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Rebellion 2000
Date: December 2, 2000
Location: Sheffield Arena, Sheffield, England
Attendance: 11,077
Commentators: Jim Ross, Taz
This is another of those British PPVs that are glorified house shows but can be good at times. We’re 8 days away from Armageddon and the 6 man Cell match so I’d expect nothing of note here. The main event is a fatal fourway for the title with Angle defending. Other than that it’s your basic stuff, but there’s one match on the card that immediately caught my eye. Something tells me you’ll figure it out when you see it. Let’s get to it.
Foley and Debra, more or less co-Commissioners, arrive in a car marked Commish. Subtle.
After the basic intro here are Debra and Foley to address the crowd. He lists off the four main event guys and Austin/Rock have equal pops. HHH isn’t here because he couldn’t be in the main event. This prompts a sweet HHH imitation from Foley who nails it for the most part. The main event is now no holds barred. Angle comes out to bitch and make jokes about England. Debra says get over it and is rather annoying.
Taz and JR run down the card.
T&A vs. Dudley Boys vs. Edge/Christian
This is an elimination tables match. Trish is just a piece of ass here. Since the match is based on violence and there are no DQs, we have to tag. I’ve never gotten that but I doubt it’ll last long. The Dudleys beat up Albert for awhile until the big guys go to get the first table. Edge and Christian are just kind of chilling out on the apron. Albert kicks a table in half which doesn’t count I guess. Why would it though?
The power teams do basic stuff for awhile until Edge gets a blind tag to a nice pop. And there he goes again. We get my least favorite spot ever as Test jumps into Bubba’s boot. The other 3D (reverse neckbreaker and belly to back combo) is FINALLY called NOT 3D by Taz. Why is that so hard to get? Albert and Bubba go up but Edge and Christian pull him down in a double powerbomb to get us down to the two more famous and successful teams.
Basic stuff here as you would guess until D-Von hits a baseball slide into the table the Canadians try to set up. Hot tag to Bubba but the referee didn’t see it, drawing some nice heat for his troubles. Ah there’s Bubba. Spear gets no cover because I guess he hadn’t gotten the technique down yet or something. Through some shenanigans Edge hits What’s Up on Christian and then Edge takes one himself.
I never got why that move is so popular but it certainly was. Table time even though we’ve gotten tables already in this match. Christian takes down Edge to prevent 3D then walks into it himself in a nice little spot. Dudleys win.
Rating: C-. Pretty weak from a wrestling perspective but the idea was to get the crowd excited for the show and tables matches are easy ways to do that. The fans love them and the most popular team wins. It’s hard to do an opener much better than that. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best.
Lita says the title is hers and is excites to be in the UK.
Women’s Title: Ivory vs. Lita
RTC Ivory here and she has the title. Steven comes with her as I wonder why he kept getting work for so many years. He cuts a basic promo about how we need to clean up Europe and we start here at Rebellion. This brings a thought to my mind: why would a British fan want to go see an American show called Rebellion? Didn’t that kind of go badly for the British last time? We also get to see why Ivory hardly ever talked.
Lita hits the ring and spears down Ivory. She I guess you could say hits a dropkick to the stomach as I already think I know how this is going to end. The main difference between this and the girls you see today is the speed. These girls are moving just as fast as the men do if not faster. When’s the last time you saw Divas today moving at a fast pace?
Ivory gets a Northern Lights suplex for two as this has been a fast paced match the whole way through. Lita makes her comeback with the Twist of Fate and hits a suicide dive on Richards. She comes back in with a sunset flip but Steven grabs Ivory’s hands for extra leverage and the pin.
Rating: C-. Yeah even for a two minute match I’ll say this was pretty decent as they flew through this and we got a fairly entertaining match out of them. Another thing that helped this I think was that the girls were in something close to athletic attire rather than sex based outfits. It doesn’t sound like something big but a bunch of little things can add up. Fun little match.
Rock cuts one of his usual funny promos about all three guys in the main event. This guy bled charisma.
Hardcore Title: Perry Saturn vs. Steve Blackman
No Terri with Saturn but she’d be back. Blackman couldn’t do much but he was always in great shape and could be decent at hardcore stuff. Saturn jumps him to start which is a theme tonight or something and we’re off. Somewhat technical sequence to start as we invoke the Lance Storm hardcore formula. We hit the floor where more or less nothing happens.
Here come the weapons and Blackman goes to the knee. Blackman had a nice spot where he would get the other guy on his knees and hold a weapon in front of his face but spin around fast and have it hit the back of his head. I love that for some reason. Challengers in hardcore matches tend to have the strategy of just hit the guy in the head with stuff. Are we actually getting a touch of psychology in hardcore wrestling?
Crucifix by Saturn gets two and Blackman tries to skin the cat. Instead he gets his head blasted by a piece of metal. Saturn doesn’t go after him and Taz criticizes him for it so Saturn throws a Tope which misses. Nice call Taz. We get Blackman’s sticks which were his signature things. His suplex move with it gets two as does a small package by Saturn. Bicycle kick into the chair by Blackman ends this.
Rating: D+. Pretty much filler here but both guys were moving out there so I can give it a few points. It’s not bad but a lot of these matches became almost pain by numbers which is never really a good thing. The division ran its course and ranged from a toughman match to comedy done not very well at times. This wasn’t too bad though.
Regal cuts what amounts to a face promo as he’s glad to be back in England. He bashes some British sports heroes and says he’ll be England’s hero.
European Title: Crash vs. William Regal
Well if nothing else we can look at Molly whose looks are so overlooked. Regal is defending here if I didn’t mention that earlier. Bigger pop for Crash which says a lot about Regal’s ability to draw heat. Regal talks some more and more or less is the British version of Kurt Angle, claiming to be the British hero but being a total jerk about it the entire time. Crash jumps him (see what I was talking about?) while he is wrapping up and here we go.
Regal hits Cena’s spin out slam and takes over, throwing out that stereotypical British wave. Regal throws out a big boot. Does that move make any sort of sense at all coming from him? There’s a running joke in this match about Taz not knowing if England is a city or a country. We praise Crash for a bit to mess with my head somewhat.
Crash starts his comeback and hits a jumping back elbow and a rana for two. Regal counters a headscissors and we get a Dusty Finish with Crash getting his foot on the ropes but the three going down anyway. Molly hits a missile dropkick while the referee is explaining things to Chimmel and Crash gets the pin and the title. Regal steals the belt back and leaves with it. He’d get it back properly at Raw in two days.
Rating: D. Not a very good match as it just kind of flew by. The ending was to do nothing but give the fans a feeling like something happened, but I kind of wonder how much they really liked it. This was more or less a Raw level match and nothing of note happened in it until the very end. Didn’t like this.
Angle tries to convince Benoit to help him out in the main event but Benoit of course turns him down. These two were very underrated in their promos together.
Ross messes up the name of the PPV.
We recap the Chyna vs. Eddie love affair which was by far the highlight of Chyna’s career. She caught him in the shower with two chicks and beat the hell out of them, one of which was a then unknown Victoria. Billy Gunn, looking like a 70s porn star minus the mustache, said Eddie wouldn’t get near Chyna again. Dean Malenko joined in because he was in the Radicalz with Saturn, setting up this match.
Dean Malenko/Eddie Guerrero vs. Chyna/Billy Gunn
Dean is Light Heavyweight Champion and Billy is Intercontinental Champion at this point. Chyna is in a white top and white boots instead of her usual stuff. Eddie and Billy start us off with Eddie going for the knee. Audible F Bomb by Billy leads to a clothesline. Eddie and Chyna are in the ring for a bit together and we get stereo gorilla presses by the faces.
Since Chyna had been in Playboy recently we get a bunch of sex jokes from Taz, none of which ever feel right. She was supposed to be the physical girl rather than another sexual one which makes the jokes not make a ton of sense at all. We’re saving Eddie vs. Chyna for later in the match. I don’t remember them ever having a proper blowoff to the feud which is kind of a shame as it could have been a decent match.
The get in together for a few seconds but Eddie gets like two shots in and leaves as Chyna isn’t really in long enough to be the face in peril. Tag with a lack of heat brings Billy in. He really needs to work on that cursing of his as it’s just not very pleasant. Gunn gets a powerslam for two on Dean. Billy hits a Jackhammer which they just call by name since they knew WCW was over at this point. Chyna and Eddie hit the floor and Billy gets the One and Only (Cobra Clutch Slam) to Dean for the pin.
Rating: D+. Not much here again as it was just a tag match. The faces won to give us a nice little pop as Chyna was popular at this time. This was one of those feuds that just kind of ended without any real resolution to it. Chyna was thrown into the Women’s Division out of nowhere and of course dominated it before leaving as Champion which is kind of ridiculous. Not bad but nothing special at all.
Some British fans are interviewed and I can barely understand them. And I can understand the Iron Sheik.
We recap Kane vs. Jericho which started when Jericho spilt some coffee on Kane and then made burning jokes. Kane, of course, snapped and eventually cost Jericho the world title.
Kane vs. Chris Jericho
Jericho does a quick promo which has a ton of energy to it but doesn’t say much at all. Kane is a Union Jackass apparently. Jericho hammers away but it doesn’t seem to do much at all. We hit the floor after about 40 seconds in the ring. Jericho keeps the advantage and keeps trying to do some damage but can’t really get anywhere with Kane.
He jumps off the top and gets caught in a powerslam as Kane takes over. Kane gets a nice hold on Jericho where he sets for a reverse neckbreaker but lifts Jericho up and puts him on his back then leans forward to stretch Jericho’s back. Looks painful as hell. We slow things WAY down for a bit until Kane goes for the top rope clothesline. Jericho blocks it twice including with a dropkick. Ross thinks he was going for a double axe handle for some reason.
Jericho with an enziguri and missile dropkick for two. Taz think Lennox Lewis sucks and Ross thinks Kane could be the best in the company. Oh now that’s funny. Jericho goes for the Walls but can’t get them due to the size of the monster. See, even when he’s on the mat the size makes a difference despite the common expression otherwise. Lionsault eats knees and a chokeslam ends this completely clean. Jericho would win the last man standing match at Armageddon to end this feud.
Rating: D+. I know I’ve been doing that a lot but this has been the epitome of not bad. Kane winning clean is a bit of a surprise but they booked this very simply and logically as Kane is just too big for Jericho so he had to come up with various other ways to beat him. Not bad but nothing memorable at all.
Jericho pops Kane with a chair on the ramp and gets the Walls, making Kane tap to make the fans happy.
Trish and Lita have a moment. This is before Trish meant anything so when Lita kicks her ass Trish doesn’t have a chance. And there goes Trish’s top as we get to the point of this segment. We go into the women’s locker room as the point is to see Ivory’s huge underwear. Good thing the cameras were right there to see this spontaneous moment isn’t it?
Tag Titles: Hardy Boys vs. Right to Censor
Buchanan and Goodfather are champions here. Val Venis is with them here as well. Hardys are way over of course. The Hardys speed things up to start and Matt kind of botches both tandem moves but nothing too bad. Jeff and Buchanan start us off in a preview of the Rumble. More fast paced stuff here but Jeff plays to the crowd and Goodfather drills him with a clothesline from the apron for his troubles.
Matt comes in and the pace somehow slows down. Heel miscommunication puts Buchanan in trouble. The legdrop gets two and Matt hits the post. He may have injured his shoulder too. Goodfather shows some psychology and works on the arm. That’s another idea of psychology: if someone hurts a body part GO AFTER IT. If someone hurts their arm you wouldn’t go after their knee would you?
The only one of these four still in WWE (for the time being at least) gets a DDT and avoids the not Ho Train to set up the tag to Jeff. Double Whisper in the Wind (doesn’t have a name yet) takes down the champions. The standard Hardy double finishing combination hits Goodfather but Buchanan distracts the referee for Val to hit a Money Shot on Jeff. Pin is rather academic now.
Rating: C-. Slightly better here but still nothing all that special. This worked fine for what it was though and it gave the fans a nice pop because the Hardys were still rather over. There was a flow to this match which is something a lot of the matches have been lacking tonight so far. Pretty decent though.
Kurt tries to get Edge and Christian for the match tonight even though Christian is hurt after earlier. Angle’s self-obsession is pretty funny here.
Benoit and Taker have a showdown in the back and the Radicalz attack him, going after his knee. Damn that would have been a hell of a match too.
Chris Benoit vs. The Undertaker
Hey what do you know? In case you didn’t get it, this is the match I wanted to see on the card. It’s the final of three matches these two ever had, the other two being on TV earlier in the year and ending in disqualifications. Still American Bad Ass for Taker’s theme. Benoit says Taker can’t go tonight so he wins by forfeit since Taker isn’t here. The music plays again and still no Deadman. They start to announce Benoit as the winner when the music hits AGAIN and here’s Taker, limping to the ring.
Benoit of course goes straight for the knee as I think every match so far has started fast. Taker fights him off after awhile and hits Old School but hurts his knee even worse coming down. We hit the floor and Benoit gets kicked in the head. Taker controls now as this has been fairly back and forth so far. Benoit, the thinking wrestler that he is, dropkicks the knee to take over again.
See how effective a simple thing like a bad knee can be? It’s nothing complex, it’s nothing that took a lot of time to set up, but it’s the focus of the match and it’s working. It also helps that Taker is selling it. His offense is mainly based on his height and power so taking the knee away takes away the advantages Taker has. This is a very good match from a psychology perspective which is what I love more than anything.
Benoit gets a figure four on Taker, which gets limited heat. The fans aren’t bored, but they’re smart enough to know that Benoit isn’t going to get a win with it, but it slows Taker down even more to set up the potential ending later on for Benoit. Again, very smart. Benoit gets the diving headbutt down onto the knee. That’s kind of awesome. And in one of the fastest endings I have EVER seen, Benoit goes for another figure four and Taker hooks a small package to get the pin.
Rating: C+. The more I think about it the more unsure I am if I liked that finish or not. The match was good but Benoit dominated about 90% of it, only to lose on a fluke pin. I kind of get why Taker would lose here but at the same time Benoit deserved to win based on the match he had. The idea would be Benoit looks strong in a loss, but it’s a loss not many people will see. Based on that logic, I don’t see why Taker had to win here. It’s not insane though and I can see to an extent why they did it.
WWF Title: Rikishi vs. The Rock vs. Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin
No intro or anything here. Rikishi was a failure as a heel but who cares about that? The champion enters second to give you an idea who the stars are here. This is no holds barred which is a good thing I think, although I figured that would come with the territory. HUGE reaction for Austin of course. It’s on immediately with Samoan on Samoan violence and Austin vs. Angle.
This is called the big four dogs all going at it. Other than you know, Taker or HHH. The faces double up on Rikishi as Angle tries to leave with the belt. Rock makes the save which is kind of stupid as it would have gotten us down to a three way instead of four. Rock hits a low blow to stop the Stink Face as everyone else is out on the floor brawling. Ok when I say everyone else I mean Austin and Angle.
Spinebuster and People’s Elbow get two but Angle saves and tries to steal the pin. Austin does the same but Rock breaks that one up. The heels hit the floor and it’s showdown time to a roar. Yeah you could see Mania from here. After about 15 seconds of punching Austin gets the Stunner but Angle makes the save. Rock returns the favor with the Rock Bottom but Rikishi pulls the referee out.
Angle gets the Slam on Rock but there’s no referee, allowing Rock to kick out. Edge and Christian hit the ring to distract Austin. Rock Bottom to Rikishi but Edge saves. Here come the Radicalz to break up a pin on Rikishi after a Stunner. For those keeping count we have 10 wrestlers out here. With everything going nuts, Angle hits the Slam on Rikishi for the pin to retain.
Rating: B-. Energetic match here to close the show which is always appreciated. They kept things interesting here with so much stuff going on and thankfully the interference was only at the very end. Angle wanting help was a theme throughout the show so there was logic behind it. This worked fine for what it was and it played to the theme of Angle always escaping with the title. Good main event.
The Radicalz beat down Rock and Austin but you know that’s not going to last. Rock Bottoms and Stunners send the heels running. After some posing the Radicalz hit the ring again and we break out the beer. No Stunner or Rock Bottom as we go off the air in a cool way.
Overall Rating: D+. Rather weak show here as most of the European shows were. I think they kind of realized these were glorified house shows and that nothing was really going to happen on them. Not much of note happened here but it’s not a horrible show. There are some weak matches but nothing is really all that bad. All things considered, this was pretty decent I suppose. There are only three of these left and I can’t say I’m upset about that. Not worth seeing.
Date: December 2, 2000
Location: Sheffield Arena, Sheffield, England
Attendance: 11,077
Commentators: Jim Ross, Taz
This is another of those British PPVs that are glorified house shows but can be good at times. We’re 8 days away from Armageddon and the 6 man Cell match so I’d expect nothing of note here. The main event is a fatal fourway for the title with Angle defending. Other than that it’s your basic stuff, but there’s one match on the card that immediately caught my eye. Something tells me you’ll figure it out when you see it. Let’s get to it.
Foley and Debra, more or less co-Commissioners, arrive in a car marked Commish. Subtle.
After the basic intro here are Debra and Foley to address the crowd. He lists off the four main event guys and Austin/Rock have equal pops. HHH isn’t here because he couldn’t be in the main event. This prompts a sweet HHH imitation from Foley who nails it for the most part. The main event is now no holds barred. Angle comes out to bitch and make jokes about England. Debra says get over it and is rather annoying.
Taz and JR run down the card.
T&A vs. Dudley Boys vs. Edge/Christian
This is an elimination tables match. Trish is just a piece of ass here. Since the match is based on violence and there are no DQs, we have to tag. I’ve never gotten that but I doubt it’ll last long. The Dudleys beat up Albert for awhile until the big guys go to get the first table. Edge and Christian are just kind of chilling out on the apron. Albert kicks a table in half which doesn’t count I guess. Why would it though?
The power teams do basic stuff for awhile until Edge gets a blind tag to a nice pop. And there he goes again. We get my least favorite spot ever as Test jumps into Bubba’s boot. The other 3D (reverse neckbreaker and belly to back combo) is FINALLY called NOT 3D by Taz. Why is that so hard to get? Albert and Bubba go up but Edge and Christian pull him down in a double powerbomb to get us down to the two more famous and successful teams.
Basic stuff here as you would guess until D-Von hits a baseball slide into the table the Canadians try to set up. Hot tag to Bubba but the referee didn’t see it, drawing some nice heat for his troubles. Ah there’s Bubba. Spear gets no cover because I guess he hadn’t gotten the technique down yet or something. Through some shenanigans Edge hits What’s Up on Christian and then Edge takes one himself.
I never got why that move is so popular but it certainly was. Table time even though we’ve gotten tables already in this match. Christian takes down Edge to prevent 3D then walks into it himself in a nice little spot. Dudleys win.
Rating: C-. Pretty weak from a wrestling perspective but the idea was to get the crowd excited for the show and tables matches are easy ways to do that. The fans love them and the most popular team wins. It’s hard to do an opener much better than that. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best.
Lita says the title is hers and is excites to be in the UK.
Women’s Title: Ivory vs. Lita
RTC Ivory here and she has the title. Steven comes with her as I wonder why he kept getting work for so many years. He cuts a basic promo about how we need to clean up Europe and we start here at Rebellion. This brings a thought to my mind: why would a British fan want to go see an American show called Rebellion? Didn’t that kind of go badly for the British last time? We also get to see why Ivory hardly ever talked.
Lita hits the ring and spears down Ivory. She I guess you could say hits a dropkick to the stomach as I already think I know how this is going to end. The main difference between this and the girls you see today is the speed. These girls are moving just as fast as the men do if not faster. When’s the last time you saw Divas today moving at a fast pace?
Ivory gets a Northern Lights suplex for two as this has been a fast paced match the whole way through. Lita makes her comeback with the Twist of Fate and hits a suicide dive on Richards. She comes back in with a sunset flip but Steven grabs Ivory’s hands for extra leverage and the pin.
Rating: C-. Yeah even for a two minute match I’ll say this was pretty decent as they flew through this and we got a fairly entertaining match out of them. Another thing that helped this I think was that the girls were in something close to athletic attire rather than sex based outfits. It doesn’t sound like something big but a bunch of little things can add up. Fun little match.
Rock cuts one of his usual funny promos about all three guys in the main event. This guy bled charisma.
Hardcore Title: Perry Saturn vs. Steve Blackman
No Terri with Saturn but she’d be back. Blackman couldn’t do much but he was always in great shape and could be decent at hardcore stuff. Saturn jumps him to start which is a theme tonight or something and we’re off. Somewhat technical sequence to start as we invoke the Lance Storm hardcore formula. We hit the floor where more or less nothing happens.
Here come the weapons and Blackman goes to the knee. Blackman had a nice spot where he would get the other guy on his knees and hold a weapon in front of his face but spin around fast and have it hit the back of his head. I love that for some reason. Challengers in hardcore matches tend to have the strategy of just hit the guy in the head with stuff. Are we actually getting a touch of psychology in hardcore wrestling?
Crucifix by Saturn gets two and Blackman tries to skin the cat. Instead he gets his head blasted by a piece of metal. Saturn doesn’t go after him and Taz criticizes him for it so Saturn throws a Tope which misses. Nice call Taz. We get Blackman’s sticks which were his signature things. His suplex move with it gets two as does a small package by Saturn. Bicycle kick into the chair by Blackman ends this.
Rating: D+. Pretty much filler here but both guys were moving out there so I can give it a few points. It’s not bad but a lot of these matches became almost pain by numbers which is never really a good thing. The division ran its course and ranged from a toughman match to comedy done not very well at times. This wasn’t too bad though.
Regal cuts what amounts to a face promo as he’s glad to be back in England. He bashes some British sports heroes and says he’ll be England’s hero.
European Title: Crash vs. William Regal
Well if nothing else we can look at Molly whose looks are so overlooked. Regal is defending here if I didn’t mention that earlier. Bigger pop for Crash which says a lot about Regal’s ability to draw heat. Regal talks some more and more or less is the British version of Kurt Angle, claiming to be the British hero but being a total jerk about it the entire time. Crash jumps him (see what I was talking about?) while he is wrapping up and here we go.
Regal hits Cena’s spin out slam and takes over, throwing out that stereotypical British wave. Regal throws out a big boot. Does that move make any sort of sense at all coming from him? There’s a running joke in this match about Taz not knowing if England is a city or a country. We praise Crash for a bit to mess with my head somewhat.
Crash starts his comeback and hits a jumping back elbow and a rana for two. Regal counters a headscissors and we get a Dusty Finish with Crash getting his foot on the ropes but the three going down anyway. Molly hits a missile dropkick while the referee is explaining things to Chimmel and Crash gets the pin and the title. Regal steals the belt back and leaves with it. He’d get it back properly at Raw in two days.
Rating: D. Not a very good match as it just kind of flew by. The ending was to do nothing but give the fans a feeling like something happened, but I kind of wonder how much they really liked it. This was more or less a Raw level match and nothing of note happened in it until the very end. Didn’t like this.
Angle tries to convince Benoit to help him out in the main event but Benoit of course turns him down. These two were very underrated in their promos together.
Ross messes up the name of the PPV.
We recap the Chyna vs. Eddie love affair which was by far the highlight of Chyna’s career. She caught him in the shower with two chicks and beat the hell out of them, one of which was a then unknown Victoria. Billy Gunn, looking like a 70s porn star minus the mustache, said Eddie wouldn’t get near Chyna again. Dean Malenko joined in because he was in the Radicalz with Saturn, setting up this match.
Dean Malenko/Eddie Guerrero vs. Chyna/Billy Gunn
Dean is Light Heavyweight Champion and Billy is Intercontinental Champion at this point. Chyna is in a white top and white boots instead of her usual stuff. Eddie and Billy start us off with Eddie going for the knee. Audible F Bomb by Billy leads to a clothesline. Eddie and Chyna are in the ring for a bit together and we get stereo gorilla presses by the faces.
Since Chyna had been in Playboy recently we get a bunch of sex jokes from Taz, none of which ever feel right. She was supposed to be the physical girl rather than another sexual one which makes the jokes not make a ton of sense at all. We’re saving Eddie vs. Chyna for later in the match. I don’t remember them ever having a proper blowoff to the feud which is kind of a shame as it could have been a decent match.
The get in together for a few seconds but Eddie gets like two shots in and leaves as Chyna isn’t really in long enough to be the face in peril. Tag with a lack of heat brings Billy in. He really needs to work on that cursing of his as it’s just not very pleasant. Gunn gets a powerslam for two on Dean. Billy hits a Jackhammer which they just call by name since they knew WCW was over at this point. Chyna and Eddie hit the floor and Billy gets the One and Only (Cobra Clutch Slam) to Dean for the pin.
Rating: D+. Not much here again as it was just a tag match. The faces won to give us a nice little pop as Chyna was popular at this time. This was one of those feuds that just kind of ended without any real resolution to it. Chyna was thrown into the Women’s Division out of nowhere and of course dominated it before leaving as Champion which is kind of ridiculous. Not bad but nothing special at all.
Some British fans are interviewed and I can barely understand them. And I can understand the Iron Sheik.
We recap Kane vs. Jericho which started when Jericho spilt some coffee on Kane and then made burning jokes. Kane, of course, snapped and eventually cost Jericho the world title.
Kane vs. Chris Jericho
Jericho does a quick promo which has a ton of energy to it but doesn’t say much at all. Kane is a Union Jackass apparently. Jericho hammers away but it doesn’t seem to do much at all. We hit the floor after about 40 seconds in the ring. Jericho keeps the advantage and keeps trying to do some damage but can’t really get anywhere with Kane.
He jumps off the top and gets caught in a powerslam as Kane takes over. Kane gets a nice hold on Jericho where he sets for a reverse neckbreaker but lifts Jericho up and puts him on his back then leans forward to stretch Jericho’s back. Looks painful as hell. We slow things WAY down for a bit until Kane goes for the top rope clothesline. Jericho blocks it twice including with a dropkick. Ross thinks he was going for a double axe handle for some reason.
Jericho with an enziguri and missile dropkick for two. Taz think Lennox Lewis sucks and Ross thinks Kane could be the best in the company. Oh now that’s funny. Jericho goes for the Walls but can’t get them due to the size of the monster. See, even when he’s on the mat the size makes a difference despite the common expression otherwise. Lionsault eats knees and a chokeslam ends this completely clean. Jericho would win the last man standing match at Armageddon to end this feud.
Rating: D+. I know I’ve been doing that a lot but this has been the epitome of not bad. Kane winning clean is a bit of a surprise but they booked this very simply and logically as Kane is just too big for Jericho so he had to come up with various other ways to beat him. Not bad but nothing memorable at all.
Jericho pops Kane with a chair on the ramp and gets the Walls, making Kane tap to make the fans happy.
Trish and Lita have a moment. This is before Trish meant anything so when Lita kicks her ass Trish doesn’t have a chance. And there goes Trish’s top as we get to the point of this segment. We go into the women’s locker room as the point is to see Ivory’s huge underwear. Good thing the cameras were right there to see this spontaneous moment isn’t it?
Tag Titles: Hardy Boys vs. Right to Censor
Buchanan and Goodfather are champions here. Val Venis is with them here as well. Hardys are way over of course. The Hardys speed things up to start and Matt kind of botches both tandem moves but nothing too bad. Jeff and Buchanan start us off in a preview of the Rumble. More fast paced stuff here but Jeff plays to the crowd and Goodfather drills him with a clothesline from the apron for his troubles.
Matt comes in and the pace somehow slows down. Heel miscommunication puts Buchanan in trouble. The legdrop gets two and Matt hits the post. He may have injured his shoulder too. Goodfather shows some psychology and works on the arm. That’s another idea of psychology: if someone hurts a body part GO AFTER IT. If someone hurts their arm you wouldn’t go after their knee would you?
The only one of these four still in WWE (for the time being at least) gets a DDT and avoids the not Ho Train to set up the tag to Jeff. Double Whisper in the Wind (doesn’t have a name yet) takes down the champions. The standard Hardy double finishing combination hits Goodfather but Buchanan distracts the referee for Val to hit a Money Shot on Jeff. Pin is rather academic now.
Rating: C-. Slightly better here but still nothing all that special. This worked fine for what it was though and it gave the fans a nice pop because the Hardys were still rather over. There was a flow to this match which is something a lot of the matches have been lacking tonight so far. Pretty decent though.
Kurt tries to get Edge and Christian for the match tonight even though Christian is hurt after earlier. Angle’s self-obsession is pretty funny here.
Benoit and Taker have a showdown in the back and the Radicalz attack him, going after his knee. Damn that would have been a hell of a match too.
Chris Benoit vs. The Undertaker
Hey what do you know? In case you didn’t get it, this is the match I wanted to see on the card. It’s the final of three matches these two ever had, the other two being on TV earlier in the year and ending in disqualifications. Still American Bad Ass for Taker’s theme. Benoit says Taker can’t go tonight so he wins by forfeit since Taker isn’t here. The music plays again and still no Deadman. They start to announce Benoit as the winner when the music hits AGAIN and here’s Taker, limping to the ring.
Benoit of course goes straight for the knee as I think every match so far has started fast. Taker fights him off after awhile and hits Old School but hurts his knee even worse coming down. We hit the floor and Benoit gets kicked in the head. Taker controls now as this has been fairly back and forth so far. Benoit, the thinking wrestler that he is, dropkicks the knee to take over again.
See how effective a simple thing like a bad knee can be? It’s nothing complex, it’s nothing that took a lot of time to set up, but it’s the focus of the match and it’s working. It also helps that Taker is selling it. His offense is mainly based on his height and power so taking the knee away takes away the advantages Taker has. This is a very good match from a psychology perspective which is what I love more than anything.
Benoit gets a figure four on Taker, which gets limited heat. The fans aren’t bored, but they’re smart enough to know that Benoit isn’t going to get a win with it, but it slows Taker down even more to set up the potential ending later on for Benoit. Again, very smart. Benoit gets the diving headbutt down onto the knee. That’s kind of awesome. And in one of the fastest endings I have EVER seen, Benoit goes for another figure four and Taker hooks a small package to get the pin.
Rating: C+. The more I think about it the more unsure I am if I liked that finish or not. The match was good but Benoit dominated about 90% of it, only to lose on a fluke pin. I kind of get why Taker would lose here but at the same time Benoit deserved to win based on the match he had. The idea would be Benoit looks strong in a loss, but it’s a loss not many people will see. Based on that logic, I don’t see why Taker had to win here. It’s not insane though and I can see to an extent why they did it.
WWF Title: Rikishi vs. The Rock vs. Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin
No intro or anything here. Rikishi was a failure as a heel but who cares about that? The champion enters second to give you an idea who the stars are here. This is no holds barred which is a good thing I think, although I figured that would come with the territory. HUGE reaction for Austin of course. It’s on immediately with Samoan on Samoan violence and Austin vs. Angle.
This is called the big four dogs all going at it. Other than you know, Taker or HHH. The faces double up on Rikishi as Angle tries to leave with the belt. Rock makes the save which is kind of stupid as it would have gotten us down to a three way instead of four. Rock hits a low blow to stop the Stink Face as everyone else is out on the floor brawling. Ok when I say everyone else I mean Austin and Angle.
Spinebuster and People’s Elbow get two but Angle saves and tries to steal the pin. Austin does the same but Rock breaks that one up. The heels hit the floor and it’s showdown time to a roar. Yeah you could see Mania from here. After about 15 seconds of punching Austin gets the Stunner but Angle makes the save. Rock returns the favor with the Rock Bottom but Rikishi pulls the referee out.
Angle gets the Slam on Rock but there’s no referee, allowing Rock to kick out. Edge and Christian hit the ring to distract Austin. Rock Bottom to Rikishi but Edge saves. Here come the Radicalz to break up a pin on Rikishi after a Stunner. For those keeping count we have 10 wrestlers out here. With everything going nuts, Angle hits the Slam on Rikishi for the pin to retain.
Rating: B-. Energetic match here to close the show which is always appreciated. They kept things interesting here with so much stuff going on and thankfully the interference was only at the very end. Angle wanting help was a theme throughout the show so there was logic behind it. This worked fine for what it was and it played to the theme of Angle always escaping with the title. Good main event.
The Radicalz beat down Rock and Austin but you know that’s not going to last. Rock Bottoms and Stunners send the heels running. After some posing the Radicalz hit the ring again and we break out the beer. No Stunner or Rock Bottom as we go off the air in a cool way.
Overall Rating: D+. Rather weak show here as most of the European shows were. I think they kind of realized these were glorified house shows and that nothing was really going to happen on them. Not much of note happened here but it’s not a horrible show. There are some weak matches but nothing is really all that bad. All things considered, this was pretty decent I suppose. There are only three of these left and I can’t say I’m upset about that. Not worth seeing.
