Mike Reviews Shows Considered To Be Stinkers – WWE Bad Blood 2003

Happy Stinky Friday Everyone!

This month our Stinker Review is WWE Bad Blood 2003, a show that was quite disliked at the time for the most part, but it might have aged better in the intervening years. Bad Blood was the first time WWE did a brand specific mainline pay per view (the UK exclusive shows had previously experimented with it), with Raw handling the hosting duties here.

We’ve got Triple H Vs Kevin Nash for the Raw World Title inside the Hell in a Cell, whilst Ric Flair battles Shawn Michaels and Christian defends the IC Title against hometown hero Booker T. All three of those matches can potentially be entertaining if done correctly, so lets see if the Raw brand can pull it off, or whether Bad Blood is indeed as Stinky as folks thought at the time.

You can view the full card for Bad Blood by clicking below;

WWE Bad Blood 2003 Card

On Sunday Night Heat; Ivory defeats Molly Holly in a match that made the DVD extras. The match only goes about 3 minutes but it’s mostly fine because Holly is a good worker and Ivory is decent when matched up against someone like that.

Bad Blood is emanating from Houston, Texas on the 15th of June 2003

Calling the action are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler

The pay per view song is “Headstrong” by Trapt, which also appeared on the second Legends of Wrestling game

Opening Match
The Mack Militant (Rodney Mack and Christopher Nowinski) w/ Theodore R. Long Vs The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von)

Mack and Long were doing the race baiting angle by having “White Boy Challenges” on Raw, and they decided to up the ante by adding in one of the whitest dudes on the roster, in the form of Nowinski, to the act. The Heels had been trying to get D-Von to join their cause, asking the very valid question of why it always has to be D-Von that gets the tables. Nowinski was wearing a face mask at the time due to him suffering a head injury back at the Royal Rumble and he would retire from in-ring action due to recurring issues with concussions, leading to him setting up an institute that looks into sports related head injuries.

They set this one up kind of weirdly, with the Heels having the far corner and the babyfaces having the near corner, when it’s normally done the other way around in order to create the illusion that the babyface has to make it “uphill” in order to make a tag. This is your standard opening tag match, with them working the formula and not doing anything too taxing to overstimulate the crowd. Things are a bit sloppy in places, as the Heel team don’t seem to have much in the way of chemistry together, leading to some awkward moments.

The Mack Militant cheats to cut off D-Von and works some heat, with D-Von selling that all well. Mack himself shows some good intensity at points, and he actually had a fun collection of moves on the SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain video game, but sadly his stats were pretty rubbish and that meant his moves didn’t really do much in the way of damage. Bubba eventually gets the hot tag and does a decent comeback on the Heels, as the match has picked up a bit after an awkward first half. Bubba actually comes flying off the second rope with a cross body at one stage, which is impressive considering that he had to be approaching 300 pounds at the time. D-Von shows some apprehension to getting the tables for his white brother, and that allows Nowinski to hit Bubba with his mask for the crowd flattening three count in just over 7 minutes.

WINNERS: THE MACK MILITANT
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: This one had a bit of a rough start, but it was okay once the Heels got the heat on D-Von. The finish made sense seeing as the feud had only just started and The Dudleyz winning here would have pretty much blown it off already, but it was a pretty flat way to start off a pay per view, especially as the fans had been enthusiastic for the most part and this took the wind out of their sails considerably

Tonight Co-GM’s Eric Bischoff and Stone Cold Steve Austin are going to be having a “Redneck Triathlon” tonight, with them supposedly having a “pie eating” contest later on, but first it’s time for a thrilling burping contest. Terri Runnels will be the official for this one, with the loudest and longest burp picking up the win. Terrible fake sound effects are played whilst Sleazy E and Stone Cold gurn for the camera, with Austin eventually “winning” the contest. This was awful, and there is still worse to come!

Match Two
Luchas de Apuestas
Winner Gets Stacy Keibler’s Managerial Services
Test Vs “The Big Bad Booty Daddy” Scott Steiner

Keibler had been managing both Test and Steiner, but Test became a jerk so now Keibler’s services are on the line and she would much rather Steiner be the person that she has to manage because, even though he’s an openly womanising, short tempered madman in storyline who clearly ingests a lot of…”chicken” (yes. that should cover me legally), he has at least been nice to Keibler whilst Test hasn’t. This feud has seemed to allow Test to finally tap into some personality at least, as he’s got a notable cocky swagger going on and he’s actually pretty entertaining. Sadly the moment this match is probably best known for is Steiner trying a diving axe handle off the apron and making a total mess of it, landing somewhere around Test’s ankles in the process. They try their best to edit around it on the DVD by using an alternative camera angle, but it’s still pretty obvious. I’m willing to bet that clip has shown up on a certain YouTube channel run by a certain County Durhamer at some point, likely with SNES or MegaDrive music playing over it.

They thankfully keep this one to around 6 minutes, which was about all Steiner could manage at the time without needing an iron lung due to a litany of injuries slowing him down, including a very serious case of Drop Foot. Test mostly keeps his offence simple and spends the majority of the match annoying Keibler with some, admittedly quite funny, Heel antics. Steiner nearly ends Test’s career with an awful Overhead Belly to Belly Suplex, but thankfully Test is able to continue and the bout rolls on. Steiner’s punches and chops looks okay at least, and the crowd is into the match even though it hasn’t been up to much overall. Test shows some impressive power in throwing Steiner around, with both a Full Nelson Slam and the Meltdown looking good. Keibler almost accidentally costs Steiner the match, but Big Poppa Pump is able to survive the Big Boot at two. Test tries using a chair following that, shoving Keibler down in the process, but the chair bounces back in Test’s face and the Complete Shot wins it for Steiner in 6 minutes.

WINNER: SCOTT STEINER
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Steiner was absolutely terrible here, but Test entered one of his most charismatic performances ever and Keibler actually did a good job at ringside, so it was watchable even if the wrestling itself wasn’t up to much. The crowd was actually really into this and Steiner’s win got a decent pop, so there was probably still some mileage in Steiner as a mid-card babyface, so of course he’d turn Heel later in the year and then quietly leave WWE in 2004

Match Three
WWE Intercontinental Title
Champ: Christian Vs Booker T

Christian cheated to defeat Booker for the newly reinstated belt back at Judgment Day, so now Booker is coming for revenge in his hometown. Booker has his music from the WrestleMania X-8 game dubbed in here on the DVD cut of the show, which means we don’t get to hear the hometown pop for him due to the crowd sweetening that is required when you dub in a fake entrance theme, so that sucks. Both Christian and Booker are talented and experienced grapplers, so this is a solid match when they stick to just straight wrestling. Sadly there’s a lot of storyline gaga that ends up taking away from things, such as Christian teasing that he will walk out when Booker gets the better of him. The referee declares that Christian will lose the belt if he gets counted out, which doesn’t really make any sense as the referee doesn’t have that authority. Christian duly returns anyway, only to then get himself intentionally disqualified soon after in just under 8 minutes. Sadly an intentional DQ doesn’t lead to the belt changing hands in the same way an intentional Count Out does, because WCW. Whoops, sorry, force of habit! I just got so used to typing that whenever I see dumb stuff that I went onto autopilot. I’m guessing whoever booked this insipid House Show bollocks for a pay per view did similar.

WINNER BY DQ: BOOKER T (CHRISTIAN RETAINS)
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was a decent match until they decided to overload it with silliness, at which point it soon lost it’s lustre for me. I get them wanting to extend the feud a bit longer, meaning that Christian had to retain the belt here so that they could do future matches for it, but this was a pretty insulting way to book a pay per view bout. Honestly there was no real “good” scenario here due to them booking themselves into a corner by having Christian’s first pay per view Title defence be against a guy in his hometown that WWE didn’t want to beat. Thus we got what we got, and it was weaker than watered down Skol as a result

Christian walks away following that, meaning we don’t even get a crowd pleasing spot where Booker at least beats up the Heel in order to send him packing and pop the hometown crowd.

Next up we have the Pie Eating Contest between Eric Bischoff and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Jerry Lawler is the host inside the ring, but before he can do anything, Stone Cold interrupts and chooses Sleazy E’s pie, with it of course being a SWERVE. For you see, Bischoff won’t be eating the pie of the attractive ladies in the locker room, but rather Mae Young’s. Thus Mae Young gives Bischoff a Bronco Buster and much mirth is had by all. This was a pretty awful segment, although Bischoff did his best to get it over and the crowd didn’t seem to hate it, so it had that going for it at least. Austin decides that he’s going to forfeit rather than eat Mae’s pie, and gives her a Stunner to put an explanation mark on it. This was no good IMO.

We get a very cool Matrix styled vignette for Gail Kim that was leading to her debuting and winning the Women’s Title in her first official match. Sadly Kim was absolute cack in 2003 and nowhere near ready to win the belt, but she stuck with it and ended up becoming a solid worker by the time she won the inaugural TNA Women’s Title in 2007.

Kane is brooding backstage.

Jonathon Coachman is interviewing La Resistance backstage. They cut a generic cheap heat promo where they dedicate the upcoming match to the French President.

Match Four
Raw Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Unlikely Duo of Kane and Rob Van Dam Vs La Resistance (Rene Dupree et Sylvain Grenier)

Kane was soon to lose his mask and go Heel, so his well-received tag team with RVD was essentially toast and this was where they were going to get the belts off of them. La Res were essentially doing the Fabulous Rougeau act, although they weren’t even pretending to like the USA and were just straight up evil foreigners. Jim Ross is of course insufferable with the whole “why are they even here if they hate it so much” shtick. Err, I’ll give you a clue there cowboy, the word “WORLD” is in the name of your promotion, so if you want to wrestle in the biggest promotion in said world then you’re going to have to go to the place they hold the majority of their shows otherwise you’re not going to have a job you clueless barbecue sauce drinking buffoon. Dupree had actually wrestled for a few years prior to coming to WWE as his father ran a promotion, so he’s okay here, but Grenier was so green that he could pass for being a piece of broccoli, so it’s pretty rubbish whenever he’s in there. RVD gets worked over for a bit and then tags in Kane, which leads to Kane running wild, which the crowd mostly enjoys. RVD accidentally catches Kane with a TOPE CON HILO at one stage though, which leaves Kane out on the floor and allows La Res to give RVD a Double Flapjack back inside the ring for the three count and the Titles in just under 6 minutes.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: LA RESISTANCE
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: Not much to this one really. Grenier was awful and the Champs had it firmly in neutral, meaning that Dupree was the only one here who was both capable of trying to make something happen whilst also caring enough to try, and he wasn’t ready to carry that burden yet, so the match was what it was

Match Five
“The Highlight of the Night” Chris Jericho Vs Goldberg

Jericho was bitter at Jericho for not wrestling him in WCW (both in kayfabe and real life) so the two began a feud. This was ultimately supposed to be the feud and match that would prepare Goldberg for going after the Raw World Title, as plans were in place for Goldy to challenge for the belt at SummerSlam. The pre-match video package does a good job of highlighting how Jericho kept antagonising Goldberg and managing to get away with his life intact, although they probably overdid it a little bit as Jericho almost became a bit of a rebellious underdog in the way he kept poking the bear and living to tell the tale. That ends up actively working against the match somewhat, as Jericho has been such an effective weasel and canny operator that a vocal part of the crowd here at Bad Blood are actively cheering Jericho on the longer the bout goes and Jericho manages to avoid getting slaughtered by his bigger angrier opponent.

This was kind of a flaw in the way Goldberg was booked during his first WWE stint, as they tried too hard to fit Goldberg into the traditional WWE babyface mould of putting in time, selling for the Heel and then making the big comeback. Goldberg actually could sell reasonably well when he was asked to do so, but he was much better in shorter matches where his high impact wrestling style could be featured, so most of his contests during his first WWE wrong actively played against Da Man’s strengths. This is a decent match for what it is though, as Jericho bumps around big for Goldberg during the shine in order to make Goldberg look like a devastating powerhouse and to also start paying off the build for the match by having Jericho finally get destroyed now he has to face the man he’s been tormenting for weeks. The cut off is done in a really effective way, as Goldberg goes for a Spear outside of the ring but ends up missing Jericho and running through the barricades at ringside. The idea is that Goldberg has injured his shoulder during the missed attack, which is a good way of putting Goldberg on the defensive without having the conniving Heel overpower the monster.

Goldberg sells the body part well, with it actively effecting Goldberg’s offence and the way he wrestles the actual match. That’s always a key difference that separates actual selling from just holding a body part for a bit until it’s time for you not to. The commentary team does a good job of pushing how well Jericho is doing in the match by putting Goldberg on the backfoot like this, and the crowd remains invested in the action throughout, with the rebellious portion of the audience sticking with Jericho, whilst the others enjoying when Goldberg is finally able to unleash the biggest moves in his arsenal. The chants for Jericho get so noticeable at points that Jim Ross actually has to reference them, which is why he tended to have such credibility with fans because he was mention that stuff and not try to pretend it wasn’t happening. Goldberg eventually manages to survive THE DREADED YOUNG LION BOSTON CRAB for Jericho and gets a Spear (notably using the shoulder that he hasn’t been selling in a nice touch) and then follows with a one-armed Jack Hammer for the three count after a real struggle dead on 11 minutes.

WINNER: GOLDBERG
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This may have been the wrong kind of match for Goldberg to have, but he did as good a job as could be expected of trying to make it work, and Jericho did a fine job holding everything together, so it ended up being a good match overall. The way this match was put together, along with the crowds reaction to it, was a good example of why this WWE run for Goldberg didn’t end up working in the end

Goldberg gets in the face of some Jericho fans following the match, which probably didn’t help with making him a babyface super hero to the WWE audience at the time.

We head back to the Redneck Triathlon Wheel with Terri Runnels, Steve Austin and Eric Bischoff. The final contest will be a Sing-Off, which is pretty underwhelming in all honesty. Oh well, at least it isn’t going to be a Coal Miner’s Glove match…

Co-main
“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels

Flair had pretended to go babyface and align with Shawn, but it had of course been a SWERVE and now the two are wrestling. This was the match that essentially sold me on the show back in 2003, as the Bad Blood card was doing very little for me but I was into the idea of seeing Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels tango on pay per view. This one obviously isn’t as good as a bout between prime 1980’s Flair and prime 1990’s Shawn would be, but it’s still a really well-worked match between two experienced pro’s who know what they’re doing in there, and they work it at a pretty quick clip as well, even though Flair was well into his 50’s by this stage in his career. It’s less about the moves they do and more about making the moves they do deliver mean something to the crowd. Most of the early exchanges are made up of the two wrestlers trading chops and doing character work, but the live crowd eats it up and you get a sense that the two wrestlers are having fun going out there and wrestling one another in a pay per view setting like this.

Flair eventually uses nefarious means in order to cause Shawn and referee Earl Hebner to get in one another’s way, which allows Flair to target Shawn’s leg in order to set it up for the Figure Four. Shawn of course sells that for all his worth, but it’s still pretty early in the bout, so Shawn eventually manages to survive the hold long enough in order to make the dramatic crawl to the ropes. It was probably a bit too early for Shawn to be doing big dramatic sell jobs like that, but they’ve only been allocated 14 minutes for their match here, so they’ve had to basically dispense with patient build-up and accelerate the process somewhat. A positive is that the match never feels like it drags or gets dull, but it also means that the match has a general feeling of being rushed to it, as the two wrestlers sometimes feel like they’re sprinting to whatever the next big spot is going to be.

We also get a very random feeling hardcore spot at one stage, with Shawn heading outside to find a table under the ring and set it up at ringside. This isn’t a DQ for some reason, even when Shawn lays Flair on the table and puts him through it with a splash. I can understand a referee maybe letting a tumble through the announce table go because it’s already out there and you can argue that it just “got in the way” and thus someone driving another wrestler through it deserves a bit of leeway. However, when a wrestler actively goes under the ring to find a table and set it up, then I think that particular argument fades away and it should really be a disqualification. Things get even further overbooked when Earl Hebner takes a stray low blow from Flair, which allows Randy Orton (Flair’s stablemate in Evolution) to get involved and crunch Shawn’s cranium with a steel chair. Shawn is of course out like a light following that, which allows Orton to drape Flair on top of Shawn for the three count in just over 14 minutes.

WINNER: RIC FLAIR
RATING: ***

Thoughts: There are three main criticisms you can throw this bout’s way in my opinion. Firstly, it felt a little rushed, with it feeling like they were trying to squeeze a 20+ minute match into under 15 minutes at points. Secondly, it didn’t need the table bump. It just felt out of place in the match, and it made no sense that it wasn’t a disqualification. Thirdly, the finish made it all about Randy Orton, which I guess is okay in that it was at least assisting with getting a younger wrestler over, but it took the focus away from this being the big dream match between two legends and made it just like any other match on the Bad Blood card. Aside from those points though, this was an entertaining spectacle and delivered somewhat on the promise of these two wrestling with one another. Their match at WrestleMania XXIV was better because they kept that as a straight singles bout without all of the gaga and gave them 20 minutes to work with instead of 14 so that they could tell a better story without having to rush things. I also personally preferred their match from Japan over this one at Bad Blood, as they only got 8 minutes for that but then decided to have 8 minutes worth of match to go along with that time limit, so it didn’t feel anywhere near as rushed and it had a clean finish to boot

We finally get the mercy killing of the awful Redneck Triathlon, as Eric Bischoff and Stone Cold join us for the Sing-Off. Sleazy E tries miming to his entrance music, which doesn’t remotely work seeing as Bischoff doesn’t even sing his own theme. Had he been The Mountie then he might have got away with it, but alas he is not. Bischoff does an exaggerated attempt at bad singing, which leads to Stone Cold suggesting that they spin the Wheel again seeing as neither of them can actually sing. The Wheel just happens to land on “Pig Pen Fun”. Oh, and wouldn’t you know it, they just HAPPEN to have a Pig Pen in the Bad Blood arena. What are the odds?!?! So yeah, Bischoff gets thrown into pig manure, which is a handy metaphor for this entire contest in general, and Stone Cold “wins” The Redneck Triathlon. I’m sure Vince McMahon was belly laughing in the Gorilla Position after spending valuable pay per view time solely to humiliate someone who was better at promoting Pro Wrestling than he was for during a brief period in the 1990’s

Main Event
Hell in a Cell bout for the Raw World Title
Guest Referee: Mick Foley
Champ: “The Game” Triple H Vs Kevin Nash

Nash had returned to WWE in the spring of 2003 and had tried to get Triple H and Shawn Michaels to end their feud. That had failed when HHH kicked Nash right in his great and powerful Oz, so that led to Tri and Nash feuding. Nash defeated HHH by DQ back at Judgment Day, but the belt didn’t change hands that way, so Co-GM Stone Cold booked a HIAC match between the two in order to settle things. None of the refs wanted to take control of that one though, so Mick Foley was essentially “dropped in out of a helicopter” as Jim Herd would say, with the hopes being that Foley’s involvement would entice some last minute pay per view buys, back when WWE actually had to worry about stuff like that. It’s funny how the big focus of the video package is HHH and Foley brawling in the HIAC on Raw, almost as if WWE knew that the fans didn’t really care about Nash at this stage so they decided to build around the idea that Foley would be there instead. What’s even weirder is that Nash actually enters before Guest Ref Mick Foley does, almost as if WWE knew that Nash’s pop wouldn’t be as big as Foley’s so they wanted to get Nash out there before him in order to head that off at the pass somewhat.

The previous Hell in a Cell match back at No Mercy had established that you could pin people at cageside and had begun re-training fans not to expect people to actually get out of the cage itself, which really needed to be done as Hell in a Cell matches were getting ridiculous when it came to contriving ways for wrestlers to get out of the supposedly inescapable cage so that they could fight on the ceiling. Neither Nash nor Triple H are in any condition to be climbing up a cage and taking a bump off the roof, so they stick to brawling, bleeding and using weapons here, which is a style of match that both of them can handle seeing as neither of them were especially healthy at the time. Indeed, HHH spent big chunks of 2003 being walking wounded, which only made his “Reign of Terror” all the more disagreeable. Had he been having great matches on every pay per view then it would have been a bit more bearable, but he was having meh slugfests with a series of underwhelming opponents. Involving weapons, blood and having Foley as referee helps make this Title defence at Bad Blood a bit more interesting at least, and both wrestlers hit the beats they need to in order to make the match work in fairness to them.

In a somewhat unique spot for one of these bouts, Tri finds a toolbox under the ring at one stage and hits Nash with a mini-hammer (that’s what years of eating too much chicken will do to you I guess) and then uses a screwdriver to gouge at Nash’s face at one stage as well (had the bout been with Scott Hall instead of Nash then Hall probably would have momentarily got very excited until he saw that it wasn’t THAT kind of screwdriver in HHH’s hands). Nash bleeds first thanks to the toolbox attack, as this extreme edition of Home Improvement rolls on. The barbed wire 2×4 makes an appearance of course seeing as Foley is the referee here, but Nash ends up getting hold of it and smacks Tri in the bonce with it so that the Champ has an excuse to slice up his forehead as well. Honestly, whoever came up with the match structure of “Nash lumbers around hitting his opponent with weapons” deserves a cut of the pay per view revenue, because this is probably the best Nash had looked in years. That’s not saying much, as Nash was physically DONE following the year 2000, but they’ve actually built this match around what Nash can do as opposed to asking him to do things he can’t, and it’s been a decent bloody brawl as a result.

Mick Foley prevents Tri from using his trusty sledgehammer at one stage, which earns him a chair shot from the Champion in response. Now even Foley bleeds, which leads to Mr. Socko making an appearance so that Foley can stick a flaccid white object down Triple H’s gullet (Oh Matron!). Thankfully Socko doesn’t also get colour, although he does end up getting some of HHH’s plasma on him, so I guess that technically makes this a quadruple blood-fest? Foley continues to earn his corn by taking a shot from the ring steps at one stage when Nash was aiming for Tri, and then Foley adds a Nestea Plunge off the apron into the cage wall when HHH sends Nash colliding into our special guest referee. The best near fall of the bout follows that, as Nash catapults Tri into the 2×4 and then adds a Nash-Knife Powerbomb, with Foley crawling into the ring to count two. The crowd totally bought that the Title was changing hands there, which is the first time they’ve actually managed to make them think that Nash was taking the belt home with him, so they managed to make the lame duck challenger ever-so-less lame duck at least. Fairplay to them for that. Tri is of course destined to retain his Title though, and a sledgehammer shot followed by the Pedigree ends it almost straight after in just over 21 minutes, with HHH doing his patented delayed pin attempt as well, because even his friends had to sell the Pedigree for inordinate amounts of time in 2003 I guess.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: TRIPLE H
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was as good as it was probably going to be, as Nash could seemingly barely move and Triple H spent most of 2003 being bloated and injured, so neither was at their peak as an in-ring performer during this timeframe. They smartly used weapon shots, blood and referee related melodrama, and the end result was a good bloody brawl that the crowd mostly got into. Adding Foley to things was an inspired choice, as he was able to take the big bumps that the wrestlers in the match itself weren’t able to, so the crowd didn’t feel ripped off for not getting to see Hell in a Cell level bumps. They managed to get the crowd at least once with a big Nash near fall without in turn making Triple H look weak, which pretty much makes a Title match with a weak challenger a success. The match had plenty of shortcuts, but there are many ways to have a good match and ultimately what matters in the end is that the match itself is good. If bleeding, hitting one another with weapons and having the referee do the bumping for both of them was how these two were going to have a good match then all that matters is that they delivered that good match

Ric Flair and Randy Orton celebrate with Triple H’s remains as the show comes to a close. Interestingly Evolution doesn’t attack Foley or Nash, with them seemingly content to just drag Triple H to safety.

Is It Really A Stinker?

The last three matches on Bad Blood were good enough that the show isn’t a Stinker overall, but my goodness was it close at points. The undercard showed off the weaknesses of the Raw roster at the time as, Booker T and Scott Steiner aside, no one in the mid-card pack seemed to really be that over. Even in the case of Booker and Steiner; Booker was in a middling feud with Christian that was elongated following an all-time terrible finish here, whilst Steiner was sadly too broken down to make anything of the fact that the fans still seemed to like him. Even adding Stacey Keibler to Steiner’s act couldn’t disguise that he wasn’t physically equipped for the push he was getting at the time. Had it been a couple of years later when Steiner had managed to get over his Drop Foot somewhat, then this run might have been more effective, as the fans did like Steiner and that’s half the battle most of the time.

It felt like the Houston crowd wanted to like the show in general, but they were given very little in the undercard to excite them or get them off their feet. The three main bouts did get good reactions as the crowd was invested in them, so it showed that genuine star power combined with decent wrestling would have worked here, but the Raw roster didn’t have enough of either at the time unfortunately. The Redneck Triathlon was honestly one of the worst selection of segments that WWE did in 2003, and 2003 was NOT a banner year for the promotion either critically or financially. The overriding thought you got from Bad Blood was that Raw didn’t have a strong enough roster to sustain it’s own pay per views, and you have to think that WWE realised that too as they gutted SmackDown in 2004 in order to strengthen Raw as a brand.

So not a full-on Stinker rating for Bad Blood then, but it’s hardly a show you need to go out of your way to watch. If you want to watch a WWE pay per view from the summer of 2003 then make it WWE Vengeance, as that’s a genuinely great show and highlights just how much stronger SmackDown was than Raw at the time.

Final Rating – Stinky
(Rating’s done of a scale of Stinker/Stinky/Odourless/Pleasant/Fragrant)