by Dave Meltzer
Dave@wrestlingobserver.com
The feeling come out of the show from a Japanese perspective was it was a strong and entertaining event. The crowd was strong for everything.
The fans enjoyed Kane vs. Gene Snitsky, which is likely a dark match, because Kane threw a beautiful dropkick, which nobody expected and got a huge reaction. They had no trouble with the rest of the match.
There was disappointment that Benoit vs. Jericho was kept so short.
Eric Bischoff in the open on Raw put over that they were coming from Tokyo. It's kind of weird because Saitama is a different and major city of its own. It would be like if All Japan did a taping in Philadelphia and said it was New York, on the guise that their audience would only know New York.
Steve Williams, Katsuyori Shibata and Akebono were at the show. Williams was backstage. He may be at tonight's Giant Baba tribute show. Most of the people I know in Japan are going to the Baba show instead of the Smackdown taping, but the Smackdown taping is sold out, as this show was.
Maven vs. Batista was what you'd expect from 32 seconds.
Regal & Tajiri's tag title win over La Resistance went over well. Short match. Of course the people were heavily behind Regal & Tajiri, and Tajiri did a speech in Japanese after winning the title.
Akebono came to ringside before the Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair match. For reasons I'm not really sure, WWE doesn't like to acknowledge athletes at the show unless they are NFL or NBA players, but I'd think just because he's 480 pounds and looks unique they may point him out.
Flair vs. Michaels went 10:00 and people loved it. They were into everything Flair did. I was told by someone right at the ring that the timing and work was very good here.
They did an angle where they had a fashion show with three women, who I think were Christy Hemme, Victoria and Maria. Simon Dean interrupted it so there was no winner. It was designed to get Hemme over as she gave Dean a low blow.
Randy Orton over Tyson Tomko had Stacy Keibler managing Orton and Christian in Tomko's corner. Orton won with a schoolboy. This was to set up an Orton vs. Christian program, or at least match next week. Christian & Tomko beat up Orton after the match and laid him out. Orton was selling for several minutes with all the referees around, so they played it up as something big, probably off the concussion deal.
HHH vs. Edge for the title was a U.S. style title match with a few Japanese spots thrown in. Flair was at ringside and interfered a lot. Edge played the babyface role. Match was said to be excellent from a timing standpoint. HHH did the Nishimura head-stand out of a headscissors, which got a Nishimura chant going. He did the high knee which reminded people of Tsuruta, although he does that as a Race tribute all the time anyway. They did all their usual spots. HHH survived one spear, and also made the ropes from Edge's submission move. Edge speared the ref when HHH moved. Flair brought in a chair but Edge speared him. HHH did a Japanese style back suplex. Batista came out for the finish. I think there was a secnod ref bump and Batista used a spinebuster on Edge, to set up the pedigree finish. Edge was said to have gotten over really strong in the match. The buzz after was people didn't realize just how good a worker he was. Match went 16:49.
After the show, HHH played total babyface, doing a 5:00 promo saying how much he loved Japan. He shook hands with Akebono. Nobody left until he was done, and when he did leave, they were cheering so much they wanted him to come back out.
Credit: liveaudiowrestling
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