BRM Reviews WWE Armageddon 2008

[Big Red Machine]

WWE Armageddon 2008 (12/14/2008)- Buffalo, NY

Welcome back to BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series! This month we’re going back to the year that started it all for us: 2008. Be it TNA, NOAH, or ROH (multiple times), 2008 has always delivered for us. Now we’ll see if WWE can keep up the streak with Armageddon 2008!

MATT HARDY vs. VLADIMIR KOZLOV- 5.5/10
Kozlov worked Matt’s arm and won cleanly.

LA FAMILIA BACKSTAGE- meh
Edge made fun of Matt Hardy, then left to get ready for his match. Chavo asked Vickie how she and Edge took Jeff Hardy out in his hotel room the night of Survivor Series. Vickie insists that they had nothing to do with it, then treated Chavo like a servant.

DUMB HORNSWOGGLE SHENANIGANS- I had forgotten about that part of this era of WWE. He hit Eve Torres on the butt with an inflatable hammer. Finlay apologized. Then Finlay told Hornswoggle to stay backstage tonight so that he doesn’t get hurt. I could have done without the sexual harassment, but at least the rest of this segment served a purpose.

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TOURNAMENT FINAL: Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. CM Punk- 7.25/10
IC Champion William Regal was watching from a throne at ringside because he was also King of the Ring. Layla El was his valet, which is a pairing that I had totally forgotten about.
Before the match, they showed us still photos of CM Punk and Kofi Kingston losing their tag titles to Miz & Morrison on last night’s house show. Once the match started, ONE fan tried to start a “MIZ AND MORRISON!” chant, which was met by many others yelling “SUCK!” Unfortunately, the guy kept going with it, even when it was clear that no one else was going to join in.
These two had a very fun and exciting babyface vs. babyface match, and it was very much not the typical style you would have seen in WWE at the time. Punk did a basic slingshot plancha onto Rey on the outside, and it looked like it crushed Rey. It looked a lot more damaging than any of those flippy dives you see nowadays.

JEFF HARDY PROMO- good

JBL BRINGS OUT HIS NEWEST EMPLOYEE, SHAWN MICHAELS- tremendous!
This was Shawn explaining the “I lost all my money so I have accepted an offer to become JBL’s stooge” story. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a promo that so clearly starts off as an attempt to respond to criticism of a storyline come off so well. And that is absolutely what this started off as… but oh my G-d, did Shawn Michaels ever put on a masterful performance here.

EVE TORRES’ INTERVIEW WITH RANDY ORTON IS INTERRUPTED BY CODY RHODES AND MANU- fine
Eve asks Randy about his strategy for tonight’s match against Batista. Cody immediately jumped in stole the promo from Randy and used it to talk up all three of them. Manu also talked. Cody was great. Manu was meh. Randy left without comment.

BELFAST BRAWL: Fit Finlay vs. Mark Henry (w/Tony Atlas)- 4/10
Finlay brought his shillelagh to the ring for this weapons match… and then put it in the corner so he and Mark Henry could circle each other. That was odd.
They hit each other with stuff. Mark got the shillelagh first and hit Finlay with it, then snapped it in half. That was cool. Soon after that Hornswoggle showed up. He slid Finlay a second Shillelagh, which he hit Mark with for the win. This dragged on for WAY too long.

“SANTA HOSS” VISITS DIVAS WHILE THEY ARE DECORATING A CHRISTMAS TREE- bad
The Bella are the only two I recognize. I’m pretty sure I can tell Brie and Nikki apart, even though it’s both pre-Nikki’s boob job and also pre-boyfriends with very different workout routines.
Santino Marella and Beth Phoenix showed up to brag about Beth winning the Slammy Award for Diva of the Year. Santino demanded that they be allowed to pick the next present because of this, and, of course, when Santino reached into the big, the Boogie Man popped out. Santino tried to escape but he ran into Goldust. Santino ran away. Everyone broke out into song. Jesse, Festus, IRS< and a referee showed up. This was an obnoxious waste of time.

MR. KENNEDY PLUGS HIS NEW MOVIE, AND ALSO TELLS US TO DRINK RESPONSIBLY AND NOT DO DRUGS- at least this was short

BATISTA vs. RANDY ORTON (w/Cody Rhodes & Manu)- 6.25/10
The ref clearly saw Legacy holding Batista, but he merely ejected them from ringside instead of disqualifying Randy. The match was very slow. Lots of dull Randy Orton submissions early on, a decent comeback by Batista, and then it started dragging again.

JILLIAN HALL, MARYSE, VICTORIA, & NATALYA vs. KELLY KELLY, MARIA, MICHELLE MCCOOL, & MICKIE JAMES- 3/10
This was a “Santa’s little helper” match. Yeah. G-d bless Mickie James and Nattie for trying to make chicken soup out of this chicken sh*t by going in there and smacking the sh*t out of each other.
They had all six announcers on commentary for this match, and they said all of the stuff you’d expect for the era… and then Taz said that he liked Maria’s “John Nord-like boots,” and I popped huge. I was not expecting to hear that.
Michelle McCool pinned Jillian Hall cleanly with a Faithbreaker.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- uch
The Great Khali and Ranjin Singh came out for the Kiss-Cam. It landed on Michelle. She didn’t want to do it, so she left. Ranjin then decided that he should kiss all three of the remaining women. They didn’t want to, either, but they didn’t leave. Ranjin said he had a “back-up plan,” which turned out to be Mae Young. I will admit that Lawler’s “she was helping Santa when the Dead Sea was only sick” line got me. Khali was at least smart enough not to bring Mae back to his hotel room, so he didn’t get robbed.

WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: John Cena(c) vs. Chris Jericho- 7.5/10
This was a fun sprint of a “big moves” match. Cena won cleanly to retain.

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Edge(c) vs. Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy- 7.5/10
This was a good three-way that managed to remain a brawl and use the “no count-outs” part of the rules without straying into the “no DQs” part enough that it felt like they were just having a weapons match and not calling it that, which I appreciated. They all did their stuff and their big spots and had their nearfalls, and I thought they also made a very good use the of the fact that it was a three-way, rather than doing too much of one guy sells while the other two have a singles match. Obviously there was a fair amount of that, but I thought they did a good job of having the transitions from one singles match to the other be more intricate than “hit your move on one guy, and then the other guy shows up for you to fight.”
I really could have lived without Hunter seeming to have things won with a Pedigree on Edge and Kozlov interfering to save the match. Yes, Kozlov then stopped Jeff from hitting a Swanton, but Hunter very clearly had things won, and that does take away a bit away from Jeff’s big victory in my eyes. If you absolutely must do that to set up the Hunter vs. Kozlov singles feud, I think it would have been better to have Jeff actually pin Hunter after the Swanton to break up Hunter’s pin on the finish… but that wasn’t going to happen for the same reason that the “Kozlov stops Hunter from winning the title” spot did happen: Hunter being Hunter.
Anyway, Jeff won the title here, and it came across as a very big moment. Matt not coming out to celebrate with him (because Matt had brawled away with Kozlov) is something of a lucky break, considering that Matt being the one who attacked Jeff in the hotel was not the original plan (it was supposed to be revealed to be the returning Christian, but the plan got out, so they changed it to what we actually got, which was Matt having done the deed and Christian being inserted in Matt’s spot as the babyface ECW Champion). It’s just a shame how things went for Jeff after this. I think it can be argued that this is the high point of his career.


There were a few great matches on this card, but there was way too much that either wasn’t very good or that under-delivered, even it was still in that 7.5 range in a vacuum (I am referring to the top two matches there, which both felt like they should have been better, given the talent involved). Jeff’s win is a big moment, but as someone who was never a Jeff Hardy die-hard, it didn’t mean too much to me, either at the time or now. This show is, unfortunately, our first bust from our beloved original year of 2008… but I’m going to stick with WWE anyway and next month watch a Royal Rumble I’ve been meaning to get around to forever and just haven’t found the time- including once many years ago getting half way through the Rumble and getting interrupted interrupted and not finding the time to come back to it.