WWE New Year's Revolution 2005

The old 2005 musings can be found here for comparison.

So let's dive back to 2005... which began with WWE needing to crown a new World Champion on their RAW brand... except they really didn't because... well, we'll get into the background in the actual musings, but with WWE's New Year's Day PPV having come and gone, I figured it'd be a good time to revisit their brief run of PPVs that weren't the Royal Rumble.

I've already talked about this show years ago and I've provided the above link for the sake of context and comparison.

The first New Year's Revolution emanated from Puerto Rico, which marks the first time WWE held a PPV in that country. You'd figure that would be a neat annual tradition to hold a PPV there every year, but the following year's edition would be held in some random American city. Oh well.

WWE Tag-Team champions William Regal and Eugene (Nick Dinsmore in a "mentally challenged" person, for those not hip in 2005 WWE) defeated Christian and Tyson Tomko to retain the titles. Eugene looked like he hurt his knee on a dropkick and the match ended with a less-than-smooth roll-up before medics went in to check on the poor fellow.

Trish Stratus defeated WWE Women's Champion Lita in a really short match to regain the title. Lita hurt her knee on a move and she'd be out for a period of time, which probably explains why the match ran short. Just for additional context, Trish & Lita main evented an episode of RAW some time ago that saw Lita beat Trish for the title in what I recall was a really good match. So who knows what would've happened if Lita's knee didn't go bad.

Intercontinental Champion Shelton Benjamin defeated Maven (you know, from Tough Enough) in a really short "match" to retain the title. I say "match" because it was Maven mostly talking and insulting the Puerto Recan crowd. This is the kind of thing you would have at a house show to give people a chance to take a piss or something... and I suppose for the PPV crowd as well... oh wait, Maven says that doesn't count and demands a restart. So Shelton beats him in five seconds. Well, that was riveting.

Oh boy, it's the in-ring debut of Mohammad Assan, the Arab-American fellow who felt insulted that he is treated like an evil foreigner despite being born in America... and then proceeds to be portrayed as an evil foreigner in the ring. This was supposed to be the new big bad who would eventually end up with a World title reign, but bad booking and poor taste ended the guy's run before it really began.

It probably doesn't help matters when this new big bad's first major feud is with Jerry Lawler, which would've been fine 30 years prior when Lawler was the king of Memphis Wrestling, but in 2005, he was mostly doing color commentary with Jim Ross, who also got some action in this. So Hassan's first match was with Jerry Lawler and it was bad. Really bad. So bad that the Puerto Rican crowd was chanting "BORING!" So that's one English word they know.

Anyway, Lawler hit Hassan with the fist and DDT, Davari places Hassan's foot on the ropes and earns an altercation with Jim Ross, which distracts Lawler long enough for Hassan to hit his move and score the pin. What a waste of fucking time. You know I didn't even waste time talking about the match in my original rant, but I knew then that Hassan wasn't long in this company. And he wasn't... though for entirely different reasons.

Oh yeah, the Coach replaces Lawler on commentary. Swell.

Kane defeated Gene Snitzky in a thing that happened. Snitzky was a big guy who once kicked a baby doll into the crowd and claimed it wasn't his fault. It was supposed to be this heelish thing that would give Snitzky heat, but it was absolutely hilarious. That's about all I remember about Snitzky. Also, this match fucking blows. Two big fuckers beating the fuck out of each other should be the easiest thing to pull off and somehow, they don't pull it off. Fuck this company circa 2005.

So...

McSon-In-Law wins his umpteenth Big Gold belt in the main event Elimination Chamber match with Shawn Michaels as special referee. If this surprises you, then you haven't been watching WWE around this time. The only notable spot is Batista getting pinned by Randy Orton with HHH not coming to help, which basically planted the seeds to Batista's eventual babyface turn and run as HHH's only good Wrestlemania main event. The rest of the match is fine; about as good as any Chamber match up to that point, I suppose... but knowing that we'd be in for yet another McSon-In-Law reign soured the whole thing.

As I had said back in my original rant, New Year's Revolution sucked. And honestly, this could be attributed to a couple things. The first two matches had nasty injuries and so you were pretty much screwed. The main event could've been the greatest technical spectacle in the world and would still be underwhelming because there was only one possible outcome and it's the least desirable. That leaves the middle portion and... yeah, not the most spectacular start to the WWE PPV season.

Fortunately, things were looking up. The seeds were planted for the rise of Dave Batista as a main event player and the eventual explosion of Evolution was drawing near. Sooner or later, the McSon-In-Law Reign Of Terror would come to an end.