Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Team Angle went singles (again) with Los Guerreros, Matt Hardy asserted his dominance, Hogan and Vince treaded water, John Cena shook things up and Nathan Jones ruined everything. You can watch WrestleMania here. You can also check out all previous entries under the Lesnar Years tag. Next Big Thing!
POP: Kingpin
BOTCH: What’s the Rush?
Welcome to the grandest stage of all, WrestleMania XIX, live (in 2003) from Seattle! We open with the best opener available, Rey Mysterio vs. Matt Hardy for the Cruiserweight title. Rey’s sporting one of his strangest fits ever, the Daredevil suit. He’s always loved his topical superhero gear, kinda like Johnny Gargano if Johnny was endearing and not annoying. I go back and forth on this outfit. It’s a deviation from the standard Mysterio look, but it’s pretty dope if you ignore the goofy mask. And you know Rey was just dying to bring the horns back in some shape or form. Our Matt Facts for the day? “MATT IS APPEARING IN HIS 4TH WRESTLEMANIA” and “MATT OFTEN WONDERS HOW THEY DID WRESTLEMANIA WITHOUT HIM”.
This match is, at its core, a SmackDown Cruiserweight match. Aside from a Twist of Fate nearfall, they could’ve had this exact same match in the middle of a random episode. Now don’t get me wrong, SmackDown Cruiserweight matches are always a fun treat, these are my bread and butter, but you’d expect something slightly bigger for the WrestleMania opener. You couldn’t have given Rey and Matt eight minutes? I get it’s a four-hour show, but it’s actually 3 hours 45! You had time! Shannon interferes, Rey bounces like a pinball, and Matt manages to reverse some headscissors into a rope-assisted rollup. It’s not Bret vs. Owen, but it’s aight.
BOTCH: Picture Me Rollin’
Undertaker and Nathan Jones vs. Big Show and A-Train is a match that didn’t need to make the Mania card, especially when said Mania card had the opener go 5:30 and couldn’t include the Raw tags. However, I can at least justify its existence, being Jones’ big coming out party, and all. Except, uh, it isn’t. After months leading up to Nathan Jones’ WrestleMania in-ring debut, he gets lured backstage by the FBI and attacked by Train and Show. This is now a Handicap match. The Nathan Jones debut tag no longer features Nathan Jones. WWE booked their biggest acquisition in the most protected position imaginable and then decided to LEAVE HIM OFF HIS OWN SHOWCASE MATCH. This is the same company that booked Bam Bam Bigelow vs. a non-wrestler as a WrestleMania main event, how much did Nathan Jones have to suck for something like this to happen.
But nevermind that, it’s WWE’s favorite band in the whole world (their words, not mine) Limp Bizkit! Imagine your favorite band being Limp Bizkit, good god. Durst & Co play a live rendition of Rollin’, Biker Taker’s old theme song. It’s a live cover with radio edits, if that makes any sense. It’s not great, but it’s slightly more coherent than Motörhead’s The Game from Mania X-Seven. Buy hey, at least that Taker vs. Triple H match was good, and not… a handicap with Big Show and A-Train. I really feel like I got the short end of the stick on this one.
At one point, Show drags Taker outside and beats him up while A-Train, the legal man, distracts the ref for no reason. This goes on for so long that I start to ponder what wrestlers talk about while they’re distracting the ref. Like, what are you saying that could keep the ref distracted for 45 seconds? A long joke? Taker kicks the heels’ asses with some terrible submission offense. He’s not good at it, but boy, does he try. The crowd is way into Taker’s comebacks, even if the work here’s pretty bad all around. After some abdominal stretches and some awful punches, Nathan runs down for the assist and kicks the heels in the face. This somehow doesn’t cause a DQ, even though it’s literally outside interference. Taker scoops Train up for the Tombstone, and that’s… what, 11-0? Great job Nathan, keep it up. God bless America.
SLIGHT POP: Nice Going, Stevie
Back at Survivor Series, Victoria beat Trish Stratus in a Hardcore match to become Women’s Champion. Now, she defends against Trish and Jazz in a Triple Threat. Victoria’s currently using t.A.T.u’s “All The Things She Said” as her entrance, dubbed on the Network, cause these fuckers are cheap. She’s accompanied by one of the true pro wrestling dark horses, her on-screen boyfriend Steven Richards. Stevie did a lot in his career (the Flock, the RTC, the Blue World Order, I think he managed Kronik for a cup of coffee) but THIS was Stevie’s greatest period. He and Victoria were on practically every episode of Sunday Night Heat around this time, and I cannot get enough of these two. Stevie Night Heat, baby! Must-see sTV! Jazz, meanwhile, is recently coming off a torn ACL at the hands of Trish, so there’s bad blood all over the place.
We’re still about thirteen years away from having truly great women’s matches at WrestleMania, but this one’s probably one of the best of the dark ages. It’s a perfectly enjoyable Triple Threat between the three best female wrestlers of the time. It doesn’t take much advantage of the stipulation, and it’s pretty short as well, but it keeps a good pace. Stevie tries to smash Trish’s skull with a chair (a true WrestleMania moment) but winds up Kyle O’Reilly-ing himself like a goof. Trish takes the opening to hit Stratusfaction on Richards and, after a few reversal, nails Victoria with the Chick Kick to regain her title. “Nails” is a little generous, it’s more of a mid-kick than a roundhouse, but it’s a cool finish. This is arguably Trish’s biggest WrestleMania moment, and I’m thinking it’s the best Women’s match I’m gonna get to write about, so that’s a Pop.
POP/BOTCH: Nonstop
One Triple Threat to another, as Team Angle defend the WWE Tag Team Championships against Los Guerreros and Benoit/Rhyno. I wonder, was Edge initially supposed to be in Rhyno’s spot before he got injured? What the hell would he have done on this card otherwise? Speaking of Rhyno, the titantron glitches during his entrance and it makes him look like the fourth Team Angle member. This is one-fall to a finish, and considering what a mess that Elimination Triple Threat at Survivor Series turned out to be, it’s probably for the best.
The sheer number of guys involved is both a blessing and a curse here. You got a bunch of great workers taking turns hitting moves, and that’s a blast. It’s move-move-move-move-move, one after the other; the action’s great and the match never drags. But there’s so many guys in there that they never have enough time to build up any semblance of drama. Benoit throws Eddie into the air and catches him on the way down with a picture perfect Crossface, and Charlie immediately jumps in and kicks him in the back. Shelton hits an unsuspecting Benoit with a Superkick, and Eddie just calmly strolls to the middle of the ring and breaks up the pin. There’s nothing keeping the extra guys occupied, so there’s no way to give these spots any time to breathe.
The finish is a great example of this: Rhyno gores Charlie and then Chavo, gets pulled out of the ring by Eddie, and Shelton covers Chavo to steal the win. It’s not a bad finish in theory, it just feels anticlimactic because there was no finishing sequence. It’s spot-spot-spot and then the match is over. Team Angle retained on PPV, which means they must now go back to losing on TV for the next month. We’re four matches into the Mania card already and not one of them has reached the ten-minute mark yet. You know what we need? We need one of em big-ass, long-ass WrestleMania matches. But who on earth could possibly—oh hey look Shawn Michaels
POP: Mirror Match
Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho, a restaurant-quality WrestleMania dream match. It’s Shawn’s first Mania match since 1998, and honestly, I can’t think of a better opponent for his comeback. It’s easy to forget nowadays because he changes his gimmick every three months, but early 2000s Jericho was more or less the modern Shawn. Jericho was never the best worker around, especially in the same company as Angle, Benoit or Eddie, but in the Raw roster, these two were neck and neck. Two guys just below the world title, the glue keeping Raw’s main event scene together. 2003 Chris Jericho was as close as you could get to 1997 Shawn Michaels: a talented, cocky piece of shit heel with his head completely up his own ass. Shawn wants to prove he can still hang at WrestleMania; Jericho needs to end Shawn to escape his shadow. There’s your dream match.
Side note, this is probably in the top three greatest Jericho tights of all time. Jericho flips Shawn off during his entrance, which was cut from the Network upload, for some reason. This is the same show where Vince McMahon bleeds like five buckets of blood, I don’t know what their deal with the middle finger is. Jericho tries to outwrestle Shawn early on, fails, and falls back to cheating. He locks the Walls on the ramp (which hurts twice as much as the regular version) and proceeds to target Shawn’s lower back. As redundant as this may sound, it’s a straight Good Match between two Good Wrestlers. I can compare it to something like Bret/Piper, for example. It’s low-key, it won’t blow you away, but they do their stuff and they do it well. It doesn’t try to be a Mania classic; it doesn’t need to.
That may sound like I’m underselling it, but it’s a great watch. It’s that understated foundation that makes the good spots stand out, without necessitating these huge WrestleMania Moments™. Jericho reversing a Frankensteiner into the Walls of Jericho gets a monster pop, you don’t need to do it off the top rope or go through a table. The match really shines when Jericho starts aping Shawn’s signatures, like the kip up, the pose, or his own version of tuning up the band. Shawn eventually lands the diving elbow and goes for Sweet Chin Music, which Jericho reverses into the Walls. Shawn gets to the ropes and Jericho starts arguing with the ref before running right into the Superkick for two. Jericho tosses Shawn into the corner for the patented Shawn flip, but Michaels reverses a backdrop into a roll-up for three. Mr. WrestleMania prevails.
Jericho embraces Shawn afterwards… and then he kicks him in the dick. Great stuff.
BOTCH: Miller? I Hardly Know Her
It’s impossible to discuss WrestleMania without mentioning the ever-looming presence of celebrity guests. For better or worse, miscellaneous famous people have always been an integral part of this show, names like Cyndi Lauper, Mr. T, Floyd Mayweather, Pete Rose, Donald Trump, Mike Tyson, and of course, the Miller Lite Catfight Girls. Yeah, so if you didn’t know, Miller Lite ran a Super Bowl ad in 2003 where two girls fought over why Miller Lite tasted so good. Someone (read: Vince) saw that and thought it’d be a great idea to ride the wave and give the girls a WrestleMania appearance. In hindsight, the Miller Lite catfight commercial was not the cultural landmark people in 2003 thought it would be.
The Miller Lite Catfight Girls run into Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler backstage, and you already know where this is going. The ladies start arguing about menial shit, slowly building to a big four corners catfight. Jerry Lawler’s eyes are about to pop out of his skull. After Limp Bizkit play another song (this time the Mania theme), the ladies come out for their… match? I didn’t hear no bell. Anyways, Stacy Keibler comes out, followed by Playboy Cover Girl Torrie Wilson. Jerry’s five seconds away from cardiac arrest and JR talks like he just saw his dog get run over. The ladies dogpile Jonathan Coachman and pull his pants down. The Women’s title match went seven minutes and Rey Mysterio vs. Matt Hardy didn’t even get six.
If you’re wondering “Wasn’t John Cena gonna do something at Mania?”, he showed up on Heat and dissed carboard cutouts of Jay-Z and Fabolous. I’m a little disappointed.
BOTCH: I’m Sick of This Dude
In more Raw news, Triple H defends his World Heavyweight Championship against Booker T. Yeah, I know. Booker won a battle royal to earn this opportunity a little over a month ago, and throughout the past year, he’s become one of the most over acts in all of WWE, let alone Raw. Through sheer force of will, he’s gone from the tag division to the World Title picture, and now he battles the undisputed final boss of WWE in arguably the biggest match of his career. Oh, and then there was this other thing… Aside from downplaying Book’s numerous world title reigns (fair point), Triple H, shall we say, spiced up the feud by bringing up Booker’s checkered past with some pretty heavy racist undertones. Of course, Triple H later denied any racial intent, but come on now.
There’s a lot to be said about Triple H, good and bad, but holy shit if his entrance isn’t one of the absolute greatest visuals in wrestling history. There’s nothing like those camera flashes, man. Booker and Triple H wrestle, and it’s… good. It’s not special, especially for WrestleMania, but considering some of Hunter’s earlier efforts, it’s not bad at all. The absolute worst part about it, by a country mile, is commentary. It’s unlistenable, it really is. Just eighteen minutes of Ross and Lawler bickering about which guy they like best, with some of the worst heel commentating I’ve ever heard from King:
I can’t imagine going around saying “Yeah, Booker T’s our World Champion”. You know, Booker T? The guy whose family portrait is a courtroom sketch?
Imagine that, for twenty minutes. And they argue. And argue. And argue. The worst part isn’t even that Jerry makes the same joke every time, it’s that he can barely remember the fucking joke. You can practically hear his gears turning in his head halfway through every goddamn sentence. After some pretty good back and forth, Flair interferes and injures Book’s knee, leading to Triple H’s Indian Deathlock. Straight from the vault, haven’t seen that one in a while. After some more leg work, they do a ref bump and then immediately forget about it. I mean, it’s a Triple H match, we had to get a ref bump in there somewhere. Book lands the Scissors Kick but is too hurt to get the pin, so he goes up top. He fights off Naitch, then Triple H, then Naitch again, and lands the Harlem Houston Hangover. Love that move.
Flair gets Trips’ foot on the rope, so Booker tries another Scissors Kick, but his legs give way. Triple H nails a Pedigree and, just like Booker earlier, is too hurt to cover in time. He puts one arm over Book’s chest and… gets the win. Well, that was fucking deflating, huh. They literally did the “too hurt to get the pin” nearfall as the finish. That’s not the big issue here, though, the issue is that Triple H retained in the first place. After weeks of HHH and Flair and Lawler telling Booker he sucked and wasn’t World Title material, they’re proven right. Beloved underdog Booker T, the single hottest act on Raw, gets knocked back down. End of story. Booker T will never make it this high up the card ever again.
It’s especially tiresome because Booker was the guy. There is literally nobody else. Trips already beat Shawn. He beat Kane. He beat RVD. He annihilated Scott Steiner. Remember three months ago, when Scott Steiner was one of the biggest wrestling stars of the late 90s and his contractual status became the focus of weeks of WWE television? One HHH feud later, he’s not even booked at Mania now. Booker was the only one who could conceivably beat this guy, and he just lost. And you know what the best part is? I’m pretty sure it’s downhill from here.
POP: Old Wounds
Hulk Hogan vs. Mr. McMahon, Career Threatening Street Fight. 20 (ish) Years in The Making. Two pillars of WrestleMania beating the living shit out of each other. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check out the promo package for this match, it may be the greatest hype video WWE has ever produced. Just unbelievable work. Right off the bat, the Network upload gets an automatic Botch for not having the rights to play Hogan’s Voodoo Chile theme. I don’t care how much it costs. The early portions of this match are as bad as you’d expect, they do some wrestling and they’re not good at it. They eventually head outside and, you guessed it, start bleeding. Vince bleeds, Hogan bleeds, even commentary bleeds. Poor Hugo Savinovich gets fucking bodied here, Jesus Christ.
After we’ve gotten the introductory chairs to the face over with, Vince pulls out a ladder. Then he comes crashing down, and it hurts inside. Back in the ring, Hogan kicks out, so Vince heads back outside for some more plunder. He finds a steel pipe, and it’s at that point that Vince McMahon gives us the single greatest look in the history of our sport. The sight of Mr. McMahon, bathed in his own blood, giving Hogan a Kubrick stare adds like three extra stars to the rating. Hogan low-blows Vince, and with both men down for the count, the Piper returns.
Deafening pop. Piper picks the pipe up and teases hitting Vince for a bit before turning around and piping Hogan’s skull. Tiger can’t change his stripes, and all. That’s Hot Rod’s cue to leave, but Hogan still kicks out. Appalled by the humanity, referee Brian Hebner tries to stop Vince from using the pipe any further, so Vince bounces his ass out of the ring. Out comes that dirty Canuck ref Sylvain Grenier. Vince hits the leg drop, and Hogan again kicks out, full Hulk Up mode. Despite knowing Hulk Hogan’s schtick for about twenty fucking years, Vince falls for it and starts punching him. Hogan takes out Grenier, big boot, three leg drops in a row, and Hulkamania stays alive. Shane makes a weird cameo afterwards to check on his pops. This was long, and nothing more than a car crash, but what a goddamn car crash.
POP: The Bottom Line
1999, Steve Austin defeated The Rock for the WWF Championship in the main event of WrestleMania XV. 2001, Steve Austin defeated The Rock for the WWF Championship in the main event of WrestleMania X-Seven. 2003, The Rock looks for the only accolade that has eluded him in his WWE career: a win over Stone Cold at WrestleMania. Simple as. It’s the easiest match to book out of this entire card (and probably the easiest to predict), but the build has been next level. You can thank Rock for that. Hollywood Rock has been the biggest highlight of WWE television since he came back, bar none. A top shelf shithead heel, and he was there for, what, three months? It’s not just Rock, though, this is Steve Austin’s last hurrah. It’s the two biggest stars of yesterday bringing their era to an end. Historical significance!
It’s definitely an Austin/Rock match, that’s for sure. They throw hands right out the gate, take it outside, fight on the table, the whole shebang. Rock starts to work Austin’s knees, probably because they’re completely wrapped in metal. It’s as if Steve Austin wrestled every match from 1999 onward wearing a shirt that read “PLEASE DON’T HIT ME IN THE KNEE”. Rocky locks Austin in his patented Sharpshooter. “Perfectly executed!” says Jim Ross, lying. Rock snatches Austin’s vest and wrestles in it for the next ten minutes, because this guy rules. Austin runs through his spots and randomly pulls out a Rock Bottom for two, then Rock hits a Stunner for two, then Austin hits a Stunner for two. I think this match singlehandedly created WWE’s big match formula for the next ten years.
Rock quickly forgets about the legwork and the whole thing devolves into a giant finisher party before long, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not enjoying it. After a low-blow and an unsuccessful People’s Elbow attempt, Rocky lands the Elbow for two. Rock Bottom, for two. Steve avoids a second Rock Bottom but walks into another one anyways… FOR TWO. They’re going all out on this one, huh. Rocky sizes Austin up, gets him in position, and the third time’s the charm. Rock breaks the curse. As a match, it was more of a spectacle than anything. There was no way they were going to top Mania X-Seven, so they said “fuck it” and threw everything at the wall. Having given Rock his win back, Stone Cold Steve Austin rides off into the sunset.
Until we need you again, cowboy.
POP: Icarus
And here we are. At Survivor Series, Brock Lesnar dropped the WWE title to the Big Show after Paul Heyman jumped ship. At Armageddon, Show dropped the title to Kurt Angle thanks to Brock’s interference, and Heyman jumped ship again. Despite Heyman, Show and Angle’s best efforts, Brock won the Royal Rumble to secure his title shot. Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle, WWE Championship, WrestleMania XIX. Two of the greatest of all time, for the biggest prize in professional wrestling, in the main event of perhaps one of the best WWE PPVs ever. A certified dream match, one that WWE’s slowly been building to since at least last November. And by God, someone up there did not want this match to happen.
It all began at No Way Out, when big dumb Brock Lesnar broke Kurt Angle’s neck. A momentary loss of muscular coordination. A few extra foot pounds of energy per second. In one instant, the WrestleMania main event was dead. According to Kurt, plans changed to an impromptu title switch on SmackDown weeks before Mania, where Kurt would’ve dropped the belt to Lesnar in a few seconds and taken some time off for surgery. Lesnar would’ve defended against Chris Benoit at Mania, though likely not in the main event. If this exact situation happened today, that’s what they would’ve done. But… Kurt refused. Somehow, someway, he talked Vince into going through with the title match, in the main event of Mania, with a broken fucking neck. So there. Brock/Angle, WWE title, Mania 19. Nothing but smooth sailing from here.
The big X factor is the lack of shenanigans. Team Angle’s nowhere to be seen, and if Kurt gets disqualified or counted out, he will lose the title. Brock comes into this with taped ribs, which is a smart way to justify his straight mat wrestling approach. He can’t just grab Angle by the neck and shot put him into the Mania sign, he needs to go amateur. It takes away some of Brock’s magic, but I understand why they did this, it’s not easy to structure a tense title match if the face is an unstoppable force. He’s still Brock, though, so he overwhelms Angle until Kurt fights back with an absolutely disgusting German onto the turnbuckle. Angle stays on Brock’s back with a pretty longwinded STF resthold, but Brock brings it back to a stalemate.
They trade suplexes and reverse finishers for a bit before Angle catches an Ankle Lock. In a surprisingly smart touch, Angle turns the Ankle Lock into a half crab to target Brock’s back. Kurt lands a top tier Mania suplex, pulls the straps down, and hits the Angle Slam for two. Cole says it’s the first time anyone’s kicked out of the Angle Slam, even though Benoit did it two months ago. Brock avoids a second Angle Slam and hits the F5 for a nearfall, and that IS the first time someone kicks out of that. Kurt immediately snatches another Ankle Lock, and after a few more finisher attempts, Brock lands a second F5… but he doesn’t cover Kurt. Now, before anything happens, I want to clarify something: This has been a fantastic match so far. But having exhausted his other options, Brock decides to climb to the top rope.
And then everything goes black.
I’m willing to bet that whenever a wrestling fan hears the words “WrestleMania XIX”, this is the image that pops into their head. Brock Lesnar, one of the most incredible athletes you’ve ever seen, soaring through the sky with a flawless Shooting Star Press, eating shit, and landing headfirst ONE INCH from Kurt Angle’s torso. As you can see, Brock Lesnar was perfectly capable of hitting a Shooting Star Press. He just hadn’t attempted said move in well over a year, because… well, he had no reason to. He’s Brock Lesnar, have you seen this fucking guy? It was John Laurinaitis, the agent for this match, who suggested the Shooting Star Press finish. “A WrestleMania moment”. Brock initially refused, but after some convincing and a little practice, he eventually gave in.
What Brock didn’t realize was that he’d be hitting a Shooting Star Press for the first time in forever, 20 minutes into the biggest match of his career, absolutely dripping in sweat. Maybe he slipped on the top rope and under-rotated. Maybe Kurt was just too far away. Maybe this was a really, really stupid idea. Either way, Brock Lesnar almost became the second man in the WrestleMania XIX main event with a broken neck. Kurt covers the now concussed Lesnar for a nearfall, and Brock quickly gets up and lands a third F5 for the win. I don’t think he knows where he is. Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse. One way or another, Brock Lesnar finally regains his WWE title in the main event of his first WrestleMania. A year into his main roster run, and The Next Big Thing is a two-time WWE Champion.
March 30th, 2003. Brock Lesnar is on top of the world. In less than a year, he’ll be gone.
351 days to midnight.
The doomsday clock starts ticking.
