Hey i am back for another retro review and every monday night, my posts will be Halloween related.this time is a halloween edition of wwe smackdown back from 2002

Opening match: Edge v. Chris Benoit. They work the mat with armbars to start, and Benoit floats into a facelock, but gets reversed into a hammerlock. Benoit pounds away in the corner to break and goes to a side headlock, but Edge escapes and knees him down. Gutbuster and Edge works him over in the corner, leading to a slugfest. Benoit hits him with a short-arm clothesline, but Edge lays him out for two. Benoit gets tossed and they brawl outside, as Edge sends him back in for two. Man, this arena is scary empty. Edge keeps hammering away, but Benoit makes with the chops until Edge suplexes him onto the top rope and out. He follows with a baseball slide, but Benoit rolls with it and drags Edge out of the ring in the process. Punishment to the shoulder follows, and back in he gets two. Edge’s shoulder meets the turnbuckles a couple of times, and Benoit grabs a standing armbar. Edge escapes, but gets elbowed down and sent back into the corner again. Backdrop suplex gets two. Drop toehold into a seated dropkick by Benoit, and a snap suplex gets two. Edge gets sent into the turnbuckles again, and Benoit breaks out the chops again. Charge hits elbow and Edge heads up, but gets cut off. They fight on top and Benoit goes down via an Edge-O-Matic. Both guys are down, and Benoit bails as we take a commercial break. We’re back as Edge comes back with a missile dropkick, but it whiffs and Benoit gets the crossface. Edge makes the ropes, but Benoit keeps pounding him with elbows. Rolling germans set up the diving headbutt, which misses. They start exchanging chops, which can’t be smart for Edge, but he manages to hiptoss Benoit into the corner and get another Edge-O-Matic for two. Faceplant gets two. Flapjack sets up the spear, but Benoit counters into the crossface. Edge gets cute and rolls through, but Benoit hangs on. Edge gets desperate and pulls on the ref, but Angle comes down and breaks up the hold. When Benoit yells about it, Edge hits him with a baseball slide and follows with a dive that misses Benoit and hits Angle instead. Whoops. Back in, spear finishes at 15:41. I sense retribution later on for Benoit. Great opener with good old fashioned wrestling. ****1/2

- Elsewhere, John Cena pays tribute to Vanilla Ice (looking disturbingly like him) while Tajiri hits on Mae Young. This is also the start of the rapper gimmick for john cena

- Elsewhere, Benoit crashes the party while looking for Angle, but it turns out that he was hiding behind the Scream mask. Cute.

- Elsewhere, Brock Lesnar (in his brilliant disguise as Brock Lesnar) meets up with Heyman, who has the balls to compare Brock-UT to Ali-Frazier. Yeah, OKAY. Paul doesn’t think Brock can beat him. Even JEFF HARDY beat the Big Show, which is why this is going to turn into a huge disaster.

- Big Show v. Rikishi. Show attacks on the outside and they head in, as Show drops some elbows and pounds away. Clothesline gets two. The  heat is ridiculously obvious here. Corner clothesline and slam sets up the chokeslam at 2:25. DUD Hey, he still sucks, no matter how many people he squashes. Oh, and it’s a Big Show interview as a bonus, lucky us. He’s winded after TWO MINUTES of wrestling.

- We return from a commercial, and Big Show is STILL talking. He cuts the most god-awful boring promo (well, since his one last week) until Brock finally comes out to make him shut up. They proceed to cut more  promos on each other, and then leave. Wow, that so made me wanna buy the PPV.

- Chocolate Pudding match: Dawn Marie v. Torrie Wilson. The birthday cake rule goes into effect right away, as they hit each other with pastry, and into the pool for some booby-popping action. Torrie suplexes her and pulls off the jacket, as Michael clarifies the rules of the match. They do more rolling around and Dawn Marie ends up on the floor and gets pinned. This was what it was.

- Elsewhere, Mattitude arrives at the party (complete with portable entrance music) and tears Tajiri away from Mae Young. I thought he was supposed to be a heel? That’s a total babyface move in my book.

- Elsewhere, the Guerreros make lewd remarks at Stephanie and Vanilla Cena plays messenger boy.

- Matt Hardy Version One v. Tajiri. Fun facts: Matt always got more Halloween candy than his brother, and he’s seen all the Friday the 13th movies. . Matt armdrags Tajiri and celebrates a little bit out of proportion to the damage done. They fight over a wristlock, which Tajiri wins, and he returns that armdrag, and celebration. Well, now you know Matt means business – you don’t mess with a guy’s gimmick. Tajiri kicks him in the face to shut him up, and Matt bails and gets hit with a quebrada. Back in, Matt catches him with the Side Effect for two. Matt chops away in the corner, but Tajiri fires back. Man, every time they do the camera angle that faces towards the hard camera, it’s like the lights went out or something. It’s getting pretty sad. Matt goes to a neckvice, but Tajiri escapes, only to walk into an elbow and legdrop. The Yodelling Legdrop misses and both are down, and they slug it out. Tajiri hits him with a seated dropkick, and a thrust kick gets two. Handspring elbow and sunset flip, but Matt blocks. Tajiri bridges out and gets another kick for two. Tarantula is reversed to a german suplex for two. Nice counter. Matt gets caught in the move on the second try, however. The Big Kick misses, as does the Twist of Fate, but a good old low blow allows the Twist to finish at 7:35. . ****

- Elsewhere, Stephanie meets with “Vince” in the back , who is obviously Eric Bischoff in a mask, and he unmasks and gives her a Halloween kiss. She seems to like it, however. Just when you thought the storylines couldn’t get any stupider than necrophilia and kidnapping, someone goes and books an angle where Bischoff is attractive to a member of the opposite sex…

- Kurt Angle v. Eddy Guerrero. Eddy sadly decides not to wrestle in his Zorro costume, opting instead for his El Matador tribute green tights. They take it to the mat to start, and Eddy goes to the ropes as a result. Some may call it cowardice, I call it strategy. Angle grabs a headlock and hiptosses Eddy, and gives him a double-leg so dramatic that Eddy ends up on the floor. For strategic reasons, of course. Back in, Eddy gets a cheapshot and stomps a mudhole in the corner. Angle comes out of there with a clothesline, and adds a flying forearm to his moveset for two. Eddy sends him into the turnbuckle and drops him on his head with a backdrop suplex to take over. Choking follows, although he denies doing so to the referee and I believe in Eddy, so I’ll assume that I was just seeing things. Eddy grabs a chinlock while the crowd actually starts chanting for Angle. Ingrates. Angle escapes and fights back, but Eddy goes back to the chinlock in an awkward spot. More alleged choking, although that sounds exactly like the kind of stuff people would say about Eddy in an effort to slander his good name. Suplex back in gets two. Back to the chinlock. Okay, this is getting a bit excessive. Angle escapes, but runs into a knee and we go back to the chinlock. Eddy notices an irregularity in the balance of the ropes, and pulls them down a bit to equalize them again. Somehow this gets interpreted as doing something wrong. Angle reveres to the anklelock, but Eddy breaks and dropkicks him in a seated position. Eddy keeps pounding away in the corner, but Angle returns fire with a german suplex. They slug it out and Angle gets a pair of clotheslines and a backdrop, but can’t suplex him. So he opts for a belly-to-belly instead, and it gets two. Eddy comes back with a brainbuster attempt, but Angle reverses to the rolling germans. The strap is down and the Angle Slam is reversed to a cradle for two. SWANK! Angle charges and hits elbow, and Eddy follows him down with a tornado DDT for two. Eddy hooks the Lasso From El Paso, but Angle reverses to the anklelock. Eddy makes the ropes. Another try at a german by Angle, but Eddy has a leg spasm due to the anklelock and somehow he ends up hitting Angle low. He should see a doctor about that. Brainbuster and Eddy goes up, but Angle shoves the referee into the ropes to crotch Eddy. Chavo tries to run in, and then Benoit tries to motivate Angle by showing him the tag title belt, but clumsy Kurt falls into it headfirst and hits the mat again. Eddy’s frog splash finishes at 13:21. This was some fine professional wrestling that you can show to your children and be proud of watching. ***1/4

- Elsewhere, Angle breaks up the party and looks for Benoit. He suspects the guy in the Scream mask, but that turns out to be Brother Love, which is a reference that no one these days is even gonna get. Benoit attacks him and they brawl all over the party until Benoit gets a crossface, which Angle reverses to the anklelock. Angle Slam onto the table and both guys are dead. Man, even the Halloween party is featuring great wrestling tonight.

- Brock Lesnar v. Rey Mysterio. They should do a swerve and have Rey unmask and be revealed as Big Show. That’d be awesome. They could do like Undertaker & Kane in 98 where you never knew which was which. Chase to start and Rey gets a quick legdrop, but gets caught and tossed around. He escapes and runs away again, and tries hiding behind the stairs. Brock thinks he’s smart, but Rey hides under the ring, and sneaks around for a dive off the top to frustrate Brock. Rana is blocked by Brock, and you know this ain’t gonna be good. And indeed, Brock swings Rey like a bag of garbage, into the post. Holy CRAP did that look painful. Back in, more abuse for Rey follows. Brock pounds him in the corner, but Rey dodges him and gets a 619 to the midsection and a seated dropkick. Another 619 is blocked by Big Show, who tosses Rey into the crowd to ruin a perfectly good match at 3:58. * Show manhandles Lesnar and chokeslams him through the table, end of show. You’d think that 12,000 people at a TV taping would tip them off that Big Show as main eventer isn’t going to work, but what do I know, I’m just a wrestling fan?

The Bottom Line:This was a great show and i was younger when i first saw this and i felt that i needed to see it again. also we got a glimpse of what the future of john cena,brock lesnar and edge and many more..but the match of the night was edge vs chris benoit

Tags: brock lesnar, chris benoit, edge, halloween, John Cena, wwe smackdown