Someone said that New Year’s Revolution was a show which was saved by the last minute and a half. Certainly up until that point it had been a fast paced show only in the living room of someone watching the event on TiVo. I got through the first two hours in a little over 45 minutes and yet still feel able (or compelled) to give you my now-traditional ten thoughts on the PPV. There will be spoilers but you don’t care, do you?

Edge’s post match beat down of Ric Flair served a couple of purposes. Firstly, it got Edge heel heat and presumably management hoped that a Flair beating would still be in the minds of fans later in the evening when he faced Cena. Beating on Ric Flair is a heinous enough act to guarantee you are booed out of the building, right? Right idea, wrong place to try it out. The other purpose was to get the briefcase into play. The briefcase that Edge has been carrying for almost a year now and which supposedly contains his "money in the bank" title shot. What with sex and Matt Hardy getting in the way, the briefcase has not been as focal of late – Edge already carries Lita around with him and who is going to notice a boring piece of luggage when you have a skank with a demon tattoo to look at instead? By braining Flair Edge made sure everyone went "Oh yeah – the briefcase".

Kurt Angle cut a bizarre promo where he said he wanted Iraq to win the war, how his favourite country was France, that he didn’t like "the blacks" and that he’d like to go back in time and make Jesus tap out. The point of all this was to prove how stupid the fans are for continuing to cheer him. He can do or say anything and they will blindly cheer him. As if to prove they are either post-modern ironists or mindless sheep the fans cheered him during the promo. They’ve done about everything they can to make Angle a heel and none of it works. There is only one thing left – he’s going to have to come out.

The women’s match between Trish and Mickie was brutal. That’s brutal in both senses – it went back and forth between stiff and awful. The Stratusfaction was executed twice, both in instalments, and looked like the most convoluted move since one of those six man highspots on an ROH show. The kick which won the match for Trish was really good and Mickie has nice thighs so it wasn’t a complete waste of air time.

A Royal Rumble promo aired with the McMahon’s as Roman royalty looking down at the Coliseum. The thing was painfully unfunny and showed that the same people who produced the Wrestlemania movie spoofs could do much better work when they didn’t have to pander to the McMahon family (Vince and Steph more than Shane or Linda) and their egomania. Vince as Caesar has a certain ring to it – his empire is about to come to a pretty unpleasant end too.

Trips and the Big Show was built around BS having a broken hand or something. He was wearing a comedy cast for a while (as in a comical looking plaster cast rather than say the cast of Are You Being Served?) but then it was taken off. Blah blah blah. I was thinking this would be one of HHH’s occasional maintenance jobs. The sort of jobs he does in unimportant matches so he can win all the big ones and still claim he’s a team player. He could easily have lost to Big Show and no one would’ve remembered it (except HHH at a time which suited him backstage). But he didn’t – he won because he wanted to.

The lingerie gauntlet was beyond bad. I skipped all the actual divas until Victoria was alone in the ring and I thought she’d won. Then Moolah and Mae Young came out for some comedy. At least I think it was meant to be comedy – Mae stripped to her underwear (she is over eighty years old in case you’ve never seen her) and tried to strip Victoria too. I don’t know if Mae was actually drunk but she certainly looked and acted as if she was. She was tearing away at Victoria’s top and Victoria looked genuinely scared that things would get out of hand. Or at least out of her bra. It almost turned into a shoot as the two women fought for control of Victoria’s top. I like Victoria – her shirt said it all – "Let’s Get This Over With".

Lawler vs Helms was a match which served no purpose at all and could only be thought up to please Lawler’s home town fans in Memphis. Except they were in Albany. Had Helms gone over it might’ve been worthwhile (because Lawler, like Flair, is a legend who can give youngsters the rub) but Lawler won clean and thousands of miles away from Tennessee. Utterly pointless.

The main event was notable for three things, the first of which was John Cena being booed by everyone. This wasn’t a split crowd where some loved him and some hated him. He was booed whenever he did anything. When brawling with Chris Masters he was booed (and Masters was actually cheered when he beat on Cena).

The second was that the three veterans – Kane, Angle and Michaels – were the first three eliminated and the last three were the young up-and-comers – Carlito, Masters and Cena. Some have criticised this booking but I liked it. Would it really be in the best interests of the company to have the guys who are either at the top or who were at the top and are slowly sliding down beating the guys who are on their way up? Hardly. Say what you will about Chris Masters but the guy is of greater value in the long run than Kane. They’re both wooden and boring but one has been wooden and boring for eight years and the other hasn’t.

So Cena beats the odds and retains the title. Out comes Mr McMahon to announce that Edge is cashing in his title shot here and now. Why McMahon had to be involved I don’t know. Edge could’ve come out and announced it himself (the stipulation has been hammered home often enough over the past nine months). It also made no sense because McMahon and Cena were buddies a couple of months ago. It was Cena who McMahon famously referred to as "my nigga" at Survivor Series while trying to act cool. Had they not removed Bischoff from power a couple of weeks ago it would all have made sense since Bisch and Cena had been feuding. But I still think Vince would’ve been the one to announce the match – ego again. He has to be seen as the man with the power.

And so it ended with the first title change since Wrestlemania. The whole thing was a last minute idea and will either be seen as extreme panic or inspired rewriting when we know what happens next. Smackdown had a house show the same night and Batista suffered what will either be a long-term injury or a career ending one. Both Wrestlemania champions fall from their pedestals on the same night. Both ‘Mania title matches are thrown out of the window. Damned unreliable wrestlers. Better book Vince vs Shane for the Raw title and Steph vs Linda for the Smackdown title at Wrestlemania. That’ll show everyone who is in charge.