Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Brock Lesnar just fucked Matt Hardy’s whole life up, Shannon Moore got a big (?) win over Tajiri, and a strange and disorganized Elimination Series crowned Raw’s Undertaker as our new Number 1 Contender for the Undisputed Title. You can watch this week’s episode here. We’re still on The Road to Unforgiven, baby! Next Big Thing!
POP: Life Partners
BOTCH: I’m Gonna Have to Write About This Angle Now
In our opening match, we continue Ray Mysterio’s de-facto mini feud with Billy & Chuck, this time against Billy of the Gunn Club. Similar to Rey vs. Rico, Gunn gets a lot of offense in, which I don’t really mind. It’s a lot like NXT Sami Zayn struggling against Titus O’Neill. Rey’s obviously the better wrestler, yeah, but he still has to fight from underneath to earn every win. Billy is also like two feet taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Rey, and he’s helped by two other relatively huge dudes, but he’s Billy Gunn, so he takes the L after a flash Victory Roll.
We don’t care about that, though, because now we get into the good stuff. Rico takes the mic and tells Chuck to, and I quote, “dig deep into those tights and pull out the love”. Chuck takes out a little box, goes down on one knee, and asks Billy to be his tag team partner for life. Billy accepts, the three boys hug, and the crowd erupts in a strange noise that’s at least 70% booing. Yoooooou looooook sooooooo good to me. Later in the night, in an interview with SmackDown’s Number 1 Announcer Funaki (Indeed!), Rico promises a spectacle, an experience, a happening. You probably know where this is headed, but on the off-chance you don’t, boy, do we got something coming.
POP: Noble Metals
In Cruiserweight Division news, remember last week when I asked “Why isn’t Shannon Moore the Number 1 Contender?” Apparently he was, they just forgot to mention it. After obtaining pinfall victories over the Cruiserweight Champion and his occasional Sinister Japanese Cohort, fan favorite Shannon Moore and his garbage-ass theme song finally, FINALLY gets his shot at the Cruiserweight title. I’ll give WWE some credit for trying to build up a Challenger over a few weeks instead of just throwing Moore out there and calling him Number 1 Contender since the division has a grand total of ten guys. I need to point out, Shannon even has a Velocity minitron. He’s not even a SmackDown guy, he’s just Velocity.
Before we get into Noble vs. Moore though, I felt a little bad giving Jamie so much shit these past few recaps, because the guy was really good in the ring. Also, because I adore this Cruiserweight belt design, but that’s beside the point. So, I took the liberty of going through his entire championship reign so far to see if I missed any hidden gems from before SummerSlam. I did not. His match with Billy Kidman at Vengeance last July was pretty good, despite an odd finish, but aside from that… yeah, not quite the Cena Open Challenge of Cruiserweight title reigns.
Still, Noble’s a great worker, just a lot closer to the Benoits and Malenkos than the Reys or Juvis. I did manage to collect some backstory for Noble and Nidia, as Nidia was originally Hurricane’s ex-girlfriend, who got her revenge by helping her new boyfriend beat him for the Cruiserweight title. From that point forwards, Noble and Nidia have been living the good, trailer park life on a Champion’s salary. Jury’s out on the whole cuckholding theory, though.
This is actually Noble’s first SmackDown title defense, as all the others aired on WWE’s uncontested A-Show, Velocity. Moore has a pretty good showing this time around, but he once again attempts a top rope ‘Rana and gets the shit powerbombed out of him (on purpose this time). Tiger Bomb, and Jamie retains. Nidia barely gets involved in this one, which is pretty nice, since it shows our champ is able to beat low-level challengers without having to Kip Sabian his way into lucky wins. After the match, Nidia asks Noble if he’s ever gonna put a ring on her finger, and Jamie reacts as you’d expect.
POP: Hardy Ain’t Ready
Matt Hardy is still alive, and he shows Moore the two or three seconds of offense he got against Brock Lesnar last week. Since he’s delirious now, he tries to recruit Shannon as an, uh… Acolyte of Matt Attitude? No, that’s not it—anyways, Bob Holly gets involved and Matt promises to serve Hardcore a double dose of Mattitude. How d’Ya Like Me Now Holly puts up his usual solid effort, but the story here is Matt slowly but surely going heel. He’s a little more subtle about it than, say, Evil Johnny Gargano, but it’s still noticeable. To my surprise, and probably yours, Holly actually gets the win here after a roll-up holding the tights. Looks like Matt still lacks the key ingredient: a cool and marketable t-shirt. Will he ever find one? You’ll have to tune in to find out!
POP: Crashed In
On the subject of Hardcore, Crash (née Holly) is now an official SmackDown star, surely a gigantic signing for the blue brand. This happened on Raw, so it’s not quite canon, but Eric Bischoff received news one of his stars was leaving for SmackDown to be with a family member. He then interrupted a Crash vs. Jeff Hardy match to have his henchmen, 3-Minute Warning, kick Jeff’s ass for leaving the brand. Except, y’know, the Superheavyweight over here was the one leaving. Whoops. Crash even runs into his cousin, who wishes him luck in a heartwarming little moment to remind you that, oh yeah, these characters all exist within the same universe and most of them have plenty of history with one another.
Crash is up against former Cruiserweight champ The Hurricane, which makes sense, as Crash joined SmackDown specifically to be a part of the Cruisers division. Hurricane busts out the El Phantasmo tree of woe ball-stomp (the crowd collectively groans) and that avalanche swinging neckbreaker that pops me every single time. It’s a night of roll-ups, it seems, as Crash reverses the Hurrichokeslam into a Peterson Roll, and the Cruiserweight division’s got itself a new challenger.
POP: SummerSlam 2016
Brock is back in action against future thousand-time World Champion Randy Orton, and Heyman makes sure to put 20-year-old Randy over right before the inevitable occurs. Orton’s still at the bottom of the totem pole, but everything Paul says makes sense: Randy’s a third-generation wrestler who trained alongside Brock, knows his every move, and is a couple inches taller than him. I’m sure he’ll do great!
Randy shows no fear, going right after the big man and working smarter instead of harder. He even hits that headlock backbreaker he likes to do. Brock retaliates by doing his thing and whipping Randy’s third-generation ass into the center of the earth. The finish is great; Randy goes for his patented… Ricky Steamboat crossbody (ah, yes) and Lesnar simply rolls through and F-5s him. Cole and Tazz can’t believe it. Luckily, Randy will never again have to wrestle a man who reverses a crossbody into a Fireman’s Carry Slam. Thank God.
POP: Big Markie
Mark Henry, a very nice and polite coworker, makes sure to congratulate Billy and Chuck on their engagement. Good dude. Loves to have fun, the announce team notes. Henry wrestles Tajiri in an odd singles match. I say odd because the commentators put over Mysterio for being a Cruiserweight who wrestles Heavyweights, all while Tajiri’s out here trying to tarantula the strongest man in the world. This was like a decade before Mark Henry did anything relevant though, so Tajiri’s probably fine. The World’s Strongest Man who also loves to have fun! gets a W here, which definitely means WWE has big plans for him. I can’t wait to see where they go with this huge, scary, inhumanly powerful athlete in the next eight-to-nine years.
POP: Do You Bleed?
BOTCH: Talking ‘Bout Family
Stephanie moderates a face-to-face meeting between both halves of the Unforgiven title match, and it’s pretty great. Brock’s obviously confident here, he even does the talking for himself, but Taker knows Lesnar’s inexperience. Even as Champion, Brock has never been tested. He’s never suffered a pinfall loss, he’s never even been in danger of one. No one has managed to hurt the Beast, and that’s where Taker comes in. It’s an interesting dynamic, not just because Taker is a believable challenger, but because he’s a credible threat. If anyone can truly make Brock bleed, it’s him.
Heyman inserts himself to shit-talk Taker’s pregnant wife and unborn child, call him unfocused and say he’ll provide for Sara should Taker lose to Brock, but he won’t provide for the kid. Paul is incredibly good at this, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how tiring WWE’s use of “DON’T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MY FAMILY” is after all these years. It’s not an inherently bad trope, and it’s used pretty well here, but it’s still something you see more or less every month if you keep up with this goddamn company.
BOTCH: Apostasy
In a nice bit of character continuity, Reverend D-Von shows up to loudly complain about the sinful gay marriage proposal on live TV. Bad news for D-Von, I guess, because Steph announces the proper sinful gay marriage ceremony will take place one week from tonight IN THAT VERY RING. Oh god, one week. Before D-Von can get to preaching about Adam & Steve, Steph reminds him of his match against no-longer-Deacon Batista. The match starts off great, with D-Von throwing strikes and screaming “I MADE YOU”. Deep stuff. D-Von gets a little bit of offense after using a chair (SmackDown’s favorite spot, it would appear), but Batista just kinda Batista Bombs him outta nowhere for the three count. Cole calls Batista “SmackDown Exclusive”, which is really interesting considering this is the last SmackDown match Batista has until like 2005. See you on PPV, Dave!
???: Existence is Ass
Backstage, Edge tries to convince Rikishi to do the Stinkface in their six-man tag later tonight, but Big Kish tells him the Stinkface is no laughing matter. The Stinkface is symbolic, Edge. That ass? That’s the ass of life. The same ass people like Rikishi have been feeling their entire lives, and it stinks. Rikishi’s here TONIGHT to let his opponents feel what HE feels, and let them SMELL HIS ASS. I didn’t make any of that up. Rikishi literally said all of that, I just wrote it down. This is not a joke.
POP: The Faux SmackDown Six
As they prepare for the main event, Guerrero and Angle compare which of their veins look more disgusting. Eddie tries to pawn Kurt’s medals and Angle calls him “Cheech”, so these two clearly don’t get along. Before they can play “Can They Coexist?”, Benoit overhears Kurt calling him a Rabid Chihuahua and cackles maniacally like a Legion of Doom member. The other one.
Our main event tonight is Edge, Rikishi & The Undertaker against The Can-Lat Connection & Kurt Angle. Four of these men are about to get into very serious business, but for the moment, this is a very smart way to weave all these different feuds together. Rikishi was injured by Benoit and Eddie, the latter still isn’t done with Edge, and there’s lingering tension between Benoit and Angle, who just lost to Taker the previous week. Angle’s still mad at both Taker and the Crippler, since he wasn’t involved in the finish of the Number 1 Contender’s Match. Rikishi gets into the match, and the first thing he does is attack Eddie and Benoit. Edge gets tagged in, and he goes right after Guerrero. Just great continuity from everyone involved, with smart tag team wrestling from the heels.
Eddie, Angle and Benoit could probably get three and a quarter stars out of a pack of Power Rangers putties, but the faces put up a great fight. Rikishi eventually gets his pretencious-ass Stinkface (stoic-face?) on Angle. Benoit finds this incredibly amusing, presumably because he missed Rikishi’s explanation on how his asshole represents life itself, and the two men butt heads. Angle and Benoit both lose about 50 IQ points when they’re around each other, so they start fighting among themselves. Eddie just looks on in anger as his shithead tag partners try to lock submissions on one another outside of the ring.
This leaves poor Latino Heat all alone in there with a 6’10 zombie biker, a 6’5 handsome Canadian man and a 350lb Samoan with his whole deep, metaphoric ass out. No joke, this might be one of the greatest Eddie Guerrero moments of all time. Anyways, Rikishi backs that thang up, and the faces roll. Good stuff.
And that’s our show! Join us next week as Hardcore Holly rides his momentum into a match with Brock Lesnar (oh god oh fuck), Billy and Chuck tie the knot (oh god oh fuck), Eddie gets a helping hand, a SummerSlam rematch, women’s action and the rise of Matt Hardy, for real this time. Make sure to leave a comment below (I read all of them, trust me) and join the Discord. SmackDown!
