Happy holidays, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Eddie Guerrero pinned the Cruiserweight Champion again, Brock Lesnar put a stop to Mattitude, John Cena debuted his iconic jorts, Edge defeated A-Train and Kurt Angle revealed his ace in the hole. You can watch this week’s episode here. We’re still on The Road to Royal Rumble, baby! Next Big Thing!
SLIGHT BOTCH: Cut Down to Size
Merry Christmas everybody, and a happy new year! Welcome to the final SmackDown of 2002. It’s a festive night to be sure, as we have a WWE title match scheduled… or do we? We open the show with a promo (again) (goddammit), courtesy of Stephanie McMahon. The first order of business is to cancel the scheduled Kurt Angle/Big Show title match, which is kinda shitty. I mean, I wasn’t exactly pining for Angle vs. Show, but you really shouldn’t announce a title match if you’re not gonna do a title match. There’s a reason for this, though, as Brock Lesnar injured Angle off the air last week, and Kurt won’t be able to compete until the Rumble. Big Show (who I assume is just now catching wind of this) shows up, in perhaps his greatest fit yet.
He attempts to threaten Stephanie into giving him the Number 1 Contendership, but Steph tells him to back off. “Gutsy broad!”, says Tazz. Steph tells Show he has to earn his title shot… even though he doesn’t, he’s the former champ and presumably has a rematch clause. The disrespect for Show around here is unreal. So, Stephanie books Show in a Number 1 Contender’s match against Main Event Chris Benoit tonight. Benoit also shows up, turning this into a proper WWE Promo Parade. Show calls Benoit short (true), and Benoit responds by kicking him in the balls. Y’know, between losing his title, losing his manager, losing his automatic title rematch and getting kicked in the dick by a babyface, Show’s had a very rough couple of weeks.
BOTCH: DeMoted
In the first match of the night, Bandana Bill continues his quest to become the most dominant D-tier wrester around. He gets a win over Crash, and if I were Bill, I’d start worrying about running out of Cruiserweights. Unless this leads to Billy Kidman stepping up for his division and kicking DeMott’s ass (which would rule), I think DeMott’s just about ready to graduate to heavyweight jobbers now. Have him Moonsault Chuck Palumbo or something and leave poor Crash alone, please.
BOTCH: The Gift of Giving
Not much Dawn Marie/Al Wilson content this week, which I’ll assume is SmackDown’s Christmas present to me, personally. Dawn and Al exchange gifts one week before their wedding (Get ready! Next week! Woah mama!), gifts such as Viagra and a video camera. I don’t mention this enough because I’m too busy headbutting the edge of my desk, but Vince McMahon finds the idea of an old dude having sex with a hot girl very funny. SmackDown’s Number 1 Bill DeMott victim Funaki (INDEED!) interviews Torrie to ask if she’ll attend the wedding. They get interrupted by Al himself, who calls Torrie a disgrace for not thinking about what he wants. Al sucks, man.
POP: Breaking Matt
Matt Hardy Version 1.0 shows up to cut a promo, and as much as I love Matt, we are 20 minutes into this fucking show and the only match so far was a 2-minute DeMott squash. There are three more matches left, and only one goes over ten minutes. But nevermind that shit, what Matt Facts do we have for today? “MATT WAS THE MVP IN THE ’99 NO MERCY LADDER MATCH” (deep cut) and “MATT ALWAYS STICKS TO HIS NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION”. As we’ve established since the very first episode of SmackDown I reviewed, Matt Hardy is a dumbass, so he challenges Brock Lesnar to a match next week. This is what I love the most about Matt. He’s the single best character on this entire show, and it’s not even close.
See, before the brand split, Matt Hardy was part of one of the most over acts on the company… part of it. Team Xtreme made Matt a star, but he depended on Jeff and Lita. So, left alone in the land of the Beast, Matt had to bet on himself. He tried to take down Brock Lesnar, and he got absolutely demolished. Lesnar broke him… so Matt doubled down. If Matt believed he was the star, then he was the star. And that’s what makes Matt Hardy so good: does he believe it? Does Matt seriously think he can beat Brock, or Taker, or Show? Has he gone completely off the rails and bought into his own religion? Is he faking it, and he’s just too stupid to know when to back down? Matt beats the shit out of Shannon to prepare himself for Brock, which further fuels my “Matt’s lost his mind” theory. Hardy vs. Lesnar, next week on SmackDown!
POP: No Clean Getaways
Los Guerreros defend the WWE Tag Team Championships tonight against the unexpected team of Edge and Billy Kidman. Yeah, the SmackDown tag team division is in a strange place right now. Talent-wise, the champions are top tier and the challengers are great wrestlers, but we’re running a little dry on teams. Billy & Chuck are done, Rey’s injured and Benoit and Angle are a little busy, so Eddie and Chavo are the only real team still kicking. Since Tony Chimel’s home for the holidays, say hello again to good old Justin Jason Roberts. Yes, his name is actually Justin Jason. Before JoJo, there was JuJa.
I have no idea why Edge and Billy are getting a title match; not only are they not a team, but one of the champs pinned Billy last week. You could’ve easily set this up by giving Billy the win over Eddie, but hey, what do I know? Incidentally, this match rules. We get an insanely hot start, with the faces almost getting the win within the first five minutes. Eddie and Chavo try the old “grab the belts and dip” strategy, but referee Brian Hebner announces that the titles will change hands via count-out, bringing them back in. The heels work over Edge until Kidman gets the hot tag, and Billy hits his patented Ushigoroshi. Eddie misses the Frog Splash on Kidman, allowing him to land the Shooting Star Press on Chavo for a nearfall.
Eddie pulls the ref out of the ring mid-count, so Hebner calls for the bell. However, since Los Guerreros purposefully got themselves DQ-ed, he restarts the match under No Disqualifications. Eddie looks like he’s about to cry. Billy and Edge are on fire at this point, and the crowd is eating it up. In a rare moment of babyface intelligence, Edge avoids a belt shot from Chavo and uses the No-DQ stipulation to his advantage. And then A-Train runs down to attack Edge! I seriously thought the Edge/Train feud was over, but here we are! With Edge out of the picture, Chavo holds Billy in place for a Frog Splash and Los Guerreros retain. I’m not ecstatic about the Cruiserweight champion taking the pin for the third week in a row, but MAN this match was dope. Against all odds, SmackDown’s tag division still rules.
POP: Angle’s Angels
Last week on SmackDown, Brock Lesnar ran down to attack Angle and Show only to get his ass kicked 2-on-1. The heels didn’t realize that beating up Lesnar is equivalent to catching a Mewtwo, though, so they kept poking Brock until he got his momentum back. He smashed both guys with chairs and pulled out his coup de grâce: an F5 onto the Steel Ring Post. Logically, Angle’s knee is fucked beyond belief, so he won’t be back in the ring until the Rumble. Angle cuts a promo calling Brock a prodigy, an NCAA champ who won the world title in his first year as a pro… just like Kurt did. Only difference is, Kurt didn’t need Paul Heyman’s help to do it. Oh, and he’s also an Olympic gold medalist, in case you didn’t know.
Brock, you know that deep down in your heart, that you could NEVER be the champion that I am. That’s… that’s… that’s why you tore every freaking cartilage and ligament in my knee! AND RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS!
Angle tells Brock (who couldn’t be arsed to show up this week, I guess) that he will never get his title shot, and just to be sure, Heyman introduces their contingency plan. Merry Christmas Kurt, here’s Team Angle.
Meet the boys, Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. Charlie is a multi-time All American and tag team specialist, formerly one half of the Haas Brothers alongside his late brother Russ. Shelton is particularly interesting, though. He’s Brock Lesnar’s former coach, roommate and tag partner, a stalwart of WWE’s midcard through the entirety of the ‘00s and one half of the current Raw Tag Team Champions. This means two things:
- Kurt Angle now has a faction of extremely talented young guys to act as proxies for his feuds.
- SmackDown just gained a brand-new top-tier team to build its tag division around.
Sounds like a net gain to me.
BOTCH: Hip to B-Squared
The John Cena/Rikishi feud continues (or stagnates) with another singles match between ‘Kishi and B². The second in three weeks, believe it or not. Cena dedicates his latest freestyle to his “Jedi master of thuganomics” B², and it goes a little something like this:
Yo, yo, he speaks softly but swings a steel chain
You’re outta your brain
A man of many names, like B2
Physical version of R2-D2
Back up kid, yo, I know that you scared
Another name for my man right here is B-Squared
That’s B to the second power, in case you didn’t get it
Beat you so bad, make your family look pathetic
Roll the credits, yo, the fat lady’s singing
Rocking mad ice, that’s why they call him Bling-Bling
Buchanan, yo, he’s my right hand man-an
So he can beat an army in a week’s worth of planning
Enough of that, yo, we coming to ya
I’ll let Bull finish this one off…
BULL: Booyah!
Cena heads to the commentary desk for some expert analysis, and JESUS CHRIST, this dude’s accent. Tazz is the only one who understands him, being from “da Hook” and all. Cena tries and fails to get involved, but he manages to toss B² a steel chain. Unfortunately, Rikishi ducks it, kicks B² and lands the Rump Shaker for a quick win. Not much to it, but please do yourself a favor and listen to Cena’s black guy voice:
Los Guerreros show up to talk shit after the match, so I guess we’re getting Eddie and Chavo vs. Cena and B² at some point. With Team Angle and Cena/B² on board, SmackDown gained two heel tag teams within the span of thirty minutes. All we need now is a babyface tag team that isn’t just “Billy Kidman (& Other)”.
POP: One Step Closer
In our main event, Big Show meets Chris Benoit to determine the Number 1 Contender at the Royal Rumble. The story here is that Benoit, as good as he is, has never won the WWE Championship. He may be one of the best in his craft, and he may hold two victories over Kurt Angle within the past year, but he’s a nearly man. Seventeen years in pro wrestling, and he’s never won the big one. No, Souled Out 2000 doesn’t count. Benoit’s the underdog that’s worked his whole life for the world title, now he just needs to go through Big Show, Paul Heyman, Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin and Kurt Angle to get it. As much as I complained about SmackDown’s main event scene last week, this is a good and easy story for them: just stack the odds against Benoit and give him 20 minutes to shine at the Rumble.
Tonight’s match is short, but smartly worked. Benoit’s best shot is the Crossface, so he focuses on trying to get Show off his feet. Benoit somehow manages to suplex Show without a waistlock, and Show is so goddamn big that the diving headbutt turns into a regular splash. Benoit reverses a Chokeslam into a Peterson Roll with his legs halfway out of the ring, and 1-2-3, the nearly man is going to the Rumble. The good news don’t last, though, as Team Angle hit the ring and attack Benoit with every finisher they got. Benoit has a title shot at the Rumble, provided he makes it there in one piece.
And that’s our show! Join us next time for the first SmackDown of 2003 as Bill DeMott battles a heavyweight (!), Billy Kidman looks to finally score a win over Eddie Guerrero, Nunzio makes his singles debut, Team Angle make their tag team debut, John Cena and Rikishi end their feud, Dawn Marie and Al Wilson tie the knot, and Matt Hardy risks it all against Brock Lesnar in our main event. Make sure to leave a comment below (I’ll read ’em!), share the column around and join the Discord. SmackDown!
