New Footage Friday: WWE MSG HandHeld 9/20/03

Full Show


MD: I was at this show. My college roommate was from the area and got me a ticket for my 22nd birthday right before I went off to grad school in England. This was the only time I ever went to MSG to see wrestling and as you can tell from the first few seconds of video, business was way down. That meant we ended with great seats, not ringside, but close. I'll be honest. Past the main event and the Taz surprise, I don't remember this card that well. While it was nice to see guys like Spanky, London, Mysterio, and Dragon in a setting like this and the main event felt special, I think, at the time, the main draw was just being in MSG to see wrestling.

Chris Benoit vs. The Big Show

PAS: This was far enough away that I am going to go ahead and try to pretend this was Quiet Storm vs. The Big Show and review it as a match instead of talking about all of that. Mark "The Shark" Shrader vs. Big Show was always a really great match up because John Walters would always move forward constantly while bouncing off of Show. This was a pretty great Nitro length match with Dingo hitting a great looking top rope shoulder block, and locking in the Josh Daniels crossface for the tap.

ER: I didn't love the layout of this one. Big Show took his offense up front, Benoit took all of his in the back, and that might be my least favorite layout in wrestling. I enjoyed all of the work, especially liked Benoit's shoulderblock off the top. But too often this had the vibe of a formula Randy Savage match, where he'd sell the whole match, hit a bodyslam and then finish with the elbow. This was better than that formula, and I liked how the tracking line skipped when Big Show hit a legdrop. Cooler version of the rumble effect WWE always tries.

MD: I don't see a lot of Benoit these days. He was perfectly serviceable chopping from underneath and the timing and explosiveness of the finishing stretch (headbutt, chokeslam reversal into a crossface) was great. The crowd was as behind him as they ever would be too, but to me, this was all about Show. He'd gotten it by this point and the way he controlled the ring, even in just a few minutes, was perfect, absolutely larger than life. This was a victim of the number of matches on the card, much shorter than it needed to be to move the needle, but they gave us a very good TV C show sort of match.

Matt Hardy/Shannon Moore vs. Spanky/Paul London

PAS: Really fun TWA vs. OMEGA tag match you could imagine seeing on Break the Barrier. It was really interesting to see how much bigger the OMEGA guys were then then London and Spanky, how even a three year difference in indy juniors meant 3 inches and 35 pounds (and I am sure London and Spanky would look like giants against the Undisputed Era). Hardy and Moore were the heels here and did a nice job cutting off the ring on Spanky after he took a big bump to the floor (his crazy bump would be topped by Shannon Moore later in the match). I thought the London hot tag was cool including a nicely set up SSP after spring off of Spanky's back. Just what you wanted from this cool matchup.

MD: This was good. I didn't like it as much as the later tag but that was more of a structural preference than anything else. You really got the sense that Hardy was glad to be in there with these guys and that Spanky and London had a lot to prove. They fit a lot into a short period of time and everything looked good with people in the right position at the right time. Again, with a card this stacked, they needed contrast and this was there to get the crowd going after their appetites had been whetted by the early burst of size, spectacle, and star-power.

ER: This is really cool, as Paul London hadn't actually made his TV debut. He had done some Velocity job work, but I bet 90+% of the crowd had no idea who he was, and the reactions for his biggest spots really showed they liked what they were seeing. I also had no memory of Brian Kendrick actually working WWE as "Spanky". What a silly name to have used for so long, and another name to add to the list of "Wait so Bryan Danielson had to be Daniel Bryan, but..." I obviously remember London & Kendrick, I had no memory of a London & Spanky WWE team. I dug this tag, felt like something that would fit in perfectly on this era Velocity. There were a couple minor timing issues and a swinging neckbreaker that looked like it didn't really swing, but the fans were reacting big to London's dropkicks and flipped out for that shooting star off Spanky's back (which is a fantastic spot), and the finish was really great. Spanky goes for a pescado and Moore dunks him right into the floor, then runs halfway around the ring in time to shove London off the top into a Twist of Fate. I thought they added in a couple of good twists, like Spanky being unable to get to his hot tag while Moore got to his, the kind of things that add different gears to a fun spot tag.

Sho Funaki vs. Nunzio

PAS: The Bloodsport version of PWFG trainee versus UWFI undercarder would be pretty cool. The WWE house show version is a pretty basic undercard juniors match. Lots of dropkicks and armdrags. Nunzio did take a big backdrop which was pretty cool, otherwise this was pretty dry.

MD: Nunzio was really great here, just excellent at working the crowd and keeping people engaged, from having the ref mimic his mannerisms pre-match to mocking Funaki. Because of that, even though you had guys down the cruiserweight chain and basically your third-string Japanese guy on the card in a time where you'd be liable just to have one or two, they never lost the fans, which is saying something because this was a crowd that was capable of tuning out in the midst of a good match.

Bashams vs. Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble

MD: Enjoyable southern tag, with Dragon playing face in peril and the Bashams dismantling his arm with perfect precision. Here, they did lose the fans, though it wasn't necessarily the fault of the match. It certainly wasn't Noble's fault, since he was working the apron hard and expressing real indignation in his attempts to get in there, even at his partner's expense. The Bashams had only been on TV for a few months and they didn't have Shaniqua to get them heat here (not that she would have necessarily helped). While they were sound in everything they did, it was the opposite of Nunzio. They barely acknowledged the crowd. When the boring chants started, Noble redoubled his efforts on the apron and Dragon went right into hope spots, but it didn't really work out. Noble was fiery enough that the comeback more or less worked out and the finish was effective and elaborate but the crowd just didn't want to come along for the ride of the match. Shame.

PAS: I thought this was spectacular. The Bashams were really great at making a heel beatdown interesting, and they really worked over Dragons arm in cool ways, while feeding him some nifty comebacks and hope spots. I am sort of a low voter on Ultimo, but he can really be breathtaking when he gets on a roll. Noble was really awesome in this match too, knocking out some cool quick takedowns early, being a killer house of fire, including jumping into a guillotine, and then eating that killer super spine buster for the pin. This is a show with some of the most talented wrestlers in wrestling history on it, and it takes a lot to stand out, and he really did.

ER: I'm with Phil, I thought this was great. Bashams were always a team that I was fine with but never fully got into them, always thought they didn't live up to all of the OVW hype Meltzer gave them at the time. There would be flash standout performances, but I also remember them being tied down with Tough Enough manager Linda Miles and I don't think the act worked. But everything about this tag worked for me and made me want to go back and revisit a ton of Bashams. This was easily one of the best Ultimo Dragon performances I remember seeing in WWE (a stint I thought was super disappointing overall). Dragon was the reason for me to buy WAR tapes back in the day, and at this point in my life there are probably on average at least 15 guys on any given WAR show that I would rather watch. But this was the ideal version of WWE Dragon, all his combos landed and I flat out loved the missed strikes between he and Danny Basham. Danny Basham was full of awesome missed strikes here, I don't remember him cutting so low on missed lariats and punches; he really made Ultimo duck and was throwing them super fast. Noble really did look like a much better and more interesting version of Benoit here, everything he did looked fantastic, that running low knee especially was something that I don't think any current worker does as well. But everything he did was done with such exciting speed and impact. There are plenty of guys with speed on the 2020 roster, but Noble was using his speed to make his impact look greater, not using it to work out overly complicated dance routines based around missed your opponent a bunch. Great tag that I would have loved to see get more time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri

MD: Everything hit, but I wanted a little more out of this, just given who was in there. I liked how they didn't dally in getting to the transition (which was smart and flowed, as Mysterio went up one too many times and ate a kick), but past one roll-up out of nowhere, there weren't any hope spots and and cut offs. This is the sort of match that needed a few extended comeback spots where Mysterio could get a few things in. The finishing stretch was as good as you'd expect and I liked how they protected Tajiri's kick for the post match, though it was a little weird that Mysterio would rather celebrate with the crowd than go after the guy who snuck in a cheapshot.

PAS: I thought these guys worked really well together, for a pairing you don't necessarily think about. It felt like Tajiri was trying to out Rey, Rey almost trying to one up him in slickness and speed especially at the beginning of the match. The fact he kind of pulled it off is pretty amazing. Loved how Tajiri went after the ribs, using the big kick as a cutoff spot, and then peppering in little body shots and additional kicks. Great stuff which really makes me want to track down all of their other matches against each other.

Charlie Haas vs. Billy Kidman

MD: I haven't seen either of these guys in a long time. There were some things I really liked: Haas' initial intensity with the mat wrestling (though it didn't last long enough; the way he jammed Kidman's outside-in shoulder to set up the posting and the heat, then how Kidman had to work to get that shoulder for a hope spot later; the back-work in general which was intense, and the comeback took effort and the finish was solid. They had the crowd early, probably due to Haas getting promo time, and lost them midway through, but not for long. I outright laughed when Haas tried to power bomb Kidman, because I didn't think that was still happening in 2003. So I liked the brunt of the storytelling here. Some of the spots were awkward and Kidman's offense in the stretch wasn't great but you couldn't have wanted much more from a cold house show match between these two.

Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena vs. Rhyno

MD: As triple threats go, I thought this was pretty good. They kept the laying-on-the-outside to a minimum. Cena was definitely full of star power and willing to throw himself into everything. Eddy had this way of creating chaos so effortlessly and then taking advantage of it. You should have been able to see the strings but you never did.

PAS: Three ways are far from my favorite kind of match, but you put two of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time along with a fine utility man like Rhino, you are going to get something really worth watching. I just love watching Eddie move, even in a minor key house show match like this he just exudes something. It is like watching Prince or Richard Pryor, really that kind of kinetic star power was supremely rare. Cena has it in smaller doses, but this was before Cena was Cena really. I did like his squat press suplex, and he didn't look out of his depth in there with Eddie. Rhino was shaped like a cardboard box, and I always enjoyed him bouncing around like a Box Troll.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MD: It's hard to ignore the complaining from the fans. All of the heat here was ultimately on Vince, and yes, the match did come alive in that back third when he was involved. Before that, though it was more of a traditional WWF cage match, lacking hate, lacking blood, not nearly enough violence, with a lot of transitions and spots based around trying to escape the cage, peppered with good use of the cage to do things their size wouldn't usually allow and a few bits of matwork that you know Taker was excited to be able to work with Brock. Vince brought so much energy and excitement relative to the actual wrestlers, which is weird to think considering how the entire world seems to buzz when Brock is in a ring now.

PAS: These guys had an all time great Hell in the Cell match around this time. This wasn't that, but these guys do match up really well. Brock is such a freak athlete and even on simple bumps is just flying around the ring. They also laid in their shots which is really what you want from Matt is right about the match really picking up when Vince comes in. Vince can really emote to the last row, and takes some big bumps for an old man with a lot of money. I really loved his post match celebration only to get ripped by Taker. Fun stuff, although it really could have used the plasma which livened up the Hell in the Cell.