WWE held their final pay-per-view before SummerSlam last night with The Great American Bash from Long Island, New York. This year’s edition of the Bash featured the good, the bad, and the ugly. The pay-per-view was by no means spectacular but it did include some surprises and some solid wrestling. Not only was the event notable for being the final pay-per-view before SummerSlam but it also featured CM Punk’s first defense of the World Heavyweight Championship on pay-per-view. A lot of questions were raised going into the event as to how confident that WWE management is with him as champion and I think that at least part of that was answered last night. Furthermore WWE crowned the first ever Divas Champion and had two surprising title changes. Below are my full thoughts on the event.
The Great American Bash opened with the Fatal Four Way tag team match for the WWE Tag Team Championship. If I were booking I probably would have opened with Shelton Benjamin vs. Matt Hardy but this match featured enough action where it turned out to be a solid opener. I was surprised with Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins stealing the win as I expected a title change but I expected Finlay & Hornswoggle to get the nod. I do not think that Ryder & Hawkins are near as over as Finlay & Hornswoggle but I guess it could be a possibility that WWE wanted the titles back on SmackDown. I can’t believe that I am actually questioning why Hornswoggle doesn’t get another run with a title. Nonetheless the match was solid and provided enough entertainment to set the tone for the show.
There was not much time from the first match to the second as Matt Hardy immediately came out to defend the United States Championship against Shelton Benjamin. Benjamin and Hardy had a very good match with another surprising outcome. This has got to be like the 1000th time that WWE has started a push for Shelton – one can only wonder how long that they will stick with it. Shelton looked very good in the ring despite botching an important moonsault spot that he was supposed to sell from Matt Hardy. I am not sure where this leaves Hardy but hopefully he will not be reduced as I felt that he was worthy of a longer run as US Champion given how long it took him to overcome MVP for the title.
Mark Henry’s defense of the ECW Championship against Tommy Dreamer was not really much of a match but more of a Henry spot fest. Henry hit pretty much everything that a guy his size is capable of only for Dreamer to land a couple of spots here and there. The notable thing to come out of this match was Colin Delaney turning heel as he cost Dreamer the win (as if Henry needed Colin’s help) by knocking him off the ropes where Henry could pin him. I would expect a Dreamer vs. Colin feud on ECW.
Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho stole the show with their bout which was one of the more unusual matches that I have seen in WWE in quite some time. After Michaels and Jericho worked for several minutes and Michaels fought off Lance Cade interference – Shawn ended up getting busted open badly. The way that it was sold on pay-per-view was that Jericho had re-injured the eye of Shawn Michaels with a stiff elbow. They booked Michaels to refuse to give up only for Jericho to continue punishing him with stiff right hands and boots to the face. Eventually the referee stopped the match, deeming Michaels unable to continue thus declaring Chris Jericho the winner. I love real-life finishes such as this and is something that I would not mind seeing more of. Michaels was bleeding extremely bad – probably the worst anyone has bled in a WWE ring this year. My only problem with this match was its position on the card because I knew that it would be impossible to follow.
When a match is almost impossible to follow – who is sent out to follow? The divas. Michelle McCool and Natalya had a very basic – submission hold dominated – match that saw Michelle McCool walking away as the first ever WWE Divas Champion. There was nothing to the match and there was not really anything notable about it. This was probably used as a bathroom break for most people and I think it was more or less to drip off the emotion from the Michaels/Jericho ending. After the match, Jericho came out and said that HBK had a detached retina and that his career was over. It was a good heel moment for Jericho but from some reason it drew little reaction from the fans. I would probably attribute that to New York fans being smarter on the business than your average Joe.
World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk had his first title defense on pay-per-view in the next match against Batista. These two had a fun match going until Kane came down and interfered – causing a double disqualification. Normally I would be livid with the finish but I understand why it was done. WWE is obviously still testing the waters with Punk as champion but they did not want to take the belt off him. However, they did not want him to go clean against Batista and eliminate a possibility for a SummerSlam match. Furthermore they evidently want to add Kane to the mix so I think that the booking made sense in that Punk and Batista got to feel one another out while keeping the program going.
I prefaced this review with The Great American Bash included the good, the bad, and the ugly – well the next “match” featured bad and ugly but nothing good. JBL’s New York City Parking Lot Brawl with John Cena was a joke and insulted the intelligence of everyone watching. Not only did the contest look extremely contrived and fake, the stunts that were pulled off made the match very unbelievable. JBL smashed Cena’s face through a glass window where Cena didn’t even bleed and at one point even doused a car in gasoline and set it on fire with Cena in the back of it. Cena escaped unscathed – looking as Super Manish as ever and went directly back on the offense. Another thing that made no sense was the fact that Cena showed up for the match completely unharmed from the cliffhanger ending to Raw last week which was more than eye-rolling. This contest killed the live crowd and as I noted last night in my coverage – killed our web traffic as well as people were obviously not very interested in a parking lot brawl between Cena and Bradshaw. JBL stole the win like I knew that he would because of all of the clean jobs that he has done to Cena.
Triple H and Edge had a solid match but it did not come close to Jericho vs. Michaels and I did not feel that it was as good as Punk vs. Batista. Hunter and Edge seemed to work well together there were just times in this match where I felt that the action got a bit slow. The match ended in interference with Alicia Fox (the wedding planner) and Vickie Guerrero hitting the ring. In a moment that made no sense at all, Edge went for a spear on Fox but missed and hit Vickie. Why is he mad at the wedding planner? Nonetheless Hunter capitalized off the distraction to retain the WWE Championship. The match would have been better without the interference but I understand that it had to happen for the storylines building to SummerSlam to tie together.
The Great American Bash was filled with the good (Jericho vs. Michaels), the bad (the New York City Parking Lot Brawl), and the ugly (HBK’s bleeding face) but overall I felt that it was a solid show building to SummerSlam. I wouldn’t go out of my way to order the replay but I felt like I got my money’s worth with the spectacular bout between Michaels and Jericho. If you decide to watch this show, completely skip the New York City Parking Lot Brawl and the Divas Championship match. Unless you want to see Colin Delaney turn heel, you can skip the ECW Championship match. Other than that the event was an enjoyable couple of hours of wrestling and will probably entertain you.
Richard can be contacted at richard [at] grayinternet.com
Richard Gray is a professional wrestling journalist and frequent contributor to Rajah.com. He has been covering the world of professional wrestling since 1999 and has had the opportunity to cover ground breaking stories such as the demise of ECW, the WCW buyout, the Benoit tragedy, Bobby Lashley leaving WWE, and more. For more on Richard check out his web site, Wrestling News World.
– “Richard Reacts” Archive By WrestlingNewsWorld.com’s Richard Gray