WWF House Show
Date: September 18, 1987
Location: Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 9,000
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Dick Graham

This is a time when the WWF was in a holding pattern as we were well past Wrestlemania III but we weren’t close enough to Survivor Series yet to talk about it. Therefore the main event tonight is WWF’s bread and butter from the 80s: Hogan vs. the monster of the week, in this case Killer Khan, a guy most famous for a run against Andre the Giant about five years earlier than this. The card looks a bit underwhelming but I’ve been surprised before. Let’s get to it.

We open with a quick rundown of some of the bigger matches, including Beefcake vs. Rude and Race vs. Savage.

Barry Horowitz vs. Lanny Poffo

Oh we’re in for a long night aren’t we? Horowitz would be pretty new at this point and after a quick poem from Poffo we’re ready to go. Horowitz won’t shake hands to start so we have a clear evil one here. He armdrags Lanny down and celebrates like a true villain would. Barry slams him down again so Lanny armdrags him a few times to send Barry to the floor. Back in and Horowitz hides in the ropes. Poffo ducks through them too to laugh at Barry in a funny bit.

We get down to business now with Poffo grabbing an armbar for control. The arm hold stays on for awhile as the announcers talk about the Piledriver Album. They get back up and Barry whips him into the corner, only to be reversed into an armdrag and armbar #3. Into the corner again and Larry headscissors him across the ring. Barry gets in a thumb to the eye and some European uppercuts. A legdrop gets two.

We hit the chinlock from Barry as this match continues to go on way longer than it needs to go. The announcers talk about the most painful submissions ever and Gorilla says by far it’s the bear hug from either Bruno, Graham or Patera. A small package gets two for Lanny but Horowitz pokes him in the eyes to stop the momentum again. Lanny grabs a sunset flip for another two.

Barry goes up but ala Ric Flair is slammed down. Poffo monkey flips him out of the corner in a move that wasn’t as snappy as you would expect from Lanny. There’s a hard elbow in the corner to Barry but a second monkey flip is countered. Barry atomic drops him out of said corner and hits a Russian Leg Sweep for the pin.

Rating: D. It picked up a bit towards the end but it was Barry Horowitz vs. Lanny Poffo for nearly thirteen minutes. I don’t see any situation in which that is something that ever needs to happen. This was basically a battle of future jobbers, which isn’t the right idea to start a show with in Philadelphia of all places.

Frenchy Martin vs. Special Delivery Jones

Another battle of the jobbers. I’m in for an even longer night than I was expecting aren’t I? They fight over a headlock and a top wristlock to start and Jones takes him to the mat. A nearly botched slam puts Martin down and things slow again. Martin’s chinlock is countered by Jones who puts Frenchy on the top for a polite tap on the jaw. Off to another chinlock by Frenchy to keep this match from getting interesting.

The fans aren’t thrilled by this and I can’t say I am either. SD fights up but gets clotheslinedown almost immediately. Off to a nerve hold which is much less boring than a chinlock because….uh…..hey look over there! Jones tries to fight out of it and it’s back to the chinlock. Jones fights up and pounds away, including a punch to the beard. Yes the beard. Martin catches him with a knee to the ribs but ramming Jones’ head into the buckle doesn’t work as well. After Martin bails and comes back in, Jones pounds away with more punches. SD small packages him but Frenchy reverses and grabs the tights for the pin.

Rating: D-. This is the second straight boring match in a row to start things off here. The whole thing is only two hours long and we’re thirty minutes into it already. This can’t be a good sign as the opener with Barry Horowitz in it was the best match of the night after a quarter of the show. Nothing to see here again.

Harley Race vs. Randy Savage

This HAS to be better. The talent in this alone keeps it from being dull. Savage is VERY freshly turned here, not even having had his feud with Honky start off yet. Race is the King but Savage won the untelevised King of the Ring tournament two weeks before this. Savage goes all insane to start and Race isn’t sure what to make of him. Race takes him into the corner but Savage escapes and throws on a sleeper.

Race quickly grabs a rope so Savage clotheslines him over the top and out to the floor. Savage clotheslines him back over the top rope to bring Race back in and Harley is in trouble. Race hits him in the ribs and sends Savage out to the floor, but Macho sends Race head first into the announce table. Well it is Philly after all. Race trips him up and like an idiot, tries a falling headbutt on the floor. The miss gets two for Savage back in the ring.

Harley is busted and Savage goes after it like a….well like a savage actually. Race pulls him into the corner and takes over with some shots to the head. The piledriver gets no cover but an elbow drop gets two for Harley. A belly to belly gets another two count but Savage reverses a vertical suplex to take over.

Savage drops a knee for two but Race punches him down to take over again. Randy wakes up and elbows Race in the head for two. He’s all fired up now and drops the double ax to Harley’s head for another two. The Flying Elbow misses so Race tries another suplex, only to get reversed into an O’Connor Roll to give Savage the pin.

Rating: C+. This was a nice breath of air as Savage was on fire at this point and the fans were rapidly getting behind him. He would feud with Honky for a few more months before entering the world title tournament at Wrestlemania and taking over the company for a year. Good stuff here as Race was still excellent in the ring and can make even someone like Savage, who is already as talented as anyone, look better.

Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Scott Casey

Casey is known for two things: being on Survivor Series 88 due to a ton of injuries and also training Harlem Heat. Feeling out process to start for the first minute or so with nothing going on. Casey crucifixes him down for two and Sharpe heads to the floor. Back in and Sharpe poses a bit and wants a test of strength. Casey goes down to his knees in the grip but he rolls away and takes Sharpe down.

Iron Mike heads to the floor again and walks around a bit longer this time. Actually he’s walking away from the ring and Casey has to stand in the ring. At this point in the show, they couldn’t do anything much worse than that. Thankfully Sharpe comes back in and rakes Casey’s eyes along the top rope ala Arn Anderson. Casey grabs a piledriver out of nowhere but it only gets two.

Sharpe comes back with some chops to the chest but gets sent into the corner and monkey flipped for his troubles. The announcers discuss the brace on Sharpe’s arm which is on the verge of rivaling Orton’s for longest running injuries. A poke to the eye stops Casey and Mike sends him to the floor. As they head back inside, Casey pokes Mike in the eye to get control back in a nice touch. A sleeper slows Sharpe down and a bulldog gets the pin for Casey.

Rating: D+. Another long and dull match here with guys that not many people were interested in seeing. Casey was basically just a house show guy who occasionally would pop up on TV as half of a jobbing tag team but that’s about it. Nothing to see here again though as it was a nine minute match with about two minutes of action in it.

Rick Rude vs. Brutus Beefcake

This is the last match before the intermission. Rude is pretty new here and he hasn’t started his first big feud, which would be with Orndorff. Brutus jumps him before his name graphic can come on and punches him down to the floor. Back in and Rude wants a handshake but Beefcake would rather hit him again and hits a headknocker. Rude slips in a shot to the knee and Brutus is in trouble.

Beefcake will have none of this being on defense thing and suplexes Rude down, followed by an atomic drop. If anything can help a show no matter what, it’s Rude selling an atomic drop. Rude comes back with a knee lift and starts choking a bit. He wasn’t exactly polished at this point. Brutus breaks a nerve hold but Rude pokes him in the eyes to slow him back down again.

Back to the chinlock as the match slows down again. You can tell it’s the 80s when th are this many chinlocks in a match. Beefcake fights up again with right hands but Rude takes him right back down. You may be noticing a pattern here. Beefcake makes comeback #8 or so with a backdrop followed by a slam. He puts the sleeper on but Rude rams Brutus’ head into the buckle to escape.

A shoulder breaker puts Beefcake down again and there’s the over the shoulder body vice, but Rude lets it go early. Rude goes for the scissors but gets caught in the sleeper again. Harley Race runs in for the save and is put in the sleeper as well. Brutus chases both of them off with the scissors before winning by DQ.

Rating: D+. Not a great match again but at least there was some energy in this match and there were some people I might care about for a change. Beefcake would get MUCH better in a few years as would Rude, and with Jake Roberts lurking for Rude, that time would come soon. This was your usual house show punch and kick match though.

Craig DeGeorge has replaced Monsoon on commentary. Great.

Junkyard Dog vs. Ted DiBiase

We have a Mid-South reunion here. DiBiase offers JYD 500 bucks to take the night off but JYD drills him and gives the money to the fans. Ted is relatively new here too, only having been around about four or five months. Ted gets punched down again and it’s time to stall again. DiBiase hides in the ropes more than once as this is going nowhere so far. JYD rams Ted in the buckle a few times and Ted backs off again.

A fan asks DiBiase for more money when he’s on the floor. That made me chuckle. Back in and DiBiase’s boot to the ribs is caught in an atomic drop. We’re almost four minutes into this and almost nothing has happened so far. JYD works over the arm with a wristlock and then gets on all fours for some headbutts. A falling headbutt misses and DiBiase takes over. DiBiase goes up but jumps into an extended fist instead of the extended boot. Well at least it was different. More headbutts keep DiBiase down and Virgil gets one too. Virgil trips JYD up and DiBiase steals a win with a rollup.

Rating: D+. Another punch/kick/headbutt/stall match here which is continues to drag this show down. DiBiase was killing time until he started to go after Hogan and JYD didn’t mean much of anything yet. The match was mainly DiBiase stalling though and it didn’t go anywhere at all, which is a theme tonight.

Tag Titles: Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees

Again this has to be good based on the chemistry and familiarity between the teams involved. The Harts are defending due to the Bees never having been champions. We get the ritual of Neidhart taking Bret’s glasses off and we’re ready to go. Blair and Neidhart get us going and the big guy shoves Blair around and takes down the straps. The Bees take over on the arm of the Anvil but Brunzell gets caught in a bearhug.

The Bees use the Sting Action to take over and Blair works over the leg. Both Bees work on the leg but Anvil shoves Blair away and brings Bret in. Blair takes the Hitman down by the leg and hooks an Indian Deathlock. Brunzell hooks a quick spinning toehold and it’s back to Blair for a figure four. The Bees were famous for being able to tag in and out very quickly which they’re doing well here.

Bret finally breaks the old and Blair is taken into the corner and choked by Anvil. We get to the face in peril section now as Blair is down on the floor. Actually that may be premature as Blair sunset flips Bret down for two back inside. Neidhart comes back in with a chinlock before bringing Bret back in to pound on Brian some more. A slam and knee drop get two on Blair as does a kick to the ribs. Neidhart slaps on a bearhug which the announcers can’t name for some reason.

Blair elbows out of it but Bret gets a blind tag and comes in, only to get taken down by a double clothesline. Both guys are down now and the fans are getting into this. Blair picks him up for a slam and Neidhart kicks Bret down onto Blair, but Blair rolls through for two. That would have been an awesome way to change the titles if that was what they were doing here.

Blair crawls over to make the tag and Bret is in trouble. Bret gets his foot on the ropes to save the titles twice in a row before grabbing a sleeper to give himself a breath. Everything breaks down and Brunzell dropkicks Bret to the apron. Brunzell tries to suplex him back in but Neidhart trips him up, allowing Bret to fall on top to retain the titles.

Rating: B-. This was one of those matches that you couldn’t screw up. I remember one of these four saying that they wrestled each other roughly four hundred times and it’s pretty easy to see that they know each other very well. The Bees never won the titles but dang they had some fun matches trying to get them on house shows.

Outback Jack vs. Tiger Chung Lee

Outback Jack can really only be described as different. He’s from Humpty Doo, Australia and has a song called Tie Me Kangaroo Down. Lee is your generic evil Asian dude. Feeling out process to start with Jack hitting a few punches. A bulldog out of nowhere gets the pin for Jack. I think that was supposed to be a clothesline to the back of the head but Lee took it like a bulldog. Too short to rate but this was nothing at all.

WWF World Title: Killer Khan vs. Hulk Hogan

As Hogan is being checked for objects, Khan jumps him and chokes Hogan down with his own headband. Khan loads up the Asian Mist but it hits the referee by mistake. A new referee comes out but Hogan is in big trouble. I think I’ll bet on Khan here. I mean, it’s clear Hogan can’t come back from this kind of a beating. A knee drop gets two for Khan and he beats on Hogan for awhile longer. There’s nothing of note happening here as it’s mainly just stomping.

Fuji gets in a cane shot to Hogan’s throat but Khan’s knee drop misses. Hogan enters Kung Fu mode and chops away, but he poses a bit too much and Khan takes him down again with chops. Off to the nerve hold which Asians tend to be proficient at. Hogan is almost out but he holds up the arm on the third drop and the place erupts. He starts running the ropes but a big chop takes him right back down. Khan’s top rope knee drop finisher gets two and it’s Hulk Up, a block of the mist, mist to Khan’s eyes and the legdrop to retain.

Rating: C. It’s Hogan vs. a foreign monster in the 80s. I have no idea what else you’re looking for here. Hogan would go on to feud with DiBiase and Andre in a few months while Khan would disappear, although he was almost never on TV so it wasn’t like it was a big loss. Nothing to see here again but the fans loved it.

Overall Rating: D-. This was the worst kind of show possible: the dull kind. Nothing on here is awful, but there is NOTHING that hasn’t been done better a few dozen times. At the end of the day, this is a dull house show with a lot of standing around to fill in time. This show came and went and I’m never going to think of it again. That’s the worst kind of show to sit through as it’s so boring there’s nothing to care about or get excited about at all. The tag match was ok though.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Summerslam 2000
Date: August 27, 2000
Location: Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina
Attendance: 17,002
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Another year, and another Summerslam. We have no Austin at the moment, but he’s coming back very soon from neck surgery. In his absence, HHH and Rock have shot to the moon in popularity with Rock being the face of the company at the moment and the reigning WWF Champion. His opponents are HHH and Angle, who had a double pin in a triple threat with Jericho. Also, they’re feuding over Stephanie.

We also have biker Taker vs. Kane, and the first ever TLC match with the three teams that you would expect to be in a TLC match. We’re just on the verge of being out of the Attitude Era as WCW knows they’re a dying breed at this point and would be out of business in about 8 months. Therefore, WWF has won and they’re still pouring it on with the Attitude Era, but with Austin gone a lot of the edge has left, as the gap is nowhere near as big as it once was between him and the rest of the roster.

Either way, WWF is no longer dominating but is victorious in the wars with just the final surrender to go. This is the last Summerslam before the takeover of WCW, so let’s see if it’s as good as the rest of the Attitude Era.

This intro is out there. It’s all in sepia, which is that gray color you see in old movies. It’s a bunch of odd scenes and looks like something you see on an acid trip, mixed in with wrestling clips. It shows kind of a highlight package of the main feud, which makes me think that the main event should have been Rock vs. someone else (not sure who, maybe Jericho or Benoit) and HHH vs. Angle in a separate match.

One of the clips in this is the Trish bent over in front of HHH scene, which is still one of the best done comedy moments in the history of the WWF in my opinion. We get the pyro etc. as Ross and Lawler welcome us.

Right To Censor vs. Too Cool/Rikishi

It’s the Lee special as Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan and Goodfather are the RTC tonight, with Val coming later I guess. It’s hard to believe that Rikishi would be revealed as the man that ran over Austin in less than two months. Ok, the name plates for the wrestlers are going to be a problem. When they come on the screen or go off the screen they make this weird sounds and it sounds like someone is knocking on my window.

In case you don’t know, RTC was a parody of the PTC, which in essence is a company that whines and complains about how everything on TV is poisoning children’s minds. There’s a massive rant that I’m holding back here that could go on for about four pages but I’ll spare you from it. Anyway, they try to censor anything they don’t like, and they don’t like Rikishi’s thong. Too Cool and the fat guy come out with two of Godfather’s former Hos, one of which is known as Victoria.

Victoria in a short skirt dancing is something that we need a LOT more of. Apparently the WWF Title match is no holds barred. The crowd starts chanting save the gardening equipment. Yeah that joke sucks but I couldn’t help it. More or less this turns into Rikishi dominating against the other three while Too Cool do nothing at all. In other words, it’s a standard Too Cool and Rikishi match. He goes for the stink face, which is an abomination on wrestling if I’ve ever seen one.

It (thankfully) doesn’t happen as Bull kicks him in the head. Scotty goes for the Worm which is even worse than the other move, but I become a Stevie fan as he kicks Scotty’s head off and pins him. Short and sweet, just how I like it.

Rating: B-. It was a fast opener which is perfect for a PPV. For some reason the crowd always loved Too Cool, despite the fact that they completely sucked. I loved that we didn’t have to see either of those horrid moves though, so that’s a plus. Also, I like when the heels win the opening match. It makes the faces winning later that much better.

We get a recap of what happened on Heat, which is both Kurt and Stephanie arriving. I might as well explain the backstory here. Kurt had been flat out hitting on Stephanie for weeks but nothing ever came of it. Three days prior to this on Smackdown, there was a match where Kurt and HHH were in it at the same time. I think it was a tag but I don’t remember. Either way, Stephanie got knocked down and ala Hulk and Liz from 1989, Kurt took her to the locker room.

He kept apologizing and eventually kissed her, which she seemed to like. Anyway, both of them get here tonight with Kurt getting there first. Coach (in 2000? REALLY?) asks both of them questions which aren’t answered. Once Stephanie gets there, she asks if HHH has shown up yet and is told no. She hears that Kurt is here and asks which way he went. He went to the left, so Stephanie goes to the right.

Shane is being interviewed about Stephanie, but Steve Blackman, his opponent for later is near him and he runs off.

And now, submitted for your appreciation, following the frustration which led to a separation and then this altercation which spells the decimation of the degeneration, here is the initiation which I hope isn’t an abomination.

Sorry when Road Dogg starts talking that just comes over me. Anyway, DX has split and this is the result if you don’t speak rhyme.

Road Dogg vs. X-Pac

Short version: they’ve been fighting and Pac accidentally knocked Road Dogg through a table on Raw Monday night. We see a clip of these two against Taker in a handicap match, and Taker’s outfit is I guess leather pants and a Taker t-shirt. I’m not sure if I like it or not but it’s just very different looking. As we’re under way, Ross says that there are people that consider these two to be one of the best tag teams of all time.

I’m not sure if I should go with the X-Pac doesn’t look like Billy Gunn joke, or the how blind are you people joke. Either way, that’s just preposterous and….and….and that’s a hard word to rhyme so I’ll just skip it. It’s odd to think of but out of these two, Road Dogg is pretty comparable to X-Pac as far as their overall resumes go.

He has 7 tag title reigns (two were in TNA) and an IC and Hardcore title reign, while Pac has some cruiser/light heavyweight reigns and two Euro titles to go with 4 tag titles that only two of which are even remembered. I’ll take an IC reign over two Euros any day, but that’s a different point all together. The fans don’t like this for some reason, which is odd as it’s not a bad match at all.

I guess this is the famous X-Pac heat? I actually think that’s what it is as that was happening when he was in control but the fans are into it when he’s getting beaten up. Both guys were built up as faces coming into this though, so he’s not supposed to be the heel here. Granted the low blow that he uses to set up the X-Factor would suggest otherwise. That ends the match. He of course has to grab a mic though, and says there’s no hard feelings.

Dogg doesn’t and hits the pump handle. X-Pac I guess just turned heel? If he did it was horrid. Road Dogg was actually pretty over here, which is why I’ll never get why he never got a solid push. He was good in the ring, he was WAY over and he could talk. That sounds like the makings of a decent push to me.

Rating: C-. It just wasn’t there for me. It’s not bad, but it’s just not that interesting. In a match like this, someone needs to make the big heel turn before the match. Now Dogg’s best strength was on the mic so turning him would make no sense, as he needs to talk to get over as well as he does. The fans already hate Waltman, so I think he’s your guy. Either way, this just didn’t do it for me and while it was ok, it’s just ok and that’s not good in my eyes.

Eddie and Chyna are talking as Chyna is apparently more or less going to wrestle in a bikini. I’ve made my stance clear on Chyna from this era, so I’ll save the drooling for later. We cut to Val and Trish’s locker room, which is a partnership that I don’t remember at all. Trish is babbling about how she should be a centerfold before Chyna is, which is foreshadowing the Playboy shoot that was coming for Chyna. Val says that’s not important but the IC Title is.

IC Title: Trish/Val Venis vs. Chyna/Eddie Guerrero

Just like at last year’s Summerslam when Santino and Beth won the titles, this is for the IC where whomever gets the fall winning the belt. So yeah I guess somehow Trish could win the title here. Ok according to Ross if Trish wins, nothing changes. Well that’s nonsense. Lawler comments on the name graphics on the screen, thinking it’s someone knocking. That’s actually accurate.

The guys start us out as I think gender vs. gender is legal here. It’s very weird hearing the announcers talk about Trish being horrible in the ring and needing all kinds of help to do basic things. After a decent sequence between the guys Chyna comes in and easily holds her own against Val. She was something incredibly special to say the least.

No Trish yet as Val stops the tag to Eddie, spitting at him. The problem is that it costs him as he takes a low blow and a DDT. The tag brings in Eddie as we still have no hot Canadian. Blue Thunder Bomb gets two on Eddie. We get a shot of Trish and it blows my mind that they found someone as beautiful as her with the ability she had.

Trish finally comes in and of course has nothing at all. Chyna comes in to feast on her for a bit, which is probably not the best wording at all but who cares? Val stops the handspring elbow that I want to smack Muta for making a staple of Diva matches. Eddie intercepts Val and it’s girl on girl. Guess how that goes for the blonde. Press slam drop makes Chyna the champion.

Rating: D+. A lot of that rating is for the hotness factor. It’s really hard to believe that Trish was actually this bad at one point. The match was ok, but I’ve never liked matches like these. If nothing else, get another Canadian (Test maybe?) and just have a fatal four way. You can get the same result and you have a better wrestler on top of that. However, Chyna looked ridiculously hot and Trish was gorgeous as well, so that’s enough for a passing grade.

We see a party at WWF New York with Cole and Foley hosting. Some others show up and it ends with Foley dancing with Too Cool and singing with Rock. This had to be one of the coolest ideas ever, but there was no way to keep it working well.

Stephanie proves why she might be the worst actress of all time as she talks about Kurt’s kiss with the makeup lady.

We get a recap of Tazz vs. Lawler. More or less Tazz was ticked off at JR for saying Tazz was a thug, which was what Tazz always called himself. Lawler defended him, and we get this out of it. This was actually a pretty decently built up feud I thought, with Tazz beating up JR in a car and then Lawler afterwards. It’s better than it sounds.

Tazz vs. Jerry Lawler

During the car attack Ross’ eye was hurt and Tazz makes fun of that on his way there, which is actually pretty funny. He really was an underrated performer. I also love how everything can be forgiven by a simple face turn in wrestling. Lawler in white boots just looks weird for some reason. Teddy Long is the referee as you never know who you’ll see in a match sometimes.

Lawler of course is beating the tar out of him at first only to get caught later on. JR is so pro King it’s sad, although the storyline goes that way so it makes sense. Tazz goes up and tries what I guess we would call a Swanton Bomb, but it misses, Lawler pulls the strap down and piledrives Tazz, but he’s up before Lawler is. Ref gets bumped. Now if I know Lawler, and I’ve seen a lot of his stuff, I’m betting on an international object being hidden in his tights.

Anyone want to take a bet on that with me? Actually I’m wrong as Lawler gets choked out, but Ross slams a candy jar into Tazz’s head to break it up and let Lawler pin him. The odd thing is, and I’m guess this is what inspired it, at Wrestlemania that year Tazz got hit in the face with a candy jar like that in a hardcore match and it damaged his eye.

If I remember the reports correctly, it was Tazz that was supposed to get Benoit’s push. Now there’s something to think about. Another thing to think about: I like Lawler’s music.

Rating: C+. This was a simple storyline that needed a simple resolution and that’s what we got here. Lawler is always dependable in the ring and this was no exception. Ross getting involved is a nice little treat that you rarely see, although he likely should have been fired in kayfabe for that. Anyway, this was just a fun short match to let the old guys have a nice moment, and there’s nothing wrong with taking ten minutes, including the lead in and intros etc., to do that on a three hour show.

Lillian, who is A, somehow STILL not the ring announcer and B, looking WAY hotter with curled hair, tries to talk to Shane but he runs again because of Blackman, and their match is next.

Hardcore Title: Steve Blackman vs. Shane McMahon

Shane runs to the ring holding the belt. As he’s running we see how he won it, which was using the 24/7 rule and the help of Edge, Christian, Test and Albert. That’s how much of a hardcore god Blackman was at the time. Anyway, Shane is running scared here as he finally has to defend it. The bell rings twice, so I guess the match never actually happens, but why am I using logic in the WWF?

In a funny spot Shane and Blackman play pass the kendo stick, but in a cool spot, Blackman grabs the stick out of Shane’s hands mid swing and beats him with it. That looked quite cool actually. This is in the ring all of 8 seconds and JR and King are making Survivor references, as at the time that was the hottest show in the world. Now it’s still big I guess, but has anyone watched it in forever? This is a total beatdown so far as Blackman is just killing Shane.

I completely mark out as a garbage can is put on Shane and Blackman beats him half to death with sticks, allowing JR to say that it reminded him of Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg 7. That was just flat out awesome as we get a Conan reference on Summerslam. That is just so freaking sweet. Anyway, nerd boy moment over. Leather strap is brought in and tied to Shane, which is always fun.

We need more Texas Bullrope matches, and I mean the touch four corners kind. Shane is more or less hogtied in a submission hold that looks freaking SICK, but Test and Albert run in for the save. JR goes through the history of Shane and Test and Stephanie which sounds like it’s a parody of a soap opera that it’s so cheesy. The sweet elbow of Test hits Steve so this match is a success.

They fight up to the entrance where Blackman is able to beat up the muscle guys, but Shane keeps running. However, he runs out of places to run, so he climbs one of the towers. What happens next is freaking scary, as Shane goes probably 30-35 feet up (of course called 50-75 by JR, since 25 feed is such an easy mistake to make in a place that small).

Blackman follows and slams him in the back with a kendo stick until Shane falls the whole way in a shot that looks awesome. Blackman climbs down about 10 feet before dropping an elbow/leg onto Shane then covering him for the title. Ross tries to compare it to Foley’s Cell dive, and I just shake my head. BIG difference between landing on a table and then concrete and falling backwards onto a crash pad there fat boy.

Rating: B. Not even factoring in the huge spot at the end, this was a standard enjoyable hardcore match, with all kinds of weapons and Shane getting beaten up. They tried so hard to make Blackman a big deal here, but the problem was the division was just a novelty, and Blackman was gone soon after this if I remember correctly. I know he was gone by the Invasion which was less than a year away.

In a scene that cracks me up, Stephanie is freaking over Shane, but isn’t near him, despite him being in the same building. Her not even leaving her room just makes me laugh. Kurt comes in to hug her and Foley, who for no reason at all is wearing a Minnesota Twins jersey, comes in and says that Stephanie should go check on Shane, which apparently she couldn’t figure out on her own?

We get a recap of Benoit vs. Jericho. Good grief this was intense. The video package is really well done as you can see that these two just want to go at it. It’s clear they’re the future along with Angle and the company knew it, which is always a good thing. The match is 2/3 falls by the way.

Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

You really don’t even need a story here with guys of this level, but the basic story is they don’t like each other. There it is, and I like it better that way. Who needs a big elaborate story? They knew that these two would put on a clinic so why over complicate things? They of course start hot with them both going to the corner and in a spot that you don’t often see, all three including the referee go through the ropes and crash on the floor.

That’s not something you see often but I like it. The WOO on the chops is always fun to hear. Now we get to something that I just don’t like. Benoit gets the crossface and Jericho taps in something like four minutes. Ok, now I get that it’s 2/3 falls and Jericho should want to keep the amount of damage he takes to a minimum. Heck, Lawler flat out says that it would be smart to tap here. I get that.

However, no matter how you want to say it, Benoit beat Jericho in like 4 minutes. Isn’t there some better way to do this? Couldn’t you do the first fall at like 9 minutes into the match? It’s not like this is going to be a five minute match or anything, so what’s the rush? I really don’t get that as it makes Benoit look capable of making Jericho tap with no difficulty and it makes Jericho look kind of weak.

I get the giving up quickly, but don’t make Jericho look like he has no defense at all for the hold. Rant over. Second fall starts immediately which is good as I’ve always hated the whole rest thing. This isn’t boxing. The stupidity of the end of the first fall is compounded here as Benoit immediately puts the hold back on and Jericho gets to the ropes. See what I mean? Why wouldn’t you just reverse that sequence?

He gets out the first time and then later on he can’t because his shoulder is hurting from the first time in the hold. Doesn’t that make a bit more sense? In something quite surprising, Benoit somewhat abandons psychology. They make it clear that the seconds crossface is focused more on the back, but after having that one on much longer, Benoit works on the neck and shoulder. Wouldn’t it make more sense to go after what was more injured?

I guess since he got the tap on the neck/shoulder he should go to it again, but then why would he change what got a tap in the first place? Wouldn’t it make sense that if a little pain made him tap more pain would make him tap again? Dang when did I start thinking like this? Anyway, the holds that Benoit is using here are freaking sick looking.

We get the comeback from Jericho though as he just starts throwing these big haymaker right hands. I’ve never seen him throw punches like this but they’re working for him. We get a nice wrestling sequence that ends up with Jericho getting the Liontamer, not the Walls but the Liontamer on Benoit for the tap out. These two have perhaps the most lethal looking submissions ever. Might have to have a thread about that in the near future.

This is why I like doing these threads. I get good ideas from them. They go into a fast sequence of counters and big moves, with the big one being Jericho hitting a hurricanrana from the top and after a two a lionsault but due to the shoulder he can’t cover.

They do several rollups but Benoit gets a small package near the corner and grabs the bottom rope to get the win. Apparently this was enough to get Benoit in the main event of Unforgiven, as he had just lost in the main event at Fully Loaded to Rock a month prior to this.

Rating: A. This was great stuff. The first two falls were both good enough, but they tore it up in the third one. It was exactly what you would expect from these two and it absolutely delivered on all levels. Somehow, this might not be the best that these two have had so good grief. How insane were these two, especially when you add in Kurt? Thank goodness the company got these three right.

HHH is just now arriving, so we hit the recap button on the Stephanie/Kurt interaction from earlier tonight, as well as the Smackdown kiss. This really has no bearing on anything, as we’re off to our next match.

We get the story of the three teams, which more or less is this: Edge and Christian hit the other four guys with chairs, they beat up Edge and Christian with ladders and tables, so let’s put all 6 guys and three weapons in one match and make it for the tag titles. Now you 6, go tear the freaking house down.

Tag Titles: Dudleyz vs. Hardy Boyz vs. Edge and Christian

In case you didn’t get it, this is the first TLC match. Tables and ladders and chairs, oh my, for all you Wizard of Oz aficionados out there. I’ve always liked the incoming missile thing that they did for the Dudleys entrance. The glasses need to come back for Bubba too. Oh yeah this is in North Carolina, so the Hardys get a small explosion. Chairs are in play quickly. Bear with me here as I’ve never tried to do one of these, so this could be a bit tricky.

Matt just pelts the thing at Bubba which sounds sick. The opening here is just a wild brawl all around, and what else were you expecting? However, you can tell they have a lot of this planned out, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. The big spots at least make sense here, unlike some matches with gimmicks where it’s just big spot after big spot and it rarely works out that well.

In another, say it with me, SICK spot, Jeff is climbing the ladder but Edge knocks him off. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but he lands on a ladder that’s on its side, so his ribs slam into the leg of it. This sea saws the other end up which slams Matt in the face. What’s Up leads to D-Von being given a fairly famous command.

You know I’ve always wondered what would happen if D-Von pulled a Punk and just said no. “D-Von, GET THE TABLES!” No jerk. You ran out when we were at IHOP last night and I had to pay for your 14 pancakes. Get your own tables you big fat butter bal! To make room, someone picks up a ladder and just throws it at Jeff, covering him up with ladders and chairs. We get a new shout from Bubba: D-Von! We’re gonna kill them! Yeah, that’s not over the top at all.

Edge lands three of the loudest and most painful looking chair shots in a row. Those things were just freaking intense. In another huge spot, Jeff does the twenty foot swanton and of course, misses. Edge is a freaking master with those chairs. Bubba is sent through four tables, leaving E/C alone to get the belts. However, Lita sprints to ringside and shoves them both off.

After various other amounts of destruction, including Edge just laying Lita out with a freaking great spear, Jeff and D-Von go up, but the ladder goes out and they’re stuck hanging there. D-Von goes down, so Edge and Christian more or less harpoon him with a ladder, then climb up and get the belts to retain. Kind of a not great ending, but DANG. Bubba is screwed up bad.

Rating: A-. This was a wild mess of a match, but dang. These six knew what they had to do and they nailed it. It was a wild match with all kinds of crazy bumps and wild spots. The scariest thing of all: this will be blown away in April by TLC 2. If you don’t get excited watching this, I feel you’re no longer alive.

Since we haven’t seen enough of this one story tonight, HHH is yelling at Stephanie about the kiss. You know, Rock hasn’t even been mentioned tonight. This is why the one on one would have been better and then find someone else to plug into the main event. Maybe do the fatal fourway that they did next month here. Oh yeah Steph says the kiss meant nothing.

Oh and since we just had an amazing match, let’s completely kill the momentum.

Stinkface Match: Kat vs. Terri

Yes, you win by sticking your thong in the other girl’s face, and yes, it’s as bad as it sounds. Kat, who was married to Lawler in real life but was released soon thereafter, comes out with Al Snow for no apparent reason to a weak version of Sable’s music. Terri comes out with Saturn and just strips on the way in.  You know what? Screw this. This is stupid and it’s not worth my time. Kat wins.

Rating: F-. I’m not 12 years old. This means nothing to me, and it was a complete waste of time. They couldn’t give the tag titles an extra five minutes, but they can do this. Unbelievable.

APA is in WWF New York as bartenders. That would just be cool to do.

Recap of Taker and Kane. This just amuses me. It started with Kane saving Taker from Benoit, which good night I would have loved to see a real feud between those two. Anyway, within seconds of Kane saving him, he turns heel and beats up Taker. For some reason, this amazes JR and Cole. Why? Why does that amaze you?

It’s not like HE DOES THAT EVERY TIME HE UNITES WITH TAKER or anything like that. These two fight more often than Sly and I do, and nothing is ever resolved. Anyway, of course we have this match here tonight. Oh and Kane beat up Taker with a chair a few days ago or something.

Undertaker vs. Kane

Taker is the American Tough Guy here and comes out first which is a little weird. His pop is insane to put it mildly. Taker just goes down the aisle and fights him early. Based on the commentary, you know this is going to be short. I wonder if one of them was hurt. In something almost weird for some reason, Taker is going for the mask. As JR says, has anyone ever done that? Not that I remember at least.

I guess it’s no holds barred as Kane brings in a chair and nothing happens. The announcers touch on this as they say the referee has said he’s just going to let them go, That kind of makes sense, as it’s not like he can do anything to either guy to stop them. Taker actually gets about half of Kane’s mask off. Kane messes up and slams the stairs into his own face, followed by Taker just picking them up and throwing the stairs at Kane, which is more or less impossible to fake.

Kane is bleeding bad after the stairs. By bad I mean terribly fake looking as the blood is closer to pink than red. Taker with a freaking spear, and actually a pretty good one. They both set for a chokeslam but Taker just kicks him in the balls. He rips the mask off and Kane runs, ending this…match? His long hair and hand covers it up. Taker’s music plays as JR asks if the bell ever rang.

Rating: B. I LOVED this. It was more or less a long segment, but who cares? This was just Taker being ticked off, and when that happens, it works very well. At the end of it Kane was just getting beaten up and Taker looked awesome. This is what it should have been and it went off well. It’s not like they were trying to top Mania 14, and they shouldn’t have.

Kurt is in the back, not in wrestling gear which is bad because his match is next. He calls someone, and we cut to HHH and Stephanie. Of course the phone rings and Stephanie pretends it’s Linda. HHH asks to talk to her, but “Linda” hangs up. Stephanie looks like a goddess in the graphic to put it mildly.

We get the same recap that we’ve seen five times tonight, so I won’t bother with the story all over again.

WWF Title: Rock vs. HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle is dressed in record time and weighs in at 229lbs. That’s light even for him. He says that he’s sorry he didn’t kiss her earlier. As he’s known for doing, he puts his foot in his mouth and says that he gave Stephanie more passion that HHH ever could. HHH comes out and to say he’s mad is the understatement of the millennium. They start without Rock, or I should say HHH starts without him.

Rock is smart and doesn’t come out for a few minutes. They hit the announce table and HHH sets for a Pedigree, but the table breaks early and Angle is legit hurt. It’s worse than Lesnar’s face was after the shooting star. I mean he is gone. HHH pulls the hammer but he can’t hit him, IF YA SMELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLll What the Rock is cooking! That music is just freaking awesome.

Since Kurt is injured, we pretty much have Rock vs. HHH, which has been the main event all summer, so it’s not like this is a bad thing. HHH beats Rock down just a bit and runs after the EMTs who are taking Angle out on a stretcher to beat on him a bit more. Rock sprints down the aisle and perhaps literally saves Kurt. They brawl back to the ring and Stephanie comes out to check on Kurt.

Stephanie, clad in ridiculously tight leather pants, comes down and gets yelled at by HHH. She runs over to grab the belt and lands a running slap to the timekeeper that is just hilarious to say the least. She misses and hits HHH though. Seriously, that running slap was GREAT. It just came off as hilarious on about 1000 levels. Game comes back with a low blow though, and that’s the end of my rhyming.

Lawler makes a nose joke about HHH which just seems out of place here. Sister Sledge comes back into play here, as HHH nails Rock with it in the ribs. JR has a small seizure about the hammer as he just shouts and shouts some more. After about eight minutes of these two nearly killing each other, we cut to Stephanie and Kurt in the back with her begging him to come save HHH. If they somehow faked that, I’d be amazed to say the least.

Although, Rock coming out at that exact second is a bit fishy. I’d think he’s legit hurt, but I guess there’s a slight chance that it was fake. They come back out again, with a great shot of Stephanie’s figure. For about the 5th time in this match, HHH looks backwards to see if Kurt is there for his spot and it’s really getting bad. It’s so painfully obvious that it’s sad. Angle either wasn’t hurt or it wasn’t nearly as bad as they thought, or he’s completely nuts. He’s staggering all over the place.

The more I look at Kurt the more I think he was just shaken up. He’s moving around better every second and is doing moves that you’d need a lot of mental capacity to do. It’s him and Rock at the moment until HHH saves Angle from being pinned from a Rock Bottom. Stephanie gets back in again after Kurt brings a hammer back in to cause JR to need his medicine. HHH misses a punch and nails Steph, so Kurt nails him with the hammer.

Rock knocks Angle outside and lands the Elbow to retain. He grabs the belt and leaves, posing on the Summerslam set as Angle carries Stephanie out to end the show. Angle would take the title from Rock two months later and hold it until No Way Out.

Rating: B. This was a fine match, as it was mainly HHH vs. Rock, which is always solid. I’m still not sure if Angle was hurt or not, but if he wasn’t then he deserves a raise. This was good enough, but I’m not sure if it’s good enough to be a main event of a major show. I stand by what I said about how it should have been Angle vs. HHH and maybe Rock vs. Taker or Kane as that angle was thrown together in about 10 days. Either way, this was fine.

BUT WAIT!

My version has a post show segment in studio with Coach, so I’ll throw this in as a bonus. Coach, with more hair on his head and less on his face, is going through all of the matches in a highlight package and introducing some of the wrestlers for interviews. Cool.

RTC says they had fun censoring Too Cool, including a Bull Buchanan speech, which is interesting, as he has a thick southern accent. Richards clearly should have been the only one to talk.

Coach doesn’t like RTC. He skips X-Pac and Road Dogg for no apparent reason and jumps to the IC match.

Chyna and Eddie are both happy that she’s the champion and she couldn’t do it without Eddie. This would lead to a pretty simple yet decent angle with them semi feuding over th belt.

Tazz says that the path of rage is coming back. Actually that’s not true as he was turned face very soon.

Coach doesn’t like Tazz.

Blackman actually cuts a promo, saying that the belt is back around his waist when it’s on his shoulder, and that Shane walked away, when he was actually stretchered out. And we wonder why he wasn’t allowed to talk.

Benoit says that he has made his point.

Coach doesn’t like Benoit but he respects him.

Recap of TLC, which is just sweet all over.

Edge and Christian say they’ll be ok. They actually sound like they lost if you just listen to their words.

Women’s match. Moving on.

Taker says he’s the big dog in the yard, which became a semi catchphrase for him. He tells Kane to never cross him again, leaves, and then comes back to swear. That’s just comical.

Finally, we recap the main event. No interviews here.

I liked this actually. It’s perfect for a home video as it offers a little bonus reason to buy the tape with the exclusive interviews. It’s a nice little addition and it’s only about 10 minutes long, so it’s not bogged down. I like it.

Overall Rating: A. This is a VERY good show, and bordering on classic. The only thing possibly is the main event, which likely should have been Rock vs. HHH or HHH vs. Angle for the title with Rock doing something else. Either way, the show rocks all around with only the women’s match being terrible.

Other than that, everything is good to great. Definitely a big time recommendation here as it was just flat out awesome. Find a copy of this and watch it all, as only about 5 minutes is bad. GREAT show.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #82
Date: April 7, 1997
Location: Von Braun Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko

Back to Nitro and it’s the first night after Spring Stampede. Almost nothing has changed as that was one of the least important shows in recent memory. We’re now on the way towards Slamboree which will set the bar even lower as Hogan’s spring/summer vacation continues. Hopefully this is a more interesting show than last week. Let’s get to it.

Tony and Larry suggest there’s turmoil in the NWO. This would be the first of about 87 times this was potentially happening. We get a lot of stills from the main event last night with Nash power bombing Nick Patrick after the pin was counted for Page.

Konnan/Hugh Morrus vs. Psychosis/Alex Wright

Wright and Morrus start us off and the fans seem rowdy tonight. Alex uses the Daniel Bryan moonsault out of the corner and works on the arm of Morrus. Off to Psychosis as the announcers talk about having an opening to beat the NWO now. Konnan comes in illegally but walks into a superkick that didn’t appear to connect from Psychosis. A better looking top rope spinwheel kick puts Konnan down and Psychosis takes Morrus down on the floor as well.

Morrus comes in and with nothing better to do, we go split screen to show Page arriving earlier today and looking hurt. A powerslam gets no cover on the masked man and a middle rope elbow misses for Morrus. Double tag brings in Wright and Konnan and Alex cleans house. A top rope cross body gets one on Hugh but Konnan hits him with a neckbreaker and No Laughing Matter (moonsault) gets the pin on Wright.

Rating: D+. Not much here but it wasn’t bad. The Dungeon of Doom was about a year and a half past their expiration date and they would never mean anything again. For that matter you could say the same for Wright and Psychosis as well, but they had some moderate success. Not a lot to say here.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Steven Regal

No entrances for either guy but at least we got that nifty set of stills from Madusa vs. Hokuto. Regal takes over to start and sends Rey out to the floor and into the barricade. Back inside and we’re told the NWO has arrived. Naturally we look at this instead of the match. I know they’re a bigger deal but this gets on my nerves. You could EASILY show this between the matches and nothing would be any worse. Hogan and Bischoff talk about problems in the family and it’s only the two of them plus DiBiase and Vincent.

Back in the ring, Mysterio sends Regal to the apron but misses a charge. Regal goes up top but takes too long, allowing Rey to hit a springboard headscissors for two. West Coast Pop doesn’t connect properly and only gets two. Regal takes him down and puts on the Regal Stretch but Rey makes the rope. For some reason during part of that hold referee Randy Anderson had his hand on the back of Rey’s head. Regal won’t break the hold and it’s a DQ.

Rating: D+. Not much to see here again but at least we could see most of the match instead of having most of the time being spent on the NWO buying a newspaper or whatever they’re doing this week. Regal was snapping at this point but I don’t remember anything coming out of it, which is a shame as he was good at being psycho.

Prince Iaukea comes out for the save but Regal beats him down and puts him in the Stretch too. The totally calm look on Regal’s face as he tortures Iaukea and punches him in the face is borderline chilling.

The rest of the NWO arrives. Savage is on crutches.

We recap last night’s bizarre one on one match for the tag titles which was basically Rick Steiner being squashed by Kevin Nash. This led to Ted DiBiase getting upset by the amount of punishment Steiner received.

Ice Train vs. Chris Benoit

Woman is continuing to look good here so at least the squash won’t be a total loss. Benoit pounds away to start but walks into a press slam from Train. Benoit starts chopping away but Ice Train yells at him and clotheslines Benoit down. Train puts on a chinlock as we go split screen to see Hogan throwing the belt down and the NWO gets in an argument.

Savage seems to be the one with the most issues here. Nash walks away and Norton says get it together. Back in the ring Woman takes Teddy Long down and a Benoit DDT gets the pin. It was barely long enough to rate in the first place and since we missed a good piece of it for an NWO argument I’ll pass on a rating. It was exactly what you would expect though.

We get a video on the premiere of Double Team, which is Dennis Rodman’s new movie. This is shown because the NWO was there, which brings up a question: the NWO is supposed to be a totally different organization from WCW in storyline terms right? So why would WCW show this stuff? There’s no disclaimer saying that the NWO paid for this and Tony intros it, so why would they show it?

Hector Guerrero vs. Kevin Sullivan

Hector is a dead ringer for Eddie and may actually be more talented in the ring than Eddie was. Sullivan pounds Hector down to start and knocks him to the floor so Jackie can slam him which is supposed to be impressive for some reason. Back in the ring and Sullivan keeps up the assault and then throws him out to Jackie for more of her punches and another slam. The Tree of Woe and double stomp end this quick, and by that I mean the guy that got in all the offense so far, as in Sullivan, wins, in case that was too complicated for you.

Here’s the NWO with something to say. DiBiase says there are clearly problems here and we need to fix them now. Hogan says that Nash has a problem with this and throws the belt down again, saying it means nothing. Nash says that he has no problem with Rodman as he used to be a ball player too. But he spent Easter Sunday in a hotel room with Syxx which was a big problem for some reason.

Hogan says next Easter they’ll go on an NWO Easter Hunt, but for now he wants to know where Hall is. Nash says Hall is NWO for life but Hogan wants to fight right now. Nash talks about Hogan joining Hall and Nash and about how they’re NWO for life. That apparently buries the hatchet but Savage is mad. The fans want Sting. Hogan says he doesn’t want to fight Savage so get it together. Savage says ok but he and Bishoff are on probation with each other. That settles things apparently.

Hour #2 begins and we recap the first half of the show.

Gene brings out Flair for a chat. Flair rants a bit about the NWO and how he’s going to take them out. Here’s Piper who says he’s out of the asylum and rants a bit as well. Flair says Kevin Greene wants to join up with them and I think we’ve got a six man coming. Piper on the NWO: “They smell like six dead otters in a drainpipe.” Greene comes out and praises both guys before going insane as well. This would be the main event of the PPV.

US Title: Dean Malenko vs. Chris Jericho

This should be awesome. Things start off fast and Jericho hits a pair of kicks to take Malenko down. They head to the floor for some more kicks before a missile dropkick gets two back in the ring. A backslide gets the same but Jericho ducks his head and gets powerbombed. There’s the Cloverleaf but Jericho grabs the rope. Dean goes up but gets superplexed down. This is the first slow down they’ve had so far. As Jericho gets up, Dean hits a standing version of Orton’s Punt for the pin.

Rating: B. For a three minute match, this was AWESOME. Dean going all evil and kicking Jericho in the face was a good change of pace for him and it would lead to a decent heel run for him. Jericho was starting to get pushed and it would turn into a title run in a few months in a big win over an NWO member.

Public Enemy vs. High Voltage

High Voltage jumps the Public Enemy to start but gets slugged down almost immediately. A double flapjack sets up a double suplex on Rage for no cover. The fans like the arm waving thing the Public Enemy does. Rock and Kaos officially get us going before Rock is sent to the floor for a beating from Rage. Back in and Rock hits a neckbreaker on Kaos for two. Tag to Grunge who cleans house. They head to the floor and Kaos is put on the table. The elbow through said table misses while back in the ring, Rage hits a northern lights suplex for the pin. Short but energetic again.

Public Enemy says sometimes the table works for you and sometimes it works against you but it’s all good. Rock challenges High Voltage to a Philadelphia street fight next week. They say they’ll get extreme next week.

Prince Iaukea is getting his ribs taped up.

Harlem Heat vs. Steve McMichael/Jeff Jarrett

And there’s no Mongo. Booker gets things going in a match that would be for the world title in about three years. Booker runs him over to start but Jarrett comes back with some hip tosses. Jarrett goes to the corner but gets pounded down as the Heat takes over again. Stevie comes in and catches Jarrett in what we would call the World’s Strongest Slam. Jeff dropkicks both guys to the floor and things slow down a bit.

Stevie slams him down again and it’s back to Booker. The numbers game is catching up with Jeff as Booker side kicks him down for two. Debra has left ringside as the announcers are trying to figure out if Mongo was here earlier or not. The ax kick hits but Booker tags out instead of covering. Jarrett grabs a small package out of nowhere for two and a sunset flip out of the corner gets the same on Booker. A double suplex puts Jeff down for two and Debra is back again. Jeff misses a dropkick and Stevie guillotines him on the top rope.

Even Sherri is getting in some attacks on Jeff, hitting him in the chest and choking him a bit. A quick backslide gets two for Jarrett and he avoids the Harlem Side Kick, crotching Booker in the process. Stevie hits a brainbuster and here’s Mongo who looks fine. Stevie misses something off the top and Mongo is on the apron. There’s the tag and Mongo cleans house. Jarrett is spent so Mongo tags him back in. Mongo shoves him into the side kick and Booker gets the pin.

Rating: D+. This was a long angle advancement which is a good thing, but it’s an angle that wasn’t interesting for the most part. At the end of the day, they’re fighting about Debra who is just annoying beyond belief. Mongo wasn’t any good in the ring and Jarrett was awful as a face at this point. It wouldn’t be until be became a male sexist pig in the WWF that he really came into his own.

Jarrett and Mongo bicker post match. Mongo says he wants more pain but never would say where he was.

TV Title: Ultimo Dragon vs. Prince Iaukea

Iaukea is injured from the attack by Regal earlier in the night. He tries to speed things up to start but a slam fails. Iaukea rolls him up for two and a backslide gets the same. Dragon uses his first opening and kicks the Prince in the ribs to take over. Iaukea gets the feet up to take out a diving Dragon but Dragon kicks him in the ribs a few times and pins him quickly for the title. This was basically a squash.

Another package of stills from last night. I’ll give WCW one thing: other than the title matches which are obvious, they haven’t said who won any of these matches. That’s one thing that annoys me about WWE doing this: they’ll tell you to buy the replay but they’ll explain every single thing that happened. Here at least they’re just showing pictures of it but no endings.

Giant vs. Scott Steiner

Main event here, but Konnan and Hugh Morrus jump Scott on the way to the ring. Giant makes the save. Scott didn’t wrestle last night either so maybe he was injured. No match.

Here’s DDP to close the show. He talks about last night and how no one would have believed that could have happened a few years ago. Page says he’s an anomaly and if he had gotten his hands on Savage last night when Savage was hurting Kimberly, he would have killed the Macho Man. Cue Savage on crutches but Hogan follows him out and stops him.

Hogan says this one is on him and the rest of the NWO appears on stage. Hogan rips his shirt off and here’s Sting on a zip line and repelling from the ceiling. He stands in the aisle in front of the NWO and holds the bat out at Hogan. Sting hands Page the bat but pulls out another one to point at Hogan again. The NWO cowers to end the show.

Overall Rating: B-. This show worked MUCH better than the previous week’s did and that’s because the big stars were here. Last week and at Spring Stampede, no one showed up and it felt like an unimportant show. This show came off like it mattered and even though the PPV would mean nothing again, this was a good start on the six week build to Slamboree.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Summerslam 1999
Date: August 22, 1999
Location: Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Attendance: 17,130
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Well not much has changed since last year. Austin is still dominating the wrestling world, but he’d be injured very soon and get run over, leaving for a year. Tonight though, he’s facing the young stud known as HHH and Mankind in a triple threat for the belt. The only big change that’s happened is HHH and Rock have switched sides in the eternal struggle between heel and face.

Also, a lot of the Attitude Era favorites are here now, such as the APA, the hardcore title, the Big Show and Bully Gunn. Oh and Al Snow, but no one likes him. (Foley is my all time favorite. I couldn’t help it.) Angle has been there for about 4 months, Jericho has been there less than two weeks, debuting 13 days prior to this show, and Benoit and co. would show up at the end of January.

The big deal to this show is that there’s a special referee for the main event: the governor of the state of Minnesota, Jesse “The Body” Ventura!!!! This was huge at the time because he was in office at the time, so if nothing else it got a lot of mainstream publicity. Therefore, let’s get to this. Oh and one more thing: Smackdown would debut as a regular series four days after this.

We get a recap of guest referee history (coming soon to a history channel near YOU) which include Tyson and McMahon and McMahon Jr. HHH and Austin say they’ll beat up Jesse if they have to, but he says he has the power. Now we’re in the arena with a huge pyro show. Jesse is in the back with HHH and Chyna, saying that HHH has to follow the rules or he won’t be champion. We cut to Jericho from earlier today, waiting on someone. Harold Finkle comes running up and apologizes for being late.

IC/European Titles: D’Lo Brown vs. Jeff Jarrett

Yes, Brown has both titles. Jarrett comes out with Debra, who is in a bikini and a coat. He sends her back, much to the King’s dismay, but we see her with Brown who she accompanies to ringside instead. Ross tries to convince the people that the pop is for Brown and not Debra. Even I don’t buy that one Jimmy boy. They talk about Brown’s incredible weight loss as at one point he weighed over 400lbs, yet for this match he weighs in at about 250.

That really is not only impressive but should be applauded, if nothing else for the health aspect. Once again, the lady is the main focus of this match, or in this case her chest is. If her face wasn’t so unnatural looking, she’d be VERY hot instead of just having a huge chest. The match is short, yet interesting. We’re in the fast paced, more intense style that’s always fun. Here, Brown actually controls most of this, which isn’t something that you see very often actually.

Jarrett makes him look good, which is better because Jarrett would be gone within two months, heading back to WCW as a big name until they closed. Anyway, Debra gets on the apron, yet Jarrett grabs the guitar and yells at her. If he’s going to use the guitar and Debra is there, why not hit him while she has the referee? Anyway, Mark Henry runs out and helps Brown, only to nail him seconds later to give Jeff two titles. Debra wasn’t with Brown and it was a swerve, which is fine I guess. At least they didn’t’ try to make it something major.

Rating: B-. Solid opener here, with some nice intense stuff. Never been a fan of unified titles like this but I guess it’s ok. Debra was the big deal here, but unlike last year with Sable it was more subtle and it certainly wasn’t like having a big spotlight on her all night, which was a major plus. Not a great match, but good for an opener.

Edge and Christian say they’ll win the tag team turmoil match.

Tag Team Turmoil

I’ve always liked this idea. You have 6 teams. Two start and have a tag match. The losers are eliminated, and then the third team comes in. You keep going until there’s one team left. The winners get a tag title shot tomorrow night on Raw. Oh while Edge and Christian are coming out, JR is still upset about what Henry did, because D’lo was trying to help his career. My goodness what would he have been like had Brown not helped?

Anyway, we start with E/C and the New Brood, aka the Hardys, who are heels if you can believe that. The Dudleyz weren’t quite there yet, but very soon these three would start dominating the tag division as you already know. The match starts with a standard back and forth fast paced match. I’ll spare a lot of the details here as most of these are going to last about three minutes at most. It amazes me that you have these four guys and Matt is easily the least successful of them all.

Who would have believed that you have at least 13 world title reigns in there? That’s unbelievable. Anyway, we go to the floor and it gets insane. You can tell how much these four are loving this as they’re killing each other out there. When the Dudleys came in a few months or maybe even weeks, the ante would be upped even more, especially with the ladders becoming more prevalent. Anyway, Edge hits an electric chair followed by what I think is a diving elbow from Christian to eliminate the Hardys.

Out next are Mideon and Viscera. And here is where the match starts to become an issue with the time. This lasts all of two minutes so there’s not a lot I can say. It might be better for it to be short though, given the wrestling abilities or lack thereof in the new team out there. Big Daddy V is somehow more annoying here with that stupid looking yellow Mohawk of his.

He uses that spin kick which is one of his best ever, nearly hitting Edge in the shoulder. It looks impressive, but it never actually connects, at least not that I can remember. Other than that, this is exactly what you would expect. Christian gets beaten up, Edge comes in and they double team Vis before spearing Mideon for the pin, and we get team #4.

Ross is talking about how spent Edge and Christian must be. Why in the world would they be spent? They’ve been wrestling less than 10 minutes and they get about 45 seconds to rest between falls. To say they’re tired is just stupid. The next team is Droz and Prince Albert. I’ll spare you the jokes about piercings, but years later when I found out what the name meant, I wince every time I hear it.

Anyway, this is more or less a team that was just thrown together because there was nothing else to do with them, which can work just fine. The New Age Outlaws got together this way and it worked fine. Anyway, neither guy was anything special yet and for the most part, they never were period. In case you don’t know, Albert became the A-Train.

Sadly enough, Droz would be paralyzed within two months of this, never walking again for the rest of his life, at least since then. This one goes even shorter, with Edge hitting the Downward Spiral after about two minutes. This is the problem with matches like these: unless you let them go an hour, you make a lot of matches and teams just seem like wastes of time and filler.

The fifth team is the Acolytes, not yet the APA. APA was the team that lost the belts to X-Pac and Kane, the current champions, so this was their chance to get the belts back the next night on Raw. Anyway, they’re the big monsters here and one of my favorite teams at the time, at least until the Dudleyz came in a few weeks later to really breathe new life into the division, not that it really needed it at the time, but it didn’t hurt things at all really.

It’s weird to think that at the time, Simmons was by far and away the most successful of these four, yet in the end, he’ll be the least successful. They just beat the tar out of Edge before we go to a big brawl, with Christian taking over on Farooq. For no reason at all, the Hollies come down as the final team, despite not being in the match yet. I guess they just jumped too early? Anyway, Bradshaw, big clothesline, yeah.

Hollies and APA to end this, and this seems REALLY simple here. The bad team fight over who gets to beat up their opponent, which is something I’d just let them do. If they’re going to expend energy and hurt each other, why stop them? Bradshaw, the Einstein of this group, beats Hardcore up while he’s fighting with Crash.

They both do blind tags, leading to another fight. Simmons, the smart one, just lets them do it. Hardcore turns around and walks into a spinebuster for the pin. See how smart it is to just let them beat each other up? Post match, the Hollies go at it even more. Somehow they would become tag champions someday.

Rating: B-. This is a hard one to call, as it was really 5 matches in one, but there were a lot of squashes in there too. Edge and Christian were on display here, as it was obvious they were the best in the company at this point. Overall, this was fine, but it needed more time, which is saying something as it was almost 20 minutes as it was. These kinds of matches are cool in theory, but they have to be done just right. This one came close to doing that.

Show and Taker are just getting here. Yeah thanks for showing up on time.

We cut to a shot of Pepper, Al Snow’s Chihuahua. He says something about how Bossman promised to get both of them, which he eventually would.

Before the match, Road Dogg, who is billed as a big deal in the division despite winning the title only one time, He challenges the winner of the Hardcore title match for tomorrow night. The more I see of him, the more I really like him. He’s very solid in the ring, he’s great on the mic, the fans are into him, and he has a decent resume. Jericho interrupts him though, as a complete rookie at this point.

He hadn’t even been in the company two weeks at this point. Jericho is on an extension of the stage which is up in the air. This was when he was the king of the internet, kind of like Danielson is today. Everyone knew he had all kinds of talent but was being completely wasted in WCW. In a few months with Angle and Benoit being around, they would start tearing the house down every time they were in the ring together and really revolutionize the company as a whole.

You can tell they trusted Jericho a lot, as he debuted in an argument with the Rock. That’s saying a lot when you think about it. He insults Road Dogg as its clear WWF understood him FAR better than WCW did, putting him with two of the best talkers in the company immediately. He is just tearing Road Dogg apart here, as he has the entire crowd going nuts with insults. Roadie’s response: Why don’t you shut up, boy? Yeah, Jericho is light years ahead of him here.

If you can ever find it online, get a copy of Jericho and Foley’s promos together. It’s just them trading these amazing insults and one liners about each other as they both keep trying to top one another. It’s some of the funniest work I’ve ever seen.

Hardcore Title: Al Snow vs. Big Bossman

Roadie joins JR and Jerry for commentary for this match. He immediately threatens to punch Jerry for using the same lines over and over again, gaining cheers from half the audience. Bossman is champion by the way. They do something that’s pretty cool here, as they give Road Dogg a microphone and he follows them around the arena giving commentary. I really like his style as he sounds like a fan cracking jokes about the match as it goes.

He has a very smooth voice and he’s easy to listen to. It’s also a treat for the fans as they never get to hear anything when they’re in the arena. They go into the back and in a spot I shouldn’t laugh at, Bossman picks up Snow’s dog’s box and throws it and the dog across the floor. They fight towards a Pepsi case, which they knock over.

There was no Pepsi in it which is good because Pepsi sucks. This is actually cool as they go outside the arena and fight more. They go across the street which I’m assuming was closed off and fight on the patio of a bar. This is actually really cool when you think about it, but it easily could have gone bad had cops or something not been filled in on this and thought it was a legit bar fight.

Bossman hits him in the head with a yellow pages, which would hurt actually as those things are heavy, especially for a major city like Minneapolis and possibly St. Paul. They do a bunch of random brawling using a bunch of weapons. Snow with a moonsault off a bar. The funny part of this is I’m reviewing this on the night that IC, Norcal and D-Man got together at a bar.

For no reason at all, Road Dogg hits Bossman in the back with the nightstick, followed by Snow hitting Bossman with some pool balls, which allows Snow to pin him on a pool table. Snow runs back to the arena to check on his dog and for no apparent reason beats up Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie. In the process of this he steals a guy’s crutch, causing him to fall down.

Rating: B. This was a run of the mill hardcore match from this era, meaning it was fun. You have to grade some matches on a different kind of scale and this one of them. You can’t grade this like you would a Benoit/Angle match. For what it was, this was a fun match that worked.

Mankind and Ventura are talking. Ventura says that while Mankind is hardcore and Jess is fine with that, if Foley uses a weapon for the pin, Jesse won’t count it. This somehow turns into a political debate that I’d pay to hear.

There’s another Lion’s Den match tonight, but this one has weapons.

Women’s Title: Ivory vs. Tori

Now this isn’t the Torrie that hung out with Stacy. This is Tori that was just around for awhile, mainly hanging out with X-Pac. She never really did much and from what I remember was AWFUL in the ring. Looked hot though. JR apologizes in advance, knowing that it’s going to suck. They’ve been….I guess you’d call it feuding, but this is pre-Lita/Trish, meaning it’s horrible at best for the most part.

Apparently the dog wasn’t in the dog box when Bossman threw it. This makes no sense as he yelled into the cage before throwing it, but whatever. This was when Ivory was just done being Henry’s sex toy, meaning she was still quite hot as long as you didn’t see her full face. Tori is a women’s wrestler, so naturally she has a martial arts background. Here’s some examples of the epicness of this match: Ivory hits a legdrop. Tori literally does not move.

She doesn’t sell, she doesn’t react, she doesn’t do anything and it just looks bad. Ivory then shouts “get ready for the big swing.” Yes, she’s using a giant swing. The crowd is chanting Take It Off, so you get the idea. The finish…might be the worst I’ve ever seen. I’ve been a fan of wrestling for over 20 years, I’ve seen thousands of matches, and I honestly have no clue what this was supposed to be.

Tori goes for a sunset flip and botches it, leading to Ivory being back in control. That’s all fine and good. They botch it, with Ivory being pushed too far and being out of the pin. Immediately after this, they do the EXACT SAME SPOT, but this time instead of Ivory going down like she normally would, she just sits on Tori’s chest. Ivory then “covers” Tori, who’s shoulder is AT LEAST three inches off the mat, for the pin to retain.

The air was allegedly knocked out of her, but she’s up withing seconds and is just fine. Afterwards, for no apparent reason, Ivory throws her on her stomach and starts to unhook her top. While I’m not complaining…actually yes I am. This makes no sense at all other than to embarrass him I guess, but still what’s the point?

She gets it off but before she can fulfill her latent lesbian desires, Luna freaking Vachon, who I swear has been with the company forever, runs out for the save. It went nowhere as far as I can remember.

Rating: F. Oy this was bad. Tori is just flat out awful and while Ivory would become good, she wasn’t there yet. This was just terrible in any and all forms, with the ending being one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Terrible match to say the least.

Rock is with Michael Cole and embarrasses him, as it’s the best thing Cole did. Rock is just amazing here as he’s at his best, just before his hottest period, his summer long feud with HHH in 2000 over the title. For some reason tonight though, he’s against Billy Gunn, who is shown coming in with someone under a sheet.

We get a very different kind of video package, with Lawler and Ross doing prerecorded stuff which just sounds different. It’s odd to hear those two doing voiceover work. Anyway, basically both guy thinks they’re better with weapons than the other, so we have this to determine it.

Lion’s Den: Steve Blackman vs. Ken Shamrock

They start with Blackman pulling nunchucks from his tights which he swings very well. This is more or less a martial arts match in a cage with weapons. It’s actually cool to see two guys that can do this kind of stuff, but I don’t want to see the weapons in there. Seeing these two trying to choke each other out and kicking the heck out of each other would be fun based on the short bits that they do here. I think you can only win by KO or tapping.

We get a kendo stick brought in. So far the weapons use is limited, which makes this a lot better for me. Blackman was ok I guess, but he just bored me to tears a lot of the time. I hated his time as hardcore champion. Those sticks he would use just drove me insane. As I restart the video after typing that, he’s got the sticks. This fight is ok, but I’m still not sold on the weapons stuff. This is kind of like MMA I guess, but only parts of it.

It’s close to a hybrid I guess you could call it, and that’s just fine. This cage is really small actually. Blackman is dominating, but he keeps letting Shamrock get up and it’s just kind of pointless looking. Shamrock’s belly to bellies are just freaking sick looking. Shamrock kills Blackman with the kendo stick to knock him out and end this. Shamrock celebrates to end this segment.

Rating: B-. This is a very hard one to grade as I could see people loving it, liking it or hating it. I could certainly get the argument of there’s no point to having this on a wrestling show and there’s a certain amount of truth to that. However, there’s certainly wrestling in there, and while I’d prefer no weapons, this was fine I thought.

We get a recap of Shane attacking Test on Heat. This was a very cool angle that I always liked, which directly led to the McMahon-Helmsley Era the next year. Here’s the idea: Vince McMahon, back in the spring, had a stable called the Union, comprised of Test, Shamrock, Big Show and Mankind. They were there to simply help him fight off Taker and the Ministry. The reason you’ve never heard of them was they disbanded after literally a month.

Anyway, one night Stephanie was kidnapped and the Union rescued her. Due to this, Vince granted them all a favor of their choice. Most of them picked matches, but Test said he wanted a date with Stephanie. He got what he wanted, and they became an onscreen couple. Now you have to remember at this time, Test was something like John Morrison is now: young, cool looking, a tough guy, and looking like the next big thing.

Shane, being the big brother, decides that a wrestler isn’t good enough for his sister. Let the HHH jokes begin. Anyway, Stephanie yells at him to stay out, so he gets his friends, the Mean Street Posse, to help him fight Test. Naturally, he beats the tar out of all of them and gives them all injuries. Eventually we get to this: Shane vs. Test in a Love Her or Leave Her Greenwich Street Fight. The idea is simple: if Test wins, Shane stays out of their relationship. If Shane wins, they break up.

Street Fight: Shane McMahon vs. Test

The MSP comes out before we get started, all bandaged up etc. There just happens to be a couch waiting on them. Test has bad ribs btw. Within a minute they’re already out in the crowd. Naturally the Posse is already interfering, but Test throws Shane into them. Stephanie, pre implants, is watching in the back. There’s a mailbox next to the Posse, so of course they use it in the match. It’s more or less a standard street fight.

The crowd is way into Test here, so I’ve always wondered why he never took off. We go back to the ring and Shane busts out a freaking  corkscrew moonsault from the top. Every time he’s in the ring he does something impressive and this is no exception. It looks great to say the least. It missed, but it looked great. Test misses a boot and kicks the heck out of the referee. Shane hits the elbow through the table.

That’s the real battle here: who has the better top rope elbow drop? For some reason in a match where there are no rules, the referee has to be distracted. That’s just kind of pointless don’t you think? Back in, Test kicks out to a big pop. For the life of me I don’t get why they dropped his push. He seems to be really over, at least in this match. More or less this is a four on one match, but it’s three jobbers and a part time wrestler.

This really shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, but they’re making it work. The Stooges are here to make the save though, as you don’t mess with the Real Americans. They beat up 2 of the Posse, allowing Test to kick the 3rd in the head, then beat the tar out of Shane with a SWEET looking elbow for the pin. Stephanie runs out to celebrate.

Rating: B. This was a very good street fight. The Posse interfering makes perfect sense as Shane isn’t a polished wrestler and would need help to win. The crowd was WAY into this too. There were good weapons spots, big moves and a solid ending. In short, this was very good and very fun.

Anyway, moving on we have the recap of the tag title match, which is the new champions Kane and X-Pac vs. Big Show and Undertaker. Taker was probably the most evil in his entire career at this point, more or less being the devil. This was around the time that X-Pac was trying to humanize Kane, which never really worked. These kinds of matches are why X-Pac gets the reputation he gets.

Against guy his size he works really well and he’s a fun guy to watch. However, putting him in the ring with three guys whose smallest is the 6’10 328lb Undertaker just does not work at all. He looks out of place and you get into the area where it’s about his heart, which makes even less sense. Also, the X Factor was a horrible move.

It’s a facebuster for those of you unfamiliar with it. For someone his size he needs to be using the ropes for a big high impact move. Those two things changed, Waltman could have been a decent guy. Instead, he’s more or less universally hated, which I don’t think is fair.

Tag Titles: X-Pac/Kane vs. Big Show/Undertaker

The announcers are asking about whether or not the challengers can trust each other. Kane has a different outfit which is his old red and black but inverted. It looks fairly awesome. Taker’s music is just freaking SWEET around this time. For some reason this feels like a No Mercy match to me. I mean the N64 game that is. Not sure why that’s the case but it feels like one.

Basically, this is what you’d expect: faces clean house to start and it gets down to Pac vs. Taker, but the size gets the better of it until Kane comes in. They do a spot that I really like as Taker is about to chokeslam Pac through the table but Kane just pulls him in over the top rope. I think I’m getting where the NM aspect comes in. Kane would be the first player, saving his much weaker partner from the other two guys on Expert mode.

He hits a move, goes for a cover, and saves his partner. Eventually he starts to get beaten down though, as would be expected I suppose. Watching Taker and Kane fight is almost always fun. The history there just makes it fun. It’s odd to see Kane as the face, and there’s a joke there somewhere, vs. Taker as the heel. Just realized the flaw in my No Mercy analogy: Big Show wasn’t in it, and Taker was a biker.

Pac gets in and finally gets the beating that we all knew was coming. The main thing here of course is the heart of X-Pac which I think I’ve mentioned before. Anyway, Show beats on him for awhile but since he hasn’t had a twinkie (I’m sure Rhodes or DiBiase would do) in awhile, he goes to the resthold of doom. We get one of the moves I’ve always hated: the Bronco Buster. DAng can someone just shoot whoever made that move?

Pac kicks out of a Showstopper and Taker is TICKED. He tags himself in, punches the small one, and tombstones the living ehck out of him to get the tag titles. The belt looks small in Show’s hands.

Rating: D+. This just didn’t do it for me. I mean, I know the ending to about 95% of these matches, but a lot of them get me into it. This simply didn’t at all. It was just there and it wasn’t interesting, there was no drama, and it didn’t work. I think the issue here is you have three guys that combine to be over 1000 pounds, and then someone that barely clears 200.

The problem is that there’s far too much of a difference between the sizes and it just didn’t work for me. It would be the Rock N Sock Connection that would take the belts from these monsters in I think about three weeks.

Ventura gives his same speech to Austin.
Rock vs. Billy Gunn

There’s something about if Gunn wins Rock has to kiss up to him. This was a really weird period for Rock as he was over, but Austin was just way too big of a star for Rock to get that top spot. The neck surgery was coming, and Rock would be launched so far into the stratosphere that you couldn’t see him anymore. By the way, this is being written just after Night of Champions ended, so if there’s some anti-Hardy remarks in here, don’t be surprised.

Anyway, Rock was thrown into stupid feud after stupid feud, even being paired with Gangrel for all of a minute. That should speak volumes for how out there they were with him. Anyway, Gunn has a fat lady with him, saying if Rock loses he kisses her, not his, so the ending is pretty obvious already. There was no point to this feud but it filled Rock’s time I guess. Billy Gunn…..where do I begin? This guy was given so many pushes and he never could get it right.

Somehow, this was his most successful gimmick. They’re on the floor and Rock puts King’s crown on Gunn before punching him. Why has no one ever used that as a weapon? If a cookie sheet hurts, that has to have some force behind it. For some reason, Lawler starts going over the possible types of underwear that the fat lady could be wearing. Ross’ reactions are just funny here.

They do the standard near falls, with Rock taking the Fameasser, which for you young guys that don’t know, it’s what Cena does with the leg drop from the top, but Billy just got a running start. It always sucked though as he never got the leg in the right place. Eventually, the woman comes in and sets up in the corner, and you know what’s coming. Yes, Billy takes it which makes the woman smile. Rock is on fire here, drilling the Rock Bottom and the Elbow, as the fans are losing it.

Rating: B-. Seriously, the guy headlines Mania and this is the best they can do for him at the second biggest show of the year? That’s just kind of pathetic. Anyway, this was pretty bland, with no one thinking Rock would lose, but unlike in the Hardy/Punk match, they got the booking right! Ok I think I’m good now. Anyway, Rock wins, he looked good, he got the big pop, and his time was coming, but no one knew it yet.

Oh great. Now I get to recap the buildup for the main event. Sit back, because this might be the most complicated story outside of TNA in wrestling history. Ok, so one night, there was supposed to be a triple threat match to determine the #1 contender for Summerslam, but we didn’t know who the 3rd person was. We had HHH and Taker, but no third person. Commissioner HBK decided that the third person was Chyna.

Now, earlier in the night, someone had jumped Austin and hurt him. Austin shows up at the end of the show with a chair and kills HHH with it, implying he’s the one. It’s a hardcore match, so Austin throws Chyna onto HHH, making her the #1 contender. From what I remember reading, there was actually a debate going on about not only having Austin vs. Chyna, but actually GIVING HER THE TITLE.

Luckily, this lasted all of 9 seconds though as they came back to reality. Anyway, HHH is mad about this, as at the time he was completely obsessed with being the WWF Champion. It was one of the best builds for someone being desperate to be champion that I’ve ever seen. His theme music was My Time at the moment, so everything for him was about claiming his destiny as WWF Champion.

The next week, we got HHH vs. Chyna for the spot. For no reason that I can remember at all, Mankind runs out and hits HHH with the stairs, allowing Chyna to pin him. THEN the next week, Mankind says that he wants a piece of the Summerslam action, and due to the obvious sexual tension between he and Chyna (find this promo. I don’t ever recall laughing so hard at wrestling as the look on Chyna’s face is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.)

Anyway, Mankind wins, but THEN Shane returns to announce that right here and right now, we’re having a no holds barred match to determine the undisputed #1 contender for Summerslam. HBK and Shane are both referees. Mankind gets the Claw on HHH, but the Game lands a belly to back onto a chair and we get a double pin.

Note: in one of the funniest and stupidest things I’ve ever heard, during this package (pun coming), we hear every curse word I can think of that you can say on TV, yet they censor Chyna saying balls. This amazed me to no end.

WWF Title: Steve Austin vs. Mankind vs. HHH

Before the match, Jesse cuts a short but great promo, talking about how the media has said that he’s a disgrace to the office for being there. He says he’s proud he was a wrestler and he’s proud to be here tonight. That is just awesome. You have to stop and think for a second: at the time, Ventura was the governor of Minnesota. This wasn’t some American Idol guy or NBA impersonator.

This is a major politician, who was considered a dark horse candidate for the White House. Another person called a dark horse candidate in the past: President Obama. Just think about that. Imagine 4 years ago having Barack Obama refereeing the main event of Summerslam and clearly being excited about it and not just waving and looking like he’d rather pound a rusty spike into his face.

You can tell Jesse is having fun up there and wants to be there. That’s a nice thing to see. For the most part, people that are wrestlers are proud of it and it’s not just something you do and then don’t do. Oh apparently Foley is in this because HHH injured his knee with the hammer. We get the shots of the walk towards the entrance, which I’m not sure if I like or not. Nothing beats the shot of the fans when the music hits, and I don’t want to see the guys before that.

HHH was wearing some weird vest made of chain link around this time. I never got the point of that. Foley’s pop is actually very solid so you know he’s still over, which is odd as he would be retired in about 8 months. Austin’s pop is MASSIVE. Foley is very smart here, staying on the floor at first and letting Austin and HHH fight. That’s brilliant, and it’s coming from one of the craziest wrestlers of all time.

Austin and Mankind beat up HHH, so Mankind hugs him and offers a handshake. Right hands follow. It’s your standard wild brawl to start with HHH and Austin doing most of the work. Wow. Upon a bit of research, Austin is only 34 here. It’s hard to think that his career was mostly over at this point. Chyna interferes and low blows Mankind, so Jesse throws her out.

The cool thing about Ventura is that he was always a guy that wasn’t afraid of anyone, and as a Navy SEAL, you knew he was tough. He’s perfect for this and has to be the best guest ref I can think of. Mankind and HHH work together, which you’ll never hear again. This match is just kind of going with the motions so far and while it’s good, it’s not great. HHH sets for what might have been a figure four while Mankind drops a leg.

It’s Hogan and Flair vs. Austin. This partnership lasts all of 18 seconds and it ends with a Cactus clothesline before Mankind runs across the apron and flips onto HHH. Mankind is doing flippys. Maybe he does belong in TNA. HHH is working on Austin’s bad knees which makes sense. Austin and HHH go into the crowd as Foley follows. You know one day someone needs to land a piledriver on the floor.

We always get it teased but we never see it. MORE VIOLENCE DANG IT! Foley takes a good stunner. He just falls to the side, plain and simple. HHH breaks it up with a chair, and Jesse says he won’t count it. That’s just awesome on so many levels. Shane slides in to break up the fight between HHH and Jesse. The mouth on Jesse could rival Austin’s if my lip reading is working. Jesse throws Shane over the top as I’m loving this. This is just awesome.

He says that was for your old man you little bastard. Vince vs. Jesse NEEDS to happen. Who cares if they’re both senior citizens? Correction: Jesse is….58? WOW. I would have had him pushing social security. So….wow he was in his late 40s here? That explains a lot. Late 30s as well for the Mania stuff? I’m impressed. Mankind breaks up the pin on the stunner as we’re running very low on time.

HHH gets the pedigree, but Foley breaks it up and hits the double arm on Austin to win the title and shock the world. The fans are almost dead silent for about ten seconds, then go nuts as someone not named HHH is champion. HHH is just losing it in the corner as Jesse hands Foley the title. HHH lands about ten chair shots to the legs of Austin as he can’t believe he didn’t get the belt again.

He’d win the next night on Raw, with the rumor being that he was supposed to get it here, but Austin refused to job for him. That’s never been confirmed one way or the other though, and since this was the Attitude Era, it certainly could be wrong.

Rating: B+. This just didn’t have the main event feeling to it. Jesse definitely lived up to the hype here as he was about as good as you can get for a special guest referee. The match itself was good, but the ending was out of nowhere. It wasn’t bad or anything, but this was the definition of a swerve.

NO ONE saw this coming as the stars aligned for HHH on this night it seemed. Anyway, Foley winning was a nice surprise and kind of his last hurrah, saying that he still had it before the completely underrated feud with HHH started in about 2-3 months time.

Overall Rating: B-. This show was good, but just good. The matches are good enough, the main event was a twist, the fans were happy I suppose and there were some fun moments, but there’s no big spark to make it a great show. This would have been awesome as something like Judgment Day or No Way Out, but for Summerslam, it’s just a good show.

Mild recommendation, as it’s your traditional Attitude Era stuff: if you like this era you’ll love it and if you’re not a fan you’ll be very mildly entertained but get bored at some parts. It’s ok, but just barely.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Night Raw
Date: August 6, 2012
Location: AT&T Center, San Antonio, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

It’s Shawn Michaels Appreciation Night, which likely means Brock Lesnar Beats Up Shawn To Get On HHH’s Nerves Night. Other than that we’re on the way to Summerslam and we have a triple threat match for the title at that show, because this is WWE and that’s how we roll around here. I doubt much else will matter tonight but the interesting question is will we have more than the 16 recaps we had last week? Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the end of last week with Show vs. Cena and the announcement of the triple threat for Summerslam.

The song is now that Tonight Is The Night one that was used for Raw 1000. I don’t like hip hop/rap so I’m not wild on it but I guess that’s what people like nowadays.

Here’s AJ to open things up in a white suit. Well it certainly catches my eye. Tonight it’s Orton vs. Big Show and Bryan vs. Cena. She has another idea but here’s Punk with a disruption. Punk says that he needs to apologize for something he said last week. He wants to apologize to AJ when he yelled and screamed at her because he knows what it’s like to not be respected. Punk says he’s sorry and AJ accepts it.

The champ talks about how AJ is bound to make some big mistakes like she did last week so why don’t we just cancel the triple threat for Summerslam. She says she’ll make mistakes but the triple threat isn’t one of them. Punk says he doesn’t want her to be the evil Raw GM because he turned her down. He has no problem with facing either guy in a singles match so just give him one of them or have him face a new opponent, but let’s move on.

Cue Cena with something to say. Cena says you have to come out here and earn respect instead of demanding it. He stops to listen to some dueling chants and says that he’s got eleven of those championships Punk has right now and based on the crowd, Cena has to fight for respect every week. Cena stops to hit on AJ in a somewhat awkward moment. Punk says Cena is the guy that turns a blind eye to facts.

Last week, Cena was the one that went flying into Punk so Cena is the one that started it. Punk talks about how Cena isn’t the same as he used to be but Cena counters by saying that the champ rarely wins triple threats. I’d love to see the stats that backs that up. Punk says we should check Gray’s Sports Almanac and see that Punk won at Summerslam last week.

Cue Big Show but AJ tells everyone to stop it because we’re not going to let everything get out of hand. Cena and Show have matches later but Punk has nothing to do, which he says isn’t right. AJ says Punk has a match and the fans will decide. The choices are Miz, Kane or Rey Mysterio. Gee I wonder who they’ll pick. The match is after a break.

CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio

Wow I’m stunned by this result. The voting was a bit closer than I expected with Rey having 47% to Kane’s 31. Mysterio takes him to the mat to start and grabs a leg but Punk counters by grabbing the arm. I’m not sure what I think of Rey wrestling in a shirt since his comeback. I don’t dislike it but it’s different to see on him. Rey misses a charge and goes shoulder first into the post so Punk drops a leg for two.

A tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets two for the champ (this is non-title) and he goes up top. Rey kicks him down and hits the seated senton off the apron (not the second rope Cole) as we take a break. Back with Punk superplexing Rey for two. Off to a bodyscissors to fill in some time. Mysterio is sent to the floor but as he comes back in with the seated senton.

Rey speeds things up and hits the kick to the head for a close two. Rey tries to jump out of the corner but gets caught in the GTS. That gets countered into the 619 but the top rope splash hits Punk’s knees. GTS gets the clean pin at 10:11. Punk may have lost a tooth in there somewhere.

Rating: C+. This was the usual good match from these two. Punk winning clean is a good thing and someone like Rey losing isn’t going to hurt him at all. I like that they’re keeping Punk looking strong instead of having him become a coward that can barely beat anyone on his own. Pretty good stuff here.

Del Rio finds a parking spot. This takes almost 40 seconds.

Video on Wade Barrett who is returning. It features clips of a bare knuckles fight and has him talking about going back to that style to reignite his fire. Nice stuff.

Del Rio and Ricardo come in to see AJ. Alberto says he shouldn’t have to fight until Summerslam. She steps away and Del Rio mentions her being crazy. That brings her back and Del Rio has a match up next.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Christian

Christian jumps him to start but Alberto takes him to the floor and sends him into the post and the barricade. That gets two back inside and it’s time to work on the arm. I doubt we’ll hear about Del Rio putting Christian on the shelf for about six months a few years ago. Del Rio DDTs the arm down but Christian comes back with some forearms. The uppercut while Del Rio is on the ropes puts Alberto down and the top rope cross body gets two for the Canadian.

Killswitch is countered but the Codebreaker to the arm is as well. Del Rio kicks him in the ribs but a backsplash from the middle rope misses. The spear is countered by a superkick and both finishers are countered. Ricardo distracts Christian and Del Rio takes his boot off and blasts Christian in the head with it. The armbreaker gets the submission at 3:05.

Rating: D. This was a mess while it lasted. The idea was that the boot wasn’t completely on because of Del Rio having to get ready in a hurry which is a decent idea, but the rest of the match didn’t work at all. At the end of the day, I do not care about Del Rio and I don’t know of more than a handful of people that do. Nothing to see here.

Sheamus pops up on screen and steals Del Rio’s car which is still in the back.

It appears that Shawn is going to appear tonight but the Appreciation Night doesn’t look to be happening.

Randy Orton vs. Big Show

They trade punches in the corner to start but Big Show comes out with a side slam for two to take over. Show starts slowing things down again and elbows Orton down. Off to a chinlock which looks more like an annoyance to Randy than a painful hold. Orton comes back with a lot of punches and kicks, followed by a dropkick that actually puts Show down.

Show gets up and chokeslams Orton down for two. Orton goes to the floor and guillotines Show as he comes back in. Show will have none of that and shoulders Orton back to the floor. Back inside and Show shoves him right to the floor again. Show’s ram into the post is countered but the RKO on the floor is countered. Show spears him down and it’s a double countout at 5:47.

Rating: D+. I liked this better than I expected to. It wasn’t a good match or anything but all things considered it wasn’t bad. I liked the idea of Orton mixing things up a bit to take Big Show down but it was pretty clear that no one was going to lose clean here. Show has no business in the main event at Summerslam but for some reason he’s there and we have to live with it.

Post match Show loads up the punch but walks into an RKO.

Ryback vs. Curt Hawkins/Tyler Reks

Ryback talks about the food chain a bit in an inset promo. Reks starts off but gets powerslammed down with ease. Off to Hawkins who is kicked down immediately. He tags Reks back in and after a Hawkins distraction, a few big boots take Ryback down for one. A double gordbuster puts Ryback down for one and it’s off to a chinlock from Hawkins. Ryback launches them both to the floor before throwing Hawkins back in for a spinebuster. The big clothesline takes his head off and Shell Shock finishes Hawkins at 2:50.

Prime Time Players vs. Primo/Epico

Epico dropkicks Young during the intros but the Players take over almost immediately. Primo does an Ultimo Dragon corner headstand and comes out with a headscissors for two on Young. Off to Titus who powers Primo down before bringing in Young at AW’s direction. Young hooks a chinlock followed by a powerslam for two. Primo rolls under Young and makes the tag to Epico who cleans house. Young gets beaten down so Titus pulls him to the floor. They look to leave but here are Kofi and Truth to stop that. Epico and Primo jump the Players and we head back inside where Epico hits the Backstabber on Young for the pin at 4:29.

Rating: C-. Standard formula here and while it’s only three teams, this is the deepest the tag division has been in years. I’m assuming this is leading to a three way tag title match somewhere so at least there’s a story to it, but I’m not sure if they did the right thing by having the champions pin the Players already.

Quick video on Sandow getting beaten down by DX and then attacking Brodus last week. Sandow says he’s here to rid the WWE of all foolishness, which is what dancing is. Tonight he’ll get rid of Brodus to help us all.

Brodus Clay vs. Damien Sandow

Sandow jumps Brodus during the entrance and goes after the knee again. Brodus, with his pants falling off, fights back but gets clotheslined down. He destroys the knee some more and Brodus has to be helped out.

Bryan is in the back with AJ and says when he wins, the triple threat will become a fatal fourway. AJ says Bryan has to face Kane. A No vs. Yes battle erupts.

Kelly Kelly vs. Eve Torres

Eve tries to bail but Kelly takes her down with a Thesz Press. What would a Kelly match be without a Stinkface either? I’m so glad she came back do do that. Eve tries to walk again but Kelly throws her into the barricade. A top rope cross body gets two for Kelly but she gets slammed into the mat coming out of the corner. Eve puts on a chinlock which is quickly broken up. Kelly hits a standing rana for the pin at 3:04.

Rating: D. Dang it this had to be long enough to rate. I don’t care about Kelly Kelly at all. Yes, she looks good in a swimsuit but that’s about all she has going for her. Her wrestling is ok at best and I refuse to take a girl seriously when her song is about hollering in a club. Nothing to see here but at least it was longer than the usual jokes that the Divas matches are. That’ll help somewhat in the long run.

We recap Sheamus being a criminal earlier tonight. He’s TOUTING about it which we’ll see in a bit.

Here’s Shawn Michaels to a big hometown pop. Shawn says he’s out of shape from only coming down the aisle once every two weeks. He thanks the fans for allowing him to be part of history again at Raw 1000. Shawn talks about there being a lot of new faces in the locker room today but the thing that is the same is that a lot of people are talking about HHH vs. Lesnar at Summerslam.

Cue Lesnar and Heyman with the latter saying everyone should be asking Shawn for his opinion on the match at Summerslam. Brock isn’t going into Summerslam as an entertainer but as a fighter. He’s going to prove that he’s the baddest dude on the planet today. Well, after Ace and Douglas of course. Shawn talks about how Lesnar has pushed HHH further than anyone else ever has and how he barely recognizes HHH anymore.

Shawn picks HHH on this day and he wants to be in HHH’s corner to watch it. Paul tells Brock that that was the big moment that’ll be played over and over. Lesnar takes the mic from Heyman and says the only reason Shawn thinks HHH will win is he’s never been in the ring with Brock until now. Cue HHH to save his buddy. Brock says he’ll see HHH at Summerslam and he’ll see HBK before then.

We get a TOUT from Sheamus at the Alamo. We watch this on Cole’s computer. Seriously.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Alex Riley

Jericho is on commentary and talks about an article comparing Ziggler and Jericho. It’s nice to hear him having some energy on commentary instead of talking all slow. Feeling out process to start and Ziggler takes over. After some trash talk to Jericho, Dolph dropkicks Riley’s head off and drops an elbow for two. Riley makes a brief comeback but charges into the post shoulder first. A neckbreaker gets two and Jericho thinks it’s time to TOUT IT OUT BABY! The distraction lets Riley roll up Ziggler for the pin at 4:18.

Rating: D+. This is what you call storyline advancement. I know that’s a new thing to a lot of you, but it does exist. The Touting doesn’t need to exist and is annoying, but at least we got something new in Jericho vs. Ziggler. Jericho is the undisputed master of putting people over at this point so Ziggler feuding with him is nothing but good.

AJ announces (via Twitter) that it’s Miz vs. Kane next.

Sheamus TOUTS IT OUT AGAIN, this time from the Riverwalk. He’s having Mexican food now.

Kane vs. The Miz

Non-title again. Kane slams him into the corner to start but misses a big boot, allowing Miz to take out the other leg. A powerslam is countered by another shot to the knee and the short DDT gets two. Kane comes back with a pair of uppercuts but Miz takes the knee out again. Off to a chinlock by Miz but Kane powers out and slams Miz down for two. Miz avoids a charge but the Finale is broken up. Kane throws him into the buckle “face” first and chokeslams him for the pin at 3:50 because champions can’t win more than a match a night on Raw.

Rating: D. The botches in this match were bad looking and the ending of Miz losing clean makes it even worse. I love Kane but there was no need for him to win here. This was pretty weak overall with a nonsensical decision on top of everything else. Why would I think this was good?

Del Rio’s car is back and it’s mostly covered in mud.

John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan

They have about 25 minutes here if they want to go pretty long. Ricardo and Del Rio find the car and yell a lot. Alberto blames Ricardo. Scratch the 25 minutes thing as after a break it’s 10:45 and Cena hasn’t been out yet. Cena back him into the ropes to start as the fans are split on Cena again. Bryan heads to the floor to eyll at the fans and comes back inside for a chinlock.

Bryan gets Cena to chase him on the floor and takes over, hitting a jumping knee off the apron to Cena’s head. He gets in a big YES vs. NO war with a fan dressed as a referee and we take a break. Back with Bryan knocking Cena down again and stomping in the corner. The running corner dropkick gets two as Cena is in some trouble. Bryan fires off kicks in the corner and drop toeholds a charging Cena into the buckle for two.

Off to an armbar from Bryan followed by a knee drop to the back of the head for two. Cena escapes the armbar again and starts his finishing sequence. There’s the Shiffle but the AA is countered into a guillotine choke. Cena finally rams him into the corner to escape but he can’t get the STF. Bryan rolls him up for two and gets the same off a big kick to the head. Bryan goes up and hits the swan dive for two and it’s time for the NO Kicks. The last one misses and Cena grabs the STF. Bryan breaks the grip almost with ease and tries the No Lock, but Cena counters into a modified AA for the pin at 14:00.

Rating: B. This was a good match and while it wasn’t as big as they were hyping it up to be, it worked very well. These two have the skill to pull off a major match, but at the end of the day it has the major problem I expected it to: Bryan isn’t the kind of guy you would expect to be able to beat Cena. That’s a problem if these guys are going to have a major PPV match down the line. Still though, good stuff here.

Post match Punk comes out to pose with the belt but Cena shoves him down to fight the coming Big Show. Cena loads up the AA but Punk breaks it up again. Punk jumps on a headset and says that maybe it’s his fault he’s in the triple threat. He goes into a big rant about how he’s tired of doing the right thing and now Raw is ending with him standing tall. Then he goes in the ring and Big Show knocks him out cold with one punch. Cena gets knocked out too to end the show. You still don’t belong in this match bald man.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a MUCH better show than last week in a few regards. The wrestling last week was probably better, but the pacing this week made this a much more bearable show. There weren’t fifteen recaps and they kept the social media down to a level where you didn’t want to kill a Swedish goat. Sheamus vs. Del Rio got some time this week, but stealing and destroying a car doesn’t make me think that much of Sheamus. Better show but at the end of the day, there is zero reason for Raw to go three hours, period.

Results
CM Punk b. Rey Mysterio – GTS
Alberto Del Rio b. Christian – Cross Armbreaker
Randy Orton vs. Big Show went to a double countout
Ryback b. Curt Hawkins/Tyler Reks – Shell Shock to Hawkins
Primo/Epico b. Prime Time Players – Backstabber to Young
Kelly Kelly b. Eve Torres – Hurricanrana
Alex Riley b. Dolph Ziggler – Rollup
Kane b. The Miz – Chokeslam
John Cena b. Daniel Bryan – Attitude Adjustment

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Monday Nitro #81
Date: March 31, 1997
Location: Roanoke Civic Center, Roanoke, Virginia
Attendance: 8,709
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Mike Tenay, Bobby Heenan

Man I haven’t done one of these in forever. We’re getting close to Spring Stampede, so close in fact that it’s this Sunday. The main feud at the moment is Page vs. Savage because Hogan didn’t want to defend the world title on PPV for about four months. Tonight will likely just be a lot of build up towards that show, which is going to be very hit or miss. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the end of last week with Savage vs. Iaukea. I’m still not sure why they didn’t just let Savage have the belt so he and Page could fight over it.

The NWO has arrived sans Hogan, Bischoff and Hall.

Lex Luger/Giant vs. Rick Fuller/Roadblock

The graphic says Luger/Giant are tag champions but that hasn’t been the case for weeks. Giant and Fuller start things off. Fuller is a big guy who looks like a taller Rhyno. Roadblock is even bigger but to the point of being fat. Giant throws Fuller into the corner and clotheslines him before bringing in Lex. Luger works on the arm but gets poked in the eye to bring in Roadblock.

A splash in the corner has Luger in trouble as the fat man is rolling quickly. Lex ducks another clothesline though and there’s the forearm to the head which may or may not have steel in it. Luger doesn’t tag Giant when he has the chance and Roadblock knees him in the ribs. A legdrop gets two for Roadie and it’s back to Fuller. That goes nowhere so here’s Roadblock again. A splash misses and here’s Giant. He kicks both guys down and does it again with a double clothesline. Giant chokeslams Roadblock as Luger Racks Fuller to end it.

Rating: C. What the heck was this? You have Roadblock and Rick Fuller in there and you get a somewhat entertaining match? This was two guys who were big and fat (somewhat so in Fuller’s case) moving very well and showing off a bit. The match was a total surprise and took what should have been a squash and made it entertaining. Fun stuff here all things considered.

Harlem Heat, as in the guys in the fourway with Luger and Giant on Sunday, come in and we have a brawl.

After a break, Harlem Heat says they want respect. Somehow this takes almost two minutes.

Women’s Cruiserweight Title Tournament First Round: Meiko Satomura vs. Toshie Uematsu

Yeah this title existed. The title would be decided on the Sunday show soon after this and then would never be mentioned on American TV more than maybe twice afterwards. It would be retired later this year, probably due to the fact that putting women in weight classes is a bad idea. I think Meiko is in red here. If so she takes over to start with a dropkick and hits a forearm in the corner.

Toshie comes back with a slam and a Daniel Bryan moonsault out of the corner. That gets horribly botched so she does it again a bit better. Meiko goes up but gets armdragged down and a top rope splash gets the win for Toshie. She would win the title and take it to Japan where it was completely forgotten.

Psychosis vs. Villano IV

Time for the random Cruiserweight match of the week. They trade wristlocks to start and Psychosis is put on the mat. He tries to spin out of it but Villano grabs a headlock to counter. I love basic stuff like that. Tenay shows off his knowledge of wrestling, explaining where the name Villano comes from (it means Villain and comes from Villano I being the villain in an El Santo movie). Psychosis headscissors him down and hits a spinwheel kick to a crotched Villano.

A big corkscrew plancha to the floor takes Villano down again. Back inside and Psychosis tries a jumping DDT off the top but gets caught in something like a side slam for two. We cut to the back where the NWO is talking. They say they’re going to take care of business. Wallstreet walks out on them and now it’s back to our match. Villano misses a moonsault and a superkick sets up the guillotine legdrop for the pin. We didn’t see enough to rate but what we saw was solid.

Here’s Flair for a chat. He talks about being in Roanoke and brings out Piper. Piper says Flair’s ears are growing like Pinnochio. He makes sex jokes about Flair and Flair thanks Piper for humbling himself enough to come here. Flair says they’re friends but Piper can never claim to be the best wrestler alive. There are 100 people today that call themselves the best but none of them call Piper out. Flair talks about getting the Nasty Boys out of here in 93 (huh?) and talks about Piper putting Hogan to sleep twice. Piper says Flair hasn’t been beaten ever and they agree to take on everyone together. I have no idea what I just saw.

TV Title: Prince Iaukea vs. La Parka

La Parka kicks him down to start and hits a moonsault for two. Prince avoids a charge and La Parka’s shoulder hits the post. They head outside and the champ (Iaukea) is sent into the barricade. La Parka puts the Prince in a chair on the floor and dives through the ropes to take him out. Prince doesn’t seem that interested in selling so they head back inside. We get an awkward sequence of running the ropes and Iaukea superkicks him down.

The champ misses a cross body off the top though and it’s back to the outside. La Parka baseball slides the chair into Prince’s head which draws a bell, but the match keeps going with Parka hitting a big dive to the floor. Back inside and the fans are booing this out of the building. La Parka gets the chair and Prince dives into it off a cross body. He doesn’t sell it AT ALL, covers La Parka, and retains.

Rating: D-. I have no idea what I just saw in back to back segments. This was very awkward and from what I can tell, that’s mainly due to Iaukea. He wouldn’t sell most of La Parka’s stuff and on top of that the referee looked confused during the ending. These two were on different planets out there but La Parka’s high spots looked good.

Steven Regal vs. Chris Jericho

Regal says Iaukea will be eating through a straw after Sunday. The brilliant fans chant USA for an Englishman and a Canadian. They go to a wristlock and Regal does his usual awesome sequence of rolling on his back and kicking Jericho’s hand away to break it. Jericho knocks him to the apron and hits the springboard dropkick to put him on the floor. Back in and the move that would become known as the Lionsault gets two. Regal tries a cobra clutch but Jericho ducks and superkicks him, followed by a rollup for a BIG upset.

Regal beats the tar out of him and hits a top rope butterfly suplex post match. Jericho gets put in the Regal Stretch and Renegade makes the save. Scratch that as he charges but pulls back without being touched. Joe Gomez comes in and breaks it up but gets beaten up by Regal. Billy Kidman comes in to help but gets headbutted. Lenny Lane gets beaten up as well.

Hour #2 begins and we get the traditional recap.

Mr. Wallstreet leaves.

Women’s Title: Debbie Combs vs. Akira Hokuto

Hokuto is defending and Combs is some old chick with big blonde hair. She turns her back on Hokuto who kicks her in the back to take over. Hokuto chokes her in the ropes and Sonny gets in a shot of his own to Debbie. Combs hits what is supposed to be called a gutwrench suplex for two and a cross body gets the same. Hokuto doesn’t care and grabs a German suplex (called a tiger suplex by Tony) and “he” (Tony again) beats her to retain. This was short.

Madusa says Roanoke rocks and says she’ll win the title on Sunday. Hokuto beats her down because no one wants to hear from Madusa.

The announcers talk about Sting a lot and we get a video on him.

We recap the Horsemen arguing last week.

Jeff Jarrett/Steve McMichael vs. Amazing French Canadians

After Bobby makes fun of the Virginia state song, we’re starting with Oullette vs. Mongo. Things break down quickly and Mongo cleans house, including dropkicking Rougeau to the floor. Rougeau vs. Jarrett now and double teaming takes Jarrett down. Jeff shrugs that off and dropkicks Oullette, followed by a tag to Mongo. I think it was supposed to be the hot tag but when the match is a minute long so far I don’t think you can have a hot tag. Public Enemy runs out and jumps the Horsemen, but Colonel Parker steals Mongo’s briefcase from Grunge who stole it last week. Rougeau gets the case and hits Mongo with it for the fast pin.

Debra complains about breaking some nails. Oh and the Public Enemy have bad breath and lice. My goodness what did they do the Horsemen? Mongo accuses Jarrett of hitting him with the case. If only there was some way to see the match again and find out what really happened.

Hugh Morrus vs. Chris Benoit

Woman is looking very good here. Morrus jumps him to start but Benoit comes back with chops. A powerslam puts Benoit down but he gets up before Morrus can try No Laughing Matter. Benoit pulls him off the ropes and hits a quick German for a pin. This didn’t even last 90 seconds.

Sullivan and Jacqueline come in and it’s a big brawl. Jackie hits a top rope splash on Benoit but Woman crotches her. Flair finally comes in for the save and gets by far and away the biggest ovation of the night. Arn Anderson gets in Sullivan’s way and they have an awkward staredown before Sullivan leaves. Benoit says that Sullivan is leaving soon and Benoit is the new generation.

We get another quick recap of Page getting beaten down last week.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Lance Ringo

Ringo is more famous as the almost equally forgettable Sick Boy. He brings the Playboy or Penthouse with Kimberly in it with him, making him more awesome than any other jobber in a long time. Page beats him up to start but gets clotheslined on the top rope. Ringo hits a springboard dropkick to put Page down, but DDP gets up and hits what we would call a TKO but here it’s a Diamond Cutter for the pin. Squash.

Post match Page talks about his wife being in Playboy and how proud he is of it. He’s not proud of what Liz and Savage did to Kimberly at Uncensored though, and he’s going to snap into Macho Man’s world. Cue Savage and Liz with Randy asking if Page has any family jewels to go with his diamonds. How did no one else ever make that joke? Page: “I’ll make sure to bring the lady, because you’re bringing the tramp (meaning Liz).” There was great chemistry here and I want to see them fight now.

High Voltage vs. Steiner Brothers

Kaos and Scott start and Scott throws him around with ease. Off to Rick and the barking begins. Rage sends him to the floor and rams the injured ear into the post. Kaos hits a slingshot legdrop to the back of Rick’s head followed by a neckbreaker for two. Rage misses a good looking springboard Swanton and it’s off to Scott. After some power displays, the FREAKING STEINER SCREWDRIVER ends Rage. If you’ve never seen that move before, look it up. It’s one of the most painful looking moves of all time.

Rating: A+. It had the Steiner Screwdriver in it, thereby making it awesome. This was barely long enough to rate and it was a squash for the most part so that’s all I’ve got.

Syxx and Nash come to the announce table and say the rest of the NWO A-Team has bailed to see the premier of Dennis Rodman’s new movie. Nash sounds really mad here and that ends the show.

Overall Rating: D+. This wasn’t much at all. While it did a decent enough job of setting up Spring Stampede, the stuff they were offering on that show isn’t interesting enough for me to care. As annoying as Hogan can get, when he’s not around this show gets very dull very fast. This show wasn’t bad but this is a really boring few months for Nitro and it’s only going to get worse.

Here’s Spring Stampede if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2012/05/02/spring-stampede-1997-the-nwo-civil-war-begins/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Vengeance 2003
Date: July 27, 2003
Location: Pepsi Center, Denver, Colorado
Attendance: 9,500
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

So we’re into the whole individual brand PPVs here and this is a Smackdown one. The main things here are another triple threat with Angle, Lesnar and Show and in what today would be a main event of Mania in Cena vs. Taker. Oh and the finals of the tournament for the US Title which was brought back due to people realizing how stupid the whole one brand one champion thing was. We also have Zach Gowen vs. Vince. I’m riveted too. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about wanting to succeed from when you were a kid. People like Angle, Lesnar and Stephanie talk about this. It’s one of those shows isn’t it? Vince says tonight is about control. He’s backing Big Show apparently.

US Title: Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

This is the final of a tournament so I’d bet on a great match. This is the first Smackdown exclusive PPV according to Cole, so it’s likely the 8th or 9th. Pretty sure Eddie is heel here but he’s popular anyway. They won’t shake hands either. Eddie sprayed wax in Benoit’s eyes or something like that on Smackdown. Benoit beat Matt Hardy and Rikishi. Eddie beat Ultimo Dragon and Billy Gunn.

Yeah the Smackdown show wasn’t much at the time but there was no way these two wouldn’t be the finalists so there you are. They’re going slow here which means they’ve got a lot of time to work with. We get a nice little pinfall reversal sequence which is old but always fun. Eddie wants to shine apparently. I don’t know if he can shine but if he lets certain vampires bite him he could sparkle.

Eddie goes for a tombstone but Benoit counters then shows why he’s brilliant by making it a shoulder breaker. Immediately after that he goes for the Crossface. And that is why Benoit is better than your favorite wrestler. His finishing move is a shoulder hold and he works on the shoulder. There would be no point in him working on the leg or whatever. It’s why Flair works the knee all the time: his finishing move works on the knee. How come so few wrestlers get that? It boggles my mind. Truly it does.

The announcers talk about technical difficulties but I didn’t notice anything wrong. Benoit’s tights saying Toothless Aggression always cracked me up. A top rope belly to back gets two for Benoit. Nice looking one too. It’s always weird hearing Sting mentioned on WWF TV. Crossface goes on but Eddie gets the ropes. Both go for their triple suplexes but the third is countered both times. Frog Splash mostly misses but Eddie’s arm hits Benoit so there’s some damage both ways.

Crossface is hooked again. I love that move. Naturally the referee goes down. Why does that always have to happen? It’s rather aggravating. Benoit gets popped in the head and takes a Frog Splash but it only gets two. That’s rather surprising. And now he hits the referee with the belt and puts it on Benoit before laying down. Ok, why not just hit Benoit like four times with it and wait on the referee to get up since now the ref is out cold. With no referee, Eddie taps to the Crossface.

Is there a reason why the referee is holding his neck when he got hit in the back? Eddie pulls the referee into the diving headbutt so he’s dead again. And here’s Rhyno who was teaming with Benoit around this time to turn heel and gore him. ANOTHER Frog Splash gives Eddie the US Title.

Rating: B+. This was better until we had all the overbooking. These two simply knew how to have great matches and this was no exception. Eddie winning is a nice surprise as he was a step behind Benoit at this point and likely needed it more than Benoit did. Still though, EXCELLENT opener and I liked it a lot. Giving these two over twenty minutes is just a good idea.

Vince and Stephanie have a weird moment. Stephanie simply cannot act and it’s just hilarious watching her try. This has to be the highlight of the show.

We recap Billy Gunn vs. Jamie Noble. Noble wants to sleep with Torrie so he offers to pay her for sex. Billy was with Torrie for his 847th push. If Noble beats Billy, Torrie will sleep with him on Smackdown. If Billy wins…nothing happens. Anyone else failing to see the point here?

Billy Gunn vs. Jamie Noble

Jamie brings a briefcase with his “stuff” in it. They actually open it which is creepy. Jamie’s girlfriend Nidia comes out and is mad at him over this clearly. See the criticisms of soap opera stuff that WWE gets? Noble works on his knee so his regular stuff can’t work. Gunn busts out a random Diamond Cutter for two. Didn’t see that one coming. Noble hooks a DDT from the second rope. I liked that.

Nidia puts his foot on the ropes though since she doesn’t want Torrie sleeping with Noble. That makes sense at least. Both girls beat him up. Billy gets rammed into Torrie and gets rolled up for the pin. Torrie says Holy crap and it’s rather amusing. Cole shouting NOBLE GETS TO SLEEP WITH TORRIE cracked me up. He wants to watch. Oh dear.

Rating: D. Bad match on top of a bad angle doesn’t help. Naturally it didn’t happen and Noble and Gunn started teaming together because it’s professional wrestling and of course it doesn’t make sense. Torrie looked hot though so I can’t complain much there. Still though, stupid angle and a stupid match.

Funaki is with the APA. We go back to Thursday to see the Brooklyn Brawler beating up the APA. It’s to set up the bar room brawl here in a second. The Easter Bunny hops by. I’m not making that up and I’m totally sober.

Bar Room Brawl

Shannon Moore, Doink the Clown, Faarooq, Bradshaw, Brother Love, Nunzio, Matt Hardy, Chris Kanyon, Danny Basham, Doug Basham, The Easter Bunny, Sean O’Haire, John Hennigan, Orlando Jordan, Funaki, Los Conquistadores, The Brooklyn Brawler, Johnny Stamboli, Chuck Palumbo, Matt Cappotelli, and Spanky.

There’s a bar set up in the arena and we’re just going to fight in there. Los Conquistadores are Rob Conway and Johnny Jeter in case you’re wondering. Aaron Stevens is the Easter Bunny. He was on Smackdown for a cup of coffee as Idol Stevens in like 05 or 06. McCool managed him. John Hennigan is more commonly known as John Morrison, and this Doink is played by Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore.

In essence, this is a big OVW party as a ton of these guys were in OVW at the time. Most of the jobbers don’t get intros. Spanky is up on the bar dancing. Bradshaw says the rules are that the last man drinking wins as we’re testing the toughness and their livers. Ok that’s creative. Brother Love wants to pray before we start. Naturally it’s just a massive fight with no rhyme or reason to it. The Easter Bunny is drinking bears and getting punched. This is wrong.

O’Haire beats the APA up with pool cues. This is idiotic. Brother Love beats up Shannon Moore. I’d think that sums up why no one buys him. The Easter Bunny goes through a window. A bunny watching this would be traumatized for life. Hardy can’t break a table which is kind of funny.

There’s nothing of any kind of logic going on here at all. Funaki passes out from beer. Bradshaw beats up Brother Love and I guess that gives him the win. He’s the last man standing even though Farroorq is standing next to him.

Rating: N/A. This was a waste of about 5 minutes. Moving on.

Jamie Noble is looking at Torrie’s Playboy and brags about getting to sleep with her. This is creepy.

Smackdown Tag Titles: Rey Mysterio/Billy Kidman vs. World’s Greatest Tag Team

Rey is Cruiserweight Champion here too. The heels’ name is just great. The fans chant USA for four Americans. Ok then. Haas keeps beating Rey. This is kind of strange to see. Rey was still just the king of the cruiserweights at this point and not yet the A-list guy that he would become better known as. Kidman gets the hot tag and not much happens because of it. The 619 is blocked and my intelligence is spared for a little bit.

Kidman busts out a Shooting Star Press to the floor to take out the champions. Rey gets the other hot tag but the referee is distracted. The crowd boos the heck out of that. Wow I’m surprised they’re so into this one. Hardly a bad thing but very surprising. Rey comes in and cleans house. What kind of an expression is that anyway? Rey isn’t dusting and vacuuming but it makes perfect sense to call it that.

What sense does that make? Haas takes the 619 and the seated senton. Benjamin kicks Rey in the head for two. Solid match here. In a sweet spot, Haas is on top and Kidman launches Rey up to the top for a hurricanrana. AWESOME looking and the crowd loses it when he kicks out.

Dragon Whip, which is an awesome name, puts Kidman down. With Kidman on the floor, Benjamin gets a tag that Rey doesn’t see while Rey is on Haas’ shoulders. Benjamin hits a springboard clothesline to combine with the powerbomb for the pin. Sweet ending.

Rating: B+. Very fun and flat out surprising win here. This is what happens when you let guys have time and show off: It flat out works. They were all over the place and got the fans into it. Great match and fun.

Cole uses the term Cole Miners here. It’s older than I thought.

We see Stephanie ripping Sable’s top off on Smackdown.

Stephanie McMahon vs. Sable

Vince was having an affair with Sable and all of Smackdown had become about them. Yeah I’m shocked too. For some reason this is no count out. That’s just an odd stipulation. This is a catfight, whatever that means. Sable is freaking gorgeous. Stephanie was at a weird stage here and it didn’t work that well for her. We’re in the crowd already. Stephanie actually gets a half decent rollup. I’m surprised.

She goes off on Sable as well as she can and Sable tries to run. That obviously doesn’t work either. Stephanie actually busts out the Mr. Perfect neck snap. WOW. She goes off on Sable in the corner and winds up ripping part of her top off. The referee rips his shirt off for her to put on. And here’s A-Train of all people to flatten Stephanie so Sable can win. Ok then.

Rating: D. This was WAY better than it had any right to be. That being said, it still sucked. They just weren’t going to have a good match no matter what they did, although Stephanie was certainly trying so I can’t fault her for that at all. Not any good at all but they tried so I can give them points there.

We recap Cena vs. Taker. In short, Cena says he’s awesome. Taker says not so fast. It’s about respect apparently. Cena issued an open challenge and Orlando Jordan took him up on it. Cena had to cheat to win. Oh dear. Taker respected Jordan. Oh dear. Seeing Cena this young talking to Taker is rather interesting.

Oh and Taker cost Cena a match in the US Title Tournament. I remember some of these promos. Cena had that spark in him even back then. He was going to be a star and would start doing so soon enough. He’d be a face by November.

The Undertaker vs. John Cena

Amazing to see this as a midcard match on a relatively meaningless PPV. This is still biker Taker obviously. I still love that theme music he had back then though. Cole says for eleven plus years Taker has dominated. It’s so plus that it’s over twelve and approaching thirteen at this point. Cena is less muscular than he would become, but to be fair seven years have almost passed since this match happened.

I’d think he’s been to a gym since then. Cena slaps Taker. What do you think happens next? Taker LAUNCHES Cena into the corner and it’s just weird to see Cena get dominated like this. Cena gets some water and spits it into Taker’s eyes to take over. That lasts less than four seconds. Cena haters would LOVE this match. They completely rip apart one of the barriers. That’s a bit odd looking. I think Cena’s leg is bleeding. That’s an odd injury to have.

Taker uses some MMA stuff as Taz points out. This is pure domination. Cena has hit a total of like 3 punches, none of which have done anything. HUGE chokeslam hits but Taker picks up his limp body. Last Ride is countered and Cena hits a DDT to survive. This is just an odd style of match. It’s not exactly bad but at the same time it’s just strange. In a HILARIOUS moment, Cena is counted for choking but yells at the ref that he has until five. TAKE THAT DANIELSON.

Cena gets a pad down and Taker hits it to get us close to even. Cena has always been good at absorbing offense. Crowd is all over him. Taker starts coughing up blood. Taz thinks tasting your own blood isn’t good. THANKS TAZ. I never would have guessed that bleeding is a bad thing without you. Taker hooks a Dragon Sleeper which he was using for awhile around this time. Taker comes back and hits the WORST jumping clothesline ever. It was more like a hopping clothesline.

They get sloppy with the punches and the choking stuff. My guess would be they’re calling spots but it KILLS the crowd and looks terrible. Cena pops Taker’s bad ribs with the biker chain. This is a LONG match. Well, long for these two at this point in their career that is. The FU hits and Taker kicks out. Cena then shows his idiocy and does the ten punches in the corner and pauses to yell at the crowd. You know what comes next as Taker gets the pin off the Last Ride.

Rating: C+. I liked it, but I could see a lot of people not liking it. The booking was odd. Like really odd. Cena was treated like a jobber for the first 5 minutes or so but hit all of his big stuff and got…nothing. Come to think of it this wasn’t that good. I get the whole take Taker to the limit, but Cena got soundly beaten here which I don’t think is what should have happened. He looked good, but he needed the big win here and didn’t get it. Could have been better but it wasn’t bad.

Cole has a really stupid mustache at this time. Yeah I really can’t stand him.

We recap Gowen vs. Vince. In short, Gowen has one leg and is wrestling. Vince, being evil, tortured him. No one had an issue with this being the storyline on Smackdown that was getting the most airtime after Vince and Sable. Not a lot of people liked this era at all. Oh and they put Gowen over Show on Smackdown. Ok to be fair Angle and Lesnar helped but still.

Vince McMahon vs. Zach Gowen

For the life of me I have never gotten the point of this angle at all. At least Gowen had a good Seether song for his theme music. Vince dominates early on to the shock of no one. Gowen busted out an Asai Moonsault. His character and angle was annoying but to say it’s impressive is an understatement. One of the interesting things here is that Zach is like 150lbs so it’s like wrestling a woman as far as the weight goes.

Vince beats the heck out of him for a long time including a Boston Crab. Again, I don’t get the point to this but it’s Vince in the ring so what do you expect? Gowen makes his comeback and very few people care. Zach goes up top and hits a bulldog. When I say hit I mean miss and when I say bulldog I mean his arm almost touches the back of Vince’s head.

This just isn’t as impressive, but we get it: he can wrestle on one leg. He doesn’t need 15 minutes to prove it. We get a chair and Vince gets beaten with it and bleeds. Oh dang he’s bleeding a lot. Gowen misses a moonsault and Vince pins him. Yeah seriously that’s the ending. Gowen stands in the ring and gets cheered. Mostly at least but there’s a good deal of booing in there.

Rating: C-. The problem here became evident very quickly: yes, we know he can wrestle on one leg, but after that the appeal goes away and it gets stupid. It’s cool to see, but it gets old fast. If this is cut in half time wise, it’s FAR better and one of the coolest matches ever. It’s still cool and impressive, but this went on too long. Decent match though but the ending sucked.

Josh Matthews, looking stupider than he does now, talks to Eddie and says what happened to Benoit is Benoit’s fault.

We recap Brock vs. Angle vs. Show. Brock and Angle respect each other and Show is really big and strong and gets beaten up a lot by both of them. Brock came and visited him in the hospital apparently.

Smackdown World Title: Big Show vs. Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar

Ok so if Show is knocked out for most of this it should be good. This was around the time where Brock was completely awesome and could do no wrong. This is no DQ also. When has a triple threat not been no DQ? Show is in the singlet and shorts now which are perfectly acceptable. Angle and Lesnar work together but Lesnar takes a chokeslam a minute in. Angle was at the point here where he could get a good match out of anyone and he’s showing why here.

Angle busts out some garbage can lids and they beat the tar out of Big Show with them. All three of these guys are just SCARY strong. They manage a double chokeslam. Ok, that was cool. And there’s an F5 to Angle. And there’s one for Show. That never ceases to amaze me, and that doesn’t happen often. Angle gets beaten down on the floor and we get Brock vs. Show. Brock looks more awesome with the elbow pads. Brock gets a running powerbomb out of the corner. WOW.

Angle comes back in and pops the heck out of Brock with a chair. Angle is getting into that zone. Oh and he’s bleeding. It’s table time and Taz makes me laugh by saying about the Spanish announcers “You would think they’d be used to it by now.” That was good. Angle Slam through the table. The announcers point out that it might have been stupid to knock him out on the floor though which is very true. Brock is bleeding now and we have him vs. Angle. This works.

Other than Benoit, Lesnar brings out the best in Angle and that’s saying a lot. After a little bit of them beating the tar out of each other, Brock locks in a body scissors and a chokeout similar to a Tazmission actually. Even Taz points that out. Show comes in for a double chokeslam and actually gets Lesnar with the left arm higher than Angle with the right arm. Since that doesn’t work, Angle comes back with Angle Slams for both and gets the pin on Brock. Very good match to close the show.

Rating: A-. I’m not big on triple threats but this was great. Brock and Angle are just freaking fun to see beat the tar out of each other since Brock could keep up with Angle on the mat and Angle could match Brock’s strength for the most part. Big Show was solid here too which made this just a great match all around. Very fun match and well worth seeing.

Overall Rating: A-. This was a GREAT show. There’s one boring match on the whole show and it has Torrie at ringside and is five minutes long. Other than that you get a great opener, a great tag match and a great main event. Seriously, what more could you ask for from a show?

Even the bar room thing had some comedy value to it. This worked on a lot of levels and is well worth finding. You could see the entertainment on Raw vs. the wrestling on Smackdown which is still around today being born here and it worked great. Well worth watching.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

No Way Out 2004
Date: February 15, 2004
Location: Cow Palace, San Francisco, California
Attendance: 11,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

We’re into the brand only shows now and this is Smackdown. It’s also a very famous one as the main event is Brock vs. Eddie for the title and I think you know how that goes. Other than that this is a card looks pretty awful as there is the obvious problem of developing a PPV out of one roster’s worth of talent: you get a few matches that aren’t interesting at all and couldn’t be more clearly filler if they walked up to you with a big sign that said HEY I’M FILLER and shouted “HEY I’M FILLER!” Let’s get to it.

With no intro video or anything like that here are Torrie and Sable who were doing something close to a lesbian thing soon. They’re both in Playboy this month. Apparently there’s nothing they won’t do and then they leave. Wow this was pointless.

Now we get the intro video as Brock is all evil but leaving in a month anyway so he doesn’t care. Goldberg is on the horizon for him so who do you think has a front row seat tonight? Eddie says he’s been here before after his familia turned on him. This was built up almost as a glorified squash with Eddie having next to no chance against the unstoppable machine who has one quick match left before his showdown with Goldberg.

Who thought Cow Palace was a good name for an arena anyway?

Smackdown Tag Titles: Basham Brothers/Shaniqua vs. Rikishi/Scotty 2 Hotty

The non Bashams have the titles here. The challengers have Shaniqua, the Tough Enough 2 winner Linda Miles, as their future dominatrix manager. Oh apparently this is a 3 on 2 handicap match for the belts. Using the Mania 5 formula apparently. Scotty and a Basham start. They’re almost identical and it was hard to tell them apart in OVW too. Ok that’s Doug. Never mind as Cole is confused so it’s Danny.

My uncles are named Doug and Danny so I always liked this team. Scotty botches a headscissors and half kills Danny and the fat man comes in. Rikishi was supposed to be like this big powerful veteran or something at this point. I guess he was REALLY sorry for the whole vehicular homicide attempt thing a few years ago. Fat man vs. Doug at this point.

Rikishi brings in Shaniqua and she almost gets a Stinkface. Basically Rikishi is destroying everything in sight but Scotty can’t do much of anything. Classic formula but I’m not a fan of anyone in this other than the name of the Bashams so I’m not really into it. NICE nip up as Scotty was very crisp there. Shaniqua bashes (see what I did there?) Scotty as he’s going for the Worm and he’s in trouble again.

She comes in and beats up Scotty a bit as she was an Amazon kind of chick. It’s kind of amusing to see a guy like Scotty getting beaten up rather easily like that. Double teaming prevents the tag to Rikishi which makes sense. A backdrop gets Scotty the tag and the thong wearing Samoan cleans house. The Bashams save Shaniqua from a Banzai Drop with a powerbomb for two. Scotty clears out the Bashams, allowing a Samoan Drop and Banzai to end the girl.

Rating: D+. This was fine. No one cared and the ending was rarely in doubt, but it was fine. This is your standard TV match or PPV tag title defense. It says a lot when those are almost interchangeable. This wasn’t horrible and the fans were into the faces so that’s about all you could ask for I guess.

Goldberg isn’t here yet. How do you know he’s not getting some aardvark at the concession stand?

We recap Nidia vs. Noble. Noble got some inheritance so the trailer park couple start spending a ton of it. Nidia spent more of it but was blinded by black mist from Tajiri, which somehow led us to a blindfold match tonight. Oh ok she can see now but Nidia gets to see.

Jamie Noble vs. Nidia

See what I mean about a lack of PPV level matches? Nidia hits the floor early on and Jamie pulls the hood off. I smell a bad comedy match. She pulls his jean shorts down and gets a bulldog for two. The vast majority of this match is Nidia kicking him in the rump and dancing behind him. She goes up, he lifts the hood, slams her off the top and throws on a dragon sleeper to end this.

Rating: F. Total comedy match here that was dull beyond belief. Again you can see how bad the whole individual brand PPVs were with stuff like this on PPV. Nothing match here.

We recap Angle’s attack by someone, either Show or Cena who he has a triple threat with tonight. Angle talks a bit about wanting to go to Mania. Cena the rapper comes up and rhymes a bit, naturally starting a brawl.

Only a four week build between No Way Out and Mania? Really?

World’s Greatest Tag Team vs. APA

Bradshaw has a bad arm. Both of these teams would split up in less than six weeks. It’s weird hearing about Heat being on Spike TV. Shelton immediately takes Farrooq down to the mat as it’s technical vs. power here. Wow it’s hard to believe Bradshaw was six months from being world champion and would hold it for the better part of a year.

The heels work over Farrooq’s arm as I guess they want the APA to match. Hot tag finally gets Bradshaw in as I wonder how many of these tags are actually hot. BIG powerbomb from Bradshaw gets two. Farrooq eats post outside as Bradshaw hits a fall away slam off the top on Shelton for two. Clothesline From JBL with the bad arm and Shelton hits a big superkick to end it.

Rating: D+. Another TV level match here that was just ok. Basic power vs. speed match here which wasn’t anything that bad but it wasn’t worth paying to see I wouldn’t think. With both teams splitting so soon after this, the winners due to the Draft and Farrooq retiring, this wasn’t really of any importance at all. Not bad though, but I could see this same match on a house show probably.

Goldberg is here. I can’t blame him for missing those first two matches.

We recap Lesnar vs. Goldberg. Goldberg was #30 in the Rumble and Lesnar thought he was more important than Goldberg and was mad that Bill was being interviewed so he ran in and eliminated Goldberg who was dominating the match. Austin gave Goldberg a ticket to the show and said don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Heyman, who Goldberg speared which got him suspended I believe, is here now. If you’re keeping track, the two wrestlers this segment is about and the two teams in the previous match would mean nothing just after Mania. Heyman says if Goldberg does anything he’s going to jail. Here’s Brock who is reminded that he tapped out which I think was to Benoit.

He’s not scared of Goldberg and says let’s do it right now. Goldberg jumps the rail and there go the shirts. Lesnar dominates early but the F5 is blocked and Goldberg gets the Jackhammer as Heyman screams for security. Handcuffs go on and Goldberg has no issue leaving. Hardcore Holly, who HATES Lesnar comes down to try to get a piece but to no avail.

Hardcore Holly vs. Rhyno

Nice timing if nothing else. This was set up three days ago so there’s no real story other than it’s a rematch after Rhyno couldn’t beat him. Holly sends Rhyno to the floor. Can Rhyno get back in it? Find out when we ret…..this isn’t a TV show is it? I almost forgot. Body scissors by Rhyno as this is a very boring match so far.

Rhyno works the ribs to set up for the Gore later on. Why not just hit it now as it’s going to do more damage to the ribs than whatever else you have. We throw it to the Spanish announce team for no adequately explored reason which is WWE’s custom. After hearing the commentary in Spanish for a bit, it occurs to me that it was the most interesting part of this match.

Perfect as always dropkick by Holly gets two. Middle rope suplex by Rhyno gets the same. The fans seem to be booing a bit here and I can’t say I blame them. Reverse DDT gets two for Holly as we have to be getting close to the ending here. BIG Gore hits but Hardcore hits the floor. That gave me a very disturbing image of him dancing badly. Again it’s more interesting than this match though. And then he gets back in and hits the Alabama Slam to end it. As abrupt as it sounds.

Rating: D. Technically this was ok but it was a ten minute Hardcore Holly vs. Rhyno on pay per view. After this it’s more or less all good from here but the first hour of this was pretty brutal. Not a horrible in ring match but just couldn’t be less interesting if they were trying to be.

Ad for the Monday Night Wars DVD which is definitely recommended. Brisco saying “It was our jobs, it was our lives, it was our families” might be the most overblown line in WWE DVD history.

We recap Chavo vs. Rey. Chavo turned heel out of jealousy of Eddie and since Eddie and Rey are the same person, Rey defended Chavo after Eddie went on to a bigger feud. Rey has some unknown boxer with him and Chavo has his father, Chavo Guerrero Senior who would soon win the Cruiserweight Title.

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero

Rey has the title here. The lights go out before the introductions and a gong strikes. A Taker video airs and says that in 28 days, the dead will rise. Kane had helped to bury Taker at Survivor Series and he would become the Dead Man again at Mania. This is back when Rey was just the best Cruiserweight of all time rather than the biggest underdog ever. There’s something about Rey not respecting his culture too so Chavo wants the mask, which is a big symbol of Hispanic wrestling culture. Go figure.

He goes for the mask almost immediately which of course fails. We hit the mat for awhile where Chavo dominates for the most part as you would expect. Rey gets up and gets a springboard off the bottom rope which the commentators point out how odd it is. Chavo Senior stops another springboard and gets knocked out by Paez who is promptly thrown out.

HUGE dive by Rey to take out Junior as he checks on his father. Well deserved holy schiess chant as the dime is dropped for two. Tornado DDT is blocked and we head to the corner. Chavo blocks a rana into Malenko’s middle rope gutbuster and Rey is in big trouble. Chavo shows some intelligence by going for the ribs now. He wastes a lot of time though but it doesn’t seem to matter that much.

Rey gets a counter for two as the fans are right back into this now. Another gutbuster has Rey in trouble again though so scratch the whole momentum thing. This match is going on for a LONG time. I’ll give them this though: they’re treating it like a big match which is exactly what they needed to do more often. Rey gets something similar to the Stroke for two.

He gets a DDT onto the apron which always looks awesome. Sitout Gordbuster by Chavo gets two though and it’s Rey in trouble again. Chavo goes for the mask for the second time in about 15 minutes but of course it doesn’t work. Rey TOTALLY misses a moonsault press to the point that Chavo has to run forward to get any contact for Rey. 619 hits but the seated senton is countered into a SICK looking half crab but Rey gets the rope.

It’s not often that a Cruiserweight Title match gets almost seventeen minutes. Rey goes for a springboard move of some sort but Chavo Senior comes out again and shoves Rey off so that Chavo Junior can get a rollup for the pin. Good thing he came out just as the referee wasn’t looking eh?

Rating: B. Solid match here but at times it dragged a bit. This was still very solid with two legit cruiserweights getting to show what they could do. More or less though this was the last gasp of awesomeness of the title though as it would just get stupid after this with Jacqueline and Chavo Senior winning the belt at various times. Very solid match though and it worked.

Ad for Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses.

Chavo talks about how awesome he is and says Eddie isn’t a champion. Eddie is an addict apparently.

We see a tale of the tape for the #1 contenders’ match with Cena’s career highlight being a PH.D in Thuganomics. That’s rather funny. He’s never won anything yet he could get a world title shot at Mania.

Kurt Angle vs. Big Show vs. John Cena

Show is US Champion at this point. He also has hair at this point which is just hard to get used to. Cena gets the biggest reaction as he’s full on into the rapper gimmick at this point. Cena cuts a short rap which would get him suspended today as it’s mainly gay jokes. Cena has the black shorts on so you know he means business here.

Cena chills in the corner while the other guys fight it out. Show is of course the ultra dominant guy here as he was at the best part of his worthless period here. Everyone stands off in a corner at one point here. Angle gets a belly to belly but Show makes the save. Cena gets knocked to the floor and has a bad knee apparently.

This is a slow paced match but it’s not that bad. Granted we’re not even five minutes into it so it’s a bit difficult to say if it’s good or not so far. Angle tries to German show off the apron but settles for a low blow instead. More or less it’s Cena vs. Angle now which is probably the best possible option for this set of guys. Rolling Germans have Cena in big trouble as he hits about three of them.

Show gets back to break up the pin which works better as instead of sitting around on the floor for like 5 minutes off a single move he was back in a reasonable amount of time. Cena has a big old brace on his knee. Angle is the guy on the floor this time and we see some of Cena’s tenacity here. And so much for that as Show gets a huge suplex for two. Cena gets a dropkick to the knee (move #6 for those of you counting) as Angle adds a missile dropkick to get the big man down.

FU hits Show with relative ease. Love Cena or hate him, he is SCARY strong. Angle takes Cena down though so all three are on the mat. Angle Slam gets two on Show as he kicks out of the FU and Angle Slam in less than a minute. FU to Angle is blocked into the ankle lock but Show chokeslams the heck out of him. No cover though as Cena rolls him up for two.

Chokeslam to Cena as all this is happening in like three minutes. Ankle Lock to Show and he’s in trouble now. Cena takes Angle down and hits the 5 Knuckle Shuffle which is just a punch after hitting the ropes without the You Can’t See Me aspect, making it far less annoying. Show sends him into the post but Angle gets the Slam on Show over the top and actually makes Cena TAP OUT to the ankle lock. Didn’t see that coming.

Rating: B. This was a rather solid triple threat with very few down spots and Show actually moving out there. Cena would get the US Title shot at Mania and win in the opener. This was good stuff though and one of the better triple threats that I can remember seeing. Angle’s power was scary here with him just throwing people all over the place and Cena not being far behind. The tap out surprises me very much though as I don’t remember Cena ever tapping. Good match if not very good.

Ad for WWE Originals which was the wrestlers singing their own songs. Guess how well that went.

Mania ad which was a rather good show if I remember correctly.

Tale of the Tape for the WWE Title match says Eddie is going to get massacred.

Eddie won a Royal Rumble on Smackdown to get the shot which was a legit surprise as Angle was the other finalist and Eddie won completely clean. They played up the addiction stuff here and said that Eddie was overcoming his demons which was cool I thought. It really was a feel good story but his world title level stuff kind of came from nowhere but it was nowhere near as bad as JBL a few months later. Eddie’s line of he’ll get his high from winning the WWE Title was simple but perfect for this.

Smackdown World Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Brock Lesnar

Brock comes out first here for some reason. Soon after this the music would change from We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal to I Lie, I Cheat, I Steal which was good I though. Fans are TOTALLY behind Eddie here which is no surprise. We have about 40 minutes left in the tape so this is getting A LOT of time. Eddie can’t do anything to start so like an idiot he keeps charging.

All Brock to start here. A rana is blocked into a powerbomb and then Brock just tosses him away as Eddie’s selling is awesome. Brock gets a big running high knee in the corner. If he had done that to Velasquez he might have the belt still. Eddie gets knocked to the floor and has had NOTHING so far. He finally gets something going as he gets Lesnar’s leg around the post and gets him down, opening a door for him.

So much for that as Brock gets a modified Fisherman’s suplex into a kind of slam for two. Jawbreaker gets him out of a rear naked choke. So I guess Eddie is better than Shane Carwin as he can escape a Lesnar choke. Eddie gets a dropkick and then gets his head taken off by a clothesline. Semi-botched German has Eddie on the brink here. Not really but I like how that sounds.

Brock goes for another knee in the corner but crashes to the floor. Eddie adds a plancha and both guys are a bit weakened now. Brock hits a hot shot to take over AGAIN. It’s been about 95% Brock so far but Eddie is hanging in there. Eddie gets a knee lock out of nowhere. Brock gets caught in a leg hold. I’m shocked too. He shifts into an STF and the fans ERUPT.

Figure four doesn’t work as Brock kicks him away. Eddie keeps him down but can’t do much as Brock just keeps firing him off. BIG belly to belly by Brock has Eddie in trouble again. A headscissors has Brock in trouble and now back to the knee. There’s the figure four and it’s not bad. After nearly a minute in the hold Brock realizes he’s next to the ropes and gets free.

More leg work as Cole speculates that Eddie could actually do this. STF again as Brock is in trouble but not for long as he just rolls out. Brock gets a big old spinebuster to take over again and locks on a bad looking crossface chicken wing. Off to a sleeper/chinlock kind of thing but here comes Eddie again, driving Brock’s face into the buckle to break it up. Missile dropkick misses though as Eddie is in trouble again. Great story being told here.

Brock SELLS THE KNEE by lifting his leg up when he gets a vertical suplex. Little things like that are what I mean by selling. Brock shouting at Eddie to die is rather creepy. He gets a gutwrench hold on the mat and Eddie is in trouble again. The perk of a guy like Brock is that even a basic hold like that looks devastating when he does it. Eddie gets back and hits Three Amigos. Frog Splash misses though as this is an excellent match.

The most ridiculous looking ref bump I can remember in a long time happens as Eddie kicks the referee while taking an F5. It was just bad looking with how obvious it was. Either that or the referee is really, really stupid. Brock hits the floor and grabs the belt but GOLDBERG is back and spears the tar out of Lesnar.

Eddie covers for two and misses a belt shot. I love the way Brock throws boots to the ribs. Eddie counters an F5 into a DDT “onto the belt” which misses by about 6 inches and hits the Frog Splash to blow the roof off the place and win the title and do the unthinkable which I was typing before Taz said it. I’m no Eddie fan, but that is a cool moment.

Rating: A. This was an excellent match that got over thirty minutes. The ending was solid as Eddie cheated a bit but that was what he did. Also it was his Frog Splash that ended it rather than anything else. Eddie isn’t someone I can get into as much as his fans do but this was easily his crowning glory and the match worked very well. Probably Brock’s best non-Angle match and one of Eddie’s best ever which is saying a lot as he’s a great wrestler in his own right.

Overall Rating: B. This was a hard one. The last hour and a half of this is quite good but the first hour and fifteen minutes or so is just brutal. If you had just the last three matches, this is borderline A+. The other matches though are just inexcusably weak. It’s not so much that they’re bad but why would I want to pay to see them? It was a sign of the times I guess. Check out the last three matches and the main event for sure. Other than that you’re not missing anything at all.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

Summerslam 1997
Date: August 3, 1997
Location: Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 20,213
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon, Jim Ross

Well, it’s another year but this time we’ve had some solid changes. Actually, no we haven’t come to think of it. Austin is still a tough guy, but in this case he’s going after the IC Title from Owen. Yes, this is the infamous piledriver match. Other than that, it’s the time just barely before the Attitude Era. We’re not quite there yet but we can see it staring us right in the face.

Montreal was three months away and Taker vs. Shawn would be established at the end of the show. This would of course lead to the first ever HIAC match. Other than that, there’s a lot of the same stuff from last year s we’ve only kind of slightly evolved since Summerslam 1996. This is more of a transitional show, but it still had its moments. Let’s get to it.

We get an awesome opening video about how life isn’t fair for Bret, Taker and Shawn, all of whom are involved in the main event tonight with Bret vs. Taker and Shawn as referee. The tagline of the show is Hart and Soul, which is kind of cool I think. This is all fallout from the EPIC Canada vs. USA war that happened over the summer. This would wind up causing Montreal, which I’m sure you know the story of.

HHH vs. Mankind

In a cage. This is the blowoff for a feud that’s been going on for months. They met in the KOTR finals with HHH winning but they kept feuding forever. HHH is using Ode To Joy which is one of my all time favorite heel themes. This match is just after Canadian Stampede where they brawled all over the arena. It’s escape only which means it’s much better than matches where you can win by pinfall, which I’ve always thought was a cheap way out.

For some reason the governor will be there later. Yeah I don’t care either. How odd is it to have a cage match as the opening to a show? I like it though as it prevents the mind numbing delay of having to put the thing up which is about ten minutes in its own right. Mankind dominates the early part but Chyna keeps interfering, mainly by reaching through and choking Mankind.

Oh and at this time, Austin and Dude Love are tag champions, but Mankind isn’t. That’s what’s great about this character. It’s not three different gimmicks. It’s one guy playing three different gimmicks if that makes sense. They never hid that Foley was all three guys. They wallowed in it. That’s something you simply don’t see and in this case I think it certainly worked. It made him see even more insane than he already was, if that’s possible.

JR says that it’s a no DQ cage match. In the words of Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men, is there any other kind? The only noticeable spot for the opening part of the match is a suplex from the top of the cage that’s not hyped up enough by the announcers and wasn’t nearly as good as Hogan and Bossman from 89. They’re going old school here with the big blue bars that need to come back.

Chyna keeps choking and cheating like there’s no tomorrow which is what she’s supposed to do I guess. It’s weird seeing these two as midcarders. We get a Dominic Denucci shoutout. How can you top that? Kowalski would have beaten him though, so that’s not really fair. This is a really physical match as they are just beating the living heck out of each other with some sweet as well as sick shots. Both guys climb the ropes but HHH gets caught in them.

For some reason Mankind goes for the door and in an absolutely sick shot, Chyna slams the door on his head. Foley said this was one of the most painful spots he ever did in his career, and when it’s Mick freaking Foley that says it, that’s a painful spot. Chyna beats up the referee and since it’s no DQ, what can really be done? Chyna finally gets nailed to a HUGE pop from the crowd.

We then get the ending as Foley hits a double arm DDT onto the chair to knock HHH out. He climbs out and is a step away from winning as Chyna is trying to drag HHH out. However, the fans are losing it so Foley pulls the mask off and climbs back up. Chyna, for no apparent reason, stops pulling him and goes to the floor. In the truly famous spot of the match, Foley pulls his shirt open to reveal the Dude Love heard and dives off with the elbow.

Now as he’s climbing again, Chyna starts pulling HHH out but Mankind gets to the floor first to blow the roof off the place in a cool moment. He collapses on the floor but soon his foot starts to tap. Then the music kicks on. He starts dancing. Dude Love has returned, despite holding a title at the moment. This was a cool moment and another example of why the idea behind Foley was so genius it’s hard to comprehend.

Rating: A. This is a great old school 80s style cage match and it was great. With the manager trying to cheat every 3 minutes, the face ultimately triumphing, the big spot at the end and the fans response, this was awesome. Al kinds of sick shots in there but it never went far enough that it wasn’t believable, which is what makes a match like this great. Foley should have won and he did, which makes it even better. Excellent match here and I loved every bit of it.

Todd is with the governor of New Jersey. This doesn’t go well, like, at all.

Tiger Ali Singh is here. This was a gimmick that just sucked. Imagine Khali plus Million Dollar Man plus Hassan, then add in a lot more suck. You get Singh.

Brian Pillman vs. Goldust

This is a weird feud to put it mildly. The basic idea is this: Goldust doesn’t like Pillman because he’s implying that he and Marlena had a relationship prior to her meeting Dustin and perhaps after she met him. For no reason at all, if Pillman loses, he has to wear a dress until he wins something. This is standard pre-Attitude Era stuff.

There’s really not a lot to say here. BAD botch on a sunset flip by Goldust. He more or less crawls over Brian’s back instead of clearing it. The commentary is all about the Pillman/Terri angle, which was fine but kind of generic. The sad thing is Pillman would be gone just months after this so we never got to the end of the angle. Eventually Terri blasts him with the loaded purse to get the pin.

Rating: D. This was just boring, plain and simple. The botch didn’t help things either. It was predictable and fairly stupid, so how can I grade it highly?

Legion of Doom vs. Godwinns

This is stemming from a botched Doomsday Device where Hawk nearly broke Henry’s neck. Godwin just slammed head first into the mat and cranked his neck nearly in half. It was one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen. Anyway, WWF of course decided to play it up in a real feud, because a near death experience is good for one thing: making money off of it, naturally. Anyway, this is a standard late 90s LOD tag match: not very good.

This is another case of a team (the Godwinns) just completely failing as heels. They’re supposed to be fun characters but as heels they’re not menacing, but creepy. Anyway, this is even more standard stuff than the last match. I think that’s the issue that LOD had: they had no substance at all in the latter half of their career. This match is a prime example. They don’t really do anything other than just look intimidating.

Another major issue for them was their lack of involvement in the tag title picture. They were used more to put young teams over, which is fine, but the hype is a bit too much for me, although I could see how some would think it works. LOD wins with a spike piledriver, and after about 10 minutes, I’m just bored pretty badly.

Rating: C-. Again, just a bunch of meh here. It’s bland and dull for the second match in a row and nothing makes me think this should have been on PPV. LOD and the Godwinns were too similar to make this work. Nothing at all here and it was just barely watchable.

For some reason, we have a million dollar giveaway or something like that. It’s really not clear what the point of this is, other than to have Sable and Sunny looking hot. This is a lot like million dollar mania, yet more stupid as the first 3 callers don’t answer.

The people pick a number from 1-100 for a key to open a coffin with a million dollars inside. This takes up 8 freaking minutes, which could have been used for, oh I don’t know, A FREAKING WRESTLING MATCH??? Is there a point to having it in a coffin that I’m just missing?

European Title: British Bulldog vs. Ken Shamrock

For some reason that I just don’t get, if Bulldog loses the match he not only loses the title but has to eat dog food. This is even more fallout from America vs. Canada. We hear about a show called One Night Only which was a British PPV where the ending just ticked me off as Shawn took the Title from Bulldog and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it before handing it to HHH, all because he just didn’t want Bulldog to have it anymore.

Big brawl to start as Shamrock is all kinds of ticked off due to being force fed dog food on Raw. Ankle lock goes on almost immediately but rope is grabbed. This starts off with mainly all Shamrock but a boot in the corner gets the Englishman in control. This is a rather ugly match to put it mildly.

Bulldog takes over while we get a long chinlock. Instead though we see about 15 seconds of the crowd and random people which serve no point at all. Shamrock grabs something off the announcers’ table and blasts Bulldog in the head with it for the DQ.

Rating: D-. It wasn’t the worst match I’ve ever seen but it couldn’t have been much worse. Shamrock and Bulldog had this horrible clash of styles going on here and it made for a very uninteresting match here. At least it was short though at about seven minutes.

The post match insanity is by far more important here as it makes Shamrock look like a freaking psycho, which is what he needed to be all along. He half kills a ton of referees, making him look like a monster. He got the push that he needed because of stuff like this. Oh and he choked Bulldog out.

Los Boricuas vs. Disciples of Apocalypse

Oh dang why did I put up the Euro match? This is the gang wars period of the WWF, which NO ONE wanted to see. The original idea was to have three groups: the Nation, the Boricuas and the DOA and have them randomly fight each other. While that sounds ok in theory, the Boricuas had one guy anyone had ever heard of in Savio Vega. Go check their wiki pages and see what I mean. The other three have one major career accomplishment: being in Los Boricuas.

As for the DOA, they were ok as well, but they were just a generic biker team fighting a bunch of tiny guys and always losing. The Nation you already know. The problem here was simple: there was no story. Why are these teams fighting? We’re never told. They’re just feuding, but we don’t know why or over what. There were never any promos or anything like that.

It’s just fighting for the sake of fighting which NEVER WORKS. This is an 8 man tag, so at least we don’t have to worry about multiple matches. At first the Nation was in this feud too, but they eventually dropped out when they realized they had actual careers. The biggest issue with this feud though: the DOA NEVER WON. It was always an upset for the Boricuas, which makes even les sense as if they’re dominating, how can it be an upset?

What are you expecting here though? It’s an eight minute match followed by a run in from the Nation which is accompanied by Ahmed who botches the Plunge on Chainz on the floor, leading to him getting pinned. I forgot Ahmed’s horrible heel turn that lasted all of five minutes. He joined the Nation and of course was injured within a month. He was even supposed to get the title shot at Canadian Stampede but that didn’t happen, as he couldn’t stay healthy for more than 10 minutes.

Rating: D. My goodness what was the point to this feud? It made no sense, no one liked it, and it was boring. Just a waste of time for guys like Crush and Brian Lee that were good workers, stuck with this stupid of a gimmick.

We get the recap for the showdown between Austin and Owen. This is based off one thing: Owen pinned Austin (which was a big deal) at Canadian Stampede. Hart was the IC Champion, yet him getting a pin was a big deal. That either makes no sense, or shows you how big Austin was. I think it’s a bit of both.

Since Hart beat Austin, naturally it means Austin should get a title match. Umm, right? Oh if Austin loses he has to kiss up to Owen, literally. Well let’s get to it, as this is far more famous for one spot than for anything else, as you likely already know.

Intercontinental Title: Owen Hart vs. Steve Austin

On the way to the ring, Michael Cole, a newcomer at this point, tries to talk to Austin by calling him Mr. Stone Cold. It’s what you’d expect, but Cole is always a tool, now and forevermore. The pop for Austin is huge, as you can see he is the undisputed future. Owen goes for the knee while Austin is up on the ropes and the start is very fast. The crowd being white hot helps a lot here, as this is a heated feud already and they’re both looking great early.

Austin works the arm here and actually does it really well. It’s weird seeing him use technical stuff, but he’s doing it quite well here. Before the neck injury he was a completely different worker, but after it he found something that worked perfectly for him, so while obviously it’s not good that he hurt his neck, it turned out as well as possible for him. I know I’m doing more play by play for this one, but this is followed by a pair of spots that I really like.

Owen comes up from a wrist lock and does that series of flips that he’s always used to counter it, which I’ve never understood. At the end of that all he does is grab the other guy’s wrist. Does he need the flips or an I missing something here? Anyway, he does all those, and Austin just pokes him in the eye to get control back. It’s one motion, almost like what Piper would do.

After that he goes to a hammerlock and Owen grabs his head and jumps into the air to try to flip Austin over. Steve just stands there and lets Owen slam into the mat. I love those as they’re so simple yet so effective, which is a lot of what Austin’s offense was based on if you think about it. His main offense was kick, punch, jump on people (Thesz Press) and Stunner, which is grab them and sit down. That’s really not a lot when you think about it.

Anyway, moving on. Owen works on the fingers and hand, which against a guy whose main offense is throwing punches makes a ton of sense. Austin even busts out a powerbomb for a counter, which isn’t something that I’ve ever seen him use. It’s always fun to see guys throw new stuff like that from nowhere. It keeps things exciting. Owen hits a neckbreaker which is frightening foreshadowing.

I think he’s selling the move, but I think it’s more legit than work here, which explains a lot about the upcoming move. German suplex and Austin’s neck is hurt even more. My guess is he initially got hurt in one of these moves but of course the big one was the piledriver of course. Vince tries to figure out why he’s one of the most popular wrestlers today but he just doesn’t get it. That amuses me for some reason, as they lay the ground just slightly for Austin vs. McMahon.

And there it is. Austin is dropped on his head, changing his career forever. This really was scary as it was entirely possible that he never could wrestle again from that injury. That’s a very scary thought to say the least. Completely apart from his health issues, this meant a ton as far as the WWF went.

Austin’s injury and Vince not allowing him to work because of it was one of the earliest issues that the pair had, as Austin and the fans wanted to see him get in the ring but Vince said for the safety of Austin, he couldn’t allow that to happen. This is a case where real life and wrestling mix, which usually makes for better angles and promos. It’s easy to convey an emotion in front of a camera when that’s how you really do feel.

As for the match itself, I have to give credit to Owen here as he handles this as well as he can. You can see him setting for a cover and I guess Austin says that he’s hurt to him or something, as Owen looks down at him for a second and then gets up and plays to the crowd to buy Austin some time. There was no way Austin could have kicked out there and you certainly couldn’t fault him if he got pinned.

About thirty seconds later Vince gets that something is wrong after clearly being upset at first. After that he calms down and says that Austin must be hurt. JR I think handles it better by not really ignoring the injury but taking the focus off of it and talking about the Canadian and American fans chanting at each other.

I could see this going either way but I’d rather use Ross’ method here, as it keeps the story going on the chance that Austin is able to fix himself and that it was just temporary, which there’s no way to tell the extent of the injury this quickly.

Either way, it was handled well I think. We then get the worst roll up of all time as Owen sells like a god to try to make it look like he’s in trouble, but Austin is more or less just laying there with Owen’s legs in the air as it was the absolute best he could do at the time. The referee fast counts as well as he can to give Austin the title as he just collapses afterwards.

This is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen as he can’t even walk on his own. The referees have to carry him out, but not before he throws the belt over his head and gets another massive pop. You can tell just by the look on his face that he’s completely gone.

Rating: B. The match itself was actually really good I thought. They went back and forth and due to the finish they had, it’s obvious that Austin was going to get the title in what I’m assuming would have been just a standard Austin finish which would have worked just fine.

I’m certainly not going to hold the ending against them as there was nothing they could have done about it. These two had great chemistry together and it showed here. Excellent match that could have bordered on classic and been famous rather than infamous.

We get a recap of Bret vs. Taker, which more or less is Canada vs. America again. Shawn is referee as you know.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Undertaker

Bret wants the Canadian National Anthem to be played. His heel stuff was just masterful to say the least. Shawn’s pop is big to say the least as he is the referee like I’ve said many times now. He and Bret are forever linked together and that’s obvious even now, which is saying a lot considering their biggest moment would be about three months later. Oh yeah Taker is here too.

Another massive pop for the WWF Champion as the crowd is red hot tonight, despite the show kind of sucking. The explosion when the lights come on draws one of the loudest short pops I’ve ever heard. Apparently there’s a ton of stipulations here, with the main one being if Bret doesn’t win the title he can’t wrestle in America again, so the ending is pretty clear. There’s also one on Shawn, but it’s not made clear.

Bret jumps Taker and hits him with his own belt before the match starts, because he’s a real Canadian. For the most part, the opening here is just a brawl. That’s fine as both guys can certainly fight, and this is no exception. Shawn is trying to call it fair, but you know something is coming later on. This is a long match though as there’s 30 minutes to go and we’re just started.

We get a report that Austin has no feeling in his hands and has been taken to a hospital. As you may know, it wasn’t a good diagnosis. For the most part, Taker is dominating. Of course, just as I type that Bret starts his comeback as Taker is called a redwood for the second time in about 5 minutes. Ross’ line of Bret having visions of sharpshooters dancing in his head made me laugh.

Bret gets a figure four as we touch on Taker never losing by submission. As this hold is on, Paul Bearer comes out. Apparently he’s been saying Taker’s brother is still alive. Yeah nothing is ever going to come from that angle. After escaping, Taker goes outside and drills Bearer but Bret takes over again because of it. We get the Heartbreaker, which is the figure four on the post.

I still don’t get how that’s really a big additional help but whatever. Owen and Pillman hit ringside for no apparent reason other than being nefarious. “They’re not offering moral support. They don’t have any morals.” That was kind of clever and kind of crap. After a good long time HBK gets rid of them, but in doing so he misses the cover following a chokeslam.

Somehow of course Hart pops back up and gets the second rope elbow, just after a double bird to the fans. I love how a heel turn can make whatever you preached for a year mean nothing at all. Always loved that quick legdrop that Bret uses from time to time. Bret goes for the sharpshooter as Shawn looks in very close. I guess he’s taking notes on how to put it on properly for later on or something.

Oh come on I had to make one joke. Taker with a sweet over the top rope from the apron chokeslam. This has been a very solid match, but I’d have preferred no Shawn. He’s not hurting things as he’s been consistent and he had to be there for the ending, but I’d have preferred a standard match here. Ross says that we’re seeing Vintage Hart. Oddly enough, Cole was a relative rookie at this point. I guess he also took good notes.

Finally we get the sharpshooter, and after it’s been on for a little while, Taker just launches Bret with nothing leg strength. Isn’t it amazing how after one person (Austin) broke the unbreakable hold, it happens more and more? That always makes me chuckle for some reason. Bret counters a tombstone and puts the Sharpshooter on again, but this time he uses the post. However, the post isn’t even touching Taker’s leg or back, making the use of the post, say it with me, COMPLETELY POINTLESS!

Seriously, it’s not even touching him and because it’s there, Bret can’t put any torque on the hold. Isn’t the point of the hold to raise up the legs while the torso stays still to put pressure on the knees and back? With this it’s like Taker is just lying on his stomach with his legs crossed like he’s in Terms of Endearment. Now how’s that for a bad image? To get out of it, Taker kicks him off with ease, since there’s NO PRESSURE ON HIS LEGS.

Of course Bret lands on HBK, and Michaels assumes that Bret just jumped on him, since of course Bret would just jump on him and let go of a hold. Bret slams Taker with a chair as Shawn is trying to get his knee to work, and since it’s Shawn’s knee, you know that’s nothing but legit. I mean it’s not like he’d fake a knee injury for a match involving Hart. That would be just a waste of everyone’s time and effort, so why would Shawn fake a knee injury in an angle involving him and Bret Hart?

Such a thing would obviously be impossible. Anyway, Shawn comes back in and asks Bret about the chair. As this is happening, Taker gets up and is standing behind Bret. Shawn is standing there arguing with Bret and pulls back the chair. Now let’s pause for a second here. Shawn is looking at Bret. Bret and Shawn are arguing. Bret is considered to be one of the smartest wrestlers of all time. Shawn pulls back the chair.

Was Shawn supposed to think that Bret was just going to stand there and get hit in the freaking head with a chair? Oh and don’t worry about the big demon behind Bret. He’ll just move. You get the point don’t you? Yeah, that ends Taker’s title reign as Shawn is completely disgusted that he had to do that, since obviously there was nothing more intelligent that he could have done in this case.

The fans are going nuts as Bret is pelted with garbage while Taker leaves to go get him a piece of HBK. Insert your own Becca joke here. For no apparent reason, this is the upset of the year or something. Why? Bret is a former what, 3-4 time champion? Is it that far out of the realm of possibility that he could beat the Undertaker for the belt? We go to replays as Bret is joined by the Hart Foundation and the party is on.

They’re still talking about how this is shocking. WHY IS IT SHOCKING??? Pillman runs up and kisses the belt as we go off the air, which is sad as he would be dead in two months or so.

Rating: A. VERY good match. They hammered each other the whole time, and as I’ve said countless times, the key to a great match is not knowing who the winner would be. While it was clear given the stipulation about Bret that he would win, I actually forgot about that. That’s the sign of a good match in my eyes. Absolutely great match here and something that you should go out of your way to see.

Overall Rating: B. This was a very hard grade for me to come up with. The show could be called good but some could call it awful. As you can see, I liked it more than I didn’t like it. This is very hit or miss. The best summary I can give you: the parts that are good are good and the parts that are bad are bad. The cage match is excellent and to me the best match on the card, but I’m a fan of the older style.

The main event is solid as these two have great chemistry together and brought it hard here. I’m fine with the ending as it set up one of the great blood feuds of all time. The rest of the card is at least ok. The IC match is more infamous than famous but it certainly holds up. To sum up in one word, Summerslam 97 is passable.

It’s got enough good here to make it above average, but not by much. Too much filler in a row and the million dollar thing was just a waste of time. Overall, it’s certainly not bad, but it could have been better.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews