What You Didn't See At Armageddon Last Night
L.L. of PWI sent this one:
Floor seats, 9th row behind Cole and Tazz...$100 down the drain. The problem with buying tix to PPV's is that they go on sale well before you know the deal. Knowing it was Smackdown! should have been enough to not do it. Never again...NEVER.
This was without a doubt one of the worst put together PPVs I've ever seen. JBL talking on the mic...a 10 minute Boogeyman segment where he beats up Santa Claus (and poor Nunzio dressed up like an elf) and for what?...a thrown together Lashley match, and a Hell in the Cell that was so small, they couldn't even do half the spots they wanted to in the ring, not to mention Batista and Mysterio not even able to get over on their own brand's PPV. Now your tag team division looks absolutely weak, not to mention your brand as a whole. When the highlight of the night is Juventud losing the strap to Kash, that's pretty sad. I told my buddy that Kash looked like a Partridge family member with his new locks. The amount of fluff was ridiculous and for the most part, tasteless. If WWE thinks so little of their fans, perhaps it's time for the fans to think so little of WWE. They think they can just throw a Cell match on the card and the rest will take care of itself. Absolutely horrible.
The crowd was active early. One section decided to be cute and cheered for JBL early on. It was obvious they were trying to make their mark and it was just stupid. Only a quarter of the top of the building was tarped...may have been comp city according to your earlier reports about ticket sales.
EVERYONE was disappointed that the Hell in the Cell door was opened and nobody got out of the cage! Of course this match sells because there is the "possibility" of a major spot. But for WWE to show highlights of all the big spots all week long and to come through with this match was a major disappointment for the live fans. For 'Taker to climb on top of the cage AFTER the match had ended simply pissed me off and was too little too late. I understand the table, chair, and chain spots were an attempt to make the match "brutal" but watching 'Taker and Orton having to duck around so they wouldn't hit their heads on the top of the cell during the major spots was laughable.
The Tim White segment was the worst thing I've ever seen on WWE television...period. And that's saying a lot. My buddy and I were so disgusted with it that he grabbed his coat and wanted to leave. I said, "Hell no"...not before the cage match. It was just so tasteless on so many different levels...I can't believe, for the simple fact that they were in Providence, that they would run an angle like that. It does nothing for anyone. There's nowhere for that to go. The worst fluff in the world.
The most important note was that I was sitting in the lodge section, one section over from the entranceway. I happened to be on the end seat. During the Tim White angle, just below me, both Bruce Prichard and Kevin Dunn came out to watch it on the Jumbotron. Not sure why, but they stayed there until the whole segment was over.
Nobody in the crowd really cared what happened. During Kid Kash-Juvi, the crowd was dead. No reaction to either man except near the end when both used a few high spots Even when Kash won the title there were almost no cheers at all. There were a lot of "end this match now" chants however.