1) Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch vs. The Hardys – 6 – Cade and Murdoch had a breakout performance and took the Hardys to the limit. Jeff worked his ass off and bumped pretty big. Murdoch’s attempt at a flip piledriver was entertaining but it can be an effective finished as it is more of a flip powerbomb. Matches like this between these two teams are desperately needed in the Raw tag team division. Awesome match to open the show.
2) Mickie James vs. Melina – 6 – I was expecting a snoozer but this turned out to be a pretty damn good match. To be honest, this is probably the best women’s match since Mickie fought Trish at WrestleMania 22 last year. Melina has shown drastic improvement in the ring and really stepped up her game here. There was a cool spot where they were punching each other while doing parallel splits. Matches like this could save the women’s division from total mediocrity.
3) Chris Benoit vs. M.V.P – 5 – About what you would expect here. This was much better than their WrestleMania match. Benoit went for the diving headbutt but crashed into M.V.P.’s knees. I fully expected M.V.P. to win the U.S. title but since my track record of predictions has been pretty bad lately, I just watched the match and made no predictions. I could watch matches like this for hours.
4) Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, & Umaga vs. Bobby Lashley – Handicap Match – 4 – Well, something has to get trash of the night and as the case has been recently, it’s the Bobby Lashley match. I expected a bunch of overbooked schlep just like at WrestleMania and a match somewhere the caliber of the McMahons/DX HIAC match from Unforgiven 06 but I was wrong. While Shane’s excessive overselling was annoying so was the finish where Lashley was pinned after two top-rope splashes from Umaga and then a quick cover from Vince to steal the title. Yes friends, Vinny Mac is the new ECW champion. Hey, it’s the lesser of two evils. I mean, do you really think people would buy Lashley vs. Snitsky as a main event feud? Then again, does anyone watch ECW for anything but C.M. Punk anymore?
5) The Undertaker vs. Batista – Last Man Standing Match – 6 – This was wild as shit. Batista needs to stop taking chair shot lessons from Lance Storm because they’re weak beyond all fuck. Undertaker pretty much dominated everything. There was a sick spot where UT walked the rail and legdropped Batista on the Smackdown announce table. Then they brawled up the ramp and onto the stage. Batista spears Taker and they both fall off the stage into the pit. I’ll give them credit for the bump but the thing that ruined it for me was the three poles fell like they were being pushed over by something and killed the spot. The match ended in a draw and what’s that I see on the horizon? Oh yeah, a little thing called Hell in a Cell.
6) Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena vs. Randy Orton vs. Edge – 6 – I was watching this show at BW-3’s and the place pretty much cleared out before this began. I was hoping that it wasn’t an omen. These four really had to put on an entertaining match because if not, then the show would die because we’ve seen these four in tag team and singles bouts since January and it’s getting a little stale. There was also that 55-minute Cena/Michaels match from the 4/23 Raw that they were up against. Edge looked pudgy mainly because he doesn’t have Lita to exercise with in bed anymore, because we all know that’s the only place Edge ever did any work. Let’s just say that all four guys worked their asses off to deliver a solid main event. While it wasn’t a classic beyond any means it should be be seen just as an example of how to book an entertaining four-way match. The finish was full of great teases with Cena retaining when he fell on Orton after being superkicked by Shawn. A solid and entertaining main event to cap off a great pay-per-view.
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