Randy Orton vs. Rob Van Dam

[7.0] "This is all about RVD's selling and making Orton look ruthless. Both boxes ticked. Even Orton's selling was good throughout. I thought this was a uniquely done, story heavy match with some great action too including RVD doing a somersault over the ropes onto the stretcher after Randy moved, yikes! The ending with RVD winning actually shocked me, he won by the skin of his teeth. This gave a reason for Orton to be pissed off and punt RVD's head after the match, and DDT him on the outside. RVD really sold the concussion well in the match and it was a well worked encounter."

[1.0] "My rating for this match is 1/10, an uneasy watch that made me think about Chris Benoit due to his death later on. It was a hard watch. The match itself was pretty bad as well with it lacking some sauce it felt a bit boring. It is embarrassing for Randy Orton to lose against someone with a concussion it makes him look incredibly weak and its poor wrestling that he's acting concussed whilst still being high flying."

[4.0] "2/3rds of this is the most generic match you could ever see but they sell every strike like it concussed them, then RVD takes a fucking insane bump to the outside, then they had possibly the lamest finishing stretch a Stretcher match could have. ** only for Rob's wild bump."

[3.0] "So boring. Made only worth watching for the absurd and very nasty spot that Rob Van Dam takes half on the stretcher and half directly onto the floor. Kinda heatless and nothing until AFTER the match where Randy Orton gets to get his shit in. Feels purposeless."

[6.0] "An uneven match that has some positives but doesn't help either guy's strengths I don't think. Orton is trying to find himself as a heel at this point in time but doesn't take a lot of the offense nor much of the selling, as it's mostly 50-50. Rob does get shine at the start, and chances to sprinkle in his offense, but due to the concussion element and selling, plus with where he's at in his career, his naturally explosive offense is more slowed down. The strength oddly is in both men's selling. Orton comes in naturally overconfident, and takes a great bump leading to Rob's opening shine. Orton hits a tremendous dropkick leading to some strong Rob bumps to re-establish the thread of the match, leading to what is the longest extended "heat" segment, though there isn't really much heat for this. There's two great spots, the rolling thunder into a powerslam, and a great flip dive onto the stretcher over the top. They try hard to work the concussion selling element here without it being a more melodramatic approach you might see today, and with two pros it's nice to see something like this tried in a more subdued format, but it doesn't really go through the gears the way you'd hope. Solid but ultimately perfunctory. ***1/4"

[6.0] "An interesting PPV opener that flirts with something more triumphant than that. Van Dam is selling a concussion for much of this, requiring a range that's not necessarily associated with his game. It's also his WWE swan song however, inspiring some frightening swings that naturally, don't make for a perfect companion with that otherwise drastic sell. Orton is still finding this new version of himself also, with the audience equally adjusting to the emerging quirks in his demeanour. The result is pretty uneven, but there's more than enough quality here to keep things afloat. ***"

[7.0] "This was a good storyline based match playing off of RVD's storyline concussion. The finish was not great but other than than it was quite respectable"

[1.0] "Good selling from Randy, some cool stuff from RVD but good god is this match really stupid at times. The worst thing about this is RVD trying to act like he has a concussion. They were trying to do some storytelling here but it just doesn't work for a match like this and as a result the match really sucked."

[4.0] "It kinda made sense with Michaels, but how the hell did they let Van Dam wrestle with a concussion? Also what does it say about Shawn that he's not able to fight Randy, but RVD not only fights with a concussion and does all his high-flying stuff, but also wins the damn match. The bout itself was alright, but the lack of logic here was driving me crazy."

[6.0] "I was very close to giving this match 7 points, but had to go for 6 because the finish is awful. First, I'm a huge RVD fan. I'm also a fan of Orton's work, but to a much lesser extent. And I do not understand why Van Dam won this match. This whole run for Orton is about getting him over as vicious, opportunistic, and cunning. I don't see why he needed to lose. I get maybe they wanted him to come across as an even bigger sore loser, but his character prior to this run was always kind of like that, so I'm not sure if that needed to be driven home as hard. This match really worked psychology wise. RVD having bursts of offense that is always unique, while Orton keeps maintaining control with blows to the head to keep him out of it. This match definitely helped getting Orton's slightly revamped character over. I'd say better than the match vs. Shawn Michaels last month without the ending. The Rolling Thunder into powerslam spot in particular looked amazing. This is a very entertaining match both in terms of offense and in terms of story telling. It's just not a spectacular one. The last point I wanted to make is, I guarantee if this match was set to take place just one month later after Benoit committed his terrible acts, this match would NOT have gone this way. Nor do I think they'd ever (or should ever) have a match using concussions as kayfabe again."

[5.0] "**Ÿ - basic match. Maybe I expected a bit more given these two are incredibly talented. I guess it didn't live up to expectations"

[6.0] "Orton was only five years into his run here and it's clear at this point that he 'gets' wrestling. His facial expressions are golden and he radiates arrogance. The story going into this is that Orton concussed RVD on Raw and he wants to do it again. Most of Orton's offense is simple, strike at RVD's head and scrabble his brains some more. What brings this match down is that RVD is abysmal at selling a head injury. He looks hokey. The stretcher stipulation also hurt the match. There's just not much to work with. Still, this did its job and got Orton over as a massive headcase despite his loss."

[5.0] "2. 5 stars my rating for this match. This match was so slow and terrible and the ending was so disappointing."

[6.0] "This was a very uniquely worked match with Rob selling a concussion throughout and being worked over almost the entire time. The storytelling was very good but it suffered a bit from the slow pace and it would have benefited a lot from shaving off a few minutes."

[6.0] "Satisfactory opener. RVD selling was really good and he took some nasty bumps in this match. I dont understand why Orton didn't get the win since RVD was leaving WWE."

[7.0] "It was good for a Stretcher Match with Rob selling things well and still finding a way to win. Orton is known for being in those slow matches and with the right babyface opponent, he could have good matches all the time. Yeah good contest ***1/4"