Monday Night Raw – November 25, 2002: Boring Wrestling and Violent Illness
Monday Night Raw
Date: November 25, 2002
Location: North Charleston Coliseum, North Charleston, South, Carolina
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
We open with a long recap of Shawn winning the title and Van Dam earning the shot last week.
Opening sequence.
Tag Team Titles: Christian/Chris Jericho vs. Dudley Boyz
Christian and Jericho are defending. D-Von drops Jericho with a clothesline to start and elbows Christian for the same result. We get some championship miscommunication and Chris gets pummeled in the corner. Christian finally scores with a backbreaker though and the champs take over for the first time.
The pace slows WAY down (as is the Canadian way) but Christian takes too much time yelling at Bubba, allowing D-Von to grab a neckbreaker. Bubba comes in and cleans house but misses the middle rope backsplash. Everything breaks down (as is the tag team way) and D-Von gets two off a small package. Chris rams him into Christian though and a rollup retains the titles clean.
They head into the locker room when the Dudleys come up and want to go after the champs again. Bubba says wait, because he has a plan. I think I like this better than cutting to conveniently timed segments where people just happen to be ready to talk when someone else is done but it was still really scripted.
Test vs. Steven Richards
Christopher Nowinski vs. Maven
Video on Eric Bischoff.
Hurricane/Jeff Hardy vs. Lance Storm/William Regal
Jeff gets beaten down as well.
Kane vs. Batista
Goldust vs. Rico
Rating: D. This was more filler but you have to deal with that from time to time. JR mentioned that Booker was healing, which might have something to do with a rash of illness going around the locker room at this point (dehydration due to some issues on a tour of India). If nothing else that would explain some of the odd booking choices tonight, such as this match, which was only going to last so long.
Raw World Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Rob Van Dam
Shawn, in what looks to be the early Sami Zayn collection of tights, is defending. The champ fires off a dropkick to start but gets kicked in the ribs a few times, followed by a clothesline to send him outside. Rob is smart enough to throw him back inside for a slingshot legdrop to the bad back. A monkey flip is countered into something like Snake Eyes and Shawn starts in on the leg.
HHH goes after Shawn post match and shrugs off a comeback. A side slam puts Shawn through an open chair to end the show.
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