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Matt Spaulding

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IDEA MAN
Choose Wisely

It's BACK, baby...

THE PEOPLE'S MAILBAG~!: Rebecca Cerese comes clean - sort of:

It was me who had dean on the list...and he would still be there...its that raspy voice...and he's just so manly...i know i need help...what can i say...also his wrestling expertise is just awesome...

Basically, this means that Rebecca's the one who should be insanely jealous of Lita for having Dean hit on her all the time lately.

Of course, this ALSO means that Sharon had Justin Credible on HER list, which makes even LESS sense.

What are we talking about? Find out here.

FALLING STARS: 6 for 10... It's SPOT-TASTIC!... So Duggan turned back? What the hell was the point then? Oh... So Reno turned back? What the hell was the point then?... He put that man through the ROOF OF AN AMBULANCE!... Once again, I'm actually glad Nash has a belt. Something is WRONG with this picture... And damn it, Palumbo better have been legal this time... Gee, Buff, way to set yourself up to job again... Oh, shit. What's Jarrett doing out here?

LINE OF THE WEEK: Steve Austin: "I never realized how thirsty refereeing made me." (SmackDown!, Dec. 21) He's having fun; that's the most important thing.

OOPS: I forgot to make fun of WCW failing to promote Tuesday Nitro last week. BUT SO DID THEY! AAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!! </Tazz> Jesus M. Foley, I apologize.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how Booker T's run as WCW World Champion was hurt because of the way he was booked when he lost the belt. So what I'm doing here, since the year's just about over, is examining the t

Pay attention, as I'm not counting these as the best (or worst) matches of the year, but rather, the matches that featured the best (or worst) booking of the year.

WORST:

Lance Storm vs. Mike Awesome, U.S. (Canadian) Title Match, New Blood Rising

Where do I start? How about with the special referee, who was supposed to be Bret Hart, but turned out to be Jacques Rougeau? Way to pop a Canadian crowd, people.

So Awesome got a pinfall on Storm. OK. Wait a minute... Storm and Rougeau have gone to the Canadian rule book - the match has to end on a five-count. They re-start.

Storm taps out to a Dragon sleeper. OK. Wait a minute... they're going BACK to the rule book... it's pinfall only, apparently.

All right, Awesome splash for five. New champ, right? Nope... they've added Texas Death Match rules to it. Storm now has to beat a 10-count.

More silliness, and both men go through a table. Rougeau says that the first man up is the winner, then proceeds to knock Awesome down.

What the hell was this shit? Can you bury two guys in the same match at the same time? Of COURSE you can! THIS IS WCW! Storm's made to look like a jackass in his own country, and Awesome just looks like an idiot. This would be the second of three times Awesome lost his chance to be U.S. champ, by the way, each more inexplicable than the last.

Worst match booking in years, by far.

Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho, Intercontinental Title Match, Backlash

As good a year as the WWF has had, it wasn't immune to mistakes, and this was a glaring example.

A DQ finish?

DQ finishes on pay-per-view are almost never a good thing, but it's even worse when you spoil what was a kick-ass match with a cheap, cop-out ending, especially since it was Jericho, the challenger, who caused the disqualification. Even Jim Ross didn't like it: "Well, that decision sucks!"

Jericho would win the belt back on the next SmackDown! only to lose it to Benoit at the following Raw. Benoit beat Jericho at Judgment Day in a submission match and still maintains the upper hand in their long-running WWF feud.

The Cat vs. Mike Sanders, Three Rounds Of Kickboxing For the Commissionership of WCW, Halloween Havoc

Anybody figure out what happened here yet?

It's the third round, and Cat's dominating Sanders. Shane Douglas comes out and hits Sanders' corner, then he attacks the Cat for no apparent reason. Cat leaves the ring to chase Douglas. They fight in the aisle. The round ENDS. Somehow, it's decided that Sanders wins the match by countout.

First of all, there are no countouts in any kickboxing I've seen. Second, wouldn't this work as if it were a title match - the commissionership can only change hands via pinfall or submission? Third, the Douglas run-in was never explained, and simply led to a relatively pointless feud between the two men. Just sloppy booking all around.

BEST

The Rock d. Chris Benoit, WWF Title Match, Fully Loaded

This gets a "Best" more for what didn't happen than what did.

There was a "title changes hands on a disqualification" stipulation added to this match because of Rock's increasingly violent behavior during the feud with Benoit.

Shane McMahon ran in during the match and clocked referee Earl Hebner with a chair. Rock grabbed the chair from Shane and nailed him with it. Then Rock, realizing that Hebner was coming to and he had a chair in his hand, got rid of it and slapped the Crossface on Benoit. Hebner wakes up and, not seeing Shane around, figures Rock delivered the chairshot... and rings the bell to disqualify him.

You know why DQ finishes on pay-per-views suck? Because nothing's resolved, and (especially in this case) everybody loses. Benoit wouldn't have any credibility as champion because he didn't beat the Rock, and Rock would have ended up looking like a total tool.

So instead, we get a Dusty Finish, as Mick Foley reverses the call and re-starts the match, which Rock ends up winning after a Rock Bottom.

Triple H, Vince McMahon, & Shane McMahon vs. The Rock, The Undertaker, & Kane, Six-Man Tag Team Match For the WWF Title, King of the Ring

Much was made of the fact that Rock pinned Vince, and not Triple H, to win back Triple H's WWF Title. Some said that it cheapens the title whenever the champion loses it, but isn't pinned.

But in this case, Vince had to take the fall, because it was his fault that this situation existed in the first place. It was Vince who cost The Rock the title at WrestleMania 2000. It was Vince who masterminded the scheme to keep the title away from Rock. It was Vince who let his ego get the better of him and put the title in play in the six-man tag main event that Linda McMahon had signed off on. Therefore, it had to be Vince who ultimately had to pay for his own hubris, costing his son-in-law that which he cherished most in the process.

It's a common complaint (and it's starting up again) that whenever Vince puts himself on TV, he takes time away from the wrestlers (true) and puts himself over at their expense (debatable). But when it's time for the payoff, it never fails... McMahon ALWAYS gets his.

This also becomes important when you get to...

The Rock vs. Triple H vs. Kurt Angle, WWF Title Match, SummerSlam

...because Triple H gets pinned here.

Angle had just jobbed to the Undertaker at Fully Loaded after becoming King of the Ring 2000, and another clean loss here would have effectively squashed the mandatory push the KotR winner gets. So what do you do here?

You remember that Triple H wasn't pinned when he lost the title, right? You remember how cheap and weak-ass you thought it was, right? Well, he jobbed like his life depended on it at SS. Cleanly, even. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

More important here, however, is that Angle wasn't pinned. For whatever reason, there's this unwritten rule of smark wrestling that says that if you get pinned, you drop a little bit in status. By not eating the pinfall, Angle didn't lose any main event credibility, which made it somewhat believable when he beat Rock for the title two months later.

Small Packages:

  • So Vince did it all to get the company back. That's fine with me.
  • Still, I wonder what Triple H and Shane think of all this.
  • Better yet, I wonder what Patterson and Brisco think of all this.
  • So is Jackie a face again?
  • Don't ask me how to solve this Steiner-Page thing... I can't help you.
  • What's with all of these people coming back to [slash] all of a sudden? (I RULE!!! ;-) -CRZ)

    Well, this will be the last Idea Man proper until the week before the next pay-per-view, whenever that is. So happy holidays and all of that other good stuff.

    Matt Spaulding
    Oracleswar.com

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