Evening, folks! I’m Bachur, and I welcome you back to Pops & Botches: The Lesnar Years. Where we left off, Judgment Day! The FBI and John Cena continued to roll, Eddie Guerrero and Tajiri snatched the tag titles, Torrie Wilson beat Sable in a Bikini Contest (and then they kissed), Mr. America defeated Roddy Piper in the biggest angle on SmackDown, and Brock Lesnar drove the Big Show’s past a big yellow line to retain the WWE Championship. 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… uh… actually, we’re not on The Road To anything right now, since June’s PPV (Bad Blood) is Raw exclusive and Vengeance isn’t until July. So I guess this bit makes no sense. Well, let’s get to it! Next Big Thing!
BOTCH: Brave New SmackDown
We open this episode with a recap of Judgment Day’s biggest story: Mr. America beating Roddy Piper. Nothing about Brock, nothing about Big Show, nothing about the tag titles. Just Mr. America and Vince McMahon. The angle that matters. Obviously, we can’t start SmackDown without a Vince McMahon promo, that’d be absolutely insane. He drives into the arena, strolls past pre-TV Luther Reigns and cuts a promo on the ramp. He says he hasn’t been happy since Mr. America showed up on SmackDown and announces that he’s taking over tonight’s broadcast. He guaran-damn-TEES he’ll not only have a smile on his face by the end of the night, but that his fingerprints will be “all over this show”. As opposed to the last four or so months of SmackDown, which he’s spent feuding with Hulk Hogan for like 40 minutes per episode? That was the non-Vince SmackDown?
I don’t know if this is directly related to Vince’s hostile takeover or not, but SmackDown has a brand new spiky presentation AND a new theme song. Both are slight downgrades, I’d say. The new theme isn’t nearly as good as The Beautiful People and I’m fairly sure the only reason anyone remembers it is because they played Here Comes The Pain on PS2. Anyways, after the first match (which we’ll get to shortly), Vince comes out AGAIN for another fucking promo. With the entrance music and everything. Twice in one show, this shit is unreal. He calls out Roddy Piper to the ring, tells him to apologize for losing to Mr. America and then slaps him in the face. Piper gets riled up, obviously, but before they can come to blows, Sean O’Haire says it was HIS fault that Roddy lost on Sunday. Which, you know, it was.
O’Haire does the unthinkable and asks to wrestle Mr. America tonight. Since when does Sean O’Haire wrestle? I thought he was hired to stand still and look mean. Piper goes “Oh yeah, there’s no way Mr. America can beat Sean O’Haire!” which is kinda like saying “there’s no way John Cena can beat Vladimir Koslov”. Vince agrees, but here’s the caveat: If Sean O’Haire loses, Roddy Piper is fired from WWE. Not exactly sure how that incentivizes Sean to win, but whatever. Later in the show, Stephanie McMahon has a sit down interview with Mr. America’s Pal Zach Gowen. Zach says he wants to be a WWE Superstar someday and he talks about his personal struggles with Osteosarcoma and his absent father. It’s interesting for sure, and you feel for the guy, but Steph reacting to it like she’s watching the ending of Schindler’s List doesn’t do Zach any favors.
Backstage, Vince tells Mr. America he wants to add a provision to tonight’s main event: If Mr. America loses, he must go through a lie detector test next week. Mr. America refuses, but Vince gets him to cave when he threatens to make sure Zach Gowen never gets a job in pro wrestling. He must’ve followed through on that, cause god knows where Zach Gowen is nowadays. I’ll just skip to the main event, cause hey, might as well. Mr. America battles Sean O’Haire, and as you can imagine, you could replace “Sean O’Haire” with any Dungeon of Doom member and you’d have the exact same match. Sean gets some offense in, but by the time Mr. America starts no-selling punches and shaking his arms around, any kind of rub O’Haire might’ve gained from this match gets completely snuffed out.
Tazz: You gotta give the experience to Sean O’Haire in this one, Cole!
Cole: What are you talking about?
Tazz: Mr. America’s got like three matches under his belt, come on
Mr. America hits the big boot and drops the big leg, so Piper pulls him out of the ring mid-pinfall, which the ref doesn’t seem to notice. O’Haire’s basically dead to rights at this point, but Mr. McMahon shows up with a platoon of security guards to escort Zach Gowen out of the building for putting his hands on him last Sunday. He also grabs a hold of Zach’s cane and yells “HE’S GOT A WEAPON”, which is very funny. Mr. America heads outside to help out his friend and gets counted out in the process. While this happens, O’Haire lies flat on his back and stares at the lights in the middle of the ring. Despite being the superior wrestler who could’ve easily won the match, Mr. America has fallen. Mr. McMahon, meanwhile, is smiling. Lie detector test, next week!
POP: By Any Means Necessary
After that first Vince promo, we open the show proper with something that’s been missing from these columns for a long, long time: a tag title defense on free TV. The last time they did one was February! SmackDown just isn’t the same without good tag matches, you know? Sure, we’ve had a few decent ones, but I mean a proper, high quality tag team affair. Stuff like Los Guerreros vs. Edge/Kidman or Angle/Benoit vs. Edge/Rey. The type that makes you go “Damn, I’m glad I watched this episode”. Tonight we got Team Angle invoking their rematch clause against new champions Tajiri and Eddie Guerrero, which should be a treat. Oh, I should mention, KURT ANGLE RETURNS IN TWO WEEKS!!! EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!
I gotta say, if the new Vince McMahon Regime means more tag matches like this, I’m game. These four are on tonight. Eddie is the most reliable wrestler in the world at this point in time, Tajiri’s a consistent highlight in any match, and by now Team Angle have got the hang of tag matches down to a T. Gone is that nervous sloppiness that crept up from time to time during their first few months, everything here is silky smooth. The finish is worth noting too, as it marks the beginning of an Eddie Guerrero staple: the ol’ “Cheat 2 Win”. After about 15 minutes of back and forth action, Eddie runs into the ring with a steel chair and breaks up a pinfall by smashing Mike Chioda in the spine.
As the ref comes to (fairly quickly by WWE referee standards), Eddie tosses Charlie the chair. Before Charlie can make sense of this, Chioda sees the chair in Haas’ hands and promptly disqualifies Team Angle. On the surface this might seem like a copout finish, but what I love about this is that Eddie cheats to win. He doesn’t just throw the match out and get DQ’d, he figures out a way to make Team Angle lose. The fact it happened after a good, hard fought match makes it even better because Team Angle were THIS close to taking their belts back and wound up losing their contractually obligated rematch in the most frustrating way imaginable. And also, the fact that it’s Eddie Guerrero doing this. Eddie could bring an Uzi to the arena and open fire on the crowd and he’d still get cheered.
SLIGHT POP: We Beefin’
SmackDown’s top rappers collide when the Doctor of Thuganomics and Spanky finally go one-on-one. Cena’s rap this week is as follows:
Dude, you’re just a copycat of me, I’ve been watching your progression
Kid’s got an obsession with trying to steal my Ruthless Aggression
In his first match against Kurt Angle, he took him to the limit
The next minute he’s rocking velours, claiming that that’s his gimmick?
Dude, he’s exactly like me! No no no, I’m 10x bigger
You wanna be me so bad, dude, you swallowed my action figure
But you’ll never be untouchable, I don’t care how hard you try to
Dude, I serve you quicker than a Burger King drive-thru
And with a name like “Spanky” dude, he never gets a date
He’s always arguing in groups cause all he does is “massdebate”
So I’m past you, little rascal, you and your kiddie tricks
You want to spank something? Dude go home, spank on your…
Not the best we’ve seen from John, but the “mass debate” line was unusually clever. This is the blowoff to the big Spanky/Cena feud that’s been going on for about three weeks, and while it’s not crazy good, it’s rock solid TV. Early 2000s John Cena was a machine against cruiserweights. He had this mean streak you rarely saw out of him in his later years, everything he did had such force behind it. And Kendrick’s always been one to go the extra mile on every bump, so he makes Cena look like a killer. “John Cena is just mad at the world!” / “Nothing wrong with that Cole, I’ve lived that lifestyle…” Spanky gets a pretty great comeback but Cena shuts him down and lands an emphatic FU to secure the win. What’s next for John Cena? More rapping, most likely.
LITERAL BOTCH: TAZZ!!! MY BALLS!!!
After fucking Big Show’s whole night up last Sunday at Judgment Day, Rey Mysterio is up next… on commentary! Yeah see, Rey’s feuding with Cruiserweight champion Matt Hardy again, so he’s keeping a close eye on him. Matt’s about to go one-on-one with (read: lose to) Chris Benoit, which is a first time match up here on the column! Our Matt Facts for the day? “MATT LIKES HIS STEAK MEDIUM WELL” and “MATT HAS MORE TEETH THAN BENOIT”. Rey says he likes his steak well done, heartbreaking to hear.
Matt clowns around with Benoit and gets his ass kicked for a while until Shannon and Crash run interference. Rey doesn’t like Crash and Shannon interfering, so he makes sure to bring it up every two sentences. Matt and Benoit have a perfectly fine match here, really not much to say. It’s a shame, Benoit’s an all-time in-ring guy and Matt can be great on occasion but neither man has been doing their best work lately. Rey stops Crash and Shannon from interfering any further, giving Benoit the opening to reverse a Twist of Fate into the Crossface for the inevitable win. Matt grabs a mic and tells Rey he’ll give him his coveted Cruiserweight title shot… provided he beats both MF’ers in a handicap match right here, right now.
Rey accepts, because it’s Crash Holly and Shannon Moore. Somehow I feel like wrestling both guys simultaneously would be even easier than wrestling them one at a time. Rey vs. Crash/Shannon takes place, and to my surprise, it’s not such an easy win for Rey! Not because Crash and Shannon put up a fight or anything, but because poor Rey pulls his groin. Rey-Rey limps through a makeshift finish, sloppily eliminating Shannon and Crash in quick succession to take it home. He even has to be carried out of the ring post-match while Matt beats up his MF’ers for losing. But one way or another, Rey’s coming after Matt Hardy’s Cruiserweight title! As soon as his balls are healthy!
???: Hoes Mad
At Judgment Day, Torrie Wilson defeated Sable in a Bikini Contest via “unanimous decision”. In reality, Tazz said she won and no one questioned it. Sable isn’t happy about it, so she makes her way to the commentary booth to chastise Tazz for his mistake. “Torrie’s a pretty girl if you like the tomboy look”, she says. She tries to get into Tazz’s head via her evil sexy posing, but Tazz doesn’t budge, so she dumps a bottle of water on him and leaves. The only thing to note about this segment is that it’s the first time I’ve seen Tazz without sunglasses in like five years. It’s so weird, man. It’s like seeing Dr. Claw’s face.
FINE: Back for Blood
Welp! Here comes the pain! Since Brock Lesnar has unfinished business with the FBI (as does every babyface on SmackDown, from the looks of it), he’ll go one on one against an unspecified Italian tonight. God, let it be Nunzio. The FBI don’t seem too worried about it, and I like how Stamboli doesn’t even know who they’re feuding with. “I’m gonna knock that People’s Eyebrow right off his freakin’ head!” All three Italians bumrush Lesnar before the bell, and Johnny the Bull ends up being Brock’s lucky opponent. You’d think this would be a great opportunity for Johnny to showcase his freakish strength, but nah, he does jack and shit in this match. Meanwhile, Brock lauches his 240lb ass into the air like it’s a bag of groceries, it’s nuts.
They wrestle for about four minutes and change, and it’s just kinda there. Brock throws Johnny around and looks good doing it, but that’s about it. I really like the Italians as these goofy, innefective prelim heels who end up in main event spots, but in-ring, they’re not much. Nunzio’s the best one at taking a beating, and he’s the one who wrestles the least! The Italians use the Damned Numbers Game on Brock, Brock fights back, and then they run in for the DQ. They put the boots to Brock post-match, as they often do after losing, but tonight is a little different.
You’ve done it noooooooooow. The Undertaker’s back, and he wants the Italians’ asses. He helps Brock clean house, and honestly, I can’t think of a more lopsided matchup than Brock Lesnar and the Undertaker vs. the Full Blooded Italians. Shit, Brock and Taker could be wrestling every Four Horsemen member in their peak at the same damn time, it still wouldn’t be a fair fight.
And that’s our show! Join us next week for SmackDown, featuring:
- Torrie Wilson vs. Nidia (for the love of GOD)
- Team Angle vs. Los Guerreros Orientales, again
- Sean O’Haire vs. Chris Benoit
- Rikishi & Spanky vs… the Basham Brothers???
- Brock Lesnar & The Undertaker vs. Big Show & The FBI
- …And Mr. America’s lie detector test!
Make sure to leave a comment below (I’ll read ’em!), share the column around and join the Discord. SmackDown!
