Though the best drawing days of the "Mr. McMahon" character may be behind him, Vince certainly hasn't stopped making himself and his family the focal point of WWE programming. In the back half of 2002, Stephanie was appointed General Manager of SmackDown, and then at No Way Out earlier this year, Vince returned to holding a sizeable role on TV, feuding with Hulk Hogan for months on end. Shane is now over on Raw, battling Kane, and Vince has become the driving force on SmackDown, thanks to his alliance with top heel Brock Lesnar. The McMahon influence could be felt heavily on the card for No Mercy, which would be main evented by a Biker Chain match between WWE Champion Lesnar and The Undertaker, a match booked in kayfabe by Stephanie, angering her father, who wanted to ensure that Brock would walk out as champion. To settle their issues, Vince and Stephanie will fight it out tonight, with her job on the line in an I Quit match. Yeah, the prospect of seeing a father beat the stuffing out of his daughter just so he can fire her is an odd way to promote a pay-per-view, but SmackDown has been on fire for the past year and a half, proving how stacked the roster was at Vengeance, and even giving away a 60 Minute Iron Man match on free TV, featuring a title change, no less, with Brock taking the gold from Kurt Angle. This may not be the most promising card on paper, but there has been more than enough good work done on the SmackDown brand to ensure that their exclusive events deserve to be given a chance.
- No Mercy 2003 comes to you from the 1st Mariner (now Royal Farms) Arena in Baltimore, Maryland, which had previously been the host for King of the Ring 1994. Michael Cole and Tazz are on the call.
- Our opening contest is for the Cruiserweight Championship, as Tajiri defends against Rey Mysterio. You can't ask for two men better suited to get a crowd rocking than these two, and they put on a show, perfectly meshing the champion's strikes and the challenger's acrobatics. After some early mat wrestling, Rey starts going, and Tajiri can't really slow him down, as Rey counters Tajiri's spingboard back elbow with a dropkick, nails a plancha to the floor, connects with a spingboard armdrag and top rope tornado DDT, and takes Tajiri to the outside with a bodyscissors, following up with a leap off the apron to drop Tajiri with a hurricanrana to the floor. It's just so much flowing offense, and even Tajiri countering the West Coast Pop with a big powerbomb can't slow Mysterio down. Rey springs to the top rope to leap off into a standing moonsault, and is too quick to be caught with the Buzzsaw Kick. Rey is on the verge of regaining the gold that he lost via mist to Tajiri a few weeks earlier, this time getting the West Coast Pop after a 619. However, the referee's count is interrupted by two men in hoodies rushing the ring, and the slight distraction creates enough time for Tajiri to load up and drop Mysterio with a big roundhouse kick to retain. This match flowed so well, with Rey's silky smooth offense easily rallying the crowd behind him, while Tajiri was able to keep up with the pace of his challenger and presented just enough of a threat with his stinging, powerful kicks.
- After hanging around in the midcard scene following his rivalry with Kurt Angle earlier in the year, Chris Benoit is posed for a push back up the card, taking on a capable threat in A-Train. This is all about reheating Benoit, presenting him an environment where he tends to thrive, an absolute slugfest where both men pull no punches. These two knock lumps out of each other in this one, with Benoit unleashing scores of stiff chops, while A-Train stands his ground by using his size advantage and exploiting Benoit's bad neck. A-Train picks Benoit apart with heavy blows to the back and neck, which Benoit sells to perfection, just collapsing on the canvas as absolute dead weight. Benoit tries on multiple occasions to get to his heavy hitters, the German suplex or the Crippler Crossface, but A-Train keeps his feet steady on the canvas, and even manages to drop Benoit with a German of his own. Both men sweating profusely leads to a very scary botch, where A-Train has Benoit in a Gorilla Press over a chair, then Chris's body slips out of A-Train's grip, and he crashes face first, with his neck contorted at an odd angle, onto the chair. Fortunately, Benoit is an absolute machine, quickly recovering to get the Crossface in, but A-Train is just too strong, powering up to his feet. Benoit, the madman, successfully completes his triple rolling German suplexes, but A-Train stops the diving headbutt, and also wins it with the Derailer. Benoit doesn't seem to have something in his arsenal that can beat this behemoth, as the Crossface did little damage earlier, but the "Rabid Wolverine" is resourceful. After A-Train misses a pump kick, with his leg crashing throw the chair wedged in the corner, Benoit takes the big man to the mat with a Dragon Screw legwhip, and reaches deep into his path to bring out the Sharpshooter. It's the perfect tribute, as Stu Hart, Benoit's trainer in the Hart Dungeon, passed away just 3 days prior, so Benoit taps out A-Train with Bret Hart's iconic submission hold. I loved the finish, and the story that had been told with Benoit and his struggle to apply the Crossface, communicated expertly to the audience by Tazz on commentary, who has done some tremendous work since becoming the color commentator on SmackDown.
- Zach Gowen, the ultimate feel-good story on SmackDown after his battle with Vince McMahon at Vengeance, has since moved on to a feud with Matt Hardy, which paused briefly after Gowen was viciously assaulted by Brock Lesnar. Gowen is still being prepared for potential big things on the horizon, and gets his first clean, decisive win in the WWE here over Matt. The two men put on a solid enough showing, not a patch on the drama that was presented with Gowen at Vengeance, but that's understandable, Matt Hardy isn't on the same level of importance as a character as Vince. Matt walks Gowen through a standard WWE midcard affair, with the heel controlling most of the proceedings, and Gowen making a big comeback, highlighted by an impressive spingboard hilo to the outside by Zach. Matt attempts to stop Gowen on the top rope, but is sent crashing back to the mat, where he falls prey to the moonsault and a three count.
- The Basham Brothers, Doug and Danny, are the new tag team on the block on SmackDown, involved in a weird gimmick with manager/dominatrix Shaniqua where the two men publicly display their BDSM fetish. To help position the two in the title picture, they go over the APA here at No Mercy, as Bradshaw and Faarooq are rapidly becoming afterthoughts. Doug and Danny do little to impress in this match, largely getting trounced by the faces and working a lot of rest holds. Bradshaw gave this match a somewhat memorable moment by tossing one of the Bashams off the top rope with a fallaway slam, before he's knocked out by Shaniqua, brandishing a club, getting revenge on Bradshaw after taking a Clothesline From Hell on SmackDown. It really shows how little the WWE thinks of tag teams that a duo as dull as the Bashams were getting any sort of push, especially over Bradshaw and Faarooq, who remain a far more interesting act despite lackluster booking.
- It's time to give the audience what they want, which is apparently a father choking the life out his own daughter, the sickos. Beyond how uncomfortable the situation is if you think about it for more than two seconds, Vince and Stephanie's I Quit match was highly entertaining, carried on the strength of a nuclear hot crowd and Vince's incredible heel work. The elder McMahon is just an absolute bastard in this one, ambushing Stephanie while she's trying to talk down Linda, who is in Stephanie's corner while Sable is in Vince's. Vince takes Stephanie apart while the crowd serenades him with loud "a**hole" chants, and puts his daughter in a half Boston Crab, which Stephanie sells with some, frankly frightening, screams of pain. Sable tries to give Vince a lead pipe, but Linda gets involved, and the pipe ends up in Stephanie's hands. The SmackDown General Manager makes her comeback, and the crowd is deafening. Steph almost gets her father with a pipe shot after leaping off the top rope, but Vince just gets his foot to the bottom rope in time (by the way, Vince has made it so that Stephanie can win by pinfall, while he can only win by submission). Vince has had enough of this hiding, and stops yet another pipe shot by choking Stephanie with his bare hands, before grabbing the pipe and squeezing the life out of his daughter. Yeah, this isn't as fun. Linda, the only sane person in the room, throws in the towel, and Stephanie has lost her job. Look, I hate to argue with a mother saving her daughter from being choked unconscious, but I'm pretty certain this is an I Quit match, there's was no mention of towel throwing being legal. I think this one's still ongoing, you two, get back out there. To celebrate his win, Vince then knocks down the last remaining pillar of good taste, shoving Linda to the mat. Vince has now taken complete control of SmackDown, and Stephanie is off to marry the future king of NXT, so all's well that ends well.
- Kurt Angle has moved on from his time as WWE Champion into a somewhat comedic feud with John Cena, which has seen Angle get under Cena's skin by taking shots at him during a rap battle, and also dressing as Cena to tap out to a little person wearing Angle's gear. For as silly as the build may have been, this match is deadly serious, and the crowd treats both men as megastars, erupting early into their match with loud chants for both men. Angle and Cena start out slow, with Angle outwrestling his younger competitor, and continuing to show a lack of respect for Cena by flipping him the double bird. Big Match John's offense is still very limited, which is really shown in a match like this without a focused story, but the two add in some creative spots to elevate the action. Angle counters a dive by Cena into a picture perfect dropkick to the knee, a tremendous set-up for the Ankle Lock, which is applied shortly thereafter, though Cena quickly fights to the ropes. Angle tries a German suplex off the apron, with the crowd popping huge for the tease, but Cena gets a DDT on the apron, and follows up with a guillotine leg drop with Angle in between the ropes. Cena breaks out a Buckle Bomb, and an F-U, but neither are enough to do it. A second F-U is countered into an Angle Slam, and now Cena kicks out. The crowd pops huge for Cena hitting Angle with Kurt's own gold medal, which Cena resorted to after referee Jimmy Korderas stopped an attack with Cena's padlocked chain, and again, Angle kicks out. Angle shows off some textbook wrestling, getting a near fall with a backslide, then countering another F-U into a victory roll, which is smoothly transitioned into the Ankle Lock. Angle grapevines the leg, and Cena has to tap, losing yet another big match on pay-per-view, but continuing to raise his stock with another great performance. This match was simple in terms of action, but really brought the drama, and provided a leaping board for Angle to go right back after Lesnar.
- Much like with the previous match, the build to the title bout between United States Champion Eddie Guerrero and his challenger, the Big Show, has erred on the side of comedy, featuring an infamous moment where Eddie sprayed Show with sewage. But unlike Angle and Cena, these two don't get the benefit of a hot crowd, as very few fans cared about Show by this time, and the two men don't do much to try and win anyone back. This was a simple and fairly dull David vs Goliath-esque match, with Eddie battling against a much bigger opponent while coming in with a bad back after an attack by Show on the hood of a truck. Eddie's antics to get around his obvious disadvantage are fun, like tossing a chair into the ring to distract the referee while he hits Show with a garbage can lid, but any goodwill Eddie builds up with the crowd is tossed out the window when it comes time for Show to become unbeatable. The challenger kicks out of a brass knuckle punch and a Frog Splash, before shaking off a DDT to land a chokeslam from his knees that puts Eddie down. The action wasn't great, and the decision to have Show go over is highly questionable, as his capability to go in lengthy singles matches that were required of champions in this period is definitely in doubt. Eddie was off to bigger and better things, so it made sense for him to drop the US belt, but Show didn't feel like the right choice.
- Main event time, as Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker tie up again, with the WWE Championship at stake in a Biker Chain match. The chain is suspended on a pole, hello Vince Russo, and the two competitors promptly ignore, because they have a lot of time to fill and can't worry about climbing a pole right now. This wasn't a patch on their Hell in a Cell match from No Mercy the year prior, but it still had a few highlights, like Brock bringing out a Perfect-Plex, a tribute to Curt Hennig, one of the men who helped train Brock as a fellow Minnesotan and had passed away back in February. Later on, Undertaker escalates the violence with a piledriver on the base of the steel steps. Both men make some attempts at grabbing the chain, with a running trend that there is clearly someone looking to prevent Undertaker from winning. At one point, the lights go out, forcing him to stop trying to get the chain and allowing Brock to recover after being dropped on the ropes. Following a top rope chokeslam, the Full Blooded Italians (Nunzio, Johnny Stamboli, and Chuck Palumbo) interfere, taking a beating from Undertaker, who is just firing on all cylinders right now. Brock takes a Last Ride, and Undertaker steals the show by taking flight with a suicide dive onto Palumbo and Stamboli, which seemed to stun the crowd. Undertaker now has the chain, but finally the evil mastermind is revealed, as Vince McMahon returns to shove Undertaker down onto the top rope, groin first. Brock gets the chain, smashes Undertaker in the skull with it, and retains his title. This laid the groundwork for another big match for Vince, coming against The Undertaker at Survivor Series, though I'm not sure why Vince's involvement needed to be a surprise, considering he had already butted heads with Undertaker and was aligned with Brock, so it should've been obvious that he would screw Undertaker out of the gold. I did enjoy this main event, it's likely impossible for me to not appreciate Undertaker and Brock fighting, though 24 minutes was a little long for the stipulation, resulting in a lot of time killing.
8/10
All in all, No Mercy was another entertaining outing from the SmackDown crew, as this roster appears to have really hit it's stride. The first two matches were great, Vince and Stephanie's brawl was surprisingly entertaining, Angle and Cena brought the goods, and Undertaker's suicide dive stole the show in the main event.
Next time on Henry's Pay-Per-View Reviews: Survivor Series 2003, featuring a loaded card, including two star-studded elimination matches, a Buried Alive match between Vince McMahon and The Undertaker, and an Ambulance match between Kane and Shane McMahon. See you soon.
- Henry
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