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Saturday Night’s Main Event Countdown: #35

The SmarK Rant for Saturday Night’s Main Event #35 – 08.18.07

Taped from Madison Square Garden.

Your hosts are Michael Cole, Jim Ross & JBL

Meanwhile, Vince confers with the Coach about who his illegitimate child might be, and Coach promises to investigate. This leads to an awkward reveal that Vince might actually be his father. Oh, we’re getting off to a grand start already, I see.

Batista & Kane v. Finlay & The Great Khali

Oh yay, the World champion Khali era. Kane pounds on Finlay to start and hits him with a sideslam for two, and Batista comes in with an elbow for two. Batista with a suplex to send Finlay to the floor and we take a break. Back with Khali working on Kane’s ribs, but he gets the hot tag to Batista. Bossman slam gets two on Finlay and Khali gets tied into the ropes. The midget gets abused as a result, and Batista spears and powerbombs Finlay to finish at 7:42. Not much to this one. **

Meanwhile, Vince is tripping out and sees his 80s self in a mirror. Yeah.

Meanwhile, MVP hangs out with Holyfield.

Vince McMahon and Coach join us to continue their hard-hitting investigation of Vince’s child. Eugene and Melina are eliminated as suspects after some goofy innuendo, and finally Steve Austin is unveiled as the final choice. Hey, he WAS adopted. Austin reminisces a bit about the times he could have been spending with Vince as a child, but then decides to just hit Vince in the nuts and stun Coach instead. Austin feels bad for abusing his potential long lost father and offers him a beer, but then gives him a stunner anyway. The whole storyline was a complete dead end (original plan Kennedy, eventual payoff Hornswoggle) but Vince getting repeatedly smashed in the junk is always entertaining TV and Austin can get any stupid shit over by sheer force of willpower.

John Cena v. Carlito

Man, they just kept trying to reheat Carlito even when Carlito himself had no interest in it. Cena chases him out of the ring and we quickly take a break. Back with Carlito in control, but Cena hits the Throwback and goes up with the guillotine legdrop before finishing quick with the STF at 4:19. Literally only 2:00 of this was actually shown. * Randy Orton lays him out with an RKO on a chair afterwards to build up the most boring Summerslam main event ever.

Boxing match: Evander Holyfield v. Matt Hardy

This was supposed to be Hardy v. MVP, but MVP backed out due to his legit heart problems (which were discovered as an indirect result of the Benoit investigation) and we get this freakshow instead. Michael Buffer as the ring announcer, declaring that MVP is “STRAIGHT UP BALLLLLLLIN” is worth your $9.99 right there. So Holyfield unsurprisingly destroys Matt in every way. I suspect that this boxing match might not be on the up-and-up. Matt makes it through the first round and MVP offers some unwanted coaching to Evander (I’m reminded of “You, Strawberry, hit a home run!”) until Holyfield has finally had enough and just knocks MVP out instead. This was goofy comedy right out of the 80s, but it was fun.

The Boogeyman & CM Punk v. Big Daddy V & John Morrison

So this was a real match. Morrison was ECW champion and looking to hold onto it long-term, but in another weird side-effect of Benoit’s death John got popped for steroids during the ensuing fallout and Punk ended up with the belt instead, kickstarting his career for good. Punk with a backslide on Morrison for two and a leg lariat for two. And we take a break. Back with Boogeyman consuming some worms for energy, but Big Daddy lays him out and pounds away in the corner. Blind charge misses and Punk gets the hot tag, hitting a springboard clothesline for two. Morrison blocks the bulldog for two, but Punk cradles for the pin at 6:15. *1/2

The Pulse

This show was decidedly light on wrestling to say the least, kind of a throwback to what Vince wanted the show to be in the 80s, and while it wasn’t terrible there’s nothing here you can’t skip in a heartbeat. No good matches and some stupid comedy is not exactly classic material.

Comments

  1. "Austin can't take bumps so he comes out and stuns people" were segments I absolutely hated from 03 to 07 but now I have kind of a nostalgic feeling for them. Probably because we are always talking about giving people stunners at work.

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  2. I liked the boxing match, as it was logical (Holyfield obviously having a huge advantage), then he showed remorse in the 2nd round, asking for the ref to stop it (He had no beef with Matt, and didn't wanna hurt him badly), while Matt showed heart by refusing to quit. Nice little stuff.

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  3. Surprised they paid the Buffer price tag for a Matt Hardy match, albeit a fun one. If someone nowadays suggested to Vince they get Buffer for a Mania main event, Vince would have a conniption.

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  4. Is there any more hated at the time booking decision that makes even more complete sense in hindsight than Edge's four minute bloody destruction of Matt Hardy at Summerslam 2005?

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  5. How did Hornswaggle become The Payoff Of Last Resort? I suppose his experience as a McMahon helped him land the GM gig?

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  6. Fink would be a great addition to the Mania main event. I dread hearing JBL making fun of him during the intros, though.

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  7. That's another thing. Jim Ross should call Mania. No JBL and Maggle.

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  8. They actually taped this show after RAW. I was there. Austin coming out was a total surprise and a great way to end the show.

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  9. Easy. The "illegitimate McMahon" angle was supposed to be huge and push him to the big time. I mean, the speculation went on for WEEKS of segments on TV. However, WWE finally realized that Kennedy was an often-injured schmuck who was only over because he had a unique ring entrance.

    But since they decided not to go with Kennedy he was replaced with a joke character like Hornswoggle. It was over in a month or so when it was revealed that Finlay was Hornswoggle's real dad.

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  10. Kennedy got nailed in the Signature Pharmacy scandal that saw a lot of the roster get Wellnessed.


    Finlay was revealed as his real dad in the build up to 24.

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  11. I wasn't watching during 2007, but these two SNME shows sound beyond terrible. Nothing makes sense. Every single match is a WTF moment. Khali and Finlay teaming in the main event program? Vince's child? Evander Holyfield? The Boogeyman? Viscera? What the hell is all of this? 2014 WWE is a billion times better than this.

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  12. Most boring Summerslam main event? This is the company that ran Undertaker v. Undertaker and Diesel v. Mabel in back to back years.

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  13. Oh yeah, the Wellness issue. Yet another reason why they gave up on Kennedy.


    The Finlay real dad thing was just a way to get out of the angle when it was clear that it was a dud. I mean, this was supposed to be a huge angle for WWE and all it turned out to be was a wacky comedy angle.

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  14. No kidding. Summerslam 2007 was actually the first Cena/Orton match so it was not only fresh, it was something of a dream bout --- at the time I was a bit surprised they didn't hold off on the match until a Wrestlemania. Cena/Orton delivered their usual competent 3-3.5 star match except it seemed a lot better at the time since it was the first time we'd seen it.

    In short, there have been several WAY worse Summerslam main events.

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  15. So how long was the taping? Did this go into the middle of the night?

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  16. I actually like Vince doing goofy Vince stuff. I think the Punk angle would have been a lot better with Vince rather than HHH taking over but we know that already. "Hey Phil! I can call ya Phil, right?"

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  17. It was a long night of wrestling. People were furious about HHH not returning but the Austin stuff more than made up for it.

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  18. Plus, I thought for sure that Orton was ending Cena's near year long reign, simply due to the fact that Cena beat everyone else. So I was very surprised that Cena won. (then stupid Kennedy ruined the whole title reign)

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  19. For being the two guys who were supposed to be the backbone of the company--the Stone Cold and Rock or Hogan and Savage, if you will--Cena and Orton has been such a huge failure as a match and rivalry. The Summerslam match was a terrible first outing for them because it was the typical, insta-main event build. They were at a loss for what to do, so they pulled the trigger on a dream match, but held back in the booking because it was also the first match of a feud cycle (meaning they still needed to get 2-3 more PPV main events out of it). If they wanted it to feel suitably epic, they should have started the feud 2 PPVs earlier and build to a big event blow-off. Or they could have gone all out and given us a memorable match, future shows be damned. Instead it was the usual conservative approach and we got an average Raw match at the head of what's supposed to be their 2nd biggest show.

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  20. Yeah, I actually dug the match. ***1/2 or so.

    Not their best match against each other, but a good one.

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  21. I moved away to college the weekend this show aired. Rather than go to the gym or go out and try to meet people/get laid, I stayed inside and watched this show live. I have made some poor choices in life.

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  22. World Champ Khali gave us the amazing promo around this time where he squeezed the air out of a basketball, leading to the Batista rebuttal that basketballs don't hold grudges.

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  23. I'm surprised at the level of dislike for Cena vs. Orton at Summerslam, I've always seen that as their best match.

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  24. What was the big deal with kennedy even before the drug stuff? He never struck me as anything great, nor something the wwe would want to push

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  25. At the time, Orton was built up VERY WELL for 4 months. But separate from that, Cena and Orton just have NO CHEMISTRY together.

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  26. "Meanwhile, Vince confers with the Coach about who his illegitimate child might be, and Coach promises to investigate. This leads to an awkward reveal that Vince might actually be his father. Oh, we’re getting off to a grand start already, I see."



    The MOST awkward was them hinting at HHH being Vince's son, with Hunter yelling "YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?" Vince responds, "YES I KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS." (Back when they weren't OBVIOUS about the fact that Hunter and Stephanie were married)

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  27. As much of a douche as Kennedy is, I'd take seeing him over Randy Orton.

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  28. To be fair, you have ten trillion matches to choose from.

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  29. yeah i remember the crying over HHH not showing even though he was never advertiesed and it was sold that if you wanted to see his return you had to see seummerslam.

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  30. wwe wasn't giving away his return on that raw

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  31. The entrance with the 50s mic from the ceiling and such helped, plus Ken wasn't too bad in ring when he first started.


    Still bothers me that Orton got him fired.

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  32. "MATT HARDY WILL NOT DIE!" was starting to get over as a catchphrase.


    I'm pretty sure the Matt/MVP feud was one of the few times that "Wacky Tag Champs That Hate Each Other" actually worked.

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  33. He had a cool entrance and a one-word catchphrase that fans liked to chant along to. That's all. As WWE has shown with Fandango and Ryback, they go crazy over a guy when his catchphrase gets over, under they realize it's not actual heat.

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