This years Judgment Day PPV was an enjoyable evening of wrestling but in the end only served to further highlight the differing fortunes of the Raw and Smackdown brands at the moment.
The night kicked off with Chicago's CM Punk taking on the Samoan Savage Umaga. It was a solid start to the evening's proceedings with a clearly motivated Punk having one of his better outings with a larger competitor in front of his home town crowd. In the end I felt Umaga beat Punk a little too easily especially with the storyline going in off Punk possibly planning to cash in the Money In The Bank briefcase later in the night.
Next up, Christian took on Jack Swagger in another match to add to their recent series of excellent contests. Whist not reaching the levels of their show-stealer from last month's Backlash PPV it was still a fine match and continued the storyline of Christian beating Swagger to the punch with moves taken right out of the Eddie Guerrero play book.
John Morrison and Shelton Benjamin wasted no time in cracking out the high-flying moves. Featuring plenty of innovative offence, the match was good but not without its flaws, mainly Morrison not really convincing as a face and me having the feeling throughout that I'd rather it was a tag match featuring Hass and The Miz.
Lame comedy segment time next - shockingly it wasn't as a bad we've come to expect, mainly because it actually had a point for a change as it allowed The Miz to continue to get some heat on John Cena until Santino interfered. The Italian then proceeded to knock out the routine that Chris Jericho was doing at the start of the decade and offered another sign that Morella's act is beginning to get stale. Santino needs to manage somebody sharpish, so the shedload of promo time he actually gets leads to something for a change.
Jericho and Mysterio had a fast-paced back and forth contest with the backstory of Jericho promising there will be no 619. In the end Mysterio would actually go on to pick up the win with the move in question - and in doing so gave one of his best showings in a while, plus he was actually allowed some offence for a change - instead of the usual tired routine of having the crap beat out of him for 15 mins before hitting his finishes out of nowhere.
Randy Orton is arguably the most interesting character in the WWE now, with an definite echo of Jake Roberts in his quiet and brooding intensity. Its just a shame it all goes tits up when he gets in the ring, his chin lock heavy offence taking the methodical approach too far by boring everyone to tears. This time out he was defending the WWE title against the recently returned Batista, but sadly this was more of the same.
Big Dave actually has better matches than people give him credit for, but with Batista blatantly still injured as a result the match was a slow and predictable fare. The highlight was the returning Ric Flair coming down at the end to beat up Legacy, meaning Rhodes & Dibiase have now progressed to getting beat up by actual wrestlers, retired or not.
The downward spiral continued with Cena versus Big Show. I cannot emphasise how terrible Big Show is - this snail paced effort shows he's right back into the rut he was in pre-Mayweather. Also, the FU on Big Show may still remain visually impressive, but Lawler and Cole selling it like its was miracle just minutes after we saw the Wrestlemania video of Cena FU'ing Show and Edge just highlights the stupidity of WWE at times.
After 2 poor matches Hardy vs Edge would decide whether this PPV was a success or not - thankfully, their match delivered. Like the rumble this featured surprise interference from Matt Hardy, but this time out it worked much more effectively than the rather nonsensical and disappointing (especially for those with their Christian signs) run-in from January. Where they actually go with result, seeing as the Hardys' are on different brands now I'm unsure, but a quality effort from both guys meant everyone was sent home happy as a result of another strong PPV offering from WWE
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