WWE Cyber Sunday 2008 Review

Rey vs. Kane - **1/2
Did what it needed to do. Never would have guessed Rey goes over.

Hardy vs. Bourne - ***1/4
Suprised they clicked so well in their first meeting.

Miz/Morrison vs. Cryme Tyme - **3/4
Another match I rate a lot higher than most, but I'm a sucker for a tag formula that works well.

Santino vs. HTM - DUD
At least it was....short...I guess?

Taker vs. Big Show - ***1/4
Maybe higher. I REALLY need to rewatch their NM match as I gave it like **1/4 as opposed to everyone else giving it ***+.

HHH vs. Hardy - ****1/4
Really loved this match. Totally about to overrate it here. In fact, I liked it MORE than their No Mercy match earlier in the month (****). Story in my eyes is all about the fact that Hardy is just a guy who gets by on ability and HHH gets by through his intelligence.

Jeff came into the match with the same formula he always has (ie: jump off shit). When they mat wrestle in the beginning, HHH just bides his time until Hardy goes to said formula and HHH pushes him off the turnbuckle. You see, HHH, who was taken to the limit 3 weeks prior, didn’t take Hardy for granted this time. He knew Hardy was going to get the vote (as pointed out by the announcers), so he watched a ton of tape to counter every….little…thing that Hardy had in his arsenal. Examples include:

Whisper in the Wind --> pushed off the top rope
Corner Dropkick --> Spinebuster
Crossbody off the middle rope --> Crippler Crossface
Twist of Fate --> pushed into turnbuckle which then leads to Pedigree attempt

Hardy then started to ever so slightly deviate his formula as he starts to hit the offense that HHH countered beforehand. When he finally hit the Whisper in the Wind, he then attempted and hit it a second time. This is paid off later. Hardy gets on a roll, so HHH tries the sleeper to slow him down, but Jeff can’t be stopped. The payoff of the double Whisper in the Wind goes down when Jeff hits the Swanton, then gets greedy and goes for it again only for HHH to adapt to the change in “style” and get the knees up. Hardy still won’t go down and starts playing to the crowd that voted him in as he goes up for another Swanton, but HHH has seen more than enough of that and Hardy gets pulled off the top and eats Pedigree. I really enjoyed the ending and I’m really glad Kozloff didn’t interfere as everyone one on the net predicted.

There weren’t many things I didn’t like about the match, but there were some. Hardy was a bit sloppy with some of his offense. Also when Hardy was in the Crossface, he looked not so much in pain as he did “mildly annoyed.” Another is when HHH put the steps back up after getting rammed into them so Hardy could do his awesome Poetry-in-Motion-on-the-outside spot. Clean a few of these things up and the rating would have been a little higher.

Incredible match all in all. I can’t really stand HHH as a face and I have not been a fan of his title run so far but his feud with Jeff has breathed new life into it for me. These two have so much chemistry it’s crazy. For the first time I truly buy Hardy as a threat to the title (even though HHH kind of schooled him here). I’m not a fan of Hardy either but I was actually marking for the guy towards the end. I thought there was a slight chance he’d get that day in the sun but it was not to be yet. The rating I’m giving it is the highest I’ve seen for it, but I really don’t care about the consensus anyway.

Batista vs. Y2J - **1/2
The first half kind of bored me. Batista matches tend to either be really awesome or really bleh to me. Picked up nicely towards the end. Probably the most I've ever liked ref bumps with Shawn and Orton taking control. Never would have guessed big Dave would go over here since Jericho has been booked like he was going to win if you follow the standard formula of heel gets ass kicked for weeks leading up to the match, where he retains in a slimey fashion.

Another good WWE PPV. All things considered I'd say they're my easy promotion of the year. First time I can say that about WWE in many years. Feels great to type as I will always be a WWE mark first.