What's All The Hubbub: Unforgiven 2005

Posted by Aaron Hubbard on 09.14.2009

Flair wins his last singles title, Snitsky works an arm, Edge and Matt Hardy try to kill each other, and Chris Masters has the best match of his life.

I saw this event live with my mom, brothers, and a family friend. I remember being very satisfied with the show. So when I saw it at a video store, I bought it. How does it hold up?

Intercontinental Championship Match: Carlito © vs. Ric Flair
First off, the crowd was molten for Flair in this match. The Woos fill the building for almost any offense that Flair gets. This is a very basic match, but Flair brings smart work and he builds the match well. Ric is on his game, and he schools Carlito with basic wrestling early on. The first three offensive maneuvers really tell the whole story of the match: Flair gets a headlock takeover, Carlito goes to the eyes, and Flair shoves him. A nice mini-story takes place with hammerlocks. Flair allows Carlito to go to the ropes to break a first hammerlock, but after Carlito disrespects him, Flair puts him back in the hold, drives him to the corner, and then aggressively shoves him. The third time, Carlito clocks him with a back elbow.

Carlito really doesn’t show much more than basic brawling, which is kind of a shame. Nobody was going to turn on Flair on this night: getting something like a springboard senton would have worked wonders to boost Carlito’s stock. He does work in a few signature Flair spots: the corner whip and back body drop, the mounted punches so Flair can hit an inverted atomic drop. But those are Flair spots, not Carlito spots. He doesn’t even really bother to follow up on his best spot: putting Flair in a hammerlock for revenge and driving it into the post. He does get a divorce court and applies a couple of armbars, but there’s long stretches of punches between them. They only serve to allow Flair to make comebacks, anyway. The divorce court is attempted a second time and Flair holds onto the ropes, which allows Flair to get his comeback. So basically, Carlito was better off dong punches, since Flair couldn’t hold onto the ropes to counter. As if to drive the point home, Flair struts before starting his comeback.

Flair chops Carlito down and hits a knee drop. The most memorable part of the match comes when Flair actually hits a chop from the top rope. But Flair tries it again, and Carlito dropkicks him, getting his one convincing nearfall. But instead of capitalizing on the mistake by hitting a high impact move like a flatliner or DDT, Carlito goes out and gets his apple. That costs him because Flair punches him, making him choke on the apple. He puts Carlito in the figure-four and wins the match, but it’s more because Carlito was choking than the pain of the move. That’s the big difference: Carlito won’t capitalize on mistake, but Flair will. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because Flair wins the IC Title. It was an honor to be there live for that, but it would have been nice to see Carlito impress a little in his biggest match up to that point. If he had, maybe this would have been the *** match it should have been.
Match Rating: **1/4

Flair takes some ladies out of the crowd and parties. Carlito can’t even be bothered to cut a promo, because he’s so embarrassed.

Edge and Lita are in the back, where they talk about sleeping together while Matt Hardy called them both. Lita decides he wants to make Edge happy.

Trish Stratus & Ashley Massaro vs. Victoria & Torrie Wilson w/Candice Michelle
This would be Trish’s in-ring return after being squashed by Viscera, but she doesn’t so any ring rust. This match actually reminds me of All Japan Tag Matches: Trish is “Big Sister”, the experienced veteran with crowd pleasing spots, Ashley is the “Little Sister” with no talent but tons of spunk, Torrie is an evil woman with a huge ego, and Victoria is her muscle. But the formula is good old fashioned Midnights vs. Rock ‘n’ Rolls. Torrie smartly lets Victoria do most of the work, which amounts to isolating Ashley from Trish and building to the hot tag. Torrie shows considerable attitude to make up for her lack of execution. A soccer kick to Ashley shows just how little Torrie respects Ashley. Victoria works in a slingshot somersault legdrop as if to say “Hey, I have talent”.

As soon as Trish makes the tag, the result of the match is no longer in doubt. She gets in a lot of crowd pleasing stuff: a headscissors counter to Victoria’s Spider’s Web move, the Ma-Trish, and a combination headscissors/headlock takeover. Ashley gets to beat up Candice after Candice distracts the referee from counting a pinfall off of a Trish spinebuster. The saddest part of this match is that Victoria takes the pinfall after a Chick Kick. Torrie was RIGHT THERE, and she’s never had any credibility to lose anyway.
Match Rating: **1/4

In the back, Ric introduces the women to his car, and chugs down an entire bottle of Viagra.

ZZ Top are in the front row, and Big Show comes down to say hi to them. He also takes special notice of a hilarious sign in the front row, where Show is Shrek and Snitsky is Donkey. 100 points for creativity.

Big Show vs. Snitsky
Savage vs. Steamboat this is not, but it’s far from bad. An amusing moment comes when Show jumps Snitsky while they are showing Snitsky hit him with the ring bell. Show works in his trademark stuff: the headbutts, the biel, choking him with his foot, and a REALLY stiff chop. The match actually has a clear transition with smart work following it: Big Show clotheslines the post accidently, and Snitsky actually targets it with a short-shoulderlock. Sadly, the intelligence of that gets overlooked, because WWE just sees a resthold and an opportunity to show Snitsky attacking Show with the ring bell. Snitsky stays focused on the arm, hitting a double sledge when Show tries a chokeslam, punching at the arm and hitting a big boot, proving that he has a better grasp of in-ring psychology than most men his size. Even an apparent lapse of continuity, a kick to the knee, works well, because Show falls and his shoulder hits a turnbuckle.

Of course, Snitsky is still a power guy, and he hits an impressive back suplex, but it only gets a nearfall. Snitsky tries to get another pinfall after a boot to the face, but when that doesn’t work he goes right back to the short-shoulderlock. Show eventually fights it off and makes a comeback starting with a spinebuster. The rope-assited knip up and chokeslam finish might seem to negate Snitsky’s work, but Snitsky was never able to keep anything going, and Show made sure to get some feeling back in the arm before making his comeback and even sells the arm post-match. This was the polar opposite of Flair-Carlito. Yes, it was a foregone conclusion that Show was going to win, but Snitsky looked impressive in the loss and showed enough smart work to earn looking impressive. Still, if Big Show had simply used his left arm to hit the chokeslam, it would have made this match that much better.
Match Rating: **1/2

Post-match, Show hits Snitsky twice with the bell for a simple payoff. Hey, simple booking!

We come back to Ric Flair’s limo, which literally has steam coming out of it? Stupid? Yes. Funny? YES!

We get a look at the storyline with Chris Master and Shawn Michaels, which really put over Masters. And Shawn is praying in the back. But PSYCH! We get an unadvertised match.

Shelton Benjamin vs. Kerwin White
K-White’s music and video is wonderful for all the wrong reasons. This actually has the same story as the last match: Kerwin hit Shelton with a 9 Iron, so Shelton wants revenge. But this is the workrate version of that match. Shelton dominates the match with fairly run of the mill offense, which only serves to assert Chavo’s jobber status. Chavo gets a fair amount of work on the knee to build to his “White Out” finish (a single-leg crab), but it’s nothing you’ve never seen before. Chavo does prove that he’s a great heel, hitting an impressive satellite headscissors to a nice pop, but bowing right after to get the crowd against him.

Aficionados of Japanese wrestling will enjoy Shelton Benjamin working in the sliding clothesline, but for the most part, he just hits his signature moves. He does sell the leg throughout, but hitting pulling Chavo’s hair to snap his back across the knee is more than a bit questionable. He is slow getting up the ropes, which allows Chavo to hit a superplex and get his single-leg crab, but nobody in the crowd buys it as a finish. Apparently, neither does Shelton, because he counters it into a catapult. The finish is good as Chavo grabs the 9 Iron, but Shelton tosses him up and hits the T-Bone Powerslam for a convincing win. He thinks about using the club, but decides he doesn’t want to. Sure, he’s a good role model, but role models rarely do well in wrestling. Pretty disappointing considering the talent involved. They’d actually have better matches later when they reversed the face-heel dynamics, which goes against all logic, because Shelton is a natural face and Chavo is a natural heel.
Match Rating: **

Matt Hardy is interviewed by Todd Grisham. He says that he’s still angry with Lita, but all he cares about is beating Edge.

Cage Match: Matt Hardy vs. Edge w/Lita
I’d like to make a point that despite all the cage matches I’ve seen, seeing one live is still special. Hardy and Edge work best with either A) a chance to be cerebral about their matches or B) a chance to make liberal use of foreign objects. The cage match and the hatred involved in this match keeps either of those from happening, but they still work well in it. The “hate-filled grapple” rears its ugly head at the beginning, but it quickly devolves into a slugfest. And well, Matt has some of the best punches this side of Scott Hall, so that’s good. Matt adds some extra aggression, hitting some atypical headbutts. But he also uses a simple headlock, which seems a bit out of place. Sure, holding onto a headlock after Edge hits a back suplex shows that he’s tenacious, but Matt HATES Edge. He shouldn’t be wrestling. At least Edge pays off the spot by hitting a pair of back suplexes as soon as he gets a control segment, redeeming the spot slightly in my eyes.

Edge is rather brilliant in this. His early cowardice isn’t in line with his “beat the life out of Matt” line, but it’s a ploy to make Matt make mistakes, and it works. His attempts to escape the cage serve to let Matt hit a few simple highspots, but when Matt tries a Side Effect off the top rope, Edge slams him into the cage and takes over. He also has a great counter to the Twist of Fate, shoving Matt into the cage and hitting the Edge-O-Matic, which is a nice subtle way of showing that he’s still focused on beating Matt. Things take a sadistic turn as Edge gleefully whales away at Matt’s neck and even mocks the fans with a V1 sign. Edge pulls no punches: he slams Hardy’s head into the turnbuckle and kicks at his head, hits a (non-Impaler version) DDT and powerbombs him into the cage and turnbuckles. Hardy is able to fight off a backdrop superplex, but Edge hits a super powerbomb, which is even more effective.

Matt gets back into the match by countering mounted punches by dropping Edge on the top turnbuckle (a reverse of the unceremonious finish to their Summer Slam match), dodging a corner spear and hitting a Side Effect for a nearfall. Edge immediately gets desperate, trying to crawl out the door and then taking the Money in the Bank briefcase from Lita. Matt snaps and tires Edge in the ropes so he can pummel him freely. He catapults Edge into the cage’s brace and hits a bulldog on the briefcase. He busts Edge open after slamming him repeatedly into the cage. Matt gets a little revenge by drilling Edge with kicks to the head, but Edge finally gets back into it when Matt tries to hit him with the briefcase off the top rope. Edge shoves the ref to trip up Matt and Spears Hardy into the cage.

Lita finally gets involved in the match to break up a pinfall after Hardy finally hits the side effect off the top rope, and her distraction almost allows Edge to crawl out. She then gets a bit of comeuppance when Matt hits a Twist of Fate. A hot nearfall follows that, as Edge hits a Spear, which by all WWE logic should have been the finish. Edge tries to bail after that, but Matt stops him and hits a legdrop from the top of the cage for the finish. It’s far from perfect, mostly due to Matt’s wrestling in lieu of brawling, but it’s still a great cage match.
Match Rating: ***3/4

John Cena is in the back getting his ankle taped up. Eric Bischoff is there to talk trash on him. Cena covers his mouth with tape. Austin-Vince this is not.

Edge crawls to the back, a bloody mess.

World Tag Team Championship Match: The Hurricane & Rosey © vs. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch
Perhaps it’s a testament to Gregory Helms that he’s the only one here still employed by the WWE. Mock Cade’s lack of in-ring talent all you want, the kid had charisma. Perhaps it’s fitting that the Super Heroes’ mediocre title reign ended with this mediocre match. Hurricane uses his speed to keep in the game with the challengers before tagging in Rosey. Murdoch finds out that a Samoan’s head is harder than diamonds. Murdoch is distracted by Lillian Garcia. Hurricane tries to save him, but gets caught with a SICK DDT on the floor. Rosey fights valiantly, but falls victim to the numbers game. Murdoch and Cade don’t do any offense of note. Sorry, but when the highlight of their heat segment is a neckbreaker, it’s a pretty dull night. Hurricane decides to play the hero and Rosey takes the tag, Hurricane hits a flurry of punches, and the challengers hit a Hi and Lo to win the match. Very boring match, aside from Trevor’s DDT on the floor, which at least played into the finish.
Match Rating: *

One of Flair’s women takes a break to catch her breath, while wearing Flair’s robe.

Maria is here to ask Chris Masters why he’s called the masturbate. Masters corrects her and says that he reminds everyone of the statue of David, by Michelangelo. Maria ask if he’s talking about the Ninja Turtles and sings the theme song. Marry me Maria. Please. Masters says he will beat Shawn Michaels, in more words.

Chris Masters vs. Shawn Michaels
I’ve heard people say that Shawn Michaels carried Chris Masters in this match. They are wrong, pure and simple. Shawn doesn’t do anything outside of his comfort zone: chops, punches, clotheslines, a pescado, the five moves of doom, and Sweet Chin Music. Okay, not quite; he helps make the Masterlock segments interesting. And granted, Shawn is a great guy to have selling your offense, but Chris Masters’ offense and his game plan here are excellent, and would still be excellent if he was wrestling Matt Bentley.

The match is an excellent example of storytelling; Masters wants to make his name by beating Shawn Michaels. It starts before the bell even rings, with Chris putting Shawn in the Masterlock when he does his signature pose. The Masterlock is a major part of this matche's psychology: Shawn has to counter it early, which he wasn’t expecting to do, and he gets frustrated early, even throwing Chris into the steps and going into a chair. But Chris doesn’t get back on offense by taking advantage of HBK’s frustration. He creates his own opportunity by lifting him into a powerbomb position and ramming him twice into the iron post (a common strategy on this night). Masters shows that he’s far from a one move wonder, and far from stupid. He targets Shawn’s back with elbows, backbreakers, a military press and a suplex. He also shows that he’s studied the great power wrestlers, using Luger’s torture rack and Graham’s gutwrench lift. It’s not the most innovative work, but it works very well. Michaels works in his corner flip, a spot he works in every match, but it means something in this one.

Shawn’s best moments come from his counters, especially of the Masterlock. The range from valiant (elbows to the face) to desperate (slinking out and jacking Masters’ jaw with a kick). It also helps that he’s just come off a heel run, because it makes sense for him to grab the referee and counter with a low blow, or to snap Master’s throat off the top rope. When Chris finally gets the hold on again after ducking Sweet Chin Music, it looks like it will finally put Shawn away, and Shawn has to leap out to the apron to escape the hold. In the end though, Shawn is able to get the better of Chris, quickly slinking out of the full nelson before Chris can get it synched in and clocking Masters with Sweet Chin Music. One move makes all the difference, but it’s far from a burial of Masters: the Superkick is a well respected KO move, and before Shawn escaped, Masters put him in the hold after catching a crossbody and turning it into the move. Shawn couldn’t break the Masterlock, he had to avoid it. It was Shawn’s heart, his savvy, a little cheating, and stiff kick to the jaw that beat Masters.
Match Rating: ***3/4

We are treated to Ric Flair’s rear end and a Flair Flop. Ric’s night of debauchery finally seems to be over.

WWE Championship: John Cena © vs. Kurt Angle
Talk about a contrast in styles. Cena is a brawler, powerhouse and showman. Angle is a wrestler. Cena is clearly the crowd favorite, but Angle has a bit of support (including my row) and there’s even a “The death of Marky Mark provided by Kurt Angle” sign in the front row. As is typical of Cena matches in 2005, Angle carries the action, and Cena sells the beatdown. Angle controls the match with wrestling: his usual offense (suplexes) show up, but Angle never devolves into his usual spotfest. Angle really shines here is in his strikes. His punches, kicks, uppercuts, crossface forearms and knee lifts are truly vicious. The sadistic side of Angle was new at this point and helped make his matches fresher and not so repetitive. In the end though, that serves to play into Cena’s strength: his fists. Angle would have been better served to outwrestle Cena, because Cena would not stand a chance.

This match has a few things working against it though. First off, Angle should be able to put Cena away: he’s a superior wrestler. He shouldn’t have to use a low blow or a gold medal to get an advantage. When Angle counters the FU into the Angle Slam or Ankle Lock, it should be enough. Second, Cena was carrying an ankle injury into the match, but Ankle only targets it for a second, dropping a knee to the ankle before applying the Ankle Lock for the overbooked finish. The Bischoff interference and disqualification finish are a rip-off. Cena hitting the FU on Bischoff and putting Angle through the table is cool, but hardly a suitable consolation prize.

For those counting, Cena does a hip block takeover, a headlock takeover, an arm wringer, a scoop slam, a sidewalk slam, a sunset flip, a DDT, a fisherman’s suplex, a spinebuster, the Protobomb, and the FU. That’s eleven genuine wrestling moves, not counting his punches, elbow drops, turnbuckle smashes, shoulder tackles, clotheslines, and the five knuckle shuffle. He does almost as many wrestling moves in this match as Kurt Angle. And this was before he got good. So shove it.
Match Rating: ***

EXTRAS:

Maria Interview’s ZZ Top: Maria confuses ZZ Top with the Rolling Stones. Gibbons says “not to sharp, but everyone’s crazy about a sharp dressed girl.” A-MEN.

John Cena, Shawn Michaels, Big Show & Matt Hardy vs. Edge, Gene Snitsky, Chris Masters & Kurt Angle
This is the main event from the Raw after the PPV. The early part features Edge and Masters getting beat up by the faces. Naturally, the heels take over eventually, but they way they start the heat segment is rather clever. Hardy tags in and throws Edge in, for obvious reasons, but Masters is the legal man, and when Hardy goes for the Twist of Fate, Chris puts him in the Masterlock. Show breaks it up with a headbutt, but it allows the heels to take control of the match by beating down Matt. Matt manages to get out of the match by hitting the Twist of Fate on Snitsky and tagging out to Shawn. HBK unleashes the moves of doom on Angle, but Angle dodges an elbow drop. Angle puts Shawn in the Ankle Lock, and after a valiant fight from Shawn, Show breaks it up. Snitsky attacks Show, and Angle hits the Angle Slam to send Big Show over the top and too the floor.

With Shawn injured and Show out of it, the heels target Shawn’s leg. Edge busts out the Edgecator in a much appreciated gesture. Masters comes in and shows that he is a student of the game: he hits Mr. Perfect’s grapevine kneedrop and Bret Hart’s rolling leg snap. Angle, oddly enough, kills the momentum by putting Shawn in a chinlock when he should be targeting the leg. Shawn is able to hit a backdrop suplex and trade strikes with Angle, but Angle hits the Angle Slam. Matt breaks up the pinfall but gets sent to the floor by Masters. Edge tags in and spears Cena off the apron, leaving no one for Shawn to tag after he clocks Edge with an enzugiri.

Big Show rises from the dead though, and he takes it to everyone. Edge nearly steals the victory by distracting the ref long enough for Snitsky to hit a low blow, but the follow-up spear only gets two. Everyone beats down Show until he does the domino spot. Edge smartly bails when Cena and Hardy get into the ring. Show and Matt team up for Show to military press Matt onto Snitsky and Masters on the floor. Edge tries to get a win by blasting Cena with the briefcase, but Cena ducks and hits the protobomb and the five knuckle shuffle. Show finishes Edge with a chokeslam and everyone dogpiles on Edge to finish the match. Sure, you can question the legality of it, but its fun. A replay shows the referee’s reaction that sums that up.

Aside from just being a fun match, everyone looked good in here, sans Snitsky. Masters was allowed to shine, Edge got his character over, and Angle got to wrestle with Shawn a bit to remind you of how good they are. Show looked dominant and HBK played a great face in peril. Cena was kind enough to let the others shine and just hit his signature spots, and Matt got to look tough and get a little revenge on Edge. It’s all good.
Match Rating: ***

The 411: I'm not going to pretend that this show is stellar or anything, but it's a very enjoyable three hours. Every match has something to offer. Show-Snitsky should have been awful, but it wasn't. Shawn-Masters should have been average and it was good. Edge-Hardy should have been good and it was great. Even the worst match of the night had a memorable spot. Add in Ric Flair's antics and you have a very enjoyable PPV.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]