WWE Unforgiven 2008

I had this to watch before I put No Mercy on. Yeah, I know, I hear there's TV shows in between each PPV. I've been skimping a bit.

So the gimmick of the show was the three Scramble matches. I liked the ECW version, which kept the action going for the full 20 minutes, helped greatly by opening the show and having a fresh crowd. Plus, the finish was really exciting - you got the sense of panic as everyone frantically trying to find a winning move in the last minute, while Matt Hardy desperately runs away stopping everyone doing the same. Really believable and dramatic. The Smackdown version didn't have as much energy throughout, and had a much stupider finish. Why did Jeff not stop HHH's final pinfall, but go for one of his own? He was standing right there to stop it. Now, if they had done it so HHH got his final pinfall at 19:58, but the ref counted Jeff's fall as well, which creeped in at 19:59, well, that would have been clever. I did like that HHH had to keep his entrance to under 10 minutes.

I liked the tag match. Nothing original or groundbreaking, but they worked the formula fine, right down to the Midnight Express lure your opponent out of the ring to catch them with a surprise double team. A longer, heated finisher stretch would make take this up a level.

The Michaels-Jericho fight was another good installment in the feud. It was by no means perfect - I'd rather see a match built around "I punch your eye" than around gimmicked violence - the table spot, the announce desk spot, for instance. Plus, no blood. You have to escalate these things, and as there was blood in the July match, there are certain expectations. Basically, the level of hate-fuelled violence wasn't enough for the way it was sold by the commentators and the after-match angle. Michaels does an interview afterwards, and says that he is content, but not satisfied. I suspect he is also bearded, but not with beard.

The main was really quite slow - for the third version of the same match in one night, you would think they would try to find something new to do to keep the concept fresh. However, once Jericho made his surprise entry, then didn't do anything after his first failed attempt to hobble into the match, the finish was obvious. Not unappreciated though - Jericho's is at his very best right now (especially in his present self-righteous heel character), and Punk will be better off taking on another main event feud before a proper title run. I can't believe, a year ago, I was worried about him returning to be a pale comparison of the Jericho of 2000, or even Jericho of 2005. I need never have worried.