Top Ten Things: Opening PPV Matches

Welcome to yet another Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

Time for an updated list of my favorite PPV opening matches over the last 40 years or so.  Like a killer opening song on an album, a great opening match can instantly grab your attention and set the tone for the rest of the evening.  It gets the live crowd excited, which in turn lends more energy to the rest of the PPV.  The quality of the opening bout can leave almost as big an impression as that of the main event; if a show starts well and ends well you tend to remember it as a damn fine show (I do anyway), even if the stuff in the middle isn't so hot.  At the very least a great opening match makes me want to watch the show a second time.  Most PPVs tend to feature shorter bouts to kick things off, but every so often the first match either steals the show outright or comes pretty damn close.  Here are ten such examples, plus some Honorable Mentions.....

HM: AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon - WrestleMania 33

The main card of the 2017 edition of WrestleMania kicked off with a match I wasn't at all happy about.  AJ Styles, by far the most accomplished star in the company over the previous 14 months, was saddled fighting Vince's son instead of tearing it up with someone of his caliber.  But I'll be damned if it wasn't incredibly entertaining.  AJ was amazing as usual, and Shane had his working shoes on just trying to keep up.  Many of the spots were over-the-top, including Shane countering AJ's 450 splash into a triangle choke, Shane missing a Shooting Star Press, AJ trying the Van Terminator but running into a trash can, and Shane doing his own Van Terminator.  AJ finally took the win after hitting the Phenomenal Forearm, capping off what was shockingly the best match of the night.  This match proved that AJ Styles could have a good match with anyone, and also earned AJ the company's permanent stamp of approval.

HM: Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler - Bragging Rights 2010

Probably D-Bryan's first true standout match in WWE was this sleeper hit to kick off the second and final Bragging Rights PPV.  By far the best match on the show, this US Champ vs. IC Champ bout allowed Bryan to show off his technical prowess against an opponent who could hang with him move-for-move.  This see-saw match went a thrilling 16 minutes, including a false finish where Ziggler seemed to have won the match but Bryan's foot was on the rope, before Bryan tapped Ziggler out with the LeBell Lock.  The pair followed it up with an equally good rematch the next night on RAW.  At year's end, WWE cited this as one of the best matches of 2010, ranking it second (I believe) only to Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker.  This was the first instance of the company openly showing appreciation for Bryan's abilities.

HM: Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Thunder Liger - SuperBrawl II

The second SuperBrawl PPV, the best in the series, had the show stolen by this groundbreaking opening contest for the newly minted WCW Light Heavyweight Title.  This 17-minute bout was full of great false finishes and big high spots, demonstrating this wonderful alternative to the norm known as cruiserweight wrestling and showcasing a style of wrestling North American fans weren't yet accustomed to.  Pillman won with a bridging leg cradle after Liger missed a top-rope splash, regaining the short-lived championship.  While Jr.-style wrestling wouldn't catch on for a few more years, this match served as one of the templates.

Oscar Film Journal: The Deer Hunter (1978)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Alright, this one is a repeat watch, a film I viewed 20+ years ago on a little 20-inch CRT television and therefore it can hardly be said that I watched it at all.  I decided the 1978 Best Picture winner deserved another day in court, on a proper widescreen TV in hi-def.  So here we are, let's talk about The Deer Hunter.

Directed and co-written by Michael Cimino and starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage and Meryl Streep, The Deer Hunter is an epic drama, part war film, part study of late 60s working class America.  It's divided into three distinct acts, the first of which takes place over the course of two days and centers around the wedding of the Savage character Steve, who along with Mike (De Niro) and Nick (Walken) are set to ship off to Vietnam a few days later.  We spend a lot of time with this group of friends and the film takes its time world-building via the wedding sequence, a scene in the local bar, and a hunting trip the group takes in the mountains.  Act two is set in Vietnam, where the three friends are reunited and quickly captured by the Viet Cong, and forced to play Russian roulette.  This absolutely harrowing sequence is the film's centerpiece and serves as a metaphor for the war itself, changing the characters and their circle of friends forever.  Act three is the aftermath of the war.  Mike has returned home a hero but can't seem to reassimilate into civilian life, Steve is wheelchair-bound and his wife is unable to cope, and Nick has gone AWOL and is still in Saigon, now a professional Russian roulette player with PTSD.  

Oscar Film Journal: Ghost (1990)

Welcome to another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Alright time to polish off the final 1990 Best Picture nominee, one that I couldn't believe was up for the big award at the time, and after actually viewing it I'm still baffled.  That's right, it's the supernatural romantic dramedy, Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, and directed by Airplane's Jerry Zucker.  

Note: SPOILERS ahead, this movie is after all 35 years old.

Ghost is about a young Manhattan couple for whom everything seems to be going great.  Sam is a successful investment banker up for a promotion, while Molly is an up-and-coming artist.  They've just purchased a (really luxurious) loft their friend Carl (Sam's coworker) helped them renovate into part-living space, part-art studio.  At the banking firm Sam has stumbled across some troubling balance inconsistencies with a few of their accounts (Hmm, you gotta wonder how this is going to pay off later).  One night while walking home from a play, Sam and Molly are attacked by a mugger and Sam is shot dead, but his ethereal consciousness remains on Earth, where he must figure out a way to communicate with Molly and piece together what happened and why.  To that end he recruits a psychic named Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg), a fraud with a long criminal record, in whom Sam has inadvertently awakened actual medium abilities.  From there the film's tone shifts from romantic tragedy to screwball comedy, as Oda reluctantly agrees to help Sam mostly because he won't leave her alone.  And then once Sam learns why he was killed (It was no random mugging I assure you) and who set him up (No points for spotting this bombshell a mile away), the tone shifts again to intense thriller fare.

WWE Backlash 2025 Preview & Predictions

WWE's already got another PPV this weekend, only three weeks after the abnormally late WrestleMania.  And boy does this show look skippable.  This five-match B-show thing is quite lame considering how much time they waste with video packages and entrances.  Mania could've easily fit 1-2 more matches per night without extending the overall running time, and so can these B-shows.

Also, not one black wrestler on this card, not one.  Never. Beating. The allegations.  Sorry.

Intercontinental Championship: Dominik Mysterio vs. Penta

This is one of three potentially good matches on the show.  Dominik is always either a heat magnet, or in the case of 'Mania, one of the most popular guys on the card.  Penta is always fun to watch.  I don't see any title change happening this soon though.

Pick: Dominik retains

Oscar Film Journal: The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Welcome to yet another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

Heading back to the early 1960s today, and a classic war adventure film known as The Guns of Navarone, starring Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven.  This highly influential World War II actioner centers around a secret mission cooked up by the British military to rescue 2000 stranded soldiers on the tiny Greek island of Kheros.  The Axis powers plan to annihilate everyone on the island in a week's time, and have been able to thwart any rescue attempts using two massive, transport-killing cannons located on a nearby island called Navarone.  Captain Keith Mallory (Peck) and his team must disguise themselves as local fishermen (Mallory is an accomplished spy who fluently speaks both Greek and German), sail around to the scarcely-guarded back end of Navarone, scale a several hundred-foot cliff, and make their way across the island to the fortress housing the guns so they can sabotage them.  All without being caught or killed by the Germans.  None of the men (and women) on the team has much hope that this "impossible mission" (TM pending) will succeed, but it's their only chance of saving the marooned soldiers and stopping Turkey from joining the Axis powers.  

Oscar Film Journal: Selma (2014)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

This time I'm talkin' about a fairly recent film, one from 2014 that sort of flew under the radar, only nabbing two Oscar nods, for Best Picture and Best Original Song.  Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, covers the events leading up to Martin Luther King's iconic 1965 protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the fight for voting rights in the south.  Played quite effectively but without flash by British actor David Oyelowo, King struggles with his role as the leader of the 1960s civil rights movement, balancing his philosophy of nonviolent protest and his growing impatience with America's leaders in Washington, specifically then-President Lyndon Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson).  On the other side of the battle of course were the racist Alabama state leaders, in particular Governor George Wallace (a stellar Tim Roth), and the barbaric Sheriff Jim Clark.  MLK and his fellow activists were forced to exercise unfathomable patience and bravery in combating the violence of white supremacists with peaceful demonstrations in order to get their message across.

Oscar Film Journal: The Killing Fields (1984)

And we're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  In the brilliant words of comedian Michelle Wolf, I'm still chippin' away at the ham....

Today it's another Best Pic nominee from the 1980s, Roland Joffé's harrowing true account of two reporters stationed in Cambodia during the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover.  Played by Sam Waterston and newcomer (and actual survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime) Haing S. Ngor, Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran were assigned to Phnom Penh to cover the Cambodian civil war and the US's involvement in bombing civilians.  When the capital fell to the murderous Khmer Rouge forces, Schanberg as an American citizen was given safe passage to neighboring Thailand, but as a Cambodian citizen Pran was captured and put into a forced labor camp.  Schanberg had previously arranged for Pran's family to be relocated to San Francisco, and engaged in a massive letter-writing campaign to find his lost friend, but Pran had to rely on his own wits and bravery to ultimately escape captivity.

NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2025 Preview & Predictions

This weekend is NJPW's annual Wrestling Dontaku two-nighter and while a lot of these matches are the usual filler tag fare, there are some significant bouts on tap, as well as Tetsuya Naito's final match with the company (for the time being anyway), albeit a filler tag match.

I'm only doing picks for six matches but let's take a look....

NJPW TV Championship: El Phantasmo vs. Konosuke Takeshita

Oooo, this is interesting.  The current NEVER champ going after a second title.  I for one hope he becomes Two-Belts Takeshita, because he fucking rules.  Match should steal the show in spite of the fifteen-minute time limit.

Pick: Takeshita

Top Ten Things: WrestleMania Main Events, Part 5 (#10-1)

Alright, now it's time for the really good shit.  The all-time great shit.  Such good shit.  

Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

10. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (vs. Seth Rollins) - WrestleMania 31

Maybe the most unexpectedly great WrestleMania main event took place at the 2015 edition, as the reviled babyface Roman Reigns challenged the unstoppable Mayor of Suplex City (a phrase he coined during this match), Brock Lesnar.  Brock had decimated John Cena for the WWE Championship at the previous SummerSlam, allowing almost no offense during their 16-minute squash, and then all but disappeared with the title for most of the next six months.  At the 2015 Royal Rumble Brock, Cena and Seth Rollins had a spectacular Triple Threat match, where Brock turned back both challengers in dominant fashion.  Enter Reigns, the company's handpicked "it" guy, with whom the fans wanted nothing to do.  Reigns won the Rumble match that night to earn his WrestleMania spot, but was booed unmercifully, and this main event had all the markings of a dud; an absentee heel champion vs. an unliked babyface challenger.  But the match ended up being an exercise in brutality as these two monsters beat the piss out of each other.  Brock took a legit headbutt to the ring post which opened a huge gash on his forehead, while Reigns got suplexed into oblivion and kept getting up.  But the most memorable thing about the match was the unique finish, as Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase mid-match, curb stomping Brock, attempting a second stomp that was countered into an F5 attempt that was thwarted by a Reigns spear, and then curb stomping Reigns to win the match and the WWE Title.  The Santa Clara crowd exploded at the surprise finish and Rollins stood tall, swinging the strap over his head as Michael Cole dubbed the title change "The Heist of the Century."  Thus began Seth Rollins' excellent run as the company's top heel.

9. Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels - WrestleMania XII

The longest match in WrestleMania history, and thus far the only Iron Man match at this event, pitted the company's top two babyfaces against each other in an unprecedented athletic display.  Bret Hart was the veteran technician, while Shawn Michaels was the charismatic upstart.  Planned as the first part of a trilogy of bouts designed as a torch passing, this match played out as an old-school grappling contest for much of the first half.  Shawn stymied the champion with an expected ground game, while Bret grew increasingly frustrated and employed some heelish tactics.  The second half picked up, with much more high-risk offense, but neither man could gain a pinfall.  In the closing moments Shawn went for a dropkick but Bret countered into a Sharpshooter.  Shawn withstood the pain for nearly a full minute as the clock ran down to zero, leaving the match a time limit draw.  But WWF President Gorilla Monsoon ordered the match restarted under sudden death rules, much to Bret's chagrin.  The angry champion attacked Shawn's weakened legs, but Shawn answered with a pair of superkicks to win the title and start off his main event run.  Given its slow pace and frequent lack of crowd heat, this bout hasn't aged as well as one would think, but it does stand as a singular achievement in WWE lore - a mostly pure scientific marathon between two of the company's all-time best.