WWE has their 17th pay-per-view of the year this Sunday when “SmackDown!” presents Armageddon.If you have any money left over from buying holiday gifts and feel like spending $40 on a December PPV, I urge you to wait until December 30th when UFC presents their biggest show ever with Chuck Liddell facing Tito Ortiz.
“SmackDown!” has been a really strong show over the last few months since Michael Hayes took over. Unfortunately, this pay-per-view is coming at a bad time of year with it being the fourth straight wrestling PPV in four weeks and with the aforementioned UFC show lurking in the shadows.
WWE has really chosen a bad time in their history to over-saturate the PPV market with bad shows. Survivor Series and ECW’s December to Dismember were hardly worth spending money on as recent WWE pay-per-views have left the paying public with the feeling that they could have skipped the show and not missed much.
That is not the feeling you want to have after watching a PPV. It also seems that the wrestlers themselves are feeling the affects of working so many shows. The wrestlers don’t seem to be excited for PPVs and the in-ring action is proof of that. Matches are not of much better quality than the free matches you get on television and sometimes, they’re worse!
Armageddon could potentially have the strongest wrestling of any recent WWE PPV with matches that - on paper - look to deliver. People, however, don’t buy PPV to see the undercard. The main event needs to be enticing and I’m not sure if this one is doing much to peak interest.
Batista & John Cena VS. King Booker & Finlay
This was one of three possible main events that were supposed to be on the show. The first idea was to have Batista against Booker in a gimmick match. Vince got cold feet after these two had a less than stellar match at Survivor Series so the next idea was to throw Finlay in the mix and make it a three-way. That was also nixed with the idea that it wouldn’t draw - so Cena was put in to help save the buy rate.
Batista has lost it. His power is not what it was since he got back from his injury and thus his confidence is shot. Booker and Cena are not the caliber of workers that can hide Batista’s shortcomings so it looks like Finlay will need to do the work of four men. The faces should go over. What does that mean for future booking? Not much. Anything more than a decent match would be a huge surprise.
Undertaker VS. Mr. Kennedy in a Last Ride Match
Undertaker performed at a higher level in 2006 than he has in the last 10 years. His matches with Kurt Angle at the start of the year were excellent and I think this match should be good as well. Kennedy is a much better talker and worker than most of the stiffs WWE has had Undertaker feud with - including Heidenreich, Luther Reigns and Mark Henry.
I would love to see Kennedy win but the current plan apparently is for Undertaker to face Batista at WrestleMania 23. Expect Kennedy to go for the “last ride.”
Kane VS. MVP in an Inferno Match
There seems to be more long-term planning involving MVP than with The Big Red Machine. MVP raises his game well in these brawl type matches. Their cage match from “SmackDown!” showed how well MVP can sell and play heel. He also wears the crimson mask well...I expect MVP to go over.
Chris Benoit VS. Chavo Guerrero for the United States Championship
Benoit and Guerrero should have more time than they did at Survivor Series. That means a stronger match and anything less than very good would be disappointing for these two. The angle is horrible and takes away from these two as performers. Benoit won at Survivor Series so it’s his "turn" to lose. Parody booking is killing these titles.
Gregory Helms VS. Jimmy Wang Yang for the Cruiserweight Championship
If you were a fan of the old WCW feud between 3 Count and The Yung Dragons, then you will love this match. Helms will win. These two couldn’t have a bad match with each other if they tried.
The Boogeyman VS. The Miz
Do you guys honestly care? Boogeyman wins and Miz will eat worms.
Brian Kendrick & Paul London VS. William Regal & Dave Taylor for the WWE Tag Team Championship
This will be a great match. Kendrick and London remind me of The Rock and Roll Express and for that reason alone, they should come out on top. How the hell is Dave Taylor wrestling after his knee injury? If Taylor wasn’t injured, I’d say the Brits should win and keep the feud going. Now I’m not so sure. Who wins will tell you how badly injured Taylor is.
Overall, I expect this to be the best WWE PPV since Unforgiven. Unfortunately, with recent WWE PPV’s being horrible - combined with UFC on December 30th, I expect that Armageddon will be the least purchased pay-per-view in many months.
7 comments: on "Armageddon Preview"
Batista needs a real kick in the ass... No one expects him to be a good wrestler(or at least you shouldnt), it's just not gonna happen... But what people do expect of him and what made him better than Cena was that he executed those clotheslines, spinebusters, and powerbombs with enough authority to make you say (in the words of Ron Simmons) DAMN!... And he has not been delivering that, its as if hes dialed it back... and thats why he doesnt receive the pops he did before his injury... This tag team "main event" is for the kids, i guess
Taker v Kennedy and Kane v MVP are the selling points of this PPV...
Benoit can't get a decent storyline...
Dave Taylor is the "s"!!! and i cant say enough good things about Regal... with their styles they can make an interesting match and win the titles, regardless of Taylor's injury
For what it's worth, SmackDown is more or less a show for kids and marks, which is probably why they picked this main event.
Based on some other reports I'm reading, though, McMahon seems to have a warped view on exactly what Cena means for buyrates. Last year, far more people watched RAW than they did SmackDown! Who was the champ at the time? John Cena. Who was main eventing? John Cena. Consequently, who would seemingly be the one responsible for buyrates? John Cena.
The problem is, since that time, Cena's popularity took a nose dive, and his gimmick has fizzled, becoming stale and unentertaining. I don't know if McMahon hasn't caught on to that yet, or if he just doesn't care, but Cena no longer equals huge buyrates. McMahon still thinks he does, though, which is probably why he gets used on SmackDown! so much.
As far as the MVP match...I expect a decent match out of it, but the guy with sleeves always loses that match. This will be one of those matches where even though he loses, he puts on a very strong performance and gets over from that.
what great match on smackdown cena evan after a few botched spots deliverse thanks to the awsome finlay and no has nothing to say what a surprise
I see an F-U in the near future for batista
While Kane does wear the long tights, with the way they've been trying to push MVP as a big-time heel, this will probably be the blowoff match with Kane winning and MVP moving on to bigger things(in otherwords, playing the arrogant card by saying that even though Kane beat him, everyone else on SmackDown is still out of his league, leading to a feud with whomever).
SmackDown is taped and then edited; They may have sweetened up the crowd noise a little bit.
As for the mark/smark comment...I think SmackDown! tries to cater to both. They use wrestlers that have high workrates and can put on good matches, while generally having the faces ultimately win most of the feuds. This way, smarks are happy because they saw a great match, and marks are happy because the good guy won.
Fake Wrestling > UFC
I dont get it.... for the ECW ppv, elimintaion chamber aside, the only other match pushed was Hardys v MNM... and for armageddon they didnt announce the Tag Team Championship match til friday... and didnt mention it was going to be a four team ladder match til after the ppv started... how can you financially capitalize on that? Its not as if we're going to be compelled to buy the next ppv, on a whim that some amazing surprise may come about
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