Recently, and you can find it on the channel right now, we went through SmackDown in 2002, and towards the end of the year, things were exciting. It felt like in-ring action was going to take over after the madness of the Aitud era, and that felt like a smart call. We needed a 180, good TV matches would look at you in the face. Then, for whatever reason, the controversy of Raw bled over to the Blue Brand and left us with many angles we were going

to cry over for the rest of time. In short, Linz McMahon could not help himself.

I have gone through this year though, so brace yourself, because here's what you're going

to get on Smackdown throughout 2003.

Number 12, we start with Al Wilson and Dawn Marie.

Even though it was clear Smackdown was trying to underline itself as a show that would embrace the old ways of wrestling,

Dawn Marie decided to marry Torrey Wilson's dad to get one over her in a feud. I mean, that's insane. Al Wilson was Torrey's real father too,

and most of January in 2003 is just this. I mean, the second of January episode features Al's and Dawn's wedding,

and by the 16th, Al was dead due to too much sex. I mean, the 2nd of January episode features Al's and Dawn's wedding, and by the 16th, Al was dead due to too much sex, in what the flub happened to Ray Mysterio and Edge being awesome. This was the road to the Royal Rumble as well, so if you tuned back in for that, you got old people passing away from humping. My guess there's a few new fans didn't want to watch that. It all comes down to the fact that my man thought controversy and scandal would generate headlines and get people talking, and maybe that happened, but it didn't get anybody wanting to watch. That's the point. It's bad. Number 11, some of the comedy was a bit better, which is a huge thing to say for Vince McMahon's WWE. Sometimes he got it so wrong, we cried inside, and most of this did improve thanks to the one and only Kurt Engel. He proved that if you were awesome in the ring, when the bell goes, you can do whatever the flub you want on the outside of the square circle, as long as you are entertaining. Oy July, Kurt is doing a rap segment as he fused with John Sina, and while it does have Dad drunk a Christmas vibes, that's exactly what he was going for. He knows the deal. You also get referee Brian Hebner beatboxing underdress, and Sina sells this like the world is coming to an end. It works. It may not come that way if you watch this out of context, but you need to know about the other attempts that were going on, like Los Gavaros spraying big show with sewage or people getting the runs because they ate a dodgy burrito. Great. Kirk continually does it throughout the year and this is why he is one of the goats. Of course, his wrestling is unmatched, but the fate he understood the character side so quickly too, the man is one of a kind. If you want to put him on your personal Mount Rushmore, I get it. Just go back and watch him, fires on all cylinders. Number 10, The Undertaker feuds with the FBI. Now, I like the FBI. A bit of fun gimmick in ECW, so why not try out on WWTV? It's never meant to be anything more than Midcard Entertainment, then all of a sudden in 2003, they are feuding with the Undertaker. I think this sums up where the dead man was headed because at WrestleMania 19,

his match was also against A-Train and the Big Show. Just so weird and forgettable. And that, of course, was done to launch Nathan Jones into the stratosphere when the plug gets pulled because management decided that Nathan wasn't ready. That didn't help take it either. He was lost in the shuffle again. To fix this, W.W. get Tommy Stamboli, Nunziio and Chuck Palumbo to attack the fiendarm. And they basically wore throughout the summer. We even got the Undertaker team with Brot Les on the House shows to make it a three-on-two. I mean, I would imagine the idea was for two big dudes to throw some people around. It was difficult Smackdown as Taker was doing it by himself, and they don't have one match on pay-per-view.

Those slots were reserved for John C and A-Train, so basically, Biker Taker was fighting five individuals in total. This was so strange and look, nobody brings it up today because it was sort of just there. Number nine, the OG ring explosion. And how it is still flabbing awesome. WWE is showing the clip of Big Show and Brock Lesnar hit in the ring so hard it blew up.

It may be the best thing ever. It was the 12th of June 2003 Smackdown when they tried the superplexing, yep, the hallowed square circle went boom, collapsed. What a good idea. WW knew this too as they did it again with Mark Henry in 2011 and Braun-Strauman got to go in 2017, so fair play to the powers to be. Over time, they have not overdone this at all. Nothing will ever beat the first one though, because nobody saw it coming. Nobody thought a superplex would be able to cause a total collapse, and this is what I mean when I talk about creative finishes too. The odd running or distraction is fine, but you can think outside the box,

this is that example. Michael Cole and Tales on Commentary sold this moment wonderfully as well,

and actually Lesnar and Show had some real chemistry together. I think Brock just understood

how to get the Giants' bigness over. So it still rules, in case you wanted to know, and if you've

never seen it, change that today. You'll smile and remind yourself how stupid, yet brilliant.

Wrestling can be number eight, the hidden February classic. We have talked about this before, but I need to reiterate it in case you are new. I just cannot watch Chris Benoit matches anymore. I'm sure you can figure out why. And I know some fans go the other way and that's fine. This is just my choice. Then it's not to he and Kurt Angle didn't have amazing chemistry because boy, how do they did. Anytime they clash, you could see they love working with each other. And in 2003, they are just having the time of their lives. I mean, you do have that match at the Raw Rumble. But then on the 6th of February Smackdown, they are back doing it on TV. It actually benefits from the fact that it's only 10 minutes because there is no wasted motion. The bell rings and they just go ballistic. The transitsons especially are like playing WW2K. I'm going to be that guy, but they're effortless. You also get Los Guerreras versus Team Angle on this card with Team Angle winning the belts. So really, this is like a pay-per-view edition of Smackdown. Just feels like both of these matches have been lost for the passage of time. So I think you should check them out today if you want to be a super nerd. They are worth your time. Number seven, the 60-minute Iron Man match. We're always so mad to watch Smackdowns in 2003 because WWE had figured it out. The attitude era was done and we needed something new. And when the blue brown went full on wrestling, it's exactly the new approach the audience wanted. This Kurt Angle brought Lesnar Ironman match is all the proof you need. It is the 18th of September episode, and over half the show is dedicated to it, and both guys go crazy. They're not worried about commercial breaks. They were just going to go till they can't go no more.

It even mad of watching it back with all the facts because Kurt later admitted his sister had passed away shortly before this, so he had stayed up the night before taking painkillers. He had told his sibling you wouldn't talk to her again until she got herself clean. This is how it ended, so yeah. Even though what Angle did was out of love, he was riddled with guilt. WWEE actually couldn't get hold of Kerr due to him being passed out in his hotel room when he finally got to the building. And this is what he was able to do. So don't tell me he's not one of the best to ever do it. Most couldn't do this after weeks of perfect training. It's also the antithesis to what most people expect from an Ironman too because there's not much downtime. They just use their ridiculous engines to go and go. It's definitely one of the best that WWE has ever done. It's flawless in many ways. Love it. Number six, Roddy Piper with Sean O'Hare does not work. You likely don't remember that pairing and to be fair it was super weird. In April though, WW did want to push Sean O'Hare and yeah, that made sense. He had all the tools that seemed to be successful in WWE, and their big plan to make this work was to team him with Roddy Piper. Now, we all know Roddy was a Hall of Famer, but it was also a loose cannon. Therefore, while this started all right in June, W.W.E eventually decided they couldn't handle Piper anymore, so they released him. That meant Sean was in no man's land,

and he got relegated to velocity. That was not great for him. It was also when he was doing this weird motivational speaker with a twist gimmick, and go read some message boards about this today. The wider fan base are still into it, and yet it was totally wasted. When you could argue that Roddy actually derailed O'Hare, because he did all the talking. And before that, Sean was getting better and better in that area. I'm not sure the audience bought it either, so in terms of a post-mortem, well, it was just never a net positive and O'Hare never got to where he could have done. Just because you share your screen time with the legend, doesn't mean it's all of a sudden going to click with ease. Dare I say WW Rust this one could have been so much more. Number five, Mr. America felt like bad WCW. So maybe that is a bit unfair, but when you write the idea down, it does sound like WCW in the year 2000 where everything was bad. I mean, you had no disqualification matches that ended in a DQ. Wrestlers also won bouts who weren't officially in. You had work shoots. It was rubbish. So when you hear, why don't we put Hulk Hogan in a mask and tell him to pretend he's not Hulk Hogan, even though quite clearly it's Hulk Hogan, believing a kid is going to go, what the fuck are you doing? On the first of May Smackdown, though, Mr. America did debut on an episode of Piper's Pit, and we had weeks of vignette for this character. We treated it like a huge deal, so actually, we trolled the audience. It was all off the back of Vince McMahon firing Hogan after that match at WrestleMania 19. They then booked Mr. America versus Roddy Piper at Judgment Day. Let's just say that was a mistake. When the real problem was heels look so stupid trying to rip his mask off because there was no surprise here. I still don't know if we were meant to just suspend our disbelief and act like the bad guys weren't smart enough to realize this, or if they were on the same page as us, and they were just getting mad. You know what? It just sucks. We never even got a payoff because Hogan and my man fell out soon after this. What a waste of time. Number four, Brock and Vince.

And speaking of a waste of time. Number 4, Brock and Vince.

And speaking of a waste of time, let us get into the short-lived relationship between Brot Lesnar and Vince McMahon. I'm sure you're rolling your eyes because no way that happened. Well, I'm here to ruin your day until you it did. It was classic swerve for swerb booking, because of the 7th of August edition of Smackdown,

we got a steel cage match between McMahon and Brock.

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