26.01.2003, 21:39
Bericht eines sehr veraegerten Canadischen Fans der HS vom 25.1.03 aus Saskatoon 
.Liesst es mal durch es ist witzig
The first sign that the crowd was small was fact that they only bothered
setting up one souvenir stand this time. Actually, I guess that was the
second sign, the first being the small number of people there. I'd put the
final attendance at somewhere around 5,000, down several thousand from
their last show in May. There are several reasons for this decreased
attendance, I figure:
- Raw sucks
- $60 tickets
- People were burned last time, thinking that because we were getting a
"Smackdown show" that meant we were getting TV
- People were burned last time because the ads promised a cage match and we
never got one
- No card was ever announced on TV or in the newspaper, and it was never
listed on WWE.com until four days before the event
- It's really freaking cold out
But anyway. At 7:30, the announcement was made that due to air travel
difficulties, the show would start at 8:15. I wasn't surprised that there
was a delay, seeing as how the TV ads had been talking about an 8:00pm start.
Finally, the show began. Tony Chimel made the standard announcements and
then asked us to stand for the national anthem. We stand. We turn to face
the flag. And wait.
"I'm being told at this time that we don't have a national anthem-" and I
didn't hear what else Chimel said as all the laughing from the crowd
drowned him out. And we're off!
THE ROUGHRIDER v. JAMIE NOBLE
The Roughrider was Brian Kendrick (Spanky) under a mask doing his gimmick
where he uses the local team name. The match was basically a one-sided
squash win for Noble, though the crowd turned against the whole thing after
a few badly blown moves. Noble won with a double underhook powerbomb.
KANYON v. BILL DeMOTT
Kanyon looked good, with new tights and a new shirt. Sadly, the match was a
one-sided squash for DeMott, who won with a sitout powerbomb.
It's worth mentioning the row of drunks behind us. In the first match they
LOVED Noble. This time, they loved DeMott, whom they called Billy.
BILLY KIDMAN © v. NUNZIO for the WWE Cruiserweight title
The one-sided squashes continue, as Kidman picks up the win in short order
with a version of D'Lo's Sky Hi powerbomb. The drunks were trying to do
straight play-by-play for this one, but lost it when one guy started going
off on a tangent about how Billy Kidman would have to go home and look
himself in the mirror and decide whether or not he really wanted to be the
cruiserweight champion or if he wanted to step it up and challenge the
heavyweights. This was much funnier than I'm making it sound.
NATHAN JONES v. MATT HARDY VERSION ONE
This was billed on WWE.com as Jones' WWE debut. It could be his first match since signing his WWE contract. Anyway, awesome Matt Hardy who is awesome came out and ran
down Saskatoon, hilariously mispronouncing it in the process. Then out came
Nathan Jones who is freaking big, and he whooped Matt, and Matt tried to
fight back but really didn't, and then Jones gave him a big boot and that
was it. No sign of Shannon Moore, sadly.
RIKISHI v. CHUCK PALUMBO in a Kiss My Ass match
Squash number five, as Rikishi whoops Palumbo, winning with a Rump Shaker.
After the match, Palumbo bails out, but returns for the ass-kissing after
the referee threatens a $5,000 fine. Palumbo, of course, low-blows Rikishi,
then hikes up his own shorts to deliver a Stinkface, but SHOCKINGLY Rikishi
turns the tables and delivers a Stinkface of his own. Correspondingly, this
match also stunk. The crowd loved Rikishi, though.
TORRIE WILSON & GAIL KIM v. DAWN MARIE WILSON & NIDIA
About what you'd expect from Torrie and Dawn Marie. Nidia and Gail proved
they knew a few wrestling moves. Torrie won with a swinging neckbreaker
over Dawn Marie. Lotsa hootin' and hollerin' from the menfolk in
attendance. Not a bad match or anything.
LOS GUERREROS © v. TEAM ANGLE for the WWE Tag Team titles
Easy match of the night winner. The awesomeness starts when Tony Chimel
introduces Team Angle, and their music fails to play. There's much waiting
around while everyone yells "WE WANT THE FINK" at Chimel. He got that all
night, actually. Anyway, finally Team Angle shows up sans music, so the
drunks behind us sing it for them:
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
And so on. The Guerreros got a big pop and massive Eddie chants. He seemed
surprised by it.
It was a great match that ended when Benjamin brought a title belt into the
ring and tried to use it. He dropped it, but Chavo got it. As the ref was
distracted trying to get the belt away from Chavo, Eddie KOed Charlie Haas
with the other belt, then tossed it to Benjamin and feigned injury. The
crowd loved it. Chavo clotheslined Benjamin to the floor and Eddie hit the
frogsplash on Haas for the win. After the match, Team Angle roughed up
Chimel until he announced that Team Angle had won by DQ. Then they roughed
him up some more.
INTERMISSION
Let me take this time to introduce you to the cast of characters. You
already know about the drunks behind us and the slut at ringside. There was
also a large number of goth girls (by which I mean fat girls) who were
madly in love with the Hardy Boyz. One of them had a hand-made t-shirt
depicting the Hardyz as anime characters. This was hilarious. Another of
these girls - sadly without the handmade shirt - sat right in front of me.
To her left was the Internet Smart Mark Douchebag. He was a wealth of
information. He had this great gimmick where a wrestler would come out,
right, and this guy would shout out the wrestler's OLD NAME. During the
Roughrider's match, we heard "KICK HIS ASS SPANKY!" Kanyon was subjected to
"KICK HIS ASS MORTIS!" This NEVER got tired. He also screamed
"ROUUUUUUGEAUUUUUUS" during a Guerreros doubleteam move, then turned to the
little kid next to him and said "you're too young to know."
The little kid wore a Hurricane mask and a Hurricane cape and waved a
Mysterio foam mask thing and cheered for the Guerreros who he called "my
homies." I liked the kid.
REY MYSTERIO & NOVA v. JOHN CENA & REDD DOGG
Cena rapped about the Sasquatches from Saskatchewan. "One a scale of one to
ten, I give y'all a ten/If ten means your women all look like men." I tried
recording this, but it all came out unintelligible.
Mysterio got a huge pop and people reacted great to all his big moves. He
won with a (619) followed by a springboard legdrop onto Dogg. After the
match, Cena got a (619) as well.
CHRIS BENOIT v. A-TRAIN in a Canada v. US Challenge
Benoit got the biggest reaction of the night, a real superstar's ovation.
The match was decent as far as matches go, awesome as far as A-Train
matches go. Benoit won clean after reversing a Baldobomb attempt into the
Crossface.
KURT ANGLE © v. EDGE for the WWE title
Paul Heyman came out first and ran down Canada. Then came Angle - they
found his music, by the way - who received the biggest heel reaction of the
night. The match was good, although short. The ref got bumped (for the
first and only time of the night) and Edge hit an Edge-O-Matic for an
apparent three. He picked up Kurt and landed an Edgecution, still no ref.
Edge fought off interference from Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin. Spear,
long wait, one, two, kickout. Angle hit the Angle Slam for the three soon
after. Afterwards, the three beat down Edge until Benoit made the save to
clear the ring.
credit an James Kalyn
.Liesst es mal durch es ist witzigThe first sign that the crowd was small was fact that they only bothered
setting up one souvenir stand this time. Actually, I guess that was the
second sign, the first being the small number of people there. I'd put the
final attendance at somewhere around 5,000, down several thousand from
their last show in May. There are several reasons for this decreased
attendance, I figure:
- Raw sucks
- $60 tickets
- People were burned last time, thinking that because we were getting a
"Smackdown show" that meant we were getting TV
- People were burned last time because the ads promised a cage match and we
never got one
- No card was ever announced on TV or in the newspaper, and it was never
listed on WWE.com until four days before the event
- It's really freaking cold out
But anyway. At 7:30, the announcement was made that due to air travel
difficulties, the show would start at 8:15. I wasn't surprised that there
was a delay, seeing as how the TV ads had been talking about an 8:00pm start.
Finally, the show began. Tony Chimel made the standard announcements and
then asked us to stand for the national anthem. We stand. We turn to face
the flag. And wait.
"I'm being told at this time that we don't have a national anthem-" and I
didn't hear what else Chimel said as all the laughing from the crowd
drowned him out. And we're off!
THE ROUGHRIDER v. JAMIE NOBLE
The Roughrider was Brian Kendrick (Spanky) under a mask doing his gimmick
where he uses the local team name. The match was basically a one-sided
squash win for Noble, though the crowd turned against the whole thing after
a few badly blown moves. Noble won with a double underhook powerbomb.
KANYON v. BILL DeMOTT
Kanyon looked good, with new tights and a new shirt. Sadly, the match was a
one-sided squash for DeMott, who won with a sitout powerbomb.
It's worth mentioning the row of drunks behind us. In the first match they
LOVED Noble. This time, they loved DeMott, whom they called Billy.
BILLY KIDMAN © v. NUNZIO for the WWE Cruiserweight title
The one-sided squashes continue, as Kidman picks up the win in short order
with a version of D'Lo's Sky Hi powerbomb. The drunks were trying to do
straight play-by-play for this one, but lost it when one guy started going
off on a tangent about how Billy Kidman would have to go home and look
himself in the mirror and decide whether or not he really wanted to be the
cruiserweight champion or if he wanted to step it up and challenge the
heavyweights. This was much funnier than I'm making it sound.
NATHAN JONES v. MATT HARDY VERSION ONE
This was billed on WWE.com as Jones' WWE debut. It could be his first match since signing his WWE contract. Anyway, awesome Matt Hardy who is awesome came out and ran
down Saskatoon, hilariously mispronouncing it in the process. Then out came
Nathan Jones who is freaking big, and he whooped Matt, and Matt tried to
fight back but really didn't, and then Jones gave him a big boot and that
was it. No sign of Shannon Moore, sadly.
RIKISHI v. CHUCK PALUMBO in a Kiss My Ass match
Squash number five, as Rikishi whoops Palumbo, winning with a Rump Shaker.
After the match, Palumbo bails out, but returns for the ass-kissing after
the referee threatens a $5,000 fine. Palumbo, of course, low-blows Rikishi,
then hikes up his own shorts to deliver a Stinkface, but SHOCKINGLY Rikishi
turns the tables and delivers a Stinkface of his own. Correspondingly, this
match also stunk. The crowd loved Rikishi, though.
TORRIE WILSON & GAIL KIM v. DAWN MARIE WILSON & NIDIA
About what you'd expect from Torrie and Dawn Marie. Nidia and Gail proved
they knew a few wrestling moves. Torrie won with a swinging neckbreaker
over Dawn Marie. Lotsa hootin' and hollerin' from the menfolk in
attendance. Not a bad match or anything.
LOS GUERREROS © v. TEAM ANGLE for the WWE Tag Team titles
Easy match of the night winner. The awesomeness starts when Tony Chimel
introduces Team Angle, and their music fails to play. There's much waiting
around while everyone yells "WE WANT THE FINK" at Chimel. He got that all
night, actually. Anyway, finally Team Angle shows up sans music, so the
drunks behind us sing it for them:
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
"da da da da da"
"YOU SUCK"
And so on. The Guerreros got a big pop and massive Eddie chants. He seemed
surprised by it.
It was a great match that ended when Benjamin brought a title belt into the
ring and tried to use it. He dropped it, but Chavo got it. As the ref was
distracted trying to get the belt away from Chavo, Eddie KOed Charlie Haas
with the other belt, then tossed it to Benjamin and feigned injury. The
crowd loved it. Chavo clotheslined Benjamin to the floor and Eddie hit the
frogsplash on Haas for the win. After the match, Team Angle roughed up
Chimel until he announced that Team Angle had won by DQ. Then they roughed
him up some more.
INTERMISSION
Let me take this time to introduce you to the cast of characters. You
already know about the drunks behind us and the slut at ringside. There was
also a large number of goth girls (by which I mean fat girls) who were
madly in love with the Hardy Boyz. One of them had a hand-made t-shirt
depicting the Hardyz as anime characters. This was hilarious. Another of
these girls - sadly without the handmade shirt - sat right in front of me.
To her left was the Internet Smart Mark Douchebag. He was a wealth of
information. He had this great gimmick where a wrestler would come out,
right, and this guy would shout out the wrestler's OLD NAME. During the
Roughrider's match, we heard "KICK HIS ASS SPANKY!" Kanyon was subjected to
"KICK HIS ASS MORTIS!" This NEVER got tired. He also screamed
"ROUUUUUUGEAUUUUUUS" during a Guerreros doubleteam move, then turned to the
little kid next to him and said "you're too young to know."
The little kid wore a Hurricane mask and a Hurricane cape and waved a
Mysterio foam mask thing and cheered for the Guerreros who he called "my
homies." I liked the kid.
REY MYSTERIO & NOVA v. JOHN CENA & REDD DOGG
Cena rapped about the Sasquatches from Saskatchewan. "One a scale of one to
ten, I give y'all a ten/If ten means your women all look like men." I tried
recording this, but it all came out unintelligible.
Mysterio got a huge pop and people reacted great to all his big moves. He
won with a (619) followed by a springboard legdrop onto Dogg. After the
match, Cena got a (619) as well.
CHRIS BENOIT v. A-TRAIN in a Canada v. US Challenge
Benoit got the biggest reaction of the night, a real superstar's ovation.
The match was decent as far as matches go, awesome as far as A-Train
matches go. Benoit won clean after reversing a Baldobomb attempt into the
Crossface.
KURT ANGLE © v. EDGE for the WWE title
Paul Heyman came out first and ran down Canada. Then came Angle - they
found his music, by the way - who received the biggest heel reaction of the
night. The match was good, although short. The ref got bumped (for the
first and only time of the night) and Edge hit an Edge-O-Matic for an
apparent three. He picked up Kurt and landed an Edgecution, still no ref.
Edge fought off interference from Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin. Spear,
long wait, one, two, kickout. Angle hit the Angle Slam for the three soon
after. Afterwards, the three beat down Edge until Benoit made the save to
clear the ring.
credit an James Kalyn