Survivor Series 2007
Date: November 18, 2007
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 12,000
Commentators: Tazz, JBL, Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross, Joey Styles

With another year comes not a lot of change. Orton is world champion here having taken out HHH for the belt at No Mercy in their first last man standing match. Tonight he takes on HBK in another of his random filler feuds before Cena gets back from injury. The Game is the other major player on Raw (shocking isn’t it?) as he’s feuding with Umaga for your Survivor Series match of the night.

Over on Smackdown, we only have one big match, but it’s a major one as Taker is challenging Batista for the world title in a Hell in a Cell match. If nothing else they’re keeping it big. Oh and one other thing: Hornswoggle is Vince’s son now.

Yes, that painfully stupid and bad storyline has finally begun as he’s already dropped the Cruiserweight Title because Vince doesn’t like small wrestlers. Finally, we have my boy Punk defending his ECW Title against the newly crowned tag team champions of Miz and Morrison. That should be good. Let’s get it started.

Hey, take a wild guess as to what the opening video is about. If you guessed Survival, you’re of about average intelligence as the show is called Survivor Series. If you guessed that it sucked, then you’ve been paying attention to my reviews. Yep, this is nothing of note. We’re starting with the ECW Title match, so the first two voices that we hear are Joey and Tazz. Surprisingly we don’t hear their colleagues yet, which is odd indeed.

ECW Title: CM Punk vs. John Morrison vs. The Miz

Punk took the belt off of Morrison and Miz said he wanted it. That’s about all I’ve got for you here as far as a backstory since ECW back then was even less developed than it is now if you can believe that. Oh yeah. And they were thrown together on Smackdown (literally) and given a tag title shot because two guys that are thrown together that hate each other are light years ahead of all the other great tag teams on Smackdown right?

See what kind of shape the division was in around this time? Somehow this wasn’t even the worst it would be. However, these two would be pretty much the best team in a good long while and will likely be that for a good long while. Also, around this time there was a big thing about how Miz couldn’t wrestle. A buddy of mine and I said just give him time. I’m writing this in mid-October, two days after being completely blown away by a segment these two did at a Smackdown taping I was at.

Now as of this writing, it hasn’t made air in America yet. I’ll be most interested in seeing how many people are saying how awesome he is after that. Styles goes through all of the combinations that could result in Punk losing his title which is somewhere between interesting and filler. You might think that this is a handicap match, but it really isn’t. These two don’t get along yet and while they’ll double team for awhile, it’s usually very short indeed.

I’ve always loved that suicide dive that Punk does. He does the WHAT’S MY NAME thing that worked so well in ROH but never caught on in WWE. To be fair though, the crowd starts a big CM Punk chant. My goodness this guy was over. After beating on Punk as a team for awhile, Miz and Morrison break up again, maybe over one of them not doing the dishes or something. Good night Morrison does some amazing stuff out there.

He still does the same kind of stuff today but dang this was impressive stuff back then too. We get a glimpse of Miz vs. Morrison her but it’s nothing really that special. Punk hits a backbreaker that used to be called Welcome to Chicago M’Fer which has been changed for obvious reasons. Following some miscommunication from the new tag team, Punk hits the GTS on Miz for the pin.

Rating: B-. It got the crowd going a bit, but at the same time there was never any real drama in this at all. That’s fine though, as I don’t think there was really supposed to be. Sometimes you need to just have a match to get some ring time for the champion and have a decent match out of it. It makes the champion look stronger and saves the showdown for later on. This was just fine.

We get a recap of MVP hurting Matt’s leg and putting him out of the Survivor Series match later tonight. MVP had a big C on his outfit back then. He was CMVP. Oh that’s just awesome. Anyway, now we go to the back where some interviewer that I don’t recognize is talking to him. He’s REALLY bad on promos at this point.

Face Divas vs. Heel Divas

Faces: Mickie, Maria, Torrie, Michelle, Kelly
Heels: Beth, Jillian, Melina, Layla, Victoria

This is your token Diva match of the night. Torrie has what is now Tiffany’s music. Basically, around this time the only face Diva that can wrestle at all is Mickie. There’s no story here at all as this could just as easily have been on Raw. Thankfully this isn’t elimination style. We start with the almost too hot Victoria against Michelle. Ok, the Divas yelling at each other is REALLY annoying. Kelly is in essence in a swimsuit with sleeves.

To show the brilliance on display here, Torrie has Victoria down and leaves her there to run across the ring and get a tag. That’s tag wrestling 101 there and she can’t get that right. Even trying to pull Victoria back to Torrie’s corner would have worked. Whatever let’s just get this over with. Jillian is in now and for some reason rubs Kelly’s face in her chest. Wow. Anyway, we get the obligatory handspring elbow, which is the most impressive athletic maneuver there is.

It’s so impressive that nearly every Diva does it. Dang will you STOP WITH THE FREAKING SCREAMS? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FREAKING ANNOYING IT WOULD BE TO HAVE SOMEONE THAT SCREAMED EVERY TIME THEY OPENED THEIR FREAKING MOUTH? IT WOULD BE SO FREAKING….never mind. JR actually makes a bit of a comparison of Kelly and the Great Muta. I’m at a lost for keystrokes. All of the heels are wearing some form of red. Is that some messed up team unity thing?

Mickie comes in and attempts to save this match. Mickie hits the sexiest move in wrestling history, The Long Kiss Goodnight, to get the win. It was a move where she grabbed the other girl’s hair and actually bent her back and kissed her before kicking her in the face. Why do I have a feeling that’s Norcal’s dream date? Oh and Michelle fell out during the match. Nothing special.

Rating: D. That’s half of what this match was all about. The other letter is also D. Yep, this was all about looks here. If you don’t believe me, look at Kelly and Maria’s outfits. They’re just there for looks and nothing more. This was just bad and showed how awful the majority of the women were at the time. At least it was short and the girls looked good.

Orton says he’ll win.

Shawn says he’ll win. Well I’m glad they’re in agreement that he’ll win. Shawn looks stoned here and actually swears. That’s surprising.

Raw Tag Titles: Cade and Murdoch vs. Holly and Rhodes

Please…make it short. This was the token title feud of the month as the faces were thrown together over respect or something and instantly were number one contenders. The problem with the tag title picture was simple: Miz and Morrison were thrown together and won the tag belts. Holly and Rhodes were thrown together and won the tag belts. Do I need to explain why this was such a complete and utter failure for so long?

The reunification has helped a good bit lately, but they’re still in desperate need of help. With a roster as big as they have, it really wouldn’t be hard to get a few teams together and put some stories out there. Think of all the guys on the roster that never do anything but could have decent matches. The stuff is there, trust me.

Could Cade be any more generic? Hey! Buy Armageddon so we can validate our completely stupid PPV schedule. Holly and Rhodes won a triple threat vs. Londrick and the Highlanders to get here on Heat of all places. DAng it’s weird to see Rhodes as such a rookie like this. Rhodes and Cade start us off. Rhodes has bulked up a bit since this.

Rhodes literally slaps Murdoch on the back. That sounded sick too. Holly in now who takes down Murdoch. Holly does his low kick that isn’t really low but really looks like it is while the other guy is on the ropes. The champions are in trouble here. Double teaming gets the advantage back to the rednecks.

Cade takes Holly down to prevent he tag as this is just DRAGGING. There’s no reason for this to be on PPV but it is anyway because that’s how tag wrestling in this company works. There’s your heel miscommunication so that Rhodes can come in. And then that doesn’t work as he hits a missile dropkick for two and walks into Melina’s finisher (the sunset bomb thing) from Murdoch to retain.

Rating: D. This was just bad. Just like the match before it, there was no need to have it on PPV. Neither team stands out at all and there’s just nothing special about it. It’s not any good at all so there’s no way to say it’s anything but bad by default. Horrible match and everything that’s wrong with tag wrestling in this era. Holly and Rhodes would get the titles a few weeks later.

Team HHH says that they’re going to do some terrible things to the other team. In a very funny bit, Kane and Jeff mention all the things that HHH has done to them over the years. That’s just amusing. Jeff is taller than I thought he was.

After a too short to tell what’s going on recap of the Survivor Series match, we’re ready to go.

Team HHH vs. Team Umaga

HHH, Kane, Jeff Hardy, Rey Mysterio
Umaga, Big Daddy V, Kennedy, Finlay, MVP

Matt is injured remember, so it’s starting as a handicap match.

I love the way Justin Roberts talks. In what cracked me up, Kennedy comes out to do his standard intro and the mic doesn’t work. About halfway through it kicks on mid word. That’s just hilarious. Big Daddy V is in desperate need of a shirt. MVP needs to bring back the counting part of his music. It’s so much better that way. Let’s see: the most successful heel here is….MVP I guess? Maybe Umaga?

On the other side, we have four former/future world champions. Oh yeah this is going to be a great contest here. Kane’s pyro is some of the loudest stuff you will ever hear in your life. It’s insanely loud. Rey’s song really is catchy when it’s all you’re hearing in the arena. Jeff has his old music here. The start of his singles run would be in less than two months as he would fight Orton for the title at the Rumble. He’s IC Champion here.

Oh yeah the feuds. HHH vs. Umaga, Kane vs. BDV, Jeff vs. no one in particular, Rey vs. Finlay, Matt vs. MVP so I guess Jeff gets Kennedy and MVP by default. We’re now at ten minutes of entrances. We start off with Kennedy and Rey, so an overrated guy that’s good but nowhere near as good as he is made out to be vs. Kennedy. This is pretty decent stuff here as Kennedy for once gets to show what he can do, which isn’t bad.

He’s not the next Austin but he’s not bad at all. Rey does in essence the same move that Murdoch won with earlier, using that pesky thing known as the right way. JR says that Hardy has D. Wade like hang time. That just doesn’t sound right at all. BDV comes in to beat on Hardy for awhile since we need jobbers out there for awhile.

We move on to Kane vs. BDV which was a feud at the moment, so look for a big pinfall here. Kane hits the big clothesline from the top to put him down for a bit as this is really just no sell theater.

Following a little interference from Finlay the Samoan Drop ends the Big Red Machine to make it 5-3. Again, Kane jobs. Some things never change. The facebuster from HHH simply couldn’t miss more than it does here. We get HHH vs. Umaga here, which I guess was supposed to be a big deal? It’s just coming off as weak to me, but whatever.

After HHH (which I accidentally spelled as HGH for a bit there in a funny moment) gets beaten down, Rey comes in and after making Umaga look ridiculously bad, goes out to the Spike, leaving us with 5-2. I can smell the comeback coming from a mile away. We start this part with Jeff vs. Kennedy, which would have been an interesting feud had various things not happened. After a missed Drive By, Jeff gets a quick Twist of Fate to make it 4-2.

Kennedy is taken out after something that looks like it came out of a Three Stooges short with all of the blunders by the heels. HHH gets the pin. We move on to Viscera vs. HHH since I guess the fat man had to get something done that night. A double DDT takes him out to get us to 2-2 and you can see the ending coming from here. In probably the biggest thing of his career, Finlay beats on HHH for awhile before the tag to Hardy brings the crowd back a bit.

Once the terrible twosome were all that was left, this match started going downhill fast. This needs to end, like now. After a lot of token offense from Finlay, HHH comes in and takes care of Finlay. Cole tries to build Finlay as an equal to HHH. That’s just amusing. About 44 seconds later, the Pedigree leads to the Swanton which leads to the end of this way too long match. The face team of the gods celebrate for awhile before we’re done.

Rating: C-. This is a tale of two grades here. Before we got down to the final two faces, this was pretty good. After that, the whole thing just fell apart because there was zero chance that the faces weren’t both going to survive. Kane and Rey were just filler out there and everyone knew it. The first part is good, the second part is just bland. It got Jeff over though, which was the main goal of the whole thing.

Vince tells Horny not to die. That’s just funny.

Hornswoggle vs. Great Khali

You know the story so let’s get this over with. Vince and Shane are with Horny here. When I grow up, I want to be one of Runjin Singh’s sideburns. They do the rule thing just to add more hijinks to this. The fans chant We Want Shaq. Ok then. Oh yeah this is Miami when Shaq was on the Heat. That makes sense now. Oh and Shaq is in the front row. See what happens when I pay attention? Vince grabs a mic and says he doesn’t care what the fans want.

At least he’s honest. Horny runs once Khali screams at him. For some reason he spits mist at Singh who doesn’t do anything but stand there with a what the heck look on his face. Well thanks for that buddy. The club that Horny grabs is knocked away and then Khali smacks him. This needs to end like now.

The joke is over and has been for a long time. Just as I say that, Finlay runs out and hits Khali with the club to make the save for the DQ. The fact that Finlay would be revealed as the real father was about as obvious as possible at this point.

Rating: N/A. It was a joke, not a match.

We hit the recap button on HBK vs. Orton. This is pretty simple. Orton was on a punting spree and one of his first targets was Michaels. The night after Orton beat HHH at No Mercy there was this big ceremony for him which ended in Shawn returning in what was a cool moment. They had a match at Cyber Sunday where Orton got himself disqualified. That led to this, where Shawn can’t use the superkick and Orton can lose the belt via DQ. That’s about it.

Raw World Title: Randy Orton vs. Shawn Michaels

Lillian looks great with her hair pulled back. Ross takes a small shot at FOX News, so at least some things never change. Orton hasn’t started hearing voices yet. Oh and the belt still spins. This is Shawn’s second PPV in 5 months. Shocking isn’t it that he more or less took the summer off after Mania. He would never do anything like that again would he? Dang that spinning belt looks like crap. It’s scary that today the belt looks about 100x better.

We get the old school ceremony of the referee checking the boots and pads etc. I love the little things like that because they can enhance a match so much. Shawn starts off with a lockup known as a Crevate. Now most of you have likely never heard of that. It’s a European style headlock but not quite. More or less you look like you’re setting for a snapmare but you grip like it’s a headlock. It’s really a cool idea and there’s a lot of stuff you can go with from that position.

Chris Hero is well known for using a ton of varieties of things like it. They go to a LONG headlock/front chancery sequence that has the crowd on the edge of unconsciousness. Finally we hit the floor for a bit where Shawn hits a picture perfect Asai Moonsault to knock Orton down. The commentators try to argue that Shawn is using a different style here because he’s not allowed to use the kick. That makes ZERO sense.

Think about it. Shawn’s finishing move is a kick to the head. What kind of setup does that require? All it takes is one second and some accuracy and he’ll knock you out. It’s not a wear down move like a figure four where going for it immediately makes no sense. It’s a move that can be hit from nowhere. Think of the Iron Man match.

He hit back to back kicks from nowhere to win his first world title. Here’s your “it’s Survivor Series so Shawn has to reference Montreal with a Sharpshooter” Sharpshooter. This has been all Shawn so far. Say it with me: as I type that Orton takes over.

Orton is very boring. That’s all there is to it. However, since he looks like a statue and can cut decent promos, Vince decides to keep putting him in big matches with this ridiculous Viper gimmick which more or less consists of him sliding around the ring before the RKO. It’s an excuse for not having to come up with something creative. Orton vs. Cena and HHH is about as boring of a pair of feuds as you’re ever going to find.

JR then has the nerve to say that this is a pure wrestling match. No Jim, it’s really not. This is a match that has an extra gimmick added to it because no one in their right mind believed that HBK would lose to Orton without it. Orton is just flat out awful in this gimmick of his and something needs to be changed, fast. Naturally, that means that Orton will be the same guy going into Mania 30. Oh look it’s a chinlock. What is the appeal of this?

To be fair, Orton is a bit better now, but around this time he was just flat out boring. Now he’s just mostly boring. Ok, for the love of goodness, WE GET THAT ORTON’S DAD IS IN THE HALL OF FAME! He was a horrible character and did nothing of note, ever. He’s another great example of the Hall of Fame being a complete joke. Anyway, Shawn initiates the ending sequence but gets dropkicked with one of three moves Orton can actually do really well.

In what’s a pretty cool move, Shawn sets for the superkick and fakes Orton out to get him to drop down so Shawn can hook a small package. That was really smart and makes perfect sense. In something that really surprises me, Shawn uses a crossface. This is a mere four months after Benoit and in the middle of the investigation into his death. I guess that this was before the whole thing came out. Michaels goes even crazier by putting on an ankle lock. Man he’s going nuts here.

He gets the heel hook but Orton gets out. DAng , Orton is better with submission than Lesnar is. Something occurs to me. If Orton gets disqualified, HBK gets the belt right? Why doesn’t Shawn get one of his buddies to come out and blast him with a chair or something? Man this face thing getting in the way of something that makes sense.

As he goes for a figure four, Shawn is kicked into the post. After a very brief counter, the RKO ends it. Afterwards Orton yells at Shawn and picks him up, naturally getting kicked in the head before Shawn leaves. Well that was a pretty basic ending.

Rating: D+. I get that some people would like this match, but I just could not get into it at all. There’s no drama, there’s one decent looking spot with the moonsault, there are tons of dead spots, and the whole thing just falls short. There just was no reason at all to watch this, plain and simple. They weren’t going to put the belt on Shawn so quick. Earlier tonight in the Punk match you had a good match that was a token defense.

This is the same, but this was far more boring. It’s a great example of a good match like this and a bad one. Jericho would come back in less than a month to save Raw and have more bland matches with Orton. Vince, get it through your head: two surefire hall of fame wrestlers in Jericho and Shawn can only pull ok matches out of Orton. That simply can’t be a coincidence.

Recap of Batista vs. Taker: they’ve fought a bunch of times and split most of them, but they just think the other is a swell guy. Yep, that’s about it.

Smackdown World Title: Batista vs. Undertaker

Remember this is Hell in a Cell. Taker is the challenger here. JBL actually does some good analysis of what both guys need to do to win. He then ruins that by saying “oh that’s a clothesline!” Well thanks for that great brilliance there Johnny boy. Naturally Batista isn’t afraid of Taker. Less than three minutes in we have a chair brought in from under the ring. Or would it be out from under the ring? Whatever. Taker controls the majority of the opening part of the match.

Batista takes a chair shot to the throat and has some faint blood from his mouth. I know there’s not much being said here but the opening to this is solid which makes it difficult to make fun of. They’re trying to play up the experience/skill of Taker vs. pure power of Batista. That’s not a bad idea at all. As usual the rules of where you can pin someone here change per match, but I’d assume that it’s only in the ring. Cole implies it’s falls count anywhere.

They’re focusing a lot more on wrestling here than violence, which is fine. There’s certainly more than one way to have a good cell match and this is one of those options. Taker gets the Triangle Choke and Batista starts waving his arm and slapping the mat which looks a lot like tapping to me. He gets the ropes which apparently is a rope break. Even the announcers say that’s not correct. Batista is bleeding horribly.

After Batista gets some weapons shots in to take control, he gets caught in the Last Ride for two. This is a good match. The chokeslam gets two. He goes for the Tombstone but Batista does the leg wiggle of doom to get out and hit a spinebuster to take over again. A table is brought in as I begin to think: do those really help? I mean think about it. They kind of break your fall.

When you’re in a move like a powerbomb or something, the impact of the move is based on the amount of momentum built up when you’re coming down right? Well if there’s a table there blocking your way, doesn’t it stop a lot of the momentum? The impact of going through the table would hurt, but since you keep going anyway, it’s not going to hurt that much. Think of it like this: what hurts worse, taking a short ride and falling through a table, or taking a long ride and landing on something solid?

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I guess it can look good or something like that. Now we get to something else that’s kind of stupid. Batista sets up the table and hits a regular powerbomb through it (they call it the Batista Bomb but I can let that one go). If he had Taker that weakened, why not just hit the regular Batista Bomb and not give Taker the extra recovery time? Batista kicks out of the Tombstone, which makes him the second guy ever (Shawn at Mania 25) to kick out of all three finishers.

Shawn took it a step further though as he got out of Hell’s Gate as well. A Tombstone of the stairs should do it but the cameraman pulls the referee out and of course it’s Edge, returning from whatever injury he was out with. A camera shot to the head of Taker followed by a conchairto and Batista keeps the belt. Seriously, that’s the ending? Edge posing takes us out.

Rating: A-. This was a very good match until the ending. These guys have some solid chemistry together and showed it off tonight. Most Cell matches have zero story to them but this one did, which goes to show that you can have good wrestling and storytelling in a match like this and include weapons and blood.

That’s a big flaw in a lot of gimmick matches today: they forget they’re wrestling and just have high spots. Edge interfering really brings this down though as I wanted a clean win for someone. This was very good though and easily the best match at Survivor Series in a good while.

Overall Rating: B-. This is another example of a show where the grades don’t give an accurate representation of the whole show. I know I graded a lot of them low, but at the same time the whole show turned out to be pretty good I thought. The main event helped a lot as it was an excellent match. It goes to show you what a main event is capable of.

I know some people are going to think I’m an idiot for my Shawn vs. Orton grade, but the issue I have is simple: it was overbooked. Seriously, does a guy like Shawn need gimmicks in order to get over? You tell him how long he has and the finish and let him take care of the rest. The show certainly isn’t bad, but it’s hardly a classic. Batista and Taker is worth going out of your way to see, but while the rest is certainly good, it’s not must see. Recommended though.

 

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Through the Saturday after Thanksgiving, things are going to be a little slow.  I’ll have someone coming into town and I’ll be wanting to spend as much time with her as possible.  I won’t be able to do the live reviews but I’ll probably ahve the reviews up no later than 24 hours later.  I’ll have the Survivor Series Count-Up stuff every day and I’ll post some quick thoughts on the PPV on Sunday if I get to see it live.  Thanks for your patience.

 

KB

Survivor Series 2006
Date: November 26, 2006
Location: Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 15,400
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross, JBL, Michael Cole

It’s the 20th show in case you were wondering for some bizarre reason that I can’t comprehend. With the 2006 show, the only real difference is the induction of ECW into the company. It brings the third brand and at this point is still complete with the Originals and Heyman etc. Also there are some new faces such as Johnny Nitro (Morrison), Punk, MVP and Kennedy.

There are three Survivor Series matches here and the main event is Booker vs. Batista which had been done about a million times already but they figured what the heck we might as well do it again. Other than that, there’s not a lot here that jumps off the page at me.

Oh DX is here again as they’re feuding with Rated RKO, having just finished fighting Vince and Shane. Other than that, there’s just not a lot here. It looks kind of generic but sometimes cards like that are best. Here we go again as we’re very close to wrapping this series up.

The intro video is about as bland as you can get, but in this case it’s actually working. They talk very briefly about how this is the 20th Survivor Series and a new generation is here, followed by a quick build up for all seven matches. There’s not a lot here but it’s a nice change of pace from all of the stupid videos about Survival that we’ve heard for the last two or three years. After the four (ECW is left out) commentators talk about their show’s big matches, we’re ready to go.

Spirit Squad vs. Legends

The Spirit Squad is comprised of Kenny Dykstra, Johnny Jeter who was pretty awesome in OVW, a short guy named Mikey, and a guy named Nick, who would eventually be known as Dolph Ziggler. Spellcheck has never heard the name Dolph? Has it never seen Rocky 4? That’s just sad. Anyway, there’s also a 5th guy on the outside that never did anything. On the other side we have Arn Anderson on the floor with Dusty Rhodes, Sgt. Slaughter, Ron Simmons (really?) and Ric Flair in the ring.

Apparently Simmons was supposed to be Roddy Piper but he had been diagnosed with cancer so naturally he couldn’t wrestle. Ok in that case it’s a bit better. Naturally this is over the respect for the old timers thing which is about as basic of a storyline that will almost always work as you could ask for. Dusty comes out to his American Dream music so I’m happy. Simmons is rocking the catchphrase shirt and the APA music.

Anderson comes out to the Horsemen theme, so this is officially a cool show. Dang that music is awesome. I really love kayfabe as Flair and Anderson have tried to cripple Dusty at least half a dozen times over the years yet now they’re his partners. That could only work in wrestling. The Spirit Squad were a bunch of male cheerleaders. Yep, that’s about all that needs to be said. It amuses me greatly to see Ziggler in there looking like that.

We start out with Simmons against Mikey, because that’s a great way to open up a PPV. Ross says there’s an unlimited amount of combinations that could occur. Actually there are sixteen combinations that could happen while the match is still going on, but who am I to question the great mathematician known as Jim Ross? Ron beats down the whole heel team but gets tripped and goes after Kenny.

After he and Arn beat up Mikey, he’s counted out despite the referee never actually saying ten. Well I guess that’s as good of a way to get rid of him as any other, but I would have liked it to have lasted longer than two minutes. Mitch the manager gets thrown out too so there we go. Arn gets the same and I want to massacre that referee. This is kind of overkill here and even the fans are chanting bull.

When you can get a Philly crowd to cheer for you, you have officially won. On a replay we see that Anderson beat up Mitch. So wait, he can get thrown out for beating on someone not even in the match? What sense does that even begin to make? If your answer is none at all, YOU’RE RIGHT! Think about it: he’s getting in trouble for beating someone up that isn’t officially involved in the match. So could he be thrown out of the match for getting into a bar fight? See, it makes no sense.

Anyway, we’re up to Slaughter against Mikey now. Dusty gets a solid pop when he comes in, thankfully wearing a shirt. Flair gets less of a pop, but the chops make up for it. The heels are getting destroyed here which is just what shouldn’t have happened. I get that they’re legends, but isn’t the job of guys like these to put over young talent? I guess not as Sarge has the Cobra Clutch on Nicky. Man these guys are hard to tell apart other than Kenny.

I love how in today’s company, this would be so one sided the other way that it’s not even funny. With the referee distracted, Johnny comes in and kicks Slaughter in the back of the head and Nicky gets the easy pin to make it 4-2. In one of the stupidest looking things I’ve ever seen, with Nicky still down from the cover, Dusty casually walks in, measures him, and drops a very slow elbow on him to get the pin.

Seriously? That’s all it takes? A single elbow drop to beat someone? I get that Dusty was limited at best in the ring but he couldn’t pick him up and throw some punches and slam him or something? A freaking elbow drop gets the pin? Come on now. For the life of me I don’t get what the big deal about Kenny was. He was ok at best and that’s about all. After the really stupid (and insanely slow) Flip Flop and Fly, Dusty gets rolled up and Kenny pins him.

So now we have Flair vs. Kenny, Mikey and Johnny. Which of the jobbers is Flair going to take out first? It’s Mikey who gets taken out by a roll up with Flair’s feet on the ropes for a nice old school cheating pin. Flair truly was a master at taking something as simple as that and making it look cool and so completely evil when he was a heel. Sometimes less is more and Flair was the best there ever was in that area.

Ross points out that the Legends team had 21 world title reigns between them, but Flair has 16 of those. That’s just amusing. Flair hooks a quick inside cradle to make this Johnny vs. Ric Flair. Hmm, I’m not sure how this is going to go. I have to go with the guy in green. No way some old guy beats him is there? Oh never mind.

Even I can’t make this sound funny. The figure four gets the old guys the win about 45 seconds later. The Squad beats up Flair afterwards and surprisingly no help comes out for Flair.

Rating: C+. Eh this was what it was. They only had about ten minutes which is what it should have been. Other than Simmons, who wasn’t supposed to be in there anyway, all of the eliminations kind of made sense. Having Flair be the winner is ok I guess as he was at least an active wrestler at the time. His picking apart of the team at the end was great stuff as nothing he did was flashy or anything like that as he beat all three guys using very basic stuff.

That’s something that a lot of guys now could learn actually. The Figure Four was appropriate as he shouldn’t have gone for that with others around and he didn’t. When he was outnumbered he used fast stuff but once things were even he used his best. That’s terrific thinking there and it worked quite well. This wasn’t really about anything but nostalgia, but sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that, and this is a great example of one of those times.

Cole says that Philly is one of three cities to host all of the Big Four, with the others being New York City and Boston. That’s actually pretty cool.

Recap of Benoit vs. Chavo, which goes like this. Chavo and Vickie had allegedly been doing jack with Eddie’s estate or something like that which was never elaborated on. Benoit comes back from a hiatus and wins the US Title. Chavo also says that Rey is trying to steal the Guerrero name because that would be something evil.

We’ll of course ignore that Chavo and Vickie have been doing that for their whole careers but whatever. Anyway, Chavo injured Rey’s knee and put him out, so Benoit came to his rescue. That brings us here.

US Title: Chris Benoit vs. Chave Guerrero

Vickie actually has some pretty awesome cleavage. Since this is Benoit, it’s naturally an intense match. There’s not a lot to say here. It’s really just a lot of strikes from both guys mixed with the occasional attempt at the Crossface. I know that’s not a lot to go on but I really have nothing to say here. It’s insane to think that Benoit would be gone in less than a year. This is where Chavo is at his best: in there with another guy of about his size and just letting it go.

Both guys can wrestle as well as anyone else and Chavo, or Shavo as JBL refers to him as because he can’t pronounce his name for some reason, really is better than he’s given credit for. Vickie interferes about a dozen times here and it’s rather annoying. JBL compares it to cheating on your wife with some hot chick on the road. Dang what must his wife have thought of that line? Benoit misses the headbutt because of Vickie leading to Guerrero hitting the Frog Splash for two.

A massive Eddie chant breaks out because of that. Benoit goes for the Sharpshooter and gets shoved off, slamming into Vickie THANK GOODNESS. Chavo goes to check on her and the Crossface ends this. It was short but quite intense which was where Benoit shined.

Rating: B. Like I said, this was short but intense. Benoit could fight with the best of them but he could also wrestle better than the best of them which is what made him so successful. Chavo certainly can go too and it’s a shame that he’s a comedy jobber to this day. I really do feel bad for him, but he’s getting on TV so you can’t blame him for that. Solid match that was just long enough to not feel short.

The Elimination Chamber is coming back at December 2 Dismember. Oh dear this was awful in every sense of the word. Also, it’s A WEEK LATER. There’s a rant coming one day on that show as it’s about as much of a debacle as humanly possible, but I’ll save that for later.

Edge and Lita are with Todd Grisham. Tonight is Lita’s last match despite the fact that she’s the Women’s Champion. Edge offers some weak Philly jokes before doing the smarter thing and kissing Lita. He rants a bit more while Cryme Tyme is behind them sneaking into her locker room and stealing her stuff.

Women’s Title: Mickie James vs. Lita

Like I said, this is Lita’s last night with the company. Mickie is at this point the queen of the short skirts which gave us some AWESOME visuals for a long time. For the life of me I don’t get how people don’t think she’s hot. Mickie is flat out gorgeous on so many levels. Granted Lita is somehow hotter which defies logic. Lita’s music truly does rock. This likely is going to go quick as it’s about as obvious as possible that Mickie walks out with the belt here.

Allegedly Lita is leaving due to the fans hating her, which is actually pretty creative. The fans boo people all the time yet this time the fans are actually getting rid of someone they can’t stand. Trish had left two months prior to this, so this is more or less the ending of the Women’s Division’s best years. More or less they’re just going through the motions here and it’s not that interesting.

To be fair, at least Lita isn’t being a witch like Goldberg and Lesnar were when they left and having a horrible match more or less on purpose. She’s not exactly lighting the world on fire or anything, but she’s certainly out there trying and that’s all I can ask of her. Mickie surprisingly kicks out of both the Litarana and the moonsault to a decent pop. My goodness Mickie has a nice figure.

After some back and forth reversals, Mickie hits the jumping DDT to get the pin and the division is officially in big trouble. That’s not a knock on Mickie by any means, but other than her around this time there was absolutely no one that could carry a decent match. She and Melina traded the belt a bit before Candice arrived and took the division over despite a rather severe lack of talent at the time.

Lita wants a mic as the fans are singing to her a familiar song. Actually she’s demanding that Lillian calls her the best Women’s Champion ever, which of course gets her booed again. It’s a shame she left because she was awesome as a heel. Anyway, after she whines a lot, Cryme Tyme, who was the hottest team on the planet around this time, comes out with the box, and it’s time for a HO SALE! Everything must go so have your money ready.

This really is hilarious as JTG has charisma to burn. He’s actually a lot better on the mic than he’s given credit for. They sell mainly underwear and bras with JBL offering $100 for some panties. They take the money and toss them into the crowd of course. Lita is freaking out over this as they pull out her vibrator. I love how the cops aren’t here as it’s clearly Lita’s stuff and she’s upset about this. The last item: it’s big, it’s wide, it’s cheap and you can fit your head in it.

It’s Lita’s box. As Cryme Tyme is leaving, you can hear some very profane in their song. That’s most interesting. You kind of have to feel bad for Lita that on her last night this is her sendoff, but dang that was great. It’s a shame that they never win jack in the ring, but geez they need to go back to doing stuff like this as it was hilarious.

Rating: B. Well, they made Mickie look strong and Lita looked fine on her way out so those two missions were certainly accomplished. Considering there was absolutely zero suspense about the ending, I’d say this was fine. There’s little drama but the match itself was fine.

Mickie was the future of the division so having her beat Lita clean after kicking out of her signature moves was the exact right thing to do. This was fine for what it was and the girls both looked hot. Couple that with a great comedy segment and this was sweet.

We go to an interview with Cole and Batista from earlier in the day. Cole asks a bunch of questions and Batista says nothing at all to anything. He just sits and stares straight ahead. After a clip of Booker attacking him on Smackdown, Batista still says nothing. Cole asks if he has anything at all to say and Batista takes off his glasses, looks at Cole and simply says “Tonight, I’m leaving as World Heavyweight Champion”. End of interview.

I LOVE that. How many times have you seen people do the exact same promo that absolutely nothing gets said in at all and it’s just the same stuff that we hear every month? This was directly to the point and made Batista look crazy, which is exactly the point. I loved this and it did its job to perfection.

Team DX vs. Team Rated RKO

DX, Hardys, Punk
Randy Orton, Edge, Mike Knox, Johnny Nitro, Gregory Helms

The feuds are pretty self explanatory here with Punk against Knox, Nitro against Jeff and Matt against Helms. We don’t get any stupid things like stories or anything like that. Why waste time there. Let’s just get theme music playing and get to it! Jeff is Intercontinental Champion here. For some reason Lillian calls Matt and Jeff Team Xtreme while Ross calls them their traditional names.

Punk gets a solid pop. He’s a rookie here and is still undefeated. Naturally since he’s young, over and good with a different gimmick, Vince decided that Hardcore Holly should outlast him in the Elimination Chamber. Heyman had wanted to put Punk over Big Show but Vince decided that Holly had more potential. For those of you keeping score, that’s Heyman – 1, Vince – 0. DX gets a big pop despite their entrance taking forever.

Who would have thought that at this time three years later Matt would be by far and away the least successful? After a longer version of the standard intro in which all of the faces try to get different sections of the crowd to cheer the loudest, we’re on to the heels. First of all though, we get a HUGE CM Punk chant. He gets to ask are you ready? That’s saying a lot. That really is a freaking stacked face team in there with what, 25 world titles between four guys?

Melina and Nitro come out first with her looking ridiculously hot. For some reason that no one gets, Kevin Federline was a character around this time and an A-list guy along with Nitro and Melina. Vince’s desperation to be in every facet of entertainment will never cease to amaze me. Helms, the Cruiserweight Champion and coming out to the most generic rock music of all time is next. Knox, sans awesome beard is somehow dating Kelly at this point. Her skirt might be 4 inches wide. That’s awesome.

Edge and Orton are the tag champions here and their mix of music is completely awesome. After about ten minutes of intros and another Punk chant we start off with Knox and HHH. HHH, being a selfish bastard as always, hits on Kelly. At the time Kelly was an exhibitionist character so she gets up to flash HHH but Knox cuts him off. He turns into Sweet Chin Music and it’s 5-4 after about 45 seconds. The fans are WAY into Punk here.

Naturally Hardcore Holly would get 10x the pops though. Shawn scares the heck out of Melina in a funny spot. Morrison is in now and the faces take their time beating the living tar out of him. Edge beats on Matt for a bit which is dripping with history. I’m glad the captains aren’t staying on the apron until the end. Matt is bleeding from the mouth. I guess that’s better than being From The South. Punk comes in and gets cheered louder than anyone in the match.

After a few seconds, Nitro is tapping fast. He needs to bring that back, even as a secondary move. I’m talking about the Anaconda Vice in case there was any confusion. Helms and Edge beat down Punk, but he still gets massive chants. They’ll be silent when Holly shows up though. You know he’s a real star. He won a tag title. Helms busts out a one leg version of what will become known as the Codebreaker. The RKO puts Punk more or less out cold but Shawn breaks up the pin.

Punk finally gets the tag to HHH who comes in for the first time. Naturally he cleans house for awhile but it’s time for the big brawl, leading to the Hardys taking everyone out. The Twist of Fate and Swanton takes out Helms to make it 5 vs. Rated RKO. The heels grab their belts and try to leave but the Hardys cut them off. They all beat on Edge for awhile and then he gets kicked in the face for the pin. Ross calls him a Canadian Piñata which is kind of funny.

Randy tries to run through the crowd but every face not named DX catches him and the DX Double Team Finishing Combination, which is a long way to say Sweet Chin Music and a Pedigree take him out for the clean sweep. Massive posing and celebrating follows.

Rating: B. This was very fun. It was fast paced and it got the point over perfectly. Also it doesn’t bury Edge and Orton because not even two A-list guys like them could overcome an obstacle like this. This was a great example of perfect booking and a great Survivor Series match. Punk’s pops are the most surprising part here though as they were by far and away the biggest thing of the match.

Vince is a freaking idiot to not let Punk get pushed because he wasn’t a big enough name yet or whatever. That’s a great example of his ego taking control of his senses. Punk would get pushed, but they freaking pushed Holly over him, and for what? The idea of paying dues? Come on now Vince, listen to the people and grow up for a change.

Time to recap the only real push that Kennedy ever got. This was around the time where he kept beating world champions and he’s challenged Taker at his show. Oddly that’s not Mania but whatever. They did manage to make this a First Blood match which helps a lot as it allows Kennedy to potentially beat Taker but Taker doesn’t have to actually get pinned. As for the story here, Kennedy says that he’s young so he has to take out the old man that is Taker.

How many people have used this same story? That’s just a painful lack of creativity. Also I would be willing to bet that at some point in the promos leading up to this, Kennedy has said he’s not afraid of the dark because no one ever has been. In the highlight package, Kennedy says that at Survivor KENNEDY! Sorry I had to get that joke in at least once.

He says that at Survivor Series the decade and a half of destruction will end. Well that’s all well and good for a threat but the decade and a half ended the year before. We’re closing in on two decades now. Is Kennedy planning on bringing a time traveling Delorean to the match or something? That would be cooler than he is, so maybe it should happen.

Undertaker vs. Mr. Kennedy

Before the match, Kennedy is talking to Krystal about how this is the biggest match of his career when MVP comes up. I almost forgot: they were teaming a bit at the time and actually had a very short feud with the Brothers of Destruction. I’ll give you two guesses as to which team got their heads handed to them. Kennedy has Vaseline on his forehead which keeps fists from making full contact and thereby opening up his head. That’s actually pretty smart.

Kennedy is wearing the Norcal shirt so I’m making a good bit here. Why does the blood have to come from the head? I’d love to see someone come out with a needle and poke their opponent’s finger to get the win. I’d half die of laughter. Kennedy desperately needs his new music at this point as the one he’s using here is painfully generic. He takes off two of the turnbuckle pads as JBL calls him the future of Smackdown. Again, that’s something that when you hear it now it’s just incredibly funny.

Holy crap Cole made a Back to the Future reference! I swear that wasn’t foreshadowing or anything like that when I made the Delorean joke earlier. Wow that actually made my review. I’m stunned. As Taker comes out Kennedy pulls off another buckle covering. Taker really does look awesome here. After over ten minutes since we started talking about this match, the bell finally rings. Ok, that’s just WAY too long.

I have no interest in watching it after that long, but at least this looks cool so let’s get to it. They keep pointing out that this is anything goes. We get it guys, chill a bit. This is really just a brawl/Taker beating up Kennedy to start us off, which I guess makes the most sense. I’m liking this actually. It’s a lot better than I expected, and I think that’s because they’re going on a rather slow style which allows them to set up to a big finish.

That’s fine, although I’m not sure why Taker is working on Kennedy’s ribs. I guess it’s because he wants to slow him down? Does that makes sense? I guess in some way it does, but it just doesn’t feel right. I’ve rarely seen anyone bleed from the stomach, at least in a wrestling match. Taker is completely dominant here. Cole asks about the logic of attacking the ribs as well, which has JBL saying Taker wants Kennedy to bleed from the mouth.

That’s…..kind of stupid but it works I suppose. A low blow does little to slow down Taker, which I kind of like I think. It keeps the whole painless man thing working. Another low blow actually works though so the first was completely pointless. Kennedy goes to the floor and is bleeding from the mouth but MVP comes out with a towel to clean it up. I’m surprised it can clot that fast but whatever.

With Taker back in control, MVP comes in with a chair for no apparent reason and cracks Taker with it to bust him open. That was just odd. Post match, Kennedy beats on him a bit more and gets in his face with the mic for his catchphrase. Taker of course grabs him by the throat and it’s beatdown time.

Taker KILLS him with the chair which gets a holy crap chant from a Philly crowd. That says a lot. A tombstone ends this beating as Taker poses to close the segment with JBL talking about how awesome and scary Taker is.

Rating: C+. This started off solid but it felt like the ending came from absolutely nowhere. MVP coming down wasn’t needed as he was swinging for Kennedy and it was just a big mess. I get why they had Kennedy win here as it makes the most sense, but dang this was just a mess near the end.

For the life of me I don’t get why they booked it like that. This is a great example of a match that just needed more time to flesh itself out. Another five minutes or so would have made this much better.

Booker isn’t worried about Batista tonight.

Again with no transition, we’re at our penultimate match.

Team Cena vs. Team Big Show

Cena, RVD, Kane, Lashley, Sabu
Big Show, MVP, Test, Finlay, Umaga

Dang those are some pretty motley crews of tag teams. Lashley is just becoming a bit deal, Kane is Kane, RVD is pretty worthless and Sabu just sucks. Test is the worst excuse for a big man ever and Finlay never really did anything other than have a midget for a son. This just doesn’t look good at all on paper. Let’s get this over with. Cena is between feuds with Show and Umaga here. We start with Umaga and Cena which would become the title feud very soon after this.

The Champ puts Umaga on the floor with a clothesline and the savage reacts savagely. He rips up the table of course and gets out a monitor which he blasts RVD, Sabu and Cena with for the fast DQ. Well that was abrupt. I get that they want to keep him hot but that’s a bit, shall we say extreme? I get what they’re trying to do here but it is a bit much. Granted it puts the faces at an early disadvantage so that’s mission accomplished if nothing else.

After that insanity we’re back with Finlay vs. RVD. Test comes in to beat on RVD a bit as Test continues to just be a failure on many levels. Vince to his credit though kept trying to push him despite him completely sucking at it. After about a minute in there Finlay comes back in just in case you missed him. Since he’s had his face kicked in for a good long while now Van Dam is bleeding from the mouth.

This is just not interesting at all for some reason despite there being a lot of names in there that are certainly A-list guys. I guess it’s that there’s no way Cena’s team is losing here but whatever. Van Dam hits one heck of a kick on Finlay which I think wasn’t supposed to be that solid. He caught him great though and it looked awesome. After a rather weak brawl, Kane interferes and hits a chokeslam on MVP to set up the Five Star and make it 5-3.

As RVD gets up though, Test hits the SICKEST big boot I’ve ever seen to take him out. Even Kane on the apron was knocked back by just looking at it. I mean Kane is just watching this and he looks like he got hit by a right hand and he’s only wincing because of how solid a kick that was. That was completely sick and no one would kick out of that. Based on that kick alone, I’d buy Test as a main event guy.

Go find a video of this match to see how sick that was. I’m impressed. Sabu immediately runs in and rolls Test up but since that’s a wrestling move it doesn’t work. On the floor Lashley hits a spear on Test to allow Sabu to hit a Tornado DDT to get the win on him, yet again crushing any semblance of a push that Test could have gotten. Show walks in and a simple chokeslam ends purple pants.

I know this is just listing stuff but there’s maybe 30 seconds between falls, which is counting people coming in, the moves and the counts. That leaves little time for anything else. Kane comes in. Oh in case you lost track, it’s Kane, Cena and Lashley against Finlay and Show. To follow up on that kick, RVD is just now leaving. That’s insane. Kane is 200lbs lighter than Show. That’s even scarier.

During a double choke from the big men, the man known as Little Bastard who will eventually be named Hornswoggle comes in and distracts the referee long enough for Kane to get smacked with the club and then chokeslammed to make this 2-2. This feels like they ran out of time in the middle of the match. Now we get Show against Cena with John being booed badly. After too long of a beating on Cena Lashley gets the hot tag and cleans house.

Show takes both guys down though to set up a pretty bad elimination for Finlay. The Irishman rolls Horny into the ring and is going to use him as a battering ram but Lashley hits a running punch to the ribs which is called a spear. Cena tries to FU Horny but Show stops him. Cena is just flat out hated in this town. Who would have seen that coming?

Once it’s 2-1, I don’t think Show got in any offense at all. Well, that’s a great way to make your champion look just before the first ECW PPV isn’t it guys? After the third Lashley spear of the match (learn some new moves for goodness’s sake) the 500lb FU ends this. Massive celebrations follow.

Rating: D+. What was the point of this? Cena was in the middle of his feuds here and the rest was just kind of a big preview of the awful Chamber match next week. Most of these guys were seemingly thrown together and told to go have a twelve minute Survivor Series match.

WAY too much of this was rapid fire eliminations which rarely if ever work. I really wasn’t too big on this but some cool spots make it ok. Also it’s short, which is a big problem but in another way it’s also the best thing about it. Try having that make sense.

Hey! There’s another PPV in a week and even though Vince is going to announce only two matches and go completely against what the fans are cheering for because he knows better. I mean really think about it. The fans are chanting for Punk despite HHH and HBK and one of the most popular tag teams of all time being in there, but he naturally didn’t get to last as long as that master of the ring, Hardcore Holly. Vince, grow up. You really need to.

We get what I guess you would call a recap of Booker vs. Batista. The idea is simple: Batista has tried twice or so already and hasn’t gotten the belt, so this is his last chance which gives the ending away already. This led to the ridiculously annoying Sharmell shouting ALL HAIL KING BOOKER!, about once every three seconds. It was a decent idea for a drinking game. Batista had been forced to relinquish the title nearly a year ago due to injury and hasn’t gotten it back yet. Yep, that’s about it.

Smackdown World Title: King Booker vs. Batista

Teddy Long comes out and says exactly the same thing I just did, but adds that if Booker is counted out or disqualified Batista gets the belt, again making sure that the ending of the Batista Bomb is set in stone. I’ve always shaken my head over the little spin move that Batista would do when he was jumping up and down. Of course it’s up and down as I don’t think you can jump any other way.

Actually according to AJ Styles’ old music you can jump to the left which you can also do in the Time Warp so there we are. That was a rather pointless rant but whatever. This is a long entrance and I’m not that interested in the match itself. King Booker was either brilliant or a complete failure and I’m still not sure which. If nothing else it gave him an actual gimmick. Before this he was just Booker T.

Cole says the following great line: “There’s the Animal, pacing like a caged animal.” Does that just sound stupid to anyone else? Good grief Booker is slower than Taker when it comes to entrances. Thankfully Batista jumps him so we get to this faster. Wow…this is very boring. There’s just nothing at all out of the ordinary here as it’s just Batista beats on Booker but as he goes for the Bomb Booker hits the floor. Wow how exciting.

This was around the time where Smackdown was almost universally looked down on for being awful and I can certainly see how that’s the conception. It’s been all Batista so far meaning that the Booker comeback is coming very soon. Yep there it is. This is just predictable. JBL tries to make us believe that this is the big match of the show.

There’s a big difference between going on last and being the main event, although there really wasn’t a main event on this card anyway so maybe that’s a fair statement to make. There’s a very limited reaction from the crowd here as for one thing this is in Philadelphia or as it’s more commonly known Smark city #1 or #2 based on your thoughts on New York City.

Batista hits a Jackhammer to even less of a reaction. Sharmell interferes and thereby gives Booker the advantage. After some more generic back and forth stuff we discuss the idea that Teddy Long is trying to get the belt off Booker because he’s racist. Sadly, that’s by far the most entertaining aspect of this match. They keep changing the story about the rules of the title.

At one point it’s he doesn’t get a shot at Booker again, then it’s at the title ever. Make up your minds on the pointless stipulations guys. I’m about to fall asleep from this match as it’s really that bad. Actually it’s not bad, but just boring on so many levels. Batista is treating him like a jobber in ever sense of the word. To up the drama/excitement, which is to say actually have some, Batista hits a shoulder block from the top.

JBL says it’s anyone’s ball game, which explains why Booker has been getting his face kicked in for about five minutes. Booker hits a random Book End so he can use the Spinerooni. Batista pops up and hits the Batista Bomb but Booker grabs the bottom rope. Sharmell interferes (for some reason that word was hard to spell) and Booker misses a belt shot, and Batista nails him with the belt for the title. Wait what? That’s how they’re ending this?

He has Booker more or less dead and he doesn’t even use the freaking Batista Bomb? To even further the stupidity of this, he kicked Booker in the ribs to make him drop the title, so he was in perfect position for the Bomb. That was a stupid ending because it makes Batista look both heelish and weak. That was awful.

Rating: D-. This was AWFUL. It was boring, the ending was never in doubt, and yet they somehow managed to botch that too. Batista breathed life back into the title though as he and Taker would soon start their mega feud over the belt, but seriously, this was the best they could do? It was like a main event for the sake of saying they had a main event which is just stupid. I want my fifteen minutes back! Awful way to end the show, plain and simple.

Overall Rating: C-. Again that’s being generous. The first half of this show is great but after that the whole thing just falls apart at the seams. The second half of this show just doesn’t work at all for me. The two main Survivor Series matches were just not good, plain and simple.

The main event was garbage of the highest degree and the whole show just falls flat for me. There’s some ok stuff here but it really just isn’t working at all for me. The first few matches, mainly the Benoit/Chavo match were actually pretty good. The show just doesn’t feel big at all and it just doesn’t work. I’d avoid it if I were you.

 

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Survivor Series 1996
Date: November 17, 1996
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 18,647
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross

Now you can see the Attitude Era being born at this show, and it comes from one man: Stone Cold Steve Austin. Shawn Michaels is the WWF Champion, having won it at Mania 12. After beating Bret Hart, Bret left the company for six months and in that time, Austin won the King of the Ring and uttered the most legendary catchphrase of all time: Austin 3:16.

He then began calling out Hart, saying that he didn’t care what Hart had done, because Hart couldn’t beat Austin on Hart’s best day. That’s one of your main events. Your other is Shawn vs. Sid for the title. Yeah that’s kind of an afterthought here. We have our standard Survivor Series matches as well, with the debut of one of the biggest stars of all time here. I haven’t seen this show all the way through in years but it looks very good. Let’s see if it is.

We start off by seeing a big recap of how the WWF has been taking over New York, including the Hall of Fame inductions which they don’t even mention who was inducted so that should tell you how important it was. This was actually pretty good. I’m actually looking forward to this one.

Owen Hart/British Bulldog/New Rockers vs. Furnace/Lafon/Godwins

We immediately start it up here and Lawler is on commentary for this match only. That was a weird part to the show. Anyway, the New Rockers are heels here and it’s Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy, more commonly known as Al Snow. Now I’ve heard a lot about how great Furnace and Lafon are, but I’ve never seen it. They’re not bad at all, but they’re average to me. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll give them another chance as I have no reason at all to hate them yet.

Oh apparently on the Free For All which was the preshow that anyone could watch, Bart Gunn was the survivor in a match. That’s a really bad sign for the rest of the evening. This is Furnace and Lafon’s WWF debut but they’re big stars in Japan. Ok then. The Godwinns have Hillbilly Jim and therefore are ridiculously popular. Like I’ve said, he’s one of those guys that was popular for a variety of reasons, but the biggest was that he never overstayed his welcome.

That’s something that a lot of unserious characters today need to get. Also, not all characters are going to be main event guys. Look at Kofi for example. Is anyone going to buy him as a main event wrestler? In the ring yes but not with that gimmick, and that’s fine.

Anyway, on to the match. We start with Lafon vs. Jannetty so already Lafon is the bigger name. Marty is just such an epic fail as a heel it’s unbelievable. Lafon isn’t bad at all. He’s not great but I’m not bored with him or anything. Now it’s over to Phineas, more commonly known as Mideon. All of a sudden I’d love to have Lafon back in there. Snow is really quite underrated. It’s a shame he always got such insane gimmicks.

The heels all beat on Mideon which gets a bit repetitive. The problem with this match is getting clearer and clearer: there is a complete lack of star power out there. I have no desire to see these guys wrestle each other at all. Ross is getting very heel-esque here with a lot of his lines. I’m assuming another failed attempt at making him a character would be coming soon. It never worked at all yet Vince did it like three times.

Marty and Henry go out within 10 seconds of each other, the first to a Slop Drop (Scorpion Death Drop) and Henry to a spinning heel kick by Owen. Well that was quick and not incredibly painful I suppose. Phineas has one of his weird fits where he becomes unstoppable and somehow even worse than he usually was. It’s very similar to Festus after the bell ringing. What is it with hillbillies and moods like that? It’s rather stupid.

Anyway, he walks into the powerslam from Davey and it’s 3-2. Furnace comes in and botches a dropkick. I’m not sure whose fault that was, but Bulldog was supposed to hold the ropes I think. Furnace landed on Bulldog’s back. It looked odd and was clearly a blown spot. Owen lands a Perfectplex. That’s just odd to see.

JR asks if he’s the only one thinking here as the referees are messing up by having the outside referee do nothing at all. Vince sounds so utterly bored that it’s downright laughable. Upon me actually thinking, Ross was indeed in the middle of a heel angle here. Considering it took me 10 minutes to remember that, you can tell how effective it was. Lafon hits a sick looking reverse suplex from the middle rope to end Cassidy and it’s the tag champions against Furnace and Lafon.

Bulldog hits a nip up. That was surprising. Ross says he looks strong. That…doesn’t make much since. The heels beat up on the faces for awhile until we get a slugfest between Lafon and Bulldog. In a perfectly fluid moment, Bulldog casually kicks him in the balls. That was a sweet heel move. Ross of course screams how awful the referees are.

Lafon gets Bulldog with a quick rollup to make it 2-1 and I think we can see the ending coming already. Owen gets the Sharpshooter as Ross is really getting annoying. Furnace breaks it up. Both guys are down after a sweet looking spin kick by Lafon to counter Owen. Furnace is in and he’s pretty good. He hits a bad release German suplex though where you can see that Owen’s head doesn’t actually hit the mat as he flips over. It was bad looking but most people won’t notice that so it’s fine.

Rating: B-. I’m not sure if I get the point of this match. I know it was to get Furnace and Lafon over, but did it need the other four guys? This could easily have been just a regular tag match, maybe non title or have ended with the heels running away etc. The wrestling was ok, but I found it to be overkill.

A certain rookie is nervous but ready. That takes two minutes to say.

We go to the boiler room with Mankind and Paul Bearer who say Taker won’t get their hands on Bearer. Foley had this character at a completely scary level.

Mankind vs. Undertaker

The catch here is that Bearer is in a cage above the ring. This was a white hot feud at the time as Mankind was a different kind of opponent for Taker for one reason: he might have been able to take a bigger beating than Taker which was unheard of. No matter how much he beat on him, Taker couldn’t get rid of Mankind. They traded wins in gimmick matches and regular matches, but Taker just can’t end him. That’s a nice touch and change of pace.

This is I think their 4th match on PPV. Bearer won’t get in and Ross thinks that it’s because he can’t fit in it. The gong goes off and the people freak out. Considering this is being written the night after Breaking Point, allow me: YOU TAPPED OUT! YOU TAPPED OUT! YOU TAPPED OUT! Oh that felt good. Anyway, his entrance is over the top even for him. He comes down from the rafters with his arms spread and his cape, yes it’s a cape, out behind him.

Yes, it’s the Undertaker imitating Batman. Just picture that for a minute. Where’s Doink when we need him? Did I really just say that? See what this show is doing to me and we’re 30 minutes into it. Bearer hides in the cage as we get underway. There’s a cage cam and Ross is way too excited about it. Taker’s outfit looks like it’s leather and shiny. Taker is not only Batman but apparently a dominatrix.

This was the very beginning of a new phase in Taker’s career as he began shifting more towards the evil monster and more demonic of a character. He shows this transformation by using a drop toe hold. He then goes to a wrist lock and then a Fujiwara Armbar. This is just odd to see. Taker is going after Mankind’s hand, which makes perfect sense due to the leathalness of the Mandible Claw. Taker misses an elbow and is up before Mankind. That’s just sweet.

Taker’s outfit reminds me of Rocky Horror for some reason. Ross hypes up a show in London for no good reason. He sounds like he did in WCW which is odd indeed. We hit the crowd which Ross calls the streets. Yeah that looks like a place people drive Jimbo. Back in the ring, we go to a wider shot that just looks odd. You can see the first two rows on either side instead of the usual closer standard shot. Taker bites the fingers used for the claw.

Call me stupid, but wouldn’t that be like asking for the hold to be put on you? The fingers are there, so why doesn’t Mankind just put the hold on? It sounds simple to me, but I’m no professional I guess. I’ll try to find a new catchphrase as I’m growing tired of that. He fights off the Claw as Ross won’t shut up about the freaking cage cam. The random painted on tear drop on Taker’s cheek is just odd.

Mankind finally hits the Claw for about a second but Mankind is launched to the floor to break it up. I don’t ever recall two guys this big doing bumps this hard for this long of a feud. That’s quite impressive, and the scary thing is their biggest match was nearly two years away at this point. As Piper would say, Old School is cool. I wonder if he liked Will Ferrell.

Foley goes up and Taker just starts popping him with big punches that sound sick. He sets for a chokeslam but the Claw breaks that up. Vince keeps calling the chokeslam the Goozle. What in the world is that? It sounds like a screwed up version of Google. Eventually he breaks it and chokeslams Mankind. Why didn’t he just bite him like he did earlier? Have some consistency please, I beg of you. Mankind misses a forward roll to the floor.

If he had done a barrel roll he would have hit it. Vince, stop suggesting things. I would suggest you shut up immediately. Who told you that you could commentate well? I want them shot. Foley has some weird spike thing. It sounds like he’s saying s a t. I never got the point of his babbling but I liked it. It added a weird something to his character that made him somehow even more insane, if that’s possible.

Anyway, as Mankind pounds on him, Taker just casually picks him up and tombstones him to end this. That was abrupt. Bearer is lowered down but the Executioner runs out to save Paul. He gets the quickest beating ever as the heels all leave. This led to a one off bad match between the two at an In Your House where Taker beat him up with relative ease.

Rating: C+. This wasn’t one of their better matches. That’s the problem that these two had: they had to top their last match every time and eventually they’d have something like this. It’s a good match, but by comparison it’s not much at all. Either way, this was pretty good I guess. It’s certainly passable, but the ending came from absolutely nowhere, which isn’t something I tend to like. Still, this was fine.

Sunny comes out for commentary on the next match with her very catchy song.

HHH’s Team vs. Marc Mero’s Team

Mero: Stalker (Barry Windham), Jake Roberts, Rocky Maivia
HHH: Crush, Goldust, Jerry Lawler

HHH is Intercontinental Champion here, which he would soon lose to Rocky. This is Rocky’s debut with the company and he’s just SO happy to be here. That would become his gimmick: he’s getting beaten up a lot, but he’s happy to be here. Eventually he would win the IC belt, and he was still happy. He lost it and he wouldn’t stop smiling. Then the crowd told him to die, and a gimmick change was needed.

The Rock was born and the rest is pure history, as opposed to unpure history which isn’t pure. We get a quick interview from the heels which is all standard stuff. Lawler’s music is so freaking snobbish that it’s awesome. He would more or less retire soon after this and just become an announcer. Ross says he is having a hard time getting a raise from Vince. That’s just weird to hear this early. HHH’s belt is white as apparently he’s channeling Warrior.

Sunny and Ross get into it as Sunny points out there’s no woman with HHH. Ross of course is ticked off at this because that’s what Ross does. He doesn’t have his hat either. Ross as a heel is just awful because he’s a whiny little an. Stalker is wearing a WWF t-shirt. I have no idea what this gimmick was supposed to be, but it completely failed. Mark Henry was supposed to be on the face team, but he’s been replaced by Jake Roberts.

I guess Mero was captain leading into this? Roberts was doing the preacher thing at this point and has the big yellow snake out. Jake’s music never got old to me. He did but his music didn’t. The alcohol jokes begin already. These intros are taking WAY too long. We cut to a shot outside the arena for no apparent reason other than to say we’re LIVE.

We start (finally) with Mero and Lawler. Windham has a handlebar mustache going on. It’s blonde, making it look very creepy indeed. Ok, no contact is made and Stalker is tagged in. I hate this match already. Lawler tags out. Stalker tags Mero which makes HHH run. There has still been zero contact. Sunny is talking about how downloaded she is and HOLY CRAP THEY’RE FIGHTING! Apparently Mr. Perfect is gone again as Helmsely threw him out or something.

Now it’s Stalker who is sloppy beyond belief. Oddly enough he’s a former world champion. Dang there’s a lot of gold in this. Ok so it’s just HHH and Rocky that had a lot but they make up for the rest. Again, Mero gets tagged in and HHH runs. This is just stupid. I get that it’s a heel tactic, but I want to see some wrestling, not a track meet. Why is Crush in this match? I don’t get it.

He would be joining the Nation soon enough, but at this point he has zero going on for him. I have no idea why he’s in this match either. Rocky vs. Lawler now, and good grief he looks awesome. You could tell they were going to push him to the freaking moon. He gets called Dwayne Johnson here, which I don’t think ever happened again. On to Rock vs. HHH, and the idea that they would steal the freaking show in less than two years in this arena blows my mind.

Everybody gets to beat on Rocky for awhile as Sunny apparently wants a piece of Rocky. Ross makes a reference to Crush being in jail and Vince doesn’t like it. Crush was a dark horse to be WWF Champion and he got sent to jail for weapons issues, throwing Vince’s plans off. If nothing else he would have won the IC Title or have gotten a huge push.

Sunny says Vince wears a toupee which amuses me. Rocky finally gets Jake in and the crowd pops hard. After a brief beatdown and some tasteless Lawler jokes, the DDT makes it 4-3 with Jerry being gone. Considering HHH would be in DX in a year, hearing Ross say he’s all business makes me laugh.

Windham comes in and gets less than no reaction. I mean the crowd is dead. Soon afterwards the Curtain Call ties it up. Finally the captains go at it as this match is just bad. Nothing interesting is happening at all and it’s just plodding through it. Rocky’s debut is the only reason for this match to exist. I just noticed something VERY weird. I downloaded a torrent of this show, but it’s clipped. It’s a tape of a British broadcast of it on Sky.

I found another version online, but the commentary is different. On the British version, there’s a lot of dead air time. On the American version, Sunny is insulting Sable. The rest of her commentary is there, but not all of it. That’s just very odd indeed. I’m assuming that it’s due to something to do with it being in the UK, but I honestly don’t know. That’s interesting if nothing else. Don Muraco is here. That’s just awesome.

Actually it’s not as Muraco is really overrated. This is just dull. It’s nothing but filler stuff here as they I guess have to fill their time quota. We go split screen to look at Sunny. Somehow that’s more interesting than a twenty something minute match. Mero puts out HHH with a moonsault. Oh wait, it’s a Merosault. I wouldn’t want him to speak out against me. Mero botches a flip over the ropes and crashes, leading to a Heart Punch from Crush to make it 2-2.

Less than thirty seconds later, another Heart Punch (which clearly hits Jake in the jaw) puts Roberts out. Well at least the most talented face is left. Sunny makes 2-1 jokes. So let me see: 2 midcard jobbers vs. a rookie hotshot. Hmm I wonder how this is going to end.

The Heart Punch misses and hits Goldust and a cross body beats Crush. A shoulderbreaker ends it as that was the perfect ending. A Coliseum Video Exclusive Interview says he knew he could do it. He’s really weak on the mic here, but it’s his first night so that’s completely excusable.

Rating: D. This was just boring. However, since it’s Rock’s debut, it’s certainly something that people should take a look at maybe once. He looked great out there in his first match in the big leagues and there was no sign of being nervous. The win was perfect because it didn’t make the bigger star, Goldust, look weak because Crush, another big star, did the damage that led to his elimination. As for the other six, it was a waste of 20 minutes.

We hit the recap of Austin vs. Bret and this looks great. The idea is simple: Bret represents tradition and old school, Austin represents the opposite. Austin calls him out repeatedly, and this is the showdown. That’s as basic as it gets. Apparently this is a #1 contender match also.

Austin says he’ll win.

Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin

The fans are starting to cheer Austin a bit. Bret says that he’s here for respect. JR says that he’d love to see this come down to a submission style match. Either he knew what was coming in 6 months or he’s a wrestling genius. Vince must have told him. Anyway, Bret gets a very good pop. It explodes when he hits the arena. The fireworks go off and you know this is going to be freaking epic to say the least.

The opening staredown looks like something out of a movie as the camera is positioned so that only their faces can be seen. Austin backs up and his face is replaced by his two middle fingers. That’s absolutely perfect. Ross AGAIN talks about how this is going to come down to a submission and says neither have tapped. That’s nonsense as Austin had tapped to a Sharpshooter on a tour in Kuwait that was taped before this match happened, but it’s WWF so it’s ok.

Why can’t this end in a pin? I don’t get that at all. Vince mentions someone putting the Sharpshooter on Bret and him tapping to it. This is either the most predictable company in wrestling history, or Vince made a lot of long term plans. Bret had been saying that Austin was the best wrestler in the world leading up to this match, and they start on the ground. That’s interesting to see from Austin.

He’s considered to be nothing but a brawler, but he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for what he can do on the mat. Vince tries desperately to convince us that Austin’s athleticism is the reason he’s getting cheered.

He just wouldn’t accept that the fans were changing and it nearly buried him. Ross says that Hart has done everything in Madison Square Garden other than beat Austin. Ok wait a minute. So, the only thing he hasn’t done is beat Austin? Has he beaten HHH? Rocky? How about has he staged a Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess? Apparently he has since the only thing he hasn’t done here is beat Austin.

Stone Cold is doing some SWEET mat work here, but Ross refuses to give him credit for it, saying he’s just brawling. You know, I hate Jim Ross. I think I always have. He’s this smug jerk that thinks because he’s been in wrestling forever that he’s owed something. Screw you Jim Ross. Grow up already. All you do is cheer for your friends and the people that kiss up to you backstage and other than that you’re just a ticked off, grumpy old man.

You sit around whining and complaining about how no one respects you and how you’re just doing your job. No you fat tub of goo. Your job is to call wrestling matches, not to be this son of a gun that tries to be the show. I don’t care how many freaking historic moments you’ve called, I don’t care how many times you’ve been named announcer of the year, I don’t care what you’ve had to put up with.

No announcer is more important than any wrestler and you need to get off your soapbox and do your job like an adult should. Until then, stop wasting my time. ANYWAY, now that I’ve ranted against JR a bit, I’ll get back to the match. JR (dang it) says that Bret has been obsessed with Austin for years. Wait, what? Austin had only been in the company like a year and a half at this point.

So wait, Bret was obsessed with a guy that wasn’t even in this company yet and was a rookie when Bret was already a veteran? See why I can’t stand Ross? Half the time he doesn’t even make sense. As Ross continues to complain about how he’s not respected, I’m tempted to mute this thing. According to Vince, Bret isn’t being offensive or defensive. Then what the heck is he being? Swiss?

Tomorrow there’s a toughman contest with Austin and Vader. This would be more commonly known as a hardcore match eventually. Ross keeps going with this stupid submission theory, despite Vince talking about how the Stunner is devastating. Austin’s psychology here is off the charts.

This is Bret’s first match in 7 months, so he’s using a lot of wear down moves to make Bret expend energy. That’s very smart indeed. Austin is doing stuff like fast covers one after another, Irish whips, things like that. They’re doing a very slow pace here, which I think is the way to go. They’re doing the slow build here, which is the right thing to do. It’s an older mentality that needs to make a comeback.

They’re into the crowd a bit as a simple throw breaks the barricade. It’s great to see how impressive the security is here. Now it’s completely down and there’s nothing keeping the fans from running into the ring. Austin fights back and gets a slingshot on Bret who hits the table but doesn’t go through it. Now we’re in a higher gear, but after the build they had it works a lot better. Ross comments on how it always happens to the Spanish guys. Oh how little he knows.

They do two more spots on the table and the freaking thing won’t break. That’s a tough table. The fans are all over this too. Ross says Vince needs to realize that it’s not 91 or 94 in this arena. Jim, I think Bret knows what year it is. So he wouldn’t want to get an upset win after getting beaten on forever? He would rather lose? You just make my head hurt. Austin hates the fans apparently. Geez Ross is talking about the submission thing again.

Where was this talking at Mania? Bret steals an Austin move with a stun gun. Why that little thief. He follows it up with one of the sweetest piledrivers I’ve ever seen. That was great. Bret goes up top for the second time in the match and this time it doesn’t work. We get some WOO chops, which surprises me as I would have thought it was too far north for that. Austin follows with a top rope suplex as these guys are freaking killing each other out there.

He hits the Stunner but pulls Bret away from the ropes which gives Bret the chance to kick out and Austin is MAD. He puts a Texas Cloverleaf on instead but Bret gets the ropes. Bret almost gets the Sharpshooter but Austin is out.

Austin locks on the Million Dollar Dream, but Bret gets his feet on the turnbuckle (his feet touched the ropes so the hold should have been broken but whatever) and kicks off, rolling over backwards for the pin. The crowd pops madly as Bret celebrates and Austin stares him down from ringside.

Rating: A+. This is a truly forgotten classic and it suffers because of a simple reason; it’s sequel might be the greatest match of all time. This was a classic example of a torch passing feud. Austin was clearly the future with Bret being the star of the past. This is what the WWE needs to do today with its young guys, but I could rant for days on that so I’ll spare you.

This match did a lot for both men. It showed that Bret still had it, while the announcers did a good enough job of pointing out how good Austin was. It also showed that Austin was indeed worthy of fighting in the main event as he had Bret on many occasions with Bret winning on a miracle at the end.
This along with the King of the Ring speech, the I Quit match and the Rock truck match are probably the combined reasons why Austin took the company over the top in a few years. Anyway, this is a classic and go find it. It’s worth the half hour.

We go to Doc in the back with Sid, who says that he’ll win. He’s just bad on the mic.

Lou Albano wanders out to the ring because I guess he got lost. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame last night. He’s going to do Spanish commentary apparently. Well ok then.

Vader’s Team vs. Yokozuna’s Team

Vader: Farrooq, Fake Razor/Fake Diesel
Yoko: Flash Funk, Savio Vega, Mystery Partner

Ross brought these two back into the company. Again, I have no clue what the point of this was. I’m guessing that it was supposed to be a joke or something, but at the moment the only joke was how low the ratings were. Fake Diesel is Kane by the way. Good grief how many characters did he have to play? Cornette is going to do commentary. Thank goodness. The Nation’s entrance with its own live rappers is just great.

Savio and Crush would soon join the team to make it the better version. Yoko weighs about 700lbs here and would be gone soon. Flash Funk’s girls, the Funkettes, were at least hot. I’m guessing this is his debut. Is there a need to have this match? Yeah it’s his debut. Why are we seeing this match? How was this not on the Free For All? He’s wearing yellow and red, which Ross says has never looked better in the Garden.

If you weren’t getting your face kicked in, that would be a great line. The mystery partner is Jimmy Snuka. Seriously? Cornette is PANICKING. So let me get this straight. We have a guy that wears 700lbs, a pimp, an old guy, and a career jobber vs. two fakes and a pair of former WCW Champions. Please, be quick. We start with Flash and Vader as apparently Snuka is a big deal.

He never won anything of worth and he’s old, yet he’s the best worker on his team. Let that sink in for a bit. Scratch that. 2 Cold Scorpio is better, but this is Flash Funk isn’t it? Never mind, Snuka takes it. I might as well not watch the match and just listen to Cornette. He’s miles more entertaining and interesting here.

Yoko comes in to stop Vader and it’s just embarrassing. All he can really do is punch and waddle. Farrooq is in his standard stuff now and looks far more intimidating. They really had something with him but they never pulled the trigger for some reason.

Ross says he could manage Vader better than Cornette. “You couldn’t manage a Wendy’s!” “I could if you were in town Cornette!” Can we just let Ross and Cornette argue all night long? Yoko’s tights might house a small city. Kane wrestling as Diesel is rather intriguing. Oddly enough, Kane uses the Punjabi Plunge on Funk, which is ironic at the moment since Kane has been feuding with Khali.

Funk is taking a beating here as Farrooq hits a SWEET spinebuster. Vader is called a great garbage man by Cornette which makes perfect sense in context. I’d write the line out but that would mean pausing the match and I don’t have enough heroin and cocaine to get me through the extra time. Snuka comes in and chops Kane. Snuka actually slams Vader with relative ease. That’s surprising.

Savio and Diesel are in now and shockingly, Vega botches a move, in this case the spinwheel kick, somehow going too high with it. Yes, he went too high on Kane. Diesel has to drop low early to get hit by it on the way down and it just looks awful. In other words, the kick was supposed to hit him at its highest point in the jaw. Instead Kane started falling before the foot did and the foot hit him on its way down, if that makes sense.

Savio goes out to a decent Jackknife. Not great, but since he rarely used it, not bad. Superfly Splash ends Razor, and then as Jimmy is celebrating, Kane blasts the tar out of him with a chair. In a botched moment, you can see Savio running through the door literally the second the chair connects, chair in hand.

The timing was off there but I get what they were going for. Anyway, everyone comes in and it’s a massive disqualification, so the match is over. Are you serious? At least we get some awesome chair shots in this brawl. Ross says it was a premature DQ. After two chair shots in front of the ref, it’s not enough. And you wonder why I can’t stand him.

Rating: D-. This was an absolute waste of 10 minutes. They couldn’t have done a quick…I don’t know…ANYWHING else but this? Let’s see. Vader wasn’t doing anything here, two guys are part of a big joke, Snuka is retired, one guy is debuting, one guy just got a gimmick change, and one has no story. Maybe this was the best they could do, but wouldn’t something like Funk vs. a jobber have worked better? The only reason this isn’t an F is Cornette.

Standard video package about Shawn vs. Sid. This has barely been touched on at all other than really basic stuff. The video package helped a bit.

WWF Title: Shawn Michaels vs. Sid

Sid’s pyro is just awesome. Shawn’s is ok but not as good. There’s a kid dressed as Shawn. Oh yay. Shawn’s stripping thing got old fast. It looks like he’s limping a bit. This was a weird time for him, as he was having great matches but they were just random challenges. His title reign was kind of like Kofi’s US Title reign actually. The standard fast Shawn match starts us out as while Shawn is great, he’s a formula guy at times, which is fine, but predictable.

It’s like seeing a great movie that you’ve seen the ending of. It’s still fun, but it’s not as great as the first time. Sid nips up as well as apparently that’s the move of the night. The announcers talk about Jose Lathario for awhile and Vince is clearly uninterested. Shawn starts working on the knees, which is a very smart move as the announcers agree on. Shawn is actually getting booed here, which is surprising. Shawn reminds me of Edge a bit.

He was the undisputed king of the midcard, but he’s not a great world champion. The fans are really hating this actually. Shawn with a figure four now as they compare Sid to Diesel. They get back up and Shawn hits the post. As he’s getting back up, Ross says the post is still standing but Shawn isn’t. Sid kicks him in the ribs which Vince calls a kick in the teeth. Sid is getting big pops. Is New York completely stoned or something?

His offense is chokeslam, punch, kick, powerbomb. What’s the appeal of that? How in the world would he be main eventing Wrestlemania 13? The fans are booing the heck out of Shawn, which the announcers try to pass off as something Shawn shouldn’t care about. Yes, the announcers say a face shouldn’t care about the fans. We follow that up by JR saying it’s great to get the cheers. This needs to end. This is just run of the mill Shawn stuff here and while it’s good, it’s just not great.

Granted that could be blamed on Sid and his complete suckage. Naturally, Shawn makes a big comeback, culminating in him winning a fist fight and slamming Sid, because that’s really impressive don’t you know. The booing is just funny at this point as he’s the total face and no one likes him at all. Now that this match is getting even more boring, Sid puts on a Cobra Clutch because his epically diverse offense has made him so tired.

Sid hits the chokeslam with one hand which surprises JR despite him doing the same thing to Razor last year. Shawn gets a counter to the powerbomb which I legitimately thought was in slow motion. In a spot that made me smile, Shawn nips up and Sid takes his head off with a clothesline. That was great. Sid grabs a camera, which should be the whole match: random camera shots. It would be more interesting than this.

Shawn is up, but the referee feels the need to look at Shawn for a minute and a half so Sid hits Jose with the camera. Shawn gets the kick, but he goes to check on the old man like a stupid face would. The referee goes down and Shawn hits the floor again as we have no help for the old man that’s clutching his chest.

As I type that, JR mentions he might be having a heart attack. Sid blasts Shawn with the camera, leading to the powerbomb and a new champion. As soon as the three hits, the medics get there for Jose. I love that.

Rating: C-. This was a good match, but dang I didn’t want to finish it. It just had no build to it and the title change made no sense. I get that Shawn wasn’t working as champion…but SID? That’s the best idea they can come up with? SID? I will never cease being amazed by the idiocy of some fans.

They cheered for freaking SID. This just had no interest at all and I don’t think many people would argue with me. Shawn would get the title back at the Rumble but then 3 weeks later lose his smile and forfeit it.

Overall Rating: B-. The opener is good enough, Mankind and Taker is certainly fine but it’s one of their weaker matches, the third match was historic but bad, the fourth is an absolute classic, the fifth is laughably bad, and the main event is just ok.

There’s one truly bad match here, as Rocky vs. HHH is enough to raise up the third match. The worst match is the shortest so that’s always good. Overall, this is another show where the good stuff is good and the bad stuff is bad, but it’s worthwhile overall. It’s far from great, but it’s not bad.

A lot of it drags on and on, but when the good stuff is on screen, it’s some of the best there is. It’s worth a quick look if you’re interested, but the Hart vs. Austin match is absolutely required viewing. It did a lot for both men and set up the mega match in 6 months. Overall, the good outweighs the bad here, so it’s somewhat recommended.

 

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Monday Night Raw
Date: November 14, 2011
Location: TD Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

It’s another three hour show tonight as Rock returns again. For a guy that vowed to never leave he sure has a lot of welcome back shows. Anyway, other than that it’s the go home show for Survivor Series so expect a lot of Rock/Cena stuff tonight. Also we should finally get the Cole Challenge for JR. Let’s get to it.

Theme song opens us up.

Jerry does the talking to start which is different. Here’s Cole in the ring for the Michael Cole Challenge. There are two things in the ring covered by black covers. Cole calls out JR and here he comes. There are three challenges and if JR wins all three, Cole quits and JR gets the job back as the Voice of Raw. The first blanket is removed and it’s an arm wrestling contest. We get a referee out here and JR won’t even take off his jacket. Cole does his warmups to waste time and JR beats him in all of half a second. I mean it’s go then we’re done. Cole says he gave up due to JR’s barbecue breath.

The crowd gets to vote on the winner of the next competition: a dance off. Cole dances while holding a red scarf and looks like he’s having a seizure. JR actually says it’s on and asks the fans to chlap for him. JR dances and there’s a meme in there somewhere. JR REALLY loves this business to go through this. The fans of course vote for JR and it’s 2-0.

Up third is who weighs less. The fans go quiet save for a few yells. After turning the scales on wrong, Cole weighs about 200lbs. JR about 240 and Cole wins. He declares himself the winner and that brings out….Punk? Good reaction for him too. The arm wrestling table and the scale are gone and Punk says this is a colossal waste of time because there was no way JR could win. “Except for JR dancing. That was awesome.”

Punk says that Cole’s fifteen minutes of fame are up because Punk wants him gone. Between Johnny Funkman Ace and Alberto and Cole, this show is awful. With three hours, it already feels like Cole has been out here for six. CM wants this to be fun and he’ll do that when he’s champion. It doesn’t matter what it takes to make the show as good as it can be. This brings out Ace. Punk: “Speaking of untalented.”

Ace says that the fans on his Twitter wanted to see the competition. Punk: “Oh yeah? Well screw you and your 38,000 Twitter followers.” Ace makes Punk/Show vs. Henry/Del Rio. Cole is all smug and demands an apology. Punk does say he’s sorry, but Cole is screaming due to being in the Anaconda Vice.

Striker is in the back and a huge limo pulls up. MICK FOLEY IS BACK!

Sin Cara/Kofi Kingston vs. Cody Rhodes/Hunico

Christian is still listed in the graphic for the Survivor Series match. JR has taken over on commentary and Cody has new music. He also has no mask and is smiling now. It’s the same song but a new version of it. Cody says in a quick interview that Cody liberated him. Hunico vs. Cara starts us off and Hunico takes some kicks. Cara speeds thins up and it’s off to Kofi.

A dropkick puts Cody on the floor and the faces hit a pair of dives (the camera misses Cara’s, a rare mistake in WWE production values) and we take a break. Back with Cody holding a chinlock on Cara and then a release suplex. Off to Hunico who hits a slingshot tope and then a camel clutch.

Cara tries a rana but can’t quite get it over. He does manage a head scissors to send Cody down. There’s the tag to Kofi who gets a nice reaction. The springboard cross body gets two, broken up by Hunico. A big spinning dive takes out Hunico but Trouble in Paradises misses, allowing the maskless Cody to take out Kofi with Cross Rhodes for the pin at 8:05.

Rating: C. This was just ok. It was a TV tag match and that’s really all it needed to be. Kofi is in a total holding pattern until Bourne gets back and putting him in a match like this is the right idea since it allows Kofi to do nothing of note until Bourne gets back without them having to drop the titles. Not much of a match and no one is hurt by it one way or another.

Rock is here.

Santino is playing WWE 12 in the back when Ryder comes up (PoP. Not good enough for three capitals), asking him to sign Ryder’s petition. They get in a Rock vs. Cena argument and they agree Awesome Truth will lose Sunday. This appears to be more of a commercial for all things Ryder and WWE 12.

Here’s Vickie to yell a lot. She cuts JR off on his product plugs too. Vickie has bad news: earlier today, WWE.com reported that Christian is out of the Survivor Series match which is legit due to an ankle injury. She blames Teddy for the injury and Dolph is replacing him. Actually Dolph comes out and cuts her off, saying he’s the replacement on Team Barrett. It should be Team Ziggler though because he’s the one with the talent. He has Mason Ryan tonight.

Mason Ryan vs. Dolph Ziggler

Ace comes out and throws Ross off commentary as Cole is ok again. Otunga plans to sue Punk. Cole of course is incapable of shutting up so the match isn’t going to get much attention. Ryan uses a bunch of power stuff and Vickie slaps Ryan for the DQ at 1:08. Next.

Morrison runs out and throws Ziggler back in for a full nelson slam.

Foley runs into Ryder in the back and Ryder asks for a signature on the petition. Foley does a fist pump and Woo Woo Woo. Awesome.

Here’s Foley for the first time in like three years. He says he’s back here where he belongs and it’s to talk about serious business. This Sunday there will be a team that will be together once and then never again. Foley hopes it’ll be again in the form of the Rock and Cena Connection. He talks about how the fans boo Cena and while that’s their right, he wishes the fans would view Cena as one of the greatest ever.

Foley brings out Cena in his hometown. Cena says he appreciates Mick’s efforts, but he and Rock aren’t going to be friends. Cena requested him to be his partner because Rock is electrifying, not because they’re friends. Foley says they know each other a bit and their relationship is based on mutual respect. Foley talks about writing Cena a hand written letter as he respects Cena for treating everyone equally.

However when it comes to Twitter, Foley got in some trouble because he said everyone should respect Cena a bit more for all of his great matches. Preach it Foley. Foley has a hybrid Cena/Rock shirt and he’s going to bring them together, because John Cena…..THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

Cena isn’t sure what to do here but Foley says roll the emotional video tribute! We get a video on baby Cena with some sappy song to it. We also see teenage Cena and his rise through WWE. This is bizarre and once it’s done, Cena isn’t sure what to think again. He asks about the song which sounded like a theme song from a Care Bears movie. The first person Foley brings out is his former little league coach.

The coach tells a story about a game Cena was in where he was the last hitter up and he struck out looking to end the game. The coach said that it was a learning experience but Cena cried his eyes out that day. Foley: “Everybody strikes out once in awhile.” Cena: “You’re striking out with this right now.” Up next is Bull freaking Buchanan. They really brought him out of mothballs for this?

We get a video of Cena rapping from 2003. Cena is either not expecting this stuff or he’s a better actor than he’s credited for. Buchanan talks about how great Cena’s career has been. His life after the team split hasn’t gone so well. He was fired, his wife left him, he lost his money, and his dog bit him and gave him rabies to end his career. Buchanan blames Cena for ruining his life and storms off. Cena: “Finally something worse than the Shockmaster.”

Foley has one more person left: Cena’s dad. This can’t go bad can it? Cena’s dad goes off on the fans for chanting Cena sucks. Cena Jr. looks like he wants to go jump in front of a bus. Dad says the fans suck, not Cena. Children love him. So what? The son begs his dad to stop and says this is awful. Cena’s dad leaves and Cena says that wasn’t his life. This is his life here in the ring. He thanks Foley for trying but this was up there with the Gobbledygooker. Foley says he has one thing left. It’s some chick but instead here’s Rocky.

Rock hits the ring, Rock Bottoms Foley and leaves. That was GREAT. I love Foley but that was hilarious.

Sheamus vs. Jack Swagger

Sheamus is now introduced as the Great White. They’re going to get that over as a nickname by force if need be. Power match to start and Swagger takes him to the mat pretty easily. Sheamus clotheslines him to the floor and we take a break. Back with Sheamus hammering the forearms into the chest but Swagger takes out the knee to take over. Suplex gets two. Sheamus comes back and pounds away on him, hitting a powerslam for two. High Cross is countered and the Vader Bomb hits the back of Sheamus. Ankle lock goes on but Sheamus kicks him to the floor. Irish Curse and Brogue Kick end this at 8:55.

Rating: C. Not a horrible power brawl here as Sheamus beats someone he should beat. Swagger is dying for a new gimmick of some sort but they’ll never give him one because that’s the gimmick they’ve given him and it’s his fault that it isn’t working anymore. Not bad, but nothing to see overall here.

Ryder tries to get signatures from the Bellas who reluctantly sign. They go to see Alberto and he’s having a party when he wins. Ryder barges in and says the girls should party with him on Long Island. Everyone leaves Ryder there.

Kelly Kelly vs. Natalya

After a look behind the scenes of Kelly’s Maxim photoshoot, Kelly is in a Patriots jersey and there’s a Stinkface very quickly. Sharpshooter is countered into a small package for the pin at 52 seconds.

Ace talks on the phone with someone and says they’ll do it next week. It’s Brodus Clay who will be debuting next week. Great, more bait and switch. Alberto and Ricardo come in and Ace says Punk could be trouble if he wins the title.

We run down the Survivor Series card.

Awesome Truth says nothing as Striker asks them questions about the PPV on Sunday.

Punk is headed to the ring for the tag match but Alberto jumps him and beats him down.

Alberto Del Rio/Mark Henry vs. Big Show/CM Punk

Punk is holding his arm and chases Del Rio around a bit pre match. Del Rio vs. Big Show starts us off and Show has his t-shirt on still. After Show destroys him for a bit it’s off to Punk who is out after about 15 seconds. Time for the big showdown with the ring breakers. Henry shoves him away and Show shoves Henry away. Show goes for a slam but Henry falls on him instead for two.

Back to Del Rio who stomps away and then it’s Henry again. Del Rio and Punk are barely in this at all. Show fights up from his knees and Henry is staggered. Henry runs from the right hand and Del Rio isn’t happy. They argue as we go to a break. Back with Mark standing on Punk’s chest. We hear a tweet from Ace who praises Cole for toughing it out. Back to Alberto who works on the arm as Cole runs down the Anaconda Vice.

Punk fights back with a neckbreaker and Henry takes a kick to the head. Show comes in for a superkick to Henry but Punk springboards into the Slam. Show runs Henry down but is sent into the post. Del Rio steals the pin on Punk at 12:08 total. He needed to get a pin over him to give him some momentum.

Rating: D+. I couldn’t get into this at all. I like the whole two matches being advanced in the span of one match but the match dragged a lot. I think part of it is no one cares about Del Rio because there’s zero development to his character. He’s the same guy he was when he debuted over a year ago and nothing has changed in him. That’s not good.

Del Rio puts on the armbreaker post match. He remembers that Punk’s left arm was hurt so he switches sides. Well at least he’s thinking. Big Show makes the save.

Here’s Santino who talks about Del Rio winning the Rumble by last eliminating him. He talks about Boston a bit and sucks up to the fans. Santino is going to put his career back on track now, and that brings out Kevin Nash. Nash says he’s a big fan of Santino and asks to see the Trombone. If you can’t see what comes next, stop reading this and go watch some old matches.

With Santino out cold, he talks about the Rumble where he got the biggest ovation of the night. He talks about HHH not hiring him after that reaction and points out that he’s here and HHH isn’t. There’s a Jackknife to Marella and Nash leaves.

Jonah Hill is the guest host next week.

Here’s a video on WWE 12.

Wade Barrett vs. Randy Orton

Barrett’s SS team comes out with him. This is a rematch from Smackdown where Barrett got a huge upset via a thumb to the eye. Barrett says he’s the future and all that jazz. Randy has his team with him as well. Gee think there’s going to be a brawl? The bell is after a break. Orton takes Barrett down quickly and hits a suplex and knee drop for one. Boss Man Slam gets two and control for Wade. Barrett’s hair is all messed up again like it was on Friday. A long chinlock eats up some time until Orton gets out and hits the elevated DDT. And everything breaks down for the DQ at 3:40.

Rating: D+. It’s not like this meant anything but it was long enough to rate. The ending was as obvious as you could ask for as the guys down there ensured the double DQ for the brawl. Also they had to keep Barrett looking strong as if he beats Barrett here, the only real option for beating Orton goes away. Weak match, but it had to be.

Hunico gets destroyed post match.

It’s 10:45 so here’s Rock to close the show. He says at 3:15 AM this morning he woke up and by 3:30 he was eating breakfast (“Not a Fruity Pebble in sight!”). He goes through his daily schedule and says he was in New Orleans filming G.I. Joe 2 earlier today. At 6:45 he landed in Boston and had a security guard talking about….something. Rock talks about wanting to have dinner on the North End but instead he came here because he wanted to say that FINALLY, the Rock has come back to Boston.

In six days he’s wrestling again, but that’s not right now. That’s why he Rock Bottomed Foley: the segment earlier was hot garbage and he had to do something about it. Rock plugs Twitter and says that if he says something, it’ll knock off the Kardashians, Bigfoot and anything else. He wants Awesome Truth right NOW.

Here they come and they imply Rock isn’t going to do anything to them tonight. The truth is that whenever they’re on the show, Raw gets……..AWESOME. They threaten Rock and it’s a staredown. Scratch that as they’re leaving and here’s Cena. He says that Rock is Team Bring It, but the only thing he’s brought for seven years are messages via satellite. The crowd is right: ooooooh!

Rock says you’ll have to excuse Cena because he’s not used to having an adult support him. Rock makes more juvenile jokes and Cena talks about Survivor Series. If Rock’s ego gets in the way of the team, Cena slaps Rocky will be trending.

Miz says he’s tired of this because he’s tired of Awesome Truth being an afterthought. Last time that happened, Miz won in the main event of Wrestlemania. This Sunday will never be forgotten because of the beating Rock and Cena will get. Little Johnny and Little Rocky can talk all they want and the Little Jimmys can enjoy it. The fight is on and Rock punches Truth out. He loads up the Rock Bottom and Truth gets got. AA looks to put Miz down but Rock pulls him off and into a Rock Bottom. Rock leaves and Cena isn’t happy at all.

Overall Rating: B-. The first half is great but once Ace gets there, this goes downhill fast. Alberto is just so freaking uninteresting because there’s nothing to his character at all. He’s rich and he speaks Spanish. What else do we have to go on with him? Oh he has a lackey. That’s it. That right there is Alberto Del Rio. Punk needs to take the title from him so we can have an interesting champion for a change. Anyway, the rest of the show was good but the Ace/Del Rio stuff is just horrible.

Results
Hunico/Cody Rhodes b. Kofi Kingston/Sin Cara – Cross Rhodes to Kingston
Mason Ryan b. Dolph Ziggler via DQ when Vickie Guerero interfered
Sheamus b. Jack Swagger – Brogue Kick
Kelly Kelly b. Natalya – Small Package
Mark Henry/Alberto Del Rio b. CM Punk/Big Show – Del Rio pinned Punk after a World’s Strongest Slam
Randy Orton b. Wade Barrett via DQ when Cody Rhodes interfered

 

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Survivor Series 2005
Date: November 27, 2005
Location: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Attendance: 15,000
Commentators: Jonathan Coachman, Jerry Lawler, Joey Styles, Tazz, Michael Cole

It’s all about brand supremacy here as the main event and the only match with a good build this year is Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown. What does that actually gain us? Absolutely nothing, but it’s the best we can come up with so there we are. Continuing that theme we also have Teddy Long vs. Eric Bischoff. Oh that’s going to be awful isn’t it. In some real wrestling we have in the Raw main event John Cena vs. Kurt Angle. Now we’re getting somewhere.

This was a weird time for the company as there’s just not a lot going on right now and they’re just kind of going through the motions. Cena and Batista are the top dogs on their respective shows but there’s just nothing that’s a spark for the company right now which is a trend that would continue for a few more years after this.

TNA is starting to get its footing but it’s far from a major deal in case you three TNA fans were wondering. That was random I know but this opening paragraph was way too short.

Don’t you just hate it when you run out of things to say and you just have to ramble on and on about absolutely nothing at all when it’s clear that the person talking is some moron that has nothing else to say but beating around the bush and trying to fill up space in a page because he’s not intelligent enough to have anything else to say about something he’s reviewing on a website like WrestleZone which should be about wrestling but isn’t always? Yeah I hate that too. Let’s do this.

There is one major thing that happened recently as Eddie Guerrero passed away two weeks before this show. I’ve always thought he was both overrated and gets far to much hype, but he was certainly a great talent and could wrestle with anyone and it was sad to lose him, especially when he was allegedly going to win the world title again before this show.

Again, the video is just painfully generic. It’s just a voiceover guy talking about survival and clips of the feuds. The only highlight is a single shot of taker who was returning tonight. Once we’re in the arena we find that it’s Styles on commentary which is a nice change of pace. Not saying he’s better or worse than Ross, but when you do so many of these in a row it’s nice to hear a different voice.

This was a time when for whatever reason we had three announcers for Raw which is of course overkill. Lawler either slips up or makes a sex joke by saying return your flight attendants to their upright positions. No one laughed but they didn’t react either so they either didn’t get it or didn’t notice.

They talk about how Raw will beat Smackdown which is fine. We go to the Spanish guys and then over to Cole and Tazz. For some reason this made me laugh. It was like the Spanish guys were just randomly thrown in there with no rhyme or reason. Stuff like that amuses me.

Chris Benoit vs. Booker T

This is match 1 in a best of 7 series for the US Title which was vacant due to a double pin between these two. The series wound up being Benoit vs. Orton because Booker got hurt so once Orton won the last match Booker got the title because that makes perfect sense right? These two traded the title back and forth like four times in about eight months which was just kind of stupid but whatever.

The whole idea of a series is stupid as well for one simple reason: why should we care about the first few matches? These don’t mean anything and nothing is going to be decided here, so why should we watch? Sharmell gets her own entrance and she is just painful to listen to. Something feels different about this show from last year which is a good thing. It feels bigger I guess you could say.

We start with a weird looking spot where Booker tries for a slam but can’t do it and it turns into a half suplex half powerslam. That was just odd. They mention that the second match will be on Tuesday at the Smackdown Special. That show was a disgrace for two reasons. First of all it was just flat out awful from a wrestling standpoint.

Second, there was a big spot where Eddie’s lowrider was blown with I think Big Show in it. This was sixteen days after Eddie died. Seriously? If you just have to use that for an angle, wait awhile would you?

Booker does some sweet looking stuff to get out of a test of strength. His in ring stuff really is overlooked. Booker gets an abdominal stretch and Benoit starts shaking his hips for some reason which looks very odd indeed. Benoit is getting dominated for the most part here, which is fine because he’s great at selling.

I’ll never get the point in announcers mentioning necks being surgically repaired. Wouldn’t that imply that they’re stronger than before? Are we really supposed to believe that a wrestler’s neck is still that weak even a year or so after they came back from the injury? Benoit gets a short comeback with one of those awesome Germans but Booker takes him down with a kick that was sweet looking. This has been a solid match.

Booker gets caught in an insane looking leg drag but avoids the Sharpshooter. After the triple Germans, Benoit goes for the headbutt but Booker stops him on the top. In a sequence that is very short but that I like, Benoit knocks him back down and goes for the headbutt anyway. See, while it seems pointless, it adds a bit more action to the match and got the fans into it just a tiny bit more. That’s what makes a match even better: adding that little extra bit.

Benoit could have just come off with the heabutt and missed to set up the finish, but instead we get an extra ten to fifteen seconds of action which got the crowd going a bit more. The more you can draw the fans in, the better the match is going to seem. If a match is weak (this one isn’t) that can be covered up by the crowd being into it. If a match is good (like this one) the crowd being into it means that the thing is a success on both levels.

Anyway, Benoit misses the headbutt and Booker gets a roll up with his feet on the bottom rope for the pin. Now wait a minute. How would the bottom rope help you? Isn’t the point of using the ropes to add more leverage to the pin by making you have to shove up a slope? With the bottom rope it’s just balanced out evenly.

Why am I wasting my time thinking about this? That ending was kind of weak but whatever. To further the stupidity, Sharmell grabs his feet and pulls down. Wouldn’t that pull Booker away from Benoit?

Rating: B. This was very solid. It’s not great but it’s very good. It was intense throughout other than the submission holds in the middle and it had time to develop. I’m not wild on the ending, but other than that I had no problems here. These two can work very well together when given the time as they were here, so who am I to complain? This was good but can someone shoot Sharmell for me please?

Bischoff is in the back warming up and Vince walks up. He wishes him luck and Bischoff says tonight he’s going to screw Cena, thereby making it about as obvious as possible that Cena will retain. Why do they insist on making so many Montreal references? They did it in WCW and the company died because they couldn’t let it go. Even after the mess that was Starrcade 97 they did it over and over again and it just never worked at all.

Also, they tried so hard to make Cena vs. Bischoff the next Austin vs. McMahon and it just failed. Actually failed isn’t the right word. It just didn’t live up to what it was supposed to be, which is fine because they’re inferior talents to what came before them. Also, since it had been done already there was no real reason to think this would be better which aren’t Cena and Bischoff’s faults at all. Anyway, Cena walks up and makes a gay joke to get Bischoff to leave.

Vince and Cena talk for a bit which when you think about it isn’t a pairing you see together that often. Vince actually says what’s up my nigger to Cena. WOW. Even Cena looks taken aback by this as do Booker and Sharmell. That was just out there to say the least.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Melina

Melina is part of MNM here along with Mercury and Nitro (now known as John Morrison). They’re the Smackdown tag champions and did the thing where they hung the belts from their belts so they hung between their legs. That’s original at least. This is inter promotional so Tazz and Styles are the commentators. ECW would be back in June with these two being the commentators.

Despite the fact that Melina looks better with all black hair instead of the blonde she has going here, she looks good in her signature entrance. Melina had MNM kidnap Trish on Raw so she could ask for a title shot because that makes perfect sense. Melina more or less is wrestling in a tiny bikini so this match has gone up in ratings for me. Mickie James, the newcomer, is with Trish.

Very soon she would go into the sexy crazy stalker mode with Trish, leading to her heel turn which was awesome. Trish starts with a spear and some punches that land squarely on the mat. Melina hits the floor but Trish hits a cross body from the top to the floor to take out all three heels. When did Lita get bigger and dye her hair red? Melina is a complete rookie here. Wow has she really been around for four years?

They botch a spot but if nothing else they make it work. It was supposed to be a headscissors but it turned into a kick to the face. It still worked though. Joey says Trish wins on paper. Tazz wants to see the paper. That’s actually kind of funny. Melina and Mickie fight on the floor while MNM goes for the Snapshot which was an elevated DDT on Trish. They get ejected for it though so that sucks. The belts are just making me laugh. This is intense if nothing else.

DANG Melina can hit the high notes. This is a quite good match actually. Melina actually counters Stratusfaction twice which isn’t bad. Mickie interferes to help Trish, leading to a kick and a top rope bulldog that missed but again they improvise slightly with Trish grabbing Melina’s hair on the way down.

It looked bad but it could have been worse, but it ends the match. On the replay they do a great job of covering the botch at the end by showing it from the back where you can’t tell how bad it was. That’s well done.

Rating: B. This was quite good. They beat the heck out of each other and on the two noticeable botches they improvised, especially the earlier one. Melina was clearly talented and not just another pretty face that thought she would try wrestling for a paycheck. Trish was her usual solid self here, so I have few complaints.

It was one of the better Diva matches that I can remember so that’s a perk. The looks didn’t hurt things either. This is what the Divas need to shoot for: hot women but good wrestling to back it up. I’d watch more of this.

Buy this PPV of the DVD of Jake Roberts.

We recap HHH vs. Flair which was a good feud I thought. More or less HHH decided that Flair was too far gone to mean anything anymore so he beat him up. Flair wound up winning the Intercontinental Title of all things which I actually liked as it made the belt seem prestigious. They had a cage match at Taboo Tuesday for the belt and Flair won clean in a great old school style match. That leads us to here which is last man standing.

Ric Flair vs. HHH

Like I said Flair is IC champion here but it’s non title. Trips jumps him in the aisle to start us off. Flair is beaten on pretty badly at first since his robs is still on. He comes back though as the old man powers will never die. They haven’t actually been in the ring at this point. Scratch that they have but it was for about twenty seconds. I’ll give Flair this: he can sell as well as anyone in history even at this age.

That’s why he was so great for so long: he could tell a story as well as anyone in the world. HHH works over his back which is fine. He needs to lose the mustache though. It just flat out doesn’t work on him. We go hardcore as HHH pulls out a screwdriver. Dang Flair is bleeding badly. Granted I think that happens is someone stares at him for more than four seconds. Has anyone been in as many last man standing matches as HHH?

He’s been in a ton of them over the years with at least three that I can remember against Orton alone. I’ve always loved that red blonde hair on Flair. They finally mention that it’s HHH’s lifelong goal to break Flair’s record, which depending on what you look at should be around 22 or 23. If TNA has their way Angle will pass that in about a week. Edge is likely going to get close to it as well, but I’d take almost any of Flair’s runs over any two or three of Edge’s combined.

They’re out on the floor again with Flair finally taking some control. I have a feeling we’re in for a long one here, which should be fine. Coach offers commentary simply saying what number the referee is up to. Good to see why he’s paid the big money. HHH gets on the mic because three commentators in one match just aren’t enough. He yells at Flair to get up and in the next breath says to stay down if he knows what’s good for him.

No wonder Flair never would retire. He was too confused from hanging out with HHH all those years. Flair grabs the ball of HHH for no apparent reason. Is he competing with Stephanie or something now? HHH gets control back because I guess he likes being the dominant one.

I’ll be pausing for a few seconds here to get the image of a submissive Stephanie out of my mind. Ok I think I’m good now. We hit the tables and HHH gets countered through the table as he always is. Both guys are more or less dead at this point. The table practically exploded too and it looked great. Both guys are up though and we keep going.

We’re back in the ring for likely the longest stretch of the match which is a nice change of pace. For some reason we have to get another replay of HHH going through the table. We get it already people. A chair comes into play and both men are down, or at least that’s what Styles says. Call me cracy, but Flair looks up to me. Flair continues making sense by going for the legs. He pulls the balls of HHH into the post as he seems slightly obsessed with them.

Lawler mentions that he hopes HHH isn’t planning on going out tonight. I certainly wouldn’t. If I had a wife like Stephanie I wouldn’t be going to work either so there we are. Flair bites HHH for the second time in the match, this time on the leg. Style infers that the biting could mess up the quad again. Oh come on now. Flair goes to town on the legs in a very slow old school style plus weapons. That’s not a bad idea actually.

The figure four makes HHH tap but it means nothing here. I love how he’ll give up in a match where it means nothing, but that’s a different story. They’re both back up now with HHH knocking Flair back down. HHH brings the steps in and for some reason that only Flair knows, he runs right at HHH and rams his head into the steps. That’s just stupid. This time HHH runs and Flair hits a drop toe hold to slam HHH into the steps. This is like a cartoon or something.

I know there’s not a lot being said here but a lot of this is either one or both guys laying there for a ten count which somehow takes about 30 seconds each. HHH gets a Pedigree to a big pop which means either the people are tired of this match or they like HHH. My guess is the former, because HHH is such a masterful heel that no one can hate him. I mean he’s the best of all time at everything right?

Flair of course gets up and takes another Pedigree but of course he gets up, this time throwing out a double bird to HHH. This just gets him beaten up more so he’s obviously the face. You very rarely see a heel being defiant and getting his beating  because of it. The third Pedigree connects as this is complete overkill.

We get it: Flair is tough. There’s no need to kill the credibility of the Pedigree to prove this. A sledgehammer shot to I think the shoulder or something like that ends this. The fans are actually into this which is a good sign. I guess the reactions earlier on were for greatness, even though this wasn’t that great. It was good, but not great.

Rating: B-. This was very old school in nature so if you don’t like slower paced stuff, you’ll hate this. Both guys bring in a lot of psychology here which is exactly what they were supposed to do. The leg stuff worked quite well despite HHH not selling them at all at the end of the match. This was good at times but there were parts that just kind of sucked too.

The three Pedigrees were WAY too much and the fact that it took nearly half an hour to get rid of Flair is a bit of a stretch despite how great Flair is. Some people would love this while others will hate it, which to me is a good thing. It means that it’s not just a run of the mill match but rather something that gets an opinion out of people, which to me is always good.

After about three minutes of replays we see Flair being stretchered out of the arena.

Buy the Bret Hart DVD, which was quite good actually.

Team Smackdown says they have to make up for Batista’s injury while Bradshaw sounds stupid. This was a waste of three minutes of my life.

Edge and Lita come out to say that the Cutting Edge will be debuting soon. He was hurt at the moment so this was their way to keep him on camera which really is a great idea. Edge goes after Dmitri Young who is a hometown baseball guy in the front row. He and Lita insult Young for about five minutes with nothing of note to say about it. Yep, that was a waste of time.

We recap Kurt vs. Cena which was something like this: Angle wants a title show and has his own referee that’s going to cheat to make him win. That’s all you’ve got to know here.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Kurt Angle

This both has the big match feeling and doesn’t have it. I’m leaning towards no because of the spinner belt and Daivari as the referee. Angle looks far better in the darker colored singlet. The same can be said of Cena if you change the word singlet for long shorts. Angle naturally immediately starts on the leg as we have LOUD dueling chants. They’re out of sync though so it takes a trained ear to get what’s being said.

It’s nice hearing Styles speaking with an interest in the product. Ross and Lawler rarely sounded interested in matches and while Styles isn’t as great as he’s built up to be by any means, he’s awesome at times. Dang we’ve been going for about three minutes and those chants literally haven’t stopped. They’re quieting a bit but by no means are they stopping. If this was in front of a Wrestlemania sized crowd with these kinds of fans….good night that would be amazing.

These two could main event a Mania as well, and given Angle it’s not completely out of the question to have that happen. This is one of the hottest crowds I’ve ever seen. Cena gets a cover and Daivari just stands there and we have a story. Ankle lock is hooked, finally called the Angle Lock like it should have been many times before, and the referee is all over it. He finally gets the ropes and of course the hold isn’t broken.

He gets out himself and slaps the referee (I’ll be referring to him as that because Daivari requires that I think as I type) and Angle makes the diving save to stop the disqualification. Oh for those fans that might be new, Daivari is now known as Sheik Abdul Bashir in TNA. The referee gets bumped by Cena and we go to the floor. Angle pops his hips on a sweet belly to belly overhead suplex to Cena. That was always an awesome move.

A real referee comes down and we now have a far more normal match. They go to the mat for awhile and it occurs to me that Angle can get away with far more boring moves on the mat such as just basic grapples because of his background. When he uses something like a front facelock I buy it a lot more because he’s an Olympian. That just goes to show you what a real background can do for someone. Cena can do a great job of fighting back.

There’s just something about him that makes you want to watch him which is something that very few people can accomplish. There go those chants again. Cena starts the comeback as I’m starting to wonder where Daivari is. He didn’t get hit by anything huge. Cena just knocked Angle into him and he’s been down at least five minutes. Angle apparently needs glasses because he can’t see Cena. Man  maybe he really does as he clotheslines the heck out of the referee and low blows Cena.

A third referee comes out and for some reason has NO problem with Angle laying out his colleague. Now wait a minute. As they mentioned earlier, it’s standard operating procedure for a new referee to run out in case the regular one gets knocked out. That means that someone, and I’d assume the referee that ran down, has to be watching the match in the back right? If not how would he know that he was needed in the ring? If that’s the case, why couldn’t he disqualify Angle?

This is what overbooking a match does to it: it brings up a lot of loopholes that aren’t needed. After a few minutes of good stuff, Angle misses a picture perfect moonsault. I mean that was lucha libre quality. Angle gets out of the FU and then hits the third referee and rolls Daivari, who is still out cold, back in.

A fourth referee, this one from Smackdown, comes out as Cena DDTs Daivari for no apparent reason as he was already out cold. With four people laying in the ring (Cena and three referees), Cena plays possum and Angle walks into the FU for the pin. I want more of this!

Rating: B+. This is a great example of a situation where the extra booking was 100% not needed. I was completely buying into this match which is something that very rarely happens to me. There’s a natural connection here that is very clear and it worked incredibly well. I don’t get why there needed to be the gimmick with the referees and things like that. A lot of the times less is more and this is certainly one of those times. I’d love to see these guys go at it even more.

Watch this really bad show that we’re calling a special!

Eric Bischoff vs. Teddy Long

Eric is of course dressed in his karate stuff, because anyone that follows tournament karate knows that Eric Bischoff is a great fighter. I will never get over Schiavone saying that at Starrcade 97. Teddy is with Palmer Cannon, who was a very short term character that was a representative of the network. He served absolutely zero purpose and I’ve never been sure what the point of having him was.

Granted to be fair I missed about a year and a half of Smackdown due to not having the station and just not being interested in it. I would always catch the spoilers though so I at least knew what was going on. The words to describe how I feel going into this match haven’t been invented yet. No good can come from this at all. It’s like the book in Hocus Pocus. To top it off, Cole and Coach are your commentators. I just had to stop the video for the sake of laughter.

Coach: “Eric Bischoff is a mixed martial artist.” I don’t care or know if that’s true or not but it’s the funniest image I can think of. Can you imagine him against Brock or GSP? Cole starts the Did You Know tradition with a stat that I’m not going to remember in a few seconds. Yep it’s gone. The bell rang 45 seconds ago. In that time they’ve avoided contact with each other, Teddy has posed on the ropes and then he danced a bit. This is riveting stuff!

Cole calls Bischoff Mr. Miyagi. The one liners for this match are going to take up a full page. After about a minute and a half I think we made contact but I’m not sure. Teddy dances more than Shawn Michaels imitating Shane. Cannon gets on the apron for no apparent reason and imitates the things that Long has been doing as Bischoff chokes Long with his belt. Why am I watching this? Oh there’s two referees, one from Raw one from Smackdown because this needs more people.

We have our second boring chant as we’re still doing the choking thing. Bischoff changes the pace a bit by using the world’s worst sleeper. Cannon gets up again and Long uses the distraction of both referees (since a guy named Palmer Cannon is obviously a major threat) to take his shoe off and hit Eric with it to break up the “hold”. Wouldn’t the shoe be legal? It’s not a foreign object unless it was made in Japan or something like that so I don’t get it.

Eric takes over again with a Kung Fu YEAH and a Karate Chop! Give me a break I have to make jokes like those to keep myself awake during this mess. We’re on boring chant number four and the Boogeyman’s music hits. He had only been around for a few weeks at this point and nothing was known about him.

The referees go up the ramp to stop him and naturally he’s behind Eric. I love how a guy like Boogeyman used a freaking pumphandle slam. Papa Shango used a shoulderbreak. I’m not sure which is dumber. Teddy gets the pin with ease and dances a bit more. He really is a tiny man. Ok so he dances a lot.

Rating: O, as in oh I can’t think about this anymore. Give me anything else please!

Armageddon proimo.

Team Smackdown is coming to the ring as the Smackdown guys cheer them on. The Raw guys do the same thing. The backstory here is simple. There was a special called WWE Homecoming where there was a Smackdown match scheduled but Bischoff canceled it because it wasn’t up to his standards. The feud sprang from there. Other than that, the only thing you need to know is that Eddie has just passed away and Orton is his replacement and Batista was injured by Show and Kane.

Team Raw vs. Team Smackdown

Raw: Shawn Michaels, Carlito, Chris Masters, Kane, Big Show
Smackdown: Batista, Rey Mysterio, Lashley, Randy Orton, JBL

All ten guys get their own entrances because we need to kill about ten minutes or so. To further the stupidity of this we’re having all five commentators here. HBK and Orton start us off. On both shows everyone has been attacking everyone so I’ll be withholding the so and so attacked so and so on so and so show. Even Styles and Tazz are arguing. They point out that Orton has been the sole survivor in the previous two Survivor Series.

Again, this is what announcers are supposed to do. Rey just looks out of place on the apron with all of these big guys. Orton and HBK do nothing but punch/chop each other for a few minutes as Tazz and the rest of the announcers have their stupid fights. For some reason Chris Masters is in the main event here in something that I just don’t get. Lashley comes in and gets a great pop. Lashley is about as green as possible here with next to zero experience.

He has the amateur background to fall back on though along with insane power so he can use both of those to avoid any actual wrestling. Is there a reason why amateur guys use a ton of suplexes? Angle, Lesnar and the Steiners were all suplex machines as well as all American wrestlers. Why is that? They all use belly to belly overhead suplexes. I’ve never gotten that. Is that supposed to be something that’s used in amateur wrestling, because I’ve never seen that done in the Olympics.

After he dominates Carlito (he hit him with the Dominator so he literally did), he goes for it on Shawn but Kane grabs him from the apron and hits a chokeslam to allow HBK to pin him. I guess that’s a smart move as it keeps Lashley from looking weak because cheating beat him. That’s about as good as you could have done there I suppose. Rey comes in after Lashley as HBK is still in there.

Kane comes in for Raw and Rey of course dominates him because Kane can’t look good in a big match ever. Kane and Show are Raw tag champions at the time too which I forgot to mention. Kane just about kills Rey with a boot. That was awesome looking. Tazz is just ripping into Coach on commentary.

It’s funny but it’s distracting as all five guys are fighting and not a thing is being said about the match. I’ve always found that to be incredibly disrespectful. It shouldn’t be about the announcers but about the wrestlers, period.

Batista comes in and after more double teaming he takes out Kane with a spinebuster. He gets up and walks into a Big Show chokeslam which doesn’t take him out. The double one from Kane and Big Show does though so we’re down to 4-3. JBL comes in next and in a flat out SCARY show of strength, Big Show catches him coming off the top rope. That’s ridiculous.

Soon thereafter, the whole Smackdown team attacks Show, beginning with a Clothesline From JBL, a 619, an RKO (Massive pop for that), a second Clothesline From JBL and all of that doesn’t keep him down, but Rey jumps on him and that’s enough for a 3. This is why I hate Rey. He’s one of my all time favorites but at times he makes me want to rip my hair out. Why should that pin Big Show when he was almost up from all of those finishers?

That just doesn’t make any sense. JBL destroys his future employee on the floor while we try to figure out who Rey is supposed to be fighting and it’s Masters. Carlito comes in and slows down everything with a chinlock that goes on far too long. HBK is still down on the floor from the fall away slam that JBL hit him with. Rey finally gets up and makes a blind tag to JBL. With Rey distracting him, Bradshaw hits one of the best Clotheslines From JBL I’ve ever seen.

He half kills Carlito and gets the easy pin. He proceeds to beat the holy tar out of Masters, thus continuing to prove his worth. It’s Rey in now as HBK is still down meaning that the hopes of Raw rest on the shoulders of Chris Masters. I don’t even need to make fun of that one. Rey Drops the Dime on him and makes it 3-1. Styles has barely talked the whole match.

Shawn is thrown back in and Rey hits the 619. He goes for something that wasn’t clear but takes a less great looking version of the ending Shawn and Shelton did to take him out. Here comes JBL and there goes JBL with another kick. Bradshaw was in there less than ten seconds. We’re down to Orton and Michaels. We hit the floor but Shawn launches himself over the ropes as we’re doing the same thing we did back in 2003 which had far better drama and emotion to it but whatever.

The fans chant WE WANT TAKER who had been promised for the show and we have less than ten minutes to go. Shawn initiates his ending sequence to a rather weak pop if that’s what you want to call it. The elbow hits but gets two. JBL is still here and swings at Shawn with a chair. Michaels kicks it in him face but turns around to set up the RKO for the pin. The Smackdown locker room hits the ring and have Orton on their collective shoulders and there’s the inevitable gong.

This was the fall after Orton had feuded with Taker. It’s the expensive Taker return, complete with druids and a casket. A HUGE lightning bolt hits the casket which has been set up and it’s lit on fire. Taker eventually kicks it open as this is seeing vaguely familiar.

Cole then points out that Orton had Taker in a coffin and lit it on fire, which is the same story that was done seven years prior with Kane. I remember that angle and the first was light years better. Taker come to the ring and beats up the Smackdown jobbers before staring down Orton to end the show. They would have a Hell in a Cell match at Armageddon to end their feud.

Rating: B. This was good enough, but Masters and Carlito being there just didn’t work for me. Lashley was a rookie and the ending was a rip off of a far better one a few years earlier. Shawn was the only one on his team worth having so putting him in the end was the best idea. This show lost a lot with Eddie not being there and the week of buildup that they lost but that was an issue for the whole show.

The match was good, but the ending leaves a bit to be desired. Smackdown won, but so what? It means nothing really, and that’s where this match falls apart for me. The wrestling is good and it feels like a big match when you’re watching it, but at the end you realize that nothing happened at all.

Overall Rating: B. This was actually a really good show. When I’m giving the overall grade I go back and look at the card and the grades I gave them but that’s not the main thing I go on. This is a great example of why that’s the case. The matches individually other than the GM match were all very good with nothing at all not above watchable. However, there’s just something about this show that I can’t put my finger on. Something keeps this show from being great.

Maybe it’s the lack of build which wasn’t anything they could help due to Eddie, but it still takes away from the show. The wrestling here is great but the emotion isn’t there. Maybe their thoughts were on Eddie or something like that, but there’s just something missing from this show and it keeps it from being excellent. Certainly recommended, but that X factor isn’t there.

 

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Survivor Series 1995
Date: November 19, 1995
Location: USAir Arena, Landover, Maryland
Attendance: 14,500
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Mr. Perfect

It’s show #9 in this series as we’re in the New Generation, which means this likely will absolutely suck. Your main event is Bret vs. Diesel for the title. Nash has held it for nearly a year at this point with Hart off having completely random feuds. Other than that, it’s all Survivor Series matches and a random singles match. We have an interesting concept here called the Wildcard match, which means random teams, meaning faces teaming with heels.

Amazingly, this didn’t happen again. I haven’t seen it in years so I’m not sure why. The card looks rather lackluster actually. Maybe I’m wrong though, as I’ve been surprised before and I may be again. Also, I’m FINALLY caught up from the four shows I lost, so for the first time since 1992, this is fresh material for me. Let’s get to it.

Side note: Nitro debuted two and a half months prior to this, meaning Luger is freshly gone and that Hall and Nash will be gone in less than a year and the true dark days are coming for the WWF. Oh and another note: HHH has since debuted, but he’s barely, and I do mean barely, above being a jobber at this point.

We open with an interview with Razor talking about the Wildcard match that he’s in. I’ll spare you the participants for later. He says he doesn’t trust his partners. Hall so clearly didn’t care anymore at this point and I can’t blame him at all. He was never going to get past the upper midcard there and he bailed. I can’t blame him at all for that one.

Mr. Perfect is introduced to do commentary as we go to our opening video which is about Hart vs. Diesel. Nash is said to be the only person to win the Triple Crown (not called that) in a year. At the time that was true, but now Punk did it, plus the ECW Title, and in fewer days. Take that old man. We’re presented by Karate Fighters and Todd is way too excited over that. Since we’re outside of Washington D.C., everything has a patriotic theme. Oh joy.

Surprisingly, the Public Enemy of all teams was in the dark match. I’m guessing this was a tryout that didn’t work?

Underdogs vs. BodyDonnas

Underdogs: Marty Jannetty, Hakushi, Barry Horowitz, Sparkplug Holly
BoddyDonnas: Skip, Rad Radford, Tom Pritchard, 1-2-3 Kid

Oh dear. Oh dear indeed. This is borderline frightening it looks so bad. Marty Jannetty is the freaking captain of a team of jobbers. Well at least they got his role right. Honestly, this is just awful looking. Sunny is the absolute saving grace of this match. How in the world was she not made into the biggest Diva of all time? That continues to blow my mind. I shouldn’t mention Sunny and blow in the same line as it can have multiple connotations. Her talking intro was always great.

Radford is Louie Spicolli for those of you that don’t know. His debut with Monsoon on commentary was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard as Gorilla just never got it. Kid is freshly heel here and is officially annoying. This led to a series of some of the biggest wastes of time ever between Kid and Razor. I absolutely hated them all and they got no heat so they naturally continued for about 4 shows in a row.

He’s gone from hanging out with Razor Ramon to teaming with Skip. I thought he was supposed to be moving up on the roster. Razor comes out but the referees hold him back, which gives us time to see the clip of the turn from Raw. Kid fast counted Razor on Raw and took money from DiBiase. What’s so bad about this? He was tired of being Razor’s apprentice and turned heel. This is set up strangely.

The faces are in the bottom right hand corner as opposed to the upper left hand corner like they usually are. It’s just odd to see and I’m having issues getting used to it actually. Bob Holly is still the NASCAR guy at this point and both he and Jannetty have been tag champions with the Kid. Wow they were burying the tag belts even this far back.

Hakushi is getting all kinds of pops, which goes to show you that no matter how many stupid gimmicks you have, exciting wrestling will shine through in the end. Kid comes in and is booed out of the freaking building. Oh I just got why Pritchard is out there. Very soon, as in maybe a month after this, he would be turned into Zip, the other Body Donna. I guess this is a trial run. They touch on Holly being a two sport athlete.

Perfect says he’s an ALL SPORT ATHLETE. That’s either a great slogan or a great tag line. Either way, it’s more proof that he’s awesome. The crowd actually chants We Want Barry. My goodness has the WWF stumbled onto something here? I think they might have. Since they have, naturally, they did nothing with it and I think this was the last thing they ever did with him of note and he was jobbing again in like a week. And Vince wonders why his company more or less died in less than two years.

Holly comes in and takes out Pritchard with a cross body. Skip immediately comes in and rolls him up for the pin. I know that’s kind of cheap, but it’s a sequence that accomplishes two things here: Number one, it clears the ring of some clutter which when you have less than 20 minutes like these guys do, you have to clear the place out relatively quickly. Second, it plays up the idea of survival, because once you get pinned the match doesn’t stop at all. That’s actually very smart, despite it looking incredibly cheap.

Hakushi was freaking sweet in the ring. Again, he’s getting big pops, so he was jobbing and then gone soon after this. He and Bret had some great matches over the summer of 95. You should check those out. This crowd is white hot too which is helping things a lot. These guys are wrestling an almost cruiserweight style match that’s working very well.

See, WWF managed to screw up the light heavyweight division in so many ways. The first way was in the name. What sounds better: Cruiserweight or Light Heavyweight? It’s just a big garble of words to say. Cruiser sounds smooth and sleek. Second, they kept the belt on the inaugural champion for I think 9 months. Dude, that’s freaking stupid. The point of having a title like that is to have a bunch of fast paced matches for the belt.

People aren’t looking for substance in something like this, but rather flash. Third, they had no rivalries or anything like that. It was just a bunch of random one off matches that meant nothing. The other issue with the matches was that they weren’t flashy at all. They were just small guys wrestling. Look at WCW, where the Cruiserweights were a huge part of the show. They’re all over the place with Mexican and Japanese styles and the fans are all over it.

Finally, there was no Mike Tenay or anyone like him. He was annoying to me, but his commentary got the guys over because he was talking about how great they were. Those little stories he told were interesting and you remembered them. That’s what a commentator is supposed to do. The WWF guys would just sit there and say WHOA! The point of this rant/history lesson is that this right here could have been a great division.

With the exception of Radford, these guys are all the right weight and they had the right style. Also, we know these guys. They’re not just random wrestlers having matches but familiar faces having fast paced matches. This, while looking horrible on paper, is actually pretty good. Naturally, none of these guys ever did anything despite getting good reactions, because they’re not 300lb muscle heads.

It’s part of why Vince can’t expand better than he has already: he won’t import and set up new things that he has the resources to accomplish. Ok I think I’m good now. Actually I’m not. Look at the Kid here. He’s a freshly turned heel that has a very limited track record. Wouldn’t being the evil lightweight champion be a great career move for him?

He’s this young guy that sold out and while everyone hates him, he’s the lightweight (I’d call it Flyweight or something like that) champion that everyone hates. Imagine some of the feuds he could have with that before setting up the showdown with Razor (had he stayed).

I’ve said it a million times: the Kid was suited to face small guys but he failed on all levels against big men like Razor. Imagine Hakushi vs. Kid in a 20 minute match to open the Rumble. That’s a freaking classic. But alas, we’re stuck with him wearing a diaper after losing his 128th match in a row to Ramon. Ok, now it’s out of my system for now.

Razor and some of his buddies are watching in the back as Hakushi misses a springboard splash. Kid hits a spinkick to take out the White Angel. Apparently Horowitz is the captain? Then why did they come out to Jannetty’s music and not the Hava Nagila rock song instead? That’s just awesome on so many levels. On top of that, why mention that JANNETTY WAS CAPTAIN EARLIER IN THE FREAKING MATCH?

Seriously, if you’re going to have a team of jobbers, know who the head jobber is. Radford uses the Perfect neck snap that gets no recognition from Perfect. That surprises me. The way Horowitz is laying on the mat it looks like he’s wearing a thong. If wrestling ever dries up, he could strip. It’s not bad. Anyway, Radford beats on him some more but then poses and Horowitz hits a three quarter nelson rollup and pins him to make it 2-2.

Less than a minute later after a fast tag, Kid Hogan pins Barry with a legdrop, which Vince calls a devastating maneuver, to an even bigger amount of booing than he’s used to, which is to say a freaking ton. That leaves us with Marty against Skip and the Kid. Skip and the Kid sounds like the name of a really bad rap duo. When Marty wasn’t looking like a freaking idiot, he was actually pretty good in the ring.

He hits a Rocker Dropper, which is more or less a slow Fameasser on Skip. Perfect says that’ll break your neck. Bad choice of words Curt: it did break someone’s neck once and massive lawsuits against the WWF followed. Granted that’s obscure so he likely didn’t know. Ok, now this part I just don’t get. Marty goes up top, and Sunny shakes the ropes to crotch him. The referee is watching her do this and yelling at her not to, yet somehow this isn’t a DQ.

It doesn’t matter anyway because Marty hits a freaking powerbomb off the top to eliminate Skip. That was awesome looking. We’re down to Marty vs. Kid and if you don’t know who is going to win this then you’re a freaking idiot. Kid hits a running dropkick which is a move that I can never figure out how is possible. Wow that doesn’t sound correct. Both guys go down and we’re at a double count. I have no issue here because they’ve been wrestling a fast pace and they deserve a short break.

For no apparent reason Sid comes out as Jannetty hits one of my favorite moves ever in the jumping back elbow. I’ve always marked like crazy for that move. Ok, now Razor got sent back but Sid doesn’t? Yeah I love wrestling logic. Every time they say Marty I hear Power of Love from Back to the Future. DiBiase distracts the referee and Sid clotheslines him on the top rope as the crowd chants bull for the pinfall.

Kid needs new music that I don’t think he ever got. The big celebration happens. The beat to that song sounds like a faster LOD song, at least to an extent. We see Razor in the back throwing a freaking fit over Kid winning. He chucks a monitor at the wall. DAng man get laid already.

Rating: A-. I really liked this match. On paper this looks freaking awful but it was great in the ring. Like I said, if you just let small guys have a long fast paced match, it’s going to work most of the time. That’s what happened here. There’s no real story here other than 8 guys having a match and it was very, very good. Find this match as it’s worth checking out.

The mostly heel Wildcard team says that Razor better have his head on straight. Cornette’s rant here is great as he looks like he’s about to fly off the floor from his lips moving so fast. Owen says nothing special and Dean Douglas continues to prove that he’s better than Matt Striker at this gimmick.

Alundra Blayze’s Team vs. Bertha Faye’s Team

Since it’s the captains and three Japanese wrestlers each, I’m not going to bother writing out their names because most of them don’t have Wikipedia pages and I doubt more than 5 people have heard of all of them. There’s a big rant coming later about why this is a bad idea, but I’ll save it for after the rating of this match. The only one you need to worry about is Aja Kong for the heel team. The heels get no intro and the faces get something close to one.

Vince immediately tells JR to do the commentary, which is his way of saying I have no freaking clue who I signed for this so get me someone that either knows or cares at all. The bell rings and the botches begin. Yeah this match is rather sloppy. A woman named Chaparita Asari is put in a giant swing by Lioness Asuka which looks awesome. She must have been spun around 12 times. That was impressive.

After it though Blayze gets tagged in for about 20 seconds before slapping the tights of Asari (who stands 4’9) while she’s on the top rope, only to throw out a big flip called the Skytwister Press. It looked awesome as heck either way. It would have even been better if she was closer than the foot off that she was. I mean she missed EVERYTHING. Her arm grazed the other girl, but that was just bad, and considering it was a three foot jump or so, that’s not good.

After some botched chops, Blayze eliminates her with the bad German Suplex that she used. Also on a related note, when women of this era did slams, why did the tuck the head instead of putting their arm under the head? I’ve never gotten that. Watanabe comes in and in one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, sees Blayze standing between her legs as she’s on the top, and then throws the moonsault anyway. Yeah that was dumb.

Blayze follows that up with a cross body to the floor that almost misses as well. Look, I get that it’s rare to find women that are high fliers like this, but at least hit your opponents please? Hasagawa, a face, hits rolling butterfly suplexes. Ok that looked awesome. Perfect has some really chauvinistic lines. Aja Kong comes in and beats up Hasagawa while we’re randomly thrown to the Spanish commentators. Back to the English guys and JR, who is given the commentary again by Vince.

A big suplex puts out Hasagawa. Less than 30 seconds later, the tiny Asari goes out to a splash and we have our monster. An Earthquake drop puts out Inoue after 40 seconds. What’s with Kong sticking her tongue out with every cover? Does she think she’s the Undertaker or something? In something very smart, the three heels just all go at Alundra at once. That’s really smart.

Eventually it’s Blayze against Watanabe, and after an ok piledriver it’s 2-1 to actually give us a reaction for the first time in this match. I know I’m not saying much here but that’s the first time since the beginning of the match that there’s been more than a minute between eliminations. How much can I say about a girl coming in, getting clotheslined and after a big move getting pinned? The crowd is just dead here until after what’s called a German suplex it’s Blayze against Kong.

Kong hits her in the shoulder as apparently she thinks she’s Rocky Marciano. Both try their finishers but they don’t work and now Kong uses the girth of her stomach to crush Alundra in the corner. We get some decent back and forth stuff until Kong tries to do the Vader body splash thing then beat on her chest.

She does the exact same sequence again before standing her up and hitting the Awesome Kong spinning back fist which hits Blayze square in the arm for the pin. Yep, the women’s champion got pinned by a woman that was never seen on PPV again. Kong uses the old Orient Express’ music which is awesome.

Rating: D. Ok, now I’m waiting on a Joshi or Puroesu fan to come in here and argue with me over this, because I’m going to tear them apart on this one. I’m going to say this once and for all: Japanese wrestling does not now nor has it ever worked in mainstream American wrestling companies. Now before you jump down my throats, the wrestling is traditionally fine. Guys like Chono and Muta can wrestle five star classics and that’s fine.

However, for the most part, these guys never get over and they never will for a variety of reasons. The biggest is clear: we don’t know who these people are. Now I know the biggest argument here is going to be “well then go watch their matches and find out for yourself.” Well no that’s not how it works. When I turn on Raw I don’t want to have to have watched a series of matches to prepare. It’s wrestling, not a college exam.

Wrestling is supposed to be something that anyone can turn on and watch. This is where problem number 2 comes in: we have no idea why these people are feuding. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, but just tell us why they’re fighting. Is that so hard? I’ve never once heard of a storyline between two big name Japanese stars, not a single one. The system works fine for Japan, but here it’s just a failure. Finally, get wrestlers that aren’t going to botch 20% of the moves they attempt.

I’m sorry, but this was mostly botches. Coupling that with the fact that no one knew who 6 of these women were along with Kong never being seen again other than I think a lone Raw match, this was just a waste of time. The fans were bored out of their mind for the most part too. Bring it on people.

We go to a Bill Clinton impersonator for absolutely no reason. They did this at Mania 10 and the guy was awesome. This is just weak. Bigelow is on his way to the ring and the Lewinsky Enthusiast says he watches Bam Bam every Saturday. He watches Fred and Barney too. Yes, this actually got PPV time.

Goldust vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Goldy is a rookie here, having debuted in late October in one of the worst matches I’ve ever seen. Hopefully this is better. It can’t be worse. Bigelow is the epitome of a jobber to the stars here, despite having main evented an In Your House recently. He would be gone very soon though. This match is just flat out boring. It runs a bit over eight minutes and is just run of the mill stuff. You could see anything here at say an indy show or a house show.

While not entirely a squash, it’s very close to one as Bigelow never really is winning past more than maybe a punch here or there. I get why this is on the PPV, but I wish it was more like 5 minutes or so. There’s just not a lot to say here. Goldust wins with a bulldog. Yep that’s all I’ve got.

Rating: C. Honestly, what else can I give this? It’s a generic match that there’s absolutely nothing special at all about. I can’t really grade it so I’ll just call it average. Goldust is brand new so no one really knows anything about him. It’s fine, but overly long.

Back to the president, who is now chatting with Bob Backlund. Backlund was doing a weird gimmick where he wanted to be President. He actually ran for Congress in I think New Hampshire. Naturally he was destroyed, but at least he tried. These are more bad attempts at comedy.

We get a recap of Taker getting his face crushed by Mabel, which leads us to this.

Dark Side vs. Royals

Dark Side: Undertaker, Savio Vega, Fatu, Henry Godwinn
Royals: Mabel, Jerry Lawler, Isaac Yankem, HHH

Dang I was hoping it would be Darkseid. This is Taker’s first match in I think a month, and that’s the team he picks? Geez. As for feuds, the only one I can think of is HHH vs. Henry which apparently is just getting going. The idea of the other team King Lawler, Isaac is the royal dentist (it’s 1995 just go with it. He’s more commonly known as Kane in case you didn’t know that) and HHH is regal-esque I suppose.

Lawler does a short promo explaining this since at the time he’s the only one that has a clue about how to talk at this point. Mabel comes out on the throne that King Macho used to use. That’s just amusing. He is with Sir Mo, as a small part of my soul dies. The king is wearing sunglasses, but not the kind Savage wore. He could pull those off. Mabel, not so much.

Taker of course gets his own entrance, as he should. He’s wearing this weird mask that looks like a skull mixed with Warrior’s face paint. It’s not paint, but it’s in that shape. It just looked weird. Fatu is in his make a difference era, which was somehow stupider than Rikishi. In a great looking shot, Taker pulls off the hat but the camera is from behind him and we see Mabel’s reaction to Taker’s face. That’s awesome.

The curtsey that HHH used was just sweet. He needs to be a full time heel. Vince says Fatu is one of the premiere athletes in the WWF. That’s beyond laughable. After some stupid fear spots from the heels, we’ve got Godwinn vs. future Kane. WOW. Mr. Perfect refers to Helmsley as HHH. That name wouldn’t actually take effect for over two years. How far ahead of the game (pun intended) was he?

Oh all of the faces are wearing shirts that say Rest In Peace on the back. Wow what a show of team unity that is. While Lawler’s selling was great, Savio continued to be a complete waste of oxygen. He dances a bit and according to Vince, that means “Come on Jerry Lawler get up and let’s go.” Did Vince major in interpretive dance or something in college? It amuses me that of all the heels, Yankem would become the second most successful.

He pulls off a half decent dropkick which amazes me. I’ll never get over a guy that big being able to get in the air like that. It was sloppy but it was good enough I suppose. Vince brags about Vega. Was he an affirmative action guy or something? What talent did he ever have? He takes the Lawler piledriver as we are LIVE from USAir Arena. Can someone explain the point of those to me? I just don’t get it.

Savio gets back in with what we would refer to as a Rock Bottom. It doesn’t have a name here yet though, and it wouldn’t have been wasted on someone like Savio so there we go. Ok, now we have a sequence that is literally too dumb to describe. Ok no it’s not because I’m going to describe it but you get the idea. All right, now you all know that Lawler’s big move is the piledriver. He’s beaten a ton of guys with it and it’s devastating right?

The people were surprised that Vega kicked out of it a few seconds before, so apparently it’s a good move right? It worked on Savio a few seconds before, so logically it should work now. Instead though, Lawler hits it again, and while he’s sitting on the mat, Savio jumps up and dives to his corner to tag Taker, and THEN collapses from it. What in the world was that supposed to be?

Now I could understand if it was a move like a sharpshooter or something where it’s an extremity and you could get to your corner on pure adrenaline. Even a powerbomb or something like that where you land on your back would make something close to sense here, but not a freaking piledriver. You get dropped on your head but apparently Vega has a titanium cranium and can withstand blows to it like that. That just looked so stupid. Sell the move you imbecile.

Now that Taker is in, I think you can figure the rest out. In less than three minutes, two tombstones, a chokeslam and Mabel running means a clean sweep. Taker was AWESOME here as they put him over as an unstoppable force that was obsessed with revenge, which is when he’s at his best.

Above all else: the crowd was white hot for him as he continues to be possibly the most over face in the company at the time. Also, who would have thought that in less than three years, Taker vs. Isaac Yankem would have been the second main event at Wrestlemania with Taker looking like he was going to go down. Taker beats up Mo after the match so this was a good ending.

Rating: B-. This was a tale of two matches. The first part, which is before the tag to Taker, was ok at best. The second part, after the tag to Taker, was awesome. When Taker is used exactly right, he’s one of it not the most exciting wrestlers to watch ever. No one, and I repeat no one, goes off on someone like Undertaker. When he’s ticked off, he’s my all time favorite character to watch. This might as well have been a handicap match.

Taker would go on to feud with Diesel very soon after this. I think it started at the Rumble. Taker and Mabel had a worthless casket match at the next PPV that I actually forgot about. It was just horrible as Vince pulled the plug hard on Mabel and fed him to Taker.

Bret says that he’s not worried about facing Bulldog at the next PPV and that he feels like Wayne Gretzky.

Diesel says he wants the Bulldog too but he’s not sweating Bret. I probably should mention that Smith got cheated out of his title shot at the last PPV and therefore he’s getting a rematch with the winner of Bret vs. Diesel at the next In Your House.

Cornette is now with the other Wildcard team and says he wasn’t with the other one earlier. DiBiase says not to cross him. My goodness what I would give for a long term program between those two.

Wildcard Match

Team 1: Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon, Dean Douglas
Team 2: Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, Sid, British Bulldog

The idea here is faces mixed with heels. That’s a decent idea actually, but it begs the question of what is this going to accomplish? The point of a Survivor Series match is to continue a feud, but there’s nothing major going on here feud wise. This is Ahmed’s PPV debut, so no one knows much about him. Cornette is trying to figure a way to manage both teams which is amusing. Yoko’s fat has reached gargantuan proportions.

Dean Douglas here is the teacher gimmick that was 100x better than what Matt Striker did with it. Razor’s pop is still solid and he’s STILL the Intercontinental champion. Did he ever lose that thing? Razor’s pop is still solid, but at this point I completely understand him leaving. He’s been stuck in the same place for three years now and is STILL feuding with the 1-2-3 Kid. He could wrestle, he got pops, he could talk, yet he never got out of the midcard. That just makes zero sense.

He easily could have been a main event level guy and maybe even have had a very short title run. Are you telling me people wouldn’t have bought Razor vs. Diesel for the title? I would have been interested in it. At least he was vindicated though as he went to WCW and was a major reason as to why the WWF almost died.

As for why these people are in the match, Shawn is because he’s on the verge of breaking through the glass ceiling, Owen, Bulldog and Yoko are Camp Cornette, Razor and Douglas had fought for the IC Title at the last PPV where Douglas had been awarded the title after Shawn had to forfeit it and Sid had fought Razor on Raw this past Monday. Ahmed is there…just because I guess. He slammed Yoko a few weeks ago so he’s been booked very hard early.

Vince really wanted to make him world champion, but injuries and a lack of talent prevented that from happening. Shawn’s pop is ridiculous. He was in the angle where he had been really badly injured time after time but kept coming back, which would ultimately result in him getting hurt one more time and returning at the Rumble, where he would win it to face Bret in the Iron Man match at Mania. Perfect can’t stand him, saying Shawn has nothing on him.

At least Perfect keeps up his feuds from the past. Ross makes a political analogy out of this which completely fails. Naturally they argue over who is going to start. Shawn can’t find his corner. Yep he’s likely bombed. We start with Shawn and Owen, so this will at least begin well. In case you didn’t notice the first 10 times, this was made by President Gorilla Monsoon. These two start hot with Shawn hitting a very impressive move.

He’s thrown over the top, skins the cat and grabs Owen’s head with his legs to pull him over, and then skins it again to get back in. Who in the world named that move? What kind of a creepy name is skinning the cat? Is that some weird reference that I’m just not getting, or did people actually skin a cat and think this looked like it/ That’s just creepy.

Anyway, they stay hot in the ring. How in the world was this not the main event of the 98 Rumble? Everything was there, yet it never happened. I’ve always thought it was because Shawn was afraid Owen would shoot on him and kill him, which is understandable I guess. Dean comes in and punches Shawn down which is surprising. Shawn has TR on his boots. I have no idea what that means.

This was during the time where Shawn was so far above just about everyone not named Hart that it was a given that he would be in the title picture very soon. This is easily the best time of his career from an in ring perspective. We get the warm tag to Ahmed and Perfect changes his stance on him about every two seconds which is amusing. Now it’s Ahmed vs. Yoko, in a match that could set wrestling back decades.

Thankfully Douglas comes back in. What am I saying? It’s a scary thought when he’s the improvement. Razor shows some heel tendencies by beating on Ahmed a bit in the corner. Honestly, they picked Ahmed to get beaten on out of all the people they have on their team? In a cool spot, Ahmed picks Shawn up and launches him into Dean with a cross body. That was cool. Eventually Douglas tries to bail but Razor stops him before punching his partner into a roll up by Shawn for the pin.

Shawn used the tights, but since he’s almost the top face in the company we’ll overlook that. We move on to Owen vs. Bulldog which should be good. Davey offers a left handed handshake which even thinking about is making typing feel weird. Owen takes it but both have the same idea and punch each other with their right hand. They tag out to Razor and Shawn, who apparently are nervous about fighting despite having had a ladder match two months prior.

Ross gets in either a huge insult or a joke, asking if they can wrestle each other without a ladder. Vince laughs, but it’s one of those that’ll be a week’s pay laughs. They stand there looking at each other for about a minute, so we cut to an arena shot and we can barely see them finally make contact. Dude, were the production people on drugs or something? These cuts make zero sense most of the time.

Anyway, we have them going at it after missing ten seconds of it due to needing to see the 192nd row for some reason. Shawn goes for the forearm but Razor isn’t in place I suppose and it’s more like a shoulder block. Shawn nips up anyway, as Razor suddenly remembers he’s supposed to be up. That was a weird looking sequence. Razor actually gets the Razor’s Edge clean and covers but Ahmed makes the save. That was really surprising.

Shawn ducked and Razor just got him up and hit it like Shawn was a jobber. This is a weird match. Within 30 seconds we have two instances where both guys are down. Oh yeah they’re both in the clique. That’s why this is a weird sequence.

For some reason Sid is facing the crowd as Shawn gets the tag to him and we have Razor vs. Sid now. Has there ever been a more overrated big man than Sid? If there has been I can’t think of one. Naturally he got a huge main event push everywhere he went, but he still was just bad in the ring most of the time. In ANOTHER weird spot, Sid is stomping Razor and Yoko comes in, hits him once, gets kicked in the chest and then leaves as Sid goes back to stomping. Yeah that was pointless.

Oh look two guys are down again. What’s with this stop and go style of wrestling? I really don’t care for it. Sid tries to go to the top but since he used to be a Horsemen, that doesn’t work as he pulls the Flair spot from it. Sid does impress me though as he hits a one handed chokeslam on Razor, who weighs about 270. Wait, why is Sid up that fast after getting slammed off the top? Sid calls for Shawn to kick Razor and you know where this is going.

Yep Shawn kicks Sid but doesn’t really seem to mind. Razor covers him but Bulldog runs in for the save with a leg drop that somehow misses and hits Sid. Razor covers him again like nothing went wrong and pins him. Vince and Ross are confused as to why Bulldog tried for the save there. Maybe because his partner was about to get pinned boys? Could that have something to do with it? Apparently not.

See even Vince and JR can’t figure this thing out and one of them likely came up with it. Ok so it’s 3-3 now as I’m trying to remember who is who here. Ok so it’s Bulldog vs. Razor, making it heel vs. face but the face is on the heel team and the heel is on the face team but the heel on the face team is acting like a heel despite supposedly being a face for this match while the face on the heel team is acting heelish, meaning that everyone is doing their job? I need a chart or something here.

This is like the smark’s nightmare match. As Bulldog is beating on Razor, Sid comes back and powerbombs his partner Shawn. I really hate this match. Oh and Bulldog goes to the apron despite never tagging in Shawn. Shawn of course kicks out to a short but loud pop. We’re back to Shawn and Owen now, which hopefully makes this more sensible. Since that would be the best case scenario, we switch out to Yoko to make this bad again.

JR says this is a bigger mismatch than Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett to really date the show a bit. Uh oh it’s Yoko with the evil nerve hold! They discuss the idea of Shawn being world champion but they’re not sure if it could ever happen, which more or less cements that it’s going to happen in the future. Owen runs in to stomp on Shawn a bit while the referee isn’t looking, which again confuses Vince. It’s run of the mill heel tactics, so why is this weird?

A diving headbutt by Owen misses and allows Shawn to tag Ahmed. A Pearl River Plunge, called the Tiger Bomb which is a better name, ends Owen to make it 3-2. That gives us Razor vs. Ahmed which on paper sounds appealing but in reality it’s not a great match up due to Ahmed’s limited ability. Granted he’s a rookie so I’ll cut him a break here. Razor does manage to get a bad Edge on him but sans tag, Bulldog comes in to beat on Razor instead.

Kid and Sid come out and trip Razor, leading to the powerslam and a 3-1 disadvantage. It’s Yoko vs. Shawn, Bulldog and Ahmed for those idiots out there keeping score. They mention that the next night it would be Shawn vs. Owen on Raw, which is the infamous black out match which led to the Rumble return and victory for Shawn.

Ahmed comes in and slams Yoko (kind of) but the Bulldog breaks it up. Shawn and Ahmed end him, leading to sweet chin music and a splash from Ahmed which for some reason comes with a scream while he’s in the air to end this.

Rating: C+. The wrestling was ok, but I have no clue what the point of this was. It’s one of those matches where it’s just thrown out there to see if it works and apparently they didn’t think it did because it was never seen again as far as I can remember. The psychology was all screwed up here since it was faces and heels together which throws everything off. This was an ok concept on paper, but in reality it was a failure to me.

We kill some more time with Sunny sitting on the fake President’s lap. This is stupid.

We recap Diesel vs. Bret which is part three of a trilogy apparently. I have issues with a trilogy going nearly a year, but whatever. Bret points out that he’ll have the advantage in a longer match, while Nash points out that he is going to try to knock Bret out. That makes sense. Bret says Diesel has been walking about with his title. That makes a bit of sense because Bret got one rematch but there was no winner. That kind of makes sense I guess.

The announcers talk about who will win.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Diesel

Bret gets a ridiculous pop. The announcer calls this the WWF’s Championship. It just sounded weird. Bret is still the only man that can make pink look intimidating. Apparently this is no holds barred which I think was mentioned earlier. Both guys pull a turnbuckle pad off. Yeah it’s no holds barred. They imply they might run out of PPV time, which is a rarity but can happen.

Bret goes for the leg but Diesel immediately goes for a power move. That makes a lot of sense actually as Diesel has the mindset of he can’t get caught with a bad leg. The announcers mention that this could go anywhere which pretty much guarantees that it won’t. Bret keeps running from him which again kind of makes sense as he’s trying to run Diesel down and avoid the big power moves.

Of course Vince thinks Bret is wrong here. I’m sure Vince is right here. After all he’s a former WWF Champion remember? They’re starting really slowly here which is ok I guess. Bret is in trouble and that means it’s a good thing. He’s one of the best ever at just getting beaten up which happens even more with Diesel beating on him with a chair. Back in the ring, Diesel goes for the Jackknife but Bret grabs the leg. That’s so basic it’s amazing.

Bret finally gets to the knee as they try to make this sound like it’s about survival. Perfect says that everyone is the same when they’re on the mat. No not really as Diesel is still really tall. Ross says this is vintage Hart which has now entered the lexicon of wrestling jokes. We hit the figure four so at least the thought process is solid here. Diesel gets the ropes and Bret doesn’t let go. It’s no DQ so what can the referee even do? Not anything when you think about it.

Naturally Bret lets it go because he’s just a nice guy I guess. Bret finds a cord at ringside and ties one end to the post and the other to Diesel’s leg. He can naturally tie knots. He used to be a cowboy after all. Nash fights out of it though so there’s no point to that whole sequence. Now Bret gets a chair, which makes sense because all that cowboy stuff must have worn him out. Diesel’s leg is still tied as he knocks Bret down.

Ok Bret pops right back up and hits him with the chair. Bret gets crotched on the top rope and slammed off as Diesel finally unties himself. Ross suggests that Bret was a boy scout since that was a great knot. No Jim, he was COWBOY BRET HART! Bret goes chest first into the exposed turnbuckle and Vince says he should give up right now, and Vince would know all about when Bret should quit. He would prove that in two years.

Diesel puts Bret in the same position for the 619 and tries to run back and jump on him but he can’t because of the leg. Instead he just jumps in the air and crashes down on him. That’s both smart and stupid at the same time. If his leg is hurt, how can he jump? However, it’s smart because it’s an intelligent and innovative move.

Nash takes a head first shot to the exposed buckle. Perfect says this is a great fight and he’s correct. It’s a bad match though. Bret is in control now as we’re running out of time. He hits that perfect Russian leg sweep of his. I love that move. With Diesel on the floor, Bret goes for a pescado but over rotates and crashes badly. As he’s trying to get back in, Bret gets knocked to the floor through the Spanish Announce Table which deserves its own place in the hall of fame.

This was a new thing at the time so that was considered a huge spot. It’s just a run of the mill table and not the kind they have now so this looks and sounds a lot better than the traditional kind. Back in the ring Bret collapses as Diesel goes for the Jackknife. He picks Bret up again and there is the small package for the title. Diesel calls Bret a few profane words after this before jackknifing Bret in half. He also hits two refs which stuns Ross as Diesel turns heel. We get a recap of the show as we’re done.

Rating: C+. Like Perfect and I combined to say, it was a good fight but not a good match. There’s no flow to this at all as it’s just almost random spots going back and forth. It felt like an Attitude Era title match, which is fine if you’re Austin or someone like that, but Bret didn’t need to use that style and it failed to me. Still, it’s entertaining enough I guess, but I’m rarely a fan of no holds barred matches for the title. It just isn’t my thing. It was ok, but far from great.

Overall Rating: B-. This show is the epitome of just barely above average. There’s some good stuff here but there’s also some bad stuff. There really isn’t a truly bad match outside of arguably the women’s match, but that was something that is going to be loved by marks and hated by smarks so there we go. Other than that, this is pretty good I suppose. The title change was big as it ended a year long run.

Other than that, the matches are all at least decent, but nothing really jumps off the page as great. It’s good for a one time view, but it’s not likely to be something you’re going to watch more than once. Granted I think that has to do with the company as a whole at this point as very little was going right around this time. Still, it’s ok, but like I said don’t get your hopes up.

 

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Survivor Series 2004
Date: November 14, 2004
Location: Gund Arena, Cleveland, Ohio
Attendance: 7,500
Commentators: Tazz, Michael Cole, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

We have entered into what I guess you would call a new era in the company. Orton has split from Evolution as it is starting to crumble. Batista is on the rise as he would win the 2005 Rumble to set up his first title reign. Over on Smackdown, JBL is the reigning champion in the middle of that one title reign that he never stopped talking about. It’s hard to put a finger on it but you can just simply feel that things have begun to change into what we would consider the modern era of WWE.

Cena and Batista would take their spots as the kings of the company in about five or six months. Your main event tonight is HHH’s team vs. Orton’s team, where the winners get control of Raw for the next month. Yet again, this just seems like a preview for next month. Over on Smackdown we have JBL defending against Booker in the random non-feud of the month. This looks weak on paper, but let’s try it out.

We get a video about the history of the Survivor Series. This is painfully weak. If it tells you anything, Snitsky and Maven are in the main event tonight. How scary is that?

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Spike Dudley vs. Billy Kidman vs. Chavo Guerrero

Wow Kidman had a job at this point? This is one fall by the way. Kidman’s music makes me want to die quickly. Billy hurt Chavo with the shooting star, which is one of the main reasons it was banned for as long as it was. Kidman and Spike are your heels here, in case for some reason you care. If that’s the case, I’d recommend a doctor. I know I say that Spike should be only fighting small guys, but he really shouldn’t be wrestling at all. He’s just annoying.

Cole runs through the rules as I think they might have finally picked the perfect opener. More or less no one is going to care about this match but it’ll be full of high spots so if nothing else people will get hyped up over it, or at least they’re supposed to. Tazz recommends that someone hide in a corner, which really isn’t all that bad of an idea. This is the location of the first two Survivor Series as well as the 1992 show so this is the New York of Survivor Series I guess.

Using his expert analytical skills, Tazz points out that the move we just saw was indeed a knee of the ribs. They’re going with the formula here of having two guys go at it and two guys down, which gives the match a bit of a Mexican flare to it. I think I like that. Spike was in his Boss phase here where somehow he was in charge of Bubba and D-Von, because that just makes perfect sense. Now we’re getting into what this should be: a massive spotfest.

Spike crashes when he tries his and that is just great for some reason. We go to Billy vs. Chavo which is the hot feud I guess. In case you didn’t notice the first 20 times they said it, there’s a slim chance that Spike will hold the title as they more or less give away the ending. Why does Tazz keep using the term pin cover? I don’t think anyone else uses that and I’m not sure if I like it. I hate cruiserweight matches where they try to be slow and technical.

Cole continues saying stupid things by saying all four of these men want to become champion of the world. One of them already is you dolt. Somehow they tried to make the Shooting Star Press into a heel move. Seriously? Why would you try to do something like that? It’s one of the most impressive looking moves there is and it will never not get a solid pop.

What’s the smart thing to do of course? Try to make it evil of course, because the only thing that matters are heels, especially tiny ones that are SO intimidating. Spike goes for the Dudley Dog which fails because…because…well because he tried it on Rey Mysterio that’s why.

Chavo hits the Gory Bomb, which of course according to Cole connects. Listen to a Cole match and see how many times he uses that word. It blows Vintage away. In a rather anti-climactic ending, Spike steals the pin after Kidman drops a springboard leg on Chavo. That just wasn’t that interesting of an ending.

Rating: C+. This was probably the best choice for an opener, but I’m not sure if it worked that well. The high spots were fine but Spike was just sucking the life out of this thing. I get that he’s a heel, but there’s not supposed to be depth to matches like these. They’re about big spots and getting the crowd into the show, so why have someone there that’s just slowing things down? I don’t get that. The match was ok but it just didn’t feel right so take that for what you will.

Heyman and Heidenrich are in the back as Paul tries to fire him up. Snitsky shows up and they have an odd exchange. Their mouths are far too close during this. Snitsky likes what his poetry and Heidenrich likes what Snitsky does to babies. They would start a very short tag team feud against Kane and Taker soon. For the record, Snitsky had caused Lita to have a miscarriage if that explains anything. Their noses were touching. That’s just odd.

Here’s the pointless theme song that no one will remember in two weeks.

Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian

Benjamin won the title in a relative shocker at Taboo Tuesday, beating Jericho for it as well as winning the rematch. Christian is getting the shot because he just wanted one I guess. He would be leaving for TNA in about a year at this point. This is more or less the wet dream of any IWC fan and clearly should main event Wrestlemania because….well just because.

I love the Waterproof Blonde version of Christian’s music. This is right before Shelton became the hottest thing in the world and about six months before the classic he had with Shawn at Raw that was the high point of his career. Ross says that Shelton may be a better athlete than Lebron James. Wow indeed. Christian slaps him and gets punched for his troubles.

Shelton gets a sweet springboard clothesline to take out Christian for two. Tomko is at ringside with Christian as he continues to be completely worthless. They chop it out as Christian shouts that he IS Captain Charisma. Benjamin is just scary with how athletic he is out there. Tomko gets involved and it allows Christian to shove Shelton to the floor to take over.

Ross and Lawler get into an argument as to whether you’re cheating if you choke to four. That’s a very good question actually. Christian hammers on Shelton for a good while but here comes Shelton. Solid stuff here so far. Shelton gets a counter into a slingshot reverse suplex for two. Nice. Stinger Splash misses and Christian gets an Edgecution for a long two.

Christian brings the Title in and it gets kicked back in his face. Tomko kicks Shelton’s head off for a two and a solid pop on the kickout. Shelton hits the Dragon Whip on Tomko and there’s the T-Bone on Christian to retain. Sweet match and Shelton looked great here.

Rating: B. THIS should have opened the show. This is what both guys should be doing: wrestling in the midcard and having the best stuff on the show. That’s where Christian and Shelton both fail for me: the company and fans on WZ think that they’re ready to take over the reins of the company and they’re just simply not there yet.

Now maybe they will be someday, but at the moment they’re just not prepared yet. Also, not everyone is going to be able to be a main event guy. Look at Kofi for example. Anyway, this was very solid and it was this time period where Shelton got the reputation that he has now, which is what the IC belt is supposed to be about.

Edge and Angle cross paths in the back with Angle talking about how Edge has never won the title. This is psycho Angle that was some of the fun stuff. This was a pretty intense segment with two guys that have a solid background. I’d like to see Edge come back like this where he’s a heel but not by much. Angle tries to go to the ring but runs into Eugene and suddenly I wish I had a gun or a hatchet. Eugene sings Kurt’s song and the hatchet might not be fast enough.

Hey! Here’s a Wrestlemania moment that has absolutely nothing to do with this show! It’s Austin winning his first title in case you were wondering.

Tazz and Cole plug Mania 21.

Team Angle vs. Team Guerrero

Angle, Carlito, Luther Reigns, Mark Jindrak
Guerrero, Big Show, John Cena, RVD

Angle was hanging out with Reigns and Jindrak at the time and they were feuding with both Big Show and Guerrero separately so there’s that. Cena and Carlito had been having a feud over the US Title which Carlito won from him in his debut match. Since then, Cena was stabbed in a club and had to take time off. The theory was that it was Carlito but there was actually a rumor going around the internet that they were going to bring in New Jack of all people to have been the attacker.

Cena comes out last and immediately chases Carlito off. Cena fights both he and his bodyguard Jesus into the back with absolute ease. The bell hasn’t rung at this point and I have no idea what the wrestlers are in the ring doing during all of this stuff. Jesus and the anti-swallower get away in a car that they steal to add auto theft to their list of crimes. Those are just great things to show on television there Vince. Cena heads back to the arena as I guess they were brawling in the meantime?

The bell finally rings and we have Show vs. Jindrak. Cena’s back so it’s already 4-3. Oh and Angle, Jindrak and Reigns had recently shot Show with a tranquilizer and shaved his head to explain why he’s so ticked off. Everyone beats on Mark because he just completely sucks. That’s a pretty good face team. Who’s the least accomplished on there? RVD I guess? Tazz fails by trying to compare one of these matches to a baseball game.

Eddie pulls off some amazing looking stuff as this was likely some of the best stuff he ever had during this time of his career. That made no sense but a translation would be he was doing very well at this point in time. A little interference from Angle turns the tide though. I’ve never quite gotten that expression. I get what it means but it just sounds odd to me and always has.

Reigns and Jindrak both could have been good but for some reason they both just completely failed. Tazz gets their names wrong. That tells me either one of two things. Number one, they’re so generic that they’re identical, or that everything is fine with Tazz. Barring a few seconds at the beginning, this has been all Eddie which I guess could work but at the same time it’s kind of stupid. I do kind of like the slow pace they’re working here if it builds up to a hot finish.

Now it’s just getting boring as we’re getting a lot of headlocks and chinlocks which just suck the life out of the match. Ironically they were talking about the You Suck chant as I typed that. At the time Jindrak was a combination of Buff Bagwell and Rick Rude but with somehow less talent than Bagwell. He does the hip swivel and it looks awful. The announcers talk about how he’s stepped up huge. That’s just a scary thought.

Van Dam comes in and for reasons that I don’t want to know, Cole calls him supple. He sets for the Five Star on Angle but Mark pulls him out of the way. Is that what he’s there for? Just to be a jerk/show off, Van Dam jumps over Angle and hits Jindrak who is about ¾ of the way across the ring. RVD is one of the few people that I’ve ever been in awe of. He hurts his ribs on the splash (naturally) and Angle rolls him up and grabs the ropes for the heel pin.

In a funny yet stupid moment, Eddie slips in the back while Angle is arguing with the referee to roll up Jindrak and use the ropes the same way Angle just did to make it 3-2. Ok, so two reasons why this was stupid. Number one, Jindrak wasn’t legal. Two, the announcers LOVE Eddie’s cheating yet booed the heck out of Angle. I know they’re faces and heels but at least pretend to not be biased guys.

After some stalling we have Big Show vs. Angle which lasts for all of a stare down and now we have Reigns in there instead. Oh yeah Show has a messed up ankle. They did such a great job of covering it that I was blown away enough to not mention it. Despite the pain, Show shows up and hits the chokeslam to make it three on one. Show immediately sets for a chokeslam on Angle but Kurt counters into an ankle lock.

Angle tries to run but RVD is waiting for him. For some reason, Angle picks to fight the three. In a funny spot he backs up still facing RVD and backs into Show. He stops and looks nervous and reaches up towards Show’s head where he realizes there’s no hair. He shakes his head and slowly turns around. It’s a lot better than it sounds mainly due to Kurt’s facial expressions.

Show sends him in to Cena (in for the first time in the match) but apparently he’s not legal as Eddie hits a Frog Splash to allow Show to pin him. Cena was never legal so I’m guessing injured still. Now that I think about it I think he really was hurt at this time. Actually never mind. He was making the Marine.

Rating: D. This just wasn’t that good. It started off decently enough but then in the end it was like they were told to hurry up and then everyone went out at a ridiculous pace. Cena wasn’t hurt so I have no clue why he wasn’t in there at all. The faces winning was more or less a given once you look at the lineups, so this just wasn’t entertaining at all really. It could have been good, but it just fell flat, but to be fair they were only going to be able to do so much with it.

Buy the history of the AWA which most of the people that were watching this PPV have never heard of!

This must be the strangest PPV of all time as Maven is getting interview time. If nothing else he’s heavily muscled. He’s bad on the mic but gets cut off by Snitsky. After a rather bad beating and by bad I mean pathetic looking, Maven is carried away.

We get a video about the crazy Heidenrich vs. Undertaker, who really wasn’t that impressive at all. He rammed his car into a hearse Taker was in after costing him the world title at No Mercy.

Undertaker vs. Heidenreich

Apparently I’ve been spelling his name wrong. However it’s likely that I’ll be flipping between the two spellings. He comes out in a straightjacket because he’s CRAZY! He’s also about as stock of a villain as you can possibly imagine. I mean he’s just there and there’s nothing at all to suggest that he’s a tough guy at all. The story here is that Taker can’t use his mental games on Heidenrich. Oh come on now.

For years now everyone Taker feuded with has been “immune” to his games or whatever. They just don’t try with Taker so often and it sucks. Oh and Heidenreich allegedly raped Cole. You had to see it and the comedy alone is worth checking on. Naturally since Taker can’t win against this guy, he opens the match completely dominant. Heyman’s interference prevents Old School to give Jon (Heidenreich’s first name and way easier to type) the advantage.

Taker gets crotched on the post. That’s just creepy for some reason. Are his balls dead too? They hit the floor for awhile with Jonny (no not the admin) in control. Even Taker looks bored out there. That can’t be a good sign. Cole talks down about Heidenreich as he desperately tries to validate his employment. I know he’s improved to an extent, but dang he used to be horrible. He’s beginning to put emphasis on vintage here too, so it’s officially begun.

Old School hits to a bunch of flashbulbs going off. In a cool thing, they point out how many things Taker has done at Survivor Series. How cool is it that a guy has dominated two major pay per views like this? Taker hits a downward spiral which I don’t think I remember him ever using other than this. Apparently Heidenreich has taken everything Taker has to offer. Other than the chokeslam, tombstone or Last Ride of course, but those have never been worth anything anyway.

Cole points out that Jon is talking to himself with every move he makes. Given his limited skill, it’s likely him reminding himself to breathe in and out, and as I type that Heyman is screaming don’t let him breathe! Paul, that’s called murder and that’s a bad thing. Also, Heyman in a beige suit doesn’t work. He screams at Heidenrich that he’s Heidenrich. Is he afraid the dog catcher is going to think he’s a stray or something?

This is just taking forever and it’s painfully generic. They go to a punch out and naturally Taker wins this. He goes to the top and hits a cool looking diving clothesline which gets the crowd breathing. There’s two problems with this match. First of all, Heidenreich sucks and he sucks badly. Second, this is going FAR too long. We’re at about ten minutes already and it should have ended at least three ago.

The crowd is dead with even a big move from Heidenreich and a long two getting next to no reaction. There’s far too many punches to from Jon and it’s boring. Just to step it up a bit, he goes to the middle rope and punches. In what should have put us out of our misery, he grabs the bottom rope to break up the pin. This isn’t fair. Oh come on Jonny. A sleeper now? Oh good Taker reversed it.

There’s your boring chant which should have come about 10 minutes ago. Taker sits up to a mild reaction. One of the most famous spots of all time barely got anything from the crowd. That just isn’t a good sign at all. A generic chokeslam leads to a generic tombstone to a generic pin to perfectly cap off this boring match.

Tazz tries to say this is the furthest Taker has ever been pushed. That’s just flat out hysterical. Actually no it isn’t. It’s freaking sad that a man has to lie like that on national television.

Rating: D. This was just boring. There are times when the wrestling is ok, but it’s just that this formula has been done so many times that I’ve run out of numbers for it. How many times have you seen Taker against some big man that you know he’s going to beat and then have a gimmick match against? Naturally there was a casket match at the Rumble because things just wouldn’t be complete without that to continue this.

Thankfully Jon was gone relatively soon after this, at least from major matches. Amazingly he would stay in the company for an entire year after this, even winning a tag title as a member of the new Legion of Doom. Just thinking of that makes my head hurt. Anyway, this was horrible, mainly due to Heidenreich but Taker isn’t innocent either.

Bischoff says that Maven might not be able to compete and there won’t be a replacement.

We get the recap of Trish vs. Lita which begs the question of why these two need a storyline. Lita, the face, lost her baby due to Snitsky and Trish found it amusing. The recap is complete with a pic of Kane in a white tux so it wins based on that alone. Lita really can’t act.

Women’s Title: Trish Stratus vs. Lita

As I said, Lita is the face and challenger here. For once, Trish looks better than Lita here. I think it’s the evil thing. Lita has some weird suspenders thing on. She beats the living heck out of Trish and we’re on the floor already. Make your own joke for that line. The redhead grabs a chair and swings at Trish twice with both times completely missing.

I mean the camera shows that they don’t hit at all, and even though Trish’s face was away from the chair, meaning they would have hit her in the back or back of the head, she’s busted open. Knowing Trish, she was hurt to explain why this wasn’t an actual match. Upon further review, she had a broken hand so at least this makes sense.

Lita uses what’s called a rear naked choke on Trish which is really more like her just choking her and shaking on the floor. We get more stuff of Lita trying to injure Trish’s face which led to her wearing a nose protector for a few weeks. This would lead to the first ever women’s match main eventing Raw for the Women’s Title in early December which was a very cool moment.

Rating: N/A. It’s a minute and a half and an angle instead of a match so no grade.

Team Guerrero is happy to have won. Teddy comes in and Big Show takes his towel off which is passed over. Cena, clad in boxers, is told that he’s getting a US Title shot. He would get it on Smackdown and destroy him to get the belt hack. I really don’t like this gimmick of Cena’s.

Recap of Booker vs. JBL, which more or less was this: Booker want a shot, he beats Orlando Jordan, he gets a shot, JBL talks down to him, match. That was the issue with JBL’s title reign: it was ridiculously repetitive with the other flaw being that no one bought him as a credible champion yet, but who cared about that?

Smackdown World Title: JBL vs. Booker T

This just sounds bad on paper. I mean think about it. Can you picture these two having a good match together? I certainly can’t. Amazingly enough, the match itself is as boring as I imagined it. The announcers are trying to make this seem like a great match or something but it just isn’t. JBL comes out in the big white limo of his which was his signature as you likely know. Booker just looks like he knows he has no chance at all out there tonight.

There’s just not a lot to say about this match. Nothing stands out at all. It’s just two older guys going through the motions which is never a good thing. I really don’t think JBL had the character down in any sense of the word here and you can tell that based on just how plain his offense is. The announcers are no help at all here as they offer no reason as to why we should buy Booker having a shot.

With the HHH feud the previous year, Booker had pinned HHH on Raw which showed us that it was possible. Here he had only been beating on Orlando Jordan which meant nothing at all. Oh look it’s a sleeper! Oh wait, it’s a cobra clutch! Ok wait a second. Not only did JBL completely rip off Ted DiBiase’s gimmick but now he’s trying to steal his finishing hold. My head hurts from this match.

Orlando tries to do a run in but gets beaten up. He’s been out there for most of the match cheating here and there but now he’s stepped it up a bit. I very rarely skip large portions of the match in these, but I’ve gone about five minutes of video and haven’t typed anything for the simple reason of there’s nothing to talk about.

It’s just not an interesting match in the slightest and I have no interest in it. JBL gets knocked into the referee and naturally Booker finally gets the kick but we have no referee. After some Jordan interference a belt shot ends this. Really, that’s the ending they chose? It’s perfect I guess, as it’s as generic and uncreative as I can think of.

Rating: F. This was just awful all around. There was no build up, there was no drama, there was no good wrestling, and there was no reason to watch this. It was boring and the ending was even worse, so what else could I grade this as? I can’t believe I’m saying this but bring on HHH vs. Orton as it has to be better than what I just saw.

Promo for Tribute to the Troops, which is just flat out cool.

Batista is in the back and HHH comes up to him. They more or less say that once they win the partnership with Edge and Snitsky is over. Like I said earlier the winning team gets to run Raw for a month. After HHH leaves, Batista implies to Flair that he would give himself a title match. This was right about when they started pushing Batista as the super beast that he became known as being, leading to his face turn around February.

He was getting huge reactions for months before that but was still heel. You could see it coming, but it was quite well done. He would eventually turn after winning the Rumble where he was considering whether to face HHH or JBL at Mania. He overheard HHH and Flair saying they were leading him around by the nose and he was a face by the end of the night, setting up the inevitable showdown with HHH that everyone knew was coming eventually.

The recap is painfully simple with clips of Evolution running Raw for one night and the face team standing up to them, leading to Bischoff making this match. Of course it’s set to the theme song, which is a decent enough song, but it has no connection to the match at all.

That’s what sucked about the songs: they completely didn’t fit and when they did, they were used for all of one segment on the show and other than that were always playing in the background. Unless you just really liked the song you were so sick of it by the end of the show that you didn’t care about it anymore.

Team Orton vs. Team HHH

HHH, Batista, Snitsky, Edge
Orton, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Maven

Wow those entrances too way too long. Remember there’s no Maven due to the earlier attack. My guess would be this is Vince coming to his senses about putting Maven in the main event of a major PPV. We start with Edge and Benoit which works just fine for me. Edge in purple tights just looks a bit odd. We move over to Snitsky who is apparently goofier than a pet coon. Who has a pet raccoon? Seeing Orton as a young face is just strange to see.

He stops to pose for a second which gets a solid pop. He really could be a good face if he had more hair. The face team is tagging a lot as Jericho is in now. HHH comes in and the noise noticeably drops. The people were just fed up with him at this point which I think is why Orton got such a great reaction: he was something new. Apparently there’s a stipulation that says that Orton can’t challenge for the belt as long as HHH is world champion.

We get some Batista and Orton since they’re the future and all and somehow still are to this day, five years later. The tags are really fast here which is an issue because it keeps there from being a flow to the match, which is the worst thing that can happen to it, at least in my eyes. The crowd is SILENT. I mean there’s nothing at all and it sounds like there’s no one there. I know it’s a small crowd but they could make more noise than this my goodness.

Benoit wakes them up a bit at least, and I mean that in the most literal of sense. The rolling Germans really do get the people going for a bit and they’re at least popping for big spots so we don’t need 7,500 coffins. While everyone else is brawling, Benoit gets the Sharpshooter on HHH but Edge breaks it up. In some hot Canadian on Canadian action we have Edge in a crossface. Batista breaks it up, leading to one of the worst pedigrees of all time on Benoit.

Edge covers him and takes the win to make it unofficially 4-2. Nice job guys. You have gotten rid of the only person that’s actually getting anything out of the crowd tonight. It’s Edge against Jericho now but as I say that HHH and Snitsky argue over who tagged Edge which includes at least one F bomb. Batista and Snitsky argue as well which gets us a second. Flair gets thrown out for messing with Jericho.

That gets people going as I guess they were just bored at the beginning when nothing was really going to happen, so I guess that makes sense. Since he’s awesome, Batista takes both Orton and Jericho down at the same time. He hits a heck of a spinebuster on Jericho but gets caught with an awful belt shot from Orton and a running enziguri which Jericho was using as a second finisher until he realized it sucked to make it 3-2 or really 3-3 gives how you look at it.

Snitsky uses the best offensive move that he has by choking Jericho. Orton has a really weird style of punching. He’s changed it since but it just looks really weird. After the faces get their collective faces kicked in, their knight with shining eyebrows comes out in the form of Maven.

Now let me get this straight. I understand that Maven was attacked. I understand that Maven was injured and might not be healthy enough to compete. I understand that he might be acting against doctor’s orders. I even can kind of understand how he should be in the main event as he’s a young guy fighting against the establishment. But why in the world after two hours has he not washed the blood off his face?

He looks completely lost out there too. I mean you can tell that he just isn’t ready for this, which isn’t his fault. Granted he never really got much better, but he just wasn’t ready for this yet. He plays to the crowd decently enough but that’s about all he does right. He’s trying as hard as he OH MY GOODNESS what a chair shot! Snitsky just cracked the living tar out of Maven with a SICK chair shot. He’s gone of course but he hits Jericho and Orton with it first.

HHH covers the unconscious Maven to make it Orton and Jericho against HHH and Edge. Maven really was kind of a sacrificial lamb because he was never in there for the most part and was able to cancel out Snitsky. In other words Snitsky was worth as much as a guy that wasn’t in the match for the most part. These jokes write themselves most of the time but never like that. If you can’t tell who the final two are going to be, you’re a freaking idiot.

Edge starts freaking out because he can’t pin Jericho. Why does that sound like the story of his life? Never mind he gets him after a spear to make it Orton against two tall guys, which isn’t a great way to describe them because they’re all about 6’4. We get a pretty boring back and forth segment with Edge vs. Orton a longer version with HHH playing the part of the egotistical jerk in a joke that I don’t even need to make.

They go for the double team and shockingly enough the spear misses and HHH is down. You know what, that was so predictable that it wasn’t even funny to me. It’s such a cliché anymore than it’s absurd. Edge turns around and takes an RKO to get us down to one on one. Orton needs to start doing it like that again. He does it in a more fluid motion at the moment and I’m not a fan of it at all.

This is more Orton is just right there waiting and partially on his way down already when Edge turns around. The impact is a lot better and the move looks better this way. Also he does it with one arm which I like more as well.

Anyway after about two minutes he counters the Pedigree into the RKO for the clean pin, which moves the storyline along because Orton has shown he can beat HHH but isn’t allowed to challenge him, thus strengthening his heel character. Only HHH could come up with a way to get stronger by losing clean.

Rating: B-. This was….ok. That’s the only think I can think of to describe it and it has to have the ellipse which is a two dollar word currently on sale for 89 cents and it means the three dots. The wrestling is pretty good but Maven and Snitsky in the main event? Really? Also Edge was about at the level of John Morrison at the moment (the day before Hell in a Cell in case he’s done something really big in the last month and a half) so he wasn’t exactly a lock to be in here.

Jericho just looked out of place and they had already stopped Benoit’s push as he goes from world champion to first guy out. The match is ok, but it’s really nothing great. Orton won though which was the absolute right ending.

Overall Rating: C-. If I had one word to describe this show, it would be lackluster. I mean look at it. What on the card would make you want to watch this show for free, let alone for 40 dollars? This would have been ok for something like Judgment Day maybe, but not Survivor Series. This is just nothing special at all, plain and simple.

Shelton and Christian or the main event gets match of the night more or less by default which is never a good sign at all. This is definitely not recommended as it just isn’t an interesting show. The wrestling is passable, but there’s just nothing here to make me want to see this at all, which has given me a thread idea so there we go.

 

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Survivor Series 1994
Date: November 23, 1994
Location: Freeman Coliseum, San Antonio, Texas
Attendance: 10,000
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Gorilla Monsoon

Given that commentary team, I’m a bit worried. Your main match here is Taker vs. Yoko in a rematch of the Rumble’s casket match where something like 10 guys beat up Taker and caused him to be taken out of the company for about three or four months. Tonight the guest referee is Chuck Norris. Nope I’m not making that up and I guarantee there will be a ton of jokes about it.

Other than that we have Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund for the WWF Title which is an I Quit match where someone has to throw in the towel for you, which is how Backlund lost the title back in the early 80s. Other than that we have three Survivor Series matches which don’t look very appealing.

I think they finally got the balance right here with two singles matches that were huge and the rest were traditional matches. It looks ok on paper and since this is my second time reviewing it, I know it’s at least pretty good. Let’s see if it’s as good as it was four days ago.

We open with clips of all the teams getting pep talks from their leaders. Shawn is very cocky, which would come into play later on. Lawler is the only captain that doesn’t want a camera on these meetings. Since we’re in Texas, everyone is wearing a cowboy hat. Oh how I love these theme PPVs.

The announcers run down the card with Gorilla not being able to get a word in. Yep it’s going to be one of those kinds of nights. As Fink introduces the first team, he’s really hard to understand. If I didn’t know what to listen for I’d be completely lost here.

Teamsters vs. Bad Guys

Teamsters: Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart, Jeff Jarrett
Bad Guys: Razor Ramon, 1-2-3 Kid, British Bulldog, Fatu, Sionne

Sionne is the Barbarian replacing Samu. Your feuds line up like this: Razor vs. Diesel, since Razor took the IC belt from him about a month or so prior to this. That’s about it really. Oh Bulldog is there because of Owen and Neidhart. Other than that, yeah there’s no feuds or drama going on at all that I can remember. On the way to the ring, Shawn dives in front of Diesel to be in the spotlight. They’re tag champions at the time. Oh that’s right.

They took the belts from the Headshrinkers so that’s at least most of the team. Vince says that Survivor Series only comes once a year. Well yeah so does every other day of the year but we don’t have a freaking PPV for it. Although I have a feeling that if Vince could get away with it he’d try to. Gorilla trying to sound like a cowboy is rather amusing. Vince and Gorilla argue over who the captain is. Shawn is really turning into the heel that he would become famous as.

Gorilla is once again glad he retired. Did this guy hate his career or something? In a running story of this match, Fatu is having trouble with his new boots. He was barefoot for years and apparently wearing boots is a plot point to a match now. Yep that makes great sense. They mention that they can’t find Jarrett’s new CD anywhere as Gorilla continues his love affair with kayfabe.

You know, Barbarian really wasn’t that bad of a worker. He had more or less the same gimmick with a few minor tweaks for his entire career and he always managed to find work. Sure he’s generic but he stuck with his stuff and he got steady work out of it. That’s really all you can ask for isn’t it? We get Owen vs. Bulldog which is of course great. Owen is now the Rocket King. Yeah that’s not a weird name at all.

If there has ever been a match of two guys that could have been world champion but never could pull it off, this is it. Bulldog does that delayed suplex on Anvil which is rather impressive. The faces have momentum so naturally, they stop things dead for another foot issue with Fatu. Jarrett and Razor go at it for awhile, which was a very good feud actually.

Shawn’s hair is ridiculously short here. He almost looks like Rick Rude if that tells you anything. Jarrett really was good in the ring. For some reason people never took to him as a superstar. I think it was the singing thing. It’s sad to hear Gorilla not be able to get more than a few lines in at a time. Vince insists that he is the best commentator of all time and he’s going to make sure you know it too.

The heels do a lot of harmless standard stuff on the Kid that isn’t really interesting at all. Diesel finally comes in and within two and a half minutes he’s eliminated everyone but Razor. It’s three jackknives and a shot that leads to a count out. That makes it 5-1 with Razor being the only guy left. As you can tell Diesel is an absolute freak at this point in time. Shawn yells at Diesel to stay in the match.

Razor is beating Diesel who to be fair is worn out at this point since he can’t buy a tag. Diesel hits the jackknife and Razor is dead. Shawn gets in for the first time and he wants Razor held up for the kick. You know what’s coming here and yep, Shawn kicks Diesel. Now the cool part: Diesel doesn’t go down. He goes to one knee, but the kick doesn’t knock him completely down. Diesel is TICKED. He goes after Shawn who runs.

The rest of his team tries to calm him down with Owen and Jarrett screaming that they need to get back before they lose. Shawn gets counted out and apparently that’s enough to eliminate all five guys and yes, Razor wins like that. Ok, let’s see why this is stupid. Number one, only Shawn was legal. If he’s the only one legal, then another ten count should have started up. Now if no one else got in before that, then sure it’s a count out.

Also, if Jarrett and Hart were so worried, why didn’t one of them run back? That would at least have made sense. This was just an odd ending. No scratch that. It was a freaking stupid ending. What was the plan here? Was this supposed to be intelligent?

To be fair though, this really did look cool and was a good face turn as this was I think the third time that this had happened. The people were getting behind Diesel at the time and they pulled the trigger on him at the perfect time. Even the fans don’t sound thrilled about Razor, the biggest face in the match, winning like this though. That’s just never a good sign.

Rating: C-. It was ok at best before Diesel got in there but then he stole the show. This was a rollercoaster of a match with no eliminations for 13 minutes then four in less than three then five at once. That’s a bit too much over the top stuff for my taste. The in ring work was solid, but this was just for Shawn and Diesel and the face turn, so that’s all fine and good I guess. It wasn’t bad, but this could have been better. I’m just not sure how.

Todd is in the back with Pettingill as he’s leaving the arena. He says that he made Diesel and that he got stabbed in the back. He throws down the belt thereby vacating them and drives off as Vince tells Todd that Diesel is on the way. Ok wait. First of all, why is Vince telling Todd this? Couldn’t it just have gone to Todd?

I know Vince likes to be involved in everything but this is ridiculous. Second, Shawn had time to get his bag, stop to talk to Todd, walk with Todd, get in his car, talk to Todd more, and Diesel was just on his way? Did he stop to have a taco or something?

Royal Family vs. Clowns R Us

Royal Family: Jerry Lawler, Cheesy, Queasy, Sleazy
Clowns R Us: Doink, Dink, Wink, Pink

Yes this is a midget match. They have three guys that look like them and yeah, that’s about it. Lawler is borderline abusive to his guys though. Since this match completely sucks, here’s the short version: Doink and Lawler do maybe a single move and then the small guys run in for a comedy spot. It’s high class stuff like running over and making faces at the other team and then running back to their corner. Yep it’s one of those kinds of matches.

The commentators imply that the kings are kids, despite them having FACIAL HAIR. To prove the stupidity of this match, the announcers point out that when one of the big guys is pinned, the guy that pins him is in essence eliminated too since it can only be big vs. big and little vs. little. This comedy stuff goes on for about ten minutes. That’s just freaking stupid. The holds and moves they do are things like armbars and wristlocks too.

While they’re on the mat, the guys run back and forth and all six run over Lawler. I wish I had a gun so I could shoot either myself or the screen. And now the six all run over Doink. All this is done to make faces at each other. Yes I hate this match quite a bit. Why do we always have to have these comedy matches? There’s never a point to them and only Vince likes them. I hate this so much. Oh look, it’s a Burger King crown. This is just so funny. How did Lawler get here? He had a career.

Dink wants to fight Lawler, so he gets on Doink’s shoulders. Lawler counters by getting on one of the small king’s shoulders. I’ll give you two guesses as to how this goes. It’s been only the two big guys the whole match. We get a random Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ad as apparently the WWF has a part of a float. I don’t care either. As we get a test of strength, it’s a double criss cross by the midgets. Take me now.

One of them gives Lawler an object and he nails Doink. You would think that would be the pin but nope, it’s time for more comedy. I feel like I’m at a bad circus. Instead Doink goes on offense and it takes a reversed cross body to eliminate him. Over the next five minutes it’s the clowns getting beaten after cheating from Lawler. Of this whole thing, only Dink is actually entertaining.

His offense makes sense, he’s energetic, he plays to the crowd and he’s not boring. That’s such a nice change of pace. Of course Lawler’s team gets the clean sweep. Afterwards he takes credit for the whole thing and all six guys come after him which is just rather stupid. To end this awfulness, Doink comes back and pies Lawler. Yep, that’s how it ends.

Rating: G. That’s below an F. That sums it up I’d think. Dink gets a passing grade. He was actually really fun and entertaining. That might be because it was actual wrestling, but I could be wrong.

We hear about the Women’s Title change three days ago in Japan where Alundra Blayze lost to Bull Nakano. I haven’t seen it but from what I’ve heard it was a great one. Wouldn’t it be great to either see the match or a rematch or something instead of what we just sat through? Nope apparently that wasn’t good enough though, so instead we have Lawler getting pied by a clown. Nakano is here, so why can’t we have the match? I hate Vince at times.

WWF Title: Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund

The deal here is that Backlund says that since he never gave up in 83, he never should have lost the title and therefore has had a 13 year title reign (he had the belt for two years when he lost it). He also says there’s no counter for the Cross Face Chicken Wing while Hart says that everything has a counter. Owen and Bulldog are the respective seconds and one of them have to throw in the towel to get the win.

Both have sworn they won’t do it. By those rules, regular submissions don’t count so you can give up all you want and it won’t count. That….is kind of stupid. They start out rather hot and fast which would be the peak of that aspect of the match. Bret uses a heabutt a lot. Has he ever gotten hurt using one of those? Not that I remember at least. We’re already on the mat as they actually compare the resumes of these two, and I think Backlund is slightly in the lead.

Six years as world champion is very hard to ignore. They mention a poll that was taken and 79% say that the Chicken Wing is the better hold? Gorilla, much like myself, refuses to believe that. They’re doing a very slow start here as Stu and Helen are watching from ringside. This is a bit odd as Bret will do…HOLY CRAP! Bret put on the abdominal stretch and Monsoon DIDN’T COMPLAIN!

That has never happened before and will likely never happen again. Dang I need a stiff drink after that. Orange juice will do fine. Anyway, as I was saying before I had my heart attack, Bret is doing a bunch of submission stuff and then Backlund will go for the chicken wing. That’s a bit of a cool idea I think with Bret being the master of all submissions and Bob being the guy with one big home run hitting move that he knows will win him the title if he can get it.

The impressive thing here though is that Bob is not only hanging with Bret here but at times flat out beating him. That’s saying a lot for someone that wasn’t a regular wrestler for years on end. Vince says that Bret doesn’t know how to submit. How amusing is it that he says this about Bret at the Survivor Series? Apparently Vince is right here though since Bret never did give up.

It never ceases to amaze me how much a few years can change things and how ironic so many of these lines would eventually become and now are in hindsight. Now for a nice change of pace, Backlund does a lot of mat work on Bret. He works over his arm, which makes sense for a change. Bret hits the post shoulder first in one of the most time honored bumps ever. That’s been used for years and it still works to this day.

Bret keeps trying to make his comebacks but Bob keeps taking him down, seemingly with ease. That’s the mark of a great wrestler: he can do his stuff and make it look easy. Now we get to what is likely the stupidest part of the match as Bret makes his traditional comeback and puts on his other submission hold: the figure four. Now this is fine, but Backlund gives up. However, the match doesn’t end because Owen refuses to throw in the towel.

So in other words, Bret has won the submission match, but he didn’t do it properly? Yeah that just sounds stupid. IN other words, you could just get some jerk to be the towel guy and then break your opponent’s leg or something, but since the towel isn’t thrown in it means nothing? Yeah that makes great sense.

I have to give the fans this: for a match that’s about 90% mat work, they’re staying interested. Hopefully this Sunday at Breaking Point (this is Thursday, three days before that), that’s what happens too. Backlund manages to reverse it for all of a minute. Bret gets ready for the Sharpshooter but Bob is back in it. Oh never mind no he’s not. Gorilla is finally able to talk a bit as Backlund actually wins a fist fight here. He’s quite underrated.

He follows it with a piledriver as I’m impressed by this guy. Bob works on the arm even more and the selling from Bret is great as he looks like he’s in agony. The fans are actually still in this too, which makes me feel better than they could actually get into very old school style like this. This is practically out of the 50s or 60s. Anyway, after another three minutes or so of getting beaten on, Bret makes probably his third comeback and gets the Sharpshooter, but Owen runs in for the save.

Bulldog chases him and we get the bit spot of the match as he freaking LUNGES at Owen but Rocket moves out of the way and Bulldog smacks the steps hard. He’s out cold, and Owen doesn’t know what to do now. As Bret looks down at this, he gets locked in the Chicken Wing. Now what follows is something you’ll hardly ever see again; Bret is in the hold for over nine minutes straight. Yes that’s correct, nine minutes. How many Raw main events don’t even get that long?

Now imagine Hart being in the same hold that long. The thing is, the fans are going to be rather bored when you think about it. Actually maybe not. Two things are going to happen here. First of all, people are going to start thinking that there’s no way that Bret is going to lose. Second, with every passing second that goes by, the people start thinking that any second now it’s going to happen, and that build up even more tension.

That is actually something close to brilliant when you think about it. After the first four minutes or so, Owen begins pleading with his family to save Bret and saying that he didn’t mean for this to happen. Ok wait a minute. If Owen is trying to get his parents to throw in the towel, doesn’t that mean that it doesn’t have to be the predetermined towel thrower?

Ok that’s all fine. However, if that’s the case, why can’t Owen just throw it in himself? Wouldn’t that make a lot more sense? Maybe because he’s the other thrower he can’t do that? That actually makes sense because if that was allowed then it would be like a Vince Russo match with one person having to throw in the other towel first to lose. But wait, if anyone can do it, why not just have a big gang come out and take the towel from Davey and throw it in?

See why I’m not a fan of this era’s booking? It has holes in it that you could drive a truck through. Anyway, Stu keeps saying no way while Helen is on the verge of screaming. Owen begs and begs, eventually getting down on his knees. As a credit to Bret, even though he’s been in this thing nearly ten minutes, the whole time he’s been trying to roll around and move a bit so that it’s not just him laying there.

That’s the mark of a great worker: the main story is on the floor because as evidenced earlier, the wrestlers can give up all they want but the towel has to be thrown in to end the match. Bret could literally lay there forever and it would have fit the rules of the match perfectly.

However, he realized that it was better to at least look like he was trying, which makes the match more believable, despite the focus not being on him at all. That’s a very nice little touch and another reason why Bret is better than you, along with getting to screw 20 year old Sunny. That makes him divine.

While this is all happening, including the pleading from Owen, Bulldog is still out like a light. He hasn’t moved in like 10 minutes and no one has come to help him. You can see him laying there out cold behind Stu while Owen is freaking out. Only in the WWF could an employee lay on the floor for that long and have no help given to him at all. Also, I think Stu has lost some age in the past year.

He looks MUCH better than he did the year before. Last year he looked like he was about 90. Now he could pass for 60 or so. That’s rather impressive. Dang he’s 79 years old at this point. I’m impressed indeed. Anyway, Helen can’t take anymore and snatches the towel away from Stu to throw it in and give Backlund the title as the fans are a combination of stunned and MAD, but more of the former.

Bob freaking Backlund just won the world title. However, the more important thing is that as soon as they throw the towel in, Owen jumps to his feet cheering before sprinting to the back pumping his fist, revealing it was the greatest acting job since a diva had to act like Vince was hot. Bret deserves an award here for the selling. It’s amazingly great. We now get the awesomeness that is the celebration of Backlund’s victory.

He is euphoric over winning here, holding his hands up in the air and with the belt around his waist. It’s so simple but his facial expressions shove this to such a high level of awesomeness that it’s insane. Since it goes with it, I’ll include Owen’s interview as part of this. As we cut to the back, the look on the face of Owen is amazing as well.

See what happens when you give the best workers the best storylines? You get great material. Anyway, Owen admits that it was all a setup and that this is the greatest day of his life, since he’s going to get all of the titles and that he’ll never quit. His face here is mind blowingly awesome. That whole thing was epic.

Rating: A. The only thing keeping this from an A+ is some of the holes in the booking, but this was magnificent. However, I could very easily see how some people wouldn’t be into this. It’s very hit or miss and while I and most of the other old school fans would love this, a lot of people wouldn’t get why it’s great and for once, I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s not something that everyone can get into and that’s fine.

It’s a very different style than any of us are used to since it’s such an old school style. It’s the epitome of hit or miss with people likely either loving it completely or wanting a hatchet to cut out their eyes so they will be less bored. However, the stuff at the end is almost impossible to love. The emotions and acting here are top notch and the whole 45 minute plus (yes it’s that long) segment is just amazing to me, but like I said, if you disagree here, I understand for a change.

Now since I doubt most of you remember Backlund’s reign, I thought you might like to see how it ends. This is four days after Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden.

Backlund then crawled up the aisle to leave. He made Nash look like a god and it worked beautifully. However, later on he complained about how Nash took the celebration too far and didn’t show him enough respect. Dude, you’re 45 years old and more or less a novelty act who got beat in 8 seconds so that they could save Nash vs. Hart. Get over your hall of fame self.

Vince and Gorilla can’t believe it. Vince booked it, why couldn’t he believe it?

Guts N Glory vs. Million Dollar Team

Guts N Glory: Lex Luger, Mabel, Adam Bomb, Smoking Guns
Million Dollar Team: King Kong Bundy, Tatanka, Bam Bam Bigelow, Heavenly Bodies

Bundy isn’t really the captain. He’s just listed first here. I don’t think there actually was one here. This was the tail end of the awesome Tatanka vs. Luger feud, which kick started at Summerslam. The idea was simple: Tatanka and just about everyone else on the planet thought Luger had sold out to DiBiase, but there was no concrete proof. Basically DiBiase kept helping Luger, but there was never anything for sure.

Tatanka kept saying Luger did it, but Luger denied it. This led to a match at Summerslam, where in reality Tatanka was the one that had sold out all along. It was a lot better than it sounds here and that’s your main basis for this match. It’s really more DiBiase vs. Luger, but Luger had to get his army of lower midcard faces to help him out so here we are. Have I ever mentioned that I absolutely hate Men on a Mission? I absolutely loathe them.

Mo isn’t here for this, but we still get Mabel and Oscar, making M.O. out of them, so in a weird way we have all three of them. Yeah that was stupid. Luger and Tatanka start here as Vince recaps everything I just said. I beat Vince to it. Take that you old man. While Luger is getting chopped, Mable raises the roof on the apron, showing the cutting edge intellectual capacity he brings to this team. They somehow botch a clothesline where Luger hits him in the back of the head.

Pritchard comes in but before Luger kills him we get Mabel vs. Bundy. Please take me now. Wait apparently no we don’t. Ok so wait, Mabel came in and challenged Bundy, then stepped out just to come back in. Yeah I hate this match already. The crowd chants Whoop there it is. Bundy is out in less than ten seconds and Pritchard comes back in. Since he’s tiny and Mable has his own gravitational pull, this is going to be quick.

He goes to the second rope and hits a freaking CROSS BODY BLOCK onto Pritchard to kill him completely. Vince botches the call by saying that the Gigolo calls himself Del Ray. Is anyone else getting a migraine? I know I am. Somehow for the third time in four minutes we have Bundy vs. Mable.

Yep I’ll have that image in my head for the rest of the show, and somehow it’s less stupid than this. Amazingly, this showdown is awful. Let’s go to Bigelow. He has that pesky thing called talent though so he just doesn’t fit in here at all. He goes for an enziguri which misses but Mabel tries a spin kick. I would say hits, but he literally misses by at least 10 inches. I mean this was awful. The fans loudly groaned at the sight of it.

I have to finish it. I have to finish it. I have to finish it. This HAS to improve. I don’t think it can actually get worse. They both go to the floor so they can lay there for awhile since it’s past their nap times. They have to stop for one an hour after they eat. They take a lot of naps.

Mabel gets counted out as Bigelow beats the count. Somehow that fat tub of goo would be the King of the Ring and top heel within 8 months. Vince must have been on the REALLY GOOD crack at this time. Or maybe he didn’t have any in him at all and that’s what caused all this. So now we have Del Ray vs. Billy Gunn. Somehow, this is better. Read who’s in there, and think about that for a minute.

Now we shift to Bomb vs. Bigelow and Adam hits that SWEET slingshot clothesline of his. Dang I love that move. He dominates just like he would do against Mabel at In Your House but after one shot from Bundy, Bigelow puts him down and moonsaults him out of it. I’ve always hated when a guy gets hit with one shot and since it’s from behind, it’s a knockout shot. What’s the deal with that? Del Ray hits two sweet superkicks that do nothing at all.

However, after a standard illegal elbow, he’s gone to Luger. Good to see that some things never chance. The Guns beat on Tatanka for the better part of ever and it’s just barely interesting. They were just such a worthless team. You can tell they’re real cowboys though. They’re wearing khakis. Yep the Beautiful People match is certainly more interesting, especially with those shots of Velvet’s figure. Dang.

Anyway, Bart goes for a crucifix and gets caught in the End of the Trail, which is apparently the name of Tatanka’s finishing move. Forget that it’s the Papoose To Go. We’re 4-2 now with the excellent team of Billy Gunn and Lex Luger against the four heels. Oh this isn’t going to be pleasant. I really can’t stand Vince saying YES NO! Is he really that impatience? A splash ends Billy, making it AMERICA vs. four. Oh boy I can barely contain my excitement.

As I look at my clock, we’ve been at this beatdown for six minutes now. Oh joy indeed. Why do I need to see Luger get beaten up that long? Wait, that might mean an injury which means him off TV. BLAST HIM WITH EVERY FREAKING THING YOU’VE GOT PEOPLE! Our ot nowhere Luger rolls him up for the pin and then literally lays there on the ground while Bundy gets ready for the splash.

It was without a doubt the worst looking thing I’ve ever seen in a match like this. That’s the end and the heels celebrate before beating on Luger forever. The faces finally run out for the save. I guess they wanted to see the annoying one get beaten on too. This segment just went on forever.

Rating: C-. I know I blasted this match a lot, but for some reason by the end it wasn’t horrible. I think it was the faces losing clean that fixed a lot of this. That’s what the match should have been: the heels getting a clean win which is something that hardly ever happens. It’s a match where the pieces don’t add up to what you get at the end, which is a good thing.

Backlund has a press conference to talk about how he’ll be a role model. Yep for all of three days.

Undertaker vs. Yokozuna

Before this, we have the debut of the deity himself, Chuck Norris. He’s the guest referee tonight, which shouldn’t be a problem for him. He can certainly count to ten. He counted to infinity twice, so ten is easy. He’s there to keep people from coming out to beat up Taker. That’s a good idea, since he’s so strong that he never does push-ups. He simply pushes the world down. After two of the slowest intros ever, it’s time to go.

Before the match even begins, we can already see the problem here: no one believes Yoko has a chance, and he doesn’t. Yoko can’t really do anything to Taker so Taker starts beating on him. The managers interfere to turn the momentum over. Yeah that doesn’t work. Momentum implies movement, and I don’t think they’ve actually moved in this match. They’re just so freaking slow. Now with Taker it makes sense, but with Yoko it’s just due to fatness.

He took some time off after this match and came back even bigger. That can’t be good. Anyway, Norris is mostly just window dressing for the majority of this match. He’s shown a few times standing there. Dang I ran out of jokes for a minute. I’ll make up for it later. Eventually Bigelow and Bundy come out and yell at him, leading to IRS running in and nailing Taker then putting him in a sleeper.

Taker would feud with DiBiase’s team until I think the following Summerslam, so yeah that went on way too long. The fat guys don’t do anything to Norris, and I can’t blame them. After all when the Boogeyman goes to bed at night he checks the closet for Chuck Norris. I’d be afraid too. So yeah, the rest is rather predictable, as has been the first part of the match. Yoko keeps trying but at the last second Taker rises up. The lack of drama is freaking killing this match.

It’s clear that no one believes Yoko has a chance. It’s fine to want to send the fans home happy, but at least try to build some drama. At least make Yoko look like he has a snowball’s chance out there. For no good reason, Jarrett comes out and Norris kicks him in the chest. Well that was rather pointless.

Yoko gets kicked into the casket to end it. I know that’s really lackluster, but seriously there was just nothing else to say about it. It was just as you would expect it to be: not that interesting, slow, and completely lacking in drama. This was pretty bad.

Rating: D+. Yeah this was bad. As I’ve said a million times, the best thing a match can do is have you guessing who is going to win. There was absolutely zero doubt here who the winner would be. It’s a great sign when you know who the winner is going in and they get you caught up in it anyway.

For a great example, see Taker vs. Shawn. We knew Taker would win, but it got us going anyway. As for this, Norris was the big celebrity of the show and he did what he was supposed to do: beat up a midcard guy. It was ok for a pointless main event, but this wasn’t interesting at all.

Overall Rating: C-. This is about as back and forth of a show as you’re ever going to find. The first match is ok, the second is beyond awful, the third is great, the fourth is ok, and the last is awful. Also, a LOT of people will disagree on the title match, and like I said before I’m fine with that. It’s a tricky one to call and it really depends on your taste as a fan. I loved it, and for me it almost carries this show. Overall, the show is certainly watchable, but it’s forgettable.

The title change that mattered was the following weekend so this one meant little. Other than that, it’s a very forgettable show. Taker won the feud as he always did, there was an awful match, Luger managed to blow another one, and there was an ok opener. Seriously, nothing here stands out. It’s ok if you’re really bored and just want to kill about 3 hours, but don’t go out of your way.

 

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Survivor Series 2003
Date: November 16, 2003
Location: American Airlines Arena, Dallas, Texas
Attendance: 13,487
Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross, Michael Cole, Tazz

What a difference a year makes. Austin is back as the co-GM of Raw along with Bischoff which is one of your main matches. The winner of the Survivor Series match becomes the full GM of the show. The Raw main event is Goldberg who debuted the night after Mania 19 against HHH (I’m as shocked as you are), who had lost the world title to Goldberg at Unforgiven two months earlier.

The twist this time is that Goldberg has a shattered ankle thanks to the returning Batista. Over on Smackdown, we have Angle’s team against Brock’s team in the feud that wouldn’t die. Their world title match is nonexistent here, which is kind of a throwback to the original shows.

The other main match is Vince vs. the Undertaker in a Buried Alive match which we’ll cover in more detail when we get to it. Other than that, this looks like a run of the mill TV show instead of a PPV. A handful of matches can carry a show to being good, so let’s see if this one does just that.

The opening video is very generic with a voiceover asking if people have what it takes to survive. Oh come on I could have been more creative in high school.

Kurt Angle’s Team vs. Brock Lesnar’s Team

Kurt Angle, John Cena, Chris Benoit, Hardcore Holly, Bradshaw
Brock Lesnar, Big Show, Matt Morgan, Nathan Jones, A-Train

Again, no recap, and yes that’s the same Matt Morgan from TNA. This really is just a way to push Brock vs. Angle, Benoit and Cena. All three were trying to become number one contender to his WWE Title around this time and it led to some absolutely great matches. Cena grew up during this feud as he showed that he could work with the best of them in someone like Benoit and work well.

As for the other guys, I think Heyman or whoever the GM was brought them in to help Brock fight here. This might have been Jones’ last appearance and I’m pretty sure Morgan’s debut was on Smackdown when he was added to this tem. Holly is there because Lesnar broke his neck and Bradshaw…uh…well he would be world champion in about nine months so apparently they knew something was coming with him.

Cena is still a rapper who wears throwbacks here. He doesn’t know why he’s on first. I thought who was on first. As always Cena gets a reaction. You could see the star on its way out in him and in just a year and a half’s time he would be winning world titles. Bradshaw has his more familiar look now and apparently he’s the replacement for Farrooq who was injured by Big Show. No clue why Farrooq was supposed to be in there in the first place but whatever.

Holly in a major PPV match just looks weird. Angle gets a solid pop. Show is US Champion here and it looks like a freaking toy. Jones had been around for awhile hanging out with Undertaker but then left for the summer and came back even more horrible. Morgan is a complete stranger here, with the first things Cole says being “we don’t know a heck of a lot about Matt Morgan”. You have to love commentators being on top of things like that.

He still looks like a freak though, but given that he’s followed in by Brock Lesnar, he’s kind of overshadowed. Holly jumps him before the bell and beats on him for awhile before shoving a referee and being eliminated before the match starts. I’m glad for that because Holly is the name of my best friend’s sister so I always picture her (she’s 12) when I talk about Hardcore Holly and it’s just aggravating.

Somehow Holly (the wrestler, not the 7th grader) would get a world title shot at the Rumble and naturally would get destroyed. He was obsessed with breaking Lesnar’s very thick neck, so instead of using a weapon or something he kept trying to beat him with a full nelson. It was just idiotic and nothing but filler until Eddie got into the main event. Bradshaw eliminates A-Train in about thirty seconds as we see how stupid the Clothesline From JBL is as a finisher.

Once someone has been beaten down it’s ok, but with this A-Train missed a splash and Bradshaw hit a single clothesline for a pin. That just doesn’t roll for me. Since 30 seconds was too long, Show comes in and eliminates Bradshaw with a chokeslam in about 20 seconds. That’s stupid also, but far less so. Show finally has gone back to the singlet and shorts so he looks far less idiotic at this point than he did last year.

It’s 4-3 in case you were wondering. Cena is in there with Lesnar now and while he’s in over his head, he’s trying. Like I said you can see the star in him. We move on to the wet dream of the IWC that is Matt Morgan vs. John Cena. This might have been Morgan’s WWE debut unless he had a match on Smackdown that I don’t remember, but he’s light years ahead of Nathan Jones who had been on Wrestlemania already. Jones clearly can barely do anything at all.

Morgan is limited here, but he at least looks comfortable. Jones looks like he’s walking through every single step in his mind which is just not good for a major show like this. Ah good they covered that. Earlier on they mentioned that the heel team here is the heaviest of all time which I wasn’t sure of. They mention the first Survivor Series and the heel team in the main event. I had forgotten Rick Rude was on that team which brought the average weight down a lot.

Cena has been in there a long time now, which makes little sense as he has Angle and Benoit (rocking the black tights tonight) on the apron. As I say that, old black tights comes in and hammers on Lesnar. In an odd stat that Tazz points out, three members of Team Angle have had broken necks and now you can add Cena to that list I think. I don’t remember if it was broken or not but he was out with a neck injury. Show’s power is just scary.

It’s a weird thing to see Matt Morgan be the weakest guy on his team but I think he is here. I will never get tired of watching Benoit and all those ways he has of getting the Crossface on people. It’s ridiculous how many ways he can get that on people. Angle finally gets the tag and cleans house, beating down all four heels. He ducks a boot from Jones that hits Morgan, leading to the Angle Slam to tie it at three.

Now that’s the Kurt Angle that gets the insane praise around here. Jones taps out maybe twenty seconds later. Angle stands up from the ankle lock and turns around to get F5ed and pinned. We lost three people in thirty two seconds after losing three in 48 seconds earlier. Thanks for that epic storytelling there Vince. Now we get to the good stuff as it’s Benoit vs. Lesnar. It’s 2-2 here by the way, with Benoit and Cena against Show and Lesnar.

Now this is very interesting as Benoit and Brock are in there together for about two minutes and Lesnar gets his head handed to him. Benoit gets the Crossface on him three times and Brock gets out on his own once (the other time Benoit put it on when Lesnar was in the ropes). On the third one Brock taps, which was huge as Benoit gets a clean win over him. Cena gets the tag and gets kicked square in the hands.

Following this he does something that’s either very smart or very stupid: he doesn’t sell the kick. Now you can look at this one of two ways. The kick clearly missed by at least eight inches and he got his hands up. Now if you’re Cena here you have a very big problem here: do you look stupid and sell, or do you acknowledge that it didn’t connect and keep going? I could certainly see both sides but Cena just gets the chain from the corner and pops Show, leading to the FU and the pin.

Rating: B-. Well that was shall we say different. The two big bursts of eliminations seemed stupid to me but that’s whatever I suppose. The big things that were supposed to be done were done as Cena pins Show to further their feud and Benoit gets a clean win over Lesnar. That worked fine with the rest of the people there just being window dressing for the most part.

This really should have been Benoit’s team other than Angle’s but that’s fine as Angle was the bigger star at this time. The good parts were good and the bad parts were bad here, and that’s the best I can say it. Benoit would get his title shot on Smackdown but would lose. Eventually he would win the Rumble and go to Raw and beat HHH for the belt at Mania.

Vince comes to see Shane about his match with Kane tonight. He says that we have a father and son against two brothers which is kind of a cool thing when you think about it. He asks Shane how he feels. Shane says the only thing he feels is sorry for Vince tonight. I love how they can coexist despite that whole Shane trying to put Vince out of business two years ago ordeal but whatever. Vince leaves and runs into Austin and they stare at each other.

Austin starts laughing as does Vince. Austin laughs harder and harder before stopping dead and walking past Vince. That’s one of those really weird moments that works despite making absolutely zero sense in context. It’s just odd seeing them together given their history, but those two played such a major role in the company’s survival that it just wouldn’t work if they didn’t interact somehow.

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Women’s Title: Lita vs. Molly Holly

There’s a great sign in the crowd: Take Me To Your Lita. This is Lita’s comeback after being out about a year and a half with a broken neck. Was there something in the water in catering that caused broken necks or something? More or less this is her complimentary title shot, which makes me wonder how weak the division is when a woman returning from a year and a half off is considered the top challenger. That can’t be a good sign.

She’s rocking the shorts if nothing else so that’s a perk. Molly is as generic as you can possibly imagine here. The story leading into this match was that Molly was jealous of all the attention that Lita was getting, which makes sense at least. Molly actually has a great looking chest that often get overlooked. I know it’s not the best thing to focus on their looks here, but seriously, there’s no story here and if you really believe that the wrestling is what’s supposed to be on display here, you’re sadly mistaken.

We get a Great Muta reference and Lawler doesn’t know who that is. That’s just amusing. The wrestling being relatively boring here isn’t helping things either. It’s ok, but that’s all it is: ok. Molly hits her top rope flip move, which of course makes her awesome but Lita gets up. Molly rams her into an exposed buckle to end it. Yep, that’s it.

Rating: D+. Egads this just wasn’t very interesting or even good. It suffers from the main issue that women’s matches tend to have which is that there’s just no real reason at all to care about it. The match is ok but there’s nothing at all to set it apart from any of the other various combinations of Divas that could have been come up with given the current batch of talent in the company.

We recap Shane vs. Kane. Kane recently had his mask taken off, leading to him going nuts (no really Kane went nuts) and actually tombstoning Linda on the stage. Shane started going after Kane but nothing would work. During this feud there was the testicle electrocution bit which I think was the one that killed any chance this feud had of working. There was a laundry list of problems with this feud though, so the testicle thing wouldn’t have saved it.

The biggest of all was simple though. No one actually cared because we didn’t know what Kane was talking about. He kept going on and on about pain etc, so just like now no one understands what the feud is about. Also, these guys feuded forever and I don’t think Shane had won a single time coming up to this.

There are other things but I’ll cut it off here. The last big thing was that a lot of the roster apparently didn’t like this because Shane is just coming in and taking a major spot away from others that are full time workers. Why should Shane, a guy that’s only an occasional wrestler be taking up a match with a guy that’s very high up on the card?

Shane McMahon vs. Kane

This is an ambulance match which is what you would think it is: get the other guy in the ambulance to win. JR says that Kane is crazier than an inbred hound dog. Does anyone ever wonder what his childhood was like? It certainly must have been quite the strange life. Before the bell rings Shane goes after Kane and knocks him over the ropes. The camera guy gets knocked too and the last thing we see is Kane upside down with his head about to slam into the concrete. It looked kind of scary.

JR calls this match barbaric. Odd, as I didn’t know that in barbaric societies they had baseball jerseys, audio commentary, wrestling rings, theme music, ambulances or pants. We immediately hit the weapons because Shane is rather limited to things that he can do with weapons, which makes sense because again, HE ISN’T A WRESTLER. Granted he’s a heck of an athlete though and I don’t think anyone would question that.

About a minute and a half in and Shane puts him through the table with the big elbow. That’s his signature move I’d think and he does it very, very well. Somehow though it’s lost a bit of its luster. McMahon gets Kane to chase him into the crowd as he’s clearly leading him on. I hate cock teases like that. Why lead someone into a bunch of other people? I have no idea what the point of that joke was so ignore it. It stopped being funny about two seconds after it.

They head into the back and Shane gets some shots in with a kendo stick which is his weapon of choice. Shane does something with a car but I’m not sure what it was. I think he put Kane in a security booth and rammed it but it’s hard to say. Well if nothing else it’s a cool idea. Oh yeah that was another problem: Shane kept coming up with more and more elaborate ways to try to hurt Kane, typically involving attempted vehicular homicide. Oh look Shane has his own ambulance.

They knock out another camera so the fans boo loudly since we can’t see anything. Ah there we are. Back in the arena they’re fighting near the ambulance because that’s the point of the match. I love matches like this that are chock full of psychology. In essence this is a casket match on wheels. In a cool spot, Kane is running Shane at the ambulance but Shane walks up the ambulance and spins off to the side before hooking a sick sounding DDT on the concrete. That was awesome.

Shane climbs up on top of the ambulance and launches the Coast To Coast dropkick at him. That was awesome. They fight inside the ambulance because that’s just so easy for the audience to see. Those big spots that I’ve mentioned are all that’s keeping this from being completely awful. The problem is that the ambulance is just a weird choice for a gimmick and in essence this is a hardcore match/street fight but with a different way to win.

It’s an ok fight, but it feels forced to me if that makes sense. Shane gets rammed into the ambulance about ten times before a tombstone on the concrete ends this. The tombstone was done really well done as Kane drops him as fast as he can and with the camera where it is you can’t tell if his head even comes close to hitting or not.

That’s the perfect way to do one of those and it worked really well at least for me. Of course we have to watch every single second of the ambulance leaving because the two minutes that it takes certainly can’t be used for anything else at all.

Rating: D+. There were some good bumps in there but this was really just a mess. No one wanted to see this and the gimmick was just ridiculous. They were in the ring literally zero seconds as they started fighting before the bell rang. And really, an ambulance? That’s the best they can come up with?

A last man standing match or something like that would have worked about 10x better here, but hey, we have flashy lights in this one! This was pretty bad with some cool bumps from Shane being the only bright spots.

Buy this Trish PPV and learn very little about her!

Lesnar says he didn’t lose tonight. We get the you tapped out chance and Brock blames his partners. How in the world did we never get Benoit vs. Lesnar but instead we got Lesnar Goldberg? Those two have a dumb moment of foreshadowing.

Coach comes out in a neck brace and I have a bad feeling about this. The Dudleys gave him the 3D to give him that, but he’ll be fine. My goodness this guy was annoying. He’s leaving but he sees Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks in the front row. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Cuban is almost Vince McMahon in a legit sport. He’s loud, he’s defiant and he’ll do whatever it takes to win.

That being said, he’s a great thing for the NBA because he is so into games. Instead of sitting in some box somewhere sipping scotch, he’s in the fourth row behind the cheerleaders wearing a Mavs jersey. I like that. Anyway, Bischoff comes out and challenges Cuban to a fight. They talk about how tonight this is Bischoff’s building which given the whole deal with the Nuggets earlier this summer, this is a lot funnier. Anyway, he shoves Bischoff but takes an RKO.

We go to the back where Evolution is having a big party with champagne and women. Orton comes in to announce what he did but stops midsentence to hit on a girl and then finishes what he said. Apparently beating up Mark Cuban is the same as beating Goldberg, at least according to Flair. This was odd indeed.

Smackdown Tag Titles: Bashams vs. Los Guerreros

The Bashams were about as generic of a tag team as you could ever find. The only reason I liked them was they had the same names (Doug and Danny) as my uncles that I used to wrestle with as a kid. They have Linda from Tough Enough as a dominatrix type manager which is dumber than it sounds. This led to Eddie vs. Chavo at the Rumble which was pretty good. Other than that, nothing came of this.

Chavo is ticked at Eddie over buying some lie the Bashams made so there’s your basic heel idea here. Eddie gets the Three Amigos for two. Chavo comes in and there are no visible problems for the Latin dudes. Back to Eddie with them completely dominating. Eddie takes them both out and so much for that as they take him out.

Wow I forgot to mention this but the Bashams are defending here. This is just not interesting at all here as it’s in fast pace and you can feel that even four minutes into this we’re over halfway done. Eddie saves Chavo and hits a top rope rana so Chavo can get two. After Eddie is sent to the floor both Chavo almost falls victim to twin magic but they beat up Shaniqua instead. And then Chavo gets rolled up with tights for the pin.

Rating: D. This was just another match of the month for these belts. After last year’s mind blowing few months of title feuds, the belts yet again mean nothing with the Bashams being the token champions at the time. These belts got zero respect and no one cared at all, which is rather sad in my eyes.

We recap Austin vs. Bischoff, which there isn’t much to say about it. If Austin’s team wins then he can beat up anyone whenever he wants. If Bischoff’s team wins, Austin is fired. Austin doesn’t trust anyone but he has to trust his team here which is the main point of the story. Eric had fired Austin again but Linda had brought him back as a Co-Gm which lasted for a few months and surprised no one at all. It was still cool though to have Austin back on a regular basis.

Austin’s Team vs. Bischoff’s Team

Ross nearly makes me roll my eyes by starting a line about how this is the biggest match Austin has, but then instead of saying ever had, he says Never been in. That was a nice little save there and makes things sound much better. It got dangerously close to being clever. I’d like to try something here.

Mark Henry, Randy Orton, Christian, Chris Jericho, Scott Steiner
Booker T, Bubba Ray, D-Von, Shawn Michaels, RVD

Other than HBK and Orton, would you be able to tell which team is face and which is heel? That kind of goes to show you what’s happened to faces and heels in this generation. They change so often that it’s hard to tell who is on which side. Anyway, in case you can’t tell the first team of those two is Bischoff’s. They both come out as groups, and this seems a bit one sided. RVD is the IC Champion and the Dudleys are the tag champions on Raw.

Booker and Shaw are former world champions in their own right, and they’re against Christian who was nothing back then, Steiner who had a cup of coffee in the main event and is now in the midcard, Henry who is in another monster push that would fail, Orton was a midcard guy on his way up and Jericho was just a fairly high level jerk. Actually this is fairly even upon second glance. The heels hide for awhile because they’re heels and that’s what they do.

Austin and Jericho talk trash to each other before we get going. I wish there had been a show or two where it was nothing but Jericho, Rock and Foley insulting each other. That would have had me riveted. We finally get going. Jericho and Christian are in the middle of the double date with Trish and Lita story which culminated in Jericho turning face.

Somehow the first date with Trish prompts JR and Lawler to discuss Fabio of all people and get into a bizarre discussion/insulting segment where they talk about how stupid modern terms are. This was just out of left field and meant nothing at all to the match. I think JR forgot where he was for a moment, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Someone get him a shot of barbecue sauce before he can’t holler at the top of his lungs incoherently anymore!

D-Von and Christian start us off. That’s just an odd pairing to open a match for some reason. Half of these guys have been in ECW. That’s rather impressive for a company that never did anything allegedly. We shift over to Van Dam and Jericho who had traded the IC Title recently with Jericho having one of the shortest reigns of all time, winning and losing it on the same Raw. Steiner comes in and we have some Michigan vs. Michigan violence.

There’s number one on the Steiner F Bomb count. Van Dam counters with the worst stepover kick that I’ve ever seen. It was just awful. Granted Scott Steiner is in there so it’s likely his fault. Steiner is completely dominating here as Bubba is screaming like a crazy man on the apron at Van Dam to get out of there. I mean he’s clearly audible several times in this thing and I keep thinking he’s on a mic somewhere. That’s impressive.

Booker comes in to shake things up a bit but Scott manages to suck the life out of the match again in under 20 seconds. That might be a personal record for him. Booker gets a Scissors Kick and the Spinerooni. That sounds like nothing but Bischoff’s reaction to it of holding his head is ridiculously funny as you can see him thinking to himself what in the heck was I on when I told him that was a cool looking move?

Ross calls a very non Arn Anderson style spinebuster an Arn Anderson spinebuster because there’s clearly only one way to ever do that move. After a big brawl, Steiner gets the Steiner Recliner on Booker. I have to pause for a moment here. I don’t usually do this, but that might be the funniest looking thing in the history of professional wrestling. Steiner is standing over Booker, not sitting down at all with Booker on his knees without his arms over Steiner’s legs.

I truly and honestly feel sorry for Ross, Lawler and Booker here as they have to actually try and make that move seem painful. This is a great example of why Steiner is considered awful in the ring. That was just flat out embarrassing.

Anyway, Stacy gets up to try to get people cheering for Booker. She’s under contract to Steiner but hates it so there’s your explanation. Also, does anyone else besides me hate the one shoulder tops that Divas often wear? I’m talking about the ones where it looks like what Andre used to wear. I don’t know why but I can’t stand those things. The Dudleys save her from Scott with the belly to back into a neckbreaker move they do.

Ross calls it a reverse 3D. That’s so far from correct I don’t even know where to start. The Book End gets rid of Scott. Mark Henry who had been feuding with Booker runs in and the world’s dumbest finisher ends Booker to tie us up at four. We get Bubba vs. Henry now and I can feel wrestling devolving right in front of my eyes. Teddy Long is Henry’s manager at this point. The Dudleys hit the 3D from out of nowhere on Henry and a 5 Star ends him.

Not sure if I get the point of the double finisher but whatever gets him out of there makes me happy. We’re back to Jericho and RVD again which is fine by me. I don’t think Shawn has been in yet. RVD goes for the 5 Star or Orton but after a Jericho shove he gets hooked in an RKO. This is kind of dragging. Bubba is yelling again. He’s quite annoying. D-Von is beating up Orton.

That was odd to type. Jericho beats on D-Von for awhile and hits one of his about 8,000 finishers to beat him, and in this case it was a sleeper drop. Bubba is in now and is yelling even more. What in the world is his problem? Michaels is finally in and gets ZERO reaction. That’s just weird to hear. He gets Orton, which is one of those feuds that has been about a million times yet has never had a definitive match.

I don’t know why that’s the case but it’s very odd indeed. Bubba gets tagged in and cleans house. It always seemed like they wanted to make him into a big deal but it just never happened for him. He was by far a better choice than D-Von, but that’s not really saying a lot. It never worked and it doesn’t here as for some reason he’s fighting all three guys but Christian makes him Unpretty to set up Christian, Jericho and Orton against Shawn.

Austin isn’t sure what to think. You can tell Shawn is nervous here as he’s already on the flying forearm. This is reminding me of a match in a video game, which I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Shawn hits the post and goes to the ground to blade a bit. Christian does HBK’s pose as Becca wants to murder him and I’ve never been more proud of her. After a missed Unprettier, Christian charges into the boot for the pin.

Shawn just lays on him which is cool and odd looking at the same time. Both guys beat the living heck out of Shawn as we have Lawler playing cheerleader. He keeps screaming about how he almost believe Shawn can pull this off. That would be redone in two years but this one is FAR better.. Jericho beats on Shawn for a good while and eventually tries to get the Walls but Shawn rolls him up to get us down to Orton (who is coming to the ring on Raw as I write this) against HBK.

Lawler immediately screams I BELIEVE I BELIEVE I BELIEVE! The commentators are so stupidly biased that it’s ridiculous. Jericho pops Shawn with a chair before leaving. He’s bleeding insanely now. Orton goes up but misses a cross body and hits the referee. That used to be his finishing move. I think he made the right move with the change. For some reason Orton is down also despite having the referee to break his fall.

Bischoff comes in to break up the Sweet Chin Music which brings in Austin to beat him up and stun Orton. The two GMs go off for a, shall we say beating, allowing Batista to run in and hit the self named Bomb to put Austin out of the company. In a stunning (oh I slay myself) turn of events, Austin would be back in less than a month and a half. In an odd moment, Austin comes into the ring and checks on Shawn. He pulls HBK up and HBK says I’m sorry.

I guess he doesn’t love Austin though. Austin shakes his hand and they leave together. That was actually a cool moment. I like that they show Shawn respect there as they should and they humanize Austin a bit here. It’s something you don’t often see but it’s very nice. Austin comes back out to his original music and salutes the fans, which again is awesome. They really did try to make this a big deal, but naturally he would be back. I don’t think anyone ever really doubted that.

This really is a cool moment here as Austin looks legitimately upset. I don’t know if he knew he would be back or not, but if he did he deserves a low level acting award. He even says he loves the fans. Since this is a nice moment, Coach comes out singing the goodbye song accompanied by a team of security guards.

Naturally he beats up all five just for old time’s sake. We follow that with a massive beer bash to end this segment that went just long enough. He leaves two beers in the ring, maybe for Owen and Pillman as we fade out.

Rating: A-. I’m just grading the match here. It really was solid with the guys that needed to be gone first being gone first to leave us with the fop four guys in the match (arguably) to end it. That’s how good matches tend to go and they nailed it here. HBK looked great in this all match long and the story was there for him. It worked very well and was an excellent match. I’m not wild on the ending, but at least it fit the match, so I can’t really complain there.

Buy this book that claims to be a shoot without calling it that!

Cole and Tazz talk about the irony that both McMahon and Austin could have their careers ended tonight. We’ll ignore that Austin hadn’t wrestled in seven months and Vince never was a real wrestler. It is cool to hear Vince referred to as Austin’s arch nemesis. Tazz has to keep up kayfabe here though by saying that he’s a Smackdown guy and not a Raw guy but he is going to miss Austin anyway. That was just pointless.

Recap of Vince vs. Taker, which could have been done much better. Taker is at the very tail end of being the American with this being his last night in the character. Vince, as Brock’s ally, had helped him keep the title from Taker at No Mercy as for some reason he was afraid of Taker being champion. Taker had won a match on Smackdown where he could pick any match he wanted for Survivor Series.

Taker picked Buried Alive which had Vince very happy because he thought Taker meant against Brock for the belt, but Taker meant Vince, which was WAY cooler than I described. Taker, living up to his moniker of the conscious of the company, says that the day comes where you have to pay for your sins, even if your name is Vince McMahon. That’s actually a cool line. Tazz actually has key points to the match and a graphic to display them.

I’ve never seen that on a WWE show before. His keys are submissions, home field advantage and match experience, which make sense, or you could just say the most simple one: he’s the freaking Undertaker so he’s going to kill Vince. Oh those were just Taker’s keys. Vince’s are be mentally stable, be confident, and the third one which made me laugh: AVOID THE HOLE! You know I’ve been told that many times but people just keep coming back. I’ve never gotten that.

If Tazz did these for every big match his value would go WAY up. They were clichés, but they’re what an analyst is supposed to do. He offered his insights as an expert in the field (expert as in he’s a former wrestler and therefore likely knows a lot more than 99% of the viewers which is true) and while they were really self explanatory, they made him seem far more professional. I like that as it’s something no one ever does.

Vince McMahon vs. Undertaker

As I said, this is a Buried Alive match which Taker has been in all of I believe. The announcer goes through the rules of the match and once the bell rings announces again that it’s a Buried Alive match. Good to know that they’re covering us in case we forgot in the past 3 seconds or so. Apparently Vince has been talking about a higher power. Wasn’t he the higher power? So does that mean there’s a higher power to the higher power?

Would that make him the really higher power? Cole complains that it’s stupid to think there’s a higher power protecting Vince. Well that’s a little stupid to say. After about two punches Vince is gushing blood. That’s insanely fast time for a blade. Oh man there’s blood just dripping all over the place. That’s awesome. Or maybe it’s sick. I’m not sure but it looks great. Vince has had zero offense as you would expect.

With Vince bleeding all over, Taker beats on his knee. I don’t know how to make fun of that because it just makes zero sense here. The knee is something you work on when you need to keep them down. It’s just so out of place here that it makes no sense at all. We hit the table for awhile because we’re on PPV. Vince threatened to have Taker’s wife Sara raped and his home torched, because you know, that’s perfectly normal.

They also mentioned that Taker had kids, which is an odd choice indeed. Does Kane come babysit and teach them how to start fires using just your hands and a production assistant? Vince gets killed by a monitor shot to the head. That looked painful. This is just a beating by Taker as Vince has had zero offense and we’re about five minutes in. The fans are liking it somewhat though.

Perhaps in an effort to give Vince a chance to breathe, Taker goes to the grave and gets a shovel which naturally slams into Vince’s head. Cole says he’s a bloody mess formerly known as Vince McMahon. Did he get a name change that I missed? I’m fairly certain that’s still Vince McMahon.

With Vince dead, Taker tries to hurt his leg again. I really just don’t get this. What’s the point to working over a limb now? I know I complain about a lack of psychology a lot of the time but this is too much psychology.

Taker takes (oh shut up) him to the grave where Vince gets a three move combination of throwing dirt in Taker’s eyes, a low blow and a shovel shot somewhere near the chest/shoulder which naturally is called the skull. As I’m writing this I looked up at the review and realized it’s rather short, but there’s just nothing to really say here. It’s a beating of epic proportions with Vince literally having no offense or even defense until those three things.

Anyway, the shovel shot actually knocks Taker into the grave as only in wrestling can you get your face beaten for seven and a half minutes to hit one shot to tie things up and then take the lead. Taker of course pops out of the hole and casually pulls Vince in. He’s favoring his right arm which I think might be legit. Anyway he goes to open the door to the dump truck or whatever it’s called and an explosion goes off.

Looking at Taker’s elbow, he’s either cut REALLY bad on it from something or it’s from Vince’s head. Not sure which, but Kane comes out of the machine and knocks Taker into the hole and pulls Vince out. That’s a teaming that other than a short run in 98 never has been together that I recall. Vince gets in the machine as Cole says Taker is unconscious, despite being clearly awake after the explosion and when he was getting punched by Kane but why am I trying to make sense of this?

Tazz of course brings up that it makes no sense as Kane is a Raw guy. Ok, give me a break already. Are we really supposed to believe that Kane is just a random guy that has no history with Taker at all? It was one of the biggest and best feuds of the Attitude Era but it means nothing at all now because of the Brand Split? Yeah Tazz, keep trying to convince me of that. Vince buries him and for some reason this is STUNNING.

You know, since he’s only been buried what, three times now? Come on Cole give us a tiny bit of credit here. I love how just after it Cole recaps the match in about four seconds. This was the end of the American character as Taker would return at Mania as the Deadman to fight Kane in a glorified squash.

Rating: D. This is going to go one of two ways for a lot of people. About 90% of this is literally just Taker beating up Vince. If you like that, this is the greatest match of all time. The problem is it just gets boring after awhile, and the leg stuff makes less than zero sense.

I don’t think the plot about Kane was ever actually explained as it really was just kind of assumed that it made sense. Now to be fair it did, but a little explanation would be nice. Granted it’s Kane so the explanation wouldn’t have made sense anyway.

Following what should have closed the show, we recap HHH vs. Goldberg. HHH had ducked him for a few months, more or less cheating to keep the belt and when they finally had their match Goldberg took the title. HHH stole another storyline from Harley Race by offering a bounty to anyone that took him out. Batista cashed in as he returned from an injury and rejoined Evolution. He shattered Goldberg’s ankle which didn’t actually take him out because he’s still fighting tonight.

HHH asks Goldberg if Goldberg is getting nervous being champion yet. I love how WCW is forgotten more and more every day. We of course get a video of this set to the awful theme song for this show: Build a Bridge by Limp Bizkit. Where do they pick these songs from? Rarely do they make any sense in connection to the show.

Raw World Title: HHH vs. Goldberg

In a stat that blows my mind still, as of this show HHH has never won at Survivor Series. Hey, while we’re not talking about anything like the main event or something important, I’d like to take the time to say BUY ARMAGEDDON! Ross continues doing a good job by pointing out how often the title changes hands. I don’t get why they tried to change Goldberg. His music and tights are different.

Why? He was as simple of a concept as you could have and Vince messed it up. That’s just hard to do, but naturally since he’s from WCW he had to be changed. HHH is wearing shorts here because of a groin injury. Goldberg hits a spear on HHH before the bell and is walking around more or less fine despite having his ankle taped up.

In one of the dumbest spots I’ve ever seen, Goldberg takes him up in a gorilla press and after holding a 260lb man in the air for a few seconds only hurts his ankle when he turns him over. Come on now people, give us some credit for intelligence. They go to the floor with HHH working the ankle by putting it on the steps and slamming a chair onto it. Somehow the referee misses the sound that reverberates through the arena, but whatever.

I’m just trying to get to the end of this as so many HHH matches from this era were just flat out awful that there’s really no point in trying to make them work. Flair is drenched in sweat for some reason. I think that reason might be the fact that he’s Ric Flair.

He chokes Goldberg in that way that looks like he’s having a seizure and looks ridiculous, but to be fair most of what Flair did at this point look ridiculous. To say this match is boring is an insult to boring matches. There’s just nothing of note here. It’s HHH working on Goldberg’s leg and nothing more.

He hit one spear and a slam and other than that it’s been all HHH. We saw more or less a squash in the previous match. Why repeat the same formula in back to back matches? Oh look a half crab because what we really need here is an homage to Lance Storm. Actually that sounds far better than this. Oh wait Goldberg pulled HHH into the post. This could get…HHH no sold it of course.

Back in the ring, Goldberg does something that’s supposed to be a shoulder block I think, showing that true mastery of the finer points of wrestling that he possesses. The referee goes down because it’s a main event match and HHH gets some brass knucks from Flair. There’s no referee though, which seems to be way too big of a tradition at these shows. The kickout got ZERO reaction. I was surprised at that.

I would have thought they would have gotten at least something but there was nothing at all there. Sledgehammer is brought in of course and Goldberg gets the advantage. Flair is slammed off the top to continue a tradition and here comes Batista and Orton. Naturally the champion fights them all off and counters a Pedigree. We need tougher referees. These guys are out for hours off of a single shot. Get Crash Holly or someone like that.

He has the hammer but throws it away because his spear is more effective apparently. The standard two move combination ends this mess as my head is shaking. So let me get this straight. We have the best stable in about five years out there with more world titles between them than I can count, yet GOLDBERG GOLDBERG GOLDBERG (I had to do it once) is able to hold them all off.

Ok, you know what, I can actually believe that. Flair is washed up, HHH is in the match and Orton and Batista tried to fight him when he had a sledgehammer. I can go with that I suppose. But wait, Goldberg HAS A FREAKING BROKEN ANKLE! Just how ridiculous does that sound to you? He shouldn’t be able to walk yet he can fight off all four of them? Give me a break. On top of that, the referee didn’t notice them in the ring in that whole time? And people wonder why this era is considered horrible.

Rating: D-. This was just bad. Goldberg did all of five moves (therefore he’s still better than Cena) and keeps the belt with a broken ankle and fighting off Evolution. How in the world am I supposed to buy any of them, especially HHH, as credible ever again? He would win the title the next month in a triple threat involving Kane, which is just stupid as well. Whatever, at least this show is over.

Overall Rating: C-. I’m being very generous with that grade. This show just wasn’t all that great. It’s more or less just there. I mean the Austin and Bischoff match is by far and away the best on the show and the other Survivor Series match wasn’t that bad, but the rest of the show just doesn’t work that well. Taker’s gimmick change is of course huge, but the match wasn’t interesting at all. The main event was HORRIBLE.

I just wanted to end the show and that’s never good. You have some decent stuff here, but this show is the epitome of forgettable. Taker losing was big but the real impact wouldn’t be seen for about six months. This is like a preview for the upcoming year, which makes me wonder why this is considered a big show. Watch Austin and Bischoff’s match, but other than that this isn’t worth your time.

 

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