I know I ask that a lot but it’s the match the most people remember on almost every show.I don’t think there’s any other answer other than Rock vs. HHH. Yes that leaves Foley out, but having the main event be all about the McMahons ruined it for me. Rock vs. HHH was the right idea and their feud over the rest of the year proved it.
Thoughts?
Wrestlemania 2000
Date: April 2, 2000
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 19,776
Star Spangled Banner: Lillian Garcia
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
This whole show is an interesting one, and this is primarily for two reasons. Number one: there is not a standard one on one match on the whole card. That’s just odd for any show. The other thing: Steve Austin and Undertaker were out with injuries here. This show is also important though because it’s the first show where all your big names are just that: big names.
HHH is the reigning WWF Champion, Rock is the #1 face in the company, Big Show is there for some reason, and Foley is “retired”, but getting one more shot as he finally gets to main event a Wrestlemania, which is a nice thing to let him do, despite the fact that he really had no business there at all. He was added less than two weeks before the show after the original main event, a three way match with HHH, Rock and Big Show happened on Raw for no apparent reasons at the time.
Also at this show, we have the WM debuts of Benoit, Angle, the Hardyz and the Dudleyz, as well as Edge and Christian being actual wrestlers here for the first time. This is the first show with the new generation being around, and it showed really well. It’s also the first show where the company more or less knew that WCW and any real threat to WWF’s survival was dead, so they didn’t have to nail it to ensure where their next paycheck was coming from. However, the important question is obvious: is the show with all these new stars better than last year’s? Let’s get to it.
Sweet goodness Lillian looks different here. She aged very well and actually looks better older than she does here. She can still sing though.
After a video highlighting the previous Manias either narrated by James Earl Jones (Darth Vader in an explanation I can’t believe I had to make) or the greatest imitation of his voice ever recorded, for the first time in Mania history, we get the MASSIVE pyro display that has become a standard in WWF. So with all this new talent, what’s our first great match?
Godfather/D’Lo Brown vs. Big Bossman/Bull Buchanan
Eh? We’re opening the show that’s supposed to lead the WWF and therefore the wrestling business into the new millennium and this is what you give us? And people wonder why wrestling went downhill in a hurry once WCW died. Godfather and Brown are rapped to the ring by Ice T, who I try to block out as most of the time these live intros are awful. Brown is a co-pimp here.
Remember the catchy Godfather entrance? This isn’t close to it. Ice T does some song that includes the lyric Pimp Or Die. Something sound bad about that? This intro goes on WAY too long and sums up what I hate about rap: this whole thing is just loud and stupid sounding. It was built to market a CD called Aggression which was a rap album of WWF entrance themes. In case you can’t guess, it bombed.
After that completely pointless intro, Godfather decides he has to do his awful intro, saying for everyone to smoke a blunt and say it ain’t easy. FINALLY Bossman’s terribly bland theme music plays and the pain in my head goes away a little bit. Godfather has really stupid looking dreadlocks here and is somehow dumber looking than usual.
There’s really no reason as to why these two are feuding in case you thought there was. Is it possible that D’Lo Brown is the most successful of these four men? I do believe he is and that’s a scary thought. Anyway let’s get to this. Brown vs. Buchanan to start us off with Brown controlling so far. Godfather takes Boss Man’s interfering head off while Brown is on offense.
Off to the pimp now as the fans want puppies. Big elbow misses as we talk about JR wearing some of Godfather’s clothes for some reason. Basically Boss Man dominates when he’s in and Buchanan can do one move, that running up the corner into a spinning clothesline. Blind tag brings in the Boss Man who gets two on Brown as Godfather saves.
Axe kick by Buchanan gets two. Brown and Boss Man on the floor now and Godfather accidentally clotheslines the referee. I say accidentally as the referee doesn’t even go down so it wasn’t the point obviously. Boss Man gets two on Brown who is the face in peril here. Buchanan with a bearhug now as the fans chant for D’lo.
Naturally that doesn’t do it but an elbow takes down Brown. Double teaming by the guys in black as Godfather just looks stupid. Boss Man sucks chant starts up. The beating goes on for awhile with Buchanan hitting a double axe off the top. We talk about Pete Rose for a bit and apparently he’s got a ball bat with him just in case.
Godfather shakes the ropes to crotch Godfather and Brown busts out a rana to break the momentum. Here’s Godfather who cleans some house. Ho Train hits Boss Man in the corner sets up the Lo Down from Brown. Bull pushes him off the top though but Brown lands on his feet. Boss Man Slam kills D’lo though and a guillotine leg drop from Buchanan ends this.
Rating: D+. This wasn’t terrible but at the same time it’s Godfather/Brown vs. Boss Man/Buchanan. It’s not a terrible match but is this really what you want to open Mania? Also, a heel team winning the opener? Just not a great idea especially after the crowd got fired up for the rapping. Not bad but just odd.
Steph and HHH are in their office talking about how great their lives are.
The referees explain the rules of the Hardcore Battle Royal tonight. It’s a 15 minute time limit. There’s no limit to the amount of title changes in that period. Apparently the 24/7 rule is waved after tonight. I think Crash has to be pinned to get the title off of him.
Hardcore Title: Battle Royal
Hardcore Holly, Crash Holly, Tazz, Viscera, Joey Abs, Rodney, Pete Gas, Taka Michinoku, Funaki, Thrasher, Mosh, Farrooq, Bradshaw
The idea here was that the Hardcore Title was defended 24/7, as long as the challenger had a referee with him. This led to some interesting situations such as pin falls as amusement parks, hotels, etc. You have 13 guys here and whoever gets the last pinfall leaves with the belt, which would be kind of pointless as the 24/7 rule would be in effect so he could get attacked seconds after it ended right? It’s not really a battle royal but rather a 13 man match.
There are weapons at ringside and thankfully a lot of the guys come out in groups or teams to save some time. The Posse gets a small pop. The APA gets the biggest pop by far. Here we go. Remember there are 15 minutes to this period. Everyone but Crash and Taz go to the floor almost immediately and Tazz gets a suplex on Crash to win the title in maybe a minute. Now they have to pin him to get the title, which Viscera does with a splash. We’re not even at 13 minutes left yet.
Everyone is on the floor now and someone has a box fan. There’s a flag in there. The Posse of all people jump Viscera and they actually work for a bit. Lots of weapon shots to Viscera, mainly from the APA. Crash is busted open. They’ve taken the clock off the screen now because they want us to have to think I guess. Crash, ever the lunkhead, tries to jump the future Big Daddy V.
The crowd is kind of dead as they’re just hitting each other with weapons here. Bradshaw is like screw it and starts beating the tar out of people. Hardcore gets two on Viscera after a shot with a trashcan lid. Ten minutes left as JR says these guys won’t forget their first Wrestlemania. I’m not sure how many this is their first for. Taz is I think and that might be it. Funaki maybe?
We haven’t had a fall in like four minutes. 2/3 of the Posse and Viscera are in the ring now with Thrasher. Viscera beats everyone up with a cookie sheet. Farrooq comes in as Viscera climbs the ropes for no apparent reason. The APA get a double slam which doesn’t really keep him down. They throw Kai En Tai on top of Viscera and Funaki is called the new champion.
Taka immediately smacks him upside his head and the chase is on! Funaki proves to be the most intelligent guy here as he’s trying to run. With a little under seven minutes left some of the Posse catches him in the back and Rodney steals the title. Abs gets a freaking suplex and gets the title. That was a 24 second title reign for those keeping count. Thrasher rams Joey into a wall and gets the title.
Thrasher then runs through a line of people who all hit him with weapons and we’re back in the arena now. Pete Gas finds a fire extinguisher and the third member of the Posse has the title now. Then Tazz grabs him and I think Pete is busted. Oh yeah he’s busted good. A T-Bone Suplex gives Taz his second reign of the night with a little over 4 minutes left.
Hardcore gets two after ramming him into the steps. Crash is busted BAD. Taz tries to pin Mosh as I guess instincts took over or something. Taz keeps kicking out. Both Hollies fight Taz in the ring with Crash not being able to do much at all. ECW chant starts up and we’re under three minutes. Taz stands alone and covers Crash with two and a half minutes to go. Eh it’s not a big deal. As a wrestler I guess you’re trained to go for covers.
The Hollies beat Crash down and both guys try for the pin. Naturally they end up fighting which is what they do in that family I guess. With two minutes left Taz suplexes Crash and Hardcore gets a powerslam on Taz for two. I love how no one else has seemed to care about trying to win the title and is just fighting. Taz suplexes Hardcore and he hits the floor, stealing JR’s candy jar.
Now we get to the weird part of this. Crash gets a weapon shot in on Taz and wins the title with about 20 seconds to go. Taz grabs the Tazmission but Hardcore comes in with the candy jar and busts it over Taz’s head (legitimately injuring Taz’s eye and costing him the push that would ultimately go to Chris Benoit). He covers Crash and the referee just doesn’t slap the mat for three.
What was supposed to happen was the clock was supposed to go out with Hardcore having a 2.99999 count. They messed up the timing though and the referee had to stop. They further messed things up by having Fink say Hardcore won the title while JR screams that there was a shoulder up. Totally not the planned ending but you have to do what you have to do.
Rating: C+. What were you expecting here? The idea makes sense and given what’s going on, the mistake at the end is very excusable in my mind, and since this is my review of the show, it’s excusable. It was wild and stupid, and that’s just fine. The match was fun and that’s all that really matters.
Video on Axxess. That still looks awesome. They have a small arena with matches going on, a commentary booth where you can sit down with Michael Cole and call a match, race cars, autograph booths, a Hall of Fame exhibit. Austin and HBK, two guys that weren’t active at this time, are there too. I’d love to go to something like that.
Al Snow is in the bathroom talking to someone in a stall but Steve Blackman is worried about what he’s planning.
We go from that to an extreme closeup of Trish’s ample chest as she says WM is going to see some T & A.
Test/Albert vs. Al Snow/Steve Blackman
This was a really weird angle in the tag division as Snow and Blackman were doing the odd pairing that won almost every match they had, but Snow insisted that they needed a name which didn’t go that well. Test and Albert were guys that Trish had handpicked to be her team. What you have to remember here about Trish is at the time, she wasn’t a wrestler and was nothing more than the hot manager. It wasn’t for about two more years before she and Lita took the division to new heights.
As for the match, before it we get Al Snow talking. One of the names he was pitching was Head Cheese, going along with his Head gimmick. Out comes Chester McCheesyton, a walking piece of cheese. Sadly enough, I’m not making that up. Trish leads their opponents down, but is WAY more muscular than when she started wrestling. If this is believable, she let herself go physically before she started wrestling.
Lawler messes up the headsets and JR is gone for a bit. Blackman and Test start but it’s off to Snow soon thereafter. Blackman tries to keep the Head Cheese chants down as this filler match goes on. This is a good show later on but these opening matches are pretty freaking bad all things considered. I’m watching Al Snow and Steve Blackman at Wrestlemania. Let that sink in for a bit.
Oh and JR is back now. It breaks down quickly as you can tell JR has nothing to work with here at all. There’s no point in talking about the match as it’s just about getting us to the end and that’s all there is to it. The cheese hits on Trish and is named Chester the Molester. Albert gets beaten down for awhile as this is one of the least interesting matches I’ve ever seen. This is what Raw and Smackdown are for.
Did I mention that this match is terribly boring? It’s one of those matches where stuff is happening in the ring but nothing matters at all. Crowd is DEAD here. It doesn’t help that the wrestling is boring. Double powerbomb to Snow gets two. There’s the boring chant. Bowling shoe tendency line by Ross. Head Cheese’s finishing move, the move that the Smoking Guns called the Sidewinder, gets two. FINALLY Albert gets a press slam on Blackman and the elbow from Test ends it.
Rating: F. Thank goodness it’s over. This was one of the least interesting matches I’ve ever seen and somehow it’s nearly an hour into the show. Just a terrible match all around and everyone knew it. Get on to whatever is next please.
The “good guys” beat up the cheese dude post match.
We get a horrible segment of Kat and Mae Young where Kat is sitting in a chair sans clothing and Mae keeps handing her things that cover up certain parts. Austin Powers was very big at this time and it’s supposed to be like that I think.
The Dudleys, still in their original AWESOME mode, say they’ll win and even though the odds are against them they’ll take things to a new level. These two more or less saved the division.
Tag Titles: Edge/Christian vs. Hardy Boys vs. Dudley Boys
This was before the name TLC was coined, but it’s the same thing with a bigger emphasis on the ladders. Edge and Christian were still chasing the belts at this point and the Dudleyz are the defending champions. At this time, the Dudleyz were so over it’s mind blowing and they were easily the biggest tag team in the world. There’s no backstory here other than they’ve been feuding over the belts and E/C and the Hardys have had ladder matches before. These matches never have much backstory but they don’t need to.
The Dudleys climb a ladder and pose during their entrance so the other two teams start fighting without them. All six guys brawl in the aisle until Matt and Christian hit the ring. Matt and Jeff look A LOT alike here so I’ll likely get them mixed up at least once or twice. These matches are very hard to call so it’s likely that I’ll miss something.
Bubba beats on Jeff in the ring until Jeff gets what would become known as Whisper in the Wind to reverse. Bubba Bomb and Bubba rules the ring. That may never be said again forever. The fans want tables as Christian goes up the ladder early. Matt saves as the ladders are brought in quickly. Crowd is surprisingly quiet here but after the first three matches they had to sit through I can understand that.
We start the violence though and the fans wake up a good bit. Ladders are rammed into people and pain is caused. Matt gets the screaming…elbow onto D-Von onto the ladder. Jeff tries a 450 onto Bubba onto the ladder but the fat country boy moves and Jeff nearly kills himself again. In other news, the sun came up today. Bubba actually hits the backsplash off the middle rope but hits his head on the ladder. FREAKING OW MAN!
Matt’s entire body is crushed by a ladder and then the same thing happens to Edge. They’re doing a lot more with the ladders here. Bubba does the Terry Funk spot as he spins around with the ladder around his neck. Edge/Christian beat on D-Von for awhile and then sit up a ladder in front of the ropes. Christian dives off and takes out Matt and Bubba. Nice dive indeed.
Jeff goes up but Edge dives off the top rope to spear him down. Oh man would that be topped by about a thousand next year. Edge takes a Crucifix Bomb from Matt off the ladder. Christian throws a ladder at D-Von. Why do stuff that is too complicated I guess? Three ladders set up now but Bubba takes Christian down with the Cutter off the ladder. SWEET spot.
The Hardys kill Bubba with the legdrop/splash combo off ladders. D-Von and Christian in the ring now but here’s Edge. The Canadians get a double suplex off the ladder in a great spot. Everyone but the Dudleys go up and everyone but the Dudleys crash down. And here comes Bubba! Here they go again, this time with all six of them.
Christian and Jeff go flying over the top rope to the floor as do Matt and Edge. Those Dudleys wind up in the ring somehow but they’re a bit dead at the moment. Christian staggers to his feet and is sandwiched between two ladders. The look on his face in short says “That hurt a LOT!” Old school 3D to Edge, which is where Bubba runs parallel to him and then crosses over to catch Edge in the cutter in stride. It’s an awesome move when done right.
The Dudleys don’t have their catchphrase yet so they just get the tables. With two ladders already in the ring the ring, the Dudleys set up a table on top of them like a bridge/platform between them. The Hardys are back now to surprising booing. To the floor we go and Matt is slammed into the steps and HARD. This has been an incredibly physical match to say the least.
There’s a table in the ring in front of a ladder with D-Von on said ladder and a table in front of the announce table. Matt goes on the one in the ring and Jeff is in a powerbomb position in Bubba’s hands on the announce table. In stereo, D-Von dives onto Matt and Bubba powerbombs Jeff in a cool sequence. Jeff somehow gets up soon thereafter and tries his barrier run but Bubba PELTS the ladder at him to stop Jeff in midair which looked sweet again. Jeff has taken a man’s beating in this.
And now it’s time to set up the big spot in this match as Bubba debuts the super ladder in the aisle. There’s a table set up in front of it and Jeff gets laid out on it. Christian comes up with the bell to clock Bubba. Jeff gets off the table as Bubba is laid on it. And he begins to climb. In the HOKEY SMOKE spot of the match, Jeff jumps off the ladder and half kills himself with a Swanton Bomb through Bubba through the table. That was the top of Jeff’s highlight reel for a long time.
Back in the ring with D-Von kind of alive. Matt and Christian are in there too and are trying to stand. Twist of Fate takes D-Von down and Matt and Christian both start climbing. They get up on the platform but Edge is climbing up behind Matt. Edge throws him off and through a table which explodes on impact. The Canadians grab the belts and win their first tag titles to finally end this.
Rating: B+. This was a great match but there are a lot of dead spots in there. Jeff is easily the star of this match as he took one of the best beatings you’ll ever see with huge bump after huge bump. Somehow this would be topped the next year and this match would be blown out of the water. Great match and definitely picked up a bad show so far. I liked it quite a bit but somehow next year’s was that much better.
In the back we have Linda McMahon with Mick Foley. I forgot to mention, the idea behind the main event is that there’s a McMahon in every corner. Stephanie and HHH, Vince is backing Rock, Linda brought Mick back in, and Shane was Big Show’s manager for lack of a better term. Foley, with washed hair, says his fairy tale will come true, not his opponents.
JR and King talk about how great the ladder match was and they’re right. Considering that almost nothing like this had ever been done with so many people, this was beyond great.
Terri vs. The Kat
Val Venis is the guest referee here. To cover up the fact that neither can wrestle, the only thing you have to do here is throw the other girl out of the ring. Val’s pre match promos are always great. Apparently he and WM have things in common: they’re large extravaganzas, they get blood pumping, but unlike Val, Mania only comes once a year. And people have the nerve to wonder why the Attitude Era scared away parents.
Terri has Moolah with her and Kat has Mae Young. This is one of the major problems with great matches: after them, you get stuff like this. Terri truly was ugly to me. Val makes out with both in the middle of the match as this continues to cry out for someone to save the division. Terri gets thrown out but Mae is kissing Val. She comes back in and Terri wins. Afterwards, Kat strips Terri of her pants.
Rating: F. Didn’t care at all and it was terrible. A complete waste of time and an insult to my intelligence. It was like two minutes long and awful to say the least.
In the back we see Eddie, Saturn and Malenko getting ready to face Too Cool and Chyna. Eddie has a crush on Chyna but can’t get her attention.
Chyna/Too Cool vs. The Radicalz
This feud went on forever and no one cared. Let’s get this over with. All I have to remember is that the triple threat is next. That should get me through this. Oh well at least Chyna looks pretty good here. I’ll give Too Cool this: their music is downright catchy. Scotty vs. Eddie starts us off here. Eddie gets beaten down a bit and we get some dancing.
Chyna is tagged in and Eddie literally runs away on his knees. Dean, the Light Heavyweight Champion is here now. JR thinks Chyna looks hot. That’s just wrong on so many levels. Grandmaster and Chyna hit a double suplex on Malenko. Hey look: more dancing. Is that all Too Cool could do? Back to Eddie who avoids the top rope legdrop. Ok so it was more like Saturn shoved Grandmaster off but work for me here.
Grandmaster vs. Saturn at the moment. Saturn steals Grandmaster’s head gear complete with dreadlocks or whatever that is. Back to Eddie who takes over for a bit and it’s cold tag to Scotty. Eddie keeps trying to get Chyna’s attention which fails completely. Since she isn’t paying enough attention she gets her head rammed into the post. Good. Witch deserved it.
Saturn and Malenko get beaten up by Scotty and it’s time for the Worm. Oh but since it’s Mania it’s a double Worm to both Radicalz not named Eddie. Everything breaks down a bit as we’re still waiting on Eddie vs. Chyna. Nice superkick by Saturn to Scotty as we’re in a bit more of a standard match now. Elbow hits Scotty from the top for no cover.
Off to Eddie but he can’t get the Frog Splash off. Scotty drills him and it’s a superplex to put both guys down. There’s the hot tag to Chyna and Eddie can’t run away fast enough. Handspring elbow to Saturn as Chyna is cleaning house. Double low blow and Eddie drills Chyna. Chyna counters a powerbomb and gets a bad one of her own. She grabs Eddie’s balls and then gets a sleeper drop for the pin. They would be together the following night.
Rating: D. Well Chyna looked good and she got to beat on Eddie. That’s the extent of the good stuff about this match. It’s nothing special to say the slightest and is yet again another pointless match on this show in a long streak of them. Again though, the triple threat is next. Keep repeating that.
That day there was a thing called All Day Long which was an 8 hour countdown of WM history that cost an extra 50 dollars. Our cable company screwed up and we got It for free. Anyway the point of this is there was a contest with the winner getting front row seats and the winner is shown. She and her husband are the definition of white trash but it’s kind of a cool idea. They’re from Allentown, Pennsylvania, hometoiwn of the Nasty Boys as I show my nerdiness.
Shane tells us how awesome Big Show is. Show says he’s awesome and will take apart the other three.
Bob Backlund who is kind of Angle’s mentor made the match with both titles being defended in the same match/back to back. Kurt kind of goes insane and puts Backlund in the crossface chickenwing even though you can tell there’s no pressure on the arm. One of the medals breaks during this scuffle.
Angle talks to a security guard to try to get some extra security, offering autographs as payment. Much funnier than it sounds.
Intercontinental Title/European Title: Kurt Angle vs. Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit
This is the match that everyone remembers from this show as well as being a very cool concept. Angle has both the European and Intercontinental titles and is defending both in back to back triple threat matches. The first fall is for the IC title and immediately thereafter the European Title match starts. With these three, are you expecting less than greatness?
The brilliance behind this is that even if one has a bad night, the other two are there to cover for them. Jericho is clearly having a blast on the mic here and says he’ll win something and be the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah no matter what. Angle is still the goofball heel which is some of the best stuff I can ever remember. Him being less than a year into his pro career is insane.
Speaking of insane, Benoit jumps him on the floor and the fight is on. They seem to be attacking Angle together for the most part but he fights them off somewhat. Benoit vs. Jericho now as this is rather fast paced. With Benoit and Angle on the apron, Jericho hits his springboard dropkick to take them both out to the floor. There’s a really annoying kid in the audience that is shouting about everything that’s said. Granted that’s not a terrible thing as that’s what fans are supposed to do.
Ross says Angle is great but talks about himself too much. Lawler: “So does Jericho.” Ross: “That’s a good point King. Maybe later you’ll make another.” No one ever accused JR of being the nicest guy in the world. Jericho is knocked off the top out to the floor where he slams into the table in a painful looking bump. Angle gets a snap suplex on Benoit for two.
Jericho knocks Angle to the floor and locks in a camel clutch to Benoit. This is too fast paced to call everything and they keep going back and forth. Jericho suplexes Angle and Benoit almost steals a pin. Then he does something stupid and tries to suplex Kurt. I think you get what winds up happening to Jericho. Benoit is sent to the floor and in some slick counters Angle gets a crossface chicken wing on Jericho.
Benoit manages to get a dropkick to Angle to break it up at the last second. He throws Angle into the crowd and hits the swan dive to Jericho for the pin and the Intercontinental Title. In a smart move Benoit tries to immediately cover Jericho but Angle breaks it up. All three are back in there now and Angle’s moonsault is crotched.
Angle is up top and Jericho tries a belly to back suplex. Benoit drills Jericho and suplexes him instead. Angle tries the moonsault to Benoit but crashes and everyone is down for a count. After some covers Jericho grabs the Walls on Angle but Benoit breaks it up. Angle wakes up and hammers away but Jericho takes him and Benoit down with relative ease. Double powerbomb to Angle but Benoit saves again. Rolling Germans by Benoit to Jericho get two as well.
Benoit goes old school with a Dragon Suplex to Kurt. Angle’s shoulder might have been up on the bridge so Jerry screams conspiracy. Jericho misses the forearm and drills the referee with it. Crossface goes on and Jericho taps but there’s no referee. Walls of Jericho to Benoit but still no ref. Angle drills Jericho with a belt to break it up which only gets two. Benoit misses the Swan Dive to Angle so Jericho hits his fellow Canadian with the Lionsalt for the European Title to end this.
Rating: A. This was great stuff indeed with all three guys working incredibly hard the entire time. It’s also a good way to get the titles off of Kurt without hurting his reputation. He would be world champion in the fall so he doesn’t have much to complain about. Excellent match and probably their best matches up to this point.
Vince is in the back with Cole as apparently the four way can only have eliminations via pinfall and it’s No DQ. For a multi-man match, that’s the best way to go. Vince says the McMahons won’t be a factor. That’s why they were the focal point of the match right? Vince says he’ll “make it right.”
HHH says he will not lose.
Kane/Rikishi vs. X-Pac/Road Dogg
This is pure filler before the title match, but there’s a story to it at least. DX is accompanied by Tori who is Kane’s ex. She was his first relationship and left X-Pac, allegedly because Kane wasn’t big enough for her. She’s pure sexuality and while she’s not the most famous or attractive diva, she’s one of the sexiest. The name Pete Rose is thrown around here as he might want a piece of Kane after two years of getting beaten up. Kane has been chasing X-Pac for months and this is about the best shot he ever got at him.
Well if nothing else we get the awesome Kings of Rock theme for DX. The more I see of Jesse James, the more I’m impressed. We now get Rikishi. Oh yay, it’s Rikishi. GOOD GRIEF I HATED THIS GUY. People, you want to complain about JBL being useless? This is the epitome of useless. If you remember earlier on I said there was no Austin. He was out getting neck surgery so the reason given was that he was run over by a car at the Survivor Series. No one knew who was driving it or who was behind it.
Austin comes back in the fall from being out nearly a year and the man hunt begins. Who was it? HHH, Rock, Vince, maybe even one of the new guys like Jericho or Benoit, looking to make a name for themselves? Nope. It’s Rikishi, the 400lb, thong wearing, dancing sumo wrestler. He debuted about a week after Austin was run over and while Austin was out, Rikishi rose to the IC title in a decent run and hit amazing popularity.
Then in the worst move I can ever remember, he’s revealed as the mastermind of the plot to attack Austin. They have a match and finally everyone realizes the massive problem: Austin can’t beat Rikishi up the way he usually does others because he’s too fat.
No one buys into Rikishi as the big bad he was supposed to be, so WWF pulled the blug at the last minute and said Rikishi was working for HHH, making him the true evil one. Rikishi was gone soon thereafter, thank goodness. Anyway, Kane comes out to end my hate filled rant. Paul Bearer in the red suit is just sweet looking for some reason.
Bearer and Tori get into an argument so DX double teams Rikishi. Kane has the inverted colors tonight which is awesome. Stinkface to Road Dogg as I think we have a comedy match on our hands. Stinkface to Tori is avoided to big booing. DX tries to run which doesn’t work at all. Kane finally gets his hands on X-Pac.
We finally get back in the ring and Pac kicks Rikishi’s head off. Pac vs. Rikishi is how we finally start it up. Bronco Buster by Pac and it’s off to Roadie. Pac in again and he can’t do anything. Rikishi hits a one man 3D and it’s off to Kane. Road Dogg gets his head kicked off and Tori is thrown in. Stinkface for her and a Tombstone for X-Pac ends it quickly.
Rating: D+. Well for what it was supposed to be this was fine. Keeping it short was a great thing as this barely broke four minutes. Kane gets his revenge, we get the comedy stuff, Tori looked good, and then we get what the whole point of this is about: the post match stuff.
Too Cool comes out to dance but the San Diego Chicken comes out like last year. Rikishi comes in to kill the chicken but is intercepted by some yellow sunglasses. Somehow the dancing gets the best pop of the night. The chicken can move and it’s pretty clear that’s not Rose. Kane goes after the chicken but Pete Rose comes in.
Chokeslam to Rose and Paul Bearer does the crotch chop to him. Rose gets a Stinkface to FINALLY end this. I know it’s stupid, I know it’s childish, I know it’s idiotic, but I absolutely love these Pete Rose segments. The guy is having fun and gets beaten up three straight years and it’s still awesome. I loved these things and they still make me smile. Kane’s pyro is louder than usual and it made me jump a bit.
Rock says his time is now and he’s taking the title back. This is serious Rock and it works very well.
Some celebrities are here.
Quick recap of the title match. HHH was WWF Champion so he’s explained. He was feuding with Cactus Jake and retired him at No Way Out. As a favor to him in real life, WWF brought him back in for one final match so he could live out his dream of main eventing a Wrestlemania. Since he was officially retired, if he wins here he vacates the title and a tournament starts that ends at next month’s Backlash.
Rock was the last man out of the Rumble, eliminating Big Show. However, Big Show produces a video showing that Rock’s feet hit the ground before Show’s, so Show officially won. Rock had signed the contracts though, so he couldn’t be taken out but Show could be added, leading to all four being in here. Also remember the McMahon in every corner aspect (Linda – Mick, Stephanie – HHH, Vince – Rock, Shane – Big Show).
WWF World Title: Rock vs. HHH vs. Mick Foley vs. Big Show
Foley comes out first and you can tell he’s choked up. This was classy of WWF to let him have one last time and to let him accomplish his dream like this. It’s clear that the McMahons are the focal point here and is anyone really surprised by that? Big ovation for Rock here as this totally should have been Rock vs. HHH. I get the Foley addition, but did anyone want to see Big Show in there? I miss HHH’s My Time music. That was awesome.
HHH was at the absolute peak of evil here and he looks like a tough guy. If Stephanie’s hair didn’t look absurd, that bareback pink top and leather pants would work a lot better. HHH doesn’t quite have the water spit down yet. Here we go. Foley vs. HHH and Rock vs. Big Show to start. No tagging here of course. They say fatal fourway but it’s elimination. Foley is out of shape here as he more or less stopped training after No Way Out but to be fair he thought he was done.
Show beats down Rock and takes down the other guys with a double clothesline. Press slam to Rock which is incredibly impressive. Same to HHH. Foley jumps on his back so Show just drops backwards with him. Well why do something other than what works? Rock gets up and hammers away but a side slam takes care of that.
Show tries a chokeslam on HHH but Foley kicks him low. Foley and HHH hammer away on the Giant as does Rock. A trio of clotheslines put him down and they do a Horsemen stomp. Foley drills HHH out of instinct and they hit the floor via a Cactus Clothesline. Chair to the ribs of HHH as Shane trips Rock. Foley blasts Show in the back with a chair and a Rock Bottom puts Show out less than five minutes in. Was there ANY point to him being there? He would be a face in like a week which was good for him and us as we got THE SHOWSTER.
HHH tries to ally himself with Foley to get rid of Rock. That fails so HHH tries to ally himself with Rock to get rid of Foley. Take a guess as to what happens next. The double teaming of HHH goes on for awhile and we go out to the floor. Foley hands Rock the bell but HHH ducks and the bell hits Foley in the head instead. Out of nowhere Mick finds the 2×4 wrapped in barbed wire, drawing a big pop from the crowd.
HHH gets a low blow to save himself and gets the 2×4 for a shot to Foley’s ribs. Rock back in now and the 2×4 is dropped to the floor. Rock is sent to the floor and Foley gets a double arm DDT on HHH. It’s Mr. Socko time and the Claw goes on. Rock grabs the belt and blasts HHH so he can set for the People’s Elbow. Surprisingly though Foley grabs the Claw on Rock, only for the Rock N Sock Connection to take a double low blow to put all three down.
Rock vs. Foley for a bit now as Foley gets some near falls with the double arm DDT getting the closest one. Vince slid a chair in earlier but Foley gets it. Rock kicks it into his face though and then hammers away. He gets a DDT on Foley but HHH breaks it up, causing confusion from the announcers. Foley makes a deal with HHH to get rid of the Rock and the double team is on to huge booing.
Out to the floor where the double teaming continues. Mick gets reversed and his knees crash into the stairs. Those same stairs are rammed into the head of the Rock by Foley to keep Rock down. Rock is put on the Spanish Announce Table so Foley can go to the middle rope for the elbow. The problem is that he couldn’t jump that well and slams chest first into the side of the table, legitimately injuring his sternum.
HHH gets all mad and drops two jumping elbows onto Rock to break him through the table. Back in the ring Foley takes the Pedigree for a long two and a big pop. HHH shoves the referee down and then kills Foley with a chair to the head. Pedigree on the chair and Foley didn’t wrestle again for four years. Rock vs. HHH now for the title, but do you really think Foley is leaving that easily? He comes back and blasts HHH in the head with the barbed wire so that Rock can get two.
Rock clotheslines HHH to the floor and remember it has to end by pinfall. Out to the floor now and we go up the aisle. Rock gets a suplex up by the entrance in a cool looking crash landing. All Rock here. Into the crowd they go and then it’s back to ringside. Rock grabs the steps but HHH pops him with a chair so that the steps hit Rock in the head and fall on his chest. HHH hammers the steps with the chair. A Piledriver on the steps kills Rock but only gets two back in the ring. Big pop for that kickout.
Both finishers are countered with the Pedigree being backdropped to the floor. We go into the crowd again as it’s pretty clear they’re killing time before the finish. Back to the ring area and HHH smacks the hat off the head of an annoying fan. Spinebuster (called a takedown by Ross) on the floor by Rock puts both guys down.
We head to the announce table with Rock suplexing HHH onto the English announce table. You can tell it’s a big match when the American table is busted too. HHH gets a drop toehold to the steps to put Rock down. For some reason he gets in HHH’s face and Vince kicks some Game teeth i. Shane is back now and beats down Vince a bit.
Shane hits Vince in the head with a monitor and the look on Stephanie’s face that we cut to is perhaps the most unintentionally funny things you will ever see on WWE television. Stephanie is a lot of things. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s gorgeous, she’s sexy, she’s a great TV character, but she cannot act to save her life and this is one of those instances. She looks like the guy from Troll 2 if that gives you any indication of how stupid she looks here.
Anyway, Vince somehow pops up from a monitor shot to the head within 20 seconds and goes after Shane. Keep in mind that this sequence, which has gone on for like two minutes now, is happening during THE MAIN EVENT OF WRESTLEMANIA. Yes, The Rock vs. HHH, perhaps the greatest feud of the Attitude Era other than Vince vs. Austin and the feud that would carry the comfpany to unthought of levels in 2000 isn’t enough as we need to focus on the McMahons and their drama. This is why this match and show are considered weak: it was about the McMahons and that’s it.
Shane manages to crack Vince’s head with the chair to put him down. They’ve literally not had the camera on HHH or Rock or the ring for three minutes now. They’re in the ring salsa dancing for all I know. Vince is busted open and taken to the back. There’s a trickle of blood which JR is saying is flowing by the quart.
HOLY GOODNESS IT’S WRESTLING TIME! Rock hammers on HHH and gets a DDT for two. Rock gets a slam for two as Shane has a chair on the floor. HHH gets a facebuster and drills Rock in the head with the 2×4. Shane in now but the reversed Pedigree sends HHH flying into Shane. Rock Bottom but Rock is spent. Shane is up with the chair now but here’s Vince as AGAIN it’s all about the McMahons. Shane goes down, Vince gets the chair, turns on Rock (SHOCKING!), chair to Rock, kick out, HHH gets the chair and drills Rock with it for the pin.
Rating: D+. Well let’s see. First of all, WAY too much focus on the McMahons. Second, this should have been Rock vs. HHH. That’s all there is to it. Also, a fatal fourway elimination match in the main event of Wrestlemania? That sounds like something from a video game. Also, when does a heel win in the main event of Wrestlemania? It’s supposed to be a feel good moment and that simply didn’t happen here. No clue what they were thinking here but it didn’t work like at all.
Vince and Stephanie reunite post match. Rock gets up and all three McMahons take Rock Bottoms. Stephanie gets a People’s Elbow after hers and it looked like Rock grabbed something when he was getting up for it.
Overall Rating: D. This was….bad. The show itself is mostly watch, but THIS IS WRESTLEMANIA. This isn’t Judgment Day….scratch that as Judgment Day in 2000 was great. This isn’t some WCW show where watchable is a good night. WWF was incredible in 2000 and this is probably the weakest show of the year by far.
I have no idea what the thought process was here but it certainly didn’t work at all. There are two good matches here and more importantly, not one singles match. What the heck were they thinking here? That’s a very good question that I don’t think has ever gotten an answer. Terrible show overall and it just didn’t work, especially for Mania.
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Monday Night Raw
Date: March 19, 2012
Location: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole
We’re almost to Wrestlemania but first of all we have to go through the scariest place on the planet in wrestling: Philly. Cena is likely to get crucified here although I’m not sure if Rock is scheduled for tonight or not. I do know that Michaels, HHH and Undertaker are all scheduled to be in the ring at the same time though. Not much else to say other than that so let’s get to it.
Theme song opens us up.
Rock is indeed here tonight.
We open with Punk coming to the ring with a full introduction. That’s not something you hear that often anymore but ok. Before he talks we get a clip from last week with the Jericho talk about Punk possibly becoming an alcoholic. Punk talks about how last week Jericho told the world that Punk’s father is an alcoholic. He says he feels like he’s not wearing any clothes in front of the world. Punk talks about how everyone has been affected by alcohol somehow.
He’s not going to allow Jericho to convince kids everywhere that because their life sucks they’re going to turn to the bottle. Punk may have alcoholism in his genes but the addiction in him is going to become Jericho’s problem. Punk says that Jericho left out the ending where Punk’s dad overcame his demons. He’s proud of his father and he’s proud of being straightedge. Alcoholism is an obstacle but he finds ways around obstacles. His next obstacle is Chris Jericho, and at Wrestlemania he’s going straight through him.
Punk is about to leave when Jericho pops up on the monitor. He’s not here tonight and is in a suit. Jericho sounds somber here and says this is Chris, not Jericho with no bravado and no fancy jacket. He crossed the line last week and he’s sorry. Jericho will never say anything else about Punk’s father on this show again. However, he’ll talk about Punk’s sister’s substance abuse problems quite a bit. Punk freaks out while Jericho talks about Punk’s sister being a drug addict. That means Punk is pre-disposed to being addicted. Punk drops a bunch of censored words and yells at Jericho. Good segment.
Kane vs. Big Show
Before the match we get a highlight reel of Show at Mania from Cody Rhodes. Cody has on boxing gloves at ringside. Show takes him down quickly and goes to the middle rope, but Cody gets on the apron. Show shoves him off and Kane chokeslams Show off the ropes for the pin at 49 seconds.
Post match Cody hits the Beautiful Disaster. He handcuffs Show to the ropes and pounds on him with the boxing gloves. Show yells at Cody to run, which Cody does despite Show being cuffed. They get him freed but Show is all messed up from getting beaten on.
Santino Marella vs. David Otunga
We start with a posedown and Santino has abs painted on. He hurts his leg posing so Otunga hammers away. Santino comes back with his usual and loads up the Cobra. Ace slides in his phone for some reason so Santino stomps on it. He walks into Otunga’s spinebuster, putting the champion at 0-2 in his last two matches on Raw since winning the thing. The match ran about 1:45. I’m REALLY getting tired of these losses for champions.
Teddy slaps Ace post match and runs off so he can dance on the stage.
Lord Tensai (A-Train) is coming.
Rock is in front of the Rocky statue and says this is the city with a fighting spirit. We get a picture of him at 12 years old posing in front of the statue. Rock talks about training to become an icon and watching the first Wrestlemania and then Wrestlemania 6. He loved the Warrior. He had no idea what Warrior was talking about, but then again no one did. Then at Wrestlemania 15, right here in Philadelphia, Rock main evented his first Wrestlemania….and he got Stunned and lost.
Then Rock went on to beat Austin and Hogan at Wrestlemania, and that leaves just one person: John Cena. Tonight, Rock is coming to the arena and he’s going to send Cena a message. If Cena doesn’t get that message, Rock is going to get back in his car and drive to Pat’s (famous Philadelphia cheese steak place) and say that he wants it both with and without (it’s a Pat’s thing). That way he can turn it sideways, and I think you know the rest. Then all the greats will say bang bang, WOO and from up above, oh yeah. Rocky is going to eat lightning, crap thunder, and layeth the smacketh down. Rock continues to be better on location.
Daniel Bryan vs. Zach Ryder
We get a clip from earlier today with Ryder holding a rally to become part of Team Teddy. Ryder has black trunks now. AJ looks GREAT tonight. Ryder controls and hits the Broski Boot but the Rough Ryder is countered into the LeBell Lock for the tap at 1:45.
Flo Rida is going to play Rock to the ring.
John Cena vs. Mark Henry
Henry throws Cena around a few times to start including once to the floor. Back in and Cena is down again, this time off a failed shoulder. Henry knocks him into the corner using the power. Back to the floor and Henry won’t let him back in. He rams Cena into the barricade and yells at him as we go to a break. Back with Cena breaking free of a hold but getting run over quickly. Splash gets two. They talk about the car accident and imply Cena is off a step because of it. Cena avoids a charge in the corner and hits a belly to back to set up the Shuffle. AA and the Slam fail but the second AA gets the pin at 8:11.
Rating: D+. They were keeping it purely in first gear with Henry using nothing but power. It’s sad to see him being nothing but a jobber to the stars at this point but at least he’s jobbing to the top star. Not abad match but it was pretty clear that Henry wasn’t going to have any chance here.
Post match Rock immediately comes out and lays out Henry with a Rock Bottom. He points to the catchphrase on his shirt and walks out.
We get a clip of Shawn being announced as the guest referee. We saw the acceptance of the Cell stipulations earlier.
We get clips of the Divas deal on Extra. Eve is officially Beth’s sidekick. Maria pinned Beth on Raw once. A tag match at Mania comes out of this.
Miz is in the ring to talk about…..King Kong Bundy? He talks about Bundy being in the main event of Wrestlemania in 1986 (it was 1987) and then being in a match with two little people the next year. Now Miz is going to break the record for the longest fall. He’s issued an open challenge to prove his worth to Ace.
The Miz vs. Sheamus
Slugout to start and Miz gets in a kick to the chest. Not that it matters as Sheamus takes his head off with a double ax. Miz comes back but has his low DDT countered. Fireman’s carry roll gets two. Ace and Otunga are watching in the back. Miz hooks a neckbreaker and then a chinlock but Sheamus comes back and the Brogue Kick kills Miz dead at 2:59. Nothing to see here but Cole is now calling Sheamus the Dublin Destroyer.
We recap the Jericho/Punk’s sister thing from earlier.
Orton comes out for an interview on the stage. He says he’s not responsible for Kane changing so much lately. He’s not a monster, he’s not a big red machine, he’s not the devil’s favorite demon. He’s Randy Orton….and that’s that.
Clips of an anti-bullying campaign event, which seems to be a way to get Stephanie on TV again.
Vickie introduces Dolph and Swagger as members of Team Johnny.
Dolph Ziggler/Jack Swagger vs. Kofi Kingston/R-Truth
Kofi and Jack start and Kofi gets double teamed into trouble. Aksana is out here for some reason. Off to Dolph who has a neckbreaker countered into a backslide for two. Dropkick gets two for Dolph. Back to Swagger who does pushups on Kofi’s back. Hot tag minus the heat brings in Truth to clean house. Swagger gets knocked to the floor and Kofi takes him down with a clothesline. Axe kick misses Dolph and the Fameasser hits (with Truth diving down before it hit him) for the pin at 4:35. Vickie shoved Truth’s foot off the rope.
Rating: D+. I really haven’t been liking this show tonight and this was another example of that. This didn’t work that well for me at all, although technically it was fine. I think it’s that I’m tired of this GM feud and there are WAY too many people involved in it, but how else are you going to get them all on the card?
Aksana and Vickie brawl after the match. Kofi’s eyes are hilarious when he pulls them apart.
We get a clip from last night at MSG where HHH used a tombstone and the Taker pin/tongue for the pin.
Time for the big in ring confrontation with HHH, Taker and Shawn. Gee, I wonder what they’re going to say. Shawn talks about how he has the end of an era in his hand, but everyone knows that’s code for end of the Streak. Taker comes out and says this match has to stay pure. HHH comes out before much else can be said and says stop worrying about Shawn and worry about HHH. It’s also not about Shawn, despite how much Shawn wants it to be.
HHH talks about the Cell and how these two have defined them. The Cell has gone from being the devil’s playground to HHH’s proving ground. I wouldn’t go that far but it’s HHH so reality is usually thrown out the window for his promos. The world will see the end of an era, and it’ll be Undertaker’s era.
HHH starts to say that he knows what it’ll take to beat Taker in the Cell, but Taker cuts him off and asks if he really knows. Taker asks if HHH is willing to put it all on the line at Mania. HHH says he is ready and he will. Does that mean Streak vs. career? It’s never stated clearly. Taker goes to leave but comes back and asks if HHH remembers when Taker said Shawn was better than HHH? Well he is. And that’s the end. Ok then.
Overall Rating: C. The show wasn’t bad, but I really got bored with it a lot of times. The problem they have is one that you have before any big show: the card is set, the feuds are made, and there’s nothing else to talk about for them. Also, what did Bryan and Sheamus do to tick off this company, because they can’t combine to get five minutes of TV time but we can get an angle for the Divas tag match? I’ll never get this company half the time. Anyway, not a great show but it could have been worse.
Results
Kane b. Big Show – Chokeslam off the middle rope
David Otunga b. Santino Marella – Spinebuster
Daniel Bryan b. Zach Ryder – LeBell Lock
John Cena b. Mark Henry – Attitude Adjustment
Sheamus b. The Miz – Brogue Kick
Dolph Ziggler/Jack Swagger b. Kofi Kingston/R-Truth – Fameasser to R-Truth
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Monday Night Raw
Date: April 4, 2005
Location: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
Attendance: 16,653
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
This is from the Raw after Wrestlemania and was a request. HHH has lost the world title to Batista last night so this is the start of a new era in a sense. Looking at the rest of the card (which is pretty short in the first place), we’ve got Edge vs. Benoit which should be good. I’m not sure what else to expect tonight so let’s get to it.
We open with a Wrestlemania recap set to Behind Those Eyes by 3 Doors Down. They’re my favorite band so I’m not complaining here. It transitions to another song that I don’t recognize. It was the show where Cena and Batista won their first world titles, plus there was the first MITB match and Angle vs. Shawn’s classic. If it ran about 45 minutes shorter, it would be one of the best ever. With that extra time though, it’s just a good show.
Here’s HHH to open the show. You know, the guy that lost last night. The Game can’t get anything in because of the Batista chants. He admits that he lost the title but goes into a huge rant about how the Batista Era isn’t beginning because he was on for one night only. HHH is great every night. You think he gives that same speech to Stephanie when she complains about things? HHH says he owns the title and the rematch is at Backlash. He’ll get the title back and ram it down all of our throats.
Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Chris Jericho
This was when Shelton was the hottest star in the company not named Cena or Batista and he’s defending the title here. I think all three of these guys were in MITB last night. Yeah they were. Thanks JR. JR then loses his credibility for this match saying Shelton won the title off Jericho a few weeks ago. He won it in November JR. Shelton and Jericho square off but Christian wants some of that. He gets punched in the face for his efforts and double teamed.
Jericho and Shelton seem to team up for a bit but that breaks down quickly. Chris controls on the champion and hits the bulldog, but he’s too banged up for the Lionsault. Christian comes back in and sends Jericho to the floor so he can work on Shelton. Off to a chinlock as the fans chant CLB. Shelton loads up a superplex on Christian but Jericho comes in to powerbomb him, making it a Tower of Doom.
Everyone is down and Jericho gets two on Christian, then two on Shelton. Jericho fires off a forearm and enziguri on Christian but covers Shelton instead for some reason. Shelton sunset flips Jericho but Christian rolls him up for two. Jericho sunset flips BOTH of them at once for two. Stinger Splash from the champion hits Jericho and the Exploder puts him down, but Tomko pulls Shelton out. Jericho hooks the Walls on Christian but Shelton comes in with a springboard bulldog (looked GREAT) to Jericho for the pin to retain.
Rating: B. I was really getting into this. The midcard was pretty awesome at this point with Shelton leading the way. Then he got lazy and stopped caring which really crippled his career. Anyway, at this point he rocked and couldn’t have a boring match if his life depended on it. When Christian and Jericho have trouble keeping up with you, that says a lot.
Edge is in the back with Bischoff and signs his contract for a world title shot. That’s the MITB contract I think. Bischoff asks if he wants to use it tonight but Edge says no, because he wants to pick his spot. Eric says you get Benoit tonight then.
Here’s Orton who lost to Taker last night. The fans chant for Undertaker and Orton says it wasn’t supposed to go that way. He talks about being chokeslammed and tombstoned last night. Orton claims a shoulder injury during the match last night and he would have reversed the Tombstone otherwise. But enough of that, because he wants to talk about Batista. He respects Undertaker but doesn’t respect Batista. Orton says he’s the future and wants Batista TONIGHT. Eric comes out and says that HHH gets the next shot because of his rematch clause. Orton says make the match tonight and Eric says ok.
Women’s Title: Christy Hemme vs. Trish Stratus
Christy looks GREAT in blue. Christy is the Divas Search winner and Lita is training her. That doesn’t make her any good in the ring but she looks great. Trish is evil here and this is a rematch from last night. Before the bell ever rings, Trish KILLS Christy with a Chick Kick and knocks her out. Lita, still injured, gets in Trish’s face and they slug it out, but Trish kicks Lita in her injured knee and puts a hold on her. Trish walks out, but DANG that kick looked great.
We get a clip from last night with Muhammad Hassan jumping Eugene and beating him up until Hogan made the save. That’s still a great moment that I still watch from time to time. By clip, I mean the whole segment.
Here’s Shawn, limping after Angle destroyed his leg last night. He talks about how he gave it everything he had last night but things didn’t end like he planned. Shawn asks for a small favor: would anyone want to see a rematch? The fans want it so Shawn says he’ll do whatever he can do to make it happen.
Cue Hassan and Daivari to get on our nerves by speaking Farsi or whatever language that is. Hassan makes fun of Shawn for losing and says Shawn fears him because he’s Arab American. Shawn takes his jacket off and Hassan calls him a loser. This starts a brawl but Shawn’s knee gives out and he gets beaten down. Hassan puts him in a camel clutch to end this.
Edge vs. Chris Benoit
Benoit has a bad left arm from last night. They brawl fairly slowly and Edge is knocked to the floor. Back in and a knee to the ribs puts Edge down. Benoit is having to fight tentatively because of the arm. Out to the floor again and Benoit fires off some chops. He slides back in and takes Edge down with a baseball slide. Coming back in, Edge drapes the arm over the top rope and Benoit is in trouble.
Edge works over the arm with a wristlock and a hammerlock. Benoit comes back with a trio of Germans, the third one being release style. He stupidly goes up but the Swan Dive misses and the arm hits the mat again. Benoit gets sent to the floor and we take a break. Back with Edge working on the arm even more. During the break Benoit tried the Crossface but the arm gave out.
Edge cranks on the arm even more but goes up and is crotched. Benoit chops him on the corner and they trade headbutts. Benoit GOES OFF and hits a huge superplex to put both guys down. Here’s the Sharpshooter which Benoit wisely pulls on with the right arm. After about two minutes, Edge finally gets to the ropes. The bandage is off Benoit’s arm. He manages the Crossface but the arm gives out so Edge can escape. He DDTs the arm and loads up the spear, but Benoit sidesteps him to send Edge into the corner, letting Chris roll him up for the pin.
Rating: B. Two matches up, both very good so far. These two were always going to give you good matches and the arm injury was a really nice story to put into the match. Benoit would never reach the level he hit the previous year but he was always good for something like this. Edge would do little for the rest of the year before cashing in the case in January.
Edge rams Benoit’s arm into the steps post match. He also beats on it with a chair.
It’s time for an infomercial by Simon Dean for the Simon System with Maven as his protege. This isn’t going to end well. Simon says (get it?) that anyone, even the people in LA, can look like Maven using his system. He says that the people here are getting fat drinking beer. I think I can hear the glass shattering from here. Yep there it is. Austin makes fun of the system and says WHAT a lot. If you won’t know where this is going, I’ve failed you.
They agree to try each others’ drinks and Simon asks for a glass. Austin has none of that so Simon holds his nose. Simon does push-ups to work off the calories of the beer. They’re wasting Austin on this? Austin says do a bunch of push-ups which Simon does. Now it’s time for Austin to try the protein shake. Austin says the shake smells awful and won’t drink it. Maven says that’s because it’s a man’s drink and throws it on Austin. Stunners and beer abound for awhile.
Orton is coming to the ring and runs into Kane who makes fnu of him for losing.
Batista vs. Randy Orton
Non-title. We get our first look at the guy that won the main event of Wrestlemania with less than eight minutes of air time left. The bell rings with less than six and a half minutes to go in the show. Orton shoves him into the corner but Big Dave powers out of it. Orton takes over and hooks a chinlock but Batista snapmares out of it.
They’re very clearly going through the motions here. Batista pounds on him and shoves him into the corner for the shoulders. He misses one though and Batista’s shoulder hits the post. Not that it really matters as he rams Orton’s face into the post. Back in the spinebuster and the Batista Bomb get the easy pin.
Rating: D. Pretty boring match here as these two never really had the big match that I think they were always expected to have. They should have had a great feud and rivalry on paper but it never really played out that way in reality. Not the worst match ever but for Batista’s first match as champion it didn’t work that well.
HHH comes out to applaud Batista to end the show.
Overall Rating: B-. The wrestling was mostly good here and the show was entertaining enough, but the main event did very little for Batista. This felt more like Austin was the main attraction or something like that. Not a bad show but there needed to be WAY more focus on Batista.
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One fall to a finish here. Kidman and Rey immediately go after Juvi despite Juvi and Rey being stablemates. Broncobuster is kind of botched as Juvi is out a bit from the corner so the impact blasts his head into the buckle which looked painful. Tony drops the term receipt which I don’t think was intentional. Some very cool double team stuff from Kidman and Rey get a pair of twos on Juventud.
Naturally we talk about Flair (in his biggest match ever) and the main event. Juvi misses his spot and Kidman has to kick out of a Rey bulldog. We hit the floor so Juvi can hit his big dive but he slips the first time which kills the pop. Guerrera tries another dive but eats four boots. This is a rather spotty match to put it mildly. Springboard Doomsday Rana to Rey gets two.
Crowd is surprisingly dead here. Guillotine legdrop from the middle rope to Rey gets two for Kidman. Nice powerbomb by Kidman gets two on Juvi this time. Tenay says we’ve had 25 near falls. It’s more like ten but points for trying I guess. The move that would become known as the 619 allows Rey to put Kidman on the floor. HUGE Asai Moonsault takes out everyone as Tony can’t tell the difference between in the ring and out of the ring for reasons of general idiocy I suppose.
This of course gets a small reaction at best. What is up with this crowd? That was a SWEET looking spot but it gets nothing. Springboard Rana puts Juvi down while Kidman is still outside. Juvi Driver is broken up by Kidman at the last second. Kidman does the Shooting Star to the floor to take out both guys and here comes Eddie, of course drawing more heat than anyone in the match. Eddie rolls a Kidman pin over for Juvi before Rey reverses it again so Kidman can retain.
Rating: C. Match was just kind of dull. I know the term spotfest is thrown around a lot but that’s what this match was. For fifteen minutes they just did high spots, which is fine but it gets a bit boring after awhile. This was an ok match but the three guys kind of made it awkward. You can only watch so much of this guy gets a cover and the third guy breaks it up before it gets repetitive. I don’t get the dead crowd at all though as the match certainly had some high spots in there.
Eddie goes off on both Latino guys after the match, saying how embarrassing they are to him. He challenges Kidman to a title match RIGHT NOW. Kidman says sure why not. Both guys are called sissies so you know they’re serious here.
Cruiserweight Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Billy Kidman
Both are more or less in street clothes here but Kidman is on purpose. Eddie dominates early until Kidman just goes off, beating the heck out of Eddie. A knee shot ends the rush and Eddie throws on a submission hold I’ve never seen before. Picture a really sloppy Sharpshooter but Eddie wraps his leg around the leg of Kidman that is pointed at an angle and also bends his arm back. Looks painful indeed.
Kidman escapes and cranks it up. This is kind of a mess in a weird way. Eddie unhooks his boot (as in a real boot and not a wrestling boot) but doesn’t take it all the way off. Ah there’s the boot straight to the head. Is that a foreign object? I wouldn’t think so. It gets two which makes it kind of pointless. Frog Splash doesn’t work as Eddie is slammed off the top.
Eddie is in one shoe and one sock as he hits a rope walk rana. The Professor, Mike Tenay, calls it a flying headscissors. It amazes me how much the announcers forget during the course of a year or so. Slingshot legdrop gets two for Kidman as this is picking up a bit. Top rope rana is blocked by Eddie and we get about the 10th interference of the match as Juvy tries to stop Kidman. Rey stops Juvi so the Shooting Star can end Eddie.
Rating: C-. This was ok but it just didn’t do it for me. This really should have just been one longer match rather than the two of them combined. I didn’t like it that well but it’s ok. Also the CONSTANT interference was just getting to me by the end. It’s also kind of annoying that this is going to be completely forgotten by the end of the night. It’s not bad but it just didn’t really do it for me. Also the dead crowd continues for some reason. Weird.
Video without words about Goldberg and Nash. At this rate you should have known this was going to go badly.
Norman Smiley vs. Prince Iaukea
Yeah….WCW didn’t really get the idea of a major show at times. Iaukea is your general islander/martial artist. Norman Smiley is currently the GM of FCW and is a very good wrestler who would get popular in about a year, instantly being depushed for his efforts. Iaukea kind of messes up a front flip to the floor as the fans are, of course, dead. Wouldn’t you be for a match like this that belongs on Saturday Night?
For once I’m glad they’re not talking about the match as the topic is Flair vs. Bischoff. Can you blame them on this case though? Tony makes it clear he WILL be biased in that match tonight so in other words everything will be fine. Smiley works the arm as the life is even further sucked out of this show. This is just boring to put it mildly. For a regular show it could be ok but on the biggest show of the year? REALLY?
Smiley does some near MMA level stuff which is rather fun to see. Prince gets a Northern Lights Suplex for two. Springboard cross body gets two for Prince as this is a rather technical match. Norman goes for the chickenwing and gets half of it on, prompting Tenay to say “I think he’s going for the chickenwing!” Norman gets the tap out with it on the second attempt to thankfully end this.
Rating: D+. Boring for the most part but technically sound. Again though, Prince Iaukea vs. Norman Smiley at Starrcade? It sounds like a REALLY low level indy midcard match. This went nowhere but we ok for what it was supposed to be. We’re 50 minutes into this show and this is all we’ve had so far. What does that tell you for later on?
Scott Hall of all people comes out in an Outsiders shirt. No music at all as he’s a guy with no organization to call his family. You know because people have to be in a group. We can’t have individuality or anything like that right? He blames himself for his actions and losses this year and says good things about Nash. He only has to prove things to himself now rather than anyone else.
We recap a clip from Nitro where Bam Bam Bigelow, who was supposed to be a huge deal, popped up and beat up Scott Hall, complete with a SURGE MACHINE! I miss that drink BADLY. There was a threeway with Nash, Goldberg and Bigelow because there’s nothing wrong with a threeway with the main event of Starrcade involved right?
Ernest Miller vs. Perry Saturn
Yep it’s another meaningless match. Why are you surprised? It’s WCW so of course having one match that means anything at all be everything for the show is just fine! Well there’s also Bischoff and Flair so that’s something at least. Miller stalls and offers Saturn a five second head start to leave and avoid pain. Naturally he turns around and takes a clothesline.
Cat runs but dives back at Saturn, falling just a few inches short. Cat is Miller’s nickname in cast that confused you. He still has his robe on too. This is what you call a comedy match as it’s Cat begging off and having to steal cheap shots. Mike randomly talks about some referee that doesn’t like Saturn so Bobby talks about Scott Steiner. Crowd is DEAD. Cat of course can only kick.
We talk about Killer Kowalski and Mad Dog Vachon in a desperate attempt to fill time since this is just horribly boring. Another kick gets two for Cat. Cat hits a big kick and calls in Sonny for a REALLY big kick but he accidentally kicks Cat. Cat kicks him and a Death Valley Driver ends this mercifully. This is one of Saturn’s biggest wins apparently.
Rating: D-. Why in the name of overrated jobbers did the Cat keep getting pushed time after time? I don’t remember anyone actually liking him or anything so he was pushed for well over a year. He went nowhere at all for one major reason: ALL HE DID WAS KICK PEOPLE. Oh wait I think he had a stupid elbow somewhere along there too. This was just boring on so many levels but hey, it’s STARRCADE so it’s awesome right?
Flair comes out to talk because he’s fine for an interview before THE BIGGEST MATCH OF HIS LIFE. He rants about how badly he’s going to destroy Bischoff. Take a guess as to how well that goes for him. Go on take a guess.
We get a video hyping up Eric Bischoff, who is a former announcer but is currently in the second biggest match on the show of the biggest show of the year. By comparison that was Batista vs. Cena for the WWE Title this year. He got fired but still had power anyway because this is WCW and continuity means nothing at all. Oh and Ric Flair had a heart attack after one of the best promos he ever did. Naturally this gets four minutes of PPV time, as in longer than the video for Rock vs. Austin II at Mania 17.
Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell come to see Konnan as we have Black and Red vs. Black and White because in the past year instead of making the NWO die they just made it split into two factions because clearly that’s what people want to see right?
Scott Norton/Brian Adams vs. Fit Finlay/Jerry Flynn
Oh sorry I must have popped in one of the Lethal Lottery shows. Yeah this can’t be an actually well run show because no one would put a match like this after two other pointless matches and absolutely kill the crowd once we had two decent matches to start things off. It would be far less funny if it wasn’t true. Note that this is Jerry FLYNN and not the actually talented Jerry LYNN.
Oh and on a side note, Nash vs. Goldberg is now No DQ. Well that came out of nowhere. In some unintentionally funny commentary Tony asks who pushed for THIS. He’s talking about the stipulations but we’re seeing Brian Adams stare down Flynn at this moment. This is of course the same Finlay that would have a leprechaun for a son. He has a big shamrock singlet (think Angle but with tights instead of shorts on his legs) that is lime green and black to go with his bleach blonde hair.
Norton is the reigning IWGP Champion for you Japan fans out there. We hit the chinlock as Tony talks about how all title matches should be no DQ. There’s a thread in there somewhere. Tony just flat out says they’re not going to talk about the match that’s going on at the moment because other matches are more important. Heenan sounds only slightly drunk so he’s improving. Cold tag to Flynn who kicks Norton a lot. And then Norton powerbombs him for the pin.
Rating: F. Do I really need to explain this one?
Bischoff comes out and talks about Flair. Yes we get it Eric: you’re in a wrestling match tonight. Oh and despite being fired he still is called the boss. His music plays twice because we NEED to hear it twice. There’s another four minutes spent on Bischoff.
We recap one of Jericho’s comedy segments, hyping up his TV Title match.
TV Title: Chris Jericho vs. Konnan
Jericho is challenging here and has pretty much zero chance of winning. He stole the belt recently as this is one of his final angles that meant anything. He would be in WWF in about eight months. He’d have a brief feud with Saturn and fight random people for like two months then just go chill in Japan for the summer and debut against Rock in the famous promo in August.
He does a rather funny rap/poem as you can see the talent as well as the total lack of caring in his eyes at this point. The only think good about Konnan’s intro is a VERY hot Stacy Keibler lookalike in a Wolfpack shirt dancing to his music. My eyes musc be deceiving me as this match actually MEANS SOMETHING. Konnan even pretending that he can out talk Jericho is hilarious.
Jericho hits a spinkick and then goes up. In a funny spot Konnan tells him to jump so Jericho does, allowing Konnan to just step aside. Once the bell rings here Jericho is just awesome with his insane over the top persona that will not shut up. It’s nice to have a guy that can back it up in the ring though. I saw him in a Superstars match against Yoshi Tatsu about three months ago and he was just hilarious. I’ve seen him differently ever since.
Lionsault gets two as Heenan is slipping further and further into flat out drunkenness. In a SICK bump, Jericho does the running springboard dive that Christian does now but lands chest and ribs first on the steps that they moved earlier. That looked and sounded awesome. Jericho counters an X Factor into the Walls for a BIG pop. He can’t get it on and he hits Konnan with the belt. Wait was the ref bumped? If so it wasn’t exactly mentioned. It only gets two anyway. Konnan hits like two moves and gets the Tequila Sunrise for the tap.
Rating: C-. That’s almost all Jericho too as he was the only interesting thing at all out there. Konnan was always a favorite of mine but this just wasn’t incredibly interesting either way. Not a bad match but at just over seven minutes and with no real heat on the match at all there was no point at all. Jericho was just flat out wasted in WCW.
The Giant is doing an interview for WCW.com and threatens to eat Lee Marshall and DDP.
Eric Bischoff vs. Ric Flair
This is billed as a much anticipated grudge match. Now remember: Flair HATES Bischoff and is a wrestler who is still sort of active while Bischoff is an ex-announcer and a businessman. In short, Eric should get in about as much offense as Vince got in on Bret at Mania (which was a good match dang it). Flair comes to the ring ticked and you know this is going to go bad.
Flair sprints to the ring after a few steps and Bischoff runs. He’s on his own here remember. There’s real life heat here and if you’re unfamiliar with it, go read my review of Nitro on September 14, 1998 where Flair reforms the Horsemen because I explain it in full detail there and don’t want to do it again. Here I’ll even give you the link:
http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showth…40#post2351840
Naturally Bischoff gets his head kicked in early on as Tony says Flair will show no emotion at all here. This is all Flair of course because Bischoff isn’t a wrestler or anything close to one. Again Tony talks about how this is his biggest match ever. Yeah this clearly trumps the cage match with Race just to name one. Bischoff fakes a knee injury and Flair doesn’t seem to be concerned.
He kicks at it of course but Bischoff gets in a kick to the side of the head and we brawl a bit on the floor. Tony actually says “anyone that follows TOURNAMENT KARATE will tell you Eric Bischoff is awesome.” Do I even have to make fun of him anymore? Flair gets fired up and gets kicked in the head again, putting him right back down. Low blow evens us up again.
Flair rips Eric’s shirt off and let the chopping begin. He shoves down the referee and it’s not like it matters. Tony: this is not about a pinfall. Keep that in mind for later. The fans are way into Flair if you didn’t guess that one. Flair goes for the Figure Four and the referee is still down. Eric gives up and here’s Hennig to give Bischoff something, and say it with me, Bischoff pins Flair. Tony FREAKS because this pinfall means a lot.
Rating: F. Again do I need to explain this? Sure why not this time. Bischoff yet again shows what was wrong with this company. Rather than letting the fans have their big and happy moment which you could tell they wanted, the feud became about HIM and getting HIM over. This was of course horrible because Bischoff got his teeth kicked in and got the win anyway. To top that the next night Flair fought Bischoff again and beat him clean. We can’t have that on the PPV though because Eric Bischoff had more to do with the successes of the company than Flair did right? Just an awful match that the fans DIED after the ending of. Absolute abomination here.
Recap of DDP vs. Giant which started when Giant cost DDP the US Title against Bret Hart. This was a pretty well done feud actually as I remember it pretty well.
Diamond Dallas Page vs. The Giant
It’s Giant’s next to last match with the company. Who do you think is winning here? DDP runs over to the internet place where you see Wrestlezone’s own Mark Madden before he meant anything. Wait…what? DDP was just awesome around this time but not quite as hot as he was earlier in the year. They spit at each other but Giant has gum and DDP has spit. We head to the floor almost immediately where Giant wins of course.
Giant works on Page’s arms which makes sense. Page can’t really do anything here due to the size of the Giant which makes sense. Page was well known for psychology and having good thinking when he was in the ring. That means just about whatever he did made sense and this is no exception. His trainer by the way: Jake Roberts. Again, that makes sense. He scratches Giant’s eyes which appears to work pretty well.
We go into a bearhug because the arms are so connected to the back right? Heenan is DRUNK now. Powerslam more or less kills Page but Giant keeps picking him up. We get bearhug redux to fill some more time. A bite to the nose gets Page out of that as this is just kind of boring. A DDT out of a hiptoss gets us back to even. Giant presses out of a pin to crush the referee.
Here’s Bret with a chair but he hits Giant by mistake. DDP low blows Bret but Giant just kind of shoves him off of him before a count. In an impressive spot DDP jumps from the apron to the top for a clothesline. Another one hits and he says Diamond Cutter. Giant grabs him by the throat and Giant NO SELLS A LOW BLOW. Ok that’s just bad awesome. He chokes Page into the corner and in an awesome spot, Page is chokeslammed out of the corner from the top rope but turns in midair and pulls Giant into a Diamond Cutter. The pin is academic as Giant is OUT. One of my favorite endings as that was smooth as silk. Page’s face when they landed was like OH SNAP DID I REALLY JUST DO THAT?
Rating: C. Match was bad but that ending is awesome. Giant knew he was gone and just didn’t care anymore at all here. DDP could more or less do no wrong at this point which of course meant he needed to wait about a year to get his shot in the main event which sucked too. This didn’t quite suck but it was close. The ending makes up for it though.
Same Goldberg vs. Nash package as earlier.
WCW World Title: Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash
Crowd barely moves for the announcement of the title match. Nash was the booker at this point but we’ll get into that later on. Face pop for Nash which we’ll also touch on later. Buffer gets one of the most overblown lines ever when he introduces Nash: “though he hails from Detroit, Michigan, his wrestling accomplishments make him a citizen of the world.” WOW. Factor in that Nash had never won the WCW Title at this point but he’s world famous don’t you know.
FAR bigger pop for Goldberg but the smoke from his pyro has filled the arena so you can barely see jack. Nash throws up the Wolfpack sign so Goldberg gets on the middle rope and yells at him. They lock up for the big showdown and it’s nothing that special. Belly to back suplex by Goldberg as we’re doing the thing where we pause after every move to go ooh and ahh. This smoke thing is getting annoying already.
LOUD Nash sucks chant. The announcers try to make this sound epic but we’re a year after Sting vs. Hogan so it’s kind of hard to do. Now Goldberg sucks but not as loudly. Nash tries a freaking cross armbreaker of all things (Alberto Del Rio’s finisher) and it’s as bad as you would expect it to be. I love that little tongue flick that Goldberg did. Spear out of nowhere which is really more of a shoulder block.
Nash punches him in the balls as he’s setting for the Jackhammer though so we’re back to even more or less. I forgot about the No DQ aspect here. Sidewalk slam works fairly well bit not as well as it’s done before, but to be fair they said Nash might have had his ribs hurt by the spear. Elbow gets two for Nash. The referee counts when Nash chokes him on the ropes because the referee is a stupid man.
Goldberg hits his sidekick to kind of reset things here. He hits a jumping spinwheel kick which was more or less awesome. Tony can’t name it of course. Disco freaking Inferno and Bigelow come down to distract Goldberg and then Scott Hall stabs Goldberg in the chest with a cattle prod or tazer or whatever to end Goldberg more or less. Jackknife ends the Streak even though Goldberg’s convulsing caused his arm to pop off the mat but whatever.
Rating: D+. The match was watchable, idiotic ending aside. This wasn’t about how bad the match was but the booking in general. Nash got a pop for the win which I think was just because they were surprised that SOMETHING happened at this show. This wasn’t much of a match but it could have been MUCH worse.
Now before we get to the overall rating, I’ll address the obvious thing here. The problem here is that while Nash got a pop for winning the title, in short, he had no business being in this match in the first place. Nash was booker at this time and made things about him rather than about what was good for the company. Goldber’s streak was something special and by having some old dude beat him, it made the streak look like something that was more luck than skill as when he met this one guy the one guy was able to figure him out rather than being better than him.
The main idea here is that the win doesn’t help anyone but Nash. It makes him look good but it doesn’t elevate anyone else at all. You couple this with the Fingerpoke of Doom 8 days later and how bad does the title picture in WCW look at this point? The whole thing is just a mess driven by the egos of guys like Nash and Hogan with Bischoff mixed in on the side. At the end, Goldberg was defeated, Sting was gone, DDP was in the midcard and the NWO dominated again. How does that benefit anyone but them? It didn’t and WCW was dead for all intents and purposes by the end of the year.
Overall Rating: D-. This show sucked and that’s all there is to it. The crowd didn’t care, the matches were mostly worthless and the booking sucked beyond belief. This is like a big thank you gift from Bischoff to all of his friends as there was almost nothing appealing here at all. When the highlight of a show is a counter to a finishing move, yuou know you’ve had a bad show. This just didn’t work well in the slightest and is one of the weakest shows pre-1999 from WCW I can ever remember. Just awful, especially considering it’s the biggest show of the year. You could see things falling apart very fast for these guys, and the worst was certainly yet to come. Awful show.
I’m sure you’ve seen it on newsboards etc. This smells kayfabeish to me. It’s too convenient for my tastes.
Thoughts on this?
ECW on TNN
Date: September 10, 1999
Location: Lost Battalion Hall, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1000
Commentators: Joey Styles, Joel Gertner
Back with episode three as we keep getting closer to Anarchy Rulz. The Dudleys are officially gone so we move into a new era. Our main event tonight is RVD vs. Jerry Lynn for the TV Title which is considered the holy grail of feuds in ECW. The matches are good but I’ve never found them to be the masterpieces that people claim that they are. Anyway, let’s get to it.
We open with a recap of the ending of last week’s show where the titles changed hands.
Opening sequence.
House show ads during Rhyno’s entrance.
Rhyno vs. Super Crazy
Before the ECWites start complaining, yes I know that’s the WWE spelling of it and that’s how I spell it. Get over it. Speed vs. power here. Crazy moves as fast as he can but his springboard moonsault press is caught in a powerslam for two. Rhyno is brand new here. He misses a charge and Crazy hits a springboard missile dropkick and a leg lariat of the same kind of two.
Gertner keeps trying to order Mexican food. Out to the floor and Rhyno is knocked into the crowd. HUGE Asai moonsault takes Rhyno out. Back in the ring and Rhyno starts up the power offense. Crazy comes back with a tornado DDT for two. Selling and being on offense for an extended period weren’t things commonly done in ECW. A moonsault gets knees and another powerslam gets two. Crazy counters a powerbomb into a rana for the pin.
Rating: C-. Not a bad match here with Crazy moving around quite well. The ECW midcard was usually very solid and this was one of their better periods. That being said, I eventually got tired of Tajiri vs. Crazy which happened for months on end. Decent little match here, although the ending was pretty weak. To be fair, Rhyno was brand new at this point so he didn’t have his whole deal down yet.
Post match Rhyno teases turning on his manager but destroys Crazy instead.
Since Tanaka and Awesome are challenging Taz for the title at the PPV, here’s their match from Heat Wave 98, which I’m copying and pasting. I’m not sure if the full version is shown on the TV show but this is the full review of if.
Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka
These two feuded for the better part of ever and Tanaka usually would win if you can believe that. Awesome was just a freak of nature to say the least. In a little known bit of trivia, Awesome is the step nephew of one Hulk Hogan. Awesome could do just about everything and jumped all over the ring like Rey Mysterio, but he was the size of Test or so. And there he goes with a huge dive over the top rope.
Tanaka gets a running start with a chair to nail Awesome in the freaking head. That looked painful. Basically all Tanaka can do is blast him with a chair. I’m not saying that’s all he’s capable of, but that that’s all he can get to work. A huge splash hits as this is rather physical. It’s not great but it’s far from bad as well. Tanaka takes a bunch of chair shots to the head but he Rises Up as the chair looks diseased.
The Awesome Bomb connects but Awesome wants to use a table instead. I hate those things. A chair shot from the top which should have killed Tanaka connects and still no cover. Tanaka escapes twice despite likely being legally dead and power bombs Awesome through the table.
I’ve officially lost this match now, as there comes a point where disbelief can’t be suspended anymore. The Roaring Elbow connects for the second time but only the first time that it was either noticed or that Awesome sold it. A tornado DDT on a chair ends it with Tanaka getting the pin.
Rating: C+. Well it was a good brawl but not much more. The amount of kickouts was just dumb near the end, as half of those bumps should have killed them. It certainly was exciting if nothing else though. The good thing is that the matches didn’t really get bad but they never really got better either. This was fun.
House show ads.
TV Title: Jerry Lynn vs. Rob Van Dam
Jerry doesn’t even get an entrance. Van Dam is champion and has been for the better part of ever, which is about accurate I believe. They slug it out to start and we get a pretty sweet gymnastics routine until a standoff. They both pose but as Rob does, Lynn kicks him to the floor. Lynn hits a HUGE dive to the floor to take Rob out and we take a break. Back with Lynn being thrown into the barricade but RVD misses the Van Daminator because Lynn comes up with the brilliant idea of throwing the chair back.
Rob hits a moonsault off the barricade to take Lynn out. Joel: “That piece of commentary brought to you by the master of the obvious.” THANK YOU! That’s what gets on my nerves about Styles: he spends so much time saying the moves we’re seeing. This isn’t radio. I know what a moonsault looks like. Back in and Van Dam drops a legdrop onto a chair onto Lynn’s face.
Van Dam comes in with his top rope kick to take Lynn down for a close two. Fonzie throws in a chair and Rob loads up Jerry for a superplex onto said chair but Jerry counters into a sunset bomb onto it for two. They do a pretty nice sequence with the chair with both guys trying to hit the other with it, ending with Van Dam dropkicking it into Lynn’s head. Van Dam’s monkey flip is countered and Jerry hits a Van Daminator of his own for two.
Lynn hits a tornado DDT onto the chair and both guys are down. A delayed cover gets two for Lynn and the chair is thrown to the side. Lynn loads up the cradle piledriver but RVD counters into a pretty good pinfall reversal sequence. That gets a standing ovation and they clothesline each other….and the Impact Players run in for the no contest.
Rating: B-. Good match here but the chair got a little annoying. That’s part of my problem with ECW in general: I get that it’s a hardcore based company, but I’d like to see some more wrestling before we get to something like that. Good match though, and it’s clear why they couldn’t give us an ending here, which is ok.
The Impact Players (Justin Credible/Lance Storm with Jason and the smoking hot Dawn Marie) say they’re more deserving to close the show than these two.
We get a highlight package of the Impact Players’ greatest hits.
Lynn vs. RVD is made again for next week and a winner is guaranteed.
House show ads end the show.
Overall Rating: C+. Another pretty decent show here. The major perk of these shows is that they’re really short, running about 45 minutes and a good deal of that is taken up by house show ads and stuff that goes by really quickly. The show was entertaining enough though so I can see why people were fans of it. Decent show.
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ECW on TNN
Date: September 3, 1999
Location: Lost Battalion Hall, New York City, New York
Attendance: 1000
Commentators: Joey Styles, Joel Gertner
This is the second episode and I honestly have no idea what’s going on at the moment. Apparently we’re coming up on Anarchy Rulz which for some reason had the main event of RVD vs. Balls Mahoney but I don’t think that was advertised before the show. You’ll hear that a lot in these reviews: the matches aren’t really planned. Let’s get to it.
ECW World Title: Taz vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri
Taz is world champion but would be gone very soon. He would be in the WWF in January. Tajiri has Corino and Victory with him in his corner. You can barely understand the announcer. I think this is non-title. Taz pounds on him to start but walks into the handspring elbow.
Tajiri kicks him in the head and this is for the title. Ok then. Tajiri tries the Tarantula but gets countered into what we would call the Alabama Slam. Head and arms Tazplex and Taz spits in Tajiri’s face. They slug it out and Taz hooks a capture Tazplex to kill Tajiri. Taz hits the crossface shots but gets kicked in the head for two. Tajiri tries a big kick but Taz ducks and the Tazmission ends this quick.
Rating: C-. Nothing great here but the crowd LOVED Taz. That being said, he would lose the title at the PPV to Mike Awesome and would say goodbye to ECW. That’s not good because the Dudleys would be leaving really soon also. Tajiri is a guy I’ve been liking more and more lately as those kicks were SWEET.
Theme song after the opening match which is something that was a trend of theirs.
Joey is in the ring to open the show. There’s a TNN chant to start which sounds like they’re saying TNA. Now they chant NYC. Joel Gertner comes out and declares himself the new cohost. His nickname tonight: Joel “I’m like the Rubik’s Cube: the more you play with me, the harder I get” Gertner. Those were always hilarious.
They bring out Jerry Lynn who says that they’re better than Raw and Nitro. Therefore, he should bring them the best match they can. He calls out RVD for a TV Title shot RIGHT NOW. Fonzie, RVD’s manager, comes out and says no. Lynn goes after Fonzie so RVD comes out for the brawl.
Anarchy Rulz ad.
Someone has jumped from WCW to ECW. Find out who it was on the hotline! Or wait another 30 minutes because they show up at the end of the show!
Here are the Dudleyz who are here for their last night in the company. Before they can talk though we go to the announcers and are told next week it’s RVD vs. Lynn.
House show ads.
ECW Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley/Balls Mahoney
The Dudleys, on their last night in the promotion remember, are challenging here. Why would Heyman give them a shot if he knew they were jumping ship? No wonder they’re not in business anymore. This is joined in progress after a break. The champs take over and clear the ring. Balls throws Spike over the top onto the Dudleys in a cool spot. Back in and Spike walks into a Bubba Bomb to take him down.
Now let’s stop watching the match and see a replay of what we just saw. Spike is dropped over the barricade and is busted open. The Dudleys have threatened to win the titles and give them to the McMahons on Raw. Bubba sets for the back splash off the middle rope but Spike punches him in the balls. Bubba responds by superbombing him off the middle rope as we take a break.
Back with the champions hitting their finishers at the same time for two each. D-Von hits a reverse DDT on Balls while Spike is thrown over the top and through a table. Balls comes back with chair shots for both guys. He brings in a table and covers it in tacks which isn’t going to end well for him. According to the first law of wrestling, Balls goes through the table that he set up. They botch the ending as Spike misses the save he’s supposed to make so the referee counts three but goes to count four. 3D to Spike gives them the titles a second later anyway.
Rating: D+. Match was a mess but the whole point of it is that th company has no idea what to do now because they’ve lost the titles and the Dudleys are headed out the door with them. Spike teamed with a lot of random people to fight his brothers and Balls was just another in the line of them.
More house show ads.
Rob Zombie likes ECW so we get a music video of his with ECW clips in it. This eats up like three minutes.
The Impact Players pose. Ok then. That’s Justin Credible and Lance Storm.
Rollerjam ad. I LOVED that show for some reason.
The Dudleys are here again and after the hotline is plugged again, they say that here, boys become men and men become heroes. In the WWF, heroes become legends. Great line from Bubba: “If God was a heel, he’d be the Dudley Boys.” He calls Stamford, Connecticut the true hot bed of hardcore wrestling. However, before they go there’s one more thing they need to do.
They say they’re going to ruin the company by taking out the heart and soul of the company. The fans chant for Sandman and the Dudleys say they’ll give him 3D if he comes out. Instead they tell Dreamer to come out if he cares about this company at all. Dreamer has a very bad back at this point. Dreamer comes out but Heyman is stopping him from getting into the ring. Francine comes out and Bubba calls her a $2 w****. Joel: “Joey can I borrow $1.87?”
This is all being done over clips of the Dudleys and Dreamer’s highlights. The Dudleys talk about the time they broke Dreamer’s wife’s neck which was the story they used when Beaulah wanted to get out of wrestling. Bubba says the Dudleys used to come into her hospital room and double team her. Dreamer still won’t come to the ring as the Dudleys taunt him. He finally snaps and it’s on. Since it’s ECW, we get a ref and a bell and the titles are on the line.
Tag Titles: Tommy Dreamer vs. Dudley Boys
Dreamer takes them down with a double Russian legsweep for two. Tommy finds some salad tongs and grabs D-Von’s balls. Francine throws in a ladder which Tommy tettertotters into the Dudley’s faces. Francine hits Sign Guy in the head with something to take him down. Bubba gets thrown into the ladder and D-Von gets thrown into Bubba, resulting in the falling headbutt ball shot to D-Von.
Bubba gets up and sends Dreamer into the ladder which kills him because of his back. The Dudleys destroy Tommy with belt shots and loads up 3D but Dreamer counters with a DDT. Cue the returning RAVEN who kills Bubba with the Even Flow and pins him to win the titles with Dreamer, his mortal enemy.
Rating: C. This is a really hard one to grade because all that mattered were the last 10 seconds of the match. A lot of it was Dreamer out cold while the Dudleys beat on him so it barely qualifies as a match. Anyway, this was the big return mentioned earlier and Raven got an eruption after finally returning from WCW. At WCW, there had been a meeting where Bischoff told the roster that if anyone wanted out to get up and leave now. Raven was the only one that walked out and he was in ECW in a week.
Raven celebrates in the crowd while Dreamer is stunned to end the show.
Overall Rating: C+. This show has a VERY different grading scale than the rest of the shows I do. For one thing, they had no idea what they were doing yet and their top champions were leaving in the span of two weeks. What exactly were they supposed to do in that situation? Anyway, this was about getting the Dudleys out with a bang and they certainly did that. Fun show, but they had a lot to learn, and to be fair the show got a lot better structured soon.
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There are a total of 59 episodes of this show so why not knock them out too? I’ll be doing two of these right after I do the ECW on Sci-Fi episodes so this won’t take long to knock out. I just hope I can find them all. Enjoy.
First ECW on TNN
Date: August 27, 1999
Commentator: Joey Styles
From the title I think you get the idea here. This show is weird as it’s a lot like the old WWF TV shows as it’s a collection of previously aired matches thrown together here. The first show they taped was awful so they turned it into this. The main thing is Lynn vs. Van Dam from Hardcore Heaven 99 which I’ll re-review and see how it matches up with the original rating I gave it, which is something I don’t think I’ve done before. Let’s get to it.
We open with a clip of the Dudleys (who would leave for WWF in like a week) powerbombing someone through a flaming table as Joey says this isn’t WCW or WWF but ECW.
Cue theme song. The main focus is Tazz who would leave in like 2-3 months and everyone knew that was going to happen.
Joey lists off a bunch of people to have held the TV Title but says RVD might be better than all of them.
TV Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn
I think this is new commentary here but I’m not sure. This is really just a way to introduce Van Dam and give us what they know is an exciting match. You can’t hear a word the ring announcer is saying. They start with a nice sequence where neither can get any real advantage but the fans love it. We actually get highlights of both guys in the middle of the match. I get that you want to showcase two of your top guys but dude, do it when there’s not a match on.
Van Dam gets knocked to the floor and Lynn takes over. Lynn gets a top rope bulldog for two. RVD is bleeding from…..something. I think at this point we go to a commercial as we get an ad for Anarchy Rulz. Joey suggests the Warrior could be coming to ECW. Oh dear. Yeah the commentary here is new. Lynn is bleeding too now after botching a fall to the floor and hitting his foot on the ropes. The replay has a rap song with it. Really?
Lynn gets a sunset powerbomb for two. What would an ECW match be without tables? Van Dam’s eye is messed up and black as coal. Van Daminator in the stands as this match is kind of hard to follow. Another commercial doesn’t help as they don’t stop the match for it, which is either a good idea or a bad idea and I’m not sure which. Lynn gets another sunset powerbomb through the table on the floor.
CUE THE RAP SONG REPLAY! After a clip or a commercial, Fonzie takes a chair pelted at his head. Lynn goes for a top rope belly to belly but he just falls off. You know the chant we get from that. Cradle Piledriver is blocked and both guys are down. Split Legged Moonsault hits Lynn. PAY ATTENTION MORRISON. THAT IS HOW YOU DO THE MOVE. And there’s the Five Star out of more or less nowhere but Lynn rolls through for two. Van Daminator and a HUGE Five Star ends it.
Rating: B-. The clipping hurts this a lot. It makes this look like far less of an ultra competitive match and more like RVD just breaking a sweat. It’s still good but at the same time it really makes Lynn look weak. At the same time though this was about RVD and that worked very well. This was still good but a different kind of good. I gave the PPV version a B as I still find these matches to be overrated by most ECW fans.
We plug Rollerjam (which as a kid I thought was a cool show. The women were hot if nothing else) and then talk about the ECW World Title, listing off guys that didn’t win it but tried to, such as Konnan, Benoit, Austin and Foley. I’m not entirely sold on talking about guys that USED to be here, but you could look at it like this: We had these guys before they were superstars. Imagine what kind of buried treasures we have here now. That makes sense.
Shane threw down the NWA Title, which meant nothing to most fans watching this show but whatever. That was 5 years before the debut of the TV show. Didn’t know that.
ECW World Title: Taz vs. Rhyno
This is from Hardcore TV or a house show. Rhyno hits a powerbomb 3 seconds in and Taz just pops up. Rhyno means nothing at this point which you can probably guess. Well we’re in Chicago if nothing else. Taz is massacring him here with Rhyno looking like a freaking jobber. He’s hit two punches to the ribs and a no sold powerbomb. Tazz sets up a table and Rhyno hits new levels of offense with THREE punches to the ribs. Suplex through the table sets up the Tazmission. Total squash if there ever has been one.
Rating: N/A. This was DOMINANCE which is the idea I guess, but Rhyno looks like a joke here. The problem is that these matches are just random defenses with no meaning to them. We keep hearing about Steve Corino and how he’s Taz’s archenemy, but we never even see him.
Video on Sabu who is apparently awesome. No match or anything but just highlights.
Ad for Anarchy Rulz again.
Spike Dudley vs. Big Sal
Low blow and Acid Drop end it. Literally that’s the whole thing. Who is Spike? Who is Sal? “Spike has done it again!” What does he do? Apparently that’s not important. Ah ok they call him the Giant Killer.
The Impact Players introduce themselves and we have no idea if they mean anything or not. Cyrus pops up for no apparent reason as Jason makes gay jokes about Joey. We see clips of the Impact Players beating people up which helps a bit as we know they’re dominant.
House show ads.
We get a BUNCH of clips of guys and a brief description (as in their nickname) of them. It’s set to a Kid Rock song so what do you expect here?
Taz talks about how TNN and ECW are together now and how cool that is I guess. We get clips of famous people he’s made tap out. He talks for like three minutes and that ends this mess.
Overall Rating: D. This was a total mess. Considering this is the first show, this was just awful as you learn nothing about the guys other than Taz being a tough guy and RVD is awesome. Other than that though you get nothing at all here though and other than a single good match to start, this gave us nothing. We have no idea about any feuds or angles or anything like that as it was just a few squashes and one big match from months earlier. This just didn’t work as Heyman clearly didn’t know what he was doing, which became a theme here. Bad show and just a car wreck of an hour.
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ECW on Sci-Fi
Date: June 27, 2006
Location: Roanoke Civic Center, Roanoke, Virginia
Commentators: Joey Styles, Tazz
We’re back with the third episode here and the main event here is Angle vs. RVD in what’s probably going to get a majority of this show. Vengeance has passed and RVD is still world champion. Something major would happen between the end of tonight’s show and the beginning of next week’s though, but we’ll get to that later. Let’s get to it.
We immediately begin with a match.
Roadkill vs. Sabu
Roadkill is a big Amish guy known as the Angry Amish Chicken Plucker. This is Extreme Rules. Sabu tries a very quick camel clutch but Roadkill gets to the rope before it’s on. Jumping DDT takes Roadkill down and it’s chair time. He loads up the Triple Jump Moonsault but Roadkill slams Sabu’s head into the chair. Neckbreaker gets two. Roadkill goes for a table but Sabu uses the chair as a springboard to dive over the top to take Roadkill down, landing on his head in the process.
Bossman Slam and a Vader Bomb Elbow get two for Roadie. Sabu is put on the table but Roadie goes up, allowing Sabu to pelt the chair at Roadkill’s balls. Top rope rana gets two. Now he pelts the chair at Roadkill’s head and the Arabian Facebuster puts Roadie through the table. Camel Clutch looks to finish but Sabu hits him with a chair a few more times first, then finishes with the Clutch.
Rating: C+. At the end of the day, this is what ECW is all about so having at least some of this on each show was a requirement at the beginning. Also having ECW guys on the show was a good idea as they were at least looking like ECW before they changed everything up and made it into WWE 3.
Kevin Thorn is still outside.
Here’s Dreamer who calls out Big Show to give him another beating. Seriously, he thanks Show for the beating and asks for another, ala the cane shots from Sandman WAY back in the day. Just like last week, it’s not a match but rather just a beating by Big Show. I’m not sure what else to say about this.
Mike Knox (not yet named) looks at Kelly’s chest and says it’s only for him. She’ll be in his corner tonight.
Angle says that he hates himself for not being champion. If he wins tonight, he gets a title shot at SNME. Failure is not an option when your name is Kurt Angle.
Danny Doring vs. Mike Knox
Doring fires off some right hands but Knox hits a Sky High for two. Some fan calls Kelly over to strip for him so Knox kills him. He sends Kelly to the back, kicks Doring’s head off and gets the pin with a spinning Downward Spiral. Total squash.
Test is still coming.
We recap what we saw 90 seconds ago with Knox and the fan.
Kelly dances to the same song from last week and Knox stops her from revealing too much. Ok then. This takes like three minutes. When you have an hour long show, that’s WAY too long.
Here’s Big Dick Johnson as Fat Ugly Male Stripper to get beaten up by Sandman. It’s nonsense like this that made people hate this show.
Heyman explains triple threats to RVD. If Angle wins tonight, it’s a fatal fourway at SNME. RVD says it’s ok because he’s been smoking lately. He meant that literally I think.
Edge and Lita show up and throw out some fans.
After a break, Tazz talks to Edge who says he’ll win the title because he’s the Whole F’N Show. That triple threat would be moved to Raw I believe.
Kurt Angle vs. Rob Van Dam
This is non-title. Angle takes him to the mat almost immediately and the fans sound like they want Cena. They slug it out in the corner and Rob hits his rolling monkey flip. Rob grabs a front facelock and off to the windmill kick. He goes up top but Kurt shoves him off the top and into the barricade as we take a break. Back with Kurt holding a chinlock. Off to a body scissors as this has been all Kurt since the break.
Rob fights up but Kurt snaps off a German and it’s back to the chinlock. Van Dam fights out again and hits a spinwheel kick off the ropes to put both guys down. A springboard kick takes Kurt down but Kurt immediately grabs his legs and drives Rob into the corner. A big suplex counters a kick and gets two. Angle Slam is countered but Kurt rolls through into a failed ankle lock attempt.
Another German hits but is the release version this time. Now it’s the ankle lock but Rob rolls through very quickly and superkicks Kurt down for a delayed two. The top rope kick is caught in the ankle lock but he makes the rope and throws Kurt to the floor. Back in a slingshot legdrop gets two. Small package gets two for Kurt. Rob kicks him down but misses Rolling Thunder and the ankle lock is attempted again. Van Dam kicks him off and hits the Split Legged Moonsault for two. Rob kicks him down and goes up but gets suplexed down for two. Slam is countered by a tornado DDT and the Five Star gets the clean pin.
Rating: B. My goodness it was a clean pin. That’s something you never see in a big match anymore so it was a nice thing to see here. Putting Rob over the big deal that came to ECW is a good thing, as it says that while Angle is the new monster, RVD is still the champion. Good match with Van Dam using the one weapon he had that worked until he could splash him for the pin.
Edge spears Rob to end the show.
Overall Rating: C+. So let’s see: Sabu squash, Kelly dances and gets covered up, Sandman beats up a comedy character, WWE guys end the show. This sounds very familiar and that’s not a good sign. However next week everything would change as Rob and Sabu would get arrested for drug possession and Van Dam would drop both titles. Also a new guy would debut that I think you might have heard of.
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