All-State Arena – Chicago, Illinois | TV Rating: 4.2
The Good: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The Bad: Some will have found the segment where Vince has to kiss the Rock’s ass entertaining. I didn’t. Still, at least we’re getting what was promised on Raw. Except we don’t. Vince won’t kiss Rock’s ass so, The Rock brings out JR and then Trish (Vince likes the thought of the latter) before finally bringing out Rikishi who gets to rub his ass (with some assistance) into Vince’s face. Mint.
Bear in mind The Rock is fighting in the Unification tournament this coming Sunday and yet is doing all this. (Editor Note: For SEO Reasons, I’ll mention that Rikishi was last seen on the WXW Yokozuna Show, but previously hadn’t wrestled since PRE INVASION at Judgement Day). They re-neg on the Raw stipulation if we’re keeping score. (Which, I don’t think anyone else is). Five minutes of the Undertaker and Bradshaw feels like five hours of my life that I’m never getting back.
The Indifferent: After the opening video’s etc we actually get a match to kick things off as Kane, The Big Show & Edge take on William Regal & The Dudley’s. Alas it goes about three minutes and whilst there’s certainly a lot going on (and again you can’t fault the wrestlers for this) there’s TOO much going on and nothing really registers.
Groundhog day for Rob Van Dam and the Hardcore title again, This time it’s a four-minute match with Matt Hardy which is fine for what it is but does seem to be a complete waste of RVD’s talents. Though as the man himself has stated many times his desire to be let out there for twenty minutes at a time soon gave way to realising that five minutes of this pay the bills as good as anything else. Scotty 2 Hotty and Albert against Test & Christian is simply a way to fill four or so minutes of air time. Crash and Jackie is the usual something and nothing.
Whilst Booker T looking for employment via Ric Flair makes sense in a storyline way it just makes the fact that some people have continued to appear despite the Alliance losing all the more nonsensical. The main event of Jericho and Angle against Rock and Austin is your usual TV main event. Once again Jericho is beaten (this time via tap out) and once again we’re left with diminishing interest in Vengeance as a result.
Overall: What a pointless show. The only thing it really does is tease that we’re going to get Rock and Austin at the Vengeance unification tournament final and we all know how that went. They are the clear stars of the quartet and no “surprise” win by anyone at Vengeance will change that in the slightest. As I say the only thing this show did was make people less enthused about Vengeance (and more annoyed when they don’t get to see a match between Rock and Austin). At this stage, I’m wishing the Invasion was still a thing as the shows have got worse since that was all wrapped up… Nice to see Rikishi though.