The SmarKdown Rant – February 6 2003

The SmarKdown Rant – February 6 2003

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– Taped from Philly, home of cheesesteak.

– Your hosts are Cole & Tazz.

– A big wooden crate hangs ominously over the arena.

– Opening match: Rey Mysterio v. Jamie Noble (w/ Big Fat Nidia). Cole notes that they’ve sitting there watching that crate all day. Man, he really needs a life. They do the lucha reversal sequence to start, and Noble bowls him over in what looked liked a blown spot. Gutbuster gets two. Abdominal stretch, but Rey fights out and gets a crossbody. Swinging DDT gets two. Rey heads out, but Noble collides with the ref and Nidia interferes to put Noble in control. Back in, Rey escapes a suplex and sets up the 619, which Nidia helps Noble to duck. Slingshot powerbomb gets two for Noble. Rey counters another powerbomb and gets an enzuigiri to set up a double-619 on the lovebirds and the West Coast Pop finishes at 3:38. Nothing special. *

– The Rock joins us live from Hollywood, without hair. He lets us know that he can’t eat cheesesteak, but does enjoy tofu. He’s a tad upset that people are booing him. I don’t hear it. He thinks that it’s just because it’s Philly, and they’re hostile towards greatness in general.

– Rikishi v. Nunzio. Nunzio goes for the leg to start, but gets chokeslammed as Rikishi casually shakes him off. Superkick sends him into the corner for a corner splash. Banzai drop ends it at 1:31. Total squash. DUD Nunzio interrupts the dancing, however, and makes vague threats about the people he’s with. Noble & Nidia? Guess that relationship has been erased.

– Heyman and his big wooden crate are out for an interview. Big Show isn’t here tonight, but he has a gift for Undertaker in his place. It’s Brother Love, who reminds us that he was Undertaker’s original manager, and amazingly can still annoy the crowd after 10 years. Undertaker dispatches of him with a chokeslam and tombstone. It’s funny – back in the late 80s, they teased babyfaces going after Brother Love for MONTHS until Ultimate Warrior finally got his hands on him to dispose of him for good, and here he’s getting pounded one appearance in.

– Elsewhere, Hulk Hogan shakes hands with the peons and says hi to Brock. What a wuss – he should have bearhugged him and then been like “Oops, forgot, sorry”!

– Matt Hardy v. Billy Kidman. Matt starts with his usual Side Effect and legdrop for two, and chokes him out in the corner. Kidman fights out with a headscissors, but gets caught in the MAIN EVENT SLEEPER! Kidman has the decency not to reverse it, and instead gets a dropkick to come back. Elbows and spinebuster get two. Kidman tries to alley-oop him in the corner, but gets suplexed for two. Twist of Fate is blocked by Kidman with a bulldog, and he heads up, but Matt SWERVES him and follows him up. Kidman wins that battle, but gets caught coming down. Twist of Fate is reversed to a rollup for the pin at 2:59, however. Too short and bland, but fine otherwise. * Matt vows to drop 10 pounds and win the title from Kidman.

– Elsewhere, Team Angle gets a peptalk. As I keep saying, those velour tracksuits alone should be enough to motivate anyone. Someone start an online petition to get those suckers on Shopzone, because YOU WANT ONE. I want a Team Angle Gracie Train to the ring now, dammit!

– Smackdown tag titles: Los Guerreros v. Team Angle. Chavo starts with Benjamin and can’t get anywhere with a wristlock. Benjamin takes him down for one. Chavo takes him back to the mat and gets one. Eddie comes in to give it a try and goes for a hammerlock, into a takedown for one. Eddie gets taken into the corner, so he backs out as Haas comes in. They work the mat and Eddie gets control on top and then overpowers him, as Chavo comes in with a seated dropkick for two. Eddie slingshots in for two. Tag wrestling, baby! Haas takes him down again for one and they end up in Angle Corner, but Eddie suplexes out and gets Chavo back in to work on Benjamin. Cole notes that it’s not the amateurs, it’s the WWE. Same thing sometimes. Chavo pounds away in the corner, as does Eddie. Chavo adds a shot to the head behind the ref’s back, as they adhere to the scriptures of their t-shirts even when booked as faces. That’s why they’re REAL MEN. Benjamin gets posted and double-teamed in the corner, and Eddie grabs a chinlock, which Benjamin escapes with a suplex. Eddie ends up in enemy territory and it’s a donnybrook, which results in Chavo getting tossed and the ref getting knocked into him. Haas chases Eddie out of the ring while we head to a break. We return with Chavo taking a plunge to the mat and Benjamin getting two. Haas gets two. Leapfrog choke gets two for Benjamin. They really need to name that move. Another one is broken up by Eddie, and he pounds on Haas while Chavo cradles Benjamin for two. Chavo ends up back in the corner, but counters a backdrop attempt with a double-DDT on the challengers to allow the hot tag to Eddie. He dumps Benjamin and backdrops Haas, and a rolling vertical suplex gets two. Eddie & Chavo both head up, and they hit Haas with a POWERPLEX! For those not versed in the brilliance of Paul Roma & Hercules, that’s a superplex into a top rope splash and it’s a much-missed finisher. Team Angle gets dumped and Chavo hits Benjamin with a plancha, leaving Haas alone in the ring with Eddie. Haas faceplants him and gets an overhead suplex for two. Chavo gets escorted out again, leaving Team Angle to double-team again with the leapfrog into a german for Haas, but Chavo saves. He gets tossed again and Team Angle puts Eddie on top, but Chavo breaks it up with an electric chair on Haas, allowing Eddie to get the MURDERDEATHKILL powerbomb on Benjamin for two. Eddie heads back up to finish, but Heyman trips him up. He finishes the frog splash, but there’s a legality problem, and Haas rolls him up with an Oklahoma roll for the pin and the titles at 15:36. Creative finish, although it’s not like anyone since 1987 has cared who’s legal. This was good stuff, although Team Angle didn’t get to really lay in the heat segment on Chavo with the commercial break. They need to do Extended Rock N Roll Express Formula and go 25-30 minutes by having a false hot tag midway through the match before switching off on the victim and beating up on the other guy for a while. ***1/4 Now they need to keep the titles on Team Angle FOREVER to really elevate them to players.

– Hulk Hogan joins us for his now-usual gab session, but Rock thankfully interrupts before he can say anything and bore the crowd to death, and instead electrifies us with an introduction for Hogan. He offers to direct the interview, and indeed Hogan’s bluster bores the Rock and everyone else and he’s forced to interrupt again. If this Hogan guy would just learn to interview WWE Main Event style, he might be something. Rock instructs him to skip to ripping the shirt off and posing, but gets distracted by the tofu. Rock again asks Hogan not to bore anyone and to skip to the posing and posturing, and heads off for dinner. Hogan waits until Rock is gone, and THEN fires back. Wow, dude, great timing. Hogan switches his focus to Vince and all the completely true things he said about him last week (you know, blood-sucking parasitic bottom feeder, him and his fans on life-support…the usual). He thinks Vince is full of shit. Well, that’s true, but it’s not necessarily mutually exclusive to Hogan also being a blood-sucking bottom feeder. Apparently Rock is now “The Rock of Jabroni”. That doesn’t even MAKE SENSE! I mean, “Gibraltar” and “Jabroni” is a pretty big stretch, even by wrestling nickname standards. The crowd is so happy to hear that Hogan’s interview is over that they cheer when he’s done. You know, it’s a good thing that you’ve got someone like myself to look at this stuff objectively and make sure people don’t get fooled into believing Hogan is still over.

– Elsewhere, Sean O’Haire introduces himself to Brian Kendrick. Brian immediately endears himself to me by wearing a Shinjiro Ohtani “Believe S Road” shirt. Sean asks Brian to streak in order to get attention, but he’s not telling him anything that he doesn’t already know.

– A-Train v. Shannon Moore. Kendrick streaks into the ring (apparently with a WWF logo on his ass judging by the video distortion) and just as fast as he runs through, A-Train runs through Shannon with the bicycle kick and backbreaker at 0:48. Kendrick streaks again, just to bookend the match with a kind of lowbrow sensibility, I guess. It kind of reduces the effectiveness of the pop culture reference, though, when the announcers come right out and TELL you what they’re spoofing.

– Elsewhere, Kendrick runs into Stephanie’s office, and boy he’s excited to see her. DICK JOKES! That’ll really help his career.

– John Cena comes out to call out Brock. For some reason, the Score bleeps out “cripple” in his rap. OVW is running wild all over Smackdown.

– Elsewhere, Benoit gives another blackscreen interview about his Rumble match with Angle and the ovation he got, but Angle bursts into the studio and gets in his face, letting us know that the belt is his wife and the gold medals are his children. I hope it wasn’t like passing a kidney stone, because those would HURT…

– Kurt Angle v. Chris Benoit. This is non-title. Angle grabs a headlock to start and overpowers Benoit, but gets clotheslined and elbowed back into an armdrag. Angle pounds away in the corner to escape, but Benoit unloads the chops. Angle charges and hits boot, and Benoit fires off a snap suplex for two. More chops, but Benoit walks into an overhead suplex. Angle keeps hammering him and gets a short-arm clothesline for two. Angle dumps him, which allows Heyman to get his cheapshot in, and Angle gets two. Angle knees away and gets a vertical suplex for two. We hit the chinlock, but Benoit armdrags out, only to run into a knee for two. Angle keeps stomping and works him over in the corner, into a backdrop suplex that gets two. Benoit uses the good old chops to fight him off, and gets a backdrop, but Angle reverses a german into the anklelock, which Benoit counters for two. Crossface in the middle, but Angle rolls through, which Benoit reverses to another rollup for two. German suplex is blocked by Angle, but Benoit counters the Angle Slam into another crossface, from the other side this time. Angle grabs the ankle to break and goes to the anklelock, but Benoit reverses back to the crossface. Angle makes the ropes. Angle blocks another try, but Benoit overpowers him and goes up for the flying headbutt, which Angle prevents. Angle powerbombs him into the corner, but Benoit rolls with it and does a german suplex before collapsing. Ah, the old All Japan “I’d Be Happy To Sell That Life-Threatening Move But First Pardon Me While I Suplex You” psychology. Benoit gets two and bleeds (in that order), and gets another german suplex. Flying headbutt misses, however, and Angle rolls him up for two. They reverse out of a suplex attempt and Angle gets the Angle Slam for the pin at 10:36. Well, that was kinda anticlimactic. It was going along good until the out-of-nowhere finish. ***1/4 Angle offers a handshake to Benoit, and then Team Angle ambushes Benoit. HHH wishes he had this kind of backup. Edge and Brock make the save, and I’m guessing we’re setting up a six-man for the PPV.

The Bottom Line:

Couple of good matches this week keeps things lively, but the rest of the show was the usual throwaway junk that’s been permeating Smackdown outside of the Smackdown Six lately. Hopefully Nathan Jones and Sean O’Haire getting pushed will spice things up in the midcard a bit.

Until next week, BUY THE BOOK!