World Wrestling Entertainment – Armageddon 2003 – 14th December 2003
In terms of ppv quality it has to be said that 2003 was a pretty poor year. WrestleMania 19 was very good, the Royal Rumble had one absolutely stunning match…but everything else blurs into a never-ending swell of mediocrity. Outside of the growth of Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton and John Cena, very little of real substance actually happened. Single brand ppvs flopped. Goldberg flopped. HHH got fat and flopped. In fact, by this point things had flopped so far that in the UK nobody even cared enough to BROADCAST this show. The WWE’s deal with free-to-air broadcaster Channel 4 had expired, and Sky Sports selectively brought out the rights to screen the four ppvs in Channel 4’s deal – on a pay-per-view (rather than their standard premium sports channels) basis. The problem was that the last one (Vengeance) did such terrible buyrates they didn’t think it was worth the money to buy Armageddon. Both WWE and Sky Sports stood firm, with WWE not wanting to drop their price, and Sky Sports unwilling to fork out for a substandard ppv they knew full well they wouldn’t be able to sell to UK viewers. In essence, this show was deemed so unimportant and over-priced the UK’s premier sports broadcaster decided not to bother with it.
Looking at the card, it’s hard to argue with Sky’s decision. Sure there is some interesting stuff but it looks like most of the other ppv ‘extravaganzas’ of 2003. Full of crap, the main event looks sh*t and you’re basically relying on a few workhorses on the undercard to prevent it from completely sucking. Tonight we’ll see if Shawn Michaels can drag a decent match out of Batista, who’d looked dreadful up to this point. We’ll see if Rob Van Dam can help Randy Orton continue his remarkable ascension up the ranks in recent months. We’ll see if Booker T can make Mark Henry worth watching for the first time in his WWE career (the Mae Young hand angle doesn’t count). And in our main event we’ll see if miracles can happen and the bowling shoe ugly combination of Triple H, Goldberg and Kane can produce anything other than a suckfest. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are in Orlando, FL.
‘We got Saddam…Who’s Next?’ – amusing sign in the crowd as Lillian Garcia gives her usual delightful rendition of Star Spangled Banner. Everyone is jubilant since this was the day that the news of Saddam Hussein’s capture in Iraq broke.
Mark Henry vs Booker T
Absolutely no idea what these guys are feuding over. Henry had only recently returned to the WWE, repackaged on the Raw brand alongside Theodore Long. Long himself had sort of drifted away from television when the Rodney Mack/Jazz/Chris Nowinski stable went nowhere. Booker, of course, is perennially over but completely directionless as always. A pre-match video informs me this has actually all stemmed from Henry eliminating Booker during the Raw Survivor Series Match last month. At least it’s an attempt at logical story-telling.
Booker hasn’t been booked on many ppvs this year, which means we haven’t had to sit through his terrible home video edit theme music too often. It sucks. He swings away gamely at the big man, only to be knocked down with one vicious clothesline to the FACE. Realising he needs a change of approach, Book takes to the skies and wipes out his opponent with a pescado, followed by the Heat Seeker for 2. Teddy Long distracts him before he can hit the Ghetto Blaster though. Henry goes to work on the back. On commentary JR is putting Mark over as a talented, inexperienced guy – despite the fact that he made his WWF debut in 1996. The ‘rookie’ with seven years experience grinds the match to a total standstill with assorted low impact submission holds. Finally he makes an error and attempts a wild leg drop, which misses and nearly breaks the ring. Booker strings a flurry of strikes together which culminate in the Ghetto Blaster for 2…before he gets his back mangled again with a massive spinebuster. World’s Ugliest Leg Drop gets 2 for Henry. He then botches a basic powerbomb and gets roundly boo’d. In defence of Henry, he looks absolutely devastated about that screw up. Booker bounces back up and wins with a second Ghetto Blaster at 09:20
Rating - * - The idea of the powerful Henry working the back of the fiery babyface was a good one. For the most part they kept the crowd interested so you can’t call this a complete disaster. The problem was it was SO basic, slow and uninteresting that it had no business being on a pay-per-view. There are kids who have trained in wrestling school for less than a month who could work this exact same match as well, if not better, than Mark Henry. WWE can try to put him over as ‘inexperienced’ all they want, but this guy has been on TV for the better part of a decade and is still abysmal. It would be another three or four years before he became remotely serviceable and looked comfortable inside the ring or portraying a character. There was only so much Booker could do to carry an immobile, heavy-assed slug of a worker in there…
Eric Bischoff is in his office disappointed about Mark Henry losing for some reason. He has Chris Jericho and Christian, and psyches them up for their ‘Battle Of The Sexes’ against Trish and Lita. Y2J doesn’t seem as keen on the idea…
The new Co-GM of Raw, Mick Foley, ambles down the aisle. He informs everyone that the petition to bring back Steve Austin is getting lots of support. Stacy Keibler enters the ring too, for absolutely no reason other than for people to perv on her. There really shouldn’t be time on a ppv for this sh*t. Mick’s nemesis Randy Orton interrupts the shenanigans. Luckily Foley has his referee shirt on and reschedules the IC Title match for right now…
Rob Van Dam vs Randy Orton – WWE Intercontinental Title Match
From a kayfabe perspective, how is it fair that Van Dam gets punished for Orton being a dick by getting his prep time for the match slashed? Orton is chasing his first gold in the WWE, and has been on a major tear since the summer. He holds two pinfall victories over Shawn Michaels, has been a lynchpin in the growth of Evolution, and has been taking out superstars of the past along the way with his ‘Legend Killer’ gimmick. Mick Foley was one such victim of a legend killing, getting punted in the head and knocked down a flight of stairs in Madison Square Garden. There is still an issue between those two, so it’s unfortunate for Randall that General Manager Mick has booked himself as special referee for this. Will Foley be impartial? Can Orton take home his first WWE belt?
Orton can’t cope with RVD’s speed. He tries headlocks, he tries muscling Van Dam to the ground but is continually outsmarted and out-manoeuvred by the champion to the delight of the Floridian fans. A spinning heel kick knocks Randy off the apron and Ric Flair’s attempt at giving his protégé a pep talk are aborted as Rob flies at his challenger with a somersault plancha. Eventually Van Dam takes one risk too many though and gets shoved off the top rope all the way to the guardrails. Orton actually works a pretty sensible match at this stage. He doesn’t follow the rules necessarily, and it’s not all particularly thrilling but his gameplan is based around keeping Van Dam on the ground where he can’t throw kicks or fly around. Meanwhile Flair nearly gives himself a nosebleed arguing with Foley on the outside. Any time Rob threatens to retaliate with kicks or any kind of pace increase Orton is on hand to shut him down with a knee to the stomach or a stiff clothesline. ARGENTINE NECKBREAKER gets 2! Jim Ross is doing a great job putting over how Randy’s offence has all adversely affected the neck too. Slowly Van Dam begins to work his way back into the match. He stays on his feet for longer, starts ducking the clotheslines Orton previously used to knock him back down, and is suddenly able to start hitting moves like springboard kicks and tumbling monkey flips. CORKSCREW LEG DROP off the apron nailed! HANGING DDT BY ORTON! But he’s still hurting from the leg drop against the guardrails so is slow to cover. RVD comes up throwing kicks, but hurts his own neck executing the Rolling Thunder. He can barely drag himself up the ropes for the Frog Splash…and gets cut off on the top rope with a VERTICAL LEAP dropkick by Randy. At the same time Foley tackles Flair off the apron as he charges at RVD wielding knucks. RKO SCORES! Orton wins at 17:59
Rating - *** - On a show I had very little interest in watching, this was a really pleasant surprise. It had it’s limitations and probably went a little too long, but this was still a strong undercard bout. RVD has been criminally under-utlised in 2003 so this was his best ppv match of the year by a distance. Orton still has a lot of rough edges to polish off. Van Dam is a pretty unorthodox worker, and it exposed how green Randy still was at this point. A lot of RVD’s offence looked very telegraphed and fake, simply because you could always visibly see Randy bracing, taking up weird positions or bumping way too early to take a moves he wasn't familiar with. In the first ten seconds he was basically bumping off a leg sweep before Rob had even thrown the move his way. Some of his offence was incredibly basic as well, which isn’t always an issue but when you’re going the best part of twenty minutes you need a little more to keep a large WWE crowd into things. Having said all that, he still showcased his exceptional growth as a performer too. His strategy was solid, and the way he worked to keep RVD on the ground and damage the neck was effective. Jim Ross was outstanding on commentary too which really helped him. If you have the WWE Network it’s worth going to check this one out as it is decent.
Chris Jericho/Christian vs Trish Stratus/Lita
At first this angle seemed like a bit of a big joke, but thanks to the talents of all four involved it actually wound up developing into one of the most compelling angles on the Raw brand. Basically Jericho and Christian placed a bet with each other over who could nail one of Trish or Lita first. Jericho pursued Trish and won her round with old school romance, whilst Christian sacrificed his ‘Survivor Series favour’ to save Lita’s job and sleazed his way into her affections after she split up with Matt Hardy. Just when they seemed poised to close the deal an errant locker room conversation overheard by Trish blew the whole thing. Trish and Lita attacked the two Canadians publicly – leading Christian to demand revenge from Eric Bischoff, who booked a ‘Battle Of The Sexes’ for this show. The problem may be that Jericho actually is starting to fall for Trish though. He definitely isn’t as psyched for this one as his tag partner is.
Jericho has dropped some weight and looks so much better for it. He looks as lean and sculpted as I’ve seen him here. The match starts with him getting slapped about by Trish as he still tries to make up with her. He gives her a spanking and wants her to ‘calm down’ but generally gets beaten around the ring. Christian tags and shoves her on her ass so he can fight Lita. He looks much more excited about this than Jericho…so Lita HEADBUTTS HIM! Y2J has to cheap shot Lita from behind to help out his partner and generally looks much happier fighting her than he did with Stratus. The gentlemen have isolated Lita and whilst Jericho looks vaguely focused on wrestling sensibly, Christian uses his position of power to rip her top off. Trish gets a tag and rattles Christian’s skull with a Chick Kick. Stratusfaction blocked, but she trips him out of the ring instead! Lita crotches Jericho on the top rope, leaving him prone for the headstand frankensteiner. Y2J blocks it though…only for Trish to BRIDGE under Christian to send him crashing into his partner. LITA-CAN-RANA NAILED! Jericho then MURDERS Lita against the guardrails! He tries to apologise to Trish again, but Christian sweeps her up from behind into a pinfall – and beats her at 06:37
Rating - N/A - If I were to rate this as a match, I’d have to say it was still pretty good. Trish and Lita were at the top of their game, and they found a number of believable and logical ways to work their normal offensive spots with guys who are much bigger than their normal opponents. However, I’ve opted to go ‘N/A’ on this, because for the most part I think the match was secondary to the story. Obviously this isn’t the last we’d see of this angle. As a piece of storyline development I thought this was FANTASTIC. Jericho was utterly brilliant. He was perfect as the conflicted heel, trying to be loyal to his friend, trying to act like a tough guy, trying to wrestle a normal match…yet clearly retaining a soft spot for Trish. He was obviously the heel – his treatment of Lita demonstrated that – but he retained just enough sympathy that you didn’t HATE him like you did Christian. Everything they did left me wanting to see more from this angle so I’d argue this played out perfectly.
Jericho continues to look thoroughly conflicted as Christian hops around celebrating the win.
Shawn Michaels vs Batista
So Shawn has spent most of the last year struggling against Evolution. Last year at Armageddon he lost the World Title back to Triple H. At Bad Blood Randy Orton cost him a high profile match against Ric Flair. He then spent several months turning Orton into a legitimate player, with a stellar match at Unforgiven then his incredible one-man show during the Austin vs Bischoff Survivor Series tag. That night it was Batista that cost Shawn the match (and another loss to Orton)…and Michaels had seen enough. Frustrated at Bischoff for ending Stone Cold’s career, and frustrated at his continued inability to get the better of Evolution he readily accepted this match against a guy who has been on a tear since returning from injury. Big Dave isn’t the first ‘jacked up nimrod’ HBK has had put in front of him. Can Batista finish Michaels’ career where the likes of Undertaker, Vader, Kevin Nash, Kane and so many more have failed to do so?
Batista’s body is just bizarre. His shoulders are so distortedly huge that he can’t lift his arms over his head properly. All the muscle also causes him to become lumbering and slow – which Michaels gleefully uses to his advantage as he skips around sticking jabs and staying out of reach. He makes Dave look like a putz and even finds time to pop Flair in the mouth too. After a quiet tactical chat with Naitch, Batista returns to the ring and works much more sensibly by trapping Shawn in the corner then laying in a number of shots. He starts working the lower back, which makes perfect sense given HBK’s history of back injuries. Michaels is seriously wounded and it instantly reduces both his speed and the effectiveness of his strikes. Back superplex blocked into a BACK SELLING MOONSAULT PRESS! But after hitting the move Shawn lies flat out alongside his opponent. When he eventually does try to nip up Batista is just ON him with a flurry of knees to the back. Batista drills him into the steps and piles on the misery with a series of backbreakers. Michaels rallies…and counters Batista’s attempted choke bomb into a DDT! That choke hold had been used on Raw to make him bleed from the mouth, which is possibly why he’d taken the time to learn a counter. FLYING ELBOW DROP! Sweet Chin Music COUNTERED WITH A SPINEBUSTER! And not content with that Dave scoops up the motionless corpse of his opponent and hits him with it again. Batista Bomb COUNTERED TO SWEET CHIN MUSIC! An exhausted Shawn collapses on top of Batista for the win at 12:21
Rating - **** - Shawn Michaels is a freak. At nearly forty years of age when his best years should be well behind him, he remains by an absolute mile the best worker on the Raw brand (if not the whole company). The fact that he has been slumming it on the midcard whilst guys like HHH, Goldberg and Kevin Nash plod around working slow motion main events is an absolute travesty. To fully understand the level of brilliance in this performance, you need to remember that Batista absolutely SUCKED at this point. He was so bad that despite debuting just after the 2002 roster split, here we are over 18 months later and this is only his third ppv match. Up to this point he’d not looked even remotely capable of producing a good match…yet when he steps into the ring with a general like Shawn he looks like a freaking rockstar. To be fair, Batista carried his end well. He looked menacing, he delivered his moves with a crispness and intensity and he really sold the idea that he wanted to snap HBK in half. He deserves credit because he was still green as anything at this point, but he didn’t put a foot wrong here. However, if he worked this match against a random scrub on the Raw roster he’d have drowned. What carried this was another masterful exhibition of selling and sympathetic babyface brilliance from Michaels. There wasn’t a single wasted motion in the entire match. From the opening seconds EVERYTHING they did served a purpose and advanced the story Shawn was leading them through. Since his return at Summerslam 2002 Shawn’s biggest asset has been his ability to sell an ass kicking. It makes everyone he steps into the ring with look amazing. This is perhaps the greatest carry job of his career. I can’t praise him highly enough…
Maven Huffman enters the arena for a match with Matt Hardy (who was transferred to Raw after No Mercy so he could travel with Lita) but is confronted by Batista still in the ring throwing a temper tantrum. Matt enters, tosses Maven in to the irate Batista…then leaves as Big Dave kicks the sh*t out of the inaugural Tough Enough winner. Amusingly he then returns to accept a forfeit victory once Batista and Ric Flair have cleared off.
Backstage Batista is still going ballistic. Ric Flair talks like he wants to have sex with him, then walks off holding his hand assuring him that he has ‘a plan’. If you want a backstage segment which looks like the opening to a gay porn movie, this is for you.
La Resistance vs The Hurricane/Rosey – World Tag Title Turmoil Match
This is a standard Tag Team Turmoil Match (groan) with the World Tag Titles on the line. Order of entry is random, so these two teams obviously don’t have the best deal. The Dudley Boyz are the current champions so look out for them. They defeated all of La Resistance in a Handicap Table Match back at Unforgiven to win the gold, so the French sympathisers will be looking to go all the way to get their belts back. It’s actually Conway and Dupree representing La Res. Grenier isn’t at ringside either.
The big SHIT Rosey (Super Hero In Training) mows down one of La Res to start the match…as Hurricane horribly botches a springboard plancha to the floor causing the crowd to laugh hysterically at him. Conway capitalises on his misfortune with such a forceful swinging neckbreaker that they both fly most of the way across the ring. JR and Jerry Lawler discuss politics, international relations and the French with all the subtlety and intelligence of a pair of mating hippos. Rosey helps out his partner with some impressive power moves before SIDEWALK SLAMMING Dupree all the way over the top rope to the floor. FLYING SPLASH OFF ROSEY’S SHOULDERS gives Hurricane the win at 03:17
Rating - * - The early botch didn’t help, the crowd didn’t care and the whole thing is a bit pointless. But I quite like the relationship between Hurricane and Rosey. It was goofy but undeniably some light-hearted comic relief on Raw. That finisher spot earned the 1* almost by itself.
Mark Jindrak and Garrison Cade are the next team in. They don’t give Rosey and Hurricane time to celebrate at all as they sneak in through the crowd. Jindrak pins Hurricane to win in three seconds
Mark Jindrak/Garrison Cade vs Val Venis/Lance Storm – World Tag Title Turmoil Match
I had no idea that Storm and Venis were ever a team. It appears to be the kind of relationship where Val is teaching the ‘uncharismatic’ Storm to be better with the ladies. Their opponents are the team of Cade and Jindrak, who are making their ppv debut. Jindrak joined the company back in 2001 as part of the WCW buy-out but beyond some dark matches and Heat appearances, he didn’t really get on TV. After spending time in developmental, time on the injured list, and being dropped from Evolution at the last minute (Jindrak was supposed to have Batista’s spot in Evolution) he finally got called up to the roster alongside his regular partner in OVW – Lance ‘Garrison’ Cade. Garrison was part of the Shawn Michaels/Texas Wrestling Academy class that brought us Bryan Danielson, Brian Kendrick and Paul London and was another guy who’d spent YEARS in developmental before finally getting on TV.
Jindrak and Venis go back and forth in a surprisingly quick exchange considering how jacked they both are. Cade tags in and gets totally out-wrestled by the technically outstanding Lance Storm. The crowd rewards their work with a loud ‘boring’ chant. Storm tries to springboard off the ropes only for Mark to punch him right in the face, allowing the ‘rookie’ team to start isolating him. Jindrak misses a Stinger Splash to allow him out though. Val busts out some half decent spots, only to get tripped from the outside by Cade. Jindrak lands on top of him and wins the match at 03:35 (06:55 total).
Rating - * - Once again the crowd couldn’t care less, but what actual wrestling they could cram into the three minutes they’d been given was ok. Jindrak and Venis looked particularly motivated.
Dudley Boyz vs Mark Jindrak/Garrison Cade – World Tag Title Turmoil Match
The champs are now in play. Technically Jindrak and Cade are working their third match of the night, but since they’ve not even clocked up four minutes of ring time across their two previous matches it’s hard to say that fatigue should play a factor. This one does pit one of the least experienced tag teams on the Raw roster against one of the most decorated duos in pro-wrestling history though.
Bubba is wrestling in short shorts and looks like he just walked straight to the ring after catching the Disney World fireworks. Jindrak clocks D-Von with a big clothesline to put his team in the ascendancy. Cade misses his HBK-esque elbow drop from the top to allow D-Von out of the ring though. 3-D on Jindrak wins it for the Dudleyz at 04:05 (11:00 total).
Rating - DUD - This was every bit as lifeless and unappealing as the previous matches in this gauntlet, but unlike the last two it didn’t have any kind of hook to make it interesting. They also botched the finish since D-Von was actually legal, but Bubba pinned.
Dudley Boyz vs Test/Scott Steiner – World Tag Title Turmoil Match
After spending all year in the worst feud ever, Test and Steiner formed a weird ‘actually, we both want to be abusive to Stacy Keibler’ partnership. It made little sense, but most people were just glad they didn’t have to watch them wrestle each other anymore. Obviously they have a lot of power so represent a real threat to the titles by entering at this late stage.
Steiner’s attempt at ‘sprinting’ to the ring is quite embarrassing. He does show pretty impressive strength to easily scoop Bubba up for an overhead suplex though. Bubba appears to have suffered an arm injury which Test is intent on capitalising on by bashing it into the ringpost multiple times. He then feeds him to Scott inside the ring who is waiting with a Fujiwara armbar. D-Von gets a tag after a senton bomb on Test, and picks the Canadian off using a couple of neckbreaker variants. With his brother still incapacitated he is at a disadvantage though and soon falls victim to an exploder suplex from Big Poppa Pump. Full nelson slam from Test gets 2. He then nearly steals the win after illegally nailing D-Von with a chair. Bubba Bomb to save, giving D-Von the win at 06:33 (17:33 total).
Rating - ** - I’m not sure a Bubba Bomb counts as selling the arm, but I was still reeling in surprise that Test and Steiner produced the most interesting match of this whole Turmoil. It was nothing more than basic, formulaic stuff – but the way they worked their arm and used Steiner’s immense power to keep the Dudleyz on the back foot actually made a lot of sense.
The Dudleyz think they’ve won the match, but Eric Bischoff comes out to announce a late addition to the match. There is one team left apparently…
Dudley Boyz vs Batista/Ric Flair – World Tag Title Turmoil Match
Evolution weren’t in the original line-up, but clearly Flair’s plan was to talk Bischoff into adding them in. Batista is still smarting from his loss to Shawn Michaels but he has the benefit of teaming with a master strategist like Flair against two guys who are really fatigued.
Neither Dudley is particularly able to stand, and they are pretty defenceless as the Evolution guys march into the ring. D-Von eats the Batista Bomb, and Evolution win the belts at 00:43 (18:16 total).
Rating - N/A - Less than a minute long so there’s not much for me to rate. Admittedly winning the Tag Titles in this manner did put some additional heat on Evolution so it’s not without merits, but on the whole this Turmoil (as with every other Turmoil) sucked the life out of this show. There was so little talent it was tough to watch, and in the end it’s only actually this finish and title switch that makes it memorable in the slightest. Three members of Evolution now hold belts, with the fourth (HHH) still to come in the main event. Spoiler much?
Molly Holly vs Ivory – WWE Women’s Title Match
Considering the Tag Team Turmoil was basically one long popcorn match, I’m not sure these poor women really needed to get booked into the ‘death spot’ here. Literally their only purpose here is to separate the main event from the rest of the show. Molly was still getting some rather mean-spirited heat thanks to her terrible gimmick, but with Gail Kim, Jazz and Victoria on the roster I really have no clue why Ivory is the one put in the ring with her.
Jim Ross says this match had ‘just been added’, so maybe they were concerned about how short the show was running. The lack of reaction to Ivory’s entrance is brutal. She catapults Molly over the ropes to the floor, then flies at her with a cannonball off the apron. More ‘boring’ chants from the crowd, and the announcers aren’t helping either with a three minute long conversation about how sexually frustrated Molly is. Molly can’t decide whether she’s working the arm or the back. Meanwhile Jerry Lawler, who started wrestling in the 70’s, proclaims that Great Muta was ‘before his time’. The turnbuckle bolt is exposed by Molly, but Ivory is the one to benefit as she knocks her face into it. Sadly for her Molly totally no sells it to pin her and win at 04:23
Rating - DUD - This sucked in every possible way. The situation these women were put in sucked. The choice of challenger to Molly sucked. The crowd sucked. The wrestling sucked. The finish sucked. The commentating sucked possibly hardest of the lot. This is five minutes of my life I won’t get back…
Goldberg vs Triple H vs Kane – World Heavyweight Title Match
I can’t believe anybody thought this match would a) draw or b) be any good. Kane is fresh from a destructive night at Survivor Series when he injured Shane McMahon then helped Vince McMahon seemingly end his brother, the Undertaker’s career in a Buried Alive Match. He stormed back to Raw demanding World Title opportunities, which Eric Bischoff was in no position to refuse. At the same time, HHH is still doggedly refusing to step out of the main event scene and stop challenging for the World Title. Despite losses to Goldberg at Unforgiven and Survivor Series he wanted another shot too and since Big Bill didn’t object – Bischoff booked a triple threat.
Say it quietly, but Goldberg is actually pretty over here. Perhaps setting the tone for the match, it’s almost 90 SECONDS before anybody even touches each other. HHH and Kane team up to beat down the champion in the early going…so it’s actually quite impressive when Bill muscles up and powers through both of them. A gorilla press powerslam on HHH is rather impressive too, but Kane is on hand to boot him in the face as he lines The Game up for a Spear. The heels take turns dishing out the punishment even as their fragile alliance starts to fragment. Kane tries to Chokeslam the champ…but finds it broken up with a chair shot from Hunter. Goldberg wants payback for his broken ankle and tries to wrap the chair around Triple H’s leg only to be interrupted by a charitable Kane who still wants to help it seems. Helmsley repays the favour by saving Kane from a Jackhammer through a table. CHOKESLAM onto the Spanish announce table for Goldberg and the landing is made worse since the table doesn’t break. HHH makes sure it breaks moments later with a sloppy elbow drop off the guardrails. He then opportunistically tries to take Kane out with a Pedigree on the floor. The Big Red Machine’s reaction is perfect and finally we get the heels going at it whilst Bill recovers on the floor. He no sells all of HHH’s offence then drags him up the aisle for a CHOKESLAM ON THE RAMP! Just when Kane has it won Goldberg re-emerges from nowhere to hit him with a Spear. All three stand in the middle of the ring throwing punches until Kane gets another Spear. Spear on HHH too! Randy Orton and Ric Flair try to run-in on behalf of HHH but are quickly sent packing. They distracted Goldberg long enough for Kane to recover at least. He and the champion try to choke each other to death it seems. Chokeslam on Goldberg…before Batista drags Kane out of the ring. HHH crawls on top of Goldberg to win the title back at 19:29
Rating - ** - A terrible start and a terrible finish too…but somewhere in the middle, against all the odds, this didn’t actually suck. Once again HHH demonstrated minimal chemistry with Goldberg, but his relationship with Kane throughout the match was really entertaining. There was genuine comedy and excitement when the tentative HHH/Kane alliance finally broke down. And, as I said during play-by-play, the WWE crowds were finally starting to get into Goldberg. He was majorly over in Orlando, with the crowd chanting his name pretty much constantly. It’s actually a shame they took the belt off him in such lame fashion because he was finally getting over.
SIDENOTE – There may well have been contractual issues surrounding the decision to switch the title too. Goldberg only signed a one year deal after WrestleMania, and with only three months left at this point wasn’t displaying a lot of interest in sticking around. Most people would agree that WWE didn’t really know how to handle Goldberg, and that had left him rather exposed as a pretty limited worker. There was absolutely nothing fresh about a woefully out of shape HHH winning the title AGAIN, and losing it here absolutely cripples the momentum Goldberg had finally started to build with WWE fans. But we’re about to enter WrestleMania season, and clearly there was no desire to keep Raw’s top prize on a guy they couldn’t rely on to still be in the company in a few months time. Brock Lesnar, also close to contract expiry, would get similar treatment within the next couple of months as well...
Evolution celebrate together on the ramp, and all leave Armageddon with title belts around their waists.
Tape Rating - * - There was a point in the middle of the show when this threatened to be a good ppv. For 45 strong minutes we saw three back-to-back decent matches which I really enjoyed. RVD delivered his best ppv performance of the year, Randy Orton continued his growth as a worker, the ‘Battle Of The Sexes’ was better than it had any right to be, and you’ll be surprised at just how well Michaels/Batista has aged. Unfortunately, before and after that good 45 minutes was an unrelenting parade of sucky matches. Mark Henry is just terrible. The Tag Turmoil was a massive waste of time. The Women’s Title Match was a total mess, and the main event is an extremely LONG watch considering it has such a lousy finish. This is a three hour show, and the WWE are asking people to pay good money for it. Most of this sh*t was worse than what they saw on free television every week. As such this one is nearly impossible to recommend…
Top 3 Matches
3) Chris Jericho/Christian vs Trish Stratus/Lita (N/A)
2) Rob Van Dam vs Randy Orton (***)
1) Shawn Michaels vs Batista (****)
Top 10 WWE 2003 PPV Matches
10) Team Angle vs Eddie Guerrero/Tajiri (**** - Judgment Day)
9) Shawn Michaels vs Batista (**** - Armageddon)
8) World’s Greatest Tag Team vs Rey Mysterio/Billy Kidman (**** - Vengeance)
7) Randy Orton vs Shawn Michaels (**** - Unforgiven)
6) Royal Rumble Match (**** - Royal Rumble)
5) Kurt Angle vs John Cena (**** - No Mercy)
4) Kurt Angle vs Brock Lesnar (**** - Summerslam)
3) Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho (**** - WrestleMania 19)
2) Kurt Angle vs Brock Lesnar (****1/2 - WrestleMania 19)
1) Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit (****1/2 – Royal Rumble)
In terms of match quality on ppv, 2003 was an appalling year for WWE. They only managed to produce two legitimate MOTYC’s, and if you’re honest a lot of the matches on my list are (at best) low end 4* matches. Interestingly, a number of future World Champions appear on the list though (Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, Batista) and that does indicate that by the end of the year WWE really were trying to build for their future. They’d started using the decent workers they had (largely Shawn Michaels on Raw and Kurt Angle on Smackdown) to help their designated ‘stars of the future’ hone their in-ring skills and drag them up the card. Shawn Michaels basically MADE Randy Orton with a couple of outstanding matches against him at Unforgiven and Survivor Series. At No Mercy Kurt Angle showed that John Cena was fast becoming a decent talent and one very much ready for a push up the card too.
One thing the above list doesn’t show is how good Brock Lesnar was in 2003. His matches against Kurt Angle were all fantastic, but he got stuck working dead wood for far too much of the year. He spent time feuding with the likes of Big Show and Undertaker, and got caught up in one of Vince McMahon’s multiple storylines too. He’d developed into a phenomenal worker in his own right, and proved that with an outstanding showing in the main event on his WrestleMania debut (even if people only remember the botched shooting star press these days). Brock was either WWE Champion, or chasing the title for the majority of the year, and with him at the top of the card he made Smackdown’s main event scene eminently more watchable than Raw’s DIRE World Title picture with the likes of HHH, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and Goldberg producing more boring title matches than you could ever care to remember. Not once in 2003 did I rate a World Title Match higher than the WWE Title match when both were defended on the same pay-per-view.
In the end, as far as match quality goes there were two guys absolutely miles ahead of any of their colleagues. For workrate fans such as myself Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle carried WWE’s pay-per-views in 2003. Other reliable talents like Benoit, Guerrero, Van Dam and Jericho found their opportunities to shine limited, but HBK and Kurt delivered the goods every time they stepped into the ring. Despite advancing age, multiple serious injuries, surgeries and occasionally getting put into the ring with really limited workers they somehow managed to deliver the goods every time. Shawn was miserably under-utilised on Raw, but his work dragging Orton and Batista to good matches was absolutely amazing. The way he single-handedly turned a dull, predictable Survivor Series tag to a really memorable finale almost by himself was simply unreal to watch. And what more can you say about Angle? The guy delivered an MOTYC in the WrestleMania main event despite being so seriously injured he risked paralysis by competing and collapsed backstage afterwards. He came back a few months later and started burning out classics again – including a shockingly good triple threat main event at Vengeance then another couple of blockbusters with Brock Lesnar as the summer wound down. Much like Shawn he ended the year sidelined from the top prize on his brand, but his work helping other people get over (Lesnar and Cena) cannot be commended highly enough.
Despite 2003 being a pretty tough year to sit through as far as pay-per-views go I actually came away feeling more positive than I did after a year like 2001 though. Of course there were a number of poor booking decisions, and the Raw brand was a pretty unwatchable mess for long periods of time – but by the end of the year it does feel like they are turning a corner. There are young talents seemingly poised to really impact the main event scene for the first time in a while. Randy Orton, Batista and John Cena were obviously being groomed for greatness – but people are forgetting Chris Benoit’s emergence after Survivor Series as a serious player. His push was imminent, and how much longer could WWE ignore Eddie Guerrero’s overwhelming popularity too? Chris Jericho, wasted for most of the year, ends 2003 in a totally soap opera, but surprisingly engaging storyline with Christian, Trish and Lita. Rob Van Dam did nothing all year, then popped up at the end to deliver another decent match for Orton. We are building well towards WrestleMania with the seeds sewn for Lesnar/Goldberg and the return of the ‘Deadman’ Undertaker…and whilst Angle and HBK are still on the roster you’re normally still guaranteed at one decent match per show. Personally I felt like the ‘Attitude Era’ ended when Austin shook hands with Vince McMahon in 2001. It took another two years, but by the end of 2003 it honestly felt like the first time the WWE as an entire organisation realised it was over and they needed to move the company forward in a new direction. Let’s see how it plays out in ’04...