WWE Velocity Results: 1/24/04 By: Liz Sanders on 01/27/04
WWE Velocity
Hosted by Josh Mathews and Bill DeMott
Report by Matt Zylbert - BigShot5021@aol.comBigShot5021@aol.com
Before we get to the 17th annual Royal Rumble (Can you believe it's been that long?) we must go through Velocity! I always love saying that before a big PPV. Hello all and welcome back to the guilty pleasure. As always, I am your erratic reporter Matt Zylbert, and THIS is the 'five-star' 1Wrestling.com Velocity Report that can easily be mistaken for gold. With another big night of Velocity action set to take place, let's send it down to TONY THE CHIM for our opening contest...
WWE Tag Team Championship
Basham Brothers w/Shaniqua vs Ultimo Dragon & Funaki
Words cannot describe my emotions right now. Can you guess why? It's only the opener... and it's a TITLE MATCH... on Velocity! The Bashams are making their first ever Velocity title defense, despite having been on the show as champs before, most recently a few weeks ago in a victory over Los Maximos, aka the SATs. Ultimo Dragon and Funaki, meanwhile, are getting a long overdue title shot, although I'm not sure what they've done recently to earn it. But what's there to complain about it? This should be good, AND it's for the titles... on Velocity!!
Josh's opening "Welcome to Velocity!" line always gets me pumped up for the show, but a title match to open the event just puts me over the edge. SOMEBODY CALL MY MOMMA... I miss Cat on Velocity. To our title match now as Ultimo Dragon and Danny start us off, and the Basham proves his superior strength by shoving his opponent into the corner, allowing him to taunt. That reminds of what Matt Hardy Version 1.0 used to do on Velocity so he could scream V-1-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That debuted on Velocity, ya know. They tie-up again soon after, and despite some knees and CLUBBY blows from Danny, Ultimo is able to come back with a tilt-a-whirl headscissors to gain the early advantage. He follows up with a kick to the back, before running off the ropes and landing another stiff kick, this one to the chest. UD gets two on the proceeding pin, and tags in Funaki. They work a double reverse knife-edge chop, and the Indeed One follows with a low-dropkick to the face for two. Proceeding some punches, Funaki seeks some more offense in the corner, but is disposed of to the apron by his foe. Danny distracts referee Jimmy Korderes as a result, and Shaniqua interjects herself by pulling Funaki off the apron, and he falls face-first. Danny goes out to bring him back in, where he tags in Doug. Through the art of double-teaming, the Bashams drop Funaki neck-first over the top rope. Doug now delivers some kicks that soon lead to a near fall, and goes back to work right after with a snapmare. He clocks the downed Funaki with some elbows, before going to a modified chinlock, with Shaniqua demanding to "Finish him!" Funny how that sounded a lot like Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat, or something. Doug breaks the hold so he can tag his partner, and holds Funaki wide-open for a shot to the mid-section, and by "shot", I don't mean shining wizard or any other complicated punch or kick that Jim Ross is yet to learn the name of. Danny continues his team's current dominance with some clubs and punches, before planting Funaki with a hard right-hand. This gets another two count, so Danny goes back to the chinlock. As expected, Funaki elbows out, but is thrown down by his hair. Danny tries to follow up by grabbing Funaki's foot, but you just can't do that. Funaki capitalizes with an enziguiri, and both men are down. Danny tags out first, and as Doug tries to prevent the tag, Funaki kicks him away and makes the HOT HOT HOT tag to Ultimo Dragon. Uh oh, I sense some of Velocity's famous LOW-CARD MAYHEM. Ultimo comes and immediately takes down Doug with his cool kicking combo, before knocking Danny off the apron with a springboard dropkick. Ultimo now traps Doug in a modified pinning predicament for two, and connects with a springboard moonsault shortly after for yet another near fall. Doug attempts to re-gain control as he scores with a kick to the shoulder, but Ultimo retaliates with a spinning heel kick to the mid-section. That's the set-up for the Asai DDT, but when he goes for it, Doug shoves him into the corner. Doug attempts to follow-up, but ends up on the apron. As they continue to tussle, Danny sneaks back in the ring, schoolboys Ultimo from behind, WITH the tights... and gets the three count. Damn, my dream of a title changing hands on Velocity is still just that; a dream. Really solid match, although the ending could have been better, and I'm surprised Funaki didn't get involved in the end there. Nonetheless, a good watchable match.
Winners and STILL WWE Tag Team Champions: Basham Brothers
DeMott's Turning Point~!- Our last match leads us to this week's DEMOTT'S TURNING POINT, which is great because there was no DTP last week and I was really getting worried. This week's DTP is Shaniqua's distraction of referee Jimmy Korderes, which DeSquash even indicates with his ultra-awesome GREEN marker. I love that. Shaniqua's distraction allowed Danny to sneak in uncontested, and Korderes had no clue that it was Doug. How can you not love the Turning Point?
Commercial
JVC Digital Play of the Night: From Smackdown two weeks ago, Paul Heyman is forced to eat soap at the hands of Chris Benoit and John Cena. Literally. As punishment, he should demote them to Velocity.
Josh and Bill intro highlights from this past week's Smackdown, that being Big Show's conversation with Brock Lesnar telling him to give him some time to himself. Later on, the team of Brock Lesnar, Matt Morgan, and Rhyno, minus Big Show, who was stuck in the locker room, took on John Cena and Chris Benoit, with the latter achieving victory. Heyman watched from a lifeguard chair, and almost got another beating, but was saved by the Big Show. A few questions invade my mind: One, WHY should anyone be scared of Hardcore Holly? Even with all the build-up and such, there is not ONE person who looks at him as anything more than a decent mid-carder. Is this his reward for feuding with Marc Loyd and Rico on Velocity just before he got injured? Two, where was Big Show's neckbrace when he came out? Did his neck magically heel? Three, why are we supposed to believe now that Rhyno is capable of wrestling main-eventers? I hate to bring it up, I really do, but the guy has recently jobbed to Scotty 2 Hotty and Bradshaw on Velocity, and it could take at least several months to get that out of my mind, unfortunately. I just still can't believe this, though: Bodacious Bob freaking Sparky Plugg Hardcore Holly is in a PPV title match.
Commercial
WrestleMania Recall: At WrestleMania III, Alice DeMott... err, Alice Cooper accompanies Justin Roberts... err, Jake The Snake Roberts for his Intercontinental Title match with Honky... what other Honkies are there? After the match, with some help from Alice, Jake gives The Mouth of the South a little taste of Damien. No wonder Earthquake squashed Damien four years later. See, THAT'S continuity.
Orlando Jordan vs Matt Longtime
I thought I would never say this for a Velocity match, but I just have no interest. To be honest, Orlando Jordan isn't good at all. He's pretty much as average as you can be, and is just a terrible face. When does this guy ever get a reaction? What makes him stand out from everybody else? Why does he have higher position over guys like Kanyon when they deserve it a lot more? As for his opponent, why Longtime? This is his first time on Velocity. Okay, that sucked.
What a surprise? Orlando Jordan gets no reaction. Except for the few fans in the front row who want to slap his hand, but he doesn't even see them. Hey Orlando, if you want to keep the three or four fans you have, you may want to kinda at least interact with them. To our predicted booooring match as we get some basics to start, while I decide to pay attention to some insightful commentary. DeMott makes a smart point as to why Orlando Jordan is even smiling this week, considering he lost his Royal Rumble Qualifying match last week here on Velocity to Matt Morgan... and that his undefeated streak on Velocity ended? Huh? Where the hell did he get the idea that Orlando Jordan was undefeated on Velocity? Maybe if you don't count the four or five losses he's totaled alone just against Albert and Rhyno, then maybe he'll just have a winning record. Oh that Bill DeSquash, if he could only get his mind off squashing jobbers and Cruiserweights. I bet he's thinking, "One year ago, I was in that ring, squashing jobbers like Apollo Kahn and Phil Brown and Cruiserweights like Shannon Moore and Funaki." Seriously, those were some of the best days of Velocity, in my opinion. I miss the DeSquash Squash. Focusing on the match, Longtime has the early control after a shoulder block and headlock, but that doesn't last long as Jordan comes back with his usual early offense, that being a hip-toss and some arm-drags. Back on commentary, Josh and Bill make it three straight weeks of talking about Britney Spears, as DeMott still believes it was the Jason Alexander from Seinfeld that married Britney. I'm empty on Seinfeld jokes right now, so come up with your own. Longtime gets out of an arm-bar and manages an elbow in the corner, enabling him to start his offense on Jordan's left shoulder. He sends his opponent shoulder-first into the corner, before working in some CLUBBY blows to the shoulder that Albert made famous on Velocity. Longtime goes to an arm-bar of his own, but Jordan punches and bodyslams his way out. By the way, Josh, it's Matt Longtime, not Mike. Don't worry, though, you're still WWE's elite play-by-play man. This leads to his predictable comeback offense, that being a back elbow, two dropkicks, and a backdrop. I'll admit he's got a pretty good dropkick, but everything else is to him is nothing special. The Johnson Shuffle follows, and with Longtime ripe for the picking, Jordan gets him up and plants him with the NORMAL SIMPLE POWERSLAM, and that's all she wrote. Seriously, it's a regular powerslam, like what British Bulldog used to do, but it worked for Bulldog because he was strong. Jordan should go back to using Black Ice, which was that modified jawbreaker he used. If Scott Keith were reviewing this match, he might've dipped into the negative stars for this. Yawwwwwn.
Winner: Orlando Jordan
Commercial
Josh and Bill intro more highlights from Smackdown, this time being Kurt Angle's talk in the back with Eddie Guerrero, followed by their tag-team bout against the Chavo Chavos. Did I just see former Jakked/Metal/Velocity superstar Chavo Guerrero PIN Eddie Guerrero? Wow. Now play his awesome music!
Commercial
Sting of the Night: Two weeks ago on Smackdown, the World's Greatest Tag Team beat the Bashams to gain entry into the Royal Rumble.
World's Greatest Tag Team vs Rikishi & Scotty 2 Hotty
Not that I'm against the World's Greatest Tag Team being in the main event because it's always great seeing them there, but how is this the main event over a Tag Team Title match? According to Josh, by the way, Rikishi and Scotty are best buds again, as we are reminded of their match from two weeks ago via clip. Hopefully, the result here isn't the same as their match from a few months ago, but having read the spoilers like I always do, I'm not worried.
To our MAIN EVENT now as Haas and Rikishi start us off, while DeMott, being the evil heel that he is, tries to claim that Scotty may seem happy on the outside, but could be mad on the inside. Josh thinks he's trying to start animosity, but it's a valid opinion. Haas and Rikishi tie-up and end up in the corner, where Haas gets in some kicks and punches. Rikishi responds with some punches of his own, including a right hand to knock Shelton Benjamin off the apron, and as 'Kishi whips Haas off the ropes, Shelton pulls him out. In a hilarious spot, Haas completely falls back into the announce table after being pulled out, and almost hits. The look on Charlie's face is just priceless. I actually laughed for a good few minutes or so. And good job by the camera man to NOT get Josh on camera, as chances are he wasn't talking when he was talking. Make sense? In other words, I'm almost sure that his voice-over didn't match what he was saying in the actual scene, let alone if his mouth was even moving at the time. And for some reason now, we go to a....
Commercial
Wow, that was unexpected. Back from break as we now have Haas and Scotty in the ring. They end up in the corner, where Shelton makes the blind tag, and as Scotty has Charlie backed up against the ropes, Shelton nails him with a kick, and follows up with a snap suplex. Good ol' Fabulous Rougeau-esque teamwork. Benjamin begins the damage on Scotty's left arm, but is unable to continue the offense after an arm-bar as Scotty comes soaring back with a flying clothesline. After an Irish-whip into the corner, Scotty hopes to his signature bulldog, but Shelton ducks and sends his opponent through the middle rope and to the outside. Scotty stays alive though as he scores with a sunset flip from the apron, but Haas made the tag in the process, so he breaks up the pin legally to re-gain the advantage. He lands some kicks to the arm, before going to a sitting arm-bar, while getting some added pressure from his partner from the apron. Referee Brian Hebner is baffled. Benjamin eventually tags back in and administers a shoulder breaker for two. "Sports entertainment is selfish," states DeMott, when talking about the possible teaming of the WGTT in the Royal Rumble. For some wrestlers, DeMott couldn't be more right. I don't even need to name names because it's so blatantly obvious. Benjamin continues the damage on the arm with some knees to that area, before tagging in Haas, who slingshots himself in while landing the boot to Hotty's arm. He tags Benjamin in again seconds later, and he does the same thing. Shelton now starts tauning Rikishi while Scotty is trying to make the tag... and spits in Rikishi's face too! Oh man, what a HEEL. Scotty fights back at this point, but his comeback as thwarted as Benjamin catches him off the ropes and hits about a 1440-degree-spinning sidewalk slam. Tag to Haas again, who goes back to work on the arm, while DeMott believes that Rikishi should leave Scotty to the wolves so he doesn't risk getting injured and hurting his chances in the Rumble. I like that opinion. Scotty finally gets his opportunity on the next sequence here as he flips through a back suplex and makes the HOT HOT HOT tag to Risquashi. 'Kishi comes in and cleans house of both WGTT members with punches and a double clothesline. Man, looks like we've got some more LOW-CARD MAYHEM tonight. Rikishi nails Shelton with a shoulder block to send him outside, permitting him to clean Haas' clock with a savot kick. With that done, Haas is in perfect position for the Worm, so Rikishi stupidly tags out. Scotty comes in and hits the dumbest move in wrestling, the Worm, and covers.... for two as Shelton thankfully broke up the pin. Rikishi intervenes again to knock Shelton out, while Scotty seeks the ten-punch count on Haas in the corner. Before he can finish it off, however, Haas counters with an inverted atomic drop and holds him in place, while Benjamin comes back in to deliver his awesome superkick, allowing Haas to get the 1-2-3. Solid match, with the right team going over. I think it would've been better off as the opener, though.
Winners: World's Greatest Tag Team
As I always say, another great edition of Velocity. MOTN goes to the opening Tag Team Title match, while the main-event finishes in a close second. Two good matches tonight, to go along with one boring Orlando Jordan match.
With another 'five-star' report in the archives, this is Matt Zylbert wishing you Velociters a good week, and I'll see ya later today with the next 'Outside the Box' column. Enjoy the Rumble and peeaace. See yieuuu!
Any feedback, comments, thoughts, or questions for Matt Zylbert? Of course. Just e-mail him at BigShot5021@aol.com and he'll get back to you as soon as possible.
