The Year in PPV- 2008, Part II

Let's continue 2008 by taking things to the extreme...


6. One Night Stand

It's that one special night of the year where WWE goes "extreme" with One Night Stand, and the 2008 edition actually lives up to the hype by providing a lot of entertaining and hardcore matches that left fans impressed. Of course, there are a few hiccups along the way, including the ending to the anticipated Last Man Standing match for the WWE Championship between Triple H and Randy Orton. What started off as a fun and exciting match, ended prematurely as Orton legitimately broke his collarbone. John Cena and JBL continued their feud with a First Blood match that wasn't bad, but I think the way the match ended was a bit bizarre, especially with all the ways you could make your opponent bleed. There's also matches that won't go down as absolute 5-star classics, like the Falls Count Anywhere match (Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga) or the Singapore Cane match (CM Punk vs. Chavo Guerrero vs. John Morrison vs. Tommy Dreamer vs. Big Show), but they still know how to have fun and keep the audience riveted.

I will say one of the more surprising highlights of the show was the first ever Diva's "I Quit" match between Melina and Beth Phoenix. Considering what the Diva's division has been like over the years, this match is very refreshing and puts two of the best Divas during this time period in a match where they can dish out and take a beating like few Divas could. Batista and Shawn Michaels also bring their rivalry to an end (and also continue Shawn's feud with Jericho) with a thoroughly gripping stretcher match that allows the chemistry they established at Backlash to improve and is a very satisfying conclusion to their rivalry. The night comes to an end in a TLC match for the World Heavyweight Championship between Edge and the Undertaker, with an added stipulation that the Undertaker would be banished from WWE if he lost. In all honesty, I think this is one of the weaker TLC matches I've seen. I'm not to keen on the one-on-one TLC matches since the multiple team TLC matches created much more excitement. This match has high spots like you'd expect, but also has a slow pace. It's not all bad though, so it's still worth a look and thankfully this was the main event and not the WWE Championship match that ended abruptly or else WWE could have had a disaster on their hand in PPV refunds.

Recommended


7. Night of Champions

I really love the old days where there were 8 to 9 titles to where the Night of Champions PPV made sense. Nowadays, with 5 titles, the PPV is a stretch and half the card is full of filler matches which doesn't allow it to stand out from the other shows throughout the year. But I digress. 2008's show is full of surprises that help the show feel even more special, including the reveal of whom Ted DiBiase (the Million Dollar Man's son in his WWE debut match) would choose as his partner to face World Tag Team Champions Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes, and who would answer Chris Jericho's open challenge for the Intercontinental Championship. There are also a few championship matches that haven't aged the greatest, like the WWE Tag Team Championship match featuring The Miz and John Morrison against Finlay and Hornswoggle (the more championship matches that bugger gets, the sadder I become for this business).

At the end of the night, this show was about creating a moment through an epic showdown: Triple H vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship. Their first one-on-one match since WrestleMania 22, they play up a LOT of continuity to that match to say that Triple H never got over the loss. The match itself is spectacular and really lives up to the hype, and arguably exceeds it. The crowd is completely invested in the match too, and the added fallout of the previous week's draft left the possibility of RAW without a world champion. Until the next night...

Recommended


8. The Great American Bash

The next night on RAW, CM Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase on World Heavyweight Champion Edge and brought the title over to RAW. His first PPV defense was against Batista, the man who roughed Edge up and allowed Punk to cash in. This match proved to be a test for Punk's legitimacy as champion. The WWE Championship match between Triple H and Edge was more focused on Edge's deteriorating relationship with his newlywed bride Vickie Guerrero. Their match isn't horrible, but the storyline plays out like a soap opera (and that's saying a lot considering it's professional wrestling) to the point where the audience is not invested. The third main event of the evening saw a New York City Parking Lot Brawl between John Cena and JBL. The problem with this match is that the "Brawl" doesn't feel remotely genuine. This doesn't play out like a natural hardcore match of the early 2000s, but more like a choreographed dance sequence that JBL and Cena completely phoned in for this show.

Add a handful of mediocre midcard title matches, and is there anything worth remembering from this show? In terms of match quality and rivalries, the Shawn Michaels/Chris Jericho feud continues with a bloody and brutal match, and since the PG era, it's the last match where a wrestler "bled buckets." In terms of history, the first Diva's Champion was crowned at The Great American Bash...so there's that.

Mild Recommendation


9. SummerSlam

When your SummerSlam has 4 main events, to the point where the two world title matches can be considered lower midcard, you know you're in for something special. When an announcement from Shawn Michaels is considered a main event, you know you're in for something special (P.S., that announcement segment is AMAZING). With an opening match like Jeff Hardy and MVP, and an intergender tag team match for the Women's and Intercontinental Championships (Kofi Kingston and Mickie James vs. Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix), and a brief ECW Championship match between Mark Henry and Matt Hardy that turns into a Hardy Boyz reunion, this show is entertaining from start to finish.

CM Punk defends the World Heavyweight Championship against JBL and Triple H defends the WWE Championship against the Great Khali, but those matches look like footnotes in comparison to the REAL main events of the evening. RAW's main event saw the epic first encounter between John Cena and Batista. While the match may not live up to the hype (admittedly, it was HUGE hype), it still had big side effects for the rest of the year, since Cena suffered a herniated disc that left him sidelined for a few months. SmackDown was able to follow that match with the Undertaker having one last match with Edge, and this time it was Hell in a Cell. Considered the first "PG" Cell match, the match utilizes huge spots with weapons to make up for the lack of blood and it is a very fitting close to their epic 2008 rivalry and has become a modern SummerSlam classic.

Highly Recommended


Thoughts: The Great American Bash seemed to be the only real setback for the year at this point. With CM Punk's cash in, Randy Orton's injury, Cena and Batista's SummerSlam clash, some extreme stipulations added to the Undertaker and Edge's rivalry, and the personal stakes added to the Michaels/Jericho feud, the year continues to surprise and entertain fans. With Cena injured after SummerSlam and Edge taken out in the Hell in a Cell match, the main event picture was open to some surprises to close out the year.

Concluded in Part III...


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