This was WWE's second annual "interactive pay-per-view", where fans could log on to wwe.com and vote for bout stipulations, match participants etc. For this second year, once again the PPV broadcast was on a Tuesday, an unusual move away from WWE's (and the wrestling industry in general's) preference for a Sunday evening broadcast. Despite the previous years Taboo Tuesday performing poorly regarding buy-rates, Vince McMahon decided to give the Tuesday night supercard one last chance to survive.As you all know, the concept of an interactive event survived, but the event was moved back to the "traditional" day of Sunday and given a new name the following year. Despite 6 million WWE fans voting for the 2005 event, Taboo Tuesday performed poorly at the box office two years in a row.

Despite it's advertising as a Raw-only event, Taboo Tuesday `05 had quite a dual-brand feel to it thanks to a couple of the matches being interpromotional, the first being the opener. Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio, both then of SmackDown, were voted in to face Edge and Chris Masters, although 'The Rated R Superstar' announced that his replacement was to be Snitsky. The Friday Night babyfaces bested the Masterpiece and Snitsky in a well-received opening contest. Another tag team followed, a mundane affair pitting Eugene and fan's choice Jimmy Snuka against terminal under-carders Rob Conway and Tyson Tomko. At least we got to see the 60-year old Snuka perform the Superfly Splash, which, at his age, is nothing short of impressive.

The fan's chose Mick Foley to revive the Mankind character over Cactus Jack and Dude Love for his grudge match against Carlito, but the bout itself was disappointing, and we saw a more kiddie-friendly 1999-era Mankind rather than the psychotic 1996-era version many of us had hoped for when the results came in. Later, voting for the main-event came in, and Shawn Michaels was picked over Big Show and Kane to be entered in the Triple Threat WWE Championship match against John Cena and Kurt Angle. This of course, meant that Kane and Show would challenge Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch for the World Tag Team titles, which they won in an average match.

The second Raw vs. SmackDown match of the evening saw the World Heavyweight Champion Batista, replacing the AWOL Stone Cold Steve Austin, taking on cocky commentator Jonathan Coachman in a non-title streetfight (the Coach had hoped fans would vote for a "verbal debate" instead). Despite having WWE Legends Vader and Goldust in his corner, Coachman fell to SmackDown's Animal. This was followed by a messy Diva's battle royal for the Women's Championship, which saw the WWE's ladies turn out in their lingerie.

Up till now, a pretty average PPV, but the tide turned with an emotional Steel Cage match. Intercontinental Champion Ric Flair had pleaded with fans to put him inside the cage for a second consecutive year, to see if he could stand the pace against his best friend-turned-arch enemy Triple H. A brutal and bloody encounter, but by far the best match on the PPV so far, and it was great to see the veteran Nature Boy turn in a decent performance against 'The Game'.

The main event of Taboo Tuesday surpassed the Intercontinental title match in terms of quality. Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle carried WWE Champion John Cena to an outstanding three-way bout, which was the perfect way to end an evening that only really stepped into high gear during Ric Flair vs. Triple H. The final Tuesday night pay-per-view the WWE has produced to date, and the interactive concept lives on today with Cyber Sunday, but Taboo Tuesday 2005 was pretty much an event of two halves. A couple of interesting notes on the night itself: this was Christian's final WWE appearance (to date), as one of the SmackDown vote options for the opening tag team bout, though he didn't get chosen. 'Captain Charisma' cut a brief interview as one of the DVD extras hinting that he could be back at Titan Towers one day in the future, with no mention of his departure to "that company in Orlando"! Also, Joey Styles made his first commentary appearance since One Night Stand earlier in the year, and judging by some of his comments, was almost certainly only expecting his gig to be a one night thing! The voice of ECW would, of course, earn a proper WWE contract, but not before being forced in subsequent television and PPV broadcasts to "tone things down" a bit and commentate "the WWE way".