Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Chuck Palumbo put a ring on Billy Gunn, Jamie Noble defended his Cruiserweight Championship, Crash Holly made his paramount debut, Brock Lesnar deadlifted Randy Orton into an F-5, and Chris Benoit laughed at Kurt Angle’s misery. You can watch this week’s episode here. We’re on The Road to Unforgiven, yes we are! Next Big Thing!
LITERAL BOTCH: On Your Head
To get you up to speed, Stephanie McMahon announced a Number 1 Contender’s Elimination Series (don’t ask) to determine Brock Lesnar’s first challenger. Bob Holly loudly whined about being excluded while Matt Hardy got a bit too big for his britches and earned himself a mauling at the hands of Lesnar. The following week, Hardy picked a fight with Alabama Bob, who beat him in much less dominant fashion. Therefore, this week, Hardcore gets his own chance to wrestle the Undisputed Champion, non-title.
This is pretty good show-to-show programming, as you’re giving some of your low-end guys story threads and upward momentum, putting your hotshot champ in there with a pain-in-the-ass veteran like Holly, and successfully feeding cans to your big monster heel three weeks in a row. The match ain’t half bad, either, these two have a good dynamic at play. Brock looks like a Rob Liefeld character and he kicks Holly’s ass, but Hardcore’s been waiting for this. Holly fights, always. He might not win, but he fights.
Oh, and then, uh
Yup. Brock goes for a Powerbomb, Holly doesn’t go up, and Lesnar just drops him right on his neck. The match doesn’t end there, Brock tries a second powerbomb and Holly manages to get a dropkick and a rollup, but you can tell something’s not quite right by how the two guys completely switch sides in one of the most obvious edits I’ve ever seen. The Powerbomb spot was so terrible that plenty of people assumed Holly intentionally sandbagged Brock in an attempt to make him look bad, but Hardcore later claimed it was just a timing issue. Whatever it was, it didn’t end well for Holly’s neck. Brock mercy kills Hardcore, and that’s it for Alabama Bob until next November. Godspeed, Spark Plug.
POP: Two to Tango
BOTCH: Cheek Psychology
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our six. Meet little Chavo Guerrero, Eddie’s nephew. Chavo’s by far the least successful of the sextet, as he’s the only one to never hold a world title. Unless you count the ECW belt, which I seriously doubt. But still, I mean… he’s Chavo. Like, I don’t know any Chavo Guerrero fans, (do you?) but it’s always nice to have him around. Los Guerreros are in action tonight against Edge and Young Lion John Cena. Edge and Cena, huh? Hope you two don’t get too attached to each other.
Eddie doesn’t even let Edge take off his weird leather coat before heat-seeking his ass, still mad about getting his head shoved into Rikishi’s tunnel last week. The faces have the power and height advantage, but Eddie and Chavo, shockingly, Cheat 2 Win. In New Japan tradition, the lowest-tiered guy (Cena) gets the hot tag and eats the pinfall after a Brainbuster/Frog Splash double team. Before I can make a Blake and Murphy reference, Chavo suggests they follow the Hammurabi Code and shove Edge’s face into his ass. Chavo’s ass, I mean, not Edge’s own ass. What the fuck am I writing. Whatever, Edge goofs Los Dos Chiflados and shoves Eddie’s face into his nephew’s taint. Yes, SmackDown put their hot heel tag team over and then immediately made one of them eat the other one’s ass. Nice going!
Chavo then tries to explain the fact that he can’t quite recognize which face is shoved against his butthole (a very weak excuse), and we get this exchange:
Chavo: I WIPED! I WIPED!
Eddie: QUE ESTAS PENSANDO ESSE, TE VOY A MATAR
Chavo: I’M SORRY EDDIE, I THOUGHT IT WAS HIS FACE!
Eddie: WELL IT WAS MY FACE, HOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES
Lots of ass-based tension in the Guerrero household as of late.
POP: The Can-Am Connection
It’s another SummerSlam rematch as Kurt Angle battles Rey Mysterio. They’re in Mini-apolis, so Angle makes the obvious joke. Tazz even goes out of his way to say “Good segway. I hate short people”. Being the same height as Tazz, I can confirm; if there’s anything us manlets truly hate, it’s people shorter than ourselves. Kurt also threatens to beat Chris Benoit up for laughing at him, which I’m sure won’t come back into play later. Then he calls out Rey and, um… I’ll just quote Kurt here:
“You’re a boy… in a man’s world! And I’m a man who loves to play with boys! Shut up, hold on a second! Rey Mysterio, what I meant to say… is you’re a boy and I’m a man! And tonight, I’m gonna love to manhandle you! …SHUT UP! Rey Mysterio! You remember this, pal! You’re a BOY and I’m a MAN, and when you and I get together here tonight, I’m gonna get ON TOP OF YOU—”
Angle and Mysterio are pretty great, if you hadn’t noticed. Kurt’s just an unbelievable shithead, and you can tell those two are having fun in there. Hell, they do a little Benny Hill chase around the ring. I don’t mean ringside; I mean within the actual ring. Rey pulls out an Arabian Press, and Angle quickly pays him back by suplexing his ass out into the front row. These two are on point here. Angle takes another win after an avalanche Angle Slam, which surprised me at first, but it makes sense. Rey’s a top tier guy, sure, but he’s a Cruiserweight, and Kurt’s a two-time world champion. A competitive loss to Angle is still a pretty good way to go.
Remember two weeks ago, when Benoit injured Rikishi and then Crossfaced him to near-death? Big ‘Kish remembers. Unfortunately, we don’t get that utopian 11-minute strong style shoot fight between Chris Benoit and Rikishi, as Angle runs in for the DQ about three minutes in. Kurt’s unable to Angle Slam ‘Kishi, but he does help him Stinkface Benoit. The enemy of my enemy sticks his ass in the face of said enemy. You might be noticing a pattern in these write-ups. Angle laughs all the way up the ramp, and Benoit/Angle is set for Unforgiven. I don’t feel like “Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit” necessitated a Stinkface angle to get over, but I’ll take it.
POP: Wedlocked
BOTCH: Succès de Scandale
Well, nothing to it but to do it. I’ve been dreading this write-up for quite a while, since I already knew full well what was about to happen from the start, but we’ll get to that in just a sec. Firstly, let’s back up a bit. Tonight’s episode was the Season Premiere of SmackDown, whatever that means, and boy, they wanted all eyes on them. Ever since WCW kicked the bucket, and ever since WWE mutilated its corpse so badly they completely drained any and all money to be made from it, ratings were kinda low. The company (read: Vince) wanted headlines, big headlines, and this was their master plan. The first ever same sex wedding in wrestling history.
They got everyone for this: The Today Show, Howard Stern, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Post… Media coverage, lots of it. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation even got involved and gave WWE their full support, plus a wedding gift (“a gravy boat from the Pottery Barn”, according to WrestleCrap). Yes, somehow, for one night only, Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo equaled ratings. So, what happened?
Early in the show, Rico tries to find two little groom statues for the wedding cake, which you think he would’ve done BEFORE tonight, but I guess that’s what happens when you try to prepare a commitment ceremony in one week’s time. He also invites Stephanie to the wedding, but Steph notes she doesn’t exactly have the best track record with this sort of thing. Rico almost suffers a mental breakdown on account of, y’know, organizing a whole-ass wedding on national TV within a week’s notice, and Stephanie eventually acquiesces. Rico’s all nerves heading into the ceremony, which he should be, I mean, he asked for mahogany!
THIS IS NOT MAHOGANY. Anyways, the humorously old and decrepit officiant asks Billy and Chuck to give their bows and Chuck mentions Billy’s eponymous yet non-existent Ass. Your ass was never that good, Billy. Jesus, WHY DOES THIS COLUMN KEEP DEVOLVING INTO ASSES—whatever, we then get a pretty great montage of Billy and Chuck being overtly gay. The humorously old and decrepit officiant talks for an absurd amount of time before getting interrupted by the goddamn Godfather.
Yes, Ho Train and all. There’s like thirty hoes out there. Godfather’s here to party, but he definitely didn’t read the room on this one. The wrestling pimp attempts to stop the wedding, and he calls out both Billy and Chuck for repeatedly fucking his hoes. Chuck likes fat girls, apparently? Boy, they are really stretching this thing out, huh. Skipping right to the end, Billy and Chuck shut the whole thing down because, well, they’re not actually gay.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Yeah, turns out it was all just one big publicity stunt! Miss me with that gay shit. Billy and Chuck were just pretending to be gay to further their careers, which, uh… I mean, shit, they’re kinda right. Aren’t they? Like, think about it. Do you honestly think a tag team formed by Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo would’ve ever gotten anywhere in life if they weren’t comically gay? That’s literally the only reason these two made it past Sunday Night Heat. This gimmick won them the tag titles. I respect the hustle, I do. Luckily, the humorously old and decrepit officiant gets everything under control and ah GOD DAMMIT
So, TURNS OUT TURNS OUT TURNS OUT the humorously old and decrepit officiant was Chameleon Eric Bischoff all along. Rico kicks Billy straight in the ‘nads, Three Minute Warning invades, Stephanie eats a Samoan Drop and the entire SmackDown roster chases them out of the building. Yup, you guessed it, this entire angle… is just Raw vs. SmackDown. The THRILLING rivalry that’s been picking up steam these last few weeks.
So okay, let’s play catch up: right after SummerSlam, Brock Lesnar took the Undisputed belt to SmackDown and left Raw without a world title. Immediately afterwards, both the Undertaker and da GOAT Crash Holly jumped ship. Even on commentary, you had Tazz and Cole openly shitting on Eric Bischoff’s HLA angle, which by the way, makes me SO glad I’m not recapping Raw. And, sure enough, this entire wedding storyline and the whole year-long Billy & Chuck angle exists only to further the goddamn Brand Supremacy feud. That, and ratings. Lots of ratings.
Obviously, it didn’t do anything for anyone else, as both Billy & Chuck and 3MW were on their last legs as tag teams, but we’re talking headlines, daddy, headlines. I’ll admit, in a vacuum, the segment is pretty entertaining, but I don’t reckon The Gay Community liked it all that much. It seems our friends at GLAAD didn’t know that Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo weren’t a real-life gay couple for real, and the bait and switch totally pissed them off. And yes, obviously, it was in very poor taste of WWE to tease a same sex wedding and not deliver, but you already know how these things go. “Perhaps The Most Shocking Season Premiere in TV History”, Michael Cole assures us.
Headlines, daddy.
Headlines.
BOTCH: Need a Little Time
Getting back into things… a Divas match. It goes two minutes. Fine, fine. Nidia wrestles Hall of Famer Torrie Wilson, a gorgeous woman who seriously did not need to wrestle. A month ago, Jamie Noble interfered in the first Nidia vs. Torrie Wilson match to give his girlfriend the win, so we’re doing it again. Jamie’s banned from ringside this time around, hurrah for plot progression. Torrie fucks up a corner evasion and gets a swinging neckbreaker out of nowhere for three. It begins to dawn on me that I’ll be writing about Torrie Wilson matches for foreseeable future. The photograph is in my hand. It is 2002. Torrie Wilson defeats Nidia after a Swinging Neckbreaker. I am one year old. The photograph is falling. It is 2020. I recap an episode of SmackDown. I am nineteen years old. The photograph lies in the sand at my feet. I am watching Nidia and Torrie Wilson wrestle for two minutes. I am trying to give a name to the force that set them in motion.
POP: Back to V1
Despite Paul Heyman’s threats to financially support Undertaker’s wife in case he gets injured (ooh!), Taker actually bring the pregnant Sara along for this episode. He claims his wife is here to see some friends and makes sure to shit on the random SmackDown correspondent whose name I do not know and refuse to look up. Yeah dude, bring your pregnant wife to the show after your gigantic, morally aloof rival and his hobgoblin-ass manager called attention to her. Don’t even worry about it. Matt Hardy, who must have head completely up his own ass by now, decides it’s a good time to be overbearing and congratulate the Dead Man. Taker’s clearly not in the mood to act polite, but Hardy digs too deep and gets himself shoved into a nearby door. He promises to give Undertaker a Mattitude Adjustment (you’ll never catch him in the next man’s sweater) which is especially funny considering he got rolled up by Bombastic Bob last week.
Matt demands a match against ‘Taker in the main event, which begs the usual question: Was there really no other main event set for tonight? Did Stephanie expect Billy and Chuck’s wedding to run half an hour or were Nidia and Torrie Wilson gonna close the show? Does this woman book stuff ahead of time or does she just spin a roulette in her office and call shit on the fly?
Bad news is, Matt still doesn’t have a cool and marketable t-shirt. Get your act together, man. Good news is, Matt doesn’t hold a grudge, as Brock Lesnar accompanies him to the ring. Taker’s got Hardy dead to rights immediately, so Heyman grabs a chair and hops on the apron five or six times within the span of 90 seconds. Matt then hits a low blow, which Taker absolutely does not sell, and Lesnar takes him out and gets in a few cheap shots. Both Heyman and Brock get ejected from ringside, and even after ALL THAT, Hardy still gets the shit kicked out of him. Poor guy can’t catch a break. Hardy wins, I guess, when Taker completely bails on the match to stop Heyman from harassing his pregnant wife. I mean, Matt doesn’t win per se, the ref never calls for the bell or anything, but you take what you can get. Brock fucks Taker’s whole night up with a chair shot and psychosexually intimidates his pregnant wife in a pretty great visual.
Not to defend Brock or his asshole yank agent, but Taker should’ve definitely seen this shit coming. And hey, despite the general babyface headassery, I like this. First, we’re properly establishing Lesnar as the heel instead of a rude, blood-thirsty tweener; second, we’re taking the whole “you talkin’ bout my FAMILY?!” bit and running with it. Brock and Heyman didn’t just call Taker an old, unfocused dad, but they went out of their way to threaten the mother of his child. Now Taker isn’t simply a disgruntled vet teaching the kid a lesson, he’s gonna beat his ass up. Of course, the main takeaway here is that, YES, Matt Hardy technically holds a win over the Undertaker. This better not further damage his already fractured ego!
And that’s our show! Join us next week as the Nidia/Torrie Wilson feud marches on, Stephanie fires another shot in the great Brand Supremacy War, Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit co-exist, Brock Lesnar kills another future star, and he and Taker finally come to blows. Make sure to leave a comment below (I read all of them, trust me) and join the Discord. SmackDown!
