Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly

[4.0] "Holly stayed true to the story. He was more concerned with revenge than the title and wrestled the match that way. Brock dominated most of the match as he should have. The match itself was acceptable although not worth of a PPV."

[3.0] "The fact that Hardcore Holly had a WWE title match on a PPV baffles me. I get it that Lesnar broke his neck. But this was so boring to sit through watching Lesnar play grabass with Holly."

[6.0] "For whatever reason they decide to work rest holds into a six minute match. Whenever they aren't doing this, the match is great. I usually despise the WWE audience from around this time but they were right to boo that. Lesnar was great as ever and did what he could with Hardcore Holly as a challenger. Brock takes all of his best shots, pops up, hits the F5 and wins clean. Should have been a hardcore match."

[4.0] "Another weak match on the card. The build was there, but this match should have had an actual stipulation and longer time length, and I believe it could have been a much more worthy match, but for a world title match, this was insanely weak."

[2.0] "If you love the same resthold over and over then this is the match for you! Half the match is Lesnar with a sleeper on Holly with 0 fan interest. Holly's comeback is weak and he hits the Alabama Slam and then locks in the full nelson but Brock gets the ropes but they fall to the outside with it still on. F5 waaaah, out of nowhere for the win. Jesus that was garbage. Holly talks a big game but doesn't have the charisma to carry a match, crowd was asleep for good reason."

[3.0] "I get the thought process of having Holly challenge for the title. But at the end of the day, it's Hardcore Holly and he's just not an interesting enough wrestler to make this work. I think it worked hard to tell the story it was trying to tell but the story just didn't intrigue me. Also was it not Hardcore Holly sandbagging Brock that caused him to land on his neck? I seem to remember that being the prevailing thought at the time."

[3.0] "This was just another glorified squash match that was on the show and neither man did that much good in this match either."

[4.0] "They had something here but they decided to go for an easy way out and spend most of the match in a hold. Brock squeezes Holly for the most of the match, then Holly has a little comeback and then it suddenly ends - not bad, but it honestly had a potential for something better even though you know Bob wasn't winning it."

[4.0] "A pretty lackluster match here and I'm just about positive that not a single soul in the arena on this night expected Holly was winning this one. You have to feel bad for Hardcore here, the whole storyline is centered around how he broke his neck and missed over a year of his career because of it, and the crowd didn't seem to care. I imagine it's back to the lower mid-card here for Holly. Solid 2 stars."

[3.0] "No one over the age of 12 even considered Holly winning this match, so that's never a good sign. But you know what could have helped make him and get him over? Have a great, competitive match with Brock where he pushes Lesnar to his limits and just barely takes the L. But any hope of digging Holly out of the bottom of the card died when half the match or more became rest holds. It's a shame because the feud was great, and Holly was cutting some really impressive promos that showed potential to get us here, and they went out and had this nightmare of a match. Nothing was done to get the crowd into this match. Nothing was done to try and get them behind Holly and make an underdog story come true. On one of your biggest PPV's of the year, you had a glorified jobber compete for the biggest title in the game, and hardly did the bare minimum to get him ready and over for the match. It almost feels like they threw this match out there just because they wanted some sort of payoff. There's no excuse for this match. Truly, this match deserves 2 points, but I gave it a generous 3 points because of the strong build and promos."

[4.0] "Yeah, who saw this outcome, Brock beating Hardcore Holly for the WWE Title. Man, great booking and even better match! 3.5/10"

[6.0] "Perhaps a little generous of a rating here as I actually liked the match. It had a good intensity, the storytelling they was trying to do with it was fine and it's at a decent length that doesn't overstay it's welcome so I thought this was perfectly fine for what it was. I agree with the criticisms about Hardcore Holly just not really feeling like a credible main eventer for a PPV match though."

[4.0] "Giving Holly a PPV match is an interesting decision, but nobody buys him beating Lesnar and nobody really cares for him either so this was a pretty heatless match. Brock keeps him on the mat most of the match, Holly gets a brief comeback and then Brock hits the F-5 shortly after his comeback to win.**1/4"

[2.0] "This was supposed to be an all-out """amazing""" match about vengeance and broken necks...with the full nelson as a finisher? And I don't know who's fault was it. Probably Lesnar wasn't so happy to see this match cut down time because of the draw between HHH/HBK"

[5.0] "I think they probably should have given this longer than 6 minutes when you consider they hyped it up for nearly 2 months. As a match it's a perfectly serviceable Velocity Main Event from the time frame, as Holly sells for a bit, makes the comeback and they take it home. It just felt like two blokes having a match, when it was supposed to be a match that was 13-14 months in the making after Lesnar broke Holly's neck. Just a waste really. They should have just had them Main Event an episode of Smackdown and given them 12-15 minutes rather than just throwing them out for a quick match on pay per view like this"

[6.0] "had this gone an extra 5 minutes i think we'd be seeing legitimate near 4-star territory. Felt this was good, but just a small glimpse of what they could have done together with more time. Holly never really got the love he deserved, he had a nice comeback that was cut off shortly after. Good but not much more. ***1/4"

[8.0] "Worked exactly as the story is laid out. Holly coming too hard and hot, Brock on defence with smart smothering holds. I can see why it may be too slow or even boring for others but the explosiveness of Holly's comeback justifies it, and even then the logical end point "this guy wants to break my neck" is to smother them down so they can't. The tenacity of Holly trying for the Full Nelson accentuates the point of the match, and it costs him and Brock leaves ASAP post match. Hard, compact revenge match showing even a freak like Brock Lesnar can be vulnerable and fearful."

[2.0] "Why is Brock Lesnar taking even one bump for this geek? Holly? s offence looks like garbage, no one buys he is winning. No one cares. Brock tries but it? s useless. *1/4"

[3.0] "The story was decent enough but the match was horrible. Holds after holds after holds. Complete filler but at least put over Lesnar. [*1/4]"

[4.0] "Holly starts this thing hot. Then it quickly takes a nosedive. It's only 6 minutes long, it's adequate."

[5.0] "Although Holly coming back for revenge after Lesnar broke his neck is a tailor-made wrestling storyline, the sad fact of reality is that Holly just isn't popular enough with the fans for it to work. Holly jumpstarts this by attacking Lesnar as he jumps up on the ring apron. His assault is short-lived after Lesnar dodges Holly's dive from the top rope. I understand that Lesnar using waist locks to keep his fired-up opponent grounded was a completely logical move, but it's also boring to watch. Holly eventually makes the coldest comeback ever and hits the Alabama Slam. Holly decides against going for the pin and attempts to break Lesnar's neck with the full nelson. This backfires and Brock is able to slip out of it and land a quick F5 in a smooth as silk sequence. A solid title defense for Lesnar, even if the winner was never in doubt."

[4.0] "This started off hot but quickly got dull with most of the match consisting of a romantic spooning in the middle of the ring which is cute but not quite what I was looking for from this."

[4.0] "This is a Lesnar vs Hardcore Holly match that is 6 minutes long and half of it is mat holds. What do you expect?"

[8.0] "Couldn't despise this rating more. One of the meanest and tightest matches of Lesnar's career with Bob Holly looking as tough as Dan Severn in keeping up and getting in his licks against Lesnar with Brock in his absolute athletic peak. A rematch would have been great but this is still a fantastic match on its own."

[3.0] "Basically half the match was Brock hugging Holly on the ground. Holly did have a decent rallying sequence but that got snuffed out almost immediately by Brock. Really just a boring match, but it made Brock look good at least, which I guess was the point. *1/2"

[7.0] "Honestly? I still think this is a good match. Certainly not great, but Holly was very intense and Brock basically smothered him to keep him from getting his revenge. Weird but I have a soft spot for it."

"This match was disappointing as the build to this match was absolutely awesome. All in all this was just a wwe championship filler match as it got 1. 5 stars off me."

[2.0] "Baffling to build this a a grudge match for Holly's legit injury at Brock's hands and then have Hardcore Holly of all people work a mat-based catch match. They did a great job building this going in and squandered all the heat almost immediately with nothing but competing rest holds that failed to generate interest even when Brock grappled Holly's repaired neck."

[3.0] "This match is 6 minutes long and literally half of that is mat holds. That's all you really need to know about how disappointing this match was relative to the buildup of it. I don't think anyone was expecting a masterpiece from Hardcore Holly but man--you expected at least *somewhat* of a grudge match and this was barely even a TV match. Just a very bizarre match overall."