RIP Gordon Solie

HALF FULL: 4 for 8 this time around. (I know I didn't preview the Saturn-Guerrero Euro title match, but there is a printed record of me saying that Eddie would win if it happened. At the time, it hadn't been officially announced.) I DID, however, call Rikishi's cage dive, because I F'N RULE.

LINE OF THE WEEK: Mick Foley: "My rulings RULE!" (Raw, July 24) You are correct, sir.

So where do Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and Kurt Angle go from here? They got their first shots at the top of the card at Fully Loaded, and they all lost their matches. Does that mean there's a glass ceiling? Does that mean their pushes are over?

Oh, hell, no.

Can you say "to be continued?"

Let's break this down one feud at a time and show the doubters who got helped and how:

Chris Benoit/The Rock: DQ title changes suck. They just suck. The winner doesn't get the rub from actually beating the loser, and the loser looks like an idiot for allowing himself to get disqualified knowing that he'd lose the title as a result.

That's why, as much as everyone else hated it, Rock going over was the right move.

Benoit's in-ring ambush of the Rock a week after KotR and his subsequent alliance with Shane McMahon set the tone for how this feud was going to be played. Lots of sneak attacks, lots of Crippler Crossfaces, and enough pain and aggravation to eventually drive the Rock nuts and give Benoit the mental edge. Benoit got a rub by making the Rock go damn near insane. Triple H couldn't even do that.

We got to the match, and Benoit controlled the action, with Shane getting his licks in behind the scenes, as it were. As the match progressed, going back and forth from technical fight to power brawl, Rock caught up to Benoit in the sense that he didn't look that overmatched out there.

The first ending came when Shane and Rock both found themselves with chairs. Shane blasted the ref, then dumped his chair and bolted from the ring, leaving Rocky with a chair in his hands and a referee on the canvas. Rock got rid of HIS chair and slapped the Crossface on Benoit. The ref came to, saw Benoit in the hold, and called for the bell... but ruled that Rock lost by disqualification.

Benoit and Shane celebrated with the belt until Mick Foley came out and (correctly) overruled the decision and re-started the match. This time, the end came when Rock blocked Benoit's Crossface attempt and hit the Rock Bottom. 1, 2, 3.

As I said last week, the DQ title change wouldn't have helped either man, and Benoit isn't quite ready to hold the World belt. Sometime next year, I'd think, but it'll happen. Stop crying.

Also: It's the first time Rock's pinned Benoit (I STILL can't believe they didn't hype this more to get Benoit over), and the false finish and Benoit's feeling cheated afterwards keep the issue alive.

Chris Jericho/Triple H: Triple H beat Jericho by ONE second. ONE. And he collapsed again immediately afterwards.

Back and forth these two went at the PPV, with HHH focusing on Jericho's not-really-injured ribs, while Jericho got some good shots in on HHH's legit-injured back. Jericho even got HHH in the Walls of Jericho at one point (when was the last time that move worked, anyway?) before Steph broke it up. The match ended when HHH blocked one of Jericho's aerial moves and back suplexed him through the announce table, then barely beat the 10 count to win the match.

I'm not a huge fan of HHH, but the man is a GREAT seller of moves, and he's also very good at just barely beating the count when it looks like he's about to lose (remember the TAKA match?), which added a lot of drama to a match that could have gone either way to begin with. There were a couple of moments where it looked like Jericho was going to win the thing. And just like with Rock/Benoit, the match ended in such a way that the feud wasn't resolved.

Also take into account that Benoit and Jericho had a renewal of hostilities on SmackDown!, and it's no wonder people are already predicting a four-way main event (Rock, HHH, Jericho, and Benoit) at SummerSlam.

Yeah. They got BURIED.

Kurt Angle/Undertaker: This is the only one of the three that I have a problem with. Now, I'm not gonna go Scott Keith on you all here and rip UT a new one for not laying down. (BTW, did you read that thing? He must have thought Calloway booked the match himself as a shoot or something. Hey, Scott: This isn't WCW.) But I do think Angle was damaged, not necessarily by the loss itself, but by the buildup of the feud as well.

The main problem is that the WWF slipped up when trying to define Angle's character during this feud. He was playing the coward for most of it, then a few days before the show, he grew a set and lured Undertaker into an ambush. But at the PPV, he was running for his life again before the match.

The WWF probably did it this way so they could reestablish Taker as a force. To everyone's credit, Angle did get some offense in, working on Taker's knee a lot whenever he could. He looked better than Kidman did against Hogan both times, when the Goblin wouldn't let Kidman get anything in AT ALL.

There's no reason Angle couldn't have won, however. And we already saw how they could have made it believable - in the tag team title match. Edge and Christian bumped like pinballs and ran like chickens until Edge brought in the ring bell and got the duo disqualified. All Angle needed was a well-timed, well-placed shot with a foreign object and a quick cover (so it's not the same finish) and he'd get instant high-level heel cred.

Of course, he's aligned with Shane and Co. now, so he should recover nicely.

So, yeah, they all lost. But in the context of everything that happened this week, it's really not that big a deal.

The important thing to remember is this: Main eventers aren't created in a day. This stuff takes time, and the WWF has plenty of time. It's not like they're being threatened by anybody.

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