| From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com Aaron Wood
So,
this website has weekly articles covering Ring of Honor and TNA. That
was just a level of bias against WWE I couldn't stand any more. Until
James pointed out that we do have articles on RAW, NXT, Smackdown and
PPV. But still I thought there should be a weekly column on the WWE.
But while I couldn't do this particular week in WWE in the year of
our lord, 2010, I thought I sure as hell could do this week over the
last however many years in WWE history! SEPTEMBER 3rd Just one event sticks out in WWE history on this day, oddly enough, that being Monday Night RAW in 2001 as the Invasion angle was in full swing with the Alliance vs. the WWE. One the Alliance side was Steve Austin and on the WWE's side was Kurt Angle, at this point. The previous week, Austin had taken Kurt Angle's Olympic medals and thrown them off a bridge. Stephanie had a surprise for Austin this week, which was a brand new truck. However, after inspecting his new truck, Austin was attacked by Angle and kidnapped by the "It's Real, It's Damned Real" guy. After threatening to throw Austin off of a bridge, Angle humiliated the blindfolded Austin, and coerced him into giving Angle a WWE Title match, with Angle choosing to get it at Unforgiven in his home city of Pittsburgh. Angle then sent Austin into the water... ...of a kid's paddling pool he had set up on the road before driving off in the truck. SEPTEMBER 4th This day ended up being a rather monumental day in wrestling history, as WCW Monday Nitro made it's debut from the Mall Of America in Minnesota, running unopposed against RAW (who were pre-emptied from US Open Tennis), igniting the Monday Night War that would last until March 2001. This debut show was highlighted by Lex Luger's shocking defection to WCW while Ric Flair wrestled Sting. That show was, however, main evented by Hulk Hogan and Big Bubba Rogers, who was the late, great Big Boss Man. The Monday Night Wars celebrated their fifth birthday on this day in 2000, as both companies ran on Monday night. The WWE show was headlined by Edge & Christian retaining the titles against the WWE Champion, The Rock and The Undertaker. However, this show was highlighted by an Intercontinental Title change as Eddie Guerrero won the title from his Mamacita, Chyna. What happened was that in the match, which was a three-way with Kurt Angle, Angle hit Chyna with the belt and ran away. Eddie chased him off and then came back to check on Chyna, and while he was cradling her, the referee counted the three while he had her on the mat, and Eddie became the champion. Also on the show, Kane seemingly became No. 1 Contender to The Rock's title when he beat Chris Benoit by DQ. However, as I'm sure we'll get to at some point, it didn't stay that way. And on the bill as well that night, Chris Jericho & Jerry Lawler beat the team of Tazz and Naked Mideon... Yeah. there was a time when Mideon, a disciple of The Ministry Of Darkness, decided to wear nothing not a posing pouch and do this a lot...  For the matter of record, the WCW Nitro that ran against this show featured the (in)famous WarGames 2000 match, which saw Kevin Nash retain his WCW World Title with Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner and Vince Russo on his team against the team of Sting, Goldberg, Booker T and both members of Kronik. So, it was a 5 on 4 match that disadvantaged the heel champion, Nash, who had Russo on his team, who Nash was actually pissed off with since Russo had made the match a title match. Also, the cage for this match was the "Ready To Rumble" Triple Decker cage, not the 2 ring cage of other Wargames matches. The babyface side was originally announced as Sting, Booker T, Goldberg & Ernest "The Cat" Miller, but Russo, trying to screw with them, put the four in qualifying matches. Booker, Sting and Goldberg (beating Stevie Ray, Great Muta & Vampiro in a handicap match and Shane Douglas respectively) won their matches. However, Miller was put in against Kronik in a handicap match that favoured Adams and Clark, and indeed, they won. Not going to do full PBP for the match, but the idea was that you had to grab the belt at the top of the third cage and make it back to the floor, and out of the bottom cage's door. It was also a free for all, despite the nature of there being teams. Sting & Jarrett started with the heels getting the advantage numbers-wise, with Steiner being the next man out. Kronik appeared together, but Russo came out next in a hockey helmet to protect himself (thanks to concussions he was getting from all his physical involvement) as well as The Harris Brothers to neutralise Kronik as both teams ended up brawling through the crowd. When Nash came out, he threatened his whole team, but ultimately did no harm since they wasted so much time, Booker T came out for action. Goldberg was last out, but almost immediately handcuffed to the ropes by Russo as part of an angle where Bill wanted to kick Russo's ass but couldn't lay his hands on him. Things headed upwards. Sting was soon handcuffed to the second cage, essentially making it Russo, Nash, Jarrett & Steiner vs. Booker, since the other babyfaces were in some way neutralised. That said, Nash was doing literally nothing other than waiting at the bottom of the structure since the action would have to pass by him anyway. Lazy sod. Booker got to the belt first. However, he was taken out in the middle level by Steiner and Jarrett. Steiner dropped the belt to the ring as he went to climb down, and it was picked up by Russo. However, Ernest Miller ran in and kicked Russo in the head (with his helmet on). After Nash dealt with Miller, Goldberg suddenly found he was able to easily break the handcuffs off. He kicked Nash down and went to win. However, Bret Hart rammed the cage door into Goldberg. Russo now had the belt and was about to win. Remember what I said earlier about Nash being mightily pissed at Russo for making such a match and putting his WCW Title on the line, and indeed how Nash had Russo literally in position for a chokeslam? Well, this was his chance to get his hands on Russo as he got in Vinny Ru's face. But Vince Russo being Vince Russo, it won't surprise at the least to learn that this was a !SWERVE!, as Nash hugged Russo and the entire heel team left together to win the match. For the record, RAW did a 4.22 and Nitro did a 3.62. Also on this day, there was the rarest of shows. A LIVE episode of Smackdown, which took place in 2001, on a Tuesday night. Not sure why. I mean, the following week, I get, for obvious reasons we'll get to in a week or so, but this one? Dunno. Anyway, it was headlined by Rob Van Dam beating Steve Austin in an Alliance vs. Alliance match when Kurt Angle's entrance distracted Austin, as the build continued to Unforgiven, since, as you read earlier, this was the night after Austin had been abducted by Angle. This match was set up, as you fine readers might remember when Austin, looking to prove his manhood said he'd fight the next person to come through his door, which ended up being RVD. Beyond that, the only other overly-notable thing about the show was the WWE debut of the WCW tag team Kronik, as they attacked The Undertaker after he had defeated Steven Richards, leading to their entirely short-lived run with the company. SEPTEMBER 5th Just some WWE TV shows on this day, but nonetheless, some pretty funky stuff happened on those shows. Starting with the RAW that aired in 2005. This show was headlined by HBK taking part in a Masterlock Challenge. Remember those? Well, HBK looked like he was about to break it when Masters let him go, beat him up a bit and then re-applied it, having to be pulled off as the show ended. The main angle for the show saw build to Cena vs. Angle at that year's Unforgiven, with the insertion of Tyson Tomko into the mix as something of a back up for Angle, as he attacked Cena when Cena went to make the save for Eugene, who was in Angle's ankle lock. Cena & Tomko later wrestled, a match that Cena won only for Angle to attack him after and hit an Angle Slam on the stage. Also on the show builds for Unforgiven continued between the recently returned Matt Hardy and Edge while Carlito and Ric Flair feuded over the IC Title. Just as a note on that night, in the pre-RAW matches, we had Mike "The Miz" Mizanin teaming with the man who is now Caylen Croft taking on the guy who ended up as Kizarny and someone who I can't seem to find the name of. Meanwhile, on Heat, Danny Basham defeated Nigel "Desmond Wolfe" McGuinness. We also have 2 Smackdown's on this day. The first, in 2002, wasn't so much notable for what happened at the end of the show (Undertaker, Rikishi & Edge beating Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit), or indeed that Batista finally broke away from Brother D-Von beating him in fairly short order. Or that after Brock Lesnar rather easily beat a young Randy Orton, they started what was a fairly creepy angle with Undertaker that involved the pregnant Sara. No, what made this show notable was what happened after the first match as Rey Mysterio beat Billy Gunn. Because, as you may have just guessed, after this losing effort, Chuck Palumbo got down on one knee and asked Billy to be his partner for life! Stephanie set the "Commitment ceremony" for the following week, and Rico said we wouldn't believe our eyes when we saw it. So back to that one next week... Meanwhile, the 2008 Sept. 5th show largely featured build towards the Smackdown Scramble match due to take place at Unforgiven. The five involved paired off as !THE! Brian Kendrick beat Jeff Hardy and Shelton Benjamin beat MVP with Khali making up the sixth person and losing to HHH. Elsewhere on this show, Super Crazy won his second match in the same week, beating Ryan Braddock on this occasion, having beaten Gavin Spears on ECW earlier in the week. The only other notable occurrence that took place on this show was that Vickie suspended Big Show and demanded an apology from The Undertaker after, if you recall, she had banished him for using the Gogoplata and tried to apologise, but he didn't accept it. But we'll get to what happened there in time... If you want to read my review of the 2008 Smackdown, click the link below: Aaron's UnReal Time Smackdown Review: The Scramble Guys (& Khali) Mix It Up... Finally, DX defeated Big Show by DQ. Nothing too bizarre about that. Except that this match took place on ECW. Yep, Triple "I don't want to work Smackdown because I don't want to work on Tuesdays" H and Shawn "You have shows on Tuesdays?" Michaels worked on a Tuesday Even funnier, Bob Holly caused the DQ and he was joined by Heyman's "Riot Squad" who were the Basham Brothers in costume, and those three beat on DX for a bit until HHH could chase them off with the sledgehammer. I mean, hey, let's face it, you may not think of DX vs. Big Show as a typical ECW match, but with as many run-ins and overbooking, it seems like a classic to me! As it goes, that ECW had it's moments elsewhere, for this was the show that saw CM Punk call Shannon Moore a poseur. This was the show that saw Matt Striker make a joke about Steve Irwin's death only days after it happened. And probably most famously, this was the show that saw Ariel give Joey Styles a lap dance! If only I could find that video on YouTube... But alas, I cannot. So, that was this week in WWE history, but how can I do a historical column every week and not reference what the WWE has aired from history this week. That's right, I'm re-claiming Vintage Collection! Mean Gene's coming home! Alongside what has happened in each actual week, I'll be taking a brief look and seeing what Vintage Collection airs that week too. Wherever possible, I'll post any of the matches or segments I can lay my hands on. Vintage Collection #118 Gene introduces the show, noting we'd be continuing the "Champions" theme we started last week, albeit we'd be taking a look at how some champions got started. Case in Point, the first match as the "Taskmaster" Kevin Sullivan faced on WCW Pro in January of 1996 some guy named Damon Striker?!?!?! Well, in case you didn't know, Striker was not the brother of the Smackdown colour announcer. He was a guy who would later be The Rated-R Superstar, Edge. The match barely lasted a minute, if that. Sullivan attacked immediately, threw Edge out where he was chokeslammed on the floor by The "Big Show" Giant, tossed back in and given a weak looking, but possibly still sore double foot stomp by Sullivan for the pin. Next up was a match from WWE Superstars from September 1996, it was a showcase of 2 champions, one from that time, and one who would be champion in the future, as the then champion, Shawn Michaels took on a newcomer by the name Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw, better known, as you might guess, as JBL. 12 years after this, JBL would end up "owning" Michaels, but this was their first ever encounter. This one featured a clip from Livewire when it was a call-in show with Todd Pettengill and Jim Cornette as a caller was trying to be smart and ask about the nWo coming in and taking over, with Todd chewing the caller out (in the blandest terms possible) for it. Another plot point to the match was the commentary of Jim Ross, who for whatever reason had taken against Vince McMahon, most notably calling the Billionaire Ted skits lame because Turner was more successful than Vince was. This was all part of the heel turn JR took in September of 1996, with JR promising to bring in the Outsiders, which ended up with the famous Fake Diesel & Fake Razor Ramon angle. As for the match, Bradshaw took control of the match and worked HBK over. HBK made a comeback when Dutch Mantel (as Uncle Zebekiah) grabbed him, but HBK moved out of the way of Bradshaw's charge. From there it was HBK's usual offence finishing with the Sweet Chin Music to end it. Next match was from WCW Worldwide in 1991 as WCW TV Champion, "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton took on "Stunning" Steve Austin. It's always weird not just seeing Austin with hair, but indeed a big ol' ponytail. This match was only weeks after Austin's WCW debut. the pair had a pretty good match with the finish seeing Eaton hit the Alabama Jam (that being the leg drop off the top), only to draw in Lady Blossom, Austin's manager. After Eaton tossed the referee aside, Lady Blossom scratched at Eaton's eyes and Austin rolled Eaton up to take the title. Eaton only had the title for a fortnight while Austin would go on to hold the title for the best part of a year. We moved onto Sid Justice vs. a guy called El Diablo from Superstars in October of 1991. El Diablo was a guy with a red mask and dark pink karate gi. This was one of Sid's first in-ring appearances for the WWE as he was getting set to captain a team against Jake Roberts at the upcoming Survivor Series. Essentially this wasn't a match, but and angle, as The Undertaker & Paul Bearer came out and paid off El Diablo to go away so Taker could have at it with sid. However, when Sid got the upper hand, El Diablo returned, revealing himself to be Jake Roberts. The heels subdued Sid in the ropes and Jake pulled out not his regular serpentine companion, but a rather feisty King Cobra. Thankfully for Sid however, Duggan ended up making a save. The main event for this week's Vintage Collection saw as Mean Gene called him "The greatest champion of the past decade", Triple H and his beginnings. This was from WCW Saturday Night in 1994 where he took on Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat under the name of Jean Paul Levesque. Well, Okerlund said "Jean Pierre Levesque", but look it up. It was Paul. Pierre does make more sense with the French aristocrat gimmick however. And at least he wasn't Terra Ryzing. This one was interesting, given the time period, since HHH was obviously younger and slenderer than he is today, so this one started with amateur moves and athleticism early. HHH took over things when Steamboat missed a charge to the corner and hit the ringpost, injuring the shoulder, giving HHH a point of attack. HHH locked on an armbar looking for the submission, but Steamboat didn't give up, so Hunter released it, but continued to work on the arm. However, as HHH went for a hammerlock slam, Steamboat held onto him and rolled it through for the surprise cradle pin and three count. HHH went after Steamboat and the shoulder again before tossing him outside and whipping Steamboat into the ringpost. HHH then jaw-jacked with the kids in the audience trying to do his best French accent. But that was it for Mean Gene, as he continued to lay the platitudes on HHH, calling him "Arguably the greatest champion of his generation" and while they were humble beginnings for all the future champions, but everyone had to start somewhere. And that's it for this first week of "This Week In WWE...History". Don't forget to check out the YouTube player for as many clips of the Vintage Collection matches that are possible to find, and if you have any other memories or want to talk about the ones I've already mentioned, don't forget to make a comment in the comments section, but until next week, I'll be seeing you! © Copyright by WorldWrestlingInsanity.com WorldWrestlingInsanity.com is not
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