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A+ Match of the Day

With the Road to Wrestlemania 23 in full effect, they decided to headline a PPV with an impressive throwaway match pitting the eventual four opponents against each other. I was just starting to watch the product again because I got suckered into thinking they were going to give Shawn another run with the belt. And they should have because a rematch at Summerslam would have been money. Plus it just felt like the Wrestlemania 23 crowd wanted Shawn to go over. And Batista-Undertaker was one of the best power-on-power matches of this era. So putting all four of these guys in a tag match seemed like a good idea and that's some serious A+ talent in there.

Enjoy.

Comments

  1. They should not have given HBK a run with the belt, especially since he was out with injuries in May and didn't want to work a full schedule

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  2. He definitely should have won the title and dropped it back at the rematch in London.

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  3. Yeah, I'm fine with HBK not having a run with the belt. His renaissance was great, but he didn't need the belt and he didn't work house shows.
    I don't remember this match, but I do remember this timeframe and it was a pretty hot period, at least relatively. I miss Batista.

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  4. No way. No need to hotshot the belt, especially if Cena is just going to get the belt back three weeks later on free TV

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  5. I love these. They're a good way to make my work day go faster! Keep it up!

    I haven't seen this match before, either!

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  6. It makes for a better story and makes that feud way more memorable.

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  7. How so? Cena's one-year reign gets interrupted to give HBK a three week reign that no one remembers? It cheapens Wrestlemania and HBK's victory.


    Cena's one-year reign was tremendous and helped make him the undisputed guy in WWE. His injury just sucked, I would've loved to see how far his reign could've gone.

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  8. Cena was already getting stale at that point. Everyone wanted to see Shawn do it one more time. Title changes are always memorable, especially ones that happen in classic matches.

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  9. Cena wasn't getting stale, his reign was able to successfully continue until the injury.


    I loved how they kept throwing more and more at him and seeing him deliver each month, both kayfabe wise and from an entertainment perspective.


    There's no point in giving the belt to HBK if he's just gonna job it back to Cena in three weeks, that would just anger people more. Why not do the job at Backlash?


    Putting Cena over HBK clean on the biggest stage was a must and it helped add to Cena's legacy. Putting HBK over Cena for short-term nostalgia just for him to job the belt back wouldn't have gone anywhere. Look at how he bombed in 2002.

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  10. If Cena showed a few chinks in the armor along the way, he wouldn't be so hated now. And HBK winning the WHT in 2002 was awesome. No one except weird super Cena fans like you would have been angry.

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  11. As Bret Hart fan growing up, I always rooted against Michaels. I think WrestleMania 23 was the ONE time that I wanted him to win a WWF title match. Sure enough, that didn't happen.

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  12. I'm pretty sure he *did* work house shows for most of his comeback, just not at the beginning or the end of it. But from, like, 2004-2008 I'm pretty sure he was working the same schedule as everyone else.

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  13. Yeah, HBK did work house shows. He faced Ric Flair at a house show I went to in 2005, which was the last good house show I went to.

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  14. Should have won the title, yes, but dropping it back three weeks later to the guy he lost it to is pointless. Have him go on a nice little three or four month run, drop it to some heel transitional champion who could use the rub (Edge or Jericho would have been great for that) who loses it back to Cena, then you have a money rematch a Mania or two down the road where Shawn challenges Cena and is built up as "The one guy Cena can't beat"... until Cena beats him. Basically the same storyline they did with the Rock, only, you know, good.

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  15. HBK wining the title saw ratings instantly plummet and led to that awful match at Armageddon.


    Cena was already hated in 2007. The boos began in 2005 during his feuds with Jericho and Angle. Him being booed at live crowds really hasn't had much of a business impact, given he remains a tremendous draw with WWE's desired audience of children, who gobble up his merchandise.


    Also "weird super Cena fan?" Really? I was a fan of his year-long reign and I liked that WWE put time into making him the dominant face of the company. That's why his injury sucked.


    He needed the big win over HBK at Wrestlemania, just like how his win over HHH at Wrestlemania helped cement him.


    A three-week title reign by HBK doesn't accomplish anything but giving fans a feel good moment that instantly yanked away, cheapens both HBK and Cena and subsequently the world title. Giving Cena the win back on the London RAW also undercuts Backlash. Everybody wins.

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  16. Jericho wasn't in the company.


    Also, HBK wasn't going to start working a full schedule and he got injured and soon took time off in May for 5 months.

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  17. It makes for 50/50 booking where everybody comes off as a loser.

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  18. Not having the title for three weeks doesn't really count as a chink in the armor.

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  19. That's incredible to think about. That Cena was already stale by 2007 and six years later he's even more prominently featured with no signs of letting up. More power to the guy, it's just an interesting commentary on the company as a whole (and the lack of competition)

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  20. Ratings 4 weeks before HBK won the title: 3.7 3.4 3.5. 3.1
    4 weeks after: 3.7 3.4 3.3 3.3


    Yeah, ratings really plummeted. Also, wrestling is fake. Winning and losing a fake title doesn't cheapen anything if the angle and story is good.

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  21. They got the bump from the title switch. But 3.1 the week before, than 3.4, 3.3, 3.3.


    Not counting holidays, RAW would not have a 3.3 until September 12, 2005. I don't even remember when they drew consecutive 3.3s. That's bad.

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  22. You really going to compare Cena/Michaels to Kofi Kingston and Damien Sandow trading wins for 6 months?

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  23. It's more about losing in the main event of WM.

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  24. But the angle and story you created sucks. HBK wins the title at Wrestlemania only to just simply lose it back three weeks later?


    Cena had to be put over as the man on the biggest stage and that's what beating HBK accomplished. He needed a dominant title reign to showcase him and it did, as 2007 was probably when he had his best run.


    Doing a pointless title switch with HBK doesn't do anything.

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  25. But he just gets it back three weeks later.

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  26. Hey, who let Stevie Richards cover for Michael Cole?

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  27. Miss heel dickhead Batista. Great heel run

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  28. Did Foley and Rock trading the title hurt anything? No, because it was entertaining. Nobody cares about shit like length of title runs except for wrestling dorks. It doesn't matter.

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  29. I stand corrected.

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  30. All the hotshotting Russo did absolutely hurt the belt. CM Punk's 400+ day title reign was treated like a big deal for a reason

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  31. With whom did the Rock/Mankind feud hurt the image of the belt?

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  32. I said all the hotshotting Russo did, which began in 1999. Title changes mean less and less when they keep happening

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  33. Again, to whom? Because from what I can see, no one cares if a hot feud goes back with multiple title changes. I definitely liked Rock/Foley trading the belt three or four times in a month more than Cena's never ending run of vanilla comebacks.

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  34. I thought at the end it got absurd and by 1999 it was becoming overdone, especially with it going Taker-Austin->Foley->HHH->Vince->Vacant->HHH. That's from May to September.


    Look at when Russo tried it to an absurd level in 2000.


    When you're working overtime to establish Cena as the man in WWE, you don't job him at Wrestlemania only to give him the belt three weeks later.

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  35. And yeah, I don't really see it. Taker's was a failed run and an angle they had to abort, Foley was the defintion of a transitional champion and only happened because Ventura didn't want to award the belt to the heel, I had forgotten all about Vince's win, actually, but that set up the Six Pack Challenge and eventually the McMahon-Helmsley angle...which leads into Triple H being the fucking man in 2000 and the awesome Foley matches.

    "When you're working overtime to establish Cena as the man in WWE, you
    don't job him at Wrestlemania only to give him the belt three weeks
    later."


    Well, to each his own, but I would have enjoyed Michaels going over at WM much more myself, and would suggest that "working overtime to establish Cena as the man" was the problem in the first place.

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  36. Why? He's become a cash cow.

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  37. Yea, and good for the company to establish him as the center of the company, especially as they have successfully transitioned into PG further helping improve the company's image.


    His 2007 run was incredible

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  38. Good for the company, yes, shitty for the people who wanted entertaining television programming.



    And again, to each his own, but Cena's 2007 was immensely boring.

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  39. The Umaga feud, the series with HBK, dragging good matches out of Khali, the underrated Lashley match, and I enjoyed the Summerslam match with Orton. Just sucks he got injured before the Orton feud had a proper blowoff.

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  40. It doesn't cheapen anything if it's real, either. No one looks at football and gets irritated because a team that won last week lost this week, or because a 10-6 team wins the Superbowl.

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  41. I don't know why you're trying to convince me. Sure, they were decent to good matches, but I didn't particularly enjoy anything he did after going over Michaels because Super Cena was incredibly, irritatingly, boring and trite at that point. It was essentially the beginning of what we have now: a sterile, neutral, boring, mostly uninteresting corporate entity that pulls in so much money from corporate sponsorships and advertising that thinking about putting out an interesting and entertaining television show is, at best, a secondary concern.

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  42. Good match, but I didn't see a lot of taker / cena chemistry. Just sayin...

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  43. Porn-Peddling Jef VinsonNovember 11, 2013 at 10:09 PM

    That one lock of hair on Shawn's head is hanging on for dear life.

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