Rougeau to run the Molson Centre (from SLAM! Wrestling)

This is an event that leaves me scratching my head... see, I attended Rougeau's first two shows as a promoter in 1996. They... well, it's impossible to underplay this: they stank.

Both shows were headlined by matches with Abdullah the Butcher - a wrestler who gained much of his early fame here in Montreal. Unfortunately, both of these matches were pantomimes of hardcore bouts, and something that felt wrong for Abdullah: no blood.

We also saw Hercules Hernandez, bow off steroids, as a very out of shape Loup Garou (Werewolf)... and a strangely brown-haired Ronnie Garvin.

Jacques also showcased the local talents... but only as jobbers.

Overall, it led to very dull shows. I wonder how they've changed?

Well, we saw Alliance tensions on Smackdown! tonight, with Raven attacking and later challenging RVD.

It's happening sooner than I anticipated. I guess with X-Pac becoming a WWF heel again (admittedly, the fans just wouldn't accept him as a face), it was neccesary on the Alliance side too... besides, we needed more storylines than just WWF vs. the Alliance.

The ratings are in from RAW... and many wrestling reviewers, myself included, have to eat some crow...

A few of us criticized the "Mini-T" midget angle - yet the ratings seem to have spiked during that spot. As much as we didn't like it, the general viewing public did.

Looks like Al Snow's comment a few months ago on his commissioner campaign rings true after all: "Midgits equal ratings!"

Man, was RAW a mixed bag tonight. Some things were horribly wrong to my "armchair booker" point of view. but the ending was very strong.

The continuing ridicule of Booker-T has been a very bad choice in my mind from the beginning. How do you elevate a star if you constantly make fun of him, and his moves? Bringing out a midget imitator was a horrible example of this. Not only was it ridicule, but it just helped to make Rock look like a jerk.

His match against Lance Storm failed to help elevate him either. A 3-minute almost squash doesn't do that.

The ending, though... Stephanie just proved how much better she'd be as a mime, but Kurt Angle's milk truck spot was simply priceless. Re-doing Austin's beer truck invasion hose-down with a milk truck was simply priceless, and his imitation of Austin's beer shtick with milk cartons left me on the floor laughing.

Well, Summerslam is now down in the record books. I forgot the potentially historic part of the show: it might be the final event carried by DirecTV, unless they renegotiate soon.

Still, if this was indeed the last PPV on this service, the WWF went out with a bang:

1. The PPV opened with Edge challenging Lance Storm for the Intercontinental title.
   
   This was a solid match, both wrestlers putting on a tremendous display. Far from just being curtain-jerkers (the first match), they put on a very entertaining show.



2. The six man match: Test and The Dudley Boyz against Spike and the APA was easily a throw-away match, but Spike bumped like a madman, his table spot hard to forget.



3. Chris Jericho against Rhyno was - amazingly, since Rhyno was in it - a great match! Some of the spots I'm not sure if they were blown, or if Jericho was selling getting beaten up. Still, it made his victory more sweet.



4. X-Pac beat Tajiri to re-unify both the WWF Light Heavyweight title and the WCW Cruiserweight title. I think the now-legendary columnist CRZ had it right: "X-Pac rarely jobs in singles matches.". It was a solid match, but that ending likely ticked off many more viewers than just myself.



5. The Hardcore title ladder match was just as I anticipated: RVD and Jeff Hardy gave us an incredible spotfest. You could see the setups for many of the spots, and Rob did blow one (his attempted top turnbuckle spinkick on Jeff) but it was still jaw-dropping action.



6. The Steel Cage WWF/WCW tag-team title match was incredibly brutal stuff. Kane and Undertaker are now "division killers" for both promotions, but Taker got to pound an empasis on the closing of the Diamond Dallas-Stalker storyline.



7. Kurt Angle got a screw-job DQ win over Stone Cold Steve Austin. This was an incredible brawl, with Kurt getting the night's crimson mask. With Unforgiven to be in his home of Philadelphia, I expected him to win the title there rather than at this event.



8. The Rock beat Booker-T for the WCW title. This was actually the least interesting match of the night, as the result was expected. What was a surprise was Rocky trying the majistral cradle, a move we've never seen from him.

In the most entertaining outside bits: Shawn Stasiak now has a running joke - literally - as the guy who always runs into things while trying to hit the Rock. I bet he wishes he had a less painful gimmick.

So it was an entertaining PPV, although the sheer number of talents unused reminded me how they need exposure soon.

Well, we're a few hours away from what used to be one of the WWF's four major PPVs of the year: Summerslam.

Will it be an entertaining event? Definitely. Will it be a significant one? Likely not.

There are matches that fans (myself included) will get a kick out of. Tajiri/X-Pac and RVD/Jeff Hardy come to mind.

The problem with the latter (not ladder, though that'll be part of it) one is that it may well be a spot-fest... but neither RVD or Hardy are the prototypical "ring general". Both can hit spots to pop a crowd, but neither one have skill at telling stories through their match.

I'll have a post-event opinion to share tomorrow.