No Way Out 2005

No Way Out won’t go down in history as one of the worst pay per views of all time. But that’s only because it won’t go down in history period. February is always the least important PPV month of the year – coming as it does between January’s Royal Rumble and late-March/early-April’s Wrestlemania. Occasionally they have used the February show to continue a storyline where the Wrestlemania title picture twists and turns as both the belt and the top contendership switch from superstar to superstar. But more often than not it is an irrelevance. Three years ago they gave us a star studded show with three main events – the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin (vs. Eric Bischoff), Hogan-Rock II and HHH vs. Scott Steiner – and still the show was instantly forgettable. But, in an effort to reflect on the event before the memory fades completely, I give you what may become a tradition – ten things which are just that – things.

1. The set was good. The coils of faux-barbed wire which made up the entrance way was a nice change to the usual Titantron-squared. The opening video was very well produced too.

2. But no one thought to change the show’s logo so all graphics had the No Way Out name interlaced with a chain rather than with barbed wire.

3. The opening tag team title match was strong – as it ought to be considering the talent involved. The Basham Brothers are not a bad team but they just look like Generic Tag Team Number Seven. It is hard to take them seriously as champions when they look so bland, I still don’t know which is which, their gimmick of having Linda Miles smack their backsides before they wrestled is still fresh in my mind and for some reason they were pushing the idea that they are now referred to as S.O.D. – Secretaries of Defence.

4. At least Eddie didn’t turn on Rey Jr. That was the rumour – that he was going to go heel because they couldn’t think of anything else to do with him. An absurd idea as he’s literally the only babyface on Smackdown who can lay any kind of claim to be a draw. Sure, it’s mainly Latino markets but if only one in ten shows take place in those markets then that is the fault of the people who draw up the schedule not the guys in the ring. Eddie and Rey winning the tag titles would be a many splendid thing except that they have no challengers with whom they can have good matches and the obvious break up of the team down the line when Eddie turns. Gone are the days when Smackdown could boast an awesome three-way tag title feud before Edge/Rey vs. Team Angle vs. The Guerreros. They’ll probably end up feuding with the Dudleys (if they ever return from Parts Unknown) or in a rivalry with the thrilling combo of Mark Jindrak and Luther Reigns. Or, worse still, anyone and Kenzo Suzuki.

5. I forget who actually sponsored the show – probably someone like Snickers or Subway – but it should’ve been TiVo. Because I for one (and I wasn’t alone) found that TiVo was the only way one could watch the show and stay awake. Three (or maybe more – it was that uninteresting) Diva segments were raced through as yet another crop of emaciated bimbos showed off their surgically enhanced bodies for the crowd. When will they ever learn that (a) less is more and (b) the only women who have ever been successful in WWE have been those who have brought something new to the table? Elizabeth was the classic damsel in distress, Sunny was the first “Diva”, Chyna was a freak, Lita was a spunky punk and Sable got naked. Remember Barbara Bush? Miss Kitty? The Raw Diva Search contestants? Jackie Gayda? Exactly – generic females are not going to draw money and the more they have, the less each is worth. Remember Asya or Midnight or Nicole Bass? They were attempts to cash in on Chyna and none of them were worth anything.

6. Heidenreich may well be the worst wrestler in the business right now. He’s like Nathan Jones but without the charisma. Jones was hopeless but at least he looked scary. Heidenreich tries to look scary but fails miserably. There is just something not there. His match with Booker T (based on an angle which took place “after Smackdown last Thursday” which is, frankly, pathetic) was a last minute idea with no purpose behind it. They didn’t want to put Booker over Heidenreich because Big John was coming off a squashing at the hands of the Undertaker so, obviously, couldn’t lose to a mid-carder or Taker’s win would mean nothing. Heidenreich couldn’t win either because they might want to do something with Booker one day. At the very least they can use him as Smackdown’s token black babyface. So the match had no point from its inception, neither guy could lose therefore neither guy could win and there was no chance of it being a good match. And yet they forced it upon the viewing several.

7. The six-way cruiserweight title thing served only to show the world that Paul London may be the single most under used talent in the business right now. If you’re reading this then you obviously like the rasslin. If so, you should do yourself a favour and buy a Ring of Honor DVD to see just how good Paul London really is.

8. The Undertaker vs. Luther Reigns match was fast paced and dynamic… but only if you watched it at 3x speed on TiVo. I imagine the real time version was pretty grim. Two big guys – one who can’t do much and one who couldn’t be bothered – slugging it out for ten, twenty, thirty minutes (time has little meaning during a bad Undertaker match) and ending with the traditional tombstone piledriver. The best thing Undertaker could do right now is help re-establish Randy Orton’s “Legend Killer” gimmick by putting him over at Wrestlemania. Let Orton turn heel and end Taker’s unbeaten ‘Mania streak. It might push him back onto the superstar path that he appeared to be on last year until he won the title, turned face, lost the title and became just another guy all within the space of a couple of months.

9. Cena vs. Angle was the usual match between two decent, over guys which has no drama or suspense because it is blatantly obvious who is going to win. There can be no drama when the stipulation of the bout told us Cena would win. And if Cena was going to win then he was going to survive the ankle lock. The thing with an over submission hold (of which there are very few) is that you never know if a guy will tap. Flair’s figure four never beats anyone, similar to the Rock’s sharp shooter which was just another spot. But Benoit’s crossface and Angle’s anklelock do win matches. But since the winner faced JBL at Wrestlemania and that wasn’t going to be Kurt Angle, the match had no drama. It was also two hours into a dismal PPV so it was another watched at 3x.

10. And so to the main event – the match so huge that a mere arena can’t contain it. The big one. The epic encounter that makes spending thirty five of their American dollar things a mere formality. JBL vs. The Big Show inside this week’s "most demonic structure ever created". Depending on the hype machine, that honour may go to Hell in a Cell, the Elimination Chamber or any other cage based gimmick match. Maybe even the Doomsday Cage match for those with long memories and a desire to relive wrestling’s darkest moments. The first thing that strikes you is that the barbed wire was only at the top of the cage. If the WWE announcers are to be believed, the cage is fifteen feet high which logically means that even the largest athlete in the world is around eight feet away from any of the razor sharp wire. So no one was in any real danger. Both bled hugely but that is par for the course with JBL. I freely admit he is a lot better as champion than I thought he would be but he bleeds every time to hide his other short comings. The rules of the match made little sense - you could win by pinfall, submission or escaping the cage. Except that the door was locked and the top was ringed with barbed wire. Oh dear, they're going to be creative. To their credit they didn't do something as dismal as having JBL's accomplices operate the cage's lifting gear and have JBL escape that way. Instead they had him driven through the mat and crawl under the ring to freedom. It was at least novel and it meant we didn't have yet another drab Big Show title reign. But what would be so utterly terrible in JBL actually pinning BS? They clearly don't have any plans for Show - no rumours even for Wrestlemania - so why not give JBL a victory? The answer is that they seem obsessed with keeping everyone except Undertaker weak. Show looks stupid for the way he threw away victory and JBL is in danger of becoming a Ric Flair 1987/88 style champion who the fans cease to believe will ever be beaten by the chasing babyface.

So it was a lacklustre show. It positively screamed its origins as a slot on the PPV calendar which needed to be filled with stuff that wasn't good enough for Wrestlemania. It didn't deliver good action, it didn't feel like a special event, it amazes me that anyone would pay $34.95 to watch it (and it ought to surprise me that anyone could charge $34.95 for it), it didn't contain any glimmers of hope for the future and it didn't entertain. But it will have made money and that is all that matters to WWE.