Monday Night Raw
Date: June 15, 1998
Location: Freeman Coliseum, San Antonio, Texas
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re just a few weeks away from the King of the Ring and the main event tonight is an unannounced Hell in a Cell with Austin/Taker vs. Kane/Mankind. This is the forgotten Cell match and for the life of me I don’t get what WWF was thinking when they put it on. There’s also a tag team battle royal which will probably be boring. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Sable to open the show, making it about two weeks that she was actually gone. She brings out the person responsible for her being back: Vince. Even kids are flipping him off. He wants to clear up these conspiracy rumors. Vince gives Sable a statement to read which basically says he had nothing to do with Austin getting beaten up last week. And that’s it.

Oh wait never mind as here’s Austin. He has Sable leave and then says he doesn’t buy anything Vince just said. Austin comes after him and Vince says for once in your life, don’t react in a physical and violent way. Austin asks if that’s what the fans want to see and slow motion chases Vince. Vince blames the Undertaker, swearing on his grandmother’s kittens. It was Undertaker that challenged him remember?

Austin loads up the belt to drill Vince but Vince keeps talking about Taker. He says remember that Taker is from the Dark Side. I wonder if he’s neighbors with the Midnight Express. Cue Taker in ring gear, who says he challenged Austin but did it like a man. As for Vince, he’s a manipulator and before Taker kills him, Vince needs to know he’ll never be able to manipulate Undertaker.

Cue Kane as this segment is still going. Actually cue him, Bearer and Mankind. Bearer says that was a great acting job and that Taker knows Vince had nothing to do with it. Bearer claims that he and Taker cooked up the scheme. If that’s the case, aren’t they exposing it a little early? Taker wants Austin in the Cell apparently, so Paul challenges them to a tag team Cell match. Well gee good thing the Cell was already up there isn’t it?

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Vader vs. The Rock

The Nation is sent to the back before the match starts. Rock pounds him in the corner which just ticks Vader off. Now Vader hammers him in the corner and a splash follows. There’s another splash and a middle rope one gets a two count. Rock comes back with a DDT for two of his own but an authoritative kickout. A slam doesn’t work for Rocky but the second attempt does. The People’s Elbow gets a big reaction but only a two count. It wasn’t quite electrifying yet. Vader comes back with splash #4 for two. Rocky knocks him to the floor and Mark Henry beats Vader down. Rock Bottom ends this.

Rating: D. Pretty boring match here but it was designed to give Rock a win over a guy that was rapidly losing credibility. Vader was on his way out and was putting over everyone that he could, which is exactly what he should have been doing. He wasn’t anything of note anymore, but he was far past his prime so what did you expect? You never see midcard jobbers like this anymore which is a shame.

DX is Droppin Knowledge on us. X-Pac and HHH have a qualifying match tonight so Road Dogg gives both of them pointers.

Edge needs to get here already. Oh ok he debuts next week.

Darren Drozdov vs. Jeff Jarrett

And Jarrett needs to get rid of Colonel Parker already. Jarrett jumps Droz to start and here are Mero and Jackie. He gets Jarrett in the KOTR next week so there’s your explanation. Mero rants about Sable as Droz runs over Jarrett. Powerslam gets two for Droz but he gets caught in a suplex. Jumping back elbow puts Jarrett down and Jackie hits on Tennessee Lee. He gets slapped so Jarrett goes out to save him, resulting in Mero hitting Jeff low. That’s enough for Droz to get the pin. This was more of an angle than a match.

More Dropping Knowledge, this time will Billy explaining why this is going to be match of the year. He asks where Chyna will be in all this. My guess is at Spanish class.

Val Venis vs. Chainz

Kind of a random pairing. JR brings up the obvious question of why is the Cell here in the first place. Chainz takes over quickly with some elbows as the announcers are ignoring the match. Now to be fair, it’s Val Venis vs. Chainz so it’s a bit less annoying. Val hits a bulldog and takes over as the announcers ask what the other believes.

Now let’s talk about DX as Val hits some knees to the ribs. Russian legsweep takes Chainz down and Val grinds a bit. A big boot just ticks Chainz off but a clothesline takes him down. Chainz gets in some offense but walks into a powerslam. Val goes up but gets crotched. He blocks a superplex and the Money Shot ends this clean.

Rating: D+. This was fine all things considered. I don’t think anyone was shooting for a classic here but it worked well enough. Val would get into a story soon enough if I remember right while the DOA would become just a tag team after Chainz left. Actually this was Chainz’ last match in WWF.

Undertaker says he doesn’t trust Austin but Austin can trust him because all he wants is a title shot.

More DX Knowledge. HHH and Pac say nothing of note.

Marc Mero vs. Dustin Runnels

Jarrett and Southern Justice come out almost immediately. Dustin takes over early with a lariat. Out to the floor and Dustin goes into the post. Back in Mero hits a powerbomb. Jarrett is actually doing a decent job at hyping up his match next week. It’s amazing what happens when you actually let the guys talk. Mero snaps off a top rope rana as Jeff gets up on the apron. Here’s Sable and the distraction lets Dustin win with the bulldog.

Rating: D-. Let this sink in for a minute: they managed to overbook a lower midcard match that was there to hype up a match for next week. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??? We have two people interfering and at least two distinct stories in there aside from just the match itself. That’s either impressive or insane.

Chyna calms Pac and HHH down but it wasn’t exactly firey in the first place.

Dustin thanks Jesus for his win.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: X-Pac vs. HHH

This is the start of the second hour I believe. Pac grabs a cradle for two while HHH is doing his entrance. This is one of Pac’s first matches back in about 9 months after a bad neck injury. Pac hits a spin kick to take HHH down but walks into a jumping knee to send Pac to the floor. Here comes Chyna who throws Pac back in. Back in an atomic drop and suplex put Pac down.

Pac hits a spin kick to knock HHH to the floor and Chyna throws him right back in too. Very nicely done there. A BIG spin kick gets two. They’re hitting each other in the face here which is a good thing to see rather than them basically hiding from each other. HHH knocks him to the floor again….and here’s the Rock. He’s in the crowd and the distraction allows Owen to crotch Pac on the railing. HHH wins by countout.

Rating: C. Not bad here but this was far more about pushing the feud between the Nation and DX and that’s fine. They were doing some decent stuff too so I don’t have much to complain about here. I’m not particularly sure how to handle that, so let’s just go with it was good. Rock gets HHH in the KOTR.

Here are the KOTR brackets:

Shamrock
Henry

Jarrett
Mero

Rock
HHH

Severn
Owen Hart

Only the final four happened at the PPV.

Here’s Al Snow in the Avatar (old gimmick of his) mask. Post break, Lawler yells at him and Snow pulls the mask off. Snow rants about Vince and Lawler and says Lawler is lewd man for slipping him the sausage and makes a lot of references to gay sex. Lawler blames Head for it. He tries to throw it into the crowd and Snow decks him then hits a Snowplow on the referee. Lawler gets a low blow and a Head shot. Snow runs off after beating up some security.

Austin says he doesn’t trust anyone. Taker can’t trust him either.

Owen Hart/Mark Henry vs. Ken Shamrock/Dan Severn

We get some UFC footage of Shamrock vs. Severn. That’s still bizarre to see on Raw. Owen and Shamrock start off fast and Ken takes him down with a kick to the chest. Owen misses a dropkick and there’s an ankle lock attempt. Enziguri doesn’t quite hit but a low blow stops Shamrock. Off to Henry who hits a powerslam for two. A splash misses and Severn comes in allegedly off a tag. He throws Henry around like a Steiner would. Off to Owen who Severn rides like a pony. The Nation gets Severn into their corner and Owen kicks him low. Shamrock comes in but is easily put in a Sharpshooter. And here’s DX for the DQ.

Rating: D. Just a basic tag match here without anything to it. DX vs. the Nation would go on for months until they finally blew it off. Severn could have been something good if he didn’t have the personality of a road sign. Shamrock would get a solid push soon after this, but of all people, Henry would be the only one to win a major world title out of these four.

It’s a big brawl as Vader comes out to get Henry from earlier and it winds up being about Rock vs. HHH, as it should be.

Tag Team Royal Rumble

It’s a ten team battle royal and the winners get a title shot eventually. I’m assuming that it’s at timed intervals due to the name, but I doubt that’ll be the case. LOD 2000 is in first. In second: Kane/Mankind, who are apparently pulling double time tonight. The match starts during the break in in third is the New Midnight Express. Animal gets chokeslammed as the Midnights chill on the floor. And never mind as they’re in now. The Headbangers are in now. I think the intervals are about 30 seconds.

I don’t know if both guys have to go out or not. Here’s the DOA at 5. They go right for the LOD of course and no one is out yet. The Oddities, as in Golga and Kurrgan, come in next. The Midnights go out and you only have to put one of them out. Too Much (Cool) is out next. They’re number 7 I think. This is a big mess so calling anything is impossible. Farrooq and Blackman come in now. The Oddities work over Kane.

#9 is Taka/Bradshaw for some reason. The DOA is out. The final team is Terry Funk/Scorpio. There are eight left. Terry knocks Kurrgan out and we have seven to go. Taka gets put out as does Too Much. There go the Headbangers. Animal puts Blackman out and there goes the LOD.

So it’s Scorpio/Funk vs. Kane/Mankind. Terry and Mankind fight on the floor for old times’ sake and Scorpio hits what we would call Trouble in Paradise to no effect. Funk grabs a chair and BLASTS Kane but Foley comes in and knocks him down. Tombstone to Scorpio and another chair to Funk wins it for the monsters.

Rating: D-. I really didn’t like this at all. The amount of people being in there got way too high given the amount of time they were flying through the entrances. Having a bunch of people in there at the end really hurt it, although Funk going after Kane would have been awesome to see as he was just crazy enough to somehow pull it off.

Kane and Mankind stay in the ring as the Cell is lowered. Mankind recites a poem about the Cell. This is the debut of Corporate Mankind with the famous shirt and tie also.

Steve Austin/Undertaker vs. Mankind/Kane

In the Cell of course. And there’s no Taker. Austin wants to climb the cage to start instead of walking into the open door to face Kane/Mankind/Paul. Well at least he’s smart. Here comes Taker….and never mind. They hit the music again and still no Taker. Mankind tries to charge at Austin but he slams the door on Foley’s head to knock him down. Kane goes after Austin and they fight on the ramp. Bearer locks himself in the Cell so he’s by himself.

Mankind is back up and Austin is getting double teamed. And then we get to the important part here: Taker comes up from under the ring and has Bearer all to himself in the Cell. Kane and Mankind try to get in but even on top there’s no way. Bearer is busted. Mankind and Austin are between the ramp and the barricade as Taker just kills Paul in the Cell.

Austin pops Mankind with a chair to the back and GOOD NIGHT that was a sick shot to Mankind’s head. Taker crushes Bearer with the steps and Austin goes up to fight Kane on top of the Cell. They slug it out….and we go off the air. Now THAT is a cliffhanger. This wasn’t a match of any sort so I’m not going to bother rating it. I definitely see why no one counts this among the Cell matches.

Overall Rating: C. This was an ok show but it drags a lot at times. It certainly moved stories forward which is the most important thing, but I don’t think anyone can properly diagram the whole Conspiracy angle for you. It becomes one of the most complicated stories in history and either transitions or continues into the Vince is Crazy story next year with the Ministry, the Corporation and then the Corporate Ministry, but we’ll get there soon enough. Decent show, but it wasn’t great.

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Royal Rumble 2003
Date: January 19, 2003
Location: Fleet Center, Boston, Massachusetts
Attendance: 15,338
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross, Tazz

The Brand Split is upon us. That’s the main difference here. The other would be the level of talent in the main events for both shows. On Raw, we have HHH vs. Scott Steiner. On Smackdown, we have Angle vs. Benoit. This show might set the all time record for biggest gap between the two main events as far as quality goes. The Raw main event was considered a complete disaster while the Smackdown one is considered an all time classic.

Other than that, the main thing is one Brock Lesnar, who has taken wrestling by storm. Shawn’s back as well, so the roster is actually pretty freaking stacked around this time. They’re still getting the hang of the Brand Split as it’s only been around about 7 months. This is the first Rumble in what I guess you would call the modern WWE era, so we’ll see what happens. Oh and Cena and Batista are here now too.

This is the first Brand Split show so it’s 15 Raw guys and 15 Smackdown guys. We get the standard wanting to go to Mania promos, but this one worked better than the others for some reason. They’re keeping it low key, and then we hear from Scott Steiner to mess it up. They really play up the Road to Mania thing here, which is the best way to go. This really is the way to get things going that way and it worked perfectly. It’s so weird to see PS2 as a new product being the sponsor for this.

No buildup or anything as we get to the opening match.

Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar

Yep, this is what’s starting the show: a rematch from Survivor Series as the winner is in the Rumble later tonight. Well ok then. Lesnar is now a face and therefore incredibly popular. Seriously though, why in the world is this opening a show? Why didn’t this main event a Smackdown or something? This is the first rematch between the two since Heyman turned on Lesnar to get the title off of him.

Big Show has a Hogan like mustache and is still wearing the horrible looking attire. I hate that. Stunning no one, it’s a power match to start us out. Lesnar really was a freaking terrifying man as he throws Show over with a decent belly to belly. I say decent in the sense that it really was crap but considering who he’s doing it to, it’s very impressive.

Pretty much, this is the match: Lesnar does an impressive power move, Show takes over with slow and generic offense, Lesnar hits a power move, Heyman interferes, Show takes over again. In other words, it’s the exact same thing that they did at Survivor Series. To be fair though, what else can they do? I mean you really have to see what Show was like to appreciate how awful he was at this time.

I mean he was just so freaking broken down and slow that he’s putting me to sleepy. I mean really, I can barely keep my eyes open. Dang it why is the sun….see what I mean? The previous sentence was written at 1237am and this is now 740am. I slept all freaking night because of a Big Show match and I wasn’t even tired! He actually sucks that much life out of an audience. But hey, he’s a huge guy so obviously he needs to be pushed right?

Brock is set for a chokeslam, but gets a SWEET counter by rolling over and taking Show down with him. It sounds kind of lame but trist me, this looked awesome. It was like an arm drag without the arm if that makes sense.

Anyway, now that that’s happened, Lesnar gets Heyman on his shoulders for an F5 but he takes a chokeslam instead. He naturally kicks out and Show’s face is kind of funny. In a very abrupt ending, Lesnar runs Show into Heyman and hits an F5 for the pin. Yes it sucked but consider the size of the guy he’s using it on.

Rating: D. Again, this was like the Survivor Series match: Lesnar does all the work, Show gets a paycheck to buy his daily ham with. This is easily the worst Show ever got as he just flat out didn’t care at this point so he relied on his size and generic offense to get him through a match. This was about six and a half minutes, which is still two longer than their world title match from Survivor Series. That’s a bit sad.

Jericho says he’ll win the Rumble. He also beat Rock and Austin in one night.

Raw Tag Titles: Dudleys vs. William Regal/Lance Storm

As you can see the tag titles are more or less dead here. The Dudleys are only 15 time tag champions at the moment. This is the Unamericans phase for the heels. Raw is in the Dunkin Donuts Center tomorrow in X’s home town apparently. Bubba hooks a freaking weird looking leg lock on Storm. It was like a combination of a figure four and a Sharpshooter but he was standing the whole time.

I’ve never seen that before and of all people Bubba freaking Ray Dudley used it. You learn something new every time. Apparently Vince wants tables tonight so there we are. We’re just about to the point where Austin would come back to beat up on Bischoff and then lose to Rock at Mania before becoming co-GM for the summer. That was just kind of sad as Austin was just not what he used to be at this point.

In case you’re wondering where in the world that came from, JR is talking about how Bischoff is in hot water on Raw for being boring according to Vince. This is your run of the mill TV match if I’ve ever seen one. That’s the issue with the Brand Split and the consolidation of the rosters of ECW and WCW onto one show: there simply isn’t time for PPV level matches on PPVs and that’s hurting the product.

The only thing PPV level about this match is the ending as Regal is about to take a 3D and Chief Morely (Val Venis), who was the deputy authority figure at this time, comes out to argue with the referee. Regal gets some brass knucks from somewhere but D-Von steals them. We get REALLY confusing here as Ross can’t tell Bubba and D-Von apart as he says Bubba has the knucks.

This messes Lawler up to no end as he was sure that D-Von had them (which was true) but Ross says Bubba has them about 5 times. Lawler keeps asking if Ross is sure and that he’s confused. I know a lot of people get on Lawler today, but this was all on Ross. After the match Ross wakes up and realizes that Bubba has apparently gotten skinnier, shorter and one heck of a tan and has changed his name to D-Von. The massive celebration ends this.

Rating: C. This is the epitome of average. It could have come off of any Raw throughout the year or any weak PPV. There was nothing at all here that set this apart from any other tag title match at all. The Dudleys are 16 time tag champions. See the problem there? It’s still Dudleys feud with the team of the month before getting the titles back for a “big moment”. It’s very sad that the belts have somehow gotten even more worthless.

We oddly go to an Australian newscast as apparently I’ve taped over….oh it’s Nathan Jones coming. Never mind. Can we go back to the Australian news that means absolutely nothing to me but is far more entertaining? And yes, somehow this clueless putz managed to get together with the Undertaker at Mania of all things. This is a great example of Vince being blinded by big men.

Cole has an insanely bad looking mustache.

We recap the AWFUL Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie feud. This is the infamous one where Dawn married Torrie’s father and blackmailed Torrie into having a lesbian affair with her in order to keep them from getting married. I said it was infamous, I never said it wasn’t insanely hot.

Soon after they got married anyway and they went on their honeymoon and she screwed him to death. As in they had a funeral segment. No one ever actually pointed out what Dawn got out of this other than ticking off Torrie. This is apparently stepdaughter vs. stepmother. Yes, it’s that stupid.

Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie

I have to give it to Tazz and Cole: they actually keep straight faces when doing the commentary here. Dawn is wearing a veil for crying out loud. The only reason for this was to have the women wear hot outfits and kiss once. Of all things, Lillian Garcia sang Torrie’s theme song. If she was even the slightest bit credible, that would be awesome. The fans are a bit bored to say the least.

They’ll pop for a catfight but as a legit big time feud this is just a failure. You can tell the girls have no real rhythm and are having to think their way through every single step of every single move. They’re botching a LOT in this too. The crowd is about as dead as Carlito’s career here too. Torrie wins with a bad neckbreaker to prove absolutely nothing at all.

Rating: DD. That’s of course what this match was about. Torrie and Dawn were both grieving and crushed, but they managed to find tight outfits to wrestle in. Yeah one girl is responsible for the other’s father’s death and they blame each other for it, so let’s have a bad wrestling match to settle this. What was the point of this supposed to be again? Whatever it was it failed.

Stephanie and Bischoff, the current GMs run into each other in the back. They run off this kid with curly hair that looks awful and the guy can’t talk to save his life. His name is Randy Orton. Evolution would officially form in 15 days, on my 15th birthday no less. Anyway, they hint that they both have big surprises coming. Bischoff’s was Austin and I think Stephanie’s was Hogan returning.

Sean O’Haire does a promo of what would have been an excellent gimmick if they hadn’t put him with Piper and had him job to Rikishi of all people.

In case you thought anything had changed in the last 15 minutes, Nathan Jones is STILL coming to the WWF.

We recap Scott Steiner vs. HHH. This had big mistake written all over it as Steiner was just a total musclehead that cut insane promos. Steiner had been a free agent and demanded a title shot guaranteed or he would go to Smackdown. HHH set up a bunch of contests where Steiner kept winning. So that’s where MVP and Matt Hardy stole that horrible story from.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Scott Steiner

This just screams bad idea to me for some reason. HHH is wearing red tights and they just don’t look right at all. Steiner gets a lukewarm reaction at best. We get the big match introductions from Earl so that’s always fun. Steiner throws weird punches. It’s like he hits HHH in the head with his wrist or something like that. Scott does everything with his arms. It’s either punches or clotheslines or slams, but everything is based around his arms. That can’t be a good sign.

I know HHH uses his knees a lot, but he adds in some other stuf too to balance that out. Steiner is dominating here early on in the match. He’s working the back over which at least makes sense given his finisher. To shock me just a bit, Steiner throws in a kick. Yeah it was just one and now it’s back to arm moves. Steiner goes to a bearhug because he’s tired 7 minutes into a match. He mixes his stuff up with a belly to belly overhead suplex.

HHH is more or less getting dominated here. He reverses an Irish Whip (notices it’s another arm based move from Steiner) into the steps to buy some time. The fans are somewhere between dead and annoyed here. It’s just Steiner doing generic stuff while allegedly being a big time challenger to HHH. It’s like a match where the whole thing is made up of the middle of a match where one guy is wearing the other down.

The problem is they’ve been doing that for ten minutes now. The crowd pops a bit for a near Pedigree but there is NO reaction on a slingshot from Steiner. Steiner is just winded beyond belief after a relatively basic and simple match. He botches the selling of what was supposed to be I think a spinning neckbreaker and it turns into more or less a Diamond Cutter.

And now we reach the period where this match is infamous for being AWFUL. Steiner more or less gives up and just does nothing but overhead belly to belly suplexes, clotheslines, and punches. I mean that’s ALL he does. It’s like on the old N64 WWF games where the fans would boo if you did the same moves over and over again.

See, a guy like Benoit or Tazz uses a lot of suplexes because they have a great set up to get there and it wears out the opponent’s neck for their finishing submissions. Here, Steiner uses so many of them because it’s all he’s got. Also, those two others I mentioned MIXED THEIR OFFENSE UP. Tazz had what, 4 or 5 different kinds of suplexes he would use? And how often did he use the same one in a row?

Steiner has used four inside of 30 seconds. That’s four overhead belly to belly suplexes mind you. It’s cool if you do it once, but at this point it’s just dumb, and in a city like Boston, they’re not going to stand for this. He uses ANOTHER, then does that traditional one that he does where he spins to hit it. The fans are DEAD and bordering on angry here.

They’re more or less looking for a reason to just completely go insane here and there it is. Steiner goes for that butterfly powerbomb that he does (again, mainly arm work) and trips over his own feet and HHH lands on Steiner’s boots. There they go. Just to further tick the fans off, HHH and Flair try to leave. They just don’t get that the fans are completely hating this match and they keep extending it further and further.

This match feels like it could go another ten minutes, but if that happens they’re going to riot. HHH is bleeding and no one cares. A sixth, count it sixth overhead belly to belly and the fans are just done. Ross is making cracks about them too as he’s annoyed and wanting this to end. Hey, we’ve got nothing at all going here, so let’s go fight in the crowd! The referee refuses to count though as apparently HHH is intentionally trying to get counted out.

I think he’s thinking he wants to save his career while Steiner just doesn’t get it. Just to further infuriate the crowd, Steiner does pushups. HHH throws the referee out of the ring but as he goes to call for the DQ he intentionally stops because he won’t let HHH escape like that. Ok, there’s furthering an angle and then there’s realizing when the match just needs to die. At least five times now this match should have ended, but either due to Steiner or Hebner or HHH’s stupidity, it won’t just end.

Seriously, you’re getting NOTHING positive from the crowd, the match is repetitive, and Steiner can barely walk because he’s so spent, but they keep going anyway. HHH tries to punch the referee, but Steiner stops him with a standing senton corkscrew moonsault. It’s really an impressive move. He’s just such a master of wrestling and working a crowd that he makes you believe it was another belly to belly suplex.

HHH hits a low blow and rolls up Steiner but Suplex Magee over there kicks out anyway. It’s sledgehammer time and a shot from that brings the booing to a new level of intensity as after 18 minutes of torment like that we get a stupid DQ finish.

Steiner’s thong is sticking out of his tights as he no sells sledgehammer shots and beats up HHH with it to nothing but booing. He puts the Recliner on him as Ross mentions the words rematch and there being no way out of the hold, meaning the inevitable rematch is going to happen next month. Steiner poses forever before we get ready for the Smackdown Title match.

Rating: G-. This is another match where you have to wonder what the heck Vince was on when he booked it. I mean seriously, had he seen any Steiner matches from the last 5-6 years? Why in the world would he expect this to be anything resembling good?

The styles just completely clashed and it had WAY too much time. If you hack 8-10 minutes out of this mess, it MIGHT be passable. But no, instead we get nearly 20 minutes of this mindless nonsense because everyone hated it so it must have been great.

We recap Angle vs. Benoit, which is the match that I’ve wanted to get to more than any other in Rumble history. Angle is flanked by Haas and Benjamin at this point as Team Angle. Lesnar had cost Big Show the title at Armageddon ending the month long reign of doom that Show was tormenting us with. Heyman is Angle’s manager apparently, and screwed Show out of the belt or something like that.

Lesnar is apparently banned from getting a title shot (except for at Mania of course), and he introduces Team Angle (Benjamin and Haas) as his insurance. Benoit beats Big Show to get the title shot with all kinds of sick counters. This was just shy of a dream match as both guys were probably at their best level ever as far as in ring abilities. Think about that for a second.

Smackdown World Title: Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle

This is Angle’s first title defense apparently. Team Angle tries to jump Benoit and get thrown out. Naturally this is more or less a chess match to start. It’s like a feeling out process at 80 miles an hour as it’s nothing but counters and reversals that no one else could pull off. Cole manages to get the word scuttlebutt in. That’s impressive. Angle might be faking a knee injury here but we’re not sure.

Benoit keeps going for a Sharpshooter, showing of course great psychology as Angle’s knee is hurt. Did you expect anything else from him? The fans are clearly more into this as they’re popping at the right times and while they’re no on their feet or anything, you can just feel that they’re interested in this match. A key thing to notice early in the match: no one is getting a long term advantage.

Benoit is in control for the most part, but Angle is getting in little spurts of offense, which shows that he’s still in this. Benoit an AWESOME move as they’re fighting on the apron and Benoit hooks a DDT onto the apron and lands on his feet on the floor. It looked sick. The headbutt misses though and we’re back to Angle being in control. See how that’s better than what Steiner and HHH did?

Benoit takes over again a few seconds later, but Angle took over just for a bit. It keeps things interesting because at some point, Angle is going to get the advantage and keep it for awhile, unlike Steiner who dominated about 80% of the match earlier. Benoit gets the Sharpshooter and the crowd pops for it. That’s a great sign. Angle gets the ropes though and it’s becoming clear to me why the crowd isn’t that into most of what’s going on: they just know it’s not ending this early.

I remember reading in one of Foley’s books where he said that in the Cell match with HHH the fans were more or less lifeless for his early covers and the times when HHH was covering him. It finally occurred to him that the fans knew that the match wasn’t going to end without them getting out of the cage and without a huge spot. And indeed, they broke the cage open and the crowd lost it. Angle hits a beautiful belly to belly overhead.

It wasn’t sloppy and Benoit had to do little other than tuck his head in. Angle popped his hips and sent Benoit flying. That was great. Cole says that Angle is a member of the Grand Slam club, meaning he’s held all singles titles. Can Cole ever just get something right? Angle launches another belly to belly, but notice a few things: he did something different in between, and he’s up and ready to do something else afterwards.

There’s why this is fine and what Steiner did wasn’t. Angle throws one and pops up to fight some more. Steiner does it and then does it again and again. It’s just stupid looking. Angle hooks a rear naked choke, which is just an odd name if there’s ever been one.

The key to it not being boring though is Benoit keeps fighting to try to get out of it. That’s keeping something going in there during the boring part of the match, which keeps the fans at least somewhat into it. They’re hanging on by a thread but it’s better than having to completely reset everything and start from scratch. It’s little things like that which keeps a match better than others.

All of a sudden Benoit just cranks it up and suplexes the heck out of Angle. The fans respond to it as this is a textbook example of a slow build. They started really slowly and built the intensity slowly and the crowd was with them every step of the way. They’ve got the crowd completely into this and that’s how it’s done. See what cardio can do for your match? Benoit gets the Crossface and everyone in view of the camera jumps to their feet and the flashbulbs go off. That’s how you do it.

In case you can’t tell, I’m loving this match. Angle gets the ropes so Benoit puts the ankle lock on him. Angle reverses into his own ankle lock and we go into an insane series of counters that Benoit gets the Crossface again from. You can tell they’re thinking every step of the way here and have a lot of this mapped out.

On the third Crossface attempt, which very oddly is on the right arm instead of the left (go back and find me ten instances in history of a guy working on the right arm. I doubt they exist.), Angle gets an Angle Slam out of nowhere for a long two. The fans are all over this. It’s not so much an excited thing but rather in awe of what they’re seeing. Angle goes Olympic by pulling the straps down and the ankle lock goes on again.

Naturally it’s countered into a complicated technical move that Benoit hooks a rollup with. You can tell the fans are way into this as they pop huge for every cover or submission attempt. That’s a very good thing when they realize that it doesn’t take a finisher to end a match. Benoit throws another German so hard that Angle lands on his face. That’s impressive. Cole and Tazz try to figure out who has the momentum at various times. That’s saying a lot.

Benoit gets the headbutt from the top onto the back of Angle’s head which must hurt. Angle gets control again and sets for a powerbomb but falls backwards to send Benoit’s head into the top turnbuckle. Another Angle Slam gets two as the fans have no clue who to cheer for. Benoit gets his FIFTH Crossface of the match.

Again, the difference here: the fans are responding to this because the guys are clearly working very hard out there while Steiner and HHH had no clue what they were doing. Angle somehow rolls over and grabs Benoit’s ankle. I have no idea what to call what he just did, but more or less he rolled backwards onto Benoit and got the arms free to grab the ankle. In case you can’t tell, THIS MATCH IS FREAKING AMAZING.

Benoit counters AGAIN and Angle just goes off. He grabs the ankle and cranks on it. Benoit tries to get out but Angle holds on and gets the leg lock. Benoit is in agony and finally tape, more out of frustration than pain though. That’s a nice little touch there as it makes Benoit look like he got caught rather than defeated. Angle is carried off by Haas and Benjamin.

Rating: A+. This was just flat out awesome stuff on about 1,000 different levels. Considering what happened before this match as in the Steiner HHH mess, this was that much better. This right here is proof that at the end of the day, two guys that are technically sound can go out there and just be awesome. You don’t need to weigh 275 and be able to bench press 500lbs to have a good match or be a star.

These two stole the freaking year out there. After a very random Anthology ad, (oddly enough on some versions it’s Anthology (which was a WWE music compilation of songs from over the years, meaning this was epic to old school fans) on some versions and Rebellion on some others. That’s incredibly peculiar) we go back to the arena where the fans give Benoit a standing ovation as he leaves.

And that means it’s time for a rant. This is a prime example of why HHH is such a hated man in the business. What do I mean by that? Well let’s take a look. HHH vs. Steiner got absolutely booed out of the freaking building. I mean they were getting heat the likes of which you just don’t see anywhere else. Angle keeps the title and was destined to go on to Mania to face Brock.

It’s fairly clear right now that Benoit is ready to be a world champion. He’s got everything he needs and the fans are totally behind him. He wouldn’t get the belt for another 15 months. HHH would hold onto his title until SEPTEMBER when he dropped it to Goldberg. He got it back three months later and finally lost it to Benoit in a triple threat match at Mania 20.

Yes HHH tapped to him, but he made sure that Shawn was there too so that he could say he didn’t lose cleanly, even though he lost cleanly. He beat Booker in a throwaway match at Mania while Benoit was teaming with Rhyno of all people and losing a tag title match on the same show. He would go on to feud with the FBI and Cena before the US Title came back.

Yeah the IC and US Titles were retired for about a year in some stupid idea Vince had that there should be one champion per brand. I’ll stand by my theory that HHH was behind it because the midcard was great at the time and he wanted to make sure no one on Raw stole the show again. Anyway, Benoit somehow got even hotter around the fall and they FINALLY pushed him to the title at Mania.

However, what does HHH do after Benoit wins the title? He feuds with his old buddy Shawn Michaels, leading to a Hell in a Cell match which AGAIN overshadows Benoit’s title match. HHH gets the next PPV title shot and AGAIN there’s interference in the end. Benoit wins, but he still doesn’t pin HHH clean. The next PPV was Summerslam where Benoit lost the title and HHH won it a month later.

In other words, Benoit was kept from going up to the main event scene where he belonged in 2003 and then in 2004, HHH made sure the spotlight was at least partially on him and that Benoit, who was and always will be the better wrestler, was made to look like a second tier player, even though he was world champion. While Benoit was having matches with the FBI and Cena who he was making to look like a star, HHH was having matches with Goldberg, Steiner and Nash.

The fans hated him, but he kept the belt all summer long because there clearly was no other option. Yeah go ahead HHH defenders: tell me he had nothing to do with it. I want to see you try to defend him here.

RVD and Kane, still in his mask, say they’ll do whatever they need to in order to win.

Royal Rumble

The intervals are two minutes this year. Shawn is #1 and Jericho is #2, both of which we knew coming into this. Ross changes the intervals to 90 seconds. Well ok then. It amuses me that Jericho has changed everything about himself yet he keeps his music. Not sure why but that amuses me. Anyway, Christian does Jericho’s entrance as Jericho sneaks through the crowd and gets Shawn with a low blow.

Jericho beats on Shawn for awhile and then repeats it with a chair to bust Shawn open. Oh dang it’s a good one too. Christopher Nowitski, more commonly known as the Harvard guy, is 3rd. He could have been a decent midcard heel if he hadn’t gotten hurt. It’s still good to have a Harvard grad on your payroll though. Jericho puts Shawn out with relative ease after he was beaten on so badly. Mysterio, who was just past being a rookie at this point, is 4th.

His knees weren’t a mess at this point so he’s still the best high flying wrestler of all time. For some reason Ross and Lawler are calling the whole match. That’s yet another way of saying to Smackdown that you’re the second show and that’s all there is to it. Chris is just now getting in the ring as Edge gets a great pop as a face at number 5.

Edge was on the verge of busting through the glass ceiling and becoming a main event star but a neck injury would put him out less than a month later and he would be out for about 14 months. He and Rey have a kind of non match as they don’t really do much to each other. The heels are both on the floor but not out. Christian is 6th with his absolutely awesome entrance.

He hugs Edge who looks at him like he’s crazy. Yeah he gets speared. Nowitski thinks he puts out both Edge and Rey but they go up for a double dropkick. Rey’s hits, but Edge’s misses and his leg lands right on Chris’ face and it looks awful. The referee has to check to make sure he can continue if that tells you anything. Rey hits the dumbest move of all time with the Bronco Buster before Chavo is 7th. That MIGHT have been a minute.

He and Rey do an awesome sequence to set up a 619. Christian takes one also. A hurricanrana puts Nowitski out and then Jericho puts Rey out. We have Jericho, Edge, Chavo and Christian in there now and they’re joined by Tajiri. In other words the most only American wrestler in there is a guy that is billed as the Mexican Warrior. Tajiri puts one of the sickest looking submissions I’ve ever seen on Chavo as he’s more or less using a rack but instead of over his neck it’s over his back. It looked great.

Bill DeMott, more commonly known as Hugh Morrus, is 9th. He was a Tough Enough trainer not long before this and apparently he’s gone insane because of it. I guess that makes sense in some wrestling logic. Tenth is Dreamer as we’re needing someone to get rid of some of these jobbers.

Dreamer of course brings in weapons. He and Edge beat the living tar out of DeMott and knock out him. Jericho and Christian get together with trash can lids and put Dreamer out. We’re back to Christian, Jericho, Edge, Chavo and Tajiri. That’s a bit better I guess.

Tajiri does the stupidest thing I can think of and goes for a Tarantula on Jericho. Naturally he’s out and replaced by B2, more commonly known as Bull Buchanan. He and Cena broke up apparently so he’s just out there being himself now. Yeah he’s already out thanks to Edge. There goes Chavo via a spear by Edge to leave us with three Canadians. Make that one Canadian as Jericho skins the cat and gets back in to put out Edge and Christian at the same time.

That’s pretty impressive actually. Jericho is on his own now until RVD comes out to a huge ovation at 11th. Yeah we have Shawn, Jericho, Edge, Christian, RVD, Tajiri and others but there’s zero point to having an IC or US Title. Starting to see why this is considered one of the darkest ages in wrestling history? After about a minute Matt Hardy is 12th.

Tonight’s Mattitude facts are that Matt strongly dislikes mustard and apparently that’s all we get tonight. Yeah there’s ZERO point for a midcard title on either brand. I know I can’t see anyone in here that would benefit from having one. Van Dam is just fun to watch. Jericho takes the Five Star as after maybe a minute 15 Eddie is in at 13. He has almost no hair here yet amazingly would be world champion in 13 months.

Eddie hits a frog splash on RVD but he messes up and it lands on Rob’s face for the most part. That looked painful. Matt is the only person up as he jumps Eddie, and Jeff is in at 15. He offers a truce and Jeff goes after him. Dang I made another error in my counting. It’s fixed now but I keep screwing up the count. That’s uncharacteristic for me. Everyone else has been down for a LONG time, although to be fair they all took finishers.

Jeff almost puts Matt out but Shannon Moore lays on his back and puts his feet up to keep Matt in. He then gets in and lays on Matt to protect him from a Swanton, which in reality would hurt more I’d think. Rosey of 3 Minute Warning along with Rico is 16th. After MAYBE 45 seconds, Test is in at 17. Stacy is with him as we’re in the Testicles thing which was funny for about two minutes. Test beats up just about everyone as he was a monster at this point.

He lost that as Stacy denied him sex so he started carrying a Playboy with him. I wish I was making that up. John, the Doctor of Thuganomics, Cena is 18th. He wears an old school Astros jersey while rapping his way to the ring. He’s entertaining if nothing else, but the people that say he should go back to that are just idiots. Ross says two things of interest: word to your mother, and Cena is a future main event player.

His rap takes up the entire about 60 seconds before Charlie Haas is in at 19. There are WAY too many people in there right now. I’m counting 9 at the moment and I’m not going to bother listing them. Oh the heck with is: Haas, Rosey, Jericho, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy (I think they’re cousins or something), Van Dam, Eddie, Test and Cena. Jeff goes out to finally lighten things up a bit. Rikishi is in at 20, and apparently he’s been in more than anyone else in history.

I know at least Kane has broken that record since. He almost gives Matt and Shannon a double stinkface but thankfully it doesn’t happen. Jamal, more commonly known as Umaga, is 21st. This is being written the day after he passed away so this is deflating to say the least. Sadly enough, the first thing that happened to him is a stink face. I hate that move so much. It ticks him off if nothing else and he hammers away on Rikishi.

Kane, whose pyro will give you a freaking heart attack, is 22nd. He cleans house and chokeslams Rico, who isn’t even in the match. There goes Rosey. Shelton Benjamin who reminds me of Gunn from Angel for some reason is 23rd. The ring is WAY too full. Oh yeah: Cena is wearing long pants. It just looks completely wrong. Booker is 24th. He was on the biggest roll of his career at this point and he would wind up getting the Raw title shot at Mania.

Naturally since he was having great matches and getting huge pops, he was fed to HHH in a throwaway match. There goes Eddie thanks to HHH’s lunch. A-Train is 25th. He just destroys everyone in there. Rikishi of course gets to take him down. WHAT IS SO FREAKING SPECIAL ABOUT RIKISHI???

He’s always around and was always considered a big deal but he SUCKED. He danced and wore a thong, end of appeal to him. Shawn comes in and beats up Jericho so Test can throw him out. Well ok then. Shawn is completely wasted in the Rumble but whatever. If nothing else it set up a great match at Mania.

Maven is 26th. He actually looks like a pro now which is a plus from last year. There are about 9-10 people in there so again someone needs to come clear them out. Goldust is 27th and no one cares. He hits Shattered Dreams on Maven, which when you actually look at it is a kick to the turnbuckle but whatever. The World’s Greatest Tag Team combine to put him out.

They do the same to Booker, which is appropriate as the two of them were tag partners a few weeks before. Batista, who was something close to what Kozlov or Jackson is now is 28th. Test puts him down of all people. That’s just odd indeed. Batista puts him out though so there we go. He then puts out Rikishi so I’m happier now. Lesnar is in at 29 to a solid pop. He puts Haas and Benjamin out at the same time.

Thank goodness now we’re getting rid of some people. Matt gets an F5 to the floor. A-Train gets a SICK bicycle kick to Batista to take him down. Taker is number 30 to a huge pop. Ok so the final group is Van Dam, Cena, Jamal, Kan, A-Train, Maven, Batista, Lesnar and Taker. That’s not bad as I’ve seen worse groupings. There’s no clear cut winner but it’s pretty clear when you really look at it I think. He’s returning after Show hurt him for about the 12th time mind you.

This is still the American also. There goes Cena which is likely going to be the featured match at Mania this year. Ok so right now it’s next year but when you read this it’ll be this year. Jamal is gone which is a bad way of putting that. Maven hits a dropkick on Taker and celebrates by holding up two fingers. Taker just stands there behind him waiting. A chokeslam and Maven is out. That was hilarious to see.

A-Train hits a chokebomb to put Taker down. Why in the world did he never get a serious push? They built him as a big time monster but nothing ever happened with him. He got the IC Title I believe before this, but it’s completely forgotten in the long run. After A-Train dominates even more, Van Dam and Kane who were a team at the time get together and put him out.

In a great spot, Kane says he’ll throw Van Dam onto Batista, Kane picks Van Dam up and casually throws him out. That was great. The final four are Taker, Kane, Batista and Lesnar, meaning we’re going to need a mop to clean up the muscle induced orgasm that Vince had in the back. Batista and Taker go at it while Kane and Lesnar fight. So the lightest guy in there is Lesnar at 295 right? Kane takes a solid F5 and we get the showdown of Taker and Lesnar.

Taker puts him down with a decent boot. Taker wearing white socks is just amusing. He follows it up with a tombstone to Lesnar as Batista goes out next. Taker and Kane team up for all of 8 seconds as Taker dumps Kane to get us down to two. Batista comes back in with a chair but takes it in the face.

I wish more women would do that. Anyway, Lesnar sneaks up on Taker to dump him out to set up Angle vs. Lesnar at Mania 19. Taker gets back in and implies that he wants a shot if Brock gets the title back. Brock got it back and Taker eventually did get a shot, months later.

Rating: B. I’ve seen better but I’ve seen far worse. The main issue was how many people got into the ring at once. The ending was quite good as Taker and Lesnar were both legit possibilities and Kane was far from a long shot. There was a nice balance of big names and no chance guys out there too which is hard to find at times. If there was a rating between B and B+ that’s what this would get. It was fine, but it could have been a bit better. Either way, this was entertaining.

Overall Rating: B-. This was a pretty good show. It’s not great but it was certainly solid. They got the matches in the right order to say the least. Angle and Benoit made me forget the debacle of the Raw title match and then a good Rumble sent the fans home happy. It’s not a classic, but it’s certainly worth checking out I’d say, especially Angle vs. Benoit. It’s a clinic on how to work a technical match. I’ll say it’s recommended, but you’ll want a remote to fast forward over some stuff.

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Impact Wrestling
Date: January 19, 2012
Location: Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tazz

We’re moving closer to Against All Odds after last week’s pretty awesome show. Well at least the second hour was. Tonight there’s a big match and it’s actually been advertised. I’m as shocked as you are. It’s a cage match between Mickie James and Madison Rayne to probably blow off their feud stemming from Karen being all evil and crazy. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the ending from last week’s show.

Here’s Storm to open things up. He likes being #1 contender and he beat the best in the world to do it. Angle may be the best, but on those nights, Storm was that much better. Now he’s got Roode at Against All Odds….and here’s Hardy for a rebuttal. He says he got screwed at the PPV and then again last week. Storm isn’t getting a title shot until Hardy does. They both say they got screwed. Storm: “With all that screwing he must have a lot of child support to pay.”

Here’s Roode who says Storm does in fact get the winner of Hardy vs. Roode, but since there’s no winner, Storm isn’t #1 contender anymore. Hardy got two chances in 5 days and blew them both, so he’s out too. This brings out Sting who says Roode found another loophole. Therefore tonight it’s Storm vs. Hardy and the winner gets Roode at the PPV.

Angelina rants about Eric Young a bit and challenges him to a match later tonight.

Gunner vs. AJ Styles

The announcers keep pushing the idea that Gunner has injured a lot of people. AJ does his usual stuff to start, such as the drop down into a dropkick. Gunner takes over and Tazz actually brings up Flair and AJ’s past relationship. Jumping knee to the face gets two for Gunner. Gunner controls for a bit but AJ comes back with the springboard forearm. Here come Kaz and Daniels with Daniels telling Kaz to do what he’s supposed to do. F5 is countered and Flair pops up on the apron. The distraction lets Kaz deck AJ and a DDT from Gunner gets the pin at 4:45.

Rating: C-. Just a match basically to further whatever is going on with Daniels and Kaz. Kaz being so reluctant is an interesting story but I’d like it to not be Daniels. I mean….it’s been done. Like A LOT. Anyway, decent match and it’s amazing what a character trait did for Gunner. Why did it take them over a year to do it?

Gunner goes for the concrete but AJ gets away.

Magnus is ready for Crimson. Crimson and Morgan come up and Crimson threatens Magnus. Morgan says save it for the ring.

Ray is with Sting and demands a world title match since he hasn’t lost since being a singles wrestler. Sting says no and make an appointment the next time you want to talk to me. Ray kind of threatens him…I think. Sting even lifts the glasses and Ray is mad.

Magnus vs. Crimson

No seconds with either guy. Magnus jumps him to start and hits a clothesline for two. And never mind as Red Sky (a bad one) ends this at 1:10.

Joe comes out post match and beats down Crimson. Morgan finally makes the save. He gets beaten down too and Joe/Magnus stand tall.

Eric young is fascinated by Bellator. A caterer comes up and Eric annoys her by thinking she’s a fighter. He says he doesn’t fight women. ODB comes up and talks about Angelina’s challenge and Eric isn’t happy. Sex is implied.

We get a clip from last week with the Bischoff Hour. Garrett is shown training. He says we’ll find out who’s training him soon.

We recap Mickie vs. Madison. I’m not sure this warrants a cage match but it’s not bad.

Madison freaks out and Gail says let’s just go to the ring.

Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne

Mickie starts fast and rams her into the buckle to start. Powerbomb out of the corner hits and we’re officially longer than the Lockdown match from last year. Seated dropkick gets a delayed two. Mickie hooks something like a choke and Madison is in trouble. Madison escapes and hits a HARD kick to take over. That sounded great. Mickie reverses a whip and we take a break.

Back with Mickie in control again. This has been pretty one sided so far. Mickie takes her down and nips up but Madison sends her into the cage to take over. Madison humps the mat with Mickie’s head between her legs. Somehow that’s a lot less hot than you would expect. Off to the chinlock. Madison has a little American flag patch on her shorts. Not sure why but it looks good there.

Mickie fights up and a neckbreaker from James puts both of them down. They slug it out, won by Mickie. A flying forearm and clothesline put Madison down. Another flapjack attempt is countered and a boot gets two for Rayne. And then Mickie rams her into the cage a few times and the jumping DDT gets the pin at 12:23.

Rating: C. Not bad here but nothing classic. It’s so much better in this division than the Divas, and a lot of that is due to the time. The Divas matches get annoying because they’re just there and gone so fast that they don’t mean anything. The Knockouts don’t have masterpieces but they have matches, which is a big step in the right direction.

Austin Aries talks about what he’s going to talk about and how entertaining he is. I didn’t leave anything out there: he says he’s going to talk about something and how interesting whatever he’ll be saying will be without saying what it is.

Velvet and Tara congratulate Mickie. She says she’s hardcore or something. No idea what the point of this was.

Hardy says that the world title is what it takes to validate everything.

Video on Aries and his domination of the X Division. He talks about how dominant he is and says he needs competition.

Here’s Aries in the arena. He says it’s that time of the month: it’s time for him to brag about being the best in the world after another successful title defense. If he sucks like the audience says, why does he still have this title? There’s no one here to take me on, so maybe he should go around the world to find competition. Cue the returning Alex Shelley, once again with the skunk hair.

He talks about the Guns being injured and how he came back the day Sabin hurt his knee. Shelley wanted to wait on Sabin to get back but Aries has bored him so much that he had to come back. Last time it took a low blow for Aries to beat him. Aries says go wait for Sabin to come back because there’s no point to doing anything else. Shelley says if he’s such a non-threat, Aries should have no issue giving him a title match. Aries says whoa whoa whoa, but you have to earn it. Go find an X Division guy and beat them, then you get your show. Shelley says Aries can pick it.

ODB wants Angelina to get destroyed tonight. Winter jumps her and they brawl with ODB seemingly in control. Winter gets in a shot with a metal something and then whips ODB with a belt.

Angelina Love vs. Eric Young

Let’s get this over with. Eric isn’t sure what to do so he locks up with the referee. Then with a fan. Then he jumps back in. Then he locks up with the referee again. The referee is shoved into Angelina in the corner and Eric counts to four for a near DQ. Angelina kicks him low for the DQ at 1:57. Oh….just no.

ODB with the save but she gets beaten down. Eric sends both evil ones to the floor. ODB kisses him.

Storm says it’s his time to be champion.

James Storm vs. Jeff Hardy

Winner gets Roode at Against All Odds. They quickly go to the mat with Hardy having moderate control. Storm hits a clothesline but is tired already and we take a break. Back with Hardy sending him to the floor and taking over back in the ring. Storm channels his inner Blanchard and hits a slingshot suplex. After a quick chinlock, Jeff starts his comeback and hits the Whisper in the Wind for two.

Now Jeff hooks a chinlock. They’ve been going in a low gear up to this point. Eye of the Storm is countered but Storm hits some freaky release mat slam for two. He loads up the Last Call but Jeff counters into the Twisting Stunner. Here comes the Swanton but Storm breaks it up. A superplex is countered but Storm hits an enziguri to knock Jeff down. Now the superplex hits but both guys are down. And then Bully Ray comes in and hits the referee for the no contest at 13:24.

Rating: C. Not bad but it was clear they were keeping it in low gear until the ending. Ray coming in was foreshadowed pretty clearly and I think they’re going to go with the three or four way main event at Against All Odds, because goodness knows there aren’t enough of those right? Anyway, not much here and the ending was pretty obvious.

Ray beats them both down and beats up referees also, all with the chain. Sting comes out with the bat and beats up Ray, chasing him off to end the show. Or wait is it the end? No it isn’t as Roode comes in and both guys get belt shots.  Roode declares it a no contest and says he’s still champion.  THAT ends the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was an ok show and that’s about it. They got some stuff set up for Against All Odds….kind of. The problem is that there was no fire to this at all and it felt like a throwaway show. That’s ok as they have a few weeks before the PPV and I’m sure a lot will happen in the UK, but this was still pretty weak stuff. The cage match was ok as was the main event, but it wasn’t anything to remember at all. Not bad, but just kind of there.

Results
Gunner b. AJ Styles – DDT
Crimson b. Magnus – Red Sky
Mickie James b. Madison Rayne – Jumping DDT
Eric Young b. Angelina Love via DQ when Love kicked Young low
Jeff Hardy vs. James Storm went to a no contest when Bully Ray interfered

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Best of the WWF Volume 11
Host: Gene Okerlund
Commentators: Gene Okerlund, Gorilla Monsoon

This is the latest one of the volumes I have left. After this one there are only four to go so we’re almost done at least. This is from mid 87 and most of the stuff on it is from November of 1986, which is at the end of Orndorff vs. Hogan and right before the build to Mania 3 begins. Let’s get to it.

Can-Am Connection vs. Dream Team

Can-Am is Tom Zenk/Rick Martel while the Dream Team is Valentine/Beefcake. Martel takes over quickly on Valentine, working the arm. Off to Zenk who works on the arm as well. We’re in MSG if you’re curious. Luscious John jumps on commentary for a second to brag. The team with the Canadian on it keeps up its advantage. Valentine manages to snake eyes him onto the top rope to take over.

Off to Beefcake and the former champs take over. Off to a chinlock and things speed up a bit. Brutus gets caught in a rollup for two. Martel starts fighting back and punches Valentine down. When all else fails, HIT HIM IN THE FACE! And never mind as the American hits an Irish on the Canadian into the corner. Suplex gets two. Figure Four is countered into a small package but Martel still can’t escape.

Back to Beefcake who manages to give up the tag. Listen to that pop for a hot tag! When’s the last time you heard something like that? Zenk cleans house and dropkicks Valentine down. Brutus takes him down again though and it’s back to the Dream Team in control. There’s an abdominal stretch by the Hammer. Gutbuster brings in Beefcake as they work on Zenk’s ribs and abdomen.

Zenk keeps bridging out of pin attempts. This match is getting some serious time. Double clothesline puts Zenk and Greg down. Valentine puts on a front facelock and Brutus distracts the referee so the tag doesn’t count. Elbow drop misses for Valentine and they do the blind tag thing again. That’s a rarity. Everything breaks down and the Dream Team hits a double belly to back suplex. There’s the Figure Four but Martel hits a slingshot splash for the totally illegal pin.

Rating: B. Long match here and it worked pretty well I thought. This is something you can’t see on TV due to the time but it worked well here. It also plays forward the whole Beefcake is the weak link idea of the team which led to their split. The crowd was way into this too. Good stuff.

George Steele vs. Kamala

Oh….oh…..oh my. This is from November 24, 1986. There are seven matches on this tape and four of them are from that show, plus a Piper’s Pit. Total comedy match with nothing really going on in the first minute or so. They exchange chops and therefore control with the fans being more into it than they should be. The Wizard (Kamala’s manager) gets hit and drops whatever he’s holding, allowing Kamala to clock Steele with it. That and a pair of splashes, one from the top rope, ends this. This was just a comedy match and then the ending.

Time for Piper’s Pit. This one is live in MSG and the guests are Orndorff and I believe his new manager Bobby Heenan. Piper says he’s not used to being cheered and that he’s not running for President and he’s the same person he’s always been. Heenan and Orndorff come out and Piper tells Orndorff to find a tag partner. Heenan gets the mic and says Orndorff’s partner is Harley Race. Heenan tells Piper to get a partner. Piper has a chat with his manager in the corner (no one there) but a planted fan pops up on the apron and suggests Hogan. Orndorff freaks and that’s that. Ok then.

Paul Orndorff/Harley Race vs. Hulk Hogan/Roddy Piper

These two teaming up together always feels wrong. Big brawl to start until Hogan and Piper clear the ring. The heels come back in so Hogan picks up Piper and uses his feet as a battering ram. Piper vs. Race officially gets us started. Off to Hulk and the place goes manic. They work on Race’s arm and it’s back to Piper for another big pop. Ok make it Hogan again. You know they work well together for mortal enemies.

They do look at each other with a bit of disdain and a lack of trust but if they didn’t it would be awful. Race headbutts his way out of trouble but still can’t bring Paul in. Back to Hulk and the arm work continues. The place is about to come unglued. Race finally gets in a belly to belly and knee drop to take over. Here’s Orndorff off the top and Piper is in trouble now.

The heels take turns on Piper and it’s off to a chinlock. This place is going to explode when Hogan gets the tag. Suplex keeps Roddy down and it’s off to Paul again. Race hammers away on Piper some more and headbutts him. Roddy stands still and looks like he’s about to fall down when he dives forward for the tag. That looked great. Race looks scared to death and Hogan pounds away. House is cleaned and he drops the leg but Orndorff saves. Heenan gets drilled and heel miscommunication lets Piper pin Race which counts for some reason.

Rating: C+. This is one of those matches where it’s about the atmosphere instead of the match itself. Piper and Hogan teaming together is still a weird sight and I’m not sure how well I like it. Still though, fun little match that blew the roof off MSG (that thing has to be in disrepair given how often it happens) which is the entire idea.

Piper, still mostly a jerk, bails and lets Hogan fight them all off on his own which he does easily.

Randy Savage/Harley Race/Adrian Adonis vs. Roddy Piper/Junkyard Dog/Ricky Steamboat

This is elimination rules and it was a brand new idea at the time. They were popular enough that a PPV version was made later in the year. For some reason, Slick is on commentary. These are all matches at Wrestlemania and the last appearance in MSG for Piper so gee, I wonder who will win here. Savage runs and hides from Steamboat but they wind up starting.

Savage tries to roll away and it’s Race in now with no tag. Off to JYD and it’s rolling headbutts time. They look at each other for awhile as Steamboat plays cheerleader. Belly to belly puts JYD down and it’s off to Savage again. He loads up the elbow but stops to yell at Steamboat. Piper shoves Randy into the now legal Steamboat. My goodness I’d love to see Savage and Piper have a feud. Not the kind they had in WCW either.

Off to Adonis and he runs from Piper. Everything breaks down and all six are in there. A double suplex puts Roddy down and Adrian hooks the sleeper on him. That doesn’t last and Piper hooks a sleeper which is broken up just as quickly. JYD is waiting on an opponent now. I know it sounds like I’m skipping a lot but they’re moving in and out of there so fast that it’s almost impossible to keep up with.

Adonis works on the Dog but hits him in the head because heels are stupid. Everyone goes to the floor and Roddy hits Adrian with a chair. Back to some form of sanity as Piper hits a belly to back suplex on Race but Savage breaks up the cover. This has been incredibly fast paced. And there’s a bell. Uh……why? Adonis and JYD were both counted out because they were legal. Ok then.

Piper vs. Race now and make that Piper vs. Savage. Piper blocks a suplex as Gorilla and Slick argue. Savage misses a shot into the ropes but Race prevents the tag. And never mind as he makes it just a second later. Steamboat speeds things up on Race as Slick yells about karate. Everyone gets in again and my goodness is there some talent in there. There isn’t a bad combination at all out there.

Steamboat rolls up Race but Savage reverses it and somehow it gets the pin, after about 15 seconds of Steamboat being down. I don’t think so but whatever. Ok so it’s Piper vs. Race/Savage. Piper of course is all cool with going straight for Race and they go to the floor. Savage tries to hit him with a chair but they get back in and somehow Savage is now legal. Top rope double axe gets two. Powerslam gets two for Race. Piper grabs a gutwrench suplex but Savage makes the save.

Savage goes up but the double axe hits Race, allowing Piper to steal a pin and it’s 1-1. Now THIS should be awesome. And this is how Piper goes out of MSG? This works I’d think. Race won’t leave so Piper throws Savage into him and then bulldogs Randy down. Savage tries to bail but suckers Piper in and gets the first punch in. That weird clothesline Savage does takes Roddy down for two.

They start choking away at each other and this is so awesome. Piper actually shows off his strength and holds Savage up in a choke. They collide and Savage is knocked to the floor. Piper gets up but then lays down and plays possum. Savage goes up for the elbow but Piper moves and a small package ends the Macho Man. TOTALLY AWESOME and vintage Piper.

Rating: A. I had a blast with this. The talent levels out there were completely insane and they gave us twenty minutes of a great match. These matches could work so well if they were done right and this one was, especially when they have the time to put it together. The eliminations were a bit off, but this was probably the first one ever. Great match though and an absolute blast.

From SNME, here’s Piper’s My Way video set to Frank Sinatra’s song. It’s basically a highlight video of his career which is pretty awesome stuff. It’s set to the closing theme from Coliseum Video here though, probably due to copyright issues. This goes on for about three minutes.

And now let’s go from an hour of totally awesome stuff to….this.

Little Tokyo/Lord Littlebrook vs. Pepe Gomez/Karate Kid

Thank goodness this is joined in progress because the full thing is 13 minutes long. Gomez beats up Tokyo with kicks. Wouldn’t it be Karate Kid using the kicks? The heels get thrown together and it’s the stupid row boat thing. Wait that is Karate Kid? Ok so I was confused earlier. Actually I wasn’t paying attention because I don’t care about this match. There’s a “comedy” spot where Littlebrook is choking with his feet but the good guys make a switch and Littlebrook accidentally choked his partner.

Ok so Gomez is in the body suit. The referee is holding Tokyo for some reason then launches him away. Is there a point to this? I mean…..any of this? Littlebrook, looking about 80 years old, staggers around and the match just kind of stops. Karate Kid uses a full nelson and Tokyo accidentally kicks Littlebrook in the face. I’m not really paying attention as I’m rapidly losing all of my intelligence as my brain dies. Littlebrook beats up both guys and it’s off to Gomez for some dropkicks. It’s a pile up and Tokyo gets pinned.

Rating: N. Just no. No point, no logic, no reason, no need. Give us more Piper greatness please. This tape was reaching classic levels and now it had to get dragged down like this. I get the idea of comedy matches and having fun, but don’t do it for like seven minutes in a row when you have awesome stuff going like that.

Don Muraco vs. Hillbilly Jim

Muraco is dressed like Piper and Fuji is with him in a tux. Remember that. Muraco is wrestling in the kilt. Jim rips it off quickly and the beating begins. Muraco is sent to the floor and Fuji’s hat got crushed. Muraco hides in the corner and Jim works on the arm. A headbutt puts Don on the floor. Muraco takes him down and it’s off to a nerve hold. Jim comes back and hits a big boot. Bear hug (called a full nelson by Monsoon for some reason) draws in Fuji for the DQ.

Rating: D. Jim was a fun character and this was designed to set up the next match and that’s all. Muraco was definitely on the downside of his career at this point but he still had a few more years on the top level to go. Fuji interfering directly sets up the next match on the tape which is always cool to see.

Fuji tears Jim’s overalls and hits him in the ribs with the cane a bunch of times. Jim challenges Fuji to a tuxedo match next month.

Hillbilly Jim vs. Mr. Fuji

This is a tuxedo match. It’s an evening gown match but for men. Jim rips the hat off immediately. I wouldn’t bet on this lasting long. They fight over tearing jackets off and Jim gets his shirt ripped. Jim tears out the pocket of Fuji’s jacket as does Fuji to Jim’s. Fuji steals the jacket and Jim is mad. Fuji’s jacket gets ripped so he kicks Jim low. Jim is topless now and as I type that Fuji is as well. And there go Fuji’s pants to end it. I’m not rating it because it’s not really much of a match but it was all in good fun.

Overall Rating: B-. This was on the way to being incredible and then it just came falling apart. The six man should have ended this tape but instead we get the comedy matches to end it, which isn’t a horrible idea but it really hurt the flow this had going. The opener is good too and I can easily see why this is my favorite time in wrestling. Good tape, could have been great.

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Best of the WWF Volume 2
Host: Gorilla Monsoon
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Gene Okerlund, Gorilla Monsoon, Jesse Ventura

This is a weird time for the WWF as it’s pre-Hogan dominance (although he was champion) and Sammartino is out of the picture. Backlund had just lost the title as the people have turned on him harder than they have on Cena today. There are some historical moments on this tape though which is a big rarity in this series. Let’s get to it.

Coliseum Video opening and all that jazz.

Gorilla looks WEIRD with some hair on his head.

Tag Titles: Tony Atlas/Rocky Johnson vs. Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch

We have, in order, Abraham Washington’s sidekick, Rock’s dad, a not yet gay man and a guy formerly known as Captain Redneck who was a real life member of the KKK. Atlas and Johnson are champions. This is from a TV taping in Hamburg, Pennsylvania from April of 1984. Adonis vs. Johnson gets us going. The champ armdrags everyone in sight and takes over with an armbar on Adonis.

And there’s no commentary for awhile. Kind of a nice change of pace actually. Adonis cartwheels away from a monkey flip but walks into a slam and armbar. Off to Murdoch and he’s earned an armdrag as well. Atlas comes in and I like getting to see some of their stuff. I don’t get to see much from the pre-Hogan era so this is pretty cool. The challengers get Atlas in the corner and pound away on him.

This is before the tag team formula was perfected so things are a bit different than what you’d likely be used to. Headbutt by Atlas puts Murdoch down but Adonis cheats to keep control. Off to Rocky who dances about and beats up everyone. Well not his partner. Or the referee. The fans either for that matter. Gee maybe he isn’t beating everyone up. Atlas and Murdoch fight to the floor as everything breaks down. In the melee, Adonis rolls him up with an O’Connor Roll (while standing on his head. Take that Ziggler) for the pin and the titles.

Rating: C. The match was fine but what surprised me the most was how short it was. Unless there was some clipping that I missed (and I don’t think there was), this was six minutes long at most. It’s very rare to see quick title matches like this back in the day but it was pretty entertaining while it lasted.

Intercontinental Title: Pedro Morales vs. Don Muraco

This is from MSG in January of 83. Morales had taken the title from Muraco over a year ago. See, back then title reigns were VERY different. The title was introduced in 1979 and Ricky Steamboat was the 11th reign in 1987. In 8 years, the title changed hands 10 times. Think about that. Of the first ten reigns, the shortest was five months. Today, that would be a long reign. Back then it was by far the shortest. Three of the first ten lasted over a year. Think about that for a minute and now compare it to today.

As for this match, Muraco jumps the champ in the corner but Morales fights back quickly. Morales rips half of the shirt off Muraco and the challenger is in trouble. Corner sunset flip gets two for Morales. Muraco has a sleeve of his shirt still hanging off his arm. Pedro knocks him to the floor and this is all Morales so far. Muraco does a Flair Flop off the apron to the floor.

Pedro goes up top but doesn’t dive onto him as Don hides under the floor. That was pretty smart. Muraco tries to hide as Morales stalks him. Boot to the back of the head and it’s all Pedro. Gorilla criticizes him for not going for the kill, which is pretty good analysis. And there’s a low blow by Muraco and both guys are down. Still using the t-shirt, Muraco chokes Pedro with it in the corner, only to get low blowed as well.

Ok NOW the t-shirt is finally gone. A running knee in the corner misses for Morales though and he might have blown it out. There’s a lot of blowing in this match. Muraco moves in on it with a leg snap out of the corner. Clipped to a spinning toe hold being countered by Pedro. Morales, ever the genius, tries a backbreaker (despite sending Muraco’s shoulder into the post on the counter) and reinjures his knee. Boston Crab (Pedro’s finisher) is quickly broken by the ropes. Pedro tries a slam but the knee buckles and Muraco falls on top for the pin and the second title change in two matches on this tape.

Rating: C-. Not great or anything but again it’s really cool to see these rarities as you always hear about how these legends held titles but you never see how they won them. Pedro was far better in the 70s than 80s as he was washed up at this point, but he could still put people over, which is what he did here. Decent stuff, although a lot of stalling hurt it.

Killer Kowalski vs. Pedro Morales

Talk about legends. Now Kowalski was the big time brawler of his day. He also trained HHH so there’s his biggest contribution to wrestling more than likely. This would be about 8 months after Pedro lost the world title, putting it in late July of 74. We’re in MSG here of course. Jesse Ventura is alone on commentary here. That’s a new one on me. Kowalski used the Claw on various body parts so he uses it on the leg here. Pedro’s leg problems seem to be a theme on this tape.

Clipped to more leg work. Jesse doing play by play is a very odd thing. He doesn’t shut up but keeps things fresh somehow. It’s more like a radio broadcast. The Claw is something that needs a good announcer to put it over because just from a visual perspective, it looks really stupid. Pedro comes back with some left hands and grabs Killer by the ears. Back to the knee and Pedro is in trouble again. How did this guy win the first triple crown?

They trade punches to the ribs and Morales takes over. Jesse is surprisingly good at play by play. Morales is left handed if that gives you a better mental picture of this. Morales grabs the Claw on the ribs. Clipped to a double stomp by Kowalski. This commentary has been recorded far later as Jesse talks about Kowalski like he’s retired, which he would have been. Kowalski bites the face and Pedro bites back. Killer takes him down but misses a double stomp. Off to the Claw on the stomach again and Pedro is in trouble. They brawl to the floor and it’s thrown out. WEAK.

Rating: D. I love old school stuff and I’ve always liked Pedro, but this was boring. The Claw is one of those moves that works as a quick finisher but having it in there all the time like this got really boring after awhile. At least it wasn’t very long. Kowalski is a guy that seems like he’d be better in quick spurts. This match felt like it would have been better for a live crowd, which is fine, but it does bring into question why it’s on a tape.

Jamaica Kid/Billy the Kid vs. Sky Low Low/Little Brutus

MIDGET TIME!!! This is from I’d assume the 70s and it’s joined in progress. Clipped almost immediately and I have no idea who is who out there. The fans seem to be laughing more than watching. Low Low gets out of a crucifix hold from Billy and it’s a decent power display all things considered. Clipped again to a chase scene. Where’s my Benny Hill music? Apparently this is from 1970. Oh dear. Sky goes up and gets caught in the ropes, falling down to the apron. He looked like a baby. There’s some miscommunication between the kids and we’re clipped again. Sky pins Billy off a shoulder from Brutus. No rating, obviously.

Jamaica Kid taunts the winners post match and has to jump into the arms of the referee. WAIT THIS IS TWO OUT OF THREE FALLS??? WHY??? And we’re clipped….to another match? Cool with me man.

Sky Low Low/Little Brutus vs. Joey Russell/Sunny Boy Hayes

It’s a chase scene and a “comedy” match. These guys can’t even hit each other with punches. Clipped and Sky won’t come in against let’s say Hayes. The only date I can find on this is “the 70s”. Sky cheats so I’d presume they’re heels. That’s good for the pin, thank goodness.

Great. Another 2/3 falls match. Brutus beats Russell up a lot and it’s a dog pile on the referee. Sky kicks him and it’s COMEDY! And again they just stop showing the match and again I smile.

Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Professor Toru Tanaka

The ring is very small here. They start with a crisscross as Gorilla talks about a different style, which means more rest holds. Alfred Hayes is the commentator here. This is joined in progress as we’re told it’s five minutes in after about 90 seconds. Tanaka hits the ropes, Strongbow says stop, Tanaka stops, Strongbow hits him. It’s a different time. Tanaka works on the arm but Strongbow hits a pair of headscissors to send Tanaka down.

Tanaka hooks a top wristlock which goes on for awhile. Strongbow chops him down but Tanaka goes back to the arm. This is as exciting as it sounds. Jay hooks a headscissors on the mat and this is just going nowhere. Clipped to Tanaka choking as Jay tries to get up. Oh it’s a nerve hold. My mistake. Strongbow comes back with his war dance and it finally wakes up a bit with a brawl. Tanaka tries the salt but it gets caught and that’s a DQ. Oh joy.

Rating: D. Yeah I get that this is a different era and all that, but that doesn’t mean it’s an interesting one. This was a lot of laying around in a hold while we waited on anything to happen. Also, could they really not just have it end with a big chop (Jay’s finisher) or something? Did it have to be ANOTHER match thrown out?

And now for a musical interlude. No really.

Mean Gene sings Tutti Fruti with Captain Lou on piano, Hogan on bass and a bunch of other musicians playing other stuff. Gene is playing piano also. Hulk gets to solo on bass. This is out of nowhere and goes as quickly as it came.

Intercontinental Title: Tito Santana vs. Paul Orndorff

This is from September 1, 1984 in St. Louis. I know because there’s a graphic that says September 1, 1984 in St. Louis. Orndorff is a top heel here but not quite Piper’s levels. Tito is a house of fire to start. Must have had the extra hot sauce on his taco today. The fans chant Paula and there are even signs. Technical stuff to start as they fight for control. Top wristlock by Tito and he finally gets him down.

Back to the mat and Tito cranks on the arm. Orndorff tries to fight out but we need to work on that arm some more. Clipped to the armbar still on but the two guys on their feet now. Orndorff grabs an atomic drop and Tito is in trouble. Knee lift puts Santana on the floor. Outside now and there’s another atomic drop. Tito’s shoulder is bleeding a bit. Orndorff actually does the RVD thumb point.

Tito comes back in with a sunset flip but Paul punches him in the head to stop him. Off to a chinlock which doesn’t last long. Tito hits him with some shots but a suplex puts him right back down. Cross body gets two for Tito. The fans are way into this. Santana starts hitting him in the kidneys and a knee lift puts Paul down. Orndorff tries a middle rope splash but it eats knees.

Tito gets all fired up and pounds Paul down with what Jesse would call that firey Latin temper of his. Boston Crab is countered but Paul goes into the buckle anyway. That gets two but Tito gets his head taken off by a clothesline. That gets two and this is a VERY slow referee. Orndorff stomps away in the same style that Lance Storm used. Paul gets in another shot but time runs out at about 14:30 shown so a lot must have been cut.

Rating: B-. Fun match but I’d have liked to see the full version. It’s not quite the classic that it’s hyped up as here but this was still pretty fun. Orndorff was better than he was given credit for but he was caught between two legendary feuds so his stuff with Hogan is often forgotten, which is a shame.

We look at some surprising finishes. First up: Rocky Johnson vs. Magnificent (Don) Muraco. Muraco is busted open but Muraco throws the referee in the way so Johnson hits him for a DQ. I’m assuming that saved the title for him.

Freddie Blassie vs. Bobo Brazil in what has to be from the early 60s. They fight with Blassie on the apron and Bobo headbutts him down. Blassie’s foot is tied in the rope and it’s a countout. Bobo headbutts him again during a post match handshake. What a jerk! Blassie hits the referee because he didn’t want to do the Twazzle.

Andre beat a jobber but the masked jobber jumped him post match. Andre ripped the mask off and it’s….a jobber.

Moondogs vs. Tony Garea/Rick Martel with Monsoon as referee. This is for the tag titles and it’s a Texas Deathmatch, which we would call a street fight. Abdominal stretch to Moondog King and then Rex jumps off the top onto Monsoon. The champs retain off a double backdrop.

Tag Titles: Tony Garea/Rick Martel vs. Mr. Fuji/Mr. Saito

This is from 81 and Garea/Martel are still champions. In Philly here and Albano is managing the challengers. Fuji vs. Martel to start and Fuji gets tossed around a lot. Off to Saito after Fuji can’t do anything with either champion. Martel hits a body press for two. Back to the armbar and Fuji is back in trouble already. Off to Garea who stays on the arm. The challengers finally get in some shots to take over.

Fuji does his usual cheating and down goes Garea to a chop. Back to Saito who chokes away. It’s weird hearing Pat Patterson with that thick accent on commentary. Garea gets in a knee but can’t make the tag due to Fuji. There’s a nerve hold and the challengers do the switch without the tag. Garea gets in a few shots but a dropkick misses, meaning no tag.

Back to Saito who gets two off a slam. Middle rope knee gets the same. Saito cranks on a front facelock and Martel finally slaps and runs in for some help. It actually works and Garea makes the hot tag. House is cleaned and everything breaks down. Albano slips Fuji the salt as Martel goes up. Fuji throws it at Martel in mid air and Martel’s cross body is rolled through for the titles to Japan.

Rating: B-. Solid old school style tag match which worked quite well. The ending spot looked great with that dive being timed perfectly. It makes sense that Martel is in trouble so he couldn’t hold Saito down as well. Vince morphed into Mr. McMahon as he ranted on the end of that too.

Overall Rating: C+. This is just barely better good than bad. The historical stuff with an unheard of three title changes for one of these tapes is very cool and some of the matches were quite good too. The midget stuff though and some of those matches though were just dreadful but overall, it’s more good than bad which is more than you can ask for most of the time in these things. Good stuff.

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Continental Wrestling Federation TV
Date: October 22, 1988
Location: Montgomery Civic Center, Montgomery, Alabama
Commentators: Charlie Platt, Dutch Mantel

This is the last episode I have of this show and THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT. I can’t take much more of this horrible and boring show. The company isn’t remembered at all and like I said, there’s a reason for that: it’s not interesting at all. No one has anything resembling a personality and the champion is lucky to be on TV 15 seconds a week. Let’s get to it.

The champ is actually wrestling tonight. I’m shocked. Oh great: the Party Patrol is here AGAIN.

Bullet talks about his issues as of late. We get a clip of last week with Bullet saving the Rich’s (they’re the Party Patrol if anyone is getting lost) from a beatdown by the tag champions last week. Brad Armstrong will be here before the end of the night. As Bullet leaves a guy in a hat with long hair but his face covered up jumps Bullet. And it’s Tony Anthony, the Dirty White Boy. Stubbs comes in too and it’s a big beatdown. The Rich’s make the save. This is still boring but it’s BY FAR the most developed and interesting angle in this company at the moment.

House show ads. What else did you expect?

Tom Pritchard vs. The Invader

Ok this is weird. Either this is in a different arena or they really don’t know how to do lighting, because the arena is full of people in one shot and in the next you can only see about three rows. Invader is just a guy in a mask. Pritchard is heavyweight champion. Now you can see like 15 rows full of people. This is a very oddly designed building. Mantel says Bullet has a bad shoulder injury. Invader hammers away but walks into a backdrop. Pritchard punches him down and drops an elbow for one. Off to a chinlock and then a middle rope cross body gets two. Enziguri gets the pin for the champ.

Rating: D. Mantel says this is a confidence builder for Pritchard. He’s the heavyweight champion. Why would he need a confidence builder? For a face champion, Pritchard certainly does have problems beating what appear to be just basic heel opponents. The lack of a feud for him isn’t making me interested in the title, especially when the Dirty White Boy vs. Bullet is clearly the top feud in the company.

Second batch of ads.

CWF Heavyweight Championship Tournament Final: Tom Pritchard vs. Dirty White Boy

This is from Birmingham and is the tournament final. Why we’re seeing this after knowing who won is beyond me but whatever. It’s joined in progress and Pritchard is on commentary for it. Neckbreaker gets two for White Boy. All White Boy at this point. Ron Fuller, a big shot in this area, is guest referee.

Pritchard starts a comeback with punches but walks into an atomic drop. This is apparently 25 minutes in and their third match each of the night. Anthony misses something off the top and Stubbs tries to interfere, only for Fuller to take care of him. Someone runs in and drills Anthony during the distraction for the pin. Well that was pretty heelish. Not enough to rate but what we saw was bad.

Party Patrol vs. The Count/The Grappler #2

Please….make it short. Davey and Grappler start things off and Davey uses that wide variety of arm drags of his. Arm work abounds and it’s on the right arm which is rather odd. The Rich’s are in the national top ten rankings of tag teams. I want to see these rankings. Then I want to slap whoever writes them. Off to Johnny and the Rich’s control with their usual boring stuff.

The camera cuts to just a shot of their feet as Grappler gets a suplex to take over. Count misses a middle rope elbow and it’s off to Johnny again. Or is that Davey? Actually who freaking cares? Headknocker takes Count (another masked guy) down and things break down a bit. Grappler is gone and Johnny suplexes Count. Off to Davey and they botch a Thesz Press for the pin.

Rating: F. I hate these guys. That is all.

House shows.

Willie B. Hert vs. Chuck Allen

Allen is a blonde dude and Hert is the same annoying dancing man that he’s always been. Willie grabs the arm and the announcers make fun of Allen for being fat. And apparently the director got bored with the match as we cut to a promo from Ron Fuller. The match continues to be boring as Fuller talks about how he’ll keep his title. The promo has nothing to do with this match but I’d rather hear Fuller talk than watch it so there you go. Hert is destroying him anyway. Suplex puts Allen down and pounds away. Allen rakes his eyes and that’s all of his offense. Neckbreaker and headbutt end this.

Rating: D-. When the TV show doesn’t want to watch the match on it, I think you should probably know how good things are. This was just an extended squash by what I presume is supposed to be a fun character in Hert. He never really does anything serious so what else would he be classified as?

Mr. Martin is here with his new protege. It’s….MASAHIRO CHONO??? Martin challenges Lord Humongous (Sid Vicious) to a loser leaves town match against Kokina (Yokozuna). I’m pretty sure Sid lost so he could go to the NWA.

Mr. Chono vs. The Equalizer

Allegedly this is Chono’s American debut. That’s certainly Masahiro Chono. Equalizer is another masked dude. I believe we’re clipped to Chono dominating. A backbreaker gets two as he pulls Equalizer up. He slaps him down in the corner and hooks an abdominal stretch. Equalizer gets in some basic shots and Chono is like I DON’T THINK SO IN JAPANESE! Owen Hart style spinwheel kick puts Equalizer down and a Cobra Clutch ends this. Total squash but what a random thing to see here.

House show ads. New idea there.

Ken Wayne says he’s Danny Davis’ worst nightmare. He won the title back from Davis at the Road to Birmingham so here’s a clip of it. It’s also hair vs. hair but since it’s clipped I won’t bother listing it as a full match. Clipped to Danny GUSHING blood. Top rope legdrop hits for Wayne and we’re told this is 30 minutes in. Wayne for to pin him but Davis rolls him up very quickly for the surprise pin. Post match Wayne hit him with a Coke bottle and cut Davis’ hair anyway.

Bullet is back with his arm in a sling. Stubbs tries to jump him but Bullet beats him down anyway. Anthony pops up and they work over Bullet’s arm again. Brad Armstrong makes the save. Willie B. Hert comes out also and he and Brad say they won’t let this happen to Bullet again.

Overall Rating: D. Better show but that’s probably due to the show featuring a lot of stuff that wasn’t from this week. The Bullet storyline wasn’t horrible but it was all they had going for it. Chono was a very surprising appearance but it was just in a squash and he would be back in Japan pretty soon. Probably the best of the four shows but that’s not saying much.

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Continental Championship Wrestling TV
Date: October 15, 1988
Location: Montgomery Civic Center, Montgomery, Alabama
Commentators: Charlie Platt, Dutch Mantel

Back to this one again with the final two shows that I have of this time period. I’ve done the shows from October 1st and 8th so if you’re curious as to what’s going on with this company, take a look at those two. I’ll be doing the 22nd after this so we’ll be able to get a good look at this period for this company. I don’t know anything about this show so let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week’s show where the Dirty White Girl caused the Bullet to be choked out by the Dirty White Boy. She wound up getting spanked but Bullet got beaten down anyway.

The announcers run down the card for a bit.

Detroit Demolition vs. Keith Steinborn

Demolition is dressed exactly like Axe or Smash. Powerslam ends this in about 40 seconds. Total squash and guess who won.

Tom Pritchard brags about winning the CWF Title. He’s a wanted man and that’s fine with him.

House show ads.

Ken Wayne vs. Willie B. Hert

Wayne is the US Junior Heavyweight Champion. Hert is your standard jolly dancing black man. Mantel won’t say who his mystery man is at the Night of Champions. Hert uses his power game to take over early and sends Wayne to the floor. I forgot how much the camera jumps in this company. Back in and Wayne hooks on a headlock to take over. I also forgot how boring the in ring stuff was in this company.

Hert counters some corner punches with an atomic drop. Wayne uses some of the worst choking I’ve ever seen so Hert throws him around with ease. This is so boring. Hert dances around and a headbutt gets two. This has been going about six minutes so far and they’ve had about a minute of “action”. Hert rams him into the buckle a bunch and then takes him to the floor, beats on him even more and after about 4 seconds it’s a double countout.

Rating: D-. Terribly dull match here but that’s par for the course for this company. Hert is a guy that’s there more for his gimmick and the dancing stuff rather than the wrestling itself. It gets annoying to see these matches go on this long (seven minutes or so) though with a weak ending like that.

More house show ads, and by that I mean the same ones as earlier.

Grappler #2 vs. Lee Peak

Grappler is the guy that went to a draw with Pritchard last week. Peak gets in some slams and a cross body gets two. Grappler comes back and drops a leg for two. Peak walks into something like a fisherman’s suplex for the pin. This was nothing.

House show ads again.

Austin Idol vs. Mark Pyle

That’s a bit too rhymy for me. Idol is the Universal Heartthrob and is very handsome I guess. Pyle is a military guy I think and stalls early on. Idol heads to the floor and Pyle grabs something in his tights. A shot to the ribs with that gives Pyle a quick advantage. And never mind as Idol pounds him down and wins with a figure four. Another squash.

Do we really need to hear these same ads four times?

Dirty White Boy and Ken Stubbs say they’ll be tag champions soon. Oh wait they already are. The lack of belts kind of threw me off. They had broken up for awhile but now they’re back together and the best.

Dirty White Boy/Jerry Stubbs vs. Party Patrol

I was hoping to avoid the Rich Cousins today. Stubbs vs. let’s say Johnny starts us off. Rich throws him around with arm drags and hooks a bar. That goes on for awhile until it’s off to Tony Anthony (Dirty White Boy) who walks into arm work as well. Has Davey been in at all yet? I don’t think he has. To the shock of no one paying attention, this is another very boring match.

The Dirty White Girl is named Mystic. Ok then. The Rich’s keep up control and everything breaks down. This is non-title I’d assume. The champs are sent to the floor and I don’t think they’ve had control at all during this match. Actually I don’t think they’ve even been on offense yet. The champs cheat to take over and Johnny is sent to the floor. Johnny gets beaten down for awhile and I sound like I’m writing a book for three year olds. Johnny rolls through for the hot tag, everything breaks down, and a foreign objects knocks Davey out for the pin.

Rating: D. Somewhat better match than earlier but that’s not really saying much. This was terribly boring and I’m not sure why I keep trying to get my hopes up for these matches anymore. The champions would keep the titles for a little while before losing them to the Bullet and his real life son Brad Armstrong.

The champions keep beating them down post match until Bullet makes the save.

House show ads #5.

The tag champs say they’ll take Bullet out.

Tim Horner vs. Mr. Martin

Who Martin is I’m not sure but who cares? His first name is Allen apparently. There’s a Samoan with Martin whose name is Kokina the Samoan Warrior. If my memory is right, he would be on the first episode of Monday Night Raw and be called Yokozuna. He hits Horner in the throat and then does it again. Yoko has long hair here which is a weird look for him. Horner takes over and stomps on Kokina’s fingers. He rams Martin into the Samoan and rolls him up for the pin. Too short to rate but it’s always cool to see future superstars like this.

The announcers wrap things up and we see the double DDT on the tag champs again to end the show. They’re really making a big deal out of that.

Overall Rating: D-. Another terribly boring show. I think there’s a reason you never hear anything about this company: IT SUCKED. I know it’s a different era and a very southern style, but at least in Memphis you had some characters that were interesting and could get the crowd into things. This is just bare bones wrestling and nothing of interest at all. Maybe they’re still resetting after the Road To Birmingham or whatever, but that was a long time ago now. Bad show.

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Smackdown
Date: September 26, 2002
Location: San Diego Sport Center, San Diego, California
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

This is another request and the last one for awhile I think. It’s the first show after Unforgiven and we have two main events here: Rey vs. Benoit vs. Angle and what I believe is the blowoff to Edge vs. Eddie in a No DQ match. This is the time when Smackdown was straight up awesome and Raw…uh…wasn’t. After a pretty weak Raw I just did this should be a nice breath of air. Let’s get to it.

We open with a video from Unforgiven where Stephanie was supposed to perform HLA (Hot Lesbian Action) with two good looking chicks but instead Eric made it be some fat chick who was Rikishi. Eric wound up getting a Stink Face.

Rikishi vs. Chavo Guerrero

Chavo beat Rikishi in a tag match last week by hitting him with a camera. He stalls to start (does that make sense?) and jumps Rikishi as they come back in. Chavo jumps into a choke though and Rikishi starts using the power. A knee blocks the splash in the corner and Chavo hammers away a bit. Rikishi hits the post and Chavo tries a Stinkface. Just guess how well that goes. Rikishi sets for one of his own but Chavo moves. The Banzai Drop gets knees and Chavo goes for the camera. It gets superkicked into his face and the Banzai ends this.

Rating: D+. This was fine. It closed whatever little story they had here and it gave them both something to do for two weeks. Little feuds like that used to be more common and they could be used more often. Not all the time or anything but for something quick like this it was fine.

Rikishi dances a bit.

Time for a bikini contest between Torrie and Nidia. Billy and Chuck are the judges for no apparent reason. Nidia is in sneakers of course and drops her gum which she puts back in her mouth. She gets a six from Chuck and a 9 from Billy. Hahaha. Torrie is her usual self and gets a perfect score. Billy and Chuck get in to congratulate Torrie and here are Noble and Tajiri to protest. Tag match ahoy!

Jamie Noble/Tajiai vs. Billy/Chuck

Billy and Chuck are in street clothes. What street that is I’m not sure. Adrian maybe? Billy and Tajiri get started. I don’t remember Tajiri being a heel but he and his partner go after Billy’s knee. Handspring elbow puts Billy down and a big kick gets two. Noble tries to cannonball down onto the leg but Billy kicks him to the floor. Billy still can’t tag as Tajiri knocks Palumbo to the floor. Noble hooks a unique leg lock on Billy’s bad knee.

Can we just watch Torrie slap the mat in that bikini again? Tajiri gets in some shots as we hear about the exclusive contracts between the brands, including Orton being signed to Raw. He was a young cocky heel at this point. I wonder what ever happened to him. Billy manages to get in a kick to Noble and a flapjack allows for the hot tag. Chuck cleans house and tries a powerbomb but Tajiri counters into a victory roll attempt. Chuck holds him in place though and Code Red (Doomsday Device) ends this.

Rating: C. Fine match here and when you throw something together inside of 30 seconds that’s as good as you can ask for. Billy and Chuck had some good chemistry and it worked here. I miss random showdowns like these or the first match and they work pretty well most pf the time, especially when you have talented people in there.

Funaki (POP??) goes to talk to Brock. Funaki is terrified and asks if Taker gets a rematch. Brock says he’ll answer it in the ring, which excites Funaki way too much.

Stephanie is in her office when Kurt comes in. Angle talks about how great things are with the whole Bischoff thing. He wants a rematch with Benoit and Steph says she has a different idea for the main event. Rey pops in and Angle makes a child labor law joke. Triple threat is made with Benoit being added in.

Here’s Funaki for the interview with Brock. Funaki comes out with the chair that Taker half killed Lesnar with at the PPV. He asks Brock about the chair and Brock isn’t happy. Funaki tries to defend himself and the beating is great. The belly to belly literally had Funaki sailing through the air in a free fall. I miss the F5.

Torrie is in the back and Dawn Marie makes fun of her. Is there a point to this?

Eddie Guerrero vs. Edge

No DQ here. My goodness was Edge over at this point. Eddie takes over quickly as they go fast paced. Edge is cool with that and a monkey flip sends Eddie into the ropes. Eddie gets in a shot and a slingshot guillotine for two. The crowd is way into this too. Off to an armbar by the Canadian but Eddie hits an enziguri to take over. Off to a chinlock by Eddie but Edge reverses and hits a scoop powerslam to break the momentum.

Edge goes up but gets caught in a superplex for two. Eddie knocks him to the floor but Edge finds a ladder. Oh dear. The referee goes down via a ladder shot and Eddie pops Edge with a chair. Not that it matters due to the rules but it’s such an Eddie thing to do. A chair shot to the ribs keeps Edge down but the Frog Splash misses. Everyone is down and we take a break.

Back with Eddie stomping Edge down in the corner. There’s a sleeper by Eddie as the referee that took the ladder shot is carried out. Gee I’m certainly glad he got his care in due time. Edge got a very long two off a spear during the break. He goes up again but Eddie snaps off a rana (leg scissors according to Cole) to take over. Guerrero tries to run up the corner for another rana but Edge counters into a sitout powerbomb and both guys are down.

Edge brings in the ladder but Eddie dropkicks it into him. Eddie brings in a second ladder to sandwich Edge between a pair of them. A slingshot hilo looks to have killed the Canadian but since he can’t immediately cover it only gets two. Eddie climbs a ladder and Edge goes after him. After Guerrero rams Edge’s head into the ladder a few times, it’s a PERFECT sunset bomb to kill Edge even more. That looked AWESOME.

Somehow it only gets two. The crowd is way into it as they certainly should be. Eddie sets Edge in front of the ladder in the corner but his charge is countered into a backdrop into the ladder and both guys are down again. They go up to a ladder in the other corner and Edge slams Eddie’s head into the top of the ladder just like Eddie did a few moments before. He loads up an Edgecution and KILLS Eddie with a DDT off the ladder into the middle of the ring for the pin to finally end this.

Rating: A. And this is why Smackdown is better than Raw in 2002. This was about a BRAWL and two guys destroying each other rather than “how many times can we have Flair save HHH’s title while he has the same boring match over and over again”. Great stuff and the fans loved it the whole way through.

Eddie gets a standing ovation as he leaves.

Benoit is congratulated by that idiot Marc Lloyd for his great win on Sunday. Benoit: “YOU SUCK!” That was awesome, but he’s only talking about what the fans chant at Angle. He says he’ll win tonight.

Matt Hardy brags to Shannon Moore about making Undertaker run away. Shannon points out the Lesnar factor in that but Matt takes full credit for it. Matt leaves and Brock is watching.

Video on Wrestlemania which is coming to Seattle.

Undertaker vs. Matt Hardy

Matt offers a handshake which Taker accepts, although he uses it to whip Matt into the corner. Let the pain begin. Matt gets in a few shots but tries a Twist of Fate which just ticks the big man off. Chokeslam kills Hardy but it’s the Last Ride that gets the pin. Just s squash.

Lesnar runs in post match and blasts Taker with the belt. A second shot keeps Taker down and he’s busted open.

Taker is stumbling around in the back and looking for Lesnar.

Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Christ Benoit

Before the others come out, Kurt implies Rey is an illegal alien. Apparently most of San Diego is also. Brawl to start with Rey jumping all over the place. Rana gets a fast two on Benoit. Kurt throws him to the floor though so the amateur guys can go to the mat. In a funny bit, Rey tries to get back in but Kurt knocks him back and heads to the mat again with Benoit.

Ankle lock is countered quickly and Rey is back in. This is one of those matches that is going way too fast to keep up with. Angle is knocked to the floor and Benoit hits a belly to back for two on Rey. Mysterio is pretty much brand new at this point so his legs are still in one piece. Well one piece per leg that is. Mysterio is sent outside and Angle comes back in to take over again.

Benoit and Angle have their usual intense and back and forth mini-match with the Canadian hitting Rolling Germans on the American. Angle Slam takes Benoit down but Rey pops up with a missile dropkick to steal a cover on Benoit, getting two. Angle pulls Rey to the floor but walks into another German so Chris can take over. Rey comes back in with another missile dropkick to knock Benoit to the floor. Kurt launches Rey to the floor but onto Benoit again.

The two bigger guys go at it even more and Benoit gets caught in an ankle lock. They go to the ropes and it’s a double 619. West Coast Pop to Angle is countered but Rey counters the counter into a sunset flip for two. Angle gets caught in the Crossface but Kurt escapes. When he kicks Chris off, Rey rolls him up for two. Benoit Germans Angle to the floor but gets caught in a spinning springboard West Coast Pop (NOT A LEG SCISSORS YOU IDIOT COLE!) for the pin on Benoit. That ending was awesome!

Rating: B+. Another great match here as this was the signature of Smackdown for about the next four months: guys going out there and having great fast paced matches where the young dudes got to tear the house down. They would add Edge into this at No Mercy and have the match of the year for the Smackdown tag titles. Great stuff here.

Overall Rating: A. The first part wasn’t great, but when you get two great matches on one show like this, it’s an automatic classic show. Smackdown was totally feeling it at this point while Raw just got worse and worse every passing month. Lesnar would turn face in a few months as for some reason Big Show got the title but that’s another story. Great show here and one of the better ones I can ever remember.

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Royal Rumble 2002
Date: January 20, 2002
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 12,915
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

WCW is dead. That’s the big deal here obviously. A lot of the wrestlers from there are now here. Well mainly just those with talent or those that will sell t-shirts. Other than that, you have one major thing going on here: HHH is back tonight. Look up the video where he returns. It’s absolutely awesome.

It is by far and away the coolest moment I can ever remember on Raw. HHH, out about 8 months with a torn quad, is back now to reclaim his glory in the Royal Rumble. Also in the Rumble we have Austin, Angle, Taker and that’s about it. Other than the Rumble, we have Vince vs. Flair in a street fight and Rock facing Jericho for the newly formed Undisputed Title.

This show more or less is designed to give HHH the Mania shot but still making it look cool. The end of the Monday Night Wars have kind of hurt the company though, as there’s no reason to go insane in trying to crush WCW anymore. Anyway, let’s get to this as the card looks pretty good.

The intro is set to Cocky by Kid Rock and it showcases all of the major stars that are in the Rumble, which is a smart idea if nothing else. It wasn’t as generic as it has been in the past so that’s a perk if nothing else.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley and Tazz

Spike and Tazz were some of the oddest tag champions of all time. I vaguely remember them being champions, but not by much. They held them for a month and a half just before the draft and other than that they never did a thing again. This is the hottest period of Stacy’s career as the Duchess of Dudleyville. Just pure perfection in a woman.

The Dudleys beat on Spike on Smackdown and gave him a 3D in the parking lot so his neck is messed up. King is very annoying here too. This feels a lot like a TV match. The heels hit an AWESOME looking double flapjack on Spike, getting him way up there. This match is way too short here as it’s only about five minutes long.

Spike hits a Dudley Dog and finally, which is a stretch as he was only down for a bit, gets the tag to Tazz. Stacy gets up on the apron but for no reason at all we go to a shot of the crowd that looks like it’s at the beginning of a TV show. Anyway, within seconds, Tazz has D-Von in the Tazmission and we’re done. Yeah that’s really it.

Rating: C-. This was a bit out there. It felt like something that belonged on Raw. I really don’t get the point of this pairing but it works fine I suppose. The Dudleys were still the best tag team in the company, but with no one to feud with on their level they were really kind of worthless. And people say the tag division has been alive for a long time. Yeah right.

Edge and Regal have been fighting for a long time now.

Edge is in the back and says that he’s ready for a fight.

Intercontinental Title: Edge vs. William Regal

Edge is defending here. Regal was using brass knuckles a lot around this time so Nick Patrick looks all over the place for them before the match starts. Edge is rocking the completely awesome Rob Zombie song here. Dang I love that song. Edge gets one heck of a pop. If there has ever been a poster boy for coming up from the bottom of the card to the midcard to the main event in the modern era, it’s Edge. He needs to come back as a face.

The referee finds knuckles on Regal in his tights. That brings on a ton of jokes from Lawler of course. Edge broke Regal’s nose with a chair to cause him to need a bunch of nose surgeries. We get a MASSIVE Regal sucks chant as the crowd is very hot. Nick Patrick’s voice is very deep to say the least. Lawler gives us some great insight here by telling us a broken nose hurts. In a cool spot, Regal has a double underhook (setup for the Pedigree) and Edge backdrops him but Regal hangs on.

That looked good. Lawler talking about noses is getting up to the level of annoyance of puppies here. Regal’s agility is underrated. He really is light on his feet. Regal hooks the Regal Stretch which lasts for a little while. Edge’s eyes are of course greatness personified. Edge gets the bastard version of it on to be rude but it doesn’t work at all.

A fan shouts break his neck Regal, which is ironic as Edge would do just that in just over a year. The referee gets speared so Regal can get the knuckles out. The longest time to make a count in history ends this for Regal. He of course swears it was all just a regular punch.

Rating: C-. The main thing this has going for it is that it’s brutal. I mean these two beat each other up very well. Again though, I could have seen this on a Raw or Smackdown. PPV matches are supposed to be special ones that the TV shows build up to. That wasn’t the case here as there’s nothing here to justify paying for. That’s not good.

With no transition at all, here we are at the next match.

Women’s Title: Jazz vs. Trish Stratus

Jazz was more or less the Chyna of ECW. They brought her over in the Invasion angle and then realized the flaw in that plan: no one knew who she was. She had been around for about a year and did a few things of note but nothing worthy of being known on this scale. Anyway, Jacqueline is the guest referee here. This wasn’t announced on TV, and the reason is there’s no point to it and no one would have cared anyway.

They were trying to make it a big deal that women were refereeing here, but they couldn’t have done it worse. For one thing, she might have been the least cared about Diva ever. I mean did anyone like her? Also, naturally, she’s in a tied off top so it’s about sex appeal (or in her case the lack thereof) all over again. Trish is still pretty bad in the ring at this point but you can see that there’s talent there. At the time I’m writing this, I’m debating why ECW failed as a national company with NSL.

While Jazz is on the way to the ring, we see a very quick video of Jazz hurting Trish’s hand while King alludes to Jazz going after Trish in the past few weeks. See what they did right there? Inside of 30 seconds they’ve explained that Jazz has been aggressive towards Trish, established Jazz as the heel here, shown that Trish might not be 100% coming into this match, and said that this has been going on for at least a few weeks because King is mentioning other things that Jazz has done.

That took about 20 seconds. ECW at Barely Legal didn’t do that for most of the matches, and it would have helped tremendously. Apparently Jackie was the other option for #1 contender and lost, so that validates her being a referee. Again, there’s an explanation. It’s freaking stupid, but it’s something at least. Trish’s hand is indeed bandaged.

Jazz kicks her face in for the most part early on but Trish manages to get a sunset flip to set up a very good pinfall reversal sequence that was very impressive. Jazz and Jackie get into it after Jazz takes over. Jackie gives a slow count as this is just horrible. Trish gets a not great Stratusfaction for two and Jazz is dominating again. She hits it again for the win. Yeah that’s it. Jazz destroyed her for the majority of the three minutes and then that bulldog ends it. WOW.

Rating: D+. This was sloppy. Jackie had no point to being in this at all and added nothing to it. Jazz was just not worth having in there at all either as no one bought her as a big deal. Trish was just awful at this point but it was clear she had some skills. There would be times in her matches where you would stop and go holy crap at the things she would come up with. Eventually she would get a lot better, but not for awhile.

We recap Vince vs. Flair which makes me think there have been almost no backstage segments tonight which is very odd for a show like the Rumble. Anyway, this feud is because after the Alliance died, Flair bought Shane and Stephanie’s shares of the company, which led to the brand split soon after this. Vince said that it was his company so he hates Flair, leading to this match. Yeah it’s contrived but who cares?

Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon

Naturally it’s a street fight. This was back in the day when Flair still was in passable shape and could have some decent matches in the ring. Flair’s family is in the front row. Ross actually thinks it’s a big deal that Vince made Flair bleed. A hard stare can do that. Fink in the ring in the tux just looks right. Ross points out that both men are former world champions and former Rumble winners as it occurs to me how completely ridiculous Vince has been about pushing himself as a wrestler.

I know that he loves this very much but there comes a point where it’s just pushing yourself way too hard. Even Eric Bischoff didn’t get this bad. This has been a standard match so far. It’s very sad when a guy like Flair, who could put on classic matches with absolutely anyone (he had a very good match with Hawk of all people at Bunkhouse Stampede. If that doesn’t prove he’s the best ever, nothing will) has to get beaten up by Vince here, so Vince’s ego can be stroked.

Now we bring in the weapons which we need pretty badly here to validate Vince’s advantage. The fans are all behind Flair here of course. Flair is bleeding. I’m blown away. Lawler is cheering Vince on to no end here, which doesn’t surprise me. Flair showed up in Memphis around 1984 or 85 for a one night appearance and started the Jimmy Hart vs. Jerry Lawler feud that went on for the better part of a decade and caused more injuries to Lawler than should be humanly possible.

They’ve been on the floor for a good while now and Vince is dominating. He gets the camera from Flair’s family and takes a picture of them. That was just freaking pointless but then again Vince is involved in it so there we are. Oh good night take me now Vince is trying to use wrestling holds. Oh yeah the gimmick of the match is that Vince is turned on by destroying people, leading to a ton of bad jokes from Lawler.

Flair gets put in the figure four after having his legs worked on. Ross says this would ruin his professional career. That happened years before this so we have no worries there. Flair get the reversal and after being in the hold all of 2 seconds, Vince is limping. Holy oversell Batman. Vince finds a pipe that he hit Flair with a few weeks ago. Flair gets the forearm to the area below the balls to break that up though.

Ross says Vince’s heart, if he has one, is blacker than sin. No one can ever accuse Ross of being underwhelming. For no apparent reason, Flair looks at a monitor, which would show him looking at a monitor. This fascinates him for some reason. That makes great sense I suppose. Not really but I want to move on.

In a sick spot, Flair bites Vince’s open cut. I really hope he’s not a Twilight fan. Flair gets Vince’s pipe and knocks him over the head with a decent sounding shot. He puts the figure four on and Vince taps out. Apparently the pain causes him to wake up. The hold is released and Vince passes out again. That was pretty bad.

Rating: D+. This was a waste of time. It was two old guys fighting and trying to be hardcore and it failed miserably. The cut Flair had was decent but I still fail to see what the point of this was. Flair, a legendary wrestler, beat a non wrestler and that’s a big deal? This was just to say that Flair fought Vince and nothing more. This was pretty weak.

We see Jericho beating Rock at Vengeance to win the Undisputed Title, which is misleading because he beat Rock for the WCW title then Austin later on. To say Jericho was in over his head in this role is an understatement. Rock beat Booker to get his shot tonight. Jericho having a mental meltdown over Rock making fun of him is pretty good stuff.

Stephanie brags about what HHH is going to do to Austin tonight and what she would like to do to Debra, Austin’s wife. Austin comes up behind her and hilarity ensues. The WHAT chant could work really well if the timing was there.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho still has both belts here which is kind of odd. They needed to just use the WWF one as it’s perfect looking as a title. The story was that HHH was supposed to be the champion first but since he wasn’t ready in time he got a Mania title win out of it and a new belt to go with it. No one bought Jericho as champion and I don’t think anyone ever has in any of his reigns. To be fair though, while he’s amazing on the mic as a heel, in the ring it just falls short.

No heel, especially one the size of Jericho, is going to be believable with a submission as his primary finishing move. It just doesn’t work. These two had been feuding over the WCW title for awhile before the Undisputed Title came into being. The promos of course were off the charts. That should be what this match is: a debate. It would have been more entertaining, which is saying a lot as the matches tended to be at least pretty good.

The beginning here is mainly feeling each other out which is fine. Jericho goes shoulder first into the post yet stays in control anyway. Well ok then. They’re starting slowly here. Not boring mind you but just slowly. That’s fine as it’s building to a big finish, which is that pesky little thing called psychology. Rock has his really short hair here which I’ve never liked at all. Jericho goes up but gets crotched as Rock hits the ropes. If nothing else that’s realistic so I’ll take it.

Ross says a pair of 2’s don’t beat anything. Any card player want to blast him there? The crowd is quite hot for this match which is always a good sign. Rock kicks out of two Lionsaults, as he brings the move back to life to kill its credibility even worse than it already was.

Rock hooks the really bad Sharpshooter while barely sitting back on it but Lance Storm and Christian, who were the UnAmericans soon after this with Jericho as an associate member soon after this, have the referee’s attention while Jericho taps. He gets out of it though and hits a Rock Bottom on the Rock for two. Jericho follows it up with the People’s Elbow as I’m just not buying him in the main event here.

He’s trying as hard as he can and the match is fine here, but he’s just in over his head I think. They hit the floor and Jericho takes a sweet looking Rock Bottom through the Spanish announce table. Finkel running away from the area is a great visual. Lawler for some reason tells Fink to put the table back together. The image of him as a carpenter with that perfect voice of his is very amusing for some reason.

After a Walls of Jericho doesn’t work (SHOCKED), the referee goes down so we get Nick Patrick, who has been very pro-Jericho recently. Rock gets a cover but Patrick won’t count. He gets a Rock Bottom and Jericho gets the elbow. With the referee still down, Jericho gets a low blow and a rollup with his feet on the ropes for the pin. Apparently Rock’s head hit an exposed turnbuckle too. That’s better I guess.

Rating: B+. While I didn’t really buy Jericho out there and there were some bad spots, this was a solid 20 minute match. It was designed to put Jericho over as a heel and I think it did that. The key thing was that there was at least a pin and not him keeping the belt by DQ or something. He cheated to get it, but that’s what a heel does. Rock was a bigger star so Jericho shouldn’t have gotten a clean pin so to me this was acceptable.

Jericho had it in the ring, but he didn’t feel like a world champion. Granted having to contend with the still incredibly popular Rock and Austin and the returning HHH and being more or less a guy to keep the belt warm for HHH, AND the NWO returning the next month, there was no way Jericho was going to get a fair shot at being seen as the top guy at the moment. This was good stuff though.

We get a long package about the Rumble which had been shown on TV a bunch of times in the weeks leading up to this.

Royal Rumble

Fink’s intro takes just shy of forever to get through. Rikishi is number one and Goldust is number 2. This is around the time that Rikishi was transitioning into something close to being a tough guy. Goldust is making a return here as apparently they were really hard up for talent or something. We’ve been going about 90 seconds here and I’m already bored out of my mind with this. They really couldn’t have picked a worse pair to start this out.

Three is Big Boss Man, who just won’t go away for some reason. This enforcer role never got over at all. He hits a clothesline on Rikishi and the fat guy does his inside out flip. Why is that impressive when we see it every time he gets hit by a clothesline? Bradshaw is fourth and this is just flat out horrible so far. The smallest guy in there is 6’6 and 260lbs. That might have something to do with it.

Stink face to Boss Man, which is still the dumbest move in history. Rikishi uses one of the two moves he was good at, a superkick, to set up the elimination of Boss Man. Bradshaw hits a powerbomb on Goldust to hopefully give him something resembling interest in him as Lance Storm is 5th. There is just nothing of note going on here. It’s just guys that you know aren’t going to win trying to throw each other out in something that’s never going to happen.

Snow brings the level of interest up to nonexistent at number 7. Storm takes a solid Clothesline From JBL. The fans aren’t that into this either so it’s not just me. Oddly enough, Snow gets the biggest reaction of anyone. Billy, currently being homosexual, is 8th. In a very cool sequence, Snow and Storm fight on the apron in a kind of karate match until Snow puts Storm out. That was a lot cooler than it sounded. Bradshaw is out too.

We have Billy, Goldust, Rikishi and Snow in there at the moment as Taker is 9th. He had been vowing to win the Rumble and he’s also recently heel. He puts out all four with relative ease. Typically I like that format, but there’s just pure apathy from me on this for some reason. Matt Hardy with a delicious looking Lita is next. Taker had beaten up the Hardys and Lita recently so there’s some story here.

Lita comes in also and manages to slow down Taker which is more than the worthless Matt can do. Say it with me: Jeff is 10th. He’s wearing a hat for no apparent reason. They get him down and then Lita comes in and they triple stomp him. Apparently the three of them had been fighting recently which I vaguely remember. They hit their double team move, and for the life of me I don’t get why Taker doesn’t know how to take the Twist of Fate.

He always sells it like a spinning neckbreaker and ends up on his back which is just completely wrong. Jeff gets thrown out and Matt gets a Last Ride before he’s out too. Eyebrows Huffman, more commonly known as Maven, is number 11. He had won Tough Enough maybe 4 months prior to this so he’s a complete rookie here. Lita gets up on the apron and the Hardys come back in.

They get tossed with ease, but as Taker is yelling at them, Maven gets back up and in easily the biggest upset in Rumble history, Maven hits a dropkick to the back of Taker to eliminate him. The reaction from the crowd and Ross and the look on Taker’s face are by far and away the best thing since 97 when Austin heard Hart’s music. I mean this was like Santino on his first night beating Umaga without Lashley’s help.

It was completely insane as Taker was one of the heavy favorites for this. Taker more or less loses any sense of emotion on his face but slowly turns to look at Maven. Just take a guess as to what starts happening next. Once the beating starts they go to the floor and Maven takes a freaking sick chair shot. Taker shoves a cameraman down and we get a shot of his legs flying into the air which is just amusing. Taker puts him back in the ring as Scotty comes in at number 12.

Taker punches him down, and this winds up keeping him down for about three minutes. Yeah one punch does that apparently. Taker throws Maven over the ropes and we go into the crowd where there just happens to be a space with no fans there. What a coincidence! They go up the stairs and into a concession area where Taker puts Maven through a popcorn machine. Christian is in at 13 somewhere during this time but we just see him in the ring.

Scotty is still down by the way. FINALLY he gets up and after the audience has had nothing to see for about 5 minutes we have the clash of Scotty vs. Christian. Maven is officially still in but they just say screw it. He got a world title match the next night that did nothing at all. DDP is 14th. He might be the worse use of a character that Vince has ever had. I mean he was a god in WCW and he’s a self help guy in the WWF. That’s Vince for you.

We see Maven again and if nothing else he sells quite well for a rookie. We get a Diamond Cutter on Christian and there goes Scotty after the Worm, which actually might be dumber than the Stink Face. Chuck is 15th as the jobber Rumble continues. I mean really why in the world should I care about this match in the slightest? Actually scratch that. I get why I should care about the match but there’s zero reason to care about any of the people in there.

Christian is European Champion which you need to know because typing it killed some time here. This whole show has been that way. The matches have been ok up to this point but GEEZ there is just nothing appealing about this match at all for me. To further the greatness here we have Godfather returning but no longer as a pimp. He now owns an escort service. Just take me now please.

He has 12 women with him and spends so much time dancing with them that not only do we miss DDP’s elimination but Albert, the Hip Hop Hippo at this point and I wish I was making that up, is being counted down for the 17th entrant as Godfather gets in the ring. Christian and Chuck put him out in about 30 seconds. Godfather goes out soon thereafter but not before we get that stupid running splash.

Perry Saturn, completely insane at this point is 18th. His tights have a cow pattern on them. This really is mind numbingly boring at this point. No one cares about anything in this match for the most part either. THANK GOODNESS Austin is 19th to breathe some much needed life into this thing. He clears the ring before anyone else is in. In a funny moment he looks at an invisible watch and goes out and gets Christian and Chuck and throws them in to stun them and then throw them out again.

The crowd is awake for the first time in this whole match. Val Venis returns (it’s a theme thing tonight) and doesn’t look as good with short hair. His gimmick overshadowed his in ring ability as he was actually pretty good in the ring. The crowd is just insane for Austin here as we’re in the WHAT phase of his career. Part of the problem here is that there haven’t been a lot of people in the ring that aren’t jobbers.

The small amounts of people make it hard to really get anything going that feels like a good Rumble. Test is 21st. Geez did they ever miss the boat on him in 1999. He never got anywhere close to that level again either. Test misses a big boot on Austin and hits Venis so he’s gone. Test follows him about 30 seconds later so Austin is alone again and we have 9 entries to go.

22 is HHH and the reaction is good but not what JR wants us to believe. To make sure we don’t have a great showdown for two minutes or close to it because that would be, you know, interesting, HHH walks at an Undertaker pace. They really must have been trying to protect HHH here as they talk for a bit and they punch each other for ten seconds before the clock starts again and it’s Hurricane at 23.

He lasts about 30 seconds so at least we’ll get some Austin vs. HHH here. What are Hurricane’s powers supposed to be anyway? Have they ever been listed? Farrooq is 24th but instead of allowing him to start a ring full of people he’s out in less time than Hurricane. Mr. freaking Perfect is 25th which was a surprise I think. He would actually stick around for a few months after this. He was still relatively young here at 42, so it’s not like he was ancient.

For some reason we again are told that he made his Rumble debut in 93, which is just wrong as he was 4th in 89. Angle makes is in his first Rumble match at 26. For absolutely no apparent reason, Austin saves HHH just before Big Show comes in at 27. He’s wearing that one piece swimsuit that they claim was ring attire. They say he’s the biggest athlete in sports entertainment history which is so wrong I’m not even going to touch it.

Show and Austin never had that big match which I’m sure would have at least been pretty good. Angle is in a gorilla press but HHH makes the save, as Ross does the smart thing and says in essence that Angle would be useful in helping get rid of Show. Kane is 28th and I really want this thing to just end already. They do the completely clichéd double chokeslam spot that is just stupid at this point.

Kane does something impressive though by picking Show up and cleanly throwing him over the top in a slam. Angle puts Kane out less than a minute after he got in. Are we not allowed to have more than 5 people in a match for more than 30 seconds or something? RVD is 29th to a GREAT pop. He can’t be world champion though. He can just get great pops and put on great matches and look awesome, but he’s clearly not world title material.

He comes in with a Five Star on Angle. He gets an awesome RVD chant in his honor, but HHH’s pop killing sense kicks in and he hits a Pedigree to end that. We can’t have someone else getting over now can we? I didn’t think so. Let’s have no more of such crazy thoughts now. Booker is 30th, so your final group is Booker, RVD, Angle, Perfect, Austin and HHH. Well if nothing else the ending is star packed.

Why in the world would you get rid of Show and Kane that fast though? They pointed out how awesome Kane was last year so it’s not like that’s been forgotten. Booker eliminates Van Dam less than 10 seconds after he gets in and does a Spinarooni and is put out after being in the ring 30 seconds. Ok seriously, WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON??? Why in the world are these major stars going out in like a minute and a half each?

Austin breaks up a string of Germans with a WEAK low blow. I mean that was awful looking. This has to be a way to protect HHH or something. That’s the only way to explain the absurd booking of this thing. As Austin explains a spot to Perfect, Angle runs up and executes said spot by putting Austin out. To further protect HHH, everyone but him goes to the floor. That lasts all of four seconds, making it completely pointless.

Austin gets a chair and kills everyone not named HHH with it but then nails him anyway to make sure it’s a completely matched set. That was just a completely pointless bit as Austin just wasn’t a huge deal anymore. He should have fought Hogan at Mania though and there is zero arguing that, period. There’s no way anyone can convince me that Rock vs. Hogan was bigger than Austin vs. Hogan would have been.

Also, why in the world would you put Austin, the guy who main evented Mania the previous year, in a midcard throwaway match with SCOTT FREAKING HALL??? Perfect, the genius that he is, hooks the Perfectplex, which in this situation is a short suplex that doesn’t have a snap to it.

HHH puts him out so we’ve got Angle vs. HHH to finish us. And of course HHH Hulks Up and wins it to send us to the most lackluster main event of Mania in years because Hogan vs. should have been Austin was the real main event.

Rating: C-. The ending was the only appealing thing about this and even it was bad. Seriously, Booker, RVD, Show and Kane, four former world champions, were in the match a combined six and a half minutes, with about 90 seconds of that being walking to the ring. That’s just ridiculous on a ton of levels. It’s not like they would have been unrealistic in the ending or anything like that.

Last year’s was great, but there are three things here that messed this one up for me. First of all, it was pretty clear that HHH was going to win. I know there were legit alternatives in there at the end so that helped a lot, but it was still pretty clear. Second, the Iron Man last year was Kane at about 53 minutes. This year it was HHH at about 23. See the problem there? There’s no one that’s there for the entire Rumble to build up anything with.

Finally, unless I missed it, the longest amount of time there were six guys or more in there was about 45 seconds at the end. That’s just not enough to really get anything going. This was a bad Rumble in my eyes.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a quite good show. The women’s match is less than 4 minutes so the only bad match is a pizza break match. Still though, despite a solid card and a series of pretty good matches (while the Rumble was bad, it’s still watchable because it’s the Rumble and the ending is solid. I’m going to change that from a D+ actually.) there’s just something missing here.

It lacks the pop of 2000 and 2001, which may be because they knew WCW was on the run and that they could taste victory while here they have it. This show is good enough though as there may be some badly ranked matches, everything here is at least watchable. The street fight is fine for what it is I suppose and I could see some people liking it.

That sums this up well: I could see people liking it. I think part of it is not a lot of people watch these back to back so they have a lot of time between 2001 and 2002 to forget how awesome the previous two were. Anyway, this is a good but not great show that’s worth checking out, even though you won’t remember much of it a month later.

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NXT
Date: January 18, 2012
Location: Thomas and Mack Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
Commentators: Michael Cole, Josh Matthews

It’s the 100th episode of this accursed show and we’re in Vegas for a wedding. Naturally it’ll be here in the arena in front of an audience because that’s how wrestling works. Also we’re going to have Titus vs. Young for like the 9th time because that’s all we can do on this season. Something big has to happen tonight right? Let’s get to it.

The opening video is a recap of the wedding thing and the love triangle.

Theme song. This is the closest thing to an NXT Supershow we’ll ever have anymore I think.

Cole is on commentary tonight. Oh boy. I think this is just a one night return.

Titus O’Neil vs. Darren Young

No DQ match. Young runs to the floor for a bit but back in the ring he gets run over by an elbow. Backbreaker gets two for Titus. Darren gets thrown to the floor an DO THE DOG BARK! A slam of some sort on the floor puts Darren down but he manages a neckbreaker on the apron to take Titus down and we take a break. Back with Darren getting two off something we missed.

Belly to back gets two. Off to a cravate and Young sends him into the corner. The gutbuster gets two. The No DQ aspect of this has meant nothing so far. Young sets for another gutbuster but since he used that already and isn’t a main event guy, Titus counters and sends him in for the Clash of the Titus and the pin at 5:57.

Rating: D. What in the world was the point of the No DQ rule? This was nothing special at all, which is probably due to Young being worthless on almost all counts. Titus is ok but there’s nothing left for him to do here. Hopefully this is the end of this feud because it’s gone on way too long.

Titus gets on the mic afterwards and says he wants to thank the fans. He wants to thank them for absolutely nothing. Titus goes on a rant about how he’s sick of doing everything for 46 weeks and getting stuck with a leprechaun for nothing. He’s the star of this show and the star of every show the WWE has to offer. Cole’s heckling kills this for a bit because he laughs instead of acting like this is something special. Thanks for nothing and now he’ll be making it a win for himself. Cole makes fun of him again, totally diminishing the shock value of the turn.

Heath Slater vs. Percy Watson

Watson takes over with a dropkick to start. Cole lists off his various accomplishments as Slater takes over. Cole asks about the Redemption Points thing and Josh isn’t sure how they work either. Slater takes over and there’s nothing interesting going on here. Josh and Cole argue about Lynyrd Skynyrd and Watson starts his comeback. He jumps around a lot but the fans seem more interested in Slater than Watson. Spinning splash gets two. Persecution ends this at 3:41.

Rating: D. Boring match again and we’re told that this was a rookie upsetting a Superstar. That’s so cute: they think people still care about something like that. Also, Slater qualifies as a Superstar? Isn’t that like 20 losses in a row for him? Boring match and the crowd shockingly didn’t care.

Maxine yells at the Usos. Jey sneezes on her dress.

Maxine yells at more people when Curtis shows up and says calm down. She goes off ranting and Kaitlyn comes up. Curtis hits on her and gets called creepy.

Yoshi Tatsu/Trent Barreta vs. Tyler Reks/Curt Hawkins

This match AGAIN? Wait why am I surprised by that? Trent vs. Curt starts us off but it’s off to Reks quickly. Yoshi jumps in with a top rope chop for two. Was there a tag that I missed? Josh brings up Cole not talking about Superstars enough. Cole says look what he did for Bryan and Hawkins gets two. Cole also says he had a role in keeping the title on Miz. Powerslam gets two for Reks.

Cole blasts the hypocrisy of people praising Bryan’s cash-in but blasting people like Edge. Double tag brings in Trent and Reks as this match is very forgettable. Running boot gets two for Trent. Cole says none of these guys are part of the competition which is true. I love Cole pointing out stupid stuff on here. Whisper in the Wind gets two for Barreta and everything breaks down. Reks loads up Barreta onto a shoulder like for a powerbomb but spins to the side into a DDT and the pin at 5:39.

Rating: D. I know I’ve used that every time but it’s been the case every time: the matches are ok but they’re nothing I’m going to remember after about five minutes. These are almost all matches we’ve seen before and there isn’t much of a reason to want to see them again. Boring stuff here, but it is interesting that there’s a tag division on NXT alone but the two biggest wrestling companies in the country can barely find a pair of teams for a PPV title defense.

Raw ReBound. Ace’s eruption is still pretty good.

The wedding set is built in the ring. Elvis is performing the ceremony. And it’s Striker as Elvis. He’s been ordained for a full five minutes. The fans aren’t impressed by his accent at all. Curtis is brought out who is in a leather jacket and a tuxedo t-shirt. There’s some guy with him who looks a little drunks. Maxine comes out and to be fair, she does look good in the dress. She yells about the drunk guy (Chad, who says he was promised a chance to meet Hillbilly Jim) but shuts up eventually.

We get to the vows and Curtis says yes. She says yes also but we get to the objection part and the crowd pops in expectation. You would think Bateman would come out there but actually Striker takes off the glasses (it was obvious it was him and not meant to be a secret I don’t think) and says “Really? No one here objects to this?” Funny line. Bateman finally comes out for the big overly dramatic objection and actually rocking a suit.

He says he didn’t send the e-mail, but Curtis did. Bateman shows us footage of Curtis stealing an iPad and sending the e-mail. It took him about 4 seconds to send an e-mail that took 20 seconds to read but whatever. Maxine freaks and Curtis says he wants Maxine to come with him to the top. She slaps him and the brawl between the guys breaks out. Bateman hits his finisher on Curtis and walks off. Maxine says wait and slaps Bateman then kisses him. And that’s it. No seriously, that’s the end of the show.

Overall Rating: F. I can’t believe that they actually ended like that. I come into NXT with no expectations at all anymore and somehow this came off as a disappointment. I think it might be that I’m trying to avoid yelling about how we just wasted 10 or so weeks going around in a circle to get back to Bateman and Maxine being together but I’m not quite sure. Where in the world do they go from here? I’m not sure, but I’ll bet it takes at least 2 months to do it. Just WOW.

Results
Titus O’Neal b. Darren Young – Clash of the Titus
Percy Watson b. Heath Slater – Persecution
Tyler Reks/Curt Hawkins b. Trent Barreta/Yoshi Tatsu

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