Wwe: No Way Out - 2006 [DVD]

I thought this was one of the best SmackDown! only pay per views ever, I understand that SD! only pay per views have a poor reputation but this was a cracking show.Cruiserweight title: Gregory Helms vs Kid Kash vs Psicosis vs Super Crazy vs Paul London vs Brian Kendrick vs Scotty 2 Hotty vs Funaki vs Nunzio 8/10A very good cruiserweight match with many impressive moves and many good near falls.John 'Bradshaw' Layfield vs Bobby Lashley 5/10Far better than forecast, this was perfectly acceptable.In between matches the injured Batista put in an appearance and cut a promo vowing to regain the World title upon his return, I thought it was one of Batista's better efforts (although admittedly that's not saying much).Mercury and Nitro vs Matt Hardy and Tatanka 5/10A decent tag team match.US title: Booker T vs Chris Benoit 8/10A very good match, although not the best these two have had together. It doesn't help that this was the third pay per view match these two had had in a three month period, and if you factor in all the SmackDown! matches they'd also had you can understand why enthusiasm for this match wasn't very high. But still both men put in strong performances and Booker even pulls out his ever impressive Harlem Hangover.Rey Mysterio vs Randy Orton 9/10A very entertaining match with a very logical story, Orton works over Mysterio's hand. There are impressive moves from both men, I was surprised by the finish as it made Rey look quite weak.World title: Kurt Angle vs The Undertaker 10/10An outstanding main event and the match of 2006. They were out there for nearly half an hour and it was a fabulous effort from both men. There were some great counters and reversals and I thought the finish was clever since it made Angle look good while protecting Undertaker.So this was a quality show, and a massive improvement on Royal Rumble 2006. The main event was superb and it had a refreshingly clean, interference free finish. The undercard matches all provided at least some entertainment and many of them were very good.

No Way Out 2006Cruiserweight championshipGregory Helms vs Kid Kash vs Psicosis vs Super Crazy vs Paul London vs Nunzio vs Brian Kendrick vs Scotty 2 Hotty vs FunakiA good opening that had a reasonable build up. Its always great to see the worm but shame about the winner 6/10Matt Hardy and Tatanka vs MNMMNM were not pushed as much as they should have been during their time and here they were quite good against Hardy and Tatanka. An even contest but quite forgettable 5/10Lashley vs JBLTwo brutal athletes going head to head was a strong powerful encounter that had a controversial ending 7/10United States championshipChris Benoit vs Booker TAfter their best of 7 match series finalised this was a chance to wrap it all in anticipation again as the two great performers did battle evenly with twists and turns in story and match 8/10WrestleMania title opportunityRey Mysterio vs Randy OrtonAfter the late passing of legendry Eddie Guerrero Mysterio's talk was revolving around doing it for him and there are many good moments in this match and story plus sad ones to 7/10World Heavyweight championshipKurt Angle vs UndertakerFantastic match that for some reason claimed neither had ever tapped out before when they have. However great blows, great twists and turns and vintage moves from two of the best wrestlers in the business. Bit of a disappointing ending for such an even classic match 9/10

I recently bought this DVD and overall I would say, this is a very good pre-WM show.-The opener was an open the challenge for the cruisherweigh championship. Fast paced action, some nice spots but kinda felt like there was so much people in the ring at the same time. ***- Second match was JBL vs Bobby Lashley. The match was bad I think, it was slow and crowd was bored. The stuff they did with Finlay and Lashley was ok and JBL's bloody face was impresive but this doesn't make the match better. **- Next match was MNM vs Matt Hardy and his mystery partner which was Tatanka. This was eh, typical TV 10 minutes tag team match. Tatanka work was fine but nothing speciall. ** 1/4- We started the second half of the show and here is where the show really started to pick up well. Booker T and Chris Benoit had a pretty good 15-17 minutes match for the US tittle. The story of this match was Booker trying to not defend the tittle selling a fake injury but finally, Theodore Long made him defend it. The match like I said was good, nice storytelling and Benoit winning the tittle was also a good moment. Pretty good. *** 1/4- Rey and Orton was next. Some people didn't like the story of this match with Orton mocking Rey for the death of Eddie but I think that this was good because Rey's moment at Mania winning the WHC was more emotional. Orton challenged Rey for the nº1 contender at Mania and the match was very intense. Good storytelling with Orton working on Rey, nice sequences and the dirty finish helped a lot to make Rey look like a poor man. Very good match, could have been better, but very good. *** 1/2- And the Main Event. Taker vs Angle for the WHC. Just awesome. 30 minutes of pure gold. Fantastic storytelling with Taker selling the injured leg, Angle putting him on the ankle lock, good spot with Taker breaking the table, matt work, drama, nearfallls, nice counters... You know when a match is important and this was sure of those. One of the best matches I remember for this belt.Finish was kinda confusing but doesn't hurt the much. Brilliant. **** 1/2-Overall: Really good show, specially the second half. Two average matches but the rest was good and the ME is a classic. 7.5/10

Fantastic, absolutely love it!