by Rick Scaia
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

RAW's start certainly came off like inspired, so what would SD do to counter?  Read on and find out if you're that type.  The rest of you, hit BACK now and wait 18 hours till SD! airs tomorrow night on UPN.

Here are full SD! tapings results, compiled from e-mail reports:

• Velocity matches included:  Tajiri beat a jobber...  the FBI (Palumbo/Stamboli) beat two jobbers...  Chavo Guerrero beat Shannon Moore... Matt Hardy beat Funaki.
• SD, proper, opened with a promo from Stephanie McMahon.  She announced that due to the physicality of their WM match, neither Kurt Angle nor Brock Lesnar would appear tonight; she said Angle would be out about 2 months with various leg and neck injuries, while Lesnar had a concussion and would be back next week.  This week, however, she said she was starting a tournament to determine Lesnar's first challenger at the Backlash PPV.  First round matches are Taker/Rey, Cena/Eddie, Benoit/A-Train, and Big Show/Rhyno.
• To start the in-ring action, Undertaker beat Rey Mysterio to advance in the #1 Contender tourney.  Another good showing from Taker, and of course, Rey always looks sharp.
• Brian Kendrick got a win over Jamie Noble when Nidia tried to interfere, but had it backfire.  As soon as the match was over, Matt Hardy ran out to attack Kendrick for his impertinence over the last few weeks, and also had a few choice words for Brock Lesnar (regarding him "faking" his concussion).
• Chris Benoit beat A-Train to also advance in the 8-man tourney.  A half-way decent match, kind of a replay of the one they had a few weeks back where Benoit made A-Train's offense look like a million bucks before reversing his way into the submission win.
• Some backstage/pre-taped bits:  Stephanie confronted her dad about why he was there, and he said it was something to do with Hulk Hogan.  And it was announced that Piper's Pit (whaaaa?) would become a weekly feature on SD! starting next week...  10 years ago, I'd have said any excuse to get Piper a mic was a good one, but... have they heard him ramble recently?  
• Team Angle faced Funaki/Tajiri in a non-title match, but still brought their a-game and won.  Good match, a few went out of their way to call it the best of the night.
• John Cena beat Eddie Guerrero to advance in the tourney; he took a page of out Eddie's playbook, and cheated to win (I think it was a shot with the loaded chain that did Eddie in).  Cena advances to the semi-final in the top-half of the bracket, facing Undertaker next week.
• They had a big in-ring promo next, with Torrie Wilson hyping the release of her edition of Playboy.  She talked for a while about what an honor it was, blah blah when all of a sudden...  SABLE comes out.  That's right: the presumed unemployable Reno Mero is back in WWE.  Sable started out a promo teasing that she was upset with Torrie for stealing her thunder and that there's no way there's room for two Playboy models in WWE.  But then Sable suddenly changed her tune, and said there's plenty of room in WWE for two Playboy models.  And then she gave Torrie a little kiss and left.  Hmmm...  the implication is obvious, and leaves me to observe two things: (1) thank goodness Al Wilson is already dead so we can't replay THAT debacle, and (2) I'm sure Jesus is thrilled (wasn't He the reason why a Sable/Marlena lesbian thing didn't happen many years ago?).
• The final tourney match saw Rhyno beat Big Show via disqualification.  This sets up a rather odd match next week in the bottom-bracket semi-final, as Rhyno must face his partner, Chris Benoit.  When Angle was thought to be out for a year, everybody assumed one of these two (probably Benoit) would turn heel to fill the void... with Angle now only out for two months or so, who knows what'll happen when these two wrestle?
• And the SD! main event: another big-ass promo!  Vince McMahon came to the ring, and was in humble babyface mode.  He said he didn't like losing to Hulk Hogan at WM, but he'll deal with it.  He said Hogan was just the better man, and asks Hogan to come out.  So Hogan does.  And surprisingly, Vince stays in humble, babyface mode, and the crowd actually starts buying it.  Vince and Hogan shake hands, and then Vince starts leaving the ring.  Hogan gets on the mic and says that Vince may not have created Hulkamania, but he helped it along the way, and thanks Vince for everything.  Vince goes from looking like he's on the verge of tears to suddenly looking like the devil again; he says "ha, got you Hogan."  Vince really can't stand losing to Hogan at WM, and now, since Hogan isn't forcibly retired, Vince is doing the next best thing... he tells Hulk Hogan to go home, with pay, and sit out the rest of this contract.  Hogan, if off TV, will be forgotten by the fans; or at least, that's Vince's logic.  Hogan is pissed at this prospect, but security shows up and keeps him away from Vince as the show closes.

Check out SD! as it airs on Thursday, or come on back to OO on Friday for full results and analysis.

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Rick Scaia is a wrestling fan from Dayton, OH.  He's been doing this since 1995, but enjoyed it best when the suckers from SportsLine were actually PAYING him to be a fan.

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