Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Jamie Noble ate the pin again, the tag division waged war, Matt Hardy and John Cena formed the Alliance to End Rikishi, and Brock Lesnar beat the living fuck out of Paul Wight. You can watch Survivor Series here. Next Big Thing!
Writer’s note: Once again, apologies for the delay. My internet connection’s still weird from time to time. To make up for it, I wrote a bunch of paragraphs about the Elimination Chamber!
POP: Band of Brothers
You guys ready for Survivor Series? You guys ready for Three Minute Warning?! No? Understandable! Yeah, 3MW’s still kicking, but don’t worry, they won’t be around much longer. This is a (deep breath) Tables Elimination 6-man tag team match pitting 3MW and Rico against two Dudley Brothers and Jeff Hardy. The clock’s also ticking on Jeff, so enjoy him while he’s still here. Since D-Von’s busy on SmackDown, Jeff has to make do with Bubba and Spike, which is honestly a great combination. Sure, the Dudleys are one of the best tag teams in history, but nothing beats Little Spike Dudley getting shot put into the goddamn sun.
This is a garbage match, and not a bad one at that. These guys never stop moving. It’s just spot-spot-spot-spot-spot, and the MSG crowd loves the faces. Spike’s the first to go, obviously, getting yanked through a table by two giant Samoans. Next up is Rosey, who falls prey to the traditional Jeff Hardy PPV dive. And then Jamal dives onto Jeff. Goddamn irony. Bubba powerbombs Jamal through a table, but the heels realize they don’t need to leave after being eliminated, and they gang up on Bubba. Look, there’s no rule stopping them. But just when it looks like Bubba Ray’s about to meet his maker… God opens a window.
Oh brother, TESTIFY! D-Von runs out, cleans house, and Rico falls to the 3D. This marks the end of the Reverend D-Von run (godspeed) and our boy is officially a Raw guy now. Kyrie Eleison, my brother. Kyrie Eleison.
???: Who Names Their Band “Saliva”
At WWE: The World (essentially a big WWE themed bar in Times Square), everyone’s least favorite early 2000s rock band plays their terrible live rendition of this month’s PPV theme, Always. Wrestling really needs to stop with the live concerts, man. There have been very few good live performances in wrestling history and half of them come from NXT. I should mention, Saliva also composed Chris Jericho’s new theme song for tonight, King of My World. It lasted like two weeks. It’s in the bottom tier of Jericho themes, but it’s fine.
POP: Foot the Bill
Jamie Noble, noted loser, has lost to Billy Kidman two weeks in a row on SmackDown. You see, Noble is Cruiserweight Champion, which means he sucks. So now we got Billy Kidman vs. Jamie Noble, for the title this time. Billy’s got a brand-new theme song, the iconic “You Can Run”, which features some very interesting lyrics:
Keep acting tough, it’s gonna get creepy
All of the sudden, you’re starting to feel sleepy
But in these streets, when you doze off
You wake up with your clothes off
Ashamed, feeling so lost
It’s not exactly what comes to mind when I think “Billy Kidman”, but hey, the song’s good. Billy and Jamie have wrestled before, on PPV even, and they’re always great together. Billy understands that Jamie Noble’s greatest weakness is getting pinned, so he goes for covers early. Jamie’s a ring general, though, and as Tazz notes (in maybe my favorite Tazz moment yet): “Noble’s got something up his sleeve here, but he has no shirt on, so he has no sleeves!”. It’s impossible to duplicate his tone of voice in text, but he sounds SO proud of himself.
Nidia gets involved, slapping Billy right in front of the ref. Like, he stares right at her and he doesn’t call for the bell. Even the ref’s like “eh, it’s Nidia, she’ll tire herself out” Noble throws everything at Billy, including the dopest DDT I’ve ever seen, but Kidman keeps kicking out. Billy manages to knock Nidia and Noble down in quick succession, just long enough to land a Shooting Star Press. Billy Kidman has pinned the Cruiserweight Champion! Conversely, Billy Kidman is Cruiserweight Champion!
POP, I GUESS?: A Woman Scorned
At No Mercy, Trish Stratus defeated Victoria in a mediocre match to retain the Women’s title. WWE’s yet to give me a good women’s match, but check this out: Trish vs. Victoria Part II, Hardcore rules. Sounds good to me! There’s a story here, which I’d be happy to discuss if I gave a shit about Raw. Here’s the short version: Victoria used to know Trish back from their modeling days, and she’s mad at Trish for being more successful. Oh, and she’s also gone batshit insane now. I don’t know why, but “psycho lady” is the absolute best wrestling archetype there is. I’ve watched like two Victoria matches so far and I’m already in love with her.
This is our second garbage match tonight, and boy do they beat the living shit out of each other. It’s mostly trashcans and kendo sticks, with a couple brooms and ironing boards sprinkled in. They pull out a few weapons they don’t wind up using, though, like a mirror. Firstly, who the fuck stocks the underside of the ring, Raven? Second, how do you pull out a goddamn mirror in the middle of a wrestling match and not put someone’s head through it? Insanity.
For the most part, it’s a pretty fun contest. It’s great to see WWE taking the Women’s title seriously for once. Trish and Vicky are getting a long feud and a big gimmick match on one of the biggest PPVs of the year. A nice change of pace after months of Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie, huh? It’s not up to deathmatch standards, but it’s certainly rough. Speaking of rough, the final couple minutes are sadly pretty damn sloppy. Victoria blows Trish with a fire extinguisher and wins after… a snap suplex? Eh, I’ll take it. All hail the psycho lady!
BOTCH: The Judas Contract
Here we are, the main event. Or at least, the main event we care about. So far, I’ve been really lucky, as Brock has been main-eventing every show I’ve had to review. But now that we got that Brobdingnagian piece of scrapmetal called the Elimination Chamber (which we’ll get to in a bit), Brock’s working the middle of the PPV. I briefly considered doing this recap out of order and reviewing Brock’s match last, but it’s Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show, nobody cares about this but me. In contrast with the garbage build they did for Brock vs. Taker, the feud here’s been simple, but effective. Brock is a hotshot trying to kill a giant, and the giant has put him down every step of the way. Then, right before the PPV, Brock leaves Big Show broken and bleeding. Despite Heyman’s desperate attempts to keep Brock at bay, the champ might just be able to pull this one off.
Now, you might be thinking “Big Show hasn’t been on PPV since July, is really good enough to challenge at one of the biggest shows of the year?”. And the answer is, not really, no. Big Show wasn’t the planned opponent for this PPV. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Big Show vs. Brock is a money match, but it’s a money match for something like Vengeance or Judgement Day, not Survivor Series. According to Brock, his original opponent was supposed to be Hulk Hogan. Recall, Brock took Hogan off TV a few weeks before SummerSlam. So, what happened? Well… Hogan had to lose. And he didn’t like that. Here’s an excerpt from Brock’s book, Death Clutch:
My next opponent after Undertaker was originally supposed to be Hulk Hogan. […] Vince wanted to do a story line where Hogan was looking to settle the score, and the Lesnar vs. Hogan match would air live from Madison Square Garden as the main event of Survivor Series 2002. I would be headlining yet another pay-per-view. Vince wanted Hogan to look really good, but fall short of beating me for the title. I guess the ol’ Hulkster didn’t like that idea too much, and next thing I know, we were going with “Plan B” …the Big Show!
Wow, that is so unlike Hogan. And to think this match could’ve main-evented the show and saved me the headache. Lesnar’s working through injured ribs, so these guys don’t waste a single second. They bump the ref before the three-minute mark and the entire match clocks in under 4:20. Early on, Brock keeps trying to suplex Show and gets absolutely no air. Like I said, they bump the ref and Heyman passes Brock a chair, which means another chairshot to Big Show’s big head. Brock somehow F5s Show (which is still insane to me) and a second ref run down for the count. One, two… nothing. Heyman pulls the ref out of the ring and knocks him out. Yup, Paul’s working for Show. Brock walks right into a Chokeslam onto the steel chair, and just like that, Paul Heyman’s new client is WWE Champion.
Yes, you read that correctly, Brock Lesnar lost the WWE title to Big Show in his second fucking title program. You know how they say WWE doesn’t know how to actually book a champ, they only know how to book the chase? Let’s take a quick look at Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar is a Superstar, capital S. A genetic freak that looks like the concept of money grew two legs and learned how to deadlift. An amateur wrestling savant who can conquer literally any sport he pleases, and he’s only 25. So, what do you do? You book him in a clusterfuck of a feud with the Undertaker, have his first defense end via DQ, have his second defense be a generic Hell in a Cell match that doesn’t take advantage of any of his skills, and have him drop the belt, three months in, to Big Show.
Big Show. Big. Show. A guy you haven’t known how to book since you signed him. BIG SHOW is your world champion now, and Brock Lesnar’s back on the chase until Wrestlemania. Newsflash, asshole: YOU ALREADY DID THE CHASE. Brock beat the Hardys, he beat RVD, he beat Hogan. He beat The Rock, THE ROCK, at the second biggest show of the year. Big Show wasn’t even supposed to be booked here, and now he’s your world champion because you want Brock to win the belt AGAIN? How is it that the only time you’ve booked your world champion properly was at the UK show that nobody watched but me?! Well. Big Show won the title, Paul Heyman jumped ship, and Brock Lesnar’s back on the chase. At least we still have the tags!
POP/BOTCH: Knocked for Six
The SmackDown Six have been pulling out classics and not-exactly-classics-but-still-really-good-matches week after week, and now we finally get what we’ve been waiting for: Eddie, Chavo, Benoit, Angle, Edge, Mysterio. 2 on 2 on 2, in the same ring, at the same time. Angle and Benoit have finally buried the hatchet, and now Kurt’s giving out hugs every chance he gets. Meanwhile, Los Guerreros talk shit and then just chill on the apron for 50% of the match, cause they’re assholes. Sounds like I should be salivating over this, don’t it? And, for the most part, I am. There’s great action all around, everybody tagging in and out, and these six are almost flawless in there. Almost. There’s just oooooooone little problem.
Rey.
This is one of those nights where Rey’s just wearing the wrong mask. That’s not me being cute, I actually don’t think his mask fits. He keeps adjusting it every couple of seconds and the match just doesn’t go his way. Rey gets his head caught on the top rope off an irish whip (which, I mean, he’s 5’2, life can’t be easy for him) and then he almost fucking dies. He tries to springboard off the corner, slips, and lands directly on his neck. I’m astonished he didn’t break anything. There’s flashes of a fantastic match hidden right underneath this one, every five or so minutes they pull out a tag team sequence and blow my mind. For example, the former champs debut their new tandem move: The Crossface/Ankle Lock. A move so cool, it will never be used again. Benoit tries to break a pinfall, in an Elimination match, and accidentally elbows the shit out of Eddie’s skull. I don’t even know which of these guys is supposed to be legal, by the way.
So, aside from Rey’s encounter with his own mortality, why am I giving this a half-Botch? One word: “Elimination”. This is Survivor Series, and since we don’t have the traditional 5-on-5 or 4-on-4 elimination matches, we gotta counterbalance. The opener was elimination, the main event is elimination, and our tag match is, yes, elimination. There’s the issue. When you’re doing an elimination triple threat tag team match (and I say this because the one at NXT TakeOver: Orlando had the same issue), you really need to be careful with the pacing.
Here, Benoit and Angle get eliminated after some miscommunication, and the match just… stops. It just sorta dies, and it never really gets back to where it was. Angle and Benoit lay everyone out, and by the time the rest wake up, the crowd’s a graveyard. Eddie and Chavo try to get heat on Edge and you can hear the audience whistling. They sorta get back into it after the hot tag, but then the match turns oddly sloppy. Chavo smashes Rey with the belt and Eddie locks him in the Lasso for the tapout. Los Guerreros are finally tag team champions. Not really the SmackDown Six’s masterstroke, but they can’t all be classics.
POP: Call Me Big Poppa
Before our main event, we get a visit from Christopher Nowinski. For those uninformed, Nowinski is a Raw guy; an obnoxious Harvard graduate no one likes. Think of him as “the man most responsible for making CTE part of the national conversation”, but for now he’s just the Raw equivalent of Matt Hardy. He shits on the New York Yankees before getting interrupted by the SmackDown equivalent of Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy. Our Matt Facts for the day? “Matt keeps the room temperature at a toasty 75 degrees” (I don’t read Fahrenheit) and “Matt only drinks lowfat chocolate milk”. Matt also shits on Local Sports Team, and the two idiots argue over whether or not New Yorkers are losers or stupid. Eventually they come to the conclusion that New Yorkers are both losers and stupid. “Lupid”. And then the sirens go off.
Freakzilla’s in the building.
Meet Scott Steiner, one of the most insane specimens in wrestling history. And I don’t mean just his physique. Scotty was a part of one of the all-time great tag teams, The Steiner Brothers, alongside his brother Rick. Until he turned on Rick, went singles, and proceeded to completely lose his marbles. There’s no real way to describe Scott Steiner other than a time bomb. His promos are something to behold, as he looks like a tank made out of skin, sounds like garden gnome on meth, and half the time you can barely make out whatever the fuck he’s saying. His biggest hits include “The Big Dipper”, “He’s Fat” and “141 2/3rds Chance of Winning”. Anyway, he shows up, beats up the heels, audibly yells at someone to “GIVE [him] THAT FUCKING MIC”, screams his catchphrase and flexes his disgusting biceps. We don’t know which brand he’ll sign with yet, but I’ll give you a hint: not ours!
???: Slow News Day
Terri attempts to interview HBK before the Elimination Chamber match (I’ll get to that in a bit) but they get interrupted by… wait, what the fuck—Randy News Network? Yeah, apparently, Randy got injured after switching brands and started reporting on his own injury. There’s no point to this right now, but young Orton’s gonna join Triple H’s gang soon. I hear he became very successful! Wonder what he’s up to nowadays…
POP: The Comeback Kid
Alright, time for the Chamber. After winning the World Heavyweight Championship, Triple H has gained exactly one friend and 30 enemies. He broke Shawn Michaels’ back, sent RVD back to the midcard and tortured Kane in ways I don’t feel like recapping. So, Raw GM Eric Bischoff comes up with a brilliant plan! “Just chuck all ’em contenders in a big-ass fuckin’ cage, whatever”. Enter the Elimination Chamber, a super heavy, super scary piece of metal with ominous music and a lot of waiting around. In case you don’t know the rules, two wrestlers start with all the other wrestlers entering the match at five-minute intervals; last man standing wins. This is back when it actually looked scary and painful, and not just a really big toy set.
To be frank, I don’t know what most of these guys are doing here. Kane just lost, Van Dam lost before him, Jericho’s one half of the tag champions and Booker’s been chasing said tags for like four months. Shawn’s the one that matters here, as this is only his second match since coming back, and he beat HHH in the first one. Sure, he’s had one match, and it ended with him getting his ass kicked, but he’s got more a claim to a title shot than Kane does. Still, Shawn really needs to have a word with his barber, and special mention goes out to the worst gear he’s ever worn.
Our first two entrants are RVD and HHH, the latter of which starts bleeding less than five minutes into this 40-minute contest. That’s the least of his troubles, though, as Van Dam tries a Frog Splash off the Chamber pod and lands knee-first on the champ’s throat. Fucking hell. Booker and Van Dam are the first two to go, and the crowd is not pleased. It makes sense in Rob’s case, I’m pretty sure he blew out his knee on HHH’s neck, but eliminating the two most popular guys right off the bat is, uh… bold. Still, aside from the wacky order of eliminations and the occasional downtime, the match is good. Van Dam gets to jump around, Kane looks unstoppable and Jericho scores most of the eliminations. Triple H is still recovering from getting decapitated, though, so this isn’t precisely a star-making performance for him.
By the end of it, you got Shawn, Jericho and Hunter, all of them busted open. It’s pretty funny to look at. The second half of the match is all Shawn, who’s not only coming back from retirement and a sledgehammer to the spine, but fighting off the two biggest heels on Raw by himself. That is, until Trips starts taking shit way too seriously and turns on Jericho. Shawn gets rid of Y2J, and we’re finally down to two. And if you know 2002 Triple H, you know there’s about a 75% chance of him retaining. It doesn’t matter that he’s barely done anything for 30-something minutes, it doesn’t matter that this should be HBK’s moment. All it takes is one bullshit finish, and we’re back to square one. But no. Shawn kicks out of the Pedigree, lands Sweet Chin Music… and the Heartbreak Kid is World Heavyweight Champion. Good on ya, Raw.
And that’s our show! Man, that was a long one. Join us next week, as Billy Kidman defends his newly won belt against Tajiri, Rey Mysterio battles Jamie Noble, Chavo Guerrero battles Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero battles Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar goes on the hunt for Big Show, and Edge goes one-on-one with the new WWE Champion. Make sure to leave a comment below (I read all of them, trust me) and join the Discord. SmackDown!
