WWF UNFORGIVEN

Sunday, September 26th, 1999, from Charlotte, North Carolina

ECW has great cards. Anarchy Rulz was a wild pay per view. Mike Awesome wins the coveted ECW Heavyweight Belt. Taz leaves with tears in his eyes. Sabu beats Justin Credible into a bloody mess. The Orignial Gangster shows up with a staple gun around his neck and a heap of weapons. Okay. I’ve given up on WCW for the time being. Nitro wasn’t bad, but they really need to do something with Hogan. He fucking blows. Hollywood Hogan was at least hysterical and evil. Now he’s red and yellow and fully lame. The rest of the WCW staff is marginal. Chris Benoit and the Luchadores are getting a seminal push but they have to make Goldberg and Sid stay off the mike before their careers disappear. While ECW sets it’s own standards, WWF is definitely the best it’s ever been. Of course if you like basic, technical wrestling and not gimmicks, then the World Wrestling Federation is not for you. On this week’s Smackdown they had a Boiler Room Brawl, a Casket Match, a First Blood Match, and an Inferno Match. Holy shit that show rocks. I hope when it comes to Philly it’s not too great of a show because otherwise I’ll beat my head into a wall. Unforgiven is Sunday. It has the best card in a loooooong time. The main event isn’t that great, it’s the undercards. Jericho and The Dudley Boyz wrestle, and there’s a gimmick match here that takes the official GIMMICK MATCH OF THE YEAR award. I seriously doubt they can out-do this one:

AL SNOW vs. BIG BOSSMAN: Might as well get right into it. The gimmick is what can be titled a Double Cage Dog Match. A basic top-less cage is around the ring. A Hell in the Cell around the first cage. Between the Hell in the Cell and the first cage are two rottweiler dogs. The first man to get out of both cages wins the match. Jesus. It’s fair to say there’s no way in hell this match will reach anyone’s expectations. First off, the dog element is a rip-off of WCW’s Great American Bash, where the Steiner’s fed Sting to three dogs. Expect the dogs to just run around and do nothing. I seriously doubt they’ll attack either man. Hopefully there will be some tables and chairs into the mix. I’d love Al Snow to smash Bossman through a table after leaping off the original cage. It’s a silly idea but I love it. Realistically it should be the best match of the night. This match I’m looking forward to more than any match this year.

THE ACOLYTES vs. THE DUDLEY BOYZ: Even if The Dudleys lost their ECW-charm, I still love ‘em. ECW has a great style where it’s a free for all/barbed wire/cheese grater/blood splattering everything mentality. It’s wild. WWF is more casual. –seriously- The Acolytes are just okay but kind’ve funny. It should be a good match. It seemed like the Dudley boy matches in ECW were good only because their opponents got the shit beat out of them. Don't expect anyone in the WWF to be willing to go through a flaming table or be wrapped in barbed wire. If the WWF needs one thing it’s barbed wire. I doubt they’ll ever indulge, but when they do I’m saying goodbye to the WCW for good.

KEN SHAMROCK vs. CHRIS JERICHO: WCW has two good talkers and they are Scott Steiner and Ric Flair. Chris Jericho and The Rock are the best mic(rophone) workers in the biz, and the WWF has ‘em. Jericho is definitely one of my top 5 wrestlers, that’s why I love WWF even more now. In the ring he’s okay, but it’s the skits and interviews he does that makes him the man. Expect an okay matchup but I’ll watch it because I love Y2J. One of the funniest things I’ve heard was about his last match he did for WCW. It was a house show and before the match he told the audience he was going to quit WCW if he lost. Raw…is…Jericho.

LUNA vs. IVORY: The WWF always surprises me. I was worried about this match because it more or less ruins a near perfect card (Chyna/JJ is worse). But wait! The WWF realized it, too and they’ve made this into a hardcore matchup, which, at the very least, makes it watchable. Tables, chairs, frying pans, oh my!

MARK HENRY vs. D’LO BROWN: This feud came out of nowhere. I hate it when the WCW or WWF make a good guy bad just…because. At least with WCW and Sting, they’ve created a promo to put out the idea that maybe he was bad ever since he put on the Crow makeup. Mark Henry is bad for absolutely no-reason. The only good thing to come out of this feud is Mark Henry getting lap dances left and right. He was in a strip club when D’Lo came in and they fought. Raw gets more risque every week. I eat it up like vanilla pudding.

VAL VENIS vs. STEVE BLACKMAN: They don’t know what to do with Steve Blackman. At King of the Ring he had a little bit to do with the main event just because at that time he was doing absolutely nothing with the company. His feud with Shamrock has been over for awhile now, and that was the only thing he ever did. Expect him to be fired or given a massive storyline like Test has been given. I can’t wait for the wedding on October 11th  between Test and Stephanie McMahon.

CHYNA vs. JJ: The worst match of the night, even though they’ve built this match up more then any other. JJ’s current storyline is putting the figure-4 on any woman in his sight. He’s also knocked out Chyna with a frying pan and put an apron on her and a cooking spoon in her hand and told her to make him dinner. It’s funny but lame. I hate Chyna, but I hate JJ worse. Boring matchup guaranteed.

THE BIG SHOW vs. THE BRITISH BULLDOG vs. KANE vs. HHH vs. THE ROCK vs. MANKIND: Stone Cold is the special referee. I guarantee that Kane wins the belt. Why? Well it definitely could be The Rock. The ‘net hints at it, and The Rock winning the belt makes a lot of sense…but I think they’ll wait for a bigger event to have The Rock win, like Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, or Wrestlemania 2000 from Da Pond. Mankind just won the belt, albeit for one night. Big Show could take the belt because it was rumored that he would take on Austin when Raw hits the Georgia Dome at the end of October. Big Show sucks, though, and I truly doubt they would give it to him. HHH just had the belt and if he won again it would equal low ratings and bad fan reaction. The British Bulldog? I think not. He just got into the WWF and they usually make you pay for your gold. He may do something big but don’t expect him to win this early on. My pick, Kane, had the belt for one 24 hour period after 1998’s KOTR’s First Blood Main Event matchup. Kane deserves it. He’s been gaining TV time ever since the summer. He’s a crowd favorite. The match will be lame because everyone will go everywhere and they can’t show all the action at once, can they? What will Austin 3:16 do? Will he count the 1-2-3? Who knows, but if anyone gets the belt I’m guaranteeing it’s the Big Red Machine. And then he fights the Dudleys in a barbed wire match……

    What irony. I was writing up my predictions for WWF’s September pay per view, Unforgiven, and I stated that the WWF is the best that it has ever been. After Unforgiven I have one-thousand doubts. See, it was, in my mind, the worst pay per view of the year. Totally lame. A waste of everyone’s talents, everyone’s time, and everyone’s 30+ bucks. I always state that Raw and Nitro and now Smackdown are much better than the pay per views. Unforgiven defines my reasons why I believe this. There wasn’t one stand-out match of the bunch. Usually the WWF has awful, unwatchable, bore-ass pay per views with a great main event or stand-out match that makes you forget the rest of the boring show. Backlash had two good matches and the rest blew. King of the Ring had a stelar main event and a wasted two hours or shit. Unforgiven was unforgiveably lame. The main event was filled with high-energy and that is about the best thing I can say about the entire event. Wasted talent. Wasted time.

+VAL VENIS vs. STEVE BLACKMAN: I have absolutely nothing to say about this match. Blackman hits Venis once (yes, I said once) with a singapore cane and he needs medical attention. Come on. Venis at least usually has funny storylines (the Ryan Shamrock fiasco was pretty entertaining) but lately he’s been a waste. Blackman is aother story. He belongs in a stable run by WCW’s superstar, Brad Armstong. ½*

D’LO BROWN vs. MARK ‘SEXUAL CHOCOLATE’ HENRY: I picked Mark Henry because I figured he would cheat and win so the feud would at least continue until No Mercy. D’Lo won with his 5-star frog splash. *1/2

JEFF JARRETT vs. CHYNA: Technically the match sucked, but those two old geezers Moolah and Mae Brown came in and got their ass beat and then Deborah hit JJ over the skull with a gee-tar. Chyna loses by DQ because of the Deborah thing-a-ma-jig (since when did wrestling have instant replay?). The re-match has been set for No Mercy already. Expect Chyna to win there. **

+THE ACOLYTES vs. THE DUDLEY BOYZ: The Dudley’s were definitely at their pinnacle during their match at ECW’s Heatwave when they cursed off the crowd for five minutes then beat the shit out of Balls Mahoney and Spike Dudley and put ‘em through flaming tables. The hardcore element has seemingly been dropped from the Dudley’s arsonal and it sucks. Why? Well the Dudley boys were only as good as the pain they induced. Barbed wire? Tables? Cheese graters? Chairs? The WWF has seemingly said, “No way.” No hardcore Dudley’s? No fun. This match was okay for a basic wrestling match but everyone expected their ECW Dudley boys. Right now they’re unrecognizable. Hopefully they’ll speed up the speech impediment storyline and put the Dudley’s back on track. Curse out the crowd, and beat the shit out of the other guy. C’mon WWF: show us the Dudley’s we’ve grown to love. Hopefully, the bookers will start a feud between the Dudley’s and the Holly’s, because right now they’re  slowly falling into boring chant territory. * ½

IVORY vs. LUNA: A hardcore women’s match? I’m going to admit right now that the worst hardcore division every devised is right there in the ol’ WWF. WCW had a small hardcore division from March until July and they at least showed us some memorable matches (Uncensored’s Hak vs. Raven vs. Bam Bam Bigelow, Spring Stampede’s Hak vs. Bam Bam, and Bash at the Beach’s Junkyard Invitational). How many memorable matches has the WWF hardcore division given us? Yes, Hardcore and Al Snow fought briefly in the Mississippi river but the rest of that match was just okay. Nothing else extremely memorable in any of the Hardcore matches. Unforgiven will officially be named the time and place when the world realized the WWF HARDCORE DIVISION IS OFFICIALLY D.O.A That’s right. A god-awful women’s hardcore match and unbelieveably bad kennel from hell hardcore matchup. No bumps, no blood, no fun. This match was only about three minutes long and it was officially four minutes too long. –no stars-

+THE NEW AGE OUTLAWS vs. EDGE & CHRISTIAN: I’ve never liked either member of the NAO. They have no good moves and their personalities are lame no matter how many fans cheer. Edge and Christian are lifeless and pale in comparison to the high-flying Hardy boyz. This match was extremely slow and doesn’t anyone but me get sick of Road Dogg fake punching people? *

+AL SNOW vs. THE BIG BOSSMAN: After viewing this so-called Kennel From Hell matchup I downed two cyanide capsules and chugged half a bottle of Old No. 7. In the predictions I mentioned a now sad fact that this match was the one match of the year that I was looking forward to most. It wasn’t that I was thinking it would be good, but just to see the whole thing come together. A steel cage around the ring. A Hell in the Cell steel cage around that one. Pittbulls between the cages. Whomever gets out of both cages wins. Big Bossman deserves to be cut from the WWF roster. He’s never had a good match in his lifetime. He already ruined the menacing factor surrounding the Hell in the Cell matches. The first two HITC matches were fucking classics. Bossman and Undertaker bored the world at Wrestlemania, and now Al Snow and Bossman prove that there was absolutely no reason to have a cage around the ring, no reason to have a Hell in the Cell around that, and no reason to have pittbulls between the cages. Why? Because nothing was used. The dogs had leashes on and owners holding them back. No one took any major bumps, they didn’t even fight on the top or push someone off of either cage. This match defined the word letdown. ½*

+X-PAC vs. CHRIS JERICHO: I had one problem with Chris Jericho when I was a fan of his back in his WCW days. He was great when he got ahold of the michrophone, and hilarious in his various skits, but when he went into the ring he became a boring, average wrestler. Granted, he has a few slick moves and he’s a tad better than most, but he just can’t follow up to his talk. Ken Shamrock apparently left the WWF a little early to train for his UFC return, so Jericho was stuck with X-Pac. Jericho didn’t talk. Jericho didn’t do any skits. Jericho wrestled. ‘Nuff said. ½*

HHH vs. KANE vs. THE ROCK vs. MANKIND vs. THE BRITISH BULLDOG vs. THE BIG SHOW: The first ever 6-pack challenge. Hopefully the last. WCW had the same problem with their cruiserweight match at Fall Brawl. They used up Mysterio, Kidman, Guerrerro, and Vampiro in one match. They should have spread out the talent. This 6-pack challenge was the same way. Every match before this paled in comparison. There were a lot of finishing moves but very little special pay per view worthy moments. The biggest and best moment came when the refs on strike showed up and beat up the strike-breaking ref. It was funny in the kind of only-WWF-would-do-this way. In my oh-so studious predictions I stated that HHH wouldn’t win because it would equal low ratings and bad crowd reaction. Guess what: You heard the silent crowd, now say g’bye to ratings! **1/2

Unforgiven was a bad pay per view. I usually don’t say that about the WWF, but in the end they will be known as the uneven wrestling federation. You never know if Raw will be great or lame. With Nitro it’s the same every week. Summerslam was good but Unforgiven sucked. August was a great month for the ppv’s and September wasn’t. I’ll give Unforiven a low * because it was epically lame. Every match could have been better. I wanted something to happen. Nothing happened. $30+ for this? At least you lucky few get a copy of the WWF Music CD volume 2. It’s too bad there’s already a volume 3 out and volume 2 has crappy entrance music like Doink the Clown’s. What about my predictions? My record came last month for Summerslam. I predicted 77% of the matchups. A C+. Not bad. For Unforgiven I predicted 5 matches out of 9, which tallies up as a 55.5%….an F. You have to add the fact that I had a 1 in 6 chance of predicting the main event, plus I predicted the double main event correctly at King of the Ring and ended up failing. So there. The next pay per view is surprisingly another WWF pay per view, No Mercy. Austin takes on HHH and Chyna faces JJ. Dream matches I want to see? Dudleys vs. Holly’s or Hardy’s hardcore, Mankind vs. Big Show I-Quit, and The Rock vs. Kane. I’ll have my No Mercy predictions in about 15 days. Until then.