WWE SMACKDOWN WORKRATE REPORT- 6/6/2002
I`ve just eaten a steak and started on my second PBR (in CANS! Yes, it is the day before payday....) I watched hours upon hours upon hours of choice wrestling on tape from all over the world; I NOW WAIT FOR THE US CONTRIBUTION! I will change my pants now and await...
WHAT WORKED
- HEY! It`s FIT motherfucking FINLAY! Why is he needing help keeping these two choads apart- like he couldn`t just beat the living breathing dogshit out of anybody in the entire building if he wanted to. Vince is funny being the broadest possible cheapheat-machine. Hokie Okies? What next? Beer Belly Rednecks? Insecure-Born Ratsoup Eating Motherfuckers? Hulk`s neck is all leathery and wiggly and layered- so it`s like my Aunt Alice if she was even more unduly tanned and had much smaller breasts. I get the urge to hug Hogan and he has a sudden to give me a nice piece of sponge cake.
- All that fabulous Man Ass is on display as they whip out Billy`s SWEET SWEET BUNZ~! Kawada/Taue! JUMBO/BABA! MORTON/GIBSON! BILLY`s LEFT CHEEK/ BILLY`s RIGHT CHEEK! This was awesome, motherfucker.
- Are they cancelling ONE ON ONE? Is that the show where the former portly girl lost all the weight and her friend who is a guy is teaching her how to slowdance because she`s never danced before, and he notices that HE MIGHT BE FALLING IN LOVE WITH HER! But she`s going out with another guy and is oblivious? Is it? Is that the show?
- Nidia is the evil stalker of Hurricane and they talk about Nidia and Hurricane doing the Donkey Dance at some point in the past. NIDIA IS A WOMAN SCORNED! HurriBITCH?!?! Damn, girlfriend, you gonna take that? Nidia explains that she has a boyfriend and Hurricane questions her morals and accuses her of having copious amounts of sex partners. Jamie Knoble starts beating the shit out of Hurricane and he is WAAAAAY too much fun as Nidia`s peckerwood boyfriend controlled by her sweet sweet pussy. This is definately Heyman at his sleazy best.
- Christian vs Valbowski was perfectly fine wrestling until Valbowski hits the shittiest lariats I have ever seen. Valbowski hits Yuji Nagata`s Nagatalock and this stays above the Mendoza line. Christian selling the leg to set up Valbowski`s sweet looking Towerhacker Powerbomb was nice. It was like three minutes and the Christian push is fading like my dreams of a successful porn career.
- Kurt Angle still has the wig. Hardcore Holly still has the worst catchphrase in all of wrestledom. Holly hits a nice dropkick and they get all stiff with the chops. Angle makes the Hotshot by Holly look fucking GREAT and hits a beautiful Belly-to-Belly. Holly throws shitty punches- as shitty as Angle`s German is magnificent. Angle`s crushes him with the Belly-To-Back. I await the old school Trifecta with a Vertical Suplex. Angle bumps like a mothfucker, going shouolder first into the ringpost. The toprope Suplex was pretty great- as Holly is a MAN and takes it like a man. Holly hits the sub-Shane Douglas Belly to Belly into a Powerbomb, but they are going long on this and I`m digging it as it only goes for two. The ankle pick should have been the finish but they opt for the roly poly roly thing with Angle cheating to win, thus capping off a perfectly fine wrestling match.
- Edge wears leather pants as streetclothes? In Oklahoma City? In June? That`s hardcore. Wait a minute. The Oklahoma crowd didn`t say ``WHAT?`` at any point tonight. I THOUGHT I was less irritated tonight. Jericho beating the hell out of Edge for doing a SHOOT PROMO~! was a nice touch.
- Billy Kidman gives Lance the hint to GROW BACK THE MULLET RATTAIL! When will he listen!?! WRESTLING SUPERSTARDOM IS CALLING!
- Hogan and HHH was kinda spirited. Hogan makes me guffaw with the double axehandle clothesline (WHAT?) They brawl around a bit and HHH keeps it good by doing a COMPLETE Ric Flair impersonation in the ring. The kicks, the chops, the bumps, the SWANK elbow drop, even the EXACT Sleeper hold from every Flair/Hogan match with flair kicking out his legs like that. Hogan hulks up and they do the exact sequence that Holly and Angle did less than an hour earlier with the Sleeper Reversal into a Side Suplex. Hogan looks PATHETIC hitting his pinning ritual. I was amazed that Hogan didn`t kick out of the Pedrigree. Instead, HHH wins clean as a motherfucking sheet. I got no problem with hogan at all when he does THAT. The indie postmatch hug was annoying but it got worse as HHH fucks up his badassed character by posing like a dink with the idol of children. Thankfully, Angle and Undertaker run out and save HHH`s career.
WHAT DIDN`T WORK
- All of TEAM SMACKDOWN gathers in the ring and Vince talks and talks and I`m assuming that this will be the just your normal point of irritation of Vince jacking off on TV for twenty minutes while his employees mill around in the ring- but then he sets up the most horrendously useless match ever concieved- A BATTLE ROYALE~! This is every battle royal ever- half the guys holding onto the ropes trying not to get thrown over, the other guys feigning like they throwing them over, a lot of people standing around, some of them randonly punching people. Christian takes the Scott Armstrong at WW3 elimination and the Christian push is deeply in danger. Orton dies neatly. Chavo does the Lee Scott elimination of twisting terror. Mark Henry is not effected by the Battle Royal because him selling anything would make him less annoying, and God knows he HAS to annoy ME in Big Daddy DEAN`s LEAST FAVORITE FORM of a wrestling match until he is finally eliminated. By the time the final four, Hogan throws some crappy punches and HORRENDOUS big boots- though Jericho is becoming the Canadian Psicosis in his ability to take spectacular bumps when all else fails and makes Hogan eliminating him look all spectacular. The finish was fun in a completely goofy, contrived way to set up the Main Event. HHH`s ability to pull a ham sandwich out of a hog`s ass will gauge whether that Main Event makes the Worked column.
- Lance Storm thinks, ``I`m going nowhere. I`m on Smackdown, the ratings are down, all the guys who are getting pushed are taking steroids. It`s all that bastard Nash`s fault. He poisoned it for guys like me when he booked WCW. Benoit wasn`t big enough, Malenko wasn`t big enough. I`m a heavyweight, garshdarnit! I don`t wrestle this Cruiserweight style anymore!`` and the whole story was going to go on and on until Lance convinces himself to try a powerbomb so Kidman could reverse it into a facebuster and we all laugh and laugh and laugh... It would have been a good time for me- the beloved reviewer- and you- the gentle reader- to bond and have fellowship together laughing at a foible of Billy Kidman`s arsenal of moves. Of course, this would be the first wrestling match that Billy kidman has ever wrestled where he didn`t demand that they do that spot so..... To hell with this match, it fucked up a perfectly fine cretinous set-up for a worn out joke. WE GET NO CLOSURE!
- Hardcore Holly is ELECTRIC on THE STICK~! I will probably not watch STRIPTEASE! Dawn Marie and Stacie have a Larry Sauders moment in the hallway. THEY TALK ABOUT EACH OTHER`S TITTIES! If they ain`t touching each other`s titties next to a pool while solving a crime at 11:30 on Cinemax, I really can`t get too excited about this.
- Rikishi and Rico take on Billy and Chuck. I wonder if this is the most a belt has been so completely skullfucked? Other than the Russo era WCW which I never actually watched. They get around to announcing the elimination stipulation a little late. WWE is protecting finishers really well as Chuck gets over his Pat O`Conner Pressure Hold to eliminate Rico. Rikishi is all kindsa fun fighing off the two Divine Heinies- but the weird thing is that Billy is eliminated one minute in and it fucks the whole two on one thing they are shooting for. And then they do about every crappy hackneyed booking finish to further shit on the same belts that used to be worn DICK MOTHERFUCKING MURDOCK AND ADRIAN MOTHERFUCKING ADONIS. (Murdock and Adonis had the belts, right? Won it from the Briscoes? WHA?) I`m typing waaay more upset than I actually am.
- Was that the SATs in the KotR commercial?
- Hey, Torie is gonna fuck Maven. They don`t go to where all of America wanted this segment to go- a three way with Maven, Torie and the kindly nurse. Tajiri looks like Jack Lord as he arrives with the Hawaiian shirt and he makes those anime-styled grimaces as the nurses at the front desk talk about what a piece Maven is. This ALMOST works.
- Tajiri as the evil doctor was reminiscent of that scene in HARD BOILED where they shoot each other through the intensive care ward- but instead of reenacting it with suplexes and knife-edged chops replacing the gunplay, this kinda turned into a bad What`s Happ`nin! episode. OH WAIT! They kinda save their own bacon at the end if it was any longer.
- Forrest Whittaker- it`s time to get another agent...
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
DEAN RASMUSSEN.