September 2, 2008 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The show starts with the Dirt Sheet. After lamenting that John Morrison didn’t qualify for the Championship Scramble match at the PPV, they bring out Mark Henry & Tony Atlas. Morrison & The Miz apologize for the way they treated the champ on the last Dirt Sheet, and then they bring out Chavo Guerrero & Bam Neely to a goofy, dubbed over version of his theme song. The fart noises are kind of funny, as is the reference to Kerwin White. Then they play a video of the two of them playing “Finlay’s brothers,” a pair of drunk irishmen at a bar. Finlay comes out with Hornswoggle, who kicks Miz in the shins.Matt Hardy comes out and says he’s cool with all the same-sex partnerships on the heel side. A brawl breaks out, so Evan Bourne and Tommy Dreamer run out for no reason (the reason is to set up an 8-man tag match in the next segment). I wish I hadn’t recapped that whole segment.
Super Crazy def. Gavin Spears
The ECW/Smackdown Talent Exchange Program meets the ECW New Superstar Initiative. No wonder this brand died. Crazy looked like he was about to have a coronary here. Think Mike Starr in Dumb and Dumber. After some really impotent action, Crazy hits a springboard moonsault for the win at 4:15. *¾
Ricky Ortiz def. Ryan Braddock
It isn’t stated whether or not Braddock, who didn’t get an entrance, is part of the New Superstar Initiative. It is stated that he’d jobbed to the Big Show before. This was a dead match in front of a dead crowd. The best part of all this was Todd Grisham correcting Matt Striker’s grammar on commentary. It’s wild just how not over Spears and Ortiz were. Ortiz won in with a splash in 4:39. ¾*
Josh Matthews, Mickie James and Mr. Kennedy were on site at the RNC. Kennedy says he’s proud to be the first Republican Kennedy. First off, his last name is Anderson and second off, this bozo could have done a simple google search and found that he wasn’t even as a fake Kennedy, he wasn’t the first (John Neely Kennedy joined the GOP a year earlier). Anyway, Matt Striker straight up violates FCC guidelines by saying, “vote Republican,” at the end of the segment, turning the segment from a pro-voting PSA to a political ad. Fuck Matt Striker.
Mark Henry, the Miz, John Morrison & Chavo Guerrero def. Matt Hardy, Tommy Dreamer, Evan Bourne & Finlay
I don’t know why, maybe because more than half of the wrestlers in this match sometimes have fun matches on this show, but I expected this to be pretty fun. It was kind of fun in its best moments, but that’s all. The finish was cute, as all four babyfaces alternated attackign Henry and keeping the other heels out of the ring until Hardy hit Henry with the Twist of Fate and pinned him at 10:46. **¾
Time for another PPV title defense, this time at Unforgiven.
September 7, 2008 – Cleveland, Ohio
Matt Hardy def. Mark Henry, the Miz, Chavo Guerrero, and Finlay {ECW Championship Scramble Match}
In WWE, Championship Scrambles are 20-minutes matches, featuring five wrestlers who enter at five-minute intervals, wherein pinfalls can happen multiple times resulting in interim champions, and the winner at the end of the 20-minute time limit is the official champion. The commentators irritatingly kept saying that Henry had an 80% chance of losing the title, but that presumes that all five guys had even odds going into the match, which is never the case. Leave the numbers to Scott Steiner, you tools. Miz and Hardy started and couldn’t go five minutes without a chinlock. I hate 2008 Miz so much. Chavo came out next and immediately becomes the interim champ with a Frog Splash on Hardy. Hardy claimed that honor a few minutes later with the Side Effect on Guerrero. Henry came out a minute later and fought off everyone to pin Guerrero and become interim champ. Todd Grisham says the quiet part out loud, “Mark Henry has taken the life out of not only his opponents, but this crowd.” Finlay came out last and brought some much-needed fire to the match. He and Hardy dumped Henry and then Finlay pinned Hardy to become the interim champ with the Celtic Cross. With three minutes left in the match, things started to pick up. Hardy hit the Twist of Fate on Miz to become interim champ. The rest of the match was technically sound, with Hardy having to keep his wits about him to keep Henry from pinning anyone. It got a little repetitive, but it made sense and the crowd was invested so I can’t fault it too much. I can fault that seventeen minutes of the match were pretty boring. Hardy won the title thanks to his opponents’ incompetence at 20:00. **½