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The SmarK RAW Rant – September 15 2003

September 15, 2003 | Posted by Scott Keith

The SmarK RAW Rant – September 15, 2003

– You know, one of the advantages of having a forum such as this is that you can circumvent the politics of Ebay’s feedback system and trash people directly. Anyway, I bought a copy of the Remo Williams DVD on July 15 from LonestarDVD (it wasn’t available anywhere near me for a couple of weeks after release), with the “Buy Now” option, with a promise from their listing that it would ship on or before the release date. I paid via Paypal on the same day (including $6 US for S/H), and received confirmation from them of the order, and confirmation of the shipping address the next day, but no DVD. In fact, no sign of anything from them until an e-mail on Aug 2, which was the announcement that my DVD was finally shipping, two weeks after I bought it. Fine. Still no DVD. Then, finally, today, I get it in the mail, regular parcel post ($1.60 US), no insurance, sent on SEPTEMBER 4, more than a month after their announcement of shipping and almost two months after the shipping date promised in the original listing. So I leave negative feedback on them (which apparently you’re not supposed to do before going through the bureaucratic channels) and they promptly respond with a negative feedback for me, saying that I didn’t provide a shipping address and they e-mailed me 17 times. I’ve only ever used EBay twice and I doubt I’m gonna bother again, so the negative feedback doesn’t mean anything to me, but the reasoning here is a bit silly to me. Now, clearly I DID provide a shipping address (PayPal provides it with the payment, for one thing), because I have the DVD and it was addressed to me. This would seem to be common sense to me. And I also received their bogus shipping confirmation on August 2 to my e-mail address, so obviously they had THAT too and those other 16 e-mails are a figment of someone’s imagination. But anyway, long story short, fuck LoneStar DVD and I would strongly advise not to deal with them.

– HHH & Bischoff have a chat before the show, as Eric wants his money on HHH in a career-ending match.

– Live from the University of South Carolina.

– Your hosts are JR & King.

– Opening protest: Jericho and Christian want Steve Austin FIRED. They need a catchy chant, like the ones in Mr. Show. Christian is upset at being left off Unforgiven, on behalf of the Peeps, who are pissed. Hey, now they’ve got the chant going. Really, though, it doesn’t matter if Austin is fired or not, because there’s no shortage of lame injured babyfaces to replace him with – Billy Gunn and Kevin Nash are currently out long-term again, for instance. Can’t have too many general managers! Austin interrupts the protest, looking for provocation and armed with an announcement of Christian’s title defense at the PPV. And apparently drunk off his ass, judging by his delivery tonight. Neither guy wants to take the first shot. I think Austin already took the first, second and third shots before the show. Jericho asks for the shot at Christian, but first he has to beat Rob Van Dam.

– Rob Van Dam v. Chris Jericho. RVD dumps both of the heels and hits them with a somersault plancha to start, and we take a break. We return with Rob getting a standing moonsault for two. Rob gets a rana for two. This is apparently a “moonsault” in JR’s world. To the top, but Christian pushes him off and Rob splats on the ramp. Jericho sends him into the stairs and hits the chinlock. Rob escapes and dropkicks Jericho coming out of the corner, and makes the comeback with his usual bunch of spinkicks. Rolling Thunder sets up a guillotine on the apron. Missile dropkick back in gets two. They mess up a monkey-flip spot and Jericho gets the Walls, but RVD cradles for two. Jericho hits the drop sleeper for two. Jericho unleashes the CANADIAN VIOLENCE, but RVD misses a dropkick and bumps the ref. Hey, our first ref bump of the night, great start. Jericho’s Lionsault hits knees (although Rob lifted the knees about as leisurely as possible), and Christian lays out both guys with the belt for that stupid double-DQ finish at 8:18, which is the same lame non-finish they use to set up every three-way. In fact, they set up two matches (the tag title and women’s matches) at Wrestlemania XIX the exact same way, both in the same week! Sloppy match with lazy booking. *1/2

– Goldberg video package shows him beating Hogan in 1998. Well, that about says all you need to know about Hogan’s standing these days.

– Spike Dudley v. Rob Conway. The Dudleyz brawl with the Evil French outside, leaving it one-on-one. Conway gets a quick neckbreaker for the pin at 0:23. Well, at least the storyline’s consistent. DUD Conway sets up another table and powerbombs Spike through it. Still don’t care.

– Meanwhile, Snow & Coach suck up to Bischoff, but he’s got half-naked women to attend to.

– Quick bitching about Canadian commercials: There’s a Future Shop commercial that runs all the time during RAW, and it’s about their computer installation service. Anyway, one woman puts a big pile of stuff on the counter to be installed, one of which is a USB hub. Now, capital punishment may be illegal in Canada, but I think that anyone who is so stupid that they need Future Shop to install a USB hub for them should be shot on sight. But maybe that’s the computer geek in me.

– Meanwhile, Mae Young and Moolah are here for the yearly Moolah match. That’ll spruce up the show. Hilarity results.

– Victoria v. Fabulous Moolah. Victoria + Leather = GOOD. Not counting Moolah’s skin. Who could possibly want to watch Moolah wrestling at 80, hometown or not? Victoria attacks both of them, but gets rolled up for the pin at 0:31, continuing our **** match streak tonight. DUD And yet Booker T had to job to 3 Minute Warning when they were in Houston. Randy Orton makes the save from Victoria’s post-match attack, and then points out that she’s a legend, and he’s a legend killer. She gets an RKO (or as it’s called in Canada, the “generic crowd shots”). I guess this makes me want to buy the PPV, although I can’t think of why at the moment.

– Lance Storm & Goldust v. Rodney Mack & Mark Henry. Both teams have new rap themes. Wow, THAT’S the reason none of them are over right now. Because of their THEMES. Storm works the arm of Mack to start and gets a dropkick off a jawbreaker for two. Mack slams him and Henry gets a lazy cheapshot from the apron to turn the tide. Henry pounds away in the corner, but Goldust tags in off an awkward spot, but gets powerslammed and pinned at 1:57. So you spend weeks building up the Goldust/Storm team to give them a personality, making everything chant “boring” in the meantime and setting your own business plan back by months in the process, and then when they finally get a shot as a team on TV, you job them in 2 minutes to a pathetic loser team who are only there to give Henry his millionth chance and couldn’t draw heat in the Cayman Islands in summertime. This promotion is nuts. DUD

– Meanwhile, Orton and Michaels get into a confrontation, as Maven slides by the background to foreshadow his heel turn.

– Meanwhile, Hurricane teaches Rosey to fly, but he calls a cab instead. Molly announces a handicap match against Trish as though it was the most diabolical scheme in the history of supervillains. Geez, if she’s gonna use Gail Kim to fuck her way to the top, she could at least ask for something a bit more dangerous.

– Kane and Shane come out to sign contracts and release forms for the Last Man Standing match at the PPV, which prompts Shane to attack, going low a bunch of times and laying him out with a chairshot. Then the pathetic and absurd egofuck continues as Shane unveils a spare announce table at ringside and puts Kane through it with the big elbow. So they put an extra announce table at ringside, in storyline terms, just in case Shane was able to drop an elbow on Kane? Not to mention the stupidity of having Kane plow through RVD last week and then get punked out by SHANE MCMAHON. How is any of this the least bit believable?

– Trish Stratus v. Molly Holly & Gail Kim. Trish holds off both to start and gets the handstand rana on Molly, but a drop toehold onto the ropes turns the tide. Kim comes in and stomps away, and drops a leg for two. Molly with the handspring elbow for two. Trish comes back with a sad spinebuster for two. They drop Trish backfirst on Kim’s knee for two. Molly-Go-Round finishes at 4:04. Nothing special. * I somehow sense that Trish’s career isn’t quite over. The beatdown continues, but Lita returns to make the save, despite being fired by Bischoff a few months ago. The crowd response is probably a lot less enthusiastic than they’d like, though. Well, it’s more variety for the division, so huzzah.

– Test v. Val Venis. Coach and Snow hijack the commentary, using Shane’s destroyed table at ringside. This whole thing would have made more sense if this match had come before Shane’s stunt. Test attacks to start and makes Stacy take a seat at ringside. Back in, Val comes back (?) with a few elbows, but Test goes to the eyes and pumphandles him. Val reverses to the Blue Thunder bomb for two. Val drops some elbows and goes up to finish, but Test trips the ref into the ropes to crotch Val, and the pumphandle slam gets two, as Stacy breaks up the count. She seems to be violating the terms of her indentured servitude. Stacy crotches Test, and Val finishes with a half-nelson slam at 2:56. Don’t you love those feuds where the guys lose all the matches leading up to it? 3/4* Steiner comes in to clean house, sporting a bizarre camo pants and chain-mail head-dress combination. Someone call those Queer Eye for the Single Guy dudes.

– Jerry Lawler comes out to challenge Al Snow right here, right now, in an impromptu challenge that was already announced on WWE.com’s preview.

– Al Snow v. Jerry Lawler. Lawler slugs him down for two. They slug it out in the corner as JR gets some REALLY inside shots at Coach (“Pronoun Boy”, which goes over the heads of pretty much everyone who doesn’t read the WON) and Snow comes back with a DEVASTATING slam. Backdrop suplex, but Lawler gets a fluke rollup for the pin at 2:23. JR criticizes Coach for not knowing how to call holds while missing the finish, by the way. DUD Coach lays out JR at the commentary position to really build heat for that main event match on Sunday. Yeah.

– Main Event Interview: HHH is out to celebrate the end of Goldberg, and tries to coax the crowd into a Goldberg chant, but the fans are as bored with the show as I am. He’s beaten all the superstars that Goldberg has, and more. Did he ever get that win back over Hogan? Actually, I think he did on Smackdown in June or thereabouts. But I KNOW he’s never beaten Jerry Flynn. He has microphone problems as the excitement continues and he runs a mic check for like two minutes. He unveils a photo of Goldberg getting beaten up at Summerslam and the interview drags on and ON, as we go to footage of HHH beating up Goldberg. Goldberg finally responds from the back, however, and heads out to the ring. Why waste time warning him? He comes out and powerslams HHH, who crawls away. Wow, a POWERSLAM. That oughtta sell some PPVs. Not exactly a thrilling payoff to the endless HHH promo.

The Bottom Line:

Hey, there’s an Iron Man match on Smackdown that should probably be flirting with MOTY status if both guys are healthy. Sadly, I have no interest in seeing anything at Unforgiven, but if you like shitty wrestling and boring HHH promos, this was a great show to build it up. For the rest of us, the streak of crappy RAWs continues unabated. And unless HHH miraculously heals his groin in six days, that match is gonna be something to behold, and not in a good way.

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