WWE House show in Scotland 5-8-03

[Guest Trivia247]

WWE Smackdown! House Show Report

May 8, 2003

The Press and Journal Arena

Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre

Aberdeen, Scotland

Attendance Estimate: 4500

Report By: Gary Kelman

 

I had taken the trip of my lifetime to go and see Wrestlemania XIX 6 weeks back and I guess to reward my loyalty and dedication, Vince sends the boys to my hometown. Seriously though, I always love to go and see the WWE live but I was a little unsure as to how a Smackdown house show with a depleted roster was going to compare to the granddaddy of them all. It didn't matter, I had a great time.

 

This event was added to the Smackdown 'Tour de Force' European Tour only a couple weeks ago and long after the other dates had sold out. The P+J arena holds about 4600. The event sold out on the first day of sales, but there were a few empty seats come bell time. I'd guess the attendance was 4500. The WWE hasn't been in Aberdeen since 1994 (main event: Bret/Bulldog vs Owen/Neidhart) so we were more than ready for the Smackdown crew.

 

Before the first match, a local radio DJ named Neil Wightman came down to the ring with Tony Chimmel and he got to speak to the crowd. He managed to talk for a couple minutes without saying anything, the only reason he was out there seemed to be that he wanted to be involved with the show in some way. He got booed. He's not exactly a celebrity, even in his home city.

 

(1) Triple Threat Crusierweight Championship match Matt Hardy(c w/Shannon Moore) beat Rey Mysterio and Jamie Noble(w/ Nidia) Fun match that heated the crowd up. After the match, Rey hit the double 6-1-9 on Matt and his little MFer, then stole the Cruiserweight title belt and left. Afterwards, Matt and Shannon shared a touching hug midring which drew loud booing. Matt's smiled out to the crowd like 'Yeah, I know you don't want to see us hug, that's why I'm doing it'.

 

As they were leaving the ring, the crowd turned and started cheering and clapping Matt down the aisle. Matt responded in kind.

 

(2) Sean O'Haire beat Brian 'Spanky' Kendrick. No Roddy Piper. You would have thought he would be only to eager to return "home". O'Haire came to the ring with different (new?) music and he seemed to have reverted to the more mysterious character from his vignettes. O'Haire no-sold everything that Spanky threw at him. It was fun to watch Sean just stare back at Spanky's offense like it was nothing, but I hope we never see that kind of treatment for Brian Kendrick on TV. O' Haire won with his reverse Death Valley Driver. Does it have a name yet?

 

(3) A-Train beat Rhyno. Prematch, Rhyno got on the mic and bellowed 'I love Scotland.' That was cheap, even by wrestling standards. Even A-Train had to laugh at that one. He then told A-Train to "shave your back, bitch". Lots of stalling to start, Rhyno kept rolling out of the ring and then back in again when A-Train followed. This continued for several minutes until A-Train kicked over the ring steps in frustration and then threw 2 chairs in the ring. Rhyno set them up and he and the ref had a sit-down mid-ring and a brief chat. This was actually a surprising good match with A-Train and Rhyno exchanging power moves. The crowd responded very well to Rhyno's offense. Finish came when Rhyno missed the Gore and rebounded into A-Train's bicycle kick. The heels were 3-0 at this point. After the match, Rhyno was left lying almost motionless in the ring and 5 or 6 referees and officials ran down to the ring to check on him. Before I was getting too worried, Rhyno suddenly sat up and managed to get to his feet and make his way backstage on his own. He did leave the ring holding his neck. I really, really hope this doesn't mean more neck problems for him.

 

(4) Chris Benoit beat John Cena. I really hoped Cena was going to come out wearing a Rangers (Aberdeen's biggest soccer rivals) shirt, but it was just a generic baseball jersey. Cena cut a pretty good freestyle which ended with 'you fight like woman, that's why you wear dresses'. Big heat for that, of course. Benoit got a bigger pop than I could have hoped for. This should have been match of the night, but the crowd really died in the middle when Cena put Benoit in a reverse chinlock for nearly 5 minutes. Chris got the submission when he spun out of the F-U straight into the Crossface for the tap-out. Benoit got a nice ovation after the match.

 

(5) Los Guerreros (w/ Gold Medals) beat Chuck Palumbo & Johnny Stamboli (w/ Nunzio). Eddie and Chavo put "their" Gold Medals around the referees neck. The ref sold it like he had won the lottery and hugged Eddie. Pre-match an "Eddie, Eddie" chant was muted by Latino Heat who then pointed at Chavo which prompted a "Chavo, Chavo" chant. I liked that from Eddie. Pretty much a by-the-numbers tag match, highlighted by Chavo's mischievousness on the ring apron. A Chavo belly-to-back suplex followed by Eddie's frog splash ended this one.

 

Intermission

 

(6) WWE Tag Team Title match: Team Angle© beat Rikishi & Tajiri. Tajiri got a huge pop when he came out. Another average tag match which held the crowd's interest with the teasing of the stink-face. Most of the match was wrestled by Tajiri and Charlie Haas. Late on, everyone hit their signature offense and when it seemed Rikishi and Tajiri had everything in control, Charlie Haas used the tag belt on Tajiri to free Shelton from the Tarantula and allow him to pick up the pin. While Rikishi was being double teamed after the bell, Tajiri came back in and gave the green mist to Shelton leaving Charlie easy pickings for the long awaited stink-face. Rikishi tried to leave and was pulled back by Tajiri who was in turn pulled back by Rikishi. A referee was then pulled into the ring for some rump-shaking as well. The process of choosing which side of the arena to dance to incited the loudest response of the night. Everyone was going completely crazy for them. The post match was probably longer than the actual match.

 

(7) Torrie Wilson beat Nidia. Our special guest ring announcer was Sable. She introduced Torrie as "flavor of the month". Meow. Nidia seemed determined to wrestle a good match here and worked her denim shorts off. Included was the ever popular 'cat-fighting ladies accidentally trip over ref and then roll on top of him' spot. The ref then tried to climb to the second turnbuckle to celebrate getting rolled on with the crowd but slipped off which kind of took the luster off his celebration. Torrie got the duke with a DDT, catching Nidia coming off the ropes. After Sable proclaimed Torrie the winner, Sable blind-sided her when her back was turned. Nidia came in to extract revenge on Torrie but ended up getting her shorts pulled off, revealing a thong. Nidia ran to the back pretty quick after that.

 

(8) WWE Championship Match: Brock Lesnar beat the Big Show. Big heat for Show and a huge face reaction for Brock. Brock told Show over the mike he was "one ugly bastard". Now, I think both of these guys have the credentials to be main eventing but this was a terrible effort. They can and should do better than this especially if this is still on the Judgment Day card. Punching, kicking and chinlocks made up the majority of the match. The crowd couldn't get enough of Lesnar though. Lesnar reversed a chock-slam into the F5 to retain his title. Over the mic, Lesnar told us he had come to Scotland for one reason: "to bring the pain". Just before Brock left the ring, a child, must have been about 10, jumped over the railing and up onto the ring apron. The referee cut him from entering the ring, although he seemed a little reluctant to physically restrain the boy, I guess due to his age. Security weren't so reluctant. As Brock headed back down the aisle I saw a sign behind him: "Here comes the....CHARISMA". Made me laugh to myself.

 

Brock has to drop this thing he's been doing since he won the belt at 'Mania where he pumps his fists 'cause he's so happy with everything. And he could drop the smiling too. It's just not 'him'.

 

All in all, a solid night of wrestling with a super hot crowd. A lot of Smackdown's top-tier players weren't there for whatever reason (Edge, Angle, 'Taker, Hogan) but I don't think anyone noticed or cared thanks to the fine performances put on. I can only hope the don't leave it another 9 years to come back.

 

Biggest face heat:

1) Rikishi, post match

2) Brock Lesnar

3) Chris Benoit

4) Torrie Wilson

5) Los Guerreros

 

Biggest heel heat:

1) John Cena

2) Big Show

3) Team Angle

4) A-Train

5) Matt Hardy

[Guest Choken One]

Sounds like a GREAT show...

 

Nice to see SOH reverting back to his REAL character...

[Guest the pinjockey]

A lot of Smackdown's top-tier players weren't there for whatever reason (Edge, Angle

Um..do they get SD over there? How could you not know that Edge and Angle are hurt by this point.

 

I mean Taker and Hogan I can understand expecting, Taker's injury was just kind of glossed over and Hogan has been on SD so people may not know he doesn't work house shows.

[Guest Austin3164life]

Too bad they couldn't put on shows like this back home....

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Kinda funny that Piper wasnt there but that sounded like a pretty decent show.

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

Now, I think both of these guys have the credentials to be main eventing but this was a terrible effort. They can and should do better than this especially if this is still on the Judgment Day card.

 

This was a regular 1-on-1 match, and Brock and Show have faced each other at least a couple dozen times since November. Now imagine the two saddled by the stupid stretcher.

 

Oy.

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

Now, I think both of these guys have the credentials to be main eventing but this was a terrible effort. They can and should do better than this especially if this is still on the Judgment Day card.

 

This was a regular 1-on-1 match, and Brock and Show have faced each other at least a couple dozen times since November. Now imagine the two saddled by the stupid stretcher.

 

Oy.

I could make a joke about the stretcher carrying Big Show in the match, but..well I just did..sort of.

 

Of course the stretchers going to have to work twice as hard to do it.