The SmarK RAW Rant – December 16, 2002

The SmarK RAW Rant – December 16, 2002

– Live from Orlando, FL, fitting considering what a Mickey Mouse operation the promotion has become.

– Your hosts are JR & King.

– Opening match: Trish Stratus & Test v. Victoria & Steven Richards. Trish attacks Victoria to start and gets a headscissors and a victory roll for two. Steven cheapshots her to slow the TRISH TRAIN and comes in with a suplex on Trish. JR seems to be confused as to whether the men can legally wrestle the women or not. Richards & Victoria work Trish over in the corner, and Stevie sideslams her for two. Trish fights back on him as JR ponders the connection between Richards and Victoria. Well, they seem to be tag team partners, for one thing. Trish gets the rana on Stevie and makes the hot tag to Test, who pumphandles Stevie and Victoria in sequence. Both get clotheslined, but Richards hides behind the ref and hits Test with a Flatliner for two. Stacy distracts him with her ass, resulting in a chase that ends with the Big Boot for the pin at 4:06. Silly and inoffensive opener. *1/2

– Meanwhile, Big Chief Morley and Uncle Eric cross signals, as Eric wants a HHH Appreciation Party for the main event, while Morley wants a party for Scott Steiner. Hey, you know what I want? A MATCH! It is, however, considerate of them to inform us that they don’t have a main event match so that viewers can switch to football early.

– Meanwhile, Goldy Claus reaches into his sack and gives Booker his belt, but Christian is exercising his Rematch Claus(e) next week and they’re winning them back. We get the requisite Ass Cream joke, of course.

– Maven v. Chris Nowinski. Oh man, there goes the Royal Rumble main event! Nowinski ducks away to start and pounds on Maven, but gets hiptossed. Maven controls with armdrags, but runs into an elbow and gets rolled up for two. Choking follows, and he gets two. Nowinski hits the chinlock, but Maven rolls him up for two. Nowinski clotheslines him down again for two. Backbreaker gets two. Back to the chinlock, a symptom of having guys this green out there. Nowinski’s suplex is reversed by Maven, and he gets the DROPKICK OF DOOM and both guys are down. Maven makes the comeback and gets a flapjack and an Oklahoma roll for two. Maven pounds away in the corner, but gets atomic dropped out of there and hit with the Honor Roll for two. They head up, but Maven fights him off and follows him down with a sunset flip, which Nowinski reverses for the pin at 5:00. Obviously these two would work well together, and the result is some Perfectly Acceptable Wrestling. **

– Shawn Michaels comes out for an interview about last night. He’s apparently alive and well. And it seems that it was a great match last night. Wish I knew what match they were watching. Shawn calls out HHH because he feels darn good tonight. Jericho does the honors instead, as he gets saddled with another aging hasbeen. Everyone came to see Jericho, not Michaels. Jericho puts over the title match at the PPV, but it was sad because the old Shawn would have silenced the critics and emerged as the winner. One guess who gets to be the guy that Shawn emerges as a winner against at the next PPV. Jericho tells it like it is – Shawn is finished, and the Show Is Over. Shawn superkicks him, of course. Wow, way to give the younger stars that rub, Shawn! They’re making a HUGE mistake by depending on Shawn in any kind of uppercard babyface role. He had his two months in the sun again, now it’s time to call it a career before he ends up in the same spiral of painkillers and injuries that always sink him. And these angles where you point out how washed up and old your “top stars” are never end up anywhere good.

– Goldust v. Christian. Christian attacks to start, but gets hotshotted and bulldogged for two. Christian sends him into the post and works on the arm as a result. Armbar takedown gets two. Christian comes off the second rope and gets caught with a chokeslam coming down, and they slug it out. Goldust wins that battle and gets a lariat and a neckbreaker for two. What is with everyone in the midcard doing that same neckbreaker now? Rollup gets two. Powerslam gets two. Christian blocks a rebound clothesline with the inverted DDT for two. Goldust reverses another try and pounds away in the corner, setting up the Shattered Nuts. The ref stops it, allowing Christian to cheapshot him. Goldust rolls him up, but Christian reverses with the ropes for the pin at 3:45. Nice try, but too short. *1/4

– Meanwhile, Uncle Eric gives the verbal blowjob to HHH and offers him an immediate ceremony. HHH, being the Game, sees what’s going on and threatens to “pull a Steve Austin”, because Steiner is just another “jacked up piece of trash”. That’s right, HHH, there’s only room for ONE of those on this show. And while I’m at it, STOP WITH THE INSIDER COMMENTS and “main event slot” talk. It’s annoying because only about 0.05% of the audience is inside enough to know why Austin left, and the rest don’t care about TV lingo like “main event slot”. This is all the stupid shit that anyone paying attention to Russo’s WCW run should have learned was a terrible idea after five minutes. If I’m a fan, I don’t want my suspension of disbelief disrupted by having the characters talk about their “slot” on a TV show.

– Moments ago, Flair gives the samoans a pep talk.

– Meanwhile, Sky Chief Morley posts Terri as a lookout for Scott Steiner.

– Meanwhile, RVD provides mellow translation for Kane’s interview. Kane’s suddenly upset at being mocked after months of being a clown. RVD tries the Positively Page approach to motivating Kane, prompting Coach to sing “It’s a Small World” and thus get choked out by Kane. So I guess Kane’s an angry monster again, one week after swiveling his hips at Sean Morley. Talk about bipolar – must be something in the water at Titan Towers. Segment was cute, though.

– RVD & Kane v. 3 Minute Warning & Batista. Batista attacks RVD to start and chokes him out. Rob does some flipping and flopping, but gets caught with a lariat for two. Into the heel corner, where Jamal gets an overblown clothesline for two. He misses a dropkick by a mile and Rob gets Rolling Thunder and a spinkick, but Jamal cuts off a tag. Rosie slugs Rob down, but gets hit with a springboard dropkick. He cuts off the tag again, however. Jamal short-arms him, as Flair pulls Batista out of the match and they head back to the dressing room. Hot tag Kane, who hits Jamal with the flying clothesline and cleans house. Horrible DDT for Rosie and corner clotheslines for both follow. He can’t get the chokeslam, but RVD sends Rosie out with a missile dropkick, leaving Jamal alone to die. Chokeslam finishes at 4:50. For those who don’t know, Jamal is in the doghouse with the WWE and will probably be taking every pinfall from here to eternity. 3MW are just so bad. *

– The Dudley Boyz v. JR’s Favorite Tag Team. Dudleyz clean house already, as Storm & Regal don’t even get an entrance. Bubba slaps away at Regal in the corner, but misses a charge and Regal clotheslines him down. See, now why didn’t they do this match LAST night? Because that John Cena segment warranted five minutes? Storm & Regal work Bubba over in the corner and Storm goes in and out of the chinlock. Bubba escapes, but Regal cuts off the tag and gets two. Hot tag D-Von who gets the usual stuff. Powerslam gets two. Whazzup Drop and a double neckbreaker gets two on Regal. Regal uses the POWER OF THE PUNCH for the pin at 5:13. JR is keeping track of the winning streak like it’s Goldberg or something. Of course, they lost at the PPV, but apparently this is some sort of “RAW exclusive” winning streak now. Finish killed the crowd. ѕ*

– RAW Retro: Mankind finally wins the belt. Seems like so long ago that they had main events people cared about.

– Jeff Hardy v. D-Lo Brown. It’s the REMATCH from Heat! That’s two weeks in a row now that Heat matches have migrated to RAW. Jeff dumps D-Lo to start and tries a Railrunner, but D-Lo splats him and they head back in. D-Lo knees him down and talks some trash, into a chinlock. Gourdbuster gets two. The LEGDROP OF DEATH gets two. Jeff reverses the trashtalk into a jawbreaker and goes up with the corkscrew, and makes the less-than-spirited comeback. D-Lo gets dropkicked out and follows with an incredibly sloppy hilo dive. Back in, swanton bomb gets the pin at 3:27. D-Lo’s foot was on the ropes, but it’s not like anyone cares about either guy anymore. Ѕ*

– Meanwhile, Flair tries to lay down the law to Steiner, but gets yelled at. Poor Flair.

– Meanwhile, the ref apologizes to D-Lo in the back for missing the call. D-Lo cries racism. Oh GOD don’t go there.

– Meanwhile, Test & Stacy do a commercial for body spray disguised as a skit. RAVEN is watching. About time they did something with him again. In fact, fire all the writers and let Raven book this mess. He was pretty good doing RAW in 1994 during his Johnny Polo era – they didn’t want him to manage any more, but thought he was too small to wrestle, so they made him an executive producer and he did a bang-up job with All-American and RAW before jumping to ECW as Raven.

– Chris Jericho v. Booker T. This would be your faux main event, and we take a commercial as Jericho rants before the introductions. Nice to see that they’ve figured out how to time their breaks, finally. Jericho does the sneak attack and chops away, but Booker clotheslines him and unleashes his own chops. Reverse elbow and slam get two. Sideslam and Booker goes up, but gets crotched and chopped to set up a superplex. That gets two. Jericho slugs him down, but walks into a sidekick. Jericho stays on him and goes to the chinlock, and gets a rollup into the Walls. Booker reverses for two as JR & King yammer on about Steiner & HHH. Superkick (DON’T TELL SHAWN!) gets two for Booker. Jericho comes back with a bulldog, but misses the Lionsault and gets whiplashed for two. Booker goes back to the chops and tries a rollup, but Jericho uses the Bulldog counter for two. Bookend is blocked by Jericho, but a second try gets two. Jericho got his foot on the ropes, which kinda proves D-Lo’s point. Christian and Goldust run in and the heels get dumped, and it’s a Sportz Entertainment Finish at 6:00 or so. That was about as gutless a finish as you can book. Match was okay. *3/4

– Meanwhile, High Chief Morley tries to talk Steiner out of his slot tonight, but Scott’s a REBEL.

– Main Event Interview: Uncle Eric and Indian Chief Morley bring out HHH for the Appreciation Ceremony. I can hear the remotes clicking as we speak. We get a seizure-inducing video of HHH highlights, and he tells us how great he is. He runs down all the people he’s beaten (making sure to bury the Rock) and Scott Steiner makes the interruption. Man, they’re really booking this stuff on autopilot. Scott demands a title shot or he’s walking. “I know where you came from, and I know how they did business down there, but here we do things different – here, you EARN your shot at the World heavyweight championship!” And you know what? I bet that was actually written by Vince as a serious comment through HHH’s mouth. After we just had Shawn Michaels winning the title in a gimmicked cage match after being retired for 4 years from a guy who was awarded the belt. Scott talks some trash, and HHH agrees to the match. This is the most boring confrontation ever. HHH threatens to eat Steiner out. Or up. Whatever. You know, for a couple of roid freaks, I’d expect a bit more rage. We’re all just waiting for Steiner to snap and kill someone on live TV anyway, might as well be HHH. They argue about arm (i.e., dick) size as the segment drags on and on, but Steiner wants HHH tonight. Well, we’ve got about 4 seconds of TV time left, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Nothing like a couple of tough guys TALKING for 10 minutes. HHH backs off, end of show. They can get exactly one decent buyrate out of this match, so they’d better do something more exciting than THAT boring gabfest to promote it. Seriously, YAWN.

The Bottom Line:

Pretty decent show, wrestling-wise, but not exactly a banner week for all the backstage stuff, most notably the “main event”, which featured quite possibly the most boring confrontation I’ve seen this year. I mean, say what you will about the Steve Austin Appreciation Ceremony, but you INSTANTLY remember everything about THAT one, from “Wind Beneath My Ring” to the milk truck. This was just HHH talks, Steiner interrupts, they make empty threats, end of show. HUZZAH. I’ve heard of keeping it simple, but yikes.

Step forward on the wrestling, but the show is still a boat without a rudder. They need direction and consistency, not just an occasional decent match.