Jump to content
TSM Forums
Sign in to follow this  
Guest TSMAdmin

The Week in Review - June 30th, 2002

Recommended Posts

Guest TSMAdmin

The Week In Review June 30, 2002

 

For the second (and not the last) time since I’ve been doing my Week in Review, I’ve had to travel an insane distance in order to do this report for all of my fans out there (read as: ONE f’n person). I couldn’t just leave you without a WIR for the second week in a row! I had to do King of the Ring....which you can read here. Thank you. I just finished taking 3 trains and 2 buses and DAMN, I’m tired. For those of you who care...well, I doubt that, but for those of you who are curious, I was out this weekend playing my best bowling game ever, followed by my worst. Two strikes and a spare to start the game and you only score an 82? Yes....THAT was my BEST game ever. I then followed that up with a lovely score of 30. What’s even worse than that is the fact that my score was only ONE F’N POINT until the 6th frame. So I learned a valuable lesson.....I suck at bowling.

 

Oh, and I also learned the meaning of the phrase “chicken sh*t” from my friend Eric, who couldn’t muster up a hello to a girl that he likes...that he’s already talked to!

 

Enough about the stuff no one cares about....lets go to the TOP 5~!

 

5. NWA: TNA. One Word: Wow.

 

This past Wednesday, the Match of the Year (so far anyway) took place during the NWA:TNA’s second broadcast. An amazing round robin tournament, double elimination style took place in the main event of their second show to crown the first ever “X” champion. The match lasted about a half hour and showed the world some innovative maneuvers, jaw-dropping moments and made everyone watching say to themselves “Why doesn’t WWE do this!”?

 

AJ Styles, Low-Ki, Jerry Lynn and Psicosis put on a spectacular match that has had the wrestling world buzzing since it aired on Wednesday. Many fans that I’ve spoken to about it have said that it was worth the 10 bucks to order the PPV alone. I don’t disagree. For my review of last week’s amazing match (oh, and the rest of the show), click Here.

 

The rest of last week’s show however, was full of WrestleCrap and is the same type of things we saw from WCW as they died slowly. After their solid top-to-bottom debut show, they really needed to continue that streak for their second show and they didn’t follow up on it properly. Buyrates for NWA:TNA’s first show however was MUCH higher than expected as they only needed 50,000 buys to make a profit and it seems that they’ve doubled that. Keep with that X division the way they’ve been going and it WILL increase.

 

Normally, this is where I would plug my upcoming review of the show, but since I’m going back to the wonderful paradise that is Meriden, CT for the 4th of July, we here at TheSmartMarks.com are in need of a recapper for this week. If YOU feel that you have what it takes, email us here. You see...there’s always opportunity.

 

4. Triple H out for a month with elbow surgery

 

“The Game” Triple H, the man being pushed by WWE as their number one babyface, is out for a few weeks after suffering an elbow injury. He had surgery on Tuesday and everything seems to be alright. He may be back in the ring in about two to six weeks.

 

After his quad injury last year that kept him out of the ring for months, HHH returned to the squared circle with just a fraction of the in ring ability that he had pre-injury. Even so, he was pushed towards the main event at Wrestlemania with a win in the Royal Rumble and the main event pushes of Rob Van Dam and Chris Jericho were ended with a resounding splat.

 

As a fan of HHH’s work in 2000, I hope that he takes this time to work on his cardio to improve his in ring work. The extra weight that he added during his quad injury has really slowed him down in the ring and its very noticable.

 

Many Smart Marks are rejoicing at the fact that the number 1 politician in WWE’s locker room is out with an injury, giving tons of room for people to move up in the ranks and get over. However, there is a PPV before SummerSlam and if HHH can heal on time, we may see a rematch between him and the Undertaker to win the title and face....

 

3. Brock Lesnar – King of the Ring 2002 Winner & SummerSlam #1 Contender

 

“The Next Big Thing”, Brock Lesnar won the King of the Ring tournament last week, making short order of WWE Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam to win the crown. This year, however, the benefits of being King are much more important than a silly cape, crown and scepter. Brock Lesnar is the guaranteed number one contender for the Undisputed Title at SummerSlam, regardless of who the champion maybe.

 

Having been in WWE for only 3 months, Brock is being pushed to the moon. His win at the King of the Ring this year came as no surprise to anyone. Normally, someone fresh getting a push to the main event is all gravy...however, it seems like the fans aren’t reacting to Lesnar the way WWE wants them to. He’s been receiving Goldberg chants at every show, doesn’t necessarily receive a large negative or positive ovation when he comes out of the ring and his matches haven’t exactly lit the world on fire either. Has WWE pushed this guy too much too soon?

 

Brock Lesnar could fall into the category of other KOR winners such as Mabel & Billy Gunn if WWE isn’t careful. This is just like the infamous Rocky Maivia push in ’97 where Rocky was pushed down the fans throat to the point that he was booed ferociously as a goody two shoes babyface. The fans don’t seem to want Brock in the main event, much less near the Undisputed Title. That also brings up another issue.

 

Who will Brock face at SummerSlam? Its been known for years now that heel vs. heel matches don’t do well and at the current moment, it seems more likely that The Undertaker will lose the title before the PPV is to take place. If they insist on keeping the title on a heel, then I’d probably suggest that they turn Brock face as soon as possible. With a Shooting Star Press hidden in his arsenal, a perfect heel foil in Paul Heyman and the lack of top babyface names, Brock’s chances at being a top babyface in the company are better than his current landscape, in my opinion. Oh well....even so, new faces are always good....speaking of that:

 

2. WWF Ruthless Agression Episode 2: Attack of the Developmentals

 

For MONTHS, we’ve been hearing about guys from OVW and wondering when they were going to show up. WWE needs new stars after all. John Cena, Deacon Bautista, Johnny The Bull, Sean O’Haire, Mike Sanders, Rob Conway. These are just some of the guys who have wrestled in WWE in the past week in some capacity. Vince McMahon did say a few weeks ago that with the loss of Austin, there would be a lot of opportunity to call up some of the developmental guys, but DAMN...it seems like they all showed up this week! First we have Mike Sanders, Johnny The Bull & Sean O’Haire, all former Natural Born Thriller members in WCW, all competing on the Heat tapings & dark matches last week. Rob Conway had a decent match with Randy Orton on Velocity which showed some pretty tight heel work by Conway. However, the two men who made their wrestling debuts on Smackdown this week were some of this weeks highlights.

 

Lets first start with Deacon Bautista, who has been seconding Reverend D’Von to the ring for the past month and a half or so. He didn’t have his first televised match until this week on Smackdown and he teamed with D’Von to face Randy Orton and Faarooq. The former Leviathan of OVW has a VERY intimidating presence just walking to the ring and with the limited time that he spent in the ring, he showed more ability to act like a heel & strike fear in the hearts of babyfaces than this years King of the Ring winner. I see nothing but good things in his future. He may truly be “The Next Big Thing”.

 

Last, but not least is John Cena, who went by the name Prototype in OVW. Supposedly one of the best promo guys in OVW, he was called up this week and wrestled a great match with Kurt Angle in the beginning of Smackdown. He was able to get the crowd behind him and actually believe he could beat Angle in their 8 minute competitive contest and by the time the match was over.....so was he. Some people have debated on whether or not the match was as good as it was because of Angle carrying ability, but Angle’s carried some other guys to matches that weren’t so good, such as his snoozefest with HHH at No Way Out this year. Where Cena goes from here, no one is sure, until Tuesday anyway, but it looks like he is going to have a bright future in WWE.

 

1. Bret Hart Suffers A Stroke

 

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am one of the biggest Bret Hart fans you’ll ever meet. I was personally affected by the news earlier this week that Bret “The Hitman” Hart suffered a stroke which left him in the hospital with the left side of his body paralyzed.

 

Earlier this week, Bret was riding a bicycle and that’s when he suffered a stroke. He was taken to the hospital where he had his assistant issue a statement to the wrestling media, downplaying the situation. Later on, another statement was issued by his assistant, describing the events of that day and where to send their get-wells.

 

From all indications so far, the stroke was not caused by the concussion that he received in 1999 by a sloppy Bill Goldberg. The only thing that I can think about it is that he must have had a lot of stressful things on his mind, which is understandable considering everything that has happened to him in the past 5 years.

 

The Hart family has been devastated time and time again since Owen’s death in 1999. Helen Hart & The British Bulldog have both died in this calendar year and for the sanity of Stu Hart’s grandchildren, I truly feel compassion. Its scary to think that 3 out of the 5 members of the Hart Foundation have passed on since 1997 and we almost lost Bret, the most decorated family member of them all. Regardless of your opinion on the man, we should all wish him best wishes and his road to a full recovery with be a long and difficult one.

 

Well, I’m thoroughly saddened....

 

Stay tuned next week as Dr. Tom & Byron Vester bring you the week's news and I'll be back next week here, counting down the times I spanked your mama...

 

Til Next Week...

 

The Dames, Damian Gonzalez.

 

Any comments, questions, thoughts? Email me Here.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sign in to follow this  

×