WWE - Great American Bash (+Poster) (DVD)

...storied history; back when the WWE bought out rival company World Championship Wrestling during the early part of this century, WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon, also purchased the rights to all of WCW's names and likenesses. The problem is that fans are now offered the chance to buy 16 pay per views a year rather than the standard monthly spectacles and the Bash - as it's now commonly known as - started out as a National Wrestling Alliance event before ...
...has, in recent times, offered WWE enthusiasts a great array of tag team matches and Cruiserweight bouts. I appreciate that the speeches on Smackdown sometimes aren't as Soap Opera like as Raw's (which is a good thing) and that the pyrotechnics aren't quite as pretty but Smackdown, if given the right direction, could be a far superior brand to Raw because of the different elements and styles of wrestling on show.

However, this Smackdown ... more

(Please note: this is a Film or Pay Per View Only review – thanks!)

One thing I will always maintain about World Wrestling Entertainment is that it's such an easy form of entertainment; so what if the matches are quite frankly rubbish? The humour is still there, even if you have to create it yourself whilst watching some of the drivel the company promotes.

The Great American Bash, as a pay per view, has a storied history; back when the WWE bought out rival company World Championship Wrestling during the early part of this century, WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon, also purchased the rights to all of WCW's names and likenesses. The problem is that fans are now offered the chance to buy 16 pay per views a year rather than the standard monthly spectacles and the Bash - as it's now commonly known as - started out as a National Wrestling Alliance event before WCW took it on as their own.

Thankfully, this wasn’t a pay per view fans in this country were expected to buy, and with good reason. For those of you who are fortunately naive of the WWE's bizarre goings on, you'll be unaware that the company has several shows a week, most notably Raw, Smackdown and ECW. 2005's Bash was, regrettably speaking, a Smackdown only affair: Smackdown, to many people (including those in charge of the WWE) is a lesser-brand to Raw. Many diehard fans will consider this to be a little unfair; Smackdown has, in recent times, offered WWE enthusiasts a great array of tag team matches and Cruiserweight bouts. I appreciate that the speeches on Smackdown sometimes aren't as Soap Opera like as Raw's (which is a good thing) and that the pyrotechnics aren't quite as pretty but Smackdown, if given the right direction, could be a far superior brand to Raw because of the different elements and styles of wrestling on show.

However, this Smackdown only pay per views reconfirmed to me just why it can be viewed as unspectacular in comparison to Raw only event; with a shoddy mixture of predictable plots, overweight and out of shape aging wrestlers in the main event and a questionable angle contorted to such a degree that it attracted nationwide media scrutiny, 2005’s July PPV will always be known as a fiasco of the highest order with a few good moments scattered too sparsely in-between to make it overtly memorable.

‘I’M YOUR BIGGEST FAN I’LL FOLLOW YOU UNTIL YOU LOVE ME, PAP-PA-PAPARAZZI…’
The opening bouts on any pay per view are used as a way to get the fans into the action and the first match arguably is a shape of things to come. The Great American Bash 2005 began in an awfully tepid way which did set the tone for the rest of the three hour ‘extravaganza’. Reigning WWE Tag Team Champions MNM - which stands for Mercury, Nitro and Melina - were one of the most solid tag teams of Smackdown in recent years; MNM's gimmick replicated the kind of A List treatment that celebrities such as Brad and Angelina get as cameras scurry to get a snapshot of the trio. Now, this does sound theatrical but MNM's staged presentation really worked for them: Mercury and Nitro were a team that really utilized Nitro's flashier approach to wrestling and Mercury's hard hitting, rough technical style. With the brash and confident (yet rather trashy looking) Melina on the microphone, MNM were the perfect pretentious bad guys that Smackdown's Tag Team division seriously needed.

If you're a fan of wrestling from a couple of decades ago, you may remember a tag team called The Legion of Doom; Animal and Hawk were powerhouses in the truest sense of the word, and whilst their moves didn't look pretty or indeed well executed, the fans really seemed to like them. After Hawk's rather untimely death in 2003 at the young age of 46, Animal returned to the WWE and teamed with the equally as clumsy Heidenreich, a WWE newcomer, for another shot at Tag Team Gold. This match in many ways was a good way to open the show: the Tag Team titles were on the line and this bout had a natural storylines in Animal's devastation at the loss of a pal and wanting to regain glory as a tribute to his late friend.

Alas, what Animal forgot to do was pick a Tag Team partner that didn't move like a zombie both in and outside the ring. Heidenreich is a rather poor worker; he lacks charisma and when your wrestling skills are as deprived as his are, you need a lot of charm to try and compensate for such a deficit. Whilst this match lasted just over six and a half minutes - and if I was being really cynical I'd say that was long enough - for a title match, that is nowhere near long enough; regardless of the outcome: if MNM lost they'd look like a team that simply weren't worthy of the belts in the first place but if Animal and Heidenreich lost, it wouldn't seem logical for the two teams to compete against each other again because they’d be seen as unworthy competitors. Yet logic isn't a part of the WWE's vocabulary and whilst this match was short and snappy, it just didn't demonstrate what MNM could do appropriately to seem as if they were worthy champions in the first place. No matter how lame the ‘new and improved’ LOD’s in-ring style was, I was confident before watching this match that MNM would get a chance to hold things together and make Animal and Heidenreich look like credible contenders for the belts, whether they won or lose.

Gosh, how wrong can one person be?!

Good match, bad match? The fans in the arena were really into the match but to me, it just seemed very flat and predictable with MNM not being offered enough airtime to display what they really can do.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD, BUT…
If you're a wrestling fan, I hope you'll agree with me when I say that both Booker T and Christian are fairly solid workers; I've never been either competitors biggest fan but I think that both men can pull off an enjoyable battle when need be, which is particularly true when considering Christian's many epic matches involving Tables, Ladders and Chairs. So, you would expect a match involving the two guys to be a fairly entertaining and hard fought bout, right?

This is where the poor booking decisions on the part of the WWE's 'Creative Department' really come into play; feud's are essential in wrestling to distinguish the characters as heels (bad guys) and babyfaces (good guys) and such feuds ultimately sell pay per views as fans should be excited by the possibility of what comes next. When it comes to Booker T and Christian's feud, I felt it to be quite unsurprising and it didn’t help that the two had just competed in one-on-one action a couple of weeks ago on Smackdown itself. To have the same match, without any stipulations or interesting rules, made the bout seem as if it was much and much the same; I remember watching Christian vs Booker T on Smackdown those few weeks before this event thinking 'I don't want to sit through another one of their matches again' but alas I (don't) want doesn't get.

I could only ever describe this bout to be ok at best; it didn't feel fresh at the time and I still can't brand this match as anything other than dull, even four years on. It wasn't necessarily either man's fault (apart from the appalling cock-up when it came to the finishing move) but there should have been an added condition in there to make the match at least appear a little different. There were a couple of high spots in the middle to add a little drama to the proceedings but I always remember thinking that on this occasion, the match at the Bash was too similar to what had transpired a couple of weeks ago on Smackdown to be anything other than average and expected.

Good match, bad match? Meh match.

‘FOR REAL’…YET A LITTLE DULL
Long before his death and the suspicious circumstances surrounding them, Chris Benoit was known throughout the WWE as one of the hardest working and dependable wrestlers in the company; he's one of the few gifted wrestlers that can still remain triumphant in the face of defeat and the 'Rabid Wolverine's' superb technical ability was a testament to that, not to mention his capabilities of working with much younger, greener talent who were yet to perfect their skills to the same high standard.

Orlando Jordan was one of those wrestlers that needed a little additional help to truly become a dastardly heel; after forming an alliance with someone who proclaimed themselves to be the 'Wrestling God', Jordan won the US title in the March of 2005, a reign that epitomized his cowardly character of cheating to win. Benoit, in comparison, wasn't necessarily displaying a persona and instead was very much a 'man's man' kind of wrestler: tough as nails whilst letting his in-ring work do the talking for him. However, very much like the previous bout, I found this one to be a bit of a letdown in many ways; with the fans persisting with a 'boring!' chant from very early on in the match, everything about this competition felt stalled and non impactful to the point where I was kind of wishing it was as short as the opening match!

Benoit was, as per usual, his technically sound self; his matches are serious battles, with there being little time to showboat, and I think this really made Jordan's approach seem quite similar; to make this bout a believable one, Jordan had to leave his cockiness outside of the ring so that he could fully concentrate on his opponent. That area of the match I cannot fault. But, it has to be emphasised that this wasn't a classic at all; everything felt ill calculated and expected, not necessarily bringing out Orlando’s strengths at all and so – like many others on this pay per view – Benoit vs Jordan was very lost in the mix of the general apathy of this event.

Good match, bad match? An average match with a few sound moments but it is, sadly, quite forgettable.

ONE OF THE WWE’S BIGGEST BRAIN FARTS TO DATE (and that’s really saying something!)
Wrestling has always toyed with the notion of nations being against one another; in the 80s you had Sgt. Slaughter, the pro-American tough guy who marched to the ring with a US flag and the extraordinary Iron Sheik, the Iranian who teamed with Nikolai Volkoff to sing a rousing rendition of the Soviet National Anthem. In fact, the rendition was so stirring that people would 'rouse' themselves from their seat and go to the bathroom as Volkoff sung. Yet things are clearly different now-a-days; a quasi-racist gimmick of that caliber shouldn't have a place in modern wrestling because of just how sensitive people are of such matters. But that didn't stop the WWE with their latest anti-American project...

Mohammad Hassan was a good wrestler with a bad guise. Basically, he was an Arab-American who whined about discrimination in his home country after the 9/11 Terrorist attacks. That topic possibly does have a forum for discussion and I'm not entirely against such questions being raised on a popular TV show. But the WWE just can't handle such matters plausibly; after men in balaclavas (or sympathizers) came out to the ring and assaulted the lone American Badass, The Undertaker, the US Media had a field day and was rife with criticism. Something needed to be done in the WWE to destroy such publicized negativity, even if it was at the cost of an all round, talented performer.

The set up for this match, although over the top, was necessary after such widespread attention but the match didn't last nearly long enough to warrant such a build-up. Basically, both men had just about enough time to display their signature moves but that was pretty much it and that really is unforgivable. Yet, when you take into consideration the ending (as predictable as it may have been after threats on the World Wide Web as to what would become of the Mohammad Hassan character) this was understandable but it doesn't mean that I want to watch a match where the entrances and out of ring ending last longer than the match itself! The Undertaker, as I’ve said before, is only really as good as his opponent and on this occasion, I think Taker’s brutal, burying style was needed rather than finesse filled eight minutes of action which he did, with the help of Hassan, deliver very well.

Good match, bad match? I'm torn about this one: It was good while it lasted and both wrestlers really depicted their characters remarkably well but it just wasn't a magical routine. When you examine the outcome, this match was never guaranteed to be a classic: just a brutalizing and departing affliction which could have been so easily avoided.

FINALLY: SOMETHING QUITE ENJOYABLE!
For me personally, the Cruiserweight division was always one of Smackdown's saving graces: a Cruiserweight is a wrestler of extraordinary, circus-like abilities and they certainly add a bit of sparkle and skill to any event they appear at. Some of the older wrestlers strongly dislike Cruiserweights: Bret (s)Hitman Hart once commented that the Cruiserweights are more like ballerina's than wrestlers but I really admire their abilities which add a unique flavour to their matches; it certainly makes a change to see smaller guys twisting in mid-air rather than someone being belly flopped over!

The Mexicools, comprising of Juventud Guerrera, Super Crazy and Psicosis faced off against the Blue World Over, a parody of WCW's New World Order. The BWO first found fame in Extreme Championship Wrestling (another former wrestling company that the McMahon Empire owns) and an all too short reunion was on the horizon during 2005. With Big Stevie Cool (a Big Daddy Cool Diesel/Kevin Nash rip-off), The Blue Meanie (a strange incarnation of Scott Hall AKA Razor Ramon and the villains in ‘Yellow Submaine’) and Hollywood Nova, (a reference to Hulk Hogan's WCW personality) enlightening audiences with their silly and light-hearted shenanigans, it was an all too short dream as I’ve always considered the BWO to be a more child friendly version of the crotch chopping D Generation X. This match was the one I was most looking forward to on the card (the wrestling term for a script) because it was a contest guaranteed to be a fast paced, high energy affair with little time to be bored in between.

The Mexicools vs BWO really didn't disappoint me: sure, it was all over within five minutes but I would sooner see five minutes of intriguing action than a drawn out, boring bout that lasted an hour. It would have been nice if both teams did have a little longer to show off what they could do but the short, snappy moves, including flipping over backwards from the top rope (known in wrestling as Moonsaults) was a welcomed change from some of the over-hyped, storyline driven spectacles both before and after this match. The one thing that let this match down was the ending, not because of the delivery of the finishing move or the wrestler bearing the brunt of the maneuver, but by the losing team casually waiting outside of the ring for their team mate to be pinned! That to me always looks really false (well duh, it is wrestling after all!) and detracts away from any actual astonishment of the match coming to a close.

Good match, bad match? An excellent, but all too hasty retreat from some of the downright stupid matches at the Great American Bash; the lead up to the pin was exceptional for showcasing exactly what the winning team could do, even if it did deny the losing team of looking like a worthy group of competitors.

‘DON’T LET ME TELL THEM YOUR SECRET, REY, REY, REY!’
Whenever I do stop and think about what a brilliant worker Eddie Guerrero was during his short life, the run up and aftermath of this pay per view's match between himself and Rey Mysterio predominantly sticks out in my mind. Not necessarily because it was Eddie's greatest battle ever but because it was the last significant storyline Guerrero featured in before he was found dead in his hotel room a couple of months later in November 2005.

Mysterio and Guerrero - in and outside the ring - were friends for many years and became Tag Team Champions for a brief time at the end of 2004. The two's partnership was set to end on a sour note when Eddie bragged about knowing a 'secret' associated with Mysterio's young song, Dominik. Whilst it was painfully obvious as to what the secret was, I think it was one of those few plots that excelled because of the passion of the performers: if Mysterio and Guerrero thought it was a stupid idea, they didn't let it show and their feud really hit its peak at the Bash. Although fans were really on The Undertaker's side during his match, the crowd was split during this battle: many of course cheered for Mysterio but some fans rallied behind Guerrero, who’d just finished a hugely successful babyface run before this feud.

Whilst Guerrero and Mysterio had faced off many times before, both prior to and after this dispute, there was something really different about the intensity of this match: Rey has never been much of an actor but his anger and desperation translated very well into his moves and he did really put on a stunning display. Guerrero's arrogance and punishing persona worked wonders against Rey's integrity but I will forever be against Rey's son, Dominik, being at ringside; if Rey lost the match, Guerrero would reveal his ‘secret’ to the world, right in front of Dominik.

Commentator Cole's question 'what did this kid do to deserve this' was particularly apt: yeah, what DID the kid do to deserve a front row seat at a Smackdown only pay per view?

Good match, bad match? This would have to be one of the only occasions where I think the art of mulling over the next move to create a little bit of drama was well done: sure, the storyline was stupid, but the match was absolutely stellar with an unexpected ending that really credited the performances from both Rey and Eddie throughout their near sixteen minutes of action.

THE MOST POINTLESS MATCH OF THE NIGHT…JUST
I've expressed before my utter dismay at having to watch anything to do with the Diva's division on WWE TV; it's a section of the company largely made up of overly inflated women who can't wrestle to save their lives. Under normal circumstances however, Melina is quite good; she's a fierce competitor with a fiery Latino character but her adversary, Torrie Wilson, was poor on many levels...unless you speak to my Dad who found her rather attractive, for some reason or another...

Bra & Panties Matches are something I skip whenever watching a PPV. Basically, such 'battles' consist of two or more women attempting to take the others ring attire off until their opponent has been stripped down to their underwears. No pin-fall, no submission: the loser is just someone who shows off their baps more readily than their opponent. It's with that statement that I happily inform you that there isn't a lot to say about this one other than it's (gratefully) the shortest match on the card although those three and a half minutes should have been dedicated to the Mexicools/BWO match instead. It was just a corny, uninspired debacle from start to finish and cheapened the whole pay per view considerably for me.

Good match, bad match? The only good point I can think of is Melina's character was very well portrayed but that really is it. This match alone implies that things don't always work in the favour of female wrestling fans... Thankfully, there was an advert featuring the delectable Shawn Michaels directly afterwards so all is nearly forgiven!

THE MAIN EVENT? MORE LIKE ‘YAWNFEST’...
Just about every year, the WWE holds a 'Draft Lottery' which entails different superstars potentially switching brands between Raw, Smackdown and ECW. Raw and Smackdown - as the two premier shows - mostly benefit from this but 2005 really did see Smackdown suffer when WWE Champion John Cena was exchanged to Raw, especially when Smackdown inherited the dismal World Heavyweight Champion, Batista, weeks after Cena's transfer. This was obviously a major change in some ways for Smackdown; they exchanged one boring worker for another. But it also marked the first of many occasions when the World Heavyweight Championship was defended on the brand. That should have been enough to sell the PPV to any fan.

But not when Batista's opponent was JBL, an aging, broken-down wrestling who is arguably best known as being one half of 1990's tag team, the APA. The APA, especially JBL, were very rough wrestlers; they're tall and bulky and said to be very inflexible when it comes to performing moves and making their opponent look good. Batista at least had his physique working for him but ultimately the body builder type build normally equals a lousy wrestler: think of Batista as a less talented but just as bulky version of The British Bulldog and you’re about there. The match was built upon mutual hate by the two competitors, with JBL wanting to regain a title he'd held for so long the year before. When you consider some of the zany storylines beforehand on this pay per view, this match’s build up was fine and at least a regular babyface vs heel bout.

However, it wasn't a match I was considering to be that spectacular but I will credit it as being a good display of older styles of wrestling: neither man is a technical genius or a high flying wonder but their characters worked well against one another, even if the match was a little unadventurous and exactly what I was expecting from them beforehand. Batista vs JBL just didn’t appeal to a fan like me who prefers matches that are speedier, or at least well performed; I don’t consider somebody whose best move is a clothesline to be extraordinarily talented as it’s a very basic move that any idiot on the street could do but it was a match that served its purpose and capitalized on Batista’s popularity but nothing more.

Good match, bad match? If you like massive, boring wrestlers stumbling about the ring whilst failing to hit even the most fundamental of moves than by all means, this is a great match. If not, you’ll wish you’d stopped watching the Great American Bash after Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio without a doubt.

OVERALL: WOULD I EVER BE INSPIRED TO UPDATE FROM VIDEO TO DVD?
In a word, no.

Don’t get me wrong, this pay per view wasn’t all bad; the Mexicools vs the Blue World Order was an excellent display of Mexican inspired wrestling, Lucha Libre as it’s known as across the border, and the Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio match was a very psychological, well paced bout that I never tire of seeing. The latter match was also well portrayed; I’m not the biggest advocate for absurd wrestling storylines but I think Rey and Eddie really made the best of a predictable script and actually took advantage of this to really demonstrate just how good and bad guys are expected to wrestle under such pressure. The stipulation of their match was a simple twist that really allowed for fans to pity Rey in a way they’d never had to before.

Besides those two semi-classics that I can watch and enjoy over and over again, there were too many mishaps on this pay per view that prevents me from being an avid viewer of The Great American Bash 2005. I can’t help but wonder how The Undertaker vs Hassan match would have ended up if such a magnifying glass hadn’t amplified and dissected every aspect of their storyline. My money’s on a very different and exciting ending that just couldn’t have been put into practice due to the WWE’s brash and stupid presentation. But I do have to give credit where it’s due: Michael Cole and Tazz, Smackdown’s resident narrators, did a sensational job (for a change) on commentary during this match and turn the media attention around to make it seem as if the company had actually planned such scrutiny! Call it cockiness or just thinking on your feet…

One thing that was blatantly obvious at the Great American Bash was the fact that – no matter how good the fifth and sixth matches were – the whole show never seemed to pick up the pace; it simply trudge along in its own slovenly way and didn’t exactly allow for the best of Smackdown to really shine. In an ideal world, Rey vs Eddie would have been the main event and I would have happily withstood another ten minutes of the Luchadors match but instead, everything felt sort of rushed. Many WWE pay per views hold seven matches as opposed to eight and I do think that was one of the key problems with this show; the company felt the need to push in another match when really, it should have made seven detailed and extraordinary matches to prove once and for all that Smackdown is more than just Raw’s B Show.

But, to put it kindly, The Great American Bash hosted too many mistakes to make it a memorable or even likeable pay per view. With a main event that was a turkey and the Diva’s looking shocked at being naked (even though it’s nothing that a man with a scalpel hadn’t seen before) it was all a bit of a calamity from start to finish and one that I even struggle to laugh at because of its diabolical standard. It’s such a shame that the sparklers there were on this pay per view have to be named as being a part of an event where controversial political viewpoints took centre stage over such well thought out and entertaining matches; ideally, the WWE should be aiming to showcase such excellency each and time they expect fans to pay out for such an extravaganza.

Only in America could a production overhype their own twaddle in the same way World Wrestling Entertainment has done so brazenly here.

QUICK STATS
Year: 2005
Length: Roughly 2 hours, 40 mins
Matches: 8ish.
Age certificate: 15 years plus 

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