You might not be surprised to hear that this was a good wrestling match. They got eight minutes to play with and eight minutes for two very good wrestlers to have a wrestling match will usually result in something okay. Bar exactly one move that didn't come off great, everything they did looked good. It was crisp and snug and quick and clean. Benoit's triple Germans looked gorgeous and Eddie hit a precursor to the Three Amigos with a couple brainbusters. His pop-up rana was sublime. There just wasn't much of a hook to anything. The main reason the match is happening is because there's dissention within a group that hadn't actually been presented as a group for the better part of a year, but there isn't a whole lot that separates what they're doing from what they did in some of the other good wrestling matches they had together. So you watch it and you nod approvingly at the Very Good Wrestling on display, but you probably forget much of what happened a few days down the line. And to be honest, that's perfectly fine. A very good wrestling match.
Eddie Guerrero v Edge (Summerslam, 8/25/02) - EPIC
I haven't watched these matches in a long time and Edge is one of my least favourite Eddie opponents, so I wasn't all that hyped about seeing them again. 2002 Edge is especially not enjoyable. Well I guess it's nice to be surprised sometimes because I thought this was an awesome 11 minutes. The bulk of it is focused on Eddie working Edge's arm and shoulder, which is great because Eddie is top banana at working an arm and 2002 Edge selling an arm injury is immeasurably better than 2002 Edge hitting various facebusters and electric chairs and Edge-O-Matics. Eddie really is one of the all-time best at zeroing in on a body part, mixing it up with submissions, strikes, impact moves, the lot. It started initially with Edge missing a spear through the ropes and taking a tumble to the floor, Eddie realising the shoulder might be tweaked and painting a bullseye on it straight away, whipping him into the ring steps with Edge taking a nice bump, even opening up a cut on the shoulder. Eddie just rips the hell out of the shoulder on a Fujiwara armbar, hits a nasty looking shoulder-first DDT, another one later where he jumps off the top rope, and to his credit Edge sold all of it nicely. I don't think he wound up changing much of his offence from what he'd usually do, but he made a point of showing that he couldn't hit stuff with impunity and it was always there for Eddie to use as a cut off. That led to an amazing spot down the stretch where, after some fighting on the top turnbuckle, Eddie hit a fucking frog splash to the arm while Edge tried to crawl away. For match one in a feud I wasn't excited about revisiting, they've done a hell of a job in making me look forward to a rematch.
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