[2000-02-27-WWF-No Way Out] Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn vs Rikishi & Too Cool

[soup23]

A Deport Eddy sign. Topical. Eddy is injured but he remained relevant by mixing it up in there and taking a pipe shot to his injured elbow and bumping from Rikishi. Fun action here all around. I was especially impressed by Malenko being extra sneaky getting in cheap shots and taking shortcuts. Saturn also hasn’t looked out of his element compared to the others. Rikishi is doing the stink face now which is unfortunate because that is a move I despise. Finish was fine with Rikishi getting the win because besides Benoit he is the biggest star. Still, you can already see some rumblings about the Radicalz being buried. Rikishi sells his leg and teases not being able to dance but he musters up enough strength to do it in the end. ***

[Loss]

Fun match. I liked how Malenko took on the antagonistic housefly role and kept poking at Rikishi and getting out of dodge throughout the match to set up the finish. I also like Rikishi's long-term selling of the leg injury, which has been going on even from previous matches. I can see the argument that this isn't the best use of the Radicalz, specifically Benoit, but they already had Wrestlemania mapped out when he came in less than a month before this show, so I can understand him not being in a higher-profile match. He moves up quickly after this show. Saturn and Malenko don't, but I think Benoit was the main guy they were after anyway. Light-hearted fare, but a good match. ***1/4

[Robert S]

My favorite thing was how Malenko nailed Taylor when he went for the worm as the camera completely focused on Scotty and did not show Malenko entering the ring, so as a TV viewer you are completely unaware about what is going to happen until it is happening. They used to do this with blind tags as well in the 90ies sometimes. This makes such spots feel much more organic if the action is so fast that even the cameraman / director has problems keeping up the pace.

The heat segment was pretty nice (though Taylor did not make a very good face-in-peril), after the hot tag the match fell apart a bit. Scotty 2 Hotty going blow for blow with Benoit looks so wrong.