Recap by S_D

WWE Super Tuesday

SmackDown! portion TAPED on November 5th, 2002 in Manchester, NH @ Verizon Wireless Arena

RAW portion TAPED on November 4th, 2002 in Boston, MA @ Fleet Center

The first half of Super Tuesday will be the SmackDown! portion, as we lead in with the view of General Manager Stephanie McMahon who reveals her big announcement regarding the SmackDown! Tag Team Titles in regards to Survivor Series. The announcement? The new champions, Edge & Rey Mysterio, will defend the titles in a Triple Threat Match against the teams of Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle and The Guerreros. That's right folks, yet another Match of the Year candidate. If I still wasn't so pissed off at Unforgiven, that might have been able to sell the show for me.

Match #1
Triple Threat Match
Edge vs. Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit
This match was taped before the awesome 2 out of 3 Falls Match on SD! last week, which probably explains why Edge and Benoit took it easy here. After about the first 4 minutes, the dreaded commercial break does a run-in. I bet since HHH is on this show, he got a lot of the good stuff in this match cut out so it wouldn't undermine him. Doesn't it show how bad a company lets the inmates run the asylum when people will suspect Vince f'n McMahon of all people to let HHH have all this control? Anyways, match is good for television standards but not to their standards, which I can forgive seeing as how Edge and Benoit had to work 4 falls later on in the night and since they knew barely anyone was gonna watch this special. Speaking of no one watching, how about that 3.1 for RAW? That's unbelievably disastrous, and doesn't lead to strong PPV buyrate projections either. There's one man you can thank for that rating, and right now, he's spraying himself down with windex. The tag team partners of each men run out during the match. Rey looks as if he hurt his knee while fending off Chavo. Angle and Benoit start jaw-jacking and Eddie rolls up Benoit and grabs the tights for the win at 10:39. Cheat To Win~!
Winner: Eddie Guerrero

The Big Show comes out to give yet another one of his blown-up interviews. And this time, he didn't even work a match. Walking to the ring is too much of a chore for this boulbous piece of trash. And seeing as how the news broke of Brock Lesnar having a broken rib, it's now about a 99.9% chance that their match at Survivor Series is just going to suck. Keep it under 5 minutes.

Match #2
Interpromotional Bikini Challenge
SmackDown's Torrie Wilson vs. RAW's Trish Stratus
I'm disappointed by Jim Ross's false advertising here as he said this would be "thong-o-mania" but there are no thongs to be seen. Jerk. Before Tazz can announce the winner, Nidia runs in and attacks Torrie, and then Trish attacks Nidia, and then Torrie and Trish fall all over each other in friendship. I'm all confused. Who the heck is Torrie feuding with? Dawn Marie or Nidia? And why have Trish and Nidia fight when you can't back it up thanks to conflicting brands? Which begs more questions: what was Trish doing at SmackDown! anyways and why did Bischoff let her go? What a pointless waste of time with zero logic.
Winner: no-contest

Spaking of pointless wastes of time, it's now time to switch it over to the RAW portion of Super Tuesday.

Shawn Michaels does another sit-down interview from San Antonio with J.R. and Jerry Lawler. Does this guy have a T.V. studio in his house or something? This is like the 93rd sit-down interview from San Antonio in about 3 months. This is nothing more than Survivor Series build-up. And by the way, WWE really needs to tell Shawn to cool it with the God stuff before even more viewers get alienated.

Match #3
Triple H, Chris Jericho, Christian, & 3 Minute Warning vs. Booker T., Rob Van Dam, Kane, Bubba Ray Dudley, & Jeff Hardy
The heels are accompanied by Ric Flair and Rico. Didn't those two wrestle each other a while back? Anyways, 10 man tag matches are either really good (like February 2000) or horribly bad (like June 2002). There's no in between. And I bet it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to figure out which category this match fell under. This match was taped after the absolutely horrid RAW last week in Boston...remember, the one where the biggest pop of the night was when HBK said the show was over? So the crowd is completely dead here except for certain points, in which the ©WWE Auto-Heat Machine fills in the gaps where needed. Kane and HHH are fighting when all 10 men join up in mass carnage. Everyone flies over the top rope onto each other on the outside, which means the ref isn't looking, so HHH gets a chair and nails Kane with it. Chairshot leads to the Glass Ceiling-igree for the win at 8:24. Why? Because HHH must take everyone's heat away from the Chamber match, except for his good buddy HBK of course, to make everyone look like they all have an equal zero chance of beating him.
Winners: HHH, Jericho, Christian, & 3 Minutes

ALL IN ALL it was a pretty missable lackluster show, much like WCW Thunder was back in the day. This show wasn't as much as Survivor Series hype as it was bailing out UPN until they can find something to replace the recently-cancelled "Haunted". Other than the announcement of the Tag Title match, which if you watch SmackDown! you'll hear about anyways, nothing of note occured. But I'm not scolding them at all for it because they were just basically asked to fill time by UPN.

PPV Card as of tonight's show:
-- RAW Title, Elimination Chamber: Triple H vs. Chris Jericho vs. Booker T. vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Kane vs. Shawn Michaels
-- SmackDown! Title: Brock Lesnar vs. The Big Show
-- RAW Women's Championship, Hardcore Match: Trish Stratus vs. Victoria
-- Elimination Table Match: Bubba Ray Dudley, Spike Dudley, & Jeff Hardy vs. 3 Minute Warning & Rico
-- SmackDown! Tag Team Title, Triple Threat Match: Edge & Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle vs. The Guerreros

S_D

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