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WWE 2002


WWFChilli

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That was the year the magic left, for me. Raw was shit, Smackdown was worse. Rock was half gone, Undertaker looked finished (how wrong was I?) Austin was finished. A good portion of the angles were embarrassing and made me ashamed to be a fan.

 

They managed to piss all of it away by September/October time, though.

These are two points that resonate with me. I found Raw skippable for the first time, in 2002. It was also around this period that I went out of my way to distance myself from my wrestling fandom. If people brought it up (and people rarely did, they probably felt the same way) I'd say "I don't really watch it anymore", such was the ocean of crap you'd sit through.

 

Like CVD, I started to get back into it when Da Man showed up. Goldberg is one of my favourites and so even at his worst, I'd say to myself "they'll get this right". Sadly, they got it completely wrong and come THAT finish at Summer Slam I pretty much lost interest in wrestling. I think I watched a couple Raws and Wrestlemania XX, before Jericho returned in late 2007.

 

"MOVE TO MA MUSIC, PLAY THAT F-KIN MUSIC, MOVE TO THA MUSIC, YEAHHHHH" - Even in quote form it makes me shudder.

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I think on PPV it was bloody good year, especially Vengeance onwards, hit after hit for me. But then when you lack back on what went down it was a bit of an odd year, it was as if they didn't know what to do with themselves without WCW and they didn't know what to do with all the wrestlers they suddenly had, hence the brand split etc.

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I'm sure I remember absolutely loving Vengeance. Was that the surprisingly class three way with Angle, Rock and Taker?

 

That's the one - I can't remember too much else of the card, but I think it also had Lesnar vs. RVD and a tables match with Bubba & Spike Dudley vs. Benoit & Guerrero.

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That year's Summerslam is quite possibly, one of my favourite shows of all time. Mysterio vs. Angle was great fun and you had the blinding Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels Street Fight and ROCK VS. BROCK. I can't describe how much I loved Michaels/Triple H as a 12-year old, and I still do now. I only started watching wrestling after Austin beat Michaels at Wrestlemania so I had little emotional attachment to the guy, but I still rooted for him, and was crushed when Triple H smacked him with a Hammer. I also remember the undercard being quite fun aswell, RVD/Benoit and Flair/Jericho were quite enjoyable

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they had everyone that year and yet they still f'ed it up

 

That's the interesting thing. In many respects, that's the best roster in wrestling history. You have EVERYONE, even Flair and Hogan for Christ's sake. Even Scott Steiner, Nash and the likes were hanging round.

 

What all that firepower masked though was that they were all too old to carry the company. It also masked how huge a deal was to lose The Rock and Austin as the same time. When you've got Hogan, Flair and other big names it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Forward wind a year and, with injuries and just people not wanting to be on the road, and you're fucked.

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I'll be honest, I don't love the HHH/Shawn match all that much. I can't begin to describe how much I despised HHH at the time (and not in the good way), and as much as I had missed HBK, I remember being pissy that he had only come back to make his mate look great. What a snarky little cunt I was at the time. I can see some quality in the match now, but to be fair to it, on the "HHH and HBK are fucking crap against each other" scale, it's a fucking miracle.

 

I was just about to have a period about about the build-up to the match, which stirs untold loathing within me, but then I remembered I already had done, not that long ago! There's 2002 shite in here as well, so it's still OT. I am a big bitch, hear me roar:

 

Watched a lot of 2002 Raw today on my never ending history of Raw journey (see loads of entries in this very thread for other checkpoints I've felt the need to pontificate on), and it's slightly better than I remember it because nostalgia's pretty much always fun. But let me say, most of it still really is fucking terrible. BookDust was class, but I've got to say that wouldn't stand a chance of being anything more than opening match comedy 2 years earlier.

 

For starters, It's utterly mindblowing how within about 2 weeks, they've managed to completely dull up ERIC BISCHOFF of all people. He's nothing more than evil owner #4356 and completely insignificant within weeks. Even mental 2010 TNA figured Bischoff out more than this. His signing still stands as one of the most shocking moments ever for me, but I'd forgotten how quickly he was sucked into the mundanity of it all. I can't stress what a bloody miserable show it is. A cloud of dreariness hangs over the whole thing, week on week. Then you have Jackie Gayda and poor old Trish assembling that fucking shambles, JR burying anybody he can for being fat, and The Undertaker beating the fuck out of the entire midcard but offering a pitying handshake as a way of apparently putting them over. That reminds me, Ladder Match aside, Jeff Hardy is deep into his first drug fog at this point. Rail thin, and is weekly a horrible excuse for a pro wrestler. Half his stuff doesn't even make contact, and his promos sound worse than his fucking terrible band's jizzy soundscapes. He paints all over himself too, and it gets everywhere.

 

And fuck me, that Triple H/Shawn Michaels storyline is the lamest lame that ever lamed, no matter how good the match ended up being. Shawn wants HHH for the nWo, oh fuck, there's no nWo anymore. No matter, Shawn wants him for Raw instead. Why? THE TWO F'S OBVIOUSLY - "Fun AND Friendship". So they reunite DX, which probably could have sold about 48 million t-shirts in three weeks based on the monsterous pop for them (easily the biggest pop I've heard on these Raws for about a year - 2002 is fucking killing the audience dead), but HHH turns on him before the end of the first promo. THEN Shawn eats a car window, and HHH is determined to find out who did it, before it being revealed it was him to the surprise of NOBODY because he ALREADY TURNED ON HIM!

 

I'm crying out for something, anything fun, to come ASAP, but now I know Triple H's World Title reign of terror is right round the corner, I'm fearing the worst.

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