FU. Big Show fell out of the ring prior to this and seemed to have hurt himself, but I suspect it was another of road manager Fit Finlay’s “little jokes” on the fans. I gather there were also “fake injuries” done at the other Smackdown cards held in Australia. I’m not sure why Finlay keeps doing it, but as long as it makes him happy…
Afterwards, Cena gave a great speech to end the card – he came off as a nice guy, even though his homie schtick rings false with me. The crowd loved him.
Overall, this was a good card and probably slightly better than the Raw card from Sydney, just ’cos I was with three other wrestling fans and, overall, the Adelaide crowd seemed much more into every match.
RESULTS: 10/4 Adelaide (WWE Smackdown - 9500): Hardcore Holly & Charlie Haas b Basham Brothers, Cruiserweight Title Fatal Four-way: Paul London b Spike Dudley, Scotty 2 Hotty & Funaki, Rene Dupree b Mark Jindrak, WWE Tag Titles: Rey Mysterio Jnr & Eddie Guerrero b Kurt Angle & Luther Reigns, Torrie Wilson b Dawn Marie, Booker T b Heidenreich, John Cena & Big Show b JBL & Orlando Jordan.
So…would I do the double-header again if both brands tour Australia next year?
Hmmm…I’ll see how my bank balance looks first.
