far too easily - hhhh - god (nov 18)

7. 1-lidchiko Yoshida bea1 Don Frye in 5:32. Frye did an mterview mocking
Shawn Michaels before the tight. He said that he had retired and was home with
his family. He said he'd like to say God told him to return to the ring, but really,
his family was sick of him being al home and wanted him out of the house. His

~

Yan Dam worked over
Michaels' back including a backbreaker, leading to a frog splash to the back
But God wasn't on RVD's side. as he usually isn't. Before Yan Dam could pin"----"
him, HHH came out and gave RVD a pedigree on the noor. He and Michaels
traded blows in the ring until HHH laid him out with a backbreaker on a chair.

~~~~

Charles Wright (Godfather), 41 , was released this
past week after not making the WW A tour. Wright told WW A offi cials the eve
of the tour that he had inj ured his knee in training, and for whatever it's worth,
the WWA officials were quite skeptical since it was a last minute call. His
contract expired in mid-December, so the tour was going to be his last
assignment from WWE anyway. He was released about two weeks before it
expired and was already paid ahead of time through expiration. There was talk
of occasionally using him as Godfather on a nightly deal but I've also heard to
the contrary on that one. He was asked to show up on Raw on 12/2 after he got
his last check to be with the ho's and Bischoff and present them to Steiner. He
was told the angle would be for Steiner to beat him up, snub his ho's, and leave
with Stephanie. Recognizing it was meant as a blow-off to both himself and his
character on their TV, he held them up for perks, li ke a limo and first class
tickets and just whatever he could do to avoid coming, and got his wish. I'd bet
NWA TNA

~~~~

Raw on 11 / 11 was
the closest thing Raw has been to an average s how in many weeks. Except for the
rating, the most imponant thing on the show was they never once touched the Eric
kissing Stephanie angle. If that wasn't designed to be the start ofa huge angle that
would save the brand extension. then they 'need to re-evaluate the brand extension.
If it wasn't done with a long-term planned follow-up, it was stupid to do it because
that's in a nutshell the problem with the soap opera as they continually stan angles
and viewers have no confidence anything starred ever will lead to any conclusion or
even logical follow-up. The show opened with its best match, as RVD & Kane beat
Christian & Jericho via DQ in 9: 14 when Jericho broke up a pinfall by giving Kane
seven chair shots and giving RVD three more. Good match highlighted by RVD
doing a frog splash about 80% across the ring. They aired a commercial for the new
Smackdown video game, which was based on Lesnar and is a cool commercial, but
guess whose face is the biggest on the Smackdown game? God himself. HHH.
Jericho said his job on the show was to soften up all the guys in the Elimination
Chamber. When Christian noted that he was the alternate in the match in case
someone gets hurt, Jericho laid him out with a chair shot. Jeff Hardy pinned Sturm
in 5: 15 with a swanton. Dreamer and Regal both got involved in the finish. Bischoff
told Terri she would either have to have a match with Victoria or talk her way out of
a match with her, or be fired. Victoria at the time was in the ring on a bad case of
roid rage doing some god awful acting. Terri tried to chicken out of the match. Even
though she was supposed to be the babyface, the fans booed her for that. and why
would that be a surprise? Babyfaces are not supposed to be chickens. Victoria teased
she'd let her go, as if. Victoria. instead of doing Terri bodily harm, simply tore her
shin off, leaving Terri in her black bra. which is something she seems to have done
voluntarily on the show for years. But then she had to take bumps, including a slam
on the ramp and Victoria also kicked ref Charles Robinson low and pulled out a
ladder. Stratus finally made the save doing a botched looking teeter toner ladder
spot. Flair met Dave Batista. It's become such a cliche of these new brooding guys
who ignore everyone who talks with them. Flair tried to charm this 18-years-latcr
version o f nephew Nikita. who finally said "thanks" as he brooded into the ring. Hr
destroyed D-Lo Brown with a power bomb in I :32. Michaels did a promo that was
kind of sad. He was this guy from another generation brought back and you cnuld tell
the older fans knew him and liked him and everyone else was like, what is this skinny

·-
guy,, 11h an ~Os haircut who can't do a promo doing in the ring talking about ancil'nt
his1ory. I le no1cd 1ha1 he debu1cd 1he ladder maich. 1hc I !ell in a Cell and 1he Iron
man ma1ch (well. the last one was a bi1 ofa Streich) and won all of them (1he tirst
WWI· ladder ma1ch I 1hink "as Bret vs. Shawn taped for a home video and I don·1
know who won th a 1. but the lirsl famous ladder match at \Vrestlema111a X ,, nh
\11chacls , s. R:11or Ramon was won by Ramon but Michaels was thi.: real ,,innt.'r
because of his mcrnorablc performance). I le said he was no longi.:r the I lcartbrcaJ..
Kid l ,, htch 1s why he,, as wearing an IIBK t·Shin as this was going on) or the Sho,,
Stopper. I le then started talking about ·religion. which is always dangerous during a
wrestling broadcast. 111·11 1 came out and infom1ed Michaels that during Raw. "I'm
God." Man. he scooped my second lead story for, he week. They lraded punches and
111-111 laid him out in 1he middle, with no hcip. and Flair not e,en in sight for
d istraction. with a pedigree. He pulled o ut the sledge hammer but Tim White ran in
and grabbed the sledge hammer while the agents pulled I IHI-I away. and he ended up

ripping Terry Taylor's shirt. They broke the cardinal rule of bringing back the old-
timer. You never make the old-timer look like an old-timer in booking before the big

match. He can get double-teamed. get on the mic. do a grc;;it promo saying he's got
one last light in him. Bui he can't "et beat fai r and square in seconds by his larger
and younger adversary because you don't want people recognizing he ·sold and weak.
or that he has a haircut from the 70s. 3 Minute Warning beat Dudlcys in 2:51. Spike
took some incredible bumps to get rid of him. Jamal pinned Bubba with a Samoan
drop. Jeff hardy made a save and cleanecl house on all three until he missed a
swanton o n Rico. Warning & Rico then laid out Jeff an,! put klT & Spike on a table
and Jama l came olT the top on both o f them. No" inski came ou1 and said that Pete
Rose should be in the I !all ofFame. They cheered him like cra,y. I le then turned on
the crowd. He pinned Snow in I :33 with his feet on the ropes Snow had a real
chance right alier the lirsl TE to be a star. They took no advantage ofit and he's on
the long li,t uf people "ho fans won't get behind because they know it ·s fruitless.
An}'\,ay. they spent ,,eeks building up a feud to blo" it off in 90 seconds. Maven
came in for the run-in and if those two guys were to sit do\\n and watch their 20
seconds. they'd be far more humble next time on Blind Date. Di,choff ewlained the
lliminJ,;u,; Chambe r rules. Richards got to be treated as a dork as he bent over and
begged Ke ibler to spank him with a cane. Test did instead and was holding his bun.
RNN came on and Orton did a short spiel. Test & Richards beat Hurricane &
Goldust in 2: 15 "hen Test pinned Hurricane a lier a roll of the dice. Same shining
wizard sentence we write every week after Hurricane·s bout. Richards tried to grope
Keibler so Test laid him out with a high kick and warned Richards or anyone, to
never touch one of his testicles. Kcibler is starting to look d1ngerously thin. Hl-11-1
pinned 13ookcr in 5: 15 with a low blow and pedigree. At least Flair got to distract
Booker before this happened. I-IHH tried to bump for Booker early and with his size
and slow bumping. it looked so bad. HHH needs to drop some weight. Kane. RVD.
Michaels and Jericho all did post-match run-ins. Everyone did their finishers o n each
other. Flair was in there to take a superkick from Michaels. Kane and RVD fought
each other. It kept until Michaels laid out Kane with a superkick and I IHH with a
pedigree. looking like it was over. But Jericho got to stand tall at the e nd, hitting
Michaels with a chair shot. . Smackdown taping notes from 11 / 12 in Columbu,,

~~

Frank Serpe, the Chief Accounting Otlicc, will serve as the acting CFO.
Basil De Vito will run marketing temporan ly. UeV1to has been pan of the
company on and off dating back nearly 15 years, and his last high-profile
assignment was heading up the XFL. .. Survivor Series was announced on
I 0/30 as a sellout in Madison Square Garden with a record $1. 1 million live

gate. However, MSG then announced that plenty of good seats were being re-
released two days later. They went on Smackdown announcing the show was

sold out while Ticketmaster had plenty of seats available, and said it again on

Raw, but it's all a moot point as those tickets are gone as well. .. As the build-
up shows. the plan is for Lesnar to play the role of babyface in his program

wnh Show. Exactly where things go from there are unclear, but it 1s being
called a babyface turn and not a one month deal.

~~~

are unclear, but it 1s being
called a babyface turn and not a one month deal. He could always work with
Angle and be a face. The plan in the Benoit-Angle stol)'line at this point is for
Benoit to come out of it as a face even though it worked in reverse in England
last week. The build-up for Show has been tremendous the last two week,•- ·
Smackdown. It's actually become a subject for frustration with some wrei
not getting a push when they sec a little creative thought put behind Sha<
Dreamer (although he's already back to being somewhat buried) and Onan
and they went from nobodies to somebodies in a few weeks. The stol)'line they
are trying to play is that Lesnar had so much taken out of him in the

Undcn akcr match that he 's not the same, and even had Heyman tell him point
blank that he couldn 't beat Show. They arc also strongly teasing whether
Lesnar could suplcx or F-5 Show (he could suplex him if Show wanted to go
·. F-5 I ha,e no idea) as ways to possibly build the match around him trying
J trying those spots until he hits them. . I lcyman wants Lesnar to stay on
'-rfie heel side because it makes sense both to keep them together. as well as do
Lesnar programs with Edge, Mysterio and Benoit. At this point all look to be
tough sells for PPV but all would make great TV bouts. If he's a face they've
got Show, which they' re doing, Angle, which they want to hold off for months,
and maybe Eddy Guerrero. tho I can't see that ever as a PPV match. There is
always Undenaker when he returns, but the natural program there is
Undertaker vs. Show at first. Heyman wants to do something funher with
Mysterio is why they didn 't do a finish on Smackdown before the angle.
UPN 1s giving WWE a one-hour pre-Survivor Series special on 11 /1 2 at 9 p.m.
They taped a ten-man tag match alier Raw on I 1/4 in Boston with HHH &
Jericho & Christian & Rosey & Jamal over Kane & RVD & Booker T &
Bubba Ray Dudley & Jeff Hardy which went 9:46. Even though it was the
cream of the Raw crop, more than half the crowd Jcti before or during the
match, causing them to have to get various workers (not wrestlers) at the
shows to serve a s spectators in front of the cameras to at least make ringside
appear full. O ne repon said that Earl Hebner messed up the count and counted
down HHH about a minute before the finish. It ended after Van Dam did a big
Jlip dive on most everyone. with Kane in the ring and getting hit from behind
by a Flair chair shot. HHH then pinned him after a pedigree. Live, to explain
it. Bischoff came out and his mic went dead as he ordered the impromptu
match a tier the live show had j ust ended. The show will be pushed as a joint
Raw & Smackdown special. Also taped the next night for the special was an
interpromotional bikini contest with Wilson vs. Stratus. Nobody had to do the
job here as Nidia attacked both women and ended up getting her ass handed
to her. They also taped a three-way with Eddy Guerrero over Edge and Benoit
While not announced otlicially, I'm presuming they go with the three-way tag
match for Survivor Series. Said to be very good. It was notable that Benoit
didn' t come out with his tag title belt that he lost later in the show, but before
this would air. In the old days when stuff like this would happen, they' d shoot
an angle off TV where Edge would attack Benoit and grab the belt and then
shoot the TV with him having it. They d idn't bother, as I guess they figure
,s a rc way too sman for that today and they' ll know the tinish later After
~ cf bump. Benoit had Edd)' ,n the cross face When Angle threw the re fin the
nng, he collided wuh Benun, breaking the hold. As Benoit staned arguing
with Angle. 'Eddy knocked the two together and pinned Benoit. Later in the
show they had a Show promo where he talked about what he had done to
Lesnar and Undenaker . . . Scott Steiner should be on television very soon.
Hes got a long interview planned forthe I 1/9 Confidential show. I'm not sure
how this has al l gone down. but he's off the WW A tour even though he was
still being advenised and promoter Andrew Mc Manus was claiming he' d sull
be doing the tour about a week ago. WWE and WWA are in talks about some
son of a deal. which may include WWE sending some lower level wrestlers on
the Mc Manus tour in exchange for Steiner not going. . After a ll the cr iticism
in recent weeks, Raw went consen•ative on 11 /4 in Boston. Unfonuantely.
the lack of talent depth on the Raw side makes doing a show based on the
wrestling dit1icult Nathan Jones got a huge pop in a dark match even though
nobody knew ,vho he was. A combination of the first match in fro nt of what
staned out as a hot crowd and his giant look. Was told that he got over better
than any guy without television has at a taping in recent memory, but when u
came to his work, he was more made to look good by Arch Kincaid doing a
good job bumping for him. They really said little about the Elimination
Chamber during the show except airing a video Jeature which seemed to
indicate it would be a circular cage. The only new match announced was
Stratus vs. Victoria in a hardcore match for the womens title. There was a
brief acknowledgement of the recent audience destroyihng angles,.but it was
played down and only done. for a comedy spot where they talked about having
sex with dead people and Goldustjust said he was young and it only happened
once. The big soap was Bischoffacung weird while watching the tape of his
kissing Stephanie, so they are going slowly on that. HHH and Flair accused
Bischoff of being against them because hes hittingon HHH 's "ex-wife."
Rasey & Jamal, now known as 3 Minute Warning. beat Bubba & Jeff in 6:20.
Jeff. with his tatoos and weight loss 1s looking more and more like the son of
Jimmy Valiant. and that isn't good. Spike came out to give Rico the Dudley
dog on the Jloor. Rasey shoved Jeff off the top when he was about to deliver
: swanton. Jama l pinned Jeff with a Samoan drop. Crowd was super hot for
,is match, because those there wanted so badly to see a good show. They've
given Victoria this psycho movie character. Stratus pinned Ivory in 3: 19 with
what was purponed to be a bulldog. Victoria was at the broadcast position
with Ross & Lawler, but when they'd ask her a question, she wouldn't say a
9
word. Alter the match. she fired a bottle of water at Trish and that girl has an
arm on her. Perfect strike and then they had a pull-apan. Backstage, Terri
asked Victoria if after she calmed down, she could interview her. Victroria
pulled Terri's clothes o ff. which was as risque as things got. Randy Onan
barged in with the RNN update. Funny concept but they really had no new
material for him this week. Still. anything to get new talent over at this point
is a positive Bischoff fired a camera man because even though he was
supposed to fill backstage with secret cameras, he wasn 't supposed to film
Bischoff in secret. HHH & Flair compla ined about Bischoff & Stephanie,
giving them the excuse to show the clip for a second time. Segment went way
too Jong. Loss of crowd heat and interest staned ehre. Storm & Regal beat
Dreamer & Snow in 3 :36 when Storm pinned Dreamer after Regal kicked him
in the side of the head. In reality, kicking a field goal with somebody's head
is probably an etlcctive move, but it's something that the audience wasn't used
to as a pro wrestling fi nish. Storm was doing a promo before the match when
they interrupted with a Steiner video on the screens. Snow appeared to hun
his knee before the finish but he came out later in the show. Batista, now
called Dave Batista, pinned Justin Credible in I :24 with a power bomb. The
crowd didn't react to this at all. Okay, here's the OVW vs. WWE booking
scoreboard on characters. It will bt:: one of life's great mysteries why, since
OVW is pan of the WWE system and not a rival promotion, that when OVW
develops a strong character, they don 't take them as is as opposed to trying to
repackage them, panicularly in situations when WWE creative has no idea.
Okay, and Batista is the perfect example since he was so much more effective
as Leviathan than Deacon Batista (which they at least recognized quickly was
a dud character) and as his real name. In OVW, he tried the look with hair
becuase he did a WWF dark match and fans chanted Goldberg so WWF
wanted him to have hair. Well. he lost much of his e ffectiveness. Instead of
learning from that, they brought him in and wanted him growing his hair out.
In other cases, OVW did a better job with Rico (not even close), Cena and
a lmost guaranteed with Doug Basham although WWE hasn't even tried with
him yet. I guess OVW also did better with Bull Buchanan, but I didn' t think
he was all that e ffec tive in OVW even though he was pushed hard. WWE was
more etlective with Lesnar, and his success almost overrides all the other bad
gimmicks put together. They were also far more effective with Nidia, who
largely was just taking up space in O VW and is a star in WWE. Jury is still
out on Onon. but in the long-run. I think WWE portrayal will be better. So it's
not as one-sided as everyone thinks. but it still mystifies me why they can' t use
an effective OVW g1mm1ck. HHHH challenged Michaels to come out.
Booker came out instead. People weren't into the confron tation at a ll. Jericho
came out, leading to both attacking Booker and Kane making the save. They
son ofhmted at HHH & Jericho not liking eact, other. but they had them as
allies far too easily. They did a vignette where Test, on the orders of Keibler,
got 90% of his hair cut off. It was loo public and it had to happen. Test beat
Hurricane in 3:4 1 wnh the old roll the d ice move. Test now looks like a
generic big guy you' d see at the gym. Hurricane, like in every match. did the
shining wizard, and like in eve ry match since he Jell Smackdown. it wasn't
called. They even showed a replay. Over/under on it is January now. Bad
match. They showed a Jericho video, and did a funny interview segment with
Jericho & Christian, where Christian said he'd beat RVD and get into the
Elimination Chamber. Jericho liked the idea because he'd have an a lly helping
him, but Christian then noted that he wanted the title himself Jericho got mad.
Of course it ended up mattering little. as RVD pinned Christian in 6:38 with
a frog splash. Fans were into RVD big. He hurt his leg and the match fell
apan toward the end. By the end of the match, Van Dam seemed to have
recovered and did all his usual spots, ending with afrog splash. Nowinski
came out for an interview. Even though Harvard is local, he ripped on Ted
Williams, Larry Bird and Nomar Garciaparra and said how the Harvard grads
are everyone's bosses in Boston. He got real good heat. snow came out and