WWE Bottomline Report 2/4/05

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WWE Bottomline Report 2/4/05

It’s wrestlemania weekend! Think we’ll get some video packages on Bottomline about it? Think maybe we’ll see some more of those WM21 trailers? Think Mark Loyd will have a new skin colour? What’s for sure is that I’ll be recapping them recap Raw!

Mark Loyd says hi and YES, he’s LESS tanned than he was last week. He’s getting into it fast this week, recapping what happened at the top of the hour with 5 of the 6 guys in the Ladder match at Wrestlemania. I love Christian’s outfit. Edge says “I hate to break it to you Christian, but you’re not the only that has 2 wrestlemania victories. The difference is, on my own, I’ll be winning my third. And when it comes to you three you can save all the talk about making history, about intercontinental titles, and save all the talk about BROKEN NECKS, because I’ve done all of that! And I will snap each and every one of your necks if that’s what it takes to win my chance to face the world heavyweight champion.” Benoit gets an awesome line in ~ “Not if I break yours first.” Great point by Edge. They didn’t tell us what anyone else’s arguments were. I’m guessing Benjamin’s was about not stopping him now, or something.

This leads to a 6 man between them all…except Kane, who is replaced by Tomko. Benoit gets the sharpshooter on Edge. Christian interrupts and eats three german suplexes. Benoit goes up, head butts tomko, busts open the hard way, and gets stopped by Edge. Edge gets the superplex and we cut to commercials. Since when do we cut to commercial on a highlight? Why didn’t they just show the pinfall like they usually do? Not that I’m complaining about seeing some actual wrestling. It’s like fresh air, you know. You feel uncomfortable with it at first.

Hence, Commercials.

Mark Loyd talks more Wrestlemania, and now there’s a Snickers ad at the bottom left of the screen the whole time instead of Starburst. He segues into the ladder match, and we get to see the conclusion. Edge spears Tomko by mistake, then Benjamin kicks Benoit by mistake, then Christian hits the unprettier on Edge on purpose, then Benjamin hits the T-bone on Christian on purpose, then Tomko kicks Benjamin, then Jericho puts Tomko in the walls of Jericho and makes him tap out. Christian then hits Jericho with a ladder, but then Kane comes out and rips everyone into tiny little pieces. He then sets up the ladder, goes up, and lights all the posts on fire in a really cool picturesque little moment. I like that they had Tomko lose (not in the match Sunday) and have Kane beat everyone down (logical because he’s fresh and they all just had a match) in order to keep the playing field. Mark then tells us that the ladder match has no rules, and then goes on to explain the freaking rules.

Up next, Trish loses an arm wrestling contest to Christy Hemme.

Commercials.

WWE is at the PNE Agrodome may 28th, but they don’t actually say where the PNE Agrodome IS (it’s in Victoria BC).

The Lugz stunner (jesus…) Is Molly missing the Molly go round and Christy pinning her in a total fluke.

Mark says the women’s title match will be off the chart. Which chart? Last Monday, Christy beat Trish in a split second…in an arm wrestling match. Trish wants a second chance, and Trish beats her again. So Trish throws Lillian Garcia down, then kicks Lita, then sneers at Christy. Makes sense to me.

Up next, Shawn Michaels gets hijacked by Angle during his tune up.

Commercials.

Apparently, JBL has to silence the ‘street’ which is a metaphor, apparently, for a white guy pretending to be a rapper who used to have a spinny belt. The hell street is that again?

Mark Loyd explains why Muhammad Hassan is pissed off, and getting to fight “Mr Wrestlemania” Shawn Michaels. Cut to the camel clutch, which Hassan DOES actually make look painful, what with those crazy eyes and everything. Michaels gets the ropes, and Shawn fights back with some chops. Cut to Michaels going up top and hitting the elbow drop, looking like a damn old hippie in the process. And while Davair freaks out (.6 on the Heenan scale) Michaels tunes up the band. Then, Angle comes out and and beats down Michaels. Hassan hold Michaels., but he ducks and Hassan gets nailed. Shawn fights back, but Angle counteracts and tries the angle slam, but misses, then shawn misses sweet chin music and Angle escapes. Michaels hits Hassan with the superkick, and Angle escapes through the crowd.

Up next, Orton gets cocky. And then….

Commercials.

WWE Rewind this week is Smackdown two weeks ago, with Undertaker killing the french guy from Smackdown.

Mark explains that Orton has perhaps too much confidence. We cut to last week with Orton’s explanation of why he RKO’d his girlfriend ~ “Years form now, people will be talking about my endefeated streak. It all started last year. Rock, Foley, you fell to Randy Orton. Taker, you can’t fight the future, and you can’t beat Randy Orton; Legend Killer” The lights go off, and we’re shown a video counting down all 12 of Undertaker’s defeated opponents. And then the ring posts ignite, and Randy finally freaks out.

So we cut to Smackdown, where Cowboy Bobby Orton pleads with the Undertaker to have mercy. Undertaker isn’t having it “It took one slap to seal your son’s fate. This Sunday at Wrestlemania, Randy Orton will rest in peace.” Orton responds “My whole life I haven’t knelt down to any man, but I’m going to do it right now and ask you to please, have mercy on my sun.” Undertaker looks around, looks back, looks again, and gets RKO’s by Randy Orton. Undertaker takes some time to get up, but then falls again.

Commercials.

Wrestlemania Recall ~ Hogan Bodyslamming Andre. Did they run out? I swear I’ve seen this a bunch this year.

Mark is very excited for the Hall of Fame 2005, which airs tonight apparently, and again tomorrow. Then we run down the whole card. In his eyes, HHH VS Batista just might be the main event, and possibly the MOTY.

Then we get the video they played at the beginning of last week’s Raw about the evolution of, er, evolution.

Commercials.

They finally tell us the theme song for Wrestlemania. It’s ‘Big Time’ by Soundtrack of our Lives.

We cut to last Monday’s ‘Face Off’ with HHH and Batista. HHH ~ “Look in my eyes, DAMMIT LOOK AT ME. That’s it. See the truth. In 6 days, at Wrestlemani 21, you’re future will happen. It’ll be the day that you found out that you made the biggest mistake of your life. In my eyes you see the truth, and the truth is that you cannot beat me.” Batista ~ “What do I have to say? What do I have to say? Are you talkin to me?” (The crowd goes NUTS for that one) “I’m gonna say thank you, I’m gonna express my gratitude for everything you and Ric have taought me. Exspecially you Ric. You are without a doubt a true legend. Now, we got two things to say to you. One, next Sunday, Wrestlemania 21, I am gonna take your world heavyweight title. Two, and I don’t knwo quite how to say this, so I’m just gonna say it,. You are an asshole.” HHH throws the table away and they lock…noses. Then, after a minute of that, HHH slaps Batista, and Batista says “Thank you” before taking down HHH. Security rushes them. They both break loose, but security keep swarming. They finally get them off, and Batista shows HHH 6 fingers to signify 6 days.

And that’s the show.

Wrestlemania Predictions: I was out of town the last two days, so I missed the roundtable. In case you were curious though, I’ll put down my wrestlemania predictions here.

HHH VS Batista ~ I bet you this match surprises all of us in terms of quality. Batista is getting better every match and HHH is a wonderful storyteller when he wants to be. This is the marquee main event, and something completely unexpected will happen. That may simply be HHH being a man and putting Batista over huge (like he did last year with Benoit) but that’ll be nice on it’s own. If not that, then something else freaking big. Whether we like that or not will be up for question.

Winner: Batista

JBL VS John Cena ~ This is the one match I just don’t give a damn about. I don’t like Cena; he seems too packaged and too phony, the quintessential opposite to Batista, who has slowly grown his character into something legitimate. I LOVE JBL, but I don’t care much for his matches. I love his victory speeches though, so I’m rooting for that.

Winner: JBL

Ladder in the Bank Ladder Match ~ It will not be the match of the night, but you can be sure they’ll try their hardest. Look for at least one sick spot by someone not winning it.

Winner: Edge

Kurt Angle VS Shawn Michaels ~ Ooh, this’ll be some fun stuff. I hope they keep it to ‘wrestling’ as much as possible. The question isn’t who has more time left in their careers; the question is who wants to be a ‘legend’ more.

Winner: Kurt Angle. It’s about time he had a clean win at a marquee event.

Trish VS Christy ~ It’s going to be better than anyone expects, but maybe that’s because they aren’t expecting much. This is very telling of the WWE audience. The marks love Christy and hate Trish. The internet smarks hate Christy and love Trish. It’s like planets aligning when that happens.

Winner: Christy.

Big Show VS Akebono ~ Everyone has such low expectations for this. Why? For the most part, gimmick matches at Wrestlemania work out really well. The only one I can think of that didn’t was the Brawl For All. If the internet was around for Wrestlemania 2, they likely would have bitched about the boxing match with Mr T and Piper, but that was damn good and is, without fail, one of the wrestlemania recaps every year. This match will have an awesome stare down, and someone really heavy will fall down with lots of melodrama. If you’re not into the McMahon way of Big guys fighting each other, then rest assured it won’t even go 6 minutes.

Winner: Akebono

Eddie Guerrero VS Rey Mysterio ~ This is one of the guarantees of awesome quality entertainment on this card. Yes, they’ve wrestled during the build-up. So what? Each match has been different, and so will this one. Will it be better than their Halloween Havoc 97 match? Maybe, but it will be more relevant, since the story happening now means more than the story back then. Whatever happens in that ring will have major implications as to where these two are going in the next year. For some reason, I see Mysterio with the WWE title this year. Crazy? We’ll see.

Winner: Rey Mysterio

Randy Orton VS Undertaker ~ It’s a major clash of styles, and good god I hope they’re really motivated because this could either really stink up the place or surprise us all. It’s been a pretty good storyline if you leave out the really plastic way they began it, especially if you read about all the trouble Randy has been getting into. This is sort of like last year, where we all thought it was a lock that Lesner would beat Goldberg, but then we learned that Lesner was leaving and breaking a contract. This year, it looked like the mega-push of Orton’s just might have given him the duke, but then we hear about all this sexual harassment stuff, and it looks like Death Valley for Orton.

Winner: The Undertaker.

Piper’s Pit ~ Something will happen that goes about 2 hours to fill up the fact that there’s only 8 matches on this show. That’s the smallest card in Wrestlemania history, if I remember correctly. I guess there’s the rumor of the 30 man battle royal, so that’ll bring it to 9 (a few Wrestlemania’s have had 9) but as it stands, it’s going to have to do some major stretching. That, or we’re in for some very long matches tomorrow night. Either way, I’ll see you next week to recap next week’s Raw 6 days after it happens.

K Sawyer Paul is the author of This is Sports Entertainment: The Secret Diary of Vince McMahon, co-editor of Fair to Flair, and curator at Aggressive Art.