Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #267 December 25th, 2000 The Opening Word: I hope those of you out there who celebrate Christmas had a better one than I did. Anyone who lives in a cold climate area and has turned on their water faucet, and have nothing come out, knows what kind of a nightmare that can be. One doesn't normally think of melting snow to fill your toilet tanks as a traditional yuletide activity. These next two weeks will be pretty quiet in the wrestling world. RAW and SmackDown! are already taped for this week, and next week's shows will be taped this coming weekend. Nitro is off for two weeks with no make-up shows. Thunder this week is a "Best of 2000" show, with the joke going around "that's nice, but what will they show for the other hour and fifty-eight minutes?" Thunder next week is ... already taped? Or will be taped soon. Or who knows--and really, who cares? Nitro returns live January 8th, and WCW will focus that show, and the following Thunder, on hyping the next PPV, WCW Sin, on January 14th. It's not a joke to say that show may draw the lowest WCW PPV buyrate ever. As for the future of WCW, at this point everyone assumes Eric Bischoff's buying the company. It's no longer a matter of "if", but "when". The only reason the deal hasn't been made already, supposedly, is because Eric's having a little trouble coming up with enough investor money, and that the holidays have effectively brought the negotiations to a temporary halt. A deal could be announced as soon as the middle of January. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Taped 12/22. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hosted By: Jim Ross & Jerry "The King" Lawler. WWF RAW: - Stephanie McMahon Helmsley comes out. She says Vince McMahon is volunteering at a Greenwich, Connecticut soup kitchen. Stephanie baked a fruitcake for her mother. She teases dissention between the Rock and Undertaker by showing a clip of them losing the Tag Team Titles to Edge & Christian last Thursday. A match is made between the two of them for later tonight. Edge, Christian and Kurt Angle come out. At this point, all I want for Christmas is for this segment to not last twenty minutes. Very long story short, Angle brings out members of his family, including his brother Eric, a few other brothers and even a cousin (Mark, David, Jimmy, Joe-Bob, Bocephus, Mortimer ... hell, I've lost track). E&C accompany the on the kazoo as the Angles sing "Winter Wonderland." Chris Jericho comes out and tells them to Shut The Hell Up. He challenges Angle to a WWF Championship match. Stephanie denies the request, but an offer is made for a six-man match against and, Edge & Christian. Jericho tells Angle to have his partners bring their kazoos, while his partners will bring the tables. Clearly this is going to be a "glad that you've joined us, but you wouldn't have missed anything if you hadn't" show. - Angle escorts his clan through the back. They come across K-Kwik, who Angle introduces as a good friend of his. Unfortunately he can't remember his name. K-Kwik quips "now that's what I call a really WHITE Christmas." - Matt & Jeff Hardy ask Lita to stay backstage, but she insists on coming out to the ring with them. - THE HARDY BOYZ (w/ Lita) vs. DEAN MALENKO/CHRIS BENOIT (w/ Terri Runnels) The Hardyz win this one quickly, Matt pinning Dean Malenko (after a low blow delivered by Lita), but then the Radicalz turn the tables by continuing the fight, Malenko putting Matt in the Texas Cloverleaf, and Benoit putting the Crippler Crossface on Lita. - The EMT's are checking on Lita when Benoit comes in to gloat. Matt attacks Benoit. - Michael Cole tells the late-arriving Rock that he has a match with the Undertaker tonight. - Lt. commissioner Debra is sad that Mick Foley is gone. She books a Triple Threat Match for the Hardcore Title between Steve Blackman, Raven and Hardcore Holly, as a tribute to Foley. - Stephanie's on the phone with Vince McMahon at the soup kitchen, when she hears a voice in the background that sounds an awful lot like Trish Stratus. Vince says it's a homeless person and hangs up because he's needed back in the soup line. - Michael Cole gets comments from Steve Austin. - STEVE BLACKMAN vs. RAVEN vs. HARDCORE HOLLY The match spills from the ring, through the crowd, and into the back. A couple of random bystanders are jacked and dumped into an equipment cart. The fight spills outside, where Blackman pins Holly with a suplex onto the hood of a car! Blackman heads back inside. Why are we still watching him? Ah, Raven attacks, and-- RAVEN vs. STEVE BLACKMAN --covers for the pin. 24/7 rule in effect, Raven is the new Hardcore Champion. I think it's fair to say the *wrestlers* only remember there's a 24/7 rule when the *writers* do. Stone Cold ... Kane ... NEXT! - A Royal Rumble clip shows Shawn Michaels winning in 1996. We've sure seen a lot of Shawn Michaels in recent weeks, haven't we? - William Regal chastises Americans for eating too much and farting, then joins the announce team as the competitors for the next match make their way out. KANE vs. STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN A solid match between these two, albeit wrestled a step or two slower than the matches of their 1998 feud. A nice flurry of action at the end sees Kane avoid the Stunner, but fall victim to a second attempt. Regal, who had been hit by Austin at ringside, and later tried unsuccessfully to enter the ring, comes in now and attacks Austin, causing a DQ. Austin gets hold of a chair and leaves the two laying, heading up the ramp with cans of beer in hand. WWF WAR ZONE: - The Undertaker tells Michael Cole that the Rock is a big dog that makes a bunch of noise. He, on the other hand, is all about pain, and the two will fight tonight to see whose yard it is. - The Kat comes out and gives Jim Ross a copy of the WWF Divas "Postcards from the Caribbean" video. She then removes her robe to give The King his present. The Kat is hot and all, but she does sometimes look like a twelve year old boy with breast implants. - Stephanie barges in on T&A and asks where Trish Stratus is. Test says she never showed up tonight. Stephanie leaves. In case we haven't been able to follow the story thus far, Albert plays Exposition Man and explains the whole situation: that Trish is off somewhere whooping it up with Vince. - Angle phones up his mother to asks how their earlier was. - TOO COOL vs. T&A With each passing week I see the crowd react less and less to Too Cool since they changed their entrance music. Stephanie comes out to watch the match, and ends up getting involved, tripping up Test so that Grandmaster Sexay can roll him up for the pin. Chris Jericho and the Dudley Boyz are up next. - Albert tells Stephanie that he has no heat with her over what she did to Test, and that if she ever needs him for anything he's good to go. Say "buh-bye" to T&A> - CHRIS JERICHO/THE DUDLEY BOYZ vs. KURT ANGLE/EDGE/CHRISTIAN The Angle brothers (and cousin) are seated in the front row at ringside. I half expect to hear that Angle has an elderly mother and father from Calgary, Canada. As you'd expect, Jericho ends up down on the floor, and Bruce and the other Hart--*cough*--Angle brothers attack. Eric Angle gets brought over the barrier, and the Dudleyz end up putting him through a table. Meanwhile, in the ring Angle counters a Jericho Lionsault by bringing up the knees. On the floor the Dudleyz brawl up the ramp with Edge & Christian. Angle then hits an Olympic Slam and pins Jericho. The other Angles come in and hold Jericho as Angle slaps him. The Dudleyz run back in for the save. Poor Eric, he's forgotten amongst the table wreckage at ringside. - Angle apologizes to his brother Eric. Edge & Christian swear they'll get back at the Dudleyz for putting Eric through the table. - RTC (w/ Steven Richards & Ivory) vs. THE ACOLYTES (w/ Jacqueline) This match ends pretty much like every other RTC match: Val Venis comes in, DDT's Bradshaw, and Bull Buchanan covers for the pin. - In a pretaped interview, Chyna tells Jim Ross that she has three ruptured disks in her neck, and that every option facing her spells an end to career. Pardon my apathy, but why should I believe her when this is essentially what happened to Steve Austin in real life, and he had the surgery and came back better than ever? And doesn't this somewhat diminish what happened to Austin when they give the same injury to Chyna as a storyline? She's obviously going to come back, showing no signs that she was ever injured to begin with. That makes people believe Austin's injury wasn't real either. It's no coincidence that Chyna's book is coming out in a few weeks. I guess the WWF thinks they can make the fans believe it's more relevant or important if they do an injury angle and say her career is over. Chyna may have an interesting life story, to a point, but how much insight on the wrestling business can I expect to read from some someone--like her or Goldberg--who has only been in it for about three years? I've been writing this Recap longer than either has been in the business. And while I'm ranting about women in the action genre, am I the only one who thinks "Dark Angel" on FOX is a steaming load of derivative crap? "Ooh, look at me--I'm a sexy babe bred by the Government as a super soldier assassin/whatever, but I live in a slum and steal and do drugs and anguish over my day job and paying the rent. Plot? What's that?" Yeah, Merry Christmas too. - The Rock tells Kevin Kelly a Christmas tale. The funniest part is where they show a Santa Claus in the audience reacting disapprovingly to the Rock saying he'd shove his bag of toys you-know-where. - THE UNDERTAKER vs. THE ROCK The Undertaker's theme music had been remixed yet again, now using even less of Limp Bizkit's "Rollin'". A solid match between the two, which comes to an abrupt end when Rikishi waddles in and lays both men out with superkicks and Banzai Drops. I'm not sure if the Rock got the DQ win, or if the ref just threw the match out. - This Thursday: Nothing announced. - Next week: Nothing announced. Comments: An entertaining way to kill a few hours which, watching it a second time to write this Recap, seemed pretty pointless upon reflection. That's about all I can say about the show: harmlessly amusing, but completely miss-able if you had something better to do Christmas night. Actually, I will add this ... couldn't the WWF have put on a more uplifting show for Christmas? Of the three main event matches--all three of them good matches by the way--two ended in lame DQ's, while the third had the heels going over. Unless Kurt Angle came out after the cameras stopped rolling and he got his ass handed to him, this was not a show that would have sent the fans home happy. With viewership sure to be down because of Christmas I can understand the WWF coasting this week. Did they have to bum the fans out too? I sure hope they put on a killer show next week. Otherwise wrestling fans will be ready for WCW's return the following week, and you know they're going to be pulling out all the stops to hype their PPV. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bottom Line: Happy New Year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Slobberknocker Central" and "Monday Night Recap" are copyright 2000 by John Petrie, and all opinions expressed therein are his own, and not those of "USLink". Check the "Slobberknocker Central" main page for info on how to receive the "Recap" free via E-Mail every week. Volume One, Number 267 of the "Monday Night Recap", December 25th, 2000.