411’s WWF Raw Report 20.01.02

Hello folks, I’m Carlos Mahuad and I will be doing RAW this week again. PK crawled under a rock in shame after the Bears game this weekend. Not really, he moved and does not have cable yet. Although if he had, I would not have blamed him for it. This is what we get in the name of parity I guess. A playoff field with some painfully mediocre teams, a few good ones and two great ones. Actually, the Steelers are not even that great. The new NFL seems to give us a lot of great regular season games, but the playoff quality is pretty low. And what did I tell you about the Bucs firing coach Dungy? Now they look like fools after being turned down by Parcells. Enough football though, I’m still too angry about the Raiders game to talk about it.

Tonight’s show is hosted by Jim Ross and The King, it comes to us live from South Carolina, and is ONLY on TNN.

The show starts with a short, Vince-narrated tribute to MLK. Kinda weird. It is followed by a Rumble retrospective with images of last night’s winner, HHH.

Match #1- Rob Van Dam, Tazz, and Spike Dudley vs. Booker T and The Dudley Boyz w/Stacey

I guess the feud is not over yet. Stacey will be in Wisconsin this Saturday. Lucky Wisconsin. Van Dam and Booker start out. They trade some kicks and kick attempts. RVD hits a standing moonsault and tags Tazz. Buh-buh interferes, allowing Booker to get the advantage. The heels use heel strategy to keep Tazz isolated and down. Booker hits an axe kick and teases the spineroonie, but tags D-Von instead. Booker pounds him and drops the leg. He throws Tazz to the outside, where Buh-buh throws him into the steps. Back in, and Tazz gets a fluke suplex that allows him to tag RVD. Van Dam does his jumpy stuff to dominate. He misses rolling thunder, allowing the Dudz to hit a double team neckbreaker. Spike breaks up the pin. RVD goes up top but gets thrown off to the outside, where he nearly kills himself to avoid a cameraman. Inside, booker takes care of Spike with a spinebuster. The Dudz hit 3-D on Tazz but Spike breaks it up. A pier-six brawl erupts and ends with RVD hitting the ***** on D-Von for the win.

Winners- RVD, Tazz, and Spike

The Undisputed Champion, Chris Jericho comes out to the ring for some quality mic time. Hey, Jericho warned us not to take him as a fluke champion. He gives a beautifully intense speech about everybody expecting The Rock to kick his ass, but prevailing. Despite the fact we never gave him a chance, he gives us one to stand up and cheer and give him a standing ovation. This brings out none other than Triple H, who does give Jericho a small ovation. Triple H acknowledges that Jericho has done pretty well, but there is one man he has not beaten. That man is Trip himself. Actually, Jericho did defeat Hunter for the WWF belt a long time ago, but that never happened. Triple H gives Jericho until Wrestlemania to prove to the world that he is not a fluke. If he does make it to Wrestlemania as champ, HHH promises he won’t make it out. Out comes Kurt Angle now, along with the “what?” chants. Angle ignores them. Angle is angry that Hunter attacked him from behind to win the Rumble, then runs to the ring. H is about to hit the pedigree on Angle when Jericho hits him with the belt. They double team The Game and Jericho locks in the Liontamer. The Rock makes the save. Man, pretty much any combination of those four guys plus twenty minutes guarantees a four-star match.

Match #2- Edge vs. William Regal

Edge goes right to work, and they go at it on the outside. Nasty suplex on the mats before they come in to start the match proper. Edge strikes first with a missile dropkick.Regal gains the advantage and keeps thing mat-based. He uses the knee to hit some stiff shots to Edge’s face. He locks in his weird arms-crossed submission maneuver. Edge comes back with a cross body but Regal takes him back down and locks a reverse facelock. He double underhooks Edge but is driven into the corner. Edge hits a leg lariat then hits his reverse faceslam. Edge goes up top and Regal puts on his brass knuckles. Edge hits a kick off the top and Regal loses the knucks. The ref hurts himself and limps off to the corner. Edge puts on the brass knuckles and hits Regal with them. The ref starts to count the pin, but sees the knuckles on Edge’s hand and disqualifies him. After the match Edge has one of his “out of control” episodes.

Winner- William Regal

Backstage, The Big Show goes to congratulate Kane on the way he eliminated him from the Rumble. Show leaves, and Billy and Chuck come in to Kane’s locker room. They have a gift for him- his very own personalized headband. Kane takes offense to this and pushes Chuck. The AGD double team Kane and beat him down. Elsewhere, Debra is talking wardrobe. Mr. Perfect bumps into her and confronts her about what Austin did to him at last night’s Rumble. Okay, so it looks like we are on for Kane and TBS vs. Billy and Chuck, which is not so good. It also looks like we are on for Mr. Perfect vs. Austin, which is very good.

Ric Flair comes out to brighten all our days. He sucks up to the crowd big-time. He recalls his days as a full-time wrestler, and acknowledges that his fans knew him better than he knew his own family. He loved those times, but now his priorities have changed. His main priority now is his family, and that is why he beat Vince up after he messed with them last night. I would believe that the fact he was in a Street Fight with him was reason enough. We then look at some pictures of last nights fight. We get to a particularly bloody picture of McMahon and that brings McMahon himself out. McMahon says that if he lost at the Rumble, then every wrestler and fan at the Rumble lost as well. This is a great example of a good heel promo being ruined by idiot fans yelling “what?” after every pause. McMahon is pissed and he promises to do something tonight that even he is going to regret.

Match #3- Val Venis vs. Mr. Perfect

I guess this means we are not getting the Austin vs. Hennig match I was expecting. Val has the house mic and he brings a lucky lady into the ring to remove his towel for him. He picks a good looking chick and she comes in to do it. After what seems like forever Perfect makes his way down to the ring. I won’t even bother recapping the match because about one minute in the glass breaks and Stone Cold Steve Austin walks out. Austin takes care of Perfect in short order. Venis grabs the mic and says that Perfect got what he deserved for not taking care of his business with Austin personally. This of course leads to a stunner on Venis. Austin is left alone in the ring with time leftover because he whupped Perfect and Venis’ ass too quickly. He uses this extra time to tell us the story of the Beverly Hillbilies. Beverly (what?), Hills, that is, (what?), swimming pools (what?), movie stars (what?). He then changes stories and starts talking about what happened to him last night at the Rumble. He takes this opportunity to enter the 2003 Royal Rumble. He says that even though he will not face the champion at WM, he will still be there whipping somebody’s ass. Total comedy interview, but a good one at that.

Winner- nobody

Check it out, the first Wrestlemania X8 commercial. It is only two months away, you know.

Match #3 Ѕ- Billy and Chuck vs. Kane and The Big Show

JR calls Billy and Chuck one of the “hottest” teams. I did not know they swung that way. Another match that was pretty much nothing. Kane dominates the AGD handily until TBS hits him possibly by mistake. The AGD double team and Billy hits the famouser while Chuck holds Show’s leg down to get the pin.

Winners- The AGD

Backstage, HHH is pissed at The Rock for helping him out. I blame it on ‘roid rage. We see a recap of Maven eliminating The Undertaker from the Royal Rumble and the subsequent whuping he received. The APA are in WWF NY and they discuss the fact that the Godfather is now a legitimate businessman and his ladies are now professional “escorts”.

This leads into the Godfather making his way to the ring along with four of his escorts. The GF talks about his completely legit Godfather’s Professional Escort service. The service’s number is 1-800-godfather. Lance’s music hits and he wants to be serious for a minute. Lance does not appreciate the ring being disgraced by the escorts. Lance rushes the ring and hits a leg lariat on the Godfather. He goes up top but is crotched and put in the tree of woe. Godfather hits him with the Ho Train and Lance tumbles out of the ring.

We take a video look at a Goldust promo. Backstage, Stephanie and Hunter get into another little backstage argument that ends with Hunter telling Steph to shut up, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.

Main Event- Triple H and The Rock vs. Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle

The Rock and Angle start out. Rocky hits a jumping clothesline and follows it with a samoan drop. Angle comes back and tags Jericho in. Jericho hits a shoulderblock and runs to the ropes. The Rock nips up and spears him down. Triple H comes in and tries to throw Jericho over the top rope. Jericho lands on the apron and goes up top he gets caught and thrown down. Hunter follows with his running chokehold. Good to see he came up with something new after 8 months off. The Rock comes back in and punches Angle off the apron. He hits a spinebuster and goes for the People’s Elbow. Angle pulls down the top rope, sending Rocky to the outside. Angle throws him back in and Jericho gets two. The Rock punches his way back and hooks the sharpshooter on Angle but Jericho makes the save. Angle goes for the anklelock and Hunter makes the save. Jericho comes in and takes a ddt to allow the hot tag. Hunter manhandles both Angle and Jericho then whips Angle into Jericho in the corner. Angle bounces off only to take a spinebuster. Trips catapults Jericho to the outside. He goes for the Pedigree on Angle but catches Jericho going to the top with the Title belt and knocks him down. He hits the Pedigree on Angle but Jericho jumps off the top to make the save. The Rock and Jericho come in with Rock getting the better of things. Jericho goes outside and brings the ring bell in. He hits Angle by mistake and The Rock hits the Rock Bottom on Y2J for the win.

Winners- Triple H and The Rock.

Man, did this show disappoint me. It started up well, but rapidly deteriorated into crap. Flair and Austin performed admirably, as always, but it was not enough to save the show. The main event did not get nearly enough time, and the entire Godfather segment was pointless.

Last weeks trivia question was answered correctly by Michael Barnhart. He wrote: I don’t think Revere ever said ‘The British are coming!’ If memory serves me correctly, the way he put it was that, ‘The Regulars are coming out’.

That is it for me, see you on Sunday.