Unforgiven 2008

I'll make this short. I don't have a whole lot of time. I didn't see all of Unforgiven 2008. I came in for the closing matches of the WWE Championship scramble and took it from there. I later went back and watched specifically the Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho bout. Below are some quick thoughts I sent in to Bill Apter of http://www.1wrestling.com after the show. You can also access them through the site here.


From Vincent Conroy
MATCH OF THE YEAR: Y2J vs. HBK

I don't want to waste time with the other matches. This one was by far the best of the night. There were parts that were disturbing to watch and at times I had to keep reminding myself this whole angle was a work. Any creative mind in any form of wrestling should pay close attention on how to properly build a feud. Any wrestler should pay attention to how to tell a story in the ring. These two are magic together.

As I said, there were parts that were almost disturbing. I have seen a lot of original ECW stuff (the best of the hardcore matches) and this still sent chills down my spine. It wasn't particularly bloody (though plenty was shed…), it was moreso the psychology behind it: the fact that the "pure and holy" Shawn Michaels was consciously and willingly inflicting this kind of pain on Chris Jericho. HBK was favoring his left arm the whole time (Shawn is a southpaw…) but still managed to pull of yet another showstopping performance.

As for Y2J, I doubt he had to work hard to sell anything as every blow seemed more real than the last. From being suplexed on the ramp (a move that seemed to open his arm up) to being put through the announce table, to being whipped with Shawn's belt (even in the face…) this was by far the worst beating I've ever seen Jericho or any wrestler take. Jericho was blatantly whimpering in pain through the middle of the match and I wonder if the finish was changed because of the wounds he has sustained. Before tackling Jericho toward the end of the match you could see Shawn crawl up behind him and, wrapping Jericho's arm around his own throat, mouth the words "Are you okay?" To the viewer it looked like HBK was teasing Jericho, because HBK the character could care less. Deep down, though, we could see that Shawn truly was concerned for Jericho's health, as are many people at this point.

Both men told a great story. Jericho's evil expression makes your blood run cold and seeing babyface Michaels become "possessed" to the point of being a mirror for Jericho's hatred was just disturbing. Shawn was openly crying after putting Jericho through the announce table and after the match was over. He was shaking all over as Jericho writhed in what I have to believe to be very real pain. Jerry "The King" Lawler said it best when he claimed Shawn Michaels had been "possessed by the devil", because he certainly wasn't the Shawn Michaels we are used to seeing.

The average hardcore match utilizes more weapons and sheds more blood, but deep down you remember that both men signed to do it, and at least one of them is enjoying themselves. We know that HBK and Y2J signed up for this, but to think that either man is having a pleasant evening as a result is unfathomable. This is what wrestling is all about: storytelling. This is a great story that will go down as one of the greatest feuds of all time.

OTHER THOUGHTS:

Randy Orton needs to form a stable with Priceless (who finally need to call themselves "Priceless" and start selling their own T-shirts…)

Matt Hardy as ECW Champion is another reason to tune in on Tuesday nights. A very smart move.

The Divas Title was up for grabs, but no one cared because a better angle would've been Candice Michelle vs. Beth Phoenix for the Women's Championship. There are too many redundant titles running around in WWE.

Triple H retaining the WWE Title is okay considering the circumstances, but now it's time to put the strap on Jeff Hardy, who the fans CLEARLY want to see win. Nice tease by WWE, but only if it actually gets Jeff the title in the near future.

Nice to see actual plot development on a PPV, though the segment with 'Taker and Big Show ran a bit long. Why do beat-downs take so long these days?

WWE needs to increase the number of matches per PPV and shorten the length of each match. The title scrambles were deliberately 20 minutes to take up air time (that's 1/3 of the PPV right there…) but were struggling to fill it with solid action. The Divas Title match suffered from the same issue. Remember when we used to get 10 matches per PPV and each match only had to be about 15 minutes long (title matches were always longer?) That's what they need to go back to. What's the point in having 9 titles in your company if only 5 get defended regularly? No IC, Women's, WWE Tag, or United States title matches (Shelton Benjamin was in the WWE title scramble). With PPV's now $49.99 (for HD) I want more bang for my buck.

All in all I give the show a 7/10, mostly for the HBK/Y2J classic and also for finally giving Matt Hardy a world championship. Let's see if they can do the same for Jeff.


Another, late-breaking thought (though it's pretty obvious by now) is having all three title matches under the same stipulation. I thought the crowd was dead because the action was lame, but there was nothing wrong with the wrestling. It was the fact that they'd already endured two of these scrambles and now they were sitting through a third one. Rather than a develop a real feud between champion and challenger, it's much easier for creative to sit back and throw the "tournament" angle out there under a different name.

Awesome.

They did the same thing a little while back with the Elimination Chamber and what a huge flop that was. Chamber mathces used to be special but now I feel saturated with pointless, arbitrary gimmick matches and long for a good, deep-running feud. Is that really too much to ask?

I guess so.