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Submitted by Brendan Campbell on Tuesday, September 3, 2002 at 4:19 PM EST
“While this RAW wasn’t the greatest it was above average…the midcard kept this show alive!” Brendan’s RAW thoughtsThe show starts off with Eric Bischoff coming out with a case that held a belt. The belt would be for RAW’s new World Champion since Brock left for Smackdown. Now while this kinda takes away from the whole Undisputed thing, I guess it’s OK. BUT what happened WITH the belt was really bad! Triple H was handed the World Title and it tarnished it from the start. If Triple H now holds that belt, then that means there will be less meaning to watch all of RAW! Why? It means Triple H in every main event, and Triple H holding that world title for quite a while. Ric Flair would then come out and try to talk trash. Yes, he’s a legend, but people complain about the Hardy’s acting skills…what about Ric Flair! He always sounds like he has no idea what he’ll say after each word. Maybe that’s just me? Either way, Flair VS Triple H would be set up for the first time ever for the World title. Backstage we cut to Bubba Ray walking, and he bumps Triple H. Triple H gets all cocky, then Bubba says the look in his eyes isn’t of jealousy, but of hunger. The hunger? The closest that Bubba Ray will get to filling that ‘hunger’ is by going to Burger King after the show! Because even though he so valiantly disagrees, the only way he’ll get a hold of the World title is if the champ drops it and Bubba picks it up for him. Triple H should have brought up that Bubba should go wrestle in his 18th consecutive pointless match, and the 15th inter-gender tag match that he’s fought in. And as far as the whole angle goes with Molly/Nowinski…the whole hymen talk was just stupid. Who the hell would say that?! It was like way too graphic! Burst through tables, burst through Molly’s hymen…yikes, who was writing that scene? Then we see some more of the UnAmerican’s. Lance Storm and Christian would do some nice mic work, then Test would show up and continue his mission to burn the American flag. Question: IF Test REALLY wanted to burn the flag that bad, why would he wait until they won their match? Why wouldn’t he just burn it when he said that? Or walk out with the flag on fire!? Doesn’t say much for the thought process of my fellow countrymen! Booker T VS William Regal was a filler match. Not a great match, not a brutal one. Regal has no reason to be on RAW, and Booker should be in a bigger feud. Another question: It seems that RAW has NO talent now. They have guys ALWAYS fighting like 2-3 times a night just to make a show, while Smackdown is filled with guys…YET people are STILL leaving RAW. Why hasn’t Bischoff stolen anyone lately? The whole Shawn Michaels interview was alright, as I guess it is an explanation to fans as to what happened to Michaels after the match. I wonder if it freaks him out at all, that they lie he was saying about his legs not fully working and all, could be true if he’d just jumped differently off the ladder, or onto the table at the PPV? That’d freak me out. But I guess we’ll be seeing Triple H/Shawn Part Deux down the road now? WM-19 most likely. The first hour main event of Flair VS Triple H was actually alright. There was a lot of chops and no real ‘give it your all’ feel…but we’d find out why that happened later on. Either way, this was a solid match and Flair put over Triple H…though it just doesn’t have the same feel that something that big should have. After the match Jericho would come down and beat on Flair, only to have RVD come down and clean house! Nice touch there…BUT it would lead to something bad… Triple H would demand a shot at RVD tonight. GREAT! That means our HOT Jericho VS RVD for the IC title match is gone for a lame tag match with Triple H and Flair fighting AGAIN! That was a bad idea, and I wonder if the ratings will show it? Either way, Triple H VS RVD is pretty good. Maybe go a couple of months with it and have RVD WIN the belt?! Hahaha, sorry, forgot who Triple H was. Backstage Big Show was talking trash to Bischoff about how he should be #1 contender. Why? Because he’s big. See, if he was used right all of this time, he could have been big! Think of the threat! THE GIANT goes after Triple H! Whips the floor with him! Oh my! But no, now he’s The Big Show, a guy who basically jobs out and is pushed for a couple of weeks every so often. His match with Dreamer at least gave a gimmick to Dreamer where it seems like he’s snapped without his hardcore division to fight in! The handi-capped match has the same complaints all around the board. Kane just beat the Tag Champs, and while Kane is a monster, the tag titles are now worthless. So Christian and Lance Storm beat Booker T and Goldust, which means that Kane could beat those two as well…so basically we have two pieces of leather now for those two to carry around. Nice! ALSO sweet merciful crap, Bradshaw is back!!!!!!! Remember RAW at the start?! Kane and Bradshaw VS The n.W.o?! It begins… The whole 3 minute thing this week was the BEST yet. I’ve hated ALL of them until this one. This one made sense! Eric was mad! He thought Jeff was leaving and it was SMART to have him against Crash, thus setting up the swerve! Jeff was destroyed, while Crash told off Eric after…who knows, maybe this will give Jeff something to use? Okay, now with what would NORMALLY be a lame women’s match for some reason I actually enjoyed! Nobody likes these matches, but I thought this one was great! They didn’t TRY to know moves, they just slapped around and for the FIRST time in a while, The King was actually funny! “Looks like Terri clocked her” that was classic. Plus, Stacy was in this match. Personal opinion here, but I thought this was one of the higher bright spots on RAW! The main event was a tag match. Your normal tag match, the only plus was having RVD pin Triple H! NOW with these feuds we have something to work with, sort of. With these four being aimed as the only real big names on RAW (Kane/Bradshaw isn’t working…Kane alone, maybe!) but these four fighting more then once all the time…not good. Triple H/RVD should be interesting! And hopefully Flair/Jericho can add a spark to a rather dull feud. Brendan’s Overall RAW Thoughts: This show had no real bright spots. Flair/Triple H should have been better I think, but it was held down because of their second battle later. Kane squashing the tag champs wasn’t cool either, and no points to any of the other matches really. Therefore this RAW unfortunately gets… Brendan’s Overall RAW rating: Eyebrow down. What RAW is missing, and the WWE is missing is a storyline that’ll catch fans. The original n.W.o did it, DX did it, the Angle/Steph/Triple H love triangle did it, the first America/Canada angle did it, Austin VS Vince did it to name a few…nobody cares about the month by month stories going on right now. There’s no shock right now, or at least long lasting shock that makes you WANT to tune in. Brendan’s Match of the night: Stacy VS Terri- Say what you will, I just found this match funny, and entertaining! Plus Stacy in those pj’s…*Austin Powers accent* GRR baby yeah! Brendan’s Segment of the night: The UnAmerican’s talking trash, then Test coming up and threatening AGAIN to burn the flag instead of just doing it. I choose this because it just BAFFLES me why he says he’ll burn it, and then doesn’t do it when he can. It’s kind of like in Bond movies. The evil genius leaves Bond to die, and doesn’t watch. He just leaves and Bond gets away! In this case Test threatens he’ll burn the flag again, yet blows it every time! Brendan’s Spot of the night: Frog splash on Triple H. I don’t know why, this splash just looked AWESOME! RVD’s whole body nailed it perfectly, and he totally curled in and spread back out in mid air better then I’ve seen in a while! Brendan’s favourite moment of the night: Stacy in her lingerie! Adam’s RAW thoughtsThe show kicks off with the General Manager of RAW, Eric Bischoff with briefcase in hand, coming out to greet the fans of Milwaukee. Bischoff has a blockbuster announcement as he says, losing the Undisputed champion Brock Lesnar to Smackdown is really no big deal. Bischoff, says that RAW has the “real” number one contender and that his name is...The Game Triple H! Bischoff then decides to build up Triple H, if someone can really build him up any more. I think it’s impossible at this point in the WWE to put Triple H over even more, is that possible, as I see it Bischoff is trying, but yet the fans don’t care. Remember that briefcase that Bischoff brought down to the ring, well that briefcase contains the World championship. That’s correct, the same World Championship that was unified with the WWE championship belt. Bischoff says that RAW deserves there own World champion and that Triple H is RAW’s new World champion. What is going on with the WWE? They were lobbed a big soft ball and could have hit it out of the park with this new World championship presentation. Why not have a tournament? Why not spark some sort of interest on RAW? Why does Triple H even deserve this belt? So does this mean the Undisputed championship is still Undisputed, or is it now Disputed? Make some sense WWE! Ric Flair would make his way out (thank God) and spoke about how he busted his butt back in the day to win that championship (former NWA/WCW championship belt). Dammit, he was right, Flair won that title 16 times over his illustrious career. With that being said, Flair vs Triple H for the RAW World championship was made! Good backstage confrontation between Bubba Ray Dudley and Triple H. Great to see Bubba ripping into Triple H and totally punking him out backstage, give Bubba more promo time! Yet another inter-gender match was made, involving, the team of Trish Stratus (YEA!) and Bubba Ray Dudley against the team of Chris “the Heyman buster” Nowinski and virginal Molly. Oh by the way this was a tables match. It was revealed, yet again that Molly wears “granny panties” only upside to this was Trish exposing her nicely worn thong! All I have to say, is what’s up with the camera shot? We saw the side of her ass, how about the entire thing next time! They can show a close up of a guy in Rikishi, yet wont show the beautiful backside of Trish! Bubba would put Molly through the table for the inter-gender victory. Backstage the Un-Americans ripped the Americans another a-hole with Test threatening to torch the flag, give it up Team Canada version three. From their we went to Bischoff announcing a “Pillows Evening Gown” match between the young and fresh Stacy Keibler and the very old Terri. Finally a decent backstage segment in this third of backstage segments before coming back from commercial, Chris Jericho would charge into Flair’s change room ripping into the 53 year old World championship challenger, I rather see another Flair vs Jericho than Flair vs Triple H. In a quick and horrible match, Booker T. would run right over William Regal. I respect Regal as a technical wrestler, but it just doesn’t fit anymore. This was an obvious clash of styles between Booker and Regal. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler would conduct a “live via satellite” interview with Shawn Michaels sitting in San Antonio. Michaels would be sitting in a wheelchair throughout the interview. HBK would end the interview by letting Triple H know that he is no longer the hunted and that basically pay backs are a bitch! I’m thinking Michaels vs Triple H at WrestleMania X-9, what do you think? Triple H vs Ric Flair would be the hour one main event. I must say it was a decent overall match and Ric Flair finally hit that flip over the top rope move in the corner, total Ric Flair. Triple H would do it about five minutes later, showing Flair that he just shouldn’t do that classic move anymore. Flair would slap Triple H into the figure four leg lock with the Milwaukee crowd solidly behind him, great to see that move getting the props it deserves. I would love to say more about this match, but I can’t. Nothing very dramatic happened and quite frankly I’ve seen Flair put better matches on but it was good none the less. Triple H would nail the pedigree on Flair giving him the victory and the RAW World championship. Jericho would attack Flair and RVD would save him, both Jericho and Van Dam will meet in the main event. Lame backstage segment between The Big Show and Bischoff. Big Show was babbling like he usually does about being 7'2 and 500 pounds. Why doesn’t the WWE just swallow their pride, take the loss of money and fire the big slug. Un-Americans, Christian and Lance Storm took on the new and improved Kane in a handicap match, yes by the way this is the real Kane. I know you have to keep Kane strong but why have him run over the tag team champions? I mean just team up any two guys and have Kane give a bunch of choke slams! I guess they tried giving the Un-Americans their heel heat back, Test would hit the ring and drill Kane with the big boot. Uh-oh, I think I smell Test vs Kane for the Pay-Per-View, ouch... The Big Slow would hit the ring to take on Tommy Dreamer. Alright let’s see here, Tommy Dreamer had a pretty good series of matches with Steven Richards, he was the last hardcore champion. In my opinion Dreamer had a great match with Rob Van Dam in Madison Square Garden last Monday and this is how they repay him, they put him in the ring with The Big Show, what a joke! The match did end in a DQ, but out of no where the fans started chanting E-C-W, E-C-W for Dreamer near the end of the match. Is it just my opinion, but with the more television time given to Dreamer, people are warming up to him. A plus in my books, the match did end up Dreamer delivering some vicious chair shots to the Big Show. Earlier in the show Bischoff received a call that a RAW superstar would be jumping to Smackdown to join his “family” so our next match was Jeff Hardy vs Crash Holly. Jeff has Matt and Crash has Hardcore on Smackdown. Rosie and Jamal would hit the ring and destroy Jeff Hardy. Bischoff would rip into Hardy for jumping to Smackdown, but then in a swerve (didn’t see this coming), Crash would announce that he is the one jumping to Smackdown, can you smell the rating, Crash jumps to Smackdown! Up next was a treat for all the horny guys in attendance and watching at home. It was our Pillows Evening Gown match between Stacy and Terri with of course, The King refereeing the match. Stacy looked great in her panties and Lawler was a lucky guy, especially when Terri pinned Stacy. I found it a joke of a main event, between the teams of Triple H/Chris Jericho and Ric Flair/Rob Van Dam, as you know it was supposed to be Y2J vs RVD, but that didn’t happen, due to Triple H wanting Rob Van Dam in a match so Bischoff gave us the tag match. By the way when Bischoff announced it the fans actually booed it in the arena, that’s not saying much for your newly crowned RAW World champion. It was clearly evident that both, Triple H and Ric Flair were very tired in this match. Jericho and RVD would be a huge spark once in the ring, making it watchable. How can you throw a 53 year old in Flair in the ring twice, it doesn’t make sense, but then again that’s the WWE’s credo of late. Rob Van Dam would hit the five star frog splash on Triple H for the victory! Show would end with RVD holding up both the World and Intercontinental championship belts. Adam’s Overall RAW rating: Eyebrow down, for just giving Triple H the belt. Adam’s Match of the night: Triple H vs Ric Flair Adam’s Segment of the night: Big Show telling Bischoff that he should be the number one contender, that he can do things that most WWE superstars can’t do. If I was taking a guess, I would say eating and enormous amount of hamburgers. Adam’s Spot of the night: Ric Flair slapping the figure four on Triple H. Adam’s favourite moment of the night: People actually cheering Tommy Dreamer. Awesome stuff, keep pushing him! Well that’s it for this week’s RAW review! Tune in on Friday for our Smackdown review. Meanwhile, you can email us and in the subject write “Adam” or “Brendan” as to which one of us the email is aimed towards! Email us by clicking here! Until Friday…
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