Falls Count Anywhere

01-08-08

Won't you be glad with me?

American Gladiators
In the late 1990s, Iron Chef was big with hip young American kids who sometimes watched the International Channel. UPN, then struggling to find something that would hook its key young Demo decided to try and bring Iron Chef to America. They completely made-over the show, gave us William Shatner as the Chairman and a pair of announcers that made a Tony Shiovanni-David Crockett pairing sound like superstars. They completely divorced the show from the original and it didn’t last at all.

Food Network brought reruns of Iron Chef to the US and they took off, which led to the new Iron Chef America. That show had some connection to the original and to make folks who cared about the differences not care so much, they brought in big names from the network: Alton Brown, Bobby Flay and Mario Batali. It worked out and the show is the strongest on Food Network.

American Gladiators was a syndicated sensation in the late 1980s and continued to be a producer until 1994 or so. They tried to rekindle the excitement with BattleDome in the mid-1990s, but it never caught on because it was lame like the UPN Iron Chef. The 2007 version that debuted on NBC this Sunday was the Food Network version of Iron Chef, complete with big names to make people forget the differences.

The show is hosted by Leila Ali, who lacks some sort of charisma and isn’t a great host, and Hulk Hogan, who comes across very good though a bit over the top. The announcer is OK; he’s better than some of the announcers they had on the original, but the stories they told were good.

It seemed that the announcer figured out that the show is supposed to be character-driven. They took the contestants and made them important. There was the guy who wanted to be on the show in 1994 but couldn’t and his struggle against the 150 pound Asian guy. While it would have been great if the old guy had won, the young dude took it from him, though it did allow him to make a great promo about making it that far. The first woman’s match was great, with a come from way behind win that featured the failing of the leader and made the whole enterprise seem exhausting and legit.

And it was legit. There’s no question.

Get in line for the ass-kicking...

I think it’s a show well worth watching and the tie-in to wrestling isn’t just the concept and the Hulkster. Gina Carano, the top Woman’s MMA practitioner, is Crush of the Gladiators (and she’s so very hot). Helga had some wrestling cred too, including I think a try-out for Tough Enough. I think that Fury also did some wrestling.

News and Notes
The official wrestling endorsements for President have started trickling in. Val Venis and Kane have both endorsed Ron Paul. That’s no surprise because Val is a big Libertarian and Paul was a long-standing Libertarian candidate for more than a decade. Paul even noted both of them on his website as having endorsed him.

Brook Hogan might be on the next Dancing with the Stars. I think Hulk is still smarting from having pushed her so hard and she never managed to crack the big time. It would be an interesting addition, but she wasn’t enough of a star to really make it happen.

TNA PPV
I had to rely on my service to get a hold of the matches, but I did see much of Final Resolution. There was LAX vs. Jimmy Rave and Lance Hoyt which was really just a backdrop for Shelly Martinez (the former Ariel in ECW) coming out and giving Hoyt a Low Blow with Hemme thinking that she was a dude and giving her a Low Blow. Shelly then danced and took off her overalls. Shelly’s freakin’ hot and she’s over with the crowd too.

Kaz and Black Reign had a match that wasn’t nearly as interesting as the crowd seemed to think it was. I like Kaz, but there’s nothing to him yet in TNA. They need to give him a hot feud at the top of the card to make him matter.

Awesome Kong and Gail Kim had a No DQ match that was really solid. I’m thinking that it was as good as anything Shimmer has put out. They brawled and there was a lot of booking going on which should show how closely she is aligned to Jeff Jarrett since that’s exactly what he’d have done if he was in the same position.

I hate the way they’re using Karen Angle, but she’s freakin’ smokin’!

Robert Roode and Miss Brooks are a good team. Booker T and Sharmell are a good team. Roode could mean something to TNA if they gave him a real run with the title. Booker has already lost most of what he brought in with him. They had Brooks slap Roode and Roode was about to give her a beating, but Sharmell made the save and he elbowed Sharmell on accident. It was a very strange piece of booking and it’s exactly why TNA hasn’t taken off. There’s a lot of talent and a good, simple booker could make it into something that really mattered instead of the waffling promotion that it is.

They had a dull Ultimate X match with Team 3D and Johnny Devine against Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley and Jay Lethel. It was just a weak and dull match. Even the big spots they set up weren’t anything impressive. The Ladder Stuff was dull and the whole thing just made me snooze. I do have to say that Jay Lethel’s gimmick is one of the best things going. OOOOOOH YEAAAAAAAAAH!

I watched Tomko and AJ Style take on Samoa Joe and Kevin Nash and I knew what was going to happen even though I’ve not watched much of the TNA TV that set it up. Joe was the heel here, which was weird because they’ve been positioning him as the top face. There was a spot where Samoa Joe was about to pin AJ after the Musclebuster and Tomko broke it up. Shockingly, the crowd chanted ‘Thank You, Tomko’. That’s a harsh criticism. Nash walked out on Joe, which was the completely expected ending. Why even bother if you’re going to book things like this?

Angle vs. Christian is a match I’ve seen a hundred times and this was probably the best of them. The match was great, especially with Angle's ground work and Christian knowing how to make a match flow and play heel. Even as a face, he plays heel better than almost anyone out there. AJ came out and pulled Karen Angle off the apron and hugged Christian before he turned and gave Christian the Leaping Elbow to let Angle get the Olympic Slam for the win. I will say that I want to see this again with a real finish.

That’s all for this week. I’ll have a look at RAW next week and how it’ll be leading to WrestleMania.

Chris Garcia