The SmarK RAW Rant – November 12 / 2001

The SmarK RAW Rant – November 12 2001

– Before we get started, I just wanted to take a trip back to 1996 for a good laugh. A friend of mine gave me some old WWF magazines, from 92-97, and one in particular from August 1996 drew my attention. See, that was around the time that Vince Russo was editor-in-chief, while also using the very-subtle nom de pleum of “Vic Venom” for his editorials. Well, this particular issue came out just after Kevin Nash jumped ship to WCW, and while Russo’s very…energetic…writing style makes it an entertaining-enough piece (as he talks about all of the wasted potential of Vinnie Vegas in years past) the really interesting stuff comes in the last section. Now, keep in mind, these are Vince Russo’s own words:

“And then came Ted Turner with his open checkbook. Kids, in reality this was a very sad story. It’s sad because we may never know what heights Diesel could have, should have and would have reached in the World Wrestling Federation. But again, if you ask Vic Venom [Vince Russo], ‘Would you have taken the guaranteed money?’ my answer would be – without a doubt – ABSOLUTELY NOT! Now, I realize that there may have been other factors involved in his decision that even the Great Vic Venom doesn’t know about, but regardless, Kevin Nash, despite the misunderstandings, Diesel would not have even born had it not been for Vince McMahon. No, maybe he wasn’t right 100 percent of the time, BUT he gave you the OPPORTUNITY. The OPPORTUNITY that allowed you to shine. The OPPORTUNITY that WCW never gave you. The OPPORTUNITY that put you in the position to make all that damned money. In Vic Venom’s book, you can’t put a price tag on that – ANY price tag. I guess that even miserable, little ol’ me would have been just a tad more grateful. But, as you say, ‘business is business’.”

You can’t BUY comedy like this. But that’s not even the best part of this issue! The best part is the one-on-one interview between Russo and Vince McMahon. It’s too long to reprint here, but the highlights include: (with my comments in parentheses)

– Vince pulled out of the TBS deal in the 80s voluntarily because Turner kept trying to buy the WWF out. (That scoundrel.)
– Vince on Nitro: “[Turner] will try to give you some malarkey on how the wrestling audience on Monday night has grown as a result of his effort, that both shows do a combined number that is larger than any one number that the one show could bring.” (You sure don’t hear Vince arguing against THAT theory much anymore, do you?)
– On overruns: “What is also historic in nature as far as television is concerned is he makes sure that his program…ends sometimes 10-12 minutes after ten o’ clock.” (Less than a year after saying this, RAW began doing the same thing and has done so for the past four years)
– On Kevin Nash: “Turner’s organization has no idea how to make a star. All they can do is buy, and the intention of that buy is, once again, not necessarily to help themselves – i.e, “Nitro Monday Night” – but to hurt the World Wrestling Federation because the people in Turner’s wrestling organization won’t have any more idea of what to do with Kevin Nash than they did when he was Oz, Vinny (sic) Vegas or whomever he will be in the future. So, the idea then is to acquire the services of Kevin Nash so that Diesel ceases to exist for the World Wrestling Federation, thus attemping to hurt the World Wrestling Federation. The exorbitant sums of money that Turner is willing to spend for this predatory practice and others is astounding.” (Less than a month after this interview was written, the nWo angle was launched with Nash at the forefront, drawing more money for WCW than nearly any other angle in the history of US wrestling. Vince McMahon copied it with D-Generation X soon after.)
– On contracts: “The generally accepted practice throughout the history of the wrestling business has been that athletes are compensated on a percentage basis – paid on commission as such. Athletes must have a love for the business that they are in, a strong work ethic, and a sense of loyalty to remain here in the World Wrestling Federation. The majority of our athletes love to perform. They are not just television stars working for some conglomerate media company.” (Shortly after this interview, Vince switched to a guaranteed contract system, much like WCW’s. In 2000, the WWF became WWFE, a conglomerate media company under Viacom. Vince prefers his guys to be thought of as “television stars” these days.)

Again, much is too long to bother printing here, but his side of the story as he made himself out to be a financially destitute, struggling businessmen competing with the “millionaire promoters” in the early 80s is truly howling-out-loud funny stuff. For comedy value, this stuff is better than the Farrelly Brothers if you look back with a little modern insight. In terms of what you might have read in a markazine in 1996, especially an in-house WWF rag, it was pretty revolutionary stuff, but the spin is so viciously rah-rah WWF that it might leave you dizzy afterwards.

Anyway, onto today’s lies and bullshit as opposed to yesterday’s…

– Live from Boston MA

– Kurt Angle’s music cuts off the RAW opening as he gets the opening interview tonight. He sums up the woes of the Alliance by talking about a group of huge losers who had it all and then blew it…before revealing that he’s referring to the Red Sox. Ouch. He wants an apology from Steve Austin, DARNIT. Edge replies instead and he wants Angle and that very prestigious US title RIGHT NOW. Points to the creative team for the hard sell on the Edge push, but to put it in JR-speak, it’s like trying to close the barn door after the horse has not only left the barn, but the barn is burning and the horse was shot by a gang of rough-housing cows for his shoes. So anyway, it’s on.

– US title match: Kurt Angle v. Edge. Edge gets a dropkick, but Angle matwrestles him into frustration. Edge gets an armdrag and mocks Angle, keeping on the arm. Into a pinfall reversal sequence, but Edge gets the half-nelson bulldog for two. Angle suplexes him to the floor, and gets two off it. Nice bump. Angle stomps him down and they slug it out. Angle takes him down and hits the chinlock. Blind charge hits foot, but he gets a belly to belly suplex anyway. Moonsault misses and Edge comes back with a leg lariat, but Angle blocks the Impaler. Edge blocks the Angle Slam in turn and gets the Edge-O-Matic for two. Rollup gets two. Angle Slam and Anglelock look to finish for Kurt, but Kane’s music hits and he stands around looking like an idiot, allowing Edge time to recover, read the first 10 chapters of War & Peace to some orphans at ringside, buy some weed off X-Pac and compose an album, paint his house, have his teeth buffed, compare dental notes with DDP, and finally spear Angle to win the US title at 6:33. Yay, another title change, although with Test v. Edge likely for Survivor Series I can actually see the ulterior motive here. Kane pops out of the crowd and attacks Angle, then takes out Dreamer & Stevie Richards for good measure. JR sells it like it’s Sting returning from his 18 month exile into the rafters. Match was pretty decent aside from the dull middle portion, but it didn’t really accomplish anything except to further muddy the already muddy feuds. **

– WWF tag title match: Booker T & Test v. The Hardy Boyz. Brawl to start and Jeff gets hammered. For wearing that purple outfit, he SHOULD be. Booker suplexes him for two. Sidekick and Test hammers away. Doctorbomb gets two. Big kick misses, hot tag Matt. Lariat for Booker, DDT for Test. Booker charges and hits boot, and the yodelling legdrop gets two. Everyone’s fighting, and it’s BONZO GONZO! Twist of Fate and swanton, no ref. Test gives Jeff the big kick, no ref. Lita comes in, rana for Booker, and Jeff gets the pin and the titles at 3:16. I’d make a Weakest Link comment but then I’d probably lose 10 IQ points reliving that idiotic show from tonight. Way to turn aside the stereotypes of dumb wrestlers, guys! Match was pretty much exactly that same as every other Hardy match from the past year. ѕ*

– Meanwhile, Chavito & Hugh Morrus suck up to Vince in hopes of getting a job past Sunday. He blows them off.

– Steve Austin v. Tazz. KICK WHAM STUNNER at 0:42 finishes. Next. DUD

– The Creed video has now gone to the noble goal of making everyone remember when Undertaker didn’t suck. Great, now he’s even holding down the video packages.

– Meanwhile, Steph gives the Alliance a talking-to. She fires Chavo & Hugh, and then Austin & Angle get into a yelling match but Shane focuses things on the important thing: Shane. Well, anyway, a big argument erupts and no one cares anymore so let’s move on.

– WCW tag title match: The Dudley Boyz v. Albert & Scotty 2 Hotty. Perhaps I missed something in between Albert beating Scotty on Heat a couple of weeks ago and their sudden turn as a team this week, but somehow I doubt it. Big brawl to start, as Stacy gets pantsed and the Dudleyz save her from taking the Worm. It’s an apparent Sportz Entertainment Finish at 1:42. Next.

– Meanwhile, Jericho & Vince have a pow-wow. Why did he attack the Rock? Because he’s sick of Rock and the people. Vince, however, lets us know again how much he hates selfish people. He wants them to play nice, “or else”. Jericho isn’t impressed.

– Meanwhile, Christian enjoys some tea with Regal, complete with extended pinky finger. Regal sets up a non-title match against Big Show, and seems inordinately pleased with himself for doing so.

– Hardcore title: Rob Van Dam v. The Undertaker. Taker beats on Rob in the corner, but hits boot on a blind charge. Rob dumps him, but gets caught on a dive and posted. They head up the ramp, where Taker misses a kick and gets his foot caught in the staging. Rob gingerly kicks him down and bodypresses him off the Titantron in a spot that probably should have been the finish in a better match. Both guys are down, and Rob gets two. Punch punch punch both ways and Taker tries the Poochiebomb off the stage, but Booker T attacks from behind and chases him to ringside. Booker & RVD double-team him as it’s suddenly a handicap match, but Taker fights them off. He dumps Rob, but takes a spinkick and Booker goes up. Taker crotches him and superplexes him, but Van Dam sneaks in with a frog splash for the pin at 6:35. Well, nice to see it only took two guys to make Taker job this week. Match was all punching. Again, the feuds are all over the place, as one week Booker & Rob are feuding, and another week they’re back on the same page again. 1/2*

– Meanwhile, Vince tries pleading with the Rock for peace with Jericho. Rock notes that Jericho is a moose-hunting Twisted Sister wannabe bitch. Well, I guess that settles that.

– Mick Foley emerges from wherever he’s been to liven up the show a bit. Foley’s not thrilled about either result of the PPV, because either way he’s likely out of a job. He gripes about the sheer amount of belts in one of those bizarre shoot interviews that’s gonna go WAY over the head of 90% of the audience and goes on about how mad he is that they don’t mean anything anymore. You are witnessing a man who is NOT enjoying his job right now. To wit, he brings up how he showed up at both RAW & Smackdown last week and the creative team told him that he “wasn’t needed”. Anyway, he’s gonna do some unifications at Survivor Series, as Edge and Test will unify the US & IC titles (despite neither guy having held either title for more than about two weeks combined), and the Dudleyz will unify the tag titles against the Hardyz in a cage match that we’ve already seen 10,000 times this year alone. Never mind that we already HAD a unification match at Summerslam, in a cage, and that lasted about two weeks before they split up the titles again. And is anyone else bothered that the US title, which has been around forever, will come to an end at the hands of two WWF guys, and two third-tier WWF guys at that? Ditto for the tag titles. Foley brings up the light heavyweight titles, and then notes that X-Pac is MIA and “no one cares”, so it’s Tajiri v. Regal instead. God love Foley, but going out and talking about how your own company sucks is just such a WCW idea that it’s not even funny.

– Christian v. The Big Show. Show casually pounds away until Christian bails. DDP comes in, fails to do anything, and Show punches a chair out of Christian’s hands and gets the pin at 1:21. DUD The Dudleyz come in and break a table over Show’s head, but the APA save. What ANY of this has to do with the PPV is beyond me.

– Footage of Edge at a Rob Zombie concert. You can actually hear the ratings fall if you listen closely.

– Meanwhile, Jericho & Rock have some showdown time in the locker room. But wait! Undertaker joins them and bitches them out, and Kane, while all three cower like children. I suddenly have flashbacks to Dusty Rhodes in 1986. He complains that they’re not acting like a team because no one saved him from Booker & RVD. Of course, none of the four stop to ask where Big Show is or why no one saved HIM from FOUR guys in the last match, but then the writers have probably already forgotten that they wrote Show into the main event last week.

– WCW title match: The Rock v. William Regal. Brawl outside to start, and Regal hammers away back in. Rock comes back with a forearm, but Regal takes him down for two. Running knee gets two. Regal hits the chinlock, but Rock suplexes him and gets a DDT for two. Tajiri runs out and mists Regal, spinebuster, Sharpshooter, and Regal IS theweakestlink, goodbye at 2:50. That’s nice, but it’s only 10:48 EST. Ѕ*

– Rock gets all ON THE STICK and calls out Austin. Um, okay.

– Main event interview: The Rock hasn’t forgotten WM, oh no. He wants a piece of Austin, but then before the interview can go anywhere useful they start interrupting each other’s comedy bits, then say “what” at each other for five minutes, then exchange songs as Austin does “Delta Dawn” and Rock does “The Gambler”. Yeah, I remember when Ray Stevens and Pepper Gomez sang to each other the week before their big match in San Francisco, man, that drew MILLIONS. Rock wants a duet, so they share the honors on “Marguaritaville” before the inevitable Rock Bottom and Alliance v. WWF schmoz to end the show. I’m sure you can all guess how much I loved seeing 20 minutes of potential in-ring time taken away so we could be blessed with this segment, so I’ll skip any lengthy diatribes on the subject because frankly I don’t give a fuck about this PPV to begin with at this point and there’s very little they can do to make me care any less anyway. Do like Buffy and make Smackdown into a musical for all I care, this PPV is dead in the water for more reasons than I can possibly list here.

The Bottom Line: A generally entertaining show for the first hour or so, albeit one that doesn’t mean a thing for the PPV, with a second hour chock full of talk that dragged it down again pretty far. I’m with Foley on this product in general, though.

WCW is thy name.