By Tony Donofrio, Torch specialist

-- 6/20 WWE Fatal Four-Way PPV Hits & Misses

WWE PPV HITS

Kofi Kingston vs. Drew McIntyre (Intercontinental Title): this was a decent back-and-forth match to start off the show. However, I thought babyfaces were supposed to be subjected to "screwjobs" more than heels. Was it a "feel good" moment for Teddy Long? Sure. However, McIntyre technically won the match fair and square. There was no type of cheating that took place, yet he was still was "screwed." If a viewer muted the TV, didn't know the back-story, and watched Teddy Long make a three count on Drew, it would have seemed like Long, Kingston, and Matt Hardy were heels. That's not necessarily a complaint but it was and is a head-scratcher still.

Evan Bourne vs. Chris Jericho: This match stole the show, helped create a new star, and showed the importance of Chris Jericho, all at the same time! This was, by far, the best match of the night. This was a signature win for Bourne that hopefully will propel him into the upper-mid card. Aside from that, I'm intrigued where WWE is now going to go with Jericho. I hope this is not an angle winding down his WWE career (as his contract is up in the fall). The announcers have been focusing lately on how he seems disoriented and not himself, so I hope this does lead somewhere. The only gripe that could be made about this match was that it had ZERO promotion. Is it too much to ask that this match (as well as the next "hit") be promoted at least a few days in advance?

The Hart Dynasty vs. The Usos & Tamina: This was another unadvertised match that was good. It's pretty sad that when half of what was good on the PPV went unadvertised. I'd have liked to seen more of Tamina, Nattie, and D.H., but it was still a well-put-together match. You can tell that the Usos are a little green, but they will get better with time and it was good to see the young trio get a spot on a PPV, albeit unadvertised. I was a little surprised to not see the Usos and Tamina go over in this match, but hopefully this is the first of many matches to come between these six young wrestlers.

John Cena vs. Sheamus vs. Randy Orton vs. Edge (WWE Title): All things considered, I was pretty surprised that this four-way match was better than the Smackdown match. The match seemed more cohesive and better put-together than its SD equivalent. The NXT interruption at the end was expected and it was okay, but not great. It was almost a re-enactment of the original invasion by the NXT 7 (sans #8, Bryan Danielson). The only obvious difference was that Sheamus was able to pick the bones and run off, literally, with the WWE Title. It made for a halfway decent ending to a lackluster PPV.

WWE PPV MISSES

Eve vs. Maryse vs. Alicia Fox vs. Gail Kim (WWE Divas Title): There was no real excitement to the match, but I guess that is expected when the division has no real excitement or vision. I guess the writers also thought it would be clever to book this match as a poor man's (or woman's) version of how the four-way U.S. Title match ended on Monday's Raw. Sadly, both the Divas and Women's divisions in WWE are struggling for life right now.

Jack Swagger vs. C.M. Punk vs. Big Show vs. Rey Mysterio (World Heavyweight Title): This match might have been the most disappointing of the night based on the expectations that I had for it. Of the three four-way matches, I figured this one would be the best, but I was sorely mistaken. Kane's interruption of the match and attack of CM Punk was anti-climatic. I assume this means that Kane figures that the SES, as a whole, put the Undertaker out of commission. The other disappointing aspect of this match was seeing Mysterio win his second World Title. No disrespect to Rey, but I'm not a fan of seeing him carry around a Heavyweight title. I was also under the impression that Rey was having surgery again in the not distant future. If he is, then I assume we'll see more hot-shotting of a title. This was also the end to an unimpressive run as champion for Swagger. However, I don't totally blame Swagger for this, as he was booked to fail in many ways.

The Miz vs. R-Truth (U.S. Title): I like both of these guys, but, unfortunately, this match was slow and prodding. The crowd wasn't into it and neither was I. It could have been the fact that the rest of the PPV was mostly a dud as well, but there's really not much more to say about this match other than it just didn't cut the mustard. Miz's promo before the match was pretty humorous, but that's about all that I can say positive about this part of the show.

Hey wait...there's still at least 15-20 minutes of show to fill!: When the Hart Dynasty vs. The Uso & Tamina match ended, it was roughly 10:00 p.m. EST, which prompted me to ask if the main event was going 45 minutes. Of course, I knew that wasn't going to happen. After introductions for the main event, it was about 10:15 (kind of sad that a video to set up the match and intros could take that long, but it's true). At that point, I figured, well, maybe this could go until 10:45 or even 10:50. A 30-35 minute match that includes four wrestlers in the match and seven NXT wrestlers eventually wreaking havoc shouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility. After all, the ROH PPV main event on Saturday night went 35 minutes. And guess what, it only took two wrestlers to fill that amount of time and it was entertaining enough to now be considered, by many, the front-runner for Match of the Year in 2010. WWE's main event involved eleven wrestlers and went under 20 minutes. Let's not pretend that didn't bother viewers. There were only five matches promoted and WWE delivered seven. The hype for this PPV was weak and two of the better matches were not advertised. Then, if you dished out good money to watch the event, you were shortchanged from both a quality and quantity standpoint. Not good business on WWE's part.

ANALYSIS/OVERALL GRADE

I thought was the poorest PPV of 2010 for WWE. I knew going in that it would be a tough PPV, but it still did not meet my lowered expectations. I still gave it an equal number of "hits" and "misses" but the "misses" were far worse than the "hits." When you consider the lack of hype for the show, the lack of quality on the show, and the fact that it ended 25 minutes before the end of the third hour, this was a hard show to give a positive grade to. Based on how bad the "misses" were, I would grade the Fatal Four-Way PPV a C-minus. For a PPV where expectations were lowered based on the match format and the lack of hype, this was a big disappointment of a show.

Going forward, there are still two angles that a lot of fans are probably still looking forward to. Fortunately for WWE, I'm betting not many people bought this PPV, so the damage control won't be as tough as it should be. The NXT angle stalled out during the PPV, but it can quickly regain steam on Raw. As for the Kane/Undertaker "whodunnit" angle, I'm assuming the next feud will be Kane taking on the SES. The angle is still too fresh to say if it will or won't work, so I'm curious to see how Kane has pinpointed Punk and his SES for the attack.

Other than that, there are two new World champions, a new Divas champion, and a semi-new U.S. champion. I can't say that any of the new champions excite me. Rey is a great worker and no one can take that away from him. At the very least, WWE should be able to get some good matches out of him as champion. Here's hoping that he's not booked into the ground as champion like he was on his last run, though. I'm assuming WWE will have Sheamus and Cena feud over the WWE Title. However, the NXT angle might be inserted somewhere in the middle of that, as it already has been. I'm curious to see where Orton and Edge go from here. They could also be part of the NXT feud now that their title hopes have been dashed because of the NXT 7.

The mid-card titles are not as hot as they could be, but at least there is some type of push behind them now. As for the tag titles, I'm hoping to see a strong series of matches between the Hart Dynasty and the Usos. The next PPV is the first-ever Money in the Bank PPV. I've been against this concept as a PPV since it was announced months ago. I like the novelty of having it once a year at WrestleMania. With that said, it should be a much better PPV than what WWE delivered this month. It couldn't possibly be worse...right?

Tony Donofrio is a Specialist for the Torch covering WWE PPVs monthly and contributes to the Torch Roundtable Reviews on a weekly basis. You can contact Tony at PWTorchTD@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TonyDonofrio..

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