Ruthless Aggression Era Project: WWE Smackdown Review - July 25th, 2002

WWE Smackdown 

July 25th, 2002 

Indianapolis, IN

Tonight is Stephanie's first night as General Manger and she's bringing us Edge vs. Jericho in a Steel Cage, the debut of Rey Mysterio, and Hogan/Rock vs. Christian/Storm. 

1) Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry 

This doesn't last long before Brock Lesnar runs out and hits an F5 on Henry. Kurt follows him backstage to ask what that was about. Lesnar says Kurt was in trouble and he wanted to help him out. Brock proceeds to say Kurt's run as the #1 guy on Smackdown is over. Angle looks like he's gonna blow a gasket. 

Stacy Keibler volunteers to help Steph anyway she can since Vince "relieved her of her services." Someone knocks at the door and Eric Bischoff sent Steph flowers and says he will be there tonight. Steph throws the flowers and vase at the wall. 

2) Reverend D-Von vs. Big Valbowski 

Ruthless Aggression Era Project: WWE Raw Review - July 22nd, 2002

WWE Raw

July 22nd, 2002 

Grand Rapids, Michigan 

Eric Bischoff comes out. We are rolling into this era hard. The New Undisputed Champion The Rock will be here tonight. And now Bischoff introduces Triple H and Shawn Michaels. Huge pop for that. It soon turns sour as Bischoff tries to make HBK the manager of HHH and Shawn hates the idea and says it's his way or the highway and he walks out. H runs after him. As a side note, I've seen hardly nothing from this H/HBK feud so seeing all this unfold unspoiled is interesting!

1) Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy - Ladder Match for the IC/European Titles 

Bischoff announced this unification match. RVD and Hardy went out and went apeshit for 8 minutes. RVD wins after two of the most dangerous looking spots ever. Check this trainwreck out if you haven't seen it. 

Match rating - ***1/2

Chris Nowinski comes out and thankfully The Undertaker destroys him with a last ride. 

Bischoff is backstage striking a deal with Rhino when he isn't injured anymore. He runs into D-Lo Brown and Stasiak. They're begging for an opportunity so Bischoff gives them three minutes to entertain him or it's gonna be bad. 

2) Trish Stratus & Bubba Ray Dudley vs. Molly Holly & William Regal 

WWE: WrestleMania 36 Night Two Review - April 5th, 2020

WWE WrestleMania 36

Night Two - April 5th, 2020 

1) Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Charlotte - NXT Women's Title Match 

I'll go ahead and say it, the night peaked here. Awesome opener that definitely should've been higher in the card. Just great, classic traditional pro wrestling. Charlotte stuck to the leg work she began early on in route to the figure four and it obviously played into the finish. Everything here was well done, intriguing, and meant something. With a crowd, this probably could've been rated even higher, but even under these circumstances it's worth a look regardless. Charlotte wins the NXT Title in a huge moment! Interested to see where this leads!

Match rating - ****

2) Aleister Black vs. Bobby Lashley 

WWE: WrestleMania 36 Review (Night One) - April 4th, 2020

WWE WrestleMania 36

WWE Performance Center

Orlando, FL 

Pre- Show: 

1) Drew Gulak vs. Cesaro 

I was really looking forward to this and they got five minutes. With their style, I thought this could work well under the no-crowd format but we didn't really get a chance to tell. It was fine while it lasted none the less. 

Match rating - **

Main Show: 

1) Asuka & Kairi Sane (c) vs. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross - Women's Tag Title Match 

Missed part of this because I left to get food but what I caught was decent. I love Asuka and Alexa. New champions were crowned in the form of Alexa & Nikki. 

Match rating - ** 

2) King Corbin vs. Elias

Elias cracks Corbin with a guitar to start. That earned one star and the half was earned by Corbin yelling "y'all like the view?" To God knows who considering its an empty arena. Other than those two moments this blew. 

Match rating - *1/2

3) Becky Lynch (c) vs. Shayna Basler - Raw Women's Title Match 

Wow.. for all the great matches Becky has had, she has two ultra disappointing Mania matches under her belt. Last year's main event and this travesty. Not anything like what the build insinuated. And ultimately dumb. Becky rolls out of a submission for a pin to retain. I don't get it. 

Match rating - ** 

4) Sami Zayn (c) vs. Daniel Bryan - Intercontinental Title Match 

4 minutes of stalling from Zayn. Then 5 minutes of Bryan stiffing him and beating the hell out of him. Bryan takes out Nakamura & Cesaro at ringside after they mess with Gulak. Zayn takes advantage and catches Bryan with a helluva kick in mid air. Best thing on the show so far, but can't help but think this was ended way too quickly/abruptly. 

Match rating - ***1/4

5) John Morrison (c) vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Jimmy Uso - Ladder Match for the Tag Team Titles

Each man's partner was taken out due to the virus and having too many people in the ring (I think) - so it's a solo representation thing now. And wow. These guys killed it. They were just as motivated as Bryan & Zayn to make the best of this and gave nothing less than what I feel like they'd give in front of a full arena. A number of insane spots and even though the finish was weird, kinda lame - this deserves the rating I'm giving it for the performance and keeping my attention the entire duration on such a weirdly formatted show. Morrison retains the belts for he & The Miz. 

Match rating - ****

6) Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens

Wow. No clue how they pulled this off. I wasn't even expecting a ***1/2+ match from this if it was a normal scenario but they knocked it out of the park. Very stiff, very good pacing. False DQ finish, restarted as No DQ and Owens has a WrestleMania moment that will probably be replayed for a long time as he did a senton off the WrestleMania sign to the floor planting Rollins through the announce table. The camera angle on that made it look amazing also. Rollins best match in ages and Owens shows he deserves more than what he gets. 

Match rating - ****

R-Truth says he's the 24/7 I95 South Champion and Mojo Rawley knocks him on his ass and wins the title from him. 

Paul Heyman is backstage selling everyone on the McIntyre/Lesnar match tomorrow. Heyman says Brock isn't of our species.

7) Goldberg (c) vs. Braun Strowman - Universal Title Match

Goldberg went longer than a minute this is wild. Strowman wins a showcase of power moves that lasted not even 5 minutes. This shouldn't have been a World Title match. 

Match rating - *1/4 

8) AJ Styles vs. The Undertaker - Boneyard Match

Yanno. WWE really surprised me here. I don't really know how to review this or articulate my thoughts on it. BUT I think the biggest thing here is that WWE did something different and out of their element in lieu of the covid-19 crisis that backed them up against the wall before their biggest show of the year. So kudos to them for that. This has to be seen to be believed. Taker and Styles battle action-movie style in a graveyard. Gallows and Anderson are involved. Taker shows up as Biker Taker on his motorcycle. And when all is said and done and he buries AJ Styles, he rides off in the night on his motorcycle. All in all, it's a real hoot and not what I expected AT ALL. Some are gonna love it, some are gonna hate it, all I can really say is..

Match rating - WHAT THE FUCK 

Ruthless Aggression Era Project: WWE Vengeance 2002 Review - July 21st, 2002

WWE Vengeance
July 21st, 2002
Detroit, Michigan

Commentators: Michael Cole & Tazz (first half) and Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler (second half)

The theme song of this PPV "Downfall" by Trust Company accompanied by the card run down fully sent me into nostalgia mode. If you ever played anything on the video games released during this time period you will feel the same.

1) Eddie Guerrero & Chris Benoit vs. Bubba Ray & Spike Dudley

These two were involved in a six man that wasn't bad on Raw so this was solid also albeit just what you'd expect. They worked the stip well, Michael Cole kept using the term "hard wood" to describe the tables, Spike took some nasty bumps. Fine enough opener!

Match rating - ***

2) Jamie Noble (w/ Nidia) vs. Billy Kidman - Cruserweight Title Match

Pretty run of the mill stuff here. Noble retains and remains 'high on the hog'.

Match rating - **1/4

Kurt Angle runs into Brock backstage and hitsh im with "this isn't the summer of Brock, it's all year Angle" - I love that.

3) Jeff Hardy (c) vs. William Regal - European Title Match

This wasn't any better or worse than their first match. Regal is trying to get his title back after he had an emotional breakdown when he lost it. Hardy still brings his A game and bests him anyway in a fairly short amount of time.

Match rating - *3/4

Flair & Hogan are backstage waiting to congratulate Jeff Hardy. They say he's something special.

4) Chris Jericho vs. John Cena

Almost forgot about this match when writing this review. It wasn't bad, but the Cena push/first run is starting to lose it's steam and become repetitive. Jericho clearly has the match won, tries to torture him more, but Cena reverses a Walls of Jericho attempt into a small package for the win.

Match rating - **

5) Rob Van Dam (c) vs. Brock Lesnar - Intercontinental Title Match

Now this is the good shit. PERFECT power vs speed match. Brock plays the big man so well and Van Dam bumps around even better. This could've easily hit 4 stars or more if it kept going/had a clean finish. But regardless is still the best undercard match on this PPV and worth a watch. Van Dam in his prime ruled and Brock is Brock and amazing as always.

Match rating - ***1/2

6) Booker T vs. Big Show - No DQ, No Countouts

Booker & Show went out and just wreaked havoc for a few minutes. Booker gets the sort of upset victory? Some good announce table bumps and such and Booker hit a couple different scissor kick variations to put Show down. Fun!!

Match rating - ***

TRIPLE H is here. First night back in the ring. He's here to decide/announce if he's going to Raw or Smackdown. Eric Bischoff comes out followed by Stephanie to bribe him. H chooses "the devil he knows" over "the devil he doesn't" and picks Steph until AW AW AW SHAWN. HBK throws a monkeywrench in shit and a DX reunion is teased which gets H to wanna go to Raw. Hunter & HBK do the DX pose on the ramp and we will see them on Raw tomorrow night. Lordy lordy.

7) Hollywood Hulk Hogan & Edge (c) vs. Christian & Lance Storm - WWE Tag Team Title Match

This was in the cool down spot on the card, but actually kinda rocked. Crowd hates the canadians and loves Hogan & Edge. Several close falls down the stretch and ultimately thanks to some Test interference, Christian & Lance Storm come out on top and leave the new tag champs.

Match rating - **3/4

8) The Undertaker (c) vs. The Rock vs. Kurt Angle - WWE Undisputed Championship Match

This surprisngly held up just about as well as I remembered, if not even a little more so. Just classic stuff from all three guys. They did the whole do each others finishers thing kinda early which weirded me out, but the insane final stretch made up for it. Angle got busted open along the way. The crowd was hanging on every move and they worked the type of match well. The angle slam bumps here were rough. God I swear I don't remember that move having so much arc on the neck every time but lord. The finish with Rock pinning Angle out of the Rock bottom and Taker draping his arm over to try to break it up at the split second the ref counts three was a perfect touch. Rock wins and is the new WWE Undisputed Champion.

Match rating - ****1/4

Final thoughts: Pretty good PPV. I'm almost a month into this project and I'm finally finding myself excited to tune into the next show. Coming out of this, I'm invested in the Triple H/HBK stuff because I never watched regularly during this time so I really haven't seen any of that feud so it's all fresh. Also the main event ruled and seeing where all three men go going forward has my attention as well as Brock Lesnar. So, yeah, this was fun despite the undercard having some duds.

Ruthless Aggression Era Project: WWE Smackdown Review - July 18th, 2002

WWE Smackdown
July 18th, 2002
Wilkes Barre, PA

TONIGHT: The Rock vs. Kurt Angle

1) Chris Jericho vs. John Cena

Cena pinned Jericho in the tag last week so Y2J is infuriated. Rematch here from Cena's second match last month where he came up short. So, this was good yet again with all the added history that's happened since. Jericho feels overwhelmed and goes for a low blow to get disqualified. After the bell, Jericho attacks Cena and goes wild on him with a steel chair. John Laurinits, Fit Finlay, and the gang have to separate him from Cena.

Match rating - **1/2

Backstage, they think the new GM has arrived but it's Eric Bischoff here to try and steal some talent. Eric goes up to Hogan first and it's an awkward conversation.

2) The Hurricane vs. Chavo Guerrero 

Ruthless Aggression Era Project: WWE Raw Review - July 15th, 2002

WWE Raw 

July 15th, 2002

Continental Airlines Arena 

After last week's clusterfuck, I pray for an easier on the eyes show. 

The show starts with Paul Heyman trying to sweeten up The Undertaker. Tonight, Taker teams with Heyman's client Brock Lesnar to face Ric Flair & Rob Van Dam. 

NWO's music hits. And we get Vince McMahon? Weird. Vince says he came out to their music so we could all hear it one last time bc the NWO is over. Thank fucking god. He says things are shaking up tonight even more and he's naming a new General Manger later. 

Ric Flair gets interviewed backstage about who the GM could be and he teases the possibility of it being another McMahon. 

1) Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, & William Regal vs. Jeff Hardy, Bubba Ray & Spike Dudley - Elimination Match