Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Dawn Marie promised to show a sex tape on PPV, Bill DeMott returned to beat another Cruiserweight, Chris Benoit failed to take the tag titles from Eddie Guerrero, Nunzio made his underwhelming debut, Scott Steiner signed with the other guy and Big Show teamed with Main Event A-Train to defeat Angle and Edge. You can watch Armageddon here. Next Big Thing!
SLIGHT BOTCH: Too Many Guys
All the way back at SummerSlam, Booker T and Goldust challenged the legendary Un-Americans for the tag titles. The Un-Americans got their asses kicked, because they’re terrible, but still retained via shenanigans. The following month at Unforgiven, both teams participated in an eight-man tag where the Un-Americans, still the champs, ate the pin. Instead of just putting the belts on Booker and Goldust already, they opted to do like six title changes, split the Un-Americans, and have Booker and Goldust lose again at No Mercy. And then the belts weren’t defended at Survivor Series, because we had an Elimination Chamber to fill up. The Raw tags are the least prestigious belts in the company by a mile, which is extra funny when you realize Book and Goldust have been chasing them for over four months.
So, we open with Booker and Goldust vs. Dudley Boyz vs. Lance Storm and William Regal vs. Jericho and Christian. Just try and guess which of these jerkoffs is supposed to be the tag champions coming in. Yeah, it’s still Christian and Jericho, the latter wearing perhaps the worst gear I’ve ever seen from him. This is elimination rules, with two guys in the ring at all times while the rest stay on the apron. We get the first elimination five minutes in, when Regal hooks Bubba’s leg so deep that he ends up reverting the cover (pictured). He repositions and pins Bubba properly, but the bell doesn’t ring after the eliminations so JR and King assume Bubba kicked out. And then Goldie awkwardly eliminates Regal two seconds later. Good thing we booked four whole teams for this one match, huh.
After that, we get a perfectly decent Raw tag bout. The champs keep Goldust down, Booker gets the hot tag, it’s alright. Booker might be the most over guy on Raw, which is nice to see. Hell, he should probably be challenging for the world title any day now. I’m sure he’ll do great! Jericho tries to get himself DQ-ed, but the idiot walks right into a Book End for the pinfall. So, now that the Odd Couple’s eternal quest for the tag straps is over, maybe the Raw tag division will finally get good! And maybe I’ll bench press 1000 lbs and grow two feet taller, you never know.
BOTCH: Can’t Pin A Train
Edge seeks revenge tonight against SmackDown’s newest main event player, Albert A-Train. I’m not sure when or more specifically why A-Train became the number two heel on SmackDown, but here he is. He’s fine in the ring, he just happens to have no gimmick, no character and no discernible qualities aside from a dumb name and an excess of back hair. Like, what do we know about A-Train? That he likes trains? That he hits people with metal chairs? Yeah, it’s not like that applies to 3/4s of the current SmackDown roster. Why would you put Prince Albert in this role and not somebody like Matt Hardy? I can at least describe Matt’s personality and gimmick without telling you his name or what he looks like.
Edge and Train have a decent TV match until Trainman decides to swing a chair at Edge’s knee for the DQ after about seven minutes. And then Edge brains him with it, just so you know what show you’re watching. Because obviously we gotta keep this money feud going, but we can’t have A-TRAIN eating the fall on PPV. What are you, crazy? Are you out of your mind?
POP: The Eyes, Chico
Ah, here’s when the show gets good! Benoit and Guerrero screwed each other out of the WWE Championship two weeks ago on SmackDown, so now they’re wrestling. Not much of a build, but it’s Benoit and Guerrero getting 16 minutes, that’s really all you need to know. In fact, it’s seriously impressive just how much these guys give you with what little build they have. These two have only been properly feuding for a couple weeks and yet Eddie’s staring at Benoit like he’s going to knock his teeth down his throat. There’s so much palpable disdain just in the way these guys move, the way they stall, the way they strike. Well, in Benoit’s case, that’s how he usually wrestles, but I’ve never seen Eddie move like this. It’s the hatred of two best friends realizing they’ve become each other’s biggest obstacle. Benoit even brings the snot rocket back!
Eddie spends the first ten or so minutes keeping Benoit grounded, with some faint “boring” chants, which are just bewildering. Sure, it’s slow-paced, but it builds pretty well until Benoit finally starts throwing suplexes. Eddie manages to land the Frog Splash, but that move’s been relegated to nearfall status, so Benoit kicks out. We also get a Chavo run-in with the classic Guerrero Belt Shot™, though Benoit fights him off as well. Guerrero kicks out of the headbutt and locks Chris in the Lasso, but Benoit’s able to reverse into a desperation Crossface for the win. This wasn’t a balls-out sprint like No Mercy, it didn’t have the sequences of Unforgiven or the highspots of Eddie/Edge. It was simple, it was straightforward, and it was great. Benoit’s back in the WWE title picture, and I cannot wait until Royal Rumble.
???: HLA
Dawn Marie and Al Wilson show up midway through the show, and thank god. For a second there, I almost thought I’d have to go one week without writing about this angle. Dawn cuts an especially terrible promo teasing the hot, sexy, presumably illegal footage she promised on SmackDown, and I’ll just cut to the chase: she feeds Torrie strawberries, strips her down, and they make out. Yeah, that’s it. If you were hoping for some softcore erotica, then this is for you. If you were hoping for actual sex… I… am sorry to disappoint you, I guess?
It’s at this point that Al Wilson realizes this might be just a little bit fucked up and tells Dawn to stop the footage. The crowd, predictably, boos him out of the building. Tazz is like two seconds away from leaving the announce desk and kicking this guy’s ass. Dawn throws Al under the bus and they leave together while every person in the arena wonders why they even got excited in the first place. SmackDown, baby! This angle is still going!
BOTCH: Oh Right, Batista
So, Batista vs. Kane made the card. Remember Batista? We haven’t seen him since he turned on D-Von and jumped ship back in September, but Big Dave finally makes it to PPV. It’s… Batista and Kane. On PPV, for some reason. Batista certainly looks like money, it’s just that none of his attacks have any sort of force behind them. Ric Flair’s with him, too, though they haven’t properly formed a stable yet. There’s a weird spot where Batista tries to powerbomb Kane but can’t quite get him up, then Kane low-blows him (?) and hits a diving clothesline. He goes for the pin and the ref pretends to be distracted by Flair, even though Flair’s just standing on the outside, telling the ref to count the pin on Batista. Flair distracts Kane, Batista Bomb for the win… yup. Batista and Kane! Batista and Kane, indeed.
???: An Introduction to Thuganomics
After that garbage, John Cena shows up with his ward B² to spit some rhymes. It’s not his best work, I’m sorry to say. The crowd’s weirdly quiet for the whole thing, and here’s the hottest bar:
“And for all of you foes who think that you can throw blows?
Y’all wind up like Marcia Brady saying “Oh, my nose!”
And I’m out!”
At first, I thought he was referring to some random sports event until I realized, no, John really did finish his set with a fucking Brady Bunch reference. This was weak.
BOTCH: We Don’t Need Three
Alright, so: Victoria beat Trish Stratus for the Women’s title at Survivor Series, then lost to Jacqueline on Raw, now she defends against both. Jacqueline was actually the first modern women’s champion in WWE history, so I guess it makes sense to throw her in here? I’m sure they could’ve found a better justification other than “she pinned the champ in a singles match”, but that would require time and effort.
I’m a little bummed SmackDown doesn’t have any good female wrestlers like Raw does… then again Raw also has Jerry Lawler, so it evens out. Jerry is absolutely unbearable in these matches; you have no idea. I hear this dude maybe once a month and it’s still too much for me. Match sucks, by the way. There’s some extremely blatant spots where Trish takes like ten seconds to go for a pin just to make sure Victoria can break it up easily. Oh, and the finish: Trish hits a corner clothesline on Jacquie and goes for the cover, Victoria brains her with the belt from the outside (best screencap I could get), slides in, and pins Jacquie. I repeat, Jacqueline lost to a clothesline in the corner. There’s only one highlight here, and it’s Vicky stealing Trish’s hat as a war trophy.
POP, I GUESS?: The Invisible Hand
At Survivor Series, Paul Heyman turned on the Next Big Thing Brock Lesnar to align himself with Big Show and get him to the WWE Championship. Mainly because we needed Brock Lesnar to win the belt at Mania and everyone else was busy that day. Two weeks ago, Kurt Angle beat most of the other good SmackDown wrestlers in a Four-Way to become Number 1 Contender. Not that you’d know that, since Brock is still the focal point of this entire feud despite not being booked. Whenever Brock is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking “where’s Brock?”
Brock, our main character, spends the entire night dodging questions (hi, Josh Mathews!) about whether or not he’s actually going to help Kurt. He keeps saying stuff like “oh you’ll see, oh I’m gonna make an impact, ohohoho” but for some reason he can’t just say “I’m gonna run down mid-match, hit an F5 and leave”. Show starts the match by inadvertently chucking Angle’s bald ass into Heyman, which gets an automatic two stars. As you’d expect, Show spends the whole match playing Goliath, and unfortunately Angle’s David offense is pretty subpar. After ¿landing? a ¿moonsault?, he manages to hit the Angle Slam and lock Show in the Ankle Lock, but Show pushes him off and bumps the ref. As the crowd starts chanting “WE WANT BROCK” (because he’s not on screen, you see), Heyman passes Show a chair, which Angle quickly uses to crack Show in the skull.
Angle goes for a pin and Show kicks out, bumping the ref again. That’s A-Train’s cue to run down and attack, but Brock’s still nowhere to be seen. Show gets back up, Chokeslams Angle, and THAT’S when Brock runs down mid-match, hits an F5, and leaves. I’d really love to know why it took two whole ref bumps and an extra run-in before Brock actually showed up. What, did he get his shirt caught on a door handle for five minutes? Brock chases Heyman out of the building, Angle crawls into the cover and just like that, we got a new WWE Champion. Kudos to Big Show for being the most transitional of transitional champions since Stan Stasiak. And congratulations, Kurt! Just make sure you try and avoid that weird albino bear that keeps running in and F5-ing people.
BOTCH: Terror Risin’
At Survivor Series, Shawn Michaels outlasted the best Raw had to offer and ended Triple H’s reign of terror for good. Since Raw is so generous, they’ve decided to book these two in a big fat Three Stages of Hell match for the World title. This definitely won’t go super fucking long! HBK teases Naitch before the match gets started, leading to a confrontation with the ref and the classic “YOU! ARE OUTTA HERE!” Oh, and a special shoutout to Shawn for finally getting proper goddamn wrestling gear for a PPV. The first fall is a Street Fight; similar to SummerSlam, just not nearly as good. The most important part in the early goings is that they set up a pile of Chekhov’s tables for much, much later.
Trips spends a big chunk of the match working over Shawn’s knee and locking him in an eternal Figure-Four. I swear, I proofread this whole article and Shawn was STILL in the hold. In a surprisingly great spot, HHH considers killing Shawn with a barbed wire 2×4, but he hesitates. The announcers wonder if Hunter might actually have a heart, but no, he’s just going up the stage to set the thing on fire. Jesus Christ, that’s dope. Shawn gets a hold of it and thwacks HHH, busting him open… with fire? Can fire bust you open? Back in the ring, Trips capitalizes off the leg work to hit a Pedigree for the first fall. Second fall is a Steel Cage, albeit one with a bunch of weapons laying around.
I’ll save you some time, Shawn gets busted open and the match slows down to a crawl. Ric runs into the cage, the heels eat chair shots, and FLAIR gets busted open. I think they’re starting to run out of ideas. Shawn evens the falls with a splash from the top of the cage through a table, which I’ll admit is pretty cool. Flair is somehow out-blading Trips and Shawn here, but I guess he’s not really Ric Flair until he’s the bloodiest man in the room. The third fall is a Ladder Match and it must be my lucky day, because it only goes five minutes. Shawn misses a ladder splash, gets up close and personal with Chekhov’s tables and, like fucking clockwork, Triple H is World Champion once again. Don’t worry, this World Heavyweight Championship picture is not getting any better.
And that’s our show! Join us next time as Brock Lesnar and Matt Hardy return to action, Eddie Guerrero battles Billy Kidman, Edge gets another crack at A-Train, Nunzio makes his in-ring debut, Kurt Angle makes a huge announcement and Chris Benoit goes one-on-one with the new WWE Champion. Make sure to leave a comment below (I’ll read ’em!), share the column around and join the Discord. SmackDown!
