______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ - The WWF had the Royal Rumble on Sunday, 01/20/2002. Going in to the show, the promotion was a bigger mess than ever before, and my interest in the product has really suffered. More later. Quick rundown of the show: * Tazz & Spike Dudley beat Dudley Boyz to retain the WWF Tag Titles: Match opened fast with the Dudleyz working over Spike's neck which they had injured in an attack a few days earlier on TV. Ref missed the tag when Spike did rally. Spike played punching bag some more. Never thought I'd type this in the WWF: Hot tag to Tazz. Okay, more like a lukewarm tag. Pacing was all screwed up because they had so little time for the match. Here, they wanted to build anticipation for Tazz' tag, but they couldn't give the time to build it. So the tag comes off flatly. Then they go to the finishing sequences after Tazz has been in literally 30 seconds. Spike, who should have been dead, was already coming back in with a plancha. Ugh. After the requisite spot with Stacy -- surprised that she didn't get skirt pulled down again -- the match was over when Tazz hit the Tazzmission on D-Von for the surprise win. Sort of uninspired opener. * William Regal beat Edge to win the IC Title: Clearly, based on the lack of crowd reaction to the match, this program hasn't clicked with the fans. The wrestlers didn't do anything wrong, but they also don't seem to mesh all that well. Anyhow, Edge tried to work Regal's nose here and there and Regal just did all of his unique stuff. Key spot had Regal take a DDT on the apron as both guys tumbled to the floor. It seemed like a key spot, but it turned out not to be. Back in the ring, they cracked heads and traded punches. Crowd reaction was polite at best, almost nonexistent. Each guy hit a move in turn, with nobody building momentum. Regal finally did a really neat application of the Regal stretch. Regal has been beating guys with brass knuckles on TV (including the horribly treated Lance Storm), so nobody believed that he would win with this submission. A couple of minutes later, Regal scored the win after the brass knucks shot. The referee had removed a pair of knucks from Regal's tights before the match, but he had a second pair on hand. * Trish Stratus beat Jazz to regain the WWF Women's Title: Jacqueline was the referee, I guess to give Jazz an excuse for losing. As soon as Jackie came out, the result was obvious and the depression of them misusing another wrestler struck me. Then I realized that it isn't like there are any women for Jazz to try to work with anyhow. Might as well have the T&A queen in this spot. Match was a throwaway, not as bad as many women's matches but nothing worth remembering anyhow. * Ric Flair beat Vince McMahon in a street fight: Flair had two of his kids at ringside. The commentators suggested that Vince McMahon has "trained" a lot for this match because he was all blown up coming to the ring. He did all of these bodybuilding poses. He looks really muscular, but who knows what he puts into his body? Flair worked with him like he did Nikita Koloff in 1985, making Vince seem impressive. Brief rally before Flair let Vince chop him in the corner. Flair hit some chops in retaliation, which Vince sold for a few seconds. Flair did all of his spots, selling like nobody else in the business can or, more importantly in this era of egos, does for an opponent with no talent. They brawled outside the ring. Vince pulled out objects. Flair bladed. Something sick about seeing Flair blade at this stage of career. It kind of reminds one of Dusty Rhodes. Then the realization strikes that Flair is still a better worker than pretty much everybody currrently on the WWF roster, based purely by his performance in building to this match and working thus far in this match. Vince taunted Flair's kids. Vince worked on Flair's legs, with the commentators saying that this was a brilliant way to counteract the figure four. Vince put on his own figure four. Match was pretty much all Vince. Vince grabbed his lead pipe but Flair hit him in the grapefruits. This match went so much longer than it should have gone, but as we know Vince has an ego. Flair nailed Vince with a monitor and acted crazed while Vince bladed. Now Flair went to work on Vince, biting Vince's forehead in front of his kids at ringside, with the kids taking pictures. Flair nailed Vince with the lead pipe, hit the figure four, the crowd was flashing pictures like crazy, and Vince tapped. At least it was the right result. * Chris Jericho beat Rock to retain the WWF Title: The fact that this match came on before the end of the show seemed to indicate the finish. Sure, they might let a heel go over in the main event on some PPVs these days, but every fan would go nuts if the Rock lost via a screwy finish in the main event to someone as marginalized as Chris Jericho. The commentators pointed out that Jericho was the underdog, that everybody expected him to lose, and then tried to put him over a bit. Match was alright, but not at the level of many WWF main events of the past couple of years. As Rock had the sharpshooter on Jericho, Jericho's Canadian mafia of Lance Storm and Christian ran out to distract the referee. A second referee chased them off. But Jericho rallied and tried for the people's elbow on Rock, but ended up getting dumped. Jericho rallied as the brawled on the floor. They sort of book the action in a balanced way, but Jericho needs the interference and Jericho gets no respect during the build up for the match, so the fans don't buy him as champion in any way. If the idea is to book Jericho like Flair was booked in the 1980s, the difference is that Flair had a diehard legion of fans and the fact is that that legion of fans wasn't large enough to keep Crockett's promotion in business. Jericho took a DDT on the Spanish commentary table. Jericho managed to slip his Walls of Jericho on Rock in the middle. I don't think anybody expected a tap, so nobody was surprised when Rock reached the ropes. Ref bump off a Rock clothesline. Jericho immediately used the belt and waved in Nick Patrick, who counted two with Rock kicking out. Rock nailed a DDT, but Nick Patrick didn't count, I guess because he's a heel referee again. Jerry Lawler said that Patrick wasn't the legal referee anyhow, so his count would mean nothing, which made a sputtering Jim Ross look stupid. Rock had Jericho pinned, but no referee. Out of nowhere, Jericho used the ropes to get the quick pin just as Hebner recovered. Is this putting somebody over: exposed turnbuckle bump, ropes for the pin, and a groggy referee who missed your earlier win? Thanks for putting Jericho over, Rock. * Hunter Hearst Helmsley won the Royal Rumble to earn a title shot at WrestleMania: With Rock losing in his title match, it was clear that Austin would lose the Rumble to give us a Rock vs. Austin co-main event at WrestleMania. Naturally, then, HHH had to win the Rumble to face Jericho, the guy who won the match in which HHH injured his leg. In the build-up to the show, they suggested that Austin, HHH, Kurt Angle, or Undertaker would win the Rumble, with each guy saying that he would win. Poor Rob van Dam seems to have been completely buried again, after seemingly building what would be a fresh program with Jericho. I guess this Rumble match was a bit better than other recent years. Here's the annual Rumble score sheet: # Wrestler Time of Entrance Time to Get to Ring Elimination Number Elimination Time Eliminated By 1 Rikishi 00:00 n/a 6 13:39 Undertaker 2 Goldust 00:00 n/a 4 13:00 Undertaker 3 Big Boss Man 02:00 0:22 1 5:25 Rikishi 4 Bradshaw 04:04 0:09 3 11:30 Billy Gunn 5 Lance Storm 06:06 0:10 2 11:03 Al Snow 6 Al Snow 08:06 0:07 5 13:25 Undertaker 7 Billy Gunn 10:00 0:09 7 13:45 Undertaker 8 Undertaker 12:04 0:33 10 20:17 Maven 9 Matt Hardy 14:18 0:18 9 18:53 Undertaker 10 Jeff Hardy 16:38 0:11 8 18:22 Undertaker 11 Maven 19:05 0:19 11? n/a ? Undertaker 12 Scotty Too Hotty 22:21 3:31 12 28:28 Diamond Dallas Page 13 Christian 24:30 <0:55 16 37:43 Steve Austin 14 Diamond Dallas Page 26:34 0:20 13 32:15 Chuck Palumbo/Christian 15 Chuck Palumbo 28:42 0:12 17 37:57 Steve Austin 16 Godfather 30:45 2:08 15 34:45 Chuck Palumbo/Christian 17 Albert 33:05 0:07 14 34:01 Chuck Palumbo/Christian 18 Perry Saturn 34:57 0:11 18 38:04 Steve Austin 19 Steve Austin 36:59 0:26 27 64:10 Kurt Angle 20 Val Venis 39:22 0:49 19 43:07 Steve Austin 21 Test 41:25 0:11 20 43:19 Steve Austin 22 Hunter Hearst Helmsley 43:56 2:17 n/a n/a n/a 23 Hurricane 47:07 0:19 21 48:04 Steve Austin/HHH 24 Faarooq 48:54 0:07 22 49:36 HHH 25 Curt Hennig 50:57 0:50 28 67:04 HHH 26 Kurt Angle 53:00 0:13 29 69:18 HHH 27 Big Slow 55:04 0:27 23 58:18 Kane 28 Kane 57:08 0:25 24 58:33 Kurt Angle 29 Rob van Dam 59:11 0:14 25 61:39 Booker T 30 Booker T 61:03 0:26 26 62:02 Steve Austin - Good lord. The WWF has so many messed up elements that it defies explanation. Chris Jericho as champion is being booked like Ric Flair as champion was booked before Jim Crockett Promotions had to be sold to Ted Turner. Given the crappy finish they had in mind for the Rumble title match, they had to put that on second-last, and we all remember the effect it had when the put the world title in the secondary main event spot last time. To make things worse, the champion constantly sells everything for everybody in every little run in, but the egos in the company -- which these days seems to mean all of the top guys: Rock, Austin, Undertaker -- barely sell for Jericho in those same TV situations. And look at the PPV result above. Yeah, officially Jericho scored a win, but he had to haave a groggy referee, the exposed turnbuckle, and his feet on the rope to get that disputed claim as undisputed champion. And things are not going to improve when the NWO shows up. Only Ric Flair -- one of five or six guys -- bumped for every Jericho punch in their interactions. Can you see Hogan, Nash, or Hall bumping like that for Jericho? Shit, no. What is the up side to bringing these clowns in? The possibility that an old story line can revitalize the declining popularity of the current product seems to me to be clearly outweighed by the damage that Hogan & Nash will cause: crappier main event matches, more politicking (as if HHH, Austin, and Undertaker weren't bad enough), the glass ceiling effect, and the decreased locker room morale. Wasn't it surreal to hear Vince McMahon say that he would bring in the nWo to kill fan interest in the product? Isn't that Russo-WCW interview strategy? Promise the demise of your own product and then deliver it. And speaking of WCW-style mistakes, in the Observer Dave Meltzer pointed out that holding Steve Austin off TV for his PPV return after his injury meant that the PPV earned the company an extra $4.2-million. Now, while HHH is not the draw the Steve Austin is, it has been shown in the past in the WWF and elsewhere that a well-hyped return of somebody who isn't a mainstream name but does have meaning to the diehard fans can result in a big increase in buys. Yet for some unknown reason the WWF brought HHH back to TV and, worse yet, had him wrestle on TV before the Rumble match. As Hurricane says, "What's up with that?" Poor Chris Benoit. Here he is preparing for his return in a few months and by then the nWo nightmare will be in full swing and the vanilla midget will be totally screwed again. Is the successful wrestling formula so hard to figure out? It isn't easy to get guys over as huge draws, but the WWF has several of these and a few that could have been (like Angle) but have been systematically misused. Once you have a small group of guys who are over, and, hell, a couple of guys who are mainstream names, you'd think that in a time of declining interest it is time to go back to basics. Keep it simple. Try to make some new stars for when things hopefully turn around. When the wrestlers have trouble establishing themselves as value, rely on the fact that you've made and kept the titles valuable. Instead, Vince goes to more soap operas, more illogical story lines (HHH & Austin not instant enemies?), and shitty wrestlers who hold people down in favour of their own interests. One simple prediction: it appears to me that the HHH/Stephanie story line will build to Stephanie announcing that she is pregnant with HHH's baby. This gives HHH the chance to babyface at the end of the story line arc, when it is of course revealed that Stephanie was lying. A pregnant Stephanie will also be able to ease herself back into Vince's life, because of the first grandchild. An uncomfortable HHH finds himself in the McMahon family embrace, but he doesn't really want to be there. In some early-2002 interview, Stephanie really stretched out the word "expecting," which I took as a Heyman plant for this story line. Since then, though, the deal with the devils (Hogan & Nash) has been struck, so everything is even more up for change than usual. ______________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me e-mail. Don't forget to delete the leading "x" from my e-mail address; that "x" is my web spider spam guard. ______________________________________________________________________