Well due to things of out my hands I can’t get my Smackdown recap up this week on time. I’ll post it in a few days if I get the chance. Well, not being the type of person to short change my loyal readers, I decided to do a review of this show as it’s Halloween season and because it was during the glorious days when Paul Heyman was booking Smackdown and they had some great matches going on. I like good matches so I felt I’d post this as a sort of apology for not having my regular column up. Let’s get cracking then shall we?
We start things off with a big party for all the Smackdown wrestlers as they are all dressed up in weirder costumes than normal. Faarooq is dressed as a pimp, Shannon Moore as a devil, Tajiri as Disco Stu, Eddie Guerrero as Zorro etc, Stephanie McMahon comes in as a witch, make your own jokes, and books Rey Mysterio Vs Brock Lesnar for the main event tonight.
It’s so refreshing to see “Beautiful People” as the theme for Smackdown after years of generic rock songs. We are in Grand Rapids and you’re hosts are Tazz and Cole. A lot of the fans are dressed up in costume too, so it’s a pretty good atmosphere
Edge Vs Chris Fucking Benoit
Edge was legitimately my favourite wrestler at this point and he’s very over with the crowd too. Benoit and Angle were in the midst of their tag title reign here even though they hated each other. Lock up leads to them fighting over a headlock. Edge reverses a take down with an arm bar. Edge stays on the arm showing some good mat skills. Benoit gets some knees in the corner and fires away with some right hands before going to a headlock. Leapfrog segment ends with an Edge knee to Benoit’s ribs. Edge gets a rib breaker and stays on the mid section in the corner. Benoit gets some chops in and a short arm clothesline. Irish Whip to the corner is reversed and Edge gets two from it and sends Benoit outside where Benoit eats some barricade. Back inside Edge goes to a rear chin lock as Tazz and Cole hype Scott Steiner signing with WWE. Benoit gets some chops but Edge drops him on the top rope. Edge misses the baseball slide and Benoit beats him down outside and dropkicks his shoulder into the ring steps. Benoit stays on the shoulder inside by sending it into the corner and goes to a cross-face-arm-bar. Back suplex by Benoit gets two as Edge is bleeding hard way from the nose. Drop Toe Hold by Benoit followed by a dropkick to the face. Snap Suplex gets two for Benoit. Fans groan with every move done to Edge here because Benoit is that much of a tough bastard. Edge mounts a comeback but gets stopped going up top but he turns that into a top rope face buster. Edge goes up top with a Missile Dropkick but Benoit swats him away and goes to a cross face but Edge makes the ropes. Benoit fires off 3 German’s and head up top for the head butt but Edge rolls out of the way at the last minute. Chop fest leads to an Edge-O-Matic for two. Face Plant gets two for Edge as the women are very much behind him here. Flapjack by Edge and he preps for the Spear but Benoit counters to a cross face bang in the middle. Edge looks finished but Kurt Angle distracts Benoit. Edge baseball slides Benoit into Angle and heads to the top rope. He goes for a clothesline to the outside on both but Benoit dodges and Angle takes the full brunt of it. Back inside Edge gets a Spear from nowhere to pick up the win to a big pop
WINNER – EDGE
***1/2 – Fun match with a responsive crowd and good selling from Edge
Backstage a historic moment as generic mid card heel John Cena does his best Vanilla Ice impression and everyone in the room is like “Dude you suck” 3 years later and he’s WWE Champion. Weird how this stuff works out isn’t it? Meanwhile Tajiri is checking out the talent and ends up making the mistake of thinking Mae Young is a hot young woman. How do you make THAT mistake? Anyway he tries to run away but he can’t escape the leathery talons of old women Mate and Moolah. While all that goes on Dawn Marie (looking f*cking FINE as a dirty cop) and Al Wilson (doing a comically bad Fonzie impression) show up. That was pretty funny
They recap what happened with Benoit and Angle. Back to the party, anyway Benoit barges in screaming about Angle screwing him which, as you can imagine, puts a bit of a damper on things. Meanwhile, Angle is hiding under a Scream Mask.
Brock is backstage and goes for a pep talk with Heyman who basically says “You can’t beat Big Show”. Wow great motivational speaking there Paul. We all know how it turned out but at this point you could see the cracks in their relationship forming
Big Show Vs Rikishi
This had something to do with Big Show attacking Rikishi the week before but basically it’s just a squash to make Show look threatening. Rikishi was total jobber meat back then. Show beats Rikishi around and finishes him with the Choke Slam. After that he calls Brock out and does the whole “Heel stops the show until the face answers his challenge” routine Paul Heymanâ¾Ã‚¢. Brock finally comes out, to a pretty good face pop, and calls Big Show a big piece of shit which is short and to the point. Show backs down but not before saying Brock would get his later at some point
Trick or Treat Match
Dawn Marie Vs Torrie Wilson
Basically it’s a fight in a bowl of chocolate with some pies and cream at ringside. Sounds like a normal Friday night at Jerry Lawler’s house and I bet he’d take that as a compliment. Torrie is dressed as some sort of Amazonian. Dawn looks hotter. Hey throw pie at each other and then tumble into the chocolate. This is the stuff Heyman probably wanted to do in ECW except he didn’t have the budget. Plus, if he did it back then it would most likely be Francine Vs Elektra in the skimpiest bikini’s you could find. The ref ends up the in chocolate and Torrie actually vertical suplexes Dawn in the pool and rips her down to her panties. They roll around in the chocolate and trade chops? WTF? Torrie knocks Dawn outside and gets a roll up for the win
WINNER – TORRIE
½* – Chimel of course ends up in the chocolate
Back to the party as the lights go out and Matt Hardy shows up with a CD player playing his theme in a tremendously arrogant moment which is why I loved this character so much. He makes fun of Tajiri for hanging around with Mae and Moolah “Versions B.C.” and hypes up their match next
Rebellion recap. I’ve seen the show and it’s pretty brutal save for a couple of good matches
Back to the party as John Cena tells Stephanie that Vince is here to see her
Matt Hardy V ONEAHHHHHHHHHH Vs Tajiri
Matt facts this week are
“Matt always got more Halloween Candy than his brother”
“Matt has seen all Friday the 13th movies”
Rather look warm reaction to Tajiri but Heyman was at least finding stuff for him to do. Lock up leads to a Hardy arm drag as he taunts. Tajiri goes to the headlock and reverses a wrist lock into his own arm drag. Matt gets two from a roll up but gets kicked in the face and rolls outside where he takes an Asai Moonsault. Back inside Tajiri walks into a Side Effect and Matt gets two from it. Matt chokes away using the ropes and clubs away in the corner. He gets some chops and stops a Tajiri comeback with an eye rake. Elbow gets two for Hardy. Hardy goes to the neck crank as the fans get behind Tajiri as he fights out but takes an elbow to stop the comeback again. Matt goes for the AHHHHHHHHHHH leg drop but Tajiri moves and both guys are down. The fight back up to their feet and Tajiri gets a kick to the face for two. Tajiri bridges out of the sunset flip and gets another kick for two. Tarantula is countered by Matt with a German Suplex for two. Tajiri gets it on his second time but Hardy ducks the kick and gets a Twist of Fate for the win
WINNER – MATT HARDY
**1/2 – Started slow but turned into a pretty hot TV match towards the end
Meanwhile, Stephanie comes backstage and sees “Vince” It’s really Eric Bischoff under a rubber mask. He says that Scott Steiner will be joining Raw and then kisses Stephanie and she seems to quite enjoy it. That didn’t go anywhere so this segment was pretty pointless
Kurt Angle Vs Eddie Guerrero
Eddie was still all about the mullet here although he has it in a ponytail here. Lock up leads to some great wrestling that leads to a leapfrog segment which leads to Angle slamming Eddie causing him to bail. Another wrestling sequence leads to Eddie firing away with forearms as the fans start chanting for Angle who’s default face here. Eddie gets a high angle back suplex for two and stomps away in the corner. Eddie stays on Angle with some vicious strikes and goes to a front headlock as the crowd starts a “Let’s go Angle” chant. Angle fights the move and breaks out with elbows but Eddie knocks him down and goes back to the hold. Angle fights out again and gets a power slam. Eddie dropkicks the knee and chokes away in the corner with his boot. He continues to choke and cheat away. Eddie gets a vertical suplex for two and goes back to the rear chin lock. Eddie turns the move into a head scissors and uses the ropes to cheat. Angle reverses to an Ankle Lock but Eddie kicks him away and pounds away some more in the corner but gets cocky and ends up on the wrong end of a German Suplex. Both guys are down as the ref gets up to 7 before they get up. Angle gets a couple of clotheslines and a back body drop. Eddie breaks the German but walks into an overhead throw. Angle counters a brain buster with some German’s and he gets three of them for a two count. Angle PULLS DOWN THE STRAPS and goes for an Angle Slam but Eddie reverses it into a pin for two. Eddie gets a swinging DDT from the second rope for two. Eddie goes for the El Paso Lasso but Angle turns it into an Ankle Lock. Eddie blocks a German with a low blow and gets the 1 Amigo (There wasn’t 3 yet) and heads up top but Angle shoves the ref into the ropes to knock him down and crotch Eddie. Chavo runs down and Angle deals with him but Benoit blasts Angle with the tag title belt and that leads to an Eddie Frog Splash for the three. After that Benoit destroys the Guerrero’s for fun
WINNER – CHRIS BENOIT
***3/4 – Really good match that was close to reaching the upper echelons but to use the stereotypical internet wrestling journalist explanation with was “missing something”
Back to the party as Kurt Angle comes in bitching about what just happened. He attacks Shannon Moore and hoes up to a guy in a Scream Mask but when he takes the mask off it turns out to be Brother Love for no other reason than they thought it would be funny to have him there. I must admit I still get a chuckle from that. Benoit jumps Angle and they brawl and both end up taking a bump through a table. Ouch that was quite the brawl. Being a connoisseur of jerks who pick fights at Halloween parties I can truly say that was one of the best I’ve seen
Rey Mysterio Vs Brock Lesnar w/ Paul Heyman
Rey uses his size to gain the advantage to start. They do some great little guy flusters and confuses the big guy spots but Brock catches Rey on a rana and slams him into the ring post. Brock works Rey over inside and gets a big power slam sending Rey face first into the mat. Brock toys with Rey and gets a HUGE overhead suplex. Brock gets some mega shoulder blocks in the corner but misses one and Rey gets a 619 to the ribs but Big Show interferes and throws Rey into the crowd.
WINNER – REY MYSTERIO
*1/4 – Way too short as I was really enjoying it. Brock and Show brawl and Show ends up Choke Slamming Brock through the announcers table
Well there was a reason why Smackdown was one of the best shows on TV during the period and it was stuff like this. Two great matches, the perfect mix between good wrestling and angles and some compelling storylines too. I would like to think that today’s current Smackdown is showing the signs that it can return to it’s old form. It has potential and so long as it’s McMahon free there shouldn’t be a problem. Of course in 2003 they went overboard with the whole McMahon Vs McMahon thing but for a while Smackdown had the best wrestlers, angles and wrestling action. Shame Raw raped it in the two drafts.
Like I said I’ll try and get this weeks Smackdown up at some point if I can. Once again my apologies but I hope you had fun reading this instead.
