On This Day: February 7, 2005 – Monday Night Raw: Now This Is Puro I Could Get Into
Monday Night Raw
Date: February 7, 2005
Location: Super Arena, Saitama, Japan
Attendance: 16,657
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
Yes, we’re actually in Japan for this. I was going to do Great American Bash 2000 but that turns out to be kind of hard to find so while I’m downloading it you get this requested show. I barely remember 2005 WWE to be honest but we’re approaching Mania 21 which wasn’t too bad. Cena and Batista would be on the rise at this point so there’s Big Dave to look forward to. Let’s get to it.
Union Underground brings us into this. I love that song.
Obviously this isn’t live but it was taped on Friday before the show.
This is listed from Tokyo so I’ll assume it’s a suburb or something.
Here’s Bischoff who is GM at the moment. He has a translator and the fans aren’t thrilled with him in the slightest. The translation is booed far louder than the English. Yes, the English that they didn’t understand at all is booed out of the building. HBK vs. Flair tonight so that’ll be good. Also Edge vs. HHH for the world title. But for an opener, here’s Jericho vs. Benoit in a submission match.
Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit
Yeah this works. No idea if there’s a story here but does it really matter? Apparently they had a tag title shot last week but lost and argued post match. They lock up and go to the floor with it as this is very intense right off the bat. They keep ramming heads together for a hard staredown and lock up again. Benoit works on the arm but Jericho grabs a Walls attempt which fails. Sharpshooter attempt has the same result and it’s a standoff.
Springboard dropkick by Jericho isn’t launched and they fight on the bottom rope but both crash to the floor as we take a break. Back with Benoit running over Jericho and adding a snap suplex. Jericho is bleeding from below the eye. Rolling Germans by the Canadian in Japan to the American (Jericho was born in New York remember) but Jericho busts out the Octopus of all things.
More Rolling Germans are countered into a half crab as Benoit is in trouble. Benoit gets the rope and tries the suplexes again but Jericho fights him off. Benoit is like oh son you done made me mad and BLASTS him in the back a few times and hits the Germans to set up the swan dive to the back. He dives in for a Crossface but Jericho escapes and takes him down with a clothesline. Lionsault misses but Jericho intentionally misses and grabs the Walls.
Benoit gets a shot in to block that but it’s a slingshot into the corner. Benoit fights out of that and there’s the Crossface but it’s more of a chinlock than the regular grip. Still not enough to end it though as the other Chris manages to get to the rope so we’re not done yet. Walls don’t work because of the arm and Benoit kicking him in the face and there’s the Crossface again, still with the chinlock but a lot more torque, this time enough for the tap.
Rating: B. Oh come on it’s Benoit vs. Jericho on a stage where they intentionally want to look awesome. What were you expecting them to do? Sleepwalk through it? Naturally very good match between these two as they wrestled each other so much that they could have a great match in their sleep, which always makes their great ones more impressive. Great opener to keep the crowd how.
The Divas are having a fashion show later.
Clips of the plane ride which must have taken forever.
Flair and HHH are getting ready and Flair says he’s awesome. Batista gets….Maven later. Oh joy. The first Raw from this year I’ve watched in a long time and I get Big Dave vs. Maven. HHH is worried about what Batista is going to do as far as Mania goes. Flair talks some sense into him as HHH is going to talk him into going to Smackdown so Evolution will have both titles.
Christian is giving an interview as to how he got the name Captain Charisma when they run into Stacy. The interviewer wants to talk to Orton and Christian isn’t that happy with it. Christian makes fun of him which is amusing since they’re feuding now. Christian is rather amusing here. He challenges Orton for later and Tomko is skeptical. Tomko shouldn’t worry though because the match is with Tomko, not Christian.
Ad for Wrestlemania, in this case HHH as Braveheart. I loved this campaign. Flair WOOing at a donkey is funny.
Maven vs. Batista
Maven is a cocky heel at this point and doesn’t get an entrance. What do you think is going to happen here? He’s mad he wasn’t in the Rumble and calls conspiracy. Cue Big Dave and this is exactly what you would expect. The run time is 32 seconds if you’re curious. These fans are losing their minds over a total squash. He really needs I Walk Alone which he would get soon after winning the title.
Big Show pops up on the screen and says he’s not worried about facing Batista at Mania. No real point to this as apparently it’s a running theme.
Batista yells at Bischoff in the back about it. He’s getting tired of Smackdown talking about him so Bischoff gives him a sales pitch about staying on Raw. The fans pop at the mention of Batista vs. HHH.
Raw Tag Titles: William Regal/Tajiri vs. La Resistance
Gee I wonder what’s going to happen here. Conway and Grenier here. The place ERUPTS for Tajiri who is all fired up here. Regal and Eugene were champions but Eugene is injured so Regal picked Tajiri as his new partner. Massive Tajiri chant starts up so Regal starts off with Conway. Regal Stretch goes on but it’s off to Tajiri who adds the low dropkick as the offense is on.
Regal plays Ricky Morton for a bit here despite getting some shots in to try to break the momentum. The fans chant something but it’s in Japanese. Grenier punches Tajiri so when Regal takes him down there’s no one to tag. STF is broken up quickly and there’s the hot tag to Tajiri who cleans house. Let the kicks begin! Enziguri hits Grenier for two as everything breaks down. Double handspring elbow takes out the French dudes and it’s Tarantula time. Regal takes Conway down and there’s the Green Mist and a Buzzsaw kick gives us new champions.
Rating: C+. The match totally doesn’t matter and is rated too high, but this is about giving the fans something to erupt for and that’s exactly what they did here. Tajiri and Regal would hold the belts about three months so this wasn’t just a fluke title reign. No problem at all with this and while it’s not great or anything, it was perfectly done as it made Tajiri look like a star.
Regal and Tajiri go into the crowd to celebrate.
We go over the HOF class for 2005 which was the second year that this was revived. Going in this year are Orndorff, Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Bob Orton Jr. and Jimmy Hart. They say others will be named, which would include Piper and Hogan.
Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels
Can’t say they’re not giving them a big card tonight. Pretty much just a showcase match. Shawn’s pop is bigger. Flair elbows Shawn on a break in the corner to take over. They hit the floor and Shawn chops away. Backdrop has Flair moaning in agony. Back in and Flair begs off which gets a big reaction for some reason. They slug it out some more and it’s Flair Flop time. Shawn actually gets two off that and it’s time to work on the knee. Basic leg work follows and Flair loads up the Figure Four.
Shawn fights it for a bit and then reverses as this is about as basic of a match between these two as you could ask for. It’s fine and all but they’re going through the motions here. Rollup gets two for Shawn and the knee gives out again. Small package gets two as does a backslide. There’s an enziguri by Shawn and you know what’s next. Nip up but Flair tries to go up. Even the Japanese fans know that joke. Backdrop sets up the elbow which sets up Sweet Chin Music (with questionable selling by Shawn) for the clean pin. You can tell they weren’t going with much if it’s a clean pin like that.
Rating: C. It’s Flair vs. Michaels so it’s going to be solid at least. Very weak match from these two but the point was to allow the fans to see a pair of legends go out there and do their thing for an historic match. That’s what they did here and there’s really no reason to complain about it. Not exactly Mania 24, but still fine for what it was.
Time for an All-American Diva Fashion Show. Lawler of course hosts and I’m a bit surprised by this getting a big pop. Up first is Maria who is dressed as a western chick apparently. Victoria is a biker, meaning more or less a bikini and a leather jacket. Christy represents the beaches and is just in a bikini. Not complaining but is there a point to this?
Ah here it is as Simon Dean comes out to protest. He wants to use the time to pitch his Simon System of products to an international audience. An American sumo wrestler protests the jokes and then sits down. Simon says the girls are all fat and I think we can see where this is going rather quickly. Jerry defends the Divas and Simon busts out the Burger King line. The girls beat him up anyway and Lawler gets a group hug.
Evolution has a meeting where HHH tries to convince Dave to go to Smackdown. Dave says he’ll think about it and Flair/HHH aren’t thrilled with that idea but go along with it anyway. They have to focus Edge tonight though so they go to get ready for it.
Edge says he’s ready but is tired of being overlooked because of Evolution all the time. He’s a heel here but not a very good one yet.
Another video about the fans loving WWE. I’ll give them this: Japanese fans are passionate about their wrestling at a level American fans have never hoped of approaching.
Randy Orton vs. Tyson Tomko
Orton is still a face at this point but his heel turn to fight Undertake at Mania was coming incredibly soon. Orton doesn’t look like he had ringside seats to a nuclear explosion here and you can actually see his arms. Basic stuff to start until Christian drags Stacy, Orton’s current kind-of-girlfriend, down the aisle. Orton is also suffering from a concussion from the Rumble which was 8 days ago.
The distraction from Stacy being dragged out there allows Tomko to start hammering away. He pounds on Orton’s head as they’re playing up the head injury here. It’s not a bad one where he’s going insane or anything, but if it did that would explain a lot about his character from a few years ago. Orton fights back with the backbreaker but he’s stumbling a bit. He wants the RKO but gets dizzy when trying it. He settles for a rollup instead, which is a good ending since he got his concussion trying the RKO on HHH.
Rating: C-. Just a quick match here and there’s nothing wrong with that. They had to protect Orton’s head for the storyline so the ending was a good way of going about doing that. This was really just to advance Christian vs. Orton and again that’s just fine. Not a bad match or anything but pretty unremarkable.
Christian gives Orton the Unprettier (Killswitch) post match.
Orton was taken out during the break.
We recap the rest of the show so far, namely the title change.
Raw World Title: Edge vs. HHH
Edge tried to spear Shawn last week but speared the Game instead so there’s actually a point to this. They trade some technical stuff to start and it’s a standoff. We actually get a pinfall reversal sequence into a backslide which gets a LOUD gasp. HHH is showing off athleticism here which is rather shocking but if he can do it rock on dude. Edge’s shoulder goes into the post and then does it again.
Make it three times as who says HHH isn’t repetitive? We take a break and come back with Edge hitting a backbreaker for two. During the break HHH got sent up and over the corner and hurt his back so Edge hit a suplex on top of that. Facebuster stops Edge’s mini-comeback for two. Edge manages to get a missile dropkick for two. He gets a bit going but walks into a spinebuster.
Pedigree doesn’t work as the fans are definitely staying with this. Edge sets for the spear but remember he has a bad shoulder. Not that it matters as HHH gets a knee in for a close two also. Edgecator (kneeling Sharpshooter) goes on and HHH is in trouble. Rather back and forth match here. There’s a rope though as Flair plays cheerleader. Edge tries the hold again but HHH kicks him off.
Out of nowhere Edge misses the spear, taking out the referee. Neckbreaker puts HHH down but there’s no referee. Cue Flair with a chair but he gets speared also. Edge misses a chair shot to HHH and a suplex takes both guys down. They both crawl for the chair but Batista comes down and pulls it out of the ring, which HHH isn’t pleased with. HHH knocks Edge into Batista with unclear motives and a Pedigree is countered into the Edgecution. Edge wants the spear again but Batista kills him with a spinebuster. Pedigree finally ends this.
Rating: B-. This was pretty good actually as they had time and it advanced the story with Batista and HHH. I don’t think anyone thought the title was changing but at times having a guy like Edge go out there and have a long title match with the champion is a good thing. It spawned a PPV series called In Your House so it’s not that much of a stretch. Pretty good main event.
Batista and HHH celebrate but Batista looks at the title and HHH sees him so a staredown ends the show.
Overall Rating: B+. This was a very good show overall with a white hot crowd all night. Very interesting that for their own product they’re silent most of the time yet here they were barely quiet all night. Anyway this was an awesome show as they had a spectacle in Flair vs. Shawn, a good main event and a title change, plus Benoit vs. Jericho. I had a good time with this show and it goes to show you what they can do when they let good wrestlers have time. Shame that didn’t happen often in 2005.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews
Wrestlemania Sequels
As we approach Wrestlemania, it’s pretty clear that the show is going to have at least two major matches that we’ve seen in the last year: Rock vs. Cena II and Lesnar vs. HHH II. This brings up a few interesting questions.Now first of all, it’s hardly like this is without precedence. Hogan and Andre had two matches at Mania in back to back years and you could easily argue that there is one flowing story from Mania III to Mania V (Hogan vs. Andre which transitioned to Hogan vs. Savage). In the last few years though, there have been feuds that have spread over multiple Wrestlemanias. The Undertaker vs. DX spread over four shows and now Rock vs. Cena is spreading over three. This brings me to the main question:
Do you like these feuds and stories that spread over multiple Wrestlemanias? The matches are almost guaranteed to be good as only major stars are used in these things, but would you prefer to see them be one off matches rather than spreading out over years?
The more I think about it, the more I think I like these stretched out stories. The Undertaker matches have stolen the show the last four years and it’s pretty clear that Rock vs. Cena II will be awesome as well. Also it’s not like they do this for multiple stories a year every year so it’s hardly something dominating the shows.
Monday Night Raw – November 22, 1993 (Survivor Series Showdown): The Lost Episode
Monday Night Raw (Survivor Series Showdown) Date: November 22, 1993
Location: Fernwood Resort, Bushkill, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Jim Ross
I’m not sure why this is a significant show but apparently it’s a “lost” episode of Raw because both this and some other episode of Raw was listed as production #41 and therefore this isn’t part of the 1000 episodes of Raw. Given how hard it was to figure out which episode was #100 and #200 etc, this doesn’t surprise me at all. This is the go home show for the Survivor Series and may be called Survivor Series Showdown. Let’s get to it.
Yep it’s the special. Based on what I can find, there was no official Raw for this date but it’s WWF so are you expecting them to be able to pull off this counting thing? This may or may not have been a clipped version of another show called Survivor Series Showdown that aired the previous day which I’ll get to eventually.
Vince and Bobby are in the studio and talk about all of the eliminations of the upcoming main event Survivor Series match. Tatanka has been injured and replaced by Undertaker, just like Pierre being replaced by Crush. Jerry Lawler is also out for legal reasons (a 13 year old made up a story that he raped her but he would be back pretty quickly so Shawn is replacing him in the match against the Harts. Mr. Perfect also might have allowed for Randy Savage to replace him. So why was Heenan so shocked when Savage showed up?
WWF World Title: Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna
There’s an opening match for you. Yoko is defending as I’m guessing this is the end of a TV taping or something. The champion shoves Bret around to start but gets dropkicked out to the floor for his efforts. JR points out the flaw of the USA chant but Gorilla brushes it off. Yoko stays on the floor for about two minutes without being counted out somehow. Back in (finally) and Bret pounds away before throwing on a sleeper.
That goes about as well as you would expect for a small guy trying a sleeper on a monster so the champion takes over again. A knee drop crushes Bret and Yoko rips at his face for a bit. The Canadian is sent to the floor where Fuji gets in a cheap shot with the flag and we take a break. Back with Bret pounding away out of the corner but getting taken down by a cheap shot to the throat.
Off to the nerve hold by the champion which lasts for a good long while. Bret fights up and charges into Yoko for no good reason and bounces out to the floor as you would expect. Yoko follows him out and gets sent into the steps to no effect, so there’s a chair shot to Hart’s back. More chair shots keep Bret down and we take a second break. Back with Yoko hitting the fat man legdrop for no cover.
Yoko misses a big charge in the corner and Bret has his rocking. The Hart Attack clothesline is enough for two but Bret has to deck Fuji before he can follow up. Hart goes up but dives into a bearhug but immediately bites his way out of it. A middle rope bulldog is enough for another two as the fans are WAY into it now.
The middle rope elbow hits but Bret might have hut his knee in the process. The Canadian goes up again but dives into a belly to belly as both guys are down again. The champ misses a splash so Bret hooks the Sharpshooter but Owen walks to ringside for absolutely no apparent reason. Fuji hits Bret with the bucket so Owen runs in and hits Yoko with the same bucket for the DQ.
Rating: B. When you can drag a good match out of the fat man Yoko, you can tell you’ve got something special on your hands. This was a LONG match too, hitting nearly half an hour which was unthinkable for a free TV match back in the day. Owen coming out was foreshadowing the heel turn on Wednesday. Yeah Survivor Series was on Wednesday in 1993.
We’re going to get a feature on Stu and Helen Hart later. That could be good.
Survivor Series Report. This was a segment you would get around PPV time which was a rundown of the card and a few quick promos from people on the show. Part of this is a clip of Doink saying that he’ll have Four Doinks of his own on Wednesday (he wouldn’t be one of them) in one of the worst matches I’ve ever seen. We also get a clip of Team IRS fighting amongst themselves.
Marty Jannetty vs. IRS
Before this match we get a gem from Vince: “Tonight it’s Marty Jannetty vs. IRS but this Wednesday night on the PPV they’ll be opposing each other.” Slow match to start with IRS hitting a slam and then backing off. Marty does the same and dropkicks IRS to the floor as we take a break. Back with IRS holding a chinlock followed by an abdominal stretch as the fans chant Irwin. Marty fights back with right hands and a knee lift for two. A sunset flip gets two for Marty and a suplex gets two for IRS but his big running clothesline gets the pin on Marty out of nowhere. Yeah that was his finisher.
Rating: D. This was really dull for the most part until it picked up ever so slightly at the end of the match. IRS was the captain of the team due to having no one else that was head and shoulders above his partners. That’s not true as Diesel was on the team but you get what I mean. Jannetty would actually get the winning pin on Sunday I believe.
Vince tops himself by saying “an excellent matchup there but it has nothing to do with the Survivor Series.” So why did you put it on the card dude?
We go to the “Hart Family house” with Reo Rogers, a parody of Dusty Rhodes as performed by Bruce Prichard. Shawn is here too and even though it’s the dead of night, they go up to the door and a REALLY old woman answers the door. We go inside (where there is a camera waiting) and a Bret poster on the wall. There’s a tiny Owen one next to it as the turn is pushed even further. They go to see an old “Stu” but Vince cuts it off and ends the show. Dang that could have been funny stuff.
Overall Rating: B-. The show is an hour long and one match is nearly half of that. Since that match is good, how can you not say the whole show was solid? The PPV wound up being pretty terrible and the world title match here was better than anything on there, but that’s the nature of 1993. Decent show here but it’s nothing worth going out of your way to see.
NXT – January 23, 2013: It’s Tournament Time Again
NXT Date: January 23, 2013
Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: William Regal, Tony Dawson
On the 29th anniversary of the birth of modern wrestling, we’re back in Florida for more NXT. After last week’s transitional show we should be ready for something new tonight. Odds are Langston is going to get his next challenger tonight which should be interesting as he has no one else to fight at the moment. Let’s get to it.
Shawn Michaels is in the ring to open the show. Fans: “HBK! HBK! HBK!” Shawn: “Aw come on.” The fans quiet down. Shawn: “No don’t stop!” Anyway, Shawn is here and he’s got two belts which are apparently the new NXT Tag Team Championships. Shawn says that there’s a tournament starting tonight and the winners will be the stars of the future. He says that as a former tag team champion he knows what kind of a springboard these belts can be. Nice little cameo here that didn’t take up much time at all and made things feel special.
Opening video.
NXT Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: Wyatt Family vs. Yoshi Tatsu/Percy Watson
It’s Harper/Rowan here. Watson and Rowan start things off with Watson jumping WAY over Rowan’s head in a leap frog and taking him down with a leg lariat. Off to Tatsu as Regal gives us an idea of the mentality behind being in a tag team. Rowan chops Tatsu into the corner and it’s off to Harper to pound away in the corner.
Luke puts on a chinlock and circles around the ring at the same time to keep Yoshi disoriented. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. A jawbreaker finally gets Tatsu out of trouble but it’s off to Rowan to slam him down for two. Rowan cranks on the neck for a bit and here’s Harper again, but he lets Yoshi crawl over and bring in Watson. Everything breaks down and Harper takes Watson’s head off with a clothesline for the pin at 4:55.
Rating: C. This was just a squash but the Wyatt Family has a great presence to them. There’s something disturbing to them where they’re just a bit off and that’s a great characteristic to have. At this point Wyatt doesn’t even need to be in the ring which is good as I think he’s still recovering from his injury. The Family is doing fine just being creepy right now but them getting some gold would be nice.
Dusty is with Derrick Bateman and Alex Riley and offers them a tournament match against Kruger and Ohno. Corey Graves comes up to complain about not getting an NXT Title rematch and not being in the tournament. Riley gets in his face and Bateman hums a circus tune. The tag team leaves and Dusty makes it Graves vs. his former partner Jake Carter tonight. Graves says tell Carter that Carter is in his path to the title.
Sasha Banks vs. Alicia Fox
Alicia makes fun of Sasha for being tiny and having the nickname of Small Package. Fox sends her into the ropes but walks into a headscissors to take her down. Sasha sends her to the apron but gets popped in the face for two. A bridging northern lights suplex (called a fisherman’s suplex in a rare mistake by Regal) gets two for Fox and we hit the chinlock. Sasha comes back with a monkey flip and an armdrag out of the corner, only to be caught in a wheelbarrow front slam for no cover. Fox picks her up for a slam but it’s the Ricky Steamboat/Randy Savage small package pin for Banks at 3:23.
Rating: C-. This was too short to mean much but at least Banks looks good and got to show off a bit here. The Divas are nowhere near as irritating here as they are on the main shows as they’re actually treated somewhat seriously on NXT. Decent stuff here and Banks got to look good despite being a tiny little thing.
Video on Paige who is here to be a champion.
Some new blonde interviewer asks Aksana about her match next week with Paige. Aksana accuses Paige of stealing her look and says 2013 is her year.
Conor O’Brien says he’s the true Ascension and he will rise.
Corey Graves vs. Jake Carter
Graves seems to get a face pop on his way to the ring. Carter grabs a headlock to start but gets shoved into the corner. That goes nowhere for Graves as Jake pounds away in the corner and the middle of the ring. Corey comes back with a suplex and into an arm trap chinlock which Regal says can be called a Gator Hold. Carter fight up and hits a clothesline for two but gets sent into the corner and chop blocked down. The 13th Step leg lock ends Carter at 3:09.
Rating: C-. Another just ok match here as Graves gets to run over Carter and remind us that he exists after the title match from a few weeks ago. Graves got a good reaction and definitely has a unique look which will be nothing but good for him. Carter on the other hand looked pretty generic out there and didn’t appear to get any of his dad’s good qualities.
Post match Graves says that he’s been screwed out of a rematch for the title and kept out of the title tournament because he’s an “outcast”. As the savior of misbehavior (terrible name) he’s declaring anarchy on NXT. Oh and if Riley sees him, stay down.
NXT Tag Team Title Tournament: 3MB vs. Oliver Grey/Adrian Neville
It’s Slater and McIntyre here. We start with Drew vs. Neville with Drew taking him down to the mat with ease. Off to a chinlock by McIntyre which is eventually countered by a headscissors but Drew is able to tag in Slater. Heath immediately lets Neville backflip out of a hold and bring in Grey for the first time. Off to an armbar on Slater followed by a dropkick to send Slater to the outside.
The Brits cause some heel miscommunication before Neville dives on McIntyre on the floor. We take a break and come back with Drew getting two on Grey. A clothesline gets two on Grey and it’s back to Slater for a superkick for two of his own. Slater hooks a chinlock as we hear about Grey being a lumberjack. Oliver quickly escapes and brings in Adrian who starts flipping around as fast as he can. After kicking Slater in the face, the now legal McIntyre gets caught with that corkscrew shooting star for the pin by Neville at 6:26 shown of 9:56.
Rating: C+. This was a basic formula match but Neville got to show off a lot more than he had did last week. That big shooting star is a great finisher and looks awesome but we haven’t seen yet if he can pull off the other stuff that it takes to fill out a match. Decent little tag match here as Grey and Neville look good as a fast little team.
Big E. Langston vs. Axl Keegan
Non-title here. I love the look of glee on Langston’s face during his entrance and the kind of dance he does with the powder on his hands. We hear about Langston’s association with Ziggler but the fans don’t seem to mind at all. Langston literally runs him over and wins with the Big Ending at 56 seconds.
Langston loads up the second Big Ending when Conor O’Brien pops up on screen. He says that in two weeks there will be an awakening. Langston should be there so O’Brien can show him what he thinks of the five count. After an evil laugh from Conor, Big E. hits the Big Ending anyway. A third Big Ending and another five count end the show.
Overall Rating: C. This wasn’t their strongest show but they set a lot of stuff up tonight. We’ve got some new titles in play and the start of what could be a decent tournament to earn them. Also O’Brien is back and Langston has his first challenger for the title. Sometimes you have to have a slower show to set up something down the line and that’s what happened here. Not bad at all but nothing to see in the matches department.
Results
Wyatt Family b. Yoshi Tatsu/Percy Watson – Clothesline to Watson
Sasha Banks b. Alicia Fox – Small Package
Corey Graves b. Jake Carter – 13th Step
Oliver Grey/Adrian Neville b. 3MB – Corkscrew Shooting Star Press to McIntyre
Big E. Langston b. Axl Keegan – Big Ending
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews
On This Day: January 23, 1995 – Monday Night Raw: A 1995 Raw That Doesn’t Suck
Monday Night Raw Date: January 23, 1995
Location: Manatee Civic Center, Palmetto, Florida
Attendance: 2,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels
It’s the night after the Rumble and the main story is that Bam Bam Bigelow shoves Lawrence Taylor and nearly got in a fight with him. That would be the main event of Wrestlemania, showing how big a mess things were. Shawn Michaels won the Rumble last night as well, setting up his world title shot against Diesel. This is still just an hour and would be for over two more years. Let’s get to it.
We open with Vince apologizing for Bigelow shoving Taylor down yesterday. Apparently Bam Bam has been suspended without pay.
Dig that old school Raw opening! I haven’t seen that in a long time.
Shawn is brought out to do commentary, which is kind of strange for the Rumble winner. He does his expected bragging.
Tag Titles: Smoking Gunns vs. 1-2-3 Kid/Bob Holly
The Kid and Holly are defending here, having won the belts last night in a tournament final. Vince: “This should be a tremendous matchup!” Shawn: “I’ll let you know if it’s tremendous. No one knows more about tremendous matches than me.” Only Shawn could say that line and get away with it. Billy and Bob start things off and it’s a feeling out process between both faces. Billy with a mullet just doesn’t work at all. Then again most stuff Billy did didn’t work.
Off to Bart but Bob bails away, interestingly enough from his future partner. The Kid comes in and fires away some kicks but can’t hit Bart with any of them. Bart misses a dropkick and it’s off to Bob again. We get some token arm work from the champ before both guys miss elbow drops, leading to a standoff. Billy comes in with a bulldog from behind for two as the champions take over. A double gorilla press on Holly looks to set up another double team move but Bob crotches Billy to escape.
The champions hit a double superplex for two as things pick up out of nowhere. We take a break and come back with Billy running into a knee to the ribs to put him back down. A kick to the face puts Billy down again and it’s back to the Kid. A spinwheel kick gets two on Billy as does a double dropkick from the champions. Back to Holly who loses a slugout before it’s back to the Kid.
In a teachable moment, the Kid hits what we would call the Fameasser on Billy. Apparently the teaching works as Billy hits a Fameasser of his own about thirty seconds later to take the Kid down. Hot tag brings in Bart who gets two off a backdrop of all things. The Gunns hit the Sidewinder (side slam from Bart/legdrop from Billy) for two as Holly makes the save. The Kid gets to play Ricky Morton which is the best possible role for him.
We take another break and come back with Kid in a chinlock. Back to Billy for a legdrop (he REALLY likes that move) for no cover. The Gunns hit a dropkick/suplex combo for two as Shawn is in full criticism mode. Holly finally does something and kicks Bart in the back to let the Kid make the tag. Bob hits that dropkick of his for two but goes up and jumps into a boot like an idiot. The Gunns hit an over the shoulder powerbomb/top rope elbow combination on Holly to take the titles from the Cinderella team.
Rating: B-. This was a LONG match for its day. They probably had about twenty minutes out there and got a pretty good match out of it. I fail to see the point in taking the Gunns out of the tournament if they were just going to get the belts here. Still though, this was a nice treat given how much time it got. Neither team was heel here but they both had evil flashes in there.
The former champions ask for a rematch which I believe happened next week.
Shawn promises to find a new bodyguard. That would wind up being Sid.
IRS vs. Buck Quartermain
IRS and the Million Dollar Corporation stole Undertaker’s urn last night, setting of an eight month or so long feud. You might remember Buck from the old school TNA days. Roddy Piper is on the phone for this for no apparent reason and praises the New Generation. The match is nothing of note and IRS wins with a flying clothesline in about two and a half minutes. The whole match was about Roddy.
Here’s the King’s Court (Lawler’s interview show) with Jeff Jarrett and the Roadie. Jarrett brags about winning the IC Title last night and wants a shot at Diesel. Vince FREAKS about Jarrett wanting a shot at the world title. Well to be fair, why would a midcard champion ever get near the world title? Right Vince?
British Bulldog vs. Black Phantom
The Phantom is portrayed by David Heath, more famous as Gangrel. Davey talks trash to Shawn before the match and gets jumped by the Phantom. A jumping DDT gets two on Smith but he comes back with the delayed vertical suplex for no cover. Vince goes into a bizarre rant about how Shawn didn’t deserve to win the Rumble because only one foot hit. What Shawn did was perfectly legal, so why doesn’t he deserve the win? Smith hooks a chinlock for a bit before Phantom makes a comeback and misses a middle rope splash. The powerslam gets the easy pin for Smith.
Rating: D. Nothing to see here but the commentary exchange was pretty fun stuff. Smith was a solid upper midcard guy around this time but would get stuck in a tag team with Luger soon after this that would bring him right back down. Nothing of note to the match here but that’s par for the course in squashes.
Bam Bam Bigelow is supposed to apologize but there’s no audio. Post break and Bigelow still can’t hear us. Oh wait yes we can. It’s almost like this company has no idea what it’s doing. Wait we DON’T have Bigelow. Egads man this is pathetic.
A quick preview of next week’s show ends the show.
Overall Rating: C+. For a 1995 Raw, this was pretty entertaining stuff. A twenty minute match that wasn’t half bad is an incredibly rare thing today so back then it would have been a once a year thing. Other than that we didn’t have much, but for a one hour show that’s pretty good stuff. 1995 just wasn’t interesting for the most part though, and that’s what this falls under the category of: decent but not interesting.
Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews
Cool Royal Rumble Graphic
I posted another of these for I think the year 2012. There isn’t a ton of new information but it’s pretty cool to see. No I didn’t make this.
Royal Rumble Count-Up: 2013 Redo – 2007: The Battle Of Texas
Royal Rumble 2007 Date: January 28, 2007
Location: AT&T Center, San Antoino, Texas
Attendance: 13,500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Joey Styles, John Bradshaw Layfield, Michael Cole
We’re back in Texas here and the main question is which Texas guy is winning the Rumble. The main change from last year is that ECW is around now and get to have seven guys in the Rumble because their roster isn’t deep enough to support ten. Other than that we’ve got Cena vs. Umaga in a last man standing match and Batista vs. Kennedy because Kennedy gets a lot of title shots. Let’s get to it.
This is the 20th Rumble so you know the theme of the opening video already. The other matches get a little hype as well but the Rumble dominates, as it should.
MNM vs. Hardys
Mercury had his face shattered at Armageddon in a ladder match and tonight is about revenge. Jeff is IC Champion here and Matt was given a Snapshot (MNM’s elevated DDT finisher) on the exposed concrete recently. Matt and Nitro start things off but it’s quickly off to Mercury. He goes for Matt’s dislocated jaw but lets Nitro back in for some shots to the ribs. Matt comes back with punches of his own to slow Mercury down in the corner.
Jeff comes in and speeds things up before hitting an atomic drop and legdrop to split the legs of Nitro. Back to Matt who is rubbing his face a lot. A neckbreaker gets two on Nitro but he comes back with a shot to Matt’s jaw to take him right back down. Mercury comes in and slugs away as Matt is playing Ricky Morton for a bit. Back to Nitro for some choking on the ropes and it’s already back to Joey.
Melina does that ear piercing scream of hers and Mercury goes after Matt’s jaw again. Off to a chinlock followed by a hair pull to send Matt to the mat again. Mercury goes to the middle rope but misses an elbow, allowing for the tags to Jeff and Nitro. The sitout gordbuster gets two as everything breaks down. A double suplex puts Nitro down and the Hardys go up for a legdrop from Matt and a splash from Jeff, but the latter hits knees on the way down.
Mercury comes in off the tag and gets two off a knee to the ribs. Nitro does exactly the same before sticking on the ribs for a bit more. Jeff grabs a quick rollup on the incoming Mercury but Joey goes right back to the ribs. Nitro comes in and does the same as MNM continues to keep tagging in and out very quickly. We hit a chinlock with a bodyscissors but Jeff fights out pretty quickly. He still can’t make the tag but finally backdrops Nitro down and makes the tag….which isn’t seen. I love that spot.
Jeff hits a mule kick to take Mercury down and FINALLY makes the hot tag to Matt. Things speed up a lot and Matt fires off elbows to everyone named M or N. A combination bulldog and clothesline takes MNM down for two followed by the yodeling elbow to the back of Nitro’s head. There’s Poetry in Motion to Mercury but one to Nitro misses, as Johnny grabs an Oklahoma Roll for two on Matt. The Side Effect puts Nitro down but Mercury spears Matt to the floor. As he went through the ropes though, Jeff made a blind tag and hits the Swanton on Nitro for the pin.
Rating: B. This took a long time to get going but it was building up to a nice finish. This was old school tag team stuff and that’s hard to screw up. MNM was getting a good rub off the Hardys who were as much of a nostalgia act as you could have at this point. Good stuff here and a hot opener, at least after the tag to Matt.
Coach and Teddy talk trash about brand dominance. Edge comes in to draw and runs into Kelly Kelly, who is an exhibitionist. Edge’s condescending talking to Kelly is hilarious stuff. Orton comes in to draw and threatens to throw his tag title partner out if need be. Edge: “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Booker walks in and comedy ensues.
Wrestlemania promo. I liked that All Grown Up campaign.
ECW Title: Bobby Lashley vs. Test
Lashley won the title in December and Test is the warm body that he gets to crush in his first major defense. There’s a video package for this which is basically both guys beating up RVD to show how awesome they are. Test powers Lashley back into the corner so the champion comes out with a spear to take over again. Now Test tries to choke, so Lashley suplexes him down. Nice to see them sticking with the same formula. A delayed vertical suplex puts Test on the floor and the champion follows him.
Test sends Lashley into the barricade to take over and we head back in for a chinlock. He shifts into an armbar and hits a Stunner onto the arm for two. Lashley fights out of trouble and backdrops Test before hitting a three point stands shoulder in the corner. He tries a slam but the arm gives out, allowing Test to fire his one big weapon, the big boot, but it only gets two. Lashley pops up with a clothesline to send Test to the floor….and he walks out for the countout.
Rating: D. They needed to protect TEST? Seriously? Lashley doesn’t get to pin TEST clean? The match was dull stuff in the first place before a stupid ending like that. Lashley did what he could out there but Test was as much of a worthless musclehead as you could possibly ask for at this point.
Lashley pulls Test back in and beats him up, which makes you wonder WHY DID THEY NOT DO THIS BEFORE???
Cena gets his broken ribs looked at when Vince comes in to see if Cena wants to forfeit. Vince says he can’t see (get it?) Cena as champion after tonight….and that’s it. I don’t remember them having an issue at this point but whatever.
We recap Mr. Kennedy (Anderson) vs. Batista, which is just Kennedy winning a Beat the Clock challenge and having a great record against former world champions.
Smackdown World Title: Mr. Kennedy vs. Batista
Kennedy slaps Batista to start and takes over as he tries to tie Batista up. Batista slugs him down and gets two off a suplex and we head outside. Kennedy spears/shoves Batista into the steps, injuring Batista’s knee in the process. We get into a regular “hurt the big man’s knee” match which is the smartest thing they could do here. A reverse Figure Four has Batista in trouble but Kennedy gets caught holding the rope.
A running kick to Batista’s face in the corner has the champion in trouble again and a knee to the head gets two. Off to a half crab for a minute or so before Batista fights up and hits a spinebuster to put both guys down. Kennedy kicks him in the face but Batista Hulks Up. There’s a weak slam as the knee is giving out on the champion.
Batista hits a Regal Roll (Kennedy used that a lot) of all things but Kennedy hits the knee to break up the Batista Bomb. The referee gets bumped so there’s no one to count after Kennedy’s neckbreaker. A DDT gets two and JBL is LOSING IT. The fans chant for Kennedy as he goes to the middle rope, only to jump into a clothesline followed by a Batista Bomb to retain the title.
Rating: D+. The psychology was there from Kennedy but Batista didn’t really go along with it. I’m not saying he didn’t sell, but at the end of the day this was only eleven minutes long which isn’t enough time to tell the story they were going for. Also Kennedy didn’t have the Mic Check yet so he didn’t have anything to finish Batista with and everyone knew it. Not a bad match but they needed more than they had here.
Kevin Thorn draws his number. He and Ariel leave and Hornswoggle comes in to terrorize the tumbler. Apparently he’s in the Rumble too and attacks Coach for good measure. Khali comes in and scares Horny off. Kelly makes a stupid joke about holding balls, drawing in Ron Simmons for his usual line.
The Marine is on DVD.
Wrestlemania is coming and Saliva, the band that does the theme song, is in the front row.
We recap Cena vs. Umaga. Cena escaped the last PPV with the title and gave Umaga his first loss so tonight it’s last man standing. Cena is coming into this with bad ribs.
Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Umaga
Cena is defending and this is last man standing. Cena pounds away to start but Umaga barely moves. Umaga gets in a shot to the ribs and Cena falls to the outside, clutching his ribs. The champ gets sent into the steps and it’s all Umaga in the early going. They slug it out in the aisle and all of a sudden Cena’s punches work better. He tries to ram Umaga face first into the apron but Umaga screams and hits Cena in the ribs again.
Back in and Cena is in even more trouble with Umaga pounding on the ribs. A clothesline puts Cena down and Umaga brings in the steps. Cena knocks him off the apron though and throws the steps down onto Umaga’s (hands covering) head. It looked a lot better when Kane did it because you couldn’t see the hands but whatever. That draws a six count but more importantly it allows Cena to get a breather.
Umaga superkicks Cena down and it’s off to a bearhug. Since there are no submissions, Umaga lets Cena go and brings in some more steps. The steps are set up in the corner but Cena avoids the running hip attack (SEE??? IT WAS UMAGA AND NOT RIKISHI!!! SCREW YOU WWE ANNOUNCERS!!!) and blasts Umaga in the head with the steps. That only gets seven so Cena goes up and jumps into a spinning Rock Bottom, drawing some loud screams from the champ.
The Samoan cannonballs down onto Cena’s ribs but Cena finally knees him in the crotch to slow Umaga down. The Protobomb sends Umaga onto the steps but only gets about five as Cena hits the Shuffle to break the count. Cena tries the FU but Umaga’s weight causes Cena to fall face first into the steps. John is busted open so the fans tell him that he sucks. Ignore the fact that almost no one else could get a match this good out of Umaga I guess.
Cena gets up at eight and gets punched in the face some more, only to start Hulking Up. He pounds away on Umaga but walks into a Samoan Drop, driving the ribs and Cena’s shoulder into the mat. The Samoan Spike is blocked (for the life of me I do not get why they picked a thumb to the neck for Umaga’s finisher. The guy is a MONSTER and he pokes you in the neck?) so Umaga headbutts Cena down instead.
Umaga puts him in the Tree of Woe but Cena sits up in the corner to avoid a running headbutt. The top rope Fameasser takes Umaga down and Cena sends him shoulder first into the post. They head to the floor and Cena is covered in blood. With Umaga still laying over the ropes, Cena BLASTS HIM with a monitor to the head to put him down. Back to the floor but Umaga catches a diving Cena and drives him back first into the post.
Umaga puts Cena on the announce table and runs along the other tables, only to miss a splash and crash onto the ground. That gets nine and Cena has no idea what to do next. Estrada, Umaga’s manager, unhooks the top rope and tells Umaga to use the metal pole to blast Cena in the head. Cena catches a charging Umaga with the FU and hits him in the head with the pole. He hooks a kind of STF with the ring rope and Umaga is passing out. Umaga starts fighting up so Cena chokes him even more. FINALLY Umaga is out and Cena retains the title.
Rating: B+. This was a FIGHT which is what a last man standing match is supposed to do. I was digging the story they were telling here with Cena fighting a savage but having to become a savage himself to beat him. The fans didn’t like him at this point, but screw them as would you really rather have Umaga as champion? This was one of many awesome matches Cena had in this stretch, but OH NO kids like him so he must suck right? Give me a break.
Sandman draws his number and has a beer. Flair comes in to draw and gets hit on by Kelly. We get adult music and Extreme Expose comes in to dance with Flair, complete with club lighting. Not that I’m complaining about Layla, Brooke (Tessmacher) and Kelly dancing in barely there outfits, but WHY DID THAT HAPPEN???
Rumble video. Not much else to say here as I’m sure you get the idea by now. This is more of a history package than a hype video for this year. The theme of this year is how star studded it is. Seven guys are from ECW so I question this premise.
Royal Rumble
Flair is #1 (second time for that along with drawing #3 one year. He really doesn’t have a great record in these things) and Finlay is #2. Finlay drops Flair with a quick shoulder and we have ninety second intervals here. Flair chops away in the corner but gets backdropped down for his efforts. Kenny Dykstra of Spirit Squad fame and currently in a small feud with Flair is #3. Flair chops away at him in the corner and Finlay tries to dump Kenny.
Everyone hits everyone for awhile until Matt Hardy is #4. That’s a pretty diverse group of guys to start things off. The young and old guys pair off with Finlay and Kenny taking over. Matt takes over on Finlay and Edge is #5. Hardy avoids a spear and hits a Twist of Fate but gets taken down with a double clothesline with Kenny. Ric throws in a chair but Edge easily throws him out instead. Kenny tries to take credit despite doing nothing, so Edge throws him out too.
Tommy Dreamer is #6 and takes down Edge of all people before getting beaten up in the corner by Finlay. Sabu is #7 and actually doesn’t bring any weapons with him. Instead he finds a table under the ring and sets it up at ringside before going in to fight Dreamer. Nothing of note happens for now so here’s Gregory Helms at #8. Finlay is sent to the apron but he hangs onto the bottom rope.
The Irishman almost sends Sabu through the table but Sabu hangs on. Now Helms teases going through it but saves himself as well. Shelton Benjamin is #9 and goes for Hardy. Benjamin and Finlay both nearly go out but somehow both survive. They’ve teased that table being broken about five times already. Kane is #10 and immediately pounds away on everyone. There’s a chokeslam to Edge and an elimination for Dreamer and Sabu, the latter being chokeslammed through the table. Law of wrestling #1: you set up the table, you’re going through it.
CM Punk is #11 and is immediately called boring by JBL for not smoking and drinking. Finlay sends CM to the apron but can’t get him out. There’s the running knee to Edge’s head in the corner from Punk but again he can’t get an elimination. King Booker is #12 and dumps Helms pretty quickly. We’ve currently got Finlay, Hardy, Edge, Shelton, Kane, Booker and Punk.
Super Crazy is #13 and is knocked down by Kane before he can do much else. JBL mentions that Mil Mascaras owes him money, which he said on Raw a few months ago. I wonder if there’s something to that. Booker and Finlay go at it until Jeff Hardy is #14. The Hardys team up on Finlay (smart) before shifting over to Edge. Now they go after Kane for some reason and hit Poetry in Motion. Sandman is #15 and is gone in as many seconds thanks to Booker.
Jeff skins the cat to save himself and Orton is #16. Hopefully he and Edge (tag champions) can clear things out a bit. Yep there goes Super Crazy and Matt takes the backbreaker. Rated-RKO throws out both Hardys and things are a lot clearer now. Benoit is #17 and fires away chops at everyone. Finlay takes a German as Punk is teetering on the apron. Now Benjamin takes a German and RVD is #18.
Van Dam fires off kicks all around and Kane throws Booker out. Booker, ever the jerk, goes back in and throws out Kane. He beats on the Big Bald on the floor which didn’t set up a Mania match surprisingly enough. Viscera is #19 as things slow down a bit. We’ve got Finlay, Edge, Benjamin, Punk, Orton, Benoit, Van Dam and Viscera in there at the moment. Nitro is #20 and things are getting too full again.
Punk gets crushed in the corner by Viscera for awhile and Shelton hangs on by inches. That was impressive. Kevin Thorn is #21 and no one is really doing anything at the moment. Hardcore Holly is #22 and that’s not going to pick anything up. A bunch of guys go after Viscera and Shawn is #23. He’s in DX mode and you know he’s the hometown boy here. Shawn hits a Thesz Press on Finlay and clotheslines him out before superkicking Viscera, allowing a huge group of guys to dump him.
Shelton is gone at Shawn’s hands too. The ring is FINALLY cleared out a bit now until Masters is #24. Nitro goes up top like a schmuck and gets dumped by Benoit. Chavo Guerrero is #25 and Benoit dumps Thorn in the same fashion that he dumped Big Show in 04. Van Dam goes up, can’t find anyone to kick, and hops back down. MVP is #26 as Orton tries to dump Punk.
Nothing happens AGAIN until Carlito is #27. There are way too many people in the ring again. Shawn is sent to the apron but you know he’s not going out yet. Great Khali is #28 and swings his arms a lot on the way to the ring. The match stops as Khali gets in and he beats everyone down. Khali dumps Holly as Miz is #29. He lasts a good seven seconds and there’s only one man left. Van Dam is thrown out as are Punk and Carlito. Chavo gets dumped as well and Shawn gets chokebombed. Things look hopeless but heeeeeeeeeeere’s Taker at #30.
This gives us a final group of Edge, Orton, Michaels, MVP, Khali and Taker. Taker and Khali slug it out with everyone else down. The Dead Man finally puts Khali out with a clothesline and everyone else gets beaten down as well. MVP is eliminated and tries to get a chair but Orton takes it away and cracks Taker in the head with it. Edge tries to spear Orton down but gets scared off by the chair. Instead of going after Edge though, Orton hits the RKO on Shawn to send him down to the floor but not out.
Rated-RKO goes after Taker and we’re in a handicap match at this point. Taker fights back but can’t hit a double chokeslam. He can however hit a double clothesline while being busted open. Snake Eyes and the big boot drop Edge but as Taker goes to chokeslam Orton, Edge spears Taker down. A BIG chair shot to the head drops Taker again and it’s Conchairto time. Shawn comes back in and backdrops Orton out before superkicking Edge out to get us down to two.
The fans are WAY into this all of a sudden as Taker sits up. He looks over at Shawn and there’s the nipup. The showdown is on and Shawn pounds away in the corner to no avail. Shawn kicks the chair to the floor and gets launched into the corner so Taker can pound away even more. Shawn is knocked upside down in the corner but punches his way to safety. Shawn does a Flair Flip to the apron but Taker misses a big boot, sending HIM to the apron as well. Shawn charges into an elbow and both guys are back in.
A neckbreaker puts Taker down but Shawn can’t follow up. They slug it out and Taker kicks Shawn’s head off to take over again. Taker lifts him for a suplex and wisely puts him on the apron instead of down onto the mat. Shawn fights back and goes up, only to get crotched. Taker loads up a superplex but gets knocked down so Shawn can hit the flying elbow. Chin Music is caught and there’s a chokeslam but Taker can’t follow up. The tombstone is countered into a superkick and both guys are down again. Taker catches another superkick and dumps Shawn to the floor, nearly silencing the fans in the process.
Rating: C+. The ending stuff starting with Khali cleaning house until Taker dumps Shawn out is GREAT, but until then it’s pretty dull with way too much laying around and too many people in there. The ending here is pretty questionable too as Shawn is in his hometown and would wind up being in the actual main event of Mania anyway. Taker would beat Batista for the Smackdown Title, which makes you wonder why they didn’t have Shawn win for the big hometown win here, as the results literally would have been THE EXACT SAME THING. Not a great Rumble at all but the ending helps it a lot.
Overall Rating: C+. There are two long matches here and both of them are solid enough so I can’t complain much here. The stuff that is good is good and the stuff that is bad is bad, so while it’s not terrible, this definitely isn’t a must see show. Shawn and Taker are of course great together and would have some masterpieces at Mania in the coming years, but they couldn’t make this a great show on their own.
Ratings Comparison
Hardys vs. MNM
Original: B-
Redo: B
Bobby Lashley vs. Test
Original: D-
Redo: D
Batista vs. Mr. Kennedy
Original: B-
Redo: D+
John Cena vs. Umaga
Original: C
Redo: B+
Royal Rumble
Original: B
Redo: C+
Overall Rating
Original: B
Redo: C+
Man I REALLY liked that ending last time. I have no idea what I was thinking on the world title matches though.
Royal Rumble Count-Up: 2013 Redo – 2004: They Couldn’t Wait Any Longer
Royal Rumble 2004 Date: January 25, 2004
Location: Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 17,289
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler
This is the show where you can really see the next generation rising up. The main events other than the Rumble are Lesnar vs. Holly and HBK vs. HHH. Ok so maybe the next generation only comes up in the Rumble. Other than that we don’t have much going on here but this show is all about Benoit in the Rumble. Let’s get to it.
The opening video talks about Shawn vs. HHH because that’s what people are watching the ROYAL RUMBLE for right? The theme of the video is that things can change in the blink of an eye.
Raw Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Evolution
Flair and Batista are defending here and this is a tables match. Coach is ticked off at the Dudleys for putting him through a table six nights ago on Raw, because if there’s one man you need to give a reason to be a heel, it’s COACH. Batista makes fun of the Eagles because he hasn’t broken through to the other side of the glass ceiling yet. The fight starts in the aisle as you would expect. This is one table to a finish, meaning only one guy has to go through to end it.
Bubba slides in a table but shoves it hard enough that it slides across the ring and hits Batista in the ribs on the other side of the floor. Flair gets double teamed to start and caught in a powerslam by D-Von. There’s a table set up in the ring but Batista moves it before Flair gets suplexed through it. D-Von hits a Cactus Clothesline on Batista as Flair chops Bubba against a table in the corner.
Big Dave comes back in with some clotheslines to clean house but misses a charge into the post. The belly to back neckbreaker from the Dudleys puts him down and it’s Flair getting double teamed again. According to JR, the Dudleys are the only team to win the (non-vacant) world tag team titles at the Rumble. Coach heads to the ring to distract the Dudleys and prevent a 3D to Flair. Flair saves Coach and Batista hits a spinebuster to put D-Von through a table to retain.
Rating: D. This match fell into the same trap that all bad tables matches fall into: the dull set of spots that fail until one works for the win. You rarely get something that gets around this through sheer carnage such as the match at the 2000 Rumble, but this was just terrible. I have no idea what they were going for here as the fans were disappointed and they only had four and a half minutes to get into it. Also: real smart WWE. This is the right way to start a show in Philadelphia: have some of the most famous ECW guys ever lose.
Cena raps about winning the Rumble when RVD comes in to steal the joke. Weed jokes are made. Josh Matthews looks like the king of all tools here.
There’s an empty seat for Mick Foley in the front row.
Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Jamie Noble
Rey is defending. This is during the Nidia is Blind phase which didn’t do anything for anyone. They speed things WAY up to start with Jamie avoiding the 619 and launching Rey into the air to take over. The champ gets draped over the top rope for two and a hard kick to the back gets the same.
Jamie hooks a chinlock which shifts into a seated abdominal stretch. Rey fights up and hits a dropkick and a springboard rana followed by the sitout bulldog for two. He springboards into a gutbuster from Noble for two though and momentum shifts again. Nidia accidentally grabs Noble’s foot, allowing Rey to hit the 619 and springboard legdrop…..for the pin? Huh?
Rating: D+. This was fast paced while it lasted, but those three words are the key: while it lasted. This barely broke three minutes which simply isn’t enough for a PPV title match. Unless I was missing it there was no sign of an injury or anything like that, but the match ends that fast. I have no idea what they were going for here but it didn’t work in any way at all. That’s a shame too because they were going well while it lasted.
Noble yells at Nidia post match.
We recap the battle of the Guerreros. Eddie was clearly the bigger star which was fine while they were champions, but once they lost the belts to the Bashams, Chavo blamed Eddie and turned on his uncle for losing his title. The Guerreros almost made up but they lost the rematch, after which Chavo let Eddie get double teamed by the Bashams. This was actually a pretty solid story despite how basic it was. Sometimes less is more. Oh and Kurt Angle was playing peacemaker and Chavo Guerrero Senior is in his son’s corner.
Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero
Chavo bails to the floor before the bell and the fans are totally behind Eddie here. They fight over a lockup to start with no one being able to get an advantage. Chavo slaps Eddie in the face and now we’re ready to go. We hit the mat for a bit before Eddie starts snapping off chops in the corner. Chavo shoulders him down and we have a standoff. They chop it out again and Eddie goes to the eye like a true Guerrero.
Back to the mat with Eddie working on the arm before Chavo nips up and hooks a rana to send them both to the floor. Chavo sends Eddie into the announce table to finally take over and get some of the aggression going. Back in and they get into a kind of MMA style brawl on the mat until Eddie hooks a cross armbreaker of all things. That goes nowhere so Chavo suplexes Eddie down for two, followed by the Three Amigos. Eddie counters a tornado DDT and hits Three Amigos of his own. Chavo is down so Eddie goes up and hits the Frog Splash for the pin. ANOTHER quick ending tonight.
Rating: C+. This was way better than the other matches, but this felt like it was missing fifteen minutes or so. Three matches so far have combined to be about fifteen minutes long which is pretty lame for a modern PPV, even for the Rumble. This could have been a lot more, but the feud was completely done after tonight. Eddie would become #1 contender on the following Smackdown.
Eddie destroys Chavo post match in a pretty heelish display. Chavo gets busted open.
Ad for Mick Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses. That’s the most entertaining part of the show so far.
Benoit likes his odds even though he’s #1 in the Rumble. Evolution comes up and says Orton is going to win the Rumble. Flair says Benoit may be great, but this is about Evolution tonight.
We recap Hardcore Holly vs. Lesnar. Brock broke Holly’s neck (legit) and Holly gets a world title shot out of it a year later. This is the textbook definition of the Rumble title shot where no one buys the champion as being in any danger whatsoever.
Smackdown World Title: Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly
Holly jumps Lesnar in the aisle and sends him into the post because he wants to break Lesnar’s neck. We get a bell and Holly misses an elbow off the top to give Brock control. They head to the floor where Holly’s back is rammed into the apron and Lesnar hooks a reverse body vice back inside. That goes nowhere so Brock hits a Shell Shock for two and it’s right back to the hold.
We shift to a bearhug and then one of the most wicked overhead belly to belly suplexes you’ll ever see. Off to a kind of rear naked choke by Lesnar to keep things dull. Holly makes his comeback with the dropkick and hits the Alabama Slam but goes for a full nelson and revenge instead of the title. Holly hooks the hold and goes to the floor with it but has to break the count. The F5 hits a few seconds later to complete the inevitable.
Rating: D. This was Brock Lesnar defending the world title against Hardcore Holly on pay per view. If you can’t figure out why this got the rating it got, I can’t help you.
We recap HHH vs. HBK which is allegedly seven years in the making. I’m guessing THIS is supposed to be the FINAL blowoff to their feud instead of the classic in 2002.
Raw World Title: Shawn Michaels vs. HHH
HHH is defending and this is a last man standing match. They chop it out to start and punch each other in the corner a lot. Shawn tries a backslide before realizing that makes no sense here, so it’s back to the chops. Michaels gets caught in a facebuster as things slow down a bit. A HARD whip into the corner has Shawn’s back in trouble and a backbreaker makes it even worse.
Out of nowhere Shawn takes out the leg and hooks a Figure Four, because where would we be without a Flair tribute? That gets a five count so Shawn hits a chop block for a four. HHH low bridges Shawn and we head to the floor for a bit. HHH loads up the announce table but Shawn blocks a Pedigree attempt. They slug it out on the table with HHH getting knocked to the floor, drawing a bunch of booing from the bloodthirsty Philadelphia fans.
Back in and Shawn counters a Pedigree with a backdrop to the floor but he injures his back in the process. Shawn tries a springboard cross body to the floor but crashes through the table instead as only he can. Instead of letting the now busted open Shawn get counted out, HHH throws him back in for the count, which reaches seven. The champ pounds Shawn down a few times for a few counts, most of which don’t get that far.
A fast spinebuster (literally, as Shawn was flying at HHH and it almost looked like a belly to belly instead of a spinebuster) gets about six. That’s the problem with most last man standing matches: it’s a big move then standing around for the count. That makes it very hard to get any kind of flow going to the match. HHH cracks Shawn in the back with a chair but Shawn gets up again. A Pedigree onto the chair is countered into a slingshot into the post, busting HHH open as well.
Now Shawn cracks HHH in the head with a chair, allowing HHH to do his weird “my head hurts and I’m not sure where I am” face. There’s the forearm followed by the nipup from Shawn, followed by an atomic drop and the top rope elbow. That gets about seven so Shawn tunes up the band, only to walk into a low blow to put both guys down. Shawn hooks a sleeper which eventually gets an eight count before walking into a DDT to put both guys down.
That gets a double eight count before we head to the corner. HHH tries a belly to back superplex but Shawn counters into a cross body for another double eight count. The Pedigree hits but it’s only good for a nine. Shawn pops up out of nowhere with some more Sweet Chin Music, putting both guys down for ten which keeps the title on HHH.
Rating: C-. The problem here is exactly what I said earlier: this was a lot of laying around. The last seven minutes or so had about five moves combined, as most of the match was “move, lay down, move, lay down, move, lay down.” The idea is supposed to be a ton of drama, but that didn’t happen here. Shawn would turn into a jerk in the next few weeks and insert himself in the Mania main event because of this ending.
Rumble video with a focus on Benoit.
The Fink is ready to start the Rumble but here’s Bischoff to run his mouth. He says that a Raw guy is going to win the Rumble because he’s respected as a GM. He runs down ECW, which brings out Heyman for a brawl. Cue Austin on his ATV to say that these two are both in violation of the law (he was called Sheriff Austin at this point) and wants to know who started it. Heyman and Bischoff: “HE DID!” Both guys get Stunners and the fans love it.
Goldberg, #30 in the Rumble, doesn’t get to talk because Lesnar comes in to interrupt him. Lesnar is called a coward, which will come into play later.
JR has to admit Foley is a coward because he isn’t here yet.
Royal Rumble
Benoit is #1 and the Intercontinental Champion Randy Orton is #2. Two minute intervals here again. They pound away on each other to start with Benoit taking him to the mat to stomp away. Mark Henry is #3 when he was a fat power guy with no direction at all. Allow me to be more specific: he’s still with Teddy Long. Benoit gets double teamed for awhile until Tajiri is #4. These intervals don’t seem to be two minutes or anywhere close to it.
The handspring elbow takes Orton down but Benoit rolls some Germans on Tajiri to take him down. Tajiri only gets two as I guess Benoit is conserving strength. Henry throws Orton to the apron but stops looking like an idiot. Bradshaw is #5 and he immediately clotheslines down everyone not named Benoit. Benoit takes offense to being left out and puts Bradshaw in the Crossface before pulling Bradshaw out. Eh he would get a nine month title reign stating in the summer so I feel no sympathy for him.
Rhyno is #6 as we’re flying through this so far. He goes after the two starters as Tajiri fires off kicks on Henry. Tajiri gets a half Tarantula on Henry but Henry gets Gored, knocking Tajiri out in the process. Benoit clotheslines Henry out and we’re down to three again. Matt Hardy is #7 and Benoit throws him to the apron almost immediately. In FAR less than two minutes, here’s Scott Steiner at #8. Oh dear it’s Scott Steiner at the Royal Rumble. This could be a disaster.
He starts firing off suplexes immediately but at least this time there are some t-bones to go with the belly to bellies. Benoit rolls some Germans on him as if to say THIS IS HOW YOU SUPLEX SOMEBODY. Things slow down a bit and here’s Matt Morgan at #9. He takes Benoit down with a Batista Bomb takes Benoit down and pounds away on Orton in the corner.
The Hurricane is #10 and comes in off the top with a cross body to Hardy. He goes after Morgan for no apparent reason and is thrown out in less than twenty seconds. Morgan throws Hardy to the apron again but can’t get him out. Booker T, complete with the stupid remix of his theme music with Booker singing, is #11. Booker immediately goes after Steiner in a revisiting of their WCW feud that no one was asking for.
Nothing of note happens until Kane is #12. This is after he buried Taker alive. For the first time. Steiner gets dumped by Booker during Kane’s entrance. Kane starts firing off chokeslams and other various power moves for which he is well known. The clock runs down at #13 and there go the lights. A gong goes off and Kane PANICS. Booker uses the distraction to dump Kane and here’s Spike Dudley at #13. He never makes it to the ring as Kane destroys him for setting off the gong.
Everyone tries to throw each other out while laying on the ropes until Rikishi is #14. Benoit dumps Rhyno to keep us at six people (Benoit, Orton, Rikishi, Booker, Morgan, Hardy) in the ring. Morgan gets a Stinkface and nothing else happens for a bit. Renee Dupree with the French Tickler is #15. In a surprising moment, Dupree actually knocks Matt out, only to be superkicked out by Rikishi a second later.
A-Train is #16 and goes right for Rikishi. Benoit avoids the yet to be named Carbon Footprint and dumps Morgan. I love that they’re keeping the ring from getting full. Orton dumps Rikishi and Booker as Shelton Benjamin is #17. Benoit dumps A-Train during his entrance and Orton dumps Shelton a few seconds later to get us back to two. Orton pounds on him a bit but they crack heads to put both guys down.
Lamont, the announcer for Ernest Miller (complete with the music that would go to Brodus Clay eight years later), runs out to introduce the Cat at #18. After some dancing (and singing by Tazz), Orton dumps him out. Miller would be released in like two weeks. Kurt Angle is #19 and he might be a bit harder to get out. He’s fighting for AMERICA here so the fans tell him he sucks.
Benoit and Angle destroy each other with chops and punches as only they can while Orton is content to chill in the corner. Rico, now in his Adrian Street phase, is #20. He fires off some kicks but lasts about as long as you would expect him to in a match with Orton, Angle and Benoit. The RKO takes care of Rico as Benoit rolls a ton of Germans on Angle. Test is #21…..and is nowhere in sight.
Orton RKO’s Angle and we cut to the back to see Test unconscious. Austin sees someone off camera and says they’re #21. The off camera man and presumable attacker: MICK FREAKING FOLEY! Orton, the guy who spat in Foley’s face and called him a coward, PANICS. The place goes nuts and Foley explodes on Orton, beating him half to death and hitting a Cactus Clothesline to put both of them out. This would lead to some AWESOME matches at Mania and Backlash which put Orton up to the world title in August.
Foley keeps beating on Orton as Christian is #22. Mick picks up the steps and BLASTS a security guy who tries to stop him. Orton comes back with two chair shots and fires back at Mick. They brawl up the ramp and Foley pulls out Socko, only to put it on Nunzio who comes in at #23. We haven’t seen anything of the match for awhile but I can live with that for a hot brawl like this. Orton kicks Foley low and runs as we go back to the ring.
Angle is getting double teamed as Nunzio is down on the floor. Big Show is #24 and apparently that’s Tazz’s pick. Thankfully he’s in the singlet and shorts again instead of the one piece swimsuit. Angle immediately goes after him but Show throws everyone around. Jericho is #25 as he’s in a weird phase of his career. He wasn’t a main event guy anymore but he had feuded with everyone in the midcard already so he just kind of hung around and filled in spots on the card.
All four guys go after Big Show (who has a head like a typewriter according to Tazz) but they can’t get him out. Charlie Haas is #26 but gets double teamed by Jericho and Christian. Currently we have Benoit, Angle, Jericho, Christian, Haas, Big Show and Nunzio who is on the floor. Jericho backdrops Christian out for the second year in a row as Billy Gunn is #27. Apparently this is a return for him. It’s Fameassers all around and then things slow down again.
John Cena is #28 and that pop is growing at an alarming rate. Show stares him down so Cena throws Nunzio in to kill some time. Nunzio goes after Show for some reason but Cena takes over for him to make it fair. RVD is #29 to a big pop of his own. It’s spin kicks all around until things settle down a bit. There’s an FU to Angle and Goldberg is #30. The final group: Benoit, Angle, Big Show, Jericho, Nunzio, Haas, Gunn, Cena, RVD and Goldberg. At least the ring didn’t fill up until the end so that’s not too bad.
Goldie spears a lot of people down to start before Nunzio jumps on his back like an idiot. Haas is put out and Nunzio takes a HUGE spear. Gunn is out as is Nunzio to get us down to seven. Goldberg loads up a Jackhammer on Show but Lesnar runs in with an F5 to break it up. Goldberg stares down Brock, allowing Angle to dump him out. All five remaining guys not named Big Show go after the one named Big Show but it still doesn’t work.
Everyone hits their finishers on Show instead with Cena (Show’s feud at the time) hitting the Shuffle instead of the FU, which I’m assuming they were saving for Mania. They try to dead lift Show and realize they screwed up by knocking a giant unconscious. Show shoves them all off and dumps Cena followed by Van Dam a few seconds later.
So it’s Big Show, Benoit, Angle and Jericho as the final four. Jericho gets sent to the apron twice and manages to hang on before bulldogging Show down. The Walls go on Show and he taps but Angle breaks the hold up for no apparent reason. Show chokeslams Benoit down but chokeslams Jericho even further, sending him to the floor to get us to three. A side slam puts Angle down and there’s another chokeslam to Benoit.
Show breaks up a German attempt from Angle but can’t block an Angle Slam. There’s a Slam to Benoit (it was a belly to back suplex but whatever) and the ankle lock to Show. Show taps again, but again it doesn’t mean anything. The big guy rolls through the hold and eliminates Angle in the process, getting us down to two.
Benoit dropkicks Show but knocks him back into the ring by mistake. A chokeslam is countered into the Crossface and Show taps again, but you know the drill by now. Show shrugs it off and picks Benoit up in a chokeslam. Benoit graps a front chancery though and pulls Show to the apron….then has him teetering on the ropes…..AND BENOIT WINS! The crowd kept getting louder as Benoit pulled further and further. Awesome sequence there.
Rating: A. There were some slow spots but this was ALL about Benoit and I can’t complain about that at all. The ending sequence here with all three submission guys making Show tap was a cool idea and different than the ending to any other Rumble. They didn’t throw a stupid curve here and made Benoit look like a star here, which is exactly what he was supposed to do. Great Rumble.
Overall Rating: B-. The Rumble is really REALLY good but the rest is horrible. Don’t watch the rest of the show, but if you’re a Benoit fan and can still sit through a long match of his, this is absolutely required viewing. Things would change a bit more the next year as two REALLY big names would be the stars of the Rumble, but that’s not for another year. For now, this was all about Benoit and he nailed it.
Ratings Comparison
Evolution vs. Dudley Boys
Original: C
Redo: D
Rey Mysterio vs. Jamie Noble
Original: N/A
Redo: D+
Chavo Guerrero vs. Eddie Guerero
Original: C+
Redo: C+
Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly
Original: D-
Redo: D
HHH vs. Shawn Michaels
Original: C+
Redo: C-
Royal Rumble
Original: A
Redo: A
Overall Rating
Original: C+
Redo: B-
Just as last time, the Rumble is the only thing worth seeing.
Monday Night Raw – January 6, 2003: If This Show Didn’t Kill HHH’s Run, Nothing Will
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
King of the Ring 1996: The Austin Promo
King of the Ring 1996
Date: June 23, 1996
Location: MECCA Arena, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Attendance: 8,762
Announcers: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Owen Hart
And here it is. This show, while fairly harmless looking on the surface, has the promo that saved the WWF from the NWO, despite this happening before the NWO actually had formed which is just a bit odd. Not really but I like noticing things like that. Anyway, they’ve toned the tournament aspect WAY down this year, now only having the final four on the PPV which I think is a definitely good idea.
Three matches a night is just too much for anyone to make work as the fans just get tired of seeing them over and over. Also on the card here we have the first PPV encounter between Mankind and Undertaker as well as a rematch between Shawn Michaels and British Bulldog from the last In Your House. For no apparent reason, Ultimate Warrior is on the box. Now he was on the show, but it was in a minor match. I don’t get that but whatever.
Like I said, this is just a few weeks before Hogan would form the NWO as Hall and Nash were already in WCW and wrestling was on the verge of an absolutely epic boom. Something had to kickstart the WWF side of it. I seem to remember something happening like that here, so let’s get to it.
Our opening video starts by talking about Warrior vs. Lawler. Seriously, was this supposed to be a big deal or something? Then we shift to a standard video talking about all of the big matches and the tournament. That’s just odd indeed. Apparently Milwaukee is the Mecca of sports entertainment. Owen Hart comes down and declares himself a commentator tonight. Well ok then.
King of the Ring Semi Finals: Steve Austin vs. Marc Mero
We have guys opening big doors for the wrestlers that may or may not have been Matt and Jeff Hardy. For years I’ve heard that’s the case, but upon looking at them, that’s apparently false. Austin is just a generic heel at the moment with generic creepy music and apparently he debuted the Stunner in the quarterfinals. He beat Bob Holly and Savio Vega to get here. Yeah they definitely did the right thing by cutting this to three matches.
Mero beat Skip and Owen Hart to get here so Owen is completely behind Austin here. Owen has a bad arm too. Mero had only been around a few months here and was definitely worth something. No one was really sure what that was, but they knew it was something. Austin is a technical guy here as he was really nothing compared to what he would do. They had no idea what they had here.
That would last about two more hours. Vince offers his expert analysis and says this won’t be a long match. Keep that in mind. Owen is a rather good analyst. He knows his stuff and knows how to make it sound simple. That’s all I ask for. Man it’s weird watching Austin like this. He’s a technical guy and not a bad one at all. Ross says mat wrestling is one of Austin’s fortes.
Around this point, Sable more or less is hotness poured into a human body. I mean just freaking amazing. Austin uses a Thesz Press that Ross hasn’t seen in years. I love little things like that. We get a test of strength which is just odd indeed to see. I’m not sure I like this match. They’re doing an extended feeling out process here.
It’s not boring, but it could be that this is completely different from what we’re used to seeing with Austin. Austin is still using the Million Dollar Dream here apparently. You can kind of tell that Austin doesn’t know how to finish a match here. He has that sleeper thing and he’s used the Stunner once so it’s not an established finisher yet. He’s completely dominating here too.
Austin uses a Boston Crab and once Mero breaks out of it, Austin goes for a Boston Crab. That just looked odd. It’s weird to see him moving this quickly. Ok now apparently the Stunner is the finisher. Mero is ok but he’s just nothing special here at all. If nothing else the running dropkick is a move that always impresses me. I don’t get how that move is humanly possible. Austin is bleeding from the mouth.
This is a long match that could use to be cut by about 5 minutes or so. They’re doing a lot of stuff that’s running together. Vince tells Mero to shoot the half. That’s just odd to hear to say the least. After a hot shot, Austin hits a Stunner that was way more set up than his traditional ones. That’s Mero’s first loss in the WWF apparently. No kick for the Stunner either. Vince messes up saying World Wrestling Federation which amuses me.
Rating: B-. This wasn’t bad, but at nearly seventeen minutes it was a long match. These guys are both good, but they weren’t ready for a match this long yet. They easily could have cut 4-5 minutes from the middle and the match would have been a bit better. That being said, it’s certainly not a bad match. Austin was clearly a star in the making and clearly wasn’t just as over as he was because of his character. He was really quite good in the ring before the neck injury which made him be nothing but a brawler, which to be fair made him the biggest star in company history for awhile.
Doc is with Jake Roberts who is in his preacher gimmick and on a big nostalgia run at the moment, despite never actually winning anything in his entire career.
King of the Ring Semi Finals: Vader vs. Jake Roberts
Vader beat Ahmed Johnson and then got a bye. Roberts beat HHH and Bradshaw, which is a pretty good pairing to say the least. They talk about how Jake could make a comeback. How can you make a comeback if you never won anything to begin with? If nothing else his music is sweet and I mark for the DDT harder than almost any other move in the world.
Owen is talking about various things and Vince completely cuts him off to say how big of a crowd is there. Geez Vince is a freaking jerk at times. Vader uses a freaking armbar. Where in the world did that come from? This is in the middle of Vader’s monster heel push which would kick into high gear just after this show, leading to Vader vs. Shawn at Summerslam, thus ending any credibility he had in the company as a monster.
Actually that’s not true as he did some good stuff in the spring as well. This is a pure smark wet dream match. Jake’s height is deceiving. He’s about 6’5, which is taller than HHH or Edge, who are both big guys. Ross drops the burning desire to compete line which I’ve always liked. For the most part here, Jake is getting in just enough offense to stay competitive. And just like that he hits the DDT.
Well that was unexpected. Vader pulls the referee down while he gets the DDT to cause the DQ. Odd indeed. I think I get the idea though as they wanted to keep Vader strong so they couldn’t have him go down clean. That makes sense. The DQ sounds better as in a few weeks or even days’ time, no one was going to remember that anyway. Post match Vader beats the heck out of Jake and hits a few Vader Bombs on him to injure his ribs for later on.
Rating: C+. This should likely be an N/A but I’m feeling generous. They stuff they had in there was fine, but this was really more of an angle for later than a match. Vader looked dominant but Jake moves on which is the most important part. And there was a DDT so I’m happy.
We’ve had two matches going a combined 20 minutes. One goes about seventeen and one goes about three. That’s just odd indeed.
Vader says he was robbed and he’s the real king.
Tag Titles; Smoking Gunns vs. Godwinns
These two are fighting for the tag belts so it must be the mid 90s. The country boys bring animals with them. Geez Hillbilly Jim was an awesome character. We go to the back where the Guns and Sunny are with Doc. We see a clip of the Body Donnas and their new manager who is a guy in drag named Cloudy. Sunny is dressed as a cowgirl and that’s all you need to know. The Guns are the champions here.
These were some of the weakest gimmicks of all time. The Guns are going heel here as Ross insists he saw them turn down autographs for some kids earlier at the hotel. Well at least the fans weren’t at an airport asking about the NWO. Phineas likes Sunny here too. Billy implies he’s screwed Sunny, which he likely did since he was in the WWF in the 90s. We cut to a random interview with Cloudy who can’t even fake a girl’s voice.
This is Vince’s weird idea of humor I think. It lasted all of a month I think. The match is boring as all goodness so it doesn’t mean anything. These two fought so many times and while it was ok, it was never really all that great. This match just isn’t that entertaining. Henry puts an arm lock on Bart who taps like crazy but that wouldn’t mean anything for about two more years. So this goes for about ten minutes and nothing of note happens.
I kept looking for something to talk about but this is just ten minutes of pure unadulterated average wrestling. It’s not that good and it’s not that bad but it’s not interesting or anything. It would be fine on any TV show or house show but on a PPV, I doubt it. We of course go to a massive brawl that ends with Bart hitting Phineas with something that resembles a cowboy boot but it’s not entirely clear for the pin.
Rating: C. That’s the epitome of what this match is: average. It’s just there. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just a ten minute tag match where the faces acted like faces and the heels acted like heels. There was no appeal to this match at all. These two teams feuded for what seemed like ever and it never went anywhere. The tag division was more or less dead until 99 when the Hardys and Edge and Christian became the answer to the cruiserweights.
Cornette is with his team and says that Bulldog will win tonight, which might have been a good idea actually. I wouldn’t have minded it. Mr. Perfect, the guest referee for the main event, is in the same dressing room so Vince of course panic, because no referee is allowed to be involved in a screwjob on Vince’s watch unless Vince gives such an order.
Jerry Lawler vs. Ultimate Warrior
To say this was an odd feud is an understatement. Warrior came back at Mania 12 and Lawler had been making fun of him, leading to this. Lawler had painted a picture of Warrior and he came out to accept it in a baseball hat. According to the Warrior DVD, this was the end of civilized culture or something like that. Ross is PANICKING that Perfect was in the same dressing room.
We see an RF Video sign as Lawler is up at the coronation area and puts on a clinic of how to get heat going. Like him or not, the man is as good at getting a crowd to want him dead as anyone in a major company I’ve ever seen. His most intense insult is saying that the baseball team sucks and they’re booing the living tar out of him. Let’s look at what he did.
He got on the mic and said that Milwaukee was a bunch of losers, he said the baseball team was terrible because they were a bunch of drunks, then insulted the fans by saying they were fat and ugly. Nothing he said goes past something you might hear in 5th grade and that’s perfectly fine. Lawler is a master at being very basic with his insults but getting all kinds of great reactions from it.
Another key: on the way to the ring after every joke he laughs. He’s not doing anything over the top or ground breaking in the slightest. He’s just insulting each person using very basic stuff, but the delivery is perfect, and the crowd is all over him. That is textbook level stuff and something that a lot of people should pay attention to as a lesson on how to draw heat. I’m impressed here.
A final thing he’s doing very well here: by getting this great heat, he’s building Warrior up as well because the fans are wanting nothing more than to see Warrior beat Lawler from one side of the arena to another. Warrior of course gets massive pyro on the way to the ring. Lawler’s hands are burned for some reason but it seems Bob Orton-esque.
The massive Burger King chant starts up which was a huge deal for Lawler around this time. Lawler of course has something in his tights. That’s another brilliant tactic that someone should use again. He doesn’t have to do anything other than throw a punch when the referee isn’t looking and stick his hands in his tights just after it and he draws great heat. It’s so simple yet so effective.
That’s a big problem with wrestling and wrestling fans today: everything has to be new and epic but I guarantee you that if you went out there and used old school 80s style heel and face tactics that you would get a great reaction from the crowd. As old and worn out as that stuff seems, it works. People say it’s cheap heat or whatever, but I’d rather a heel have cheap heat than dead silence which so many heels get today.
Throwing out a line about the local sports team may be easy, but it works and it works very well. Warrior no sells a piledriver, making him an official felon in the Memphis area. Ross gets in a slightly veiled jab by saying Warrior is raw, unrefined power. I love little lines like that. A few running clotheslines and a shoulder ends this. A huge celebration follows.
Rating: B-. So again, Lawler does all the work and Warrior gets the credit and the win. You know, I really feel sad for guys like Lawler at times like these. Warrior would be gone in less than a month as he went more insane than he usually was.
He hit all of 5 total moves which was a combination of two that he repeated a few times, yet he gets all the glory and probably a higher paycheck for the night. Lawler was a master out there tonight so the entire decent grade is for him. Literally, he gets all of the credit here for making this entertaining.
Monsoon says he’s going to let Roberts compete but he might stop the match if it gets bad. Monsoon was perfect for this role.
The announcers kill time by talking about Jake which means the crowd is bored out of their minds at the moment.
We recap Undertaker vs. this guy named Mankind. This will never go anywhere.
Actually this was a really big thing at the time. Up until this point, Taker had only fought monsters like Gonzalez or Kamala. Mankind was a completely different sort of opponent that legitimately scared the living heck out of me as a kid. To have a guy that was completely insane come in and beat Taker up like he had done really was a completely unthinkable thing.
Mankind vs. Undertaker
This was I believe their first ever encounter. This feud would go on for two more years until perhaps the scariest match in WWF history would end it once and for all at KOTR 98 which I’m looking forward to. Bearer comes out first but there’s no Taker. The whole time we have the darkness going on and when they come back on, Taker is perched on the top rope. That was cool.
He goes completely insane with right hands on Foley to nearly kill him that of course do no apparent damage. This was right around the time where Taker started going completely insane and really became the character that he’s more known as. Before this he was just a freaky dude that did whatever he wanted and was awesome. Now he’s really getting into the darkside aspect.
It’s all Taker so far as he hits what would eventually become Old School. Mankind takes over and this is getting a bit slow so far. It’s a lot of punching and kicking followed by stalling, which isn’t that interesting to watch. This is really similar to what would become the standard during the Attitude Era, which is both good and bad. These two belong in that kind of a match, but at the same time it’s a bit boring.
Ross is WAY too excited about this match. We’re getting some good chair shots if nothing else though. Ok now this is just getting boring. We get a bunch of nerve holds and the like, which makes sense I guess but it’s just a lot of laying around and doing nothing at all. It’s like a rest and then a little spurt of cool looking stuff and then more laying around.
With Taker down (shocking I tell you, shocking) on the floor, Foley does an insane (shocking again) jump at Taker on the floor but Taker gets a chair up in a cool looking spot. Ross says they indented the chair and that the chair is dented. That’s for clarifying that Ross. We get about our tenth mention in this match that we’re in Milwaukee. Do we really need to know that so many times?
We’ve gone well over 15 minutes so far and it feels like a lot less. I’m not sure if that’s bad or good. Foley can’t get the pin so he does his freak out thing where he pulls his own hair out. That’s just freaky. In kind of a weird ending, Taker gets knocked down but makes a comeback thanks to the urn and Foley gets the claw on him.
That’s the end? Oh never mind. Bearer tries to hit Mankind with the urn but nails Taker instead, and THEN the claw ends it. Well at least that makes sense. Mankind goes after Bearer with a sitting item and Taker collapses going after him
Rating: D+. This was just way too much laying around doing nothing for my taste. It was like watching a match on a toll bridge. You kept having to stop for no apparent reason before you could really get anything going, but once you got going you had to stop all over again. The other problem is that these two would have far better matches in the future. No one knew what was coming with these two, but based on this match I wouldn’t want to see much more.
Mr. Perfect is with Doc and says it’s no big deal about him being in that dressing room. Shawn shows up and Perfect says he’ll be legit. This was pointless.
Intercontinental Title: Goldust vs. Ahmed Johnson
Ah yes Ahmed. This was a guy that was totally and completely hype and no substance. However he managed to ride that almost to the world title if not for some injuries. Goldust is champion here and has been trying to make sweet love down by the fire to Ahmed for weeks now. Owen complains about not being mentioned by Doc and only throwing it back to Jim and Vince.
Ahmed is, I kid you not, billed as Kuwaiti Champion here, having won the world’s worst tournament during a one night show in Kuwait where for no apparent reason there was a show/tour or something. They released it on tape as World Tour 1996 and of the tournament, three matches were shown. Ahmed won it and no one at all cared. I bought the tape for 5 dollars when I was 9 and thought it was awesome.
Dang I was a stupid kid back then. Anyway, Ahmed won it and it might have been mentioned twice and was completely forgotten afterwards. As for this, the beginning is awesome as Ahmed kicks the doors open and knocks the guys standing there to the ground as he sprints to the ring. That’s just awesome. If you told anyone back then that Goldust would be light years ahead of Ahmed as far as entire career accomplishments goes, no one would believe you.
In a BAD looking botch, Goldust is on the floor trying to collect himself so Ahmed dives over the ropes and misses about as bad as Taker did against Shawn at Mania. You can see the Attitude Era coming here as we’re on the floor already. Vince says we see no histrionics from Goldust here. Yeah I don’t know what it means either. Oh apparently it means being creepy. Hey let’s use the steps because that makes perfect sense here.
Naturally we hit the slowdown part as Ahmed is more spent than Warrior was just by getting to the ring. I completely forgot Warrior had a match tonight so that was better than I expected it to be. Goldie spanks Ahmed for no apparent reason other than he’s Goldust. I really hate chinlocks. Ahmed looks like he’s asleep. Actually he might be. Hey, in case you forgot, we’re in Milwaukee!
This is almost all Goldust here and it’s mouth to mouth time. I wish I was making this up. The worse part here is that Vince actually approved this stuff. Hey look it’s another chinlock. Did I mention how much I hate those things? We get a random Ernie Ladd reference. That was rather pointless but whatever. At least they mentioned he’s in the hall of fame so people actually know who in the heck he was.
Ahmed tries a dropkick that misses as no one likes it. That leads to a chinlock and then to mix up things a bit, a sleeper. He gets Ahmed down and releases early (make your own jokes) to set up a mouth to mouth thing. It connects and after a bit Ahmed wakes up. He more or less massacres Goldust and finishes with the Pearl River Plunge (Double underhook powerbomb or Tiger Bomb) to win the title to a big pop. Owen kind of screws up and points out that Ahmed was out cold and Goldust messed up. Great way to build your new champion there.
Rating: D. GOOD FREAKING NIGHT there were a lot of chinlocks in this thing. It was like a Randy Orton marathon or something. Giving these two fifteen minutes while giving Jake and Vader, two guys that can work a long match, 4 minutes is just flat out stupid. The point of this was to get Ahmed over but it did the opposite as it made him look weak and completely beatable. This should have been a glorified squash for the title lasting about 5-7 minutes tops.
Brian Pillman who is brand new to the company here and brand new to the crutches as he had just screwed up in his car and destroyed his ankle which led to his eventual death. He references Jeffrey Dahmer, who was a serial killing cannibal from Milwaukee and cusses a lot. Pillman would have been tailor made for the Attitude Era. This is about as rambling of an interview as you could imagine. It would have been WAY better if Vince would have just SHUT HIS MOUTH! He kept having to put in little comments here and there and it just messed the whole thing up to no end.
King of the Ring Finals: Steve Austin vs. Jake Roberts
The IWC explodes as Pillman and Austin pass each other in the aisle and pause for a second. Good night they were a great team in the time they had. Austin apparently went to the emergency room to fix his tongue. I think that’s legit actually. Jake’s music is just made of awesome. Austin jumps him to the shock of no one. This is all Austin as Roberts is barely even able to move let alone fight.
Here’s his token comeback as it’s fairly obvious that Austin is winning here. Vince says Austin is being a coward for attacking the injured ribs. Owen says Austin is smart to do so, which at least makes sense. Monsoon is out here now and Vince is more or less saying Austin doesn’t deserve to win. It’s not his fault that Vader beat up Roberts.
With Monsoon checking on Roberts it lets him breathe a bit and he beats on Austin for a bit but Austin counters with corner shoulder blocks of all things. Geez Austin was a different kind of wrestler back then. Austin hits the academic stunner to get the win and the crown.
Rating: N/A. It was 4 and a half minutes which includes Monsoon coming down.
However, the most important part is right afterwards: the coronation. Austin says the line that made him a legend: Austin 3:16.
To quote Jim Cornette from Monday Night Wars, “Steve Austin was gonna be a big deal. Nobody knew how big.” That was the debut of both the 3:16 catchphrase as well we that’s the bottom line cause Stone Cold said so. It’s not often that you get two major lines like that in one promo but Austin did it. You have to remember that on the big stage, there had never been anything like Steve Austin before.
Everything before had been about the basic ways and standard storylines. The problem was that everyone got sick of it. People got tired of hearing about how great the faces were and etc. That’s why Austin called out Hart: he wanted the purest wrestler there was. Austin represented this unspoken hatred that the fans had towards the old ways that Vince was so desperately clinging to.
He refused to accept that the fans that were children in the 80s had grown up but still had a love for wrestling and wanted to see it. The problem was that these fans were now fifteen and sixteen or even older and the things that fascinated them at seven or eight now looked stupid. That audience was fed up with these stupid angles but there was nothing they could do.
Then Steve Austin showed up. He said everything that the fans wanted to say but couldn’t. The fans rode Austin into greatness, as he became hotter than Hogan ever dreamed of being for a two year period. Yeah I said it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in the late 90s, Austin was a bigger star and far hotter than Hogan ever was during his career. That’s fact, plain and simple.
Anyway, it’s time for the main event which for once has gotten some hype. They had fought the previous month at Beware of Dog which was the blackout show, but that match had power at the time. Shawn had hit a German suplex for the pin but both guys’ shoulders were down, which led to this rematch.
I’ve always wanted them to give Bulldog a short maybe month long title reign just to give him more credibility but they went with just a rematch instead, meaning it was the same thing they saw a month ago, which is stupid.
WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. British Bulldog
Mr. Perfect is the outside referee here, meaning that he will indeed play a factor in the end because that’s how these matches work. Diana, I hate to say this, but she might be the most worthless woman in wrestling history. Actually scratch that. I couldn’t care less about her. She never did anything at all and was just there because…because…I have no clue why she was there.
Owen is of course biased towards Bulldog. I’m such a mark for Smith for some reason. No idea why but I’ve always liked him. A lot of people would have been hyped about this as Shawn was probably at his best as far as in ring work went at this time. Bulldog could work just about any style you asked of him so he could easily find something Michaels could work with so this was going to be great no matter what.
It would have been a bit better though if they hadn’t done this a month earlier, but that match sucked so maybe this will be ok. Monsoon comes out to make Hebner the main referee and Perfect the outside referee for no apparent reason. Owen calls Jose Lathario Jose Estrada which will be funny to a handful of people here. They start with an incredibly crisp wrestling sequence that was really good.
Smith could wrestle about as well on the mat as any power guy of all time. He really was underrated as a wrestler to say the least. However, Michaels was pretty much the best in the world at this time so he’s somehow outmatched. Shawn’s speed here is just completely ridiculous as he’s flowing so insanely well out there. It’s saying a lot, when Smith, a well proven great wrestler, is being completely left in the dust out here.
Yeah I know a lot of people here will say that I’m sucking up to Shawn or whatever, but seriously just watch any of his matches from this time period and if you still say he wasn’t incredible in the ring, you simply don’t know good wrestling. Shawn works on the arm, which makes sense here as Smith as a power guy needs his arms to use said strength. See what psychology can do for a match?
In a cool spot, Smith catches Shawn coming off the ropes and gets him in a gorilla press before backing up to just drop Shawn over the ropes in a great looking bump. They’re wrestling a fairly basic match here which I think exemplifies the problem here. This match would steal the show as a midcard match. However, it just feels kind of weak as the main event for the world title.
That’s the big issue I have with it: it feels like a weak match that shouldn’t be for the world title. Now at In Your House this was perfect. These two belonged in the main event of a minor PPV but not on a major show. To be fair though King of the Ring wasn’t a huge show by comparison to some of the others. Smith takes over after that gorilla press spot and locks on the sickest looking submission in recorded history: the surfboard. Go find a clip of it if you don’t believe me.
Owen is just ripping Yoko on the mic which is odd. I’m not sure if he had left the company yet but I don’t think he had. Granted he was about to leave so I guess it’s ok. He really was fat enough that he meant nothing at this point anyway. Since we need one a match, we hit the chinlock. Someday someone needs to win a match with one of those, just to stun the heck out of the audience.
After the longest chinlock I’ve seen tonight which is saying a lot, Smith goes up top for no apparent reason. He slips terribly and misses by probably three full feet. Shawn tries to roll out of the way to make it look believable t he’s miles away even with Shawn moving. It was terrible and the only thing I could figure out was Smith slipped as he was certainly capable of jumping that far.
He goes up to the corner and hits a suplex on Shawn where he just lets him go halfway through it and it looked awesome. These guys are bumping like crazy out there. Shawn throws Smith into the corner and Smith goes for a Flair Flip but he more or less throws a front flip at the corner which looks awesome. Shawn initiates his ending sequence and hits the kick and Perfect slides in for the pin.
In a weird looking ending, Perfect counts the cover and gets to two but slides out and then Hebner counts the whole three. That was just completely stupid. Owen comes in and Shawn manages to get him in a figure four and roll up Smith at the same time. Yeah he wasn’t booked too strong at all. Ok so he’s champion so it’s ok. Ahmed comes in for the save and then Vader comes in for the save and the fans start chanting some combination of Austin and Warrior.
Vader keeps looking at the entry way as Warrior must have missed his cue by about a mile or so. Eventually he goes to the top for a top rope something but has to crawl up there because Warrior is just so freaking late. He finally gets there and hits a few clotheslines to somehow reenergize the faces.
The faces celebrate as Vince announces that the two trios will face each other at the awful International Incident show the next month in Canada where Owen and Smith of course were cheered and Shawn’s team were more or less automatically the heels. Warrior got fired again and Sid took his place in a meaningless match that set up Summerslam with Vader vs. Shawn.
Rating: B+. This was a pretty solid match I thought. It had some weird spots in there where it kind of made you make a strange look. The ending was just a head scratcher with the two referees and whatnot. The match was fine though as you had two guys that could work a 30 minute match with little trouble and that’s what they did.
The work and the psychology were both there, making this a very solid match and a fine way to end a PPV. The big brawl was a little much, but at least Shawn won clean like he should have.
We go to the back for a Coliseum exclusive where the heels say exactly what you would expect them to say. Cornette’s rants are just great. Ross looks OLD. He gets on Owen, an announcer, for getting involved. To be fair, the show was over before he ran in so he was done at the time. Cornette is just freaking awesome on so many levels. They actually call him Big Van Vader which I don’t remember him being called in the WWF.
This is followed up by a series of cheat codes for College Slam. Yes, you read that right. That’s something that use to come on a lot of Coliseum Videos, but I never have seen anything other than WWF games. Ok then.
Overall Rating: C-. There’s just way too much bland or not that great stuff in here to justify a good grade here. I was leaning towards D+ but at the same time, there really isn’t anything here that’s so horrible I wanted a blunt object to beat myself with. It’s not bad per se, but it’s not that good. Shifting to having just the final four of the tournament was definitely a good idea as there’s not enough to get annoyed with the people and the requirement of stupid finishes to cut time.
It’s a massive improvement that helped a lot. Obviously the Austin segment is huge in every sense of the word and the main event is quite good, but other than that, this show is just not very entertaining. It’s more of a show that set the table for a lot more stuff later on than something good here, so it’s not really recommended. I’m pretty sure Bulldog vs. Shawn is on Heartbreak and Triumph too so there we are if you’re bored. It’s worth seeing but don’t go out of your way or anything.
