Hopped up on caffeine, let’s get to typin! I have to say this was a really entertaining week of wrestling as the two main shows go. I was only mildly bored at certain points during the shows, but the good definitely outweighed the bad this week.
WWF
Raw
Chris Benoit opened the show. I was dozing at this point as my girlfriend had been watching Yes, Dear. She flipped over and I heard the music and it woke me right up. Benoit is BACK, baby, and he looks good in a manly sort of way. The short version of the interview is, even though he’s a Smackdown guy, he wanted to say “hey†to the Edmonton Crowd. Eddy and Flair came out a various points to annoy him. Eddy bringing up some Radicalz history, and Flair just kicking him out of the building. Later on in the night, though, this would reveal itself as an “Ex-Horsemen-and-Eddy†plot.
Terri beat Stevie for the Hardcore title during an interview, and then lost it right back to him. I can’t decide whether I’m sick of the Hardcore Title or not. I think it’s an idea that’s run its course. I realize it’s something for a bunch of the guys on the roster to do but I think the best idea is to make it a “between shows†belt as the 24/7 rule would make it possible for Smackdown guys to “sneak†into Raw and steal the belt back to their show. It would be something else from the same old they seem to do with it.
Booker T and Pac beat the Hardy Boyz. This Booker face turn seems pretty imminent, I just wonder where they’re going to go with it. I wonder if they realize that will mean putting him over some of the top tier guys and not jobbing to Austin even if it is 15 on 1.
Tommy Dreamer continues his quest to win his way into our hearts by doing disgusting things. He eats a hot dog off an arena floor, and also drinks the Undertaker’s tobacco spit. Now, word on the street is that it was legit. People have told me that mistakingly swallowing a little bit of that stuff made them puke for an hour. Taker actually did look like he was about to vomit so, whatever. It got the point across. Taker then beat up Dreamer, in no big surprise.
Bradshaw’s big face push evaporated in spectacular fashion in a match with the Big Show. Show wasn’t phased by the Clothesline From Hell and proceeded to chokeslam Bradshaw right after it.
Golddust squashed Crash to prove to Kevin Nash he was nWo material. When Nash came out, he didn’t beat the crap out of ‘Dust, so maybe he agrees?
Crazy good main event saw Eddy Guerrer vs RVD for the IC title in a ladder match. This was a PPV quality match, probably designed to get people talking. Hopefully saying, “dang, that main event on Raw was pretty good last week. We should watch it again this week.†If so, it worked for me. Real good match saw RVD getting the title back from Eddy, then Austin comes in to mess with him. Flair and Arn come out to help Eddy, then Benoit hops the rail to help Austin. AH, but it was just a crafty set-up as Benoit turns on Austin and punks him out, hopefully setting up Flair getting Benoit to Raw.
The WWF moved into uncharted territory with the Benoit turn on Austin. They went and did something that MADE SENSE!!! Austin put Benoit out for a year Benoit is angry. Good Stuff this is.
Smackdown
The nonsense with the tag titles continues as Rico “pins†Billy after Rikishi knocked them both out, then put Rico on top. I find it quite sad that the tag division went from the strongest ever to this in less than a year. But, whatever they think works.
Maven and Torrie continue their backstage romance, with a lurking Tajiri, which was a quite a funny visual. Maven had a match with Christian where he apparently broke his leg, but damned if I could see where it happened.
A bit of the same “WWF Magic†that was used to make Nidia hot was conjured again to put Dawn Marie from “cute†to “Oh my GOD.†She joined Vince as a paralegal with breasts hanging out.
Hogan gave an interview that said he only wanted to “bow out gracefully.†Angle attacked him, setting up the screwjob for the main event.
Undertaker continued his feud with guys he shouldn’t be feuding with by beating Randy Orton in what turned out to be a better match then I expected. That meaning it wasn’t the Undertaker completely blowing Orton out of the water. The young dude got some offense in. They both gave some false finishes, which I think helped Orton a lot more than it hurt him. As I said to my buddy on Instant Messenger as the match was going on “They ain’t f**king around with this Orton dude.†Post-match, Undertaker beats on Orton a little more, till HHH makes the save.
HHH had a match with Test which succeeded only in making Test and Storm look like afterthoughts. Test won, but it was only after Undertaker interference. This is one of the problems. It’s not that bad to make it look like one of these mid-card guys has a shot agains the big guys. In fact, it might even help.
Main event was Edge/Angle in a cage, which was a really good match with a retarded finish. Angle got out of the cage with the ref out, and then Hogan came down to toss him back in, which eventually gave Edge the win. It wouldn’t have been THAT bad a finish if I didn’t detest Edge so much. It’s possibly the only thing that has really ticked me off about Hogan since his return that and coming out to Voodoo (whatever) instead of Real American dammit.
Tough Enough 2
So, the WWF picked two yaks rather than the people who should have won, that being Jackie and Jake. My guess: the WWF didn’t want it to look racist or sexist. Take the two yaks, cover both bases and all the asses. Or, Ashish’s suggestion: there’s just too many men in the WWF right now and they want to try and build a women’s division. I think Jake was a better prospect than Linda (was that her name?), but that’s just me and that’s why I just write for a website.
The NWA
Well, Scott Hall didn’t go very long unemployed as the NWA has announced his signing. The same dude I mentioned from IM a little while ago had a good point. “Oh no, the WWF fired me, now I can go to any other federation and be their World Champion within a month. The NWA has decent names I just don’t think their business model has any hope of succeeding.
They also have announced a “Gauntlet†match. I could go into a detailed description of it or I could just say it’s a Royal Rumble with 90 second intervals. The only difference is that the last two guys have a match for the belt. So, a two hour show, with a Royal Rumble . What’s that make, like, one other match?
Well, I definitely want to watch the first one. Whether or not I’ll want to drop money on the second one that’s to be seen.
The Week In Wrestling
Well, the WWF took a step in the right direction this week. Good, solid shows with good, solid wrestling action. All the storyline steps made sense, and the matches were great. If they did stuff like this every week, they wouldn’t be making asses of themselves by calling Goldberg every day (according to Ashish, that is). If the WWF would just do stuff like they did this past week every single week, they wouldn’t be needing Goldberg to come in.
Regardless, I hope whatever the WWF has planned for this week is half as good as what they had last week. The cage matches aren’t even necessary, so long as they have a good, solid main event. What did these two main events have that the rest of them usually don’t? A winner you couldn’t just pick out of thin air and say “yup, he’s going to win.†When Austin is in the main event you have that.
Keep people interested, and they’ll keep coming back, plain and simple.
End Transmission.
