John Bradshaw Layfield vs. Matt Hardy

[4.0] "JBL beats up Matt for the majority of the match including Matt getting tied in the ropes with his neck for a long time. It doesn't make for much of an exciting match as Matt has very little comeback moments before he loses quite easily. I get he was somewhat protected with the injury angle and cheating finish in the match but it wasn't particularly fun."

[5.0] "Just a very basic match. Doesn't really do anything right or wrong. It tells a story but not an interesting one. It's pretty much what the average Monday Night Raw match has been for like 25 years."

[5.0] "Good in ring storytelling for the time they had, but too one sided to really be interesting. Hardy got very little offense, and though his selling was great, getting jobbed out to JBL wasn't good for him. 3 months prior, he was one of the hottest in the company. But continually putting him in low stakes matches with minimal build and losing a good bit cooled him off quickly. He needed a big win or at least very competitive loss here, and it didn't happen. Solid match, but nothing special."

[5.0] "I don't know. I liked it, but I thought that it would lead to Hardy getting some nice comeback, instead it mostly felt like a prolonged squash. They had a convincingly looking spot with Matt's head getting stuck between the ropes and JBL's offense looked very good, but there should have been a build to something."

[8.0] "This match was to make JBL look more dominant as a heel going into 2006 as most his title reign had involved him cheating and it did exactly did with JBL looking like the brawler his size worked for."

[6.0] "Fine and quick opener, was a bit surprised how one sided it was but it's a good match to start the show."

[6.0] "It's a pretty good opener, Matt Hardy had been getting a strong push since his return but this kinda ended it until his reunion with Jeff midway through next year. JBL looked as dominant as he could on PPV."

[7.0] "Short, but sweet. JBL's stiff and convincing offence was nice to watch, although Hardy shouldn't have been as dominated as he was."

[4.0] "This was okay. This was an ass kicking by JBL without much offense from Hardy. The story was that Hardy was selling the neck injury after his head was caught up in the ropes. This was done to try to give JBL more momentum because Smackdown was lacking in terms of top heels. Hardy looked like somebody that was not nearly on the same level. There were some stiff punches and clotheslines by JBL in the match as well. *3/4"