The Moondog/Barbarian match got a good reaction from the crowd, probably due to it being the first of the night. Despite looking slow and excessively planned, the hardcore spots of Barbarian shattering numerous wooden boards over Cujo's back were impressive live and got good reactions. As much as I read you guys complaining about unprotected chair shots, you may be relieved to know that all of them in this and the following matches (including Hogan's) were done with chairs having a padded seat. This only flew with us because it was the same chairs as what the crowd was seated in, but it still made them look pretty weak and unimpressive compared with the impact of the usual metal chairs.
Mr.. Hughes did a great job heeling the crowd and getting heat on himself all throughout his match with Valentine. Tons of interacting with the crowd and responding to all the heckling aimed at him. This made the match much better as Valentine was very much showing his age (still great to see him though). The crowd popped HUGE for Valentine throwing on the figure-four. Lots of "WHOOOO!" and "tap out!" chants. Despite Valentine's fame, the heat Hughes got on himself accounted for much of the crowd reaction after the roll-up finish. Fun match.
Jazz rapped her own entrance music on the way to the ring. When they announced her and said she would be performing her own entrance theme I started to cringe, but she didn't sound bad at all. Almost like Shawnna from Ludacris's DTP label (for those of you who follow hip-hop). The 3 way with Christie Ricci and Miss Passion was decent; much better than the typical WWE 'diva" match. Wasn't on the level of a Trish/Mickie/Lita/Melina match, but it definitely beat the usual "bra & panties" stuff we get on Raw. Ricci took a nice looking DDT early and was outside the ring for most of the ending, which saw Jazz get the win.
Abdullah the Butcher/Big Al Greene was most definitely a bloodbath! Abdullah was busted open right at the beginning, at the end of the entrance ramp. He quickly took control and spent the rest of the time dragging Greene around ringside stabbing him in the head with a fork and busted beer bottle....seriously. No blade jobs here (although I didn't see how Abdullah got busted); Greene was definitely bleeding hardway. Being 4th row ringside, a good amount of the fork shots was within feet of me and they were pretty nasty-looking. It appeared the plan was for Greene to just take as many jabs in the head as he could bear before leaving, as once he got free of Abdullah he simply left back up the entrance, resulting in the no contest. However they booked it, the effect worked and had the crowd into it for nothing else than the sheer brutality of the fork stabs. Afterwards, Abdullah threatened Hart (who was ringside, possibly announcing), taking his microphone at one point before leaving.
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