|
|
|
|
|
Submitted by Brendan Campbell on Tuesday, August 27, 2002 at 9:47 PM EST
Hello and welcome to the FIRST Edition of “Campbell & Campbell”. This will be our first review of many as we’ll be reviewing both RAW and Smackdown each Tuesday and Friday here on LOP. You may know me, Brendan Campbell, as I write “I Know What You Did Last Monday” here on LOP. My partner in crime is a good friend of mine in Adam Campbell. Adam’s RAW reviewOpening Segment: Mr. GM, “Sleazy E” Eric Bischoff, as he was once known opens up the show to a chorus of boos from the Madison Square Garden crowd. Bischoff, announces that he will combine the Intercontinental and Hardcore titles, respectively, matching up a couple of former ECW stand outs in Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer. Bischoff, also announced that he will be honouring a WWE legend later in the evening. Bischoff, then introduced the new WWE Undisputed champion, Brock Lesnar who received a mixed reaction from the New York crowd, along with Lesnar is his mouthpiece and manager Paul Heyman, the only reason Lesnar is over I might add. Heyman quickly got the New York crowd to turn on his man by clearly stating the “he” told everyone Brock was and is the “Next Big Thing”. Oh yeah, on a side note the new Undisputed champion is 25 years old the youngest heavyweight champ in WWF/WWE history. They would be cut short as Triple H made his way out to HBK’s theme music, letting everyone know that would be the last time they would hear it. Triple H, as usual bored the crowd to death with a long and agonizing promo. Honestly, the only way this guy can get his point across is with a 10-15 minute promo, pathetic. If things couldn’t get worse, Undertaker who is not 25 would interrupt Triple H with another stellar promo...cough...cough, hope your catching the sarcasm in my writing. Just the reason everyone should stay tuned for RAW, Triple H and Undertaker cutting longer promos than the newly crowned Undisputed champion. Oh yeah on a side note Bischoff announced that Triple H vs Undertaker will be the main event tonight and the winner will face Brock at Unforgiven in September, oh joy. Opening Segment Rating: Eyebrow Down Match #1: Booker T VS Christian Something wasn’t right with this Booker T. vs Christian encounter as it was a slower than usual match up. I’m guessing the solid tag match the night before at SummerSlam didn’t help their situation. It still had some good crowd heat due to the fact that Booker T. is the most over he has ever been with the WWE crowds and the Un-Americans angle is kind of working. But quite honestly, that just doesn’t do it for me, since this is the third such angle since 1997. Booker needs a different finisher, the scissors kick just isn’t enough. Overall rating: Eyebrow down Segment: Team Canada: Three words, Test shouldn’t speak. Match 2: Spike Dudley & Bubba Ray Dudley VS William Regal & Chris “Harvard” Nowinski Where on earth are Spike and Bubba Ray Dudley going? I understand having Spike float around the midcard, but what on earth are they doing with Bubba Ray Dudley? If it’s not teaming him with Trish Stratus in an inter-gender match, it’s teaming him with good ole’ Spike. Please do something with him. Chris Nowinski and William Regal continue to work well as a team, all be it Mr. Harvard is still very green. Failed table spot with Spike and William Regal, but I wont knock it as Bubba recovered and Bubba bombed him afterwards. For the record, Nowinski is a gentleman! Decent continuation of the Nowinski and Molly angle. If only the WWE could do that for guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Edge, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho. Overall rating: Eyebrow up Backstage segment: Eric Bischoff and ““Special Guest”” Is it just me or is Eric Bischoff have a great “cocky” smile, this guy is entertaining in my books. Backstage segment: Molly & Chris Good build for the angle, but like I said before. Why can’t they do this with wrestlers people actually take interest in? Segment: Superfly & Bischoff Eric Bischoff would bring out WWE legend, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. Bischoff, present Snuka with the WWE lifetime achievement award but quickly snag it away as Snuka’s three minutes were up! Rosie and Jamal would hit the ring and give him an “Island Boy Special” the big splash from the top. Great to see the WWE bring in Snuka, for one time appearance and actually use him to bring a name to new WWE talent. Sure, some may say this is uncalled for but what else are you going to do with Snuka? Didn’t this guy spend some time in jail for attempted homicide or something along those lines? I guess what comes around goes around. Good video piece by the WWE production team. Overall rating: Eyebrow up Segment: Chris Jericho Jericho would come down and immediately slap the Walls of Jericho on Snuka who had just gotten up from the splash delivered earlier. Jericho would have Snuka tap like he had Flair taping at SummerSlam. Jericho would then lead us into song as he sang a Fozzy version of “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra. Match #3: Jeff Hardy VS Chris Jericho Hardy would come out and face Jericho to a pretty good match. Hardy is clearly showing signs of burn out once again. Someone give this guy a break so he can stick around for at least another two years, I can see him lasting longer? Good amount of near falls in this match, but it ended in classic DQ finish as Jericho wouldn’t let Hardy (in the ropes) out of the Walls of Jericho. Please give Jericho an angle, where is Flair? Overall rating: Eyebrow up Backstage: Brock and Terri Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar have made great strides since coming in after Wrestlemania X-8. Why do we need Terri as a backstage announcer? Lesnar told Terri he didn’t care who won between Triple H and Undertaker tonight on RAW. Lesnar was right, who does? Segment: Un-Americans Un-Americans would be in the ring with Test leading the charge, teasing the fans as they were going to burn the American flag, but Booker T. and Goldust would storm the ring and put an end to those shenanigans. Storm, Christian, Booker T. and Goldust would be tied up outside the ring as Test was once again going to attempt to burn the flag as Kane made his long awaited re-debut exclusively to RAW, sporting a new mask and all, we would be treated to a Kane-o-rooni. Overall rating: Eyebrow up Match #4: Rob Van Dam VS Tommy Dreamer (Hardcore/IC Title) Awesome to see two former ECW stand outs being cheered and given the respect they rightfully deserve. This match was to unify both the IC and Hardcore titles, Van Dam and Dreamer put on an excellent hardcore match. Doesn’t make any sense to take the hardcore title away from Dreamer as they just had a match last week on RAW ridding themselves of the 24/7 rule. I’m guessing this will be Dreamer’s last appearance on RAW seeing as the hardcore title is gone. Great spots throughout the match, reminded me a lot of the good old days in ECW. By the way kids, those tears Dreamer was sporing are real! I’m guessing it’s a thrill of a lifetime to be from Yonkers and wrestler in Madison Square Garden. Kudos, to Dreamer taking that killer ladder spot in the corner. Overall rating: Eyebrow up Match 5: Howard Finkel VS Lillian Garcia Tell me what male who is watching RAW wants to see The Fink in his red undies? Now if it were say, Stacey, Trish or Lillian fine, but The Fink? Thank goodness it’s over. Was Finkel really aroused during the stripping of his tuxedo? If so, I’ve seen Goldfish more hung than that guy. Overall rating: Eyebrow down Main Event: Triple H VS The Undertaker Triple H and Undertaker do battle for the 23430 time in the past two years. It was to be expected between Triple H and Undertaker. This isn’t Wrestlemania X-7 where Triple H carried Taker. Since then Triple H, blew out his quad and his elbow and has never regained his step. Taker lost his step four years ago so I’m sure you get my point. Bright spot in this match is when Brock came down to the and clocked the Undertaker with the Undisputed championship title. Triple H comes out victorious, as we’ll see Triple H vs Brock Lesnar at Unforgiven. Overall rating: Eyebrow down End Segment: Stephanie McMahon RAW ends with Stephanie McMahon stepping out of the limo talking trash with Bischoff and she says Brock Lesnar and the Undisputed championship will now be exclusive to Smackdown. Thus meaning Steph once again gets the advantage in the RAW vs Smackdown war of limo promo’s. Who writes this crap? Oh wait I know... Overall rating: Eyebrow down Adam’s Final thoughts: After coming off a very hot SummerSlam, best PPV of 2002 they follow with a bellow average RAW, or would that end up being an above average RAW in 2002? I’m not too sure? I’m sure the WWE gained momentum after that stellar SummerSlam but once those fans tuned into RAW they were lost again. It’s very surprising seeing as they usually go all out for their Madison Square Garden shows. Adam’s Overall RAW rating: Eyebrow down Adam’s Match of the night: How can you not vote this match of the night. The crowd was behind them, they pulled out everything in what could have been Dreamer’s last RAW appearance and RVD putting on another good show, especially after his match with Benoit at SummerSlam. I mean the New York crowd cheered for the hug, what more can I say? Adam’s Segment of the night: Seeing WWE legend, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka given the beat down by Rosie and Jamal, awesome stuff. Hopefully this will help the three minute men in some way? I don’t know if it was segment of the night as opposed to most shocking moment of the night. Adam’s Spot of the night: The series of missed moves by Dreamer and Van Dam which led to the crowd to give a respectful applause, you’ll only get that in New York. Adam’s favourite moment of the night: Hearing the New York crowd chant E-C-W, E-C-W while Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer went at it for perhaps the last time. Well that does it folks! That’s the RAW review in the books! We’ll be back Friday with the Smackdown review, so until then, click on my name at the top of this page and email us your thoughts. Subject “Adam” to reach Adam, and “Brendan” to reach me. Or both. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can! Until Friday… *NEW GALLERY* Very Rare Photos from MR. KENNEDY'S WEDDING!
|
|