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Highlight Reel:

* Austin suspended for the night by Bischoff.  Boy, the de-facto power
  arrangement ("either co-GM has absolute power until/unless reversed
  or amended by the other co-GM") was confusing enough, but this?

* Coach wears a Bret Favre shirt, and later in the evening reveals a
  Packers shirt.  Naturally, they're in Chicago tonight.  Is Coach
  showing any consistent loyalty, or is he just wearing Whatever Will
  Piss Off Today's Hometown Crowd?

* Bischoff lets Coach choose the stips for his match with JR.  Remembering
  the Kane-sets-JR-on-fire angle, he chooses a Country Whippin' Match.  I
  think JR should've outsmarted him by putting pads on his back.

* Bischoff can't hit the talent (unprovoked) either, apparently.

* Austin throws a non-folding chair about halfway down the ramp, and damn
  near hits Bischoff with it.

Tag title match:

* Mostly the Dudleys wail on Test, but they do drop Steiner to the mat
  at one point.  "Nothing personal," they seem to be saying.

* Just a couple of days ago, someone here said that Steiner would have
  no heat problems whatsoever if they'd only left him a heel.  Lo and
  behold, he turns.  Has anyone ever devised a test comparable to
  "Mmmmmmm, lutefisk" on alt.tv.simpsons (i.e. a suggested angle that
  is just so *weird* that, if they ever actually do it, it pretty much
  proves that they're reading this group)?

Kane's next victim(s):

* Hurricane shows up, questions him about their run as face tag-champs
  a year ago.  This plays perfectly into Kane's "I'm sick of pleasing
  the crowd" routine.  Hurricane doesn't want to fight, but Kane forces
  the issue by going after a kid in the front row with a Hurricane
  mask.  Rosey comes out to help, of course.

New Kids (no, that's too cruel a name) vs La Resistance and Friend:

* Coach and Snow alternately praise and rag on Maven/Jindrak/Cade.  They
  also alternately praise and rag on LR/RC.  Okay, so instead of one
  relatively-objective caller and one color commentator, they're both
  being half-objective and half-color.  While this is interesting, it
  also relies much more on the wrestlers themselves to remind the
  audience which ones are the faces and which are the heels.  Even
  actively cheating doesn't count as a clear indicator, because faces
  can cheat against a heel who richly deserves to be cheated; about
  the only clear-cut indicator these days is the Ricky Morton role in
  tag matches, which is pretty much always occupied by a face.

3H's Major Announcement:

* Prior to the announcement, Austin talks with RVD, then meets John
  somebody (newly arrived from OVW?) who bought tickets.  Austin takes
  him aside to talk turkey.

* 3H puts up a $100K bounty for anyone who takes out Goldberg.  Okay,
  that's a convenient excuse for lots of small fry to get really
  ambitious.  Hey 3H, take off the wristwatch, the glare is reflecting
  right into the camera!

Non-Wrestlers Redux:

* Sign in the audience:
  "Coach Sucks
   Coach Sucks
   Coach Sucks"

* Y2J fills in for Coach on commentary.  A proven good talker.

* JR gets in lots of early blows.  Hit him in the face!  Coach gets the
  upper hand and slows things down, preening for several seconds between
  blows.  JR wins (I thought he and Lawler wanted an extended break?) and
  gets to whip Bischoff for good measure.

* Wrestlemania Recall:  Butterbean's first-round knockout of Bart Gunn
  at WM 15 in 1999.

* Ross and Lawler return right away.  Bye, Coach!  Will Bischoff insist
  on giving Coach a second chance to match Ross's second chance?

Women's match:

* Lita in civvies, for once.  Well, street clothes.  Well, I suppose her
  usual outfit might count as street clothes too, but these are less
  revealing.

* Molly and Gail play the jealousy card.  Molly whacks Lita with a copy
  of her own book.  "That book's already a hit!"  Trish returns the favor
  from 7 and 8 days ago, but Victoria piles on.  Victoria with something
  resembling a reverse Vertebreaker-- the victim's knees are driven into
  the mat, rather than their head.

Back to the big guys:

* Extreme Blast of the Night:  Kane attacks Shane in the hospital.

* Goldberg easily repels an attack by Stevie Richards.  After the
  commercial break, he (Goldberg) teams with Shawn Michaels against
  Orton and Flair.  Unfortunately, I missed the rest of the show,
  but from raw.wwe.com's results:

* Rodney Mack hits Goldberg with a chair; Mark Henry wails on
  Michaels.  One or both of these lead to a win by DQ.  Henry
  promises to collect the bounty next week.

* RVD wins the ladder match and the IC title.  Hey, find new partners
  for him and Christian, and we can have TLC 5.  Or not.


--- Internet Rex 2.29