For weeks, John Cena and Kurt Angle have consumed a great deal of Raw TV time, dominating the show with the help of Eric Bischoff. Wouldn’t that be enough to justify a decent ending to their big world title encounter at Unforgiven? Apparently not.
Both men entered the ring in Oklahoma City and the technical wrestling expo began. Cena, not being much of a technical wrestler instead relied on his strength to frustrate the former champion early on. Upon returning to the ring, Angle bewildered Cena with a series of fists and uppercuts. Cena attempted to come back, but was met with an overhead belly-to-belly suplex.
Angle continued to attack Cena, even applying the bodyscissors to great success. Cena worked his way back to his feet, planting Angle with a DDT. Cena found the open door and proceeded to follow up with a suplex and a shoulderblock. The F-U was countered into an Ankle Lock that was soon reversed into a spinebuster by the champ, but only for a two count.
The match rolled on, with Cena barely escaping the jaws of defeat. Angle attempted the Ankle Lock once again, but it was reversed yet again. Cena hit a sit-down slam, he followed it up with a Five Knuckle Shuffle, but again he only received a two count. As the match progressed, the referee was taken out by a charging Kurt Angle who then wound up taking a ride better known as the F-U.
With the referee out, Cena got off the pin, only to have his face plastered with Angle’s gold medals. Bischoff soon made his way to the ring, just in time for Angle’s application of the Ankle Lock. As Cena clawed his way towards the ropes, Bischoff stood next to him with the Championship belt, screaming at him. Once Cena reached the ropes, Bischoff kicked his hand off. Bischoff went to call for the bell, but as he did, Cena reversed the Ankle Lock, sending Angle into Bischoff. With the belt in the ring, Cena turned around and whacked Angle, leading to a Disqualification.
With the fans in a complete frenzy over the fact that the main event ended in a DQ, Bischoff grabbed the mic and said that he didn’t care about the rules, he didn’t want the referee to give the championship to Cena. Cena, like he has done many times before, throttled Bischoff and disposed of him with an F-U. Angle caught wind of this and rose to his feet, destroying Angle with a series of forearms to the back of Cena.
The fight spilled to the floor with Angle demolishing the champ. The two men rolled around until they found themselves in front of the Spanish Announcers Table. Angle cleared everything off the table, only to find himself going through it courtesy of the F-U. Cena is still the champ, we think…
WWE Unforgiven Results
Match One – WWE Intercontinental Championship – Carlito (C) vs “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair
The Ric Flair chop fest was in full effect as Carlito’s chest turned “Blood Red” within a few minutes of the opening bell. Carlito fired back with some clinched fists to the face, earning him some stern admonishments from the official. Flair pulled out all the dirty tactics in the book, leaving Carlito no alternative but to reach deep down in his bag of tricks. With Flair down, Carlito went to get an apple, as he was about spit it, Flair caught him with a fist. With Carlito choking, Flair applied the Figure Four Leg Lock to capture his first Intercontinental Championship. After the match Ric Flair gave a warm speech and picked up four ladies at ringside. Todd Grisham attempted to get a few words with Carlito, but he declined. Flair has done a lot — just add this to the resume.
Winner Via Submission and NEW WWE Intercontinental Champion – “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair
Match Rating – 5/10
Edge and Lita were backstage, gloating over how they really stuck it to Matt Hardy. Edge then told Lita that he was going to finish off Hardy in the steel cage.
Match Two – Victoria and Torrie Wilson w/ Candice Michelle vs Trish Stratus and Ashley
Not as terrible as it could have been, Stratus really delivered big in this one, racking up some good offensive moves. She has really come a long way, and continues to get better. Ashley isn’t too bad, but she needs a lot of work. No hope for Torrie Wilson. This match concluded with Stratus getting rid of Wilson and Michelle, then taking out Victoria with a Chick Kick.
Winners Via Pinfall – Trish Stratus and Ashley
Match Rating – 3/10
We then went backstage, where Ric Flair was ushering the ladies into his limo. Before entering himself, he made sure to take a large dosage of Viagra. Great segment here.
WWE will be moving Raw to USA Network on October 3. Good commercial showing Vince and the crew packing up and taking off.
Match Three – The Big Show vs Snitsky
Prior to the match ZZ Top was honored. Big Show dominated Snitsky from the opening bell and did not let up. Snitsky got a few shots in after running Show into the turnbuckle post, then working on his arm. After a horrible nip up by the Big Show, he hoisted Snitsky up, then threw him down with a monstrous chokeslam for the pinfall victory. After the match Snitsky took the brunt of two ringbell shots from The Big Show.
Winner Via Pinfall – The Big Show
Match Rating – 3/10
Wrestlemania 22 Commercial aired. April 6, 2005 from Chicago, IL, Wrestlemania returns.
Backstage, smoke is pouring out of Flair’s limo. He sure is having a good time.
A Shawn Michaels vs Chris Masters hype video was shown, followed by a clip of Michaels preparing in the back. That Masters sure does a mean Full Nelson.
Match Four – Kerwin White vs Shelton Benjamin
This was more back and forth, White landed an amazing Tilt-a-Whirl headscissors that saw him spin around about a dozen times. Benjamin appeared to hurt his knee after flipping over White and landing on it. White attempted to use one of his golf clubs to “Tee Off” on Benjamin, but as he wound up, he was caught with a T-Bone Suplex to end it.
Winner Via Pinfall – Shelton Benjamin
Match Rating – 5/10
Todd Grisham stood backstage and talked to Matt Hardy. Hardy badmouthed Lita some more, but Grisham insisted he still had feelings for her. Hardy showed no emotion and said that he was going to take Edge out. Well, it would be logical.
Match Five – Steel Cage – Edge w/ Lita vs Matt Hardy
This match started off as a brawl, and quickly escalated. Edge delivered some heavy blows to the head of Hardy, leaving him dazed and confused. Edge had a chance to leave, but with Hardy on his leg, he decided to stay and punish him even more. It was that mistake that resulted in Edge as a bloody mess. After connecting with the cage on several occasions, Edge was left with blood pouring out of a gash in his head. Things stepped up once again, with Hardy hitting The Side Effect off the top rope. Lita sent the briefcase in the cage, but Hardy had none of that, un-arming Edge and going to town on him. Lita made her way into the cage due to an open door, but quickly found herself face down after a Twist of Fate. Edge executed a perfect spear on Hardy, but only a two count came of it. Hardy fought back, slamming Edge to the mat and ascending the cage, but rather than leaving, he decided to drop the leg from the top of the cage and pin Edge for the one-two-three.
Winner Via Pinfall – Matt Hardy
Match Rating – 7/10
John Cena was shown getting his ankle taped up backstage, when Eric Bischoff walked in on him. Cena took some tape and covered the mouth of the GM before taking off.
Match Six – World Tag Team Championship Match – The Hurricane and Rosey (C) vs Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch
The Super Heroes had things in their favor for most of the early portion of the match, but things took a turn for the worse in a major way. When Murdoch went to hit on Lillian Garcia, Hurricane made the save, he then went after Murdoch some more, but wound up getting a DDT from the ring apron to the floor. This left Rosey at a two-on-one disadvantage. As the trainer and another referee were carting Hurricane away, he noticed that Rosey was in trouble and hobbled back to make the tag. Once he was the legal man, he went to work on Cade and Murdoch, but his glory didn’t last long, as he was taken out with a “Total Elimination” type move by the challengers for the victory.
Winners Via Pinfall and NEW World Tag Team Champions – Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch
Match Rating – 5/10
Ric Flair’s limo was shown again, one girl stepped out with the robe on, telling Flair she needed a break, she quickly returned back into the limo, much to Flair’s “Woo’ing” delight.
Maria stood by with Chris Masters. Masters basically put himself over, talking about how nobody could break out of his Masterlock.
Match Seven – Chris Masters vs “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels
Before the match officially got underway, Masters locked in the Masterlock on a helpless Michaels. The referee forced him to break it, and the match got underway. Masters had control for a majority of the match, working away on Michaels’ injured back. At one point, Masters had the Masterlock in, but Michaels jumped over the top rope, forcing Masters to break the hold. Michaels showed his classic fighting spirit, and rose to his feet. Michaels landed the flying burrito, nipped up, executed a few atomic drops, then dropped the big elbow from the top rope. With the crowd legitamately on their feet, Michaels went for Sweet Chin Music, but it was ducked, Masters went for the Master Lock, but was pushed away and cracked with Sweet Chin Music. Great match, Masters really stepped his game up.
Winner Via Pinfall – “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels
Match Rating – 7/10
Ric Flair’s ladies were shown getting out of the limo, followed by his naked rear end. He pulled up his trunks, took another sip of the wine and proceeded to pass out on the spot.
We were once again reminded that on Oct 3, Raw returns home to USA Network.
Match Eight – WWE Championship – John Cena (C) vs Kurt Angle
Winner Via DQ – Kurt Angle
Match Rating – 5/10 (Would have been better had the ending not been so terrible.)
Overall Event Rating – 6/10
Some solid matches towards the end of the card. I was thoroughly impressed with the cage match, as well as the Michaels/Masters match, both were phenomenal and really brought back a lot of what WWE is missing. Angle/Cena wasn’t terrible, but the ending really brought it down. Aside from the bad ending, this PPV was a reminder that WWE can produce a quality product when they want to. WWE seems to have a hint of what the fans want, now they just need to deliver that more often.
Chris Sokol is from Long Island, NY and wants to know your thoughts on the PPV. Yeah, you! Email them to CJS137@aol.com.