Chris Nowinski and Rodney Mack showed the crowd... well, that they were still alive. That’s about all I can say about them. No pre match comments from Teddy Long! Denied! Still, the Dudleys did their thing, although no tables were involved... shocker! The teased heel turn attempted on Heat never really went anywhere, thankfully - Bubba’s solo push showed what happens when the Dudleys go their separate ways...
Smart move putting the Dudleys on first to fire up the crowd, but the match was neither good nor bad - it was simply there - put it this way, it could have happened on Raw and it wouldn’t have felt out of place.
Now, here’s the thing - Test was watchable - apart from the Greenwich Street Fight with Shane McMahon at Summerslam 1999, this is probably his finest moment. The actual match was highly watchable too - even down to the funniest moment of the night for me, Steiner slipping off the apron when he tried to attack Test, and attempting to cover it by beating the snot out of Test - nice try, Scott.
Test’s heel antics combined with Stacy playing the face in peril at ringside made for some great chemistry, and even Steiner looked as good as he has done since his WWE return. This was one of the surprises of the night for me - hopefully, this will be the end of the feud, and we’ll see what the creative team has planned for both men now, and pray for the best.
As I expected anyway, Booker and Christian did their best but just rehashed the match from Insurrextion - don’t know if that makes a difference for the people in Canada and the US that didn’t see their effort in the UK last week, but it just bored me. I like Booker, and I like Christian - I think Christian has done really well with his character since stepping out of the shadows of his more illustrious tag partners, Edge and Chris Jericho - but they just didn’t seem to get it done tonight.
The match never really got the crowd going, and never really seemed to step up beyond 2nd gear - it had a house show feel about it, for some reason - not what you’re expecting on the first Raw only PPV. I’d like to think the plan is to stretch the feud out a little and have Christian drop the belt at Summerslam, but I’m not sure if another 8 weeks of matches like last night will do Christian, Booker or the IC Title any good. A DQ finish on PPV is never good.
The RVD & Kane against La Resistance match sickened me, to be honest. The Tag titles have been used more as a pawn in the ongoing RVD-Kane relationship than as belts in their own right. That same “will he, won’t he” storyline of Kane and his split from RVD which will inevitably happen has forced the Tag Titles onto La Resistance, a team who, let’s be honest, don’t really look ready to be on television yet, let alone holding the belts.
If Raw is to succeed as a separate brand, then any title on Raw should be treated with some respect, not being dumped on a couple of rookies because of an ongoing storyline that might not even come to anything. Even the actual match was more of a backdrop to Kane and RVD’s split than anything resembling a good match. La Resistance aren’t ready for the titles, yet they now have the tag titles. No doubt they’ll drop them to The Dudleys - the go-to team for when Tag Title reigns go bad...
Jericho and Goldberg came out to try and entertain the masses, and for the most part, they just about managed it. The Goldberg experiment looks to be a failure though, with many sections of the crowd turning on him - “Goldberg Sucks” chants were present at a lot of times in the match, and Jericho had quite a following. Goldberg spent most of the match selling for Jericho’s offence, and actually did it quite well.
Of course, the big deal about Goldberg in WCW was that he was invincible - having him roll about on the floor showing pain isn’t what got him over in WCW. To be honest, he’s not returning the interest that his wages demand, and Jericho came out of this one looking more like the superstar that Goldberg is supposed to be. Goldberg hit the high spot of the night with his spear through the security barrier, but for me, Jericho came out of this one with all the credit. JR’s comment about “this one isn’t over” seems to indicate to me that there could be a rematch in this one...
Ric Flair and HBK put on a good show, as expected, but it just wasn’t quite the five star classic I was expecting. I know that Shawn Michaels is complaining that they only got 18 minutes, instead of the 30 he was looking for, but to be honest, I don’t think that another 12 minutes was called for. HBK and Flair put on a masterclass in crowd control, and worked them for all they were worth, but there just seemed to be a spark missing.
It was by no means a bad match though - HBK’s splash through the table looked great - and Orton’s interference did make sense. I just wonder if the next feud for HBK will be Randy Orton rather than a rematch with Ric Flair? At the end of the day, it was still a treat to see The Heartbreak Kid and The Nature Boy lock it up one on one after all these years, but just felt like a bit of a letdown in the end.
Allow me, if you will, to mention the Redneck Triathlon at this point. While the skits provided a few laughs - Austin winning burp, and Bischoff’s N-Sync impression being the pick for me - it wasn’t all plain sailing. The Mae Young segment was telegraphed from the moment Austin won the right to pick Bisch’s “victim”, and if we’re being honest, the whole thing really had no place on PPV. Great idea to fill in time, I suppose, but surely another match could have been fitted in instead of Austin & Bischoff amusing themselves?
On a side note, a PPV with Bischoff and Nash - and it’s sponsored by Maxim Hair Colour? Someone has a sick, sick sense of humour...
And to finish things off as usual, we have Triple H retaining his title on PPV... and when Nash was the challenger, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Nash just hasn’t shown enough to be considered a legit title holder. Having said all that, this match was somewhat of a surprise to me. Nash and Trips put everything they had into this one, and the extra effort made it the best of their face-offs to date.
Building on the Lesnar & Taker style of Hell In A Cell match, this one was all about the Cell being there to contain the fight, rather than just using the Cell as a prop for a big bump. The brawling between Trips and Nash was brutal at time, various different hammers, screwdrivers, wooden crates, steel ring steps and even a barbed wire 2x4 being used - all three men, including Mick Foley, bled in the match, and it had an epic feel to it.
Without a doubt, this was Nash’s best match of the year, were it not for the match against Flair on Raw, it would have been Trips finest 2003 moment also. A good solid main event and a hell of a way for Raw to kick off their own branded PPVs.
As a whole, Bad Blood wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible either. It wasn’t the ground breaking show that Raw would have loved to have had under it’s belt, but I certainly didn’t find myself longing for a couple of Smackdown matches to liven things up. Goldberg comes out of Bad Blood with the most to prove, Jericho and Test can say they had a great show. Just goes to show, you don’t need to win these days...
Until next time, have fun, go mad.
