Recap by S_D

ANGER MANAGEMENT - WWE RAW

November 18, 2002

LIVE from Bridgeport, CT

We open to the view of Eric Bischoff excitedly watching a limo arrive thinking that it's either Scott Steiner or his wife and the girl he paid to make out with her at the Gold Club, but no, it's Ric Flair. Bischoff makes fun of HHH because he's probably throwing a tantrum right now for losing the title. Seriously, he probably is. Bischoff announces that the #1 contender will be decided in a match tonight. Flair says HHH can't be there (!!!!!!) because he's hurt. Bischoff then books a match for old time's sake with Flair vs. Kane. Flair's not worried, no way, because if Kane touches him, he'll have to hear about Katie Vick from HHH again. Isn't it sad that Flair has been so dragged down that he's answering to HHH? Flair leaves pissed off, daring Bischoff to produce a RAW without HHH. Show already gets a thumbs up from me.

New World Champion Shawn Michaels came out and promises to not bore us with a long victory speech. He then bores us with a long victory speech. HBK doesn't want to be one of those guys who hangs on too long and perhaps he should just leave the belt in the ring for some of the younger, more deserving talent to have so that he doesn't have to job to them. HBK should really put his smile on a leash, because I think he's trying to tell us he lost it again. But, wait! HBK allow younger talent to be put over? Hell no! HBK's keeping the belt which brings out the man responsible for this HHH-free RAW, Rob Van Dam. RVD makes subtle digs at Shawn and then challenges him to a match, and Bischoff no-like. So he comes out to add to the fun. Bischoff says he makes the matches and tonight there will be a triple threat match between Rob Van Dam, Chris Jericho, and Booker T. and the winner will face HBK next week for the title. In other words, the winner will have a 50% chance of sucking down a Pedigree at Armageddon. WWE then makes fun of themself when Bischoff says, "Does a little necrophilia offend you as a Christian, Shawn?" And Shawn replies, "No, it offends me as a wrestling fan!" He should have just stopped at no, but the thought counts.

Meanwhile, it's time to hype up the 500th episode of RAW so we will be seeing random RAW retro clips in the next weeks. Tonight's clip is Bobby "The Brain" Heenan dressing up in drag drying to get into RAW while Sean F'N Mooney captures him. I didn't even know Sean Mooney lasted to 1993.

Match #1
The Dudley Boys & Spike Dudley vs. 3 Minute Warning & Rico
Ah yes, the return of The Dudleys to RAW and they have new awesome theme music: "Bombshell" by Powerman 5000. Download it. Rico still looks like Disco Inferno. D-Von Dudley is either looking more muscular or more fat. I can't tell with that shirt he has on. Rico hits a beautiful spinkick which almost knocks Spike's head off, however he walks right into a Dudley Death Drop for the loss at 4:20.
Winners: The Dudleys & Spike Dudley

Meanwhile, Stacy Keibler is on the phone with Test (who's 1 year immunity from termination expired today!) who is doing PR work in India. We get more Stacy bending over and more testicles garbage. More bending over. Less testicles garbage.

Meanwhile, a random tech guy tells Bischoff that HHH is being rumored to be on his way to the arena. Oh great. I can hear the remotes clicking right now. Bischoff heads out to meet him.

Meanwhile, Bischoff finds a limo, but instead of HHH, he gets the Big Bad Booty Daddy, Scott Steiner. Bischoff babbled and begged for Steiner to sign with RAW, and Steiner said nothing and walked backstage. Best Steiner promo ever.

Keibler comes to the ring and props this testicles crap even more. He has the DDP hands-free microphone on and holds up three t-shirt designs for the fans to choose on. None of them got a really big pop, because this whole gimmick is lame and Test sucks. But the third one, "I love my Testicles" got the loudest response. While Stacy starts shooting t-shirts into the crowd, Steven Richards comes out because he's pissed about last week. Richards sure sounds like he's in RTC mode, but before anything can happen, Stacy blasts him in the balls with a t-shirt from the cannon. Who didn't see that coming? As Stacy tries to exit, Victoria comes out and attacks Stacy which culminated in Victoria biting off one of Stacy's fake fingernails! Ooooh the pain! Victoria helps up Steven and they leave together as the WWE's new wacky, mentally unstable lovers I guess.

Meanwhile, Stacy whined to Bischoff about Victoria, so Bischoff puts Keibler in Trish Stratus' place in her match tonight with Victoria. Keibler doesn't look too happy, but what else did she expect by whining to Bischoff of all people?

Match #2
Lance Storm & William Regal vs. Jeff Hardy & Tommy Dreamer
This was basically a Regal\Storm squash. Dreamer gets kicked in his injured jaw by Regal and gets pinned at 1:43. Bullcrap. They then, after the match proceed to do the drop toe hold spot into the chair onto Dreamer, but with the chair the other way around. Looked brutal, in a physically painful way. But what else do you expect from Mr. ECW faithful.

Scott Steiner comes out on RAW for about the first time in 8 years. He gives his generic WCW promo about women and stuff. The botched word count is up to 2. Jericho then joins the fun by making fun of Steiner and says he has a lot more things to worry about than "some jive talkin moron who dresses like King Authur." Awesome line. Steiner implied that Jericho would be seeing him in the main event. Great segment.

Match #3
Non-Title
Stacy Keibler vs. Victoria
Not much to this match as Victoria completely annihilates Keibler and then hits her with one of the most awesome finishing moves I have seen since Shane Helms debuted the Vertebreaker in WCW at 1:18. And you know, if all the stupid crap WWE replays during shows, they didn't replay this. Idiots.

Match #4
School Of Hard Knocks Match
Christopher Nowinski vs. Al Snow
This is basically another way of saying "Hardcore Match". And this was one of the better hardcore matches I've seen on RAW in a long time. If they did matches like these while it was still alive, I wouldn't have minded the Hardcore Title as much. Snow set up 6 chairs, with 3 on each side facing each other and set Nowinski down on them. Snow went for a moonsault but landed very nasty on the chairs when Nowisnki moved and got the pin at 4:43. Very nice brawl.

Meanwhile, Bischoff is backstage talking to...Val Venis. I guess he's another person involved in the Big Show trade. Bischoff refers to him as "Val Venis", and Venis goes nuts, telling Bischoff never to call him that again. Yeah, because he's The Big Valbowski now! Which is entirely different! Not-Venis and Bischoff went into his office to finalize some sort of deal.

Match #5
Kane vs. Ric Flair
Match never gets started as Flair comes out dressed in street clothes, and then Dave Batista (who Flair was trying to schmooz with last week, remember) comes out and completely obliterates Kane into 10,000 pieces. If this is leading up to Kane vs. Batista at Armageddon, break out the No-Doz. You're gonna need it to stay away during that match.
Winner: No-Contest

Meanwhile, GTV -Version 2- sees the World Tag Team Champions, Jericho & Christian, in their locker room. Jericho begs for forgiveness from Christian and asks that he watch his back with HBK, Steiner, and HHH here to hold back his push. Christian basically says "F-View" (bwahahahahahahaha) and then leaves. It should be noted that a Goldust\Christian match that was advertised for RAW on WWE.Com mysteriously got scrapped. Because we absolutely needed the time to talk about Test's new t-shirt.

Match #6
Winner Gets World Title Shot Next Week, No Disqualification
Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Jericho vs. Booker T.
Pre-match, Booker cuts a promo dissing all the people that didn't classify him as a World Title contender, so he kindly reminded us that he is a 5 Time 5 Time 5 Time 5 Time 5 Time WCW Champion, and did a Spinaroonie. Near the end, what was a good match started to be plagued with run-ins as Christian waffled Booker with a chair, apparently making piece with Jericho. Then Steiner comes out and owns Christian and Jericho, which allows RVD to his Jericho with the ***** for the win at 11:40 and the title shot next week. HBK then comes out and congradulates RVD on the win and we fade with them two staring at each other. Great match before all the run-ins started. Rob Van Dam vs. Shawn Michaels is a dream match for any long-time wrestling fan, so next week's RAW should be something special. It might even pop a good cable rating too.
Winner: Rob Van Dam

ALL IN ALL this was a great show from top to bottom. This show and the PPV after Vengeance are definitely right up there as the best RAWs of the year. Every commercial break led me wanting more, and all the guys and gals, even in the short matches, seemed to have their game faces on. And guess what folks? All without HHH. WWE should learn a lesson from this.

S_D

©2002, WrestlingDB.