WWE - No Way Out 2006 (DVD)

...mean much anymore, with this WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Pay-Per-View having a 7-year history, and all the characters involved always seem to find a way 'out'. Although in the past this PPV has featured matches such as 'Hell in a Cell' and the 'Barbed Wire Cage', 2006 was a year that didn't see any gimmick matches.

As the first SmackDown! brand PPV of the year no one really expects much, with all the major characters being ...
...if you now watch the WWE brand of ECW you will see he is champion over there. This match also has a feud behind it as most of the matches do, albeit not a very good one.

Tag Team Champions MNM (Mercury, Nitro, Melina) wrestled in a non-title match against the team of Matt Hardy and Tatanka. A very weird pairing here, and Tatanka was actually Hardy's mystery partner. This feud didn't last very long and you will no longer find Tatanka, ... more

No. Way. Out. Scary stuff, huh? Well not really because those words don't really mean much anymore, with this WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Pay-Per-View having a 7-year history, and all the characters involved always seem to find a way 'out'. Although in the past this PPV has featured matches such as 'Hell in a Cell' and the 'Barbed Wire Cage', 2006 was a year that didn't see any gimmick matches.

As the first SmackDown! brand PPV of the year no one really expects much, with all the major characters being on WWE's RAW brand. This event is the last big chance the writers (yes, sorry to burst the bubble, but wrestling is fake) to set things up for the biggest event of the year, WrestleMania. So lets the scene in what SmackDown! has already done to build towards this big moment, and for that we shall comment on the Royal Rumble. In the main event of the previous PPV Kurt Angle successfully defended his World Championship against Mark Henry, and then following the match the Undertaker made his presence known by sending 'lightening' down from the rafters that collapsed the ring right under Angle's feet. This has lead to the No Way Out main event with Angle defending against Undertaker.

Undertaker has had confrontations with Angle in the past. I remember back at Backlash 2000, 6 years previous to this match, they had a match where Angle was scared of Taker and was doing whatever he could to get out of the match. Then later that year things were different and Angle was no longer scared of Undertaker, and they worked quite an interesting title feud there. This was a pretty big match, and got some good reviews, although it was always just a filler before WrestleMania 22. I wasn't a big fan of the match to be honest, I think you have to really appreciate wrestling to get into a match like this where as I usually prefer gimmicky matches with people flying off ladders (I know, I'm fickle). The match runs for 30 minutes though, and I'm sure there's at least one person out there who will love it.

Two other titles were on the line at No Way Out, with one of them being Gregory Helms Cruiserweight Championship. For those who read my New Years Revolution 06 review they will notice that Helms was actually a RAW wrestler, however he defected at Royal Rumble winning this title. The whole story behind this match was that everyone hated Helms, and he had 8 other men challenging for his title in this 9-way match. The first man to pin or make another man submit would be the champion, and the match featured the likes of Scotty 2 Hotty, Paul London, Super Crazy and Kid Kash.

The other title avaliable was Booker T defending the United States Championship against Chris Benoit. These pair had a long, long feud leading up to this moment and quite frankly I was pretty sick of it although all those SmackDown! followers who appreciate the brand more than RAW for its wrestling, whilst RAW focuses more on having controversial storylines, thought that having these two going at it for a long time was a good idea. Personally so far I see no reason to purchase this DVD, but lets take a look at the undercard.

JBL vs. Lashley. JBL is better known as Bradshaw formerly of a tag team called the APA, under his new gimmick JBL he has been more successful than ever and has infact now resigned to the SmackDown! commentary team. Lashley has also gone in a positive direction from this match and if you now watch the WWE brand of ECW you will see he is champion over there. This match also has a feud behind it as most of the matches do, albeit not a very good one.

Tag Team Champions MNM (Mercury, Nitro, Melina) wrestled in a non-title match against the team of Matt Hardy and Tatanka. A very weird pairing here, and Tatanka was actually Hardy's mystery partner. This feud didn't last very long and you will no longer find Tatanka, an oldies favourite, in WWE as he's been released (the nice way of saying they fired him). Hardy is going from strength to strength now he has been reunited with Jeff Hardy however, and there is actually currenly a MNM/Hardys feud going on. Some people are going to read this review months after I've published it, put the TV on and find a completely different feud, I know it.

Finally comes probably the match of the night, and it has a big build-up and purpose as well. At the previous PPV, Royal Rumble, Rey Mysterio won the royal rumble match entitling him a chance to face the champion at WrestleMania 22. Now many people felt the only reason Mysterio won was because of his connection with Eddie Guerrero who died sadly in 2005, and it was all an attempt by Vince McMahon to milk the death of Guerrero for as much money as he can. This match involved Mysterio defending his right to face Angle or Undertaker (depending who won later in the night) against Randy Orton, the youngest champion of all time. Orton is very much the future of WWE, whilst Mysterio was more of a phase and hardly features in the current WWE program.

All in all this PPV was just another annual attempt to make money for Vince, and is a prime example of why WWE needs to cut down the amount of events it has every year because it is harming the quality drastically. Many people talk about how in recent years there hasn't been the boom in wrestling that Hogan and Austin generated in the 80's and 90's, and that is mostly down to the standard of shows the writers are putting out because I know the wrestlers are doing the best they can with what they are being given. No Way Out 2006 won't appeal to many people, so it's probably just a better idea you don't watch it, although if you do want to watch it remember the certificate is 15 and it will run for close to 3 hours.  

...less