Rumble thoughts-
Matt/Swagger was a good opener. It wasn't particularly memorable as a whole, but it was a well-executed match that firmly established Swagger as the top dog on ECW with the clean win. Striker and Grisham helped make the match seem like a big deal on commentary, but it didn't work for me - it's pretty clear that the company doesn't care all that much about the ECW Title, but at least the show's commentary team makes an argument for it being a meaningful title, and it got the "big match" entrance, which is more than can be said for the women's title match.
That match had some ugly-looking parts (including the finish), but was at least memorable due to the "Beth forces Melina to kick her own head" spot. I'm not really sure what purpose Melina having the belt really serves - Raw doesn't exactly have a lot of heel challengers for her, while SD is full of them, and this didn't tease the end of Glamorella since Santino played no part in Beth losing the belt.
Cena-JBL was okay, but fell into the same trap as their other matches in the past year - there was nothing special about the match itself. Here, the actual match was greatly overshadowed by the HBK angle, which was slightly hurt by the second ref taking far too long to get down to the ring, making it pretty obvious that Cena was going to kick out of the superkick. At least the crowd bought it. And then the match just ended with the presently un-named Cena finisher. This match didn't do a thing for Cena, but did build up JBL-HBK well.
The WWE Title match was my favorite undercard match of the night. It had some intriguing storyline content to it, and had some memorable parts to it (the Twist of Fate counter to the spear, conchairto tease/turn, the snap dropkick>face smash on the exposed steel spot, and the terrifying slip off the ladder onto Chavo) as well. Aside from that, it built up a future Matt vs. Jeff match well, and setup a possible Christian/Jeff vs. Matt/Edge feud well if WWE goes in that direction, or they could group Edge, Christian, and Matt together and have each take credit for one thing (Matt or Christian for the pyro, since Edge said he didn't do it), Christian for the vehicular assault since Jeff would surely notice Matt's car, and have Edge be behind the SurSer attack). Or they could have Matt get even more jealous of Jeff by having Jeff take the ECW Title off of Swagger, the man who beat Matt twice in a month, adding to Matt's rage and giving the ECW Title to someone seen as a main event-level act by the fans - giving fans a reason to care about the belt again.
The Rumble match was good - not one of my favorites, but it was enjoyable to watch. Rey shined brightly with his near-eliminations (especially using Miz and Morrison as stepping stones to get back in the ring) and I hope they play up his role as the iron man of the match. Kozlov's portion was kind of underwhelming - they tried to position him as a dominant force in it, but he didn't really play the part well, as he blew the big flying move>uranage spot, and didn't have any impressive eliminations. Kofi's elimination was sick - I hope he's okay, as that landing on the steps looked like it hurt like hell. Visually, it wasn't quick as impressive-looking as London's flip elimination off a Snitsky clothesline a few years back, but it sure looked like it hurt more.
Kendrick's elimination at the hands of HHH was also pretty painful-looking. Goldust shined in this match - his punches were easily the best of the show, and he just kept throwing them and knocking guys down. Then he ate an RKO, leading to Orton demanding that Cody eliminate his brother to prove himself, and he did...and then they didn't seem to care about DiBiase almost being eliminated in a fireman's carry position for what seemed like forever. That was a hilarious moment, as was Santino's elimination leading to Kane laughing.
RVD's entrance got a pop, but holy crap did he ever look bad. Sure, he hasn't wrestled on a full-time basis in a while, but he's worked a bit, and looked worse here than he did in even his IGF match. His clotheslines were terrible, and his kicks looked horrid at times too - especially the roll-through kick, which once again looked like it missed his opponent's face by a foot, even with his opponent (I think it was Cody) leaning into the move. He lasted a lot longer than I expected, but I liked his elimination, with the five star knocking him loopy and making him easy prey for being thrown out.
The 'Taker-Show portions of the match were decent, although Show looked slower in this than he has at any point since his return, which concerns me a bit about his health as he was in such good shape when he came back, and now he appeared to put the weight back on. Fortunately, he doesn't appear to be in the agonizing pain he was clearly in every second he was in the ring in late '06, so hopefully it's just a case of him being slightly out of shape and not being in rough shape physically again. 'Taker basically no-selling the Codebreaker en route to Jericho's elimination bugged me. It appeared to have no effect on him aside from him slightly holding his chest afterwards.
The Legacy shined here - Orton's revolving door of RKOs on mid-carders ruled, and that was my favorite usage of that kind of spot since Hayes did it in the '89 War Games and then taunted everyone in ring 2 after a chain of DDTs in ring 1. They did this same kind of thing in WM 23's MITB match, but I enjoyed this more since it served more of a purpose in the actual match, and Orton came off as more of a badass since they either came out of nowhere, like the flying one to Rey, or after a mid-carder hit him, and Orton acted insulted that they thought their meager offense could hurt him, so he killed them dead with the RKO.
The Legacy sticking together throughout the Rumble was good, and I dug the 3-on-1 finish that saw HHH slowly pick off the members of the Legacy either through force (Cody) or use their actions against them (DiBiase), leading to Orton eliminating HHH as he got rid of Cody. Orton did seem to slip a bit on HHH's leg, which hurt it a bit, but still, Orton won the Rumble, so I'm very happy.
The Priceless/DiBiase Jr. theme ripped from SvR '09 -
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UMVQYV1V
Lawler vs. King Kong Bundy in a $10,000 challenge match - Jimmy Hart loses a thousand bucks each minute the match goes on. This was one of the first Memphis matches I ever saw thanks to buying a cheap commercial tape with a Bundy-centric theme when I first became a wrestling fan in '93, and it's held up very well. It remains one of my favorite Memphis matches ever, and features a near-perfect execution of the concept, which allows Lawler to stall, get a great deal of fan support for doing so, and also allows Bundy to have a longer match in a way that doesn't expose his flaws.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TR14FFNK