Royal Rumble 2001
Date: January 21, 2001
Location: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 16,056
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

So with another year gone, two things have happened. First and foremost, Austin is back. He’s a bit weaker than he was before, but he’s still the biggest star in the world. Other than that, WCW is on its absolute death bed, as it would be out of business in about two months. The company is hot right now and they know it, so here they had more or less their 10th free shot in a row at having a great show and knowing there’s next to nothing WCW can do to touch them.

The other big match is Angle vs. HHH for the title. There’s really not a lot to say about this show as the main thing really is just Austin. He’s not a lock to win though as Rock is a huge deal also. I don’t think anyone bought Angle as a main event level guy though, so he could win here and be fine. Either way, let’s get to this as I know at least the Rumble is good.

The intro is of course bland and talking about ho this is the one night where you can win a chance to go to Mania. I get that that’s the main point, but could you please be a bit less generic? It’s not going to kill you for once.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Edge and Christian

My goodness it’s a non gimmick tag title match! The best I can gather is that Edge and Christian have been using chairs on the Dudleys so there’s a regular tag match because of it. Oh wait, Edge and Christian are the champions here? Well that makes more sense I guess. They used the chairs to help give them an advantage. Ok that actually does help things out a lot. The champions try to run after about 4 seconds as apparently the Dudleys are injured from the chairs still.

Lawler is amused that they have concussions for some reason. Also for some reason they’re allowed to compete despite having concussions. Only in wrestling would that be perfectly fine. Bubba and Christian are in now and Bubba is holding his head without it being touched so if nothing else he’ selling. Jim and Jerry argue about teeth for no apparent reason. Bubba shouts way too much. It’s so weird to see Edge in the midcard and not incredibly over yet.

We shift into more of a traditional formula here with D-Von fighting for everything he’s worth while the referee naturally misses a tag. While Bubba has the referee’s attention since he never was that bright, D-Von avoids another double chair shot. Once the Dudleys take over, Edge shows off his idiotic side by bringing in a title belt but he misses. That’s fine, but he lays it down. Why would you do that?

Bubba is behind you, there’s no referee, so you lay down your weapon. He was still getting the hang of the top heel thing I guess. In a cool spot, the Dudleys set for 3D but Edge spears Bubba while D-Von has Christian up. It was cooler looking than it sounded. After Edge and Christian try to steal What’s Up, Edge gets hit by the 3D in an ending that felt kind of anti-climactic for some reason.

Rating: B-. This was a match between two teams that fought about a thousand times but it was nice to see them do it without weapons for a change. That’s not something you often see and the good thing is you could have a good match without them. That’s always a good sign and a nice bit of fresh air from these guys. It wasn’t great but it was a good choice for an opener.

Drew Carey is here.

Vince says that Austin will be in the Rumble but HHH keeps his shot. This is about HHH accidentally running into Austin and Austin beating the heck out of him which broke some agreement. The ruling was that Angle caused it so it didn’t actually break the order, which made it completely pointless.

We go to Stephanie and HHH’s dressing room. This was just after Trish was caught bent over in front of HHH so that’s the main topic. Trish is going to be at ringside tonight. Stephanie cannot act, period. Drew Carey comes in and gets tips about how to do PPV because he’s doing Doritos presents Drew Carey’s Improv All Stars. Yes that’s actually what he calls it. He also apparently ran into Kamala at an airport and he’s now a singer. Amazingly enough, that’s real.

Farrooq and Bradshaw show each other their Rumble numbers in a scene that was supposed to have gay overtones that failed completely. Crash comes in and threatens to eliminate them later.

We get the recap of Jericho vs. Benoit, which more or less is both guys saying they’re better and Benoit having the IC Title, so they put it on the line in a ladder match. Do you need any more build that Jericho vs. Benoit in a ladder match? I don’t think so.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

I’ve always loved the prove me wrong line that Benoit had. It was perfect for him as it was short and sweet and correct. That’s all you need a lot of the time. Jericho has a bad shoulder here too to offer some psychology to the match. It helps here as your arms can help you climb a ladder so if nothing else it fits the flow of the match here which can often be the most important part of the match.

They bring the ladder in and somehow we get even more physical than we already were in this match. This was some of Jericho’s best in ring stuff around this time as he was clearly having a blast. See, the difference between WCW and WWF is that here, Benoit and Jericho are likely going to steal the show. They did it in WCW as well but there they would likely just do the same thing again until they jobbed to a 42 year old that didn’t need a push at all.

Here, Benoit would be a workhorse that got all kinds of praise and big matches while in less than a year Jericho would be world champion. Ah here we go. It’s ladder and other weapons time. After some stiff shots in the ring, Jericho goes to the floor and grabs a chair. Benoit launches a suicide dive at him but goes straight into the chair in a great looking spot. And see, Jericho SELLS THE SHOULDER. How hard is that for people to learn?

This turns into a game of top this as they come up with more and more ridiculous ways to hurt each other with the ladder. One of them is Benoit being tied into the ladder on the second rope and Jericho hooking a side Russian legsweep on him, bringing the ladder down with them. There’s stuff in here straight out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Benoit gives Jericho a belly to back suplex over the top rope. That’s cool looking if nothing else. Climbing back in, we have a fight up on the top of the ladder, which leads to the spot of the match. Jericho knocks Benoit backwards, and puts THE WALLS OF JERICHO on him on top of the ladder. To say this looks both incredible and painful is a total understatement. That just got this match a much higher grade.

Benoit goes off the ladder but has the energy to kick it over to save the title. This is great stuff here. Back on the mat, Jericho gets caught in the crossface and taps, but obviously this means nothing. There’s at least some psychology here as Benoit already has Jericho’s shoulder hurt so he works on it. That’s at least smart. Since there’s nothing else to do, Benoit is picked up and just thrown into the ladder.

Why not? Sometimes the best solution is just to beat the other person up with the ladder. It’s working here if nothing else. In yet another great visual, we go to the top for a suplex but Jericho is shoved off. Benoit goes for the swan dive, and the whole crowd just rises to their feet to watch in amazement at what they’re seeing. That’s how you know you’re doing a great job: the crowd responds to you.

We finally get one of the first dead spots of the match which is perfectly acceptable in this case as they’re half dead. This lasts all of four seconds though as Jericho comes back in with a chair and just wears out Benoit with it while he’s standing on the ladder. Benoit gets pushed off and bounces off the ropes, then the apron and then the floor, which is enough for Jericho to get the belt. DANG that was painful looking. The highlight package of this match doesn’t do it justice.

Rating: A. This was a freaking brutal fight. They beat the living crap out of each other here and are going to be hard to top. For some reason this match isn’t really remembered, and that was the case even before Benoit was deleted from history. These guys went at it like no other and beat the living heck out of each other. Go find a copy of this as it’s definitely worth it. Great brawling match with tons of brutal spots.

Drew Carey hits on Trish and her chest, which ends up with him entering the Rumble.

Chyna says she’s ready. She was still hot back then.

Jericho says that was a war but he’s happy.

We recap Chyna vs. Ivory, which is based on the RTC hating Chyna for being in Playboy (thank goodness!) and then spike piledriving her which allegedly broke her neck. Her line of I hate them while crying is a great thing.

Women’s Title: Chyna vs. Ivory

Around this time Chyna had this big pyro gun called the C-2000 that launched fireworks into the air which was kind of cool. Ross says that Ivory is sexually frustrated and menstruates 30 days a month. I’ve got nothing for that. If nothing else they got the description of her right: she’s more or less Lilith from Cheers.

Chyna was supposed to be this woman that broke all kinds of barriers yet she wrestled in more or less a leather two piece swimsuit. If anything, Ivory in her full body outfit is the one breaking more barriers. This has been ALL Chyna. She beats up Richards and goes for a handspring elbow and falls down holding her neck because of it.

That ends the match after Ivory’s body covers her. This led to her being completely fine and coming back to destroy Ivory in about 2 minutes at Wrestlemania to win the title and completely ruin it as there was no one but Lita that had a freaking prayer against her. She left the company maybe 6 months after this, never to be seen again. The stretcher part takes at least five minutes, which is longer than the match went. Her chest looks freaking amazing in that segment if nothing else.

Rating: N/A. This was an angle, not a match. It wasn’t any good anyway, so there’s just not a lot to say here. It lasted about three minutes and was pure dominance.

Stephanie runs into Trish. Hot women arguing ensues.

Drew Carey tries to introduce himself to Kane. Recap not needed.

Low Down, perhaps the dumbest idea ever, (D’lo Brown and Mosh as Arabs) argue with their manager about who should be in the Rumble. It doesn’t matter as Drew Carey gets their spot. Now this is an important point. Let’s compare this to WCW and David Arquette. Both Carey and David are about the same level of celebrity status and they’re here to promote something that not a lot of people are going to watch anyway. What does the WWF do?

They replace a jobber in a match where he absolutely won’t be missed. Think about it: what would Brown or Mosh do in the match? Hang around for about seven minutes and be destroyed by either Taker or Kane or someone like that. Would anyone really miss either of them being in there? Not in the slightest. Instead, you get a celebrity in the match where he might bring in a few fans to the show. See, that’s how you use celebrities.

You put them in a place where they don’t make a big difference at all, but they seem like they do. That’s smart business. You give up a little something and while you likely won’t get a big payoff, you might get a decent one. If not, you lost Mosh or D’Lo for one night. That’s something you can live with and if nothing else, Drew gets publicity and you look like nice guys. Now on the other hand you have WCW, where a celebrity of about equal status was there trying to promote something.

What does WCW do? THEY MAKE HIM WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, thereby making the wrestlers look pathetic, the title look like a joke, their PPV look like a bigger freak show than a pro wrestling show normally is, an more or less drive yet another spike into their own coffin.

Instead of having him do something stupid with Disco Inferno or something for like 5 minutes on Nitro, they said that this actor is on equal footing with the champions of the other major company at the time, which at that time would have been HHH. See why they went out of business so fast?

We hear opinions from the fans on who will win the title match tonight.

HHH is getting ready and sounds like Darth Vader.

We recap this feud, which consists of Angle hitting on Stephanie and Trish allegedly trying to sleep with HHH through some comedic mix ups.

WWF Title: HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle had won the title in the fall from the Rock and held it ever since, more or less in a huge Cinderella thing where no one could beat him and he just kept getting luckier and luckier, which is fine I guess. This is another hard match to comment on as both guys were just off the charts around this time as far as in ring work went. The good thing here is that they manage to balance the brawling style which dominated the era with some solid in ring work that both men excel out.

This is another match that’s hard to criticize or poke fun at because it’s working really well. You don’t often hear about these two having chemistry but it’s there. Sadly though, the match runs a bit long for the fans. It’s about 25 minutes, and for purist fans like most of us here it’s a treat, but the problem is that this is still the Attitude Era, so if a match has a good amount of technical stuff in it or psychology etc., it’s considered boring.

However there’s a part in here where it gets a pick me up as the two women come out and fight for a bit. This is a bigger reaction than anything in the match. The problem with this match is simple. HHH is the undisputed top heel in the company as he was revealed as the guy that masterminded Austin being run down, but Angle was more or less built up as the midcard guy in over his head but still good enough to put the belt on.

Think of Punk’s original reign and you’ll get what I mean. The problem here though is that HHH is simply a bigger star and at this point a better wrestler than Angle. Angle would get a lot better but this is probably the peak of HHH’s in ring ability as he was just so perfectly evil at this point and the in ring work backed that up to perfection.

Anyway, you can tell that Angle is really finding his groove here as he’s getting a lot more intense than he used to be and is getting into that character that took the world by storm within a few years. This is mainly technical stuff as HHH uses the Indian Deathlock of all things, which no one buys at all, mainly because other than the Sharpshooter and the figure four, one of which is used and I’ll let you guess which one, no one taps to a submission hold.

In another blast from the past, HHH busts out a Razor’s Edge. Hall was gone by this point from mainstream wrestling so this was a bit more acceptable I guess. Also the ratings were so low that I don’t think they could be seen from the ground anymore so who the heck cares? Anyway, Vince comes out to get the girls broken up, oddly enough picking this time to come out and get his hands on Trish. What a shock that is.

Anyway, after they leave and the crowd more or less goes with them, the referee goes down twice. The second was great as he was down on the outside and HHH throws Angle into the post and Earl just slams into the steps in a solid bump. HHH misses a belt shot but there’s no zebra impersonator. He does however get a heck of a Pedigree that Angle takes perfectly.

Austin runs out though and beats HHH up with Earl still down. At least in this case the bump the referee took looked awesome so you can validate him being down this long. HHH takes a belt shot so he’s down as Austin gets the referee back in there. He gets a Stunner in just for good measure and Angle keeps the belt. Angle would hold onto the belt until next month when Rock beat him for it to set up Mania 17.

Rating: B. This was a very solid match, but the run in at the end kind of hurt it. The problem with Angle’s reign was he never had a definitive win to cement himself as champion, much like Punk’s first reign, and it suffered a lot because of that.

I’m not saying you put him over HHH clean, but somewhere along the line he had to beat someone in a title match without help or cheating. Either way, HHH was great here and Angle was improving dramatically, so this was fine. I might have cut out 4-5 minutes, but it’s very solid all around.

Rock says he’s ready for the Rumble. It’s funnier than it sounds.

Royal Rumble

Jeff Hardy is first and Bull Buchanan is second. It’s so weird to see Jeff as a total midcard guy that’s known for doing nothing but high spots. I had to pause for a second there to get my composure. Rikishi is number 30. In a stunning turn of events, Matt is number 3. Why does Ross always say wait a minute? We don’t have that kind of time. Naturally Bull is gone in about twenty seconds. I will give them this: they actually fight each other.

The Steiners just wouldn’t do it and it sucked. Farrooq is 4th and they double team him of course. See, that’s a classic tactic but it works well. Jeff botches a double team spot. In other news, the sun came up today. The double team finisher leads to Simmons being thrown out. Now we get to the fun part as they just throw punches. Jeff gets a SICK Whisper in the Wind as Drew Carey is 5th. This was when he was actually a big deal so this was a cooler thing that it seems like.

I thought they were booing but they’re chanting Drew. Matt and Jeff put each other out so Drew stands alone. In a truly great moment, Kane is number 6. The look on Drew’s face and the reaction of the crowd and Ross absolutely panicking is just perfect all around. Kane walks around the ring and does the fire thing. Drew tries to get Matt and Jeff to come back then tries to pay Kane.

He gets put up in a chokeslam but Raven and his sweet music save him as number seven. Drew waves goodbye and eliminates himself. He walks to the back, high fives some fans and is never seen in the WWF again. See, that right there is how it’s done.

Drew was in there all of three minutes or so, he got a solid response from the crowd, he took the place of D’lo or Mosh who Kane would have put out in about 10 seconds and no one would have remembered, Drew comes out of it having lost no respect at all, and he got some publicity for his PPV. Everyone wins.

There was nothing wrong with this and it came off great. Anyway, Raven gets thrown through the ropes which allows Al Snow who Raven had injured to run out early and beat on Raven. His clock goes off so he’s in now and he brings weapons. One of these is a garbage can, and for the first time ever, it has garbage in it. He also gets a bowling ball which he rolls into Raven’s crotch.

In a chilling line, Ross says this is what New Orleans looks like after a bad hurricane. Saturn is 9th with Terri who is about to fall out of her top. All three guys work on Kane, and they prove that they’re idiotic by beating on him enough to get him on the mat, instead of, you know, OVER THE TOP. Blackman is 10th, and being the genius he is he beats on everyone not named Kane. This big long hardcore thing isn’t working for me or the audience either.

The division was just dead by this point and it’s showing badly. Grandmaster is 12th and now we get to the fun part. Kane goes to the floor and grabs a garbage can and just freaking kills everything in sight with it. He knocks all five out in about 20 seconds with some sick shots. Blackman tries to skin the cat and Kane just blasts him over the head which makes me chuckle.

Number 12 is the Honky Tonk Man who sings and plays the guitar. That seriously might be the greatest gimmick of all time. I mean really, a wrestling Elvis impersonator? That’s just amazing on a ton of levels. Seeing Kane, more or less a crazy sociopath behind Honky for this is hilarious. Honky is gone in about a minute and Rock is 13 to a big ole pop. Kane is a lot more muscular here than he usually is.

Goodfather is 14th and for some reason there’s a big Rumble R over the right side of the screen but not that left. That looks odd. Goodfahter is in for about 2 seconds as Rock puts him out. Ross gets in another of his out there lines by saying Kane is a carnivore chewing on a big piece of Rock Burger. Yeah I’ve got nothing. Tazz and his awesome music is 15th and he lasts longer than Goodfather, being eliminated in 8 seconds or so.

13 people have been eliminated. Kane has put 7 of them out. Bradshaw gets us into the second half, and oddly enough he had the longest world title reign of these three. That’s just weird to say. Albert is 17th, making the shortest man in this match at the moment is Rock who stands 6’5. Hardcore Holly is in at 18. We’re at kind of a slow point here as not a lot is going on.

K-Kwik, more commonly known as R-Truth is 19th. Bradshaw powerbombs the living tar out of him. That was painful looking. Val Venis is number 20. He’s still in the RTC at this point. This match has a noticeable lack of energy to it which isn’t good at all. I think Rock came in way too early. He’s a big deal and he’s been in there awhile already. Right now Kane and Rock are the only two that are really up and doing much of anything.

William Regal, still a smiley heel is 21st. He has a lot of heat on him if nothing else. Test is 22nd. Not a lot is happening here at all and we need to get rid of some of the people in there. As I typed the word some, Regal is gone. Test, the guy that threw him out, would win the European Title from him before Mania. He then kicks the heck out of Venis.

Big Show makes his return at 23. Good GRIEF that man is fat. He throws out Truth and Test in about a second each and then chokeslams literally everyone other than Rock so they’re all down. Rock manages to get a low blow in and knock Show out before the next guy comes out. Show isn’t happy though and chokeslams Rock through the table in a cool looking spot. Crash is 24th.

Everyone joins together to beat on Kane. Rock is out on the floor. He’s selling perfectly too. Taker is 25th and it’s on. He saves Kane from a massive beatdown and they look at each other and Taker gives him a sign. Within 15 seconds, all five others in the match are gone so it’s Taker, Kane (he’s eliminated nine people here, which I think ties him for the record at the moment) and Rock who is still on the floor.

There had been talk of Taker and Kane hooking up again and apparently that was true. In an amusing spot, Scotty is 26th. Guess how this goes for him. The idiot actually gets in the ring. In a flat out brutal beatdown, Scotty is punched, kicked, kicked in the face and takes a double chokeslam before they throw him out together. 27th is Austin, and to say the place pops is an understatement.

However, he doesn’t make it to the ring just yet as HHH is here. Rock is back in and all of a sudden this is awesome. See what happens when you don’t have any stupid fillers in there and you just put the big, talented stars in there?

HHH beats the tar out of Austin and cuts him open, which to be fair works because he jumped him from behind so Austin never had a fair shot. Billy Gunn is 28th and the level of awesome is just sucked out of this thing. Taker hits Rock with that sweet running DDT that I wish he would bust out a lot more often.

Haku of all people is 29th. Note: he was at the time FAR more famous as Meng. He was also the WCW hardcore champion at the time, but WCW in its eternal brilliance put a title on a guy that was getting paid per appearance and had no formal contract. His return lasted all of six month or so but it was kind of cool I guess. I thought it was more like a month, but whatever. He teamed with Rikishi which went nowhere and he because a Heat guy after awhile.

Ross’ blatant cheering of Austin and calling it a shame is really annoying. We get it: you love Austin. You’re supposed to at least try to be unbiased. Granted, I have to wonder how much of this is Ross and how much is Vince screaming in his ear. Rikishi is number 30 but Austin jumps him on his way in. Your final grouping is Rikishi, Haku, Billy Gunn, Rock, Kane, Taker and Austin. Austin puts out Haku to get us down to six.

Taker gets a good chokeslam on Rikishi which impressed me. They seriously tried to make Rikishi a legit big deal and to say it failed is the understatement of the year. To further my point, they actually let him put Taker out with a kick. I can’t stand Vince’s fascination with huge men at times. Seriously, he just put Rikishi over Taker.

Rather than having Rock, Austin, Kane and Taker as almost a dream final four, we get Billy Gunn, Rock, Kane and Austin as Rock puts Rikishi out. Billy gets a Fameasser on Austin but this I guess energizes him to allow him to put Billy out to get us to three. Austin is down in a corner, Rock puts Kane down and falls in another corner, and you know what’s coming. Rock wins the fistfight and the fans are clearly more into Rock than Austin.

Austin catches him with a Stunner as Kane is somehow still down. There’s a Rock Bottom to a great pop. It was kind of clear that Austin wasn’t as big of a deal as he used to be as Rock had surpassed him. This is the period that Rock lovers point to and say Rock was bigger than Austin. That’s like saying that Jim Brown, who was the best running back of all time and played in the 50s and 60s isn’t as good as Ladanian Tomlinson today.

Well duh of course not the man is in his 70s. Austin was past his peak here while Rock was in the middle of his. If Austin never left, Rock doesn’t hit this level, end of argument. If you believe otherwise, I’d love to hear your reasoning because it’s wrong. Anyway, Rock throws Kane through the ropes to give us more Rock and Austin. Lawler says he’s been waiting for years to see this. That’s odd as it’s been less than two years since their last Mania match but whatever.

Kane hits a chokeslam here as despite Austin being the relatively clear winner, it’s not for sure which makes this ending a lot better. Also it’s not like Austin is in there with Billy Gunn or someone completely ridiculous. Kane is a legit contender here which is making all the difference in the world. Kane gets a chair but Austin gets a counter and hits a Stunner.

Austin gets three very solid chair shots and a clothesline sends him to Wrestlemania, where he would take the title from Rock who would win it in a month and thankfully turn heel which thankfully Vince recognized was the only way to go. Basically, turn Austin heel had been the big movement online around this time as it was clear that Rock was the bigger face and it appeared that Vince was trying to make Austin bigger by sheer force. Luckily he woke up for once and we got Mania 17 out of it.

Rating: B. While not as good as last year’s this was still very solid. Austin winning made sense, the last two guys both also could have won, the midcard was well represented, and other than Billy, there was no one there at the end that wasn’t a legit winner. Carey offered a bit of flavor to the match and I think it helped.

It was something different, but it’s well remembered because it was well done. That’s proof you have a good moment. Kane was the story here though as they made him look awesome. His reward: a short run with the hardcore title because that’s how he’s respected. Anyway, this was very good stuff and above all else, it worked.

Overall Rating: A. This is a very good show. Every match has something good to offer, as the Chyna match was the worst but she looked awesome in it. There are five matches: four are for titles and the last is the Rumble. That’s a stacked card if there ever was one. Carey offered some mainstream appeal which is never a bad thing unless you completely screw it up and they didn’t here so that enhances this even more. This is definitely a top level show and certainly worth checking out.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: June 11, 2001
Location: Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, Virginia
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

The Invasion rolls on tonight and we’re getting very close to the King of the Ring. After tonight there’s only one show left before the PPV so things should be heating up pretty well. Tonight has a pretty famous main event as it’s Benoit vs. Angle in a cage. Angle brings out the best in Benoit which is saying a lot so that should be good. Let’s get to it.

Here’s Regal to open the show to huge heat. He wants to know where all the sportsmanship and decency has gone. We get clips of Jericho “cheating” last week as Regal tries to spin things. He considered stepping down as commissioner but he believes in the power of good manners so he’ll stick with it, despite a loud Foley chant. Tonight, Jericho has to face Rhyno and Big Show at the same time. Benoit on the other hand, gets Angle inside a cage.

As for King of the Ring, just because Benoit and Jericho have both beaten Austin in tag matches, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be in the title match at King of the Ring. That may have been the case in former Commissionerships but….cue Foley. Foley admits that some tomfoolery went on while he was on the job. Actually it happened every day while he was Commissioner. They’re treating it like a medical disease. They have a battle of WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR VOICE and somehow that transitions into Foley was on the Tonight Show.

Speaking of Tonight, “right here tonight in Richmond, Virginia”, Foley has a special guest. Regal tries to get rid of Foley but Linda McMahon comes out to that rocking old school Wrestlemania theme. She’s been thinking about the King of the Ring and says the Canadians are worthy of title shots. As for what might be fair, what about Austin defends against both of them? If Austin beats the first one, he has to face the second one.

Regal asks if that’s fair and Linda says no, but she means not to the Canadians. If Benoit went first and won, then Jericho gets no shot. We get a clip from Smackdown of Austin saying he can beat Jericho and Benoit at the same time. Therefore, Mick called her and suggested…something that we have to wait for a Foley chant to end to hear. It’ll be a triple threat at King of the Ring. Linda says that what she and her lawyers want and Regal has to agree. Before they leave, Foley reminds Linda that Regal called her a deadbeat, giving us that awesome look that Linda does when her eyes bug out.

Edge is talking to Rhyno when Christian comes up. He thinks he’s been left out of the Already Advanced To The King Of The Ring Club. Christian whines that he has to fight Kane to get into the tournament.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Kane vs. Christian

Kane dominates him to start with the power game. Christian tries to use speed but gets kicked in the face. Top rope clothesline kills Christian but Edge breaks up the pin attempt. While Edge is being dealt with, Albert runs in and hits the Baldo Bomb as Christian steals the pin. He might have gotten in two shots before that.

Austin and Debra arrive and Linda and Foley meet them. Austin yells at her so Foley gets in his face. Steve yells into the window of their limo but Foley tells him about the title match and they drive off. That shut him up….kind of.

Foley was on the Tonight Show. That’s pretty awesome.

Hardy Boys vs. X-Factor

It’s Credible/Pac here. Jeff has won the Light Heavyweight Title on Smackdown. I don’t think anyone knew that title existed so it was kind of shocking to see. Matt vs. Pac gets us going and they speed things up. Jeff is in a sweatshirt which is too big for him. Matt gets sent to the floor where Justin takes his head off with a superkick. Matt gets beaten down for awhile but avoids the Bronco Buster. Justin misses a baseball slide as well as the post that his balls were supposed to hit. Hot tag to Jeff and house is cleaned. Jeff loads up the Swanton but Lita hits that perfect top rana and then the Swanton hits for the pin on Pac.

Rating: D+. Too short to be all that bad but it was nothing special. X-Factor never amounted to anything at all so it was nice to see them lose here. I don’t think they lasted much longer but Albert wound up win the IC Title in about two weeks. Nothing to see here but it wasn’t bad. Actually scratch that: Lita’s hurricanrana was, but that’s one of my favorites.

X-Factor beats them down post match, including a chair shot to Jeff.

Austin runs in to Regal’s office and yells A LOT. Hey dude, we know your name already. There goes the tea and Austin demands Regal face him like a man. Tajiri comes to Regal’s defense and that’s the last we’ll see of him for awhile.

Trish seems to flirt with Blackman before his match at King of the Ring with Saturn. This goes nowhere.

Jericho tells Benoit he’ll get the first shot if he wins. Benoit says Jericho will get the first shot.

Spike and Molly like each other. They’re in a six man tag tonight against each other. This is really awkward. They’re about as good at acting as Stephanie. Nothing is going to come between them but Bubba pulls Spike away from kissing her.

Austin yells at Vince and shouts c-o-n-spiracy! Austin gets in Vince’s face and then hugs him. He rubs his hand up Vince’s back as you do when you hug someone but has a mindless and kind of scary look on his face. Funny…..?

Chris Jericho vs. Rhyno/Big Show

Rhyno comes out first so Jericho goes after him as fast as he can. Jericho suplexes him and hits the springboard dropkick to put Show on the floor. Lionsault gets two but Show pulls him to the floor. The monsters have to tag. Rhyno beats on Jericho and rams him into Show’s boot. Another big boot puts Jericho down and the Canadian is in trouble. Jericho manages to knock Rhyno down but there’s too much Big Show. Chris does manage to send Show into Rhyno and hits a missile dropkick to Show. Rhyno breaks up the Walls (that’s a new one) and the chokeslam ends Jericho. Then Rhyno Gores Show and steals the pin.

Rating: D. This was exactly what you would expect: dominance by the monsters, a little comeback by Jericho, and then a win for the monsters. I don’t know what the point of this really was, other than the ending I guess, but it was nothing of interest either way. Jericho got dominated as you would expect. What’s the point?

Shane arrives and runs into Kane. Kane gets in Shane’s face and says he’ll take out Albert. Shane thanks Kane for saving him from Undertaker about the whole stalking thing. I really need to watch Smackdown to get the other half of these stories. Shane suggests Kurt might have something to do with it.

Rhyno says that’s the third win in a row over Jericho so if Jericho wins the title, he has to be #1 contender.

Jericho is getting looked at when Austin jumps him.

Here’s Kurt who has something to say. He makes fun of Richmond because that’s what heels do. Kurt brings up the Confederacy which is still a sore spot in the south. He brings up the whole reenactment of battles which the south lost. That’s a good point but I live in the south and I don’t want to listen to how the south will rise again from my family. Anyway, there’s a cage match tonight and how about it huh? His motto in life is that cheaters never win, and Benoit is a cheater.

We get the same video from last week where Kurt was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Angle calls himself the closest thing to a modern day superhero there is. And no, HE DOESN’T SUCK! He’ll use those powers to win back to back King of the Rings. He calls out Shane but gets Taker instead. He says word has it Kurt likes messing with other men’s wives. Kurt denies knowing anything about it. He met Sara once and didn’t find her attractive.

That earns him a Last Ride and we get a new video. The guy is at Taker’s home again but Sara isn’t there. Instead Sara is at a hotel where she’s been hidden from him. He’s growing tired of Taker’s games and steals some of Sara’s clothes. Using her lipstick, he writes I Know Where You Are on the mirror. Taker runs off and Shane pops up with an Angle Slam to Kurt.

Rock was at the MTV Movie Awards. This was before he was an actual mainstream star. Pink and Ben Stiller might know who he is.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Perry Saturn vs. Steve Blackman

Trish is with Blackman here. Perry is still loopy but once the match starts he’s fine. Go figure. Basic stuff to start and Blackman gets a spinebuster. Terri tries to interfere but Trish gets her down. Saturn grabs a crucifix for two. Dean interferes as well and the Moss Covered Three Handled Family Credenza ends Blackman. This was nothing.

Trish goes after Terri post match and Dean accidentally hits Saturn in the head with a kendo stick.

Austin is freaking out so Debra offers him carrots and broccoli. Austin very calmly: “I don’t want a carrot.” He eats some of it anyway while freaking out.

The male Hollies are warming up when Molly comes up and begs them to not hut Spike. They make fun of her for it and says the only way Spike survives is if Molly beats him.

Terri and Dean come in to see Regal and request a week off for Saturn. Regal says ok and Saturn comes in and says British people fight dragons so they don’t get all firey. He also debuts his catchphrase of You’re Welcome.

Dudley Boys vs. Hollies

Spike and Molly are in this one. Crash starts with Spike but Molly is brought in quickly. They don’t want to fight of course and are all afraid of it. Bubba is his usual awesome self: “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??? PUNCH HER IN THE HEAD!” Molly takes him down by mistake and Hardcore tags himself in for the sake of the crowd not joining a drum circle. Crash goes up but gets crotched. Not hot tag brings in D-Von who hits What’s Up on Crash. It’s Table Time and Molly runs away from Bubba. In the ring the 3D ends Crash and we’re done.

Rating: D. Again nothing to see here but the whole thing was to set up the post match stuff which we’ll get to here in a minute. The Spike/Molly SHOWDOWN sucked and lasted about 15 seconds. This feud has run its course now and needs to end, which to be fair I think it more or less did after this.

Bubba and Hardcore go through the table (looked fake beyond believe) so Spike and Molly finally kiss. It got a BIG pop so at least there’s that.

The cage is lowered.

Update on HHH’s knee rehab. They test his range of motion.

Test is at WWF New York. He says Stephanie is a sl** and is really good friends with Shane. As for joining WCW, he might do that.

Here are all of the Austin segments from earlier in the show.

Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit

This is in a cage and Austin comes out to do commentary. Angle spears him down to start. You can win by pin, submission or escape here. Angle hits a quick suplex but the second is countered into a failed Crossface attempt. Benoit fires off chops and Angle is rammed into the cage. Kurt puts Benoit down with a gutwrench suplex and then a second. He goes to escape but Benoit climbs up to catch him. After a lot of pounding, the Canadian hits a German on the American off the top.

Benoit goes up again but misses, allowing Kurt to hit a top rope elbow for no cover again. JR keeps implying Austin is losing the title at the PPV while Heyman keeps trying to kiss Austin’s feet. A low blow and Angle Slam put Benoit down and Angle goes up. Here’s your famous moment of the match as Kurt goes up for a moonsault and totally misses it, nearly killing himself in the process. After the match Vince basically said do that again and you’re gone. It looked awesome though.

Angle looks out of it but he manages to send Benoit into the cage to keep him down. Benoit blocks another shot into the cage and hits three Rolling Germans. Angle escapes for a second and then makes it six total Germans. There are suplexes 7-9 and Angle looks dead. Benoit goes up top but Austin stops him by holding up a chair. These guys do know you can win by pin right?

Benoit is like I can out crazy you Kurt, and launches the Swan Dive off the top. JR says it was indescribable. Benoit dove off the top of the cage and hit Angle in the shoulder/chest with a flying headbutt. Sounds describable to me. Benoit goes for the door but Austin blocks it. Chris kicks the door open and into Austin’s face but Kurt grabs the ankle lock as he’s escaping. An enziguri puts Kurt down and Benoit goes to escape again, only for Austin to slam the door on his head. Well if he hadn’t stuck his head out like that, it wouldn’t have happened. Angle climbs out to win.

Rating: B+. Major gripes I have about this (we’ll get to those) aside, this was GREAT. Angle took a man’s beating here. Both guys got destroyed and while the Austin interference was obvious, I don’t get the point in having Benoit lose here. Again, we’ll get to why in a minute, but I really didn’t like the outcome of this.

Austin destroys Benoit with a chair post match.

Overall Rating: C-. The theme of this show was that Austin is running scared of Benoit and Jericho. That’s fine. However, why in the world did they need to have both Canadians lose? The problem with their push is that the only big win either of them has is Jericho over Austin due to an error by HHH and Benoit beat him in another tag. Was there ANY need to have Rhyno pin Jericho here? I mean…he’s Rhyno.

Same with Angle. Angle is a much bigger star than Rhyno and you could have given Benoit some main event credibility here by having that Swan Dive win it. Angle was feuding with no one at this point, unless you could Spike Dudley. By the end of the cage match, Angle had taken so much punishment that it wouldn’t have been a big deal if he had lost.

Look at Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga in a cage match building up to Orton vs. Hardy at the 08 Rumble. It’s the same thing but Jeff won with the Whisper in the Wind off the top. Same idea, but done right. I don’t get the booking here, but the Alliance threw it all out anyway so it doesn’t really matter. Next week: The Stalker Revealed.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: June 4, 2001
Location: Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Attendance: 11,417
Commentators: Paul Heyman, Jim Ross

Back to the Invasion era (kind of) as we’re rolling up to King of the Ring. Last week Benoit got his title shot in a great match so tonight it’s Jericho’s turn. Also I think we begin qualifying matches for the tournament as I remember watching the Rhyno vs. Tazz match that’s on the card tonight. Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of the rematch from Smackdown where Benoit almost won the title again. That match might have been even better. Those two had some scary chemistry. Benoit destroyed Vince with a chair and Austin stole the win with tights.

Intercontinental Title: Kane vs. Christian

The tape on Kane’s arm is shrinking. Christian runs down Minnesota because everyone from there is a freak. The bell rings twice for some reason and Kane hammers away quickly. He hits the top rope clothesline but Edge has the referee. He interferes again so Kane goes after him but the power of Canada causes his bad arm to go into the steps. Christian gets a low dropkick for two but I don’t think his offense is going to be lasting much longer.

The challengers gets slammed off the top but Edge distracts from the chokeslam. Edge takes one instead and HUGH MORRUS runs in, hits a moonsault (complete with a big WCW logo on the Tron and a siren blaring) and leaves. A BIG layout powerbomb kills Christian and Kane keeps the title. Shane celebrates in the production truck.

Rating: D+. Just a squash but the whole point was to have Morrus do the ending which is still cool looking. Acknowledging that it’s WCW is a nice touch as everyone knew who it was but it’s cool to hear it. This was a huge moment but unfortunately it wouldn’t get much more exciting than this. The match was just there.

Here’s Vince and he’s mad. He says that Shane isn’t going to cause trouble in his company. Now onto Benoit and Vince REALLY isn’t happy with him. He lists off things that his injuries could be called and the fans cheer louder each time. Benoit is never getting another title shot because he’s sadistic. Only a sadist would give Austin ten suplexes in a row. Tonight, Benoit gets Big Show.

Cue Foley to a BIG ovation. He has his new book with him so what do you think he’ll be talking about? Foley thanks the fans for making it a bestseller for the second week in a row. He’s in People Magazine also. However, he’s here to talk about the piece of paper he’s been using as a bookmark. It’s a contract, one of which he signed while Commissioner. This one says he can make a main event for any Raw he chooses. Tonight, it’s Austin vs. Jericho for the title. Benoit and Vince are banned from ringside. Vince says that contract doesn’t count because we’re not in Connecticut or something like that.

Foley has a counter for that though. He brings out GOVERNOR JESSE VENTURA. Vince looks TERRIFIED. Jesse puts on his glasses and looks at the contract. He says that he’s the highest elected official in Minnesota and since Vince couldn’t control him when he worked for Vince, he certainly can’t control him now. What Vince needs to learn is that there are people in the world more powerful than he is, and Jesse is one of them. He shakes Mick’s hand, says have a nice day, and that’s that. Jesse is one of those guys that is just awesome every time you see him and it worked here. Foley says he has a big surprise for Vince later.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy

Well isn’t this interesting? They come out together which isn’t something you see that often. Matt is European Champion. Jeff grabs a rollup for two very quickly. Matt tries the Twist but Jeff counters. Expect to read the word counter a lot in this. The fans like Lita the best and in that pink top I can’t blame them. Whisper in the Wind gets two for Jeff. Out to the floor and Jeff tries to run the railing but Matt ducks.

In a SWEET spot, Matt charges at Jeff while Jeff is up against the ring. Jeff backdrops him up against the ropes and in a Tajiri like bounce, Matt bounces off of them and hits a DDT to Jeff. The middle rope legdrop misses and Jeff loads up the Swanton but gets crotched. Jeff shoves him off and tries the Swanton again but it hits knees. The Twist is countered into a backslide for the surprise pin for Jeff.

Rating: C+. The idea here of course was that they knew each other so well and they kept countering one another. Having the ending be quick like that was the right move and it worked out well. Good stuff here and WAY better than their match at Mania and Extreme Rules, but that could just be due to this being when they were young and motivated to have good matches.

Austin is polishing the belt when Vince comes in. He has some bad news for Austin: he has to defend the title tonight against Jericho. Vince blames Linda so Austin says just give her half of your money ($500 million) because if you can’t live on $500 million, you’re planning on living too long. In a funny bit, Austin starts to say that no woman deserves that but looks at Debra and says NEVER MIND. Funny stuff.

Trish is in the back when Foley comes up. She’s mad about being challenged to a bra and panties match by Terri. Foley asks if Trish is scared and turns this into a story about Alexander Hamilton dying into a duel. If he had a bra and panties match, he’d still be alive. Trish: “He’d be over 200 years old.” Foley: “EXACTLY! It’s part of your duty as an American to compete tonight.” Trish: “Mick, I’m Canadian.” Foley: “Which is part of….North America.” Trish: “You’re right!” HILARIOUS segment.

Regal and Tajiri are in his office and Tajiri gives him some tea. It needs to be two degrees warmer. Kurt comes in and Tajiri is sent off for more tea. Shane has accepted Kurt’s challenge at King of the Ring. Angle also mentions that he wants to win the King of the Ring again so Regal puts him in. He also wants Spike Dudley so Regal adds him to the Holly team and adds Spike to the Dudleys so it’s a six man.

The Dudleys aren’t happy because Spike is their partner.

Molly Holly is at WWF New York and looks great in a blue dress. She thanks the fans but more importantly, Spike for all the flowers he sent. She says she likes him. Spike sees it and freaks out.

Dudley Boys vs. Hollies/Kurt Angle

Six man tag here. Hardcore and Kurt have a quick argument due to the whole severely broken arm Kurt gave Hardcore a few years ago. D-Von and Hardcore start but Spike comes in before there’s any contract. Kurt wants to come in but gets decked quickly and it’s back to D-Von, giving us two tags before there was any contact between the legal men. We get going and D-Von hits a powerslam for two.

The fans want tables but that would be a DQ here, so do they want the Dudleys to lose? Actually who are the faces here? The Dudleys want to put Molly through a table which is hardly a good guy action. Hardcore beats on Spike for a bit, including the punt to the “abdomen”. Off to Crash for such a short time that I didn’t see him do anything. Back to Hardcore who hits a suplex for two.

Crash comes in and there’s a distinct lack of Kurt in this, which I think is the point. Spike manages a tag to Bubba but the fans miss it. Kurt does get in and Spike GOES OFF, until Hardcore gets in a shot and Spike gets killed by a German. Spike blocks a superplex and hits a double stomp off the middle rope.

Double tag brings in Bubba and Hardcore and a Bubba Bomb puts him down. Crash takes a Samoan Drop and Hardcore takes a Doomsday Device. Kurt pops in for a German on Bubba but the moonsault misses. Hey Kurt. WHAT’S UP??? Bubba calls for a table but it’s a 3D to Crash instead. A quick Angle Slam pins Bubba though.

Rating: C. Again this feud is just kind of fun. There’s no main event or title implications to it but the feud works very well. It’s well done and the feud makes perfect sense. For some reason, that just can’t be done today. It seems that everything has to be part of a bigger purpose and a bigger story. Nothing can be a small and self contained story anymore.

Big Show vs. Chris Benoit

Show runs over Benoit to start as we hear again that Benoit was an undefeated WCW Champion. We’ll ignore that it was because he never defended it I guess, much like everything about Benoit is ignored anymore. Off to a bearhug by Show which Benoit bites out of. Gorilla press drop by Show and Benoit is in trouble. Show goes up (GULP!) but misses a middle rope elbow. Swan Dive is caught into a chokeslam but Benoit counters that into the Crossface and Show taps out! Too short to rate but that ending was pretty awesome. I’m a sucker for Benoit going all wrestling master and countering stuff into the Crossface.

Taker arrives, over halfway into the show.

Here’s Taker in the arena and he’s ticked off because of the stalking of his wife. If someone wants to do something with him, do it now and keep his family out of it. Taker says nothing is going to be easy until this ends. And then he turns to JR. JR was the first one to get the letter about the tape. Taker doesn’t think JR has something to do with it but if there’s something JR isn’t telling him, he’ll be the first name on Taker’s list. Heyman says the words “old lady” and is promptly punched in the face. JR suggests that he go ask Vince.

Taker says that’s a good idea and we get another video of Sara outside and it looks like she’s watering plants or something. The voice says that if he wanted to get closer then he would. Taker’s dog is out there too. Sara goes inside and the voice says she thinks she’s safe in there. Back in the arena, Taker goes to the back and isn’t happy.

Classic KOTR: Taker vs. Mankind in the Cell.

Back from a break and Taker kicks in the door to Vince’s office, demanding answers. Vince says he has nothing to do with this. He may have an ego but he doesn’t have a death wish. Vince suggests it might be the same person that flashed the WCW logo: Shane. Taker threatens Vince with the insertion of the WWF into a place it isn’t designed to go on Vince’s body if he’s lying.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Rhyno vs. Tazz

Rhyno is Hardcore Champion but this is non-title. Nice pop for Tazz. Rhyno pounds him into the corner to start and hits what would have been a Gore had it not been for the corner. This is Tazz’s first match since Mania? I didn’t really miss him. Rhyno comes off the middle rope but jumps into a suplex. Tazz Gores Rhyno for two and I remember that from when I was 13. Tazz hooks the Tazmission but Rhyno uses the Bigelow Breaking The Ring counter. Gore ends this.

Rating: D. I have no idea why this match sticks out to me but it does. Not a good match or anything and you can see Tazz is completely gone. Rhyno would make the semi-finals of the KOTR but wouldn’t go anywhere until the Invasion started when he moved up to the midcard with a few quick main event shots.

Austin and Debra are a bit nervous about Mick’s surprise with the champ being moreso. Debra goes off to find info from Foley.

Video on Smackdown Your Vote which is a cool idea.

Debra is looking for Mick. He’s sitting on some steps and they exchange pleasantries. She gives him what appears to be candy and asks about the surprise. He won’t say but she gets an autographed copy of the book.

Christian and Edge have some weird self-help moment and both say they want to be King of the Ring. They’re both in the tournament too.

Jericho tells Cole to shut up (AMEN) and that he’s accomplished a lot, including telling Vince he is rather small. I’m assuming he meant that Vince had one and that it wasn’t a rather embarrassing announcement. Jericho says he’ll treat Austin like a sl** and that he’ll win the title. He steals a bunch of Austin catchphrases while saying this.

Terri vs. Trish Stratus

Bra and panties here so I’m not sure what you want me to say about it. Heyman says this is in the tradition of the Funks and the Briscos. JR says that the Briscos never had a bra and panties match, officially. I really don’t want to know some of the stories that JR has. Both of the girls look good and they can’t wrestle yet, although Trish is trying. Terri loses her top and is out there in heels. Trish loses her top and Terri stands on her hair. Oh ok Trish hadn’t lost her top yet. Perry Saturn comes out in a robe…and has lingerie on under it. The distraction lets Trish win. I think you can figure this one out for yourselves.

WWF World Title: Steve Austin vs. Chris Jericho

Foley’s surprise is that he’s the troubleshooting referee. He’ll be outside while there’s a regular one in the ring. Austin beats him into the corner before Jericho can even get his title off. He tries the Thesz Press but Jericho counters it into the Walls. Austin runs for the ropes and we go to the floor. Jericho gets sent into Foley and Austin goes into the steps. Back in the Lionsault hits knees and Jericho is down.

Spinebuster messes up Jericho’s ribs even more as does an elbow drop. Jericho is in trouble here as Austin is having to protect his back and ribs due to the Germans from the other Canadian on Thursday. Jericho fights out of a bow and arrow but gets kicked low. That only gets two and JR mentions that Austin wouldn’t mind getting disqualified. Why doesn’t he do that then? It can’t be that hard.

Austin yells at Foley for some reason and the distraction lets Jericho get in a low blow to shift the momentum again. They slug it out which is won by the Canadian. Missile dropkick gets two. Middle rope hurricanrana gets two. Austin ducks the forearm and Jericho takes out the referee. Foley, like an idiot, checks on the referee as Jericho hooks the Walls. Foley slides in but leaves his feet out of the ropes so Regal makes the save. Jericho and Regal get into it and Foley accidentally cracks Jericho with the chair. Regal takes Foley out and Austin only gets two! And never mind as the Stunner ends this.

Rating: C+. Pretty fun match and the main event of the King of the Ring should be pretty obvious at this point. Regal coming out was pretty clear given how Foley was positioned but I think I can let that slide here. Not a great match but they needed more time and they’ve had better matches before. I can’t think of any right now so maybe they haven’t.

Regal gets the Walls and the Claw to close the show.

Overall Rating: B-. This was really more about setting the stage for King of the Ring and that’s fine. The main event of course would be Austin in a triple threat with the Canadians. The idea here is that Austin can barely beat one of them so how can he beat both of them? Well considering Benoit would break his neck in the match and would be out almost a year, that might give you a hint. Anyway good stuff and the Invasion is still building.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: December 17, 2001
Location: CajunDome, Lafayette, Louisiana
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is a request from someone. Either way it’s a Raw from 2001 post Alliance which makes it automatically better than the previous show. Tonight the main event is RVD vs. Jericho for the Undisputed Title. Other than that I don’t know much about this show at all and I’m not sure why it was requested that this was reviewed. It’s post Armageddon so Jericho is world champion.  Let’s get to it.

Matt Hardy is in WWF New York drinking. Make your own jokes.

Hardcore Title: Undertaker vs. Jeff Hardy

Taker is champion and has short hair here. He’s recently heel but is still Rollin. He’s booed out of the building….I think. Taker decks him before the bell rings and demands respect. Jeff hammers away and manages to dropkick Taker to the floor. A big dive to the floor hits railing though and Taker takes over again. Matt and Lita have broken up for some reason. This is total dominance by Taker. There’s the Last Ride and it gets a face pop. Lita goes up and Taker just glares at her. That gets rid of her and Jeff is done quick.

Rating: D. No idea what was up with the squashification here. I know Taker was far bigger than Jeff as Jeff was still a Hardy Boy here but maybe I’m just looking at it with almost 2012 eyes. Not much here but it made Taker look awesome….which goes against the idea of his heel turn but this was a bad year as far as common sense for WWF.

Taker carries Jeff to the back for no apparent reason. Oh wait he stops on the stage and lays Jeff down, then powerbombs him off the stage. Here’s one for Lita as well but she kicks him low. It doesn’t work but nice try. She gets tossed as well and Matt panics in WWF New York. Gee maybe you should have been here. Matt would get hurt on Smackdown and I don’t think they were back until the Rumble.

Matt calls to the arena and tries to find out about Lita.

Here’s Vince to talk about Austin. They don’t like each other anymore and the WHAT chants have recently debuted. We get a clip from Smackdown where Vince started a small fire and one of the fireman was Austin who beat up Booker T and Vince. This led to the AWESOME grocery store fight which was one of the first things I looked for upon discovering the wonders of Youtube. I may need to go back to that for pure nostalgia.

He demands Austin come out here and here’s Austin with the WHAT shirt. Vince yells at the fans that he hates the WHAT stuff and yeah heels are idiots in wrestling. Vince wants an apology and Austin is incensed. He says he took Booker on a shopping spree and lists off things that he gave Booker, saying it was a favor. He was calm, cool and collected. Austin lists off things he ate today and the chants just get louder and louder. He also had 9 beers and a Bloody Mary. This was one of Austin’s lasts gasps of charisma and it still works. Austin untucks his shirt but Booker saves Vince.

He pops up on the Tron and is next to Austin’s truck. Booker already took it for a joy ride and talks about the beating in the grocery store. The truck gets destroyed with some metal object and Austin goes after him.

During the break, Booker bailed as Austin got to the back. Austin chased after him in the beaten up truck.

Tag Titles: Albert/Scott 2 Hotty vs. Dudley Boys

Two guesses as to who has the titles here. Good night I could look at Dudleyville Stacy all day. D-Von vs. Scotty gets us going. Bubba distracts him and the champions take over. Double flapjack looks to kill Scotty and this is totally one sided. Off to Bubba who takes a superkick and it’s off to Albert. He’s the Hip Hop Hippo here and after a dance it’s a Giant Swing to D-Von. Missile dropkick from Scotty takes down Bubba and the Worm gets two. Stacy takes her boot off but Albert kisses her down. 3D ends Scotty.

Rating: D. Total squash here as I don’t think even Scotty’s grandmother thought he had a chance here. Any match with Stacy in that outfit can be called a failure but other than that there was nothing here at all. They had nothing else to do with the titles at this point as the great three way feud was long since done by this point.

Booker is on the phone with Austin and is hiding in a church. Vince: “Say what?” How nice of Vince to leave the speakerphone on for us. Booker is about to play Bingo. I remember this show.

Russ Haas, Charlie’s brother and a WWF developmental guy, passed away.

European Title: Christian vs. Tazz

Christian chokes Tazz with Tazz’s towel and punches in the corner. Tazz hooks two suplexes but the Tazmission is countered into the Unprettier for the quick pin. There was a low blow in there somewhere. Total squash. Tazz would get a quick tag title run in January and then retired in like April. He hooks a Tazmission after the match but no one cares.

Gregory Helms talks to Ric Flair about Tazz but Lance Storm pops up to beg for a job. Flair freaks out on him like only Ric Flair can do. If Storm wins tonight Flair will ruin Storm’s life. His match is against the Rock. Flair was a boss at this point.

Vote for the match of the year that will air on New Year’s Eve!

RVD is getting ready and Vince tries to suck up to him and get RVD to work for him if he wins the title. RVD isn’t pleased with the idea but never stops smiling. Vince wants Jericho to win now. He’ll be doing commentary.

Booker plays Bingo. He doesn’t win so he starts a small ruckus. Then he switches cards with some old woman in an attempt to cheat. Now Austin is calling the numbers and Booker runs. Booker’s card would have won.

After a break Booker is still in the church and this is like something out of a WWE Pictures movie. He hides in a pew then behind the pulpit. You know, if he wouldn’t pop his head out every 8 seconds, the hiding spaces might work. Now he pretends to be a statue. None of this is funny in case you’re wondering. Booker hides in a closet and oh man I think I know where this is going.

The Rock vs. Lance Storm

If Storm wins, he gets his job back. They fight over a hammerlock and then Rock kills him with a clothesline. Out to the floor and Rock jumps in on commentary. He says Lance is trying to get his job back but reads a paper which is a list of possible jobs. The best one though is to go back to getting beaten all over Cajun Country. See how that works? He did something out of the norm which happened to be funny and it worked.

Back in, Storm accidentally kicks the referee. Sharpshooter by Rock gets a tap but here’s Test to break it up. A big boot gets two for Storm. Rock hits the spinebuster but goes after Test and gets counted out. Well they had to do something with Storm and it’s not like they were going to have him pin Rock.

Rating: D. This was nothing and is there really any point in it being Rock in the first place? I mean, there was NO ONE but Rock that could do this? I mean….HE’S THE ROCK. They couldn’t have it be like a handicap against the APA or something stupid like that? Kane maybe? I don’t get it.

Rock gets in Rock Bottom position post match but doesn’t attack. Instead he shakes his hand, and THEN Rock Bottoms him. Kind of a jerk no? Rock was the one that lost his focus and got beat.

Back at the church and a woman walks into the same closet. And yes it’s a confessional. The girl admits she’s cheated on her husband with her husband’s brother and his best friend. Booker wants details and apparently there was alcohol and a video camera involved. She’s instructed to do 18 Hail Marys and send him the tape. This is going to end badly isn’t it?

Here’s Jericho to talk. He talks about beating Rock and Austin in one night. To be fair, that was less than three weeks before this so it was brand new. There’s no reason for RVD to get a title shot tonight says he. RVD cheated to beat him on Thursday and he has footage to prove it. Van Dam used a chair so he shouldn’t get a title shot. He demands Flair reverse the decision from Thursday and cancel the match tonight.

Cue Flair who says no. Jericho brought the chair into the ring and RVD used it. All Flair saw was Van Dam get the pin so he’s #1 contender. Jericho gets in Flair’s face and says Flair wishes he was someone else for once. Flair doesn’t deserve to be in the same ring with him, WOO! He accuses Flair of having a midlife crisis. Flair: “I HAD THAT TEN YEARS AGO!” Somehow this turns into Flair refereeing the main event tonight. See, something like this is perfect for Flair: being the boss, talking about how great things can be, and maybe refereeing a match or something like that. He’d be perfect for something like that today.

Edge/Rikishi vs. Kurt Angle/Test

Edge and Angle are on the verge of a mega feud and Edge is on the verge of a mega push. He’s IC Champion here. This was supposed to be Regal instead of Test but Edge hurt him. Angle had a really bad rock remix of his song here. It sounds like a half breed between his music and the late 90s Big Bossman song. Angle vs. Rikishi starts us off. Kurt avoids a quick Stinkface and spins Rikishi inside out with a clothesline. Edge comes in with a top rope clothesline and everything breaks down. Spear to Test but the Angle Slam pins Edge. This was nothing.

Rikishi starts to clean house but gets beaten down. Rock makes the save and Test gets a Stinkface.

HHH returns January 7. The song playing over his video: Beautiful Day by U2. That’s an…odd choice.

Test is in the back and Cole annoys him so Canada gets its revenge on Cole. By that I mean a really awkward shove.

Big Show/Tajiri vs. Billy/Chuck

Torrie is with Tajiri here and is Cruiserweight Champion. Billy and Chuck aren’t gay yet. Chuck pounds on Tajiri to start but Tajiri gets a BIG kick in the corner for two. Jerry: “Did you tell Torrie I had a mirror over my bed?” JR: “HOW WOULD I KNOW YOU HAVE A MIRROR OVER YOUR BED???” Well I thought it was funny. LAUGH MONKEYS! Billy beats on Tajiri a bit and the heels double team. Tajiri hits a big kick and it’s off to Show. Tarantula to Billy but Show kind of gets kicked by Chuck. The handspring elbow hits Torrie and Billy hits a flapjack for the pin. This was again, nothing.

A guy confesses to Booker that he ate too much dessert. Booker isn’t pleased and throws him out. Here’s Austin to confess and Booker runs some more.

After a break, Booker and Austin run in front of some nuns. They need a ride to an orphanage and Booker uses the chance to escape. Austin runs into a priest who wants to hear Austin’s confession. Ok then. And yes, that’s it.

Flair offers to teach Van Dam the Figure Four.

WWF World Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Jericho

Vince does Jericho’s intro. Van Dam isn’t One of a Kind yet. Jericho grabs the arm to start. Van Dam sends him to the floor and hits a dive as America takes over on Canada. The Canadian hits a German on the American for two. Jericho hooks a chinlock as Vince is in full heel mode here. Lionsault misses but a quick clothesline gets two for the champion. Van Dam gets a rolling sunset flip out of the corner for what might have been a faster two.

Vince praises Jericho the whole match and talks about how awesome he is. This has been almost all Jericho, and to be fair he’s world champion so it probably should be. A spin kick takes Chris down and a flip attack off the top gets two. A standing rana is countered into the Walls which of course isn’t the finish. Flair and Jericho get in a fight and Rolling Thunder sets up the Five Star but Vince pulls Flair out and a it’s thrown out I guess.

Rating: C. Just an ok match here because the focus was on Flair and Vince. The ending was stupid but this was a pretty stupid Raw overall. The ending had the fans buying something might be up but it was pretty clear what Vince was going to do. Not much here but I’ve seen far worse.

The good guys put the bad guys in Figure Fours to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. I wasn’t all that pleased with this one. Van Dam’s push went nowhere other than right back into the midcard while Vince vs. Flair resulted in the return of the NWO for no apparent reason. Not much here and the Booker vs. Austin stuff wasn’t funny, which I’m sure they didn’t care about so what difference does it make? Not a very good show.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: October 15, 2001
Location: Corel Center, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

This was a special request from someone so here it is. To set the stage a bit, this is during the latter part of the Invasion/Alliance angle and Austin is the top dog in the whole thing because when you think Austin, you think of his time in WCW and ECW right? The Alliance was doomed from the start, if nothing else due to their name. It sounds like something you have as an indy company instead of the company that’s going to fight Vince. I wonder if it was a backhanded jab at the NWA. Let’s get to it.

We open with a video of Shane talking to Austin about the triple threat main event on Sunday (No Mercy) and Austin is told that there are two Alliance guys in it so they have a 2/3 chance. Austin isn’t happy with the idea of RVD winning the title. RVD was as popular as beer in a frat house at this point, so they went with Angle instead. You know, because that was the smart idea right?

The main event is Austin/??? vs. Angle/???.

Here’s Foley who has a new book and is commissioner again. Mick asks why he’d come back to a place where he keeps getting yelled at and fired. His response: he doesn’t care. He didn’t come back for Vince, he didn’t come back to plug a new book (“Like this one: Mick Foley’s Halloween Hijinx, which just happens to be available at bookstores now.”), but rather for the fans. He made the triple threat for the fans and we have a cheap pop.

Cue Trish who is returning apparently. She talks about how Foley needs some Stratusfaction and hypes a lingerie match at No Mercy. Trish: “You know who looks great in lingerie Mick?” Foley: “Pat Patterson?” She takes her robe off and is in a one piece. I’m not one to complain, but is there a point to this? Foley offers to put her in a cage at his house where his kids can poke her with sticks. And that’s it. That’s the whole segment. Trish isn’t even in the match Sunday. Why did this happen?

In the back Austin is having a meeting with the Alliance. He says he’s cool with RVD reaching for the star because that’s what he said to do. As for the mystery partner tonight, he’s going to put it up to a vote. Austin has Debra hand out paper and pencils. Well at least he’s organized. He hints that he doesn’t want it to be RVD. Booker basically says he knows he’ll (as in Booker) will win.

The APA are with Jackie and Nidia in the back. Nidia recently won Tough Enough and they want her to come with them to the ring tonight as a reward. They get to their office and Hurricane/Mighty Molly have attached their Hurricycle to the door. They drive away and destroy it, ticking off the APA.

Big Show vs. Dudley Boys

I know this is saying a lot, but Stacy was never hotter than when she was with the Dudleys. The Dudleys beat up Spike and Show is here for revenge for some reason. The double teaming doesn’t work so the Dudleys run, but Big Show chases them down (which sums up the Dudleys’ conditioning) and we go back to the ring. They beat him down and hit What’s Up but can’t suplex him. Show destroys them and chokeslams D-Von but he wants a table. He sets up a powerbomb but Stacy gets on the apron and starts shaking it so Bubba can hit Show with a title for the weak pin.

Rating: D-. The only reason this doesn’t fail is Stacy is go freaking stunning in this era. The match was junk and I have no idea what the point was to have this match. There’s some post match stuff and it’s kind of a reason, but was this really the best they could come up with? Bad match, hot woman.

Tajiri runs out for the save and Bubba goes through the table.

Austin gets the final vote and is ready to come count them, but he throws one away (presumably a vote for RVD) and leaves.

Quick video showing Regal, now in the Alliance, being fired as Commissioner of the WWF.

Here’s the Alliance for the vote reveal. Stephanie and her awesome implants makes fun of her mom and hands the mic to Shane, who announces Regal as the Alliance Commissioner. Regal says he’s proud to be here and that’s it. Oh never mind. He says this is the rising force in sports entertainment and praises Austin.

Austin says it’s time for the vote and everyone chants RVD. RVD gets there late for no apparent reason. Austin reads through the votes (which have names on them) and Booker seems to be running away with it. RVD only gets one vote so Austin just ends this and says it’s Booker as his partner. Booker says he’ll prove his worth.

RVD isn’t happy so Austin yells at him, saying he only got one vote. Taz isn’t happy for some reason but he’s only kind of glaring and doesn’t say anything. Austin asks RVD if he thinks he deserves to be in the ring with Austin. RVD deserves to be a champion, so he gets a WCW Title shot against Rock later tonight. The idea is he’d be out of the triple threat if he wins. Regal officially makes the match.

Hurricane/Lance Storm/Mighty Molly vs. APA/Jacqueline

Hurricane is getting more and more popular at this point. The APA charges in to start and the beating begins. Faarooq and Storm start but Molly tags herself in. She hits Faarooq in the back and it’s off to Jackie. Jackie beats her up a bit and hits a bulldog for two. Hurricane comes in but so does Bradshaw who cleans house. Hurricane puts on the cape but jumps into a fallaway slam. The Clothesline ends it. This was a squash.

The booking for that makes no sense either as Hurricane and Storm had a WCW Tag Title shot on Sunday while the APA was in a dark match. There’s a good example of stupid and not thinking in booking. It’s booking for the TV show, not the PPV.

Kidman thinks something is up with the votes, because everyone listed voted for RVD. Tazz comes in and says shut up or he’ll tell Austin. Tazz vs. Kidman later.

Angle isn’t sure who his partner is going to be. Taker walks up and says he’s going to be the partner. Angle is cool with that.

Jericho says he wants to fight Rock at No Mercy. He and Rock are feuding so he makes fun of Rock’s signature stuff a bit. Cue Rock, who towers over Jericho. Rock says stay out of the match with RVD.

WCW World Title: The Rock vs. Rob Van Dam

Jericho is on commentary. Rock hits the release belly to belly to start and we head to the floor. Rock avoids the spinning leg drop from the apron and both guys get rammed into the table. Van Dam gets a spin kick and a leg drop for two. Jericho isn’t all that impressed with Rocky. Van Dam works on the ribs which Jericho calls smart. You know, because his finisher hits the ribs. That’s a little thing called analysis, but we don’t have time for that. WE HAVE TWITTER LINES TO RECITE!!!

Split legged moonsault misses and both guys are down. Rock gets up first and hits a DDT for two. I like RVD standing on his head for all intents and purposes when he gets dropped on his head. Rock Bottom is blocked but Rock hits a spinebuster to put both guys down. Van Dam sweeps the leg but Rolling Thunder is countered. They go to the floor and Rock hits him against the announce table. Rob goes for a chair and uses the distraction to let Rhyno run in for a Gore. Rock is dead so RVD goes up for the Splash and Jericho shoves him off for the DQ.

Rating: C+. Pretty basic match until the ending. This could have been a good match but with just eight minutes there’s only so much they can do. You can argue whether or not the ending makes sense but it’s close enough I guess. Still though, this was fine considering it was thrown onto the show (because we can’t market it right?) and RVD doesn’t get the title yet.

Jericho doesn’t save Rock from the beatdown because that’s what Rock wanted right?

Stephanie yells at Rhyno about how Jericho just messed everything up. Stephanie, just look hot. Don’t talk. You can’t do it.

Tazz vs. Billy Kidman

Tazz throws him around and they seem to mess something up where Kidman’s face hits the back of Tazz’s head in the corner. They slug it out and Kidman hits a spinning X Factor to end this. It wasn’t even two minutes long and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was a bit messed up out there.

Rhyno vs. Chris Jericho

Rhyno is US Champion but this is non-title. Rhyno clotheslines him down and pounds Jericho in the corner to start things off. Jericho fights back and hits what we would call the Skull Crushing Finale for two. Spinebuster puts Jericho down for two. That’s a very popular move tonight. Off to a chinlock. I’m sorry about all the play by play but with practically zero backstory here there isn’t much to talk about.

We go WAY old school with Rhyno busting out an airplane spin for two. Rhyno continues to surprise me, missing a middle rope splash. Jericho speeds things up but misses the Lionsault. Belly to belly gets two for the horned one. Jericho hooks the Walls off a rollup but here’s the Alliance for the DQ.

Rating: D. This was nothing worth seeing. The whole point was for the run-in and the post match stuff, which is nothing all that interesting. The interesting thing to see though is that Raven and Mike Awesome ran in for the DQ. If those two, especially Awesome, had been used properly, my goodness what they could have done.

Rock comes out for the save and lays Jericho out with a Rock Bottom, which isn’t really that popular in Canada.

Diamond Dallas Page is at WWF New York and doesn’t like Canada. He’s really positive. It’s pretty clear he’s fishing for ANYTHING he can talk about here.

Edge vs. X-Pac

DIG THAT ROB ZOMBIE INTRO!!! This was right around the time where Edge would hit a groove and was without a doubt the hottest thing on the planet. If he hadn’t gotten hurt, John Cena might have been out of a job. Pac is Light Heavyweight Champions, meaning that every match tonight other than the six man has had a champion in it. That’s RIDICULOUS.

Edge grabs a headlock as Heyman defends Pac from an attack by Ross that doesn’t really exist. On Sunday, Edge has an IC Title match against Christian. It’s also a ladder match. Think that might steal the show a bit? Pac sends Edge over the top and hits a sweet baseball slide to take Edge out. Back in with a chinlock by Waltman. Big spinwheel kick gets two. He loads up the Bronco Buster but it gets countered with a spear, which isn’t quite a finisher yet. Edge-O-Matic gets two. After hitting the post, a flapjack and the Impaler finish Pac.

Rating: C. Pretty decent match here and I can’t emphasize this enough: you can have a coherent match that has a small story in it in less than five minutes. That’s what they did here and it was pretty entertaining. Then again, you had two talented guys in there so it worked out pretty well. Edge would get the title on Sunday.

Post match JR whispers something to Edge. It seems to shake him up and he runs off.

In the back Edge is frantically trying to leave. He runs into Christian and says their mom has been in an accident and they need to get to Toronto. Some Alliance guys try to stop him and Christian turns on Edge, revealing himself to be the newest member of the Alliance. Heyman officially announces Christian as the newest member.

Angle has on a bandana and sunglasses like Taker.

Booker T/Steve Austin vs. Undertaker/Kurt Angle

It’s a brawl to start on the floor until Booker and Angle officially get us going. Off to Taker vs. Austin with Austin hitting the Thesz Press. He hits three ropes for the flipping off elbow and gets caught by the throat. Austin manages to get Booker in and one Texan takes down the taller one with an axe kick. Spinarooni is broken up by a clothesline from Taker and here’s Angle.

To the floor and Kurt tastes some steel. Austin and Booker take turns beating him up and Austin hooks a chinlock. Angle is bleeding a bit under his eye. There’s an ankle lock out of nowhere but Booker breaks it up. There’s a tag to Taker who JUMPS OVER THE TOP ROPE. My mind is blown. There’s goes the referee but Taker can’t chokeslam Booker. Austin is knocked to the floor but Test runs in to break up the Last Ride.

He kicks Kurt down too and Kane comes down to even the odds. Taker and Booker fight into the crowd and Austin hits Angle with a belt for two. Austin hits the second referee but both guys get low blows to put everyone down. RVD runs in and hits a HUGE Five Star to Angle for Austin to get the pin. You know, because we can’t have RVD as the top face the audience wants him to be right?

Rating: C+. It was fine for a main event tag match but it had all of the wonderful overbooking that you grow to expect from the WWF in this period. Not much to see but it advanced three matches for Sunday, which they really needed because this has been a pretty lousy go home show.

Overall Rating: C-. I wasn’t feeling this one at all. It doesn’t make me want to watch No Mercy and I barely got into the flow of things at all. Everything was focused on the main event but without context it’s really all over the place. Today’s product is really good at throwing you into the mix very quickly but making sure things don’t get too heavy. This didn’t do that and the build for the show suffers as a result. Not a bad show, but it doesn’t help to build for No Mercy that well at all.

Here’s No Mercy if you’re interested:

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 28, 2001
Location: Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Attendance: 12,477
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

Tonight we keep going with the King of the Ring build and more of Austin vs. the Canadians. I think I vaguely remember this show but I’m not sure. There’s one major thing that happens tonight which is the start of something big and you’ll know what I’m talking about when we get there. The card looks decent so let’s get to it.

We get a video from Smackdown where Benoit and Jericho defended their titles in a TLC match, which I’ve actually reviewed. Here’s the Smackdown if you’re interested:

http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?p=3422809#post3422809

It’s a shame we didn’t have the title change here in Calgary. Can you imagine the pop for that?

A courier sent JR a letter earlier today saying Undertaker’s wife would be here tonight. It wasn’t signed. And so it begins. That’s not the big thing I was referencing earlier either.

Here’s Vince to open things up. He doesn’t like being in Calgary and they don’t seem too happy to see him either. Vince talks about how in Canada, French and English can get along and that amazes him. Some people even feel proud to say they’re Canadian. Think that pops the audience much? Vince thinks maybe Canadians are happy to have brought Americans hockey, strong beer, or the word “eh”. However, Americans should never go to Canada.

Cue Jericho….and his mic doesn’t work. Vince: “That must have been a Canadian microphone.” Jericho gets right to the point: he wants Austin for the title and he wants him tonight. Vince declines so Jericho accuses him of wearing a toupee. He brings up Vince being a genetic jackhammer and says that Vince has made two sl***: Stephanie, and his new one: Austin. Vince also is a great singer, and with that we get the always awesome Stand Back video. Vince is ticked so he gives Jericho his title shot. Just not against Austin. It’s against Big Show for the Hardcore Title.

Cue Benoit who says he can’t just “STAND BACK” and let Jericho have all the fun. Benoit says that he should get the match with Austin. He even has more footage from Stand Back night, this part focusing more on Vince’s dancing abilities. Benoit gets to face Rhyno. Whoever is more impressive in their individual matches gets Austin for the title. Somehow this segment took twenty minutes.

Stu Hart (looking like he had no idea where he is) and his family are here.

Hardy Boys vs. Justin Credible/X-Pac

Justin vs. Jeff starts us off and it’s off to their partners a few seconds in. Matt gets crotched on the post and Lita’s evening is ruined according to Heyman. Bronco Buster to Matt. Oh and Eddie is here with the Hardys. When the referee isn’t looking, Lita crotches Pac on the post as payback for her unattended vagina that night. Hot tag brings in Jeff and he cleans house. Eddie breaks up a double superkick, allowing the Hardys to hit their finishers on Pac for the pin.

Rating: C-. Really quick match here but they didn’t get boring or anything. Eddie would be gone after Smackdown due to rehab and so we never found out where this was going. I’d asssume it would be to an eventual Eddie heel turn, possibly with Lita, but there’s no way to really know. Decent match though.

Eddie saves Matt from Albert post match.

Trish and Terri fight over a mirror.

Tajiri is cleaning Regal’s office when Albert comes in and demands a match with Eddie. Regal says ok.

Chris Benoit vs. Rhyno

Rhyno goes for the bad ribs immediately, hurting Benoit with a gorilla press drop. Benoit snaps off the rolling Germans and the Crossface but Rhyno grabs the rope. The Gore hits but Benoit rolls to the floor. Benoit fight back and hits the Rolling Germans again but opts for some chops instead of covering. A superplex puts the man beast down for two. The Gore is countered into the Crossface for the tap. This was short but intense. Not enough to rate though.

We recap the Blackman/Trish/Grandmaster thing. Sexay thinks shenanigans of a sexual nature were afoot.

Steve Blackman/Trish Stratus vs. Perry Saturn/Terri

At least the girls look good. Saturn is loopy and Terri is in a skin colored bikini. Nice to see she’s taking this seriously. The men start us off and Saturn hammers him down. The girls come in to wake the crowd up a bit and Trish is just not that good yet. The guys come in again and Blackman dominates. Terri interferes and gets spanked. Catfight time and here’s your major moment: Lance Storm runs in and superkicks Saturn so Blackman can get the pin.

And that was the start of the Invasion.

The match was junk and too short to rate again. It sucked, although the girls looked good.

During the break, Storm ran out of the building, celebrated with Shane, and left in a limo. Paul: “It’s just begun.”

Vince FREAKS on security in the back.

Al Snow is at WWF New York. He talks about his new show: Tough Enough.

Spike and Molly are all lovey dovey in the back. I see why these two never talked. Spike is about to kiss her when Angle comes in. He says it’ll be a mistake and offers them a lesson in the birds of the bees. Spike protests and smacks Angle. Just guess how well that goes for Spike. Molly goes looking for the Dudleys to help Spike but they just happen to run out in front of the Hollies, who beat down the Dudleys. See how simply a story and feud can be made?

After a break the Dudleys are yelling at Spike. Molly is going through a table.

Hardcore Title: Chris Jericho vs. Big Show

Lillian says Jericho is also the IC Champion, which is completely wrong. Jericho lost that title almost two months before this. He runs past Show and gets in the ring first, hitting a baseball slide to take over. A chair shot doesn’t work as Show knocks it away. Remember he’s still banged up from TLC. Show take over with the power game and throws around various metal object.

Jericho manages to dropkick a chair into Show’s knee but is then easily tossed head first into a trashcan. Total dominance so far. Show misses a legdrop onto a trashcan and Jericho gets in a few shots which don’t get him anywhere. Show puts him on the middle rope and picks up the steps. Jericho manages to fire off a dropkick into the steel to knock them into Show’s head and a fast Lionsault gives him his second title at the moment.

Rating: C. I don’t know why but I liked this. Jericho sold like a master and I can actually buy the ending because it puts Jericho over very strong. The finish was clean too, as Jericho didn’t cheat at all to win this, given the structure of the rules. Fun match and I have no idea why I liked it as much as I did, since there certainly isn’t much to it.

Jericho holds up both belts on the stage and turns around into a Gore by Rhyno to give him the Hardcore Title.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Albert

Dig that X-Factor theme. That’s the only good thing they had going for them. Eddie pounds away as fast as he can but Albert catches him and starts using the power. BIG gorilla press puts Eddie down. Eddie gets in a dropkick to the knee but his dive to the floor is caught and Albert rams him into the post. Eddie counters a powerbomb but Albert runs him over again. Lita comes running out as Eddie counters a Baldo Bomb into a rollup for the pin. Too short to rate but Eddie did his usual good stuff. No idea what Lita added to this.

Mick Foley was on the Today Show about his new book which is also a New York Times #1 bestseller. Can you imagine a wrestler today writing a book and having it go to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list? Foley did it TWICE.

We get the first of the Stalking Sara videos where someone is filming Undertaker’s pretty blonde wife at her house. The reveal would be awesome at the time and then would totally fall flat on its face.

The Hollies talk about the tables match and Molly begs to keep Spike from going through the table.

The Canadian Chrises talk about getting the title match tonight when Vince comes in. Both of them have impressed him and they’ve both earned a title shot at Stone Cole. Austin wants to fight them both at the same time but Vince isn’t letting that happen. Benoit gets the shot. Post show Vince wants to know where the Stand Back footage came from. Jericho gives him a pep talk. He wants the first shot and Benoit has no problem with that.

Tajiri broke something in Regal’s office but Vince comes in before he can get fired. Tajiri bows a lot and Vince doesn’t get it. Regal sends Tajiri off to get some coffee for Vince. “Bloody foreigners.” Vince says Austin has a brilliant idea for the main event and tells Regal to make sure to watch, but he won’t say what it is.

Dudley Boys vs. Hollys

This is a tables match. Just the four people in this one so no Spike or Molly, but they’re at ringside. I think you only have to put one person through a table to win. The Hollys take over to start and Crash brings in a table. Bubba prevents Hardcore from powerbombing D-Von through it and JR says he thinks Hardcore was attempting a powerbomb. Was it when he powerbombed D-Von that gave him away Jimbo?

The cousins try to throw Crash into Bubba through a table but instead Bubba moves and Crash just bounces off of it and lands on his head. FREAKING OW MAN!!! What’s Up Hardcore? It’s Table Time but Hardcore dropkicks them down. Not that it matters because there’s a 3D through the table for Hardcore and the win.

Rating: C-. Not bad but nothing to remember. I think this blew off their feud which was a fine little feud that was aired on TV. Why they don’t do more of that I’m not sure, but it was perfectly fine, it brought in some new blood to the tag division (which didn’t stay around but whatever) and it came to a logical conclusion. Now why can’t they do that more often?

The Dudleys try to put Molly through a table so Spike says put me through it instead. For some reason he thinks laying on the table is going to stop them, and I think you know what’s coming. Molly is powerbombed through Spike through the table. Molly keeps asking if Spike is ok as she goes out.

We talk about the semi-huge white elephant in the room: HHH isn’t here. We get a video of him in the office of Dr. James Andrews and him getting the diagnosis. It’ll be six weeks of crutches and then at least four months to heal before we even start rehabilitation. HHH talks about being put in the Walls of Jericho and then collapsing after the match ended. He knows he’ll be back and it was never if he would be back.

The next day was the surgery and I know the timing is bad but my goodness Stephanie is beautiful. This was a bad quad tear because the tear was under the first layer of muscle which made it hard to find. The repair was good though. JR says he’ll be out at least four months, which wound up being closer to seven.

WWF World Title: Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit

I remember this match happening and I fell asleep before it ended so I’ve never seen this all the way through. For some reason Lillian doesn’t introduce them here. Instead the Fink does big match intros. I guess she got the night off for the screw up earlier? Benoit has taped up ribs. Fink’s voice is just perfect. There’s something right about him introducing the world title match.

Austin goes after the bad ribs immediately and Benoit tries for a home run Crossface. Remember we’re in Canada so everything Benoit does gets a big eruption. He chops away but Austin his the Thesz Press. Benoit grabs a Crossface and the place explodes. Austin finally gets a rope and they go to the floor. The challenger gets fired into the steps and we go back into the ring.

Benoit gets a Sharpshooter and it’s in the middle of the ring. The place goes nuts and Benoit pulls him back to the middle of the ring. Austin FINALLY gets a rope and the booing is great. Out to the floor and Austin suplexes Benoit onto the announce table which doesn’t break. There’s an abdominal stretch back in the ring. I think JR’s voice is about to go. Benoit gets it broken due to the referee seeing Austin cheating and here are some rolling Germans.

We go up and Chris looks for a superplex but Austin counters and slams him face first onto the mat. Austin’s superplex gets two. Austin tries a belt shot but Hebner takes it from him. Back in the ring we get a Stunner but Vince is arguing with Hebner. Benoit gets up and clocks Austin with the belt but the count is delayed so it’s only a two. This is REALLY good stuff. Another Stunner attempt is countered into the Crossface but Vince pulls the referee out. Hebner shoves Vince down but Austin gets the ropes again. And then in a HORRIBLE ending, Austin puts the Crossface on and Vince says ring the bell. Yep, they did that.

Rating: B+. Until the ending, this was excellent. I’d love to see these two get twenty five minutes in a PPV main event and let them let it all hang out, but I’ll have to settle for a 12 minute Raw main event instead. Great match which I was getting into 10 years later and knowing the ending. That should say a lot about how great it was.

Jericho comes out and puts Austin in the Walls while Vince is in the Crossface.

Overall Rating: B+. I really liked this show. A lot of stuff happened on it and we get a great main event on top of it. Plus you get the starts of the Stalker and Invasion, which are both pretty big deals. Unfortunately the Invasion would be one of the worst run angles in the history of wrestling if not the worst, so we kind of peaked early. More would come soon enough though. Great show.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 21, 2001
Location: Compaq Center, San Jose, California
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

We have arrived. This is the show with probably the most famous and best TV tag match in company history if not wrestling history. It’s Austin/HHH vs. Benoit/Jericho in a tag title match. The rest of the show doesn’t matter but last night was Judgment Day and HHH lost the IC Title while Austin is still world champion. Let’s get to it.

Austin is here immediately to open the show. He says he’s still the champion no matter how much the people hate him. Austin represents all of them and even though he’s a fighting champion, Undertaker doesn’t get a rematch. There’s no one in the WWF that can beat him, and here’s Jericho. He asks if Austin would shut up and asks him why he sold his soul to Vince. He sold his soul and is as big a sl** as Stephanie. The challenge for later on is made (Benoit/Jericho won a match last night to determine the #1 contenders) and it’s a big brawl with the partners coming in as well.

After a break the Two Man Power Trip (which has three people in it) rant a lot with HHH being the main hot head.

Angle gets here with his medals again. He shows them off to various people because there’s a ceremony later. Oh it’s this show. Nice.

Hardcore Title: Big Show vs. Rhyno

This is a more even match than it sounds. Rhyno gets weapons out but gets beaten down quickly. The size difference here is massive. Show suplexes him on the ramp but misses a charge into the post. Here are the weapon shots as Rhyno works over the arm. Getting rid of the chokeslam makes sense. Rhyno sets for the Gore but it hits a chair. Show hits something like a Van Daminator (minus the jump) and a chokeslam onto said can gives Show the title.

Rating: C-. This could only be so good. The match lasted about 4 minutes so it’s not like this was supposed to be a classic or anything. Show shrugged off the arm work which was kind of stupid and made Rhyno look weak, but the reign wound up being pointless as Jericho would win it the next week but lose it back to Rhyno the same night. Go figure.

Angle shows the medals to someone else.

Terri comes in to hit on the APA and pours beer on her top to mess with them. They’re facing the Radicalz next. The Radicalz jump the alcoholics.

Austin can’t find Debra.

Spike and Molly talk about their families fighting. Are they Romeo and Juliet? He gives her some Dudley Glasses as a good luck gift.

Perry Saturn/Dean Malenko vs. APA

Farrooq beats on Dean to start us off. The beating they took doesn’t seem to really be hurting them that much so far. The double neckbreaker gets two on Malenko as this has been one sided so far. Suplex gets two for the future JBL. The heels have to cheat and a superkick puts Bradshaw down for two. Off to Farrooq who can’t get the Dominator on Saturn so Perry hooks a suplex.

Farrooq takes a quick beating but snaps off a powerslam to set up the double tag. Bradshaw cleans house so Terri flashes him….to no effect at all. Saturn takes a big beating with a ton of power moves, getting pinned by a pair of double powerbombs. This would be the start of the Saturn is loopy angle.

Rating: D+. This was pretty stupid. The pre-match beatdown didn’t mean anything and neither did the flashing. Saturn was getting too popular or something so they decided to give him the upcoming gimmick where he was nuts and wanted to date a mop. I can’t stand the idiocy of this company at times.

Regal is talking to someone when Austin comes up looking for Debra. Regal says she might have been attacked by Taker.

The soon to be face Edge and Christian decline to be in on Kurt’s gold medal ceremony.

European Title: Matt Hardy vs. X-Pac

Fast paced feeling out process to start with no one being able to take over so far. The fans all chant for Lita as this is still fast paced. Justin Credible distracts Matt so Pac can take over and let the cheating begin. JR and Paul argue over who “they” are (as in they call Justin the one man crime spree) as Pac/Credible crotch Matt on the post. Bronco Buster is still annoying. They slug it out and Matt blocks the X-Factor into a slingshot.

Pac grabs a backslide for two with the feet on the ropes. Other than a chinlock they’ve been going strong for like 5 minutes. Out to the floor where Jeff interferes and it turns into a big brawl. Lita tries to jump Pac which results in her getting flipped. Here’s Eddie for the save and he throws Pac into the Twist of Fate for the pin as Matt retains.

Rating: B-. For a six minute match, this was pretty awesome. They didn’t stop moving the entire time and it made the match a lot better. Pac can go when he’s in there with a smaller guy like Hardy and this is what you get out of it. As long as he’s not around big guys and overcoming the odds and making said big guy look like an idiot, this was fine.

Saturn is still out of it.

Angle is very happy looking as he comes to the ring. After a break here’s the medal celebration, complete with an Olympic style three place podium. Kurt reads from a scroll about what a hero is because San Jose is stupid. It’s pretty epic with fireworks and Heyman saying John Wayne wishes he could be the American that Angle is. Imagine how JR takes that.

This brings out Shane McMahon to I believe new music which is still awesome. I know he didn’t have it at Mania. He talks about WCW which is starting soon. Shane goes through the letters WCW, starting with W, which stands for World. We live in the world on the planet Earth. There are other planets like Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and they all have moons. Kurt: “What are you talking about?”

Shane goes on to talk about the letter C, which stands for championship, which Kurt currently doesn’t have. It can also stand for crayon, coyote and for cookie, which is good enough for me. Kurt: “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” (According to Eric Bischoff, it stood for commitment but continuity didn’t mean anything in WCW). The final W is for wrestling which he says as he walks up the podium. Angle runs up and hits a big old Angle Slam and the ankle lock to leave Shane laying. This was odd as Shane had no real reason to come out here. It set up a great brawl at KOTR though so no complaints there.

Debra is in the back and is fine. Austin comes in and she says she was just gone getting coffee. She apologizes and Austin says he was worried about her. He talks about Regal thinking it might have been Taker and here is that Taker, getting right in Debra’s face. Taker says it’s not over, which it more or less was. He says it’s personal and to keep his family out of it. Austin isn’t that much shorter than Taker. Taker leaves and Austin says he didn’t fight because Debra was there. Austin came off looking like a face here while Taker looked like a heel.

Shane is escorted out. And I’m sure we won’t see him all night long right?

Dudley Boys vs. Hollies

Molly isn’t tall enough to be the Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress and I don’t know of any Bus Stops in Dudleyville. That’s all the Hollies songs I know so no more references. Big brawl to start and Hardcore is sent outside so double teaming ensues. Bubba vs. Crash officially gets us going. Off to Bob vs. D-Von as the fans want tables. Spike and Molly are near each other on the floor which distracts D-Von, giving the Hollies the advantage.

Heyman is making Jewish references which are probably pushing the limits a bit too far. Suplex gets two. Hardcore’s dropkick is still sweet to watch. Crash gets a DDT for two. Bubba gets the hot tag and there’s What’s Up to Bob. It’s Table Time and JR asks why it’s always D-Von that has to get the tables. Spike tries to convince Bubba not to use it but Crash hits a baseball slide to send it into their faces. Crash tries to use the bell but Molly breaks that up. The bell winds up in the ring and upside D-Von’s head for the pin.

Rating: C-. The Hollies were an interesting team that were actually former tag champions, having a totally forgotten two week reign back in 1999. That being said, they were interesting in that they were rarely put into storylines other than hardcore matches or against each other but they were a fairly decent tag team. Fun little match here with a nice surprise at the end, which is usually the best part of a match.

Vince gives Kurt an IC Title shot against Kane. Kurt isn’t sure if that’s a reward. Vince wanted Kurt to hurt Shane even worse.

The more famous Dudleys yell at Spike about Molly. They declare that Molly is going through a table.

Eddie comes in to check on Matt before he and Jeff team up against Edge and Christian.

HHH reminds Austin that they’re a team.

Steven Richards is at WWF New York and announces that…..well I’m not sure as Heyman yells that NO ONE CARES and to go tell someone who cares. I don’t know if it was his voice or what but that cracked me up.

Eddie Guerrero/Jeff Hardy vs. Edge/Christian

Eddie vs. Edge starts us off and this is a pretty stacked tag match. Jeff speeds things up but Christian cheats like a good heel. He comes in legally now and gets a powerslam for two. Heyman shows what an analyst is supposed to do by asking the question of who would make a better partner for Eddie: Jeff or Matt.

See, that simple question is pertinent to the match and angle at hand, gets JR into the conversation, and isn’t something that there’s a clear cut answer to. Today you would hear about how one isn’t in the Fave Five and something about how Cole is going to do this or that and how something is trending on Twitter or talking about the main event. In about 4 seconds, Heyman has probably played more attention to a match than Cole has in a year.

Anyway, Jeff comes in with a jawbreaker to put Edge down and we get a double tag. Eddie snaps off a gorgeous headscissors and the non-Canadians beat Christian down in the corner. There’s Poetry in Motion but Eddie takes a spear and everything breaks down. Eddie might have pushed Jeff out of the way for it. Lita crotches Edge on the post and Eddie gets a sunset bomb on Christian for the pin.

Rating: C. Pretty nice fast paced tag match here. Unfortunately the Eddie and Hardys angle never got any resolution as Eddie would be sent to rehab later this month and would be released in November. After next week, he wouldn’t wrestle on Raw until April of 2002. Shame too because the angle was pretty intriguing.

Intercontinental Title: Kane vs. Kurt Angle

Kane still has a bad wing. He takes over anyway with a powerslam early on. Kurt avoids a chokeslam and goes after the arm. A cross armbreaker doesn’t work that well so Kane gets Kurt on the mat and pounds away. The arm work continues for awhile until Kane fires back with a side slam and the clothesline. A big boot and another clothesline put Angle on the floor and here’s Shane for the return attack. He throws Kurt back in for a chokeslam to keep the title on Kane.

Rating: D. Pretty meh match here but it wasn’t terrible I guess. These two didn’t have a particularly good match when they wrestled at Mania either so maybe they just don’t click well. They had six minutes or so and it went by fast, but everyone was waiting on Shane to return and attack, so it was a pretty moot point anyway.

The Chrises say remember where we came from to get here.

Tag Titles: Steve Austin/HHH vs. Chris Benoit/Chris Jericho

Here we go. Austin vs. Jericho gets us going and one of the belts is laying in the ring. Austin takes over with pounding boots but Jericho snaps off a cross body for two. A top rope elbow to the head scores for Jericho and he works on Austin’s arm. HHH comes in and the Canadians take over. Benoit chops Austin HARD and then hits a snap suplex for no cover. There’s a superplex for two as HHH saves.

Jericho comes in to even things out but it lets the champions take over. Benoit is like screw that and pounds them back, hooking the Crossface on Austin. HHH comes in with a big chair shot to break it up but Benoit kicks out to a big pop. Benoit goes into the steps for no count as he kicks out before the one. Austin pounds away on him and it’s off to HHH who hooks a cheating abdominal stretch.

Make that a sleeper as Benoit is in big trouble. Benoit manages to fire off a suplex to put both guys down and an enziguri is good enough for the hot tag to Jericho….but the referee doesn’t see it. The fans don’t like that at all. Jericho goes off with Austin on the floor as HHH hits the Pedigree. There’s no referee though so Jericho goes up and takes HHH’s head off with a missile dropkick.

There’s your hot tag to Jericho and he takes on the now legal Austin and HHH at the same time. Thesz Press is countered into a spinebuster and then the Walls but HHH makes the save. That right there, that save, resulted in HHH tearing his quad off the bone and would put him out of action until January of 2002. You could see HHH’s leg just stop moving. His leg is dead weight now.

HHH is like screw this potentially career ending injury and goes to set up the announce table. HHH loads up the Pedigree but Jericho counters into the Walls on the table, and remember that HHH has a torn muscle. FREAKING OW MAN!!! Benoit hits the swan dive on Austin but there’s no referee. Stunner to Benoit gets two as Jericho pulls the referee out. Lionsault gets knees and HHH finds the sledgehammer from somewhere. The second Lionsault hits but the hammer hits Austin and Jericho gets the pin and the titles as the place erupts!

Rating: A+. WOW this match holds up really well. After Jericho gets that hot tag, this is full speed ahead the rest of the way. The energy in this is great as they did everything they could to keep the Canadians down but in the end, HHH messes up to end it. Notice one very important thing here: Jericho had Austin (presumably) beat with the Lionsault, so it’s not like they got dominated the entire time and won on a mistake by the other team. That’s huge and it makes Benoit/Jericho look far stronger as the new champions.

Overall Rating: A. This is a great show overall with some very fun stuff throughout the night. Everything clicks and for a TV show, that’s almost unheard of. When you get a classic main event, you’re guaranteed a good show but a great show surrounding it makes this one of the best Raws I can remember in a very long time. Check this show out as it’s awesome stuff.

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Monday Night Raw
Date: May 14, 2001
Location: US Bank Arena, Cincinnati, Ohio
Attendance: 12,022
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

We’re just one week away from the big tag match but first we have one more show to get through. It’s the go home show for Judgment Day which is pretty much the end of the Two Man Power Trip vs. the Brothers so we’re going to be through that. There isn’t much else here to talk about so let’s get to it.

We open with a video from Smackdown of Taker waiting on Austin all night, including chilling in his locker room and stealing the vest. This includes a clip of Vince hitting Taker in the back with a chair that was in the Smackdown intro for awhile. Kane made his return to make the save.

Here’s Austin to open the show and he gets a solid reaction. They just didn’t want to boo him. Here’s the Game as well. Steph gives her husband a big introduction and isn’t quite that big herself yet. HHH says Kane should have just stayed away, but Kane couldn’t just stay away. For some reason, HHH offers Kane an IC Title match at the PPV in a chain match. HHH wants Kane here now but it’s Austin’s turn to talk.

He says he’ll keep the title and he doesn’t need to jump people from behind like Taker did to him. Austin demands more respect. For some reason, he wants to defend the tag titles against the Brothers. What’s up with the brave heels tonight? Austin says the tall ones won’t do it because they can’t and that draws out Taker.

Taker doesn’t approve of being called a coward and says he’s looking for someone brave enough to fight him. On behalf of Kane, Taker accepts HHH’s challenge which Kane would win. The tag title match is on too. Taker says that Austin said he doesn’t like traps. That means he’s not going to like this then and cue Kane’s fire. Kane pops up out of nowhere and they chase off the champs.

Kurt comes in to see Regal and it’s Kurt vs. Rikishi tonight. If Kurt wins, he gets to pick the kind of match he and Benoit have on Sunday.

Kurt Angle vs. Rikishi

Kurt tries to get behind him and suplex Rikishi and after about two seconds he goes over and hammers away instead. A clothesline puts Angle on the floor and we slug it out on the outside for a bit. Kurt avoids a drop and tries to hammer away but Rikishi is too big. They go into the corner and Rikishi loads up the Stinkface but here’s Regal for the DQ. Angle hits the Slam post match. Regal would beat Rikishi on Sunday where Rikishi would hurt I believe his shoulder and would be out until December. This match was nothing and pretty short.

There are cops on the way to find Taker.

Crash comes up to talk to Molly and he doesn’t like her talking to Spike. These two aren’t good talkers at all. Crash has a Hardcore Title match tonight. He’s only a 12 time champion here and says you can’t trust a Dudley.

Malenko wants to know what’s up with Eddie and Lita/Matt/Jeff. Saturn says Eddie is either with them or against them in the tag match tonight.

Here’s Trish who has music now. She says Vince won’t approve of this. The fans want to see more of her. Maybe they’d like to see more of all the Divas. There’s a new Diva video and here’s a clip of it. Lita and Trish in bikinis is never a bad thing.

The cops are talking to Taker in the locker room. The cop comes out and Taker bolts out the door. After a break the cop says Taker’s wife had a car accident and Taker is being escorted there. And you know that no one has ever lied about something like that in wrestling.

Hardy Boys vs. Perry Saturn/Dean Malenko

Lita is getting ready for a match later so the Hardys are on their own. Jeff and Perry start us off. Whisper in the Wind gets two and it’s off to Dean who cheats a bit. Dean works on the leg for a bit as JR gets the upcoming show announcements in. Everything breaks down and Perry has a chair from somewhere. Eddie steals it from him and the Twist of Fate ends Saturn. This was even shorter than the other match.

Post match Eddie clocks Saturn with the chair and officially turns face. Eddie would be gone from the company by the end of the month and wouldn’t be back for almost a year due to going to rehab and then getting released for a drunk driving arrest.

Austin talks to the cop and asks how Taker took the news. He’s a bit too happy about Taker being gone.

Hardcore Title: Crash vs. Rhyno

Crash speeds things up to start and hits a dive on the floor for two. A top rope trashcan lid shot to the head gets two. Rhyno takes over with a big shot and covers but Spike pops up out of nowhere to put Crash’s foot on the rope. Rhyno gets up and Gores Crash for the quick pin anyway. Crash beats up Spike post match. That was kind of odd.

Kane arrives in gear and Regal says it’s a handicap main event. If Kane doesn’t fight, both he and Taker are fired.

Edge/Christian vs. Chris Benoit/Chris Jericho

Benoit still has Angle’s medals. Jericho vs. Christian to start but it’s off to the Canadian quickly. Oh wait that needs some more doesn’t it? It’s Benoit who beats on Christian for awhile, mainly with chops. Edge comes in and walks into a German from The Canadian. Edge breaks up a Crossface attempt and Christian takes over for a bit. The reverse DDT is countered into another Crossface attempt and another Edge save. I know he carried the team for awhile but this is ridiculous.

Off to Edge legally and they chop it out for a bit. The only one of these four that is still active comes in and chokes away. Edge and Christian didn’t really have any big kind of offensive repertoire at this point so them winning in a way other than cheating or a rollup or the occasional spear was rare. Benoit dives for a tag but Christian makes another save.

Benoit finally gets a hot tag a few seconds later and things speed up a lot. Jericho hooks the Walls on Edge but now Christian makes the save. It’s Conchairto time but they miss, sending the chairs together. Benoit dropkicks the chairs into their faces and here’s Angle to steal his medals back. Jericho hits a Lionsault on Edge for the pin.

Rating: C. Not bad here and it’s really a tuneup for Benoit/Jericho taking the tag titles next Monday. They would be in a tag team turmoil match on Sunday to get the shot. Edge and Christian were on their final legs as a team here because they’ve outgrown the division and have nothing left to prove. It would take Christian years to get over as a singles guy though.

Angle celebrates on the ramp with his medals but Benoit says he hopes Angle finds them sweet, because they’re made of candy. He pulls the real medals out of his tights and says come get them on Sunday.

Post break Angle is still ticked and doesn’t know what he’s going to pick for the stipulations on Sunday.

Jericho talks about how he and Benoit beat Edge and Christian but the evil Canadians jump him and give him a Conchairto.

Here’s Regal who makes it a handicap match later tonight. Didn’t he already do that? Also the chain match is confirmed. Regal vs. Rikishi on Sunday as well. He gets ready to leave and here’s….Grandmaster Sexay? He says Regal needs to chill because Rikishi is cool now. Sexay is very annoying. Regal says he has no idea what Sexay just said and I’m not sure I did either. Sexay wants Regal to dance. He brings in four decent looking girls from ringside to dance with them. The look on Regal’s face is hysterical. Sexay suggests Regal doesn’t like women so Sexay dances with the girls. Regal finally beats him and Rikishi doesn’t save.

Debra is with Austin and is sad about Taker’s wife’s car crash. Austin says it won’t ever happen to her.

We recap the Canadian tag match and Jericho taking the Concharito.

I don’t know why or how, but that transitions into Rock on NBC Dateline.

Lita/Chyna vs. Molly Holly/Ivory

I don’t get that transition either. Ivory is the only heel in this match. Ivory vs. Lita to start us off. Lita does fine for a bit but Chyna won’t tag in. Molly comes in and Lita is kind of in a handicap match here. Molly hits the Molly Go Round but Chyna makes the save. A sloppy Twist of Fate sets up the moonsault for the pin on Molly. More or less a handicap squash.

Austin comes in to see Regal to make sure he understands the main event. He asks Regal if he thinks it’s fair to Kane. Austin demands that it be for the tag titles. Ok then.

Lita says she doesn’t know what Chyna was doing out there but she’ll get her Sunday. Chyna pops up to say that Lita needed to prove something to her. This didn’t mean anything as Chyna destroyed her in like 5 minutes Sunday and wouldn’t be seen again. She also says don’t trust Eddie.

We get a clip from earlier with Taker bolting from the arena.

The Austin racecar is at WWF New York. The driver is there too and doesn’t have much to say.

Stephanie talks to HHH who has a racecar debuting soon. She can’t get excited about it because she can’t stop thinking about the car wreck. HHH and Austin talk about how bad Taker’s wife might be after the wreck.

APA/Test vs. Big Show/Bull Buchanan/Goodfather

Show got a Stinkface on Smackdown at Test’s instruction so there’s your backstory. The good guys beat down Big Show before the RTC gets here. Oh never mind they’re here now. After a brawl we start with Goodfather vs. Faarooq but it’s off to Buchanan quickly. Big Show vs. Test at the PPV. Bradshaw comes in for a bad swinging neckbreaker. This is a rather sloppy match. Lukewarm tag brings in Test who hits a full nelson slam on Goodfather. Big Show comes in and botches a low bridge spot to send himself to the floor. Not that it matters as he hits Test with the steps and Buchanan steals the pin. Another short match.

Kane says this is for Sarah and Taker. He has a chain with them and says it’s for Austin and HHH.

Austin says he feels no remorse.

Tag Titles: Kane vs. Steve Austin/HHH

Kane has the chain with him. He also has a broken arm. They head to the floor quickly and Austin starts in on the arm. It doesn’t look like the champions have to tag. A double clothesline puts the champs down and Austin takes a powerslam. There’s a chokeslam but HHH jumps off the top with a chain shot and it gets thrown out.

Rating: C. No idea what to call this otherwise as it’s barely over three minutes long. The idea here was to get the guys out there and set up the post match beatdown which is kind of pointless since Kane already has a broken arm in the first place but whatever. Either way, not much of a match here but it could have been a lot worse which is the bright spot I guess.

Austin and HHH beat down Kane and Austin says Taker’s wife will be fine. I think the accident was faked by them to beat down Kane.

Overall Rating: B-. This was a pretty weak show but it was a very solid go home show for the PPV. Everything got at least some time which is the right idea for a show such as this. The PPV wound up pretty decent if I remember correctly. We’re still a few months away from entering the Alliance Era so we have that on the horizon. Anyway, good go home show here.

Here’s Judgment Day if you’re interested:

http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?p=2877522#post2877522

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Rebellion 2001
Date: November 3, 2001
Location: M.E.N. Arena, Manchester, England
Attendance: 15,612
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

I continue my war on Europe here with the next to last European PPV, Rebellion 2001. This is at the very tail end of the Alliance era so the main event is Austin vs. Rock for the title. Well you can’t say they’re giving us a weak main event. This card actually looks great on paper, but I’ve been fooled by stuff like that before. That being said, let’s get to it.

The opening video is of course about Austin vs. Rock. Could it be about anything else? A lot of the audio clips are from the Mania buildup also which is fine. Ross doesn’t exactly seem huge on being here tonight. There’s a WCW Title match tonight with Angle, who just joined the Alliance, challenging Jericho.

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. Edge

This is in a cage. Well you can’t say they’re starting slowly here. Christian is European Champion here and Edge is IC Champion. Christian won his title the Tuesday before this in America. In other words, the Canadian won the European Title in America but isn’t defending the European Title in Europe against a Canadian but will when he gets back to America. Well it was the WORLD Wrestling Federation.

They’re still brothers at this point. Christian tries to run early on which gets him nowhere. Why couldn’t this be on that Inside the Steel Cage thing I watched recently? Edge misses a spear and his shoulder hits the post. It’s pin, submission or escape here. Back breaker gets two for Christian. It’s weird seeing him in the shirt and with long hair still.

Ross says Edge has spent more time on the canvas than Rembrandt. The match has been going on less than five minutes and he’s already busting out the metaphors. Christian almost gets out but Edge makes the DIVING, yes DIVING I say, save. Almost all Christian here. And of course as I say that Edge gets a release Gordbuster from the middle rope and a cross body for two.

And we hit the chinlock for awhile now. Ross: we would never be argumentative. Paul: I disagree with that. Funny stuff. Another good one: Ross: you never praised Christian this much before he joined the Alliance. Paul: we weren’t paying him then. These two are awesome together. Edge gets a spear out of NOWHERE to put Christian down but he can’t capitalize.

Edgecution gets two. I still like that better as a finisher than the Spear. Edge-O-Matic gets less than three as well. They slug it out and Christian eats cage. Christian gets one leg over the top and that’s about it. In a very fun ending, Christian gets most of the way out as in he needs to drop to get out.

Edge grabs his boots and crotches him against the cage. He takes the tape off his wrists and ties Christian’s boots together and climbs out to win it. That was a nice little ending and it worked much better than most of the other generic endings you usually get. Also nice to see an escape rather than a stupid pin or something.

Rating: C. Pretty basic stuff here but the crowd was into it and things went pretty well here, especially considering it’s not like this is anything special outside of a big house show. The ending really helped it out a lot. A good ending like that can work wonders for something like this and it certainly did here.

We recap Angle joining the Alliance which wound up being a ploy by Vince to make the WWF Team win at Survivor Series.

Chavo is interviewing the Divas tonight. Bill DeMott comes up and says that HE is doing that tonight. These two were fired from the Alliance and were doing some weird fired angle that went nowhere. They’ll do the interviews tonight apparently. Trish has no shirt on and they get all nervous. She suggests they talk to Lita. More on this later I guess. Great.

Scotty 2 Hotty vs. The Hurricane

Heyman’s intro for Hurricane is great stuff. Basic stuff to start so far with nothing really going on early on. Hurricane (Gregory/Shane Helms) is in the Alliance here. This is just going nowhere at all. The bulldog to set up the Worm is blocked. Crowd is more or less dead here. Helms gets a Blockbuster for two.

We get what’s called a Ne-Han in No Mercy from the Hurricane. You cross the other guy’s arms in an X shape and pull back on them like a camel clutch. And then Hurricane lets it go to put on his cape. And so much for that as Scotty gets a DDT and both guys are down. and both guys are down. Kick by Scotty gets two.

Hurricane does a Worm of his own which doesn’t work. Chokeslam gets two. A rollup with ropes gets two. Eye of the Hurricane is blocked into the bulldog and there’s the Worm. I hate that move. Since it’s a chop to the neck after the other guy has forever to get better, it gets the in.

Rating: D. This match sucked. It was just boring on all accounts and the fans could tell. This should have been a dark match so of course they let it go on the actual show. Scotty was over for absolutely no apparent reason. This went nowhere at all and was boring beyond belief. Also, the freaking Worm got the pin. Get on to something else.

Trish tries to get the fired dudes the interview with Lita. She’s in her underwear and looks VERY good in her yellow thong. She throws them out.

DDP is the way too happy guy at this point. He thinks England is way too depressed. Sweet goodness Vince never got this guy at all.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Big Show

Make this quick. The only good thing about their match at Starrcade was the ending. It has to be better here right? Also get Page his Nirvana knockoff song. Show is in the one piece swimsuit here. Show goes straight at him and Page is in trouble. Heyman wants to know why Show doesn’t pick on someone his own size. That would be because there is no one his own size according to JR.

Ross talks about Show’s weight in stones. Heyman says at least as much as Richards and Jagger combined. The commentary has been awesome tonight. DDP goes for the leg to take him down for a change. He gets kind of a jumping fist off the top which is supposed to be a clothesline. Figure four is blocked by Show. Chokeslam is blocked into the Diamond Cutter for no cover because Page is down but eventually gets two. Chokeslam ends it soon thereafter.

Rating: N/A. Boring match that was more or less a squash. When the Diamond Cutter gets two, you know DDP is dead. This went nowhere at all for the most part and at least it was short.

Post match Page says that wasn’t a bad thing but rather a good thing because now he gets to leave England.

The fired dudes go in and Molly has no mask but is in her superhero outfit. She’s mad that they saw her without her cape. These segments suck and hard.

Shane is talking to Austin, Angle and Debra. They shouldn’t be worried about Survivor Series bur rather tonight. The table they’re at is round and you know the lines Angle is going to use. Shane is Merlin. When Angle got way into stuff he was hilarious.

WCW Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Hardy Boyz vs. APA

The Dudleyz have the belts here. And remember, D-Von is the weak one. This is under elimination rules. No Stacy here with the Dudleys which is a shame as she looked awesome in those camo shorts. The Hardys were on the verge of having some problems. Bubba vs. Matt starts us off. Ok so there is more or less ZERO reason for the APA to tag in to start right?

Bubba looks odd for some reason. I think it’s the lack of wrist tape. Bradshaw in now vs. Matt. The fans boo which they claim is due to Matt getting beaten down but I’m not so sure on that one. Are you sure it’s not due to the show kind of sucking? The APA beats up Jeff as the fans want tables. It should be noted that one of the six guys here ever wrestled in WCW and he’s also the one that has most recently appeared on WWE Television.

They’re just killing time here to get one of the teams, likely the APA, out. Fallaway Slam to D-Von from the middle rope gets no cover. The Hardys go to the floor for a bit leaving Farooq in trouble. They run in just in time to hit a Twist of Fate on Farrooq to end him and get us down to the predictable tag match.

D-Von gets out some tables to a huge face pop. Jeff gets a nice baseball slide to take him out as the table is driven into his face. It turns into the basic match between these two which while ok isn’t anything special. They talk about Lennox Lewis fighting D-Von or something like that. Heyman really likes talking about the Dudleys and their resume.

Now we’ll talk about Angle vs. Jericho as there is nothing that hasn’t been said about these teams already I suppose. Jeff crotches Bubba on the top and gets a rana for two. D-Von and Matt both come in with Matt naturally taking control. Poetry in Motion to Bubba and then to D-Von. The Swanton misses D-Von though and Matt walks into a bad 3D to retain.

Rating: D+. And so what? I mean seriously, who cares at this point? These teams feuded for so long and so many times that it got boring beyond belief to watch them fight again and again. I think the Dudleys beat them in a cage match at Survivor Series which was the final match between them. APA had no business being there so they were there anyway. Nothing special here at all.

Don’t try this at home. Try it away from home though.

Heyman is in Dudley glasses.

We see some stuff of Jericho accidentally hitting Rock which cost them a tag match. It’s not like this match is happening anytime soon or that they’re fighting tonight. We’re just trying to waste some time.

Vince is talking to Jericho and Rock is apparently on the other side of him. He wants them to bury the hatchet so they can beat the Alliance. They need to get along tonight. Why do they need to get along tonight? Who cares I guess, but Vince orders it so be it. They shake hands and Jericho says try not to lose another big one. Rock says he has something Jericho can take to the ring with him and drills him before a bunch of suits break it up.

Tajiri vs. William Regal

Before we get started Regal says he’s their role model. He makes fun of David Beckham and Man U. Tajiri is Cruiserweight Champion at this point. DANG Tajiri could throw some kicks. Regal gets into a grappling match where of course he’s going to dominate. This isn’t much more than a midcard match but at least they had been feuding recently so this makes sense. Regal gets a modified Tazmission more or less on Tajiri who comes back anyway.

Something tells me this isn’t going to last long. Tajiri gets crotched on the top rope as Regal keeps control. He chops the living heck  out of Regal as the fans aren’t exactly thrilled by this. Missile dropkick gets two. Handspring elbow hits to pop the crowd a bit. Tarantula hooks Regal and Tajiri goes up for the moonsault and crashes. Regal Stretch ends it immediately afterwards.

Rating: D+. Nothing special at all here with Tajiri having maybe a minute of offense total. This was more filler which they’ve been spacing apart pretty badly so far tonight. This went nowhere as did the feud due to the whole Alliance thing dying off soon after this. They were better as a comedy tag team.

Tajiri spits mist in his face post match.

Angle runs down British fans and makes fun of the name Y2J. This involves singing the Mickey Mouse Club song.

WCW World Title: Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle

Well this should be awesome. That big old WCW belt looks great on Jericho. Angle is the US Champion apparently. It’s still the old belt design which I actually like less than the current one which isn’t typical for me. They hit the mat almost immediately with Jericho throwing punches and forearms, making this almost like an MMA fight, at least in spirit.

Spinwheel kick takes down Angle for no cover. Three Amigos hit before they have a name. Walls can’t hook on so Jericho hits the springboard dropkick to send Angle to the floor. Jericho follows and chops the heck out of Angle. Back in the ring and Angle almost gets the ankle lock. Angle’s shoulder eats post. Well not really as there’s no opening there or anything but you get the concept.

Angle gets the momentum and starts busting out the suplexes. He goes for the Walls as we begin the countdown to Jericho hooking the ankle lock on him. Angle can’t get it anyway so it’s not like it really matters. We hit the chinlock as the fans are WAY behind Jericho here. How un-American they are indeed. Jericho gets a rolling cradle for two.

And then back to the chinlock as they’re kind of wasting time here. Enziguri counters the ankle lock and everyone other than the referee is down. Jericho cranks it up a bit and gets a rana for two. Yep I was right. Jericho rolls through a victory roll and grabs the ankle lock. A rope is grabbed shortly thereafter anyway so it’s not like it meant anything. Rolling Germans have Jericho in trouble.

There’s the real ankle lock but Jericho counters into the Walls. Lionsault eats knees though and it’s Angle Slam time. So much for that though as Angle gets rolled up for the pin and Jericho retains. How often do you see a clean finish between these two? I can’t think of one with about as limited thinking as possible.

Rating: B-. Nothing that special here but it was ok for the most part. These two always work well together for the most part and they had a decent match here. I still don’t like the way it sounds when they say this was for the WCW Title as that always sounded really odd. Decent match but they’ve had better.

Angle beats up Jericho after the match.

Cole asks how Rock can focus on Jericho. Rock calls him a great journalists. Thank goodness he doesn’t remember that line. And so much for that as Rock implies that Cole is gay. To be fair he says it doesn’t matter. Solid Rock promo here as always and dare I say, vintage?

Mighty Molly/Stacy Keibler vs. Lita/Torrie Wilson

Trish is referee here due to reasons of hotness. It says a lot when Molly is the least attractive person in a match. Stacy in camo top and leather skirt works to put it mildly. Heyman says he and Lita wear the same style of underwear. Oh dear. Stacy and Torrie start us off. This is more or less about what you would expect. Trish can’t do much in the ring yet so Lita and Molly are going to be carrying this one.

Apparently over 50,000 tickets were sold in an hour for Mania 18. Molly comes in as we’re waiting for Lita to come in and clean house. Stacy does the leg choke to a pop. Lita gets knocked down and the heels double team for a bit. Make your own orgy jokes. Molly does what she can but Torrie is kind of uncarryable. There’s Lita and it’s over in less than a minute with the Twist of Fate to Molly.

Rating: D. The match sucked but the girls looked good. That’s all there is to this and that’s all there was ever going to be on this.

Post match Trish hits Stacy with a horrible bulldog.

We recap Rock vs. Austin which is more or less billed as a Mania rematch which isn’t true but whatever. It’s more Alliance vs. WWF stuff in short. One thing I never got: Austin says he’s leaving the WWF to find better competition. If he’s fighting WWF guys isn’t he fighting the same competition he’s always been fighting? They clip a good portion of this from the Mania package.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. Steve Austin

Not a bad main event I wouldn’t think. Austin jumps Rock as he’s posing on the ropes. You don’t interrupt the Rock’s posing! Rock chops away and hits a swinging neckbreaker before the vest comes off the champion. Rock Bottom doesn’t hit as Austin goes over the top. On the floor now and water is spit into Austin’s face.

They fight up the ramp and you can’t see a freaking thing. Ah there’s a spotlight. Much better. Rock reverses a suplex on the stage and Austin bounces off the steel. Austin wants a Piledriver but he winds up bouncing off the stage again. Back towards the ring now and it’s still mostly Rock. That is until he takes a slingshot and bounces head first off the post.

Austin flips off the crowd and almost gets caught in a rollup. It only gets two though and right back onto offense for Austin. They head to the floor even more and onto the announce table. Rock blocks another Piledriver and gets off. WHAT IS THE FREAKING DEAL WITH THE AIRHORNS? Do you British people think those are cool or something? Knock it off!

They’ve been in the ring about two minutes out of maybe ten. Austin chokes him with the cables and then they chop it out. He drops Rock on the table again and might have hurt his knee. Back in the ring for a change and Austin lands the Thesz Press. The screw you elbow gets two as there’s a good deal of time left in this. Austin wastes time by yelling at the crowd and Rock comes back with some of Austin’s stuff, including the elbow for two.

We get a sleeper by the bald one. Doesn’t it amaze you that the rear naked choke takes like a few seconds to get a submission but a sleeper can last like a minute and the guy is fine? Naturally Rock’s arm goes up at the third drop like the hero that he is. Naturally Rock gets a sleeper on Austin because that’s just how things work. Also just how things work, his lasts like four seconds.

Austin gets a Boston Crab for no apparent reason. It’s more like a Liontamer than anything else which makes it more awesome. The look on Austin’s face is downright creepy looking. Rock gets about his 9th wind and takes over again with a belly to belly for two. And there goes the referee of course. Stunner is blocked and Austin walks into a spinebuster and the Sharpshooter which doesn’t make Austin tap but there’s no referee.

Austin puts Rock in the Sharpshooter on Rock and it’s somehow better than Rock’s. Ok scratch that it sucks. And now Rock has it on Austin until Angle runs down and pops Rock with the chair. Cue Jericho who I’ll bet is going to hit Rock with the chair. Jericho gets Angle out and Rock sees him with the chair, thinking it was him that popped him with it. And there they go.

Rock Bottom hits Austin and there’s still no referee. Angle is back in now and takes care of Rock again. DANG that referee can stay down through a lot. That didn’t last long as another spinebuster takes Austin down again. Angle breaks up the elbow with a belt shot though and a Stunner keeps the title on Austin.

Rating: B. These two have great matches time after time and this wasn’t their best but still was solid. This felt like a major match like it was supposed to be and that’s really all you can ask for at a show like this. Pretty good match and long with over twenty minutes. This was solid enough stuff but the ton of run-ins and the long ref bump kind of hurt it. Solid main event.

Overall Rating: C+. This was better than most of these shows but still nothing great. There is some solid stuff here but the problem is that it’s all been done before and been done far better than it was here. I’m not a fan of these shows at all as they never are much of anything but this was better than the majority of them. Nothing really worth seeing specifically but I’ve seen far worse shows. This was ok.

Summerslam 2001
Date: August 19, 2001
Location: Compaq Center, San Jose, California
Attendance: 15,293
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

Ok, I know I usually say little is different, but in this case, just about everything is different. WCW in its original form is dead, having been bought by Vince for an insane two million dollars just 5 months prior to this. The Invasion is going on at the moment as WWF is battling the ECW/WCW Alliance. Tonight we have a double main event of Steve Austin vs. Angle for the WWF Title and Booker T vs. Rock for the WCW Title.

Either way, this show is just a complete 180 from last year. Also HHH is injured having torn his quad about 3 months ago. The roster has been more or less put on steroids now with guys like RVD, Booker T, DDP, Rhyno, Tajiri and Lance Storm here now. Oh and Lawler quit over his witch of a wife being fired.

Finally, Austin is top heel now, having left WWF for the Alliance, saying that he’ll have better competition now, which is completely stupid as he’s fighting the same guys he was fighting before the Invasion, but who am I to critique the genius of Vince McMahon and his Invasion storyline?

The angle could have been far better, but there’s been laundry lists of reasons given about why it didn’t work, with the big one being that they didn’t wait long enough, but I’ll drop that before I go into a page and a half long rant. Let’s get started.

WOW. This video package to open the show is AWESOME. It’s set to Drowning Pool’s Bodies, which is still the best live performance of a song that I’ve ever heard. This looks like the opening to a TV show or something and is just well done all around. It looks awesome and is one of the best video openings I’ve ever seen. Actually, here it is.

Intercontinental Title: Lance Storm vs. Edge

A lot of the stories tonight are going to consist of this: WWF vs. Alliance, and that’s what this would be classified as. Storm was the midcard Alliance guy so they gave him the IC belt to help even out the title scene. Edge gets a huge pop. This should be good. Edge was at an odd stage in his career at this point, where he and Christian were way too big of a deal to be a tag team anymore and Edge was clearly on the verge of being a breakout star.

He won the KOTR this year with he and Christian feuded over the KOTR Cup and yes I said Cup. This is very solid for the first five minutes or so with Edge having a completely different style around this time. He would get hurt in I think 2003 just as he was on the verge of the main event push and be out for over a year. His style back then was much more well rounded with more high flying but everything else just about the same as it is now.

Lance Storm has a very odd stomp, as he kicks his left foot forward and then stomps with the right boot. He must be doing something right though as he’s the only wrestler ever, and I do mean only one ever, that could make a half Boston Crab seem like a deadly submission move. We cut back to the WWF locker room to see everyone crowded around a monitor watching the match.

That’s something that could have worked well in the NWO angle, which is what this is a redoing of, and while it’s not as good, I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone says it was. Heyman’s commentary is great as he can play the cocky heel as well as anyone ever on the headset could. Edge starts his comeback as we get a gem of a line by JR: “Powerbomb by Edge. It was a powerbomb.” The more I listen to him, the more I shake my head.

Anyway, they both almost get their finishers but they can’t quite get there. For no apparent reason, Christian comes out and tries to spear Storm but misses and hits Edge which gets two. We get a nice sequence of holds and counters but Edge catches Storm in the inverted DDT which he needs to go back to for the pin and the title. Christian hands him the belt and leaves in a weird moment.

Rating: B. Another solid Summerslam opener here as they were going fast paced and slow paced in a perfect balance. Both guys were working hard and it was a solid pairing that gives you a nice title change that was more or less clean. Good way to get the show going.

Test and the Dudleys are heading to the ring but are cut off by Michael Cole, somehow looking less heterosexual than he does now. Test has left the WWF because he’s tired of being upstaged. The Dudleys left because they’re tired of Spike and his girlfriend Molly getting the glory, so we get a six man out of it.

Jericho says that he’ll beat Rhyno tonight. He also gets some funny jokes in about Stephanie being rather friendly with the men and her plastic surgery.

Spike Dudley/APA vs. Test/Dudley Boys

Molly with the blonde hair and in the blue top is beyond pretty. Just absolutely gorgeous. Test cost the APA the tag titles, leading to this match. The white shirts on the WCW referees just look stupid. They start off with the faces beating the heels up and then Spike comes in. Now Spike reminds me of X-Pac. He tries so hard but his size is just too much to overcome.

Why should I believe that a guy that I outweigh by nearly a hundred pounds can beat up someone that outweighs me by 100lbs? Simply put, I don’t and I never have. He was fine as a cruiserweight guy, but he had no business being in there with big men. I get that it was his gimmick, but I couldn’t stand it. We’ve got tables less than 5 minutes into the match so at least we’re not waiting that long for them this time.

The Dudleys do a double flapjack and they throw him so high up they nearly lose their grip on him. That’s just downright impressive. This is actually a very fast match as the faces take over again for just a bit, until Spike is launched over the top and through a table. Bradshaw nails Test with a Clothesline, but Shane comes in and blasts him with a chair for the pin. Paul’s line of D-Von, get the ambulance makes me laugh.

Rating: C. It was just a short 6 man without much going on. We do need filler though and that’s what this match was. It was a seven minute match and a ten minute segment in total that was just fine. It’s not bad, it’s not great but I’d call it perfectly acceptable.

In the back, the WWF guys are upset over losing the match but they’re all congratulating Edge over winning the IC Title. Christian comes up and announces that he’s gotten a European Title shot tomorrow night on Raw. No one cares, as their Grandma calls. She talks to Edge and hangs up on Christian which gets a solid laugh.

Shawn Stasiak comes into Debra/Stone Cold’s locker room which ticks off Debra. At the time he was just an idiot character that was trying to impress Austin. He says something about his tights but Debra says if he wants to make an impression to go beat someone up.

Title For Title: Tajiri vs. X-Pac

It’s the light heavyweight championship vs. the cruiserweight championship here in a unification match. Actually, upon further review it’s not, and it’s just to hold both belts. Later on they would be split again until there was suppose to be a unification match at Survivor Series. X-Pac was injured so they just dropped the Light Heavyweight Title and replaced it with the WWF Cruiserweight Title. Uh, I guess that makes sense.

Anyway, let’s get to this. X-Pac at the time was the leader of perhaps the most useless group of all time: X-Factor. It was him, Justin Credible and Albert. They did nothing, they had no feuds, they accomplished nothing. Like I said, they were the most useless stable of all time. Oh yeah Pac is wearing just tights now instead of his singlet. Ross talks about how this is the last Direct TV broadcast of a PPV, as no one really cares.

The surfboard is just absolutely painful looking. See, this is how Pac should have been used the entire time. He simply had no business fighting guys twice his size, just like Spike in the previous match. It makes sense and works much better when he’s fighting guys like these. Oh apparently neither guy is in the Alliance, so this is the one real WWF match all night. Oh what a treat for us.

Both guys have educated feet I guess. This has been almost all X-Pac, and since this is one of my reviews and my timing is worse than a broken Boogeyman clock, Tajiri makes his comeback at that very second. Ok, so maybe this is for a unified title. They’re not very clear about it, but based on what the announcers say it’s for a unified title, yet based on what actually happened, it wasn’t unified until about three months later.

The company continues to amaze me with its complete lack of sense. Anyway, they botch the handspring elbow as X-Pac dives onto his stomach like it’s just a simple hitting of the ropes. Albert comes out and gets on the apron, causing the mist to be blown. A low blow and an X-Factor come as the referee is getting rid of Albert to end this.

Rating: C+. Short and sweet here, but overall it wasn’t bad. They were wrestling people that it made sense for them to wrestle and title for title matches are always cool no matter who is in them. Pac would be hurt soon enough and he would be the guy that had to drop out of the Survivor Series match after Tajiri got the Cruiserweight Title. It made no sense, so go figure.

We go to WWF New York and see Perry Saturn as he searches for Moppy. If you don’t know about this story, do yourself a favor and go look it up. It was one of the dumbest and best angles I’ve ever seen.

Stephanie is with Rhyno and says she picked him to beat Jericho because he’s never beaten Rhyno in the ring. Now table tennis, Parcheesi and Chinese Checkers, those are all different stories.

We get a recap of the feud, which was highlighted by Rhyno goring Jericho through the Smackdown set. Now, after that, he suggests a match with Jericho at Summerslam, which makes sense as he’s already gotten the last laugh, so we have to give the face another chance to get even right?

Chris Jericho vs. Rhyno

The editing is odd here as you get the Jericho interview from earlier in the show here. Not sure why they would do them twice like that. Stephanie looks AWESOME in a black leather dress. Her hair being braded/curled isn’t working so well though. Heyman hates Jericho apparently which is ironic I’d think.

They slug it out to start and Jericho is out of his league here. Top rope elbow to a standing Rhyno which is a move I’ve always liked doesn’t do much. Walls are avoided as Jericho has shifted it to wrestling and has taken over. Jericho gets that springboard dropkick while Rhyno is on the apron. Stephanie distracts Jericho to allow Rhyno to catch him with a Gore as Jericho dives at him to the floor and both guys are down, drawing a holy crap chant.

BIG old slap to Jericho by Stephanie which Ross calls a right hand. That’s true but it’s a bit misleading in wrestling commentary. Body scissors by Rhyno which is one of his signature moves I think. I watched a match of his last night and one today and I think he used it in both. He throws in a freaking airplane spin for two. Can’t say he’s typical.

Rhyno goes up for a splash which Jericho moved out of the way from but Rhyno would have missed even if Jericho hadn’t moved at all. Jericho messes up a springboard but gets something out of it anyway for two. Middle rope dropkick gets a cover but Stephanie literally hugs the referee to stop the cover. Jericho kisses her and then hits the Lionsault for a long two.

Spinebuster by Rhyno sets up the Walls for him and they’re better than the ones Jericho tends to use. Gore misses and the proper version of the Walls, as in the Liontamer, gets the tap.

Rating: B-. Solid stuff here as Rhyno was still worth anything at this point. Jericho of course was great as he was on the verge of going into the main event as a heel which worked out pretty well for him I’d think. This was a lot better than anyone expected I think and it was a solid 12 minute match.

Rock is walking in the back and is stopped by Regal. After a fairly boring promo, Stasiak runs at Rock who casually steps aside, causing Shawn to slam into a wall. Rock completes his promo and leaves.

Hardcore Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy

This is a ladder match. It occurs to me, Hardy has had a more successful career than Van Dam, and it’s almost not even close. Imagine telling someone that back in 2001. They would have thought you were completely insane. At best for Van Dam, career wise they’re about even. Van Dam was a very interesting case. He was clearly the most popular ECW guy and WWF let him be. Yes he was on the heel team, but they didn’t make him evil.

Van Dam’s character isn’t someone menacing or threatening an they didn’t try to make him one. That’s why he was able to come out of it as a solid face: he always was one. Since I didn’t like the way I reviewed the TLC match at yesterday’s show, I’ll spare you the big long list of sick spots here and try to do more general stuff. For one thing, in this match there’s far less of a plan I think.

I’d guess that in the back, they just told these two to go put on a spot fest and that’s what happened. They go move for move with each other for about 15 minutes and it’s quite entertaining. Both guys can use the ladder very well indees, as they jump all over the place and try to one up each other with their big time moves. During the match, Heyman lists off the attributes of Sabu, yet doesn’t say his name. That just struck me as odd.

Were they not allowed to say it for some reason? I can’t imagine it was a copyright issue or something like that. Also, he’s credited as Van Dam’s mentor. I never really thought of him like that. Near the end they do the big hanging spot with Hardy holding onto the belt, which always seemed a bit stupid to me.

He really can’t unhook the belt with one hand? I find that a bit hard to believe. Anyway the ending is Van Dam just shoves the ladder down with Jeff on it and climbs up to get the belt in a rather anti-climactic ending.

Rating: B-. It was fun, but it wasn’t great. The problem with matches like these is that a lot of the spots have just been done before. We’ve seen all of these moves and while they’re cool, they’re not original anymore. Yeah the match was fun and cool, but it wasn’t great like a lot of them were. It’s still quite good though.

In the back, Booker is warming up for his match as Shane comes in with a present. He gives him book ends (like the Rock Bottom rip off of a finisher that he uses) made from the announce table that he put Rock through last week. That’s actually kind of clever.

We get a recap of the Brothers of Destruction vs. DDP/Kanyon. To me, this was an AWESOME story. Basically, we had seen Taker’s wife Sara (who was very hot, way hotter than McCool) being stalked by a guy that we never saw. He’d have tapes of himself inside their house, of her coming out of the pool, of her in the shower, in their bedroom, etc. The key thing was, you didn’t know who was filming them.

Now I’ve heard a lot of varying rumors as to who he was originally supposed to be revealed as, with the most prominent being Kane. However, it turned out to be DDP. The problem was they kind of discontinued the Sara aspect as DDP just kept getting beat up. Eventually Kanyon came in and Kane backed up Taker. They both won tag titles, so we have another kind of unification match here inside of a cage. In other words, it’s a way for Taker and Kane to kill them both at once.

WWF/WCW Tag Titles: DDP/Kanyon vs. Brothers of Destruction

Oh yeah Kanyon is the US Champion at the same time, so we have five belts in one match. Now aren’t you glad they unified some of them? I have to give them this: the WCW Tag Title belts just look awesome. They run down Taker’s history in cage matches, which is pretty extensive. I actually like the idea of pins and submissions counting here. Taker is a guy that needs to just win with a big knockout move.

Just after Taker and Kane get in, Taker grabs the door and slams it shut in a very cool looking thing. Immediately your heels try to go over the top in separate corners. If I were Taker and Kane, I would have let Kanyon leave. It gives you a handicap against DDP, who is the real hated one. Imagine what you could combine to do to him in that situation. Let the slaughtering begin. The heels actually take over for about 45 seconds which surprises me, but of course it doesn’t last long at all.

This is more or less a tag team beatdown. There is a cool moment though once the heels take over again as they’re both leaving over the top of the cage. The Brothers are down and at the same time they sit up. They follow my advice and let Kanyon leave without any problem, only to beat the living heck out of DDP. For a lot of this beating, Kane is just sitting on the top rope and watching.

Taker yells at Page that he can leave and he’ll let him live, but if he ever looks at Sara again he’ll kill him. Page tries to leave but Taker of course stops him and chokeslams him, before the Last Ride ends this. Dang, Sara is rather hot. Also, the unification lasted less than a month as both belts were individually defended next month.

Rating: C+. This was nothing but a double beating and that’s just fine. No one believed the heels had a chance so the match was booked correctly by not giving them a chance. They were completely destroyed and that’s how it should have been. Page of course turned face soon after this, becoming the motivational tooth guy (look it up).

Rock is with the doctor in the back and cuts a promo on the doctor as Stasiak runs at him again, and the same thing happens but this time the camera doesn’t even follow him. He just goes flying over the table as Rock steps back.

We get the recap of Austin vs. Angle. This was actually an epic match, as the buildup was great. They more or less made Angle into a monster leading up to this, having him beat every big name in the Alliance before finally challenging Austin. Austin had turned on the WWF at InVasion back in I think July, nailing Angle with a chair to give the heels the victory and join them in the process.

In the buildup, Angle had just beaten Austin down at every single turn and it looked like this one was going to be domination. To their credit though, the bookers never made Austin look weak. He was the same Austin that had dominated through the late 90s, but they simply made Angle look better. That’s hard to do but it works very well, as it saves Austin’s credibility as well as makes Angle look better.

WWF Title: Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin

They meet in the aisle as Austin isn’t afraid of Kurt, which I think helps his character a lot. If Austin had just become this little coward, then no one would have bought him as the leader of the heel faction. By keeping him as the tough guy that he always had been, they make the Alliance look that much stronger. For the most part all we have in the first 2 minutes is nothing but punches.

I get why that’s how most big matches start but not two minutes worth. Austin works on the leg which isn’t as odd as you’d think but Angle gets a sweet counter into the ankle lock. The announcers more or less ruin it as they make it clear through their voices that this isn’t it. When I say announcers I mean JR. It’s weird to see Austin being in control for the majority of a match like this. These two are suplexing the heck out of each other, which is just freaking cool.

It’s not often that you see Austin using offense like this but it’s certainly both looking good and working. Angle hits seven or eight in a row, which somehow isn’t the most Austin has ever taken in a row as Benoit once hit I think 13 in a row. That’s just not only sick but impressive that Benoit could keep getting him up as well as he did. Since it’s pro wrestling though, Austin is just fine after a few seconds of resting following that many suplexes.

From out of nowhere, Austin gets a Stunner after about 8 minutes. The crowd has no idea what to think as Austin got it and got it clean. Angle of course kicks out and the second Stunner sends him to the floor. I don’t get why the announcers are so surprised that Angle kicked out. Rock kicked out after about 3 of them at Mania and after about a 20 minute match. Anyway, Austin goes to the floor and just beats the tar out of Angle.

He nearly breaks his leg and it’s Austin doing what he does best. This would have been a standard Austin match in the late 90s actually. See how well this was done? They’ve just turned his allegiance around and now Austin is still what he was before but just working for a different side. They go out into the crowd where Austin hits a suplex over the barrier but doesn’t go down with Angle. Apparently this was the best move ever, despite it being little more than a slam.

Angle counters though and gets the ankle lock on the floor with a downright scary look on his face. He gets it again in the middle of the ring, but he’s in the ropes in all of 4 seconds. Angle is bleeding bad here, like almost Austin at Mania 13 bad. Ok on second look it’s not that bad. Hey, did you know that Angle won an gold medal with a broken neck? Now sure if you’d ever heard something like that.

More suplexes follow as I’m gaining a new appreciation for those things. Angle busts out the moonsault and hits it like Curt Hennig would. Angle is going commando on Austin…whatever that means, but Austin breaks out the cobra clutch, which despite using it at Mania where Ross says that he hasn’t used is since he was the Ringmaster, Austin uses it here for the first time since he was the Ringmaster.

As Angle does the 80s style arm stays up on the third drop, his head is just looking awful. A third Stunner after all that only gets two as the fans are WAY into this. Angle Slam is the counter to the kick, as I continue to try to figure out how the Angle Slam is any different from a belly to back suplex that’s rotated just a bit. Austin hits the referee though after it gets a two as JR is of course, say it with me, FREAKING OUT.

Did you know that JR thought he knew that man? Did you know that? Not sure if you had heard that one or not. Austin low blows Angle and then stuns the other referee as JR is quoting the 25th letter of the alphabet. A THIRD referee comes out and Austin hits him with the belt. Angle hits the slam but JR is SHOCKED that the referee that got hit maybe 4 seconds ago is down. After all that, we get to the odd part of the match.

Nick Patrick, an Alliance referee, runs out, counts ONE time, and then slides out and tells Fink that it’s a DQ. Why in the world would you count a one and then go for the DQ? I thought he was pulling up because he was going to say his shoulder hurt or something like that, but just to count one and then the DQ? What kind of sense does that even begin to not make?

Naturally, Angle goes off on Patrick with the ankle lock, and I have two observations. One: Patrick taps. Why? Does he think that it’s a match and that’s going to make Angle let go or something? Two: Ross, as usual, says that he’s tapping like a drunk man. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I’ve been around people when they’re drunk and not once have they tapped. The line makes no sense at all and yet somehow the fans have accepted it.

After the match, Ross goes insane again and just babbles on forever about how he knows Austin can’t beat Angle. I know I make fun of Ross a lot, but this was beyond bad looking. This was bordering on embarrassing. Either way, Austin would lose clean to Angle next month after some of the best promos that I can remember, easily the best Angle has ever done.

Rating: A-. This was an awesome match. Austin went suplex for suplex with Angle and they had huge drama going on near the end. Angle took a freaking beating but kept going. I’m not an Angle fan, but there are times when he gets into that zone of his that he is just flat out mesmerizing. This was one of those nights for him.

We recap Rock vs. Booker as it’s just pathetic to really see how much WCW was just stealing from the WWF at the end. There’s imitating and then there’s just flat out ripping off. WCW was doing that later. It was really just bad, and Booker was the worst of them all.

WCW Title: Rock vs. Booker T

Yes, the main event of Summerslam is for the WCW Title. Think of someone that’s very over. Rock is more over. Ross says that the people at home are on their feet. Has anyone ever jumped up for an entrance? Not that I can think of. This is Rock’s first PPV match since Mania as he left to film Scorpion King. Therefore, if you can’t guess the ending of this show, you’re an idiot.

It’s mainly a brawl to start as neither guy has a real advantage for that long. I like matches like that. It makes you think that anything can happen and it can give you a possible hint of what I say makes a match great: not knowing who is going to win. There’s little fun in a squash match, as it’s obvious who is going to win. A good match is typically one where you’re unsure who will win. Now there are obvious exceptions, but for the most part you’ll find that the lack of a clear winner is the better case.

Oh yeah Shane is outside helping Booker about every 8 seconds as can be expected. However, the APA run out and take him out with a sick clothesline by the future waste of air Bradshaw. There’s really not much to say about the match as it’s pretty standard for the most part. Booker is down after an elbow drop but Shane has to make the save since Booker fell asleep waiting on Rock to finish with all of the theatrics, earning Shane another beating.

This is a pretty solid match here though as it’s back and forth with Booker of course being in control most of the match. They fight even more but Booker spins up as Mark Madden continues to validate his existence. If you don’t believe he has a reason to exist, read his column.

I’m sure you’ll be amazed by all the things that he takes credit for, but he’d hate this show. Page had a role in it. What’s his deal with Page anyway? Whatever, it’s not like I’d be able to listen to his explanation. Anyway, as Booker spins up, Rock nips up and lands the Rock Bottom (NOT URANAGE BLAST IT!) for the pin, the title, and Heyman’s heart attack. He poses with the belt to end the show.

Rating: B+. This was a fun match and was great to send the folks home happy. Booker wasn’t going to win and everyone knew it, but they did the best they could with it and it turned out pretty well. It was Rock’s big return and it put the spotlight on him very well. It was definitely good but not great.

Overall Rating: B+. Would have been better to have Austin/Angle go on last, but this certainly worked very well. Either way, we have a good show here with a solid balance of gimmick and regular matches and a fun match to end the show. Austin and Angle is an underrated match, but their match next month was better.

However, I think this show is lacking the one huge match that steals the show which is keeping it from being an all time classic. Definitely recommended though as this is a very good, but not great, show.