Happy Saturday Everyone!
We’ll bring our trip down memory lane of WWF/E running shows in the UK to an end with this show, which happened at the tail end of the Attitude Era and just before the all-time terrible InVasion angle. We’ve got Regal Vs Jericho and Benoit Vs Angle on this one, so at least two of the matches can be budgeted in for being good if nothing else.
Happy Saturday Everyone!
WWE are heading to the UK for a big show in the first week of September so I decided to spend the next couple of weeks reviewing some of WWE’s shows from previous trips over here, starting with this notable event.
This show is mostly known for preceding the infamous “Plane Ride From Hell”, but what often gets forgotten is the show itself and how good/bad it was. It happened very early on in the Brand Split of 2002, so it’s just the Raw crew that have travelled meaning no Edge, Kurt Angle or Chris Jericho to spruce things up.
The two Main Events are Stone Cold Vs Big Show and Triple H Vs Undertaker, so yeah, we’ve got some exciting action to look forward to let me tell you. However, maybe the show isn’t quite as bad as I remember? Let’s see if Insurrextion 2002 really is a Stinker.
This was also the last show to ever use the WWF initials, as they went to being WWE from the next Raw show. Vince McMahon apparently had to be talked out of wrestling a dude in a panda suit for this show (The World Wildlife Fund for Nature has a panda as it’s mascot), although if they’d dressed up one of the women wrestlers as Xiaoyu to manage the panda then I would have gotten a kick out of it at least.
Hello You!
Back with another Stinker Review, and this month it’s a reader request courtesy of AJ Haemorrhoids (who has one of the more striking names on the Blog I think we can all agree). AJ apparently attended this show live and was so bored by it that they actually almost fell asleep whilst watching it, which is almost impressive in a twisted kind of way.
For those of you that haven’t read one of these before, a Stinker Review is when I look at a show that has a reputation for being bad for whatever reason and deciding on whether it truly is as bad as people say it is. It could be the show features terrible wrestling, torrid booking, miserable production or all of the above. In some cases a show might not be that notorious but a reader may have it on their personal ship list, at which point I then have to decide whether I agree with them or not.
I have personally seen this one before but that was quite a while ago and I honestly remember very little about it outside of the Tag Title and World Title matches. It’s notable for being the last ever UK Special Pay Per View, as WWE decided to bring the Raw and Smackdown tapings to the UK in 2004, which ended up being a better deal for the fans, as now stuff could actually happen on the shows as it was an actual TV taping and not just a televised House Show.
I was pretty down on WWE in 2003, mainly because they just kept tripping up over themselves and the harsh realisation that they weren’t going to be able to usher in another boom period anytime soon slapped me hard in the face like a bucket of iced water. Creatively both the Raw and Smackdown brands were kind of on their arse going into this one, with a bloated and injury carrying Triple H stanking the joint out on the Raw side with a series of uninspiring feuds for his Raw Title, with this show taking part during his “exciting” rivalry with Kevin Nash.
Aside from Godruple H’s reign of terror, on the undercard Test had started an “enthralling” feud with Scott Steiner, whilst newbies La Resistance were going for Kane and RVD’s Tag Team Titles. Trish Stratus was feuding with Jazz over the Women’s belt and Christian had recently connived his way to winning the revived IC Title, screwing over Booker T in the process. Raw’s hierarchy had also had a bit of a shakeup, with Stone Cold Steve Austin being brought into be co-General Manager in an attempt to keep Heel Authority Figure Eric Bischoff in check.
So, has AJ been unduly scathing here or is Insurrextion 2003 really a full-on Stinker? Let’s watch on to find out!
