So I ended up watching Backlash after all and holy balls, it wasn’t a ten-hour marathon as feared, but your usual three and a half hour borefest… well, it’s something, I guess.
(Full disclosure; I wrote that intro BEFORE the show began and it turns out I wasn’t far off the mark. Even so, these idiots need to time themselves better because nothing they do these days is worth three hours of my night, let alone anything over that number.
But, I digress. On with the show, I suppose.
Although the brand split started shortly after Wrestlemania X-8 in 2002, the idea of brand-specific PPVs didn’t become a thing until a year afterwards. So in lieu of another King of the Ring PPV, we got the first RAW-branded PPV in Bad Blood. The last time there was a WWE PPV called Bad Blood, it was in 1997 and there was one more “d” in Bad. Also, that show had the first-ever Hell In A Cell match… so guess what we’re having with this show? And not only that, but it’s going to be for the RAW World title! Oh, boy! This is going to be exciting!
Just one problem; it’s 2003, the World champion is McSon-In-Law and the challenger is Kevin Nash, fresh off a year recovering from the quad tear that turned into a meme… and with Mick Foley as the referee for some reason. This didn’t instill me with much enthusiasm back in the day and it’s no better this time around.
For interested parties, I did a predictions post on my old blog back in 2003. It is subsequently one of the few WWE PPVs where I got every single prediction right. That post was subsequently reposted a couple years ago with some added thoughts, but since I’ve been able to watch the shows again, I’ve decided to go back and give these “proper” write-ups or something. For the sake of posteriry, I provide a link to the repost of the original post.
FUN FACT
The Oil Rumble is the name of an actual porno film that exists. For this reason and also for reasons that might be offensive to their new customers, the WWE opted to dubbed their Saudi Arabia event The “Greatest” Royal Rumble. As one can tell from history, whenever you slap on the word “Greatest” onto anything, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment and indeed, that’s what we got here in droves.
For all the hype that WWE has put behind the event, for all the controversy it has garnered due to the lack of women on the show and having to do business with a backwards group of people that really sullies the credibility of Saudi Arabia, and for all of the hoopla and discussions that has been brought forth as a result, this big WWE show that touted numerous championship bouts, a meeting between 2 WWE veterans, a Casket match, and a 50-man Royal Rumble turned out to be a standard, run of the mill house show that ended up being a complete and utter waste of time if you were going into this expecting anything of any real significance to happen here.
But, in any event, let’s go through the matches real quick.
Continue reading “Not So Greatest Royal Ramble: The 2018 Oil Rumble”
I’ve got a headache and this isn’t making it any better.
In any event, it’s another month in 2003 and that means another shitty WWE PPV. And despite the lukewarm debut of Billy Goldberg, he is nowhere to be found on this shitshow of a PPV. I don’t know if that’s a sign or anything, but I don’t think he would’ve made the show any better.
For context, we are a year into the original brand split between RAW and Smackdown, with Triple H reigning as World Champ (represented by the famous Big Gold belt) and Brock Lesnar reigning as WWE Champion. Your RAW General Managers comprise Eric Bischoff and Stone Cold Steve Austin and your Smackdown GM is Nipple H herself, Stephie Mac.
So here’s a bit of a twist; a fresh new musings some 15 years after the original airing of this PPV took place.
Turns out I never did a predictions on either Backlash or the following month’s Judgment Day PPV. I don’t recall the reason for this; I’m sure it’s mentioned in the old Bite commentaries I used to post, but in any event, that means I get to watch this show with fresh eyes for the first time in years. And I can honestly say that I’m not really looking forward to it.
This is the PPV that would feature the first WWE match of Bill Goldberg as well as the final WWE appearance (for a short while at least) of the Rock. Also, your reigning WWE Champion for Smackdown is Brock Lesnar while your reigning RAW World champion is HHH, otherwise known as McSon-In-Law.
Oh, and Kevin Nash is here too… oh boy, what fun are we about to have.
Fuck me.
Hey, look at this. A timely Ramblemania! Well… almost timely.
So here’s the deal; this is a show where I had gotten little interest in and then slowly but surely, my interest piqued… mostly when a guy who hasn’t wrestled in three years is about to wrestle for the first time since the last time wrestle, but some of the other stuff were kind of intriguing and there were some interesting match-ups that I was really looking forward to.
Did it live up? Eh… let’s find out.
For those who are following these PPV write-ups on a weekly basis, I had already done the 2003 Royal Rumble a year or so ago. You can read the musings here and assume I feel the same way watching that stupid show here, because I do.
Live from Montreal, the City of Screwjobs, it’s No Way Out… okay, that sounded cooler back in 2003… actually, that’s a lie. That never sounds cool. Anway, we have the rematch of an iconic Wrestlemania X8 encounter as well as a rematch of a less-than-stellar Royal Rumble encounter… also the return of Steve Austin; his first WWE appearance since his much-publicized walkout in 2002.
The last 2002 PPV from World Wrestling Entertainment, pretty much set’s the stage for the PPV offerings of 2003. And believe me when I say this; it’s only going to get worse from hereon out.
(2024 Note: For those wondering where the recurring term FUCKING BIG SHOW first started, I present you Exhibit A… that is all.)
You know, I was going to skip this one and save it for a later time, but since I don’t want to have another huge gap in the sequential posting of these old shows, I may as well do this one now. This show has significance to it, as it is the first show to feature the brand-new Elimination Chamber gimmick; a (storyline) creation of Eric Bischoff which combines aspects of the Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and Wargames. The hype for this thing was something fierce and this would’ve been the first time people would bare witness to the final product.
Now I honestly don’t recall if I ever did a predictions sheet on this one; chances are I might not have, so unless it’s mentioned in the old commentaries of the day, I may never know what I originally thought of this show back then. Would’ve been nice to know, but in any event… here we are.
Survivor Series 2002. Let’s get started.
So if you’re following this on tap, we’re skipping Summerslam 2002 since I want to save that one for the eventual Summerslam recall week and since we’ve already touched on No Mercy 2002 a couple years ago and I want to forgo doing Survivor Series until later down the line, next week will be jumping straight to Armageddon 2002.
In any event, we’re a month after Summerslam. Brock Lesnar is WWE Champion and exclusive to Smackdown, leaving Eric Bischoff’s RAW GM Eric Bischoff to pull out the old WCW World title (a.k.a. the Big Gold Belt) and give it to Triple H… and now he’s World Champion. We haven’t reached the point of diminishing returns just yet, but we’re not that far off.
dtm666 