Unforgiven 2003
World Tag Team Titles Tables match: La Resistance (c) & Rob Conway vs. Bubba Ray & D-Von Dudley
The set fucking owns. Just had to get that out of the way. This show definitely has the best presentation of the year. Awesome theme song, set, match-up graphics, and video packages. To the match now. This was originally going to have Spike on the face team, but that massively disgusting table botch happened (the one where La Res tried to put Spike through the table with their finisher, but ended up missing the table, and Spike just caught the back of his head on it), and they worked an injury angle off of it. To make it up to the Dudleyz, Austin made this match for the tag titles on Heat. The commercial release dubs their Anthology song over "Bombshell", which really makes D-Von's entrance look ridiculously out of place. The match is just like every other Dudleyz vs. La Resistance match before it, which isn't bad, but not exactly good, either. Just average stuff until the eliminations. The first elimination happens when D-Von is Irish-whipped through a table set up in the corner. Note to Scott Keith: it was an offensive move, thus it's an elimination. Grenier is ousted next via a vertical suplex through a table. Good riddance to the weak link of the team. A double backdrop is attempted on Bubba, but D-Von moves the table to prevent Bubba's elimination. This match needs more of those tease spots. Bubba manages to get the Bubba Bomb (one of the worst finishers in wrestling, period) on Rene. The Dudleyz get a nice revenge spot, as they do the double spinebuster to Conway through a table on the outside, correctly this time. Down to Bubba and Rene. Grenier goes after the Dudz with the FRENCH FLAG OF MILD DISCOMFORT, SLIGHT INDIGESTION, AND LOSS OF APPETITE, but isn't successful. The one thing this gimmick's missing: loaded baguettes. That would have really gotten La Resistance over. The match ends after Rene eats 3D through a table, as the Dudleyz win the titles. Grenier would be injured soon after, leaving Dupree and Conway to be jobbers, which is sad, because the current version of La Res owns. The Dudleyz may be stale as hell, but they are quite over, as judging by the crowd reaction here, and they're solid workers by default. Decent opener, but real paint-by-numbers stuff, and nothing to really distinguish it from the other matches these guys had, except for the gimmick. **
Services match: Scott Steiner vs. Test
If Steiner wins, he gets Stacy back. If Test wins, he gets Steiner's services. Ewwwww. I really liked the video package they made for this. It makes the people more interested in seeing the match. Brawling goes on for the first part of this match, including a part where Test hides behind Stacy and gets a cheapshot on Steiner. The feud might not have been great, but Test really stepped it up in the charisma department, and is shown to be an effective heel. Test dominates with his usual, but Steiner counters a top-rope thingummabob into an overhead SUPREXXX-OOOOOOOHHHHH!!!! Steiner then hits a Lionsault and a Triple Jump Moonsault in succession. Just seeing if you were paying attention. Steiner botches the Stumble Bomb '03 by not falling on his ass. Test gets TWOOOOO off a shot to the Raisinettes. Stacy drapes Test's neck on the rope, allowing Steiner to hit the Steroidal Death Drop for a good near-fall. Test gets the pumphandle suplex, but Stacy distracts him by flashing that ass, allowing Steiner to roll Test up for TWOOOOOO. Big BOOOOOOOOOOOOOT gets another fairly hot two for Test. Test grabs a chair after distracting the ref by exposing the turnbuckle, but Stacy grabs it and accidentally clocks Steiner, allowing Test to get a second Big BOOOOOOOOOOOOOT for three, and Steiner's, ugh, "services". This match actually didn't suck. It was sloppy in parts, but there were some hot near-falls, the right guy went over this time, and Test was quite game to carry Steiner. **
Shawn Michaels vs. Randy Orton
Some dandy mat wrestling in the first little bit. At one point, Orton is tossed, but he skins the cat back in, which Lawler explains very well to the audience, saying that to beat a legend, you imitate him, and eclipse him. Neat bit of storytelling in that little move. Orton goes for something off the top rope, but Shawn catches him with an atomic drop. Nice. Shawn then clotheslines Orton out of the ring, and skins the cat back in himself, basically saying "THIS is how you do it, Junior!". Michaels gets a plancha to the outside and pulls out a German suplex inside the ring. After a bit, Michaels rams his shoulder into the non-chocolate-flavored post. Flair helpfully rams Shawn's injured shoulder into the ring post, and Orton works on it for a good while with some really good offense, including Move #359: Arm-BAR. While people will say that working on the arm is pretty asinine, considering neither of their finishers use or effect the arm, but Michaels injured it himself, so why not work on a self-inflicted injury? After a good couple of minutes in the armbar, Shawn makes his comeback, while doing an OK job of selling the arm. Not great, but not bad, either. Shawn manages to get a double axehandle despite Flair trying to knock him off the top rope, and he still adequately sells the arm. Orton comes back, but an attempted axe-handle is met with a boot, and Shawn cues up the band. SWEET CHIN MUSICÉis blocked with an RKO. Randy takes too long to cover and only gets two. The finish should have been Orton covering right away and getting three off the RKO. Randy misses his crossbody, and Shawn gets the elbow with the right arm, and sells the left on impact. That's actually good selling there. SWEET CHIN MUSICÉgets three, but Flair puts Randy's foot on the rope quickly afterwards, prompting the ref to have the match continue. Shawn tries a back suplex, but Orton has knux in hands, and punches repeatedly until Shawn falls down, and Orton gets the pin. The RKO should have been the finish, really, but other than the booking qualms, it was a really good outing. Nice old-school wrestling match, and some decent selling by Shawn. ***1/4
Lita & Trish Stratus vs. Molly Holly & Gail Kim
The faces get their own version of Poetry In Motion, with Lita hitting a clothesline out of it, and clear the ring to start us off. Lita and Gail start off, with Lita dominating. Don't worry, Gail, I'd let Lita dominate me, too. :) Trish hits a second-rope Thesz press and starts the choppin'. Trish works in her SWANK-ASS Matrix dodge and gets the Chick Kick. Trish improves more and more every week, seriously. Trish is the face in peril, and does a good job of making the hot tag seem more important. Gail gets a Dragon Sleeper, but Trish actually counters with a version of Sliced Bread #2. Kick-ass! Trish goes for the tag, but Lita gets tripped up by Molly, causing Lita to chip her tooth. Welcome back, Amy. Later on, Trish gets a hot false tag on Lita, allowing the heels to slap on a double team camel clutch-Boston crab. They are working one hell of a tag match here. Trish actually gets one of those Eddy Guerrero double headscissor things, but ANOTHER tag is cut off by Molly. Gail misses a CAREER-EATIN' LEGDROP, brother, and Trish FINALLY gets the hot tag to Lita. SPACE TORNADO DUMAS FOR EVERYONE! Nah, she hits some clotheslines, and a monkeyflip on Molly. Pretty ugly headscissors on Molly, but Lita makes up for that by getting a nice powerbomb on Kim. Stratusphere and sloppy moonsault finish for the faces. Damn, that one was good. A bit short, but they worked their asses off and worked the formula better than most of the male teams did. Good return for Lita. **1/2
Last Man Standing: Kane vs. Shane McMahon
Kane debuts his current topless look here, which pretty much cements the fact that being kicked into the dumpster didn't really do anything to him. Seriously, "creative license" my ass. This pretty much came about when Kane tombstoned Linda, and Shane wanted REVENGE, leading to Kane selling his ass off for the boss' son for most of the feud. Shane dominates to start, chairing the shit out of Kane, and working on the legs a bit. Pretty good strategy, I'll give him that. Shane dives at Kane, but Kane sort-of catches him mid-air and gives him an alleged powerslam on the floor. Kane fucking FLOORS Shane with the stairs, and gets a chokeslam in the ring, but Shane gets up at 7. The ref is bumped, and Shane bulldogs Kane on the stairs. Shane gets the Van Shaneanator, which took way long to set up, though it did look cool. Everyone lays around for a good long while, as if they were watching Undertaker vs. HHH from King of the Ring 2002 and took notes on the selling. Did Misawa run in and give everyone Tiger Driver '91 off the top rope while I was blinking or something? Finally, both guys are up at 8 after the ref comes too. Back outside, Shane gets the upper hand, as if to say "Fuck you, RVD! I can make this bastard sell for me all I want!". Kane rams Shane into the Unforgiven sign a few times. Despite some of the comments I made, I'm enjoying this, somewhat. Kane tries to crush Shane with the Spanish table, but Shane moved out of the way, and wails away on Kane with one of those "Keep Off" signs. Kane eats boom camera, and took that fucker like a man. Fuck, that had to hurt. It gets 9. Shane chokes Kane with the cable, and drags him up to the platform where the table was. How contrived was THAT spot? A monster heel should not be dragged up by his neck like that. DDT and a few monitor shots later, Shane starts to climb up the scaffolding. While Kane was down and out, the ref ignored it and didn't count, though I don't blame him, considering Shane is going for an offensive move, and the ref wanted to make sure of that before counting. Shane does his big elbow off the top of one of the mini-trons, but Kane moves out of the way, and Shane is down for the 10. Kane sold WAY too much here, and Shane got way too much offense, and the ending, while cool, really hurt Kane's monster image. The better ending, IMO, would have had Kane follow Shane up, and they fight on the scaffolding. After Kane no-sells some of Shane's shots, Kane chokeslams him off the top of the mini-tron. That would have really made him into a monster, and gotten him even more over. As a match, despite the incredible lag in the middle due to setting up and selling the Van Shaneanator, and a couple of contrived spots, it was decent. Both guys took their lumps, some of the brawling was okay, and there were a couple of good spots here and there. **1/4
Intercontinental Title: Christian (c) vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Jericho
The heels go after RVD first, but RVD fights them off, suplexing Jericho onto the floor, and hitting a moonsault on both on the outside. Christian basically disappears from the face of the earth for a while, leaving just RVD and Jericho to do their usual match, which is pretty good. Crowd doesn't give a shit, but they've sucked all night, so fuck 'em. After a while, Christian resurfaces to double-team RVD, including a fucked up flipover spot in the corner. Rob is just looking absolutely apathetic out there. RVD comes back, but a Jericho enzuigiri ends that in short order. I'm thinking they should have had the ladder match here, instead of giving it away on RAW a couple of weeks later. Double DDT on the heels by RVD, and Christian bails. Jericho and RVD do a token reversal sequence, and it ends with RVD doing a front flip plancha to Christian on the outside. Looked nice, but RVD's heart wasn't in it. Jericho chokes RVD out with his wrist tape, and the crowd STILL couldn't care less. The crowd is terrible, but it's not like RVD's giving them something to care about, anyways. Jericho goes to the chinlock, in a triple threat match. Geez, if you need to rest, drag Christian out from whatever hole he's hiding and have him do some damage to RVD. Jericho gets the COCKY PIN~!, but the crowd still doesn't bite. RVD goes for a rana, blatantly no-selling the Cocky Pin, but Jericho catches him and puts him in the Walls, which gives RVD a chance to practice his "passing a kidney stone" face for the Improv next week. RVD just cannot sell for beans anymore. It actually does wake the crowd up, though. Christian emerges from his hole and breaks up the Walls of Crab. After some brawling between Vitamin C, Christian gets the diving inverted DDT, which JR calls the Unprettier. Christian needs a name for that fucking move, if only to keep JR from calling it the Unprettier, since JR hasn't an idea what to call it, anyways, other than that. Jericho superplexes Christian after knocking RVD off the apron. Patrick counts Vitamin C down (uh...why?). Lionsault misses, and RVD gets a lethargic Rolling Thunder. Jericho and Christian are placed in a 69 position, though Patrick ignores the fact that Jericho's shoulders are down, and RVD gets the FAHVE SCHTAR on both guys. Ref, pointlessly, counts again. The good stuff comes when RVD has Jericho set up for a middle-rope electric chair drop, but Christian comes in and powerbombs them FROM THAT POSITION. Awesome spot, but Christian covers the wrong guy, and only gets two. RVD tries the FAHVE SCHTAR on Christian, but Christian blocks it with knees, and the title belt, and gets the pin. Shitty finish, lack of flow in the beginning, and crowd apathy aside, this was pretty good. It took a while to really pick up, because of the terrible crowd, but MAN, did it pick up at the end. Good carry job by Jericho. ***
Winners Announce RAW: Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler vs. Coach & Al Snow
To answer the burning question: Who's going to announce this match since all the announcers are in the ring? No one. That'll make this match exciting. Snow and Jerry Lawler, rightfully, do 90% of the work in the match, starting off with Lawler getting a couple of quick TWOOOOOs on Snow. Lawler gets a couple of fistdrops for TWOOOOOO. Snow dominates after a cheap shot, pulling out an Oklahoma roll in the process. Armbar sends the crowd to the concession stands. Snow then gets a backdrop, then Coach motions for another one. Lawler, knowing what Snow was going for, reverses into a piledriver. That was seriously a nice bit of psych, I shit you not. Coach tags in, which was not what Snow wanted, but misses the Bronco Buster. Lawler pounds Coach down a bit, then tags in Good Ol' Jim Ross. SHINING WIZARDS FOR EVERYONE! Oh, sorry, I was just thinking of what this match would look like if it were contested in the alternate universe, where the faces have evil goatees and actual announcing ability. JR "punches" Al Snow out of the ring, and goes after Coach. Coach actually makes me laugh by saying "NOT IN THE FACE!". Coach is such a good heel. Jericho comes in and dropkicks Jabba The Butt, allowing Coach to get the pin, and replace JR and King for a whole TWO weeks, until JR won their announcing duties back. I'm sorry, but nobody is going to give a shit about you "losing your job" if you keep coming back right soon after losing all the time. It's like the Dudleyz getting suspended constantly, only to be reinstated about a week or two later. The match itself, stunningly, did not suck, but you can thank Lawler and Snow for that. They worked a really basic, yet inoffensive, match, and there was some decent storytelling here, with Snow and Lawler wanting to end it quickly as to not to have to get their inexperienced partners involved. Once JR got in, it went down the crapper, but his time in there was short, which was good. *1/2
World Heavyweight Title: Triple H (c) vs. Goldberg
If HHH wins, Goldberg has to leave WWE (yeah, right), but HHH can lose the title via countout or disqualification. After some locking up, Goldberg gets a press slam on HHH early. After some standard stuff, Goldberg gets a butterfly suplex to set up the spear. HHH counters that with the high knee. That was pretty cool, actually. HHH goes to school on Goldberg's leg, including some postings and a real long figure four. Goldberg gets out of it, but falls prey to an elbow and a kneedrop. Goldberg blocks a second attempt at the kneedrop, and clotheslines the grease out of HHH's hair. Goldberg gets a nice powerslam, but starts selling THE ARM, and not the knee. That's one thing I love about Goldberg: he gives me plenty of material to work with. HHH gets a bladejob in, as per his contract, after getting rammed into the stairs. The ref is bumped in a pretty lame spot, and Goldberg is still selling the arm as if he were in there against Arn Anderson after 20 minutes. Low blow leads to a DDT, and HHH goes for the Pedigree, but Goldberg reverses into a backdrop to the outside. HHH finds his sledgehammer, and hits Goldberg in the jaw with it. I really liked how Goldberg bumped for that, just falling down as if he were a tree getting chopped down. Unfortunately for Game Boy, Goldberg spears HHH and gives him the Jackhammer to FINALLY end that horrible reign. The match was pretty bad, with Goldberg's insanely goofy selling and plodding pace when HHH was on offense. It wasn't the disaster most were predicting, though. *
Verdict: Pretty damn average stuff, but nothing terribly offensive, and a couple of good, yet very flawed, matches in there. I wouldn't call this a good show, nor is it a bad show. It's an OK show that's worth checking out once, if only to see the never-ending reign finally end, but you'd get some decent stuff here, too. I wouldn't go out of my way to find it, but if it's handy, it's worth a shot.
Very, very, very mildly recommended
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