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Retro Pops & Botches: WWE SmackDown – 05.01.2003

 

Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Backlash ’03. Los Guerreros left Massachusetts with the tag titles, Sable stirred some shit, Sean O’Haire got a big (?) win, Brock Lesnar retained the WWE Championship and Big Show murdered a child. You can watch this week’s episode on the Cock or on the Network. You can also check out all previous entries under the Lesnar Years tag. We’re now on The Road to Judgment Day! Next Big Thing!

POP: Take the Medals and Run

Up first, WWE Tag Team title holders Los Guerreros battle Matt Hardy Version 1.0 and Shannon Moore. In case you missed it, Eddie and Chavo lost their title match last Sunday via an extremely uninspired finish but they took off with Team Angle’s belts anyway. Our Matt Facts for the day? “HAVE YOU READ MATT’S NEW BOOK?” (that doesn’t count as a fact) and “MATT HARDY INVENTED MATTITUDE”. Matt and Shannon are accompanied by MF’er-in-training Crash, and for some reason commentary insinuates Crash and Shannon are gay right in the middle of this match.

Tazz: I was talking about Crash’s diet, he’s a vegetarian, Cole!
Cole: That means he doesn’t eat meat.
Tazz: Well, I didn’t say Crash don’t eat no meat… but you know, he eats a lot of salad, you know—
Cole: So he’s an herbivore.
Tazz: Well yeah, yeah he w—a what
Cole: An herbivore.
Tazz: Yeah right, he tosses salad. But I don’t think he uses tomatoes in it, though…
Cole: I don’t think so either.
Tazz: Yeah, Shannon’s not into tomatoes. But he loves cucumbers!

What the fuck, guys. Anyways, a very basic tag match here, nothing wrong with it I suppose. Chavo brings back a column classic and smashes Matt in the head with a tag belt, allowing Eddie to hit the Frog Splash for three. It’s funny how Matt Hardy’s team consists of Shannon Moore and Crash Holly and yet the Cruiserweight champion is still taking all the pinfalls. Matt’s entourage attacks after the bell and quickly get dispatched, so Team Angle runs down to get their belts back. They fail, of course, because heel tag teams on SmackDown are about as competent as Jamie Noble.

After the Guerreros escape with the straps once again, Charlie and Shelton complain to Stephanie about it. Steph tells them they’ll get their belts back after their match later, but they’ll have to defend them against Los Guerreros at Judgment Day, this time in a ladder match. Wow, that didn’t take long, did it? I figured they’d play up the misplaced belts angle for a couple more weeks before announcing the ladder match, but nope, we’re getting right to it. Anyways, Team Angle come out later for a very unusual SmackDown jobber squash, the first of its kind so far.

Team Angle’s victims are Aaron Stevens and John Walters. I assume you all know Aaron (or Aron) Stevens as Damien Sandow, former WWE Tag Team Champion, stunt double and a serious contender for worst Money in the Bank winner in history. Poor guy could never catch a break. John Walters AKA RJ Brewer is far less known, but he’s a former ROH Pure Champion. Team Angle get the easy win after knocking Walters’ skull into the ceiling. I did not speed up that gif, that’s how fast Shelton moves. Los Guerreros come out to hand the titles back, they apologize for all the harm they’ve done and promise to never steal anything from Team Angle from now on. Unfortunately, they stole Kurt’s gold medals right before that.

See, this wouldn’t be happening if Team Angle’s manager wasn’t a frame on an easel.

???: Spanky’s Paradise

notice Brian’s gold tooth

Fresh off his unsuccessful WWE Championship pursuit, John Cena is here to freestyle. He doesn’t have a match or anything, he just likes the sound of his own voice. I ain’t got nothing better to do than to recap these Cena freestyles, so here’s another one:

Man, I got screwed at Backlash so I’m out here to discuss this
I won that match, it was a miscarriage of justice
Everybody saw it, Brock was tapping to my headlock
Hell, I beat Brock like the Mets beat the Red Sox
I had ‘em busted wide open, exposing all his weak spots
All he had on me was a few freakin’ cheap shots
And everybody saw, man, the ref was my downfall!
He was missing calls like Bill Buckner misses ground balls
Not only did I beat Brock, I made him quit
And I got no respect for that piece of…

I hope you got those sports references, I sure didn’t. Cena is quickly interrupted by Brian Kendrick who shows up dressed like this. I don’t even know what to say. Kendrick introduces himself as “Spanky McBarrelscrapings” or Spanky for short. Brian is named Spanky now. This sounds like a Shorty G situation (which it kind of is) but believe it or not, it wasn’t a WWE idea, as Brian went by Spanky for the first few years of his career before making his SmackDown debut. Apparently the name came about, and I quote, “due to his method of staying awake during long drives on the indy circuit”. Alrighty then. Spanky challenges John to a freestyle battle and, as it turns out, referee Brian Hebner (or “White Boy”, as Cena calls him) is really good at beatboxing.

I won’t recap Kendrick’s freestyle because it blows, though it’s worth noting that it features the line “You must be blind dog, I bet you can’t see this clock / But they’ve seen it and I’ve seen it, you got beat by Brock!” Spanky is predictably incapable of rapping on beat, but Hebner gets a pop. Cena takes it in good spirits, clotheslines Spanky into the fucking shadow realm and lands a disgusting FU to end the segment. If Cena hit every single one of his moves like that, he’d be the greatest worker of all time.

BOTCH: THE FBI WINS!!!

the end is nigh

Before Johnny “The Bull” Stamboli’s scheduled match against Chris Benoit, we see the FBI running an illegal gambling ring backstage, which will be their main thing on SmackDown. Benoit vs. Stamboli sounds interesting but the FBI always seem way better on paper than they are in practice, so it’s a whole bunch of nothing. My only notes on this are “Stamboli takes off his pants before the match starts” and “Stamboli likes to do a lot of elbow drops”. I counted, he does seven. Benoit takes care of the heels early on but the numbers eventually overwhelm him, so Rhyno runs out and gores Nunzio to even it up. And then White Boy Brian Hebner decides to turn this into a tag team match, Rhyno and Benoit vs. Palumbo and Stamboli.

This isn’t one of those “match ends in a DQ and gets restarted as a tag” situations, Hebner changes the stipulation mid match because he feels like it. Back from commercial break, we smash cut to Nunzio lying dead at ringside like a Family Guy character, which is by far the funniest thing I’ve recapped so far. The mediocre singles match turns into a mediocre tag team match with a terrible finish to boot: Rhyno gores Stamboli and crashes into the ref, so Nunzio reverses Benoit’s matchbook rollup to steal the win. Wait a second, TO STEAL THE WIN?! JESUS CHRIST THE FBI ACTUALLY WON A MATCH!

POP: It’s a Big, Bad Show Tonight

Big Show has broken locker room code after his heinous attack on Rey Mysterio last Sunday. Commentary talks shit on him throughout the episode and we see everyone in the locker room giving him the stink eye. Except for A-Train, he seems pretty happy about this whole ordeal. Show doesn’t give two shits about Cole and Tazz’s opinions of him, so he gloats about killing Rey and says he picked his opponent tonight himself on the basis that he’s “bigger than Rey Mysterio”. Said opponent happens to be Sho Funaki, who is in fact bigger than Rey Mysterio by three or four inches. Sho vs. Show is a fun squash, Funaki gets a great reaction and Show kills him dead. He lifts Kung Fu for a Chokeslam, carefully sets him down, and drills him with a great clothesline for three. Damn you, Big Show!

Despite having the night off, Brock Lesnar shows up unannounced to cut a pretty damn good babyface promo in the ring. He gives John Cena some credit for bringing the fight last Sunday but quickly turns his attention to Public Enemy Number 1, the Big Show. Brock says Show’s actions were gutless and tells him to bring his “big, giant, slobbery ass” to the ring for a fight. No offense but where the fuck does Brock get off calling Big Show gutless? This is the same man who spent the first half of his rookie year mauling every single wrestler he came across. He murdered Hulk Hogan in cold blood on free TV. Show comes out and says he’ll fight Brock, provided Brock puts his WWE title on the line. Brock tells him to come and get it, but Big Show says “not tonight”.

So yeah, Brock vs. Show is our next title feud, and honestly I’m pretty excited. In hindsight, I was awfully harsh on their first match back at Survivor Series. At the time, I thought it was stupid to take the belt off Brock after the Undertaker feud and put it on a non-factor like Show for the sole purpose of having Brock chase after it again. And while that’s true (the Undertaker feud was meh, Brock’s first reign was disappointing and Big Show was a terrible world champion), things worked out in the end. Heyman turning on Brock so he could chase after the title again as a face was smart booking. Brock vs. Show, though not a great match, was a great angle. And by the time Kurt got the belt, everything fell into place. Brock vs. Show had its flaws, but right now, they have my interest.

BOTCH: Jamie’s Girls

living the dream

All the ladies on deck for this one, as mortal enemies Sable and Torrie Wilson team up to battle Nidia and Dawn Marie. Torrie doesn’t trust Sable after the stunt she pulled at Backlash, but Sable says they should get along since they “play for the same team”. I don’t know when or how Dawn and Nidia became friends, but the heels do a good job of isolating Torrie and targeting her hamstring. Maybe “good job” is a little generous, I’m trying to stay positive. Torrie tries to tag Sable in and Sable, that jezebel, leaves Torrie high and dry. Dawn gets the win with a terrible single leg crab on Torrie’s injured leg, and I made sure to check, this is the second time Dawn Marie has ever gotten a win in this column. The first was October 17th, 2002. I’ve got a lot of free time.

BOTCH: Guess Who

Finally, Mr. America will make his debut in yet another Piper’s Pit segment to close tonight’s show. After getting interrupted by Team Angle earlier in the episode, Stephanie McMahon meets with Mr. America for the first time. Apparently she signed the guy sight unseen, which sounds very stupid to me, but hey, I’m not the one running a wrestling show, what do I know. We see Stephanie leaving Mr. America’s locker room with the look of someone who just witnessed their car getting towed, and her anxiety worsens when she’s told Mr. McMahon is on his way to the arena. Despite her best efforts to get rid of Vince (I wonder why), he’s determined to see who this Mr. America is. I hear he’s 7 feet tall! Piper comes out and talks shit on Chris Jericho over some comments Jericho made on Raw:

Last week on Raw, I heard Chris Jericho say that Roddy Piper was fat! I have seen Chris Jericho wrestle, I have seen Chris Jericho talk, I have seen him sing! So I’ll make you a deal: When I lose weight I’ll call you, Jericho, and when you get some talent, you call me.

This doesn’t actually go anywhere, obviously, but Piper and Jericho would eventually cross paths in the build to Mania 25. What a time that was. Anyways, Piper puts over his New Millennium Guy Sean O’Haire like he always does before introducing SmackDown’s newest signing. Here he is, the long-awaited first appearance of Mr. America!

“When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside”

Never expected this, did ya. Mr. America comes out to a huge pop and commentary wonders if they’ve seen him before. Piper loses his mind entirely and calls him “Hogan”, even though this is clearly Mr. America. Hogan Mr. America tells Piper he’ll kick his ass from sea to shining sea, because he’s freedom, justice and liberty for all. He stands for everything that makes America the greatest country in the world (this is the most 2003 shit I’ve seen in my life) but he is NOT Hulk Hogan. Of course Vince comes down to make psycho eyes at Mr. America, and he reminds us that he fired Hogan and barred him from ever showing his face again. No idea what any of that has to do with Mr. America, but I digress.

Vince says he’ll send Hogan back home, and this time, he’ll make use of a great American institution: a big, fat lawsuit. Mr. America reiterates: although Hulk Hogan kicked McMahon’s ass at WrestleMania, Hulk Hogan is not Mr. America. Just ask all these Americamaniacs. Vince concedes that the man in front of him is Mr. America, and he promptly fires Mr. America on the spot. But wait! Mr. America reveals he has an iron-clad contract that cannot be terminated. A contract Stephanie signed SIGHT UNSEEN. Stephanie McMahon is a lot dumber than she looks. The heels get tired of this shit and try to unmask Mr. America, but he’s able to outsmart the opposition and leave unscathed. This will be the big angle on SmackDown going forward. Fun fact: Sean O’Haire did not utter a single word this entire segment.

And that’s our show! Join us next time for SmackDown, featuring:

  • Matt Hardy vs. Eddie Guerrero
  • Spanky vs. Jamie Noble
  • Torrie Wilson vs. Dawn Marie (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA)
  • Team Angle vs. Rikishi & Tajiri
  • Rhyno vs. John Cena
  • Brock Lesnar & Chris Benoit vs. Big Show & A-Train
  • …And more Mr. America!

Make sure to leave a comment below (I’ll read ’em!), share the column around and join the Discord. SmackDown!