The show opens with Evolution and their vanity belts. They have all the titles, so they're the BEST, right?..Right?! Triple H gives his obligatory promo on how he's the best yadda,yadda,yadda. He says that unlike Goldberg, he doesn't need "hype" cause he's Fucking the Bosses daughter. Well he didn't actually say that, but it's true.

Y2J & Christian Vs. Lita & Trish Stratus; Battle of The Sexes part 2; Jericho continues his slow turn back into a babyface here as he refuses to get "physical" with Trish. He has no such feelings towards Lita however and has no problems dispensing a beating to her. Lita kicks the broken body of Gail Kim off her perch for most botched moves ever by nearly killing herself with a moonsault that lands awkwardly on Christian and nearly re-joins "Degenerated Necks" as a result. Christian eventually hits an Unprettier on Trish but Jericho's apparently seen enough and concedes the match. He then shoves Christian down.

Eric Bischoff comes out angry and Jericho insults him drawing a decent pop. Jericho states he never wanted this match or the PPV one and Bischoff punishes Jericho by forcing him to fight Kane. However, if Eric really wanted to hurt Jericho, he'd make him watch Everwood. Just saying.

Bischoff remains in the ring and says he has an announcement that will shake RAW to it's foundation. He then calls out Mick Foley. Foley comes out and states that in two weeks there will be a board meeting to discuss the re-instatement of Steve Austin. Bischoff shows a video tribute of Foley's WWE career and then says that he has a proposition for Mick (once Mick realizes it's not Patterson saying this, he gently unclenches his ass cheeks). Bischoff tells Mick that he wants him to wrestle TONIGHT and that if Mick wins, Eric will quit as GM on the spot, however, if Foley loses, it's him who has to "retire" (until he returns with Linda's clipboard of Doom dispensing imaginary stipulations like it's no one's business). He says that Mick will face Randy Orton and Foley says he'll only agree if Evolution and Bischoff himself are barred from ringside. Bischoff agrees, and Foley adds that it will also be for Orton's IC Title.

They announce that next week will be the Best of RAW 2003. The show is scheduled to run about 6 minutes.

Mark Henry & Matt Hardy Vs. Huffman Squared (Booker T. & Maven); Maven is wearing trunks that appear to be made out of the same material as a Glad trash bag which is apropos if you think about it. I kid, Maven. This match never really clicks, thanks mostly to the morbidly obese Predator on the apron. Unfortunately, it is not Henry who gets pinned, but Matt Hardy who eats an "Ask-kick" by Booker for the win.

Backstage Jonathan Coachman wants to interview Goldberg but Goldy is having none of it, so Coach barges into his locker room anyway and some imaginary hijinx ensues.

La Resistance is in the ring. They are interrupted by an angry Goldberg who kills them DEAD with spears and jack hammers O'plenty. He then breaks the French Flag in half, cause you know we're at War with France you know...What? We're not?... Nevermind.

Eric makes another appearance and this time "suspends" Goldberg from the active Roster for 30 days, which in my opinion might not be the best way to use a guy with about 100 days left on his contract, but what do I know?

Mick Foley is seen discussing his comeback match with Shawn Michaels. He asks Shawn If he can resist the temptation of Wrestling once he starts again. HBK responds "At first you'll wanna come back and put all the new kids over, but you won't, You'll then put it off for a year and really not elevate anyone". Ok he never really said that, sue me. Anyway, bottom line is HBK says once you start you can't stop, kind of like Bradshaw dry-fisting rookies.

HBK & RVD Vs. HHH, Batista & Ric Flair; (Goldberg was removed from the match) Triple H is currently retaining more water than Hoover Dam. You'd think he was just coming off something, ahem. RVD is in full "stiff" mode here dispensing more potatoes than an Irish Food Bank. The Ref gets bumped at one point and RVD hits the five-star on Batista. Triple H breaks up the fun by delivering a pedigree and puts Batista atop for the cover. The groggy Referee makes a count but Rob kicks out at two. The match continues and RVD takes out both Batista and Flair (who appeared to be completely made out of Spam tonight) on the floor leaving HHH and HBK, one on one. H's goes for the pedigree but Micheals back body drops out, HBK then tries a superkick but misses the first attempt but connects seconds later and gets the pin.

Bleh, everything makes sense now. Quick, someone shoot me a Wolfpack sign!

Jon Heidenreich Vs. Rico; Wow, they're giving this rematch away for FREE? Rico is wearing a singlet tonight but continues to look like a Sexually curious Wolverine despite. Rico plays his mind games and Heidenreich appears to know the chapter on Kurrgan in the "Big Book of Generic Hoss Offense" verbatim. This one seems to continue on forever which considering the work rate of the rubbery Heidenreich is definitely not the best idea. Rico utilizes a distraction by Jackie Gayda and wins after hitting the neckbreaker on Jon who hits the deck like a sack of shit, or sack of "Heidenreich" as it were.

Chris Jericho tries to apologize to Trish but she ain't listening. (She must have a DUFF in her ear. For those who don't know, DUFF= designated ugly fat friend, who usually bad mouths the boyfriends out of sheer bitterness. They ALL have a DUFF)

Y2J Vs. Kane. They both break out their year 2000 stuff, sans spilling coffee of course. This story was more about sacrificing Jericho for his defiance to Easy E than anything else. Jericho gets himself Disqualified when he hits Kane with a chair. Kane does fire off a choke slam before he leaves though.

Christian comes to the ring to apparently check on his "buddy" when he shoves Jericho down. Touchet.

Randy Orton Vs. Mick Foley; Intercontinental at stake plus a shitload of stipulations. Mick comes out and stalls on the floor before it can get under way. Foley then inexplicably leaves and goes backstage where he collects his gear and attempts to leave the building. Eric Bischoff informs him that leaving the Arena will constitute a forfeit and he'll be done but Mick doesn't care. Randy Orton then tries to get to Foley and even spits in his face (Grenier is later heard saying, "Well, he's lucky, at least it was spit") anyhoo, Foley heads off into the sunset anyway to close the show.

While it appears that this was just another "bait and switch", I suspect this angle will run more deep with Foley revealing that he either can't bring himself to compete, knowing full well he'll get addicted or that he's second guessing himself, feeling that he doesn't "have it" anymore.

Highlight: Jericho's character development and The build to Foley & Orton. The tribute package was a nice touch too.

Lowlight: Heidenreich. Period. You know when your offense makes Giant Gonzalez look like Lou Thesz that it's time to find another profession, like say, Kamikaze Pilot

The show opens with Randy Orton coming out to Mick Foley's theme music. Orton calls Foley a "coward" for backing out of their match and has Lillian Garcia proclaim him the winner and new "Hardcore Icon". Booker T. comes out and challenges Orton for the IC Title, but when he finds out he's in his home state of Texas he says "Fuck it! I'm screwed then, nevermind"..Ok he didn't say that but it's true. Mark Henry attacks Booker from behind thus prolonging the World's most boring feud. After the ambush, Orton decides to accept Booker's challenge and that match will apparently happen later this evening.

RVD Vs. Scott Steiner; This match had the potential to be a worse idea than an all mongoloid spelling bee, but it turns out to be relatively unoffensive. Scott Steiner throws some of those "I guess they're not REALLY banned after all" belly to belly suplexes including one from the top rope. RVD eventually rebounds and hits a succession of trademark spots. He finishes Scotty with the Five Star completely clean. At first glance, one would think that Rob was getting a "push", but it may be more that Scott Steiner is in the dog house, after being a bigger disappointment than a virgin hand-job in his interim with the Fed.

Classic HBK moment sees him defeat Sid for his 2nd WWF Title in the Alamo Dome in 1997. The part where he fakes a knee injury two weeks later and fucks off for months is inexplicably edited out of the clip however.

Christian reads Jericho the riot-act about choosing Trish over him. Come on Chris! Bro's before Ho's! It's in your "All About Being A Man Handbook", come on!

Coach is man on the scene in "Stamford" and certainly not "backstage", where apparently Linda will argue for Stone Cold and Vince will argue "against". However, we will see none of it.

They show clips from Smackdown in Iraq last week. Footage of Vince purposely stranding Rhyno in the Desert is not included however.

The Dudleys Vs. Two Jobbers; What's the best way to get a stale act like the Duds "over" again? Put them in the ring with two people no one cares about of course! Makes perfect sense to me. Ric Flair is the guest referee as appointed by Eric Bischoff. Bubba "recklessly" uses a closed fist so Ric has no choice but to disqualify him. The Duds go ape shit and pummel Flair until Batista runs in and lays out both Dudleys.

2nd classic HBK clip, this time HBK defeats HHH at Summer Slam 2002.

Bischoff gives the referees a pep talk backstage and tells them to be more "strict" in enforcing the rules. No one however has the balls to ask Baby Earl why he always counts the winning pin so SLOWLY or why Nick Patrick always looks like he's reading a good book under a tree while administering his counts.

Vince recaps his testimony to the "Board of Directors" He says he always does what the fans want, so long as they want HHH, immobile steroid monsters, skits with himself making out with women and he and his family in all the TOP angles...He's doing it all for US, damn it!

Austin is shown speeding into the backstage area and almost runs over Terri Runnels,Lita,Stacy and Trish. Austin having no regard for the physical well being of women? Kind of makes sense if you think about it.

Booker T. Vs. Randy Orton; Intercontinental Title on the line; Decent match here but the result is of course a forgone conclusion though, cough"theyfuckBookerinTexas"cough. Book looks to have things well in hand after an "ask-kick" but Kane's pyro goes off and he walks to ringside. The appearance of a 7 foot phallic symbol slowly walking to the ring is apparently enough of a distraction to allow Orton to hit the RKO and retain. Kane decimates Booker after the match because, well, you know, it's in Texas. I'm surprised they just don't show footage of Vince taking a big shit on Booker's front lawn and just get it over with already.

Your final classic HBK moment is HBK defeating HHH for the World Title in the Elimination Chamber. What makes this moment more memorable is the fact that HBK wore the single ugliest pair of tights in existence here. WWJD? I tell you what, he wouldn't wear those tights, that's for sure.

Back in "Stamford", Linda tells Coach that she was "passionate" about Stone Cold's cause while delivering her lines with the emotion of the 1960's TV Sitcom robot.

Jericho tries to give Trish a Christmas present but she's not having it. She then busts out her acting chops and says that Jericho "broke her heart". Tori Spelling was later heard saying, "wow, was that some bad acting"....

Austin is sitting in his truck *drinking* when his cell goes off. But it's a false alarm.

Trish Stratus, Lita & Stacy Keibler Vs. Molly Holly, Miss Jackie & Victoria; This one had the potential to be a clusterfuck, but they all looked hot in their Christmas outfits as I'm reminded how much I'd like to place their boxes under my Tree...BONG. There's your tasteless Yuletide analogy for this year. I thought I'd leave the one about my Missile toe belt-buckle for next year. Molly works 90% of this match but ends up eating a Trish bulldog for the loss. After the match, Victoria turns on Molly.

Stone Cold finally gets the phone call and he's back on RAW.... as General Manager?!. Austin is pissed off and drives away after telling whomever was on the phone that it wasn't what he wanted. So, This what it feels like to be back to square one, huh?

HHH Vs. HBK; World Heavyweight Title match; This is under "Kliq rules" meaning that no one's spot is threatened so expect a great match. HHH must be off the juice because he continues to get a little soft, but in his defense, at least his balls will now return to their regular size which will please Mrs. Helmsley greatly. Both men pull off all the stops and put on a FANTASTIC match that actually uses psychology and tells a story. (I have visions of RVD sitting back stage saying "what's that?" and someone answering: "Well, Rob, that's called a headlock". RVD "why is he limping now?".. "well, Rob, that's because..." Ok, you get my drift.) This one carries on for more than a half hour when Earl gets bumped and Michaels has it seemingly won. Bischoff runs down to tend to Hebner then continues the match as Referee himself, but HHH kicks out before Eric can count to three. Michaels eventually hits the superkick and collapses atop HHH and gets the pin and seemingly the Title ~until~ Bischoff reveals that Michaels shoulders were down as well, and in the case of a double pin, the win goes to the champion. (and not the title being held-up like it has been for 30 years..) Michaels ends up striking Bischoff prompting Easy E to "fire him". Well, until Steve Austin returns apparently having got what he wanted, and says that Michaels is not fired, and he'll also get a rematch with Trips.

Austin stuns Bischoff to close the show.

-Well everything that was old is, new errr, well still old, actually.

Highlight: The Main Event. Squeezing a MOTC into the last week of the year? Why not?

Lowlight: The payoff of the Austin storyline. So he's Co-GM, again? Ok then.