______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ Well, I had major computer trouble the past couple of months. I finallly got new hardware, including the IBM ThinkPad A31P I'm typing on right now. Kind of sweet to lose the old PII and PIII systems and move up to PIVs across the board. ______________________________________________________________________ - The WWE -- and doesn't that look funny? -- had Judgment Day on PPV this past Sunday, 05/20/2002. Appropriately named, this PPV seemed like it would allow the WWE audience to deliver its judgment on the current booking. That's true every time out, of course, but it is typically not the case that this audience has had to endure Vince Russo "WCW during its last months" style booking building up to a PPV. Honestly, the miscues have been unbelievable. Hulk Hogan has already wore out his welcome, so they put him in a match with the Undertaker, which it was clear from day one the fans did not want to see. In the build-up to the PPV, they actually Hogan had run up the ramp in chase of the Undertaker. Doesn't he come across as pathetically slow enough when he is in the ring? Well, yeah, so we should make him run, too, the bookers think. Ric Flair turns heel on Austin, creating a new nWo group, with all of the no-name underlings apparently onside, as well. Of course, the fans desperately want to cheer Flair, so this is the perfect role to put him in. Not to mention the creative glut implied by the fact that the RAW side has a heel Flair making life hell for top babyface Austin, while the Smackdown side has a heel Vince making life hell for top babyface HHH. If the image of Flair putting Austin in bullshit lopsided matches like the TV battle royal or the PPV handicap match brings back memories of WCW, remember that it only got worse. Rundown: * Eddie Guerrero beat Rob van Dam to retain the Intercontinental Title: Enjoyable match. The well-known criticisms of van Dam -- too spotty, no psychology, really sad-looking punches, sloppy -- however valid have been getting time with the right ears. And heck, at times in the past I've been a loud critic of the guy, despite the fact that he can do some enjoyable stuff. Toned down in the WWF (compared to ECW, where chairs and tables and twenty or thirty minutes of the stuff no less), his weaknesses have been strangely highlighted. But I would criticize him when he was the main star of his group because there were so many other guys -- particularly the WCW cruiserweights and many guys in Japan -- who were so much better. In today's WWE, though, beggars can't be choosers. They are in desperate need of some new over talent on top. And van Dam used to be over and could surely get super over with the right approach. But not if certain people have their way. This match was very good, and frankly I like Eddie better, but I kind of wished that they had put over the guy that I liked a bit less this time. Lord knows, most of the night they were going to put over the guy I liked less, just not in the match where I kind of wished they would. Sigh. Eddie won by using the ropes to get the pin. * Trish Stratus beat Stacy Keibler to retain the WWE Women's Title: Buh Buh Ray Dudley came out to be in Trish's corner, while D-Von was in Stacy's corner. They did a couple of perversions of the Flair-Steamboat two counts. With the referee distracted, Deacon Batista snuck into the ring and slammed Trish, with Stacy scoring a two count. Trish won with the single-worst face crusher ever delivered on a major league event. After the match, D-Von did the fake "shake my hand" smiling like a snake routine, with Batista attacking Buh Buh. Buh Buh dumped the Deacon and D-Von attacked his brother. He looked at his hands and screamed no, then stopped Deacon from attacking Buh Buh, before nailing Buh Buh some more. Deacon, get the table. Could this suck any more? Could everybody care any less? D-Von kept preaching at Buh Buh. Does this get over anywhere? Buh Buh backdropped Deacon, attacked D-Von, and then got attacked by Batista. Oh lord, just table him and get it over with. Pitiful 1980s WWF stuff because of the cartoonish characterizations. Whatever good thoughts I had after the first match were gone by the end of this segment. * Backstage, Ric and Vince shook hands -- "you were right all along." Oh shit, see, now Austin is the guy who tried to "disrupt" the RAW brand. Oh, and I thought those nWo assholes were the troublemakers. In fact, weren't they making loads of trouble up until, oh, last week, so much trouble that Kevin Nash was suspended in story line? We've seen time and time again that fans don't like being insulted by story lines. We'll see how things go this time. * Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman beat Hardyz: I don't know why the WWE can't book a match where Lesnar no-sells. Really, he shouldn't have to sell any offense from the Hardyz, okay, maybe one sneaky double team. Instead, the booking goes 70% of the way to that, but the 30% in favor of the Hardyz really doesn't help them anywhere near as much as it hurts Lesnar. Shouldn't he be a monster plowing through guys, climbing the ladder at a relatively quick rate, until the fans don't react any more or he reaches a title shot? Instead, they burn up the gas of his climb on the Hardyz. Loads of double teaming on Lesnar, who bumped and sold. Match was all about the Hardyz nailing Heyman. Well, Lesnar did cut them off, and he let Heyman get the pin, but it wasn't at all what it should have been. Lesnar isn't irreparably damaged yet, but he's only one opponent or one match away from that damage. Match pretty much sucked, and given that it would regardless of how it was booked it doesn't make sense to maximize the image that the guy climbing the ladder has coming out of the match. * Steve Austin beat Ric Flair & Big Slow: Watching Big Slow walk ever-so-slowly to the ring while the nWo porn music played brought back so many warm memories of WCW in its dying days. It seemed like Flair didn't get much of a reaction coming out, if anything drawing a few woos and some bowing from some ringside fans. The mistake can still be corrected. Of course, Austin totally dominated for the first many minutes. Flair and Austin mistimed a spot where Flair went to the floor. Austin put the figure four on Slow, and Flair couldn't even sucker punch Austin in that situation. Austin put the figure four on Flair, and Slow couldn't get the advantage on a locked-up Austin either. Apparently, joining the nWo makes you suck. (Hey, I'm only talking about Flair there -- Slow didn't need the excuse.) I can't believe -- well I can -- that Austin totally controlled so much of this match, even turning it into a farce by cracking open a beer. I know the nWo has looked like shit since they arrived, but that's no reason to book them like shit. Even Flair's sneaky poke to the eyes didn't gain him more than a second of dominance. The nWo is depending on the Big Slow to be a difference-maker tonight, says Jim Ross. Well, if you tell him you want him to drop weight to 450 lbs and he shows up weighing 550lbs and you use him anyway, sure enough, he says "What's the difference?" Well, the heels finally got the upper hand, for a minute. And then, believe it or not, Austin actually made the comeback by outchopping Flair. Well, after all, Austin is at least really well-known for those amazing chops of his. Shit. Austin got cut off. This match had already gone much longer than it had any right to go. But the fans want to see Austin, right? Regardless of the shittiness of the match he is in, right? I guess so. Okay, why did I order this PPV? The best answer is habit. Well, now, not only did Austin plan to win the match, but he was hell-bent, JR tells us, on winning the match by using the figure four. Why not tie one arm behind his back and make him hope on one leg? Wouldn't you know that X-Pac showed up to interfere, only to kick Big Slow. Austin stunned X-Pac and Flair and then pinned Flair. This was beyond belief bad in so many ways. You know, I love every move that buries the Big Slow and the nWo, really, but they hired these guys to spearhead something before WrestleMania and they've blown it from the get-go. It requires real effort to kill off one invasion angle after another so authoritatively. * Edge beat Kurt Angle in a hair vs. hair match: Tazz delivered the hype for this match. Weird to hear him tell us how embarrassed the bald loser would be. Maybe this would be the match worth ordering the show for. Angle is always worth watching, but despite the hype and the push I don't see Edge as a player. Neither do the fans, I think. It seemed fairly certain that Edge would win. They had a barber shop set beside the ramp, complete with a real barber's chair, the candy cane, and a pretty bored-looking barber. More 1980s WWF campiness. Match was pretty good, but not great. Edge hit a plancha, as both guys sold the fatigue. Back in the ring, Edge hit a missile dropkick for a near fall. Angle hit a sexy German suplex. Well, Edge rallied, hit an edge-ecution, climbed to the top, but Angle tossed him off. That means something totally different to the English. Another two count. Ref bump, Angle gets an object. No luck. A spear, ref counts to two, Edge cries out. They did a great sequence of reversals, including an Angle spear, and the match became something worth watching largely due to Angle's emotion and work. Angle managed an ankle lock, and Edge almost got out. He did manage to knock Angle off and small package him for the pin. Great match, particularly for Angle's passion during the final five minutes. His reaction to the loss was tremendous. Edge carried Angle down to the barber's chair, but Angle ran away. * They actually cut away to a shot of the Marriott down the road, wherein Booker T was ready to bed down some honey while a camera crew filmed everything. Booker turned off the light and Goldust turned up in bed with them. Booker ended up walking away with his but on full display, because that's really funny, you know. * HHH beat Chris Jericho in the Hell in the Cell match: Tazz told us that "Hell in the Cell is not a cage." Wow, they actually started the match inside the cage, making me wonder which piece of the fence would give way when the steps were thrown at it. What's a hell in the cell match without them climbing the cage? The overrated assassin dominated at the start, but Jericho got a few shots in. They pushed the career-shortening nature of these matches, althought nobody noticed that they haven't done much to shorten HHH's career. Jericho bled from his shoulder. HHH tried to set up something on the ring steps, but ended up getting catapulted into the cage. Jericho pulled out a ladder for the same reason that people climb Mount Everest. The referee tried to talk him out of it: we don't need that tonight. Jericho differed. HHH was bleeding. I now wondered which piece of fence on the top would give way to the ladder. Hmmm, maybe not. Jericho grated HHH's head on the forehead, a traditional Ric Flair spot. In this modern age, though, they had the camera zoomed right in, and the spot look kind of crummy. HHH rallied with chair shots. Intensity was really good, separating this from the typical hardcore match, but something was still missing -- maybe it was just too spotty. HHH hit a drop toe hold on a charging Jericho, who ended up landing on the ring steps which he was carrying. Jericho did a really good job of selling his injured arm as the match progressed. The referee took a bump into the cage. "I think Tim White may have the key," said JR. Ah. Jericho had HHH pinned after a chair shot, but no referee. Jericho yelled at the referee and caged him. The referee bladed. The other referees came out to cut the lock off the cage and rescue their brother. HHH looked under the ring, but couldn't find what he needed. During the easter egg hunt, Jericho had to sell and sell and sell. HHH found his sledge hammer, nailed Jericho, and had a pin, but no referee. Jericho crawled out of the cage. He slammed the cage door on HHH. They brawled at ringside. "God only knows what these men are going to do." Well, god and D-Von. Jericho prepped the Spanish commentary table for a break. HHH DDTed Jericho on the table, countering an attempted pedigree by Jericho. HHH pulled out the rubber barbed wire two-by-four. So Jericho of course climbed on top of the cage, 'cause running away would make too much sense. Hey, somebody put a a loop of material on the two-by-four so it would be easy to carry it up the cage. Jericho got it and smacked HHH with it. The crowd booed. Jericho put the walls of Jericho on on top. A referee climbed to the top to see whether HHH wanted to submit. Low blow by HHH. Pedigree attempt, but Jericho hit a back drop. The commentators kept pushing that the cage could give way. Jericho took a head shot with the barbed wire, but kicked out at two. Pedigree on top of the cage. Three count. Expected result. Really good match. "Chris Jericho took it to the Game as no human being ever has," JR told us. It's the All Japan booking psychology of having the loser get over because of the effort in the match, but it only works in North America when they sell the match for another week or two on TV, like they did for the first TLC match. For Jericho's sake, I hope they do that again. * Backstage, Kurt Angle continued to run away from Edge. Maven and Torrie Wilson were shown on their first date. Torrie could really have impact if she was paired with somebody one level below the top, like, oh, Chris Jericho, but they waste her instead. * Rikishi & Rico beat Billy & Chuck to win the WWE Tag Titles: Yet more 1980s WWF campiness. Or is it WCW-before-death bad ideas. Either way, Vince made Rico Rikishi's partner in this match. The commentators suggested that Rico would just lie down if he came into the ring, so Rikishi had to do it one-on-one. Rico kicked Chuck by accident and Rikishi scored the pin. Let the laughter begin. Devaluing the titles is exactly what they needed to do right now. * Undertaker beat Hulk Hogan to win the WWE Title: Do I need to say that this match sucked? Two old guys pissing around. Of course Vince came out. In case you haven't been paying attention, that means that Hogan had been dragged on a motorcycle by Undertaker on TV and then faced interference here and still only lost by a hair. And now the title matches will stay just as shitty with Undertaker in there. Overall, I would still give the shows a borderline thumbs up. I'm a mark for Angle's work -- every aspect of it -- and he made the show for me. The cage match grew to be great. All of the 1980s touches do not bode well, and they've done absolutely nothing to create any new stars, or, more ominously-worded, to elevate the guys who should be stars. The latter wording is meant to remind you of WCW's big failing: relying on the great workers to carry the mid-card and never putting them in main events with the established old farts putting them over in a meaningful way. On Monday Night RAW, the show opened with a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. As Rob van Dam was heading to the ring, Undertaker attacked him from behind. Van Dam even bladed before getting totally demolished. Undertaker entered the ring and cut a boring promo, jabbering on about the champion opening the show. He mentioned that Hulk Hogan is going to retire on Thursday, so I guess they've decided to move Hogan into some other story line after his miserable crash-and-burn as a nostalgic champion. The right move is to make him into a nostalgia act who wrestles sparingly. That helps us forget just how bad he is. I figured the misuse of van Dam was just par for the course, but he actually went into the ring, breaking free from the referees who were trying to take him out, and he even laid out Undertaker. Now, Undertaker isn't the guy who is going to put over a "new" star in a meaningful way, but he at least bumped once for van Dam and took a frog splash. Could they actually try to make that the next PPV main event, I wondered? Well, Undertaker vs. van Dam ended up being signed as the RAW main event instead. Okay, so van Dam puts Undertaker over, makes it look like UT can move, and gets over because of a gutsy performance. That last point is always the theory but Undertaker especially has a knack for making sure that things don't work out as planned. They also set up Buh Buh Ray Dudley vs. Brock Lesnar, presumably for the next PPV. That seems like a good match to get Lesnar over if they book it right. Tommy Dreamer is a circus geek. Raven got in Lawler's face about his broken marriage. Well, holy shit, they ran another bizarre angle in a bar where Eddie Guerrero attacked Steve Austin. Can they really be trying to give meaningful pushes to both Eddie and van Dam? In answer to that, the main event kicked in, with Undertaker pretty much standing still while van Dam danced all around him. Oh, Undertaker bumped, but he is such a piece of crap that it was still pretty bad. But van Dam got a pin with UT's foot on the ropes. Ric Flair came in to restart the match, and UT won with a sneak attack power bomb. The announcer called van Dam the new WWE champion after the first false finish and then called Undertaker the new champion after the second pin. Jerry Lawler went along with this, saying that UT had won the title twice in 24 hours. But if the first win was overruled by Flair... Reports are that Vince was overseeing the Austin angle at the bar and that Nash & X-Pac took the opportunity to cry about the way they were booked, apparently convincing people to change things more to their liking by threatening to quit. It's WCW all over again, folks. You'd think that people would realize that if they quit it will only improve the promotion. ______________________________________________________________________ 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. ______________________________________________________________________