RATING LEVELS:
Curt Hennig – A “GOAT” show, as Perfect as possible
Watch It – A consistently good show worth watching in its entirety
Watch It…With Remote in Hand – 3 or more above-average ratings
High Risk Maneuver – Mostly filler, inessential, but 1-2 good matches
DUDleyville – Zero redeeming qualities, chore to watch
WWF Insurrextion - May 2002
London, England
CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, Hulk Hogan is the WWE World Champion, Eddie Guerrero is the Intercontinental Champion, the Women's Champion is Jazz, the Hardcore Champion is Stevie Richards, and the Cruiserweight Champion is Tajiri (though he would not appear on the card). The Tag Team Champions at the time were Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo.
COMMENTATORS: Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler
"Latino Heat" Eddie Guerrero heads out first for tonight's opening contest, defending his Intercontinental Championship against the former title holder, Rob Van Dam. From the very start Guerrero and RVD work an extremely fast pace and busting out some of their signature offense, keeping the rowdy crowd fully engaged for every counter, nearfall, and high spot. RVD gets the immense cheers that makes it perfectly believable that, according to Court Bauer, he was once pencilled in to take the World Championship after the brand split later that year. Eddie does a nice job of maintaing control as the heel, drawing a loud "Eddie Sucks" chant from the crowd. Eddie's use of submissions is quite good as well here as he logically targets Van Dam's legs, locking in various grapevines but also connecting with some lightning-quick dropkicks to his opponent's knees. Van Dam's desperation superkick is excellent, but from here, one really wishes RVD would've spent even a little bit more time selling the damage to his leg once he takes control. The ending is a cop-out, but it at least features one of the coolest maneuevers I've ever seen Rob Van Dam pull off - a pop-up into a dropkick to the jaw that I'm not sure I've seen him execute many times prior or after. Fun opener that would've been even better with a real finish. (3/5)
Backstage, Terri Runnels is with Women's Champion Jazz and Molly Holly. The segment ends with Terri revealing her bra, which would earn a bonus point if I was 12.
Trish Stratus and Jacqueline arrive to take on Jazz and Molly Holly. I really enjoyed watching Holly on "Table For 3," but that didn't necessarily have me psyched for this bout. Surprisingly, it is fairly solid - Trish is probably the worst worker of the bunch, but she's more over than any diva on the current roster. While I'd argue that today's divas are more creative and athletically gifted, the competitors in this bout get the simple stuff right and hit their spots with gusto and confidence that today's talents often seem to lack. Then again, wrestling in front of a rabid crowd that isn't treating you as a bathroom break probably boosts your spirits more than trying to engage a dead audience. (2.5/5)
Backstage, X-Pac is hanging out with Scott Hall, practing his nunchuck skills for some reason.
Bradshaw vs. X-Pac is next as Jim Ross plays up their rivalry. As I noted in my review of WWE Backlash 2002, the New World Order are laughably low-tier by this point, feuding with one-half (not even BOTH halves) of the Acolytes when, just a few months earlier, they were being booked as the top heel group in the company. This match starts off rather unimpressively, but one has to give credit to Bradshaw, who ends up getting a fair bit of color to get this match over. There are all sorts of hiccups in this one, but neither guy gives up or half-asses anything, putting more passion and energy into this match than it probably deserved. (3/5)
The Hardcore Championship is on the line next, with Stevie Richards defending against Booker T. Stevie Richards' WWE run has always been an interesting thing to me - here's a guy who got over in ECW with a loudmouth, weasely sidekick gimmick based entirely on his personality, but once he got "the call up" was made to be a rather generic worker, especially after the Right To Censor gimmick. Granted, Richards was a so-so worker at best, never one to be confused with the exciting hardcore guys like Sabu or Van Dam, the spectacular technicians like Guerrero or Malenko, or the violent bad asses like New Jack or Sandman. This match is hardly one for his Best Of DVD as the crowd is quieter here than at any previous moment in the show. The use of weapons is relatively tame as the hardest-hitting spot of the night might actually be a botched back body drop over the top where Booker hits his lower back against the ring apron. As the match wears on, Richards gets to show off some respectable resiliency, Booker T doing a very solid job of making the Hardcore Champion look more credible here than I think he'd looked in any other match in his WWE run. Crash Holly, Justin Credible, Jazz, and Tommy Dreamer all make appearances in the "post-match," though the 24 Hour Defense rule means that everytime you think you've seen a resolution, another twist waits around the corner. Like the previous match, the "meat" of this one is surprisingly stronger than it would seem on paper, these two showing off more chemistry than one would expect. Good, not great match. (2.5/5)
Brock Lesnar and Shawn Stasiak team up to take on The Hardys next. At Backlash, Lesnar soundly defeated Jeff Hardy, but Team Extreme refused to go down without a fight, retalliating on an episode of RAW. Meanwhile, Shawn Stasiak had only recently returned to the WWE with his new "weirdo" gimmick. The Hardys arrive first sans Lita, who was injured while filming the television show Dark Angel, which I guess was a thing in 2002? Lesnar and Heyman then arrive without Stasiak, who runs in from behind them and starts the match off against Heyman's prior instructions to simply stand on the outside and let Brock handle things. Heyman yells at Stasiak from the outside, telling him to tag in the Beast, but he doesn't listen and ends up the victim of some Hardy offense before Lesnar is able to tag himself in. From here, Lesnar brutalizes like only he can - hitting Matt Hardy with a backbreaker-into-a-whiplash powerslam and then just toying with him with a slam here, a suplex there, and basically anything else he felt like. After Lesnar accidentally spears the corner, Stasiak tags himself in and Jeff Hardy is able to come in and take control, hitting his Whisper In The Wind and, moments later, his Swanton. The post-match reminds the fans who this match was really designed to showcase and we even get to see a rare tornado powerbomb (worth an extra .5 in my book). (3/5)
The European Championship is on the line next, with Spike Dudley defending against former champion, William Regal. The story of this match is that Spike Dudley gets injured within the opening minutes, but before he can be carried to the back, Regal continues on his attack. While not a reinvention of the wheel, there is logic to the proceedings and Regal does an excellent job of drawing heat from a crowd that, to some degree, wanted to cheer their countryman. Good storyline progression here, but not the best finish and I would've liked to see even more Regal dominance. (2/5)
The Big Show vs. Steve Austin follows, with Ric Flair inserting himself as an extra special guest referee. Big Show had joined the nWo on RAW, a move ostensibly designed to give some life to the fledging heel posse (at this point, with Hogan back in a babyface role and Nash "suspended" [I believe he was actually injured], the group was basically just Hall and XPac). The "What" chants are deafening before a single punch is thrown. While I wouldn't argue that Big Show was relevant or a strong character in 2003, Austin always knew how to work with him, really making the Big Show's simple offense look powerful and pacing things properly to establish himself as an underdog, the cocky bad ass who is unable to rely on his usual bag of tricks to intimidate and control the match. Instead, Austin attacks Big Show's legs, working hard to keep Big Show on the mat where his size won't play a factor. When Big Show hits something as simple as a headbutt, though, Austin bounces like he's been shot by a cannon - its an impressive performance from a guy that, by his own admission, wasn't necessarily in the best mindset of his career. As one might expect, the closing minutes are full of shenanigans, some well executed (the ref bump, Nash's run in) and others not so much (Flair chasing XPac and Hall to the back). Not essential viewing, but fun stuff that shows that years earlier, Austin/Big Show should've been a license to print money as the two could achieve so much in the ring by doing relatively little. (3/5)
Main event time - The Undertaker vs. Triple H. This is their first match since Taker cost Triple H his Undisputed World Championship at Backlash. In the build-up, Triple H was arrested for attacking the Deadman, while Taker struck back by costing Triple H a Number One Contender's match against Chris Jericho on Smackdown. If I'm not mistaken, The Undertaker won the rights to challenge Hogan at Backlash and had yet to receive his title shot so the winner of that match would've had to wait in line anyway. Whatever. Taker comes out to the sound of Limp Bizkit while Triple H makes his entrance to Motorhead, garnering a huge ovation from the crowd (arguably even bigger than the one Steve Austin earned). I was a huge fan of their WrestleMania 17 match, so I expected this one to be a decent outing. Unlike their most recent WrestleMania matches, this one is not an "epic by design" - instead, they go after eachother quickly and without any respectful hesitation. If you loved the bloated pretension that marked their last two matches, this one is not for you, but if you're a fan of either character and enjoy watching them work without the inflated self-importance that a WrestleMania spotlight brings to a match like this, it's a fun watch. Sure, the stakes aren't nearly as high as the ones they'd wrestle for in the future - there's not even a title on the line - but that doesn't mean there's no drama. In fact, a broken top rope adds an unexpected twist to the match, the two combatants forced to improvise and adapt on the fly, essentially tasked with wrestling the remainder of the match without any use of the ropes. After an excellent near fall from a picture-perfect chokeslam, a chair is momentarily introduced to the match, though it almost seems to have less impact than the signature offense that follows it. Unfortunately, a sudden finish hurts things a bit. While I'm not a huge supporter of "finisher spamming," its odd to see an Undertaker/HHH match wrap up with such a basic sequence of spots, nothing that one would expect a match of this magnitude to end with. (2.5/5)
With a respectable 2.69-out-of-5 average match rating, Insurrextion is not withouts its moments. The opener is quite good, the Austin/Big Show match is solid, and there's always something intriguing about watching a superstar like Brock Lesnar this early in his career. Unfortunately, like most international PPVs, Insurrextion comes off as a wholly inconsequential affair in terms of progressing storylines or offering "must see" matches. As a glorified house show, it works - but I'm not sure anything on this one is worth visiting for the first time or revisiting for a second helping. This is one for completists only.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuever
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