It’s time to step into WWE territory again as I take a look back at their latest pay-per-view offering, Over the Limit, shown live on Sky Sports in the early hours of this past Monday morning.
The show began with singles action as R-Truth went up against Rey Mysterio.
Truth began his night’s work by complaining about his lack of a sparking space, but when the match began he was all business.
It was a very strong opener. Truth and Mysterio put on some great sequences, with Truth matching Mysterio in the high flying department.
The end saw Truth knocking Mysterio off the ring apron and crotching him on the ring awning. Moments later he took the former champion down with a face plant to get the winning pin.
The Smackdown side began with Ezekiel Jackson challenging Wade Barratt for the Intercontinental title.
This turned out to be a nice little match. I haven’t really paid much attention to Jackson before, but he looked pretty good in there.
Barratt, as always, put in his usual solid performance, but towards the end it looked like he was going to lose the belt when Jackson put him in the torture rack back breaker.
It was then that Barratt’s Corre co-horts Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel made their appearance, attacking Jackson and earning Barratt the immediate disqualification. No title change though as Jackson ended the night of the end of a triple team move.
Then it was on to the battle of the luchadore as Sin Cara faced Chavo Guerrero.
If you’ve got a high flying Mexican you want to get over who better than Chavo Guerrero to get the job done? After all, it worked with Rey Mysterio a few years ago.
This was the first time I’d seen Cara in WWE, and he looked pretty damn good, pulling off moves that fans all over Mexico get to see on a daily basis. Chavo did okay, but he was obviously hampered by a knee injury towards the end.
And speaking of the end, Cara took the win after taking Chavo down with what was meant to be a flying head scissors. Well, that’s what it looked like anyway.
Oh, and did they have a power failure at the arena? That’s the only thing I can think of to explain that crazy lighting.
After an appearance from Alberto Del Rio it was on to the next title match as C.M. Punk and Mason Ryan challenged Kane and the Big Show for the Tag Team titles.
This proved to be a very entertaining encounter. Once again Punk put in a great performance, invoking the spirit of the sadly departed Randy Savage at one point, while Mason looked in good shape with his power moves.
The champs put in their usual solid performance, continuing their dominance as they took Mason down with a double choke slam for the winning pin.
The title action continued as Bree Bella defended the Divas title against Kelly Kelly.
This was okay, but it wasn’t exactly that memorable. Once again the Divas match had that filler material feeling about it.
The end saw the old switcheroo trick as Bree was replaced by her twin sister Nikki before they took Kelly down for the win.
The Smackdown main event saw Christian challenging Randy Orton for the World title.
This was a tremendous match. From start to finish Orton and Christian put on a match of the year candidate.
It was a perfect piece of storytelling, with both men going all out in an attempt to gain victory, and getting frustrated by their inability to put the other one away.
But in the end only one man could win, and after a stunning sequence of moves Orton was finally able to take Christian down with the RKO or the title retaining pin. Excellent stuff.
Then came the match I really wasn’t looking forward to as Jerry Lawler faced Michael Cole in a kiss my foot match.
Cole came down to the ring in his suit, claiming that his infected athletes foot stopped him from competing because he could give Lawler foot and mouth disease. Lawler was having none of it, and neither was the referee as he tore up Cole’s sick note.
From there Lawler attacked Cole, throwing him into his Cole mine and taking the win moments later after his patented fist drop.
But before the unhealthy deed was done Lawler invited a few friends out to exact further revenge. Eve Torres took Cole out with a moonsault. Jim Ross poured barbecue sauce over him. Then Bret Hart threw him back in them ring when he tried to escape, applying the sharpshooter so the voice of WWE could finally adhere to the stipulations.
So after all the crap can we finally say that this feud is over?
The Raw main event saw the Miz challenging John Cena for the WWE title in an I Quit match.
Before the match began Miz played his trump card. Reminding Cena that there were no rules Miz introduced his buddy Alex Riley into the equation, basically turning this into a handicap match.
Miz and Riley proceeded to take Cena apart, hitting him with whatever they could get their hands on.
Miz hit him with a kendo stick, whipped him with a leather belt, hit him with the ring steps and with a chair, and he still couldn’t put him away.
Then, while the referee was taking a snooze, and after a chair shot to the head (I thought those were banned) Riley put the microphone near to Cena and we heard the magic words.
But as the Miz celebrated in the ring the referee found a mobile phone lying on the floor, complete with the recording everyone had just heard, and while Miz and Riley proclaimed their innocence the referee re-started the match.
Within minutes it was all over. Cena put Riley through the announcer’s table with the attitude adjuster. He then took his belt off and whipped Miz as he ran up the ramp.
Once they’d reached the stage Cena took Miz down and applied the STF. Within seconds the Miz was saying those magic words, giving Cena the title retaining win.
So let me get this straight: Miz and Riley basically torture Cena for the majority of the match, yet Miz quits within seconds of Cena applying the STF. Head scratching time me thinks.
In conclusion - for the most part Over the Limit was a pretty good show.
Orton/Christian was the highlight of the night for me, with most of the other matches delivering in varying ways.
But of course there were a couple of down points, namely the Divas title match and the Lawler/Cole encounter. Hopefully that extremely annoying encounter is now over, unless Cole is going to spring a surprise on everyone and find Isaac Yankem to go after Lawler. I wonder what happened to that guy?
So in all Over the Limit gets the thumbs up;, especially if you fast forward through the kiss my foot match.
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