August 12, 2002. Inside my skull hurts.
Rebeaker: Hooker T. Monkey
The show begins with Pauly Heyman leading Brock Lazer down the isle to their front row seats. Paul is flashing his ticket stubs to whoever wants to see, but the security probably just thinks the balding fat man and his steroid addicted son are just Seattle natives. Speaking of which, it looks like one of the tickets is different than the other, and from this I'll uncredibly infer that Paul bought Brock a child's pass.
Paul and Brock take their seats in the front row as the RAW intro begins. Oh, that was also one of the special "Earlier" segments that RAW runs from time to time (like when Crash and Bossman fought in a Chuck'E'Cheese) as could be seen from the word "Earlier" in the lower left corner of the screen if I'm not mistaken.
And Brock showed up in the RAW intro as well. I'm sure of it. Which reminds me: I could have sworn Eric and Stephanie were just going to end every RAW and Smackdown by stealing Brock in a pathetic attempt at overexposing the fuck out of Brock. True story.
Finally, RAW starts live with none other than the slow and meticulous Triple H (and he's even slower when he wrestles - ahcha!). Triple H is sporting a swanky new promo attire. Instead of his steroid-sweat stained t-shirt and cheap self-brand track pants (as if he does running, or something), he now comes to us dressed like my mom used to try and dress me up like when I was about five. I'd go on and explain in detail, but we at Weekly Visitor are just entertaining ourselves, really, and everyone saw RAW.
Triple H then proceeds to slowly rehash everything that he's done since whenever about whatever and how good he is and how he's going to beat Shawn Michaels at Summerslam and how he's defenseless and blah blah blah. The crowd died of boredom, by the way, which unfortunately set the tone for the rest of RAW. Most people would chalk that up to Seattle being really depressing and stuff, but Hooker T. Monkey places the blame DIRECTLY ON TRIPLE H OPENING RAW!
The Rock comes out, and I half-assumed that he did earlier than he should have just because the crowd was so dead. Then, I backed up and reminded myself of how in love with Triple H management is, and decided that it was more likely that they held off on The Rock coming out longer than they had planned. Either way, it lead to a lot of confusion and made the whole segment look disorganized (another thing that would continue throughout this RAW) because Rock walks back and forth on stage, implying that he's going to talk to who's in the ring (ie, Triple H), but then walks forward and starts badmouthing Brock. Triple H says something to the effect of "humina-humina-humina" to cut The Rock off, and the crowd's heat dissapears. The Rock tells him to shut up, and Triple H again does the "humina-humina-humina" shit that wasn't funny or cool or anything the first time he did it. Triple H blabbers more unmemorable stuff, so The Rock asks him if he wants to "go." Triple H says he'd love to, or something, so The Rock tells Triple H to go make him a sandwich, making Hooker T. Monkey a huge Rock mark once again.
Triple H takes exception to not everyone fawning over him like Jesus Christ himself and attacks The Rock. They trade punches back and forth (well, Rock's are more of open handed slaps) until Brock jumps the guardrail and starts spazing on the ring apron. The supreme idiocy of this catches The Rock off guard and Triple H hits him with a pedigree. Security doen't bother lifting a finger. Oh, yeah, before all this happened, Eric Bishoff told security that if Brock does anything wrong that they were to eject him immediately. So, that was disorganization spot #2. We might or might not have cut backstage after that exciting segment. If we did, it was probably Goldust parodying some movie with Booker T.
Commercials are unmemorable.
We return with The Rock wanting to make him vs Triple H the main event. Eric says something that equated to "I can't do that because it's too exciting." Disorganization #3. Rock threatens to kick Bisc. . .however you spell his name's ass, but then doesn't for no explained reason.
Match One: Trish Stratus and Spike Dudley vs Chris Harvard and Molly Holly.
Trish speaks quietly into the microphone then pretends to slap Howard Finkle, but makes it look even worse than a Fabulous Moolah spear (see Fabulous Moolah vs Ivory, circa 1999). Disorganization #4. The rest of everybody in the match come out. Chris Norwinski hit some moves on Trish which lead to a JR heart attack. Some other stuff happened. I think Chris got the win. FIVE STAR MATCH.
Moving right along, Goldust proposes something to Bischoff about him and Booker getting tag title shots. In an AMAZING SHOW OF CHARATER CONTINUITY (I kid), Bischoff actually agrees with the face and says that if Booker wins against Lance Storm in singles, they get the shot at Summerslam. At this point one asks "Someone who's getting super pushed vs someone who's consistantly jobbed for the past four months with a stipulation that only really works in the former's favor. WHAT SUSPENCE!" Far be it from Lance to win the match, crushing the fan's hopes of the match and making Booker T and Goldust get more development in having to chase down the shot up until Summerslam itself, giving the Un-Americans (whom I hate, despite being Canadian) some much needed credibility. Not-so-minidust humps Bischoff's leg, causing disorganization spot #5 and will later lead into what will probably be spot #12 later on in the show.
Commercials about TSN who fuck us out of seeing violence against women with contrived and uninspired sports humor. Faggets.
Howard Finkle badmouths Lillian. Howard has a funny smile. Kane explosion and Finkle craps himself. Backstage, Bischoff is mid-conversation with RVD with the Hardy Boyz being inexplicably rude and trying to butt in. I don't know how that was supposed to look like Bitchoff was the bad guy and ignoring the others when he was fucking BUSY TALKING TO RVD. Disorganization #6. Bischoff jerks Matt Hardy out of an IC title shot for his troubles.
Match Two: Booker T vs LANCE STORM IS THE PERFECT STORM!
Lance and Christian come out without Test for whatever reason. Booker T and Goldust come out with their third memeber in Minidust, who's evolved from dog-like instict animal to functional human with self-control over the break, and everyone on their end looks like an amazingly coheisve team, especially for a large black man, large, fat white man in a gold garbage bag and a midget. I seem to remember Booker hitting a very nice back-heel kick, but that could be a different match. On the other end of the spectrum, however, Lance hit a very sloppy spinning heel kick. Also, no springboard moves, so this Lance match gets a PAULTY TWO STARS! Oh, and Booker won. Surprise, surprise. Goldust and Booker T vs Lance and Christian. Due to every contestant's jobber status, I can't really give any predictions there.
Commercials. Umm. RUNTELDAT! RUNTELDAT! RUNTELDAT! RUNTELDAT! RUNTELDAT! etc.
Back in the ring is Bischoff and Minidust (who, apparently, was abandoned by Goldust and Booker T). Bischoff spouts off a bunch of stuff about how exciting his product is and Minidust agrees. Now, just a half-hour or so earlier on the show, Minidust was humping away at Bischoff's leg. Now they're co-existing as normally as a grown man and a midget in a gold cover-all can. Disorganization #7. I think he set up Un-Americans and Triple H vs Rock, Taker, Book and Goldust as the main event here, too. Then Bischoff tells the midget to do a cartwheel. Bischoff says that wasn't entertaining and apparently lives in dog years because he claims it was three minutes of un-entertaining, so Jamal and ROSIE come out to beat on the midget. Disorganization #8. Why didn't Bischoff sick Rosie and Jamal on Triple H and the end of last week's RAW? That was a full fucking 12 minutes of boring. In human years, no less. Anyway, this is the second appearance of The Island Boys in Canada due to TSN not showing violence against women (Moolah, Lillian). They run forward and sandwich the midget between them, then take a painstakingly long time to set the midget up for a top rope powerslam.
Bischoff wanders up the stage and actually says "now for the REAL announcement." He names Stacy Keilber as his newest Smackdown! aquisition. She comes out, dances for a bit, takes her skirt off, dances for some more. Meanwhile, paramedics are scraping Minidust off the canvas. Fucking odd. But odd in a really bizzare and surreal way, which I heartily enjoy, so no disorganization points will be awarded. Really, really odd, though. I think Stacy had screwed up parents.
Commercials. Nothing noteworthy. I think everything shown in Canada is either horrible TSN Sportsdesk ads that are hideously unfunny, car commercials, or WWE ads. Oh, and those GOD DAMN Blockbuster Rabbit and Hamster ads that FEEL LIKE SALT WATER ON MY BRAIN! If they weren't so badly done CGI, I'd probably have an overwhelming desire to kill all rabbits and hamsters on sight by now.
Intergender-ish match three: Big Show and Jericho vs Flair and Buh-Buh (GO JERICHO!)
All I remember about the actual match is that it was pitifully bad and that Jericho actually got a pinfall (but it was on Buh Buh). Ohyeah, and it was with the Walls of Jericho. Imagine that. Flair later pulls down Jericho's pants, exposing some of the worst panties I've ever seen on a wrestler after a de-pantsing. Flair then goes for the figure-four, but can't get it on because he just de-pantsed Jericho. Hilarious. I'll reserve the disorganization points here, too. Big Show comes in to attack Flair, pissed off perhaps because he won a match and THESE FEELING ARE STRANGE AND UNSETTLING to him. Flair does a half-dance shuffle out of the ring which gives back very fond memories of his mental ward angle.
Commercial break. A promo showing Shawn Michaels doing a bunch of things that he couldn't hope to still be able to do anymore.
Return has Jericho firing off about how he's going to wrestle Flair at Summerslam (because he says so) and that he's going to do a Fozzy concert at the next RAW (also because he says so).
Restricted hardcore match for the TexCore Community Belt: Tommy Dreamer vs Steven Richards
Richard and Dreamer are allowed only one hardcore item each. Dreamer has a kendo stick (which is a dumb choice) while Richards has a steel chair. I would have picked a box of straws! Or maybe that stupid net Bossman used to pin Mankind back when the Hardcore belt wasn't such a joke and actually got credible PPV time. That is, if you consider pinning someone in a river credible. One nice chairshot to the head, I think on Richards, and Dreamer becomes possibly the first person in history to actually retain the Hardcore title. Dreamer screams for no reason and we go to commercial.
AND WE RETURN FROM COMMERCIAL!
Match five: RVD vs Jeff Hardy - IC number one contender (and actually explained with only two or three potholes, max!)
Hardly one of their best matches. Jeff looks super burned out. He's also covered in "splatter-art," and I mean literally covered. RVD gets it all over him just by touching him. Ref bumps and Matt comes in to attack Jeff because he's mad at Bischoff. Normally I'd give this disorganization points, but this is on par with WWE storylines since I started watching, unlike the last eight noted akward moments. RVD gets the pinfall. Surprise, surprise.
Commercials.
Backstage, the Un-Americans point out a bunch of stuff about America for no discernable reason and use that as fodder for their Anti-America hate machine. Although, the idiocy did produce a real gem from Test: "Why don't you try and control your American instinct about being rude and ignorant and shut up!" Amen, you big, ugly, stupid Easterner. They also said that it will be Test vs Underatker at Summerslam since Taker did such a wonderful job of putting Test over during the InVasion. Not that I really want Taker to, but I just hate Taker vs another slow guy matches.
Return has Bischoff bursting into the production truck and yelling "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?" Everyone in Canada can be heard to give a big "What the fuck are you talking about?" as the Smackdown trailer wasn't shown here (if it even was in the US. Disorganization #9. I wouldn't typically give it, as it's most likely TSN's fault and not TNN's, but TSN seems to be right on the fucking ball whenever there's violence towards women, so it's staying.
Match six: Lance, Christian, Test, Triple H vs Booker T, Goldust, Undertaker, The Rock - Eight man standaround
Usually stuff where everyone gets a shot at everyone else before everyone enevitably runs into the ring for a clusterfuck and then everyone gets out of the ring and carefully interplays the ending. But, before that does happen, Test messes up a spot by attacking Rock off the ropes, making Triple H botch a high knee. Disorganization #10, daddy! Test will be fired tomorrow. Later on, Triple H goes for his stupid blaitant choke on Booker where he grabs his throat, throws him to the ground and starts humping his opponent for a couple seconds. My dad thinks it looks incredibly retarded while my mom just complains every time Triple H blah blah blahs. Triple H and Taker are in the ring when everyone just decides they all want to run in the ring for no reason all at the same time despite never having such compulsion for the last eight minutes of the match. Rock looks good, though. Test boots Taker and gets a clean pin.
Final Thoughts: I really don't like six man, eight man, or ten man tags as they're always tagging each other in before anyone can click and being very careful not to whip anyone into the ropes unless it's entirely necessary, but it's all pointless in the long run because every single match ends in a bizzare clusterfuck. There's never any originality or high spots or anything aside from everyone getting a little ringwork and then a brawl. Fucking stupid matches and should be done away with entirely except survivor series matches, as they're elimination and don't end up with clusterfucks. Otherwise, for my personal tastes, the truely bizzare stuff like Bischoff and a Midget and Stacy strip-dance more than made up for the 10 disorganized points. As well, everyone else seemed to love the show, so I guess it was a success. NO MORE FUCKING TRIPLE H, THOUGH! I BEG YOU!