WWE Taboo Tuesday 2005 & The Ultimate Fighter 2 Finale

Just like they did with Vengeance (to compete with One Night Stand), the bookers tried their darndest to put some high-profile matches on Taboo Tuesday to boost the buyrate, after last year's disappointing numbers. And for the mostpart, as it did in June, it paid off in the ring.

The women's division may not have the best workers ever, but their matches are consistently fun to watch. The vets are doing their thing, and the newbies aren't over-reaching. I really like Alexis Laree's Mickie James character. While I'm not big on un-necessary boob jobs, she looks really good.

I really liked Triple H vs. Flair in May 2003, and their cage match was on par with that one. Lots of blood, and Flair badmouthing Trips in ways only suitable for Pay-Per-View. Nothing mindblowing, but still a good, if typical, main event Flair match. I've said it before: It may be a psychological thing, but I find Triple H to be ridiculously superior when he's not the champ, and/or the main focus of the show.

The Triple Threat was solid. They kind of stole a bit of the story from WrestleMania 20, with Angle taking Triple H's role, with he and Michaels, the old rivals, trying their damndest to take out the 3rd man Cena, then fight it out on their own. They even used a similar table spot. Except Benoit obviously played the fiesty underdog role a lot better. Especially with the older-skewing PPV audience not being the biggest Cena fans. Benoit sold the punishment a little better, but Cena coming back like gangbusters fit his character. A slightly different ending, with a different winner would've put the match over the top, but it was still satisfying. I'm surprised Cena beat Michaels clean. It's pretty much only Steve Austin, Triple H, Kurt Angle and Hulk Hogan who've done that in the past 10 years.

Everything else was sufficiently fun to watch in its own way. Mysterio and Hardy pulling out a decent match with Snitsky and Masters. (Poor Christian only got 13% of the vote -- 3% more than Hardcore Fucking Holly -- in what was probably his final WWE appearance for now. ) A handful of legends and Eugene beating up a couple of guys nobody cares about. Mankind getting his shit stuffed, and winning with Mr. Carlocko. (The anti-Repo Man, I guess. ) The 7-footers winning the tag titles. And Coach getting beat down to let Batista get some airtime as Austin's replacement. Steve, I wouldn't lose to Coach either.

Joey Styles and the King were a very good team on commentary as well. It's going to be especially painful to go back to Coach again on Raw.

Finally, unless there's some secret message in there, the stage keyboard was designed by a fucking chimp.



I can see the "WWE" in place of "QWE", and maybe "ENT" for "entertainment", but I'm at a loss for anything else. Do they really not know what a percentage sign looks like?

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As a quick footnote, The Ultimate Finale for The Ultimate Fighter 2 was pretty sweet. Not a dud on the card. I would've liked more than 4 fights over 3 hours, but I can't complain with what I got.

KenFlo got a sick armbar (cross armbreaker?) to end the first round, and I'm surprised Cope continued the fight for another half a minute before the RNC.

Luke Cummo was the fiesty underdog here. Aside from the first half of round 3, where he looked to be out of steam, Joe maintained control pretty well throughout. But Luke kept managing to escape the fatal situations, and almost seemed to land the knockout shot once or twice. The "real" factor -- a real, interesting character, in a genuine competition, with something legitimate on the line -- definitely put MMA over most wrestling during this experience.

"Big" John McCarthy: "Any questions from Joe?"

Joe "Daddy" Stevenson: "Luke... I'm your father!"



Rashad and Brad put on, by far, the best heavyweight fight of the season. Brad just about got knocked out on two or three occasions, but somehow managed to pull through the whole match.

Diego controlled his fight well, but Diaz never allowed himself to get into serious danger. Lots of good groundwork by both guys.

And Rachelle was haaawwwwt. Amber always looks different to me every time I see her, so if that was her, she looked especially good too.

If you want to catch a replay, watch Spike TV early Monday at midnight, or Monday night at 10, both Eastern times.

P.S. - The Van Damme Van guy owns you.