Live show report
Smackdown Live! Survivor Series Revenge Tour
10/13/’07, Brussels (Belgium)
By: Stijn van den Bosch, rajah.com reader
Just got back from the Smackdown and ECW house show in Brussels. We don’t get to see
WWE that often here, so people were pretty stoked. The arena was about 90% full. We
start off with Fink hyping the crowd (he’s way shorter than I thought and kind of
fat, but hey, it beats having Tony Chimel around). He introduces the GM of ECW,
Armando Estrada. Estrada gets some heat after calling us all pendejos (sp?). Not
sure what that means, but I’m sure it’s not good. He goes over the matches. After he
leaves, we go straight to
Match 1: Deuce and Domino (w/ Cherry) vs Jesse and Festus
I have to admit I marked out a bit for Deuce and Domino’s entrance. Love that song
Jesse and Festus get a nice reception being the first faces in action. After some
stalling, Jesse gets in some offence before being double-teamed by D&D. Festus
finally gets the hot tag and cleans house. He does about three moves, then uses the
Rocket Launcher to throw Jesse onto Domino for the pin. Okay opening match.
Match 2: Kevin Thorn vs Nobody McJobsalot
I didn’t have a clue who Thorn’s opponent was…nobody did, in fact. He did get in a
lot of offence for a jobber. He threw about a million dropkicks, which is one less
than Maven used to. After a while, Thorn had enough jobber offence for the night and
killed the poor guy with a vicious torture rack into a backbreaker and finished
things off with Original Sin (brutal move, by the way).
Match 3: Dave Taylor vs Chuck Palumbo
Palumbo comes out on his motorcycle. Meh, no Michelle McCool. Taylor grabs the mic
and threatens to walk out if we don’t shut up. I don’t blame him, Brussels is a
dump. Match sees Palumbo get the win with a Yakuza Kick.
‘Match’ 4: Divas Best Body Contest
We get Maryse, followed by some girl the Fink called Katrina (probably some diva
search bimbo), Michelle McCool (yay), and finally Victoria. I feel bad for Victoria
here, since she’s the only one of the bunch who can actually -you know- wrestle.
Crowd has some love for Maryse, none for Katrina, pops big for McCool, and boos the
heck out of Victoria, who did a funny dance. McCool wins, Vic and Katrina
double-team her but she throws both of them out of the ring. Wow, not at all
predictable. I would have preferred Torrie Wilson and Krissy Vaine over Maryse and
Katrina, but whatever.
Match 5: MVP vs Matt Hardy (US Championship)
Big pop for Hardy here. Good match, some comedy too since they’re co-champs as well.
MVP hits the Ballin’ Elbow (ha!) but misses the Playmaker. Hardy tries for a Twist
of Fate, but it gets reversed into a rollup by MVP for the pin. Afterwards, Deuce
and Domino run in but get beaten down by the champs, who are working together for a
while. MVP tries to doublecross Hardy but eats a Side Effect.
Intermission
Match 6: CM Punk vs John Morrison (ECW Championship)
I’m not a fan of Morrison, but he did a pretty good job here. Good match with a
couple of high-impact moves. Finish sees Punk hit the GTS for the win. Matt Striker
runs in and gets beaten down by Punk until Big Daddy V appears and squashes him with
some fat-based attacks. Huge elbow drops and a Samoan Drop that shook the arena.
Nice. Punk sells the ribs after the match. I would too, Vis must weigh two million
pounds.
Match 7: Undertaker and Kane vs Finlay and Chris Masters
This should have been the main event. Kane gets a huge pop, Undertaker an even
bigger one. Man is his entrance cool to watch live. Finlay rules, too. Now I know
your regular Smackdown reporter is a huge Chris F. Masters fan, but tonight Masters
seemed a bit out of place with these veterans. Working Kane’s wrong leg for about
three minutes didn’t help matters, either. Action-packed match with Chokeslams, Old
School, Masterlock, shillelagh shots and even Hornswoggle McMahon. Didn’t know he
was still with Finlay, but cool nonetheless. Taker pins Finlay after a Tombstone.
Match 8: Batista vs Rey Mysterio vs Great Khali (World Heavyweight Championship)
Good Lord, this match sucked the air out of the building. Batista gets a big pop on
his entrance, Rey as well. ‘Great’ Khali gets a pop from three people, a couple of
Rob Zombie-lookalikes in front of me. They annoyed the crap out of me all night. We
called them the Markiest Marks in all of Marksville. Seriously though, Khali’s got
NOTHING going for him other than the fact that he’s twelve foot tall. What a clown.
The guy has three moves, two of which he messed up. His Chokebomb was kind of
botched and he even completely missed his patented Brain Chop of Doom, making
Batista look like an idiot when he oversold it. Rey appeared to get hurt or was just
selling injuries, which didn’t help. Eventually Khali tries the Vise Grip (which he
miraculously didn’t mess up) on Rey, to the delight of noone except the three guys
in front of me. Nerds. Batista hits the worst Spinebuster in history on Khali (must
be hard to carry Lurch to a watchable match), then pins him after a Spear that Khali
sells by sort of falling on his ass. Even Rey couldn’t prevent this match from being
a stinker. Minus twelve stars for this one.
Batista must have known this wasn’t the way to send the crowd home happy, so he
spent a good ten minutes running around the ring and posing with the Belgian flag.
The overall show was very good and absolutely worth the trip. Any future show,
however, will benefit if it doesn’t have guys like Khali in the main event.
Keep up the good work rajah!
Stijn van den Bosch
