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Rebecca Cerese

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REBECCA'S RANTS

Hey All! So I was able to conquer the bad weather and my crappy direct TV to finally watch the Kurt Angle/UT match and the Last Man Standing match on the replay on Tuesday night. Yes, I was happily watching Fully Loaded with my friends Jen and Tom and the weather got worse and worse, and just as UT was about to commence his beatdown of Kurt, the satellite signal was lost...5 minutes pass...ten minutes and I am starting to realize that we are going to miss the Last Man Standing match, probably the match I wanted to see the most on the card (well it was about tied with the Benoit/Rock match). So the satellite signal kicks back in for us to see HHH bloody and being carried away by the refs, no mention of who won, and no replays that we were able to see, it was quite torturous. It was even more torturous to hear Jericho go and on and talk about how it was the best match of his career on RAW, seeing as I still hadn't been able to see it...but finally after two days, I was able to watch it. Did it live up to the hype....we shall see....This week I am going to talk about the PPV and the RAW following, and also where the WWF is heading on their way to Summerslam, where that's right, I will be in attendance.

Onto the rants:

So before I get to the PPV, I want to talk about the main event on Heat before hand. I knew the Dudleyz weren't going to be on the PPV card...much to my chagrin, so I was thrilled to see them headlining Heat, esp. against Lowdown. I have to say this was an excellent match, as Chazz and D'Lo have excellent chemistry for such a new team. I think I enjoyed this match more than almost the entire undercard of the PPV, but then again, I am just a huge Dudley mark. I hope they actually put Lowdown in a feud where they will come out on top for once, but I think the Dudley feud might not be over yet...and the good thing about the Dudleyz is they can do the job and not lose any heat, as shown on RAW this week, where they lost to Edge and Christian in the triple threat match.

Wow! It looks like the Hardys are going to feud with Christian and Edge again after all. I have to say I was getting worried. I mean a couple of months ago, Matt and Jeff did a promotional tour for Summerslam and basically promised that they would be going for the belts in August. So I am waiting and waiting and waiting, and still they are stuck in the feud with T&A not going anywhere, besides, as my friend Todd said, this feud wasn't really about T&A vs. the Hardyz, they were merely a backdrop to the Trish/Lita feud, and this isn't fair to either team. So now just like that, Christian and Edge steal a victory from the Hardys and the Hardys can't be too happy about that. I say let them cut a couple of promos, calling Edge and Christian out, telling them that they are a bunch of punks who just hide behind the belts. Hell, I really don't care what they do, as long as these two teams fight each other, and fight each other some more till it leads to some kind of insane stipulation match at Summerslam, where myself, Sharon and Heather (and Jen I hope), will be in attendance going crazy. And I have to say as much as I love Christian, I will definitely be rooting for the Hardys on this occasion...and oh yeah, Matt did mention something about a Hell in a Cell match...now that is just too crazy to think about, but I'm just putting the thought out there.

Ok, back to the PPV, I was very happy to see the team of the Hardys and Lita go over, but it was definitely more Lita going over than the Hardys. Now don't get me wrong, I along with the rest of the world love Lita, I think she is the most kick ass female in the WWF right now, and yes, I am putting her over Chyna, and I am willing to overlook the total oversell of the totally missed belt shot by Stephanie, but she ends up taking away way too much heat from the Hardys and that I don't like. I think the WWF is doing the right thing now, she is in her own separate rivalry now with Trish and Stephanie, and it has nothing to do with whom the Hardys are fighting. This way Lita can get all her own heat on her own, and the Hardys can get their own heat back. I thought this match was a really solid opener, and probably the best match in the undercard. That triple suplex spot was really original and really cool, so I was really happy to see the right team go over, My one complaint was the camera turning to Trish every 3-5 minutes. Me and Jen counted it, it was bordering on ridiculous, esp. since the camera was missing very important and delicious shots of Jeff Hardy doing one of his sexy as hell dances, plus most of the time we only got to see him from the waist up...what is this Elvis on Ed Sullivan, if the man is going to move his hips, we want to see them, and we definitely want to see them more than Trish Stratus's weird oiled up, pushed up to her neck breasts. OK, back to the match... of course this is only the beginning of the Trish/Lita/Stephanie situation. I am hoping it leads to a match for the Women's belt at Summerslam. I would love to see Ms. Stephanie get her ass kicked by Lita live and in person.

So where does this leave T&A...totally stagnating and without an angle. My good buddy Todd pointed out that Test is probably the most misused superstar in the WWF right now and I must say I have to agree here. I think the guy has talent, he can work super stiff when he wants to, and most times he brings great energy to the ring. I am also impressed with Albert as I think the guy is a powerhouse, and I once saw him in a house show match against Kane and I was very impressed with the way he was manhandling the near 7 footer...I don't know about them as a team though. I have been impressed with them, but I just don't see where they are going. I can't imagine Test is too happy about Trish's new found buddyhood with Stephanie. Hopefully they will actually play up on this a little and give Test some balls again. I think the way they handled him after the Stephanie/wedding angle just destroyed him. He was emasculated, and he never sought his revenge. Now too much time has passed for him to seek revenge, but I think that deep down in people's mind he is still a little wussy for not ever standing up for himself in this situation. T&A are one of the many good tag teams in the WWF right now that have no angle right now. Lowdown, the Dudleyz, Too Cool, are some other teams that are going nowhere. Personally, I think that the WWF should break up Too Cool, and T& A and DX for that matter and have them try their hands at singles competition. The WWF really need to build up the IC picture again, and they have so many talented wrestlers that they can make it very exciting.

Speaking of people ready to go for the IC belt, Eddy Guerrero finally dropped the European strap to a very deserving Perry Saturn. I think that this was a great move on the part of the WWF. After this feud it will give Eddy the chance to go to the next level and go for the IC gold. I think he would look great wearing this belt. I have to admit I was a little disappointed in this match, as although there were some good high spots, I felt that it never really found a good flow, the pacing was just off or something. Plus the Chyna going through the Spanish announce table was almost laughable as the table collapsed as soon as Chyna even touched it. Still, for some reason I like Terri and Perry together, and I hope that him winning gold means that he gets more air time. I still think it will be really cool if him and Raven join back up when Raven comes to the WWF, as they were a great team, and Raven always has skanky women in his stable so Terri should fit right in.

Tazz vs. Al Snow: much like the Eddy/Perry match this contest never really clicked either. I think that Al Snow and Tazz's styles were too different to click into a cohesive flow, so we got a semi boring, awkward looking contest until Tazz choked out Al with the Tazzmission. The way they are trying to put over Tazz I thought this match was going to be much more of a squash then it was, in fact it wasn't a squash at all. So now it seems that Tazz is going to start a feud with Rikishi. I don't know how that will play out at all, as the size difference between the two is quite substantial, still I guess I will wait and see before passing judgement. I still don't know why Tazz is singling out Rikishi to go after, but that's WWF logic for you, there ain't none. I did think Tazz's match with Scotty 2 Hotty was pretty good, albeit short on RAW. Tazz looked like much more of a bad ass on RAW then on the PPV.

Ok, so my holy shit moment of the night has got to go to insane Rikishi for jumping off the top of the steal cage on top of Val Venis. My idiot of the year award goes to Val Venis for allowing a 400+ pound man to jump off a steal cage onto his body. This match sort of bored me till the end, but I was very impressed with the jump. My favorite part though was the first replay that totally missed Rikishi all the way down...nice work!!

So of course throughout the night we have the cowardly tag team champs attempting to get out of the asswhupping the Acolytes had planned for them, and I have to say, the food poisoning was pretty original. But they were found out and Bradshaw and Farooq proceeded to certainly make the tag team champs their "bitches". I have to say as much as I love Christian, Bradshaw had me laughing my ass of on this one. So the champs escape by DQ, because after all DQ's rule, and live to see another day as tag team champs. Of course I am ecstatic about this, and even more ecstatic that it seems that the feud with the Acolytes is over and they are moving onto a new/old feud with the Hardys this time for the tag team gold.

So now we have the 3 Main Events. I have read the bitching, and I have read the moaning, and I have read the comparisons to the WCW and at first I thought well maybe they are right. Of course I had only seen the Rock/Benoit match at this point. But I decided to wait and see the other two matches before making any judgments, more specifically, I wanted to see the Angle/UT match. So now I am going to defend the booking choices of the WWF...well sort of.

I think that if Angle would have gone over the UT no one would have bought it. I mean here we have an American Bad Ass, a tough biker guy, Angle has been attacking him and his bike for the last few weeks, then they put him over at the PPV, I don't think so. Ok, so I am also reading that everyone said this match was a squash...I have to disagree slightly. In my mind a squash is a very short match, under 5 minutes, where one person dominates the entire match and gets the win. First off, Angle/UT was longer than 5 minutes, and although Kurt did get his ass kicked for most of the match, he did have the upper hand for a very short time. Therefore by my definition it was not a squash. Did Kurt get his ass kicked....YES...but he didn't just look foolish out there. Ok, so I also heard that the UT didn't sell for him, well I think that is a load of crap. I thought when Angle was attacking the leg, UT made it looked properly painful, plus his reversal was actually kind of cool. I liked this match, and I don't think it in any way hurt Kurt Angle's chances for becoming a Main Eventer. Hell, now he has aligned himself with Shane, and he even challenged the Undertaker to a rematch. He is no longer "a man living in fear" and I think this comes across big time. So in my opinion this matches actually elevated Kurt Angle, as does his alliance with the new Shane stable. One more thing, I also think Kane has helped to elevate him as well. The thing about Kane is he always makes everyone look great. Here is a man who is a big man, who has been booked as a monster, but yet he is also the man who will always do the job to put people over. In his tag team match at the end of RAW with the Rock against Benoit and Angle, Kane made Benoit and Angle look like a super destructive force. He sold the leg stuff like a champ. I have been very impressed with Kane lately. I love how he came storming into to Mick's office wreaking havoc, and destroying shit to demand a match against 3 men at once. That rocks...then he goes out there and makes everyone look fantastic, including the Big Show (after all it only took him three tries to smash Kane's head into the WWF.com sign). I see good things ahead for Kane, as the WWF are having him talk a lot more and that can only mean a push is in store for him in the days to come. There is even talk of him in the Main Event at Summerslam, but I don't see that happening. I think the Main Event at Summerslam should be a Fatal Fourway Elimnation match between HHH/Rock/Benoit/Jericho. That is personally the Main Event that I want to see...

So finally the two Main Events...

Did the Last Man Standing match live up to the hype...I say hell yes. Actually I have to say I was blown away by this match, and I was blown away by HHH in it...yes I just wrote that. The thing about this match was the pace, it kept a very even and fast pace throughout even when they were doing rest holds...if that makes any sense at all. There was always the undercurrent of action going on the whole time. HHH definitely gave Jericho a beating, and then Jericho rebounded and gave HHH a beating of his own. Seeing Stephanie in the Walls of Jericho was also really cool. Super huge kudos to these two men for giving all they had and then giving some more. I also have to say I loved Jericho's promo on Monday night...I really loved it and I had to go back and watch it again. It is so obvious that Jericho gets off on pain and brutality and the best part is when he talks about how much pain he is in and then he gives that little laugh...he is a sick man, and I love it! This feud has obviously elevated Jericho big time to that next level, and even thought he lost this time this feud is far from over, and Jericho will only go up from here. Kudos to HHH for putting Jericho way over in his little promo as well, I was actually quite shocked at just how much he put Chris over...not that Chris doesn't deserve it....

OK, so the Rock/Benoit match just kicked total ass in my opinion. Benoit proved to everyone that he belongs in the Main Event, and for the few seconds he was announced as champ, he proved to the world that he looks fan-freakin-tastic holding the belt. I have to say, although I knew Mick was going to come out and reverse the decision for those few short moments I was marking out like a maniac. So I had just one big problem with the match, and no it wasn't the Rock pinning Benoit cleanly (although I hated this, it made sense in the long run, giving Rock credibility as champ and all), it was the Rock putting Benoit in the crippler crossface, and then doing it again on RAW...what the hell is up with this... A person's end move is sacred and to have the Rock casually using it every 3 seconds is just wrong. Besides that I was very impressed with the match. Benoit headlining a PPV I can SOOO get used to that.

I just want to end (finally)by looking at Shane McMahon's new stable: Benoit, Angle, Christian and Edge and Big Show (by they way, I promised my friend Jen that I would write in my column how she called the Big Show was going to come out to be Shane's opponent, so here is your recognition Jen!). Pretty good stable there, but of course my question along with everyone else on the planet, why the hell would Big Show join forces with Shane McMahon who not only taunted him and on numerous occasion told him what a loser he was, but also "destroyed" his knee and put him out of action for the last few months...WWF better have some kind of explanation on Thursday, I mean I know they expect us to suspend our disbelief most of the time, but this really needs an explanation. Besides that I can't wait to see what this stable has in store...3 candians, an Olympic Hero and a really big guy...sounds like a hell of a stable to me.

So we are on the road to Summerslam...just a little over a month till me and my girls go crazy in Raleigh. I can't wait...till next time...thanks as always for reading....

Rebecca Cerese
[slash] wrestling

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