Austin101's- WWE Armageddon 2003 Review:
"Did you REALLY have a bet Chris, over who could nail Lita or Trish first for a dollar?" -Eric Bischoff
-Live on PPV Sunday, December the 14th, 2003 at the TD Waterhouse Centre in Orlando, Florida. The tagline was
"Evolution of The Game". On a side note, the first ever Armageddon took place in the state of Florida as well in 1999.
-The main feud heading into the event was between Goldberg the World Champion, Kane and Triple H. Once again The Game was looking to regain his gold at the second straight Armageddon. Would he do it? Do I even need to ask?
-The broadcasters for this PPV were Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler as it was a Raw Brand PPV.
-This PPV featured about a 10 minute segment between Foley bringing out Stacy as a cheerleader to celebrate the petition to bring back Austin. Stacy did some dances and out came Orton with Flair. Foley and Orton had bad blood and Foley put on the ref shirt and started the second match of the night between Orton and RVD for the IC title at this point.
-Also after the Batista-HBK match Maven was scheduled to face Matt Hardy. Batista beat up Maven when he came to the ring and the match with Matt never happened due to Maven's condition. Matt still pinned Maven and counted his own three and walked off all happy while the crowd booed.
-On Sunday Night Heat before the event Rico (w/ Miss Jackie) pinned Heidenreich after a kick to the midsection and then a neckbreaker at 1:58. Well this match must have been a good sign of things to come on the night...or not.
Now, onto the PPV......
1) Booker T vs Mark Henry (w/Theodore Long)
Yawn.
Mark Henry is one of the most boring wrestlers I have EVER seen in my life. He's a nice guy, sure. He can read and write poems sure, he can lift weights sure, he has an impressive physique and is a WWE veteran, yeah sure. But is he a good worker? No. He always usually fails to get over and the boo's he gets for the most part are because people just don't really want to watch him.
Booker T's character had gone to hell after his push earlier in the year of 2003 and he was forced back into the mid-card on Raw before going back into the tag division again this time to team with Van Dam which did little to nothing for him as he went to Smackdown and turned heel shortly there after.
This was a dark match indeed.
Very slow outside of the occasional move that Booker made somewhat watchable. Too many resholds used by the Big Man though and the crowd was alseep. Probably not the best way to start the show with a slow match but whatever.
Booker pinned Henry after a Scissors Kick at 9:19 for the win. He got a loud ovation when he won the match but I think the pop was mostly loud for the fact the match had ended. I know I was happy.
* 1/2
2) Randy Orton (w/Ric Flair) vs Rob Van Dam (w/Mick Foley as Special Guest Referee) for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
Thankfully we get a good match here.
There RAW match in the same month I believe for the IC Title where Orton won with the DDT from the top rope was an awesome match I believe. I remember it being in the *** 1/4 - *** 1/2 range but I haven't seen it in a long time.
Orton was catching a lot of momentum at this point in his career, just the month before this he RKO'd Mark Cuban at the Survivor Series.
RVD was over like always and these two styles worked well together.
The crowd DID NOT like Orton's rest holds but it was all apart of his game plan in this match. You see Orton needed to wear down Rob's neck as he was setting himself up for his finisher the RKO. It was smart psychology but the crowd didn't want two matches back to back to open a PPV that were slow. I can't really blame them, the booking of this PPV really should have been a lot better to be honest.
Anyway this match does get a lot of time and we see some impressive moves like a standing drop kick from Orton to Van Dam on the outside, or a spinning heel kick that was "SICK" as JR stated from Rob Van Dam to Randy Orton near the climax of the match, as well as a nice rolling thunder inbetween long rest holds.
Foley was the special guest ref and he didn't want to count the three for Randy but in the end he did. Foley was in his face all night long obvioussly telling Orton to break before five and at one point HUGGED him out of the ropes.
In the end after Flair interfered on Orton's behalf behind Foley's back, Orton pinned RVD after an RKO at 17:59 to become THE NEW Intercontinental Champion.
Very good.
A lot like Orton/Edge from Vengeance 2004 in the sense where it has its moments of slow activity with a lot of fast paced greatness inbetween. Orton would go on to be a VERY good IC Champion.
Evolution goes
1-0 on the night in title matches.
***
3) Chris Jericho and Christian vs Trish Stratus and Lita in "The Battle of The Sexes Intergender Tag-team Match"
Eric Bischoff's genius idea. Ahhh how we love them so. Geinus idea's like putting the title on HHH in September of 02, or HLA, or the Elimination Chamber. Well that one was pretty good I guess.
It's sad that ROMANTIC feuds like this take place in Pro-Wrestling. Prety soon they'll have a guy wearing a mask who was burned as a child raping dead girls...oh wait.
It's also sad that Trish wasn't really cheered unless she was getting spanked by Jericho, even though SHE was the babyface.
Pathetic feud, pathetic match, a guy and a girl can never really have chemistry unless it's Chyna in the ring and even then it's still subpar.
Jericho stared down Trish and then from behind Christian pinned Stratus with a Schoolboy at 6:37.
3/4*
4) Batista (w/Ric Flair) vs The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels
Batista was GREEN yet again at this Armageddon.
He was plain brutal at times although was slowly improving. Being in the ring with Michaels definately helped this bout but it didn't make it good by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not going to magically rate it GOOD just because it's the Showstopper although he did carry Dave decently here.
I imagine the work they did this year was better then this to say the least.
Flair was the best part of this match how he flipped out when HBK was taunting him, throwing his jacket the usual.
Batista is dominating HBK for the most part in the middle towards the end until out of no where Michaels pinned Batista after the Sweet Chin Music at 12:28. JR puts over this victory a little to much considering who both guys were at the time.
A little decent
* 3/4
5) Tag Team Turmoil match for the World Tag Team Championship: Evolution (Ric Flair and Batista) vs The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von) (c) vs La Résistance (Robért Conway and René Duprée) vs Val Venis and Lance Storm vs Scott Steiner and Test vs Rosey and The Hurricane vs Mark Jindrak and Garrison Cade
I've mentioned in a lot of my reviews that I absolutely love the tag team turmoil matches, but this one was handled poorly from a booking standpoint outside the end.
Slow for the most part the crowd didn't respond to this very well here is how it went down.
Fall #1 Hurricane pinned Conway after a Super Hero Splash (3:16)
Fall #2 Jindrak pinned Hurricane after a Roll-up (3:34)
Fall #3 Jindrak pinned Venis after Cade clipped Venis' legs during a suplex and held his legs down (7:17)
Fall #4 Bubba Ray pinned Jindrak after a 3D (11:29)
Fall #5 D-Von pinned Test after a Bubba Bomb from Bubba Ray (16:38)
Fall #6 Batista pinned D-Von after a Batista Bomb at 20:48 to become the New Tag Champs.
Bischoff came out and announced that Batista and Flair were the BONUS team the worn down Dudleyz would have to face.
Evolution goes
2-0 in title matches on the night. Batista was mad he lost to Michaels and this way both men got the gold.
* 1/2
6) Molly Holly (c) vs Ivory for the WWE Women's Championship
Random Women's filler with no real build.
The crowd was completely dead.
Short match but pretty good moves executed here, at least Ivory wasn't in the RTC at this point.
Molly pinned Ivory by rolling through a pin attempt and grabbing Ivory's tights for leverage at 4:23. Another heel retains or wins a title belt, no way.
* 3/4
7) Main Event- "The Game" Triple H vs Kane vs Goldberg (c) in a No disqualification Triple-Threat match for the World Heavyweight Championship
I hate when you go into Main Events and I don't feel like cheering for anyone in the match. This is sort of the case here although I remember pulling for Kane. I was sick of Triple H and Goldberg was a failure.
Funny spot in the match where HHH acts scared of Kane. I just noticed how much he was trying to be like Flair in this match. Think about it, the Flair DVD had just been done. HHH watched it obvioussly and he dressed in suits more and more often like Flair.
Also in this bout when he acted scared of Kane he put his hands out "No, No" just like Flair would. It's funny in a way but in another way he can do better just being his self from 2000, oh well.
Decent action, Goldberg goes through a table so it's Kane and Triple H for a lot of the time, Kane takes a sick shot to the head during the match.
Before the finish Goldberg speared both guys and it looked like he'd retain to keep his 3 month reign going strong but it didn't work out that way.
Triple H pinned Goldberg after a low blow and a Chokeslam from Kane at 19:28 after Evolution came out and failed to take down Goldberg.
The Game was the new champion...again...at Armageddon. Fans were shocked, happy and pissed.
Evolution with the clean sweep in title matches on the night,
3-0.
Pretty good but pretty slow.
** 1/2
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Final Rating for WWE Armageddon 2003 = 4/10
We got a terrible show here for the most part to be brutally honest. The Raw Brand was boring as all hell outside a few things in late 2003. Austin and Foley were both not as good as they once were and Steve was gone for a few weeks around the time of this PPV event, while Foley was the Co-Commish for a brief period of time. Way to many heels went over on the night and to many of the matches were below average and SLOW. The quality was few and far between and this PPV fails. The Orton and RVD match and I guess a little of the main event was decent but almost everything else sucked. Avoiding this PPV is definately acceptable, I'm not a fan myself.
Feedback appreciated as always if you want to discuss.....
Up Next From Austin101: "WWE Armageddon 2005"
(stay tuned.....)
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