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The SmarK RAW Rant – August 26 2002

August 26, 2002 | Posted by Scott Keith

The SmarK RAW Rant – August 26, 2002

– Oh, great, they changed the Bischoff picture to an even creepier one.

– Note from the Summerslam feedback so far: I know I’ve done my job correctly when the hate mail for OVERrating the match due to being a Shawn mark and UNDERrating the match due to being a HHH hater is split evenly.

– Live from MSG

– Your hosts are JR & The King.

– Opening interview: Uncle Eric welcomes us to a historic evening, with another unification match: Bye-bye Hardcore title, as Dreamer gets to job to RVD. And HEEEEEEERE’S Brock. And he’s WEARING the belt. He just gained 10 notches with me right there. And the belt looks HUGE on him. Good stuff. Heyman rambles about how he was right all along as last night’s reactionary face pops for Brock appear to have died off. Shawn Michaels appears to interrupt, but it’s just HHH. He cuts off Brock’s victory speech to remind us who the real star of the show is. Hint: Not the guy with the belt. HHH takes credit for softening up the Rock for Brock, and wants the first shot at the title. Undertaker interrupts the testosterone because HE wants the title shot. HHH & Undertaker brawl, and UT sends both guys flailing out of the ring in terror. Oh no, wait, sorry, that’s just Brock who gets to be ignored as the segment focuses on UT & HHH.

– Tonight’s main event: UT v. HHH. Oh boy.

– Booker T v. Christian. Booker hammers away to start and gets a forearm, but the axe kick misses and Christian gets a backbreaker for two. Clothesline gets two. Choking follows. A lot of it. Booker comes back and slugs away, and rolls him up for two. Harlem sidekick sets up the Spinarooni, but everyone runs in and Christian tries the Unprettier. Booker blocks and axe-kicks him for the pin at 3:14. Okay, great, now change the damn titles already. ј*

– Meanwhile, Christian throws a tantrum, but Test has something big planned involving the flag.

– The Dudley Boyz v. Chris Harvard & William Regal. Is this feud STILL going? Molly is seconding the heels. Bubba hammers away in the corner on Chris, and gets a neckbreaker after a messed up spot. Spike comes in with the gutstomp and also hammers away, but misses a charge and gets posted for two. Spike escapes a double-team and makes the hot (?) tag to Bubba. He cleans house and suplexes Chris on his head, and tosses him. Flip Flop and Fly on Regal, but Molly comes in and misses the Molly Go Round. The Dudleyz hit the Wazzup on her and gets the tables. Regal cradles Bubba for two. Heels collide, Bubba Bomb finishes Regal at 3:14. Popular time tonight. What a mess. Ѕ* Regal goes through the table after a botched first attempt. Sign in the front row: “Harvard Must Not Teach Acting”. Not judging, just pointing it out.

– Meanwhile, Bischoff chats up a special guest in the back.

– Meanwhile, Molly hugs Nowinski to thank him for saving her from the table.

– Uncle Eric brings out Hall-of-Famer Jimmy Snuka for a special ceremony. I sense a beating upcoming. Eric shows us a video tribute, voice dripping with fake sincerity. It’s so obvious what’s coming up but it’s done with such gusto by Bischoff that you can forgive the predictability. Jimmy holds off one of the Island Boyz, but falls victim to the inevitable punking out. They can easily tweak these characters into babyfaces in the 911 mold.

– Chris Jericho v. Jeff Hardy. Jericho stops to beat up Jimmy Snuka a bit more and complains about the excessive number of has-beens all up in his area. Jericho bitches about his loss last night and then offers to sing us “New York New York”. We take a commercial break to recover. FINALLY Jeff interrupts to make his entrance. Man this is a bad show. Jericho gets a suplex to start and dropkicks Jeff down, but Jeff comes back with a forearm. Jericho flattens him with a clothesline and chokes away to take over. Jeff catches him with a catapult out of the ring and follows with a plancha and the Railrunner, but Jericho blocks it. Back in, Jericho chokes him out with his own hankie (Apricot and lime green apparently equal “Looking to buy dinner for a chubby guy” in the secret gay handkerchief language, and wearing green on the right equals “Smear me with food”, which gives me WAY too much information). Jericho keeps pounding away and drops an elbow for two. They slug it out, won by Jericho, and stalling follows. Flashback (drop sleeper) gets two. Jericho goes to the abdominal stretch, but Jeff escapes. Jericho tries a cross-body, but Jeff blocks with a dropkick and both are out. Jeff blows his corkscrew but Jericho sells anyway, and he gets the jawbreaker and legdrop. Oh come on, man, do a suplex or something just to PRETEND you’re making an effort to vary the moveset. Jericho’s Walls are reversed to a cradle for two. Jeff charges and hits boot, and gets bulldogged. Lionsault misses and Jeff gets two. To the top, swanton bomb gets two. Rana is reversed to the Walls to put Jeff out of his misery, but Jeff makes the ropes and Jericho gets DQ’d at 10:48 for not releasing. That match got WAY too much time for Jericho basically wrestling himself to a shitty non-finish. Jeff Hardy is the very model of someone who doesn’t a give a crap anymore. **

– Meanwhile, Test announces a good old-fashioned flag-burning. Well, maybe Sgt. Slaughter can give him tips.

– The Un-Americans come out for some flag-burning, but Kane’s music hits…and nothing. Booker and Goldust save the American flag from burning, but get punked out as a result. Test tries it again, but Kane returns for real this time, with his new Ultimate Warrior mask. Holy crap, it’s Mortis! He cleans house and Booker gives us the Spinarooni. The Un-Americans are the most useless heel stable ever. Kane takes the mike, voice now completely clear with the new half-mask, and we get a Kane-a-Rooni. Kane looks to be about 30 pounds lighter, and if they don’t fuck it up he could finally be a player.

– Unification match: Rob Van Dam v. Tommy Dreamer. This is the last hardcore match ever on RAW. Yeah, right, and Shawn Michaels is retired. They do a sequence of misses to start. Tommy has a new Hardcore belt, with the license plate from the famous ECW pickup truck mounted on the front. Why waste money on a new belt if you’re just killing it? Tommy gets pounded in the corner, but hits Rob with a cane (not to be confused with Kane) for two. Dreamer finds a ladder, but gets it kicked in his face for two on the ramp. Tommy gets a spinebuster on the floor for two. Back in, with the ladder set up on the apron, Tommy gets tossed into it. Not a very good bump. Rob crotches him on the railing and dropkicks him off it, for two. Back in, standing moonsault gets two. JR doesn’t know that Rob is at 100% after last night, as he bounces around the ring like a ping-pong ball. Northern Lights suplex gets two. Tommy DDTs him for two. Tommy puts the ladder in the ring and sideslams Rob onto it. Yikes. He misses an elbowdrop and hits the ladder, and Rob Rolls the Thunder using the ladder. That gets two. They head up and Dreamer crotches himself on the ladder, and Rob dropkicks a chair into his face and finishes with the frog splash at 8:01 to unify yet another belt into the IC belt. So now it comprises the Intercontinental, National, US, European and Hardcore titles. That’s SOME title. They should still kill it, regardless. This was, at the very least, a nice note to end the Hardcore title’s “history” on, assuming it sticks. ***

– Evening gown/Tuxedo match: Howard Finkel v. Lillian Garcia. And things were going so well tonight. Howard comes on to Stacy before the match, just to up the yuck factor. Howard does the ring intros for both himself and Lillian. Lillian and Howard have a catfight to start and Howard rips at the dress, with no luck. Lillian follows suit, and draws boos. All three women triple-team him and strip him, thus turning them all heel. I guess Garcia wins her job back. The crowd doesn’t seem impressed. If Howard counted as a woman, it would be 1.5 Gayda. -**** Does anyone (aside from Meltzer) actually want to see Garcia fucking up ring intros again?

– Meanwhile, some guy soaks in a tub for 24 hours straight. Pff. Do it without the oxygen tank, THEN I’ll be impressed.

– #1 Contender’s match: HHH v. Undertaker. JR mentions in passing that Shawn Michaels has lost use of his legs. But Lillian Garcia is BACK. Doesn’t seem fair, somehow. HHH attacks UT on the floor to start, and they head into the ring. JR notes that Unforgiven will be the first ever WWE PPV from LA, which I guess is accurate if you ignore the TWO Wrestlemanias that were held there. Taker gets an elbowdrop for two. Ropewalk of Old-School Doom gets two. HHH blocks the chokeslam, but gets squished in the corner and Snake-Eyed. HHH no-sells and hits the high knee out of the corner, however. He dumps Taker and they kinda brawl, sorta. Back in, neckbreaker gets two for HHH. Elbowdrop gets two. Main Event Sleeper, but UT fights back, but walks into a facecrusher that gets two. Back to the Main Event Sleeper, which serves the intended purpose: I go to sleep. Taker suplexes out of the devastating resthold and both guys are apparently exhausted from the 5:00 of non-stop action. They slug it out, and Taker gets a clothesline for two. Ref is bumped in HELLA-LAME fashion and the choke is slammed, but Brock Lesnar runs in and gets nowhere. HHH goes low, but can’t get the Pedigree. Lesnar knocks UT out with the belt, however, and HHH gets the pin at 8:37 to earn the title shot. It’s official: Shawn Michaels is indeed a miracle worker, because this match BLEW. Ѕ*

– Meanwhile, Stephanie informs us that Brock will be Smackdown exclusive from now on. Are they just making this shit up as they go along? So HHH apparently does not get the title shot, thus rendering the whole thing into a giant bait-and-switch tactic.

The Bottom Line:

You know all that nice stuff I said about them after Summerslam? I take it all back, because this show was like the exact opposite – bad, self-serving main-event, ridiculous gimmick match, teasing a flag-burning in a desperate attempt to get cheap heat, pointless “Legends getting beat up” segments and a stunt show for the IC title (albeit an entertaining one).

But hey, Kane’s back, maybe he’ll stop sucking.

So much for that momentum coming off the PPV.

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