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From TheSmartMarks.com Wrestling Raw from JHawk's Beak (11/3/2003): The On-Site Report Before Raw Prior to entering the building, not only were the sign police in full force, but so were the T-shirt police. That's right, they don't give a shit if you bought your ticket or not, because you ain't entering the building if the WWF scratch logo is on your shirt. Inside the arena, we kick things off with a kickass WrestleMania XX video. The big pop comes from the clip of Hulk Hogan slamming Andre the Giant. Dark Match: Bobby Rude vs. Eric Young You know who the faces are in WWE dark matches because they're billed as from the area whether they are or not. For example, Young is billed as from Shaker Heights, Ohio, "home" of the Beverly Brothers, despite the fact that he probably wouldn't know Shaker Heights is a suburb of Cleveland if it was written down in front of him. A good match overall despite the crowd yelling their catcalls because they've never seen these guys. Young wins with a sweet looking moonsault at 5:05. Charles Robinson comes out to referee and actually acknowledges my solo chant of "Little Naitch." I'm flattered and stuff. Dark Match: Travis (Barco?) and Kevin (Barnett?) vs. Mark Bennarucci and Tyson Dux This is why programs should have lineups attached to them, because when you can't understand The Fink, you need that piece of paper. Bennarucci and Dux are billed as being from Cleveland. A pretty decent tag team match. After Bennarucci flies over the top rope and lands to a sickening thud, one of the heels pins Dux after a combination side slam/legdrop at 5:12. By this point, LeBron James has been escorted to his cushy front row seat. I guess some Cleveland Browns were in attendance too, but they don't have $90 million shoe contracts, so fuck them. (Not my opinion, by the way. Here we go Brownies, here we go...WOOF WOOF!) Al Snow and Coach are introduced for Heat. During one lull, Snow would point at himself so the crowd would cheer, then point at Coach so they'd boo. The next four matches are spoilers for this weekend's episode of Heat, so read at your own risk. Heat Match: Rene Dupree vs. The Hurricane Hurricane gets the biggest pop of the night pre-Raw, so of course he has to do the job even after hitting all his best offense. Dupree wins with a roll up at 5:27 of a decent match. Heat Match: Gail Kim vs. Jacqueline Just when you start gaining faith in the women's division, Jackie returns to Heat. A rather boring match, but Kim uses the first good move of her career--a submission move I don't know the name for that gets the win at 2:54. Heat Match: Tommy Dreamer vs. some guy Fink doesn't even get to do the intros here, which is another reason why we need a lineup in the program. Dreamer goes for some cheap face heat by kissing LeBron's ass and wearing a Cavaliers jersey, which his opponent promptly pulls off and uses as a handkerchief for cheap heel heat. Dreamer gets the pin with a DDT in 3:07, then gives the kendo stick to LeBron as a souvenir. Heat Match: Rob Conway vs. Rosey Proof that the S.H.I.T. stuff is getting over: Four fans were spotted in the crowd dressed like Rosey, each with a different letter of S.H.I.T. on their chests. Dupree runs out and swings the French flag at Rosey, which distracts the referee long enough for Hurricane to run in through the crowd, Rosey and Hurricane to hit their tag team finisher, and Hurricane to leave the ring just in time for the referee to count to three at 3:16. At this point we go live for the teaser during Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Lilian Garcia sings the national anthem. Then the beginning of Trish Stratus' entrance video comes up, but in a deliberate tease, it's just a commercial for her DVD. That pissed my section off big time. Then out come Good Ol' JR and The King, and then we sit on our hands for 6 minutes while we wait to go live. Some UWC fans recognized me and hollered over during the downtime though. Random Thoughts on Raw The obscenely expensive Jeritron 5000 was above the ring despite there being no Highlight Reel. The opening tag team match should have been the main event, if only so the best match is the reward for the people who sit through the whole show. Best match of the entire night until the finish. Molly Holly looked damn fine. But Gail Kim's run-in made me wonder "How shitty is security that everybody's running in through the crowd?" I can sum up the Steve Austin-Shawn Michaels backstage skit in 20 words or less: "Will you be on my Survivor Series team?" "Even with our history?" "Yes." "You got it." Instead, we got a five minute snoozer that was met by individual fans yelling "Get on with it" and "Ask him out already!" We already knew that LeBron James was in attendance and didn't need every brawl outside the ring to be right in front of him. My section tried to start some ingenious chants that didn't catch on. One guy got a mini "D'Lo" chant started (cool). He also did "Lance needs Dawn Marie" during the Lance Storm-Rico match and "You can see it on the Titan Tron" to the people who stood on their chairs during the contract signing. The saddest part of my night came not when Stacy Keibler was relegated to being carried by Scott Steiner on the runway (although that did make my "Stacy Keibler's Future Husband" sign meaningless and I worked hard on it, dammit), but when people were yelling "This match is boring" during Storm-Rico. How a two minute match can be boring less than halfway through I'll never know. Although the guy who yelled "The last hour's been boring! End the show!" got a good laugh. The finish of the mixed tag looked good on TV, but from my angle it looked like John Heidenreich dropped Steven Richards right on his head. An attempt to start a "This is not a main event" chant during the Michaels-Mark Henry match failed because it started about three seconds before one of the "HBK" chants. Damn marks. There was simply too much Austin on this show, but since he was getting the biggest pops of the night, what the hell. Things you Missed During the break before Henry-Michaels, Coach came to the ring to interview Austin. Of course, Austin said that since he was in the ring for the main event, then that counted as "physical provocation", so Coach got a Stone Cold Stunner for his troubles. During the break after the match, Austin insulted the timekeeper at ringside. Then The Man (WHOO!) cut a promo on Austin to say that ,b>Batista would be on his way to the ring in a couple of minutes. A vintage Flair tirade there. Then Austin insulted the timekeeper some more until we went back on the air. After the show went off the air, Austin and Goldberg "drank" beer for at least another 10 minutes, at which point we said "Nothing of note's going to happen" and took off. Overall It was an OK show on TV, but fun as hell live. Hey, where else can you yell at these guys from within earshot and not have them try to kick your ass? It's quite fun. The crowd was hot for a large portion of the night despite not really getting any worthwhile after about 9:15. It was a nice touch having something going on in the ring during some of the commercial breaks to make it feel like there was less downtime. No Triple H (making my "Triple H fears the midcard" sign meaningless), no Shane McMahon, and little Goldberg. All good. But having very little Stacy (unless you count her promo video for Divas Undressed...and if we haven't bought that one by now we're probably not going to) makes me sad. Not that I paid just to see her, but I wanted some pictures, dammit! The show was fun (what I could see of it), but I wouldn't necessarily call it "good". Feedback goes here. © Copyright by TheSmartMarks.com |