The SmarKdown Rant – September 19 2002

The SmarKdown Rant – September 19 2002

– Taped from Colorado Springs, CO

– Your hosts are MC & Tazz.

– Opening match: Torrie & Rey Mysterio v. Nidia & Jamie Noble. Torrie gets a neckbreaker on Nidia to start, for two. Nidia gets a suplex for two. Noble and Rey tag in and Rey hits Noble with a buttsplash, and a headscissors into the corner for two. Noble faceplants him for two, however. Rube Goldberg bulldog gets two for Rey, but Nidia saves. That sets up the ol’ “Chase the slutty redneck chick and get attacked by her boyfriend” trick. It should be noted that every meeting of man and woman results in the Score cutting to a crowd shot, which is weird because they don’t generally do that. Anyway, Rey and Torrie set up Nidia for a broncobuster, and Torrie does the honors. Noble wants the next one, so Rey obliges. Not quite what he wanted. 619, and a sunset flip finishes at 4:02. This was goofy but fun. *

– Elsewhere, Steph bitches out D-Von and warns Heyman that Sara Undertaker went into false labor and thus Mr. Undertaker will probably be in a bad mood. I really hope this pregnancy thing is an excuse for Brock to destroy him so he can take 9 months off and tend to his little demon spawn. The question, of course, is whether the kid will have the supernatural powers of early-90s Undertaker or the motorcycle skills of the 2000s Undertaker. Or maybe he’ll be both, and turn out to be Ghost Rider!

– Stephanie comes out for an interview to congratulate herself. Blah blah blah, and Billy & Chuck come out to hype the match with the Island Boyz and make some cheap gay innuendoes. Billy pathetically tries to resurrect his one successful catchphrase, but Kurt Angle thankfully interrupts. He thinks Smackdown has become “Three’s Company”, and assures us that his gold medal was won with 100% all-American heterosexuality. Not that there’s anything wrong with gays. They love him, in fact. So tonight it’s a tag match, and Stephanie picks Chris Benoit for a partner. Angle is so flustered that he accidentally makes a bunch of gay references. Hmm…Stephanie, Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo on one side of an interview, Kurt Angle on the other…well, that almost balances out.

– Brock Lesnar v. John Cena. Cena did an interview on Byte This where he said he had something like 500 pairs of tights and boots. This week’s choice: Salmon and blue. Brock takes him down for two, and drops an elbow on his back, into a full-nelson on the mat. He’s WRESTLING! Holy crap, I thought he forgot how! Brock gets a belly-to-belly and stomps away, and that goes on for a while. Delayed vertical suplex gets two. Brock bearhugs him on the mat, and rolls him over for two. Cena makes the ropes. Cena fights out, but Brock suplexes him and maintains the hold. Gutbuster series and Brock keeps stomping away. Cena makes the comeback with a dropkick, but Brock finishes with the F5 at 5:50. Very long and dull squash. ѕ*

– Hey, it’s a Rikishi video. He was shot, you know.

– Hey, it’s an Undertaker video. He’s tough, you know.

– Edge & Rikishi v. Eddy & Chavo Guerrero. Rikishi fights off the Guerreros to start, and Chavo gets pinballed by the faces. Edge comes in with a lariat and a backdrop. Faceplant gets two. Chavo tosses him to turn the tide, but Eddy misses a chairshot. Chavo opts for a baseball slide instead and Eddy sends Edge back in for some punishment. Chavo slingshots in with a knee to the back, and they work Edge over. Edge comes back with a powerslam on Chavo, but Eddy distracts Rikishi and prevents a tag. Edge blocks a tornado DDT from Eddy, hot tag Rikishi. The Guerreros bump like jumping beans and Rikishi squishes both of them in the corner, but a well-timed shot with a TV camera gives Chavo the pin on Rikishi at 5:41. Standard stuff. *1/2 Eddy lays out Edge with that delayed chairshot for good measure.

– It’s Stephanie v. Bischoff, live via satellite. The upshot is that Stephanie just might like performing lesbian acts if she loses. Nice to see they have such confidence in this PPV.

– Matt Hardy (version 1.0) v. The Hurricane. Matt takes Hurricane down and poses to start. Rollup gets two. He works a wristlock, but Hurricane reverses and rolls him up for two. Matt slugs him down, but Hurricane goes up with a bodypress that gets two. Hurrichokeslam is reversed to a neckbreaker and Matt pounds away. Elbowdrop gets two. Hurricane comes back but hits an elbow, and Matt hotshots him into a backdrop suplex for two. Twist of Fate is blocked by a Hurri-neckbreaker for the double KO. Hurri-clothesline and Buff Blockbuster get two. Hurricane misses a hurri-charge, but the Shining Wizard doesn’t, and it gets two. Matt hits him with the Side Effect for two, however. Eye of the Hurricane gets two. Hurricane comes off the top, misses, and the Twist of Fate (with help from a lowblow) finishes at 5:53. Good little Velocity match, although the crowd wasn’t really into either guy. **

– Elsewhere, Brock is still hanging out, waiting for Undertaker.

– We do the now-traditional last-minute video rundown of the PPV card. Only thing of note is the addition of a Molly v. Trish match for the Women’s title. I didn’t even know they were still feuding, or that Molly was even defending the belt anymore.

– Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit v. Billy & Chuck. The heat machine is in full effect for Billy & Chuck. Guess that face turn didn’t quite set the world on fire. Benoit starts with Chuck, and hammers him in the corner. Chuck suplexes him, which delights Angle, so Benoit gives him a tag and tells him to do better. He elbows Chuck down, but walks into a lariat that gets two. Billy comes in with his own, and a tilt-a-whirl slam gets two. Angle ends up on the floor, but Billy chases and Benoit clocks him. Angle gets two back in the ring, and Benoit unloads the rolling germans on Billy. Angle comes in, blocks the Fameasser, and gets his own version of the germans for two. Belly to belly, but Billy gets the drop suplex out of nowhere and makes the hot tag to Chuck. He powerslams Benoit, but gets hit with an Angle Slam. Benoit & Angle take turns trying to make Chuck submit, but break each other’s move up. Benoit gets whipped into a Jungle Kick and gets pinned at 6:56. Benoit and Angle then proceed to put each other in their submission moves and make each other tap. I guess they’re even. **

– Elsewhere, Undertaker arrives, ten minutes before the end of the show. Some Locker Room Leader.

– Main Event Interview: Undertaker calls out Brock, and he’s like “Yeah, let’s do it, dude”. No-selling results, and Matt Hardy runs in, distracts Taker, and Brock takes a powder. Matt ends up taking the rest of the beating on Brock’s behalf to end the show. Really weak ending to a pretty okay show.

The Bottom Line: Better than RAW (although that’s not saying much these days), and all the wrestling was between “watchable” and “just fine”, which puts it over TNA as well. The matches were all pretty short, though, and there was a lot more talking than usual (including a ridiculous Eric-Stephanie satellite segment), but at least I can watch this show for two hours with needing to retch, find a source of caffeine to stay awake, or decipher HHH’s interviews to figure out if he’s going to job or not.

See you Sunday for the Unforgiven rant, although probably only 100-200K of you judging by the buildup to the show so far.