The Brit Pack: #10: WWE Bad Blood 2004 Preview
by: The Brit Pack on: 6/13/2004 9:54 am est  Scott Newman: Welcome to this month's edition of the Brit Pack. No 'bonjour' opener this month, as everyone should know that England are playing France in today's Euro 2004 match, and thus, I'm in 'Frog-Hating' mode. As always, I'm your host, 'The Girly One' Scott Newman. Alongside me this month are, as usual, 'The Enigmatic One' Chris Brosnahan, and 'The RCC One', Joshua Hughes. For the banner this month, we've chosen Queen. As the flamboyant guy with the 'tache, Chris picked Freddie Mercury. As the guitar hero with the awesome hair, I picked Brian May. Joshua got John Deacon, and as for Roger Taylor? I don't have a clue. It could be YOU, Mr. Brit Pack Reader. On with the actual wrestling, as this month's spotlight falls squarely on the far superior WWE brand, Raw, and the Bad Blood PPV. Last year's Bad Blood was actually the first brand-split show, so this years should indeed show how far Raw's come since the dark days of Kevin Nash getting title shots. One thing hasn't changed, and that's the use of the Hell In A Cell match for this PPV. This year, Triple H and Shawn Michaels take their awesome, epic feud into the Cell, while elsewhere on the show, Chris Benoit will be defending his World Heavyweight strap against Kane, and attempting to regain the Tag Titles alongside Edge, against La Resistance. Okay, I'll hand you over to Joshua now. Joshua Hughes: I'm so looking forward to this show. Shawn Vs. Hunter in the cell? Benoit wrestling TWICE? Orton Vs. Benjamin? Hell yes. The rest of the card isn't the best, but, it could turn out alright. Potentially, this is as good as Backlash (which was the best brand PPV WWE has ever done, for me) and I'm so happy to see Shawn Michaels return to the Hell in a Cell match. That should rock. The only thing that would make this better for me if he brought back those fingerless gloves... Chris Brosnahan: I've been offline for some time now, and as a result, I have NO idea what the hell has been going on in the buildup for these matches. I've literally got back online within hours of writing this, so I'll be looking at the matches on their own, not the build u..... .... .... BRADSHAW DID WHAT IN GERMANY!?! Eugene vs Jonathan Coachman Newman: Firstly, I have to admit that WWE's handled the Eugene character pretty well up until this point. I still don't like the fact that we're seeing a retarded wrestler, but credit where credit's due, Dinsmore's done well in the role, even putting on a couple of entertaining matches along the way. Coachman, to be fair, also put on a decent showing against Tajiri in his last outing...but is a PPV really somewhere to be showcasing the wrestling talents of The Coach? Especially when guys like Batista, Ric Flair, Matt Hardy, and even lesser talents like Chuck Palumbo aren't on the PPV? I don't think so. I'm guessing this will be a short comedy match designed to get Eugene over more, and possibly push the William Regal face turn further to boot. My pick for the Eugene angle's blowoff? He'll reveal that he's not actually retarded, turn heel, and feud with the babyface Regal. This match? There's no way Eugene's losing. Winner: Eugene Joshua: Urgh, I'm absolutely sick of Eugene at this stage. I don't know if it's over-exposure or what, but I really couldn't stand him on RAW last week. And squashing Johnny Nitro? What the fuck was that? Nitro didn't get ONE piece of offence in the entire bloody match! I mean, Nitro has a big future ahead of him...he's charismatic, has a great look and from the bits and pieces that I've seen so far, he's a decent worker. What the hell was the point of having Eugene squash him? Absolutely sickening. If this means no more Johnny Nitro then I'll be hopping on the Anti-Eugene bandwagon so fast. This will basically be a comedy match, and I fear that The Coach will get more offence in than Nitro and if does...my God. The sooner they have Eugene drop the retard act and turn heel as Nick Dinsmore, the better. Eugene will go over here, for certain. Winner: Eugene Chris: I'm not even reviewing this shit. Seriously. I'm sticking to my guns on Eugene. I still find it offensive, and no amount of playing up to the crowd will convince me otherwise. Adding Coach to it? That just makes it more of a comedy match than it already was. Winner: Eugene Women's Title: Victoria (c) vs Trish Stratus vs Lita vs Gail Kim Newman: Okay, let's run through the competitors. Gail Kim's lost her tendency to blow spots, which is good, but she now seems to be concentrating on some kind of pseudo-MMA style, that isn't working well at all. She hasn't been given any character motivation of note, so I'm guessing she's not walking out with the gold. Lita seems to be looking worse with every appearance, and that's both in terms of looks AND in wrestling skill. When she returned in late 2003, at least she was wearing some nice outfits. Lita's not winning this one. Victoria's held the title for some time now, but as of late her character has just died a death, culminating in the awful dance routine the other week on Raw. That brings me to Trish - easily the most interesting character of the four, the best wrestler of the four, and also the one with the most potential feuds (Victoria, Lita, Nidia, a face Gail). That's why I'm picking Trish to win back the Women's Title, but for the first time as a face. The match, I'm guessing, will be somewhat of a trainwreck, but could wind up being entertaining. Winner: Trish Stratus Joshua: Urgh. I'd be pumped for this if it was Victoria Vs. Trish (and seeing Trish kick some sense into Victoria would bring me much pleasure) but with the fuck up twins involved, I don't think this one will come out too well. Four ways and triple threat matches are difficult to execute at the best of times, even harder when you got Lita and Gail dragging you down. Hopefully they'll put the belt on Trish here, she's been awesome lately and she'd do a much better job with the belt than Victoria who is disgracefully bad these days. The music, the dancing, the kissing of the kid, the whole thing is awful. She's gone from an extremely cool character to a total goof in the space of a few weeks. My heart says Trish, but my head says Victoria here. Winner: Victoria Chris: Four way match for the womens title? Hmmm...could be fun. Two very good female wrestlers, and two distinctly average ones. Talk about a match of two halves. Any action that features Victoria and Trish will likely be better than any featuring Lita or Gail....this said, I've been liking Gail more recently, since she's been trying to incorporate more of a submission based moveset into her routine. It's a change that is working, and it's giving more variety to the division. The more I think of this match, the better it's potential, to be honest. I'm picking Trish to win, because Victoria is doing nothing with it, and neither of the other two should hold it yet. With Christian gone for a while, it'll give Trish something to do as well. Winner: Trish Stratus World Tag Team Titles: La Resistance (c) vs Chris Benoit & Edge Newman: Firstly, anyone remember the LAST time Benoit wrestled in multiple matches on a PPV? I do. It was Judgment Day 2001, and not only did Benoit's efforts (amongst other things) make it one of the strongest PPVs of that year, but Benoit's efforts that night are rated by most people as one of the best one-night performances of all time. Onto this match, I'm expecting a good, possibly very good tag match from them. Edge, Benoit and Conway are all good-great workers, and I'm sure Sylvan Grenier's kinda carryable. I don't think this will run for too long as they'll want to keep Benoit fresh for the Kane match, but I'd definitely expect to see him get beaten down somewhat, to add more intrigue to the later title bout. The main point of this is definitely to create more tension between Benoit and Edge, leading into their program at Vengeance. I'd guess Edge is the one who's more likely to be turning...so I'll run with Benoit playing Bret Hart here, getting injured, and costing his team the match. Winners: La Resistance Joshua: On the one hand, Chris Benoit has been on fire lately, but on the other, we've seen this already. Putting Benoit and Edge over La Resistance would be a huge mistake right now and a step in the wrong direction. What I'd like to see happen would be for Edge to fuck up, La Resistance to win and post match have the losing team have a bit of a bust up, but not fight. Then, later on, Edge attacks Benoit in a selfish attempt to try and cost him the title. You turn Edge heel and set up next month's main event. Everyone's a winner. Well, except for the tag division, that is. La Resistance is the only real team on the show right now with any credibility and they need to build new teams fast. Unfortunately, it appears as if they don't know how to run a tag division anymore, so dropping it and shipping La Res off to Smackdown might be a good idea. But then, maybe not. Who even has the tag belts over on SD anyway? Buggered if I can remember. It's such a shame that tag wrestling has become so crappy. It used to be one of the highlights of the show. The match'll be decent, but I can see Benoit holding back a bit so as he doesn't burn out before the main event. Hopefully La Resistance get the win and that's who I think they'll put over as well. Winners: La Resistance Chris: Benoit is fighting twice on this PPV? Sweet! He's teaming with Edge? Cool, that could work well. They're fighting La Resistance? Still? Okay, in terms of the match, this could actually be good. There's nobody offensively bad in the match, there's a couple of good guys in there, and there's one excellent. If they keep the pace up, this could be a hugely entertaining opener. Lots of reversals, some nice chain wrestling.....this could have a lot of energy, and really begin to pump the crowd up. Alternatively, it could be a typical 'halfway through Raw' match. Really, it's going to be completely bland, or a lot of fun. I'm going to be optimistic, and I'm going to say that it's going to be a lot of fun, and high paced. Really, if this is well done, it could be really good. Who do I think will win? Well, they've hinted at Edge turning heel over in the UK, so I could see them continuing with that. It would certainly give his character something to do. A turn on Edge would make a lot of sense, and would give Benoit a main event storyline with someone whose nickname doesn't start with 'H'- and don't try to tell me that this whole thing with Kane is a 'storyline'...it's not. It's a match. Winners: La Resistance Chris Jericho vs Tyson Tomko Newman: In all honesty, as much as it pains me to say it, I'm not at all interested in this match. Don't get me wrong - Jericho's still one of my favourite guys - but Tomko hasn't captured my imagination at all since his debut. I don't understand why they thrust a newcomer right into a high midcard feud with Jericho, when they could've used a more proven guy like Palumbo, or Test in the role. Tomko hasn't even wrestled yet, and seems to have a tendency to screw moves up, so the test will be on Jericho here to see whether he can get something decent out of Tyson. I think he probably can, because he's Chris fucking Jericho, but how good that is remains to be seen. I'd guess Jericho is winning here, too, to finally put an end to this feud that's pretty much gone stale since Christian got injured. Winner: Chris Jericho Joshua: Bleargh. Tomko hasn't actually wrestled yet, so I won't totally condemn him, but early impressions suggest that he's basically where Batista was two years ago. A big muscular chap who screams and does power moves but can't actually work particularly well. I'll eat my hat if he goes out there and does a Vader but I'd wager a large sum of money that my stomach shall be remaining headwear free for the time being. Jericho's in sort of a bind now. Just about the only heel left for him on RAW right now is Randy Orton and after that's finished, he's basically out of fresh opposition. A trade to Smackdown after that might do him some good, but really, there's nobody decent there that he hasn't worked with before anyway. Unless they turn him heel (again) and have him work with Cena or have him work with Kenzo Suzuki, but I don't think they'll cash in on such a big money feud before WrestleMania. The match should be okay. Jericho will do his best and bump hard for Tomko but he's never getting Tomko above about **, for me. This is filler because they've got nothing else for Jericho right now and it's blatantly obvious. There's no way they're jobbing Chris Jericho to Tyson Tomko unless there's a run-in from Trish. Winner: Chris Jericho Chris: Ugh. Seriously, ugh. If anybody has worked hard to get themselves, and everyone around them over, it's Chris Jericho. He's been on fire for the last year, and the most consistent man on the roster. And THIS is how they repay him? Great. Still, it could be worse - it could be the main event. But then, this isn't smackdown. If it was Smackdown, it'd be a three month feud building up to Summerslam. The match? Oh, it won't be any worse than any Chris Jericho match, meaning that he could sit in the ring and wrestler a steel chair, and make it two stars at least, but it'll certainly be his worst in a while. Let's face it, nobody is really looking forward to this one, and nobody is going to remember it either. Winner: Chris Jericho Intercontinental Title: Shelton Benjamin vs Randy Orton Newman: It's hard to believe that just one year ago, nobody really gave a shit about Orton when he clocked Shawn Michaels with a chair, costing him a match against Ric Flair. Now, though, Orton's probably the #2 heel on the Raw roster, and is set to give a huge rub to Benjamin by likely dropping the title to him at some point. Will it be here? I don't think it will, actually. With the Edge-Benoit program looming on the horizon, if Orton drops here, there's literally nobody for him to feud with. For that reason, I'm picking Orton to win by cheating, before finally dropping the title to Benjamin at Vengeance. The quality of the match will be the interesting thing here. If the two youngsters can put on something good, we could well be viewing the second coming of 1998's HHH-Rock feud. If the match ends up looking more like the Cena-Dupree showing from Judgment Day, though, we'll know that both guys need more time to work with veterans before they can be called great. I have a feeling, though, that the reason for this match is that they trust both guys enough now to go out and have a good showing. Smackdown's pairing was more out of desperation....this is a calculated move to get both guys more over. Winner: Randy Orton Joshua: Man, I love the sound of this. Orton has come on in leaps and bounds as a worker, particularly since January and the Royal Rumble, and Benjamin was always very good. This should be an excellent match and hopefully it'll help restore the image of the Intercontinental Title a bit. While I love Benjamin, his happy-go-lucky babyface act got old almost as fast as Victoria's. He plays the cool, cocky, confident character so well and while he still retains some of those traits, he exchanged "cool" for "goofy". He desperately needs some new ring-attire as well, while we're at it. The new ones (blue and gold) that he had at the end of his WGTT run were awesome. Orton has turned into, well, a star. You can see it in him, he's totally comfortable in the spotlight now, whereas nine months ago he looked nervous, especially in the ring. His look is awesome, he can talk and his ring work is at least passable. I predict that he'll have been given a proper main event (rather than just being dumped into a six man like last year) by the turn of the year. Orton Vs. Benoit would make a great headliner for one of RAW's October PPVs. I see Shelton picking up the surprise win here, hopefully he'll have a good run as a fighting champion. Winner: Shelton Benjamin Chris: You know what this feud reminds me of? It reminds me of The Rock and HHH in the mid/late nineties. (Note from Newman...Great minds think alike) This is a feud between two guys who, in five years, will be the franchise leaders. This isn't a big match, it's just the first chapter. I don't know what to expect from this match, except that it will set the crowd up nicely for the two main events. The essence of midcard at the moment, and I mean that in a good way. With HIAC later, I don't expect it to be uber-brutal, but rather it'll play to Benjamins strengths, and it'll be a nicely paced amateur style matchup. I think, storyline wise, it would be a nice switch to give Shelton the IC title - they've built up Randy well as IC champ, so it could be a breath of fresh air. So I'll go with that choice. Shelton, clean, and a rematch at the next PPV, with a gimmick - probably ladder match or something. Winner: Shelton Benjamin World Heavyweight Title: Chris Benoit (c) vs Kane Newman: Seeing as I'm expecting negativity from everyone else, I'll play the good cop here. Kane, even though he jobs a lot on PPV, is still seen as a huge threat by the marks, simply because of his size and his tendency to squash guys on TV. Benoit is at that point now where he's an accepted champion, but he just needs a few more wins over top guys to push him over the edge to be one of THE great champions. Tapping out Kane on Sunday with the Crossface, especially after fighting a prior match with La Resistance, will do that. It might be a little obvious as to who's winning, and that almost worries me into thinking they might put the belt on Kane....but the booking of the tag match eases my mind a little there. If the marks see Benoit getting the shit beaten out of him, and losing to La Resistance, they're gonna doubt that he can get the job done against Kane. And if Kane beats on Benoit for 20 minutes straight, with Benoit finally coming back to tap him out, the pop is going to be huge, and Benoit's going to be more over than ever. Just because something seems bad on paper doesn't mean it won't actually play out well. The match? It's Chris Benoit with a capable worker. What do YOU think it'll be like? Winner: Chris Benoit Joshua:This could really go either way. Benoit could drag Kane to his best match in years or they could totally tank out there. Now, while Benoit is an amazing worker, he'll be going out there having wrestled at least fifteen minutes earlier in the night and he'll be working with someone who works a totally unco-operative style. The build has been, in a word, awful. Both men have been distracted with other angles and the world title has taken a backseat to Kane/Lita, Edge/Benoit Vs. La Res and Edge and Benoit's problems with Edge and Bischoff not to mention Michaels Vs. HHH. The title has been lost amongst this sea of crap, unfortunately. They need to put Benoit over strong here and then have his next program be totally about the world title. Whether it's Edge being jealous of his success or Orton wanting to take the next step or even HHH wanting the gold back. Benoit has to go over, giving Kane the win makes no sense at all. Winner: Chris Benoit Chris: Well, storyline wise, this one is just there, isn't it? There's little reason for it, and there's no huge emotion looking at it. Great. I mean it. I actually like that they've done this. It legitimises the title a little - Kane has a title shot because he's the number one contender, no other reason. We don't need to have six weeks of storyline EVERY PPV. Occasionally,it's nice to pay a little respect to the idea that there are rankings, number one contenders, and the idea that it's still kind of a sport. So I'm fine with this. Give Benoit a storyline for the next PPV, but just concentrate on him being a fighting champion, especially if he's doing two matches - and even more so if Edge turns on him in an Owen/Bret kind of way earlier. The match? It's going to be Kane's best match in ages. Benoit's going to be selling more than a little old lady outside a church with a cake sale, but we'll get Kane tapping to the crossface. It'll build up Benoit huge, and it'll make Kane into a more viable wrestler, rather than a 'machine'. I'm seeing something up to the level of Angle/Kane, and probably better. It will probably go about fifteen, twenty minutes, and it'll be more innovative than any Kane match in years. What I would like to see is Benoit go mental with a chair on Kane - it would be completely in character, since it's what he would have to do to beat Kane, if that makes sense. Winner: Chris Benoit Hell In A Cell: Triple H vs Shawn Michaels Newman: It's pretty much accepted fact now that WWE aren't going to do a Raw PPV without Hunter in the most built-up match, and in all honesty, if he keeps working the way he has for the past few months, I don't mind. This feud's taken some flak from the usual morons who think it's 'played out', but that's the dumb Anti-Hunter/Shawn bias kicking in. Really? It's one of the most storied, interesting feuds in the past ten years, between two guys who nearly always deliver the goods in their matches. What the hell do you want from them? By my ratings, they haven't gone below ***1/2 in any of their encounters, and there's no reason to suggest that this one will be any different. The Hell In A Cell stipulation immediately screams 'CLASSIC', and I think that's what we'll be getting. I don't expect any uber-sick bumps, although Michaels could certainly pull one great one out, but what I do expect is a ton of blood, a ton of psychology, and in general, a smart, brutal, effective match that's likely to capture the imagination of everyone (who's non-biased) watching. That said, I'm having a really tough time picking a winner. On one hand, this has been built up as the blowoff match, the battle to end it all, and that in itself would suggest that Michaels, the babyface, goes over. However....we all know that Hunter rarely comes off on the losing end of feuds, and what's more, Michaels is apparently scheduled to take some time off following this match. However, that could be even more key to the whole thing. If Michaels takes time off after this, even with a loss, it'd still look like Hunter came away the stronger man. That's why I'm picking Michaels to win the match. Who does Hunter go on to feud with at Vengeance? In all honesty, I don't have a clue. They're obviously saving the big Hunter/Benoit programme for Summerslam, and I REALLY hope they don't stick Hunter into the Benoit/Edge deal as a third wheel. Who knows? Unpredictability, you gotta love it. Winner: HHH Joshua: I love this match, I love this match, I love this match. Indifferent to the feud, but my god, I love this match. Did I mention how I love this match? Michaels is my favourite wrestler of all time, the Hell in a Cell match is my favourite gimmick and I've always been a big fan of Triple H, even when the rest of the net turned on him. All these factors make me one very happy young man. The build has been extremely dull in terms of angles (although, Michaels spazzing out last week was awesome) and I'm a bit annoyed that Triple H still isn't wrestling regularly on RAW. It really hurts whatever angles he's involved in, because all he does is cut promos and do run-ins. All the other top-line guys work RAW every week (I mean, Trips does almost every house show, but not TV) yet Hunter, for some reason, doesn't. That's about the only problem that I have with the guy right now. Shawn is going to be taking a break for the birth of his kid next month but I don't quite know what they're going to do with Hunter for the rest of June and first few weeks of July. It looks like it's going to be Hunter Vs. Benoit at SummerSlam but there's no obvious opponent betweeen now and then, perhaps a mini-feud with Shelton Benjamin but that's only going to have one result so that mighn't work out too well either. There's no doubt that Triple H is going over in this one, for me. Michaels will be hurt by the loss but he's going off TV for a month and a half and he doesn't have a world title program coming up. Potentially, this is a match of the year contender. Both men excel in this type of gimmick, both are in good form and Michaels has a break coming up so he might be willing to really go all out knowing that he'll get time to recover soon. I haven't been this excited for a main event since WrestleMania. Winner: HHH Chris: Looking at this matchup, I find myself looking back at Summerslam 2002. The reason isn't just the fact that it's between these two men. The reason is that I watched that match with a feeling of 'fuck, Michaels' back is going to give out any minute....'. The only other match that I've watched Michaels in that gave rise to that feeling was the Armageddon match which involved a ladder. Now, we have Michaels, the man who started off the whole Hell in a Cell thing....and the man who always tries to outdo a previous match he'll have done. This is his second HIAC match - and unlike the Elimination Chamber, the HIAC is probably going to revolve around some kind of huge bump. And, if that happens, it's going to be bloody scary. Yes, I may be being worked, and HBK's back may not be as bad as we all think, but I still worry. This aside, the match itself is likely to be as brutal as we're all expecting. I'd also guess that this will have something innovative in. They bring the best out of each other, and they do both try to give something new in a new kind of match. It could also be the first one in ages to have a big bump, which I'm expecting. Let's face it, there's no way this is going to be a bad match.These guys aren't Big Boss Man and Undertaker. This is going to be bloody, brutal, and it's going to be a great match. Why? HBK in a HIAC match. That's your reason right there. Another reason? HHH in a HIAC match. He hasn't had a bad one - not even against Nash, because that was actually an enjoyable enough match, even if it was filled with shortcuts. Plus, put him up against a bumper, and it'll be good. Who's going to win? Logic would say HHH, since he's come out on the losing end so many times against Michaels, and because he's been out of the title scene since....well, since the last PPV, funnily enough. But I'm going to say Michaels. If only to set up a Summerslam program between him and Benoit, which would be truly a thing of beauty. Winner: HBK Conclusion Newman: Well, it's a better card than the last Bad Blood, that's for sure. I think this could turn out to be one of the best shows of the year, if the Benoit matches, the IC Title, and Hell In A Cell deliver. If one or more of them doesn't, though, it could be one of the more disappointing shows of 2004. We'll wait and see, I guess. I'm guessing it'll be good. Chris: This will make up for the crapness of Judgement Day, and it has a number of potentially decent matches, a couple of potentially exccellent, and one 'can't miss' match. Watching it without knowing as much as I normally do about the buildup is interesting, and I'm looking forward to this PPV. HIAC baby! Backlash was damn good, and this should be up to at least the same level, and it could actually be better. Newman: Joshua didn't send in a conclusion for whatever reason. I'm sure he'd say that he's looking forward to this show, though. As always, I'll see you tomorrow morning for a Report Card of Bad Blood, hopefully. My mood may depend on how England get on tonight, so yeah....Go England. Laterz, Scott Newman: OratoryMorningGlory@hotmail.com Chris Brosnahan: ChristopherBrosnahan@hotmail.com Joshua Hughes: Lokochita2003@hotmail.com |
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