By Derek Burgan, Torch Team Contributor

WWE Smackdown report Express
Report by Derek Burgan, Torch Team Contributor

In a nutshell: Brock Lesnar versus Randy Orton. I’ll be damned, but it was fun to watch! And the WWE has lost their minds…read below

Trivia Time! Right here, in this very column, we dedicate our weekly trivia segment to a historic event in wrestling. No, we're not celebrating the birthday of a member of the crack "HYPE/Express" machine (just for the record, Tracey Smothers is not a member of the crew. God knows he could use the work though). With what appears to be the rebirth of Nitro on Raw, we celebrate the seventh anniversary of the very first edition of Monday Nitro. In the beginning, it was a one-hour show and featured the infamous jump of Lex Luger from the WWF to WCW. But, before Luger came aboard, World Champion Hulk Hogan was already scheduled for a title defense against a world-class athlete. Name this legend of the squared circle

(A) Sting
(B) Kevin Sullivan
(B) Big Bubba Rogers
(C) Ric Flair
(D) Avalanche

BUT FIRST! Finally, the NFL has come back to…my house. For those of you out of the loop, pro football begins its new season tonight. Thank God! I can’t get over how boring Sundays are with just baseball, golf or NASCAR racing on. It was getting so bad I was thinking of going to church to relieve some boredom! There’s some sort of Emmanuel Baptist church up the road from my house, and while I never knew why the kid from “Webster” would have his own religion, it certainly sounded cooler to me than Scientology. Lucky for me though the boys of the NFL are back delaying my salvation once again.

“A prayer? A prayer in a public school?! God has no place within these walls, just like facts don’t belong in organized religion!” – Superintendent Chomers The Simpsons

On to the show!

(1) Rey Mysterio beat Billy (w/ Chuck and Rico). Finish came after Billy had Mysterio up for a slam, but Rey Rey went with it, wrapped a belly scissors around Billy and ended up rolling him up for the win.

Heat Index: Definitely much slower than all of Rey Mysterio’s matches so far and Rey himself didn’t have too much action. What he did do was really sweet. A great looking “springboard dropkick” off the second rope brought back shades of Sabu in ECW. A good spot came when Chuck stopped the 619 which was a really cool idea I don’t think should have been wasted in this match.

JOB Failure: After the match it got bad. REAL bad. Rico got the mic and told Billy to calm down, his night was about to get better. Rico told Chuck “it’s time”. Chuck then grabbed a ring out of his tights, got down on one knee…I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP… and asked Billy to be his partner for life. Billy thought for a moment and replied, “Yes!” The two then hugged. You know kids, a couple years ago Billy Gunn was part of one of the most fun to watch tag teams in wrestling history in DX’s New Age Outlaws. Today his partner, Road Dogg, has to spend his days in house arrest and auctioning himself off on ebay to EverQuest geeks. To tell you the truth, I don’t know which one is worse off right now.

Kayfabe Factor: Mike W: Tony, you have 30 seconds to talk about this whole Billy & Chuck thing. Tony K: What’s to talk about? It’s absolutely ridiculous. For those of you who haven’t been subscribing the Torch, Wade Keller was talking about the WWE doing this type of thing way back in the day of Grandmaster Sexay and Scotty Too Hotty… Mike W: You mean Too Cool. Tony K: I know that Mike! Will you let me make my point?! Anyway, someone with a shred of common sense must have actually worked for the Fed back then as the idea was given the kibosh. Let’s get real. Billy and Chuck act “too gay” for the majority of heterosexual WWE fans and aren’t anywhere close to a real representation of a gay lifestyle to the homosexual community. Therefore EVERYONE is turned off by them. I’ll tell you Mike, if I were writing the WWE right now… Mike W: Time’s up Tony.

Speaking of being somebody’s bitch, if you are half the fan of HBO’s “Oz” that me or Jason Powell are than you’ll want to check out http://members.iglou.com/lyons/bitchGen.html to find out your “Oz” prison name!

***A short music video aired to Billy & Chuck’s theme song and showed the clips of what we just saw.

(2) Jamie Noble (w/Nidia) beat Shannon Moore to retain the WWE Cruiserweight title. Finish came after Noble hit Moore with an impressive looking Tiger driver.

Heat Index: Well, it’s about time Noble had an actual singles match for his title on the show supposedly the “exclusive home to cruiserweight action”® A good back and forth battle that unfortunately had little crowd heat because Moore’s character is non-existent and Noble hasn’t been given any time lately to get his heel act over.

JOB Failure: There should be a lot more buildup into how important the Cruiserweight belt is for kids like Moore, especially how in commentary the announcers of every show bury anyone who isn’t a heavy weight. A couple vignettes here and there showing them training (ala Rock/Brock videos before SummerSlam) or something equivalent showing their desire to be the best would help in the long run.

Kayfabe Factor: I’m glad that Noble is one of the few champions of any wrestling company that actually enjoys holding the title. A really nice spot came when Noble held Moore’s head on the ropes while Nidia taunted Shannon with the WWE Cruiserweight belt. “That’s mine!” yelled Noble.

***Paul Heyman was talking to The Next Big thing backstage and telling Brock that while the upcoming face-to-face with the Undertaker is important, he shouldn’t overlook the match against Randy Orton. Brock said, “Who?” Heyman recounted the fact that the two of them came through the WWE system, trained together, sparred together blah, blah, blah. Orton showed up at the end and used what could be the worst catch phrase ever, “While I respect you, I don’t sweat you.” After Orton left, Brock turned to Heyman and said, “Who was that?”

***You know, there’s about 400,000 people writing about wrestling on the net right now and 99.44% of them are just like me, a bunch of morons. One of the few good ones to check out is Jay Bower on the ‘ol 411. He does the Smarks news center, and besides shilling for PWTorch.com’s “HYPE” (each and every Saturday available only here) Jay writes one of the best columns of anything, wrestling related or not, on the world wide web. After reading him you’ll be wondering the same thing I consistently do, “What the hell is this guy doing writing about wrestling?!”

(3) Brock Lesnar beat Randy Orton in a non-title match for the WWE Undisputed title. Holy Shit! What an awesome finish. Orton jumped off the top rope nailing Brock with a cross body block, when Orton and Brock rolled up from that, Randy was in The Next Big Thing’s arms and was quickly thrown up in the air and given an F5! WOW!

Heat Index: This was actually really cool to watch even though it was mainly just Brock tossing around Orton. Considering Lesnar is the actual champ of the WWE it is allowed in my book. If anyone should look unbeatable until PPV time, it should be him. One INCREDIBLE sequence came when Brock tossed Orton over the top robe and Randy’s head hit the steel ringpost in midair before he went straight to the ground. This match was almost like watching the Next Big Thing against a Super Sized order of Spike Dudley, and that is a good thing.

JOB Failure: I’m as big a fan of Paul Heyman as anyone, but why exactly is he out with Lesnar? With the very name of “agent” he’s saying he’s not like every other manager we’ve seen. Well, last I checked agents of players in any other sport don’t accompany their players. I believe Heyman could make just as big a point being just a character behind the scenes and let Brock come across as not needing anything to beat people.

Kayfabe Factor: Well, before we say goodbye to Randy Orton as he spends the rest of his career in “Tajiri Syndrome” let me remind you all that I was at a Smackdown taping last year and Brock Lesnar got zero reaction from the Boston crowd. I myself saw nothing at all spectacular with him as well. Well, lo and behold with a good storyline and actual wrestlers like Hogan and the Rock willing to do the right thing for him, Brock is now legitimately the Next Big Thing. I really looked forward to his SummerSlam match and it didn’t’ disappoint. He has moved up to the next level and it’s a shame that the same amount of care and respect isn’t given to just about every WWE newcomer so they have a chance to get over.

From: Derek Burgan (derekburgan22@hotmail.com)
To: Vince McMahon (VKMcMahon@FearThePanda.com)
CC: The Game (CerebralAssassin@CrippledH.com)
RE: Undisputed

Vince, my version of Webster’s dictionary has the word “undisputed” described as “unchallenged, indisputable, accepted, agreed.” Now when Triple H was given a RAW title didn’t it immediately make Brock Lesnar’s title “disputed”, especially with how Eric Bischoff and Triple H talked about it at the beginning of the show? I’m confused as to why so much time and effort was put into combining the old WCW heavyweight championship belt and the WWE title into the new Undisputed title only to bring back one of the old belts just a little while later? I’m wondering if anyone working for the WWE creative team actually watches any of the programs? That might be a good topic to start the next creative meeting with. I’ll bet that when no one raises their hand to that question you’ll find out where a lot of the current problems are stemming from.

Sincerely,

A concerned fan/investor/idiot

***Okay, I spent a little time a couple weeks ago describing how no human being on Earth would wear one of those absurd “Back Dat Ass Up” shirt. That was before I saw the back of that shirt which apparently has a cartoon version of Rikishi’s ass on it?! How does this shit get by people working for the WWE? Is there anyone in Quality Control at shopzone?! Anyhoo, Edge approached Rikishi and wanted to know if he would pull out the stinkface tonight because it is so cool. In one of those weird wrestling moments, Rikishi then basically scolded Edge by saying the stinkface is supposed to represent life.

***If you have ever had an interest in MMA, and I myself have no idea why you would, check out Nick Moore’s writeups for the Torch. He’s a rather odd bloke though, as would anyone who counts “K9-P.I.” and “Ernest goes to Jail” among his favorite films.

***In the Surreal-Skit-Of-The-Week, Mark Henry walked up to Billy and Chuck and shook their hands before walking to the ring for his match.

***Next up, Stephanie officially signed Crash Holly’s contract and called it the biggest sports signing since “Carl Everett signed with the Texas Rangers”. D-Von came into the room and went off on Stephanie saying that the marriage of two men was a sin. Steph, who this week decided to play face, told him he needed to be more worried about his match with Batista!

(4) Mark Henry beat Tajiri. Finish came after Henry nailed the Japanese Buzzsaw with a Powerslam.

Heat Index: Well, I have to come up with something positive for this match so here goes. While it was completely absurd and only helps to destroy Tajiri in the eyes of the fans, it was neat to see him getting tossed around. There’s no doubt that Mark Henry is one strong dude, and with cruiserweights you can see human beings fly around every which way. My bench is nowhere near Henry’s, so I can only simulate this type of stuff by tossing around the 10-12 year old kids in my neighborhood. Their parents accuse me of “bullying” them, but like the Undertaker says I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m actually putting those kids over.

JOB Failure: To summarize this match, Henry basically no sold all of Tajiri’s offense and was eerily reminiscent of the jobber matches that used to make up RAW 5 years ago. While a list can be made of all the incredibly stupid things the WWE is doing right now to ensure no one ever gives a damn about their product, “devaluing their own talent” would have to go right at the top of the list. Why an Asian-American would ever want to watch the WWE is beyond me. They are either portrayed as idiots like Funaki that we can laugh at in front of their face, or jobbers to untalented non-Asians.

Kayfabe Factor: Maybe I just never noticed this before, but Tajiri had this hilarious scream before giving a dropkick to Henry’s head. At first I thought I imagined it, but then Cole talked about the scream. I think Tajiri should add more stuff like that in because it’s totally insane.

***Stephanie McMahon hosted a bizarre “face to face” meeting between The Next Big Thing in a room backstage. No reason was given for this meeting whatsoever. It eventually segued to it’s real reason as Heyman brought up Undertaker’s wife Sara and repeatedly mentioned she was pregnant. Eventually the “face to face” ended like every other wrestling contract signing/face to face/whatever with the two getting up in each others face about to fight. I could write 10,000 words to describe how pointless and lame this was and it still wouldn’t get my point across to the degree it should be. The Net Cop would rate this as a (DUD).

(5) Batista beat D-Von. Finish came Batista polished off D-Von with a DEVASTATING looking sit down powerbomb.

Heat Index: Batista has one of the best looks in the WWE right now and his spinebusters/powerbombs are absolutely gorgeous to watch.

JOB Failure: Where do you begin? Is Batista supposed to be a face now? inconceivable!

Kayfabe Factor: As anyone who reads Express or HYPE will tell you, I’m not that creative a writer, but I think I could have done a little better job handling the way these two have gone over the past month or so. This feud started out of absolutely nowhere, with no explanation whatsoever. A match that should have been built up to at least an under card filler for Vengeance was instead thrown out for a fast squash match.

***Backstage Nidia told Jaime Noble how romantic it was that Billy and Chuck were getting married. She then asked the WWE Cruiserweight champ if they would ever get married. Noble hugged her and gave the totally freaked out look while telling her, “Of course, we’ll have the biggest wedding in the trailer park.” The two tounged each other and left. These two are so perfectly set up for Nidia to turn babyface upon walking in on Noble with another women and hopefully several “Jerry Springer” type sit down talks afterwards that I just no it won’t happen.

***Matt Hardy and Shannon Moore were watching a video of Matt’s match last week against Brock Lesnar. Matt was telling Moore he sees talent in the kid, and if he works hard and improves his “Mattributes”, he too can be a star. Hardcore Holly walked over and pointed out Matt edited out getting the F5. He then told Matt we’d see who was really the bigger star in their match tonight.

***In a great skit, Eddie Guerrero was asking Kurt Angle how much he could get for the Olympic medals if he pawned them. Angle went off about Eddie’s “little buddy” ruining his shot for the Undisputed title. As Angle was going off on Benoit, the Rabid Wolverine walked into the room and started to eavesdrop. After Kurt called Benoit a “Rabid Chihuahua” both Eddie and Benoit started doing a fake laugh. Benoit got right in Your Olympic Hero’s face and asked him if he thought he could make Benoit tap. “Prove it!” said Chris. Eddie pulled the two apart and said to save it for the main event.

(6) Hardcore Holly beat Matt Hardy v1.0. Finish came after Matt rolled up Holly, grabbing the tights, but was reversed and pinned by Hardcore, who also held the tights.

Heat Index: For what it was, a really decent match that had some really enjoyable stuff including the usual great dropkick and clotheslines by Holly. Hopefully both can get out of the rut the WWE has them in right now as this match proved that they can be great role players.

JOB Failure: Matt v1.0 is just about confusing to me as Stephanie McMahon’s character (thankfully it’s a whole lot more fun to watch). I think we are supposed to think he’s a total heel, but everything he does, for the most part, is something good guys should be doing. Believing in yourself is something evil? He’s actually excited to be in wrestling and looks forward to any match, that sounds like a good babyface to me. And why is Hardcore Holly thrown into this “good guy” mode? If anyone can get over that legitimate psycho role (other than Tazz) it’s Holly. Two completely botched characters in one match, for no extra charge!

Kayfabe Factor: You know, it’s kind of ironic to hear Cole and Tazz continually ridiculing Matt Hardy by saying he’s “believing his own press”. This is after all coming from the only announcing crew in any sport in any area of the world that repeatedly have called themselves the best announcing team in the business.

***Smackdown’s #1 announcer, Funaki, ran up to Rico to ask him about next week’s train wreck to be. Rico said to expect the greatest spectacle of all time. Rico also said that he will not only be standing up for Chuck, he’s going to be Billy’s right hand man. Apparently right now there are machines that can eliminate the commercials in programs so you don’t have to see them. In the future hopefully the geniuses at Sony will invent a “dumb shit” device that will eliminate that stuff from our programs as well.

***Hardcore Holly walked down the hallway on the way to the ring awkwardly passing a girl who just stood there until Crash was about 10 steps past her. I’m convinced that this was the girl Jessie from Tough Enough 2 who has been reported by the Torch to have a production job with the WWE. What’s truly scary is that crap like that is the first thing I think of when I see such a trivial event. Anyhoo, Crash ran into Hardcore who had just come back from his match. The two shook hands and Hardcore said “good luck.”

***Highlights of RAW. Seriously!!!

(7) Crash beat The Hurricane. Crash had the 15th rollup win of the night after reversing the Hurricane’s chokeslam attempt and rolling up the superhero.

Heat Index: I’m really getting into some of the Hurricane’s offense. For about the last month he’s been using the Japanese Shining Wizard kick which is really cool to watch.

JOB Failure: Alas poor Hurricane, we knew you well. Look kids! A falling star. Make a wish!

Kayfabe Factor: Now last I checked, the WWE was doing everything the could to not acknowledge the Holly’s were actually related. All the way to the point where “Crash Holly” was all of a sudden only referred to as “Crash”. They had a ton of stuff together, and I truly believe there is gold in them thar hills, and it was dropped like that. So I guess this means we’re supposed to believe they are buds again but I can’t tell for sure yet if Molly Holly is still acknowledged as part of the clan.

(8) Edge & Rikishi & Undertaker beat Kurt Angle & Eddie Guererro & Chris Benoit. Finish came after Eddie was given a chokeslam by the Undertaker.

Heat Index: Get ready, because an off-the-charts feud between Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit is about to happen. The two bickered during the match but finally went toe-to-toe near the end including a neat sequence in which Angle reversed the Crossface into an Ankle Lock attempt. The two battled to the back leaving Eddie alone. In the best visual on Smackdown all night, Eddie was then shown with his back turned to all three faces who were behind him. Like a great comedy movie, it dawned on Eddie he was alone and actually tried to play up to the three before getting crushed. Fantastic stuff.

JOB Failure: Oh Dear God, Kurt Angle actually found an outfit worse than that red, white and blue camouflage that looked like it was designed by Master P. This week he had a red and white stripped singlet that might look good on some 20 year old piece of ass in a grade B adult film. Hmmm, now that I think of it, are there any “nurse” based films my readers can give me a heads up on? Now that’s a hot fantasy.

Kayfabe Factor: How come when Smackdown ends I usually feel glad to be a wrestling fan compared to RAW, where I usually feel sick to my stomach?

***Overall Show: Great stuff with the usual suspects (Benoit/Angle/Rey/etc) with the stuff that makes you want to turn the show off (Steph in GM role) kept to a minimum. One question though: WHERE THE HELL WAS DAWN MARIE?

“ Tell me he didn’t just say that?!” (Quotes of the Night)

”Billy is just as quick as Mysterio.” - Tazz, who should be sued for slander with that one.

“Actually, Billy and Chuck love this town…home of the Packers.” - Am I a homophobic for laughing hard when Tazz gave that line?

”This will be the greatest moment in your career!” - Rico, to Billy, right before Chuck proposed to him.

”Engaged? Oh….OH….OH!!!” - Tazz, upon realizing Chuck wasn’t asking Billy to be his tag partner for life, but his life partner.

”If Noble had gotten pinned, him and Nidia would be eating Road Kill again.” - Tazz

”The ass here represents the ass of life” - Rikishi, clarifying something because I always thought that ass represented the fast food industry.

”I’ve never seen that before!” - Cole, he was either referring to the finish of the Lesnar/Orton match or a Smackdown show that Stephanie McMahon spent the whole 2 hours in the same character type, I can’t remember which cause I switched to the football game.

”If I’m not mistaken the bible says Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve.” - D-Von, bitching to Stephanie McMahon about next week’s marriage.

”It is immoral for someone to go around impersonating a man of the cloth!” - Stephanie, in response. Where the hell did that come from?!

”Well, that we know of.” -Tazz, in what I think was the line of the night after Cole said, “The first same sex marriage in the history of the WWE.”

”If you think the reaction seems loud through this TV screen, you should have seen it last week live. It was deafening!” Matt Hardy v1.0 to Shannon Moore as they watched the Matt/Brock match from last week on tape.

Listen here Cheech! - Kurt Angle, to Eddie Guerrero

Answer to Trivia Time: C)Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know Hogan didn't exactly have a lot of top-flight opponents, but it's amazing that even on an unopposed one-hour show in 1995, WCW had a knack for putting on good undercards and crap main events. The two matches that preceded the main event were Brian Pillman beating Jushin Liger and Ric Flair defeating United States Champion Sting by DQ. To me, Kevin Sullivan is about as exciting as yet another Triple H/Undertaker PPV main event.

***HYPE vol 1, issue #4 This Saturday ONLY on PWTorch.com! 15 readers can’t be wrong!

***Derek Burgan writes Smackdown Express and the Saturday Exclusive HYPE every week for PWTorch.com. He really thinks that his readers should stop calling the game soccer, football. The NFL is the only real football. He understands that soccer is kind of a goofy name and suggests sissy ball as an alternative. He can be reached at Dburgan@pwtorch.com and welcomes any and all comments and/or suggestions.

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