Anyways, this might be a completely sacreligious thing to say on a Wrestling Forum, but in terms of pure consistent greatness on a main event level , Punk 2011-2012 is one of those runs where you look at it in a few years and say "Yeah, that was a fucking AWESOME main event run" , up there with runs such as HBK in 96-97 and HHH in 00-EARLY 01. To be honest , Lesnar from 02-4 was an AMAZING run as well in terms of his main event matches.
No, I'll say "I'm willing to take a bullet to the brain than witness this ever again".
Backlash 2005:
Shelton Benjamin vs Chris Jericho - ****
- Absolutely awesome work by both men. The end sequence with the roll-up counters was a great ending, the athletic spot with Shelton leaping to the rope and doing a superplex was awesome and the whole match in general was highly enjoyable. Would have worked better a bit if there was a clear heel here. For the build-up, I thought Jericho was the heel since he was constantly a dick but fans cheered him over Shelton here. Well, we got a great match and that's all that matters!
William Regal/Tajiri vs The Heart Throbs vs La Resistance vs Hurricane/Rosey vs Simon Dean/Maven - **3/4
- A nice tag team turmoil match while it lasts. Nothing memorable and nothing bad, just decent and it's... just there. Oh and Hurricane and Rosey win this to a nice pop at the end.
Edge vs Chris Benoit - ***3/4
- They never had an official, big feud involving titles or anything but Benoit might be Edge's best opponent. First their awesome post-WM21 match and now this very good Last Man Standing blow-off. Edge obviously gets the win as he's the MITB holder and the next breakout star after Batista & Cena here. Both men do a great job, there are some memorable spots like the suicide dive, superplex into a trashcan, German Suplex from top of the ladder and a brick being used to put Benoit down after responding to two Spears, which protects him well in defeat. As usual, Benoit gets a standing ovation post-match despite losing. That's how much respect fans had for this man!
Kane vs Viscera - *1/2
- Viscera & Trish's little affair was more interesting than this. They are such an odd pair here yet their restaurant skits worked pretty well. As for the match, it sucks. Then post-match Viscera & Trish officially have their "break up" and Viscera squashes Trish with a splash to a bunch of "Mabel" chants.
Hulk Hogan/Shawn Michaels vs Muhammad Hassan/Daivari - ***1/4
- A very nice tag match with an electric crowd that goes crazy for the returning Hogan. Nothing much otherwise but it's entertaining to watch while it lasts and despite being there to just look stupid for Hogan and the fans, Muhammad Hassan and Daivari didn't look overly weak which was good.
Batista vs Triple H - ***1/4
- Slightly better than their Wrestlemania match but not by much. A bit shorter which helps it, crowd is more into it and there's a bit of story to this with HHH making the Pedigree out to be the "be all end all" for him to regain the title. Then he manages to do it on Batista only for Mike Chioda to oversell a clothesline which results in no counts being made and the defeat being unclean this time. Batista wins again although there's a bunch of unneeded shenanigans while it happens.
Overall: ***1/4 out of ***** (Not a bad PPV at all. A couple of great matches and other decent stuff with only one dud. And the non-wrestling stuff aren't bad either. Chris Masters' Masterlock challenge was unintentionally hilarious and mostly because I go and read the forum stuff all over the net said back in 2005 and the hate Masters gets far surpasses anything else I've witnessed including Cena hate. And Christian also cuts a nice little rap before the main event. It's a shame they dropped the ball with him like that. Should have been a main eventer by this point, really.)