this is a show that may well rate not much more compelling than any number of disposable single-brand PPV shows we've been subjected to in the last two years.

But luckily, we *do* have that main event hook on Sunday, and it not only ought to be a well worked and dramatic match, with myriad storyline possibilities within the match itself...  but it will also have a serious impact on how entertaining RAW will be during its stretch run to close out the year. There's a lot riding on Team HHH vs. Team Canadian Chrisses (sorry, Randall, but here at OO, we refuse to acknowledge your Captaincy!), but I think there's more than enough talent in that ring to pull it off.

TOTAL TANGENT: I've got a boring-ass weekend of nothing going on staring me in the face, and Survivor Series is still only about the #3 item on my Stuff To Get Excited About List. Obviously, my first look at the 2004-05 Dayton Flyers in action (in an exhibition game) has me stoked. And here's a little something you might put on YOUR To Do Lists...  I think it was either 2 or 3 Fridays ago, I was home and just flipping channels bored out of my skull after coming home from the bars, and discovered that TBS is doing this thing where they have Friday night mini-marathons of "Family Guy," Futurama," some other cartoon that actually wasn't that funny, and "Mr. Show." I'm sure they planned it this way, since that's the kind of stuff that, if I were hypothetically drunk off my ass at 3am, I'd love to plop down and watch.  "Futurama" is slightly more hit than miss, but "Family Guy" is my winner of the "I Can't Believe It Took Me Till This Year To See This Show" Award for 2004.  Hilarious (and I'm STILL a bit ahead of the curve, since "Family Guy" will probably become a Major Phenomenon in 2005 when it becomes the first TV show of all time to return to network TV after being cancelled for 3 years!).

Anyway, I mention it because, if you kids out there even REMOTELY trust The Rick, I insist that you watch the "Mr. Show" that will be on as part of TONIGHT's late night TBS thingie; my DVR tells me it will be the "Jeepers Creepers Semi Star" one. For me, not so big a deal, since I have the DVDs and can watch it whenever I want; but for YOU, since I know there is a distressingly low level of Mr. Show Fandom out there, it's a chance to see perhaps the funniest 30 minutes of TV produced in the 1990s, for free, on basic cable.  I still remember the night me and maybe a half-dozen friends had come home and congregated in front of the TV, and had NO idea what the hell this silly sketch comedy show on HBO was, and then ended up suffering physical injuries from laughing so hard, and instantly became Mr. Show fans for life.

All because of THIS episode.  Trust me; funniest 30 minutes of TV produced the entire decade. And if I'm wrong, well, I'll come up with some bullshit excuse to not eat a bug!  Anyway: Mr. Show on TBS at 3am on a Friday Night!  The Rick almost certainly won't have anything better to do than come home from the bar and bask in television's warm, glowing, glowing warmth, so why the hell should you?!?  Who do you think you are, anyway?

But I guess there's still an outside chance that Survivor Series may end up being even more exciting than a "Mr. Show" I've seen dozens of times... so let's get on with that, eh?

Because I've again assembled the trOOps, and among us, we're sure to have every single pertinent insight into the PPV that is humanly possible to have. If it could conceivably happen on Sunday, one of us will have it covered. We're just that damned good. And we're also hopeful of using our damned gOOdness to whip the Swine at WrestleLine in the Battle for PPV Predictions Mastery of the Universe!  With this and December's Armageddon still out there, the 2004 crown is still up for grabs!

Here's the Only Survivor Series PPV Preview you need to read....
 

CHRIS BENOIT, CHRIS JERICHO, RANDY ORTON, and MAVEN vs. TRIPLE H, BATISTA, EDGE, and GENE SNITSKY
Elimination Match for Control of RAW

Well, this is the Big One.  The most intense drama of the show will be here; the most important implications for the near-term are here; and there's plenty of talent in the ring to insure that we'll have ample action here, as well.

Telling the story of this match is kind of a daunting task, as we've really got a few different things all intertwined, but it goes a little something like this:

In fan voting for the Taboo Tuesday PPV, Edge only finishes second, forcing him into a "consolation match" for the tag team titles, although the gold he truly covets is HHH's World Title. He walks out on his partner, Chris Benoit, but Benoit still manages to single-handedly win the Tag belts.

HHH successfully defended his World Title from Shawn Michaels, winner of the fan voting, and seemed poised to move on to a new challenge. At the same PPV, Randy Orton beat Ric Flair, seemingly propelling him into the challengers role.

The next week on RAW, Eric Bischoff walks off his job in disgust, saying that the fan voting concept at Taboo Tuesday was just the latest underhanded plot to undermine his authority. So if the WWE fans and wrestlers think that taking away Eric authority is a good thing, fine: for one night, he basically says that the inmates can run the asylum.  Evolution stepped up, and declared that they had the strength of numbers on their side, and booked RAW to their tastes...

Except it didn't totally work out; although they DID manage to help Ric Flair defeat Orton in a match that stipulated that Randall's loss would mean he NEVER got another World Title Match against HHH, Evolution didn't count on the entire RAW locker room joining forces to turn Evolution's "numbers game" on its ear. Although there were bit players such as Tajiri, Rhyno, Hurricane, and Rosey involved, the three men who stepped up and sided with Orton in a memorably awesome post-match beatdown on HHH were Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Maven.

In the couple of weeks since, we've seen Edge cement his heel status by AGAIN walking out on Chris Benoit, this time costing him the tag titles.  We've also seen Eric Bischoff do everything to UNcement his own heel status, as he's played this oddly-defiant tweener role. Sick of being underappreciated (boo!), but also sick of kissing Evolution's ass and not having anything good come of it (yay!), Bischoff booked a four-on-four elimination match for Survivor Series.  The babyface team consists of Benoit, Jericho, Orton, and Maven, predictably enough.  But the heel team, it's HHH, Batista, Edge, and... Gene Snitsky?  Ric Flair was livid at being left off the team, but Bischoff doesn't care about placating Evolution anymore, so Snitsky it is.  Further, Bischoff is gonna give himself a one-month vacation after Survivor Series, and the General Managership of RAW will cycle through the members of the winning team for that month. The stakes are high, and so am I, I got me a rock 'n' roll band, it's a Free For All~!

And of course, Bischoff's attempted match-making has not exactly resulted in True Love developing on the heel side.  Edge's entire heel turn was predicated on how badly he wanted HHH's title!  And Snitsky is anything but a team player!  And Batista even got in on the act, sharing some tender, tender moments with HHH's title belt when HHH wasn't looking.  The message: even if HHH's team wins, he'll be facing stiff challenges from Edge, Snitsky, and maybe even Batista.

Snitsky's kind of the wild card on his team; besides one brief confrontation with Chris Jericho, he's got no real reason to be involved in this match.  Maven is his twin on the other side; he just sort of got shoehorned into this without explanation. I, Douchebag of the Universe that I am, am convinced that he's only in there because the Higher Ups think that his presence in a main event somehow legitimizes the Tough Enough crap on SD!... because if this really was a concerted effort to create a Breakout Moment for Maven, they've sure done a whole lot of nothing with it the last two weeks.  In all seriousness: the last two weeks, Tajiri has had more business as the fourth member of Team Canadian Chrisses than Maven (as he's impersonated HHH and gotten beat down by Snitsky).  That is not a joke, that is not even my perverse manlove of Tajiri; that's just a fact. Maven has done nothing to justify his presence in this match; or more accurately, the creative team has given him nothing to justify his presence in this match.

Anyway, everything here boils down to using this match to set up the next challenger(s) for HHH's World Title. A win by Team Heel sets up a ton of interesting possibilities that might even include HHH turning face (in my dreamworld); a win by Team Babyface means title shots for Personal Favorites of mine like Benoit and Jericho (and also would mean an almost CERTAIN to kick ass edition of "RAW is JERICHO").  I love the ambiguity, I love knowing that there are good things to come from either outcome, and I love the certainty that I have that the road to get to that uncertain outcome will be a fun one.  Kids, *this* is your reason to order up Survivor Series.
  

EDDIE GUERRERO, JOHN CENA, ROB VAN DAM, and BIG SHOW vs. KURT ANGLE, CARLITO COOL, LUTHER REIGNS, and MARK JINDRAK
Elimination Match

SmackDown!'s counter-point to the RAW Elimination match doesn't have nearly the sizzle.  No cool stipulations, no major implications on the title picture, nothing, really.

And yet, there's so damn much talent here that it could still end up being one of the better matches of the night.  Kind of a microcosm of how SD!'s weekly TV shows work: they never quite blow you away with shocking developments, but they always seem to plug away persistently until you're left with 2 hours of being solidly entertained.

The story here is a bit more straight-forward than the RAW 8-man, too...  Team Angle has had its troubles with Eddie Guerrero going back to the summer. More recently, they've tangled with Big Show (tranq'ing him and shaving his head). And then, in the aftermath of a US Title #1 Contender's Battle Royal, Kurt Angle revived his feud with Rey Mysterio for a week or two, and in so doing, ended up getting involved with Rey's sometimes-tag-partner, Rob Van Dam.

So what ended up happening was GM Teddy Long announced that he'd set up a Classic Survivor Series Elimination Match with Team Eddie taking on Team Angle; at the time, both teams only had three men (Eddie/RVD/Rey vs. Kurt/Luther/Jindrak), so each went on a recruiting binge.  Eddie, obviously, settled on Big Show, who craved the opportunity to get even with Kurt.  Angle wound up choosing Carlito Cool, the US Champ. And so we thought we had our match set.

But NOT SO FAST, PEDRO... GM Teddy Long had a brainstorm, and he had to take Rey Mysterio out of the match so he could participate in a CW Title match.  Which meant Eddie Guerrero only had one short week to find another replacement partner. And just last night, he announced he'd found his man: John Cena.  Cena hasn't been on TV in over a month (after dropping the US Title to Carlito, Cena has been selling a "punctured kidney" that happened during a "night club brawl," and in which Carlito and his bodyguard Jesus are implicated), and is likely to be presented at less-than 100%.

A new development: Carlito has a severely injured shoulder, and his participation in this match may be limited.  Between that injury and the fact that Mark Jindrak is kind of a fish-out-of-water here (though affiliated with Team Angle, he's still got the taint of curtain jerker on him), Team Angle may have to relay on shenanigans and chicanery ("What Will Jesus Do?" would be one very important question to ask yourself!) to keep this match close against a babyface team that is loaded to the gills with top-notch talent.  I got plenty of love for Eddie, Kurt, and RVD, though, and those three oughta be able to keep this one fun, no matter what.
  

JOHN BRADSHAW LAYFIELD vs. BOOKER T
WWE Title Match

Unbelievably, Bradshaw is STILL the WWE Champion almost six months after he had no business winning the title in the first place.  He beat Eddie Guerrero, and then beat him again in rematches (including JBL's lone Better Than Average Match of the Year, in a cage against Eddie on SD!).  Then he turned back the challenge of the Undertaker.

And as JBL was happy to note: he is undefeated in singles competition this year.  His last loss was in a tag team match prior to WM20, and he had not been beaten since....  until Booker T.

Booker, though still a heel coming off a US Title feud with John Cena, had an odd little exchange with JBL's Chief of Staff, Orlando Jordan about a month ago. This was just enough justification for GM Teddy Long to include Booker in a six-man tag match, in which he teamed with Rob Van Dam and Rey Mysterio against the "Team of Champions," WWE Champ JBL and Tag Champs Kenzo Suzuki and Rene Dupree.  Booker didn't want the match, and tried to tell Teddy Long that he does his own thing and doesn't like having partners.  But Teddy did a great job motivating Booker with a speech about how it's time for Booker to "step up" and "man up."  Booker was unsold at first.... but when he got out to the ring, when he finally tagged in for his team, he grabbed the brass ring.

In that match, it came down to Booker vs. JBL, and Booker pinned Bradshaw in the middle of the ring.  And just like that, you had (a) a face turn for Booker T, and (b) a new #1 Contender for Bradshaw's title.  Well, actually (b) didn't come quite so fast, as JBL obviously made Booker jump through a few hoops to get the title shot (and also made sure we knew that he STILL hasn't been pinned in a singles match this year).  But Booker beat OJ to get the title shot, and now stands poised to add one-time WWE Champ to his resume alongside 5 WCW Titles.

All the momentum heading into the match is Booker's: he's pinned JBL, he's even teamed with WWE Diva Josh Mathews to beat JBL and OJ (and hell, he even HELPED WWE Diva Josh Mathews beat OJ in a singles match)....  but JBL will not be deterred.  Just last night, JBL made another of his ironclad guarantees (the same ones that he has made in matches against Eddie and Taker and which he's ALWAYS paid off on), promising to beat Booker T, or else he'd never appear on SmackDown! again.  Curious.  Cuz although nobody will cheer louder than I when JBL is done befouling main event matches with his bare-adequacy as a wrestler, I think the guy has a future as a mid-card heel, simply because his persona has really shone through the last few months.  JBL has gone into every title defense he's made as the underdog, it seems, and Sunday will be no exception.  I'm not predicting good things, necessarily, but I am kind of intrigued to see where they go with this....
  

SHELTON BENJAMIN vs. CHRISTIAN
InterContinental Title Match

One month ago, both these guys were chasing Chris Jericho's IC Title. In fact, on the last night before the fan-voted Taboo Tuesday card, these two tangled memorably, as the last two men in an elimination match that had been contested among the top 8 challengers to Jericho's title.

Shelton won that match, and then the next night, won the fan voting for a shot at Jericho, and most shocking of all: won the match against Jericho, too!  A new IC Champ was born, and to be honest, he did it in pretty impressive fashion.  In both the PPV match and again in the RAW rematch, Shelton kept up with Jericho not only in terms of ringwork, but also in terms of popularity with the fans (at the PPV, a case might even be made that Shelton had more fans than Jericho, which frankly stunned the hell out of this Jerichoholic).

Of course, once Shelton established that his would not be a one-week title reign, Christian stepped in and said "First Dibs" on a title feud. He hasn't quite managed to get the measure of Shelton, though, who remains en feugo: armed with a sweet new finisher (a T-Bone Powerslam) and his remarkable fanbase, Shelton has managed to absorb Christian's worse, and STILL come out on top in their confrontations over the past several weeks.

This has included defeating Christian's "problem solvers" in back-to-back matches (the usual Problem Solver, the Lovely Miss Tomko, went down just this week; but before that, Christian imported 500 lbs. Ultrafat Problem Solver Viscera for a failed attempt on Shelton's ribs).

If the quality of the final stages of that pre-Taboo Tuesday showdown between these two is any indication, I expect a very cool little match here.  Captain Charisma's heelishness and Shelton's likeability should meld into a match that is not only well-worked, but which also has a surprising amount of fan interest.  A definite Sleeper Pick on my score card....
  

SPIKE DUDLEY vs. REY MYSTERIO vs. BILLY KIDMAN vs. CHAVO GUERRERO
Fatal Fourway for the Cruiserweight Title

No point trying to make this into something it's not...  so I'll just admit that the storytelling is a bit shoddy here; the mere fact that this was a thrown-together afterthought AFTER Rey was already booked into the 8-man elimination match should tell you all you need to know about how deep the context of this match is.

The best story in this match actually has absolutely zero to do with the Cruiserweight Title. In a fantastic example of making lemonade when handed lemons, Billy Kidman has turned into a magnificent bastard the last 3 months following a real-life injury he caused to Chavo Guerrero (when he mis-landed on a Shooting Star Press).  Chavo is back, now, and because of the insincerity of Kidman, the two have started to tangle with good results.

But of course, that has nothing to do with The Littlest Dictator Spike Dudley, who has ruled over the CW Division for months thanks to his diabolical scheming and effective use of his brothers Bubba and D-Von. A curious development: under Fatal Fourway rules, Spike will NOT have to be pinned to lose his title, and the other Duds are likely to be absent because of a FAILED Spike scheme in which Bubba and D-Von were decimated by the Big Show.  The deck seems stacked against "The Boss."

Meantime, the favorites would SEEM to be Rey (who scored a pinfall decision over Spike in a tag match last night, and is basically the creme de la creme when it comes to the cruisers) and Chavo (who has this mysterious little side-story simmering, in which he has a Mystery Friend who has stood by his side during his injury hiatus and is still backing him up even now; smark-fan wet dreams involve the return of Chavo Classic, I know, but even if it's just Paul London, the possibilities are pretty cool).

Anyway, a title change actually does seem likely here.  And as long as the fucking morons in creative can restrain themselves from finding room for Diva Search Winners and Tough Enough Bullshit (or christ, I just had a vision: a Simon Dean skit, ugh!) on the show, I say you give these four at LEAST 12 minutes, and then a kick-ass match becomes a certainty.
  

TRISH STRATUS vs. LITA
Women's Title Match

One could make the argument that his is a match 7 months or more in the making!

But then, one would have to explain what happened in those 7 months (or more), and one would lose almost all interest because WWE has almost completely destroyed the Lita character while, at the same time, Trish Stratus has started to shine in a way that I honestly can't remember ANY woman ever pulling off in the 20 years I've been watching wrestling.  I mean, I am a unique brand of asshole, but at least I'm pretty consistent about it; sometimes, heels are just more clever and interesting than their babyface counterparts, in my opinion. In the case of Trish, I can say with the utmost confidence that my appreciation may be amplified due to her extreme hotness, but it is ROOTED at a much more base level: in the same way I always liked Mr. Perfect more than Tito Santana or Kerry von Erich, in the same way that Chris Jericho was a genius for some of his early WCW CW work, and in the same way that I appreciate each and every appearance Kurt Angle makes on my TV today, *this* is what I dig about Trish Stratus lately.

I'm kind of a bastard, I guess, and when you get down to it, I can kind relate to other bastards. Or, in Trish's case, I guess she has to be kind of a bitch? As long as the target of her bitchiness is as deserving as Lita, I'll sit here and be none-to-ashamed to admit I'm smitten.

The short version of the story: a year ago, Trish and Lita were the best of friends, and together were trying to decide if they had possibly found the loves of their lives in Chris Jericho and Christian. Lita quickly determined that Christian was kind of a slimeball, but Trish and Jericho, their side of the Love Rhombus remained a going concern until WM21. But then it imploded as Trish decided to turn on Jericho and side with Christian; at about the same time, Lita was getting her life together, finally reuniting with Matt Hardy, and positioning herself for a shot at Trish's women's title.  Needless to say, if Trish had no problem ditching Jericho, she had no problem turning on her old friend Lita, either....

But the title shot never came to pass for Lita.  Before she could follow up, Lita found herself embroiled in a Whole Lotta Drama, the likes of which would make the writers of "All My Children" blush. Her love for Matt Hardy drove her to sleep with Kane, and apparently, her Selective Catholic Values meant that she'd ignore the part about sleeping around being bad... but she DID honor the part about not using Birth Control.  And of course, once she was impregnated by Kane's demon seed, she was in no condition to wrestle, and so the women's division was spared the threat of broken necks for about 5 months.

Pregnant Lita's Drama Quotient rose even higher as she was forced to marry Kane, and as she had to watch as Kane destroyed her "soul mate" Matt Hardy (who has not been seen since August), and then LOST her baby due to an incident that was NOT Snitksy's fault. Yeah, I know I could explain this better, but if I did, I'd only end up wanting to break something...  point is, through all of this utterly inane soap opera bullshit, Trish kind of upped her game, and made sure Lita was the target of frequent and becomingly-bitchy mocking.  That which I thought was dumb, Trish thought was dumb, and let the world know it in all manner of Baby Showers and Backstage Promos and Crashing Lita's Wedding Half-Naked.  

So now it's been two months since Lita lost her baby, and physically, I guess that means it's time to get back in the ring. Some of Trish's more recent taunting has been along the lines of Lita being a "Walking Kiss of Death," since she seems to kill off anything she cares about (Team XTinct, Dark Angel, Matt Hardy, her baby, et al)... and of course, Lita has to go and take all the taunting, just like she took all the forced impregnation and marriage to Kane and all that... and Lita only gets mad when Trish calls her tubby.  Oy.  And she's the one I'm supposed to like?

Again: you can make the case for this being the longest-spanning storyline on the card. But why would you want do?  Then again, I just looked back, and I sure typed a hell of a lot of shit here, didn't I?  Oh well, I don't expect the masses to be any more on my side than they were on the issue of Mr. Perfect in 1990; Lita has her highspots, and for as stupid as her storylines have been the last 8 months, that counts for plenty once you ring the bell.  Here's hoping for a rock solid wrestling match between quite possibly the E's two most fully-formed female characters.  Even if one of them takes the form of a stupid, trailer-park, Springer-esque drama queen, the other takes the form of a broad I'd like to hang out with, and I got no problem being in the minority; the fact that I *do* care this much about this match (even if it's in the opposite way WWE would prefer) says a lot....
  

UNDERTAKER vs. HEIDENREICH
Poor, Poor Taker Match

Look, my stance on the Undertaker is pretty well-known. The guy has probably never broke through into my Top Five Favorite Wrestlers at any point during his 15 year run.  But he's never come even close to being on of my Five Least Favorites, either, and that makes me an oddity in the realm of Internet Jack-Offs.

As a wrestler, Taker is perhaps the best we've ever seen for a Big Man, and he still shows glimpses of that to this day (and that's a big reason why if it's true that he and Kurt are angling -- no pun intended -- for a WM21 showdown, I'm HAPPY about it, cuz I know full well how good that could be). And as a character? Well, you may mock my name and take away my Wrestling Guru card, if you want, but if I get a little satisfaction out of seeing an Undertaker ring entrance and him doing that thing with the eyes and taking off the hat, and re-affirming his spot at the top of the list of Best Wrestling Use of Long Hair Now That Gail Kim is Fired, then so be it. I'll make no apologies for thinking that, goddammit, Undertaker deserves better than THIS.

The story: Paul Heyman did something with the Dudleys, and they fought the Undertaker, and so as a result, Undertaker had to bury a Paul Bearer doll in cement.  I don't know.  This is pretty much equally as retarded as Lita's crap, and there's no super-hot-babe involved, so it's REALLY hard to get motivated to remember any details.

Then Taker wound up taking a few months to feud with JBL over the WWE Title, and that didn't work out so well, in part because Paul Heyman finally got himself a new charge: Prostetnic Vogon Heidenreich.  The poetry-spewing bohemoth sodomized Michael Cole (yay!), but then also decided to take out his inner pain and frustration by stuffing Undertaker into a hearse and then ramming said hearse with OJ Simpson's white Ford Bronco (boo?).  Again: retarded, and neither Taker nor Heidenreich do much for me when they wear tight jeans, so screw this noise, I'll just gloss over the details...

We discover that Heidenreich (who in addition to being a sub-par character, is also an almost-inconceivably poor in-ring worker whose matches range from god-awful  -- and that's the high end! -- to injuring his opponents -- at the low end) desires a match with Taker, and through the magic of one of SD! shittiest vignettes of the year, Paul Heyman gets Taker to sign a contract for said match. And it's on for this Sunday.  Wheee!

You know, as much as this whole mess is a waste of Taker's talents, I realize just now that it's ALSO a waste of Heyman.  Let's get the man something worthwhile to do, dammit!  I know almost NObody else on the net probably gave a shit about it, but that brief eye-contact between Heyman and Tazz last night on SD! is something that BEGS to be paid-off-upon -- especially with the ECW DVD coming out next week -- and as satisfying as it'd be to have Tazz choke out whatever's left of Heidenreich after Taker's done with him, I'd rather we try something that might have some legs!  But of course, now I'm rambling and this has nothing to do with Survivor Series' shittiest match!
  

THE EXTRAS/CLOSING THOUGHTS

Seven matches are announced... but more are always possible...  maybe on Heat?  And with two GMs and with Tough Enough crap and Diva Search winners AND losers and myriad other talents in the building, who knows what might happen?

The trOOps try to present a few of their ideas for the Bonus Materials here....
  

 
So check out Survivor Series on Sunday night... there look to be at least a few really interesting matches lined up, and if WWE handles things wisely, this could well surprise people as a really excellent event (other than Taker/Heidenreich, I honestly think there is a chance for every other match to kick ass, it's just a question of time management, booking decisions, and intangibles in the presentation that will dictate the overall effect).

Or if you must take a pass, I'll be posting my immediate post-show Survivor Series PPV Recap sometime proximate to midnight on Sunday!  See you then....