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The SmarKdown Rant – January 29 2004

January 29, 2004 | Posted by Scott Keith

The SmarKdown Rant – January 29, 2004

– Taped from Washington, DC.

– Your hosts are Cole & Tazz.

– Paul Heyman is about to open the show, but Vince McMahon interrupts. He’s upset because this was supposed to be Benoit’s night to celebrate on Smackdown, but now that won’t happen because Benoit is on RAW due to a loophole. What does he care when he owns both shows? Anyway, Heyman drags up Montreal AGAIN and announces a mini-Rumble tonight, with the 13 guys from Smackdown in the original Rumble, plus Eddie Guerrero and Hardcore Holly, as the main event tonight, winner gets the shot at Brock next month.

– Smackdown tag titles: The Basham Brothers v. Billy Kidman & Paul London. Wow, Kidman gets to replace Spanky. He must be honored. He gets a headscissors on Doug to start and London comes in with a leg lariat for two. The Bashams double-team him on the outside and back in Danny gets a backdrop suplex and stomps away. Doug comes in with a surfboard, but misses a charge and Kidman gets the lukewarm tag. He cleans house with his boring offense and goes up, but gets crotched as the Bashams do the switcheroo and a top rope DDT from Danny finishes him at 3:44. Zzzzz. *1/4

– Elsewhere, Kurt Angle draws his number for the Rumble and it has him a little freaked out. I love these segments. They should have done more of them for the PPV. I miss the days of Ted Dibiase trying to buy a better number from Slick.

– Elsewhere, an injured Chavo swears revenge on Eddie…eventually.

– Elsewhere, Eddie draws his number and meets Rey Mysterio and his boxer friend.

– Elsewhere, John Cena draws his number and pisses off Paul Heyman with a soap joke.

– Cruiserweight title: Rey Mysterio v. Jamie Noble. Noble takes him down for one to start, and Rey works the mat with him off a headlock, which goes into a knucklelock on the mat. Noble turns that into a suplex for two. Rey pops up for a rana, but Noble blocks, so Rey takes him down with a headscissors. Noble catches him with a backbreaker, but Rey reverses to an armdrag and sets up for the 619, which Noble blocks with an elbow. Nidia “accidentally” trips him again and Rey gets a rana for two. Noble slugs Rey down and gets a backbreaker for two, then hooks an abdominal stretch on the mat. Rey escapes and they reverse out of a suplex and Rey gets two, but Noble wraps Rey around the post. Not just his leg, his whole BODY. Chops in the corner, but Noble misses a charge and Rey goes up. They fight on the top rope, but it ends with a superplex and both guys are out. Noble rolls over for two. Rey comes back with a bulldog for two. Rey’s selling of the back is nice. Rey gets the sunset bomb for two. Noble comes back with a Tiger Driver attempt, but Rey counters to the 619. West Coast Pop misses and Noble tosses him and goes up, but Nidia gets in his way. He tosses her in the ring for some redneck justice, but Rey springboards in with a buttdrop to retain at 7:46. Better than the PPV by far. **1/2 Turns out Nidia isn’t blind after all. Now Bob Dylan will never write a song about her!

– Smackdown’s newest journalist, Rue, takes us on a hard-hitting expose of Playboy’s history with the WWE. Why do they keep calling it “rumors”? They’ve already advertised Sable & Torrie for next month’s issue!

– Elsewhere, Big Show picks his number and hits on Dawn Marie. Quick tidbit: The finish to the Royal Rumble was Show’s idea.

– Elsewhere, Brock decides to send a message to Goldberg by throwing out a non-title challenge to anyone in the arena.

– Elsewhere, Heyman finds Eddie Guerrero injured and Chavo claiming innocence.

– Brock Lesnar v. Orlando Jordan. Jordan rushes in to attack and gets nowhere, winding up on the floor. He dropkicks Brock out, however and uses his dizzying array of punching offense on Brock for two. Brock powers him into the corner and takes him down with the choke. And that goes on for a while. Jordan comes back with some vanilla offense and a pair of dropkicks for two. He runs into a clothesline, however, and the Brock Lock ends the boredom at 4:19. I don’t get why they bother keeping Jordan on the main roster. Ѕ*

– Elsewhere, Vince points out how silly it is to ask questions about Undertaker when he’s clearly dead and buried. Oh, well, clearly.

– Elsewhere, Angle accuses Heyman of trying to get Chavo into the Rumble by getting rid of Eddie.

– Royal Rumble: Kurt Angle gets #1 (no wonder he was upset earlier) and we head to a break. Rhyno is #2, and quickly goars him, but Angle hits him with the Angle Slam and Charlie Haas is #3. Haas chokes out Angle, but Rhyno saves and battles it out with Haas, but Charlie nearly gets Angle over the top as Benjamin is #4. He snaps off a suplex on Angle and the World’s Greatest Tag Team hit the Broken Arrow on Rhyno (the leapfrog choke), but Angle suplexes Benjamin and stomps everyone down. Bradshaw is #5 and he goes for arch-rival Rhyno and gets the Clothesline from Heck as we head to a break. We return with Tajiri as #7, with the Cat already out. Tajiri kicks Rhyno down and they show Cat’s entrance and elimination via Angle. We return to “live” action as Billy Gunn is #8, and he gets the Dumbasser on Bradshaw and tosses both Haas and Benjamin, but they both hang on. Rhyno hits Tajiri with a spinebuster while Gunn & Benjamin work Angle over in the corner. Angle takes Benjamin down with an anklelock as Big Show is #9. Everyone stops and decides to play it smart by ganging up on him, but he fights them all off. Tajiri tries a kick and gets chokeslammed out at 13:09. Show fights them off again, and then dodges at charging Bradshaw to get rid of him at 13:26. Angle tries a german suplex, but Show fights him off. John Cena is #10 (with a worked injured knee), and he goes for Show and slugs away, but only gets him to the apron as we take a break. We return with Eddie Guerrero returning from the hospital at #13 and escaping a press slam from A-Train and eliminating him at 19:37. I guess Train was 11 or 12. We’re missing some other people, so they must have gone during the break. Rikishi is #14 and he hammers on Gunn and superkicks him out, but Gunn hangs on. A superkick to Show sets him up for a Stinkface, and Benjamin gets one too. So does Gunn, but there was a time when he’d have enjoyed it. Show chokeslams Rikishi as Holly is #15. He goes for Angle and then slugs away on Gunn in the corner, but can’t get Angle out. Show chokes Cena to the apron and out at 22:50. Angle tries going after Show while he’s stuck on the apron, and everyone gangs up again, and Cena drags him out at 23:27. Well that’s pretty poor sportsmanship. Rikishi tries to backdrop Benjamin out and they show some eliminations while things slow down. Still no idea how Rhyno was eliminated. Guerrero does the ropewalk rana on Haas and tosses him at 25:25. Angle clotheslines Benjamin out at 25:38, and Angle Slams Rikishi. Eddie follows with a frog splash on Rikishi, and Angle dumps Bob Holly at 26:10. Final four are Angle, Eddie, Rikishi & Billy Gunn. Eddie tries a monkeyflip on Gunn, but he hangs on, so Eddie flips him out at 27:10 and rolls back in. So Eddie & Angle go after Rikishi, but get clotheslined. Superkick for Angle and chokeslam for Eddie, but the butt splash misses and Eddie tries to get him out, to no avail. Angle grabs the other leg, to no avail. Then they both try, and it works at 29:03, leaving us with two. Angle goes behind and takes him down and they work off that, but Eddie elbows him in the face and tries to dump him. Angle rolls back in off the apron and slugs him down. Eddie fires back, but gets suplexed with the rolling germans. Another one puts Eddie out, but he lands on the apron in a close call. Angle charges with a boot, but Eddie grabs the foot and anklelocks him! Angle reverses to his own, as often happens when you try that on him, but Eddie escapes and they both wind up on the apron. Back in, Eddie gets the rolling verticals and goes up, but Angle pops up, and they both end up getting crotched…and nearly fall to the floor. They both pull themselves back in, however and they slug it out. Angle grabs a sleeper and Tazz actually quotes the fucking COMMODORES while analyzing the move. That takes balls, man. Eddie fights out of it and dumps Angle out of nowhere, but he hangs onto the top rope and stays on the apron. Eddie slugs away on him and he’s down to one hand, but he hits him with a shoulder to the gut and tries to suplex him out. Crowd freaks out, but Eddie reverses and suplexes him off the apron to win at 37:06. That last 10 minutes was unbelievable, and if Goldberg costs Brock the title to Eddie next month (which seems at least within the realm of possibility) and we get a Guerrero-Angle title match at Wrestlemania, it’s gonna fucking ROCK. **** for the whole thing, just a superb effort from everyone.

The Bottom Line:

The first hour was kind of throwaway, but watch this show for the Royal Rumble match, you won’t regret it. The mega-push of Eddie finally begins, in a big way.

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Scott Keith

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