Welcome to KB’s Old School (and New School) Reviews. I’ve been reviewing wrestling shows for over ten years now and have reviewed over 5,000 shows. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I’ll be posting a new review here on Wrestlingrumors.net, starting today. It could be anything from modern WWE to old school to indies to anything in between. Note that I rate using letters instead of stars and I don’t rate matches under three minutes as really, how good or bad can something that short be?
Super Tuesday
Date: November 12, 2002
Location: FleetCenter, Boston, Massachusetts/Verizon Wireless Arena, Manchester, New Hampshire
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz
This is a one off special that aired on UPN as a way to help hype up Survivor Series. Each show taped a bonus match so we have something from both sides, though odds are neither of them are going to be anything worth watching. As unimportant as these things are, there’s nothing wrong with some bonus wrestling. Let’s get to it.
The opening sequence is a fairly catchy mix of Beautiful People and Across the Nation.
Stephanie McMahon makes her big Survivor Series announcement: the Tag Team Title match is now a triple threat with Edge/Rey Mysterio defending against Los Guerreros and Kurt Angle/Chris Benoit. She’ll hang onto the titles tonight, which is code for “this was taped before Edge and Mysterio won but airing after.”
Edge vs. Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero
Ever the smart one, Eddie hides on the floor while Benoit stomps Edge down in the corner. Edge gets in a belly to back suplex for two on Benoit, drawing Eddie in for the save. All three are in the ring for the first time with Edge beating both of them down until Eddie gets in a shot from behind to take over again.
We take a break and come back with Benoit working over both guys, only to have Edge score with a double missile dropkick. Eddie misses the Frog splash and gets taken down by the half nelson faceplant, only to have Benoit Crossface Edge. That’s not enough for Benoit so he grabs the same thing on Eddie with Edge making the save.
A spear gets two on Benoit but here’s Chavo for a distraction, leading to a ref bump. Cue Rey to take Chavo out as Benoit Crossfaces Eddie for the unseen tap. Angle runs out and throws the referee in, breaking up the hold by mistake. Benoit yells at Angle and gets rolled up as Eddie steals the pin.
Rating: B-. Good but nowhere near as good of a match as you would expect from these guys. They’re all very talented but they’re a step higher up with their partners and there’s nothing wrong with that. Guerrero winning is a good idea as he and Chavo are the only ones who haven’t won the titles yet.
Long video on Big Show vs. Brock Lesnar.
Here’s Big Show for a chat. He talks about hurting people and promises to win the title. Show wasn’t even in the ring for 70 seconds.
Video on the Elimination Chamber, the same one from Raw.
It’s time for a bikini contest between Torrie Wilson and Trish Stratus. Trish is in black, Torrie is in skin colored and Nidia is in the ring to interfere before the crowd has to win (Torrie’s cheer was louder).
Time for the Raw half, starting with the Shawn vs. HHH video from Monday. Just like Monday, the other four people in the Chamber aren’t even mentioned.
Shawn doesn’t know who is winning on Sunday but knows it won’t be HHH.
HHH/Chris Jericho/Christian/3 Minute Warning vs. Booker T./Kane/Rob Van Dam/Bubba Ray Dudley/Jeff Hardy
Thankfully a commercial eats up a lot of the entrances. Jeff and Jamal get things going with Hardy being tossed around like he’s a small guy being tossed into the air by a large Samoan. Christian and Bubba come in with the Canadian taking a hard pounding in the corner. That means it’s back to Jamal vs. Van Dam as they’re certainly not wasting time here.
Rob dropkicks him down but HHH pulls Van Dam into the corner as the heels take over for the first time. Jericho gets in a few stomps but misses a dropkick, allowing the hot tag to Kane so house can be cleaned. Kane destroys everyone, leaving seven or eight people to fight on the floor.
Chris gets the Walls on Van Dam but Booker makes the save with a superkick. That triggers the parade of finishers with Kane chokeslamming HHH but Christian makes a save. Van Dam dives onto a bunch of people, leaving Flair to hit Kane in the back with a chair. The Pedigree puts the monster away because HHH hasn’t gotten rid of him yet.
Rating: D. This was dragged down due to the amount of people involved and there’s not much of a way to fit ten people into less than nine minutes. Oh but rest assured there’s ALWAYS time for HHH to pin someone. We didn’t really have another choice either as Kane isn’t Shawn and therefore there’s no reason to have him win because he doesn’t have a chance on Sunday.
Overall Rating: D+. Pretty big waste of time here with the main event being more insulting than anything else. The opener was fine and the women looked great but anything on here could have been done on TV. It wasn’t so much bad as much as it was completely unnecessary, which is often worse. At least it was short though and you could fast forward through a lot of the recap videos.
Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. His latest book is KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews.
Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. We are proud to offer our popular Wrestling Rumors app and encourage you to download it for an optimized user experience. It is available for Android and also on iOS. Thank you for reading!