WWE Summerslam 2003
Shannon vs Rey - Heat
This is so lame, two Smackdown championships and the Raw Intercontinental title are all not being defended at the second biggest PPV of the year just so we can have crap like the Dudleyz and Shane McMahon on the card, anyway for what it was this match was decent up until the end where Rey tripped on the apron and then hit a very sloppy looking Ôrana for the win, he was holding his head afterwards so he may have been concussed I don't know. Match was too short to be anything above *
Dudleyz vs La Resistance
Ok I'm sure I've seen this match before, oh I know what it is, it's because both teams wrestle indentical matches every time they walk out to the ring, and of course because it's a recycled save the USA angle, way to whore out your country for ratings Vince, and did anyone else completely forget this match was for the titles? The match was so awfully fucking generic, if you took a Smackdown game and created 4 characters with Rough/Power styles and stuck them in a match with their base movesets this is what you'd get, it really was that stale. Anywho the match had two saving graces, Firstly there was one new spot in the Dudleyz arsenal, the Bubba Ray standing on your groin attack, they then follow that up with the diving head butt from the top, how's that for ring psychology and working a body part eh? Secondly I'm a 3D mark. Finish was lame, I saw it coming, crappy match and Bubba sounded like a complete jackass on the mic, "people who hate America suck lol." Get this shit off my PPV and get Rey on there instead. *
Undertaker vs A Train
Okay I'm going to look like a little bandwagoneer when I say that Train has massively improved as a worker over the course of this year, but he really has, so I take back all the shit I gave Vince about constantly pushing him. He's just about the best monster in the WWE, bar Lesnar of course, he's really putting 110% effort into every single match at the moment which is great to see and he was good enough here to carry ÔTaker to something surprisingly watchable. Decent brawl which was thankfully kept under 10 minutes, Train tries to bring some psychology into the match with the rib work but good old ÔTaker is having none of it as he fails to consistently sell anything, and here's a question, over his decade in the business has he never thought of incorporating an arm submission or two to compliment one of his most over moves in the rope walk? The move itself does not look painful enough to stand alone as a threat to his opponent in the match. Anyway this match would get ** but Sable was hot and Steph's appearance raised a rye smile from me which tells me they have to be doing something right with that fued so add a star but the ref bumps were contrived and the wrong man went over so take off a half again **1/2
Eric vs Shane
For what this match was, it was pretty good, and what it was was a pretty decent way of having some fun in the ring whilst covering up the fact that the two people involved in the match weren't capable of making this anything above DUD territory. Having the match as a standard singles match at the beginning was pointless as everyone knew it was gonna degenerate into a fight, and having to watch Shane go in and out of the ring to break the count was a waste of time, ROH have the right idea, 10 count's stupid, get rid of it. Anyway, I totally marked out like an utter fiend for the Coach's turn even if his JR impression were far from satisfactory and Shane making people "provoke" Austin was pretty funny. The bump that Shane took in the end was pretty god damn disappointing though, I watched this piece of crap for an elbow drop? Come on, where's your SSP gone Shane O Mac? And again the fact that this took up 11 minutes with no Rey/WGTT match on the card just makes me question the WWE's sanity. **
Benoit vs Eddie vs Rhyno vs Tajiri
Ok this is where the evening, uh...well morning, really started for me, another Raw match and I probably would have been out, I tend to smoke more when I'm excited and I can remember having two cigarettes during this match so there you go. However I was marginally disappointed with the match, which wasn't particularly creative. There was a great contrast in styles, with Rhyno working the Power match, Tajiri as the striker, Benoit coming for the submission and Eddie playing the clever/cowardly/heel game and hitting a few high flying moves, the format worked nicely but what really disappointed me was the total lack of creativity in the spots, they basically just ran through their trademarks gaining decent pops from the crowd along the way, there were a few decent moments such as Tajiri using his handspring into the ropes to kick Rhyno off the apron and Benoit and Eddie both locking on submissions simultaneously but for the most part it was pretty standard although great to watch stuff, Eddie and Tajiri fucking rule, probably my two favourite people to watch in the WWE right now, Eddie because he's great in the ring and just exudes charisma, Tajiri because I'm a sucker for a good striker *cough* Low Ki *cough*. The ending would have made much more sense if Benoit got the submission from the Crossface after Eddie used the belt to block Rhyno's spear, since Rhyno was selling the shoulder but that's just nit picking, Eddie deserves the belt as much as anyone in the business. Good if somewhat disappointing match ***1/4
Angle vs Lesnar
Angle/Lesnar straight after the four way? Oh you spoil me WWE, wait this means I'm gonna have to watch RVD/Kane and the Elimination Chamber in a row as well doesn't it? Damn you WWEÉand is there anyone who isn't pissed off with Taz's "Well, here comes the pain" yet? Anywho, this walked away with match of the night narrowly edging out the four way before it. Lesnar starts off trying to take Angle to the mat, realises he's outclassed in that department and switches to a power game, throws Angle hard out of some collar and elbow tie ups until Angle imposes his speed onto the match and switches behind a tie up to throw Lesnar out. Lesnar tries to man handle Angle but Angle snaps off three arm drags with ease (one while in mid trip, but we'll ignore that one Kurt ) Lesnar gets immensely pissed off and starts throwing a hissy fit on the outside walking up the entrance ramp, this successfully lures Angle outside into a brawl but Angle more than holds his own in this environment as well. This is set to have a much slower pace than their Mania match which is fine by me. Lesnar pushes his new unstoppable monster persona by kicking out of a few suplexes at 1 and then pulls Angle up for one of the smoothest gorilla press spots I've ever seen, I mean he just pulled him up effortlessly. From here Lesnar takes over playing the typical monsters game, working the ribs until a short sprint from Angle and then shutting him down again, repeat this a few times and you have a lot of tension built up in the match, lots of power moves and near falls lead up to a stalling fisherman buster from Lesnar, that's a new one, I totally would have marked out for the Ki Krusher once he had Angle up . This all leads into an F5 which I heard someone call a DDT reversal on, but a big time botch leads to both men just falling on their faces, but credit to them they improvised a near fall and then got back up and did it again perfectly. This switches the momentum of the match as Kurt pulls down the straps and hits the Angle slam only getting two, he then pulls his straps up again, and down again and puts on the Ankle Lock (I was laughing my ass off at this point) Lesnar rolls through into a ref bump and Angle locks on a weird UFC style submission, and transitions that back into the Ankle lock. Lesnar taps but with no ref. Here comes the McMahon attack, Vince hits Angle with a chair and then plays the innocent little boy with some great facial expressions, Vince is brilliant to watch when his appearance is called for. Lesnar sells the leg like an absolute champ giving Kurt an F5 on one leg, this allows Angle a chance to kick out, he tries again but Angle reverses quickly to the Ankle Lock, he drags Lesnar off the ropes three times before Lesnar gives up clean in the middle of ring, yeah you heard a clean face win with Vince standing right there at ringside, and by my watch they got more in ring time than the EC did, MAH GAWD~! Great workrate from both guys, fantastic selling from Lesnar in particular, **** match loses 1Ú2 for the F5 botch but gains a quarter back for getting up and trying again ***3/4
Kane vs RVD
Great call from JR at the start "David vs GoliathÉ.'s bigger, older, more psychotic brother." And the promo video fucking pwned, No Holds Barred stipulation was great booking, since without some "equalisers" realistically RVD wouldn't have a chance but from there on, 8 words, Spot. Rest. Spot. Rest. Spot. Rest. Spot. Rest, absolutely average in every single way, nothing to make this stand out from any other big match RVD or Kane have been involved in, no where near enough big bumps from RVD to make Kane look like the monster he's being pushed as a botch on the top rope clothesline from Kane and the insanely weak looking Tombstone onto the steel steps mean that I never had any real interest in the match after the bell rung, one minor quarrel I had with this matchÉwhy the hell did Shane not come down and get him some of Kane? I thought that would make some sense seing as they seemed to be pushing Shane vs Kane for a decent part of the lead up to this PPV, either way, average match throughout, not great, not awful **1/2
Elimination Chamber
A mixture of great booking and terrible booking dictated this match, the great booking came about in the order of entry (oh sorry that's "random" isn't it?) Let the three guys in the match who can actually wrestle take the pace of the match in the opening minutes and don't introduce the "brawlers" until the pace has slowed right the way down, HBK, Jericho and Orton put on a decent show for the most part but it seemed pretty obvious to me now that they were just bit part players, Nash comes and goes quickly "fantastic" I was thinking, "this really is awesome booking", wow, how wrong was I, Nash lazybombs everyone in the ring before leaving for absolutely no reason, and from here the booking goes way, way, way downhill. HHH enters and gets superkicked straight back into his chamber, in the meantime Goldberg enters and starts destroying everyone in the ring, the one cool spot I expected to happen, happened, but was botched as Goldberg took two attempts to spear Jericho through that "bullet proof" glass, and Orton gets eliminatedÉyep out goes Orton, notice how I haven't mentioned any interaction between him and HHH? You know why? There fucking wasn't any, the most interesting part of the chamber didn't even materialise, the issue of Stable vs Title didn't even come up let alone get resolved so uhÉwhat exactly was the point in the wasted promo time with Orton and Flair beforehand? Oh wait there wasn't any. Goldberg continues to destroy HBK and Y2J and so destroys the three best things on Raw, so ok he's gonna get the strap, good for him, the crowd are incredibly into him at this point so I guess that's a half decent finish, he punches through the Glass of HHH's chamber which he has been locked back into and drags his ass out, dominates him for a while beforeÉHHH gets given the sledgehammer and hits Goldberg once for the win. Notice the anti-climax there? Once again a HHH title defence achieves absolutely nothing whatsoever, although the booking here was not as bas as it was at ÔMania it was still unbelievable to see, I hope HHH fucking aggravated his injury in that match and is out for the next decade or so, I really do. **1/2 because I'm feeling generous and the opening was decent.
So there you go, again Smackdown pisses all over Raw as it usually does week in week out, except this time it does at PPV, and did anyone else notice the distinct lack of Divas? I bet you didn't did you? Shows you that a PPV can easily function without pointless T&A. Overall an above average PPV on the Smackdown side and a very poor one on the Raw side.
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