ANGER MANAGEMENT: WWE SmackDown! 12\05\02 Dec 07 - 03:18 am EST
Recap by S_D
After coming off an abysmal RAW, it’s now time for the good show of the week. WWE SmackDown shoots us dead between the eyes this week from Dallas, Texas. Tazz is back on commentary this week after Ernest “The Cat” Miller did the substitution last week while Tazz was attending to a family emergency. Yes, the turkey was taller than Tazz, but who cares. WWESmackDown.Com gave us a great match to look forward to tonight. It’s in the form of a Fatal 4 Way elimination match to determine who fights Big Show at Armageddon for the WWE Championship. It will be contested between Chris Benoit, Edge, WWE Tag Team Co-Champion Eddie Guerrero, and Kurt Angle. Finally, someone with talent will be getting a chance. No other matches were announced. So, let’s jump into this week’s contests:
MATCH-BY-MATCH RESULTS:
• Albert defeated Rey Mysterio with a Canadian backbreaker at 2:52.
• Crash defeated Jamie Noble with the Crash Landing at 2:03.
• Bill DeMott defeated Funaki with the No Laughing Matter at 2:30.
*WWE Cruiserweight Championship*
• Billy Kidman defeated Chavo Guerrero with the shooting star press to retain the title at 7:42.
*Fatal 4 Way\Winner Gets WWE Title Shot at Armageddon*
• Kurt Angle defeated Edge, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero at 23:15.
MATCH COMMENTARY
Albert\Rey: Albert is the one that puts out Rey? ALBERT? Why not a heel who’s actually over or what about someone who deserves a rub? Oh well, I guess WWE-life sucks if your name is “Matt Hardy” or “John Cena”. I’m starting to believe WWE is starting to spite Matt for getting himself over with the whole Mattitude phenomenon, just like what WCW did to The Hollywood Blondes in 1994. I just don’t understand when they are going to give up on this waste of space. Every attempt to get him over has ended up in a miserable failure, and this will be no different. I don’t care if he is a hoss; he still sucks and will never entertain me or anybody else.
Crash\Noble: Don’t believe Cole and Tazz when they say this is a cruiserweight match. This was basically a throw-away match. The aim wasn’t to get over Crash. The aim was to get over Noble’s string of bad luck lately and to further hype up the fact that Nunzio, which will more than likely turn out to be former 2-Time ECW Tag Team Champion Little Guido, will be debuting next week on the show. And just think that Jacqueline vs. Victoria on RAW got more time than this match. That is a crime. How does A.J. Styles feel seeing Crash not only steal his move but do it better?
DeMott\Funaki: Another throw-away, 2-minute crap fest. I don’t know why we are seeing the resurgence of the push-the-big-men booking strategy on SmackDown. Big Show sucks and is not over. Albert sucks and is not over. DeMott sucks and is not over anymore. And the one time he did start to get over finally, Vince put an end to that when he wrote AOL Time Warner that $2.9 Million check on March 23, 2001.
Kidman\Chavo: Now believe Cole and Tazz when they say this is a cruiserweight match. Fantastic match from these two which should be how every cruiserweight television match should be. It brought back great memories of WCW’s winning cruiserweight formula. This is just what they should be doing with the cruiserweights: focusing more on the in-ring story than the out-of-the-ring story.
Angle\Edge\Benoit\Guerrero: We have two-thirds of the “SmackDown Super 6” in this one, so that pretty much speaks for itself. But before the match, Albert rears his ugly, huge head into things by attacking Edge. Man, this is going to be a long period of time. Anyways, absolutely amazing stuff to behold before and after Edge came back, but then again, does that really surprise anyone nowadays? I do have a teeny gripe with this match, as I totally disagree with the idea to have Angle and Edge finish the match. I have heard theories that WWE likes to push its homegrown talent more so than talent who have grown their grass in other pastures, so to speak. It was very prevalent in this one. I honestly believe Angle and Benoit should have been the final two in the match. Not only because they are awesome when working together, but it would fit the storyline between Angle and Benoit. But oh well, I’m just a dumb internet fan. I don’t know anything, right J.R.? It’s going to be Big Show vs. Angle at the PPV. Does that mean The Showster is coming back?
OTHER STUFF
Obviously, the show was really centered on the latest development in the Torrie\Dawn storyline. It turns out that Dawn really had her eye on Torrie, and was just using Al to get more access to her. Dawn then made the proposition to Torrie that she would call off the wedding if she gave her what she wanted. The final segment of the show involved a lingerie-clad Dawn and a shaky Torrie inside room 357 of the SmackDown hotel (that’s on Know Your Role Boulevard at Jabroni Drive for those of you that don’t remember). The original segment lasted much longer, and also, sometime between the tapings and the airing of the show, WWE actually filmed a segment with Dawn and Torrie actually kissing and making out with each other, which UPN ultimately put the kibosh on because they thought the segment was in bad taste. Remember once upon a time when Vince McMahon would have told UPN to go screw themselves had they said something like that? I guess they’ll save it and pay it off on the PPV. I mean, really, it’s not like PPV is controlled by UPN. That is, unless someone has been lying to us this WHOLE time.
It looks as if failed push #58 is in the works for that hoss Albert. So, they fire Mike Awesome and Perry Saturn because they have nothing for them, they keep Matt Hardy off T.V., they turn John Cena into Vanilla Ice and have his new buddy be Bull f’n Buchanan, but they push Albert again? Does Albert have revealing photos of someone? Or is Pat Patterson just a big fan of back hair? Either way, it makes zero sense why they keep shoving this guy down our throats. Now, it’s pretty obvious that Test and Albert were the perfect partners for each other. In fact, I would like to see them reunite…in TNA. Get it T&A in TNA? Oh crap, I hope Russo isn’t reading this.
I have no idea if Stephanie McMahon is supposed to be a face or a heel. But it’s pretty obvious that she’s supposed to be a slut, as she turned a trick for the services of Scott Steiner on SmackDown. Stephanie also claims that Steiner will be at SmackDown next week to sign the contract, which rouses boos from the crowd since he won’t be there tonight. Can’t say I blame them.
John Cena continues to get wasted even more as he was placed in an asinine “Hip-Hop Challenge” (…) against Rikishi. May I just say that Bull Buchanan, a.k.a. B^2, just looks like a fricking retard? I can? Ok then. Bull Buchanan, aka B^2, looks like a fricking retard. Why Cena continues to be wasted against an old piece of news like Rikishi is beyond me. If they insist on having this match on the PPV, please God let Jericho suggest Cena go over again clean.
Where the HECK was Matt Hardy this week?
Chris Benoit cut what many have been saying is the best promo of his career, talking about the sacrifices he’s had to make and continues to break to achieve his 16 year dream of being the WWE Champion. They always say the best characters are the ones who are true to life. Or just really good actors, like Kurt and Rocky.
Bill DeMott was reintroduced to television this week as a heel, as he basically destroyed Funaki. We’ll see where this one goes, but I do not like where it’s headed.
Brock Lesnar and Big Show went face to face sort-of during a satellite-to-arena hook up. Lesnar basically just gave the overview of the feud and said, even though he was suspended, he would be at Armageddon and would be watching Big Show’s match, which we now know will be against Kurt Angle. I’m glad to see WWE values the suspension angle so much and tries their best to not make it look like a joke. And it’s pretty obvious, given the fact that a couple weeks ago J.R. said Angle needed a scope on his right leg, poor Angle is going to be doing the job to the Big Slob. It seems to be that every PPV opponent Big Show has had since Survivor Series had got injured or was injured so they would have a way of excusing the inevitable bad match. With that knowledge, look for a huge Big Show\Hardcore Holly showdown at the Royal Rumble.
OVERALL
-- Best Match: Angle\Benoit\Guerrero\Edge --
-- Worst Match: DeMott\Funaki --
With a great cruiserweight television match, and one PPV quality match that stretched the 20 minute mark, I’d definitely say this show goes down alongside the other spectacular SmackDowns they have cranked out since around August. I can excuse the Albert push if he never makes it above mid-card. And as far as the Torrie\Dawn lesbian angle goes, well, we’ll see how they pay it off. This was a good show this week.
S_D
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