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The Captain's Quarters - The Bash in Retrospect

Posted in In My Head by Jack at 04:33, Jul 26 2005

by The Captain

The Great American Bash. I expected it to be more than it was, but I can't really say it was this big disappointment, either. I'll get you familiar with my scoring chart before I go into detail. I use this chart for every pay-per-view event based on what is expected of it. So, for example, if I give a show like No Way Out 4 out of 5 stars, and I also give WrestleMania 4 out of 5 stars, that doesn't mean I thought No Way Out was as good as WrestleMania. It just means No Way Out was that good for what it was: a single-brand pay-per-view. Read on to learn more about the scale and to see what I thought about this year's Bash.

PPV Scoring Card:
* = Garbage. As bad as it could possibly be.
** = Bad. Very few high points, but a bad show overall.
*** = OK. Some nice high points, maybe a couple of good matches, but a few missed boats.
**** = Great. As good as it can be without being perfect. Lots of great matches and very few low points.
***** = Perfect. Like 1 star, I'm not sure I've ever given a show one of these. Nothing bad can be said.

Very few of my predictions came true for this show. There was just an odd atmosphere about it, and I completely didn't understand the happenings of about the first half of the event. For starters, Heidenreich and Road Warrior Animal are the new Tag Team Champions. Are you kidding me? MNM is one of the few legitimate tag teams in the company, and they are marvelous. The gimmick is gold. Heidenreich doesn't deserve the time he's being awarded in front of the camera. I personally think his mic skills are far from good, and his in-ring ability is non-existent. Road Warrior Animal, on the other hand, is the fattest piece of "Legend" I've ever seen, yet he can move so much better than Heidenreich. That still doesn't convince me that they should be the Tag Team Champions right now. Animal may be better than his new tag team partner in the ring, but that doesn't mean he's good. I understand bringing him back for a match, like Hulk Hogan. But winning the title from an up and coming tag team who could be huge if they'd let them is insane. Pure non-sense. Let's hope it's a short reign.

Christian. Our dear Captain of all that is Charismatic. He's one of those heels that most people adore, which is usually a good sign. Look what happened with Batista. WWE is building Christian up to be a big star, right? Apparently not. How does jobbing to Booker T help your career? The match itself was pretty darn good, and was one of the matches that saved the night from being a flop. I was thinking it was telling a really good story until the end, when, as I said, Booker beat Christian. That made no sense. I can't even go into it any further. This is definitely one of the missed boats I was talking about, and so was this next match.

Orlando Jordan is STILL our United States Champion. How the hell does Chris Benoit lose to Orlando Jordan? This guy never deserved to be in the same segment with people like JBL, let alone be getting involved in his matches and winning titles. I know people are going to try to say this was a good match, but it definitely didn't impress me. It was mostly nothing but Orlando sitting there with a bunch of submission holds on Benoit. He didn't prove anything to me other than the fact that he can do what Benoit told him to during practice. I'm pretty damn anti-Benoit, and I was even irate at the outcome of this match. Chris Benoit should totally be the United States Champion right now.

Now is when the show started getting a bit more sensible. Muhammad Hassan versus The Undertaker pretty much went as expected, although I did not know Muhammad was going to make such a grand entrance. I loved every second of it. He rubbed it in all of their faces one last time. The big middle finger to the Americans who think this country is fair, because it's definitely not. I know first hand. Not a great match, but about what you'd expect from The Undertaker. But, I'll be damned if it wasn't entertaining watching the dead man rip through every one of those guys in ski masks and Daivari. I think Daivari may have been really hurt when Taker tossed him through the front of that announce table. His head looked like it hit really hard. It really sucked that the rumored Randy Orton return didn't take place, but I look for him to pop up out of nowhere soon enough. The Undertaker sadly was forced to put one of the greatest characters ever in Muhammad Hassan to rest but throwing him through the stage with The Last Ride. Goobye, Muhammad. It was fun, and just for the record, I sympathize.
On to one of the lower points of the evening. I'm sure none of us were expecting anything outstanding from bWo and the Mexicools. It was just what I thought it'd be, which was an small, entertaining segment. Although, I use the "entertaining" term loosely. There wasn't a lot to mention. The Mexicools get the win in a match that got virtually no build, although more build than Orland versus Benoit.

Everything about Mysterio versus Guerrero was just perfect, in my eyes. I can't really say I consider it match of the year quality, because Dominic was a huge distraction outside the ring. I was disappointed at first that they decided to bring him out there because I really wanted a classic between Eddie and Rey. But, once the match got started, I found myself on the edge of my seat, way more into it than I even thought I'd be. This was done so well that I, an Eddie Guerrero fan and definitely NOT a Rey Mysterio fan, was rooting hard for Rey to pull out a victory. It was awkward for me, cheering for Rey. Every time Eddie went near Dominic I would scream for Rey to catch him. The end was amazing. It had me fooled, and if anyone tells me they knew Rey was going to come back out of nowhere and roll Eddie up, I won't believe you, so save it. I don't know if I'd ever get tired of seeing these two go at it. SummerSlam, anyone?

Umm? well, the Bra & Panties match was next, and DAMN, Melina screams a lot. But I'm glad she won. Just as we all were expecting, all three women ended up stripped down to their underwear. There's nothing more to say.

Batista successfully defended his World Heavyweight Championship against JBL in a match that was starting to turn into a pretty decent brawl. At least until Batista got DISQUALIFIED. What the hell? I'm getting some strange feeling that they're going for a Batista/JBL rematch at SummerSlam and giving The Undertaker his shot early, or maybe even having a Fatal Four-Way between those three and the man of the hour every hour, Randy Orton. No matter what they're going for, they're not going to make me understand why they went for a DQ finish. There's just no reason for that. They proved JBL could beat Batista when he came back to the ring and killed him, so what's the difference? I'll admit, though. It was nice seeing Batista beat the hell out of JBL with that steel chair. I love JBL's mic work, but after hearing him say George W. Bush was a great American, he needed one damn good beating.

So, I'm going to give the Great American bash an overall rating of 3 out of 5 stars. Going into the event, I was expecting a good 4 stars, but the first three matches and the main event all ended so oddly. The winners of the first three were just utter bullshit and anytime there's a DQ ending in a main event, or really any match on pay-per-view, it's not going to leave the fans who paid 35 dollars to watch happy, and it's not going to make the fans that paid for their tickets and drove all the way to the event happy. As I said, they missed a couple of very big boats with jobbing Benoit and Christian to OJ and Booker T. The show was okay, but could have been better.

Final Rating = *** (3 out of 5)

Until next time, the Captain's Quarters is now closed. As always, stay FABULOUS.

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