Stanman's Wrestling AfterThoughts - The Road To No Way Out
Submitted by Stanman on Friday, February 21, 2003 at 12:30 AM EST



Welcome to another fantastic edition of SWAT, the column that thinks it can, that thinks it can, that thinks it can. Well, it's not the little engine that could, but I can hold my own.

First off and on a serious note, I would like to send my condolences to the family and friends of Curt Hennig, who passed away two weeks ago. He was such a good wrestler back in his hay day and his mannerisms were just untouchable. I remember his chewing gum spit and swat taunt he did before every match. Back when we were younger, my brother and I used to imitate that all the time whenever we were done with our gum. Even though it is just a little mannerism, it goes to show you (and me) how long we have been watching him wrestle. The business truly has lost one of it's greats..

On with the AfterThoughts.


The Sharpshooting Gallery: The Road To No Way Out

No Way Out is shaping up to be a decent pay-per-view this Sunday. The WWE has mustered up Rock vs. Hogan II and the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin to spike the buyrates. Hopefully, it does create enough interest for the fans to keep watching for the next few weeks leading up to the grand-daddy of them all, Wrestlemania.

Most of the matches were built up well with the exception of a few. Jeff Hardy vs. Chris Jericho falls into the lackluster build-up category. Now granted, both wrestlers are good workers, but when you scrap an angle involving another wrestler in Test, no matter how good they wrestle, when you do not have a legit story, the match is worthless. I see this match as a 'warm up the crowd' match. It is a damn shame because I know it could be more than that with the talent of Hardy and Y2J. In the end, being the champ that he is, Jericho will put Hardy over.
Stanman's pick: Jeff Hardy, with the help of Shawn Michaels.

Another poorly built up match is Scott Steiner going up against the world heavyweight champion, Triple H. It seems like this feud has been going on forever and NOW is the time to put an end to it. I see Triple H putting himself over cleanly in this one, thus flushing Steiner's main event run down the toilet.
Stanman's pick: Triple H via Pedigree.

I enjoyed how the Undertaker/Big Show feud has progressed over the past few weeks. It started off on the right foot seeing that Big Show was the one that put Undertaker on the shelf for a few months. Paul Heyman has done wonders in representing Show on the mic. As for the actual match, I wouldn't mind if I missed it since both wrestlers actually suck at wrestling. The match itself will be a brawl with the Big Show getting the win and extending this feud until it culminates at Wrestlemania.
Stanman's pick: Big Show, with interference from Paul Heyman, of course.

Mattitude is running wild all over Smackdown. The WWE has done a great job with Matt Hardy and his gimmick, especially during the past two weeks with him trying to lose weight to meet the Cruiser requirement. As for shoving him in the Cruiserweight division, that is questionable. I guess we will have to see where this title will take him in the coming weeks. Yes, I see him winning the belt since Kidman has done nothing with the title lately.
Stanman's pick: Matt Hardy via Twist of Fate.

The six-man match pitting Team Angle going up against Brock Lesnar, Edge, Chris Benoit will be a good one to watch. It is pretty obvious that the WWE had to do this in order to save the big payoff match between Angle and Lesnar for Wrestlemania. And having the other members of Team Angle going up against Edge and/or Benoit wouldn't have been believable as a pay-per-view match. This match screams out Team Angle as the winner of the match. I don't know why, but it does.
Stanman's pick: Team Angle, with Kurt Angle pinning Brock Lesnar after a devastating title belt shot.

Yuck. That is all I can say about the Kane/Rob Van Dam vs. Lance Storm/William Regal match for the tag team titles. For the love of all that is good, PLEASE HAVE KANE AND RVD WIN THE DAMN TITLES. Ahem. Watching Storm and Regal operate as a team brings tears to my eyes out of boredom. You cannot ask for a more boring team. Not even Head Cheese can top them. Plus, I would like to see Kane turn on RVD sometime down the road and a tag title run can add more of a story to it.
Stanman's pick: Kane and RVD, via five-star frog splash, to become the NEW tag team champions.

Stone Cold! Stone Cold! Is coming back to the WWE! Ah, whatever. This should help the WWE out for the short term. As proven in the past, Austin's return from hiatus helped television ratings for a few weeks but then went back to the norm. I still say that his return would have been better if he made a surprise appearance (with no prior hype of his return) on the last day of Bischoff's 30-day RAW rejuvenation storyline. The funny thing is Bischoff did not do anything groundbreaking for RAW during that time. Yet he still has a job. Go figure. Oh yeah, I have a match to predict..
Stanman's pick: Stone Cold Steve Austin wins after stunning Bischoff about 13 million times.

Lastly, Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock should once again live up to the hype. The Montreal crowd should be hot for this one and this match alone will be worth the price of the show. Rock's promos this past Smackdown were great and his transition to heel-dom is now in full effect. I also noticed the Rock's new tattoo. Hey, whatever works.

As for the match, I see Hogan pulling out the victory since Rock had the upper hand on Smackdown when he spat in Hogan's face. Plus, a loss can add more fuel to the Rock's heel turn by having him make up excuses to why he lost and whatnot. This match has drama written all over it and I hope they churn out a match that delivers. Much like they did at last year's Wrestlemania.
Stanman's pick: Hollywood Hulk Hogan via two leg drops of doom.

Well, there you have it. Those are my predictions for this Sunday's show. The Montreal crowd adds that extra incentive to watch the show since they make it *that* much better. The Canadian fans are known for making some noise and this event will be no different. I'm looking forward to it already.


Mission: Accomplished

That will do it for this edition of SWAT. Gathering Intelligence will make it's return in my next column. My last question was about surprises and how you think the WWE should go by delivering them. Should there be surprises? Or is hyping a debut/return the way to go? If you have any comments about the topic, drop me an e-mail.

Until next time, thanks a million for reading.

-Stanman
StanmanLOP@yahoo.com


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