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

To say a lot has changed in the last year is a huge understatement. We have the Brand Split now and there are two world titles. That brings us to the part of this show that is most remembered: the world title matches. We have HHH defending the Raw Title in one of the worst matches ever, followed by Angle defending the Smackdown Title in one of the best matches ever. Also Brock Lesnar is here and has taken Smackdown by storm. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about what you would expect it to be: thirty men wanting to go to Wrestlemania.

Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar

The loser is out of the Rumble. Big Show has Heyman with him, which I’m sure makes him the best wrestler EVER right? Show won the title from Lesnar at Survivor Series after Heyman turned on Brock in one of those matches where they were backed into a corner out of their own stupidity. Show shoves him around to start so Brock snaps off a belly to belly suplex to fire up the crowd.

There’s a second suplex and Show is in trouble early. Lesnar loads up a third but Show grabs him by the throat and shoves him to the floor. Show throws Lesnar around the ring which looks awesome when you consider Brock is a massive dude. Lesnar avoids a charge in the corner and hits a release German suplex for two.

A big boot slows Brock down and a side slam looks to set up the chokeslam. Brock kind of rolls through it into a two count, followed by another belly to belly. Heyman gets dragged in but Show saves him from an F5. The chokeslam gets two as Heyman is losing his mind. Show gets rammed into Heyman and the F5 sends Brock to the Rumble.

Rating: C+. As intricate as modern wrestling has become, there’s something to be said about having two big guys get out there and throw each other around for five minutes. The power displays here made the fans gasp which is the right idea. At the end of the day, wrestling is a spectacle and having larger than life characters doing larger than life things is a surefire idea. This wasn’t so much good as it was fun, which is the right choice for an opener.

Jericho says he’ll win the Rumble.

Raw Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. William Regal/Lance Storm

Regal and Storm are defending and Regal is STILL doing the brass knuckles thing. Storm and Ray get things going with Lance working on the arm, only to get powered down with ease. Bubba hits one of his LOUD chops in the corner and takes Storm down with a kind of chokebomb. In something I’ve never seen him do otherwise, Bubba hooks a standing Figure Four. Actually I can’t think of anyone who has ever used that.

Off to D-Von for a dropkick (what’s gotten into the Dudleys tonight?) and here’s Regal to get slammed down immediately. The champs double team D-Von down and we get into the standard tag team formula. Storm takes D-Von to the mat and it’s off to Regal for a front facelock. Lance comes back in with a cravate into a sleeper as this continues to meander along.

D-Von rolls Storm away and makes the tag to Bubba who speeds things up. The guy has emotion if nothing else. A big running splash in the corner crushes both champions and a side slam gets two on Storm. The American hits a German on the Canadian for two, followed by a spear to the Englishman. The Bubba Bomb gets two on Lance and Regal takes What’s Up. A double flapjack (stupid fans: “3D!”) gets two on Storm and here’s Chief of Staff Sean Morely. Regal finds the brass knuckles but walks into the 3D. D-Von hits Storm with the knuckles for the pin and the titles.

Rating: D. This didn’t work for me. It felt like a Raw match that was trying to be a PPV match but never got near the hump they were trying to get over. The ending was stupid on top of that, as they had Regal beaten with the 3D, so why use the knuckles? Also it didn’t help that Bubba single handedly beat up the tag champions for about two minutes straight. Bad match.

Lawler on that match: “I’m as confused as a baby in a topless bar.” What is WITH the announcers and their similies/metaphors in this company?

Nathan Jones is coming. Oh geez.

We recap the Torrie vs. Dawn feud. This is one of those stories where you look at it in awe and wonder what they were thinking. Dawn Marie (a gorgeous Diva) fell in love with and married Torrie’s fifty something year old dad Al Wilson, then screwed him to death (literally) on their honeymoon. There was some lesbianism (as in kissing on screen and unfilmed other stuff) involved which was there to tease the audience and wasn’t bad at all. This is supposed to be a stepmother vs. stepdaughter match. Again, I have no idea what this was supposed to accomplish.

Dawn Marie vs. Torrie Wilson

Dawn comes to the ring in a veil because she’s in mourning. Torrie gets blasted in the face to start before spearing Dawn down and things get sloppy. Marie tries an armbar because we need some wrestling in this I guess. Torrie gets beaten on for a bit until they collide and hit the mat. Dawn hits a springboard spinning clothesline for no cover, giving us the highlight of the match. Torrie hits a neckbreaker out of nowhere for the win.

Rating: D-. Anything with these two in those outfits can’t be considered a failure, but at the end of the day, there is no real defending this match in the slightest. It was HORRIBLE and the story was borderline insulting to my intelligence, but the girls looked good and I guess that was the whole point. Why not just have a regular match if you want to is beyond me, but it’s 2003 so what do you expect?

Stephanie seems to hit on some young guy in the back when Eric comes up to trade some weak trash talk. They’re both GM’s at this point. Stephanie has a bombshell for Smackdown which would wind up being Hogan. They argue over money or blood being more important and nothing goes anywhere. That young guy by the way? Randy Orton.

House show ads, including one for 7pm on a Monday night.

Sean O’Haire as the Devil’s Advocate promo. Sweet goodness this could have been HUGE.

Nathan Jones is STILL coming. Seriously did we need that twice in 30 minutes?

We recap HHH vs. Scott Steiner as I begin to take deep breaths. HHH was giving a promo about how awesome he was when Steiner interrupted and demanded a title shot. This led to a series of contests like pushups and bench presses which went nowhere. Note that Steiner hadn’t actually had a match in WWE up to this point. I wonder why.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Scott Steiner

HHH has red trunks on here for some reason. He mixed them up every now and then and rarely did the other colors work. Stick with basic black Game. Hebner brings them to the middle for instructions which is ultra rare stuff. Steiner wins an early slugout and pounds on the champion in the corner. A gorilla press sends HHH to the floor and Steiner pounds away with those weird looking overhand punches of his.

Steiner suplexes him back in for two and works on the back some more. An elbow to the face puts HHH down and there’s an appropriate Boston Crab. HHH powers out of it and hits the facebuster but Steiner no sells it. There’s a bear hug which is quickly broken but Steiner snaps off an overhead belly to belly (1) for two. Flair saves HHH from being put in the Steiner Recliner and Steiner charges into a boot in the corner to finally change the momentum.

We head to the floor again where Scott goes into the steps. The fans aren’t exactly thrilled with this so far but they’ve still got time to crank it up a bit. Flair chokes away with his jacket and HHH hits his second neckbreaker in about 30 seconds for two. Since we didn’t allido it properly the first time, Flair chokes away even more. A Pedigree attempt is countered into a slingshot into the buckle. Steiner looks like he’s going through labor.

An overhead suplex (2) puts HHH down and I kid you not: Steiner FALLS DOWN due to exhaustion. He’s clearly sucking wind and HHH didn’t touch him at all. Speaking of HHH, he counters a tombstone attempt into a….I think it was supposed to be the third neckbreaker in about 90 seconds but Steiner took it wrong, causing it to look like a cutter where he fell backwards instead of forwards. That gets two and the fans are starting to boo.

HHH is loudly calling spots to try to salvage this before he hits a vertical suplex. For no apparent reason he goes up and jumps into a belly to belly (3). Steiner can barely punch so he settles for some clotheslines. There’s an overhead belly to belly (4) and an overhead belly to belly (5) and an overhead belly to belly (6). The fans are openly booing Steiner now. His response? To hold HHH’s hair while HHH rams his own head into the buckles (seriously, Steiner clearly isn’t even pushing) and to hit a spinning belly to belly (7) for two and even more booing.

Steiner tries a butterfly powerbomb and literally falls backwards as he does it, causing HHH to land on Steiner’s knees. The fans groan at the sight of this so HHH goes up top to get superplexed down. He’s handing these spots to Steiner. THANKFULLY HHH tries to walk out but Steiner won’t have it, because WE HAVE TO KEEP GOING. Steiner blasts HHH with the belt to bust him open to try to get the fans to care but the match is long past salvageable at this point.

Back in and Steiner hits ANOTHER belly to belly (8), causing the fans to get MAD. They’re not annoyed, they’re not wanting a new champion, they want Steiner to get out of their ring now. HHH tries to get counted out but Steiner goes after him AGAIN. Back in and Steiner does the pushups to tick off the fans even more as Flair is BEGGING the referee to stop the match.

Now HHH throws the referee to the floor but HEBNER WON’T STOP IT. I mean he pulls his arm up to ring the bell but stops and says keep it going. Steiner hits the NINTH belly to belly suplex (9) of the match for two so HHH hits him low and grabs a fast rollup for two. HHH finally gives up and hits Steiner with the sledgehammer for the DQ.

Rating: H. As in HHH, who I feel sorry for here. Now everyone knows I’m no fan of the guy in 2003, but he was in a HORRIBLE situation here. HHH was trying to keep this a coherent match, but Steiner was beyond worthless here, causing the match to sink to levels far below what any other main event “talent” would be capable of. After about seven minutes (out of eighteen), Steiner stopped doing anything resembling trying to have a match and was just doing suplexes.

Remember that back stuff he did at the beginning? Completely forgotten. Did you see him try his finisher? Not even once. He somehow managed a belly to belly suplex every two minutes, despite being on defense for a good third of the match. This was absolutely horrible and quite possibly the worst world title match I can EVER remember, which is covering a lot of ground.

Post match, Steiner beats up HHH and Flair with the hammer, which gets SYMPATHY from the fans. HHH is getting SYMPATHY from a crowd. Think about that for a minute. And what’s worse: THEY HAD A REMATCH! Oh and there’s the Steiner Recliner to absolutely nothing positive from the crowd at all. Bischoff has to come get Steiner off HHH.

We cut to Cole and Tazz and even MICHAEL FREAKING COLE has a look on his face as if to say “WOW that was an abomination.”

We recap Benoit vs. Angle. Angle won the title from Big Show at Armageddon thanks to Lesnar before revealing that he hired Paul Heyman to be his new manager. Heyman said anyone could get a shot other than Brock Lesnar and brought in Team Angle (Haas and Benjamin) to protect Kurt during a knee injury. Benoit won a title shot over Big Show to set this up.

Smackdown World Title: Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle

Team Angle is immediately ejected to make sure it’s one on one. Benoit grabs a headlock to start before trying the Sharpshooter to send Angle to the floor. Back in and Angle goes for the ankle but gets dropkicked away. Benoit grabs a kind up reverse Figure Four but Angle grabs the rope. This is all holds/counter holds so far. Benoit gets sent shoulder first into the post followed by an Angle suplex for two.

They chop it out with Benoit taking over and hitting a reverse clothesline to take Angle down. Angle drops Benoit across the top rope but gets guillotined down by the Canadian. They head to the apron with Benoit DDTing him down onto the side of the ring. The champion has a busted nose now. Back in and the Swan Dive misses but Benoit rolls out of the Angle Slam. There’s the Sharpshooter to Angle who eventually gets to a rope. A belly to back suplex gets two for Chris but Angle snaps off an overhead belly to belly (just one so far).

Back to the floor where Benoit gets dropped onto the barricade to further mess with his head. Off to a rear naked choke back inside so Kurt can overly loudly call some spots. Angle catches Benoit in another belly to belly followed by a belly to back for two. Back to the chinlock for a bit until a double clothesline puts both guys down. Benoit rolls some Germans but so does Angle. And people wonder why their necks were held together by tape.

Benoit gets the final German but Angle runs the ropes to hit the belly to belly off the top to put both guys down. That gets two but the Angle Slam is countered into the Crossface. Angle gets the rope, so Benoit shifts to an ankle lock. Angle reverses into one of his own and now Benoit is in trouble. Benoit goes to kick off but instead grabs another Crossface. Kurt counters into a rollup but Benoit put the Crossface on the other (right) arm this time. Angle stands up and hits the Angle Slam but can’t immediately cover.

Angle takes the straps down but another German attempt is countered into a rollup for two. They trade HARD Germans until Benoit hooks a release German to put both guys down. Before anyone asks, the difference between this and the previous match with the suplexes is how hard these are. Steiner looked like he was at a dance recital but here they look like they’re trying to kill one another. Not to mention there’s OTHER STUFF in between the suplexes.

Benoit hits the longest diving headbutt you’ll EVER see, but he can’t cover because of his head getting jarred like that. Angle counters the Crossface into a reverse powerbomb onto the buckle. The Angle Slam gets a VERY close two as the crowd is losing their minds. Back to the Crossface but Angle rolls through into the ankle lock. Benoit rolls over but can’t break the hold. He kicks Kurt off but Angle goes right back to the hold. Benoit keeps trying to kick him off but Angle hooks the grapevine and Benoit has to tap.

Rating: A+. That’s your match of the year right there people. Oh wait according to Meltzer there was some match in Japan that no one but him ever saw and that has to be better than this right? Anyway, these two DESTROYED each other with some absolutely amazing counters and awesome sequences out there while suplexing the tar out of each other. This both guy’s best match ever, and that’s saying A LOT.

Benoit gets a standing ovation, showing that he was ready to be world champion. Naturally that’s why he had to wait fifteen months to get the title, because the world was BEGGING for another Steiner match, the Nash feud with HHH, and the Goldberg run of doom. Ok Goldberg I can live with but the other two? Screw that.

Van Dam and Kane say they’ll knock each other out to win the Rumble.

Royal Rumble

The intervals are two minutes if you listen to Fink and 90 seconds if you listen to JR. There are fifteen Raw guys and fifteen Smackdown guys this year which would be the norm for a few years to come. Shawn gets #1 and Jericho gets #2, but it’s Christian playing the role of Jericho at the entrance, allowing Jericho to sneak in from behind and jump Shawn. Jericho hits Shawn low and starts the beat down before getting a chair to crack Shawn open.

Chris Nowitski is #3 and he’s perfectly fine with letting Jericho maul Shawn. Jericho easily dumps Shawn, setting up their classic at Wrestlemania. Nowitski isn’t in the ring yet. Rey Mysterio (still pretty new here) is #4 as things speed up a lot. A springboard dropkick and rana take Jericho down but Nowitski gets in as well….or not as he slid back out. Rey escapes a gorilla press and dropkicks Jericho into the ropes, only to get jumped by Nowitski.

Edge is #5 for a big pop. He would have been world champion by summer if he hadn’t hurt his neck. Jericho is sent into the post and Nowitski is knocked down, allowing the two good guys to pound away on each other while both miss finishers. A springboard rana by Rey is countered into a sitout powerbomb and Christian is #6. He hugs his brother but Edge spears him down out of common sense. Nowitski tries to dump Edge and Rey but gets caught by a “double” dropkick (read as Mysterio hit him but Edge completely missed and landed on Chris after he was already down).

The Bronco Buster hits Nowitski and Chavo is #7. He immediately takes Rey down but gets caught in a 619. Rey drops the dime on Chavo and hits a 619 on Christian. He tries a springboard rana on Christian but lands on Nowitski and takes him to the floor in the process. Jericho puts Mysterio out, leaving us with Jericho, Edge, Christian and Chavo at the moment. You can add Tajiri at #8 to that list.

Christian gets the tar kicked out of him and Chavo gets put in a spinning backbreaker. Not bad for the first twenty seconds for Tajiri. Bill DeMott is #9 and no one cares. At this point, he had been a Tough Enough trainer and his gimmick was that the rookies had ticked him off so much that he was basically a sociopath. I’ve heard of worse. Tommy Dreamer is #10 and he brings some toys with him.

There are too many people in the ring at the moment. Edge gets in some kendo stick shots on DeMott for an elimination. Christian and Jericho hit Dreamer with trashcan lids in a modified Conchairto for another elimination. Tajiri elbows both guys down but tries the Tarantula on Jericho and gets dumped as a result. B2, as in Bull Buchanan as Cena’s ex-lackey, is #11. Edge knocks out Chavo as the ring is thinning out nicely.

Jericho gets sent over the top but skins the cat and pulls out Edge and Christian in the process. Jericho is busted open but he’s left all alone in the ring. RVD is #12 and man alive do the fans love him. They slug it out for a bit with Van Dam hitting a slingshot to send Jericho to the apron but not out. Matt Hardy (who strongly dislikes mustard) is #13. The heels (as in those not named RVD) double team the good guy (as in those named RVD) but Jericho is too weak to do much and Matt kind of sucks so Van Dam takes them down.

There’s a Five Star to Jericho and Eddie is #14. He pounds away on Van Dam as well and hits a Frog Splash of his own, only to walk into a Twist of Fate from Matt. Jeff Hardy is #15 and Matt tries an alliance, only to get kicked in the gut. Jeff throws Matt to the apron but Matt’s MF’er Shannon Moore prevents the elimination. There’s the Twist of Fate to Matt but Shannon covers up Matt from the Swanton. Jeff just dives on both of them and Rosey of 3 Minute Warning is #16.

Absolutely nothing of note happens here so Test with Stacy is #17. He cleans house until John Cena is #18 with a rap for us. He manages to rhyme “Explain it to ya” with Wrestlemania so I’m impressed. He spends forever rapping until Van Dam throws him inside. The ring is way too full again. After Cena is in the ring for about eight seconds, Charlie Haas is #19. Van Dam and Jeff slug it out until Jeff goes up top like an IDIOT and gets shoved out. He would burn out and leave the company in about three months anyway.

Eddie walks the buckles and hits a rana on Jericho as Rikishi is #20, giving us Jericho, Van Dam, Matt, Eddie, Rosey, Test, Cena, Haas and Rikishi. Again that’s too many people. Rosey and Rikishi square off but nothing happens. Instead they team up and beat up Matt and Shannon because they can, until Rosey clotheslines the heck out of Rikishi. Jamal of 3 Minute Warning (you know him better as Umaga) is #21.

Rikishi superkicks Jamal down almost immediately and there’s a Stinkface for him. Kane is #22 and I think we have eleven people in there at the moment. He cleans as much house as you can clean with that many people in there before FINALLY putting someone out in the form of Rosey. Jericho gets thrown to the apron but hangs on. Shelton Benjamin is #23 and Team Angle starts taking over. Booker T is #24 and we DESPERATELY need someone to clear some guys out.

Booker immediately kicks Kane down and fires up a Spinarooni to a BIG pop. Eddie gets backdropped out and Booker pounds on Rikishi. A-Train (Albert/Tensai) is #25 and the hometown boy gets to beat up a lot of people in a hurry. Shawn Michaels runs in with a bandage on his head and goes after Jericho, causing Test to dump Jericho out. See, that way it’s legal.

Maven from Tough Enough (finally with actual trunks) is #26. He goes right for Kane like an idiot and gets punched in the face for his efforts. Goldust is #27 and he barely makes it 45 seconds before Haas and Benjamin put him out. Booker goes off on Haas in the corner but gets thrown out by Team Angle as well. He would get the world title shot at HHH as a consolation prize.

Big Dave Batista is #28 and you can hear the fans react to him. The first guy he hits? John Cena. It’s always cool to see the future in there like that. Test takes him down with a full nelson slam but Batista low bridges him for the elimination. Batista takes down Rikishi with a spinebuster before clotheslining him out. At least the ring is clearing out a bit. Brock Lesnar is #29 and is the odds on favorite to win this thing.

Brock immediately eliminates Team Angle by himself before F5ing Matt on top of them. A-Train hits a bicycle kick to take Batista down as Undertaker is #30 to a big ovation. The final grouping: Van Dam, Cena, Jamal, Kane, A-Train, Maven, Batista, Lesnar and Undertaker. Drop Maven and A-Train and that’s a pretty stacked field. To the shock of no one paying attention, Taker is returning here. There’s a 9 hour DVD of matches and moments where Undertaker returns easily.

Taker punches everyone and dumps Cena and Jamal with ease. Maven dropkicks Taker in the back and celebrates, earning himself a chokeslam. The elimination is academic. A-Train hits the chokebomb on Taker to finally slow him down as Kane chokeslams Lesnar. Kane and Van Dam, the Raw tag champions, start teaming up to beat people up but A-Train takes them both down. Van Dam saves Kane from a backbreaker and the champs double clothesline Albert out.

Kane tells Van Dam to let him pick Van Dam up and drop him on Batista, but Kane turns (not heel) on Van Dam to throw RVD out. We’re down to Lesnar, Undertaker, Kane and Batista which is awesome by today’s standards. Taker and Lesnar have a showdown but the other two guys break it up. Taker pounds away on Batista in a preview of the feud of the year in 2007.

A big spinebuster puts Taker down and Lesnar fights off the two Raw (Batista/Kane) guys. There’s an F5 for Kane and NOW we get Taker vs. Brock. They slug it out and after Taker says big boot, he hits a big boot to take Brock’s head off. The F5 is escaped but there’s a tombstone for Brock. A clothesline casually puts Batista out to get us down to three. Taker teases an alliance with Kane but dumps him as well. He has to knock away an invading Batista and Brock dumps Undertaker to go to Wrestlemania.

Rating: B-. Good but definitely not great Rumble here. You could see the next generation in the blocks but the problem is they were just that: the NEXT generation. Taker was the only possible winner here other than Brock and that’s a recipe for a bad Rumble. You need more than one candidate for the Rumble and as soon as Lesnar’s music hit, it was clear who was winning this.

Taker says go win the title but he wants the first shot. Brock says ok to end the show. Did we need that?

Overall Rating: C-. The problem with this show is that the excellent match on the card is brought down by the HORRENDOUS match just before it. The Rumble is good but it isn’t good enough to save an otherwise bad card. The show isn’t terrible, but it’s a sign of things to come for this year, especially with HHH on the Raw side. Not much to see here other than Benoit vs. Angle of course. HHH vs. Steiner is only worth seeing if you want to see a trainwreck.

Ratings Comparison

Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar

Original: D

Redo: C+

Dudley Boys vs. William Regal/Lance Storm

Original: C

Redo: D

Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie

Original: DD

Redo: D-

Scott Steiner vs. HHH

Original: G-

Redo: H (As in HHH)

Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle

Original: A+

Redo: A+

Royal Rumble

Original: B

Redo: B-

Overall Rating

Original: B-

Redo: C-

I’m not sure what I was thinking the first time. The show just isn’t that good.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/22/royal-rumble-count-up-2003-best-match-ever/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

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 quite 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 in the world 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 their heads off 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 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. 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.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

It’s back to the pay per view pile for Impact and in a way, that sounds like a good thing. When Impact Wrestling cuts out all of the other nonsense and focuses on the wrestling alone, they can have a heck of a show and hopefully that is what happens here. Sometimes you don’t need to do anything more than have a bunch of good wrestling and under the right circumstances, this could be quite the show. Let’s get to it.

Ken Shamrock vs. Mad Man Fulton

Unless I missed it before, this was added to the show on Tuesday night. I’m not sure how much more gas Shamrock has in the tank but his intimidating look alone should be worth something. I can’t imagine that he’s going to be around long term but he has enough star power to validate keeping him around for the time being. That being said, Fulton has a lot of potential as a monster and Shamrock could make for a good opponent.

I’ll go with Fulton here because he has a brighter future and there is no reason to put Shamrock over him. Shamrock is already a legend and a former World Champion so putting him over Fulton doesn’t make sense. Then again, if there is one thing this company loves to do it is push older people for no logical reason. I’ll take Fulton, but there is a bit of fear in the back of my head over the whole thing.

Moose vs. Rhino

This is one of those formulas that works almost every time: take two people who can hit each other really hard and see who is left standing. It’s also a battle of the spears, with Rhino’s having more impact but Moose’s having the more clever name. Moose is in need of the big win but I’m not sure how much value there is in putting him over Rhino. That being said, I can’t imagine Rhino getting a big win on this stage.

So yeah of course it’s Moose here, as it should be. Rhino is someone who still has some name recognition and now that they’re getting him away from the ECW tributes, you can see why he’s been around as long as he has. This could be a good ten minute power brawl and Rhino can still bring it in that style. Have some fun and get the right person over and everything works out.

Tag Team Titles: The North(c) vs. Rich Swann/Willie Mack

This was the match that I was looking forward to more than any other on the card as Mack and Swann have turned into a heck of a team against a dark horse contender for the Tag Team Of The Year in 2019 in the North. Then Swann sprained his ankle last night and is unlikely for the match, meaning the whole thing is pretty much forgotten about as Mack is probably wrestling it in a handicap match.

Therefore, the North retains here and we probably get the big title match in SEVERAL weeks on Impact, assuming it happens at all. Given their marathon taping sessions, there is almost no way we’re going to be seeing Swann in the ring for months as far as Impact taping time goes and that’s a shame because he seemed ready to jump way up the ladder in the coming weeks, starting with a title win here. But alas, the North retains here (hardly a bad thing as they’ve been excellent).

Knockouts Title: Taya Valkyrie(c) vs. ODB vs. Jordynne Grace

I was completely sold on Grace ending the record long reign here, but then ODB was added to it and things started trending down (as they tend to do when she is added to almost anything). They now have an out to keep the title on Valkyrie (again: not a bad thing, which seems to be a Canadian trait), even though it is time for someone else to get into the title picture. I think you know where this is going.

I’ll play it safe and say that Valkyrie retains the title, likely by defeating ODB. Maybe they can even throw in a bonus by having Grace hit the Grace Driver so Valkyrie can steal the pin. I’m not entirely sure why ODB needs to be involved in this, though if it’s to give her a hand after her food truck burned down, I can get over my lack of caring for her. Anyway, I’m not thrilled about this one, but Valkyrie is likely retaining to lose to Grace in a singles match later.

Brian Cage vs. Rob Van Dam

I wasn’t big on Van Dam returning as he is way past his prime and has been around for so long that a lot of the luster is gone. However, I’ve dug the heck out of his crazy self-absorbed heel character as he’s selling the heck out of it. While I could go for a little less Katie Forbes, Van Dam’s stuff has been great and I’m enjoying his promos more than I have in years.

As for the match…..dang I’m not sure. This is the kind of thing that should be Cage in a walk but Van Dam has been so awesome in everything he’s done that it could go either way. I think I’ll actually take Van Dam, just for the sake of giving him something else to talk about. Cage shouldn’t be losing again, but they’ve got an intriguing match here, provided they can make the in-ring stuff work.

Call Your Shot Trophy: Eddie Edwards(c) vs. Michael Elgin

This is basically Money In The Bank but for any title, which very well could play a role later in the show. The idea here is that Elgin wants the World Title and is willing to take shortcuts to get there. He already beat Edwards in a rather good match on Impact and now he wants to do it again for the trophy. I like the idea of having to defend the thing, even though it has barely been mentioned since Edwards won the thing.

I’ll take Elgin to win here, even if it’s two big losses in a row for Edwards. The good thing about him is that he’s almost bulletproof in Impact and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Elgin on the other hand seems to be in a place where he needs to win the World Title or find something else to do, and winning the Trophy could get him a big step closer to being champion.

X-Division Title: Ace Austin(c) vs. Trey Miguel

There aren’t many people who have been as bizarre as Austin in recent months. He’s gone from apparently being an adult actor to hitting on Miguel’s mom while also winning the title. I’m not sure which of those is weirder, but here we are with one of the first actual stories about the title in months. That might not be the best story in the world, but at least it’s something for a change.

I’ll go with Austin retaining here, partially because I like him and partially because I want to see Miguel’s mom turn on him. It would be hilarious to see if nothing else, though I do need to see the Rascalz get somewhere sooner or later. This very well may be where it takes place, but I’m not sure if that’s what’s going to happen. Give me Austin to retain, though I’m not very confident in it.

Impact Wrestling World Title: Sami Callihan(c) vs. Tessa Blanchard

And then, as usual, something has to happen to mess everything up around here. In this case it isn’t Impact’s fault, but that never stopped the bad news before. In this case, Blanchard seemed all primed and ready to win the title but then there was yesterday’s Twitter fiasco that might cause some major issues for the company should they give her some big push.

That being said, I’ll go with Blanchard winning and then Elgin cashing in his newly won trophy for an immediate title shot. Therefore, Blanchard gets her win, a Canadian gets to be World Champion and we can move forward to Blanchard chasing the title again after things have cooled down a bit. It’s not the smartest thing in the world, but it’s the most protection they can have at the moment.

Overall Thoughts

I was looking forward to this show a lot more about thirty six hours ago before the Swann injury and the Blanchard drama but you should know better than to expect something like this to work out well. It really does feel like the company is cursed at times and even when they have been doing so much better as of late, it doesn’t seem like they can ever shake off the curse that follows them everywhere.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Takeover: Blackpool II
Date: January 12, 2020
Location: Empress Ballroom, Blackpool, England
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Nigel McGuinness

It’s almost weird how infrequently these things take place as this is only the third edition ever. The good thing is they have followed the regular NXT formula and the show, with its five match card, looks rather good. They might not have the trickiest card to predict but that doesn’t mean it is going to be boring. Let’s get to it.

The opening video looks back at last year’s Takeover: Blackpool with everyone talking about why they do this. It’s their kingdom.

Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven

Dennis has what looks like a dragon’s helmet on during his entrance. Eddie charges at Trent in the corner but walks into a powerbomb for an early two. Trent chops away but gets caught with a toss Razor’s Edge out of the corner instead. The cravate goes on and Dennis hammers away at the head for his own two. A DDT is blocked though and they head outside with Trent hitting a suicide dive.

Back in and Trent misses a dive off the top, allowing Dennis to hit a swinging Side Effect for two more. Another Razor’s Edge is countered but Dennis ducks the Seven Star Lariat. The Birminghammer is blocked with a grab of the rope so Dennis goes for the turnbuckle pad. That takes too long as well and Trent hits a top rope superplex for another near fall. Seven shoves him into the exposed buckle and it’s a toss Razor’s Edge over the top onto a well placed production worker. That’s only good for two so Eddie hits the Next Stop Driver for the pin at 8:03.

Rating: B-. They didn’t waste time here but it made Dennis look like a killer, which was exactly the point. Seven getting sent into the buckle leaves them an opening for a rematch if they want to go there and odds are they will. What mattered here though was Dennis and he looked a lot better than he did before the injury. Good match and a solid opener that served a purpose.

We recap the Women’s Title match. Kay Lee Ray defeated Toni Storm to win the title at Takeover: Cardiff but Storm has gotten a lot more focused. At the same time, Piper Niven is hunting for the title, setting off some issues between the challengers.

Women’s Title: Kay Lee Ray vs. Piper Niven vs. Toni Storm

Ray is defending and Niven jumps her during the Big Match Intros. Niven sends Ray outside for the suicide dive and then Cannonballs both of them in a row. That earns her a whip into the steps so Toni and Ray can fight, only to have Niven drop a backsplash onto both of them. Ray superkicks Niven and chokes Toni, who is right back with a release German suplex.

Storm suplexes Niven as well but gets planted by Ray, who is suplexed by Niven to put all three down at once. It’s Toni and Piper slugging it out but Ray shoves them together in what might not have been the smartest move. Ray grabs a chair and wraps it around Storm’s neck but Niven breaks up the Pillmanizing (and near death). Storm picks up the chair and Niven says hit her, only to have them both go after Ray instead.

With Ray and Storm on the floor, Niven hits a Cannonball off the apron to crush the champ. Back in and Niven breaks up the superplex by powerbombing Storm but Niven breaks it up with a top rope Swanton. Niven’s Michinoku Driver gets two on Ray, who somehow gets Niven up for the Gory Bomb and the same near fall.

Niven busts out a Canadian Destroyer on Ray (because she can) but Storm breaks up the cover and hits Storm Zero for two more on Ray with Niven making the save this time. Storm Zero doesn’t work on Niven so Toni settles for something like a Pedigree instead. A frog splash hits Niven but Ray steals the pin to retain at 13:24.

Rating: B. They didn’t really stop moving here for the most part and Ray winning that way makes sense. I’m a little surprised they pinned Niven, but it makes a little sense given that Storm is coming up on the big match with Rhea Ripley at When Worlds Collide. All three worked hard here though and it was good stuff with the logical ending.

Travis Banks is here.

We recap Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin. Bate beat him in the first United Kingdom Title Tournament and Devlin has wanted a chance for revenge ever since. Devlin has said he’s better than the big star in Bate and tonight is his chance to prove it.

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

They circle each other to start as the fans are almost all behind Bate. Devlin wins an early battle over wrist control until Bate flips around and grabs his own wristlock. A battle over a rollup goes nowhere and Devlin is ready for Bop and Bang. There’s a backdrop to Devlin and a gorilla press makes it even worse. Devlin is sent to the floor but catches a charging Bate with a release Rock Bottom.

The Arabian press gets two and we have a split crowd for a change. A butterfly suplex lets Devlin mock the Moustache Mountain pose but the Devil Inside is blocked. Devlin drops him on the arm/back and stands on Bate’s neck to make it worse. The surfboard works on almost all of Bate, with Devlin pulling back on the head to add a little extra pain. Since that can’t last long, they’re both up and stereo crossbodies give us a double knockdown.

Back up and Bate catches a charge in the corner to slam Devlin. A running kick to the head sets up the standing shooting star press for two. Devlin gets up an elbow in the corner but the slingshot cutter is countered into a ridiculously long airplane spin. Even Bate is dizzy off of that one but manages a brainbuster for two. The Tyler Driver 97 is countered into a rollup for two before Devlin hits a half and half suplex for his own near fall.

Now the slingshot cutter connects, only to send Bate out to the apron. Another slingshot cutter onto the apron drops both of them on the floor and Devlin’s kick to the chest makes Bate dive back in to beat the count. They slug it out with Devlin getting the better of it until the rolling Liger Kick gives Bate a breather. The Devil Inside is blocked but Bate’s handspring clothesline is countered into a Spanish Fly for another double knockdown.

Bate crotches him on top but a super Spanish Fly into the Devil Inside connects for a VERY close two. Devlin punches him in the face and loads up his own Tyler Driver 97, only to get reversed into a headbutt. Bate hits a springboard tornado DDT into the Tyler Driver 97 for two, but Bate is right back up top with a Spiral Tap for the pin at 22:41.

Rating: A-. Yeah this was great stuff with both guys beating the heck out of each other. Devlin knew a lot of what Bate was going to do but got just a bit too cocky and slipped up in the end, allowing the better Bate to win. That being said, I’m not sure how much sense this makes as Devlin needed the win a lot more than Bate. Either way, this was the blow away match the show was looking for and it’s excellent.

Post match Bate gets a standing ovation, including from HHH, William Regal and Johnny Saint.

We recap the Tag Team Title match. Gallus, the champions, were defending against Imperium when the Grizzled Young Veterans interfered to steal the titles. Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews cut them off so there was only one solution: a ladder match.

Tag Team Titles: Gallus vs. Imperium vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

Gallus, Mark Coffey and Wolfgang, are defending and it’s Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel for Imperium in a ladder match. There’s something about the referee ringing the bell and getting out of the way that makes this seem a lot more violent. It’s a brawl to start with Gallus and Imperium heading outside, leaving the Veterans to take over on Webster and Andrews.

Coffey and Imperium take their places in the ring but Webster and Andrews come back in to pick up the pace. The Veterans pulls them down by the arms though and some chair shots make it worse. Gallus ties Drake in the Tree of Woe but Imperium saves him from having his face crushed. Imperium tries to grab a ladder but Webster and Andrews hit big flip dives to knock it away. Imperium brings the ladders in and clean house, making sure to stop to pose.

The Veterans clear them out and tie Andrews in the corner for a running dropkick. Gallus is back in for a slingshot Samoan drop to put Drake onto a ladder but Imperium breaks up a climb attempt. Webster DDTs Wolfgang and Andrews goes up, only to dive onto Coffey instead of grabbing the titles. Andrews is laid over a ladder and it’s Aichner hitting a springboard moonsault onto Andrews onto the ladder for the big crash.

The Veterans are back in with the big ladder and set it up next to two regular ladders, only to have Webster bridge a ladder into one of them. Another, unopened ladder, is pressed against Gibson’s back but everyone gets knocked down before we get the big disaster. Drake is up there alone but hits a 450 on Andrews instead of grabbing the titles. Gibson helps Drake up so Aichner makes his own save.

The European Bomb hits Drake and Imperium is smart enough to get rid of the rest of the ladders, leaving just one to climb. Gallus grabs some more ladders and make the save, setting up a powerslam/enziguri combination to Drake. Webster and Andrews pull the ladder away from Gallus and drop them with a double Stundog Millionaire. The really big ladder is set up at ringside and we get some tables for the bonus (maybe it can shut the fans up for a bit).

One table collapses under Coffey’s weight, leaving Wolfgang on the other table. That doesn’t last long either as Andrews and Webster go up the same ladder at the same time for a double Swanton to crush Wolfgang in a hurry (cool spot, but not the brightest move). Andrews and Webster go up but the Veterans make the save this time.

The Veterans climb but Andrews busts out a kendo stick and destroys Drake. Imperium makes the save and climb as well, only to have Coffey make the save. Wolfgang spears Aichner through a ladder and Barthel gets shoved off the top onto a pile at ringside, leaving Gallus to retain the titles at 22:54.

Rating: A-. This was a blast and somehow managed to not get too jumbled with everyone and all of the ladders involved. They had some big spots and kept things moving, with a few unique spots to make things all the better. I liked this way more than I was expecting to and it was pretty well structured throughout. Heck of a match here and one of the better ladder matches I’ve seen in a good while.

Ridge Holland is here.

We recap Joe Coffey vs. Walter. After winning the title last April, Walter needs some competition so Coffey said this is his kingdom. This stems from last year’s Takeover: Blackpool where Walter debuted and laid out Coffey after his long match with Pete Dunne. It has turned into Gallus vs. Imperium and it should be a heck of a hoss fight.

United Kingdom Title: Joe Coffey vs. Walter

Walter is defending and tries a big boot at the bell in a flashback to last year’s Blackpool. The early sleeper is countered into a spinning belly to back suplex so Walter gets a breather on the floor. Coffey follows and hits a big diving shoulder over the barricade as Walter can’t get going so far. Back in and Coffey stomps away, setting up a belly to belly for two. There’s a tornado DDT for two more and it’s time for the slugout, with Coffey seemingly rather pleased. A stalling suplex gives Coffey two more but they chop it out, and that’s just a bad idea against Walter.

Some big chops put Coffey on the floor and that means a big boot against the barricade. Back in and a half crab into the STF have Coffey in more trouble but Walter lets it go. More forearms just fire Coffey up…so Walter knocks him right back down. Some forearms to the chest set up a Boston crab and then a modified Crossface has Coffey in more trouble. A rope is grabbed so they ram into each other a few times until Walter suplexes him for two more.

The sleeper is broken up with a drop backwards and they’re both down. That doesn’t last long as Coffey spears Walter in the back to set up a German suplex for two. Walter is right back up with a powerbomb for his own near fall but the ref gets knocked VERY silly (and sells it like he fell out of a building).

All The Best For The Bells connects for no count so here’s Alexander Wolfe to go after Coffey. Ilja Dragunov makes the save but knocks Wolfe into Coffey’s leg. Walter clotheslines Dragunov to the floor and kicks him down before sending Coffey into the steps. We have another referee as Dragunov and Wolfe fight to the back. Coffey catches him on top and manages a belly to belly superplex to put them both down again.

Walter is up first for his awesome top rope splash and another near fall. The powerbomb is escaped and All The Best For The Bells connects (after the first one grazed the top of Walter’s head) for two so Walter slaps on a sleeper. The sleeper suplex drops Coffey on his head and there’s the powerbomb. Walter hits another powerbomb and puts on the Crossface to make Coffey tap at 27:40.

Rating: A. It’s the second best NXT UK Takeover main event ever and that’s not bad at all. This was exactly what it should have been with both guys beating the heck out of each other as only a pair of monsters can do. I had fun watching them hit each other really hard and that’s how it should have gone. Heck of a fight here and Coffey continues to have a great role around here. It’s going to take something special to beat Walter and you can probably pencil in Dragunov for the next shot, which could be fascinating.

Post match Imperium comes out to pose but it’s the Undisputed Era running in to lay them out, including a four on one beatdown of Walter. A High/Low and the Last Shot leave Walter laying and the Era poses to end the show. This was really well done and got a huge reaction. They’re making When Worlds Collide seem like a huge deal and I want to see how things go.

Overall Rating: A-. This felt like a Takeover is supposed to feel: one awesome match after another with even the worst being rather good. The main event was great and the big angle at the end was nearly perfect. NXT UK has figured it out in recent months and I’ve liked it more and more as the weeks go on. Another awesome show here and while it didn’t have the incredible match like Takeover: Cardiff, I never once got bored or wanted the show to speed up, leaving this one as a better overall experience. Heck of a show.

Results

Eddie Dennis b. Trent Seven – Next Stop Driver

Kay Lee Ray b. Piper Niven and Toni Storm – Frog splash to Niven

Tyler Bate b. Jordan Devlin – Spiral Tap

Gallus won a ladder match

Walter b. Joe Coffey – Crossface

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Impact Wrestling
Date: January 7, 2020
Location: Melrose Ballroom, New York City, New York
Commentators: Josh Matthews, Don Callis

We’re back to a regular show and it’s the go home edition before Hard To Kill. The card is mostly set but there is always the chance that something could be added at the last minute. It’s kind of a weird situation as we are coming off back to back Best Of shows, meaning there isn’t much momentum for the pay per view at the moment. Maybe they can get in one last push though. Let’s get to it.

We open with Michael Elgin and Eddie Edwards having to be pulled apart at ringside. Eddie is willing to fight him right now and hits a dive.

Opening sequence.

Eddie Edwards vs. Michael Elgin

They’re still fighting on the floor as Eddie has to hurricanrana his way out of a powerbomb attempt. They chop it out until Elgin scores with a superkick and throws it inside for the opening bell. Eddie grabs an atomic drop but an enziguri in the corner sets up a stomp to the chest for two. A German suplex attempt doesn’t work for Eddie as Elgin grabs him by the head and flips him forward with raw power.

Eddie goes technical by countering a suplex into one of his own followed by the Blue Thunder Bomb for two. A Rock Bottom/Boss Man Slam plants Eddie again and the Falcon Arrow gives Elgin two of his own. They strike it out in the corner with some chops and clotheslines before slugging it out in the middle. Elgin snaps off a German suplex but Eddie pops back up for a Boston Knee Party to the back of the head.

We take a break and come back with Eddie hitting another Boston Knee Party to put them both down. Eddie gets two off a tiger bomb and goes up, where he has to sunset bomb his way out of a super White Noise. Elgin blasts him with a clothesline for two more but can’t get a Crossface. Instead he settles for the Buckle Bomb into the Elgin Bomb for the pin at 19:43.

Rating: B. These guys beat the heck out of each other and the story made sense with Elgin using raw power while Eddie stuck and moved by getting in everything he could where he could. They didn’t waste time here and just went at it full blast for the twenty minutes and the match was very entertaining as result. As usual, the talent is strong around here and if they drop the nonsense and have good matches, it’s very entertaining stuff.

Video on the Tag Team Title match with Rich Swann and Willie Mack earning the title shot, leaving the North to try and play mind games to split them up.

Elgin vs. Edwards again on Sunday, this time with Edwards’ Call Your Shot trophy on the line. Oh yeah he has that.

Desi Hit Squad vs. Fallah Bahh/TJP/Daga

Raj kicks away at Daga to start so Daga runs the ropes and hurricanranas him to the floor. Raju comes in and gets dropkicked down for one so it’s off to Bahh and TJP for a double back elbow. TJP nips up and Bahh….well he tried at least. They run the ropes over Raju and Bahh gets rather winded, just in case you didn’t get the joke the first time around. A DDT plants Daga and it’s Shera coming in to powerbomb Raju onto Daga for two.

It’s already back to Raj for a dropkick to the head and a backsplash for two of his own. TJP comes back in for a springboard dropkick as everything breaks down. Daga’s springboard wristdrag/headscissors combination puts Shera and Singh on the floor, setting up the big dive. Bahh’s suicide dive takes them down again but Shera hits his Sky High for the pin on TJP at 7:59.

Rating: C+. The Squad did look better here but there’s no way around how uninteresting they are. Their entire characters are “we’re from India and managed by a legend” and I need a lot more than that to care about someone. The match was pretty good, but give me something else to sink my teeth into with them.

Willie Mack comes in to see Rich Swann and says he might not be healthy for the Tag Team Title match. He doesn’t want to hold Swann back from realizing his full potential but Swann wants to win the titles.

OVE is ready to take over wrestling, starting with Mad Man Fulton beating Ken Shamrock on Sunday and Sami Callihan getting rid of Tessa Blanchard once and for all.

Johnny Swinger spikes Joey Ryan’s drink when Tommy Dreamer comes in and tells him to grow up. If Swinger didn’t do anything to Ryan’s drink, he can drink it himself. I’m sure hilarity will ensue.

Video on the X-Division Title match with Ace Austin hitting on Trey’s mom in a rather creepy way.

Video on Sami Callihan vs. Tessa Blanchard with Sami finally getting the World Title and Tessa trying to make history. This includes interviews from Tessa’s family, who has worked very hard to get here. Sami on the other hand only cared about wrestling and has done everything to get here. He’ll do anything to keep the title too. Sami doesn’t like it, but sometimes dreams don’t come true and Tessa will learn that on Sunday. Very good video, though it did a little too good of a job at making me like Sami, which wasn’t exactly the point.

James Mitchell locks Susie in a locker room so she can’t interfere in Havok’s match.

Havok vs. Rosemary

Rosemary screams and slugs away to start so Havok shoves her down. That just makes Rosemary jump on her back for more right hands before avoiding a charge to low bridge Havok to the floor. Michell’s distraction fails as Havok runs him over by mistake, only to catch Rosemary with a backbreaker inside. Cue Susie, who seems messed up by all of the noise. She winds up on commentary as Havok beats up Rosemary in the corner. A missed splash lets Rosemary get in a few shots but Mitchell gets Susie away from commentary. Havok hits the Tombstone for the pin at 5:11 as Mitchell covers Susie’s eyes.

Rating: D+. This was all angle stuff and that’s fine, though this story feels like it has been going on for years now. Mitchell trying to keep Su Yung from returning is certainly a twist, but I’m almost worried about how long they’re going to drag this whole thing out. It’s not bad and does keep things somewhat interesting, but I’m not sure how much of a goal they have with the thing.

ODB/Tenille Dashwood/Jordynne Grace vs. Kiera Hogan/Madison Rayne/Taya Valkyrie

Dashwood and Rayne start things off as Callis goes into Madison’s insane resume (73 time Knockouts Champion and an honorary Hart). Tenille throws her outside and it’s Grace coming in for two off an Implant Buster. Hogan gets in a cheap shot from the apron though and Taya comes in for an elbow to the face.

A kick to Grace’s back gets two so ODB….rubs her chest. Grace runs Hogna over and dives over for the tag to ODB for a lot more chest based offense. A double Bronco Buster hits Taya and Madison and there’s a TKO to Taya as well. Grace adds a Vader Bomb but since she isn’t legal, ODB throws her outside and gets the pin at 5:16.

Rating: D+. Not much here as they were rushed and could have done this as a tag match without Dashwood and Hogan involved. ODB still feels really, really tacked on to the Knockouts Title match, meaning there is a good chance that Taya escapes before dropping the title to Grace later on.

Grace isn’t happy.

Moose interrupts Rob Van Dam and Katie Forbes to make sure he can trust Rob tonight. They leave and Swinger is passed out on a couch. Joey Ryan and Petey Williams come in to draw something on him.

Hard To Kill rundown.

Moose/Rob Van Dam vs. Brian Cage/Rhino

Katie is here with Van Dam and Moose. Van Dam starts with Cage but decides that Moose can do it instead. Cage hits a superkick and spinebuster so it’s off to Rhino for a WOO. Rhino shouts to the crowd a lot and hammers away in the corner as the pace slows a good bit. A clothesline puts Moose on the floor and we take a break.

Back with Moose being sent onto the ramp but Katie breaks up the Gore so the villains can take over. Moose bites Rhino’s head and hammers away but can’t get a suplex. Rhino can hit a suplex of his own though and it’s Cage coming in for the staredown with Van Dam. A German suplex puts Van Dam down but Moose runs Cage over. Everything breaks down and Van Dam kicks Cage in the face for two.

These fans aren’t good enough to see Rolling Thunder so Van Dam is sent outside, leaving Moose to slug it out with Rhino. Cage takes Rhino’s place and hits a tornado DDT to put Moose down. Van Dam kicks Cage in the face but walks into the Gore. A missed charge puts Rhino down as well but Moose misses his own Five Star. The Gore and a discus lariat are enough to finish Moose at 12:23.

Rating: C+. They didn’t waste time here and just had four people hit each other for a somewhat lengthy match. Moose taking the pin makes more sense here and they did a nice job of setting up both matches at once. That’s something that will always work as you get to build two matches while also keeping things fresh. Nicely done here in a bit of a surprisingly good match.

Long video on Hard To Kill wraps us up.

Overall Rating: B-. This was a rather good go home show as they covered everything on Sunday, added another match, and made me want to see the pay per view more than I did coming in. Some of the stuff felt like it could have been cut (that six man and Havok vs. Rosemary could have been on any other show) but overall, it was more good than bad and the opener was rather entertaining. Nice job here, but make sure the pay per view is even better.

Results

Michael Elgin b. Eddie Edwards – Elgin Bomb

Desi Hit Squad b. Fallah Bahh/TJP/Daga – Sky High to TJP

Havok b. Rosemary – Tombstone

ODB/Tenille Dashwood/Jordynne Grace b. Kiera Hogan/Madison Rayne/Taya Valkyrie – Vader Bomb to Rayne

Brian Cage/Rhino b. Moose/Rob Van Dam – Discus lariat to Moose

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

It’s still kind of strange that these shows happen so infrequently. If there is one thing that WWE is not known for, it’s taking their time and letting a show be built up over time. That’s what they’ve done with the NXT UK Takeovers though and given how the main event of the most recent one went, we might be in for a special treat here. I’m looking forward to the show so let’s get to it.

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

We’ll start with what should be a heck of a match here as these two are capable of tearing the house down. That being said, Bate has built up his reputation so well that it might be difficult for him to pull it off again. Devlin should be more than up to the challenge though and the last big match I saw him again (against Walter at an OTT show) was outstanding. Hopefully they can live up to the considerable hype here.

I’ll take Devlin to win as Bate is as over as you can get in NXT UK without winning the United Kingdom Title (again). It’s not like he’s going to lose anything by being pinned so let Devlin overcome the odds and get the big win that he needs to move himself up the ladder. The promotion needs some fresh names in the main event and Devlin has been ready to move there for what seems like ever now.

Women’s Title: Kay Lee Ray(c) vs. Toni Storm vs. Piper Niven

This is one of the places where NXT (both American and UK) shine. There wasn’t much of a reason to believe that Storm was going to get the title back here as she’s already had it once and the bigger story seems to be between her and Niven rather than her and Ray. Then we had this week’s NXT, where Storm vs. Rhea Ripley was set up and Storm mentioned a title vs. title match. That is something that could happen and gives you a reason to believe something might go down here. It’s such a nice addition and helps the match out a lot.

That being said, I’ll still take Ray to retain here. Niven winning the title by defeating Ray one on one makes more sense and you can build that up in a few weeks. Have Niven ready to win the title and then Ray steals it (yeah it’s cliched but it makes sense here) to set up their singles match later where the title change can take place. It’s been a well set up feud though and that’s always a plus.

Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven

This one kind of came out of nowhere and that’s ok for what they’re doing. Dennis is back after a long absence and he is mysterious enough that he doesn’t have to say much to get his point across. Going after Seven is an easy way to get back into things as he’s over enough to be a big deal and can pull off the surprise win at times. I’m not sure he will here, but Seven is dangerous enough to make you believe something could happen.

I’ll go with Dennis though, as there isn’t much of a reason for Seven to win. Dennis is someone who seems like he would be an interesting player so he needs a win to get him back in the running. Much like Bate, Seven doesn’t need to win a match due to how over he already is, so give Dennis the win and see what you have with him. Seven can make him look good too so it should be a nice result all around.

Tag Team Titles: Gallus(c) vs. Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews vs. Imperium

It’s a ladder match because….well you have to have an annual ladder match quota in modern wrestling. Gallus haven’t been the most interesting champions and I had almost forgotten that they had the titles when they came out this week on NXT. It also doesn’t help that they lost to the Undisputed Era in the first round of the Dusty Classic as that wasn’t their best sign for the future. That being said, who is the most likely pick for the titles?

Of course it’s Imperium, as the Veterans have taken a bit of a step back and Webster/Andrews seemed to win the titles because the title match was taking place in Wales. Imperium seems to be the big thing in NXT UK at the moment and giving them the Tag Team Titles to go with the United Kingdom Title makes the most sense. Just do what you should do here and don’t try to overthink things, as this is the most logical choice they have.

United Kingdom Title: Walter(c) vs. Joe Coffey

This is an idea that anyone can get, even if they’re not a wrestling fan: both of them run their own faction and they’re both big and strong. Let them hit each other really, really hard until the other one can’t get up, likely after interference from their cohorts, and see who winds up winning the thing. That’s as good of an idea as you can have here and it should be fun.

However, it’s not like there is any serious doubt here as Walter should win and win handily. It’s going to take something special to get the title off of him and while Coffey will give him one heck of a fight, I don’t think he’s going to be able to make it work. This should be very entertaining and they’ll have one of the best hoss fights in a long time, but Walter leaves as champion to give Imperium all of the belts.

Overall Thoughts

If there is one thing that NXT UK knows how to do, it is get something out of a card that does not seem the greatest on paper. This seems like a show that should have some rather obvious results but that doesn’t mean the show will be boring. The crowd response and the energy from everyone involved should make things work and we could be in for a heck of an afternoon.

 

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

Smackdown
Date: August 11, 2005
Location: Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

We’re less than two weeks away from Summerslam and the card seems to be set on both sides. This time around we need to build more towards the lower half of the card as Randy Orton vs. Undertaker and the World Title match are mostly set. I’m not sure what that is going to mean for tonight though so let’s get to it.

Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.

Opening sequence.

Booker T. vs. Joey Mercury

Fallout from last week where Mercury stole a pin on Booker in a tag match. Sharmell is here with Booker while Melina, Nitro and Jillian Hall are here with Mercury. An early Jillian distraction lets Nitro get in a cheap shot so that’s an early double ejection of both Nitro and Hall. Booker hammers away to start and hits an elbow and kick to the jaw.

Mercury is back with a knee to the ribs and a clothesline to set up the chinlock. That’s broken up in a hurry as Booker strikes away even more, setting up a side slam for two. The flapjack into the Spinarooni into the Book End looks to finish but we need a catfight on the floor. Mercury’s rollup gets two so it’s the ax kick to give Booker the pin.

Rating: D+. Just a match here with Booker not exactly breaking a sweat against Mercury. That being said, it’s not like Mercury is supposed to be much on his own, hence the whole team aspect. Booker is a much bigger star and we might see a Tag Team Title match at some point, assuming Booker and Benoit are still partners.

It’s time for the Peep Show with a rather awesome set, including an inflatable flame chair. Christian wastes no time in bringing out Batista as this week’s guest and the fans are rather pleased. Christian can’t believe that he, the biggest Draft pick, isn’t on Summerslam. Batista certainly is though and we hear about the match with JBL.

That’s not cool with Christian, so he’s going to be beating Batista tonight. Batista: “Are you talking to me?” Christian freaks out so Batista takes the mic and says Christian needs an attitude adjustment. The fans seem interested though and the match is made. Better than more of Batista trying to make me interested in another match against JBL.

Heidenreich/Animal vs. Scotty Sabre/Jason Static

Non-title. Heidenreich and Animal jump them before the bell and the beatdown is on in a hurry. A Boss Man Slam hits Sabre so it’s off to Static, who gets his head knocked off by Animal’s clothesline. The powerslam into the Doomsday Device finishes in a hurry.

The Mysterios arrived earlier.

We recap last week’s announcement of Eddie Guerrero wanting custody of Rey Mysterio’s son Dominic.

Randy Orton is returning to the ring tonight and demands to know his opponent. Theodore Long says Orton can find out in the ring. All Orton can know is that it’s a legendary opponent of the Undertaker.

Randy Orton vs. ???

The opponent is…..Kamala, with Kim Chee. Was Damien Demento not available? Kamala slaps his stomach a lot and chops away, followed by more belly slapping. Orton gets in some right hands and a dropkick puts Kamala down. Kim Chee gets on the apron as Orton cranks on the neck. A knee drop gets two and Orton brings Kim Chee inside for an RKO. That fires Kamala up so Orton pokes him in the eye and hits the RKO…as the lights go out. We’ll say that’s the no contest.

Rating: D. Yeah what else were you expecting here? Kamala was 55 at this point and wasn’t exactly someone you expected to win a big match at this best. It was fine as a way to get to the post match stuff and it worked out just fine. The match itself was nothing of course and the setup with Undertaker was all that mattered.

Post match the blue lights come on and the ring fills with smoke. Nothing is said, but it’s a cool visual.

A woman from child protective services is here to observe Eddie and Dominic to decide what is best for tonight. Eddie says he’ll she her what is going on.

Here are Eddie and the social worker, who looks rather intimidated to be in a big arena. After getting the social worker’s name wrong, Eddie talks about wanting to bring Dominic into a home full of….compassion and…..honesty and truth, all of which aren’t the easiest things for him to say. The Mysterios come out and Eddie drops to his knees as Dominic looks confused (as usual).

Eddie blames the Mysterios as the social worker takes notes. With Dominic not coming to him, Eddie gets in Rey’s face and says no one beats him. Rey doesn’t quite agree but Dominic hasn’t spoken a word since Eddie’s story last week. Eddie has beaten everything, including addiction, but he can’t beat Rey. Even when Eddie gets inducted into the Hall of Fame, his plaque will say he couldn’t beat Rey Mysterio.

So the solution is clear: they need to have a match for the custody of Dominic at Summerslam. Eddie doesn’t think so, but Rey calling him a chicken****. Eddie finally agrees and says Dominic comes home with him tonight. Social worker: “Are you kidding me? You people are a bunch of crazies!” Until Summerslam, Dominic is going into foster care. Rey tells him it’s going to be ok and Eddie promises Dominic that the nightmare ends at Summerslam. This went over twenty minutes but the social’s worker’s response was funny and it gave us one of the most infamous match stipulations ever so I can live with it.

Mexicools vs. William Regal/Scotty 2 Hotty

Earlier today, Regal was disturbed by the idea of Scotty’s Worm. Scotty and Crazy start things off with Scotty running him over. A cheap shot from the floor lets Juvy (not in the match) get in some cheap shots though and it’s Crazy hitting a running dropkick. Psicosis comes in with a legdrop for a delayed cover, though he already made a tag for a rather confusing choice of actions. Scotty fights up but Regal drops to the floor instead of accepting a tag, meaning it’s handicap time. Crazy knocks Scotty down and Psicosis’ guillotine legdrop is good for the pin.

Rating: D. Another match designed to be about the angle instead of the match and….do they think I’m going to be interested in Regal turning on Scotty in a match with the Mexicools? I know you have to have some lower level stories but coming up with some more interesting people shouldn’t be that difficult.

Rey and his wife Angie are in tears.

Jillian Hall challenges Booker and Sharmell to a mixed tag against Mercury and Melina. And don’t look at her blemish.

Here’s John Cena’s new music video.

Chris Benoit vs. Simon Dean

Dean calls Benoit a flabby wolverine and the beating is on in a hurry. A few forearms to the back and a clothesline get Dean out of trouble. The front facelock goes on with Dean firing off some knees to the face so Benoit rolls the German suplexes. Three in a row set up the Crossface for the fast tap. Just a step above a squash.

Christian vs. Batista

Non-title. The trash talk is on in a hurry so Batista tells him to bring it on. Christian tries to shove him away from a lockup and is launched into the ropes for his efforts. Some rams into the corner have Christian’s face in some pain and his sunset flip attempt just annoys Batista. A backdrop puts Christian on the floor and a right hand drops him again. Back in and Batista gets sent shoulder first into the post, meaning it’s time for the armbar. Batista powers out of that as well and hits a super backdrop, setting up the shoulders in the corner. There’s the spinebuster but JBL comes in for the DQ.

Rating: C-. This was too short to mean anything but there could have been a nice match in there if they had some more time. What we got was watchable enough though as Batista is getting into the groove of being the top dog. It’s very good that he’s gotten away from HHH for a change though as that was only going to let him get so far. Christian continues to look like a star in the making and at least he didn’t get pinned when he didn’t have to.

Post match Christian offers a distraction and JBL gets in a chair shot to the head. A bunch of chair shots to the back keep Batista down to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. As was mentioned more than once, this wasn’t a show built around adding anything major to Summerslam. The show is set and all we needed was some finalizing of details (you knew Eddie vs. Rey was coming and this just made it official). The build was mostly good, though that Eddie vs. Rey promo could have been cut down by a good bit. The problem is that while it did some good things, it wasn’t in the most interesting way and that brought it down a lot. Not a very good show, but at least it got some things done in a bit of a different way.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

205 Live
Date: January 3, 2020
Location: FedEx Forum, Memphis, Tennessee
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Aiden English

It’s back to this show as we couldn’t just continue with the Best Of format that worked so well to end the show. Angel Garza is the new Cruiserweight Champion and needs something to do around here, which we might start setting up tonight. Or more random matches like back when the show first started. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Garza defeating Lio Rush to win the title in December.

Opening sequence.

The announcers welcome us to the show and Aiden wants to have more fun this year.

Ariya Daivari vs. Danny Burch

During his entrance, Daivari talks about needing to protect the division because he’s a 205 Live original, because we’re still on that for some reason. Daivari runs him over to start and lays on the top as we go to the low camera angle to try and hide the empty seats. Burch works on the arm and takes it to the mat with a headlock.

After a few more headlocks, Burch stomps away in the corner but gets pulled off the middle rope with Burch having to roll outside. Back in and Daivari hits a running knee to the face to set up the chinlock. A reverse DDT gives Daivari two as we continue the match in search of a crowd reaction. Daivari goes to the middle rope, mocks the Jerry Lawler strap drop (ok that was good), and dives into a raised boot.

Burch starts his comeback with uppercuts and the middle rope dropkick, followed by the headbutt for two. The Crossface is broken up in a hurry and Daivari gets his own two off an Iconoclasm. Burch is right back with the Crossface but a masked man, who is pretty clearly Brian Kendrick, jumps the barricade as Daivari taps. The distracted Burch lets go and it’s the hammerlock lariat to finish Burch at 11:29.

Rating: D. It wasn’t even that bad of a match but anything involving Daivari and Kendrick just shows you how dull and stale this show is. Kendrick can do some good things but we’ve seen him so many times now that it doesn’t mean anything. Daivari is far from the worst performer but he’s just so dry and uninteresting with the most generic rich villain character that I groan every time I see him. Terribly uninteresting match, as tends to be the case around here far too often.

Post match Kendrick reintroduces himself to the crowd and talks about starting the cruiserweight division. He wants someone to do something and hits Sliced Bread #2 on Burch. Kendrick smiles at Daivari and DEAR GOODNESS NOT AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN THESE TWO! Come on already people.

Sunil Singh is now a father. That’s rather nice.

We hear about some of the great things to happen to the Singh Brothers in 2019 and Aiden’s resolution of having more fun is ruined.

Singh Brothers vs. Corey Storm/Anthony Wayne

Storm is from OVW for Tom is now a Singhs fan. Wayne gets kneed down to start and it’s a double elbow to the face to make it worse. Storm (Casey according to Tom) comes in and gets stomped down in the corner until Samir is accidentally whipped into the buckle. It’s back to Wayne who looks a bit confused, only to have Sunil kick him in the face. The Bollywood Blast finishes at 2:21.

Tony Nese vs. Angel Garza

Non-title. Garza bails to the floor to start and says it’s his time with the amount of empty seats depressing me even more. They do it again with Garza getting some kisses on the cheek before heading inside to offer a handshake. Nese shoves him away and waistlocks him down as they finally do something.

That means we get some bragging about the abs as commentary has to acknowledge the complete silence from the fans. They fight over a test of strength for a bit until Garza gets in a springboard wristdrag. Garza avoids a whip into the ropes and…..Nese won’t let him TAKE OFF HIS PANTS! They head outside with Nese being sent into the steps so Garza can VIVA MEXICO. Fans: “THIS IS AWFUL!”

Back in and Garza gets two off a kick to the chest, followed by a hanging reverse DDT for the same. Nese finally crotches him on top and we hit the bodyscissors because the fans need a reason to lose even more energy. Garza gets back up and they trade kicks to the face for a double knockdown. The comeback is on with some clotheslines and there’s a wristdrag into the corner. Now GARZA CAN TAKE OFF HIS PANTS and a superkick gets two.

Nese palm strikes him down and snaps off a hurricanrana. They botch….something that looked like a sunset flip and Nese has to fall on top for two. Nese sends him outside again and Garza hits a middle rope moonsault but the Wing Clipper is countered into a suplex. Nese’s Boston crab sends Garza crawling to the rope and they’re back up. Finally willing to put the match out of its misery, Garza blocks the Lionsault and hits the Wing Clipper for the pin at 13:44.

Rating: D-. This is a complicated one because there are two factors at play here. First of all, the match wasn’t very good because they didn’t have a lot of chemistry together and Garza’s charisma was turned off for some reason. That being said, these two were left out there to die in front of a crowd that wouldn’t have reacted had Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan gone out there and had a match. The crowd shook them as they’re capable of having a perfectly good match but we got this disaster instead. A lot of it was their fault but they were in a no win situation.

Overall Rating: F. I know I’ve said this several times before but if this didn’t kill off 205 Live, nothing is going to. Look at this show and tell me what in the world was good about the whole thing. The crowd just was not interested and most of them had left by the time the show was over. What are the wrestlers supposed to do? They’re put in a situation where they can’t do anything about it and the company isn’t willing to change a thing about the show. Awful show in no way is it entirely on the wrestlers.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

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

This is the first step to things falling downhill, as we’re a few months away from the Brand Split and things falling through the floor in quality. The main event tonight aside from the Rumble is Jericho defending his newly won Undisputed Title (which he won by beating the Rock and Steve Austin IN THE SAME NIGHT in case you didn’t know that) against Rock. HHH is back in the ring tonight also (he may have fought on Smackdown before this but I don’t think he did) so let’s get to it.

The opening video has clips of various Rumble wins in a photo album kind of theme. The theme for this year’s show is 30 Men, 1 Winner. I’ve heard worse ideas which we’ll get too very soon.

Tag Titles: Spike Dudley/Tazz vs. Dudley Boys

I LOVE Stacy as the Duchess of Dudleyville. I never remember her looking better. Anyway, Spike and Tazz are defending here in a reign that I don’t think anyone ever remembers. The Dudleys beat up Spike recently so he’s in a neck brace. The Dudleys attack to start and hit the belly to back neckbreaker on Tazz on the floor. It’s Bubba vs. Spike to start things off in a handicap match for all intents and purposes. Bubba rips the neck brace off and drops a big elbow.

Bubba shouts at Spike to get up as we get a very nice shot of Stacy. Tazz is back on the apron as D-Von hits a Hennig necksnap of all things. Bubba loads up a second brainbuster on Spike but gets countered into a Dudley Dog for no cover. The tag to Tazz is missed so Spike has to take a double flapjack instead. Spike avoids a headbutt from D-Von and makes the Dudleys clothesline each other. Hot tag brings in Tazz to clean house with suplexes. A big boot to Bubba’s head sets up a top rope cross body by Spike for two. Stacy interferes and gets put in the Tazmission. D-Von gets caught in the same hold and the champions retain.

Rating: D+. I have no idea what the point of this being on PPV was as it barely broke five minutes. Nothing with Stacy in the Dudley attire can be bad, but this came about as close as you can get. Actually scratch that as it wasn’t so much bad but just short. I have no idea why this wasn’t on Raw or something like that. Tazz would be retired very soon after this due to a horrible neck.

We immediately go to a recap of Regal vs. Edge which is based on Regal using brass knuckles over and over again. Edge got fed up with it and beat up a lot of people with a chair.

Edge has a chair with him tonight to counter the knuckles. Apparently he broke Regal’s nose recently.

Intercontinental Title: Edge vs. William Regal

Edge is defending. The referee checks Regal over and over again for knuckles and finds them in his trunks. Well you can’t say he didn’t do his job. The referee stupidly puts them on the ring post instead of like, giving them to someone to take to the back or something. Edge pounds away to start and chokes with his boot in the corner. He goes after Regal’s bad nose as Lawler claims conspiracy.

Regal comes back with a clothesline but Edge kicks him in the back to put both guys down. Being the British dude that he is, Regal suplexes Edge down for two. Make that four. Uh six. Yet somehow that isn’t three. Off to an arm trap chinlock followed by a hard forearm to put the champion down again. A double arm powerbomb hits Edge for two and they head to the apron. Edge busts out a DDT onto said apron, further injuring Regal’s nose.

Back in and they ram heads to put both guys down as the match continues to drag at a slow pace. Edge wins a slugout and takes Regal down with a spinwheel kick and a suplex for two. Regal suplexes him down as well, only for Edge to hit a big old clothesline for two more. The Regal Stretch goes on out of nowhere but Edge reverses into a terrible version of his own to no avail. A top rope spinwheel kick puts Regal down but he finds another set of brass knuckles. Instead of swinging them though, he pulls the referee in the way of Edge’s spear. Regal clocks Edge and wins the title.

Rating: D+. This didn’t click at all. Regal didn’t seem interested in selling at all and Edge wasn’t ready to carry a match by himself yet. He was getting to the point where he could but it would take a summer of feuding with Eddie to get him up to that point. Regal wouldn’t really do anything with the belt other than lose it to RVD. Nothing to see here.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Jazz

Jacqueline is referee for absolutely no apparent reason and Trish is defending. Jazz is basically being a bully and has injured Trish’s hand coming into this. Jazz jumps Trish to start but misses a splash, giving Trish two off a rollup. A modified hot shot slows the champ down again and a legdrop gets two. Jazz works on the bad hand for a bit but Jackie pulls them out of the ropes. Jackie of course makes it all about herself and won’t count a cover on Trish. Stratusfaction hits out of nowhere for two and Jazz is up a few seconds later, basically no selling it. Trish hits a bad looking running bulldog to retain.

Rating: D. It was short, it was sloppy, the ending was stupid and Jackie was in it. What other kind of grade do you expect here? Stratus was starting to get better but it would take another year and Lita before she got amazing. Jazz was a pretty stupid pick to bring over to WWE as no one remembered her and she didn’t have the looks to back up any lack of hype. Bad match here.

Flair says he’ll win.

We recap Vince vs. Flair. Flair debuted after Survivor Series as the new co-owner of the company and has driven Vince crazy since. This led up to a street fight tonight between the two of them tonight which isn’t as big a deal as they were shooting for I don’t think. The highlight of it was Vince dressing up as Flair and saying destroying lives turned him on.

Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon

Remember this is a street fight. Vince shoves him down to start and struts, so Flair punches him down and struts as well. Flair wins a chop battle in the corner (duh) so Vince goes to the eyes to escape. There’s the Flair Flop followed by a Flair Flip in the corner as Vince is in full control. We head to the floor and get our first weapon shot, with Vince pounding on Ric with a metal Keep Off sign.

There’s a trashcan shot to the head and Flair is busted open. How thin must the skin on his forehead be? Anyway, Vince steals a camera from someone to take a picture of Flair’s cut before we head back inside. Since he’s a jerk, Vince starts working over the knee in (less skilled) Flair fashion. The leg is wrapped around the post and Vince puts on a Figure Four that Dusty Rhodes would be jealous of.

Flair turns the hold over and Vince IMMEDIATELY lets go of the hold. So not only is he better at it than some wrestlers, he’s also smart. Never let it be said that Vince doesn’t know what he’s doing. Vince bails to the floor and grabs a lead pipe that he used to bust Flair open in the build up to the match. Flair catches him coming in with a low blow and pounds away on the floor.

Vince takes a monitor shot to the head and in a weird spot, we see a replay on the monitor on the table as the live match goes on. Vince is busted open now and we head back inside. Scratch that as we go back outside immediately where Flair’s family takes pictures of Vince’s cut. Set it up earlier, pay it off later. Good move. Back in and Flair kicks him low again just because he can, cracks him in the head with the pipe and ends it with the Figure Four.

Rating: C+. At the end of the day, this match makes as much sense as almost anything you’ll see. Vince controlled at the beginning, but at the end of the day he’s a boss and Flair is a veteran wrestler and athlete. It makes sense for him to be able to shrug that off and destroy Vince with relative ease once he got the upper hand. On top of that we got some good blood and Vince getting hit in the balls so how can this not be entertaining?

Stephanie talks trash about everyone else in the Rumble and runs down Debra as well. Austin walks up and WHAT’s her away. Cole gets a bit of it too. This is when the bit was brand new and still kind of funny, as opposed to now when it ruins almost every serious promo.

No highlight package for the world title match? For those of you not around in 2002 (LUCKY!), Jericho won the title in December, beating Rock along the way. It makes sense for Rock to get the first shot, especially since they feuded over the end of the year.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. Chris Jericho

Jericho still has both titles because HHH wasn’t there to win the first Undisputed Title and get the new belt. Rock decks him immediately and the champ heads to the floor, only to run back in and get punched some more. Jericho misses a charge and hits the post but pulls off a hot shot out of nowhere to give himself a breather. They trade strikes in the corner before Jericho hits a spinwheel kick to Rocky’s arms for two.

A suplex gets two for Jericho and for some reason Rock’s left thumb is sticking out. The champ unhooks a buckle but can’t get the Walls. A missile dropkick gets two on Rock and it’s off to the chinlock. That goes on for a good while so Chris goes up again, only to get crotched and superplexed. A belly to belly suplex gets two for Rock but Jericho clotheslines him down and hits the Lionsault. Due to high reasons of arrogance, Jericho waits forever to cover and fights with the referee after getting two.

Another dropkick attempt by Jericho is caught in a Sharpshooter, but here’s Lance Storm for a distraction while Jericho taps. Christian comes in as well and is promptly punched out by Rock. Jericho hits a Rock Bottom on Rock for two and the frustration begins. The champ loads up a People’s Elbow but Rock nips up and sends Jericho out to the floor.

Both guys are rammed into both announce tables before Jericho’s Rock Bottom attempt is countered into an AWESOME looking Rock Bottom by Rock from one table through the other. That only gets two back inside before Jericho counters another Rock Bottom into the Liontamer (yes I said Liontamer instead of the Walls). Ok now it’s the Walls, which allows Rock to make the rope.

The jumping clothesline takes the referee down by mistake, allowing Jericho to blast Rock with the belt. Another referee slides in and gets two off that and Rock DDTs Jericho down. Rock covers….and Nick Patrick won’t count. There’s a Rock Bottom for his efforts and a People’s Elbow for Jericho but there’s no referee. Rock checks on Hebner, allowing Jericho to hit him low, send him into the Chekov’s Gun in the shape of an exposed turnbuckle. All that plus a rollup with his feet on the ropes is enough for Jericho to retain the title.

Rating: B. This took awhile to get going but once things picked up it turned into what you would expect from Rock vs. Jericho in a nearly 20 minute match. The overbooking worked here as Jericho needed something to boost him up to Rock’s level, which is what you’re supposed to do as a heel. Good stuff here and a very fine title match.

Shawn Michaels, in a really stupid looking Texas flag shirt, is at WWF New York. He picks Taker or Austin to win the Rumble.

Video on the Rumble. The main picks to win are Taker, HHH, Angle and Austin.

Royal Rumble

Rikishi and Goldust are #1 and #2 respectively and we’ve got two minute intervals. Goldie walks around Rikishi to start and gets punched in the face for his efforts. Rikishi knocks him around for a bit but can’t quite drop the big load on Goldie’s chest. A backdrop puts Goldust on the apron and Boss Man is #3, making it 2-1 against Rikishi. Goldust gets punched in the face but Boss Man pounds Rikishi into the corner. The heels explode after a long one minute partnership.

Bradshaw is #4 and hopefully he can pick things up a bit. He beats up everyone as Rikishi loads up the Stinkface on Boss Man. A superkick and a clothesline put Boss Man out and there’s a Samoan Drop to Bradshaw. Goldie pounds away on Bradshaw in the corner and gets powerbombed for his efforts. Lance Storm is #5 and absolutely nothing of note happens until Al Snow (on Tough Enough at this point) is #6. Bradshaw kills Storm with the Clothesline as the fans want Head.

Billy of Billy and Chuck is #7 and we’re still waiting on something to happen. The fans are still into this at least so it’s not a failure at this point. Storm and Snow fight to the apron with Snow superkicking Lance to an elimination. Billy dumps Bradshaw and Undertaker is finally #8 to pick things up a bit. A chokeslam kills Billy (the third in the series, not starring Uma Thurman) and another one puts out Goldust. Snow and Rikishi are dumped out and Billy follows them, leaving Undertaker alone to a big reaction. He’s evil here in case you’re not up on Taker history.

Matt Hardy is #9, which is interesting as Taker injured both Hardys and Lita. The redhead gets in along with Matt and helps him take the big man down via a low blow. Matt hits a Twist of Fate and stomps away but can’t get Taker out. Naturally Jeff Hardy is #10 because that’s how the TOTALLY RANDOM draw works in the Rumble.

Taker slugs down one of the best tag teams ever in just a few seconds, only to get caught in the Twist/Swanton combo. Again, why would you use moves that keep a giant on the mat? Not that it matters as Poetry in Motion is caught and Jeff is easily thrown out. The Last Ride kills Matt and he’s gone too, leaving Taker alone again. The clock during that segment was REALLY long too as they were roughly three minutes each to get the whole segment in.

Maven from Tough Enough is #11 but Lita is on the apron. Taker PUNCHES her down, drawing the Hardys back in. Taker dumps both of them again, but Maven dropkicks Undertaker in the back and eliminates him in arguably the biggest surprise elimination ever in the Rumble. The look on the Dead Man’s face is hilarious as he has absolutely no emotion at all. He calmly turns around, gets back in the ring, and mauls Maven, sending him through the ropes to the floor. A HUGE chair shot cracks Maven’s head and the beating continues until Scotty 2 Hotty is #12.

Taker punches Scotty down and throws Maven back in to eliminate him, which under old Rumble rules would count. The beating goes into the crowd as there’s nothing in the ring at the moment. Christian is #13 but has no one to fight because Scotty is still down. Instead we go to the back where Maven is rammed face first into a popcorn machine. Taker eats a handful of popcorn and finally leaves Maven alone.

Scotty gets in and walks into a DDT as DDP is #14. Nothing of note continues to happen until Scotty superkicks Page through the ropes to the floor and hits the Worm on Christian. Page sneaks back in and throws Scotty out as Chuck is #15. They all beat on each other for a bit with Christian and Chuck teaming up for a bit. Godfather, now the owner of an escort service in an attempt to salvage the gimmick, is #16 and brings out 12 good looking women with him. Page is eliminated off camera during this.

With Godfather in the ring after about 15 seconds due to dancing, Albert is #17. He’s the Hip Hop Hippo at this point and lasts about 45 seconds before being tossed by the villains. Godfather is dumped soon thereafter, and here’s Saturn at #18. Chuck and Perry slug it out as the fans cheer for the Ho’s leaving. Nothing happens again, until Austin is #19. Chuck is the first victim, getting stomped down in the corner. There goes Christian, Saturn gets a Stunner, Chuck is eliminated, Saturn is dumped, Christian gets thrown back in, Stunned and thrown out again, Chuck gets the same as Christian, and Austin takes a breather.

Val Venis is #20 (and also returning) and things go about as you would expect, although Val does get in some offense and survives until Test is #21. A double teaming lasts for a bit until Austin remembers who he’s fighting and dumps both guys in a few seconds. Austin does his watch bit when no one is in the ring with him. Notice the difference between the big stars and the regular guys: the big ones are CONSTANTLY trying to keep the audience entertained instead of letting them die.

Speaking of entertaining the crowd, HHH is #22. The entrance takes about a minute and a half, they stare at each other for about twenty more seconds, and the slugout only lasts for a few seconds until Hurricane is #23. Luckily for him, the legends knock each other down so Hurricane can tries a double chokeslam. The look on Austin’s face is hilarious as the two of them dump Hurricane with ease.

Austin and HHH chop each other in the corner until Faarooqq is #24 and lasts about that many seconds. Mr. Perfect makes a surprise return at #25 to a big surprise reaction from the audience. He looks a bit, shall we say, tipsy here. Perfect chills on the floor a bit as JR makes a mistake, saying Perfect debuted at the Rumble in 1993. In reality he was #4 in 1989. Austin and HHH double team Perfect to no avail so here’s Angle at #26, drawing the rare double chant of YOU SUCK WHAT.

HHH and Angle pair off as do the other two guys and the match slows down a bit. Kurt starts suplexing people but can’t dump HHH because Austin makes the save due to reasons of a big ego. Big Show is #27 in his one piece women’s swimsuit. Angle gets chokeslammed so Austin and HHH double team the big man to limited avail. HHH saves Angle, presumably because he wants Kurt’s help to get Show out. Makes sense I guess.

Show dominates everyone until Kane is #28. HHH gets chokeslammed so we can have our battle of the giants. Jerry: “They’re not getting any smaller are they JR?” Uh yeah Jerry, actually they are. They do the double chokeslam spot but Kane kicks Show low and picks him up, slamming him to the floor. AWESOME display of strength there, but Angle immediately dumps Kane to get us back down to four.

Van Dam is #29 and hits a Five Star on Angle who is down from something we didn’t see. Everyone but HHH gets kicked down so he hits a Pedigree to put Van Dam down. Booker T is #30, giving us a final group of Booker, RVD, Angle, Perfect, HHH and Austin. Booker throws out RVD without having to do anything else thanks to the Pedigree. We get a Spinarooni, followed by a Stunner and elimination to get us down to Austin, Angle, HHH and Perfect.

Austin hits a slingshot into the post on HHH who walks into an Angle Slam. Angle rolls some Germans on Austin and the C/Kurts try to dump Austin. Austin hits some HARD right hands to break that up but as he tries to dump Perfect, Angle runs up and dumps the Rattlesnake. Austin pulls Perfect to the floor but Kurt sends Austin into the steps to break it up. Steve still isn’t done as he comes back in with a chair for all three guys. Eh he’s Austin so he can get away with it.

Angle accidentally clothesline Hennig but doesn’t eliminate him. There’s the PerfectPlex (BIG pop for that) to Kurt but HHH dumps Perfect a second later. Angle and HHH stare each other down and the Game pounds away on him to take over. Kurt gets HHH to the apron but can’t get the win. HHH chokes away but charges into a backdrop, sending him to the apron. Kurt makes the classic mistake of not making sure the other guy is out and gets clotheslined to the floor, giving HHH the Rumble. For you trivia guys, this is the longest Rumble ever to date, even going 11 seconds longer than the 40 man version.

Rating: C+. This has some very bad spots in it but the rest of the stuff is solid all around. Once Austin gets in there things pick up a lot, but the 18 guys before him don’t do much. Taker’s elimination came too fast which hurt things here, as there was no one of note from #9 until Austin at #19. Still though, the good stuff here was good enough to check this out, but you might want to fast forward some parts of it.

Overall Rating: B-. This is a pretty good but certainly not great show. 2002 was a bad year for the company on Raw and things were clearly starting to look weak here. The main problem was the lack of elevation of anyone new to the main event in the year, as the main events for almost every PPV were people who had been there before. There’s nothing on here that’s required viewing but there’s also nothing terrible on here either. Check it out but don’t expect to be blown away.

Ratings Comparison

Spike Dudley/Tazz vs. Billy and Chuck

Original: C-

Redo: D+

William Regal vs. Edge

Original: C-

Redo: D+

Trish Stratus vs. Jazz

Original: D+

Redo: D

Ric Flair vs. Vince McMahon

Original: D+

Redo: C+

Chris Jericho vs. The Rock

Original: B+

Redo: B

Royal Rumble

Original: C-

Redo: C+

Overall Rating

Original: B-

Redo: B-

Yep, about the same for the most part here.

Here’s the original review if you’re interested:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2011/01/21/royal-rumble-count-up-2002-game-on/

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

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 takes her apart 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 very, very 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 hokey smoke 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 but not quite to the back 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. 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 as heck 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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