Hey there tatfans, I hope you’re well. Well I must admit I’m still buzzing because my man Mark Jindrak has been given his push by none other than Kurt Angle himself. He’s gone from Velocity main-eventer to Smackdown main-eventer in just two weeks and I am doubly pleased because there is a good chance he will be making an in-ring show in Manchester – in just ten days!
But before I get stuck into making my Jindrak sign for the MEN Arena, we’ve got No Mercy to look forward to, and I think we could be in for a pleasingly solid, if not very good, show.
The main event is the Last Ride match between John Bradshaw Layfield and The Undertaker and the question is: will the title actually change hands this time? Pro-active fans would think not – the rumours from the grapple-media suggesting that JBL is going to be WWE Champion for a while yet, but I’m just not so sure.
At Summerslam, we witnessed Undertaker lose to JBL in a disappointing showing of selling injuries. It seemed no matter what JBL did to Undertaker, the Deadman took it, then lost the match, and then planted Bradshaw through the roof of his limo; Bradshaw was made to look very weak, despite keeping hold of the belt. So what now?
This month Undertaker has effortlessly disposed of Viscera, Gangrel and Orlando Jordan, whilst JBL was disqualified for making Bob Holly bleed. It seems that in the inaugural Last Ride stipulation match; in which to win you have to beat your opponent senseless, dump them in the back of a hearse and drive out, the odds are stacked on The Undertaker. JBL has had his title for long enough, hasn’t he? The fans never really took to him as champion and this is probably Undertaker’s last year, so he just has to get a title run, right?
Wrong.
Nope, I just don’t think JBL will lose his title just yet. And my reason? Well forgive me for sounding stupid but JBL losing to Undertaker just wouldn’t look right. We have a cowboy businessman fighting a supposedly dead man. Couple that with the fact that if JBL is made to look weak again, then Smackdown has lost a good main event man. I expect JBL to be made to look strong in the match. I think he will beat Undertaker up, and I think he will drive out in the hearse, retaining his gold.
However, I do expect JBL to lose his belt to his next opponent, now that Big Show and Kurt Angle are back full-time.
Talking about Big Show and Kurt Angle, they fight each other at No Mercy. Big Show wants revenge on Angle because he threw Angle to his doom a few months back (you would have thought that would have been enough). Oh well. Angle has just shaved Big Show’s hair off, too; something that Big Show is well narked about I gather, so there’s another reason to watch.
For all the inconsistent, faulty build-up to this match, it does make for an interesting match. I think Angle will pick up the win, but dubiously, allowing for an even more enraged Big Show to take his rage out on JBL in the next couple of months.
Luther Reigns fights Eddie Guerrero in what could be a very decent match indeed. Luther, in a matter of weeks, has made his twisting neckbreaker finisher one of the most over and feared moves on Smackdown. It is also worth noting that pretty much every encounter these two have had has been pretty damn good, culminating in an exciting match between Reigns & Jindrak vs Eddie & RVD. Eddie has succumbed to Reigns’ finisher in the last couple of weeks and I expect him to again – once my man Jindrak interferes.
The final match of The Best of Five Series between John Cena vs Booker T comes to a conclusion, also. Just like it always was. So far the matches have gone exactly as I have planned; Cena won the first match, Booker won the next two, Cena won the fourth and we are tied going into the final. I must admit, the previous four matches have all been (meh!) okaaay, but nothing special. However I think this match will be the exception and we could be in for a treat. I still think Cena will walk away with the belt, but the thing I’m looking forward to is the potential matches afterwards; what with London, Kidman, Jindrak, Reigns, Booker, RVD, Haas and CCC all obvious contenders for the belt.
And yes, finally, Paul London and Billy Kidman also fight. The short-lived tag team champs have fallen out because Kidman lost his bottle and walked out on London. Kidman accidentally knocked Chavo out cold when performing a Shooting Star Press and subsequently hates Paul London because of it. Like any Cruiserweight match, I expect this high-flying duo to open No Mercy and put on a great spectacle, with London coming out as the victor seeing as he has been more impressive in ring recently and the crowd would like that more.
Two more titles are on the line at No Mercy, too. Firstly the runty Spike Dudley defends his Cruiserweight Title against the ever-entertaining Nunzio. Nunzio picked up a surprise, yet very good, win against Spike last week on Smackdown! but I can’t imagine him doing the same against Spike again. New Tag-Team Champions Rene & Kenzo put up their tag belts against Rey Mysterio and Rob Van Dam. In a match where you struggle to figure out which pairing has been together longer, I can only predict that in their first defence, Kenzo and Rene will be victorious.
Other people to look out for are Heidenreich, who has been the Rab Burns of WWE in recent weeks; he may have the Heat match. Dawn Marie vs Miss Jackie may also be on the card as they had a little tizzy too.
Boyo