WWE Unforgiven Review - September 7, 2008

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Matt Hardy def. Mark Henry, Finlay, Chavo Guerrero and The Miz in a Scramble Match to Win the ECW Championship

This Scramble match was the first of its kind. It took some time for the crowd to get into the concept as it started out slow, but once they picked up the pace, they came alive for a lot of the nearfalls. This turned into an enjoyable opener. Hardy winning the right call after having failed in his previous attempts at capturing the championship and Henry (the defending champ) didn't have to get pinned in the process.

World Tag Team Champions Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase def. Cryme Tyme

All of these years later and I'm still stunned that Cryme Tyme never got a run as tag team champions despite their popularity over the four years they were together. This was a good match for the most part, but it never got out of first gear. More notable the matchup itself was the debut of Manu afterward, who helped Rhodes and DiBiase attack Cryme Tyme. If you can recall, he didn't last long in WWE, but the idea was that he aligned with Rhodes and DiBiase because they were all second-generation stars.

Shawn Michaels def. Chris Jericho in an Unsanctioned Match

The whole story of the match (and of the feud as a whole, really) was "an eye for an eye" after everything they had done to each other in the months leading up to this. Unsanctioned was the perfect stipulation because WWE didn't utilize that often back then and it made this feel like a legitimate fight. The crowd weren't on their feet the entire time because it was a lot of brawling, but the storytelling was strong and the finish was excellently executed. Michaels' facial expressions were on point, too.

WWE Champion Triple H def. Jeff Hardy, MVP, The Brian Kendrick and United States Champion Shelton Benjamin in a Scramble Match (United States Championship Wasn't Defended)

The best thing this match had going for it was the crowd desperately pulling for Hardy to win and him actually coming close on multiple occasions. Kendrick was also impressive for the first half and "reigned" as WWE Champion for a while, only to get pinned a ton of times by Hardy and Triple H (who of course entered last). Hilarious. There were several plodding points throughout and a few illogical instances (such as when Hardy could've broken up HHH's pinfall in the remaining seconds instead of going for a cover himself), but I appreciated the underdog story told with Hardy and that was enough to keep the action engaging.

Divas Champion Michelle McCool def. Maryse

This was McCool's first defense of the Divas Championship after becoming the inaugural champ at The Great American Bash in July. To their credit, McCool and Maryse had a well-worked match in the time they were allotted, but as was the case with a majority of the women's matches around this period, it didn't have much of a story, so I wasn't surprised that the crowd wasn't invested in the action.

Big Show Attacked The Undertaker

The segment started with Raw general manager Mike Adamle announcing that CM Punk had to be replaced in the World Heavyweight Championship Scramble match as a result of Randy Orton punting him in the head backstage and thus his title would be vacated. Show came out to lobby for the vacant spot, only for Guerrero to interrupt him because she denied him a shot in the WWE Championship Scramble match weeks earlier. Undertaker nearly got his hands on Guerrero before Show sucker-punched him and attacked him for what felt like forever. I don't remember if it was ever explained why Show turned heel and aligned with Guerrero. I feel like WWE just needed someone for 'Taker to work with that fall and this was their answer, as random as it was. This could have been saved for SmackDown because it was rather boring.

Chris Jericho def. Batista, Kane, JBL and Rey Mysterio in a Scramble Match to Win the Vacant World Heavyweight Championship

This was easily the weakest of the three Scramble matches on this show. The early goings were dull with nothing overly interesting happening outside of Batista and Mysterio teasing tension. The crowd was waiting to find out who the fifth entrant would be after Punk was deemed unable to compete, and Jericho was a fine choice considering he was the true top heel on Raw at that point (and him already having competed earlier in the evening made it more shocking). The finish was telegraphed as soon as his music hit, but the swerve was well done otherwise.

Overall Show

This was a mixed bag of a show. The two title changes were newsworthy, but the Scramble match simply wasn't the hit WWE likely thought it would be. Personally, I thought it was a unique concept, but they were wise to revise the rules and bring it back under a different name in NXT years later. Michaels vs. Jericho was the best thing on this pay-per-view by a country mile, with the Jericho title win being a great cliffhanger going into Raw that Monday.

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