WWE WrestleMania Revenge Tour – MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA Results (April 8 2005)
Report by: Matt Hustwaite, rajah.com reader

G’day everyone, this is my 2nd WWE Live event and my 1st Rajah posting!

The show was held in Rod Laver Arena which holds about 15,000 and tonight it was pretty full. The Chris Benoit, Undertaker and Wrestlemania Desire videos played. Many ‘WOOOO’s went around the arena. Chimmel came out to the Smackdown Theme and welcomed the crowd and introduced Torrie Wilson to a decent pop. She said how great it was to come back again and did the ‘are you ready for some action’ bit. Torrie sounds as bad live as she does on TV. She introduced the first match.

REY MYSTERIO def. EDDIE GUERERRO

Both men came out to big pops. Eddie had a girl whose battling cancer and is ‘kicking it’s butt’ and Rey came out without pyro.

Slow at the beginning with lots of rest holds, citing many chants from my section like ‘You’ve been wrestling for five minutes and you’re already into restholds’ and ‘We want Chavo’.

Like at WrestleMania it picked up with some good spots and finisher teasers. Rey missed his 619 which led into the three amigos which then led into a missed frog splash.

The match ended in a spectacular reversal of what looked like a set up for the gory special into a Hurracarana from the top rope from Rey.

After the match Eddie and Rey shook hands after much contemplation from Eddie. Suddenly my sections favourite wrestler

Carlito interrupted and began to tell Eddie and Rey that they "were not cool". This bit was much like Carlito’s Pipers Pit appearance. Carlito was about to spit apple into the face of Eddie when Eddie poked him in the eye and proceeded to beat the living hell out of carlito. Rey hit a 619 and torrie put the icing on the cake when she spat in Carlito's face. Funny moment here was Torrie about to hit a bronco buster on Carlito but Eddie jumping in the way so HE could receive it. Gold!

Carlito took a while getting up and then just as he was about to leave Hardcore Holly came out. The smart marks were expecting a ‘rookie beatdown’ but Hardcore was just coming out for his match.

HEIDENREICH def. HARDCORE HOLLY

The crowd seemed pretty much dead through out this match and to no surprise the match really was hopeless.. Heidenreich oversold everything. It was a very old school match. A call of ‘Why couldn’t we get RAW?’ got a cheap laugh from the crowd. Heidenreich put the match out of its misery with his finishing move.

Holly sold for a bit and left to a good pop.

MARK JINDRAK def. LUTHER REIGNS via DQ.

The crowd was fair into this at the start, Luther did a good job riling the crowd up. Like the previous match this was very old school with punches and rest holds. The finish was very dodgy with Luther PLACING Jindrak on the ropes with the crotch killer and getting DQed. After the match Jindrak hit Reigns with his finishing left punch and left. Luther left with the crowd singing the ‘na na na na, hey hey hey goodbye!’ song.

THE BASHAMS def. SCOTTY 2 HOTTY & FUNAKI

The face received very good pops, the Bashams had poor heat.
A solid match with many chants and alot of entertaining spots including when Scotty 2 Hotty fell off the apron while he was attempting to recieve the tag and Doug continuously beating on Danny thinking it was Scotty. The crowd got what they wanted with the W-O-R-M however the match finished in a reversal roll up by the Bashams.

Chimmel came back to ring to announce the next match and Kurt Angle came out to a HUGE pop. This was a surprise to the crowd, because most weren’t expecting to see Kurt this early. On a side note still no pyro. Not even for Kurt.

Booker T was Kurt’s opponent and he also got a huge pop. But no pyro, not even for Booker. Don’t know why we wouldn’t get any, we had it last year.

BOOKER T def. KURT ANGLE

A great match with many solid moves from both Booker and Angle. The crowd swayed slightly to Bookers side but their was still alot of cheers for Angle. Many near falls with Booker getting out of the ankle lock and angle slam. Match lost a bit though with Booker winning via roll up, however, still a great match! These two could really do a great program on SmackDown together.

Dawn Marie made a short appearance thanking the Melbourne fans by throwing out some t-shirts. Then came the intermission.
Intermission was about 10 minutes but by the time Chimmel announced the next match a lot of people hadn’t come back yet.

RENE DUPREE def. CHARLIE HAAS

An alright match with not too many spectacular spots. The crowd was fairly dead however there were still alot pilling in by the matches end from the intermission. A short match, and not much of it was exciting.

PAUL LONDON def. SPIKE DUDLEY

At last the match and man the crowd had wanted all night up to his point. The crowd was wanting a great Paul London match and did we get it? No. A disappointing match lasting only a few minutes with Paul London injuring himself. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was a work or not. It looked like it was until Spike hit a chopblock but even after that (the finish was a roll up) it was still hard to tell. Would be very annoyed if it was a work.

Before he announced the main event, Chimmel thanked us again and said the WWE would be back in the near future.

JOHN CENA & BIG SHOW def. JBL & ORLANDO JORDAN
Started with JBL cutting yet another brilliant promo in the middle of the ring. Theodore Long then interrupted and reminded JBL that every Australian in the arena had being calling him a wanker! Teddy asked the fans if he could here that one more time. The crowd proceeded with a deafening chant of "You are a wanker." He then said if JBL was to take one step away from the ring OR attempted to get disqualified he would be FIRED!

Big Show and Cena came to the ring with a massive ovation. The match started solidly with JBL acting heel as always. The match was great all the way through with all participants performing, except Orlando who seemed to do hardly anything but run from Big Show.

Notable parts included,

* John Cena giving the 5 knuckle shuffle with an inflatable hand on
* The referee getting knocked out with an Irish Whip. The Bashams then came to the ring to assist. They rolled into the ring only to be Double Chokeslammed by Big Show, awesome!
* Cena gave the F-U to Orlando Jordan, Cena had it won but the Bashams pulled the referee out of the ring and knocked him out. JBL hit Cena with the Clothesline from Hell. However, Cena was able to kick out at a late 2. JBL became aggravated and punched that referee out of the ring. Cena then gave the F-U to JBL as the other referee came to his senses and counted to 3.

JBL and the Cabinet headed to the back as Cena was handed the mic. The crowd became deafening with many Cena chants. Cena cut a great promo and then handed the mic to Big Show, saying that the 7 foot, 500 pounder was going to give us a rap. Big Show didn’t seem too confident with this and instead did a brilliant Hulk Hogan impression. Cena then found it was his time to leave as he began to exit the ring. Big Show called him back saying that the fans that paid their hard earned money to see Cena rap. Cena got back in the ring and set a temp with the crowd clapping and stopping their feet. He did a short rap finishing in commenting on the size of Big Shows arse. Big Show laughed and taunted his arse to the crowd, very entertaining!".

Overall a good show, for some reason WWE must think we’re stuck in the 80’s because all the matches bar Booker/Angle and Scotty/Funaki vs. Bashams were very old school. Still worth going just for the atmosphere.

BEST MATCH: Booker T vs. Kurt Angle

WORST MATCH: Heidenreich vs. Hardcore Holly

BEST POPS: Kurt Angle, John Cena, Booker T, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guererro

BEST HEAT: JBL, Kurt Angle, Heidenreich, Carlito