By Greg Parks, Torch specialist

Once again at T.C. Hooligans. It was my friends Gonzo, Kurt, and Doug, Doug's friend Josh, and me. We held a football party at our apartment earlier in the day, so we were already stuffed from pizza and beer (sorry, Punk), but we manned up and chowed down again for the PPV. I went with the Mozzarella Sticks and a special extra-chocolaty desert as my meals, foregoing the wings this month. And we were informed that there were no more unlimited refills on sodas; you only got two now. That angered Kurt in particular, but we only usually get about two or three refills anyway.

(1) Big Show & Chris Jericho vs. MVP & Mark Henry: I am surprised they've kept Henry's music as a face; it's really more of a heel tune, IMO. We discussed the physics of Jericho hitting Henry in the back, yet causing Big Show to fall on top of him. It passed our smell test at the time. Kurt complained about MVP's finisher and the lameness of it, but I was there to defend it: I don't think it's that bad. There are worse. There was no kid for Doug to argue with this month; they had gotten into a friendly war of words the past few months, with the kid liking Cena and DX but Doug cheering on Orton and Legacy. Probably not there because of school starting back up. I thought of Wade when Jericho moved himself in position to get his foot on the ropes on a pin attempt, since I know that's one of his pet peeves. (*1/2)

-During the Legacy interview, when DiBiase held up the DX glowsticks, I suggested that he break them apart and suck the juices right out of them to show how tough he was. Sadly, it wasn't to be.

(2) The Miz vs. Kofi Kingston: Our food arrived at this point, though I waited 'til after nine for the Mozzarella Sticks in order to get a good deal on them. Gonzo told of his dream that he had to pay a $30 deposit fee on soda he was buying, so he got into a fight with the people about it. $30 is a lot, but think of how much you could get if you brought it back. In our prediction contest, only one person picked Kofi. Match was about what you'd expect from these two. It was also nice that they stayed on Kofi's celebration, making it seem important. (**3/4)

(3) DX vs. Legacy: During Smackdown this past Friday, Kurt made a suggestion for the name of a Matt Hardy submission move: The Mat-lock. I like it! We also got in the idea of what it would be like if Motorhead did every theme song, and Kurt belted out the lyrics in his Lemmy voice, which he does well. Hey, DX's entrance is long; we had to occupy ourselves somehow. There was a lot of love given to the DX combined submission on Cody on the chair from those watching at Hooligan's. Sitting in the booth next to us were two drunk 20-something couples who made out almost literally the entire time; they were in my sight-line for one of the TVs and it was distracting. And inappropriate. Triple H once again showed he was impervious to steel steps, not selling the whip into them for long. My idea here was for the Hart Dynasty to interfere and help Legacy win. That was my suggestion for the nod to the Montreal incident, but they went much deeper than that. We also suggested that there may be a tap-out from Legacy once they got in the Pedigree; Hunter wouldn't hit it, but hold them in the move and they'd tap out from fear. Legacy winning was a surprise; a pleasant one, and the match was pretty cool. (***1/2)

-At this point, Gonzo was 3-0 in our prediction contest, and already two matches up on everyone else. I don't remember someone having such a substantial lead only three matches in before. I also thought it'd be great if tomorrow, Hunter made a speech like he did the night after Shawn lost to Tyson and Austin, saying Shawn dropped the ball and he'd introduce a new member of DX.

(4) Kane vs. The Great Khali: Kurt used this as his smoke-break match. That's all I have to say about it, other than the fact that it was slightly better than last month's offering. (1/4*)

(5) Christian vs. William Regal: Gonzo predicted Tommy Dreamer interfering and turning heel here. But then there'd be nobody to team with Christian against Regal's alliance. Good, hard-fought battle, and I liked Regal's suplex that landed Christian right on his head; you don't see that anymore in WWE because they're so protective of the guys' necks, which is a good thing. (**3/4)

-We wondered who would attack Patterson. Gonzo suggested Chris Masters, which was intriguing, and I threw out Dolph Ziggler just before he came out. Thank God there were no "Mr. Ziggles" chants. This went on and ON, and as usual, most of the jokes fell flat.

(6) Randy Orton vs. John Cena: Kurt mentioned how surprised he was that the Five Knuckle Shuffle stayed in as a Cena move when they changed the names to more innocent stuff. We all thought the bag Orton brought in was tacks. Then I realized this isn't TNA. I also thought that when Cena was chained to the top rope initially, he would use his super-human strength to pull the rope loose from the turnbuckle and just pull it off. There was music coming from the bar at this point and it seemed to compliment the match nicely, strangely enough. One fan in the crowd at Hooligan's yelled "drown him!" to Orton when he got the water. When Orton was reaching for the keys, he should've demanded the cameraman throw them to him. There was a big pop for the Cena win. It was a really interesting match and as James Caldwell mentioned in his report, tough to grade. Gonzo noted that the way Cena is booked is a mix of Hogan and The Rock. (***1/4)

(7) C.M. Punk vs. Undertaker: This was a real WTF moment when Taker won it, seemingly out of nowhere. There was anger from a lot of us and Gonzo was upset that Taker didn't even earn the title match (in storyline, anyway). There was confusion among us over when the Hell's Gate move was banned and if it was ever reinstated. Repeating the incident from how many years ago with Bret was "ugh." They should've gone all the way with it: Taker spitting in Teddy Long's face, Punk acting like he didn't know what was going on, Taker smashing TV monitors. At least then it would've been funny. (**)

Mild thumbs up because of the decent matches on the show, and the newsworthyness of it, but depending on your tolerance of another booking of the Montreal incident, your enjoyment may vary. I can understand people not liking the show based on how it ended; Kurt even gave the show 4.0 out of 10, as he was not big on the card in general, even without the Punk vs. Taker finish.

PWTorch VIP members have first-look access to all of Torch Smackdown specialist Greg Parks's latest blogs in the newly upgraded VIP Forum. His blogs are published first in the PWTorch VIP Forum, and Parks interacts with other VIP members and Torch staff and contributors in the blog comments area afterward. Some of Parks's blog entries will be exclusive to the VIP Forum.

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