Falls Count Anywhere

01-11-05

I, too, am great in Danish.

New Years' Revolution
For a show that will best be remembered for two injuries in the first two matches, I had high and low thoughts on it.

The opening match was a decent little piece of work between William Regal and Eugene and the team of Christian and Tyson Tomko. I really liked the way that Eugene was over with the PR crowd. Eugene did a lot of Hogan stuff, which was fun. Regal’s nose got busted again, and he still managed to work his style. Right towards the end, Eugene hit a dropkick and after he obviously hurt his knee. It turns out that he has a dislocated kneecap and possibly a torn patella. That’ll put a guy on the shelf for a long time, and could be career-threatening. Eugene got a fast roll-up to get the pin, an ending out of necessity.

They did all these poolside things with the various Divas. It’s OK as filler, and I’m glad they didn’t make a real thing out of it.

Edge and Christian had a nice little vignette where Edge said that having Michaels as ref left him no chance and he tried to give Christian his spot in the Elimination Chamber. In a weird way, this got over the danger involved in the Elimination Chamber match.

We'll second that guess.

Lita and Trish had a match that looked like it was going to be a good one, but turned out short because of injury. Lita was way over with the fans of Puerto Rico. She was way over in a way that she’s probably not heard since her days as the #1 Diva in 2002. Lita hit a Thesz Press off the apron to the outside and that’s where she tore her ACL. She had managed to get her rhythm back, she was out of the dumb storylines and was having a good run as Women’s Champ and she tears her ACL and will be out along the lines of six months. Damn. I’m not sure if Trish was supposed to win or if they called an audible and gave her the belt since it was obvious that Lita had some really bad injury. My guess is the former.

Edge visits Bischoff and tries to give Christian his spot. Bisch says no. Shawn comes out and says he’ll call it down the middle, but he’ll love counting Edge out. Nice little series of segments. Edge is getting good heel work done.

Maven took on Shelton Benjamin and was so not over that it was almost funny enough to make me forget how very sad it was. He did a lot of heel stalling. Larry Zbysko is considered the King of Heel Stalling, and Maven obviously studied him. Shelton did what he could, but this match was doomed from the moment they gave Maven his stall instructions. Benjamin got the pin and Maven asked for an immediate rematch, which Shelton won in about five seconds with the T-Bone. Shelton needs a few more big, hard fought matches to get over that he’s the next superstar worker. Give him a face/face feud with Benoit!

Muhammad Hassan and Daivari are both so good at the delivery of their stuff. I’m really thinking that Hassan could be the next Bret Hart-like heel bagging on the US, but way over over-seas. I’m a fan of Daivari too, as he has amazing delivery and is a great manager.

Watching the match with Jerry Lawler, I just realized how little we see good managing nowadays. They did a bunch of body slams, which is an old school spot you just don’t see anymore. Lawler worked like he had rent to pay. Still, Hassan wasn’t great, but he did show that he can work a crowd really well. Lawler hit a DDT (I heard once that Lawler was using the DDT in the early 1970s and should be considered the inventor, but I’ve never had that proven), and Daivari interfered, leading Hassan to be able to such the Flatliner (or is it the NovaCaine) for the pin. Not a bad way to start out Hassan, though the mic work was far better than the match.

Batista and HHH did another segment where there are far too many hints that Batista is gonna turn and far too little in the way of actually turning. This isn’t Mexico and you can’t put a turn out over three months. They way they turned Edge has proved that as he’s not over as a heel because he was working heel when he was a face. Maybe it’s different for a face turn like this, but seriously, I don’t think so.

And yet, curiously unsatisfying...

Snitsky vs. Kane. Well…and…ummm…yeah. I really hated this. I kinda like Snitsky, but this was long, drawn out and kinda dull. Lots of brawling, but it was like Sycho Sid vs. Undertaker at WrestleMania the 13th brawling instead of Bruiser Brody vs. Abdullah the Butcher at Ponce or Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan in 1996 brawling.

Still, Kane got the win with the Tombstone.

The Royal Rumble commercial is awesomely hilarious. They’ve won awards for their commercials, I believe even taking home a Clio one time, and if the Rumble commercial doesn’t win one, I’ll be surprised. Oddly, Luther Reigns looks really believable as a 1950s gang kid with hair.

The Elimination Chamber continues to be a hot gimmick that delivers a strong match. The build-up to it worked very nicely and the match was solid. Jericho and Benoit started and had a solid bit of work. These two are made to wrestle each other, almost as much as Randy Orton and Edge. Kicks, Chops, punches, and a couple of Germans punctuated this segment of the match. This was followed by the introduction of HHH into the Chamber.

HHH’s entry led to him having a solid advantage and beat on Benoit and Jericho a bit. At one point, HHH tried to Pedigree Jericho, who backdropped him onto the steel flooring. HHH was also the first to use the chains, ramming Benoit into it and busting him open. This was actually a pretty good section, a lot like the old War Games portion of the Match Beyond when there’d be advantages for one team.

Edge entered and exploded onto everyone. He hit a corner spear on Jericho, a DDT on HHH and an overhead Suplex on Benoit. Jericho hits an enzuigiri on Edge for a nearfall. HHH and Jericho both get busted open before Randy Orton enters.

Orton comes in and goes to work, hitting a crosssbody and a powerslam on HHH and handing out RKOs to Jericho and Benoit. Edge then gives a spear to ref Shawn Michaels. Edge then gives one to Randy and picks up Shawn. Shawn Superkicks Edge, Jericho hits a LionSault and gets the pin to eliminate him. Benoit gives HHH a German and then climbs onto one of the chambers and delivers a Swandive Headbutt. Jericho puts on the Walls and Benoit the Crossface.

Batista entered, but the chamber was stuck for a second. He broke up the submissions on HHH and went to town, including hitting a spinebuster on Orton and Gorilla Pressing Jericho into the camera man. He eventually Demonbombs Benoit to pin the bloody mess and then later does the same to Jericho. It’s gets interesting after a while of HHH and Batista taking on Orton. Orton manages to hit the RKO just as HHH is getting back to his feet. When Orton goes to pin Batista, HHH slumps to his ass again, showing that he didn’t want to break up the pin. Nice booking on that one.

HHH and Orton work a little before H gets the win. The ending was a little anti-climatic, but it was an over-all solid match to end an uneven show.

RAW
RAW started with a twenty minute interview segment where HHH did one of his really good post-win speeches. Flair was with him, but not Batista. After exalting his own virtues, and giving Flair a chance to go a little nuts, they called out Batista. Batista is wearing a boss suit. He gets a good reaction here, which is heartening. After a couple of minutes, Randy Orton comes out and says he has footage to show of how HHH doesn’t have Batista’s back. HHH says they don’t need to see the footage, but Batista says he wants to see it, which gets a good pop. They show the footage and Batista looks pretty mad. HHH says that he was exhausted and there was no way he could have done anything, but then they show the post-match and Orton pretty much convinces Batista that HHH is a bastard. Batista is pissed. Bischoff makes a match between Orton and Batista to see who the number one contender is going to be.

Shelton Benjamin destroys Maven in less than two minutes of a match -- so much for Maven’s push. Seriously, when he came out on RAW, I noticed how much he looks like a solid specimen that Evolution could take on. It should have happened. Still, I want to see Shelton in better matches.

Hassan must be coated in yellow...

Muhammad Hassan and Daivari came out and said that they struck a blow against the biased American Media at New Year’s Revolution. I’d much rather they had beat up Suze Orman or that chick on the McLaughlin Group. Hassan then took on Hurricane in a match that wasn’t half-bad. It was short, but they did a good amount of stuff and it was far from boring. I really like the way Hassan works the crowd and Daivari works as manager. They could go places, but after this push, where can they go?

Batista and HHH have another heat building segment backstage. TURN HIM ALREADY!!!!!

Edge beat Rhyno in another short but entertaining Royal Rumble qualification match. Rhyno is underrated in my eyes. Teased Gores and a hit Spear followed by the Edgeacution for the Submission. That’s a move that might actually get over.

After the match, there was a bit of a weird series of timings that went down. They had Edge call out Shawn Michaels, but they went to break and they made the live crowd wait with him. This killed any reaction and afterward Edge cut a decent promo that got nothing. Michaels came out to a lackluster pop and faced off with Edge. Some chuckleheads at ringside started chanting ‘You screwed Bret’ and Shawn did some comedy with them for a while. Edge stayed in character, which was good, but Shawn breaking for the matter at hand was probably the only way to make the chant go away, but it also hurt Edge being taken seriously. Shawn did his bit, Edge jumped him and that was that.

At this point, I missed about 20 minutes of the show. I understand that there was Simon Dean stuff and Kane and Snitsky, but it also didn’t sound like anything I’d really have enjoyed anyway.

I caught the very end of the Tomko/Christian vs. Benoit and Jericho. What I saw I enjoyed, but it was also only about a minute or so.

And yet, curiously unsatisfying...

The Pillow Fight between Christy “I got chosen over the much hotter Joy and Amy” Heeme against Mrs. Mike Florez Maria was really bad. They involved Lillian Garcia early and they did stupid stuff, though I must say I kinda liked the finish. Lillian knocked Maria over Christy in the school-yard knockdown position. Then Christy turned it into a roll-up, and then bridged over. It was an actual bit of athleticism!

They redebuted Lex Luger’s Narcissist gimmick with Chris Masters as The Masterpiece. Nice idea, let’s see if it works better than it did for Luger.

The main event was a solid match between two guys who are gonna figure big into the rest fo the year’s plans. Orton worked a good match, and Batista is so athletic. He’s way improved and the Evolution work is probably the reason for his improvement. The ending only moved the idea for the turn a touch further. They had HHH try to give Batista a chair when he obviously had Randy about ready to get pinned. Batista kept saying he didn’t want the damn chair. Radny then knocked him in the back, sending him flying into HHH and rolling him up. Batista did not look happy after the match.

Decent show that could have used more wrestling. The injuries from Sunday certainly hurt it.

That’s all for today. I’ll give you more of me on Friday!

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Chris Garcia