Sunday Night Heat
November 16, 2003

Live from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.

Your Hosts are Jonathan Coachman and Al Snow.

Your Survivor Series Pre-game Show.

Coach and Al welcome us in as the crowd begins filing into the arena-former sports a neck brace (AKA ‘The Weasel Collar’) due to taking a 3D from the Dudley Boyz last Monday. Coach states the injury won’t interfere with his announcing duties tonight-he’s especially looking forward to interviewing Stone Cold Steve Austin after his team (possibly) loses to Eric Bischoff’s later on. We start right in on hyping some of the Raw roster matches for tonight’s PPV:

1.     Team Bischoff (Living Legend Chris Jericho, Christian, Mark Henry, Scott Steiner & Randy Orton) vs. Team Austin (Booker T, Rob Van Dam, D-Von Dudley, Bubba Ray Dudley & Shawn Michaels). Stakes: Austin’s team wins, he can freely discipline wayward employees in any way he sees fit. Eric’s team wins Stone Cold resigns as Raw co-General Manager.

2.     HHH challenges Bill Goldberg for the World Championship.

3.     Shane McMahon vs. Kane in an ‘ambulance match’.

Video documents the Kane vs. Shane feud, which began 3 months ago when Kane hit Linda McMahon with a Tombstone Piledriver.

Al goes over rules for an ‘ambulance match’. Just like a casket match pretty much, winner will be declared after one of the competitors throws his opponent into the back of an ambulance and slams the door.

Josh Matthews and Rue (Josh’s co-host on the syndicated recap show Afterburn) go over a couple of tonight’s matches on the Smackdown side:

1.     The Undertaker vs. Vince McMahon in a ‘Buried Alive’ match.

2.     Team Lesnar (WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, Matt Morgan, Nathan Jones, A-Train & The Big Show) vs. Team Angle (Olympic Hero Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Bradshaw, Bob Holly & John Cena.)

We’re informed that Jamie Noble challenging Tajiri for the Cruiserweight Championship, announced earlier for the PPV, will instead take place right here on Heat. Works for me! Break.

Coach and Al return for the mandatory plugging of the sponsors.

Cut to Lillian Garcia interviewing Team Bischoff’s de facto leader, Chris Jericho. Y2J proudly acknowledges being the prime instigator of the movement to remove Stone Cold from his position of power and picks a huge win for his team.

(Commentary: Lillian, making reference to Austin’s possible departure, first mentioned WWE, then corrected herself to say Raw. Potential spoiler?)

Cut to The Undertaker at a Dallas Mavericks game. Dead Man was there to give team owner Mark Cuban a replica of the WWE Championship belt. Mark also seemed to agree to have ‘Taker’s back at tonight’s PPV. Hmm.

Josh and Rue tell us to order the PPV already! Break.

Sting of the Night: From last Thursday, Chavo Guerrero loses a handicap match to the Basham Brothers, then undergoes a beatdown from the team and their manager Shaniqua.

Cut to Chavo and his Uncle Eddy. Latter rages on the Bashams while Chavo looks on with disinterest. Eddy asks what’s the deal-Chavo coolly states the incident last Thursday could have been avoided if Eddy hadn’t gullibly fallen for a pre-match distraction ploy. Eddy tells him to suck it up and get ready to beat the Bashams and re-gain the WWE Tag Team Championships. Reference to ‘La Familia’ manages to stoke Chavo’s fire.

Josh and Rue get in a quick bit of hype for Los Guerreros vs. The Bashams and Team Lesnar vs. Team Angle. Generic Survivor Series promo video follows. Hype for Tajiri vs. Noble sends us to break.

Back, we see Lita entering the arena. Later on she’ll be getting a shot at Molly Holly’s Women’s Championship.

Coach and Al get in some hype for Goldberg vs. HHH. Video rolls of Bill defeating Hunter for the title at September’s Unforgiven PPV. Soon after HHH announced he was putting up a $100,000 bounty, to be awarded to the person or persons who could put Goldberg out of action. Recipient ended up being former (and now reinstated) Evolution faction member Dave Batista, who made his return to Raw in a big way, injuring Goldberg’s ankle with a steel chair a few weeks ago.

Al picks Goldberg as the underdog in tonight’s title match due to his leg injury. Coach ignores him and tells us to ORDER THE PPV, DAMMIT! Break.

Coach and Al return to show us another video hyping tonight’s PPV before sending us down to Michael Cole and Tazz-they stand beside a grave erected on the entry ramp (a huge earth-mover stands ready beside). Long video piece hyping tonight’s ‘Buried Alive’ match rolls (thankfully Vince’s deranged promos from last Thursday are omitted).

Cruiserweight title match is next. Final break.

Digital Play of the Night: From last month, Tajiri hits Jamie Noble’s girlfriend Nidia with a faceful of black mist. (She hasn’t been seen on WWE TV since.)

We return to Cole and Tazz at the helm-former mentions Nidia still hasn’t recovered her eyesight following surgery. We see the ambulance either Shane or Kane will be taking a ride in later as we get down to business…

Heat Match: For the Cruiserweight Title: Jamie Noble vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri (champion). Referee is Jimmy Korderas.

Decent pop for Jamie, big heat for Tajiri (flying solo, no sign of his lackeys Akio or Sakada-for now). Jamie goes on the attack as Tajiri makes his way down the ramp, forearms to the back are thrown, both men roll into the ring as the ref calls for the bell. Tajiri gets to his feet first, Jamie gets kicked to a corner, Tajiri hauls him up, Jamie gets sent face first into a top turnbuckle. Tajiri screams like a banshee as he lays in boots to the gut, Jamie manages a reversal of positions, Tajiri gets a dose of the boots then gets dropped via short-arm clothesline. Jamie hauls Tajiri up at the ropes, whips him to opposite, Tajiri goes for the handspring elbow as he rebounds, Jamie ducks under, Tajiri does likewise for a wildly thrown clothesline, then connects with a mule kick to the ribs. Jamie drops to his knees, Tajiri takes him down, goes for the quick cover, just gets 2. Tajiri gets to his feet, connects with a quick boot to the head, Jamie gets hauled to his feet, takes a trio of knees to the gut, Tajiri sets for a suplex, then instead drops Jamie gut-first onto the top rope. Jamie falls to a seated position, Tajiri again covers for 2. Jamie is again hauled up, Tajiri gets in a pair of kneelifts before slapping on abdominal stretch. Jamie powers up, breaks free, Tajiri goes down to a hiptoss, Jamie lays in a quick series of boots before Tajiri flattens him with a kick to the face. Tajiri gets to his feet, Jamie crawls up at the ropes, Tajiri sets for a big clothesline, Jamie gets a boot up to the face, Tajiri staggers for a moment, tries for another clothesline, Jamie ducks under, scores with a HUGE swinging neckbreaker, no cover, both men stay down for a count of 4. Up, Jamie lays in forearms and kicks, Tajiri drops to his knees, Jamie goes off ropes, Tajiri goes down to a running knee to the temple. Jamie again goes off ropes, Tajiri groggily gets to his feet, immediately returns to the canvas via back elbow to the face, Jamie covers for 2. Tajiri is hauled up and whipped into a corner, Jamie charges, Tajiri gets an elbow up to the face, Jamie backs to the center of the ring, Tajiri charges RIGHT into a massive powerslam, Jamie covers for 2. Tajiri is hauled to his knees, Jamie sets for the Tiger Driver-hello, we’ve got guests, Tajiri’s pal Akio charges in, Jamie breaks off from Tajiri to quickly toss him over the top to the outside. Sakada appears on the apron, Jamie sends him to the outside mats with a forearm to the face. Behind his back Tajiri sets for the mist-Jamie turns, gets his hands up, green mist to the face is blocked, Jamie ducks under a roundhouse kick, scores with a boot to the gut, sets for the Tiger Driver, scores BIGTIME, 1, 2, NO! (WTF?) Tajiri rolls to a corner, gets to his feet, Jamie charges in, Tajiri barely springboards over, Jamie goes into ‘buckles. Tajiri sets for the Tarantula, Jamie blocks it, throws a series of forearms to the back, ascends 2nd turnbuckle, looks for the Tornado DDT, Tajiri retains his footing, sets Jamie on top turnbuckle, Tajiri takes a pair of punches to the top of the head, Jamie follows up with the Trailer Park Tarantula! Yeah! Ref calls for the break, Tajiri flops to the canvas, Jamie goes up top, Akio and Sakada try to knock him off, they have no luck but buy time for Tajiri to get to his feet, Jamie goes for the flying double-axehandle but takes a kick to the ribs in mid-air. Jamie drops to his knees, Tajiri sets for the kick of Obvious Total Death, connects (well, sort of…), Jamie down for the count of 3. Real good match, way too short.

Winner and Still Cruiserweight Champion: Tajiri.

Smackdown crew send us over to Jim Ross and Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler, who show us video hyping Team Bischoff vs. Team Austin. Show’s over, Survivor Series is next.


"Proxi"