Send Shots to Your Liver, Rey Delivers You Death. You can Barter Your Tomorrow but a Martyr You're Left

Rey Mysterio v JBL (Judgment Day, 5/21/06)

The first Rey Mysterio World Title run is a peculiar thing. It feels like every match or feud that came out of it, and I guess a bunch of what came directly before and after it, was built at least to some degree around using the death of Eddie Guerrero to get heat. The Orton feud leading up to Wrestlemania, this feud, the Chavo feud after Rey dropped the belt, all of it was Eddie-focused in one way or another. On the one hand you wish they'd let Rey stand on his own, but if you're going to have a heel spit on the memory of a dead man then there's probably no one more loathsome to pick for that task than JBL. And this was an awesome loathsome heel performance from Bradshaw, matched by an equally awesome underdog babyface performance from Rey. Layfield is just detestable and even Taz, who would usually remain fairly neutral on commentary if not somewhat heel-leaning, was calling him a bastard midway through. JBL threatened to punch Rey's wife, then later took a break from clobbering Rey to blow her a kiss and Taz had to stop mid-sentence just to confirm he'd seen what he thought he'd seen. Cole: "Yeah. He did. Idiot." Rey bleeding from inside the white mask is extremely lucha and I loved Bradshaw smearing it on his hands, punching the wound, revelling in drawing blood. The transition spot that split Rey open looked brutal as fuck too, just a head-first torpedo throw into the steps that I'm not actually sure was intentional. Rey doing the sliding dropkick to JBL's willy was great, then later we get a rare heel revenge spot as Rey goes for the bronco buster and Bradshaw raises a boot and Rey about tears himself in half up the middle by landing on it. Ref' gets bumped, JBL destroys Rey with a powerbomb, then when Rey kicks out JBL decks the second ref' with one of the best punches he's ever thrown. I like that he never got to hit the lariat and Rey finishing him with the frog splash was fitting, especially given JBL's use of the wee shoulder shimmy and Three Amigos earlier. Well actually it was Four Amigos as he hit a front suplex over the top rope on the last one. His complete lack of grace on the hip swivel was also very awesome and I'm convinced he did it on purpose. He looked like a turtle that had been kicked out its shell. 

Rey Project