WWF Invasion – How To Waste A Billion Dollars In One Night

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

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

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

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

Mike Awesome/Lance Storm vs. Edge and Christian

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earl Hebner vs. Nick Patrick

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

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

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

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

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

APA vs. Sean O’Haire/Chuck Palumbo

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

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

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

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

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

X-Pac vs. Billy Kidman

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

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

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

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

DDP babbles about nothing.

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

William Regal vs. Raven

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regal fires Tajiri up.

Taz vs. Tajiri

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

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

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

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

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

Hardcore Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Torrie Wilson/Stacy Keibler vs. Lita/Trish Stratus

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

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

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

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

Austin is acting like himself.

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

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

Inaugural Brawl: Team WWF vs. Team WCW/ECW

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday Night Raw – January 19, 2009 – Vince Gets Punted

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 19, 2009
Location: Allstate Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 11,600
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler

This was another requested show for reasons that I’m not entirely clear on. Looking at the card, there’s nothing interesting or big here from a wrestling standpoint so I’d assume it’s a storyline based show. This is from an era that feels like so long ago but it was only three years. I’m not sure what to make of that. This is the go home show for the Rumble. Let’s get to it.

Vince returns tonight.

Battle Royal

Randy Orton, Kane, Santino Marella, Kofi Kingston, Ted DiBiase, Cody Rhodes

Nothing to win here as far as the Rumble so this is just kind of a preview match. Everyone goes after Kane but DiBiase puts Marella out quickly. Legacy takes Kofi out but Kane gets up and tosses Cody. Dibiase is sent to the apron and Kane goes after Orton. He gets him to the apron but DiBiase dives on Kane and they both go out, giving Orton the win. This lasted about 2 minutes.

Beth Phoenix vs. Kelly Kelly

Beth is Women’s Champion but this is non-title. This was before Kelly got good. Let that sink in for a minute. Kelly is in a Blackhawks jersey and tries to speed things up, only to get run over. Glam Slam and we’re done in about a minute.

Randy tells Ted that he should do the same thing on Sunday. Ted is cool with it when Cody comes in. He says Manu and Sim Snuka were in Stephanie’s office earlier and there’s a rumor that Randy gets fired tonight.

Glamarella is in the back and Santino gives her Rosa Mendes as a present. She had been banned from events as a fan for some reason so she’s officially Beth’s intern. Santino: “PLEASE? Can we keep her?” Beth says she’ll think about it.

Stephanie is in her office when Orton comes in. Steph says she isn’t firing him so quit sucking up. Randy yells at her and says it’s her that should be worried about being fired because Vince is back tonight. He says Stephanie would be a no one if her last name wasn’t McMahon, which earns him a slap.

Intercontinental Title: William Regal vs. CM Punk

Regal is champion and has been cheating to keep the title from Punk recently. This is a No DQ match and Punk will be in the Rumble Sunday. Regal has Layla with him. Punk fires off kicks to start which get him two. Regal goes to the floor but he can’t suplex Punk. Back in and Punk snap suplexes him for two. Punk works the arm into a Fujiwara Armbar but Regal gets the rope as we take a break.

Back with Punk holding the Anaconda Vice on the ropes but Punk can’t get disqualified. Layla has to cheat to get him out and Regal knocks Punk to the floor. Regal puts Punk’s head to the post and kicks it into the steel, which only gets two. He hooks a full nelson but Punk escapes and hits a spinning backfist and high kick for two. The running knee hits but the bulldog is countered into a half nelson suplex. Regal loads up a superplex but Punk knocks him off. He misses his cross body but hits a GTS for the pin and the title almost out of nowhere.

Rating: C+. This was a pretty hard hitting match and for a nice moment on Raw, this was fine. Regal is good for stuff like this: midcard feuds when you need a basic heel that ca put on good matches. Punk would only hold the title about a month and a half, but he would win the world title in June so I think it’s a pretty fair tradeoff.

We recap Shawn having to work for JBL and last week’s match where Shawn had a great match with Cena and actually beat him clean with the superkick.

Lawler is in the ring to moderate the contract signing for Cena vs. JBL at the Rumble. One thing I’ve never quite gotten: why in the world would you wait for six days before the show to sign one of the biggest matches on that show? Cena comes out to mostly cheers. He signs first and JBL signs quickly after. He says that it means the title will be his soon. Cena says he wants to talk to Shawn but JBL cuts him off.

He says that Shawn will only be at the PPV in his corner and nothing else. Cena says that he wasn’t looking into the eyes of a servant last week but with the main event and the showstopper. Shawn is still great and can do whatever he wants in the ring and can make an honest living doing it. That’s what I never got about this storyline. Shawn may be broke, but he’s a high level wrestler in the biggest company in the wrestling world. It might not be eight figures a year, but he’s probably not going to be broke doing it.

JBL says HBK works for him like everyone else does and that it’ll be Shawn making sure that JBL gets the title. He says it’s business and Shawn snaps. He hates that he has to do what he does but he’ll keep doing it because he has to. Shawn talks to Cena and says that he has obligations that Cena doesn’t have.

Shawn has squandered his and his family’s money and has to be there for them. He’ll do what it takes and if that means costing Cena the title, then so be it. Cena says be HBK and not this. One day there’s going to be a moment where Shawn has to choose. Cena knows he won’t make JBL the next champion. Shawn hits him with the mic and tries to superkick him before leaving, but Cena ducks. JBL hits a big boot and the Clothesline before leaving.

Rey Mysterio vs. Mike Knox

In the back, Knox says he doesn’t really have a reason for attacking Rey and doesn’t have any reason for doing it. I love that. Rey speeds things up to start and sends Knox to the floor. A dropkick to the knee puts Knox down but he clotheslines Rey to take over. A big boot gets two on Rey. Knox uses his power stuff but Rey catches him with a springboard rana into the 619 but Knox catches him. Knox pounds him down in the corner and won’t stop until it’s a DQ. This was short, like every non-Punk/Regal match tonight.

Stephanie is on the phone in her office and when she turns around, Jericho (fired last week) is in her chair. He talked to Vince and will get a chance to plead his case.

Smackdown ReBound. When’s the last time we saw one of those? It’s about Jeff Hardy having accidents.

Cryme Tyme vs. John Morrison/The Miz

Miz and Morrison are tag champions. I’m assuming they’re the Raw ones. They want to face Jim Duggan but Cryme Tyme comes out to talk about Obama being inaugurated the next day. If Cryme Tyme wins, they get a title shot in the future. Morrison vs. Shad to start us off with the big man kicking his head off. A flapjack puts JoMo down and JTG trips him. An STO from Shad ends this in just over a minute.

Cody is talking to Mickie James and doesn’t think her career advice means anything. He turns around and runs into Goldust. Goldust gives him the Starrcade DVD, saying he can learn more from this than anything Orton can teach him. Cody shrugs it off and says he’s surpass his father.

Melina vs. Jillian Hall

Last week Beth terrorized Melina before a tag match where Jillian would have been Beth’s partner, so this is revenge somehow. Beth, Santino and Rosa all come out to watch. Melina is distracted so Jillian hits a side slam for two. Melina gets a sunset bomb out of the corner for the quick pin.

Rosa charges at Melina post match which allows Beth to come in and beat on Melina. The title would change on Sunday.

Ziggler, still brand new at this point, hits on some chick who isn’t interested. He’s still doing the introduction thing at this point. Dolph turns around and runs into Vince, who introduces himself in a funny bit.

Here’s Vince for the big final segment of the show. He thanks the fans for the applause but says this is about business. Vince brings out Jericho to air his grievance. Jericho says that it was unfair that he was fired and that he should be reinstated for the Rumble. Vince says let’s bring out Stephanie who is GM of Raw. Jericho wants to be reinstated but Vince isn’t going to do that. Instead, the McMahons will run Raw together. She says Jericho can apologize if he wants and surprisingly enough, Jericho does it.

Steph says that’s not good enough so Jericho says it again and says it in more detail but still doesn’t sound sincere at all. That’s not good enough so he should apologize to the people. The fans chant on your knees which Jericho finally does. He explains that he’s great and while he may seem arrogant, he can’t help it. Stephanie makes him leave and Vince is pleased. Cue Orton and the pleasing is over. She slapped Orton earlier tonight and Randy wants an apology because he’s more valuable than she is. People pay to see him, not the McMahons.

Ever since Stephanie made Vince a grandfather, she’s become worthless. Stephanie leaves and Vince isn’t happy. Vince wants to know who Randy thinks he is. Without Vince, Orton’s dad wouldn’t have had a job and Randy would be a gym teacher in St. Louis. Randy has to apologize or be fired. Orton says Vince shouldn’t do that but Vince starts to fire him. Orton pops him in the mouth then kicks him down. A fast punt leaves Vince unconscious and the announcers freak. Randy seems to be shocked at what he just did. Vince is taken out to end the show.

Overall Rating: D+. Do these people know that we’re six days away from the Rumble? This was a different kind of build for the show as it was about the people who will be in the Rumble (namely Orton) rather than the match itself. That’s the same kind of build they did in 2012 and I’m not sure I like it. It’s not bad, but there’s really not much going on with this show and it didn’t make me want to see the PPV at all.

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I Want To Talk A Little Bit About The Invasion

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

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

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

1. It Was Too Short.

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

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

2. The Alliance Roster Was Treated Like Idiots.

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

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

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

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

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

3. The People They Could Have Had

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. The McMahons

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

5. This Was An Unnecessary Sequel

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

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

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

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

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

So what would I have done?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Monday Night Raw – July 9, 2001 – The Alliance Is Formed/My Favorite Raw Ever

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

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

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

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

Shane McMahon vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

Undertaker vs. Diamond Dallas Page

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

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

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

Taker promises Sara he’ll get Page.

Tag Titles: APA vs. Dudley Boys

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

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

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

Kane is just getting here.

Intercontinental Title: Rhyno vs. Albert

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

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

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

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

Jeff Hardy vs. Big Show

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

Trish kisses Jeff post match.

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

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

Some Atlanta Falcons are here.

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

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

Shane fires Booker up.

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

WCW World Title: Booker T vs. Kurt Angle

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kane vs. Lance Storm/Mike Awesome

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

Kane/Chris Jericho vs. Lance Storm/Mike Awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Team WWF/WCW vs. Team ECW

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

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

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

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

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Monday Night Raw – June 1, 1998 – Taker Shoots?

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 1, 1998
Location: Rosemont Horizon, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 16,157
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

So it’s the night after Over the Edge and Austin kept the title in a great main event. That being said, now we need a new #1 contender, so let’s have a big main event to decide it. That main event: Undertaker vs. Kane. Other than that there isn’t much here but we’re on the way to King of the Ring and one of the most famous matches and moments in wrestling history. Let’s get to it.

We open with a video narrated by Vince where he says the match was fair but Dude screwed up and Austin counted the pin with Vince’s hand in an awesome ending.

Foley is in the ring in normal clothes in a chair. He says it wasn’t a good night in Dudeville last night. Foley admits that Austin beat him up last night and that he listened to the wrong people. It’s time for the Dude to apologize. If that’s accepted, he’d like to have Vince come out here. Cue Vince who has no music yet. Foley says he knows he let Vince down but due to his injuries, he’s going to be out for awhile. Hopefully though when he comes back, he’ll be #1 contender due to the match he had last night.

Vince isn’t happy and demands Foley get down on his knees. Foley says this is a joke…right? Vince says Foley is the joke, so get on your knees. Foley says his kids are watching at home so he’s not going to embarrass himself on national TV. According to Vince, he’s already an embarrassment and a failure.

Foley says Vince is failing to understand how tough Austin is. Last night, when he hit Vince in the head, deep inside, it felt pretty good. Vince says do it again if it felt so good, but remember that college fund and the new mortgage. He wants Foley to have some guts for once and Foley (split sweatpants and all) sits down. Vince hasn’t fired Austin yet because he makes Vince richer. All Foley does is make Vince sick. Foley gets fired and his music comes on.

King of the Ring qualifying matches begin tonight.

LOD 2000 says they’re ready for the street fight tonight. They’re in the back near where the cars come in. Droz throws up a lot. Chainz comes in on his bike and the twins jump the LOD.

LOD 2000 vs. Disciples of Apocolypse

This is a street fight and you can see the sky out back. There’s a referee out there for some reason and I really hope this is the blowoff. This isn’t a match at all so I’m not going to try to call it like one. Hawk swings a big metal pole at Skull but misses. They’re slowing down a lot now as you would expect. Animal goes off on 8-Ball with a trashcan. Droz and Chainz are the only ones left up and Taker arrives at the arena in street clothes and beats them both up. This was by no means a wrestling anything so no rating.

After a break, Taker (who looks REALLY fat in sweats) is looking for Vince.

Val Venis vs. Papi Chulo

Chulo is more famous as Essa Rios but his chick who would eventually appear with him is more famous as Lita. We hear about LOD being at the Rupp Arena box office for tickets for a Raw. Not only did I not hear about that appearance, I never heard about that Raw. Val says he’s not happy to see you. That’s a gun in his pocket and it doesn’t shoot blanks. Total dominance by Val to start and he hooks a camel clutch and manages to gyrate while holding it. That’s impressive.

Val beats him down as Cole mentions that Papi Chulo means Pimp Daddy. I think that would be Val’s partner eventually. JR rants about Foley being fired in public, which is almost bizarre given what would be coming for him eventually. Chulo gets a quick comeback but gets caught in a Samoan Drop. Money Shot ends this.

Rating: C-. Val was always solid in the……uh I mean he was always hard to…….he was good at getting on the ground and……HE COULD WRESTLE OK??? This was a total squash and Chulo was nothing more than a jobber at this point so this was about as predictable as it could get.

Taker walks out in street clothes and after a break part of his promo is cut off. He wants to talk about Vince. Ten years ago when he first arrived here (more like seven and a half but whatever) Vince was known as someone that would give an opportunity. He gave Taker an opportunity to be himself: to be the Undertaker. Shortly after he arrived, he became the slayer of the dragons. Vince knew Taker would be loyal so he gave him nothing but giants to face. As in the guys the handpicked champions couldn’t beat but Taker could. Taker kept the company safe for Vince and the handpicked guys.

Taker knew his time would come and then once the kingdom was safe, he got his opportunities. He’s a former two time world champion, but his times with the belt didn’t last long. Well the first one was six days so no argument there. The second was almost four and a half months. That might be a stretch. They’ve been short because Vince didn’t want him representing the company. He’s been loyal though and after all of his own handpicked guys left for greener pastures and more money (are we actually seeing a Taker “shoot”?), he had to fight his own brother.

Now whoa whoa WHOA. Now things are getting confusing which is how you can tell Russo had his hand in this. Taker has done half of this in kayfabe and half not in kayfabe. He talked about how he was loyal to the company and how others left for more money, but also how he could beat everyone else which is kayfabe. Now which are we in, because Kane of course isn’t really his brother, but based on the story he really wanted to fight Kane. Bearer had a chance to say whatever he wanted to say about Taker’s life and it was all for the sake of ratings. After all that, he never, and I quote, lost his smile.

After all that, he watched Steve Austin rise up to the top. The only thing Austin ever did was come to the ring and fight him like a man and that’s all he wanted. After everything else, right now, he demands his shot at the world title. That’s enough talking from him, so Vince needs to get out here. Vince comes out and says that before he answers that, he’s got something to say. Taker attacked him last week and came after him last night. He says Taker has all those qualities like loyalty, but what has Taker done for him lately?

Also, Bearer has said a lot of stuff and Vince wants to know if it’s true that Taker’s mom was a w****. If Taker wants to be the #1 contender, tonight he needs to defeat his opponent in the main event tonight. That opponent: Kane. Taker doesn’t look all that happy about the decision.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Marc Mero vs. Steve Blackman

Sable is gone now after losing to Mero last night. They show brackets but since this is just a qualifying match, it has no purpose on the bracket. Why not just make it a 16 man tournament and have these guys all be in it? What’s the point of showing the qualifiers on the brackets? Mero says Sable isn’t here but he has a new chick. And this was the night that the world has met the horror known as Jackie Moore.

Mero hammers away to start and this is kicking vs. boxing. He gets kicked to the floor and Jackie hugs him better. Blackman hammers on him a bit more but Jackie distracts Blackman so Mero can him him low. A Shooting Star ends this. Pretty much a squash. Sable would of course be back by the PPV. I mean she’s on the poster and all that.

Steve Austin was on a radio show earlier today. Vince called in and they hyped the show up.

Edge is still coming. Allegedly he was a Raven rip-off. I’m not sure about that but there are similarities.

D-Generation X vs. Nation of Domination

It’s the Outlaws/HHH vs. Owen/Henry/Rock and this is elimination rules. DX does a quick promo before the match which is nothing special. All of the seconds get sent to the back. HHH vs. D’lo starts us off. Off to Roadie who gets caught in a spinebuster for two. Gunn comes in and hits a quick piledriver to get rid of Brown. Rock comes in and DX isn’t sure what to do. Rock Bottom takes out Road Dogg and it’s tied up. Those two eliminations took about two minutes total.

The leaders go at it for a bit but it’s quickly back to Billy. A blind tag brings in Owen with a missile dropkick for two. Billy misses a splash and a spinwheel kick makes it Owen/Rock vs. HHH. Chyna comes out because Slaughter has no authority at all apparently. After a break Chyna is on the floor as Rock is hammering on HHH. Owen comes in and hits a long middle rope elbow for two.

The future Game gets a sunset flip but Rock has the referee distracted. Rock beats him down and the People’s Elbow gets two and a big reaction. I think they knew they had struck pure gold with Rock but they were seasoning him a bit first. Owen argues with Chyna as HHH counters a Rock Bottom into a quick Pedigree for the pin and it’s one on one. And never mind as Owen hits a spinwheel kick but Shamrock returns to beat down Owen, giving the Nation the win.

Rating: C. Nothing great and the ending hurt it but this was fine. What I really want you to notice is how HHH and Rock were not rushed. They had a summer long rivalry that culminated in a big gimmick match at Summerslam. Instead of just appearing and suddenly winning a briefcase or something and being thrown into the world title picture, they were slowly seasoned and allowed to get a lot bigger over time. That’s just forgotten in today’s product.

Severn runs out to help Shamrock fight the Nation and they stare it down but Severn leaves. HHH punches Shamrock because he cost DX the match so they have a pull apart brawl. I don’t remember that going anywhere.

Vince and Kane shake hands in the back.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Jeff Jarrett vs. Farrooq

Please….get rid of Tennessee Lee already. I can’t take much more of him. Before the match, the Godwinns are introduced as Southern Justice who are Jarrett’s lackeys now. Farrooq starts off fast and shrugs off the punches from Jarrett. The fans want Flair I think. I don’t think I heard that right because it would be very random to chant that. Farrooq beats on him even more and gets two. Southern Justice gets involved and Lee gives Jarrett a belt to whack Farrooq with for the pin. This was nothing, again.

Video on how Vince is a charitable sort of fellow.

Light Heavyweight Title: Taka Michinoku vs. Sho Funaki

The match starts immediately and Taka hits a HUGE dive to take Funaki out in the aisle. Back in and Taka’s tornado DDT is countered as Funaki takes over. Another Kai En Tai member gets involved so Taka snaps off a moonsault to the floor to take them both out. Al Snow is disguised as a Japanese photographer. The other photographers take pictures of him. Funaki takes over with a fisherman’s buster but a top rope elbow misses. A missile dropkick to the back and the Michinoku Driver keeps the title on Taka….again.

Paul Bearer is very confident in Kane.

Al Snow yells at Head.

King of the Ring Qualifying Match: Mark Henry vs. Terry Funk

Vince is on commentary so he won’t miss Taker vs. Kane. JR says this is a contrast of styles. Now there’s an understatement. Terry tries to pound on him but a big clothesline puts him down. Out to the floor where Funk’s back goes into the post. Funk manages to send him into the steps and gets a chair. In a SCARY sight, Terry tries an Asai Moonsault but lands on the railing. If there’s a way to fake that I’d love to know what it is. In the ring a splash gets two. A slam and legdrop get two, brother. Funk grabs a small package for two so Henry powerbombs him and splashes him again, finally getting the pin.

Rating: C+. WAY more entertaining than you would have expected it to be. It’s not a great match or anything but Terry is an absolute master at drawing sympathy and making you think that he just might somehow be able to pull off the huge upset. Very fun match even though it only lasted four minutes or so.

Austin is coming and Vince does the face.

After a break here’s the champ who also jumps in on commentary.

Undertaker vs. Kane

Winner gets Austin at King of the Ring. Vince again proves how much of a master he is at promoting stuff as he talks about how big this is going to be. Taker sends the referee out immediately and it’s a brawl. They go to the floor and Taker gets in some shots on Paul. Old School hits but Kane hits a chokeslam for no cover. They’ve been going a hundred miles an hour the whole time.

After a brief thing on the floor they’re back in with Kane in control. They slug it out and Kane pounds away on him. There’s an energy to them here and it’s making this a lot better. Kane hits a big boot but misses an elbow. Taker grabs a chokeslam but Kane pops up. Taker even busts out a Russian Legsweep and legdrop for two. There goes the referee as Taker hits the Tombstone but there’s no referee.

The fired Mick Foley runs out onto the apron and grabs the Mandible Claw on Taker. Foley has the Mankind mask on again. Taker knocks Kane down again but Kane sits up. He takes his eyes off Kane for a split second to punch Bearer and that’s enough for a Tombstone to send Kane to King of the Ring.

Rating: B-. WHY IN THE WORLD DID THEY NOT DO THIS AT WRESTLEMANIA??? This was exactly what Undertaker vs. Kane should be: an all out brawl. They never stopped going in this and it made for a much better match. Kane is supposed to be this outcast that was raised all alone and Taker is to blame for it, so would you expect him to use a chinlock? Of course not. He should be out for blood and he was here. Very fun match.

Kane stares Austin down and makes the sign of a belt around his waist which Austin says will never happen. The fires comes off the posts and Austin doesn’t flinch. Kane leaves and Foley fights Taker to end the show. JR: “They’ll have to settle this feud.” That’s an understatement.

Overall Rating: C+. Other than the DX/Nation stuff and the AWESOME last segment and the surprisingly good Henry vs. Funk match, there was pretty much nothing here. That’s kind of the Attitude Era in a nutshell: the show is usually nothing great but the stuff that is good is so good that it’s all you remember. This set up the main events of King of the Ring really well and that’s the entire point.

On a related note, starting now I’ll be doing two Raws from 98 and 01 in a row. It’s taken me over a year to get to June of both series and I don’t want to spend two years reviewing two years of Raw.

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Monday Night Raw – May 28, 2001 – And That’s How The Invasion Started

Monday Night Raw
Date: May 28, 2001
Location: Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Attendance: 12,477
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

Tonight we keep going with the King of the Ring build and more of Austin vs. the Canadians. I think I vaguely remember this show but I’m not sure. There’s one major thing that happens tonight which is the start of something big and you’ll know what I’m talking about when we get there. The card looks decent so let’s get to it.

We get a video from Smackdown where Benoit and Jericho defended their titles in a TLC match, which I’ve actually reviewed. Here’s the Smackdown if you’re interested:

http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?p=3422809#post3422809

It’s a shame we didn’t have the title change here in Calgary. Can you imagine the pop for that?

A courier sent JR a letter earlier today saying Undertaker’s wife would be here tonight. It wasn’t signed. And so it begins. That’s not the big thing I was referencing earlier either.

Here’s Vince to open things up. He doesn’t like being in Calgary and they don’t seem too happy to see him either. Vince talks about how in Canada, French and English can get along and that amazes him. Some people even feel proud to say they’re Canadian. Think that pops the audience much? Vince thinks maybe Canadians are happy to have brought Americans hockey, strong beer, or the word “eh”. However, Americans should never go to Canada.

Cue Jericho….and his mic doesn’t work. Vince: “That must have been a Canadian microphone.” Jericho gets right to the point: he wants Austin for the title and he wants him tonight. Vince declines so Jericho accuses him of wearing a toupee. He brings up Vince being a genetic jackhammer and says that Vince has made two sl***: Stephanie, and his new one: Austin. Vince also is a great singer, and with that we get the always awesome Stand Back video. Vince is ticked so he gives Jericho his title shot. Just not against Austin. It’s against Big Show for the Hardcore Title.

Cue Benoit who says he can’t just “STAND BACK” and let Jericho have all the fun. Benoit says that he should get the match with Austin. He even has more footage from Stand Back night, this part focusing more on Vince’s dancing abilities. Benoit gets to face Rhyno. Whoever is more impressive in their individual matches gets Austin for the title. Somehow this segment took twenty minutes.

Stu Hart (looking like he had no idea where he is) and his family are here.

Hardy Boys vs. Justin Credible/X-Pac

Justin vs. Jeff starts us off and it’s off to their partners a few seconds in. Matt gets crotched on the post and Lita’s evening is ruined according to Heyman. Bronco Buster to Matt. Oh and Eddie is here with the Hardys. When the referee isn’t looking, Lita crotches Pac on the post as payback for her unattended vagina that night. Hot tag brings in Jeff and he cleans house. Eddie breaks up a double superkick, allowing the Hardys to hit their finishers on Pac for the pin.

Rating: C-. Really quick match here but they didn’t get boring or anything. Eddie would be gone after Smackdown due to rehab and so we never found out where this was going. I’d asssume it would be to an eventual Eddie heel turn, possibly with Lita, but there’s no way to really know. Decent match though.

Eddie saves Matt from Albert post match.

Trish and Terri fight over a mirror.

Tajiri is cleaning Regal’s office when Albert comes in and demands a match with Eddie. Regal says ok.

Chris Benoit vs. Rhyno

Rhyno goes for the bad ribs immediately, hurting Benoit with a gorilla press drop. Benoit snaps off the rolling Germans and the Crossface but Rhyno grabs the rope. The Gore hits but Benoit rolls to the floor. Benoit fight back and hits the Rolling Germans again but opts for some chops instead of covering. A superplex puts the man beast down for two. The Gore is countered into the Crossface for the tap. This was short but intense. Not enough to rate though.

We recap the Blackman/Trish/Grandmaster thing. Sexay thinks shenanigans of a sexual nature were afoot.

Steve Blackman/Trish Stratus vs. Perry Saturn/Terri

At least the girls look good. Saturn is loopy and Terri is in a skin colored bikini. Nice to see she’s taking this seriously. The men start us off and Saturn hammers him down. The girls come in to wake the crowd up a bit and Trish is just not that good yet. The guys come in again and Blackman dominates. Terri interferes and gets spanked. Catfight time and here’s your major moment: Lance Storm runs in and superkicks Saturn so Blackman can get the pin.

And that was the start of the Invasion.

The match was junk and too short to rate again. It sucked, although the girls looked good.

During the break, Storm ran out of the building, celebrated with Shane, and left in a limo. Paul: “It’s just begun.”

Vince FREAKS on security in the back.

Al Snow is at WWF New York. He talks about his new show: Tough Enough.

Spike and Molly are all lovey dovey in the back. I see why these two never talked. Spike is about to kiss her when Angle comes in. He says it’ll be a mistake and offers them a lesson in the birds of the bees. Spike protests and smacks Angle. Just guess how well that goes for Spike. Molly goes looking for the Dudleys to help Spike but they just happen to run out in front of the Hollies, who beat down the Dudleys. See how simply a story and feud can be made?

After a break the Dudleys are yelling at Spike. Molly is going through a table.

Hardcore Title: Chris Jericho vs. Big Show

Lillian says Jericho is also the IC Champion, which is completely wrong. Jericho lost that title almost two months before this. He runs past Show and gets in the ring first, hitting a baseball slide to take over. A chair shot doesn’t work as Show knocks it away. Remember he’s still banged up from TLC. Show take over with the power game and throws around various metal object.

Jericho manages to dropkick a chair into Show’s knee but is then easily tossed head first into a trashcan. Total dominance so far. Show misses a legdrop onto a trashcan and Jericho gets in a few shots which don’t get him anywhere. Show puts him on the middle rope and picks up the steps. Jericho manages to fire off a dropkick into the steel to knock them into Show’s head and a fast Lionsault gives him his second title at the moment.

Rating: C. I don’t know why but I liked this. Jericho sold like a master and I can actually buy the ending because it puts Jericho over very strong. The finish was clean too, as Jericho didn’t cheat at all to win this, given the structure of the rules. Fun match and I have no idea why I liked it as much as I did, since there certainly isn’t much to it.

Jericho holds up both belts on the stage and turns around into a Gore by Rhyno to give him the Hardcore Title.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Albert

Dig that X-Factor theme. That’s the only good thing they had going for them. Eddie pounds away as fast as he can but Albert catches him and starts using the power. BIG gorilla press puts Eddie down. Eddie gets in a dropkick to the knee but his dive to the floor is caught and Albert rams him into the post. Eddie counters a powerbomb but Albert runs him over again. Lita comes running out as Eddie counters a Baldo Bomb into a rollup for the pin. Too short to rate but Eddie did his usual good stuff. No idea what Lita added to this.

Mick Foley was on the Today Show about his new book which is also a New York Times #1 bestseller. Can you imagine a wrestler today writing a book and having it go to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list? Foley did it TWICE.

We get the first of the Stalking Sara videos where someone is filming Undertaker’s pretty blonde wife at her house. The reveal would be awesome at the time and then would totally fall flat on its face.

The Hollies talk about the tables match and Molly begs to keep Spike from going through the table.

The Canadian Chrises talk about getting the title match tonight when Vince comes in. Both of them have impressed him and they’ve both earned a title shot at Stone Cole. Austin wants to fight them both at the same time but Vince isn’t letting that happen. Benoit gets the shot. Post show Vince wants to know where the Stand Back footage came from. Jericho gives him a pep talk. He wants the first shot and Benoit has no problem with that.

Tajiri broke something in Regal’s office but Vince comes in before he can get fired. Tajiri bows a lot and Vince doesn’t get it. Regal sends Tajiri off to get some coffee for Vince. “Bloody foreigners.” Vince says Austin has a brilliant idea for the main event and tells Regal to make sure to watch, but he won’t say what it is.

Dudley Boys vs. Hollys

This is a tables match. Just the four people in this one so no Spike or Molly, but they’re at ringside. I think you only have to put one person through a table to win. The Hollys take over to start and Crash brings in a table. Bubba prevents Hardcore from powerbombing D-Von through it and JR says he thinks Hardcore was attempting a powerbomb. Was it when he powerbombed D-Von that gave him away Jimbo?

The cousins try to throw Crash into Bubba through a table but instead Bubba moves and Crash just bounces off of it and lands on his head. FREAKING OW MAN!!! What’s Up Hardcore? It’s Table Time but Hardcore dropkicks them down. Not that it matters because there’s a 3D through the table for Hardcore and the win.

Rating: C-. Not bad but nothing to remember. I think this blew off their feud which was a fine little feud that was aired on TV. Why they don’t do more of that I’m not sure, but it was perfectly fine, it brought in some new blood to the tag division (which didn’t stay around but whatever) and it came to a logical conclusion. Now why can’t they do that more often?

The Dudleys try to put Molly through a table so Spike says put me through it instead. For some reason he thinks laying on the table is going to stop them, and I think you know what’s coming. Molly is powerbombed through Spike through the table. Molly keeps asking if Spike is ok as she goes out.

We talk about the semi-huge white elephant in the room: HHH isn’t here. We get a video of him in the office of Dr. James Andrews and him getting the diagnosis. It’ll be six weeks of crutches and then at least four months to heal before we even start rehabilitation. HHH talks about being put in the Walls of Jericho and then collapsing after the match ended. He knows he’ll be back and it was never if he would be back.

The next day was the surgery and I know the timing is bad but my goodness Stephanie is beautiful. This was a bad quad tear because the tear was under the first layer of muscle which made it hard to find. The repair was good though. JR says he’ll be out at least four months, which wound up being closer to seven.

WWF World Title: Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit

I remember this match happening and I fell asleep before it ended so I’ve never seen this all the way through. For some reason Lillian doesn’t introduce them here. Instead the Fink does big match intros. I guess she got the night off for the screw up earlier? Benoit has taped up ribs. Fink’s voice is just perfect. There’s something right about him introducing the world title match.

Austin goes after the bad ribs immediately and Benoit tries for a home run Crossface. Remember we’re in Canada so everything Benoit does gets a big eruption. He chops away but Austin his the Thesz Press. Benoit grabs a Crossface and the place explodes. Austin finally gets a rope and they go to the floor. The challenger gets fired into the steps and we go back into the ring.

Benoit gets a Sharpshooter and it’s in the middle of the ring. The place goes nuts and Benoit pulls him back to the middle of the ring. Austin FINALLY gets a rope and the booing is great. Out to the floor and Austin suplexes Benoit onto the announce table which doesn’t break. There’s an abdominal stretch back in the ring. I think JR’s voice is about to go. Benoit gets it broken due to the referee seeing Austin cheating and here are some rolling Germans.

We go up and Chris looks for a superplex but Austin counters and slams him face first onto the mat. Austin’s superplex gets two. Austin tries a belt shot but Hebner takes it from him. Back in the ring we get a Stunner but Vince is arguing with Hebner. Benoit gets up and clocks Austin with the belt but the count is delayed so it’s only a two. This is REALLY good stuff. Another Stunner attempt is countered into the Crossface but Vince pulls the referee out. Hebner shoves Vince down but Austin gets the ropes again. And then in a HORRIBLE ending, Austin puts the Crossface on and Vince says ring the bell. Yep, they did that.

Rating: B+. Until the ending, this was excellent. I’d love to see these two get twenty five minutes in a PPV main event and let them let it all hang out, but I’ll have to settle for a 12 minute Raw main event instead. Great match which I was getting into 10 years later and knowing the ending. That should say a lot about how great it was.

Jericho comes out and puts Austin in the Walls while Vince is in the Crossface.

Overall Rating: B+. I really liked this show. A lot of stuff happened on it and we get a great main event on top of it. Plus you get the starts of the Stalker and Invasion, which are both pretty big deals. Unfortunately the Invasion would be one of the worst run angles in the history of wrestling if not the worst, so we kind of peaked early. More would come soon enough though. Great show.

 

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Monday Night Raw – May 25, 1998 – HHH vs. Rock. Austin vs. Taker?

Monday Night Raw
Date: May 25, 1998
Location: UTC Arena, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Attendance: 6,500
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s FINALLY the go home show for Over the Edge so I think you know what the focus of tonight is going to be. Expect a lot of Nation vs. DX and a lot of Austin vs. McMahon/Love. The match at the PPV is a classic so I hope the show leading up to it can be as good. This isn’t a live show which means very little for the sake of this but I need to fill in more space. Let’s get to it.

Here are Vince, the Stooges, and cops to open the show. We recap last week with the Stooges and Vince (dressed in a costume) beat down Austin to let Foley get the real beating in. However that’s going to pale in comparison to what happens on Sunday. He says that he got away with assault last Monday. Vince runs down the stipulations of the match and what everyone is going to be doing. Cue Austin and the eruption that comes with him.

Austin curses a lot and tells the cops that he heard an admission of assault so cuff him. Somehow it actually works and Vince is taken away by the cops. The Stooges try to keep it from happening and Austin says that looks like obstruction of justice. That gets the Stooges cuffed as well and I can’t help but think that Patterson is a little aroused by this. Austin pulls out a beer and pours it over Vince as he’s taken away.

Legion of Doom vs. Disciples of Apocolypse

It’s a six man here with the debut of Droz. His name is Puke here but screw that. He gets beaten down by Chainz on the floor. Well so much for that. Animal vs. let’s say Skull starts us off. Off to Droz who hits a clothesline and then gets beaten down again. He can throw a decent dropkick though. That’s enough for him I guess as he goes out quickly. Still better than Garrett Bischoff.

Hawk (who still doesn’t look right with hair) is beaten down in the corner after being in control for about 4 seconds. Well to be fair he was supposed to be drunk or high so it’s kind of excusable. Chainz and Hawk collide which lets Chainz get two. Can we have Hawk shoot up in the ring? It would be more entertaining than this. Off to Droz and everything breaks down. Droz hits a three point clothesline and a Batista Bomb on Chainz for the pin.

Rating: D. This feud was so boring and thankfully I think it ended very soon after this. I don’t think it was so much about the feud being over as much as Vince falling asleep from it. There’s no chemistry at all and the Warriors are just old here. Droz didn’t help things and his pill pusher character never went anywhere. Granted that could be because he was crippled.

Vince and the Stooges are led away in handcuffs. Austin talks more trash to them.

Dan Severn vs. Owen Hart

We get a video of Owen turning on Shamrock before this starts. Gee, I wonder what the ending of this is going to be. Severn is the NWA World Champion and that belt on Raw is still a bizarre sight to see. He takes Owen down very quickly and tries a cross armbreaker but Owen manages to avoid it. Severn chokes away and Owen starts throwing punches. The crowd really doesn’t care here. And then Owen kicks him low for….not a DQ? They go to the mat for a bit and Severn gets an armbar to draw in the Nation for the DQ.

Rating: D. This was nothing, partially because Severn really wasn’t an interesting wrestler at all. And people wonder why ROH gets eye rolls when they bring him in as a big deal. The match was just for the postmatch beatdown, but I really don’t get the point of this for the most part. It was pretty worthless for the most part though.

The Nation destroys Severn but they can’t quite Pillmanize his leg due to referee interference.

Austin was on Celebrity Deathmatch last week and will be again this week.

Vince is still in the squad car.

Edge is still coming.

Here’s the Jackyl who has with him Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf and Crackhead Bob from the Howard Stern Show. Hank had recently been voted the World’s Most Beautiful Person by People Matazine’s website so he curses about that a lot. Bob yells a lot. This is stupid if you couldn’t tell. Jackyl says we’re not done yet and brings out Luna, Golga (Earthquake) and Giant Silva.

Golga vs. Thrasher

If you don’t know what’s coming here, you’re beyond my help. Bob sits in on commentary while the dominance commences. Total squash of course that takes longer than it should. It ended with a powerslam if you’re interested. Silva beats up Most for fun. The referee too.

Vince is still in the car as Austin talks trash to him.

Vader vs. Jeff Jarrett

Austin has agreed to let Vince and company go if certain conditions are met. No word on what those are yet. Vader pounds Jarrett down and hits a splash but there’s no referee due to Tennessee Lee. Then he does it again. Jarrett goes after the knee as Vader goes after Lee. The fans cheer for Vader but they don’t know what they want to see right Vince? Jarrett works over the knee until Vader runs over him. I’ve always liked that. Vader hits a middle rope splash but Kane runs in for the DQ.

Rating: D+. Better than the opener as the fans were into it, but still pretty dull. Jarrett was so freaking boring as the country singer guy and it was no exception here. He wuldn’t change characters until like July and it couldn’t have come soon enough. Vader still had it but they were already burying him, saying he wasn’t in top shape on commentary. The second run-in finish of the night isn’t helping things either.

Kane destroys Vader post match.

Vince is out of the car. Austin makes him apologize but Vince calls him the former champion. That’s not good enough so Vince has to do it again. Austin says Vince is a good kid and they all get unhancuffed.

Here are Vince and the Stooges after the second hour begins. No commercial though which makes this seem more realistic. Vince looking all messed up is a nice visual. He freaks out on Austin for treating him so badly and insists he DID NOT mean his apology. Austin made a condition that there had to be a WWF guy at the match Sunday to keep Vince in line. Vince is cool with that because no one on the roster can intimidate him. He makes Austin vs. Taker tonight.

DX was at an airport earlier. This is another of their “secret missions”. HHH had a speech but says Raw is too full of hot angles so they have to cut it short. HHH is going to be flying the plane and says it’s a very dangerous mission so he may never see them again. He gets in the wrong plane and that’s it. Ok then.

Al Snow jumps the guardrail and gets in the ring. Then he gets out of the ring and grabs Jerry, demanding his meeting with Vince. Security pulls him off.

Taka Michinoku vs. Dick Togo

Taka is Light Heavyweight Champion but this isn’t a title match because he’s not allowed to defend the title I guess. Also, Togo still has the best name EVER. There’s a spin wheel kick by Taka to send Togo to the floor and there’s his signature dive to the floor. Back in and another dive runs into a dropkick. Taka gets knocked into the railing and there’s a flip dive from the apron. Togo grabs a nerve hold for about a second and then hits a powerslam for two. Taka fights back but his tornado DDT is countered. A standing rana gets the pin for him though.

Rating: C. The match was fine but it was pretty uninteresting. This feud went on for awhile until they pulled the plug on Taka as champion and had him join Kai En Tai, putting the Light Heavyweight Title on this new guy named Christian who had a little bit better career I’d certainly think. Fun match, but it had nothing on what WCW was doing at the time and this division never did.

Post match the other Kai En Tai members come in and beat up Taka.

Back to the airport for more DX hijinks. Apparently HHH has flown off and they have no idea where he went. They all suggest they can fly after him but no one does. Rockabilly is mentioned.

Marc Mero vs. Farrooq

Sable forcibly rips the rope off Mero and he’s not happy about it. Mero starts off fast but gets caught in a powerslam. We go to the floor where Mero hides behind Sable. Mero stomps away again and Sable pops up on the apron. Mero tells her to get down and walks into a clothesline for the pin. This was just for the Sable/Mero stuff.

Mero freaks out on her post match and says that on Sunday, Sable can bring anyone she wants to meet him in a match. If they do, she’s free. If he wins, she’s gone forever. It would wind up being her vs. Mero with Sable losing. She’d be back in a few months.

Video on Pat Patterson and how awesome he is.

HHH is flying around (“I’m in the COCKpit!”) and says he’s flying around Nitro, writing messages in smoke for the WCW fans, such as DX Rules, WCW Sucks! Stupid but I’ve seen worse.

HHH vs. The Rock

This works. Non-title here. Before we get started though, Rock says the fans want to know how he feels about Viagara. However, since he doesn’t need it, he has no comment on it. He’ll also beat Farrooq on Sunday. As for HHH, DX is obsessed with their anatomies. Rock has something hard waiting for him: the Rock Bottom. After a break, here’s HHH and we’re ready to go.

Feeling out process to start and they’re more or less playing chess with each other. They trade headlocks and both guys go to the floor. Chyna interferes but is counteracted by Mark Henry. Back in the Rock takes over. Henry interferes, drawing Chyna up to the apron. The distraction allows a belt shot to HHH but Chyna makes the save and we take a break. Back with the People’s Elbow getting two.

HHH fights back with a clothesline and a crotch chop to Henry. Henry gets on the apron so Chyna pops Rock with a title as well. That was nice. HHH drops the knee (missed by four inches) for two. He stomps away but Rock hits a swinging neckbreaker to get two. Pedigree is countered into a backdrop to the floor. Henry stomps on HHH but Chyna pops him with a chair. HHH saves her and they fight on the floor to a double countout.

Rating: C-. Rock vs. HHH is one of those matches you always have to take a look at. This was nothing special but they would really heat things up over the summer, culminating in one of my all time favorites at Summerslam in their ladder match for the IC Title. The ending had to be that way because they were both champions, but you could see the chemistry out there.

HHH says bring it and Rock leaves. Farrooq pops up behind the future Great One and piledrives him on the stage.

Vince is going to be the guest referee for the main event.

Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker

Before Austin arrives, Taker chokeslams Vince. He loads up the Tombstone but here’s Kane. They slug it out and fight into the crowd. With Vince down here comes Austin. Stunner to both Stooges and he ties Vince up in the ropes. Austin grabs a chair and Vince is panicking. Here’s Dude Love with a chair of his own but Austin is ready for him and smacks his chair into Dude’s into Dude’s head. It’s so refreshing to see smart faces.

Overall Rating: C+. If there’s one thing Raw never did wrong at this point, it was the go home show. This set up the PPV perfectly with I believe everything outside of Jarrett vs. Blackman getting some time and I think we’re all thankful for that. Not much as far as wrestling goes but it’s 1998 so I don’t think anyone is surprised by that. Good stuff though and we got a classic main event out of Austin vs. Foley.

Here’s Over the Edge if you’re interested.

http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?p=1111563#post1111563

 

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Monday Night Raw – May 11, 1998 – Austin And That’s About It

Monday Night Raw
Date: May 11, 1998
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 8,069
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross
We’re still a long way off from Over the Edge but we have our main event set now as Love is full on heel and the new McMahon flunkie. The other main stories are that DX is still going after WCW which is a story that I thought happened on the same show as the more famous invasion. DX is in Atlanta tonight. Let’s get to it.Here’s Vince to open the show and he has a major announcement regarding Stone Cold. Before Vince can even say anything the Austin chants have already begun. When Austin gets here he’s in a tag match with a partner and opponents to be announced later. First up though, here’s Dude Love. Love is in a suit and is Corporate now. He even has a copy of the Wall Street Journal and glasses.He knows who he is now and that is a well educated man and a speaker of four languages. I don’t get why this had to be Dude Love. Couldn’t just Mick Foley work better here actually? He says he’ll win the title and shakes Vince’s hand. Love talks about losing his smile and Vince helped him find it. That calls for a hug. Vince: “I’m proud of you dude.” That sounds so wrong for some reason.

Now we get to the gimmick of the title match at the PPV. Vince introduces Brisco as the guest timekeeper. For your guest ring announcer, here’s Pat Patterson. As for the guest referee, I think you can all see it coming. Yes, it’s Jack Tunney. That kind of joke doesn’t work in print so I’ll withdraw it. Vince says the entrance and points to the ramp twice and there’s no referee.

He says hit the music and there’s no music or referee. Vince goes up the ramp and through the entrance. Patterson does the intro and says that the referee is the best there is, the best there was (Cole/JR in unison: “WHAT?”) before it’s revealed as Vince of course, coming out in a referee shirt. This might be the most stacked deck in wrestling history.

Sable is getting ready for her confrontation with Mero later tonight.

Sunday Night Heat is coming.

We get our first clip of DX in Atlanta, which is them in their tank with the big gun on it. They go to the WCW offices and Billy gets in the kind of famous line of “We do have a meeting, with the cops that are coming to arrest us.” They decide to go to the arena where WCW is allegedly giving away free tickets.

Al Snow is here while Kelly is waiting on Austin. I think this is Snow’s debut.

Vader vs. Barry Windham

For some reason this feels like it should be in 1993. This is Vader’s return after being out three months thanks to Kane I believe. Windham is already in the ring so I think you know where this is going. Yeah it must have been Kane since it’s mask vs. mask with Vader vs. Kane. JR says he isn’t sure what’s going on because they don’t have a lot of their stuff here for some reason. The NWA guys get involved and Windham still has his vest on. We hear about a UFC show on Friday which is something you’ll never see on WWE again. A splash gets two for Vader. Vader Bomb ends this clean. Vader was never in any real trouble.

Vader beats up the NWA post match.

We get a clip of Austin on Celebrity Deathmatch which debuts later this week.

Austin is here….and he’s in a car. That doesn’t fit in the slightest.

During the break Austin had the news broken to him about the PPV main event and Austin is ticked off and doesn’t seem to be surprised. He takes the mic from Kelly and goes off to find Vince.

Skull vs. Hawk

Animal and 8-Ball are in there anyway and now it’s down to the regular match. Hawk goes up but misses a top rope clothesline. 8-Ball interferes a bit and hawk is in trouble. Skull manages a backbreaker without even bending his knee. That takes…..talent? Hawk hits one of the few wrestling moves he knows, the neckbreaker, and doesn’t bother to cover. Hawk charges into the post and out to the floor as we hear about the Nation vs. DX at Over the Edge. 8-Ball and Skull switch and 8-Ball gets the pin in a small package. Not enough to grade but this was pretty bad.

More of DX in Atlanta at the CNN Tower. There’s not much to see here other than they’re there.

Edge is still coming.

Earlier today, Bradshaw taught Taka how to drive. It doesn’t go well and as they get back, Kai En Tai jumps them.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Farrooq

Blackman is here with Farrooq to distract Jarrett. Farrooq uses his power game to take over and Blackman gets in cheap shots every time Jarrett is put on the floor. And here’s the Nation for the DQ. This didn’t even crack two minutes. Jarrett and the Nation leave Faarooq and Blackman laying.

Here’s an ad for the Brisco Brothers Body Shop. I’d rather just listed to the two of them tell stories.

Here’s Austin and I’ll give you two guesses as to what mood he’s in. He doesn’t care about the PPV match because he’ll do what he has to do to keep the title. Austin demands Vince come out here now but Austin and the Stooges pop up on the screen. They won’t tell him who his partner or opponents are and Austin doesn’t really care. And that’s it.

Val Venis is still coming also.

Sable vs. Marc Mero

They talk a bit before the match and Mero puts her in the TKO position and then puts her down, saying that’s what he could have done. She kicks Mero in the balls and gets a decent powerbomb (all things considered) powerbomb to leave Mero laying. Sable leaves after that so I guess that’s a win?

As Jerry is talking about Sable, Taker pops up to attempt to kill him after what Jerry was caught saying to Bearer last week. They go into the ring and there’s a huge chokeslam for Lawler. Oh and this is the final week of Seinfeld so they mention it multiple times. Well to be fair they’re both NBC networks. Jerry gets loaded up for the Tombstone but here’s Kane. Bearer says he told Taker Kane was alive and he was telling the truth. Next week he’ll have proof that he’s Kane’s father. Kane leaves and now Lawler gets his Tombstone.

Al Snow of all people is here to replace King on commentary. Head has a headset too. Security comes and takes him off. I had no idea who this guy was back in the day as I didn’t watch ECW. He needs to see Vince which he wouldn’t do for a long time.

DX is still in Atlanta but now they’re heading back to Baltimore.

And now they’re in the arena. Pac talks about how WCW tried to have them arrested but they’ll never be taken alive. He runs down Bischoff and the Outlaws say nothing out of the ordinary. Well what would become the ordinary for them. HHH starts to talk about the state bird or something and gets cut off by Owen. Owen wants to finish the unfinished business so here’s a match.

Owen Hart vs. HHH

HHH is in camouflage pants. The Nation comes out to back up their brother Owen. This is non-title. Cornette popped in on commentary now. Owen finally gets in a low blow to break up HHH’s offense. Facebuster puts Owen down for two. The leaping knee to the face and a piledriver get two. A DDT gets two for Owen. This is kind of an awkward match. The Nation gets in some shots and Owen gets a piledriver for two. Enziguri puts HHH down and JR blasts DX for being crude and such. Everything breaks down at ringside and it’s thrown out.

Rating: C. Well it wasn’t bad but they just weren’t clicking. The match was thrown together and the point of it was to set up the six man on Sunday which is something they needed to do. This would become the backdrop for Rock vs. HHH which would go on for the whole summer. Decent stuff but I couldn’t get into it.

Dustin Rhodes comes out with a barrel and gasoline. He puts the Goldust attire in it and burns it up. He blames Vince for his career falling apart because of his bad ideas and all that stuff. Also Vince has cost Dustin his wife and daughter. I guess this is supposed to be a shoot. Oh wait Russo was writing at this time. That makes sense. This led to a preacher gimmick I think.

Scorpio/Terry Funk vs. Kai En Tai

Yamaguchi-San, the manager of Kai En Tai brings them out and not many people care. Kai En Tai is Funaki, Togo and Teioh. They pop up behind Scorpio and Funk and the handicap is on. There’s no semblance of a match at all here, at least not at the beginning. Scorpio starts us off and has to fight off everyone. A move we would call Trouble in Paradise puts Teioh down. He powerbombs all three foreigners and Funk hasn’t been in yet. Funk comes in and he looks like he’s fighting a bunch of midgets. And here are Bradshaw and Taka for the run-in. This was barely a match and was short too so no rating. Pretty wild though.

Vince is praising Austin’s partner but we can’t see who he is.

Snow is still trying to get in but doesn’t have a ticket.

Here’s the Nation and Rock will be one of Austin’s opponents.

Vince is getting ready in the back and it’s pretty clear now.

Steve Austin/??? vs. The Rock/D’Lo Brown

Brown isn’t really important as Rock had like 5 people to pick from. If you didn’t get who the partner was, here’s your hint: Vince was looking in a mirror. Austin goes after Rock almost immediately and they start us off. They go to the floor quickly as we’re in full Austin mode here. Off to Brown and Austin beats him up for a bit. Vince is chilling on the floor of course. There’s no real match here and it’s a lot more of a fight.

Rock gets back in after sending Austin into various metal things on the floor. The People’s Elbow gets two and Vince is up on the apron now. Austin gets in a right hand and the place EXPLODES. I have never seen anyone as hot as he was at this point. Off to Brown for a few seconds and then here’s Rocky again. A double clothesline puts them both down and it’s back to Brown since there’s no partner for Vince. Low Down misses and Austin gets fired up. Vince comes in and clotheslines Austin down and it all breaks down and is thrown out. Love comes out but DX comes out for the huge brawl to end the show.

Rating: C-. Austin brawls are always fun and you flat out cannot go wrong with Austin vs. Rock, but this didn’t do it for me. It was all about the last 15 seconds of the show with the numbers catching up to Austin in the end. It wasn’t much of a match but the brawling stuff was fun enough I guess.

Overall Rating: D+. I couldn’t get into this show at all. They were trying but everything and everyone not named Austin was pretty lackluster and things still were on the verge of picking up more. Way way way too many interference based endings and all that stuff that would become a major issue in the Attitude Era. This was one of the weakest in this era so far.

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Monday Night Raw – March 25, 2002 – First WWE Draft

Monday Night Raw
Date: March 25, 2002
Location: Bryce Jordan Center, State College, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 15,550
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Well as you know there’s usually a reason as to why I do these random Raws and in this case this is the first ever WWE Draft. Tonight we split the roster in two to have Raw and Smackdown as independent (yeah right) shows with different owners (Flair on Raw, Vince on Smackdown) in the system we’re used to now. This was also 8 days after Mania so we’re still kind of transitioning to the new year. Let’s get to it.

Linda introduces us to the concept of the Draft where tonight we’re only going to have twenty picks, as in ten each. There’s a world title match tonight with HHH vs. Jericho vs. Stephanie so none of them can be drafted. Also Austin is undraftable uh…..because he’s bald. That’s as good an explanation as any (the official reason is he had it in his contract. How was that contract written? “In the event that the roster becomes too big to sustain one roster and must be split in half under a concept called the Brand Split I get to not be drafted? Imagine those negotiations. In reality he was having a contract dispute and wasn’t signed).

Taz vs. Mr. Perfect

Hennig had made a comeback here at age 44 where he still looked solid out there. He would be gone in like three months after getting very drunk on a plane. He would be dead in less than a year which is mind blowing. Hennig says he’ll be the perfect pick and sounds a bit shall we say buzzed. Jazz and whoever winds up being world champion can be on both shows apparently. Perfectplex but Taz gets the ropes. They collide in the corner and Taz grabs the Tazmission to end this QUICK. Taz says Hennig was JUST ANOTHER VICTIM. He was getting popular around this time too but his neck gave out and he had to retire.

Rating: N/A. Way too short but competitive enough. Perfect was still rather good and looked exactly like he did in his prime. Shame his personal life was more or less a disaster because he could have been used as a solid midcard guy.

The owners are both in their war rooms going over their plans. Vince has the first pick.

After a break we’re ready for said pick. We get a brief speech and the #1 overall pick is The Rock. Can’t say that’s a bad way to go. Hard to believe he more or less had a year left. Rock comes out and Vince runs down a bunch of stuff Rock can’t do anymore, namely catchphrases he can’t say. Rock stops him from leaving and proceeds to make fun of Vince, leading the crowd in a huge anti-Vince chant. He’s just absolutely awesome here. This was rather funny. Rock does one last IF YA SMELL since it’s his last night on Raw which is a nice touch.

We’re back and it’s time for Flair’s first pick. With nothing special to say, he picks the Undertaker who was in a big feud with Flair around this time. Wow it’s weird to think about Taker being on Raw. He throws some stuff and we get a nice little graphic with Taker’s stats on it. Rock got the same.

Vince is furious and Angle comes in to complain. Taker does the same and threatens Vince. It’s very weird to think that Taker started on Raw but he would be on Smackdown in about 4 months and has been there since.

Edge/Diamond Dallas Page vs. Booker T/Christian

These were both singles matches at Mania where both faces won. Edge was getting very hot very fast at this point and probably would have been world champion within a year had he not gotten hurt. Christian has the awesome entrance here with the high pitched singers saying AT LAST YOU ARE ON YOU OWN! I love that. It comes complete with Alberto’s current pyro. Christian cost DDP the European Title recently as well. Oh and Angle cost Edge a match vs. Booker.

The Draft Lottery is plugged even though most of the picks meant nothing. Edge and Booker start us off. This is another very short match where the Canadians go to the floor and DDP gets a Diamond Cutter on Booker. Christian with a save and Edge misses a spin kick by a mile but Christian doesn’t sell much of it, which I think was intentional. Axe Kick kills DDP for the pin.

Rating: N/A. This was another very short one although it was better than the first match. Nothing all that bad in here but when a match barely breaks two minutes it’s kind of hard to say if it was good or not. With such little time how can they get anything going at all? This wasn’t bad but it wasn’t very good either.

Angle lists off a ton of his accomplishments to Vince in an attempt to be the #2 pick which is rather funny. Vince wants the NWO though, which apparently is drafted as a unit. Vince takes Angle as the second pick after some nice psychology from Angle, but Kurt ticked about not being #1.

Flair immediately hits the stage and says he’ll do everything he can do to get Austin on Raw, which he would do. Flair takes the entire NWO (Hall, Nash and X-Pac) in a surprise. Vince is FURIOUS but vows to get Austin. Angle talks to him a bit and Vince takes Benoit who was still out injured. Oddly enough when he came back he started on Raw before moving over to Smackdown.

The NWO yells at Flair. Pac, who has been there since Thursday (literally) is now their mouthpiece. Hall says you don’t blow us off so Flair makes his #3 pick, who is designed to look after the NWO: Kane. Ok then. In other words on Smackdown we have Rock, Angle and Benoit. On Raw we have Nash (injured), Hall (fat), Waltman (overrated), Taker (AWFUL at this point) and Kane (you know the drill here). Which show would you rather watch?

Trish Stratus vs. Ivory

Ivory is back and this is some kind of a small grudge. Yeah there’s nothing to talk about here. Trish wins in about two minutes with Stratusfaction. No rating either. Totally worthless.

Vince comes out again and gets the chant Rock invented earlier. He takes Hogan, who is incorrectly listed as a 7 time WCW Champion. Ah apparently they’re including the Bash at the Beach title here. Vince doing Hogan’s air guitar is rather funny.

After a break, Flair comes out to take RVD who brings the IC Title with him.

Vince is mad about losing the IC Title so Angle suggests a match between him and RVD for the title tonight so Angle can bring it Smackdown.

Rock is walking around backstage and Hogan comes up to him. The bald one suggests a handicap match vs. the NWO. Well what kind of a huge face would Rock be if he said no?

Vince is here to make his next pick (5th overall if you’re keeping track) and he picks Billy and Chuck who are the tag champions.

Tough Enough 2 commercial. I had my first kiss while that show was going on in the background.

Somehow the boot of the week is a chair shot. No one accused WWE of making sense all the time.

NWO vs. Hulk Hogan/The Rock

This is Nash’s first match in the company I think since his return. Ah scratch that as I’m wrong actually. It was one of his first though. Hogan and X-Pac start us off here which is a RIVETING match indeed. And Hogan throws him to the floor immediately in a nice power display. Hall comes in and fails also so we switch to Nash. Amazingly all Hogan seems to do is punch.

Hot tag to the Rock and we CRANK it up. We shift from an 80s style to a 90s style and it’s much more interesting. Cold tag to Hogan and the crowd just dies. Pac makes the save as it’s all breaking down. He breaks out the knunchucks and here comes Kane since he’s the guy taking care of the NWO and he clears house, giving the NWO the win.

Rating: D. Weak match but Rock was interesting. This wasn’t much at all and with five minutes how big of a match can it be? This is the last match on Raw for Hogan and Rock? This is the best they can do? That’s hardly a good sign. This was really rather weak all things considered.

Vince comes into Flair’s office to yell about various things. Flair takes Booker. Vince takes Edge. Flair takes Big Show. Vince takes Rikishi. They’re going that fast. So in other words: Nash, Hall, Waltman, Taker, Kane and Big Show vs. Benoit, Rock, Angle and Edge. Who do you think wins in the long run here? Keep in mind that the NWO guys would all be gone in the second week of July, this is looking one sided to say the least. Come to think of it, a year after this Rock and Edge were gone too. Help is on the way however, as between now and August WWE would debut guys named Lesnar, Orton, Cena, Batista and Mysterio. Like I said, this was a transitional period for the company. Oh and Shawn came back in the fall too.

Jeff Hardy vs. Billy Gunn

This is during the gay era for Billy and Chuck, culminating in a mind blowing ending when they were about to be married but the minister was Eric Bischoff with a prosthetic face on, pretending to be a senior citizen aged preacher. It legitimately got me. Another two minute match but Jeff getting a singles run was a new idea back then. Matt and Chuck fighting on the floor cause Jeff to miss the Swanton. Lita TOTALLY botches a rana on Rico but Jeff gets the pin on Billy anyway.

Rating: N/A. I’m really getting tired of these short matches. That botch was a sight though. Her legs didn’t even get close to around his head. Moving on.

Flair picks Bubba Ray Dudley so Vince takes D-Von. They actually were going to try to make Bubba a serious challenger, even giving him a world title shot on Raw and giving it time. D-Von became a preacher with a deacon named Batista. I think the latter was a bit more famous.

European Title: Rikishi vs. William Regal

As Regal is coming to the ring, some HUGE muscle guy comes in and beats the living tar out of Rikishi, hitting a spinebuster and a SICK fireman’s carry spinout facebuster. You may know the move as the F5 and the guy as the current UFC World Heavyweight Champion: Brock Lesnar. I told you this was a transitional period. No match obviously.

Jazz is a witch in New York.

Vince tries to get Brock but it’s not his pick so Flair takes him. Great to see that D-Von pick working for Vince. Vince takes Mark Henry. I actually laugh when I think of the comparison between those two. Flair takes the European William Regal so Vince takes Maven, the Hardcore Champion. Flair takes Lita. Those are the last two picks. Let’s stop for a minute here and go pick for pick and look at these selections with Vince’s coming first.

#1: Rock vs. Undertaker. That’s a tossup I guess as Rock was bigger at the time but Taker is better long term.
#2: Kurt Angle vs. NWO. Do I even need to make fun of this one?
#3: Chris Benoit vs. Kane. Vince wins this based on in ring work alone.
#4: Hulk Hogan vs. Rob Van Dam. Have to go Vince here again as RVD was never really that important in WWE. Close one though given the money Hogan probably commanded.
#5: Billy and Chuck vs. Booker T. Comedy team vs. future world champion. Hmm I wonder.
#6: Edge vs. Big Show. Vince gets another one.
#7: Rikishi vs. Bubba Ray Dudley. Everyone loses.
#8: D-Von Dudley vs. Brock Lesnar. Actually you could make a case for Vince winning here as like I said Batista debuted shortly after this as D-Von’s enforcer. On paper though it’s really Flair in a landslide as Brock was a once in a lifetime find.
#9: Mark Henry vs. William Regal. Flair wins again.
#10: Maven vs. Lita. Eyebrows Huffman vs. a great rack. Flair finishes strong.

Vince has the better core and I think wins pretty easily here, especially since Brock was on Smackdown within 8 months. Also Raw wound up being boring as HECK soon after this.

Vince makes fun of Flair picking Lita because it’s going to be awful and a cesspool.

Intercontinental Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Kurt Angle

Angle grabs a German immediately. Dang Angle was good back then. RVD makes a short comeback to some very solid cheers. He sets for the Five Star but Angle hits the floor. And then Angle pulls the referee in front of the dropkick for the DQ. Edge comes down for the save.

Rating: N/A. Dude we can’t have these two get TV time? Are you kidding me? Where is the time going in this show considering how fast they’re making picks?

Stephanie says she’s going to win the title.

Undisputed Title: Stephanie McMahon vs. HHH vs. Chris Jericho

This is a triple threat and if Stephanie is pinned she’s out of the company. Jericho sends HHH to the floor and Stephanie lays down for Jericho but HHH makes the save. HHH won the title 8 days before this mind you. Totally boring match as the two wrestlers have to be on pins and needles so Stephanie doesn’t get exposed as being NOT A WRESTLER.

Stephanie slaps Jericho for some reason and they argue. Jericho goes for the Walls as this match needs to end. We know HHH isn’t losing so quit teasing us about it. HHH knocks Jericho down and stalks Stephanie. Pedigree is set up but Jericho hits a dropkick to stop it. Jericho grabs a title and a chair and through some odd stuff both HHH and Jericho get belt shots. Stephanie comes in and covers Jericho for two. She does this weird thing of lifting her leg on covers.

HHH gets caught in the Walls but Stephanie jumps on Jericho’s back. Pedigree gets two on Jericho and Stephanie makes the save. Spinebuster ends her and she’s gone….for four months until she became Smackdown’s GM. Security literally drags her away.

Rating: D-. Just horrible stuff here as HHH and Jericho more or less did nothing while this was about Stephanie all over again. What a shock right? She was the focus of just about everything for a good while and this would only get worse in 03/04 when Smackdown was ALL about her and Vince and their stupid feud for power. This was a glorified house show main event though and was really quite stupid.

Overall Rating: D-. Just a bad show overall with the main event being the only thing to break 8 minutes. The picks are odd at best and stupid at worst with nothing really making that much sense at all. This was a bad show and the whole thing would just get worse as the year went on with Raw becoming the HHH show and no one really paying attention to how awesome Smackdown was. Oh and Shawn would come back and be instantly pushed to the top of the roster because he’s Shawn and a 4 year layoff is easy to come back from right? Bad show but huge for historical purposes.

 

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I Want To Talk A Little Bit About Authority Figures

These guys have been around for years but are really becoming a problem as of late. Let’s go back to the past for a bit here because I like doing that. Back in the late 80s, there was one authority figure in the WWF and his name was Jack Tunney. You young whippersnappers might have heard of him and if you ever see him I’d recommend a pillow on standby. He was an old man that occasionally gave a speech from his office about something or other and even on occasion came to the ring. He was a suit but he was THE suit. No one questioned him and arguing with him was usually a waste of time. In short, he was the boss.

Flashing forward (and I’ll be skipping some of the names in here due to a lot of them being pretty worthless) we had Gorilla Monsoon who was a very popular old commentator who was the voice of the WWF in his day. He became commissioner after retiring because Vince guaranteed him lifetime employment and he needed something to do. He didn’t do much, but he was an intimidating presence and a guy that was almost universally loved.

Then it starts to go downhill for a little while.

We got Commissioner Slaughter who might have been more worthless than a jobber in a squash match. Slaughter was pushed around and often beaten up by various people with no one really taking him seriously at all. He was around for the Shawn Michaels DX days and that’s about all he did: fight DX, with a win/loss record that would make him jealous of the Brooklyn Brawler. The next authority figure was a little more successful and realistic.

Around this time, Vince McMahon was revealed to be the real life owner of the company in an angle about Jim Ross of all people. Vince began feuding with Austin over what Vince and Austin thought should be the image of the champion and therefore the company, moving into a two year long rivalry that launched the company to undreamed of heights. Along the way, there was still a Commissioner, but it was Shawn Michaels. HBK had the job for about two years and didn’t do much. Then we got into the more active ones, such as Foley and Regal.

Also during this time, various McMahons and McMahon spouses (HHH) had and lost power with people stepping down from power and people winning control of the company in matches and all that jazz. This is where you can start seeing the problems that would plague the company and was really hurting WCW at the time (among other things) but we’ll get to that in a minute.

After that, the Brand Split happened and each show had an owner (Ric Flair on Raw, Vince on Smackdown) and then a GM. Smackdown started off with a lot of changes at GM, ranging from Stephanie to Paul Heyman to Kurt Angle to Teddy Long to Vickie and now back to Teddy. Raw has been a little more insane. Eric Bischoff held the job for about three and a half years and since then (December of 2005), there have been 8 GMs.

That brings us to today with HHH as the COO and Johnny Ace as the suit that runs around doing whatever. We’ll come back to this at the end.

I promise there’s going to be a point to this in the end.

Let’s take a look at WCW for an example of what NOT to do. Back in the early days, there wasn’t really any boss figure. The matches just kind of happened and someone booked them but it wasn’t really thought of. Then WCW came up with the stupidest of all their boss related ideas (up to that point): they had the REAL bosses of the company appear on TV as the bosses. In other words, actual business executives playing business executives. If you think about this, you can instantly see the problem: these guys have no idea how to act in front of a camera. We have no idea who they are and we don’t care about them, so why should they be on TV? Because WCW is stupid, that’s why.

So after having Nick Bockwinkle for Commissioner for a few years (despite having no connection to WCW after having been in the AWA for years and years and years), we had no boss for awhile until we got to the NWO era, which is where things got smart again. Eric Bischoff, the actual boss, was made into the on-screen boss. For people like him and Vince or in the present HHH, this is smart as they know how to be on TV and act like a TV person. It makes sense and the fans are going to react better. Also it helps knowing they could actually fire someone and aren’t just an actor.

Anyway, things go downhill after that as the Commissionership, the CEO spot and President of WCW become more or less titles which could be defended and won or lost in matches. This became a real problem as they would change almost month to month and no one had any idea who was in charge half of the time. Also at the end of the day, people stopped caring because everyone made matches anyway. Towards the end you had Russo and Bischoff plus others that were in the spots I just mentioned, making something like 3-5 bosses at once. That takes us to TNA, which is easier to talk about as it’s been around for less time and has had fewer bosses for the most part.

Before there was just TNA and it’s management which like WCW’s old days was some unseen force that made things happened. That’s perfectly fine. Jim Cornette was made the representative of TNA management in 2006 and held the job on and off for about three years. Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter had some authority in there for the most part too, Dixie being on screen rarely.

Now we get to modern TNA, which shows the problem for the most part. At the moment, Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Karen Angle and the Network are allowed to make matches. That’s four total (three for the main roster) matchmakers. Who is in charge more than anyone else? There’s really no way to tell and it gets a little complicated. Sting wants to bring back Dixie Carter and there was a Network Representative recently in the form of Foley. In short, it’s too much and it gets too complicated quickly.

Ok so now let’s summarize this. Authority figures are an important part of wrestling, but they need to be done right. They need to not be actors but rather someone that knows how to work a wrestling crowd. It gets dull when you have a guy that has no idea what to say out there trying to sound important. Also, for the love of sanity, stop talking about behind the scenes stuff and convincing boards of directors to give you power. TNA has been really guilty of this lately. I can’t count how often Hogan and Bischoff have been granted power by the Network and we’re just told about it. Yes that’s realistic, but that’s not the point of wrestling. Wrestling is over the top and insane, not based in reality. If you’re going to change power, show it happening.

That brings me back to WCW: there’s such a thing as changing too often. Raw did this over the last few years, changing GMs all the time. It gets annoying in a hurry as it makes the power seem weak, as it can be taken away and replaced all the time. You also don’t want to have matches all the time to change the authority figures. If you can’t keep track of who the boss is, how important can they seem?

Most importantly of all, don’t have a ton of people in power. Have preferably one and at most two. WWE is doing things pretty well now with HHH as the boss and Ace as only kind of a boss. People are fighting for HHH’s power in the form of the Conspiracy and it makes it look valuable that he wants to defend it. Now I know that kind of goes against what I said about not changing it immediately, which is what I mean as HHH doesn’t need to lose the job already.

Authority figures can be important and great additions to the show, but they need to be done right.