Guest ravman77 Report post Posted May 11, 2003 Hey all. Just got back from the WWE Smackdown tour at Sheffield Arena. I've been to all the UK events for the past couple of years and all have been poor to average. This was a surprisingly solid show... Match One - Big Show over Chris Benoit by pinfall. Great pop for Benoit, silence for Show. Average match with Benoit bumping for Show with little in return. The finish was a ref bump followed by the Crossface. Once Benoit breaks to check on the ref, chokeslam finishes. What a waste of true talent. Standing ovation for Benoit after the match who looks visably moved by the crowd. Match Two - Matt Hardy (w/Shannon Moore) over Jamie Knoble (w/Nidia). Tidy cruiser match, both guys putting in the effort. Finish came from a belt shot from Moore and a Twist of Fate from Matt. Matt was very over as a face. Match Three - Sean O'Haire over Tajiri No crowd response to either wrestler, and an awful match. Nothing much to say about it other than O'Haire going over clean with his DVD finisher. If he is to make it, its going to have to be a lot better than this.... Match Four - A-Train over Spanky Silence for A-Train, nice pop for Spanky. Not as bad a match as you would imagine, Spanky bumping hard for Albert. Finish came from a blocked Sliced Bread #2 into the Derailer. Complete apathy for Albert. Match Five - Brock Lesnar over John Cena Cool heel heat for Cena and his anti-England rap, huge reaction for Brock. Fairly average match, very similar to the Backlash bout. Both men definately have the 'look' but struggled to keep the crowd interested. Belt shot from Cena got a 2 count, F5 for Brock for the finish. Intermission Match Six - Team Angle over Rey Misterio/Rhino Match of the night by a mile and one of the best house show matches I've ever seen. Real old school wrestling. Everything from cheap face and heel heat to the champs threatening to walk out. Rey played Ricky Morton for the majority of the match, Team Angle winning with the superkick/rollup combo after about 15mins. Afterwards saw a gore on Haas and 619's for both members to a massive reaction. Crowd was really in to both teams. Very cool match and hopefully these two teams will get to go at it on tv/PPV. Match Seven - Torrie Wilson over Nidia (w/Sable guest announcer) Sables voice is like nails on a blackboard. No reaction for Nidia, average noise for Torrie. Garbage match, wasting a good 10 minutes on nothing. Usual referee getting mixed in the two girls spot. Torrie clean with a DDT. Afterwards, Torrie kissed Sable and Sable kissed Nidia. Match Eight - Los Guerreros/Rikish over FBI Average match saved by some cool wresting and sneaky cheating from Eddy. Lots of Chavo chants too. Guerreros also wore Kurts medals to ringside which was a nice nod to continuity. Basic Smackdown match, closing with a Stinkface, Eddy Frog Splash and BUTT splash from Rikishi on Johnny the Bull. After the match, a heel beatdown by FBI, joined by Team Angle and Nidia, followed by the run-in from Rey, Benoit and Torrie. Once the heels powdered, we were 'treated' to a face danceoff (although Eddy managed to dodge it). Cool Chavo chants and in Benoit, the worst dancing ever seen. Worm from Rey and Torrie taking her t-shirt off to just a bra. All in all, a cool show. I never expect much from the UK shows, but this was all at least (Diva match aside) average to great. The tag title match was a real highlight. Face heat - 1. Brock (Huge reaction to entrance and finish) 2. Benoit (Standing ovation and lots of chants) 3. Rey (Very over in the UK, lots of 619 chanting) 4. Matt (Huge face here in the UK) 5. Spanky/Eddy/Chavo (All got great reactions) Heel heat - 1. Team Angle (The crowd really got into booing them. Great heel tactics and reactions from both) 2. Cena (Lots of heat, crowd really hated him) And that was about it, people didnt seem to care at all about Show, A-Train, O'Haire or FBI...all getting lots of Smackdown TV time too.... Cool show, although I doubt the UK Raw PPV next month will be as good. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Damn You Helmsley Report post Posted May 11, 2003 Benoit danced? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest ravman77 Report post Posted May 11, 2003 Well, he clapped to the beat, clearly hoping to avoid it, but the continual Benoit chant made sure he would. He kind of moved his head from side to side, shuffled about and looked embarrssed. Classic old man at a disco stuff Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest PlatypusFool Report post Posted May 12, 2003 I and 'saturnmark' went as well, and I must say I agree, for a house show, and for a WWE show, it was very decent. Benoit dancing was hilarious, he was horrible at it, but he might have just been doing his gimmick. I agree with most of the stuff that has been said about it, except that O'Haire vs. Tajiri was bad. They were actually starting to build to something before the finish, they worked in a sequence at the start setting up both men's big kicks, they built towards the tarantula with a tease, Tajiri added great comedy moments, and from what I could see, O'Haire was fairly over as a heel for a new guy, drawing boos when he raised his arms. Not brilliant, but it was going well and they just needed more time to make it better. Agreed on match of the night honours, and pretty much agree on the 'top heat' chart, although would place Benoit and Rey above Brock as Brock only got big heat for his entrance and F5. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
