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 THE END IS NEEEEEAAAAARRR! Previous PPVs of the Month Feburary: WWF Fully Loaded 2000 (Atticus Finch) I volunteered to do the PPV for the month of March. I just wanted to get this out of the way first and say this is the first thread I’ve made on SA in the longest time. I just want to apologize if this all is a little rough in advance. I admit I chose this PPV almost at random because I figured doing as such is the way to go about this. The PPV I chose for this month is WWE Armageddon 2002. I watched this PPV actually a few months after it happened because, at the time, I hadn’t watched wrestling since the WWF to WWE name change. It was kinda the trigger for me after it became clear the glorious Attitude Era was done and lovely main events were starting after Rock and Austin were winding down their careers or quitting. Anyways, I bought this DVD from Blockbuster on a whim and watching it one night. It didn’t quite rekindle my interest (my blind buy of WrestleMania 19 did that) but it’s still a show that I have some nostalgia for. Also of note is WWE bringing back the “Armageddon” name after dropping it in post-9/11 sensitivity and moving Vengeance to July to replace the pointless “Invasion” event. The big feud going into this show was between HBK and HHH. HBK had returned the previous summer after a four year hiatus and promptly got into a feud with Trips. He won the World Heavyweight Title, out of nowhere, in the very first Elimination Chamber match at Survivor Series a month prior. Armageddonn had rematch of sorts which was the main event on the RAW side of things in a Three Stages of Hell match. On the SmackDown side of things, Big Show was the champion going in winning it over Brock Lesnar who was betrayed by his manager Paul Heyman. This was actually shocking, not so much Heyman’s betrayal but that WWE gave Big Show the title when they pretty much gave up on him as a main event draw two and a half years previous. The SmackDown main event was Big Show defending his WWE Championship against Kurt Angle. In a way, I miss this era of the brand extension. Where both shows were extremely self-contained and you got to see some mingling on the PPVs were at times reason to watch. There were no drafts meaning that the rosters were locked and focus could be made on the long-term rather than figuring out who can move shows to bump a rating. Ah well, that’s in the past now. Introduction: I love really hocky sets like that with lots of decoration rather than a mish-mash of LED screens WWE does today, bring back post-apocalyptic sets please. Sunday Night Heat - Jeff Hardy vs. D’Lo Brown Match: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa...=2#.USP9V1pUMQQ Yeah, throwing in the pre-show match because I figured what the hell. This was back when SmackDown not only replaced Heat but delegated it to the recap show or the PPV pre-show once a month. I kind of liked Heat in that respect because you got to get a glimpse of the PPV set on TV and could convince you to buy the PPV. Now WWE has YouTube for that purpose which isn’t the same. Poor D’Lo, he was never the same after the Droz incident. He was scraping the upper midcard in 1999 and here he is still coming out to his music from that time in 2002. That said, this was around the time Jeff Hardy was starting to fall off the wagon for the first time (he would be fired a few months later). Hardy is sloppy as HELL during this match with some extremely noticeable botches. It’s a pre-show match so nothing special but holy drat was Jeff looking bad at this time. Fatal Four Way Tag Team Elimination - World Tag Team Championship - Christian & Chris Jericho (c) vs. Dudley Boyz vs. Booker T & Goldust vs. Lance Storm & William Regal Match: http://www.myspace.com/video/joe-th...-match/63975518 I miss Booker T and Goldust as a tag team, I really do. Also when WWE would have clusterfuck tag matches back when they had a tag team division. As a PPV opener it isn’t bad, memorable highlights are Bubba Ray screaming “Die Canadian scum!” to Lance Storm and Chris Jericho taking a nasty splat to the ring from Goldust to name two. What is up with that little butt bump Bubba and Goldust do as well? I also got a kick out the look the Dudleyz give each that screams “it’s 2002 and we’re still doing Wassup?” when they do their big spot. I also cannot believe I haven’t commented on Chris Jericho’s beard which I kinda forgot he used to sport. It kind of sucks looking back at how hot Booker T and Goldust were as a team knowing the two were due for a terrible main event push and stuttering gimmick respectively. The latter half of this match is much smoother and actually has some tension to it simply because it becomes a proper tag match and is stronger for it. Edge vs. A-Train Match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb6dPYcSnEQ Yup, Edge is ending his magnificent 2002 run (as part of the Smackdown Six) with a match against Albert. Albert has always been somewhat unique to me in that he has a look that is the polar opposite of the “it factor” yet he is able to do the big man schtick quite well being more agile than men of his size. But, yeah, "shave your back" and all that. Anyways, I also forgot there’s one bit in this match that I must have repressed where Edge goes for a cover pulling a little too hard on the front of Albert’s tights, ugh. It’s even more unfortunate because it happens after a pretty sweet looking spot off the top rope. Match ends with a DQ after A-Train whacks Edge’s kness with a steel chair. Edge gets a post-match beatdown on A-Train first with an unprotected chair shot to the head (ugh, it’s painful and terrible looking back at those) then multiple shots to Train. Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero Match: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp...rt#.USQAh1pUMQQ OK, I was actually shocked when I saw this one on the card. I always thought the only Benoit/Geurrero match in WWE was their one at One Night Stand 2005. A match everyone thought wasn’t as good as it should have been. Turns out they had one before that at this event. Michael Cole says during Benoit’s entrance that Benoit’s dream is to wrestle for the WWE championship which he would do a month later in a big MOTY that a lot of people said made him a believable champion at the time. gently caress it’s awkward typing a lot of this out given I was a colossal Benoit mark back in the day and this is the only time I can think of in recent memory where I’m watching a Benoit match in its entirety. While watching this one I’m either cringing or awkwardly laughing at lines from the commentators like “Benoit might have injured himself from the headbutt” or “Eddie is dragging Benoit’s lifeless carcass into the ring”. Oh my God, I am going straight to hell. One thing I’m certainly fondly remembering is how great a color commentator Tazz was at the time. He spends a lot of time talking about the character of wrestlers and explains certain holds and moves and why they are so effective and what they are working. I don’t watch enough TNA to comment on what Tazz is like today, but back then this was a huge improvement over Lawler who would just root for heels when he wasn’t busy creeping the female wrestlers. gently caress this was a good match and has to be better than their One Night Stand match because it’s just a fun match that switches from technical to big spot constantly. I know it’s faux-pas to talk about German suplexes in a positive light nowadays but holy gently caress could Benoit hit them fluidly. Overall, a solid match and the two would have a huge year ahead of them in 2003 building up to their big achievements in 2004. Batista w/ Ric Flair vs. Kane Match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1UAdhVxAA I actually prefered the theme Batista used during this time frame before “I Stand Alone” was tacked into it. It just screams “big guy coming to end you” moreso than YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH!. While Kane is surprisingly agile for a man of his size, this is one slow match with Batista still a long ways away from being watchable. Lots of slowness and awkward spots made worse in a big man’s match where those two things can cripple the watching experience. The spot where Flair attacks Kane is loving funny and I miss when Flair was fun to watch instead of reminding you of his personal problems. I’m also not sure if that first Batista Bomb attempt was a botch or not (he was trying to lift Kane) but drat was that awkward to watch. Yeah, a pretty lame match but Batista was a little green at the time so whatever. Triple Threat Match - WWE Women's Championship - Victoria (c) vs. Trish Stratus vs. Jacqueline Match: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7...ms#.USQBElpUMQQ Back when WWE would actually put some effort into their Divas division with matches that could actually be construed as being wrestling. I remember years back Dave Lagana said on either his IWantWrestling podcast or on his site that Vince McMahon has a very, very narrow definition of what makes a woman attractive to him. That being he only finds “bombshells” to be of any interest to him which is why during this time frame you can see a lot of woman being presented or dressing like that. After finding that out, it’s all I can see when it comes to Divas matches like this back when effort was put into them. Not much else to say here other than this is the typical cool-down match WWE would put on before their big matches around this time. WWE Championship - Big Show (c) vs. Kurt Angle Match: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2...=2#.USQBUVpUMQQ As I said before, it was really weird for WWE to put the title on Big Show around this time. WWE just kind of gave up on him as a consistant main eventer and just had him as this big, dominant guy on the midcard. It’s funny that Big Show wouldn’t see gold until 9 years later when he would win the title off Mark Henry (who, as well, nobody thought would see WWE gold in the form of the WHC or Championship) until jobbing it to Daniel Bryan like 2 minutes later. That said, it makes sense in a strange way because the big deal here was Heyman betraying Lesnar by costing him the title and nobody really remembers this reign until you bring up that point. Watching this match, I’m getting why WWE never invested in long-term Big Show title reigns. His matches are SLOW to watch and because of his size and limited mobility a lot of guys just cannot work an exciting match with him. As well, Big Show just doesn’t have the presence or charisma of a lot of successful big men to overcome that. Angle tries to make this work but, honestly, he can’t. With Lesnar’s interference in this match, I was also completely unaware that he is not on this card at all which is kinda weird given this was the year of his mega-push but whatever. Great to see Angle get the title because he was always fun to watch while champion. 3 Stages of Hell (Street Fight, Cage, Ladder) - WWE World Heavyweight Championship - Shawn Michaels (c) vs. Triple H Match: http://vimeo.com/56377358 My God, a 38 minute match on a non-WrestleMania card. Those were the days, huh? No surprise it’s between HHH and HBK as well who had a feud that for me was a highlight of 2002. This is the big blow-off match before HHH would enter into a program with Scott Steiner (ugh). The first fall is kinda slow and really reminds me why HHH’s infamous 2002-04 run was so bad: his matches were boring and slow with him getting pretty much all the offence and were just no fun to watch. The only spot of note is the flaming 2x4 spot which nearly lands into the freaking audience after HBK bats it out of HHH’s hands. The next spot coming up is the cage match which has freaking hilarious intereference from Ric Flair. Him getting involved in matches were he’s not in them only to get in way over his head never gets old. The final spot is the ladder match which, again, isn’t exciting me at all and it makes me appreciate how good HHH/Austin’s 2 out of 3 falls match from No Way Out 2001 really was. Also, weird note but at 43:18 in the video a “Rocky!” chant breaks out and you can see the first few rows all look in one direction in the crowd. I’m guessing someone in the audience got a little too into their costume or something like the infamous “Hogan!” chant at WM20 when someone got too into theirs. So, yeah, not a particularily great match in quite possibly the most infamous title reign in WWE history in terms of smark hate. So, yeah, there's my summary of this event. Please go easy on me 
Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at Mar 2, 2013 around 00:06 |
| # ? Mar 2, 2013 00:03 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 09:16 |
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Intrusive Thoughts posted:
They also had a match at Vengeance 2003 for the US title. I always thought it was weird how Heyman managed 3 WWE champions in a row with heel-to-face Lesnar, heel Show, face-to-heel Angle.
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| # ? Mar 2, 2013 00:37 |
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You brought up the Benoit Eddie match from ONS 05, what was wrong with Eddie in that match? He looked like he didn't want to be there.
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| # ? Mar 2, 2013 02:13 |
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achillesforever6 posted:You brought up the Benoit Eddie match from ONS 05, what was wrong with Eddie in that match? He looked like he didn't want to be there. he wasn't breaking his heel character that was going on at the time.
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| # ? Mar 2, 2013 02:14 |
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achillesforever6 posted:You brought up the Benoit Eddie match from ONS 05, what was wrong with Eddie in that match? He looked like he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be there and didn't want to lose via submission to Benoit.
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| # ? Mar 2, 2013 03:08 |
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I always thought Eddie was pissed that Dean Malenko got pulled from their originally planned match.
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| # ? Mar 2, 2013 03:24 |
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I was living in university residence in 2002 and we didn't watch a whole lot of wrestling at the time. I think I was still following results online, but I'm almost certain that I never saw this PPV live, so it should be an interesting watch. Thoughts as I watch!!! D'Lo vs. Jeff Hardy Holy poo poo you weren't kidding about the botches. That may have been one of the worst roll-ups I've ever seen! Pretty inoffensive match otherwise, but not exactly something that has me hyped up for the rest of the PPV. Tag Elimination What the hell happened with that Bubba/Regal roll-up? It may have been even worse than the Hardy one! Loved the Dusty tribute with Bubba and Goldust. I remember the Goldust/Booker tag team and Christian/Jericho, but Storm/Regal doesn't really register. Seems like this was a Bookerdust vs. Christian/Jericho match with the other two teams shoehorned in to fit a few more people on the PPV. The crowd seemed pretty hot for this match and I enjoyed it myself, especially after it was down to the final two teams. I would have liked Goldust to get the pin, though, to really drive home that he wasn't the weak link. The tag team division wasn't at its best at this stage, but it still seems a lot better than it is now. Edge vs. A Train Boy, poor Matt Bloom just can't catch a break. Not only is he saddled with the stupid A Train gimmick (including train whistle entrance music), but he's referred to as THE A Train as much as possible by commentary. This isn't a terrible match or anything, it just doesn't really go anywhere and the ending makes it seem rather pointless. Interesting to see both guys kick out of what would end up being finishers later on. Benoit vs. Guerrero Man, I forgot how awful Taz(z) was on commentary. "This is going to be one for the ages, I don't know what the hell that means" was a great way to open the match. He also said something to the effect that A Train was much heavier than Albert in the last match, but I digress. It's funny seeing how my opinion contrasts with the OP's on this matter, but I guess we're focusing on different aspects of his commentary. I do agree that King is nigh unbearable at this stage in his career too, though. Anyway, the match was great, as one would expect. I don't think the Chavo stuff was necessary, but it definitely drives home how strong a contender Benoit is. Batista vs. Kane This was about as bad as I expected. I was amazed at how young Ric Flair looked, though. Trish vs. Victoria vs. Jackie This was way better than I expected, but a bit on the short side. Although, I know they don't tend to give women much time on PPVs (or ever), I would have liked another five minutes or so in this match. Nice to see women who can actually wrestle semi-competently and who have somewhat-defined personalities. Angle vs. Big Show Man this was a bad look for the Big Show. Match was fine but nothing spectacular. HBK vs. HHH Not a bad match out of context, but yeah, I can see how this would be seen as pretty masturbatory in the midst of HHH's reign of terror. The last fall was a surprise as I had totally forgotten about the tables set up outside and it was pretty darn nasty. Intrusive Thoughts posted:So, yeah, there's my summary of this event. Please go easy on me I thought you did a fine job writing this up and presenting it. It's hard to believe it's been over 10 years since this event - wow.
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| # ? Mar 3, 2013 19:33 |
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My God Torrie Wilson was beautiful. Was she really not involved in this PPV at all aside from appearing on the poster? Listening to Tazz blunder his way through this is giving me flashbacks to when WWE took a few shows to Belfast and stuck him on commentary, and each time he'd make 3-4 jokes a night about wanting a pint of Guinness, except he'd never pronounce it properly and then start laughing at his own gently caress-up.
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| # ? Mar 3, 2013 19:48 |
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Welp, Mr Midcard is here. And this is looking like a treasure trove of midcard-yness. Let's start at the beginning. Jeff Hardy vs. D’Lo Brown I loved when JR and King had to plug the sponsor's products. D'Lo's head shaking thing still reminds me of Silent Hill. The leg grab/kick thing was just really sloppy. Wow, stiff powerbomb. HUGE botch of a sunset loving flip. D'Lo busting out a Texas Cloverleaf. I never thought I'd see the day of D'lo obviously walking someone through a match and not vice versa. A lone guy in the crowd trying a "D'Lo sucks" chant. The sloppiest roll-up in history. Verdict: Jeff botched basically everything that wasn't "leg drop to the dick". That sunset flip botch in particular looked awful. *1/4 Fatal Four Way Tag Team Elimination gently caress yes, this is going to be better. It's funny, the Dudleyz didn't use this theme for very long, yet it's what I instantly associate them with. God yes the Unamericans. Love Regal's union jack trunks. BookDust were the funniest double act in wrestling. Without a doubt. I totally forgot Chris^2 actually had a tag title run. Christian still looks ridiculous in a singlet. Did Bubba Ray just shout "DIE CANADIAN SCUM" at Lance Storm?  gently caress, Christian got air on that flapjack. Wait, Christian made the tag...to Regal? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS MATCH. Why don't we have blind tags any more? Thanks to the inter-team tagging, I don't know who the legal men are. As JR pointed out, because of these crazy rules, Jericho could end up the tag champs by himself. "YOU SON OF A BITCH I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD" BubbaDust tearing poo poo up. RING INVASION 3D!  This match is a clusterfuck in the best way possible. I have no idea what's going on and it's amazing. ...where the hell is Christian? Oh there he is. AHAHAH, Goldust taking a loving fearless bump to the outside. He barely touched the apron at all. Hi, JR. The amount of interrupted pins, I think I'm playing WWE'13. Jericho's footwork taunt Goldust gets punched on the back of the head, and takes a back bump :???: Goldie takes a swing at Jericho...who had already taken the bump. Ooow, Christian takes a painful looking apron bump. BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF THE FAHVE TAIMS, BOOKER Lionsault onto his feet ARMAGEDAROONIE Crowd is loving hot for BookDust. BOOKEND Verdict: Pretty loving excellent, actually. Highlight was probably Goldie's loving brutal-looking bump to the outside. That, or Bubba calling Lance CANADIAN SCUM. ***.
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| # ? Mar 3, 2013 21:40 |
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I will second the feeling that Batista's original music was WAY better then that Saliva bullshit they gave him.
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| # ? Mar 3, 2013 23:33 |
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I finally have some spare time so I watched the first two matches, skipping Heat. The fatal four way tag match was awesome. Worst part of the match for me was remembering that WAZZUP was a thing for a long, long time. I didn't realize it was elimination rules at first so that weird reverse pin botch to eliminate the Dudley Boyz looked really bad at first. I thought Wow, what a quick match! Gotta love the good feeling when BookDust wins. Can we talk about how awesome BookDust was? Because they were great. Just good friendships and good feelings. And the tag team ended in such a  way.Edge vs. hairy Tensai was a match that happened. And it started because A-Train couldn't stop hitting people's legs with chairs! More later.
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| # ? Mar 21, 2013 15:49 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 09:16 |
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Decided to watch this today. The first Heat match was okay I guess. I don't even remember D'Lo being employed by this point, but it sounds like he had fallen pretty far. That rollup botch could have gone poorly. Oh... it's over. Well, that ending was nothing. Now watching the Fatal Four Way Tag match. BookDust has a fantastic entrance. I love the flames all over the set. This match begins to highlight that most of the arena is empty. The upper balconies to be completely dark and the crowd doesn't seem as loud as it should. I had completely forgotten about the Dudleyz doing the WASSUP thing. Awww, no tables. Uhhh.. that attempted pin on Bubba was dumb and confusing... oh. It was a pin? And then Goldust got another pin on Regal. Well this fall apart quickly. That could have been a nasty suicide dive from Goldust. Booker and Goldust win after a Rock.... Book End! Were these the titles that were recently active? Wow, A Train actually had a train in his intro. I couldn't believe it until I heard it. Match was about what you'd expect. More later. Also, you missed this from the PPV. I guess you couldn't see him, so I don't blame you: http://www.myspace.com/video/joe-th...a-raps/63974743
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| # ? Mar 21, 2013 21:57 |
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