For the Iowa State University audience, Monday night's WWF RAW ended its otherwise uneventful program in stunning form. While it looked like The Game and his wife Stephanie would be no-shows, they surprised everybody by arriving late on the scene - a few minutes after 11 p.m. - to affect the final match in a major way.
In the featured last bout, which pinned WWF Champion Kurt Angle against wrestler bad-boy Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Game jumped into the ring to influence the outcome. Just as the Rattlesnake applied the Stunner and covered Angle for the pin, The Game ran into the ring to punish Austin. While Stone Cold thought he would win the title, Triple-H responded with a symbolic, "I don't think so!" Upon entering the ring, The Game brutally assaulted Austin, bashing on his head whenever possible. In one exemplary tactic, he suplexed Stone Cold, driving his face right into a steel chair.
At the onset of the evening, our favorite wrestler, Olympic hero and WWF champion Kurt Angle, strutted into the ring to address the Iowan crowd. "Oh it's true." Using their "hick-like" reputation as his target, the Olympic champion insulted the crowd for upwards of ten minutes. He teased them, saying that most of their occupations consisted solely of "milking cows or picking corn."
In addition to making fun of the crowd, Angle voiced his displeasure for the amount of ridiculous, completely fake, and overblown violent maneuvers in the WWF these days. We have to agree with him on this point. After we saw Stone Cold drop Triple-H and his car 40 feet off a forklift at Survivor Series, and then watched the Game speak from his hospital bed with a mere band-aid on his arm, we felt compelled to lose our lunch. While fans nowadays know that wrestling is fake, this blatant lack of realism should not go unnoticed. It was insulting to see Triple-H perfectly healthy only a day after that dramatic drop.
Angle stated that he would retire due to the emergence of such brutality in the ring. Obviously, this entire speech was a load of crap, since Commissioner Mick Foley came to the ring, accompanied by the beautifully big-breasted Deborah, to set up his match with Steve Austin. While some viewers may have predicted that Stone Cold would surely defeat Angle and take the title, such people evidently don't know anything about wrestling. We predict that your Olympic hero will hold the title at least until the next pay per view, Armageddon.
In other action, the Rock took on WWF fat-ass Rikishi once again in a battle for possession of the number one contendership. The Rock won by disqualification due to Kurt Angle's interference, but also received his usual post-match beat-down from Rikishi. We don't understand why the popular Brahma Bull gets his clock cleaned at the end of every match, especially from Rikishi, who no one really likes at all.
Unfortunately, no other match or storyline warrants mentioning. Other than the main event, the bulk of the program was rather unentertaining. There remains a tremendous rift between the top wrestlers and the subsidiary storylines. The WWF would be better off developing lower stars so that the program as a whole improves. We find ourselves to be mostly entertained in the first and last half hours of the two-hour program, when the top superstars are on the program.
With that said, the trials and tribulations of the main storyline provide motivation enough to watch RAW. The new rekindled feud between Austin and Triple-H will surely be awesome. Also, since the Rock defeated Rikishi, he is next in line to challenge for Kurt Angle's title. Throw these two epic clashes in with a little Bad Ass Billy Gunn, the hideous Chyna, the pathetic Eddie Guerrero, some dumb fun with the Dudley's, the Hardy's and the team of Edge and Christian, and the new feud between Undertaker and Kane, and WWF wrestling is definitely worth watching. So remember Smackdown this Thursday at 8 p.m. on UPN, Heat Sunday at 7 p.m. on MTV, and RAW next Monday on TNN - we'll be watching!
