Well, it’s that time of the year again: WWE Great American Bash! I think the only people who enjoy this PPV every year are WWE critics who just love to point out everything wrong the PPV as a representation of WWE itself being downright horrible. I’ll concede: the past two have been pretty bad if not downright horrible, have they been completely void of good matches? Hell, no! 2004 had Rey Mysterio versus Chavo Guerrero and John Bradshaw Layfield against Eddie Guerrero. Neither re-match was better than the original, but they were both still good. 2005 had Rey Mysterio versus Eddie Guerrero and Orlando Jordan versus Chris Benoit. Ok, the second may not be the best example though it is Jordan’s best single match to date, but the later was a very good match that represented everything right with pro wrestling to me.
This year is vastly different than the past two because it is literally just downright cursed. Mark Henry, Lashley, and Great Khali all got injured (we’ll just leave it as that for one of them) and pulled from the event causing the majority of the card and probably the summer plans for SmackDown! to be vastly changed. But the funny thing is that this “curse” on the event will most likely lead to not only the card being better than it was originally planned, but probably the best Great American Bash WWE has put out yet. While that may not be the best thing to be proud of for WWE, it’s still a vast improvement and the PPV can easily beat out Backlash and New Year’s Revolution from earlier this year, which may be one of the biggest shocks of the year. Now, that’s saying something coming from a year that saw ECW return and fall on its face, RVD & Edge get the title, et cetera. Later tonight, I’ll be doing live play-by-play reviewing of the show over at TheWrestlingVoice.com. No pop-ups and I guarantee it’s one of if not the fastest live coverage on the net. It starts at 7:30 PM EST and I invite you all to come if you’re not ordering the event to see if this PPV finally breaks not only the curse of this specific PPV, but also of the past two and SmackDown! in general since the death of Eddie Guerrero. For more information on that, just click here. All right, enough talking; let’s talk about the card in general with some clichéd predictions as always.
WWE Tag Team Championship
Hooligans (c) Vs. Pitbulls
No doubt about it, this will be a good match. It’s four of the best cruiserweights in WWE going at it in a tag match. That’s two areas of wrestling right there that WWE normally ignores! Realistically, this will probably open up the event which is not a bad thing at all. The bad thing here would be if this match gets under ten minutes time. Seriously, this should be a very good match if not great and will probably be the second best match of the night. There really isn’t much that can go wrong with this match, to be honest, except for the time, but with such a reduced card, I really don’t see how this match could get below ten minutes. While I personally think the Hooligans will retain and a tag title switch right now is unlikely, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for Kash & Noble to take the straps and feud with Kendrick & London over the summer with the belts putting not only the Tag Team division back on track, but showing that Cruiserweights do have a place in WWE. Ok, I may be overreaching here, but it’s going to be a very good match, will open the card up right, and I for one am amazingly excited for it. I’m going to go with Hooligans for this on as I think anyone would, but it’s not like it’d be horrible for it to go the other way.
Predicted Winners: Hooligans
WWE United States Championship
Finlay (c) Vs. William Regal
Hot damn, we got ourselves Finlay-Regal! On the last SmackDown! PPV, we got Benoit-Finlay and now we get Regal-Finlay. What are we going to get at Summerslam: all three in the ring? No offense, but Lashley being pulled from this match really did up the quality. I don’t think Lashley’s horrible obviously, but I definitely think the match is a lot, lot better without him in it. This will easily be the match of the night and I think the quality of the match will go hand-in-hand with the time it’s given just like the match before it. The longer it goes, the better it will be. Twenty to twenty-five minutes is about the perfect time, in my opinion, and while people might roll their eyes at two guys like this getting so long, just look at the rest of the card and tell me there is not time to kill. The only thing holding this match back will be the predictability as I think we all know that Finlay won’t drop the title in this match, but there have been some amazingly predictable matches that have still turned out amazing and this should be no different. Clear the way guys: there’s a new match of the year contender coming tonight.
Predicted Winner: Finlay
Punjabi Prison Match
Undertaker Vs. Big Show
Well, the buyrates will show if WWE can sell a match on total mystique. Regardless of whether or not the show turns out to be good or bad though, the buyrates will most likely be horrible. But let’s be honest; which would you rather see: Undertaker Vs. Great Khali or Undertaker Vs. Big Show. No brainer here. Will this be a great match? Hell, no. Will this be a good match? Possibly, but probably not. Will it be at least decent? Yes. The match will obviously have its boring parts, but on the whole, I think the match will be at least decent and better than their match in ECW with the gimmick attached …never thought I’d utter that phrase about Undertaker, Big Show, and ECW. Anyway, the match will be decent, but it’s still not entirely known if it will still be a Punjabi Prison match. If so, yeah, I’ll go with decent. If not, probably a little worse off than the ECW match. Who will win? Really, Big Show needs to go over to put legitimacy on the ECW title and make-up for the run-in from Khali previously. Will it happen? No. Undertaker did his clean job already this year and while I do love the wrestler, I doubt he’ll do it again here.
Predicted Winner: Undertaker
WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Gregory Helms (c) Vs. ?
Think about this for a moment. This is the first Great American Bash that will have every title defended on it and the first to have two matches strictly with Cruiserweights. If that’s not an indication that this will be the best Great American Bash yet, I don’t know what is. So basically, Helms is defending the belt on the PPV and they haven’t announced his opponent yet and it’s between Super Crazy and Psicosis with it probably going to Super Crazy. No matter what, it should be a good match if given over eight minutes and again, with the short card, I really can’t see it being shafted unless they add some ECW matches like it’s been rumored. Don’t get me started on that either because I truly believe it will kill the card (and that’s not a knock on ECW). Now the thing with this match is that they have started building up Helms as the longest reigning Cruiserweight champion ever and normally, when a company starts to do that, it’s just a matter of time before he drops it and I really think Helms will drop the title at this PPV. Don’t believe me? Look at America’s Most Wanted in TNA recently. Look at last year with Shelton Benjamin (as soon as they gave mention to the fact that he held it longer than Orton, he dropped it). Now, I could be completely wrong, but this is what I’m going to go with and expect while watching the PPV. The sad thing is that they are obviously going with Super Crazy and Psicosis, yet I think that a Helms-Super Crazy storyline playing of the immigration debate in America would be great. It would definitely get criticized all to hell, but I think it would garner a lot of interest and be the first real storyline in WWE for the Cruiserweights since a girl held the title if you can even call that one a storyline.
Predicted Winner: ?
Batista Vs. Ken Kennedy
Just like the other two matches that got changed, this one got changed for the better here. The only problem here is that I think the buyrates will definitely reflect the change as the match had been built up from before Batista got injured, and now, it’s just a random match with Batista and Kennedy. It’s no one’s fault here I think, just the roll of the dice. It’s not even like Kennedy is that much greater than Mark Henry (cue the outpour of hate mail), but it’s the fact that Batista’s matches are all set around his power and slamming guys hard, something he can’t do well with Henry. Every time the formula is changed with Batista (for instance, look at last year’s match), it tanks. With Henry, Batista would have tanked. Here, Kennedy is big enough to be taken serious and small enough to take all the big bumps and make Batista look like a star. The only problem with all of this is that no matter what happens, Kennedy is going to lose and it’s going to cost him a lot of his heat and credibility especially after just jobbing to Matt Hardy. Really though, there wasn’t much else to do in this situation and this may be the only detriment to all the changes. The match will be better, but in the end, it will damage Kennedy significantly and the buyrates are already going to suffer. It’s just the way it falls though and as far as overall match quality, like Taker-Show, it will be decent and not really noteworthy except to see how Batista looks back in the ring for a singles match.
Predicted Winner: Batista
Bra & Panties Four Way Match
Ashley Massaro Vs. Kristal Marshall Vs. Jillian Hall Vs. Michelle McCool
I have a feeling this will go on last or towards the end as a filler match so the crowd doesn’t get burnt out before the main event or one of the big matches, but besides that, who freakin’ cares about this? No offense, but if you buy a PPV to see this, you need to re-evaluate your life. If you’re even looking forward to this, you need to re-evaluate your life. All right, let’s be fair; Kristal is pretty decent, Jillian is actually trained, Massaro’s getting better, and Michelle is a decent athlete at least. This won’t be the worst Bra & Panties match, but it’s still a Bra & Panties match and that’s the point. Four women are going to go in and strip down for the crowd. Some women in the crowd are going to be pissed, some are going to be jealous; some guys are going to be drooling, others will pretend not to since they have a significant other. Then we have kids who will most likely stand there oblivious while God shakes his head at this great parenting, also still pissed because he was asked to do the job at Backlash.
Predicted Winner: Who Cares?
WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Rey Mysterio (c) Vs. King Booker
Well, the Booker fans world-wide will finally be pleased. Tonight, I feel very strongly that it’s going to be the night that Booker finally wins the big one in WWE. Will it be a historic, great, long reign for him that follows? No, but is it really that big of a deal? The only time Booker was ever in the perfect position for the title was at WrestleMania XIX against Triple H and it didn’t happen there. Here, he was just in the right place at the right time by punking out Batista and making news on-line that will result in him finally getting the strap. By the way, his should send a message to everyone in WWE right now: if you want a main event and/or title reign, go pick a fight with a main eventer backstage. For Mysterio fans and haters, tonight ends the “controversial” title reign for the smallest “Heavyweight” champion ever. Was the title reign a complete flop and failure? Not in my opinion and definitely not when you compare it to someone in TNA, but it’s no secret it was not handled right at all and definitely had major mistakes happening every week at one point. As much as I love Rey Mysterio, I for one will be glad for it to end simply because there is no bigger black mark than having a Heavyweight champion at Rey’s size. Wait, I take that back; there is: the Cruiserweight Champion outweighs the Heavyweight Champion.
Yes, Rey is amazingly talented, but as long as that word Heavyweight is attached to the title, he has no business near it. Even more, WWE obviously had no idea how to handle Rey Mysterio in the main event. Maybe down the line, Rey will get another shot without that damaging word attached to it and with WWE actually having a clue as to what to do with him, but for now, Booker’s getting the strap and in a month’s time, Batista will be champ once again. Now, as far as the match itself goes, I think it will actually be quite good though it was a dumb move to give this match away for free on TV days before the PPV. I don’t feel it will be as good as the US and Tag title matches, but will still be a solid main event. Chavo Guerrero’s turn on Rey Mysterio will happen tonight definitely and while I would rather Rey put over Booker clean and then Chavo can turn on Rey for “disrespecting Eddie’s memory by losing so badly” or something, we all know that Chavo is just going to cost Rey the match and it be about jealously and everything. No matter what though, we will get a good main event, King Booker as champion, and Eddie Guerrero back in the storylines again (though probably nowhere near as disrespectful or shameful as last time).
Predicted Winner: King Booker
Looks a small card, doesn’t it? It kind of gives me the fear that ECW matches will be added to the card, which will then take away time from the three less important title matches. And that, my friends, will be a huge mistake as those will be the saving grace of this PPV. No matter what though, this will easily be the best Great American Bash yet and in no way go down as one of the worst PPVs ever like some are saying. Will it go down as one of the oddest cases for a PPV? Yes. Will the buyrate suck horribly? Yes. Will the PPV suck? Only if you hate WWE with a passion and then you need to just ask yourself why you’re watching the PPV. I may be too optimistic here, but I believe this will turn out good and be even better than Backlash and New Year’s Revolution (and possibly even Royal Rumble) of this year and that, to me, is the biggest news of the year. Think about it: Great American Bash overcomes the SmackDown! curse, the GAB PPV curse, and three wrestlers being removed to deliver a solid PPV. Just imagine what will happen if the buyrate does well too! Well, that’s a bit of a stretch there, but the PPV will be good and that’s that, guys.
Again, I’ll be doing live play-by-play reviewing of the show over at TheWrestlingVoice.com. No pop-ups and I guarantee it’s one of if not the fastest live coverage on the net. It starts at 7:30 PM EST and I invite you all to come if you’re not ordering the event, which I assume a lot of you aren’t. If you want more information on that, just click here now. On that note, let me wrap this up. It’s been a while since Column O’ Nonsense has shown up here, but I guarantee it won’t be but a week or two before I come back with another article and even quicker before I have some new interviews and reviews up. Until then, thanks for reading me, check out the site, and I’ll see you all later!
AIM – Douglas Nunnally
MSN – douglasnunnally@hotmail.com
