I'm ready to roll on my review of WWE Smackdown, Mtv's Tough Enough 3 and last night's No Mercy. Engage!
Jamie Noble vs. Nidia was corny, yet entertaining in its own sick way. Noble did his best act as to acting that he didn't want to harm Nidia, and in the end, he won the match to settle the dispute without hurting his "play-thang". Special referee Tajiri then interjected himself at the end, thereby setting up the Pay Per View feud. Hey, at least it's SOME television time to set up the Pay Per View match. It's more than you can ask for in the land of the giants anymore.
Guess which button on my remote I hit during the Undertaker confession? PREPARE TO FAST FOWARD! FAST FOWARDING SIR!
The confrontation between Benoit and the Guerreros was rather funny.
Next, it was John Cena vs. Billy Kidman. I guess the WWE did this match as a test to see how well Cena would do as a heel. Of course, his role as a face was diminished via backstage politics. No need for any newcomer to help the WWE make money. OHHH NO! Undertaker is the top face, motherfuckas! Because Cena didn't make a FULL heel turn prior to the match, aside from some comments dogging Kidman, this match lacked heat, as fans had no idea who to cheer for. Hey, even a Toronto crowd can get confused. Decent match though, and I guess Cena solidified his role as "heel" by putting his feet on the ropes. Wow, all of the OVW guys are heels now.
Next match was Brock Lesnar vs. Chuck Palumbo. Before this match or No Mercy, I was finally convinced that Brock Lesnar is truly making a good champion. He has the look and now that he's mixing SOME technical stuff with his power moves, his matches are more exciting to watch. Now, just imagine if an Edge, an Angle, a Rey Mysterio, a Benoit, or a Guerrero was thrown his way. And Austin didn't want to job to this guy? Good lord. He's starting to prove himself anymore. Good bout between Lesnar and Chuck Palumbo. Now that the excess baggage is gone, Billy Gunn, it's time to attempt to let Palumbo shine as a singles wrestler. I think he's seasoned enough by now to do it, too, and he already has some effective moves, such as that devastating belly-to-belly suplex. Lesnar wins the match, and he really let Palumbo have it, too.
I hate intergender matches. The only thing I'll say about anything involving Torrie Wilson and Dawn Marie is that during the shower scene, when Torrie went into the shower to catch Dawn with Torrie's father, Ms. Wilson had a nice case of THO going on there. I guess Torrie gets arroused when she sees her father scoring a hot babe, eh? (THO = Tittie Hard On)
AWESOME tag bout between the Guerreros and Kurt Angle/Chris Benoit. I swear, Angle and Benoit on the same team against someone who is AT LEAST respectable will give you some great wrestling. In this case, Eddie and Chavo are damn good. Nice long television match that should have been the main event of this show, but...
The announcement of Stephanie McMahon was the "main event" of the show. Please. Oh big deal, the Undertaker can wrestle with a cast! OHHHH!! SMELL THE BUYRATES!!!!!!! Afterwards, Undertaker got in his best against Lesnar to maybe diminish Sunday's win in some people's eyes.
LAST WORD: Anything involving Brock(minus the Undertaker), Benoit, Angle, Guerreros, Rey Mysterio, or Edge was good. Everything else was bad. It's clear that there are certain members of this show that CLEARLY drag it down, namely the Undertaker. Instead of just having the rematch based on the NO DQ finished at Unforgiven, Lesnar break Undertaker's arm (which he never sells with just medical tape on his arm) and he sends someone from the Undertaker's past after him, who claims to have slept with him lately. Elsewhere, the Tag Tournament has ruled and Lesnar can look good in the ring against wrestlers with at least a decent amount of talent. I'll give this show a [ B ]. Despite it being the best WWE show right now, the Undertaker needs to go or at least not take up as much time on television.
I liked how they made cuts as they trained the 25 contestants. The black guy with the dreads, Wendall, was cut early on. Good. What a cocky son of a bitch. "Oh, I have more athletic ability than everyone in this room". "I have the best chance of making it as a wrestler than anybody here". What a dickhead. That was so pathetic of him to pull the dehydration acts he tried when he couldn't do squat thrusts or hill climbs. I mean, he acted as though he was dying, yet the WWE trainers found nothing wrong with him. I hope Al Snow jumping down his throat and cutting him provides a nice wake up call to him. With this, I feel bad for any black contestant that has ever been on this show, minus Darryl. Tough Enough 3 has no blacks on the show this year, and the only one up for it from the 25 finalists taken was such a bad stereotype or example.
As for the finalists... It's hard to say what we have this time around. I can't tell who will "get it" and who won't, at least early on. Some argue that Scott shouldn't have made it, especially from his bike ride. Please. He didn't really know how to ride a bike, let alone operate controls on a mountain bike in that competition. It's MUCH different than seeing Kelly walking with her bike up the hill or doing a very light job with a bottle of water in hand. Sure, she may have asthma, but say she wins the contest. What would the WWE think if her asthma problems came about in the middle of the ring? She's a health risk, and if she's unable to ride a bike up a hill and run down a hill, then she can't wrestle a simple 5 minute match where someone will knock the wind out of her. Think about it.
Alright, so who are my early picks. I have a feeling that there will be a bias towards the male competitors this time, given that TWO women were chosen at the last contest. I mean seriously, the WWE's women division isn't doing much these days, given the "exciting" match we saw last night between Victoria and Trish Stratus. I think the WWE would love to train Chad to become a wrestler, given his height (6'9). The rest of them... well, I don't know. Jonah seemed to be picking up on things quickly, but this is just the first week of the show. I'll shoot for Chad and Jonah early on, but my picks always change as the season goes along.
LAST WORD: Bravo! If the WWE keeps this intensity throughout the season, then it's going to be very, very watchable. I just hope that if the ratings tank, again, that Real World stuff won't get pushed, like Pete and Jackie in the last season, instead of these guys training to be wrestlers. I have a feeling, though, that the WWE will purposely do things to tempt some sexual tension within the house to equal ratings. Ugh.
The show started off with Booker T/Goldust vs. Chris Jericho/Christian. I thought this match could have worked, but it just seemed to have a drag to it throughout. I don't think that the crowd is with Booker T/Goldust enough anymore, given how the WWE screwed up by not letting Booker T/Goldust win the Tag Titles off the Unamericans a while ago. That was their chance, and they blew it. Instead, the WWE World Tag Titles have been diminished because the stupid team of Hurricane and Kane won the belts off of the Unamericans in Hurricane's RAW debut, and then the slapped together team of Jericho and Christian won the titles. Therefore, lack of crowd response and less energy towards the match. Props to Chris Jericho, though, for not letting the problem of the 2nd rope snapping on the Lionsault get to him. He just accepted it and moved on with the match. Booker T/Goldust's stock as a tag team is completely gone now. Congrats on blowing that face opportunity, WWE. Such great writers over there on the RAW scene. Dumbasses.
Next, it was Torrie Wilson versus Dawn Marie. Wrestling wise, it sucked. Looks wise, well yes, it was nice. Dawn Marie really looked good in her pink outfit. They should be selling CALENDARS, not wrestling moves.
I wasn't much for Rob Van Dam vs. Ric Flair. Although I respect Flair for all he's done in professional wrestling, the "added bonus" of seeing a living legend wrestle is no longer there here in October 2002. The match just dragged for me, as other previous WWE matches from earlier this year, they were more exciting. RVD wins, but his career in the WWE as a face means nothing now, ever since Triple H took his gigantic heel shit on RVD to never let him get on a higher level.
Tajiri vs. Jamie Noble was pretty good. This match would have been better if both wrestlers had a smaller ring to wrestle in. Both guys are small, yes, and they looked better in the smaller rings in WCW and ECW. Both guys hit some good moves here, and Noble retained. Well yeah, as Tajiri holding the title would be worthless, seeing as how he can't remember if he's a heel or a face from one week to the next. But that's not his fault.
What a snoozer by Triple H and Kane! That "murderer, drunk driver, and necrophilia" angle did wonders to draw people to this event. I love WWE.com's comments regarding the match, and I quote: "In the night's awesome co-main event". You've got to be fucking kidding me! Awesome and Triple H/Kane should not be used in the same sentence. Triple H is too slow and too political to make Kane have a great match, unlike a Chris Jericho or especially Kurt Angle, who bust their ass to make their matches watchable with Kane. It's time that Vince McMahon finally holds Triple H accountable for some of the WWE's problems, such as sabotaging ALL of his face opponents and for how he's hogging up a lot of television time to ensure he keeps his spot. Who cares if he's a good boyfriend to your daughter. If he is, then good. But the point is that Stephanie isn't the one buying Pay Per Views, investing in the WWE through the stock market, buying merchandise, or loyally tuning into the WWE for many years now (although she probably watches her own product on TV). The fans do and Triple H discourages them from wanting to watch more or pay more into the WWE juggernaut. This match was a total abortion, considering it was to create a NEW World title in comparison to the title Brock Lesnar has.
INCREDIBLE tag match between Edge/Rey Mysterio and Chris Benoit/Kurt Angle. These 4 guys are amazing and they always go out of their way to put on a good match for the fans. This match blew the RAW tag title match out of the water, by comparison, showing which tag titles are more respectable, especially after some of the ridiculous title changes that RAW has had. Looks like Benoit and Angle are a tag team to stay out of Brock's way or to not outshine anybody in singles competition, like they always seem to do. Oh well. Smackdown has a nice tag division with the Guerreros now wanting more revenge and with Angle/Benoit able to make any opponents look great in that ring. Match of the Year for the WWE? Too early to call right now.
Crappy women's match between Trish Stratus and Victoria. The WWE at least tried to give some more work on Victoria last week, but it will take several weeks to build some good hatred up for another match instead of a few bad weeks of hype and one week with some apparent past hatred between Victoria and Trish. Maybe the WWE could push that VICIOUS kick as Victoria's finisher from now on? That's a good first step if you're going to keep the fans interested in the dwindling Women's division.
Brock Lesnar vs. the Undertaker in the Hell in the Cell match... I'll say this: props to the Undertaker for taking a decent beating from Lesnar and for letting Brock beat him cleanly at the end. The match was pretty good overall, too, because the Undertaker let himself take the beating for a change. HOWEVER, would the Undertaker have jobbed cleanly if he wasn't being given some time off after this match? Secondly, the pathetic selling of the Undertaker's broken arm really hurt the psychology of Lesnar breaking that arm in the first place. Brock beat the crap out of that right arm, and I can remember counting the many instances where Taker's broken arm should have snapped his arm in half, probably ripping the bone out of his skin. If you have a broken arm, you can't set it with simple medical tape! And when that tape is off, I find it hard that you could land on it and punch Lesnar with it at the same time!
Ah well. The Undertaker lost cleanly at the end, and that's more than you can ever ask from the 10+ year tenured wrestler. And the match was quite watchable with the brutal beatings both guys were taking. Good, overall, Hell in the Cell match, which didn't let me down at all as compared to other Hell in the Cell attempts, such as Triple H vs. Chris Jericho and any of them involving the Big Bossman (Undertaker and Al Snow, I believe).
LAST WORD: What can I say? I thought the Cruiserweight match, Benoit/Angle vs. Edge/Mysterio, and Lesnar vs. Undertaker were nice bright spots of the show. However, the rest of the show just wasn't there. I just can't see why Eddie Guerrero was given the night off from the ring while you let two pathetic Women's bouts and a match with a washed up Ric Flair taking up time. This show falls under the same grade as Smackdown with a [ B ], given that it had great moments and very bad moments. I can at least appreciate the good over the bad to justify the 'B' grade, I suppose.
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@I hope you enjoyed today's "extra" Wrath of Tito. I just felt like writing, and here you are. Thanks for reading and I hope you stick around for tomorrow's regular column, with my review of RAW and other topics in pro wrestling.
Take Care, and Thanks for Reading.