Review of WWE: No Mercy 2006

Introduction

Held on 8th October 2006, and emanating from the RBC Centre in Raleigh, North Carolina, No Mercy was an event notable for being beset by changes to its main event, in the week prior the show. Originally, the top draw was to be a World Heavyweight Championship match, with champion King Booker defending against Bobby Lashley, with another marquee match, Batista vs Finlay, in the semi-main event.

Less than a week before the Sunday night event, however, the WWE`s website announced that these matches were to be combined into one Fatal Fourway encounter. Word is that the company feared a low pay-per-view buyrate, since the main event did not feature perennial favourite Batista.

The decision to change the two singles matches into one four-way match was one that was met with some derision by wrestling purists, who see such matches as mere gimmicks with little substance. If there was any consolation to this, it was that rumours abound that Chris Benoit would make his long-awaited return from injury sabbatical at the show.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL, and is excellent for a DVD of this genre. WWE DVDs are renowned for their excellent production values, and this is no different.

One thing to note is the slight censorship that was not apparent on the live TV broadcast. In the middle of the show, a skit aired where Blackpool`s own William Regal accidentally (and this was not scripted) "slipped out" of his towel, a sight which has been fixed here by blacking out a couple of frames of video. Although I generally don`t advocate censorship for adults, this was obviously a sensible edit.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is very good for a DVD of this genre. Everything from ring entrance music, to in-ring bumps, to commentary (provided by Michael Cole & JBL) is well mixed, and is clearly heard.

Features

There are a number of short, extra interviews on this disc, none of which have any real value, as they are done as part of the evening`s storyline. In fact, the presence of Big Dick Johnson is enough reason to not even enter the extras menu, and is exactly why so many people have switched off WWE in recent years.

Conclusion

The first match of the evening featured two natives of North Carolina, who grew up knowing each other in the 1980s. Here, Matt Hardy and Gregory Helms had a very good back-and-forth contest, which really made me wonder why this match was on first.

The Tag Team Championship match was next, and was easily up to the high standard of the previous encounter. Champions London & Kendrick have been excellent in 2006, and this was another testament to that, as they faced the inexperienced K.C James & Idol Stevens.

Things took an incredible nosedive in the next bout, as the huge building-up of the MVP character resulted in his debut against…Marty Garner. If you don`t know who Marty Garner is, well, that`s the joke. In terms of storyline, after such a big build-up, MVP had "selected" an unknown as his opponent.

The crowd woke up for the next match, a battle between Mr Kennedy and The Undertaker. Unfortunately, the action put them right back into slumber - although not to the horrid depths of MVP vs Garner - especially when a dreadful finish added further insult to this showing.

Rey Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero pepped things up in the next bout, a Falls Count Anywhere match, which was much more of a brawl than I had expected. Mysterio was excellent considering he was working with a bad knee injury, and whilst this wasn`t up to his very high standards, little more could have been expected from him here.

It tells you something about the booking of an event, when the best match of the card was one that wasn`t even announced until during the show. In his return (which was a surprise until his entrance music played), Chris Benoit faced William Regal in a superb match, which will no doubt go down as one of the best American matches of the year (ironically, a Canadian vs an Englishman). This was a hark back to World of Sport wrestling, but with a harder edge.

The main event (King Booker vs Batista vs Bobby Lashley vs Finlay) of the evening had absolutely no chance of following this match, even with the excellent Finlay involved. It was a better match than I had expected, but that is faint praise indeed.

Overall, No Mercy 2006 was a surprising event, featuring three matches (Hardy vs Helms, London/Kendrick vs James/Stevens, Benoit vs Regal) which were very good indeed. Fortunately, these were enough to obliterate any memories of the MVP debacle, which otherwise would have dragged the show down terribly.

Mysterio vs Guerrero and the Fatal Fourway main event were reasonable encounters, although I would not suggest buying this DVD on the strength of either of them. On the other hand, this would be an excellent purchase for anyone willing to judge this event by anything other than just the main event.