Cyber Sunday Live Notes

23.44pm (Sunday)
Wow, for the first time on one of these live commentaries it’s a timecheck from Sunday night and not the early hours of Monday morning.

I’ll imitate TNA and start things off with a “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT” – next month for Survivor Series I’m going to be doing a legit ‘live commentary’ rather than post my thoughts directly after the show. I do genuinely write as a watch, hence how I am able to post so damn quickly, but next time I am going to trial the concept of regular updates in order to keep you abreast of what I am thinking, allow you to read my ongoing thoughts almost real-time and to allow you to interact with me, giving me your thoughts and asking questions during the show. Hopefully it will enhance your an(my) enjoyment of the show.

Anyway, right now it’s WWE.com we are tuning into, and here comes........

23.45am
Todd Grisham. A hugely underrated talent as far as I am concerned. I have been at a live event which he was the ring announcer for, and he was very good. I think he does a decent job on ECW and could be a possible successor to the main headphones some day.

Wait, is he going to have to announce the ECW match as well as this?

23.46am
Todd introduces us to the show and out comes Shelton for the ‘pre-game’. This is very hard to type on MS Word while having Media Player open. Shelton’s opponent is..........

R-Truth, by a landslide (I swear I wrote that before JR said it) and here he comes doing his theme music. Thinking of this makes me think of Honky doing the same later on, and oh my God an even better thought.

How about Santino v R-Truth at some point with Santino singing his theme?!

23.52am
JR says that Shelton has an elitist attitude – and that Killings does not.

Erm, didn’t Shelton do almost the exact same vignettes as the former K-Kwick some years ago about his rough upbringing in Orangeburg, South Carolina? Seems to me he would have some sympathy for the plight old Ronnie has had. Never mind.

23.54am
Shelton wins in reasonably short order and destroys my first prediction. I went with R-Truth, but thought there might be a sneaky title switch there. I’m pleased though, as Shelton doesn’t deserve to be buried with a quick title loss on a WWE.com only show.

00.02am (Monday)
Good morning. That was actually a pretty cool (and I would imagine quite cheap) opening sequence simply having superstars (or are they entertainers now?) talking about how it wasn’t important to vote for Cyber Sunday.......then how important it was. Ah, it was cooler than it sounds. Especially Koslov saying “Big freakin’ deal”.


00.05am
Out first is Rey Mysterio in one of his Scooby Doo villain masks , and we shall we what kind of match Rey and Kane will have. For some reason the announcement is being made before Kane emerges. Its.......


00.06am
Kane. Oh, and the stip is No Holds Barred. Which is very different from a No DQ. Or a streetfight. Or a Hardcore match. Very different.

Kane sure looks big now. It may just be against the stature of Rey, but he looks increasing chubby and less mobile. To be honest, though, it’s a credit to the big guy (getting up there a little in age) that he has been so agile for so long, for someone his size.


00.13am
Cole just called a move that Rey did unique. The move was a legdrop with a chair under the legs. Yeah, real unique, Michael. Sabu only used to do that every bloody night.


00.16am
Rey wins, which he had to really, but as always in a Mysterio match I find myself kind of underwhelmed. I probably moan too much about Mysterio, who really is an amazing athlete who is tremendously popular, but I just hate the way his matches have very little realism.

Three times in that match Kane fell, conveniently, onto the middle rope, in a position for the 619, which was connected on the third attempt. The last of which was a really cool huracanrana move, but the way it was sold made it look so daft.


00.21am
After some divas plead their case to win the Hallowe’en kiddies dress-up box contest, and Jericho pleads his case for Generation Next to beat up Batista (they decline) we are over to Teddy Long and Tiffany to announce Evan Bourne as the contender for Matt Hardy’s belt. This should be good.

00.26am
Did Todd Grisham just call Matt Striker “Todd”? His own name? Better than “The Tazz”, I suppose.


00.35am
A very, very good contest. It wasn’t clinical, and it looked as though a spot or nearly went awry. But it was gripping, despite the fact that I never really thought Bourne would win.

The biggest disappointment was that the crowd didn’t engage in it throughout – possibly because many of them may not have known who Bourne was – but they started to at the end, which is a good sign.

There was a great mix in this match of technical stuff and high flying action. Hardy was pretty generous in giving Bourne the spotlight and letting him hit all the highlight moves. Nice unselfish action from the already over star allowing the more inexperienced guy to shine.

Terrific debut WWE PPV outing (I think it is, anyway) for Bourne, and a good showing, it should be not be forgotten, by Matt Hardy. Well done guys.


00.39am
More divas in costumes, and generally a waste of time – although Maria looked practically edible as a rabbit.....and I can’t believe I just said that – before we are back to Todd on the stage. Grisham is a busy man tonight. No wonder he forgot Matt’s name.

Really close voting, but as I predicted earlier, the kiddies watching WWE.com and buying into the annoying exchanges between Mizorrison and Cryme Tyme have won out by 3%, so we get to see this rather than Punk and Kofi in action. Shame on you WWE Univ.....no, Rob, don’t say it.

I would think the other two tag matches will occur on Raw tomorrow.


00.49am
There is a guy in the front row with a “we hate Cena” shirt on. That’s a gamble. You don’t want to pay for front row tickets and be thrown out, my friend.

OK match, by the way, so far. Good heeling from Mizorrison.


00.53am
That was actually a pretty good match. Not a classic, and won’t be remembered after the show (Bourne/Hardy will) but they each played their roles well.

I’m not a big fan of the Cryme Tyme act, but I’ll admit to liking the individuals, particularly JTG, and I’d say the same for the other team, being quite a Morrison fan.


00.56am
More diva spots (Natalya looked and sounded VERY sexy) before a pointless segment of Jericho acts Khali to be in his corner. Khali rambled for about 30 seconds before Runjin just translated that as “no”. Long winded way of saying no.

Vignettes and Cole indicate that Cena will be back at Survivor Series. Interesting.

01.00am
Tremendous stuff from Santino. Some stuff about some American sport stars I didn’t know (Well, I knew Shaq) but an unbelievable miss.

He actually said at one point “it is fitting that we are in Phoenix” and didn’t follow it up with some sort of line about “spending a lot of time in Phoenix” and a knowing glance at his shocked girlfriend.

01.04am
Of course, the opponent is the Honky Donkey Man, and he does a little dancing forcing Santino to throw some shapes. Terrific stuff. And it really is the Honky Donk...I mean Tonk man – not the Haasy Tonk Man or anything.


01.08am
Oh, it’s over. That was quick. Beth is seen tripping Honky and the bell is rung for the DQ. Maybe he is still injured. Here come Goldie and Roddy for some action. Goldust got pyro? Are you kidding?

Look at that – Black Reign hanging out with two Relics (disclaimer – that was for the purposes of the joke – I love Roddy and would never describe him as a relic.)

Is Honky in the Hall of Fame, by the way?

The ‘legends’ turn Santino over and segment ends. A bit like a Raw segment, but humourous nonetheless.



01.11am
More diva stuff, with Princess Layla stealing my thunder from my regular feature in Fighting Spirit Magazine – shameless plug, it’s called Blockbuster, and is a movie review in a wrestling style. The first was about Star Wars – and Victoria as a dancing and singing banana. I’m assuming that is an advert in the US, since I am unfamiliar with it apart from a bit in Family Guy where Brian the Dog does that.

Not that Victoria is a dog. Far from it. Mickie looked pretty hot as Lara Croft, too. I’m just saying (Sorry, Hurricane)


01.15am
Wow – this is a trainwreck segment. Undertaker and Big Show will be upcoming, but Vickie is wheeled out by Chavo, takes an eternity to reveal the results, and when she does three things happen.

Firstly, the WWE Univ.....stop it.....the WWE fans show they don’t want any MMA-like inclusion with only 9% voting Knockout Match.

The second mistake is Vickie saying that the winning match in the vote is “I Quit” when it wasn’t, it was Last Man Standing. She covers for this by reading them all out......then pausing.............still pausing.....then saying it’s a Last Man Standing.

Thanks. For. That.

Vickie: “Excuse me”
Me: “Err, no, I won’t thanks.”


01.41am
That went a long while, but it was well paced, and these two men did a great job of keeping the audience occupied and telling a great story.

It was a back-to-type performance by the Undertaker, but one which did not make Show look bad, just had Taker keep on coming back from against the odds.

01.50am
Divas line up – and despite my mocking, several of them do look really, really hot tonight. Seems like something they could do on TV rather than take up TV time (Santino has already had 10 minutes of pretty much non-wrestling) but perhaps there are adolescents out there who would be having this as their highlight.

Mickie James wins, they all have a little fight, with the faces clearing the ring. What was kinda nice was they seemed to be enjoying themselves – especially Mickie. I always think that comes off well on TV when people are clearing having fun in there.

01.55am
As obviously it would be, Jeff Hardy is here to take on the Game.

He couldn’t do it......could he?


02.12am
Well then.

I can see the reaction to this going two ways, and I’d tend to agree with both of them. Firstly, as an isolated contest it was a terrific match. Once again the pacing was very good, there was some great storytelling and use of logic. Pleasingly Koslov stayed the hell away, too.

On the other hand, we saw much of this last time. Yes, there were some different spots, and innovative counters, but the general structure was the same as their match three weeks ago.

I really enjoyed it, though. There were enough near falls for Jeff to look like he might do it and to continue to make him look strong.

02.15am
Another Cena/Survivor Series promo. That is exactly the reason people get fed up of Cena. Just so many vignettes about him, clips of him, people talking about him. It can get tiresome. I really like the guy, and respect him hugely. But I understand where the dislike – maybe even resentment – comes from.


02.23am
Wow – that was close.

Just the 74% for Austin, then.

A sign there said REF 3:16 – that’s nearly me. I’m Ref365! – see here


02.42am
Well, what do you know? New World Champion – and his name is Batista. There will be plenty of criticism for this match, but as long as they don’t do it very often I think it’s ok.

Essentially, after a ref bump Jericho hit the Codebreaker but replacement ref Shawn Michaels did an ultra slow count. JBL got involved to pull HBK out of the ring when Batista looked set to win (Hurray, JBL v HBK – that will be fun (note sarcasm!))Orton made his way to the ring to replace the replacement and he clocked Stone Cold. He allowed Jericho to hit Batista with the title belt, but Big Dave kicked out. Austin got back up to Stun Orton. (I’ll come back to that) Orton bumped like crazy – I’d say he’s fit again. A Batistabomb later we had a new champ.

I wanted to write that all down because I want to stress the storytelling of it. Yes it was confusing, and perhaps overbooked, but when WWE was hot at the end of the 90s this happened all the time. They have got better for this sort of thing not happening too often, and as long as it doesn’t become a habit then I’ll tolerate this. At least it wasn’t over predictable.

Back to Austin and Orton – maybe, just maybe, a little seed for Wrestlemania. That would make sense, as Austin would be the ultimate Legend for Randy to kill, especially if he is going into the Hall of Fame. Remember how early they hinted then built the Orton/Foley thing, so this might just be the start.

Overall, I really enjoyed that show. WWE are doing a tremendous job of turning very, very lacklustre TV into more than passable Pay Per Views. The overall standard of PPVs this year has been pleasing.

I would say there were no bad matches tonight. Santino’s effort you can largely overlook. Rey/Kane and Mizorrison/Cryme Tyme were ok – no better, no worse.

Big Show and Taker put on a big man clinic – it really was a terrific brawl, and for the smaller guys Matt Hardy and Evan Bourne put in a great shift. Nearly a show stealer.

Jeff Hardy and Triple H rocked the house again and while the main event didn’t really sparkle, there was a title change and enough action to make up for it.

Good work, fellas. Onto Survivor Series. When “The Champ”. Is. Back

Someone may well ‘want some’. And if they do, they are jolly well invited to ‘get some’.