By GP Ryan

- Last year this week: Scotty 2 Hotty over Essa Rios, D'Lo Brown over Mosh, Gangrel over Stevie Richards and Bull Buchanan over Jobber Conway

- Billy Gunn v. Race Steele. Gunn goes after the arm early. Steele nails him on a break in the corner, but Gunn goes up and over and back suplexes him. Another armdrag to ARM-bar. Dude, this isn't 1987 and you sure ain't Ricky Steamboat. Steele gets in a suplex, another corner elbow and a sloppy neckbreaker off the top for 2. Gunn wins a chopfest, but a double clothesline breaks out. Gunn hits him with clotheslines, a tilt a whirl powerslam for almost 3, and the One and Only to put him away at 3:54. Thumbs firmly in the middle.

- What's nice about doing these on Mondays or later is that I can gloss over the PPV hype.

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- Haku v. Chris Michaels. Michaels looks like the love child of Jerry Lynn and Bobby Eaton. I'm just saying. He breaks out a mini-Flair Flip right off, which is always nice. A kick sends him falling through the ropes, nearly taking a header. Cool. Haku works over his back outside. Boring methodical offense from there, however. Michaels avoids a corner charge as Haku posts himself. Punches don't take the big guy off his feet, but a dropkick does. Michaels runs right into a big boot, there, and the Tongan Death Grip soon follows for the pin at 4:14. Michaels almost made it watchable, but nope.

- PPV hype. Hey, how about that crackerjack production team. Bra-vo.

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- Smackdown clips: Benoit and Rikishi team up against Angle and Regal, and if you think those feuds are really, truly, positively over with... I tend to doubt it.

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- Light heavyweight title: Jerry Lynn v. "Metal 4 Life" Essa Rios. Hey, at least the title's being defended. Guess what the crowd chants. Hint: it isn't "Essa Rios!". Rios ends up with a hammerlock, but Lynn takes him back to the corner. Corner whip, Rios goes up and over and makes with the armdrag to armbar. That's a theme this week. Headscissors sends Lynn out, where he takes a slidekick and a nice corkscrew plancha. Rios flips out of a suplex into the ring and gets a rana, but gets caught with a spinning backbreaker. Rios slips out of a bow and arrow and gets 2, but gets pasted. Flippy schoolboy gets 2, but he tries another fancy-schmancy headscissors and gets slammed for 2. Rios ends up hanging by his feet from the bottm rope (just a bit contrived), and Lynn kicks him loose. OK, mildly cool, that. Rios gets the Fruity Armdrag and a powerslam for 2, and tries a top-rope rana, but Lynn holds on to block and hits a sweet tornado DDT for the pin at 5:11. Perfectly acceptable, so I'll go thumbs up.

- UT-Austin hype.

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- X-Factor v. Chris Williams & Rob Harris & Doug Basham. They quickly attack and dispactch of two of the jobbers, leaving... c'mon, Kelly and Prichard, who's who. Harris (black tights) tags in on Credible, but X-Pac holds down the top rope to send him out and he takes the X-Pac Memorial ringpost bump, ironically enough, and Albert presses him in. X-Pac in to work him over, spin kick for 2. There's the bronco buster. Credible in to powerbomb him for 2, and Albert finally tags in. Harris tries punches but runs into a delayed butterfly suplex. Harris manages a double clothesline on X-Pac and Credible and tags in Basham (short hair, red tights) and it's a pier 6. Williams slowly goes up top, but Albert catches him coming down and posts him. Basham's corner charge misses X-Pac, Albert's doesn't miss him and the double superkick puts him away for the X-Pac pin at 4:23. Not as interesting, dare I say it, as the Gunn match simply because the jobbers didn't get anything in here.

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The show closes with hype for the top matches, and Scott's review for that is right up there. Until next week.