Sheffield Arena
Sheffield, England
October 27, 2002
With the stars of Raw in Toledo, Ohio for a house show and American audiences catching Sunday Night Heat.....in Sheffield, England the starts of Smackdown were continuing their European tour. The feuds from Smackdown recently carried over to the European tour highlighted by the Rebellion ppv the night before. Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman defeated Edge last night and this night Brock teams with Matt Hardy against Booker T and Rikishi. Booker was on loan from Raw to face Matt in one on one matches but tonight its a tag match. Edge would be teaming with Rey Mysterio Jr to take on the tag champs Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit in a rematch from No Mercy. Tajiri gets another shot at Jamie Noble's cruiserweight title and we got another god awful Bra & Panties match with Dawn Marie and Torrie Wilson. Let's get to the action.
Match 1
Albert vs Funaki
Big man vs little man as the monster Albert takes on Funaki in the opening match. Somehow Funaki won with a roll-up.
Winner: Funaki by pinfall
Match 2
Ron Simmons, D'Von Dudley and Crash Holly vs Chuck Palumbo, Shannon Moore and Bill DeMott
Talk about just getting guys on the card. D'von and Simmons were tagging recently with D'Von starting to ditch the religious gimmick but the others had nothing in common. In fact, DeMott and Crash tagged together two nights earlier in Belfast. Palumbo's team won when DeMott rolled through a Crash crossbody and hooked the tights for the victory.
Winner: Palumbo, Moore and DeMott by pinfall
Match 3
Chavo Guerrero Jr vs Billy Kidman
Guess Eddie has the night off as Chavo faces Kidman in singles action. Kidman takes it with a bulldog.....what?
Winner: Kidman by pinfall
Match 4
Val Venis vs John Cena
As its been mentioned already in previous write-ups, what Cena did out of the ring turned out to be ten times more important than what he did in the ring, but I'll get to that in a second. Cena was still a generic heel but Val wasn't really doing anything noteworthy either. Venis was punching Cena in the corner who powerbombed him and put his feet on the ropes for the 3 count to win the match. Now I've already explained this but I'll do it again. On the bus during this tour, Cena was making everyone laugh with freestyle rapping. Stephanie McMahon thought it was so funny that she wanted him to do it on camera when they got back to the States. The rest is history.
Winner: Cena by pinfall
Match 5
Tajiri vs Jamie Noble for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship
Once again we got Tajiri gunning for the Cruiserweight title and once again Noble takes it by rolling him up and hooking the tights.
Winner: Noble by pinfall (still Cruiserweight champion)
Match 6
Edge and Rey Mysterio Jr vs Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit for the WWE Tag Team Championship
In a rematch of their incredible No Mercy showdown, Edge and Mysterio get another crack at the champs. Unfortunately Los Guerreros ruin the party as Eddie (who was there apparently) and Chavo bumrush the ring. Rey was clocked with one of the tag belts and pinned by Benoit.
Winners: Benoit and Angle by pinfall (still WWE Tag Team Champions)
Match 7
Dawn Marie vs Torrie Wilson in a Bra & Panties match
Naturally after an exciting tag match featuring main eventers, we needed the classic cooldown match between two divas who can't really wrestle well. Bra & Panties matches were garbage as it is, but on a roster THIS stacked it was really egregious. You'd think with Raw having all the talent they did would loan someone like Jacqueline or Molly to Smackdown so the women's wrestling didn't totally suck. Torrie wins the match....yippie.
Winner: Torrie Wilson
Match 8
Booker T and Rikishi vs Matt Hardy and WWE Champion Brock Lesnar
Booker and Matt had been having singles matches on this European tour but for Sheffield they got Rikishi and Brock as partners. The Undertaker was originally advertised for this show so my guess is they scrapped Lesnar vs Taker and made this a tag match to keep Brock on the card. Rikishi won it by hitting Matt with the Rikishi driver.
Winners: Rikishi and Booker by pinfall
With the European tour coming to an end, at least something good came out of it. We got a damn good Rebellion ppv and the birth of the John Cena we know today. Smackdown was still far ahead of Raw in terms of great matches although the one dark spot was the god awful Divas matches on Smackdown. This card was damn good and its pretty much what we got at Rebellion with a few differences. As we return to the states, it'll be interesting to see how the Benoit and Angle story plays out with Los Guerreros lurking in the background. Tonight was also the night Sunday Night Heat aired in the US so I'll see you there.
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