JOHN CENA and Randy Orton retained their World Championships at WWE's Capitol Punishment PPV, held in Washington, on a show which failed to live up to early expectations.
In fact, you may as well change the name of America's capital city from DC to AC - to stand for 'Anti-Climactic'.
Following a similar pattern to this year's disappointing WrestleMania, the event had a reasonable opening two hours and some solid wrestling before the main event proved to be a towering disappointment.
Proceedings opened with Dolph Ziggler claiming the United States title from Kofi Kingston in a fun bout, before WWE sent a message of intent that they plan to invest heavily in Alex Riley by giving the former NXT rookie a clean victory over The Miz. He might be a good outside bet for the winner of a Money in the Bank match next month.
Alberto Del Rio v Big Show was an odd affair. Show ambushed the Mexican before the bell, but was attacked in turn by Mark Henry, who in a cool visual hit his World's Strongest Man on the Giant - through an announce table.
The match would then get underway, but instead of ending with a logical tap-out saw the referee stopping the contest because Show could not continue. It was a finish which did nothing to elevate Alberto, since Henry clearly takes the credit for Show's misfortune.
After some fine mic work by Wade Barrett, which prompted the partisan crowd to spur on Ezekiel Jackson with a "U-S-A" chant (he's from Guyana), the Brit lost his IC crown to Big Zeke in match which was hardly a classic, but then wasn't expected to be.
The best match of the night followed. CM Punk may well be the best all-round worker in the industry today, and he clicked perfectly once again with Rey Mysterio as the two put on a 15 minute masterclass.
Pleasingly this ended cleanly, with CM Punk getting a very rare victory on PPV. Before the match, in a backstage interview, he promised that when he had beaten Mysterio he was going to do 'the most honest thing the WWE Universe has ever seen'.
Guesses on what this cryptic message may mean ranged from quitting the company to attacking John Cena in the main event, but the quote was not followed up on. Perhaps we will find out on Raw.
Randy Orton beat Christian next, in a match which was good, but did not live up to the standard of previous excellent encounters the duo have had. It ended after an RKO, but Christian did have his foot under the bottom rope. He protested the decision afterwards, suggesting that even after three PPV matches this feud may not be over.
An unadvertised match between Evan Bourne and Jack Swagger, which Evan won, was a fun addition and with 45 minutes or so of the show remaining, it had been a fairly good PPV.
However, WWE decided that poor comedy involving a Barack Obama lookalike and Booker T at his annoying worst could fill some time before a main event which had no flow and a corny finish.
R-Truth, despite his entertaining character development of late, is hardly a polished in-ring performer. And while John Cena has been known to pull good matches of people at times, this suited his plodding, predictable style.
The bout was in sharp contrast to the innovative action shown by Punk/Mysterio, and to a lesser extent Orton/Christian, and concluded when a child in the front row threw water in R-Truth's face - leading to Cena hitting an Attitude Adjustment for the win.
It was a desperately disappointing conclusion to the night, at least for those who have reached an age where Cena's superhero powers are no longer a draw.
Shows like this have to rely on a strong main event to leave their paying public satisfied. WWE will have undone two hours of good work with the poor fare that went on last.
We give Capitol Punishment an overall rating of 6 out of 10
Read more:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/3648135/Capitol-main-event-is-Punishment.html#ixzz1PoaSwB7X
Originally Posted by Ach
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