Falls Count Anywhere

01-25-07

They call it Mariah.

RAW
Better than some, worse than others, the episode was notable for the standout performance of Mr. Shawn Michaels. They opened the show noting that Bam Bam had died, which I’d expected. That led into Shawn coming out and saying that he proved he could beat long odds last week so he’s going to become a singles wrestler again and win the Royal Rumble and become the Champion once again.

Edge came out and said that it was he who would win the Royal Rumble and Michaels told him to shut up and the two brawled through the crowd. Good start to the show and a wonderful promo from Shawn.

Joey Mercury got beat by Jeff Hardy. This is a nice way to make connections between the shows. You see, I’ve always been of the opinion that they need to make the WWE shows more like one another (preferably with a shared champion) and then make ECW completely different. They had a fun little match with Johnny Nitro coming down to interfere, but being sent to the back. Hardy won really quick. I just wanna see the Tag Team feud happen between MNM and The Hardys.

Please, Vince, you're hurting America.

Vince did a promo in the ring about Donald Trump. It wasn’t the best thing he’d ever done, but there’ve been worse McMahon promos. John Cena came out and asked why Vince was kissing Trump’s ass. The Coach said that Trump was richer than Vince and that led Vince to make a Cena vs. Coach match.

SuperCrazy and Chris Masters had a train wreck of a match with one another. Seriously, I’ve never seen Crazy as off as he was with Masters. I was so pleased when Masters got the Masterlock on and Crazy pushed off the top rope and laid on top of Masters for the pin. Terrible.

Coach said that he couldn’t change Vince’s mind about his match with Cena, but he made Cena compete in a Battle Royal with Cade, Mudoch, Benjamin, Haas, Big Viz and The Great Khali. Khali cleaned house on everyone, tossed Cena out and threw him into the steps. Coach then started his match with Cena right after Khali left, but he kicked out. That brought in Umaga who attacked Cena. They tried to make it look like Cena had been destroyed and they didn’t know if he’d be able to defend at The Rumble.

Once again, the WWE deserves my wrath. They have something really special in Victoria and Melina and they job them to Candice and Mickie James! What the Hell did they do that? Melina is great on the stick (and HAWT!HAWT!HAWT!) and Victoria was over as a crazy destruction crew, but now they’ve jobbed both of them stupidly and they had a terrible match with Mickie and Candice too. Not good stuff.

Kenny Dykstra beat Carlito with a roll-up. He needs a real finisher. The way they treated Carlito here wasn’t right, but I was still fuming over the loss of Victoria, so my indignation was all spent. Carlito hit the standing Hurrancanrana, which is nice to see. They need to push him hard to get his confidence back so he can be a top-line Babyface!

OK, in one of the funnier segments, Cryme Tyme was selling Royal Rumble numbers. They sold one to Eugene. They then revealed that they were fakes. They also said that they’d sold a fake Edvard Munch painting. Ron Simmons came out carrying a print of The Scream, looked at it and said “Damn”. OK, this was way highbrow for WWE audiences, but it was at least funny.

I think there's an alien on Torchwood that looks just like this.

Edge beat Shawn Michaels in a great match with a finish that brought it down a little bit. Michaels started the violence by hitting Edge with a trash can. He went for a Pescado and that led to Edge hitting him with a Trash Can Lid, which busted him open. They brawled outside, using ladders, a chain and the steps for a Facebuster. Edge went for a Superplex, but ended up getting dropped onto the ladder! Elbow off the top from Michaels looked like it was about to bring out Sweet Chin Music, but Edge dodged. Great stuff.

Michaels hit Edge with a Chair and was about to give him a ConChairto, but Orton came in and gave Michaels the RKO. That allowed Edge to get the pin. Orton threw Edge over the top rope and that gave Randy the chance to try a ConChairto, but Ric Flair made the save. That brought out Kenny Dykstra, but Carlito came out. That allowed Michaels to clear the ring. Solid way to end a show.

There were rough patches, and the booking is not going well, but at least I was pleased with the way this show flowed.

NEWS
TNA is going to be doing a Pay Per View in St. Louis. April 15th will be the Lockdown PPV from St. Louis and will feature every match inside a six-sides of steel cage. That’s a big deal as St. Louis has always been seen as one of the true wrestling Meccas. Dixie Carter, not that Dixie Carter but the incredibly hot president of TNA, also announced Team Eckstein vs. Team Pierzynski at Lockdown on Febuary 11th. This should get TNA a little mainstream traction. Sadly, I’ll be flying back from Texas so I won’t get to see it.

That’s all for this week. More on Monday!

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Chris Garcia