RAW
They opened with a recap of last week’s Eugene vs. HHH match and its fallout. Eric Bischoff then came out and announced that there would be a HHH vs. Eugene cage match. He did it surrounded by a steel cage, which was a nice touch. Bisch said that anyone who interfered would be suspended indefinitely.

He then announced that Edge was being stripped of the IC title, due to his injury, and before he could say what his plan was, Christian came out. Christian said that Bisch should hand off the IC title to him, Captain Charisma, but Chris Jericho came out. Jericho got a really solid response, including a nice Y2J chant. Jericho said that Bischoff should sign a Jericho vs. Christian match for the IC title later on the show. Eric said that he wouldn’t do it on RAW, but would do it on Sunday at Unforgiven. Jericho said that the match was missing something, and said that he should let the fans decide what the match would be. Bischoff asked if they should do it in a steel cage, which got an OK pop from the crowd. Christian said that it wouldn’t work for him, since the last time they were in the steel cage, it put him on the shelf. Christian then countered with an offer of a Christian vs. Jericho in a…wait for it…No Countout Match.

The crowd booed the hell out of the idea, which Christian interpreted as Boo-ya. Jericho then said that he would like to see it be a Ladder Match for the title. This would be the seventh Ladder match for the IC title that I can think of. The crowd appreciated the idea greatly. After that, Jericho beat on Christian, which is always fun to see. Tyson Tomko pulled him out of the ring before Jericho could get the Walls on him.

FlairTista teamed up with La Resistance to take on Chris Benoit, William Regal, Tajiri and Rhyno. Flair and Benoit opened things up, and Flair mixed a little bit of Terry Funk in, doing the punches towards an unseen opponent, when he did his Flair Flop. The thing broke down with all eight guys in the ring at once after less than 5 minutes. They went to break, and when we returned, Flair and William Regal were trading chops and European Uppercuts in the ring.

Once again, Flair needs to hang them up. Beyond delivering and taking chops, taking backdrops and doing the Flair Flop, he’s done. He can do all of that while acting as a manager.

Batista gave Rhyno a spinebuster that looked awfully stiff. Rhyno got to take a bunch of punishment for a while. The crowd really seemed to get into the match. This was a strong match, where the guys did everything they could to get it over to the crowd, who found the match well-beyond acceptable. Conway gave Rhyno a solid clothesline. Rhyno sold for a long while, but eventually got the tag off to Benoit. Beoit got a few suplexes off, including one on Batista that looked awesome. Benoit delivered the Flying Headbutt, then locked on the Sharpshooter for the submission victory.

Oh, Amy, we're going to miss you...

They reviewed the Diva thing from last week. They bleeped the language, which made it seem slightly more acceptable. The Carmella comment about Amy getting laughed at by the Playboy editors isn’t true, but Amy has always thought that Carmella kept her from a spot in the pages of that magazine.

The SmackDown ReBound focused on the Guerrero vs. Angle match. It looked even better in highlight form.

Randy Orton got a little promo in backstage, which wasn’t great, but he did a funny HHH imitation. They reviewed last week’s moment where Randy RKO’d HHH. He did a fairly good young champion promo.

We then cut to Lita running into Trish backstage. Trish was forcing her title belt under Lita’s face and was talking about how Lita was smart enough to insert Kane into a match against Shawn Michaels but not smart enough to keep Kane from inserting himself into her. Nidia was standing behind Trish and when she turned around worked her over in Spanish. She then slapped Trish and the match was all set for later.

The match between the two was what you’d expect: nothing fantastic, but solid enough to not feel like they’d wasted out precious TV time. Nidia seems to be wearing Trish’s old Silver Lame outfits. Nidia did do some truly awful selling in the middle, but her offense has improved a fair amount, especially her Nothern Lights Suplex. Nidia apparently busted out of top a bit, allowing Trish to get the Chick Kick for the pin.

HHH and Bischoff did a little chatting backstage. It was basically H saying that Eugene was just the warm-up for Randy Orton. They lowered the cage for Eugene and HHH’s match, which is a weird match to have at the top of the second hour. They must be trying to get over the World Title as a big deal by always putting it in the main event. They have been getting better at that in recent years.

Eugene came out and looked freaked out to be in the cage. HHH came out, still seeming to sell the ribs. There are those backstage who don’t like the fact that Eugene is getting such a big push, but he’s legitimately one of HHH’s favorite people to work with. Eugene got an advantage after an initial HHH attack. The crowd seemed to react to Eugene positively. He even Hulked a bit, which is always fun to watch. Eugene worked over HHH for a while, trying to climb the cage until H crotched him on the top turnbuckle. HHH beat him bloody. H hung Eugene in the Tree of Woe and stomped him for a while. Eugene was getting a decent chant, which is a positive. Eugene sold for a while, then he sent HHH to the cage wall.

Eugene was the solid face in the match. When HHH blocked Eugene from leaving, he actually drew boos. HHH got thrown to the wall of the cage about a half-dozen times before Trips hit the Pedigree. HHH could have walked out of the cage, but decided to beat on Eugene some more. He then went to the top and drove his knee down into Eugene’s shoulder in a brutal variation on one of One Man Gang’s old moves. A big ‘Let’s Go Eugene’ chant rose from the crowd. HHH then strolled out of the cage, winning the match. Eugene then started to get out of the ring, but HHH came back and slammed the door on Eugene’s shoulder.

Edge talked with The Coach a bit. Then we were treated to Kane showing Lita why he’s not afraid of facing Shawn Michaels, since he was the one who put him out. This was pretty much nothing.

Tyson Tomko got a pin on Chris Jericho. It wasn’t a bad little match, though it was very quick. Christian distracted Jericho and allowed Tomko to his his Torture Rank into a Neckbreaker move to win. Christian brought in the ladder and knocked Christian around with it before setting it up over the prone Chris Jericho. Nice little touch.

They eliminated Amy from the Diva Search. I’m now pulling for Joy’s boobs to win. I think Christie’s Powersplit last week saved her. Or maybe it was her most filthy of the filthy mouths from last weeks show. They did an arm-wrestling thing where the winner got to dump a party-sized bucket of chili over the losing girls. Carmella beat Joy and Christie beat Amy. Carmella lost and Christie dumped the chilli over the girls. They then eliminated Amy. I really think she would have been a much better choice. Still, this was an awful idea that they just keep going through with.

Not so fast there, Garcia...

Kane managed a win via DQ over Randy Orton. The match was good, or at least I thought that it didn’t suck as much as it could have if Kane hadn’t tried. Randy does some nice European Uppercuts, and his selling is believable and well-thought out. Kane worked like a big man, which is what he is, and there aren’t too many who know how to throw their weight around as well as Kane, though he seldom wants to expend that much energy. Kane seemed to get the DQ win, which led me to going to sleep, figuring that they had just set up Kane as the next contender.

When I woke up and rewatched the tape, I saw that Eric Bischoff came out and ordered that the match restart as a cage match. Kane worked some more nice big guy stuff in the cage. HHH tried to pass a chair to Kane, but Randy ended up getting it in a situation that seemed a little confused it the TV viewer. Randy nailed Kane with the chair and then hit the RKO for the win.

NEWS
You may remember the headline from last week that spoke of Dr. Tom Pritchard. Well, the writing was on the wall, and he was officially dropped by the WWE last week. The rumor had hit the Fanboy Planet Office a few days before, but we didn’t know when they were gonna pull the plug. He had been around the WWE for more than a decade. Dr. Tom had been a big star in the Continental territory in the 1980s and then again in Smoky Mountain Wrestling in the early 1990s. He was a member of the Heavenly Bodies for ages, and then headed to the WWF to team with Chris Candido as Zip in the BodyDonnas. He eventually became one of the most valuable agents in the WWF, and also worked with many of the young wrestlers and would travel the country scouting talent. He will probably open a wrestling school, or there is the possibility that the WWE will hire him to run one of their soon-to-open training territories.

Paul Heyman is back on the creative team. No one’s quite sure what his role will be, since Gerwirtz is still the head writer on RAW, but he’s certainly a part of the creative team, which is probably a good thing right about now.

Brock Lesnar is likely to get a spot on the Minnesota Vikings practice squad, or so say many of the outlets at the moment. There were other teams that were interested in Brock in one form or another.

Scott Hall is still alive.

By the way, I got a couple of different matches confused for last week’s FlashBack, particularly the one where Benoit dropped Sabu on his head ended right after he rolled out of the ring, only a minute or so after the match started. The match I was thinking of had taken place a few months earlier and featured Sabu getting a pin. When he broke his neck, he rolled out of the ring and started screaming about his neck. This was the first time most fans had ever heard Sabu speak.

FlashBack!
If you asked many of the Japanese fans what the best show in the history, they’d answer the Super J Cup in 1994. The show was hosted by New Japan Pro Wrestling and brought together most of the top jr. heavyweights in the world. Japanese stars Super Delphin, Taka Michinoku, Jushin Liger and Jado met such great international stars as Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Negro Casas. The tournament finals featured Benoit and Japanese J-Division superstar The Great Sasuke.

Sasuke is now a politician -- and still wears the mask.

Sasuke was the star of Michinoku Pro Wrestling, the promotion that ran throughout the NorthEast portion of Japan. Sasuke was the high flyingest of the wrestlers in Japan. He was the guy who took every big flying move to the next, death-defying level. Chris Benoit, then being called Wild Pegasus, was then the highest working star in the world, taking over as Jushin Liger had begun his first of several down periods. Their match was the main event of the show.

The match built like most of the great Cruiserweight matches do, with solid mat work punctuated by flying moves. Sasuke and Benoit did a tonne of exchanges with hammerlocks and headlock take-overs. Benoit opened up a little with chops, but Sasuke did some great reversals and a classic backflip where he planted his foot in the center Chris’ chest. The other wrestlers surrounded the ring to watch the match, which is something that ECW used to occasionally do to make a match seem important. Sasuke, though best known for his flying, was fantastic on the mat. He used a number of simple submissions, but made the most out of each of them. When Benoit went for a monkey flip, Sasuke flew over him in a swan dive, adding a touch of style to a simple avoidance move. One of Benoit’s big moves back then was getting a guy up for a suplex and then dropping him stomach first onto the top rope. The fans in japan are weird, not really popping for submissions, but going crazy for dives and some of the moves like the Dragon Suplex and anytime the guys flew out of the ring to the floor. When Benoit went for the Sharpshooter, called the Scorpion Lock in Japan, got no big pop and didn’t even seem to make the crowd believe that it could possibly be the finish.

The spot of the match had to be the Sasuke’s two big dives. The first was the Flying Space Tiger Drop. It starts out as a handspring over the top rope, and then becomes a twisting dive. It’s been around since the days of Tiger Mask in the early 1980s, but few people had used it since. The other featured a move that seemed to introduce the next level to the audience. Sasuke knocked Benoit out of the ring with a drop kick, then he went across the ring and then headed to the top of the turnbuckle. He leapt off the top and gave Benoit a big dropkick. He landed beyond the soft blue mats at ringside and went squarely onto his hip. He actually did injure his hop somewhat, but he did an amazing sell-job, convincing everyone that he had actually destroyed his hip on the fall. Not too long after that, Sasuke went to the top, but Benoit caught him and delivered a Gut-Wrench Suplex to win the match and the Super J Cup.

The match is on the Chris Benoit DVD, with the original Japanese Commentary, Tazz and Michael Cole doing another track and Dean Malenko, Todd ‘Why the Hell is he here?’ Grissom and Chris Benoit doing another set of commentary that is almost ruined by Grissom. It’s still a great match and holds up pretty well. You can sort of tell that this is where modern Cruiserweight competition came from, with the big bumps and the ground work.