Judgment Day 2000
Date: May 21, 2000
Location: Freedom Hall, Louisville, Kentucky
Attendance: 16,827
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We kick off the series with this, which for the life of me I didn’t go to for some reason. The main event and more or less the only reason this show means anything is Rock vs. HHH in an Iron Man match for the world title. Other than that there more or less is nothing as that match takes over an hour. The only other good match is Benoit vs. Jericho in a submission match. Let’s get to it.

The opening video lists off things that happen in an hour, including births, deaths and flights taking off. Think they’re playing up the Iron Man match as important here?

This is going to be a tricky show for me as a friend of mine that I was supposed to go to the show with is visible on camera for almost the entire show.

Vince is with his kids and DX along with Brisco, the current Hardcore Champion. Patterson isn’t here so Brisco is the errand boy. They’re all in action tonight for the most part. Vince makes Shane vs. Show hardcore for the most part. Rock is champion coming in mind you. Even the mention of HHH’s name gets mad heat.

Brisco is getting the coffee and the Headbangers jump him, carrying him off.

Shawn, the referee for the main event, is here in fall too small shorts.

Too Cool/Rikishi vs. Edge/Christian/Kurt Angle

Angle is fresh and as goofy as ever here and I love it. He’s “all that” according to various teenage girls. He gives a nursery rhyme about chastity and “not shacking up with a bunch of guys, but stay pure by following his three I’s”. I love Angle from this era. Edge and Christian are tag champions here and bring out some bags. The mispronounce the name of the town and have a new Five Second Pose. They bust out banjos for one called Jug Band The out of context visual here is great.

Crowd pops BIG for Too Cool. Or is that for Rikishi? Their music is catchy if nothing else. The heels jump the dancers and it’s on. That doesn’t last long as Rikishi and his lackies clear the ring. Too Cool beats down Edge for a bit. Apparently Stephanie was in Shawn’s locker room earlier in the day and left smiling. I’m not sure how Becca would feel about that.

Scotty vs. Christian now with Scotty in control. Too Cool does some double teaming and Edge tries to emulate it, resulting in him getting crotched on the top rope. Grandmaster starts dancing and his pants fall down. Oh dear. Off to Rikishi now as this is moving a bit too fast for my tastes. Rikishi tries to drop his fat on Kurt but missed, giving Team ECK (Edge, Christian, Kurt, which is their actual name and not something I made up) the advantage.

Angle beats him down in the corner and the champions add in a beating of their own. Rikishi remembers he’s an upper midcard guy and fights them off to bring in Scotty. Edge illegally comes in so of course the referee believes that he made the tag. Off to Kurt and Scotty actually beats him down a bit. Crowd is all over Kurt here. Christian beats on Scotty for a bit as they’re tagging in and out that fast.

Scotty sets for a powerbomb and drops Christian back into a hot shot to bring in Rikishi. Is Grandmaster crippled or something? Can he just not come in at all? All three heels get stacked up in the corner and are splashed at once. Stinkface to Angle makes Lawler scream. Angle and Christian tries a DDT on Rikishi for no adequately explored reason and the fat man hits Kurt again.

Edge spears Rikishi down, being the only one with some intelligence on his team. He gets bulldogged down and it’s the Worm. And so much for that as Christian pops Rikishi with the bell. Grandmaster FINALLY does something by dropping the leg off the top to break up the easy pin and putting Scotty on Edge for the pin.

Rating: C+. This isn’t anything too bad and was a decent enough opener. It’s a fairly fast paced six man with some fun comedy spots and popular guys in there. This sums up this generation pretty well: I’m currently redoing the Mania reviews and am doing #13 at the moment. This match was more exciting than all but one match on that show and arguably a second. Let that sink in for a bit.

Of course we get some post match dancing.

Shawn is with Cole and says he’s going to call this down the line. There are apparently internet rumors about Shawn being jealous of Rock and Shawn says if it’s on the internet it MUST be true. Nice little shot there.

We get a clip from earlier of Eddie and Chyna arriving. Dean gets in their face and Saturn gets in Dean’s face.

European Title: Eddie Guerrero vs. Perry Saturn vs. Dean Malenko

Dig that pop for Eddie. Dean is Light Heavyweight Champion here which he would be like forever. Dean and Saturn beat him down with relative ease, throwing in a modified Decapitator ala Demolition. I love hearing them drop F Bombs in the corner. Leg lariat by Malenko takes Saturn down as Eddie is down in the corner.

We get some nice three man spots including Eddie getting a mule kick as a low blow to both guys. Eddie fights both guys back and gets a nice rana on Saturn to take him down. Dean leans into a headscissors and gets a side slam for two. Tornado DDT by Eddie to take Saturn down for two as Malenko saves.

Butterfly suplex by Malenko is countered into a sunset flip by Eddie which is countered into a Texas Cloverleaf which is countered by Saturn. Saturn double crosses Malenko as they set for a Doomsday Device. He throws Eddie at the top rope to crotch Malenko. Eddie gets up but walks into the middle rope gutbuster from Eddie. Saturn busts out a Frog Splash on Eddie for two as Malenko saves.

Perry tries a Texas Cloverleaf on Dean which Eddie breaks up. Brainbuster to Saturn as this has gotten quite good. Saturn charges at Eddie who ducks and it’s down to Eddie and Dean for the moment. Dean gets a suplex and a top rope splash for two. It’s a triple/double/whatever else JR calls it suplex as Dean suplexes Eddie and Saturn suplexes Dean. Chyna drills Saturn with the flowers and trips Dean to send him head first into them. Eddie rolls up Dean for the pin to retain.

Rating: B. Another fast paced and fun match. This is what happens when you put guys out there that know each other and have no issues with letting the other guys look good. There were some very creative spots in there and all three guys worked very hard. Fun times indeed and the second good match in a row.

We get a clip from Smackdown where Crash was taking a nap and Brisco came in with a referee and got a quiet pinfall to win the Hardcore Title. That actually was kind of funny. Brisco is sneaking around in the bathroom so of course the announcers are whispering. Brisco tries to jump himself in the mirror as he’s all paranoid.

We recap Shane vs. Big Show which is fallout from Mania. Show has turned face and is having fun and being funny now, so Shane ripped him for it. Shane challenged him for no apparent reason so Show promptly destroyed him on Raw. McMahon made him run a gauntlet match and managed to chokeslam Show (with some help from T&A).

Shane McMahon vs. Big Show

This is in essence a hardcore match. Show has almost rap music here. I kind of dig it actually. Shane dives over the top and gets caught with ease. Let the massacring begin. All Show to start as he easily throws Shane into the ring from the floor. We’re just filling time until the Corporation comes in to clean house.

Show calls for the Chokeslam and here’s Boss Man for the save. He drills Show in the knee multiple times with the nightstick but here comes Show. Show gets a powerbomb on Boss Man which is a move he could use more often I think. T&A come out with chairs so Show drills them both in the chair to knock them into the faces. Trish tries a low blow which doesn’t work so Show throws her onto T&A on the floor.

Shane tries to run so Show follows him up the ramp. Show launches him into the set like a rag doll. He rips the thing apart but Shane jumps up and grabs the bottom of the Tron to kick Show in the face. T&A come back to beat Show down a bit so Shane can shove an anvil case into Show’s face for two. Test even tries a cinder block but can’t get a shot in with it. Shane climbs the set but Bull Buchanan pops up with the nightstick. They knock Show into the sound equipment which falls onto Show’s leg. A shot to the head with a cinder block gives Shane the pin.

Rating: C+. Match was short but fun. Show is great as the monster and having everyone come in there to beat the heck out of him is a nice touch. Not a bad match at all especially since Shane had no direction at all for the most part. I would have had Show fight off the odds but that’s Vince’s company for you at the end of the day. Fun though.

Brisco is still looking for a place to hide. He picks the referee’s locker room and nods off. Naturally the referees in there try to steal the title but he yells at them and leaves.

HHH is talking to Shawn about his shorts which are far too small and far too tight. Apparently it looks like he’s smuggling bananas in them.

We recap Benoit vs. Jericho who are in their annual CAN YOU TOP THIS contest. Benoit made the challenge this time and is champion coming in. Jericho has a counter to the Crossface apparently. Hardcore Holly attacked Benoit with a chair on Smackdown so Benoit’s knee may be messed up.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Jericho vs. Chris Benoit

Ross liked Benoit’s hold better because it can go on faster. That’s logical. Back and forth to start and Jericho goes for a Fujiwara Armbar out of nowhere. I would make fun of the lack of psychology, but here any submission works and Jericho is trying to get something quick so that’s ok. Tombstone attempt by Jericho is countered into a shoulderbreaker by Benoit.

Benoit gets a shoulder lock on and Jericho is in some trouble. Jericho reverses into a Walls attempt but Benoit blocks that as well. Springboard dropkick takes Benoit down to the floor. Crowd is WAY hot here. Val Venis is watching and gets a title shot tomorrow apparently. Jericho gets Benoit and the knee into the steps to further his dominance. Back into the ring and Jericho gets a Tiger Bomb into a backbreaker.

They chop it out and those things sound great. Off to Benoit now as the turnbuckle is exposed. Jericho’s shoulder is rammed into said buckle and then he does it again. Off to an armbar again which Jericho reverses and they slug it out one more time. Benoit may have a slightly broken nose from a few weeks ago. Cross armbreaker by Benoit and Jericho is in trouble. Sorry for the lack of jokes here but it’s hard to find stuff to make fun of in a good match.

Hardcore Holly is watching too, I guess because he’s a voyeur or something. Flapjack by Jericho has the crowd in a frenzy. Jericho goes after the knee and tries to get the brace off of it. There it goes so let’s whip Benoit with it! Lionsault goes onto the knee and Benoit tries to escape. Jericho locks on the Walls around the ropes in a very cool looking spot. I love it when you tweak a move like that to adapt to your surroundings.

Benoit kicks Jericho in the face to get out of it. Why mess with an idea that works I guess? Triple Germans by Benoit and he goes for the shoulder again. Jericho gets a shot to the knee and tries for the Walls. Benoit gets a shot with the knee brace and hooks on the Crossface! Jericho almost gets to the ropes so Benoit releases it and pulls him to the middle. Jericho gets out AGAIN but Benoit slips the arms beneath the chin and Jericho passes out to end it.

Rating: A-. Oh come on were you expecting anything other than a great match from these two? These are guys that I start on a higher level than I do most matches as I know it’s going to be good. The idea here was how good was it going to be and this was quite good indeed. Both guys had the psychology going of course and it worked quite well. Good stuff of course, but their ladder match the following January was even better.

We get a clip of Brisco getting jumped earlier. Cole talks to Brisco who says he can’t have any peace as everyone, including his kids and his neighbors are trying to take his title. Behind him some venders are talking to a referee. Apparently his StoogeSense kicks in and he pops them in the head.

Shawn is talking with Rock who says that this better be called down the line. This is one of the few dream matches that we never got.

X-Pac/Road Dogg vs. Dudley Boys

This is a double tag match, as in you have to put both guys through tables and I don’t think it’s elimination rules. Tori is freaking sexy. Tori put Bubba through a table and Bubba looked downright orgasmic from it. Road Dogg does his usual schtick that is on the verge of being done at this point. The Dudleyz charge and clear the ring including the Fink who was still doing their entrances.

There are a ton of tables around ringside. You have to tag in and out here for no apparent reason. The Dudleys are the faces here. Roadie and D-Von start us off but it’s off to Pac and Bubba rather quickly. Pac gets a spin kick to take him down and it’s to the floor. Never mind it’s back to the ring. Bubba gets a middle rope clothesline of all things to keep control.

What’s Up to X-Pac and you can see Tori cringe. She gets up on the apron so it’s What’s Up to Road Dogg too. DX retreats to the floor as the fans chant for tables. The boys in green try to run and the fight is on in the aisle. Back to the ring with D-Von and Road Dogg. I think we’re at the point now where the rules are thrown out the window. Bubba gives Tori the eye and Pac seems to be ok with it.

Back to the actual rules part now which is rather stupid. Bronco Buster to D-Von makes me very angry indeed. D-Von fights up and tags Bubba but the referee didn’t see it. Naturally he lets DX change when he didn’t see them do it. Spin kick takes down D-Von but a double clothesline gets him out of trouble. Here’s Bubba who cleans about half of a house. Eh make that the whole house I guess.

It’s table time and the fans are into this all of a sudden. We get two set up in opposite corners and another at ringside. Road Dogg reverses D-Von and the Dudley is sent through a table via a pumphandle slam to make it 1-0 DX. Pac, like an IDIOT, tries a rana in front of a table and goes through it. Next guy of Road Dogg or Bubba that goes through it ends this.

They slug it out in the middle of the ring and get annoyed at the referee. Yep the referee goes through a table. Brisco wanders out here as Road Dogg takes a 3D through a table but there’s no referee. Tori comes in like an idiot and D-Von sets up a table while Bubba grabs her. Brisco saves her from a middle rope powerbomb with a low blow to Bubba. X-Factor through the table ends Bubba and DX wins it.

Rating: C. I know people aren’t fans of me saying this but this was what it was. It’s a gimmick match with a lot of violence and people going through tables. Not bad but nothing great at all. It’s nothing more than a way to catch your breath before the main event and there’s not a thing wrong with that. Not bad but nothing we haven’t seen before.

Brisco comes in and throws out some crotch chops at the Dudleys and say it with me, gets a 3D for his troubles.

Another His Judgment Day is Coming video, which changes into His Judgment Day is Here. This is set to a song by Kid Rock and had been airing for a few weeks now. WHY DID I NOT GO TO THIS SHOW???

The graphic for the main event is shown and the fans pop big. We recap Rock vs. HHH which is a feud that has gone on for like ever. Rock FINALLY won the title back the previous month at Backlash after HHH escaped Mania with it. This is considered the third chapter in their feud even though it’s their second one on one match in this feud. Shawn is the guest referee due to his experience in Iron Man matches. There’s history here as the last time Shawn was seen he kicked Rock to cost him the title. Both guys have threatened Shawn if he screws them. This video goes on forever and basically is both guys saying ONE HOUR.

WWF World Title: The Rock vs. HHH

Iron Man match and if there’s a tie Rock keeps the title. HHH comes out with all three McMahons. He actually sends the McMahons to the back to fight on his own. Wow indeed. Rock gets a great reaction. Remember this is an hour long so expect a lot of writing for this one. Here we go. There’s a clock in the upper left hand corner of the screen so we have an idea of what’s coming here. And never mind as it’s gone.

Staredown and trash talking to start us off here. Huge pop for the lock up. No one can get an advantage but they have a ton of time in this. Rock is swearing a lot in this. We’re about two minutes in and there hasn’t been any real offense by either guy yet. Rock grabs a headlock to get a tiny advantage early on. Top wristlock battle goes to the Rock and it’s back to the headlock.

Rock gets a trio of twos on rollups so HHH hits the floor to clear his head. They talk about playing the clock which is very true indeed. The smart thing to do would be to bring handcuffs and chain a guy up outside and get like 100 ten counts. Back in and we hit the headlock again. Big punch sends HHH back to the floor again. Back in and back to the headlock, which makes sense here.

HHH tries a leap frog so Rock hits him in the face. He avoids the Rock Bottom and takes Rock down via a clothesline. HHH works on the arm as we haven’t had the clock since the very beginning so it’s kind of hard to say how much time last gone by. Rock starts fighting back but walks into a DDT on the arm to be put back in trouble. Ah there’s the clock and we have just over 50 minutes to go.

More right hands by Rock and HHH hits the ropes. ROCK BOTTOM OUT OF NOWHERE and Rock is up 1-0! Crowd pops huge for the first fall as that was incredibly sudden. HHH isn’t up yet and we have 49 minutes to go. Jerry points out that Rock is more or less up 2-0 as HHH has to beat him, not tie him.

We head to the floor and brawl up the aisle with HHH going into the railing. Rock suplexes HHH back in to get two. Shawn has been a nonfactor so far. Rock wraps HHH’s leg around the post and is dominating at the moment. A lot more knee work by the Rock and HHH is in big trouble. Rock goes back to the knee even more.

Here comes a Figure Four and HHH is screaming OW! We get into the always interesting debate over should HHH give up to break the hold or try to fight out of it. Rock gets three two counts here as HHH needs a break badly. There’s a reversal so he managed to get said break. His leg is almost destroyed though.

Out to the floor and HHH can barely walk. We fight into the crowd for a bit with Rock landing in some big shots. Back to ringside now with HHH in control. We’re past 20 minutes in now. Sorry for the lack of time details but they don’t put it up so I can’t keep up with it that well.

An elbow gets two for HHH. Actually he gets a bunch of twos here. HHH hammers in the corner but Rock gets some kicks to the knee as he’s using some psychology. He gets thrown to the floor for his efforts though and the count is on. HHH breaks up the count and gets thrown knees first into the steps to reinjure them.

Back in and Rock stays on the knee. HHH hammers away but Rock gets a knee crusher to break that up. Rock wants another Figure Four but HHH shoves him off and gets a Pedigree out of nowhere (that’s been happening a lot in this match) to tie it up with 34:30 to go. Instead of covering again he chokes Rock for no apparent reason. Rock is mostly dead on his feet so HHH ducks down into a small package to get his second pin in 67 seconds to take the lead! 33:23 left.

We hit the floor and Rock is sent into the barricade. Rock walks up the aisle as HHH follows him in an attempt to get some breath. HHH catches him but Rock whips him into the set. Rock tries a suplex but HHH counters into one of his own to take Rock down. Both guys are down in the aisle and we pass thirty minutes. This is the longest match either guy has ever had apparently.

Rock whips him into the apron and gets a backdrop to go after his back a bit. Shawn is yelling at the announcers, saying there won’t be any BS countouts. Rock sends him in but puts his head down, getting caught by a facebuster. A Piledriver of all things (Lawler loves it) gives HHH a 3-1 lead with 27:30 to go. Shawn screws up as HHH is still laying on Rock but Shawn doesn’t count.

Rock gets a huge clothesline out of nowhere but HHH takes his head off for two. The guys are starting to get tired but it’s nothing serious yet. HHH goes up but Rock slams/arm drags him off the top. Both guys down now with 25 minutes left. Rock is up first and he SMACKS HHH with some rights. The Rock: laying out justice with his fists.

La Magistrol (a Mexican cradle that Eddie often used) gets two for Rock. Rock might have a small cut on his forehead. There’s a sleeper by HHH which as JR and I agree on, is a smart move. Rock gets his arm up before the third drop so HHH channels his inner Flair and puts his feet on the ropes. Repeat the last sentence but this time Shawn catches HHH and breaks up the hold.

Rock fights up and gets some right hands. Another sleeper is blocked into a belly to belly but both guys are down. Rock tries the spinning DDT that he used as Rocky Maivia. That is botched to heck and back as instead of a DDT Rock loses his grip. He settles for a regular DDT instead and it’s 3-2 with HHH still in the lead at 19:20 to go. They’re mixing things up here as we’ve had five falls and two have been off finishers.

Out to the floor again and Rock drops him on the barrier. HHH grabs a chair but Shawn grabs it away from him. Rock sends him shoulder first into the steps. Back in the ring and HHH blasts Rock with the chair for the DQ to tie it up at just over 16 minutes left. Since Rock is out cold, HHH throws out a rollup to go up 4-3 at just under 16 minutes. That my friends, is psychology.

Rock is busted open now. 15 minutes left and Shawn looks at the cut which is nothing bad at all. HHH throws on a sleeper again which of course gets two arm drops. Rock fights back with punches but the sleeper goes on again and this time it actually gets a fall, giving HHH a 5-3 lead with about 12:30 to go. HHH won’t let go so Shawn makes him break the hold. Shawn gets in his face and HHH doesn’t like that in the slightest.

The argument lets Rock get to his feet and it’s time for more punching. HHH gets sent over the top rope, landing on a cameraman to give us the eternally funny view of the camera flying everywhere. Ten minutes to go and HHH goes up top. Being a heel he gets crotched and it’s a superplex by Rock to get the crowd right back into it. 8:45 to go.

Both guys are down and the count is on. Rock drapes an arm over but can only get a long two. 8 minutes left. HHH gets knocked to the floor and Rock lands a slingshot to put HHH into the post. The Great One gets sent into the steps and both guys are down with six minutes to go. And now, for the announce table.

Five minutes left and HHH wants the Rock Bottom on the table. Rock counters into a Pedigree and the table doesn’t break! FREAKING OW MAN! HHH is more or less dead so Rock slides in and it’s a countout for the Rock to make it 5-4 at 3:50 to go. HHH is bleeding now too. Here come the McMahons! Shawn starts the count again and HHH beats it by a second.

Rock is all fired up and they crank this up again. DDT gets two as Rock drills both McMahon men. Spinebuster sets up the People’s Elbow and we’re tied up with 2 minutes to go! DX is here too. Shane pulls Shawn to the floor so Shawn beats up both McMahon men as well. There’s a strange noise in the arena and DX is in the ring. Shawn gets knocked to the floor, and a video appears on the screen.

It’s the nursery rhyme video from earlier and Rock gets a Rock Bottom. DX and Shane beats the tar out of him and Shane gets a big chair shot. The funny thing about the video at this point is someone was covering up the letter I in “Is NOW” so I thought the video said Snow, making me wonder why Al Snow was here.

Anyway in case you’re a moron, it’s the Undertaker and the debut of the biker character. The song saying “He’s here!” just as we got the first shot of Taker on the motorcycle couldn’t have been more perfect. The crowd loses their minds as Taker annihilates DX and the McMahons, including the BIGGEST CHOKESLAM EVER to X-Pac. Serves you right you little pest. Everyone gets drilled including Vince.

Stephanie tries to be the hero but Taker grabs her by the throat too. HHH makes the save and gets a chokeslam for his troubles. Now this is where they screw it up. The clock shows about 5 seconds left as HHH is chokeslamed. Shawn sees this but Taker gets a Tombstone as well, clearly after the time (the clock disappeared with 3 seconds left) expired and the buzzer sounded late. Taker waited for the buzzer to go off to hit the Tombstone, but Shawn calls a DQ anyway and HHH wins the title. The chokeslam would have been enough for the DQ, but the way they ended it kind of screwed things up.

Rating: A. This was FUN. They realized they screwed up in 96 so this time they made it all about can you top this with the fast pace and most importantly, NO REST HOLDS! I have zero problem with guys being out there for 40 minutes and needing 60 seconds to catch their breath, but in 96 the match was probably 20 minutes resting.

This was a fast paced match between two stallions and the whole thing came out great. The ending was a bit botched but it was insane enough that the fans ate it up with a spoon. Another important thing was the lack of finishers. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be able to kick out of everything after such a war so they didn’t insult our intelligence by having them do it. Excellent match that flew by.

Overall Rating: A. GREAT show here with not a bad match to be found. 2000 might be the best year the company ever had and this is a great example of it. Everyone was working hard out there and the results are proof as to what hard work can do. There isn’t a bad match on the card with even the worst match being ok. The company was hot at this point and WCW was already decaying in their grave. Great show and definitely worth checking out.

 

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Monday Night Raw
Date: August 6, 2001
Location: Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, California
Attendance: 10,355
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

We’re continuing towards Summerslam and we’re continuing to watch the Invasion fall apart more and more every day. Rock is back and he’s on Team WWF, but after that the problem becomes “what happens now?” The problem has become that the Invasion has happened and now nothing else has come of it. ECWCW is here and they don’t really do anything other than have various matches which mean nothing. I’m sure that’ll get rectified in the next three months though right? Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Rock joining the WWF again. Also on Smackdown we got the setup of Booker vs. Rock for Summerslam. Also out of this we get Rock vs. Shane in a street fight for Raw tonight.

Theme song gets things going.

Hardcore Title: Kane vs. Rob Van Dam

Kane knocks Van Dam off the top during his pre match posing and we head to the outside. He sets to powerbomb RVD on the floor but Van Dam escapes. A big boot to the face sends RVD into the barricade but Van Dam comes back and slams Kane into the same barricade. Spin kick from the apron hits Kane in the back and gets two. Kane shrugs it off and throws Van Dam, a chair and the steps into the ring. A drop toehold puts Kane into the steps and Van Dam surfboards the chair to the masked face. Kane comes back again and hits the top rope clothesline for two. DDP comes in and kills Kane with the chair so the Five Star can finish.

Rating: D. This was whatever. It was another attempt to further Undertaker vs. DDP I guess or maybe to start Kane vs. DDP. Either way it’s nothing interesting because DDP isn’t going to get a legit chance to do anything around here, as he’s stuck in the same feud where he has no chance of ever winning anything.

We recap Debra and Austin and the cookies. Austin insulted them and then ignored Debra to talk about Angle, but Debra stole the mic and yelled at him. He ignored her again so she hit him with the cookie sheet and left. That messed Austin up so he freaked out.

They arrived earlier and nothing happened.

Booker is auditioning for a movie role. This isn’t going to end well at all. He has the belt and the sunglasses. There’s no name given for the movie or the part or anything, but the casting chick does a Rock imitation.

Here’s Stephanie, now with Drowning Pool’s Bodies as her theme song. That’s still the best live performance of a song I’ve ever heard. She talks about how at Summerslam, bodies are going to hit the floor and about how Rocky is afraid of the Alliance. Shane is going to beat him up in the street fight tonight because Rock hasn’t wrestled for four months. She talks about (notice me saying that a lot?) how Shane has had a bunch of great matches and says he’s a gladiator.

Finally Jericho comes out to interrupt her. Stephanie has some rather loose morals you see, and likes it in a lot of positions. She calls him catty and says he’s like a girl. Stephanie can’t talk at all. I mean she can’t. She points out that no matter how many times he runs his mouth, HHH winds up beating Jericho up. Therefore, Jericho calls her a bigger sl**. You know, there was a million dollar heel turn in making Jericho fall in love with Stephanie.

Jericho says that Stephanie has been with every human being, so it’s time to move onto a new planet: the Planet of the Apes. And yes, that means people in ape costumes come out to Kamala’s old song. Stephanie winds up taking a pie to the face. And that’s it. No match is made, no one is beaten down. The only thing that happened was a guy in an ape suit gave Jericho a pie and it wound up on Stephanie’s face.

Lita and Debra say nothing of note until Debra takes something the wrong way and she has to defend Austin.

Regal and Tajiri are having a chat when X-Pac comes in and complains about not being on Raw or Smackdown since he won the Cruiserweight Title. I’ll ignore the fact that he won the title LAST WEEK ON RAW and get to the fact that it’s Tajiri vs. Pac for the title tonight.

Jacqueline vs. Torrie Wilson/Stacy Keibler

This can’t go on long. The universe can’t withstand it. The two jump the one quickly but she fights back while shouting. I’m shocked at the range of her character development in this. Stacy is sent to the floor so Ivory returns, DDT Jackie to turn Alliance and Torrie gets the pin. If Ivory had actually been around for the last four months…..yeah I still wouldn’t care. Too short to rate, thank goodness.

DDP has a shrine to Sara in the back. AND NO ONE NOTICED HIM SETTING THIS UP TODAY???

Terri is at WWF New York. Heyman isn’t surprised she got dumped for a mop so she starts crying.

Debra tells Austin about the Lita thing. Apparently she had a lot of subtext going on because Lita apparently said Austin getting hit in the head was funny and that the marriage makes no sense and that Austin is trailer trash and that Matt can beat Austin. The final part makes Austin snap and he storms off.

Booker talks to the director. He has no acting experience but Rock didn’t either. This is about a British aristocrat so Booker throws together a British voice.

Stephanie and the Dudleys come to see Regal. Bubba wants to know what follows the apes: lions, tigers, and bears? Jericho can pick his partner tonight against the Dudleys. This show is needing to actually DO SOMETHING and fast.

Light Heavyweight Title: X-Pac vs. Tajiri

First of all, Pac has both titles but this is just for one because having one less title means the end of the world as we know it I guess. Second, this is for a WWF Title between two WWF guys, so there’s an Alliance referee. The fans all think X-Pac sucks. They trade kicks and Tajiri takes over with his signature stuff. Pac sends him to the floor and mostly misses his dive. We can hear a voice which I think is the director. Back in, Pac tries something off the top but jumps into Mist and a Buzzsaw Kick to give Tajiri his first title. Too short to rate but Paul says that’s his first major title in the WWF. What’s a minor title then?

Austin goes to yell at Matt and Lita. Matt and Lita deny it which Austin says sounds like calling Debra a liar. Austin vs. Matt later.

Booker reads lines and stage directions. The co-star comes in and he calls her a sucka. She recognizes him and asks if he’s related to Mr. T.

Dudley Boys vs. Chris Jericho/Kurt Angle

Brawl to start until it’s D-Von vs. Kurt. A quick ankle lock is broken up and the Dudleys hit the reverse 3D. Ray pounds on Kurt for a bit until Kurt hits a HUGE German to take him down and set up the hot tag on both sides. Springboard dropkick puts Bubba down and the Lionsault gets two on D-Von. Rhyno runs in to Gore Jericho but it only gets two. D-Von misses a headbutt and there’s the tag to Angle. Angle suplexes every Dudley in sight but the moonsault hits knees. Angle bouncing off the knees was a great visual. Jericho breaks up What’s Up and Angle hooks the ankle for the tap from Bubba.

Rating: C. So why was Rhyno in there again? Either way this was a fun match and a nice fast paced one as opposed to what we’ve sat through so far tonight. Angle and Jericho always had good chemistry together and it gives Angle another win so you can’t complain much. Not a great match or anything but it was fine, especially given how fst they had to go.

Austin intimidates Lita.

Intercontinental Title: Christian vs. Lance Storm

Big pop for Christian’s music. Christian denounces offbeat shenanigans to start and asks Storm to join him in a special Five Second Pose. Edge runs in and pantses Storm, revealing what appear to be Power Ranger underwear. Christian takes over on an annoyed champion to start but Storm comes back with a dropkick that clearly misses by a good foot. Either way it gets two. Storm goes to a choke/chinlock and yells a lot. Small package gets two for Christian. Christian comes back but Storm gets a rollup and grabs the rope for the pin.

Rating: C+. This is something I’d love to see more of. This was a very basic match with a basic story (Storm is mad and is the villain who yells about not being serious then cheats himself) and ends with the heel cheating to win. Nothing wrong with that and the match was fine (other than the surprising obvious miss from Storm on the dropkick), which is something that seeing more of would be nice.

Taker and Sara get here and Kane is waiting on them. He tells them about the shrine and wants to go break it and Page. Taker asks Kane to take Sara to the APA and then they’ll go take care of business.

Angle comes up to Rock and acknowledges that they dislike each other. Rock wants to know why Angle doesn’t like him. Angle: “You’re mean to me!” Rock offers a clean slate and Angle is all cool with that. He’s here to offer Rock some advice for Rock in his match with Shane tonight. And it’s milk. Rock takes it, shines it up a little bit, turns it sideways, and drinks it down. Rock: “THAT’S DELICIOUS!” Next time though, bring him some pie. Angle: “I know this place that has the best apple you’ll ever taste.” I don’t know if it’s that I’m tired but this was HILARIOUS.

Austin tells Debra what Lita “said” about her.

Taker busts up the shrine (somehow not starting a fire by knocking over the candles) and Page pops up. He and Kanyon beat him down. See, this is where the angle fell apart. Well not really because it had fallen apart months before but you get the idea. The problem was that while Page was evil for so long and did all that stuff to Taker and Sara, he never got anywhere because of it. He was still beaten down by Taker and Kane every time and looked like a loser. Again, no new stars are made here and the story is worthless as a result.

Matt Hardy vs. Steve Austin

Matt is European Champion, even though he hasn’t defended it in weeks, at least not on Raw. Austin can’t get in the ring to start but once he does, Austin hammers Matt down. He even busts out a fireman’s carry takeover. This quickly turns into a really boring match because it’s 2001 and it’s Steve Austin vs. Matt Hardy. The girls get in the ring and Lita takes a Stunner. A second one beats Matt.

Rating: D-. What in the world was the point of this? Matt got in nothing and it makes the European Title look even more worthless than it already is, somehow. It was a squash between guys that we knew would wind up as a squash. Matt didn’t do anything with Austin or any other main event guy after this, so what was the point? I’d like an explanation here people.

More Booker comedy minus the funny part. He finally beats up the director.

The Rock vs. Shane McMahon

Street fight. Shane and Rock cut quick promos to start which don’t say anything of note. To the shock of no one, Rock destroys him to start and they head into the crowd. We’re about three minutes in and Shane hasn’t gotten in a single punch yet. Back to ringside now and Shane gets in some elbows. A clothesline off the apron puts Rock down.

He pulls out a trashcan and hits Rock up the ramp. Shane charges at him with the can but Rock pulls himself up by the set and kicks the can into Shane’s face. Now the Rock puts the can on Shane’s head and grabs a chair. Shane is knocked back to the ring and he eventually gets some stick shots in. Rock makes his comeback and takes out an interfering Booker. Rock Bottom ends this.

Rating: D. Gee, the Rock beat Shane McMahon in a one on one match. I wonder how many people bet the other way. What idiots they must feel like now. I mean, betting on a wrestling match? The match was your usual stuff as the weapon shots were nothing special, but really…….WHY WAS THIS EVEN COMPETITIVE???

Shane grabs Rock’s boot and Booker kicks his head off. Booker lays Rock out with a belt shot and Shane hits the flying elbow through the announce table to end this.

Overall Rating: D+. This really didn’t work for me at all. Again the problem is that everything in the Invasion means nothing for the most part. It’s the same thing that happened to the NWO: these wins and losses don’t mean anything because there’s no end goal to any of this. The Alliance and WWF can trade wins until the Panda Revolution but it doesn’t mean anything because there’s nothing at stake. They never fixed that problem, at all.

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Invasion
Date: July 22, 2001
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 17,964
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jim Ross

So this is easily the most requested show since I’ve stated doing the reviews so I might as well get it out of the way. This is the infamous INVASION of the WCW/ECW Alliance. Since I’ve already explained my thoughts on the Invasion as a whole in the Survivor Series 2001 review the talking about it here is going to be somewhat limited but I’m sure I’ll have something to go on and on about in here somewhere.

The main event is the Inaugural Brawl, which is just a big ten man tag. Other than that the card is relatively boring other than Hardy vs. Van Dam for the Hardcore Title. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Roosevelt and the Nazis and Japanese Army. ARE YOU SERIOUS? Ok, I know Vince likes things big, but this is ridiculous. The logo for the show is this weird hybrid of Shane and Vince’s faces. It’s kind of cool but more creepy.

Mike Awesome/Lance Storm vs. Edge and Christian

Hmm I wonder who is winning here. Edge and Christian’s music cuts Storm off. That’s rather amusing. I’ve always liked Storm so that has something to do with it. Edge is the reigning KOTR at the moment if that means anything to anyone. Christian and Awesome start us off. Storm vs. either of the faces could be most interesting. Edge gets down and Christian goes for a dive over the ropes. He slips though and nearly has a very bad fall.

Odd hearing WWF fans say YOU F’D UP. Awesome sans mullet is odd looking to put it mildly. Christian is getting beaten down for the most part here as you would expect. Why you would expect that I’m not sure but it sounded right in my head. Cole is really new at this whole commentary thing at this point and it shows badly. Edge gets the tag and takes out various heels. Edge rams Storm into Christian which would mean something in a few weeks/months.

The rollup only gets two though and we slow down for a bit. The crowd is hot here as they tend to be in Cleveland. Pretty decent tag match here. Awesome sets Edge for a powerbomb but Christian spears Awesome so that Edge falls on top for the pin. Nice ending.

Rating: B. Very good choice for an opener here as both teams were trying out there and it showed very well. Edge was getting hot around this time and it would have been a world title reign had a few things gone right. This was fun though and a great opener.

Vince is happy. Regal, in a collared WWF shirt and tights, says Austin is here. He gets Raven later. Well that’s an odd combination if there has ever been one.

We recap the feud between the referees. Yeah it was bad. It results in this.

Earl Hebner vs. Nick Patrick

Of all people, Mick Foley is the referee here. Yeah I don’t get it either but whatever. He’s wearing a Marvel t-shirt so I can’t complain at all. Nick comes out with an army of referees which is just funny looking. Earl does the same. It looks like the world’s weakest gang. Oh and they’re in refereeing gear.

Take a wild guess as to the quality of the work here. Do I need to offer commentary on this one? It’s a glorified lumberjack match. Foley throws out the WCW referees. Earl hits something resembling a spear for the win. Patrick gets in Foley’s face and guess what happens. I think you know the drill.

Rating: N/A. I’m not grading two non-wrestlers like I would grade regular wrestlers.

We recap Debra getting abducted on Smackdown. Debra complains about it. She makes Stephanie look like a great actress. Taker’s wife Sara isn’t much better. She’s attractive though.

We recap the APA vs. Palumbo and O’Haire. It’s tag champions vs. tag champions. Basically the APA called for the WWF locker room to join forces to fight in the war. The WCW Champions jumped them at WWF New York.

APA vs. Sean O’Haire/Chuck Palumbo

No titles on the line here, despite them both being champions of some sort. Dang O’Haire had the look down to a science. So did Palumbo. We get a mention of Kevin Nash. He and DDP were the guys O’Haire and Palumbo beat. Teddy Long informs them they have seven minutes. Oddly enough Farrooq was managed by Long back in the day.

Oddly enough this is a pretty back and forth match. Bradshaw busts out a DDT of all things. Never seen him use that I don’t think. Farrooq gets a standing switch. This is FREAKY. Oddly enough this is pretty back and forth with no one really dominating at all. The Clothesline From JBL ends it. This never got off the ground at all.

Rating: D. Just boring here. You could clearly see there was very little thought put into the matches here. These two teams just were kind of there. It’s not bad I guess, but this could have been on Superstars or something like that. Pretty weak.

Vince is with Jericho in the back and says Vince is the difference between ECW/WCW and WWF. He’s exactly right actually. Oh and Heyman sucks.

Stephanie hates Jericho. WOW her acting reaches new levels of suck. Heyman is sitting in the back and then goes off on Billy Kidman, saying he has to win this next match.

X-Pac vs. Billy Kidman

It’s champion vs. champion again. This is in the X-Factor era. Yeah no one cares AT ALL. Kidman’s music was rather groovy. Pac is total heel here but he’s the face because of the company he’s in. Waltman should be good here though as he’s always good against smaller guys. Scratch that about Waltman being the face. They still hate him. I’ve always liked Cleveland.

Apparently you don’t want to be the first to lose. Dang I thought you always wanted to lose. What was I thinking? They got close to the WCW/NWO issue with the announcers being completely idiotic looking by saying one group was the crowd favorite when they were being booed out of the building. They pick it up a bit with some nice high impact stuff. Pac catches a diving Kidman coming off the top in an X-Factor.

That looked pretty stupid, but I’d think that’s because it’s the stupid X Factor. Bronco Buster is blocked with a boot to the balls. I love alliteration. That sets up the Shooting Star Press for the pin. According to Ross, the Bronco Buster is a high risk move.

Rating: C+. Not bad but not great at all. The most interesting thing here was the crowd. The match itself is ok but not bad. Pac was always at his best against small guys and he was far less annoying here. Nothing great but the SSP is always sweet.

DDP babbles about nothing.

Torrie and Stacy try to sound sexy and just fail. They like the Hardys apparently.

William Regal vs. Raven

We get a brief history of Raven’s career, minus Johnny Polo that is which might be his best gimmick. It’s a slugfest to start which Regal is good at. He was very physical around this time and it always came off rather well. His feud with Jericho was a highlight of his career to me. All Regal so far. That forearm to the face that he uses for a cover is great. We get a slingshot as I wonder what the point of this was.

The fans think this is boring and I can’t really say that I disagree. It’s not bad, but this is as basic as you could imagine. They look like they’re both rookies who know very few moves at this point. It’s more or less all punches and clotheslines. They’re crisp and such, but this just isn’t that interesting. You know what it reminds me of? An old SNES wrestling game where you have like 5 moves and everyone has the same set no matter what their size is.

The boring chant is really loud now. You can tell there is no story here at all. Raven gets thrown to the floor and for zero explained reason, Taz runs out and hits a suplex on Regal to allow Raven to hit the DDT for the pin.

Rating: D-. Just like I said before, this was just boring. I have no idea what the point was here but this didn’t come off well. It was just a wrestling match, but with this being a PPV, this wasn’t acceptable for me.

Taker and Kane get a pep talk from Vince. Taker doesn’t like Vince talking about his wife.

Billy Gunn/Albert/Big Show vs. Kanyou/Hugh Morrus/Shawn Stasiak

Again, what in the freaking world is the thought process on this show? It makes no sense at all. This was made on Heat. Oh and Albert is IC Champion here. He’s still in X-Factor and the song is still awesome. Stasiak is using Mr. Perfect’s gimmick, down to the music. It was idiotic. In a cool spot we get a triple press slam from the WWF guys. Gunn and Kanyon start us off. This was Billy Gunn push #2837G.

Kanyon does an odd combination from a Russian legsweep into a Stroke. Nicely done. We get the traditional melee and Albert hits a bicycle (Pump kick that Sheamus uses) kick to Shawn and by hits I mean misses Shawn completely but has it sold anyway. This is pretty much all Albert.

Fameasser hits on Morrus. For you newer fans, Morrus is more commonly known as Bill Demott. Stasiak hits a reverse DDT so Morrus can get the pin. This was a MESS. Show hits chokeslams all around post match. Show debuts the Alley-Oop which he should do more often as it looked pretty cool.

Rating: F+. Just horrid here and I have even less clue what the booking here was supposed to be. This was a weird choice to say the least and I guess it was to showcase the WWF guys but it came off like a bunch of jobbers beat them. Made no sense.

Shane talks to Booker and says the Alliance (not named that yet but close enough) is up 4-3 because of Chavo beating Scotty on Heat. That answered a LOT of questions actually as no one got how later in the Alliance said they had an extra win. I was at a friend’s house watching this and we spent 40 minutes after the show trying to figure it out. We had lists of matches and charts etc going and NO ONE got it. Yeah I’m just killing time now.

Regal fires Tajiri up.

Taz vs. Tajiri

This was the ECW Title match at I think Heat Wave 99 and it was a glorified squash. Apparently Tajiri is popular for staying in the WWF. Ok then. Hey they actually mentioned the Heat Wave match! Sweet I’m not insane. Taz hooks a bunch of suplexes and submissions, which makes me think instantly that Tajiri will win. In at least the last two matches and maybe more, the guy or guys that dominate early loses in the end.

Handspring elbow gets a BIG pop. Didn’t see that one coming. We hit the floor for all of 5 seconds and I’m bored out of my mind. The Tarantula helps that a bit. Tajiri kicks the heck out of Taz for a LONG two. Those kicks are LOUD too. Just as it’s getting good, the mist hits as does a kick for the pin.

Rating: D+. This got really good for like 30 seconds. Other than that though it just wasn’t interesting at all. Again, I don’t get the point in these 5-6 minute matches with zero point to them at all. Could have been a lot worse though.

Jeff and Matt talk about Jeff’s match with Van Dam. Van Dam pops up and cracks the HECK out of Matt with a chair. That sounded great.

Hardcore Holly is at WWF New York and gets on a plant for wearing a WCW shirt.

Hardcore Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy

Why all the TNA on TNA violence? RVD’s outfit is tiger print of all things tonight. He looks like Tony the Tiger in spandex. This should be fun. Hardy isn’t a huge deal yet but he’s in the midcard. Van Dam is WAY over. Crowd is red hot for this as it was more or less the second featured match on the card. Hardy goes for his run the rail spot and Van Dam makes the stop by jumping up on it to stop him. Nice.

Into the crowd now. This is totally sloppy and totally a mess but since it’s a hardcore match, it’s working rather well actually. The crowd is helping it a lot also. Van Dam takes a bow which is a very nice touch. With Van Dam on the apron, Hardy slingshots over the ropes into a powerbomb to the floor. Sweet looking spot and it’s ladder time. This had to happen. In another sick spot, Hardy is on the top of the ladder, and I mean the big one, and is pushed off and crashes to the floor.

This was what gave us the “How do you learn to fall off a 20ft ladder” soundbyte. In another, say it with me, sick spot, Van Dam is crouched but jumps into the air for a Van Daminator that looked GREAT. It knocked Hardy through the hole into the stage to the floor. We’ve reached the part where it’s just them beating the living crap out of each other and the fan are flat out eating it up.

The belt is in the ring as Hardy gets a nice German Suplex. Jeff is bleeding a bit. Swanton misses. With Jeff down, Van Dam puts the belt on Hardy’s chest and hits the 5 Star for the pin. Fun match.

Rating: B+. This is a great example of a match where you have to consider what was going on out there. This wasn’t meant to be a mat clinic or anything. This was about high impact, high intensity over the top spots and that’s what the fans got. This was fun and the crowd loved it. Great match.

Angle is annoyed for some reason. He says he’ll take care of business tonight.

We actually have a video package about the bra and panties tag match. Seriously? Short version: Trish and Lita hate each other because of them trying to steal the Hardys from each other. Torrie and Stacy do the same thing. Yeah let’s just get to it. See, the thing they never could get around was that Torrie and Stacy had no talent other than looking good. Trish and Lita at least could fight.

Torrie Wilson/Stacy Keibler vs. Lita/Trish Stratus

Mick Foley appoints himself guest referee here again. This was smart if nothing else as it gave a person people actually care about to the match. Torrie and Stacy have weird entrance music. Lita was a legit big deal at the time and was the biggest women’s star more or less since Sable and Sunny. Seriously do you want commentary here? Trish was getting better every day at this point but still wasn’t that good yet.

Stacy gets her top ripped off. Lita has the same done. Trish vs. Torrie now and Trish loses her shirt somewhere. There goes all of Torrie’s clothes. Stacy gets her pants ripped off to end it. Mick picks up the clothes after the match which is funny.

Rating: N/A. Not a wrestling match, so there you go.

Stephanie gives the pep talk. That’s amusing. Heyman takes over which is a major upgrade.

Austin is acting like himself.

We recap this, which started with Shane buying WCW. They finally switched the roles as a face had WCW and a heel had WWF. Then one night Vince said he was tired of this so he said let’s have a match. The five guys he picked were ECW guys, you get the rest. Dreamer and Van Dam debuted that night. Austin had been an idiot since he turned heel so he started being the old Austin again.

More or less he kept saying he wouldn’t be his old self until he said he’d do it. No big moment of clarity or anything. He just changed his mind. Yeah there wasn’t much of a story other than they don’t like each other, but did there need to be? Oh and DDP stalked Taker’s wife. Stephanie being revealed as the ECW owner is one of my favorite moments ever. Oh and Freddie freaking Blassie showed up for a pep talk.

Inaugural Brawl: Team WWF vs. Team WCW/ECW

WWF – Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Kane, Undertaker
WCW/ECW – Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno, Dudley Boys

All three Alliance bosses get entrances. Now Vince gets an entrance. It’s been over 12 minutes since the last match ended and we’re not even to the wrestlers’ entrances yet. So yeah for you trivia buffs, this is the other non-ECW PPV that the Dudley Boys main evented. Kane and Taker were still kind of tag partners at this point but not really. So apparently Taker and Kane are balanced out by the Dudley Boyz? Ok then.

Oh and this is just a ten man tag. No special rules or anything like that. And pay no attention to the fact that both Taker and Kane (albeit as a jobber) used to work for WCW. Rhyno makes it the third ECW guy in a row. Talk about a push that died after this. Next is Jericho, who is about as opposite of Rhyno after this show as you could ask of anyone. Stephanie and Jericho was one of the funniest feuds I can ever remember.

Booker is US and World Champion at this time but he would hand the US Title to Kanyon soon after this. This just feels entirely thrown together. Sting is mentioned on a WWF PPV for likely the only time ever. Stephanie dancing to Booker’s music is just hilarious. Angle gets a HUGE pop despite going the wrong way down the ramp.

The level he reached about two months from now was insane. DDP is apparently the biggest deal in the Alliance. Dang did they ever jump the gun here. The 9 mentioned start fighting in the aisle and we have Austin. Notice a certain one sidedness here?

Austin and Rhyno start us off. Austin hits a superplex off the top. Sweet goodness. Jericho gets a NICE pop for the tag. Booker, the only one of the WCW/ECW guys to get a legit push in WWF comes in. Angle gets another great pop. This was after the peak the company had a few months earlier, but it was still a huge deal. This evolves into your standard big time tag match with various people beating on each other with no one really controlling for a ton of time.

DDP hits a Stunner on the top rope on Taker to finally get something resembling control. Austin works on a wristlock on Booker. There’s something you don’t see everyday. We’ve been at this for about ten minutes now and there hasn’t been any long term control. There isn’t much to say here either though as it’s exactly what you would expect it to be. Heyman is awesome at being completely evil when he has to be.

Angle is in some trouble here and the Spinarooni hits. Page hits a spinning powerbomb on Angle which is one of my favorite moves. So after nearly 20 minutes we get to the traditional face in peril sequence of the match. We go old school with Austin getting the tag but the referee didn’t see it. I love things like that. Diamond Cutter on Angle and it gets NO reaction. Cole of course calls it a neck breaker while Ross, 10 seconds after it, says the name right.

And here is the brawl that you knew was coming. Rhyno hits the Gore on Booker and Taker finally gets his hands on DDP again. Chokeslam to Page. Booker and Austin fight on the floor while the WCW referee gets a Last Ride. Taker and DDP go into the crowd while Austin’s knee is messed up after going into the steps. Kane is fighting both Dudleys.

That’s how you can tell Taker is a bigger deal than Kane: when Taker did that, they got their own match. It’s table time. Kane hits a chokeslam through the announce table on D-Von. He got him UP there too. Rhyno and Bubba put Kane through the Spanish Announce Table. Good to see a tradition still alive. Jericho puts Rhyno through the table the Dudleyz set up. Booker and Angle are the only guys still conscious. Oh and Bubba also.

The referee is still looking at Austin’s knee. Yes I’m listing a lot of play by play but you have to here so you know what’s going on. Angle fights off Booker and Bubba with an ankle lock and the Angle Slam, back when it was a good finisher, respectively. And there goes the referee. Cue the finish. Vince grabs the WWF Title and throws it to Angle. Shane gets it though and down goes Vince.

It’s Booker vs. Angle now. Angle hits his pair of finishers on him, Austin throws the referee in, kicks Angle in the head, Stunner, pin, WCW/ECW wins. Austin turned heel again, shocking JR despite him having done the same thing TWO AND A HALF MONTHS EARLIER. Austin and the three Alliance leaders have beers to end the show.

Rating: B. This did something I didn’t think it did: it made the far weaker WCW/ECW team look legit. This was all about making WWF look like they were in danger and it did that. WWF never had the advantage in the whole match until the very end. WCW/ECW controlled this as they should have.

Austin turning heel had to be done given the totally rushed nature of this angle but that’s neither here nor there. The match wasn’t terrible either, so I’d say this was a success. Not a classic or anything, but a success.

Overall Rating: B-. Now think about this for a minute. Yes, most of the matches completely sucked. Actually all but like 3 did. However, this was based around the main event. I don’t recall any other matches other than the hardcore title one being advertised. Oh and Bra/Panties. Other than that, this show wasn’t up to a high quality in the ring because it didn’t need to be.

This was about two things: the main event, and making WCW/ECW look like a threat. Once the PPV ended, no one cared who won the matches or who was even in them. All that mattered was the Alliance won the night and the main event in particular. This definitely isn’t a show you would want to watch for the show itself, but the main thing here is that the huge angle got rolling.

Now to be fair, the angle bombed about as ten times as much as anyone on the planet could have asked it to, but no one knew that at the time. This should have been an angle that went on for at least a year or two, not five months. Anyway, if this was any other show, it would be a C- at best. However, this was a historical show, and as a stand alone show I thought it was successful. On a long term basis though, bad. Like, really bad. Other than for historical issues though, I wouldn’t sit through it.

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So lately I’ve been reviewing a lot of Invasion era stuff and some people have wanted to know how I would have booked it. I’ve got a little free time now so I figured I’d throw out my thoughts on it. I’m horrible at/don’t like fantasy booking but I’ll give it a shot here. First of all a few precursors.

1. I’m no professional. I’m a fan of over 20 years and I’ve watched a lot, but it’s like watching football and thinking you could coach the Rams: it sounds good on paper but by no means does it make it successful in real life.
2. I’m not going to go week by week and PPV by PPV. This is going to be more of a general overview and I’ll hit the high spots.
3. I’m going off the roster that was available based on the times they debuted. I’m going to assume that since they debuted, WWF could afford them. There’s no point in going into an “if you had anyone available” scenario because that wasn’t possible and such things get on my nerves.
4. I’m probably going to do this in one sitting and it’s almost 3am so if it’s a bit out there, let it go.
5. I probably won’t redo this unless I like it.
6. This is mostly going to be about WWF vs. WCW, because outside of RVD and maybe Rhyno, who in ECW was going to be a real threat to the WWF?
7. Let’s get to it.

Let’s begin with what was bad about the Invasion. In the order they come to me.

1. It Was Too Short.

This is a big one. We’re talking about the WWF vs. WCW. This is the debate that went on amongst almost all wrestling fans in the 80s and 90s. Which company is better? Which belt means more? Who would win in a fight between this guy and this guy? This is an argument that went on for almost twenty years….and the feud runs 5 months. In the words of a cartoon or movie that I can’t remember: Are you high or just really stupid? Think about this for a minute.

You’re the WWF and you have officially beaten your competition. As far as wrestling goes, you are the world. Nothing is going to touch you for a long time (11 years running) and you own all of the names, trademarks, footage and all that of your greatest competition. You have a fantasy booker’s dream at your fingertips, and you give it five months. This is a story that could have gone on for YEARS, but the WWF decided that it needed to end after less than a football season.

2. The Alliance Roster Was Treated Like Idiots.

I’ve been watching the Raws from this era and one thing becomes clear very fast: other than Booker T, no one on the WCW roster got an ounce of respect. I totally get the idea that the WWF should look dominant. It’s their company, they won the Monday Night Wars, they’re the ones that WCW is coming to. I get all that. What I DON’T get is why these guys were treated like clowns. Let’s flash back for a bit.

(Dang it I’m going to do this full on aren’t I?)

When the Invasion started, it was Lance Storm that was the first guy to run in. The second was I believe Hugh Morrus. Now I love Lance Storm, but he was in WCW for like 9 months. He came in June of 2000 so the company was dead by then. Morrus is famous for losing to Goldberg and being named Hugh G. Rection. These are the guys that start the Invasion? I know Booker came in at King of the Ring, but by that point things had already started slow.

On the other end of the time frame, let’s look at the end of the Invasion: Survivor Series 2001. For Team Alliance, we have Shane McMahon (heir to the WWF throne at the time), Kurt Angle (never set foot in WCW or wrestled in ECW), Steve Austin (the biggest star WWF ever produced (Hulkamania was made in Rocky III and the AWA)), Booker T (I know he was a career WCW guy and was their top star at the end, but in reality he was just the top guy because everyone else left) and Rob Van Dam (great choice, but the guy never even won their world title. That’s fine inside ECW, but to other fans who weren’t familiar, he’d sound like a midcarder).

So in other words, we have three WWF guys, a guy that got titles because he was all that was left, and a legit big time ECW star (although Taz would have been better). Why in the world would I think this was about WWF vs. WCW/ECW? It sounds like a regular heel faction. Ok so any team with that talent isn’t regular but you get the idea. It doesn’t sound like a merger of those two at all. Austin got fired by WCW for crying out loud. Do you think he’d just go back to them and everything would be cool?

3. The People They Could Have Had

This ties into it was too short. Let’s take a look at who came in after the Invasion. Keep in mind that for the sake of this, I’m assuming these people debuted at the earliest possible date to avoid contract/major money issues, meaning they couldn’t have arrived any earlier. We have:

Ric Flair: comes in THE NIGHT AFTER THE INVASION ENDS. Do I have to draw you people a picture? Who embodies WCW and their history more than Ric Flair? The answer doesn’t exist because no one does. Flair WAS WCW, and he comes in afterwards and has zero connection to them at all? If nothing else, have him be a representative and bring in friends to fight with him. They ran the exact same story they should have run with Flair owning Raw. But hey, it got Shane on TV all the time right?

The NWO: they arrived in February, about three months after the Invasion ended. These three were the original invaders and could have been great as a third party or part of the WCW team. Hogan could have been the ultimate free agent as he had great success in both companies. As an aside, why did Hogan vs. Austin never happen? If it’s money, you pay them whatever they want as you’ll make more than enough back in PPV buys and ad money for it. Anyway, these three could have been great, just as figureheads.

Eric Bischoff: HELLO! Do I even need to explain this one? The real boss of WCW comes in July of 2002 and is put in charge of one of the shows for over three years. Think he might have made a good WCW boss? I don’t think this one needs an explanation.

Scott Steiner: Now to be fair, he was injured for a long time which is why his debut was delayed. As another aside, who thought making Big Poppa Pump into a face was a good idea? The guy is as natural of a heel as there has ever been.

Goldberg: Here’s your explanation: Austin vs. Goldberg. Think that might sell a few tickets?

In other words, if you let the Invasion go on, you could have had a GREAT sequence of guys popping in and being the big boost to re-energize things. But hey, we needed Shane and Stephanie to get more TV time right? That leads up to another problem.

4. The McMahons

See, there’s this misconception out there that the Invasion was about two organizations teaming up to face off against the WWF. In reality, WCW, ECW, all their wrestlers and all their titles were pawns in the chess match of Vince vs. his children. Think about it: who was the focus of these angles? Vince, Shane and Stephanie. Why were they named the owners of the companies? For Shane, it was to one-up Vince during their feud around Wrestlemania. Stephanie, I’m still waiting on an answer. Was there ANY reason to not have Heyman be ECW’s owner? No? I didn’t think so.

5. This Was An Unnecessary Sequel

This is an easy one. The problem with the Invasion was that there was no need to see who was better between ECW and WCW. The fact that this was all happening on Raw and that they all worked for Vince was enough proof of that. Why do we need to do this again? The fans never really bought it I don’t think, which is where you lose fans in wrestling. If they don’t buy it, they’re not going to watch.

That sums up my issues with the Invasion. Now let’s get to how I would have gone about it.

First and foremost, things went too fast as I said. There are multiple reasons for this, but first and foremost it was due to HHH’s injury. From what I’ve found, HHH was supposed to do a slow face turn on Austin and face him at Summerslam in a blowoff match and probably win the title. Well obviously that didn’t happen and he was out for 9 months so they needed a new plan.

What I don’t get is why did they have to blow the Invasion off then? I mean, was there NOTHING else they could have run over the summer? What about that Jericho guy that was feuding with them and wasn’t hurt? I guess he couldn’t be champion or have 25 minute classics with Austin right? Angle was around and could have been a good rival to Austin. There were a lot of options but for some reason they went with potentially the biggest angle in history instead. Funny thing this WWF.

Now aside from that, we’re going to ignore the idea of WCW being its own show. This was the plan I believe but no network wanted it because WCW was such a damaged name and the reaction to Booker vs. Bagwell was so bad that it was clear that the WCW name wasn’t going to work anymore. That’s out.

So what would I have done?

Well to begin with, don’t have them be a unit at first. Just have them be like any other wrestlers that are coming in and integrate them into the show. You know, that old fashioned kayfabe non-sense that Vince Russo shot more bullet holes into than Bonnie and Clyde. Space out the debuts until the big named guys were already there.

See, where I think WWF really messed up was treating these guys like some big family in WCW that always got along. It’s the problem I have with Dreamer and Raven being such great friends in the Alliance. It makes the whole thing seem fake. Instead, have people come in one at a time and build their characters in WWF. This again ties into the It Was Too Short thing. Why did it feel like they were up against a clock here? There’s no time limit in wrestling.

I would have had guys slowly appear on Raw and Smackdown. Use the old system of having guys appear once in awhile then not appear then pop in and out and such like that. This way you can figure out which people the fans respond to, which work well with who, you have a short history to work with, all that good stuff. In other words, make these guys people the fans are all familiar with rather than just throwing out a bunch of guys you hope the fans care about.

The big criticism of the NWO was there were too many people and they were nothing without an NWO shirt on them. The same thing happened here. Why should I as a a WWF fan be worried about Hugh Morrus or Chuck Palumbo or Sean Stasiak? These guys haven’t accomplished anything here. More importantly, hardly anyone was watching WCW in its final year and ECW was only on nationally for a year, so how are most people going to be familiar with them?

So anyway, have guys come in one at a time and go from there. Don’t treat it as an invasion right off the bat. Instead have them be people and tag teams that are new around here. Then, after these people have been built up as threats with titles or whatever, then have them form into WCW. Let’s say that starts the night after Mania 18. The company is still a name, the bad taste it left is at least somewhat gone, and you have Flair and the NWO.

After that, you let things go as they did but with Flair/someone not named Shane as the WCW boss. Bring in ECW if you want and do what you want with them, but preferably don’t have them merge with WCW. That was so against Heyman’s character and history it’s unreal. Anyway, have the war go from let’s say 2002-2003 and culminate at Mania 19 with the main event being the WCW Champion (whomever that is) vs. the WWF Champion in a unification match and winner take all in the war.

Small aside: WHO IN THE WORLD DECIDED TO PUT THE UNIFICATION MATCH AT FREAKING VENGEANCE??? It’s the WWF Title unifying with the WCW Title to establish one champion of all and it’s at VENGEANCE??? Does the word WRESTLEMANIA mean nothing to anyone anymore? That’s still one of the biggest headscratchers I can ever think of in wrestling.

That’s about it really. Have it run about twice as long, build up the characters, and end it at Wrestlemania with Hogan vs. Austin for the Undisputed Title. Oh and don’t have Shane or Stephanie in it. They sucked in the entire thing.

 

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Monday Night Raw
Date: July 9, 2001
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

We’re in WCW territory tonight and this is one of my all time favorite Raws, if not my favorite ever period. We’ll get to why later, but I remember watching this and absolutely losing it, which doesn’t happen often. Anyway, this absolutely has to be better than last week’s show. Also tonight, we get our first taste of an official WCW vs. WWF match. Let’s get to it.

We open with a rematch from Smackdown where they actually did ANOTHER WCW Title match with Booker facing Page. Angle came in again but Booker escaped the Angle Slam and beat Angle down. Taker and Page fought to the back and about 6 guys beat Taker down. Shane called them off, so Page beat up Shane and Booker.

Tonight it’s Taker vs. Storm/Awesome. That would be changed.

Shane McMahon vs. Diamond Dallas Page

This is a street fight. And never mind because Undertaker comes out instead of Page. Taker says tonight Page is his. Shane is ok with this so here’s Page.

Undertaker vs. Diamond Dallas Page

Page starts fast and pounds Taker in the corner but Taker counters that easily and beats on Page. Here come the chokeslam but Shane turns on Taker (was he with him in the first place?) and saves DDP. This was like a minute long.

Taker fights on the kendo stick shots and fires away on Shane in the corner. Page saves Shane with a chair and Taker is double teamed. Sara comes in with a kendo stick and gets in some shots on Shane but walks into a Diamond Cutter to kill her dead. She gets taken out on a stretcher. What does it say when Sara is better at taking a Diamond Cutter than Kane does?

DDP steals Taker’s motorcycle and Shane gives him the night off.

Taker promises Sara he’ll get Page.

Tag Titles: APA vs. Dudley Boys

Apparently Spike is going to be out for awhile with a broken leg. The APA clears the ring to start and we get down to Bubba vs. Farrooq. Off to Bradshaw as the Dudleys take over. The reverse 3D gets two. D-Von pounds on him and it’s off to Bubba. He goes to the corner for the ten punches but gets powerbombed out and both guys are down. Off to Farrooq and D-Von with Simmons getting a spinebuster for two. 3D doesn’t work but What’s Up does to Farrooq. Bubba goes for a table but Spike comes out, hits Bubba with the crutch and throws him in where Bradshaw’s Clothesline gives the APA their third tag title.

Rating: D+. Pretty boring match but I guess the idea here is that if the APA is leading the WWF’s army so give them something to make them seem important. That’s not a terrible idea actually and it’s better than another boring Hardys vs. Dudleys feud for the 7000th time. Not a terrible match and it did its job I guess.

Off to Austin and Vince with Austin repeating everything Vince says. Even the audience is laughing now which is a good thing. Angle comes in wearing a cowboy hat that Austin gave him on Thursday. Angle has presets for everyone except Debra of course. They’re big boxes but they have small sheriff badges in them. Angle’s is a lot bigger and golden to match his medal. Austin goes on a huge rant, quoting The Treasure of Sierra Madre to a nice pop. He calls Kurt a jackass and says that the hat was a joke. Austin tells Kurt to go beat up Booker T for the WCW Title.

Kane is just getting here.

Intercontinental Title: Rhyno vs. Albert

Slugout to start (I’m as shocked as you are) with Rhyno stomping the champ down into the corner. Pac runs in while Albert has the referee and superkicks Rhyno for two. Rhyno manages to get in a shot to buy himself some time and they slug it out for a bit. Belly to back suplex and a top rope splash combine for two. The Gore misses though and the Baldo Bomb is countered. Pac comes in and gets Gored. The distraction lets a bicycle kick keep the title on Albert.

Rating: D+. Back to back power matches probably isn’t a good idea but it wasn’t all that bad. Albert is a guy that was on the roll of his life at this point but soon enough he’d be just another guy in the Alliance war. Not much to see here but they were at least trying to make a new star with him as he beat up various power guys.

Angle goes to talk to Booker. He yells at Book and Mr. T. doesn’t seem that interested or upset by it. Angle challenges him and Booker agrees. Kurt says yippee kay yay Mother Hubbard. Good stuff and I had to listen twice.

Kane goes into Regal’s office so Tajiri hides behind the suit of armor. Regal says that Sara is ok but is being held for observations. Kane says he’ll take Taker’s place in the handicap match against Awesome and Storm.

Jeff Hardy vs. Big Show

Boy this would be a different match today. Show runs him over and we go outside. Here comes Trish and Show accidentally runs into the post. Jeff runs the rail to get in a shot and a missile dropkick puts Show down. Trish is cheering for Jeff. Jeff goes up again but jumps into a powerbomb position. Instead Show drops him back so he lands face first on the mat which is good for the pin. This was nothing again.

Trish kisses Jeff post match.

Kurt is getting ready for Booker and is bent over in front of Austin’s face which is kind of funny. Austin volunteers to be the leader of Team WWF at Invasion. Angle says if he wins the WCW Title, he should be leader. This turns into a discussion of Gilligan’s Island and who gets to be Skipper. Austin goes Bugs Bunny on him to get Angle to say that he (Angle) is Gilligan and Austin is Skipper.

Vince finally asks the question we’re all thinking: what does this have to do with the WCW Title or the Inaugural Brawl??? Speaking of which, Austin and Angle are both in it and Undertaker probably will be also. Jericho comes in to a big pop and says he’s WWF for live. He wants to be on Team WWF. Vince seems intrigued but Austin laughs him off.

Some Atlanta Falcons are here.

At Invasion, it’s Trish/Lita vs. Stacy/Torrie in a tag team bra and panties match.

Matt and Lita are at WWF New York. They don’t know if they can trust Trish but this is for the WWF and she can follow the Lita. Oh geez. They kiss to end this.

Shane fires Booker up.

Vince and Austin fire Kurt up. Austin repeats everything Vince says again. Angle says this is Atlanta and he won with no one in his corner in 1996 so he’ll go alone tonight.

WCW World Title: Booker T vs. Kurt Angle

Booker hammers him into the corner to start and hits a side kick. Kurt knocks him to the floor with a clothesline and Booker goes into the table. Booker sends him into the post and a missile dropkick gets two back in the ring. Back to the floor and Booker keeps control. Angle reverses an Irish whip back inside and a belly to back suplex slows Booker down but he comes back with a spinning kick for two.

Angle starts snapping off suplexes and a belly to belly looks to set up the Slam. Booker rolls out though and hits the scissors kick. The fans are against Booker now which is a good thing. Kurt charges and they ram heads. Booker gets the advantage and hits a spinebuster for two. Kurt grabs the ankle and there’s the ankle lock. Shane gets the referee so Booker’s tap doesn’t mean anything. Now the Slam hits and Earl Hebner runs in to count two. Now the referees fight and the distraction lets Booker get a belt shot. A seconds WCW referee runs in and Booker retains.

Rating: B-. This is the best match on Raw in weeks and it’s only just above average. Booker and Angle could do some good stuff together with some more time. Amazing what happens when you give two talented guys time and a face and heel combination to work with isn’t it? Good stuff and the referee fight was kind of funny.

Angle rants to Austin and Vince which makes Austin say he’s the leader at Invasion.

Torrie and Stacy say they’ll win at the PPV. Torrie bashes Vince and calls him a dirty old man.

The APA says they don’t want the titles like that and tell the Dudleys they can have another shot as soon as Smackdown. Right now though, cold beers on the APA. The Dudleys say not right now but ask them at the end of the night.

Kane vs. Lance Storm/Mike Awesome

I thought this match was earlier in the show. I guess not as we’re into the second hour. Before we get started though, here’s Jericho. He doesn’t say anything but comes in and we have a tag match.

Kane/Chris Jericho vs. Lance Storm/Mike Awesome

The 24/7 Rule has been waived until after Invasion. Why? Kane vs. Awesome starts us off with the bigger man taking over. Jericho comes in and chops away but gets caught by the power of Awesome (how was that never a t-shirt?). Off to Storm and the Thrillseekers get a nice reunion. Awesome hits a knee to the back and Storm clotheslines Jericho down to take over.

Storm comes in and misses a dropkick but he gets the knees up for the Lionsault. Awesome comes in and hooks a chinlock. Jericho fights back but jumps into a belly to belly for two. Back to Storm who stomps away. Was there a reason for him to stomp like that? He always had that little hop to it. Jericho gets an enziguri which is good for the hot tag.

Everything breaks down and Storm is sent to the floor. A powerslam puts Awesome down and there’s the top rope clothesline for two. A missile dropkick takes Storm down but Chris can’t get the Walls on Awesome. He does get them on Storm though, and I’m going to stop the match review there. Storm didn’t tap and the match is still going on, but the next part needs its own attention.

Rating: C+. This was a pretty decent formula tag match between Team Canada and Team Name That Has To Do With Kane And Jericho. Jericho and Storm always have great chemistry together and this was a fine example of it. Also, how in the world did both companies manage to screw up Mike Awesome? Let him be a mulletted killing machine. Why is that so hard?

Kane sets to chokeslam Awesome but Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam jump the railing and it’s a 4-2 beatdown. Here come the Dudleys, Taz, Raven, Justin Credible and Rhyno. It’s a showdown but the six WWF guys that ran in all turn around and destroy Jericho and Kane. Jericho takes a Death Valley Driver and Kane gets a Van Daminator. The fans are loving this. JR asks Heyman what’s going on so Heyman says listen up.

Heyman gets into the ring with the Dudleys holding the ropes open for him. All of the guys celebrate and Heyman says here’s the truth. He’s been sitting there like a sellout for months and talking about WWF vs. WCW. It seems to him like these men were too extreme for WWF vs. WCW so it seems like Storm and Awesome have left WCW. The other six have left WWF and they all have joined ECW. Heyman says either Vince or Shane can come get some at any time. This Invasion has been taken to the EXTREME. When I saw this, my jaw dropped.

After a break, JR turns into Eric Bischoff and wonders how long he’s had this planned.

Shane and Vince bump into each other and Shane is kind of panicking, saying that their guys should team up for tonight only to crush ECW before it spreads. A twenty man tag is set for later.

Light Heavyweight Title: Scotty 2 Hotty vs. X-Pac

This is what we call a filler. Pac is defending and they speed things up to start. Scotty dances around a lot and works on the arm. They go to the floor and Scotty misses a dive. Pac stays on offense for about twenty seconds and Scotty comes back and hits a superkick for two. X-Factor is countered but Pac avoids the Worm. Scotty tries a sunset flip but Pac grabs the rope for the pin.

Rating: D+. Scotty was actually pretty entertaining around this time when he dropped the whole dancing and Cool aspect of his personality. X-Pac on the other hand was just kind of there and doing his own thing which no one really wanted to see. Nothing to see here and all they were doing was filling time.

Vince and Shane try to fire up their boys but can’t get along. Shane is officially put in charge and the agreement is that once ECW is gone, all bets are off. WCW leaves and Vince says ignore Shane and just do it.

Team WWF/WCW vs. Team ECW

It’s the 10 ECW guys listed earlier for their side. WWF is Big Show/Billy Gunn/Hardcore Holly/APA and WCW is Jindrak/Stasiak/O’Haire/Palumbo/Kanyon. WWF and WCW get in a fight before the ECW guys even get here. WCW is sent to the floor and here comes ECW. The ECW guys fight the WWF team and WCW stays on the floor. ECW clears the ring and calls out the WCW guys. And they all hug, officially forming the Alliance. No match obviously.

Vince comes out and wants to know what’s going on. Shane says watch the WWF guys get destroyed. Each one is thrown in and takes various finishing moves (including an F5 to Bradshaw from O’Haire). Shane says he can’t outspend Vince but he can outsmart him. Vince told Shane he was personally responsible for what happens out here and that’s true.

He’s responsible for ECW being here tonight and for the merger of WCW and ECW. Vince’s jaw is further into the Earth’s crust with every word. At Invasion, it’s the two companies against WWF. Oh, and here’s the new owner of ECW: Daddy’s Little Girl, Stephanie McMahon. The place ERUPTS at that. Vince’s eyes roll back in his head and here’s Stephanie, looking drop dead gorgeous in a pink dress. I think that’s why I loved this show when I was 13. Shane and Stephanie pose to end the show. Now THAT is how you end a TV show.

Overall Rating: B. This show depends on what you’re looking for. If it’s wrestling, you’ll probably be a bit disappointed. If you’re in it for drama and something that makes you want to watch next week, this is the show for you! When I was a kid this was an awesome moment and I loved it, but unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to the hype. Still though, I was glued to the screen on Thursday and Monday for awhile, which is the idea. Good stuff here.

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

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

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

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

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

Hardcore Title: Big Show vs. Rhyno

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

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

Angle shows the medals to someone else.

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

Austin can’t find Debra.

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

Perry Saturn/Dean Malenko vs. APA

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

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

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

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

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

European Title: Matt Hardy vs. X-Pac

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

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

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

Saturn is still out of it.

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

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

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

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

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

Dudley Boys vs. Hollies

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

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

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

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

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

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

HHH reminds Austin that they’re a team.

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

Eddie Guerrero/Jeff Hardy vs. Edge/Christian

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

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

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

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

Intercontinental Title: Kane vs. Kurt Angle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Summerslam 2006
Date: August 20, 2006
Location: TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
Attendance: 16,168
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Joey Styles, JBL

So a few things have happened since last year, but a lot of the show is the same. DX is back, feuding with the McMahons, Edge has risen to prominence and is the WWE Champion, and Booker is now a British guy. Your main events are Booker vs. Batista and Cena vs. Edge, along with the DX vs. McMahon tag match. The other major difference is the return of ECW, which as usual has one match. This is far different than the ECW you see today, as the title match is Big Show vs. Sabu.

Hogan is here again, this time against Orton, while Flair and Foley are having an I Quit match, which would be Foley’s last big angle as he would leave for awhile very shortly after this, returning in about 9 months for a few appearances here and there before becoming commentator for about a month before leaving for TNA. That’s enough recap from me, so let’s do this. Oh one last thing. Angle would be released 5 days after this show and would debut for TNA about 5 weeks after this.

The opening video is generic to say the least. It’s just promos and clips from the three major feuds. I’m really disappointed in this.

The 6 announcers welcome us to the show which takes a few minutes. Lawler says that he’s the WWE’s original party animal which just amuses me.

Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero

Remember how I said I was disappointed? That’s nothing compared to this. This contest is being held because these two have been fighting over who was closer to Eddie. This is nothing short of disgusting to me. Eddie passed away less than a year ago, and this isn’t even the first angle that was because of him. I get that he was a huge star, but you don’t need to use him to further storylines.

Chavo says that Rey is living off of Eddie’s legacy, which in reality he likely was as he got the world title at Mania, but that’s a different argument for a different time. They show video packages of both men’s relationships with Eddie as I feel like I’m in 5th grade. Seriously, this is like two 8 year old girls arguing over who someone’s real best friend is. However, the other friend just happens to be dead. See? No matter how you say that it’s not respectful or paying tribute. IT’S CREEPY.

Also, the whole Dominick storyline is completely omitted. In other words, thanks to the magic of WWE, the whole angle about Eddie trying to destroy Rey’s family and steal his son has been completely forgiven. And people wonder why WWE is criticized so much. Apparently Chavo is retired or something but this is a one night only event. If only that were true. As much as I can’t stand JBL in the ring, he’s pretty good on commentary.

It’s nice to have him out there as he was a wrestler far more recently than Tazz was. Chavo cost Rey the title. Thanks for mentioning that 3 minutes into the match. JBL makes an Arturo Gatti reference which is just weird to hear at this point. Chavo is complaining that Rey is trying to make a name off of Eddie. Yeah, I don’t need to criticize that. JBL calls Chavo’s comeback the biggest one since the resurrection. Again, don’t even need to make fun of that.

JBL goes on to say that these are two of Smackdown’s best. If this is one night only, wouldn’t that mean he’s not on Smackdown at the moment? Rey is having mask issues so we take a short break. Ok I like JBL. He’s actually really good at this. They both stand on the top rope and…just kind of jump off. Yeah that spot looked really stupid. Bradshaw keeps calling him Shavo which is getting annoying.

Yeah JBL is already getting annoying. If he says “He’s a Guerrero!” one more time I’m going to scream. Eddie was a groomsman at JBL’s wedding? How much do they want to break down the walls between reality and kayfabe? 619 but Chavo avoids the senton and they go to the floor. Vickie, now with about another 50 pounds on her and in full annoying mode heads to the ring and goes after Chavo for no apparent reason, slapping him.

The three amigos get Chavo booed out of the building. Cole calls a hurricanrana a headscisscors. Since Chavo got booed out of the building for the triple suplexes, Rey does them as well as everyone is being booed now. Rey goes up for a frog splash and Vickie tries to stop him, resulting him in him getting crotched. Chavo hits a suplex which is called a brainbuster, leading to the frog splash as Vickie screams to win it. Post match, they still won’t shut up about how it’s about family etc.

Rating: C+. The match was fine, but the rating is hurt a lot as this storyline is just flat out horrid. It’s completely disrespectful, and while it got both of the Guerreros jobs, it just wasn’t needed. There were about a dozen other ways to do this that wouldn’t be disrespectful at all, nor would they have ticked off the crowd. I hated this, but the wrestling was ok I guess. It would have been better if I had watched it muted.

Booker and Sharmell are in the back with Booker still being British, which is oddly a far better gimmick for him. He was completely generic as Booker T, but this is quite memorable. Edge and Lita come in and they argue about who the most powerful couple in wrestling is. That would be Vince and Linda.

This would lead to the triple threat challenge at Cyber Sunday which was all three championships on the line at the same time and was ended by Kevin freaking Federline. They make a bet about their title matches that didn’t mean anything at all in the end.

Ad for the best managers DVD. That’s a lost art in wrestling anymore.

It’s time for the ECW title match. The story is pretty simple: Big Show is ECW Champion and Sabu wants to be. Sabu won a ladder match against Van Dam on ECW to get this match, albeit with help from Show. Styles screams that this was VINTAGE ECW. Is this a running joke that we just never caught on to?

ECW Title: Sabu vs. Big Show

This is extreme rules, and for the ECW WORLD Title. Yes it was called a world title back then. For those of you that haven’t seen Sabu before, consider yourself lucky. He’s the epitome of everything that’s wrong with hardcore wrestling as his skills were limited at best and dangerous at worst. However, he was an extreme icon, so it’s all good. The ECW belt looks like a toy on Show. Within 5 seconds of the bell, Sabu has hit Show 4 times with a chair. That’s a good way of foreshadowing the match.

Show steps on it and crushes the chair which looks cool. This is more or less just Sabu using weapons and Show beating him up. It’s a simple formula but it’s working to an extent. The chair shots sounds SICK. If you think Hardy botches moves, he’s Bret Hart compared to Sabu. It’s table time, as Sabu is the guy that made them famous, far more so than the Dudleys who are more known for them.

Sabu gets him through the table which the more I think about it the more I think that it is nowhere near as great of a spot as it’s built up to be. A Vader Bomb pretty much kills the Arabian. Big Show brings in a table and stairs which is a cheap indy show name if I’ve ever heard one. Show sets up a tiny bridge with a table over two sets of stairs.

Sabu climbs on it and of course it falls over, so he sets it again as Show just looks at him. Naturally, he’s booed for it. Chokeslam through the table ends this, even though Sabu is on the table and therefore his shoulders are technically up, but why am I trying to use logic on a match like this?

Rating: C. It was a hardcore match with good chair shots. What are you really expecting here? It was fine for what it was, but it’s nothing special. Sabu as usual was just flat out horrid and Show didn’t have to do much. It was ok, as long as you don’t take it too seriously.

We see Layla winning the Diva Search. Yeah I don’t care either. In the divas locker room, Layla shows off her horrible acting skills while Trish yells at her for saying she doesn’t belong here. Truer words have never been spoken. Three years have passed and Layla still can’t do crap. Of course, in the end Trish is fine with it and everything is cool. They take her into the shower and spray her down with water. Yeah, it’s stupider than it sounds.

A band called the Teddybears did the theme song. Is there a point to these things that I’m missing?

We get a recap of Hogan vs. Orton, which is billed perfectly as legend vs. legend killer. These Hogan highlight packages are always cool. More or less all this happened for was to get Hogan’s reality show pushed and to promote Brooke. Orton hit on her and Hogan stopped him, resulting in Hogan getting RKOed on a car.

We also get highlights of all the legends that Orton hit with the RKO, which is a decent list I guess. We even got a parody complete with impersonators. More or less, this is Orton replacing Shawn, but lower on the card, as it should be.

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton

Wow Hogan goes on third? That’s very surprising. Unless I’m overlooking something, this is Hogan’s last match to date in WWE. He appeared once other than this at the 15th anniversary where he fought off Khali, but other than that he’s been gone. You know it’s a good thing Vince is rich. He has to pay a lot of money for roofs. Hogan of course gets the legendary pop that he deserves. Ross of course mentions that Hogan has a bad knee. Hulk Hogan doesn’t get hurt you idiot.

Hogan definitely is looking smaller here, but he’s still muscular. The reaction for Hogan really is awesome. I love the old school merchandise like the towel and shirts. The entrance goes on forever just like the old school ones did. This is always fun and this is no exception. This is a much better reaction than he got last year and I think it’s because they got the formula right: Hogan vs. evil. That was the problem with Shawn.

He was still a face so why would we want to see Hogan beat him up? The fans didn’t buy it so while it worked, it wasn’t great. It’s weird seeing someone being taller than Orton. In a head scratcher, Hogan gets put in a headlock and goes down to one knee in just a few seconds. Everyone goes a bit blind as the headband goes off. They use an overhand wristlock and it looks decent. I’m quite surprised. Other than shoving Orton at the beginning, it’s been all Orton.

Dang it why is it that every time I say that the comeback begins? Hogan gets on the second rope and punches him, which for some reason surprises JR. It’s not like this is a new thing for him. He hits a clothesline with authority, which is another term that’s never made sense. How can a clothesline have authority? Can it give you an infraction while you try to start a resistance? The bias for Hogan and his rule breaking will never cease to amuse me.

In a weird time, they mention that the fans from the old AWA days remember the times when he refused to obey the rules. Why not just go with the time he was a heel in the far more famous WCW? Maybe there’s something to that theory of WWE never mentioning WCW because they know it’s better. Orton finally goes for the knee which is what makes sense all along, as given away by the massive knee braces on both legs.

They finally mention that Hogan was the main event of Summerslam 90, which I’ve long since theorized. Apparently Orton is craving to be loved. Thank you Sigmund Ross. Orton slides under the big boot just like Shawn did last year and hits the picture perfect dropkick. Screw Bob Holly. Orton’s dropkick is perfect. Now here we have something that makes me change my mind about a lot of the criticisms that Hogan gets.

Randy hits the RKO and covers, and Hogan doesn’t kick out. He puts his foot on the rope. That’s very subtle but when you think about it, that’s a huge show of respect to Orton. Of all of the big finishers that Hogan has been hit with over the years, I’ve never seen him not kick out of it with that big power move. He didn’t power out of the RKO. He had to use the weaker kickout. That’s a huge show of support for the young kid and it makes him look dominant.

The thing is they never mentioned it as a big deal, despite it being one of the biggest rubs that Hogan has ever given anyone. Anyway, Orton celebrates because he thinks that he’s beaten the legend himself and maybe he has a right to, but Hogan’s foot didn’t go unnoticed by the referee despite the announcers being completely oblivious to it.

Hogan staggers to his feet and limps around in a circle shaking his head which is a truly sad sight to see in my eyes as he just doesn’t have the physical strength anymore to do it the way he used to. We all know how this is going to go. Hogan circles Orton, shakes a finger in his face, kicks him in the head and after about 15 seconds, drops the leg for the pin.

I love how nonchalant Hogan is after the legdrop, as if to say yeah I know he’s not getting up for a month. Lawler marks out like an 8 year old for this and I love that. If this were anyone else I’d hate it but in this case it’s fine as this is Hulk Hogan. He’s the greatest ever and he should be treated as such. As Hogan celebrates we see a guy with a tattoo of Hogan all over his entire back. That’s either creepy or awesome.

Rating: B. This is exactly what a modern Hogan match is supposed to be. You have a young guy that is kind of proven but not quite and he just can’t beat Hogan despite getting close. Now some of you again might say that Hogan didn’t give Randy the rub here, but on a closer look he did.

That lack of a kickout of the RKO was in reality was huge. It made Orton look like a monster because it was enough to stop the super kickout from Hogan, which no other move has ever done in history. That’s about as big of a rub as you could give.

We see a big party that was held yesterday announcing the debut of 24/7. Kennedy is there, which amuses me.

Foley is in the back and Melina comes up and hugs him. Now this was a very interesting storyline that I wish had been given more time to develop. Flair had run down Foley in his book and Foley did the same. There was a real life feud between these two but they’ve since patched things up. Melina was a real life friend of Foley who was stuck in the middle of this for some reason. They had agreed to an I Quit match here after having a pretty bad one at Vengeance.

Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley

Sweet goodness Lillian is amazing looking. Foley brings in some weapons with him. It’s weird seeing Foley more or less as the heel and Flair as the face. There is legit animosity between these two which always helps things get better. Foley jumps him and it’s on. Running knee to the face in the first ten seconds from Foley. And then he does it again with the garbage can.

Mandible Claw goes on and Flair is down. This is more or less a squash almost but Foley grabs the mic and says make it easy on yourself and say it’s over. Naturally it’s not over and Foley gets barbed wire. On his alternate commentary from his DVD, Foley says he felt he didn’t have aggression here and he felt bad about it. Flair wraps barbed wire around his hand and CHOPS FOLEY. This left a HUGE scar on his chest that he shows on the DVD and it’s awful looking.

Barbed wire board is rammed into the face of Flair and he slides under the ring to blade I think. Oh yeah he’s busted open. The fans want tables. Something I’d like to do here is time how long between that chant starting and the amount of time before they’re introduced. Teasing them like that is a great idea as we have to wait for awhile instead of instant gratification.

Barbed wire board dropped on Flair results in him shouting obscenities to Foley. Foley busts out the tacks as there hasn’t been much of anything from Flair here. Flair is slammed onto the tacks for the second time in about two weeks after Show did it to him on ECW recently. Dang there are a ton of tacks in Flair’s arms.

Time for the barbed wire bat here. Flair is bleeding like crazy at this point. And now Flair sends him into the post and beats his arm with the bat. Foley is apparently wearing a Japanese Cactus Jack t-shirt. BIG bump as Foley is on the apron and Flair gets a running start with the bat and sends Foley to the floor and he bangs his head on the concrete. Cue Melina down to the ring to check on Foley who is out and the referee stops it.

Ok never mind as Flair decides that’s not enough so we’re going to keep going. Flair says he didn’t say I Quit so we keep going. He beats on Foley even more until Melina throws the towel in for him and says he quits. Foley still didn’t say I Quit so I don’t get why Flair would accept that either. Oh ok he didn’t. Foley quits seconds later I think after Flair threatens to hit Melina.

Rating: B-. On Foley’s DVD he does commentary for this match and he says that it wasn’t a very good match despite having a massive scar on his chest from the barb wire spot. He said that he never really took this as far as he could have to make it a truly bloody classic, but he thought it was ok. I would have to disagree with him to an extent though as it was at least decent.

Having Melina play into the equation at the end was a great move, despite her turning on Foley and having him fired less than a week later. I also really like the false ending as it makes you wonder how far they’re going to take this one.

Vince and Shane are in the back with Estrada. They more or less say that Umaga will be backing them up tonight. JBL gets in one of the best secretive lines you’ll ever hear as he calls him Armando Ali Baba Estrada. Back in OVW, Estrada played an Iranian character named Osama. That’s a very nice little inside joke.

Smackdown World Title: Booker T vs. Batista

There’s no buildup here other than Booker is champion and Batista never actually lost the title but had to drop it due to injury. Booker’s wife just does nothing but shout “All hail King Booker!” over and over. JBL’s sucking up is quite humorous. She’s at 11 times already. After 15 of them, we finally get Booker’s entrance. Isn’t that in essence a jobber entrance? He’s already in the ring when his announcement is made. Yep, Booker gets no respect.

Batista gets a solid pop but nothing mind blowing. This was one of three consecutive Smackdown PPV main events involving these two, so you really don’t have to think that hard about why there were jokes about how repetitive these shows were. If I remember right these two had a legit fight backstage at some point and Booker beat up Batista with relative ease.

They botch a spinkick spot but I’m not sure who is to blame. Booker throws the kick but Batista wasn’t there so they had to have him keep spinning. It didn’t look that good. We get a loud and long boring chant as the first 2-3 minutes of this is primarily Booker having Batista in a chinlock. Batista is quite rusty here which is certainly playing a role here. Booker hits him with the scepter on the floor, which means Batista is moving even slower than he was before and that’s saying a lot.

Back in to an arm hold, which is the same thing as a chinlock in essence. The crowd chants she’s got herpes at Sharmell. This is just amusing. Booker gets crotched by missing a kick, so Batista, ever the strategist and in ring general, picks him up and drops him the same way over another rope. What’s the point of that? Couldn’t he do something more original than that?

Booker hits a missile dropkick which used to be his finishing move in WCW, yet here is just a run of the mill move and the same thing happens with the Book End. JBL makes a bowling analogy which makes me shake my head. Batista hits a jackhammer which Booker pops up from. I love how neither of these guys have an original move to save their life.

Batista hits a bad full nelson slam to set up the power bomb. Sharmell runs in and slaps Batista for the DQ. Yes that’s actually the finish they went with. Post match Batista beats up Booker and BADLY botches the Batista Bomb. He barely got him up and it looked like he was trying to use it on Khali.

Rating: D. For the second year in a row Batista has the worst match of the night. It was barely over 10 minutes long, it was about 4 and a half minutes of rest holds, and the finish was completely stupid. Batista botches so much out there that it was just horrid. If you want to know where the stigma of Batista sucks comes from, I present to you Exhibit A. This was just flat out awful all around and felt like it belonged on Smackdown.

Jeff Hardy is coming to Raw.

DX is talking to someone who we can’t see and they tell him that Vince said Umaga is the biggest monster in the company.

Recap of DX vs. the McMahons and the feud that Satan is afraid of. This feud went on ALL summer and produced only a handful of decently funny moments. It was way too long and was stupid, primarily as it was DX vs. the Spirit Squad, who were tag champions at the time.

Despite beating them about 5 times, DX never won the tag titles. Why that’s the case is beyond me. It might be because they couldn’t have two major stars as champions. That couldn’t happen. We need our male cheerleaders blast it!

Vince McMahon/Shane McMahon vs. DX

In case you’ve forgotten it, Shawn made his Summerslam debut in a 6 man tag in 1989. Just thought I’d remind you because JR has only said it at the last three Summerslams. We get the traditionally way too long DX intro. Good night Lillian looks great. HHH says that we need to get ready to suck it. Shawn says if you’re not down with that, they’re going to tell you to suck it. Well I’m glad we’ve got so many choices to pick from.

To say JR doesn’t like Vince is an understatement. Apparently one day Vince will run a hostile takeover of the afterlife. Spirit Squad runs out and uses their trampoline to come in. Two backdrops, a toss over the ropes, Sweet Chin Music and a Pedigree later they’re gone and HHH has a new sweatband. Finlay, Regal and Kennedy run out to beat on DX. The McMahons haven’t even left the stage yet in case you were wondering.

While the club from Finlay would usually drop Khali, since it’s used on DX, it has little effect at all. Big Show is here now and as they try to fight him, we finally have some logic as the other EIGHT GUYS that DX beat up finally wake up and help out, so it’s 9 on 2 here with the McMahons still to come. See, this is the first time ever that I can recall where Vince finally had a brain and realized he owned an army of guys to beat up whomever he was feuding with at the time.

He’d always send one at a time. You own the company Vince. Send out 10 guys at once or something to beat the other dude up. See how effective it can be? I really feel sorry for Styles and Tazz as they’ve been sitting there all night doing nothing after calling a single match. That’s just stupid. Why not have them sit up near the entrance so they can at least go sit in the back after their match? HHH goes through the ECW table as Vince and Shane finally are in the ring.

JR is really getting annoying with this running Vince down. We finally have a bell. It’s Vince against Shawn to start. Ross calls the heels the money maniacs. That’s like the main event of Summerslam 88 from my nightmares. HHH is still on the floor from the chokeslam through the table. HHH tries to get up but Shane hits a baseball slide to knock him onto JR and King. Ross flips HHH over as he’s ticked off about being covered by a big sweaty man.

The way it looked was just quite funny. Demolition Decapitator or whatever that move was called lands on Shawn. The McMahons hit a Hart Attack which is just appropriate being used on HBK. This is followed up by a Doomsday Device. This is actually kind of cool. Of course HBK kicks out though and this isn’t even surprising to the announcers. You have to love the power of kayfabe don’t you? Shawn finally gets a tag and HHH looks perfectly fresh.

Even Hulk Hogan thinks a comeback like this is stupid. JR says it’s adrenaline. I say it’s nonsense. As if 9 run ins weren’t enough, we make it a perfect ten as Umaga comes out. Oh wait it’s 11 since Estrada is with him. We now have 15 people in this match, not counting the referee and 4 announcers, all of which have been involved in this match. Counting Lillian, that’s 21 people that have been at ringside that we know the names of and have been involved in this match somehow.

Anyone else think that’s a lot? It turns out that the person DX was talking to was Kane who chases Umaga off to start their feud which, shockingly enough, Kane jobbed in. Shane sets up for Coast to Coast but Shawn…knees him in the leg I guess, to stop it. Of course it’s called Sweet Chin Music. It’s probably good that he did that as Shane would have been about a foot short. Vince takes both finishers to end this mess.

The recaps and celebration goes on for about two and a half minutes just to make sure we know that this was really a huge win for our triumphant heroes. Somewhere around JR’s 8th sports analogy for how amazing DX’s win is, the faces are finally about to leave the arena. Oh wait, we have MORE replays for you. To begin with, they set for their double pose but I think Shawn’s elbow is hurt as he can’t do the double bicep. He was holding it earlier after going ove the top rope with Shane.

They do a very good job of changing the camera angle for the Shane kick as it’s from behind Shawn now and therefore looks like he actually got the kick. That’s very smart and well done so points for that. Some big fat guy comes out about a foot and Shawn sort of acknowledges him, which I’d assume is someone saying to wrap this up as it’s over. I don’t think he was supposed to be on camera.

Rating: C-. This was a very hard one to grade as it’s just a mess. With more than ten people running in that aren’t involved in the match at all, it’s a hard one to grade. However, I’ll give them credit for FINALLY getting the idea behind Vince as the evil owner right. However, at the end of the day, there was too much going on here for it to be taken seriously. The flaw with this feud is simple: DX are former world champions, and Vince and Shane are businessmen.

There’s no reason to believe that the McMahons would have a chance at all here. Granted they got the theory correct by adding in a lot of people that know what they’re doing to make the feud more interesting. It was better than I’m making it sound, but it wasn’t great.

Kane actually helped out a lot here as he took away some of the ridiculous odds for DX. JR needs to shut up though, as for about 20 minutes he did nothing but talk about how great DX was and how evil the McMahons were. It’s one thing to mention it a few times, but he must have cracked the 20s in times he complained about it. It was completely annoying and WAY overdone.

Wrestlemania 23 is in Detroit.

Time for the final recap of the night as we look at Cena vs. Edge. They tried as hard as they could to make this an epic feud and they got as close as possible without actually getting there. Edge won MITB in 2005 and shocked the world by stealing the title in January after an Elimination Chamber win by Cena. I remember watching that match and texting a former friend of mine that was a diehard Cena mark. I told her the next day that Cena lost the title to Edge and she almost fell over.

The reaction was great. Cena got the title back soon enough but Edge won it from RVD on Raw in July. Edge beat up Cena’s father 6 days prior to this, and Cena is the hometown boy here. We cut to the theme song of the show to get more clips from this feud, including the live sex celebration that as I’ve said a dozen times, was nothing special. It truly wasn’t. It was them moving around under a blanket and nothing more. Big freaking deal.

Raw World Title: Edge vs. John Cena

Apparently if Edge gets disqualified he loses the title. Cena gets a VERY mixed reaction. The main selling point here is Cena’s father, which makes a lot of sense actually. Lita needs to freaking cut her bangs. You have a hot face. Show it off. She’s Women’s Champion here which was her final reign I believe. Correction it’s her next to last reign as she would lose to Trish next month in Toronto so Trish could retire as champion.

Lita was gone in November, leaving the whole division completely destroyed, the issues of which are still being felt to this day. This is more or less standard stuff with Edge getting close to a bunch of count out wins. On one of these, Edge knocks Cena to the floor and Cena’s eyes are just hilarious. They’re bugged out all over the place as he looks like he just remembered that Christmas is tomorrow or some other cliché from a bad movie.

For some reason I have My Immortal by Evanescence stuck in my head. As you can tell, this match isn’t holding my attention that well. Fans are solidly behind Edge it would seem. You have to love that in Cena’s hometown he’s still not popular. This was the era that Cena was beginning to be truly despised by a lot of fans in, as he was just constantly shoved down our throats, and it would only get worse as the year long title reign was coming.

However, I think those criticisms are unfair for one simple reason: who else was the title going to go on? HHH would be injured in just a few months, HBK lost to Cena at Mania before feuding with Orton and would leave for knee surgery (which had to be legit. It’s an HBK knee injury after all), and Cena was feuding with Edge right here. In short, who was there left to put the belt on, Umaga? See what I mean? There were no other choices other than for Cena to hold the title.

We get a Cena chant that is a lot stronger than I think it actually was if that makes sense. Cena starts his huge comeback of all his standard stuff, complete with an STFU. Lita sets up with the belt to hit Cena but Edge says no as it would cost him the title. She slips him some brass knucks after he makes the ropes though. FU is countered and Edge nails him in the back of the head with the brass which sounds awesome to end it and the show.

Rating: C+. This was fine, but just fine. It’s nothing epic at all despite what the announcers would like you to believe. There really wasn’t a solid main event this year and it showed bad. This would probably be the best choice for it though, as there’s not a lot that would have topped this.

Either way, the match was just ok, but it felt like the title should have changed here. It would change the next month in Toronto as Cena was booed out of the building, so why wait? Why not have Cena get the big win here in his own hometown? Either way, this was ok but nothing great.

Overall Rating: C+. This show is the epitome of slightly above average. Everything on it is just ok. There isn’t a big moment or a big match that makes it jump off the page at you, as Flair and Foley or Cena/Edge is probably the match of the night by pure default. It’s an ok show and watchable, but it’s nothing great at all.

DX vs. McMahons was ok, but just ok. That’s the only thing I can think of to describe any of the matches on here: ok, but just ok. It’s nothing special at all and because of that, it’s right in the middle of recommended and not recommended. Some might like it but others will be bored out of their minds.