WWE — page 83

In this book, I look back at the title’s history by looking at over 285 matches, all of which are for the WWE Championship. These matches range from the first ever title change all the way to the most recent title change in November 2017. There are matches from pay per views, house shows, TV shows and more with every WWE Champion in history covered.

This book was originally released in 2013 but a few things have changed since then. I’ve gone through and updated a few matches which were poorly written in the first place and redone and/or added nearly seventy matches. Also added are brief thoughts and a few stats on each champion, summing up their time with the title. It’s also better organized and just a better overall presentation this time around.

The book runs just shy of 500 pages and is available on Amazon both in a physical paperback for $12.99 or an e-book format (which has ALSO been updated) for $2.99. In case you don’t have a Kindle, there are plenty of FREE apps you can get from Amazon for pretty much any electronic device, all of which are available at this link.

You can pick up the book from Amazon here.

And From the UK Amazon here.

Or if you’re in another country with its own Amazon page, just search “KB WWE Championship” and it should be the first thing to come up.

Also you can still get any of my previous books on the Intercontinental Championship, Monday Night Raw from 1997, 1998, 2001 and the first half of 2014, Monday Nitro from 1995-1999, In Your House, Summerslam, Starrcade, ECW Pay Per Views, Royal Rumble, Saturday Night’s Main Event, the WWF and WCW pay per views from 1998, Wrestlemania, WWE Grab Bag and Clash of the Champions at my author’s page here.

I hope you like it and shoot me any questions you might have.

Thomas Hall

Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 98

– Live from San Jose, CA

– Your hosts are JR & The King

Netcop Retro Rant for Royal Rumble 99

(2018 Scott Sez:  I would have SWORN on a stack of bibles that I did a more recent version of this one because I distinctly remember rewatching this shitstain of a Rumble much more recently than this was written.  It’s from the Wrestleline era, so it was done sometime around 99-2000 and is probably due to be redone, but fuck off if you think I’m sitting through that Rumble match and Foley’s head trauma again.) 

– Live from Anaheim, California, home of Ducks and stuff.

– Your hosts are Michael Cole the Little Goatee-Wearing Bitch and Jerry Lawler.

Monday Night Raw
Date: August 25, 2003
Location: Convention Center, Tuscon, Arizona
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s the night after Summerslam and HAHA HHH is still World Champion thanks to a sledgehammer to Goldberg’s head. That’s pretty much all we have on the less important story, but we do have Shane McMahon still wanting to fight Kane. Now though, Eric Bischoff has the Coach as his backup, which was arguably the second biggest Raw story coming out of last night’s show. Let’s get to it.

Smackdown
Date: January 23, 2018
Location: Capitol One Arena, Washington DC
Commentators: Corey Graves, Byron Saxton, Tom Phillips

It’s the night after the Monday Night Raw 25^th Anniversary so now we need to bring things back down to earth a bit. This time around though it’s also the go home show for the Royal Rumble and we need to get things ready. There’s also the issue of Enzo Amore, who Daniel Bryan will address for some reason. Let’s get to it.

Monday Night Raw 25^th Anniversary
Date: January 22, 2018
Location: Manhattan Center, New York City, New York/Barclays Center, New York City, New York
Commentators: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, Booker T., Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Now this is a big night with the show having been build up for several months and a slew of guest stars booked for the night. The show is also being run from two arenas, including the location of the first ever episode. I’m more excited for this than I am for Sunday’s Royal Rumble so let’s get to it.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2003

– Live from Boston, which rhymes with Austin. Is this a sign of his impending return? STAY TUNED!  (Well, yeah, kinda.) 

– Your hosts are JR & King & Cole & Tazz.

The SmarK Rant for Royal Rumble 2004

– Live from Philly.

– Your hosts are JR, King, Coach, Cole & Tazz in various combinations.

Summerslam 2003
Date: August 24, 2003
Location: America West Arena, Phoenix, Arizona
Attendance: 16,113
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz

It’s one of the biggest shows of the year and I can’t bring myself to get excited over it. This show really hasn’t been built up very well with only the Smackdown World Title match with Kurt Angle defending against Brock Lesnar offering much interest. The rest of the show feels very flat, especially the Raw World Title match which should have been Goldberg vs. HHH. Let’s get to it.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2005

– Live from Fresno, CA.

– Your hosts are JR, King, Cole and Tazz.

The SmarK Retro Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2006

– Live from Miami, FL.

– Your hosts are Joey & King & Tazz & Cole

(Eh, not my favorite rant.  Probably could have stood to be redone and I was apparently in a bad mood when I wrote this one.) 

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2007

– Live from San Antonio, TX

– Your hosts are Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, JBL, Joey Styles & Tazz.

Monday Night Raw
Date: August 18, 2003
Location: Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

It’s the go home show for Summerslam and the big story continues to be Kane, who is seemingly ready to squash Rob Van Dam, and his feud with Shane McMahon. That’s not it for Shane though as he’s in another feud with Eric Bischoff. Oh and there’s something about an Elimination Chamber match which hasn’t exactly gotten a ton of time. Let’s get to it.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2008

– Live, in HD, from Madison Square Garden. This rant will also be presented in widescreen, so adjust your margins to 100 columns to match.

– Your hosts are Michael Cole and The Coach and Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler and Joey Styles and Tazz.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Summerslam 2006 – 08.20.06

(Originally written 01.16.18)

Live from Boston, MA, drawing 16,000 people and doing 540,000 buys (down from the year before by about 100K and really the start of the big downward plunge for the show’s buyrate until the Network killed off PPV for good.)

Your hosts are Michael Cole & JBL, Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler, and Joey Styles & Tazz

Smackdown
Date: January 16, 2018
Location: Laredo Energy Arena, Laredo, Texas
Commentators: Corey Graves, Tom Phillips, Byron Saxton

Please be better. The last few weeks haven’t been kind to Smackdown and I really could use a good episode to change things up a bit. The problem continues to be Daniel Bryan vs. Shane McMahon, which has dominated the show so strongly that it’s taking away from a lot of the other stories. Hopefully that starts to change tonight. Let’s get to it.

(It’s kind of funny that I did a “Scott Sez” version of this one six years ago, and now I’ve pretty much gotta go through and redo it because a bunch of stuff is out of date.) 

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2009

– Live from Detroit, MI

– Your hosts are Cole, JR, Tazz, King, Grisham and Matt Striker.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2010

– Live from Atlanta, GA.

– Your hosts are Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler and Matt Striker.

The SmarK Rant for WWE Royal Rumble 2011

Originally written April 2014.

I’ve had requests for a Royal Rumble Kindle book, but this is the one show I’m missing. So here it is! I wasn’t even watching the product at the time, so this is basically all new to me aside from knowing who the winner was. My exposure was limited to WWE sending me DVDs to review, and otherwise I was exclusively watching Classics on Demand for my fix. I barely even remember who the champions were or what the issues were, so I’m kind of looking forward to going in blind!

Live from Boston, MA

Your hosts are Michael Cole, Matt Striker and Jerry Lawler.

Smackdown
Date: August 14, 2003
Location: Savvis Center, St. Louis, Missouri
Commentators: Michael Cole, Tazz

We’re in a new era around here as Brock Lesnar has turned heel again, this time siding with Vince McMahon against Smackdown World Champion Kurt Angle. You can pretty much guarantee the Summerslam title match now, but it does beg the question of why Vince refused to give Lesnar a title shot in the first place. Either this plan came together in the span of a week or there’s a bit of a lack of logic there. Let’s get to it.