Survivor Series 1998
Date: November 15, 1998
Location: Kiel Center, St. Louis, Missouri
Attendance: 21,779
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Now this is a time when a year can completely change things around. Shawn and Bret are gone due to Montreal and injuries. Austin is the undisputed king of professional wrestling, and the WWF is back on top in the ratings war. The Attitude Era is in full swing as we have no world champion. With Vince hating Austin completely, he booked Austin in a triple threat for the belt at a PPV.

They double pinned Austin, leading to a one on one match at the previous PPV with Austin as the referee. Austin declared himself as the winner, leading to tonight’s 14 man tournament for the belt. It’s the first Survivor Series match to not have any traditional Survivor Series matches, but the tournament can be viewed as surviving so that’s fine and good. Other than the tournament, there’s a tag title match and a women’s title match. It’s a 14 match card, so let’s get to it.

We get a montage of people talking about how they’ll do whatever it takes to get the title. Remember that for later. The tagline for this show was Deadly Game, which came complete with a catchy song for it. Youtube it as it’s not bad at all. I remember watching this show with a buddy of mine and we were freaking about who could win this.

We were both complete marks at the time, but about a year or two later he would discover a place called Wrestlezone and mention it to me. My life changed forever. Ok so it took 6 years for me to click on the forums part and THEN it changed but you get the idea.

Apparently Vince did the brackets for the tournament. The first round matches are maximum ten minutes, so that’s a plus. Here are your brackets.

Undertaker
BYE

Kane
BYE

Rock
HHH

Goldust
Shamrock

Mankind
???

Jeff Jarrett
Al Snow

X-Pac
Regal

Austin
Boss Man

Kane and Taker were technically both champion before, hence the byes. Rock and HHH in the first round? That’s a heck of an opening match.

We open with…Vince. Yep, the first thing we hear is Vince has something to say. He has a broken ankle at the time thanks to Kane and Taker so he’s got a ton of help. This was actually a big show because for once we’re guaranteed a new world champion. That’s a rare thing. Oh he’s doing the announcing tonight.

First Round: Mankind vs. ???

Mankind was just flat out awesome at this point, as he often was. He was being completely suckered in by Vince to do his bidding because he was dumb enough to believe and trust Vince. Naturally, Vince used him to do his dirty work. As a reward, he gave him a joke: the Hardcore title, which became the hottest thing in the world for all of a week. Also, when Vince was in the hospital, Mankind visited him and debuted Mr. Socko.

He comes out in a tux with the mask, the belt and the sock on. That’s just priceless. He still has that classical music theme as well which is just humorous. There was a HUGE rumor going on at this time that the mystery wrestler would be Shawn Michaels, with even the fans chanting HBK. Josh, the guy I was watching the show with, looked at each other and said no way. He was just too hurt from Mania.

Vince puts on his glasses to read a statement about the opponent. He debuted in 1990, he had a win/loss record that couldn’t be compared to anyone else’s. He jumped ship to WCW but a shoulder injury had kept him out for two years. You can tell the audience is really puzzled over who this is going to be. It’s Duane Gill. No one, and I mean NO ONE got this. Gill was a jobber that never won a match on WWF TV.

This would be like bringing Reno Riggins in for a match. The fans are TICKED. His video is him taking a bunch of people’s finishing moves. He pulls an Eric Young and is scared of his pyro. Apparently he coaches an elementary school football team. I wish my elementary school had a football team. Anyway, the match lasts about 30 seconds. Mankind hits a double arm DDT and uses a rolling ¾ nelson, and I’m not making that up, to get the pin.

This was actually significant, in that it seemed as if Vince was hand picking Mankind to win the tournament. Also, JR mentions Mr. and Mrs. Foley’s baby boy, which is kind of sad as Foley’s father passed away yesterday. From what I read in Have a Nice Day, he was a good man. That’s sad.

Rating: N/A. This will be likely for a lot of matches tonight. How can I rate a thirty seconds match? Eight days later, Gill would win the Light Heavyweight Title (beating Christian of all people) and become Gillberg. I’m sure you’re familiar with that.

We see a clip of Sable getting beaten up by Jackie on Heat and then Cole is in her locker room. Sable as always is a whiny witch that can’t act or fight. She really annoys me most of the time.

First Round: Jeff Jarrett vs. Al Snow

The winner here gets Mankind. Jarrett has Debra McMichael with him now. I know you know who that is but that’s what they call her here. There’s a guy with a sign that says Jarrett is the guy you hate to hate. Does that mean he likes Jarrett? Also there’s a sign that says I need Head. When I saw that I forgot about Snow, so I was surprised. For once, Debra actually looks hot. Snow’s pop is MASSIVE.

He really could have been a solid midcard guy. He certainly had the crowd support. Apparently Snow has stolen Socko, so Foley’s was a forgery. Snow is just freaking creepy on a lot of levels. He lands a sweet cartwheel over the top rope to counter an Irish whip. That was awesome. This is actually a pretty good little fast paced match. Obviously they’re not going to get enough time to blow anyone away, but I like what I’m seeing so far.

These are two guys that can go in the ring and if they were given enough time, this would have been a very good match I think. Both guys get the others’ weapons but Snow gets hit with Head in the back which doesn’t even knock him down. He gets Head from Jarrett and gives Head to Jarrett’s head to end this.

I wanted to see more of the match and less Head. Ross points out that the next WWF Champion could be holding a severed head wearing a tube sock. That sums up the Attitude Era. Debra has nice legs.

Rating: B+. This is hard to grade, but I really liked the little bit that I got to see. Both guys were crisp in the time that they had and it’s a match that you don’t get to see that often. I like Snow’s in ring work more than Jarrett’s so I’m happy here.

First Round: Big Boss Man vs. Steve Austin

There’s no transition here at all as we just go from match to match. I’m not a fan of that style. The pop for Austin is just ridiculous. He had been fired by Vince but Shane hired him back for 5 years. Amazingly, he wouldn’t last in the company that long. They brawl in the aisle to start as this is Vince vs. Austin in essence. Oh there’s the bell so that was pre match stuff. This is really just a fast forwarded match.

It’s a brawl as you would expect, but it’s just not that entertaining because they have less than four minutes to do anything. We see a split screen of Vince, Slaughter and Patterson watching this. There’s no Brisco so I’m assuming he and Patterson broke up for awhile. The announcers point out that Bossman might just be here to beat up Austin instead of advancing, so Boss Man is your Andre the Giant and Vince is your Ted DiBiase in this tournament with Austin as Hogan.

At least they waited ten years to recycle the tournament PPV formula. They go to the floor and Boss Man drills him with the night stick in front of the referee to end it while advancing Austin. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to try to beat him now? If nothing else you can beat on him and then also possibly take him out.

The result is the same but it takes more out of Austin and it could potentially eliminate him period. I’m no evil genius though. Austin gets a pop for winning despite having his face beaten in at the moment. The beating goes on way too long as shockingly they’re short on time I guess.

Rating: D. Again, it’s not even four minutes and 40 seconds of it is a rest hold. What do you want me to say here? It was bad for the most part, but it was all storyline here anyway so that’s fine I suppose. You have to love the Russo style here of flash with limited actual wrestling involved. That’s always a good thing to have.

Cole is with Vince and asks him if he’s worried that Austin has advanced. Vince of course isn’t.

First Round: X-Pac vs. Steven Regal

Winner gets Austin and X-Pac is European Champion here. This match is completely made of win because of one reason: we get to hear Regal’s MAN’S MAN SONG!!!  Oh I’m all giddy.

Regal was fired for working VERY stiff against Goldberg and making him look awful in the ring so he came to Vince and this is what he got for his trouble. It’s since become one of the most popular gimmicks ever, based on how absolutely freaking SWEET the song is. Apparently mixing concrete makes you a man. My grandmother is a REAL MAN’S MAN. Ross is on this weird kick of saying how old everyone is tonight.

King starts singing the song. He should stick to Wimpbusters. Pac gets a sweet spin kick early on. He’s against a smaller man so this should be decent. After saying how old Pac is (26), he calls Regal Blackman twice in a row. King points this out to him and of course Ross is offended. He got the idea from Regal being from Blackpool. At least that makes sense. The fans don’t like Regal so he poses for them.

In a cool looking move, Regal uses a slingshot, but instead of the corner X-Pac just lands on his face. That was awesome. Regal puts on a bad looking submission, which prompts Ross to say he’s looking for a submission. Well gee Jim thanks. I thought he was looking for 38 cents he lost in my couch last Thursday. Vince and co. are looking on as apparently Brisco bought Patterson a flower so they’re ok now. Brisco says that Austin will face neither guy.

In another odd looking but cool spot, for some reason X-Pac and Regal are both face down and Regal has his legs wrapped around Pac’s head. Pac flips forward and grabs the legs. So he’s laying next to Regal but is pulling backwards on his crossed legs in the same way you would for a Sharpshooter while lying down. That’s quite freaky looking. For no apparent reason, they argue over who Jesse Ventura would want to win. X-Pac holds his neck and clearly shouts OH SNAP.

As good as this match has been, X-Pac using the Bronco Buster just drains it. I can’t make it clear enough how much I hate that move. It looks completely ridiculous, so it’s become a staple of the product. They go to the floor and fight over a suplex but both guys get counted out to send Austin to the final four. That was good while it lasted. Vince isn’t happy but he wants overtime.

BUT WAIT!

Vince gets his wish, and we have a five minute overtime. The Fink calls it sudden death, but isn’t every match sudden death? X-Pac can’t fight because he’s hurt, so it’s over. Shouldn’t Regal just move on if they’re redoing the match? Apparently not which makes ZERO sense but whatever. Also, if Vince made the brackets why didn’t he give Austin someone harder than Regal or X-Pac in the second round?

Rating: B. This was another match that I wanted to see more of. This is the problem with big one night tournaments: you can’t see everything you want to. These guys got about 8 minutes though so I guess that’s pretty good.

They worked well together and if I’ve said it once I guess I’m now saying it twice: X-Pac needed to only fight average or small guys. His stuff goes through the roof against them because it looks believable that what he’s doing would be effective. For some reason they never got that. Anyway, this was quite good in my eyes.

First Round: Ken Shamrock vs. Goldust

Shamrock is the IC Champion at this point. The in the zone thing was always humorous to me for some reason. You know since he first got to the WWF, Goldust has really had no gimmick. I know that sounds ridiculous but think about it. What does he do that’s odd anymore? He has the stupid random stuttering thing but that’s once in awhile. Other than that, he’s just a guy in face paint and a weird looking costume.

The movie thing is gone, the inhaling is gone, everything is pretty much gone. He’s just Goldust. I guess that comes with being a veteran though. Apparently after leaving his wife and responsibilities last year he’s back with them now and Terri is pregnant again, but he’s leaving her. This would lead to the female stable known as PMS which was just a mess. Shamrock has won two tournaments already this year so he could be a big favorite in this one which makes sense.

Ross says he likes the ten minute time limits and I’m disagreeing with him again. They should have gone with longer matches and just 8 people. Honestly, would anyone have missed Regal and Pac in there? There had to be four others you could drop in there somewhere. As Ross talks about how great an IC Champion Shamrock is, you can hear the referee say “get it back in the middle of the ring and you have three minutes.” Well that’s good to know.

Shocky was right. It completely sucks the life out of a match. Shamrock is just dominating here as there was never any doubt he would move on. Goldust is another guy you could drop from this. He was just a jobber at this point living off of past success. My goodness I popped in the wrong show. I wanted the 98 show not the 09 one. Oh never mind.

It’s just that Goldust hasn’t done anything in 11 years. My mistake. He goes for Shattered Dreams which misses as Shamrock hits a sloppy top rope hurricanrana. That leads to the belly to belly and the ankle lock for the tap. Thankfully JR didn’t say tapping like a drunk man, because THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

Rating: D+. This was just boring. In something that won’t be said often tonight, that went on too long. It was a complete squash and just wasn’t any good. Granted it was supposed to be just an easy win for Shamrock so at least they got that right. Waste of a match though as 14 people is just too many.

After cutting back to see Shamrock leaving for about a second, Cole has an update on Austin. After the update, we know nothing new.

First Round: Rock vs. HHH

Rock’s pop isn’t that special actually. The winner gets Shamrock. Apparently Vince doesn’t like Rock either. I don’t think there was a reason given for that but whatever. HHH gets a good pop as this is a rematch from the epic ladder match from Summerslam which played a big part in Rock turning face. As the DX song and video plays, we get the Stooges. HHH isn’t here tonight apparently due to injury.

They try to play it off as a no show but it’s actually a knee injury. Rock’s sideburns are odd looking. Patterson says that there won’t be a forfeit and the replacement is Boss Man again. Boss Man gets a running start to the ring and it’s over. In the fastest match in company history, Rock wins in four seconds by grabbing Boss Man as he gets in and rolling him up as the bell is ringing.

Rating: A. For are you kidding me? Like I can grade this. So Jericho and Boss Man are eternally linked, as Jericho beat Rock and Austin in one night and Boss Man lost to them both in one night. In something that I really laugh at, the slow motion replay is a full ten seconds long. That’s just great.

Here’s your updated brackets.

Undertaker
Kane

Shamrock
Rock

Mankind
Al Snow

Austin
Bye

Hmm, which of these people don’t fit in with the other six?

Quarter Finals: Kane vs. Undertaker

This is the next chapter in the absolute never ending feud with Taker and Kane. Paul Bearer is with Taker again. The second round matches are 15 minutes. Bearer joined Taker again when he co won the title. This is happening because both guys pinned Austin at Judgement Day. Apparently cursing someone can be forgiven provided storylines need it. Both entrances here are just sweet, but WAY too long.

How ridiculous is it that we’re on the seventh match of the night already? It’s always amused me that Kane is supposed to be this freak that’s been kept away from society all his life, yet he’s a trained wrestler. Also, why is it that no one has ever physically dominated the Undertaker like everyone that faces him? Listen to any feud that Taker has with a big man and I guarantee that Ross will say that about him. It gets old after awhile.

Again, this is a fast paced version of what could be a good match. There’s a natural chemistry here between these two that never fails to at least be watchable. Taker actually sets up for a figure four. That’s just an odd idea. He’s going for the leg. Is that psychology from the master of the psych out?

Kane actually jumps over the top rope to get to the top for the clothesline. He follows it up with a chokeslam as Bearer gets on the apron. Thanks to the distraction, Taker gets the Tombstone to end it, despite Kane’s foot being under the rope.

Rating: C-. This was somewhere between a bad and fast fight and a train wreck. The time limit and lack of emotion here are clear, which is the stupid part of tournaments. Taker could barely beat Kane with three Tombstones in 25 minutes at Mania, yet he beats him here in seven minutes with one. It’s just the fast forwarded version with no time at all to build up stuff.

Quarter Final: Mankind vs. Al Snow

Again, no transition at all and we’re just on the next match. I hate that. It’s a WWF tape and it skips right when they say WWF Title tournament match. That’s just creepy. Vince McMahon has the power to go back in time and change things apparently. You have to love those panda lovers. Since we can’t remember 45 minutes ago, we get a recap of Snow vs. Jarrett.

Apparently Vince stole Socko. After a few minutes of bad and bland offense, Foley gets head from Snow and gets his sock back. He then starts beating Snow’s Head. Yep, it’s getting worse. Snow hits a sit out power bomb/spinebuster that was cool. Socko puts Foley in the final four where he’ll get Steve Austin.

Rating: D. This was just boring. I’m sorry a lot of these are short but there’s just not enough to talk about. My stories/jokes about wrestlers are used earlier in the night and there’s absolutely no story in these matches at all. It’s just two guys filling time in the ring with stupid pointless matches until we get down to the important stuff.

Quarter Final: Ken Shamrock vs. The Rock

Winner gets Taker in the next round. We get a replay of both guys winning, including the whole match against Boss Man. That’s just amusing. This is a rivalry that Rock just flat out lost, yet somehow never lost the belt to him. You have to love WWF logic sometimes. The problem with tournaments is already coming through: it gets tiring seeing the same people every night. The chant is now Shamrock Sucks rather than Rocky Sucks, so there we go.

Shamrock was kind of limited as a character in the same was Benoit was. He was great at submission stuff, but he had little to his character and it hurt things for him. There was really no emotional investment to be made with his character and it was very clear. Ok, he’s a great fighter and submission guy. Why should we care? And that is why Benoit’s title reign failed, along with the fact that the real main events were HHH vs. Shawn during his time with the belt, but whatever.

You can tell they’re a bit tired also. I know they have the endurance to go longer than they’ve gone so far, but for Shamrock at least this is his second match. It must be draining to get yourself up for a match then have to do it again. Rock had a 4 second thing so I can hardly count that as a match. Speaking of the devil, here comes Boss Man. He sucks too according to the people.

I’ll give the crowd this: they’ll let you know what they think of you. Shamrock initiates his ending sequence and hooks the ankle lock, but since Rock is a face now it doesn’t get the tap. Boss Man still hasn’t actually done anything so at least he’s living up to his previous reputation. We get a double clothesline so both can take a quick rest. There’s really not a lot of interesting stuff in this match as the first six minutes or so were nothing more than just uninteresting back and forth offense.

Rock gets a low blow and the People’s Elbow but Shamrock kicks out. STOP EVERYTHING! JR DID NOT LIKE THAT CALL! Well, I guess that means we have to stop the show and redo the whole tournament. JR isn’t happy, and when JR isn’t happy, the world must bow to his wishes or dare we try to face the horrors of a JR disrespect rant.

It’s been at least a month since he last complained and whined so he must need to here soon. Rock Bottom is countered into a belly to belly, but Boss Man throws Shamrock the nightstick but Rock intercepts it and drills Shamrock for the pin. That’s a very un People’s Champion like thing to do isn’t it?

Rating: C-. This was just not that good. It was about eight and a half minutes, but they were just going through the motions to a dangerous degree. The last two minutes of it or so were fine, but other than that this was just dull. The fans didn’t really care that much either since until you get to the final four like will be up next, why should we care really? It’s just random matches that aren’t going to mean anything until later on, so why care? I certainly don’t.

Final Four:

Rock
Undertaker

Mankind
Austin

What are the odds that the four biggest names in the company would be the final four? I never for the life of me would have guessed that.

Paul Bearer says Taker will win.

Women’s Title: Sable vs. Jacquelyn

Oh this is going to SUCK. At this time, Sable was supposed to be the best women’s wrestler of all time, but there was one small problem: SHE SUCKED. Sable was over completely for her looks and nothing more. At Summerslam she had the most disgusting match I had ever seen, as Edge did all of the work for her yet Sable got every single bit of the credit. I hated that to no end.

It was always all about Sable and making sure she was happy when she was just horrid in the ring. She’s the epitome of everything that is wrong with women’s wrestling today. She’s there because she looks good in a swimsuit and she can barely wrestle safely let alone wrestle well. Because she has a massive chest though, she’s getting a lot of TV time. Ross says he watched Lawler every day and learned a lot from him.

There’s something you don’t hear every day. Apparently Sable has been training extra hard for this match. That can’t be a good sign. She uses the TKO, which is a cool move, but of course she does it wrong and lands on her knee, making the move look completely weak. Mero pulls her out though to prevent the three. I knew I hated him for some reason. Shane is the referee here as he’s being punished by Vince for being a bad little boy.

Sable hits her bad powerbomb on Mero on the floor, nearly breaking his neck. Why is that supposed to be impressive anyway? Oh look she can do sloppy moves on men. BIG FREAKING DEAL! Jackie has part of Sable’s hair that she cut off a few weeks ago. That’s just creepy.

At least she can wrestle, and with her on offense, not only is it better, but Sable gets beaten up. And just as I say that Sable counters to take over again. After another bad powerbomb and NO build to it, Sable is the Women’s Champion. Just shoot me now.

Rating: D. It was three minutes long, and most of that was sloppy. Once again, the attractive yet untalented wrestler gets the belt. Ross immediately says she’ll be the first to say she’s not the most polished but she’s worked the hardest. That’s the nice way of saying we know she sucks but she’ll have a photo shoot a week now for all the 12 year olds watching.

Semi Finals: Mankind vs. Steve Austin

We get recaps of both guys’ victories from earlier in the night in case we forgot already. I’ll never get why Vince thinks we’re that stupid. Remember Austin got beaten up earlier by Boss Man who has now been involved in three matches. I’m sick of him already. Vince and the Stooges come out after Austin hits Mankind with a slipper. You read that right and it’s better if you don’t ask. Foley is in the shirt and pants now so he’s looking a bit more like his traditional self.

In a weird sequence, Austin and Foley are fighting, and Foley hits the floor and, well I guess you could call it sprinting, sprints to the entrance. He’s stopped by Patterson and Brisco, but Austin comes and fights more. That was random. Since it’s the Attitude Era there’s a long brawl on the floor. McMahon won’t let the referee count. Why not? If both guys get counted out then they’re both eliminated so Austin wouldn’t be champion. Isn’t that what Vince ultimately wants?

I guess it’s because Mankind is the hand picked champion? Only in the Attitude Era do you need a scorecard to keep track of a match. It’s time for a bad rest hold now as Foley sits on Austin’s back with his hands on his face. Time for the double clothesline spot because we need to kill even more time. I remember back at Mania 4 they talked a lot about how you had to have stamina to get through one of these.

Call me crazy but I think Savage was in better shape back then than Foley is in now. Granted that’s just a hunch. Foley brings in a chair but it gets kicked in his face, which for some reason isn’t a DQ. It’s another instance of Vince making the rules up as he goes. Austin gets the Stunner but Vince jumps out of his wheelchair to break up the count before hitting the referee. Ross is of course livid but Lawler shouts about how it’s a miracle.

Austin counters the Mandible Claw into another Stunner as Shane runs out for the pin. He gets to two and stops so he can flip Austin a double bird, turning heel and joining Vince again. Austin goes after him and the chase is on. Ross’ shouting of WHAT, WHAT, WHAT the heck is going on is rather amusing. Austin whispers a spot to Mankind who clotheslines him down. Slaughter comes in and grabs Austin while Brisco gets a bad chair shot to Austin for the pin.

Foley looks right at him while he’s doing this but Ross says he might not have seen it. I love spots like that where by simply watching the scene you can tell the announcer is wrong. That’s kind of a weak way to get rid of Austin but that’s just me. They begin the references to Montreal as my head begins to hurt.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great. Again, it’s just hard to get into a match like this when these two had an great match a few months ago that went about 25-30 minutes while this one just breaks 10. I get the tournament and the time issues, but this is one of the big dangers in it and it shows here. It’s an ok match, but by comparison this isn’t great.

On a side note, Mick Foley might have the best win/loss record against Austin of anyone I can remember after Austin won the title (so no Bret Hart). Think about it. They had two world title matches which were split, Foley pinned him at Summerslam 99 to win the title, and now this. Unless I’m missing a match and I likely am, that’s 3-1. For a guy like Austin, that’s very impressive.

We see Vince and co. running as Vince chases. Austin steals a car, throwing the driver out of it which is funny, and drives off. He’s in his gear, so what would it be like if he got pulled over? That would just be amusing.

We recap what we just saw, and wonder why Shane rehired Austin just to turn heel here.

Semi Finals: Undertaker vs. Rock

Lawler gets in a Groucho Marx line so I’m happy with him again. I didn’t know I was unhappy with him but oh well. Let’s recap both guys getting here because we have nothing better to fill the time up with. This is a rivalry that you don’t see a lot of but it’s certainly an interesting one. Since there was only three minutes of it in the previous match, they brawl on the floor for the early part of this match. Don’t you just love late 90s booking?

They’re in the ring now but they’re going very slowly at the moment. That’s likely better for Taker but for Rock I’d prefer him to go a bit faster. After a lot of slow back and forth stuff, Rock gets tied up in the ropes. He gets out, but even with him standing up and his arms clearly not tied anymore, Taker doesn’t notice. And this guy is supposed to be the master of psychology?

They go to the floor (shocking isn’t it?) and JR points out that if there’s a double count out then Mankind is the new champion. Hearing these words, Lawler screams. That was comical. Ross is wondering how Shane can look himself in the mirror again. Dude it’s wrestling. Ross gets in a small line about how he’s never been in Vince’s house because Vince always fired him elsewhere. Dude, LET IT GO!

Without saying it, Ross points out that there was no point in the face turn for Shane if they were going to turn him heel again this fast. And he’s right. Once again it’s all about the McMahons instead of the actual wrestlers. My goodness Boss Man is here AGAIN. That’s FOUR matches he’s been involved in tonight. That’s as many as whoever is going to win the tournament. In a funny spot, Rock hits a Samoan Drop and does the Taker sit up and the screw you sign to Taker.

Naturally, the announcers are talking about Austin and the McMahons because a solid little comedy moment can’t be acknowledged when Vince has things to do on the show. Rock sets for the elbow but Boss Man hooks his foot and Taker sits up. Now Taker hits Boss Man. In a strange way that makes sense.

Taker chokes Rock as Kane comes in and chokeslams Rock. Lawler thinks they’re back together but it makes sense as Kane just cost Taker a spot in the finals. That’s actually very smart booking. It protects both guys and bangs Rock up for the finals. Kane and Taker fight through the audience.

Rating: B-. It was slow but it was solid. The ending was a bit out there but it made great sense in this case. While not great it’s one of the better matches of the night. Rock and Taker is a pairing that I always wanted to see more of and while they had some short feuds, there was never a huge one and that always puzzled me. Either way, this was good enough but you can tell they’re getting a bit tired.

So the finals are Rock vs. Mankind.

Mankind says he can win tonight, if you smell what the sock is cooking. The look on Cole’s face might be the funniest thing in the history of the Survivor Series.

Tag Titles: New Age Outlaws vs. Headbangers vs. D’lo Brown/Mark Henry

I was going to post the match, but I couldn’t find a version online. The Outlaws are the only tag team in the world worth watching at this point as the Dudleyz were in ECW, Edge and Christian and the Hardys had no clue what they were doing yet, and the Outsiders were kind of feuding. As Road Dogg does his thing, there’s a sign that it’s literally taking 12 people to hold. That’s RIDICULOUS.

On Heat all four guys beat up the Outlaws to try to make it seem like there’s a chance here that we could have new champions here. Spoiler alert: there’s no chance that’s happening here. This is the epitome of a filler match. Billy just doesn’t look right in all black. Naturally the Outlaws get the living tar beaten out of them for most of the match. Did you expect anything else? This is just dragging on forever.

Usually I watch a few minutes of a match and comment on it in here, but I’ve gone 7 minutes here and there’s just nothing to say. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just there. I mean there is nothing at all special about this match that would make me interested in it at all. Ross is talking about the next match which I would be doing as well since there’s just nothing at all here of note.

There are no comedy spots, there are no cool looking sequences, there are no near falls, there’s nothing really bad at all either. It’s just six guys going through the motions and filling in PPV time. Actually 5 since Billy isn’t in this at all for the most part. We get a mixture of finishing moves that do nothing and the Billy hits a random and bad piledriver to end this mess. Post match the Dog says noting of importance.

Rating: F. This was nothing. I mean it was ten minutes of just filler which is awful in my eyes. Some people might like this and I can get that, but for me it was a complete and utter failure. No one with a brain thought there would be new champions tonight, and why should we have? Look at the opponents. This was a waste of time, but it was filler so what can I say?

Since we’re about to have the WWF Title match between Rock and Mankind, let’s talk about Austin and how he got robbed instead. Seriously, that’s all the recap is.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Mankind

Mankind apparently doesn’t get what’s going on. He’s not Eugene people. Rock looks more tired now than he did before he rested, but whatever. I almost forgot: Raw was in Rupp Arena the night after this, which is five minutes from my house. For some reason that I’ll never get, I didn’t want to go. The McMahons are still here too. They start with a lockup as most matches do.

Lawler defends Mankind of all things as JR mentions that WWF people will be on the Home Shopping Network in a bit. That’s even odder. Lawler gets in a little jab about how the people will get to see all of this PPV. What he’s referring to is Halloween Havoc 98. It was a double main event with Hogan vs. Warrior and DDP vs. Goldberg.

However, because we just HAD to have matches such as Saturn vs. Lodi and Wrath vs. Meng, the PPV ran long and the feed cut off at 11, right in the middle of the main event and Goldberg’s best match of his career. WCW aired the main event the next night on Nitro, which is both good and bad at the same time.

It’s good in that they get to have a PPV match for free on television because it’s practically a guaranteed ratings boost, but it’s rude to the fans that paid for it because everyone else is getting to see what the PPV fans paid for. Why should everyone else get to see it for free? The little jokes by Lawler and Ross here are amusing. Given the two people that we have in the ring, the inevitable brawl starts almost immediately.

You can tell that the fans are a bit worn out here. This is the fourth match for both guys so it’s not like these two are fresh faces. Three and a half minutes into the match, Vince and Shane, who is dressed as a referee, comes out to ringside. JR is hurt by Shane being a jerk. In that case, I hope Shane prays for forgiveness, for my God have mercy on he that hurts JR. Naturally Rock and Mankind take it to the floor. This is just getting stupid with how much they do this.

And now they’re deep in the crowd. I love how despite them having no real issues other than being in this match, they’re having this wild brawl. That cheapens things, but that’s what the Attitude Era is all about I suppose. We’re back in the ring now and Rock has a chinlock. It never ceases to amaze me how the Attitude Era is known for being all about excitement and intensity, yet most of the matches are really slow and methodical.

Ross more or less says that both guys are spent. Why? Both more or less had a bye in the first round with the longer of the two matches going 33 seconds. Snow isn’t really that tough of an opponent either, so Mankind more or less had a sparring session, a warm-up, and a real match and now this, yet he’s spent? Rock I can kind of understand as he had two decent length matches, but they shouldn’t be sucking wind or anything. I don’t get that.

We’re on the floor again and Mankind uses a chair. Rock counters and gets the steps on him which he beats with the chair. I get that it would hurt, but I don’t think it would be anywhere near as bad as it’s made out to be. Think about it for a minute. The steps are already on him right? Therefore there’s no major impact between them and his body after the initial shot with them. The chair would really just make them vibrate wouldn’t it?

After another brief stint in the ring, it’s naturally time to go back to the floor. Mankind hits the Cactus elbow from the apron to the floor and puts Rock on the announce table. He pulls a Hogan and legdrops him on it but instead of breaking through it Rock just slides off of it. JR is just flat out annoying here, yelling about all kinds of stuff without ever saying anything at all of importance but having all kinds of people likely praise him for it.

We go back in again and hit another chinlock. That’s the pattern of this match: big violent sequence outside and then a chinlock in the ring. After that, redo it but reverse the roles. That’s just kind of stupid when you think about it. This just isn’t that great of a match. It’s ok, but there’s just nothing excellent about it.

For the fourth time in less than fifteen minutes of this match, we go to the floor. Mankind dives from the middle rope through the Spanish table, because that’s just tradition. Back in the ring, Mankind kicks out of the Elbow. Because that move completely sucks, Mankind is up and hits the double arm DDT and grabs the sock.

The Claw gets two arm drops from the Rock but he counters into the Rock Bottom. However, it looks freaking stupid though because he gets Mankind set for it and then waits seven or eight seconds. Ok wait a minute. Why wouldn’t Foley be able to elbow him or something? Rock had been in trouble for awhile and since it can’t take a ton of energy to use the Claw, are we supposed to believe that Foley is drained of energy?

After not getting a pin with it, Rock gives the eyebrow to Vince and sets up a Sharpshooter. Yes, that’s how this ends: a Montreal reference. Rock goes corporate, turning heel and joining Vince as we reveal that Mankind was just a pawn like everyone knew he was and that Rock was Vince’s man the whole time. Vince gets on the mic and says the people screwed the people, just in case we didn’t get the Montreal reference the first time around.

Rock really looks awesome with that belt to be fair. Mankind is in the corner and looks heartbroken. I love how he went from being this clueless putz to being one of the wittiest guys in the company more or less overnight. Vince says the Rock hates the people. Rock gets on the mic and more or less says screw the people. Foley says he never quit as Rock hits him with the belt. In a moment that wasn’t supposed to be funny, Rock has the belt over his shoulder and Vince takes it to put it around his waist.

This takes forever and once he gets it on, within a second or two Rock takes it back off and puts it on his shoulder again. And cue Austin. He hits the ring and we have a Wrestlemania main event. Austin hits a Stunner that amazingly enough Rock sells correctly. He throws Rock and the belt to the floor and then gives Foley a Stunner for no apparent reason.

After beating on the Rock some more, we’re out. In a bonus we have some extra footage of Rock backstage where he just acts like a heel which is completely pointless footage.

Rating: B-. It was certainly ok, but it’s nothing special. More than anything else this benefits from actually having a decent amount of time. I wouldn’t have gone with Austin running in at the end and beating up Rock but rather have just had the three hold up their hands and end like that, but what they did is ok I suppose. Anyway, this was certainly a decent enough match but there was too much brawling for my taste.

Either way, these two had awesome chemistry together and it showed here, but this isone of their weaker matches, but it was their first time so I’ll let that slide. This would lead to what I felt was an outstanding feud between these two with them trading the title back and forth about 3 times over the next three months before Austin finally got his shot at Mania and took the title back.

Overall Rating: C+. This was one of the hardest ratings I’ve ever had to do. You simply can’t grade it on the strength of the matches alone because it’s just not that kind of a show. It’s a massive gimmick show, and the problem simply is that by the end, you’re bored with it. This show really would have been better making this a standard eight man tournament instead of the 13 (remember Boss Man fought twice).

It’s easy to eliminate five guys from this. Here: Snow, Goldust, Gill, Regal, X-Pac,. That leaves you with Taker, Kane, Rock, Mankind, Austin, Shamrock, Jarrett, and Boss Man. That’s not a bad field at all. Shamrock stays because of the tournament success and he’s IC Champion and Jarrett wins a battle royal or something or other to get in. For one thing, it cuts off a LOT of time that you could use for other non-tournament stuff which this show is dying for.

Also some of the matches could be say two or three minutes longer which makes them better to me as well. Overall, four matches each is just too much for guys, even if two were jokes. That’s four times the crowd has to pop for you and it just drains the people out. You can really tell this in the main event as there’s next to no pop at all, simply because the fans are popped out. Like I said though, this is one that is completely up in the air.

If you like things like one night tournaments then this is your show. If not, then watch the last four matches. I thought it was fine and it set up Mania, but yeah this would have been MUCH better if there was one less round. I’ll recommend it slightly but with a disclaimer.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Mankind

Mankind apparently doesn’t get what’s going on. He’s not Eugene people. Rock looks more tired now than he did before he rested, but whatever. I almost forgot: Raw was in Rupp Arena the night after this, which is five minutes from my house. For some reason that I’ll never get, I didn’t want to go. The McMahons are still here too. They start with a lockup as most matches do.

Lawler defends Mankind of all things as JR mentions that WWF people will be on the Home Shopping Network in a bit. That’s even odder. Lawler gets in a little jab about how the people will get to see all of this PPV. What he’s referring to is Halloween Havoc 98. It was a double main event with Hogan vs. Warrior and DDP vs. Goldberg.

However, because we just HAD to have matches such as Saturn vs. Lodi and Wrath vs. Meng, the PPV ran long and the feed cut off at 11, right in the middle of the main event and Goldberg’s best match of his career. WCW aired the main event the next night on Nitro, which is both good and bad at the same time.

It’s good in that they get to have a PPV match for free on television because it’s practically a guaranteed ratings boost, but it’s rude to the fans that paid for it because everyone else is getting to see what the PPV fans paid for. Why should everyone else get to see it for free? The little jokes by Lawler and Ross here are amusing. Given the two people that we have in the ring, the inevitable brawl starts almost immediately.

You can tell that the fans are a bit worn out here. This is the fourth match for both guys so it’s not like these two are fresh faces. Three and a half minutes into the match, Vince and Shane, who is dressed as a referee, comes out to ringside. JR is hurt by Shane being a jerk. In that case, I hope Shane prays for forgiveness, for my God have mercy on he that hurts JR. Naturally Rock and Mankind take it to the floor. This is just getting stupid with how much they do this.

And now they’re deep in the crowd. I love how despite them having no real issues other than being in this match, they’re having this wild brawl. That cheapens things, but that’s what the Attitude Era is all about I suppose. We’re back in the ring now and Rock has a chinlock. It never ceases to amaze me how the Attitude Era is known for being all about excitement and intensity, yet most of the matches are really slow and methodical.

Ross more or less says that both guys are spent. Why? Both more or less had a bye in the first round with the longer of the two matches going 33 seconds. Snow isn’t really that tough of an opponent either, so Mankind more or less had a sparring session, a warm-up, and a real match and now this, yet he’s spent? Rock I can kind of understand as he had two decent length matches, but they shouldn’t be sucking wind or anything. I don’t get that.

We’re on the floor again and Mankind uses a chair. Rock counters and gets the steps on him which he beats with the chair. I get that it would hurt, but I don’t think it would be anywhere near as bad as it’s made out to be. Think about it for a minute. The steps are already on him right? Therefore there’s no major impact between them and his body after the initial shot with them. The chair would really just make them vibrate wouldn’t it?

After another brief stint in the ring, it’s naturally time to go back to the floor. Mankind hits the Cactus elbow from the apron to the floor and puts Rock on the announce table. He pulls a Hogan and legdrops him on it but instead of breaking through it Rock just slides off of it. JR is just flat out annoying here, yelling about all kinds of stuff without ever saying anything at all of importance but having all kinds of people likely praise him for it.

We go back in again and hit another chinlock. That’s the pattern of this match: big violent sequence outside and then a chinlock in the ring. After that, redo it but reverse the roles. That’s just kind of stupid when you think about it. This just isn’t that great of a match. It’s ok, but there’s just nothing excellent about it.

For the fourth time in less than fifteen minutes of this match, we go to the floor. Mankind dives from the middle rope through the Spanish table, because that’s just tradition. Back in the ring, Mankind kicks out of the Elbow. Because that move completely sucks, Mankind is up and hits the double arm DDT and grabs the sock.

The Claw gets two arm drops from the Rock but he counters into the Rock Bottom. However, it looks freaking stupid though because he gets Mankind set for it and then waits seven or eight seconds. Ok wait a minute. Why wouldn’t Foley be able to elbow him or something? Rock had been in trouble for awhile and since it can’t take a ton of energy to use the Claw, are we supposed to believe that Foley is drained of energy?

After not getting a pin with it, Rock gives the eyebrow to Vince and sets up a Sharpshooter. Yes, that’s how this ends: a Montreal reference. Rock goes corporate, turning heel and joining Vince as we reveal that Mankind was just a pawn like everyone knew he was and that Rock was Vince’s man the whole time. Vince gets on the mic and says the people screwed the people, just in case we didn’t get the Montreal reference the first time around.

Rock really looks awesome with that belt to be fair. Mankind is in the corner and looks heartbroken. I love how he went from being this clueless putz to being one of the wittiest guys in the company more or less overnight. Vince says the Rock hates the people. Rock gets on the mic and more or less says screw the people. Foley says he never quit as Rock hits him with the belt. In a moment that wasn’t supposed to be funny, Rock has the belt over his shoulder and Vince takes it to put it around his waist.

This takes forever and once he gets it on, within a second or two Rock takes it back off and puts it on his shoulder again. And cue Austin. He hits the ring and we have a Wrestlemania main event. Austin hits a Stunner that amazingly enough Rock sells correctly. He throws Rock and the belt to the floor and then gives Foley a Stunner for no apparent reason.

After beating on the Rock some more, we’re out. In a bonus we have some extra footage of Rock backstage where he just acts like a heel which is completely pointless footage.

Rating: B-. It was certainly ok, but it’s nothing special. More than anything else this benefits from actually having a decent amount of time. I wouldn’t have gone with Austin running in at the end and beating up Rock but rather have just had the three hold up their hands and end like that, but what they did is ok I suppose. Anyway, this was certainly a decent enough match but there was too much brawling for my taste.

Either way, these two had awesome chemistry together and it showed here, but this isone of their weaker matches, but it was their first time so I’ll let that slide. This would lead to what I felt was an outstanding feud between these two with them trading the title back and forth about 3 times over the next three months before Austin finally got his shot at Mania and took the title back.

Overall Rating: C+. This was one of the hardest ratings I’ve ever had to do. You simply can’t grade it on the strength of the matches alone because it’s just not that kind of a show. It’s a massive gimmick show, and the problem simply is that by the end, you’re bored with it. This show really would have been better making this a standard eight man tournament instead of the 13 (remember Boss Man fought twice).

It’s easy to eliminate five guys from this. Here: Snow, Goldust, Gill, Regal, X-Pac,. That leaves you with Taker, Kane, Rock, Mankind, Austin, Shamrock, Jarrett, and Boss Man. That’s not a bad field at all. Shamrock stays because of the tournament success and he’s IC Champion and Jarrett wins a battle royal or something or other to get in. For one thing, it cuts off a LOT of time that you could use for other non-tournament stuff which this show is dying for.

Also some of the matches could be say two or three minutes longer which makes them better to me as well. Overall, four matches each is just too much for guys, even if two were jokes. That’s four times the crowd has to pop for you and it just drains the people out. You can really tell this in the main event as there’s next to no pop at all, simply because the fans are popped out. Like I said though, this is one that is completely up in the air.

If you like things like one night tournaments then this is your show. If not, then watch the last four matches. I thought it was fine and it set up Mania, but yeah this would have been MUCH better if there was one less round. I’ll recommend it slightly but with a disclaimer.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

I was listening to ESPN Radio about ten days ago before the World Series began. The analyst said that he hoped we were realizing what we were seeing with Albert Pujols (baseball player for any confused readers). He’s the best player in the game today and is putting up numbers that other players probably dream of. This got me to thinking about wrestling (as almost anything does) and I started thinking about John Cena.

I’m pretty much in the minority on John Cena, in that I’m pretty neutral on him. I have never once been what you would call a Cena hater. I’ve never reached the point where I’m sick of him and want him gone. I’ve also never been a huge fan of his. However, and this is partially the whole point of this entire writing: he is without a doubt one of the greatest stars that we’ll ever see and one of the greatest wrestlers ever.

Now let’s take a look at this from a few angles. First and foremost, John Cena has more detractors and more supporters than anyone else in wrestling right now. That is indisputable. When you watch a show, be it on PPV, TV, DVD or in the arena, one thing is always certain: people react to John Cena. You often read about the size of the pops that someone gets. When is the last time you remember people being silent for anything related to John Cena? The answer to that would be never.

The whole idea of wrestling is to get the fans to care about you. You have to establish a character that people are going to want to watch and when you put that character up against another one and develop a conflict between them, you might be able to get the fans to pay to see the resolution of that conflict, which is the whole point of wrestling. That being said, John Cena is one of the few guys that people are always interested in. Think about this for a second.

John Cena is the face of the company. He’s the guy that is put out as a spokesman, he’s the guy you see on the posters, he’s the guy that you see in K-Mart on WWE merchandise, he’s the guy that goes on talk shows, he’s the one (current) wrestler everyone knows and he’s the guy that Wrestlemania is built around every year. That puts him in rare company: Hogan, Austin, HHH, Cena. In WWE history (as in post-Hogan’s first title win), there aren’t any other people that are the undisputed top guy in the company.

After that, let’s look at what everyone thinks is the most important thing in wrestling: the matches. Let’s get the biggest piece of evidence out of the way: when was the last time you saw a bad John Cena match? I don’t mean a match you weren’t into. I don’t mean a match that you didn’t care about. I mean a match that was flat out bad. Cena is one of very, very few men that have had a match rated 5 stars by Dave Meltzer. Also on that list: Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Steve Austin, Undertaker, CM Punk. Cena was in the first match to get such a rating in almost 14 years. Think back over 14 years. It’s the first match in that long to get a perfect score in this company (I’ll save a Meltzer rant for later. I’m by no means a follower of his but his opinion is highly valued online).

The main argument against Cena matches is that he uses five moves and that’s it. Let’s think for a minute and realize why this is stupid. We’ll start with AA, STF, Shuffle, Top Rope Fameasser, Protobomb, Shoulder Block. There are your six moves right there. That being said, if you believe the amount of moves that someone uses determines whether or not you’re a talented wrestler, you have no idea what you’re talking about. If it was about the amount of moves a wrestler knew, Dean Malenko vs. William Regal would have headlined about 8 Wrestlemanias in a row.

Speaking of multiple Wrestlemanias, let’s look at Cena’s career span. Let’s say he became an A-list guy the night he first won the title, which was at Wrestlemania 21. For the sake of math, let’s say we take this up to Wrestlemania 27 where he was in the main event. That’s six years with him on top and he’s going to be there longer than that. By comparison, let’s say Austin was on top from Mania 14 through the day he walked out on the company in 2004. That would be 4 years on top, including his year out for neck surgery. Shawn was on top for about 2 years. Rock got let’s say 4 (99-02, which is being VERY generous). Other than Hogan and Sammartino, a guy being on top for that long simply does not happen.

Cena has been in a main event/featured match at 7 Wrestlemanias (not including the upcoming one). By comparison, Mr. Wrestlemania Shawn Michaels was in (arguably) 6 main event/world title matches at Wrestlemania. Austin had 4 or so. Rock had even less than that. The only person in the same league as Cena is Hogan who had 8 (I don’t count WM 9 as one of these as it was a surprise match and lasted all of 40 seconds but again that’s arguable). Even if you count that match, that record will come down in a few years.

Getting to records, we reach the world title record that Cena is going to break one day. As everyone knows, the record is currently held by Ric Flair with 16. You have Hogan with 12, Edge with like 13, HHH with about 13 and Angle with ten I think (don’t bother telling me what the actual numbers are as that’s not the point). Yes, having two titles makes this a lot easier to reach. Yes, Flair usually held the title longer (except for the two NWA Title reigns that didn’t last two months, the five WCW Title reigns that didn’t last three months each (with two reigns combining to last 7 days) and the 2 WWF Title reigns that didn’t last three months because we don’t like to talk about those), and yes that means a little something.

However, Cena wrestles in an era with potentially 9 hours of programming (Raw, NXT, Superstars, SD and a PPV) a week. This isn’t the days of the NWA where you saw the stars in town once a year at a house show and the title changed hands twice in three years. The amount of title reigns doesn’t mean a thing but people like to complain about Cena and Edge and HHH and the amount of quick title changes they have without thinking about it so who cares about stuff like consistency right?

This brings us to the present: John Cena vs. The Rock. It’s no secret that Rock is the biggest mainstream star the business has ever produced. He’s a big time movie star, he’s hosted SNL, he’s been the lead guest on the Tonight Show, he’s going to be in the new GI Joe movie, he’s a legit celebrity. And now he’s coming back to wrestling. Who do they put him with? John Cena. This match is going to be one of the biggest in the history of wrestling and it’s going to be built up for over a year when it finally happens.

These are two of the biggest stars of all time and this match is literally going to be over a year in the making. When has there EVER been a match with that kind of build? Off the top of my head, nothing is coming to me. I mean there were matches we knew would be happening at a certain show, but I don’t ever recall being told that a match would be happening a full year in advance with build lasting even longer than that. Cena is the one being trusted with this and that says something to me.

Speaking of the build, let’s take a look at Cena’s mic skills real quick. One of these guys is always talking about childish things, making funny faces and cracking jokes while the guy he’s feuding with is being serious. The other is named John Cena. Think back to the night when Rock came back. He cut a promo on Cena and imitated John in a funny voice while talking about Fruity Pebbles. Cena replied in a rap, pointing out that Rock has made some silly movies (true), that he’s never around the People he claims to be champion of (true) and how we’ve barely seen him for seven years (true). Rock’s reply: more funny voices, more cereal jokes, more making fun of Cena’s clothes.

Cena has responded to everything Rock has said and has made sense the entire time. Every word he has said about Rock has been true. It’s been Cena here the last seven years. Rock has been out in Hollywood (and please, spare me the nonsense about Rock turning his back on wrestling. You would have done the same thing and it was smart of him to do). In short, Cena has been the mature one here and Rock has talked down to him like a bully the entire time.

In summation, John Cena isn’t the devil in a pair of jean shorts. He’s a star the likes of which we haven’t seen in a very long time. Is he Austin or Rock or Hogan? No he isn’t, but to say he’s awful or he has to turn heel to save his career is ridiculous. When the Summer of Punk happened and Cena was having the hottest angle he’s had in years, he was the same John Cena we had seen every time and I didn’t hear anything but rave reviews for him. Whether you think it’s going to be good or not, Rock vs. Cena is going to probably break 1 million buys on PPV and make a fortune for the company and it’s going to be the same John Cena. Like him or not, he’s the best there is and one of the best ever and that’s all there is to it.

Monday Night Raw
Date: October 31, 2011
Location: Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler
Guest Stars; The Muppets

I’m not going to lie: I’m a diehard Muppets fan. I’m going to absolutely lose it when they come out and I don’t care who knows about it. As for the show, I really don’t care as it’s going to pale in comparison to all of the stuff with them. Henry vs. Punk is happening tonight and if Punk wins, he gets the shot at Del Rio in New York. Let’s get to it.

We open with Rock on satellite from earlier today. This is his response to Cena’s request for Rock to be his tag partner. Rock is pretty calm here. He says they both represent a generation and Rock (with some gray in his beard) says no. Why would he join up with the Fruit Loop Troop when Cena has been going after Rock for years?

However, the people started talking about how Rock had to do this. With that, he listened to the people and in that sense, Cena’s wish is coming true and at Survivor Series they’ll be a team for one night only. Also though, Rock is doing this so that Cena can witness what is waiting for him at Wrestlemania. The match is on.

Cena vs. Miz later.

CM Punk vs. Mark Henry

We get some exclusive footage from Vengeance, which is just the ring collapsing. They showed this on Smackdown ads last week but it’s called “never before seen”. So they don’t even watch Raw anymore? Before the match starts here’s Johnny Ace who says that if Punk can beat Henry he gets the shot at Del Rio. They probably needed to tell the live crowd that.

Punk tries to fight down the monster but gets caught in a powerslam for two. Punk sends him into the corner and hits a slingshot clothesline and the Macho Elbow for two. Alberto and Ricardo come down with Alberto giving Ricardo some specific instructions. Ricardo comes in and attacks Henry who shoves him off. That isn’t a DQ so Ricardo comes in with a shoe and that’s enough for the DQ at 2:35. That fits in the story so I can’t complain here.

Punk beats on Ricardo a bit and throws him in for the Slam.

THE MUPPETS ARE NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In two weeks, it’s the return of Rock to Raw. What is this, his third return special in 9 months?

HERE THEY ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s Kermit and Miss Piggy and I can’t stop smiling. They come up from behind a stage and are kind of cheered. Piggy calls herself the original Diva and that brings out Vickie and Dolph. Swagger says it ain’t easy being a plate of frog legs and a ham sandwich. Kermit tries to play peacemaker and says they don’t want trouble from Swagger and his mother. Piggy and Vickie get into a shoving match and here’s Santino to a pop. He announces himself vs. Swagger later but Swagger closes Kermit’s mouth for him. Kermit faints from a lack of air. Santino says there will be no Dolph in Jack’s corner tonight because he has to face Ryder. Kermit and Piggy say WOO WOO WOO You Know It.

Here’s Kelly for no apparent reason in….some kind of costume. She has a cowboy had and a sword. Kelly kisses Kermit and Piggy is MAD. There’s a Divas costume battle royal next.

Battle Royal

They’re all in costumes and I’m not going to list off what they’re all in. Eve is Robin, the Bellas rule all as Mario and Luigi. AJ is a chick from Mortal Kombat. The match of course is junk as are most battle royals. Natalya is in there as….some kind of queen I guess. Kaitlyn is Dog the Bounty Hunter and is out.

We’re down to Nattie, Kelly, the Bellas and Eve. Eve beats up both Bellas and Alicia is in this still too. There go the twins after a Stinkface from Kelly. Natalya tries a cover out of instinct which Beth got on Eve for earlier. There goes Alicia as well as Kelly, but Eve dumps Nattie for the win at 2:45. She’s #1 contender now.

The good chicks stand down the evil ones and the bad ones leave.

OFF TO MUPPET LABS!!! Bunsen Honeydew has a potion for Santino and sends Beaker after him. Beaky runs into Christian instead and the Canadian steals the potion, pouring it out. Sheamus pops up behind Beaker who now has his head stuck inside his shirt. Christian leaves and Sheamus fixes Beaker. Beaker talks to Sheamus…..who says he can’t make the family reunion, but tell Aunt Teresa he says high. Sheamus fixes Beaker’s hair to look like his.

Air Boom vs. Cody Rhodes/Wade Barrett

The bell rings after a break. Bourne vs. Rhodes starts us off but it’s off to Kofi about ten seconds in. Kofi hits kind of a spinning pendulum kick in the corner but gets taken down by Rhodes kicking the rope on a springboard. Off to Barrett (in dark gray instead of black) who hits a Bossman Slam and then a chinlock. Barrett actually throws some punches and it’s back to Kofi. Kofi is beaten on for a bit until it’s a hot tag to Bourne. He speeds things way up and counters Wasteland into a DDT for two. Everything breaks down and Kofi is sent to the floor. Bourne gets caught in Wasteland and we’re done at 5:22.

Rating: C-. I don’t get that at all. What is the point in having the champions lose clean again to a thrown together heel combination? The match wasn’t horrible, but why did they need to lose twice like that? I don’t understand at all and it’s book like this that makes the tag division and champions in general look weak.

Post match Christian comes out for some reason to help beat down Kofi but Sheamus makes the save and kicks Cody’s head off.

STATLER AND WALDORF ARE IN THE BALCONY!!!! Statler does the WHAT chant to annoy Waldorf.

Punk comes in to see Ace, who he makes fun of. Ace says Punk can have the title match, if he can convince Alberto to give him one.

Brodus Clay is here next week.

Alberto Del Rio vs. Big Show

Show pounds away in the corner and Del Rio is in trouble early on. It’s domination for the first few minutes with Del Rio only managing a few kicks to the legs. Show misses a charge but hits a clothesline to keep his momentum. Alberto grabs a sleeper which shifts into a chinlock. Show breaks it up and we head to the floor where Show pounds away on him. The bald one misses a charge into the barricade and Del Rio misses an enziguri which is sold anyway.

Alberto hooks a front facelock back in the ring but Show throws him off with relative ease. Both guys are down now. For some reason, Del Rio wants to slug it out with Show as they’re on their knees. Somehow Show is knocked down for two but he easily shoves out of it. Shoe sends him to the floor again and we take a break. Back with Del Rio working on the leg as this is needing to end soon. Speaking of that, Del Rio is sent to the floor and when he comes back in, he walks into the punch for the pin clean at 14:00. Another champion loses.

Rating: C-. The psychology was there for the most part but parts of this were way boring. Show is a guy you have to wrestle a certain way which I think Alberto did here for the most part. Not a bad match, but it needed to have about three and a half minutes cut out of it for the match to work.

Post match here’s Punk while Del Rio is still out cold. He pours water on Del Rio to take him up. Punk wants a clean answer and says before he gets that answer, Punk is going to put on the Anaconda Vice. There’s the hold and Del Rio agrees to the match. His mic goes out again but Punk shouts into the other one that HE SAID YES.

FOZZIE AND GONZO ARE IN THE BACK!!! They talk about how big the guys are and Gonzo says he could be a champion if he tried. Team Vickie comes up and pulls Gonzo’s arms through his shirt to tie him up, saying stay out of Ziggler’s match later. Gonzo is cool with it and Fozzie isn’t sure what to say.

Muppet Movie promo. Oh yes.

Animal is the guest time keeper for the next match. He’s as crazy looking as ever.

Jack Swagger vs. Santino Marella

Swagger beats him down quickly and does pushups on Santino’s back. The fans want Ryder. Swagger grabs the ankle lock but Santino rolls through it. Here’s Beaker with the energy drink to give to Santino. He winds up spitting it into Swagger’s face for the rollup pin at 2:37. Harmless fun.

Zack Ryder vs. Dolph Ziggler

This is non-title. Basic start with a missile dropkick missing and we head to the floor. Dolph is put down and we take a break. Back with Ziggler in control, working on the neck. A neckbreaker puts Ryder down and Dolph nips up. Ryder catches him in a slingshot and they slug it out. A flapjack puts Ziggler down and here’s the Broski Boot for two.

Ryder gets a double knee to Ziggler’s chest in the corner for the pin but Ziggler’s foot was on the rope. The bell rings but it gets waved off due to the feet. Zack chases him around the ring but Vickie interferes. A superkick puts Ryder down but he avoids the Zig Zag. The Rough Ryder pins Ziggler clean at 8:54.

Rating: C. Do they know if they want Ryder or Ryan to take the title off Ziggler yet? It’s really unclear at times but maybe that’s the point. You do have to give them credit for giving Ryder a push due to his crowd reactions lately. Not a horrible match, but they need to either have him win the title or move him on to something else.

We recap HHH/Nash from last week. It’s 10:47 and we have Miz vs. Cena and Cole’s Challenge to go. Doesn’t Nash have a contract already? Why would he need another one? HHH will be out five weeks and Nash has been re-signed.

Cole gets on the announce table and says Ross isn’t here tonight due to something regarding his bowels. Yeah yeah here we go again. Adult diaper jokes are made and the Challenge is moved to next week due to having too much on the show I guess.

Statler and Waldorf make fun of Cole but the laugh isn’t quite right.

Miss Piggy is rubbing Morrison’s abs and Morrison isn’t sure what to make of this. She hits on him but Morrison says he has a friend for her. It’s Horny, who now has a Piggy tattoo on his ankle. He kisses her but gets karate chopped for his efforts. Kermit comes up and Horny is in love. Cody comes in and bags Kermit. SOMEBODY SHOOT THAT MAN!!!

So yeah, no Cole vs. Ross tonight despite it being pushed harder than anything most of the week.

John Cena vs. The Miz

Statler and Waldorf make fun of Miz a bit. This has easily been the weakest part of the Muppet part of the show. We go to a break before the bell….at 10:55. The bell rings after 11pm so this is going to be short. Totally basic match so far and we’re over five minutes into it. There’s just nothing to say because they’re flying through it for the sake of time. Miz hits some of his basic stuff until Cena fires back with a big running clothesline which gets two. Cena hits a superplex for two and we head to the floor. A guy in a Scream mask hits Cena and back in the ring….it means nothing as the STF ends this at 9:00.

Rating: C-. Hard to fault them here because they had to rush things and the match didn’t mean much at all. Cena is always good for a quick one though, even though this would have fit better at a house show more than on Raw. For a main event though, especially for a fun show like this, I can’t fault it much.

Post match the Scream guy comes in again and takes an AA. It’s Truth.

Overall Rating: B. Ok now that’s likely high because of the Muppet involvement but they’re my reviews so who cares? The Muppets fall squarely under the category of “if you don’t like this at least a tiny bit, you have no soul.” This was designed to be a fun show and that’s exactly what it was. Rock/Cena was officially set up, the traditional Survivor Series match was planned and that’s all that needed to happen. The Muppets were fun and that’s all there is to this show.

Results
Mark Henry b. CM Punk via DQ when Ricardo Rodriguez interfered
Eve Torres won a battle royal last eliminating Natalya
Wade Barrett/Cody Rhodes b. Air Boom – Wasteland to Bourne
Big Show b. Alberto Del Rio – WMD
Santino Marella b. Jack Swagger – Rollup
Zack Ryder b. Dolph Ziggler – Rough Ryder
John Cena b. The Miz – STF

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall

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

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

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

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. Edge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scotty 2 Hotty vs. The Hurricane

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Big Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Heyman is in Dudley glasses.

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

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

Tajiri vs. William Regal

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

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

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

Tajiri spits mist in his face post match.

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

WCW World Title: Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angle beats up Jericho after the match.

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

Mighty Molly/Stacy Keibler vs. Lita/Torrie Wilson

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

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

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

Post match Trish hits Stacy with a horrible bulldog.

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

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. Steve Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It can be anything from a match to a segment to a line to a sketch.  There’s no real limit here.  Just your favorite moment.

My pick:

Foley wins the WWF Title over Rock.  This was an incredibly uplifting moment as Foley, the guy who had worked his entire life to get to this moment FINALLY (see what I did there?) after 12 years of hard work.  He paid his dues and worked his way up and was rewarded with the world title of the top company.  That’s such a cool moment and the line of “Mick Foley has achieved his dream and the dream of everyone else who has been told you can’t do it” is the perfect line by Cole.  It still makes me smile.

Global Warning
Date: August 10, 2002
Location: Colonial Stadium, Melbourne, Australia
Attendance: 56,734
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

So this is another one of those it’s really a house show but we’ll put it on DVD and give you a really big card and a PPV feeling shows. This is the only PPV from Australia that I can think of other than some all-star shows and the like. The main event is HHH vs. Rock vs. Lesnar as Summerslam where Brock became champion was like two weeks away. Other than that there isn’t much here, but this is one of those obscure shows I’ve needed to do so let’s get to it. Oh and it’s a Smackdown show.

Apparently there were three matches on the card that didn’t come on the home video: Mark Henry/Randy Orton vs. D-Von/Batista (yes they were a real team), Hardcore Holly/Chavo vs. Billy/Chuck and Kurt Angle vs. Test.

Stephanie, the GM of Smackdown, comes out first. Dang I forgot how hot she could be. The crowd is HUGE here and it looks great. Also the ramp is freaking huge as it takes her almost 30 seconds to get to the ring at regular speed. She actually does a decent job of hyping the crowd which is impressive.

Rikishi vs. Rico

This is a loses kisses up to the winner match. Ok then. Stephanie dances with Rikishi on the way to the ring. Could we just watch that for a few hours instead? It’s a regular match but the loser has to do the deed. Rico is still just the stylist here and isn’t the flamboyant character yet.

The fat man’s leg is taped up here for no explained reason. The crowd is great here. Maybe a minute and a half in Rikishi goes for the Rump Shaker but Rico gets out of the way. Rikishi was supposed to be this big deal on Smackdown but he never really was. Rico misses a moonsault (looked perfect by the way) and a Samoan Drop ends it.

This was VERY short, not even breaking 3 minutes. Rikishi gives him a Stink Face which counts as kissing I guess. Rikishi gets some kids into the ring and dances with them. That’s always cool.

Rating: N/A. This was too short to be anything but it did a great job of getting the crowd which was already hot even hotter which is what an opener is supposed to do. This did its job and I’ve always had a soft spot for Rico. The guy was on the roster for like 3 years and he always gave it his all despite having a horrible gimmick. That’s all you can ask for and I can always respect it.

We see a video of Nidia and Jamie Noble going surfing. There is really no point to this as it’s not funny or interesting or anything like that, but I guess the culture thing is ok. Jamie Noble wearing glasses is different.

Cruiserweight Title: Jamie Noble vs. Hurricane

Noble is champion and a heel here, despite us watching him talk about how beautiful scenery is in a total non-kayfabe interview. I don’t get that. What was the point if they’re not in character or anything like that? Hurricane goes for the chokeslam but it doesn’t work.

Nidia kisses him for no apparent reason other than to distract him. Cole and Taz talk about Australian Rules Football and Taz more or less could care less. That was kind of funny. Instead of a cover, Nidia kisses Noble. Sure why not? You can tell the announcers could care less about the censors or whatever as a lot of their jokes are sex related etc. I can’t imagine Vince is watching or anything like that so there we are.

I love that jumping neckbreaker that Helms does. Helms just goes insane with some cool offense and Noble is in trouble. Something a lot of you might not know is that Noble used to be the ROH World Champion and I think Punk beat him to win the title. There’s a different one.

Vertebreaker doesn’t connect but a Northern Lights from Noble gets two. Hurricane hits a swinging neckbreaker from the top which looked great. Nidia comes up on the apron and Noble wins with a backslide of all things. Hurricane hits a chokeslam on Noble after the match.

Rating: B-. This started really slow and then went WAY up very fast. They just let loose out there and it worked very well. This is what the cruiserweight division should have been about but it just never clicked. And then a leprechaun got the belt. Sure why not. Anyway, this was a great match after the first minute or two, but the predictable ending hurt it.

Christian and Lance Storm and some other guys go to the zoo. Angle gets called a bugger. Angle plays with a dog which is amusing. He talks about loving animals and wants to ride a giraffe. This is FAR better than the surfing thing as Angle is an interesting person and stays in character here for the most part. In other news, Christian tries to feed a kangaroo and Angle calls him Jay. His real name is Jason, so that’s WEIRD to head. He also says the words babyface and heel. What have I stumbled onto?

Tag Titles: Christian/Lance Storm vs. Rey Mysterio/Billy Kidman

I’m pretty sure there were only one set of tag titles at this point. This is Raw vs. Smackdown actually with the champions, the Canadians, being from Raw. Kidman has some awesome music here. Yeah there is just one set of belts at this point. The Smackdown ones would be introduced about two and a half months after this in late October.

Rey is WAY over. We get a little history of Rey, including why he has a crown on his mask: Rey means King, hence his name meaning King of Mystery or Mystery King. Kidman and Storm start us off so I can’t complain. Taz talks about Christian’s history of tag team success and Cole comes from out of NOWHERE with some story about going to an oyster bar. Cole is being more annoying and random than usual here which is saying a lot.

Christian apparently wanted to come to the original ECW and Taz might have said no to him. Well that’s interesting. That came from commentary. I told you they’re being different here. Storm and Christian suck apparently. Storm hooks a modified crossface chickenwing.

I’ve always liked Storm’s work especially in ECW. Kidman gets the hot tag and takes over. There’s a belt in the ring along with all four guys. Christian takes a 619 and then Storm takes a SWEET double team assisted rana from Rey. Just a ton of crazy high spots here but Storm hits Kidman in the head with the title for the pin.

Rating: C+. Not bad here especially with the insane high spots near the end. This was what you would expect from a match like this on this kind of card though. No one expected a title change but that’s fine. It came off well and did what it was supposed to do so I can’t complain much there. This worked fine.

Kidman, Torrie and Edge go sight seeing. Torrie goes shopping. Kidman goes shopping. Edge goes shopping. This is riveting. And then they eat cake.

Chris Jericho vs. Edge

This works. Jericho is heel and Edge is face here I believe. Yeah that’s right. This is Raw vs. Smackdown also with Edge being on Smackdown. Edge was on the verge of a HUGE push here and had it not been for HHH and Shawn might have won the first Elimination Chamber.

The original plan had been for him to jump during the show and take someone’s spot to beat HHH for the title. HHH decided against it and thought Shawn should win the title. Dang that match ticked me off and that was before I knew about the Edge thing. MAN Edge is popular here. He was the hottest thing in the world at this point and is filming everything here. The fans think Jericho is a wanker.

Jericho gets on the mic and yells at the fans for being rude to him before the match which is always a nice touch. Jericho is tied up in the ropes so I have a good feeling about this match. Taz keeps complaining about being stuck in his hotel room eating panda salad. The commentary on this show really is good. Cole goes on a rant about the taxis being clean in Melbourne. You can tell there’s no Vince yelling in their ears as they’re far looser here and it’s very nice.

Tazz wants to know if Cole has ever tried a vertical suplex on himself in his hotel room. There goes the turnbuckle pad. Cole says he wants to be unbiased. Given the Danielson angle, that’s very funny. Edge gets ALL FIRED UP and Jericho is in trouble. He gets a sitout Gordbuster from the top for two. Sweet looking move there.

Edge spears the referee by mistake and it’s chair time. They go through their finishers and the second spear from Edge only gets two. Ah there’s your chair to Edge’s throat. The Lionsault hits but only gets two. Yeah I’m stunned too. We go WAY old school with a slingshot into the exposed buckle and an Edge-O-Matic for two.

This is very solid stuff here. Jericho goes for the Walls but gets rolled up for the pin. Nice ending but a bit sudden. Jericho throws a fit afterwards which is an old standard for him. Edge climbs up a light tower and soaks in the crowd, which is indeed huge.

Rating: B-. Seriously, did you expect this to not be good? It was missing a little something but that’s fine. This was a great use of about 12 minutes and it worked out fine. Edge continues to be just freaking awesome here as you would expect him to be. Edge was going to be a huge star and if he hadn’t hurt his neck there was no telling how big.

We see highlights from the Fan Frenzy event which is like Access but not as big. These are always cool. Stacy Keibler is too pretty if that’s possible.

Val Venis is here. He’s likely the referee for the Bra and Panties match. Ah make that ring announcer. Well he can talk so that’s all that matters here. He uses the standard going down line which his voice is perfect for.

Torrie Wilson vs. Stacy Keibler

as this isn’t very interesting. Torries ties it up. They do the spot with the referee where they roll onto him and there go HIS pants. And here’s Nidia for no apparent reason. Torrie “fight” them off and pulls Nidia’s shorts off. Torrie wins.

Rating: N/A. They made no secret here about what this was which is fine as it filled about 8 minutes or so.

We see highlights of a charity dinner for families with members that have cancer. There’s an auction too which is always cool. I’ll never make fun of charity stuff.

Undisputed Title: Brock Lesnar vs. The Rock vs. HHH

If I remember right, this is the last time HHH and the Rock were in the same ring. Hogan was supposed to be in this but bailed at the last minute. Last night at the charity dinner there were large paintings auctioned off and the third was of Hogan, not Lesnar. Brock was about two weeks from winning the world title, so the outcome here is pretty clear.

HHH is a heel here, having beaten up Shawn recently. No mention is made of Summerslam, which is odd. HHH vs. Lesnar is one heck of a staredown. That was supposed to be the main event of Mania 21 but Lesnar left. We got HHH vs. Batista instead so I can live with that I guess.

This doesn’t make sense: HHH had been revealed as the guy that put Shawn through the window, and he’s definitely over as a face here. Was Australian TV behind, as that happened about two weeks prior to this. That’s very odd. Ok Hogan was supposed to be in this but Brock hurt him, hence his absence. Ok then, at least that makes sense.

Wow it’s weird seeing Rock and HHH working together even for a few seconds. Pretty much they’re just competing to get in the last strike here which is kind of boring. HHH and Brock work together and Norcal smiles. Dang Brock can throw a freaking clothesline. Brock and Rock botch something and we hit the floor. Heyman jumps Rock and even Taz wants Heyman beaten down.

The two lighter skinned guys go at it in the ring with Brock dominating. Brock sets Rock for the F5 and for no apparent reason HHH interrupts it and goes for the Pedigree. So instead of letting Brock both use energy and take Rock out, HHH decides to do it himself. And remember: he’s BRILLIANT. HHH is busted open and Brock gets the bear hug. Rock takes a Pedigree but Brock makes the save. HHH takes an F5 for I think the only time ever.

Brock kicks out of the Elbow as this is pretty good. I love how Rock takes the F5. HHH of course makes the save. Notice right there that Brock kicked out of the Elbow but Rock had to be saved. Subtle but important. Then he kicks out of the PEDIGREE. Sweet GOODNESS he was pushed hard. HHH argues with the referee and walks into the Rock Bottom for Rock to retain. We’re off the air maybe 10 seconds after that, but the pin happened so it’s all good.

Rating: B-. This was fine for what it was. There was no way Rock would lose here, but they gave him an actual threat and that’s all they really needed to do I think. For the main event of a glorified house show, this came off great. Brock looked like a freaking MONSTER which was the point and Rock retains. HHH was a great placeholder, although there was zero mention of Shawn which was just odd. Still though, decent match and fine for the main event.

Overall Rating: B. This is on an adjusted scale since this wasn’t put on American TV until 24/7 came into existence so it’s not like it was supposed to be a huge show. Like I said earlier, this was a glorified house show but it was still good. There’s some decent wrestling and the matches made sense.

There’s a nice flow to it and a solid main event, so what more can you ask for? Considering how far away Australia is from America, this is a rare treat for the fans there and in front of this large of a crowd, this was a fine show. There’s really nothing worth going out of your way to see, but it’s not bad for a little under two hours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intercontinental Title: Lance Storm vs. Edge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spike Dudley/APA vs. Test/Dudley Boys

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

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

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

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

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

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

Title For Title: Tajiri vs. X-Pac

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Jericho vs. Rhyno

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hardcore Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WWF Title: Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WCW Title: Rock vs. Booker T

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summerslam 2000
Date: August 27, 2000
Location: Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina
Attendance: 17,002
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Another year, and another Summerslam. We have no Austin at the moment, but he’s coming back very soon from neck surgery. In his absence, HHH and Rock have shot to the moon in popularity with Rock being the face of the company at the moment and the reigning WWF Champion. His opponents are HHH and Angle, who had a double pin in a triple threat with Jericho. Also, they’re feuding over Stephanie.

We also have biker Taker vs. Kane, and the first ever TLC match with the three teams that you would expect to be in a TLC match. We’re just on the verge of being out of the Attitude Era as WCW knows they’re a dying breed at this point and would be out of business in about 8 months. Therefore, WWF has won and they’re still pouring it on with the Attitude Era, but with Austin gone a lot of the edge has left, as the gap is nowhere near as big as it once was between him and the rest of the roster.

Either way, WWF is no longer dominating but is victorious in the wars with just the final surrender to go. This is the last Summerslam before the takeover of WCW, so let’s see if it’s as good as the rest of the Attitude Era.

This intro is out there. It’s all in sepia, which is that gray color you see in old movies. It’s a bunch of odd scenes and looks like something you see on an acid trip, mixed in with wrestling clips. It shows kind of a highlight package of the main feud, which makes me think that the main event should have been Rock vs. someone else (not sure who, maybe Jericho or Benoit) and HHH vs. Angle in a separate match.

One of the clips in this is the Trish bent over in front of HHH scene, which is still one of the best done comedy moments in the history of the WWF in my opinion. We get the pyro etc. as Ross and Lawler welcome us.

Right To Censor vs. Too Cool/Rikishi

It’s the Lee special as Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan and Goodfather are the RTC tonight, with Val coming later I guess. It’s hard to believe that Rikishi would be revealed as the man that ran over Austin in less than two months. Ok, the name plates for the wrestlers are going to be a problem. When they come on the screen or go off the screen they make this weird sounds and it sounds like someone is knocking on my window.

In case you don’t know, RTC was a parody of the PTC, which in essence is a company that whines and complains about how everything on TV is poisoning children’s minds. There’s a massive rant that I’m holding back here that could go on for about four pages but I’ll spare you from it. Anyway, they try to censor anything they don’t like, and they don’t like Rikishi’s thong. Too Cool and the fat guy come out with two of Godfather’s former Hos, one of which is known as Victoria.

Victoria in a short skirt dancing is something that we need a LOT more of. Apparently the WWF Title match is no holds barred. The crowd starts chanting save the gardening equipment. Yeah that joke sucks but I couldn’t help it. More or less this turns into Rikishi dominating against the other three while Too Cool do nothing at all. In other words, it’s a standard Too Cool and Rikishi match. He goes for the stink face, which is an abomination on wrestling if I’ve ever seen one.

It (thankfully) doesn’t happen as Bull kicks him in the head. Scotty goes for the Worm which is even worse than the other move, but I become a Stevie fan as he kicks Scotty’s head off and pins him. Short and sweet, just how I like it.

Rating: B-. It was a fast opener which is perfect for a PPV. For some reason the crowd always loved Too Cool, despite the fact that they completely sucked. I loved that we didn’t have to see either of those horrid moves though, so that’s a plus. Also, I like when the heels win the opening match. It makes the faces winning later that much better.

We get a recap of what happened on Heat, which is both Kurt and Stephanie arriving. I might as well explain the backstory here. Kurt had been flat out hitting on Stephanie for weeks but nothing ever came of it. Three days prior to this on Smackdown, there was a match where Kurt and HHH were in it at the same time. I think it was a tag but I don’t remember. Either way, Stephanie got knocked down and ala Hulk and Liz from 1989, Kurt took her to the locker room.

He kept apologizing and eventually kissed her, which she seemed to like. Anyway, both of them get here tonight with Kurt getting there first. Coach (in 2000? REALLY?) asks both of them questions which aren’t answered. Once Stephanie gets there, she asks if HHH has shown up yet and is told no. She hears that Kurt is here and asks which way he went. He went to the left, so Stephanie goes to the right.

Shane is being interviewed about Stephanie, but Steve Blackman, his opponent for later is near him and he runs off.

And now, submitted for your appreciation, following the frustration which led to a separation and then this altercation which spells the decimation of the degeneration, here is the initiation which I hope isn’t an abomination.

Sorry when Road Dogg starts talking that just comes over me. Anyway, DX has split and this is the result if you don’t speak rhyme.

Road Dogg vs. X-Pac

Short version: they’ve been fighting and Pac accidentally knocked Road Dogg through a table on Raw Monday night. We see a clip of these two against Taker in a handicap match, and Taker’s outfit is I guess leather pants and a Taker t-shirt. I’m not sure if I like it or not but it’s just very different looking. As we’re under way, Ross says that there are people that consider these two to be one of the best tag teams of all time.

I’m not sure if I should go with the X-Pac doesn’t look like Billy Gunn joke, or the how blind are you people joke. Either way, that’s just preposterous and….and….and that’s a hard word to rhyme so I’ll just skip it. It’s odd to think of but out of these two, Road Dogg is pretty comparable to X-Pac as far as their overall resumes go.

He has 7 tag title reigns (two were in TNA) and an IC and Hardcore title reign, while Pac has some cruiser/light heavyweight reigns and two Euro titles to go with 4 tag titles that only two of which are even remembered. I’ll take an IC reign over two Euros any day, but that’s a different point all together. The fans don’t like this for some reason, which is odd as it’s not a bad match at all.

I guess this is the famous X-Pac heat? I actually think that’s what it is as that was happening when he was in control but the fans are into it when he’s getting beaten up. Both guys were built up as faces coming into this though, so he’s not supposed to be the heel here. Granted the low blow that he uses to set up the X-Factor would suggest otherwise. That ends the match. He of course has to grab a mic though, and says there’s no hard feelings.

Dogg doesn’t and hits the pump handle. X-Pac I guess just turned heel? If he did it was horrid. Road Dogg was actually pretty over here, which is why I’ll never get why he never got a solid push. He was good in the ring, he was WAY over and he could talk. That sounds like the makings of a decent push to me.

Rating: C-. It just wasn’t there for me. It’s not bad, but it’s just not that interesting. In a match like this, someone needs to make the big heel turn before the match. Now Dogg’s best strength was on the mic so turning him would make no sense, as he needs to talk to get over as well as he does. The fans already hate Waltman, so I think he’s your guy. Either way, this just didn’t do it for me and while it was ok, it’s just ok and that’s not good in my eyes.

Eddie and Chyna are talking as Chyna is apparently more or less going to wrestle in a bikini. I’ve made my stance clear on Chyna from this era, so I’ll save the drooling for later. We cut to Val and Trish’s locker room, which is a partnership that I don’t remember at all. Trish is babbling about how she should be a centerfold before Chyna is, which is foreshadowing the Playboy shoot that was coming for Chyna. Val says that’s not important but the IC Title is.

IC Title: Trish/Val Venis vs. Chyna/Eddie Guerrero

Just like at last year’s Summerslam when Santino and Beth won the titles, this is for the IC where whomever gets the fall winning the belt. So yeah I guess somehow Trish could win the title here. Ok according to Ross if Trish wins, nothing changes. Well that’s nonsense. Lawler comments on the name graphics on the screen, thinking it’s someone knocking. That’s actually accurate.

The guys start us out as I think gender vs. gender is legal here. It’s very weird hearing the announcers talk about Trish being horrible in the ring and needing all kinds of help to do basic things. After a decent sequence between the guys Chyna comes in and easily holds her own against Val. She was something incredibly special to say the least.

No Trish yet as Val stops the tag to Eddie, spitting at him. The problem is that it costs him as he takes a low blow and a DDT. The tag brings in Eddie as we still have no hot Canadian. Blue Thunder Bomb gets two on Eddie. We get a shot of Trish and it blows my mind that they found someone as beautiful as her with the ability she had.

Trish finally comes in and of course has nothing at all. Chyna comes in to feast on her for a bit, which is probably not the best wording at all but who cares? Val stops the handspring elbow that I want to smack Muta for making a staple of Diva matches. Eddie intercepts Val and it’s girl on girl. Guess how that goes for the blonde. Press slam drop makes Chyna the champion.

Rating: D+. A lot of that rating is for the hotness factor. It’s really hard to believe that Trish was actually this bad at one point. The match was ok, but I’ve never liked matches like these. If nothing else, get another Canadian (Test maybe?) and just have a fatal four way. You can get the same result and you have a better wrestler on top of that. However, Chyna looked ridiculously hot and Trish was gorgeous as well, so that’s enough for a passing grade.

We see a party at WWF New York with Cole and Foley hosting. Some others show up and it ends with Foley dancing with Too Cool and singing with Rock. This had to be one of the coolest ideas ever, but there was no way to keep it working well.

Stephanie proves why she might be the worst actress of all time as she talks about Kurt’s kiss with the makeup lady.

We get a recap of Tazz vs. Lawler. More or less Tazz was ticked off at JR for saying Tazz was a thug, which was what Tazz always called himself. Lawler defended him, and we get this out of it. This was actually a pretty decently built up feud I thought, with Tazz beating up JR in a car and then Lawler afterwards. It’s better than it sounds.

Tazz vs. Jerry Lawler

During the car attack Ross’ eye was hurt and Tazz makes fun of that on his way there, which is actually pretty funny. He really was an underrated performer. I also love how everything can be forgiven by a simple face turn in wrestling. Lawler in white boots just looks weird for some reason. Teddy Long is the referee as you never know who you’ll see in a match sometimes.

Lawler of course is beating the heck out of him at first only to get caught later on. JR is so pro King it’s sad, although the storyline goes that way so it makes sense. Tazz goes up and tries what I guess we would call a Swanton Bomb, but it misses, Lawler pulls the strap down and piledrives Tazz, but he’s up before Lawler is. Ref gets bumped. Now if I know Lawler, and I’ve seen a lot of his stuff, I’m betting on an international object being hidden in his tights.

Anyone want to take a bet on that with me? Actually I’m wrong as Lawler gets choked out, but Ross slams a candy jar into Tazz’s head to break it up and let Lawler pin him. The odd thing is, and I’m guess this is what inspired it, at Wrestlemania that year Tazz got hit in the face with a candy jar like that in a hardcore match and it damaged his eye.

If I remember the reports correctly, it was Tazz that was supposed to get Benoit’s push. Now there’s something to think about. Another thing to think about: I like Lawler’s music.

Rating: C+. This was a simple storyline that needed a simple resolution and that’s what we got here. Lawler is always dependable in the ring and this was no exception. Ross getting involved is a nice little treat that you rarely see, although he likely should have been fired in kayfabe for that. Anyway, this was just a fun short match to let the old guys have a nice moment, and there’s nothing wrong with taking ten minutes, including the lead in and intros etc., to do that on a three hour show.

Lillian, who is A, somehow STILL not the ring announcer and B, looking WAY hotter with curled hair, tries to talk to Shane but he runs again because of Blackman, and their match is next.

Hardcore Title: Steve Blackman vs. Shane McMahon

Shane runs to the ring holding the belt. As he’s running we see how he won it, which was using the 24/7 rule and the help of Edge, Christian, Test and Albert. That’s how much of a hardcore god Blackman was at the time. Anyway, Shane is running scared here as he finally has to defend it. The bell rings twice, so I guess the match never actually happens, but why am I using logic in the WWF?

In a funny spot Shane and Blackman play pass the kendo stick, but in a cool spot, Blackman grabs the stick out of Shane’s hands mid swing and beats him with it. That looked quite cool actually. This is in the ring all of 8 seconds and JR and King are making Survivor references, as at the time that was the hottest show in the world. Now it’s still big I guess, but has anyone watched it in forever? This is a total beatdown so far as Blackman is just killing Shane.

I completely mark out as a garbage can is put on Shane and Blackman beats him half to death with sticks, allowing JR to say that it reminded him of Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg 7. That was just flat out awesome as we get a Conan reference on Summerslam. That is just so freaking sweet. Anyway, nerd boy moment over. Leather strap is brought in and tied to Shane, which is always fun.

We need more Texas Bullrope matches, and I mean the touch four corners kind. Shane is more or less hogtied in a submission hold that looks SICK, but Test and Albert run in for the save. JR goes through the history of Shane and Test and Stephanie which sounds like it’s a parody of a soap opera that it’s so cheesy. The sweet elbow of Test hits Steve so this match is a success.

They fight up to the entrance where Blackman is able to beat up the muscle guys, but Shane keeps running. However, he runs out of places to run, so he climbs one of the towers. What happens next is freaking scary, as Shane goes probably 30-35 feet up (of course called 50-75 by JR, since 25 feed is such an easy mistake to make in a place that small).

Blackman follows and slams him in the back with a kendo stick until Shane falls the whole way in a shot that looks awesome. Blackman climbs down about 10 feet before dropping an elbow/leg onto Shane then covering him for the title. Ross tries to compare it to Foley’s Cell dive, and I just shake my head. BIG difference between landing on a table and then concrete and falling backwards onto a crash pad there fat boy.

Rating: B. Not even factoring in the huge spot at the end, this was a standard enjoyable hardcore match, with all kinds of weapons and Shane getting beaten up. They tried so hard to make Blackman a big deal here, but the problem was the division was just a novelty, and Blackman was gone soon after this if I remember correctly. I know he was gone by the Invasion which was less than a year away.

In a scene that cracks me up, Stephanie is freaking over Shane, but isn’t near him, despite him being in the same building. Her not even leaving her room just makes me laugh. Kurt comes in to hug her and Foley, who for no reason at all is wearing a Minnesota Twins jersey, comes in and says that Stephanie should go check on Shane, which apparently she couldn’t figure out on her own?

We get a recap of Benoit vs. Jericho. Good grief this was intense. The video package is really well done as you can see that these two just want to go at it. It’s clear they’re the future along with Angle and the company knew it, which is always a good thing. The match is 2/3 falls by the way.

Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

You really don’t even need a story here with guys of this level, but the basic story is they don’t like each other. There it is, and I like it better that way. Who needs a big elaborate story? They knew that these two would put on a clinic so why over complicate things? They of course start hot with them both going to the corner and in a spot that you don’t often see, all three including the referee go through the ropes and crash on the floor.

That’s not something you see often but I like it. The WOO on the chops is always fun to hear. Now we get to something that I just don’t like. Benoit gets the crossface and Jericho taps in something like four minutes. Ok, now I get that it’s 2/3 falls and Jericho should want to keep the amount of damage he takes to a minimum. Heck, Lawler flat out says that it would be smart to tap here. I get that.

However, no matter how you want to say it, Benoit beat Jericho in like 4 minutes. Isn’t there some better way to do this? Couldn’t you do the first fall at like 9 minutes into the match? It’s not like this is going to be a five minute match or anything, so what’s the rush? I really don’t get that as it makes Benoit look capable of making Jericho tap with no difficulty and it makes Jericho look kind of weak.

I get the giving up quickly, but don’t make Jericho look like he has no defense at all for the hold. Rant over. Second fall starts immediately which is good as I’ve always hated the whole rest thing. This isn’t boxing. The stupidity of the end of the first fall is compounded here as Benoit immediately puts the hold back on and Jericho gets to the ropes. See what I mean? Why wouldn’t you just reverse that sequence?

He gets out the first time and then later on he can’t because his shoulder is hurting from the first time in the hold. Doesn’t that make a bit more sense? In something quite surprising, Benoit somewhat abandons psychology. They make it clear that the seconds crossface is focused more on the back, but after having that one on much longer, Benoit works on the neck and shoulder. Wouldn’t it make more sense to go after what was more injured?

I guess since he got the tap on the neck/shoulder he should go to it again, but then why would he change what got a tap in the first place? Wouldn’t it make sense that if a little pain made him tap more pain would make him tap again? Dang when did I start thinking like this? Anyway, the holds that Benoit is using here are freaking sick looking.

We get the comeback from Jericho though as he just starts throwing these big haymaker right hands. I’ve never seen him throw punches like this but they’re working for him. We get a nice wrestling sequence that ends up with Jericho getting the Liontamer, not the Walls but the Liontamer on Benoit for the tap out. These two have perhaps the most lethal looking submissions ever. Might have to have a thread about that in the near future.

This is why I like doing these threads. I get good ideas from them. They go into a fast sequence of counters and big moves, with the big one being Jericho hitting a hurricanrana from the top and after a two a lionsault but due to the shoulder he can’t cover.

They do several rollups but Benoit gets a small package near the corner and grabs the bottom rope to get the win. Apparently this was enough to get Benoit in the main event of Unforgiven, as he had just lost in the main event at Fully Loaded to Rock a month prior to this.

Rating: A. This was great stuff. The first two falls were both good enough, but they tore it up in the third one. It was exactly what you would expect from these two and it absolutely delivered on all levels. Somehow, this might not be the best that these two have had so good grief. How insane were these two, especially when you add in Kurt? Thank goodness the company got these three right.

HHH is just now arriving, so we hit the recap button on the Stephanie/Kurt interaction from earlier tonight, as well as the Smackdown kiss. This really has no bearing on anything, as we’re off to our next match.

We get the story of the three teams, which more or less is this: Edge and Christian hit the other four guys with chairs, they beat up Edge and Christian with ladders and tables, so let’s put all 6 guys and three weapons in one match and make it for the tag titles. Now you 6, go tear the freaking house down.

Tag Titles: Dudleyz vs. Hardy Boyz vs. Edge and Christian

In case you didn’t get it, this is the first TLC match. Tables and ladders and chairs, oh my, for all you Wizard of Oz aficionados out there. I’ve always liked the incoming missile thing that they did for the Dudleys entrance. The glasses need to come back for Bubba too. Oh yeah this is in North Carolina, so the Hardys get a small explosion. Chairs are in play quickly. Bear with me here as I’ve never tried to do one of these, so this could be a bit tricky.

Matt just pelts the thing at Bubba which sounds sick. The opening here is just a wild brawl all around, and what else were you expecting? However, you can tell they have a lot of this planned out, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. The big spots at least make sense here, unlike some matches with gimmicks where it’s just big spot after big spot and it rarely works out that well.

In another, say it with me, SICK spot, Jeff is climbing the ladder but Edge knocks him off. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but he lands on a ladder that’s on its side, so his ribs slam into the leg of it. This sea saws the other end up which slams Matt in the face. What’s Up leads to D-Von being given a fairly famous command.

You know I’ve always wondered what would happen if D-Von pulled a Punk and just said no. “D-Von, GET THE TABLES!” No jerk. You ran out when we were at IHOP last night and I had to pay for your 14 pancakes. Get your own tables you big fat butter ball! To make room, someone picks up a ladder and just throws it at Jeff, covering him up with ladders and chairs. We get a new shout from Bubba: D-Von! We’re gonna kill them! Yeah, that’s not over the top at all.

Edge lands three of the loudest and most painful looking chair shots in a row. Those things were just freaking intense. In another huge spot, Jeff does the twenty foot swanton and of course, misses. Edge is a freaking master with those chairs. Bubba is sent through four tables, leaving E/C alone to get the belts. However, Lita sprints to ringside and shoves them both off.

After various other amounts of destruction, including Edge just laying Lita out with a freaking great spear, Jeff and D-Von go up, but the ladder goes out and they’re stuck hanging there. D-Von goes down, so Edge and Christian more or less harpoon him with a ladder, then climb up and get the belts to retain. Kind of a not great ending, but DANG. Bubba is screwed up bad.

Rating: A-. This was a wild mess of a match, but dang. These six knew what they had to do and they nailed it. It was a wild match with all kinds of crazy bumps and wild spots. The scariest thing of all: this will be blown away in April by TLC 2. If you don’t get excited watching this, I feel you’re no longer alive.

Since we haven’t seen enough of this one story tonight, HHH is yelling at Stephanie about the kiss. You know, Rock hasn’t even been mentioned tonight. This is why the one on one would have been better and then find someone else to plug into the main event. Maybe do the fatal fourway that they did next month here. Oh yeah Steph says the kiss meant nothing.

Oh and since we just had an amazing match, let’s completely kill the momentum.

Stinkface Match: Kat vs. Terr

I think you get the idea by the name alone, and yes, it’s as bad as it sounds. Kat, who was married to Lawler in real life but was released soon thereafter, comes out with Al Snow for no apparent reason to a weak version of Sable’s music. Terri comes out with Saturn and just strips on the way in.

That’s just the best way to be: just accept your status. You know, I hate these things. There’s no point, there’s no skill, and it’s just flat out stupid. You know what? Screw this. This is stupid and it’s not worth my time. Kat wins.

Rating: F-. I’m not 12 years old. This means nothing to me, and it was a complete waste of time. They couldn’t give the tag titles an extra five minutes, but they can do this. Unbelievable.

APA is in WWF New York as bartenders. That would just be cool to do.

Recap of Taker and Kane. This just amuses me. It started with Kane saving Taker from Benoit, which good night I would have loved to see a real feud between those two. Anyway, within seconds of Kane saving him, he turns heel and beats up Taker. For some reason, this amazes JR and Cole. Why? Why does that amaze you?

It’s not like HE DOES THAT EVERY FREAKING TIME HE UNITES WITH TAKER or anything like that. These two fight more often than Sly and I do, and nothing is ever resolved. Anyway, of course we have this match here tonight. Oh and Kane beat up Taker with a chair a few days ago or something.

Undertaker vs. Kane

Taker is the American here and comes out first which is a little weird. His pop is insane to put it mildly. Taker just goes down the aisle and fights him early. Based on the commentary, you know this is going to be short. I wonder if one of them was hurt. In something almost weird for some reason, Taker is going for the mask. As JR says, has anyone ever done that? Not that I remember at least.

I guess it’s no holds barred as Kane brings in a chair and nothing happens. The announcers touch on this as they say the referee has said he’s just going to let them go, That kind of makes sense, as it’s not like he can do anything to either guy to stop them. Taker actually gets about half of Kane’s mask off. Kane messes up and slams the stairs into his own face, followed by Taker just picking them up and throwing the stairs at Kane, which is more or less impossible to fake.

Kane is bleeding bad after the stairs. By bad I mean terribly fake looking as the blood is closer to pink than red. Taker with a freaking spear, and actually a pretty good one. They both set for a chokeslam but Taker just kicks him in the balls. He rips the mask off and Kane runs, ending this…match? His long hair and hand covers it up. Taker’s music plays as JR asks if the bell ever rang.

Rating: B. I LOVED this. It was more or less a long segment, but who cares? This was just Taker being ticked off, and when that happens, it works very well. At the end of it Kane was just getting beaten up and Taker looked awesome. This is what it should have been and it went off well. It’s not like they were trying to top Mania 14, and they shouldn’t have.

Kurt is in the back, not in wrestling gear which is bad because his match is next. He calls someone, and we cut to HHH and Stephanie. Of course the phone rings and Stephanie pretends it’s Linda. HHH asks to talk to her, but “Linda” hangs up. Stephanie looks like a goddess in the graphic to put it mildly.

We get the same recap that we’ve seen five times tonight, so I won’t bother with the story all over again.

WWF Title: Rock vs. HHH vs. Kurt Angle

Angle is dressed in record time and weighs in at 229lbs. That’s light even for him. He says that he’s sorry he didn’t kiss her earlier. As he’s known for doing, he puts his foot in his mouth and says that he gave Stephanie more passion that HHH ever could. HHH comes out and to say he’s mad is the understatement of the millennium. They start without Rock, or I should say HHH starts without him.

Rock is smart and doesn’t come out for a few minutes. They hit the announce table and HHH sets for a Pedigree, but the table breaks early and Angle is legit hurt. It’s worse than Lesnar’s face was after the shooting star. I mean he is gone. HHH pulls the hammer but he can’t hit him, IF YA SMELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLll What the Rock is cooking! That music is just freaking awesome.

Since Kurt is injured, we pretty much have Rock vs. HHH, which has been the main event all summer, so it’s not like this is a bad thing. HHH beats Rock down just a bit and runs after the EMTs who are taking Angle out on a stretcher to beat on him a bit more. Rock sprints down the aisle and perhaps literally saves Kurt. They brawl back to the ring and Stephanie comes out to check on Kurt.

Stephanie, clad in ridiculously tight leather pants, comes down and gets yelled at by HHH. She runs over to grab the belt and lands a running slap to the timekeeper that is just hilarious to say the least. She misses and hits HHH though. Seriously, that running slap was GREAT. It just came off as hilarious on about 1000 levels. Game comes back with a low blow though, and that’s the end of my rhyming.

Lawler makes a nose joke about HHH which just seems out of place here. Sister Sledge comes back into play here, as HHH nails Rock with it in the ribs. JR has a small seizure about the hammer as he just shouts and shouts some more. After about eight minutes of these two nearly killing each other, we cut to Stephanie and Kurt in the back with her begging him to come save HHH. If they somehow faked that, I’d be amazed to say the least.

Although, Rock coming out at that exact second is a bit fishy. I’d think he’s legit hurt, but I guess there’s a slight chance that it was fake. They come back out again, with a great shot of Stephanie’s back. For about the 5th time in this match, HHH looks backwards to see if Kurt is there for his spot and it’s really getting bad. It’s so painfully obvious that it’s sad. Angle either wasn’t hurt or it wasn’t nearly as bad as they thought, or he’s completely nuts. He’s staggering all over the place.

The more I look at Kurt the more I think he was just shaken up. He’s moving around better every second and is doing moves that you’d need a lot of mental capacity to do. It’s him and Rock at the moment until HHH saves Angle from being pinned from a Rock Bottom. Stephanie gets back in again after Kurt brings a hammer back in to cause JR to need his medicine. HHH misses a punch and nails Steph, so Kurt nails him with the hammer.

Rock knocks Angle outside and lands the Elbow to retain. He grabs the belt and leaves, posing on the Summerslam set as Angle carries Stephanie out to end the show. Angle would take the title from Rock two months later and hold it until No Way Out.

Rating: B. This was a fine match, as it was mainly HHH vs. Rock, which is always solid. I’m still not sure if Angle was hurt or not, but if he wasn’t then he deserves a raise. This was good enough, but I’m not sure if it’s good enough to be a main event of a major show. I stand by what I said about how it should have been Angle vs. HHH and maybe Rock vs. Taker or Kane as that angle was thrown together in about 10 days. Either way, this was fine.

BUT WAIT!

My version has a post show segment in studio with Coach, so I’ll throw this in as a bonus. Coach, with more hair on his head and less on his face, is going through all of the matches in a highlight package and introducing some of the wrestlers for interviews. Cool.

RTC says they had fun censoring Too Cool, including a Bull Buchanan speech, which is interesting, as he has a thick southern accent. Richards clearly should have been the only one to talk.

Coach doesn’t like RTC. He skips X-Pac and Road Dogg for no apparent reason and jumps to the IC match.

Chyna and Eddie are both happy that she’s the champion and she couldn’t do it without Eddie. This would lead to a pretty simple yet decent angle with them semi feuding over th belt.

Tazz says that the path of rage is coming back. Actually that’s not true as he was turned face very soon.

Coach doesn’t like Tazz.

Blackman actually cuts a promo, saying that the belt is back around his waist when it’s on his shoulder, and that Shane walked away, when he was actually stretchered out. And we wonder why he wasn’t allowed to talk.

Benoit says that he has made his point.

Coach doesn’t like Benoit but he respects him.

Recap of TLC, which is just sweet all over.

Edge and Christian say they’ll be ok. They actually sound like they lost if you just listen to their words.

Women’s match. Moving on.

Taker says he’s the big dog in the yard, which became a semi catchphrase for him. He tells Kane to never cross him again, leaves, and then comes back to swear. That’s just comical.

Finally, we recap the main event. No interviews here.

I liked this actually. It’s perfect for a home video as it offers a little bonus reason to buy the tape with the exclusive interviews. It’s a nice little addition and it’s only about 10 minutes long, so it’s not bogged down. I like it.

Overall Rating: A. This is a VERY good show, and bordering on classic. The only thing possibly is the main event, which likely should have been Rock vs. HHH or HHH vs. Angle for the title with Rock doing something else. Either way, the show is just great all around with only the women’s match being terrible.

Other than that, everything is good to great. Definitely a big time recommendation here as it was just flat out awesome. Find a copy of this and watch it all, as only about 5 minutes is bad. GREAT show.

Summerslam 1998
Date: August 30, 1998
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 21,588
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

If there has ever been a Summerslam that could be put on par with Wrestlemania as far as build up and importance goes, this is it. The Attitude Era of 1998 was going full speed ahead with nothing in sight stop it as Austin vs. McMahon was dominating the wrestling world. The idea is that there was a conspiracy led by Vince to get the title off of Austin. The reason you had to see every show was no one knew who else was in on it.

That’s just downright creepy if you can ignore the fact that it’s professional wrestling. The main enemy of Austin was Undertaker, so guess what tonight’s main event is? This show was the crescendo of the summer and is exactly what a Summerslam is supposed to be like in my eyes. Every storyline was heavily built up, the showdowns were worth drooling over, and it’s in Madison freaking Square Garden.

Also, this show has some historical significance, as it was on this night that HHH and Rock launched themselves into the highest level of the company. For the better part of a year DX and the Nation had been feuding. However this was really just window dressing for Rock vs. HHH, and tonight was the final match in the feud: Rock defending the IC title against HHH in a ladder match. I’ve been looking forward to this match since I started this review as it’s one of my favorite matches ever. I’m going to call this the Milenko Special for something that comes in the second match. I’m actually looking forward to this, so let’s do it.

The buildup is perfect now and it just looks awesome. Excellent work here and it makes it look like a big time show.That wasn’t the intro, so we get this one. Basically Taker and Kane are together and Austin isn’t surprised, but he’s not afraid. What kind of a face would he be if he was? Vince says that Taker has to have Kane there with him to make sure he wins. Remember that line. The video cuts off really abruptly for some reason and it doesn’t go well. This is the home video so AC DC is edited out. Ross and Lawler are here and run down the card of course.

European Title: Val Venis vs. D’Lo Brown

Apparently Austin broke a hearse that either of the Brothers could have been in. The name graphic for Val is placed perfectly as it covers his crotch as he’s gyrating and taking off the towel. He says he’s in the big apple and does his came, saw, came again line. As he’s doing this they cut to a gorgeous woman in the front row that is jaw dropping. Brown is billed from Helsinki after having been from Lisbon on Raw.

The announcer’s voice when he reads Helsinki is great as if he sounds like he’s thinking what in the world is wrong with my eyes? They keep talking about the hearse. This was back when Heat meant something. They need to bring it back as a preshow. At the time Brown was using the chest protector like Orton used the cast. He got injured about two months before but it’s a slow healing injury I guess. We go to a random shot of the crowd but the camera zooms in on someone.

It’s some guy in an open shirt and sunglasses with long blonde hair. His name is cliff or rock or something. Oh Edge, yeah that’s it. I’m sure he’ll never amount to anything. Back to the next big things, Val Venis and D’Lo Brown. Oh I forgot to mention the entrance. It’s the kind where when you look at the ring the entrance is straight ahead and it’s designed to look like gates.

Again, that’s just awesome looking as this show is being treated like a mega show and it’s paying off. Brown busts out a Texas Cloverleaf which oddly doesn’t get a bad Europe joke. A lot of the sound bites here are used in one of the Smackdown video games. Val goes up for…something and gets caught in the Sky High which is awesome but unnamed at this point. This is a good match so far which isn’t something you’d expect out of these two.

We have some solid chemistry here actually. Val really was good in the ring, at least better than he’s given credit for. He keeps going up top but it’s never in the right position for the splash. He finally gets one off but Brown gets the knees up. Crowd is marking hard for Brown actually. Correction they think he sucks. Could we possibly have dueling chants? We have more sex jokes from Lawler that are really under the radar if you don’t know what to listen for.

SWEET looking Low Down from Brown but it misses. Eventually Val steals the chest protector and goes for the splash but the referee tries to stop him and he gets crotched. Brown gets it back but Venis beats him up before putting it on again. Referee tries to stop him but he gets fired across the ring for the stupid DQ finish. Post match, the referee gets beaten on.

Rating: B. Very good match here, but the ending is just weak to me. I get that they didn’t want to do the title change but wanted Val to look strong, but they couldn’t do a count out or something? The referee thing was just stupid and it didn’t work for me. Either way, this was a great opener and it worked very well. Sometimes you find guys like these two that just work well together. When you find something like that, it’s a bonus.

Cole is in the back with the hearse as we find out that Kane and Taker weren’t in the hearse, but Mankind isn’t happy. He brought it apparently, and now it’s only good for giving the Brisco Brothers Body Shop some work. He also has a sledgehammer, which I guess HHH stole from him.

Oddities vs. Kai En Tai

This is a handicap match, because I guess three giants against four tiny men isn’t fair? Anyway, ICP plays the Oddities to the ring which actually gets a very nice reaction. They get all the fans waving their hands, including one scantily clad woman that needs to be dancing more. Apparently the Japanese team doesn’t like the Oddities for no apparent reason.

The Oddities are the Giant Silva who is taller than Khali and less talented, Kurrgan who was an interesting character until they turned him face, and Golga who is Earthquake in a mask and obsessed with Cartman from South Park. Ross says he likes ICP which stuns Lawler. This is mostly a comedy match, as no one on the planet thought the Oddities would lose. They were actually an interesting concept, but you need more odd characters than just three big guys.

In a funny spot, Kurrgan gets on his knees to fight Funaki, which sadly makes them about the same size. We get a tug of war between Kurrgan and the other team over Kai En Tai’s manager, Yamaguchi San. He may be the most annoying manager ever, even surpassing Slick, who had a cool song to make up for his annoyance. As the crowd somehow gets even quieter, all four small guys run in and attack Silva, which also doesn’t work.

Ross tries to compare him to Andre as I glare at my screen. Anyway, eventually Tenta, or Golga I guess, the most talented guy in this match is tagged in and gets beaten down surprisingly. The four man team actually is fun to watch as they work really well together. He comes back with a quadruple clothesline as this is going on WAY too long.

A double, double chokeslam followed by a huge splash finally ends this as ICP tries to bring the crowd back to life. I will give the Oddities this: the dancing was pretty funny.

Rating: C-. This was fairly funny, but it just went on way too long. It’s almost a ten minute comedy match, which is about twice as long as it needs to be. The gimmick was fine, but we get it: Kai En Tai couldn’t do crap here. You don’t need to make us see that over and over again.

Jeff Jarrett vs. X-Pac

This is hair vs. hair. Jarrett has Southern Justice with him as we continue to try to validate the Godwinns being employed. On Heat, the trio shaved Fink’s hair. I don’t remember him having much to begin with but ok. Debra desperately needs to get here. Fink is apparently an honorary DX member for tonight only. Sarge sends Southern Justice to the back. Fink doing the crotch chop is one of the greatest things of all time.

He also says suck it as part of my soul dies. Jarrett is the perfect size for someone like X Pac to fight. Like I’ve said, when Pac is fighting someone closer to his size he’s far less annoying and can be enjoyable. They’re working a fast paced match here and it’s working better. They keep going for awhile as this is turning into a good match. Fink gets up on the apron and Jarrett condemns himself to eternal torment by hitting him. This leads to an X Factor but Southern Justice comes out again.

They miss with the guitar and Pac drills Jarrett with it for the pin. The army of people that Jarrett has given haircuts to plus the Outlaws run out to help with the haircut. He’s not shaved, but he gets his short haircut that he had for years.

Rating: B. This was a solid match. Both guys can work a faster pace and in this case it was the right way to go. Both are far better when they don’t try to move up and fight like heavyweights. It was hard hitting and fast paced, which made this a very good little match.

Doc is looking at the Lion’s Den, which was a pretty cool concept. That’s up later on.

Cole is with the Rock, who attacked HHH earlier and hurt his knee. He rips into Cole as only he can do, which is always funny. He also says he’ll win.

Marc Mero/Jackie vs. Sable/Mystery Partner

Mero is doing the boxer thing at this time. There’s no clue who Sable’s partner is here. This is mainly over Sable vs. Mero, which was an interesting concept but it just didn’t work in the end. They tried so hard to make Sable a big deal as a wrestler and it just never worked that well. The partner is…..EDGE! Edge was still a rookie at this point so it’s really get how big he was going to become.

Anyway, this is more or less all about Sable, so it’s naturally not going to be that interesting. I swear that woman had a bigger ego than Hogan at times. She comes in and beats on Jackie for a bit because heaven forbid that Edge, the young guy who has a lot to prove still gets significant ring time. Eventually Edge does and immediately throws a great suicide dive over the top rope onto Mero before spanking Jackie to a big pop.

See what happens when you let someone with that little thing called real talent into the match? It gets a lot better and the crowd is more into it. The problem with Sable was simple: only horny men cared about her. Other than that, she was pretty much worthless. This is really just getting bad at this point. Not the in ring stuff, but how this is all about Sable.

Edge beats Mero up, then Sable comes in and gets a hurricanrana out of it, despite the rules earlier being men vs. men and women vs. women. Jackie helps out with the worst looking spot I’ve ever seen. Somehow Mero is too far from the corner for the falling headbutt spot, so Jackie steps forward and THEN collapses onto Mero’s crotch. Edge knocks him out even more, just so Sable can have Edge lift her up for a splash to get the win.

Ross of course screams SHE did it, after which Lawler (thank goodness) says THEY did it. I knew I always liked Jerry better. The referee raises Sable’s hand first, then goes back and raises their hands together. Ok now I’m just being picky. Post match, it’s all about what Sable did as this is just stupid now. Edge just kind of leaves as Sable celebrates. Commentary: Oh yeah Edge was good too.

Rating: F. Not for the match, which was ok, but for Sable. This match was a love letter from Sable to Sable and it was just bad to say the least. It was all about her and Edge, Jackie and Mero were just along for the ride. Edge did 90% of the work and was an afterthought.

Sable did two moves on her own, one of which was sloppy at best, yet the whole thing was about her. Even at the end of the match when JR said she did it, you knew this was all about her. That’s just flat out stupid no matter who it is. This really was stupid to me and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

We now get what to me was one of the funniest interviews I’ve seen in a long time. Mankind is panicking because he can’t find his sledgehammer (which he had like 30 minutes ago and we haven’t seen him do anything since then but whatever) and he doesn’t have a partner against the Outlaws. He and Kane are the tag champions at this point and it’s a hardcore match (billed as falls count anywhere and no holds barred but you get the idea).

He says that Cole should be his partner in getting their heads kicked in and he hands him a belt. This is something that should never be done again. Anyway, Vince comes up and we see the brilliance of these two characters. Foley is putty in Vince’s hands and you can see him just manipulating Mankind with a few short and simple words. It really is well done here. He promises Mick that if he wins, he’ll get him in the MSG hall of fame.

He brings Foley some weapons, which inspire Foley. Foley says that he thinks he has 13 words for the Outlaws: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? This is as bizarre as it sounds and maybe it’s the Foley mark in me, but I loved it.

Recap of the Owen/Shamrock feud, which was an ok idea, but it didn’t need Severn involved. Short version: Owen hates Shamrock for no apparent reason, so he got Dan Severn to train him and they’re having a match in a small octagon called the Lion’s Den, which is named after Shamrock’s training facility.

Lion’s Den Match: Owen Hart vs. Ken Shamrock

This match is taking place in a theater adjacent to MSG. I know that because Ross said that this match is taking place in a theater adjacent to MSG. So this is the WWF version of the UFC cage but they’re wrestling a WWF style match in there, which is about what you’d expect I guess, as it’s pretty clear Shamrock wouldn’t have much trouble in a real MMA fight with Owen.

Hart would hang on for awhile, but it’s not likely he would have much of a chance in the long run. The cage offers some different effects, but it’s nothing earth shattering. It’s better than a normal match would have been though, as it suits Shamrock very well. Speaking of that, he hits a sweet move as he gets a running start and plants his foot on the cage to jump backwards and catch Owen with I think either a back elbow or a dropkick.

Either way it looks very good and he nailed him with it. The cage isn’t really offering a lot of differences, but the main one is on whips. With no ropes, you’re just hitting cage, which has to hurt pretty badly. Hart gets the sharpshooter, which Ross says no one does better. Remind me never to leave WWF.

This is likely the coolest spot of the match as Shamrock crawls to the cage and climbs it while in the Sharpshooter, forcing the hold to be broken. The problem is they just brush over it, despite it being brilliant. Owen gets a choke on him but Shamrock runs up the cage to backflip out of it and gets the real ankle lock, not the Angle lock, to get the win.

Rating: B-. This was a weird concept and I guess it worked. It didn’t really fail, but it just wasn’t the best thing in the world. Overall the in cage stuff was fine, but it just wasn’t to my liking and I’m glad it only happened like three times.

Austin says he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the title.

Tag Titles: Mankind vs. New Age Outlaws

Like I said, there’s no Kane so this is virtually a hardcore handicap match. The announcer calls it a no holds barred pinfalls match count anywhere, so I wonder what he did during that long break they had for the Lion’s Den match. Both of the Outlaws are rocking South Park shirts, and remember this is back when that was a brand new show. There’s a dumpster at ringside. The Outlaws do a conchairto with cookie sheets.

I’ve always wondered why there were cookie sheets at ringside. Apparently the Outlaws should tag. Why? What are they going to do, get disqualified? This is really short and you can probably guess how it ends. Dang it I just realized I didn’t put up any matches from this show. You’ll live I suppose for this one.

Anyway, WZ is down right now so it’s not like I have anything else to do with my time. Anyway, the Outlaws win after a spike pile driver in the general area of the title belt. Now they’re going to put him in the dumpster. Post match, Kane is in the dumpster and drills Foley’s unseen body with the sledgehammer.

Rating: D+. This was really short and wasn’t that good. For a match like this, it can work but it needs a lot more than 6 minutes. Granted, I don’t think they were looking for a classic in this. It was just too short to get going and it felt like it was over just after it started.

Recap of DX vs. Nation, including the DX imitation of the Nation, which I’m sure you’ve all seen a million times. We also see D’Lo Brown pinning HHH for the European Title. It’s amusing that this is supposed to be DX vs. the Nation, yet all we see is HHH and Rock for about 95% of this. Oh yeah and that REALLY dumb time limit draw in a 2/3 falls match. All of that leads us to this. HHH’s promo before Summerslam from Raw: At Summerslam, you’re gonna bow to me! That’s all he said and that was perfect.

Ladder Match: IC Title: HHH vs. Rock

This is going to be good. The DX Band plays HHH to the ring, which is really cool actually. I think HHH is being followed by a nuclear power plant. Oh never mind. That’s just Chyna’s neon green outfit, not nuclear fallout. HHH picks Chris Warren, the singer, up and carries him around the ring while he’s still singing, which looks a bit stupid. I’ve never gotten the point in destroying the band’s equipment after a performance.

Oh yeah and at the time there was a bad storyline with Chyna and Mark Henry that ended with Henry almost sleeping with a transvestite. Yeah it was worse than it sounds. They start out with just standard stuff, but are out by the ladder inside of three minutes. In a bit of a surprising move, they don’t touch it yet. I like that. Save it for a solid buildup and then go for it. That being said, it’s in the ring less than 2 minutes later.

In a painful looking spot, Rock goes up the ladder but HHH comes off the top rope to stop him. He gets that done, but the ladder falls on him. He didn’t know it was coming, or he’s the greatest seller I’ve ever seen, and I’m leaning towards the former. Here we have a great example of why theatrical moves like the People’s Elbow are stupid. Rock has the ladder set up and drops an elbow off the apron down onto HHH who is laying on it.

How is that different than the People’s Elbow? In short, it isn’t, yet the People’s Elbow can win world titles. Explain to me how that makes any sense at all. Anyway, HHH’s knee gives out soon after this, as he has to put all his weight on it to stay up. Now that’s the focus of the match, which is something I really like. Now, instead of just big spot followed by big spot, we have a reason to pay attention to what’s not involved with the ladder.

That’s putting psychology in as well, as JR puts it: one legged men don’t win kicking contests, and they don’t climb ladders either. We get a Home Improvement reference to really date the show a bit. It’s rare to see two heavyweight guys in a match like this, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be bad. Here you have two guys where it’s more about the feud rather than the prop and the gimmick, which is more or less a guaranteed way to make the match better.

Oh yeah the ladder is big and yellow for no apparent reason. We get an extra ladder to make things a bit more interesting. Henry and Chyna get into it on the floor as HHH stops Rock from winning. Soon thereafter Rock is busted open but HHH can’t climb the ladder because of his knee. Rock makes the save as HHH has to climb like a turtle. See, that’s nice for a change.

Instead of having the guy climb all slow for no reason other than to fill time and give the other guy a chance to catch him, we have a real reason. See how much better and more intelligent that seems? HHH’s knee is hurt, so he can’t climb. Behold the wonders of psychology, even in gimmick matches. Rock is down, so HHH gets a chair and just wears him out with it.

Since it’s a gimmick match though, Rock is back up inside of 20 seconds and land a People’s Elbow on the ladder. They fight over the ladder but HHH gets up it a bit. However, he jumps off onto Rock and lands right in the Rock Bottom. HHH catches him though because the ladder is almost broken. He pulls him down with one hand since he’s the Game and lands the Pedigree as both guys are pretty much dead, with good reasoning.

They’ve beaten the living tar out of each other and it’s a tossup at this point. Ross is losing his mind at this point. With both guys down, Henry throws powder into his eyes and since the ref didn’t see it, it’s ok. It’s a ladder match. What could he do anyway? Even blinded, HHH climbs the ladder perfectly. Rock goes after him but Chyna low blows him. HHH gets up the rest of the ladder and grabs the belt to blow the roof off the place as DX runs out to celebrate.

Rating: A+. This right here is what WWE needs so desperately to do today: give two young guns nearly half an hour and let them go steal the show. This match worked for many reasons, but the biggest was it wasn’t about the ladder and big spots. It was about the two guys trying to get the win, with the spots being something that helped them accomplish that goal.

The knee injury was great as well, with HHH barely being able to walk for a large part of the match. The crowd was WAY into this as the pop for HHH winning the title and ending the feud was great. This is an absolute classic and to me could rival Shawn and Razor.

We go to “exclusive home video footage” of Rock heading to his locker room. Hearing the people say they need to get Taker ready isn’t something that should air. More or less, Rock says he’s still the people’s champ, no matter what.

This is the culmination of the entire summer, which was the theme being the ending of the road being here at Summerslam. That’s actually really smart. Apparently Taker says no Kane. Ross says this should be a classic. That’s just funny. No video package or recap or anything. That’s VERY rare.

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Steve Austin

I’m sure you know the story, but just in case: basically, Taker is accused of being the main guy in a giant conspiracy against Steve Austin, which Vince denies every time. All the signs are there though, so Austin believes that it’s Taker who is the mastermind. Now, this would result in one of my all time favorite angles, and the ONLY time when a Vince Russo angle got to where it was supposed to go and got him labeled a genius.

Eventually, Taker and Kane took the title from Austin in a “triple threat”, which was really a handicap. However, Taker started turning crazy as Rock won the title. Eventually, Taker formed the Ministry to fight Vince and struck out on his own to take over the company. Vince and Shane, who was new as a big time character, formed the Corporation to fight Taker, but Shane kicked Vince out.

This is where the angle got intense, as Taker started being very satanic in nature, burning crosses, sacrificing people, and more or less bringing in religion to the shows. This leads to the big one, which is Taker kidnapping Stephanie at the end of Backlash. In perhaps my all time favorite segment, he was attempting to marry Stephanie, but Austin comes out and single handedly takes out the Ministry.

A few weeks later, Taker has the belt and says that the Higher Power is coming soon. It turns out that the higher power is Vince. Vince destroyed his family, tortured his daughter, and nearly ended his whole company, all to get the WWF Title off of Steve Austin. Holy goodness was this cool at the time. It all culminated in Austin being named CEO, which after a few other things, led to Austin beating Taker for the title on Raw, which if my memory is right is still the highest rated single match in wrestling history.

WOW I went off on a tangent there. Sorry about that but I love this stuff. As Taker is coming out, you can hear someone that sounds like Lawler shout GET OUT EARL. You can see Earl slide out, just as pyro goes off in the ring. That was insanely close. They do the real glass for the shatter here which is always cool looking. Austin is rocking the Smoking Skull belt here.

There’s a moment in this match that changes the whole thing. It’s said that these two simply couldn’t have a good match together. I disagree. At In Your House 15, they had a very good one. However, like I said, there’s a moment in here where things change drastically, which I’ll mention when we get to it. This starts off very weird, with them battling over control of each other’s arm.

Austin even uses a drop toe hold into a fujiwara armbar. Now, a lot of you may be thinking, how is this different than Hogan and Sting sucking the life out of Starrcade 1997? Well, the answer is kind of unclear. I think the main thing is that they keep the pace going fast. While it’s mat based at first, they never stay in the same place twice. They keep the energy high, which is smart.

Not everything has to be punching and kicking to make it work, so they threw in something different. Now I’m not saying that it worked as the crowd is clearly a lot more silent now, but they’re far from dead. I think what they’re going for is a slow build to a big finish, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. What there is a thing wrong with is what happens next.

Taker whips him in and ducks. Austin, naturally, kicks him in the face. That’s a very standard move and it makes good sense. However, due to Taker’s height, his head slams into Austin’s chin, breaking his jaw. For the rest of the match, Austin is clearly off balance, and it makes them look bad. While Austin is clearly the bigger face, Taker isn’t really a full heel here, but he’s leaning more towards that way.

The announcers point out that Austin is hurt and just doesn’t look right. Dang something about Summerslam just doesn’t agree with him for some reason. We get some standard Taker beatdown stuff, but Old School is countered with an….no that had to be an error. I couldn’t have seen that. Austin couldn’t have used….an arm drag, could he? I…I think he might have. Ok this joke is stupid he used an arm drag.

As this happens, Kane comes out but Taker sends him back, which is odd indeed. Not sure if that was really needed actually. Austin works the knee, which makes a lot of sense. Psychology isn’t something you see that often from Austin, but he’s certainly an intelligent wrestler. He gets a bad reputation as nothing but a brawler, and that’s just not fair. They go to the crowd which is always fun.

The crowd is coming to life and dying again and again, but I think it’s more alive than dead. Austin goes for a stunner and the people go nuts, just for him grabbing at Taker’s head. That’s saying a lot. Austin is taking a freaking beating here. I’m not sure if I like this match or not. It’s certainly not terrible, but it’s nothing great. I think it’s another case of a match having insane hype and there’s just no way they can live up to that.

Taker keeps choking him to buy him more and more time to clear his head, so you at least have to give him points for that. Austin is on the Spanish announce table, as Taker goes up to the top. In a SICK looking spot, Taker hits Austin with a diving leg drop. Now for the problem: the table doesn’t give. The momentum just sends them sliding off of it, but the table is still standing.

That just can’t be a good idea and must hurt horribly. Think about that: Taker is billed at 325 so we’ll say 290, and that slams onto Austin who is on a table. DANG. He kicks out of this in the ring, which stuns JR. Ha, that wasn’t even meant to be a pun, but I laughed. Laugh people. We get the double clothesline, which even gets a pop. You have to love New York crowds. They’ll get excited about ANYTHING.

Alright, now we get to the end. We start (laugh again) with Austin’s comeback, which is standard stuff: punches and the double bird elbow. You can REALLY tell that Austin just isn’t all there. It’s showing really badly. Taker reverses to send Austin chest first into the corner, but he hits something that looks like a bad stunner. Even the announcers say that wasn’t a stunner.

Taker kicks out and hits a pretty bad chokeslam, then goes for the tombstone. Instead though, for some reason he can’t get Austin up so he crotches him on the top rope. They look like rookies out there. The rest of the match I thought was pretty good up until now. Lawler keeps trying to convince us that they went through the table, which is a lie. The ending is very weird and comes out of nowhere.

Taker is dominating, and goes for Old School again. He jumps, but Austin gets his arm up to low blow Taker. Kick, stunner, pinfall…really? Even the referee looks a bit confused for this one. Taker remains a semi-face by handing the belt to Austin after the match. Austin can barely get to the corner ropes right so he’s way out of it. Kane comes out to watch Austin right next to Taker. They leave together as Austin celebrates.

Rating: B-. This is a hard one to grade. Given the injuries to both, this was good. Factoring those out, this was bad. However, I’ll certainly make exceptions as both were hurt while trying to make something happen in the course of a match. It certainly wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t that far from it.

I see why people criticize it, but like I said earlier I think this suffers a lot from its hype. This match was built up as huge, and there was no way it could match that. Overall, I liked it though. Austin won clean, which needed to happen. It built him into an even bigger star, and Taker didn’t exactly lose everything because of it. I liked it, but I could see people hating it.

Overall Rating: B. I thought this was a very solid show, with the only bad match being the Oddities, but what do you expect from a comedy match with only a small bit of talent to go around? I still hate the Sable thing. It was just flat out overkill and wasn’t needed, since it only happened to build up her massive ego even more.

You have a flat out classic in the ladder match and what I thought was a good main event. It’s a solid show and definitely the biggest and best built Summerslam I’ve seen so far and maybe the best ever. This was a Wrestlemania like atmosphere and it definitely paid off. A very solid recommendation here, but not the highest.