WWE Smackdown/ECW house show
Vienna, Austria
Report by Dot Net reader Markus Gronemann

The show started a few minutes early, it was scheduled to begin 6:00 p.m. CET. The arena (Stadthalle in Vienna where WWE/F has run since 1994 - I think) looked to have been either a sellout or very close to it. Local media reported a few days before the show that more than 10,000 tickets had already been sold. I ended up selling my fourth-row floor seats a few days before the show, as a friend of mine had arranged for me to get press tickets, that unfortunately ended up being in the ranks about 30 rows back from my original seats - well that's life, at least it was a free show that way. The view still was pretty good (actually, it was nice not to have to stand up for every entrance, as on the floor kids would rush to the barricades at every finish or false-finish).

The lineup (and match outcomes) were identical to the rest of the SD/ECW branch of the current European tour thus far, with the same card already having taken place the nights before in Salzburg/Austria (4/18), Strasbourg/France (4/17) and Cologne, Germany (4/16). A little disappointing and a throwback to the old days of European tours, as they used to mix up the cards quite a bit during the last couple of years, both as far as the match-ups as well as the outcomes were concerned.

1. Evan Bourne beat Tyson Kidd. No Natalya. Good pop for Bourne being out as the first star of the night. Decent match, although not as good as I hope it would be. There were a few fun high spots, such as a Bourne headsciccor takedown and some nice enziguris and flying spin kicks from both men. Kidd dominated on offense most of the time and they also took it to the floor some of the time. Bourne eventually hit the Shooting Star Press for the win after about 7:30 minutes.

2. Finlay (w/Hornswoggle) beat Mark Henry. No Tony Atlas. Good pop for Finlay coming out, which my brother actually ranked over the one Jeff Hardy received (which would make it the 3rd loudest of the night). I'd disagree and place it 4th, but it was the first major pop of the night. Of course, lots of kids popping big for Hornswoggle. Henry came out by himself, so I guess they are cutting costs by keeping guys at home they don't really need for house shows (or Atlas received some time off after Mania, which is just an educated guess).

Actually, this was the most boring match of the night, with Henry mainly dominating and using rest-holds such as his bear-hug and strangely, a nerve hold to the shoulder he applied twice. Hornswoggle was funny at the start of the match, using the shillelagh to bang the lowest rope from ringside, irritating both Henry and the referee. The finish came when they took it to ringside. Henry rolled Horny into the ring and shoved him down, which distracted the referee and allowed Finlay to hit Henry over the head with the Shillelagh and get the pin after about seven minutes.

Post-match, Finlay, after almost being all the way up the ramp, took and Austrian flag from a fan and returned to the ring and waved it along with Horny from the turnbuckles to a major (cheap but still fun) pop.

3. Gail Kim and The Bella Twins beat Katie Lea Burchill, Natalya, and Maryse. Natalya stared down her partner Maryse during the latter's entrance and they came to a slight shoving match, maybe teasing a future face-off between the two. The match was decent, but nothing special, but all six girls worked hard, which is a trend, as last year's women's match actually was the best match on the card in my opinion. The Bellas, Maryse, and Katie all worked well with each other, Kim and Natalya worked very well. I hope we get a future program between these two. The finish came when Gail hit what looked like a Codebreaker, but using her outstretched leg instead of her knees on Katie Lea for the pin (might be her new finisher, up to now I thought the missile dropkick was her finisher). The match time was about 6 minutes.

4. MVP beat Shelton Benjamin to retain the U.S. Title. Pretty good match, as would be expected from these two. MVP was pretty over. There were a few single power-ranger chants at him from one section, but that was isolated, as kids and most other people loved him. Shelton worked over MVP's leg and eventually applied a figure-four, which MVP reversed after some time. After about 10 minutes, MVP hit the Playmaker for the win.

Intermission

5. Jack Swagger beat Christian to retain the ECW Title. Best match of the night. They brought out Tiffany as the new ECW general manager to do the introductions. Christian grabbed the belt from the referee before the match started; he then played the crowd raising his hand (cheers), pointing to Swagger (boos). They worked really well together, Swagger got to show off his amateur wrestling skills and general great athleticism, hitting suplexes and takedowns from various positions and from counters. If that guy supposedly wasn't ready for WrestleMania, then a ton of other guys on the card come to mind, that should also have had no reason being there.

I first saw Swagger last September at a house show in Innsbruck/Austria in a match against Finlay and while he was pretty good then, he has improved a great deal since. If they play their cards right, they have a future superstar in the making here. Swagger, at one point, grabbed the belt and wanted to leave, but returned to the ring at a count of 9 after realizing he was being counted-out. They channeled Taker-Michaels from Mania in hitting lots of great spots and counters in the last few minutes, with last.second kickouts from both men.

Christian had two diving headbutts at different times, an Unprettier attempt (which Swagger countered into a suplex) and got out of a gutwrench-powerbomb attempt once. Swagger did a cool spot with Christian lying on the floor where he ran into the corner, jumped the middle rope and did a kind of "springboard Vader Bomb splash" (which Christian blocked by pulling his knees up). The finish came when Swagger countered something Christian attempted into the Gutwrench Powerbomb for the win in about 12 minutes.

6. Matt Hardy beat Jeff Hardy in a street gith/extreme rules match (no-contout-no-disqualification-whatever match). Matt came out first to boos, Jeff came out to a major pop. Jeff dominated until he threw Matt to ringside, where he pulled a trash can from under the ring and hit Jeff in the head with it. He then took a kendo stick and bashed away at Jeff. Jeff then took the kendo stick while he was in a boston crab, countered the hold and hit Matt. Matt got a chair and hit Jeff. Jeff got a ladder from under the ring to a big pop. He went up the ladder, Matt got up the other side and they fought.

Jeff blocked a suplex attempt from Matt, and when he realized it was to dangerous up there jumped down and tipped the ladder to make Matt hit the top rope. He then placed Matt in the corner with open legs, placed the top of the opened up ladder there and hit a baseball slide, driving it onto Matt's nuts (which got lots of laughs). Jeff then got a table from under the ring and they fought over it. The finish came after about 11:00 minutes when Jeff placed Matt on the table, put the ladder up into a corner, went to the top rope and did a legdrop from the top rope, springboarding over the ladder and onto the table (kind of like the WrestleMania spot, but the ladder wasn't that high). Matt moved and got the pin. After the match, Matt attacked Jeff further, wanted to hit the Twist of Fate, but Jeff countered it into one of his own, keeping the crowd happy.

7. Undertaker and Triple H beat Legacy (Randy Orton, Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes) in a handicap match. Triple H came in to the second loudest pop of the night, followed by Taker whose pop was even louder /everybody loves Taker). Legacy came in second, which was kind of strange, since as over as HHH/Taker were, you would have thought they would have wanted those pops last. The entrances alone took about ten minutes. Anyway, Legacy stalled getting into the ring and when they did, Hunter immediately speared Orton and ran after him to the back. He returned shortly after and it was a regular tag-match for a while.

HHH started with Rhodes, dominating him. Eventually Taker tagged in and the crowd went berzerk. He worked over Rhodes' arm, later worked over DiBiase when he tagged in. Taker went Old School on Rhodes at one point. HHH showed that of course he and not Mark Henry is the strongest man in the world, when he raised Cody Rhodes up for a vertical suplex and held him there for a good 20-25 seconds straight. Actually Rhodes wavered more than HHH did, and it was a pretty impressive spot. HHH clotheslined Rhodes of of the ring and followed, which prompted Randy Orton to come back out and attack Trips.

Of course, Trips sells for no one and doesn't like anybody else having heat so just seconds later dominated Orton again. Finally he played face in peril, when all the Legcy members attacked him, which prompted Undertaker to get a chair at one point and run after them at ringside. Taker also intimidated the referee a few times, at one point prompting the ref to slide to ringside in fear of the Deadman's evil look-throwing-powers. HHH took an Orton-DDT with his legs draped over the middle rope. Rhodes held HHH down with a front-facelock for a few inutes, which HHH once managed to counter into w whip- ind and spinebuster, but Rhodes tagged to Orton.

HHH later narrowly escaped the punt. After a hot few minutes of HHH doing his best Ricky-Morton-impersonation that kept the crowd on the edges of their seats, he hot-tagged Undetaker in. Taker cleaned house on both Priceless members and hit a double chockeslam on them, Of course, Orton was right there to hit an RKO at Taker, prompting HHH to hunt him (no punt intended :D) to the back. Taker sat up Dead-Man-style and HHH just hit the ring in time to hit the Pedigree on Rhodes while Taker hit a simultaneous Tombstone on DiBiase for the pin (Taker was the legal man).

Post match saw Taker help HHH to his feet, posing to his music, leaving and HHH then celebrating to his music, walking around ringside, celebrating with the fans. Match time was about 22 minutes, plus intros (so it lasted about three times as long as the average match on the card). The crowd was happy, and the match was decent, so I won't complain.

Notes: The show ended just shy of 2:30 hours, which has become your average WWE house-show length, I think. All in all, a fun night, even though my brother and I agreed that it was nothing special as far as performances are concerned. But your average fan here probably only goes to see one show per year and will occasionally watch on TV, so they really want to see the big stars hitting their big spots, some comedy, some T&A and some general high spots to send them home happy. That is exactly what this card accomplished, and the formula seems to work well for WWE (three sellouts or near-sellouts in as many years since coming back to Vienna in 2007).

As always, pictures of the show, as well as from past WWE and Austrian independent shows can shortly be found at http://darkguy.pycoos.com/galleries/index.php?spgmGal=wrestling.

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