Slobberknocker Central Monday Night Recap #284 April 23rd, 2001 The Opening Word: I had planned on putting up the disclaimer this week that with it being my birthday Tuesday I was going to have to rush through the Recap, but after seeing the show tonight it isn't really necessary. You'll see what I mean below ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WWF RAW is WAR: Live/Taped: Live. Length: Two Hours+. Location: Denver, Colorado. Hosted By: Jim Ross & Paul Heyman. WWF RAW: - The Undertaker & Kane come out and laugh over Triple H and Steve Austin saying they're the most dominant team in the WWF. They throw out a challenge for a match tonight. Edge & Christian come out to answer the challenge instead. They say *they* are the most dominant team in the WWF by virtue of their seven Tag Team Title reigns. (In case you missed it, the Undertaker & Kane won the Tag Team Titles from Edge & Christian on SmackDown! last Thursday.) The two teams come to blows, at which point Austin & Triple H slip in through the crowd and lay out the Taker & Kane with chairs. - Vince & Stephanie McMahon are butchering some dialogue when they cut to footage "Earlier Today" of Mick Foley arriving at WWF New York. McMahon wonders what Foley is up to. I hate it when Stephanie tries to act. - SPIKE DUDLEY (w/ the Dudley Boyz) vs. RHYNO Clips from Heat and SmackDown! are shown to set up this match. X-Factor & Albert come out, and the match comes to a quick end after Spike delivers the Dudley Dog (Acid Drop). Cover, but Albert pulls Spike out. Spike is then met with a gore by Rhyno upon reentering, and Rhyno covers for the pin, retaining the Hardcore Title (which he won on SmackDown! from Kane--with some help from Austin & Triple H). The Dudleyz then hit Justin Credible with the 3-D. Does it mean anything that five of the seven guys involved in this match used to be in ECW together? The WWF dusts off the old event calendar, hyping upcoming live shows. I haven't seen them do this on RAW in a couple years. That's troubling. Why are they only doing one Saturday show in May? Looks like they're just doing Sunday, Monday and Tuesday shows. - A SmackDown! clip, followed by an "Earlier Today" clip, touches upon the slowly disintegrating Right To Censor team. - RIGHT TO CENSOR (w/ Steven Richards) vs. KAIENTAI Taka & Funaki get a cheap pop by wearing John Elway jerseys. A quick match, which Kaientai actually win when Taka does a crossbody off the top onto Bull Buchanan. Bull catches him, only to turn and get caught by a drop-kick off the opposite turnbuckle by Funaki. Taka falls on top of Bull, Funaki slides out and hooks Bull's boot, and the ref counts to three. - Mick Foley scarfs down some food, which he charges to Vince McMahon. McMahon, watching this at the arena, is interrupted by the Big Show, who asks if Vince meant it last Thursday when he called Show the biggest disappointment in wrestling? Vince says no, but he did mean it when he booked Big Show against Shane McMahon in a "Last Man Standing Match" at Backlash. Big Show then puts in a videotape showing Test badmouthing Stephanie. - Kurt Angle has a confab with commissioner William Regal. Is this continued teasing of tension between these two actually leading to something? One would think a face turn for Angle, except Angle's playing too much of a self-obsessed jerk for that to work. I hope it's not a heel versus heel feud, because that would kill both of these guys. - Austin & Triple H bully Michael Cole in a hallway. - A new variation of "The Fight Song" video. I think I've now seen this more times on WWF programming than MTV ever aired it. - Triple H & Steve Austin hit the ring (accompanied by Vince McMahon's "No Chance in Hell" theme to minimize the pop). Yadda, yadda, yadda--the two challenge the Undertaker & Kane to a fight, which is of course pretty tough given that the Undertaker & Kane have been taken out of commission. The Hardy Boyz come out instead to accept the challenge. Triple H & Austin basically laugh it off, but it looks like it's going to go down, when some pyro goes off and the Undertaker & Kane end up coming out too. Stone Cold & Triple H wisely decide to bail. When Austin's music plays it doesn't start off with the sound of glass breaking. Audio miscue, or did they remove it so minimize the face pop he gets? Mick Foley suddenly comes out before the crowd at WWF New York. He pulls out a piece of paper--one of those contracts he signed before losing his job as WWF commissioner--and announces that he has the power to make the main event of any RAW of his choosing. He's choosing tonight, and puts Stone Cold, Triple H and Edge & Christian in an eight-man against the Undertaker, Kane, and the Hardy Boyz. WWF WAR ZONE: - CHRIS JERICHO/CHRIS BENOIT vs. KURT ANGLE/WILLIAM REGAL Isn't it "Marquess of Queensbury" as opposed to "Duchess of Queensbury" rules? Benoit gets the quick win here, forcing Regal to tap out to the Crippler Crossface. Disappointing given the build-up Ross and Heyman had been giving this match. - An interview with Trish Stratus serves as a not-so-subtle plug for the "Divas in Hedonism" video. - THE BIG SHOW vs. TEST Nothing match. Shane McMahon comes in with a chair, drawing the DQ. Test then big boots Big Show out of the ring. Much is made of the fact that Big Show didn't go down from the chairshot. Vince McMahon, looking for Shane, stumbles across Trish Stratus instead. He orders her to face Ivory tonight in a match where if she loses she has to join the RTC. - Michael Cole interviews Raven, Grandmaster Sexay & Steve Blackman. The less said about this the better. - THE RADICALZ vs. RAVEN/GRANDMASTER SEXAY/STEVE BLACKMAN Guerrero pins Sexay. This went like two minutes, but still seemed like the longest match on the show thus far. - Plug for WWF Superstars this Sunday. They're sure mention the other WWF shows a lot tonight. - Members of the RTC are squabbling backstage. - TRISH STRATUS vs. IVORY Pin by Trish following a bulldog. That was ... Triple H & Austin give Edge & Christian a peptalk. - Recap of the XFL "Million Dollar Game". - STEVE AUSTIN/TRIPLE H/EDGE/CHRISTIAN vs. UNDERTAKER/KANE/THE HARDY BOYZ It looks like this match is going to get a bunch of TV time, but after Triple H and Austin enter (Austin's theme music for the second time playing without the glass breaking sound) they go to a commercial. Austin's theme has played through the entire break, the Hardyz, Taker & Kane not coming out until the show has resumed. Jump ahead to the match finish, which sees the Undertaker with a cover on Triple H. Edge & Christian pull the Taker out of the ring. Matt Hardy comes over for the cover, but Austin give him a Stone Cold Stunner. He rolls Triple H on top, and the Game gets the pin. The Bottom Line: Wow ... did this one just go through the motions of hyping the PPV or what? Everything by the numbers, with little sense of energy or effort. Half the show seemed to be recaps and plugs for SmackDown! and Heat, clueing viewers in that they NEED to be watching these shows in order to follow the latest storylines (what few of them there are). Nothing was bad on this show (the PPV main event is actually getting a solid, old school build-up), but it all seems ... dull, uninspired. Here's the card for Backlash: * Steve Austin & Triple H vs. the Undertaker & Kane. The WWF Championship, * Intercontinental Title and Tag Team Titles are all on the line. * Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit. 30 Minute Iron Man Submission Match. * William Regal vs. Chris Jericho. "Duchess of Queensbury Rules Match". * The Big Show vs. Shane McMahon in a "Last Man Standing Match". * Eddie Guerrero vs. Raven for the European Title. * X-Factor & Albert vs. The Dudley Boyz & Spike Dudley. At least the live crowd for this show was really hot. They were into pretty much everything. I don't think the WWF has been in Denver for a while. They're doing a doubleshot there this week, taping SmackDown! in the same arena tomorrow night. I've seen the debate brewing on the Net about whether "smart" fans are turning on the WWF. I don't think it has anything to do with "smart" fans, nor is anyone really turning on the WWF. What's happening is that with both WCW and ECW gone, the WWF has to step things up a notch to keep wrestling fans interested. What's happened, though, is the WWF has gone into total cruise control. You're not going to win fans over if when you're supposed to be working twice as hard you're only working half as hard. The Rock going off to shoot a movie hasn't helped. Nor has the ill-timed Steve Austin heel turn (they should have saved that for this summer), as well as the acquisition of WCW (and subsequent announcement of such) without being able to capitalize on it. Since WrestleMania little has seemed to be happening in the WWF, and when something did happen--the seeming elevation of the Hardy Boyz--it was instead a swerve to kill a few weeks while they built to a PPV tag team main event match. When was the last time the WWF did a tag team match as a PPV main event? The WWF isn't stale right now ... it's just boring. I think there's a difference. You can't tell me the WWF isn't starting to get worried. Going all out to hype the other WWF TV shows, as well as live events, is a sign of trouble. The crowd sell-outs aren't coming as fast or as often as they once did, and TV ratings are down pretty much across the board. And then there's the XFL, which went down in a big flaming ball which cost the WWF (and NBC) more money than WCW lost in its last year. The WWF needs to do something big to get the fans interested again. Right now it seems like their strategy is to coast another month or two, until the Rock comes back, and they can get WCW back off the ground. Until then I don't expect many wrestling fans (perhaps myself included) to be all that fired up about the WWF. It's weird watching the monster truck show on TNN after RAW and hearing them say Goldberg's name about fifty times. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Slobberknocker Central" and "Monday Night Recap" are copyright 2001 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 284 of the "Monday Night Recap", April 23rd, 2001.