Looks like I might be picking up a new gig for the site. I did the Weekend News Report this week and Ashish had me come up with a name for the column. So, if that turns into a permanent gig, a smaller version of this column could end up as part of that column. It’ll still be available on Mondays, just underneath the Monday News.
Senate Leader Tommy D is already blasting the presidents new economic plan as beneficial for only the wealthy. Just one day, ONE DAY, I’d like to hear Tommy D and Dickie G tell us exactly what “wealthy†is considered. Democrats idea to tax the hell out of businesses is, of course, the best answer. Just ask Upstate New York, which has managed to lose just about ALL of it’s business. Or, you ask Californians, whose Liberal ways proved that four HUGE cities and a multi-BILLION dollar movie industry can’t support all the programs they come up with out there. Yep, Dickie tell me exactly WHO you consider wealthy.
Also, what’s the deal with the RAW 10th anniversary special only being one hour long? For shit’s sake, I expected them to add an EXTRA hour for it. 10 years of shows and they can only come up with an HOUR of highlights? I mean, it hasn’t been always been as bad as it is right now.
Also, is the whole show a studio show? Kinda puts a damper on the whole “Austin Returns on the X show.â€Â
Raw
It was a best of 2002 show. Basically a buncha matches that happened during the year including:
Edge/Eddy no DQ match from Smackdown: Possibly the best match of the year, in my own stupid opinion. Definitely the best Smackdown match of the year, which is saying something considering all the matches that they’ve had over the last few months.
Taker/Hardy Ladder match from Raw: Pointless match, actually would have been ok if Jeff didn’t proceed to get buried after this match. If anyone needs a reason why Jeff’s heart isn’t into it anymore you need look no further than this feud with the Undertaker.
Angle/Mysterio from Summerslam: Sleeper match from Summerslam that wasn’t supposed to be good. I saw it twice, once at the House Show preceeding Slam and once at Slam, and BOTH times it was exceedingly good.
Hogan/Rock from Wrestlemania X8: Fun watching, for no other reason than hearing JR trying to bury Hogan and sell him as a heel, and also calling the crowd split when EVERYONE is booing EVERYTHING the Rock is doing. Good ‘Ol did his best to sell it, out of spite, maybe. Even ROCKY was smart enough to start working the match as a heel.
Clips of the Owen Hart tribute show: I actually had to stop and think for a moment. “Wait, this didn’t happen in 2002, did it?â€Â
Michaels/HHH from Summerslam: Don’t know if I liked this match so much because I was there for it or not but barring the stupind, pointless ending as Michaels would be back from a sledgehammer shot that SHOULD have paralyzed him. You know sometimes less is more ie: a Pedigree or two and a chair assault is just as effective and MORE believable than crushing a guy’s spinal cord with a sledgehammer and have him up and bouncing around a month later.
Angle with Hair/Edge from Backlash: I think this was just another excuse to put Edge on since I definitely didn’t think this was highlight reel worthy.
Rock/Brock fron Summerslam: fitting in that it got Brock over, effectively turned the Rock heel by default, and catapaulted Brock to superstardom when the WWF realized that, yes, people can indeed get behind a new person.
Hurri-Kane v. Jeff Hardy/RVD v. Dudleys, v. Frizzy Blonde Canadians in TLC4 from Raw: match was stupid as Kane won without Hurricane. They used it to sell Kane as a monster, effectively burying every other team as two man teams that couldn’t stop him. And also, the one OTHER guy that could have been helped by this by winning with Kane wasn’t even allowed in the match not even a struggling walkout to make a save.
No Booker T, unfortunately, as they still won’t sell him as anything even a recap of some of his and Golddust’s funnier moments would have been acceptable, as there was a ton of them from the year.
Smackdown
The first new show of 2003 didn’t get them off to a booming start.
C-Note and Bling Bling had a heavy presence on this show, nearly saving it from utter disaster. C-Note busted some rhymes on Rikishi and Eddy at different points in the show and also busted rhymes while doing commentary. I heard rumors that Art Martinez is either 1) writing for the WWE now or 2) pissed that someone stole his gimmick.
On a related note, Eddy is guilty of a mullet-homicide as he shaved his head down to about a quarter inch of hair all around. The writers were a bit behind this as C-Note’s rhymes involved talking about the mullet. I guess Eddy is either officially a face or will be soon. Look for his accent to disappear entirely over the next few weeks since Eddy’s Mexicanness fluctuates with his heel/faceness.
Kidman and Torrie talk backstage. The funny thing is, they’re together in real life and they don’t even act like there’s any chemistry between them. Anyway, Kidman imitated what the Wilson/Dawn wedding would be like with a pretty funny imitation of Al Wilson, but a pretty weak imitation of Dawn Marie.
All this led to a match with Eddy Guererro vs Kidman, with yet more commentary from C-Note. Kidman went over Eddy with some help from C-Note, thus solidifying Edwardo’s face turn. He will be speaking unaccented English next week guaranteed.
Yay, a package to recap Al and Dawn’s relationship right before the big wedding. Dawn, surprisingly, didn’t get naked as promised and instead only stripped to her undies. She also made Al strip to his undies for the ceremony. The vows went off without a hitch and they promised footage from the honeymoon on next week’s Smackdown. No interruption no further payoff. At some point, I will figure out what they’re trying to do with this my current guess: they want to see how much shit people will swallow whilst still watching really good wrestling. They must figure if they give you two good matches per show, that people will just watch and deal with this stupid, STUPID wedding angle THAT WILL NOT GO AWAY. How long can this possibly keep going on? It’s not going anywhere, it has no possible payoff, and people are sick to death of it. It can’t lead to an Al Wilson v Kidman feud although I wouldn’t be personally opposed to someone taking a sledgehammer to Al to put us all out of our collective miseries. In fact, if there is ONE fan reading who likes this idiocy, please let me know. I will forward your email directly to Eric S for immediate induction into the You’re A Moron archives.
Team Angle’s debut was SUPER impressive as they took on Benoit and Edge in a tag match. It ended in a DQ that left everyone looking good and making Team Angle come out as uber heels. Team Angle actually got DQed but Angle beat up the ring announcer and the Canadians (Americans beatin on the Canadians awww jeah!) and demanded the announcer announce Team Angle as the winners.
Heyman later came out to put over this massacre and give us some more Big Show. Heyman (somehow) has set it up so Brock has to face Big Show at the Royal Rumble, and the winner will be the only one of the two who gets into the Rumble. This draws out Brock, who stares down Heyman. This then draws out Matt Hardy and Shannon Moore who attack Brock with a chair. Brock gets busted open hardway from the back of the head and bleeds for the rest of the show, including his match later with Matt Hardy. Brock ends up destroying everyone anyway.
Which carried over into the Matt Hardy (who stays awake to see the sunrise every New Year’s Day) v. Brock match. Brock destroyed Matt while bleeding the whole time.
The Week In Wrestling
Overall a sad week. No real Raw to speak of and a mediocre to bad Smackdown that pretty much just featured more of the same. As such, not much material to put in this section.
Regardless, I’ll be in tomorrow with the Tuesday Music News and (possibly) back on Saturday with the Weekend News.
