Compliment Sandwich: Great American Bash 2005

When 2005 began, many people were wondering who would be the man that would carry the WWE into the future. After all, the people that were most recently pegged to do so were all gone: The Rock to Hollywood and semi-retirement in 2002, Stone Cold Steve Austin to injury and forced retirement in 2003, and in 2004, Brock Lesnar to the NFL (or at least anything not WWE).

By Wrestlemania 21, they had found two men: John Cena and Dave Bautista. They had both come up through their farm system, Ohio Valley Wrestling, and debut in the summer of 2002. Despite terrible first gimmicks (plucky underdog and "deacon"), they broke through in 2004, and by the end of the 21st Wrestlemania in Los Angeles, it was clear they were the men of the future. This was a first for the "draft era": John Cena would lead the charge on Smackdown, while Dave Bautista would do the same on RAW. 

But the 2005 Draft Lottery changed all that. The two leading men would be the first and last men transferred in that draft lottery, sending Cena to RAW (and, in essence, making it its flagship show again), while Batista got shuttled to Smackdown. 

The Batista move is one of the stories surrounding the 2005 edition of The Great American Bash. The show took place on July 24 in Buffalo, just three and a half weeks after Batista was sent to Smackdown with his world title. John "Bradshaw" Layfield won a match he thought was for the "Smackdown Championship" (when Cena moved to RAW, that left Smackdown without a world champion), but instead was basically told by Teddy Long that he had to win one more match to be called champion. The other major feuds involved the continuing drama between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio and The Undertaker and another lottery selection Muhammad Hassan. The terrorist overtones of the angle forced WWE to end it prematurely under threat of being tossed from UPN.

The show is generally looked upon about as well as its 2004 counterpart, which is to say not well at all. And when the DVD was released, they knew it. One of the extras is a match from the 1990 Great American Bash between Ric Flair and Sting. When you have to dig in the archives to get people to buy the DVD, you didn't do a good job with the show.

Nonetheless, I'll try and say something nice about it. I don't even know if I can do it. Here we go.

• Opening package. Awesome.
• Tag title match to start. MNM (Joey Mercury, Johnny Nitro, and Melina) versus LOD 2005 (Animal and Heidenreich).
• Melina’s entrance… epic.
• Not sure how Animal (who is Fat Animal, like 2001 Animal in WCW) and Heidenreich got together, but whateves.
• BTW: the only reason this match exists and why Fat Animal has a job in WWE is because they have to push that Road Warriors DVD. At least they weren’t hiding it, I suppose.
• And because John Laurianitis is the brother of the dead half of the real LOD, Hawk.
• And I believe it’s post Heidenrape.
• LOD 2005 wins. Meh match. At least the crowd was engaged. Probably because of Fat Animal.
• Melina’s pissed. But she can’t grieve forever: she’s got a match later.
• Josh Matthews’ hair is out of control. Eddie Guerrero looks high, drunk, or both.
• Ok, now Eddie no longer looks high or drunk.
• Christian vs. Booker T up next. Christian damn near killed Booker dead two weeks before setting up the match.
• Christian just as he is beginning his Captain Charisma days.
• I loved Waterproof Blonde’s version of “Just Close Your Eyes”.
• “ALALALALA” sign in the second row. Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhh…
• Sharmell will smack a bitch.
• Christian went after Sharmell…and got the Rock Bottom. That should have been the finish. Hate that wasn’t the finish.
• Stop breaking the count damnit!
• Scissors kick from the second rope…nice!
• Major cleavage by Melina. I LOVE!
• Orlando Jordan coming out to dead silence. Inexplicable that to this point he’s been United States Champion for four months.
• Chris Benoit so got jobbed. Fuck Orlando Jordan.
• The good news is this would be corrected the next month at Summerslam. In a 25-second opener.
• Orlando’s theme music sucks too.
• Standing ovation for Benoit. He carried Orlando Jordan, who sucks major ass, to something awesome. Good for you, Buffalo, for reacting correctly.
• Undertaker vs. Muhammad Hassan in a #1 contender’s match is next. Ultimately, the stipulation turns out to be useless, but here’s the controversy in a nutshell: Davari caught a beatdown by Undertaker, then Undertaker gets choked out by piano wire by a group of “terrorist-type” folks in masks led by Hassan. Then Davari gets carried out by said group in a martyr-type fashion. A bit edgy, yes? Well, here’s the problem. While the show taped on the 4^th of July, it aired on the 7^th of July, the same day of the London terrorist attacks. WWE caught a lot of heat for the angle, particularly from UPN, threatening them to kick them off their network if Hassan appeared again on Smackdown. Seeing that (a) WWE still had a year left on their deal with Viacom, and (b) they didn’t wanna end up like TNA (who at the time had no TV deal at all), WWE caved in.
• Fuck. Even I got uncomfortable watching that promo.
• Terrorists, Tazz. Terrorists. Or an Invader tribute band.
• Hassan saying that if he fails, he’ll never show his face on Smackdown again. Foreshadowing, kids.
• Terrorists doing their best Nexus/Shield impersonation.
• Fucking terrorists man.
• Of course Hassan lied. He’s a terrorist or at least he rolls with them. As someone once said, tell me who you’re with and I’ll tell you who you are.
• Terrorist with the piano wire. The fuck, man.
• Hassan with the camel clutch. No. Not racist at all.
• Electric chair…and the five moves of doom. Or something. Terrorists getting fucked up.
• Terrorists, Cole. It’s okay.
• Chokeslam does it. And here they come again.
• Undertaker’s had enough of their shit.
• Piano wire guy gets dropped on his fucking head.
• Davari head first through the front of the announce table.
• Hassan’s crawling away. But one doesn’t simply run from Undertaker.
• And that’ll do it for Hassan. Last Ride through the stage.
• Didn’t like the beatdown. Lasted way too long. Was there no way to condense that into like four minutes or something?
• So if you’re scoring at home, Undertaker in consecutive Great American Bash PPVs has killed Paul Bearer and killed Muhammad Hassan.
• Torrie Wilson is here to make us all feel a better.
• The Mexicools versus the Blue World Order. Yeah, I’m gonna skip this.
• And speaking of things that make me uncomfortable, the direction the EVIL Eddie Guerrero-Rey Mysterio feud has turned at this point.
• Remember when Vickie Guerrero was kinda hot?
• Still kinda sucks that the last significant feud Eddie had was the one involving Dominick. Makes me wanna puke.
• But hey, we get an Eddie Guerrero-Rey Mysterio match. There’s no such thing as a bad Guerrero-Mysterio match. That’s a fact.
• EVIL Eddie Guerrero looks high.
• Rey Mysterio with his son Dominick. Since Eddie is running Rey to keep the big secret locked away, Dominick has to watch from ringside.
• Code of Honor got a little creepy there.
• Pedo Guerrero? Not cool. Using Dominick as a shield? Not cool. So not cool.
• EVIL Eddie Guerrero is entertaining if nothing else. In the last three years of his life, he figured it out, and he put it all together. No wonder why he got fast tracked to the WWE Hall of Fame posthumously.
• Goddamnit, stop being Pedo Guerrero.
• This is easily the best match on the board, but Dominick is so taking away from this match.
• Oh, he has more than a few friends in that building, Tazz.
• EVIL EDDIE GUERRERO BRAINBUSTER!
• Wow. The Prince Iaukea finish. Loved the ending, hated the execution. Here’s why: from frog splash to crucifix rollup was all of seven seconds. Rey took five suplexes, a brainbuster, and a frog splash. Recovery time should have been a lot longer than seven seconds. In WWE ’13, you don’t recover from that in seven seconds.
• Guerrero getting in the face of a fan. Fan be like, I don’t care, dude. I got this sweet cowboy hat, you got nothing.
• Of course, the match ultimately meant nothing: EVIL Eddie revealed the secret four days later on Smackdown.
• JBL looks ridiculous as fuck.
• Bra and panties match next. Candice Michelle is referee for some reason. Also wearing a garter for some reason.
• EVIL Melina looking way overclothed. And not doing her entrance. And those pants. No. Just… no. All sorts of no.
• Torrie Wilson kinda sorta channeling her inner Lita.
• Ineffective abdominal stretch proves super effective.
• Torrie’s sans top.
• Candice Michelle be like, “this is a legitimate match, yo.”
• Torrie loses pants, and it’s an upset win for Melina…
• …who still loses her pants.
• Candice, the referee, also down to her bra and panties. I guess we can call the taste of the Guerrero-Mysterio match officially washed.
• Main event is up: Batista vs. JBL for the World Heavyweight Championship.
• JBL still looks ridiculous as fuck.
• Not sure if he’s fighting for the World Heavyweight Championship or running for mayor of Buffalo.
• Batista, the first man to main event consecutive brand-exclusive PPVs for different shows (Vengeance in June, Great American Bash in July), complete with pooping pyro. I kinda enjoyed the pooping pyro.
• It’s 300-pounder-with-limited-moveset-and-power-game-on-300-pounder-with-limited-moveset-and-power-game crime. This should be fun.
• Batista be like, “pitch and catch at the backyard”.
• That’s true, Tazz. Muscle loses to steel every time. Sometimes muscle loses by like seven.
• Ok, I know I’m supposed to say nice things, but I just fast forwarded about six minutes. This match…is…boring. If you have trouble sleeping at night, just put this match on.
• I mean, this is supposed to be a slugfest, but this is the worst kind.
• Did the DVD cut out a couple minutes?
• Of course Batista kicked out, dumbass. What did you fucking expect to happen?
• Nick Patrick is down, and it is bad. Batista did push the ref into JBL though.
• Batista busted for steel chair use. PPV ends on a DQ, and Batista loses his shit. Hate, hate, hate.
• Demon bomb to OJ, demon bomb to JBL.
• The original plan was for Muhammad Hassan to get his comeuppance at Summerslam against Batista, but corporate hubris and real-life events killed those plans, so we get this garbage finish.

There are two kinds of bad wrestling shows: ones that are bad, yet oddly entertaining (like some WCW shows in 2000), and ones that are bad and boring. The Great American Bash 2005 falls in the latter category. To the surprise of no one, the surviving members of the Smackdown Six (Guerrero, Mysterio, Benoit) deliver the goods. But the emotion of this PPV is tepid at best. The custody angle comes off as hokey, and the terrorist angle comes off as dumb. Still though, I do recommend Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio. And the ladies looked good. I mean, as Scott Keith once said, it’s hard to screw up a bra and panties match.

The rest: not so much.