your WWE SMACKDOWN WORKRATE REPORT- 11/14/2002!

[Guest DEAN RASMUSSEN]

Allright, even more free wrestling on my the TV this week! I'm all about that. What with the economy going down the crapper and the modern world getting harder and colder and more emasculating and alienating, we can use as much of the Professional Wrestling as possible. Unless it's really irritating wrestling, then it helps the human condition in the Western World not one iota. LUCKILY, Satan Pro called and told me- without soiling the SPIRIT of the Workrate Report with hated, wretched, stupid, hated spoilers- that the Smackdowns tonite are supposed to be really fabulous, so I am stoked. BRING IT!

 

WHAT WORKED-

 

- Edge and Chavo have a batch of wrestling. Chavo is rudotastic early, bumping big for Edge and then bringing a nice wad of nasty offense for Edge to bump around for. I loved when they show Rey Rey looking at the match on his space monitor from his capsule at Moonstation X2. Keylock is all heated and Edge escapes to be cut off by Chavo to set up Edge killing Chavo with a dropkick while Chavo is coming off the top. Chavo goes up big for the backdrop like a Latin Bobby Eaton and the nearfalls start. Chavo does the cool Spear as Counter to the Spear and then they do the neato Tornado DDT counter into the Black Cat DDT by Edge for the pin. They needed to have Eddy at ringside to cheat to win to get Chavo a win before the fans are supposed to take Chavo seriously Sunday. Postmatch, announcer boy is despondent when Rey Rey scoops him about Brock's ribs. Brock seems weepy and pre-menstrual. Rey Rey runs to make some hot tea...

 

- FIRST AL WILSON SITING! Al Wilson now has Dawn Marie where he wants her. Al is THE MACK now. He makes sure that she thinks that he could give a shit if she sucks his dick or not and that is where he wants her. Al is the Mack.

 

-See, Heyman is a genius because he can have Benoit and Angle have a bad 3 Stooges skit like this and it will always work because he knows these two will wrestle each other later and justify ANYidiotic reason for having them wrestle. I await some sort of Gilligan's Island skit involving Benoit peddling on a stationary bike made of bamboo and Angle creating a radio out of cocoanuts. Then they could do a thing where Benoit is Raj and Angle is Rerun and the Doobie Brothers catch them trying to bootleg one of their concerts when the tape recorder comes out of Angle's coat as he is dancing. It would rock.

 

- Eddy and Chavo giving Edge and Rey Rey shit is fucking gold. Eddy verbally assaults Rey Rey's manhood with the blind squirrel analogy and then calls him an pseudo-Gringo for letting his Canadian buddy talk to his sangre in Spanish. Eddy is your motherfucking GOD.

 

- Eddy and Rey had the WCW match of the decade in 1997. I will try to block that out of my head and watch this on it's own merits. Eddy hits the PHAT ASS Quebradora and Rey takes it LIKE A MAN. Eddy then starts in on the arm and I am in love. Rey is spectacular with the armdrag out the corner to counter the armbar and Eddy is YOUR FUCKING GREATEST RUDO EVER by going smooth as motherfucking silk into the armdrag back into the armbar. The rana to set up the 619 onto the hapless ref was nice and then everyone cheats to win and both eat a finisher from their opponents tag partner as Eddy hits a fucking GNARLY powerbomb on Rey Rey for two and we go back to square one as we go to commercial. Back from the commercial, Rey hits his own PHAT ASS Quebradora and he sells the knee before taking the wacky bump off the top to the floor. Eddy hits the enormous Piscada and starts bringing the assbeat until Rey hits a comeback too soon with the Superplex as a counter to the Frogsplash. Rey with the cool-ass armdrag counter out of the second powerbomb attempt but Rey is cut off by a fucking BEAUTIFUL lariat by your GOD LORD GOD Eddy. Eddy starts beating the shit out of Rey and Rey hits another comeback with a moonsault countering out of a superplex attempt. Rey follows up with a fucking BEAUTIFUL Spinning, Floating Armdrag which he follows with a DIVING TOPE TO THE FLOOR. This match is motherfucking absolutely balls out. Eddy gets his knees in Rey's face and they go into the finish, as Eddy misses the Frogsplash but rolls through, but Rey uses moves too quick for me to remember to get Rey into position for the 619 and Eddy takes it knees to the teeth. Eddy rolls through the roll-up and procures the El Paso Lasso and Rey taps as Eddy grabs the ropes. That there is great fucking professional wrestling.

 

- Oh fuck you, Torrie. Al is releasing the swimmers onto a women half his age and HE'S BEING USED? What the Hell are you talking about, woman? Give it a break and let our Mounting Blastmaster Absolute Macking Motherfucker unleash his tidal wave of gooey love on any lady lucky enough to get in it's wake. Hopefully- as revenge- this leads to Torrie putting the blast on the Iron Sheikh as a sort of a mental assault on everything our Red White And Blue Sandblaster of Fucking stands for. Torie in a veil and Arabic slavegirl garb would tease putting her tongue on Sheik's distended belly button while the Shiek stands proudly with his fists on his stomach. "Clitoris NUMBER ONE! Multiple orgasms NUMBER ONE! Al Wilson PTOOEY!" It would write itself. Al could win his daughter back by beating the Sheik in one of those Iranian dumbell contests. It would rock.

 

- Kidman and your Peckerwood Jesus have a perfectly fine match- with Noble beginning to actually use some of his vast offense, but it followed Rey Rey vs Eddy so I can only be so impressed. Sorry. I suck.

 

- Eddy and Chavo come out and save Angle from starting to sound like the really tall guy on "Everyone Loves Raymond." Then they have a summit of the tag challengers but luckily Benoit and Angle have a wrestling match and everything else falls by the wayside. The suplexes kick in early and Eddy allows Benoit to start beating the shit out of Angle and Angle hits the fastest fucking German I have ever seen. Eddy distracts Angle again and Benoit PUNCHES HIM IN THE FACE and we all weep and party and freak out. Benoit hits the fucking BEAUTIFUL backbreaker. Benoit brings the MANLY ass-beating and Angle is fucking beautiful selling the damage. Edge distracts Benoit and then he thows Angle at them and I am SOOO deeply in love with this match. Benoit hits two of three of a Locomotion German but Angle hits his own Locomotion German with all three for two. Benoit ducks the clothesline and procures the crossface and Angle reverses it into an ankle lock and Angle hits the Olympic Slam after all the reversals and I am aglow at the metricton of wrestling I am seeing this fair Thursday. Eddy distracts Angle and Angle procures the Lasso From El Paso and an enraged Eddy hits the ring and Angle sends him out and all hell breaks loose as Benoit hits the fucking beautiful Released German. Then everbody applies everbody else's finisher on each other until Benoit and Angle end up tapping Eddy and Edge. The postmatch hug betweem Benoit and Angle was even better than the Released German Suplex. This is the best booked stuff of the last ten years that isn't called GAEA vs Super Star Unit.

 

WHAT DIDN'T WORK-

 

- I give Heyman credit for trying his damnedest to make ANYONE think that Big Show is worthy of anyone's attention as an opponent. I'm thinking that this is some kind booking OBSESSION now with Heyman: "I created THIS WWE! I created it in a fucking bingo hall in Philadelphia nine yearsago! NOW! NOW! NOW I WILL SHOW THEM! I AM PAUL HEYMAN AND I WILL MAKE WRESTLING FANS IN 2002 GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE BIG SHOW. I CAN BOOK ANYTHING AND MAKE IT WORK!" And applaud the idea of Heyman trying to make it work but I don't applaud having to look it not work. The Brock face turn has been fun, but it will more fun when Heyman hires bountyhunters to get revenge on Lesnar when Smackdown does the Heyman vs Lesnar angle that will take over soon enough. Lesnar beating the shit out of Big Show was fun. Big Show does bleed like a king- and the "one bounce off the rail" bladejob was Snuka-esque in it's precision. Maybe he will be the new Hercules Ayala.

 

- Evil John Cena vs Evil Matt Hardy? Oh, it's a tag match. I hate these seperate entrances. Like John Cena needs his own entrance? Anyway, John Cena gazes upon Rikishi's giant ass and Tajiri is filled with trembling. Face Tajiri is super Luchafied technico and he takes a beating early. Rikishi hits some nice elbows and John Cena is living in horror of Rikishi's fecal Mount Everest and- oh, it's over. That was odd. The mutual love between Hardy and Cena postmatch almost saves this. But it doesn't.

 

THERE YOU HAVE IT.

 

DEAN RASMUSSEN.

[Guest goodhelmet]

you know dean, i wasn't feeling Smackdown tonight. the SD GOdz were in full effect but there wasn't that spark that have made so many of the other matches go.

 

as for remembering rey-eddy HH97, i had the same problem. when i saw the edge-chavo interference, i thought to myself "this didn't happen in the ***** classic".

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I was totally feeling it tonight....

 

The matches, that is... cough...

 

The ending of benoit/angle w/ the hugs had me in stitches and they were doing some really fun stuff in the 3 matches.

 

Edge/Chavo had a nice bit of psychology w/ Chavo blocking edges spear to the corner, Chavo hitting edge with a spear and Edge hitting chavo with a spear in the ME. Chavo blocking the Edge-o-matic, Edge hitting it after a while and blocking the Tornado DDT for the Edge-o-cution. If it were a Japanese match someone would have pointed that out - but it wasn't. (Which isn't a knock on Japanese wrestling, I'm a fan, but generally we seem to look "into" japanese matches because of the lack of commentary so we have to fill in the gaps and focus more on the match/story/psychology).

 

Speaking of which, Michael Cole saying "I guess you could say the Theme of this match is both men have to wear each other down" was funny, though I applaud his efforts to get over the story of the match subtely... No matter how blatent it was.

 

Eddie/Rey was really good - though I wished they could have worked off their HH 1997 classic - but that's too much to expect. I liked how they played up Rey's bad knees though I wish he could have once let them give-way just to show how bad they are - which would effect the finish - but ah well. They worked damn hard and Eddie deserves that #1 DVD spot.

 

Angle/Benoit was really good because, while they did do the same stuff they always do (Start off with a wrestling sequence, dueling german suplexes, dueling submissions) they added a little twist in it (esp. the dueling submissions w/ Angle hanging on after Benoits roll throughs. Though I wish they would add another submission to their move list because crossface vs. ankle lock is SO 2001. Benoit worked nice and stiff and Angle hit the sweetest belly-to-belly. I like how they say "Benoit and Angle working together are unbeatable" and I don't like the fact that they took the belts off em so soon. Maybe it's because Los Guerreros will win em and Benoit/Angle will feud with them while Rey and Edge split (rey goes to crusierweight div vs. Knoble, Edge moves up vs. Lesnar)

[Guest Incandenza]

Mounting Blastmaster Absolute Macking Motherfucker

 

Phrase of the night, right there.

[Guest Bricks]

Eddy was soooo on tonight in and out of the ring that he was gonna replace Brock as my new favorite wrestler.

 

But then Brock bashed Big Show's brains in. Ahh, screw it, I'll bow down to both of them.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

I still say it looked like there was a piece of bone in Big Show's arm that looked like it was about to come out.

 

I would laugh if he needed surgery because of that....crap, now I'm tearing up...

 

No, not cause of that...Track 25, disk one, WWE Anthology.

[Guest Smell the ratings!!!]

Chavo goes up big for the backdrop like a Latin Bobby Eaton

I can't explain why this made me laugh for several minutes. Dean rules.

[Guest DEAN RASMUSSEN]

you know dean, i wasn't feeling Smackdown tonight. the SD GOdz were in full effect but there wasn't that spark that have made so many of the other matches go.

 

as for remembering rey-eddy HH97, i had the same problem. when i saw the edge-chavo interference, i thought to myself "this didn't happen in the ***** classic".

Oh man, Smackdown rocked tonight. The thing about Eddy and Rey is that they can have a match this good on free TV without even blinking. Eddy is TWICE as good as he was in 1997 and Rey is better than he was in 1997- so I can't wait for them to actually top the 97 match in the near future on PPV.

 

And Benoit and Angle continuously clearing out the badblood by beating the dogshit out of each other every month after delivering the greatest tag matches of the millenium is fucking BRILLIANT. I hope this tagteam angle never ends.

 

DEAN.

[Guest chirs3]

- Oh fuck you, Torrie. Al is releasing the swimmers onto a women half his age and HE'S BEING USED? What the Hell are you talking about, woman? Give it a break and let our Mounting Blastmaster Absolute Macking Motherfucker unleash his tidal wave of gooey love on any lady lucky enough to get in it's wake. Hopefully- as revenge- this leads to Torrie putting the blast on the Iron Sheikh as a sort of a mental assault on everything our Red White And Blue Sandblaster of Fucking stands for. Torie in a veil and Arabic slavegirl garb would tease putting her tongue on Sheik's distended belly button while the Shiek stands proudly with his fists on his stomach. "Clitoris NUMBER ONE! Multiple orgasms NUMBER ONE! Al Wilson PTOOEY!" It would write itself. Al could win his daughter back by beating the Sheik in one of those Iranian dumbell contests. It would rock.

 

I can't find the words to thank you for this paragraph, Dean.

[Guest Vyce]

See, Heyman is a genius because he can have Benoit and Angle have a bad 3 Stooges skit like this and it will always work because he knows these two will wrestle each other later and justify ANYidiotic reason for having them wrestle. I await some sort of Gilligan's Island skit involving Benoit peddling on a stationary bike made of bamboo and Angle creating a radio out of cocoanuts. Then they could do a thing where Benoit is Raj and Angle is Rerun and the Doobie Brothers catch them trying to bootleg one of their concerts when the tape recorder comes out of Angle's coat as he is dancing. It would rock.

 

Ho-lee-SHIT, a "What's Happening" reference.

 

I. Am. In. Awe.

 

Torie in a veil and Arabic slavegirl garb would tease putting her tongue on Sheik's distended belly button while the Shiek stands proudly with his fists on his stomach. "Clitoris NUMBER ONE! Multiple orgasms NUMBER ONE! Al Wilson PTOOEY!" It would write itself.

 

FUCK Scott Keith. I want Dean to review EVERYTHING. Why can't Dean get the book deal?!?!?!

[Guest goodhelmet]

Oh man, Smackdown rocked tonight.  The thing about Eddy and Rey is that they can have a match this good on free TV without even blinking.  Eddy is TWICE as good as he was in 1997 and Rey is better than he was in 1997- so I can't wait for them to actually top the 97 match in the near future on PPV.  

 

And Benoit and Angle continuously clearing out the badblood by beating the dogshit out of each other every month after delivering the greatest tag matches of the millenium is fucking BRILLIANT. I hope this tagteam angle never ends.

 

DEAN.

ok, i have to disagree with you about rey rey!!! this is not the best work of his career. excellent... yes. the best? no. in 96-97, he was lighting it up, going on a tear with everyone and anyone before the knee crapped out on him. plus, his aaa stuff is off the fucking charts not to mention the japan exhibitions.

 

eddy, is without a doubt, on top of the world right now. he has never looked better, is up to par with the best work of his career. now he just needs to kill the unfunny spanish stereotype. not because of the political correctness of the situation but because it is so unfunny and uninspiring, it detracts, rather than enhances his character.

 

with benoit and angle, maybe it was because the wife kept yelling at me to dig into the greasy Church's Fried Chicken so maybe I didn't appreciate it like i should have. that was my own fault but damn, Church's has some greasy ass chicken.

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

now he just needs to kill the unfunny spanish stereotype. not because of the political correctness of the situation but because it is so unfunny and uninspiring, it detracts, rather than enhances his character.

While I don't find Eddy's gimmick unfunny/uninsipring, I see your point. It just doesn't seem to me that it's a character intended for an upper echelon.

[Guest goodhelmet]

FUCK Scott Keith. I want Dean to review EVERYTHING. Why can't Dean get the book deal?!?!?!

because dean is too cool for a book deal. seriously though. if you want a book from ean. just cut and paste every article he has posted at dvdvr. i am sure you could get a nice book out of it. at least a novella.

[Guest Brian]

Rey's a smarter worker than he was in 1997. In 1997, he was all super crazy with the spots but now Rey can carry his own on the mat and in the ring better.

 

Dean, I don't think they're going to pull off the Brock/Heyman feud now. I think they're just teasing it; and then they'll pull it after Brock loses the title. I can't see him losing the title now, so this seems best. I still believe that this is all building to Brock/Angle at WrestleMania, and subtebly their moving Angle that way. That match wil rule.

[Guest DEAN RASMUSSEN]

FUCK Scott Keith.

Hey now, Scott is my boy. I almost hung out with him at a wedding once.

 

DEAN.

[Guest DEAN RASMUSSEN]

Rey's a smarter worker than he was in 1997. In 1997, he was all super crazy with the spots but now Rey can carry his own on the mat and in the ring better.

Oh yeah, he's so much more than his spots these days. He's far more complete now after adjusting his style to compensate for complete lack of knees.

 

DEAN.

[Guest ManKinnd]

I'll take the HUGE minority opinion here and say I liked Eddy/Ray on SD better than HH97. The overall style was one that I prefer. Eddy as Spanish stereotype ROCKS MY WORLD, and I can't stop laughing everytime he talks. SD last night was one, if not the, best wrestling show ever.

They are making me CARE about Show/Lesnar, and I can't fucking believe it. I want to see Brock rip Show the fuck apart like he did last night. God Damn!

This 3 way tag match will soooo rock, and the fact that the history of these feuds is ultra-deep makes it even better. Rey/Eddy, Angle/Edge, Angle/Benoit, Angle/Rey, Rey/Chave, Eddy/Edge have all been feuds before and now the fact that they're coming together is far too much for me to handle. God bless Smackdown.