by The Rick
Undisputed Lord and Master of OnlineOnslaught.com

No video package: we head straight to the "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" song, followed by "Victory"... and then they shoot it down to courtside for the player introductions.  Hey, score one for the internet rumor mongers: Monty Scott IS in the starting line-up.

Opening tip: controlled by the dastardly Coaches vs. Cancer, who slice up the Flyers' swiss cheese D for a quick lay-up.  Not off to a good start... but the Flyers swiftly get the 3-ball rolling and KW is playing mannish ball on the inside to get the Flyers back on top.

Total Domination Theatre

For the rest of the first half, CvC only hit a handful of....

Ah, who am I kidding?  You don't care about Dayton Flyers exhibition basketball... I'm not even sure I do, now that it is past.  We took a team that (reportedly) played Ohio St. and Notre Dame pretty tough, and were beating them by 40 points with 11 minutes left to play.  I'd say that's good news, except then we went almost exclusively to the bench squad, and they lost 20 of those points right back.  So: it was good to be back in the D-Rena last night, but I don't know if I really learned anything useful about this year's team.

But what I do know is that after it was good to be watching the Flyers, it was even better to come home with a victory to sit down for a recording of RAW...  here's what went down.

No Video Package: and no mention of Crash Holly, not even the opening graphic, as is usually custom.  Also, since I'm thinking of it right now, now mention of Crash at any point during the show.  In lieu of any introductory footage, we head straight to...

Opening theme/pyro/etc., and a welcome from King and JR, who tell us that in addition to Goldberg vs. Batista, we've also got ourselves a huge semi-main event, with Shawn Michaels going one-on-one with Randy Orton for only the second time ever (oohhhh!).  But no time to dawdle, because we've got approximately 128 people to include in the opening promo.

Revolving Door Theatre

To open the show, it's Lita coming out in street clothes (Lawler, ever the idiot, fails to mention any upcoming match or current fued involving Lita to opine that she's "wearing too many clothes").  Lita has just about enough time to mention that, as big a deal as her comeback from neck surgery was, her winning the Women's Title from Molly on Sunday at Survivor Series will be even bigger.

At that point, the dulcet tones of Lemmy Kilmister interrupt, and here comes the recently wed Triple H, flanked by Randy Orton and Batista (but not Ric Flair, who is absent tonight for personal reasons).  HHH and Evolution surround Lita, who is not intimidated, and who spunkily asks them, "Anything I can do for you fellas?".  HHH says, Yeah, she can get the hell out of his ring, because he wants to talk.  HHH also offers her an option to stay: but she'd have to get nekkid and dance for Randy Orton's dollar to do so.  Lita ain't dancing, so she just leaves.

And we're stuck with Triple H, who is actually turning it up in this rare television appearance.  And I'm not just saying that because he stole my shit from last week (the part about Goldberg actually asking for the match against Batista being more stupid than brave), either.  Although, that never hurts.  But even besides that HHH is heeling at a pace that, even for him, is quite remarkable.  A good promo is in progress when...

*KEEE-RASH* Steve Austin interrupts.  In a counter-point to HHH's interruption of Lita, Austin turns a few of the Game's phrases around on him, and essentially asks him to leave the ring and the building.  HHH isn't planning on wrestling tonight, so Austin reasons he's got no business being here, wasting our time.  HHH opines that he can do whatever he wants because Austin can't do anything about it tonight without being provoked, and it won't be able to do anything about it next week because he'll be gone.  Batista chimes in that Austin's a "coward" and Orton's two cents consists of saying he hopes to be personally responsible for beating Team Austin at Survivor Series.  Austin tells them that's all well and good, but seriously, tonight, HHH is ejected from the building.  Security comes down to make good on Austin's promise, and Austin heads backstage... and once flanked by about two dozen security guys, HHH decides, "OK, I'm leaving, but only because I want to."  How very third grad of you, HHH...

Backstage: Austin is prowling a hallway when he suddenly runs smack dab into Eric Bischoff and his Five Hired Goons.  The standard trash talking is led by Bischoff, but doesn't get far because apparently Austin's Five Goons were watching a monitor together somewhere, as they burst out of nowhere to get Stone Cold's back.  Now everybody's shouting back and forth, and nary a word can be understood.  

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Rob Van Dam vs. Christian (IC Title Match)

The announcers tell us that this is just the first of four matches between Team Austin and Team Bischoff members... and we're quickly off to a hot start, with Van Dam controlling the opening minutes leading up to a big spot on the outside (the spinning guillotine legdrop across the barrier thingie).  But then, RVD couldn't follow-up, and Christian gained control for a few minutes.  RVD rallied with few cool spots and near falls, frustrating Christian, who realized Van Dam wouldn't be as easy to put away as he'd hoped.  So Christian went outside, evicted Lillian Garcia from her chair with a shove so unnecessary that even Lawler had to stop his futile pseudo-heel attempts to act like he was a fan of Christian, and then brought the chair into the ring.  But RVD dodged the chair shot attempt, took Christian down, and then hit Rolling Thunder for a quick pinfall win.  Solid 6 minute contest, I thought, although the crowd was a bit weird (almost like a Japanese crowd, they were really quiet for stretches, but still seemed attentive, and popped for the big spots).

Via Satellite, or Something:  Shane McMahon walks into a Chinese restaurant (which JR wanted to call "Calhoun's," but which I'm guessing was probably named "Kowloon's" or something like it).  He does not have a reservation, but he'd like a table.  "A table for one, sir?" asks the maitre'd.  No, Shane says, he'll need seating for two.  Oh, great....

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Cheap Heat, with Not Brad Smoley

The Coach is out, and wearing a Yankees jersey with "1918" on the back is not a way to endear oneself to a Boston crowd, but Coach did it anyway.  The guy's a bit rough when you've got him for an hour of ostensible play-by-play, but man, the heel shtick in small doses is working for him.  Coach says he's out here on orders of Eric Bischoff to take over ring announcing duties from Lillian Garcia.  Of course, it's "for her protection" after what Christian did to her.  Lillian seems to think she'll be OK staying on, but Coach is insistant and vaguely threatening, so she leaves.  Throughout the rest of the night, Coach is pretty funny in over-selling the entrances of heels, and then being noticeably unenthusiastic for the faces.  

Hurricane/Rosey vs. Rene Dupree/Rob Conway

Jump start, with all four brawling, leading to Hurricane hitting a massive plancha from the top rope to the floor before things settled in.  Not a very long contest, but while it lasted, Rosey was actually doing the babyface in peril thing for a bit before tagging in Hurricane again.  His house o' fire routine didn't last long, as Rosey and Dupree eventually powdered out, allowing Conway to isolate Hurricane and pin him with a neckbreaker of some kind or another.  Nothing special here, a sensation that was only magnified when JR and King had to talk us through some Sunday Night Heat highlights to explain to us why this match was even happening.

Backstage:  Terri and Lita are talking, and from what we can gather, it sounds like somebody has forced Terri to wrestle tonight, with Lita, in a tag match.  Which is a perfect segue to Eric Bischoff strutting up to them, telling Terri to go get ready and do some stretching or something because he wants to talk to Lita alone.  The camera man can stay, though.  Eric wants to let Lita know that he remembers how he fired her six months ago, and that when Austin's gone next week, Lita had better learn how to "play ball" if she wants to stick around.  Yes, complete with the sleazy caressing of the hair and everything... straight out of the Vince McMahon "Well, Since I Can't Think of Anything Actually Compelling or In-Character to Do, Let's Just Try Sexual Harassment" Playbook.

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Backstage: Chris Jericho delivers a pep talk to selected members of Team Bischoff.  It's "selected members" because Randy Orton is absent.  Finally, once Jericho is done pumping up everybody else, Orton wanders in and tries to give us "too cool to show up for the meeting," but succeeds more in giving us "probably so dim that he got lost walking here from next door."  Once Orton gets done saying that nobody has to worry, because he'll take care of everything at Survivor Series if he has to, and will show them what he means by taking care of Shawn Michaels tonight, he just meanders out of the room again, leaving Teddy Long to blurt out, "That is one cocky cracka."  And Scott Steiner mutters, "I b'lee dat."  I didn't WANT to laugh, but I did.  Dammit.

Backstage: Val Venis and two of Boston's Most Off-Duty Strippers are hatching a plan.  One will be hanging out with Val tonight, but the other is gonna be set up with Val's good buddy Lance Storm.  Val explains Lance has a big heart, but he's kind of, you know, shy or something.  Val calls for Lance to come on out cuz he's got a surprise, and Lance, not knowing any better steps out of the shower and into a hallway, where Stripper #2 gets an eyeful and declares "Lance's heart isn't the only thing that's big!"  Well, on the Pointless Nonsense Continuum, I guess having a giant schlong is better than dancing around like a jack-ass, so....

At Calhoun's: a waiter tries to get Shane to order the special, but it's something "on Fire," and Shane, with a smirk, declines, saying "Nothing on fire for me, thanks."  Tee hee.  Nice touch, well delivered, but really... this isn't gonna be good.  Shane decides to wait a bit more before ordering.

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Terri/Lita vs. Molly Holly/Gail Kim

Terri is in her casual Interviewer Gear, since she didn't know she was going to wrestle.  Essentially, this translates to "We get to look up her dress a few times."  Prior to the match, Coach's heelish announcing meant Lita and Terri were announced at a combined weight of 350 pounds, or something.  Har, that Coach!  Molly and Gail manage to trap Terri into starting the match, and pound on her for 2-3 minutes before Terri somehow lucks her way into a break long enough to tag Lita in.  Lita gets about 90 seconds of ring time in before Gail illegally boots her in the head from the outside, and Molly covers her and then uses the rope for even more illegal leverage to get the pinfall.  After the match, Gail decides to rip Terri's dress off.  You know, for all the good wrestling and effective angles we've seen in the women's division in the last little while, this was purely pointless:  Terri was in longer than Lita, so the ringwork wasn't anything memorable, and the cheap pin on Lita was fairly uncreative and pointless given the superior heelishness displayed by Molly and Gail in past weeks.  If anything, the entire match seemed like a flimsy premise to get Terri stripped down to bra and panties... which I guess ain't completely without merit.  Others can say what they will about her, but Terri's papers authorizing public thongage are still in perfectly good order.

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Shawn Michaels vs. Randy Orton

Part Two of the Team Bischoff vs. Team Austin Four Match Series, and also Part Two of Michaels vs. Orton's one-on-one series.  Pretty standard fare:  Orton with a lot of punchy-kicky, Michaels using Flair's chops for cheap "whooos," and Orton eventually settling on targeting Michaels injured back.  But crisply executed and paced well enough that the crowd stayed in it, even when Orton locked on a rest hold of some kind and Michaels had to HBK-Up to escape it.  In HBK's comeback, ref Earl Hebner actually wound up getting bumped out of the ring in a spot that left me wondering, "Who makes the secret arms-crossed-X when the ref gets hurt for real?"....  but Earl was actually OK.  He just had to play dead long enough for Orton to decide he'd go get a chair (this time, no shoving the ring announcer was necessary, Coach handed it to him).  But Michaels was playing possum, and turned the tables on Orton, hitting a backbreaker through the chair on young Randall.  Michaels then tossed the chair out of the ring, and started tuning up the band.  As ref Hebner crawled back into the ring, Shawn hit the Sweet Chin Music and got the three count.  Not as good as the PPV match, but seriously, what did you expect?  This was 7-8 minutes of your life that you wouldn't be demanding back, trust me...

At the Chinese Restaurant: Shane is nibbling on his broad noodles when he suddenly does the Slow Double Take of Dramatic Eventual Zooming Out.  The camera does get around to widening out to follow Shane's gaze:  Kane has arrived.  Shane says something about how he didn't think Kane would show up.  Kane says he always makes good on his promises.

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My Dinner with Glen J. (A Film by Shane McMahon)

Kane is seated, Shane is seated, and it seems as though we have a full three-camera set-up rolling here so each guy can have a close up while we can also get full coverage on the whole table.  My CheesySense is tingling.

Shane tells Kane the reason he asked him here tonight was so that they could talk one last time about what they were going to do to each other at the PPV.  Shane says he's leaving every ounce of his humanity at the door Sunday, and what he does to Kane will be vicious.  But he's saying this all in a civil, matter-of-fact tone.

Kane's turn to talk, and he plays the "yer mama" card early, and then moves on to explaining why he did the jumper cable nonsense a few months ago: because he wanted to prevent Shane and his pretty little wife from having kids, and everybody Shane failed to father a child, he'd have to think of Kane.  Shane would neither confirm nor deny whether Kane's plan had succeeded.
 
At this, Shane invoked the "yer brother" card, tangentially mentioning the Undertaker as part of his master thesis that Kane isn't a monster... he's pathetic.  A self-pitying SOB who hates himself and projects that out on others.  As Shane whipped out his gangsta roll to pay for dinner, he tells his dinner guest that Sunday, he'll put Kane out of his misery.  Shane walks off, leaving Kane to look completely and utterly nonplussed.

OK, I'll try to keep this short: you all know about my aversion to Hollywood-ized skits in wrestling.  And this one broke every rule imaginable.  But what makes it doubly frustrating is that in this case, there was not a convergence of crappy production with crappy content.  The actually meat of this vignette, the dialogue between Shane and Kane, was surprisingly excellent, the sort of layered-but-sensible psychobabble that actually builds characters and drama.  Well delivered, too.  But in the context of a Chinese restaurant, it's nonsensical.  It's disconnected from everything else, as you could tell by the muted responses from the live audience (who probably would have been a thousand times more into it if this had been an in-ring or backstage confrontation).  The inelegant three-camera shoot and the fact that there were obviously dozens of other patrons in the restaurant who had to ignore the big men saying nasty things about each others families were other things that would have even an average fan subconsciously wondering when he started watching a cable access drama produced by high schoolers.  It just made no sense for Shane and Kane to do that skit in that location, and it took away from what could have been a very excellent piece of storytelling heading into the PPV.  I am deeply, DEEPLY annoyed.  Not because it sucked, but because it didn't have to.

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Dudley Boyz vs. Mark Henry/Scott Steiner (Non-Title Match)

Match #3 in the series...  this one, unfortunately, falls well short of the previous two.  Not only are you probably in trouble any time you've gotta call Steiner the "skill man" on your tag team, but this was a night when it seemed like Scotty wasn't at what passes for his smoothest.  Given those limitations, it felt to me like this one lingered way too long...  but I guess they had to stretch it a little, because they needed time for Lawler to make obligatory remarks about Stacy Keibler outside the ring (she's sad, you know), and for a few cut-backs to Mark Jindrak and Lance "Am I Still Garrison or Not, JR?" Cade, who were watching a monitor backstage to scout out the tag champs who they upset last week.  Eventually, the Duds took control of the match, and were about to 3-D Mark Henry when Steiner said, "To hell with this" and grabbed a steel chair and started whacking people with it.  Ref called for a DQ, Teddy Long called for more chairshots for the Dudleys.  Team Austin is now 3-0 on the night...  but Team Bischoff seems to have won a moral victory over the Dudleys here.

Backstage: Austin and Bischoff are backstage, and Bischoff launches into a mini-tirade, hitting all predictable notes along the way.  It's Austin's last night on the job.  Austin has to trust five guys this weekend at Survivor Series.  And so on and so forth.

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At ringside: it's Not Lebron James.  Also known as: Obscure Members of the New England Patriots.

Backstage: Chris Jericho rips into a production assistant for bringing him water 15 minutes late, and dammit, it's not even cold, you ass clown.  However, Trish sees all this from just off-screen, and when Jericho turns around and sees her, he flips the Asshole Switch to the Off Position.  He apologizes to Trish, and says he wishes she hadn't seen that, but this whole Team Bischoff thing has got him all on edge.  Trish seems to understand, and says it's no big deal.  Chris seems to sense his moment is here, and so he asks, "You know, Trish, I've really liked hanging out with you and stuff, and I thought maybe we could go and get a bite, or maybe a drink, or something?  Sometime?  You know, if you wanted to?"  Trish tosses out the hackneyed "Are you asking me out on a date?" line...  but to his credit, Chris does not fold.  He says, "Well, yeah, I guess I am.  So what do you say?"  Of course Trish would like to go out with Chris, but when would be a good time?  Jericho says he's got a match with Booker T, but how about after the show tonight?  Trish thinks it sounds like a plan.  

PPV Hype (Paid for by SmackDown):  Yep, they actually have a pre-taped piece with Cole and Tazz running down the SmackDown! matches and storylines for Survivor Series.  Looking at the ratings, I don't think SD! needed RAW's help here....  JR and King also run some of RAW's PPV matches.

Backstage: Booker T and John Heidenreich are leafing through "WWE Unscripted: the Big Book of Pictures and New Work Anecdotes" when somebody knocks on the door.  Booker's getting stretched out for his match, so John gets it... and when he comes back, he says nobody was there, but there was an envelope taped to the door.  Booker opens it, and takes out a piece of paper.  The handwritten note simply reads, "I still remember."  Hmmmm....  Booker expends about 2 seconds of energy worrying about the note, and then decides he'd best focus on Chris Jericho.  So he lays the note down on a chair (carefully, so that it's right-side-up and perpendicular to the camera so we can get another close up on it when Booker leaves the room).

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Booker T vs. Chris Jericho

Final match of the Austin/Bischoff series...  and back to decent quality, too.  Although Lawler is back to his annoying self with ramblings about the "I still remember" note that are so unfunny and pointless that JR starts to fire back, the action here is good.  Booker's on defense at about the 6 minute mark, when he manages a big move out of nowhere: he tries for the fancy roll-up in the corner move that he's got, but it is botched slightly... somehow Booker makes a nice adjustment so that it doesn't look like a botched move so much as a modified move, and he still rolls Jericho up and gets a surprise three count.  Team Austin is four-for-four in tonight's matches!

Post-Match:  all of Team Bischoff is out to beat on Booker T.  But one by one, the rest of Team Austin comes out for the save.  Team Bischoff scurries away.  But Ring Announcers Coach is not done:  he decides to call an audible, and says that Jericho won the match by a blatant Disqualification.  This does not sit well with Team Austin, who surround Coach.  Coach gets in the ring, and tries to escape, but he can't.  He winds up eating a 3-D.  Huge pop.  Folks hate the Coach!

More PPV Hype:  Just because it's more important than any of the other matches, JR and King set us up for a video package featuring Kane and Shane.  Nee haw.

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Goldberg vs. Batista

Goldberg, although limping and selling the "shattered ankle," comes out of the gates fast with a few power moves on Batista.  However, Batista is able to chop block Goldberg's bad leg, and immediately gains control.  For 2 minutes, all Batista does is take shots at Goldberg's ankle, which is sensible enough, I guess, but not exactly thrilling, since it's mostly punching it and ramming it into things and nothing more creative.  But finally, Goldberg's able to counter one of Batista's attacks, and nails him with a spear out of nowhere.  As Goldberg set up Batista for the Jackhammer, Triple H suddenly dashed in from out of nowhere and attacked.  Goldberg wins by DQ, but HHH wants to do more than that.  He grabs a steel chair and his sledge hammer, and is looking to finish what Batista started 3 weeks ago.  However, as HHH stood over Goldberg and prepared to bring the sledge down, Goldberg used his good leg to kick HHH in the balls.  Goldberg took the sledge and wanted to use it on HHH.  However, Batista charged him, and Goldberg had to quickly turn to him and bury the hammer in Batista's gut.  This gave HHH enough time to escape the ring.  Goldberg celebrated in the ring to close out the show.

Final Thoughts

A steadier show than last week, and pretty much an excellent way to finish up heading into Survivor Series.  I only really have two areas of complaint, and they areas where I'd hedge my bets and not rant and rave too vociferously....

For one, you've got the Kane/Shane thing at the restaurant.  It is baffling to me that somebody actually sat down and decided, "You know what'd make this skit even better?  If it was at a Chinese restaurant!"...  that's just so stupid and completely unnecessary.  The person who conceived of that idea needs some sort of an intense visit to "Keep it Simple, Stupid" Boot Camp, and then the rest of the crew that let this idea slip through should at least be banned from catering for a couple weeks. The content and delivery was so shockingly strong that the poor judgment in putting them in a restaurant is even more frustrating.  But still, there's the part of me that mostly just appreciates that the dialogue itself never approached the depths of retardation that other parts of this feud have.  I only  wish they'd been given the chance to display this material in a better context.

For two, you had the Duds vs. Steiner/Henry tag match that just lagged for me.  But truth is, you had to have Steiner and Mark working somewhere tonight to make the Austin/Bischoff matches work out, so whatcha gonna do?  A few weeks ago, I said the thing I was most looking forward to on the pre-Survivor Series RAWs was a Duds vs. Jericho/Christian tag title match... and while I never got it, I got those two guys doing other things that were also good.  Leaving the Duds to try to sustain crowd interest in a match against the two big lugs.  I'll call it a slow part of the night, but I won't bitch too much.  It was a necessary evil.
 
The other three matches in the Austin/Bischoff series were very good.  The opening promo with multiple participants was exciting in that Crash TV kind of way.  Goldberg/Batista was a nothing match, but effective in terms of setting the right tone (Goldberg: Vulnerable but Not Beaten yet) for the PPV.  I'm already anxious to see what this "I Still Remember" thing is about, too...  In fact, besides my two complaint areas, the only things I didn't outright enjoy were the women's tag and the La Resistance/Hurricane/Rosey match, neither of which was bad, but both of which were just kind of pointless fluff  compared to other good stuff.

A good showing for RAW.  Almost as dominant as the showing the Flyers had.  More fall-out tomorrow in OO...

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