Armageddon 2004 Review
I first saw this event the day after it aired when I was just ten years old. I loved it because I loved everything WWE related at the time. I see that Raw was quick to drop this PPV after their bad 2003 event, and shove it over to Smackdown. Would they do a better job? Let's find out.
Rob Van Dam & Rey Mysterio vs Kenzo Suzuki & Rene Dupree
The Tag Titles are on the line. Dupree and Suzuki really didn't look like threats to the Titles, mainly because RVD and Mysterio had only just won the titles, so there was no way they were losing to these guys. The match was going well until the heel heat segment that almost sucked the life out of the crowd and myself. It got back on track afterwards. A solid opener that did it's job and fired up the crowd. **3/4
Daniel Puder gives a pretty shitty promo for his match later.
Kurt Angle invites Santa Claus to come out and fight him. Angle calls Tazz one of Santa's elves and I'll admit, it made me laugh. Angle's pissed that his daughter would rather write to Santa rather than spend time with her dad. The bell rang but I'm not rating it. Kurt beat Santa immediately. Santa looked like Domino from the Deuce N' Domino tag team.
Mike Mizanin gives a decent promo. Better than Puder's anyway. They show a video of all seven competitors and I didn't realise that Ryback was one of them.
Teddy Long comes out to tell the fans about the Tough Enough match, but they are pretty much silent, and Teddy looks like he's really struggling out there. Suddenly I really don't feel like watching the rest of the show, but I'll press on.
Daniel Puder vs Mike Mizanin : Dixie Dogfight
This really doesn't deserve to be on PPV and the fact that it's a boxing match makes it worse. I think if you told someone at the time that Mike would become a WWE Champion and a Grand Slam Champion, they would think you were on some strong drugs, but here we are. Puder won this but he wouldn't go onto anything except for a PPV appearance in the Rumble in which he was basically a punching bag. The crowd started booing after the second round. Just awful. Big fat DUD. WWE should be refunding anyone who had to watch this. There was really no point either as the fans still had to vote for who won. This took up WAY too much time.
Hopefully we'll get back to some wrestling.
Charlie Haas & Hardcore Holly vs The Basham Brothers
This is an impromptu match that wasn't even mentioned on the back of the DVD case. Haas would reappear later on in the night as a special ref. Really just a filler match and not a good one at that. It even received the dreaded 'boring' chants from the crowd. Dawn Marie comes out to help Charlie and Miss Jackie comes out to yell at here. This leads to a bad small package to give the Bashams the win. Just bad. 1/4*
Hilarious ad for the 2005 Royal Rumble plays.
John Cena vs Jesus : Street Fight
US Title is on the line. This is the only match I can remember Jesus ever participating in (not a religious joke, I was genuinely talking about Carlito's bodyguard). He's not much of a bodyguard and even got his ass kicked easily by Cena at Survivor Series. This was another ass kicking for Jesus except that this time it was a proper match and for some reason the Title was on the line. Just a very boring match in which Jesus got basically zero offense in and looked like a complete jobber. 1/2*. Afterwards Cena takes out Carlito with his chain.
Four matches in and we've only had one match that was over one star. And we have a divas match next. This isn't looking good.
Miss Jackie vs Dawn Marie
Charlie Haas is the special referee for this one. Jackie and Charlie were engaged and Dawn kept hitting on Charlie, so this match was made. At least I think that's the story. I think it started two months before this show. How does Dawn Marie keep getting put in awful storylines? Anyway another awful match for tonight. DUD. Afterwards Charlie dumps both of them and no one cares.
Good god this show sucks. Luckily Kurt Angle's on next, so hopefully the show is back on track.
Big Show vs Luther Reigns, Mark Jindrak & Kurt Angle
Couldn't this just have been a one-on-one match between Show and Angle? No one cares about the other two. This feud had lasted for a couple of months after Angle and company decided to shave Show bald, into the look that we all know today. It's hard to make a handicap match a good match, and this one fell into that same pitfall. It was decent when Show was on offense, but dull when he wasn't and even Angle couldn't make it fun. Show wins with an F5. When did he start using that? Ok match. *1/2
Spike Dudley vs Funaki
Seriously? Funaki was the only challenger for the cruiserweight title? Wasn't Chavo Guerrero a face at this point? The fans weren't into this one with another 'boring' chant. I was hoping that the cruiserweights could somehow have a show-stealing match here, but alas, we have yet another borefest. Funaki actually manages to pin Spike and win the Title. No wonder the Title wasn't considered anything special. *
I'm gonna have to watch Summerslam 2013 after watching this show to remind myself that wrestling is actually good. The main event would need to be Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels from Mania 25 to save the show.
JBL vs Undertaker vs Booker T vs Eddie Guerrero
The WWE Championship is on the line. What made this pretty cool is that JBL had a history with all three of these men throughout 2004. It was pretty unpredictable as it was hard to tell who would win the match. Everyone was sick and tired of JBL as the champ and winning every match unfairly. So how does this match end? Unfairly with JBL still champ. Goddamn it. It didn't help that the finish also continued the boring Taker/Heidenreich feud. This match started off slowly, but got a little better as it went on. It was thanks to Eddie that the match wasn't too dull. Good match to end this horrible night. ***
2/10. Holy hell what a bad show. Easily one of the worst PPVs I've ever watched and maybe the worst. All you have is a solid opener and a good main event, but neither one is worth going out of your way to see. Nothing really changed on this night except the whole Charlie Haas thing. Whoopdy doo. God I need a drink after that. Stay away from this one.
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