Mike Reviews WWE SmackDown #173

Happy SmackDown Friday Everyone!

We’ve got a review of a SmackDown episode from 2002 today, as it features Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero and Edge all going at it in the Main Event, and you’d have to TRY to make that one boring. I’ve already reviewed Armageddon 2002 as well, so we might as well just review this episode of SmackDown seeing as the Main Event ended up being a DVD extra when Armageddon 2002 was released.

You can view the full card for this issue of SmackDown below;

Smackdown #173 Card

Pics come from the Pro Wrestling Wiki

SmackDown was taped in Dallas, Texas on the 3rd of December and aired on the 5th of December

Calling the action are Michael Cole and Tazz

We get a video package recapping Stephanie McMahon suspending Brock Lesnar last week, and kind of being a jerk about it, as they couldn’t really decide whether to make her a babyface or a Heel during this period and kind of had her alternate between the two roles depending on the situation. Really they should have just leaned into Stephanie being a babyface seeing as Eric Bischoff was a clear Heel over on Raw, so making the SmackDown GM a Face would be a have been an easy way to differentiate the two brands.

Match 1
Albert Vs Rey Mysterio Jr

They hadn’t been doing much with Albert prior to this, with him mostly being a Velocity guy, but this was the beginning of a renewed push for the Bald Bombshell. They even mention on commentary that Albert is annoyed about working Velocity so much and now he’s looking to make a name for himself. They work a good Big Vs Small match here, with Rey-Rey using his speed to keep the big man on his toes, whilst Albert brutally manhandles Rey whenever he can get hold of the high flying luchador. Rey manages to get a rope assisted bulldog for two at one stage, as they’ve worked this one at a quick clip and it’s been entertaining. Rey catches Albert with the 619 and goes for a springboard rana, but Albert counters that into a Back Breaker and that’s enough for three.

WINNER: ALBERT
RATING: **

Thoughts: They worked that well, with Rey using his speed in a way that he could believably get some offence until it was time for Albert to use his power to win

Albert hangs Rey up in the ropes and then clatters Rey’s leg with a chair following the match, which allows Rey some time off to sell the injury and also gives Edge a new feud for a bit, as he runs down to tend to his little buddy following the chair attack. Apparently Matt Hardy was the personal originally earmarked for this feud, but Johnny Ace and Fit Finlay pushed for Albert to get the gig instead, because he’s big and weird looking I guess.

Sho Funaki is interviewing Bill DeMott and tells DeMott that he’s been enjoying watching DeMott on Tough Enough III. DeMott isn’t impressed and attacks Funaki though, meaning we’ll get a match later on.

Meanwhile, Edge is furious at Rey Mysterio‘s injury

SmackDown GM Stephanie McMahon joins us for some promo time, and sends us to footage of her supposedly whoring herself out on Raw in order to sign Scott Steiner to SmackDown. Steiner will be on SmackDown next week in order to sign his contract. Stephanie also states that we’ll be getting promo time from Brock Lesnar via satellite later on too, as she’s still basically being a Heel at this stage.

Match 2
Jamie “Bah Gud” Noble w/ Nidia Vs Crash

Noble lost his Cruiserweight Title back at Survivor Series and went on a losing streak following it, leading to Noble talking about bringing in his cousin Nunzio to help him, which Nidia is not in favour of. This match with Crash on SmackDown is a continuation of that storyline. Nidia joins the commentary team for this one, whilst Noble aggressively works over Crash, and Nidia does NOT want to talk about Nunzio. Crash makes a bit of a comeback, getting a bulldog for two when Nidia places Noble’s foot on the ropes. Crash plants a smooch on Nidia following that, which allows Noble to go for a Tiger Bomb. Crash counters that into the Crash Landing (Styles Clash) though, and that’s enough for three.

WINNER: CRASH
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: They barely got any time for a match there, but what we got was energetic at least

Noble tells Nidia that Nunzio is coming to SmackDown next week, and Nidia isn’t happy about it.

Torrie Wilson is angry backstage, which leads to Dawn Marie coming over to talk to her. Dawn was having an affair with Torrie’s dad, Al, at the time, but she reveals that she actually fancies Torrie as well, and invites Torrie to her hotel room later on. Dawn adds that if Torrie complies, then Dawn will break off the relationship with Al. This would lead to a badly acted lesbian pollen scene at the Armageddon pay per view.

Match 3
“Big, Bad and Bitter” Bill DeMott Vs “SmackDown’s #1 Announcer” Funaki

This was a renewed attempt at pushing DeMott as a bully. They do say that the best wrestling characters are your real personality turned up to 11 I guess. DeMott makes easy work of Funaki here, as a ponder why they couldn’t have just done this with a local enhancement guy instead of destroying one of the main roster Cruiserweights like this? No wonder nobody took that division seriously when Velocity guys like Albert and DeMott can get the better of them like this. DeMott gets a Powerslam and then heads up with the No Laughing Matter for the three count.

WINNER: BILL DEMOTT
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: A reasonably effective squash match there, although the DeMott push ended up going nowhere

Los Guerreros chat backstage, with Eddy fighting in the Main Event for the #1 contender status to the SmackDown World Title, whilst Chavo will be wrestling for the Cruiserweight Title later on. They both say that they’ll make their extended family proud tonight by winning their respective matches.

Brock Lesnar is “live” via satellite. He says that he got what he deserved for associating with Paul Heyman when Heyman cost him the SmackDown Title, but he’ll be getting revenge soon enough. This leads to Paul Heyman and SmackDown Champ The Big Show join us to taunt Lesnar from a safe distance like the good cowardly Heels they are. Heyman compares Lesnar to a disobedient child, and says that he needed to get Big Show to spank him back at Survivor Series. Heyman says that he and Big Show enjoyed cheating Lesnar out of the Title, and if they could, they’d do it again. Heyman is great as the braggadocios bad guy knowing he can say what he wants because Lesnar isn’t there. Heyman talks about Big Show’s Title defence at Armageddon, and Lesnar says he can’t wait to see it……in person! This of course causes Heyman’s eyes to bug, as now he might have to face consequences for his actions and taunts. Lesnar was so wooden that you could have made a table out of him here, but Heyman was good enough to cover for it and it ended up being an okay segment as a result.

Match 4
WWE Cruiserweight Title
Champ: “The BK Bomber” Billy Kidman Vs Chavo Guerrero Jr

Kidman had won the belt at Survivor Series and then got into a bit of a mini-feud with Los Guerreros, who were the current SmackDown Tag Champs at the time. It’s mostly back and forth action at the start, with Chavo eventually targeting Kidman’s mid-section with moves like Back Breaker’s for the cut off. Chavo locks in an Abdominal Stretch at one stage, but sadly Gorilla Monsoon isn’t here to complain that the hold isn’t applied correctly. Kidman sells well during the heat segment, and eventually makes a comeback, complete with high back body drop, which leads us into the home stretch. Both Champion and challenger have chances to win it, with the action remaining fun. Both wrestlers fight on the top rope and end up taking a spill to the floor, which leads to Chavo trying a Superplex back inside. Kidman fends that off and goes for the Shooting Star Press, but Chavo dodges out of the way and gets a Gory Bomb for two in a good near fall when Kidman gets his foot on the ropes. Chavo tries using a belt shot after that, but Kidman foils the challenger and then heads up with the SSP for three.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: KIDMAN
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: This was the sort of hard fought Title defence that Kidman used to have in WCW when he actually started getting reasonably over. Sadly it didn’t really end up working out that way for him in WWE because the fans there had it ingrained in them not to care about the lighter weight classes, and folks like Kidman were never pushed consistently enough in order to overcome the stigma associated with the division. This was a good match though, with both wrestlers looking good throughout, although the crowd reactions were a bit disappointing considering how good the wrestling was at points

Mark Loyd is interviewing Edge backstage. Edge says that he’s worried about his little buddy Rey-Rey, but he’s going to focus on winning the Main Event later. However, Edge then spies Albert and chases after Lord Tensai for a quick pull apart brawl, which suggests that Edge might not be quite as focused as he previously suggested.

Hip Hop Challenge
John Cena w/ Bling Bling Buchanan Vs Rikishi

Tazz is the official for this one, and states that the crowd will decide who wins. Tazz then adds that Cena can go first, on account of Cena being the worst dressed of the two. Cena had only just started doing his rapper gimmick, and was being portrayed as a comedy goof at the time but they’d eventually start trying to give him a harder edge in 2003. Cena actually does a solid rap, but the crowd hates it because he’s a Heel. Rikishi goes straight to the “you look like Vanilla Ice” well, and the battle essentially ends at that point. Cena is a sore loser though, so he and Buchanan attack Rikishi, with even Tazz taking a stray punch from Cena. This annoys Tazz, so he locks Cena in the REDRUM whilst Rikishi deals with Buchanan. I’m not sure if they did this to tease Tazz actually getting into a match with Cena, but I don’t think that ended up happening. This segment was okay, and the crowd loved seeing Tazz get physically involved, showing that they could have probably used Tazz quite effectively in the Jerry Lawler role of “beloved colour commentator who occasionally wrestles” if Tazz’s body had physically held up enough to do it. Rikishi and Tazz dance following the segment, and the folks in the crowd seem to enjoy it.

Mark Loyd is interviewing Kurt Angle. Angle says he’ll prove his superiority in the Main Event next.

Edge makes his entrance for the Main Event, but Albert attacks his leg with a chair, which seemingly puts Edge out of the match.

Main Event
#1 Contender For SmackDown World Title
Fatal Four Way Elimination Match
“The American Hero” Kurt Angle Vs “The Crippler” Chris Benoit Vs “Latino Heat” Eddy Guerrero Vs Edge

Edge has an injured leg due to that attack from Albert, putting him at a distinct disadvantage. This is classic Paul Heyman booking really, as he’s given the babyface an in-built excuse for losing whilst also getting him over just for the simple fact that he’s even competing at all despite the injury. He used to do similar with guys like Jerry Lynn and Tommy Dreamer in ECW and it almost always worked there too.

Edge spends most of the match selling whilst the other three fight amongst themselves, and he does an excellent job at that, selling the injury consistently throughout. It achieves what they are going for by making Edge a big sympathetic babyface, with the crowd popping whenever he manages to get a brief spell of offence. Angle, Benoit and Guerrero were all very much in their pomp at this stage as far as in-ring work went, so the sections where they fight one another is some A Grade level pro-wrestling. The match is just generally very high quality and an example of why this era of the SmackDown show was so good.

It’s like a banquet of great wrestling here, with the action being fought at a quick clip. Guerrero is the first to go courtesy of a Benoit crossface, and some of the crowd seems to be a bit upset about that. Eddy was really good in the match to be fair, so I can see why some of the fans would be bummed to see him eliminated first.

Eddy Guerrero Eliminated by Chris Benoit (1) – Crippler Crossface

Benoit tries taking out Edge with the move next, but Angle decides to break it up and tries to tap out Benoit with the ankle lock just to be a billy big bollocks. The ref ends up taking a bump, which leads to Eddy coming in to hit Benoit with one of the tag belts to set up a match between Eddy and Benoit at Armageddon. This leads to Edge picking off Benoit with the Spear to send Benoit to the showers for the evening.

Chris Benoit Eliminated By Edge (1) – Spear following Eddy Guerrero belt shot

So we’re now down to Angle Vs Edge, and they always had great chemistry together so the action remains fantastic. Angle goes for the win with the ankle lock, but Edge refuses to tap and manages to counter to send Angle out to the floor. They fight out there for a bit as we go to a commercial. When we come back, Angle is working Edge over in the ring, with Edge continuing to do a great job selling everything. Angle’s offence looks good too, with him viciously busting Edge open at one stage after flinging him face first into the steps. It’s not a gory blade job or anything, but the blood is visible.

Edge makes occasional attempts at fighting back and shows some good fire in the process, with the women in the crowd screaming for him like he’s Ricky Morton. Funnily enough Edge was actually my favourite wrestler during this period, even though you’d think I wouldn’t like him due to having the whole “Teen Idol” thing going on. I really enjoyed his wrestling though and I also felt like he was someone on the rise who it was worth getting behind, as matches like this highlighted.

Edge does eventually make the comeback, with Angle bumping and feeding for it nicely, and the crowd continues to be behind Edge, popping whenever it looks like The Edgester might pick up the win. The near falls are done really well, with the crowd buying more than once that Edge might actually be able to do this. Edge has some joy with a Missile Dropkick off the top, so he decides to try heading up again. However, his injured leg delays him and that allows Angle to pop up with a big Angle Slam OUTTA NOWHERE for the three count.

Edge Eliminated by Kurt Angle (1) – Angle Slam

WINNER: KURT ANGLE
RATING: ****1/2

Thoughts: This match was worth tracking down back in the day and jumping through the hoops you’d need to when you couldn’t just boot up the WWE Network or YouTube to watch a great TV match. This one had some great wrestling and some excellent near falls between Angle and Edge. Edge definitely gained something from this even though he eventually lost in the end, and there’s a good chance he would have got even more of a push in 2003 if he hadn’t needed to take time off for a serious neck injury

Big Show shows up and Choke Slams Angle following the bout in order to heat up the build for the Title match at Armageddon. This would lead to Angle getting Brock Lesnar’s suspension lifted so that he could help Angle win the Title at the pay per view.

Torrie Wilson looks like she can’t go through with what Dawn Marie wants, and that’s the cliff hanger we end on and not the whole SmackDown World Title situation, which seems like the more important thing, but this Torrie/Dawn/Al storyline supposedly did good ratings so I guess they wanted to plant the seeds for next week.

In Conclusion

That Main Event essentially makes this episode of SmackDown a thumbs up all by itself. The rest of the show wasn’t bad, although you can tell that they backloaded things and the rest of the card looked a bit thin as a result. Still, they showed a clear direction for the SmackDown side when it came to Armageddon, as the show ended with Angle as the #1 contender, Lesnar all but stated that he’d be at pay per view in an effort to screw Big Show out of the Title, Benoit and Guerrero heated up their issue, and Edge had a feud lined up for the show as well. And the SmackDown matches were generally the best part of the pay per view as well (although Raw’s Tag Title match ended up being decent at least).

Chavo Vs Kidman was a nice additional surprise as well, as they had a very good match that was only let down by lack of crowd reactions, which was more WWE’s fault for teaching the fans not to care about the Cruiserweight division rather than the fault of the wrestlers themselves. The Wilson’s and Dawn Marie storyline was controversial at the time, but two decades removed from it, it’s just another dumb wrestling storyline in a sea of them. Overall this was a decent episode of SmackDown, and if you’ve never seen that Main Event then I strongly suggest checking it out, as it’s great fun.

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