Wrestling in a Bottle: RAW X, Rumble, Big Show, and Fun!
Submitted by Snapple on Friday, January 17, 2003 at 8:18 PM EST





Guten Tag, meine Wrestlen Freunden und Freudinnen. Welcome to another edition of the only wrestling column that brings you sunshine on a cloudy day, Wrestling in a Bottle. Ich heisse Snapple. This week, I'm going to touch on a few points I think need to be addressed, such as Tough Enough, the Royal Rumble, and especially that piece of monkey shit called the "RAW Tenth Anniversary Special." So much to talk about, so let's get right into it.

RAW X

I remember all Monday and Tuesday, I was worried that I might forget to watch what I thought for sure was going to be a monumental show in the WWE, RAW X. I didn't know what to expect, so I made sure to catch it. I thought there might be something action-oriented, something that would start a big storyline, and most hopefully, I thought I would get to see a wrestler not still under contract from the WWE. What we got was almost none of the above, except for that two second pan to Freddie Blassie and the supposed start of Austin's comeback with Vince's acceptance speech. Boring!

This show was ALL wrong. Where do I start? First of all, the awards were complete bull, obviously meant to put over the people who are currently at the top of the business at the moment. As a matter of fact, I'll talk about all the awards, one at a time. The first award was called "Diva of the Decade", and it went to Trish Stratus. You know why it went to Trish Stratus? Two reasons: she's currently employed in the WWE, and she actually showed up for the show. I think Sunny, Sable, or even Chyna would've been better choices for this award. Of course that didn't happen, proof already that the award show is nothing but crap.

Next we had "Don't try that on television", and it was presented for the most insane sick move executed on RAW in the past ten years. Before I say who won, I just want to say that the Big Show was one of the nominees for this award, and Rob Van Dam was NOT. The great New York crowd (who were the only entertaining part of the show) immediately started chanting "R-V-D" after the nominees were read, which Shane just ignores. The award goes to Kurt Angle for his missed moonsault off the top of a steel cage in his match with Chris Benoit before King of the Ring 2001. I will admit, that was a really great match and a really great move.

The next award was called "Tell me I did not just see that", and I thought it was for the most shocking moment on RAW, but I'm not entirely sure... at any rate, the award went to Mick Foley for having three different personalities. For some reason though, Mick wasn't there to get his award. If the WWE can't even get Mick frikkin' Foley to appear on the RAW anniversary, something is seriously wrong here. This is the point I totally lost interest in the show, by the way.

The next award was called "Give me the Mic", and was awarded to the worker with the best mic skills on RAW in the past decade. The award went to The Rock, and here's the sad thing, folks. The Rock wasn't even there to pick up his award. How sad is the WWE when they can't even get the Rock to their award show. Now, the Rock was actually there via satellite, and he was actually pompous enough to say "Finally the Rock has come back to New York City", when in fact he was just sitting in Los Angeles. That caused the crowd to boo the Hell out of pretty much everything the Rock said after that point, and rightfully so. I think when the Rock comes back, they shouldn't let him anywhere near the title until he gives up this silly movie career of his. The award was presented by Chris Jericho, by the way, the person who easily should've won. However, if you notice, the WWE planned carefully so that all of their big name stars won exactly once and only once, and Jericho wins an award later in the night.

Next was the "Network Difficulties" award, presented to the moment on RAW that pissed off network executives the most. Now, I think a lot of people will agree with me here, and certainly the audience agreed with me when they started chanting "Pill-man! Pill-man!" I mean, come on, Brian Pillman with a gun? That, and necrophilia (which strangely didn't make the list) have got to be the most insane things the WWE has tried on RAW. Mae Young giving birth to a hand is up there, but it's not the most memorable. Obviously, since Mae Young and Moolah actually showed up, they might as well give one of them an award. Not that Pillman could've shown up, rest his soul, but the trend of awards is obvious.

Next was the "Superstar of the Decade" award. This was the only award that I didn't have to argue about the winner. It was "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I've had problems with Austin in the past, especially in the months before he walked out, and I do think he's past his prime. Still, the fact remains that Steve Austin has probably done the most a single worker could do in the WWE in the past ten years. Unfortunately, Austin didn't pick up *his* award either. Big surprise.

Finally, the "Match of the Decade" award was announced, and it was the biggest piece of crap award of them all. I mean, just looking at the nominations, you can easily tell that Smackdown! has had the better matches than RAW, even before the split. This is especially apparent when the winner of the award was all the participants of TLC 2002, which was easily the WORST of the four TLC matches. Despite being the worst TLC match, it was declared to be not just the best match on RAW of the year, it was the best match on RAW of the decade. That is an absolute joke. I liked how Bubba dedicated the award to Matt Hardy, Edge, Chris Benoit, and D-Von Dudley, the people who were a part of the first three TLC matches, but not the fourth one. That was good, as the first three TLC matches are some of my favorite matches ever.

Overall, the show sucked. Badly. It ended up being an extremely cheaply done awards show with zero surprises and zero special guests. Not only did Bret Hart and Steve Austin not show up, but the Rock and Mick Foley didn't even show up. Now that's just sad. Most of the awards went to the wrong people anyway. The whole thing was boring and bad. Stick this film in the fire and burn it.

Tough Enough

I don't have much to say on Tough Enough this week, because not much really happened for once. I have always liked the ribbing that's been done this season. Stealing the wheels on Al Snow's SUV was hilarious. I also noticed that John got a lot more airtime this week to talk for once, something he doesn't always get to do, despite the fact that he can bump and wrestle better than Maven can already. John can do a standing Shooting Star Press! Now that's cool.

Oh wait, there is one thing worth discussing. Apparently, there will be one more cut before the finals next week, and that cut is coming in the form of an online vote. All you have to do is go to ToughEnough.com and pick someone to cut, and it will happen. Am I the only person who thinks this is a bad idea? I mean, let's imagine Eric was the one who got the most votes to be cut for a second. How do you think Eric would feel after he's spent all this time training and trying to impress the trainers, only to find out he was denied his dream job by a couple of eight year-old wrestling marks sitting at home who don't know jack squat. If I were Eric, I'd be pretty pissed. That being said, yes I did vote, and I voted for Eric. Even though I would rather there be no vote at all, I figured I have a better idea who should be cut that some people, so it's better to cancel out a bad vote than not vote.

In my opinion, I think all five remaining people have done quite well to make it this far, exactly the same thing I thought at the end of the first season. Even Eric, who I voted, could potentially turn out to be a good wrestler. I still think, however, that John and Jonah have the greatest chance to impress me if given contracts. Go Jonah! They're much better than those season two losers. Kenny is a loser. Hawk is a loser. Jackie Gayda is a loser. Linda is probably the only person out of that group who has even an inkling of a chance to make it.

Royal Rumble Predictions

Finally, something I can talk about that doesn't make me sound so negative. Really, I usually have a positive attitude, but it's just that RAW X has embittered me. The Royal Rumble this year I think could be a good one, although I have a feeling it might just end up being a lot of people bumping around for Brock Lesnar. Still, there are a lot of people in the Rumble who I think will make a good showing. Jericho and Shawn Michaels are the first two people in the Rumble, which is already a very good start. I am fairly confident that Jericho is going to be the one to eliminate Shawn Michaels, not the other way around, and hopefully Jericho will have a good run for a little while afterwards. The absence of Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit from the Rumble might hurt a little, but they do have Los Guerreros in the ring, who weren't in the Rumble last year. Let Eddie Guerrero stay in for a while, seeing as he's wrestling better now than he has probably in his entire career thus far. The Undertaker will probably be the real "iron man" in this Rumble, as the return hype for him must be answered with a big push, and what better push than a good showing at the Rumble? I predict that Bill DeMott will eliminate the Undertaker from the Rumble, setting up for Brock Lesnar to win the whole thing and go to Wrestlemania to face Angle.

My other predictions... okay. Torrie Wilson will beat Dawn Marie, and for all the title matches, the champions will retain. Storm & Regal will retain, Triple-H will retain, Angle will retain. Oh, and Brock will beat Big Show, obviously. Just as a side note, I hope Benoit and Angle get a well-deserved amount of time on the show to work a good match and finally put an end to their feud. If memory serves me correctly, this is only the fourth time Benoit has gotten a title shot on PPV, so I should hope it's a good one. For once, not only do I think Triple-H will retain his title, I WANT Triple-H to retain his title. I think his match with Steiner is going to stink big-time, and I also think that even Scott Steiner doesn't deserve to win the World Title in his FIRST MATCH in two years. Well, his first televised match anyway.

The Big Show on Conan O'Brien

I saw the Big Show on Conan recently, and I just had to share the experience, because he was actually really funny. Sure, he can't wrestle, but Big Show has a sense of humor. He first reflected a story about his days as a bouncer. Apparently, some guy leaving to get in a cab called him "Lurch", which set Big Show off. He was a distance away, and we all know Big Show can't run, but Big Show did have a hard cookie in his hand. Yeah, so Show chucked that cookie as hard as he could and pelted the guy in the back of the head so hard that it made him stumble. He would've let it slide there, but then the guy gave Show the finger, which then caused him to run after the cab. Apparently though, the guy got in an empty cab, which allowed Show to catch up. So, Show got in the cab and stared him down, which caused the guy to piss his pants. Good story I thought.

Show touched on a few other subjects, and before the interview was over, he did some major slamming of women's television programming, ie "those channels where they show Golden Girls twenty hours a day." Sure enough, the guest right after Show was Dr. Sue Johannson, who if you don't know is the old lady who has a sex show on the Oxygen network. Another funny point in the interview was when Tom Selleck tried to stick one of Dr. Sue's vibrators up his own nose, and Dr. Sue replied by saying, "No, that doesn't go up there." Big Show retorted, "I've heard THAT before." That one had me rolling on the floor.

What Chris Nowinski Did This Week

There's no "What's Your Story?" section this week. There just isn't enough to talk about that hasn't already been said. Anywho, this week Nowinski was in a tag match with Test, Maven, and D'Lo. To be honest, I didn't catch RAW this Monday, so I don't know how good the match was. I do know that Nowinski lost again. This is, what, like the third match in a row he's lost? Pretty soon, people may start making use of the obvious phrase "No win" in Nowinski's name, when making signs for the show and whatnot.

Flavor of the Week

This week's flavor has got to be Funaki. Funaki will go down in history as the greatest jobber of all time. Seriously, if you don't watch Velocity, Funaki is the quintessential star of that show. He always loses, but he always always always makes his opponent look like a million dollars. This week marked only the second match Funaki has had on RAW or Smackdown! since the break-up of Kaientai, and his first match was against Bill DeMott and lasted about five seconds. This time, Funaki really got to shine and put on a terrific match with Matt Hardy. This goes to show that Funaki should be on Smackdown! wrestling a lot more. I've said for a long time that Funaki could really stir up the cruiserweight division if thrust onto Smackdown!, but being a jobber is cool, too. He makes it seem like being a jobber isn't a bad thing after all. Kudos.

Runner-up this week goes to Al Wilson for delivering the greatest performance he's ever given. Dead.

Chump of the Week

This week's chump is Viscera. Sure, he hasn't wrestled in a long time, but I actually remembered him this week for some reason. Thank you for tainting my mind, you big blob! Thank you also for tainting the sanctity of the King of the Ring tournament.

Pieces of Randomness

-This Week's Mattitude Fun Fact: Jeff always tried to sneak a peak at Matt in the shower
-In order to get the A-Train more over with the crowd, Albert has been asked to dress up as an actual train conductor. In addition, Albert, instead of walking to the ring, will shuffle down the ramp while swinging his arms and yelling "Chugga-chugga! Chugga-chugga!"
-This weekend, to warm up for the Rumble, the Undertaker will be taking on the Oakland Raiders in the NFL playoffs. If Taker no-sells the opposing team's tackles, expect to see everyone's dream SuperBowl in coming weeks as the Undertaker takes on the Eagles. Expect that to be a close, low-scoring game.

Final Thought

I would like to keep looking forward to the future of wrestling, as maybe the Rumble will be a good Pay-Per-View. Since I seemed to only get lots of positive feedback on my Wrestlemania IV column, next week I'm going to give a review of the Vince McMahon book, Sex, Lies, and Headlocks. I've only had the book three days, but I'm already halfway done, so I think I can have a review by next Friday. I'll still have my thoughts on the week in wrestling. I just want to squeeze in a little extra something. Until next time, have fun and rock the party right.

-Snapple

Email me with questions or comments and you could win one million dollars! happydude5000@msn.com








*NEW GALLERY* BRAND NEW Pregnancy Photos of a BIG Stephanie McMahon!

• Quick Links -
  [Back to LOP] [News Archives] [Results] [Columns] [Forums]