REMINDER: LiveWatch of the 9/18/03 SmackDown at 9pm ET!
Welcome to football Sunday — 26 NFL teams kick off their seasons today!
Make sure to vote in the poll to see which show we live watch tonight, and join us at 9:00 eastern for the watch! Also check out our NJPW Destruction in Fukushima review and the latest from our audio feeds:
Go Niners! Let’s try not to suck so bad this year.
Yeah, between them and my Lakers it might be a bad sports year for me.
Rapoport saying that Andrew Luck might not play until October.
About what was expected.
For anyone that has DirectTV Now, they started streaming CBS yesterday.
Football Sundays!
I like this new scoreboard Fox has.
Jets rush defense is ugly already.
Tank mode is weird… odd being totally indifferent to your team being successful and rooting for them not to be.
Went through that with the Celtics a few years ago. It’s super weird.
Tanking with the NFL is weird because it’s not like you’re getting a guy to be one of your 5 starters. Unless this is a bumper QB crop and they’re punting on Hack/Petty .
Yep, that is 100% correct… looks like three legit QBs coming out at this point. They are moving on.
Tough on the players in the NFL without guaranteed deals – guys are always going to play hard and play for a job.
Yeah Arizona D!
Jets pass D on the other hand…
Lucky that wasn’t a fumble
Woodhead carted off
Man carted? That didn’t take long – I nearly subbed him in last night, saw his early catches and was miffed and then this news
Fuck you Andy Dalton.
It is 2017 and I have to still worry about Vulture Mike Tolbert.
Romo getting some love early on in his debut.
How long until Macho Man Savage loses his gig?
I think Watson gets a shot sooner rather than later.
Romo is 1000% better than Phil Simms.
Come on Bilal Powell! Something please
LOL at the Texans. 19-0 to that team. Christ
Brutal. Savage is terrible. As is O’Brien.
An embarrassing performance.
https://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL/status/906948035166564352
Man, the importance of an NFL game to people without power or homes to go back to is less than zero. Coldest of takes.
Watson is in at QB for Houston.
Why bother with Tom Savage if you were never going to give him more than a half? O’Brien never has a plan.
Does O’Brien do anything well???
Oakland/Tennessee game has been a ton of fun.
Titans getting exposed already after all the hype.
Oh Dear God, the Thursday game next week is Bengals/Texans.
20 unanswered points for the Lions in the 4th.
Damn. I was hoping the Seahawks game would still be 3-0 at the end.
Ok guys, we’re all set to live watch the 9/13/01 episode of SmackDown tonight. We’ll begin at 9pm EST.
In the meantime, here’s the poll for next week’s live watch!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PTBLiveChats/permalink/1835431586485266/
Brissett in at QB for the Colts because Tolzien is the hottest of hot garbage.
I bought low on Gurley in my auction league – $31 (not that low, but i mean he’s a good rebound target) and his 5 catches for 55 yards today were $$$. 3 down back. Sweet
Change in plans, guys. Tonight we will be live watching the 9/18/03 episode of Smackdown.
Be ready to fire it up in about an hour.
I have never seen the iron man in full – just highlights
I was there LIVE. 6 rows behind Cole and Tazz.
WOW, that’s awesome. I’ll be interested to read your thoughts on re-watch. This show caught me right in a big blindspot – i had just came back for SummerSlam 03 on a whim, and then checked right back out.
I was going to school in Raleigh and it was the first time they did TV since I got down there.
Also has a Los Guerreos and Worlds Greatest Tag Team Tag Title Match too.
You hopping in for the watch, Jay?
https://twitter.com/ThomasBoswellWP/status/907034984917204997
Great road win today. Wentz looked good, defense is stout. Darby injury sucks. Pederson terrifies me, but i’m not nearly as dramatic as Eagles twitter
(many are MARKS)
10 minute countdown roll call for the live watch.
In
Readying it all up
I was at the Bengals game today, first timegoing to a NFL game, even though I live45 minutes north of Cincy. Yeah…that wasn’t pretty.
I had Dalton in fantasy… ugly ugly.
He looked like he forgot how to play. All those picks and overthrowing a lot.
Say when.
Give it another 5 minutes
Gotcha.
i’ve got it paused on Vince here
Live watch 3 minute warning.
*queue Rosey and Jamal gif*
One minute.
All paused on Vince
His hair looks a bit shaggy.
Let ‘er rip!!!
DO IT
What an awkward start lol.
I was in the house for this show and after attending over 150 shows in my life, this one still remains one of my favorites.
Who honestly wanted to see Undertaker vs Vince?
“Me, PAL!!!”
That was an awful Smackdown theme.
PNC Arena. Current home of the Carolina Hurricanes and NC State basketball
Where were you sitting Greeny
Six rows behind Cole and Tazz
Very nice
Where does everyone rank Rey as far as best TV wrestlers of the past 15 years?
Pretty damn high… top five?
Me too. Would have to add Cesaro in the talk
Shit, this could be a fun tag match.
Sure looks it… love Tajiri
Me too, I was disappointed his return last year didn’t amount to much.
He and Neville could have been a fun program.
I want to see this Rey vs. Tajiri match from next week’s SmackDown
The blue SD ref shirts are so great
Rhyno has not aged one bit
It’s that cracker diet.
Can I make a suggestion for a future live watch this month. The first Friday Smackdown? I was at that Show.
What month was that?
September
Will do
September 9th was the official air date.
That was short, though I understand why, they needed to make sure the main had enough time.
Billy Kidman to ARod. Quite the resume for Torrie.
Torrie hasn’t aged either.
Fuck Nidia looks damn good.
Women’s division on SD was rough at this point.
Amazing how far it’s come.
When I think of this ring announcer, it just reminds me of every WWE SvR video game pre-match intro.
Who fills out Dazzy Duks better, Nidia or AJ Lee?
AJ
Most 2003 moment so far… the wwe.com ring apron.
No idea who Shaniqua is/was
She won Season 2 of Tough Enough
Valet for the Bashams… into BDSM.
Hell, that could be any of us.
Watching the Giants offense makes you feel like sub for sure.
I’m so old that I remember when they had an O line. Hope springs eternal.
When did she start managing The Bashams? Not long after this.
Yeah pretty soon I think
I remember the clothesline from Bradshaw a couple weeks later.
Steph (w/ bangs) and Brock Lesnar’s wife- 2003, wow.
Hated Steph w/ bangs
Hard to believe Steph was a baby face.
Chavo with a sweet Red Sox shirt
I see what you did there.
Ugh Chavo.
See Eddie. Eddie has charisma.
See Chavo. Chavo has none.
There ya go, Brad. WMXIX for Game cube
I dug the GameCube WWE Games. My friend had the Wrestlemania 18 one.
This John Cena fella…I want to cheer him, and I can’t ever envision booing him!
WrestleMania XIX GameCube game commercial! This game was the most No Mercy a game would be that generation. Awful collision detection and no story mode (well a brawler that is not good) but a fun roster that they even squeezed Goldberg into.
I played all of them.
The low rider entrance was inspired and so different, brilliant stuff.
Weird to think that they used to be so heavily into vehicle entrances and they’ve pretty much dried up now. No more JBL, no Eddie, not even Del Rio…Sasha Banks did one and Rusev had the tank, IIRC that’s it in recent times.
Probably part of the cost cutting.
Shelton had a fun singles run but TWGTT should have lasted longer when they broke up after WM20.
They were so polished as a team. Young, but everything they did was crisp.
14 years later and one of these guys is active on this same show
It’s a shame those two Teams never got a PPV Match in this period.
I wonder how they would have brought Sheldon up if Charlie’s brother hadn’t passed.
Good question
Maybe something with Brock? Probably not…
When did Russ die? 2001?
Yeah… Late summer maybe?
Yeah I’m not sure either. Not sure how long they were in developmental.
12/01 according to the Google machine.
That’s right.
That was almost ugly for Charlie.
Great frog splash, that was a brutal hit.
Eddie had the best frog splash
Such a great graphic
Pretty fun celebration, forgotten moment.
Steph bumping for Brock is so crazy
FBI and APA taking bets. Fucking A
“Hey kids, use Clearasil and your skin will clean up like Brock cleaning the floor with Steph’s lifeless carcass!”
Bradshaw still in APA mode clean shaven with the short frosted hair just looks weird.
A Brock iron man match today would feature 863 germans, and not much else.
Big spotlight for baby Hebner to ref.
I missed this show at the time due to losing power for two days thanks to Hurricane… Something. Isabel? Francis? I can’t remember which great grandmother name it was.
Funny thing is, those are two names of my grandmother’s friends when I was a kid.
They are both my actual (late) great grandmother
Francis lived next door to my grandma. She always offered me candy from “the dish”. I never accepted.
Smackdown always came across as the more atmosphere from 02-05
I thought Chioda was the ref for the iron man
Baby Earl
13-0 Cowboys by the way
HERE COMES THE PAIN
I miss Tazz saying that
Hot take: this is already better than Bret/Shawn
How bout Rock and Hunter.
Rock/Hunter is the BEST WWF Iron Man match
Haven’t watched that since it aired. Would have to revisit.
Do the breaks hurt this Iron Man or no?
I feel like it would if this was PPV, but for TV it’s a good way to pace the match for commercials
Agreed, they built around them which was cool.
Good point
Once I finally saw this (goddamn hurricane), I remember not liking the psychology of the falls. Interested to see how that plays out on rewatch.
Went to a Smackdown house show a few days before this, w/ Brock and Angle in the main event. Everyone was hoping they’d go an hour as a trial run for this match, but alas, it was just a really good normal length Angle/Lesnar encounter.
Crazy that they could just roll those dudes out night to night.
I heard that a couple markets (Norfolk Scope?) actually DID get Angle and Lesnar going the hour on house shows, so it was not outside the realm of possibility. So yeah, fucking crazy looking back!
Pretty cool treat for a Smackdown House Show to see them face off before this.
Didn’t Bret and Owen do a run of iron man’s on the loop in late 94-early 95?
I believe so
It was a GREAT show too. That plus Eddie/Cena/Benoit in a triple threat with a sweet undercard. I sent a review to lordsofpain.com (lol 2003).
Scott probably read it.
Nice
Hm. The “sacrifice a fall to gain the advantage” is a move for the middle portion of the match, not the first fall. Don’t get me wrong, I love it as a strategy (thanks, Rock/HHH).
http://www.wwenetworknews.com/2017/09/10/wwe-confirms-incoming-classic-content-to-wwe-network/?wt=2
You know I’m pulling for Thunder
For sure, just in time for me as I am in October 97 right now.
For as much shit as people give it, Thunder really was an “important” show for storyline purposes throughout 1998 at least. 1999 I’ll grant you it was fuckshit garbage. But then you get into the Russo stuff for 2000 when it’s absolutely bonkers (including a shitload of title changes). I don’t know if I even saw any 2001 Thunders, but interested to check ’em out.
I know one Thunder in the Russo era has that 41 Man Battle Royal.
LOL yes. And Sid winning the title against Nash and a Harris Brother in a cage.
Oh yeah
That sounds rough
The Arquette title win was also on Thunder
F5 on the floor, sweet.
Brock did everything with such force, rock hard elbow drops.
First half of the match was tremendous, better than I remembered
Being there, I remember the entire match flying by.
OK, the pacing is pretty fucked now with Brock now going up three falls (not to mention it happening during the commercial).
Neither gut looks completely blown up. Probably could go another 20 mins or so.
Kurt’s awareness of the clock driving his offense is a nice attention to detail.
**** 1/4 over here
This time water of a move in the rolling Germans by Kurt battling from behind with a minute to go is whack
I like the structure here where Kurt was down big but failed to come back… different than most iron mans.
Yeah… very watchable match, don’t get me wrong, but shitty ass booking of the second half hurts it.
I need to watch HHH/Rock and Cena/Shawn again. I know where I stand with Bret/Shawn
HHH/Rock holds up impressively. Cena/Shawn, while not an iron man, makes me wish they’d done that match at WM.
I enjoy the live watches.