-We are LIVE from New Orleans. A pre-show package shows some footage from the 2001 show. (Already reviewed on this site, of course.) Our announcers are Kid Sampson and Bensino. The opening match is a Royal Rumble for a shot at the WTFL champion in the main event. (With the kicker that the champ himself, Non-Retard has entered the Rumble. He wins it, he doesn't have to defend.) That's a pretty good stip, as it negates the advantage of having to defend against a fatigued challenger.

-Game Over Rumble

Chase draws number 1, Early Morning Pimp draws 2. (That name still confuses me... I'd assume pimps work late and sleep later.) EMP takes the rookie to school with a dropkick and drop toehold from the bell, but runs into a clothesline as the third man enters. It's Vincent Alexander, who chop-blocks Chase and works him over. Chase gets whipped to the ropes, where EMP dropkicks him out. Vincent quickly German suplexes EMP and avalanches him as Ja Lam arrives. Must be one-minute periods this year. Ja Lam cleverly dropkicks Vincent into EMP and dominates both men for a few seconds. He stops to pose and is taken down by Vincent, who punches the holy hell out of him. Rick Dreamer is number five, doing the Mashed Potatoes all over EMP and Vincent. Dreamer, Vincent and Ja Lam ty to elimnate each other, then all tumble out when EMP unleashes a hilariously over-the-top Cartman-like stream of obscenities at the top of his lungs. Unique booking to say the least. Gangsta Pranksta arrives next. He's EMP's former partner, so they tease a handshake for the fans before EMP snaps and lays him out. Flame enters at seven and goes after Pranksta. EMP's loyalties waver and he makes the save, leading to a double-team on Flame. EMP misses a clothesline, however, hitting Gansta from behind with it instead. X comes in and tosses Gangsta as Flame pounds away on EMP. X DDT's Flame and tries to eliminate him, but Flame hooks the ropes and lands on the apron. He nails X with a springboard bodyblock on the way back in. A three-way slugfest develops as Paco arrives. Everyone pairs off, with EMP still selling the headshots he took earlier on. He finally charges blindly at X and is backdropped out. Flame and X make Flame their personal bitch before AK comes in a number ten. They pair off and brawl until Blade shows up. Flame lands on the apron again from a backdrop but gets stungunned and dumped by Paco. Once more we get a couple of one-on-one brawls until HH arrives. He gets old-school with the SHOULDERBREAKER OF DOOM on AK and tries to dump Paco and X. He gets a punch in the kisser for his efforts.

Adam Starr is lucky thirteen. HH gives X a German suplex, then attempts the same maneuver on Paco. Paco flips out and powerbombs him. Nice little mini-sequence there. AK and Starr take turns to pummel Starr as ICE arrives. ICE DDT's AK and tussles with Blaze, then saves X from being eliminated. It's a nice touch, as the two have a match later that night. They brawl as AK uses the ropes to slingshot Blaze and Starr to the floor. Nightmare, last years winner is next. He ignores everything ICE throws at him and tosses him out with ease, then does the same to X. He's a slammin', jammin', no-sellin' machine! (Just like last year!) Richard Pryor does the Kaientai run-in, and takes the TAKA injury-inducing bump to the floor after he foolishly attacks Nightmare. Wolf is the next actual entrant, double-teaming Nightmare with Paco. Nightmare continues to no-sell just about everything short of a .38 bullet to the temple as Adrenaline comes in at 17. HH and AK tussle while everyone else dogpiles Nightmare. Sound strategy there... They nearly have him over when Tony Danza(!!!) runs-in to make the save. Paco beats the crap out of him with the Red Light District and tosses him back out. Madd Dogg comes in from the crowd at 18 and its BONZO GONZO as an all-in brawl breaks out. Non-Retard enters at 19. He gets an assist on Adrenalines elimination, punching him to Nightmare to be clotheslined out. Non-Retard thanks Nightmare by clotheslining him out also. He avalanches Madd Dogg and Wolf, hitting a nice belly-to-belly on wolf on the rebound. The final entrant is President Right Angle. (That's a co-inkydink! It's GOOD to be the President!) He dumps Wolf as AK takes out both HH and himslef with a Cactus Clothesline.

The Final Four: Paco, Right Angle, Madd Dogg and Non-Retard. Paco clotheslines out Angle, but the officials are tied up with AK and HH who are having creative differences on the floor. Flame returns to help Angle back in, then brawls with Paco in the ring. Spinning kick removes Paco from the ring, so Flame takes a powder. The refs find Paco on the floor and take the Presidents word that he eliminated him. (It's REALLY good the be the President!) Meanwhile, Non-Retard throws out Madd Dogg and we're down to two. They tussle in the corner until Non-Retard tries for the Graham Cracker Flapjack. Angle backdrops him to escape the move, hits a dropkick and the KICK OF TRUTH eliminates the Champ. Gee, another federation president goes over. What are the odds on that? **1/2 (I didn't rate last years Rumble, but what the hell. I still don't rate battle royals and midget matches, though...) Dragged a little in the middle, but watching Tony Danza get beat up deserves 2 stars by itself.

-Fabulous Seximo vs Officer Rosalades (Falls Count Anywhere.)

Oddly, the entire first section of this match was removed from my tape. Thanks to the nice people at Blockbuster Video for that, I guess. Xenomorph told me he's seen the raw footage, which appears to be a elaborate, match-length private joke at the expense of Rosalades.. He laughed his ass off at it, anyway. I can't rate it, so let's move along.

-Flash vs Keady (X-Treme Title Match)

Flash is nice enough to let Keady collect up some plunder. He eventually takes the fight to Keady, winning a slugfest and backdropping him back out of the ring. He loads up a turnbuckle with the SHINY TRASHCAN OF DOOM and joins him on the floor. Trashcan Lid Fu from Flash, before he provides Keady with a hardhat to take a lead pipe shot. What a considerate young man he is! Switching the hard hat to his own head, he tries to scramble Keadys brains with the pipe, however. Keady avoids it and hits a bodyblock off the apron. They brawl on the floor, then return to the ring where Flash delivers the Raven Droptoehold onto a chair. (Watch it, Flash, you'll end up exclusive to Jakked if you keep that up...) He back bodydrops him onto the chair (ouch!) and hits the Flash Plex off the top onto a trashcan. It gets 2. Keady sells the move like he's been shot, simply falling over when Flash tries an Irish Whip. Flash goes up for the Flash Splash, huitting the knees of Keady. Keady makes a miraclous recovery, using trashcans and chairs to beat down Flash. Now Flash does the Informercial Sell, lying around while Keady sets up no less than FOUR tables. (Three on the floor, one in the corner of the ring.) Back inside he hits Flash with an odd reverse X-factor-ish move onto a chair. He whips him to the buckle, Flash applies the brakes and dodges a blind charge. Keady runs headlong into the trashcan-loaded bauckle, then gets whipped into the table set up in the opposite corner. Ironys a bitch, sometimes. Flash goes suplex-crazy, snapping Keady onto chairs and trashcans, then hits a brainbuster for 2. He argues the count and gets Keady Kick-ed over the ropes and through a table. Teensy bit contrived, no? Keady throws Flash into the fans and nails a tope suicida over the gardrail for 2. They brawl through the fans with Flash giving Keady a spinebuster on the floor, before heading back to the ring. The barbed-wire 2x4 is brought in by Flash. He gets DDT-ed onto it attempting the Alabama Spinbreaker. Multiple Blade time for Flash, naturally. Keady uses a chair, but gets a VanFlashinator, joing the Crimson Mask club. (Well, more like the trickle of red club in comparison to Flash, but he's trying...) They brawl on the apron until Keady manages to get Flash onto a double-stack of tables. Flash is required to lie there for ages while Keady spikes the ball, bringing in a ladder for the MATCH-ENDING BUMP OF INSANITY. It's a "Maximum Impact" through the tables. They evetually crawl away from the debris and continue brawling! (I was so sure that was it, but this match doesn't seem to know when to quit.) We instead end with a MORON BUMP OF SUICIDAL STUPIDITY as Flash manages to balance Keady on two chairs, (Where he lies motionless for so long I figure he's either unconcious or dead.) then climbs the entranceway to hit a Flash Splash that probably concussed both men at the very least. Flash gets the pinfall from it at least. 3/4* I honestly can't give this match more than that with a clear conciense, as the sheer career-risking idiocy of an unprotected stunt bump like that is something I can't condone. Besides, the rest of the match was a fairly generic (And oddly lethargic) walk-and brawl with some overly contrived spots.

-Postmatch, we cut back to more from the Fabulous Seximo/Rosalades match. It's so badly chopped by the Smut Nazis at Blockbuster, I'm forced to fast-forward.

-The Misfits vs TnT vs Abrubt Function vs High Voltage (Four-way Elimination Tag Title Match.)

Both the on-screen graphic and the annoncers refer to TnT as being the tag champs, but for some reason, BioHazard and Snakehead of the Misfits arrive with the belts. I hate getting confused before the match even begins! Tex of TnT and Sweet Dick Willy of Abrubt Function start us off. (Incidently, if anyone can inform me ofwhere the name "Abrubt Function" came from and what exactly it means, you know my e-mail address...) Sd-dubya wins a test-of-strength with a boot to the gut and hits an overhead belly-to-belly. Tex recovers, delivers the same move to SdW and tags in Triz. Top-rope legdrop gets 2 before Storm and Chubbs of High Voltage break up the count. Triz stomps away the SdDub and nails the Crushed before Storm makes a blind tag. He gets caught and dumped heavily attempting a flying kick, allowing SdW to tag out. (If you count getting popped in the face by BioHazard as a legal tag, that is. The ref does, anyway and I guess that's what counts..) Storm hits a spinning heel kick off the lock-up, then joins the growing list of wrestlers "borrowing" Rolling Thunder. He tags in Chubbs who gets 2 off a superkick and splash. Chubbs misses the FLYING FATASS SPLASH OF DOOM allowing Biohazard to tag out to Genocide. It all breaks down as every man and his dog hitts the ring to pound Chubbs into jelly. Genocide and SdW toss TnT to the floor before Genocide DDT's Chubbs and applies the figure-four. Storm hits a face-breaking dropkick, drawing SdW back in again. They brawl to the floor as Genocide comes off the top, only to be caught in a stunner by Chubbs for the first elimination. With Abrubt Function gone, BioHazard tries to get some cheap licks in on Chubbs. Chubbs no-sells them, so BioHazard tries to bail in an amusing spot. Chubbs beats on BioHazard and looks for the tag, but Storm is being pounded on the floor by Abrubt Function. Genocide adds a few chairshots before Chubbs comes to his partners rescue. A rematch looks a certainty for those two teams, I wager. The Misfits double-team Chubbs while the refs are distracted with Abrubt Function. He fights them off for a while, but the weight of numbers eventually leads to BioHazard nailing the Descent. Snakehead covers to eliminate High Voltage. Biohzard is tagged in, albeit reluctantly. He proceeds to bump like a rubber ball for Tex, who drills him with a T-Bone suplex. Snakehead enters to make the save, tossing BioHazard a pair of brass knuckles. BioHazard lays out both Tex and Triz and makes the cover on Tex. It gets 2.95. Nice booking... I was ready to label this a regular Monday Night match! Triz appears to bleed hardway as the ref gets squished between BioHazard and the buckles. Triz rolls-up BioHazard, but the ref's in La-la Land. Snakehead applies the Snake Wrap to Triz as BioHazard gets a free Trip To Texas from Tex. The ref wakes up to find both men in submission maneuvers. Snakehead is forced to release Triz as he sees Biohazard on the verge of tapping out. He shoves the ref down and waffles Tex with a chair. The ref admonishes Snakehead for the shove, but having missed the chairshot counts BioHazards' pinfall on Tex to give the Misfits the tag titles. **3/4 Look up "Perfectly Acceptable Wrestling" and you'll see a picture of this match.

-More Rosalades/Seximo shenanagins.

-Rob Slater vs Johhny Spears.

Slater plays to the crowd and gets punished for it as Spears uses him for a punching bag from the get-go. Spears gives Slater a back bodydrop, Slater reverses a whip and returns the favour. Criss-cross sequence leads to Spears missing a leg-drop. Slater necksnaps him and drops a leg for 2. Tornado DDT and standing monsault get 2 more. Hot pace so far. Spears bails, so Slater dropkicks him off the top turnbuckle, sending him into the front row. They brawl on the floor, Slater DDTs him on the floor. He returns to the ring, Spears hotshots him and goes up. He tries a dropkick, but is caught and powerbombed by Slater for 2 to pop the crowd bigtime. Slater applies the ARMBAR OF TWISTY DEATH, Spears quickly drags him down to the mat and slides gracefully into a Tezas Cloverleaf. Impressive... most impressive. (Vader Mode OFF) Slater manages to make the ropes after teasing a tap-out and gets DDT'ed for 2. Slater makes a superman comeback but runs right into the Wind Speed for 2. Spears covers again for 2 more. They head outside for a brief brawl, Slater hits a German suplex on the floor and goes for a chair. (You naughty face, you!) The ref swipes it, allowing Spears to hit a reverse DDT. He rolls Slater back in and hits a top-rope legdrop. (Kudos to Spears for thinking to sell the move himself...) He hits The Ultimate Spear for 2 and a half. He remonstrates with the ref, giving Slater the opportunity to hit the Cutting Edge. It gets 2.99 and nearly sends the crowd into collective heart failure. Slater nails a spinning hell kick and clothesline, then heads upstairs. Blade suddenly runs-in and KO's Slater with a steel chair to draw a cheap DQ. D'OH! ***3/4 Super match with a hot pace throughout... and a Sportz Entertainment Finish, sadly. Great effort by both guys, though. Postmatch, Blade also lays out his (Presumaby soon-to-be-former) partner Spears as well.

-Scott Falcon vs Tha(sic) Realist (Transatlantic Championship)

Falcon and Realist execute a nice little wrestling sequence with the Realist playing the cocky heel role nicely. They run through another nice counter-wrestling demonstration, with Falcon coming out on top this time by using Tha Realists own tactics against him. The Realist gets steamed and blindly runs into a drop toehold. Headlock is switched into a leapfrog sequence, with Falcon reversing a powerbomb into a huricanrana. I'm getting Benoit/Angle flashbacks, and that can only be considerd a positive thing. (And I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a clean finish!) Falcon enziguris Tha Realist right out of the ring and hits an innovative baseball slide bulldog. He brings him back in a get a 2-count. Mecifully brief armbar leads to a Falcon getting dumped on a blind charge. Tha Realist hurdles the turnbuckle to bodyblock Falcon to the UNFORGIVING CONCRETE FLOOR OF DOOM! Tha Realist tries for Rudo Dick Heel status by giving the finger to the fans who applaud the move. Nice touch. Falcon makes it back to the ring but runs into a spinning heel kick for 2. Tha Realist locks in a sleeper, which would garantee him main event status in the WWE right about now. Falcon powers out, then runs right back into it again. He does the Heroic Face comeback and applies a sleeper of his own, Tha Realist backdrops him and goes up to miss a moonsault. Bensino makes chicken analogies, leading The Kid to refer to him as a "Chickenhumper"... that was a pretty "paltry" gag... (*rimshot*.. Thank you, I'll be here till Thursday! Try the veal! What do you mean you didn't get it?) Falcon gives Tha Realist five in the corner before getting rudely spinebusted to the mat. Tha Realist gets 2 by covering with his feet on the ropes. (Simple, classic heel tactics... you can't beat 'em!) Tha Realist discovers that YOU CAN'T POWERBOMB FALCON, getting facejammed in the process. Flacon lays in the Hulkster punches, so Realist trips him up and applies a Fujiwara armbar. Falcon makes the ropes, but Tha Realist hangs on for as long as possible. Okay, he's achieved Full Rudo Dick Heel Mode as of now. He nails a stiff-as-hell spinebuster and gets two off an overly-cocky cover. He chews out the ref, so Falcon floors him and gets a springboard dropkick. He gets all Karate Kid on Tha Realist, who catches his third kick and T-bones him. Falcon manages to duck under a charging Realist and gets 2 off a standing moonsault. He attempts the Bird of Prey, landing on his feet as Tha Realist rolls clear. CLOTHESLINE FROM HECK from Tha Realist, who hits the TriDon. (A rolling suplex/neckbreaker/DDT combo.) He pauses to incite the fans, getting 2 and seven tenths as a result. Falcon avoids a press-slam and dropkicks Tha Realist. Falcon takes a timeout on the floor, avoiding a baseball slide which sends Tha Realist into the railing. Tha Realist goes for the International Objects, bringing a chair back to the ring with him. They tussle over it, allowing Tha Realist to get the upper hand. Superplex gets 2 for Tha Realist. We get a double KO off a criss-cross before Tha Realist manages to lock the Tarantula Torque on Falcon. Falcon won't give up, responding with two words when asked if he wants to quit. (One of four letters, one of three, second word "you"...I'd take that as a "no".) He frees his arm, then manages to roll out of the anklelock and hits a Dark Claw kick. (Selling the injury from the anklelock beautifully in the process.) Tha Realist attempts a sunset flip, Falcon drops down, hooks the legs and gets the clean pinfall to retain. It's hard not to make a comparison to Brett vs Owen at Wrestlemania X, but honestly, can that be considered a BAD thing? ***** Sometimes all the insane bumps, flaming tables and Sportz Entertainment has to bow to pure wrestling with well-defined characters. Consider this match a case study of that theory.

-X vs ICE (Intercontinental Title Crucifix Match)

It's Immovable Force vs Irresistable Object at the start. (What? Oh all right, vice versa if you want.) This quickly turns into a slugfest, then an ugly brawl. ICE gives X a fisherman suplex and dropkicks him in the 'nads. They compare clotheslines, with X's lariat-to-the-back-of-the-head getting a points descision. He hits a release German and ties ICE in the ropes. He brings out the first table of the match and relieves the announcer of his chair for about the tenth time tonight. (The poor guy should be equipped with an ejector seat!) He chairshots the hell out of Ice and powerbombs him from the ring through the table. Ice gets to lie on the floor for a while, allowing X to set another table betwixt the apron and guardrail and a third in a corner of the ring. They brawl in the ring until X backbody drops ICE through his second table of the night. Guess HE lost the cointoss backstage... X finally gets into the spirit of things, running headlong through a table while trying to either spear or splash ICE. That was pretty goofy... They brawl with table shrapnel, then brawl on the floor. The ring bell is used and the GLASS PITCHER OF DEATH! X blades from the pitcher shot. ICE helps him out by blading him on-camera with the pitchers handle. Now we're getting a little excessive. They brawl on the ramp, with ICE putting X in a Sharpshooter for the WM 13 visual. X groinshots ICE and tosses him off the staqge. ICE lands jaw-first on the guardrail in a cringe-inducing (And if Sabu was a guidline, jaw-shattering) spot. They play with chairs for a while in the crowd, including a one-man Con-Chair-To from ICE. They finally reach the crucifix and start spots onto it. It's fairly soon after X tries to hang ICE and the barbed-wire comes out that I'm forced to fast-forward to the end of this excruciatingly-long match. ICE wins it eventually. No rating, as I just couldn't sit through what was obviously a somewhat gratuitous attempt to have the biggest, bloodiest brawl in WTFL history. Some may point at me a call me a pussy, but geez! The last thing I want to see is some idiotic backyard wrestler attempting to emulate this and bleeding to death. Besides, I might want to eat a hamburger again some time this decade, and the sight of ICE blading multiple times with barb-wire might preclude that.

-We get the finale to the Seximo/Rosalades "match". Or so Xenomorph tells me.

-Non-Retard vs Right Angle (WTFL World title Match)

Angle flashes Non-Retard a manly, no-sexual smile at the bell, prompting a fistfight. Non-Retard wins the slugfest and hits the sleeper. (No WONDER he's a Main-eventer! Even Trip can't get a sleeper on that quick!) Angle breaks the hold and hits a hurrianrana on a criss-cross for 2. More punching, Non-Retard gets a snap suplex and legdrop. Reverse DDT gets 2. Angle punches away and gets a spinning heel kick, Non-Retard blocks the Goodwill Games Slam and hits another legdrop. Amd appluies the sleeper AGAIN! Oy. We do the entire sleeper-sell and hulk-up for the second time, Angle hits a dropkick and goes up. Bodyblock from the high-rent district gets 2. Angle hits a superplex and Macho Elbow, but hits the knees on an attempted Heroic Dive. Non-Retard takes over with a brainbuster for 2 and a Samoan drop. He puts on the figure-four, so Angle can do his extended sell-and-escape trick again. Non-Retard powerbombs him and hits the Tardysault for 2. (I'm surprised it hit at all.. If the moonsault is Tardy, you should see it coming a mile off!) Angle takes a T-Bone, but lowblows to take control. Spear hits, Angle applies a Texas Cloverleaf so sloppy Dean Malenko would probably need an stiff drink and a lie down if he ever watched the tape. Non-Retard escapes and we get some chopping. Angle bodydrops Non-Retard, then misses an Asai moonsault. Non-Reatrd hits "The Inevitable Return Of The Great White Dope", which is a hell of a finisher name in anyones' language. Too bad it only gets 2. Angle avoids the Graham Cracker Flapjack and hits the Kick of Truth for 2. He unseats the timekeeper once again and brings in his chair. (I'd give up on the chair next PPV and invest in a nice beanbag, Mr Timekeeper... No-one'll steal THAT!) Commisioner Wolf runs-in to swipe Angles chair, then uses it to wipe out Non-Retard. SWERVE? Yeah, probably... Angle and Wolf beat down Non-Retard as we go off the air. So I sat through ten minutes of sleeper holds for a non-finish? I want my beer money back! DUD As exciting as watching Janet Reno and Rosie O'Donnel wrestle in a pool of olive oil. And if you find that exciting, please seek professional help.

The Bottom Line: A lot of in-jokes that probably went over well with the WTFL faithful were lost on me. Still, some excellent matches in the mid-card. A pox on that main event, though...

Mildly recommended. (Strong recommnedation for blood-and-barb-wire fans)