Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. We just got done with No Mercy 2002, where Booker T and Goldust continued to fail, Torrie Wilson easily defeated Dawn Marie, Triple H retained his title against Katie Vick’s possible murderer, the SmackDown tags tore the house down and Brock and Taker bled. They bled a lot. You can watch this week’s episode here. We’re now on The Road to Survivor Series! Next Big Thing!
POP: Wight Out, Part I
Matt Hardy (in his new, cool, marketable t-shirt!) opens the show tonight in a singles against Rikishi. Our Matt Facts for the day are “MATTITUDE IS PRACTICED IN OVER 100 COUNTRIES” and “MATT HARDY’S BEDTIME IS 4 AM”. So is mine, every time I sit down to write these things. Big ‘Kish shoved his ass into Matt’s face in a mixed tag last week, so we’re keeping this party going. This being Rikishi, he starts the match by wiping his ass with Matt’s new merch. Rikishi tries a Stinkface, but the ref stops him (Is the Stinkface legal?) and Matt sneaks in a low blow. With the Stinkface neutralized, Rikishi’s forced to resort to an old friend… the Rikishi Driver. God damn, I love that move. Imagine if Rikishi suddenly went King’s Road and hit that every week. ‘Kish gets the win, and Michael Cole leaves us with an ominous message:
Mattitude has been dee-leted!
You don’t know the half of it. Rikishi dances in victory, but something else lurks in the shadows…
Well, it’s the Big Show! Seven foot tall! Five hundred pounds! Traded to SmackDown! Paul Wight’s been twiddling his thumbs on Raw for months on end, but now Big Show’s on the A Show. He chokeslams Rikishi and announces his intentions to make an impact. Show is very tall and very heavy so he challenges WWE Champion Brock Lesnar right out the gate. Sounds like a program to me! Show’s big and scary, so he’s a fine candidate to give Brock an impressive defense for Survivor Series. It’s not ideal, but at least we’re not getting Lesnar/Taker III.
BOTCH: Halloween’s Next Week, Dumbass
Oh, I forgot to mention, we’re in Memphis tonight. Just thought I’d bring that up. We got a Cruiserweight title match scheduled between Noble and Tajiri, even though Tajiri lost on Sunday and has no real claim to a title shot. Notice how I’m whining about “championship prestige” while the Cruiserweight champ cuts a promo dressed like shitty Elvis. Jamie does a downright terrible Elvis impersonation (I think? Are there good Elvis impersonations?) before Tajiri shows up. Tajiri’s so enraged that he puts on Jamie’s dollar store glasses and shows Memphis how it’s done. Shocked at this display of cultural appropriation, Noble mocks Tajiri and gets kicked straight in the dome.
Tajiri injures his leg after lightly tapping the steel post, so Noble goes Dean Malenko on him for a little. Will we finally see Jamie Noble win a match via submission work and good wrestling? Nah, he reverses an O’Connor Roll into a Prawn Hold and grabs onto Nidia for leverage. Jamie Noble’s a good wrestler, guys, he doesn’t need to have the exact same fucking match every week. Bonus points to Tazz for stealing the wig and revealing Elvis is actually from Brooklyn.
Look at the bush on me! FEEL THE BUSH!
BOTCH: Mouth to Mouth
Resident vixen Dawn Marie apologizes to Torrie for everything that’s happened between them. She admits to having feelings for Al (Torrie’s father, in case you haven’t been following along) but she says she’ll break things off. What a nice lady! Later, Dawn strategically bumps into Al backstage and… hold up, who the fuck keeps driving Al Wilson to all these shows? We’re in Memphis. This isn’t even close to his hometown. Whatever, she plays Al like a damn fiddle and the two make out. Things are heating up in the dad-boning division.
BOTCH: Wight Out, Part II
The Undertaker is back to talk shit after getting hit, and he demands Brock’s presence. Heyman tells him Brock doesn’t care and isn’t gonna show up (what is this, 2018?) but Brock completely ignores Paul and comes out anyway. Brock not doing what Heyman says? This might be going somewhere. Taker tells Brock he would’ve beaten him last sundy if his hand wasn’t broken, which is pretty funny coming from the guy who just bled like eight buckets full of blood. Well, he phrases it as “people keep telling me I would’ve won if my hand wasn’t broken, but it’s no excuse”. Yeah Taker, you don’t sound salty about this at all. Taker actually congratulates Lesnar for playing mind games with him… I mean, it’s the Undertaker, he should know a fair bit about fucking with your opponents. Lesnar kinda-sorta apologizes for threatening Taker’s wife and the two share a bit of mutual respect. Heyman is confused. Interesting…
Taker teases a retirement speech (18 years in advance), but the Big Show interrupts. The Unholy Alliance reunites! Kidding, kidding. Big Show tells Taker HE was responsible for Brock’s victory last Sunday, even though he literally just showed up. Show’s phrasing implies he and Taker have been wrestling on house shows for the past two years and that’s why Taker’s injured, which… might be true? What does any of that have to do with Brock Lesnar? They don’t explain it very well. Big Show and Taker play a little red light/green light up the ramp and Show eventually catches up and yeets his ass off the stage.
Cole and Tazz try their best Owen voices as Taker gets medical help, but he’s such a darn badass he refuses to be stretchered out of the building. Y’know, there’s a point where this whole tough guy act stops being cool and becomes weirdly pathetic. I think we’re past that. This segments feels like twenty minutes long, and at least ten of them are Taker crawling away screaming “GET OFF ME” at Arn Anderson. Taker’s gonna take some time off until next year, but don’t worry, when he comes back he’ll still be a badass who refuses other people’s help!
POP: They Are Number One
I wrote like five hundred words on how much I liked the tag division in the No Mercy recap, but it bears repeating: when I started writing this, all this show had was Billy and Chuck. Now, not only are the two best wrestlers in the world having baller tag matches with the top babyfaces in your company, but we’re quickly getting a Number 1 Contender’s bout between other 4/6ths of the SmackDown Six. They could’ve easily just given either of these teams a title match with no justification, but lucky for us SmackDown’s tag division is really, really good. Los Guerreros vs. Mysterio & Edge (team name: West Coast Brood?) was the only tag match left to run at this point, so this makes sense.
Anyways, the match is short, but a lot of fun. One thing I’ve noticed about Eddie Guerrero these past few weeks is that he moves like a character in one of the old SmackDown games. I’m serious, pay attention to him, he whiplashes with every breath he takes. My man never stops bouncing. Let’s not forget about the other three, though; the chemistry between these guys is absolutely insane. They’ve gotten so good at tagging now that they’re pulling out 3 Chrono Trigger Double Techs per minute. Eddie lands an Hilo onto Edge while he’s getting the pinfall and rolls Chavo over him… and then Rey lands a legdrop on Chavo and rolls Edge back into the cover. Eddie doesn’t notice, as he’s too busy celebrating while the ref counts to three. Rey and Edge are your new Number 1 Contenders! Keep the tag matches coming, pretty please.
BOTCH: 50/50
Last week, John Cena defeated his one-time tag team partner Billy Kidman via cheating. This week, Billy Kidman defeats his one-time tag partner John Cena via cheating. It’d be really cool if this was, I dunno, 2/3 Falls or No-DQ or something to set this match apart, but it’s just another singles. Even then, it could still be great if it wen’t longer than 2:45. Kidman can’t leave good enough alone, so he pokes Cena after the win and gets his ass handed to him. Not sure what the point of this was, aside from further cementing Cena as a WWE heel by having him lose and immediately get his heat back.
POP: Wight Out, Part III
The random SmackDown correspondent whose name I do not know and refuse to look up asks Brock Lesnar about Big Show. Lesnar asks him where his best friend Funaki is. The idea of Brock Lesnar and Funaki hanging out is really amusing to me, for some reason. Brock says Big Show knows where to find him (the door has a sticker with his name on it, you see), and Big Show does just that. Heyman intercepts Show and says he believes in him but can’t allow Brock to wrestle someone like him. Brock overhears this, pushes Heyman aside and grants Big Show a title match. Looks like Heyman’s pet project’s starting to become self-aware.
POP: 4-Day Itch
Stephanie McMahon is here to award a very cheap (yet very big) trophy to our inaugural WWE Tag Team Champions. Not to be confused with the World Tag Team Champions. See, cause SmackDown has the WWE title and Raw has the World title. Real easy to remember. Kurt hogs the trophy and takes full credit for winning the belts; Benoit takes offense to this. These guys are very stupid, and they’re still measuring dicks even after winning the titles, but c’mon. Steph could’ve just bought two trophies. Besides the Dusty Cup, most tag tournaments have two trophies. She had to know this was gonna happen.
The boys do a Brock vs. Roman-style tug of war and end up smashing the trophy into Stephanie’s skull. Steph slaps Kurt (which Benoit finds very funny) and then slaps Benoit. She also announces Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle (YES YES YES) for the right to keep the stupid fucking trophy. Yes, Stephanie forced Angle and Benoit to get along so they could win the tag titles, and the first thing she does is make them wrestle each other. I don’t know, man. Eddie and Chavo find Kurt backstage and tell him Benoit’s been going around saying he’s gonna kick Angle’s ass and break his neck. Again. Angle believes them, even though the Guerreros have never once helped a single person in their entire lives and are obviously doing this to fuck with him. Kurt Angle is really stupid! They try a different tactic with Benoit, asking their friend for forgiveness after all they’ve done. Benoit doesn’t seem to mind. After all, it’s SmackDown, getting brained with a steel chair is just a regular Friday around here.
Nevermind that, KURT ANGLE VS. CHRIS BENOIT, BABY! The Mega-Powers Explode! I love the idea of these two begrudgingly winning a tag title tournament and then promptly suplexing each other the moment they win the belts. There’s something about Angle and Benoit that I don’t think any other two wrestlers in WWE have ever been able to replicate. The sheer hatred seeps through in every single move. Everything, from the chops, to the suplexes, to the holds, done with such intensity, such violence. Then Benoit lands a headbutt all the way across the ring to remind me that, oh right, this shit might be a bit much sometimes.
We get a couple callbacks to their Unforgiven match, then Los Guerreros run in to smash Kurt with the belt and give Benoit the win. Maybe they figure they can get on Benoit’s good side and snatch those tag titles from him all at the same time. The finish sucked one or two dicks, but it’s Angle vs. Benoit, so the match was still pretty good. Angle attacks Benoit afterwards and destroys the cheap-ass bowling trophy for good measure. The Legendary Trophy arc may be over, but these two still have those tag belts to defend!
And that’s our show! Join us next week for something a little different, as we take a detour with WWE Rebellion 2002, a (non-canon) United Kingdom SmackDown exclusive PPV, featuring all your favorite SmackDown stars:
- Matt Hardy, one-on-one with one of Raw’s hottest talents
- Torrie Wilson & Billy Kidman vs. John Cena & Dawn Marie
- Rey Mysterio vs. Tajiri vs. Jamie Noble, Cruiserweight Championship
- Los Guerreros vs. Angle & Benoit, WWE Tag Team Championships
- Edge vs. Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman, in a Handicap match for the WWE Championship
- …And Funaki vs. Crash! Hell yeah!
Make sure to leave a comment below (I read all of them, trust me) and join the Discord. SmackDown!
