January 2003
RAW 1/27/03
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*More heelish Jeff Hardy *Factions are back! (HHH's faction) *Awesome Jericho/Christian/HBK speech *First ever divas street fight (Victoria vs Trish) *JAZZ IS BACK!!!!!!!! *3MW deliver a nice beating to the Dudleys *Another very nice RVD/Kane clip *New O'haire vignette *Austin return tease *No Test or Stacy Keibler *Great ME (RVD & Kane vs HHH & Batista) |
*Boring Dudleys vs Storm/Regal match |
| Overall: Honestly I think this was one of the most enjoyable episodes of RAW I've ever had the pleasure of watching! Every segment has its own merit, and the guys who normally pull the show down were either absent or managed to be entertaining tonight. Really I have almost nothing negative to say about this show, which is very rare, especially in regards to recent WWE shows. The only low spot was the D'lo Brown racism gimmick, which didn't waste much time, and did provide the enjoyable beating which D'lo gave to Hurricane. This show was filled with great character interaction, great matches, and gave time to all the guys which make RAW great. Hunter's faction provides much missed faction warfare, and even Steiner managed to be wonderfully entertaining this week. On top of that, we've got the promise of on Austin return, and Jazz is back! A+ for RAW! |
SmackDown! 1/30/03
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*Cena's rap (especially Packers reference; I'm Minnesotan ,WI teams are our rivals, so I liked that) *Brian Kendrick (Spanky) appearance *Tazz singing "Highway to Hell" and thinking it's an Ozzy song *Matt beating up Kidman *Tazz getting back into the heel's corner like the color commentator is suppose to *Big Show's singing telegram apology *Team Angle speaks (and hugs!) *Awesome O'haire vignette |
*Rey vs A-Train waste of time *Another repeat matct (Team Angle vs Edge/Benoit) for tag titles which mean nothing (5th time we've seen this?) Edge SHOULD NOT be stuck in the lame tag ranks! *Cena/partner vs Guerreros, for the umpteenth time *non-amusing tweener Guerreros *Shannon wasted against Kidman *Billy Kidman *Loooooooong, boring Vince/Rock speech *Rikish vs Demott, bad match, for the third time! |
| Overall: I'm getting REALLY fed up with SD's repeat matches! I'm sick of poor Edge being stuck in the tag ranks period, they need to push him as a singles star! If they want him to be tag team matches, put him back with Christian. We've been seeing Benoit & Edge vs Team Angle is slightly different combinations for over a month, and I'm just sick of it. The same goes for Guerreros vs Cena/partner and Rikishi/Demott. I don't know why the WWE insists on constantly repeating matches that weren't very good in the first place! Shannon vs Kidman was very uninspring as well. The Vince/Rock bit was waaaaaayyyy too long, and just boring. There were a few high points, including Brian Kendrick showing up and giving Taker a singing telegram, and Tazz's excellent commentary, but very little of this show was worth watching unless you've missed every episode in the last two months. |
| This Week's Winner: As if there's any doubt? RAW didn't even have any competition this week! Hell, it faced moe competition from Heat than it did from SD! SD's been like a repeat lately, and not a very thrilling one at that. RAW, on the other hand, was gold this week, and SD hasn't been gold in months. Way to go RAW! |
RAW 1/20/03
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*Rico!!! *Christian/Nowinski clip *Promise of Austin return soon *mean dark Jeff; heel turn tease!!!!! *good Jeff vs RVD match *Dudleys losing tag titles |
*Trish being stuck with Hurricane *Jericho having to waste his time against Test instead of having a real match *D'lo Brown's horribly offensive racist gimmick *more boring HHH *lousy main event (very short Steiner vs Batista) |
| Overall: This was an extremely mixed show, so it's difficult to call. On the one hand, it was nice to se Rico and Christian again, and gotta love a promise of an Austin return! The most exciting thing was probably the promise of a Jeff Hardy heel turn, which has never been seen before in the WWE. On the other hand, they've thrown Trish back into cheesy mixed tag matches again, like she was stuck in all summer, and poor Jericho having to take on a talentless hack like Test puts a big black mark on the show. The show started off well, but went hugely downhill in the last hour. Considering it had both really good and really bad parts, it deserves a score in the middle; 'ok' is the word it gets in final judgment. |
SmackDown! 1/23/03
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(Benoit vs Haas, Edge vs Benjamin) *New chewing out of Team Angle by Kurt *Matt/Shannon/Nunzio bits *No Billy Kidman *Surprise HOGAN return!!!!!!!!, Hogan/Vince *Adorable Funaki and Josh Matthews *No Brock match |
*Taker return *Demott/Rikishi boring rematch *Rey Mysterio *No real Kurt match *No Tajiri, Chuck, Cena, Noble, or Guerreros *Brock boring speech |
| Overall: Like RAW, SD was a mixed bag. I thought it was strange that a lot of people were left out of this show, and was especially disappointed that there were no Tajiri or Cena match. The Edge and Benoit matches were solid, but not exactly exciting, since we've been seeing slight variations of this for a full months now. The Rey/Kurt "match" was a horrid embarrassment. Takers just wasted time. The Hogan return was a true surprise though, and was definitely awesome! This show was not very exciting, but had its moments. Like RAW, it was simply 'ok'. |
| This Week's Winner: This week is really hard to call. Both shows had great moments, mostly the Jeff/RVD match and Jeff's heel behavior on RAW, and on SD, the Matt/Shannon bits and Hogan's return. On the other hand, the horrid mistakes that Kurt/Rey and Jericho/Test were probably balance each other out in how much they pulled each show down. It's a tough choice, but in a completely unexpected victory, I must tilt my hat to Smackdown. Overall, it had better matches, at least a bit of nice character interaction, and the surprise which secures its victory this week, Hogan! |
RAW 1/13/03 (week of 10 year anniversary show)
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*Vince ultimatum to Bischoff *Shane McMahon appearance! *HHH stripped to his panties *Awesome 3 ways women's title match *More evil Victoria/Stevie *Good ME (Kave vs RVD vs Batista vs Jericho over-the-top-rope), with Jericho winning! *Awesome Sean O'haire advert |
*No Christian! Grrr! *Hurricane interfering in the women's match *Scott Sweiner with a mic *Booker wasting his time wresting Storm *Test *Raven's new hair style |
| Overall: This was a nice solid show, although I was quite unhappy that both Rico and Christian were left out of the pre-PPV episode! Vince's speech was pretty funny since he kept getting interrupted, and the tease of Shane in charge of RAW was very exciting! Nice solid divas, although Hurricane needs to be kept away from them! The Steiner bit turned into something rather interesting with HHH being stripped down to rather unflattering panties. The show left on a great note for the Rumble, with Jericho winning the great ME and picking #2. Regal/Storm are still boring beyond belief, but at least they gave them a semi-entertaining backstage clip, and it was pretty funny when the refs searched them both before Regal's match and found both paired of hidden brass knucks. I see another RAW victory this week. |
SmackDown! 1/16/03
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*Good ME *Matt backstage clip! *More eeeeeeeevil Matt, smacking up Shannon for no reason *At least the Show/A-Train vs Brock/Rey match was quick, if very painful *Cena rapping |
*Rey Mysterio's return *Boring clips/speechs (Benoit, Steph, ect) *Dawn/Torrie/Al's funeral bits *Rey screwing up his own signature move *Kidman talking *Cena turning on B2 and debut of Redd Dogg *Edge acting like Benoit's sidekick |
| Overall: Wasn't a terrible show, but really wasn't a great show either. Honestly it was mostly just boring. No really intereting matches at all. The only match I would really say was good was Team Angle vs Benoit/Edge, which is pretty much the same thing we've seen the past 2 weeks. The Matt/Shannon/Funaki clip was funny and the Edge clip was wonderful, but the rest were extremely boring, as was Steph's speech. Nothing exciting here. Really this seemed more like an episode of Velocity than Smackdown. |
| This Week's Winner: RAW. It was a good show this week and led into the PPV well. SD was just boring and seemed extremely lacking in content. There's not question that RAW is seriously slamming SD right now; hopefully the quality of SD will improve very soon! |
I missed RAW 12/23/02 to 1/6/03 and SD 12/26/02, but from what I've seen/read, I'd have to say RAW won all 3 spots, even the RAW that was just the Best Of show. SD was pretty bad over this stretch. SD 1/9/03 was an improvement over the last few episodes, but RAW had CnC/Orton vs RVD & Kane/HBK, that alone pretty much makes it the winner.
Overall: 3 more victories for RAW