The SmarK RAW Rant – December 23 2002

The SmarK RAW Rant – December 23, 2002

– I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my review of the Back to the Future trilogy, and it should likely be up tomorrow. If you can’t wait, build a time machine and travel to Christmas Eve and read it then.

– Taped from Oklahoma, OK. OK? OK.

– Your hosts are JR & King.

– Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, and Happy Festivus to all.

– Opening match: RVD & Kane v. Three Minute Warning. Nothing a group of writers who would not only book this match in the first place, but then think it was so good that it required a REMATCH. JR calls the faces an “unlikely duo”, which is not really accurate, since they’ve teamed a few times before and thus are a likely duo. Rosie pounds on Kane to start, but gets clotheslined. Jamal comes in and gets his own. Kane no-sells it, and for once I agree because it SUCKED. Kane gets another clothesline to really hammer home the move, and Rob comes in with a bodypress (with help from Kane) for two. Split-legged moonsault gets two. Jamal gets pounded in the corner, but a lame cheapshot turns the tide and the samoan use FAT POWER to keep RVD down. Kane makes what I guess is a hot tag and cleans house with the usual, sideslamming Jamal into a Rolling Thunder from RVD and a chokeslam to set up the frog splash at 4:05. I just love when they push the shit out of people no one wants to see and then bury them for backstage infractions that no one knows about. 3MW tease a breakup. No one cares. Ѕ*

– Meanwhile, Big Chief Morley has heard HOT NEWZ about HHH possibly calling out Scott Steiner. Bet he read that on the internet. Spike Dudley interrupts and talks himself into a match with Batista.

– Test v. D-Lo Brown. Test’s pop is suddenly deafening. They should tape RAW every week – he’d be the most popular guy in the promotion in two weeks! D-Lo is now dressing like Konnan, except you can understand him. Apparently when black people are oppressed, they start dressing down. Test gets all in Test’s face, and then runs away. Test chases, and gets caught with a cheapshot and sent into the stairs. Back in, Test gets crotched coming over the top rope and pounded in the corner. That goes on for a while. MAIN EVENT SPINEBUSTER gets two. The moonsault misses and Test fights back to a canned crowd response. It’s kinda obvious when the crowd is “popping” and you can see the entire side of the arena sitting on their hands. Pumphandle driver gets two, and D-Lo ducks out to yell at Stacy, and posts Test for two. “If I was white, you’d count!” D-Lo shoves the ref for the DQ at 4:11. New Jack, he ain’t. The storyline here is that D-Lo wants to steal Stacy away from Test to market his new image. Of course, Test hasn’t gotten over to any great degree, so there’s kind of a logic gap there, but at least they’re trying. Match was just D-Lo’s usual match with jeans instead of tights. Ѕ*

– RAW Retro: JR kisses Vince’s ass. So glad they’ve moved onto less creepy topics, like necrophilia.

– Uncle Eric and French Chef Morley come out to announce that the Rumble will be 15 RAW guys and 15 Smackdown guys, with the winner meeting the champion of their brand. However, Eric has a problem with JR complaining about the RAW Retro clip during the commercial and reminds him that he “has Tony Schiavone’s number in his speed dial”. Maybe it’s there beside Sid’s squeegee. Remember, kids, insider comments suck. We get a brutally stupid verbal dressing-down as Bischoff makes a tag match with JR & King as our main event tonight. So Booker T gets to job clean to 3 Minute Warning in a meaningless tag match when they go through Houston, but Jim Ross gets a main event match in Oklahoma, despite not even being a wrestler. Obviously someone should build Booker a time machine and go back to 1998 to tell him not to get over in WCW in order to save his career.

– Chris Nowinski v. The Hurricane. You know, when fans brings signs that say “Harverd Sucks”, it kind of makes Nowinski’s point for him. Nowinski attacks to start and gets a powerbomb for two. Hurricane gets the CONTRIVED MIDCARD NECKBREAKER OF DEATH to come back, and a lariat to set up the Buff Blockbuster for two. By the way, JR protests that he’s never wrestled before, which is completely untrue because he teamed with Steve Austin against HHH and someone else a couple of years ago. Nowinski goes up as Maven joins us, providing enough distraction for Hurricane to bring him down and finish with the Shining Black at 1:56. Final word on the move name: Hurricane calls it a Shining Black on his website, so that’s what I’m calling it. Total filler. ј*

– Meanwhile, HHH is NOT afraid of Scott Steiner. Well, he’s the only one then, because god knows there’s road workers the world over terrified of having him drive down their section of the street. HHH is going to call out Steiner TONIGHT. See, now I realize why they write segments like this (to hype later segments for ratings reasons), but from a storyline flow point of view, they’re irritating as hell. It’s just stretching out a storyline point that can be resolved in one segment (HHH calls out Steiner) rather than four (Morley announces that HHH will be calling out Steiner, Coach speculates on HHH calling out Steiner, HHH announces that he’ll be calling out Steiner, HHH calls out Steiner). Economy is a good thing sometimes.

– Batista v. Spike Dudley. Batista beats on Spike in and out of the ring and powerbombs him into putty at 1:20. Still don’t have any reason to care. DUD They’re trying the Goldberg route, but Goldberg wrestled in a totally different style and had a cool finish, of which Batista has neither. He CAN yell a lot, which seems to be the de facto new standard for main eventers these days.

– Meanwhile, Treble Clef Morley and Bischoff think about taking the match against JR & King, but Regal & Storm (who are undefeated except for the time that they lost) offer their services instead. Minor complaint: What happened to Morley being there to enforce rules and stuff, rather than just acting as a yes-man for Bischoff? Do we need two ineffective heel commissioners on the same show?

– Next week: The best of 2002! But what will they do for the other 100 minutes? On the upside, I can take a week off.

– Victoria, Molly & Ivory v. Trish Stratus, Jackie & Stacy. How scary is it when the women’s division is deeper than both tag divisions combined? Big brawl to start and Stacy spinkicks Molly for two. Victoria comes in to double-team Stacy and gets a suplex for two. In the corner, Trish bends over the top rope to protest and someone take a picture of her ass. Ah, wrestling fans. Jackie gets what I presume is a hot tag and hits Victoria with a headscissors, but takes a cheapshot and she’s YOUR sista-in-peril. She should get D-Lo to back her up and represent and keep it real and all that stuff. She fights off Victoria and catapults her into Ivory, and makes the real hot tag to Trish. Handstand rana gets two. Stacy dumps Molly, and it’s BREAKING LOOSE IN…uh…Oklahoma City, I guess. Trish bulldogs Ivory for the pin at 3:32. Kind of hard to take it seriously when they’re all wearing Santa suits. ѕ*

– Meanwhile, Steiner responds to HHH’s potential out-calling, thus extending this into 5 segments. Instead of micro-booking all these redundant segments to provide the 0.002 ratings boost for the segment, they should concentrate on the big picture and use JR to hype these confrontations as something that could explode AT ANY MOMENT, which is supposed to be his function, rather than holding the viewers’ hands through each miniscule step to the same goal.

– Meanwhile, Goldust runs into Jericho backstage, who insists that Goldust is still the weak link.

– RAW tag team titles: Booker T & Goldust v. Vitamin C. Goldust starts with Christian, and gets pounded, but gets an atomic drop and a lariat. Booker comes in and works the arm, into a sidekick for two. Jericho comes in and gets hammered by Booker, and suplexed. The champs double-team him in the corner, and Goldust evades a cheapshot attempt and catapults Jericho into Christian. He hammers away in the corner, but this time Christian’s cheapshot works and Jericho gets a dropkick to the back and goes to work on it. Christian gets a backbreaker and hits the chinlock. Goldust’s escape attempt is cut off and the heels double-team him and stay on the back, but Goldust fights out of the corner and gets the MIDCARD NECKBREAKER to set up the hot tag to Booker. Superkick for Jericho! Backdrop for Christian! Sideslam for Jericho! MAIN EVENT SPINEBUSTER gets two on Christian. The heels go for the double-team, but Booker uses the old double noggin knocker and Goldust helps to clean house. Spinarooni and axe kick for Christian gets two. Where’s D-Lo when you need him? We take a commercial break as Booker argues the call. Feels like Saturday Night’s Main Event. We return with Jericho in control after apparently attacking Booker during the break, and chokes away. He slugs away, but walks into a sidekick. Goldust gets the false tag, allowing more shenanigans from the heels. Always a classic when done in moderation. Booker fights back on Christian, but gets dropkicked. He hardly ever does that. Jericho unleashes the CANADIAN PHYSICAL INTENSITY in the corner, but Booker fires back with his own and gets the rollup for two. Jericho clubs him down again and Christian comes back in to hit the chinlock. Booker charges and hits elbow, but blocks a middle-rope whatever with a flapjack and makes the real hot tag to Goldust. Lariat and Butt-Butt for Jericho and Goldust slugs away on both, and cradles Jericho for two. The heels work him over, but he reverses a double-backdrop into a DDT on both guys. Shattered Nuts for Christian, and a powerslam for Jericho gets two. I can’t believe Goldust has gotten the POWERSLAM over as a near-fall again. Jericho reverses the Curtain Call into the Walls, as we’re down to a Jericho-Goldust showdown. Booker makes the save before Goldust can tap, but Jericho ducks the axe kick. Booker gets dumped along with Christian, and Jericho rolls up Goldust for two. Bulldog, but the Lionsault misses and Goldust rolls him up for the pin at 17:21 to retain. Hell of a match, great mini-plot with Jericho accusing Goldust of being the weak link and then jobbing to him to pay it off. ***1/2 Now it’s time to move Black Gold onto something new.

– Meanwhile, RVD has a Christmas present for Kane: Hungry Hungry Hippos. Kane has another swing on the bipolar scale, as he thinks that he was locked in the basement as a child instead of being a wrestler playing a role who killed a girl in a drunk driving accident in 1992. The punchline: “I knew I should have gone with Chutes & Ladders”. Funny in theory, but both guys are terrible actors.

– Meanwhile, HHH & Flair prepare to call out Steiner and don’t impart any new information, bringing us to 6 segments to convey the same information that could be passed on via one. See, they’re so paranoid about their little ratings boosts now that when they get ANY kind of positive trend, they book the entire show around building up to the same thing, this overexposing it right out of the gate. And that’s your vicious circle right there.

– HHH comes out to call out Scott Steiner, which we knew because we’ve had 5 previous segments telling us that he’s coming out to call out Scott Steiner. I should warn you that my keyboard appears to malfunctioning this week, and may substitute the word “penis” for “arm”. HHH accuses Steiner of waiting until he was injured and beaten down to confront him last week, and that cues up Steiner to join us. HHH doesn’t want to give away the match this week, but Steiner does. Shows who the smart one is. Scott won’t relinquish the microphone for HHH’s rebuttal. Cute. So HHH wants a penis-wrestling match TONIGHT. HHH: “I thought you had the largest penis in the world? Those guns are pretty big, but they don’t compare to me. You’re built for show, I’m built to go!” So they set up the table as JR & King marvel at the size of Steiner’s penis. HHH and Steiner lock penises and both guys are straining with the force of it! HHH almost slams Steiner’s penis down, but Steiner no-sells and comes back to win easily, despite HHH’s best efforts. He easily handles HHH’s penis three more times for fun. HHH looks like he hurt his penis. It is nice to see HHH making an effort not to bury his next opponent.

– Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler v. William Regal & Lance Storm. Bischoff & Sour Cream & Chives Morley take over on commentary here, as we go from face-face commentators to heel-heel commentators. Lawler obviously starts for his side and takes Regal down with a hiptoss. Storm tries with a headlock and pounds away, but misses an elbow and gets “dropkicked” by Lawler and rolled up for two. A cheapshot turns the tide and Regal gets two. Regal knees him down for two. Storm gets a forearm for two. Lawler makes his own comeback and hits Regal with the FISTDROP OF DEATH for two, but the ref is bumped. Regal tries the POWER OF THE PUNCH, but Lawler uses his own punches, before getting low-blowed. JR tags himself in, steals the errant brass knuckles, but gets punked out by the heels. The Dudley Boyz do a run-in, 3D Storm, and JR uses the knux on Regal for the pin at 5:30. This did nothing for me, sorry. DUD

The Bottom Line: Using the Smackdown criteria for judging this show, we got one good long match and everything else was at least watchable or kept short enough not to be offensive, so the result is a decent show heading into the Xmas break. Taping rather than going live really does help, honest.

Merry Xmas, y’all!