Monday Night Raw
Date: December 2, 2002
Location: Frank Erwin Center, Austin, Texas
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is the 500th (ish) episode of Raw. Shawn is in his final reign as world champion as he won the title in the first Elimination Chamber. HHH is of course next in line for a title shot because he’s always next in line for a title shot. That was the big criticism of this time period: way too much focus on HHH vs. Shawn and nowhere near enough elevation of new guys. Let’s get to it.

We open with clips of last week’s RVD vs. Shawn title match. Rob hit the Five Star but HHH ran in and Pedigreed RVD on the floor. He also gave Shawn a backbreaker onto a chair.

Dudley Boys vs. 3 Minute Warning

We get a recap of the Dudleys stripping the tag champions (Christian/Jericho) of their clothes and then their towels. Brawl to start as the Dudleys clear the ring. A double suplex puts Rosey down but Jamal runs both of them over. Bubba and Rosey both try cross bodies and everyone is down. Double tag and here are Jamal and D-Von. Back to Bubba who pounds Jamal down.

Here’s something I really didn’t expect to see: Bubba hooks a cross armbreaker to control Jamal. D-Von works on the arm too. That’s not something you often see from the Dudleys. D-Von winds up playing Ricky Morton for a bit but he DDTs Jamal. This doesn’t work (thank goodness) as the referee misses the tag. A neckbreaker puts Rosey down and there’s the tag to Rosey. Something like a spear gets two. It looked more like a running Bossman Slam. Rico interferes and Bubba gets suplexed. Spike comes out to hit Rico and shove Jamal off the top. What’s Up Jamal but Rosey comes back in. 3D gets the pin on Rosey.

Rating: C-. Not a terrible match here but going eight minutes was probably a bad idea for these four. 3 Minute Warning could only be so interesting in long matches which is the problem that came up here. The Dudleys had recently reunited at this point and it really didn’t help their staleness that much.

HHH and Flair arrive.

During the break, Christian and Jericho apparently destroyed all three Dudleys. Thanks for letting us see all this stuff guys. Spike was thrown from the stage to the announce table while D-Von was put in the Walls and got a one man Conchairto.

GM Bischoff and Chief of Staff Morely say nothing of note, other than he’s now to be called Chief Morely. HHH and Flair come in and Trips is mad. He doesn’t like the idea of having to face RVD tonight because the shot at Shawn is his and the title is his. Eric says he’s been more than fair to HHH as he handed him the title. If HHH wants the title back, give him some great TV. The fans seem to agree with Bischoff. HHH promises a trainwreck. There’s going to be a guest referee to be named later.

Trish Stratus vs. Ivory

Trish was rapidly improving at this point. Ivory grabs the arm to start and they trade control over that for a few seconds. Clothesline gets two for Trish. Ivory hits an enziguri to take over and rips at Trish’s face. Trish gets a neckbreaker to escape and they’re both down. Chick Kick gets two. A really bad Stratusfaction gets the pin.

Rating: D. Ivory was the Divas jobber at this point and she just wasn’t any good. Trish was getting there but it was clear she wasn’t quite ready yet. Not a good match at all although Trish in leather is never a bad thing. Ivory is another of those girls that I don’t think anyone ever cared about at all.

Jackie yells at Victoria in the back and my goodness I’m actually reaching levels of caring about Jackie even lower than I thought. She beats up Victoria and they have a match later.

Video of the WWE float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Al Roker calls King Jerry the Ring Lawler.

Jericho and Christian warn the locker room to pay attention to what they just did. Nowitski congratulates them and Jericho gets a pep talk for his match with Booker later.

Lance Storm/William Regal vs. Jeff Hardy/Tommy Dreamer

The foreigners hurt Dreamer’s jaw and gave him a concussion. The brawl starts on the ramp and Dreamer is in his patriotic jobber shirt. Jeff runs the barricade to take them both down. Dreamer and Storm officially start and Tommy hooks a Mapleleaf on Storm. Storm gets in a kick to the head and they work over the injury. Regal comes in to do nothing of note and Storm hooks a cravate. Jeff gets a tag but there’s no referee. While he tries to comes in, Regal and Storm throw Dreamer into the exposed buckle for the pin.

Rating: D. Let’s see: Jeff was never in, the match was short, and the injury that was already established was used again. I don’t get the point of this match existing as a tag match but whatever. Jeff would kind of float around for awhile before doing anything of note. I think he was released in 2003.

The heels try to hurt Jeff’s knee but Dreamer makes the save.

Flair sucks up to Batista, telling him to show some fire.

Batista vs. The Hurricane

Flair comes out with Batista. Batista jumps him before the match as the announcers talk about the guest referee. Gee, I wonder who it’ll be between HHH and RVD in a match to decide who faces SHAWN for the title. Hurricane has bad ribs from something not important enough to tell us about. Batista Bomb ends this in about a minute.

Flair tells Batista to powerbomb him again post match but Kane comes in for the save.

Terri asks Shawn how his back is and he says he’s here. Rob comes in and says nothing of note. He’s upset about the back injury Shawn has but he wants to be repaid for his loss of a title win last week. Eric comes in and names Shawn the referee for later. If Shawn doesn’t call it fair, he’s stripped of the title.

Booker T vs. Chris Jericho

Booker makes lame jokes about Jericho before the match. Jericho takes over to start and chokes in the corner. He comes off the middle rope and misses though as Booker takes over. Side slam gets two. The side kick misses and Jericho takes over again, this time with the springboard dropkick to put Booker on the outside. Top rope elbow to the chest gets two and we hit the chinlock.

A belly to back suplex puts Booker down and Jericho does a little dance. He goes up but gets crotched and superplexed to put both guys down. Booker hits a one man flapjack for two. Jericho counters a rollup into a Walls attempt but Booker gets a rope. Jericho argues with the referee, allowing Booker to his a missile dropkick for two. There’s a slingshot into the corner and Booker kicks him in the back.

Here’s the Spinarooni but Chris breaks it up with a bulldog. Lionsault misses and Booker kicks his head off. Here’s Christian for a distraction which means nothing. Small package gets two for Booker as Goldust comes out to counteract Christian. Axe kick puts Jericho down but Chief Morely comes out and says make it a tag title match.

Rating: C-. The match was ok but it was nothing all that interesting. That’s the problem with the whole show so far: the wrestling is just ok but I don’t care about anything that’s happening here. Smackdown was the hot show at this point and it seemed that everyone here was made sure to be less interesting than HHH.

Raw Tag Titles: Booker T/Goldust vs. Christian/Chris Jericho

We come back to Goldust getting two on Christian. The champions are rammed into each other and it’s off to Booker. Now the champions get things together and take over on Booker as Goldust is with the referee. Booker avoids a running charge at the ropes to crotch Christian and here’s Goldie off the hot tag.

Shattered Dreams on Christian and Jericho’s head follows Goldie’s boot. A VERY close two off a rollup gets the crowd fired up and start a chant disagreeing with the referee. Booker kicks Jericho down and hits the Spinarooni. Jericho sleeper drops Booker for two and the Bookend gets the same. The fans are into this now. A belt shot by Chris and a Lionsault keeps the titles.

Rating: C+. The crowd got into it and I have no idea why they didn’t just change the titles here in Texas, especially considering Booker and Goldie would get the titles less than two weeks after this at Armageddon. The match was pretty much by far the best match of the night so far.

Raw Retro is the destroyed Vince Corvette. This is for the Raw 10th Anniversary Special. Oh we’ll HAVE TO get to that nonsense someday.

Test and Stacy are making out and she has a marketing idea but Test wants something else.

Jacqueline vs. Victoria

Victoria is the Women’s Champion and this is non-title. The match is happening so that Jackie, from Dallas, can get a hometown pop in Austin. We’ll ignore that Goldust, actually FROM AUSTIN, could have done the EXACT SAME THING. Jackie basically takes Victoria apart but Victoria gets in a shot and the slingshot legdrop for two. Widow’s Peak is countered into a backdrop and wins with a big kick. For the record, this is Jackie’s first singles win on Raw since FEBRUARY OF 2000. It wouldn’t lead to a title win or anything like that. Were they that stuck on keeping the tag titles on the Canadians for thirteen more days?

Stevie comes out to check on Victoria post match. Back from a break and they won’t leave until Scott Steiner comes out to clear the ring. He’s a free agent at this point. Steiner hits on Victoria and reminds her that he’s Freakzilla. She says he doesn’t have what it takes and Stevie jumps him. A suplex sends him flying as does a gorilla press. Bischoff comes out and sucks up to Steiner. He has a special gift for Scott tonight and takes him to the back where a bunch of girls are waiting. However, he has a Super Freak in the limo. And it’s Stephanie. He would sign with Raw in like a week anyway.

It’s time for RNN BREAKING NEWS!!! This was a thing that Randy Orton did which I thought was brilliant. Orton had legit injured his shoulder and no one cared because he was a goofy kid that got on people’s nerves because he was so perky and excited to be here. The idea was that they were intentionally trying to recreate DIE ROCKY DIE but it didn’t work as well. The idea of the skits is that he gives updates on his shoulder, talking about how he has an irritation because of the sling and what percent its at and he treats it like world stopping news when no one cares. It actually worked really well as a heel idea.

Of course that doesn’t happen here because JR says we have breaking news that is more important. It’s Shawn and HHH in the back with HHH saying he wants the title. Heaven forbid we didn’t get this scene. Shawn says he’ll DQ HHH for doing anything wrong.

HHH vs. Rob Van Dam

Shawn is guest referee and the winner faces him at Armageddon. Also if Shawn isn’t a good referee, he loses the title. Flair is ejected before Rob’s intro. RVD jumps him to start and hits some kicks for early control. A few kicks get two each. HHH tries the Pedigree but gets backdropped to the floor. Out to the floor and Van Dam hits the spinning kick to the barricade onto HHH’s back.

Top rope kick to the face gets two. HHH gets a jumping knee but Shawn counts very slowly for him. Rob rolls him up and gets a very fast two count. Van Dam hooks a sleeper for awhile but the split legged moonsault misses. RVD misses a cross body off the ropes and hits Shawn who is down WAY longer than he usually would. Facebuster takes Rob down and HHH gets a chair. Shawn takes it away and Van Dam hits Rolling Thunder for no count. HHH clocks RVD with the chair to set up the obvious match with Shawn at Armageddon.

Rating: D. Much like the match earlier, everyone knew how this was going to end and the match was just a formality. Van dam could have been any jobber and he would have had the same chance at winning here. That would be the case for a long time on Raw: it’s about HHH and that’s it.

HHH and Shawn brawl and beat up referees to end the show. Shawn hits the superkick.

Overall Rating: F. That’ll likely be the first on many when I get to Raw in 2002. From about September 2002 until roughly Wrestlemania 21, HHH dominated things and the fact that NO ONE WANTED TO SEE IT didn’t mean anything. Evolution would form in February of 2003 and no one touched HHH other than a quick run by Goldberg and a ruined Benoit title reign. Bad show here as it seemed like no one cared in the slightest, and who can blame them?

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I think I need a cigarette.

In Your House 8: Beware of Dog
Date: May 26/28, 1996
Location: Florence Civic Center, Florence, South Carolina/North Charleston Coliseum, North Charleston, South Carolina
Attendance: 6,000/4,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler/Jim Ross, Mr. Perfect

We’re four weeks removed from our last show, and not a lot has really changed. Bulldog vs. Shawn is your main event for the title, and that’s all well and good. However, some of you might be wondering why there are two locations, dates and attendances listed for this show. Well, the answer is simple: it happened on two different nights and there were two different PPVs.

This wasn’t intentional though, as during the Sunday night broadcast, a severe thunderstorm knocked out the power in the arena. While the people inside could still see the show to an extent, the feed was knocked out and the PPV went off the air.

The opening match, Marc Mero vs. HHH and the main event, British Bulldog vs. Shawn Michaels, were seen as the power went off after the first match and was restored before the main event. For the second PPV, the two matches that were aired on Sunday night were simple re-aired However, the other three matches weren’t seen until later on, when the home video was released.

The matches were recorded but I’m really not sure what version is on the video that I have. I’d assume it’s the originals, but I could be wrong. The second night’s matches were longer as there were two matches that weren’t redone, and on the first night there was a 30 second squash that wasn’t redone either, so we’ll be able to tell soon enough.

Also, this is the first PPV to be held after Razor and Diesel left. At the super house show at MSG on May 19, we had the Curtain Call Incident. For those of you that don’t know, it was the show where Razor Ramon, HHH, Diesel and Shawn broke kayfabe and hugged as it was Ramon and Diesel’s last night with the company.

Since Hall and Nash were leaving and Shawn was world champion, the blame and punishment was all on HHH. He was supposed to be given the King of the Ring that year, but because of this it was given to a bald headed man named Austin. After winning that tournament, he uttered the legendary Austin 3:16 promo.

Wrestling was changed forever, and without the Curtain Call, it may never have happened. On May 27, Hall showed up on Nitro and wrestling would never be the same, so this is really a landmark time in the history of the sport. I’ll go more into the historical aspects of things later as also tonight something huge happened but no one really knew what it would be.

Starting with this video, I’ll be including the Free For All match that airs. This was shown on the pre show as a free match in I suppose an attempt to get the fans that were on the fence to buy the show. Not sure how this particular pairing is going to do that but let’s try it out.

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. The Godwins

The Godwins took the titles from the Bodydonnas at a house show a week prior to this, the same one that the Curtain Call happened at. Before the match, Mr. Perfect talks to the Godwins, but Sunny interrupts. Apparently Phineas signed a contract making her co-manager of the team. This is certainly from the first show as there was no dark match at the second.

This is a very fast match as it goes less than five minutes. There’s about three minutes of a match and then Billy kisses Sunny, messing up Phineas long enough for him to get suplexed and pinned. Post match, the Guns talk to Doc Hendrix and use the words “more aggressive”, signaling their heel turn. They say they’re the champions and proud of it, which is fine as they won the belts more or less cleanly. No one cares really.

Rating: C. There’s really nothing to say about this as it was so short it’s hard to grade. Granted it was on the free show, so what are you really expecting? Nothing great, but Sunny was as sexy as ever.

Now onto the main show as the rest of the pre show is nothing but promos and recaps.

Standard recap video to begin here. Shawn is great, we all love him, he might have tried to rape a woman, blah, blah, blah.

HHH vs. Marc Mero

This is the continuation of another feud that no one really cared about. It started at Mania 12 as Helmsley had Sable with him, but later said that Sable was a dime a dozen. Later on, he and Mero who was debuting that night. He and Helmsely got into a fight backstage and they had been feuding ever since with Mero being joined by Sable.

Fairly slow pace to start as Mero keeps getting his shoulder worked over. It looks like HHH’s only desire here is to hit the pedigree, as for the most part that was the extent of his offense. Vince mentions the storms and says that if they leave they will indeed be back. If nothing else at least they mentioned that it was a possibility. Mero is getting his head kicked in so far as Vince is complaining about the officiating in the WWF as of late.

He goes on to say that working on the shoulder is “smart on the part of Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s part.” Say that out loud and see how it sounds. Lawler continues chatting with HHH’s valet, who never talks or does anything at all for that matter. It’s been all arm work by HHH so far which is a different side to him that I really like. He even goes to the top and gets a decent looking chop.

That was smart as HHH isn’t a high flier but he went for something basic that looked good. Well done. He tries it again a bit later and gets crotched, which is a nice little thing saying don’t try something you’re not experienced at more than you have to. Mero hurts his knee as this is getting solid time. We’ve cracked 15 minutes and this isn’t boring yet. It’s holding up quite nicely which is always a good sign.

I really don’t like the ending here though. HHH has the pedigree hooked but drops it so Sable is sure to be watching. When he turns around he gets catapulted into the post and pinned. Way too abrupt.

We cut to the back to see Cornette talking about how he has a big bombshell for the main event, but he’s got a good one before it: Owen is the manager of Bulldog for tonight only. He gets a great line in about how Shawn made his bed and he tried to get Diana in it but now he’s sleeping alone. This is definitely from the second show as we cut from this interview where Cornette talks about a match that hasn’t happened yet to the start of the main event, but I’ll save that for the end.

I was planning on doing the original matches as well as the second editions of them, but as Beware of Dog 2 as they refer to it begins, they show why this would be difficult: not only did the feed get cut, but so did the lights at the arena.

That’s right, the matches happened, but they happened in the dark. Due to that, we move on with the rematches. Also starting with this show, Jim Ross and Mr. Perfect are your commentators. JR saying that Austin is really tough is something that never gets old. There are no rules in this so they can beat on each other all day and all night if they want to. All that matters is touching all four corners. It’s kind of trivial but at the same time it makes the match have a nice flow to it.

Strap Match: Savio Vega vs. Steve Austin

Now this was still the Ringmaster version of Austin and not yet Stone Cold. The stars continue to align for the WWF as on Sunday night, you had a standard strap match. On Monday night, DiBiase, Austin’s manager, said that if Austin loses, DiBiase would leave the company. Obviously this was the case as DiBiase joined the NWO. This is the famous part that I’m sure you’ve all heard of about the development of the Stone Cold character.

Once his manager left, the company had no idea how to use Austin. They knew in real life he was a redneck that could out curse a sailor. Since no one else had an idea, they said just do that on camera. The Texas Rattlesnake was born. Once again, something that seems so insignificant for the WWF, the power going out and DiBiase leaving, ultimately saves them.

This is one of the matches where you have to touch all four turnbuckles, so this is one of my all time favorite gimmick matches. We start with your standard back and forth beatings with the strap which is always fun. The commentators call Savio a Caribbean legend. Far from it, but it’s an interesting idea. They go onto say that he’s never lost this kind of a match. Now I have no idea if that’s true or not, but even if it’s not, that’s brilliant.

It makes Savio look like a tough guy in this match. You can see the future crazy man in Austin during this match as he beats the heck out of Savio with that strap. Apparently if Savio loses he becomes the Million Dollar Man’s chauffeur. The strap goes for 10 feet and we get a spot that I like as Austin backdrops him over the top but gets pulled out with him. That’s a good illustration of how these matches work.

I’ve always loved this match as it offers a lot of fun spots and can go for a long while before you get a winner. This was Savio’s first feud worth anything and it’s really a good one. Granted, I think most of that was because of the guy he was feuding, but it was at least entertaining. At the time it was awful in my eyes, but now it’s quite good. This match is going on for a very long time but it’s still holding its own weight.

Austin actually jumps from the top rope and hits the barrier on the floor. That’s amazing to see considering what happens to his knees in the future. This is a great fight as they’re beating the living crap out of each other. Things like that are always fun, but when they can keep you entertained for this long, you know you have something good going for you which is the case here.

After over twenty minutes of nearly killing each other, we get to the ending which is Austin dragging Savio behind him and touching the buckles, but Savio gets them as well just behind him. Finally, it comes down to one buckle with the winner being the person that gets to it. They fight over the strap, but Austin accidentally slingshots Savio into it and sends DiBiase out of the company. Post match, Savio gets the crowd to sing that song when people are leaving.

Rating: A. This was a great match. They beat the tar out of each other and it never got dull. They had a ton of time to work with and you could tell these guys wanted to beat on each other. It was the blowoff match for their feud and it went better than it should have. Excellent match, the best Savio ever had, and a great way to put Austin over without him getting pinned.

Yokozuna vs. Vader

This is the match that we were promised last month at Good Friends Better Enemies. It comes about 7 weeks after Vader hit three Vader Bombs onto the leg of Yoko on Raw, breaking it and sending him out on a forklift. We get the JR code talk, saying yes we know this match is going to suck but we have to put it on anyway because Vader needs someone to squash. However, this wasn’t the case on the last show from two days prior as Yoko pinned him after a Samoan Drop. Now however we move onto this which could be ok but it’ll likely suck.

They start off by hammering each other with big shots. That’s fine as these kinds of matches follow a very specific formula. Usually they’ll beat on each other for the big showdown then one will take over with some bad offense until we get to our finish. We set for the big clash, but Vader pulls up twice. I get that the spot works once but after that it kind of loses its specialness. When they finally explode, Vader goes flying.

That’s just not something that you say every day. Vader gets back in and just goes off on Yoko. Think of a Mike Tyson fight from the 80s or early 90s. That’s what you get here. However, he never goes off his feet. He actually hooks a takedown on Vader and takes control. This is mostly punching and ramming into each other. For the two guys that you have in there that’s as good as you’re going to get. That being said, this has been pretty good.

Finally Yoko beats Vader down long enough to set up for the Banzai. However, Cornette interferes to try to hit Yoko with the racket. He gets beaten down too as Yoko sets for the Banzai on him. Vader saves him and Vader Bombs Yoko for the pin.

Rating: C. This was a fun little match. It’s kind of like a cheap action movie. You don’t expect anything masterful, but you like what you get. Vader gets to beat the living heck out of Yoko and finally end this feud. This set up Vader as the challenger to Shawn’s title at Summerslam in a match that to this day I have never seen all the way through. Very fun little match.

Intercontinental Title: Casket Match-Undertaker vs. Goldust

Yes you read that right. This is probably the most forgotten feud in the history of the 90s. These two went at it for about three months but somehow Taker never won the title. Goldust kept escaping somehow, but no one remembers this at all. This match was designed to end the feud though with the ending to this match. We see a recap last night of Ahmed Johnson and Goldust beginning their feud.

Taker appears behind Goldust to start the match. As can be expected, this is mostly Taker beating the living tar out of Goldust for about ten minutes before a short comeback and then about five more minutes of beating down Goldust. The announcers are stunned when Goldust goes on offense and he’s the champion in this match. That’s saying a lot actually. At one point Goldust almost gets Taker in with the lid closed but Taker fights out.

We end with Taker tombstoning Goldust, but of course when he pops open the lid Mankind is inside. Mandible Claw knocks the Deadman out to end this. Post match, Mankind screws the casket shut but once the lid starts smoking and is removed, there’s no Taker inside as the show ends.

Rating: C+. Certainly not a match that was designed to mean much of anything. The whole point of this was to begin perhaps Taker’s best feud ever as he and Mankind finally get going. The match was almost a squash with Goldust absolutely getting his head handed to him by Taker for about 15 minutes, then Goldust goes on some token offense for three before Mankind comes in to take care of the big guy. If you don’t take it seriously, you’ll like it.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. British Bulldog

After Smith makes his entrance, we cut to the back to Shawn, who says anything can happen and instead of Beware of Dog, it should be beware of Kliq. He makes his intro to a big pop as could be expected.

As this is happening, Vince mentions that anyone that bought this PPV will be given a special encore of the show Tuesday night, which was actually a completely new show, save for the opener and this main event, which is kind of cool because the matches were extended on the Tuesday version. Cornette’s lawyer, Clarence Mason declares that Shawn will be sued for trying to break up the marriage of the Smiths.

Nothing ever came of this at all. Shawn dominates the early part of the match with all kinds of jumps and flips and other TNA specialties. He then puts on a headlock for far too long and while it doesn’t bring the match to a screeching halt, it does slow things down. Shawn pre-injury is amazingly impressive. He’s all over the place but he never once looks like he’s just doing random moves.

There’s a sequence to his stuff that most people just don’t have. Following a long short (yes that’s an oxymoron) arm scissors, Bulldog does the same, yet always impressive, lift up spot as these two did four years ago on SNME. More or less, Bulldog dead lifts Shawn with one arm. That’s just flat out amazing no matter who you’re for in this match.

When Shawn is down, Bulldog does this weird little hop when he kicks Shawn. He kicks his left foot out before stomping with the right one. It’s a weird looking thing as Smith almost looks like he’s dancing. Bulldog beats on Shawn for about five minutes but Shawn makes his comeback, but instead of just pinning him, we get a longer sequence which is a very nice break.

They trade the advantage for awhile but eventually we get a ref bump. Owen tries to interfere but gets a little chin music. Bulldog sets for the powerslam but Shawn gets out of it and lands a German suplex, but both men get pinned. Diana grabs the belt and tries to leave with it. To further prove why she shouldn’t be allowed on television, she holds it over her head upside down which makes her look even dumber than she already does.

Monsoon comes out and literally grabs it out of her hands. He talks to the referees and the Fink. We get the official decision: a draw, meaning Shawn keeps the title but there will be a rematch. Until then, Shawn is the champion. His music and dancing play us out.

Rating: B. This was a pretty good match. While it wasn’t a classic or anything, it did two things that great matches need to do: it surprised me with the ending and it kept me entertained. These two indeed had some chemistry together as the power game that Smith had was something that could have beaten Shawn and he was a somewhat believable challenger. They had a far better match a month later at King of the Ring where Shawn kicked his head off to pin him clean. This was good though.

Overall Rating: B+. This one is really hard to grade considering all of the confusion that happens because of the storm. However, you get five matches here, and the worst is certainly watchable. There’s nothing bad on here and with the NOW being a strong force to come against, it’s a good sign to see all that the company had coming up. You have HHH, Austin, Taker/Mankind and Michaels coming on strong and you can tell they’re all going to do something.

However, no one really remembers any of this because of how mind blowing WCW was at this time. If you watch this show out of the order that it was presented in on Tuesday night, it’s a fine way to spend two hours. Excellent show, by far the best In Your House so far and definitely a good way to spend two hours. Very high recommendation.

 

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Shawn Michaels: Hits From The Heartbreak Kid
Host: Shawn Michaels
Commentators: Stan Lane, Gorilla Monsoon, Vince McMahon, Todd Pettingill, Jim Ross, Bobby Heenan, Randy Savage

More or less this is Becca’s Christmas present and as you can see, it’s a two hour comp tape of Shawn Michaels matches, I think from around 92-94. Some of these are peats so I’ll just be cutting and pasting. Shawn is indeed one of the best ever and this chronicles his early years. I’m not sure how well it’s going to do that but we’ll see. I doubt it’s up to par with From the Vault or My Journey but it should be good. Let’s get to it.

Merry Christmas Becca.

Shawn is in a hotel and wants to know how the camera knew where to find him. “Oh a chick is running the camera. No wonder she knew how to find me.” He’s in room 645 apparently. He’s going to host it and we’re going to start with this.

Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

Could these two be more joined at the hip? Shawn has the fake IC Title with him and also has Diesel so this would be late 93 or early 94. Apparently we’re in Fayetteville, North Carolina which I can’t find any record of. Bret gives away the Bret glasses and the girl SCREAMS HER HEAD OFF. That was a demon child if there has ever been one but she was in a Bret shirt and had a Bret figure so how do you pick someone else?

Stan Lane is really good on commentary. They start out fast paced but Bret rams his shoulder/arm into the turnbuckle. You don’t have to tell Bret to go after an injury twice so we hit the armbar. Bret grabs a sleeper but Shawn rams him into the corner as this is a rather fast paced match. Shawn hits the chinlock as Bret is in trouble to a degree.

Bret blocks a dropkick and gets a slingshot to send Shawn’s head into the post. Gorilla yells at Bret a few times for lazy covers. Shawn counters an O’Connor Roll to send him to the floor where Diesel posts him. Back in and Shawn sets for a Piledriver and Owen runs in for the DQ to give the match to Shawn.

Rating: C-. Not much as this only went about six minutes so it’s not like we could get anywhere. These two are always worth seeing together though as there’s a natural chemistry there and it helps a lot that both guys are masters inside the ring. This was a short match but it was decent while it lasted.

Tag Titles: Shawn Michaels/Diesel vs. Razor Ramon/1-2-3 Kid

Who thought it was a good idea to make Todd Pettingill a commentator? He’s Michael Cole but FAR more annoying to those unfamiliar. Razor is IC Champion and the Two Dudes With Attitude are champions here. That would put this sometime between August 28, 1994 and November 23, 1994. Well at least we have an idea when this is happening.

The champions are rammed together as Kid kicks Shawn’s head off. Razor’s Edge hits Shawn 40 seconds in but Diesel made the save. I didn’t expect it to hit that fast. Razor fights both guys while Kid just stands in the ring. Nice guy indeed. Todd says Kid is like a Power Ranger. Definitely Kimberly. Shawn blocks a rana with a powerbomb to half kill him. Why couldn’t it be the full thing?

Off to Diesel now as this is flying by. Sunset flip can’t get Diesel over. I guess this is the payback for the whole making Razor fight both guys at once. It’s odd to see a hot tag four minutes into a match. This is on the Action Zone apparently, which was a Sunday morning/afternoon show. Apparently this is October 30, 1994 and the second episode of the show.

Razor sets Shawn for an atomic drop but Shawn gets a tag as he’s in the air to bring in Diesel in a nice move. Shawn sets his feet up (think a Pendulum Kick) to allow Diesel to ram Razor’s head into the boots. Nice one. Razor gets a backslide for two but walks into a dropkick for two. Diesel JUMPS and hits a nice shoulder block for two on Razor.

Part of the idea here is that Razor doesn’t want to put Kid in there against Diesel because he might like die or something like that. The heels exchange abdominal stretches and Razor is in big trouble. We take a break to come back to see more punishment to Razor as apparently he’s been in there the whole time. Shawn tries to counter a hip toss but kind of slips. Chokeslam puts him down long enough to bring in Kid but the referee misses it.

Shawn accidentally kicks Diesel which was a problem that eventually broke them up. THERE’S the hot tag as Diesel is out. Tope con Hilo takes Shawn out and a missile dropkick gets a fast two. Razor is back up and the Shawn beatdown begins as Diesel hasn’t moved yet. I guess he needed a nap after that jump earlier.

Belly to back suplex off the middle rope gets two on Shawn. Rocket Launcher gets two as Shawn is taking a man’s beating here. He tries to wake up Diesel but can’t get him awake. Razor kicks Diesel to the floor but Shawn grabs a sleeper. Diesel has been out cold for about three minutes now. Shouldn’t he get like, medical attention? He starts getting up finally as Kid breaks up the sleeper.

Slingshot sends Shawn into the post head first as Diesel’s hands are on the mat but he can’t get up past that. And here he comes. Kid comes in again and gets a guillotine legdrop for a very long two. Diesel is back up though and Kid is sent into a big boot so that Shawn can simply fall on Kid to retain. Sweet match!

Rating: B+. Counting the commercial this ran about 20 minutes and was solid throughout. Shawn took a BEATING and managed to keep kicking out. There was storytelling, there was action, there was everything you could want here and the whole thing worked very well. I’ve never seen this match before but it was really good and it felt like 5 minutes, not 20. That’s a very good thing.

Shawn is on the phone with some identical twins and says we need to keep the action going. I’ve done this next match already so I’ll be cutting and pasting. It’s from King of the Ring 1993.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Crush

Total filler here as we need something to flesh out the card with. Crush was about to get the biggest push of his career which stopped dead one day but we’ll get to that later. Crush is in BRIGHT orange and yellow and purple. Maybe that’s why he didn’t get the big push.

Shawn has his famous music here as well as some monster named Diesel with him. This is his television debut as the Crush loving begins. We talk about who could slam Yokozuna which would become one of the most awesome moments in wrestling history. Shawn won the title 6 days prior to this (nice job having a house show on Raw night) so this is his first major defense.

Savage has a man crush on Crush. Shawn uses his speed here and snaps off a nice jab which looked good but didn’t ever do much. Kind of like Crush in a sense. He hits a pair of nice leap frogs and avoids Sweet Chin Music and is just showing off here. Heenan: “Remember a friend in need is a pest.”

Almost nothing but power from Crush here which is the best thing he can do here. Diesel saves Shawn when he’s in big trouble. Apparently Crush is the total package. Well if Luger isn’t using that gimmick why not Crush? Is that even a gimmick? Outside Diesel sends Crush into the post for Shawn to take over.

In a dangerous spot, Shawn slams the back of Crush’s head into the post. That isn’t something I’d expect to see again ever which is a good thing. Shawn, the genius that he is, won’t let the referee count Crush out when he would have easily gotten it. Double axe hits Crush and Savage can’t believe his man love is in trouble.

Every time Crush does something Savage decides that it means he can slam Yokozuna. I get that he’s supposed to push towards future angles but this is ridiculous. We start the final part here as Crush begins dominating. And here is an army of Doinks. Ok make that a pair. This angle just went on and on to no end. Shawn hits Chin Music to the back of Crush’s head to end it. He chases the clowns away.

Rating: C-. The hype for Crush begins, but for some reason it never finished. Even here they’re building up Crush as a possible world title contender. He certainly had the look and power, but again they never pulled the trigger. Shawn was just kind of waiting around on something to do. That would come soon enough.

The next match is another I’ve done before, from Summerslam 93.

Intercontinental Title: Mr. Perfect vs. Shawn Michaels

This is the blowoff of the feud that had been built up……….4 months ago. The buildup for this match was nothing short of a masterpiece but by the time they got to the match the interest was pretty much long gone. I’ve never figured out why they waited but I’d assume an injury or something like that. Either way it was a bad idea for waiting so long as it could have been the hottest feud in the business at the time.

Anyway, this is your main midcard match of the show. Perfect, even probably past his prime, still just rocks on all levels. We get a plug for Radio WWF out of nowhere which was one of the oddest ideas I’ve ever heard of. Ross and Monsoon would call the show on the radio. Heenan apparently gets hit in the eye by something and isn’t happy about it. Very fast sequence to start and it of course ends in a botch as I have no idea who did what or what they were going for but it looked absolutely horrid.

Anyway, they go into a standard sequence as they jockey for position and Heenan talks about how Diesel will be the big factor here. This referee counts WAY too fast. If he had worked for WCW they would have won the wars. After they go to the floor, Shawn lands a stiff thrust kick to Perfect’s chin. That kick was so sweet that it was almost like music. Shawn continues his perfect streak of being too loud about calling spots which gets annoying after awhile but is part of the business.

I’m kind of skipping over a lot but a good match makes me do that. There’s little to complain about here which makes it hard to come up with jokes. Perfect hits a move that I always thought would be insanely hard to pull off: a running dropkick. That just looks hard to do and makes Perfect look even better. The ending to this is just flat out bad. Perfect gets the Perfectplex but Diesel pulls him outside and they start fighting in what could have been a very interesting feud.

Anyway, Shawn jumps at Perfect but he gets punched for his efforts. Shawn rolls in and lands on the referee, breaking up the count, but after Diesel rams Perfect’s shoulder/head area into the post, the referee continues his count and we get a count out. That was either a botch or running out of time, either way it didn’t work.

If you want to do the screwjob finish then let Diesel interfere and let Shawn get the pin but don’t just go with the count out. Post match Perfect gets the double beatdown and Shawn says he’s the greatest IC Champion.

Rating: B-. This was a very fun albeit short match. This really could have been something good with more time and a finish. That being said it was far from bad with one pretty bad botch that was at least in the beginning of the match. It just was too short and I hated the ending though.

Back in Shawn’s hotel and he has his shirt off while laying on his bed and there’s a mirror above him. Fast forwarding time I believe. Oh and his jeans are unbuttoned.

Intercontinental Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Bob Backlund

Well this should be…..different. Who thought this was a good idea for a match anyway? I’m not saying it’ll be bad, but this is just REALLY odd for a choice. This is on a Sunday apparently, according to Ross yet they have the Raw set. Taping I guess. It’s before Summerslam 93 as they’re talking about Shawn vs. Perfect at that show and are hyping it up, even though we just had it on the tape which is an odd choice.

Backlund is the old guy trying to make a comeback here rather than the crazy heel. Who would have believed that Diesel would beat Backlund to win the world title in just over a year? Shawn stalls and is rather arrogant to start as you would expect. Ross says it seems like he thinks Backlund is beneath him or something. Bob gets a long slam and a backslide for two. Shawn isn’t sure what to do. I’d recommend a haircut and some plastic surgery.

After a break we’re back with Shawn hammering on Backlund and this is on the Summerslam Spectacular. That clears up some stuff. Double axe off the top puts Backlund down for no cover though. Long front facelock sequence gets us nowhere other than Backlund showing he’s strong again. Bob slaps him and gets a nice dropkick and a neckbreaker for two.

Atomic drop by Bob gets no count as Diesel distracts the referee. That was Backlund’s finisher back in the day as I guess it was just a much different time. Not much special going on here at all as Shawn grabs a rollup and the tights for the cheap ending to a pretty weak match.

Rating: D. Oh MAN this was boring. It was only about five minutes long but Backlund was carrying this somehow. Shawn didn’t care and they even talked about it on commentary. Pretty much a nothing match which was just to set up the Summerslam title match without actually doing much about it. Boring match and it was nothing of note at all.

Intercontinental Title: Kamala vs. Shawn Michaels

This is during KAMALA IS A MAN phase where Slick tried to humanize him a bit and it was just painfully bad. There was a tape where the theme of it was Kamala, in wrestling gear mind you, learns to bowl. It’s as bad as it sounds. This is from Raw in late June/early July of 93. Clearly the world was BEGGING for this showdown. June 28 apparently.

Shawn isn’t sure what to do here. Bobby talks about taxes and Vince FREAKS about Bobby not having many taxes based on what he made last year. Holy unintentional shoot Vinceman! Kamala is moving out here as he gets Shawn to back up and try to hide. Shawn avoids a chop as we talk about the Slam Yokozuna thing which was rather awesome in the payoff for it.

Kamala gets a bearhug for a LONG two. Kamala uses basic stuff to attack Shawn but a running knee eats buckle to give Shawn the advantage that most people expected him to have. He swears at some fan in the audience and Vince isn’t pleased so he plugs something instead. Figure Four is blocked by Kamala so Shawn stomps away some more.

We list off some athletes that won’t slam Yokozuna. We mention Dave Letteman leaving NBC which really dates this show. Here’s Kamala’s comeback as he uses a lot of chops to fight back. Does he think he’s Asian or something? He’s messing up his stereotypes. Kamala hits the splash on Shawn’s back but messes up and tries for a pin with Shawn on his stomach which was a thing he did because he was stupid. Chin Music to the back of the head ends this.

Rating: C-. Not horrible actually if you can believe that. Kamala had a chance out there and they kept it short enough to make sure that the fans didn’t get bored with it and that Kamala didn’t overstay his welcome etc. It’s not a great match or anything really but it’s certainly fine for what it was: a quick TV title defense.

Diesel and Shawn beat down Kamala post match which is apparently the first time Diesel has ever beaten up a WWF guy. Kind of historic I guess.

Back to the hotel and oh Dang it he’s in a heart shaped hot tub.

Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon

Diesel is the IC Champion here and this is on Raw. Razor has Diesel at the PPV where he would get the title back. This is probably August of 93. VERY nice speed and counter sequence to start where Shawn walks up Razor’s back. Razor’s response: hit Shawn in the face. Why mess with what works? They brawl a bit with Shawn coming out in the lead. Eh that’s a bit of a stretch. Like he’d ever come out.

Savage tries to explain how things are done in Miami and Vince more or less brushes him off. Shawn hammers Razor down with forearms in the corner to really take over. Vince is pushing the heck out of the New Generation idea. There’s Diesel getting involved which keeps Shawn in control. Razor gets a backslide for two and we hit the chinlock with the blonde dude in control.

So much for that though as Razor gets a catapult to take down Shawn as well as Diesel who tries to catch Shawn. We take a break with Vince saying it’s unbelievable then asking if you can believe it. This is apparently Shawn’s first match since Wrestlemania. That’s a bit surprising indeed. An abdominal stretch goes on so Shawn cheats to get out of it. BIG backdrop takes him down though as Razor takes over one more time.

Now we’re going to talk about the Goodwill Games for some reason. Weren’t those a Turner deal? Razor gets a bearhug as Shawn is in big trouble now. Shawn can’t slam him so back to the bearhug we go. Shawn climbs over the top and gets a sunset flip for two but walks into a clothesline for two for Razor. Shawn ducks a charging Razor to send him to the floor where Diesel throws in a clothesline to really take care of Razor.

After another break Razor is back in and in trouble. Savage has figured it out: Shawn and Diesel do what they want to do. That’s a revelation? Shawn hammers away in the corner as it’s all HBK at this point. Jumping back elbow gets two. There’s a sleeper as Savage says no one has a patent on a sleeper. Vince throwing him out soon after that makes all the more sense with very word he says.

Belly to back suplex gets two for Razor so he kicks the tar out of Shawn to take over again. They hit heads and both guys go down. Razor cranks it up one more time but Shawn blocks a belly to back off the middle rope to get a spinning cross body but Razor rolls through for two. Sweet Chin Music out of nowhere gets two only.

Shawn sets for the Razor’s Edge which is of course blocked and both guys are down all over again. Razor says it’s over but Diesel gets up on the apron. Shawn grabs the belt but gets backdropped instead. Diesel however gets up on the apron again and Shawn sends Razor into his boot so that a rollup can end it. SWEET match!

Rating: A-. This was very good stuff. We’re so used to the ladder matches from these two and it’s nice to see just a wrestling match from them as they’re more than capable of having one. Excellent match here that ran almost 25 minutes including commercials. I was into this the whole time and it worked very well. Worth seeing indeed.

Shawn and Diesel beat down Razor post match.

Shawn Michaels/Diesel/Tatanka vs. Smoking Guns/Lex Luger

This has to be after Summerslam 94 but before Survivor Series 94 as Tatanka is a heel and in the Million Dollar Corporation here but Diesel and Shawn are still tag champions. Luger is the Rebel here, meaning he means absolutely nothing here because his main push is long since over. DiBiase isn’t here for some reason.

Gorilla is all over Tatanka for selling out to DiBiase. Shawn vs. Luger to start us off. I don’t remember any feud with the champions and the Guns but there likely was one. Luger destroys Shawn to start and the good guys clear the ring in a hurry. It’s so strange to see Billy Gunn as a worthless cowboy. Usually you see him as a worthless guy obsessed with a certain body part. Off to Bart vs. Diesel now which is rather amusing indeed. Why is it amusing? I’m not sure but it just is.

Diesel thankfully destroys that mullet wearing twerp and brings in Tatanka. Bart fights back but kind of messes up a dropkick as Tatanka is too close to him. The Guns hit a modified Sidewinder (side slam mixed with a top rope leg drop) to Tatanka and we go back to Shawn vs. Lex again. Luger still wants the stereotype but can’t get him since that’s the big segment of the match probably.

Luger stays in for all of 6 seconds before bringing the tired Bart back in. Did he tick someone off to deserve this? Bad armdrag brings Shawn down but Diesel pulls the top rope down to give the evildoers the advantage. Bart gets beaten down for awhile as we’re just waiting on the big brawl segment to end the match.

Shawn comes back in and we hit the chinlock. Stan Lane is blowing Gorilla away on commentary here. Shawn calls spots to Gorilla so Gorilla covers for him by saying he’s taunting. That makes sense if nothing else. A mat slam gets Bart out of trouble and the FEARSOME Billy comes in and Shawn cowers in fear which I think is a cover for wanting to laugh.

Billy gets the Texas Special (bulldog) off the top on Shawn for two and here’s the big brawl. The feuds (I guess) split off with Luger and Tatanka on the floor. Shawn gets tied in the ropes so Diesel hits the Jackknife on Billy (serves him right) and Shawn covers for the academic pin.

Rating: C-. Pretty boring for the most part but nothing too bad. It’s about what you would expect for the main event of a comp tape as Shawn steals another pin. Decent little match for the most part with not a ton of people caring but it wasn’t supposed to be anything epic. Not bad.

Shawn pops up from under the water in the hot tub and reaffirms his awesomeness as we close it out.

Overall Rating: B+. This was actually a really good tape. They didn’t go with the major matches here but showed off some of the lesser known stuff and it really worked. The Razor match and the tag match were uncovered gems that were both really good and the rest of the stuff is all pretty solid. Surprisingly the worst matches on here are against Backlund and Hart. This was really good but I’ve never seen it until recently so it’s pretty rare. If for some reason you run across it, definitely check it out as it’s one of the better Coliseum Videos I’ve seen.

 

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Royal Rumble 2007
Date: January 28, 2007
Location: AT&T Center, San Antonio, Texas
Attendance: 13,500
Commentators: JBL, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jerry Lawler, Joey Styles, Jim Ross

Well, there are two main differences here. First off is ECW is back. They’re still complete and utter crap as they tried to be a legit place and not AAA, so take that for what it’s worth. The other thing is Angle is gone, having went to TNA where he still is today in a SHOCKER. That’s not hyperbole either as it legitimately was a stunning turn of events. This was the first real step for TNA to show that they were legit and it’s still an awesome moment to this day.

As for the people still on Vince’s payroll, we have Batista vs. Kennedy and Cena vs. Umaga in a last man standing match, both of which are of course for the titles. If nothing else these are perfect Rumble title matches so let’s get to this show. Also, something historic happens here which I’ll get to later on.

The intro is the standard thing about the title matches and the Rumble, with the main focus being on the Rumble and Cena. That’s fine. They do however mess up and say that the Road to Mania has been around for 20 years now. No it hasn’t, as the Mania tie in didn’t become official until 93. Look back at the first two shows: Duggan won, and wound up losing in the first round of the tournament.

In 89 Studd won and was a guest referee at Mania. This may be relatively common knowledge, but just in case someone here hasn’t noticed, Vince likes to rewrite history every now and then. This is being billed as the most star studded Rumble in history. I haven’t looked at the entrants but I’m guessing that’s not true given some of the shows I’ve seen. Oh and the ECW guys are Extremists here.

Hardys vs. MNM

Melina is amazing looking to say the least. I know I often say that there’s no real point to this feud, but in this case there really isn’t much of one. MNM had broken up as the Hardys had reunited but rather than as a team they’re more like two singles guys teaming, which I usually hate but the history together makes it ok.

The Hardys were on a Survivor Series team together so they restarted the team and for the awful December 2 Dismember show (we’ll get to that someday) they threw out an open challenge which MNM accepted. This was supposed to be a one night reunion so the next month when they teamed up again in a 4 team TLC match, Mercury took one of the sickest bumps ever which was completely by accident.

Paul London did the seesaw thing with a ladder where he jumped on one side to launch the other up and the corner slammed into Mercury’s face and completely shattered his nose and part of his eye. It looked awful and he’s still got a protective mask on. Jeff is the IC Champion here. Oh and they’re the Hardys, not the Hardy Boys. You can really see the strides Nitro (Morrison) has made here and it’s impressive. Apparently Matt has a dislocated jaw.

They actually bring up a decent point here as they say that since Matt has a bad jaw, he hasn’t been able to eat solid food and might not have his peak energy. For once, that works. Jeff’s pop is epic. The beauty of the way the Hardys fight is that even if they botch the heck out of most of what they do, it fits their style and it could be believable that they meant to do that. Melina is letting loose those screams which I actually like.

Ross says he hasn’t made a lot of women scream. I’ll leave that one up to you guys. Jeff is so spotty that it’s insane. I usually don’t notice it, but DANG he’s bad here. This match feels like they were told to go out there and have an epic tag match rather than just having one and that’s not a good thing. MNM is ok, but at the same time this match is just sloppy and that’s hurting it a lot.

The crowd is about half into this but at the same time they’re not into it if that makes sense. Ross mentions that this is a one fall match to open the show. Why don’t they have more 2/3 falls matches? Those can be fun when they’re done right but you never see them again.

Matt gets the hot tag to start completely dominating the match. The usual double finisher ends it which was really quite lackluster. Oh and apparently Matt is on Smackdown and Jeff is on Raw, completely going against the theory of the freaking brand split as it comes closer and closer to dying every year.

Rating: B-. This just wasn’t that good. I like that they were trying to have a big time tag match, but these teams just weren’t clicking. It was FAR better at December 2 Dismember, but I think here that they were trying to top that match which was just a bad idea. This match was all kinds of sloppy and the ending wasn’t anything special. This was ok at its best and too long at its worst.

We go to the back where Teddy Long and Coach are running the drawing and Kelly is there barely dressed. Edge shows up, leading to him calling Coach Coacher and Coach calling Edge Edger. Take me now. Kelly was still an exhibitionist at the time and loved to tell everyone that. Rated RKO were the tag champions here so Orton shows up. Let the gay jokes begin. King Booker shows up to make fun of them as this is just rather stupid and unfunny.

Ad for the All Grown Up Wrestlemania, which was a campaign I actually liked for a change.

Thanks to a band we’ve never heard of for a song that has no bearing on the show and won’t be heard again.

We recap Test vs. Lashley, which more or less consisted of Test “dominating” ECW and wanting a title match because of it. There was a triple threat with RVD in there somewhere too that meant nothing at all. Test is apparently an impact player.

ECW Title: Test vs. Bobby Lashley

Take a wild guess as to how this is going to go. Just take a guess. Test was a guy that Vince kept trying to push but it never worked. That might have had something to do with Test having all the momentum in the world and Vince pushing Big Show instead back in 99 when Austin left. Oh yeah Big Show is gone now too. Lashley was another guy that Vince was seemingly ready to pull the trigger on but never got to do so which kind of sucks.

Lashley does the Lesnar entrance where he jumps to the apron and the pyro goes off. That would be more impressive if X-Pac wasn’t the first guy to do it often. There’s no big match feeling here at all. This is as basic of a match as you could imagine. It’s like they were reading a book about how to have a power vs. power match.

Lashley dominates for awhile, Test sends him into the post, Lashley gets a short comeback, Test hits the big boot and Lashley kicks out, so Test walks out. Seriously, that’s the entire 8 minute match.

Rating: D-. What in the world was the point of this? What was the point of ECW as a whole back then? When did we reach the point where ECW had a back then? Anyway, this was really weak as there was just no point to this whatsoever and the match completely failed. Lashley wasn’t that solid yet and Test didn’t help matters in the slightest. This didn’t go well at all and it showed badly here. Horrible match with a stupid finish.

Cena is in the back getting looked at by the doctor. Umaga injured his ribs the Monday before. Vince comes in and says that Cena won’t be able to forfeit as Cena can’t see him. I really hate Vince at times.

No Way Out promo. My goodness that was an AWFUL show.

We recap Kennedy vs. Batista. The idea here is that Kennedy has beaten 6 world champions in a year, so he’s getting a title shot here. Kennedy won a Beat the Clock Sprint to get the shot. I’ve always liked that idea, at least to an extent. I think Kennedy stole Norcal’s shirt.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. Mr. Kennedy

Kennedy cuts a promo before the match saying exactly what you would expect him to say. Kennedy had no official move yet so he’s unlikely to win. I think it was a neckbreaker or a DDT or something like that but he changed it every week. JBL keeps trying to offer analysis and keeps yelling at Cole for interrupting him which gets funny. At least it’s not Joey Styles because he would have a black eye from it.

Kennedy uses a weird as heck looking leg lock. Imagine a figure four, but with the guy that’s in it on his stomach. It looked rather awesome. A knee to the leg causes JBL to declare that’s how you win a world title. I thought it was by getting a pin or a submission on a world champion in a title match but what do I know? This is mainly Kennedy working on the knee, which is smart but it’s the safe way to go.

With Kennedy being allegedly the future of the company, shouldn’t he do something that’s a bit more interesting or fresh? Batista makes his comeback, actually selling the knee (PAY ATTENTION TAKER!) and goes for the Bomb. It doesn’t work though as Kennedy shoves him into the referee.

He gets a low blow and the neckbreaker but we have no referee. There’s a very loud and very noticeable Kennedy chant, which thankfully was listened to this year as he would win MITB. However, due to about 1000 injuries nothing would come of it. Batista hits the Batista Bomb for the easy win. JBL freaking out over it is kind of funny.

Rating: B-. This was pretty good for what it was I thought. It wasn’t supposed to be a classic showdown but rather a token title defense for Batista so that he could manage to get something else under his belt and get Kennedy the title shot that he had earned. There’s nothing at all wrong with that and it worked. The match itself wasn’t that great, but the point here wasn’t to have a great match but to make Batista and Kennedy look good and that’s what happened.

Hornswoggle shows up to pick his number. He beats up Coach after getting one. Oh looks it’s Khali and Horny because that joke never gets old. He takes three of them and leaves two, allowing Kelly to make a balls joke and Ron Simmons to show up to validate his existence.

The Marine is on DVD.

Mania promo, set to Ladies and Gentlemen by Saliva. They actually mention that at their concerts. Saliva is in the crowd.

So Umaga had been an unbeatable monster that challenged Cena for the title at New Year’s Revolution but lost so naturally he gets another title match at the Rumble. The idea is that Cena could barely keep Umaga down for three so ten is impossible. Umaga crushed Cena with a splash through a table at Raw. You know, I wonder how you can have more than one last man standing match. Wouldn’t that mean there have been more than one last men standing, which is impossible?

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Umaga

The end of the video package sounded like Taker’s music for some reason. Ok I’m back now, as Lillian with her hair pulled back and more or less wearing a swimsuit as it’s a top that ties behind her neck and one of those nearly invisible skirts she wears. Lawler says that Umaga reminds him of King Kong. You know, the guy that lost in the end. The start is of course, Cena getting his face kicked in by Umaga because he’s injured and can’t breathe.

And you know, because Umaga is a monster and Cena is the second coming of Hogan so naturally he has to be beaten down to get us to the big comeback at the end of the match. This was around three months into Cena’s year long reign that made him the most hated man in wrestling. On a completely unrelated note, Lee, Ricky and I joined the forums about three weeks before this show. Umaga puts the steps into the ring but when Cena lifts them, it’s an amazing feat of strength.

He throws them at the Samoan, but here it looks awful as the camera shows perfectly the Umaga takes it on his hands. When Kane did the same spot a few months ago, it looked and sounded great. This looked like them trying to replicate it and failing miserably. We get a bearhug, which at least makes sense here. The fans want tables. I could go for a nice lawn chair actually.

The steps are put up in the corner and Umaga does the hip ramming but misses which would actually hurt. That and a step shot gets a 7. The announcers are completely pro Cena here and aren’t even trying to be diplomatic. The formula here is Cena gets beaten up, Umaga dominates, Cena hits a big move to draw even then Umaga puts him down again. The genius that is Cena figures that the Five Knuckle Shuffle is better than slamming Umaga on the steps.

He goes for an FU but in a SICK looking spot, Umaga falls forward and Cena’s head apparently slams into the steps being crushed by Umaga’s fatness. That’s just as painful looking. On a second look it might have landed on the part of the steps with nothing there but still it looked great. That gets 9 and also a LOUD Cena sucks chant. After taking another beating, Cena hulks up but takes a Samoan Drop to put him back down. I really hate the Spike.

It was just freaking stupid on so many levels that it’s unreal. Seriously, look at Umaga and the stuff he does, and then his finishing move is a thumb to the neck. That’s just freaking DUMB. Ross calls Umaga Youmaga, so maybe that’s where Regal got that from. He hits the post so Cena nails him with a monitor as Umaga decides to take a nap there I guess.

Cena is bleeding from the step crushing by the way. We hit the floor so Cena hits post. The no selling by Umaga is getting a bit annoying but it’s quite bearable. At least they have their stereotypes right here as nothing is hurting his head. With Cena draped over the announce tables, Umaga gets a running start and runs down the tables to go for a splash on Cena which of course misses.

I’m glad as if Cena had gotten up from that it would have been completely ridiculous. That gets a LONG 9 which the fans boo the heck out of. For some reason Lawler thinks you have to be in the ring to answer the ten, which is just stupid but it’s Lawler so it’s expected. Estrada gets some metal thing and takes the ring apart to hand Umaga the turnbuckle, as in the part that hooks up to the post. Of course Cena ducks and hits an FU.

Thankfully he’s up before the referee starts counting as it would have been ridiculous if he stayed down. However it gets dumber as after a metal shot puts him down, Cena puts the STFU on Umaga using the ropes to choke him out.

For some reason Umaga completely no sells the first attempt and is up almost immediately after Cena lets go but Cena does it again to keep him down for ten in what I would assume was miscommunication. That’s your lesson for the day kids: it’s ok to take a rope and tie it around a guy’s neck for about 20 seconds until he stops moving and breathing, as long as you keep your title!

Rating: C. This was about as much of a textbook example of a last man standing match as you could have asked for. What I mean by that is that it was about as safe of one as you were going to get. I don’t think anyone bought that Umaga was a legit threat to the belt so take that for what it’s worth.

The match is certainly ok, but it’s little more than that, which I guess is to be expected in something like this. It ended this rivalry though and gave Cena another successful title defense so that makes up for some stuff I suppose. Not bad, but not great at all.

Commercial for Mania.

Flair draws his number.

Royal Rumble

Lillian is amazing, period. Flair is first, continuing his horrific run of luck for Rumble draws as this is the 3rd time that I can think of where he draws in the first 3 spots. Finlay is number two which is certainly an odd pairing. History is altered again as Flair has now not made it an hour in 1992, despite according to Monsoon making it about 70 minutes that year. We have 90 second intervals here in case you were wondering.

Cole makes it sound like this is for the title. It’s not, which is why it’s a bad idea. Kenny Dykstra, who allegedly was a great talent which I never saw, is 3rd. He and Flair were feuding I think. He was a year old when the first Rumble happened. That’s just scary as Flair was like a 5 time world champion back then. Finlay is heel here in case you were wondering. Matt Hardy is 4th. Lawler, JBL and Cole are doing the commentary here.

Since there’s no JR they can actually get words in edgewise. JBL says this is the closest thing in wrestling to an endurance contest. Other than you know, the iron man match which is an endurance contest. Edge is 5th. The first five have been Raw Smackdown Raw Smackdown Raw. That’s rather odd. Flair goes through the ropes and goes to get a chair. He and Edge have been feuding for awhile too. Does no one like Flair?

Flair goes out and then Dykstra follows him as Dreamer is 6th. You know what the chant is already. Finlay knocks everyone down and oddly enough is dominating. JBL says Lawler hid for 30 minutes in 1996 because he thought there was a young woman under the ring. That actually made me laugh. Sabu of all people is 7th. Naturally he gets a table which Cole says he’s made a career out of.

That’s either a thinly veiled insult or a general observation. Given that it’s Cole, I’d say it’s the later as I don’t think he’s intelligent enough to know how to thinly veil something. He makes up for it by knowing all of Sabu’s attributes which is actually impressive. Helms is Gregory Helms, still the Cruiserweight Champion that he became last year. We have Finlay, Hardy, Edge, Dreamer, Sabu and Helms at the moment.

We get our second Sabu chant in less than three minutes which makes me shake my head very hard. Helms has been wanting to stop being a cruiserweight at the time. In other words he wants to have a career. Shelton is 9th. They tease about 4 people going through the table but no one goes through it. Lawler points out that if used right it could save someone, which is actually true.

Kane gets us to double digits and of course we hear about all of his records, including most consecutive rumbles and 11 guys thrown out. And yet he can’t get a 4 week world title reign. Dreamer and Sabu are tossed easily, with Sabu being chokeslammed through the table. Well at least they made it quick. CM MOTHER PUNK is 11th. Good night I hate how far they’ve depushed him lately.

He was supposed to have a twenty minute war with Lashley to end the Elimination Chamber at December 2 Dismember so that both guys would be made at once. Heyman thought that up. Punk was also supposed to make Show tap out in that match in about 5 minutes. Show, who was losing the title to Lashley anyway, had no problem with that and since he would be leaving in two days anyway had no problem putting Punk over really strong on his way out.

Vince of course HATED this and had RVD pin him first, leaving the likes of Test and Hardcore Holly, you know, REAL MAIN EVENT GUYS to battle it out instead. Naturally the fans HATED this as Punk was incredibly over and no one wanted to see Holly and Test in a main event. Vince of course blamed Heyman and he was fired as a result.

Punk would get the ECW Title in October and begin the biggest launch in company history, breaking the record for fastest time to win the Triple Crown, with the ECW title thrown in as a bonus. He has since tapped to Cena in 2 minutes at the Slammies and who knows what else as we’re 9 days from Christmas when this is being written and you’ll read it in about 5 weeks.

King Booker is 12th, about ten months before jumping to TNA. He puts Helms out in about 4 seconds. Super Crazy is 13th. Nothing happens. Jeff Hardy is 14th and hopefully something happens here. The Hardys of course work together and hook a move called the Spin Cycle on Crazy before fighting Kane which I like for some reason that I don’t understand.

Sandman, to a song that sounds nothing like Metallica is 15th. He gets a great cane shot to Jeff and a few others but Booker puts him out in about 15 seconds. Thanks for that. Orton is 16th. He and Edge, the tag champions, put out Crazy and the Hardys inside of a minute. In at 17 is Benoit, in his final Rumble. He’s US Champion here because that’s all he’s ever done. The announcers talk about Punk like he’s a jobber or something.

Oh I forgot he was on ECW at the time. RVD is 18th, just about to be gone from the company. He would be gone I think in June. Kane puts Booker out so he goes back in and puts Kane out. They fought at No Way Out and that was the end of it. They fight for awhile until Viscera comes out at 19th. He’s wearing white pajamas so there we are. Nitro is 20th. Nothing of note is going on here.

More or less it’s just a lot of guys making sure that they get close to being thrown out without actually doing so. Kevin Thorn, the guy that just never got pushed is 21st. Shelton gets insanely close and keeps off the floor which is indeed impressive. Oh for the love of goodness Hardcore Holly is 22nd. Still, nothing of note is happening with far too many people in the ring at the moment.

Shawn Michaels, still of DX, is 23rd to blow the roof off the place. With EVERYONE else trying to get Viscera out, Shawn puts Finlay out. A superkick to Viscera allows everyone else to put him out. He puts Shelton out too. They actually imply that Holly could win as Masters is 24th. I’ve actually liked his face turn recently, and not just because I find him attractive. Nitro is out thanks to Benoit.

Oh yeah HHH is out with an injury again and wouldn’t be back until Summerslam. Chavo is 25th as this is somehow only his 3rd Rumble ever. Benoit puts Thorn out. I’ve spelled his name wrong both times I’ve mentioned him in here. MVP is 26th and he’s not quite a medium sized deal yet. He and Kennedy had been feuding with Kane and Taker. Masters is out. Every time Van Dam has been in the Rumble, he’s made the final 6. That’s not bad at all.

Carlito is 27th which is where 4 men have won from which is rather impressive. Shawn hangs on like someone that hangs on rather impressively. Khali is 28th and he’ll likely get rid of a bunch of people. Yep, there goes Benoit and Holly. He would win the world title in July once Edge got hurt…again. He chops the heck out of everyone and Miz is 29th. Good night did he ever come a LONG way since then. He has the same music too. Yeah he’s gone in 5 seconds.

Van Dam is out. Punk is the 5th in a row for him. Carlito is number 6. Chavo makes 7. They say that no one can beat Khali as Shawn beats on him to no avail. I think it’s about as obvious as possible who 30th is here, but it’s going to be awesome no matter what. Cole: “no one can stop Khali.” JBL: “we have our Wrestlemania main event.” Lawler: “if I were number 30 I’d have second thoughts. GONG! All three: “OH YES!” Taker power walks to the ring and it’s on.

Final group: Khali, Taker, Shawn, Orton, Edge, MVP.They slug it out and after a bad clothesline, Khali is out. Somehow Taker looks small next to him, and that’s just scary. Since Khali wiped everyone out, we have 5 people left: MVP, never mind he’s gone so the final four are Shawn, Taker, Edge and Orton. They really are getting good at this final four thing.

Orton pops Taker with a chair and Rated RKO double team him. Edge of course goes for the double cross and this somehow allows Shawn to take an RKO. Taker is bleeding. We get a mini handicap match with quite a few chair shots in there. Ok it’s more like two but whatever. They go for a conchairto but Shawn comes in for the save and the double elimination to set up the old school explosion.

Both guys are down though, and you know what’s coming. Taker sits up, and then Shawn nips up a few seconds later. Lawler says he isn’t sure if this has ever happened before. Oh I give up. We get my favorite Taker spot as he throws Shawn into the corner. The fans are way into this. This turns into of course a great one on one match. They fight on the apron with Taker showing off by barely hanging on much like Shawn would do.

They go back and forth with some great stuff as neither guy can keep the advantage. Shawn gets ahead for awhile but Chine Music is blocked to set up a chokeslam. Tombstone doesn’t work though and Taker gets kicked in the face. He goes for a second one, but Taker moves and puts Shawn out, to become the first guy from the 30th spot to win the thing.

That’s not great odds for the luckiest spot in the match. Taker poses for a LONG time to end the show, which is fine. The fans are uh, not thrilled with Taker putting out Shawn when he was that close to winning, and Shawn was in the main event of Mania anyway so it makes even less sense.

Rating: B. The ending makes this whole thing as they let the old guys go out there and prove that old school is better than the young guys. Having the two mini matches at the end was a nice little touch. There were far too many dead spots in there though which screwed things up.

The lineup ws good though and it was nice to see the ECW guys not really do much as they didn’t need to, other than Punk. This was fine though and the ending was great so that helps a lot. It could have been better, but I liked it.

Overall Rating: B. While nothing here is great, there’s only one bad match in the ECW Title match which at least is short. This kind of sums up the company as a whole around this time: not bad at all but nothing that jumps off the page that’s great. Taker would go on to win his second world title at Mania, ending the run there against Evolution by beating Batista.

When you think about it, you realize how freaking insane the Streak really is. Anyway, this was a pretty good show but not great. If you like the modern WWE you’ll like it and vice versa, so there you go.

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Royal Rumble 1996
Date: January 21, 1996
Location: Selland Arena, Fresno, California
Attendance: 9,600
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Mr. Perfect

Well it’s a year later and the roster is more or less the same. There are a few changes though. The biggest is Shawn has finally given up and turned face thank goodness and Taker is back in the title hunt. Bret has the title again and is facing him in the main event. Other than that, there’s a few new guys but a lot of this is the same. Nitro has debuted so the war has almost started.

The rest of the card looks similar to what we had last year with all three titles on the line plus the Rumble and one other match, but this just looks miles more interesting for some reason. The Rumble roster still looks weak but far better than it did before. This flat out can’t be less interesting than last year so let’s go.

I almost forgot: Shawn has been out with a ton of injuries including the concussion kick from Owen and tonight is his big return, so that’s easily your biggest story of the night here.

Oh yeah and a guy named Hunter Hearst Helmsley debuted. A bald guy from Texas is here too. They’ll never mean anything.

There was a preshow match with HHH vs. Duke Droese. The winner got 30 and the loser got #1. Amazingly, HHH lost so there we are.

Sunny is in a bathtub and says that tonight’s show is viewer discretion advised. My goodness she was perfect. Anyway, Bret vs. Taker is previewed, along with a few other matches. There’s a picture of Razor hitting a belly to back suplex off the middle rope on someone. That someone: Jeff Hardy. Oh yeah and there’s that Rumble thing too. Finally, there’s talk of some monster showing up tonight. Some guy called Vader I think.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ahmed Johnson

Ahmed is a relative rookie here, having been around for just a few months here. In other words, this should be a slaughter. This is fallout from Jarrett breaking a gold record over Ahmed’s head at the previous In Your House. I love how I now have seen that match and reviewed it as it ties things together a bit. In case you’ve never seen him, Ahmed is a freaking tank.

He’s more cut up than Ezekiel Jackson and even scarier looking. The only problem was he wasn’t as talented either. He’s killing Jarrett though so there we are. He was supposed to become world champion actually but he couldn’t stay healthy. There have been a ton of clotheslines in this match to say the least. I don’t mean a bunch in a row, but a bunch over a fairly spread out period of time.

Why is it that when something happens it’s unbelievable to Vince? He saw it happen so apparently it’s not too farfetched. Johnson is hulking up. That can’t be a good sign. Jarrett continues to imitate Ric Flair without the success by getting Ahmed in the figure four. You know considering how awesome Ahmed was, this is just really boring.

After powering out of that, Jarrett goes to the top with the guitar and El Kabong is enough for the DQ. Ahmed just stood there and waited to get hit in the head. Jarrett leaves and of course Ahmed is up in about 18 seconds and not even shaking it off. That was odd.

Rating: D+. Uh yeah. I’m not sure what to say about this one as it just wasn’t that good at all. Ahmed wasn’t really sloppy, but he certainly was limited. I’m not entirely sure why they had Jarrett not get pinned here. He really had nothing to lose here as he would be gone less than ten months later. Ahmed was supposed to look great here but he just didn’t, plain and simple. This is more of a headscratcher than anything else.

Buy WWF stuff, t-shirts in this case.

Billy and Bart, looking straight out of the 70s and 80s say they’re going to keep their titles. My goodness they were so painfully bland it’s painful.

Diesel says heelish things despite still being a face officially I guess. He mentions not having a problem with Taker, and we have a feud on the rise.

Tag Titles: Smoking Guns vs. Body Donnas

Sunny was hotter than anything on the planet, period. The Body Donnas are Tom Pritchard and Chris Candido, more commonly known as Chris Candido. Sunny starts off in the ring by saying ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages. Holy stolen ring intro in a few years. Sunny of course gets the biggest pop of everyone. She’s 23 here and was screwing Bret Hart at the time, so there we are.

We get an upskirt shot of Sunny which leaves Perfect speechless. In case you can’t tell, no one cares about the match but only Sunny. She really was excellent at getting all of the attention on her which is very good to be able to do. The Guns are giants compared to the heels. After the Donnas desperately try (and fail) to take over, Sunny is knocked to the floor. The only good thing is a nice back shot but whatever.

Perfect: she could have been hurt! Vince: she may be hurt! Thanks for being original McMahon. Naturally she was faking (don’t you hate when women do that?) and the Donnas get the advantage. Vince calls Zip Flip so there we are: we have found a gimmick so bad that even Vince McMahon can’t remember their stupid names. In a cool spot, Zip hooks his partner in a gutwrench release powerbomb (think Jack Swagger’s move but he just lets the guy go) onto Billy.

That was different as Perfect says. Since this match has been the most intelligent of all time, we have another odd spot as Skip runs into Zip and Zip is knocked into Billy so everyone is down. It leads to the cold tag to Bart who cleans house. Vince says he hits Skip or Zip or whatever his name is. Since it’s 1996, we can’t have a regular ending, so instead the Guns hit the Sidewinder (backbreaker/leg drop from the top) but Sunny distracts the referee.

In a bad looking spot, Billy sees Skip on the top rope clearly, but goes after Sunny instead. It was one of those moments that wasn’t supposed to look bad but accidentally did. The Donnas go for a double suplex but Billy spears one of them so that Bart lands on the other guy for the pin. Yep, that was stupid.

Rating: D. This show really isn’t starting out well at all. This was somehow worse than the previous match. Literally, looking at Sunny is all that this is good for. The match itself is just bad, the booking is weird and the ending leaves something to be desired. The Guns would forfeit the belts in about a month due to injury and the Donnas would get them in a tournament just before Mania, as in about 20 minutes before.

We see a big thing of the Billionaire Ted skits. These were funny at the time, but allegedly they ticked off Ted Turner so much that he revamped WCW, so in essence they nearly killed Vince’s company. There we go then.

Recap of Razor vs. Goldust. In essence, Goldust wants Razor, as in the way I want Ellen Page, so that apparently made Razor put the title on the line. Yeah that makes perfect sense.

Intercontinental Title: Goldust vs. Razor Ramon

Goldust debuted the night before Ahmed so there we are. Hey did you know that Goldust is bizarre? We need to make sure you know that he’s bizarre. Vince says don’t adjust your televisions. I’ve never gotten that expression. How many people actually get up and adjust televisions? What was going to go wrong with it in the last 10 seconds or so since the last segment ended?

Are we supposed to believe that it wasn’t right before? Also, if you have a really fuzzy picture and you had really bad eyesight, would it eventually look normal? Apparently the noise at the beginning of Razor’s music is from screeching tires. What vehicle is making that noise? This is Marlena’s debut as well. She looked really good back at this point.

In a funny moment, Vince goes over the rules to how you win a title and Perfect almost yells about how he’s won the title twice so why does he need to have it explained to him? That’s a really funny point when you think about it very little. Goldy grabs Razor’s chest a few minutes in so there we go. When asked about what he would do against Goldust, Perfect replies with kick him in the face.

I love Mr. Perfect, if nothing else for the rampant sex jokes and innuendos he’s dropping here. At one point when they’re fighting on the floor someone shouts out that Marlena has a nice rack, which is very true. This match seems like it keeps starting and stopping. They’ll do a bit and then Goldust will go all freaky. That’s fine for character development, but it makes for some bad matches which is what’s happening here.

We do however get a cool spot as Goldust hits a slingshot belly to back suplex that I’ve never seen before. Other than that though, there’s just not a lot to talk about here. Finally Goldust takes over, but still there’s no flow to this match. It’s hard to put into words, but you would know what I meant if you say it. Something just doesn’t feel right about it as it just looks choppy for lack of a better word.

On top of that he keeps groping and molesting Razor. That’s just annoying. Can you imagine in wrestling related anything someone that was constantly making gay references and puns and actions? It would drive me crazy. Anyway, it’s a sleeper and a standard comeback by the face.

Oh the fans are mostly dead for this. No Monty Python jokes here by the way. After some Terri interference, the 1-2-3 Kid comes in and heads to the top for a spin kick that clearly misses but I guess the air from it knocks out Razor for Goldust to get the pin.

Rating: D. Uh yeah, this sucked too. I don’t get it. For the most part there’s been talented guys in every match but nothing at all has worked so far. Granted that could be because we’ve had three matches and zero clean endings. Is it that hard to let one guy cleanly beat the other one?

Anyway, like I said earlier this match just feels choppy and it really hurts things. There’s zero flow here and it felt like watching a video game being played where the guy controlling it was just hitting all of the moves he programmed in if that makes sense.

A bunch of people say they’ll win that don’t interest me. Shawn’s doctor says he’s ready to come back.

After the explanation of the rules from Vince (none given to the live crowd), we’re ready to go.

Royal Rumble

HHH is in first and second it Henry Godwin, now rocking the best music in wrestling history: Don’t Go Messin With a Country Boy. These two had a pseudo-rivalry around this time so this works pretty well. We’re back to two minute intervals which almost guarantees a better match. They imply that winning two in a row is almost impossible as Hogan is continually buried.

Backlund is third, completely in his crazy man Presidential candidate (don’t ask) gimmick. Also, how bad of a string of draws does this guy get? The more I see of this guy the more I like him. He’s just amazing considering his age. Backlund still has the Iron Man record at this point. Fourth is Jerry Lawler as I’m already loving these two minute intervals better.

There’s far more time to let people get settled in and it helps a lot. The heat on Lawler is nuts with the Burger King chants. Godwin breaks up a triple team and gets the slop bucket. Everyone gets it at once as they’re on the floor and now we’re back in the ring with a Gallagher reference. Fifth is Bob Holly to fill the jobber quota a bit more. Backlund is on the floor or something I think as he hasn’t been seen in awhile.

He’s not out but he’s not in the ring either. Oh there he is. HHH has jumped twice in this match, which is more than in this decade combined I believe. Mabel, who is still King, is in at 6. He’s gained even more weight here and it even less interesting of a character if that’s possible. HHH is compared to Shawn. Oh dear.

Jake Roberts, on the nostalgia trips to end all nostalgia trips (notice the word choice I used for Jake) is seventh to a solid pop. He lets loose the snake and throws it over Lawler who is of course terrified of snakes. How much of a creep was Roberts? The only people he ever fought were terrified of snakes. That’s just pathetic. Anyway, Lawler hides under the ring as Dory freaking Funk Jr. is #8.

No one knows who he is, which is likely because he’s 56 years old at this point. With the NWA dead at this point, Vince mentions their name on camera. No one has been eliminated yet so we have eight people in and you can recap it yourselves you lazy pests. Jake almost gets a DDT on HHH to a pop but it doesn’t work.

Terry Funk is apparently friends with Bruce Willis. Well ok then. Funk fights Backlund in one of the only encounters you’ll ever see where Bob is ten years younger than the guy he’s fighting. Yokozuna is 9th as we’re way too full here. Those are words I don’t think Yoko ever used. As Backlund has the chicken wing on Funk, Yoko dumps Bob easily to a big pop.

I think he’s just about to or just has turned face. The Kid is tenth as we hit double figures. This hasn’t been bad as it’s pretty clear they’re saving the big guns for the end, but dang those guys are staying in there a long time. It’s not exactly a bad thing, but I’m not sure if I’m sold on it or not.

Razor chases him to the ring as Godwin is eliminated to absolutely zero recognition. I had to rewind it to see where he went out at. Razor chases Kid around for a bit which means nothing in the end. Mo is very annoying to say the least. I think Shane was there as an official to get Razor to the back. Some Japanese wrestler named Omori is number 11. He comes out to the Orient Express’ music, and I don’t have a clue who he is.

Thanks to Wiki, he apparently has a pretty good resume. That’s fine and good, but again we have the same old problem: ALMOST NO ONE KNOWS THAT VINCE. These foreign guys are fine to bring in, but blast it tell us why we should care. Don’t just say he’s a wild man from Japan. We need more than that. Tell us a big name he’s beaten, tell us some titles he’s won, tell us SOMETHING.

I don’t want to have to do a ton of research to figure out who one guy from Japan is in one match. He’s from All Japan Pro, that’s all we get. Even Vince says he doesn’t know a ton about him. Well thanks Vince. Savio Vega is 12th as nothing of note is going on. Dory is out there doing stuff that belongs in the 40s or something which is pretty cool looking.

The saddest part: I doubt half the roster today would be as smooth as he is out there in this match. Yoko puts out Mable and the smarks shed a tear as the completely unimportant Omori is put out by Roberts. To recap, we have HHH, Lawler (hiding under the ring), Holly, Roberts, Funk, Yoko, Kid and Vega in there at the moment. Perfect says he’s tapped into the Superstar line and knows who the next guy is.

Ok wait a minute. So first of all, you can find out the SECRET drawing on the Superstar line? I know they did that last year but I just don’t get what the point is. Why ruin the mystique of one of the biggest matches of the year? Second, you can tap into it? How many science geeks that were watching this (of the 4 or so that were) immediately tried to figure out how to do that? Third, Perfect is on the phone while calling a match? Dude I want that job!

Anyway, 13th is the debuting Vader. At the time, he was a complete monster and rapidly becoming one of the biggest heels in the company. He beats up Holly so he’s a good guy to me. Savio puts out Funk from the apron. Vader of course pulls him back in so there we go. Vader punches Savio, making him dance. Yeah I hate him too. Fourteenth is Doug Gilbert of the USWA, which is Lawler’s company.

Jake sets Vega for the DDT, arguably the most devastating and popular move in company history at that point, so right as he goes for it we cut to Holly trying to dump the Kid. We can see it hit between Holly’s legs and the pop is huge, but of course two career nothings are more important so there we are. In a VERY stupid looking spot, Jake hooks Gilbert for the DDT and then just stares at Vader for at least four seconds and then gets clotheslined over the top. That looked so stupid.

Ok so 15 and 16 are twins called the Squat Team. Yes that’s the best name they could come up with for them. They’re twin 450lb guys from Puerto Rico where they’re called the Headhunters. Ok, so we can’t just call them that generic yet far better name? They last less than two minutes combined as Vader just goes insane on the first one with two punches to knock them both out. That was AWESOME.

As the first one leaves his partner is coming out and they both go to the ring. Vader beats them both up at once until Yoko (still heel apparently) grabs one and is like “Boy get your fat gut out of here and make me a sweater” while Vader beats up the other one and is like “Boy go marinate bake me a ham and set the table” and both guys are knocked out.

That was both stupid and pointless which is a nice combination. Oh and just after the first guy came in Doug Gilbert got hit with a freaking AWESOME chokeslam from Vader and thrown out. It looked awesome.

To recap, we have HHH, Lawler (under the ring), Holly, Kid, Vader, Yoko and Vega. Owen is 17th and a major heel at this point due to being the guy that hurt Shawn in the famous enziguri (how in the heck is that spelled anyway?) that made Shawn black out. Yoko and Vader just beat the living tar out of Vega and Shawn is 18th as the roof isn’t blown off in the slightest.

There’s a reaction but dang there was nothing impressive about that in the slightest. Vader puts out Savio as Shawn hits HHH. What would the children think??? The crowd is awake but not much beyond that. Vader and Yoko fight at the ropes and Shawn runs up and dumps BOTH of them at once. Ok that was cool looking. The fans are very much insane now. Shawn gorilla presses Kid out in another cool spot.

Vader and Yoko keep fighting as Hakushi is now in to make it him, Shawn, Owen, Holly and HHH as we see the major problem already: it is so completely obvious that Shawn is going to win. Vader comes back in and throws him out to completely silence the crowd. All of a sudden this year that doesn’t count like it used to so Shawn is still in. Gorilla the Commissioner comes down to run off Vader.

Vader would kick his face in soon which was quite sad. The heel heat on Vader is nuts. Maybe 45 seconds after Hakushi comes in we bring in Tatanka for a one night return for no apparent reason. I’ve always liked that hook of the steel bar that Shawn did. It’s an intelligent counter that works quite well. Owen throws out Hakushi as the Shawn Michaels plus the midcard Rumble continues.

Aldo Montoya is 21st to some of the weirdest music I can ever remember. It’s like techo and tribal mixed and it’s just failing. Shawn finds Lawler under the ring and throws him back in. Sometimes simple heel tactics like that are just made of win. Montoya and Lawler go out almost at the same time as Diesel tries to give Shawn a challenge at 22. I know looking at it now he looks weak but at the time he was a major player still so this was a big deal. He puts Tatanka out with ease.

He and Shawn go at it to a solid pop. Owen goes after Diesel to finally live up to the poster for this event. I have no idea why those two were on the poster. I also have no idea why they didn’t fight at Summerslam 95 instead of Mabel but whatever. I mean really, what match sounds more interesting: Diesel vs. Mable or Diesel vs. Owen? It would have at least been interesting to an extent instead of Diesel and Owen which was completely awful.

Kama is in next to no reaction at all. Yeah Shawn should have come out about 10 spots later than he did. Holly is more or less dead at this point as Shawn hits the ten corner punches on him. The crowd counts with him and I keep thinking it’s another person coming in. Apparently Ahmed has a concussion and is going to the hospital. So wait, it took AN HOUR AND A HALF to figure that out? Dude how bad is your medical staff???

The Ringmaster is in at 24. For those of you that don’t know, he would soon become known as Stone Cold Steve Austin. His manager, Ted DiBiase heading to WCW might have saved the company. He’s wearing white boots here which just doesn’t look right. Aww his boots have little stars on them! That’s so cute! He FINALLY puts out Holly though so he’s awesome already.

Austin is a much more technical based guy here with some very good athleticism. Barry Horowitz is 25th, coming out to his completely sweet rock version of Hava Nagila. How awesome is that? Perfect says that if Horowitz wins this he’ll get back in the ring. That made me chuckle for no reason at all. In a cool looking spot, Owen is leaning on the ropes to choke Shawn so Shawn nips up to kick Owen over, but Owen skins the cat to get back in. That was awesome looking.

The fans are DEAD here. Diesel puts out HHH with complete ease. That looked cool if nothing else. 26th is Fatu. WHY IN THE WORLD DOES HE GET THESE AWESOME DRAWS EVERY YEAR??? This is the making a difference Fatu. My goodness this was awful. It makes Rikishi look brilliant. Hey let’s plug the Superstar Line again! Apparently only the guy on there knows who is next. So is he running around telling people what order to go in?

Perfect changes his stance to he’ll quit if Horowitz wins. So wait, does that mean he’ll quit being retired? If that’s so does that mean he’ll wrestle again? Maybe he didn’t change his stance at all. Owen almost puts Shawn out but just won’t do it because it would probably get him fired. Isaac Yankem (Kane) is in next. Horowitz is gone. Owen hits the enziguri on Shawn again but this time doesn’t kill him.

Austin does the Shawn pose as I laugh. Austin vs. Diesel is a match that I don’t think ever happened. Owen is out due to Diesel and Shawn. 28th is Marty Jannetty as this match just needs to be put out of its misery. Apparently he’s been doing well in the singles division. Did I completely miss some time in the company history? The Rockers go at it in a fight that would have been good maybe 3 years ago.

British Bulldog is 29th again to ZERO reaction. 30th is going to be Duke Droese so there we are. Smith is heel here so he beats on Shawn. He dumps Marty quickly so if nothing else there’s a future for him in vermin control. Fatu puts out Austin. How many people would believe that in three and a half years he would run him over in a car and put him out for a year?

That’s just completely amazing and shows you that all kinds of things can happen in wrestling and you never know what’s coming. Kane knocks out Rikishi with ease as the announcers admit they have no idea how Austin went out due to there being a lot of action going on. No not really but I can’t argue with Vince right? Ok so there’s Duke and the final groups is, and I’m not kidding you here, Duke Droese, Kama, Diesel, Shawn, Bulldog and Yankem. WOW.

If you couldn’t tell who was going to win this and who he was going to eliminate last, you’re an idiot. Droese and Kane go out really fast so your final four are Bulldog, Diesel, Kama and Shawn. And before I’m done typing that Shawn kicks Diesel out to win it. Literally, the final four started and ended inside of 30 seconds. Shawn wins, shocking no one at all. Diesel comes back and they do the Too Sweet sign. Yep, that’s all they do and good night I’m bored here.

Rating: D. How can this show not seem that bad? I mean seriously, Ahmed freaking Johnson at this point has the match of the night, and that’s after guys like Chris Candido, Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall and Dustin Rhodes have performed. Once Shawn came in, the match was over, period. No one thought for a second that anyone other than HBK was going to win, period. I mean look at this lineup.

The alternatives are the debuting Vader, Diesel, who had talked about Taker nonstop recently so his feud is set up, and……and……oh come on there has to be a third guy. Owen Hart wins it by default I guess: a career midcard guy with a cup of coffee in the main event a year ago that is clearly the first Shawn target. WOW. How in the world did this Rumble get a chance to do anything? There is no way this was ever, and I mean ever, was going to work.

The only thing CLOSE to making this work would have been Yoko, Diesel, Owen and Vader against Shawn at the end. I mean really, who else was going to win? This wasn’t interesting at all and other than for a few seconds, the crowd might as well have been asleep, and I can’t blame them a bit. This was just boring.

Bret says he’ll win in a generic interview, which is somehow the most interesting thing I’ve seen other than Vader and Yoko being put out in over an hour.

WWF Title: Undertaker vs. Bret Hart

This is happening because Bret is champion and Taker would have been far too big of a threat to Shawn’s popularity. Taker is wearing the skull mask at this point after Mabel and Yokozuna destroyed his face. For no apparent reason, Diesel is still at ringside. He gets in Taker’s face and there they go. Taker was just all kinds of awesome at this point, as he was reaching that mythical level that few get to.

He’s officially that kind of guy that’s awesome just because he’s who he is. Like today for example, it’s about two weeks after Kofi destroyed Orton’s car. That was AWESOME. Kofi got over in that one segment and granted I have no idea if it’ll still or not as you guys won’t read this for about two months, but the point is he might just fall off the map. A guy like Taker simply isn’t going to fall off the level he’s on barring anything completely insane happening.

He was just hitting that level around this time. He’s like Shawn is now: you can throw together a nonsensical storyline to put him in the title match and everyone will buy it because he’s just awesome enough to be in it. Bret’s pop is solid here, but this crowd just kind of sucks. Ok we’ve been in this match 3 minutes now and I think I already know what’s coming. I had a bad vibe about this match earlier on and it’s coming true now: they’re doing a formula match.

Yep, Bret’s going for the knee early. That means a long drawn out match where Bret works on the leg with a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee and uses a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee and uses a submission, Taker fights back, Bret hits the knee or a suplex move and sets for the Sharpshooter and somewhere in there we brawl on the floor with a weapon other than the belt or a chair being used. And what do you know I’m right.

Yes, for about 25 minutes, that’s all we get. During that Bret gets the stupid looking skull mask off of Taker that was just really annoying. PLEASE END THIS! Taker hits the Tombstone finally, and here’s Diesel for the cheap DQ to set up Diesel vs. Bret to set up Diesel vs. Taker. Ok, I know I have the benefit of hindsight here, but this was as predictable as humanly possible.

The signs were all there for Diesel vs. Taker, especially the fight before the match started. I mean seriously, who in their right mind thought Taker had a chance here? Actually he won, so who thought he had a chance of getting the title here? Whatever, I just want this show to end.

Rating: C-. While it was formula stuff, it was somehow by far and away the best match of the night, and that’s just pitiful. They went out there and did half an hour of stuff you could write a textbook with. Now I know that usually means greatness, but in this case I mean a book called Cookie Cutter Title Matches in 30 Elongated Minutes.

It might have been that I was just wanting this show to end, but DANG this was boring to me. I’m going with the C- because it gives it the best grade of the night just so Jeff Jarrett can’t have it. WWF>TNA, forever, even when you have to lie to get there.

Overall Rating: D-. Somehow, this passes. I have zero idea how, but somehow it passes. The matches all completely sucked, but it was like I kept wanting to like the show. That’s either really good or really bad and I’m not sure which.

This whole show feels like the forms you have to fill out to get something you know you’re getting: it’s pointless, you don’t like it, but you have to do it anyway to get to the end result. This show is just boring. I don’t know if it’s particularly bad, but it’s just so boring that it becomes bad. Don’t watch this unless you’re an insomniac.

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Royal Rumble 1995
Date: January 22, 1995
Location: USF Sun Dome, Tampa, Florida
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jerry Lawler

Well, another year has passed and other than some different jobbers in the midcard, the only big change is Diesel has replaced Luger atop the company. Yoko is now a non factor, Bret is of course in the title hunt, and Luger is in the midcard doing jack. Other than that there are just not a lot of differences. Of course we have the Rumble, but other than that and a Diesel vs. Bret title match, we’ve got nothing of note.

This was a very weird period for the company as they were pretty much booking as they went instead of having long term plans. At the same time in WCW, everything was more or less thrown together. Also, there’s still no Nitro at this point as it was about seven and a half months away. There’s just not a ton going on at this point in wrestling and it’s clear that a change was needed. However, that wouldn’t come for over a year and a half, and as you’ll see, that was WAY too far off. Let’s get to this.

Your big deal here is that Pamela Anderson is here and will escort the winner of the Rumble to Mania. This would turn out to be one of the worst celebrity things that I can remember as she just looked like she absolutely HATED being there. If you’re getting paid to be there, at least try to not look like you’re just wanting to go get smashed. The intro is as generic of a beach thing as you can possibly imagine. Why does Vince have to be such a freaking mic hog? It’s really annoying.

Intercontinental Title: Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon

These two feuded for what seemed like forever. Razor is of course the champion here as that’s all he ever did. Razor’s intro has reached Orton levels. Jerry gets in a funny line about how Jarrett, a country singer here, is going to star in a Broadway play: Phantom of the Grand Ole Opry. That’s just great. As we have a long feeling out period, we keep seeing the Roadie, who is more commonly known as the Road Dogg.

These two had some awesome chemistry to say the least. The gimmick that Jarrett had hurt him a lot I think. He was hard to take seriously, which is unfair because he looked good, he sounded good, he wrestled well, and he just overall worked as a big time guy. However, due to his gimmick and eventually the guitar he just failed. I’ve never gotten that. Take this match for example: everything is working fine and it’s a pretty solid match.

I don’t have anything to really make fun of in it. Granted that could be because Razor was incredibly underrated here so that might have something to do with it. Razor does all his usual stuff, although instead of the bulldog from the middle rope we get a clothesline. These two are having a very solid match out there if I do say so myself. We go to the floor though and Roadie clips Razor’s knee to send him down.

That causes the count out but Jarrett is intelligent for a change and says that he doesn’t want it that way so we need to keep going. They went for almost fifteen minutes to get to this point if that tells you anything. It was a lot of feeling out stuff but at the end of it we more or less had a stalemate. Razor gets back in and we’re ready to go again. I’ve never gotten the term restart the match. Why don’t they get new entrances?

That’s what started the match and if you’re going to redo them you might as well redo those too. With Razor’s knee destroyed, Jeff of course gets the Figure Four on a bit later. Lawler channels his inner Monsoon and says stick a fork in him, he’s done.

However, since Razor is a face and therefore comes equipped with healing powers, he escapes and makes his comeback. If Vince says he’s got him! No wait he doesn’t, one more time I’m going to scream. He gets Jarrett up in the Edge but his knee gives out and a small package gives Jarrett the title. That was good.

Rating: B+. That was a solid opener. Razor was a big deal at the time and him jobbing to Jarrett should have been the start of a big push for him but for some reason that wasn’t the case. These two were both solid workers that were likely told to just go out there and have a good match and that’s just what they did. This was a great opener.

Some annoying looking woman can’t find Jarrett. Hint: HE’S IN THE RING!

Todd is with Pamela Anderson who has gotten lots of gifts from wrestlers because apparently wooing her will make them win the Rumble. I really hate this.

The annoying woman has found Jarrett but calls him Razor. He looks good with the belt.

IRS vs. Undertaker

This was during the epically long Taker vs. DiBiase’s Million Dollar Team feud. This was actually billed as Death vs. Taxes. I give up. Apparently Taker was at a monster truck rally the night before, in character. That’s just amusing to no end. They say he was there watching his favorite monster truck: Grave Digger. There’s just something hilarious in that. As expected, there’s not a ton here.

Look at the guys in there and tell me you were expecting a solid match with a straight face. IRS simply isn’t a legit opponent here, plain and simple. This is a lot of IRS trying to fight Taker and naturally failing while Lawler says the Druids, who worked for DiBiase, should be at ringside. I’m quite bored during this match as it’s just not interesting at all. Taker apparently was at the NFL 75th Anniversary Black Tie Dinner. WOW that’s an image.

After more beating on IRS, DiBiase brings in the Druids because this wasn’t uninteresting enough. The Druids mess up Old School as the ring sounds weird. This just needs to end like NOW. It’s completely boring and feels like a bad joke or something. Lawler thinks the urn has something to do with Taker’s power. That’s so stupid I don’t even know where to begin. It’s the SMOKE inside the urn, not the urn itself.

IRS gets out of a tombstone because of the Druids and hits his finisher: a clothesline called the Write Off. Yep, his finisher is a clothesline. After sitting up for like the 4th time, a bad chokeslam ends this FINALLY. Oh wait here are the druids for even more wasting of time. King Kong Bundy comes out and allows IRS to steal the urn. I really couldn’t be any less interested. Oh and apparently the cheering of the fans works as well as the urn. I give up.

Rating: D. Oh man this was bad. It ran about 12 minutes but it felt like 45. I mean really, Death vs. Taxes? Who thought that was going to be a good match? This should have been about half as long as it was and a glorified squash. No one bought Taker as being in any kind of danger here and it’s clear that this was just not going to be competitive. It was also really boring with the Druids and DiBiase taking too much time. Just a horrible waste of time.

We get interviews from earlier in the day where Todd pesters the heck out of Bret and Diesel who don’t want to talk to him.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Diesel is champion and Bret wants to be champion, end of backstory. They point out that Bret has won two triple crowns while Diesel has won it faster than anyone else (Punk broke that record.) Diesel goes over to talk to Lawrence Taylor and it starts. I really don’t get what they thought that was going to accomplish. Actually I do as it got them a ton of mainstream press, but the fans got screwed over in about 3 months.

WE ARE LIVE! Vince, I hate your marketing obsession. They’ve bought the show. You don’t have to sell it to them again. This actually starts with a slugfest, which naturally doesn’t work for Bret. There’s a bit of a story going on here as Bret is trying to get at Diesel’s legs using all kinds of little tricks and quick moves while Diesel is just straight ahead power. I like that. Bret gets the leg and hammers it early which is odd.

We’re 5 minutes in and we’re on our seconds figure four. Vince says it’s perfect. Vince is wrong. Lawler uses that line I hate about how they’re the same size on the mat. No, Diesel is indeed still taller than Bret. Bret is acting a bit heelish here which the announcers point out. I love that suicide dive that Bret uses. It just looks awesome. Granted any version of that looks great.

Apparently one elbow from Diesel is like 10 average punches. So he has the strength of ten men. That’s amusing indeed. In a funny moment, Diesel gets Bret up in an Argentinean Back Breaker which starts like a powerbomb but Diesel stops to put the hold on. Bret gives a look to the referee and then realizes what’s going on. It looked funnier than it sounded.

In a weird spot, Bret wraps Diesel’s legs around the post and ties them with his tape to beat on him. This lasts about 5 seconds as the referee frees him. That was kind of stupid. We go to the floor…again and Bret hits a pescado but is caught and posted. Diesel goes for him again but then remembers to sell the knee injury. Thanks for that one big guy.

Diesel hits the jackknife but Shawn runs in for the save. He beats on Diesel and works on his leg, yet that’s not enough for a DQ. Well thanks guys. I guess we’re building up some screwjob credits for two and a half years from now. Bret hooks his third figure four of the match as the fans are so bored with it I’m amazed. Lawler channels his inner Heenan and keeps changing his pick. Dang it Nash sell the freaking knee!

Ok, this whole Bret can’t get disqualified thing is freaking stupid. He cracks Diesel in the knee with a chair and that’s not enough for a DQ. The referee has no issue with checking on a submission after that. Owen runs out for the save as this has just gotten stupid. Hey we’ve used chairs, posts, tape and run ins. Why not an exposed buckle? How can no one get that Bret is likely playing possum as he’s done it about once a match for years. Oh sure. Let’s knock out the referee now.

Owen, Shawn and Backlund and Jarrett and the Roadie run in and FINALLY we get the freaking DQ. So let me get this straight: it was always going to be a double DQ, yet we had to sit through all of those run ins, weapon shots and just absurdity to get there? Why did the heels have to wait for the referee to go down? No one else got disqualified earlier for it.

The announcement of the draw, so apparently they still didn’t get disqualified, gets booed out of the building. Bret gets put in the chicken wing but Diesel breaks it up as his knee is just fine all of a sudden. I hate that. The faces shake hands which I’m ok with. Oh NOW the knee hurts again. Thanks for that one Nash.

Rating: B-. I know I blasted the ending and a lot of this match, but that likely wasn’t fair. This really was a solid match for about 80% of it, but dang they did too much with this. If you want to have the ending the way you had it that’s fine, but why have the run ins earlier in the match like that? I just don’t get that part. I get not wanting to have either guy be made to look weak, but this was just too much overkill for my taste.

That being said, when it was just Bret vs. Diesel, there was a of great stuff in there. The psychology was there, but Diesel, I can’t emphasize this enough: SELL THE KNEE NEXT TIME! I mean Bret worked the heck out of that thing and Diesel barely limped half the time. Anyway, this was solid enough, but the booking didn’t make a ton of sense in my eyes.

Holly and 1-2-3 Kid are in the back and say they believe in themselves.

King draws a picture of himself kissing Anderson using a telestrator. He’s talented but that was pointless.

Tag Titles: Bam Bam Bigelow/Tatanka vs. Bob Holly/1-2-3 Kid

This is the final of a tournament after Shawn and Diesel split and dropped the titles. Holly and the Kid are doing the whole underdog that won’t die thing that no one likes but Vince insists we’re always enthralled with. The heels are completely dominating for about the first 8 minutes or so. I know that’s kind of a blanket statement, but dang this just isn’t even close.

Why should we buy either of these guys as having a snowball’s chance of beating Bigelow or Tatanka. They mention Lou Albano which is still kind of sad. We get it: Holly drives cars. As if we don’t have enough dominance here, Kid accidentally hits Holly. Vince points out that the faces haven’t been around for long and were thrown together. Way to bury the teams they’ve beaten Vince.

Oh apparently they were supposed to be the Smoking Gunns but there was a rodeo accident. I don’t want to know. Holly actually tries to tag in Tatanka. This is just stupid at this point. The faces make a brief comeback which given the way they booked it is something close to believable. Kid is launched to the floor and Bigelow goes up for the moonsault. Tatanka picks that moment to hit the ropes though, and Bigelow crashes to the mat back first.

Holly hits a running forearm to knock the stereotype to the floor and the referee starts a double count. He gets to EIGHT and Kid puts an arm over Bigelow for the pin, SEVENTEEN SECONDS after he hit the mat. So let me get this straight. Falling about 12 feet to concrete keeps you down for about 5 seconds in the Kid’s case, but falling about 6 keeps you down at least 20 seconds? Yeah I hate this match.

As if that’s not enough, the Gunns would win the belts the next night on Raw, which makes me want to know something: WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST WIN THE FREAKING TOURNAMENT??? If you want to put the titles on the Cowboys, that’s fine. However, why not just have them go over Bigelow and Tatanka here?

Oh that’s right: to further Bigelow’s mindless face turn that happened because he kept losing to guys like Kid and Lawrence freaking Taylor of all people. Where did that turn wind up? Oh yeah: Japan and ECW. Thanks for taking care of your audience Vince.

Rating: D+. I HATE matches where one team completely dominates and then a mistake at the end gives the other guy/team the win. That’s just lazy booking and it makes the winners look completely weak. Bigelow and Tatanka shouldn’t have won, but the faces should have been the freaking Guns. How hard is it to just think for a minute and not overbook the heck out of a match? This is Vince’s biggest flaw as a booker: he over complicates everything.

Post match, Taylor is laughing at Bigelow so the big bald man shoves him and we have our Mania main event. I hate 1995 wrestling. This takes 10 minutes somehow.

We get a ton of interviews about the Rumble that I don’t feel like recapping. Everyone says they’ll win and say stuff about Pamela Anderson because she’s more important than Wrestlemania.

Royal Rumble

Oh wait we have to let Pam look bored out of her mind and pretend to be into this for awhile first. I hate celebrities being in wrestling. Anyway, Shawn is first and Bulldog as second. Oh and this year it’s one minute because we just HAD to have all those other matches and we don’t have time for actual intervals. Good night Shawn calls spots loudly at times.

Bulldog has Shawn in a gorilla press but of course slams him instead of throwing him over. Shawn is getting the heck beaten out of him as Eli Blu (Skull of the DOA) comes out as 3. We’re 10% of the way through already which is just stupid. Oh come on we’re at the countdown already? Duke Drose is 4th. What kind of a name is the Dumpster? It’s just stupid.

His gimmick was a wrestling garbage man. That’s beyond any and all logic whatsoever. Let the countdown begin! It’s Jimmy Del Ray who means nothing at all for the most part. We get some heel vs. heel mullet action with him fighting Shawn. Sixth is Sione (Barbarian) as I already hate this match. Del Ray is the first guy out as Shawn keeps surviving in impressive ways.

In at seven is Tom Pritchard, Del Ray’s partner because we have to keep a high level of suckage in there. Vince is in full blown over the top mode here as he asks Lawler if every guy that he likes is going to win the Rumble. Also notice that Vince always says Royal Rumble instead of just Rumble. He has to make sure it’s said correctly. Doink is eighth as this match is rapidly catching 93 as worst Rumble of all time.

Everything is all over the place and the time intervals are just killing it. Granted the whole and complete lack of interesting talent is killing it too. Kwang is in at 9 as I’m thinking about throwing on some Family Ties which I’m not a fan of but it would be more interesting than this.

We’re at double digits with Rick Martel who never changes at all. Del Ray is the only elimination at the moment so the ring is full. That’s another issue with this: You can’t get rid of people without making them look weak, but at the same time you can’t let the ring get this full because it’s too cluttered. That clock is really starting to get old in a hurry. Owen is number 11.

Bret runs out to jump him though on his way to the ring in the most interesting thing in the whole match so far. Now everything starts going insane. Timothy Well (of Well Dunn) is number 12 to a big pop? No actually Bulldog threw Owen out about a second after he got in. At the same time I think Martel went out and Droese was thrown over and landed on Earl Hebner in an unplanned spot. Well is gone also.

Oh Martel just got thrown out. Pritchard is out and we have Doink, Barbarian, Shawn, Bulldog, Eli and Kwang. Doink is out as Luke of the Bushwackers comes out. In an elimination that you can only see on the screen and isn’t acknowledged by Vince or Jerry, Barbarian throws out Kwang and then he and Eli eliminate each other. That leaves us with Shawn, Bulldog and Luke. This is making my head hurt.

He’s in there about 10 seconds as Shawn throws him out. He still had a job at this point? Why? Jerry is timing people with his Mickey Mouse watch. That sounds like a simple comedy one liner right? This confuses the HECK out of Vince. You can tell he’s just thrown completely off by it which granted could have been him fighting back laughter. Now I want a Mickey watch. Jacob Blu (8-Ball of the DOA) is number 14 as we’re nearly halfway done and 15 minutes hasn’t passed yet.

Shawn dumps him in about 15 seconds and we’re back to the first two all over again. Former Wrestlemania main event level talent King Kong Bundy is our halfway man. We get a replay of Owen being eliminated, which was a mere five minutes ago. This show should be shown to ROH fans as a torture method. Mo is in next and Bundy becomes my hero by putting him out in three seconds. Naturally Mabel is next as we continue the dumb tag partners in a row tradition.

Of course he goes right after Bundy and we have a bad battle of the big men which can indeed get old. Eighteen (seriously?) is Butch. Bundy is gone and Butch follows soon thereafter. Both guys (Mabel and Bulldog) try to put out Shawn as Luger the midcard guy is 19th. Dang he fell very far very fast. He puts out Mabel with ease.

Mantaur is number 20 as my eyes roll. He’s supposed to be half man and half bull I think but it was never really explained. This is easily his crowning achievement though so take that for what it’s worth. 21st is Aldo Montoya who is more commonly known as Justin Credible and more commonly known as the guy wearing a jockstrap on his face. Henry Godwin is 22nd and the sixth guy in along with Luger, Mantaur, Bulldog, Shawn and Montoya.

He’s a heel here for no apparent reason. We see Pamela who looks like she’s being told she is about to drink yak urine. Our Jordan entrant is Billy Gunn. WAIT A SECOND! He was too injured to fight in the tournament but he can fight here. I hate Vince. Oh apparently they were injured to keep them out of the tournament but they get a title shot tomorrow instead? I’d just fake injuries to get title shot after title shot.

Bart is of course 24th because tag partners always get the same numbers. In case you can’t tell I hate this match to a great extent. Bob Backlund is next as we have 5 left. Oh look it’s Bret playing policeman again. They would fight at Mania in an ok at best rematch from Survivor Series. Next is Steven Dunn since we have to further lower our intelligence. In case you can’t tell, the final two will be Shawn and Bulldog.

Backlund is out after being in about 15 seconds. Bret stays in the spotlight by jumping him again. As that happens, Dick freaking Murdoch is in at 27. He’s 48 here and would be dead in about a year and a half. He’s also in the KKK but that’s not likely to be mentioned. No one has a clue who he is by the way. It amazes me that he can get an entry here. Were they that hard up for talent that he’s the best they can get?

What’s even worse is he’s more energetic than most people in there. Adam Bomb who should have been pushed is 28th. There’s like 10 guys in there and I’m not even bothering to recap them as it’s obvious what’s going to happen in case you can’t tell. Fatu is the penultimate guy. Luger gets Mantaur on the ropes and shakes him up and down to get him out which just looked stupid. He’s out though.

Crush who also should have been pushed is number thirty. Like I said I’m not wasting my time on listing them. The Gunns go out at the same time because of Murdoch and Crush. Murdoch looks pretty good out there actually. We go back to Anderson who points back at the ring as in get off me so I can be miserable and then get my check. I think there’s 9 people in there. Let’s up the stupidity a bit as Vince says that never again will two guys go out at the same time and hit at the same time.

Of course, this ended the show last year and JUST HAPPENED. Luger saves Michaels for no apparent reason. Bomb goes out. I nearly spit out my drink as Vince says he was a favorite. That’s just amusing. He’s young and over and decent. There’s no way he could do anything of note. Montoya is out and AGAIN Luger saves Michaels. Is he that scared of the power of Murdoch? The final six are Luger, Murdoch, Godwin, Bulldog, Shawn and Crush.

Murdoch is by far the most interesting guy in here as he hooks an airplane spin but falls out when trying to dump Godwin. Shawn sprints at Luger which is awesome. This just needs to end as it’s not interesting at all. Godwin is out and we’re at the final four. Crush puts out Luger and I think some nachos sound good here. The heels beat on Bulldog for a bit as we’re just wasting time. Crush tries to jump Shawn but Bulldog sneaks up and drops Crush to get us down to the starters.

We get the famous ending as Bulldog clotheslines Shawn up and over and the music hits for the celebration. But wait. What’s this? Shawn jumps back in and nails Smith to put him over the top and he’s declared the winner. For the only time this will ever be said, Vince is awesome on the mic here. Fink announces that only one foot hit and Vince is stunned. We go to the replay and in one of the coolest and most impressive things I’ve ever seen in wrestling, Shawn’s foot does not touch.

That’s amazing and very risky as if he slips one inch, and who could blame him if he did, the next few months have to be completely altered. Anyway, Shawn wins and he and Pam “celebrate” as it looks like she wants to scream. She even leaves halfway through it as Shawn poses to end the show.

Rating: D+. This has been called the Jobber Rumble and it fits perfectly. I mean look at the list of people. The only ones that were ever going to have a chance were Shawn and Luger, both of whom were midcard guys at best here. The whole thing was just messed up with no monsters to save anything and no one that was a big star to be a big surprise. That’s just stupid.

The one minute intervals are just flat out stupid too. There’s zero time to get going at all and it was just stupid. This did however get two things right: the ending was downright inspired. That’s one o the best ways I can think of to end the thing and the key to it for me is Shawn won completely legally. He earned the win and that’s the most important thing as it ties into the other thing they got right: a midcard guy got elevated.

Shawn goes from IC Title dude to world title shot at Mania in less than 40 minutes. That’s what the Rumble could be for yet never is. They got the end right, but the road getting there was just awful. This could be worse than 93 but I don’t think it quite is.

Overall Rating: C-. This show is just not great at all. It’s the epitome of just being there. It’s not good or bad although it’s leaning towards that latter of the two. The matches are just uninteresting and this feels like it could be on any show at all. Yes we have three title matches, but while they’re good, they could easily have happened on Raws or any run of the mill PPV.

It’s a show where the matches don’t add up to the whole show, as this just feels completely empty despite having some decent stuff on it. I’d say check this out only in extreme cases of boredom or for hardcore fans only. The casual viewer will just be bored to tears, which the ratings around this time reflect. This show was bad, but the individual stuff was ok I guess.

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Survivor Series 1992
Date: November 25, 1992
Location: Richfield Coliseum, Richfield, Ohio
Attendance: 17,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bobby Heenan

Ok so for once we really do have a ton of changes here. For one thing, this is far closer to a standard PPV. There’s one Survivor Series match which is kind of one I guess, but it’s two tag teams and if one member is eliminated both members are gone so it’s kind of a Survivor Series match but not really. The other huge difference here is that there’s no Hogan or Warrior. Warrior is on the box of the tape, but he wasn’t on the show.

He was supposed to be in half of the double main event, a tag match with Savage against Razor Ramon and Flair. However, he bailed a week before the show and the WWF had to use Mr. Perfect in what I thought was a great angle that I’ll get to later. Other than that, your main event is Bret vs. Shawn. This was a real gamble for Vince as we had never tried having two standard wrestlers go at it in a major show’s main event.

There’s no big muscle head to go out and have a match, but Vince put his faith in what he had left and to me, it worked. Other than that, this isn’t going to look like the Survivor Series. With what’s been happening lately at this show, it can’t be worse, so let’s see how this is.

We open with the Reverend Slick saying…ummm…I have no idea what he’s talking about. I think it was something about spreading light. Yeah this was a strange character but he was very energetic so I can’t complain. Vince and Bobby go over the double main event and we’re ready to go.

Headshrinkers vs. High Energy

High Energy is Koko B. Ware and Owen Hart in really bright and baggy neon pants and suspenders. Headshrinkers are two Samoans that are monsters. Guess what this is. Yep, it’s a squash, however, oddly enough the Headshrinkers are in the ring before High Energy is introduced so they look like the jobbers. That’s just odd. I’ve always been a mark for the Headshrinkers so if nothing else I’ll probably like this match.

Fatu is more commonly known as Rikishi. Vince is needling Bobby about Perfect’s face turn which is just great. How in the world is Koko a Hall of Fame member? That just boggles my mind every time I think about it. Vince says that High Energy has been very successful so far. That’s nonsense but oh well. Heenan asks Vince if the Headshrinkers will be at his house for Thanksgiving. That’s an amusing thought and oddly enough I think Vince would have fun with it.

After Koko gets the tar beaten out of him for a good while, he makes the hot tag to the most talented guy in the match, Owen. Owen comes in and beats up the Headshrinkers for a bit, but the overall mass of the fat one is too much for Owen and he’s pinned after a big splash from the top.

This was fairly long at about seven and a half minutes but it was really just an extended squash. Post match Heenan uses his Brain Scan, a telestrator, the white pen thing on the screen, to show how Owen is a turkey. In other words, he draws pictures with it.

Rating: C+. It wasn’t bad, but it was a nice breath of air compared to most Survivor Series matches. It was a standard tag team squash, which isn’t something that you see very often anymore, mainly because the tag team division sucks. Anyway, this was at least ok. It’s not great but it’s not bad. It’s certainly acceptable and a fine choice to open the show.

Alfred Hayes is with Boss Man who says he’s going to beat Nailz.

Sean Mooney says that viewer discretion is advised for the following match. Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Nailz implies Boss Man was abusive and that he’s been waiting for this. He says he’s a good climber, so does that mean he’s an escaped convict? Yeah that’s just kind of stupid.

Boss Man cuts a promo…again. He says the exact same thing. I think only one was shown on the live broadcast, but I really don’t get why they did two in a row like this. The second is better.

Nightstick on a Pole: Big Boss Man vs. Nailz

During that second promo, Boss Man runs off mid sentence to catch Nailz who is trying to get the stick early. That at least makes sense. Yep it’s a big brawl. That’s all this was supposed to be. Boss Man was more or less worthless at this point, but Nailz was going to be given the Undertaker of all people next, as he had several house show matches followed by being on the cover of the WWF Magazine. However, after nearly murdering Vince McMahon (literally) he was fired.

As you would expect, both guys go for the post but neither can get it. The pole is too short though and all you have to do is stand on the top rope. Of course since this is a pole match and all they have to do is standard climbing, it takes 20 seconds to get up there. Nailz at least has the psychology of it right as he uses mainly chokes and punches. He’s not supposed to be a polished wrestler and he’s not wrestling like one.

He’s a street fighter and he’s acting like one. At least he’s smart enough to do that. This is just a sloppy match all around. They’re worn out after about three minutes with no big bumps yet. The way Bobby and Vince are talking about it you would think this was a Hell in a Cell match or something. See, if I were in this match, I’d let the other guy get the stick and then jump him on the way down, but then again I’m not a professional.

Boss Man gets the stick and beats Nailz with it, but a shot to the head isn’t enough to keep him down apparently. Nailz gets it and hits Boss Man in the side with it. He then waits for him to get up, misses a shot, gets punched twice, whipped in and the Boss Man Slam ends it. Yep that’s it. This was a waste of time.

Rating: D+. This was just awful. There was no point at all to it and it should have been a standard match instead of this mess. The nightstick served next to no purpose but of course it looked like it was awesome. It just wasn’t entertaining at all and ended without the stick being a factor. Just make it a one on one next time people.

Nailz, while choking Mooney, says that was more injustice.

Tatanka is in the back with Alfred Hayes. He says that tonight he’ll get back his eagle feathers and honor his people. Well at least it’s borderline original.

Gene is with Flair and Razor. Gene talks about how there was a big swerve going on and how Perfect is the new partner. We go to the tape of Prime Time Wrestling where Perfect turned. This was just after Warrior had left and Savage was on satellite from Florida. He says that his partner could be perfect for him.

The design of the show was a round table with Vince, Hillbilly Jim, Jim Duggan, Heenan and Perfect there discussing various things in the company and talking about matches that were shown. That’s actually a pretty cool idea when you think about it. Anyway, Vince says do you mean Mr. Perfect and Savage says he does. Heenan speaks for Perfect, saying that they both take orders from Flair and that Perfect isn’t wrestling anywhere.

Perfect takes offense to this and says that he’s tired of being ordered around before accepting. Heenan slaps him which causes Perfect to grab him by the tie and pour water over him, saying that Flair is afraid of him. We cut back to Flair, who is TICKED over this. He talks to Perfect, saying that he had it all and is throwing it away.

There’s a hint of fear in his voice which is just great as this is a heck of a promo. Ramon says that his team will win. He really wasn’t that good yet and it showed in his promos. He would get a lot better. The partnership here was always kind of a weird one as it was never really explained.

Tatanka vs. Rick Martel

This is happening because Martel stole some feathers from Tatanka which were important. Well it’s better than nothing I guess. This is a bit of a departure from the Survivor Series idea wouldn’t you say? Heenan goes on a huge rant about life in general, mainly focused on Perfect. Martel chokes and Heenan shouts out that HE HAS TIL FIVE!

Sgt. Slaughter is now an enforcer of rules or something like that. A front facelock by Martel gets him nowhere. Scratch that as it gets him suplexed. Ok so it failed him once so now we go right back to it. Doink is here now as he has only been here for about five weeks now. Amazingly enough the facelock leads to ANOTHER suplex. That’s just appropriate.

Doink makes a balloon animal for a kid and steals it. That’s straight up awesome. Martel uses the hold AGAIN. Dude three times with the same hold in 3 minutes? Seriously? Are you that bored? A cop shows up in the front row and takes a sign as we cut away. It probably said WCW or something like that, making that person EVIL!

Martel hits the post with his shoulder so the stereotype goes after it, showing some intelligence. Backslide gets two which of course Vince swears is a pin. Doink continues to be a big focus here but I don’t think anything ever came of his involvement here. How weird is it to think that Vince has been WWF Champion but neither of these guys were?

Martel works on the back now as Tatanka is in trouble. Decent little match so far if nothing else. Double axe off the middle rope eats fist though and here comes the warpath thing. Top rope chop hits Martel and he’s in big trouble. Samoan drop ends it and Tatanka gets the feathers back. Doink pops the kids’ balloons just to be evil.

Rating: C-. This was fine for what it was: a midcard match that nothing ever really came of. It was the end to this mini-feud and nothing else ever came of it. Both guys were at least ok in the ring and it went fine I guess. Nothing ever came of the Doink thing though, which means it was indeed, completely pointless, for him to be out there at the end.

We go to Mooney who is with Savage and Perfect, who say that they’re a strange team but they respect each other. In some weird way, this match actually looks decent enough I guess. Perfect gives a WOO at the end which ticks Bobby off during the intros.

Razor Ramon/Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect/Randy Savage

The faces get a HUGE pop, especially Savage. How in the world did Vince not push him as top face once Hulk left? I’ll never get that for the life of me. He had everything: the look, the ability, the resume, yet for no apparent reason he was put behind the announce desk. That just doesn’t make sense to me. Heenan is so angry about this match that it’s hilarious. We start with Perfect against Ramon which gets yet another pop.

This AWA reunion begins with Perfect being all over the place and outmaneuvering Razor. The forgotten aspect is that these two are former AWA World Tag Team Champions. Perfect nails Flair and we get the big showdown. Savage and Flair is one of the best feuds ever. Both guys can go in the ring and it offered proof that the company could work without the big orange man to help them out. The heels take over now as Ramon puts on an abdominal stretch.

Vince has apparently been hanging out with Monsoon too much as he criticizes it for a lack of the hook of the toe. Has anyone ever done that hold properly? The heels are dominating Savage now, which makes sense as Perfect hasn’t been around for about a year now so it makes sense that he’s on the apron for a lot of the match. As Savage is being beaten on, Perfect turns to walk away. This makes limited sense as there’s no point to it really.

The heels do the smart thing and point Savage’s face at Perfect leaving, which would I guess work to break his spirit a bit. See, that’s why Flair is better than most wrestlers: he had the mental aspect of wrestling down. That’s a critical key to a wrestler that most people don’t have. Heenan ranting about Perfect is flat out awesome. This has been a pretty good match so far. It’s not great, but it’s what you would expect from a main event level tag match I suppose.

Razor hits a chokeslam which doesn’t have a name yet. Heenan says that he’s seen Ramon do that to the people on the streets of Miami. What area of Miami is Ramon from? I’ve never been there but apparently 6’6 men chokeslam you on the cement there. That’s fairly cool. Also, as Ramon goes for the cover and Perfect looks for the save, Bobby yells “GET OUT OF THE RING YOU LOWLIFE!”

That’s just an awesome line if there ever was one. He sounds so ticked off which is all you can ask for here. Flair goes to the top, and I’ll give you two guesses as to what happens. Actually you would be wrong because Savage does something different here. He climbs to the middle rope before going back to the bottom rope to slam him. That wouldn’t really add anything to the move I don’t think, but whatever, it looked cool.

This lets Savage get the hot tag to Perfect who proceeds to clean house. It’s chair time as Savage gets taken out by a shot from Flair. The referee gets bumped and apparently the other one was just behind the curtain because he’s out there in like 4 seconds. Perfect and Ramon are going at it and Razor sets for the Edge. Perfect gets a sweet counter by kicking off the top rope and backdropping Ramon.

He hits the Perfectplex but only gets two because of Flair. He hits another on Flair but no pin again with Razor making the save. Since both guys are in the ring forever, we get the DQ in a cheap ending. Flair puts him in the figure four and eventually Savage makes the save with a chair as the faces win. The face celebration takes way too long as they’re channeling Hogan I guess.

Rating: B. The ending hurts it a bit, but this was solid. It was a good tag match and while it didn’t have a definitive ending, it might be better that it didn’t here. Perfect looked good while Ramon looked pretty good as well. This was what you would expect from these four in this kind of a match. It went fine though, and I can’t really complain about anything other than the ending I guess. Bobby’s rants are great here.

Flair and Ramon are angry of course and they vow revenge.

Yokozuna vs. Virgil

This was the not incredibly fat Yoko, as he’s only 505 at this point and the monster that we know him as. He’s billed from Polynesia here which is just odd in all respects. We get a segment from earlier in the day where Hayes goes to Yoko’s room for an interview but Yoko is getting a massage. Fuji offers to let Alfred get a massage. He’s liking it as Fuji throws him out. Vince tries to make this match sound good. That’s just funny.

Despite being Polynesian apparently, Fuji has the Japanese flag. Vince says he hasn’t been tested yet. Apparently that’s going to be the case after this match too. Naturally, Virgil really can’t do much here. It’s basic jobber offense with punches and dropkicks that fail more and more every time. Yoko hits a sweet kick to the face that knocks him down with ease. He crushes him with a sweet spinning rock bottom suplex.

The squashing continues as Virgil tries to out move him. Vince says he’s trying to stay away from him as he’s running right at him. I love that classic Vince commentary. In a spot I’ve always wanted to see, Virgil goes for a school boy and Yoko just sits on him. That’s as simple as you could get and it worked perfectly. Within a few seconds the Banzai ends this one.

Rating: C. It’s a squash so I guess we’ll call it average. Virgil of course stood no chance here and it was nothing more than a way to get Yoko over and there’s nothing at all wrong with doing that here. It gave him a win over a somewhat big name and Virgil gets to eat tonight, so things are fine here. It was short, under four minutes that is, so what can I really complain about?

We go to the back with Savage and Perfect who say that was great. They say Ramon and Flair are the turkeys.

Nasty Boys/Natural Disasters vs. Money Inc./Beverly Brothers

This is the elimination tag I was talking about earlier. Money Inc. are the tag champions here and are in the middle of a feud with the Nastys that I don’t remember in the slightest. DiBiase is wearing the stupid white attire again which if you’ve read my thoughts on Summerslam 92, you know my take on. The other two teams had fought at Summerslam so I guess that constitutes a feud, despite it being a squash. Yeah that makes sense.

The Nastys are WAY over. That’s quite surprising to me. Again, this is a very boring match indeed. I don’t get the point in having these kinds of things, although I guess in this case only having one works fine. This is even a switch from the normal stuff and it’s still rather pointless. Vince asks if Heenan will be on an upcoming European tour. Heenan says he might but it’s really none of Vince’s business.

I love lines like that where given what we know now the meanings are far different. Yep, this match sucks as well. Why can’t there just be interesting matches on a show? I don’t get how hard that is to accomplish. Anyway, after about five minutes of people just beating on each other with the freaking Nasty Boys being the most over out there (I will never get wrestling fans at times), we get to what we knew was coming: the wild brawl.

Out of this, the Beverlies go down to the Earthquake from Earthquake. He really needed a better name for that move. My goodness Typhoon was worthless. Actually that’s not true. He was good for comedy, as he’s more commonly known as the legendary Shockmaster. Good grief this will just not end.

The heels dominate for a few minutes until Typhoon comes in to clean house a bit. This works for awhile until IRS rolls him up to eliminate the Disasters. Within five seconds, Knobbs rolls him up for the win. I kind of like that ending I think.

Rating: D. Oy this was another horrible match. There’s just no point to this match other than to further Nasties vs. Money Inc., which begs the question of why not just have them go at it by themselves? Wouldn’t that make things a lot easier? I’d certainly think so. Either way, this was nothing special and for the most part was just flat out boring. That seems to be a trend here.

We recap Taker vs. Kamala with the main thing being Kamala is scared of caskets. Why does that not surprise me? We see Taker building a massive casket before we go to the arena for the match.

Undertaker vs. Kamala

This is different than the traditional casket match with the rules here being that you have to get the pinfall and THEN put them in the box. Yeah that’s just redundant. The intros here are long but not modern day Taker long as it only takes about five minutes for both guys to come out. Taker and Bearer have the massive coffin with them which is always cool looking, but this one is way too bright for my liking.

Immediately we see the two major issues in this match. First of all, Kamala sucks, badly. Even for a monster he sucks. Second, the coffin aspect is just stupid since it’s pinfall first. Due to that, there’s really no point to the box aspect. They should have made it one or the other, but granted this was a first so they were really in the dark at this point. So far this is your standard monster vs. monster match. Taker beats on both managers but gets chopped by Kamala. This was a very odd time in Taker’s career.

They knew that he was a huge asset and talent, but they had absolutely no clue what to do with him. Since they didn’t know all they did was throw him against monster after monster whom Taker would usually beat after losing an initial encounter. This feud in particular since after this at the Rumble, Whippleman would bring in Giant Gonzalez who would destroy Taker for a bit before Taker put him away at Summerslam.

About 12 years later, the feud was completely recycled but with Muhammad Hassan and Mark Henry combining to play the role of Kamala and Great Khali being Gonzalez. The IWC HATED this feud because we were literally calling every single thing that was going to happen and we were right. Now to be fair, they waited over 10 years so I guess it’s ok, but still it was a very boring 8 months as far as we were concerned when it came to Taker.

Kamala starts taking over and hits some of the worst splashes ever. Like I’ve said, unless it’s from the top rope, for the most part if you use a splash for a finisher, odds are you’re not a very good wrestler. With Taker down, Kim Chee and Kamala literally play hot potato with the urn. Taker sits up and nails Kamala with it for the pin. See, after that they ring the bell, which shows how stupid this is. They roll Kamala into the coffin and literally nail it shut. Yep that’s it.

Rating: C+. Eh, given what they had this was about as good as it was going to get I suppose. Taker winning was never in doubt at all, but it was ok. It certainly could have been worse but they kept it short and that was a big plus for these guys. There’s really not a lot that they’ll be able to do, so I’m happy with this overall. The gimmick was a bit stupid, but they didn’t know what they were doing, so this is slightly above average.

Shawn cuts a pretty bad promo, talking about how he beat Bulldog for the IC belt, who beat Hart for the belt at Summerslam. Apparently Bret has defended the title the most times in history, which is impressive since I think he won it about 6 weeks before this. He was brand new to the big time and you could see he was very nervous.

We get a pointless bit about Kim Chee and Harvey opening the casket and Kamala not being able to move. And that’s about it.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

After Shawn’s intro, we go to the back for an interview with Bret. Since winning the belt he’s defended against Mountie, Berzerker, Rick Martel, Papa Shango and Virgil. And people have the nerve to ask why his first reign wasn’t taken seriously. Bret talks about how thankful he is for what he’s done and how he’s gotten this far. This had the potential to be a great promo, but Bret just wasn’t that good on the mic yet, which is understandable.

It fit his character really well as he was supposed to be the best pure wrestler in the world and while he couldn’t talk he could go in the ring. That’s what he did, and it worked very well. Like I said, this was a huge gamble for the company as they had no clue how to do a big show without Hogan or Warrior. This could have sunk the company for Vince, but thankfully he stuck to his guns and put two of his best young guys out there.

Bret gets a solid pop but not huge. Vince of course tries to make it sound bigger than Hogan ever got. Heenan gets in a great line. Vince says that Bret is likely the most scientific champion of all time. Heenan in his most condescending and annoyed voice says wrong. Vince asks who. Heenan: Flair. He sounds so snobby and annoyed here that it’s perfect. They start with a lengthy feeling out period, which makes sense here and works well since both of these guys can do just about anything.

Also, at this time Shawn doesn’t use the kick as his finisher, but rather a weird suplex move. The kick is in his arsenal but it’s just a run of the mill move. He’s kind of like a rookie MMA Brock Lesnar. He had everything else but he couldn’t finish people. Bret gets a hammerlock and Shawn actually taps but since it’s 1992 no one gets that. Dang maybe he’s more like Lesnar than I thought. Heenan mentions he gets paid a lot of money to do his job.

Vince’s “I’m sure you do” response is full of sarcasm which again is funnier now given that we know he signs Heenan’s checks. Given that this is a pretty long opening part of the match, the fans are staying into it which is a very good thing. Shawn uses that same rolling counter for a hip toss that he’s used before and it’s still completely awesome. Vince really likes talking about how Bret won the title.

How they evolved into what they became just five years later amazes me. We pick up the pace a bit which makes the match more interesting. Granted it was fine before but now it’s a bit better. Bret takes the standard momentum turning bump of having his shoulder hit the post at full speed.

Shawn shifts into a standard heel offense and this is working pretty well. These two have a natural chemistry between them and it’s never once failed to deliver at least a very good match. Even the Montreal match was at least good before the ending.

They continue the debate over who is stronger which never was answered I don’t think. Heenan, talking about Shawn, says this man is hot. Where’s Becca when I need her? I love how Vince orders the referees around. I wonder if he criticizes them about it later on. They kind of mention that Bret has won the Triple Crown but they don’t call it that. Pedro Morales had already done it so they can’t really say much about Bret.

Bobby goes to some classic insults about Bret’s family, which are likely what he was best at. We’ve been in this chinlock far too long now as Shawn just doesn’t have the variety in his offense to be able to pull off a nearly half hour match like this is. Given another year or two though he easily could, but he just wasn’t there yet. It seems that all he knows are rest holds, which I guess he’s using to just stall for time.

That’s fine I guess, but he needs to do some standard stuff in between them to prevent it from becoming boring. Heenan’s random talk of Razor and Flair is amusing. He played the role perfectly. You can tell Vince just can’t keep up with Heenan on the mic and it’s great to hear. Of course, Vince believed he was ten times the commentator that Gordon Solie was so who cares apparently.

Now that we’re out of the rest holds we’re turning it up a bit and now we’re getting good. Shawn of course gets hit with a sling shot which is one of his standard bumps that always works. Vince mentions that Bret has what a champion is made of. Vince, they’re both champions. Of course that’s not mentioned, so I guess even back then the IC Title was being buried. Dang I love that Russian Leg Sweep that Bret does.

For some reason Vince says what is going on. Well Vinny, it’s called a wrestling match. You might have seen one before but apparently not. The referee gets bumped in the corner but is up about 3 seconds later. I think that was unintentional. There’s just something missing from this match and I can’t put my finger on it. What I guess it is would be that neither of these guys are really huge stars yet.

Yes Bret is world champion, but he’s held it for such a short time that he’s still kind of viewed as a midcard guy. That’s what happened to Eddie during his run with the belt and it’s a hard thing to shake off. It’s a good match, but still there’s just an x factor that isn’t there. I think it’s a combination of Bret not going for the legs and Shawn having no finisher to end things with.

Today he would have the kick that he could hit from nowhere. He it looks like both guys are hoping to hit a rollup or something, and that’s what I think is missing. Shawn gets tied up in the ropes but is out in time for Bret to miss some big move and kind of get crotched. Apparently Bret is running himself too thin and whoever fights him next will beat him.

In the exact same ending to regulation time in the iron man match, Shawn misses a top rope dropkick and Bret gets the Sharpshooter to end this. That’s interesting that they would use the exact same ending sequence for regulation in the Iron Man match. And here comes…Santa Claus? What the heck? Yes, Santa is coming down the aisle, the night before Thanksgiving. What in the world? He puts a Santa hat on Bret’s head as it starts snowing in the arena.

I think I’m in one of X’s trips as this makes zero sense. Maybe it’s not snowing. Vince says it is but I don’t see any of it. Oh there it is. Vince says ho ho ho as we end it. After it ends, Bret is with Santa and he says he wants big and bad opponents for Christmas. That’s kind of cool I guess, but still, WHAT THE HECK?

Rating: A-. The lack of a Shawn finishing move here really hurt things. There was never a moment where you really felt that Shawn could pull it off because even though he sets for the suplex at one point, it’s a freaking belly to back suplex. Why should that be considered special?

It wasn’t and thankfully he changed to the kick…a few years later. Other than that, this was a good match. It’s not great, but it’s certainly worth seeing. These guys would go on to have classic after classic, but this one is really forgotten I think.

Overall Rating: C+. Well it’s better than anything that this show has done since the first one, so it gets a passing grade but not by much. This just flat out wasn’t that great. There’s two very good matches in the double main event, but the rest of the show is just above average at best. It was a gamble and it worked, but it didn’t feel like the Survivor Series at all. It worked, but not great like I said. It’s recommended though, but not very strongly at all.

 

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Summerslam 2002
Date: August 25, 2002
Location: Nassau Veterans Memorial, Uniondale, New York
Attendance: 14,797
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Jim Ross

Another year and more changes have occurred. The main one is simple: the Brand Split. Yes, Raw and Smackdown are now two separate shows etc. However, there is an Undisputed World Champion and his name is the Rock. He’s defending tonight against the greatest rookie sensation of all time: Brock Lesnar. No one had EVER seen anything like Brock and they likely never will. He took the company and the business by storm, winning the shot by beating RVD in the KOTR final.

There were even rumblings that he could actually win the title tonight but that could never happen. What a silly idea. Your other main event is the return of HBK, facing HHH in what is considered a classic. This show is considered to be a rival to Wrestlemania 17 as the greatest WWF PPV of all time, or at least of the new millennium. Now I watched this show a few months after it aired and I remember it being good but not great. Let’s see if this is as good as it’s built up to be.

Oh also, two months prior to this, a new branch of the National Wrestling Alliance debuted: NWA: TNA.

Oh it’s also WWE now.

No opening video this year. That kind of sucks.

Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio

No real buildup here other than they don’t like each other. Given the amount of matches that they have to put together now, that’s the sacrifice that they had to make I suppose. Angle is wearing red and white stripes with a blue star, making him look like a barber pole. This was back when Rey’s knees weren’t falling apart yet and was close to what he was in WCW, which is to say, amazing. This is about as perfect of a pairing as you could want.

Rey is fast enough to wrestle with heavyweights, while Kurt is small enough and versatile enough to keep up with him. Going for Rey’s ankle makes sense as it could ground him and take away his best asset, so what’s not to like? My answer: nothing. This has been a very  good match so far. The fans are very hot for this too so that’s always a perk. Rey keeps getting closer and closer here but Angle keeps getting up.

What you have to keep in mine here is that at the time, Rey wasn’t a huge star like he is now. He was a rookie that only had a handful of experience outside of the cruiserweight ranks. Think of him like a better Evan Bourne and think of Angle like Jericho. Imagine Bourne and Jericho opening a PPV and Bourne getting so close every time but just not being able to put Jericho away, but Jericho can’t win either. That’s where you get this match.

These guys are killing each other out there and it’s great, as neither can put the other away. Rey gets Angle on the floor but the referee won’t let him dive. Rey says screw it and jumps over the referee and lands on Angle in a sweet looking front flip (Do a barrel roll!).

619 (which in WCW wasn’t an attack but rather a fake out) and West Coast Pop get two as Rey doesn’t know what to do. Rey goes up top and flips forward to avoid Kurt and goes for a hurricanrana. Angle more or less jumps forward and grabs the ankle. He goes to the middle and just cranks on it until Rey taps.

Rating: A+. Awesome match. That’s the only way to describe this. These two just went out there and did it. This was back when Rey was relatively healthy before his knees just got destroyed. He’s still good now, but back then he was insane. Rey in WCW was the most fun I’ve ever had watching a wrestler.

If you think Bourne is good, Rey from back then would run circles around him. This was as close as Rey ever got to that in WWE, and it was great. Find this match and watch it as it’s absolutely great. Screw it, this gets an A+.

Stephanie is mad that Bischoff is in her office but she agrees to share it with him for the night, as she proves she just can’t act. She does have nice legs though.

Ross and Lawler are talking about the show, but for some reason they had them really far away from the ring back then. It made no sense to me and just looked odd.

Chris Jericho vs. Ric Flair

Again, no backstory. We get a clip from them fighting on Raw, including Flair breaking all of Fozzy’s equipment, but it’s never explained why they’re fighting in the first place. This was when Flair was still fairly mobile and not all old and disturbing looking. He was only 52 and still could be decent in the ring. Being in there with Jericho is going to help as Jericho can wrestle Flair’s style, and is smart enough to know how to wrestle a Flair match.

See, Flair is considered one of the best of all time because he knew what he did best and it worked with anyone. Flair had a formula, and all he had to do was plug his opponent into that formula for the majority of the match and then have the finish. This was exactly what he did throughout his career in WCW and it hardly ever failed. Yes, Flair’s matches are pretty standard, but they’re also pretty good. I mean his stuff from when he was in his prime mind you.

Go back and watch some of that stuff from the NWA in the mid to late 80s and tell me if you can find a truly bad match. Now not everything is going to be a classic of course, but he hardly ever had a truly bad match. On the rare occasions that he did, it was because the other guy wanted to run the style of the match, which traditionally meant Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes was notorious for insisting on having his style of match, which worked for him and him alone.

Go watch their Starrcade matches and you’ll see what I mean. It’s just not looking like a normal Flair match and it just isn’t that good. Granted, this could be because Dusty just was awful in the ring as he couldn’t go for more than 5 minutes without resting. He was lazy on a snapmare in that match. It’s one of the most basic moves in wrestling and he’s lazy with it.

Anyway, the point of this rant was that at the end of the day, the reason Flair’s stuff was bad near the end of his career was the matches stopped playing to his strengths and became based on what the other guy could do. Flair made a career out of taking a guy that was good and making him great by making him look great.

Look at Sting. He was a good wrestler, but his rivalry with Flair is where he got noticed, because Flair made him look great. In WWE, Vince didn’t let this happen and it caused Flair to look bad and the guys that were against Flair didn’t look as good as they could have.

Ok, rant over at least for now. Once I get going in those things I just can’t stop. For some reason we don’t have Flair’s normal music. It’s the weird imitation that he had back in 92. We’re a minute into this match and they’re already talking about how he beat Rock and Austin in one night. My goodness that is never going to leave. It’s a huge deal but good grief let it die. The WOOS are loud tonight.

This is a stat that blew me away. Jericho has been around for a LONG time right? He was 2 when Flair debuted. That’s just ridiculous. Flair has been wrestling almost as long as Jericho, a veteran at this point, had been alive. Jericho calls a spot to Flair in fairly obvious fashion. He just leans over and whispers it to him. It’s scary to think that Flair, at 52, has miles better cardio than most of the roster in their 20s and 30s. This match has been very physical to say the least.

There are so many little things that Flair does that show why he’s great. It’s not a bunch of big impressive moves with a few botches here or there. It’s a simple, basic style that has practically zero mistakes in it. In other words, it’s not about what he’s doing well. It’s about what he’s not doing wrong. Then the little things like getting the referee looking somewhere else to use a bunch of punches. He plays to the crowd well too.

How sad is it that so many people today would be clueless about how to do this? We get a cool sequence where Flair goes for the Boston Crab and Jericho gets a figure four, showing how fairly stupid it is to have finishers like that which almost anyone can do. That’s why I like the liontamer, the one with the knee in the back, more. No one else uses it. Apparently over time the amount of points that the figure four puts pressure on has gone from 5 in Gordon Solie’s days to 7 now.

In a brilliant move, Flair grabs the ropes and taps. The thing is, since the hold should be broken, the submission can’t count. That’s a very smart thing to do as it buys him a lot of time. Referee gets a thumb in the eye, or maybe a short knee (rep for the first person that gets what I’m talking about) allowing Flair to low blow Jericho and put on the figure four. Anyone think it’s a bit sexual looking when Flair bounces up and down while in it? Yeah I never thought that either. Jericho taps.

Rating: B. While not as good as the other match, this was still very solid. As good as Flair is though, I’m not sure I’m sold on him practically beating Jericho, who was world champion earlier in the year, clean. It was a very good match with Flair being the better of the two, but still, it just had me kind of wondering.

Promo for Hogan DVD.

Heyman is with Lesnar and talks about him ending Hogan’s career. Lesnar is a freaking tank.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Edge

Dang 3 matches and 6 world champions. Again, very limited backstory here as they just don’t have the time to do it. As awesome as Edge’s old music was, he desperately needs something more hardcore at this point. He’s rocking the glasses and the trench coat though so you can see the future Edge trying to get out. However, in less than 6 months he’d be out for over a year, so that kind of got put on hold.

Apparently Eddie is upset about Edge being popular and a sex symbol (really?). That’s almost creepy given who Edge would be married to on WWE TV. Just as I say that about Edge’s injury, he might have gotten hurt. He has a bit of a stinger according to Tazz, who would know something about having a Steve Borden. If he is hurt, Eddie doesn’t seem to care at all.

In case you didn’t know, Edge is a HUGE face here and way over with the crowd. Apparently it’s Edge’s shoulder….er neck…..maybe shoulder…..can the commentators make up their freaking minds?? Either way, Eddie is crushing him right now. Eddie is just going insane on Edge’s shoulder, so if nothing else we have a simple story going on that works really well. If nothing else, how can Edge spear someone if his shoulder is killing him without hurting himself really badly?

The main thing of this match is nothing more than Eddie working over the shoulder. Frog Splash misses but after a brief Edge comeback including the Impaler, Eddie hits a splash down onto the shoulder. Of course, because he’s the charismatic face though, Edge is able to spear Eddie without his arm falling off for the pin.

Rating: C+. The ending just ruined this for me. I got into Eddie’s shoulder work, but then when Edge more or less no sold it at the end, it was a total waste in my eyes. What’s the point in working an injury and taking away a guy’s finishing move if the other guy is just going to no sell it and use his move anyway? That was just bad and made me shake my head, which sucks as the match was pretty good.

Tag Titles: UnAmericans vs. Booker T/Goldust

Now this was a gimmick that I thought was very solid. Christian and Lance Storm represent the UnAmericans here, with Test being the third member of the trio. In short: they don’t like America. They were given the tag titles but very soon after this the gimmick was just completely dropped. I’ve never quite gotten why though. Either way, the odd thing here was that Booker and Goldust were also a team, yet they have absolutely nothing in common.

Hearing the announcers try to give them something in common really is quite funny. The fact that they’re both from Texas never really seemed to sink in. Either way, they were a fairly decent team, albeit they were far more comedic than serious, but Booker would be pushed towards the title picture soon and then put into a serious team with RVD, so all is good I suppose.

Anyway, on with the match. Hearing Lawler try desperately to make Booker and Goldust pro-America is rather interesting, as he compares them to the Great American Melting Pot without ever referring to it as such. The USA chants are really loud to say the least, so if nothing else the heels are drawing heat like they’re supposed to be. Ross’ repetition is nothing short of annoying.

Goldust hits a Bossman Slam as I try to come up with a connection between those two and it’s not working. We get a classic ref didn’t see the tag spot which needs to be done more often. It’s as simple of a way to draw heat as there is in a tag match. This crowd is HOT. Booker gets his own chant as he’s clearly the big star in this match. We knew he was a big deal, but they didn’t push him as such until March, when he was fed to HHH.

Oddly enough, HHH had everyone on the planet fed to him until tonight when he let Shawn, his old buddy, have a classic with him. It’s not like these jokes have no basis in reality, but I’ll save that rant for later…maybe. Anyway, Booker finally gets the hot tag to a huge pop. He throws chops at Christian so fast that the crowd can’t WOO fast enough. That’s actually pretty impressive.

Booker hits his missile dropkick which would have won him the world title in WCW but since this is the WWF and Christian is for some reason popular, he kicks out at two. It always amazes me how a finishing move can just lose its power over the course of a year. Booker spins up as Mark Madden gets another ego boost.

The faces dominate for a good while until Test runs out and kicks Booker’s head off to keep the titles for the heels. On replay, we see the referee looking right at Test leaving as Booker is left lying. Yeah that makes sense. The Smackdown tag titles would be debuted in about two months.

Rating: C-. This was about as cookie cutter of a match as you could have imagined. While it’s ok, it’s just ok. Booker and Goldust would eventually get the titles later on in January for all of two weeks. It wasn’t bad, but just not great.

Nidia does some stupid thing at the World, which is the new name for WWF New York.

Eric and Stephanie make some stupid sex jokes.

Intercontinental Title: Chris Benoit vs. RVD

This is cross promotional, so we have two announcers which is both kind of cool and kind of stupid. Benoit and Eddie have been jumping rosters lately, going from Raw where he won the title to Smackdown. The US Title on Smackdown was about a year away at this point, so there was only the midcard title on Smackdown. Van Dam kicks the freaking heck out of Benoit to start, so you know this is going to be physical to say the least.

This was a weird time for these two as Van Dam was kind of replacing Angle in the triad of the midcard. You always had Benoit and Jericho, but Angle was always a step ahead of those two, and eventually as he was phased up into the main event, Van Dam was thrown into the middle of the card more or less as an experiment and I’d say that it was a success. Frog splash misses and Benoit gets the crossface, which he locks on for about 30 seconds.

No tap though as we’re really just getting going. Over the course of the next 5 minutes or so, Benoit gets another two crossfaces on Van Dam who STILL doesn’t tap as we’re entering HBK at Mania 12 territories of not giving up. In a nice touch of comedy (in my eyes at least), Van Dam locks in the crossface, at least I think that’s what it is although he never was one for submission holds, on Benoit.

This lasts all of 4 seconds though as Benoit is the master of it so why wouldn’t he be able to get out of it? I’m not wild on the two matches with focus on the shoulder like this, but in this case it makes much more sense with Benoit’s finisher focusing on the shoulder. I guess with Eddie and Edge it made sense due to some psychology being thrown in, but I’m still not wild about it at all.

In something I never once remember seeing before, Van Dam’s hair tie comes undone and his hair is freely flowing. I’ve never seen that before and I really don’t like it. He looks almost like Tyler Reks with it like that, which works fine for the surfer, but it just doesn’t look right on Robbie V. I’m thinking I forgot a Ross joke here. That’s going to bother me now. The ending here is just not that great.

Benoit has a belly to back suplex countered as Van Dam rolls over onto him and lands in kind of a cross body/splash. In a very nice looking move, Van Dam looks down at Benoit from the top rope with Benoit’s feet pointing to him. He turns in the air and lands a Five Star for the pin and the title. Really not huge on that ending, as it’s just kind of there. There’s not a lot of drama as Van Dam just jumps up and hits the splash and pins him. However, a guy winning a title clean is a very refreshing thing to see. There was no interference or anything. Van Dam simply countered and hit his finishing move to get the pin. That’s both good and bad I guess, but the rest of the match was good so I’ll take it.

Rating: B. This was very intense and well done. It’s probably Van Dam’s biggest win of his career up to that point and is probably one of the biggest of his career even to this day, with the world title obviously being ahead of it. He beat Benoit, one of the best ever, clean. If that’s not validation of his ability at least on one night, I don’t know what is. Very good match though and worth checking out.

Stephanie, with those gorgeous legs showing very well, before laughing for no apparent reason at Bischoff bragging. Not sure what this led to, but it might have been the US Title. Actually that’s not it, as the IC Title would soon be unified with the world title, in one of the biggest head scratchers of all time. It would be revived about 8 months later when everyone realized how truly stupid it was, and THAT would bring about the US Title.

We’re getting ready for Test and the Undertaker. JR says a lot of people want to know who the UnAmericans are, why they’re here, and why they’re doing this. In short: Lance Storm, Christian and Test, they’re professional wrestlers and TNA was a baby at this time and since Vince had more or less created a monopoly there was nowhere else to work, and they’re Canadians that don’t like Americans. Why is that such a complicated thing to figure out?

The UnAmericans carry around an upside down American flag to symbolize how messed up America is. That’s either brilliant or really stupid. They keep saying they hate America, so the American wants to beat up Test. On a side note, William Regal would join them later on. Taker’s punches were called soup bones for no apparent reason around this time, as JR continues to get further and further away from this lovely little thing called reality.

Oh yeah we’re in the Tough Enough era here and Tough Enough 3 was going on. The winner of that was one John Hennigan. You may know him as John Morrison. The other winner was named Matt Cappotelli, and while you may not have heard of him, I was lucky enough to see him in OVW.

He was absolutely awesome and I can guarantee you of this: he would have been either as big a star as Morrison or far bigger. The guy had that X factor to him and you knew he would have been something very special. His retirement speech almost had me in tears. I wish I could find a copy of it.

Undertaker vs. Test

You won’t hear this, but JR says that Test has been living on nothing but potential forever. How true that is of so many workers today. This is part of the UnAmericans vs. everyone else so Taker busts out a hiptoss of all things as he dominates early. The big clothesline hits but Old School is blocked to let Test take over.

Test’s fairly generic big man offense takes over. This is rather slow paced and not very interesting. Taker gets a belly to belly to get out of most of the trouble but an elbow misses. They slug it out which of course Taker wins which lets him get a running DDT for two. Old School connects and the bigger man is in control.

Test’s big boot misses and a chokeslam gets two which is probably the high point of Test’s career. Christian and Storm run in which gets them nowhere. It does however allow Test to get his big boot for two as Test PANICS since the one solid move he knows did nothing at all. He grabs a chair but it gets kicked into his own ugly face and a Tombstone ends it. That was a rarity at this point so it was cool to see. He celebrates with the flag afterwards.

Rating: D. This wasn’t that good. It was certainly more about the angle than the match, and while there are occasions that I’ll make exceptions for that such as Hogan vs. Andre, this isn’t one of those occasions. It’s just not good as their styles were too similar and while Taker is good enough, Test just didn’t care at this point and it shows. Solid angle, bad match, as Test just wasn’t in Taker’s league, ever.

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Taker is just now leaving, so that was an extended celebration I guess.

We start the build for what I think (and yes it’s very debatable) was your real main event. Shawn hasn’t wrestled in over 1600 days. That’s a lot of sleepless nights for Becca. Lawler says that a lot of these people have never seen Shawn wrestle, which means that a lot of people have never heard of home video obviously, or Lawler thinks it’s 1940 and there’s no such thing as taping a match.

In case you’ve never heard it, here’s the basic build for this match. Shawn and HHH were in DX together as you likely know. However, Shawn got hurt and HHH took over DX and became the star that he is today. Now, in the Summer of 2002, Shawn came back for a night, unbeknownst to us, healthy and sober. That night, it seemed to be all about Shawn again, which was unfair to HHH who had actually had a more successful career as far as title reigns and time on top than Shawn had.

That night, Shawn came up with the idea of reforming DX (I want that man shot) and HHH went along with it, or at least he did in the beginning. They do the two words line, but then HHH kicks him and pedigrees him. You can tell this is serious because it goes into slow motion. HHH hits a very weird pedigree as he jumps way too high and it looks like Shawn was countering it with a backdrop.

Anyway, HHH says that Shawn used HHH to get to the top, so now HHH used Shawn to get to the top, which makes even less sense but whatever. Now this is the part of the storyline that I never understood. HHH is cutting the promo in the ring where he says all of that stuff. Ok, that’s fine. A guy gets his attention and says that something happened.

HHH bolts from the ring and goes off to find a bunch of guys around Shawn who is laid out on the ground bleeding and there’s a hole in the window of a car. HHH says he’ll find who did it and when he does, that person is a marked man. Shawn comes back a few weeks later for a satellite interview, and he has the footage from the security camera, and naturally it’s HHH. As I’ve said many times, what’s the point?

For one thing, why wouldn’t it have been HHH? He’s cutting a promo about how he can’t stand Shawn, and since Shawn has been back for all of 2 weeks, why wouldn’t it have been him? Seriously, who else was it supposed to have been? Why wouldn’t they have just shown it being him, maybe ending the show like that, and THEN have the interview where Shawn challenges him for Summerslam? HHH says that he did it to prove a point, which was that Shawn is vulnerable.

Ok, that’s all well and good, but WHY WOULD HE GO ON A FREAKING MANHUNT IF HE DID IT? That makes no sense! What’s the point in turning him heel one week, turning him face for two weeks, and THEN revealing him to be the mastermind for lack of a better term, thus turning him heel all over again? It’s just pure overkill and was absurd. ANYWAY, Shawn says that he’ll be completely recovered by Summerslam. So let me get this straight.

Shawn couldn’t get better from a broken back, which is something that could have paralyzed him, in four and a half years, but if you cut him on the head he’ll recover in less than a month? Are you telling me that all Shawn had to do to completely be healed was cut himself shaving? If that’s the case, Becca might have a fit. This match is non-sanctioned, which Bischoff says means that it never happens. HHH says the logical thing: Oh Eric, but it will happen.

See, that’s my issue with matches that never happen. YES THEY DID! When you erase something from the record books, people still remember the matches themselves. That’s why taking down banners for basketball games or erasing wins is freaking stupid. The games were played, and therefore we’re going to remember who won, who lost, by how much, and what kind of shoes they were wearing.

The match not only happened, it happened in a WWE ring, on a WWE PPV, had WWE commentators and had a WWE referee, but people know who freaking won it! The match DID happen, so what’s the point in saying it’s non-sanctioned? If it was non-sanctioned, then this would be happening in a parking lot somewhere instead of in front of 14,000 people. Since it’s not an official match, why is HHH in wrestling gear?

Does he wear that in his everyday life? Is there constantly a referee following him around to check and see if he wants to go for a pin? Does he think he’s Nighthawk and that he’s competing to become Champion of Wrestling (OCW joke for those of you that have NO clue what I mean)? Are you starting to see how stupid this really is? Just call it what it is: a WWE street fight. It sounds better, it looks better, and above all else: IT MAKES SENSE!!!

They get a full music video before the match here, which actually does show off how great of a match this could be. HHH’s line of “YOU CAN’T WRESTLE ANYMORE!” while as corny as it sounds, actually tells the whole story here in just four words.

That’s the sign of a good promo: it sums up everything simply, without having to use a big elaborate bunch of words to fill in time. All that being said though, the buildup had you actually believing that something special was coming, and for those of you that have seen it, you know that it is. For those of you that haven’t, be ready to enjoy.

HHH vs. HBK

Before I begin, one note that I’m likely to forget. In an interview that HHH gave about Shawn and this match in particular, he says that this was a 45 minute match. From what I’ve seen, it clocks in at about 27-30. That’s a far cry from 45 if my math is correct, but I digress. To say the pop for HBK’s music is massive would be like saying Hogan was a little over.

The flashbulbs are going off all over the place as this is actually a very epic moment. It’s not like Shawn was doing nothing when he left. He was wrestling in the main event at a major show as the world champion and he retained. It’s fairly obvious that he would have gotten at least a rematch with Austin at Backlash and likely have been champion again somewhere down the road. However, it’s likely that his addictions would have caused major problems.

Geez I need to stop these tangents. He gets the mega star treatment which he deserves, including pyro, confetti, etc. He’s actually looking like it’s a non-sanctioned fight, wearing an undershirt and jeans. His shirt says Philippians 4:13, which for you football geeks is what Tim Tebow has on his eye black in every games. For those of you that don’t know who that is, watch some real football, not that nonsense they play in Europe and find out.

For those of you that have no idea what it means, it’s a Bible verse that reads “For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That makes a lot of sense for this match. Usually I want the face to come out last and get the big pop, but here I think it’s better that Shawn came out first. Also, Lawler says that no one in history has had more charisma than Shawn.

Not sure about that King. I’m thinking of a guy in red and yellow. He posed a lot, kind of made wrestling what it is today. In an odd fact that you may not know, the man who wears red and yellow, despite many tries, has never once beaten Jerry Lawler by pinfall. They fought dozens of times, but Lawler never lost cleanly to him. SCREW these tangents!

HHH gets the booing to end all booing. You have to keep in mind: HHH is at about the level here that he’s at today, so it’s not like Shawn was coming back to fight Dolph Ziggler or someone like that. He was taking on one of the very best. Shawn is all calm here, even doing the lay on the rope like a hammock thing. I really like that actually, as it plays to Shawn’s laid back persona that he had when he was at his peak.

If he was all serious and angry that would have made sense too, but I think this actually works a bit better. Shawn starts fast, throwing his PERFECT towel in HHH’s face and punching him. Apparently this is due to his Texas pride. What in the world does Texas pride have to do with this? He jumped him. Isn’t that being a bit cowardly actually? Why am I trying to make sense of something JR said?

Shawn starts by throwing punches for the most part, but within two minutes he launches over the top rope with a plancha, followed by more punches. That’s a very smart idea actually. Shawn has been out of the ring for four and a half years. It’s not like he’s going to be the Shawn that was wrestling just before the injury. He’s going to have a lot of ring rust, so punching makes sense.

Also, it’s a good safety advertisement for kids and adults. Since this isn’t an actual match, it’s not actual wrestling right? Therefore, Shawn not doing a lot of wrestling moves is showing that people shouldn’t try this at home. Now it’s ok to punch someone’s head in, but don’t try to slam them. We get weapons brought in, namely the trashcan of death, as JR talks about Shawn’s son watching at home.

There’s a great parenting lesson: if you’re ever possibly walking into a match where you have little to no chance of winning and could be paralyzed because your pride got in the way of your thinking, make sure your kids are watching, because it could be your only chance to look good for them. Sweet Chin Music misses and HHH lands a backbreaker, which Shawn sells like death, opening the main psychology of this match, which was to be expected.

You know, you’d think that after four and a half years his back would be a bit better. Oh, Lawler has used vintage four times inside of 5 minutes. I wonder if that’s where Cole got it. You can almost see the Harley Race coming out of HHH already as he looks just pure evil. Ross says that WWE has nothing to do with this match as I am fighting from rehashing what I said earlier.

Chair is brought in and cracked over Shawn’s back, but since he has HEART, he can kick out of what would pin others, despite it being his weakest point. JR says HHH is 6’4 and a half and weighs 260, despite him being listed as 272 just 8 minutes ago. I feel like I’m watching a Captain Planet parody with all these heart references. DDT on a chair which should have crippled someone but he kicks out with ease, but he’s bleeding.

Lawler says this match may have been the biggest mistake of Shawn’s career. He hung out with Luna, so that’s a big negative there King. HHH gets the sledgehammer as Shawn fights him off. HHH goes for an abdominal stretch which I’m sure has Gorilla Monsoon complaining in his grave. HHH grabs the rope, which I’m still trying to figure out how that actually adds anything to the hold.

Earl Hebner yells at HHH about it and you can tell he means business because he has a mic on him, but keep in mind: this IS NOT a real match. Shawn gets crotched on the top rope as a little bit of Becca’s soul dies. Another chair shot to the back would normally end anyone else’s career, but SHAWN HAS HEART! I know I’ve made fun of a lot of this, but this match really has been good.

I’m rarely a person that can pick out specific things a guy does in a match, but even I can tell that HHH is a master heel. They do a spot where HHH sets up a chair and Shawn is side slammed through it. If it broke then it hurts horribly, and if it doesn’t break then it hurts like the 7th circle of torment. We get probably the 5th spot that would kill anyone else, but Shawn has….screw it even I’m getting tired of that joke.

JR says Shawn is limp. I’m sure Becca could fix that. Ok I’ll try to keep the Becca jokes to a minimum now. Shawn starts his comeback in his comeback match by countering the pedigree. The fans are white hot here, even 15 minutes into this. From out of nowhere, Shawn gets Sweet Chin Music into a chair but Shawn is spent, which makes sense. The psychology is definitely here, as it’s always nice to have guys that actually know how to work the mental side of a match as these two do. HHH is busted.

Ok, now this is just getting ridiculous. Shawn has had maybe 5 moves that would have ended any match with ease, including a DDT on a chair, and 5 minutes later he’s fine? Even Hulk Hogan thinks that’s a bit much to swallow from Shawn. Becca says…never mind. All of a sudden Shawn is limping around again, so I guess I can buy the adrenaline excuse. JR calls the chair shot a Jason Giambi like swing which makes me laugh. Of all the power hitters in history he picks him?

The commentators have a crazy idea: Shawn could win. I get that this is supposed to be his last hurrah, but is it that hard to believe? Ok yes it would have been at the time. The fans want tables, so HHH is put on the most famous one of all time: The Portuguese Announce Table! In a weird spot, Shawn pulls the shoe from one of the commentators, which Lawler says is a heel for a heel as I can’t believe he still has a job at this point.

You can say heel but you can’t say belt or strap? It’s ladder time. DAng why can’t it be wiggle time? HHH gets a solid shot right in the hand with it. In case you didn’t know, this is non-sanctioned. Did you know it’s non-sanctioned? I just want to make it clear that this is non-sanctioned. And last but not least, it’s non-sanctioned. HHH busts out a baseball slide as two things happen: he uses a new move so screw you HHH haters, and I am WAY past my record for talking about one match.

You can tell this is a big match as HHH goes up top. Shawn gets a weird float around sunset flip but he shoves himself off at two because the spot looks bad if HHH kicks out on his own. JR randomly throws in how evil HHH is. That is yet another example of why I love professional wrestling. Where else could someone try to cripple you but just a few years later you’re best friends again and fighting on PPV together?

That must have been one heck of a Christmas card that HHH sent him. “Hey man, sorry about that whole wanting you in a wheelchair thing and the attempted manslaughter. Next time we hit Waffle House, you can get a Coke on me.” Drop toehold into the stairs for HHH and we actually get a realistic looking impact. Why are tables such a big deal? It’s not like they’re that deadly.

Wouldn’t it actually break the fall a bit as you have less time in freefall? Shawn comes off with a splash from the top to the floor with a table, which is just cool looking no matter how long he’s been out. The holy crap chants have started, which is fine as this match is awesome. Correction: this match is greatness. There is a difference. The odd thing about that though is that this is really just an extended hardcore match with big names.

They’re hardly doing anything revolutionary, yet the match certainly is great. I think that goes to show just how awesome both of these guys are. They’re taking stuff that we’ve seen dozens of times before but by using storytelling and style, they’re making it look better than ever. Shawn lands the Screw You elbow and bounces up. The old school stomping on the mat clues HHH in to what’s coming and it’s countered into the Pedigree, but Shawn rolls him up to shock the world and win the match.

Normally I would have been for the Sweet Chin Music and the clean pin, but with that we can’t have what follows: HHH drilling him in the back with the hammer to become Satan incarnate. He then does it AGAIN to make Satan look like a baby bunny named Lucy.

Lawler is absolutely losing it in some of the best commentary I’ve ever seen. Ross sounds like any other heinous act, but Lawler is probably at his best ever here. The fans are chanting for HBK, but since he’s not Hulk Hogan, he can’t get up. Shawn is stretchered out as the fans are almost dead silent.

Rating: A+. Holy crap this was awesome. You have to remember, Shawn hadn’t done a freaking thing in nearly 5 years. This would be like Austin coming back and stealing the show and having one of the best matches of his life. Both guys were so on here that it’s not even funny.

Norcal says it’s in the top 5 matches of all time and I’m not sure I can disagree. I might not rank it that high, but dang it was fun. Easily one of the best I’ve ever seen and if you haven’t seen it before, turn the lights out and watch it right now. It’s certainly worth the 30 (not 45 HHH) minutes.

Ok, now I have to bring this up because it was the talk of the IWC around this time. As you know, HHH gets a LOT of criticism for never putting people over and while today that’s complete nonsense, those complaints started around this time and I think that at this time they were completely true. “But KB, he JUST put Shawn over.” Yes he did, but you have to remember that at this time no one, not even Vince himself thought that Shawn was coming back full time.

This was a one off performance and that was it. It’s no different than when Hogan came back and beat Orton and HBK. He had nothing to lose but he didn’t put them over as they needed. It’s no different here. HBK didn’t need to win here, given the circumstances at the time. Yes, HHH put someone over, but he put someone over that didn’t need it. Less than a month after this HHH would be awarded the WHC and after a brief Shawn run HHH would hold it for over 9 months.

In that time he beat everyone and beat them soundly. That right there is where he got the reputation for never putting anyone over, and I think those are valid claims. Prior to this he had won the title at Mania 18 and lost it to Hogan, who was just another nostalgia run like HBK was right here. In other words, for over a year and a half, HHH put over HBK, his best friend, and Hogan, the biggest star of all time.

Starting with the creation of the Undisputed Title in December of 2001 and ending with Wrestlemania 21 almost three and a half years later, the longest HHH wert without being world champion: just under four and a half months. Once the second title was created in September of this year or about 2 weeks after this show until Mania 21 (Batista and Cena winning the world titles): 5 months.

Both of these times he was feuding with HBK for the majority of the time. Therefore, I think there certainly was something to those claims back then that he was either playing politics or hogging the title while refusing to put anyone over, as he was either champion or feuding with HBK.

Since we had an amazing moment, we follow it with a bit that is supposed to be funny. This was the Get The F Out campaign because of those panda lovers.

JR and Lawler don’t think HHH is a very nice person. No valentine’s day cards for them.

Howard Finkel has something to say as we have entered the Twilight Zone. He says that he’s dedicated to the business and while MLB may be going on strike (they didn’t), the fans will always have the Fink. For no reason at all, Trish comes out for this. Apparently….they’ve been feuding?

Like I said in my Smackdown review, it’s kind of awesome hearing Fink’s voice being ticked off. Trish hits on him for some reason. Howard references his rather personal area as my scars are scarred for life. Lillian is behind them and she beats up Fink and leaves with Trish. Aside from having two very hot women appear, this may have been the most pointless segment I’ve ever seen.

We see a promo package on the rise of Brock and how Rock has been training “specially” for this match, which means he’s getting in shape to film the Rundown.

WWF Title: Rock vs. Brock Lesnar

After all that, Tony Chimmel is announcing. Brock’s music is great and Heyman is in his element as the jerk agent. This match was Rock’s very last time being around any title period as he would make one last 3 month run in the spring, beating Hogan and Austin before putting Goldberg over and riding off into Hollywood, only appearing for Mania the next year.

Basically, this was to launch Brock as high up as they could in one match and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done better. Rock was really just a trophy champion at this point, having no title matches and never really being the focus of the show at all. Since Austin was on hiatus at this point, Rock was all they had left as HHH was busy with HBK. They figured they would roll the dice on Brock and just see what happened.

There’s not a lot to say here other than Brock is destroying him. I mean this is almost an extended squash, with the fans all over Rock. It’s a smark crowd so I’m assuming they know Rock is gone after tonight. Either way, Rock is getting booed out of the building here and the fans LOVE Brock, who was turned face about three months later at Survivor Series. Actually it was a bit before, but it was official that night as Heyman turned on him, making Brock face by default.

Brock puts on a bearhug which I kid you not lasts nearly three minutes. Granted, it’s the hug that killed Hogan off, but DANG that’s a long time. After the nap I was taking ends with them finally doing something, they go to the floor and Lesnar is down. During this time, Heyman gets the worst Rock Bottom of all time through the table. Back in, Rock hits the Rock Bottom and Lesnar kicks out because that’s what monster heels do.

He hits his own Rock Bottom which Tazz calls, say it with me, the Brock Bottom, and yes, it is stupider than it sounds. They trade punches with Rock winning and going for the Elbow but Brock pops up to just take his head off with a clothesline. That was one of the hardest moves I’ve ever seen.

We get a great series of near finishers and counters, but Brock lands the F5 to completely shock the world and win the title as the fans go nuts. The ending is really fast with clichéd lines like the next big thing has arrived. I think they were pressed for time or something here because the show is over maybe 15 seconds after the pin without even a single replay.

Rating: C+. This again wasn’t about the wrestling but what it meant. As I said this was Brock’s big moment and they couldn’t have put him over any stronger if their lives depended on it. He dismantled Rock and made it look easy. Of course they would screw this up royally by putting him with Big Show who would injure him at a house show because he was too fat for Brock to throw around without hurting himself.

Scratch that. Brock could throw him around, but Show just sucked badly at this time. Either way they had no choice but to give Show the belt in an angle that was just horrid as it made Brock look pretty weak. Also, less than two weeks after this the Undisputed belt is made exclusive to Smackdown which I think is what Stephanie was laughing about earlier.

Anyway it leads to HHH being given (literally) the World Heavyweight Championship which Shawn would win at Survivor Series in the first Elimination Chamber. DAng I got off topic again. Anyway, Brock was awesome, Rock put him over and bailed, and Austin was long gone, so Brock is officially a big deal.

Overall Rating: A+. This show is awesome, but HHH/HBK should have gone on last, plain and simple. It was by far and away the bigger story and got more attention. Also, after that match, the fans weren’t spent but they weren’t as alive as they could have been for the title change.

Other than that, I don’t have any issue with this show. It’s solid all around with nothing bad on it at all. I’ve heard it compared to Mania 17 and while I don’t think it’s better or equal to it, it beats anything for second place at least off the top of my head. Highest recommendation all around here.

Summerslam 1997
Date: August 3, 1997
Location: Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey
Attendance: 20,213
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Vince McMahon, Jim Ross

Well, it’s another year but this time we’ve had some solid changes. Actually, no we haven’t come to think of it. Austin is still his usual self, but in this case he’s going after the IC Title from Owen. Yes, this is the infamous piledriver match. Other than that, it’s the time just barely before the Attitude Era. We’re not quite there yet but we can see it staring us right in the face.

Montreal was three months away and Taker vs. Shawn would be established at the end of the show. This would of course lead to the first ever HIAC match. Other than that, there’s a lot of the same stuff from last year s we’ve only kind of slightly evolved since Summerslam 1996. This is more of a transitional show, but it still had its moments. Let’s get to it.

We get a great opening video about how life isn’t fair for Bret, Taker and Shawn, all of whom are involved in the main event tonight with Bret vs. Taker and Shawn as referee. The tagline of the show is Hart and Soul, which is kind of cool I think. This is all fallout from the EPIC Canada vs. USA war that happened over the summer. This would wind up causing Montreal, which I’m sure you know the story of.

HHH vs. Mankind

In a cage.  This is the blowoff for a feud that’s been going on for months. They met in the KOTR finals with HHH winning but they kept feuding forever. HHH is using Ode To Joy which is one of my all time favorite heel themes. This match is just after Canadian Stampede where they brawled all over the arena. It’s escape only which means it’s much better than matches where you can win by pinfall, which I’ve always thought was a cheap way out.

For some reason the governor will be there later. Yeah I don’t care either. How odd is it to have a cage match as the opening to a show? I like it though as it prevents the mind numbing delay of having to put the stupid thing up which is about ten minutes in its own right. Mankind dominates the early part but Chyna keeps interfering, mainly by reaching through and choking Mankind.

Oh and at this time, Austin and Dude Love are tag champions, but Mankind isn’t. That’s what’s great about this character. It’s not three different gimmicks. It’s one guy playing three different gimmicks if that makes sense. They never hid that Foley was all three guys. They wallowed in it. That’s something you simply don’t see and in this case I think it certainly worked. It made him see even more insane than he already was, if that’s possible.

JR says that it’s a no DQ cage match. In the words of Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men, is there any other kind? The only noticeable spot for the opening part of the match is a suplex from the top of the cage that’s not hyped up enough by the announcers and wasn’t nearly as good as Hogan and Bossman from 89. They’re going old school here with the big blue bars that need to come back.

Chyna keeps choking and cheating like there’s no tomorrow which is what she’s supposed to do I guess. It’s weird seeing these two as midcarders. We get a Dominic Denucci shoutout. How can you top that? Kowalski would have beaten him though, so that’s not really fair. This is a really physical match as they are just beating the living tar out of each other with some sweet as well as sick shots. Both guys climb the ropes but HHH gets caught in them.

For some reason Mankind goes for the door and in an absolutely sick shot, Chyna slams the door on his head. Foley said this was one of the most painful spots he ever did in his career, and when it’s Mick freaking Foley that says it, that’s a painful spot. Chyna beats up the referee and since it’s no DQ, what can really be done? Chyna finally gets nailed to a HUGE pop from the crowd.

We then get the ending as Foley hits a double arm DDT onto the chair to knock HHH out. He climbs out and is a step away from winning as Chyna is trying to drag HHH out. However, the fans are losing it so Foley pulls the mask off and climbs back up. Chyna, for no apparent reason, stops pulling him and goes to the floor. In the truly famous spot of the match, Foley pulls his shirt open to reveal the Dude Love heard and dives off with the elbow.

Now as he’s climbing again, Chyna starts pulling HHH out but Mankind gets to the floor first to blow the roof off the place in a cool moment. He collapses on the floor but soon his foot starts to tap. Then the music kicks on. He starts dancing. Dude Love has returned, despite holding a title at the moment. This was a cool moment and another example of why the idea behind Foley was so genius it’s hard to comprehend.

Rating: A. This is an awesome old school 80s style cage match and it was great. With the manager trying to cheat every 3 minutes, the face ultimately triumphing, the big spot at the end and the fans response, this was awesome. Al kinds of sick shots in there but it never went far enough that it wasn’t believable, which is what makes a match like this great. Foley should have won and he did, which makes it even better. Excellent match here and I loved every bit of it.

Todd is with the governor of New Jersey. This doesn’t go well, like, at all.

Tiger Ali Singh is here. This was a gimmick that just sucked. Imagine Khali plus Million Dollar Man plus Hassan, then add in a lot more suck. You get Singh.

Brian Pillman vs. Goldust

This is a weird feud to put it mildly. The basic idea is this: Goldust doesn’t like Pillman because he’s implying that he and Marlena had a relationship prior to her meeting Dustin and perhaps after she met him. For no reason at all, if Pillman loses, he has to wear a dress until he wins something. This is standard pre-Attitude Era stuff.

There’s really not a lot to say here. BAD botch on a sunset flip by Goldust. He more or less crawls over Brian’s back instead of clearing it. The commentary is all about the Pillman/Terri angle, which was fine but kind of generic. The sad thing is Pillman would be gone just months after this so we never got to the end of the angle. Eventually Terri blasts him with the loaded purse to get the pin.

Rating: D. This was just boring, plain and simple. The botch didn’t help things either. It was predictable and fairly stupid, so how can I grade it highly?

Legion of Doom vs. Godwinns

This is stemming from a botched Doomsday Device where Hawk nearly broke Henry’s neck. Godwin just slammed head first into the mat and cranked his neck nearly in half. It was one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen. Anyway, WWF of course decided to play it up in a real feud, because a near death experience is good for one thing: making money off of it, naturally. Anyway, this is a standard late 90s LOD tag match: not very good.

This is another case of a team (the Godwinns) just completely failing as heels. They’re supposed to be fun characters but as heels they’re not menacing, but creepy. Anyway, this is even more standard stuff than the last match. I think that’s the issue that LOD had: they had no substance at all in the latter half of their career. This match is a prime example. They don’t really do anything other than just look intimidating.

Another major issue for them was their lack of involvement in the tag title picture. They were used more to put young teams over, which is fine, but the hype is a bit too much for me, although I could see how some would think it works. LOD wins with a spike piledriver, and after about 10 minutes, I’m just bored pretty badly.

Rating: C-. Again, just a bunch of meh here. It’s bland and dull for the second match in a row and nothing makes me think this should have been on PPV. LOD and the Godwinns were too similar to make this work. Nothing at all here and it was just barely watchable.

For some reason, we have a million dollar giveaway or something like that. It’s really not clear what the point of this is, other than to have Sable and Sunny looking GREAT. This is a lot like million dollar mania, yet more stupid as the first 3 callers don’t answer.

The people pick a number from 1-100 for a key to open a coffin with a million dollars inside. This takes up 8 freaking minutes, which could have been used for, oh I don’t know, A FREAKING WRESTLING MATCH??? Is there a point to having it in a coffin that I’m just missing?

European Title: British Bulldog vs. Ken Shamrock

For some reason that I just don’t get, if Bulldog loses the match he not only loses the title but has to eat dog food. This is even more fallout from America vs. Canada. We hear about a show called One Night Only which was a British PPV where the ending just ticked me off as Shawn took the Title from Bulldog and proceeded to do absolutely nothing with it before handing it to HHH, all because he just didn’t want Bulldog to have it anymore.

Big brawl to start as Shamrock is all kinds of ticked off due to being force fed dog food on Raw. Ankle lock goes on almost immediately but rope is grabbed. This starts off with mainly all Shamrock but a boot in the corner gets the Englishman in control. This is a rather ugly match to put it mildly.

Bulldog takes over while we get a long chinlock. Instead though we see about 15 seconds of the crowd and random people which serve no point at all. Shamrock grabs something off the announcers’ table and blasts Bulldog in the head with it for the DQ.

Rating: D-. It wasn’t the worst match I’ve ever seen but it couldn’t have been much worse. Shamrock and Bulldog had this horrible clash of styles going on here and it made for a very uninteresting match here. At least it was short though at about seven minutes.

The post match insanity is by far more important here as it makes Shamrock look like a freaking psycho, which is what he needed to be all along. He half kills a ton of referees, making him look like a monster. He got the push that he needed because of stuff like this. Oh and he choked Bulldog out.

Los Boricuas vs. Disciples of Apocalypse

Oh great why did I put up the Euro match? This is the gang wars period of the WWF, which NO ONE wanted to see. The original idea was to have three groups: the Nation, the Boricuas and the DOA and have them randomly fight each other. While that sounds ok in theory, the Boricuas had one guy anyone had ever heard of in Savio Vega. Go check their wiki pages and see what I mean. The other three have one major career accomplishment: being in Los Boricuas.

As for the DOA, they were ok as well, but they were just a generic biker team fighting a bunch of tiny guys and always losing. The Nation you already know. The problem here was simple: there was no story. Why are these teams fighting? We’re never told. They’re just feuding, but we don’t know why or over what. There were never any promos or anything like that.

It’s just fighting for the sake of fighting which NEVER WORKS. This is an 8 man tag, so at least we don’t have to worry about multiple matches. At first the Nation was in this feud too, but they eventually dropped out when they realized they had actual careers. The biggest issue with this feud though: the DOA NEVER WON. It was always an upset for the Boricuas, which makes even les sense as if they’re dominating, how can it be an upset?

What are you expecting here though? It’s an eight minute match followed by a run in from the Nation which is accompanied by Ahmed who botches the Plunge on Chainz on the floor, leading to him getting pinned. I forgot Ahmed’s horrible heel turn that lasted all of five minutes. He joined the Nation and of course was injured within a month. He was even supposed to get the title shot at Canadian Stampede but that didn’t happen, as he couldn’t stay healthy for more than 10 minutes.

Rating: D. My goodness what was the point to this feud? It made no sense, no one liked it, and it was boring beyond belief. Just a waste of time for guys like Crush and Brian Lee that were good workers, stuck with this stupid gimmick.

We get the recap for the showdown between Austin and Owen. This is based off one thing: Owen pinned Austin (which was a big deal) at Canadian Stampede. Hart was the IC Champion, yet him getting a pin was a big deal. That either makes no sense, or shows you how big Austin was. I think it’s a bit of both.

Since Hart beat Austin, naturally it means Austin should get a title match. Umm, right? Oh if Austin loses he has to kiss up to Owen, literally. Well let’s get to it, as this is far more famous for one spot than for anything else, as you likely already know.

Intercontinental Title: Owen Hart vs. Steve Austin

On the way to the ring, Michael Cole, a newcomer at this point, tries to talk to Austin by calling him Mr. Stone Cold. It’s what you’d expect, but Cole is always a tool, now and forevermore. The pop for Austin is huge, as you can see he is the undisputed future. Owen goes for the knee while Austin is up on the ropes and the start is very fast. The crowd being white hot helps a lot here, as this is a heated feud already and they’re both looking great early.

Austin works the arm here and actually does it really well. It’s weird seeing him use technical stuff, but he’s doing it quite well here. Before the neck injury he was a completely different worker, but after it he found something that worked perfectly for him, so while obviously it’s not good that he hurt his neck, it turned out as well as possible for him. I know I’m doing more play by play for this one, but this is followed by a pair of spots that I really like.

Owen comes up from a wrist lock and does that series of flips that he’s always used to counter it, which I’ve never understood. At the end of that all he does is grab the other guy’s wrist. Does he need the flips or an I missing something here? Anyway, he does all those, and Austin just pokes him in the eye to get control back. It’s one motion, almost like what Piper would do.

After that he goes to a hammerlock and Owen grabs his head and jumps into the air to try to flip Austin over. Steve just stands there and lets Owen slam into the mat. I love those as they’re so simple yet so effective, which is a lot of what Austin’s offense was based on if you think about it. His main offense was kick, punch, jump on people (Thesz Press) and Stunner, which is grab them and sit down. That’s really not a lot when you think about it.

Anyway, moving on. Owen works on the fingers and hand, which against a guy whose main offense is throwing punches makes a ton of sense. Austin even busts out a powerbomb for a counter, which isn’t something that I’ve ever seen him use. It’s always fun to see guys throw new stuff like that from nowhere. It keeps things exciting. Owen hits a neckbreaker which is frightening foreshadowing.

I think he’s selling the move, but I think it’s more legit than work here, which explains a lot about the upcoming move. German suplex and Austin’s neck is hurt even more. My guess is he initially got hurt in one of these moves but of course the big one was the piledriver of course. Vince tries to figure out why he’s one of the most popular wrestlers today but he just doesn’t get it. That amuses me for some reason, as they lay the ground just slightly for Austin vs. McMahon.

And there it is. Austin is dropped on his head, changing his career forever. This really was scary as it was entirely possible that he never could wrestle again from that injury. That’s a very scary thought to say the least. Completely apart from his health issues, this meant a ton as far as the WWF went.

Austin’s injury and Vince not allowing him to work because of it was one of the earliest issues that the pair had, as Austin and the fans wanted to see him get in the ring but Vince said for the safety of Austin, he couldn’t allow that to happen. This is a case where real life and wrestling mix, which usually makes for better angles and promos. It’s easy to convey an emotion in front of a camera when that’s how you really do feel.

As for the match itself, I have to give credit to Owen here as he handles this as well as he can. You can see him setting for a cover and I guess Austin says that he’s hurt to him or something, as Owen looks down at him for a second and then gets up and plays to the crowd to buy Austin some time. There was no way Austin could have kicked out there and you certainly couldn’t fault him if he got pinned.

About thirty seconds later Vince gets that something is wrong after clearly being upset at first. After that he calms down and says that Austin must be hurt. JR I think handles it better by not really ignoring the injury but taking the focus off of it and talking about the Canadian and American fans chanting at each other.

I could see this going either way but I’d rather use Ross’ method here, as it keeps the story going on the chance that Austin is able to fix himself and that it was just temporary, which there’s no way to tell the extent of the injury this quickly.

Either way, it was handled well I think. We then get the worst roll up of all time as Owen sells like a god to try to make it look like he’s in trouble, but Austin is more or less just laying there with Owen’s legs in the air as it was the absolute best he could do at the time. The referee fast counts as well as he can to give Austin the title as he just collapses afterwards.

This is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen as he can’t even walk on his own. The referees have to carry him out, but not before he throws the belt over his head and gets another massive pop. You can tell just by the look on his face that he’s completely gone.

Rating: B. The match itself was actually really good I thought. They went back and forth and due to the finish they had, it’s obvious that Austin was going to get the title in what I’m assuming would have been just a standard Austin finish which would have worked just fine.

I’m certainly not going to hold the ending against them as there was nothing they could have done about it. These two had great chemistry together and it showed here. Excellent match that could have bordered on classic and been famous rather than infamous.

We get a recap of Bret vs. Taker, which more or less is Canada vs. America again. Shawn is referee as you know.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Undertaker

Bret wants the Canadian National Anthem to be played. His heel stuff was just masterful to say the least. Shawn’s pop is big to say the least as he is the referee like I’ve said many times now. He and Bret are forever linked together and that’s obvious even now, which is saying a lot considering their biggest moment would be about three months later. Oh yeah Taker is here too.

Another massive pop for the WWF Champion as the crowd is red hot tonight, despite the show kind of sucking. The explosion when the lights come on draws one of the loudest short pops I’ve ever heard. Apparently there’s a ton of stipulations here, with the main one being if Bret doesn’t win the title he can’t wrestle in America again, so the ending is pretty clear. There’s also one on Shawn, but it’s not made clear.

Bret jumps Taker and hits him with his own belt before the match starts, because he’s a real Canadian. For the most part, the opening here is just a brawl. That’s fine as both guys can certainly fight, and this is no exception. Shawn is trying to call it fair, but you know something is coming later on. This is a long match though as there’s 30 minutes to go and we’re just started.

We get a report that Austin has no feeling in his hands and has been taken to a hospital. As you may know, it wasn’t a good diagnosis. For the most part, Taker is dominating. Of course, just as I type that Bret starts his comeback as Taker is called a redwood for the second time in about 5 minutes. Ross’ line of Bret having visions of sharpshooters dancing in his head made me laugh.

Bret gets a figure four as we touch on Taker never losing by submission. As this hold is on, Paul Bearer comes out. Apparently he’s been saying Taker’s brother is still alive. Yeah nothing is ever going to come from that angle. After escaping, Taker goes outside and drills Bearer but Bret takes over again because of it. We get the Heartbreaker, which is the figure four on the post.

I still don’t get how that’s really a big additional help but whatever. Owen and Pillman hit ringside for no apparent reason other than being nefarious. “They’re not offering moral support. They don’t have any morals.” That was kind of clever and kind of crap. After a good long time HBK gets rid of them, but in doing so he misses the cover following a chokeslam.

Somehow of course Hart pops back up and gets the second rope elbow, just after a double bird to the fans. I love how a heel turn can make whatever you preached for a year mean nothing at all. Always loved that quick legdrop that Bret uses from time to time. Bret goes for the sharpshooter as Shawn looks in very close. I guess he’s taking notes on how to put it on properly for later on or something.

Oh come on I had to make one joke. Taker with a sweet over the top rope from the apron chokeslam. This has been a very solid match, but I’d have preferred no Shawn. He’s not hurting things as he’s been consistent and he had to be there for the ending, but I’d have preferred a standard match here. Ross says that we’re seeing Vintage Hart. Oddly enough, Cole was a relative rookie at this point. I guess he also took good notes.

Finally we get the sharpshooter, and after it’s been on for a little while, Taker just launches Bret with nothing leg strength. Isn’t it amazing how after one person (Austin) broke the unbreakable hold, it happens more and more? That always makes me chuckle for some reason. Bret counters a tombstone and puts the Sharpshooter on again, but this time he uses the post. However, the post isn’t even touching Taker’s leg or back, making the use of the post, say it with me, COMPLETELY POINTLESS!

Seriously, it’s not even touching him and because it’s there, Bret can’t put any torque on the hold. Isn’t the point of the hold to raise up the legs while the torso stays still to put pressure on the knees and back? With this it’s like Taker is just lying on his stomach with his legs crossed like he’s in Terms of Endearment. Now how’s that for a bad image? To get out of it, Taker kicks him off with ease, since there’s NO PRESSURE ON HIS LEGS.

Of course Bret lands on HBK, and Michaels assumes that Bret just jumped on him, since of course Bret would just jump on him and let go of a hold. Bret slams Taker with a chair as Shawn is trying to get his knee to work, and since it’s Shawn’s knee, you know that’s nothing but legit. I mean it’s not like he’d fake a knee injury for a match involving Hart. That would be just a waste of everyone’s time and effort, so why would Shawn fake a knee injury in an angle involving him and Bret Hart?

Such a thing would obviously be impossible. Anyway, Shawn comes back in and asks Bret about the chair. As this is happening, Taker gets up and is standing behind Bret. Shawn is standing there arguing with Bret and pulls back the chair. Now let’s pause for a second here. Shawn is looking at Bret. Bret and Shawn are arguing. Bret is considered to be one of the smartest wrestlers of all time. Shawn pulls back the chair.

Was Shawn supposed to think that Bret was just going to stand there and get hit in the head with a chair? Oh and don’t worry about the big demon behind Bret. He’ll just move. You get the point don’t you? Yeah, that ends Taker’s title reign as Shawn is completely disgusted that he had to do that, since obviously there was nothing more intelligent that he could have done in this case.

The fans are going nuts as Bret is pelted with garbage while Taker leaves to go get him a piece of HBK. Insert your own Becca joke here. For no apparent reason, this is the upset of the year or something. Why? Bret is a former what, 3-4 time champion? Is it that far out of the realm of possibility that he could beat the Undertaker for the belt? We go to replays as Bret is joined by the Hart Foundation and the party is on.

They’re still talking about how this is shocking. WHY IS IT SHOCKING??? Pillman runs up and kisses the belt as we go off the air, which is sad as he would be dead in two months or so.

Rating: A. VERY good match. They hammered each other the whole time, and as I’ve said countless times, the key to a great match is not knowing who the winner would be. While it was clear given the stipulation about Bret that he would win, I actually forgot about that. That’s the sign of a good match in my eyes. Absolutely great match here and something that you should go out of your way to see.

Overall Rating: B. This was a very hard grade for me to come up with. The show could be called good but some could call it awful. As you can see, I liked it more than I didn’t like it. This is very hit or miss. The best summary I can give you: the parts that are good are good and the parts that are bad are bad. The cage match is excellent and to me the best match on the card, but I’m a fan of the older style.

The main event is solid as these two have great chemistry together and brought it hard here. I’m fine with the ending as it set up one of the great blood feuds of all time. The rest of the card is at least ok. The IC match is more infamous than famous but it certainly holds up. To sum up in one word, Summerslam 97 is passable.

It’s got enough good here to make it above average, but not by much. Too much filler in a row and the million dollar thing was just a waste of time. Overall, it’s certainly not bad, but it could have been better.