As I said in the start of the 1997 series, there’s no need to wait to get this year over with. In short, this is probably the worst year for Raw ever, with Evolution dominating the show from February through the end of the year and making no one but themselves happy. Other than that….there’s nothing. Seriously, Evolution DOMINATES this year of Raw and it’s nothing I’m looking forward to doing. We’ll do looking at two shows each time here as usual. Let’s get to it.

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 6, 2003
Location: America West Arena, Phoenix, Arizona
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We’re less than two weeks away from the Rumble and I believe Scott Steiner has been announced as the challenger. If not then that’ll come tonight, but I’m pretty sure he’s called out HHH and the stupid contests have started. The theory was that the two of them were kept apart to build intrigue, but the reality likely was that WWE was scared of people seeing how bad Steiner was. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about HHH saying that he’s not afraid of Steiner. Last week the Game called Steiner out and we got an arm wrestling match. Steiner let HHH get an early advantage then smiled at him like an evil villain. Yeah for reasons that were never fathomed, WWE brought in Scott Steiner, one of the most insane heels ever, as a top face. 2003 was a stupid year.

I miss Across the Nation.

Tonight it’s a POSE DOWN! Geez didn’t they get that this sucked from Warrior and Rude?

The Dudleys come out for a match but here are Eric Bischoff and his Chief of Staff Morely (Val Venis). Eric promises changes for this year, including one in the attitude. We get a clip of JR/Lawler vs. Lance Storm/William Regal which saw JR get beaten down until the Dudleys made the save, hit a 3D on Regal, and give JR the pin. Eric says that he won’t be disrespected like that, so the Dudleys get to have a No DQ handicap match.

3 Minute Warning/Rico/Batista vs. Dudley Boys

Flair is with Batista too so it’s basically 5-2. Jamal gets backdropped to the floor as Batista hangs out on the floor. I wonder if D-Von and Batista’s past will be mentioned. There’s a fast 3D to Rico but the stupid Dudleys don’t cover him, allowing Batista to come in and clean house. Bubba gets sent to the floor and Chief Morely gets in some shots of his own. Everyone not named Batista beats on Bubba on the floor and there’s a spinebuster to D-Von.

Bischoff and Morely come into the ring and demand that the referee counts D-Von, but Batista pulls him up at two. Bubba gets back in but walks into a suplex from Rosey. Now Flair gets in and puts Bubba in the Figure Four as Jamal hits a top rope splash for good measure. D-Von takes a Samoan Drop and the Batista Bomb finally ends this.

Rating: D+. This was an angle which is fine, but it doesn’t really exactly make for an interesting segment. Batista was just midcard muscle with Flair as a manager at this point, but Evolution was coming soon. The Bischoff regime got old in a hurry and here he came off as just another corrupt boss. Not much here but it was a good beating.

Bischoff slaps D-Von post match.

Post break Storm and Regal come out and yell at JR and King. The evil foreigners go down and beat up the Dudleys a bit more. This is officially overkill now. Regal busts Bubba open with brass knuckles.

HHH is admiring his chest in a mirror when Flair comes in. He talks about the project coming along nicely and praises HHH’s body. Last week HHH had a bad arm from Armageddon but still competed anyway. HHH admires himself on the cover of Flex Magazine until Steiner comes in to talk trash.

Victoria/Molly Holly vs. Jacqueline/Trish Stratus

Victoria is Women’s Champion and has T.A.T.U.’s All the Things She Said as her music here still. Jackie and the champ start things off with Victoria getting kicked in the ribs a few times. Molly kicks Jackie in the back and comes in off the top with an ax handle. Jackie takes a Muta handspring elbow in the corner, followed by a pretty awesome looking Boston Crab/Camel Clutch combo from the villains.

Victoria misses a moonsault and there’s the hot tag to Trish. The Chick Kick gets two on the champ and Molly is sent to the floor. Stratusfaction is escaped so Trish tries a rollup, only to have Steven Richards come in and reverse it, letting Victoria grab a handful of tights for the pin on Trish.

Rating: C. This was one of the better Divas matches I can remember in a good while. It’s amazing what happens when you take talented people and Jackie and let them do their stuff. Trish and Victoria had a solid rivalry which was as intense as you would get for the girls. Decent stuff here but it was short.

Booker and Goldust talk about how they don’t want Bischoff in charge anymore. They’ll defend the titles later too.

Bischoff is mad.

Here’s Jericho with something to say about Shawn Michaels. Jericho wants to go back to the main event of Wrestlemania this year and he’s going to do just that. He knows he’s the best in the world and doesn’t need the title to prove it. However, Jericho wants the title back so he is officially in the Royal Rumble. This brings out Shawn who says that he isn’t here to get on Jericho’s nerves but rather to talk to Jericho about their similarities.

Jericho is just like Shawn in that he needs the title to prove that he’s the best to the people in the audience, the boys in the back, and himself. If Jericho wants to prove that he’s the best, he needs to start the Rumble at #1, go on to win the Rumble, and win the world title at Wrestlemania. THEN, Shawn will think he’s the best. We get some flat out lies about history, as Jericho says Shawn is the only man to start at #1 and “last the whole hour” to win the Rumble. That was the year of one minute intervals, meaning from bell to bell the match was less than 40 minutes long.

Jericho says that he won the title by beating guys Shawn could never beat, ignoring that Shawn wrestled the two guys a combined ONE time (he never fought Rock) and the time he faced Austin he had a broken back. Shawn says he’ll be #1 to show Jericho how it’s done. If Jericho wants to be the best, he has to go through Shawn to do it. Jericho wants to fight right now, but gets interrupted by BREAKING RNN NEWS!

This was Orton’s gimmick at the time as he had an injured shoulder and would cut into the broadcasts with updates about his injury, ranging from how well he could move it to updates on his chaffing from the sling. He’s actually in the arena tonight and says that his shoulder is at 93% mobility! Orton says he has a better comeback story than Shawn and he’s the new sexy boy as a result. A single punch takes Orton down and Jericho takes Shawn down. RVD comes in for the save but Orton pops up and Van Dam gets double teamed. Now Christian comes in but Kane is out to even the odds and clear the ring.

Raw Tag Titles: Lance Storm/William Regal vs. Goldust/Booker T

Goldie and Booker are defending. Booker and Storm start things off with the champion slamming him down and dropping a knee for no cover. Off to Goldie for a forearm off the top but Storm hits him in the face to bring in Regal. Goldust shoulders him down as Bischoff is watching in the back. Back to Booker for more punches in the corner until Storm makes the save.

We hit a chinlock as the match is already going nowhere. A running knee to the side of Booker’s head allows Storm to come in for a cravate. Booker finally fights out and kicks Lance down, allowing for the not hot tag to Goldust. House is cleaned and a powerslam gets two on Storm. Everything breaks down and Goldust takes both guys down. Storm gets caught in a modified Hart Attack but Regal takes the referee out.

The champs and referee are both out on the floor and we take a break. Back with Storm kicking a charging Booker in the face. During the break Chief Morely took over as guest referee. Storm accidentally superkicks said guest referee but there’s no one to count. The third referee runs in to count two on Storm after a Booker spinebuster. Off to Goldust for his hard slaps in the corner but the challengers bail to the floor.

Goldie charges after Storm and runs into a clothesline from Regal. This match continues to be dull stuff. Regal pounds away on Goldust a bit more until it’s off to Storm for another chinlock. This one doesn’t last long and it’s off to Booker for hopefully the last hot tag of the night. Mr. T. cleans house and there’s a Spinarooni followed by an ax kick for two on Storm. Morely pulls the third referee out of the ring and a brass knuckles shot from Regal knocks out Booker for the pin and the titles.

Rating: D. It was long, but MAN was this boring. At the end of the day it was pretty clear that the titles were going to change here due to the odds and Bischoff needing to dominate the entire show, which makes it even worse. As usual, a team loses in a joke last week and wins the titles the next week. Also, how overbooked was this match? Nothing to see here.

Post match the new champions suck up to Bischoff and Morely.

A famous Raw moment (for the ten year anniversary) is Sabel removing a sack she had to wear to reveal a bikini.

Test vs. Christopher Nowitski

Nowitski has D’Lo Brown with him because Brown is an intelligent black man. Seriously, that’s the explanation we got from him. Nowitski goes after the arm to start as Stacy (Test’s manager) plays cheerleader. Test sends him into the corner and starts his comeback, takes out Brown, and wins with the Test Drive (Cross Rhodes). I would say nothing here but Stack is rocking a blue dress.

Brown takes Test out post match.

Christian tells Jericho that he’s in the Rumble too. Jericho says that means Christian can help him win. This leads to an argument over who is better and who has better tattoos. Orton comes in and says chill because he’s in their corner for the tag match against RVD and Kane tonight. Orton stops to admire himself in a mirror after the Canadians leave.

Scott Steiner was on the cover of a muscle magazine two and a half years ago.

We recap the arm wrestling stuff from two weeks ago.

HHH oils himself up.

It’s time for the pose down because that’s what we need for the major segment of this show. HHH brags a lot and picks six “fans” from the front row to judge this. They have scorecards of either HHH or Steiner so it’s just winner and loser rather than scores. What do you want me to say for this? They pose, Steiner is better, they do another pose. All six judges vote for HHH so Steiner yells.

HHH wants a PUSH-UP CONTEST now, so Steiner gets on the mat and gets beaten up before he fights all six guys off. You wouldn’t think this took seventeen minutes would you? Well it didn’t. It took seventeen AND A HALF minutes. Seriously, that’s all I had to say about it. Oh and good to see Steiner beat up six fans. I can’t wait to sit through his arraignment, LIVE!

Kane/Rob Van Dam vs. Christian/Chris Jericho

Shawn and Orton are the seconds here. We come back from a break to start the brawl, which sees the good guys clearing out the ring. Van Dam gets launched over the top onto the Canadians until we officially start with Jericho vs. RVD. Christian comes in and takes Van Dam down with some choking before it’s back to Jericho. After a kick gets two we hit a bow and arrow hold on Rob.

Jericho pulls him down by the hair and it’s back to Christian. Rob gets sent to the floor where a melee breaks out, resulting in Shawn superkicking Orton. Jericho sends him into the steps in retaliation as we continue to fly through this match. RVD causes Jericho to go shoulder first into the post and kicks Christian down before making the hot tag.

Everything breaks down and Chris breaks up the chokeslam. Christian gets two off a reverse DDT but a Conchairto misses the masked one. Shawn pulls Jericho to the floor and they fight into the crowd. Rob hits a top rope kick to Christian’s face and there’s a chokeslam to set up the Five Star for the pin.

Rating: C-. It was exciting but it went way too fast. I guess this is supposed to be a Rumble preview match or something but it didn’t work at all due to how little time they had. Gee, I’m sure there was nothing else they could have cut to make more time. I know it was a letdown after the posing but they tried out there.

Bischoff says it’s Regal vs. Lawler next week but he gets a phone call. Apparently Vince is going to be here next week.

Overall Rating: D. Let’s see: no good matches, two storylines dominating the show, and seventeen and a half minutes spent so HHH could show off his physique. We’re in 2003 all right. This is only going to get worse over the next few weeks as Steiner vs. HHH would somehow get TWO PPV matches together. Hopefully things pick up with Vince back next week.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

This is the last regular PPV for TNA until March and I’m not wild on the card in the first place.  Let’s get to it.We’ll start with the title matches.

Hardy will keep the title.  It looks like we’re heading for Aries vs. Hardy at Lockdown so Hardy would need to keep the belt here.  There’s a chance Aries wins here but I don’t see it happening.

We’ll say the tag titles change and leave it at that.  Thinking of these teams more than that makes my head hurt.

As for the X Title, I can picture King winning the belt but not York.  Therefore, the question is who wins the match between the two of them to qualify for the title match?  I’ll go with King but I don’t have much confidence in it.

Doc is in Aces and 8’s so he loses.

I’ll go with Storm to win my hopeful pick of the month.  Storm needs a big win as his push continues to stall and Daniels can bounce back with ease because of his comedy.

D-Von has to beat Park.  I mean…..he HAS TO.

As for the Knockouts gauntlet……Velvet.  Makes as much sense as anyone else.

Overall Genesis looks like most other TNA B shows: not much interesting other than on top of the show while the next episode of Impact seems more important.  The show might surprise us and absolutely will be better than Final Resolution.  It’s impossible to be less interesting than that nonsense was.  There isn’t much else to say about this and then we’ll get a few months of build to Lockdown.

Thoughts/predictions?

Smackdown
Date: January 11, 2013
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Commentators: Josh Matthews, John Bradshaw Layfield

We’ll begin with a little history here: twenty years ago today, a show called Monday Night Raw premiered. To celebrate, tonight the main event is a last man standing match with Big Show facing Alberto Del Rio as his major face push continues, near Santa killing aside. Also, for the first time in longer than I can remember, Rock is on Smackdown tonight. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is all about the Rock which is the right decision. Oh and we’re in his hometown too. Show vs. Del Rio gets a bit of time at the end.

Here’s Booker to open the show. He doesn’t like being one upped by Raw with Ziggler vs. Cena, so tonight it’s Orton vs. Cesaro. Rock is here too, and we go to a screen shot of Del Rio vs. Show as Booker does what is clearly a voiceover saying it’ll be a last man standing match for the title. I wonder what they changed there.

Anyway Big Show comes out sans music to yell at Booker for his decision. He goes to the floor to get a mic (Show to the guys at ringside: “Somebody get me a mic. There are ten of you over there. What do you all do?” That’s a really good question actually.) and accuses Booker of playing up to the Latino population here in Miami.

Show says Del Rio is beneath him and people like the ones here in Miami don’t deserve heroes. Show: “There are no Latino heroes.” I’m not touching that one. He says an Irishman couldn’t stop him, a Latino can’t stop him and a viper can’t stop him. Show gets back in the ring and grabs Booker by the throat but here’s Del Rio for the save. He dropkicks Show into the corner and hits the running enziguri to send Show to the floor.

We get a classic Rock on Smackdown moment from the post 9/11 Smackdown with Rock hitting Stasiak with a Rock Bottom to beat him in three seconds.

Randy Orton vs. Antonio Cesaro

Not bad for an opener. As he comes to the ring, Cesaro says in an inset interview that he’ll be in the Rumble. Cesaro pounds away to start and hits some European uppercuts before being sent to the floor. Orton clotheslines him down on the floor and we take a break. Back with Cesaro holding Randy in a chinlock before getting two off a clothesline. There’s the gutwrench suplex for two more and Cesaro punches away in the corner.

We get another quick chinlock but Orton fights out and gets two off his rollup out of the corner. A Michinoku Driver of all things gets two for Antonio as JBL gets on Josh’s case for mentioning the word complacent when talking about Cesaro. Orton snaps off his powerslam but gets tossed into the air for the uppercut for two. Randy escapes a whip into the corner and hits his backbreaker followed by the Elevated DDT. He loads up the RKO and here’s the Shield for the DQ at 5:48 shown of 9:18.

Rating: C. I like both of these guys and it’s a good sign to see Cesaro kept strong again. It seems like we’re heading for Sheamus/Orton/Ryback vs. Shield at the Rumble which would work out fine. If nothing else, Shield getting to rub elbows with these guys makes them look like big deals. The match here was fine and I wouldn’t object to seeing a longer version of this.

The TripleBomb takes Orton down and the Shield stands tall.

3MB talks about being in the Rumble. Slater called his mom and was told that they have a ten percent chance of winning. Apparently they’re dealing with Sheamus tonight.

Punk and Heyman are at Sun Life Stadium, home of Wrestlemania 28 and the Miami Hurricanes football team. Punk talks about how big a fan he is of Rock and his football career. He pulls out a Johnson jersey #94 (Rock’s old jersey) and says he’s a big college football aficionado.

He wanted to come to where Rock played back in the day, but that was in the Orange Bowl which is demolished and gone. That’s like WWE now, because this isn’t Rock’s WWE anymore. It’s Punk’s WWE now and Rock has no place in it. Punk says Rock can come back to Miami, but he can never go home again. Good stuff here and it’s always nice to see them outside of the arena.

Del Rio says Big Show has no idea what the Latino people are like and says he’ll win the title tonight.

Dolph Ziggler/AJ vs. Natalya/Great Khali

The guys start things off with Ziggler quickly getting chopped a few times. Off to the girls and AJ jumps on Khali’s back. Natalya takes her down and rams AJ’s head into the mat a few times. Nattie loads up the Sharpshooter but AJ bites her finger. They head to the corner where AJ bites Natalya’s ear before hitting a Sliced Bread #2 for the pin at 2:43. Nothing here but AJ craziness.

Post match Langston runs over Khali and hits the Big Ending on Hornswoggle. Freaking sweet.

Punk is still at the stadium and talks about how Rock sounds like a superhero returning to save the people. The people don’t deserve to be saved though. Rather they deserve to rot, because Punk is better than the people. Heyman says that’s Rock’s vision, but in CM Punk’s WWE, it doesn’t matter what Rock’s vision is. Punk takes off the jersey and drops it on the ground before walking away. Still awesome stuff here.

Another classic Rock moment shows us Rock N Sock Connection hijinks.

Here’s Rocky to an eruption. He shows us his arm and the goosebumps on it before saying FINALLY. Rock says Flo Rida is here and says this is a very special show. He talks about Raw and hitting the Rock Bottom on Punk but tonight the champ isn’t here. Rock talks about being in school in Miami and football practice at a field that the local fans recognize the name of. Rock says that it feels good to be home, but the real home he’s going to is the Royal Rumble where he’ll win the title again.

He asks the people if they want to have fun tonight and here are the Rhodes Scholars to interrupt. Sandow introduces himself and Cody to the crowd and Cody says they they don’t think Rock should be here. They’re the ones that are going to be champions soon, so it should be their time. Rock talks about how the Scholars came down here (WHAT) to the People’s ring (WHAT) on the Rock’s show (WHAT) dressed like that (you get the drill) with a dead caterpillar on Cody’s lip. Rock goes to say something but has to ask what in the name of sweet tap dancing Jesus is on Cody’s face.

Sandow wants to ask Rock three questions, and if Rock gets them right, he can stay. If he gets them wrong, he has to leave. Rock says bring those questions but Cody says there’s no point since Rock went to Miami (one of the best academic schools in the country). The first question is who was the 19^th President of the United States, which Rock correctly identifies as Rutherford B. Hayes. Sandow: “That is correct.” Rock: “The Rock knows his 19^th century.”

Cody asks what movie won Best Picture in 1993. Rock says it wasn’t Tooth Fairy but rather Schindler’s List. Sandow is about to ask the third question but Rock has one for Damien instead. If Sandow gets it right, he gets a prize from Rock and Miami. The question is what happens when you combine a geological aggregate of minerals with its lowest form. That would be a Rock Bottom says Damien. Rock says exactly, and there’s his Rock Bottom. Cody and Rock have a staredown and Cody is ready to fight, so here’s a spinebuster and the People’s Elbow for him. Incredibly entertaining segment here with Rock giving two guys a rub.

Sheamus vs. 3MB

Good old fashioned handicap match here. The Band does have to tag though. Slater starts but immediately bails to the floor where his teammates join him. They try to charge in at once but only Slater goes in, catching a Brogue Kick for the pin at 45 seconds.

HELL NO vs. Prime Time Players

Darren and Daniel start things off and slug it out in the corner. Off to Titus for a release slam but he charges into a pair of boots from Bryan in the corner. Kane comes in and cleans house, getting two off a sidewalk slam. The Players break up a double chokeslam attempt but a single one gets the pin on Darren at 2:22. Just a squash.

Eve vs. Kaitlyn is confirmed for Raw. Again.

We recap the opening segment.

Smackdown World Title: Big Show vs. Alberto Del Rio

Last man standing and Show is defending. Show starts with a hard chop and a slam to put Del Rio down for a short count. Del Rio comes back with a superkick to the stomach but gets chopped right back down again. Show pulls out a table but sets it up between the announcers’ table and the ring instead of putting it inside. Rather than saving it for later Show pulls Del Rio to the floor and casually slams him through the table for a six count.

Back in and Del Rio kicks Show in the ribs to knock a chair out of his hands. Del Rio GOES OFF on Show with some chair shots, showing more emotion in a ten second stretch than he’s shown in the last two years combined. He goes for the cross armbreaker but Show picks him up and carries him to the ropes. Show tries to throw him to the floor but Del Rio hooks the armbreaker over the ropes for a few moments before finally dropping him.

The fall from the apron gets a seven count on Del Rio as Show rests his arm. We take a break and come back with Alberto hitting a running kick to Show’s arm on the floor. Show gets in a shot to break the momentum and slides in another table. Del Rio fires off more kicks to the ribs and dropkicks Show through the table to a big reaction. I’ll give Alberto this: he isn’t backing down.

That only gets a seven as well so Del Rio jumps on Show’s back. After about thirty seconds Show flips Del Rio over but Alberto fires off whatever strikes he can get off to stagger the big man, including a pair of boots in the corner. Del Rio charges into a chokeslam though, drawing an eight count. A headbutt puts Del Rio on the floor and there’s the spear through the barricade as Show is known to do.

Alberto gets up AGAIN at nine this time so Show sends him into the ring again. The WMD connects clean…..but Del Rio gets up at eight AGAIN. The crowd is losing it in a hurry. Del Rio is down at nine but he was up enough to stop the count. Show picks up the steps but misses a charge into the post and drives the steps into his own head.

Alberto blasts Show with the steps and then hits him with them again in the bad shoulder. A THIRD shot finally puts Show down behind the announce table and in a brilliant move, Del Rio turns the announce table over on top of Show. Show can’t escape and Del Rio wins the title at 14:08 shown of 17:38. Ricardo can barely even make the announcement from being so excited.

Rating: B. This wasn’t much of a match, but man alive did they put Del Rio over STRONG here. I don’t think he’ll make it to Mania or even through Elimination Chamber with the title, but this was a great moment and the place legitimately seemed thrilled that Del Rio won the title. To say they’re pushing him as a big deal is an understatement. One thing though: JBL said Alberto survived two KO punches and I read the same in a spoiler, but I only saw one here. Not that it matters much but that was curious.

Overall Rating: B. Smackdown is BACK. You can always tell when WWE is trying and when they’re just killing time until the next major show and this was an episode where they were trying. We had Rocky out there doing his thing, matches being set up, angle advancement, and a big time main event with a surprise ending. Enjoy it while it lasts though, because the summer will be here before you know it. Really good show here.

Results

Randy Orton b. Antonio Cesaro via DQ when Shield interfered

AJ/Dolph Ziggler b. Natalya/Great Khali – Sliced Bread #2 to Natalya

Sheamus b. 3MB – Brogue Kick to Slater

HELL NO b. Prime Time Players – Chokeslam to Young

Alberto Del Rio b. Big Show – Big Show couldn’t answer the ten count

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

http://www.wwe.com/classics/wwe-hall-of-fame/mick-foley-to-be-inducted-into-wwe-hall-of-fame-26083400

He’s my all time favorite wrestler and one of the guys that belongs in a WWE Hall of Fame no matter how you look at it.  I’ll likely talk more about this when Hall of Fame season pops up.

Congratulations to Mr. Foley, who is as nice a guy in person as he seems to be on TV.

I don’t think she ever got onto NXT TV.  She was considered a big signing for the Divas division but apparently that didn’t pan out.  She also went by Natalie in FCW/NXT.

More releases likely coming soon.

As I said earlier, Raw turned 20 today.  I can’t let that go by with just a single sentence.This isn’t going to be a full on article or anything but rather just a few thoughts on the show.  When Raw debuted, it marked the death nail for Saturday Night’s Main Event as there was no point to the show from then on.  One of the things I think people don’t remember about Raw is that for the first two years or so, the show SUCKED.  There were rarely big matches, only a handful of title changes, and it was easily the B show to Superstars for a long time.  1993-1995 weren’t good years for the WWF as they were trying to find a new identity with Hogan leaving (I don’t think he appeared on Raw until 2002 unless I’m forgetting something which I likely am), and Raw wasn’t the place where that would happen for a few years.

Obviously I don’t think anyone guessed it would become what it is today, but it’s still amazing to think how much things have changed since the show started in that hole called the Manhattan Center.  Today you have Raw in arenas that hold 20,000 people, or about ten times what the Center could hold.  It took them awhile to get out of those smaller places though.  Raw didn’t get to MSG until September of 1997.  Those old shows still have a charm to them though, as it was still something so new and revolutionary (being live even semi-weekly was a big deal back then), even though the shows mostly sucked.

Those of you that haven’t checked the earlier shows out, track a few down.  They’re a far cry from what you see today and resemble ROH TV, but they’re still the foundation of what the WWF was back then, which makes them at least interesting to see.  Raw has come a long way and has been anywhere from must see TV to “can we find a good test pattern instead of this garbage?”, but it’s always been on, which says a lot.  It’s still worth seeing, just not at three hours every week.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Raw.  I’ve never missed a single episode and I don’t plan to anytime soon.

I guess since Linda’s campaign is over we can start cutting people.  Trent is the first casualty and more are expected to come soon.  I’m torn on this as I’m a fan of the guy but I can never remember how to spell his last name.  I’ll keep you updated on any further releases I hear about.

– Royal Rumble – 1/27/13 – Phoenix, AZ
– Elimination Chamber – 2/17/13 – New Orleans, LA
– WrestleMania – 4/7/13 – East Rutherford, NJ
– Extreme Rules – 5/19/13 – St. Louis, MO
– TBA – 6/16/13 – Chicago, IL
– Money In The Bank – 7/14/13 – Philadelphia, PA
– SummerSlam – 8/18/13 – Los Angeles, CA
– Night Of Champions – 9/15/13 – Detroit, MI
– Over The Limit – 10/6/13 – Buffalo, NY
– Hell In A Cell – 10/27/13 – Miami, FL
– Survivor Series – 11/24/13 – Boston, MA
– TLC – 12/15/13 – Houston, TX

Still 12 shows and only three weeks build for the Chamber, Over the Limit, HIAC and TLC.  I’m not wild on those and Over the Limit still doesn’t need to exist.

I mentioned this in another post and I had planned on saying something short about it, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it deserved something big. I mentioned that Stone Cold Steve Austin was a near perfect character and today we’re going to look at why that’s the case. Austin is one of the few if not the only character ever to be both completely over the top while also being one of the most realistic. I’ll explain what I mean by that in a bit so let’s get to it.

First and foremost a clarification: I’m talking about Stone Cold, not Steve Austin in general. I’m talking about roughly the period from the day he started defying authority and ending at Wrestlemania X7 (with a few exceptions past that date). Before then his character barely existed and after that it changed for the worse, although he was always talented enough to get whatever he was doing. Austin is on the list of people you hear about who could read the phone book and entertain an audience for hours.

The easiest way to sum up the Austin character in a nutshell is with a famous movie line. In the movie Network, one of the characters says “I’m as mad and I’m not going to take it anymore.” That is Steve Austin in one sentence. Austin was tired of playing second fiddle to all of these older guys who were given better spots than him because they had been around longer. He felt that the spots should be based on how good you were, not when you started in the company.

This was perfectly illustrated at the 1996 King of the Ring which is commonly considered Austin’s coming out party. In the finals, Austin beat Jake Roberts who was back in the WWF for “one more run” as a nostalgia character. Following the match, Austin cut his legendary Austin 3:16 promo, talking about how Roberts may be a legend, but he just got beat and there was nothing anyone could do to stop Austin’s rise.

What followed was the feud that made Austin, as he fought the ultimate current legend, Bret Hart. While Bret beat Austin at the Survivor Series, Austin continued to torment Bret, cheating him out of the Royal Rumble and costing him the world title a few nights later on Raw. This all lead us to Wrestlemania and the I Quit match between the two of them where we saw some of the best storytelling ever.

The basic idea of the match was simple: Bret was as submission master but Austin would never say he gave up. At the end of the match (one of the best ever and well worth seeing if you somehow haven’t), Austin was bleeding terribly and finally passed out in the Sharpshooter to give the win to Bret. Now notice something very important here: Bret could not stop Austin. All he did was slow down what was coming and hope to survive it.

This brings me to my second point: Austin wasn’t just a character. He was a revolution and a new way of thinking in wrestling. The reason for his mass popularity though was he captured the thoughts of the audience. Austin was the voice of the voiceless, in that people are always tired of being told that they have to wait their turn no matter how good they may be and are tired of putting up with corporate suits telling them to work within a system and other various excuses to avoid answering the complaints people had.

In September of 1997 (don’t worry we’ll come back to the summer months later), Monday Night Raw was broadcast from Madison Square Garden for the first time. Around this time, Austin had been injured in a match with Owen Hart and might not be able to wrestle again because of it. Vince had told Austin to work within the system, to which Austin responded with the first of many Stunners to the boss. In a word, the building erupted. As I said before, it was the audience channeling themselves into Austin and getting to do something they had always wanted to do but never could do in real life.

What followed over the next three and a half years was a path of destruction by the rebel Austin. He did everything from fill Corvettes with cement to blowing up buses to pretending to shoot Vince in the head to spraying down the Corporation with beer and everything in between. The entire time though, Austin was rebelling. This is another of the keys to why Austin was a perfect character: he DID things rather than merely be labeled as something.

In a word, Austin was a rebel. That’s the single word definition of what his character was. Now, can you imagine if he had come in with the name “The Rebel”? Dick Slater had that exact same name back in the late 80s, and remarkably almost no one remembers it. He came out in a Confederate flag vest and that’s about it. We were simply told what his gimmick and character were, as opposed to being SHOWN what the character was.

There’s an old saying which is a cliché, but in this case it’s the absolute truth: actions speak louder than words. That’s one of the reasons Austin’s character worked: we got to see him doing all this stuff. This is true with any wrestling character. Look at the gimmicks like Duke Droese, Henry Godwinn and T.L. Hopper. We were told immediately what these guys were and that was about the extent of their character development.

Now look at someone like Razor Ramon, who debuted with a series of vignettes of him in Miami being a jerk. Those promos told us everything we needed to know about Ramon and all we were told directly was that Ramon was “the bad guy.” Again, it’s about seeing these people do things rather than being told about them. Austin is the epitome of this because the actions he took were huge.

Jumping back to the summer of 1997, we’ll get into another reason why Austin worked so well: he was allowed to be seasoned. Today one of the major problems is pushing people to the main event before they’re ready. A legitimate case could have been made that Austin was ready for the world title after losing to Hart at Wrestlemania, but instead he was given another year of feuding with first the Hart Foundation and then a brief run against the Nation of Domination before entering the world title scene.

Now while Austin won his feud with the Nation, defeating Rock for the Intercontinental Title to end things at D-X In Your House in December, he didn’t have the same kind of luck against the Harts. In his war with the Hart Foundation, Austin regularly lost. He lost to Bret at Survivor Series, he lost to Bret at Final Four, he lost to Bret at Wrestlemania, he beat Bret by DQ at Revenge of the Taker, the Foundation cost Austin the title at Cold Day In Hell, and Austin’s team lost at Canadian Stampede. Austin completely lost the Border War, but he wasn’t on Bret’s level yet.

This is something I can’t emphasize enough: Austin lost. A lot. People often forget that Austin was a SIX TIME WWF Champion. That’s a lot of times to win and lose a world title. When you look back at it, he didn’t hold the belt long other than one reign. His first reign lasted about three months, his second reign lasted one day less than the first, his third and fourth reigns were under two months each, and his sixth reign was less than two months. Only his fifth reign, the one in 2001 when he won the title from the Rock, lasted a good amount of time and it wasn’t even six months long.

Let’s look at how Austin lost the title each time. The first time was a first blood match to a masked man. The question my friends and I asked back then was “how can he make a guy bleed when he can’t get to his face?” Austin couldn’t do it. The second time was in a glorified handicap match against Kane and Undertaker. Again, these odds seemed impossible and Austin failed. The third loss was against Undertaker with both Vince and Shane McMahon as guest referees and Shane fast counted him.

In other words, when the odds were stacked to the roof against Austin, he usually lost. Think about that and think of how rare it is. There was no Superman comeback. Austin didn’t beat four guys on his own. Austin didn’t come up with some cute way to keep the belt. He lost and that was it. Here’s the secret the WWE seems to forget today: you can win a title back. Of the five times Austin regained the title after losing it, three of them were less than six weeks after he lost it in the first place.

This is what I was referring to when I said Austin was both over the top as well as realistic. Rather than making a superhuman comeback, he would lose. At the end of the day, it would have been REALLY hard for fans to buy Austin beating both Kane and Undertaker in the same match. If nothing else, it’s bad for business because why should I believe Kane or Undertaker could beat him one on one if they couldn’t do it together? Also, it doesn’t hurt Austin to lose in a situation like that because it’s not like he missed a layup or something. He lost to the most dominant pairing in company history. It was a much smarter decision to have Austin go down and get the title back later.

This brings us to the final reason why the Stone Cold character worked so well: he was really entertaining. I mentioned this earlier but Austin is one of the few wrestlers where he could make eating a sandwich entertaining. Austin could do anything from drinking beer to singing Jimmy Crack Corn to Stunning people to shouting WHAT over and over again to singing the Rick Roll song (Youtube that one. It’s hysterical.) to telling funny stories and people would be entertained. Look at him now as after his wrestling career is over he’s enjoying a decent career as a B-movie action star.

The other side of Austin’s entertainment value is his ability in the ring. People often forget how excellent of a pure wrestler Austin was. Think about to some of the matches he had with Bret, Rock, Foley, Benoit, Angle, Jericho, HHH and I could go on. With Austin, his work on the microphone is so good that it’s constantly overshadowing his work in the ring. To give you an idea of how good he was, according to Meltzer, Austin has two five star matches, the same total as Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.

Overall, Stone Cold Steve Austin was one of the best characters of all time because he was both realistic and over the top as well as incredibly entertaining. He connected with an audience that wanted to express themselves but couldn’t as well as never going so far overboard that he was unrealistic in the ring. On top of that, he was an excellent in ring wrestler that had one of the best collections of matches that anyone has ever had. Austin might be as close to a perfect character as there has ever been.

Given the news that broke earlier in the week this popped into my mind.  Those of you who regularly read my stuff might already know this.The worst feud I’ve ever seen was Matt Morgan vs. Elijah Burke (D’Angelo Dinero) down in OVW.  They feuded for months over the OVW Title with Morgan finally taking it from Burke to end things.  This NEVER became interesting whatsoever and the matches were consistently terribly dull.  I have no idea what the point of this feud was and it kept me from ever caring about Burke again.