BATISTA VS. ALBERTO del RIO

What Will Happen: Batista will win, and make del Rio look even worse than he did after he beat up Ricardo.

It’s extremely hard to gauge Batista matches, largely because the reaction to him is so grossly out of whack with what he’s doing in the ring. While it’s not exactly like watching Baryshnikov, Dave does the job of bumping, selling and all-around professional wrestling better than nearly anyone at his level or size ever has. He’s doing everything he can to put on a good match, and the crowd reaction to him at this point is just unfair. Or at least, as unfair as someone getting paid millions of dollars to shill merchandise and promote his movies getting booed by paying customers can be. del

Rio, on the other hand, was pure gold as always. If he’s not a Hall of Famer some day, I’m showing up drunk to one of the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies and singing “Rock and Roll All Night” until security “escorts” me off stage.
And even with so many people hating on him it makes the matches borderline unwatchable with the sound on, there appears to be a sizable portion of the audience who was either willing, or actively seeking to, pay to watch him wrestle.

That this was even a serviceable match gives it “Bang for Your Buck”, but outside of that context, this match was merely somewhat enjoyable, and not particularly remarkable. Thank god neither of these guys is in the main event of WrestleMania.

Match +.3 | PPV 2.7

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