Monday Night Raw – June 10, 2002: Even Austin Couldn’t Save This

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 10, 2002
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Austin is gone. That’s the main difference between this week and last week, and if you’ve read about the June 3 show, you can see why that’s such a huge deal. Austin was the only main event good guy on this whole show, which is why things should be very interesting here. There’s a new main event tonight with Vince facing Flair for total control of the company, because when the biggest star in the company leaves, it’s time to bring back Vince. Let’s get to it.

Theme song opens us up.

Here’s Flair to open things up. He talks about how he lost clean to Austin last week and he doesn’t like it. However, he lost a fair match so he’s here to take his punishment like a man. Unfortunately, Austin isn’t here, so….here’s Vince instead. Vince says he created Raw about ten years ago and he knows what it takes to be an owner. Flair is about the sorriest owner he’s ever seen in his life. Flair has run this show into the toilet, and despite being a 16 time world champion, he still sucks.

Flair wants to know what Vince proposes we do about it. Vince says that unlike Austin, he has the guts to be here tonight and look Flair in the eyes. He doesn’t have to do this for the money anymore because he’s a billionaire. He can’t stand another day with Flair owning half of what Vince created, so how about tonight, one on one, for everything. As in the winner is the owner of the whole company. Flair calls Vince a Nature Boy wannabe, struts some, and says it’s on.

Earlier today Nash was reading the paper when Pac comes in. They’re outside of the NWO locker room because Shawn wants private time. Big Show comes up needing to get in because he had Mexican food today. Booker comes in and wants to talk to Shawn, but when he can’t get in he sings Shawn’s music. Then he sings a version with Booker themed lyrics instead. This pointless segment has been brought to you by the NWO.

Booker T/X-Pac/Big Show vs. Spike Dudley/Tommy Dreamer/Shawn Stasiak

Booker gets his own entrance for some reason. Pac and Spike start things off with Pac taking him down with a shoulder block that did not connect at all. Spike gets sent into the corner and there’s the Bronco Buster. A headscissors puts Pac down and it’s off to Big Show vs. Stasiak. We cut to the NWO locker room where Shawn and Nash are watching. Nash shuts the door.

The fans want Booker as Dreamer throws a bucket of confetti at Booker ala the Harlem Globetrotters. Everything breaks down and the side kick pins Tommy. Booker was just begging for a big push but it wouldn’t come until January and HHH would make sure that got killed as fast as possible. Such is life in WWE. The match was nothing.

Booker plays to the crowd post match and we get a Spinarooni.

Goldust, dressed as the gold Undercover Brother, comes up to Booker in the back and thinks they’re holding Booker down, because, and I’m not making this up, Shawn Michaels is a racist. Stop, go back, you’re not talented enough. Turn around and abort the angle NOW.

Molly is over getting hit with the title last week. Now she’s mad at Terri for being a fake journalist who is there for her sex appeal. Trish comes up and makes fun of Molly for being somewhat fat. Yes young girls, you need to look like Terri and Trish, as in the blonde surgically augmented rails as opposed to the girls that look normal yet perfectly fine like Molly. If Molly loses the match with Trish tonight, she has to wrestle in a thong. Whatever.

Benoit and Eddie come in to see Flair and question his agreeing to the main event tonight. Flair says it’s ok.

European Title: Bradshaw vs. William Regal

Regal is defending even though Bradshaw is Hardcore Champion at the same time. Regal takes him to the mat so Bradshaw pounds him in the face in the corner. Elbow gets two for Bradshaw. Regal hits the knee to the head for the same and goes all evil with his mean face. He punches Bradshaw in the face so Bradshaw comes back with rights of his own. Regal Cutter gets two and it’s off to a modified camel clutch. Fallaway slam puts Regal down and a DDT gets two. Bradshaw loads up the Clothesline but here’s Christopher Nowitski to distract the referee so Regal can knock Bradshaw out with the knucks to retain.

Rating: D-. I can pretty easily see why this title didn’t last much longer. There was nothing to it other than the ending which I guess sets up Regal and Nowitski as pompous brothers which isn’t something we really needed to see getting time here. Bradshaw in this role was horrible as a singles guy.

Nowitski, who was there as a fan, gets to leave with Regal instead of getting arrested. Replay shows that he threw the knuckles to Regal.

Trish Stratus vs. Molly Holly

Non title here but if Molly wins she gets a title match. If she loses, she has to wrestle in a thong. We replay the segment from earlier to rub in Molly’s lack of looks. Oh there’s going to be a rant on that in a minute. Molly takes over to start and puts Trish down for two. Handspring elbow gets two for Molly as Lawler makes jokes about her hip size. A neckbreaker by Trish puts both chicks down. Stratusfaction is countered and the Molly Go Round gets the pin. Short and bad.

Ok, so my only response to this is screw WWE. Screw their stupid mentality, screw their opinion of women, and screw whoever writes this nonsense. Molly at this point would be 25 years old and Trish would be 26. Molly is a very attractive and curvy woman. She’s also athletic enough to be a WWE Diva, which means she can’t be in that bad of shape. She was in the WWE Swimsuit Magazine and looked fine there too. On the other hand you have Trish Stratus who is a once in a lifetime drop dead gorgeous woman, but she has more plastic in her than a shopaholic’s wallet.

What WWE is telling women is that unless you look like Trish Stratus who has probably had thousands of dollars in plastic surgery done on her, you’re overweight and not worth looking at. You know, because EVERYONE looks like Trish Stratus right? I mean I see at least ten women as hot as her every day.

Trish is indeed gorgeous, but she’s also a fitness model that has spent years sculpting her body to look like that. Not everyone has the genetics to look like she does and what WWE is telling young women here is that if you look like Molly, who looks great, you’re not worth looking at. That’s some dangerous territory to venture into and it’s ridiculous as well. That’s sickening of WWE and I’d bet they didn’t see a thing wrong with it.

Arn Anderson comes up to see Vince and says he thinks Vince is nuts. Vince shoves Arn away. Make sure to run down those WCW guys in their hometown Vince. They might be hurting your dominance of the industry somehow.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Rob Van Dam vs. Eddie Guerrero

Rob takes him into the corner to start and then it’s down to the mat. Eddie hits him in the face and low bridges Van Dam out to the floor. RVD kicks him down and hits a splash off the apron to put both guys down. Back in and a suplex gets two for RVD. Eddie comes back with some clotheslines and stomps to take over. He hooks a Fujiwara Armbar as Jerry praises the potential injuries. JR tells kids not to listen to this man because CLEARLY WWE is the moral authority right?

A belly to back suplex gets two for Eddie but Rob comes back with a clothesline. He goes up but gets crotched, resulting in a superplex for two for Eddie. Van Dam comes back with a Regal Roll and a middle rope moonsault for two. Split legged moonsault misses and a dropkick gets two for Eddie. Rob reverses a rana into a pinfall reversal sequence and the timing is awful but it results in Van Dam getting the pin

Rating: C. Good match up until the ending, but the problem here is that they had a great match on Raw two weeks ago and now they’re not really trying anymore. Van Dam would go on to the finals of the tournament while Eddie would kind of do nothing for awhile. This wasn’t a bad match or anything but it was nothing great.

Undertaker gets here.

The NWO has nothing to say.

Here’s Undertaker for a chat. He has someone hold up the title during his promo whichis a pretty good jerk move. Taker says he wants respect, which HHH didn’t give him. HHH got beaten down for that lack of respect and he’ll lose at King of the Ring too. Now Jeff Hardy is disrespecting him too and that’s not cool.

Taker wants Jeff to come out here right now and take his punishment like a man but instead it’s Matt with a ladder. Jeff jumps Taker from behind and the Hardys get a double beatdown for a bit. That gets them nowhere as Taker destroys them both, only to have the Last Ride broken up. The Hardys bring in the ladder and Jeff dives on Taker. Somehow this took eleven minutes.

Regal and Nowitski are leaving when Jeff Hardy runs in, yells at the camera and steals an SUV.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Bubba Ray Dudley vs. Brock Lesnar

Brock sends him into the corner to start but Bubba comes back with a neckbreaker. Bubba goes for a table but stops to chase Heyman, allowing Brock to hit a BIG overhead belly to belly to take over. There’s a bearhug followed by another suplex for two. Brock charges into a post and gets caught in a release German to put both guys down. There’s the Flip Flop and Fly followed by another German for two. The middle rope backsplash gets two but Bubba has to chase Heyman. Bubba runs into the F5 for the pin to send Brock to the next round.

Rating: D+. Not much here but Brock was in need of ring time more than anything else at this point. For the life of me I don’t get what people saw in Bubba Ray back then as he was nothing special at all, at least not as the generic guy he was here. There was nothing of note here at all but it got the job done I guess.

We recap the challenge from Vince from earlier.

Heyman comes to Vince and offers Lesnar as help after Vince gets full control.

We get a clip from WWE Confidential of Rock saying he’s coming back.

Here’s Shawn who also has his own music other than the NWO theme. Shawn calls it the WWF and says back in his day, they had it all, from garbage men to clowns. The one real thing though was him. Oh this is going to be GOOD. Then the fans and Vince decided that Shawn’s back was broken and maybe it was time for Attitude. Shawn says he was Attitude before it was a catchphrase.

Then the company got behind Austin and he stole Shawn’s spotlight. But Shawn isn’t blaming Austin you see. It was the fans that ran to Austin like a prostitute runs to a millionaire. So why is he here? It’s not to wrestle because he already made that mistake once. One man has stood by him forever, and that’s Kevin Nash. Here’s the rest of the NWO and Shawn says he’s proud of Nash for getting to be such a big deal.

Shawn says he’s seen something that is standing out. Big Show stands out but that’s not the problem. Maybe they’re not focused, which brings him to X-Pac. That’s not it either as Pac is the most talented guy in wrestling today. And there’s a superkick for Booker to kick him off the team and FINALLY make him a face. Booker has been trying to steal the spotlight, “Just like The Rock is stealing it from Hunter” and now no one is doing that again.

Vince McMahon vs. Ric Flair

No holds barred. No robe for Flair for some reason. They start on the floor and Vince wins a slugout. They go into the crowd with Flair in control. Back into the ring and Vince slams him down for no cover. Instead he goes out and gets the bell which goes upside Flair’s head. Ric is busted open and they head back to the floor. Vince rams his head into the steps a few times and they head back inside. A bunch of punches and a clothesline gets two.

Vince kicks him low for another two as JR talks about the bruising of Space Mountain. There’s a chair but Flair kicks Vince in the face instead. A chair shot to Vince’s back puts him down again and it’s time to go for the knee. Here’s Arn to watch as Vince gets hit in the grapefruits. The Figure Four goes on but Brock comes in with the F5 to give Vicne full control.

Rating: D. This was pretty bad. A lot of the spots were missing and the Vince offense was awful. Granted that probably had a lot to do with him not being a wrestler or anything, but that’s never stopped him before. The ending was pretty weak too, making the match bad overall. At least it wasn’t that long I guess.

JR sums things up by saying that Satan is back in business.

Overall Rating: D. The funk continues to the point where I think we can flat out call this a bad show overall. Not this week’s mind you, but on a regular basis. Nothing was particularly good here and I defy you to tell me what the long term goal for any of this is. Shawn coming back helped them more than anything as it gave them something to focus on. Bad show here.

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